Shifting Shadows

Shifting Shadows (2014) Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson/Alpha & Omega)

• Silver
• Fairy Gifts (previously published in Naked City)
• Gray (previously published in Home Improvement: Undead Edition)
• Seeing Eye (previously published in Strange Brew)
• Alpha and Omega (previously published in On the Prowl)
• The Star of David (previously published in Wolfsbane and Mistletoe)
• Roses in Winter
• In Red, with Pearls (previously published in Down These Strange Streets)
• Redemption
• Hollow

My father said a name that slid off my ears. He waited a moment, then said, “Samuel?”

I must have looked a little wild-eyed when I turned to him. “She stole my memories. Stole my name.”

He nodded once. “There will be a reckoning.”

“You don’t look like a vampire,” he said.

“I know,” she agreed. A stray breeze brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. “We’re like serial killers; we look just like everyone else.”

The coffee was strong, and he could feel it and the four other cups he’d had since midnight settle in his bones with caffeine’s untrustworthy gift of nervous energy.

He’d thought you had to be bleeding someplace to hurt this badly.

Who taught you not to talk at all, if you have a secret to keep?

He crooned a child’s lullaby his father had sung to him. It wasn’t Spanish, but African, a Moorish tune his father had learned from his grandmother. Like Asil, it was old and worn, the words in a language that no one, to his knowledge, had spoken for a thousand years.

It has always been an ambition of mine to serve as an object lesson for others.

Characters: Samuel Cornick, Ariana, Haida, Bran Cornick / the Marrok, Dafydd, Adda; Thomas Hao, Nick the Hobgoblin, Margaret Flanagan, Juhani Koskinen; Elyna O’Malley / Gray, Jack O’Malley, Mr. Aubrey Tailor, Sean, Pierre Colbert, Peter Vanderstaat, Simon, Frankie, Steven Harper; Wendy Moira Keller, Tom Franklin, Alan Choo, Kouros / Lin Keller, Jon Franklin, Molly Keller; Anna Latham, Charles Cornick, Brother Wolf, Alan MacKenzie Frazier, Leo, Isabelle, Justin, Kara Mosley, Boyd Hamilton, George, Rashid, Kara Mosley; David Christiansen, Stella Christiansen, Devonte Parish, Clive Christiansen, Mr. Linnford, Hannah Linnford, Jorge;
Kara Beckworth, Asil / The Moor, Bran Cornick / the Marrok, Devon, Leah Cornick, Eric, Hatchard Cole, Liam Oldham, Ibrahim Ward, Silver Pete; Warren Smith, Kyle Brooks, Elizaveta Arkadyevna Vyshnevetskaya, Nadia Popov, Toni McFetters, Marc McFetters, Mr. Francis, Sean Nyelund, Phillip Dean, Makenzie Covington, Harper Sullivan, George; Ben Shaw, Rajeev, Mel Dreyer, Mark Duffy, Stan Brown, Karen Sinclair-Ramsay, Ken Lincoln; Mercy Thompson, Adam Haputman, Zack Drummond, Lisa Simon, Richard Albright, Hank Redtail, Gary, Lee, Kim

Cover art by Daniel Dos Santos

Publisher: Ace

Rating: 9.5/10

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