Twiceborn

by Marina Finlayson

  Whew. Easy there. What the hell was the matter with me? I sank down on the edge of the bath. Was this schizophrenia? Where were all these violent thoughts coming from? I felt like Dr Jekyll being taken over by Mr Hyde.

  A small but distinct snap sounded under my hands. I’d broken the aluminium frame.

  Who was I kidding? Schizophrenia didn’t make you throw up stones or see auras around people. And it certainly didn’t give you the power to fight off your sleazebag ex’s psychic assault.

  Something had happened to me—or more likely, been done to me—and it was all tied up with those lost moments in the garden with Leandra. Just as well she was already dead—I could have killed her for the mess she’d made of my life. Admittedly it hadn’t been all sunshine and roses before, but at least people hadn’t been lining up to kill me before she’d stuck her nose in.

  To have any chance of figuring it all out, I had to escape. I eyed the broken flyscreen, weighing my options. It didn’t take long. If the window was the only way out, there was only one thing to do.

  I raised the broken screen and slammed it down as hard as I could into the bath.

  Then I bolted into the bedroom and scrambled under the bed, heart racing.

  A voice in the corridor: “What was that?”

  A dust bunny tickled my nose as I pressed my face against the carpet, trying to make myself as small as possible. Most people, presented with an open window and an empty room, would leap to the obvious conclusion, however unlikely it seemed. Hopefully werewolves were no more likely to think things through logically than anyone else.

  The door opened and a pair of black boots came in, paused, then hurried to the bathroom.

  “Shit. She’s gone!”

  Another pair of boots joined the first. “Out there?” Micah’s voice. “She’s crazy. Get downstairs and find her. She can’t have gotten far after a fall like that.”

  I listened to their feet thudding down carpeted stairs, heard the shouts as others joined them. I’d kicked the nest good and proper, and now all the little ants were scurrying. It was enough to warm a girl’s heart.

  I slid out from under the bed. No time to lie around. When they couldn’t find me, someone would use their brain and realise I could never have jumped from that window. I had to get moving.

  First I had to find Ben. I hurried down the corridor in the direction they’d taken him, heart pounding. What now? Knock on every door and hope Ben answered and not some werewolf?

  The room next door seemed too close. They didn’t want us whispering secrets through the walls. At the one after I brought my lips to the crack between the door and the frame.

  “Ben?” I didn’t dare raise my voice, but it still sounded loud in the empty corridor. I glanced over my shoulder, jumpy as a teenager trying to sneak out of the house. And how were we going to get out of the house, even if I managed to find Ben and free him? Later. One problem at a time.

  No one replied, so I moved on to the next door. Only three more before the corridor finished at a set of double doors.

  “Ben? Are you there?”

  I heard movement, then his voice, deep and low. “Kate?”

  Weak with relief, I leaned against the door. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Was all that commotion you? What did you do?”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you later. How are we going to get you out of there?”

  “See if you can find the keys. Try Nada’s office. It’s the one at the end of the corridor.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Been here before. Hurry, before someone comes. And be careful.”

  “Okay.” Hearing his voice made me feel better. A faint scent of pine forests reached me through the heavy oak panels, or was that my imagination? “Don’t go anywhere.”

  I listened at the double doors at the end of the corridor. Nothing. Probably everyone was out looking for me. And if I wasn’t quick they’d find me, too.

  I eased the door open and slipped inside.

  The walls were lined with bookshelves, but Nada’s taste ran to romances and soft porn rather than accounting texts or the usual kind of legal tome found on office shelves. I suppose it counted as an office, because it contained a desk, but it didn’t look like a place where any real work happened. The leather chair sat square behind the desk, pushed in neatly, as if it rarely saw use, and the desk itself, though large enough to dance on, held nothing but a computer and a neat organiser full of pens.

  I glanced around. Armchairs and coffee table, no filing cabinets—what kind of office didn’t have filing cabinets? It looked like the desk drawers were the only place to store anything. Noiselessly I padded across the deep soft carpet and opened the top one. More pens. Office supplies.

  No keys.

  My palms started to sweat. Time was running out. I rifled through the other drawers, horribly aware of the noise I was making. Where else could they be? It had to be somewhere handy. I got down and peered under the desk. A secret compartment maybe?

  “Looking for something?”

  I jumped, slamming my head on the underside of the desktop. Nada stood in the doorway, flanked by Micah and another guy who could have been his twin. Same dead eyes and surly expression. Nada’s face lit with glee, her smile mocking as I crawled out from under the desk.

  She had something in her hand. “This, maybe?”

  I stared, my vision narrowing. I didn’t see the men move as I lunged across the room, only felt them as they slammed me back against a bookshelf. Half a dozen books tumbled around me, but I only had eyes for the stone.

  She had the channel stone.

  I twisted and struggled in Micah’s grip, but I might as well have tried to wrestle a statue. There was no moving him. Nada’s laughter floated behind us as he hauled me back down the corridor and locked me in my room again. Someone shouted from behind a closed door.

  Long moments passed before I realised the voice had been Ben’s. By then my throat was raw from screaming obscenities. I stared out the balcony doors, blind to the view; that damned black stone filled my head. The channel stone. How could I know its name but not its purpose? I longed for it, with a physical craving more desperate than a pack-a-day smoker giving up cigarettes.

  Seeing it again had caused me, quite literally, to lose my mind. I’d become someone else, my consciousness completely taken over with the need to possess it. All thought of keys or escape had vanished in a roar of need. Awareness of it still thrummed through my body.

  Madness. I hugged myself hard, trying to hang on to Kate, to find myself again in the midst of strangeness. Poor Ben. He must be worried sick, hearing me dragged screaming down the corridor. Deep purple bruises flowered already on my arm where Micah had manhandled me back to my room.

  The source of the bruises appeared in the courtyard below, another couple of thugs in tow, and I stepped closer to the glass to watch. After a moment a regular convoy emerged from the garage—two vans and a four-wheel drive like the one we’d arrived in last night. Surly guys streamed out of the house and piled in. Wherever they were going, it didn’t look like a social call.

  “Give my regards to Alicia,” said one who appeared to be staying. I had to strain to hear through the glass.

  Micah frowned. “Let us worry about Alicia. You focus on your own job. I don’t want to hear you let the girl escape again.”

  “No problem, boss. Don’t get your fur singed, okay?”

  Micah growled and the guy skittered back inside like a kicked puppy.

  Finally Nada came out and got into the four-wheel drive with Micah. I felt a sudden wrench. What the—?

  It hit me then—the channel stone. Somehow I knew Nada had it. I swear I felt a tug as the car moved off and the distance between us grew. Unconsciously I turned in its direction as it disappeared around the house, as if I were the needle of a compass and it my true north.

  Bloody hell. I sank down on the bed. I knew then, as well as I knew my own name, that I had to get th
at stone back.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I woke from a dream of blood and terror. My body felt unfamiliar, as if I were wearing someone else’s skin. Though my chest heaved with the pain of remembered agony, my groping hand found nothing but the bandage around my shoulder.

  The room was dark and the house still; it must be the early hours of the morning, when even the late-night revellers have gone home to sleep and the streets are empty. Not even a ticking clock broke the silence. The mound of cushions I’d hurled off the bed made a strange lumpy silhouette by the locked door, like a collapsed hay stack. The one pillow I’d kept was warm beneath my cheek.

  I could have been the only person alive in the whole mansion. I knew most of them had cleared out with Nada—I’d only seen Kicked Puppy Guy all day. He’d brought my dinner and refused to speak. Evidently when Micah kicked someone they stayed down.

  In the silence I heard the faintest click and rolled over, seeking its source. Cool air caressed my face.

  I’d hardly registered that the balcony door stood open before a dark shape moved in the shadows by the bed. I inhaled sharply, but before I screamed the house down it stepped into the moonlight.

  “Luce!” My whole body sagged with relief. “What kept you?”

  She froze. Then I saw the knife, raised to strike, blade glinting in the moonlight. I scrambled away in a tangle of sheets, heart pumping. Why was everyone trying to kill me all of a sudden?

  I slid off the bed and backed away till I hit the wall. The bed between us would no more protect me than the kitchen bench had kept the werewolf at bay. She was small, but she looked like she knew how to use that knife. She was also stark naked.

  Time stopped as we stared at each other. Her eyes were lost in shadow, impossible to read. Why did I say that? I didn’t know this woman.

  At last she lowered her hand. “Who are you? And how do you know my name?”

  A damn good question. Pity I had no answers. Part of me insisted I knew her: her pretty Chinese face always wore that serious expression. The long silken fall of her black hair was always pulled back in that business-like ponytail. Her hands looked delicate, yet I knew how capable they were. How handy with a knife, for instance.

  The other part of me had never seen her before in my life.

  And yet … the feeling of relief persisted, despite the knife and the disturbing lack of clothes. The cavalry had arrived! It made no sense—particularly as it was clear she had no idea who I was. The knife made it obvious her intentions weren’t friendly, and I shrank back against the wall, uneasily calculating my chances of getting past her to the balcony door. The odds weren’t good.

  How did I know her name? Search me, lady. I blurted the first thing that popped into my head instead.

  “How’d you get up here?”

  A fair question, in my view. No ladder leaned against the balcony, no rope hung down. It seemed even more curious than her nudity.

  “I flew,” she said, deadpan.

  She was joking, right?

  She crossed to the interior door and tried the handle. “Why is this locked? Where’s the key?”

  “How would I know? I’m a prisoner.”

  She looked me over, her gaze cold. “So you’re working for Alicia?”

  Goddammit. Why did everyone assume I must be working for someone? “Look, I never heard of Alicia or Valeria before yesterday. I don’t know anything about any crazy dragon war, and I wish all you people would stop blaming me for things I haven’t even done.”

  “Keep your voice down.” She considered me for a long moment, completely unfazed by her own nakedness. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking, but she went back to the balcony for what looked in the dark like a huge bunch of keys, the kind of thing a chatelaine might have worn in the olden days.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as she knelt by the bedroom door.

  “Getting us out of here,” she said.

  “Can’t we go back the way you came?”

  She ignored me, slipping an L-shaped piece of metal off her giant key ring and inserting it in the lock, followed by something else that looked like it belonged in a dental surgery. Okay, so they weren’t keys but lock-picking tools. That explained how she’d managed to get in. I’d never seen anyone pick a lock before. Were they all criminals in this brave new supernatural world? And naked ones, at that? I hardly knew where to look. Such a fabulous lot of new experiences I was having lately.

  It was obviously trickier than they made it look in the movies. She gave up on the dental device she had and chose another from the ring.

  I watched, trying to piece things together. She could have flown out the way she’d come. She was a wyvern, after all. That would be why the lock picks were on such a big ring, so she could grip it in her claws as she flew. And why she was naked. If you only meant to turn human long enough to murder a sleeping woman you wouldn’t bother bringing clothes.

  This all fell into place in my mind, click, click, click, like the tumblers moving in the lock. Wyvern, check. Fly in, fly out. Check.

  Leave the dead body behind.

  I broke out in hot sweat all over. This had never been meant as a rescue. She’d come to kill me. And how the hell did I know she was a wyvern? A few days ago I wouldn’t even have been sure what a wyvern was.

  She eased the door open and peeked out into the corridor.

  “So you’re breaking me out of here?” Glad she’d changed her mind. Though she barely reached my shoulder, I didn’t fancy my chances if I had to take her on.

  She glanced at me as if I were something nasty she’d found on the bottom of her shoe—if she’d been wearing any—then gathered up her tools.

  “But that wasn’t part of the plan, was it?”

  “You talk too much,” she said.

  “So what’s the plan now? How do I know you’re not going to kill me if I come with you?”

  “You don’t.”

  She didn’t add “you’ll just have to trust me” or any other vague reassurance.

  “Then I think I’ll say ‘thanks, but no thanks’.”

  The knife reappeared with alarming speed. “I don’t remember giving you an option.”

  That seemed a persuasive argument, so I slipped my shoes on and went out into the hall.

  She jerked the knife to the right. “Down the stairs.”

  “Wait! We have to break Ben out too. I can’t leave without him.”

  “Will you keep your damn voice down!” she snarled.

  Too late. A door opened further down the hall and Kicked Puppy Guy came out. I froze.

  He went for his gun, but Luce was quicker. The knife whizzed past my nose, and I heard a wet thunk and the guy’s grunt of pain.

  Luce shoved me toward the stairs. “Move!”

  I moved, with her on my heels. Our feet made no noise on the thick carpet as we pelted down the stairs.

  Another door slammed overhead, followed by the shrill of an alarm. Our guy must have hit a panic button, which meant more thugs arriving soon. Not good. I skidded round corners, following Luce’s terse directions: “through here! this way!” I hoped she knew what she was doing, because I was completely lost and disoriented in the dark.

  I slammed my shin into a chair as we raced into the kitchen. She hurled it to the floor behind us, then toppled them all down the long table as we passed. Someone was right behind us, but dodging the crashing chairs slowed him down. We burst into the yard mere seconds ahead of the pursuit.

  “Come on!”

  Luce snatched at my hand and dragged me behind her. The first guy burst out the door and got off a wild shot.

  We zigzagged across the yard. I hunched low, expecting to feel a bullet rip into me any second. Behind us someone shouted, but no one fired again. Luce damn near pulled the back gate off its hinges, and we flew out into the street.

  A white sedan idled at the curb. Luce wrenched the back door open and we piled in.

  “Let’s go!” said Luce. �
�What are you waiting for?”

  “What’s she doing here?” the driver growled. “I thought you were going to kill her.”

  My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. It was the werewolf from my kitchen.

  “Later, Garth,” Luce said. “Shut up and drive.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The drive was short but tense. Garth did as he was told and didn’t say a word, but his anger was plain in the stiffness of his thick neck and the way he slammed the gear stick through the changes.

  Garth. The monster had a name. He probably even had a job and a family to come home to, just like a normal person. My heart raced as I stared at the back of his head, surrounded by the now-familiar orange glow. Well, not quite like a normal person. There was that whole turning into a werewolf and attacking people thing. I shrank back in my seat, my body instinctively recoiling from the danger he represented.

  Not that I was much safer with Luce. Her aura was blue. Werewolf or wyvern—choose your poison. Either way there were claws and fangs. She watched me the whole time—not in a threatening way, but as if she were trying to work something out. The faint puzzled crease down the centre of her forehead was the most expression I’d seen on her yet. At least she’d put some clothes on.

  I turned away to watch the dark streets slide by out the window, trying not to let my fear show. The road was wet. Must have rained earlier, when I was asleep. Another late-night car trip. No wonder I was so bloody tired. And with every one my situation got worse and worse. Almost punch-drunk now, I reeled like a fighter who’d taken too many blows to the head. What now? Had Luce rescued me only so Garth could finish the job he’d started in my kitchen?

  We turned in at a large motel, its No Vacancy sign flashing a brilliant red. The car crunched its way across the gravel yard and pulled up in front of door 13. Lucky number 13.

  “Move,” said Luce.

  I got out. I could smell moisture in the warm air. Probably more rain on the way. No lights showed at the row of windows that marched down the length of the building. Either the other rooms were empty or their occupants were asleep. Not much point yelling for help either way, given what any would-be rescuers would find themselves up against.