Shadow Effect - 10. Chapter 10

Kage tossed the loaded backpack into the back of Tyler’s Jeep. After the impromptu decision to take advantage of the unusually mild late winter weather, he and Elijah spent the past two days inspecting and airing out camping gear. It was easy enough to find after they had cleaned and organized Elijah’s cellar. Everything now had a designated storage spot down there.

They set up the two-man tents outside so they could air out, then washed the sleeping bags, and checked the rest of the gear to make sure it was still serviceable. Kage was pleasantly surprised to see all of the things which Elijah and Tyler used on their camping trips were good quality and were taken care of properly.

Tyler decided to skip his two Monday classes. By doing so, they would have two full days to explore the park. It would be just the thing they needed to distract themselves from the stress which still hovered over them. It showed in the little lines of worry furrowing the corners of Elijah’s eyes.

Kage was looking forward to it. He enjoyed being outside, but the past few weeks were starting to grate on his nerves, especially considering it was getting harder and harder to distance himself from Elijah. The more he got to know the sexy shapeshifter, the more he wanted something else. Something he’d never had before; a friend.

Kage’s profession didn’t lend itself to creating friendships, and neither did his personality. He had been told so on more than one occasion, by more than one person. Sure, he had acquaintances. Business associates with whom he, um, let’s say, traded favors. Kind of a ‘you scratch my balls and I’ll scratch yours’ situation. Those kinds of favors were only called in when there was no other option. Let’s face it, trusting someone to scratch your balls was like trusting a scorpion not to sting, like the old fable. His boss was one of the few people he knew who understood the solitary lifestyle. Hell, he was the one who most likely invented it.

He and Elijah painstakingly packed everything as compactly as they could. After all, it would only be three of them carrying supplies for three days on their backs for two miles over hilly terrain. The only thing Kage insisted on getting was an upgraded water filtration system. The one they had was merely adequate. He didn’t do adequate.

“Hey asshole, let’s go!” Elijah yelled to Tyler.

“Hang on, I need to grab the extra charger!”

A minute later, Tyler trotted out of his apartment with a small backpack hooked over his shoulder, slamming the door shut behind him. He was slightly out of breath as he tossed the backpack on top of the rest of the gear and shut the back hatch of the Jeep.

Elijah had already climbed into the cramped backseat and buckled his seatbelt. It was a good thing they’d moved up the departure time. He and Elijah decided the hike would take them more time than they had daylight if they went with the original plan and left at three o’clock. They’d pushed up the time to noon, and it was a little past that now.

Kage folded himself into the passenger side and buckled up. He wasn’t comfortable being in a vehicle with a driver he’d never been with before, but Elijah didn’t seem too concerned. He’d warned him about his mom, so it would stand to reason that he would warn him if Tyler was a shitty driver, right?

Apparently not. Tyler backed out of his driveway and drove through his neighborhood just fine, but once he hit the outskirts of town he put the pedal to the metal and let her ride. Elijah laughed from the backseat.

“Don’t worry Kage, Tyler’s only a semi-speed demon. No worse than you.”

Ouch! That stung. It was true, Kage did like to drive on the speedier side. But as a shadow shifter, his reflexes were faster than a regular human’s. Plus, he had more years of driving experience than Tyler had years of living. Well hell, that made him feel old.

Tyler settled into a speed that wasn’t too far over the posted limit, but just a tad fast for the curving roads if a driver wasn’t familiar with them. Luckily, Tyler seemed to be very familiar with them. It was too bad there was still a bit of chill in the air. Having the top down on the Jeep would’ve been a treat.

The entrance to the state park was only a forty-five minute drive. Upon arriving safely, Kage handed Tyler money to cover their entrance fee and camping site. The park ranger handed them a map and wished them happy trails. Geesh, corny like an overeager Boy Scout.

Tyler followed the meandering road through the state forest until he reached the small parking lot at the trailhead to Bear Cove. He placed the placard with the dates of their visit that the ranger gave them in the front windshield, so if they were killed by a maniacal serial killer in their sleep, the authorities would start looking for them on Monday. Not that Kage would ever let that happen.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Tyler sang as he hopped out and went to the back of the Jeep to unload the gear.

Elijah shook his head at Tyler and rolled his eyes at Kage. Kage couldn’t help but feel the corner of his lips curve upward in a smile. It’s something he found himself doing a lot since he’d been hanging with Elijah.

They each took a backpack frame laden with equipment. It meant they’d be carrying an extra sixty or seventy pounds apiece, which didn’t feel like too much at first, but Kage knew their calves would be burning by the time they reached the campsite.

The sun was high overhead as they started the trek, warming their faces. It didn’t take long before they were in the woods, cool shade making the hike manageable. If they were doing this in July or August, they would’ve been sweating before they left the parking lot.

The canopy above was teeming with feathered wildlife. Curlews, sparrows, and swallows chittered overhead. As they drew closer to the coast, cries of gulls could be heard in the distance. The terrain sloped downward the closer they got to the shore. After nearly an hour of winding along the marked trail, they came out into a large clearing. Picnic tables were scattered in an orderly fashion, each one designating a campsite. No one else was around. Tyler pointed across the clearing to a site now in full sunlight as the bright yellow orb started its descent toward the edge of the Pacific.

“Site eight. It’s closest to the beach access, but not so close you’ll fall off the cliff in the middle of the night when you get up to take a piss,” he laughed.

Crude. Funny, but crude.

Kage turned to Elijah. His sexy strawberry lips looked extra delicious in the almost late afternoon sun. He wanted to see them in the red-orange glow of sunset.

Elijah slid the backpack frame off his shoulders and it landed with a solid thunk on the grass. He pulled out a bottle of water and finished it off. Kage did the same, and Tyler followed suit. They gave themselves a ten minute break before setting up the tents and stuff.

Earlier, Elijah told him he and Tyler had been camping together since they were kids. At first it was Elijah joining whatever group of Williamson kids and their friends Papi had gathered and took out on the weekends in the summer. When he was ten, his own parents decided to buy a pop-up camper. By the time Elijah and Tyler were thirteen, both sets of parents had graduated to RVs. The Williamson’s was the size of a Greyhound bus, while Elijah’s parents stuck with a twenty-two footer that was perfect for the three of them. Most of the time Elijah and Tyler pitched a tent and often they found themselves crammed in with a couple of Tyler’s siblings. They kept upgrading every summer until finally settling on an eight man tent and made the littlest kids stay in the RV with Mama and Papi.

“Why don’t you and I go see what we can scrounge up for firewood?” Kage asked Elijah. He felt the need to be alone with the man for a few minutes.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Tyler said. “I’ll finish setting up the camp and prep the firepit.” By the looks of it, the last campers to use the site had left the stone-ringed pit filled with half-burned logs and the remnants of their last meal, aluminum cans and all, not heeding the ‘trash in/trash out’ courtesy that all campers should adhere to.

Elijah smiled and followed him back into the hushed but noisy forest. As soon as they were a couple of hundred feet in, Kage stopped abruptly and pulled Elijah into his arms and glued their lips together. He knew he was sending mixed messages, but he’d be damned if he could keep his hands, or his lips, to himself any longer.

Elijah made a sweet sound of submission, allowing Kage to take control. It fueled his libido in less than a second. Kage’s tongue tapped out a request for entrance and he growled, low and husky, when Elijah’s lips opened willingly. Fuck, his shapeshifter tasted amazing. All sweet and spicy.

As much as he wanted to see where this would lead, there was still a purpose to their foray into the woods and sex wasn’t supposed to be part of it. He pulled away, Elijah’s lips chasing his until the distance between them prohibited it.

“Sorry. I just couldn’t stop thinking about those damn lips of yours the whole trek in here. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, Elijah.”

“You’re afraid of giving me the wrong impression? Is that why you’ve been so distant since we fucked?”

Kage inwardly flinched at the blunt description before realizing that fucking was exactly what they had done. Nothing more, nothing less. Emotions never factored in, the opportunity presented itself and they took advantage of it. Elijah seemed to have grasped that concept clearly.

“Yeah, and I really am sorry,” he reiterated sincerely.

“It’s fine, Kage. You made yourself perfectly clear that you weren’t looking for any kind of commitment. Neither am I, so why don’t we just take things as they come? We’re both adults, and can do adult things whenever we decide. No strings attached, okay?”

Kage nodded.

It didn’t take long before each of them had an armful of firewood to bring back to camp. Tyler had the pit cleaned up and ready for the first batch of wood they deposited near the site. They made a few more trips, so they’d have enough kindling to get them through the evening and the morning. Coffee was one thing they all agreed was a necessity, and the last thing any of them wanted was to discover there wasn’t enough material to start a fire in the morning.

Tyler had packed some of his mom’s lasagna. She wrapped individual servings in aluminum foil, liberally sprayed with non-stick oil and froze them. They were mostly defrosted by the time the fire was ready and Tyler opened the foil slightly and placed the three extra-large servings in the one frying pan they’d brought for cooking and placed it on the metal frame set up over the firepit for that exact purpose.

They would fish for their dinner tomorrow and had also packed plenty of dried fruit and meats to tide them over if fishing was a bust. They wouldn’t starve in two days if they didn’t catch anything.

Lasagna was tricky to heat up properly over an open fire, and eating it off the foil was a little messy, but none of them felt like dirtying the plastic plates they’d brought. However, it made cleaning up much easier, too. Kage took the crumpled balls of used aluminum and placed them into the collapsible zippered trash receptacle made for camping. He walked across the grounds to the site furthest from theirs and used a pulley that was mounted to a tall pine to hoist the container high into the air, away from any nosy bears who might saunter by.

The sun had gone down, and they were tired in a good way, the kind of tired that comes from exercise and being outdoors. They listened as the fire crackled, hissed and popped, lulling them into a semi-stupor, sitting quietly, each lost in his own thoughts, until the flames shrank to glowing embers.

“I’m hitting the hay,” Tyler declared, yawning widely.

Elijah hauled himself off the blanket and followed his friend. “Me too.”

“I’ll take care of the fire and join you in a bit,” Kage said, also hauling his ass up. Unlike the two younger men, his knees cracked in protest.

Tyler and Elijah headed toward the treeline to empty their bladders before turning in. Kage walked over to the spigot that the state had provided, which tapped into the water table below ground, providing a supply of water for campers to use. It wasn’t potable, but would be with filtering. He doused the embers thoroughly. Even though it was the rainy season, drought conditions throughout the state had instilled the good habit.

Elijah was already in his sleeping bag when Kage stepped into the small tent, stooping nearly in half to clear the doorway. He sat on his ass with his feet still outside and untied his boots, kicking them off and leaving them outside, zipping up the door flap after scooting the rest of the way in.

He shucked off his jeans and sweatshirt, donned the sweatpants that Elijah left on top of his side of the two sleeping bags that had been zipped together. Crafty little shit. The soft glow of the battery powered lantern illuminated the shapeshifter's face in a soft glow. Blue eyes followed his every move.

Kage slid into the slippery nylon cocoon and zipped up his side. It was a tight fit, but after some wriggling and scooting, Elijah was soon tucked into his arms, his soft ass nestled against Kage’s groin.

‘This might be a long night,’ he thought as he felt Elijah relax into him.

The very opposite proved to be true. Kage’s eyes opened to the soft light of daybreak filtering through the tent’s mesh windows. The air was a little more than nippy, and the cozy nest that he and Elijah currently occupied was nice and warm with their combined body heat. As much as he wanted to stay, his bladder was ready to burst.

Reluctantly, he unzipped the bag and rolled out as gently as he could, trying not to disturb Elijah. The man stirred, but didn’t fully waken. Kage pulled on his sweatshirt before exiting the tent quickly, trying not to let the cold air in. Once at the treeline, he unleashed a torrent, his bladder breaking out into a chorus of ‘Hallelujah’.

He doused his hands with the sanitizer they brought and started a new fire, fanning the air under the tinder until it caught and glowed brightly before adding a few smaller twigs and eventually the larger branches they’d gathered. A sealed plastic bag held enough ground coffee for a week at least. No one wanted to take a chance of running out. He used the new filter system to purify enough water for the first batch and set the pan over the flames. He measured out the coffee grounds and slipped them into a reusable filter pouch, sealing it and dropping into the pan once the water started to boil. Basic, but effective.

The scent of coffee enticed Elijah and Tyler out of their tents, yawning and scratching various body parts. They took care of emptying their bladders so they’d have room for the coffee that would soon hit their systems.

“So, where do you guys want to start exploring?” Kage asked as they settled down with perfection in a mug and waited for the batter he dropped carefully onto the pan to turn into pancakes over the fire’s flames.

“Doesn’t matter. All the trails are good. Why don’t we head inland today and save the coastal route for tomorrow?” Elijah suggested.

Tyler shrugged. “Works for me. Six of one, half dozen of another.”

After they cleaned up and secured the site from critters both human and animal alike, they shouldered their day packs with reusable water bottles, the filter system, snacks and a small emergency kit that Kage insisted on bringing.

The weather was absolutely perfect. As the day melded from morning to early afternoon, the temperatures rose to the upper sixties, a light breeze rustled the branches above them, some with the first shoots of new leaves peeking out. The terrain was challenging, with a lot of hills and winding paths. The elevation gradually rose until they reached the top of a long ridge. They took a break to catch their breath and get their bearings, not to mention enjoying the fantastic view. The vast Pacific stretched out for as far as the eye could see to the west, the taller mountains of the Pacific Coast Range to the east, dwarfing the ridge they were standing on.

Kage shot Elijah a smile, enjoying the scene as his sexy shifter took a long pull from his water bottle.

“We should probably head back soon if we want to have any chance of catching our dinner before it gets dark,” Tyler said, putting his own water bottle back in his day pack.

“What’s the matter? Not sure of your fishing skills?” Elijah teased.

“I can fish just fine, but you know as well as I do the damn fish don’t always cooperate.”

“Awww, I can always shift into an eagle and catch dinner for us if you can’t manage,” Elijah jested.

“Screw you, you weird Wonder Twin,” Tyler shot back, referring to the old Superfriends cartoon.

“Okay Gleek!” Elijah took off like a shot, with Tyler hot on his heels. Kage just sat back and watched, sure this scenario, or one quite similar, had played out a hundred times before with those two.

It took them a good ten minutes of running around before they both gave up, laughing. They truly did have an unbreakable bond. Kage felt something that could possibly pass for jealousy if he didn’t know any better.

“If you two are done horsing around, I think there are fish waiting to be caught back at camp,” he reminded them as they panted from exertion.

Luckily, most of the trip back to the campsite was downhill. Grabbing the two poles and small tackle box, they gingerly picked their way down the narrow , zig-zagging path carved into the rock face leading to the sandy cove at the bottom of the hundred foot cliff.

They had about an hour and a half of sunlight left and it took nearly all of that before two large mackerels were reeled in. They took the time to gut and clean them on the beach so as not to attract bears or other unwanted wildlife to the campsite.

It wasn’t long before the smell of fresh fish cooking over an open fire hit their noses, making all three stomachs growl. Nothing could compare to the taste of food cooked outdoors.

After dinner was cleaned up, it was a much more wide awake little group that sat around the crackling flames than the evening before. Conversation somehow drifted to shifting abilities.

“What’s it like to shift into a shadow?” Tyler asked him.

“I’m not really sure how to explain it. It’s kind of like asking someone what it feels like to breathe. It’s automatic. I don’t really need to think about what I’m doing. Unlike animal shifters who take a minute or two to transform, I just sort of, shadow out.”

“Are there limits on what you can do when you shift?” Elijah asked.

“What do you mean by limits?”

“Well, like can you shift into any kind of shadow, like a tree shadow or car shadow? Can you follow a person by hiding in their shadow? Can you become a shadow on cloudy days? Are there different shades of your shadow?”

Kage had to think for a moment. “I don’t think there are really any limits. I mean, as long as there is some sort of shadow, I can shift. The smaller the shadow, the harder it is for me to fit in it. I don’t think I could make myself small enough to hide in an ant’s shadow, if that’s what you mean. Cloudy days don’t matter, they just create one giant shadow. Although I’ve never tried to actually shift in a cloud’s shadow. It’s too risky, I can’t rely on the coverage. It’s easy to hide in a person’s shadow, but it’s dangerous too. If I don’t know where they’re going and they suddenly go inside or somewhere they don’t cast a shadow, then it’s game over.”

Both Elijah and Tyler were listening raptly. Kage wasn’t used to discussing his ability. It was something which never came up in everyday conversation.

“What about you? Are there limitations to what you can shift into?” he asked.

Elijah nodded. “Yeah, I can’t shift into anything inanimate, like a couch or chair. I have to shift into another living thing. It can’t be too big either. I pretty much max out at about a thousand pounds. Anything bigger stretches my molecules too much and I can’t hold the shift. It’s easier to become something smaller and shrink down, but even that has its limits.”

“Why’s that?” Tyler wondered.

“I’m not sure. No one ever gave me a copy of the Shapeshifter Handbook.”

Kage snorted.

“I guess it’s kind of like changing a piece of paper, like origami. It can be folded many times to create something new, but smaller than the original size ‌it started out at, until it gets to a point where you physically can’t fold it anymore,” Elijah continued, ignoring Kage’s snort. “Trying to shift into an elephant or, I dunno, a blue whale, isn’t possible because I can’t enlarge my molecules beyond a certain point.”

“What happens when you shift? I mean, animal shifters like wolves actually become their animal counterparts because the wolf resides within them. I’m assuming that you just take on the appearance of whatever it is you shift into?” Kage asked.

“Yes and no,” Elijah answered. “I don’t actually become whatever animal I shift into, but I do gain their senses. So if I shift into a wolf, I can smell things the way a wolf does. If I shift into an eagle, I can see like an eagle does. If I shift into Tyler, I can fart like he does.”

“Hey!” Tyler protested, chucking his shoe at Elijah.

Elijah caught it and threw it into the darkness behind him. Those two would never let up.

“So you really could turn into an eagle and catch our dinner,” Kage stated.

“Or a seal, or dolphin. Ooooh, a shark, I’ve never done that before!” Elijah said excitedly at the thought.

“Can you go all shadowy underwater?” Tyler asked him.

“Yeah, I’ve only done it a few times. It’s really weird. I mean, as a shadow, I don’t have lungs so not having to actually breathe is really weird.”

“You don’t have eyes as a shadow either, so how do you see?” Elijah asked.

“I’m not really sure how it works. My best guess is that the cells or whatever makes up my eyes as a human, somehow transform into a sense that my shadow can utilize. I don’t really ‘see’ things in the traditional sense. It might be similar to how you use your vision as an eagle. The images are the same, they’re just filtered differently.”

“Hmm, I guess I never thought about that. When I shift into something like a dog, I see things how they do, but when I’m myself again, I guess my brain translates those images into something I can understand from my perspective.”

“Exactly!” Kage agreed.

“I’m a little jealous.” Tyler frowned. “It must be so cool to become something different.”

“It has its pros and cons,” Kage replied.

“At least your clothes shift with you. If I’m not shifting into something that’s close to my size, the clothes just lay there in a puddle or end up in shreds. How do you do that anyway?” Elijah gave him a look of slight annoyance tinged with a hint of jealousy.

“Again, not sure. I never gave it any thought, but now that I do, I realize when I shift into a shadow, it’s as if I absorb my clothes, sort of like a sponge. I can't wear a lot of metal though. As long as it's permanently attached to the clothes, like my zipper, I'm okay. Loose items like keys and phones won’t shift with me, though.”

Elijah looked pensive. “Odd, but kinda cool too.”

Tyler answered with a yawn, the fresh air and exercise catching up to him quickly. “Definitely cool, but I’m going to bed. I want to have at least a little bit of energy for the coastal route tomorrow.”

“G’night Ty.”

Kage echoed Elijah, and Tyler bade them both sweet dreams.

It wasn’t long before soft snores drifted from Tyler’s tent.

“He crashed fast,” Kage said.

“He’s always been like that. Go, go, go, then wham! He’s down for the count.”

They watched the flames slowly dwindle for a bit and then Kage got a crazy idea.

“Hey, do you want to go for a night swim?”

Elijah turned to look at him and in the soft firelight, it was clear he thought Kage was crazy.

“You do realize the water is like forty degrees?”

“Not as humans. I was thinking you could shift into a dolphin or sea lion, hell, even a shark and I could shadow you underwater.”

Elijah’s face lit up. “Are you serious?”

Kage nodded.

“Let’s go!” Elijah shot to his feet and started undressing.

“Whoa! Don’t you think you should wait until you’re on the beach?”

“Don’t be a dumbass. I’m not climbing down that cliff in the dark and neither are you. I’ll shift into a gull, fly down into the water and shift again into a goddamn great white shark, well, a juvenile one at least. You can shadow out up here and slink down to the water to meet me. Last one in is a rotten egg!”

Kage watched as Elijah finished undressing and morphed into a gull, stretched his wings and lofted into the air, a shrill cry enticing him to follow. Which he did.

Shadowing out, he glided down the cliff face and across the dark sand. It was his favorite kind of night; moonless, filled with darkness to blend into seamlessly.

On the beach he heard a splash, his shadow version of vision revealing the breach in the still waters of the cove. He followed the sound and the pattern of the ripples still spreading outward, sinking into the cold water when he reached the epicenter. A graceful creature glided by and Kage sidled up below the broad expanse of underbelly, careful not to touch, otherwise they would lose their shift. Becoming human surrounded by liquid akin to glacier melt off wouldn't be fun.

The great white shark cut through the water effortlessly. Kage was acutely aware of everything around him; the cold sensation of the frigid sea, the multitudes of shadows beneath the waves, plants swaying in the currents, other fish; some hunting, some hiding. Just a hint of light was given off by tiny creatures glowing with a soft bioluminescence, invisible to most land creatures, but acting like aquatic glow sticks to ocean dwellers.

The Pacific was a world apart from the one which he and Elijah inhabited. He discovered enjoying this little slice of it was exhilarating. Kage had no idea something like this could exist.

They spent what seemed like an eternity exploring the depths along the shore, but in reality was only a couple of hours. Elijah stuck to the shoreline, not wanting to venture out further into the unknown depths, content to follow the contours of where land met ocean, although from this perspective it was like an alien planet.

Eventually, Elijah made his way back to the cove, the innate sense of direction of his shark leading the way. When the sandy bottom was only a few feet below, Kage silently exited the calm inlet, materializing on the wet sand, fully clothed. Elijah’s head popped out of the frigid water and his exit made a much bigger splash as he tried to escape the freezing cold as fast as he could.

His sexy shifter threw himself at Kage, icy, wet skin plastering against his own superheated body, or at least that’s how it seemed. Despite the cold, Elijah’s naked body ignited his. Kage’s mouth crashed down onto him, demanding entrance.

They kissed, like the last few seconds of life were closing in and only the touch of each other’s lips would fend off the Grim Reaper and his scythe. Kage had never experienced such a need to stake his claim.

He pulled back, needing to make sure his shapeshifter really wanted what Kage desperately hoped would happen next.

“I need you Elijah. I need to be inside of you. Please tell me you need that too,” he rasped, his voice husky with lust and desire.

Elijah burrowed his face in Kage’s chest, letting his cheek nestle in the valley between his hard pecs before making his answer crystal clear. “Yes, Kage. I need you.”

It was sweet music to his ears.