Highland Shapeshifter (8 page)

“Yeah, sure.” Gabe set his mug down. “I know Charity.”
 

Chapter Seven

Col leaned harder on the table, weak with sudden relief. “Ye must take me to her at once. Is she still here?” This was the first person who claimed to know aught of the lass. He could reach Charity. He could go home.

Gabe lunged out of his seat, eyes narrowed as he stared at him across the small table. “What exactly does that mean—still here?”

“It means I need to get to her forthwith. Please.”

“No. No way. Lenore will have my sac in a—“

The window beside them shattered, spraying them and the table in glass shards. A dark leathery creature crashed through the frame, dragging Gabe to the floor. Col grabbed the broken plate and stabbed it into the beast’s shoulder since its shoulder was right there, and pulled the monster off, thrusting it away as more creatures surged through every window. Breaking glass and heavy thumps came from the other rooms.

Wrinkled bloated faces, more suited for drowned corpses, followed them. Puckered skin flowed over the hollow space of the eye sockets like translucent veined scar tissue poorly healed. Whether they were blind or nay, it didn’t slow them. They could just as easily detect them by scent through the upturned nostrils. The creature Col had knocked off Gabe scrambled up onto the counter, screeching. Two more edged toward them, long curved black glistening toenails scratching the floor.
 

Grabbing Gabe’s arm, Col pulled him up off the floor. The monsters snarled in unison, transparent bloodless lips rippled back over braces of sharply pointed pewter gray teeth. It did not require much imagination to know what those teeth were for. “I need a sword.”

“Sorry, all out.” To his credit, Gabe’s voice remained steady. “Butcher knives?” He canted his head toward short hilts of varying sizes protruding from a block of wood on the work counter near the water trough. Unfortunately, the creature was nearly on top of it.

More beasts showed up from the other rooms, hedging Col and Gabe into a tight space. Col watched the shifting of their long claw-tipped hands, the way their heads tracked toward the one near the knives. The leader.
 
Awaiting its signal.

In all his life, he’d never seen creatures such as these. And he had known many of the otherworldly. They appeared smaller, sleeker, than they actually were, with shoulders hunched inward and rounding their spinal columns. Should they stand up straight, Col guessed they’d tower over him and Gabe. Even their hairless heads covered in moist bloated skin, hung below the curved line of their shoulders like gruesome cowls.
 

Vile, disgusting, slavering beasts didn’t describe them by half. Most noticeable was the wave of stink emanating off them. It stained the air like oily smears. If evil ever were to acquire a smell, this was it. Copper tang of old blood and decaying graveyards.

Col edged toward the leader, watching for any telltale sign of the order to attack and nudged his shoulder slightly in front of Gabe. He longed for the familiar presence of his brothers beside him, in fact, usually finding himself the one nudged back as they were always so recklessly ready to shield him, the youngest among them.

The creature launched. All the beasts flew at them. Col dodged, shoving Gabe down. Claws dragged across the top of his hair. He dove toward the wood block, and whirled back around, blades in both hands and slashed a silver edge across the creature’s muscled clavicle as it pounced back at him.

Sticky pale gray blood spurted across his face. The stink alone would do him in. Another creature leapt onto his back. Going to a knee, Col curled forward and let the beast’s own weight carry it over his shoulder where it tumbled into Gabe who’d found his own short knife and stabbed upward, coating his arms in noxious ropey excrement that slurped out into a steaming pile on the floor. Gabe’s eyes rounded. At least the hell-spawns had the decency to sport skin that parted easily enough. Though their wounds didn’t seem to slow them. Parchment skin, leather hard insides. ‘Twas not a favorable composition for putting them down. Their numbers alone would eventually overwhelm them.

They slashed and gouged, yet the beasts kept coming.
 
‘Twas the close quarters that gave he and Gabe any leeway, keeping the horde from swarming over them completely. They fought side by side, yet in the fray, Col noticed the monsters’ intent was fastened solely on getting at him. They certainly did not oppose swiping at Gabe; yet he appeared to be more of an obstacle to getting at him.

Gabe cried out, bone crunching, his leg buckling beneath him. A beast had dived in, breaking his naked thigh between his long hands like a twig, sending Gabe down. A vulnerable target, yet instead of going for the kill, the monster scurried over Gabe to dive at him.

He spun quickly away, hearing the pleasing thud of the beast slamming into the work counter.

“Get under the table!” Col roared, pulling away and dragging several hellions with him.

Every head swiveled to him, scrabbling along the counters and up the walls to get at him, squealing and hissing as he kicked and stabbed, dislodging two, three, while more clamored over him. He’d been right. They had no interest in Gabe.

Claws bit deep, cutting his skin. ‘Twas time to take flight. Literally.

He went down in a jumble of foul-smelling flesh, slick with greasy blood, his and theirs.

Gathering his essence into his core, he let it loose, allowing the whole of his magic to pour through him. Focused, he brought the image of the bear he’d hunted last fall to mind, became pure bright humming energy that instantly parted into an agony of shifting muscle and bone.

He came up growling, teeth, fur, lethal claws, and furious.

Monsters somersaulted through the air.

Gabe popped his head out from beneath the table, mouth forming something akin to, “Blessed shite.”

Only momentarily put off, hissing, teeth gnashing, the creatures regrouped, and surged over Col. Giving into the primitive nature of the bear, he ripped into them, knives forgotten,
 
fighting with his new weapons of nature, jaws and claws. Noxious gore filled his mouth, dripped down his throat.

He had to draw the beasts out of here, but he didn’t know the way out for this behemoth form.

He gutted another creature, throwing it into the wall, where it smacked and slid down in a trail of milky gray entrails, scattering beasts beneath it. Col abruptly found himself without opponents.

Only a handful remained, edging along the walls and counter, hissing and spiting at him.

Gabe pushed up, favoring his leg, little knife out front, his attention focused on him.

The remaining monsters were a little more wary, snapping and goading each other to make a move at the towering bear. Not wasting the momentary lapse, Col shifted again, slicing into brilliant energy and coming out the other side in full flight, flapping wings as a hawk and streaked out the broken window.

He wasn’t above a little goading himself. Shrieking, he back-flapped, hovering in the air, taunting the beasts to follow him.

They did not disappoint, catapulting after him, clambering out the windows, down the walls, and launching through the air to clasp upon tall poles topped with the strange glowing lanterns.

Col darted low, keeping himself in easy sight to lead them on a merry chase.

Chapter Eight

Something wasn’t right. Lenore was halfway to Starch’s rendezvous, when she turned the corvette back toward Gabe’s. Her stomach clenched on nauseous roiling foreboding, the kind that grips you so hard you’ll choke before it can be ignored.

She pulled onto the curb in front of his townhouse and spilled out of the door. Everything looked fine. Scratch that. The blue blinds billowed out of the living room window, clanking against the iron sill. Every window in the townhouse was shattered.

Gabe. Oh no. She’d brought this to him. She ran up the steps and tried the door. Locked. “Gabe!” She pounded on the lacquered wood and poured on the bell. Not waiting, she ran down the steps, jerked open his car and yanked the garage remote from the visor, running and pressing the button at the same time. She ducked under the rumbling garage door while it was still lifting and ran up the stairs.

“Gabe!” She flung the door open so hard it smacked the wall. “Gabe!”

“In here.”

Relief smacked her upside the head, making her suddenly woozy. She ran into the kitchen and stopped short.

A powerful stink assaulted her.

Gabe was on the floor, trying to right an overturned chair and push himself up. Trails of thick mucousy gray goo coated everything, including Gabe. His hair was plastered to his head with it and it ran down his face. He grinned up at her like a five-year-old caught licking icing off the cake. The angle of his leg was wrong, clearly broken.

“What happened?” She ducked inside his bedroom, heart plunging at the rumpled empty bed and glass from the broken window covering it. “He’s gone?”

“Flew out the window as a little bird.” Gabe fluttered his fingers in the air and snorted. “He became a bird.”

“A bird?”

Lenore pulled a handful of dish cloths from the drawer and knelt in front of Gabe. Sticky smelly whatever soaked into the knees of her denim. She gave the cloths to Gabe and turned her attention to his leg.

He flinched. “Ow.”

“It’s broken.”

“I’ll file that in my
no shit
folder.”

She glanced up at him. He was gray-faced, literally from all the crap on him, but stoic and she felt guilty as crap for dragging him into this. “Gabe, what happened? What is this stuff?” The pile of ropey gray matter beside them looked uncannily like sausage. She doubted she’d ever be able to eat a good bratwurst again.

Leaning forward, he grabbed her shoulders. “I’m not sure even you would believe it. Monsters, Nor, hand-to-God monsters crashed through the windows. It was incredible.”

“Monsters?” Gabe hadn’t had any previous contact with the supernatural world that he knew about at any rate. Monsters could describe a lot of things. “What were they? Did you get a good look?”

He gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glare. “I got a good look, believe me. They were…I don’t know…like Morlocks.”

“Morlocks?”

“Blind. Leathery. Toothy. Morlocks. Come on, you know what I’m talking about. The misshapen cannibals from
The Time Machine
. Ring any bells?”

Yeah, she knew what Morlocks from the movie were, but no, she had no idea what real mythical creatures Gabe could have described as a Morlock. Ghouls maybe, but blind? How would he know they were blind? What, they came in, feeling their way around? Shock, Gabe was in shock.

“And the shifter…I thought they had him, but he comes up all teeth and claws.” Gabe grinned. He busted his leg and was sitting covered in monster innards and the idiot was grinning like a loon. “The guy turned into a bear. A freaking twelve-foot Kodiak! It was amazing. He was beautiful. He shredded into the Morlocks like paper mache.”

The shapeshifter shifting into a bear, she got, but Morlock-type monsters? That didn’t make any sense. Unless Starch had sent creepers or something after them.
 
Which meant the ogre knew about Gabe when all this time she thought she’d kept him safely out of it. That was a disturbing thought.

Except ghouls or anything she knew about didn’t bleed gray.

“Okay, okay.” She had to set Gabe’s leg. “Where did the shifter go?”

“He turned into a bird.” Gabe’s eyes darted wildly about the gore-slickened kitchen. “He went anywhere he wanted, taking every last monster with him.” Awe floated across his tone. “I didn’t think half the Morlocks were still moving. Half of them I thought were disemboweled, but they all got up and went after him. Some limping after him. I doubt they’ll get very far, but who knows. They’re tough smelly bastards.”