CHAPTER 20

There must be worms in my bloodstreams.

Or beetles. Creeping beetles with a thousand legs.

The sensation made me feel like my skin was rippling. It was a ticklish sensation. Strange. I tried to fight it, but I found it hard. The itch increased, and I finally gave in to the urge to scratch on my arms.  Pain struck me, and I looked at them in surprise. They were bleeding. I'd accidentally scratched them with my claws. The rest of me was still human.

"Duane?" I called out. The room was dark. I wasn't even sure it was a room. But everything was too dark to make out anything at all except for the shape a few feet away from. "Duane! Duane!"

No one answered me. Until I saw a flash of red hair in the dark.

"Armand!" I sighed in relief, rubbing my arms. "Thank God you are here. Where are we?"

Armand didn't smile back at me. When he stepped forward, suddenly around me were white walls and a row of bright lights. He frowned, and half of the lights dimmed out.

"We're inside you."

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I'm in a spirit form, and so are you. We're inside of your consciousness."

I laughed. "Like hypnosis?"

"No. More like possession."

"You're kidding me. You're telling me now that ghosts—"

"I'm not talking about ghosts, Elena." Armand took another step closer to me and gripped me by the shoulders. This wasn't the easygoing school bad boy that I knew. This was a god-knows-how-old shifter, The Keeper.

"Er, Armand—"

"Listen, Elena. We've got to be quick. Where are you right now?"

"Here," I answered automatically, bewildered. "With you."

"I mean your physical form, Elena." He shook me a little. His proximity was making me hyperventilate a little. His stance said violence.

"What do you mean? I..."  I frowned. "I don't know? How can I not know?"

He shook me again.

I pried his hands off me. Again, I'd forgotten the claws. It was fascinating to watch how his wound close up immediately as soon as the blood oozed out. He let his arms fall to his sides.

"Elena, this is important. Please, try to remember where you are before you're here."

He looked so upset, so unlike his usual playful self, that I complied. The last thing I remembered was...

"I was talking to Mr. Harrington about my essay," I said.

Armand nodded. "We already figured he's involved. He's just been recently cast off from his position as a Vigil for being a mole. After that?"

A flash of needles. "He had a tranquilizer." A flash of chains. A flash of another sets of needles, bigger ones.

"Hey," I said as the thought occurred. "Why have you never told me that Nick is a vampire?"

"They got Nick, too? Well, where were you guys held at?"

"I don't know...I just woke up there."

"Describe the room to me."

"Well, it's...like a dramatic dungeon. But a spacious one. Five walls." I grimaced. "Nick said all the windows and the doors had this electrocution system. Silver chains. A square ventilation above." I watched Armand's ever shifting expression. "So. Do you know where it is?"

"It's too random." He must have seen my face fall, because he said, "But I'm sure we can find it. They must be underground."

"Actually...I don't think so?"

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to elaborate.

"Well, maybe it can be. But I think I heard Mr. Harrington and Thomas coming up from stairs, not down. Of course there could be a lot of layers underground, and you know the difference of pressure when you're in a basement and on a higher ground—"

"Thomas?"

"The man with the scarred face." I shivered. "He hurt me in the woods when I was the Red Fox spirit."

Armand's face froze. "Stay put. I think I know where you are."

He blinked out of existence.

"Hey!" I called out to the suddenly empty room—again. The bright lights above me slowly blinked out, and I was back to the empty dark void I was first in. I shivered. It was so cold here.

I hoped Armand return soon.

And then I saw a flash of red hair again. My hope escalated. "Armand?" I called out. "Back so soon?"

But as the shadow moved closer, I saw that it wasn't him—it wasn't even in a human shape.

It was a red fox.

My breathing stopped.

It was smaller than the wolves I'd encountered. Dark reddish golden fur, a set of strong legs and proud stance as it walked closer to me, and the deep-set light brown eyes—almost amber, even.

My eyes.

"Eiko."

I didn't know who spoke the word. Maybe the fox spoke it in my head, or maybe I just spoke it out loud.

I couldn't stop it, really. If I'd known my simple deed would change my whole life after, maybe I would have stopped myself. But even if I would have, I couldn't have. I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

I kneeled to level myself with it, and set my palm on its head.

My skin, which had felt like it was rippling earlier, now felt like it had been torn out of my bones. If I had thought my throat was still attached to my mouth, I would have screamed. Everything hurt. Even my scalp and my nails, and my teeth—the littlest things I never imagined could hurt that much—burned like someone had torched it with blue-lit flame.

We merged.

Everything became white in my vision. White and red. Two shades for every spectrum of color.

And then every detail sharpened. A two-legged with mixed stench on the floor, bound with this poisonous metal that I knew wouldn't affect me. My gaze shifted. Even with the red and white color range, I could make out their shapes clearly. Threats on two legs. Six of them. Waiting behind the cage they had built for me and the bad-smelling two-legged.

They were all so cocky, so sure of the power they thought they had over me because of the man-made cage.

I lunged.

The first shout was a human call.

The second was a scream.

Red and white blurred together. Everything about them was too slow. Slow flow of thick red splattering across the air. White of the movements that were just to slow to matter. Fire that didn't burn my skin. Slow man-made weapons that barely grazed my skin.

Nothing beat the speed of light. And that was how fast I could move.

It was over too fast. I smelled their blood—I had no appetite for them. A part of me cringed in disgust over their filthy soul—I had no appetite for them either.

Foolish men could never make me full.

I turned to the two-legged I'd left in the ruined cage.

He stared at me.

I bared my teeth at him, and he recoiled. Satisfied with this, I turned my tail to him, out to search for another prey.

Men prey.

Shedding my form was like pouring water to fill an empty jar. In a fluid move, I had a pair of two legs on me, my fur replaced with smooth fair skin.

Upstairs. There were men upstairs. The black wolf. The white wolf. I felt them. My savior and my tormentor, both of whom were tied to my soul in a loop of infinity. Everywhere they went, I'd be there. Everywhere I went, they'd be there.

The fire in the pit of my belly burned aflame as I went to them. I saw them fighting. I heard them. I felt them like they were just touch away. The beating of their hearts, straining against their chests.

"Elena."

I turned. A familiar aura. Powerful. Threatening.

"Don't," the voice said, as I was just about to move. He knew my move before I even knew it. He could be faster than me.

"Elena," the voice repeated. The sound of the wolves fighting seemed to drown out behind my ears as I spoke for the first time.

I bared my teeth. "Eiko," I seethed. "Not her."

"Elena," I heard the condescending voice say. "Come back. Don't let your fox take all the charge."

I pounced.

A hand touched my forehead. Bright light filled the room. Whiny screams of a cornered wolf. A pair of wide-stretched wings.

It was like being so close to the sun. Hot light that burns. Flames that could actually burn me alive. I whimpered. The red faded completely from my vision, leaving a blank white emptiness in my sight.

And then nothing.

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