Tiger Magic su-5

by Jennifer Ashley

  “If I see you in or near Shiftertown again,” he said in a voice that held the quiet fury of a wild animal, “I will kill you.” His laughter was gone, and much of his Irish accent too. All that was left was the calm conviction of a man not afraid to kill. “No one will ever find you. I’ll guarantee that.”

  Crosby believed him. Liam reached for the lid of the Dumpster. He stared a while longer at Crosby, his eyes that strange blue-white, hard to look at. Crosby did his best to appear subdued and nonthreatening.

  Liam at last let the lid fall with a clang, shutting out light and fresh air. The truck’s door slammed, and this time, the truck drove away.

  Crosby started working on the tape around his wrists. Liam’s threat didn’t bother him, because Crosby had no intention of ever going back to Shiftertown again. He was done with them.

  He finished making his way out of the tape, reached under his shirt, and pulled out the thin undershirt he’d managed to stuff inside before the Shifters had caught him and thrown him down. The shirt had belonged to the tiger, and all Crosby had to do was take it to his commander. Mission over.

  * * *

  The art class for the Shifter kids was held in a community center near the gallery. Armand had arranged everything with his usual efficiency.

  Carly and Armand started off with a tour of the gallery, showing the cubs the different styles of the artists, from representational art and sculpture to the abstract. Armand talked about texture and how to view a picture with rich texture from the side to get the full effect.

  At the community center, Armand demonstrated various techniques, explaining that creating art was not always about simple drawing or blotching paint on canvas. He showed them how etchings were printed, and let the kids pull sheets through the printer to reveal the picture of a wildcat he’d prepared.

  Next Armand stood them in front of easels and showed them how to hold pencils and paintbrushes, and then let them choose the medium they liked best for their own projects. Armand was very good at teaching kids how to make art fun.

  Carly watched them with interest. Ten Shifter kids had come, from Cherie, nearly twenty-one, to Jordan, Spike’s son, aged four. Cherie enjoyed herself drawing tall, long-legged angular women who looked a little like Yvette. Jordan happily dragged a brush loaded with paint all over his page, leaving thick red and yellow splotches, which he looked very proud of.

  Carly thought the cub with most potential was the little polar bear Olaf. He’d chosen watercolors, and had at first painted his entire sheet of watercolor paper black. Once that dried, he scraped away the dried paint with a palette knife to reveal patterns of the white paper underneath, like a negative. The lines resembled large bears, but they were incomplete, featureless. Olaf contemplated them with the dark-eyed seriousness with which Carly had seen him observe the rest of the world.

  “That’s very nice, Olaf,” she said after Armand had bustled out of the room, going for more supplies. “Unique. Can you tell me about it?”

  Olaf kept studying the painting-drawing, palette knife in hand. “My parents,” he said.

  Who were dead, Ronan’s mate, Elizabeth, had told Carly. Ronan had discovered Olaf, an orphaned Shifter cub no one knew what to do with, and had taken him in.

  Poor kid. Carly opened her mouth to praise his painting again when she smelled smoke.

  Cherie smelled it too. She raised her head, her nose wrinkling, her sudden fear showing Carly how young she still was by Shifter standards. Cherie was looking around for an adult Shifter, someone to keep her safe.

  Carly saw the ceiling above Cherie give. She grabbed the girl and yanked her out of the way just as a fireball came down and flames exploded through the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The room in which Armand taught was in the middle of the two-story building, and had no windows. The explosion shattered the lights, turning the bright space to night, lit by roiling gas-fed flames. Cubs screamed, easels clattered to the floor, and little pots of turpentine popped under the heat, feeding the fire.

  Out! They had to get out.

  Confusion and noise took over. Carly inhaled smoke and heat, and she gasped for breath, coughing. Dimly she remembered that when people died in a fire, it was often from smoke inhalation, long before the flames reached them.

  But she couldn’t see to find the doors, couldn’t remember where the doors were. If the building had emergency systems, like lit-up exit signs or sprinklers, she saw no sign of them.

  They were trapped.

  Carly heard the high-pitched keening of Jordan, calling desperately for his daddy, Cherie’s sobs of terror, and cries and calls from the other kids. Nothing at all from Olaf.

  Stop. Wait. Carly closed her eyes, blotting out the horror. She needed to remember what the room had looked like moments before the explosion. Where everyone was. Who’d been there, who hadn’t.

  Armand had stepped out to fetch more supplies. Spike and Ellison, who’d accompanied the children, had been wandering in and out of the building. Carly knew enough about Shifters by now to know that they were watching out for danger. But the danger had been inside the room, in the ceiling above it, not outside.

  Spike and Ellison, and Armand, would see the flames or the smoke. They’d come and call for help. Meanwhile, Carly had to find the door and get the cubs out.

  Oblong room, doors at either end. She and Olaf had been in the center of it, Carly facing the east door, Olaf staring at his picture. Carly had leapt to jerk Cherie out of the way of the falling ceiling, but had Olaf moved in time?

  “Olaf!”

  Olaf still made no noise, and bile rose in Carly’s throat. She couldn’t breathe, she had to get out, to save the cub inside her.

  Her fire-safety training, which Armand made all his employees take, cut through her fear. Smoke rose. “Down! Everybody down! Crawl toward the walls, find the doors!”

  Carly’s voice, ringing with authority, cut through the screaming. The cubs, used to obeying the alpha Shifters, dropped to the floor, their yelling dying to whimpering.

  Carly got to her hands and knees and started across the room, groping for any of the cubs along the way. After a few moments, she found her hands full of soft but wiry fur, then the white face of a small polar bear looked out of the hell at her.

  “Olaf.” Carly exhaled in relief, then regretted breathing out. Breathing in hurt. “Find the door, Olaf. Or at least the wall. Can you do that?”

  Olaf turned around and started walking but stopped abruptly when Carly let go of him, and waited. Carly caught on after a second—Olaf wanted to lead her to safety.

  Carly held on to his fur again and let him pull her along, she half crawling alongside him. She passed another cub on the way and scooped him up, setting him on Olaf’s strong back.

  Olaf made it to the wall, then put his shoulder to it and slid along the wall until he found the door. Lungs nearly bursting, Carly pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t move. Jammed? Or locked?

  “Cherie!”

  Cherie could turn into a grizzly bear. If the door was stuck, even a half-grown grizzly would be of more use than a human, a polar bear cub, and another child paralyzed with fear.

  “Cherie, we need you!”

  Cherie didn’t answer. Olaf made a little growl in his throat, then he scampered back into the fire. Carly shouted after him, but in a few seconds, Olaf returned, his mouth around Cherie’s hand.

  Carly rose, seized Cherie by the arms, and pulled her down to the floor with the rest of them. She put her hands on Cherie’s shoulders and looked into her face. “Cherie, you need to shift. I need someone strong to push open the door.”

  “The door won’t open?” Cherie’s eyes were unfocused, the girl clearly terrified.

  “Please.” Carly shook her. “I need you to be a bear right now. Shift!”

  Cherie stared at Carly a moment longer in incomprehension, then she nodded. Shaking fingers fumbled at her blouse, and Carly had to help her pull it off. By the time C
herie had shed enough clothes, the young woman’s instincts took over, and she began to change.

  It was painful for her, Carly saw, Cherie letting out noises of anguish as her face elongated into the bear’s, her hands and feet curving to accommodate grizzly claws.

  Carly scrambled back as Cherie grew and changed until a grizzly, easily as large as a wild one, stood next to them. Cherie rose on her hind legs, growling, and pounded on the door with her massive paws. The door at last broke under her onslaught, spilling her, Carly, and the cubs out into the corridor.

  But instead of the refuge Carly pictured, she saw more fire. Flames licked down the walls, the way out of the building blocked.

  “Damn it!”

  At least there was more air out here. For now.

  The studio lay on the second floor, but there were other rooms up here, rooms with windows. If Carly could gather the cubs into one of them, she could open a window where the fire department might reach them and get them down. Even better if she could find a fire escape.

  Carly hurried down the hall, trying the doors she could reach. All were locked.

  Shit, what was wrong with this place? No sprinklers, no alarms, locked doors, no marked exits . . .

  But there were sprinklers. Carly glimpsed them in the ceiling, and she saw the alarms on the walls waiting to be pulled. Everything going wrong at the same time was too much of a coincidence.

  This fire had been set deliberately, the cubs and Carly trapped inside the room on purpose.

  Carly would have to save her fury at whoever would be twisted enough to set fire to a building with kids inside for later. Right now they had to get out.

  “Cherie!” she called. Cherie came to her at once, the large bear shivering as she leaned on Carly. Looking for reassurance, Carly realized. And for someone to tell her what to do.

  Carly put her arm around the bear’s shoulders, giving her a half hug. “We’ll get out of this, Cherie. And you’re going to help me. Can you break that glass? There’s a fire extinguisher.”

  What a small extinguisher would do against a giant rampage of flame, Carly didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt, and it would give Cherie something constructive to do.

  Cherie bounded to the extinguisher, her tread shaking the floor. With one blow of her large paw, she shattered the glass case. Carly snatched up the extinguisher inside, bigger and heavier than the one they kept at the gallery, and cranked it on.

  The extinguisher, at least, worked. Fire retardant spewed from its hose, keeping the advancing flames from reaching this part of the hall. Carly dragged the thing back into the studio from which cubs were still straggling out, spraying what she could.

  She yelled at Cherie to start trying to break down the other doors. Cherie obeyed, the tiles vibrating under Carly’s feet every time Cherie’s heavy body hit a door.

  Carly kept spraying the studio. She was coughing though, not finding air. The cubs surrounded Carly, holding each other, holding her. She did a head count and nearly cried with relief when she counted eight—nine and ten were Cherie and Olaf in the hall.

  Her effort with the fire extinguisher was working somewhat, tamping down the immediate flames. Carly led the cubs out of the studio again, squirting at fire as she went, taking the kids to where Cherie was still trying to open a door.

  All the doors seemed to be sealed shut, or bolted. They were steel doors, and Cherie was denting them, but none had broken open.

  But they had a chance. Carly kept spraying, Cherie kept beating at the doors, Olaf trying to help. The rest of the cubs huddled around Carly, Jordan holding on to one of her legs.

  All would have been well, Carly thought, if not for the next explosion that ripped down the hall, shooting another inferno into the corridor.

  * * *

  He barreled through them all, the barricades, the firefighters, the police who tried to stop him. He broke anything in his way, including the front door that already sagged from its hinges, and leapt into a fiery nightmare.

  It was black-dark and hot, smoke pouring through the corridor. He’d never been in this building before, never been near it until he’d followed Carly and Armand here today.

  No matter. Tiger’s well-honed sense of smell told him the cubs were above him, trapped on the second floor. It also told him the jaguar and large gray wolf at the end of the hall were frustrated by the barricade that blocked their way up the stairs.

  The debris included part of the walls, the pipes, the ceiling. Spike and Ellison were trying to climb over it, but with every leap or step, the pile shifted, sending them down again.

  Tiger growled, shaking the air. Ellison and Spike swung around, wolf and jaguar staring in surprise before turning back to the task of climbing up the blockage.

  Tiger bounded past them. He stretched his big body and leapt up the mounded debris, finding holds that had eluded the other two, until he made it to the top. From here, it was a short leap to the next floor, but Spike and Ellison were snarling beneath him.

  Tiger slid a few inches back toward them, speaking in growls. Grab on, assholes. Hurry up.

  Ellison’s wolf understood, and he reached up to clamp his mouth around the base of Tiger’s tail. Spike, behind him, wrapped his jaguar paws around Ellison.

  Tiger leapt. He used claws and paws to scramble up through the hole to the next floor, the weight of the other two barely slowing him. When they reached level flooring, Spike and Ellison dropped off, and all three faced a corridor littered with burning beams.

  Tiger ran. His body stretched and bunched as he plowed through the flaming mess, closing his eyes against the black smoke. He knew where Carly was without having to look. The mate bond was taut like a stretched rubber band, pulling him straight to her.

  He found Carly on her back on the floor, inches from a burning beam, her body still. Tiger roared, shaking loose more debris, and cubs screamed.

  The jaguar ran by. Jordan shouted, opening his arms. Spike caught Jordan’s shirt with his teeth, flipping the little boy up and onto his back.

  Cherie in her grizzly form was hunkered next to Carly, and she raised her muzzle in a mournful howl. Olaf, in his human form, sat on Carly’s other side, holding Carly’s hand.

  Tiger’s heart pounded as he slid to a halt, but he knew Carly wasn’t dead. The mate bond was still there, as was the bond to her cub.

  But she was unconscious, Carly’s face ashen in the light of the fire. Cherie rocked next to her, moaning.

  Tiger nuzzled Carly’s face, taking her scent, sending reassurances through the bond. Then he turned and grabbed at the handle of the nearest door, the heat of it singeing his paws.

  Olaf, serious-faced, said, “We tried to open the doors. They’re blocked. Is Carly dying?”

  Tiger saw where Cherie had dented two of the steel doors. He grabbed for the handle of one of the bent ones, but the door handle snapped off, and Tiger slipped to the floor.

  He stood again, shaking himself out, letting rage take over. Cherie couldn’t budge the door, but Cherie hadn’t been created in a lab where breaking through doors had been part of her training. After a while, the researchers had had to make Tiger’s cage doors about two feet thick.

  Tiger backed up, lunged, and hit the door with all four paws, full force. The door groaned under the onslaught, bent some more, then broke from the wall and skittered inside the room. Tiger rode the door through the flames, through burning tables and chairs, and slammed into a wall under a window. The shades were down, but Tiger ripped the shades from the wall and then yanked the window out of the wall as well.

  Firemen below yelled, signaling the ladder truck to move its position. Tiger dropped the window and ran back through broken glass to the corridor.

  He grabbed Ellison by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to Carly. Ellison, catching on, shifted to human, his skin breaking into sweat from the fire’s heat. Ellison lifted Carly over his shoulders and ran with her to the window.

  No time to wait to see whether the la
dder trucks came for her—Tiger had to get the others out.

  Spike ran by with Jordan on him as well as one other cub, and into the room with the open window. The cubs scrambled from his back to the windowsill.

  Tiger growled at Cherie. She shook herself, recognizing the commander in Tiger. Three more of the cubs fit on her back, and she ran through the burning door to the next room.

  Four cubs remained, including Olaf. Tiger lowered himself and they climbed onto him, clinging to his fur. A sweat-streaked fireman appeared at the window, reaching for Carly, and then another fireman came behind him. Spike and Ellison stayed with the cubs, helping and calming them, while the firemen lifted them out.

  They’d make it.

  As soon as the thought formed in Tiger’s head, another explosion sounded, blasting Tiger and his load of cubs back into the hall. The steel doorframe of the doorway to safety folded in on itself as the wall broke apart and fell.

  The explosion had come from above, and now the corridor’s ceiling collapsed, burying Tiger and all four cubs under burning wreckage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Carly swam to wakefulness, and thought she was being smothered. She grabbed for the thing that pressed her face and found a plastic mound, then saw the dark face of an EMT behind it.

  “Take it easy,” the man said. “You’re fine. You just need oxygen. You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Carly nodded, the mask moving with her. “We’ll get you to a hospital and have both you and the baby checked out. All right?”

  Carly lifted the mask from her mouth. “Where are the others?”

  The EMT pressed the mask back into place. “They’re coming out. Your boss said there were ten kids. That right?”

  Carly nodded again, tears leaking from her eyes.

  “Some crazy tiger ran in there after them.” The EMT shook his head. “I guess he was one of those Shifters. We couldn’t stop him.”

  Tiger? Carly couldn’t shout questions with the oxygen mask over her face. More tears came. Tiger had returned. And he was saving the cubs.