I watch with growing despair as one of the newcomers—a sallow-faced man with dark eyes and lank hair—steps forward and fastens something around Sam's neck.
It looks like a thin silver collar, about the width of a pencil, and is covered in tiny, densely engraved symbols. It hinges at the back and clasps shut at the front, and the pale man locks it on with a strange little key shaped like a many-pointed star.
As soon as the thing closes around his throat, Sam's inner light dims. I hadn't even realized I could see it until it was gone. He's always so bright in my eyes, I hadn't recognized that it was something of his nature showing through. The only other person who'd ever looked like that to me was Julian, and he was part Fae.
Seeing Sam's light fade almost to nothing is unbearable, and I want to turn bear, rip all these assholes to shreds, get that awful thing off Sam, and take him somewhere safe where no one will ever hurt him again.
But I can't do that. Once again, through stupidity, or weakness, or plain bad luck, I'm helpless and forced to stand by while those I love get hurt.
A long thin chain like a leash is fastened through a loop at the front of the collar, and the sallow man hands the other end to Karin. I see Sam's shoulders shaking and I can't stand it. I lower myself to my knees beside him, moving slowly and mindful of the gun still aimed at me, and wrap him in my arms.
"You'll be okay," I whisper, rubbing my hands up and down his back and feeling his whole body tremble. "You're gonna be okay."
I don't know how, but I know it's true. Sam is strong and powerful, clever and resourceful. No evil wizard knockoff will hold him down for long. Sooner or later, he'll break free for good, and when he does, I hope he'll find his way home—as we should have done together—and tell my friends what became of me.
I don't expect the news will break any hearts, but it's nice to think I might deserve a tear or two.
Sam clings to me the way he did when we first met, a desperate barnacle latched on to the only solid surface in a wild sea, and I wish with all my heart I didn't have to let him go.
"Enough of this," Karin says, pulling none-too-gently on the chain. I see the thin collar press into the skin of Sam's throat, and he swallows against a reflexive choke.
"Ian—" Sam lets me go with a shiver of breath as the increasing tension on the chain forces him to stand. "Wait for me," he gasps.
"I will," I say, though I don't know what he means. On the other side, maybe. "I love you, Sam. Remember that, okay?"
He nods, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes and sliding unchecked down the sides of his face.
"My thanks, Mother Bear," Karin says, bowing slightly to Inez. "May your clan prosper."
Inez nods her acknowledgement. "You best get going. That sedative I gave the others won't last forever, and the more gone y'all are before they wake up, the better."
Karin bows again, gestures to the other two, and pulls Sam to his side. Then he and his men walk past me where I still kneel, taking Sam and Carlos with them. A moment later, they're gone, disappeared out of sight around the side of the lodge, and leaving me alone with Inez, Elliot, and Sofia.
"Come on," Inez orders, making an upward motion with the gun. "On your feet. Let's get this over with."
She nods, indicating I should start walking towards the lake.
So far, my mind has been too stunned to form any sort of plan, but now it starts to race. This, I discover, is just as unproductive, my thoughts and feelings tripping over themselves as fear sets in.
Inez Walker intends to kill me, and I don't want to die.
I need to get her to talk, slow her down, buy myself a little time.
"Won't you at least tell me why?" I ask as Inez pokes the barrel of the gun between my shoulder blades, making me quicken my pace.
"I suppose I can do that much," she says. "The Walker family blessing, and the Walker family curse are the same thing, you see. Our family aren't like other Shifters. We don't get our ability to Shift through magic or ritual, or through bloodline. For us, it's a gift direct from a goddess—a great bear spirit."
As we approach the edge of the lake, she pushes me along, making me turn to the right and skirt the shore.
"Long ago, according to family lore, there was a woman who wanted to protect her people from an invading force. She asked the bear goddess to let her borrow the goddess' form, and the goddess consented. In the shape of a great bear, the woman fought off the invaders and saved her people."
We're walking along a narrow trail between aisles of dense willow. Pale light streams through the tangled branches and leaves, and if I wasn't being led to my death, I'd have found it pleasant.
Inez goes on, her voice and her gun at my back. "When it came time to give the goddess her form back, though, the woman refused. She was afraid that without it, she wouldn't be able to keep her people safe. The goddess told her if she kept it, it would cost her, but the woman said she was willing to pay any price. The goddess granted it, and so the woman became the first Mother, the first head of what would become our clan."
We've reached the base of a big spruce. A rope dangles from one of its lower limbs, and a round of wood is set beside it. It's just about the right height for a man to stand on if he meant to hang himself.
"You can stop here," Inez says.
I turn to face her, Elliot and Sofia flanking her sides.
She goes on, grim lines marking her face.
"It was only after the deal was made that the goddess told the first clan-mother the terms," she said. "One bear-spirited soul for every seven years, to be collected at the end of every seventh set of seven years."
Inez smiles humorlessly. "Now, the clan-mother had a choice. The goddess would get her souls, one way or another. She could either let things play out as they would, or take matters into her own hands. She chose the latter. She picked two of her children—once she had 'em—to be her Keepers. Secret-keepers, that is. There've been two in every generation, ever since, to make sure it gets passed down. Their job is to select the seven and deliver them to the goddess bear. We choose the weakest, to keep ourselves strong: the old, the feeble-minded, the unloved. When there ain't enough of them to make a set, sometimes we make a sacrifice. I woulda picked Cass if I hadn't learnt of you. She's sweet, but she won't be contributing to the family, what with her lack of a proper interest in procreation."
"Their," I correct, feeling a new anger stir in my chest at the thought of what might have happened to Cass if I hadn't stumbled into this mess.
"What?" Inez blinks, confused by my interruption.
"Their lack of interest. Which there's nothing wrong with," I add.
"Oh, I see." She rolls her eyes. "Well, don't worry. Cass's safe, at least from this, and at least for the next forty-nine years."
"So the others...they don't know?" I ask. Now that we're here, I still don't have a plan, and I need more time to think.
"Nope. Not a clue. Innocent as babes. Only the Keepers know. It lets the others live normal, happy lives, without that worry hanging over 'em. That's our burden."
"And you said a 'Keeper goes last?' So what, you're gonna kill yourself once you're done with me?"
"No, my boy Elliot will do that. See, what happened here is this: you went nuts—on account of the death-bringer—and murdered me. Then you did yourself in the tree. That's how it'll look, anyways."
If she thinks I'm just going to hang myself because she says so, she's got another thing coming. I'm just not sure what yet.
"And Raven?" I ask.
"Poor Raven. That girl was a lost soul," she laments, with apparent sincerity. "I regretted having to kill her, but I did what needed to be done. It was supposed to look like a murder-suicide, like this will. Crazy Raven come back, kidnapped old Inez, murdered me, and then set herself on fire in my car. Thing was, I needed to kill you first, to complete the set. I used the death ritual to power that shield and hide my car so it wouldn't be found until I was ready, and then came for you. And that's where things started to go wrong. You didn't show up alone, and as far as I could tell, you were never alone. I couldn't get at you, so I decided I'd just have to 'come back' and work things out from there. And here we are."
"Why not just have Elliot or Sofia kill me?" I gesture at them. "They've had plenty of chances."
"They didn't know. Keepers don't choose their successors until the end. Once I told Elliot, he tried of course, and then of course we discovered your little catamite was more than he seemed."
She swings the gun, gesturing at the rope and the round of wood.
"Enough talkin' now. Story's over. Up you go, like a good boy," she says, and I hear the no-nonsense, practical mother in her tone—homicidal and cultish, but practical nonetheless. "It'll be quick. Promise."
I sigh. I wish I were clever and resourceful, a quick thinker, a man with a plan. But I'm not. I'm just a bear, and that's all I've got.
"No, it won't," I say. "It'll be as long as I can make it, and I'm gonna take as many of you with me as I can."
And then in one smooth, fluid motion, easy as breathing, I Shift.