Page 26 of Shifters Unifying
I grunted as the shadow changed shape and dragged long spires across my flesh and sliced through my fur and skin easily. My howl cut through the morning, sending a flock of birds, screaming into the sky.
There had to be a way to change the circumstances, a way to upend the context so we could beat them. What was the commonality between them? Shadows, clouds, shapes, everything they did tied them to the ground. How could we get into the air without being able to fly?
The trees!Maybe they couldn’t climb trees. It was worth a shot.
Olivia cried out as long talons slashed her across the face, sending blood spurting from the wounds instantly. She grabbed her face and backed away to catch her breath. Then she dragged her knives through the malevolent fog. She tossed a knife to Henry, and he joined her.
“Nothing’s working,” she yelled.
“Have any helpful relics in your supply bag?”
“Fuck, no.”
“Anybody want to run?” I bellowed.
“We’re in it as long as you are, Alpha,” Phil called. He threw himself at the one who had hurt Olivia while the other one formed three long appendages it thrust down each of Theo’s nostrils and throat. Theo immediately began strangling and choking on the poisonous haze. He grabbed at his throat, coughing, retching, and convulsing.
I shifted back to my human self and grabbed Theo’s foot, determined to drag him out of reach of the shadow. Henry threw the blade into the ground and helped me in trying to break Theo free.
The mage leaned hard on Theo’s chest, pinning him in place, so I couldn’t break him free. Instead, Theo’s face turned red, then purple, and his eyes bulged. He clawed at the air over him, still the shadow didn’t relent and didn’t let go. Then Theo’s eyes widened, and his body went limp, the first of us to go, death by asphyxiation.
“No,” I howled. We needed every shifter we had, and Acheron was picking us off one by one, torturing us and disfiguring our souls. I despised him.
A moment later, the tendrils retracted from his nostrils and throat, and the eyeless head leaned back, shaking as though it was laughing.
I leaped at the mage and sent a right hook toward the form’s head. It passed through easily, and the mage retaliated by twisting around my right arm and squeezing. I winced as my bones crunched beneath the pressure.
The face leaned closed, and a black void opened in the middle of the oval shape. “Rachel screamed for you as he consumed her,” it hissed. “Then he used her magic to return me to this world. None of you is safe.”
“Well, don’t get comfortable,” I growled. “I’m going to send you back to hell.”
Then it released me and moved away.
“Fuck,” I groaned. The pain of my mangled arm nearly buckled my knees. “We can’t beat them. They’re toying with us, drawing it out.”
“No shit,” Olivia shrieked.
“Shifters, on me,” I roared and retreated from the confrontation. I started moving toward the far end of Acheron’s encampment, counting on the idiotic hope that the shadow mages would take their sweet time about following. “Let’s get to the trees!”
“The trees?” Olivia echoed, taking a position to my right while Phil and Henry took my left as we eased away. “What’s in the trees?”
“Everything they’ve done so far has been on the ground. Maybe they’re tied to it somehow. Maybe it’s how they replenish their energy.”
Her face scrunched in an incredulous expression. “You don’t think shadows can climb trees?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
She paused. “No, let’s go.”
“What about Theo?” Phil asked.
“He’s gone!” I answered, not missing the way Henry nearly lost his footing at the pronouncement. Henry had to have known… Maybe he didn’t want to believe it. “No sense in risking yourselves to save his body.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Henry barked.
“Which tree we going for?” Olivia asked.
“The closest red one.”
