It was closing on two hours later when they were all finally settled enough to actually speak about what had just happened.

It was almost midnight, they were all starving and all three of the men were lying in makeshift floor-beds on the living room floor. There were bedrooms enough for them, but they had all wanted to be together for at least a little while.

Though Thea didn’t think of herself as a homemaker in the least, she knew how to cook good food fast. In twenty minutes she’d raided the dry and canned goods pantry of the cabin and prepared a tremendous pot of penne and red sauce, peas she tossed with a little vinegar, and had a popped can of frozen dinner rolls coming out of the oven.

She and Caroline served everything up onto plates and brought it out into the room where the men were all still recovering. Jean Luc sat up with his elbows on his knees. The redheaded man’s legs were crisscrossed, almost like a child’s, and Jack, of course, was splayed out like he was on a beach in Hawaii.

Various moans and groans of thanks and gratitude were passed out along with the plates of food that had elicited them. Thea gave a sharp nod at the acknowledgement and then found that she didn’t have it in her to do much more than start eating herself.

“Should we start with names, perhaps?” That came from the woman who’d rode in on the horse. She looked around the group with a bright smile and spaghetti sauce on her pretty chin. Her shiny brown hair was tied up in a humongous knot on the back of her head, and she wore different clothing but Thea was certain that she was the woman she’d seen in the store the day before. Yup, that smile definitely had enough wattage to fry the brains of a cashier. “I’m Caroline Clifton. From New Jersey originally. But I live in Boston.”

She looked to the person next to her like they were in a kindergarten class and about to go around the circle sharing names and their favorite colors.

“Oh,” the redheaded man was taken aback. “I’m Tre?” he said as if it were up for debate. He adjusted his thick, black-rimmed glasses. “Tre Sullivan? I live in Brooklyn.”

“Me too,” Celia said through a full mouth of peas and bread. She introduced herself, as did the rest of them, until they got to the woman that none of them knew.

She set down her fork and sighed, her hair catching the light. It looked both golden and red at the same time. It was cut choppily and hung just over her shoulders. Most of her weapons had been taken off, but there was still the glint of steel at her wrist and at her ankle. “My name is Martine West. I don’t live anywhere.”

There was a healthy pause before Jack cut in. “Are you waiting for us to ask you what the hell happened out there, or…?” He waved his hand in the air, urging her to start explaining.

“No.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and spoke in a low, smoky voice. “Sorry. I didn’t anticipate having to explain all this tonight. I’m not sure where to start.”

“Are we safe here?” Thea asked. “From that… thing?” She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘man’. He’d been something else, she was sure of it.

“Very,” Martine nodded. “He’s gone back to his realm. I injured him enough that it’ll be a few weeks before we hear from him again.”

“I’m sorry, his ‘realm’?” Celia asked, her eyes wide and the silver of her septum piercing catching the light just like Martine’s daggers.

The group, whether they noticed it or not, was drawing closer to one another. Soon, they all sat in a tight circle, with their dinner plates in front of them, almost shoulder to shoulder. Thea was grateful that she’d started a fire in the hearth behind them before she made dinner, because it softened the room as well as warmed it, made it much cozier.

“Yes. I—how do I start…” Martine sighed again, clapping her hands in front of her as if she’d made a decision and was sticking to it. When Martine lifted her green eyes to the group, she spoke to each and every one of them. “I guess I’ll just go with the truth, then. I’m a demon hunter. And all of you were lured to that clearing by a demon.”

“A demon,” Caroline whispered.

“Yes. It’s like a game. They use maps like those, or visions that they plant in people’s heads. Or clues left in books and songs and folklore. And then, once they have you there… well, you were all there tonight, you saw what happened.”

“I saw it,” said Jean Luc in a very low voice. “Hell, I felt it. But I have no idea what it was.”

“Right. Sorry. Again, I don’t interact with people that much and I forget that you don’t know what I know.” Martine quickly tied her hair back and hummed for a second as she thought of a way to explain what had happened. “That was Arturo Clay. He’s someone I’ve met before. Tried to destroy before, but he’s good. Infamous, really, the best at what he does.” She leaned forward and held everyone’s eyes one by one. “He gathers the souls of those who are lured by the trap. And brings them back to the realm… where they’re eaten.”

“Like cannibal style?” Celia asked, her eyes wide. She’d thought that Arturo guy was hot, in a bone-chilling kind of way. Now, though? Not so much.

“No, your body wouldn’t be eaten, but your soul would.”

“Why go to all the trouble of luring us someplace?” Jack asked. “Why not just march into a Walmart or some office building somewhere and snatch someone up?”

Martine nodded. “It’s done that way occasionally. If a demon is in danger of starving to death and there’s no choice. But souls are like food in some ways, there’s… flavors.”

“Yuck,” Caroline whispered, still deeply shaken by the idea that something wanted to eat her. She pulled a little closer to the people on each side of her, Thea and Tre.

“And,” Martine continued, “boring or unadventurous ones are like eating plain pasta, or plain rice. The interesting, complicated, brave, jealous, greedy, thrill-seeking, wild-hearted, honorable people who can be lured into something like this…” she held up her map, “are the ones that they want.”

“How did you come by that map?” Jack asked her, assuming that she’d gone hunting for it exactly the way that he had.

“I have lots of artifacts like this. I collect them. Follow them to their ends in the hopes of destroying the demon that set them out like traps. Time was up on this one.”

“What did he do to us?” Jean Luc asked, placing a hand over his heart which was still beating strangely in his chest. He’d never forget that gutting feeling of the blue energy cutting through him, dividing him, it seemed. As a former professional athlete, Jean Luc had a different relationship with his body than most people had. The amount of time he’d spent honing it, training it, teaching it, nurturing it, and lately, healing it, was prodigious. He was utterly in tune with each and every part of himself. And tonight, that had been taken away from him. He’d been in and out of consciousness, in searing pain, and completely out of control of himself. They told him it had taken all four women to drag him inside, disrobe him and get him in the bath. Even though he was outrageously famous and women threw themselves at him wherever he went, he was still a pretty shy person. The idea that his humongous body had been such a burden to these women, and then that he’d been naked in front of them without being conscious, well, it mortified him. He was intimidating-looking, he knew that, and his body generally required a disclaimer or two to emotionally prepare whoever was about to see him. Especially now, with his scars. Beyond that, he felt as if he could feel that blue energy still pulsing through him, writhing in his chest. He wanted his old self back.

Martine shut her eyes in what looked like almost mortal pain. All the men saw, immediately, what was written there on her face. Regret, guilt, sorrow. She was obviously tremendously sorry that this had happened to them. “He was preparing you. Making you even more enticing to a demon. The energy that he shot toward you, it changes you. Complicates your soul, adds another dimension.”

“Just tell us,” Tre said, in a hushed voice. What could she be talking about?

“He turned you into bear shifters.”

You could have heard an ant cough in that room. Seriously, it was as if Martine had pressed pause on a television screen. Not a soul moved.

Thea was the first to move. She tilted her head to look at the rest of the group. There were various states of shock and disbelief, ranging from Caroline, who looked enthralled and thrilled to her core, to Tre, who looked completely and entirely skeptical.

“Maybe you should elaborate on that, sweetheart.” That was Jack, sitting up now. His eyes had gone directly to Thea’s the second that Martine had made that wild statement.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but that’s what Arturo Clay does. It’s different for each demon. Arturo does bears.”             

“Arturo does bears,” someone repeated softly, in a sort of dazed whisper.

Celia was looking around the group like she couldn’t believe that she’d let these people into her family’s lake house. If her brothers and sisters ever found out, they’d never stop teasing her. Did you hear that Cece went on a wild goose chase to Michigan and almost got inducted into a cult!? Not to mention the fact that her parents would probably skin her alive for inviting strangers into their place. Oh God. How the hell was she gonna get everyone out now? Could she even do that in good conscience? Where would they go? It was the middle of the night. The morning then. First thing in the morning, this bunch of crazies was getting the boot. Jean Luc LaTour included.

“You don’t believe me,” Martine guessed, looking from face to face. “Humans,” she muttered under her breath. “Alright. I’ll show you, then.”

When Martine rose, the group all naturally pulled back away from her. It didn’t bother her, she was used to it. She tilted her head back, held her arms out, and rolled her eyes until only the whites were showing.

She really was a pretty person, Thea thought, observing the obviously insane Martine. She had the kind of bone structure that created shadows in all the right places and that spiky, gold-red hair. It was a wonder that—“Holy shit!”

Thea was on her feet in a second and so was half the circle of people.

Martine had stood there, her arms out, as a woman. And then she’d simply folded in on herself. And now, perched on the crooked hinge of a reading lamp next to the old, plaid couch, was a Red-Tailed Hawk. One of its yellow eyes watched them all, calculating in the way an animal does, but observing the way a human does.

There were a few moments of pandemonium. Hair pulling, swear words up the wazoo, people pinching one another.

“It’s a parlor trick,” Tre murmured to himself. “Trap door of some kind. She used the light, distraction. There’s gotta be some kind of…”

“Hot damn, son!” Jack exclaimed next to him, grabbing his shoulder. “Did you see that?”

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.” Caroline’s fingers were anchored over her mouth and her eyes were wild and wide. She was excited and thrilled. But scared, too. It suddenly hit her all at once that no one, not a soul, knew where she was. Her husband was all the way back in Boston, and she, impulsive Caroline, had gone off in search of an adventure and ended up in a place where people turned to animals.

Celia, Thea, and Jean Luc were silent, externally at least. Internally, they alternated between utter blankness and wild, racing guesses.

It couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes but it felt like an hour before the hawk on the lamp did a tight, swooping circle around the group and landed, in full view, a gorgeous, golden, naked Martine.

Any theories that Tre was working on about parlor tricks immediately raisined up in his brain as he watched every feather shrink and smooth and become skin. He saw the arching way her back straightened into a human’s, her arms, lengthening gracefully. Her face smoothing away.

The men all averted their eyes, fighting the strange urge to whistle aimlessly or clear their throats, as Martine shoved herself back into her clothes.

“So,” she said to the group, straightening that tight black shirt of hers. “Obviously I’m a hawk shifter.”

“Bear shifter,” Jean Luc repeated what she’d said earlier, as if he weren’t hearing himself right. He pressed a hand to his brow and sought the floor with his other hand as he lowered himself down. “You’re saying that I’m—we’re—bear shifters the same way that you’re a hawk shifter.”

“Yes,” Martine nodded.

“Why?” Jack asked that most favored question of his in a low voice.

“Because your soul has just become two souls. That of a man and that of a beast. An animal. You are infinitely more complex and interesting and wild than you were just a few hours ago. To consume your soul now would be the greatest of treats. Arturo didn’t mean for you to get away. He didn’t mean to have to wait to take you into the other realm. He would have taken you right then, before it had a chance to incubate inside you. Before you had a chance to learn your shift.”

Tre held his hands out in front of him and tipped them one way and then the other as if they’d look different somehow.

“Psychedelic,” Celia muttered under her breath and Tre, the only one who heard, shot her a little smile.

Martine arranged her feet under her and looked around at all the faces. “You need rest. All of you. It’s too much for one day. We’ll try again in the morning.”

They looked at her as if she was speaking Greek until Thea rose up in that long, graceful way of hers. “She’s right.”

All attention focused on Thea. Her hair pulled back under the cap she still wore, there were more shadows than features on her face right then. But her hands were on her hips in a no-nonsense sort of way.

“It’s time for bed.” Thea was suddenly put in mind of the ducklings who’d hatched on her farm last year. They’d lived in what seemed a constant state of befuddlement for almost a month. Bumping into one another and tripping over their own feet. The group needed a herder of sorts. And she could do that for tonight.

Bear shifter.

Demon.

Trap.

She pushed it all from her head and clapped her hands just once. The group, excepting Martine, sort of startled. “Let’s pick rooms.”

 

***

 

Thea spent the next twenty minutes making sure each person was settled in. Celia sort of dazedly helped pass out linens before stumbling into her own room. Then, when all the doors were closed, Thea went back to the living room and gathered up all the dishes. She quickly and efficiently cleaned up from dinner. She knew all about mice in these old houses. There was no reason to add anything else to this group’s load right now.

Thea being Thea, she didn’t ask herself any cosmic questions. She didn’t ask herself whether or not she believed. She didn’t even ask herself if she was going to stay in the morning or not. All she did was ask herself what came next. And that was bed.

She hadn’t picked a room for herself yet, though she was pretty sure there was one more bedroom available on the first floor. Sure enough, there was one door still ajar and after washing up in the bathroom and grabbing her backpack, Thea walked right in.

The room had two twin beds, side by side, wood-paneled walls, blue carpet, and Jack laid out, long and lanky, over one of the beds. He was naked save for a pair of dark blue boxer briefs. He had one palm under his head and his legs were crossed at the ankle. His hat was off for the first time that Thea had seen and that blond curly hair, in need of a cut, tumbled everywhere.

Looking at his body all tan and exposed, Thea had a flashback to that moment in the bathroom when they’d gotten him naked and tossed him in the tub. She’d known that she wasn’t going to be able to forget that moment. That image of him. Thea liked naked men. She was a red-blooded woman and she’d never had the hang-ups about sex that some people had. To her, it was like playing a good game of basketball or running a race. Sometimes, you wanted to do it and you did it and that was that. She always left a sexual encounter satisfied and had never once required a repeat performance from anyone in particular.

There was something about Jack’s body, though. Those wide shoulders and wiry biceps. The hint of ribs at the sides and the v of muscle above the waistband of his underwear. The gold hair on his chest and over his legs and in his armpits. She couldn’t explain why, but it just looked… different to her than any other times she’d seen a man naked. It looked, almost, like he had some missing ingredient that other men didn’t have. But she couldn’t have said what it was, couldn’t have pointed out which part of him it was if her life depended on it.

He’d been gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling when she’d come in, but his eyes shot down to hers the second he heard her at the door. He watched her eyes take in his nearly-naked body and some emotion cross her face. It was desire, sure, but there was something else, too. Confusion maybe.

“Sorry. Thought this room was vacant.” She took a step backwards.

He propped himself up on his elbows casually, though it nearly killed him to do it. Every muscle in his body screamed with fatigue and a strange acid churning. He wanted to go on a run or a swim, but he also was so tired he could cry. Sleep now, he knew. “This is the last room on the first floor.”

“I’ll go up to the second.”

He sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He tried to hide his pain, but he couldn’t quite mask the wince.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he reached for his bag, attempting to heft it onto his back.

He never slept anywhere without his bag in reach, but carrying it up a flight of stairs right now was going to be a real son of a bitch. “I’m going up to the second floor with you,” he told her. She looked completely confused. “So that you’re not alone up there.”

“I won’t be alone,” she said. “There’s six other people in this house.”

“You’d be alone on the second floor.”

“Yeah, Jack, newsflash, I sleep alone in my house, without another soul for six miles, every night. I think I’ll—”

In a rare show of impatience, maybe because he felt like he could explode into dust at any moment and his bag was cutting into his shoulder, or maybe because she just kind of brought it out of him, Jack cut her off. “We got attacked by a demon tonight, apparently half of us got turned into bear shifters, we met a lady who can whip herself into a bird, we’re in an old spooky mansion, and I’m not letting you sleep upstairs alone.”

“Alright, alright,” Thea pursed her lips, stepping forward into the room and hoisting Jack’s bag off his shoulder. Without a conscious thought, she rubbed her hand over the reddened divot in his shoulder that the strap of his bag left behind.

He couldn’t help but close his eyes and press into the touch, like a sleepy puppy. He was so tired he was swaying on his feet, but even so, he couldn’t deny that her touch had something inside him waking up, sniffing at the air, licking its chops. He could smell her, a deceptively light, feminine scent that was zero parts synthetic. He turned to her, but she was already guiding him back down to the bed.

She clucked her tongue when she realized that he hadn’t put the clean linens on the bed, rather was just sleeping on top of a quilt he’d tossed on there.

She sat him on the other bed and he watched, almost dazedly, as she made quick work of the sheets and pillowcase. He literally couldn’t remember the last time someone had made a bed for him. And he definitely couldn’t remember the last time someone had tucked him in. Which was pretty much what she was doing now. There was no tenderness in her movements, as she put him in bed and pulled the covers over him. But there was a thoroughness and efficiency that spoke of care.

They both knew that he didn’t avert his eyes as she quickly pulled off her over-shirt, shoes, socks and pants. She wasn’t shy. And besides. She’d seen every single inch of him while he was unconscious earlier, so perhaps, in her mind, it was a sort of fair turn of play for him to see some of her. She kept her back to him as she pulled off her T-shirt and sports bra, standing in only the high-cut black underwear that she bought by the dozen from the Target three towns over from hers.

A different woman might have needed a shower before she pulled on that clean T-shirt and fell into bed. But Thea was no stranger to long days, sweat, fatigue that pulled you under with both hands. And she wasn’t exactly what one would call fussy. She’d shower in the morning and that would be that.

When she pulled the covers over her, she turned and saw that Jack still watched her.

“Sleep now, cowboy,” she told him, rolled over, closed her eyes and promptly fell asleep.

Despite his extreme exhaustion, Jack stayed awake for a few more minutes, the last conscious person in the house. He was tired enough that if he let his eyes closed, he’d be deep into sleep immediately, but it was an old habit and he couldn’t break it. Jack dragged himself up from the bed and made his way down the hall. He checked both the front door and back door to make sure they were locked. The windows as well, even though it was a little stuffy and he wished he could have opened a few. The kitchen was sparkling clean and set back to rights, and he knew exactly who’d done it. He listened for a moment outside each bedroom door, for what? He wasn’t sure. Sounds of distress maybe.

He knew, maybe from the strange thrumming in his chest, which rooms Jean Luc and Tre slept in. And he knew they were sleeping. He also knew that they felt the same zinging acid in their muscles that he did.

He was linked to them, he supposed. And the thought was distant, though not altogether strange, through the lens of his fatigue.

A check of the house done, he stumbled back into the room he shared with Thea and shut the door behind him. Another long, hard-won habit. She slept in a long, shadowed line, as tall as she was curvy. Jack dragged himself into the other bed, closed his eyes, and was gone.