The Circle of Lies

by Crystal Velasquez

  Meanwhile, as soon as Lin had gotten free of my weight, she’d rolled away and squeezed her eyes shut. “Tiger, tiger, tiger . . . ,” she chanted, balling her hands into fists. Now I understood why she hadn’t shifted yet. She was too panicked to focus. As I did my best to shield her from the eagles, I laid one heavy paw on her stomach until she eased her eyes open. I couldn’t talk to her, but I hoped just having her stare into my large round cat eyes would get the message across. Calm down and let the cat take over. She blinked slowly and nodded, understanding clear on her face. She took a deep breath. In seconds her delicate hands became the heavy orange-and-white paws of a tiger. Her cat body rippled over her human one like a coat of armor. She let out a satisfied growl and got to her paws, eyeing the birds with a hunter’s yearning. Let’s do this, she said. Together we leaped at the birds, baring our teeth and slashing at the air.

  Pull them down so I can bite them, I urged Lin.

  I’m trying! she answered. But they won’t stay still. . . .

  I knew what she meant. I felt my claws scrape against their feathers, but before I could get a good grip, they swooped away, just out of reach.

  “Got it!” Shani yelled from across the room, and the lights came on all at once. The birds, thrown off by the sudden flash of light, snapped their beaks at us but wheeled around, flapping their dark wings until they had all wrapped their talons around the top level of the bleachers. Their angry screeches echoing around us scraped the inside of my sensitive ears like an ice pick dragging against concrete. But they had backed off long enough for me to take a good look around.

  What I saw almost made me wish they hadn’t.

  Temple Academy’s sports teams were all called the Fighting Eagles, and the mascot, Eddie the Eagle, smiled out from each of the banners hung beneath the scoreboards and from the mural on the wall. He looked out from a logo stamped onto each of the basketballs that now lay strewn around the gym floor. Or at least, he had. Now the cartoon eagle mascot was missing from half of the banners and all of the basketballs, and while he usually wore a friendly grin, the remaining images of him leered at us with menacing eyes. The large white heads on the banners swung from left to right as if they were trying to wriggle free. Atop the scoreboard perched two eagles, preening their feathers. This can’t be happening, I thought, fighting the instinct to run.

  Doli let out a bloodcurdling scream, and I swung my head in her direction. She was staring down at her track team T-shirt, which of course had an eagle in the center. But now the eagle was coming to life right before our eyes. Lin roared, and it seemed to remind Doli what she had to do.

  In seconds her dark skin had been replaced with thick sandy fur, her tall runner’s body reshaping itself into a powerful puma. Her eyes glowed yellow, and she growled, pouncing on the eagle that had been trying to rip out her hair.

  Shani ran to help. As she did, her blue-and-black hair and red-shale-colored skin gave way to the golden fur of a lion, and her roar shook the windows in their frames.

  In answer the eagles watching balefully from the scoreboard lifted their wings, at least six feet across, and dive-bombed us like missiles. I barely had time to react before one of the birds landed on my back, sinking its talons into my fur and squeezing with all its might. It felt like someone was pinching my skin with a pair of hot pliers. “GAAAAR!” I roared. I tried to twist my head to bite at the eagle, but its beak pecked at my eyes, trying to blind me.

  I backed toward a wall and reared up on my hind legs, crushing the great bird against the wall with my body. It screamed in protest, but then I heard its bones shatter against my back like broken plates. When I fell onto my front paws again, the eagle’s limp body came with me. Its talons were still lodged in my flesh. Help! I called, burning with pain.

  I’m coming, Shani said. Soon she was at my side, panting heavily.

  We’ll distract the birds while you help Ana, said Doli. The sound of flapping wings echoed close by, but we ignored it. This might hurt, Shani said. I heard the crunch of her teeth sinking into the dead eagle’s body. It took three strong yanks, but she finally pulled it free, leaving my back throbbing.

  It might hurt? I asked.

  Consider yourself lucky, Shani replied. Eagles aim for your spine so they can sever it with their beaks. Watch out! Here they come again!

  These birds were smart. They came at us all at once and never let up. One clawed and scratched Doli’s head, opening up puncture wounds across her skull as if it were trying to gouge her eyes. I bounded toward her, ready to pounce on them, but another bird grabbed my tail in its hard beak and pulled me back. They seemed to be multiplying by the minute. This time we weren’t battling a murder of small black crows, like we had in the temple. These were powerful birds of prey, skilled at taking down their enemies, and Jason wasn’t here with a lit torch to stave them off.

  I could smell the scent of fresh blood filling the room, and I knew it was mostly ours. It poured, thick and red, from a wound on my arm, and tufts of Lin’s orange fur stuck out of one of the eagles’ beaks, her blood crusting its edges. Confusion ruled, but I was sure of three things:

  We were brave.

  We were fighting hard.

  And we were losing.

  chapter 3

  Shani

  I NEVER LIKED EDDIE THE Eagle. As mascots go, he’s pretty lame—especially when our school plays against teams with serious animal street cred: wolverines, barracudas, rattlesnakes. I never thought eagles were that level of scary.

  Until they started trying to kill us, that is.

  Think, Shani, think! I ordered myself. I roared in frustration, baring my teeth at the eagle that kept swooping in to claw at my back. I knew I had a weight advantage, and my claws were just as sharp as its talons. Not to mention I had the whole magical-Hunter-of-Chaos-with-an-ancient-calling thing working for me. The eagle turned and dived, its wings tucked behind it, a missile bearing razor talons and a scythe-like beak. It ducked my flailing paw, and I rolled to the side—but it still pulled out a clump of my hair. Somehow the stupid eagle was kicking my magical butt.

  When I turned to see how my friends were matching up against the other eagles, the one I was fighting flew right at me, landed on my neck, and pecked at my head—coming away with a chunk of my ear in its beak. I felt like my head was on fire, and the roar I let out scared even me. But it wasn’t just pain—it was blind animal rage.

  I realized I’d been thinking too hard. My lion self would know what to do if I just surrendered to it. I tried putting away my human thoughts and instead pictured myself in a field of tall grass, creeping quietly toward my next meal. I could almost feel the sun warming my fur, hear the gurgling of rivers, smell the fear of the other animals nearby, none wanting to get between me and my prey. Then, when my target least expected it . . .

  I pounced. The bird had come in, nice and low, intending to claw my back again, but I had whipped around and leaped at just the right time, my paws crushing the bird’s body against the cold gym floor. A strange hunger took over me, and I lowered my head to rip out the eagle’s throat.

  No sooner was that eagle defeated, though, than another one came flying at me with the same intensity. I jumped back into my fighting stance, realizing with a sick feeling that maybe I wouldn’t win this time. With each passing minute the birds seemed to be getting more efficient, and more brutal. For Chaos Spirits, their attacks were becoming eerily organized. One of them flew in low, letting its wings carry it down in an easy glide. When it got within range, it sliced into Lin’s back with its blood-soaked steel talons, then flapped just enough to get out of range of her deadly tiger claws. As Lin reared to strike the first bird, a second eagle torpedoed straight down at her and collided with Lin’s head at full speed, kamikaze style. At that velocity, its weight knocked Lin to the ground like a wet sandbag, even as the eagle bounced away and landed in a crumpled heap right beside her. Lin didn’t move for several seconds, and I thought the bird might have knocked her out cold. But th
en I heard a pained mewling sound.

  This isn’t working! Lin’s panicked voice streamed into my mind.

  There are too many of them. That was Ana. She had bounded to the top of the bleachers, attempting to get at the birds where they were least able to use their speed against her. Smart. But while she bit into one bird’s throat, breaking its neck with an audible snap, another clamped onto her leg and dragged her toward the edge. It was trying to push her from the top of the stack, the same way they would kill smaller prey by dragging them off a cliff and dropping them onto the jagged rocks below. Ana sank her claws into the wood, scrambling to keep hold and get a grip on the bleachers, but she hadn’t expected the bird’s powerful tug from behind her.

  Ana! I screamed, running to the base of the bleachers just as she went tumbling over the edge. The eagle screeched in triumph, but as Ana fell, her body twisted and positioned itself so that she landed lightly on her feet. Even she seemed surprised.

  Ha! The eagle had forgotten. That method might work on goats and deer, but Ana was a cat. We were designed to land on our feet.

  My celebration was short-lived. Doli had been quiet all this time because she had been busy fighting off two eagles that had decided to team up against her. While one flew at her face and nipped at her eyelids with its beak, which punctured her skin like a yellow ice pick, the other tore a deep gash down her side, and Doli let out a tortured puma scream. Her coat darkened to a reddish brown as blood seeped from the wound.

  I ran to join Doli, but another eagle flew into my path, spreading its enormous wings to the sides as it let out a high-pitched cry that sounded like a car alarm. Its fetid breath reeked of death. I wasted no time—I pounced with lightning quickness and sank my jaws into its soft underbelly. It pecked at my head, drawing blood and bright white points of pain, but I wouldn’t let go until it went limp in my mouth. When I had thrown the fallen bird to the side, I looked up to find four more eagles where there had only been one—all of them blocking my path to Doli.

  Where were they all coming from? There hadn’t been this many of them a minute ago. I looked at the mascot banner and saw eagles pulling themselves out of it. At least a dozen more now lined the bleachers, patiently waiting for their turn to attack.

  We’ll never beat them like this, I told the girls.

  I know, but what can we do? Ana answered. We’re drowning here.

  That’s it, I thought suddenly. Hold them off as long as you can, I told my friends.

  Like we have a choice, Lin grumbled.

  I batted my way past the growing swarm of birds and ran for the hallway. All the while I pictured Doli running on the outdoor track with her team, me typing away on my laptop—people things, not cat things. By the time I reached the fuse box, I was human again.

  But my ear still stung like crazy. I remembered the eagle taking a bite out of my ear and realized that I had carried my injuries with me into my human form. If the same happened to Doli, she was going to need help, and fast.

  I shook my head and willed myself to concentrate. I had only a few minutes to get this done. I threw open the main gym door and found the manual crank that controlled all the windows. It took a few tries before I could force the crank around, but slowly the windows angled open. I searched the wall where I’d found the fuse box and finally spotted a small digital screen. “Jackpot,” I said with a smile.

  As part of all the renovations Temple Academy had done last year, they’d installed tablets in each of the buildings to make it easier for the groundskeepers to control things like the lights and the alarm systems. But I wasn’t interested in either of those things at the moment. I quickly signed in as Principal Ferris—I knew hacking her password would come in handy one day—and found the controls for the sprinkler system. Being a lion had its advantages, but the gamechanger was going to be one swipe from my human finger.

  Immediately the sprinklers in the gym ceiling opened up and let out a forceful spray, hitting the eagles as if they were flames to be put out. The sprinklers turning on automatically triggered the emergency lights, which—unlike the regular yellow recess lights—were a blinding white meant for maximum clarity.

  From my place in the hall I heard the three Wildcats yelp at the same time—probably when that ice-cold water hit them. I would have been sorry if the plan hadn’t been working so well. I ran back inside the gym and saw that the eagles waiting their turn on the risers were not nearly as solid as they’d been when I’d left. I could see right through them now. Maybe they had to focus to become solid enough to attack, and the rush of cold water had been startling enough to interrupt the process.

  As Anubis’s influence seemed to seep out of them, they began to evaporate like steam. The birds abandoned their attack as water soaked into their feathers. Meanwhile, the ones who tried to escape the water blasts by shooting toward the ceiling flew straight into the blinding beams of the emergency lights head-on, which they didn’t seem to like at all. It wasn’t long before one of them let out a ghastly cry. I don’t speak eagle, but I’m guessing what he said was, “Retreat!”

  Like in a cartoon stampede, they all headed for the open windows and the door, and streamed into the night. There were so many of them cascading through the windows, the fluorescent light reflecting off their bright white heads over their brown feathers, that the effect was like watching a muddy ocean tide, whitecaps breaking against the shore. If only it were that easy to wash them out to sea.

  For several minutes all we could do was listen to the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of their frantic flapping, the tick of their beaks against the windowpanes like pebbles hitting glass, and their insistent outraged shrieks. The ruckus was almost too much to take. All of us whimpered, pawing at our ears.

  The moment the eagles were all gone, my friends turned back into the humans I knew, clearly exhausted from the effort it had taken to fight the Chaos Spirits.

  “You . . . you did it,” Ana panted as she sat heavily on the gym floor, thin rivulets of blood oozing from several puncture wounds on her arms and forehead. “Nice job.”

  “I definitely owe you one,” Lin added. “We all do.” Lin’s cheek was swollen and bruised, and there was a trail of four long scratches across her neck that disappeared beneath her T-shirt. But she seemed so grateful to be alive that she barely noticed her injuries.

  Doli nodded her agreement as I sat down beside her. Even that tiny movement made her grimace.

  “Thanks, guys, but why don’t we save the applause for after we figure out if Doli is going to need a new spleen or something. If you haven’t noticed, she’s bleeding all over the place,” I said.

  Ana knelt in front of Doli then and examined the gash in her side, which was sopping wet with bright red blood that refused to clot. “Doli,” Ana said, panic creeping into her voice, “this looks bad. That eagle cut you pretty deep, and the wound is still bleeding.”

  “It is?” Doli said, straining to see her side. “Mm. That must be why I feel like I’m about to pass out.”

  Ana glanced up at me, her brown eyes darkening with worry. “We’ve got to get her to the infirmary.”

  “Are you crazy?” Lin spoke up. “We can’t do that. What would we say? That she got attacked by the school mascot, who came to life thanks to a bunch of Chaos Spirits sent by an evil brotherhood who—?”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. When you say it like that, it sounds nuts,” I said.

  “Lin’s right,” Doli broke in, pressing her hand into her side and wincing. She shook her head as if to clear away the dizziness. When she spoke again, her voice was firm. “We can’t tell anyone about this. Besides, I’m okay. Really. We just have to get back to the dorm. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom cabinet. You’re all going to need it too. Especially you, Shani. That ear looks gross.”

  As the adrenaline that had coursed through me during the fight subsided, I started to feel the effects of every beak strike and talon grip. I reached my hand up and touched my ear, hissing at the pain beginning
to throb from the torn lobe. I pulled my hand away and stared at my fingertips. They were covered in blood.

  “Hold on.” I ran back to the tablet. Soon I had the sprinklers and the emergency lights turned off and the regular recess lights back on. When I returned, I lifted my eyebrows and said, “We need to get the heck out of here now before someone sees us.”

  I looked at Ana and Lin, at the scratches on their necks and arms, and realized that our dorm mother was bound to ask us how we’d gotten these injuries. “We’re all going to have to come up with a creative story to explain the obvious cuts and bruises to Mrs. O’Grady. Something that doesn’t involve demented ghost eagles.”

  But Ana was shaking her head and looking around the gym. “No, we’re going to need a way to explain this,” she said in a defeated tone. “We’ve completely destroyed the gym!”

  We each turned to take in all the damage. The floor was a mess of splintered wood and shattered glass from the windows that some of the eagles had broken on their way out. The walls had huge chunks missing, as if a wrecking ball had smashed into them, and all the basketball nets had been torn down. Not to mention that the water from the sprinklers was now warping the wood so it bulged and sank in uneven waves.

  “Ooh, not good, not good, not good,” said Lin, stating the obvious. “If I get caught for this, my parents will disown me. Or worse, they’ll make me spend the summer with my most distant relatives in China.”

  “So let’s get out of here,” I said. “Come on!”

  “We’re just going to leave it like this?” Ana looked helplessly around the room.

  “We have to,” I insisted. “Ana, I can’t be caught here. I’m already on my last warning. Besides, fixing this damage would take way more than a mop and a broom. Look around.”