Zodiac Prison, Warrior Shifter Book 3

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Chapter One

“Darkness within darkness. Gateway to all understanding.” - Lao Tzu

I remembered this passage that was etched into the marble stone in our Magical Sciences class as Zayne, my nagual combat instructor and mentor, and I trekked in our jaguar forms through the dark jungle of the Gemini House. I was always surprised at the various species of animals and insects in the Zodiac territories. Variants of the familiar spiders and snakes, worms and gorillas. Yet there were so many more, some as small as the cueyatl, a tiny frog with a tongue so poisonous it could corrode your body with a single swipe. Or the ahuizotl, a dog-like creature with hands instead of paws and a hand on its tail with sharp claws. These creatures could also see perfectly under the cover of night. It made it nearly impossible for anyone to live in this precarious habitat. This is where the hunters became the hunted. 

The clouds covered the moon, and it would have been pitch black if it wasn’t for our night vision. My jaguar form was as black as the night and adept at seeing in the dark, equipped with eyes that amplified even the slightest light peeking through the faintest parts of the clouds above. I wondered what understanding I was supposed to have right now as I lived the words of the timeless quote.

Up ahead, that’s it. Unable to communicate with Zayne in my nagual form, I thought this to myself as I peered through the bush at the creature crouched on the side of the riverbank. We blended with the dark energy of the night and watched her in utter silence, undetectable by Fae senses in our jaguar forms. It was a cihuatl. Thick, long strands of black-and-grey hair flowed from the top of her head. At her back were two dark-grey, slimy, scaled bat-like wings, and her belly was swollen from pregnancy. Because of her crouched position, her legs were hidden from view. Her face looked like it had no flesh, just the skull, because of the thin, transparent skin and veins that covered it. These were the creatures of nightmares. They brought sickness to Fae villages, hunted the children that fell ill, then stole them from their families. They drew power from the pain and suffering of the surviving family members. The creatures were nearly seven feet tall, rare and hard to find, mainly because of how they reproduced.

At the moment, with her eagle-like claws, she was tearing at what appeared to be young human flesh. My hackles rose as we crept toward her, my claws digging into the ground with every step. As we got closer, I glanced over at Zayne, who gave me a short nod. We emerged from the cover of the jungle, ready to attack.

The moment he lurched toward her, I rushed to the creature’s side and locked my teeth over her wings. I anticipated that she would immediately try to fly away rather than fight. Just as I did, Zayne went for the neck. The cihuatl easily flung him aside with one swipe of her arm. It was strong, and Zayne was stunned from the blow. The creature turned, trying to throw me off its back, and I dug my teeth even harder into those slimy wings. It tried to grab at me, but I dug my back legs into the ground as I locked my jaws on the wing’s bones and heard a few snaps. It grasped me with its clawed hand and tried to inject me with the venom she carried in her blood. But it was no use; her claws couldn’t penetrate my jaguar’s flesh. This was what made us so unique and so powerful as protectors of Zol Stria.

The cihuatl wrapped her arm around me and yanked me off of her, flinging me with the force of a semi-truck. I landed with a loud thump against a jagged boulder. A moment later she began to bat her wings in an effort to escape. I lunged after her again, and she swiftly avoided my grasp and maneuvered herself behind me. Before I could react, I felt her sharp talons dig into my back as she lifted me into the air with her. Her strong, powerful wings flapped, the wounds from my attack wearing on her, but she pushed hard. My heart raced in a fit of panic when we rose off the ground. She could drop me anywhere and make her escape. We had been searching for her for three months, and I wasn’t going to let her get away. We needed her.

I thrashed in a fit of rage and her talons gave way just a little. I couldn’t reach her with my mouth or my claws, and I couldn’t use my elemental powers in this form.

This mission is fucked.

Just as I thought this, she dipped lower to the ground, slamming me against the earth before lifting off again. My mind raced. Should I shift back to human form? The second I did, my skin would be filled with lethal diseases at the mere touch of one of her claws. But just then something crashed into her, and she began to tumble back down. It was Zayne. He’d leapt from the ground onto her back! I felt his weight send us hurtling down. Just as she began to fall, she released me, and my four legs landed firmly on the jungle floor. I ran out of the way as Zayne and the cihuatl plunged to the ground where I had been standing a heartbeat earlier. Instantly I was on her back, her wing once again in my mouth. As I tore into her left wing, the bitter-tasting blood spilled into my mouth.

The Zol Beast Keeper at the Academy had taught us that if anyone even touched cihuatl blood, their bodies would rapidly deteriorate with a cancerous plague. The only thing happening to me right now was my gag reflex; it was triggered by the god-awful taste. Once again, I was grateful for the gift of being a nagual and immune to Fae venom.

Zayne landed his canines into her neck, and a high-pitched scream left her throat. The creature that had just been towering over us stumbled to the ground with a thud, and Zayne landed on top of her. Once a nagual had you in their deadly jaw-lock, there was little, if anything, you could do to break free. Right now, she was struggling to breathe because his grip almost pierced into her veins through her hard scales. But he wouldn’t kill her, at least not if he could help it. We needed information.

She thrashed about and kicked out her bony ostrich legs in protest. I padded closer, and she turned her cold, emotionless, reptilian eyes toward mine. She seemed to be trying to shoot venom from her throat at me, but it was no use under Zayne’s tight grip. She would lose her breath soon if she didn’t simply give in. She was finally realizing that she was outmatched, because she let out an unearthly squeal for breath. Zayne held on a few seconds longer, and when her eyes bulged, he released her.

She reached a clawed limb up to her throat and began to cough. Now that she was down, I shifted into my human form and stood there, completely naked save for the long, black, wavy hair that fell down my back. I called the dark to my fingertips and brought fire to my palms. The creature squirmed in pain on the ground as I raised a Zol rune around us. It was a circle of my fire element, forming the zodiac symbols to channel their power and serve as a conduit of the magic we needed to complete the mission. It was incredible how far I’d come. Two years ago I could barely channel fire in just one direction, now I was creating fire runes. Zayne remained a breath away from the cihuatl, ready to leap at her in a single heartbeat.

I chanted the incantation, “Etchi nal Xila.” Darkness within darkness. Show me so I may understand.

As soon as I finished the incantation, the blaze of the Zol rune began to glow even brighter, threatening to singe my back and legs with the heat. But I didn’t move an inch as sweat began to form on my brow. My human form, or “Zol skin” as they taught us to say at the Academy, had a very high tolerance for heat because of my elemental power, but even still, if it consumed me, I would still burn, only slower.

The cihuatl looked around, winded, and just as she placed her clawed hands on the bloodstained ground to push her pregnant body upward to stand, Zayne took one step toward her and tore her abdomen open with his fangs. An ear-piercing shriek left her throat as her insides were exposed and spilled out all over the ground. It was critically important to our mission that the fetus was extracted while she was still alive.

I reduced the heat level of the fire rune and looked out past it, feeling the eyes of the jungle upon us. Her death freed her dark energy. All of the torment, fear and agony this monster had caused and collected within her soul spilled out of her. An inky black mist filled the air within the fire circle. This was our bonus. I eagerly drew it toward me, soaking it up hungrily. A monster this deeply evil expelled an enormous amount of darkness that I used to replenish my own powers. I bared my teeth at Zayne, instinctively protective of my bounty, as he also pulled it in. But I didn’t need to challenge him. There was plenty to go around.

“Sick. That must be it…” I said to Zayne as he got busy studying the creature.

Without lifting his gaze in my direction, he gave me a single nod of acknowledgment and continued to sniff and study the glowing, decomposing blue fetus that was still alive on the jungle floor. The cihuatl was a terrible sight, and her insides smelled of rotten flesh. They reproduced by stealing the fetus out of the belly of any warm-blooded creature, Fae or beast. They swallowed it whole, turning the creature into one of them while inside the womb, slowly infecting it with all of the diseases they carried. That’s why these creatures didn’t resemble each other. They turned into a hybrid of the life they stole and their beastly genes.

Over the years, the mages had created wards of protection over pregnant women that hid their unborn children from the senses of the cihuatl. This had made it very difficult for these creatures to reproduce and had reduced their numbers to near extinction. However, they would never become extinct. There were always those unfortunate mothers who had trouble getting the wards. Mothers who couldn’t afford the wards included those outcasted from Zol society for anything ranging from mating with humans to various other forms of transgression, and, of course, there were those who would use the cihuatl as revenge or punishment on a new mother.

In an instant, I felt my face flush with embarrassment. I realized that this was my first time being naked in front of Zayne. I quickly shifted back to a nagual. Shapeshifter. Creature of demons and darkness. The trouble now was that we couldn’t communicate with words in our nagual form. Only mated nagual could do that. So he went on sniffing at the rotted insides of the cihuatl. Then he picked up the glowing, acrid blue fetus with his teeth. I nearly threw up at the thought of the horrific tastes that must be filling his mouth. He lifted his gaze from the carnage and met my curious stare, bolting out of there heartbeats later with me keeping pace with him.

Our mission was complete, and now we would have some answers.


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