Winging It (30 page)

‘Why would you be helping me? To trick me into trusting you again?’

‘Messing with Mages, especially if it doesn’t look as if I’m the one responsible, is always a good thing as far as I’m concerned.’

‘You’re just trying to get me killed.’

‘If you’d taken one step, you would have managed it yourself. They don’t take kindly to intruders.’ He made a sound that could have been a laugh. ‘Maybe they know we’re here even now.’

They?

Kohana flew over the forest, which truly did look as if it extended to the horizon in every direction.

Did he really imagine I was going to trust him?

Before I could think of asking, he hovered over a tree.

‘Do your salamander thing,’ he ordered.

Then he dropped me.

We weren’t very high above the trees. There was a hole in the trunk of a tree, one that could be seen only from the top. As I fell straight toward it, I realized his intent. I shifted shape, even as the branches of the tree touched my feet.

I barely managed the change in time. I lost some skin sliding into the hole, had time to wince, and then Trevor’s memory engulfed me.

Kohana had dumped me into the memory of the night Trevor had joined the Mages.

We were somewhere out in the country. It was hard to tell exactly, because the air was so thick with Mage spells. The scene was almost lost in blindingly bright gold, a swirling network of spell light on every side. I could see individual spells of every shade of yellow and gold, tangling together to create an impenetrable mesh.

If I peered through the spell light, though, I could see a gathering of people, singing in a field. Well, a field with statues in it. Where were we? It was night, although the sky was clear and the moon was full. That moon cast its silvery light over the chorus of singers.

No, it wasn’t exactly a field. It was a cemetery! A big one. But I could see the lights of streets and buildings beyond its dark perimeter. Gravestones glowed in the moonlight, more than a few showy memorials among them.

I saw a crusading knight carved of white stone, leaning on his shield as if he were watching the festivities.

The people who were singing – they must have been Mages – stood in concentric circles. Those in the two inner circles faced the center and the people in the last one faced outward. Sentries, maybe.

I hoped they wouldn’t be able to see me.

I darted forward in salamander form, having a good bit of distance to cover but not wanting to risk a larger form. They’d probably notice a dragon.

On the other hand, I might not be discernible. I wasn’t part of the memory, after all.

I stayed as a salamander, just in case. I did wish I might have been a darker color than white, as the moonlight had to be making me look like a silver flash. I paused to catch my breath at the base of a statue that had been enclosed in a glass box, presumably to protect it.

It depicted a little girl, holding a parasol and smiling slightly.

Did she wink at me?

Or was I just losing my mind?

I darted closer to the singers, keeping to the shadows. Most of the Mages had their eyes closed, which worked for me. I scooted past the outer circle, slipping between two participants, just as the chorus rose to a crescendo.

I saw the Mages on either side of me respond to the song, beginning to flicker between forms in that way that made me nauseous. I kept my head down and passed through the next circle, slipping between the ankles of another singer.

He started to stamp his foot right when I was between his feet, which made me race forward.

The occupants of the inner circle were seated, hands folded in their laps. They seemed to be kids and when I saw a younger version of Trevor, I guessed that they were apprentices. They had front-row seats for whatever the action was going to be.

There was a figure in the very center of the circle, bound with spell light just as Jessica had been. She wasn’t moving. I switched between my alternate visions of the scene and discerned that she was still breathing.

And that she had a fishy tail.

A mermaid.

A shape shifter.

An older woman stood in the middle of the circle, beside the mermaid. She watched the moon as the song grew louder. Then she nodded and reached into her sleeves. I was sure they were flowing and empty, but she pulled a dark weapon from the folds of fabric.

The Mages gasped in appreciation.

The woman smiled.

The moonlight slipped over the weapon in a strange liquid way, making it look like it was coated in quicksilver.

I had a bad feeling about this.

‘Behold the NightBlade,’ the woman sang as she held the blade high. The chorus echoed her words, singing them so that they reverberated. ‘Gift of the ShadowEaters. Carved of a meteorite. Possessed of the power to liberate shadows.’

She waved the blade as she sang this. I assumed she was making symbols in the air, but I couldn’t figure out what they were. The spell light was so vivid and the light emanating from the blade was blindingly bright.

‘We invoke the ShadowEaters,’ she sang. ‘And invite them to our feast. Come, come among us, exalted ones. Come and partake of our offering.’

The mermaid began to struggle, panicking maybe, shifting between human and half-fish form in agitation. The apprentices smiled, more than one leaning forward in anticipation.

The beat of the song changed and the words changed into a language I didn’t know. The spell light began to pulse with insistence. The woman bent, murmuring in that same language, repeating a sentence over and over again. She took that blade and cut closely around the mermaid’s body.

The mermaid thrashed. The mermaid fought. The mermaid screamed.

Then she was completely still.

The woman straightened, holding a dark form in one hand, the blade in the other. The mermaid’s shadow dripped over the woman’s fingers, limp.

Liberated.

‘Last of her kind,’ she roared. ‘An offering worthy of our exalted ones. Come, feast with us, O blessed ones.’

And they did. Silver forms materialized between the Mages, seeming to emerge from thin air. Or shadows. They were indistinct forms, faintly human but difficult to discern. I felt as if I could see them better out of the corner of my eye.

But they were real. They had a strange, powerful presence. As soon as they arrived, I felt astonished.

And terrified. There was something enormous and dark about them, and the threat they posed wasn’t just smoke and mirrors.

The Mages and apprentices stared in awe at the forms flitting between them, appearing and disappearing. Many of them forgot to sing. The woman with the knife exalted and laughed as they all spun gleefully around the shadow that she offered.

It got visibly smaller.

ShadowEaters.

And then, abruptly, they disappeared.

The woman was obviously disappointed, and I wondered what she had hoped for.

Then she raised her hands, still holding one piece of the mermaid’s shadow in her hand. ‘And so we are blessed to share in the feast, to revel in the power, to know that the divine ones still show us their favor.’ She tore the shadow into pieces and handed it to the other Mages and apprentice Mages.

She consumed the piece of shadow she held with glee.

I looked around to see the other participants eating as well. Some nibbled, some devoured, and some threw it back with gusto while others savored the treat. There was no singing, just the frantic orange spin of spell light.

And the sound of chewing.

‘And so we are driven to give flesh to those who have gone before,’ the woman cried. ‘And so we again will offer the shadow of the last of a shifter kind to the ShadowEaters, until they have consumed enough to walk among us once again.’

This was the surge of power they would get by eliminating all shifters.

The woman raised her hands again. A shout rose from the Mages in the circle, the ones flickering between forms. Suddenly, in unison, they all shifted to the form of mer-people. I was surrounded by mermaids and mermen, by glittering glistening scales and luxuriant hair.

Laughing in their triumph.

Meanwhile, the mermaid whose shadow had been taken was dissolving. She turned into a fine mist, one that appeared to be a ghostly version of the mermaid in life.

The woman smiled coldly.

Then she deliberately blew on the mermaid. The form of the mermaid wavered, recovered, and then all of those gathered blew in its direction in unison.

The mermaid was dispersed.

Her body was completely gone.

I had just watched one more species of shifter pass into the realm of myth and fantasy.

That was when I knew for sure that I was going to puke.

* * *

The good news was that I managed to spontaneously manifest back in Isabelle’s dorm room.

The bad news was that I did puke, and on arrival.

It’s not the most elegant way to make an entrance.

Fortunately, Isabelle thinks fast about all matters connected with spontaneous manifestation. She caught it all in the plastic wastebasket that was parked under her desk. She pushed me into her desk chair and I sat there with my feet braced against the floor and my head between my knees. The last thing I wanted that chair to do was spin.

‘That bad?’ Isabelle asked and I nodded. I couldn’t shake the image of that mermaid being devoured and destroyed. I closed my eyes more tightly, as if that would make the sight go away.

Instead I saw a figure in a hooded cloak, its facial features hidden in the shadows of the cowl.

The last thing I needed was a visit from Urd and her laughing skull face. I opened my eyes and gulped down the glass of water that Meagan offered.

‘You done?’ Isabelle asked, holding up the wastebasket, and I nodded again. She left with that prize and I heard the water running in the bathroom.

‘Chocolate?’ Meagan asked, offering some of Isabelle’s hoard. ‘Isabelle always gives you food.’

I told you she was brilliant.

By the time Isabelle came back into the room, I’d pulled it together a bit.

‘It helps with the change,’ I told Meagan. ‘My blood sugar seems to take a big hit.’ I wasn’t sure my stomach was trustworthy, but the chocolate tasted good. I chewed slowly and willed my horror to subside. ‘Thanks.’

Meagan gave me an expectant look. ‘So tell us.’

‘It’s gross.’

‘We can take it,’ Isabelle said. Both cats turned, as if they, too, wanted to know.

I told them what I’d seen. I didn’t leave out anything. When I was done, I wasn’t any less upset than I’d been at the time.

Meagan grimaced. ‘That’s what they’re going to do to Jessica.’

I stared at the wrapper of the chocolate bar, knowing she was right. ‘And they’ll be one step closer to helping the ShadowEaters manifest,’ I said grimly.

‘Two, if Derek is like the wolves’ Wyvern,’ Isabelle said.

‘Three if they get Zoë and the guys, too,’ Meagan concluded.

It wasn’t the most upbeat possibility imaginable. ‘But we have to try to save them. We can’t just stay away,’ I said and the other two nodded agreement.

‘Did you recognize the woman who was leading them?’ Isabelle asked.

I shook my head.

‘Any of them?’ she insisted.

I shook my head again. ‘Just Trevor.’

Isabelle absently patted the striped cat, which had come to sit in her lap. ‘What about the memory forest?’

‘Just a dead forest that went on forever.’

The gray cat seemed to consider its options, then came to Meagan. I saw her wince as it kneaded her lap with its paws and knew it had its claws. It settled into a ball quickly, watching me as she scratched its ears.

‘How many trees were there?’ Meagan asked.

‘I don’t know. Thousands.’ I smiled. ‘I didn’t count them.’

Meagan didn’t smile back. She chewed her lip and rubbed the cat. ‘If each month is a tree, how could Trevor’s memory be such a big forest?’

She was right.

Kohana had said
they
.

She took my silence as skepticism. ‘Seriously. He’s seventeen or so. That means he’s lived seventeen times twelve months. Two hundred and four trees, give or take six or so. Were there more trees than that?’

‘Lots more.’

Isabelle looked between us. ‘So, either he’s not what he seems to be – as old as he seems to be – or it’s not just his memory.’

‘Well, he doesn’t wear a glamour, like Adrian. I’d be able to see through that with the ring.’

‘There could be another way for them to disguise their identity,’ Isabelle said.

‘But Trevor’s an apprentice. It doesn’t make sense that he’d know more tricks than Adrian.’

Meagan stroked the cat’s head, thinking. ‘If he is the age he appears to be, then what are all the other trees?’ She glanced up at me. ‘Maybe they have a kind of hive memory. Shared real estate and shared memories.’

‘That’s creepy.’ But it made sense.

‘What else did you notice?’ Isabelle asked.

‘It was a full moon in the vision,’ I said.

‘That’s when the book says the ceremony has to be held,’ Meagan said.

‘November fifteenth,’ Isabelle reminded us. ‘The night before your birthday.’

Meagan drummed her fingers on the mattress and I wondered what she was thinking. ‘Could you tell where the ceremony was held?’

‘They might not meet in the same place every time,’ I had to note. ‘It was a cemetery, though.’

‘That could help. Were there any distinctive gravestones?’

‘A knight. Like a crusader. And a little girl in a glass box.’

‘We’ve got to be able to research that,’ Isabelle said. ‘Draw it for me and I’ll see if I can find it online.’

‘It’d be better to find out where the guys are being held,’ I said. I was drawing as I spoke, Meagan watching over my shoulder. ‘And spring them early, if we can.’

‘Maybe we should each work on something different,’ Meagan said, her tone purposeful. ‘Isabelle can look for the gravestones. I’ll take another run at breaking the code on that Mage book.’

‘What about me?’