Shift (4 page)

“East field, near the tree line.” Marc glanced up to see if anyone else was nearby, the phone still pressed to his ear. “But it’s…gruesome. Don’t let the Taylors over here. They shouldn’t have to see this.”

“Thanks. We’ll be right there,” my father said from the other end of the line.

Marc pocketed his phone, and I knelt before he could ask if I was okay. I was fine. An Alpha-in-training was always fine, right? There was no other choice.

“Damn, these bastards are brutal,” Marc said, and I nodded, plucking a brown-and-black chevroned feather from the grass where its tip had landed in blood, like the devil’s quill. It was easily twice the length of my hand.

“But this wasn’t either of the birds who took Kaci. Couldn’t have been. We’d have seen blood on them. Smelled it. We were only a few yards away when they landed.”

“The driver, then?” Marc asked.

“That’s my guess. I didn’t get very close to him, and he was dressed. So it’s certainly possible.” I hesitated, unsure I really wanted the answer. Then I pressed on, because I needed to know. “Have you ever seen damage like this?”

“Never.” And that was saying a lot, coming from my father’s most experienced enforcer. “Cats don’t do this. Not even the crazy ones.”

Footsteps crunched toward us from behind, and we turned to see my father headed across the field, Bert Di Carlo on his heels, both frowning in grim certainty.

My dad came to a stop at my side and his jaw tightened when his gaze found Jake Taylor. Di Carlo’s face went completely blank. Without a word, my father pulled his phone from the pocket of his one casual jacket and pressed and held a single button.

“Hello?” Jace said.

“Take Brian back to the office and pour him a drink.”

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, “I’m on it.”

My dad hung up, then scrolled through his contacts list as Di Carlo reached out for the feather I still held from the puffy, bloodless end. I gave it to him gladly, and he whistled, morbidly impressed with the size.

“Rick?” My father said into his phone when a muffled, scratchy voice answered.

“Yeah?” My uncle came in loud and clear that time.

“We found Jake, and we’re taking him to the barn. Take Ed back to the house, please.”

“Will do.”

The last call my dad made, while Marc rubbed my upper arms to warm me, went to Vic. His order was simple. “Grab a roll of plastic and come to the east field, near the tree line. You’ll see us.” He hung up without a word from Vic.

“Well, Greg,” Di Carlo said, as my father slid his phone into his pocket. “I don’t know what they want, but it looks like they’ve got our number.”

“Kaci…” I whispered, horrified by the possibility of what might have been. But then merciful logic interceded. “But if they’d wanted to hurt her, they could have. They wouldn’t even have bothered with the car. Right?” I needed to hear that she hadn’t come close to a horrible death. A horrible kidnapping was quite enough.

The Alphas nodded, and Marc took my good hand in his. “So why kill Jake, then?”

My father sighed and finally looked up from the dead tom. “My guess is that he saw them coming. Didn’t you say they flew out in that direction?” He pointed toward the trees to the east.

“Yeah. So they killed him to keep him from warning us?” I glanced from face to face in disbelief, but the question was largely rhetorical. We all knew the answer. “Why didn’t he call?”

“Reception’s spotty in the woods, but it looks like he tried.” My father gestured to something in the grass behind me and I turned to see a cell phone lying on the ground, smeared with blood, already flipped open and ready for use.

“They couldn’t have gotten to him in the woods. Their wingspan has to be twelve feet or better. They’d have broken both arms trying to flap in there.”

Marc’s frown deepened. “They waited until he came into the open, then attacked.”

“And they must’ve done it fast to keep us from hearing.” Di Carlo shook his head. “This was planned. They want something.”

“What could thunderbirds want with us?” I wondered aloud, as Vic and Parker appeared from around the barn, one carrying a large black bundle.

“We’ll find out when Big Bird wakes up,” Marc said.

My father shook his head. “We’ll find out now. Wake him up and make him sing.”

M
arc and I headed for the house while Vic and Parker took Jake to the barn. On the way to the basement, we passed the silent office, where Ed and Brian Taylor were seated on the couch with their backs to us. Jace met my gaze briefly from the love seat, and I shook my head, confirming what he’d already guessed. What the Taylors surely already knew. That we’d found a body, not an injured tom.

I felt guilty walking by them without a word, but it wasn’t my place to tell an Alpha that his son was dead. Thank goodness.

The kitchen was empty, but I could hear Kaci talking with Manx and Owen in his room as I jogged down the concrete basement stairs after Marc, only pausing to flip the switch by the door.

Two dim bulbs inadequately lit a cinder-block room almost as large as the house overhead. The thick blue training mat was scattered with huge feathers the thunderbird had lost on his way down the stairs, and most of our outdated but well-used weight-lifting equipment had been shoved into the far corner near where the old, heavy punching bag hung. The door to the small half bath stood open, and a weak rectangle of light from within slanted over a folding table holding stacks of cassette tapes and an ancient stereo.

The room was damp, grimy, and one of few places in the house that my mother had attempted to neither clean nor decorate. It was strictly utilitarian, and well used.

It was also a prison.

The corner of the basement nearest the foot of the stairs was taken up by a cage formed by two of the room’s cinder-block walls and two walls of steel bars. The cell held only a cot in one corner, with no sheets or pillows. Just outside the bars stood a water dispenser and a single plastic cup, narrow enough to fit through the bars, if held by the top or bottom. A coffee can—serving as a temporary toilet—sat next to the water dispenser.

They were miserable accommodations. And yes, I knew from personal experience. I once spent an entire month in the cage—most of that time in cat form—when I threatened to run away again, after having been hauled back the first time. What can I say? I was intemperate in my youth. And in much of my early adulthood.

And I have to admit that I prefer the view from outside of the bars.

“He’s still out,” Marc said, and I followed his gaze to the half-bird still unconscious on the concrete floor, just as we’d left him. He lay on his back, weird, elongated wing-arms stretched to either side so that the feathers on one brushed the bars. The end of his opposite arm lay hidden from sight—and likely folded—beneath the cot.

Even half-Shifted, the creature’s arm span was at least ten feet.

“Suggestions?” I asked, my fury and fear muted a bit by sheer amazement as I stared at the bird up close, half-repelled by the thick, curved beak where his human mouth and nose should have been.

Marc never took his gaze from the cage. “Get the hose.”

I pulled open the door beneath the staircase and rummaged in the dark for a minute before my hand found the smooth, textured hose coiled around what could only be a broken weight bar. I slid my good arm through the coil and carried it to the utility sink near the weight rack. When I had the hose hooked up to the huge faucet—moderately encumbered by my cast but determined to do it on my own—I uncoiled it loop by loop until it stretched across the room to Marc.

He raised both brows, finger poised over the trigger of the high-pressure nozzle. “This should be interesting….” Marc squeezed the trigger, and a long, straight, presumably cold stream of water shot between two bars of the cage, blasting the back concrete wall and lightly splattering the unconscious bird. Marc adjusted his aim, and the jet of water hit the bird squarely on his sparsely feathered chest.

The thunderbird sat up with a jolt, gasping in air—and a little water—through his malformed beak. His right wing-arm shot up an instant faster than his left, too quick to be anything other than instinct, protecting his face and torso, though his feathers were instantly drenched.

The bird made a horrible, pain-filled squawking sound and backed against the wall, where he slid to his knees and wrapped his long, feathered arms around his torso.

Marc released the trigger and the water stopped, but the bird remained huddled and dripping on the floor. In the sudden silence, he gasped for breath and I heard his heart racing with shock. But his pulse slowed quickly as he regained control of himself, and when he lowered his wings, the bird glared at us through small eyes as dark as my own fur, his expression as hard as the concrete blocks at his back.

“Stand up and Shift so you can speak,” I said, desperately hoping he spoke either English or Spanish. Because he could be from Chile, for all we knew. Or Pluto, for that matter.

For a moment, he only stared at us, hostility gleaming in his shiny eyes. Or maybe that was water from his rude awakening. But when Marc re-aimed the hose, the bird stood slowly and spread his arms. His left one was reluctant, and he flinched as he forced it into place, flexing his wing-claws as if to show them off. Then he cocked his head to one side, like he was thinking, and closed both eyes. A very soft, eerie whispering sound seemed to skitter across my spine, and I watched in fascination as his feathers receded into his skin and his arms began to shorten.

It happened in seconds.

Marc and I stood in silent shock.

The fastest Shift I’d ever accomplished was just under a minute, and I was one of the fastest Shifters I’d ever met. Probably because I’m smaller than most toms—thus have less body to change—and more experienced than most teenagers, who have less to change than even I do.

But this bird—
every
bird, if the sample we’d seen was any indication—had me beat, paws down. Or talons down, as the case may be. And his Shift was weird. The fur that receded in my own was only an inch long, and not much thicker than human hair, but feathers had long, stiff quills. There was no way feathers twelve to fourteen inches long should have slid so quickly and easily into his skin.

Yet there the thunderbird stood, fully human and unabashedly naked, watching us in obvious, wary hatred. He was short—no more than five foot four—and thin, with a disproportionately powerful upper body and spindly legs. He would pass for human if he were clothed, but he would definitely stand out, though most people would be unable to explain exactly why.

While we stared, he ran his right hand over his thick chest and narrow waist, casually touching the gashes Owen had carved into him. His hand came away bright red. The water had washed away dried and crusted blood and had reopened the wounds. He held his left arm stiffly at his side, and when I looked closer, I could see that it was lumpy. Obviously broken, and certainly very painful. But he made no sound, nor any move to cradle his injury.

“What is this?” The thunderbird’s voice was gravelly and screechy, as if he spoke in two tones at once. It was a strange sound, oddly fitting for his unusual build.

“I’m Marc Ramos. This is Faythe Sanders. We ask the questions.” Marc knelt to set the nozzle at his feet, then stood and met my gaze, gesturing with one hand toward the prisoner. He wanted me to take the lead. Just like my father, he was always training me.

My dad had told us to start without him—he wanted to break the news to Ed Taylor personally—so I stepped forward, careful to stay out of reach of the bars. Waaaay out of reach, because of how long his arms could grow and how fast he Shifted. Even injured. “What’s your name?” I crossed both arms over my chest and met the bird’s dark glare.

He only blinked at me and repeated his own question. And when I didn’t answer, he smiled—an expression utterly absent of joy—and cocked his head to the other side in a jerky, birdlike motion. “This is your nest, right? Your home? That ground-level hovel you cats burrow into, for what? Warmth? Safety? You huddle in dens because you cannot soar. I pity you.”

My eyebrows shot up over the disgust dripping from his every syllable. “Maybe you should pity yourself. You’re still bleeding, and it looks like you’ve broken a wing. You’re in good company.” I held up my own graffitied cast. “But mine’s been fixed. If yours doesn’t get set properly, you can’t fly, can you? Ever.”

His narrowed eyes and bulging jaw said I was right. That I’d found his weak spot.

“Our doctor is just a couple of hours away.” Dr. Carver had already been called in to treat Owen. “But you won’t get so much as a Band-Aid until you tell us what we want to know. Starting with your name.”

The thunderbird cradled his crooked arm, but his gaze did not waver. “Then I will never fly again.” He looked simultaneously distraught and resolute—I’d seldom seen a stronger will.

“Seriously?” I took a single step closer to the bars, judging my safety by distance. “You’re going to cripple yourself for life over your
name?
What good will you be to your…flock, or whatever, if you’re jacked up for the rest of your life?”

Doubt flickered across his expression, chased away almost instantly by an upsurge of stoicism. “The rest of my life? Meaning, the three seconds between the time I spill my guts and you rip them from my body? I’d say a broken arm is the least of my problems.”

I rolled my eyes. “We’re not going to kill you.”

“Right. You’re going to fix me up and toss me out the window with a Popsicle stick taped to one wing.” He shrugged awkwardly with the shoulder of his good arm, leaning against the cinder-block wall for support. “I’ve seen this episode. This is the one where Sylvester eats Tweety.”

“If memory serves, Sylvester never actually swallowed, and while I love a good poultry dinner, we can’t kill you without proof you’ve killed one of ours. And you don’t match this.” I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the fourteen-inch feather I’d found next to Jake’s body. I’d stored it shaft-first, to preserve the pattern of the vane.

The difference was subtle but undeniable. Our prisoner’s feathers were dark brown, with three thick, horizontal black stripes. But the one in my hand had two thick stripes and one thin, in the middle.

Marc stepped up when the thunderbird’s forehead furrowed as he stared at the feather. “We can’t kill you, and you’re entitled to water and two meals a day.” At least, that’s what the council said a werecat prisoner was entitled to. We didn’t actually have any precedent for how to treat prisoners of another species. “But we don’t have to tend your injuries or let you go, so you’ll stand there in pain for as long as it takes you to start talking.”

“Then I suppose I should make myself comfortable.” The thunderbird’s gaze openly challenged Marc, who had at least ten inches and thirty pounds on him, without a hint of fear.

Marc’s inner Alpha roared to life; I saw it in the gold specks glittering madly in his eyes. I laid my casted arm across his stomach an instant before he would have rushed the bars. Which would only have convinced the prisoner he was right in refusing to talk.

I’d just realized something that might actually come in handy. The bird was clearly devastated by the thought of never flying again, in spite of his willingness to endure it. He hated our low-lying dwelling and the thought of “huddling” in it.

“Yes, make yourself comfortable.” I extended my good arm to indicate the entire basement. “It stays pretty warm in here, thanks to the natural insulation of earth against cinder block….”

The bird’s forehead furrowed and his legs twitched, as if he were fighting the impulse to stand. Or to try to flee. His dark gaze roamed the large, dim room and finally settled on one of the only two windows—short, narrow panes of glass near the ceiling, which came out at ground level outside.

“We’re underground?” His odd, raspy voice was even rougher than usual.

“Yup. You’re not only in our ‘ground-level hovel,’ you’re
beneath
it. Trapped in the earth. Completely buried, if you will.” He flinched at my word choice, but I continued. “You won’t see the sky again until you answer our questions. And I can have those windows blacked out right now, if you want the full effect.”

Panic shone in his eyes like unshed tears. I was right. Our prisoner—and likely most thunderbirds—suffered from a fascinating combination of claustrophobia and taphephobia, the fear of being buried alive. And I was more than willing to exploit that fear, if it made him talk without endangering either of us.

“Or, I can open them and let you see outside.”

The bird’s silent struggle was obvious as he fought to keep his expression blank. To hide the terror building inside him with each breath. But I knew that fear. I’d been locked up more than once, and while I wasn’t afraid of being swallowed by the earth, I did fear the loss of my freedom just as keenly as he feared his current predicament.

But the bird was strong, obviously unaccustomed to giving in, to either his fear or his enemies. He’d need a little shove….

“Can you feel it?” I scooted just far enough forward to be sure the motion caught his attention. “Those bricks at your back? They’re holding back
tons
of dirt and clay. Solid earth. There’s nothing but eight inches of concrete standing between you and death by asphyxiation. Or maybe the weight would crush you first. Either way, live interment. Can’t you almost
taste
the soil…?”

Marc was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. Or like I’d crossed some line he would never even have approached. But I’d seen him work. He’d readily pound the shit out of a prisoner to get the information he needed. How could my calm, psychological manipulation be any worse than that?

The bird had his eyes closed and was breathing slowly, deliberately, through his mouth, trying to calm himself.

“Honestly? I can’t let you out. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the authority.” I shrugged, lowering my tone to a soothing pitch. “But I can make this much easier for you. We can open those windows, and even the door.” I pointed at the top of the staircase. “In the morning, you’ll see sunlight from the kitchen. That’d be better, right? Might just make this bearable?”