The next day, I met Nell outside of Kay’s house. She was quiet as we boarded the bus. Her emotions flickered like a burnt out lightbulb. Should I bring it up? I was afraid to say the wrong thing. It was perfectly understandable that Nell had the reaction she did. She interpreted an overly pushy person as a threat, which wasn’t wrong, she just attributed it to the wrong cause. Hopefully we hadn’t attracted any unwanted attention.
We were headed to the edge of Sillwood, away from the bustle of downtown. Houses became less tightly packed and industrial plants and warehouses dotted the landscape, bringing a mix of clashing scents from what they produced.
The bus would only take us so far, with the rest to be walked on foot. I made sure Nell was following as I exited the bus and used my phone to figure out the direction of the old abandoned trainyard.
“I’m sorry,” Nell said, breaking the silence.
I nodded, not looking away from the map. “I think I understand where you were coming from. You’re afraid that they will take you back.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Yesterday was so much fun, I… I got scared that you would disappear.”
She seemed hesitant to show me any emotion, still holding it back. I glanced back at her. “You need our emotional connection to Shape me, right?”
She nodded.
“Then it’s okay. Just…” I scratched my head. How do I describe this? “Back at my mom’s place, where I live, I have a pet cat. His name is Nip.”
I thought of lying in bed, Nip lying on my chest, his purring filling my body with warmth. I tried to recall that feeling strongly and saw Nell’s face shift as she felt it too. “With cats, if you want to hold them, you have to make sure that they’re comfortable. If you get too excited and squeeze them tight, the claws are going to come out pretty quick. They’ll fight you to get out.”
I grinned wryly and pointed at myself. “Think of me like that. I know you want to be close, and you want me to understand how you feel, but if you pile it on too quickly, I’m going to get scared and angry. Does that make sense?”
Nell was pensive as she processed that. “I want us to keep trying to be friends,” she said. “So I’ll do my best to start slow.”
“That’s all I need to hear,” I said, smiling.
We left the road and descended down a grassy hill until we crossed our first railroad. Gravel crunched underfoot. The rails grew more numerous, crisscrossing and converging, with many leading into a few large buildings. I could see why Alek chose this spot. The abandoned train cars, covered in rust and old graffiti served as walls to block the line of sight from anyone observing from a distance. Which also means that if we needed help, we’d have to run pretty far…
Nell kicked a rock and it bounced off a rail with a loud clang that seemed to echo across the flat expanse. “One person in there,” she said, pointing to one of the warehouses. She pulsed confidence strongly.
The shutter door was open and we peered inside. A couple train cars rested on the tracks inside, the art on their sides less faded from being exposed to the elements. The concrete floor was covered in cracks.
“Zdravstvuyte, my pupils.” Alek’s voice boomed, filling the space. I spotted him standing above us, on a metal catwalk. He was wearing a tank top and baggy jeans. “Did Kay come?”
“Just us today,” I said warily.
Alek leaped from the catwalk, falling onto the top of a train car with a loud bang. He grinned and clasped his hands together. “Excellent. Then we can discuss this trade.”
Nell frowned. “Trade?”
Alek shrugged and shook his head. “As hard as it is to believe, I’m not helping you out of the goodness of my heart. I need a favour.”
Alarm bells rang in my head.
Alek grew somber. “Helen, my girlfriend, was kidnapped.”
“By who?” I asked.
“By some thug from the Rings blyat.”
“Oh,” I said, turning around and walking away. Nell followed, pulsing curiosity.
“Wait! Wait wait,” Alek tone changed as he called after us. “Come on, you didn’t even let me finish.”
I turned around and raised an eyebrow. “The Rings. You’re asking me to rescue your girlfriend from the fucking Rings? That is not happening. Forget it.”
“They know me too well!” Alek pleaded. “I can’t get close. I just need someone to ask about her.”
“We’re not kicking that hornet’s nest,” I said adamantly. “We just got out of a dangerous situation, I’m not putting Nell in an equally bad one.”
“Okay fine! Suka blyat!” Alek roared, stomping his foot down on the train car. The metal shrieked and the train car shook. He sat down, putting his face into his hands. “I’m just desperate.”
“Who are the Rings?” Nell asked me.
I glared at Alek. “Criminals. Violent ones. They used to be united, but something happened and now there’s a gang war going on between the different factions that split off. Getting on their bad side is the last thing we should be doing.”
“They’re not all that,” Alek said morosely. “I can kick their asses. But if I show myself it’ll cause more problems and I won’t get any closer to finding answers.”
I eyed Alek’s arms, covered in black rings with different designs. “You know, Alek, those tattoos are starting to look more suspicious by the minute.”
“I’m not with them,” Alek insisted. “A long time ago, but not anymore.”
“Well we’re not going to do it. So I guess we’ll be on our way.”
Alek was quiet, then finally he raised his head. “Nah. Fuck it. This will distract me for an hour or two.” He composed himself, then stood up and raised three fingers. “My advice is going to be purely practical. There are three different types of shapeshifters. Shapers, we call ‘em. There’s Witches, Wolves, and Casts.”
Nell cocked her head quizzically. “Cast? I haven’t heard that one.”
“It will make more sense if I explain them in order. First, you have Witches. They’re the only ones who originally had power. They can Shape pretty much anything around them that’s living, or was living until recently. They have a limited range of influence, within it they can sense organics and affect them. Ranges can vary per individual, but it usually only reaches around 100 metres.”
I met Nell’s eyes. We both knew what the other was thinking. Nell’s range far surpassed that. It was probably closer to a few city blocks.
Alek continued, “Witches can create Wolves. Yes, plural, they can have more than one. You never have a Wolf who is linked to more than one Witch. Witches can Shape their Wolf more easily than normal people and they can resist other Witches’ influence on their Wolves, to an extent. For whatever reason, Witches can’t affect other Witches, they’re immune to both their own power and others. And before you ask,” Alek quickly cut me off as I opened my mouth, “I don’t know shit about why or how these powers exist, and I don’t really care.”
“Is there such a thing as a Witch without a Wolf? Or vice versa? What if one of them dies?” Nell’s eyes sparkled with intrigue.
Alek made a face. “Yeah, it can happen. They don’t usually live for long after.”
“Why’s that,” I asked, half-suspecting the answer.
Alek tapped his forehead. “Emotion sharing. You know about this. You both can tell what the other is feeling, like some sort of symbiosis between two organisms.”
“So when one side is lost…” Nell trailed off.
“The balance is broken and the living side spirals. It’s like each is an emotional sink for the other and without that, the emotions overflow.” Alek spun his finger around his temple. “Makes you go a little crazy.”
“How do you know all this?” Nell asked.
“I used to know another pair that were well traveled,” Alek said.
“You mentioned this before,” I said. “The Witch died?”
Alek nodded. “The other one wasn’t keen on talking so much after that.”
“There’s something I’m curious about,” I said. “I’ve noticed that when one of us is strongly feeling some kind of way, sometimes Shaping occurs unintentionally.”
“Da. Are a few things clicking into place? Shaping is powered by emotion.”
I blinked. “Woah, power?” So being more emotional means more powerful Shapes?”
Alek snorted. “Nyet. I like it, but it isn’t that simple. Strong emotions make Shaping come more easily and faster too, like cranking open the faucet, it’s harder to control the flow.” Alek made an obscene gesture to his privates. When he saw that he wasn’t getting a reaction, he coughed and dropped his hands to his sides.
“Anyway, we’re getting off track. I was talking about Wolves. Wolves can Shape themselves and sometimes their immediate surroundings, depending on the Shape, but it doesn’t come as easily as Witches. We don’t have that range or sixth sense that Witches have.”
I looked down at my arm and caused a thin antler to grow. It spiralled out, cracking slightly as I made it coil around my arm. “So this is what you would call a Shape.”
Alek nodded. “Da. Good control. Have you been using it for a while?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ve noticed that it gets easier to manipulate, the more you use it. Practice makes perfect, even with superpowers apparently.”
My stomach rumbled. “It isn’t technically powered by emotion though, right? I get tired if I do it too much, like straight exhausted and hungry. It’s still a normal exchange of energy for mass, it’s just incredibly rapid growth. It’s not magic. We’re not breaking physics.”
Alek looked amused. “A budding scientist, are we suka? Well, you’re partly right. But it doesn’t add up. Most organisms would kill themselves if they grew something so fast, but we can grow Shapes and still stay stable. The only explanation I’ve heard is that there is some other form of energy at play, and it’s connected to why we have shared emotions.” Alek scratched his head and spat on the ground. “Blyat I lost my spot again to your blabbing. Where was I?”
I let the antler recede back inside me, the skin forming over top of the exit wound, concealing any trace of it every being there. “Casts?”
“Mm. Those I know the least about. They only started to show up in Sillwood around a year ago, but there’s a fuckton of them. Save for a few, they tend to stay in hiding.” Alek gestured at my arm. “Essentially, the difference between you and a Cast is that a Cast wouldn’t be able to remove the antler like you just did.”
“They’re stuck?”
Pretty much. I’ve only ever seen Casts already in a Shape. They can’t change back or change to a different one. They change once and that’s it, like they made a weird face and it stuck like that.”
I thought about the Cathrows. It seemed likely that the gifted ones of the cult had been Casts. It also seemed to be related to the vials.
“Could a Witch change a Cast?” Nell asked.
Alek hopped off the train car and stretched his arms over his head. “I don’t see why not. You could even call their victims Casts if you wanted to, but they tend to not give their victims something useful.”
I wondered how the monsters I had seen fit into all of this. Was a Witch creating them? For what purpose?
Alek strolled forward, cracking his neck. “Blyat, I’m getting sleepy with all this talk. I said this would be practical, so,” he raised a fist, “let’s get some exercise while you learn.”
“Woah,” I raised my hands. “What are you-”
Alek drove his fist into my stomach. My breath whooshed out as the blow struck home and I staggered back.
Nell’s emotions whipped up around me, but I raised a hand. “I’m fine,” I grunted. Brittle pieces of bone fell out from the bottom of my shirt.
Alek grinned, bouncing on his toes playfully. “You’re quick! Or had you set that up beforehand?”
I coughed. Alek’s punch had been like getting hit by a hammer. If I hadn’t softened the blow…
“Come on, my pupil. We’re just playing. I want to see your Shape.” Alek’s words were light, but there was a sadistic glint in his eye.
Why is it that every Shaper we meet is crazy?
What would your Shape be?