Guardian Of The Grove (15 page)

“Help me get this thing outside,” I said to Marcus as I sheathed one of my blades and went to free the other one from the monster’s leg.

Marcus tucked the heart back into his robes and grabbed one of the wendigo’s arms. Between us, we managed to get the thing out of the building and onto the grass. April and Alby met us at the creature’s corpse, and Detective Velasquez limped slowly toward us.

“What is that thing?” the detective asked, walking closer.

“You don’t want to know,” I said, pooling the flames back around my hands. The detective stared at me in wonder. “In fact, if you didn’t remember anything about tonight, it would probably be a good idea.” I let the fire wash over the wendigo’s corpse, and this time, it burned. I kept the flames going until there was nothing left but ash.

“People need to know that things like this exist and that people like you are out there to stop them,” she said, looking at me with a newfound respect.

“No, they don’t, Detective. I know that it’s a lot for me to ask of you, but you need to forget about what you saw tonight. There is no easy way to say this, but that knowledge makes you a threat to us, and we can’t have that.”

“What are you saying? That if I told people what happened, that you would what?” She tried to stare a hole through me. “Kill me?”

“We would do whatever we had to make sure the truth didn’t get out. The good news, Detective, is that no one would believe your story anyway. Trust me, sometimes it's better to stay quiet.”

“You have a point there. I’m not willing to toss my career away on a fairytale. But how do I explain all of this? I asked them to block off the cemetery, and my car is destroyed.”

“Do you trust me, Detective?”

“Not even remotely.”

“Then you’re going to have to have a little faith.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“You’ll see.” I motioned toward Marcus, and he hit her with a blast of magic, sending her into a deep sleep.

B
y the time
we got home, the cemetery was all over the news. We flipped on the TV, and a few chuckles slipped out at what they were reporting. If they only knew what had really happened, the story wouldn’t stop playing for months. This story would be forgotten in less than a week.

The chopper flew over the cemetery, getting footage of the large excavator that had been used to flip over a police car and damage the side of a building. The tread marks and broken tombstones littered the area. There also seemed to be graffiti sprayed on some of the walls and on the machine used to commit the crime. A bedraggled Detective Velasquez stepped in front of the camera, and a reporter asked her what happened.

I quickly turned up the volume. “We received a tip early in the day that someone was planning to vandalize the cemetery. We had officers posted at all the main entrances and exits, and I was on patrol inside the perimeter. I approached the excavator in my car, and they managed to flip the car over and roll it down a small hill. At that point, they must have used the stolen vehicle to smash into the building, and then they ran. I’m sure that we will find those responsible for the destruction soon. If you have any information on those involved, please reach out to the police via the non-emergency number.”

I clicked off the TV and looked at Marcus. “You did a good job, man. No way anyone but the detective will ever know what happened.

He smiled. “Yeah, and she seems to be handling all of this very well considering she got tossed around and almost killed.”

“I have an idea on how to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone about us. A private donation to the cemetery ought to ease any ill will she feels toward us. Not to mention it will make replacing the tombstones and grass easy. The last thing we want is for it to be overly traumatic for anyone who has family buried there.”

“I think I can handle that,” Sarah said from behind us.

I’m not ashamed to say that I jumped when she spoke. I happened to be in good company because everyone had a hand on a weapon except for Marcus. Marcus’s fingers glittered blue for a moment, and then the light faded away. Damn, were all Lycans that quiet? That was something I was going to have to remember if I ever had to bring one down.

“Did you just come into some extra money?”

“No, but I have someone who owes me a rather large favor, and they happened to have just inherited a rather large sum of money. Enough that asking them to make a donation wouldn’t be out of the question.”

It was good to have her back in my life, and hopefully that meant her recruiting trip had gone well. I would have to ask her about it soon. I kept my eyes on her and realized just what I was seeing. Blood was leaking through her shirt in a few spots. “Mom, are you ok?”

“Yeah, nothing to worry about.”

I watched as it happened almost in slow motion. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she started to slump. My hands shot forward, almost of their own volition, and I managed to catch her. Cradling her body with my own, we slid to the ground in a heap. Before I managed to say anything, April and Marcus were there. April ripped off her shirt, and her and Marcus went to work healing her wounds.

“Jackson, she has some kind of silver laced in these wounds. I’m going to need you to burn it out, and then I’ll heal her. It’s going to hurt like hell, but it has to be done.”

“I can do that,” was what I said. But inside I wasn’t so sure. The last thing I wanted to do was put her through that kind of pain. If she started screaming, I wasn’t sure how long my resolve would hold.

April seemed to notice something in my facial expression. “If we don’t do this now, she could die. Man the fuck up.” She always knew just the right thing to say when I needed to focus.

Now that was something I could do. “I got this,” I whispered as I exhaled.

She turned my mother’s body with Marcus’s help. “We will hold her; you burn. That trick you used with your finger at the cemetery should do it, but it needs to be hotter. Alby, come over here and grab her legs.”

April put a hand on my arm, and I nodded once, but my attention was already focused on the job at hand. The magic rushed through me, and my heart pounded so hard I could hear it.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It sounded like a jackhammer in my ears. Everything around me faded away, and I got to work.

Her back was the worst of it. It looked like someone had shredded her with a knife. I went to each cut methodically and burned out the poison. At first, she withered and bucked in April and Marcus’s grasp, but at some point she fell unconscious, and her body went limp in their arms. Seeing her that way scared the shit out of me. I almost preferred the twisting and whimpering version of her that had come before this. At least then I knew she was alive. I couldn’t stop to think about what kind of damage I was doing to her; I just had to finish it.

Once Sarah’s back was done, I moved to her stomach. I could feel April gathering her power next to me, sending waves of healing energy into her as I worked. It wouldn’t do much until I was done, but it would ease some of the trauma to her body, and for that, I was grateful. The wound on her stomach went much quicker than her back had gone, and finally, I could focus on the last scratches on her forearm.

I was finished. April went to work, and the wounds started to repair themselves. She looked at me with silent desperation. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure; this should be working.”

Alby spoke from behind April. “Maybe she needs to shift.”

“Let’s get her outside,” Marcus said.

I started to lift her unconscious body and felt April’s hands on me. “She doesn’t need to go outside to shift.”

“You’re right, but if she does it in here, she could damage something. She could wake up in a panic,” Marcus said.

I pulled her up from the ground and carried her gingerly out the door into the backyard. I held her and whispered into her ear. “You can’t leave me now, Mom. I just found you, and you’re the only family I have left. Fight for me.” I put her body down onto the grass and sent a small burst of my own healing aura into her.

Her body arched, her back coming off of the ground. April moved next to me. “I’m not sure what you did, Jackson, but do it again.”

I hit her with another blast, and this time, a low growl escaped her lips. Her body started to elongate, and I could hear the bones breaking and reshaping themselves. Fur sprouted across her skin, covering her in a silver coat. The transformation looked painful, and within thirty seconds, my mom was gone, replaced by her beast. She stood on her back legs, towering two feet above my head. She looked toward the moon and howled once.

Our eyes met, and a smile pulled at the corners of her muzzle. “You really should have undressed me first. I loved those pants.”

“Sorry, I had other things on my mind at the time.” The tension fell out of my body, and I slumped to my knees. She was going to be ok. April helped me back to my feet. I kissed the top of her head and turned back toward the beast in front of me. I ran a hand through the fur on her arm. “It’s good to have you back, Mom.”

“It’s good to be back,” she growled. “Now unless you want to see your mother naked, I suggest you go inside and send one of the girls out with some clothes.”

Laughter bubbled out of me. Almost as much in relief that she was ok, as it was in that she still had a sense of humor. April and Alby followed me as I headed inside. Marcus lingered behind. “Come on, bro.”

“I’m good here; she isn’t my mom.”

Before I could turn around and grab him, I heard him let out a little yelp. “Ok, ok, I get it, you big furball.” I finished turning to see Marcus holding his arm and walking toward the house.

I gave April my mom’s duffel and then waited for them to join us in the kitchen. They came in a few minutes later. Alby beat me to her, giving her a giant hug. I got mine in, and Marcus just gave Sarah a polite nod.

She walked over to him and gave him a hug anyway. “Sorry about the arm.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve been hurt worse trying to check out a pretty lady.”

My mom ruined his suave comeback by putting her hand on his head and patting it like you would with a child. Normally it would have been an adorable gesture of her messing up his hair, but Marcus’s dreadlocks just bounced around for a second. I still couldn’t help but think that sometimes I wished I could rock that look.

Sarah opened the fridge, but we had eaten almost all of the food. “Is it too late for pizza?” she asked, turning back toward us.

“It’s never too late for pizza,” I answered. “We should get Blackjack’s; they have Ben and Jerry’s.”

“Not anymore. Now they have Dreyer’s,” Alby said.

“When the hell did that happen?”

“I know, right?”

“Screw that. Is East Coast Super Subs still open?”

“They should be.”

“How does everyone feel about huge cheesesteak sandwiches?”

Marcus and my mom gave their seal of approval. April gave me a high five. “All right, we’ll be right back.”

“Ah, Jackson?” Marcus said.

“What up, bro?”

“You might want to change first.”

Looking down, I realized that I still had all my gear on. “Ok, so change first, and then food. I’ll call in the order so all we have to do is pick it up. In the meantime, Mom, do you think you could reach out to that friend and get the cemetery donation worked out? I’d like to have something to tell the detective when she calls.”

“I’ll send him a message now.”

“And you’re not off the hook yet. I expect a full report on what happened to you at dinner.”

“I think that can be arranged. As long as the food is as good as you made it out to be.”

“Best cheesesteak in Tucson.”

“It better be.”

* * *

D
uring dinner
, we told Sarah about our time with Shalana and what she requested of us, and she told us about her fight and what had happened to her. The call had been made, and the gift to the cemetery was being handled. Now we just had to figure out how to move forward. We all knew something was wrong with Shalana, but how could we fix it?

“You guys aren’t going to meet her without me. Which means we can’t go until after I handle the last of my pack business.”

“We could go early and meet the pack later,” I suggested.

“I can’t miss this chance to talk with Max. Right now he is feeling indebted to me. Who knows how long that will last? Right now everyone in that pack will be vying for his attention, trying to secure favors. This thing with Shalana can wait, at least for a few hours.”

Alby jumped in. “She only gets worse the more time that passes. If she gets her hands on the heart, who knows what will happen.”

“Marcus, you still have that thing secure?” Jackson asked.

He pulled out the steel container and set it on the table. “I sure do.”

All of us looked at the jar, seeming to feel the same sense of unease. It radiated evil, and there was no way anything good could come from it. “We should just destroy that thing now.” Alby said, watching the jar as if the heart might spring out and attack us.

“I agree,” April said. “That damn thing is creeping me out.”

“We can’t destroy it yet; that is our in for tomorrow. Without it, she might turn us away.” Jackson looked over their group, hoping now one would disagree.

“I don’t see why it matters; we can’t give it to her,” Alby said.

“Because we need to get inside,” Sarah replied.

“What’s so damn important about going back? It’s not as if we can remove her as the guardian,” Alby said.

“We can’t, but you can.”

“I can’t do what you’re thinking. She would kill me.”

“Maybe the old Shalana could have, but not the one I saw yesterday.”

I looked from my mom to Alby and frowned. “Hey, what are you guys talking about?”

“Your mom wants me to challenge Shalana for control of the grove.”

“Can you do that?” I asked.

“I can, but if I lose, I’ll be executed.”

“Mom, we can’t ask her to do that.”

“Jackson, the grove is more important than any one person’s life. If the elders have grown too comfortable to see the change, then someone has to step up.”

“Fine, I’ll do it. I don’t want Alby to have to risk it.”

Sarah reached out and put a comforting hand on my arm. “I know you want to protect your friend, but it doesn’t work like that. Only someone born of that grove can challenge for control of it. Whatever this corruption is, its spreading and it has to be stopped.”

“I’ll do it,” Alby said, her voice coming out in a whisper. “None of the others have even talked about it, and you’re right. Whatever has her could spread to others.”

“If you lose, I won’t let them execute you!” I roared at no one in particular. “No one kills my friends.” No one at the table met my eye.

Finally, Marcus spoke. “It doesn’t work like that, Jackson. We can’t interfere with Fae business.”

“Fuck that! If she loses the battle, I’m taking her out of there. End of story, game fucking over.”

“It could start a war, bro; we can’t do it.”