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“The thing that’s behind this knows we’re here,” Curran continued. “Whichever group is attacked will hold, while the other group will close in. The enemy uses magic. Kate is a magic expert. Obey her without question even if it goes against your training. She’ll keep us alive.”
Curran turned toward the woods.
“Alright,” Keelan barked, “you heard the Alpha. You’re going into enemy territory. This is the real thing. This is what you’ve trained for. Ears up, noses open, look alive.”
We started to the gate.
A small group turned the corner, entering the street a block away and hurried toward us. A middle-aged man was in the lead, short, stocky, with light brown skin and short brown hair, dressed in sawdust-covered overalls with safety googles perched on his head. Beside him was a stocky red-headed woman in her twenties armed with a bow and a sword, and a well-dressed woman in her forties with dark brown skin and glossy hair pulled into a bun.
The middle-aged man waved at us. “Wait!”
Curran stopped and everyone stopped with him.
The group reached us. The middle-aged man stuck his hand out and said, slightly out of breath, “Mayor Eugene Dowell. Everyone calls me Gene.”
“Curran Lennart. This is my wife, Kate, and these are my associates.”
Curran and I took turns shaking his hand.
The associates, who a moment ago had put on their game faces and were ready to invade enemy territory and fuck shit up, made valiant efforts to appear non-threatening.
“This is Ruth Chatfield, city clerk and finance director.”
The dark-haired woman put her hand out, and we shook it.
“And this is Heather Armstrong, our interim wall guard captain.”
We shook again.
“If you need anything, please let us know,” Gene said.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re not going in, are you?” The anxiety dripped from Gene’s voice.
“We are,” Curran confirmed.
“But the magic is up,” Gene said.
“We know,” I told him.
Ruth looked like she was imagining our funeral. Heather’s face told me that she had seen this exact scenario before and knew none of us would come back in one piece. Or at all.
“I wish you’d reconsider,” Gene said.
“Thank you for your concern,” I told him. “Can you please open the gate for us?”
Gene sighed. “Heather?”
“Open the gates,” Heather called out. One of the guards ran down the wall, took the stairs, and went to the gate to unbar it.
The three of them watched the gate open with resigned looks on their faces.
The gate swung open, and we went through.
Behind us, Heather sighed and said, “I’ll get the first responders ready.”
4
The oppressive feeling grew stronger. We were half a mile into the woods now. The shapeshifters had executed the drifting maneuver with flawless precision. We sort of spontaneously parted, slowly diverging from each other along parallel paths in an entirely natural, casual way. I could no longer see Curran or his group, but I knew they were there, five hundred yards to my right.
The woods around us were still pine and grass. None of the confusion Isaac told me about was happening.
“It’s drawing us in,” Keelan murmured on my left.
“Yep.”
It wanted us far enough from town that help wouldn’t arrive in time, but close enough for our bodies to be easily found.
“Any time now,” I said.
The shapeshifters around me moved like shadows, fast and silent. We kept going.
“We’re being stalked by some sweet shrubs,” Keelan murmured. “They’ve been following us for the last five minutes.”
Last I checked, sweet shrubs didn’t move. They did, however, give off a spicy strong scent that was good enough to drown out other odors. “How many shrubs?”
“At least three.”
Ahead, a couple of trees had fallen to our left, creating a clearing around a massive pine tree. Hakeem, who was slightly in front of us and to the left, stopped and picked up a stick.
“Stop,” Keelan and I ordered at the same time.
Hakeem froze.
I caught up with him. “What is it?”
He pointed with his stick in the direction of the giant pine. Four stone spheres about the size of baseballs were stacked on top of each other in the clearing, about fifteen yards from the big tree. By every law of physics, they should have collapsed. They had to be held together by magic, but nothing emanated from them. From this distance, they looked like rocks. Unnaturally smooth and round rocks.
“Were you going to poke them with a stick?” Keelan growled.
Hakeem looked uncertain. “Yes?”
“When you find freaky shit in the scary woods, you don’t poke it with a stick. It can explode in your face. What do you do instead?”
Hakeem clearly didn’t know the answer to that question. I almost felt sorry for him. He had just turned eighteen this year, and this was likely his first real outing.
“You ask the Consort. The Consort knows everything.”
“Oh,” Hakeem said.
Keelan pivoted to me. “Consort, please tell us what this is.”
“I have no idea.”
