Happy Friday! Note, this story is NOT polished. I will be posting a scene or chapter weekly. Expect an urban fantasy world. Romance and mystery. And magic, of course. Enjoy!
PART 4
Four months later, I still had no idea if I’d made the right decision to leave the big cities behind in favor of the evo-centric west. Granted, I’d been hunted out east, but I’d been able to hide among the millions of people in the congested cities. I’d intended to find a nice big city out west. But once out here, I’d gotten the feeling I’d need to try something different.
Instead of heading for a populated area like LA, Portland, or Seattle, I’d ventured into a small town. No, not ventured into, been drawn into.
Reunion, Oregon boasted a population of 2000 strong. The town subsisted on a hearty economy of tourism, its cute shops and quaint eateries a haven for those enamored with the beauty that is Central Oregon’s mountain region. The Cascade Mountains, bountiful lakes, high desert, blue skies, and snowcapped peaks year-round, you name it, Central Oregon had it.
Probably why so many evos preferred to settle out here. For some reason, those others who’d evolved had close ties with the earth. You could find mages anywhere, as they powered themselves through their close ties with human minds. But the rest of the evolved communed with nature, with the elements, and with the beasts who reigned in the wild places.
I’d planned on heading into California after I’d illegally crossed the Designated Central Border (nicknamed the Divide,) separating America into the Unified West and Unified Eastern states. But along the way, something in me told me I’d do better up north. After alternating between human transportation and running in animal form forever, I’d managed to shake my pursuers and learned one whopper of a surprise as I found the Divide.
I can now fly! My other form is a red kite, a kind of hawk typically not found in the Americas.
But once at the border, I’d realized the guards looked up as well as down for those hoping to evade registration. After passing the first of several checkpoints, I’d inured myself to crossing as a rodent. Except surprise number three happened, and I’d made the crossing during the night as a fox.
So maybe the people hunting me did know more about me than I suspected. Weird evos with dual abilities, both shapeshifter and mage, were unique. Yet I’d never heard of any of them able to shift into more than one animal. And I could now shift into three.
It had taken a while to be able to shift into the hawk at all, let alone at will. So, I figured after my first time, I likely wouldn’t be able to call up the vulpine form again. And I’d been right, though the fox had been a fun little treat, fast and light on her feet. But it had been so annoying to find myself constantly straying to hunt some rodent or another, all the while thinking, hey, that field mouse could have been me.
At least I hadn’t starved.
Speaking of which…
“Lobo, two platters of the special and a side of onion rings,” I ordered.
The large chef at my current place of employment grunted at me and ignored the tickets I’d clipped to the wheel. He preferred verbal orders. Insane when we were slammed, like this afternoon, but whatever. His diner, his rules.
I glanced down at the purple Feeds T-shirt I wore with my faded jeans–a steal at the local thrift shop–and smiled at my black Converse sneakers. I’d bought them with the raise I’d recently received. Considering my exacting boss hadn’t given me more than food and a place to sleep until last week, I knew the raise had been more than earned.
Honesty compelled me to admit he hadn’t been cheap, exactly. He could have paid me for working and left off the free rent and free food, and I’d have been forced to live outside. April nights in Central Oregon are no joke. Cold with a capital C.
Lobo, not a wolf but a bear shifter, despite his name, ruled the evo community in Reunion. Well liked, big enough to enforce the rules, and a decent man, he’d welcomed me without much fanfare at all. Which I more than appreciated.
One minute I’d hovered at the doorway to Feeds, wondering if I’d lost my mind thinking to hide in such a small town, the next I’d been stared down, fed, showed to my room in the house behind the diner, then ordered to rest until my first shift the following morning.
Something had told me to trust the man. I don’t know why. Maybe because he looked at me as if he knew me. Or because his eyes softened when he performed a kindness, then turned steel-hard when he noticed others watching. He didn’t want to be perceived as gentle, but under that huge, muscular exterior and glare of death lived a kind, decent guy.
“Hey, Red, wake up.” An annoying regular slammed his empty coffee cup in front of me. “I’m dry.”
Red. I liked it less than “Sadie” but better than “Monica” and “Sandy.” Sometimes I forgot what name I’d been born with, and even then, it had been a name given to me by Child Protective Services.
“Yeah, wake up,” Lobo growled from his place in the kitchen, surveying everything through the large pass-through. “I don’t pay you to daydream.”
“You barely pay me at all,” I muttered.
“I heard that.” He slammed two plates on the counter. “Orders up.”
I refilled the coffee cup, narrowly avoiding the hand that left the cup to “steady me,” for fear of being sipped from. Josh was a feeder, or what the non-politically correct called a vampire. A misnomer. He didn’t have fangs and only had claws when he needed them. And mostly they were for show, to scare away other predators and intimidate prey. Feeders sipped blood through skin-to-skin contact, absorbing their nutrients through touch. Energy or blood, depending on the subspecies, they fed mostly using their hands, and smart people knew to keep their distance.
Most feeders wore black gloves, identifying themselves easily while also being polite by protecting others from becoming an accidental meal.
Josh never wore gloves. The locals he left alone. Me he continued to aggravate.
I’d been in town for two and a half weeks now. That I knew who to avoid and why must have penetrated to Lobo, because he hovered less. Today he hadn’t warned Josh to leave me alone.
A good sign or a bad sign?