Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) (30 page)

The cold was hurting the ghosts badly. They couldn’t carry the girls much further. Their entire bodies turned blue, and they began to splutter violently. The next blast of wind blew them away.

The girls ran to hug each other, frightened to be alone on top of this tall, dark peak. My heart froze. Black clouds rumbled like a giant’s footsteps in the distance, as if reminding me of how small I really was. When I finally spoke, it was the small voice of the scared girl I’d prayed none of them would ever see:

“Khyber?” I asked. “Who? Who is it that you’re summoning?”

He casually turned, and I saw the head of a great gray wolf swinging between his fingers. Upon the matted forehead was a horrible maze-like insignia inside a hexagon, drawn in blood.

“The Dark Spirits,” he said, and before I could stop him, Khyber tossed the head into a similar hexagonal ring of stones. Jaehoon’s blood seeped into the snow.

Chapter 37: The Dark Spirits

I had been gone too long. The others were worried. I saw Kaelan and Raina out of the corner of my eye and bayed wildly for them to keep away. Other barks, far off in the distance, answered my call.

Khyber had begun to hum. It was eerie and reminded me of deep, lurking waters. Then he turned to the moon and sang. His eyes hung wide and innocuous, and everyone was hypnotized by him. In his hands: a prayer wheel. The four faces of the animals remained dark as he twisted the wheel, counter-clockwise.

I saw a face, the color of rice cake powder, appear behind the girl Natalya. It vanished in an eye blink. When the thing next appeared, it was close, much too close. It tilted its head up to sniff the air, and rain drops dripped into the black holes where its eyes should be. A Dark Spirit.

It stepped into the circle of light from the moon, one foot dragging. Its deflated breasts swung to its belly, and its thick black mane of hair rustled unpleasantly in the winds, as if concealing snakes. I suddenly felt viciously, unexplainably ill in its presence. Maya’s girls began shrieking, but the wind stole the screams from their throats.

Once the Dark Spirit drank its fill of the blood-splattered snow, more joined it. They had us surrounded, now, and I couldn’t keep track of them. They disappeared in and out of the gusting winds. One appeared behind Raina, but before I could bark a warning, Kaelan spun around, growling and jerking, as if an invisible hand had touched his back. Finally, they all coalesced into an indistinguishable writhing shadow, blocking out the moonlight.

The Dark Spirits asked of Khyber:

–Have you brought us what we asked–

I shot up in alarm. The stone hit me in the bottom of the stomach. Betrayed. As Rafael had warned.

“Yes,” said Khyber, and he knelt behind the seven soul lanterns. “Here before you sit the souls of seven cursed princes. You will be able to influence the rulers of Eve however you will. In exchange,” he continued, voice shaking, “you will release my soul from this devil life trap with Maya and return it to me. As we agreed.”

The Dark Spirits converged on each other, a frightening storm cloud of hisses and guttural snorts. They finally spit a blackened skeleton out on the ground, its bones still smoking. I didn’t know what the fuck had happened, if they’d just eaten one of their own, but the sickening scent overwhelmed me again.

–As we agreed. You have arrived before your mother. We will hear your deal first. But, you must settle her debt with us–

The voices rose in wretched longing, caressing the bare shoulders of the shivering girls.
–We are so hungry–

“And I have it.” When Khyber grabbed the scruff of my neck, I stiffened in shock. I searched his downcast eyes, frantic to uncover some hint of what game he was playing at. I couldn’t see anything except him shoving me closer to those things, and I thrashed around more furiously in his hands. Then his eyes filled my world, blackness leaking from them. He touched my forehead. It was immediate. His command shook my very bones with thunder: “Show yourself.”

I collapsed on the snow, frail and human.

“Why?” I whispered, through purple lips.

“Tell me,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear, “do you love your sisters as much as I loved mine?”

Our gazes met. That night when Maya came for them, Khyber had climbed the rope last after all of his siblings, even though he was the fastest and could have gotten away. He’d made the ultimate sacrifice, and now he was asking, would I do the same?

He’d already known I would.

“I give you the Changeling Soul.”

Raina was crying somewhere in the darkness, but I couldn’t see anything except the cold. Laborious, heavy footsteps crunched toward me. I could see them hungering over me now; beneath their curtains of black hair, their empty eyes bore into my skull. They were both curious and confused by my power.

–She is not the one–
They raised their heads to look at Khyber.
–You have made a mistake–

Khyber struggled to stay calm. “I don’t understand, Great Spirits. Her soul can change its shape and persona—”

–Tainted by wereblood. She smells of
Her
–
Black fingernails wandered over their lips.
–But. Hush, now. Someone else is here. The one that we want–

The fingers slowly pointed toward Raina.

–Give us her, too. And we will agree to your backstabbing deal, little bastard. We shall release your soul–

Their eyes shrank into sly slits, the way Fred’s did when he was holding unknown information above your head.
–That’s not a problem, is it? You and the weeping girl…smell almost
alive
with pheromones–

Khyber, backstabbing to a fault, didn’t even hesitate. “Can you blame me for lusting after a soul of such power? No, I care not. Return my soul
to me
. First. And I shall agree to the deal.”

Their rasping laughter sounded like hissing dry ice.

–Suspicious, suspicious, ugly one. Very well. We have grown bored of playing with it. Do with it what you will–

I was so dizzy I swung toward the snow, but not before I watched an iron lantern wrapped in chains spin through the empty space toward Khyber, glowing with soft teal light. This was it. I knew how sacred deals were in Eve.

The moment it touched his fingers, Khyber spun toward me, and suddenly, every held breath, every desperate fear, was etched plain on his face.

“Citlalli, attack them now!” he cried.

Chapter 38: Lunar New Year

So this was the plan he’d so graciously kept me in the dark about, like a true partner in crime: Dress me up on a plate like a burrito with all the works, and toss Raina in as the free churro. Only one flaw in his masterful pimp-out scheme: I couldn’t have worked up the energy to take on a field of vengeful daisies.

Then Demon began to burn, and Her fire chased the cold away. She was eager to come closer, but I waved Her back, shakily clambering to my feet.

Khyber had seized the first of his brothers’ souls and was pulling no punches; blackness crawled out of his eyes, nearly eclipsing his entire face. At the last second, he sank his fangs into the soul, and it evaporated into the moonlight with a sigh. He lunged for the next one: Donovan’s.

Kaelan and Raina reached me, wordlessly offering me their clothes. We clung together as the Dark Spirits grew to a monstrous twelve feet in height. I had no idea how Khyber expected me to stop the Dark Spirits. Clutching the jacket Kaelan had draped around my shoulders, I darted forward and grabbed the dropped prayer wheel. I spun it clockwise as fast as I could, chanting the prayer with more heart than I ever had in my life: “
Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum.”

The four animal figures remained silent. However, the barks from the valley grew louder. I heard a familiar one howl my name.

Then Dark Dogs came spilling over the lip of the ridge, tangled in thorns and black roses. The pack alliance pursued them, spearheaded by a trio of wolves: one white, one dark gray, and their leader, brown. Rafael dashed so fast that he caught the heel of the rear Dark Dog; the mongrel whimpered and squealed as the bigger wolf bowled him over and got hold of his jugular. He tore it out with neat speed; there were more enemies to herd.

At their approach, the Dark Spirits lost their shape. The brown wolf dashed straight for us, unaware that he ran straight through one; its bottomless eyes bore into his back.

“Do not,” Rafael snarled at Khyber, “send dogs after wolves.”

“Raf, he’s—sort of, halfway, on our side,” I cried.

“Are you shitting me?” Rafael kept his bristling bull-muscled body between me and the vampyre, canines fully exposed. “Citlalli, he killed our juin-nim.”

“It wasn’t him—”

“The rot? On the catwalk?” His autumn-fire eyes flashed to me. “Only Khyber and Maya are capable of that. And there lies my maker’s head.”

Khyber’s mouth gapped soundlessly at Rafael; I don’t know if he could hear us in this state. Black ink dripped from his eyes like tears. His grip on Donovan’s soul wavered. The soul wriggled a little closer to open air in his hands, as if it sensed escape.

“Taeyang, destroy it now!” Raina spoke suddenly, and Khyber ripped the soul into a million pieces.

“TRAITOR!”

Through the flapping winds and whispering Dark Spirits, Maya appeared as Lover, cradled in Crispin’s arms. I felt Kaelan freeze beside me.

Maya took one wobbly footstep onto the brow of the summit, and then another. Her head had been hastily tied onto Ae Cha’s body with string. She lurched toward us like a dangerous drunk.

“You.” She spit in Raina’s face. “I would have taken your body, but I wanted to strangle you with my bare hands. You took my eldest son from me. Seduced him into turning his back on his family. Khyber, what are you doing to your brothers?”

Crispin crouched beside her like a horribly misshapen toad, awaiting orders. Khyber said nothing, and merely picked up the stagnant green soul next. Crispin’s nostrils flared; he recognized it.

“KHYBER! IT WAS YOU WHO TOOK IT!” Crispin bellowed, but he was too late. Khyber released a flash of emerald green; it shot across the face of the moon and faded somewhere in the dusky atmosphere. Khyber reached for the next soul, Aleksandr’s, but then Crispin’s favorite spear thudded into his wing.

To my horror, Khyber tipped over. His facial muscles spasmed as he tugged at the spear, length by length, wincing as the barbs tore through his feathers. Then he flung it at his brother.

He was still fast, I’d give him that, but Crispin stepped aside and caught the spear—too easily.

“Ho, ho, ho. What’s this, elder brother?” he cried. “You’ve spent so much time and power destroying our souls that you forget who the real danger is. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time now. I’m happy you gave me the excuse. Santiago, Aleksandr,” he called, and the flame-winged Spaniard and the blonde Russian with wings of wintry blue alighted. “Hold him. I want to see the look in his eyes when I spear him through the throat.” He leered closer. “I want to see the look in the eyes of this death-loving fool when he realizes he’ll never follow his family on. Why, your deal with Maya is
broken
, isn’t it? You can be killed. Only…” He flicked a fat finger toward the remaining four souls and sighed. “Yours hasn’t been as conveniently taken care of. You’ll die. But you’ll linger here forever as one of
them
.”

“Citlalli!” Khyber tossed his iron-bound lantern to me. “Don’t let them do that to me,” he whispered brokenly, and I realized that the Prince of Sorrow was begging, actually begging
me
, to save him. Then he rose to his full stature and shook off Santiago and Aleksandr like they were yapping dogs. They returned determinedly, however, and Khyber disappeared beneath a pile of feathers.

“Citlalli!” Raina beckoned to me from where she crouched beside the shivering girls. “We have to get them out of here!”

Indeed, I was scared by how all of them had begun to shake, just like the ghosts. Thaksin had said all of them had little time left before their mortal bodies died. With their souls taken from them by that horrible Mirror Room, they would be trapped here forever, slave wives wasting away in the twilight court, until the vampyre princes tired of them. And Raina, she would just be—gone.

“I’ll call a cockatrice.”

“Be careful, girl,” Kaelan growled softly. “We can’t attract
her
attention.”

Maya watched her sons tear into Khyber with the vengeful satisfaction of a spurned lover. But those restless eyes began to slide our way.

“Hurry, hurry, Kwan!” I called the cockatrice. The clouds rolled over us. When they parted, a familiar face squinted suspiciously down at us. Dark Dogs stumbled in their hurry to wriggle out of her way.

“Oh! It’s you.”

Kwan’s mate, the white dragon Sanghee, shook her mane imperiously at me. “And it’s you. I was touched by the urgency of the plea, but now that I see it’s only a fool who can’t count that her three journeys are up, I will go.”

“Wait!” Raina cried. “We are the ones who wish to go. Please, bring us to where our mortal bodies sleep.”

Smoke poured from Sanghee’s nostrils as she gazed at Raina with something like approval. “I would, little daughter, but I cannot go against the ruler of this world. She wishes you girls to remain here. If I were to take you, we would fly in endless circles forever. You must shake her hand from this world.”

I stared hard at the shadowy black head sitting serenely amongst the sea of Dark Dogs. “It’s unfair. We have no more time.”

“Well, I hardly see why you need to wait for
me
.” Sanghee’s white mane rippled. “You have
her
, don’t you?”

Raina. She was talking about Raina. We both gazed at her, rapt.

“You know what I am?” my little sister asked.

It was subtle. But I swear, Sanghee inclined her great head to Raina in reverence. “Yes. Just as you know what you are. You are Rain. And if I cannot take you, then I will lead you, back to your doorway out of this world.”

“But that will take way too long! None of these girls are in condition to trek across the country!” I exclaimed.