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“Magick this away somewhere safe. I don’t want to have to come back to get it.” Clair looked like she would argue until Rycon pulled his gun from the back of his jeans. He bent down and grabbed his jade-hilted blade from his boot, and handed both to me. “You’ll need these more than I will. Any progress we made with your training is gone now. Once I shift, I won’t be able to carry them anyway. Do you know how hard it is to replace a gun in Canada?” He mused out loud. I accepted the weapons for what they were, though I was in such a state of duress that I couldn’t ever imagine using them.
“You’d be surprised,” Rycon said, answering my half-finished thoughts. I realized as he stood before me, the suffocating humidity of his rainforest aura building, that I would finally see him shift. “You know how to use that, right?” He asked as pinpricks began to rub against his skin from the inside, pushing his flesh up into a million tiny tents.
Yes. I knew how to use a gun. Jeremy had taught me, though he had never kept one in our house. The gun felt heavy in my hand. Not sure if that was saying much, as the empty water bottle had been nearly too heavy to throw. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. Rycon was now stripping off his white cotton t-shirt, his face grave.
‘I know I screwed you, but I promise it will never happen again. You can tell if I’m lying. Please save that jacket. It’s all I have left of him.’ His father. The jacket had belonged to his dead father. I knew he was telling the truth, and I knew Clair had heard his telepathic request, and the jacket misted away from her arms.
Rycon’s yellow-slitted eyes crinkled at the corners in the closest thing we would ever get to a ‘thank you,’ and then he changed. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.
A ripple started like a pebble had been thrown in a lake, but it began from the inside of him. The ripples in his very skin grew deeper and deeper until they cracked at the seams, and nothing but black fur exploded from the creases. His bones were exposed, and I watched them shift and move with a sickening ‘popping’ sound as his flesh peeled away to make room for the ebony fur.
His nails grew and sharpened into claws, and his skull reshaped. Blood and puss spilled from the crevices as he changed, and his ripped blue jeans fell off the slim hind legs of the largest black panther I had ever seen.
Somehow, I didn’t think they were supposed to be this large. His head came up to my neck, and his body was nearly two times the length of mine standing up. I gripped the butt of the gun and the hilt of the knife he had given me in each hand on reflex. Seeing an animal that large and wild was unnerving, even though I knew it was Rycon beneath all that fur.
His energy as a panther was the same but different. Wilder. Freer. I now understood why he had decided to trade me for his freedom. A beast like that did not belong on a leash. The bond I had forced on him was much more restrictive than any chain could ever be. I glanced at Clair, and she pursed her lips.
Rycon’s still-yellow eyes met mine and he nodded his great head down once. It was an act of compliance. An apology. His jaw was open, and his canines gleamed in the light, each as long as my palm.
‘Let’s go.’ Even his voice in my mind sounded different. More serious, authoritative. Once, the chief of his leap, a mantle he had given up a long time ago.
Rycon’s muscular tail whipped behind him as he stalked silently from the room. I glanced at Clair. The idea of leaving this room after so long was oddly terrifying. The thought of being punished if I were caught almost outweighed the bleating cry for freedom that hummed through my bones.
“I will not let anyone touch you,” Clair promised, holding out her hand to me. “Not again.” I nodded and looked to the open door. It seemed to be shrinking before my very eyes. As if I needed to make a move soon or the opportunity would be gone forever. Despite the triquetra , I clung to the small part of Rycon I could still access and took a step forward. The energy I channeled through the bond was the only thing keeping my broken body upright.
“I will get that thing off of your neck as soon as we are safe.” Clair promised. “It is a perversion of what that charm is meant to symbolize. Whatever Kieran did to it, is complex. I will need some time with it.” I knew Kieran had tampered with it, but it had made me feel sick even before he arrived. It was a charm of protection, and the fact that it seemed to repel the very essence of my being, disturbed me. Maybe daemons and magick folk just didn’t mix.
At some point during my internal ramblings, we had entered the hallway.
“See, Raven? We made it. We’re out.” Clair whispered to me, pride swelling with each syllable. I glanced behind us, into the empty room that was still lit by that single, bare, flickering bulb.
It was surreal to look at from the outside.
I was free.
54
Rycon was sitting with his back to us at the end of the hallway, peering around the corner into the darkness. His great tail was swishing behind him in agitation.
‘We have company.’ He said into our minds, as his feline mouth would not allow him to speak out loud. He folded into a crouching stance I had only ever witnessed on the Discovery channel before suddenly exploding around the corner and out of sight. We couldn't see what he had done... but we could hear the screams.
Clair and I waited by my cell. She gripped my hand so hard her knuckles turned white. I waited to feel afraid, but there was nothing left in me to feel. Some essential part of me had been broken in that chamber. Another thought that should have terrified me. Still, I felt nothing.
Moments later, Rycon emerged from around the corner, his jowls dripping in crimson.
‘Clear.’ Was all he said, before padding back around the corner, expecting us to follow him. I wondered how many situations he had been in before that had required him to use words like ‘clear’ to describe a hallway.
I continued to grip Clair’s hand as we moved forward. She gently held me back and put herself before me, sheltering me from what was to come.
Though nothing she could have done could have prepared me for the four dead bodies sprawled across the hall. I didn’t recognize any of the fallen magick folk, and another thrill of panic coursed through me. Where were Marcus and Maria? How many witches had Kieran brought with him? Would there be an army of Nightshades waiting to intercept our escape?
The fallen had their throats ripped out, and Rycon was sitting at the end of the passage, his tail swishing behind him and his eyes gleaming as only a cat’s eyes could in the dark. I tried not to look to closely at the dead bodies, but I couldn’t help but see their bared spines shining in the dirty light, where Rycon had eaten out their throats. One of them looked like he could have been my age. Now he was dead. I wondered what Kieran had done or said to him to recruit him. Had he known what he was getting into when he had joined the Nightshade Coven?
‘Move faster,’ the panther hissed into our minds. Clair spoke for me.
“She will take as much time as she needs. We will handle what comes.” Rycon sent a metaphysical shrug down the line.
‘Whatever you say,’ he stood up, his perfect panther form was silent on the impermeable floor.
