Rampant, Volume 1

by Amy Lane

  It wasn’t my fault that Bracken picked Coldplay as we were crossing the causeway over the lake.

  Lake Shasta sat about sixty miles from Mount Shasta—which was so damned big that we could see it as we drove up that last stretch, giant curves scything through the darkness.

  The mountain itself was a brooding, almost frightening presence. There were old Native American myths permeating the region—my least favorite of which was of a double eruption between Lassen and Shasta, which the natives imagined as two angry gods hurling fire at each other through the blackness of night. I really hated the idea of them doing that while the terrified natives huddled in the valley in the middle, begging the gods for mercy. Something about all of that raw power assaulting more raw power regardless of the cost to the weaker beings around it—well, it pissed me off. Mount Shasta looked like an enemy in the distance, a big seething bad guy, something I could hate with impunity.

  The lake… well, the lake was something special.

  I’d say it looked like an amoeba, but amoebas have more cohesion. The lake was the result of a dammed-up volcanic valley, and the water filling up the deep crevices of the twisted hills around it took the shape of a branching tree root—a thousand little tree-hair inlets, and none of them had a beach to speak of.

  The lake itself was narrow—there wasn’t a place on one side where you couldn’t see the other. I was pretty sure the water looked green in the sunlight, with lots of red dirt underneath to make the color opaque, but at night, coming across the causeway, it looked like black glass—something unholy and primordial. You could hide big slimy dinosaurs in that lake, and no one would know until they thrust their necks out in the moonlight—and then disappeared.

  Hearing the chilly music of Coldplay as we crossed that black water and wound our way to the mountain road that led to the lakeside cabins made me suddenly aware that adventures were exciting because they were often dangerous.

  The road got skinnier and skinnier, and I was both grateful for and frustrated by the dark. On the one hand, it was harder to see, but on the other, the likelihood of meeting someone else on the wrong side of that tiny, twisting road was considerably less at 4:30 a.m. I would have stopped and let Bracken drive, but….

  “Just keep your eyes on the road, and I’ll keep my eyes on the dawn,” Bracken promised, one hand on his cell phone. According to the almanac, we had forty-five minutes until sunrise, but when you’re in a strange place, and you don’t know where the sun will hit or where to put the car….

  It was nerve-racking, to say the least.

  “We should have left earlier,” I complained, but the sun hadn’t set until nearly eight thirty, and we’d wanted the vampires to be well fed before we left. We were taking enough werecreatures to feed the troops—but so much of interacting with another kiss of vampires depended on being levelheaded that nobody wanted a stomach growling for blood to trigger a turf war if we were surprised. Besides, packing had taken longer than I think even Green anticipated.

  Bracken didn’t reply to me anyway. His body was on full alert so that if I had to stop the car he could run back and take over driving for the vampires while they safed up in the special floor of the SUV or the hearse.

  The line of quaint, well-kept cabins appeared beneath the horizon of a vertigo-dip in the road, and for a moment it looked like the car would just drop off into the lake.

  It didn’t, and I wrestled the damn thing down a slippery gravel hill. The whole convoy of cars skidded to a halt in front of the manager’s office, where one of Green’s people was waiting for us, cracking her gum and watching late-night TV.

  She/he must have been a sylph planning to be a “she” when she bonded, but I didn’t think that had happened yet.

  It wasn’t every day you saw someone with a boy’s flat chest in a tight girl’s tank top and a miniskirt, with barbell-pierced nipples protruding through the thin white ribbing of the tank. She also had thick mascara and heavily gelled hair, long glittery nails, and high heels—at the crotch of dawn, no less.

  But for all her spectacular appearance, she smiled happily at us as we pulled up, cracked her gum, and introduced herself as Tanya, and then ran to help us unload the gear into the vampires’ room. Yes, they got their own room, even if they wouldn’t be sleeping in it. Marcus and Phillip were a couple, for one thing—and for another, nobody likes to actually live out of their car.

  “I hope this is all of you,” she said cheerily. “We had an unexpected sign-in yesterday, and all of the cabins will be filled.” She threw what was easily two hundred pounds of gear on her slender shoulders and helped us schlep stuff in. The vamps’ SUV would be first, of course, and then we’d all unload into our own cabin room.

  “All?” Uh-oh. Green had told me we’d be alone.

  Tanya dumped the gear in the open door, and I walked in with my considerably smaller load. Jack and Teague were behind me, each of them with as much as the sylph had, and I rolled my eyes and sighed. Well, considering the effect of cold iron in the hill, lifting weights was right out.

  That took care of the vampires’ stuff. Marcus, Phillip, and Kyle rushed in quickly, probably wanting to take showers before dawn.

  “Be careful, guys!” I called, and they all grunted reassurances as I closed their door.

  I trotted back to the SUV and wiped my forehead on my sleeve. In spite of the fact that the sky was barely turning gray, it was already around eighty-five outside. Ugh.

  “So, this other family…,” I asked delicately. Tanya shrugged.

  “A mom, her teenaged son.”

  “Uh-oh….” My memories of teenaged boys were not fond ones.

  Tanya wrinkled her nose. “Kid’s a major perv—couldn’t get him to stop ogling my bitty-tits, and I think he actually tried to cop a feel of one of the studs—”

  “Ouch!”

  Tanya flashed a grin. She’d had a little diamond insert put on one of her front teeth—she could pull it off too. “Felt better than I thought, but not from a teenager.” She shivered. “Perv oogies, big time. But other than that, he seems pretty content to swim and boat and listen to his brain-sucker. I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble.”

  I shrugged. The only people who thought I was hot were the nonhuman men who loved me. I was probably safe from “perv oogies,” or any other sort of oogie, for that matter. Being plain as a potato had its advantages.

  “I’ll warn everybody. We’ll try to keep the weird stuff down to a… oh, for crissakes!”

  Because the packing was over and Renny and Jack had walked down to the little dock with its six bobbing flatboats, shed their clothes unselfconsciously, and changed into their other forms to jump into the water.

  Tanya smirked. “You were saying?”

  I sighed and shrugged. “Well, in their defense, it’s still mostly dark outside—and we all thought we’d be alone.”

  From the cabin next to mine, a shadow nosed its way out of the doorway and trotted to the edge of the lake. Teague. Teague had scars he wouldn’t want the world to see—he had changed in his room.

  I knew the feeling. And as I watched Bracken strip to his pale, magnificent, naked bottom, I was feeling left out.

  “I’ll go change, and then I’ll join them,” I told her. “Don’t worry, I’ll let them know we have to be careful.”

  Tanya gave me the once-over. “You’re not going in naked?”

  I tried not to squint at her in horror. “Druther not, no—but you’re welcome, if you want to jump in with.”

  The sylph’s face lit up for a moment. “Shining ones…,” she whispered. “We have so few elves up here, you understand?”

  I nodded. “But don’t get too close to Bracken—we’ve got a geas, sort of.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t get too close to any of them. But there’s so few of my kind up here, it would be wonderful to just….” Her tongue came out, pink and helpless—and studded—and she licked her lower lip. “It would be nice to just be.”

/>   I nodded and smiled. “Feel free, but… you know that party that’s coming tomorrow?”

  She nodded.

  “They’re shifters, but… well, maybe not Green’s people.”

  Tanya nodded. She knew what that meant. “It’s all good. I’ll have you all for a week—it will be like vacation for me too.”

  I nodded, satisfied, and trotted off to change.

  When I got to the little cabin, squat and painted a cheery green and brown, I finally got a chance to look inside.

  It was like a hotel room, but a little more cushy. The bed was huge—biggest king-size they had, I reckoned, and maybe even a little bigger. It was covered in a cotton quilt instead of one of those sticky nylon things, and it appeared to have fine cotton sheets underneath. The walls were rough wood for effect, and the whole cabin was done in rust and olive and cream. Not my favorite colors, so much, but still pleasant and rustic. There was an oaken table with four chairs in the corner, with Wi-Fi near the plug-in outlet and notepaper and pens.

  We could plug in the iPod speaker/charger—excellent!

  With that, I started rifling through my luggage, looking for my suit. It wasn’t on top, but I found what looked like one of Renny’s bikinis in the bottom. Too small, I thought with a roll of the eyes. Then I gave it up, shucked my jeans, and put on some cotton running shorts and an old tank top over my black sports bra.

  It’s not like anyone in the water would give a rat’s ass anyway.

  I got to the bottom of the hill and after leaving my flip-flops at the water’s edge in spite of the rough bottom, stuck a cautious toe in the water….

  And jerked it back with a shiver.

  “Are you people insane?” I called to the group of bobbing heads—some furry, some just wet—about twenty feet away.

  “There’s a drop-off!” Nicky returned. “You’d better go in all at once!”

  “It’s fucking freezing!” I hollered. “I’m waiting for some sunlight!”

  “It gets better,” Tanya told me, walking up by my side. She was wearing a one-piece, cut high at the skinny hips in bright lime green. Man, I loved this chick’s style. “And you’re not going to want to swim in the height of the sun for too long. Complexion like yours, unless you’ve got a shitload of sunblock, you’re going to crisp up like your guys in Cabin 4.”

  The vampires. “Nice!” I smirked with rolled eyes, and she laughed.

  “Where’s your suit?” Bracken asked, coming to the edge of the drop-off and standing up. The water came to his stomach, but by the way he was balancing, it looked like one slipped step and he’d fall off the edge.

  “I couldn’t find it,” I told him. “It looked like Renny’s got put in by mistake.” Gingerly I toed my way around the edge of the lake to the dock, which bounced pleasingly underneath my feet. Squinting at the water was useless—I couldn’t see the drop-off in the predawn light, so I used Bracken as a guide and walked about five feet beyond him, then backed up the width of the dock.

  Brack saw me and raised his eyes, grinning. “Going in balls out, huh?”

  I grinned back. “Is there any other way?” Besides. Everyone knew it sucked worse going in slow. With that, I took a deep breath, then two quick steps and a leap.

  The water was exquisitely cold—cold enough to stop my breath, to make me gasp and shriek when I struggled my way to the surface. Cold enough to make me flail a little when Bracken came up behind me to make sure I wouldn’t drown.

  His strong arms came around my shoulders, full of their residual heat, and I calmed down and shivered in his grasp.

  “Whew!” I scooted away from him and treaded dark water alone. There was a bump under my arm, and Renny thrust her head under my grasp. “You want me to ride you, puss? Are you insane?” She gave the cat equivalent of a chuckle. Max came around under my other armpit, and the two of them began to churn the water with their padded paws.

  Now, tabby cats can actually be very effective swimmers, and full-grown tigers really love the water. Max and Renny were no exception, and they moved so fluidly—like really big platypuses—that pretty soon we were nearly in the middle of the lake.

  It was both one of the coolest and one of the creepiest moments of my life.

  Being in water is… wonderful. Water, even water that stains your clothes red with iron ore, cleanses your body and your spirit. Water this cold, when the day was this warm and promising hells to come, well, it practically cascaded under your skin, made its own little healing spa for your capillaries, and bathed everything about you in fresh.

  I let my body be pulled through that cold loveliness and closed my eyes, smelling cool red dirt, pine trees, fresh water, and clean dust. Then I opened them and saw that flat black water.

  And felt panic explode into my throat like a grenade.

  For a minute I was too frightened to move, which was good, because it kept me from drowning in the middle of a cold alien lake surrounded by friends. I couldn’t see my feet. I was in water with an infinite bottom, any number of horrible things could be beneath me, and I couldn’t see my feet.

  I had a scar around my ankle, thick, white, and jagged, from one of the horrible things that could grab you when you couldn’t see your feet.

  My companionable arms around the two giant cats on either side of me tightened suddenly. When Renny whined, I managed to keep my voice reasonably free of skull-frying panic.

  “Uhm, Renny… sweetheart… any way you could get me back to where I could touch?”

  I couldn’t close my eyes on the way back, because if I did, the vision of that bony hand with the rotting flesh stripping away from it clenched behind my eyes. I concentrated instead on the sudden chill as the air dipped to almost eighty degrees and the darkened green treetops shattered into gold.

  “Pretty,” I grunted, and then I thanked them for the ride when I felt the slimy-rocky bottom underneath my foot.

  The werewolves were playing water tag. Lambent was swimming, seallike, so far down the lake that I could barely see him. LaMark, Mario, Nicky, and Bracken were chatting companionably with Tanya and treading water about twenty feet from where my wet feline taxi had dropped me off.

  I stood gratefully on wobbly knees and padded on tender feet to my flip-flops. When I got there, I turned and called to Bracken, hoping I looked normal and calm and everything that the lot of them needed me to be when we were in a strange place with strange people and possible enemies facing us down.

  “I’m gonna go shower,” I called, and I tried not to wince when my voice cracked on “gonna.” “Have everyone meet me in about half an hour.”

  Bracken looked at me oddly but nodded. I shivered my way back to the cabin, dripping lake water off my cotton clothes and down my legs and leaving puddles of red-dirt pudding behind me as I walked.

  Twenty minutes later I was clean and fresh, unpacking into the rough-hewn dresser and chatting with Green on my charging cell phone. I carefully didn’t mention my embarrassing little episode, but I told him we’d gotten there safely and filled him in on my plans for the day.

  “Plans?” he laughed. “I thought you just got there?”

  But Bracken and I had talked quietly in the car, and as I filled him in, he seemed more than impressed.

  “Napoleon Bonaparte had nothing on you, beloved.” His voice smiled, I thought wretchedly. How was it possible for even his voice to smile? But I didn’t get sad and mushy on him. We’d been doing this for a while, and although it never stopped sucking, we got better at putting a bright face on the suckage, because moping just made it suck harder.

  I didn’t get a chance to answer anyway. Bracken and Nicky came in then. They would have been sopping wet, but they’d been wandering around naked, and I remembered I had something else to talk to the family about and had to ring off.

  But first—“Green, do you remember putting the bathing suit we ordered in the suitcase?”

  He hmmmmmed evasively. “I remember putting the bathing suit I ordered in the suitcase.” E
ven as he said it, a big red flag popped in my head. However, as Bracken soaped his hair in the shower, he was demanding to know where the hell I’d put his cargo shorts.

  I tamped down on a less than polite—and less than truthful—answer/anatomical description and sighed. “I’ve got to go, beloved,” I told him, getting out of Nicky’s way as he rooted around the drawers. “Apparently I put everything away all wrong.”

  “Why didn’t you let the sprites do it?” he asked in long-suffering tones, and I flopped limply across the bed. Well, wasn’t I becoming quite the control freak?

  “My bad,” I mumbled. “I’ll remember next time. I still have to go—love you lots?”

  “Love you forever,” he said back.

  I still stayed on the bed, partly because I was feeling pensive and partly because it got me out of the way. Brack hopped out of the shower and Nicky hopped in, and in that weirdly quick way that I was starting to think had more to do with gender than species, he seemed to be dressed almost instantly. With a little leap and a spring, he landed on the bed next to me. I smiled a little and rolled into him, because hey, touching him never got old.

  “You okay?” he asked, picking up on my mood. I tried and failed to smile brightly, and he frowned and bumped my shoulder with his instead. “What happened out in the water by the way?”

  I don’t know what I was going to say as I opened my mouth, but it didn’t matter, because there was a perfunctory knock at the door and Max and Renny walked in, and I scrambled to sit up on the bed to greet them.

  Max had on shorts, but Renny was the way the Goddess likes her children best. I groaned. “Didn’t Tanya tell you?”

  Renny looked at me with the even, unblinking gaze of a contemptuous house cat. “So?” she asked. “The civilians are still sleeping.” She gave a little wiggle and shimmy. “Besides, I like being naked in the mountains.”

  I sighed. Of all the times I hated being a leader the most, dealing with Renny topped the list. She was a leader’s nightmare. No one in their right mind tried to train a house cat; no king or president on the planet would place his life in the hands of a creature so fickle it couldn’t even decide whether to lick its foot or the end of its twitching tail.