Scales (Avery Rome Book 1) Read online

  The meet location had four people in it already, which included their flag bearer, Claremont. She was a rather normal looking middle aged woman, but was the one of them that worked full time for the Nation. As a clerk of some kind, Avery had been told. Still, the woman was solid, uninjured and willing to hide. Including underground, if the need arose.

  So far it hadn’t at all.

  Avery moved in, clicking three times, followed by two, then three. Their signal for the night. She used her tongue for it, which was enough for Benny, who understood who was there. Probably by scent. Wolves all had keen noses.

  “Captain?” That was her rank for the evening. Not that she was a real officer. It was make believe, so that people could get used to working with higher ups from different units. Human ones, as well as others. The Shifters had Commanders, Seconds and the like for their ranks. It was different, so they practiced, just in case.

  “Here. I have the green flag.” She didn’t go into how she’d gotten it. That actually didn’t matter. Short of truly killing the others, it was all allowable. She had it, so it was theirs. If they could keep it.

  That left her with a choice to make.

  They had two pieces of cloth to guard, now. She could put them both with Claremont, but if she were captured or the things taken by guile, they lost both at once. Looking around, she nodded.

  “Benny, I need you to change. We’ll tie the green flag to you. Then you need to hide until first light. Dern, Mason, you’ll be with me. We need to capture the red flag, if we can. Given the movement patterns, that will be to the western half of the woods. That’s…” She stopped to think, recalling who had what job for the night. Blue Team was led by a Bear. Hobson. He had some kind of high level position with the Nation, which had gotten him the job of leader for that team. It was also the biggest of the units, being ten people, instead of five. That kind of thing was put in on purpose, to teach them that war was almost never fair.

  On the good side, the man wasn’t really a warrior. No more than Dern or Mason was. Except that he was a Bear. That meant the man would fight. Hard. If it came to it. Being a Bear didn’t make him a brilliant strategist however. Then, neither did being anything. Some people were pretty good that way, but Shifters as a whole tended to be kind of straightforward.

  Which told her a lot, as soon as she realized it.

  Blue had ten people. So they’d split them. A team of five going off to find the other flags, with the others holding a location with theirs. A fortified one, most likely. They had the manpower for that kind of thing where the other groups really didn’t. Doing that meant they couldn’t really move, but they’d have an actual structure most likely. A simple barricade, at a guess.

  Logs in a square, since they had the physical power to do that kind of thing.

  Simple, but also too much for her and her people to actually take with the weapons they had. That was the mission though. Find the flags, capture them and keep them safe until morning. No mention had been made that they had to be safe while they did it. That wasn’t the job of a mercenary. Not their kind anyway. People hired them to win, not get home. Being Shifters allowed that to happen, for the most part. Being able to change shape and be instantly healed of even life threatening wounds really helped in combat. Even losing limbs wasn’t permanent for them.

  It was a problem for her in the moment however. She could guess where the Bear would have the others set up. Mainly because she’d just spent that much time in the woods. They’d be near the rocky stream, on the south western corner of the combat area. There was a space on the rocks that was just on the edge of the woods, allowing them to see over a hundred and eighty degrees in a circle. Moving a few logs would be enough to give them cover at the same time.

  There was nearly no way her team could take them in a fight though. Not without her just changing into her large form and landing on them. They didn’t have enough fire power to really hurt her in that shape, so it could work. The only problem was that it required her becoming a monster. A real one. The last time she’d done that had been fine, of course.

  So had the twenty times before that. Changing in a field, into a giant horned Dragon, with fairly small wings and a pure black body was fine, really. She had to do it, at least once a month or so. Her other form, too. The middling one that proved she was vile for more than her scales. The thing was, Avery was afraid to do anything in the bigger shape. Now.

  At her change ceremony with the clan, things had gone horribly wrong. She was supposed to be a Raccoon, like her mother. Most of the Gray were Raccoons, after all. Not all, since they took in almost any kind of Shifter willing to see the truth of the Changing God, of course. Some just didn’t follow the pattern, either. It was rare, but sometimes a person was just inclined to be something else. So instead of a Raccoon, they might become a Wolf, or even a Cat.

  Avery would have never picked her Dragon form like that however. Just being her was terrifying now. Constantly. It was a never ending thrum across her soul, screaming that she was simply too evil for the world to bear.

  Still, there wasn’t a lot else they could do. The job had to be done.

  “Scouting. I think I know where Blue team will be. We’ll go and find them, then I’ll change form and distract them, while you two go and get the flag. Then run and hide. Try to meet at the main rally at sun up? Just after, actually. Travel in the light, after the exercise is officially over. Don’t trust anyone, even then.” That was a bit paranoid, but it was possible that people would cheat. It didn’t always happen. Just about once every three or four months.

  The others just nodded, as if her plan actually made some kind of sense. Dern looked a bit annoyed, for some reason. Probably, Avery guessed, due to her being the one left in charge. She was a bit young for the job. A girl as well. Though none of the Shifters had a real problem with that part. They treated everyone equally, even if they were women.

  What he mentioned however was something else. A different issue. A real one that showed he was willing to be honest with himself, in order to make sure the job got done.

  “I’m not fast. No good at stealth either. Kind of strong, but… I can’t fight five trained Shifters and get away.” He glanced at Mason, who nodded, instead of being offended by the idea that the Walrus would be basically alone.

  Avery felt scared, since she could hurt people, or worse, taint them, but it was combat, so if she were careful they would be all right, she hoped.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll handle that part. Just jog in, grab the material and leave before they realize you’re there. It probably won’t work. I’ll try to grab it myself if I can, but the flags are sort of small.” Compared to her full sized form.

  Mason rolled her eyes.

  “Always with the excuses. ‘The flag is too small’, ‘I’m too scared to fight anyone’, ‘I’m too hungry’.” She whispered the words, as the others started to get ready. Benny was shifting away from his wound, which was hard for her to look at. Not because of the change, which was a lovely thing to behold.

  No, it was the nudity that came first. It was bad enough having to see a woman like that in the shower. Seeing men was against the will of the Changing God. The true God of reality.

  She smiled though, getting one back from the Bird. The woman was teasing, making herself the brunt of the joke to ease the tension of the plan.

  “I could eat. Always. Let’s go? Dropping on them in the dark is a better plan than doing it in the light.” It was a lot harder to hit things in the near pitch black. It wasn’t even a full moon. There were no artificial sources of illumination, either. They had flashlights, but using them was nearly asking to be seen, which almost certainly meant being shot, that night.

  So, after forty-five minutes of careful walking, each of them holding a rifle, ready to shoot someone if they were seen, they located the river. The structure that had been built was much nicer than she’d been imagining. It was a stack of logs, each being at least a foot across. Some of them
were freshly cut, which meant that they either had a Beaver with them, or a chainsaw.

  Either was possible. In the dark she couldn’t tell which one was the case however. Probably the Beaver, since that would have been the quieter option and no one had heard the preparations earlier.

  She nearly froze then, since what made the most sense for her to do was to strip down and then change shape. They all did that kind of thing, but she’d been raised to believe that being naked with a man nearby was the same as inviting him to have sex with her. Dern was a nice boy, if heavy, but she’d never really thought about doing that kind of thing. There was simply no impulse inside of her to drive that into being. Dragons weren’t that way, by nature, according the text she’d read. They could have sex, but there was nothing that pushed them to do so like most others had.

  The thing there was that she knew she was being silly. In training or combat, no Shifter had sex. Even the ones that nearly had to do it constantly would fight to not allow that to be a factor. Dern wasn’t going to think that much of her taking her clothing off in the dark anyway.

  “I need to change. As soon as I do, I’ll attack from the air. I can’t breathe fire or anything.” After all, she was a girl. That meant she could fly, but not breathe fire. The abilities were sex-selected in nature, or so she’d read.

  Mason nodded at her.

  “I’ll hold your kit?” It was nice of her, thinking of that. Avery was willing to just dump her things on the ground however. They were about two hundred meters away from the little, fairly crude hut that had been built. It was true that the flag might not be in there. It occurred to her, now, that it would be a clever trick really. Do all that work and just have one person hide off in the woods to protect the thing.

  It probably wasn’t that one.

  They were all Shifters. That plan was brilliant, compared to the way that they tended to act. Less honest really. Not that Shifters were forbidden from lying. Especially to the unclean. Humans, for instance. Lying to them was allowed, since they couldn’t be among the Chosen by their nature. Not that she liked to lie to anyone. The thing there was that the Bear man from National probably felt the same way. Meaning the treasure would be inside, the way it seemed.

  It took her longer to walk out barefoot onto the river bank, a thing made of hand sized stones that were well rounded, than it did to actually change once it started. She felt her second form calling to her, wanting to go first, but she ignored that. She needed to be big, this time. Jet black. With scales that were tough enough to resist small caliber bullets if they hit her. Larger than five full sized semi-trucks with trailers, put end to end. Wider than that as well. With tiny wings on her back that almost looked like a joke.

  They let her fly however, since it was about magic, not aerodynamics.

  As soon as she could, Avery rose, going nearly straight up into the air. The world was brighter seeming now, being filled with colors that no Human could see. Few Shifters either. The heat from the men and women shone with a dazzling flesh tone in the air above their little cabin. The thing was large, but her mind, which was still her own, saw it differently suddenly. Instead of a well-protected fortification, they seemed like a snack, inside a thin egg shell.

  One that she could peel without much effort.

  The trick was to fly high enough in the air that the beings inside wouldn’t see her coming. Then she could drop on top of them. That part would be a problem, she knew. She very badly didn’t want them to be harmed by her. To that end she had to figure that collapsing the heavy structure, then clearing it carefully would be her best plan.

  The air was like water to her as she lifted off. It felt thick. Heavy. No one shot at her as she did it, since she was dressed in the night. Body black, like her triple souls. Her wings beat, allowing her to lift, moving forward at a speed that gave the lie to the feeling of the world. It took no more than moments for her to be over her target, about two hundred feet up.

  Avery froze for a bit, just hovering. The plan would work, but care was needed. Killing these people, her betters, would be a sign of true evil. So caution was the trick. Balance, too.

  Then, feeling more like she was free to act than she had in a long time, Avery pounced on the unsuspecting Shifters in their self-built cage.

  Honestly, the trick seemed to work pretty well.

  They screamed nicely at any rate.

  Chapter two

  There was much screaming and calling out from the pile of logs that was where the five Shifters had been situated. It sounded pained, scared and a bit panicked. Also well and truly alive. With a bit of focus, hovering, flapping her little wings and angling her body to try and do that, Avery counted. She couldn’t look down, but she could see anyway.

  Dropping to the ground with a thump that caused the world to shake a bit, she used her front claws to pick up a single log first. It was difficult to do, since she had to select the right one each time, so that the pile wouldn’t go down on the beings inside. The special Chosen that she was endangering just to win a silly contest. It was the goal of the night, but still too dangerous for her to have risked.

  The ends of her claws were made new each time she changed, so the black talons were so sharp that the wood was getting stuck in her hand about half the time. In those cases she just closed her paw all the way and destroyed the timber. It showed that picking up a person wasn’t going to go over well, however. After about fifteen logs, she uncovered the first five people, three of whom were already changing shape. One was kind of stuck in their clothing, like the Bat woman had been. The other was trying to help that person, a man, get free of his gear.

  Avery sat back, which had to look a bit like a dog doing it and reached to grab one of the logs next to the destroyed fortification. They had the flag in there. A flash of blue that was laid out on the ground, trapped under a log. Just to keep things interesting she roared and started roughly slamming the log on the side of the remaining pile. Things shifted, which after a bit, probably as soon as they could, had the people inside running away. The one man tried to shoot her. It hurt, since the rifle he had was just powerful enough to penetrate her scale armor. She was huge though and not going down due to something that wasn’t even a needle prick to her at the moment.

  In return, she slammed the log in her right paw down again, roared and then pretended to rush the man, whoever he was. Wisely, the beard-man scurried off into the woods. Leaving the flag behind.

  Dern jogged out, holding his rifle to his shoulder, ready to shoot if he had to. Back in the woods Mason was lying down, hidden, only her rifle poking out at all. If anyone tried for her team, they were catching a bullet. Even if Birds weren’t that good in a fight. The woman could shoot. She was just going to be really scared the whole time they were out there. That was all. So she was doing the best she could given the situation.

  It was tempting to chase the fleeing man, since he was probably just going to stop at the wood line and shoot again. Most likely at her new person, Dern. He was collecting their trophy after all, which the Bear with his gun was going to want back.

  They weren’t giving it to him.

  Part of her felt low and selfish, doing that. For a brief second she wondered if she were being evil, doing it that way. The only thing that saved her was that she’d been ordered by the people in charge to get the flag, if she could. That was the rule of the game. Even if she weren’t worthy to be there, she had to try her best.

  So she roared, going as loud as she could.

  The next trick was harder than she’d figured it would be for her. The others had orders to run and hide, which would work pretty well for them. Avery couldn’t change back for hours though. Worse, she was kind of starving and would be until she ate again. There wasn’t a lot to safely eat in the woods for a Dragon like her. A Deer might be some person from Blue Team that she hadn’t realized was out that night, for instance. Anything she ate would be like that, unless it was a plant. Her teeth weren’t really designed to do
that, however. It meant being a hungry evil serpent until it was time for her to become Avery again.

  What she could do was drink from the creek. Then, because Dern and Mason had the Blue flag and were running away, she settled on the pile of logs. After checking it for people. That would be a death sentence, having something as big as her smothering almost anyone. One of the unclean undead might survive that, not needing to breathe, but few others would.

  There was a strange clarity to her thoughts, when she took the form she was in at the moment. It was different as much as Avery didn’t really always come to the same conclusions that she normally would have. For instance, in her regular form, she would have run to a different location in order to hide. Worried that if others attacked her, she might harm them. Like she had when her own clan had attacked her at her first change.

  They’d shot her, many times. In her Dragon body. In return she’d killed several of them. Brax, their second in command, had tried to shift into his raccoon form. Possibly wounded from the bit of thrashing she’d done. Avery had eaten him. The thought was a revulsive one to her normally, but now she understood it. It had been her first change. She had no way to know what had happened, not even that she wasn’t something else. An elephant, or something large like that.

  So in her hunger, coming under constant gun fire, she’d tried to fight. Mainly like a little girl would have, batting at the people, her friends and family, who had suddenly turned on her so completely. In an instant and before her mind could even comprehend what was going on. Of their group which was nearly thirty strong, six of them died that night.

  Torvo, the leader, had claimed that Avery had murdered and eaten her mother as well, but that wasn’t true. Leslie had run away, into the night, with the others. She was missing though, which for The Gray meant the woman had been shunned, or killed. Probably the second one. Not that it mattered.