Feral Pride

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

I lay Quincie’s body in the backseat, and the glow coming from her holster catches my eye. Baffled, I glance up at the streetlights bordering the circle drive in front of the hotel’s main entrance. Then I lean in, seeking the source of the reflection.

  Kayla and Jess are still talking, but it’s as if from a distance. I hear the word hurry. I don’t mean to ignore them, but I can’t look away from the Light. I rush to the other side of the car to reach it. Slipping off my breath mask, I open the other rear door. What is this?

  I slip one hand beneath Quincie’s shoulder to raise her slightly, and my other closes around a metal grip. I draw the weapon, a sword, and hold it up. Gleaming gold, the hilt fashioned to look like wings. I’d swear it’s handcrafted, priceless. “You think we should —?”

  “Yes,” Kayla replies as Jess comes around from the trunk with a gray blanket to position over Quincie’s body. Kayla adds, “Now, Yoshi.”

  The sword’s magnificence is almost mesmerizing. Kieren said “no weapon of this earth” could kill the demon. If not this earth, where did it come from? “Because?”

  Kayla looks like she’s about to leave without me. “When you’re off to battle hell spawn and you come across a glowing sword, you take it. You’d know these things if you read fantasy or went to church. Jess?”

  “Sorry, sweetie. I’m a big fat no on stealing from dead people. Big. Fat. No. On the other hand, I’m not her. This Quincie girl might be disappointed if you didn’t finish the job she died trying to do. It’s your call, Yoshi. She’s your partner on this mission. What do you think?”

  Me? I’m a part-time antiques salesclerk, marginal high-school student, and Grams’s target practice. Werecat, sure. Devastatingly good-looking. But you could say the last of Kayla, too. On the other hand, I’m betting the sword is one of the secrets Quincie mentioned, and I’m the one she chose to trust with it.

  As the girls cover Quincie’s body, I set the sword on the roof of the car. I draw and, unleashing the safety, give my tranq gun to Kayla and my Taser gun to Jess. “Whoever the retrieval teams can spare should be on their way. Jess, can you —?”

  “I’ll wait here for them.” Jess pulls out her phone. “In the meantime, this is still my daddy’s jurisdiction. I’ve got to let him know what’s happening . . . before he misses the car.”

  Kayla and I take off running, across the manicured grass around the hotel, past swaths of wildflowers, to the amphitheater. She pulls ahead at the horse and donkey corral.

  Her speed — it’s breathtaking. She reaches the amphitheater before I do.

  DUCKING BEHIND a heavy canvas arch, I can’t see past the frenzied mid-shift crowd.

  I leap for the nearest metal rafter, scanning for Clyde. There, center stage! He’s cut up badly. His face is a bloody mess. He’s staring at his hands as if he doesn’t know what they are.

  Is that woman sprawled next to him the governor? Is she dead? I aim the tranquilizer gun.

  Aimee is close enough to a mic for it to pick up her voice. “It’s too risky to wait any longer. You’re all off camera. Leave now and there’ll be no proof you were ever here.”

  I fire. The dart strikes Clyde’s hip. Arching his back, he growls in surprise.

  Seth’s head rises, and he meets my eyes. “Guards!”

  Before the yetis can get me in their sights, I drop into a crouch, vault down the center aisle. I’m a blur against the noisy crowd. “Clyde!” I shout. “Clyde, stop!”

  “It’s all about to come crashing down.” Aimee’s voice again. “Daemon Island all over again. Let Seth take the blame.”

  As I pass, the female yeti — Crystal — draws a revolver from her baby’s sling and points it at the male who’s running the tech. “Move away from the controls!” Then she waves away the henchman holding Aimee at gunpoint. “Retreat to the helipad. Guards, retreat!”

  “Clyde!” I yell, approaching. He doesn’t seem to recognize his name. “What’re you —?”

  His first blow knocks the tranq gun out of my hands. Then his Lion claws tear the bottom of my shirt, raking across my stomach. I gasp. I’m cut, bleeding, springing back on reflex to avoid being hurt worse. Oh, boy . . . I don’t think Clyde’s in there anymore.

  “Give that gun to me!” the male yeti shouts. “You’re hysterical. Your hormones —”

  “So help me, Boreal, if you explain my hormones to me one more time, I will shoot you!”

  Seth whips his head in her direction. “You are nothing, Crystal. Nothing. You’re only here because your thickheaded mate —” She fires, shearing off one of the demon’s horns.

  The lights on the cameras are still shining. They’re still broadcasting.

  Not good. To the millions watching, the demon is projecting a megalomaniacal, mentally unhinged weresnake, and the homicidal Lion king is threatening a teenage girl. Not just any girl, but me, the alleged Cat girl of Pine Ridge.

  The yetis are still bickering, but I’m too busy trying to stay alive to pay close attention. I don’t know how much of the tranquilizer got into Clyde’s system, but he apparently had enough presence of mind to pull out the dart. Backing away, I trip over Lawson and my torn stomach muscles spasm. It would make all the difference if I showed my fur, if I showed myself — an Acinonyx jubatus sapiens — battling the Lion who murdered the governor.

  Humanity would see that we shifters aren’t united against them.

  Clyde circles the body, stalking me. He staggers and shakes his head. I scramble farther away, between two of the columns and, flailing, into the blue backdrop.

  If I shift, that will confirm the park video. This isn’t some small-town skirmish, captured in low light, framed in conflicting stories. I’ll be publicly verified as a werecat.

  On the other hand, if I can stay alive in human form, people will assume I’m a regular girl. The way Clyde’s bearing down, anybody with teeth and claws of her own would use them.

  It takes all the willpower I possess to stop my inner Cat from defending herself. My hand connects with something solid behind the shiny material. I reach under it to pull out a bright orange juggling pin. I heave it in Clyde’s direction, narrowly missing his head.

  I’m not ashamed of what I am. I just never wanted to pay the price of other people’s ignorance. But then, how can they be expected to appreciate the full truth of Kayla, if it’s always hidden? When we whispered our final good-byes, Ben’s ghost said he wanted to celebrate me.

  Everybody should feel the same. I thought I’d come to terms with that, but the past week tested my resolve. It was one thing to own my species before I became a celebrity, before the threat of war, before guns and demons and living in fear. The answer is what it always is: faith.

  I miss my moment. Above, Yoshi leaps from one rafter to the next, cheating with a . . . it’s a trapeze. He releases his black fur, raising Quincie’s sword high above his head.

  Careening downward, he swings the blade, slicing off one of Seth’s fangs. It crashes onto the stage, leaving a strange, smoky trail in its wake. The bellowing demon’s tail swats Yoshi’s torso, sending him flying back at the rafters. Yoshi’s shoulder hits metal. The weapon falls from his hands. The amphitheater is bursting with discord. Does the demon care how he achieves his goal, or is this what he wanted all along?

  Seth booms, “Werebeasts, rip them asunder!”

  I LAND PAST Clyde and Kayla, on the far opposite side of the stage from Seth.

  I’m sore, frustrated, seeing spots. Fighting the urge to go full Cat, I push to my feet. A werehyena makes a grab for my throat, and I smack him aside. A werebuffalo thunders over the Hyena, crashing against me. God, he’s heavy!

  The stampede turns into a tangled pileup. I glimpse Kayla, ducking under the blue curtain. My nose identifies one of the Bears as Tanya. Where’s the sword?

  In their scramble to rip us “asunder” (seriously, who talks like that?), the chipped shifters are wrestling each another in competition to be the one who gets to do the ripping. In the confusion, I manage
to squeeze free between a mountain weregoat wrestling with a pygmy weremammoth and a weredolphin who can’t be happy this far from the ocean.

  At the same moment, Clyde somehow escapes, only to knock me down again. He’s ragged from the whip, and we’re both riddled with oozing claw marks.

  Oh, God. Oh, boy, I remember what it’s like, when the animal form takes over and you’re tempted to eat your big sister’s fancy chickens. I saw it in Teghan’s wild eyes on Daemon Island. Letting her weredevil run free helped her to survive.

  I sense the inner war, man versus Lion, inside Clyde.

  He’s pinned me down, and having a Lion’s bulk gives him the advantage.

  “Sorry, man!” I gasp. “You’re a handsome guy, but my heart belongs to Kayla.” His salivating jaws open, and I add, “Come on, you’re not going to kill me.” Then again, he did kill the governor only moments ago. “Clyde, you can fight this. I know you can.” I play to his Lion’s heartstrings. “You’re one of my best friends.”

  I close my eyes against the pain to come . . . and it doesn’t. I risk a peek.

  The golden mane shakes, and Clyde squints at me. His face morphs to mid-shift Possum and back to mid-shift Lion again. “I am? I’m one of your best friends? That’s sad, Yoshi. It really is. I don’t even like you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Everybody likes me.” For worse and better, he’s Clyde again. I shove him off. “Your breath smells awful.”

  Shrugging off a werelemur, he gives me a hand up. “It’s the weirdest thing. Lawson tasted like charcoaled crap.” He sounds more confused than grief-stricken. It hasn’t sunk in yet that he took the governor’s life or what that will mean for all of us.

  I, for one, have no desire to go to war against the human race.

  I punch an Armadillo. We’re in defense mode, battling back-to-back. Between the full-bodied Elk, Bear, and Buffalo, I can’t see Seth, Aimee, or Kayla.

  Breathing hard, Clyde asks, “Where’s Quincie?”

  I hate having to tell him. “I’m sorry, man. She didn’t make it.”

  “What?” Clyde asks, shoving aside a weresloth. “She . . . how? Fire? Beheading?”

  I deliver a roundhouse kick to a Wolf. “Her head — it’s still on, but she hit the back of it on a rock. Hard.” My own shoulder is still throbbing. It must be shock. We’re talking about the death of one of Clyde’s closest friends, and he seems to be taking it in stride. “Do you get what I’m saying? She had no pulse. Quincie’s —”

  “Oh!” the Wild Card exclaims. “Right, that’s too bad. I . . . I have sadness over my dead friend. I’m, uh, grieving and sorrowful. Um, did you happen to notice a sword?”

  “CRYSTAL!” I shove myself between her and Boreal, past caring about the revolver. Baby Drifa is wailing at the top of her lungs. “Call off the mob! I’m begging you. Please!”

  Ignoring me, Boreal says, “We can salvage this. All the home audience will see is shifters as savages.” The baby hiccups as he adds, “They’ll be lining up to order from MCC Enterprises.”

  Thank you for that sound bite! Crystal realizes it before he does. Her fist pounds the button controlling the mic on the media console. “To the helipad — now.”

  That’s it for Boreal. He retreats through the manic mid-shift crowd. “Your status falls with mine!” he calls after her. “You’ll be barred for life from the Assembly of Matrons.”

  Crystal puts the, I assume, loaded gun back in the sling with her baby. I swear, she’s as bad of a parent as my dad.

  “Boreal speaks true,” she informs me, stroking Drifa’s furry white forehead. “She and I both will suffer disgrace. Unless . . .” Her voice grows more urgent. “You must tell me, pet. Where is Junior? We can still —”

  “You can’t have Junior,” I say. “You can’t kill or contain him, and you can’t kill or contain everyone who’s met him . . . or one of your species. Every shifter here —”

  “Those beasts . . .” She gestures to the stage, where the mob is attacking my friends. “At least those who’ll survive, they have been programmed to forget having ever seen a Homo deific.”

  How convenient. “But the centuries-old organization that’s protecting Junior right now, that’s a different story. Believe me, there’s no way my friends would’ve come here tonight without serious backup.” Please, God, let that be true for a change. “Tell me how to call off the mob, and I’ll argue to the interfaith coalition that it’s wrong to out Homo deific to the world.”

  It’s not much, the promise of an argument from a teenage human girl, but it’s the best offer she’s going to get. I add, “Or you could stick around and see if you end up on a dissection table or caged in a zoo.” We can hear the helicopter start up outside, waiting.

  “Well played, pet,” Crystal replies, lumbering off with her newborn. Over her shoulder, she yells, “The control word is werebeasts!”

  Finally! “Werebeasts!” That didn’t do anything. I punch the mic button on the console and try again. “Werebeasts, forget about the Cats and the Lion. I mean, Lossum. I mean, Clyde!”

  The mob pauses, disengaging from the fray. “Sorry, I would never say ‘werebeasts’ normally. I had no choice!” Gah! They could care less right now. Think, Aimee. What do I want them to do? “Uh, move out, exit through the back of the amphitheater. Keep your horns, hooves, and claws to yourselves. Avoid the evil giant demon snake — watch out for his fangs, fang. Pay no attention to the snowpeople fleeing by helicopter. Thank you for your cooperation. Have a nice night.”

  THE LAST YETI is out of here, and Seth slinks behind the blue backdrop, exiting too. Now that the shifter crowd has thinned, I’m able to spot where Yoshi dropped the sword. I leap from a rafter to catch the nearest trapeze and swing, letting go to retrieve the sword and run after the demon.

  Against my palm, the weapon feels reassuring. All that time my minister was droning on about the horrors of werepeople, he could’ve been giving his congregation useful demon-slaying tips. Just saying. I guess I’ll have to wing it.

  I pour on the speed and, using both hands, sink the blade deep into Seth’s thick tail. His triangular head nudges into view through the material. “You, again!” Seth snaps at my arms, and I let go. Suddenly, the sword is on fire. Why is it on fire? How is it on fire?

  Bonus, the demon is on fire, too. He’s thrashing, trying to free himself. His jaws make a pass at the hilt, and he recoils. “Help me!” he calls, panicked. “Holy fire!” His voice has lost its haughtiness. He sounds plaintive, vulnerable. That was easier than I expected. He screams it again, more desperate. “Holy fire!”

  At first, I thought it was an exclamation. Like “Holy fire, Batman!” But no, he means the fire is holy, as in blessed, divine. That’s why the sliced-off fang began smoking, smoldering, too. Only . . . who does Seth think he’s talking to?

  I can hear the helicopter taking off. His allies are out of here.

  “Kayla!” Yoshi grabs my hand. “Your wound, shift it out.”

  Oh. I almost forgot. Adrenaline, I guess. Usually, shifts take their own course. I struggle to concentrate on that one area.

  Seth writhes, spewing black-and-blue smoke. Again he bellows, “Holy fire!”

  Clyde pulls us both out of the way. “Give the monster room to burn.”

  I’ve partly knitted my skin, but it’s tough going. I’m light-headed from the effort and blood loss. The amphitheater has cleared out. It’s all but over.

  “The governor!” Aimee shouts, joining us onstage. “She’s —”

  “Nothing can help her now.” I notice the mic hanging from a rafter above and realize I probably shouldn’t have said that. Are the cameras still broadcasting? This is Texas. Clyde killed the governor on live TV. He’ll definitely get the death penalty.

  “No!” Aimee shouts, pointing over her boyfriend’s shoulder. “Behind you!”

  Oh, sweet baby Jesus. It’s Governor “Laughin’ Linnie” Lawson. Her throat and face are a mess of meat. She’s lurching in our direction
.

  “Zombie?” Clyde reaches into the pocket of his harem pants and hits a key on his phone. “Uh, what do we know about zombies?”

  “NO WORRIES,” Clyde says, pocketing his phone again. “Kieren says zombies just shuffle around and moan. We can forget . . . uh-oh.”

  Triangle patterns appear around the governor’s eyes; her ears extend into horns. Her head flattens and widens, causing her tall light-brown wig to topple. Her red suit splits at the seams, and her taupe pumps fall away as she transforms from woman to snake. Another shape-changer, another demon like Seth. They look exactly alike, except her eyes are a milky yellow, not orange. She exclaims, “What have you done to Daddy?”

  “Not a zombie,” Clyde concludes.

  Yoshi lunges for the sword and dislodges it from Seth’s tail, severing the flaming part from the rest of him. What remains is scorched but no longer on fire.

  Yoshi glances at the now-glowing weapon in his hand like he’s not sure he made the right call. Two demons, one holy sword. He swings wide at Lawson’s gyrating torso, mindful of her descending fangs. Meanwhile, Seth gives up pretending to be a weresnake, and before we know it, both demons are two, no, three times their initial size, nearly thirty feet tall. Seth’s headset mic has snapped in half and come tumbling off. He’s still lightning fast, but still down to one fang, one horn. He looks lopsided, and he’s off-balance on his tail stub.

  “Why didn’t you help me?” Seth exclaims, dancing to avoid Yoshi’s blade. “I could’ve been destroyed by holy flame!” The demons slither around us. “I’ll be the punch line at every comedy club in Lucifer’s capital city!”

  “I was busy.” Lawson captures me in her tail. “I was pretending to be dead!”

  I’m lifted off my feet as Seth informs his spawn, “I was screaming ‘holy fire’! You have to learn to pay attention. We don’t excuse ADD in hell!”

  I can hear my friends yelling my name, cursing the demons.

  “But I was doing such a good job.” Lawson swings her head so we’re nose to nose. Her breath is rank. Her eyes are gleaming. I could reach out and caress her horns. She adds, “I fooled all of them. I could’ve been president of the United States someday!” Then, noticing the crosses tattooed around my neck, she jerks back. Her grip tightens, squeezing air from my lungs.