Twenty Years Later

 

 

For the first time in two months, Tre Sullivan was alone. He ambled along through a copse of trees, sniffing at the ground. Every step forward he took with one of his paws was a little thrilling shock to him. The length of his claws. The thickness of his fur.

Needless to say, he wasn’t used to the fact that he’d been transformed into a bear shifter. It helped that Jack and Jean Luc had been transformed as well. The three of them had formed a brotherhood of sorts. They could feel one another’s emotions when they were in human form and they could speak in one another’s minds when they were in bear form.

But now, in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, Tre was alone, truly alone. He was a mile from the homestead where they’d arrived two days ago. Thea’s house. She was one of the women along on this adventure with them. She was Jack’s woman, which, to Tre, meant that she was sort of a sister-in-law. Considering the sort of brotherhood between Tre, Jean Luc, and Jack. Which made Celia his sister-in-law as well. Tre could palpably feel the love between her and Jean Luc from fifty feet. It was like a blanket of emotion around the two of them. A cocoon.

He envied that a little. Not the love part. That part seemed like suicide to Tre. But the cocoon part, that sounded good. It sounded good to have a little layer of protection between his ass and the rest of this crazy adventure they’d all found themselves smack dab in the middle of. One by one they’d been hunted in this group and something was telling him that his number was about to be up. It was about to be his turn.

He’d always had good intuition. It was part of the thing that made him such a good hacker. He understood something about the world that others didn’t. He was always able to see a pattern in the way things turned out. He’d known people who’d said his intuition was almost spooky. Like psychic or something. But Tre didn’t buy that. He paid attention, was all. People left all sorts of trails both from where they’d been and where they were planning to go.

Besides, the human race had been around for millennia. It would be arrogant to think that anything truly new could ever happen. Which was why he followed his intuition so well. He followed the pattern and made good guesses. None of them had wanted him to go out on his own, they thought it was better to stay together as a group. But Tre had just sort of known that nothing was going to happen to him. He’d be safe for the next few hours. And to appease them all, he’d agreed to shift into his bear form so that he could defend himself if he needed.             

He hadn’t realized just how damn good it would feel to be on his own in bear form. It was like jumping into a fresh cold lake at dawn, but in a good way. It was like watching the sun through the leaves and then the wind shifts and the sun gets in your eyes for a moment, in a good way. It was like a long, hard run that he knew was gonna leave his muscles wrecked the next day, but in a good way.

That was the best he could explain it. Being in bear form was just an instinctual rightness, an animalistic simplicity that made every decision very easy. Though his thoughts were still decidedly human, his human worries and concerns fell away. He was calm and happy. He thought perhaps that was also in part due to the fact that he was a grizzly and they were in his natural habitat these days.

The maps had brought them all the way to Montana. He liked it better than Florida, where they’d been before, but not as much as Northern Michigan, where they’d been before that.

It was strange to him that he was starting to think of their group as family. He hadn’t had real family in a long time. Since his mother died. But he supposed that being chased by a soul-hunting demon, attacked by the demon’s right-hand man, and getting transformed into shifters was most likely a recipe for automatically bonding a group.

Tre sat back on his haunches and looked at the trees around him. His great grizzly head was the size of a dinner chair, his shoulders almost as wide as the front seat of a car. He enjoyed the size of himself as a grizzly. The smell of the pine trees in the distance was sharp. The blue sky above him was bigger and bluer than the ocean. He could almost taste the water vapor making up the puffy white clouds sailing over the distant mountain ranges.

What was it about distance that turned everything that same, hazy blue? Something tugged at the edge of Tre’s mind and he turned back in the direction of the homestead. There it was again, and he realized now that it was a voice.

Jean Luc’s voice in Tre’s head.

“Tre, man. Come back. He’s awake.”

Tre bounded forward, toward home, as fast as he could go. He didn’t have to ask who ‘he’ was. It was Arturo. The demon’s right-hand man who they’d captured and nearly killed. He was waking up.

Tre kicked into an even higher gear. Thea’s home came into view. Rickety and leaning to one side, the farmhouse must have once been white. It had a huge, picturesque, wraparound porch complete with swings. Tre could smell the animals in the barn and stables as he, still in bear form, bolted past. He could also smell and hear their unease at the proximity to a grizzly. When he was ten feet from the house, he stilled his run, closed his eyes, and concentrated. A strange, cold density came over him and had Tre shaking out one limb and then the next and the next. He was back in his human form.

“Oh, good. You’re back.”

Tre’s eyes came open to see Caroline Clifton leaning over the porch rail toward him. She barely blinked at his complete nakedness. Tre resisted the urge to cover himself as he strode forward to the stairs where he’d left his clothes. He tugged on his pants. “Jean Luc shifted and called me back. Arturo’s awake?”
“Just barely,” she replied, those caramel honey eyes wide and on his back as he shrugged into his shirt. He knew that she was sort of fascinated with the mosaic of tattoos over his back and chest and arms. Whenever he was shirtless, he always caught her looking. “You’re blushing.”

“Ah.” He couldn’t very well deny it. Tre was a redhead. When a redhead blushed, there was no pretending that redhead wasn’t blushing. He felt the heat of it race up his neck and to his cheeks. “Yup.”

“Why?” She cocked her head to one side, a furrow in her brow. Her chestnut hair tumbled over one shoulder as she tucked her hands into the pockets of her neat blue trousers. She wore demure little flats and a trim blouse.

Tre didn’t look at her as he shoved his feet into one sock and then the other. Sometimes he wished that Caroline had that kind of icy, unapproachable beauty that models and actresses had. Instead she had all this friendly beauty. With her big smile and kind eyes and soft little voice that was always laughing or asking a question. She was the kind of pretty that made a man want to stay up too late talking to her on the phone. Or spend a stupid amount of money on an Italian dinner. Or make sure her feet were tucked under a blanket at night. Not Tre, he didn’t exactly feel that way, it was just that he could see how a man could feel that way. He cleared his throat. “I’m starting to think I should get you some singles.”

She cocked her head. “Singles?”

“Yeah, considering how often I strip for you.” Tre made a joke out of the fact that she’d seen him naked a handful of times, all for bear-shifter-related reasons.

She laughed, that bright, clear bell of a laugh. “Oh, that’s why you’re blushing? You don’t have to blush about that, Tre. You’re a very handsome man. You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

He held open the screen door for her and she ducked under his arm. He stared after her. Handsome? He’d never been called handsome a day in his life. He’d made peace with his coppery carrot top and pale skin, though it had been a source of endless ridicule for him when he was a kid. The tattoos helped with that. People usually commented on those before they commented on his hair these days. He definitely didn’t think of himself as unattractive. He had pretty fair odds with the ladies. But with his thick glasses hiding his green-brown eyes and his wiry frame, he was just strange enough to have never been considered handsome. Except by Caroline, apparently.

He shook his head as she hurried through the kitchen toward the back guest bedroom where they’d plunked Arturo down a few days ago. When they’d first kidnapped him, they’d accidentally knocked him out using their bear emotional telepathy skills. He’d slept through the entire trip to Montana all the way from Florida.

Tre ducked his head into the door to Arturo’s bedroom and felt Jean Luc and Jack both relax now that he was there. There was no question that the three of them were stronger when they were all together.

“What’d I miss?” Tre asked, scanning the group. Jack and Jean Luc stood most of the way in the room. Jack’s hands were in his pockets and Jean Luc’s were crossed over his chest. Thea leaned back against one wall, a wry tension emanating from her. And Martine, the demon hunter in their midst, knelt at the edge of the bed, her coppery blonde hair pulled back and her hands in fists at her sides. Tre’s eyes automatically arrowed in on Arturo lying on the bed. He was shirtless and sweating, his black hair as wet as ink across his forehead. Every few seconds, Arturo’s eyes fluttered open, only to have the lids dragged inexorably back down, as if even that was too much of a battle.

Tre looked over to see that Jean Luc’s eyes were closed. Tre could tell he was probing out toward Arturo, searching to see if he could get a read on his feelings. Automatically, Tre closed his eyes and did the same; moments later, he felt Jack join them.

Tre stood with his eyes closed, but it was almost like they were open. He could feel Jack on one side and Jean Luc on the other so clearly he felt as if he were looking at them. He could feel Jack’s fury at Arturo, his half wish that the guy just hadn’t survived any of this. He could feel Jean Luc’s cautious trepidation, his understanding of exactly how much power Arturo had. And, lastly, Tre started to get a sense of another set of feelings. Arturo’s feelings.

With his eyes still closed, Tre’s eyebrows hopped high on his forehead. The other time he’d felt out with his feelings for Arturo’s feelings, he’d come up against something snaky and reptilian. Arturo’s emotions were dry and cold and constantly writhing away from anything warm. But this time, that quality was gone. Arturo’s emotions were warm, pulsing almost. And they were almost completely pure pain.

Tre stepped back as if he’d been burned, losing the connection with Arturo. He opened his eyes to see that Jack and Jean Luc had done the same.

“What is it?” Martine asked, turning to face them. Her eyes were narrowed.

“Pain,” Tre answered. He trained his eyes on Arturo’s lined face.

“It’s the demon,” Martine answered immediately, referring to Arturo’s master and the being that was hunting their souls. “It senses that Arturo has been taken so it wants him incapacitated. So that Arturo can’t help us.”

“It has that much control over him?”

Martine nodded. “They’re linked.”

Arturo arched on the bed, his eyes flinging open for a second before he groaned and fell to his side.

“Oh my gosh!” Caroline pushed past Tre and into the room. She fell to her knees next to Martine. She’d brought a damp towel which she used to wipe the sweat from Arturo’s chest and face.

Tre’s hands tightened at his sides. “Caroline. I think you should step back from there.”

She waved him off. “I’m not in danger. Look, he couldn’t hurt a fly right now.” Caroline looked down, almost tenderly, at the man who’d tried to kill them all twice, or arguably, three times already.

“Caroline,” Tre started again.

“He’s in so much pain,” she cut him off. “And he’s burning up. Martine, can he survive this?”

Martine’s light green eyes were big and serious as she rose up and paced to the window, opening it a few inches to let the cool evening air waft in. “I don’t know. He and the demon are bound in such a way that the demon can’t outright kill Arturo, but he can certainly injure him. Permanently.”

“Can we do anything?” Caroline asked anxiously.

“You mean besides letting the bastard rot?” Thea asked, quasi-innocently, her blue eyes glinting as she redid her bun of jet black hair.

“Thea!” Caroline was obviously amazed at the brutality of the suggestion.

Celia, who was so far back into the opposite corner of the room that Tre hadn’t even seen her before that moment, stepped forward. Her septum piercing caught the light as she reached up to play with her dyed silver fade. Her round, slightly large features were extremely serious and a little pained. “You can’t blame her, Caroline. Arturo has hypnotized and tried to murder both me and Thea. Not to mention what he’s done to Jean Luc and Jack. That’s not the kind of thing we can forget.”

“But…” Caroline gestured helplessly at the man on the bed, twisting in pain.

“I know,” Celia said, stepping around Jean Luc and going to kneel next to Caroline. Jean Luc took three steps forward, as if he couldn’t stand to see Celia so close to Arturo. “It’s hard not to feel sympathy for him, all screwed up with pain like that. But you have to remember what this guy is capable of.”

“Was capable of,” Martine said from the window. “The demon is attempting to destroy Arturo’s skills and powers as we speak. If he wakes up from this, he might be of no use to us at all.”

“You mean the whole kidnapping thing will just be for naught?” Tre asked, stepping forward. He’d gotten scraped to hell, lost a lot of blood and experienced a shit-ton of pain all in the process of kidnapping Arturo so that he could potentially be a tool in the fight against the demon.

Martine lifted her hands and let them drop. “The demon will be without his right-hand man, but we’ll be without Arturo’s insight into the demon’s psyche and patterns. We’ll be completely blind.”

“Doesn’t this just keep getting better and better,” Jack muttered. Thea stepped forward and pressed her cheek between Jack’s shoulder blades, holding him from behind.

Arturo groaned again from the bed and Tre watched as Caroline’s brow furrowed. She inched closer and reached for Arturo’s hand.

Tre’s stomach flipped as he watched it happen. He did not like that. He didn’t like that at all. He wanted Caroline to stop cooing over this asshole’s death bed and he really didn’t want to be blind against an attack from the demon.

“Alright, then,” Tre said, clapping one hand on Jean Luc’s shoulder and the other on Jack’s. “Sounds like we need to try to break the bond between Arturo and the demon.”

The room turned and looked at him.

“You think we can do that?” Jack asked incredulously.

Tre shrugged. “We could try. Not like we’re gonna cause him more harm than this already is.”

“It’s a good idea,” Martine said slowly. “But it would require an incredible amount of strength and control from the three of you. You’ll have to work in perfect tandem and—”

“Everyone out,” Jean Luc said. “Except for you two.” He pointed at Jack and Tre.

“Oh,” Thea said. “I see, just the women need to leave.”

“Well,” Celia said logically. “They are apparently attempting to do some crazy shifter magic thingy that we know nothing about and can’t help with, so… maybe he’s got a point.”

Tre shifted his attention to Caroline who was biting her lip and still holding Arturo’s hand. She didn’t look like she wanted to leave his side. Tre restrained the low growl of frustration in the back of his throat. “Caroline, love, you’ve gotta go too, okay?” He stepped forward and placed his fingers on her shoulder, accidentally tangling them in her hair.

Caroline rose and faced Tre. “Just promise me you won’t hurt him, okay?”

Frustration and annoyance stabbed through Tre. He took a deep breath and gentled his voice before he spoke out loud. Being irritated with Caroline was like cursing out a baby. “We’re gonna do the best we can.”

Caroline let Celia tug her from the room, but she kept sending worried glances back over her shoulder, her chestnut hair tumbling everywhere and her honey brown eyes the size of half dollars.

Martine still stood under the window. She was a shifter as well. A natural-born hawk shifter. She was also a badass demon hunter and all of them understood that she wasn’t included in the order to leave the room. She was the one who’d trained the boys to hone their gifts, after all.

“How the hell are we gonna do this?” Jack asked, scratching at the blond stubble on his chin.

“We’re trying to break his connection with the demon, right? Well, he’s got a connection with us, too…” Jean Luc spoke slowly. He was trying to piece it together as he went. “You think we can use that to sort of, you know, tug him back in our direction?”

“I don’t know,” Martine said. “You’ll be putting his emotions in sort of a tug of war situation then.”

“You don’t think he can withstand it?” Tre asked her. She was, after all, the resident expert on all things demon-related.

“I… don’t know. Honestly, I’ve never been in a situation even remotely like this before.” She pushed off from the window and strode over to Arturo. Her palm landed on his forehead, pushing his hair back and seeking to take his temperature. She sighed. “But I know Arturo. And he’s strong. Trust me. I’ve been battling with him for centuries. The bastard just won’t die.”

Tre couldn’t help but smile at the annoyed tone of her voice. “Then I think that’s the best plan we’ve got.”

Arturo twisted in pain, his eyes fluttering open and then closed. His tan face blanched, going dead white.

“Shall we, boys?” Jack asked, sighing and tossing his gray baseball cap to the side. The three of them came to stand together.

With their eyes closed and their feelings extended in a way that none of them would have dreamed of a few months ago. They reached out for Arturo.

The only indication that they’d gotten him was a searing pain, as if they’d picked up a hot pan from the stove. Cacophonous screeching filled their ears. If Tre had known how the hell to get away from the burn of it, he would have. But Jack and Jean Luc were there with him. They were holding on to him just as tightly.

They could feel the parts of him that were human, and then there, in the darkness, was the tether that held Arturo to the demon. It was a horrible, reptilian connection. Cold-blooded and evil. It was like an umbilical cord wrapped around Arturo’s humanity.

“Come on,” Tre muttered through gritted teeth. “Come with us.”

He couldn’t see anything but black, but he could feel Arturo’s struggle. To disconnect from the demon would be like ripping off a limb. An evil, horrifying limb, but a limb nonetheless.

Tre and Jack and Jean Luc could all feel the heat of one another’s shoulders, they fed off the intensity and concentration of each of the brothers beside them. This was unlike anything that they’d ever done before. Yet here they were.

Tre’s teeth clenched when he felt the tiniest bit of give. As if Arturo were testing the bonds of the demon, yanking himself toward them just a touch. The three men jumped on the opportunity, clamping down on their psychic connection with Arturo, as they tug-of-warred him back their way.

“You have to come with us,” Tre grated out, unsure if it was in his head or out loud. “We’ll tear you in two if you don’t let go.”

And it was those words, it seemed, that finally released Arturo from the demon’s grip. As if Arturo’s psyche had clamped down onto the demon so long ago and with such strength, that he hadn’t known how to let go. But let go he did.

The men breathed huge, gasping gulps of air as one by one, their eyes came open. It seemed so strange, after all of that, to open their eyes to Arturo’s bedroom. He lay still and pale on the bed, the sheets soaked with sweat beneath him.

As they watched, he drew a great breath, and some of the pain left his face. It seemed that he truly slept now.