With that, the demon attacked. And all of the power Jack had felt growing, coalescing, and focusing washed over him as he spun with all of the speed he had and dove for the water.
Chapter Nine
Raven Ashwing leaned forward over her bathroom sink and narrowed her gaze at the reflection in her mirror. Something about it was… off. She frowned and straightened, then pulled her phone from her jacket pocket again. There was still no reply to any of her texts, nor had Sam tried to return any of her calls.
She chewed on the inside of her cheek and redialed. It went to voice mail. She ended the call rather than leave a third message and pinched the bridge of her nose. This wasn’t like Sam. And she had a bad feeling. But she wasn’t magic. Without the phone – which she’d purchased for Sam and which she paid for on a monthly basis so that Sam would keep in touch with her – she had no way to find her best friend. No way to do her job.
Raven slipped the phone back in the pocket and glanced at her reflection again as she went to turn off the light and leave the restroom. But something in that mirror image stilled her and drew her up short.
She leaned forward once more, bracing her hands on either side of the sink. It was that “spooky” time of year, change was in the air, autumn was beginning its short but colorful walk down the red carpet, and ghosts were everywhere. So staring this intently at one’s reflection in a mirror in a dimly lit bathroom in the middle of an October night could leave even the sturdiest of spirits feeling a touch shaken. But something more had Raven gazing steadily into the glass. Something there in that black-haired, dark-blue-eyed mirror image was wrong. It wasn’t her.
She blinked. The reflection blinked. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. The reflection did the same. Then she blinked again, and again her reflection copied her. But for a split, split moment, it seemed the second blink came just so very slightly later.
“Crap,” she said aloud, leaning back away from the mirror. Her reflection mirrored her actions, but she wasn’t fooled. Not any longer. “You’re not me.”
“Clever bird.”
Raven jumped and spun, her heart racing, her body ready to shift then and there. But her bedroom in her one-bedroom apartment was empty. It was dark. It was quiet. Nothing moved, and all she could hear was the painful hammering of her heart.
“Lucky for you, simply realizing you’re under his influence will break the enchantment,” said the cool, clear voice.
Raven remained quiet, holding her breath as her eyes darted around the room. Things were not always as they at first appeared to be, and that voice was coming from somewhere. Then again, she’d just decided her reflection wasn’t her own. Maybe she was going mad.
“I’m over here,” said that crisp voice in the unmoving darkness.
This time, Raven squelched her gasp. She slowly turned to where the voice seemed to be coming from and found herself studying the shadows between the curtains of her window seat. Good windows were important to avian shifters. You needed a place to leap out of and a place to land – something comfortable, easily accessible, and preferably padded. It was why she’d chosen her apartment in the first place, despite how overpriced it was. Thank goodness she had the money; it was one thing her kind never had to worry about.
But right now, the window was closed and the light beige curtains were drawn, and there was a stillness to the darkness between the drapery pleats that was so very unmoving, it suggested at the opposite – movement. Hidden and waiting to pounce.
Raven’s senses tweaked with a prickly alertness. Unlike a werewolf, she wasn’t great at picking up on tiny scents that didn’t belong. She had to rely on her eyes and ears. Both were honed to the nines, and her skin itched as if it were about to sprout feathers.
“That’s it. Keep trying,” the voice taunted, but in a manner that hinted it was not unkind. Simply haughty. And then the curtains parted slightly, and a portion of space Raven had previously chalked up to moonlight began to move. The slow, luxurious manner in which it lithely stepped across the window seat’s pillows revealed its nature at once.
“You’re a cat,” Raven said brilliantly. It was not her finest hour.
“And you’re a guardian,” the cat returned blithely. It revealed itself entirely, all white with blue eyes, as it stepped out of the darkness on the window seat and into the relative light being shed from the open bathroom door. Raven had never seen the cat before, but talking animals were not a new phenomenon to her. Shifters managed it if they were old or advanced enough, and a multitude of magic users could do it with certain spells, to say nothing of shifters using magic items.
“Who are you?” she asked. For some reason, her fear drained from her like water through a sieve. It was hastily replaced with curiosity – and that odd, comforting weakness that takes over when adrenaline fades. “And…” She looked from the cat to the window and remembered that she was on the eleventh floor of her apartment building. “How did you get up here?”
“I’m sorry young one, but I don’t have the time at the moment to answer a host of irrelevant questions,” said the cat without moving its mouth. The words simply sounded as if by ventriloquist. “Your charge needs you.”
Alarm shot through Raven. She pulled her phone from her inner jacket pocket and glanced down at it. She’d been trying to get ahold of Sam all night. There was still no response.
But once she realized what she was doing, she froze and slowly looked back up at the cat. The cat who had called her a “guardian,” and who had just now referred to Samantha as her “charge.”
“You do mean Samantha, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew the cat would confirm it.
But the cat neither confirmed nor denied it. Instead, she jumped off the window seat and moved around Raven’s legs before heading to the bedroom door and glancing back over her shoulder. Raven took the hint and followed the feline out of the room.
She was led down the short hall to the living room, and waited at the entrance while the cat lithely leapt from the floor to the top of the desk against the wall. Raven had a small “home office” set up there, which she used to help Samantha create “photographs” that they then turned around and sold for the money Samantha used to survive. It was Sam’s career: the obtainment of photographs of mythological creatures so very realistic, no other graphic designer or artist in the world could reproduce them.
Which of course was because they were not in fact creations, but real photographs. Of Sam. In her various mythological forms.
Raven would then use her computer and a bit of special software to add a watermark to the photographs and a signature Sam designed in order to copyright them and make them appear as creations after all. After which, Sam turned around and sold them to the highest bidder. To this day, she’d made thousands on these images. It kept her in clothes and food and rent as she moved around the nation… escaping the man who’d hunted her since she was fifteen.
Now the cat circled the computer keyboard, and Raven took the hint. She moved to the desk, sat down, and stared at the cat as she booted up the system. “Is Sam in danger?” she asked point-blank.
“You already know she is, guardian,” said the cat. “You feel it in your gut, do you not? Despite the film of confusion your enemy has placed over your mind. Samantha O’Neill is your charge. It has been your job to look after her safety since she was born. As it is the job of every guardian for every magishifter.”
Raven froze in the swiveling chair at the desk and stared into the cat’s blue, blue eyes. “How do you know all of this?” she asked softly. Too softly. She’d lost a bit of her voice as the cat’s revelations moved through her and more and more shock kicked in. “What… film of confusion?” she asked next. Dread joined her surprise as she realized she didn’t want an answer to her second question.
“You know good and well,” replied the cat as it sat gracefully back on its haunches and tilted its little head. It was a petite cat, slim and small, white as a ghost but fo
r eyes like blue topaz search lights. “The one Samantha has been running from her entire life has had his magic fingers in the workings of your brain, Raven Ashwing. You know it to be true.”
Raven touched her temple and felt a slight pain somewhere deep inside. A fuzziness inside her thoughts shifted. She saw a face… with one eye. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Jack Colton is here.” The fucker had been in her head.
“Right now, he is not your greatest concern,” said the cat quickly. “Samantha is. She isn’t answering your messages. And for good reason.”
“Okay, what is it you want me to see?” Raven asked, looking back at the screen. Focusing on Sam cleared her thoughts a little more, and it was a strange feeling. As if someone was literally pulling gauzy curtains back before her inner eye. Her computer was up and running and the internet connection had been established.
“Show me a map,” directed the cat. Raven did as she was told, pulling up Google Maps. It automatically zeroed in on her current location, showing her as a red locale in Chicago. The map went on to stretch out in every direction, revealing other states and the southern curve of Lake Michigan.
“She will need medical aid,” said the cat. “You can find her here.” She rose upon her back legs and gently placed a forepaw upon the computer’s screen. “Gods but this looks different behind these eyes,” said the cat in wonder. And then she sat back down and turned her head to face Raven again. “Take everything you have, Ashwing, and move quickly. The life of the magishifter depends upon it.”
Chapter Ten
Jack felt a wave of heat wash over him, like the water touching his skin coming to a sudden and horrible boil. That heat was laced with lightning, which crackled along his body, alighting every nerve ending in a way that made him want to inhale and scream. But he’d known this was coming, and he knew his survival depended upon going deeper and not breathing.
Faster, deeper, and the Entity’s agony followed him down like a diving suit, wrapped tight around him. Did he think he could escape it? Did he think he could shake it off?
Doubt began to enter his mind. It wiggled its slimy green fingers in through holes in his consciousness, and the fear added to his pain. Which added to his doubt.
He slowed a little, reconsidering. I won’t make it, floated a thought.
But then he was pushing downward again, as if his body were separate from his will. It was determined to survive. And maybe it knew better than he did that the only way to do that was to go deeper.
Down here in this darkness, the Entity would lose sight of him. He would lose trace of him. And Jack would stand a chance. As he pushed, he shifted. Each transformation took him through a different type of fish, and each one afforded him a brief lapse in the pain. Shifting itself was not a comfortable endeavor. The body changed, right down to its DNA. That wasn’t supposed to be a pleasurable experience. DNA wasn’t supposed to change. If it did, it meant you had radiation poisoning. Or that you were becoming a superhero.
But unlike the wrong magic that was coursing over his body, seeping the strength from his will and the energy from his bones, he was accustomed to the sensation of shifting, and that familiarity eased his pain ever so slightly. So he kept doing it. It might have been the tiny edge that enabled him to continue downward. It might have been his saving grace.
That, and the image he contained in his mind, the single picture he refused to let go of – the mental portrait of the woman he’d dreamed of for the last twenty years.
Survive, and you will find her again, Jack. Survive this and you’ll see her, maybe talk to her, fix things.
He closed his eyes, no longer to see anything through the black muck around him anyway.
You’ll marry her, he told himself firmly. The single benefit to this attack, to its incessant trailing of him through the water, was that it was focused on him and not her. He was giving her time to escape. His initial plan may have been to head her off, confront her, and be done with this chase once and for all. But that had changed the moment Astaroth arrived.
Have children with her.
The pain was pierced with intervals overwhelming, and for a split moment, he was ready to give up. And then, like a merciful magic all its own, the crackling around him began to subside. His eyes flew open. More of the dark heat around him shifted and slid away, and he realized the Entity had failed and now his power was leaving.
It’s leaving, he repeated to himself. You’re almost home free. Just keep going. You’ve won.
There was laughter, distant and insipid. It snaked through the lake’s deep like water moccasins or eels. But it was further away, and Jack could sense that the Entity no longer had any idea where he was. He was reaching, like a man dipping his arms into a tub of tar or oil with no concept of what there was in the depths of the container. He was feeling. Searching. He wasn’t ready to give up.
So Jack couldn’t either.
Go deeper!
It was easier now that he’d managed to shake off some of Astaroth’s magic. Jack shifted his form once more and focused on the space in front of him. Little by little, more of his enemy’s power sloughed off his body and drifted away, until at last Jack was alone in the darkness of Michigan’s inky depths.
He didn’t stop, though. Remaining still only threatened to expose him, so he kept moving. He did so for what must have been minutes, but felt like hours. And then he swam for the opposite end of the lake.
Ageless moments passed like dark currents across his altered senses, and after some time, he sensed a change in the water current. There was more muck, his gill-fed breathing became labored, and he instinctively knew a storm had tossed up the lakebed. In that muck, he scented new things – plants, animals, the taste of water touched by chaos. And then… there was a scent that brought him to a sudden, undulating stop in the water. It was blood.
Her blood.
*****
When she hit the water, Samantha changed at once. The ice cold lake washed over her like a nightmare, all-encompassing and all dark. Her dragon body didn’t like it. It wanted to be in the sky, not underwater. It felt as if it wanted to be surrounded by electricity, not in a substance that could leach that electricity out of her and take it away faster than any other substance on Earth.
So she shifted, allowing the water to choose her next form for her. In the span of a few short seconds, she went from serpent of the sky to serpent of the sea – but this was not the sea. There was no salt here in this Great Lake; there was no salt in any Great Lake, and in her haste she’d forgotten that. At once, she began to feel the ill effects of fresh water on a body that needed the opposite. Meanwhile, the hole in her shoulder pulsed. Each pulse grew beyond the boundaries of the last, spreading her pain into new thresholds, pushing her envelope of tolerance.
She gritted her massive, sharp teeth and shifted once more. This time, she chose a form less mythological and more practical, overweighing her body’s instinctive need to be fierce with the logic she desperately needed to survive.
A simple but large sturgeon fish swam steadily through the cold waters of the lake, instinctively heading toward the shallows and trailing blood behind it. She’d never transformed so many times so quickly before, nor had she ever assumed so many mythological shapes in such close succession, and it wasn’t without repercussion. Shifting normally focused the mind and cleared the head, but she was injured, and this was too much. She felt sluggish, drained. Her change-addled mind worried about the blood she was leaving behind. She thought of things like sharks, despite the fresh water and logic gap. Then she thought of worse things. Deeper things. Monsters in the muck with open, gaping maws coming up from below to end her.
The pulse of her heart climbed with each nasty image her imagination conjured, and she knew enough to realize that a faster heartbeat meant faster bleeding. Like a Catch-22, the knowledge further fed her fear, which continued to increase her heart rate.
The shore could not get to her fast enough. She could not push her fins
hard enough. The passing storm had churned the water, adding mud and debris to her path, making it more difficult to navigate. But the silver lining was that it camouflaged her scent as well, mingling with her blood and hiding her silvery body from hungry, searching gazes.
Many pressing minutes later, the feel of the water changed once more, becoming dirtier and sandier, and she knew she was nearly at the shore. She began to shift, taking on four legs just as the lakebed hit her belly. Then, one last time, she shifted back into her human form.
It was like adding kettle bells to her limbs; she sank for a moment underneath the effort of carrying the much larger form. But with strength she didn’t know she possessed, she pulled herself out of the water.
Chapter Eleven
Raven arrived on the shore as the sun began coming up over the lake’s horizon. She ran a hand through her long black hair to get it out of her face and turned around in the sand. The wind was starting up with the changing temperature, the tide was low, and not far away there was a sandy rise, atop which stood a long wooden structure with two lighthouses. The further, smaller lighthouse, was familiar to her.
That’s the one always covered in ice in those winter pictures, she thought absentmindedly. This was some sort of vacation spot, fairly famous for the lighthouse. Long stretches of sand beckoned, and she could see how it would be inviting in the summer. But her brow was furrowed and her blood pressure was high, because the one thing she wanted to see and didn’t see was any sign of Sam.
This is where the map told me to go, she thought. And the cat. Plus, she actually sensed that Sam was nearby. It was perhaps one of the few benefits of being the magishifter’s guardian. She could feel her charge when she was near. And she definitely felt her now.