The energy field flared … then flickered. Panic sped my heartbeats. It wasn’t working. I’d fall back to my usual form or, worse, end up half-shifted and dead from the effort. I couldn’t let that happen. Pushing aside the fear, I poured every ounce of concentration into changing. The energy glowed brighter, then a little brighter. With a flash, it exploded outward in sparks and stars and fiery spirals.
Why did I lie here alone? Bleating over there. My kind, calling me. Flock meant safe. I bleated back. Other voices answered. I stood up, trotted to the flock.
Into the midst of them I went. Smell of sheep all around me, warm and safe. I bleated, happy. Grass smell. Old grass, winter grass, not new. Hungry. I lowered my head to graze.
I ate and ate. Warm, fleecy bodies on all sides. Safe. Ate more. Light dimmed. Then sudden movement on this side and that, all around. The flock bleated a warning. I ran, bleating too, keeping with the flock. Must stay together. Others slowed. I slowed with them, stopped. Looked back. What made us run? A two-legs walked through our field. Just walked. No danger. I bent to graze. The two-legs bleated in a high, strong voice.
“Vicky!”
Up jerked my head. I looked at the two-legs. Why did her bleat call to me?
“Vicky!”
Something good about this one. Carrots? Apple? I stepped toward her. She kept walking, toward the stone barrier. I bleated, went faster. Had to catch up. Something good.
The two-legs stopped. Looked at me. I trotted to her. Nudged at pockets. No apple smell. No carrot smell. But the two-legs’ smell was good. Safe. Like home.
“Oh, Vicky.” She scratched behind my ears. It felt good. I leaned into her. Warm. Happy. She stepped away. I stepped with her. She walked on the path, away from the trees. A bleat behind. I stopped, turned. There was the flock. But here was the two-legs who felt like home. I stood, not sure where to go.
“Vicky, come.” Two-legs clicked her tongue and patted her pocket. Apples, maybe. Or carrots. I followed her across the field.
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, I KNEW EXACTLY WHERE I WAS—home at Maenllyd, in the shift room. What I didn’t know was how I’d arrived here. I had only dim, fuzzy memories of following Mab away from the flock.
The shift room is a special room in Maenllyd’s cellar. Ten by twelve, its cement floor has a drain in the center. Small, barred, horizontal windows near the ceiling let in light. A cot is pushed against one wall. There’s only one door, with an automatic lock. Beside the door is a numbered keypad.
Although it sounds like a prison cell, the shift room is really a recovery room. It’s a place where Mab or a visiting relative or I can go in animal form, a place where we’ll be safe until we shift back to our human forms. The locked door keeps any animal contained, but once someone shifts back to human form, they just tap a four-digit code, written on the wall, into the keypad to open the door.
I lay under a blanket on the cot, feeling like an elephant had been flamenco dancing on my skull. Experimentally, I stretched to see what else hurt. Pretty much everything. But it was an achy soreness, not the battered agony that made me believe I was dying.
Something was in my mouth. I spit it into my hand: a disgusting mess of semi-digested grass and bits of other stuff. Gross. Brilliant idea, shifting into a cud-chewing animal. At least there was no blood in it. I sat up and threw the mess on the floor. I’d come back and clean it up later. The room needed to be hosed down, anyway.
“Here, child, use this handkerchief.”
I bunched up the blanket in front of me. Mab sat in a wooden chair a few feet from the cot’s head. Her face looked grim, even fierce. To me, that look was beautiful. My aunt—strong, formidable, watching over me, never letting the bad guys win.
I took the handkerchief and wiped my mouth and hands. “What time is it?”
“Just past seven in the morning. You shifted back eight hours after I found you.” The corners of her mouth quirked. “We must have made quite a sight, me lifting you over the stile. I was quite terrified Farmer Davies would shoot me for stealing one of his sheep.”
I rubbed my temples and tried to remember. In human form, it’s hard to make sense of animal memories, all flashes and sensations and nudges of instinct. I remembered following Mab across the field, squirming and kicking as she lifted me in her preternaturally strong arms. Being on the other side of the stone wall. Trotting behind her. Balking at the kitchen door, then tempted inside as someone—Rose?—gave me a whiff of chopped-up apples in a bowl. My hooves clicking strangely on the flagstone floor. Eating. Feeling sleepy.
“You put sleeping herbs into the apples?”
She nodded. “And the herbs to prevent dreams. Also some for healing.”
That explained my headache. I’d probably ingested enough magical herbs to knock a human into next month.
“You were weak,” Mab went on. “It was clear you needed rest. When you shifted back to human form, you had bruises all over. You must have been very badly hurt, especially considering the moon phase.”
Shifts are strongest around the time of a full moon. The animal brain takes over more strongly—and healing happens faster. Tonight would be the first night of the full moon. Mab was telling me that, without shifting, I would have died.
She set her mouth in a grim line. “What happened, child?”
I stood and wrapped the blanket around me, then sat on the cot. Every muscle screamed; I felt like I’d sprinted a marathon.
“Is it bad now?” I asked.
Mab reached into her pocket and produced a hand mirror. “I thought you’d ask.”
I studied my reflection. Two black eyes, faded so that they looked like they’d happened a week ago. My nose was straight and unbroken. No cuts, although a new scar, thin and white, marked a corner of my mouth. I peeked under the blanket. Faint, yellow-green bruises mottled my torso.
I returned the mirror. “You were right about Pryce. He definitely means harm.”
Mab drew in a sharp breath. “He attacked you?”
“Right after he shared his evil plan for world domination.”
Her brows slanted downward, like she thought I was making an unfunny joke. I sat on the cot and told her about my conversation with Pryce, how he was using the Morfran to strengthen Uffern’s demons and expand the demon plane into the human world. I left out one thing: Pryce’s desire to make little demon babies with me. I knew I should tell Mab, but I decided not to. Yet. From a goddess two lines diverged, but they shall be reunited in Victory. It was too crazy. I needed time to think about it.
“I said I’d stop him,” I said, “and he got me with a sucker punch. I fought back. I thought I had him, too. One second he was moaning on the ground at my feet, the next he was gone. Somehow he got behind me. Once he did, he beat the crap out of me.”
“He went into the demon plane. His human form regenerates there.”
“So he can pop into the demon plane, and then pop out again at another location?”
“If the sites are close together, yes. Otherwise, he must pass deeper through Hell, but he can travel anywhere on Earth that way.” She paused for a moment, her eyes distant, then gave a single, brisk nod. “Get washed and dressed. We must press forward with your training.”
I stood. I wasn’t eager for another session with The Book of Utter Darkness. The Book of Utter Evil was more like it. But it was necessary—I could see that. Pryce had to be stopped. Aside from the whole world domination thing, he’d just made it personal.
“Vicky.” Mab put her hand on my arm. “If Pryce attacked you, it’s because he fears you.”