“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said, trudging behind him. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s not like there are acres of woods or anything. You won’t have room to run.”
The small cluttered building caused her to stand too close. With nightfall rapidly approaching, his senses were becoming more acute by the minute. Each breath was filled with the scent of her. He could hear the steady melody of her heart and feel the heat of her flesh.
“It’ll be fine,” he told her, the words coming out more clipped than he’d intended.
“You don’t understand. If people see a coyote running around Monarch, they’re going to freak.”
“Trust me, no one is going to see a coyote tonight.”
“And if they do?” Her heart rate changed as her scent altered ever so slightly. Charlie turned, expecting to catch a glimpse of her slow-to-burn fury but finding eyes filled with fear instead. “Charlie, someone could shoot you. People around here own guns and like to use them.”
Charlie stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep them from reaching out to her. “No one is going to shoot me. I’ve done this before.”
“You’ve Changed in the middle of city park before? Really?”
Well, no. Not exactly.
“I’ve Changed lots of places.”
“But not here. Not in this neighborhood with these people.”
His shoulder twitched. It wasn’t much more than a fluttering, but like a tremor before a major earthquake, it was a warning of what was to come. Soon. Too soon. It was getting darker much quicker than he anticipated.
“Maggie,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders and moving her aside, “if you don’t let me go, I’m going to Change in the middle of your backyard. Don’t you think the park might be a bit more convenient?”
A second tremor rippled across his left cheek, and Maggie saw it, her eyes widening with understanding.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry, Charlie.” She jumped in front of him again, but only to pull open the door of the storage shed. “Go,” she said, ushering him outside. “There is a shortcut to the park if you can get over the fence. What am I talking about? Of course you can get over the fence. I could do it when I was a ten year-old kid, and you’re a full grown Shifter.” She was rambling, and if he wasn’t terrified of dropping to the ground in front of her at any moment, he might have stood there longer just to hear what else she might say.
As it was, he took off in the direction she pointed as quickly as possible. He vaulted the waist-high fence without breaking his stride. Three minutes later, he fell to his knees, giving in to the pain.
Chapter 24
She should have stayed home. He didn’t want her there, but an hour after the sun finished setting, she found herself stumbling through the Monarch City Park anyway. Her toe slammed into the tail of giant concrete dinosaur who had successfully camouflaged himself against the cloudy night’s sky and she recited every curse word she’d ever learned. For at least the twentieth time in the last five minutes she wished she had her phone and its handy-dandy flashlight app, but it had been missing, along with her mother, when she’d decided to come in search of Charlie.
Stupid, idiotic, arrogant boy. She felt her way up the length of the brontosaur, trying to remember where his friend the T-Rex was. When I find you, I’m going to explain the myriad of ways you’re wrong about absolutely everything, and there isn’t a damn thing you’re going to be able to say about it.
She could forgive Charlie a lot, God knew he had a right to be in possession of a few issues, but she would never forgive him if he went off and got himself killed because he insisted on staying in town so she could get her grandmother’s china.
I can’t give you what you need.
Charlie Hagan lived in perpetual state of being wrong.
A muffled cry came from her right, so quiet she would have never heard it if she hadn’t been listening so intently to the sounds of the night, hoping to hear a coyote slinking through the park. She froze, her ears straining to hear the noise again, and after a few silent seconds, it came. She was halfway across the park before realizing investigating strange sounds in the middle of the night wasn’t necessarily the smartest thing in the world, but then a soft whimpering reached her ears and propelled her forward once again.
Maggie didn’t know what she was expecting, but nothing could have prepared her for what she found. Behind an out of control mimosa tree, Charlie was crouched on the ground, his skin rippling and spasming as bones cracked and then knitted themselves back together.
“Charlie?” It came out as a whisper, her voice stolen by the horrific scene in front of her. His head swung towards her and she had to throw a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Where his mouth and nose should have been was a tangle of teeth and the beginnings of a snout. She watched in horror as two more sharp teeth ripped through his gums.
“Charlie, what’s happening? What’s wrong?”
Because something was most definitely wrong. She’d seen Scout Change a handful of times now, and even when she’d tried it inside the house it hadn’t looked like this. Maggie knew it took longer for the others to Change, but Charlie should be in coyote form by now.
What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t a Seer. She didn’t know how to help him. She didn’t even know what was happening. If he was with his pack, like he was supposed to be, they would be able to do something. Liam or Talley would fix him. Even Joshua probably had an answer, but not her. Charlie needed help, and anyone who could provide it was hundreds of miles away.
What had she done in agreeing to stay here?
With shaking hands, she searched her pockets frantically before remembering her phone was missing. A cry of despair ripped from her throat as hot tears trailed down her face.
“What can I do?” she asked as she sank to her knees beside the thing that was neither human or coyote. “Charlie…” She reached for him, and he leapt back from her touch, his foot getting tangled in the discarded shirt on the ground.
His shirt, which was laying next to his jeans, where he always kept his phone.
Moving slowly so she wouldn’t spook him again, Maggie leaned forward until her fingers hooked into the waistband. Charlie watched as she pulled them back towards her. After what felt like ten minutes, the pockets were finally within strike range. Her trembling fingers snaked into one pocket and touched metal. Still moving like a basketball replay, she pulled out the phone buried inside.
“What the hell?” Forgetting there was a sorta-kinda wild animal in a lot of pain nearby, Maggie snapped her head up so quickly a sharp pain shot up her neck. “What is my phone doing in your jeans, Charlie?”
It was turned off, and she thought daybreak would occur before the thing finally powered up. When it did, it proudly told her about the fourteen voicemails, twenty-three text messages, and thirty-nine missed calls she’d failed to receive over the past two hours.
“Oh, Charlie,” she said, scanning the text messages, unable to completely process what any of them said. “What have you done?”
Most of the messages were from Scout, who was now doing her own four-legged thing, but the last few were from Talley. She immediately pushed the callback button, silently begging her to pick up. Maggie nearly burst into tears when she heard the click after the second ring.
“How bad is it?” Talley said, bypassing her customary cheerful greeting.
“Bad,” Maggie said, any relief she’d felt at having the phone answered already fading. For some reason, everything suddenly seemed even worse than it had just seconds before. She fought the urge to break down into tears. “Charlie isn’t Changing. Something is wrong. He’s…” dying “in a lot of pain.”
“Is he convulsing?”
There was a loud snap, and Charlie’s shoulders lurched up, rotating in their sockets.
“I think we’re a little past convulsing.”
There was a long minute of silence on the phone and then, “He’s trying to Chan
ge?”
Isn’t that what I said?!?!?
“Yes, and it’s going very, very badly.”
“You need to listen to me, Maggie--”
“It’s not exactly like I’m playing Minecraft while we’re talking here, Tal.”
Talley continued in a calm, patient, Talley-like voice. “Charlie hasn’t Changed since he got hurt really badly in a fight with the old Alpha Pack. We don’t know why. At first we thought it was because his wounds were so extensive, but then he healed and… nothing.”
“So he has to endure this every full moon?”
Maggie could hear the now-familiar sound of wolf howls and coyote barks through the phone. Unlike the rest of the Seers in the Alpha Pack, Talley always went out with Shifters on full moon nights. After a single visit to the shooting range with the Stella Polaris, Maggie completely understood why they trusted her to take care of herself.
“Are you sure he’s trying to Change?”
“He currently has one hand and one paw.” Although, paw sounded way too innocuous for the clawed mass at the end of his arm. Acid burned the back of Maggie’s throat, her craptastic Thanksgiving dinner desperate to make a reappearance.
Talley cursed, using a word Maggie didn’t think the mild-mannered girl knew, let alone would let slip past her lips. “Normally it’s just some small seizures,” Talley said. “We have a doctor come and keep him sedated the whole time. I…” Her voice shook. “I don’t know what to do.”
Up until this point, Charlie had been on all fours, but at that pronouncement, he collapsed to the ground as if he’d heard Talley’s end of the conversation and knew no help was coming. Maggie didn’t think, she just dropped the phone and went to him. There was nowhere she could touch. His body was too damaged, but she lay down beside him, her face next to his on the cool dirt, and that is when she felt it. Power, more power than she’d ever felt before, was gathered in the earth beneath Charlie’s body.
From the moment Maggie’s grandmother had passed along her powers of Thaumaturgy, Maggie was aware of what was going on in the ground beneath her feet. She respected the earth, and in return it gifted her with abilities most people couldn’t imagine. Where most people saw dirt, Maggie saw life, energy, and power.
Life, energy, and power that was hers to command.
Life, energy, and power that Charlie needs.
It was all there, coiled up, ready to turn the man into the coyote, but it wasn’t getting through.
“Charlie, it’s there. Take it. Change.”
He whimpered in reply, and the energy remained trapped in the ground.
“Charlie, please. Do whatever it is you guys do, and Change.”
If anything, the invisible barrier between all that energy and Charlie grew stronger. She could feel it all there, humming beneath her. There was so much of it she could have leveled the entire city with a thought if she wanted. If she had to watch Charlie writhe in pain much longer, she might. Anything would be better than watching him suffer.
“Please. Please, take it. Please Change.” She kept chanting the words, over and over, hoping he would hear. That he would listen. “Please, Charlie. Please Change.”
His entire body trembled and a cry that could pull tears from a stone shattered the night. Maggie pressed her hands, palm down, onto the ground and felt the energy hum around them, and she knew what she had to do.
Her fingers flexed, sending ripples through the tightly wound energy eagerly awaiting her instruction. Could she do it? Could she push it into Charlie? Could she break through the shield he was trapped in?
There is only one way to find out…
Maggie pulled herself up on her knees, keeping her palms right where they were. As she moved, she called more energy to her, the power pulsing in a steady rhythm beneath her hands. She gathered it up until she had as much as she thought she could handle, and then she pulled in even more.
“Brace yourself,” she said, looking into the grass green eyes she had grown to love, and then she pushed the power towards him with everything she had. She pushed as sweat dripped down her neck and her breath came in short pants. She pushed as her arms began to tremble and then gave way beneath her. Even crumbled on the ground, her chest burning with the effort, she kept pushing. Her vision had gone blurry, but she could still hear the wet, crunchy noises and knew her job wasn’t finished, so she kept pushing until there was nothing left to push. The last thing she saw before everything went completely black was the face of a coyote inches from her own.
Chapter 25
Joshua wouldn’t be able to save her. He had sworn to protect Maggie, but there was no way he could shield her from Scout’s wrath. The Alpha Female had been ready to rip the Thaumaturgic to shreds by the time the sun began sinking back into the earth.
“She’s kidnapped him!” Scout bellowed, stomping around her parents’ kitchen, slamming cabinet doors as she gathered post-Change fuel.
Jase sat on the counter, unwrapping packages of lunchmeat and putting them into easier-for-four-legged-creatures-to-access Tupperware containers. “Maggie is a ninety-pound girl with the muscle tone of a slug. Unless she slipped something in his drink, I seriously doubt she’s keeping him against his will.”
“She didn’t have to drug him,” Scout said, turning on her heel and brandishing a sleeve of crackers like a weapon. “All she had to do was wiggle those fingers she’s got him wrapped around. He’s probably doing some sort of creepy marionette dance right now.”
“You do realize Charlie is an adult, and if he wants to be Maggie’s own personal Howdy Doody, then it’s his choice, right?”
Scout gave Joshua a look that would have made a lesser man pee himself. As it was, Joshua wanted to crawl under the table. She might be sixty years younger than him, and he might technically be unable to die, but something told him the Alpha Female could make death seem like a welcomed friend. “One, he’s not an adult, he’s Charlie. And two, it’s not Charlie’s fault she’s a manipulative little witch.” There was pop as the cracker sleeve relented to the power of the grip Scout had on it. “We don’t even know what she does. Maybe she can manipulate people. Maybe she’s using her crazy brain power to hold him captive.” She threw the demolished crackers into the trashcan and grabbed her phone off the counter. “I’m going to try to call him again.”
No matter how much Joshua defended Charlie’s right to stay where he was, Scout remained convinced he was in need of rescuing. It didn’t help when Liam and Talley started agreeing with her, although neither of the others blamed Maggie. Still, a small rescue party formed and was ready to head out when a phone call changed everyone’s plan. Being the only Stratego not called by the full moon, Joshua was sent on a solo mission, one he would have accomplished a lot sooner if the interstate hadn’t been closed for two hours just west of Nashville. He was beginning to make progress through the long lines of traffic when Maggie’s call to Talley came through. He linked the car’s GPS to the phone, and pulled into the park only forty-five minutes later.
“Maggie?” He listened for the horrific sounds he’d heard over the line when he’d intercepted Maggie’s call to Talley, but only heard the typical late-night noises. He hoped she’d found a way to knock him out. He wasn’t sure where he stood on the whole is-pain-still-pain-if-you-can’t-remember-feeling-it debate, but he was certain anyone would rather be in a medically-induced coma than scream as their body parts rearranged themselves over and over.
He pulled up the signal from her phone onto his own and walked towards the flashing dot. He was closing in on the spot when a coyote jumped in front of him, blocking his path.
“Hey, Charlie,” he said as casually as he could while looking at a mouth full of sharp teeth. “I see you made the Change after all.”
Even though Joshua had never seen Charlie’s coyote form, there was no question who was standing in front of him. If the similarities between this coyote and the one Jase turned into weren’t enough of a hint, those grass-green Hagan eyes would
have given it away. Still, Joshua was afraid, and he wasn’t too proud to admit it. Charlie hadn’t Changed in a very long time, and he’d been in a lot of pain for hours. There was no doubt there was more coyote instinct than human logic going on.
“Where’s Mags?” There was no way Charlie would have hurt her on purpose, but on accident? With a wild coyote there was always the chance. And the longer they stood there with her not stepping out of the shadows, the more Joshua worried. “Did she go back home?”
Charlie growled low in his throat, his ears pressing back against his head. He stepped forward, forcing Joshua to step back. Understanding dawned slowly.
“Is she back there? Behind those bushes?”
Charlie forced Joshua back another step.
“Hey, bro. It’s me. It’s Joshua. You know I’m not going to hurt her, but if something is wrong, I might be able to help.” The coyote didn’t back off, but he didn’t press Joshua further back either. “You can stay right by my side and start chewing on my face if I’m lying.”
The standoff lasted a few minutes longer, but finally Charlie dropped his head. Joshua moved with exaggerated slowness around him and past the area of undergrowth. Maggie was just on the other side, heaped on the ground like another piece of Charlie’s discarded clothing. There was no blood or signs of injury he could see, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t laying in a pool of her own blood.
“I’m going to lift her up,” Joshua told the coyote who sat next to her head, nudging her hair with his nose. “I need to check for injuries, okay?” He laid a hand on her shoulder, and when Charlie didn’t try to snap off a few fingers, he used it to roll her over. The side she was laying on was as unmarred as the rest of her, but her skin was cold. Cold enough Joshua was surprised to find a pulse. “I’m going to have to get you off this freezing ground,” he murmured to her, feeling a bit of a chill himself as the cold seeped through his jeans.
Fragile Brilliance (Shifters & Seers) Page 21