A Study In Shifters

by Majanka Verstraete

  “You sick bastard.” I stared at him, unable to recognize the man I’d once loved in those twisted features. How had I fallen in love with a mind as sick as his?

  He’d killed Amaranth, but how many other people did he kill before that? I’d been stupid enough to believe that he hadn’t, that she was his first kill… But I didn’t know him at all, didn’t know the horrors he was capable of, and I started to suspect and fear, as my heart pounded faster and faster in my chest, that she wasn’t the first person he slew, and that he would have zero qualms about killing anyone else. “You once said we were the same. From what I can see, we couldn’t be further apart.”

  “Now, now, I don’t think so, love. You’ll think so now, sure, but once this is all over…you’ll see how right I was.”

  “Marisol,” Wyatt squeaked. “I… You have to choose not to play. I heard what he said, and you have to choose that. I… Just please tell my parents I love them.”

  It was the right decision. He was right. I should decide that. One life for the lives of fifty.

  “Your parents would be proud of you,” I said as my voice choked up. “You’re very brave, Wyatt.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “I…” He started crying, his entire body racking as sobs passed through him. “I don’t want to die. God, I don’t want to die. Just please get it over with quickly.”

  I looked at his pitiful form and then back at the clan meeting in Castle Beauvord.

  I couldn’t condemn Wyatt to die.

  But I couldn’t condemn fifty other people to die either.

  Yet, if I chose to play…I could still save them all.

  But what if I couldn’t?

  My jaguar sat down, looking straight at me. She didn’t panic; she didn’t attack. For once, she was as serene as a Buddhist statue. All she did was nod at me, as if saying, You can do this. But could I?

  “Don’t make me do this,” I pleaded with Mannix one last time. “If you love me… If you ever loved me, you won’t make me choose.”

  Mannix grabbed my chin and lifted it up slightly so I would look at him.

  “It’s precisely because I love you that I’m doing this, Marisol. Now, choose.”

  As I stared into his hard, unwavering eyes, I steeled my resolve, not only to save my family and my friend, but to destroy Mannix. No matter what happened today, no matter what happened in the future, as long as I lived and he roamed free, I would spend every waking hour hunting him down, so he would never feel safe again.

  I would destroy him the same way he had destroyed part of me today.

  Staring from the screen portraying Castle Beauvord to the screen showing Wyatt, I made a decision that would, no matter how it turned out, condemn my soul forever.

  “I’ll play.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Good choice. I’ll just be here in the corner so you can work in silence,” Mannix said. “Also, I forgot to mention… There’s a timer.”

  As he said that, the green fluorescent light above the star map jumped to 15:00.

  “And time starts…now.” Mannix moved to the corner of the room, and the clock started ticking down.

  Fifteen minutes, and I would either have condemned the entire Gathering of Clans to death, or I would’ve saved them all.

  I didn’t have time to panic. I shoved my emotions aside, pushed the fear, the guilt, into a room in my mind palace and firmly locked the door. Going into full on Sherlock Mode, I knew I had to rely on my wits if I wanted to save them. Freaking out wouldn’t help anyone. The only way I could save the clan leaders was if I solved Mannix’s riddle, so I had no choice.

  I would solve his riddle.

  I ran over to the zodiac wheel and tried to decipher it.

  First I noticed that the signs were marked on the zodiac wheel with their ancient symbols. It had been a long time ago since I’d last studied those symbols, and they were vague memories in my mind.

  Second, I noted that not all the signs were present. I saw Scorpio, Leo, Libra, and Aquarius, but the other signs were missing. On the floor lay a bunch of puzzle pieces containing the symbols, and I figured I had to put them in the right order.

  Scorpio stood to the right, two spots away from the top. Next to the Scorpio’s “M” symbol, I placed the arrow for Sagittarius. Next was Capricorn, with a symbol of a twisted horn. Aquarius, two lines of water, was already present on the wheel.

  Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking down the minutes, and I grew more and more nervous.

  I took a deep breath. The choice was out of my hands now, anyway. I’d made my decision, and I would pay my dues. If I came up with the wrong solution, it would probably cost me my soul and definitely my innocence and sanity, but I was willing to pay that. I’d sacrificed part of myself just by opting for that choice, by choosing to put them in danger so I could potentially save both the Gathering of Clans and Wyatt, but it was a sacrifice I would make again in a heartbeat.

  Back to the puzzle. Aquarius was followed by Pisces. I grabbed the sign for the fish and put it on the wheel. Next was… I racked my brain, reciting the zodiac in my mind. Aries. A symbol resembling a ram. Then was Taurus, which was easy—a bull’s head.

  Gemini. Two legs on its symbol, followed by…Cancer. Two sixes, one on top of the other. Virgo had another symbol resembling the letter M but with a swirl at the end.

  The zodiac was completed, save for the thirteenth symbol, and I still had five possible puzzle pieces left.

  I turned to Mannix. “You’re messing this up. There are no thirteen signs of the zodiac. There are twelve. Don’t cheat.”

  Mannix shrugged and pointed at the clock. “I’m not in the habit of giving out hints. Time is ticking.”

  I started pacing around. I was so nervous I couldn’t stop myself from walking from side to side as my mind zigzagged through memories, through almost-forgotten pages of books I’d read eons ago. I tore open room after room in my mind palace, glancing at their contents only to discover no solution to the thirteenth zodiac sign problem.

  Something nagged at the back of my mind. The clock indicated I only had twelve minutes left. Time was ticking, fast.

  The thirteenth sign of the zodiac.

  God, I’d read something about that once. I knew I had, but my mind palace came up with no answers this time. I yanked open the myriad doors in my mind, rushing through the hallway connecting them.

  “The thirteenth sign…” I mused out loud. “The thirteenth sign of the zodiac… I don’t remember what it is!” I screamed and slammed my hand against the wall.

  Mannix didn’t even flinch.

  “Ophiuchus!” Wyatt yelled on the TV screen. “Ophiuchus! It’s Ophiuchus!”

  “No helping,” Mannix said. Without further comment, he got up and shut down the screen with Wyatt’s image on. “You have to do this on your own.”

  He moved back to the corner, crossed his arms, and leaned against the wall casually as if this was just another day and he hadn’t just forced me to make the most horrible choice of my life.

  Ophiuchus did ring a bell. Just like Cancer, Gemini, and all the other zodiac signs, it was a name for one of the constellations. But what was its symbol?

  I moved to the star map and glanced at it. I had been into astronomy a few years back, but the nerves made it so much harder for me to concentrate. Astronomy was fun, but when the lives of fifty- plus people depended on it, it was torture.

  The star map showed the constellations, but only some of them, not all. If I remembered correctly, the ancient Babylonians had named the constellations and zodiac signs. They’d picked twelve zodiac signs because they had a twelve-month lunar calendar, and then they divided the year up evenly, although the constellations weren’t evenly divided at all, in reality.

  Now that Wyatt had told me the name of the thirteenth constellation, the memory of once reading about it came back to me.

  The path of the sun actually passed through thirteen constellations recognized by the ancient Babylonia
ns. The thirteenth, Ophiuchus, was left out.

  The star map on the wall didn’t show all the signs of the zodiac, I realized as I gazed on it longer. It only showed a few. I spotted Libra, Scorpio, and to the left of Scorpio, Sagittarius.

  Ophiuchus. The bottom part of it interjected between Scorpio and Sagittarius.

  And as that thought popped into my mind, one of the doors in my mind palace burst wide open, and all the information I’d once read about Ophiuchus popped back in. The stress of this situation, the adrenaline coursing through my veins, had made it more difficult to find the appropriate room in the palace of my mind, but now it was there, and I could find what I needed.

  The southern part of Ophiuchus lay with Scorpius to the west and Sagittarius to the east. I spotted the Serpens stars in the area between Scorpius and Sagittarius. The Serpens constellation, with Serpens Caput to the west and Serpens Cauda to the east, surrounded the constellation of Ophiuchus, I remembered now. “Serpent bearer. Serpent bearer!” Adrenaline rushed through me as I put the final pieces of the puzzle together. Ophiuchus was also known as the Serpent Bearer, surrounded by both of the Serpens stars.

  One of the puzzle cards had a picture on it of a U with some kind of serpent running through it—like a man holding a serpent.

  Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.

  I pushed the puzzle piece into place. The clock indicated four minutes left.

  Now the final puzzle piece was in place, the wheel clicked and began to spin. After spinning twice to the left, it stopped.

  I turned around. One of the buttons was burning brightly. The red one.

  I looked at Mannix and then back to the zodiac sign. I wasn’t sure if I had filled in the sign correctly or had given the wrong answer.

  I’d never been so unsure of myself, not until now, not until so much depended on it.

  “Please,” I pleaded with Mannix one last time. Cold logic would never work with him, so I tried persuading him by appealing to what he had once claimed to feel for me, although I feared it wouldn’t help much. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t make me do this.”

  Mannix arched his eyebrows nonchalantly. “You’ve made your choice, Marisol.”

  Realizing he would never change his mind, I turned to the table with buttons and took a deep breath.

  My finger trembled as I reached toward the red button. Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking down relentlessly.

  If I made the wrong choice, my mother would die. If I made the wrong choice, fifty clan leaders would die. And it would all be my fault.

  Crying, with fat tears dripping down my face, I steeled my soul against whatever would happen.

  Then I pushed the red button.

  Chapter Forty

  Castle Beauvord didn’t explode.

  I’d half-expected it would explode either way, that I would be wrong, or Mannix had rigged it so that even if I was right, the bomb would still explode. But it didn’t. The clan leaders still talked amongst each other, my mother gesturing feverishly with her hands. No one in Castle Beauvord was aware that seconds ago, their lives had been endangered.

  Mannix applauded slowly, a taunting sound that chilled me to the bone.

  I gritted my teeth as I turned around to face him. “I’m going to kill you. No matter what happens, I’m going to kill you.”

  “Interesting threat,” Mannix said. “Now’s not the time for threats, though, my love. You’ve completed the challenge. The Gathering of Clans is safe. Your friend Wyatt, on the other hand…”

  “What about Wyatt?” The rage that had been building inside me from the moment I woke up tied up to that chair was threatening to explode. I grabbed Mannix by the collar and yanked him closer, not caring for once that he was so much stronger than me. Not caring that I couldn’t shift. Whatever he could do to me physically was nowhere near as horrible as what he’d already done to me mentally. “What have you done to Wyatt?”

  Mannix smirked. “Feisty. I like that. About Wyatt… He has about three minutes left, maybe a bit less.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t hurt him if I played!” I let go of Mannix and stared at the countdown timer that was still going.

  “I promised I wouldn’t kill everyone at the Clan Gathering if you solved this riddle. I didn’t mention Wyatt.”

  “You’re going to let him die.” I was ready to attack Mannix again, but he stopped me, grabbing my wrists as I tried to hit him.

  “No, Marisol. You’re going to let him die. Because right now, whether he lives or dies depends entirely on you. If you go through that door, you’ll find him. But you’ll have to use your instincts. Your animal instincts. He’s locked up in a room somewhere behind that door. There’s a bomb in that room, too—a small one—so once you get him outside that room and the door closed behind you, you should be safe.”

  Mannix let go of me, and I blinked at him, the realization of what he was saying sinking in. “No…”

  “If you want to make it in time, if you want to break through the door that has him locked up, then you’ll need to tap into those deep, animalistic instincts. That jaguar gene you possess but so rarely use.”

  “No…” I backed away, my heart sinking into my shoes.

  I couldn’t do this. No matter what happened or what pushed me, I couldn’t shift. I’d tried so many times before, and never once had I even come close.

  The haunting image of Amaranth’s dead eyes popped back into my mind. I’d failed her—if I had shifted the moment I had seen her, I might have been able to save her, but I didn’t. Then the memory came back of when Mannix came to visit me afterward, and how I had to let him go… If I had been able to shift back then, I would’ve been able to stop him.

  I’d failed Amaranth. I’d failed my clan. I’d failed the Conclave when I’d let a criminal go. I’d failed my jaguar.

  And most of all… I’d failed myself.

  I dug my nails into my skin and bit my tongue, wishing, hoping, demanding my body to shift into something it could not, to change into one of the fastest creatures alive.

  I had to shift. Never before had the need to shift been so great, never before the outcome if I couldn’t so dire. Wyatt would die, and it would all be my fault, because I was a shifter who couldn’t shift.

  You have to let me in. The voice popped into my mind suddenly, like a visitor who had been gone for a long time and suddenly reappeared. My jaguar. She still sat calmly as I had asked her to, but her gaze bored into mine, and for the first time in months, I heard her voice loud and clear in my mind.

  Let me in.

  Maybe I had failed the people I loved, but Wyatt was in danger… I couldn’t rewrite the past, but somehow I had to find the strength to save him now.

  I had to believe in myself. Believe that I was more than logic. Believe that I could trust my instincts. Believe that I could trust myself.

  “Oh, and before I forget… Best get running.” Mannix pointed at the clock, which showed two minutes, forty seconds. “He’s almost out of time.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Before Mannix could say anything else, I rushed toward the exit and barged through, bursting into a darkened hallway. Even without shifting, I still had enhanced senses, better than a human’s: my eyes picked up what human eyes couldn’t see, and I could run through the dark without much trouble, rounding corners, turning left and right.

  I ran faster than I’d ever run before, pushing myself to the limit. Meanwhile, I sniffed the air, inhaling scents deeper than I thought I could. I’d always had enhanced scent because of my dormant jaguar side, but never before had it been this intense. Was it adrenaline? Something else? Seconds later, I caught Wyatt’s scent. I knew where to go, but sometimes the passageway twisted and turned in this underground labyrinth, and I almost lost his scent again.

  It reminded me of the catacombs. Nauseating. Disorientating.

  Yet, I pushed through. I willed my legs to go faster, harder, farther. Time kept ticking down, and I had no idea how much of it
I had left, but if I didn’t change, if I didn’t shift, I wouldn’t make it.

  Wyatt would die, and if I wasn’t fast enough to get us out in time, I would die right there with him in a room below the earth. Would my mother ever find me? Would anyone ever come to bury me?

  No, no, don’t go there, Marisol. Wyatt. Think about Wyatt. Trust yourself.

  Let me in, my jaguar demanded again, still calm and reserved, but with her voice growing increasingly persistent.

  I had to save him.

  I thought about how kind he was, how helpful. How when he smiled, it lit up his entire face, how concerned he’d been when he found out I had been threatened. How brave he was when he told me it was all right to sacrifice him so the Gathering of Clans would live.

  Wyatt didn’t deserve to die because of my mistakes. He was one of the best people I knew, and he depended on me. He needed me to come through for him, to stop being defined by my own limits and instead become the creature I was always meant to be.

  Let me in.

  If I wanted to save Wyatt, then I had to let my jaguar in. I had to accept myself for who I really was, complete with flaws, complete with all my guilt.

  As I ran through those hallways, I reached deep within myself, to the dark hallways of my mind palace, and I began running too, toward that room that had served for so long as a prison for a part of me I couldn’t live with anymore.

  The door was half-destroyed already, my jaguar having done most of the work for me. She stared at me through the ruined door.

  We are one.

  Her voice popped up back in my mind. Together, we can do this.

  She was right. She’d been trying to tell me all along, and I had been too stubborn to listen, but she was right. The only way to get through this, was to rely on my instincts, on my inner jaguar, on myself.

  I tore at the beam I’d put in place in front of the door. My nails cracked and bled, and flaring pain shot through me.