Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) (4 page)

“No. After Maya forced me to hunt down my own sacrifice to the Dark Spirits, she killed the girl. A fisherman’s daughter. No one else could have the special bond we shared. Otherwise it could threaten her power.

“We returned to see what had become of her old kingdom, which had long since been transformed by the Romans. We went on a killing spree of politicians she deemed to be fools. They were all old men who couldn’t so much as feed themselves by the time we murdered them in their nightgowns. That’s where we found Aaron. But the Dark Spirits began to demand more. This time they wanted two innocent souls capable of lighting up an entire town. The deadline was always the same. In the seventh year after the vampyre was born, at midnight on Lunar New Year, the sacrifice must be made. We barely found a pair of twins to satisfy them in time. And their demands kept growing higher. As Maya continued to expand our family over the centuries, so the pile of souls grew into a small mountain. The price for another vampyre prince now is steep, much too steep.” He raised his head, eyes sinking under guilty weight, and I froze in place.

“The forty girls…”

“She told you a half-truth. She does need new brides to give the princes sustenance. But she still owes the Dark Spirits for Duck Young. They have made a very special demand. So far, Maya has had no luck in answering their command for a ‘changeling’ soul.”

I brushed my hair aside, fear stirring. “Is that why…you hunt my family? You think it’s one of us, don’t you?”

“We’ve had great luck hunting your family before. You come from a strong line of spirits; fierce, bright warriors capable of shaking civilization to its bones. My mother thought the eldest sister must have inherited the gift we sensed.”

“But it wasn’t Marisol.”

“No.” He gazed at me,
through
me, and I shrank away, both curious and scared of what he saw.

“So the innocent pay the price for our immortality,” he said quietly. “Our own wicked souls escape upon death. They know what we are. When we accepted the Dark Spirits’ gift, we were banished from the eyes of God.”

“You drink our blood. You brainwash us. You wear our
bodies
,” I choked out, an image surfacing in my mind of Marisol’s head, bobbing around like a spring.

“Waste not. Maya needed to wear new a new body after the Weres ignorantly attacked her,” Khyber said in a low voice. “Foolish things. As long as she’s tied to me, she can’t die. Neither could I, when I barged out into the sun to save her. But even though we can’t die, it doesn’t mean the pain is any less. Sometimes it’s a thousand times worse.”

“That’s why you asked me to help you die,” I said, “but I don’t see how that’s possible. Unless we retrieve your soul from the Dark Spirits?”

“And find Maya’s. Otherwise she’ll be a loose specter hanging around Eve forever. She’s close enough to assuming Dark Spirit form already. I almost have all of them, you know.”

He rushed on to answer my puzzled expression, as if relieved to finally impart all of his hard work to someone: “My brothers’ souls. I’ve been hunting them down over the centuries. We must herd them all up and usher them into the Beyond, or else their specters will continue to haunt Eve after death.”

“Which ones are you missing?”

“Duck Young’s.” Khyber scowled at this. “Thanks to your dear
sister
. And Donovan’s. He’s kept it jealously locked away for some centuries.”

I felt a flutter of nervousness when he spoke of the golden Frenchman, remembering his vacant teal eyes, his lips raking my ear as he promised to hurt me.

“You will help me find his.”

“What? Whose?
Donovan’s?
” I backed away with arms folded, fingers digging holes into my skin. “No. There’s no way. You can’t ask me to get close to him. You can’t.”

“I didn’t ask.” When he spoke, I felt the air snap around me, pulling me toward his words no matter how hard I dug in my heels. “You don’t know how long I’ve had to play this game, constantly ducking and hiding my true intentions from my mother and brothers. I’m tired of all this, Raina. I’m tired. I don’t care anymore. And a vampyre who doesn’t care is a vampyre at his most dangerous.”

“If you didn’t care, then you wouldn’t be concerned with sending off your brothers’ souls,” I replied. I felt the weight of his gaze ebb slightly.

In the next second, darkness drowned my senses; I fumbled around, blind and deaf, on my knees. My fingers groped about, and I felt a toe, as cold as a dead fish. I sprang back.

Somehow, even in the darkness, I could spot the black wings beating, and I crawled toward them. When I touched his leg, I could dimly hear again, even though the voices sounded muted, as if echoing underwater:

Why did you take her to the memory well?
The first voice lashed across the eerie expanse of night, brittle, as if it were about to snap.
What have you been showing her? Don’t you know that she’s built a dream bridge into her sister’s mind? The wolf-girl will know what you’ve been telling her!

I doubt that were-mongrel has the patience or the intelligence to figure out how to cross the dream bridge, Mother.
Khyber’s voice reverberated like a deep gong.
You can trust me. Don’t you want to know if this girl is the one they want? Or do you want to risk displeasing the Dark Spirits again?

I resisted clawing at his leg, begging him to say it wasn’t so. The Changeling Soul. So. This was the reason Maya paid so much attention to me. I hardly felt fierce like an Aztec warrior or capable of change. I was the rain! The rains that came after, to cool the fires! Couldn’t they see that?

The high-pitched voice turned tender.
I can trust you? Then how come you never come to my bed anymore? You haven’t turned soft, like Donovan says, have you? You know we are the evolved species. The immortal. The next stage beyond humanity: vampyre. If the humans feed on the beast, then so we must feed on them. Their souls mean nothing. They exist to sustain
us
.

I didn’t think you wanted me in your bed
, Khyber replied, and my heart beat faster.
You always complain at the sight of me. I’m your clumsy first experiment, remember? I am too ugly and rough-hewn for a vampyre; a vampyre is to be perfect.

The velvety wheedling sidled closer.
Your flaws make you…interesting. I long to tear you apart and build you up from the bottom again. Don’t you long to do the same to me? Come. Leave this water witch. Or would you rather have her over me?

My cheeks burned red in horror. I had never been so embarrassed and yet incensed with jealously at the same time. Khyber’s comforting night wings slipped from my side, leaving me to shiver in the cool hallway, blind and alone.

Chapter 5: The Unseen War

I hated that damned dog.

Saja keened and whimpered continuously at the door, and since I was the only one home these days, I got to let him out. He’d sniff around outside for half a freakin’ hour before doing his business, or take off against the leash like a firecracker. Repeat this process twenty or so odd times. Eventually, I decided he could rot by the door for all I cared, but then my next-door neighbor pounded on the door. I couldn’t catch everything she said, but her expression clearly stated she thought I was a heartless monster unfit to own even a turtle.

“Why do you think? He’s an outdoors dog,” Una told me unapologetically as she readied for her monthly meeting with the “Korea One Country” volunteers. She was on the forefront of the reunification effort. “When will your mother let us go home?”

“Never.” I checked my phone. The screen remained blank. Still no messages from Rafael, Jaehoon, or the rest of the pack.

I felt hurt. Jaehoon ignoring me, I could understand, but Rafael? Even a “Get Well” E-card would have been nice. It wasn’t like I hadn’t dream-walked into Eve again and seen everything that had happened to
Raina
, for God’s sakes. Well, some things were hazy. Like after Khyber bit her to punish me, and her thoughts dissolved into butterflies, glorifying Khyber at every possible opportunity. She fought that vampyre bite though, by God, my sister fought it. Enough for her to wake up and hear things. Important things. I needed to speak to Rafael immediately.

I snapped the phone shut. “Didn’t you know? You’re Raina’s replacement. That way Mami can feel better about herself. You two even look somewhat alike.”

Una inched closer. “Do you hear more from her? In dreaming?”

“Everything’s really dark and foggy right now.” I kicked a shoebox in frustration. “Last time, Maya did something to Raina’s senses. She hasn’t snapped out of it yet. You do think I’m really seeing her, right? That all this stuff Khyber said about the vampyres sacrificing souls to the Dark Spirits is really true?”

Una carefully straightened the shoebox back in place. She was a houseguest at its finest, determined to leave no trace behind. “I think you and your sister share special relationship. You must know her heart and mind very well if you can find it in dreaming.”

“Do you think Raina’s body is okay? It hasn’t”—I forced myself to spit the ugly word out—“
died
?”

Una was confident. “Yes. Girls’ bodies be close to their spirit selves. The longer you are in Eve, you must stay closer to your mortal body, you know. Or else connection
snaps
!” She clicked her fingers. “Can’t go back. Vampyres know. They will protect the bodies of brides-to-be…for now.”

The door slammed, announcing Miguel’s return. A scrabble of feet; Saja made a bull’s eye straight to Miguel. I couldn’t fathom it. Miguel didn’t give him the full can of dog food the way he liked. He gave him half a can, and without the leftover veggies. I blamed it on smelling like a werewolf.

“Hey, what’s up?” Miguel asked, swinging into my room.

Una’s face turned crimson, and she hurried to throw on some old pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt that would conceal her hint of cleavage. I thought it was cute.

“Jesus, go away, Miguel,” I said, throwing a pillow at him. “Girls only.” Saja slunk around Miguel’s knees, yellow eyes flickering, and I bared my teeth. “That means you, too.”

Both of them ignored me. “So, what’s your brilliant excuse to give Mami so she’ll let you off house arrest?” Miguel demanded, sorting through my big closet for detergent, which served as Citlalli’s Wardrobe/Laundry Supplies. “There’s a Leaning Tower of Dishes stacking up at Alvarez’s that ain’t gonna do themselves.”

“Miguel! What did you do now?”

He’d yanked off his shirt in front of Una, but that wasn’t the reason for my alarm. Stretched across his abdomen was a wickedly thin red scar.

“Have no idea. Maybe vampyres think I’m pretty enough for them now.” He snickered at his own joke and elbowed Una, who jumped.

“That doesn’t look like a love bite. More like a death
threat
.” My pulse began to hammer. The scar grinned back at me tauntingly. It looked like something had
marked
him for its own.

Miguel spun around, eyebrow cocked. “Hey, you know what? I just remembered. I was along on that famous binge drinking night in Seoul, too. Planned to cut my way to my liver to see how it’s been holding up all these years. Think that’ll be enough to get me out of work, too?”

“Mami won’t believe anything drug or alcohol related. My test results don’t back it up.” I flopped on my bed. “I think she plans to keep me grounded until my eighteenth birthday. Then she’ll be free to throw me to the wolves.”

“Your mother would not do that. You are her daughter,” Una said firmly.

“No, I’m her headache. The possible murderer of my sister, and most likely insane.” I rolled over and hid from both of them. My thumbnail inched the phone screen open. No messages.

***

Later that week, I guarded the house while the others were out for the evening, lounging in one of those dazed half-sleeps. The rap on the door woke me up.
Saja was going absolutely crazy, dashing between me and the door as if we were polar magnets he couldn’t bear to get too close to. I dragged myself up reluctantly. Did Mami forget her key?

A feebler knock, and then a
slam!
I jerked the door open against my better judgment.

“Citlalli.” Was that terrified face, pale with pain, really the first werenaga I’d encountered, Thaksin? He struggled to support a dazed werebear, the man slipping in puddles of his own blood.

“They say this is safe house. Help us. Please.”

“Get in here!” My fingers began to shake uncontrollably. After days of praying that I would hear some word from the Weres, it seemed surreal that here Thaksin was, laying a six-foot-tall stranger down on Mami’s pristine leather couch.

Saja charged, but his bark split into a high-pitched yelp as the Japanese man shifted. A giant black-furred bear appeared on the couch, frothing at the mouth and gouging deep claw marks in Mami’s furniture. Then he switched back, limp and unconscious. Bone jutted up from the gash on his hip, looking oddly dreamlike under the florescent lights. I wasn’t in Eve anymore. This was real life.

Luckily for Thaksin, the scene was all too familiar, and he took the bandages from my stunned hands. His patient stirred, and suddenly a full-blown Asiatic bear was roaring in his face. Thaksin removed a tranquilizer from his bag and plunged it into the man’s neck without blinking.

“W-w-hat do you need?” I stammered.

“Hot water. Needle. Thread. I try not make house mess.” Thakshin smiled. “Thank you. We are in your home now. We are safe.”

“What happened?”

He looked puzzled. “You no know? We at war.”

“War against the vampyres? You, Jaehoon, the other clans?”

“Of course. You no know?

It was a harsh blow to the stomach. I didn’t know if it was the shock of having a bleeding naked man sprawled in my living room when Mami might come home at any second, or the fact that I felt…betrayed. The pack had gone ahead and made plans to attack the vampyre nests in Seoul. And I hadn’t been a part of it. How many times had I texted Rafael and the others and heard no response? Was this our punishment, then? For going into Eve against Jaehoon’s orders? Or… My cheeks flushed. Was it only
my
punishment?