The House (35 page)

I landed down
on my front paws with a jarring shock through my left arm. I should
have gone down on all fours before changing but I didn’t have the
time. I turned and growled at Marlow before launching myself from
my back legs into a leap that covered the three metres between us
in a blink. He was on his back with his arms above his head; he
didn’t want to fight. I nipped at his throat to show what I thought
of his submission.

My foreleg
felt much better after shifting, enough that my leap hadn’t hurt
too much. I growled at Marlow again before backing off but I kept
crouched close to the ground. He didn’t shift; he just looked at me
with an odd expression that I couldn’t interpret. I walked back to
my clothes and reverted to my human form.

“What?” I said
as I turned back to him with my clothes in my arms. I’d managed to
put them down in the mud and didn’t fancy trying to put them all
back on. It wasn’t the first time; I normally found the one patch
of muddy grass to dump my clothes so I’d stopped leaving them
outside. It made me wish I’d thought to change into trackies before
starting this charade. The jeans were some of my favourites.

“I’ve never
seen you shift so smoothly,” Marlow replied. “I’m not sure I’ve
ever seen anyone shift so quickly.”

I just
shrugged. “I’ve always been able to do it. You haven’t seen me
shift in years, Marlow.” With that I walked off in my best ‘exit
stage left’ into the house. It was only slightly hampered by my
being completely naked. I had a feeling the guys were appreciating
my behind rather than my dramatic walk off.

The shower
felt amazing and horrifying at the same time. The warmth was great,
relaxing my aching muscles. I’d been holding myself so tense lately
that I hadn’t had a chance to let go. However, the pounding water,
so sweet on stiff muscles, found every stinging scrape and
throbbing bruise.

The bruises on
my ribs had healed pretty much completely from my fight with
Hercules. I’d shifted twice since then which had certainly helped.
I could see new bruises forming before my eyes though. They must
have covered at least half my body and my arms were a complete
mess. I didn’t want to know what my face would look like.

I scrubbed at
my body for twenty minutes to be sure that I got all of the dirt
off. Everything that was left was bruises and I couldn’t do
anything about that. Well, I could shift again, but not in the
shower. I sighed as I turned off the water, miraculously still hot.
The other showers were going as well.

The mirror
showed my face to be a palette of black and blue. One black eye was
slightly swollen and the left side of my jaw ached fiercely. I had
to remind myself that I didn’t want to kill Marlow; that the
beating was helping me to learn. My brain just didn’t buy it. On
top of everything else, I now looked like a monster.

I realised
that I was even more trapped than I had been before. It was all
well and good teaching me to defend myself so that I wouldn’t be a
prisoner in my own home, but I couldn’t leave the house looking
like a bare knuckle fighter either. I sighed then stopped myself.
I’d been sighing a lot, resigning myself to whatever hand fate
dealt me. And I did not believe in fate.

It took a lot
of make-up to make me look presentable; I didn’t even try for good.
I still looked like I had the black eye and my face was slightly
swollen but I didn’t look quite so much like a domestic violence
victim.

I found an old
round neck, long-sleeved top that hid my collarbone, which was
going a lovely shade of purple, and my arms which looked like they
were mottled. Jeans took care of my legs. The top was tight on me
but the jeans were baggy and slightly faded. I looked like I didn’t
much care about my appearance. I left my hair down to help disguise
my aching jaw.

I flounced
down the stairs, forcing the smile at the bottom when my knee
twinged slightly. I didn’t even remember hurting it. Of course,
sometimes things hurt more when they were healing than when I
actually hurt them. We heal quickly, yes, but sometimes it takes
the rest of us a while to catch up with the healing body part.

Everyone else
was already in the kitchen. I’d taken a long time after my shower
to fix myself up. They looked up as one when I walked in then went
straight back to their food. It was all just sandwiches but someone
had put a joint of beef in the oven – I was betting Hercules. I
sniffed the air. I couldn’t smell the beef yet so it would be a
while, but I saw a collection of bread and sandwich fillings out on
the side.

I made myself
several chicken mayo sandwiches, surprised to see we had wholemeal
bread as well. Whenever Marie let us do our own shopping the guys
normally brought white, but I liked the texture of the wholemeal
better. Marie agreed. The chicken was pre-cooked from the shop
since we hadn’t had a chance to do our own and the mayo was
full-fat, as always. We had enough trouble getting calories without
buying the diet varieties.

I didn’t sit
down with everyone else; I preferred to lean casually against the
counter because they all looked so solemn. I would have thought
something dreadful had happened but none of us were normally the
type to sit down and mope at bad news for too long. We much
preferred to hit something – Marlow especially.

“What’s up?” I
asked, sounding reasonably chipper, but I couldn’t keep that edge
out of my voice, the one that said I was expecting bad news.

“Eddie’s left
and not come back,” James said. Not like he actually cared
though.

“OK, whatever.
What’s got you all looking so downcast now?”

“There is
something happening, Trix,” Marlow replied. He looked right at me
and there was something in his eyes that I didn’t like. There was
fear when he looked at me, a fear I’d never seen there before.
“You’re changing and I’m starting to think I am too. I didn’t think
much of it before. I don’t know much about magic but I know the
rules and you broke them. You can’t have gotten that much more
powerful at this age. And I saw your shift – one second you were
human, the next you were lion. I’ve never seen anything like
it.”

“I told you.
My shift hasn’t changed, Marlow. You haven’t seen me shift in years
and you can’t see your own. You have nothing to compare to;
true-borns always shift faster, smoother than lunar shifters.”

“Yes, but not
that much. It made me think of Shayana and I remembered thinking
the other week that her shift looked almost completely fluid. Like
she was disappearing for a moment between forms. I didn’t take any
notice of it until you just did the same thing. Only yours was more
pronounced.”

“Trix,”
Hercules said. I looked at him, glad that he didn’t have the edge
of uncontrolled fear that Marlow did. “We were talking and...well,
we could barely see you and Marlow, you were moving so fast.”

“Hercules,
you’ve seen me run before; I’ve been blurring for years. You can do
it too.” I was holding onto the counter then. I didn’t like this
conversation; it sounded like it was going to result in a trip to
the Covenant. I was aiming to avoid that one at all costs. They
were planning to put me on trial for being a telepath.

“You can blur, yes, but it was like you
disappeared
. At first it was only
Marlow and you were normal but then it was like you caught up with
him and just...moved. I lost track of what was happening until you
stopped. Marlow says that he didn’t notice how fast you were
moving; he didn’t even think you two were blurring.” And there it
was, right at the end, the edge of fear. I understood it then. They
weren’t afraid of me. They were afraid of what was happening to
them because if something was happening to me and Marlow...well,
the others couldn’t be far behind.

“The missing
shifters,” I said as I saw the conclusion they had come to. “You
think that someone is using them to...what, power up the rest of
us? What good would that do them?”

“I don’t know,
Trix. But it’s weird and I don’t like it. Missing shifters and all
of a sudden everyone’s power spikes?”

“It’s not possible, Marlow. There is no spell…” I trailed
off, because there
was
a kind of magic that would allow you to steal someone’s
power. The vampyre used it to live. They had no life force of their
own, they used blood magic. “I really, really hope you’re wrong,
Marlow...”

“You thought
of something, Trix. What is it?” Marlow was starting to sound
desperate. I wondered if he’d heard of my breakdown and feared it
would happen to him as well.

“No, Marlow,
don’t ask,” I replied. “Just pray that you’re wrong.” I slipped off
the counter with the remains of my sandwich and walked very
carefully from the kitchen. I didn’t go back upstairs; I didn’t
want to isolate myself that much. I was even more scared then of
what was happening. As far as I knew the only people who could use
blood magic were the vampyre and they were forbidden from using
anyone else connected to magic. I knew that the occasional vampyre
went crazy when they tried to use shifter blood.

“Damn it,” I
muttered. I wished I’d paid more attention at my Covenant lessons.
I had just used the time to mess about, even to show off. I was the
only shifter amongst a bunch of little witches and I couldn’t
perform any decent spells.

I knew we had learnt about vampyre and their role in the
world, the rules of them. Of course, I’d had no reason to listen to
the teacher rambling on about how you
create
a vampyre. I was never going
to do it. Only pure witches could make a vampyre and I’d had it
smugly pointed out to me on more than one occasion.

I thought
about the vampyre that had attacked me. They weren’t playing by the
rules. Their witches hadn’t even known they were out and, thinking
back to it, I realised how impossible their actions had been.

I found myself
sat down at the old computer screen. Normally it was used to watch
downloaded movies or play games but I liked to use it for research
as well. The large screen made it easier to see patterns in things.
I clicked it on absently and checked my e-mail automatically.

I had one from
my grandfather saying that we needed to talk and that I would
eventually have to face the music etc, etc. I had several from
companies I subscribed to. I noted distantly that my favourite
clothes shop was having a sale but it didn’t mean much without
Stripes. I hadn’t been shopping without her in at least a year. I
scrolled through the rest – status updates and people trying to
sell me things. Half of them went in the junk folder.

Then I
stopped.

There was one
e-mail of just one line. Six words.

“I know where
your friends are.”

There was
nothing else. The address was one I didn’t recognise and there was
no subject line, no context. I just sat and stared at the screen. I
didn’t even notice when Eddie came up behind me.

“That’s
Talon’s e-mail,” he said. I jumped so high out of my seat that it
fell over. I stood up carefully and righted the chair before
sitting back down.

“I thought
you’d left,” I sniped. I didn’t want to think how long I’d been sat
staring at the screen, hard enough not to notice Eddie’s
return.

“I had to
think. But that’s Talon’s e-mail address. Why would he send
that?”

“I don’t know,
maybe he knows who’s been taking shifters.” I was cautious. It was
an odd way to help us, if that was what he was doing. It sounded
more like a threat to me. “Why wouldn’t he sign it though?”

“Maybe he
expected you to recognise the address...know how to contact him?”
Eddie suggested. I saw Hercules come into the room at that point
and sit in one of the other chairs.

“How would we
have recognised it?” he asked.

“I would...he
knew that. I would know how to contact him as well,” Eddie said. He
was standing right behind me but I could barely feel him. All I
could think of was those few words. They repeated through my head
over and over again.

“I don’t like
it,” Hercules cut in. His voice was flat, emotionless. I could feel
the turmoil inside him though; he desperately wanted to know where
our friends were and who had taken them, yet dreaded it in equal
measure. If we knew...well, we would know how much trouble they
were in and we wouldn’t have to guess at it any more. It might be a
relief or it might be devastating.

“I know...” I
whispered, “...but what choice do we have?”

I hit the
reply button and started a new message.

“Where are
they? Who are you? What has happened to them?”

I sent it
before anyone could protest. I knew academically that we should
have gone to someone. Normal people would go to the police, and we
should have gone to the Covenant, but I just didn’t have that
option. My reply was desperate but it was succinct and simple. A
response came almost straight away.

“It doesn’t
matter who I am, it’s better if you don’t know. I found information
that suggested they were in one of the old warehouses at the docks.
I don’t know anything more.”

Again it
wasn’t signed but we knew who it was; Eddie had recognised the
e-mail address. Did that really mean that Talon didn’t know that
Eddie was with us? Or that he just hadn’t thought it through? I
didn’t like Talon on principle; he had left Eddie almost
defenceless by not teaching him our ways. Yet he had information
and we needed it. He didn’t ask for anything, it was set out like
he didn’t want to be found.

“Shall I call
him?” Eddie asked.

“No.” Hercules
and I spoke at the same time. I gestured at him to continue with
the explanation.