by Nina Berry
“There.” He turned his head to the right, peering into the dark. “What’s over there?”
I glanced in that direction. “There’s a pile of rocks that looks like a tired whale,” I said. “It’s pretty big.”
“I see it,” he said. “A bushed beluga. Get us behind it.”
“Okay.” I looked in the rearview mirror and zeroed in on the headlights of the pursuing car, far away but still behind us. I steered behind the rocks. They hid us completely from the other car.
“Perfect.” He flashed a grin and squeezed my arm approvingly. “Now try to stop without hitting the brakes.”
The black bulk of the rocks loomed to our right. I downshifted. We rolled to a stop, and the airy silence of the night floated in the open windows.
I caught the faint rumble of the other car’s engine in the distance. “They’re coming closer,” I said. “If they see where we left the road they might find us. Can you hear them?”
“No, but I trust your ears.” He opened the car door to get out. I followed suit.
Caleb walked past the long shadow of the rocks to stand in the moonlight and stare at them. The whole pile stood only a few inches taller than he, dominated by the huge whale boulder on top of a series of smaller rocks. It didn’t look very stable. “Showtime,” he said, then sang out an intense note that rumbled deep in his chest. It grew in volume and force, dominating the air around us, for about a minute.
No way he can keep this up much longer. But Caleb continued the note, then stretched out his arm, pointing at the small hill of stone. His black eyes glinted with gold, and all the power of the night seemed to fold itself around him like a cloak. Speak-singing on that same note, he intoned, “I call you forth from shadow.”
A dark, churning fog shot from his hand toward the pile, where it encircled a small rock at the base. The rock seemed to shake itself, like a dog waking up from a nap. For a moment it looked like it overlapped the other rocks, as if the world had been double exposed. Then it rooted itself into the earth and shot up toward the stars.
I stumbled back, tripped over a tuft of desert grass, and fell flat on my butt onto something prickly. Above me now loomed a rocky mountain ridge over ten stories high, stretching left and right in a jagged line of unbroken stone for what had to be miles. It shone pure white and shiny as marble, alien, cold, and beautiful in the flat, red-brown landscape. My mind was blank, my mouth dry. I shut it and tried to swallow.
I heard a thud and looked to find Caleb lying on the ground on his back. I got to my feet and ran as he struggled to sit up, his face deathly pale and drawn. He startled as I leaned over him, his eyes wild.
“Tell Her Majesty I’m sorry,” he said. “But it won’t be gone for long.”
“You’re babbling,” I said. “Is that what you do after you do this—whatever it is you do?”
“They quarried the stone for the Queen’s summer palace here, you know,” he said. “That’s what it told me.”
I glanced up at the smooth white stone, suitable for palace building. Maybe it wasn’t babble. “The stone told you that?”
He nodded.
I hunkered down to look him in the eye because I couldn’t bend at the waist. “Let me know if it tells you this week’s lottery numbers.”
He chortled, shut his eyes, and leaned his head back, as if basking in the moonlight. The silvery radiance bathed his long black eyelashes and ran down his strong neck. “Thank the moon,” he said. “It saved our lives.”
I couldn’t stop staring down at him. In the clean white light he looked like a statue by Michelangelo, all smooth skin over lean muscles and wild hair. Then he opened his eyes. They were pure black and clear of distraction. He sat up. “All right, my canny co-conspirator. Let’s get out of here.”
“Excellent plan, my able accomplice,” I said, standing up and taking his hand so I could pull him to his feet. “Let’s find a gas station. I’m starving.”
Caleb was too out of it to talk for about an hour. After the GPS led us to another dirt road and pointed the way, he ripped out the system’s wires, saying the Tribunal also used it as a tracking device for the car. Then he fell into a deep sleep, head thrown back against the headrest.
We were out in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, not far from the 15 freeway. As Caleb slept I turned west toward Barstow, back in the direction of Burbank.
“You startled me back there, you know,” he said after a while, lifting his head and rubbing his eyes. “You move so quietly.”
“My friend Iris hates it when I come up behind her in the halls at school,” I said. “She never hears me, and then she jumps ten feet in the air when I say hi.”
He let out a weary laugh. “Just don’t tell her you’re a highly evolved predator. It might make her nervous.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “Start with this Tribunal. They kidnapped us. They’re chasing us. Why?”
He glanced over at me, his black eyes serious. “Their order was created nearly two thousand years ago to wipe people like you and me from the face of the earth. They call us witches, demonspawn, creatures of the devil. They exist to sever all connection between this world and the shadow world. If things keep going the way they are, they’ll probably succeed.”
“So Lazar shot me because I . . . shifted.” I still had a hard time with that word, that concept.
He nodded, brow furrowed. “The question is, how did he know who you were? How did he know where to find you and when you’d shift? That was the first time for you, right?”
I ignored the sudden pounding of my heart and pushed away the heated image Caleb’s words conjured. Something about him made my mind go to all the wrong places. “Um, yeah. And an older man with white hair was there with him when he did it. He called him son.”
“That’s Ximon, Lazar and Amaris’s father.” His voice held a note of steely anger. “Ximon with an X. He’s the lead asshole for the Tribunal in this part of the world.”
“How do you know so much about them?” I said. “You know all their names, what they do. You knew this was Lazar’s car and exactly how to disable the tracking device on it.”
“Know thy enemy,” he said. “Your kind and mine have not always been friendly, but we’ve shared the same adversary for the last two thousand years. If you’d been raised like other shifters, you’d know all of this. And I’ve been keeping an eye on Ximon’s group for a while now.”
“So you’re not a shifter.” I said. “You make other things shift.”
He gave me an appreciative glance and nodded. “Exactly, smart girl.”
“Okay,” I said, settling into my seat. The white line down the center of the 15 freeway ran for what seemed forever before me, and stretched out into the darkness behind. “Tell me everything. From the beginning.”
CHAPTER 4
“The many worlds lie alongside each other like spoons in a drawer,” said Caleb. His voice took on a singsong intonation, as if he’d been told this story himself many times. “Although some would say they lie heaped in a messy pile, like kittens in a basket. One world lies closest to our own, and through the years it has been known by many names—the Dreamtime, Valhalla, the Underworld, or as we call it, Othersphere. From the earliest days it cast its shadow into our world. Not a shadow of darkness, but a power shadow, a vibration.
“The first people to recognize this were called by different names too—shaman, wizard, medicine man, seer, druid, witch. They found and called forth the shadow in certain people, and the animal forms of the first shifters came forth. They sought the shadows of plants, of animals, of stone and earth. Today we are referred to as callers of shadow. And for a long time, we were the only source of what might be called magic, but which we call shadow.”
“It all comes from this Othersphere?” I said.
“Yes. No one has ever traveled between worlds, except perhaps in dreams, but the worlds affect each other. We can’t know what our world does to Othersphere, but a caller can sense O
thersphere’s potential effect on this world.”
“Then why did you say thanks to the moon?” I glanced over at him. The lights from the dash caught the dark glint of his irises and outlined the bruise around his eye.
“Certain circumstances make it easier to call the shadow forth.” He frowned, thinking. “When the moon is full, the conditions are optimal for a caller to bring forth shadow, and for a shifter to change to their animal form. There are other things that make it easier too—certain locations are more closely connected to Othersphere. The ancients called them faery mounds or built henges and temples to mark a place of power. My mother also said that places where huge bursts of energy took place, like Hiroshima and Mount St. Helens, lie very close to Othersphere. She thought events like that tear at the veil between this world and the other.”
“Is your mother a caller too?”
He hesitated. Pain flickered across his face. “She was,” he said. “She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It was a while ago.” He turned his head to look out his window, so I could only see the strong line of his jaw. “I learned everything worth knowing from her.”
“And your father?” I asked.
“Don’t know him.” He kept staring out at the sky.
The road rumbled beneath us as we sat in silence. The moon had risen, shrinking to a dime-sized pool of pulsating light, shining down through the BMW’s moonroof. It cast Caleb’s eyes into shadow.
“What about the Tribunal?” I asked after a few minutes.
“What about it?” His velvet voice sounded distracted.
“Well, you said that in the beginning were the callers, and they called forth the shifters. Where do the members of the Tribunal come from? Lazar did something with his voice.... It made me feel awful. That’s kind of like what you do, right?” He didn’t reply, so I pushed on. “I mean, you did the opposite. You helped me, but you did it with your voice too. Same with that ridge of rock you conjured out there.”
“Vibration.” He relaxed into his seat. “Callers use the vibration in their voices to bring out the shadow form of an object. The Tribunal refers to its callers as objurers now, but they were callers once.”
“So they think using shadow to get rid of shadow is okay, but not for anything else.”
“Exactly. Hey!” He pointed to a green sign that read GAS, FOOD, LODGING by the side of the road. “You still hungry?”
“Ravenous.” The lift in his voice picked up my spirits.
“Two more miles and then it’s lukewarm hot dogs and Pop-Tarts for everyone. After that I know a safe place we can go, north of here.”
“Now?” I said. “I’m going home.”
“The Tribunal knows where you live,” he said.
I’d forgotten that. Remembering how Lazar stomped through the vegetable garden outside my bedroom made me queasy. “I could tell my mom what happened,” I said. “She’s pretty cool and believes some stuff that’s kind of out there. She’s a Wiccan, in touch with nature, believes in astrology, stuff like that. She could call the cops, tell them I was kidnapped by these weirdos. Get them on the case.”
“No cop’s going to believe you,” he said, his tone dismissive. “I’ve had my run-ins with them, so trust me. If anything, they’ll send you off to a therapist, and no head shrinker’s going to protect you from the Tribunal.”
“Well, I am going home,” I said. He shook his head at me, but I ignored him and pressed on, still wanting more information. “So tell me, Lazar and his dad. They do what you do?”
“With a few differences.” He ran a hand through his hair and seemed to relax. “Over the years, the Tribunal has trained its members to focus on certain areas of expertise. Mostly they excel at forcing shadow back to Othersphere.”
I frowned, trying to work this out. “So instead of calling things out, they push them back in.”
He let out a half laugh. “That’s basically it, yeah. They’re also good with technology and chemistry, guns with silver bullets, silver-based tranquilizers, stuff like that. They experiment with their drugs and machines to see if they can permanently erase the shadow from otherkin and from the places connected to Othersphere.”
Experiment. I didn’t like the sound of that. “Is that what they were going to do with me?”
Sympathy glinted in his eyes. “Probably.”
“And if their experiments didn’t work?” I almost didn’t want to hear the answer.
He shrugged and remained silent. That was answer enough. I took a deep breath. “And you?”
“Same thing,” he said.
“So they could push back that ridge of stone you called out of the desert,” I said.
His dark brows drew together. “Lazar might manage it,” he said. “His father’s an expert. If Lazar can’t figure it out, Ximon could objure what I called forth without breaking a sweat.”
“Let’s say Ximon never came and Lazar couldn’t do it. Would that ridge of stone just stay there forever?”
He shook his head. “No. Objects called forth like that shrink back to their normal form within a few hours, depending on the conditions. With the moon full, it may last until moonset, assuming they don’t get rid of it first.”
“What about, you know, shifters?” The word still felt strange in my mouth.
“You mean people like you?” His eyes raked over me. “Five types have survived—cats, wolves, bears, birds of prey, and rats.”
“Rats?” I said, staring at him. “Bears?”
“There used to be thousands of different kinds of shifters,” he said. “Back before the Tribunal, the sea lion–shifters and dolphin-shifters were mistaken for mermaids, the swans and bulls helped create the legends of the god Zeus, and the spider-shifters. . . well, I’ve heard they were as big as dogs. The five remaining tribes don’t get along, but each has a seat on the council for their area.”
“Wow.” The world was getting stranger by the minute. “The Tribunal killed all the rest of them off?”
He nodded sadly. “Those that survived were mostly the top predators—wolves, large cats, bears, and birds of prey.”
“And the rats?” I said.
“Guess they can survive anything. If there had been cockroach-shifters, they probably would’ve made it too.”
“That is amazing!” I tried to picture a full-grown person shifting into a rat. “Do they all have trouble shifting when they’re young, like me?”
He nodded. “You learn control as you get older. Shifters first start changing form when they hit puberty. Their families help them learn to control it, or there are callers who help train the ones who have difficulty with it. Here’s the off-ramp.”
He pointed to the exit, and I curved right. Ahead, a brightly lit sign announced the price of gas and pointed the way to a small Eat and Go mart. Its umbrella of light enveloped it like a shield against the endless dark of the surrounding desert.
I pulled into a parking space next to the only other car in the lot and realized what was missing. “Do you have any money?”
“Shit!” He patted his pockets. “Nothing. Bastards took everything, which wasn’t much.” He leaned over to stare at the gas gauge. His nearness made my stomach jump. “How much gas do we have left?”
“Less than a quarter tank,” I said. “We’ll never get out of the desert.”
“Okay, new mission. Search the car.” He reached down under my seat, head nearly in my lap. “There’s got to be some money in it somewhere, even if it’s just some change.”
“Good idea.” I tried to control my breath. “I’ll check the trunk.”
I got out of the car fast and popped the trunk. The dry, cool air of the desert night felt welcome on my hot skin. His proximity rattled me.
I lifted up the trunk lid. The harsh fluorescent lights of the convenience store shone down on a couple of manila folders, a flat shiny box, a Christian rock CD, two tennis racquets, and three loose, bright green balls. “Lazar plays tennis,�
� I said loud enough for Caleb to hear.
“Why does that make perfect sense?” said Caleb. “Bet you five bucks I find something in the glove compartment.”
“And how will you pay me if you don’t find it?” I asked, reaching for the shiny box. I pulled it toward me, then snapped my hand away as it burned like a hot stove. I shook my fingers. “And there’s a very pretty silver box back here that I can’t open.”
“Be right there.” Fumbling noises came from the front of the car. “Score!” He jumped out of the car, brandishing a couple of bills. “Forty bucks! Right where I said it would be. Wanna bet me now?”
“That’ll get us enough gas to get me home, plus some snacks.”
He nodded. “Okay. If we’re lucky, they’ll have one of those hot dog merry-go-rounds.” He stuffed the money in his pocket and came to stand next to me facing the trunk. “Interesting box.”
“You can touch silver, right?” I said.
“Most of the time. It only affects me when I’m actively calling something out of shadow.” He leaned over and tugged the box toward him. “It’s locked.”
“Here.” I handed him the ring of Lazar’s keys. “Bound to be on here somewhere.”
“Thanks.” He shuffled through the keys and found a small shiny one. “This looks right.”
The key slid into the lock on the box. As he turned it, the lid clicked open. I inhaled sharply. Caleb became very still.
A large pistol nestled in black velvet gleamed inside the box. Two burnished magazines of bullets sat in their own form-fitting slots.
“The gun isn’t silver too, is it?” I didn’t want to touch it and find out. I’d never touched a gun, let alone fired one. My stomach fluttered just looking at it.
“They make them out of an alloy that includes silver. Typical Tribunal weapon.” He touched the gun, then tugged one of the magazines out of its niche. “But the bullets are silver. Through and through.”
“Close it up.” I scanned the front of the Eat and Go and found a security camera under the eaves.