Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters)

by Heather Heffner

  The souls continued their merry-go-round revolutions up into the darker recesses of the ceiling, and then came pin-wheeling down. They spun more slowly now, hesitating as they floated over glowing mirror faces.

  “Choose.”

  The red and gold light receded into the black for an instant, and I thought I saw a shadowy wolf head rise, sniffing the air.

  “It will know the mirrors are fake,” Donovan said suddenly. “It can track its way back to its real body.”

  “NO!” I’d never seen Maya lose control. She blurred from the room like a streaking shadow. Donovan tore after her.

  I kept a bright smile plastered to my face until I was sure they were gone. Then I carefully opened the covered plate of bulgogi the wolf-girl had requested. Steam rose to my face. I waited only a heartbeat before tearing into the meat, enjoying the fatty morsels; the succulent juices ran down my tongue.

  “Cheers to you,” I whispered to the wolf-girl, even though I didn’t know why.

  A hand shot out of the darkness, covering my mouth. I kicked and yelled, but it dragged me back into the shadows.

  Chapter 33: The Mountain

  When my eyes opened, I knew a moment of pure ecstasy, swelling up from my toes to warm my heart. She hadn’t taken my soul. It—they—were still there.

  Citlalli.

  Wolf.

  Fire. The third beast, announcing its presence. My eyeballs curled back in pain.

  Don’t fight, Wolf urged. We must be one. For now.

  What did Fred to do me?

  Nothing he intended to do. Wolf sounded supremely satisfied. He underestimated us. As if a fox could kill a wolf.

  The third beast stalked closer, scarlet flames wallpapering the background of my mind. It growled.

  I drew back. Wolf. I’m scared of that thing.

  Why? Wolf curled around my neck and licked my wounded head sympathetically. You were right. Our mortal bodies weren’t strong enough. Now we will be.

  By becoming like our enemy? By becoming a demon?

  Don’t pretend She is such a stranger. Wolf’s voice was cool. You knew She was always there.

  “No!” I half-shouted. “I will fight this!”

  “Oh, good.” Maya slipped noiselessly out of the shadows, staring down at me from beneath her curtain of black hair. “I was hoping you wouldn’t go quietly.”

  Her hand flashed out and grabbed my hair. She jerked me along as I bucked and clawed.

  “My Queen!” Donovan caught himself on the doorway, his normally pristine golden hair sweaty and disheveled. He beckoned her close to whisper, but Wolf’s ears picked it up anyway: “Raina is gone.”

  Maya’s fingers slipped from my hair. I spun away, a slow grin creeping up my face. So. Khyber was making good on his promises after all.

  “He has her,” the Prince of Western Europe forced himself to say, the words awful and bitter.

  “The soul mirror—?”

  “Gone. It’s with him, too.”

  A shocked silence filled the room; both of us waited for Maya to move first. She’d gone unnaturally still, like a cobra before it struck.

  “My Queen.” Donovan had a backbone, I’d grant him that. “Lunar New Year comes.”

  “I am aware, my son.”

  “Is there no other soul to give the Dark Spirits?”

  “The other girls were sickeningly sweet candy for you and your brothers to gorge yourselves on. You know that. Raina was the only soul of any worth.”

  “Surely a compromise can be reached.” Donovan nodded, tapping a finger on his chiseled chin. “Duck Young has passed on! They must lower their demand.”

  “You can buy a horse on a loan, but if the horse dies, the loan is still expected to be repaid.” Maya’s fingers crept along my shoulders and across the cold nape of my neck. I tensed.

  “No,” she said softly. “No compromise. No demands.”

  “Your Grace, the Dark Spirits—”

  “Fuck them!” Maya spat, her face suddenly harsh and ugly. “To hell with the Dark Spirits! What are they but presumptuous little snakes, which slither out of their shitholes when hungry? I am the Queen of Eve! I rule the world of the Veil, and they will either bow to me on this plane, or crawl on their wasted bellies to the next one!”

  “Mother,” Donovan said carefully, “I’m all for kicking those wretched monsters into oblivion, but they’re our creators! You do remember what they have…?”

  The blue fingers latched around my neck. “Yes,” the voice whispered by my ear, “But I have her.”

  I barely had time to blink before we were tearing off into the night, my body dangling helplessly in the arms of a mad woman. We left a trail of black rose petals behind us.

  The howls of wolves built up like a wall behind us as we hurtled through the darkness, our flight leaving little but the crunch of snow. The steady chorus rose and found us anyhow, plunging out of the brilliant sky like a barrage of arrows. I recognized Raf’s rough bark, and a lonely gurgle echoed in my throat. For one moment I was sure they would catch us. But then flames flashed in the trees ahead, and the wolves fell behind.

  A parade of ghosts wound their way up the switch-back trail leading high into the lofty clouds. Rough cloth bound their feet, but the snow still seeped through. They carried litters piled high with offerings; I glimpsed white peaches and oranges in the candlelight. The steady rap-rap of a drum propelled the reverent ascension up the mountain.

  “They’ll give the Lunar New Year offering to me one day,” the Vampyre Queen said. She stood apart from the circle of torchlight, head cocked like a curious woodland animal. “They’ll chant for me. They’ll eat and die for me.”

  I turned stonily away, but she appeared before me in a blur anyway. Her dusky lips curved into a smile colder than the wintry air. “Your heart beats so quickly,” she murmured. “It’s frightening to die, isn’t it? Even for a dirty beast like you—you’re born knowing to fear it.”

  “I don’t think I’m the one scared of dying.”

  “No? Why accept the demon, then?”

  “There are still some things I have to do. People I have to save.”

  She laughed. “And who will save you, Citlalli?”

  The barking started up again. My ears perked up, and Maya laughed harder.

  “You darling little pup. You think your mongrel pack is the only one out hunting tonight? Look.”

  She dragged me away from the warm light of the procession and onto the blustery dark of a precipice. My eyes grew round and golden. Wriggling below like a barrel of writhing, live eels were the Dark Dogs of Raina’s nightmares—hundreds of them. Their shadows grew bigger when they ran, and strings of froth and other things dangled from their jaws. Their howls tore through me like winter winds as they started to sniff their way up the mountain.

  Maya smiled. “Cute. And they will tear your friends apart.”

  Jaehoon’s resounding bark. Authoritative. Demanding to know who came this way.

  The Dark Dogs said nothing. Absolutely silent. The two packs ran toward each other, one with purpose fully formed; the other ignorant.

  Chapter 34: My Best Sister

  A goshawk took wing from the pine overhead, screeching. Maya’s neck twisted to an unnatural angle, and she shot a stream of tarry black goo from her mouth. The goshawk plunged toward the earth, glossy feathers ruined. The Vampyre Queen scampered toward her crippled prey like a greedy spider, and I leaped on her back, fingers clawing for her eyes. She spun around, hissing, and I could see stringy blackness crawling out of her eye sockets.

  She swatted me off her as if I weighed little more than a beetle. I hit a tree trunk and slid to the icy ground, dazed. Her moon-white face blocked out the gathering night storm.

  “This child can’t make it to the top of the mountain without being difficult,” she murmured, fangs scraping the slope of my neck. Then they sank deep.

  An awful, terrible sting, like that of a hornet, shot straight to my brain. I panicked. I flapp
ed my arms, but I couldn’t feel them. Numbness stole over my body like a chloroform blanket. No, I’ve never been chloroformed, but trust me, this wasn’t no dentist laughing gas. All consciousness sloshed around in my head like red wine, probably because Maya kept shaking me awake, forcing me to gaze into her black-ice eyes.

  She was going to use compulsion! I felt like a weakly struggling puppy. With my last ounce of strength, I threw Wolf at her, but she sshed It away.

  “You will walk with me to meet the Dark Spirits.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “You will come quietly, without protest or escape attempt, and never leave my—”

  A great wind rushed around the corner with the fury of a fist, breaking our contact. Icy pebbles pelted our backs as if the skies themselves were enraged at us; one the size of a hockey puck struck Maya’s cheek with such force that it drew black blood. She dabbed at it, staring at her damp fingers in wonder.

  A sizzle. The air crawled with the scent of ozone. Then my eyes were dazzled by a forked tongue of lightning that streaked across a purple-black sky. The next lightning bolt struck much closer. It split Maya’s body in half.

  Wretched screaming and the smell of burning hair clogged the air. Then the steam cleared, and I saw a small, dark shadow standing upon the ridge, watching us. In the next instant, she flew down the pass, dashed past the toppled Vampyre Queen, and dropped to her knees at my side. I felt a hand tenderly brush aside the hair on my forehead. And I saw, clearly, the face of my sister.

  “Raina.”

  “Citlalli! Did she get you? Are you under compulsion?” Her damp hands swept the dirty snow off my cheeks, brushed pine needles from my hair.

  “You remember me.” I slowly climbed to my feet, still woozy. “If there was anything strong enough to break the compulsion, it’s that.”

  She threw her arms around me, and I buried my head in her shoulder, eyes red-rimmed with tears. Raw, hollow grief choked me, leaving me unable to speak. I only held her tighter, eyes locked on the smoking body in the patch of pine needles.

  “Was that you?” I whispered.

  She grinned up at me beneath her dark hair. “Khyber told me you’re a wolf and all, Citlalli, but—wait until you see what I can do.”

  My younger sister sensibly turned to demonstrate her power on Maya, and stopped short with a gasp.

  “No,” I whispered. The head was gone.

  Black hair tickled our necks, and we turned, clinging to each other. Leering back at us was the floating, bloodless face of the long-dead princess, horse-thick hair falling around the tangle of internal organs and intestines spilling from her throat.

  The head opened its mouth and whispered: “I’ll give you a head start.”

  We fled. Death followed ever close behind, herding us higher up the mountain.

  CHAPTER 35: THE FIRST SACRIFICE

  It was fuckin’ freezing.

  I wasn’t a dead person. I wasn’t an animal. I was a freakin’ normal guy who’d made the mistake of caring about his crazy sister, and now I’d ended up in a coked-up dream world, tied to a post, and staring into the blood-red eyes of an evil fox. Again. The moment Eva had put the word out, ol’ broomstick tail had wasted no time in getting over here.

  So yeah, only I still remembered the idiocy of prancing around a snow-covered mountain not only in the middle of winter—hell, in the middle of night. My balls would have frozen off by now, but with the way that fox was eyeing me, every body part had seized up in some idiotic belief that if I held still long enough, it’d go away.

  This wasn’t an ordinary fox. It kept coming back. And it wouldn’t leave me alone until it pranced off with my liver dangling in its mouth. So I’d lose my balls and a vital organ tonight. Fuckin’ furball.

  Howls poured into the empty night, disturbing the collective hymn to the moon god, or whoever the hell those ghosts were singing to.

  “Fred,” as Citlalli had called him, stalked toward me gloatingly, carefully placing one paw in front of the other. “Don’t worry, Miguelo. We won’t be disturbed. Throw the wolves a bigger, meatier bone to play with, and they won’t notice the vermin eating the forgotten cubs.”

  “At least you’ve finally labeled yourself right.”

  “I’m content to be whatever gets to eat you. And rides off with the girl into the sunset—on your ridiculously thin chicken legs.”

  Damn him.

  “Try it.” I gestured around the clearing. Light snow fell from the sky. We were alone except for Maya’s fat pair of ghosts who’d tied me up for the demon fox. They fussed with their foil-wrapped mandu in the background. Although they tried to look menacing, they had a habit of collapsing into overly-cheerful smiles whenever Fred glanced at them. “I’m not going to wait for my younger sister to save me.”

  “Well, if you insist.” The red fox appeared to grow, mouth twisted in that unnatural animalistic leer, until his head was on the same level as mine. “Let’s lay down the dinner party rules. Give up your liver without a fight. In return, I promise to see your prickly personality through its slow recovery from delinquent to reformed miscreant. But, if you fight me, then once I have your liver—and I will have it—I will destroy you. I will alienate whatever sister you have left, terrorize your mother, and delve back into old chicken shit habits. Why, you really don’t see many people hooking up with el diablo in the parks nowadays. You can help South Korea catch up to the status of your old neighborhood.”

  My fingers began to twitch at the mere thought of chiva, and that invariably led to other thoughts of rolling powdery white cocaine, or feeling the crackle of good island weed burn in the back of my throat. I’d always dabbled. Stuck a toe in here and there. I’d thought I’d be okay that way. I’d be able to pull out when I needed to. But once you got involved with a gang, you were either all-in or lying motionless in some shit-stained bathroom of a nameless club, your head stuck down the toilet for good measure.

  After that happened to a dealer friend of mine, my yellow tail headed for the highway out of Cali. I always knew they’d catch up with me again once they dealt with those Norteños who’d crossed territory lines, so when the opportunity came to join Mami overseas, I’d spent everything on a plane ticket over here. I’d thought it’d be safer for Papi that way. But I’d fucked him over anyway. Either I’d led the hit man straight to his door, or I’d condemned him to waste away alone. It wasn’t fair. I’d wanted these mistakes to be mine and mine alone.

  But Fred knew them all. I could see it in those coin-bright eyes. He’d watched us for months, hadn’t he? Knew all my habits. My mannerisms. Knew there had been those nights in Los Angeles when I’d tossed and turned in unexplainable anger, promising myself that this was the night I would give myself to the gang life completely. I could still do it. What positive, healthy thing did I have to offer my family? I’d arrived in Korea, and my sister, my younger sister, was off saving our youngest, fighting things that couldn’t be killed with guns. Fighting me. I’d been one of those bad things, hurting an innocent girl, a girl related to me by blood. But not by enough blood, I’d thought.

  So yeah, maybe it didn’t make a difference if a crazy fox lived up here or I did. But cowards go out whining and dragging their heels to the door, trying to buy a bit more time so someone can come save our sorry asses. When a large monkey bounded across the clearing in the dead of night, I felt an odd tremor of relief.

  “You seem to have this all thought out.” My voice didn’t shake.

  “A fox thinks everything through.”

  “But if you transform me back into a junkie, then why the hell would your beloved Una ever stick around?”

  The fox blinked. “Why, to save you, of course.”

  When I heard her soft voice gasp my name—“Miguel!”—I believed him. Una emerged from the undergrowth, looking pale and small. Her prayer wheel clicked, and the monkey skipped back to her.

  “You can’t be here,” I told her. “Remember your rule? One goes, one stays.”


  “Rules can be broken. Your body started spurting blood. And the cause was not outside. I came to see if you needed help rescuing Citlalli.” So Una came to stand between Fred and I. “You are the kumiho who has given us all so much trouble.”

  “I’m more than that.” The red fox nosed a skull forward. It belonged to a medium-sized animal, with sharp canines and hollow eyes. Una picked it up curiously. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see her face when she realized who she was holding.

  “Saja.” If anything, Una clutched the skull closer to her chest once Fred shifted, trotting back and forth in golden-brown, black-muzzled form. “You killed my dog.”

  “He was old.”

  “But…you are kumiho. You have no interest in animals. You want to become human…” Una hugged the skull and glanced toward me.

  “I know!” I tried to wring my hands amidst the chains. “Why me? I’m the worst choice. Poor health. No skills. Failing liver. At least go after a celebrity. Tell him, Una!”

  Fox-Saja cocked his head. “Yes, Una. What do you think of Miguelo?”

  I shut my eyes, waiting for her to lie.

  “I think he’s wonderful.” The words came easier in this dream world, more so than in any conversation we’d ever had in the real one.

  “But does he think the same of you?” The dog curled around her feet. “Does he understand how rare you are, one of the last of the young generation to give homage to the spirits, to guard the doorway between our world and yours? You returned home even after all parental presence had faded away. You could have lost yourself in a world of distractions, of virtual realities and loud, mechanical music; you could have drowned yourself in them, but you returned here. You know your duty. Your wisdom and independence at such a ripe age makes you…beautiful.”

  The last was spoken wistfully, and Una’s face colored. The creepy old fox was right about one thing: Una was a sharp cookie. She could put the pieces together. Apparently, spirit creatures falling in love with mortals wasn’t panic-worthy news to her: it was knowing I realized why Fred wanted to take my place.