by Nina Berry
I searched the shadows near the chair, letting him go ahead. Something flickered, like a dark mirror reflecting gold. Probably some weird stage magic item.
I moved to catch up with the others, who had continued threading their way past men in peacock feathers and a woman wearing a bright red body stocking.
“Desdemona,” came a whisper. “Wait.” I felt the voice’s vibration down to my toes, and I turned, like an automaton.
I scanned the cables and random furniture that filled the dark space beyond. The weird mirrorlike thing behind the electric chair was gone, but closer to me stood a red, wooden horizontal cabinet on a table with strange sliding doors on its sides. It took me a moment to realize it was one of those boxes magicians used to saw ladies in half. The small doors could slide aside to reveal the arms and legs of the person inside.
Lazar stepped out from behind it, wearing his usual white turtleneck and jeans, his thick butterscotch hair tousled. “I need to speak with you for just a second,” he said.
“You used your voice on me!” Objurers of the Tribunal and callers like Caleb were trained to use their voices to persuade shifters like me to do things. Lazar’s father, Ximon, was so skilled at it that he could get almost anyone, otherkin or human, to do his bidding.
“Only a little,” Lazar said. “I wanted to—”
His voice broke off, eyebrows shooting up, as a figure in a long black coat ran past me and cannoned into him. They fell to the floor together, legs thrashing.
“Caleb—!”
Everyone was looking at us.
“Who the hell is that?” a woman said.
Caleb reared back and punched Lazar in the face. Lazar’s head smacked against the floor. But he didn’t try to hit back. He stopped struggling, shook his head slightly, and blinked up at his half-brother. His sun-browned cheekbones were smeared with dirt, the skin around one eye now red and starting to swell.
“Fight back!” Caleb shoved Lazar’s shoulders with both hands, then got up, giving Lazar room to stand too. “Get up and fight!”
Lazar pushed himself up to sit and pressed one hand against the back of his head. His mouth twisted in a pained grimace even as he let out a breath of a laugh. “Frustrating, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it’s that bastard,” said Siku. He, November, and London had come back to stand behind me, so that we stood in a semicircle around Lazar, pinning him up against the red cabinet.
“You should let Caleb rough you up every time you go out,” November said, her voice biting. “It’s an improvement.”
Lazar rolled his eyes, but he did not reply.
Caleb kicked at one of Lazar’s boots. “We could just kill you right here,” he said. “I don’t see any backup.”
“I didn’t bring any,” Lazar said. “No one else knows you’re in this part of the hotel.”
“Lies,” said London.
“Hey, you kids!” A large man in jeans and a black T-shirt over by the wall pointed at us. “Get away from those cables! I’m going to call security.”
“Come on,” I said. “He’s not worth the time it would take. Delaying us here is probably exactly what he wants.”
“No,” said Lazar, looking up at me directly. “I just wanted to be sure you got my message.”
Caleb’s brow wrinkled as he shot me a look. “What message?”
“I was going to tell you,” I said. “Lazar was the one who broke into my house and took my hairbrush. He left me a note, apologizing.”
“Like that makes a difference?” London said.
Again Lazar looked like he was suppressing a comment. Caleb leaned over, grabbed his brother by the front of his dirty white shirt, and lifted him bodily to his feet. “You broke into Dez’s house?”
Lazar looked him in the eye. His mouth, so like Caleb’s own, widened into an infuriating grin. “Yep. And I have to tell you, she was wearing a whole lot less than she’s wearing now.”
My face got hot. Caleb tensed, then let go of Lazar and struck him with a quick, hard one-two, a cross and an uppercut. The sound of his fists slamming into flesh was sickening. Lazar’s head snapped back from the force. He back-heeled into the furniture behind him, and went down.
But he wasn’t out. Propping himself up on one elbow, he felt his jaw with the other hand and cocked one eyebrow up at Caleb.
“Coward,” Caleb said, and turned, pushing past Siku as if he couldn’t stand to be there another moment.
Siku spat on the ground at Lazar’s feet; then he lumbered off too.
“But . . .” November frowned at Lazar. “We can’t just let him go. . . . ”
“Come on.” London grabbed a fistful of her sleeve and tugged, and they walked away.
I began to follow, but Lazar spoke. “I meant what I wrote.” His voice was rough. I stopped to look back at him. “Please tell Amaris I’m sorry.”
I met his deep brown eyes and saw real emotion there, actual sorrow and regret. “Why?” I said. “What changed?”
When he spoke, his voice was almost too quiet to hear. “Back at our desert compound, you asked me to come with you. Back then I couldn’t even imagine such a thing. I thought you were crazy. But it planted a seed. I keep wondering what life would be like somewhere . . . else. A life that wasn’t all about hate.”
Lazar’s father, Ximon, was an abusive fanatic, and he’d shaped Lazar since birth to be the same. I was lucky. I couldn’t even imagine such a brutal upbringing, and how it would warp someone.
“Who do you want to be, Lazar?” I said. “You’re too old to keeping blaming your father. I hear what you’re saying, but words are empty. If you want to be a better person, do what a better person would do.”
He regarded me again for a long moment, his jaw muscles clenching. I knew I should go, that Caleb was waiting. But I stood there.
“I haven’t told them where you all are,” he said. “And I won’t. But they’ll have someone watching every parking lot exit, every outside door. Be careful.”
“I will.” I started to go, then turned back, and said, “You be careful too.”
His eyes got wide, and it looked like he was about to say something, but I spun away and ran after my friends. Somehow the spark of hope in his eyes was more difficult to bear than the pain.
CHAPTER 5
London accidentally sniffed out a quiet exit by leading us down a random hallway and opening up a door marked PRIVATE.
We all peered in to see a tall shirtless man in his thirties with shoulder-length, dyed black hair and a web of colorful tattoos running up his arms. He was thin, but a woman with pink hair stood in front of him with an airbrush gun, drawing a six-pack onto the hairless abs above his tight leather pants. A cage filled with pigeons rustled softly on his dressing table.
He looked up at us clustered in his doorway. “What the hell?”
“Hey, you’re the magic dude, right?” November asked.
He half-nodded as if he suddenly wasn’t sure.
November laughed and pointed at his airbrushed abs. “Makeup’s pretty magical, isn’t it?”
The makeup lady came toward us, spray gun aimed. “No one’s allowed in here!”
We backed up, and she slammed the door.
“Look!” London pointed at a sign at the end of the hall marked EXIT – TALENT ONLY.
Caleb placed his hand on the doorknob. “I’d say we’re all pretty talented, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Siku said, lifting up his shirt to look at his own ripped torso. “I’ve never painted on any muscles. Do I qualify?”
“Oh, yeah, you do.” November slid her hand up his bare stomach, grinning up at him.
He gave her a look from under his thick brows and pulled away, dropping his shirt. She frowned.
“Can we go now?” London shoved open the exit door.
“I can’t help it if Vegas turns me on,” said November, flouncing through the door after London.
“Everything turns you on,” said Siku, walking stolidly
after her.
London tucked her head in close to mine, talking low. “What is going on with them? She’s such a flirt, but it’s like she means it with him.”
“I know!” I whispered back. “And I think Siku likes it, but he’s not taking her seriously.”
“Wise boy,” she said.
We exited into an underground parking garage with sloping ramps and a line of black, white, and cherry-red limousines parked in extra-long spaces. Caleb was already on the phone with Amaris. “It says Reserved, Level One. Where are you?” His attention focused on what she was saying, then he covered the mic on the phone and said to us, “Amaris is one level up, and there’s a guy in a white turtleneck driving a white SUV watching her.”
“Subtle, aren’t they?” November put her hands on her hips. “What if we steal one of these limos and sneak out in one of them instead? A stretch limousine would look good on me.”
“What about Amaris?” asked Caleb. “I could hot-wire one of these for sure, but how’s she supposed to get rid of the guy up there?”
“We can’t steal a regular person’s car,” I said, thinking hard. “Then the cops would be after us as well as the Tribunal. And we need to ditch the guy watching Amaris. So we knock him out—”
“And take his car.” Caleb finished for me, smiling. Into the phone he said: “Amaris, we’re coming up, and the gentleman watching you will soon be donating his car. Is there anyone else with him? No? Good. Sit tight.” He hung up the phone. “Okay, she says that if we go up the ramp, we’ll see her in our van first, on the right, and about ten spaces up, on the same side, is the guy in the SUV.”
“Can we use the parked cars as cover to get close?” I asked, cautiously moving toward the ramp.
“Wait, wait, you big, clunky types.” November skittered in front of us, waving us back. “Let me look.”
London exhaled, pissed.
“I am not clunky,” said Siku.
But we all let her go first.
The ramp sloped upward, then turned sharply left to continue up to the next level. We big, clunky types stuck close to the wall as November crept forward and peered around the blank cement wall to see what was going on up there.
“Lots of cars between us and Amaris,” she said. “We can probably sneak up to her without the SUV guy seeing us.” She turned and gave us all a glare. “If you enormous people will be careful.”
“Now I’m enormous.” London pressed herself in close to me, as if to shield herself from November’s words. “Big, clunky, and enormous.”
“Well”—November gave her a toothy grin—“just in comparison to me. Speaking of which, I’m going to get small and pay the SUV guy a visit. He’s got his window rolled down.”
I couldn’t help grinning back at her. “When she reaches him, the rest of us move in.”
Everyone nodded, exchanging glances. November said, “Somebody better bring my clothes and backpack.”
“Got it,” said Siku.
The air around November seemed to bend, and then her human form was gone. A large, glossy brown rat stared up at us from the pile of her clothes, beady eyes shining. She chittered, waving tiny pink paws with sharp nails at us chidingly; then she scuttled around the corner and up the ramp underneath the parked cars.
“Stay low,” I said to the others, stooping down, and followed November. I stuck close to the left-hand wall, knowing that Amaris and the SUV man were against the right-hand wall, with rows of parked cars between me and them. The others scurried behind me, bent double, trying to keep within sight of November’s pink, snakelike tail as it vanished under first one car and then another.
We quickly came parallel to Amaris in the white van, the same one we’d stolen from the Tribunal over a month ago. Her back was to us, and I could see the top of her blond head above the van’s driver’s seat headrest. Four cars up from her sat a white SUV. I got on my hands and knees to scan under the cars. A foot-long whiskered form leaped silently onto the SUV’s rear bumper.
“Get ready,” I whispered. Still crouched, I made my way between parked cars, getting closer to the SUV. Caleb followed right behind me, while Siku and London split up to approach from the other side.
I stilled, listening, and heard the faint skritch of those tiny nails on the car’s roof. Risking a glance over the top of a convertible, I was just in time to see November jump down from the white roof of the SUV onto the ledge of the open driver’s-side window.
The man sitting there, beefy and balding with biceps that strained against the thick white fabric of his turtleneck sweater, emitted a train-whistle scream and batted at her instinctively with both hands. Too late. November had launched herself to land on top of his headrest, her naked tail slapping against his bare skull.
I ran toward the passenger side of the SUV, Caleb right behind me. Siku and London ran in from the driver’s side, as the man in white pushed the door open, trying to get out and grab the walkie-talkie from his belt at the same time.
That’s when November jumped onto his neck and slithered down the front of his sweater.
“Gah!” he yelled, scrambling out of the car completely and swatting at the front of his own body as a rat-sized lump wiggled its way toward his belt. “Get off me!” He struggled for composure, his voice deepening. “I call on you, come forth from shadow . . .”
He had great presence of mind, trying to force November out of her rat form even as her little rat hands unbuttoned his fly, her tail poking up out of the neck of his sweater, tickling his ear. It would be interesting to see what happened if she shifted back to human right there and then.
“Reject your dark form, come forth—Ack!” The power of the objurer’s call was cut off as Siku charged up and wrapped one arm around his neck in a headlock. The man choked, clawing at Siku’s clenched forearm.
November leaped off the man and ran up Siku’s leg, squeaking in a way that sounded uncannily like mocking laughter. London got in front and kicked the guy square in the crotch, a move I recognized from our brief martial arts class back in school.
The man gasped, doubling over as best he could with Siku holding onto him.
I opened the passenger-side door as Caleb rounded toward the others.
“Low blow, London,” I said.
She grinned. “Yep!”
It kept the man immobile in agony long enough for Siku to release him and for Caleb to land a neat punch to his jaw, followed by an uppercut and a hook. The man crumpled, unconscious.
Caleb shook out the fingers of his right hand. “Haven’t thrown this many punches in one day since the last time we all rumbled,” he said. “I have missed you guys.”
November had run back down Siku’s leg and dived into the guy’s pockets. But I climbed into the SUV’s passenger seat and jiggled the keys that were in the ignition. “We’d better move,” I said. “Load everything into this car, and let’s get out of here.”
In short order, Caleb had backed the SUV up to Amaris’s van, and we transferred their stuff from one to the other, tossing in our own backpacks and suitcases.
Amaris got out of the van and threw the keys into a Dumpster before jogging up to give me a hug. She looked ten times better than the last time I’d seen her, disheveled and lost after her father and brother’s betrayal and her decision to leave them and join us. Now she was animated, alive, face flushed with excitement. She’d cut her thick blond hair to a layered shoulder-length bob that suited her high cheekbones and huge brown eyes. Now that she didn’t have to wear the Tribunal’s traditional high-necked white dresses to cover up her amazing figure, she looked like a Victoria’s Secret model slumming it in cigarette jeans and a simple green T-shirt.
“Good to see you!” I said, hugging her back.
She pulled back a little and whispered, “We need to talk soon. Alone.”
I nodded, puzzled, as she released me and turned to the others, giving them a nervous little wave. “Hi.”
They hadn’t seen her either since the night we�
�d destroyed her father’s compound, and though they knew she’d changed loyalties to help Morfael and Caleb build the new school for otherkin, there was still a chill of hesitation in the air between her and the shifter kids. They didn’t know her through Caleb the way I did, and seeing her as a friend was going to take more time for them.
“Hey,” said Siku. He was throwing November’s enormous suitcase into the SUV and laying out the clothes she’d left behind when she’d shifted. November leaped into the trunk and, from the rustling in there, I could tell she had shifted back to human and was getting dressed.
“Hi, London.” Amaris made a point of catching London’s eye. “I like your hair.”
London blinked at the compliment. “Thanks.”
“Let’s get a move on,” said Caleb. “I’ll drive.”
“What, not Dez?” November emerged from the trunk, rumpled and pulling down her shirt. “Don’t you want the car to break down in the middle of the desert?”
Everybody knew about my propensity for shorting out machinery. It made life very inconvenient at times. As Caleb took the driver’s seat, taking a minute to disable the GPS so the Tribunal couldn’t track us, I nabbed shotgun next to him. Siku took up two seats behind us, with November squeezing in beside him thanks to her narrowness.
London and Amaris took the third row of seats in the way back. “You won’t make the engine die just from being inside the car, will you?” London asked me as she squeezed her way back.
“Hasn’t happened yet,” I said. “I think I have to be operating the machine to make it die.”
“Remind me never to loan you my phone,” said Siku.
We slammed the doors shut, and Caleb hit the accelerator.
As we cruised oh-so-casually out of the parking garage, everyone but Caleb ducked down below the windows, in case there were other objurers keeping watch on the exits. In the Tribunal’s car, we shouldn’t get as many suspicious glances, but better safe than sorry. And as an extralegal, ultrasecret organization, the Tribunal wouldn’t report the theft of the car to the police and risk exposing their own operation. That’s why, when in doubt, we stole from them. Plus, they deserved it.