Forged by Greed (20 page)

The old trees groaned under the powers
of the wind. Erik pushed the massive entry door open, letting Penelope go in first.
Everyone followed, ending with Georgeta, who curiously looked at the solemn
warriors carved into the dark wood of the door.

                                                             
***

Two hours later Georgeta put her
cell phone back in her pocket. Her round baby-face scrunched up when she looked
at her brother. He was engaged in a quiet conversation with Penelope. She
whispered to Lusia, “We need to go. Mom was yelling when she called again. I
don’t know what has gotten into her. She’s never that super strict about that
ten-o’clock curfew. But tonight she keeps calling and telling us to get home.”

 
Lusia glanced
across the room at Bogdan. He sat on a small sofa with a blond Summer Shifter,
Trent. They were talking with their mouths closed—it was all done in their
minds. They gesticulated and, only sometimes, Bogdan would say something in a
hushed voice.

The rest of the Summer kids either
scattered throughout the house or sat around the room, curiously watching the
Winter guests, but not engaging in conversation.
 
Until now, only Penelope and Erik seemed
completely oblivious to the hesitant mood between the Races. They sat close
together, whispering and touching hands from time to time.

“Come on.” Lusia pulled Georgeta by her hand. She took
a few steps in Erik’s direction and punched him on the shoulder.

“Time to say our ‘good-byes’, big fella. You’ve got
the keys to the car. Up you go.”

“Ouch.” Erik looked from Lusia to Georgeta, a half
smile still playing on his lips. “Right. Sorry.” He got up quickly. “Sorry,” he
mumbled again.

“There’s something weird going on, but Jasmira didn’t
want to talk on the phone. She just sent me a short text, that’s all.” Penelope
looked from face to face, while speaking with her mind
.
“You can come back tomorrow sometime. Erik, I’ll call you when
she returns.” She yawned. “I’ll just stay here tonight. No sense driving home.”

Lusia shot her an uneasy look and walked to the door.
She stopped in the foyer and looked down at the marble sun face image inlayed
in the stone-tile floor. “This icon represents your Race, right?” her question
wasn’t directed at anyone in particular.

“Yes. You can see it in many places here. Did you see
the big leopard statues up front?” Trent said eagerly with a cheeky smile.

“Hard to miss them.” Lusia nodded.

By the time the group of Summer and Winter Shifters
paused by the gate, the wind had almost completely died down. It was still
drizzling, but the night sky started to clear out. The moon shone between
lazily moving clouds.

Penelope lifted her hand to a small keypad,
inconspicuously positioned on the gigantic post. Her fingers moved with a
supernatural speed while entering the code. Both sides of the gate started to
move with a soft swishing sound.

“Impressive,” murmured Georgeta, who was quiet since
they left the house. “It looks so heavy but it hardly makes any noise,” she
seemed to speak to herself, walking with her face lifted and her eyes tracing
the top of the moving gate.

Penelope smiled at Georgeta and rolled her eyes again
when Trent said out loud, excitement bubbling in his voice, “I know, isn’t this
cool? I love this gate. And the statues are so awesome.”

They all walked to the car parked just outside the
fence. Most of the Summer kids still kept their distance, except Penelope and
Trent. Erik was the last to get in the car, not wanting to let go of Penelope’s
hand. He whispered something in her ear. She nodded and a smile spread across
her face.

“Ugh,
come on
already.” Lusia stuck her head out from the back seat and motioned impatiently
to Erik. He took the hint, and, after a gentle squeeze of Penelope’s fingers,
jumped swiftly into the driver’s seat.
 

Georgeta leaned closer to Lusia and whispered, “Come
on, stop frowning. You look old when you do that.”

Lusia burst out laughing. When
Erik maneuvered the car toward the road, Lusia asked Bogdan, “Who was that
blond British guy? You’ve been talking football with him for the last half
hour.”

“His name is Trent Wolfenton.”

“A leopard kid with a
‘wolf’
in his last name?” Georgeta
snorted.

All of them grinned.

“You know, the Summer kids are really not all that
different than us. Many of them are okay,” Bogdan commented.

                    
                              
 
CHAPTER
22

Human World, November 16,
evening.

Jatred leaned against a
graffiti-covered building. He took a long sip from a can of Dr Pepper and
grimaced at its already too-warm contents. He tossed the half-empty can into a
near-by garbage container, swearing. His mother would have a fit that a
perfectly recyclable aluminum can ended up in the trash. Everything she did had
to be environmentally appropriate.

His mother. He missed her
terribly. Even more than he missed his father. Their lives ended so abruptly
that one October morning, exactly ten years ago. The plane had never made it to
its destination. His mother was six months pregnant. Jatred would never know
the little brother he wanted to have so badly.

The morning of the accident,
six-year-old Jatred woke up at his parents’ friend’s house, screaming from a
nightmare. Soon he learned that a couple of the Winter kids, and one Summer
girl he knew from school, lost their moms or dads in that plane crash. As he
got older, he had a hard time believing it was a pure coincidence that all
these Shifters ended up in New Orleans at the same time, and then booked the
same airplane back to Seattle. Nobody had ever provided a better answer.

Jatred stuck his hands in his
pockets and walked toward the bus stop. He tried to think of something else,
but the reminiscence of his parents and his unborn baby brother kept on returning.
He patted his pockets, looking for his cell phone, but didn’t find it.
Great. I must have lost it somewhere.

Cold wind whipped his hair as if
trying to help Jatred erase the painful memories. It started to rain, but he hardly
noticed. His soaking-wet t-shirt plastered to his body. The rainwater dripped
from the strands of his hair.

The bus pulled to the stop, and
the door opened with a long whoosh. Jatred got in and sat by the window behind
the driver. By now it was completely dark. The city lights appeared distorted
by refraction stretched into long streaks on wet pavement.

Jatred yawned and rubbed his eyes.
When he glanced out the rain-veined window, he saw a huge wolf sitting on a
nearby sidewalk. The animal’s human eyes were fixed on Jatred.

He jerked in his seat, bumping his
forehead on the glass.
It can’t be! None
of us would shift in front of humans.
Jatred blinked and the wolf was gone.
I am delusional.
He turned in his
seat to take another look, only to see ordinary people walking on the sidewalk.
I can’t remember much from today. So
weird, like having a huge hole in my memory. Like I’ve slept, but the world
kept on going. Where the hell had I been all day today?

The bus came to a halt and the
doors opened. Jatred saw two large wolves sitting right on the curb. One was
white and the other dark gray. Behind them a beautiful leopard stretched its
neck to peer inside the bus. Jatred lurched up from his seat, looking in
disbelief from the creatures sitting on the sidewalk to the bus driver, who didn’t
seem to notice anything out of ordinary.

Three absolutely normal-looking
people walked in, glancing at Jatred. He continued to stare at them
incredulously.
This isn’t happening. I’m
going crazy. That’s it, I’m completely nuts.
Jatred squeezed his eyes shut.
When he looked at the new passengers again, he expected them to shift back to
the animal forms.

He got up and yelled to the
driver, “Stop the bus!”

The man frowned, glancing at
Jatred in his rear-view mirror. He stopped the vehicle, and let Jatred out. The
driver shook his head and murmured something under his breath.

Jatred took off as if chased by a
herd of wildebeests. He kept running, not looking back and not paying attention
to where he was going. His boots splashed water from the puddles, only adding
more moisture to his already soaked-through clothes.

He didn’t feel cold, thanks to his
Winter Shifter’s tolerance to low temperatures. His heart beat rhythmically to
the sound of his boots pounding on the pavement. With the corner of his eye
Jatred saw a Summer Shifter in his leopard form. But when he turned his head,
the image was gone. The same thing happened a few seconds later, but this time
there was a pair of Winter wolves, running along, one on each side of Jatred.

Who are you all? Are you trying to tell me something?
He halted and turned around, searching for the Shifters. He was
alone, standing in a dark alley somewhere in downtown Seattle. A couple of large,
gray rats scurried away. Sharp claws that extended from their tiny paws clicked
on the pavement. The air was stale with a stench of garbage and rotten food.
Huge metal trash containers were pushed against one wall, followed by a long
trail of wooden crates.

“Well, well, well. What have we
here?” a harsh, dry voice cackled in the shadows.

“A nice young boy, I say,”
answered another voice, much lower and even raspier.

Jatred turned his head and saw two
middle-aged men approaching him. Each wore several layers of mismatched clothing,
a baseball hat and heavy boots. The clothes were filthy and tattered, but the
boots looked new, despite the thick crust of mud stuck to them.

Jatred spat to the side and
clenched his hands into fists, backing to the wall. The men laughed. They moved
closer to him. Their pose showed determination. Jatred took two slow deep
breaths and smiled insolently at them. For a quick moment a puzzled look crossed
their heavily-lined faces.

The shorter man growled, trying to
sound more self-assured. “What’s in your pockets, boy? You won’t need it
anymore. Hand it over, and we’ll let you go.”

Jatred’s white teeth flashed in an
inviting smirk. To irritate the men even more, he motioned to them with his
hand, ending the movement with a flip of his middle finger.

“Come and get it, grandpas,” he
hissed.

Both men launched at him, cursing.
The moment they got close, they flew back to the opposite wall. They hit it hard
with their heads and slumped down onto the cobble-stone ground. Jatred
approached them and kicked each of the men to see if they were conscious. Both
uttered a moan but made no attempt to get up.

“You’ll have a headache, maybe
even a mild concussion. But you should be okay,” Jatred stated. He turned on
his heel and walked out of the alley.

If they only knew I fought one of the Garhanans today, they would
think twice about jumping
 
me…
Jatred stopped in his tracks. His eyes opened wide, and a look of
disbelief settled into his handsome features.
The Garhanan! Crystal made me fight one of her Garhanans.

His hands flew up and pressed the
sides of his head. His fingers twisted in his hair.
Did I kill it? How could I forget about that? Winter Shifters were
there… Erik, I have to call Erik. Or Bogdan. Or the girls.

Jatred searched his pockets.
“Crap, I forgot. I lost the phone.”
 
He chewed on the inside of his cheek,
frowning.
I gotta get back home. Fast.
Where is home? My home… where do I live?
Damn, now I can’t even remember that.

He looked into the distance,
trying to patch up the fragments of memories swirling around in his mind. His thoughts
went back to his tragically-lost family, and to the parents’ best friend he
came to call uncle.
Uncle Tyrrell.
The
man who adopted Jatred.
The two story
red-brick house on Queen Anne.

He turned, crossed the street, and broke into a run.
It stopped raining, but the wind kept gusting in Jatred’s face, making breathing
difficult. His wet t-shirt flattened against his chest, outlining his lean
body. Despite his discomfort, he pushed forward, feeling more energized by the
thought of his home, of something so reassuring and familiar.

The cool October night air felt refreshing on his
face. In his peripheral vision he caught an image of a huge wolf running along
his side. Without slowing down, he turned his head, but the figure disappeared
as suddenly as it came into view. A moment later a pack of gigantic wolves
materialized on his left. The wind plastered their thick, long coats to their
muscular bodies. Jatred looked in the creatures’ direction but, again, the
image was gone.
I’m hallucinating. I’m
totally losing it.