Ryan was about to ask again about helping Telly when he heard a howl.
Was that…? It sounded like a wolf.
54
Telly was still trying to break through the circle of Uberalls but with no success. Every time he tried someone pushed him back. His anger and frustration drowned out his fear as the jeers and catcalls grew louder
“Maybe he can’t transicate!” Ergel shouted. “Maybe he ain’t no a lycan at all!”
Telly stepped forward, advanced on Ergel until he levered down to within inches of his ugly flattened face. “Shut up, you stupid troll!”
Ergel gave him an especially hard shove and shouted, “Maybe he’s the human spyer youse was lookin’ for!”
That last shove did it. A barrier cracked within Telly, releasing something he hadn’t known was there. He charged Ergel. He intended to shout at the troll but it came out a howl. His skin seemed on fire and he saw dark fur sprouting from his outstretched arms as he reached for Ergel. Part of him was screaming with fright, but another part, the just-released part, was reveling in the moment with a dark joy.
Directly ahead of him Ergel’s nasty sneer morphed into a horrified oval of shock and fear. Telly leaped and slammed against him, knocking him back. He was going for the troll’s thick throat when he heard a boom and something like a giant fist slammed against him.
As he lay dazed on the ground, staring at the sky, the anger faded and he felt like himself again. He raised his arms and checked them. The fur he’d seen was gone.
Had he really seen it? No. Couldn’t be. He’d just gone a little berserk for a moment there and had imagined it.
He rolled over and found himself next to Cal who was struggling to rise to his hands and knees. He and all the Uberalls – Ergel as well – had been knocked flat. But by what? Telly fought off the dull-witted haze that threatened to overtake him. The combination of his delirious attack on the troll and then the shockwave of the explosion–
And then he saw Ergel’s truck, or what was left of it: four tires and a steaming chassis. Everything else was gone. He heard tires and saw a car he didn’t recognize skid to a halt nearby. Telly squinted to see who was driving. He blinked… then blinked again. Shaking his head to clear it. Behind the steering wheel…
No!
Was that…?
Yes! Dr. Polonius!
And then Ryan was jumping out of the passenger side and running over to Cal. As he helped the boy to his feet he looked at Telly with a mixture of terror and wonder in his eyes.
“I’ll stay here,” Telly whispered. “Find Emma.”
Still looking like he was ready to go into shock, Ryan nodded and helped Cal into the car. Dr. Polonius looked unfazed as he gave a quick wave and then roared off.
Telly noticed the Armagost Farm truck was missing. Dillon must have driven off in it. Some of the rabble that had surrounded him were beginning to stir, to lift themselves to their knees. Pretty soon one of the Uberalls would notice that Cal and Ryan and Dillon were gone, but by then it would be too late to run after them.
He heard a rumbling groan behind him. Ergel was rolling over. “What happened?” And then he saw what was left of his truck. “My truck! My truck!”
He struggled to his feet and staggered over to the wreckage.
As Telly pushed up to a sitting position, he found himself staring at a huge, hairy hand. He looked up to see one of the squatches extending his hand.
“Need a little help?” he growled.
Telly took the hand and said, “Thanks.”
“You had me worried there for a while, fixer,” he said when Telly was standing again.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you wouldn’t trans and that troll was saying you were the human spy and, you know, after a while you have to start to wonder.” He clapped Telly on the shoulder – so hard it almost buckled his knees. “Gotta tell ya, I was relieved when you started sprouting that fur. That dumb troll should-a known better than to mess with a crazy wolf!”
Telly staggered back a step. So it was true!
“Hey,” the squatch said. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Just a little woozy. You said you were relieved?”
“Well, yeah. Didn’t wanna have to kill a guy who can fix anything.”
“I won’t take that personally,” Telly said.
Another hard clap on his shoulder. “Hey, you showed everybody what you’re made of, and proved that stupid troll a liar.”
The squatch’s words echoed in Telly’s head as he watched him walk away.
…showed everybody what you’re made of…
Yeah…made of a lycan…
But I’m not a lycan! I’m human!
Aren’t I?
He shook his head again, hoping his thoughts would really clear. Right now he wasn’t sure of anything. He realized he was staring off at nothing, and he didn’t want to make the squatch start wondering about him.
“Fixer…you okay?” The mammoth, foul-smelling Uberall leaned down to look into his eyes.
“That explosion really knocked me around. Sorry.”
The squatch waved him off, started attending to some of the others who were still reeling from blown steam boiler.
Telly drifted off as well, left to his thoughts.
Was that why he didn’t test as human when Falzon was looking for a human spy among the Uberalls? Because he really was a lycan?
But if he was a lycan he would have transed last night and ripped off his clothes and run around, howling at the moon. He lived through hundreds of full moons and never transed – not at home, not here. And not only had he never had hair on his palms, he’d handled silver all his life too.
And yet today, when he’d felt threatened and had been madder than he’d ever been in his life, he’d started howling and sprouting fur.
He groaned. “Oh, no!” Ryan must have seen the whole show. That would explain the kid’s scared and confused expression as he was helping Cal.
How could he explain to Ryan when he couldn’t explain it to himself?
And if all this wasn’t crazy enough, Dr. Polonius was here.
This already insane world had just grown more insane by a factor of ten!
55
Ryan sat by the passenger window in the front of the car, next to Cal, and felt as if his life was coming apart. Emma was missing, possibly dead. And Telly… Telly was a lycan?
How was that possible? Was Nocturnia somehow changing him?
Maybe I just imagined it, he thought, not believing the words even as they took shape in his mind.
“Did you see?” he asked Cal.
Cal looked at him. He still seemed half dazed. “You mean… Telly?” Cal nodded. “I saw.”
Ryan’s heart sank. So it hadn’t been his imagination.
“But I’ve known him all my life and he’s never…” He leaned forward and looked at the strange man behind the wheel. “Doctor Polonius, how could Telly be…?” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “He never showed anything back home. You said he was ‘full of surprises.’ Did you know?”
Polonius gave a tight smile. “I knew it was a p-possibility.”
Ryan tried to get a read on Polonius but couldn’t. The man radiated nothing: no bad vibes, but no good vibes either. A blank.
“How?” Ryan said. “How could there be the slightest possibility?”
“A long story, dear boy.”
“Tell me. We have time.”
“Maybe after I get you s-someplace safe.”
Ryan had had it up to here with being put off and treated like a stupid little kid. Dr. Polonius had said he had “need” of him and Emma. If that were true, maybe Ryan could use that as a lever. He was desperate to know.
He slammed the dashboard with a fist. “No! I want to know now! I’ll open this door and jump out right now if I don’t get some answers!”
“Let’s not d-do anything rash,” Polonius said.
“Then start talking.”
&
nbsp; Ryan couldn’t believe he was talking this way to an adult, but he was having the worst day of his life and it was only early afternoon.
Polonius sighed. “Does the word ‘hybrid’ mean anything to you?”
“Like the child of a human and a lycan?”
“Precisely.”
“But that’s impossible!”
Polonius’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? And you’re an authority on Nocturnian genetics?”
“No, but I was told–”
“By whom?”
It had been Orin Jantz, but Polonius wouldn’t know him.
“A farmer.”
He gave a derisive snort. “Consider the source.”
“You’re telling me that a lyferatu is possible?” Ryan had coined the word on the fly and hoped it would impress the doctor. He needed the weird man to respect him.
The smile disappeared. “A ‘lyfera – oh, I see what you’re getting at. Yes, it’s possible – under the p-proper conditions. Almost anything is possible under the proper conditions.”
“But that would mean that Telly’s father was a lycan.”
“So it would seem.”
Was it possible? Mom never talked about Telly’s father. When pressed she’d say she didn’t know where he was and thought he might have passed away. Could he have come over from Nocturnia?
“Wait. Telly doesn’t change with the full moon.”
Polonius shook his head. “You disappoint me, Ryan. You’re giving me indications you’re a b-bright boy. You should know that a child gets half its traits from one p-parent and half from the other. Lucky for Telly, he didn’t get the luning gene or he’d have been a very d-difficult child to raise.”
You can say that again, Ryan thought.
But Mom…he couldn’t get over his mother with a lycan. But then, to be fair, they looked exactly like humans except for the palm hair, and that was easily fixed with a little soap and a razor.
“Do you know who Telly’s father was?”
“I’ve a pretty good idea.”
“Well?”
“Some other time.”
“Now!”
“Don’t you think you owe it to your b-brother to let him figure that out on his own? If he hasn’t already, he will soon.”
All right. Maybe Ryan could see that. But another question popped into his head.
“But then who are you? I mean, really? And don’t try to put me off. I want–”
Polonius leaned forward and peered through the window. “There’s a young girl ahead. Should we g-give her a ride?”
Ryan saw a bedraggled girl with messy hair and dirty clothes walking barefoot along the side of the road. Her back was to them but he recognized her instantly.
“Emma!”
56
Kolkut
Yeti-Rakshasa Commonwealth
Dheeraj stood on one of the palace’s high balconies and watched the northern sky burn.
The room behind him was a shambles with broken pottery and fallen wall decorations, all shaken loose by the earthquake that had rattled the palace to its foundations.
His mother, Ashima, huddled next to him, her arms around him, trembling in fright as she watched the awful spectacle.
“What happened,” she said. “Doesssn’t anyone know?”
“No word yet, Mother.”
Like everyone else in Kolkut – probably everyone in the entire Commonwealth – Dheeraj had been awakened shortly before midnight by a low-pitched rumble accompanied by violent shaking. And then the sky had lit up.
“It’s the H’malya range, isssn’t it,” she said. “The occultium in the mountainsss hasss become unssstable. Jussst like that Doctor Bluthkalt claimed.”
Dheeraj said nothing. The Spinal Mountains in Afric had exploded, leaving a huge scar across the upper portion of the continent, and wiping out all life for a thousand miles around. The H’malyas were a longer and even more massive range. If they went all at once, it might not only wipe out rakshasakind, it might crack the planet in two.
He turned at a sound behind him. His father, Prannath, was approaching.
“Any word, father?
His long-fanged mouth was set in a grim line. “Mount Eversss isss gone!”
“What?” Ashima cried. “No! Impossible!”
“Too true, I’m afraid. I’ve jussst now received word, passsed down through the Yeti whisper network. Their kind have been decimated and thousandsss of them are fleeing sssouth.”
The Commonwealth had been formed to enlist the rakshasa to protect the reclusive Yeti in return for mineral rights to their mountains. It had been a good partnership. The rakshasa represented themselves as well as the Yeti in the United Nocturnia General Assembly.
“If the ressst of the H’malyasss go, there will be no place to hide, father.”
Prannath slammed a huge taloned fist against the stone railing. “We can’t ssstandly idly by and do nothing! There mussst be sssomething we can do! But what?”
“Falzon may know something,” Dheeraj said.
“Now, ssson,” Prannath said, “I know you two don’t get along, but…”
“I had a one-on-one talk with him before he returned to Lycanthum, and he said some strange things. I got the feeling that he wasn’t worried at all that the H’malya occultium was becoming unstable. In fact, he seemed rather pleased.”
Ashima gasped. “Your brother wouldn’t do anything to endanger our homeland!”
“He may not look at it that way, Mother. And he ssseemed mossst pleasssed that our resssearchersss have confirmed Bluthkalt’sss theory of the thinning of the Veil.”
“The former isss the caussse of the latter,” Pranneth said. “Could he be in league with the Sssilent Onesss?”
“They have contact with no one but the etherealsss. I doubt they would make an exception for my brother.”
“This ‘Key to the Temple’ they keep mentioning. Could Falzon have it?”
“It’s posssible. But what doesss it look like? No one even knowsss what ‘temple’ they refer to. Their idea of a temple might be nothing like ours.”
Prannath was silent for a moment, then he turned to Dheeraj. “I want you to go to Lycanthum and keep an eye on Falzon.”
Dheeraj hated the idea. Living among lesser creatures, especially lycans… he repressed a shudder.
“It’s not like I can blend in with the crowd over there.”
“I’ll have you asssigned to the Y-RC misssion to the UN. You can make dissscreet foraysss at night. If your brother isss connected to… to what isss happening, we will have to deal with him.”
Dheeraj knew what that meant. So did his mother.
“Prannath! You’re talking about our ssson.”
“I am talking about rakshasssakind, about the future of all of Nocturnia!” He turned to Dheeraj. “Pack up. You leave at firssst light.”
Dheeraj knew there would be no talking him out of it.
“Yesss, Father.”
57
Questions, questions, questions!
Emma had so many, and so did Ryan and Cal.
She’d never been so glad to see anyone as Ryan when he called her name from the window of this car. Lost, alone, hungry, exhausted, she’d pretty nearly lost hope of ever seeing him or Telly or anyone she knew again. And then there he was, waving, smiling, tears of joy in his eyes that he’d found her. She’d broken down and sobbed with relief.
And now she was crammed in between Rayan and Cal as Dr. Polonius – of all people – drove. What was that man from their hometown in Kansas doing here? How could he get here? Was there something about Skelton Springs that kept sending people to Nocturnia? She wanted to ask how he wound up here in Nocturnia, but Ryan was so insistent with his own questions for her.
“We been going crazy looking for you, Emma. What happened to you last night? Where’d you go?”
Last night…was it only last night? Seemed like she’d been walking along the road forever.
“I…I don’t know.”
>
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Ryan said with his trademarked impatient tone. “How can you not know?”
“Lighten up, Ryan,” Cal said.
“Lighten up? I’ve been thinking she was dead!”
His voice cracked on that last word and Emma loved him for that. He’d genuinely feared for her.
“I’m as frustrated as you,” she said. “I’ve been trying to remember since I woke up a few hours ago.”
“And?”
“And nothing. It’s all a blank.”
Dr. Polonius said, “Start with the last thing you remember and m-maybe something will come.”
Emma closed her eyes. “I remember leaving the bushes and heading for the trees. The moonlight helped but I couldn’t see much. Then I heard this sound behind me. Something grabbed me, a hand clamped over my mouth, and… and that’s all I remember until I woke up this morning.”
“A hand?” Cal said. “You’re sure? Not a paw?”
Emma thought about that. Yes, she was sure. “Definitely a hand.”
“That means it wasn’t a lycan – because they were all transed by then.”
“Could have been a necro or a nossie,” Cal said. “Or a pluriban.”
“Doctor Koertig?” Ryan said.
“Ah, Koertig,” Polonius muttered.
“You know him?” Ryan said.
“His reputation p-precedes him.”
“Huh?” said Emma. She eyes the scientist with obvious suspicion. “How could you possibly know anything about that strange creature?”
Polonius waved off her question. “It’s a bit complicated. I’ll tell you when we have more time.”
Emma was not mollified. “You’d better.”
Ignoring her, Polonius turned back to Ryan. “Why did you mention him – Koertig, that is?”
“Because he seemed awful interested in Emma and me after we arrived.”
“Did he now? Why would that be?”
“Because of some alarm that went off when he hauled us out of the path of that tornado – which you sent us into.”
“My dear boy, how could I know when and where a t-tornado would strike?”
Family Secrets Page 21