Othermoon

by Nina Berry

  Lazar yelled from where he was taking ammunition off the objurer bodies, “Four trucks full of men coming any second now!”

  Off in the distance Caleb’s truck knocked the running objurer to the ground.

  I butted Amaris with my head, then nosed London’s bloody paws.

  “She stumbled into the cactus because she was saving me from those three.” Amaris pointed back at the three bodies I’d first seen as we drove up. “It’s my fault.”

  I sniffed London’s paws again, and then pushed my nose up against Amaris’s hands.

  Amaris’s eyes lit with understanding, then despair. “Heal her? No, I can’t, I . . .”

  She looked up at the headlights approaching. Caleb and Lazar were still far away. Siku was galloping toward us, but it would be nearly impossible for him or for me to carry London away with our claws and teeth without hurting her even more.

  Amaris looked at me, her jaw set. Her dark eyes turned steely. I’d seen a similar look on Caleb’s face many times. “I have to do this,” she said. “I love her, you know.”

  I nodded, and took a step back. Amaris closed her eyes and held her hands out, palms up. She grew very still. Her face took on a look of utter peace, as if all the love in her heart had poured outward.

  The headlights of Ximon’s trucks were fanning out into a semicircle, hoping to pin us against their empty truck. I placed my long, striped form between Amaris and London and the nearest truck, now fifty yards away.

  Amaris gasped, and her eyes flew open. Instead of warm brown, they glittered silver, bright as the full moon rising over us. Her skin took on a sheen, then a glow. Light trickled from the ends of her hair and streamed from the tips of her fingers. She looked like a creature made of moonlight. The wave of power echoing inside me told me that she had accessed something very powerful in Othersphere.

  “Amaris!” Lazar shouted in alarm from over by the truck. He began running toward her. “What . . . !”

  I growled a warning at him. He slowed, bewildered.

  Caleb’s truck rumbled between us and the oncoming vehicles. A pop, then something pinged into the truck. Bullets. I remembered the sound from the first night I’d met Caleb. The Tribunal had fired at us then too, as we’d stolen Lazar’s BMW to get us to safety.

  Amaris was smiling. The white radiance made her look like an angel or some benevolent alien. She ran a hand lovingly over London’s furry head, then down her shoulder to touch her front paws. Wherever the silver light touched, the wounds disappeared. The cactus spines were pushed out by the healing flesh. She leaned over and whispered into the wolf’s ear. “Wake up.”

  London lifted her head, ears erect, then scrambled to her feet, wagging her tail furiously. In the light coming from Amaris, her fur sparkled silver.

  Amaris’s smile widened. “Hey, beautiful.”

  London’s wild blue eyes took her in, shining like a star; then she barked joyously and licked her face. Amaris laughed.

  “We’re surrounded!”

  It was Caleb’s voice. Siku, November, and Lazar had run up closer as one of the four trucks circled around behind us. Caleb’s truck sort of shielded us from two of the vehicles, but there were headlights aimed at us from the four corners of the compass.

  The light from Amaris dimmed. She blinked, wavered, and then shook her head as if about to pass out. London dipped her head under Amaris’s arm to act as a support.

  I knew how Amaris felt. I, too, was growing weary. I’d drawn on my own reserves time and again to destroy the technology ranged against us. And given the slightly thicker texture of the veil aboveground, I didn’t have near enough power to stop the trucks, douse their lights, or melt all the guns pointing at us. But I couldn’t despair yet. We’ll find another way.

  “Get in the truck!” Lazar pointed toward Caleb’s truck.

  It was our only chance. He was right. But there were too many of the enemy. I could see the same thought on everyone’s face. Not all of us would get away.

  “Surrender and you might live,” came an amplified voice we all recognized. Ximon. I could see his snowy white head and broad shoulders climbing out of the cab of the truck to the east; he stood on the running board. He wasn’t using a megaphone or mic. His voice only sounded as if he were.

  Lazar was helping Amaris to her feet. She could walk, but kept one hand on London’s back and the other arm around Lazar’s neck for support.

  Siku turned his back to us, facing out toward the truck to the south, and bared his teeth. November huddled on top of him, using his shoulder blades for cover. A growl rolled out of my throat, echoed by a snarl from London. Beyond Siku, four figures in white poured out of the truck, lining up to aim rifles at us. If there were four in each truck, that was sixteen objurers, plus Ximon, to deal with.

  Caleb moved from his truck toward us as Amaris stumbled forward. A bullet hit the ground at Caleb’s feet, and he stopped dead.

  “Don’t move,” said Ximon. His tone was the most reasonable in the world, and I felt a lethargy weighing down my limbs. Lazar, London, and Amaris came to a stumbling halt.

  Why would I move? Moving would be silly.

  “In fact,” Ximon said, “why don’t you lie down? You’re so very tired.”

  I curled my tail around my body, bending my knees to lie down. I could see the others doing the same.

  “You’ve fought so well, so bravely. Lay your burden down now. Rest.”

  Resting will feel so good.

  I sat, stretching my forelimbs out luxuriously. Just a little nap. Near his stolen truck, Caleb wavered, eyes fluttering as if about to fall asleep on his feet.

  “Rest, and know that you are safe. . . .” The voice was so soothing. It was my father’s voice, a voice I had never known. He had found me at last, and he would protect me. “You are safe with—Aah!”

  The soothing tones broke off. An explosive cry pierced the calm. I snapped alert as an eagle dived from the sky to rake its talons across Ximon’s throat. He fell, and others rushed to help him.

  Arnaldo? I got to my feet. Caleb straightened, and London urged Amaris again toward the truck.

  There was a flurry of movement within the trucks. Guns were raised.

  Another penetrating screech descended like a thunderbolt as the eagle somehow was also behind me, falling upon one of the men facing Siku.

  But wait—Arnaldo was still to the north, hurtling back up into the sky. There was a second eagle helping us, one even bigger than he.

  A battery of shots came from the objurers. Dirt kicked up around us. Hot pain sliced into my shoulder. A bullet. No time to think. I moved anyway, putting myself between London, Amaris, and Lazar and the truck to the east. I looked over at Siku. He glanced over his shoulder at me. I nodded.

  We were the muscle. We would cover as they escaped in the truck.

  Siku’s huge head dipped in a small nod to me, black button eyes shining. Turning back to the men arrayed in front of him, he snorted, pawed the ground, and charged. November clung to his back like a rodent rodeo rider. I silently wished them good luck.

  There was a flutter of silent black wings over by the truck to the west as what looked like a giant owl swooped down, grabbed a man by the shoulder, and carried him, screaming, into the air. His legs kicked. The men around him ducked, staring up at the sky with dread. Two of them tried to aim at the huge, feathered creature, but couldn’t fire for fear of hitting the man it carried. He tried to shoot it too, but it dropped him. He plummeted fifty feet to the ground. A cloud of dust lifted as he hit.

  To the north, a man shrieked as a huge furry black form—not Siku’s—lunged out of the darkness and bit his neck from behind. What the hell? He dropped instantly, and the black bear reared, clawing the next man across the chest.

  The objurer next to him aimed his rifle at the bear, but something low to the ground and covered in spikes smashed into the back of his knees. He fell over backwards, bullet shooting harmlessly into the sky. His astonished whoop turned into a
yell of pain as he fell onto the spikes of the animal. He rolled off, and the giant porcupine, for that’s what it looked like, waddled over and raked its long claws across his throat, chittering with what sounded like glee.

  Otherkin? It had to be. But I couldn’t imagine how. Then, near the porcupine, I saw a bony figure in black tap a long wooden staff on the ground. The truck engine burst into flames.

  Morfael! This all had to be his doing.

  Ahead of me, a woman in white was helping Ximon to his feet, a cloth pressed to his throat and shoulder, stemming the blood from the wounds Arnaldo’s talons had inflicted. He could still walk, so he wasn’t as badly injured as I’d thought. The truck’s driver had climbed out to help him into the cab. Two other men stepped out, lowering rifles at me.

  I leaped.

  Aiming for the larger man, I swerved in midair to avoid a bullet and landed on top of him. His cry muffled by my fur, he thumped to the ground. My claws, longer than fingers, found his carotid artery. Blood gushed from his neck, and I left him, gurgling toward death, to find the other armed man wrestling with a mountain lion. A mountain lion? Astonishment made me hesitate.

  Ximon was in the truck, leaning heavily on the driver, who had shoved it into gear. The woman who had helped him was climbing into the passenger side when a lithe, spotted, four-footed form leaped onto her back and sank its teeth into her shoulder.

  She yelled in pain and surprise, batting at the creature. It was a lynx, its tufted ears strangely familiar. It crawled up her back to rest its front paws on her head, back paws on either shoulder, curving its head down to bite her nose.

  The woman squealed, trying to hoist the huge, velvety cat off her, and fell over. The lynx swiveled its head to catch my eye, and I swore it winked. On the other side, the mountain lion was finishing off its prey.

  I mentally shook myself as the truck engine revved. The wheels pushed it forward. It was coming right at me, about to run over the body of the man I’d just killed. I could see Ximon’s eyes, so like Caleb’s, glowering down at me.

  “Go!” he shouted to the driver.

  I stood my ground, glaring into the headlights, and wrenched deep into the whorl of darkness inside me. There wasn’t much left to draw on. But maybe just enough . . .

  I roared it out, and with a force almost physical, it slammed into the front of the truck. The lights flared and went out. The engine sputtered and died.

  My power against technology was gone, I could tell. If I did such a thing again, I might be forced to shift back to human. But it was worth it. In the sudden dark, my eyes adjusted to see Ximon’s flabbergasted expression.

  “God will damn you, Amba!” he shouted at me through the windshield. “You are damned to hell!”

  I lifted my upper lip in a snarl and leaped in a single bound onto the hood of the truck.

  Ximon and the driver startled back against their seats reflexively. The driver scrabbled at his door, and then shied away as the mountain lion stood on its hind legs and placed its forepaws on his window.

  I drew back my right paw. Smashing into the glass would cut me, but it would be worth it to feel Ximon’s face under my claws. I couldn’t wait to see the look in his eyes as I killed him.

  A high-pitched squeal, far away, hit my ear, making its way past the frightened beating of the human hearts in front of me, past the thundering lust for blood pulsing through my own heart.

  November.

  Another shriek, this one more desperate than the last.

  I pivoted, leaped off the truck, and bounded over the desert toward the sound.

  Two men lay dead on the ground as Siku sluggishly swiped a paw at a third. He missed, but came back with the other paw, hitting the man in the shoulder, knocking him down, to lie bleeding and cursing on the ground. A fourth man was getting up at that same moment, reaching for a rifle that lay a few feet away.

  Siku was bleeding from his left shoulder and his right haunch. I spotted two darts lodged in his fur. A foot-long pod-shaped bundle of fur and whiskers leaped right onto the face of the fourth man, clawing at his eyes.

  Yelling in panic, he tried to grab November bodily, but she wiggled away and slid down inside the front of his shirt.

  “Gah!” he yelled, plucking at the cloth.

  He pulled a pistol from a holster on his hip and pointed it at Siku, who was turning his way with heavy effort. But the man winced as something bulged down near his belt; he writhed, and fell, grabbing desperately for November.

  No mysterious otherkin had showed up in this group to help. Siku and November were fighting for us all. And I was almost there.

  A fifth man, the driver of the truck, left the cab and ran out, pistol drawn. He wavered, first pointing the gun at Siku, then at the rodent in his ally’s pants. Siku stumbled and fell on his side, chest rising and falling in huge, uneven gasps.

  Oh, no. Please, no.

  Satisfied that the bear was no longer a threat, the driver turned the pistol on the squirming protuberance traveling over the body of his friend, trying to angle the shot to hit only November.

  The man on the ground put his hands up toward the gun, kicking himself backwards. November squirmed back up into his shirt. “No!” he shouted. “Don��”

  The driver fired.

  His friend screamed, clutching his chest. The bulge that was November wiggled down the leg of his pants. He fell back, blood spreading in a red pool around him.

  “Damn it!” the driver said; his face blanched. He drew a deep breath, girding himself. “You won’t die in vain.” He pointed the gun once more, right at November.

  I was still too far away.

  “Hold still, little demon. . . .” The driver closed one eye, finger tightening on the trigger.

  Behind him, Siku thrust himself off the ground, eyes glinting red, looming like a ziggurat.

  Too late, the driver sensed something and turned. He screamed in terror, and fired point-blank.

  Then the bear fell upon him.

  The man disappeared beneath a hillock of fur, blood, and muscle. Bone cracked, and everything was still.

  I ran up. November peeked out from the pants leg and saw Siku lying next to her. He wasn’t moving.

  She chirped once, a question, and scuttled over to place a pink paw on his ear. She chirped again, more urgently, crawling up his neck.

  The air around Siku warped and bent. The bear was gone. A tall boy with wide muscular shoulders lay there now. His broad chest was marred by a gaping hole near the heart. His long black hair fanned in wild disarray around him. His dark eyes stared out at nothing. He was dead.

  CHAPTER 24

  Siku’s dead.

  I was standing, on two human legs, wrapped in a heavy black cloak, staring down at the body of my friend through a kind of tunnel. He looked very far away, even though I knew he lay right at my feet. Someone had covered most of him with the white coat taken from a dead objurer.

  November, also human and wearing a long black coat, lay next to him, face buried in his neck, sobbing. London, clad in rumpled sweats, tears coursing down her cheeks, crouched behind her, patting her back helplessly. Amaris hovered nearby, her blood-spattered hand pressed to her mouth, as if trying to stuff down her feelings.

  I tasted salt. Someone pressed something into my hand. A handkerchief. Mechanically, I raised it to wipe my eyes and my nose. An angular face, hollow with weariness and covered in brown dust, appeared in the circle of my vision.

  Morfael. It was his cloak I was wearing. I must have shifted involuntarily when Siku died. November had done the same.

  Oh, November.

  Dizziness overwhelmed me. I dropped down to squat on my heels. “I think I’m in shock,” I said. My voice was strangely clear. How was speech even possible now that Siku was dead? How could anything go on?

  Morfael hunkered down next to me. His opalescent eyes glittered with what might have been tears, his nearly transparent hair waving in the cold wind. “Yes,” he said. “That’s why you f
eel so distant from everything. Why you can speak about it.”

  I looked over at November. Her narrow fingers clutched at Siku’s black hair as deep, inconsolable sobs wracked her body. Her moans sounded like they came through a filter, as if my ears didn’t want to hear them.

  She was wearing Caleb’s coat. He’d put it on her, unless . . .

  “Caleb!” I said. “Where is he? Is he . . . ?”

  “He’s fine,” Morfael said. “He’s getting the truck. No one else was badly hurt. You had a bullet in your shoulder, but it healed when you shifted. Ximon has fled.”

  A round-bodied woman with gray tufted hair dressed in jeans and flannel shirt walked up to stand behind Morfael. I’d seen her recently, glaring at me through a computer screen. Now she gazed with pity down at Siku, shaking her head. Then she looked at me, and I recognized the tufts of her hair, just like the tufts on the ears....

  Lady Lynx.

  It must have been she, jumping on that objurer’s back, along with the mountain lion. But what was she doing here?

  I got to my feet, Morfael’s hand at my elbow to keep me steady, as Arnaldo walked up, wearing a set of clothes that didn’t fit him too well. Next to him was another familiar face, dark eyes sharper than I’d seen them before, bronze bald head gleaming under the moon.

  “Mr. Perez?” I asked.

  It was Arnaldo’s father. An unusually large red-tailed hawk swooped down, hovered above them for a moment, then landed on Mr. Perez’s shoulder. It turned its head to gaze at me with one bright eye that also looked familiar. With the lynx here from the Council, I could only think this was the hawk from the Council as well. But how could that be?

  “Yes,” said Mr. Perez. “I’m sorry we came too late to help your friend.”

  I looked at Morfael, amazement bumping up against my sorrow and shock-induced detachment. So that’s where he had been going as we headed off to the accelerator. Somehow Morfael had gathered some adult otherkin to help us.

  Arnaldo, his eyes red, had moved over to put one arm around London, the other hand reaching out toward November. Caleb’s stolen truck pulled up behind them. An enormous black bear shuffled up. Was that the bear-shifter from the Council? Although she wasn’t a family member, she halted at the sight of Siku, then uttered a mournful huff and ruffled the boy’s hair with her nose.