The Nightmare Charade (36 page)

If he is a boy
. I never knew Paul to have magic like this. My hand felt as if it had been bitten by a snake, and there was something like venom pulsing through my veins, enforcing the paralysis.

But if this wasn't Paul, if it was the shape-changer wearing his skin, then where was the real Paul?

Consume their heart,
I heard Corvus saying once more. But no, Paul couldn't be dead. Unexpected tears stung my eyes at the thought. I wanted to wipe them away, but I still couldn't move. I couldn't even blink.

The stranger next to me pulled the car into the same parking spot as before. I waited while he killed the engine, incapable of doing anything else.

“Sorry about the sting,” he said, flashing me a chilly smile. “But I had to act quickly once I realized what was going on.”

Again, I waited with enforced outward patience, unable to give voice to the curse words screeching in my mind, begging to be shouted.

He finally removed his hand from my wrist, but he didn't let go—not until after he'd pulled Bellanax from my arm and put it in his pocket.

“And now, it seems we have reached a moment of inevitable conflict, you and I,” he said, and the sudden strangeness of his speech confirmed for me what I already knew—this wasn't Paul. “I am prepared to counteract the venom's effect if you agree to come along quietly.”

Inside my head, I was laughing. Definitely not Paul. He would've known better than to suggest such a thing.

“And I am quite certain,” he continued, “that your answer is going to be yes, despite what you might be thinking inside that pretty little head of yours.” He reached over and ran a hand over my hair and down the side of my cheek.

The laughter stopped, rage taking its place. I wanted to hit this guy. I wanted to scream and pound my fists into his face.

“Your options are quite simple, Dusty Everhart. I can either kill you right here, or I can undo the paralysis and give you a chance to save your mother and your precious Eli.”

Silence filled my head now, the quiet calm of sheer terror. This man was a killer. He'd done it a hundred times.
And he eats his victims' hearts.

“You have something I want,” the not-Paul said. “And it's important enough that I'm willing to bargain. Let me know your decision in five-four-three-two-one.
Anti-amnes
.”

The spell swept over me, and I felt the paralysis give way, as if I'd been cut free from a spider's web. I opened my mouth, my eyes blinking rapidly to restore the moisture from so many minutes of not blinking.

The shape-changer climbed out of the car and hurried around to my side. He opened the door for me and waited. I got out slowly and faced him, planning my attack.

“
Hypno-soma!
” I screamed, casting the spell with dizzying speed, all those practice sessions with Selene paying off.

But the shape-changer was even faster. “
Alexo
,” he said, seeming to swipe my dazing curse aside with his shield spell. Then he countered with a spell I didn't recognize. I tried to block it and missed. The magic struck me, then nothing, not so much as a tingle of pain.

Shaking it off, I raised my hand for another attack, but when I spoke the incantation my magic didn't come. It was gone. Erased. Cut out. “What did you—” Invisible fingers closed around my throat as the shape-changer raised his hand toward me.

“Don't be hasty here,” he said. “I mean what I say. You can save them both. You just have to give me what I want.”

“And … what … is … that?” I said between gasping breaths. I had my fingers at my throat, trying to free myself from his magical grip, but there was nothing to grab onto. I'd never met someone with such powerful mind-magic, and without my own magic, I was helpless against him.

“You will find out. And I promise it does not have to involve your death.”

“That's … re … assur … ing.”

The shape-changer grinned and lowered his hand. The pressure on my neck vanished, and I sucked in choking breaths.

“This way, when you're ready.” The shape-changer held out his hand, indicating the direction.

I reached for my magic again, but once more nothing came. “What did you do to me?” Tears burned my eyes, and a sob expanded in my chest. I knew it couldn't be permanent that it was just a spell, some kind of block. I could even sense my magic still waiting inside me, but being separated from it was terrifying. It was like those dreams where you needed to run but couldn't—you knew how to run, knew you were capable of it, but your body refused to obey.

“Convenient little spell, wouldn't you say? One of my specialties. It works so well, even on Nightmares.” The shape-changer put his hands on his hips. “Now let's go.”

Still I didn't move. I needed to get at the device Corvus had given me, tucked in my left front pocket, some kind of tracking beacon. All I had to do was press the button and it would send an alert to his phone along with my GPS coordinates. The electronic device was new enough that animation wouldn't be an issue. If I could only activate it without the shape-changer seeing.

First though, I needed to ditch this stranger's body. I needed the familiarity of my own skin if I stood any change of activating the device and surviving this. I reached up and pulled off the necklace, half-expecting the shape-changer to stop me, but he said nothing.

Savoring the relief of my own shape, I stepped in front of my captor. He did not remove his necklace or the purloined Menagerie worker's face. He couldn't with all his other covers blown—both Alan Early and Paul Kirkwood were wanted men.

“Where are we going?” I asked, moving in the direction he had indicated.

“The Menagerie.”

Nodding, I started to put my hands into my pockets, nonchalant. An invisible force snaked around my wrist and squeezed, restraining me.

“Keep your hands where I can see them, please.”

“Oh, sure, since you asked so nicely,” I said, scowling back at him. I faced front again, adjusting my course toward the Menagerie. Fighting back dizziness I tried to formulate a plan, some way out of this. Then I realized that I might not need to. I'd thought this shape-changer was supposed to be clever, but heading for the Menagerie was the epitome of stupid, given what the guard had just told us.

Then again, I should've known better than to hope it would be so easy.

Just before we rounded the corner toward the Menagerie's main gates, the shape-changer said from behind me, “Now, be sure to play your part well, my dear.”

“What?” As I started to turn around he grabbed my arm. Magic crawled over my skin, followed by the familiar squeeze and stretching sensation of trading my face and body for someone else's.

When the shape-change ended, I looked down and saw fingers lined with age and thick blue veins—the hands of an old woman instead of my own. Somehow he'd shifted my shape without the necklace. “How are you doing this?” I said, and I gasped at the familiar voice of Lady Elaine issuing from my mouth.

“Just one of my many talents,” the shape-changer answered, only his voice was different now, too. I didn't have to look back to know who it was, but I did anyway. Instead of the Menagerie worker, the shape-changer now wore the face and body of Detective Valentine.

“Are you really Valentine or is that shape stolen?”

“Borrowed, my dear, borrowed. And no, this is the first time I've worn him.”

The brilliance of his power filled me with both awe and terror, and I understood more than ever before why these creatures had been so hunted. If they were all like this one, maybe that persecution was even deserved. The thought sickened me, and I hated myself for thinking it.

This is only one shape-changer,
I remembered. Condemning them all based on his behavior would be like condemning all witchkind based on the things that Titus Kirkwood had done. Still, I couldn't deny my revulsion at such unrestrained power.

When we arrived at the gates into the Menagerie, the shape-changer pulled a D.I.M.S. badge out of his pocket and ordered the workers and Will Guards assembled there to let us inside.

They didn't even consider refusing. Why would they? The shape-changer was convincing. For my part, he'd ordered me to be silent. I was okay with obeying. It gave me a chance to slip my hand into my pocket and activate the beacon. At least, I hoped it was active. I'd pressed the button once and then yanked my hand out, convinced for a second that the shape-changer had noticed.

But he was busy giving false instructions to the Menagerie workers. “We have an idea of where to look for Alan Early. You all stay put and wait for the rest of the police force. Sheriff Brackenberry will be here shortly.”

Again, no one questioned, no one doubted. I wanted to scream the truth at them, but that desire warred with my need to get to my mother and Eli. I didn't trust the shape-changer for an instant, no matter what he said about not killing me. But I believed completely that he had my loved ones hidden somewhere in this place. He was my only way of finding them.

The shape-changer directed me further into the Menagerie and around a corner, heading out of sight of the guards. He touched my arm briefly, and I felt my body return to its true shape with a relief. Then we double backed to the long low building that Paul had taken me to once before. Fear rose up in me at the sight of it—and doubt. The abandoned dragon caves below would be the perfect hiding place. Had that been the real Paul who took me there that day? Or had it been the shape-changer all along? I couldn't decide. Before, when I'd been here, Paul had seemed so much like Paul. But how could he have been coming here and not have known about the shape-changer? Was it just coincidence?

My insides clenched—I didn't believe in coincidence.

We entered the building and the shape-changer closed and locked the door behind us. I headed for the tunnel without being asked, but he called for me to stop. I swung to face him. He was still wearing the Valentine disguise.

“Turn out your pockets, please,” he said.

I felt my heart pulsing in my throat. “What?”

“You heard me.” The shape-changer folded his arms across his chest.

Glowering to hide my fear, I shoved my hands into my pockets and withdrew my cell phone from the right one and the tension wrench and rake from the left.

The shape-changer took a step closer to me and examined the objects. He picked up the tension wrench and rake and slid them into his own pocket. Then he picked up my phone. Before I could protest he smashed it against the floor and stomped on it for good measure.

“You didn't have to do that,” I said, wincing. “You could've just turned it off.”

“Destruction is always the safest option.”

I started to argue, but he grabbed my arm and wrenched it behind my back.

“What are you doing?” I tried to pull free, but he only increased the pressure. I had no choice but to bend forward at the waist. With me now immobilized, the shape-changer slid his free hand into my left pocket. I wanted to squirm, the feel of his hand there sickeningly intimate, but before I could react, he let go of me.

I spun toward him to see the beacon in his hand.

“Oh, poor, poor Corvus.” A look of mock pity appeared on the shape-changer's borrowed face, but I saw the delight of victory twinkling in his eyes. “
Cine-aphan,
” he said. There was a loud crack as the beacon vanished.

I trembled, my knees threatening to buckle. My best chance of help had just been obliterated.

“Go on.” The shape-changer motioned me toward the sloping floor ahead. “I believe you know the way.”

Swallowing, I headed down the tunnel. In seconds, the darkness grew too thick for me to see the ground in front of me, and I stopped and faced him. “You got a flashlight or something?” Once again I felt the painful absence of my magic.

The shape-changer raised his hand and a ball of light appeared over his head. It hung there for a moment and then flew forward like a giant, round firefly.

I followed after it. We reached the spiral stairs and headed down, eventually arriving at the dragon cave where I'd come with Paul just a few days before.

I slowed down, but the shape-changer pushed me forward. “Head for the next tunnel.”

Inwardly cursing, I made my way toward it. Whether it had been Paul here with me the last time or not, I soon found out it was no lie about the tunnel being dangerous. I had to hold one hand pressed against the wall to keep from sliding with every step. But no matter where I put my hand, the rock wall crumbled, adding more scree to the already treacherous floor.

I walked on, uncomplaining. Deeper and deeper we went. Soon the main tunnel branched off into several smaller tunnels. The shape-changer pointed to the one on the left. I headed down it only to be confronted with more branching tunnels not far ahead. Once again, the shape-changer indicated the way. Over and over we reached branching tunnels until I was so hopelessly lost I doubted I would ever find my way back.

“Do you want to tell me where we're headed?” I said, giving into my nerves.

“I don't think so,” came his quick reply. “You'll see soon enough.”

I rolled my eyes, the gesture wasted with my back to him.

A few seconds later, I tried again. “So who are you for real?”

Silence answered the question, and I glanced over my shoulder, nearly losing my balance in the process. The shape-changer was still wearing Valentine's form.

“That's an interesting question,” he said, motioning for me to continue down the slope. “I have so many shapes that belong to me. And to be honest, my first shape is so old I barely remember what it feels like to wear it any longer. Not that I would ever want to.”

I gave a sharp intake of breath. “What do you mean old?”

“Oh, I take it Corvus did not fill you in on everything about shape-changers, did he?”