by Black, Tasha
“Closure,” she whispered, opening her eyes.
But Glenn wasn’t looking at her anymore.
His eyes locked on a point just behind her.
“Charlene?” His eyes lit up, brimming with tears.
Grace got up and quietly slipped out of the room.
She knew he would only have a few minutes to say goodbye to his love, but it was more than most people got.
She only wished Julian weren’t on the other side of a wall, so that she could have a moment with him that wasn’t stolen in dreams and momentary possessions.
I will not make this about myself and my own loss.
As soon as she was back on the boardwalk, under the warm sun, she felt a little better.
She turned back in the direction from which they had come, a purpose in her stride now.
Time to find Cressida and Javier.
Time to go to work.
Chapter 2
Erik followed Ainsley into the woods.
She walked briskly, her dark hair swinging over her shoulder with each step.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
She lifted the hand that wasn’t attached to what he swore was a flying necklace to silence him.
“How can we help you, Ainsley?” Ennis asked.
“She needs to concentrate,” Jenny scolded him in her nasally twang.
Ennis didn’t argue.
They walked in silence, except for the chirps of crickets and the hush of the breeze through the trees.
Erik began to get that bad feeling again, a tension that crawled up his spine, like cold fingers.
The sky went from indigo to black as Ainsley marched on single-mindedly.
Though he knew it was probably sexist, he hated the idea of her being out here in these woods, in her condition.
As if she heard his thoughts, and defied them, Ainsley’s march into the darkness sped to a trot.
He sped up too and they went on in silence for long minutes.
They slowed eventually as the terrain got rougher. He heard Jenny panting behind them.
Shit.
Jenny was pregnant too, and a little further along than Ainsley to boot.
He turned to see her fighting her way over a rotten log, waving away Ennis who was trying to help her.
“Jenny,” Erik said, “why don’t you head back?”
“No fucking way,” she retorted. “Ainsley needs me.”
It was a belligerent way to talk to an alpha, but he forgave her fierceness since it was on behalf of his mate. Part of him was even a little pleased to see a member of his Copper Creek pack as eager to follow Ainsley as the Tarker’s Hollow wolves were to get behind him.
“Hang on,” he said.
He found a solid branch on the forest floor, and tested its strength by leaning his whole weight on it.
“Here,” he offered it to Jenny.
She smiled gratefully.
“That’s more like it,” she said and took off after Ainsley again at once, somehow managing to use the walking stick more like she was pole vaulting than leaning on it.
Erik watched her with his heart in his mouth.
“She’ll be alright. They both will.” Ennis winked at him. “They’re tough.”
Erik shrugged and they continued.
After a time they cut through a part of the woods so overgrown that Erik wondered how long it had been since anyone had last traversed it.
The uneasy feeling pervaded his chest. These were his woods. He knew exactly where he was.
Sure enough, they came out in a mossy clearing at the base of a steeply sloped, rocky hill. Moonlight set off the jagged rocks in harsh relief.
“Whoa,” Ennis breathed. “What is this place?”
“When we were kids we called it The Cliffs,” Erik said. “No one really played here. It was too dangerous.”
Normally, danger would have attracted reckless kids like a magnet. But even then, there was something about this place that made them not want to hang around long.
“It’s creepy,” Jenny observed bluntly.
Yeah, it was creepy. Erik hadn’t thought about The Cliffs in ages, even though they had been searching the woods for weeks.
It was like the place wanted to be forgotten.
“What’s that?” Ennis was pointing to something in a tree.
They wandered closer.
Erik squinted. It was definitely an animal corpse, something canine, which made his wolf whine in his chest.
But there was no scent.
He stepped in closer. It had been a fox, maybe, but it was desiccated, and obscured by some sort of cocoon. It almost looked like…
Before he could finish the thought, he felt something drop resoundingly to the ground behind him.
He spun to see a spider scuttling toward them.
Erik wasn’t afraid of spiders - in fact he kind of liked them.
But this one was the size of a small dog.
Its hairy legs moved supernaturally quickly as it charged at Ainsley, fixing her with unblinking onyx eyes the size of golf balls.
Instinctively, Erik stepped between the nightmarish creature and his mate and braced himself for impact.
But before it reached him, there was a blur of movement as Ennis snatched the walking stick out of Jenny’s hand and brought it down savagely on the giant bug.
There was a horrible squeal, like ten women screaming at once. Then the creature’s legs snapped up toward its body as it shriveled and it collapsed on the ground.
“What the hell was that?” Ennis asked, wiping the stick on the ground and handing it back to Jenny. “You didn’t tell me I needed to bring along an extra large can of insect repellent.”
“Arachnid,” Jenny mumbled.
“What?”
“Not insect,” she clarified. “Spiders are arachnids. They have eight legs.”
Muted thumps and scuttling sounds filled the air.
“Whatever it was,” Erik said, “I don’t think it was alone.”
“We should shift and run,” Ennis said, unbuttoning his shirt.
“Jenny can’t,” Ainsley said. “She’s too far along.”
“We could use some backup,” Erik said quickly, hoping Ainsley could use her gift to call to the other wolves.
“I can’t feel the pack,” Ainsley shook her head. “Whatever was keeping this place off our radar is blocking my connection to them.”
Predictably, Jenny already had her phone out.
But Erik didn’t need to ask to know that she wouldn’t have a signal out here.
Time to be an alpha, Erik.
“Jenny,” he called to her, his tone broaching no arguments. “I need you to go back the way we came. As soon as you get a signal, call J.D. MacGregor. He will know what to do. Can you do that for me?”
She stared at him a moment and suddenly she looked so young. Her blue eyes were large with fear, and her expression so torn between fear and bravery.
The sound of ripping clothing got his attention. He turned to see Ennis exploding into a resplendent silver wolf just as two more spiders broke into the clearing.
“Go. Now,” he said. “We’ll make sure nothing follows you.”
“Yes, Erik,” she said, making him proud.
He nodded and she darted into the trees.
By the time he turned back around, Ennis had already dispatched the two spiders.
Beside him, Ainsley stood tall, the butterfly still tugging the chain in her left hand.
A ball of blue energy crackled in her right.
Erik watched as she hurled it at another spider lowering itself from one of the trees.
The thing exploded like a grotesque piñata.
Had he actually been worried about her a few minutes ago?
He looked around for a weapon and broke off a large branch to use as a club. Erik had played varsity baseball in high school. He was ready to swing for the fences.
He’d picked his weapon just in time. Anothe
r rush of spiders swarmed in to attack.
He took a deep breath and watched the blue glow in Ainsley’s hands grow to the size of a soccer ball. She had secured the necklace to her wrist so as to have two hands to fight with.
As the things approached, he realized that the terrible bugs were… coordinated. And it was all too familiar. The spiders were hunting in a pack, like wolves.
Then there was no more time for thinking. He let instinct take over as he smashed and jabbed the horrible things. In his periphery he could see Ainsley releasing bolt after bolt of sparkling blue magic, each blast resulting in another terrible scream.
Ennis was nothing but a silver blur, crunching with flashing teeth and leaving broken bodies in his wake.
At last there was a lull.
Erik held onto his branch, panting lightly. There were at least a dozen spider corpses on the ground around them.
“Where are they coming from?” he asked, noticing an injured one try to drag itself away. He squashed it before it could get anywhere.
Ainsley loosened the silver chain from where she had secured it to her wrist during the fray, and released it.
The jeweled butterfly took off, heading up the side of the steep hill for about fifty feet and then disappearing into a cave in the cliff face.
How had Erik never noticed that?
It looked about big enough for a person to crawl through.
“We should go for help,” he said immediately.
“The missing people could be in there,” Ainsley said.
Ennis, still a wolf, whined.
“I don’t suppose there is any way I can convince you to wait out here?” Erik pleaded with her.
“And miss all the fun?” Ainsley asked innocently.
“I didn’t think so,” Erik sighed.
You couldn’t blame a guy for trying.
Chapter 3
Cressida paced the sidewalk outside the VFW.
Though she knew Grace would get there as soon as she could, her impatience was getting the best of her and she found herself slapping the heels of her boots against the ground as if she were a homeroom teacher tapping her fingers on the desk for a late student.
At last the little Civic pulled up in front.
Cressida was at the door to the car before Grace had the engine off.
“Javier’s already inside,” she told Grace. “We might have an issue.”
Grace slipped out of the car and they jogged up the stairs to the door.
It was weird to be here without anything going on. The big room where the party had been held was dark and silent, tables and chairs folded and stacked against the walls.
Cressida went to the back of the room and down the stairs, Grace’s light footsteps right behind her.
Funny how having the little witch around made Cressida feel so much better. She had worried at the prospect of spending so much time with one person, but Grace had turned out to be really cool. If they ever got to the bottom of all this, would Grace ever want to hang out again?
Cressida hoped so, but she kind of doubted it. Most likely, Grace would go back to her life and Cressida would do the same. Which was kind of a shame, really. But Cressida had never been one to put much effort into having friends. Maybe this time she would make an exception.
As they approached the storage room in the basement, the sounds of scraping against stone reached her ears again.
Grace followed her in without comment.
Inside, Javier worked at clearing away a pile of rubble. A sledgehammer rested on the floor nearby.
Javier was shirtless and covered with sweat and dust. The exquisite framework of his bristling muscles bunched and stretched with every movement. He looked like one of the fuck-worthy guys on the cover of a military video game or something and Cressida was definitely into it.
Down, girl, she told her wolf.
He’d clearly been hard at work. The foundation block from the entire wall was broken away, revealing a six foot section of rough hewn stone with a door in the center.
A solid-looking metal door, without a knob.
“Oh,” Grace said. “That’s the same symbol as the one etched into the door of the portal in Tarker’s Hollow.”
“This is definitely the place,” Cressida nodded. “Briggs told us where to find the entrance.”
“Don’t suppose he mentioned how to open it?”
“Nope,” Cressida said.
“It’s been sealed since before his time,” Grace mused. “I doubt he would have any idea.”
“True,” Cressida agreed.
“And opening it is the last thing he is supposed to want,” Grace said, turning to her. “How did you even convince him to tell you about it?”
“Cressida can be very convincing,” Javier said.
Cressida smiled.
Grace eyed her without comment. Then she moved to the door, running her hand along it lightly.
The door began to glow, then the light winked out.
“There were some pretty powerful wards in place to keep anyone from getting in,” Grace told them. “I removed them, but I think it’s still locked from the inside. Do you think you can break it down?”
Javier laughed and hefted the sledgehammer.
Cressida backed up.
He took a mighty swing. There was a resounding boom.
But when he stepped away, they could see the blow had barely left a mark.
“I guess the hammer would break long before the door gave way,” Grace observed. “And no way to dig around it?”
“Through a few feet of solid stone?” Javier shook his head. “Not unless you can get some machinery down here. And even then, we’d be more likely to bring the whole place down on our heads.”
They all looked around and Cressida’s wolf shivered at the idea of being trapped under a collapsed building. The small room already had her feeling a little claustrophobic.
“Hmmm.” Grace rubbed her hands together until smoke began to rise between them.
She opened her hands and allowed the smoke to flow toward the door. It floated along the surface of the metal, like tiny fingers, searching for an opening, then drifted down until it was sucked under the bottom.
Javier knelt and swept loose stone and rubble away. He leaned back to show them a gap of only a few inches.
“Unless you can use your magic to make us all really tiny, I think we’re out of luck,” he said.
“I can’t,” Grace smiled. “But…” She dug in her pocket and pulled something out.
It was the stone figurine of the snake that Glenn gave her.
She held it out to Cressida.
No way.
Cressida looked at the snake, then at the small space under the door.
“You don’t think?” Cressida was thunderstruck. “I mean, I can’t just…”
“Cressida,” Grace said, “after all we’ve been through, one of the most important things I’ve learned is to never assume there is anything you can’t do.”
Cressida grinned, pride bubbling in her chest. She took the statue from Grace before she had time to change her mind.
As soon as her fingers touched it, her skin began to tingle all over, something in her awakening.
Grace was right.
Cressida squeezed the stone carving in her hand and called up a mental picture of a snake.
She expected it to be difficult, but before she had time to think about it her consciousness shrank and everything went black.
Something was covering her, suffocating her. Her fears of a cave-in came rushing back.
She tried to push it away, but she had no hands.
Must get out.
Her body began to move of its own accord and she slithered out of what she realized was a pile of her own clothing.
Once free, she looked around, tasting the air.
Unlike in her wolf form, she was able to see the same room, the same colors, but Grace and Javier were haloed in fiery reds and yellows, as if she
had some other sense.
She headed closer to Grace to check it out.
Her friend stiffened, but didn’t retreat.
Cressida’s thoughts were cooler now. She found herself disinclined to tease her friend, and she opted to slide toward Javier instead.
Her tongue darted out, tasting the air.
Javier knelt slowly and extended his hand to her.
It glowed like a campfire and she could feel the intoxicating heat pouring off him.
She slid against his hand, smoothing her scales against the delicious warmth of his skin, which felt soft as velvet against her armor.
He chuckled and she felt it rather than heard it, a rumble against her jaw as she slid along his wrist, gorging herself on his heat.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her, his words reverberating through her spines. “And I’d really love to snuggle. But we need your help, if you’re ready.”
She had forgotten. Her new brain didn’t seem to have room for more than one thought at a time.
She had work to do.
Ponderously, she slid in a figure eight on her way back toward the door, so as to collect as much of his heat as possible for her journey along the cold stone.
She approached the gap under the door, which now appeared to be huge.
She flattened herself going under it just to be safe. The floor was achingly cold against her belly. She wondered fleetingly how long she could survive down here without heat.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to find out.
Once she was through, she closed her eyes and pictured her human body.
She slid upward at once and for the first time in all her years of shifting, she had an odd, Alice-in-Wonderland feeling as the room suddenly grew smaller and warmer around her.
“You okay?” Javier asked from the other side.
“Yeah,” she said, shaking herself off.
It was very dark, but she could just make out a heavy beam across the frame of the door, securing it in place.
She grabbed it to lift it, but it wouldn’t budge.
She took a deep breath, and then put her shoulder under it and really pushed.
It came loose at last with a wrenching groan.
Cressida swung the door open to find Grace standing there holding her clothes and Javier staring with his mouth open.