Page 48 of Midlife Shifter Unexpected

“It would make sense.”

“But why would a monster be out in the forests of southern Oregon?” Trina asked. “We haven’t seen activity like this around here ever.”

“We haven’t seen activity like any of this,” Hilda said. “You need to start looking at all the pieces. Mae was attacked by a vampire, which she had to kill. We felt the threat of having the cemetery at risk, so we took out the pendant, and then through some clever thinking on Trina’s part, we found another member of the pendant. Bianca was then required to kill a monster. It is as if each member of the coven is being put on trial.”

Chapter 35

They cleared the area in front of the fireplace in the Red Room. Where there used to be a coffee table, there was now a large mattress that looked surprisingly like an overgrown doggy bed. Even out of the corner of my eye, I could see that. They laid me down on it and got the fire going.

“I’ll make a tonic that we can rub onto her muscles,” Trina said.

I only hoped they’d give Matheus the tonic to rub on me, but it seemed Matheus was thinking of other things. “I’m sure it was a hit on her directly.”

“What? Do you think the monster killed the harpies accidentally?” Mae asked.

“Regardless, we know the monster didn’t come of its own accord. Those things have trackers. They do what their boss tells them.” Branson explained.

“Who rules the monsters?” Mae asked. “Do they fall in the demigod bucket or the Fae bucket?”

Drake leaned forward enthusiastically. Monsters exist in the rift in the darkness outside of our world. Sometimes they end up on our side of the rift, but there are only three that can do that.”

“What do you mean three?” Jane asked.

“Well, there are different tiers of monsters and it kind of determines how much intelligence and capabilities they have. The one that came through is a tier three, so it’s smart enough to do what somebody tells it to, but it’s too dumb to think for itself, which makes it a dangerous creature indeed.” Drake had clearly spent some time studying these creatures. “Those monsters are owned typically by demons or by higher monsters. Tier Two tends to serve Tier One and higher. The tier one, well, they’re like Bianca. They’re shifters. They change shape into monsters but other than that, they have a human body.”

“What I’m not understanding is the connection,” Mae said. “The vampire was here and I killed him. You warned me others would come. Is this the next wave?” A monster?”

“If this was the next wave, you would know it. There’d be more than two dead out in your yard,” Branson said.

Trina finished the salve and held it out to Jane, who came over and started rubbing it against my muscles. At least, I think that’s what she was doing. I couldn't turn my head or see anything. I was stuck in frozen in wolf form.

“So, if there’s a monster here, they can be told what to do. Who is it telling the monsters what to do?” Mae asked.

“It could be anyone,” Hilda said. “You could drop a contract with a demon to use as monsters if you wanted to.

“They’re mainly controlled by demons and other monsters, but they’re on the demigod side. At the top of the food chain is Ryder, the God of Monsters.” Drake made it sound like it was an introduction at a sporting event.

“What a title. I’d love to meet the guy one day.” Jane chuckled.

“He’s not a God. He’s a Demigod. They need to stay away from here,” Trina said. “I am not a fan.”

“Is there a reason a monster would come to this place?” Mae asked. “I feel like I have one million questions and nobody has any answers.”

“Well, that might be because we don’t have all the facts,” Trina said.

“I’m not hiding anything from you,” Mae said. “You know everything that I do.”

“Actually, we don’t,” Trina said. “We don’t know why the cemetery is so important.”

Mae looked at her strangely. “Do you need to know that?” she asked.

“Well, the problem is, you have a lot of questions,” Trina pointed out. “We may not have all the answers, but until we understand the big questions, it’s really hard for us to figure out what’s going on with everything else.”

“I can’t tell you the purpose of the cemetery,” Mae said. “That's the whole point of it being guarded and protected.”

“Maybe that was true at one point,” Trina said. “But people are dying here and people are getting hurt and if we’re going to fight for this, we need to understand what it is. That will help us to be able to tell you who might be after it.”

Mae stood tensely in the center of the room; her jaw clenched. “I cannot tell you,” she said. “My family has kept the secret for hundreds of years.”

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