THE OPENING
“Shannon? Shannon?”
She tries to open her eyes, but it is such an effort. Her entire body is numb and she cannot feel any of her limbs. Her vision swims and she sees two anxious faces peering down at her.
Lucien!
And Kirk!
Kirk is in his human form and he is naked. His hair is wild and flowing, and his body wears dirt marks and bruises and scratches. He is bleeding from a wound on his side, but this does not seem to perturb him. He is more concerned about her. The collar and amulet at his throat are missing.
Lucien is just as anxious. His shirt is torn and bloodied at the collar, baring a lot of his chest. His blond hair is disheveled. His lower lip is smeared with blood and his hands are singed.
She whimpers, but no voice issues from her throat.
Jared? Where is Jared?
She wants to keep her eyes open, but her lids shut on her. Now all she can hear is voices.
“She’s hurt bad. Her pulse is very weak.” Kirk’s voice.
“Can you do something?”
“We can bring her to the hospital. But I can’t transform, damn you. What did you do to me?”
“Reversion spell. What the hell did you do? Silver bullets can’t harm you?”
“I’ve got my secrets, you’ve got yours. But she’s dying, damn it! None of anything else matters.”
“I didn’t know she was here! I was trying to kill you. That’s why the spell was so strong.”
“Thanks.” Sarcastically.
“If you hadn’t worn that amulet, the repercussions wouldn’t be that devastating. Look at this place. All the trees are singed and broken. The rangers will be on to this for sure by tomorrow.”
“Fuck the rangers. She’s dying! That’s all that matters.”
A groan.
“Is her brother OK?”
“He’s hurt too, but he’s in a lot better shape than she is. It’s because he’s a shifter, I think. But he wasn’t protected like you and me.”
Lucien’s decisive voice: “We’ve got to do something.”
Kirk in a low voice: “I don’t think we can make it to the hospital in this state.”
“Then there’s only one thing I can do, and you have to help me, seeing that you obviously know a spell or two.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“This is a very old spell, one that has been in my family for years. One of my ancestors was put to death for owning it.”
“Great, thanks for telling me that.”
The voices are fast fading. Shannon’s brain is slowing down to a trickle. She can barely think anymore. Nothing appears to be fully coherent to her.
Lucien: “This katana is tempered with old magick. It is a conduit, a channel for concentrated energy. Stand clear.”
A swooshing sound, like a blade being plunged into something soft.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like? Sticking the sword into the ground. Now I need your blood . . . and mine.”
Silence.
“OK, what do I do now?”
“Let your blood flow into the blade, and I will let mine mingle with yours. Ours is magical blood. It will make the conduit twice as strong, thus binding us to the spell.”
“What exactly are we doing?”
“Nothing your medical degree has ever prepared you for. Now I need a sharp stick.”
More silence. Footsteps rushing around. The startling snap of wood.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you doing?”
“Drawing hieroglyphs around the focus point.”
“Why hieroglyphs? I can read the ancient Egyptian alphabet . . . well, kind of – ”
Something in Shannon’s fading mind stirs. She knows what Lucien is writing.
A horned viper.
A leg.
A hand.
A leaf.
Another leaf.
A wave.
Another hand.
An open mouth.
A rope.
An ancient Egyptian anagram. Scramble them and put the letters all together again.
“It says . . . Forbidden,” Kirk pronounces in awe.
Forbidden.
The word thrills through her like an incantation of a spell. And maybe – combined with the katana and the blood and the power channeling through the earth like a roaring waterfall – it is.
The world spins on its axis as images of ankhs and leaves and hanged witches and growling werewolves tumble in her head.
*
This time, she can open her eyes with ease, and she realizes it is because her body is no longer corporeal. She looks around her in wonder.
Am I dead?
She is not alone. Kirk, Lucien and Jared are with her, and they are also looking around them in amazement. This is because the world around them has taken on the brilliant hues of the rainbow and beyond.
Everything around them – the trees, the grass, the sky, the mountains, a slowly moving stream – is constantly changing in color, as if they are looking at everything through a rapidly moving, multicolored prism. Everything is simultaneously surreal and hyper-real. The colors blaze before her eyes, if indeed those are her eyes she is seeing through.