by H. K. Varian
Before Mack’s fire arrows could pierce his protections, Darren slammed the door and extended the force field to the whole apartment.
“There’s no way this is just revenge against the anansis because your father didn’t join her army,” Darren said to Esi. “Be honest with me. Something else is going on here. I told you why they’re looking for me. What does Sakura want with you?”
Esi was about to answer when Tani came into the room, pale and trembling. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Can you take the fire escape down and wait for me at our special place in the park?” Esi asked. “I can’t explain right now, but I’m not sure you’ll be safe here. At least not until we find my father.”
“I’m not going without you,” Tani said. “Your father would never forgive me.”
“My father will understand,” Esi said. “I have to stay here.”
“You just said it’s not safe,” her cousin answered.
“I’m fine for now, but we can’t protect you. You’ll be safe in the park. They’re not after you.”
Tani hesitated. There was a kick at the door, and she jumped.
“Go now,” Esi urged.
“Help is on the way,” Darren assured her. “Esi will be fine, but you shouldn’t be here.”
“Okay,” Tani said. “Call or come to me as soon as you can.”
“I will,” Esi promised with a shaky smile.
Tani tried to smile back, but she wasn’t quite successful.
Darren lowered the force field at the window in front of the fire escape and opened it for her.
“Be safe,” Tani said, and climbed out the window.
Darren raised the force field again. He and Esi watched Tani make her way down the ladder to the street.
Interruptions had kept Esi from answering Darren’s question twice now. He wouldn’t be put off again. He repeated his question. “What does Sakura want with you?”
Esi sighed. She opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated.
“We’re about to go into battle again,” Darren said. “I’d like to know what I’m fighting for. I deserve to know.”
“They want this.” Esi reluctantly pulled a stone-hewn circlet out of her satchel. It looked like a crown of some kind, although a simple one. Still, it was beautiful in its simplicity.
Darren reached out to touch it, but before he could take it in his hand, someone started to pound on the apartment door—hard.
“What is it?” Darren asked, trying to ignore the noise.
“This is one of the Changers’ most powerful relics—Circe’s Diadem. The wearer can awaken magical potential sleeping inside nonmagical people.”
Darren had learned about Circe. She was the magical being who first awakened transformative magic in ordinary humans who needed her help.
Darren touched the rough stone. It was surprisingly warm, like there was life in it.
“So Circe’s Diadem can create new Changers?” Darren asked.
Esi nodded sheepishly. “Or magic-users. But only in people who already have the potential. Sometimes because of curses or other reasons, people don’t develop their gifts naturally. This makes sure that they do.”
“But why do you have it? Why isn’t it locked away in a vault somewhere?” Darren asked. “Especially with Sakura on the loose. Think of the damage she could cause, turning new Changers over to the dark side before they even know what’s happening to them.” He felt himself getting angry at the thought. “That’s just flat-out dangerous.”
It was Esi’s turn to be embarrassed. “You’re not the first impundulu who came to me seeking forgiveness. I guess my ancestors were pretty generous with their curses. I tried to give the impundulus what they wanted: to accept their apologies and forgive them so that the curses would be broken.”
“So why didn’t you?” Darren asked.
“I tried, but for the magic to work, I have to really mean it. I have to really feel forgiveness,” she explained. “But how can I forgive someone I hardly know for something one of their ancestors did hundreds of years ago? It wasn’t working.”
Darren’s shoulders slumped. The pounding on the door had stopped for a few moments, but now it started up again. Louder than before. He had to concentrate to hold the force field in place. He also had to shout to be heard. “So when you try to break the curses, it doesn’t work?”
“No,” Esi admitted, shouting back. “The impundulus who came to us were getting angry and disappointed. But my father knew about this relic. He used magic to find it somehow; I don’t know how or where. So I’ve been using the diadem to awaken the powers of the cursed impundulus’ relatives one by one. It’s really just a Band-Aid for the problem, but it satisfied the last few Changers who asked for help.”
The real essence of what Esi had just said hit Darren so hard that he was breathless for a second. “So you can’t lift my curse even if you want to?” he asked.
“No,” Esi admitted. “I can try, but I don’t think it will work. It hasn’t before.”
Darren tried not to let panic overtake him.
If I can’t escape the curse, my ancestors won’t be able to protect me from Sakura. I’ll be on my own with no way to fight against her mind control. She’ll turn me into one of her evil soldiers, fighting alongside Mack. This is bad. . . . This is very, very bad.
In that moment Darren’s fear created a chink in his force field.
That was all Mack and the others needed. With one last deafening push, they crashed through the door.
Chapter 10
The Wound
Gabriella rattled off the address of Esi’s cousin’s apartment to the tengu, Kenta, and they arrived with Yara, Ms. Therian, Fiona, the nahual healer Daniel, and the mo’o.
“Apartment buildings are tricky,” Ms. Therian said. “It’s hard to suddenly appear unnoticed.”
“Can’t you use magic to erase the nonmagical peoples’ memories?” Gabriella asked. “Yara does that all the time.”
“We don’t want to cause a panic,” Yara said. “Even if it’s a panic we can undo. It would alert the enemy to our position and allow them the time they need to call for reinforcements.”
“We can’t give them that time,” Ms. Therian added. “Remember, we could land right in the middle of a battle, already outnumbered.”
“I may have a solution.” Kenta closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. Then he disappeared. “The elevator is empty,” he said when he reappeared suddenly. “It just left the lobby for the fourteenth floor. We can land there.”
“Which floor is Darren on?” Margaery asked.
“He’s on the third floor. Apartment 3F,” Gabriella answered.
“Let’s go now, before the elevator gets to fourteen and someone gets on,” Kenta said.
Margaery was still worried about her ability to carry everyone so soon after her arm was injured, so they all put a hand on Kenta’s shoulder instead. Gabriella felt the familiar whoosh, followed by silence. They were cushioned in the calm center of an invisible wind. Mostly calm, anyway. Gabriella noticed that Kenta’s ride wasn’t quite as smooth as Margaery’s.
They arrived in the elevator in a matter of seconds. It dipped and then continued upward. It was just passing the tenth floor.
Yara recited a spell under her breath and pushed the button for three. The elevator reversed course.
A burst of noise greeted them when the elevator’s doors opened. Two of Sakura’s people, a nykur and an impundulu, were unconscious on the floor in the hall surrounded by splinters of wood. The apartment door had been ripped from its hinges.
A major battle was going on inside apartment 3F.
Ms. Therian nodded to the mo’o, who produced two pairs of magical shackles to further immobilize the unconscious fighters. Then Gabriella’s coach and teacher transformed before entering the apartment. If a giant werewolf jumping into the fray surprised any of the fighters, they didn’t show it.
The rest of the group followed Ms.
Therian into the apartment. Gabriella and Fiona brought up the rear.
Gabriella was about to step into the apartment when Yara put up a hand to stop her. “Mack is here,” she whispered. “Can you spirit-walk and try to reach him again? You came close to turning him around in the restaurant.”
“I’ll try,” Gabriella agreed. “He might be watching for me more closely now, though.”
“That will be difficult for him in the midst of battle,” Yara told her. “He’ll be too distracted to guard his mind. You should be able to slip in while he’s focused on protecting himself from physical assaults.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Of course you will.” Yara smiled at her, drew a wall of water around herself, and stepped into the apartment.
Gabriella stayed in the hall. She peeked inside to see a massive battle underway. She felt like she needed to get a visual on Mack before she meditated.
Darren and a girl were in the middle of the chaos, fighting back-to-back against Mack and the others. Darren was mostly focused on Mack. He tried to surround him with an electrical field, but Mack broke it apart with a dark flame.
Gabriella recognized Esi from the spell in Professor Zwane’s office. While she watched, the girl blew of cloud of something at a nykur, and it collapsed to the floor, instantly changing into its human form. Before Gabriella could even react, the mo’o was at his side to clap him in magical chains.
Darren and Esi had definitely been outnumbered.
Help arrived just in time, Gabriella thought.
Ms. Therian and the others had turned the tide of the battle, but Mack and the rest of Sakura’s forces were still putting up a good fight.
There was no time to lose. Gabriella had to block out all the noise, all the chaos, and all her worries or she’d fail. She found a corner in the hallway and slipped into the meditative state that would allow her to spirit-walk into Mack’s mind.
Maybe this time I can remind him who he really is—the fun-loving kid whose comic book superheroes always defeat evil in the end. The goodness that’s still inside him can defeat Sakura’s wickedness—it has to.
Moments later, in her spirit form, Gabriella left her body behind and entered into the apartment. Mack was at the center of the fight. He seemed to be relishing every second of the chaos and destruction he was causing. There was a kind of demented pleasure radiating from him when one of his arrows hit its target.
Next Gabriella entered into Mack’s mind. Her spirit self always took her nahual form at first, but now she transformed into her human self. It was easier to go unnoticed that way. She stayed at the edges of Mack’s thoughts and memories, hoping to get a hold on him before he spotted her and tried to push her out. Then she did again what had almost worked in the restaurant: she found Mack’s happiest memories, the ones that hadn’t yet been infected by Sakura, and tried to bring them to the forefront of his mind.
It wasn’t long before Mack’s shadow self found her. She had to battle with him using her spiritual energy or be pushed out of his mind. At that moment Fiona surrounded Mack with water, trying to keep him safe from an attack by Kenta.
In his need to dodge Kenta’s attack and get away from Fiona, Mack momentarily forgot all about Gabriella.
Like Fiona, Gabriella didn’t want to hurt Mack, only subdue him. He and his shadow self were intricately connected.
This is Mack, she reminded herself. Our Mack. If I destroy his shadow self, will I destroy the goodness in him too? This is tricky.
She was overwhelmed by the pain and anger that Sakura had filled Mack with when she turned him evil. Despair emanated from almost every part of him. It colored even his happiest memories. Gabriella could feel it like an open wound. And that’s when it hit her.
He’s in terrible pain—just like Margaery was. Only this pain is in his mind, not his body. Mack’s inner shadow fox isn’t something to fight; it’s something to heal!
Mack tried to push Gabriella out of his mind again, but she stood her ground. Then his attention was turned away . . . to the physical battle he was fighting. This was her chance.
It’s now or never, Gabriella told herself. You might not get an opportunity like this again.
Gabriella had never tried to use her spiritual energy to heal before, but she had to at least try. She channeled her energy like Daniel had showed her. She saw it as warm and glowing, flexible enough to find its own way to put the broken pieces of Mack back together.
She saw the light-filled, peaceful energy move through Mack’s mind, searching for places to heal.
Daniel said that the body wants to heal itself, she remembered. The mind must want that too.
The energy moved through Mack, healing memory by memory. The despair and hopelessness were leaving him. She could feel it. The light absorbed the darkness and rendered it helpless.
Mack figured out what was happening. He turned on her and howled in rage with the last bits of darkness inside him, but he couldn’t stop the flow of the healing energy. His rage dissipated almost as soon as he felt it.
It’s working! It’s working! Gabriella realized.
She concentrated on sending that warm, glowing spirit to every corner of Mack’s mind. It moved in and out of his memories, turning darkness to light.
And then she saw it!
The shadowy flames gave way to bright oranges and yellows. Mack is coming back to us. He’s returning to his old self!
Chapter 11
The Spy
Mack was in midattack. He had evaporated the selkie’s wall of water with a sneer.
“I don’t need your protection!” he shouted at her. “But you’re going to wish you had protection from me.”
He turned his back on her, to show her just how little he feared her, and burned a hole in the anansi girl’s miasma. He was about to completely disable her; thoughts of the praise he would receive when he dropped her at Sakura’s feet filled his mind.
Well done, apprentice, she’d say. And then she’d tell the rest of her followers to bow to his greatness.
But he was snatched out of his daydream by a sudden, sharp pain in his head. He felt like there was something inside him, trying to rip him in two.
It’s that nahual, he realized. She’s walking around in my mind again.
He felt his glorious power softening, and howled in rage. He cast around for her so that he could throw her out. He had done it once; he’d do it again.
I’m more powerful than she’ll ever be, he told himself. I’m strong enough to stand alone at Sakura’s side. The nahual needs the others and the First Four to prop her up. She’s weak, just like they are.
But he felt a sudden rush of happiness run through him, and he no longer wanted to see her gone. Memories of hanging out with his friends flooded him—creating comic books with Joel so that they could show them at the art fair, battling Auden Ironbound on the beach and winning, discovering that he had earned a second tail. And then, hanging out with his Changer friends—including the nahual—in their secret gym at school.
He saw the two of them in the comic book they created together—battling evil and winning. Joyfully celebrating their victories.
He thought he had left joy behind when he joined Sakura. But now he felt it again—a spark of happiness. Happiness and more. He felt hope, too. It wasn’t the dark anticipation that he would rule by Sakura’s side and wreak chaos in the world. It was a light-filled hope that he would once again be with his friends and family.
Then his grandfather was there, standing in front of him in his kitsune form. His expression was one of love and compassion.
Jiichan! Mack thought. Love swelled in his heart. He had missed his grandfather more than he’d known.
Jiichan’s fur was as white as fresh snow. Mack knew if he reached out to touch it, it would be as soft as a cloud. The white kitsune stood, ready to embrace Mack.
But then Sakura bounded in front of Mack and faced off against his grandfather. Her sleek black coat stood in shar
p contrast to his white one. She oozed darkness and despair, but the overwhelming feeling Mack got from her was rage.
Mack was suddenly frightened—not for himself, but for his grandfather.
His new master with her jet-black fur and seven tails wrestled for the upper hand, but Jiichan was just as strong, if not stronger. He was older, of course, but more experienced in battle. And he had acquired nine tails—the maximum—in his long life. Sakura still had only seven.
The two kitsunes circled each other wordlessly. Jiichan’s face was full of calm determination. Sakura’s, full of wrath and reckless fury.
Mack drifted in and out of consciousness, unable to tell what was really happening and what he was imagining. Was the nahual planting false memories in his mind?
Warmth battled with despair inside him; love with rage. He felt himself beginning to collapse and transform back into his human body. This was a Change he wasn’t able to resist.
Has the anansi girl’s poison gotten to me? he wondered.
Just before he transformed he thought he heard Sakura scream at his grandfather.
“What made him so special?” she yelled. “Why did he get that power? The power that should have been mine? Who decided?”
Mack started to drift off into something like sleep. In the great white space of his mind, he found Gabriella. He reached out to her, and they hugged.
“It’s me,” Mack told her. “I’m back. I’m—”
The profound calm he’d felt just a second ago dissipated, and he remembered all the horrible things he’d done in the last few weeks. He remembered with a rush of guilt that he’d hurt Margaery just that day.
“I’m so sorry for everything,” he said, burying his head in his hands. “The things I said, the things I did . . .”
“You weren’t yourself,” Gabriella said with a smile. “We all know that. And that’s past now. We don’t ever have to think about it again.”
“I still can’t believe you did it,” Mack said. “How did you undo Sakura’s spell?”