Autumn's War (The Spirit Shifters Book 4) (4 page)

“This will funnel the blood, and enough will collect in the pool. Then I will repeat the process with Tocho, only this time I will be funneling your blood into his body, rather than taking blood from him.”

“Aren’t you worried about diseases? Contamination?” Her scientific mind would never rest. “What if something in my blood gives him an infection?”

Lakota smiled. “Spirit shifters do not need to worry about infection. They heal faster than any infection could spread.”

She breathed out a sigh.

“Do you have any more questions?” Lakota asked, looking between them both. Autumn shook her head, but Tocho still had something on his mind.

“How much will it hurt?”

Lakota focused his steady brown gaze on the other man. “It will hurt more than you can even imagine. But it won’t hurt forever. Once the pain passes, you will experience life through another being. Nothing could be as worthwhile.”

“I guess it must be worth it, or spirit shifters would never shift.” Tocho managed a smile.

“That’s right.” Lakota turned to Mia. “I’m in need of a candle, or something else that will burn. Could you search for me?”

She nodded, and headed out to search supplies. David went with her, offering to help. Within a few minutes, they returned. Mia held out an ashtray and a lighter. “Sorry.” She wrinkled her nose. “It was all I could find.”

Lakota took the offered items. “They will be adequate, thank you.” From around his neck, he pulled a pouch. He opened it up and took out a pinch of something, dropping it into the ashtray. To Autumn they appeared to be leaves, grass and twigs.

“What is that?” she asked.

“A mixture of different herbs and oils. Cloves, ginseng oil, pine, and woodworm, among other things. It helps to communicate with the spirits, to welcome them in.” He flicked the lighter, causing flame to erupt from the top, and then lit the herbs. They began to smolder, a pungent smoke rising into the air. He looked between Autumn and Tocho. “Are you both ready now?”

They nodded simultaneously.

“Then, Autumn, please roll up your sleeve.”

She offered the arm that hadn’t already been cut. By the end of this, she had a feeling she was going to look like something out of a horror movie.

Unlike her previous experiences, Lakota’s touch was gentle. He turned her hand so it lay palm up. He placed the sharpest point of the obsidian glass against her skin, the blue veins a network of rivers below her pale flesh, and gently pushed. A sharp sting of pain pierced her arm. Autumn gasped, but she held still, not wanting to jeopardize anything. Her blood started as a dot of red that quickly swelled, and within seconds the blood flowed down the channel in the obsidian and pooled in the indentation below.

“That’s all we need,” said Lakota, pressing on the wound with the piece of cloth the obsidian had been wrapped in. He motioned for Autumn to keep pressing down on the wound while he moved his attentions elsewhere.

He held the obsidian so the blood contained within it wouldn’t spill, and turned to Tocho. “Now it’s your turn.”

The man got up from the chair and seated himself, crossed-legged on the floor.

“I will be saying some prayers during the process. Please try to stay quiet.”

Autumn sent Tocho what she hoped was a reassuring smile. The other man smiled back, but the expression was strained.

“Are you ready?” Lakota asked him.

Tocho nodded.

Lakota repositioned the obsidian so it was placed at the indent of the inside of Tocho’s elbow. Anxiously, Autumn watched Tocho’s expression as Lakota pressed the sharp tool into Tocho’s arm. It seemed he needed to create a bigger wound than the one he’d caused on Autumn, because the obsidian plunged deeper, the tip vanishing inside Tocho’s flesh.

Lakota sang his prayers in a low hum, calming and peaceful, though Autumn felt anything but. They were ancient songs, ones she imagined to be sung in a forest, surrounded by nature, rather than in a tourist shack.

Tocho gritted his teeth, his eyes squeezed shut. Every muscle in his body tightened to the point of snapping. Lakota tipped the obsidian so the blood he’d collected poured into Tocho’s wound, the stone keeping the hole open. Some of the blood, probably a mixture of both hers and his, trickled down the inside of his arm and dripped onto the rug.

Could she feel the spirits around her? Drawn in by a mixture of Lakota’s words, the smoldering herbs, and her blood. The hair rose on her arms and the back of her neck. She was sure she could feel souls standing around her, a tension in the air that hadn’t been present before.

Lakota removed the obsidian from Tocho’s arm and said a couple of final words. He touched him on the head like a priest blessing a member of his flock, and then moved back.

Autumn watched, her breath caught in her chest in anticipation. She knew there would be a pause between the addition of her blood, and the spirit taking hold, but a part of her still worried the connection wouldn’t happen. That all of this was just one big fraud.

But Tocho’s eyes suddenly widened, except not in fear this time, but wonder. He stared up at something above her head she could not see. His whole body relaxed, a calmness stealing over his expression. The start of a smile began to tweak the corners of his lips.

And then something snapped.

Tocho cried out, the expression on his face switching to contorted agony.

His shoulder jerked back, dislocating from the socket. His arm yanked up and another crack echoed around the room as something else broke. He fell to all fours, but his arms weren’t able to hold him and he toppled forward to land on his face. His face was directed at Autumn, and she tried to hide her horror and fear as the man’s mouth and nose extended from his face, his human teeth dropping like tiny pebbles from his mouth, and large canines replacing them. His back arched and then bucked, his spine snapping and reforming. The shirt he’d been wearing popped open, buttons scattering over the rug to join the teeth and blood. His shoulders grew, splitting the material around the arms, and his biceps became thicker, heavily muscled. From the back of his pants, a tail burst forth, splitting the material and causing the rest of his pants to rip and fall from his body. The tail was naked skin, but as she watched, a layer of fur began to pop from his skin, growing thicker as every moment passed. His thick, black hair fell in strands to the floor, and new ears unfolded from the top of his skull. The pattern of his fur revealed itself before Autumn’s eyes. No matter how many times she watched someone shift, it never grew any less amazing or terrifying. She was just relieved Tocho had completed his transformation, and wasn’t stuck in some kind of mid-shift like the others. Whatever Lakota had done had been right.

She’d had to edge up into the corner of the room to make space for the huge creature.

Lakota looked over at her and grinned. “Well, he’s not a mountain lion.”

She shook her head in wonder. “He certainly isn’t.”

The biggest white tiger she’d ever seen—not that she’d ever seen a white tiger in real life—stood before her. He shook out his fur and padded over to Lakota and Autumn. The big cat nudged its massive head against Autumn’s arm, rubbing in the same way a domestic cat would to its owner. Cautiously, she reached out and ran her fingers through the thick fur on his shoulder. It felt soft as mink fur. A thrumming came from deep within his chest and she started back, before Lakota said, “Don’t be frightened. He’s purring.”

A laugh burst from Autumn’s mouth, a smile spreading across her face. “Yes, so he is.”

They took him outside, like expectant parents showing off their newborn. The massive white tiger padded along behind them, and, as people noticed them coming through the door—though for Tocho it was a squeeze—they fell silent, watching in awe.

Lakota took Autumn’s hand and lifted it into the air. “It worked,” he called to those waiting.

A cheer broke out from the crowd.

Chapter Five

THE BIKE ATE the miles, the road blurring beneath him as he rode.

Chogan felt bad about Madison and Billy riding in the car with the unconscious truck driver, but he figured Nadie and Sahale would be able to take care of them perfectly well. He didn’t know why it was bothering him; they were just two people he’d picked up off the side of the road. He wasn’t responsible for the mother and son, and besides, he had bigger things to worry about.

His thoughts kept returned to the recorded message he’d heard after he’d dialed nine-one-one. Did this mean the government had cut communications for places outside of Chicago? While they were in the compound, they’d not been able to get any internet connection. Had the military interrupted all communication in order to stop the shifters from planning an uprising? Or, perhaps, to stop regular people spreading stories about what the military were doing to them?

He was sure shifters would be living in the other cities. They were bound to respond as the mayhem spread. He wondered if they’d be able to pick up extra support as the main group headed toward Chicago. They’d always avoided going near the big cities before, not wanting to run into more trouble, but they could be missing out on an opportunity.

Chogan risked glancing behind him quickly to make sure the car was still following. They would find the next town big enough to have a hospital and drop their new passengers off there. The truck driver needed medical assistance, and the woman, Madison, should probably get checked out, too.

Finally, just as dusk was falling, he saw a sign for a town and took the exit. Like everywhere else, the place felt deserted, but he sensed drapes twitching as he and Peter rode the bikes through town, the car containing their new passengers following close behind. As they approached downtown, the streetlights beginning to flicker on, he noticed broken shop windows, glass littering the sidewalk. Signs had been torn down. Several vehicles vandalized. He kept his eyes peeled for signs for a hospital.

He saw one, and headed toward it.

This was the place everyone seemed to have congregated. Where the rest of the town had been deserted, the hospital was full of people.

They pulled up outside, where fluorescent lights glowed behind the sign declaring the space the emergency bay.

Sahale jumped out of the car and ran around to open the passenger door where the unconscious man was slumped. “Hey,” he called out to a couple of paramedics carrying a stretcher from the back of an ambulance, toward the front door. “We need some help over here!”

One of the paramedics gave him an apologetic shrug and kept going.

“Damn it,” said Chogan. “Let’s get him in ourselves.”

Between him and Peter, they lifted the man and carried him through the entrance. Madison and Billy followed close behind.

“Stay with the bikes and the car,” Chogan shouted to Nadie and Sahale. “Make sure no one steals them.”

Inside was even more chaotic; people shouted to one another, some others cried. Men and women with various injuries sat on chairs, the floor, and leaned against the walls.

“Jesus,” said Peter, looking around. “What the hell happened here?”

A man overheard him. “Riots about the shifters happened, that’s what. It all got out of hand.”

“You can say that again.”

“This man was in a car accident,” Peter called to one of the nurses. “He’s not regained consciousness. He needs help!”

A nurse gave him a frantic stare, her feet already turned in the opposite direction, torn between her indecision, but then she let out a sigh and turned back to them. “Okay, just hang on one minute.” She yelled out at the rooms beyond the reception area. “I need a gurney in here.”

Within a few moments, a couple of orderlies arrived wheeling a gurney. Together, Chogan and Peter managed to get the guy lying flat on the bed.

“What’s his name?” the nurse asked.

“We don’t know.” said Peter. “We found him in his car.”

“Did he have any identification on him?”

Chogan and Peter exchanged a glance. “We didn’t think to check.”

She patted him down, and found a wallet in his back pocket. “Ralph Georgeson.” She looked back up at the two men. “Okay, we’ll take it from here.”

“What about the woman and the boy?” asked Chogan. “They were involved in the accident as well.”

She glanced to where Chogan gestured. “They don’t look badly injured. I’m afraid they’ll have to wait their turn like everyone else.”

He took in the sight of the multiple people littering the waiting area. “But how long’s that—” he started, but the nurse had already gone, wheeling Ralph Georgeson with her.

He growled. “Now what?”

“Now we go,” said Peter. “We’ve done everything we can.”

“But what about them?” He nodded over to where Madison stood, Billy positioned in front of her, her hands resting protectively on the boy’s shoulders.

“What about them? They’re not our problem. And have you forgotten the reason we’re on this expedition anyway? We don’t need any one else to think about.”

Chogan nodded. Peter was right, of course he was right. He didn’t know why he was feeling so protective over the young mother and child anyway. They seemed to be anti-shifter and would probably only freak out as soon as they found out who their traveling companions were.

“Okay, I need to go tell them.”

He walked over, Peter just behind. “We need to go now. You’ll be safe here,” he told Madison. “The doctors and nurses will see you as soon as they can.”

Someone started an argument, voices rising. A man shoved another against the wall. A third man jumped into the fight.

Madison pulled Billy closer against her. “I’m fine. I don’t need to be seen.”

“But your head ...? Your shoulder?”

“I’ll survive. Take us with you, please. We left all our belongings in the car back on the freeway. I’ve only got a couple of hundred dollars in my bank account, and I’ve got nowhere else to go.” Her green eyes were wide, beseeching. She dropped her tone, and covered Billy’s ears with her palms. “Please. I don’t feel safe here.”

Chogan looked back to Peter. He shrugged. He was too much of a gentleman to give Chogan a fight about this at least.

“I can’t promise you’ll be safe with us either,” Chogan warned.

“You got us here safely. You helped a man whose name you didn’t even know. I trust that you won’t hurt us.”

“Okay, let’s get out of here.”

Madison breathed a sigh of relief and hustled Billy forward. “Thank you so much.”

They turned and left the hospital. Nadie and Sahale were outside, arguing with someone trying to get them to move the vehicle.

Sahale caught sight of Chogan and Peter approaching. “Okay, okay, we’re going now.” The man who’d been arguing with them slouched off, muttering obscenities under his breath.

Nadie noticed their companions. “Are they coming with us?”

“Yes, they have to,” Chogan said, opening the back door of the car for Madison and Billy to climb in. “It’s a dog-pit in there, and they have nowhere else to go.” He sensed them all exchanging a glance, one that said, ‘what the hell is he doing,’ but no one challenged him. 

“Why don’t you take the bike for a while?” he told Sahale. “Let me drive.”

Sahale shrugged. “Sure.”

Chogan threw him the keys for the bike. The keys for the car were already in the ignition, so he climbed behind the wheel and waited for Nadie to get in the passenger side, while Madison sat with Billy in the back.

They pulled away and took the now dark road leading back out of town. Within a matter of minutes, Billy had fallen asleep with his head in his mother’s lap. It was probably way past the boy’s bedtime.

Madison piped up from the back. “So where are you guys heading anyway?”

Chogan glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before grabbing the ride?”

She shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t care where we’re going, I was just curious, that’s all.”

“We’re looking for some people—my cousins.” He didn’t want to add in the details about how one of them was dead, and they might end up with a body in the trunk before the end of the day. He also didn’t intend on telling her that his other cousin, if they found her, was more of a monster than Madison had ever encountered. If she thought a couple of fully formed wolves were scary, he didn’t want to think about what she’d make of Tala in a mid-shift form. It certainly wasn’t something he’d want Billy to see.

Tala won’t be there anyway
, he told himself.
The soldiers would have taken her.
They would either be keeping her captive somewhere or they’d have killed her by now. He tried to protect his heart from the spear of pain that shot through it.

He wondered what had happened to all the other shifters he’d escaped with—Leah, Toby, even Rhys. He hoped they’d all made it to safety, had made it back to their families, though if he ever came across Rhys again, he intended on punching the man in the face for dumping Tala during their escape. Rhys was as much to blame as anyone for Blake getting shot. If he’d carried Tala as he’d promised, Blake would never have needed to go back for her.

Making a mental note to check with Mia about Toby when they were back together, he refocused his attention on the road. It wouldn’t be too much farther now before they reached the access road, and he wanted to stop a long way before and travel the rest either on foot or by bike so they didn’t attract any more attention to themselves.

“So how come you’re moving away from Billy’s dad?” he asked, checking the rear view mirror again to make sure the boy was still asleep. The amount of light available in the car was barely enough to see by.

Her mouth twisted. “I don’t know if you’d call it moving, or running.”

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t exactly know we’re gone. Well, I guess he might now. He didn’t come back from the bar last night, so I used the opportunity, and grabbed Billy and a few of our things, and took the car.”

Chogan lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “I take it you weren’t getting on then?”

She gave a cold bark of laughter. “That’s the understatement of the year. He was aggressive with me—not hitting me, but shoving me, pinning me up against walls whenever he got angry. He even locked me in the bathroom one time because I’d disagreed with something he’d said.” She lowered her voice. “I could handle it, but then he started putting his hands on Toby, smacked him because he had an accident, or spilled some juice. He started swearing at Toby, calling him horrible things. I threatened I’d leave if he didn’t change his ways, but he didn’t. So I left.”

Chogan nodded, thinking how much strength it must have taken to pack up your worldly belongings and walk out on your life to protect your child from his own father.

Nadie, who had been quietly watching the world go by from the passenger window, reached out and tapped Chogan’s arm. “We’re almost there, aren’t we?” she said, pointing to a sign for the National Forest.

“Yep. We are.”

He spotted a particularly wide area of road and pulled onto the shoulder, signaling for the others to pull in, too. It was as a good a spot as any.

“You guys wait in the car,” he told Madison, as he climbed out.

“How long are you going to be?”

“I can’t be sure. We’ll be at least a couple of hours, so make yourselves comfortable. Try to get some sleep.”

“Can’t we come with you?”

He shook his head. “Not this time. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t argue with him, and for that he was glad. She seemed to trust him, though he felt her trust was misplaced. All he’d managed to do so far was let everyone down.

They’d have to share the bikes for the moment. Peter and Sahale, awkwardly straddling one bike with Peter driving, while Chogan took Nadie on the other. If later they needed space to fit Blake’s body across one of the seats, one of them would have to shift and come back by animal, making sure they shifted back well before they reached the car so they didn’t frighten Madison and the boy.

“You’ll be fine,” he told Madison, who watched them anxiously from the open driver’s door. “Lock the doors, and put the seats back. Try to get some rest.” She nodded, her hand instinctively resting on her son’s leg. She leaned forward, over the driver’s seat, and pulled the door shut. The boy hadn’t woken, despite all the commotion. The last few hours, together with whatever drama he’d been dealing with before, had obviously taken its toll on him. Chogan wondered if Billy’s father was looking for them. Would the man know by now that Madison had run with their son? What kind of sick son of a bitch would you need to be to hurt a woman as beautiful and vulnerable as Madison, and threaten a child as well?

He let out the throttle on the bike and got moving, Nadie holding onto the back of the seat, rather than his waist. Peter and Sahale followed close behind. They headed into the forest, the headlights on the bike lighting the way, bumping and jolting over the uneven trail. His wolf ran up front of the bikes, helping Chogan to see where he was going by sending back images of what lay ahead. Despite Chogan’s anxiety, his wolf displayed none of Chogan’s concerns. Instead, it ran on ahead, tongue lolling. Every so often, its nose dropped to the ground as it caught another scent, and changed direction, darting in a way that made Chogan almost lose control of the bike. He trusted his wolf’s instincts; it would lead him back to the exact place he’d left Blake. Though he knew he’d be able to find the cabin again easily enough, he’d run from the soldiers for so long, exhausted and in fear and pain, he could easily mistake one clump of bushes or gathering of trees for another, so missing the place where he’d abandoned Blake’s body.