Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters)

by Heather Heffner

  All in all, I was overjoyed when the great belly of a cockatrice finally broke through the clouds.

  Chapter 25: Of Livers and Love

  I clung tightly to Kwan’s mane as he propelled his great serpent body through the cloud banks. The cockatrice’s big green head dipped under the clouds, and I spotted an emerald island below, with dramatic peaks jutting up from the jungle. I asked the great cockatrice for the name of the isle, but he only laughed at me, saying that names changed faster than a century’s wind. That didn’t seem very fast to me, but I took his word for it.

  “Go to the biggest sea cave,” Kwan said, head bobbling under the ferocity of cold wind currents. “Do not waste any time. I am sorry we could not reunite under better circumstances.”

  The soft hairs of his mane rippled against my cheek consolingly.

  “Thank you.” My heartbeat slowed as the island grew larger. “Please stay close. I’ll call on you again.”

  “And if you do, may you have another passenger with you.” That ominous “if” continued to rumble after he left, leaving me to pick my way over a beach of broken seashells alone. The ocean roared at my back, its frothing waters flooding the cove and soaking my converses. I scrambled higher up the soft black sand, slipping and sliding my way to the sea cave entrance.

  Saja rose as I approached, thumping his tail and whimpering. I stroked his fur; it was thick and clumped with wet sand. The oddest of scents broke over my nose. Salty sea brine, sun-cooked kelp… and wet fox.

  Wolf’s adrenaline burst through my veins, and I acted on instinct. My fingers abruptly tightened in Saja’s fur, and then I hurled him off the ledge and into the churning seas below. By the time I heard the splash, my wet sneakers were already slapping down the cave’s throat.

  “MIGUEL?” I stumbled into a tide pool; anxiety made me clumsy.

  Chains creaked in the darkness. Wolf’s vision snapped to mind, and I poked my way past a seaweed curtain to see a large cavern of washed-up sea treasures: rusted anchors, wicked-looked harpoons, and Japanese glass fishing floats made from old sake bottles, which glinted jade-green among the rocks.

  Miguel was strung up against the wall by rusting cuffs, his toes dragging in the creeping tide. I gave him a quick once-over. He looked all in one piece except for one thing: the three scars above his hipbone, where the liver rested, had split apart.

  “Miguel!” I raced to his side and fumbled with the handcuffs. “We’ve got to go, now!”

  His eyelashes fluttered. I splashed saltwater on his face to help the process along.

  “Citlalli?” Finally, a whisper. “He said you would be with the vampyres. Rescuing our sisters.”

  I felt a renewed surge of guilt. “Perfect time for him to swoop in and make me choose one family member over the other. How very Fred-like.”

  “Fred? Told me his name was Nicodemo.”

  “Yeah, well. Names change faster than a century’s wind. Or something.” I grabbed a rock and smashed the handcuffs. Miguel collapsed to the ground, clutching his abdomen.

  “Come on. I threw him in the ocean to buy us some time, but unfortunately, the little fucker knows how to swim.” I dropped to his side in concern. “God, what are you doing here, Miguel?”

  “Rescuing you. A spirit creature…appeared to Una…said you had fallen into a situation of life or death. She only had me to turn to. Una was uneasy about the spirit’s true nature, but I convinced her it couldn’t hurt to find you, check on you…”

  “Didn’t Rafael tell you I’d been saved from the vampyre widows?”

  “Yeah.” A stubborn line crossed his forehead. “As if I’d trust him to protect you properly.”

  I shook my head. This wasn’t the time to argue for Rafael’s better nature. “Did Fred hurt you? Miguel? Talk to me.”

  “Nothing except for this.” Miguel’s fingers came away wet and sticky from the open gash. “He said he didn’t want to ruin his new body for her.”

  Wolf jumped up and down inside of me, and I realized the temperature had grown uncomfortably warm.

  “Get down!”

  A bolt of scarlet flames streaked over our heads like a firecracker; cinders rained down on our backs. A slow laugh reverberated through the labyrinth of sea caves.

  “Don’t go poking your nose in a fox’s den uninvited.” Fred’s low voice curdled my stomach and made my hackles rise. “You won’t get it back.”

  “Fred! You back-stabbing vermin! Show yourself!” I barked, far more bravely than I felt.

  The holly-red eyes flashed around the corner, and I shoved down my suffocating fear. At least the bastard was good and drenched.

  “Back-stabbing? Oh, Citlalli, I never hid my nature. You just stupidly expected better of me every time.” His voice dropped mockingly. “Shame, shame, you being here. Shouldn’t you be saving your sisters? You could have had two for the price of one. Now you’ll walk out of here with zero… Actually, I take that back. You’ll have a new, braver, more handsome brother: me.”

  “How? You can’t do that!” My voice rose hysterically.

  Fred’s tails fluffed up in shock. “You’re surprised? Honestly, I thought my mark on Miguel’s liver, scar by scar, would have given the game away. I thought at least once, once, the new, wiser Citlalli might ask Una, a guardian of the spirit world, what the deal was with nine-tailed foxes. A liver holds a human’s energy, dear child. It is what a fox eats…to take human shape.”

  Miguel couldn’t compose himself. “You fuckin’ road-kill-sniffing piece of shit! Just try it! I’ll cut your nine tails off!”

  “Language, language.” Fred sighed as he waltzed forward, tails twitching. “That’s why you were never getting any of the ladies.”

  Images of Saja and Fred blurred before my eyes. The jindo suffering no apparent injuries after a tangle with a vampyre… Rafael’s comment about the jindo’s odd scent… That time at the old pack headquarters, when Saja cowed a vampyre the moment my back was turned…

  “Was Saja ever…real?” I whispered.

  Fred shrugged. “Oh, don’t get all sad and emotional. The jindo lived a long life, for a brainless beast that liked to sniff its own poop. No one would ever suspect a fox of hiding as a dumb dog.”

  “I fed you. I took you for walks.” My mind tried to wrap around the absurdity of it all. “And meanwhile, you and Una were planning to harm my brother—”

  “—improve him, actually—”

  “Why?” I stepped in front of Miguel. “Why are you and every other supernatural creature from here to the Holy Land after my family?”

  Fred gave that raspy bark, which might have been a chuckle. “It is every kumiho’s dream to become human! We were told long ago that it was our path to salvation. Now, to assume the shape of one? It is easy. Eat a victim’s liver in the sunshine world. But to become human?” He placed both paws in front of himself and watched us, pointy ears cocked. “I do not understand how. So long ago, I decided to hell with that! Who needs salvation? There are other things I want.”

  “Like what?” I asked sarcastically. “Whisker tweezers? Ten tails?”

  Fred looked at me in disgust. “Companionship,” he said. “I have not seen another like me since the Vampyre Queen gave Eve to the Dark Spirits. I fear I am the last of my kind. And I am tired, very tired, of being alone.

  “Now, believe me, Citlalli: I do not want to become your lazy brother. Unfortunately, Una likes him. If I snack on Miguel’s delightfully booze-soaked liver here in Eve, I will take on his spirit form. Then when I return, his body will be mine.” His teeth glinted, and we backed up. “I can give Una what she wants. What she deserves.”

  “Una?” I was beside myself with incredulity. “You, a nine-hundred-year-old fox, are into Una?”

  “Yes, I am ‘into her.’ ” Fred sniffed. “Unlike you, Una has long respected the old ways. She is the last of the spirit walkers who guard the secrets of Eve. She is the most incredible of your kind, and yet for some ridiculous reason unknown even to me
, she chose to bestow her affections on this drugged-up fool.”

  I was speechless. “But the age difference!”

  “There are no others like me. So I’m supposed to live out the rest of my life alone?”

  “I don’t know! Marry a nice cockatrice, or something!”

  Fred sniffed. “Really, Citlalli. Mixing cold and hot bloods? That’s how the dinosaurs went extinct.”

  “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me!” Miguel exclaimed. “I finally get a girl to crush on me and this is what happens?”

  “You really didn’t know?” I shot back.

  Fred gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “Oh, HOW am I not surprised?” His tail flicked. An almost indiscernible movement, but then Miguel’s wound exploded with blood. He fell on all fours without warning, his eyes quivering.

  Wolf yelped as I tugged back on Its leash.

  What are you waiting for? Human?

  Remember our little detour into a sub-zero river? I was so furious I just flung “cold” images in Wolf’s direction. I AM IN CONTROL.

  Wolf knelt on all fours. I took a step toward It. The bridge between us trembled.

  What will happen when it breaks? I whispered.

  I don’t know.

  “Miguel, GO!” I exploded into Wolf in a puff of black smoke, locking my jaws around the fox’s scrawny throat.

  He still stood there, damn him. My older brother stared at me in all of my twisted hideousness: a midnight black hound out of hell. My hair had grown wilder and impossibly tangled; my jaws dripped with acid. My eyes had sunken into golden slits.

  I released the fox to lunge at him. It had to be done. My brother tore down the tunnel, glancing back every few seconds, as if in denial of what he saw.

  “So,” Fred said, “you save the brother at the price of the sister. Why are you here, Wolf? You believe the sister can’t be saved, don’t you?”

  Wolf pawed Its face in ashamed acknowledgement.

  “MY NAME IS CITLALLI!”

  “Ssh,” Fred hissed. “Stupid girl, you think I don’t see who is truly in charge? You gave yourself to Wolf a long time ago and made no effort to contain It. Don’t you understand yet? You are just as cursed as the vampyre. Both of you: unnatural creations. A soul cannot be pulled in two directions. You must become one or the other.”

  “And what if I accept Wolf?” I cried defiantly. “I don’t see any soul-splitting decisions in this: We both hunt fox.”

  “A fox backed into a corner is a fox at its most dangerous,” he whispered.

  I’d heard that before.

  I watched the air waver around his tails, the way air blurs in the desert on a hot, hot day, when you’re unsure of everything except that the world around you is melting under the eye of the sun. One by one, his tails ignited into pillars of flame that spun to the ceiling of the sea cave, split stone, and sent me dodging for cover. The fox began to trot toward me, jaw dropping in an eerie grin as his shadow grew, laughing at me behind the masts of fire. I fled.

  The ninth pillar. The fire exploded. I ran as fast and hard as I could, but the fire licked up my calves and incinerated my tail; I tasted cold air on my tongue, but then smoke flooded my lungs and blinded my eyes.

  I was a wolf on fire. Death itself had caught me; nothing worse could happen, so I just kept running toward some delirious window of freedom. I heard Miguel’s voice call me, and I followed it. I ran right off the cliff and into the sea.

  ***

  When I opened human eyes to see Miguel’s panicked face, I knew something was wrong. Wolf sparked sporadically like a collapsing star, and the rift buried like a knifepoint in my heart. It hurt. It felt like my body was keeping something horrifically painful from me, and it kept shocking me with the sparks of it. I’d been on fire. And Wolf had absorbed it.

  A small red fox appeared in the sea cave entrance. I swallowed, my tears mixing with the salt on my cheeks. “Kwan. Please come.”

  The sea trembled around us. “I have seen you back from Gyeongbok Gung. I have seen you here. I can see you there. Three times I will carry you, but beyond then, no more. Are you sure this will be the third time you call upon me?”

  Wolf wobbled on Its knees. I struggled to hold myself still against the pain. “It is.”

  Chapter 26: Prisoner

  We flew back to the temple. I stared straight ahead, shuddering, aware of Miguel’s eyes on me. Yet he made no move to comfort me. Hell, for all he knew, he’d be setting off a ticking time bomb.

  “What happened, Citlalli? When you fought Yu Li’s ex-husband, you didn’t look like that.”

  “What? Did you expect a pretty petting animal at the zoo?” I whispered, trembling more violently. “They can’t kill beasts. Only other beasts can.”

  Miguel stared at me for a long time, his black hair whipping about in the wind. Then he pulled me close, and I clutched the collar of his jacket, teeth clenched.

  “No matter how this ends, we lose, don’t we?” he murmured into my hair. “Save me at the cost of Raina, or save her at the cost of me.”

  “I’m going to save all of you!”

  “At the cost of yourself.”

  I angrily forced my body to stay still, to quit freaking out. It wasn’t allowed to give up. Didn’t it understand? There was still Raina to save. And Mari. Hell, I was walking into the lair of the Queen of Vampyres, and I would not be a ticking time bomb.

  The pain subsided slightly beneath my ruthless nails.

  “Do you part company here?” Kwan asked us.

  “No,” we both said at the same time.

  “I can’t trust Una yet. If Miguel wakes up, God knows what she might try.”

  Miguel rocked me back and forth as I spluttered again. “And I’m not leaving you.”

  We descended into the clouds, and my eyes rolled into the back of my head.

  ***

  I woke to someone humming the “Bridal March” while brushing back the hairs on my neck. My nostrils flooded with cold, clammy musk beneath an overcompensation of lavender perfume, and I reared up. Or, tried to. The singer sshed me and licked the spot beneath my ear. Then her fangs slid into me.

  A combination of loud noise and color. Through my blurred vision, I watched the vampyre, Eva, stumble back. Amrit blurred across the room.

  “You were not supposed to touch her!”

  “I just wanted to know how she tasted,” Eva whined. “Pah! It’s like licking a burning tire!”

  Their faces blurred; Old Man Zhi’s took the forefront. He stroked the necklace around my throat. I realized it was a tiny star-shaped lantern. Mini, nova-like explosions burst in and out of existence within, and with each shower of sparks, I breathed easier.

  “Is it working, Old Man?” Amrit demanded. She was stroking the hair of someone I knew, someone I cared about: Miguel.

  “Getawayfromhim,” I slurred, struggling to my feet. That internal fire expanded in my chest, and then relaxed. The lantern shook with fireworks of color. And then a leash jerked back against my throat. Running my hands along the iron collar, I realized the lantern dangled off of it like a keepsake.

  “Oh, don’t mind that.” Amrit shoved off the wall lazily. “I know back where you come from, you let dogs run around freely, but we leash all animals on the palace grounds. And scratching at your collar is a very bad habit. Especially when it’s connected to your only method of fire extinguishing. Isn’t that right, Old Man?”

  “Yes.” Then Zhi bent to my ear. “This is a very special type of soul-catching lantern.”

  “Why?” Wings of panic beat harder in my head. “What do I need it for?”

  His eyeless sockets squinted, in what might have been sympathy. “To keep your soul together. To stop the third one from…coming.”

  From a long time ago, I remembered Jaehoon’s words: “What are the three stages of soul degeneration?”

  My own voice, flippant as I named them all: “We have one crack in our soul that split off into a new persona: Wolf… The second is
a triad. A soul that has three fractures. It creates another new, increasingly unstable, persona. In the history of triads, few have been able to control this third identity… It’s all wild, crazy emotion.”

  “Third one?” I whispered.

  Old Man Zhi leaned in urgently to my ear. “This star lantern can help you heal. Just don’t let the light go out.”

  “Could you speak any louder?” Amrit shoved Old Man Zhi away, and he sprawled on the floor. She studied my haggard eyes, my matted hair, and smirked. “May I present the legendary Citlalli Alvarez, proud of her big mouth and penchant for challenging centuries-old authority, who now looks about as menacing as a sparking microwave. So, this is the representative of the oh-so terrifying slobbering pack of Dark Dogs: a teenage girl who pulled out the big guns too early, and now is shocked senseless when the baddies fire back. In that case”—she yanked me close—“seeing as how you’ve been stripped of decent mannerisms, I’ll make the big decisions for you. When a queen offers you an invitation, you accept. And if you think you might misbehave at such a big event, well then.” Her fingers danced along Miguel’s neck. “You bring along friends to keep you in line.”

  She snapped her fingers at Eva. “We take them all.”

  Chapter 27: Reunited

  And so it was, I crawled to the Vampyre Court with a leash around my neck.

  I forgot to mention the sack over my head. It was hot and scratchy and smelled like dog shit. I could only rely on the tug of the leash to know when I was to move; if I deterred from the path in the slightest, I floundered through snow banks or cut my fingers on sharp briars. At one point, I put a hand out and felt only empty air. I felt Amrit stroke my curls and understood the unspoken message: I had to rely on her completely.

  No-Name might have watched us go, but she feared the vampyres. I understood why she wouldn’t interfere. Perhaps that last time she’d been telling me goodbye, in her own way.

  Wolf…

  I felt nothing.