The settlers’ cemetery stood not five miles from the Springs. Created when families first traveled west on the old trail, it was for those who’d succumbed to the ravages of exhaustion, illness, and attack. In recent years, it had become the resting place of soldiers who’d had the luxury of a proper burial, rather than being laid to rest swiftly where they fell.

It was nothing more than a bare field, cleared of rocks, overgrown with desert grass, and marked with a low wooden fence. A gate was on one side, and a dilapidated adobe chapel stood opposite it. Sand continuously reclaimed the land, and a few Joshua trees stood sentinel stretching their spiky branches upward. Rough wooden crosses designated some of the graves, while more elaborate grave markers of carved red stone protected the resting places of the missionaries who’d never made the journey home.

I’d attended several burials here, but I’d never seen it in the moonlight. It was a magical, if somber, sight. The markers were scrawled over with a strange luminous algae, and once the sun was set, as now, they gleamed like twisted red teeth in the sand.

I could sense the energy rising from the place in a sporadic dark wave. The energy didn’t wash over you though; it stabbed, pricking your skin, and squeezing your innards.

From our position above the cemetery, the gravestones were laid out in a rough circle, with a path leading through them to the doorway of the chapel. In the center of the circle, a rudimentary cage had been constructed. Though made of wood, it looked solid. Inside was the baby.

As the moon rose, the child had started the agony of the transformation to cub. The poor mite writhed in agony. Around twenty shades had gathered to watch the change. Trader was not among them. Their voices reached us in whispers, and as the moon got higher so their excitement rose. Those facing us looked wary until the change began in earnest, and the baby jerked and flexed. Then they stepped closer to the cage, their fascination overcoming their fear of the magic they were witnessing.

“We need to get down there.” John was still weak from his incarceration.

“You are not strong yet, John. Wait a while. The babe is fine for now. He will not complete the change for a while. You have time for more recovery.”

He was so intent on the child, he didn’t seem to be listening to me. “When the moon is higher, I can harness her strength. Then I will kill them all.” His eyes were black, and his frown had brought his brows low to cover them. If I hadn’t known his good nature, I’d have assumed him as evil as the old stories say.

I looked again at the way the shades were crowding around the baby. “Why are they so interested?”

John didn’t hesitate. “They’re fascinated. They want to figure out how his transformation works. Shades and Shifters have always been enemies. They’d want any advantage they can get.”

All at once, his countenance appeared to lighten. He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes blissfully. “The moon is nearly full. Oh, I feel her! She is powerful tonight.” Not yet content, he lifted his hat so the rays could more fully reach him, and held that position for a moment before pushing his hair over his ears and ramming his hat back down.

His eyes caught mine. “Trader always likes a challenge. Never forget that, Wilo. The harder you fight, the harder you run or hide from him, the harder he’ll come after you.”

There was a cry of surprise below, from a demon, not the child. All the soldiers had taken a step back. The baby was jerking with such ferocity it looked as though an invisible force had him in their hands, and was shaking him wildly around the cage. The misery went on for a full minute, before, at last, he lay still.

The shades stepped forward to peer inside. They continued to nudge and whisper with each other.

“What’s happening?” I asked John. When we’d run with the baby to the river, the transformation had been sporadic, and he hadn’t been in my arms in the final stages. I’d not seen the process close up.

“He’s resting. The change for a little one is exhausting. Their bodies have to grow accustomed to the new form. The bones stretch and break, joints reverse or bond together. The sprouting hair feels like acid burning into the skin. All of this happening to a body that is resisting with all it has. It is torture, pure and simple.”

“And once the Shifter is older?”

“It becomes second nature. We grow accustomed to the pain, we embrace it, control it—” he looked at me “—we welcome it, Wilo.”

Just then, the child howled. A scream of anguish.

The sound ripped through me. I could feel his despair taking hold of my mind and my heart, the spell connecting us. Tremors, sweat on my brow, shivers running up the length of my body—my physical body echoed the turmoil within his.

One of the shades stepped right up to the cage, holding something in his hand. He threw whatever it was through the wooden slats, and the child howled again. Another picked up a small rock and he, too, threw it. The sounds of the child’s suffering cut into my insides as though they were being torn from me.

“Oh my God!” Without a notion to keep us hidden, I jumped up. “They’re throwing rocks at him. They’ll kill him!”

John pulled me back down. He was panting, and his voice came as a growl. For the first time since the moon had risen, I saw amber glittering in his eyes. “No, they’ll not kill him. He’s strong enough to resist a beating. That’s why we turned him, remember. So he could withstand this if it happened. But they are pigs, and they will die soon enough.” He flexed his fingers where his nails looked longer than they had just a moment before. “We still need to wait.”

Another howl, more like a dog this time, but followed by a baby’s wail. It was too much; I turned away.

“Listen, Sowilo, if we don’t wait, I will not be strong enough. We’ll lose, and the boy will be taken. Trader will put him through worse than this. He is strong enough to resist a few stones. He is! Have faith!”

He pulled me to him. “I told you of my birth. Of the maura who marked me, as you did to the baby. What I didn’t tell you was, when I was older, I ran away. I was lost and confused. My parents could never accept me as wolf, and so I ran.”

He put his arms around me as the child continued to wail, distracting me with his tale. “I was hunted in that form and caught, just like the boy. Caged and beaten. The townsfolk thought they were doing the work of God. Eventually it was too much for my child’s body, and I collapsed. It seemed I was dead.”

“So, how did you…?”

“A wise woman brought me home in my human form. She saved my life, but even her charms weren’t strong enough to suppress the wolf for long. I chose to remain human til adulthood, to keep my family happy. Until one appeared to give me my true mission. A holy energy so intense—”

There was a crash below. The cage had tumbled to its side, the baby crouched in the corner furthest from the shades. He was now fully transformed to a wolf-cub, and growled and bared his teeth at his captors with as much aggression as his small form could muster. They were cautious again now. The lead even in a cub’s bite could still bring injury, and maybe death.

When the cage tumbled, the wooden posts had broken in places, and if the cub decided, he could force himself through a gap to freedom.

The concern of the shades was palpable even from our lofty position. Trader was not the type to forgive if they lost him. They shouted to each other, concocting a quick scheme.

One soldier had a chain hanging from his hand, and while the others distracted the cub from the front, he crept around the side of the cage and up behind him. Braver than the others, he created a loop from the chain, and quietly pushed it through the gap in the bars. He threw the chain and hooked it over the cub’s neck, pulling tight. My Skye wolf screamed.

With shouts of “Hold him!” and “Get the lil’ bugger!” the shade used the chain to haul the cub from the cage.

The moon was completely risen, at its peak in the sky. Fully powerful. Light poured down on the scene, and reflected off the chain as well as the saliva that soaked the cub’s mouth. The poor mite had crawled to the nearest gravestone, and collapsed.

“Silver. The chain, there’s silver in it.” John’s voice came as a whisper, but his anger burned.

Instinct drove me to take a step back. Gold and red sparks lit his aura, and his eyes were now fully bronzed. “John?”

He looked at me. “Sowilo, I am gone.”