Chapter 2 - New Genre Thing

My lungs burned. My mind was like mush. The last thing I remembered was being swept away by the river. Where the hell was I?

“There you go,” a voice said, but it took me a moment to comprehend that it was Aunt Lana, asking if I was all right.

“Maybe,” I said, finally managing to open my eyes.

Blurry lights caused me to cringe. “It’s too bright.”

“Bright?”

My aunt put a hand on my face, staring into my eyes. She came into view more clearly, then I realized there was only one light in the room, and it was a very faint lamp.

“My dad…” I sat up quickly, but that caused a sharp pain along the side of my head. With a groan, I reclined again. “He was… he…”

“He’s gone,” Aunt Lana said.

“We need to find him, make sure he’s safe, and—”

“Dear…” She had her hand on my face again. “I mean gone, gone. As in he didn’t make it.”

“They killed him.” All confusion and sluggishness was gone and I pushed myself up to see that we were in a small room with only a bed, the lamp, and a desk. None of this looked familiar, but at the moment the only thing I cared about was that those sons of bitches had taken my dad’s life. “We have to go after them, or I don’t know. What were those things—they weren’t natural!”

“Maybe… and this is only because your mom had them in her notes and… because I saw what I saw… shifters?”

“Like FUCKING WEREWOLVES?!”

“Hey, hey.” Lana moved to me, hand over my mouth and other with a finger to hers to show me to be quiet.

Too late.

“What was that? I heard something…” a voice said.

My voice turned to a whisper. “Where are we?”

“A room that’s not ours, come on.” She went to the door and cracked it open, peeking out. After a minute, she closed the door again. “It’s all right, we’re clear—just keep it down. Your phone is there.” She indicated a small bag of rice at the side of the desk, the papers she’d given me laid out on a towel on the ground, drying.

“None of this makes sense,” I mumbled, knowing about shifters or werewolves or whatever the hell they were being real could be true. Except, I had seen them too, and here I was at least starting to believe in some sort of curse.

“You can’t help your dad,” Lana said. “But you’re not out of time, you might be able to help yourself.”

“I don’t follow.”

She motioned me over to the papers, where she knelt, looking over them. “The water smeared some of it, but…”

“Your grandma believed this man had a connection to the curse,” Lana said, indicating a blurry image of a man—taken from afar. Notes beneath the image said things like, “Comes from Wales,” “Grandson possibly in New York,” “Last spotted in San Francisco,” and “Holds the key to ending this all.”

“She thought this man could help her?”

“More like she thought this man was the problem.” Lana indicated another page. “She was tracking him down, but when she got too close, they came for me—held me hostage. It cost her too much time. She saved me but at the expense of all this. I’ve been trying to make sense of it, but wasn’t sure I trusted what she was telling me. Even when she vanished… I wasn’t sure.”

“But you’re here.”

“Here, yes.” She took a deep breath, eying me. “Monitoring, waiting, and hoping that it wasn’t true.”

“You’re saying something will happen to me in three weeks if I don’t figure this out.”

She nodded.

“Where do we start?” I asked.

“You start here.” She indicated an address written on one of the pages. “While I get into hiding so that they can’t use me like they did against your mom.”

My eyes scanned the pages, seeing mentions of magic, cures, and secret societies. One sketch showed a man with characteristics like a wolf, and I might have laughed if I hadn’t been through such a crazy experience that had taken my dad’s life.

“Be careful,” Lana said. “Don’t use your powers, because that’s how they track you, and—”

“Stop. What?”

“How they track you.”

“I heard that part. What throws me is that you just said ‘powers,’ which clearly doesn’t make any sense.”

“What exactly do you think is happening here?”

“From what I can tell, a whole lot of insanity.”

“Your curse… somehow involves strange things happening around you. The type that your mother called powers, saying she could use them to fight. But the more she used them, the more exposed she was. I think that every time you use these powers, they will be able to track you. That’s what happened to her, and that’s how they finally got to her.”

I gulped, not wanting to believe any of this. Somehow I knew there was a bit of truth to what she was saying, though I couldn’t quite process any of it yet.

Powers… magic… a curse?

None of it fit with my understanding of the world.

Assuming any of this was true, she hadn’t the slightest clue how she could have used any powers. Only that she had heard the scream and felt the sensation of drowning. Was that the connection that had somehow led them to her?

“You have to move fast,” Lana said. “I can’t bear to see what happened to your mom happen to you, too. The curse can stop with you.”

Considering that I didn’t have any children and that this supposed curses was genetic to a degree, it seemed this was going to be over with me one way or another regardless.

“You have to go,” she said.

I nodded. “Sure.”

“You’re not taking this seriously enough. What, you think they killed your dad over nothing? You were there, you saw their strength. You know what they’re capable of.”

Pain shot through my body as my gut clenched at the thought of never seeing my dad again. Maybe this wasn’t all true, but she was right that something had been off with the attackers the night before, and they certainly believed something was going on with me. Enough to be worth killing my dad over while trying to get to me.

“Where do I start?” I asked.

“There was an organization, one that she couldn’t peg down… but I think they know where to find him.”

“Him?”

Her finger tapped the image of the man—the blurred one with all the notes beneath it. “All of it revolves around this man. The one the docs referred to as Artus.”

A blurred line beneath the name Artus looked like it read “Pentagon,” and I had a sinking feeling in my chest. If this man was somehow connected to the U.S. military or defense department, what did that say for my chances of success with this endeavor?

Then again, if I was really cursed and magic existed… maybe none of that would matter.

“Fine. I’ll go.” I stared at the addresses and words again. “San Fran?”

“No, I don’t think so. Those spots I’ve been researching—if anything these are meeting points, but to get to it, to really dive in you should start at the base. Get right to it so you aren’t wasting time.” Her finger went to the page that had sketches of a castle and the word “Wales” at the top.

“You want me to go to Wales?”

Lana offered a helpless shrug. “I’ve done what I can. The rest is up to you.”

“I’m not going to Wales. And especially not by myself.”

“Sasha, it’s that or…” She put a hand to her mouth, eyes watering. “I can’t stand by while the same thing happens to you that happened to my sister. You understand?”

“Then don’t stand by. Come with me.”

“I already explained… Plus, from here I can at least set them on the wrong path. Get them off your trail as long as I can.”

“You just said you need to lay low. Or is it lie low?”

“There’s the Sasha I remember—Mrs. Spelling Bee.”

“When I was ten. So what about lying low?”

She took my phone from the rice and handed it over, then started putting the papers together. “Don’t worry about me. This is all about you.”

I gave her the stern look I would give boyfriends who were acting stupid.

“Fine, I promise I’ll be careful while distracting them. You need to get on a plane—ASAFP.”

“ASAFP?”

“As soon as fucking possible, yes. ASAFP.” She reached out for the phone, taking it back and turning it on. “You’re in luck—it works.”

I took a look to see she had the site already up, ticket ready to go. “Won’t they track me with this?”

“Not in time, though you’ll want to be careful on the other side, in case they’re waiting. I already have three different bus tickets in your name, and posted on your socials that you’ll be vacationing in San Diego.”

“Wonderful.” I scrunched my nose, fingers to my temples. “And how am I getting to Wales?”

“Your passport,” she took a passport from her pocket, handing them over, “and… a ticket? That’s the hard part. I had enough for the buses.”

My mouth felt dry, mind reeling. “I can’t exactly walk there.”

“We’ll figure out something…”

“Wait!” My hands moved over my body, only then realizing that I was wearing someone else’s clothes. At my look of confusion, Lana nodded do a door. I ran over to find my clothes hanging, nearly dry. There, in the pocket of my jacket, was the guy’s wallet.

Shit, I was going to be riddled with guilt over this.

“Got a way to pay for the ticket,” I said, stepping back into the other room and handing over Chuck’s credit card.

“This guy going to call the cops on you?”

“Does it matter?” I thrust the card into her hands. “Compared to these other people coming for me, I mean.”

“Good point.” She took the card and input the information, then handed the phone over to me. “Ticket’s there—checked in already. Now, let’s get you to the airport.”

“What? Now?”

“What part of ‘You only have three weeks—two weeks and six days now—to get this squared away’ do you not understand?”

I gulped, accepting my phone back. “Whose clothes are these?”

Lana grinned. “I had a bag of your mom’s stuff in my trunk. Never was able to get rid of it.”

Knowing they had been my mom’s, and considering that they fit perfectly, put a wide smile on my face. My dad was gone and I’d never really known my mom, but in that moment I felt like I almost knew her.

That comforted me, and this all felt right. I was going to make it work.

“All right,” I said.

“All right?”

I nodded, then went to her and gave her a hug. My aunt and I hadn’t spent nearly enough time together in my life, and now it looked like what little time we had was over. Time for me to go on a crazy search to break a curse that I still wasn’t entirely sure was real.

Except, first I needed to check in with my friend Stacey. After all, I couldn’t leave to go across the world without saying bye to her first, and if there was a chance I wasn’t going to even be around after three weeks, she would never forgive me if I didn’t say goodbye.

Not that any of those thoughts mattered, though, because at that exact second as I turned to the door to head out, a scream sounded from past the door, slightly distant. Then another, closer.

“Oh no,” Lana said, and she had her pistol out again, checking it to ensure there was a round in the chamber.

“Let me guess, silver?” I asked in a hoarse whisper, trying to make a joke to break the tension.

She nodded, then motioned for me to get back and away from the door. I wasn’t about to argue.

Another scream sounded, then a crashing like something going through a wall. Snarling. Sniffing. Silence.

My heartbeat echoed through my chest and up into my head, so that I could even feel it throbbing in my ears. I had to remember to breathe, but did my best to keep the sound quiet. That only added to the anxiety, so that the next breath came too quickly and, before I knew it, I was hyperventilating and on the verge of having a full-on panic attack.

Lana turned to me with eyes that pleaded for silence, and in that moment the door went crashing in, slamming into her and causing a shot to go off that put a hole in the wall.

At first all I saw were the yellow eyes like before, then two hairy men charged in. The door had fallen sideways and not on my aunt, although she was clearly injured from the impact. She still managed to lift her pistol and fire a shot right into one of the attacker’s cheeks. Blood splattered and the man fell back, while the other went to me.

His eyes were wild, his teeth sharp, and I had no doubt this was a true, honest to God, shifter. He wasn’t in full werewolf form, so looked more like a human man with large muscles, more hair on his arms and around his face than seemed natural, and those damned eyes and teeth.

Claws came at me, but I threw myself back and banged my head into the wall. Damn, that hurt.

I picked up the lamp and threw it at him. The room went dak as I pulled the lamp from the wall, but enough light came in through the blinds that I could see him simply knock it aside. Those glowing eyes were brighter now, and he leaped at me.

Another shot went off, catching him in the side, but a growl from the door told me a third shifter had entered. The pistol clattered to the ground as Lana yelped in agony, and before I could get to her I felt claws sinking into my stomach. Ground left my feat, the shifter lifting me up from the ground.

Pain tore through my entire body and I felt helpless. My body went limp, all fight leaving as I realized this was it—my last seconds alive.

Except, then the flooding sensation came again, and this time I let it wash over me. Pain was still there, but it felt distant like when you hear a voice submerged underwater.

I looked up at my attacker, holding me and snarling.

“Go to hell,” I muttered, then thrust out my hands, thumbs in his eyes, and pressed as hard as I could.

He yelped, blue liquid flowing through my hands and giving them extra strength. It was as if I was pulling at the water around me and using that somehow. His shout grew into a howl and he collapsed, hand pulled out from me.

All of the pain returned and I was on my knees, refusing to black out again. I crawled toward my aunt to see that she was against the wall, large gashes across her body and blood pooling around her.

She didn’t move, empty eyes staring straight forward.

“No, no… no.” I held her, ignoring the blood. It wasn’t until movement nearby caught my attention and I saw one of the shifters on the ground.

I didn’t remember hearing another shot, but this was the third to have arrived, and seemed to be injured. How had that happened?

This one was a woman shifter. She faced me and bared her sharp teeth, about to attack me—when something grabbed her by her hair and yanked her from the room!

One second she had been there, about to attack—and likely kill—me, the next, simply gone.

I stumbled back, looked around for the pistol, and then spotted it. Good timing, too, because the one whose eyes I had destroyed was snarling and sniffing, coming at me. My shot missed, but a second one hit him in the face, ending him instantly.

Next my aim went to the doorway and the figure there, but whoever it was had moved out of sight before I could even think to pull the trigger.

“That won’t do much more than piss me off,” a voice said in a whisper, as if all around me. Or maybe it was in my head.

“Bull,” I muttered. “It took out your friends easily enough.”

“My enemies. Not friends, though I should thank them for leading me to you.” He stepped back into sight, hands up to show they weren’t clawed or hairy—though I could barely tell in the dim light.

From what I could tell, he was a normal man.

Considering what I had seen him do to the shifter woman, moving her with such strength, I kind of doubted it. Still, I lowered the pistol. And normal was a relative term, considering how the way his eyes pierced mine and made me feel like there wasn’t anything I would do if he asked in that moment.

Managing to catch my breath, I asked, “And you are?”

“Your only friend.”

“I hardly—”

“No time for that. More are coming, and especially so when they learn that I’m here. We have to move, quickly.”

Considering that he had saved me, I was more likely to trust him than the shifters, and for the moment he seemed to be my best bet of getting out of there.

Once free, I’d have to find a way of ditching him to get to the airport, but that would come next. First was to survive.