The Calling

by Kelley Armstrong

  I hugged her. "They couldn't hold you, huh? Good girl."

  "Maya?"

  I stood. It was Sam, coming through the trees. Daniel and Corey appeared behind her. Seeing the dog beside me, Daniel grinned.

  "We got one escapee, at least," he said.

  "Only one," I said as I tugged off the muzzle. "I found Hayley. She managed to communicate with me. It was a trap. There was no way..." I took a deep breath. "I wanted to try rescuing her anyway, but she said no."

  "Too bad dogs can't talk," Sam said.

  I glanced over at her.

  "Um, we're all feeling bad about Hayley," Corey said. "Don't interrupt by wishing we could question the dog."

  "That's not what I meant. Hayley could tell you it was a trap. He can't."

  "Kenjii's a she," I said.

  "Whatever. My point is that your dog has conveniently escaped, just like Hayley did. You don't think that's a trap?"

  "If it is, then we've already been caught." I looked around. "Huh. I don't see the guys with guns yet."

  "Because they've put a tracking device on her. Or in her."

  I removed the rope. Then I took off her collar and handed it to Daniel to check while I ran my fingers over her, looking for tender spots.

  "It's clean," Daniel said, handing me back the collar. "If she was still wearing the muzzle and rope, then they--"

  "--wanted it to look like she really escaped," Sam said.

  "There's blood on the rope," I said. "That means she pulled free from whoever had her."

  "Or they're very detail-oriented."

  "Oh, please," Corey said. "Seriously?"

  I turned to Sam. "So what do you suggest?"

  "Tie her to a tree and keep going."

  I stared at her.

  "I hope you're not serious," Daniel said.

  "How about we tie you to a tree?" Corey said.

  "It's a dog," Sam said. "I understand it's Maya's pet--"

  "No, you don't understand," I said, barely able to get the words out. "I wouldn't tie any animal to a tree and leave it to die. Any animal. And certainly not my dog. She trusts me to look after her. I will not break that trust."

  "I'm not saying we tie her and leave her for good. If she's tagged, they'll find her. If not, we can come back after--"

  "After she's died of dehydration? Or been eaten by the first hungry cougar or bear that comes along and finds dinner staked out for it?"

  Sam backed up and crossed her arms. "This isn't about doing what we want. It's doing what we need to survive. You think you're the only one who's had to make hard choices?"

  "We just made a hard choice," Corey said. "We left Hayley--"

  "There's a reason I don't have pets," Sam went on. "I found a kitten once. I took it from place to place as we ran ... until the day we had to run without going back home. My parents said she'd find a way out of our apartment. I'm not sure of that. But there was nothing else to do. Hard life. Hard choices."

  My parents would have made sure the cat got out, called a neighbor from a pay phone or something. As I looked at Sam, though, I knew she wouldn't agree. She'd been raised to avoid risk at all costs.

  "Sam has a point," I said.

  "What?" Corey said. "No way."

  Daniel shot me a questioning look. Not questioning why I was going along with Sam, but wondering what alternative I had in mind, because he knew there was no way in hell I'd leave Kenjii behind.

  "She could be tagged," I said. "And as we agreed earlier, not all of us need to get to safety. That means not all of us need to stay with Kenjii. I'll take her. You guys go another way."

  Once again, our great escape devolved into chaos, which could be summarized as: "You can't do that." "Yes, I can." "I know you're upset--" "I'm not upset. We have a problem and I'm solving it." Expand. Mix. Repeat until one party wears down and surrenders. That party wasn't me.

  Actually, I was surprised by how quickly Daniel gave in. Well, "quickly" being relative. But he did fold fast enough for me to suspect he didn't plan to actually let me go off alone. So I kept my ears tuned for signs I was being followed. But I didn't hear any. He'd realized this was the best solution for all.

  I'd sent Daniel along the road, which seemed to be slowly veering inland. I stuck to a direct route south, through the woods. Soon I found an even narrower dirt road.

  It was dusk when I came across a couple of cottages. They were little more than shacks. Both uninhabited. One was completely empty. The other had furniture. So I broke in and, no, I didn't feel guilty about that. Couldn't.

  As I discovered, though, the only thing in that cabin was the furniture. No phone. No canned food. I had pop and energy bars from the store, though, so I decided to eat them at the table, which felt oddly comforting. I shared with Kenjii, as I'd done with all my rations.

  By the time I finished eating, night had fallen. I considered spending it on the double bed. It was just a bare mattress--a stained and soiled one--but my muscles ached from sleeping on the cold ground, and I'd be better able to escape pursuers with a decent sleep. So I gingerly stretched out, using Kenjii as a pillow.

  As everything got quiet, there was only one thing left to do. Think about what happened at the store today. Think about what that man said.

  Calvin Antone. My father. I hated the sound of that. Even "biological father" wasn't much better. As for "bio father," I'd never used the term, even in my mind. Probably because I never thought about the man who'd fathered me.

  I did think about the woman who'd given birth to me. I couldn't help it. She'd abandoned me. Now, I'd learned that I had a twin brother, and she'd kept him. It didn't matter if Rafe was right and she'd split us up for our own safety. She'd still chosen which child she wanted to keep, and there had to be a reason--maybe I cried more, maybe I fussed more, maybe she decided she'd rather have a son--but some thought process must have gone into it. She'd chosen him and rejected me.

  I flipped onto my stomach and made a noise in my throat that sounded a lot like a growl.

  I didn't want to feel anything toward my biological parents, positive or negative. I remember once my mom showed me an online forum for adopted kids. If I wouldn't share my angst with her and I wouldn't share it with a counselor, maybe I'd be comfortable with this. What she couldn't seem to understand was that I had no angst. On those forums I saw kids bitching about their adoptive parents and how much better their biological ones might have been, and I realized I had nothing in common with them.

  I was sure there were others like me--who wouldn't trade their adoptive parents for anything--but those kids were doing fine, living their lives, just like me. They weren't complaining on Internet forums.

  Now I had angst. Not only had my biological mother rejected me, but Rafe also said she had light hair and hazel eyes, even if she had to be at least part-Native because of the skin-walker blood. I'd grown up thinking I was one-hundred-percent Native, and finding out I wasn't threw me off balance.

  Then I'd met my biological father and he wasn't just the sperm donor I'd imagined. Apparently, he was the parent who hadn't rejected me. He said he'd been searching for me since I'd been born. Then he found me, and he'd been there ever since, somewhere, watching me grow up.

  Did I believe his story? I didn't want to. I wanted him to be lying, to be evil. Otherwise, he really had wanted me and when we finally got a chance to meet, he was on the side of the people chasing me. He was my father, and he was my enemy. He claimed to care for me, and he killed the guy I cared about. He wanted to give me a better life, and he seemed hell-bent on destroying the great one I already had.

  So yes, I had angst.

  More than angst, because when I thought about my biological parents, it forced me to think of the one thing that worried me more than anything else. The one thing I'd been struggling so hard not to think about. My mom and dad.

  They thought I was dead. Dead. What were they going through? How were they coping? Were they safe?

  Angst. Fear. Stark, gut-twist
ing terror. It didn't make for an easy sleep.

  I tried to clear my head, but when I did, I realized how horrible this cabin was. Even Kenjii's dog smell wasn't enough to mask the stench of the mattress.

  There was no place better to sleep inside. I left the cabin and walked until I was so exhausted that I didn't care how hard the ground was. Then I curled up with my dog and fell asleep.

  TWENTY-TWO

  MY DREAMS STARTED INNOCENTLY enough. I was at home, undressing for the night, then I collapsed into bed. I didn't stay there for long. The next thing I knew, I was in a medieval torture chamber, roped to the rack, being stretched until I screamed with... I wasn't sure how to describe it. Not pain. It was like stretching for a run, only it felt wrong, like I was overdoing it, my brain screeching for me to stop before I tore something, only I couldn't stop, because I wasn't in control. The ropes pulled tighter and tighter, until I was covered in sweat, gasping for breath.

  I didn't know what my tormenters wanted from me, but apparently "screaming like a girl" wasn't it, because they ramped it up to a form of torture seen only in sci-fi movies--injecting bugs under my skin. I didn't actually feel the injections. But I felt the bugs. They crawled all over my body and burrowed into my flesh. That led to more screaming.

  I lay there feeling my body being stretched beyond its limits, watching it writhe and contort as bugs skittered beneath my skin. And then, with no warning, the ropes were cut and the beetles vanished, and I was left panting with exertion and exhaustion, eyes squeezed shut until I dared to open them and--

  I was lying on the ground. I caught a glimpse of one of Kenjii's paws and I remembered where I was. I blinked and yawned. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another of Kenjii's paws jerk, and I glanced over to realize it wasn't hers. It was the huge tawny paw of a cougar.

  I leaped to my feet. Or I tried to, rolling awkwardly. I managed to get half up, then reached out to push to my feet and--

  I screamed. Only it was no girlie scream this time--it was a snarling yelp. I looked down again at my hands, stretched out before me. Not hands. Paws. Cougar paws.

  I gulped air. Even that didn't feel right and when I closed my mouth, a fang caught my lip.

  I'd changed into a cougar. Transformed in my sleep.

  As I swung my head, I caught sight of Kenjii. She was still fast asleep. I stared at her. If Kenjii wasn't leaping up with a cougar standing two meters away, then there couldn't be a cougar standing two meters away.

  I was dreaming.

  Oh.

  I told myself I should be relieved, that I wasn't ready to deal with the shape-shifting, that I needed more information first, I needed to be prepared. Yet there was part of me that didn't want to be prepared. Didn't want to be so damned organized and informed all the time. The part that longed to just leap and experience.

  Yet the transformation couldn't be that easy, could it? For the body to turn from human to animal must involve pain. Vast amounts of real pain, not just discomfort. That was only logical.

  Damn logic. Why couldn't I have a little magic in my life, instead?

  I sighed. It came out as a feline chuff, jowls quivering.

  Oh, get over it already. You want magic, Maya? How about the ability to heal animals? The power to become one--painful or not.

  That was magic.

  I stretched, catlike, hindquarters up, front paws out. I stayed back from Kenjii, though. Part of me still hoped I wasn't dreaming, that she was just soundly asleep from her long day of adventure. After everything I'd been through, I was entitled to enjoy my fantasy while it lasted.

  As I stretched, I flexed my paws and my claws shot out like switchblades. I relaxed and they retracted. In and out, in and out.

  I took a closer look at my paws. They were as big as splayed human hands, oversize for climbing. If I looked closely at my flanks, I could see very faint spots, all but disappeared.

  I pushed onto all fours and took a few steps. It wasn't as awkward as I'd feared. I knew how animals moved, and when I put that image into my brain, it was like an instruction set. My muscles obeyed and I walked. Forward. Back--

  I tripped and landed on my rump. Okay, that explained why animals usually turn around instead of switching into reverse. Backing up on two legs is a lot easier than on four.

  So what else was different? Everything I saw, for starters. The world came in shades of gray, like a high-quality black-and-white movie. My night vision seemed sharper, as did my hearing. The dark clearing where we'd fallen asleep looked twilit, and I could pick up the scuffle of a distant animal.

  The most noticeable difference was the overwhelming number of smells. Musk and rot and a sharp, clean scent that I somehow recognized as water. I swallowed. Water.

  I followed the scent until I found a stream, barely a trickle. I sat on my haunches and reached out a paw, ready to scoop some up to drink before realizing that really wasn't going to work.

  I bent, stuck out my tongue, and licked the water. I knew I was supposed to lap, not lick, but that's not easy when you aren't accustomed to it. After slopping around and soaking my face, I managed to get a few mouthfuls.

  When I had enough, I twisted to go and felt a weird ping on my cheek. It was like I'd brushed against something, but a more intense sensation. And my face was inches from the ferns bending over the stream. I tried again. Another ping, and I realized what it was. Whiskers. They were warning me I was close to hitting something. Like the backup sensors on my grandmother's car.

  As I turned around, I felt another brushing sensation, this one not nearly as intense but even odder. My tail. It was off to the side and I couldn't really get a good look at it. So how could I move--?

  My tail swung. Okay, that was easy. I took a closer look. It was thick and over half the length of my body. When I thought of moving it, it moved. Very convenient.

  I crept forward, sniffing and listening and, occasionally, tasting. When I caught the faint smell of raw meat, my stomach rumbled. That part, I ignored. Definitely not something I cared to explore, and the mingled musk of a weasel or marten told me I'd be stealing dinner from someone else if I did.

  The next scent on the breeze was also from a living being. And this one brought me to a skidding stop, paws outstretched. I lifted my head, nose twitching as I found the smell again, to be sure I wasn't mistaken.

  Human.

  Daniel and the others? My heart beat faster, tail swinging. Another sniff. No, these were scents I didn't recognize. Not consciously, at least. But as I stood there, nose raised to the wind, images flashed in my mind and told me I did know these people--I just hadn't realized I'd stored the scents.

  Moreno. Antone. The woman. And the faint smell of a campfire.

  As I sniffed the air, I started to seriously consider the possibility this was real. I'd dreamed of undressing. I must have done that, in my sleep, like I'd walked in my sleep two nights ago. As for the transformation, I'd seen Annie do it and it had seemed relatively painless. And why hadn't Kenjii woken? Because I'd moved away from her before I shape-shifted. She was too tired to hear me get up and I probably smelled the same as I always did. No cause for alarm.

  This was real. I'd shape-shifted. I was a cougar. And Antone, Moreno, and the woman were close by.

  Was Sam right, after all? Had they tagged Kenjii and were closing in? Time to check this out, while I still wore my handy disguise.

  By the time I got to the camp, I knew they weren't tracking my dog. If they had been, they wouldn't be staying so far away. I'd traveled at least a couple of kilometers to find them.

  When I finally made it, I found two canvas tents and a pickup. From the looks of the small fire, they'd only recently pitched camp for the night.

  Moreno, Antone, and the woman sat around the blaze. Moreno and the woman were drinking beer. Antone had a bottle of water beside him, and was crouched by the fire, poking a stick in. I caught the smell of roasting sausage. He pulled it out and put it into bun, then set the stick aside.

 
; "Not going to make ours?" Moreno said.

  "I'm sure you can manage."

  "I burn everything. My people didn't cook over fire."

  "All people cooked over fire at some point," Antone said.

  "You know what I mean. Your family."

  "My family lived in a suburb of Phoenix. I learned campfire cooking in Scouts, like most boys in America."

  "Touchy, touchy," Moreno said. "I was just--"

  "Being an ass?" the woman said.

  Moreno muttered something, crushed his beer can, and threw it into the forest. The woman leaned over, took the stick, and started preparing a sausage. Antone walked into the forest, retrieved the can, and tossed it into the trash.

  "Earth Mother be angry," Antone said as he came back to the fire. "Send big thundercloud."

  Moreno made a face at him. As Antone sat again, I thought of what he'd said earlier, about losing my twin brother and me. Hunting for us. Finding me. Being strung along by promises from the St. Clouds.

  Did I understand how he felt? I guess so. But I was only his child in blood. I'd been raised by others, and to think he could just take me away from them--then or now--was all kinds of wrong.

  It didn't matter if he'd been given a raw deal. It didn't matter that as I watched him I saw hints of someone I might have liked. He was trying to take me captive and separate me from my family while endangering my friends along the way. He was the enemy. He had to be.

  When Moreno went for a second beer, Antone said, "Enough. I don't mind you guys having one drink, but there's a reason I'm drinking water. We need to be alert here."

  "Against what?" Moreno said. "Killer bunnies?"

  "Don't dignify that with a response, Cal," the woman said.

  A cough sounded from one of the tents, and they all glanced over.

  "Penny, go see if she wants another sausage," Antone said. "I'd like to see her eating more."

  "I have a Snickers bar in my bag," the woman--Penny--said. "I'll take her that. Kids always like candy."

  "Not sure that applies to teenage girls, but you can give it a shot."

  Teenage girls? Hayley? I inhaled. This close to the fire, though, all I could smell was smoke. I strained to see inside the tent as Penny pulled back the flap, but she didn't open it far enough.

  I slid backward until it seemed safe to turn around. Then I circled the camp. I eyed a massive tree with branches stretching close to the tents. My claws extended and retracted, as if urging me to climb it. Tempting... The tents were in the middle of a large clearing, meaning there was no way I could get close from ground level. I saw a flap tied open on the tent roof. A vent that I could probably see down through.