Authors: Nina Berry
Otherkin (24 page)
At the same time, Caleb jammed his pistol into Lazar’s temple and shouted, “Guns down or he’s dead!”
Everyone froze. A white-haired man lay in the hospital bed. Ximon. His still-firm skin looked pasty under the tan, and an IV hung by his side, the tube disappearing into the crook of his elbow.
On the far side of the bed stood Amaris in a high-necked white gown, dark circles under her eyes, her skin blotchy with fatigue. Her wide brown eyes darted from one of us to the other, mouth half open in surprise. Beside her, one arm around her shoulders, stood a short, pot-bellied man with dull brown hair graying at the temples. His other arm pointed a silver pistol at us, his thin upper lip curled in anger. Amaris was leaning as far away from him as she could, and no wonder. He had to be Enoch, her husband.
The other person was another objurer toting a rifle. He had it trained on me, but he hesitated as Caleb jammed his own gun farther into Lazar’s ear. “Not feeling well, Ximon?”
Ximon raised his head. “It’s kind of you to visit, son.” Despite his pallor, his eyes glittered with shrewdness and feverish energy.
“It’s your fault, turncoat,” said Enoch in a nasal voice, his arm tightening around Amaris. “The lightning damaged his heart. Even your beautiful sister can’t heal him.”
“What a shame,” I said. “Let go of her.”
“She couldn’t heal me because her heart wasn’t in it,” said Ximon. A muscle in his cheek quivered. Amaris shot him a horrified look. But then Ximon’s eyebrows flattened over his narrowed eyes, calculating. “God has abandoned her, and He punishes me for failing to keep her unstained. Now you’ve come.”
“Perhaps it’s a sign,” said Caleb. “A sign for you to give up. Let her go, Enoch.”
“No!” Enoch’s arm tightened around Amaris’s shoulders, his jowls shaking.
Amaris opened her mouth, as if to say something, but her father said, “Enoch, point your gun at Amaris’s head.”
Enoch stared at Ximon in shock, but his gun hand obeyed as if it had a mind of its own. He pressed the muzzle of his gun against Amaris’s cheek, and she became very still. Caleb’s shoulders stiffened.
“It seems I have something you want,” Ximon said, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a smile.
“You wouldn’t kill your daughter,” said Caleb.
Ximon shook his head slightly, as if disappointed in him. “If she dies in this cause, she may make it to Heaven. If she goes with you, she’ll be damned forever.” His eyes slid over to me. “And I have something you want too, Amba. The location of your real parents.”
“I . . .” My throat went dry. Goose pimples crept up my arms, and every plan in my head, every stratagem, fled.
He knows where my parents are
. I forced myself to pull away from the deep allure in that sentence. Ximon could not be trusted. “I wouldn’t believe anything you told me.”
He knows where my parents are
. I forced myself to pull away from the deep allure in that sentence. Ximon could not be trusted. “I wouldn’t believe anything you told me.”
He sat up with a huff of effort, reached behind Amaris, and held up a black file folder. “Given how well you fought back at that so-called school of yours, I thought it might be a good idea to read your file again. We analyzed you from every angle and learned more than you could ever dream. But I chose not to include some crucial information. In fact, I am the only one in this world who knows the truth about your parents. They are both still alive.”
I felt hollowed out, like a sphere of blown glass that would shatter at a touch. If he hadn’t used the word “Amba,” I might’ve been able to ignore him. But Morfael had used the same term. Answers resided in Ximon’s head and in that file. If we killed him, I might never know the whole story. I stared at the file as he leaned over and placed it back on the table behind Amaris, out of sight.
Ximon’s voice deepened. “Kill me and you’ll never know it. Kill Lazar and Amaris will die. But you don’t really want to kill anyone, do you?
Put down your guns
.”
Put down your guns
.”
My head buzzed, and my arms lowered the rifle. It felt like the right thing to do. I needed to know the truth about my heritage. And killing was wrong. Right?
The objurer in front of the bed released his rifle. Enoch’s gun dropped onto the hospital bed. And Caleb’s fingers opened. His rifle clattered to the floor.
A bird shrieked. I looked up, dazed, to see Arnaldo flying down the hallway toward us, his wingtips brushing the walls. London growled, and I knew something had gone wrong. But what? One moment I’d been holding a gun and so had Caleb, and all parties were in a standoff. Now no one was armed, and Ximon was showing all his teeth in a smile.
“I forbid you entry to this world, shadowkind.” Ximon’s voice was strong and sonorous. Beside me, the outline of London’s wolf shape trembled, as did Siku’s bear.
Arnaldo tilted his wings, curved into Ximon’s room, and opened his beak in a great cry. At the same moment, Ximon extended both hands toward us all and commanded, “Return to Othersphere!”
London stumbled on her two legs, human legs, and fell to her hands and knees, gasping. Siku shook the long, straight black hair falling down his broad, naked back and roared, but it was a human roar of frustration and fury.
But the great eagle remained. Arnaldo gave another ear-piercing call, as if daring Ximon to try it again. Then, talons extended, wings back, he fell upon the white-haired man.
Both Enoch and Amaris cried out. Foolishly, Enoch tried to get between the eagle and his leader. One of Arnaldo’s huge wings smacked him in the face. Blood poured from his nose. So he lunged for the gun he’d dropped on the bed.
But Amaris reached it first. Her small hand gripped the stock firmly, and she swiveled around to try to point the gun at Enoch, but he tackled her. Amaris screamed. They fell behind the bed, out of sight. A moment later, Enoch’s gun skidded under the bed, along the floor, and out into the hallway.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Caleb yanked Lazar by his good arm, trying to move closer to Amaris. Lazar pushed his shoulder into Caleb hard. They sprawled in a heap.
London, all naked skinny arms and legs, whirled to the door November had gone through and dodged inside. She couldn’t shift again today, and without a weapon she was better off out of the line of fire.
Enoch rose from behind the bed, blood still streaming from his nostrils and down his chin. “Damn you, traitorous bitch!” he shouted at Amaris, and kicked her as she lay on the floor.
I grabbed for my air gun, but it clicked, empty. The unknown objurer was doing the same with his rifle. He sighted on me and fired. I dove for the floor, but something thumped into my upper arm, knocking me sideways. I put a hand on my arm, and the hand came away covered in blood. I stared at it, the truth not registering. I’d been shot.
Siku stood to his full height and shifted. The objurer swung his rifle toward him, so I threw myself at the man’s knees, my arm ablaze. He shouted in surprise and fell forward, on top of me. His weight jolted my wounded arm and pressed the Shadow Blade painfully against my waist, right where my bruises from the brace lay.
Amaris still lay on the floor, her mouth full of blood, as Enoch’s boot swung to kick her again. She deflected most of the blow with her arm, then tried to hold onto his leg. He rained curses down on her.
The objurer rolled off of me, trying to get his gun in a position to fire from where he lay. I jerked the Shadow Blade from its scabbard and slashed across the barrel. I felt only the slightest resistance as the blade sliced through the metal. The objurer was left gaping at the two pieces of rifle in his hands.
Back in the hallway, Lazar reached into his pocket and jabbed something into Caleb’s shoulder. A syringe. “Let’s see how it works on callers,” he said.
Caleb tried to grab Lazar as he shoved him away and stood up, but his movements were slow, his eyes unfocused. “Damn you,” he said, through gritted teeth, and managed to pull the syringe out of his arm. Half its contents remained.
Lazar didn’t take time to gloat, but turned and vaulted over his father’s bed. “Enoch. Deal with the bear!” he barked. Enoch stiffened, as if brought to attention, and swiveled from Amaris to grab something off the table where my file lay. Another syringe. Next to it lay three more and some other medical instruments.
I didn’t have time to see anything else as the objurer swiped at me with the severed barrel of his rifle. I deflected it, then grabbed it and tore it from his grasp. My hand burned from the silver, but I slammed it into his temple. He reeled but didn’t fall back, so I hit him again. He collapsed.
I sat up, ignoring the jolt of pain in my arm, and threw the rifle barrel at Enoch as he climbed over the bed. It flew wide as Lazar helped the frail Ximon to stand. Ximon ripped the IV from his arm and closed his fingers around my file. Lazar grabbed one of the remaining syringes, then hauled Amaris to her feet.
I lurched toward them, but Lazar, standing behind Amaris, looped his good arm around her neck and placed the tip of the syringe against Amaris’s throat. “The dosage is made for large shifters,” he said. “If I inject all of it, it will kill her.”
Amaris’s neck convulsed as she swallowed. Syringe poised to stab Siku, Enoch stood, transfixed at the sight of his bride in danger. Siku’s paw, lifted to swipe the syringe out of Enoch’s hand, was frozen in midair. His shiny dark eyes shifted from Amaris to the syringe and back. If he attacked Enoch, Lazar might kill her. I could see that Siku was torn. Amaris was no one to him, and a member of the Tribunal. But still Siku held himself back.
Caleb had managed to stand, clinging to the doorframe. He was shaking his head. “Leave her,” he said, his lips barely able to form the words. “Leave her and we won’t pursue you.”
“As if I could trust you,” Lazar said. Behind him, Ximon was backing up, holding the battery-powered lantern and my file. The shadows lurched around us like crazed monsters as the lamp swung. The room was larger than I’d thought, with two rows of four empty beds stretching away from us and a door set into the far wall. Lazar muscled Amaris back as Ximon unlocked the far door and opened it to the night.
Caleb tried to step forward but had to stop, keeping hold of the door to stay upright. I pushed past Ximon’s bed and picked up the two remaining syringes. The objurers who had invaded my house all those weeks ago had carried an antidote to the tranquilizer; maybe there was one here as well.
Sure enough, one of them looked just like the syringe Lazar had plunged into Caleb. But the other had one-tenth the liquid in it and was labeled “Anti-tranq.”
I leapt over the bed back to Caleb and stabbed the needle through his sleeve into his arm.
He inhaled, lifting his head, then nearly fell. I placed one of his arms around my shoulders to support him. I could feel the deep tremor in his body as he struggled back to full consciousness.
Standing in the doorway, Ximon held my file up so that the moonlight shone upon it. “You will never know the truth about yourself, Amba,” he said, his teeth white in the light from the lantern.
I said, “Would your God approve of you threatening your own daughter? Let her go.”
He surveyed me. “Now I see what truly motivates you. You’re filled with compassion. That is as it should be. You will lead your friends to death and see the destruction you bring to the world, and it will shatter that tender heart of yours. I’ll be there to see it break.”
He stepped through the door. I moved forward, bringing Caleb with me. “You could come with us too, Lazar,” I said. “You don’t have to follow your father. You can be your own man, a better man.”
Lazar frowned, as if not quite understanding. He was breathing in short, painful pants, fighting the pain in his arm after the scuffle. Even though he still held a syringe to Amaris’s throat, he looked like a small boy, a bit lost and in need of care.
Ximon laughed. “You see, son? Compassion. It will be her undoing. She does not understand your strength. You have more than proved yourself worthy to be my son and heir this day.”
Lazar took a deep breath and focused, his father’s words bolstering him. “Your words are meaningless to me, demon.” He eyes shifted to Caleb, who was awake enough now to stand on his own. Fury and helplessness were written in every line of his body.
“Good-bye, Caleb. I’ll be sure to make Amaris aware of the pain she has caused us every single day. And that she has you to thank for it.” He pressed the needle tip into Amaris’s skin. A spot of blood appeared on her neck. He hadn’t injected anything into her yet, but the threat was clear.
As we watched, Lazar gave one last little wave with the syringe. Then Ximon helped him pull Amaris through the far doorway and they disappeared from sight.
CHAPTER 26
Siku roared and slapped Enoch in the face with one enormous paw. The man dropped like a wet sack, unconscious.
“Hey!” London grabbed my arm, snapping me out of a horrified daze. She had thrown on a white lab coat and looked like a naughty goth scientist with her bare legs and feet peeking out. “Time to burn this place down.”
“Okay,” I said, although my head felt like it might float off my body. “Let’s go.”
Caleb was holding my hand. “Your arm’s bleeding,” he said.
“It won’t kill me,” I said. “Get out there. Get her back.”
His eyes flicked up to me, very dark and uncertain. “I don’t want . . .” He stopped himself.
“What is it?” I searched his face.
He ran one hand up my good arm and slid the other around the back of my neck, under my hair, pulling me closer. My breathing quickened as the warmth of his body encircled me. “I don’t want us to separate, but I have to go.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s okay.” The skin of his throat was sunbrowned and smooth. One corner of his shirt collar curled up.
“It might not be.” His voice carried an edge of fear. I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong, but then he said, “Whatever happens, know that I love you.”
His eyes were black pools and they were swallowing me up. My heart expanded to fill my entire body. He bent his head and kissed me, his arms tightening and crushing me into him. I slid my hand under his coat and kissed him back.
Then he released me. I couldn’t speak. Caleb smiled, a sweet, slow smile I’d never seen from him before, tinged somehow with regret. Then he ran off down the hall. I stared after his fluttering black coat, my brain swirling and frozen at the same time.
“What . . .” I didn’t even know who I was talking to. He had said them, the words I hadn’t let myself think he’d ever say. But he’d looked so melancholy. Somehow I felt it was more than losing Amaris just now. Something worse.
“Come on, lover girl.” London grabbed a roll of gauze and wound it around the hole in my upper arm. The pressure made me dizzy, but I couldn’t afford to lose any more blood, and I couldn’t shift to heal myself. It didn’t seem to matter anyway.
Caleb said he loved me.
And what had I done? I’d gaped like the world’s biggest idiot. I hadn’t said it back.
My arm jolted with pain as London ripped the gauze across with her teeth then tied it off neatly.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I heard him too,” she said. “He really said it. But let’s get rid of this evil place now, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. We were still midbattle, and people needed me.
Outside, the chilly breeze and the moonlight felt like a benediction. Not far away, Siku had pawed a couple of the fuel barrels away from the others and was rolling them across the gravel of the parking lot.
And at the far edge of the lot, Caleb was running into the darkness. He had something in his right hand that I couldn’t see from this distance. Beyond him, racing toward the airstrip, was a large black sedan. Lazar had to be at the wheel, with Ximon alongside and Amaris his prisoner.
“No lightning around to set the fire without Caleb,” London said, unlocking the van with the keys I’d taken from the objurer earlier. Arnaldo had settled on top of it, shaking out his wings.
November was chittering by my feet, bouncing up and down on her tiny back legs.
“They’ll have something in the lab to light the Bunsen burners. I’ll go,” I said. November grabbed the hem of my jeans, tugging. “I’ll be right back. ’Ember, why don’t you shift so we don’t have to play charades.”
“No, she’s right,” said London. “You’re injured. I’ll go get one of those lighter thingies.” She jogged back toward the lab in her bare feet.
November scampered a few yards toward something dark lying on the ground. But I couldn’t help looking after Caleb again. He was still visible to me, running full tilt toward the black sedan, which was nearing the silhouette of the single engine plane on the small runway. So that was Lazar’s escape plan, to fly out.
A piping call from November called me back to her. She was running in circles on something square and black lying on the ground. A file folder. “My file!” In a second I was there, tugging it from under her. “Thanks!”
I could easily read the white label on the folder in the streaming light of the full moon. It said, “First Quarter Projections.”
“What?” I opened the folder up and found rows of figures, headings like “Shifters Captured,” “Objurers Recruited,” and “Revenue.” “This isn’t my file,” I said like an idiot, not quite sure what was going on. “Maybe Ximon had more than one file and he dropped this one?”
November shook her whiskers at me as London ran full tilt out of the lab, holding a long lighter used for fireplaces and barbecues. “All set, Siku,” she shouted. “Let it rip!”
Siku stabbed his claws into the top of the first barrel of fuel, piercing it. Then with all his enormous strength, he lifted it with his front paws, stood to his full height, and hurled it up onto the roof of the laboratory. Gas poured from the holes, spreading outward in a noxious puddle all over the building.
“Woooo!” London whooped in excitement, fired up the lighter, and lifted her arm, holding it aloft. Arnaldo swooped down from above and snatched it expertly from her hand, keeping the flaming end away from his feathers. He flew over the roof and dropped it.
Instantly the fuel ignited, licking along the spine of the roof and down to the eaves. Arnaldo beat his wings and sailed back over the parking lot, calling out in triumph. London threw her hands up in the air in elation. “You’ll never use these buildings to hurt anyone again, you bastards!”
Siku, grunting and huffing, grabbed the other barrel and hurled it at the office building adjacent to the lab. Dripping gas, it caught on fire as it passed through the flames. It landed on the office roof, and the entire barrel exploded at once.
London hooted again and twirled around, arms up in a joyful dance as Arnaldo spiraled around her and Siku bounced on his front paws. I stared at the flames, the pain in my arm throbbing with my pulse.
“Ximon never had your file,” November said, putting her hands on her naked hips. I hadn’t even noticed her shift.
“What?” I focused on her. The light from the growing fire danced over her smooth skin. “How do you know?”
“I heard him say it to Lazar just a minute ago. I ran out here and saw him and Ximon forcing Caleb’s sister into that car. He said, ‘Stupid girl thinks I carry her file around with me! She’s too trusting. We can use that to destroy her.’ Then he dropped that file on the ground and got in the car. It was the only file he was carrying.”
As her words hit my brain, I knew where my file was. I looked from November to the flames swirling over the roof of the office building. It was about to be turned into ash. My history, my biological family, everything the Tribunal knew about me was in there. My past was about to be cremated.
I began walking toward the office. The flames were spreading from the roof downward, about to take over the front wall. The roof would collapse any moment now, but if I was quick . . .
I bumped into November, still naked. She stood squarely in my path. “Don’t be a moron,” she said. “You’ve been shot, you’re weak, and you can’t shift. You’ll die if you go in there.”
“No . . .” I started to say, stepping to go around her.
“Dez.” She grabbed my wrist. “I’m worried about Caleb.”
That got my attention. “What?”
“When he saw Lazar and Ximon put his sister into that car and drive off, his face got this look on it I’d never seen before. Like he’d seen the end of the world. Then he grabbed that stupid stuffed elephant out of his duffle bag and he said ‘Better to be dead than in their hands.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘Tell Dez I’m sorry.’ And he ran after them.”
Horror shot up my spine. So that’s why he’d looked so uncertain, why he’d felt the need to say those three words to me. I turned around and squinted into the darkness, trying to see him. My file was about to burn, and Caleb was on the verge of doing something very stupid. He’d said that stuffed elephant was a last resort, and now he was carrying it as he raced to stop his father and brother from taking his sister away forever. Whatever he was about to call forth might kill them all. He was too far away from me now for me to stop him. I had only my feeble human legs to run on, and a bleeding arm that weakened me further every minute.
“Arnaldo!” I called out, waving my good arm to his circling form slicing through the air.
He swooped down and landed on the roof of the van. “Stay near Caleb. He won’t risk his own life if it means risking yours.”
Arnaldo turned his head to stare out over the flat desert landscape at Caleb’s distant figure. He cawed, nodding once. The van bounced as he pushed off from it and flew toward the airstrip.
November began jogging toward the Beemer with the flat tire. “I’ll get our clothes and stuff out of the trunk, then maybe we can pick Caleb up in the van.” London ran to help her. Siku rumbled happily as he watched the flames rise higher.
I stood there, helpless and frozen. We’d saved Siku, but I was about to lose any chance of knowing who my family was, and even worse, possibly lose Caleb as well. I still had a bullet in my arm and was getting dizzier every second.
Stupid human body
. It had failed me again, just as it had all those years ago when they’d diagnosed the scoliosis and put me in the brace. The feelings of humiliation and vulnerability I’d felt then crowded in on me now. I was smothered by my own weakness, suffocated in the shame of being
that
girl. I was the too-tall weirdo encased in plastic, the girl with only one friend who never got dates. I had brought danger to Mom and Richard that had cost them their home. Then, just when I thought I’d found a haven, I’d had to fight to keep the Shifter Council from having me killed. As of last night I was the shifter who couldn’t shift. Above and behind it all, I was the baby left to die in a ring of dead trees in Siberia. Unwanted, unloved. No connections, no past, no family.
. It had failed me again, just as it had all those years ago when they’d diagnosed the scoliosis and put me in the brace. The feelings of humiliation and vulnerability I’d felt then crowded in on me now. I was smothered by my own weakness, suffocated in the shame of being
that
girl. I was the too-tall weirdo encased in plastic, the girl with only one friend who never got dates. I had brought danger to Mom and Richard that had cost them their home. Then, just when I thought I’d found a haven, I’d had to fight to keep the Shifter Council from having me killed. As of last night I was the shifter who couldn’t shift. Above and behind it all, I was the baby left to die in a ring of dead trees in Siberia. Unwanted, unloved. No connections, no past, no family.
I didn’t want to be that girl.
The heat from the burning lab pressed against my skin. The fire leapt from the roof of the office to the warehouse next door. Soon the silver cage inside it would be blackened, perhaps melted down, never to be used again. I tried to feel happy about that, but I couldn’t.
A wave of pain from my bullet wound doubled me over. The hilt of the Shadow Blade at my belt jabbed into my side.
Just like the brace.
Just like the brace.
I had buried my hatred for the brace so deep because I couldn’t bear to think of myself as a girl who wore one. It was too bizarre, too humiliating. Better to bury it, pretend it wasn’t there. Pretend I wasn’t there inside it.
But it was because of the brace I’d first turned into a tiger. I’d finally acknowledged not just my rage but that I was a girl who felt rage, and a whole lot of other things. I was
that
girl, like it or not.
that
girl, like it or not.
Something sparked inside me. It was more than anger. It was greater than my shame and my fear of all the things I was.
The dark, hot place inside me that led to shadow. I’d thought it was gone forever, but I felt it now, roiling at my core. The heat from the fire seemed to pour into it, to feed it. I tiptoed to the edge, looking down into the yawning void. For the first time, I felt no dread. That mysterious place, that maelstrom that drew forth the tiger, that was me. I’d been so afraid that I’d cut myself off from . . . myself. I’d had no idea what would happen if that girl was ever unleashed.
But I knew now. Being that girl wasn’t so bad, after all. Not with Mom and Caleb and the otherkin on my side. Not with the tiger and all her power lurking beneath my skin.
To find the great cat again, I didn’t have to be angry. I had to dive in and embrace.
I could feel myself smiling. Then I plunged over the edge.
White energy shot up through my spine and down every nerve of my body. I fell forward onto all fours, the thick pads on my paws immune to the bite of the gravel, my tail lashing, the pain in my arm gone as if it had never been. The bullet in my arm dropped to the ground, and I flexed the lean muscles of my shoulders and haunches. My whiskers fanned out to catch the currents of the air whipped by the flames before me. The fire lit up the whole front wall of the office, cracking the door, popping the glass out of the window, shooting a dozen feet into the air. In a blink my eyes adjusted to the flaring light, seeing exactly where the fire was and was not. The sizzling sound came still only from the external walls and the roof. I could hear that inside there was space enough, at least for the next few seconds.
I roared and ran straight at the window. Gathering the great muscles in my hind legs, I leapt, front feet out, back feet tucked, head down. I smashed through the remaining glass. The scent of burning fur singed my nose, and I felt a shaft of heat sting my side; then I splayed out my paws and landed inside.
Flame licked the ceiling above me and ran down the walls. An office chair was melting before my eyes. The heat pushed against my fur, but that extra layer between my skin and the flames made it bearable for a few seconds. I squinted and curled my whiskers back against my face. Smoke poured into the empty space around me like a liquid torrent. It seared the inside of my nose and coated my lungs.
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