Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) (16 page)

Now Yu Li took a step forward. I gazed at her in shock. She couldn’t have missed how Duck Young referred to Maya as both “bad lady” and “queen.”

Yu Li reached out one hand, trembling.

“Give me my son,” she whispered, “as a sign of good faith. A sign that you mean what you say. That you really have changed.”

Duck Young waved a finger tauntingly. “No, I won’t. Because you see, my beautiful Yu Li, I know that anywhere I take the boy, you will follow. You are the only thing that brought me contentment, in the sunshine days. You will be my only wife. I need no other.”

I couldn’t be quiet any longer, although I chose my words carefully. Young Soo was oblivious to the poison oak he leaned against.

“ ‘No other’? So what will happen to the other women you’ve raped and psychologically tortured?” I was thankful Young Soo’s English level was low, but Yu Li jerked back in horror. “What will happen to my
sister
? Will you kill her permanently this time, not like when you beheaded her in Eve for failing to
dance properly
?” Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I’d wanted to spit this out at his cruelly handsome face for countless nights, but he’d always remained out of reach, hidden behind the curtains of my sister’s dreams.

Duck Young reluctantly dragged his gaze away from Yu Li, but when he did, smoke began to hiss from his wings, and his eyes dripped cranberry red. Yep, he knew who I was, alright.

“You,” he said, and clutched Young Soo’s shoulders so tightly that the boy cried out. His father didn’t notice.

“So,
you
are the infamous Alvarez sister I’ve heard so much about.” We circled each other—Duck Young and Young Soo against Yu Li and I.

“The little bitch with a big mouth and an even bigger nerve. A greater irritation than either of her two sisters combined. I have you to thank for stealing my soul.” A smile suddenly split his pasty features. “I thought for sure they would have sent their fearless little heroine to the front lines. Not left you back here to guard the real warriors.” His toe nudged Kaelan’s cheek. “Is this one a friend of yours?”

I held my breath, forcing my face to show no emotion.

The toe dragged to Rafael. “Or…how about this one?”

Both Yu Li and I lunged forward instinctively, and Duck Young drew a hand across Young Soo’s neck. We froze.

“I know who he is,” Duck Young said quietly. “This is the mangy mutt who tore the wings off my elder brother. Who killed our brother, Takakazu. We know him and hate him.” Then he raised his foot and smashed it down on Rafael’s face, hard. A strangled cry gurgled in my throat. Yu Li put a hand on my back.

Be strong
, she was silently telling me. Neither of us could afford to fall apart right now. Although she seemed to see an escape clause that was invisible to me. All I could do was wait. For what, I didn’t know. An avenging bolt of lightning from the heavens. The Korean Army National Guard. Anything.

“I’ll show you exactly how I plan to get rid of your eldest sister.”

Young Soo was crying, but Duck Young shoved him aside so he could kick Rafael in the ribs. He made sure all eyes were on him as he dug his heel into Rafael’s chest, right above his heart. “Orchid claimed to be loyal. But she always disappointed me. Bored me, even. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed fucking her. Yet beauty can only get you so far… But your younger sister…” His hair-raising laugh drowned out Young Soo’s sobs. “Well, she’s far beyond help now. She’s the one. And she goes to a fate that even I pity. You’ll never get her back.”

A wordless shriek built up inside me like an unstable tower, and Wolf’s howls curdled into winds that threatened to knock me over.

The door slammed open, and Miguel came bustling in with his arms full of Band-Aids and pain killers. He took one look at the six-foot-seven-tall vampyre and ran in the opposite direction. Duck Young was on him within seconds. But then Wolf’s teeth were on him.

Duck Young spun around so fast that I lost my grip. I felt his bow slip around my neck, and then he started to choke me. The string cut into my skin until my muscles were left exposed and slippery with blood. Miguel, in a fit of desperation, chucked the heaviest box of stethoscopes. Duck Young ducked it easily, but I managed to slip out. My throat rasping for breath and paws stumbling on the wet floor, I realized I had a window of about five minutes to kill this lethal demon. Any longer, and he’d win by sheer endurance. A white wolf streaked by, carrying Young Soo in her mouth. Out the door to freedom. My throat closed, and I felt the blood soak my guard hairs. At least one family would escape this fight alive.

A tail brushed against my shoulder. Saja. He high-tailed it over to Una and stood over her body, glaring balefully in the vampyre’s direction.

Duck Young and Miguel were wrestling for the bow. The vampyre let him have it, but Miguel was too panicked to realize this. He spun around, fitted an arrow, and loosed it at the vampyre prince. Duck Young caught the arrow in midair. Advancing, still with that horrible smile on his lips, the vampyre prince plunged the arrow into Miguel’s upper shoulder. My brother screamed. A real scream. The sound chilled me to the bone. Duck Young grabbed him by the hair and wrapped another arm around his neck. Miguel’s scream intensified.

I rammed into the vampyre’s side, and then the pair of us rolled over the ground, crushing Iseul’s leg on the way. I lunged for his throat, but he caught my jaws. I felt the familiar strain shoot down to the corners of my mouth as he attempted to snap my jaw in two. My claws scratched his belly furiously in response. I could see Saja yipping, but he refused to leave his position over Una.

Then I saw her. The white wolf. She hovered like a ghost on the edge of my peripheral vision, but finally, something moved her to interfere. Loping forward with great strides, she smashed between the pair of us.

“Yu Li!” Duck Young cried. “Don’t give into the wretched beast within you!”

She snarled in reply. The two began the oddest of fights: each seemed unwilling to hit the other. When Duck Young swung, she slunk away. When she lunged, he dodged to the side half-heartily.

And why not?
I realized, my heart thudding. We couldn’t kill Duck Young. Not unless his soul went with him. Otherwise…What had Khyber warned Raina about?…Duck Young would live on in Eve forever. As a Dark Spirit.

I shifted, and immediately wished I hadn’t. The amount of pain Wolf had shielded me from was awful. I staggered to Rafael’s side, and with shaking fingers, scribbled out a message to his prayer wheel:

“No!” Duck Young slapped Yu Li out of the way and charged for me. Without a word, Miguel was suddenly between us, standing tall the best he could. The vampyre’s hands wrapped around his neck, and Duck Young lifted Miguel up into the air, higher and higher, until their heads nearly touched the ceiling. Miguel’s face bruised an ugly purple, like a swiftly swelling balloon.

“Miguel!” The name ended in a bark as I shifted, this time with Wolf’s cool, calculated thoughts at the forefront. How could we defeat a monster who had twice our strength and experience? But this one was still relatively young… He had been born this century, for God’s sakes. He hadn’t seen everything a wolf could do. Especially if a wolf came at him from the last place he expected…from above.

I didn’t even think. I raced at full speed toward the chair by the door. I propelled myself up off the wooden surface, rebounded off the wall, and flew through the air toward Duck Young’s unprotected back.

The wings clipped my face as my front claws buried into his shoulders. Duck Young began to shake the pair of us with the force of a mighty oak, but I slammed my teeth into the base of his neck so deeply I felt bone. And then I wrenched back with all my strength. The bone made sickening pops as I yanked it free from its cushy home. I was on fire now. A primal fire that flowed hot and molten through my veins and burned white-hot in my eyes. I tore out Duck Young’s spinal cord and watched it come spiraling down after me, whipping around like a loose cable wire.

When I opened my eyes, Miguel was curled up in the corner. Duck Young lay paralyzed between us, his breaths shallow and his cranberry red wings smashed like squished berries beneath him. Yu Li stood over us all, pale and haunted.

Words escaped Duck Young: “Beautiful…Yu Li.”

She seemed to fight herself as she took the bow, snapped it in half. She raised the pointed end of her makeshift stake.

“Umma.” It hurt my neck to turn my head, but only one child sounded that wounded and betrayed. “Umma,
hajima!
” Mother,
don’t!

Yu Li slammed the stake into Duck Young’s heart.

I could see them now: the little boy staring over at his blood-smeared mother, where she crouched, feral, over the lifeless body of his father. She was a stranger. A beast from the forest. A wolf.

Young Soo fled.

Yu Li watched him go. Slowly, she sank to the ground, all of the fight leaking from her. She curled up next to her dead husband; only now that he had passed on did she allow herself to caress his hair, to touch his lips. A shiny fang exposed itself, and she buried her head in his shoulder once more.

I crawled over, and she turned to me with surprising need, hugging the warm flesh of the living. When she spoke, her voice was dead:

“I have killed the father of my child.”

“Yu Li.” I brushed the bangs from her face. “Duck Young was already dead.”

“Not dead! Only changed!” she insisted. “How could Maya bring out that dark side of him, unless it was always there, sleeping where I couldn’t see?”

I winced. That accusation struck a bit too close to home. “So what if he had the potential to be an evil, murdering son-of-a-bitch? Don’t we all? It doesn’t matter. What matters, is that when he was with you, he chose to be a life-giver, a changer of lives, a light for the future. And that man still loves you and Young Soo. He always will. From somewhere far away.”

“From somewhere far away,”
she repeated, in Korean. But her shuddering subsided. “Okay. You have convinced me. Now please, convince my son.”

We both lapsed into hysterical giggles, not because it was funny, but because we realized the futility of it. Miguel groped to his feet.

“Damn! You weren’t kidding. Those motherfuckers are insanely strong. Um.” He stopped, looking awkwardly at Yu Li. “I’ll get you both some clothes.”

“We can get them ourselves,” Yu Li said tiredly. “Just go find my son.”

He raised his eyebrows at me. I shrugged. I was pleased I wasn’t the only one who had the honor of being on the receiving end of Yu Li’s blunt tongue.

“The boy was healthy enough to run away,” Miguel decided. “You two, however, can barely talk without blood coming out from places it shouldn’t.”

Yu Li glared at him frostily as he approached with cloth and bandages, but she didn’t resist. I just laughed helplessly at the absurdity of it all. Miguel was planning on playing doctor when his own arm dangled from its socket like a broken branch, and deep gouges wrapped around his neck.

A sharp exclamation. Followed by successive swearing. I heard Rafael come back first, shaking his head groggily to make sense of his black-and-blue face.

“Yu Li!”

I watched, heart wrenching, as he went to her first, touching her head tenderly in a way that only couples who’ve been together for years do. Then he looked at me.

His face tightened up like a storm cloud. Immediately, he attacked Duck Young’s dead body, destroying it with his kicks.

“Easy, there,” Miguel said. “That’s not impressing anyone. We already did the hard part by actually killing him.”

Rafael gave a low whistle. “Shit, you’re still alive.”

“Don’t be so surprised.” Miguel shrugged, pressing a wet cloth to my neck. “I’ve survived some of the craziest acid trips and gang vendettas back home. An attack by a legendary vampyre prince? I guess. If that’s the best Korea has to throw at me.”

“Ohhhh.” Una woke up to Saja licking her face.

Rafael grabbed the cloth from Miguel and took over cleaning my neck up. “You’re not doing it right. Go get the Vicodin.”

Miguel tried to put up a hand. “Yes, sir.”

“Is it destroyed?” I asked in a low voice, clinging tighter to Rafael’s hands.

His forehead tightened into knots again, and a frown creased his battered face. “I’m sorry, Citlalli. The soul is in safekeeping with the pack, but to destroy it…we don’t know how. It won’t go by ordinary means.”

I slumped back to allow him to nurse me, defeated. I didn’t know what this meant. There was only one creature who did. Only one creature who held all the answers, about Raina, about everything…Khyber.

“Citlalli? Are you okay?” Rafael hugged me as I spontaneously burst into tears.

“I want my mother.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Remember why you wanted to keep all of this from her?”

“Please.” I looked pleadingly over at Miguel. “I want to go home.”

Chapter 19: Before I Fall Asleep

I knew something was wrong when Mami didn’t ask any questions. She allowed Miguel and me to sleep undisturbed, and she was there with a wet compress when I thrashed about, convinced vampyre wings were whispering against my skin.

I recovered long before Miguel got out of his first cast, however. I stood in the doorway, wereblood thumping through my veins, as I watched my eldest brother sweat in his sleep.

He would live. Our doctor had fretted about his injuries, particularly an ominous one above his abdomen: three distinct claw marks. Where there had once been one, there was now a complete set.

“Did your brother get in a fight with a wild animal?” the doctor had asked.

A good enough description of Duck Young, in my book, but even he didn’t have nails as long and sharp as knife blades. I thought of Fred’s slit-like eyes glowing with scarlet fire, and I shivered. The nine-tailed fox wasn’t going to get my brother.

There had been a time when I’d doubted Miguel’s loyalty to me, when I thought he’d abandoned me for good. And maybe that had been true. But many things had changed. As our family members dwindled, the tighter we clung to each other, like shattered shells melded together by the tumultuous sea. Terror enveloped me as I saw, again, Miguel standing in the same room with Duck Young. But my human brother had emerged alive, a rare mercy from the universe. I couldn’t lose him.