by Dante King
The apothecary brushed her hands over her sides, revealing a pair of twin silver daggers sheathed against her hips. Another holster lower on her thigh held an odd device carved out of bone, twisted like a corkscrew with a sharpened tip.
The color drained from Carli’s face.
“Hoo boy,” she whispered, her cat’s tail shooting upward and puffing out like predators were near. “What’s the news, Sooj?”
“Good news and bad news,” Soojin said, her lips forming a tight little line. “Which do you want first?”
Carli sighed and tossed open a drawer near the couch. “I gotta get geared up. Let’s start with the bad.”
With a curt nod, Soojin turned right to me. “Your mother is in danger.”
I froze in my tracks. The world slowed around me as panic filled my veins, my hand unconsciously reaching into my jacket to feel the packet of medicine I kept there.
The undelivered packet of medicine.
“Has she gotten sicker?” I asked, kicking myself. How could I not have made it my priority to deliver the medicine! “Shit, I wish she’d listened to me and gone to the hospital—”
“If Raya had gone to the hospital, she’d already be dead,” Soojin said gravely. “Hunters are currently converging on your condo—and your mother is inside, as sick as a dog. Raya won’t be able to defend herself in such a state.”
“She can’t defend herself at all,” I shot back, looking at the door. “She’s an old woman—”
“How the hell did they find his mom!?” Carli wanted to know. “That’s a stretch, even for hunterwave.”
Soojin looked as if she’d been dreading that question.
“I am partially to blame,” the apothecary admitted, her expression that of someone who’d just swallowed something bitter. “Someone hacked into the database of clients I keep on the computer in my store. They were looking for someone, and I found out too late who it was. Raya Sinclair. And Raya’s address was in the database.”
“Shit,” Carli groaned, rolling her eyes. “Fucking technology…”
“What do you mean, they’re going to her condo?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What the hell are they going to do to my mom? She hasn’t done anything to anyone!”
Soojin and Carli shared a look. Clearly they knew some things about my mother that I didn’t.
“We’re not going to let them hurt her,” Soojin said fiercely. “The good news is this: we’re going to rescue her, and we have exactly what we need to do it.”
“What?” Carli scoffed. “An atom bomb?”
Soojin gave another one of those Mona Lisa smiles. “A mage.”
The shifter’s eyebrows shot all the way to her hairline. From her reaction, a mage was even better than nukes.
“Really!?” Carli exclaimed. “You found one on such short notice? One who’d be willing to work with us Shifters?”
A strange look spread across Soojin’s face. “I did.”
The apothecary reached into a pocket and pulled out a slender scroll. It was tightly rolled, about the length of Soojin’s index finger. It almost looked like a hand-rolled cigarette—but when Soojin let it run across her fingers, the papyrus turned out to be covered in tiny, handwritten runes.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Soojin said, thrusting the unfurled scroll at me. “You need to eat this, and do it quickly.”
I stared blankly at the piece of paper. “I’m sorry. You want me to do what!?”
“Ball this up and eat it,” Soojin repeated, glancing back at the door. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt you. We’ve got to get this done before we head to Raya’s condo.”
“Hold up a second,” Carli said, her brows furrowed together. “You said you had a mage, Soojin.”
“I do,” the apothecary replied.
“So where are they? Waiting in the car?”
Soojin shook her head. “I’m looking at him,” she chuckled, her gaze focused right on me. “He’s standing right next to you.”
Oh. Oh.
The revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. Carli, on the other hand, was not so easily swayed.
“Look, I know you just got here, Sooj,” Carli explained, putting a wary hand on my shoulder. “So you missed out on some of the fun. But Derek just walked out of that tube with horns and scales. He’s a Shifter, Soojin, and a damned powerful one.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Soojin said with a knowing expression. “He doesn’t have many of the Anatomical Forms yet, does he?”
The question caught Carli so off-guard that she took a step backward. “No. How the hell do you know that, Soojin?”
“Because he’s Raya’s boy,” the apothecary said simply. “Which means he’s powerful—but she hasn’t told him a thing about those powers.”
Soojin had me there. I didn’t know a thing about any of this. Clearly, some very important things about my life had been hidden from me until just a few hours ago.
“I’m a shifter and a mage?” I asked, glancing back to Carli for confirmation. “Is that normal?”
“No,” Carli said, her nostrils flaring. “No, Derek, it very much is not.”
I only had to think about it for a moment.
“I don’t care,” I snapped, grabbing the piece of paper out of Soojin’s hand. “I need to save Mom. If I’ve got to eat some paper to do that, then fuck it—I’ll chow down on a dead tree.”
“I thought you might,” Soojin said mysteriously. “Need something to wash it down with?”
I shook my head as I balled up the piece of paper and shoved it in my mouth. It tasted—well, like a piece of fucking paper. Fortunately, it was pretty thin, so it started dissolving on my tongue almost immediately. Still, the taste made me gag.
I chewed until the scroll was nothing but a mash of pulp against my tongue. A tear beaded in the corner of my eye, but I bravely swallowed until the whole thing was gone.
Feeling cheeky, I stuck out my tongue like a kid who’d just taken his medicine.
“All gone,” I said. “Now what?”
The scroll had a strange, peppery aftertaste. I could swear my tongue buzzed just a bit, almost like I’d drunk ice water right after chewing some mint gum. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, exactly—just strange.
Soojin checked her watch. “We need to be on our way to your mom’s condo in the next five minutes if we’re going to save her life.”
“What the hell are we waiting for?” I snapped. “If she’s in danger, let’s go—”
Soojin’s hand against my chest stopped me from bolting for the door right then and there.
“Listen,” she said, her voice brimming with sympathy. “I know you want to save your mom, but you’re just going to get yourself killed if you run in there without a plan. These men are hunters—they make their living dealing with mages like your mother. You need to learn that spell if you’re going to save her.”
“The one I just swallowed?” A bitter laugh escaped my throat. “I guess I probably should have read the damn thing before I chewed it up, huh?”
“You wouldn’t have understood it in any case,” Soojin said kindly. “You should be able to understand it now. Do you feel it yet, Derek?”
I didn’t—and then, suddenly, I did.
New knowledge blossomed in the back of my brain, blooming like an exotic flower under a full moon. It pushed inward to my core with mounting pressure, filling me with the urge to do… something. What it was, I couldn’t quite understand—yet I knew that I could do it, in the same way I knew I could ride a bike or drive a car if I needed to.
Muscle memory.
Carli’s half-empty bottle of beer sat on the arm of her couch. Moving on sheer instinct, I reached toward it and opened my fingers.
The bottle shot from its resting place across the room, landing in my hand.
Glass felt cool beneath my palm. Or maybe it was that I suddenly felt white-hot, like I was on the verge of spontaneously combusting.
What on Earth was thi
s power!?
“Telekinesis,” Soojin explained, as if she could read my mind. Hell, maybe she could. “The entry level version, so you won’t be throwing cars around or lifting buildings any time soon. But it ought to suffice for our purposes.”
I stared at the bottle in my hand as if I’d never seen it before. Then, hit with a burst of sudden inspiration, I tossed the thing straight up into the air and reached toward it with an outstretched hand.
The bottle froze at the apex of its arc, hovering above all of our heads. Then I pushed, and it soared to the cavernous ceiling to shatter against the stone.
“Holy shit,” I said as bits of broken glass rained down around us. “I can use the Force.”
That made Soojin laugh, though Carli still looked far too freaked out by all this to share in her laughter.
“Something like that,” the apothecary said. “Between that and your nascent shifter powers, you might stand a fighting chance against your mother’s assassins. Alone, I wouldn’t risk it—but with us? Well, let’s just say I owe Raya enough favors that jumping into danger for her won’t be a problem.”
I wanted to ask her more about that. Clearly, this woman had one hell of a history with the woman who’d raised me. But I didn’t have time—Soojin was already making her way back to the door.
“Come on, my car’s parked right outside,” she said, half in and half out of the doorway. “I already plugged Raya’s address into my phone’s GPS, so I know the fastest route. Let’s get there before it’s too late to save her!”
As Soojin disappeared up the stairs, I turned to the still-stunned Carli. The shifter stared at me open-mouthed, as if she never could have guessed I’d be the recipient of not one but two powers.
I moved without thinking. My hands flexed—and the shifter shot across the carpet, as if she’d been sliding in from the kitchen.
Carli’s body felt good against mine. She hit me with a little gasp, her thigh against mine as our body heat mingled.
“You moved me,” she gasped, snapping out of her trance.
“That’s not all I’ll do,” I grunted, already thinking about the so-called ‘Anatomical Forms’.
Uniting with Carli would give me even more power—and even if it didn’t, I wanted this woman. We’d been interrupted before the two of us could hook up, but next time, I wouldn’t let anything stand in my way.
Carli swallowed hard, as if she couldn’t believe what an alpha I’d suddenly become.
“L-let’s go,” she stammered, grabbing her policewoman’s jacket and hastily throwing it back on. “Your mom’s in danger. We’ve gotta stop those hunters.”
Carli was right, of course.
“Raincheck,” I growled, letting the beautiful cat shifter go. She paused by the stairs, turned around and gave me an almost imperceptible nod.
I could almost feel the scales under my skin.
I’m coming, Mom, I thought, following Carli up the stairs. I just hope we’re not too late.
Chapter 8
“This is the place?” Carli asked.
From the parking lot of my mother’s condo, you never would have guessed that magical assassins were currently trying to break in and kill her.
At this time of night, the place was nearly deserted, though all the spaces earmarked for condo residents had their vehicles safely in tow. If these hunter assassins had parked in a handicapped spot, I’d beat the shit out of them just for that.
“Yeah, this is the one,” I said, gesturing at a sign marking this part of the condo complex as BUILDING FOUR. “Mom’s in 406.”
“Top floor,” Soojin murmured, pulling the car to a stop in the pull-up parking. Her vehicle was a gray, late-model sedan, the most boring car imaginable. She’d undoubtedly chosen it to be as nondescript as possible. “Assassins probably wouldn’t bother with the front door, then—they’ll try to gain access through a window.”
Could they do that?
“Mom always keeps her windows locked,” I said, craning my neck to see. The balcony for unit 406 overlooked the asphalt parking lot—Mom always joked the crappy view was the apartment’s best feature. “And her balcony door locked, too.”
“That won’t stop them,” Soojin said gravely. “What do you think, Weber? Go in the front?”
I glanced into the backseat and did a double take. Carli was in the middle of loading her service pistol with thick, silver-colored bullets. They had hollow points—which were illegal, but I doubted a shifter cared too much about being caught by the ‘normie’ police. Her normally agreeable demeanor had melted away—this wasn’t a playful housecat, but a tigress on the attack.
“Go right in the front and kick the door down,” Carli said, tucking her gun back into her holster. “Kick ass, and take names.”
Soojin had a slightly different take on it.
“We find Raya up there and no assassins, we’ll get her to the car and lay in wait for them,” she explained. “Derek, you think you can drive her somewhere safe in that case?”
She made it sound as sweet as possible, but the implication wasn’t lost on me.
I was the one most able to be spared in the event of a fight. I had powers—both shifter powers and mage powers, which was a thing I didn’t quite understand—but I couldn’t fully control them either. Which made me as much of a liability as a potential asset.
“Sure,” I grunted, throwing the door open. “Let’s just go!”
There was no point in buzzing Mom’s unit—it would either alert the assassins or just confuse her.
I punched in the access code and listened as the door unlocked with a hollow click. Mom’s condo was up four flights of stairs, on the top story as Soojin had said.
Strangely, I wasn’t winded by the time we reached the top. Normally, I always had to pause for a minute before entering Mom’s condo to cool down, but tonight I felt like I could’ve run up another four flights of stairs without stopping.
Must be the adrenaline, I told myself.
Carli and Soojin took up positions on either side of the door, weapons at the ready.
Carli held her gun in a two-handed grip, the same as when she’d taken down the sewer troll, while Soojin removed her long-handled knives from her belt and held one in each hand.
“Ready when you are,” Soojin whispered.
Fuck, I felt like the leader of a SWAT team.
The door was locked, of course. I reached for my keys—then I remembered I didn’t need them. Focusing my mental energy, I pushed out toward the lock, picturing the deadbolt on the inside sliding open.
There was a clunk from the other side of the door, and I knew it was unlocked.
A single kick was all it took to knock the door open. It slammed against the opposite wall, rattling its hinges and startling the four men in strange robes standing in Mom’s living room. They’d been in the middle of tearing apart the furniture when we interrupted, and their looks of shock deepened into anger as the three of us stepped into the room.
“Intruders,” the lead assassin grunted. He was bigger than the rest of them, though all of them could have passed for linebackers on my college’s football team. He was a slab of muscle, his loose flowing robes barely concealing the brawn beneath. “Pretty ones, at least.”
I ignored that.
“Mom!” I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth. The bedroom was in the back of the condo, and she’d undoubtedly have hunkered down in there when she heard people trying to break in. “Just sit tight! I’m here! We’re coming!”
The men laughed at that. “You’re not going anywhere,” the man in the lead said, pulling back his hood. His eyes glowed a sickly yellow, and a thick gray beard covered his face. “So you’re the bitch’s kid, huh? You’re too late, pup. Your Mom’s dead.”
“She was delicious!” one of the other robed figures added with a laugh.
No. No, that couldn’t be.
The world narrowed around me as my sight turned into tunnel vision, the lights in the condo dimming.
My hands trembled as the enormity of it hit me. Mom? Dead?
“You sons of bitches,” I spat, something hard and cold welling up inside of me. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all!”
Blinded by rage, I moved without thought. Telekinesis roared through me, and suddenly, Mom’s glass coffee table was in motion. The leader of the robed figures didn’t see it coming—it shot toward him from his blind spot, slamming into the side of his head with so much force it was a miracle he didn’t lose his balance and hit the floor.
But he stayed upright.
Blood poured down the assassin’s face. His shock deepened into rage as the rest of his crew dropped into battle stances.
“Mage,” he snarled, spitting out the word like a vile oath. “Kill the fuckers!”
The next few moments were a blur. Carli’s gun went off like a firecracker, a bullet whizzing just past the leader’s head and leaving a smoking hole in the wall. Soojin aimed one of her knives at a robed figure near the back of the pack, burying the silver spike hilt-deep in the brigand’s throat.
The rest of the group didn’t even see the man fall. They’d already begun to change.
I had just enough time to wonder why none of these assassins were armed when I realized—they didn’t carry weapons. They didn’t need them.
They were weapons.
The forms of the other three men shimmered like a skipped frame in a film reel, and within the span of a blink, three human-sized wolves filled my mother’s living room. Now I understood the reason for those long, flowing robes—any other clothing would have torn itself to shreds in the transformation.
They’d been big before, but now each of the assassins could have given an NBA player a run for their money in the height department. They reminded me of the sewer troll—but where that creature had been so large it was unwieldy, these monsters were sleek and destructive.
Werewolves! My brain screamed. Then, amending a moment later: No. Wolf shifters.
Shit.
Carli threw her gun to me as she pounced, transforming mid-leap like something out of a superhero movie. But not even the most advanced CGI in the universe could have done her split-second transformation justice.