I need air as a wraith. Sunscar darted upward.
Dauro followed. He needed air, too.
As he breached the surface, Sunscar’s form morphed into the shape of a black-skinned human man. Dauro had always heard that wraiths were ghosts, but Sunscar looked decidedly solid and muscular. Scars and intricate runes decorated his chest, arms, and legs. Long coils of silver hair trailed down his back, twining like snakes in a basket. He hung in the air, his toes a paw’s width above the water.
The moment after Dauro took a breath, Sunscar’s hypnotic, red-eyed gaze caught his, and the fear began.
Memories of every horrific thing he’d ever seen or felt swirled in his head.
Pain rose, too, like an iron vice on his temples. Like the one used by the vengeful Spanish conquistador sorcerer who enjoyed torturing native prisoners of war to death. Then he’d discovered shifters felt just as much pain but were harder to kill. Dauro savored the justice of introducing the conquistador to a giant sloth with three angry claws that sliced through the shiny armor into the soft belly underneath.
Fear surged again, but he rode it out by remembering other triumphs in countless skirmishes.
Pain and pressure increased, but with them came a flood of images that distracted him from everything else. Birds of metal… no, jets. Fast cars. Music from boxes. Computers. Guns. Game consoles. Television. Water beds. Wars. The internet. Moon flight. A colosseum filled with more people than he’d ever seen at once. Basketball. Sweet flakes of food in colorful boxes. Buildings that touched the sky. Smart phones. Selfies.
The fear cut off. Sunscar lowered into the water, shimmering into his eel form.
Dauro barely remembered to suck in a big gulp of air before sinking back down. Shaking his head didn’t help bring order to the tumble of memories that crowded his mind.
Ideally, you should take a long nap, said Sunscar. Helps with the pain and blending the concepts. Words will come more slowly because I gave you a new language. You might have a few memories that aren’t your own, but they’ll fade with time.
Dauro? asked Nibi, concern in her thoughts.
I will live, replied Dauro. The headache is bad, but it’s worth it. The real world will be a wondrous place.
It won’t hurt as much for the rest of you, said Sunscar. Dauro’s the oldest. He had more catching up to do, and didn’t speak English.
We refuse, thought Rayapkhal forcefully. We are leaving at once.
The others turned to the capricorns in surprise.
Rayapkhal, chided Yipkash. Tell them why.
A mass of bubbles exploded from her mate. With the return of our magic, we found a way out. We can feel every drop of moisture in the demesne. It’s leaking near one of the anchors. We can become one with the water for short periods. None of you can. Rayapkhal’s tone was ogre-angry, but Dauro sensed worry and fear underneath.
Yipkash sent wordless apologies. Please forgive him. We are pregnant. We had long thought our union to be barren, but after Nessireth’s demise, we both now carry fertilized eggs. If we don’t get to the sacred sea, they will be born as fish to be eaten by Sunscar.
Sunscar swam in a small circle, mouth gaping in deep offense. I would never eat your offspring!
I didn’t mean it that way, soothed Yipkash. I meant that without our full magic and the bower of the Icarian Sea, they’d be no more sentient than the food fish the demesne makes for you and Nibi. It is our blessing and our curse.
Quiet Rosinette shared her thoughts. Then you must go. I will help you all I can, after Sunscar cures my ignorance.
The chorus of agreement pounded in Dauro’s aching head.
Yes, you must go, Dauro agreed. I will help, too. Now is the time, before the fairies figure out how to renew the demesne’s control magic.
There was no hiding an animal Dauro’s size, so his and Kelvin’s part in the hastily planned escape was to make a distracting ruckus at the other end of the demesne. Nibi would churn the waters, Rosinette would use her awakening magic to hide the capricorns, and Sunscar would keep in mental contact with them all and warn them if the castle defenses woke.
Dauro’s head still hurt, but spending time with Kelvin was helping integrate the new knowledge. Tell me who the laughing brown-skinned woman is in your thoughts. She wears pale green and has tightly braided hair with beads.
Kelvin paddled in the river water behind Dauro. The pretend sun was a streak of light at the fake horizon that would soon be gone. Thirty minutes later, a fat sliver of the false moon would rise.
My aunt. She’s a surgical nurse. We were going to San Francisco to visit my grandparents from Liberia. Hunters tricked us. Took us right out of the airport. She fought back hard, almost got away, but they shot her twice with a dart gun, then me. We woke up in an auction house. They sold shifters like slaves. His anger and hurt were palpable. Nessireth told me not to get comfortable. She bought me to trade for something else she really wanted.
New associations fluttered into Dauro’s head. Humans had captured and sold Kelvin’s ancestors the same way the conquistadors had enslaved the indigenous peoples of South America, where Dauro had grown up. The Spanish also brought dark-skinned slaves with them, but many escaped. His magic-wielding mother had been one of them.
A world map was now part of his understanding. Humans of all races had only finally outlawed the appalling practice a century ago. The pernicious legacy lingered in separation, prejudice, and opportunities denied. He wished he could say magical species were better, but there they both were, shiny collector’s items in a dying fairy demesne.
Dauro sought for something to take Kelvin’s attention. Are you black like Sunscar when you’re human?
No, brown, like my aunt. He sent an image of himself in a photo, with close-braided hair and a grin as wide as his cheekbones. What do you look like?
I am not sure anymore. He buried his fear that he’d be stuck in sloth form forever, even if they won their freedom. Kelvin and the others needed him to be strong, so that’s what he’d be. Let’s go to the island with the stones. Those don’t belong to the castle.
Dauro angled toward the shallows and climbed up onto the shore. Kelvin scrambled nimbly behind him and up onto the dry sand. I’ve never been here before. What are all these things?
Nessireth said it was a statue of her. She got drunk on dew one night and told me she’d kept it to remind her of her treacherous family. If Trixis and Omorachi are her relatives, I can understand the feeling.
Kelvin ducked his head near what looked like part of a giant carved foot with curving claws. My human friend Pete got put in foster care ’cause his real family was into gangs and drugs.
Sometimes, it’s best. I didn’t fit in with—
Ready, said Sunscar in their minds. Yipkash and Rayapkhal are at their spot. Rosinette and Nibi are ready. Start the noise.
Dauro snorted to open his nose, then began a low and rising bellow.
Kelvin squealed a warbling call, bobbing his head up and down.
After checking to make sure the castle statues were ignoring him and Kelvin, Dauro bellowed again, higher and louder this time.
He was just warming up. In his youth, he’d discovered he could be heard for several valleys around if he put his mind to it. It felt good to call. To his sloth, it was singing.
Turning toward the castle, he let loose with another bellow. The sound echoed off the hard stone and faded.
It was probably too much to hope that they were disturbing the fairies already, but the night was young.
Climbing higher on a larger, flat piece of stone gave Kelvin a better spot from which to squeal shorter bursts. I’m a wolf, howling at the moon!
Amusement added an uneven wobble to Dauro’s answering bellow. You’re prettier than a wolf.
Kelvin bobbed his head. I smell better, too.
Dauro snorted with laughter. Who doesn’t?
Sunscar’s strong thoughts interrupted. Keep up the noise! The capricorns are almost free!
Taking deep breaths, Dauro let loose with a series of long, loud bellows that vibrated his whole body. Singing of their desperate need. Of the mind-numbing loneliness that ate at his sanity. Calling for the mate he’d never had and likely never would. Who’d want to tie herself to an Ice Age behemoth?
He imagined sending his song beyond the confines of the demesne, letting the real world know they were there.
He’d always wished for someone to answer, but in four hundred long years, no one ever had.
4
Chantal would have missed the truck altogether if a momentary gleam hadn’t caught her eye.
Crouching, she borrowed her leopard’s senses. Yes, there it was, up the ravine, smelling of oil and gasoline.
A produce truck that big should have been easy to spot by flying flamingo shifters, but the low foliage and flood-driven debris on top camouflaged it well.
The island of Vieques was like the photos Renée and Belinda had shown her, and yet so much more.
And after Hurricane Chantal finished scouring it, so much less.
Human-built structures fared badly. Taller trees had been uprooted or broken into matchsticks. The short, squat trees had done better. Native plants and wildlife looked battered, but stubbornly clung to life.
Even though she wasn’t thirsty yet, she took a small sip from her flexible, charmed canteen, then put it back on her belt. Dehydration could be even sneakier than a sly black leopard.
Regular radio was iffy on the part of the island near the wildlife refuge. Luckily, she had something better. She keyed it on.
“Kitty One to Base.”
After a moment, Leticia’s Spanish-accented voice responded. “Base to Kitty One. Please thank your Shifter Tribunal friend again for the magical satellite radio sets. However, the GPS tracker says you’re in the ocean, halfway to Puerto Rico. Any dolphin or dragon ancestors you wish to tell us about?”
Chantal laughed. “No, I’m on the wilderness road about three miles… uh, five kilometers from where Road 200 turns northeast. I found the truck.”
“Isn’t Elisa with you?”
“No, she didn’t feel well, and no one else was awake. Before it got too hot, I figured I’d take a quick hike to where Señor Santiago thought the driver might have left it.”
“Híjola… I’ll talk to her.”
“No, don’t. She means well, but her flamingo thinks my leopard wants her for dinner, and not the kind with tablecloths and menus.”
Even after three days of working together, very few of the volunteer or native flamingo shifters could stay around Chantal for very long, even though there were twenty of them to her one. Back in Barron, Belinda and Renée had gotten so comfortable being around predatory felines that they’d forgotten that most flamingos weren’t.
Very little fazed Leticia, however, which was likely why she was running the whole volunteer operation and interacting with the locals. “Okay, sorry. We’ll try to do better.” After a moment, she swore. “Now the GPS says you’re in the Virgin Islands. Can you mark where you are so we can find it again?”
Thanks to her magic, Chantal could get back there with no trouble, but that wouldn’t help anyone else. “Yeah, I’ll think of something. But I smell gasoline. Before I come back, I want to make sure it’s not going to set the wilderness refuge on fire.”
“That would be very bad. I know you’re level-headed, but be careful. Call within the hour, or I’m sending rescuers after you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Talk to you again soon.”
Chantal keyed the radio off and snugged it back into the holster she wore on her belt.
With no humans around to see or flamingos to terrify, she shifted to her leopard form. She’d worked diligently to learn the tricks of fast shifts and using her free magic during her shift so she didn’t have to shed her clothes and gear first. They came naturally to her Ice Age bear-shifter family and other Ice Age shifters she knew, but she was just a plain black leopard with a hodge-podge of free magic. Those skills had taken her a lot longer to master.
Seconds later, she was padding carefully through the ragged undergrowth. The rush of feline sensory input told her about the woodpecker tapping for insects somewhere over the ridge, the pounceable lizard scuttling through the undergrowth, and the nose-wrinkling scent of gasoline pervading the air. Almost worse than randy cougar piss.
She gave a sprawling cactus wide berth, which put her on the upslope side of the ravine, looking down into the truck. It looked undamaged, but mired in drying mud and covered with tree debris.
One paw at a time, she crept closer, checking for unstable ground and hidden hazards. Moments later, she jumped onto the cab’s roof and crouched. A quick look inside confirmed the driver’s story that he’d left the keys in the ignition.
Countless trips with her independent trucker dad and six years in the Sheriff’s Department had made her give up any pretense of understanding why people did the things they did. Like driving on a rutted dirt road during a damn hurricane, then abandoning the truck to walk home in that same hurricane.
She’d like to figure out how to get the truck back onto the road. The people on the island had a hard enough life as it was without losing a valuable vehicle.
The gasoline smell came from a rusted and dented green jerry can. It hung upside down, trapped by branches, slowly leaking from its closed pour spout into a growing pool on the truck bed. She caught the branch in her claws and shook the can loose. It clattered onto its side on the bed next to the wooden rail.
A faraway faint dripping sound teased her leopard’s ears and curiosity. This part of the island got very little moisture, torrential storms notwithstanding. The dripping seemed to come from up and over the hill to the east.
She turned away and jumped from the truck’s roof back onto the sloping ravine, resolutely padding toward the road. Cats thought they were invincible solitary explorers, but humans knew that unfamiliar wilderness could be unforgiving.
Just as she reached the level ground of the graded road, another noise caught her attention. It sounded organic rather than technologic.
Growing up in the melting pot, multicultural sanctuary town of Kotoyeesinay meant hearing just about every human, animal, and magical species vocalization there was, but this was new.
She sat on the road and listened. Singing, maybe? It echoed and resonated like a clarion call.
Throwing off fanciful thoughts, she decided it could be a natural animal. Lots of creatures called to announce territory or when they wanted sex. Hell, even that fool Fontaine once climbed a tree outside her trailer and made cougar chirps all damn night. Then peed on her porch.
The volume increased. Howling, she decided. It rumbled against her chest, then rose in pitch and made her ears twitch.
It sounded forlorn, like a lost soul. It sounded lonely, like her.
Except she wasn’t lonely. She had a loving family and plenty of good friends. Well, none in Florida. And definitely not on Vieques.
Okay, maybe she was a little lonely. She’d always been the odd leopard out. And maybe she’d jumped at the chance to join the exchange program a few years ago because she already knew that no one in her hometown was her mate.
Her tail twitched back and forth, torn as to how to investigate the sound.
Okay, she would compromise. Ordinary human hiker Chantal would walk ten minutes down the road to see what she could see. Then she’d go back to mark the truck location with something visible from the air and head down to the base for reinforcements.
Moments later, she strode briskly eastward. Though she couldn’t say why, the need to hurry pressed on her. She topped a rocky rise and stopped in her tracks.
A curved rainbow came from the cloudless sky and plunged into a small lake. Water seemed to slide down the rainbow like a hundred-foot-tall metal wall fountain in a glitzy office building.
At random intervals,
water surged and escaped from the rainbow, making loud drips in the pond.
Two sets of wet footprints led away from the pond and over a flat rock, into the scrubby trees on the far side. Human-shaped footprints.
Fairy magic tickled her senses. Oh, hell.
Backing away slowly, Chantal spoke quietly. “No intrusion intended. Leaving now.” Most fairies, regardless of tribe, were highly territorial and went instantly from zero to lethal if startled. Or insulted. Or interrupted. Or bored.
A faint male voice arrested her. “Help us…” It came from the direction of the footprints.
She couldn’t rule out a trap, but she couldn’t turn her back on anyone in trouble, either. Besides, all the fairies she’d met would rather die than ask for help.
Calling up her leopard’s senses and her best shield spell, she edged warily around the pond that radiated fairy magic.
About thirty steps into the brush, she lost the footprints, but followed a distinct, watery scent.
“Hello?” she called softly. “I’m Deputy… I’m Chantal. How can I help?” She repeated herself in Spanish and French for good measure.
“We’re under an acacia tree. Please, my wife needs help.” The English was accented, maybe Greek, like Kotoyeesinay’s only independent taxi driver.
She could hear and smell them, but even with leopard vision, she couldn’t see them. “Sorry, but you’ll have to guide me in.”
“This way,” said a weak, breathy female voice.
Chantal angled north toward the voices and saw a wide, umbrella-like tree with a twisted trunk. The hurricane had done damage, but it still had half its tiny leaves.
She slowed to a halt under the canopy when she heard breathing, and the wet smell intensified. “I have a first-aid kit with me.” Taking a chance that they weren’t innocent humans who got stuck in a fairy honeypot, she added, “That’s a pretty good concealment spell you’re using.”
“It’s wyvern,” said the male voice. “We don’t know how to remove it.”
That explained why it didn’t give off a magical signature. Chantal felt forward with one foot, then another, trying to see with her ears and nose. “I have a charm that counters most magic, including wyvern, but it’s not gentle.” Her toe brushed something unseen and partially vanished. “Is this your spell?”
Shifter's Storm Page 4
