Will’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. “I’m sorry for interrupting,” he mumbled to Ori, who thankfully didn’t take offense. At least, not openly.
“Early on, some of those who integrated with the settlers attempted to show their true selves, usually with people they’d formed romantic relationships with.” Ori cast a quick glance at Donovan and me. “As I’m sure you can imagine, it didn’t go well and led to the persecution of the community as a whole. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll call it the paranormal community.” Their distaste for the word was obvious. “Humans fear what they don’t understand, and these people were no different. Some few chose to remain and hide who they were, while the rest found safety with those who had already hidden in the mountains. And to answer your question, Will: no, it is not a ‘coven of psychics living in a commune’.”
Will had the grace to flush, lowering his head when Ori looked at him.
“The people in the woods… they were some kind of shapeshifter,” Raina said quietly, though it sounded more like a question.
Ori nodded. “Yes, there are members of the paranormal community who are shapeshifters of varying kinds. They fully retain their human minds and thoughts when in their other form, unlike werewolves. Yes, they are real,” they said when three jaws dropped. I guess there were still a few things that could surprise Camille, after all. “They are also very dangerous. Weres have no control when the moon forces them to change and they are deadly. They are, thankfully, few in number and kept under control during the full moon to prevent them from harming others.”
“So, what was that thing that attacked us?” I asked. My voice cracked, weariness bleeding into every syllable.
“That was something I had never seen outside of a book before, which is not something that occurs often.” Ori slumped forward in the chair, resting their elbows on their knees. “I made some calls and from what I could gather, we think it was a manticore.”
“A manticore?” Will repeated faintly.
“Like from mythology?” Something about it had tickled the back of my brain, though I hadn’t realized it through the sheer terror of the fight, and now I knew why. I’d devoured mythology as a teenager, delving through old Greek myths before leaping into mythologies of the world.
“Yes. Even in the paranormal community, they’re myths. No one has ever seen one and I spoke to several people who have been around for quite a long time.” They didn’t expand on that, I noted, which made me wonder exactlyhowlong they’d been alive. “According to the myths we found, manticore translates roughly to ‘man-eater’.”
“In the stories I read, they have scorpion tails, but they had human heads and the body of a lion,” I said with a frown. “This looked like a giant cat with lizard legs and a scorpion’s tail.”
“And those wings,” Raina whispered, swallowing hard in remembered fear. Will just looked gobsmacked, staring at us like we’d gone crazy. Maybe we had. It was starting to feel like it.
“It looked almost like someone took a manticore and added parts of a bat or something.” The word my mind wanted to supply was ‘dragon’, but that was not something I could mentally handle at the moment. “Wouldn’t that make it a chimera?”
Ori blinked, their eyes going unfocused for a moment as they thought. “You may be right,” they finally said. “Either way, no matter what it is, it shouldn’t exist, and yet it clearly does. I’ve reached out to some people who may be able to help me track it down and find out where it came from. This is where your promise comes in. Especially you, Alex.” Ori stared me down, unblinking. “I need you all to let this go. We will handle it.”
“You’re the one who helped me realize I can find more than just the dead and now you want me tonotuse that ability?” I protested immediately, sitting up straight. “I can help you find it before it hurts someone else!”
“That thing nearly killed all of you today. Even two strong shifters like Anjeli and Dane only survived because it was already injured. If we are unable to find it, then we can attempt to use your ability. Until then, I need you to stay clear. If it has any sort of human cognizance, there’s a good chance it will try to target you for hurting it. I’m asking you to stay safe and not draw its attention to you. You’ve seen what it can do.”
I turned back to Donovan, his hand still held securely in mine. He hadn’t moved beyond the slow rise and fall of his back as he breathed. The poultice on the back of his thigh had grown dark and a thin trickle of blood had dried on the inside of his leg. One cut from it had nearly killed him. I didn’t want to think of what would have happened if Ori and the others hadn’t arrived.
“Fine, but only if you swear you’ll let me help if you can’t find it,” I said.
“Agreed.”
“I definitely don’t want to see that thing ever again,” Raina said with a nod. Camille just nodded, as well, wrapping her arms tightly around Raina and hugging her close.
“This is insane…”
“Will, I know this is a lot to take in, but—”
“A lot to take in?” Will repeated incredulously, staring at Camille. “It’s one thing to believe in ghosts and psychics.” He stumbled over the last word, gesturing at me. “I leave you all alone for two hours and suddenly there are shapeshifters and chimeras and werewolves and who knows what else? Yeah, Cami, that’s ‘a lot to take in’.”
“We wouldn’t lie to you,” Raina said when Camille seemed at a loss for words.
“Well, you clearly haven’t had any trouble keeping things from me,” he snapped, and I flinched from the truth in his words. Without meaning to, wehadbeen keeping things from him whenever one of us didn’t take the time to tell him what had been going on.
“No one has tried to keep anything from you. It was an accident,” Camille whispered. She reached for her twin, but he pulled away.
“That doesn’t help like you think it does.” He got to his feet and took a breath. “I’m going to call the captain and let her know Landon has been found, since I doubt any of you reported he was safe?”
“I contacted my side of the community,” Ori shrugged. They seemed unfazed by the drama unfolding in the small kitchen.
“Wonderful.” Will’s voice was drier than the desert. “I’ll let her know to call off the search. I won’t tell her the volunteers have been wasting their time wandering in a snowstorm for the last hour.”
“What are you going to tell her about Donovan?” I hated to ask, but Donovan loved his job and I didn’t want him to recover only to find he’d lost it.
