Page 9 of Shifters Unifying (Shifters Destiny: Willow Creek Shifters #2)

CHAPTER NINE

logan

Shadows mages—that’s the only thing I knew to call them—zig-zagged across the ground, slowly expanding from two-dimensional stain on the earth to a three-dimensional spider-crawler. It raised up and writhed across the surface in jerky movements, hissing and cursing with words none of us understood.

Phil and Henry positioned themselves to take the one on the left, and Olivia and Theo readied themselves to take the one on the right.

“That’s the middle for me,” I said.

Olivia unzipped the top of her riding suit and drew two knives from the holder strapped across her chest. “One for each hand,” she sang in the tune of a popular bar song we’d probably heard back in Vixen’s. She grinned. “Now, how do we beat them?”

“Fuck if I know,” I grunted. “They’re closing fast.”

“Good thing you know what they are,” she said

“I’ve never seen them before.”

“Then how did you know?”

“It must be Acheron, so it must be mages. There’s no way he’d let shifters live around him. These are more like the mages with the shifter blood on them. Maybe he raised their souls from the dead and turned them into a new kind of mage.”

“Sure,” she said, rocking from side to side. “Dead things reanimated with shifter energy. Just a normal day in the life…”

“Here we go,” I growled and launched myself toward the middle one, now the closest one, shifting and shedding clothes and shoes as I flew toward it.

I landed on four paws on the back of one of two-dimensional shadows as it turned into a three-dimensional crawler, more twisted and grotesque than anything we’d seen out of Acheron yet.

Its legs widened until they were more like stumps as though it needed to stay in contact with the ground.

Clawing at its solid back did nothing to slow its assault.

Its head turned on its neck and bent around backward, staring up at me with its transparent, eyeless skull as it crawled. It stopped short, flinging me off its back. A practiced tuck and roll brought me upright, and I charged the form again, sparing a glance for the shifters under my care.

The other mages had slammed into the legs of Olivia, Phil, Theo, and Henry and knocked them to the ground like bowling pins. They scrambled back to their feet and reformed in a cluster to take on the two now circling them.

Twisting back to my own attacker, my teeth sank into its back and grabbed hold of nothing but acrid smoke.

I had been able to stand on its solid back before, now it was like biting a dark cloud.

It still maintained as much contact with the earth as it could while remaining ephemeral.

Though, it left a thick tar on my canines.

Snarling, I spat the black ick on the ground.

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.”

With that, we darted toward the nearest tree with a branch low enough to haul ourselves into the russet red foliage of the large Willow Oak. Soon, I was the last one on the ground. Kicking my legs and trying to catch the bark with my toes hadn’t help compensate for my useless arm.

“Fuck. Why didn’t you shift to take care of that?”

“Fine. I’ll stay on the ground,” I snapped.

Olivia straddled the low branch and squeezed it with her legs, so she could hook her arm under my shoulder on my injured side. “Give us a hand.”

Phil caught my other side and hauled me into the tree while Henry tried to stabilize him against my brunt of my weight. Blinding pain rolled through me, and I groaned. She was right, I should have taken the time to shift and self-heal. Go slow to go fast.

Behind us, another three shadows raised from the earth, taking the shape of men striding over the surface. None of them hurried. They took their time, likely confident of their eventual success.

“Shit,” I huffed. “There’s three more.”

Finally, they managed to lift me into the tree, and I scooted until I was on my ass on a thick branch and climbed to my feet. I risked a moment to check my bad arm. It wasn’t just broken. It had been shattered. Probably a skill Acheron had learned before he spread the bone shards for us to find.

Panting from the pain, I shook my head at the leisurely pace of our attackers. “These assholes here… taking their time.”

We each chose a different branch, careful to stay on the ones thick enough to hold our weight. The boughs sagged beneath us, but didn’t break. Auburn leaves fluttered toward the ground with each shake of the tree.

Six shadows circled the wide trunk, spinning around the base like an evil whirlpool. Each pulled themselves into standing forms with short, wide legs and elongated torsos. Their oval shadow faces peered up at us, and they chattered in the language we didn’t understand.

“What are they doing?” Olivia whispered.

“Making a plan,” I said. “Same thing we would be doing if our roles were reversed.”

“Shouldn’t we be making a plan?”

“I’m working on it,” I said.

Suddenly, they linked arms, and they shot back into the ground, leaving dark stains on the red leaves. A rumble quaked the ground, and a flood of leaves rained down. Again, the tree shook, and bark exploded off the trunk and scattered in mulch confetti.

“They’re taking out the tree,” Olivia murmured. “From the bottom.”

“Well, shit,” Phil said. “I thought the tree was going to work.”

A revelation struck me. Emma wasn’t with us, and we had no idea if she was okay. Were they just a distraction meant to keep us from Emma? Was Acheron waiting for her in Willow Creek?

Bright hot fury erupted in the center of my chest. How dare Acheron threaten us! How dare he attack us! How dare he hide here, so close to Emma! My mate! She twirled into my mind, carefree and laughing in her melodic voice. I’ll always keep you safe.

“That’s it,” I shouted.

Olivia startled. “Wait, Logan, don’t—”

“Too late!” In my spot on the thick branch, I shifted—a frothing, rabid wolf in a tree.

Then I leaped with my paws outstretched, soaring through the air, relishing the sensation of the wind fluffing my fur.

With a grunt, I landed on all fours on the other side of the dark spots.

Snarling and snapping to draw them out of their subterranean mission.