“Any last words Ladimer?” asks Michel, determined to finish him off despite all the other activity going on around him.
Ladimer looks up, grins at Michel, and sings, “Transformers: More than meets the eye.” Michel, confused and, angry, swings his sword where Ladimer’s neck would be if he were still a grown male, but Philip appears in his place, ducking as the sword swings by. As Michel recovers from the swing, Philip gets up and runs underneath the table, dragging the huge snow leopard skin. Michel runs after him, poking his sword underneath the table as Nayla approaches Michel’s back, revenge glowing in her eyes. I’m so engaged by the scene that I forget to watch my own back.
“Put down that weapon, you disgustingly pathetic creature,” says a meeple from behind. I lower my spade. “Your friends are losing the battle. Why don’t you be a good pet and sit?” My legs obey, and I sit, observing the fighting around me and my friends. Some are bleeding. Some are screaming. Soon, the sounds of battle disappear, and I realize it would be far easier just to give in now and let this meeple finish me before we screw things up any further. Tears trickle down my face, my hope fighting a losing battle. This must be my destiny, humiliation.
Seconds before the meeple reaches me, I feel an intense energy approaching fast. “Hey, dinner’s served!” Leon, running at us, throws steaming, saucy, hot vegetables at the meeple’s face, then grabs my hand and pulls me up. “Come with me now!” he says. I throw my bag on my back and let myself be dragged out the doors. Leon picks me up as we slide down several wooden tunneled slides, emerging at ground level. I continue with him as we exit the village gates and run into the chilly forest.
Chapter 43
Accidental
After I fall several times, he stops. It’s not so easy keeping up with a four-legged beast. “We can hide here,” he mutters, pulling me behind a fallen tree. I worry for my friends as we hunker down amongst some wild mushrooms and soft greenish-blue moss. I can feel Leon’s hot, moist breath on the back of my neck, and his soft purring soothes my nerves. He puts his arms around me so I will not move or make any noise. The warmth emanating from his fur is inviting, so I nuzzle in as best I can. “Let’s not move for a bit,” he says. I just nod, my mind beginning to cloud.
Slowly, my fear of what is going on in the village ballroom and what fate my friends are facing dissipates. Sitting and waiting for orders from Leon feels far more intriguing than anything else I can think of.
The sound of nearby movement threatens us. I hold onto Leon tight and wait, holding my breath. “Don’t move, Kailey,” he says as two deathmen appear, stepping out from behind a giant red-barked tree. They pay us no attention, instead on a mission I can guess will lead them to the ballroom. Deathmen. Ballroom. My friends. My mind triggers a need for action and I try to get up and follow, but Leon pulls me down, tightening his grip on my body. “Kailey, if they are gone, they are gone. There is nothing you can do.”
“But my friends—!”
His grip does not lessen. “I can take care of you now, but you need to relax.” He strokes my hair gently.
“Take care of me?” I respond as my muscles loosen up, and my mind clears of worry. His grip is solid and I can’t move a muscle.
“Relax...” That single word holds a mysterious magic which resonates, forcing me to submit. Leon purrs softly, and it’s so comforting that my worries don’t seem so important anymore. “Relax...” The sound of his voice caresses me as I melt deeper into his fur. His mouth comes close to my ear, and he speaks words that invoke thoughts of ancient rituals and spark animal instincts as I answer Leon’s purring with my own. I want to nuzzle longer with Leon, shedding all inhibitions and rubbing against each other for comfort as cats do.
My skin recedes as the hair on my arms grows longer, but I do not feel remorse. Rather, I encourage the fur, daring the transformation to quicken. I long to stretch my legs and run beside Leon in full stride.
My hearing picks up cats approaching, as well as humans. There are harsh words exchanged. It seems the battle has moved outside to the forest. Angry from the intrusion, I am annoyed and worried at the same time. A most awful and incessant barking joins the clamor, and I will it to stop. My instincts urge me to run, but there is something so familiar about the sound that I stay, curiosity rooting me where I stand.
“She’s here! I know it!” This is yet another familiar noise—a noise that brings to my senses thoughts of food.
“Conner, behind you!” Screams and shrieks and noises of many varieties draw closer. Leon falls on all fours, growling, prepared to take on whatever emerges from the brush. Any second now, we should become part of the battle. The source of the barking emerges, and I hiss at it. The four-legged creature stops directly in front of me, tilting its head to one side. A human emerges, followed by several others. They stop and stare at me.
“Kailey!” This noise is from the familiar one. She approaches me, and I hiss at her, baring my new fangs. As Leon jumps toward her, she produces a long, shiny sword, moving so quickly he falls into a tree stump and knocks himself unconscious. More cats join the scene, bringing great confusion to my brain. In the throngs of action, I stand motionless as an ugly, three-legged giant crashes into me, spilling the contents of my bag all along the forest floor. I hear a loud, metal clinking sound, and soon all the cats and myself are drawn to a smell—a wonderfully intoxicating smell emerging from the jar that has fallen and burst open. As the cats begin to roll and pounce around, forgetting the battle, a male human grabs me and drags me away as I attempt to claw him.
“Now’s our chance! I must say, our karmelean is quite the valuable asset, isn’t she? Catnip! Why would she buy catnip scent?” These words come from a little human with gray fur on his head and squinty eyes who watches me attempt to scratch my captor. I make contact at least once, forcing a yelp out of my captor’s mouth. The female I first encountered cries and shows me some shape with her fingers, and again a sense of familiarity creeps into my mind, but I still want to bite her fingers.
She speaks amongst the humans: “Can you help her, Ladimer? Oh, please, say you can.” She pets the annoying barking creature as I continue to hiss at it. “Sit, Kioto. Stay. Good girl. It took me so long to find you all. I was almost caught in Gernwood, but some dirty old meeple and a lazy greble let me get away.” A vision of my human-self teetering on the tip of a rock appears in my head, but soon dissolves as the dog keeps sniffing in my direction. My claws extend as its nose gets closer, daring me to scratch it off.
The male called Ladimer holds me with both hands, and his energy crawls along my skin, forcing me still. The fabric he wears smells of another male, one that brings thoughts of mating. Then, my fur starts to disappear as quickly as it came, and my fine-tuned hearing goes with it. I no longer hear cats crying in the village, but only my mom crying in front of me.
“Mom! Kioto!” I sputter. I run to them and I hug my mom as tight as my arms will let me. Kioto licks my face violently, and I have to hold her off before she smothers me. “What the hell just happened?”
Lupa smiles at me and says, “Long story. All I can say is that it might be beneficial to start growing some catnip in my garden.”
Conner approaches me, handing me his scent jar. “Why are you giving me this now?” I say. “What is it?”
He laughs to himself. “I thought I’d save this for when you ran out of your own, but it seems you never had one to begin with.”
I open the jar and breathe in. “Yum, cotton candy,” I hum. I must have picked up “Catnip” by accident. Conner kisses me gently on my forehead.
Gunthreon, who holds Michel’s sword, turns and glances behind him. He hands the sword to Lupa, who places it in her everything pack. I then notice a ceetchan waddling toward us, and Jenna behind her, shooing her to move faster.
“Damn creature!” shouts Jenna, as she squints her eyes at me.
Chapter 44
Exhausted
The race off Socola land is much anticipated and as fas
t as we could have hoped for. Each and every one of us, including Cheeto, looks as though we’ve seen much better days. Our clothes are disheveled and littered with cat hair, while our own hair on our heads is littered with stray bits of food. Strange thing is, I don’t feel as horrible as I appear to be. Dead-tired, yes, but forlorn, no. We are alive at this point and I am thanking my lucky stars.
I razz Lupa about her amazing ability when it comes to flirting. “You know, you did that all too well,” I say tease, pointing my finger at her.
“How do you think I won over this fool?” she answers, bumping her hip against Gunthreon’s.
Gunthreon ignores it—after gaining back his own momentum—and explains that the mutiny rumors of the East were of Nayla. She had already started forming a coup to dethrone Michel in an attempt to restore their non-allegiance to either higher power. My arrival in Socola proved the perfect opportunity for Nayla to take action—karma willing—and that was why the meeple attacked her, to stop her and her army from rebelling against the current Velopa-sided reign. Nayla’s hate for Michel and his reign must have grown so immense in her time forming the coup—with no available outlet—that when finally given a chance at revenge, Nayla went all out, for Gunthreon cringes as he describes her wrath once I left with Leon. Conner speaks in soulspeak, also confirming the scene was indeed graphic.
After Gunthreon finishes, he informs us he needs to speak to one other inhabitant of Socola before we leave. As we continue on in silence. I walk besides my mom. I begin to notice how many times she stumbles. “Mom, how are you feeling?” I send out my feeler to her before she answers, and suddenly feel ill.
Gunthreon finds the cave he was searching for and enters with Lupa, leaving the rest of us outside.
“I’m fine, honey—just tired from all the traveling.” She doesn’t make eye contact with me, and I know what that means, before even feeling her energy—she’s lying.
“You know, Mom, I’m not twelve anymore, in case you haven’t noticed,” I say. “You can be honest with me. We’ve both been through a lot and deserve at least that. And you feel...”
Before I finish my sentence, Ladimer works his way over and puts his arm around my mom—the shirt he’s wearing a bit too large for his frame. “Dena May, Kailey knows.”
My mom stops mid-stride. “Knows what, Ladimer?” Danger lurks in her tone, and it has me cowering for Ladimer.
I hear the gears working in Ladimer’s head while he’s thinking. “Simply that I was always there, watching over her.”
“Were you really?” Anger reverberates through her words, and Ladimer drops his arm. Conner turns toward my mom, looking fearful.
“Stop!” I shout. My mom’s eyebrows raise and I feel surprise from her. We’re all tired and I see this going nowhere good. “I’m just happy to be alive at this point, as I am sure all of you are, too. But if there’s going to be all this nastiness, I give up.”
My mom takes a deep breath and nods her head. “I’m sorry, hon,” she says to Ladimer softly. “I am just so damn...” Before her sentence is complete, she collapses to the ground like a pile of bricks.
“Mom!” I pick her head up off the ground. She’s alive, but limp.
Ladimer moves in and placing his hands on her—one on her chest and the other on her head—he says, “It’s okay, just simple exhaustion. Let’s get her home. She needs to rest.” But I don’t thoroughly believe him as I sense his energy. A withering sensation reaches me, then instantly retreats behind an energy wall. He’s hiding something.
“Let’s take her to my place,” I request. “I can take care of her.”
Gunthreon emerges from the cave and kneels by my mom, taking her hand as Lupa wipes her sweaty hair to one side. “Let’s all go back,” he says, looking at me, and I feel an underlying current of frustration.
Conner picks up my mom and holds her with ease.
Suddenly, I hear crying and look toward Jenna. “Jenna, what’s wrong?” I say. She doesn’t answer me.
Gunthreon stands up. “We made an agreement,” he states. I remember the agreement made for her to leave our group after Socola and feel a pain in my chest. Gunthreon’s face shows no emotion as he turns and faces the opposite direction.
Jenna looks up at me and I bend down toward her. Her tears are tiny balls of light, dripping to the ground. I look to Gunthreon, and see him turn his gaze quickly from us. “I know what I have to do. I just want you all to know that I care about you, and I hope to see you again,” she says. She walks over to me and wraps her tiny little holly necklace around my wrist, then kisses my cheek. She smiles at Bu, and blows both him and Conner a kiss. She pats Cheeto on the head once, then wipes her hand on her leg. “Thank you for giving me the chance, Gunthreon,” she says. She then bows toward him and starts to walk away, shoulders slumped.
Gunthreon lets her get a few yards away before he turns around toward her. “Well, I think I may have a new mission for you, actually,” he says. She turns around slowly, then freezes like a statue, staring intently at his face.
“Yeah?”
“I think that maybe you’ll have to come back with us while I explain the plan,” he says. “Think that’s doable? We have to go soon, though.” He nods toward my mother.
Jenna runs back as fast as her legs will carry her and, when he bends down to her, hugs his face. She simultaneously reaches over and snatches back her necklace from my wrist. I twist my face at her.
It’s decided that I am to bring everyone back at once. “Are we all ready?” I say. I turn to look at my beloved friends—family, now, perhaps—a second before transporting them and it’s then that I notice they are all wearing sunglasses—even Bu, wearing those giant plastic carnival glasses. “What?! Hey!”
Chapter 45
Grumpy
Shit! It’s morning and the sun blinds me as I open my eyes. After being in Socola, you forget how unforgiving the morning sun can be. Ladimer has to lead me around my apartment until all the blinds are shut.
Jenna sits on my couch, exhausted, while she listens to my iPod. I see her eyes wandering around my apartment, taking in anything electronic, or plastic. She exudes a bit of fear, but sits nicely, not budging. Bu sits on the floor, petting Kioto, whose hawk-like eyes are glued to Cheeto, who sniffs around. One growl from Kioto as Cheeto approaches her food bowl sends Cheeto in the opposite direction rather quickly. Ladimer, Conner, Gunthreon, and Lupa, all looking ragged from lack of sleep, have already spread out a map on my dinner table, discussing something rather quietly. I choose to ignore that conversation and instead check on my mom, who Ladimer sent to my bed.
I find her curled up in the fetal position, her hand in a ball near her mouth. This is a sleeping position that I have unfortunately inherited, and I use it when I am especially worried. So this has me worried about how much pain my mom really might be feeling. My senses reach to her as I close my eyes, but like Gunthreon, I bump into an energy wall.
“Kailey, you need to stop worrying. It’s giving you frown lines,” she says, lying on the bed.
“Some say lines give you character.” I examine my face in the mirror.
“Yeah, I’d say a wrinkled-up pear has lots of character.” I pick up the nearest pillow and whip it at her. She, of course, catches it mid-air, then lies back down, closing her eyes.
“Mom, save your energy,” I say. “We have a wedding to go to soon. Oh, and guess what! I know a secret,” I say in a sing-song sort of way. She’s fake snoring, but I see her eyebrows rise slightly, making it obvious she wants to know.
“Guess who’s pregnant!”
“Kailey!” This gets her sitting up faster than I can say “not me.”
“Settle down! Amber.”
My mom doesn’t smile. “What?” She sits on the edge of the bed, her mind wandering.
“Mom, what are you thinking?” I ask, knowing my answer.
“Wasn’t that rather fast?” she says. “Is Russell the father?”
“Thank God someone
thinks as logically as me!” I reply.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” my mom says. I frown. “It’s just that Amber always seems to make mistakes. I know she’s your best friend and all, but she makes bad choices.”
“Gunthreon says it’s Russell’s,” I respond, then a bit quieter: “Seems his ‘swimmers’ are pretty strong.”
My mom looks perplexed.
“You know...sperm?” I say, embarassed.
My mother laughs loudly. “Yes, Kailey, I know what ‘swimmers’ are—semen, spunk, baby gravy.”
“Ew. Stop! Baby gravy, really?”
She stops laughing and her facial expression is one of seriousness. “Last time I saw Russell he didn’t seem like a new father-to-be, that’s all.”
“Amber is just difficult,” I say. “She’s probably tiring him out with all the running out at two a.m. for ice cream and pickles—”
“— She has cravings?” my mom says.
Ladimer peeks in and smiles at us. “I brought refreshments,” he says, holding a tray full of cookies and milk, which he sets down in front of my mom. There’s a also a single pink rose. She picks it up and holds it to her nose.
“They were always my favorite,” she murmurs.
Ladimer comes over, lays his chin on my shoulder, and gives my mom puppy-dog eyes. “Still mad?”
“Yes, pissed!” Before I know it, she has Ladimer in a headlock.
“Damn, Dena May!” shouts Ladimer. “Let go. You know I hate it when you move so fast.” She lets go.
With a downturned face, my mom says, “I knew she’d find out someday. I should ask if you are pissed at me.” She faces my direction.
“Honestly, I was at first,” I say. “Then Greer showed me a few things, and I think I understand.”
My mom laughs heartily. “Greer! Did he threaten to eat you?”
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