It was no coincidence that Aunt Teppy had given me a jaguar necklace and Doli’s parents had given her one with a puma on it. It wasn’t dumb luck that I’d been placed in the same dorm as Doli, Shani, and Lin. The dreams I’d had since before I even got to Temple about the four of us as cats in the jungle . . . maybe Ixchel had caused those, to prepare me for what was to come. The truth was, we’d been changing ever since that first night in the museum basement. It was only after we touched the glowing orb that my senses started working overtime. That was also the night I took a swipe at Nicole—the way an angry cat would. For all I knew, Ms. Benitez was behind all of us ending up at Temple in the first place—so that we would all be here when we were needed.
I’d wasted so much time in the beginning wondering if I belonged at Temple Academy. Now that I knew about the mission, I felt that I not only fit in here, but I was destined to be here.
“How can you be so chill?” Shani asked, pushing her tattooed hand through her hair. “Aren’t you freaked at all?”
I smiled evenly, glancing at Doli, then at Lin, and back to Shani. “I am,” I said. “Totally. But at least we’re in this together. And I have it on good authority that together we’re not to be messed with.”
The panic in her eyes faded, and a rebellious smile that matched her pierced ears and blue hair spread over her face. “Yeah, all right. When you put it that way . . .”
Just then Jason came running up.
“Jason!” Lin said, noticing him first. “You came back.” For the first time that day, Lin’s face lit up. She quickly smoothed her hair down with her hand. “Where did you run off to?”
“Sorry,” he said to all of us, scooting around the EMT who was cleaning a small cut on Lin’s leg. “After I called for the ambulance, I had to go to the museum with my mom to help lock up once the police left. It’s a total wreck inside! What happened in there, anyway?”
Lin flashed a look at us then turned back to Jason. “It’s a long story. I hurt my arm, but I think I’ll recover. It’s so sweet of you to check on me, though.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem,” Jason interrupted, shifting on his feet kind of uncomfortably. “I’m glad you’re okay.” He chucked her on her arm the way you would a teammate.
Lin stopped smiling abruptly, but Jason didn’t seem to notice. He hurried over to the bench and took a seat beside me. He pulled me into a quick hug and then leaned back, resting his hands on my shoulders. “I was so worried about you,” he said. He looked down at my foot, noticing the small bandage. “Are you all right?”
I glanced at Lin and saw something I’d never seen on her face before: disappointment. She may not have been bleeding, but she was definitely hurt. And there was no bandage for the way she must have felt when Jason lifted a hand to tuck my hair behind my ear.
“Get off me. I’m fine,” she snapped at the EMT, who had been checking her other leg for cuts. She slapped his hand away and announced, “I’m going back to my room,” then stomped off toward the dorm without saying good-bye to any of us.
I felt a bunch of mingled emotions as I watched her leave. We’d just been through so much together. We shared a destiny—and a pretty huge secret that only four of us knew about. Maybe we weren’t best friends, but we were something more than that now. She was my fellow Wildcat, and I hated seeing her look so heartbroken.
But at the same time, when I looked into Jason’s beautiful eyes, I couldn’t help feeling over-the-moon happy that he seemed to like me. I really liked him too, so why should I feel bad about that?
“Argh,” Shani groaned, standing up. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d better go check on her. Make sure she doesn’t kick any puppies on her way home. See you back at the dorm, Ana?”
I nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Take your time,” she said, winking before she walked off after Lin.
chapter 15
THAT NIGHT WHEN I’D GOTTEN back to the room, I’d wanted to go over every detail of the night with the only people I could talk to about it: my new roommates. But Shani and Doli had both been so exhausted that they’d just wanted to go to sleep. I relented and climbed into my sleeping bag on the floor, wondering how I’d ever sleep again with so much going on in my head. But apparently fighting off rogue demon gods and shape-shifting into a giant cat really takes it out of you. Nodding off was easier than I’d thought it would be.
The next morning I asked if we should invite Lin to the dining hall with us for breakfast, but Shani shook her head. “I think we ought to give her a little time to herself. She was kind of upset last night—and not about the monster stuff.” She gave me a pointed look.
“Right,” I said with a sigh. Jason. “I’ll go talk to her later and make sure she’s okay.”
We got dressed and headed to the dining hall for a breakfast of eggs Florentine and crespelle, which were Italian-style crepes. I pushed the food around on my plate, too preoccupied with everything that had happened the night before to eat. I couldn’t stop worrying about what the fallout would be. How would the school possibly explain the damage to the museum, and what had happened to Ms. Benitez? The four of us had somehow gotten away from the scene without being asked any questions, but I figured they must be coming. And I had no idea what we’d say. I had a feeling that, We turned into wildcats and fought off the Egyptian god of death, would land us in permanent detention, if not the nearest asylum.
Jason texted me while we were at breakfast. According to his mom, our teacher was still unconscious in the hospital, but that’s all she would say. “I wish we knew how Ms. Benitez was doing,” I said, after giving my friends the news.
“Me too,” said Doli. “She looked pretty messed up last night. But she’ll be fine . . . right?”
“I hope so,” said Shani. “Otherwise, we all might end up in the slammer.”
I jerked my head back. “What do you mean? Why would we get in trouble for what happened to her?”
Shani leaned toward me and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Think about it. A teacher is hurt on campus and the four of us were the only ones nearby. We were also the last students in the building when the museum was wrecked. The only other witness to what really happened is unconscious and might not recover. Put all that together, and it looks pretty bad for us.”
I pushed my plate of food away, my appetite completely ruined.
“Oh, God, you’re right,” Doli said, frowning. “It’s not like we can tell people what really happened.”
“To be honest though,” I murmured, glancing around to make sure no one was listening, “I’m dying to tell someone! Aren’t you? Turning into a jaguar was scary, but incredible. I remember when I learned how to ride a bike—I went around telling everybody. Now I find out I can do something infinitely cooler, and I can’t tell a soul?”
Shani shot me a skeptical look. “Who would you tell?” she asked.
Jason, I thought immediately. But I knew that was impossible. Or my aunt Teppy and my uncle Mec. I actually really wished I could talk to them about what was going on. . . . If only they would respond to my e-mails or Skype invitations.
“I don’t know,” I said out loud, forcing a piece of crespelle into my mouth.
“Anyway,” Doli said in a sharp voice, “you can’t. Not unless you want to be shipped off to a funny farm, that is. Navajo folklore is full of stories about shape-shifters, but I’m not even sure the people on the reservation would believe me. Besides, we don’t really know enough about our powers yet. I felt amazing as a puma. But I also felt . . . out of control.”
“Me too,” Shani said. “Until we can figure out what the deal is, I vote we keep a lid on it.”
I was disappointed, but I knew what they said made sense. “All right, fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut,” I said. “What should we do if someone asks us how we ended up outside with Ms. Benitez, though?”
Shani grunted. “The only thing we can do: claim that we have total amnesia and don’t remember a
thing. Deny, deny, deny.”
It was as good a plan as any. But I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
During my next two classes all anyone could talk about was the damage to the museum and the fact that Dr. Logan had gone missing. “He didn’t even show up to the exhibition,” Jessica complained. “What’s up with that?”
I felt like any second she would turn to me and ask, “And where were you?” But she never did.
All day I waited for the other shoe to drop. As morning turned into afternoon and nothing happened, I almost started to feel like it had been silly of me to be so on edge. There was no other shoe. But then during biology class, a voice sounded over the loudspeaker, summoning me to the principal’s office.
My heart leaped into my throat. What do I say?
When I got to the office, my stomach sank as I made eye contact with my fellow Wildcats, already seated inside: Lin, Shani, and Doli. I saw the same fear on their faces that must have been on mine. Principal Ferris couldn’t possibly know the truth, could she? Or was she about to reveal that she was some sort of ancient god too? That would have sounded laughable a few weeks ago. But last night I’d seen Dr. Logan turn into a jackal-headed demon. Now anything seemed possible.
We sat silently in soft sky-blue chairs in front of the principal’s desk while she slapped her hands together and brought them to rest over her face, as if she were praying. Finally she said, “Ladies, do you know why you’re here?”
I craned my neck at the other girls. Of course we did. But did she really expect us to say it? I wasn’t even sure where I would begin if I tried. We all remained quiet, my foot nervously tapping against the floor until Doli gave me a look that said, Cut it out!
Principal Ferris sighed. “I thought as much. Well, I know what you girls were up to last night,” she said.
“You do?” Doli replied, her voice shaky. I shot Shani a frightened look. This was it! We were about to be expelled—or worse.
“I do.” The principal smiled. “I know everything that goes on in my school. And what I know right now is that the four of you disobeyed orders to evacuate the museum and put yourselves in a very dangerous position.”
Suddenly it struck me that I could tell Principal Ferris the truth. Part of it, anyway. “We only went back inside because we were looking for Lin.” I glanced at Lin, hoping she could see that I meant what I was about to say. “I was worried about her.”
Lin’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second, but she quickly looked away and crossed her arms. “What for? I’d just gone downstairs to find a bathroom that wasn’t swarming with women changing gross dirty diapers. But then the lights went out and I got a little lost, that’s all.”
Of course that hadn’t been all. Her trip to the bathroom had nearly gotten us killed. But Principal Ferris didn’t need to know that. “Anyway,” I continued, “when we got to the basement, that’s when we found Ms. Benitez and Lin.” I hesitated, feeling guilty that I was about to fudge the truth a bit. “The ceiling was broken when we got there and we could tell Ms. Benitez was hurt. We thought maybe she’d been hit by some falling plaster. So we led her outside where she’d be safe.”
Principal Ferris sighed. “Well, it’s commendable that you were trying to help Ms. Benitez and locate your friend. But in the future, leave that to the professionals. No one could have foreseen the building getting struck by lightning and suffering severe damage, but that’s what evacuations are for. By disobeying our instructions, you could have been seriously hurt or even killed.”
I breathed out a sigh. She didn’t know what I thought she knew. She was right that we hadn’t evacuated the building along with everyone else, though. Who had told her? Had Jason said something? Or was she a part of this somehow?
“How is Ms. Benitez?” I asked.
Principal Ferris sighed and she lowered her blue eyes to the floor. “I’m afraid she’s in a coma,” she replied. “The doctors are still running tests, but they noticed her heart was beating irregularly and there was significant bruising on her chest. They think she had a heart attack. If what you say is true, perhaps she was hit by a piece of falling debris, and the stress brought on by the lightning strike and then fleeing the building in her weakened state was simply too much for her. The doctors are hopeful for a full recovery, but for now we’ll have to wait and see. I’m just grateful that you all left the building when you did. Otherwise, all four of you could have found yourselves in hospital beds alongside Ms. Benitez.”
We nodded in unison. “We’re sorry for worrying you, Principal Ferris,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”
She gave us as stern a look as she could manage, though beneath that I could see her relief that we were all right. “See that it doesn’t,” she said. She stood and gestured toward the door. “Since this period is almost over, you may report to study hall until the bell rings. Please use that time to think about your actions. Remember, ladies: safety first.”
“ ‘Think about your actions,’ ” Shani mimicked later as we sat in the study-hall section of the library. “If only she knew! Pretty much all I’ll ever be able to think about again is the fact that I transformed into a giant man-eating lion last night. Can you even believe that?”
“Um, yes,” I said. “I was there, remember? We all turned into man-eating cats last night.”
“Yeah,” Shani said. “But I’m a vegetarian!”
There was a pause and then we all burst out laughing. Everyone but Lin. A girl at a nearby table shushed us, but I didn’t care. It felt good to laugh after the strangeness of the past couple of days. We couldn’t hold back our giggles.
“What do they call a vegetarian who eats men, anyway?” Doli asked.
“A humanitarian?” I offered. We started laughing again, earning more shushes from the next table and the librarian.
“Could you guys keep it down?” Lin hissed. “We don’t need everyone hearing you talk about something so crazy.”
“All right, yes, it was crazy,” I said once I’d stopped laughing. I leaned over the table. “But wasn’t it also amazing? I’ve never felt that powerful before, like nothing could hurt me.”
“That must be nice,” Lin said, shooting daggers at me with her eyes. I knew she was talking about Jason again. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to her alone yet, and she was still clearly carrying the hurt she felt over Jason as if it were one of her designer purses. We would have to talk about it eventually, but I didn’t want to make things any more awkward than they already were for Shani and Doli.
“Come on,” I said, gently steering the conversation back to the one thing that still bonded us. “Didn’t you feel powerful while you were a tiger?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lin snapped. “Daughters of diplomats and movie stars don’t turn into tigers. It’s impossible.”
Shani reared back in her chair and made a screeching sound as if she were in a car and had just slammed on the brakes. “What was that, Yang? I know you’re not saying the whole thing never happened.”
Lin straightened her spine. “Maybe it didn’t. How do you know? Maybe we just imagined it.”
“Really?” Doli regarded her with raised eyebrows. “Did we also imagine the hole in the basement ceiling of the museum? And is Ms. Benitez faking her coma?”
Lin had no response. She stared down at her hands. For a moment I thought she would start rotating them again, checking for orange fur and black stripes. “I just want to forget about it,” she mumbled.
Doli gave her a sympathetic look. “I hear you. Trust me, I’d love to just go back to running track and taking classes, and pretend none of this ever happened. But it’s too late for that now. What we saw was real. Anubis is still out there. You heard Ms. Benitez: We’re the only ones standing between our world and total destruction.”
“Not to mention those annoying Chaos Spirits,” added Shani with a weak smile.
Doli laughed again, but in a nervous way that told me she was trying hard
to hold on to her sanity. I guess we all were. “Right. Can’t forget those,” she said. “And they know who we are now, which means none of us will be safe until we find a way to capture them again. But where do we start?”
I tapped my pencil against my chin. “I think first we need to know why Mayan and Egyptian gods would be warring with each other in the first place, and why here?”
“Is it because of the temple?” Doli asked.
I shrugged. “Could be.”
There was a pause, then Lin said, “I’m not saying there really was a jackal freak who tried to kill us, but hypothetically, if there had been, I might remember him saying, ‘The Brotherhood of Chaos will rise again.’ Maybe there’s something on the Internet about—”
“Way ahead of you,” said Shani, opening her laptop. “I’m going to Google that now. Ugh, the server is running kind of slow.” While we waited for the Wi-Fi to connect, Shani looked at us somberly. “I just hope that whatever we have to do, we can do it quickly and it won’t mess up our future life plans, you know? I mean, I’ve heard of computer programmers who are so good that people say they’re like beasts, but none who actually is a beast.”
We all chuckled quietly, not wanting to draw the librarian’s attention.
“Finally! Here it is,” said Shani. “Okay, this is odd. That search term led to only one result—a research paper titled ‘The Brotherhood of Chaos: The Secret History and Destructive Global Impact of the Ancient Mystical Order.’ Boy, that’s a mouthful. OMG! Guess who wrote it?” She turned the laptop toward us so we could see. Yvette Benitez.
“Click on it,” I said. “Since we can’t ask Ms. Benitez anything right now, this could be the next best thing.”
But when Shani tried clicking on the link, she received an error message. “Foiled again.” She sighed. “Says here the paper was removed from the history journal.”
“Does it say why?” I asked.
Shani tapped a few more keys and scanned the screen. “Ah, right here. It’s a retraction posted by the journal that published her paper. Let’s see . . . blah blah blah ‘research challenged,’ yada yada yada ‘paper is widely believed to be a hoax.’ Ouch.”
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