Power Shift (The Charming Shifter Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  Her dumbass ghosts kept swirling around her face, making shivery movements as if even they were cold. She had to consistently shake them from her eyes so she could find her next handhold or foothold. Climbing with gloves proved difficult, as well. While she appreciated the bit of warmth she got from them, she didn’t have the dexterity she’d have from her agile, uncovered hands.

  Finally, she hauled herself over the ledge and lay back, exhausted, her breath chuffing in white vapor puffs, providing little bits of warmth for her mouth and cheeks. Her gaze landed on a bird a few feet away, resting on the tip of a rock poking through the snow like a crocus, his eyes trained on her. “Hello, sexy snowy owl,” she said, remembering the strange sensation of being in flight with the beautiful bird.

  The owl let out a harsh kek, kek, kek, like rasping metal, and his head pivoted away from her, like an apple on a smooth metal rod. It spread its wings and took off silently into the darkness.

  “Fine. Be that way.” She sat up and scanned for whatever the heck she was supposed to see. A frigid wind howled, blowing small flurries of powdery ice down the hill toward the valley glacier below. Her ghosts huddled close, as if afraid of being blown away. No other life could be discerned.

  She closed her eyes and listened intently for any signs of human activity on the mountain. Wind. Wind. More wind. And…a man’s voice? She strained to hear. So much for enhanced senses. The sound came in and out of focus, buffeted by the wind. Where are you and how did a dog pack far below find you? Dag nab it. I can’t tell where you are.

  “Is that her?”

  Chia heard that phrase, loud and clear. She shrank back into the side of the mountain.

  “Where?”

  “Up there. On that ledge. See a shape up there?”

  “What the hell would she be doing out here? Its miles from her house.”

  “Hell if I know. She’s got cotton for brains as far as I can tell.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not what’s up top that matters. It’s what’s between the legs. She can be brain dead as far as I’m concerned and I’d still do her.”

  The two men shared a laugh.

  Assholes, Chia thought. I’m smarter than they are, by miles.

  “Can’t see a darn thing without my night googles. Hold on. Shit. It’s those fucking ghosts we saw the other night. This damn glacier is haunted.”

  “Thought that was an urban myth. Fucking hell. As soon as we’re in power, the entire area is going to be purified, all weird shit eradicated. This is ridiculous. Get back inside the cave, now.”

  “Should I say thanks?” she whispered to her wraiths. “Or are these random acts of protection not connected to anything in particular?” Of course, no response came. “How the hell am I supposed to get closer to listen? I sure don’t want to start an avalanche.”

  She got to her feet, hands on her hips, and surveyed the down climb. “Not good. No clear path.” She stepped carefully to the other edge of the ledge, looking for any way down the mountain in the direction of the voices.

  Without warning, something slammed into the back of her head, making a dull thud. Her arms whirled like a pinwheel as she struggled to keep from plunging to her death. Suppressing her shrieks, she imagined the shape of an owl streaming from her forehead.

  Again, her consciousness embedded itself in the snowy owl’s flight as it soared downwind toward the cave. Up so high, her fear got the best of her, and her mind flung back toward her body, crouched on hands and knees on the ledge, landing with a shiver. She got to her feet, shaking her head to clear the sensation of disembodied night flight.

  The owl circled, working against the wind currents. One big blast sent it sailing into the darkness.

  What did Hung say about bird flight in the mountains? Treacherous? Don’t do anything stupid, bird! She watched the owl as it struggled to rise above her, then it turned and soared for her once more. “Whoa!” she said, trying to get out of its way.

  On the small ledge, there was nowhere to go. She fluttered her hands wildly, but the bird persisted, head down in her direction. Again, it slammed into her face, snagging her consciousness as it emerged out the other side.

  As before, she experienced free flight as they soared down the mountain. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she would have screamed, or maybe her body sat screaming above. She calmed herself by realizing this crazy ride was similar to a dream—her body slept and her mind went for a ride through all kinds of psycho.

  The owl dipped and swooped, navigating currents until it reached its destination, settling atop a rock lining the cave opening.

  A strange nasal, guttural sound, like Inuit throat-singing, emerged from the bowels of the cave. Odd light flares accompanied the chants, punctuating the resonant sounds, bursting out the opening of the cavern. Light rolled in big, luminous balls to the valley glacier and onto the frozen water, making Two Mile Lake throb with eerie colors. The strange harmonies produced a lilting, hypnotic sensation. If Chia had been in her body, she would have shook her head to clear the effects—or sunk into a trance. Instead, she watched and listened through the awareness of the owl.

  “So, what should we do? Abort? Keep going?”

  “Maybe. Let me think. Dumb bunny female thinks she can outsmart us and get to Durand herself. She doesn’t know who she’s dealing with, does she?”

  Sure sounds like Red Spotted Dick. That one’s Red—in charge.

  The other male snorted. “Hell, no. We’ve hunted more wily creatures than Durand in wildernesses far more dangerous. And with weapons far less effective. We’re going to turn the…into…and then…”

  The wind howled, making it impossible to hear what they said.

  “She’s out of her league,” the same male continued.

  And there’s the Dick part. What the hell are they talking about?

  “Loop back and set the explosives. Remember, nothing big. Give her a fright, is all. Let her know we’ve got her in our sight.” Dick sounded gleeful.

  Chia wondered if her body was back on the ledge barfing because she sure felt ill listening to them. Where? My home? Explosives?

  “Okay. Then we head back here to see how our weapon’s coming. A hell of a lot more than just shifters are gonna have a snapped leg.” Low laughter followed.

  Red answered, “Let the whole fucking town die.” He let out a laugh. “As long as the oil and gold rights are mine, I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Roger that. Let’s move out.” Dick seemed decisive. But his voice changed to indecision and hesitancy when he asked, “What do we do about them?”

  “They can’t exactly go anywhere, can they? All shamans can do is sing their little hearts out and do what they’re told.”

  I’m starting to hate that man, Chia thought. Red’s a complete jackass. Shamans are revered people around here.

  “Shouldn’t we…shouldn’t we at least leave them something to eat?”

  “I said, they’ll be all right. Drop it. They exist on some mystical spirit energy shit or something. Leave it. We’ll be back soon enough.”

  Scuffling sounds emerged from the cave and the owl took flight, taking Chia’s awareness along for the ride. The great owl worked the currents, giving Chia an idea of how perilous winged flight could be. When it reached the ledge again, it landed briefly, shook its great wings and she bounced back into her body like a rubber ball. The bird lifted into the air once more, heading for the rock she’d first seen it on, a few feet away. Once there, it stared at her as if waiting for her to figure out what to do.

  She scrambled to her feet. “Holy shit. I’ve got to get back to the house. They could be planning to blow the whole place to smithereens.” She glared at her ghosts. “Stay out of my eyes. I need to see. I hate down climbing.” She lowered herself off the ledge, finding it difficult to grip the icy ground. Her legs dangled, searching for something solid to land on, disturbing several rocks. They tumbled and bounced down the mountainside, landing in a snow bank.

  “What’s that?” Red
Spotted Dick said.

  Through the howling wind, Chia couldn’t quite tell who spoke.

  “Look! It’s her! What’s she doing up here?”

  “And how’d she get past the barrier these crazy shaman coots erected? Get the gun.”

  Gunshot shattered the air and a bullet whizzed past her head. Chia screamed, dropping from the ledge, sliding down a slick bank of snow. Another gunshot exploded and she scurried out of sight, away from their direction. Petrified, she scrambled, slid, and tumbled toward the bottom. Where are they, where are they, where are they?

  Snowshoes forgotten, she made haste toward the dog pack, her legs faltering as they missed the steps she made, and sunk into snow up to her knees, sometimes having to use her arms to dig herself free. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” she shouted, once she’d reached the flat lands.

  The dogs, excited, barked and jostled about her. The movement of her hands and legs felt clumsy, as if she were a toddler. She managed to jam her feet in her ski boots, shoved her toes into the skis, grabbed the poles, the backpack and the halter straps, and took off at a brisk glide tugged by Cecil. “Go, go, go, go, go!” she shouted.

  They slid, raced, heaved along the snowy landscape, bumping and jostling until Chia wondered if her bones would shake loose. Her vision sharpened into tunnel focus, whether from vamp senses or adrenaline-pumped fear for her life, she didn’t know. She continued to lurch, struggling with ungainly coordination, feeling as if she slowed Cecil considerably.

  They reached the barrier of ice and sleet and she struggled to see, the ice bits stinging her face with sharp bites. She blinked, scrunched her face, tried to wipe her eyes with her sleeve, anything to keep her vision clear.

  After what seemed like forever, in the distance, she finally spotted the shimmering, lacey sparkles surrounding her property. Can Red Spotted Dick get through that? Is it some kind of protection spell I never knew about? What a stupid thought. Magic against men with guns. Bah!

  Her ghosts clung to her shoulders like streamers, waving behind like a cape ripped to pieces. Lungs heaving, muscles burning, she heard the whine of a snowmobile to her rear. Shit. Just a few more yards and we’re there. She crouched slightly, tucking her ski poles under her arms like a slalom downhill racer. The dogs raced ahead of her, the husky pausing now and then to look back. “Go!” she shouted.

  The engine noise grew louder. Gunshot ripped through the sleet. A dog yipped and fell.

  “Oh, no!” She and the husky zipped past the fallen form, red blood oozing into the white terrain. She fumbled for her gun, taking a couple wild, one-handed shots into the night in the direction of the gunshots, letting the ski pole dangle from her wrist. Unable to keep her balance, she fell onto her side. The husky yelped, jerked by the straps. She scrambled to her feet, replaced the skis and away they went. “Come on, Cecil, keep going.”

  A gun was fired from the other direction.

  “Fuck! We’re surrounded!” She poured every last ounce of strength into her still clumsy limbs, poling with her arms, pushing with her legs. From what she could tell, guns were blazing from every direction.

  She raced toward the dome shaped force field filaments surrounding her property. “Come on,” she breathed. “Come on, you can do it.” She willed herself onward, imagining a riding crop slapping her flanks to get her across the finish line.

  As her ski tips sailed through the shimmering filaments, a gunshot rang through the air. A horrid sensation sledgehammered into her back. She stumbled and slammed forward into the ground, her head striking something solid, right inside the sparkling, shimmering force field surrounding her property. So much for my twenty-four hours, she thought, before plunging into a black hole of unconsciousness from which she never wanted to emerge.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Come on, woman. Come on. You can do this. You’re stronger than this. Stay with me. Come on. Stay right here.”

  Confused and disoriented, Chia slid in and out of consciousness, one minute aware of being held by strong arms, the next, caught by agonizing, burning pain, like a fire blazing through her body, the next, drifting into a warm pool of bliss.

  “This is nothing. Flesh wound. You’re stronger than this. You’ve survived worse. Stay with me.”

  Each time she came to, she wanted to vomit. She wanted to say “I’m okay, let me up.” But then the nausea took over. Her left eye seemed to be swollen shut. Can’t be the ghosts, right? They haven’t bunched up in my eye, right? Maybe I’m about to die. That will suck. How will I protect the shifters if I’m dead? The arms seemed to rock her, as if she lay in a cradle.

  “Stay with me,” the male said. “She’s gone into shock. Do something useful, mutt. Find her goddamned keys. And put some clothes on, for Christ’s sake.”

  She was handed off from warm embrace to warm embrace, heard the slamming of doors, the roar of a truck engine, and then, felt the jostle and see-saw lurch of speeding along the road while being held tightly, wrapped by caring arms.

  Sometime later, she awoke to the whirring of a helicopter, doors opening, and cold air hitting her face, accompanied by fierce rotor wash from wingtip vortices. My grandpa’s airfield. More strong arms hefted her body, she was placed on some sort of stretcher and found herself being air lifted, needles jabbed in her arms and hand, voices, talking, pulling her away from the darkness she sought.

  Still enhanced with vamp energy, eyes closed, she found herself looking through her mind’s eye at the earth below. Like a movie, planet Earth appeared as a vibrant, throbbing, living entity. The trees below, caught in their winter slumber, were waiting for springtime to exhale—literally. Once they bloomed and let go their breath, they’d infuse the planet with oxygen.

  The waters were pregnant with life, herring about to make their move to this region, dropping from the tip of the crescent moon according to the native peoples. Once they’d arrive, they’d spawn, lay millions of eggs, and nourish mammals, from the immense humpback whales, the sea lions, and other marine life, to the wolves and bears along the shore, eagles, cormorants, and other birds, and even the forest itself.

  The whole incredible, intelligently designed system seemed brilliant, the way the herring roe fed life in and out of the waters, the way the animals and birds feasted on the spawn and fed the soil and the trees. Her resolve to protect and nourish, acting as steward to this slice of life known as Charming, grew even stronger in her drugged out, vamp-enhanced mind.

  “You with us, Ms. Petit?” A friendly uniformed male’s face loomed over her.

  “I’m here,” she said, weakly. The words came out slurred, like she’d been drinking. She felt a strong hand holding hers and looked over to see Cecil, staring at her anxiously, his glacier blue eyes flooded with worry. Her ghosts lay tucked all around her like small, see-through insulators. Man, this sucks.

  The roaring of the chopper ceased, and again she was lifted, placed on another stretcher, and wheeled to an ambulance where still more questions and jabbing needles and soothing voices lulled her into a surreal, morphine fueled landscape. After that, she drifted, sailing through the sky in dreams of owl flight. And then, she slid from sight, into stillness and dark safety, oblivious to the world around her.

  “Lil’ Summer. Wake up. Wake up for your dawg-man. Please.”

  Chia blinked, wondering where she was. Her mind felt fuzzed with cobwebs of memory. She pushed through the silken strands, caught between dream and sleep, finally landing in a hospital bed in a dimly lit room. Her ghosts appeared unconscious, draped over the sheets like sleeping cats. A needle connected a tube to her hand, snaking up to a bag of clear liquid. Her shoulder had been bandaged and her arm propped up like some kind of table in a hard sling, and monitors surrounded her. Her mouth felt dry and papery. “Water,” she croaked.

  The ghosts stirred from their slumber, shook, and drifted into the air like helium balloons.

  Cecil, dressed in a nice dark blue and gold flannel shirt and Hung’s pants, his face haggar
d and lined with worry, trained his blue, blue eyes on her face. “You’re back. I’ve been worried.” He reached for a stainless steel pitcher and poured her a Dixie cup of water. “Here, lil’ Summer. Need help?”

  “I don’t think…” She tried to push herself up with one arm. “Okay, maybe a little.”

  “I think this bed sits up by itself.” He fumbled with a white gizmo, pressed it and the upper part of the bed slowly lifted.

  She gratefully took the water, swishing it in her mouth before swallowing. “Thanks, dawg-man. More please. What time is it?”

  “Oh, sometime in the afternoon,” he said as he refilled her tiny cup. “Maybe four. Haven’t paid much attention. Got impatient for you to wake up. You’ve been in and out for a while, now.”

  “Crap. How long have we been here?”

  “A while. The coast guard picked you up around midnight last night. Took them a while to get to Bewilderment where the closest trauma center’s located. It’s a level three.”

  “Excuse me?” Chia winced at the stabbing pain in her shoulder, somewhat dulled by drugs.

  “The trauma center. One of the nurses filled me in when we were…”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, if you tell me you screwed one of the nurses to get information…”

  Cecil’s brow knit tight. “Hell, no, lil’ Summer! I’ve been by your side the whole time. The nurse and I made a date for whenever you’re better. What kind of a guy do you think I am?”

  “Sorry.” Her head fell back against the pillow.

  “The surgeon recently got back from fishing in Canada. You’re lucky, lil’ Summer. He’s the only surgeon in these parts.

  “Yay, me,” she said, weakly. “What’s going to happen to my house? I heard Red Spotted Dick say they were going to set off explosions or something to let me know I’m in their sight line. Bastards.”

  “Don’t you worry. We’ve got it covered. Your house is protected. Dog pack is going to stay and guard things. And…” He looked away from her, fiddling with the plastic gizmo. “Height okay? Need to go up more? Down? Comfortable?”