I’d sent the shifters out in groups of twos and threes, searching for game. I had my fingers crossed that they would at least come back with a few archies. Not much, but those little feathery lizards had saved me and Oka more than once in the past.
The day slid by and my hope went with it.
Something was happening to send the game away, and I had a creeping feeling I knew who was doing it. Though how, I had no idea.
Crimson came to me late in the day with a stony face. “Alpha. I’m afraid I have bad news.”
I would’ve tried for a joke but I didn’t have the heart. “How bad?”
“Worse than I could imagine.”
My heart clenched. “Tell me.” I braced for the impact of her words, like a weapon coming to strike.
She drew close, and lowered her voice, a waft of cougar musk rolling off her. “There is nothing. Not even small game like the archies. Everything is gone. We ranged as far as we could, like you said. I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.”
I looked to Oka, who had pulled back from the riverbank to join our conversation. She nodded. “I haven’t seen an archie for days. Or smelled one for that matter.”
“Damn it.” That was what I was afraid of. No one had an answer as to what was exactly going on. “This has to be Stefan,” I said.
“How?” Crimson and Oka asked at the same time. “He has no magic, does he?” Crimson added.
“I don’t know how. I just don’t . . . it’s a feeling, Crimson.” A gut feeling that the bastard had something to do with this. The timing of him destroying our food supplies was no small thing. Nothing in this world was a coincidence, I’d seen too much to believe that.
Which meant I had to find out who he was working for or with. “That symbol on the Breaker I killed, did you see it, Crimson?”
She blinked a few times. “The circle lines and dots? Yes, I saw it. Why?”
I was grasping at straws; I knew I was. But what else was there to do? “Have you seen it anywhere else?”
The cougar shifter frowned slowly. “There were marks in some of the trees, but I assumed they were remainders from the Rending.”
“Show me.”
She crooked a finger and started off at a good clip. She knew I’d been wounded and while I was healing, it was still tender and a run would do me no good. We walked down the length of the river for about half a mile and then she ducked into the trees. I followed her.
“Crimson?” I pushed a tree branch out of my way. “You know I’m doing everything I can to protect everyone, don’t you?”
She looked back to me. “You are my Alpha. I will go where you go. But . . . to answer you, yes, I believe you are doing what you can.” She stopped and pointed at a tree trunk. “Here.”
I hurried the last few feet and stared up at the familiar brand burned into the trunk behind Crimson’s head.
“I hate being right . . .” I ran my thumb over the two circles, connected by a line. One of the circles was open, and those three telling dots. It was just like the pattern on that Breaker’s arm, and on the creatures from before. Oka stood beside me, still in tiger form, and looked at it with me.
“What do you make of it?” she asked.
Crimson tapped it. “You think Stefan did this as a warning?”
“One mark? Not much of a warning.” But I was wrong there, and I knew it before I even looked for more. It wasn’t just one mark. A little farther away, maybe ten feet, and another tree was marked with it.
“Look.” I pointed and Crimson and Oka both turned. Oka sucked in a sharp breath.
“This cannot be good.”
In all directions, spaced evenly, almost pattern-like, tree after tree was marked with that same symbol.
“Shit,” I said. I lifted my hand again and traced the pattern over and over. A low buzzing tingled under my fingertips, and the knowledge of what the symbol was there, just out of reach. I closed my eyes and leaned into it. A brand was made to mark ownership on animals . . . this was a brand we’d seen many times.
Ownership.
Possession.
The land was possessed? My eyes flew open. “The land has been bound to someone or something. They are driving the animals away.”
Footsteps turned my head, but neither Crimson nor Oka were surprised. Of course not, they’d heard Mac coming much farther off than me.
He drew up next to me and looked at the symbol.
“Is it even possible to bind the land?” He scrutinized one of the symbols, touching it carefully.
“In the past, I would have said no,” I said. “But now? I don’t know. Anything is possible in this new world. The rules have changed, and we are all still playing catch-up.”
Crimson shook her head. “Who could be doing this? You killed Madeline. Wasn’t she the one behind the markings?”
I walked to another marked tree and touched it as if it would have more knowledge for me. “I thought so. But apparently I was wrong.” The thing was, if Madeline was not the big bad ugly, then someone else was. Someone Madeline had been attached to. Right before she’d died I’d asked her who owned her, and her neck had been snapped from within by some magic that was not mine.
I had a feeling we were about to find out just who had been pulling Madeline’s strings.
“What does this mean?” Crimson asked.
I looked from Mac to her. “It means we’re in shit up to our shoulders, and pretty soon we’ll be over our heads if we don’t find a shovel to dig our way out.”
“It means we need a solution,” Mac said. Much more helpful than my words. “I can go out and search. I’ll take Neil with me. I can cover ground faster with him directing above. I’ll go in one direction, a straight shot away southeast, toward the Haven, and see where the food starts. Whoever did this can’t bind the whole Earth. And maybe I’ll luck out and hit the Haven first.” That was beyond a long shot, we both knew that. But still, there was logic in it, to go the direction we needed to go anyway.
I hesitated, not sure about sending him so far away. He leaned in close, picking up on my concerns, and touched my forehead with his. “I’ll be fine. And so will you. Oka will look after you. She was doing a fair job before I showed up.”
“Watch it, bear. I was doing far more than a fair job.” She growled at him, showing her pearly white teeth.
He nudged her with a closed fist on her shoulder and she took a mock swat at him.
He kissed me, brief, hard, and full of possibilities. When he pulled back, he looked straight into my eyes. “Watch out for Jasmine. She’s up to something. I can feel it.” He looked at Oka and she nodded once as if they shared some silent communication only familiars understood.
Crimson snorted. “Wolves are always the problem in the shifter world, Mac. You know that.”
“I do,” he said, and then he and Crimson shared a quick look before his blue eyes came back to me.
“Watch for the symbols,” I said. “If they start disappearing you should be hitting game. If I’m right about the land.” Gods above and below, let me be wrong. Let me be very wrong. Because if the land was bound against us, how the fuck were we going to survive?
He nodded and planted one last kiss on my forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
With no more words, he headed out of the woods, disappearing through the sparse trees. I heard the bike start, the engine a distant rumble already.
Our bond stretched farther than I liked with each second that passed.
I knew it was the smart move, but I still hated it.
“Be safe,” I whispered to his back, before I turned away.
“What would you have us do?” Crimson asked.
“Tell everyone to stick close to camp. No point in expending more energy. We’ll stick to the river, so at least we’ll have water.”
Crimson bobbed her head once and jogged away from me.
I took my time walking back to the camp, feeling ridiculously lonely with Mac gon
e. Like a piece of me had wandered away.
“Oh please, you still have me. Tuck in your bottom lip before you trip on it and make a fool of yourself,” Oka said as she trotted along beside me.
I dropped a hand to her back. “Thanks for the, as always, wise words.”
“That’s a cat’s job. To tell it how it is,” she said as she shifted back to her smaller form. She took less to keep alive that way. Maybe she’d find a bug or two.
She shivered. “No. I’m not eating bugs again.”
I smiled down at her and she gave me a kitty grin right back. We both knew she loved to chase spiders and other small bugs when she thought I wasn’t looking. The crunch of their shells had been heard more than once in the middle of the night.
I’d barely taken two steps into the ring of the caravan where everyone had set up before the drama started again. A few shifters were there, but more than that, there was Jasmine. She saw me and her eyes lit up.
She waved a hand above her head, a veritable Vanna White.
“You’re all going to starve to death if you stay here. She isn’t even a shifter. Why be loyal to her as your Alpha?” Jasmine had her back to me as she spoke, throwing her arms in the air. The group of shifters eyed her, and I saw agreement in one or two of them.
I didn’t have the time or energy for this. “Let me make this simple,” I said. They all turned to me, as did Jasmine. “If any of you don’t like the current situation and think you can do better on your own, you’re welcome to leave any time. You aren’t my slaves. I am not Madeline.”
“We can’t leave. We’re bound to you as our Alpha,” Cale said, a falcon shifter. I wished Neil was still here, or Lynx. I knew they’d help quell the group after I’d saved their lives.
I looked for Crimson, who was also missing. Damn it. “Fine. I’ll tell you what. Once we find food for everyone, any of you are welcome to challenge me for the spot, okay? Now that Madeline isn’t a threat, I don’t even need to be your Alpha.” I looked at their faces, one at a time, and not a single one of them could hold my gaze. Suddenly, they all found their feet very fascinating. “What I find disappointing is I thought we had a good mutual relationship going here. But if it’s become toxic in some way, you all know where the fucking door is.”
Jasmine scoffed and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “A mutual relationship. That’s funny. What do the weak as newborn kittens humans bring to the table, hmm? Nothing but trouble if you ask me. They draw predators, just like that Breaker group. And you’ve bound us to them as if they are worth protecting.”
My spine tingled and if I’d had fur of my own I had no doubt it would be standing on end. “What’s this us bullshit, Jasmine? You are not part of this caravan. If you’re so unhappy, leave,” I challenged.
She watched me, weighing her options, but I didn’t give her a chance to sort it out. I had bigger fish to fry than a dick-measuring contest with a damned she-wolf. “All of you have the same option. Leave if you want. That’s one less for us to feed when Mac brings back food.”
A few of them slinked away. Jasmine stood her ground. Of course she did.
As I stalked off, Oka right next to me, her posture matching my own, one of the shifters came in from the west. He hurried straight to me. “Alpha.”
“Pamela,” I corrected as he slowed. “Just Pamela is fine.”
“Pamela,” he repeated. He was a badger, and his black hair had a white streak down the center to match his animal form. “I’ve spotted the Breakers. Not two miles behind us.”
“Well, shit.” With Mac gone . . . I knew he could find us if we had to move fast. Which we did now.
“They’re tracking the caravan. Stalking it, and us,” Oka said. “It’s similar to Madeline’s tactics.”
Yes and no. Madeline’s tactics had been about death and not much else. Stefan seemed to be strategizing.
I looked down at her. “No, I think his plan is different.”
The badger didn’t respond. The shifters knew she was my familiar, and that I could speak to her even if they couldn’t.
“What should we do?” he pressed.
“Get moving for one thing. Spread the word. I’ll get Richard and the others going.” He gave me a weird kind of half bow over clasped hands and took off to do as I asked.
“I can smell Richard. He’s coming this way.” Oka bounded out ahead of me, her peach-orange coat standing out in the long grass. I followed as quickly as I could. Oka reached Richard first, of course, and leapt up to him, forcing him to catch her. He smiled at the cat.
“Oka, feeling needy, are we?” He looked up and his smile fell as he saw my face.
“We need to move. Stefan and his gang are only two miles behind us,” I said.
He closed his eyes a moment and then nodded as he opened them. “You fueled the trucks up this morning?”
I had and we both knew. “Yes. We’ve got enough to get a fair distance away.”
He put Oka on the edge of the truck. “We keep running like this, they’ll find nothing but a bunch of starved to death bodies to poke at.”
“Positive attitude, Dick. We’ll find our way out of this. We always do.” Although this time, I really wasn’t sure how or when. But there was no choice but to go.
*_*_*_*
Travel was slow with only two trucks, only one with an open bed. The Humvee held six, and had a few shifters perched on the roof. The other truck only had three seats up front and maybe fifteen people crammed into the bed. Even with both of them loaded there wasn’t enough room for everyone.
Those walking were mostly shifters, though they took turns with a few of the human men. Everyone was exhausted and hungry, no one had the energy to move fast, even though the urgency was there. I told myself as long as we kept moving, we’d be fine. We just had to stay ahead of them. I even had some of the shifters go behind us and cover our tracks. Some of the more agreeable shifters, anyway. Jasmine was creating her own little revolution, it seemed, whenever Alex wasn’t looking.
She was smart, I’d give her that. The woman was careful not to let anyone see her scheme. I only knew because Crimson kept close tabs on every shifter in the group. But, Jasmine would need more than herself and two others to really get any sort of coup going. So far, they were nothing more than a thorn in my side. Literally. Damned she-wolf and her poker. I put a hand to the wound. It ached off and on and was beginning to itch, a good sign.
The whole day I’d barely seen Alex and I wondered if he was still out hunting. He’d taken Marley, said he’d wanted to teach her some hunting moves. They’d find us, I had no doubt about that. He had our scent now, and after three years of searching, I knew he wouldn’t let it go easily. Funny how I was less worried about him than Mac.
I bumped into the person in front of me. Cale, the falcon shifter. He lifted his eyebrows at me and made a motion for me to pass him.
“Better go see, Alpha.”
I shot a look at him that made him quail. As well it should; the anger snapping through me woke the darkness.
Burn the forest, Pamela. That will destroy the symbols, freeing the land.
“No.”
You embraced me and we defeated Madeline.
“And I saw the cost. I won’t be that person,” I whispered the words. A few shifters still eyed me up.
“What’s going on?” I asked in a louder voice as I pushed forward, but no one answered me. Everyone had their eyes fixed on whatever was up ahead. I slid through the bodies and they let me pass. Jasmine was off to one side and Alex and Marley stood close to her. Good, they’d made it back, at least.
I found Richard at the head of the caravan, but I didn’t have to ask what he was looking at once I was there. A large wooden cross was jammed into the road, forcing every last one of us to go around it. To see it. Be completely and totally creeped out by it. Not because it was a cross, but because it had something written on it . . . in blood.
“What does it say?” Richard asked.
I
looked at the letters but didn’t recognize them. They had the look of maybe a Middle Eastern language, but as much as I’d studied in the time before, I sure couldn’t place them.
“I have no idea. I’ve not seen that language before. Maybe Russian?” I offered that last bit more, so I didn’t give him a big old goose egg.
Richard looked at me as if he knew I was throwing out that last bit. I shrugged. “Could be. It could also be nothing,” I said. Though the blood was somewhat fresh, which couldn’t be good. I reached for my connection to Mac and felt him well to the south. Still ranging farther. At least it wasn’t his blood.
“Pamela. It’s hard not to take something written in blood as a threat.” Richard said it so matter-of-factly, I really couldn’t argue with him.
“That can’t be good,” Oka said as she sniffed at the letters. “Smells like deer, though. If someone wrote it recently then there could be game close by.”
I nodded to her. That was a good point.
“What do you think? Stefan’s gang?” Richard asked.
“They’re behind us, as far as we know. Not ahead.” This new puzzle piece didn’t seem to fit anywhere in our current set of problems. And I sure as hell didn’t want to start working on a new puzzle at the moment.
I shook my head, unable to make sense of it, but that feeling of dread built slowly in the pit of my stomach. Richard stepped back.
“Everyone just be calm,” he called out. “Pamela is going to make sure it’s safe to proceed.”
No pressure there at all.
I lifted both hands and ran them over the cross. There was no magic in the wood, nothing of a trap that had been set up for us. That had to be good. Didn’t it?
“Oka, what do you want to bet we won’t like the answer to this riddle when we find it?”
“Shrimp. I’ll bet you shrimp,” Oka said as she backed away from the strange cross and blood-stained message.
I wished Mac was there. He might know what it said. Or at least what it could mean. One of the perks to him having more time on this earth than me or Oka. The only thing I could discern from the setup was that it was likely some sort of threat, or warning.
Caravan Witch (Questing Witch Book 2) Page 11