Otherkin

by Nina Berry

  Ximon grabbed for her, but too late. The plane’s speed quickly left her behind. Ximon stuck his head out of the open door, white hair flapping in the breeze from the propeller, his clear blue eyes wide in shock. Amaris, her hands and knees scraped and bleeding, struggled to her feet.

  Caleb came to a pounding halt as Amaris got to her feet and ran to him. “No!” he shouted. “Get out of here, Amaris. Run!” The plane was facing down the runway now. Ximon shut the door and the aircraft picked up speed, about to leave the ground.

  Amaris stopped, uncertain. Caleb gave her a shove back toward the burning buildings of the compound, holding the elephant aloft. “I have to do this,” he said. “Now go! It’s not safe.”

  She backed away fast, her eyes wide with horror. “Don’t, Caleb, no!”

  He still hadn’t heard me approach. I was a breath from pouncing upon him.

  “I call on you, come forth from shadow!” Caleb’s voice was deeper than I’d ever heard, more commanding, elegant, and vicious. It sent vibrations shuddering down my skin, and I knew whatever he was calling forth was greater and deadlier than I. The lifeless stuffed animal in his hand seemed to stir.

  I didn’t hesitate. No way was I going to let him risk his life with whatever-it-was. He might think revenge was worth it, but I knew better. And, selfishly, in the back of my head, I didn’t want him to kill Ximon, who maybe held a few secrets from my past inside his head. I sprang toward Caleb’s upraised arm and swatted. The elephant flew from his grip as he recoiled.

  I landed, then bounded again, grabbing the elephant in my mouth as it rolled along the ground. It writhed in my grip, much larger than it had been moments before. Something like a horn or a tooth stabbed the inside of my mouth, a scaly wing flapped frantically, and one long, black arm reached up, clawing with too-long fingers at my eyes. The elephant was becoming whatever its shadow form was in Othersphere. I had only seconds before the transformation was complete.

  “Dez, no!” Caleb’s eyes were still flecked with gold, but he looked pale, tired, slightly stunned as he often did after exercising his power for too long. He held his hand out to me. “Put it down; let me stop them.”

  As an answer, I sank my claws into the squirming thing growing in my jaws, and tore it to pieces. For a moment, I felt flesh and bone give way. Then it was nothing but white bits of stuffing, puffing into the wind and covering my tongue.

  “What have you done?” The command flooded Caleb’s voice, shuddering around me like a great wind. Then he shook his head, as if fighting something off. “No,” he said with a kind of desperation, though I wasn’t sure what he meant. “No, not like this.”

  “Yes.” His voice echoed again, only this time it wasn’t his voice, but something harsh and grating. He drew himself to his full height, but he looked even taller and leaner now. I blinked at him. Were those reptilian scales covering his skin?

  He shook his head and closed his eyes, and when he opened them they were strangely tilted and pure gold, the pupil gone. He smiled, lips thinning, teeth sharpened to dangerous points. His hands were black, the nails like yellow dagger points. He was no longer Caleb, but rather some avenging demon in human form, a dark specter ready to exact any price to get what he wanted.

  Fear made my tail lash. I’d seen Caleb struggle internally before, when he got tired and overreached himself with calling. Morfael had as much as admitted that it opened Caleb up to being overtaken by things in Othersphere. But it had never changed how he looked, never altered his voice so drastically. Now it seemed he was being possessed by the very thing he was calling. I’d shredded the elephant, so it was coming into the world through Caleb instead.

  Amaris looked at the altered face of her brother, screamed, and tried to run. But she stepped on the hem of her long gown and went down in a heap. She whirled so as not to have her back to the creature.

  “What . . . who are you?” she asked.

  The demon looked down at its fingers and scales, and the mouth that used to be Caleb’s smiled at her. “I’m the one who watches, who conquers. For years I observed him. I knew that one day the temptation to call upon me would become too great.”

  I spat out the remains of the stuffed toy and gathered all my remaining strength. I wanted to leap upon the demon, to fight. But how could I do that and not hurt Caleb?

  The Caleb creature regarded me with scorn and reached out one hand. “Return.” His voice pulsed through me. “Return to shadow from whence you came. . . .”

  The words poured into me, trying to propel my tiger form back to Othersphere. I roared back with all my might, ears back. The vibrations from my throat interrupted his. I felt my own voice, like a shield around me, holding his back.

  The thing that was no longer Caleb smiled a horrible, warped grin like a death’s head. “Now he regrets defying you and calling me,” it said. “Now that he is weary and it is too late. He wishes he could return to you, but he cannot. Go back to where you belong, little beast.” He pointed a blackened hand at me again. Waves of power rippled over my fur. “I will swallow this moon and all its blood. Go, and leave this world to me.”

  I jumped at him to push at his chest with one paw, claws sheathed, trying to jolt Caleb back to this world. He stumbled back two steps, but did not fall. This creature was stronger than Caleb, stronger than I was.

  Caleb had to be somewhere in there, between this world and shadow. I had to bring him back somehow, find a way to make him fight. But tigers couldn’t talk. The answer was obvious. I hesitated only a moment, weighing my old fears against my love for Caleb; then I closed my eyes and stopped my growling.

  “Go back,” said the Caleb thing. “Return to your feeble human form, I command you!”

  And I did as he commanded. I allowed him to sweep my tiger form back into shadow. Then I stood there, nothing but a naked teenage girl with windblown hair and a full-body blush. Still wrapped around my waist was the belt and scabbard holding the Shadow Blade, as if I had never shifted. The bruises that had been at my waist for years thanks to the brace were gone.

  The Caleb creature was staring at me, spiked eyebrows frowning over golden eyes.

  “I love you, Caleb,” I said.

  It drew back, puzzlement twisting its almost familiar features.

  I waited a moment. The thing still stared. “Caleb! Would you please hurry up and kick this thing’s ass? I’m freezing!”

  Something like a full-body hiccup shuddered through the creature’s frame. Its dragonlike eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in fury. “No,” it said in its hissing, guttural voice. “I will not go—” Its voice cut off, choking. The sharpened, demonic outline wavered, flickered. And like a slate wiped clean, it was no longer the creature but Caleb standing before me, tall but not too tall, lean but not skeletal, devilishly handsome but not demonically so.

  “Dez?” It was Caleb’s voice. His eyes traveled over me, and I shivered but not from the cold. I stayed, bare feet clutching the sandy ground, anything to keep from ducking away.

  He stepped to me and I was in his arms. His whole body trembled, but somehow he got his coat off and wrapped it around me before he collapsed. I laid him down carefully on the desert floor. The gold was fading from his eyes as he stared up at the moon. Then his eyes closed. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing and Amaris, crying quietly, crumpled in a ball of white next to a stunted Joshua tree.

  The engine of Lazar’s airplane clattered, and I turned to see it rise from the ground. It seemed to hover for an instant, then shot up into the firmament, eclipsing the moon as it turned south and west.

  I leaned down and placed one ear on Caleb’s chest, wanting only to hear proof he was still here, still the Caleb that I knew. His heartbeat was hasty but not dangerous, his breath coming in jagged gasps. His skin looked gray and clammy.

  I lay down next to him, hoping the warmth from my body would help him somehow. He smelled of air and storm clouds.

  He blinked and turned to me. I wanted only t
o tell him how much I loved him, how I would do whatever it took to keep him safe and happy in this world or any other. But the emotions crowded my throat and I couldn’t speak.

  His eyes took me in. Then he wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in the crook of my neck. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Caleb had seen me naked.

  Of all the crazy stuff that had happened, that was the thought that kept beating through my brain as I limped across the desert with him and Amaris. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. Shifters found themselves naked all the time after they shed their animal form. But I’d never been kissed before I met him, never even considered showing any part of my body to a boy. I’d been in the brace for years, armored against all contact, safe and alone. Now that armor was gone, and I’d bared everything. I got hot all over as I thought about it. Part of me wanted to ask him what he was thinking. Part of me wanted to run away so I’d never have to look him in the eye again. And a very small part of me, a new part, wanted to tell him it was his turn next.

  We were all a mess. I stumbled forward in bare feet, wearing nothing but Caleb’s coat. Caleb drooped with exhaustion. Amaris, walking on the other side of Caleb, was bruised and scraped after falling from a moving plane and being held hostage by her father and brother. On top of that she’d been forced to reject the people who’d raised her and thrown her lot in with a group she’d always heard were minions of Satan. Caleb’s near possession by a powerful, demonic force from shadow probably hadn’t been very reassuring. I was proud of her for fighting back and jumping out of that plane, but I wasn’t sure she’d give a damn for praise out of a shifter’s mouth. Every now and then she cast a fearful little glance at me, as if expecting me to pounce.

  Ahead, the flames roared around the buildings and reached for the sky. The entire Tribunal compound was burning to the ground. Its leaders had fled; its files and equipment were ash. Maybe, just maybe, we’d put a stop to their work in this part of the world. At least for a little while.

  Caleb held my hand as we walked, our shoulders touching. I tripped, trying to avoid a cactus, and Caleb caught me. “Here, put my shoes on,” he said, slipping off one of his boots.

  Amaris looked down at my battered and bleeding feet. “Do you have some clothes in the car? I can run ahead and get them.” Her voice wasn’t as melodious as Caleb’s, but I could hear the resemblance now that I knew they were related.

  “That’d be great, thanks.” I tried to smile up at her.

  She managed a weak smile back and jogged on ahead. Caleb helped me find a more comfortable spot to sit, which ended up being half on his lap, leaning back against him, his arms wrapped around me, my head on his shoulder. I closed my eyes as I realized that everything was all right now.

  “What did it mean?” I asked. “That demon thing. It said it watched you. . . .”

  Caleb’s arms tightened around me. “I was ten years old, shopping with my mother in this department store in Sweden, when I saw that stuffed elephant. I knew it was something powerful, something dangerous, but I had no idea it was watching me.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You stole it.”

  He let out a rueful laugh. “Yep. I stole it, and I hid it from my mother, because I knew she’d make me give it back, or destroy it. But I thought we might need it one day. We were always on the run from the Tribunal, you know. I wasn’t sure exactly what would happen if I called forth that particular shadow. But I figured it was better than getting killed by Ximon and his crew.” I felt him shake his head. “Now I’m not sure which is worse.”

  “Please don’t ever do anything like that again,” I said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  His mouth was against my hair. “You meant what you said, didn’t you?”

  I pulled away enough to be able to look him in the eye. His face was creased with concern. “Of course I did. You saw me out there, you saw . . .”

  “Everything.” A roguish smile curled his lips. “My dream came true. I thought I was gone forever. But I fought the devil himself on the chance I might get to see all of you again.”

  I flushed and buried my face in his shoulder again, jitters running up and down my ribs. “Then how could you think I didn’t mean it?”

  “Well, you’re kind of noble and stubbornly heroic, and you ran all the way out there to save us. You’re not the type to give up, on anyone. So there was a chance you said it not because you actually meant it, but because you knew I’d rip the veil between the worlds with my bare hands to get back to you once I heard that.”

  “I meant it,” I said. “I love you.” It was easy to say now, with my clothes on, his arms around me, his breath on my ear.

  He reached up to tilt my head back and kissed me, like a man lost in the desert drinking from a well.

  “Maybe she doesn’t need shoes.” November’s voice cut through the roar in my ears. “Maybe she’ll float home on pink clouds pushed by the breath of angels.”

  Caleb and I began to laugh and turned to see November walking up next to Amaris. Amaris looked a little lost, but she put my spare set of shoes and other clothing down by my feet as November tossed a large bottle of water at Caleb.

  London, Siku, and Arnaldo, all in human form and clad in their spare clothes, walked up behind them, silhouetted in the sunset-like red haze of the Tribunal fire.

  Caleb took a long swig of water from the bottle and helped me to my feet as I slipped on my sneakers. “I take it you all have met my sister, Amaris,” he said, and walked over to her as she stood a little apart from the others, arms crossed over her chest.

  “She shoved Ximon out of the way and jumped from a moving plane to get away from them,” I said. “Pretty badass, actually.”

  “But you let them get away,” said Siku, his expression not changing.

  “I—” Caleb started to speak.

  “I stopped Caleb from using the nuclear option,” I said, wanting to take the blame for that, because it was my fault. I wasn’t sorry about it though. “Not one of our lives is worth theirs.”

  “And we did basically take out their whole western American operation,” said Arnaldo.

  “I think maybe we did okay.” London was smiling.

  “You surprised everyone,” said Amaris, startling us. “The shifters have never banded together to fight like this. My father was . . . impressed.”

  “He’ll be even more impressed when we find him and kill him,” said Siku. “No offense.”

  Amaris bit her lip and shook her head, rubbing her scraped hands together. Caleb looked down at them and the bloody rips in the elbows of her gown. “Can you heal yourself, you think?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “After I eat and rest a bit. I haven’t been able to—not since you used the lightning on Father.”

  “Psychological block,” said November. “You’ll get over it. Dez did, didn’t you, Dez?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  Arnaldo wiped his hand on his pants and stepped forward, extending it toward Amaris. “I’m Arnaldo,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “The, um . . .” She gave his hand a quick, limp shake. “The eagle, right?”

  “Right.” He grinned at her, then stepped back.

  She swallowed and stood up straighter as the others moved toward her slowly, shaking hands with an odd formality. I ended it by walking over and giving her a hug. She didn’t react at first, taken aback. Then she put her arms around my shoulders and gave me a tentative squeeze.

  “Welcome to the insanity,” I said.

  “Let’s get to Barstow,” said November. “I’m starving!” She turned and jogged back toward the van. As we followed her, Caleb slipped one arm around Amaris’s shoulders and the other wrapped snug about my waist.

  We heaped into the van, Caleb driving, me riding shotgun with my black file folder on my lap. I’d taken off the Shadow Blade and put it in the back. Thirty seconds after I took it off, it turned into my brace again.
Maybe my feeling earlier was correct—as long as I wore the Blade, it stayed a blade. But once I let it go, the brace returned. It looked strange now, small and not embarrassing at all.

  Amaris huddled in the back of the van with the others. Behind us, the flames were dying down, but two fire engines passed us, lights flashing, as we headed into town.

  Phone service came back in Barstow, and after the shifter kids called their angry but relieved parents, I used November’s phone to e-mail my mom.

  “All safe,” I wrote, typing as fast as I could as we circled the drive-thru again. “Tribunal facility taken offline, so I think we can go home. At least for now. Should be back at Bishop Hospital to see Morfael in a few hours. Tell me where to find you when you can. Miss you. Love you.” With the tension draining from me, I felt a stab of loneliness at the thought of my parents. How far had they fled? Now that Caleb was safe, the thing I wanted most was to see my mother.

  Caleb parked, and we passed the food back to everyone. The van quieted with the sounds of chewing and slurping.

  “You were still wearing the Shadow Blade when you shifted to human form,” Caleb said, dipping a bundle of fries in ketchup. “Yes, indeed. I noticed everything.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, and I blushed. “But I didn’t see it on you in tiger form.”

  “Yeah, I know. Weird,” I said. “I figured it fell off me when I became a tiger, but there it was when I turned human again.”

  “It’s accommodating your shadow form,” he said. “As if it was made for you.”

  “Maybe it was,” I said. “It just feels . . . right when I hold it. And the back brace was made especially for me after they found the curve in my spine.”

  “So somehow the brace was made for you and tied to a knife that was made for you too?” he said. “Something else we need to ask Morfael about.”

  “Check it out.” Arnaldo had made his way up from the back of the van to kneel between us. He held out a tranquilizer gun taken from the Tribunal. Its stock was warped as if from a fire, with black streaks snaking up the barrel.