Page 75 of Shifters Unifying

“If they’re still at it in an hour, I’ll grab them by the scruffs of their necks and stop them,” I added. “Meanwhile, Dr. Wise and I have some information to review.” I watched the two alphas a minute longer before turning to Dr. Wise. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “They’re probably going to be at that a while, and I don’t have the time or the energy to referee a couple of shifters behaving like warring toddlers, fighting over toys. Would you like to step into my temporary office?”

Dr. Wise’s mouth twitched. “Warring toddlers fighting over toys?”

“What would you call them?”

“Toddlers seems fitting. At least currently.” She studied them, as though she was taking mental notes. “Hopefully, they work it out before they kill each other.”

“Hopefully,” I agreed and waved her ahead of me. “Shall we?”

She followed me inside. “Not much of a room, is it? Tech or otherwise.”

I closed the door and warded the space once more, glad to mute the painful sounds of Marcus and Logan’s fight. “I have strong doubts that either of these desktops work, but we have a table and two chairs. Were you able to bring the jump drive and my laptop?”

“Yes.” She placed her briefcase on the folding table and pulled both from inside. “I believe I prefer conducting research in Six-Mile.”

“Nevertheless, this is what we have, and I don’t have a lot of time,” I said. “We’ll have to start our review. What did you want me to see?”

She pulled out her own laptop, placed it on the table, and put the flash drive in the USB slot. She opened several files, scanned copies of texts in fragments of parchments she’d been cataloging. She pointed to a section and highlighted it. “I found mention of another relic that’s meant to link all of the shifters together.”

She read, dragging her finger across the screen.

“In the moonlight, accept the fight.

In the moonlight, colors burn bright.

In the moonlight, all become one.

In the moonlight, the battle won.”

She toggled to another screen, a drawing of a hewn, cube-shaped rock with multiple colors streaming into it, and one beam streaming out of it. On the other side of the sketch, a figure laid on the ground beneath the Magnolia tree, probably the one from the previous conclave location. Another screen showed a similar etching, badly deteriorated.

“This is referenced several times, in several different places, each time a drawing seems to accompany the verse. In the surviving texts from the last emergence, several notes imply that this was used by the multimorph, but I have little additional information on the how or why or where.” She selected another window. “But it seems this could also be used for evil. It may be the only reason Acheron has not come against us in full force. If he uses it, I believe he’ll be able to force all shifters into subjection to his bidding.”

“Perhaps his attacks are meant to distract us while he searches for the relic himself.”

“Likely,” she said.

“Do we know anything about what might happen if he finds it before we do?”

She shook her head. The folding chair creaked as she leaned back. “I haven’t been able to find anything.”

“Does that mean it’s never happened?”

She sighed. “I’d like to think so.”

“Why didn’t more information survive until now?”

Dr. Wise made a face and pressed her glasses up her nose. “At some point after the last multimorph emergence, the packs and prides separated. Each one became more secretive, concerned with keeping as much power for themselves as possible. Much of the information was destroyed during that time. I call it the dark times.”

Dark times…

The words hung heavily in the room. Unifying the clans was my job, but if Marcus and Logan were any indication, we were a hair’s breadth away from living through our own dark times. If we fractured now, we’d be ripe for Acheron’s picking.

“Is this relic back in Six-Mile?” I asked. Though, I had a suspicion I already knew the answer. What were the odds… All the pieces coming together…

“According to what I’ve been able to piece together, I don’t think so. Nothing in the relic storeroom there matches the descriptions or the drawings I’ve been able to find.”

“And you’ve rechecked recently?”