Fragile Brilliance (Shifters & Seers) (23 page)

She should have stayed home. He didn’t want her there, but an hour after the sun finished setting, she found herself stumbling through the Monarch City Park anyway. Her toe slammed into the tail of giant concrete dinosaur who had successfully camouflaged himself against the cloudy night’s sky and she recited every curse word she’d ever learned. For at least the twentieth time in the last five minutes she wished she had her phone and its handy-dandy flashlight app, but it had been missing, along with her mother, when she’d decided to come in search of Charlie.

Stupid, idiotic, arrogant boy.
She felt her way up the length of the brontosaur, trying to remember where his friend the T-Rex was.
When I find you, I’m going to explain the myriad of ways you’re wrong about absolutely everything, and there isn’t a damn thing you’re going to be able to say about it.

She could forgive Charlie a lot, God knew he had a right to be in possession of a few issues, but she would never forgive him if he went off and got himself killed because he insisted on staying in town so she could get her grandmother’s china.

I can’t give you what you need.

Charlie Hagan lived in perpetual state of being wrong.

A muffled cry came from her right, so quiet she would have never heard it if she hadn’t been listening so intently to the sounds of the night, hoping to hear a coyote slinking through the park. She froze, her ears straining to hear the noise again, and after a few silent seconds, it came. She was halfway across the park before realizing investigating strange sounds in the middle of the night wasn’t necessarily the smartest thing in the world, but then a soft whimpering reached her ears and propelled her forward once again.

Maggie didn’t know what she was expecting, but nothing could have prepared her for what she found. Behind an out of control mimosa tree, Charlie was crouched on the ground, his skin rippling and spasming as bones cracked and then knitted themselves back together.

“Charlie?” It came out as a whisper, her voice stolen by the horrific scene in front of her. His head swung towards her and she had to throw a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Where his mouth and nose should have been was a tangle of teeth and the beginnings of a snout. She watched in horror as two more sharp teeth ripped through his gums.

“Charlie, what’s happening? What’s wrong?”

Because something was most definitely wrong. She’d seen Scout Change a handful of times now, and even when she’d tried it inside the house it hadn’t looked like this. Maggie knew it took longer for the others to Change, but Charlie should be in coyote form by now.

What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t a Seer. She didn’t know how to help him. She didn’t even know what was happening. If he was with his pack, like he was supposed to be, they would be able to do something. Liam or Talley would fix him. Even Joshua probably had an answer, but not her. Charlie needed help, and anyone who could provide it was hundreds of miles away.

What had she done in agreeing to stay here?

With shaking hands, she searched her pockets frantically before remembering her phone was missing. A cry of despair ripped from her throat as hot tears trailed down her face.

“What can I do?” she asked  as she sank to her knees beside the thing that was neither human or coyote. “Charlie…” She reached for him, and he leapt back from her touch, his foot getting tangled in the discarded shirt on the ground.

His shirt, which was laying next to his jeans, where he always kept his phone.

Moving slowly so she wouldn’t spook him again, Maggie leaned forward until her fingers hooked into the waistband. Charlie watched as she pulled them back towards her. After what felt like ten minutes, the pockets were finally within strike range. Her trembling fingers snaked into one pocket and touched metal. Still moving like a basketball replay, she pulled out the phone buried inside.

“What the hell?” Forgetting there was a sorta-kinda wild animal in a lot of pain nearby, Maggie snapped her head up so quickly a sharp pain shot up her neck. “What is my phone doing in your jeans, Charlie?”

It was turned off, and she thought daybreak would occur before the thing finally powered up. When it did, it proudly told her about the fourteen voicemails, twenty-three text messages, and thirty-nine missed calls she’d failed to receive over the past two hours.

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, scanning the text messages, unable to completely process what any of them said. “What have you done?”

Most of the messages were from Scout, who was now doing her own four-legged thing, but the last few were from Talley. She immediately pushed the callback button, silently begging her to pick up. Maggie nearly burst into tears when she heard the click after the second ring.

“How bad is it?” Talley said, bypassing her customary cheerful greeting.

“Bad,” Maggie said, any relief she’d felt at having the phone answered already fading. For some reason, everything suddenly seemed even worse than it had just seconds before. She fought the urge to break down into tears. “Charlie isn’t Changing. Something is wrong. He’s…”
dying
“in a lot of pain.”

“Is he convulsing?”

There was a loud snap, and Charlie’s shoulders lurched up, rotating in their sockets.

“I think we’re a little past convulsing.”

There was a long minute of silence on the phone and then, “He’s trying to Change?”

Isn’t that what I said?!?!?

“Yes, and it’s going very, very badly.”

“You need to listen to me, Maggie--”

“It’s not exactly like I’m playing Minecraft while we’re talking here, Tal.”

Talley continued in a calm, patient, Talley-like voice. “Charlie hasn’t Changed since he got hurt really badly in a fight with the old Alpha Pack. We don’t know why. At first we thought it was because his wounds were so extensive, but then he healed and… nothing.”

“So he has to endure this every full moon?”

Maggie could hear the now-familiar sound of wolf howls and coyote barks through the phone. Unlike the rest of the Seers in the Alpha Pack, Talley always went out with Shifters on full moon nights. After a single visit to the shooting range with the Stella Polaris, Maggie completely understood why they trusted her to take care of herself.

“Are you sure he’s trying to Change?”

“He currently has one hand and one paw.” Although, paw sounded way too innocuous for the clawed mass at the end of his arm. Acid burned the back of Maggie’s throat, her craptastic Thanksgiving dinner desperate to make a reappearance.

Talley cursed, using a word Maggie didn’t think the mild-mannered girl knew, let alone would let slip past her lips. “Normally it’s just some small seizures,” Talley said. “We have a doctor come and keep him sedated the whole time. I…” Her voice shook. “I don’t know what to do.”

Up until this point, Charlie had been on all fours, but at that pronouncement, he collapsed to the ground as if he’d heard Talley’s end of the conversation and knew no help was coming. Maggie didn’t think, she just dropped the phone and went to him. There was nowhere she could touch. His body was too damaged, but she lay down beside him, her face next to his on the cool dirt, and that is when she felt it. Power, more power than she’d ever felt before, was gathered in the earth beneath Charlie’s body.

From the moment Maggie’s grandmother had passed along her powers of Thaumaturgy, Maggie was aware of what was going on in the ground beneath her feet. She respected the earth, and in return it gifted her with abilities most people couldn’t imagine. Where most people saw dirt, Maggie saw life, energy, and power.

Life, energy, and power that was hers to command.

Life, energy, and power that Charlie needs.

It was all there, coiled up, ready to turn the man into the coyote, but it wasn’t getting through.

“Charlie, it’s there. Take it. Change.”

He whimpered in reply, and the energy remained trapped in the ground.

“Charlie, please. Do whatever it is you guys do, and
Change
.”

If anything, the invisible barrier between all that energy and Charlie grew stronger. She could feel it all there, humming beneath her. There was so much of it she could have leveled the entire city with a thought if she wanted. If she had to watch Charlie writhe in pain much longer, she might. Anything would be better than watching him suffer.

“Please. Please, take it. Please Change.” She kept chanting the words, over and over, hoping he would hear. That he would listen.  “Please, Charlie. Please Change.”

His entire body trembled and a cry that could pull tears from a stone shattered the night. Maggie pressed her hands, palm down, onto the ground and felt the energy hum around them, and she knew what she had to do.

Her fingers flexed, sending ripples through the tightly wound energy eagerly awaiting her instruction. Could she do it? Could she push it into Charlie? Could she break through the shield he was trapped in?

There is only one way to find out…

Maggie pulled herself up on her knees, keeping her palms right where they were. As she moved, she called more energy to her, the power pulsing in a steady rhythm beneath her hands. She gathered it up until she had as much as she thought she could handle, and then she pulled in even more.

“Brace yourself,” she said, looking into the grass green eyes she had grown to love, and then she pushed the power towards him with everything she had. She pushed as sweat dripped down her neck and her breath came in short pants. She pushed as her arms began to tremble and then gave way beneath her. Even crumbled on the ground, her chest burning with the effort, she kept pushing. Her vision had gone blurry, but she could still hear the wet, crunchy noises and knew her job wasn’t finished, so she kept pushing until there was nothing left to push. The last thing she saw before everything went completely black was the face of a coyote inches from her own.

Joshua wouldn’t be able to save her. He had sworn to protect Maggie, but there was no way he could shield her from Scout’s wrath. The Alpha Female had been ready to rip the Thaumaturgic to shreds by the time the sun began sinking back into the earth.

“She’s kidnapped him!” Scout bellowed, stomping around her parents’ kitchen, slamming cabinet doors as she gathered post-Change fuel.

Jase sat on the counter, unwrapping packages of lunchmeat and putting them into easier-for-four-legged-creatures-to-access Tupperware containers. “Maggie is a ninety-pound girl with the muscle tone of a slug. Unless she slipped something in his drink, I seriously doubt she’s keeping him against his will.”

“She didn’t have to drug him,” Scout said, turning on her heel and brandishing a sleeve of crackers like a weapon. “All she had to do was wiggle those fingers she’s got him wrapped around. He’s probably doing some sort of creepy marionette dance right now.”

“You do realize Charlie is an adult, and if he wants to be Maggie’s own personal Howdy Doody, then it’s his choice, right?”

Scout gave Joshua a look that would have made a lesser man pee himself. As it was, Joshua wanted to crawl under the table. She might be sixty years younger than him, and he might technically be unable to die, but something told him the Alpha Female could make death seem like a welcomed friend. “One, he’s not an adult, he’s Charlie. And two, it’s not Charlie’s fault she’s a manipulative little witch.” There was pop as the cracker sleeve relented to the power of the grip Scout had on it. “We don’t even know what she does. Maybe she can manipulate people. Maybe she’s using her crazy brain power to hold him captive.” She threw the demolished crackers into the trashcan and grabbed her phone off the counter. “I’m going to try to call him again.”

No matter how much Joshua defended Charlie’s right to stay where he was, Scout remained convinced he was in need of rescuing. It didn’t help when Liam and Talley started agreeing with her, although neither of the others blamed Maggie. Still, a small rescue party formed and was ready to head out when a phone call changed everyone’s plan. Being the only Stratego not called by the full moon, Joshua was sent on a solo mission, one he would have accomplished a lot sooner if the interstate hadn’t been closed for two hours just west of Nashville. He was beginning to make progress through the long lines of traffic when Maggie’s call to Talley came through. He linked the car’s GPS to the phone, and pulled into the park only forty-five minutes later.

“Maggie?” He listened for the horrific sounds he’d heard over the line when he’d intercepted Maggie’s call to Talley, but only heard the typical late-night noises. He hoped she’d found a way to knock him out. He wasn’t sure where he stood on the whole is-pain-still-pain-if-you-can’t-remember-feeling-it debate, but he was certain anyone would rather be in a medically-induced coma than scream as their body parts rearranged themselves over and over.

He pulled up the signal from her phone onto his own and walked towards the flashing dot. He was closing in on the spot when a coyote jumped in front of him, blocking his path.

“Hey, Charlie,” he said as casually as he could while looking at a mouth full of sharp teeth. “I see you made the Change after all.”

Even though Joshua had never seen Charlie’s coyote form, there was no question who was standing in front of him. If the similarities between this coyote and the one Jase turned into weren’t enough of a hint, those grass-green Hagan eyes would have given it away. Still, Joshua was afraid, and he wasn’t too proud to admit it. Charlie hadn’t Changed in a very long time, and he’d been in a lot of pain for hours. There was no doubt there was more coyote instinct than human logic going on.

“Where’s Mags?” There was no way Charlie would have hurt her on purpose, but on accident? With a wild coyote there was always the chance. And the longer they stood there with her not stepping out of the shadows, the more Joshua worried. “Did she go back home?”

Charlie growled low in his throat, his ears pressing back against his head. He stepped forward, forcing Joshua to step back. Understanding dawned slowly.

“Is she back there? Behind those bushes?”

Charlie forced Joshua back another step.

“Hey, bro. It’s me. It’s Joshua. You know I’m not going to hurt her, but if something is wrong, I might be able to help.” The coyote didn’t back off, but he didn’t press Joshua further back either. “You can stay right by my side and start chewing on my face if I’m lying.”

The standoff lasted a few minutes longer, but finally Charlie dropped his head. Joshua moved with exaggerated slowness around him and past the area of undergrowth. Maggie was just on the other side, heaped on the ground like another piece of Charlie’s discarded clothing. There was no blood or signs of injury he could see, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t laying in a pool of her own blood.

“I’m going to lift her up,” Joshua told the coyote who sat next to her head, nudging her hair with his nose. “I need to check for injuries, okay?” He laid a hand on her shoulder, and when Charlie didn’t try to snap off a few fingers, he used it to roll her over. The side she was laying on was as unmarred as the rest of her, but her skin was cold. Cold enough Joshua was surprised to find a pulse. “I’m going to have to get you off this freezing ground,” he murmured to her, feeling a bit of a chill himself as the cold seeped through his jeans.

Joshua’s eyebrows snapped together. It was cold out, but not freezing. Joshua had been completely comfortable wearing a cotton button-up shirt over his Kiss the Cook tee just minutes before, but the ground here felt like it was waiting for the snow to start. He looked at the girl in his arms again, the one whose secrets he’d known even though she never told him, and the coyote who looked ready to tear him from limb-to-limb for touching her.

“You talented girl,” he said, a slow smile spreading over his face. “You beautiful, amazing, talented, selfless girl.” He couldn’t stop himself from placing his lips on her forehead, even with Charlie growling in his ear.

Never being around a Thaumaturgic who had drained herself before, Joshua wasn’t sure how to proceed. After some debate with a Shifter who couldn’t reply, he settled on pulling Charlie’s shirt over her own clothes, wrapping her legs in his button-up shirt, and rolling up Charlie’s pants and placing them under her head. He went back to the car to grab the blanket he always kept in the trunk, running through ideas in his head, but as he was heading back something grabbed his attention. He stood and stared at the ground for several moments, trying to figure out the difference. It wasn’t something so obvious as dead grass and living grass, but somehow there seemed to be a line in the dirt so to speak. On one side, the grass looked weaker, less vibrant, and on the other, there was a luster that couldn’t be hidden by the night sky. He knelt down and placed a hand on either side of the barely visible line and the temperature difference was obvious. On Maggie’s side, the side with the barely-surviving grass, the ground was chilled to the point it hurt his hand to touch it. On the other, warmth reigned.

“I’m moving her,” he told Charlie, who had stayed to guard the girl. “She’s drained too much of the earth here.” Proving he was starting to understand like a human a bit more, or that he could see Joshua’s resolve and knew better than to get in the way, Charlie let Joshua lift Maggie off the ground and carry her out into the main part of the park. It was a risk, he knew it, but trees lined three sides of the open area, and the fourth spilled out onto the parking lot where only Joshua’s car resided. Still, he hoped this would work quickly, before a friendly neighborhood police office came by and asked what exactly he was doing with an unconscious girl and a coyote.

When he put her on the ground, he didn’t re-cover her. Instead, he exposed as much skin to the earth as he could, knowing that like Talley, Maggie’s powers required touch to work.

Color didn’t return to her cheeks for another thirty minutes, and Joshua worried it wasn’t going to work, but finally her eyelashes started to flutter. “Charlie?” she forced out the moment she could, and in the space of a heartbeat, he was there, nuzzling her and letting her hands brush weakly through his fur.

“Miss McCray. How nice of you to join us.”

The shock of hearing Joshua’s voice had her sitting up a little too quickly for someone who had been completely out of it just moments earlier, and Charlie snapped his teeth at Joshua in warning.

“Here, let me help,” he said, sliding an arm around her waist so she wouldn’t fall back. “How are you feeling, Mags?”

Her eyes were unfocused as they looked up into his face. “What happened?”

Joshua smiled down at the girl even as Charlie gave him the coyote death glare. “Well, my dear, it seems you have bent the laws of physics to fix your boyfriend here. Quite the amazing feat, I must say. I’m very much impressed.”

“Charlie…” she looked around frantically, her shoulders dropping with relief when she met the gaze of the coyote who sat by her side. Again her fingers went to his coat, brushing and easing away the aggression in his canine body.

“How did you do it?” Maggie froze mid-brush, and he clarified. “I mean, I understand what you did, but how did channeling all that energy turn our Charlie boy here into a real Shifter?”

Her eyes narrowed on him. “You know what I can do?”

“I’m Joshua. Information is kind of my thing.”

She seemed to accept his answer, although somewhat reluctantly.

“There was something blocking him from accessing the energy from the earth. He couldn’t complete the Change without it, so I gave it a push.”

From the state of the ground in a twenty-foot radius from where he found her, Joshua was willing to wager it was one hell of a push.

“Something was blocking him?” He looked at the coyote in question. “Sure it wasn’t someone?”

Maggie tilted her head in confusion. “But who would want to block Charlie? Who could even do that?”

“Who indeed.” He met the coyote’s green eyes, and the defiance there was all he needed to know he was right. Joshua had only ever known the broken Charlie, and had seen him break even further when they buried his brother, but looking into the eyes of the coyote, he finally understood the sadness and worry on the faces of all the other members of the Alpha Pack when they looked at their friend. The Charlie Joshua knew was missing something, and this was it. The coyote. The part composed of instinct and emotion. It was a wild thing, unpredictable and uncontrolled.

Joshua prayed he was here to stay.

Just hopefully not forever.

“Do you think he’ll be able to Change back?” he asked. Traditionally, the human form was the one Shifters preferred, but he didn’t know how much of Human Charlie was left in the beast who still lifted his lip to show off his impressive fangs every time Joshua was brave enough to look at him. If the coyote had taken over completely, was it possible for him to do the same thing the human side had done to him? Could he hold off the Change and silence the human voice in his head forever?

“I’m not going to let him hurt like that again,” Maggie said, cutting off his thoughts. “When he starts Changing back, I’ll make sure he finishes.”

Charlie growled, and Joshua thought about doing the same.

“You’re spent, kiddo. There will be no more magic mojo from you tonight.”

She rose her chin defiantly and narrowed her eyes on him. “I will do what I have to do to get him through.”

“This girl is under my protection as a Stratego and an Immortal,” he told the coyote. “If you force her to hurt herself any further, I swear to God, I don’t care who you are, I will take the vengeance of the Lord out on you, and there won’t be a damn thing you can do to stop me.”

The coyote lowered his head to the ground, but it wasn’t a sign of submission. The pose said,
I agree with you, but don’t think you can threaten me, asshole. I will pounce on you and have your windpipe stuck in my teeth before you can say, “Down, boy.”

Joshua reevaluated how much he wanted this Charlie to stick around.

Over the next hour Joshua found both Charlie and Maggie something to eat and even convinced Maggie to take a few bites while Charlie scarfed down an entire turkey. After finding out which house was hers, he broke in and grabbed her some warmer clothes. He was trying to talk her into getting a few hours of sleep before dawn came when his phone beeped.

Joshua knew something was up when he’d sent a text to Scout’s phone to let her know Charlie was okay and got a “K” in response. Scout didn’t do one-letter texts, and she certainly didn’t do them over something as important to her as Charlie’s well being. No response would have meant she’d Changed and was without opposable thumbs, but a one-word text? She was human and busy.

Not a good sign, and neither was the “we need your forensic expertise” message he was looking at now.

“You think you can handle the rest of this on your own, Mags?”

Two sets of eyes - one coal black and the other green as grass - looked up at him as if he was less than bright. “We’re fine,” Maggie said as if it was obvious. He thought about mentioning how she was in a coma when he got there and Charlie had spent over an hour in excruciating pain before that, but decided against it. Charlie was considerably calmer than when he’d arrived, but Joshua didn’t think it was wise to taunt him.