by P J Gordon
“Manda, you’re going to die if I don’t do something. I can’t let that happen,” Richard pleaded. He cradled her tenderly with one arm, applying pressure to the bloodied shirt on her chest with his other hand.
“No,” she moaned again. She saw Richard’s face harden. She knew what that look meant. She’d seen it before when he’d decided something was for her own good and intended to ignore her protests. He was going to change her anyway, right there in front of a room full of witnesses, and his life would never be the same. Neither would Josh’s, or hers, or any of their families’. She had to stop him—her own life wasn’t worth ruining the lives of so many others—but Manda knew Richard well enough to know that he wouldn’t let anyone or anything stop him from doing what he thought was best for her. Her mind worked frantically, trying to think of something, anything, to stop him...and then it came to her, like a lifeline. Suddenly she remembered how nervous he’d been when he first revealed his secret to her and she knew what she had to do. It would hurt him, but she couldn’t think of any other way.
“No!” she repeated. “I don’t want to be changed. I don’t want to be a monster. Please, don’t do that to me!” Her words were frantic but weak, so quiet that no one beyond the kneeling men would hear. Tears burned her eyes for the pain she knew she was causing him, but she forced her face into an expression of horror and disgust. She must have been convincing because he flinched as if struck.
“You heard her,” the man named Kastl growled. “There’s nothing you can do here. Now leave!”
“No!” Richard’s anguished groan tore through Manda. “Please, Manda! Don’t do this! I need you!”
Manda turned her face toward Kastl. She didn’t know who he was, but he seemed to have authority over the others. “Make them go. Don’t let them near me!” She heard both Richard’s and Josh’s sharp intake of breath and she squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at the betrayal she knew she would see on their faces. She felt like she was sinking into a dark pool and she fought against the lethargy that was overtaking her. The pain that seared through her body left her panting shallowly.
“You heard her, Mikey. She doesn’t want them here. Get them out!” Kastl ordered. She felt Richard and Josh’s hands leave her, and opened her eyes to watch Mikey drag the shocked and betrayed brothers away into the corridor, past the crowd. Kastl was supporting her head and shoulders now, assuming Richard’s position, with his hands pressed to her shoulder. One of two paramedics that had arrived as Mikey was pulling Josh and Richard away was pressing a folded blue sheet to her stomach over Josh’s bloody shirt. She watched Richard’s departing feet, refusing to look up, afraid to see his face if he was looking back. When they had disappeared from view and she thought they must be out of earshot, she gave in to the weak sobs she had been suppressing.
”Tell him that I didn’t mean it!” she pleaded faintly. “Tell him I’m sorry and I didn’t mean it!” Her eyes were wide and desperate as she sought out Kastl’s face, close above her. “Please, tell him I didn’t mean it.”
“You can tell him yourself,” Kastl replied in a tight voice. “You’re not going to give up on me, Manda. You have to hang on and tell him that yourself.”
Manda felt hands under her body and gasped in pain as they lifted her and placed her onto a stretcher.
“Hurry. We don’t have much time,” she heard Kastl bark. “She’s losing too much blood.” She watched dizzily as the ceiling raced by above her. Suddenly they passed through a set of double doors and bright lights blinded her. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the light shone bright and red through her eyelids. With a lurch she felt herself lifted slightly and the red light disappeared. She blinked slowly and found herself in the back of an ambulance. The man, Kastl, was leaning over her, but he seemed very far away, as if she were looking at him from across a long room.
“Hang in there, Manda. Come on. Don’t quit on me now. Richard will never forgive me if you give up on me now.” He leaned back a little and turned away from her. “Just get that pan. We don’t have time to do this the tidy way.” Kastl extended his arm over a square, silver pan that one of the paramedics held out, and then stunned Manda by transforming into a large, cinnamon-colored bear. After a swift motion of one paw that was mostly blocked from her view by his body, blood poured into the pan. The paramedic lowered the pan out of her field of vision, and Kastl resumed his human form. The paramedic on the opposite side of Manda handed him a shirt and pants, and Kastl donned them with practiced speed.
Vague stirrings of fear and suspicion stirred inside Manda. What was going on here? Who was this man?
“It’ll be okay, Manda,” Kastl encouraged her, brushing her hair from the uninjured side of her face. “Hold on. You can do this.” He turned back to the paramedic with the pan. “Put all three vials in! It’s a lot of blood. Hurry! Both syringes.” The light seemed to be fading and Kastl’s voice was growing more and more distant. “Come on, Manda. Fight for me, baby. Fight for Richard. He needs you. You can’t just leave him like this.” Manda felt something jab into her arm, and then into her thigh.
“Pour what’s left into her lacerations,” another voice instructed distantly.
“That should do it. It should work...,” Kastl’s voice drifted in and out. “Manda! I need you to focus. I know it’s hard......need you to shift for me......this for Richard.”
“I don’t know how,” Manda managed in a barely audible whisper. She wished Richard were here instead of this stranger she didn’t trust. Fatigue was pulling her into the dark pool. The farther it pulled her in, the less she felt the pain that burned through her body and stabbed into her chest with every breath.
“I’m going to help you, okay? But you have......I say. I want you to imagine......out of the shower. Imagine seeing yourself in the mirror. Come on, Manda! Please! Imagine yourself right now looking like you do when you look in the mirror after a shower.”
His voice was urgent but Manda couldn’t focus. Her thoughts kept slipping away from her. The harder she tried to gather them and force them to make sense, the more difficult it became and the more quickly they slipped from her grasp. Her eyes slid closed and her thoughts scattered, drifting away into darkness. The blackness was very inviting. There was no pain there, and she didn’t have to struggle to remember...what? It didn’t matter. Her thoughts were like cobwebs, brushing lightly against her and then gone. The dark pool was still and calm, with no current, not even a ripple to disturb her. The gossamer touch of her thoughts became lighter.
Hands gripped her shoulders and shook her painfully. She gasped and her eyes flew open again. The darkness was replaced by pain and the glaring light inside the ambulance.
“Please, Manda!” Kastl’s voice was desperate now. “Concentrate. For Richard! This is important.”
Manda’s mind cleared a little. It was important and it was for Richard. She clung to his name. Richard.
“Come on, Manda. You’re still wet from the shower and you look in the mirror. What do you see?”
Manda imagined getting out of a hot shower and reaching for her towel. She could see her reflection in the mirror. She imagined herself like that, whole and unhurt. She tried to visualize the details—the line of her collarbone, the curve of her hip. She glared intently at the face above hers, not really seeing it but forcing her eyes to remain open. If she let them close she would slip back into the welcoming darkness. She tried to picture herself as she had looked just that morning. Using every ounce of imagination she had, she reconstructed the picture in her mind’s eye, and in the instant when she saw herself—visualized it clearly—a surge of exhilaration coursed through her body and the pain vanished. Her head cleared immediately.
“Good girl!” Kastl breathed, sagging against the edge of the stretcher. His voice was thick with relief. “I knew you could do it.”
As suddenly as the burst of energy had come, it drained away, leaving Manda weak and limp. Her body felt heavy and she wasn’t able to move. “What happe
ned?” she asked, confused.
“You healed yourself. You lost too much blood though, so now you’re very weak, but you’ll be fine. You just need some rest and you’ll be as good as new.” Kastl smiled at her reassuringly. “Just relax now.”
But Manda couldn’t relax. “Where’s Richard?” she asked urgently, though her voice was weak and faint. “I need to see Richard. I need to tell him I’m sorry!” If she was going to be okay now she needed to see Richard, to let him know he didn’t need to worry and to tell him she hadn’t meant the terrible things she’d said. She had to erase the betrayal and hurt from his face.
“Not now, Manda. Right now you need to rest.” Kastl’s face hardened and he turned to one of the paramedics. “Knock her out.”
“No!” Manda struggled ineffectually, her limbs like damp rags that refused to obey her will. The fear and suspicion that had been amorphous and vague before were now sharp and focused. She felt another jab in her arm and her lethargy increased. Her eyes slid closed against her will, but she struggled to remain conscious. She focused on the sounds around her. She felt a slight pressure on her face, as if something light were draped across it. She heard Kastl’s voice.
“I’ll tell the helicopter to leave. Turn on your radio and blast some static. It’ll help cover up her heartbeat. They’re in the limo right outside.” Manda recognized the sound then that had been there all along, unnoticed by her. It was the rhythmic roar of helicopter rotors spinning nearby. They grew suddenly much louder. Someone had opened the door at the back of the ambulance. Then the doors closed, muting the sound again. After a brief moment she heard the sound grow louder and faster then quickly fade away, replaced by the crackle of static. She couldn’t hear anything else over the sound of the radio. She tried to call out and make herself heard over the white noise, but her body refused to respond to her will. Unconsciousness was claiming Manda quickly and she was having difficulty focusing on the sounds. Just as darkness reached out to embrace her completely, an anguished cry rose over the static of the radio.
“No! Mandaaa!”
The cry followed her into sleep.
Chapter 38
Mikey slumped tiredly in the backseat of the limo. The last several hours had been some of the worst in his life and tonight’s ordeal wasn’t over yet. Mark drove through the night toward downtown, where Mikey would have to do it all over again.
Mark was holding up, but not well—no better than Mikey was. They’d both spent too much time with Manda not to feel the pain of her death keenly. Knowing what this was doing to Richard only made it worse. He hoped Josh had caught up to his brother. If anyone could get through to him it was Josh.
The events of the last six hours replayed themselves in Mikey’s mind over and over. He’d been stunned by Manda’s refusal to let Richard change her. He hadn’t seen that one coming. He didn’t think anyone had. She’d seemed so accepting of the whole shapeshifting thing. She’d accepted it much more readily than he himself initially had, and Mikey would make the change in a heartbeat if he could.
When Kastl had first recruited Mikey to his team, Mikey had been sure it was all some sort of joke, at least until the senior agent had changed into a bear right in front of him. It wasn’t until much later that that he began to understand the implications of what it meant to be a shapeshifter and realized just how senior an agent Kastl really was. He’d been working for the U.S. government for as long as there had been a U.S. government—and maybe even before. Kastl had served every president since George Washington. Beyond that knowledge, Mikey’s boss was very much a mystery. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming about himself or what he was. Mikey had learned almost everything he knew about therianthropy from Richard and Josh and their parents.
One thing that everyone on the team did know about Kastl, however, was that he wasn’t allowed to change anyone into a shapeshifter. Any illusions new agents entertained on this subject when they first joined Kastl’s elite team were quickly dispelled. Kastl wasn’t allowed to change anyone…at least unless and until he did so for personal reasons. As he’d explained to Mikey when he’d assigned him to Richard and Josh, it wasn’t their job to dictate the personal lives of shapeshifters as long as the secret was kept safe. So, Kastl was free to change whoever he should fall in love with—an eventuality that seemed unlikely given his seemingly complete lack of a personal life.
Richard, on the other hand, had finally found the one he wanted to share his gift and the rest of his life with. After decades of loneliness, of not even daring to hope for something he thought he could never have, he’d finally found her only to have her violently taken from him.
Mikey rubbed his hands across his bloodshot eyes. They’d failed. Terribly. They’d let Richard down completely and irrevocably. Why hadn’t she just let him save her? Damn it!
He felt guilty for the expletive, even though it had only been in his head. Richard had broken him of his swearing habit soon after he’d been assigned to the brothers. Mikey hoped for the hundredth time that night that Richard was okay.
Mikey had never seen a man as destroyed as Richard had been when Manda begged Kastl to send them away—at least not until Kastl had climbed from the back of the ambulance, waved the helicopter away, and shook his head in defeat.
Richard hadn’t wanted to believe it of course. He’d tried to get to the ambulance, to get to Manda, but Kastl had stopped him.
“You shouldn’t see her like this,” he’d stated grimly. “It’ll only make things worse.”
It had taken Josh and Kastl both to restrain Richard. Mikey had no choice but to stay out of the struggle. With as much strength as each of the three shapeshifters was using, he’d have been in danger of serious injury if he’d gotten in the way. Richard was calling on every bit of strength his gift offered him in his attempt to get past the other two...as if seeing her would somehow make her death a lie. The way he had screamed her name would haunt Mikey for the rest of his life. When they’d finally managed to get him back into the limo, Kastl had instructed Mark to get him out of town.
“Go someplace and shift, Richard. Run, fly, but be something else. It hurts a little less when you’re not human. Trust me.” Then he’d shut the car door and watched them leave. It was the first time Mikey had seen his boss show any emotion at all. Kastl had watched them drive away with clear remorse on his usually stoic features.
Mark had sped to a remote area northwest of the city while Josh fought to keep Richard together. As soon as the limo slid to a stop on a deserted dirt road, Richard had bolted from the car, exploding out of his clothes in the form of a tiger as he sprang through the door and taking the shape of an eagle before his paws hit the ground. Josh had been right behind him, struggling a little to keep up with his more mature and experienced brother.
Mikey and Mark had been left behind to collect the remnants of their clothes and personal effects from the ground. Mikey piled the scraps of cloth onto the floorboard of the limo and placed the contents of their pockets onto the seat across from him. Then he’d asked Mark to take him back to the baseball stadium. He had work to do.
Several hours later he’d performed the first of the two duties he most dreaded. He’d taken another agent—one who could actually claim the designation publicly—and gone to tell Manda’s family. He never wanted to do anything like that again, and yet here he was on his way to the Aronson office to do it one more time.
He’d called Curt as soon as he’d left the Derosiers’ house and Manda’s employer had agreed to call David and Jen into the office to meet him right away. Mikey hadn’t told him why, except that it was urgent. He could tell that Curt suspected bad news, though he doubted he expected anything quite as bad as this.
Mikey looked at the things arranged on the other seat. The small jeweler’s box that had been in Richard’s pocket mocked him. Damn it!
A reflexive wave of guilt joined the torrent that already inundated him. Damn it!
Curt and the remaining members of Manda’s te
am were waiting for Mikey in the reception area. Curt led them directly to Manda and David’s work space. As soon as they were all seated Mikey began. Best to just get it over with.
“I don’t know how to do this except to just say it. Manda was killed earlier tonight. I’m sorry to be the one who has to tell you this. She’s gone.”
“That’s not funny!” Jen said angrily.
“You can’t be serious,” Curt challenged, leaning forward as if to confront Mikey.
“I wish I wasn’t. I really, really wish I wasn’t,” Mikey replied tiredly. He rubbed his hand across his eyes again and wished this was over.
“I…ummm…,” Curt began, then cleared his throat and began again. “What happened? When and where was she killed?” The older man was shaken now that he realized Mikey was sincere. Jen was sitting on the sofa with her hands pressed to her mouth. She seemed to be holding her breath. David was simply staring at him blankly.
“It was at the baseball game this evening,” Mikey explained for the second time that night. He was going to get very good at this story. “During the game she went off to the bathroom by herself. Someone apparently cornered her there and killed her.” Mikey felt his eyes filling with tears again and he wiped his hand across them one more time. Damn it!, he swore in his head.
“How?” Curt asked, managing to remain composed enough to ask questions. Mikey was grateful for that. It would make things easier...and quicker. Manda’s family hadn’t taken the news nearly so well.
“With a knife,” Mikey answered in a strained voice. “I’m sure it will be in the news by tomorrow, so there’s no use trying to spare you the details. She suffered multiple knife wounds. By the time we found her she’d already lost too much blood. When they got her to the ambulance it was too late. I’m sorry.” The essentials were true anyway.
Curt was trying to comfort Jen, who was sobbing uncontrollably.
“Why?” she pleaded. “Why would anyone want to hurt Manda? I don’t understand.”