Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters)

by Heather Heffner

  I fell for a long time. The inky fingers of night dragged me down eagerly, as if they’d waited a long time for this. The only thing I could see was the unearthly glow of the soul, beating its wings the other way. Up. I felt happy, bathed in that light. I wondered what my own soul looked like.

  And then he caught me.

  Chapter 17: The Mirror Room

  I remembered thinking the light was too bright, even as I pushed through the slithering shadows toward it. The lights condensed and then broke apart into six separate orbs. I drew up in wonder. I was staring at six souls.

  “They’re beautiful. And they’re here. They’re really all here. Tell me it isn’t true, Raina.”

  Khyber crouched nearby with knees drawn up to his chest, his eyes glinting a jewel-like blue. I was struck by an image of our old kitten, Mishi, and how she would stare at our lit-up Christmas tree for hours. I crawled up next to him, and he draped a wing around me. The feathers were rough and scraggly, like an uncomfortable wool blanket, but they didn’t cut or jab.

  “Donovan’s.” One finger pointed toward the unpredictable, fiery wings. “Aaron’s. Crispin’s. Aleksandr’s.” The finger swept by the deceptively calm crescent moon, the blood diamond, the horse. “Santiago’s. Takakazu’s.” His finger hovered on the spot next to the samurai sword. “And that is where Duck Young’s will be. I almost have them all. Thanks to you, Raina.”

  I liked the way he said my name. I liked the way his voice softened at the end.

  “Thank you for catching me.”

  Khyber’s cool fingers melted into my skin as he brushed hair from my face. “You’ve never needed me to catch you. Not being what you are.”

  My heart began hammering over two different things entirely. Did he have to lean in that close? “What am I, Khyber?”

  “Changeling Soul.”

  I could feel the water trembling inside me as his fingers lingered on my temples.

  “Someone released it,” he muttered, surprised.

  “Released what?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It couldn’t have been one of them. They were under orders not to touch you.” Khyber stood up and began pacing around the souls.

  I stayed seated. “Khyber.”

  “Prince Khyber.”

  I folded my arms. “Are you that in love with the title Maya gave you? Here, in this cave, we don’t need to pretend! Where is here, anyway?”

  “Outside the palace walls,” Khyber said in a low voice. “It’s better for you not to know the location. For your own safety.”

  “‘For my safety,’” I repeated. “Is that why you won’t give me any answers tonight? About what a ‘Changeling Soul’ is? About what’s been released? Do you know what I risked to find out where Donovan’s soul was? You owe me something!”

  The vampyre prince went incredibly still. “Did you risk? Or did you give?”

  God, one of these days I would stop blushing whenever he started hinting about you-know-what.

  “I said ‘risk,’ didn’t I? No ‘all-the-way,’ business.”

  Khyber turned away, snorting. “I was actually more worried about Donovan completing his vampyre mark on you, not chinks in your chastity belt.”

  “ ‘Completing’ his mark? It’s not like these things are done in erasable marker,” I grumbled, rubbing at the irritable bite mark on the right side of my neck.

  “Donovan may not be as old as Aaron and I, but he is the third son, and a vampyre prince. His specialty is drinking away all of your self-restraint, your logic, your happy memories of boys at home—in short, your ability to be full. He leaves you with a hollow hunger that can’t be satisfied. It can only be sated, for a little while. By him.”

  “Lust.” I watched the wings grow and then spontaneously burst into flame. “No. He didn’t get me. This time.”

  “There won’t be a next time,” Khyber said satisfactorily.

  “How will you get Duck Young’s soul?”

  His wings briefly brushed my shoulder. “Your half-sister will give it to me.”

  “Citlalli!” The mere mention of her name kindled a sunny warmth in the cave that the six vampyric souls, for all of their pale light, couldn’t create. “How? When?”

  “She has answered my mother’s invitation to come to Eve’s Court.”

  My mind felt like it had been doused with cold water. I watched my sister march into the seat of the vampyres’ power and demand my release. I watched Donovan look her up and down, Aaron mutter about ‘a waste of space and time,’ and worst of all, Maya, tapping her fingers on the gingko throne with head cocked to the side, waiting. Citlalli wouldn’t even see the Dark Dogs sneaking up behind her.

  “I do owe you… Considering the location of Donovan’s soul, who knows how many centuries would have passed before the soul felt allured enough to reveal itself? None of us guessed Donovan’s soul was posing as his fake wings. It’s been so long, I forgot what hope looked like.” Khyber marveled at the souls again, and then spun around to me, eager. “What do you want, Raina? Anything at all. If it’s within my power, then I shall grant it for you.”

  A small peep escaped through my lips. “Just. Let. Me. Go.”

  His face pulled back into that impenetrable mask once more. “No. Do not ask that.”

  “We’re outside the palace walls.” I took a step toward him. “I can just go home now. Please. I need to. You have the souls you need. But I need my sister. I have to tell her she’s walking into a trap.”

  “If you leave this cave, then I cannot protect you.” Khyber gripped my shoulders, eyes over-boiling with midnight-blue fire, bordering on black. “Raina, I know you’re frightened for your sister. I will look after her, if the dumb dog can understand to stay on a leash. For you know what happens if she goes running off into the dark, don’t you? There are some evil places into which I can’t follow you. Eve’s darkness belongs to Her. And that’s where you will go, if you step outside.”

  We hung there, paralyzed, in a silent staring contest of sorts, until his grip threatened to break my wrists.

  “You’re hurting me!” I gasped out, and he immediately let go, fingers clenched in frustration.

  “Don’t go, Raina.”

  He’s just trying to frighten me. We’re outside the palace walls. How can I go back, when Amrit knows?

  Instead, I asked: “Why do you care? I’ve served your ‘purpose,’ remember?”

  “No, you haven’t. Our deal.” His hands shook the tiniest bit. “You said you would help me die.”

  I had to laugh. “Then help you, I shall. I shall gladly help all vampyres die. But first, I am going to help the living. I am going to my sister.”

  “Don’t leave.”

  It was more of a ghostly whisper, already half-forgotten in my mind, as I charged up the steps and out to greet the moonlit surface of the world. Cool, fresh air played against my face, and I laughed in delight as I dashed into the night, not knowing where, only knowing it was away from There.

  ***

  I was on an old road long over-grown with vines and ferns, but a road nevertheless, when the little girl fell into step beside me.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  I looked at her cheerfully. “Away from you.”

  We kept walking. I should have felt afraid, but I didn’t. The bite marks burned upon my neck. My eyes swept through the darkness like searchlights, as if expecting to see morning dawn on the horizon.

  “There isn’t any way to escape from here unless you know how,” I said aloud. “Right?”

  I saw her pointy teeth flash in a smile. “That’s right.”

  “I’ll just keep walking then.”

  I wanted to get away from her, but suddenly, a powerful weariness stole over me. I stopped, body swaying like a wind-bent tree. I felt the skies claw the darkness in response, struggling to reach me. The smallest drop of rain touched my nose. Then I slipped away completely.

  “You’re so tired!” the little girl said in false alar
m as I slumped. “Come back to my home. I have a nice new room you can stay in.”

  I looked at her. Somehow, it wasn’t impossible for a little girl like her to be dragging a woman twice her size. “You killed Colleen to ‘lift my curse.’ Well—it was the older version of you. The Queen. But I know you’re all the same. You’re all her: Maya.”

  “It was fun.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I love you!” She sniffed my neck in delight, and my eyes glazed over again.

  Then I was standing on my own two feet, overlooking a rocky valley. “You live in a palace.”

  “Come inside.” The rains and winds tugged me the other way, but I was hauled over the threshold. Then everything went quiet. I saw the cool, luminous faces of mirrors.

  “Sleep here tonight.” The little girl arranged a pillow beneath my head and rested my hands on a small, hard mat. “It’s so comfortable, isn’t it?”

  “It’s so comfortable,” I agreed.

  “I’m going to say goodnight now, Raina.” Her voice deepened. “Enjoy the sleep of eternity. And when you wake, you shall never worry ever again.”

  I stared, wide-eyed, as black smoke poured out of her eyes, and then it was Maya rising to full-stature above me. The mirrors reflected only a small cot and my tiny body splayed against it, gazing up in unspoken fear.

  She had no reflection.

  I told myself not to fall asleep.

  I told myself no, not under any condition, was I to—

  ***

  “Fall asleep.” Queen Maya poked the glass looking into the Mirror Room. “There you go.”

  I stood beside my Mother-Lover-Foe as I had done a million times before and watched Raina’s soul come out to play. It was in the deepest stages of sleep when it felt safe to do so, to dance and carouse in the velvety shadows carpeting the room. It didn’t fear the long faces of the mirrors watching in silent judgment.

  As I’d thought, the soul flew.

  My Queen crouched before the mirror, inky-black hair coiling around her feet like a serpent. She never tired of watching this. I imagined seizing her skull and bashing her head into the glass, over and over again, until I was soaked in her blood.

  And yet still, she would rise. She would shrug off death as easily as if it were a persistent insect. Because I was her life and she was mine.

  I had yet to figure out an effective double suicide strategy.

  “You’re certain she is worthy for the Dark Spirits?” Maya’s breath fogged the glass.

  “Yes. I conducted all of the trials myself.”

  She smiled, an expression ugly and unnatural on her. “You wandered too far into the woods, didn’t you?” she sang sweetly to the girl. “You couldn’t remember the way home.”

  The soul couldn’t hear her crooning, but it spun, hesitant, from mirror to mirror, as it trying to remember which girl was its owner. Hundreds of Rainas slumbered in fractured shards and peered from oval faces, their heads of raven black hair spread over countless pillows, and their soft mouths contorted in unconscious grimaces, as if in pain. The soul wandered from mirror to mirror, lost. Maya gave a girlish giggle.

  This was how she was, when she wore her younger years. I had watched Maya develop this incredible transformative power over the years, sometimes with jealousy, sometimes with wonder. To make a time and place for a body that never aged, Maya had summoned into existence the Four Stages of her “Life”: the childlike but cruel Girl of eleven, the alluring young woman in her twenties named Lover, the middle-aged, stern-faced woman named Queen, and finally, the oldest of them all, the grandmother she really was but rarely visited, called Vampyre. I had not seen Vampyre in the past century. Into that old, hairless body of twilight, she’d poured all of her oldest and bitterest memories, the ones she couldn’t bear to face if she wanted to remain sane.

  But she still had them. Not like me. I chose to simply forget.

  “Choose, you insufferable child!” Beside me, Lover stamped her feet.

  “Patience, my Queen. She’s different than the others,” I said. “Look how she seeks the skies.”

  Indeed, the soul streaked toward the ceiling and was startled when she bounced back. She slowly floated down like a falling leaf back into the depths of the Mirror Room. She dropped before the smallest looking glass of all: an ornate hand mirror with metallic moon flowers carved around the face. My throat clogged. We watched her crawl inside toward her spirit’s reflection. And the solid wall of the mirror closed behind. Trapping the soul. Forever.

  “It appears even she is not so different in the end.” My Queen was watching me, not the soul beating its wings inside the cage. I closed my eyes. I had to be careful. She was intolerably jealous in this stage.

  She slunk to my other side. Her fingers burned on my wrist with a cold far unkinder than death. “You’re upset. Why, I wonder? You can still fuck her. She’ll be absolutely obedient now.”

  “You misread me, my Queen,” I answered. I looked her directly in the eye, an ocean of calm inside. “I already got what I wanted.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” she purred, opening up her old music box. She pricked herself, and then sprinkled a drop of blood onto the shapeless mannequin. It sprang to life, wearing Donovan’s unbearable swagger and arrogance.

  But wingless. I hid a smile.

  “Prince Donovan, returned already.” The Queen sounded surprised. “Did you find Duck Young?”

  “Too late. He’s already gone after her.” Donovan sighed. “Ah, my impatient little brother. By dawn, that werebitch Alvarez and all of her pack will be dead.”

  Chapter 18: Temple Besieged

  I sat bolt upright in the darkness, my breathing a living animal trapped in the room. She was gone. They had done it. I couldn’t find her anywhere.

  From somewhere far away, I heard knocking, as if bitter information were trying to batter its way into my head, to tell me things I already knew. Then I heard the pounding of fists again, followed by the jiggling of the lock. Someone was trying to come in.

  “What the hell?” Miguel rose off his cot in the living room, disheveled black hair poking up like a seagull’s wing.

  “Miguel, get back!” I rammed past in my hurry to check the peephole, tripping over a disgruntled Saja in the process.

  “Yah! Citlalli, come here!” Una’s voice, usually so cool and unruffled, sounded truly frightened now. I’d thought she was spending the night at the jjimjilbang.

  “It’s happening, Citlalli! They’re attacking the temple.”

  I didn’t need to clarify who “they” were. I’d gone through a hell of a lot of work to make sure Duck Young’s soul stayed in Peomeosa Temple.

  “Grab your keys.” I tossed Miguel a jacket. “We have to go.” We bolted after Una down to the street, Saja on our heels.

  My arms felt eerily numb in the cold of the car as we drove, neon lights partially blinding me. I could still feel the living, beating pulse of Raina’s life force—before it had been snuffed out. I didn’t want to know. My God, I didn’t want to know. After all of these fruitless months of searching, of believing there was still some hope… My mind blanked out, rigid with cold. I could only half concentrate on what Una was telling me.

  “Agusshi Hyeon Bin found me in dreaming,” Una explained in a voice white with shock, oblivious to Saja’s attempts to bury his nose in her lap. “The vampyre prince, Duck Young, sent ordinary people to Peomeosa Temple. Monks invite them in. These people, not so ordinary. They don’t find soul, but they do kidnap head monk. Now they will kill him if monks don’t give up soul. Already many vampyres attack surrounding villagers. No one can defend. Agusshi tries to fight with small group, but they need help.”

  “I thought the soul would be safe there.” My mind raced. Khyber. What was he doing during all of this? He couldn’t want Duck Young to recover his soul.

  The Were Alliance headquarters were abuzz with activity by the time we got there, the Weres preparing to enter Eve. Jaehoon nodded when
he saw Una.

  “Good. You will guide us.” He asked in Korean, “Did you bring them?”

  Una held out the prayer wheels. Jaehoon lifted one aloft. “Take one and then go to your stations!” he bellowed. “I will go first.”

  I was first in line, but Jaehoon grabbed my shoulder. “Citlalli. You are on watch duty with Yu Li.”

  “Watch duty?”

  “Someone goes. Someone stays behind, to watch the bodies.” Una gestured to the prone Weres who had already entered Eve. “I will return soon with updates.”

  “But—!” This was all happening too fast. Across the room, I watched Kaelan help Moon fall asleep, Bae set up the candle doorways to guide their spirits back, and Yu Li stalk back and forth like a caged cat. She didn’t like this any better than I did. Nowhere did I see the familiar mop of ruffled, brown hair.

  Then a callused hand slipped into mine.

  “Take good care of my body, will you?” Rafael said with a wink. I clung more tightly to his hand. His eyes widened, but I didn’t look away. I would have held on longer, but then Yu Li glanced our way. Immediately, our fingers sprang apart.

  “I’ll try to resist adding any alterations. You know. Tattoos on your face. Nipple piercings.”

  “I could pull it off,” he shot back, and I privately agreed.

  “Get out of here! Go avenge my lost finger!”

  He grabbed my scarred stump and pressed his lips to it, briefly. Then he was gone.

  Rafael might not have cared who saw us, but I couldn’t say the same. I sat there, cringing like a wilting plant, as Yu Li turned on the full wrath of the sun.

  “A friendly kiss between teacher and student?” she asked bluntly.

  Great. I’m supposed to guard a bunch of comatose bodies, but who’s gonna protect me from her? I hopefully grabbed for Miguel’s sleeve, but he shook me off.

  “Sorry, Citlalli. Gotta make a run for more medical supplies. First assignment as unofficial adoptee of the pack. AWOO!” Doing his best wolf cry, Miguel disappeared up the stairs with Saja.

  Yu Li and I set up posts on opposite sides of the room. Things were better between us now. I knew we had to be better, after our last showdown in the playroom. With a unified pack finally behind us, the Were Alliance had approved the mission to go ahead with the infiltration of Maya’s court. Yu Li had shut up any last dissenters with her infamous death ray gaze. She had my back. I could trust her. But there was still one last obstacle we hadn’t talked about—the man who had brought me into this life, who had grown to be a father figure for her son: Mr. Rafael Dominguez. Usually after a bad break-up, you don’t step within a square foot radius of your significant other. We all practically lived in the same quarters.