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SKIN
A Werekin Novel
The Ark Trilogy: Book One
By: Jesse Daro
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Text copyright © 2014 Jesse Daro
All Rights Reserved
Second Edition
Cover Photo by Josh Pesavento
Used under Creative Commons license
All Rights Reserved
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Life is as dear to the mute creature as it is to a man. Just as
one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and
not to die, so do other creatures.
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
For Frank
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Table of Contents
Prologue
1: Flesh and Blood
2: Origin of the Species
3: Close Encounters
4: Pack Mentality
5: Traps
6: Ground Rules
7: A New Normal
8: Way of the Warrior
9: Kindred Spirits
10: Full Disclosure
11: Between the Lines
12: Snow Day
13: Pandora’s Box
14: The Missing Piece
15: Hostage Situation
16: Hail Mary
17: Failed Negotiations
18: Light and Dark
19: Aftershocks
20: Game Over
21: Treachery
22: Behind Enemy Lines
23: First Time
24: Friends and Enemies
25: Morituri te Salutant
26: Mortal Combat
Epilogue
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werekin: n.
1. An ancient race of alien shapeshifters with the
ability to transform into animals; once inhabited the lost
continent of Lemuria, before it sank beneath the sea.
2. Genetically re-engineered alien race having both a
human and an animal skin, able to shift between the two
at will. Engineered by Dr. Elijah Bishop and Dr. Ursula
LeRoi, founders of Chimera Enterprises, using alien
genetic material discovered inside Mt. Hokulani.
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Prologue
The bullet struck Naomi from behind, spraying blood onto
the chipped blue-and-white tiles above the kitchen sink, thickest
at the center and spackling upward in a thinning arc, like a
Jackson Pollock painting.
At the time, Seth was sitting on the counter, chasing stale
Oreos with swigs of Mountain Dew. Naomi was at the sink,
rinsing their soup mugs in rusty-smelling water from the tap. It
was late, nearly midnight, but Seth had not yet changed out of his
ratty jeans and old T-shirt; his hair was still damp from his
evening swim, his bare feet smeared with the sort of thick, pasty
mud you only find at the bottom of a river. “Seth Michael,”
Naomi had sighed, after he had tracked dirt all over the carpet.
Again.
Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” was playing on the radio.
It looked as though it might be: As Seth had jogged home, the
streets of South Philly had been dusted white, the roofs of the
run-down row houses frosted like gingerbread houses, twinkling
gumdrop lights outlining the porches. Seth and Naomi each had
one package under their small tree. The larger one was for Seth.
Experience told him it would be either clothes or books. Given
Naomi’s fondness for pastels, he was hoping for the latter.
Naomi’s gift, wrapped in green paper with a red bow, was a
soapstone rosary. Ben had helped Seth pick it out from one of the
craft stalls down by the Italian market.
It happened as the song neared its end. Naomi’s rich gospel
choir voice rose for the finale (“May your days be merry, and
bright; and may all your Chris – ”) just as the living room
window shattered, raining glass like hailstones onto the nubby
green carpet. Naomi’s voice fizzled into a gurgle; blood sprayed,
an arterial spurt; her elbows struck the sink’s edge, and she
crumpled, a shudder rippling down her spine.
Seth was already moving.
The hunter’s second bullet grazed his ear – the silver burned
like a lick of flame – and splintered the cabinet above his head as
he slammed into Naomi, tackling her to the floor. A third shot
blew apart the radio above the stove; a fourth ricocheted off the
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Formica tabletop, and Seth rolled, his knees squeezed around
Naomi’s broad hips to take her with him, and managed to wedge
the two of them between the refrigerator and the wall – the best
cover to be found in their small, sparsely-furnished kitchen.
The shooting had stopped. For a moment Seth laid still, his
heart a drum beating in his temples and his toes. They found us,
he was thinking. How did they find us?
Breath rattled up from Naomi’s torn throat. Seth looked
down at her. Blood had soaked the front of Naomi’s pink
nightgown, sinking into the cracks in the warped linoleum,
coating the ends of her salt-and-pepper hair; her pupils spread to
cover the whites of her eyes, her lips curling back from her teeth,
showing sharp canines. The hand that scrabbled up to clench his
was ice-cold, the nails now ending in spiked tips. Seth held on
without wincing as they dug into his palm.
Naomi spoke quickly then, on a single exhale of air: a name,
a phone number, an address. The last words she ever spoke to
him.
The floorboards vibrated – boots, coming up the front steps.
By the time the hunters kicked down the door, Seth was gone,
leaving behind a bloody handprint on the linoleum, a bloody paw
print on the windowsill.
7
Chapter One: Flesh and Blood
Inside the three-story brick house at 706 Kings Lane, a party
was underway. Every light in the house was burning, casting
yellow squares onto the fresh white snow. Cars lined both sides
of the circular drive. Porsches. BMWs. Cadillacs. Behind a bay
window, men in tuxedos and women in cocktail dresses sipped
wine, swaying to classic jazz.
Perfect. Not only was he turning up on his mother’s doorstep
after a sixteen – almost seventeen – year absence, he was,
apparently, also gate-crashing.
Sixteen-year-old Seth Michael Sullivan rested his forehead
against the taxi’s window, breathing in the stale odor of cigarette
smoke that clung to the cracked leather seat. For the hundredth
time in five days, he asked himself why. Why Naomi’s dying
wish had been for him to come here. Fairfax, Indiana. Anchored
in a bend of the Ohio River, bordered by Illinois to the west and
Kentucky to the south, former home of the Fort King military
prison, population just under one hundred thousand. Proper cities
had at least five times that many people. In Philadelphia, Seth
had been one of thousands of misfit teenagers. Hadn’t rated a
second glance on the train.
In Fairfax, he was going to stick out like the proverbial sore
thumb.
The cabbie cleared his throat. “You sure this is the right
address, son?”
He sounded skeptical. Seth didn’t blame him. Seth wasn’t the
kind of kid you expected to find living in a gated community like
Castle Estates, with its stately homes and manicured lawns, home
to doctors, lawyers, professors – even one candidate for the
United States Senate. It wasn’t just his Goodwill jeans and frayed
T-shirt, either. There was something about werekin, something
less tangible even than a scent, that humans picked up on. It
made them wary.
Or maybe the cabbie just thought he was casing the joint.
Seth did look like that kind of kid.
Seth unfolded a twenty from his pocket – literally his last
dime – and passed it over the seat. “Keep the change,” he said.
8
All of a buck. He grabbed his old gray backpack off the seat and
climbed out, feeling the cabbie’s reproachful glare follow him up
the drive.
Overhead, stars shone like spilled jewels in the nighttime sky.
More stars than had ever been visible in South Philly, or in
Harlem, where Seth had lived with his dad years ago. They
seemed to watch him as he threaded between the cars parked
nose-to-fender along the drive.
Last in line, in front of a garage that could have doubled as
its own residence, was a canary yellow Hummer. Chrome
wheels. Blacked-out windows. All-leather interior. Niiice. Out of
habit, Seth peeked in at the top-of-the-line stereo equipment.
The tinted glass threw his reflection back at him. Seth looked
about as wrecked as he felt. His hair was sticking up in the back
– he kept it short, dyed jet-black with bleached-white tips, but
after three days of sleeping in an airport capped off by a red-eye
New Year’s Eve flight, his cowlick was getting out of hand.
Purple-black shadows were smeared under his eyes, making
them seem even larger and rounder than they really were.
Seth’s eyes were his most distinctive feature: metallic gold
irises specked with blue. A werecat’s eyes.
Naomi had flown into hysterics last year when he had come
home with black rosette-shaped spots tattooed above the right
one, sprinkled across his brow, curving around his temple to his
cheekbone. “Why don’t you just paint a target on your
forehead?” she had stormed, lecturing him at full volume while
Seth had slumped on their battered sofa, picking threads out of
his jeans and feeling misunderstood. “Do you think the rest of us
hide because we’re cowards? Do you know what happens if the
hunters find you?”
Seth flinched now, remembering. He hadn’t known. Naomi
Franklin and Ben Schofield had always looked out for Seth, and
before them, his dad. Seth had thought he was a real cool cat,
prowling the Underground while Naomi slept, sneaking out of
his room at night to boost cars for the Coleman brothers. Naomi
would have whipped his spots off if she’d found out –
The house’s front door suddenly opened, releasing a burst of
sound like a radio station coming into tune. Jarred from his
reverie, Seth melted deeper into the shadows, out of sight.
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A slender woman in a black dress had appeared on the porch.
Closing the door with her foot, she glanced down the drive,
toward the quiet street, almost like she was waiting for someone,
then disappeared around the corner of the wraparound porch.
Seth sighed. But, since he couldn’t very well hide out in the
driveway all night, he threw one last, rueful look at his reflection
and continued up the drive.
His mother hadn’t exactly been thrilled to hear from him
when he had called. Hi, Mom. It’s Seth. Seth Michael Sullivan.
You might not remember me…Okay, he hadn’t really said that.
He didn’t think. He had still been pretty out of it at that point,
covered in Naomi’s blood and exhausted from running for nearly
a day – Philadelphia to Cincinnati in sixteen hours. Once his legs
had threatened to give out, he’d skinned back into a human,
stopped at the first payphone he found, and dialed the number
Naomi had whispered with her dying breath, asked to speak to
Lydia Steward, formerly Lydia Sullivan.
The end result of that brief, awkward conversation had been
his plane ticket to Fairfax.
There was a welcome mat at the top of the porch steps,
monogrammed with a snake-like double S – proof, Seth thought,
that rich people would spend money on anything, even a fancy
rug to wipe your feet. Red and green lights twisted like electric
vines around the white Doric columns. The window trim was
white as well, pale bones against blood-red brick.
This was not the house Seth’s dad had bought, back when
Thomas and Lydia Sullivan were newlyweds with a future bright
as a shiny penny. This was the house his mother lived in with her
new family, whom Seth had never met. Whom he hadn’t known
existed until five days ago. He reached for the knocker.
“Seth?”
Seth whipped around, forcibly suppressing the magic that
rippled under his skin.
Catching Seth off-guard was not easy to do. Like all werekin
warrior breeds, werecats had excellent eyesight and even keener
hearing – partly what made them so valuable to the scientists that
bred them, and such difficult quarry for the hunters that stalked
them. But the woman perched on the porch railing, a forgotten
cigarette burning down to her manicured nails, was no hunter. A
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hunter would not have said his name in that breathless,
disbelieving way.
This was his mother. Lydia Steward.
Auburn hair was coiled into a chignon at the nape of her
neck, allowing an unobstructed view of a porcelain-doll face
presently blanched in shock. Seth looked nothing like her. He
barely looked like his dad, aside from his sly smile and his fair
hair (when it wasn’t dyed). Werekin resembled their Totem
animals more than their human kin – a mystery the scientists at
Chimera Enterprises had yet to unravel, and hopefully never
would.
“Seth?” Lydia said again.
Seth nodded. Usually he was talkative (Ben said he needed to
learn when to shut up, actually) but meeting his mother for the
first time had tongue-tied him. Go figure.
Lydia slid off the rail. “You didn’t have to take a taxi, honey.
We would have picked you up from the airport.” Seth shrugged.
Calling hadn’t occurred to him. Nobody he knew in the Philly
Underground owned a car. They walked, or rode the train. “What
about your things? Don’t you have any luggage?”
Seth held up his backpack. Lydia’s lips parted. “That’s – all
you brought?”
Again, Seth just nodded. The backpack was all he had. Ben
had salvaged it, and the toothbrush, boxers, and T-shirts inside of
it, from his room after the hunters had taken Naomi’s body away.
He had brought it to Seth in Cincinnati yesterday, driven all night
to sit with him at the airport until Seth made it up the standby list
for his flight to Fairfax.
Wind lifted snow off the eaves, creating a glittering cloud
around their heads. Lydia stubbed her cigarette out with her
Prada heel and kicked the evidence into the shrubs. Seth liked
that, that she had secrets, too. “Let’s get you inside, before you
freeze,” she said.
Seth didn’t tell her that wasn’t likely to happen.
***
Miles Davis’ “Blue in Green” greeted them on the threshold
of a cherry-stained foyer. Seth paused there, looking around.
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A crystal chandelier hung above the staircase, warming the
hardwood floors and paneled walls. A vase of star-shaped white
flowers adorned a walnut sideboard next to an arched doorway,
through which Seth could see a spacious kitchen. To his right,
through a set of French doors, played out the scene he had
glimpsed from the taxi: New Year’s revelers in suits and party
dresses, the men balding and paunchy, the women Botoxed and
spray-tanned.
A few faces turned toward him, curious, almost hungry. Seth
ducked his head, hoping Lydia didn’t plan on introducing him.
He looked – and smelled – like his last bath had been two days
ago, in an airport bathroom.
“Your room is this way,” she said, to his relief, and started up
the stairs.
Photos marched along the landing, displaying a pictureperfect family: Lydia, youthful and pretty in every one; a
handsome, dark-haired man with a trim mustache and goatee,
slowly graying; and a red-haired, green-eyed girl who grew from
a chubby-cheeked toddler to a gap-toothed tween between the
first step and the last. Seth’s kid sister. Half-sister, to be precise.
Still, it was weird. Seth had never had a friend his own age, let
alone a sibling.
She wouldn’t be werekin, he knew that much. That trait had
been passed to Seth by his father, Thomas Sullivan. Lydia was
no shapeshifter.
Even werekin parents didn’t always pass along the gene. And
just because your mom or your dad was a werefox or a werecrow
or a werejackal didn’t mean that was what you would be. Skin
(that was what werekin called their animal selves) depended on
your mystical connection to the Totems, the werekin ancestors.
Seth was a rare breed.
At the top of the stairs, a corridor ran out at a round window.
Snow was falling harder now, mixed with ice pellets that tapped
the glass like impatient fingers. Lydia opened the door on the
left, one of only two on this, the third floor. “I hope this is all
right,” she said, anxiously. There were a lot of expensive rings
on her fingers; she couldn’t seem to stop twisting them. “It used
to be our guestroom, but Leigh just sort of…took over. I didn’t
have time to straighten up, with the party and everything…”
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“It’s fine, Mrs. Steward,” Seth said. Although really, his new
digs looked like Social Activist Barbie had barfed on them. The
bed was splashed with a neon-pink comforter that clashed
spectacularly with the somber blue walls and dark oak furniture.
From what he could see of the floor that wasn’t covered in skirts,
tights, and dresses, the carpet was cream-colored Berber. Posters
for Greenpeace and PETA were taped to the door of a walk-in
closet from which, incredibly, spilled even more clothes. A Hello
Kitty alarm clock, a bubblegum-pink phone, and a tube of
lipstick shared the bedside table with a stack of vegetarian
cookbooks and a pile of leaflets for something called, ominously,
The Student Vegan Society.
A small red Dachshund was napping on the picture window
seat. He lifted his head as Seth approached the window,
discarding his backpack on the bed. His new room faced the
house across the drive, an equally posh brick branch; a swift
mental calculation told Seth the drop from the window to the
garage was ten, twelve feet at the most. No problem. He could
make a jump like that with his hands tied behind his back.
Escape routes were vital for werekin. You never knew when
the hunters might come knocking.
The Dachshund wagged his stubby tail. Seth scratched his
back. (The whole dogs-hate-cats thing didn’t apply to werekin;
werekin were pack alphas, and animals responded accordingly.)
Lydia pursed her lips. “Captain Hook. How did you get in here?”
The little dog barked. His back leg, Seth saw, was missing. “I
get it,” he said. “Missing limb, Captain Hook…”
“Oh.” Lydia was wandering around snatching up skirts and
sweaters off the floor, so twitchy she made Seth, who was
naturally restless, feel downright serene. “Leigh named him. She
has a – literary imagination. You’re not allergic, are you?”
A werekin, allergic to animal dander? Seth almost laughed.
She doesn’t know, he reminded himself. Whatever story Thomas
Sullivan had fobbed off on his wife when he had packed their
infant son up and disappeared sixteen years ago, it would not
have been the truth. The truth about werkein was too dangerous
for humans to know. Even – perhaps especially – the humans
you loved.
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“If you want to clean up, the bathroom is through there.”
Depositing the pile of clothes on the closet floor, Lydia gestured
to a door across the room. “I can bring you up a tray for supper.
We had filet mignon. I’m sure there’s some left – ”
Steak. Seth’s stomach growled, reminding him his last meal
had been a bag of pretzels on the plane. Captain Hook whined.
Seth patted his head. He didn’t eat live meat – in his human skin.
“Thanks, Mrs. Steward, but you don’t need to do that. I can fix
myself a snack.”
“Oh, it’s no – ”
“Besides,” Seth soldiered on, “it’ll be midnight in like an
hour. You don’t want to miss the ball dropping, do you?”
He smiled. He was trying to show her how self-sufficient he
was; Seth didn’t plan on being any trouble for these people. Yet
Lydia hesitated. Worried he would be spotted by one of her
hoity-toity guests and she would have to explain who he was?
Oh, that’s just my juvenile delinquent son from my first
marriage. We’re keeping him in the attic until we figure out how
to get rid of him. “Well, all right,” she said, with obvious
reluctance. “I’ll be sure the caterers don’t pack everything up.”
Looking slightly deflated, she went out, with promises to
check back later to see how he was settling in. Presumably Seth
would have to meet Mr. Steward then, explain what he was doing
here, where his dad was, and why he had called out of the blue to
say he needed somewhere to stay. Seth intended to lie through
his teeth, of course.
So much to look forward to. Seth could hardly wait.
The ultra-girly pink phone did at least have the bonus feature
of an extra-long cord. Punching in the familiar digits, Seth
carried the phone into the bathroom and rifled through the linen
closet for soap and shampoo while the call connected.
The voice that answered on the first ring, as though the man
on the other end had been sitting by the phone, was thick with a
Louisiana drawl.
“Seth Michael?”
“Bonjour, Papa Bear,” Seth said.
There was an audible sigh of relief on Ben Schofield’s end of
the line. Seth dumped a generous capful of bath oil under the
Olympic-sized Jacuzzi’s jets, sinking into memories as he sank
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into the warm suds: sipping instant cocoa in Ben’s messy
kitchen, listening to stories of Lemuria, the werekin motherland.
Ben told the best stories. He had been Underground for decades.
He was a Gen-1 werekin, one of the first to escape Chimera
Enterprises.
Ben asked how Seth’s flight was (fine) and if he had run into
any trouble (not yet). “Your mama,” he rumbled. “She was
happy to see you?”
“Yup,” said Seth. Freakin’ overjoyed. “Look, Papa Bear, I
gotta go. I’ll call again when I can.”
When he figured out what he was doing here, in Fairfax, Seth
meant.
He dropped the phone on the floor and slid down in the tub.
Water lapped at his chin. Seth loved water. Most cats didn’t, but
then, jaguars weren’t most cats. A jaguar was as deadly in the
water as it was on dry ground, or in the treetops. Yaguara, the
Mesoamericans called them. Kills with a single bound.
Werekin didn’t do much killing, unless they were forced to it.
Seth would rather have chowed down on a cheesesteak then fell a
deer in the wild. Although if he could find the hunters that killed
Naomi, he thought, slipping under the foamy surface, he would
make an exception.
What Seth couldn’t understand was why they had killed her.
Naomi wasn’t Resistance. She was a threat to no one. Why kill
her instead of collar her? A dead werekin was worthless to
Chimera. Dead werekin couldn’t be bred to create more supersoldiers or trained up to be warriors or caged up like, well, like
lab rats in the holy name of Science. The hunters who had come
for Thomas Sullivan had taken him alive – shot him with a tranq
and clamped a collar around his neck in the alley behind their
ten-floor walk-up in Harlem, while Seth had hidden behind a
dumpster reeking of Chinese takeout and dirty diapers. Seth had
wanted to kill them, too, but he had only been a cub then.
But he wasn’t a cub now. In five days, Seth would turn
seventeen. All grown up for a werekin.
***
15
Someone was sitting on Seth’s bed when he emerged from
the bath. A girl someone.
Seth smelled her before he finished toweling off – the clean
fragrance of soap, the bitter tang of roiled emotions. Having
neglected to take a shirt into the bathroom, he stepped out in
jeans and bare feet to meet his kid sister.
The stairwell photos stopped at ten years. She was five years
older than that now, dressed for the party in an apricot-colored
dress with a chocolate-brown bow around the middle. The gap in
her front teeth had been resolved, likely thanks to orthodontia;
she had Lydia’s auburn hair layered around Lydia’s oval face,
Lydia’s porcelain skin and tall, balletic build – almost as tall as
Seth, who was only five-foot-nine, jaguars being the smallest of
the big cat breeds: jaguars, lions, tigers, and leopards. They were
also the rarest of the werecats. To Seth’s knowledge, he was the
only werejaguar in existence.
“Aren’t you cold?” his sister said.
There was no concern in her voice, just a mild rebuke that he
had chosen to present himself half-naked. Taking the hint, Seth
unstuck from the doorway and slunk over to the desk (slinking
was how Seth walked, catlike, hips sliding forward, spine
curving) to select a clean T-shirt from his backpack. The
backpack he distinctly recalled leaving on the bed, by the way.
Baby sister must have moved it, after snooping through his stuff,
no doubt. This sibling thing was going to suck.
Captain Hook had vacated the premises. Napping in his place
by the window was a one-eyed calico kitten. Three-legged dogs,
one-eyed cats – Seth was sensing a pattern here. As she seemed
friendlier than his sister, he joined the kitten on the window seat
and teased her with a piece of string off one of the pillows.
“I’m Seth,” he said.
“I know.” Seth looked over at his sister. How much did she
know? Had Lydia talked about him over the years, or had she
only just found out she had a brother? Might account for the
hostility, if that was the case. “I’m Adleigh. Leigh, for short. And
that’s Poe,” Leigh added, of the kitten. “I found her outside
yesterday. Can you believe somebody would dump her this time
of year? It’s freezing outside!”
16
Seth shrugged. In his limited experience, most humans
sucked.
Poe, uncertain what to do with the string now that she had
captured it, curled up by his leg. “Aren’t you missing your
party?” Seth said.
Leigh sniffed. “It’s not my party, okay? It’s my parents’
party, for all the people who are contributing to Daddy’s
campaign, and it’s boring.”
Daddy? Seth hadn’t known anyone over the age of six
referred to their father as daddy. “Your dad’s running for the
Senate, right?”
“Uh-huh.” The pride in Leigh’s voice was obvious. “It’ll be
his first term if he wins, but there’s already talk about him
running for president in a few years. Right now he’s an attorney.
Steward and Regent, the largest firm in the city.”
Explained the swanky house and the luxury cars. Seth
pictured his cozy row house in South Philly, peeling paint on the
front porch where Naomi had liked to drink sweet tea on warm
summer nights; insulation hanging out of the bathroom ceiling;
walls so thin they could hear every word Ben said next door.
Homesickness hit like a fist in the gut. Seth hugged his knees
with both arms.
“What about your father?” Leigh asked. “What does he do?”
It was a kick when Seth was down, though Leigh couldn’t
have known that. He nearly blurted out he’s gone, but
remembered at the last second and said, “He’s an attorney, too.
In Philadelphia.”
Complete and utter fabrication, that. But Thomas Sullivan
had been an attorney when Lydia had married him, and as far as
she knew, he was alive and well and had raised Seth for the last
sixteen years.
“Well.” Leigh stood up, straightening the bow on her dress.
“Mom said for me to take you downstairs when you were ready
to eat.”
Her expression said he should be ready.
Seth followed her downstairs. Chaperoned by his little sister
and her one-eyed kitten, he didn’t swipe any silver from the
cupboards or plunder the family safe. He probably wouldn’t have
anyway, but you never knew. The kitchen he had glimpsed
17
earlier was indeed spacious, and ultra-modern, all stainless steel
and polished brass, and, at the moment, littered with party
detritus – recycling bin by the back door jammed with empty
wine bottles, bamboo dishes holding remnants of hors d’ouevres
lined up on a teak island in the room’s center.
A boy and a girl were seated there, perched across from one
another on tall stools. They stopped talking when Seth and Leigh
walked in. The girl was Leigh’s age, though several inches
shorter, and considerably rounder. Her gray sweater dress had a
crocheted carnation on the collar, as off-beat funky as the
butterfly barrettes holding back her chin-length bob. The boy,
despite being six-foot-two and possessed of a lithe runner’s
physique, was obviously her brother. They shared ink-black hair,
honey-toned skin, baby-blue eyes, and something else,
something only a werekin might have picked up on, that marked
them as kin.
Leigh introduced the girl as Whitney Townsend. Her brother
was Marshall. Whitney murmured a shy hello. Marshall shook
Seth’s hand, and that, combined with his designer jeans and
varsity letterman’s jacket, told Seth everything he needed to
know about Marshall Townsend, Golden Boy. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” said Marshall.
“Whitney and Marshall live next door.” Smiling at Marshall,
Leigh claimed the stool next to his, sitting close enough their
elbows touched. “Dr. Townsend is one of Daddy’s biggest
campaign contributors.”
“You don’t say,” said Seth, into the fridge. The contents
were not promising. Soy milk? Tofu? Goat cheese? He hoped the
Castle Estates subdivision had a 7-Eleven. He might go into
withdrawal without Mountain Dew and Oreos.
And meat. Meat was a necessity. In the wild, jaguars could
eat up to four pounds of meat a day. Seth wasn’t that bad, but his
body burned off protein pretty quickly.
He grabbed a foil-wrapped steak and a bottle of Perrier off
the top shelf and hoisted onto the counter, stripping the foil off
the filet and tearing into it with his teeth. Captain Hook took up
residence at his feet and licked his chops imploringly. Seth shook
his head. Sorry, buddy. This steak was his.
18
Marshall coughed. Seth looked up. Everyone was staring at
him. “What?” Seth mushed, around a mouthful of cold steak.
“Did you, uh, maybe want that…heated up?” Marshall said,
glancing at Leigh. She looked furious.
“Fastes wine ike ish.”
Marshall frowned. “What?”
“I said – ” Seth swallowed “ – I’m good, man, but thanks for
offering.”
“I wasn’t…” Marshall broke off, blushing. Seth winked at
him. Now that he was clean and fed, his natural devilishness was
making a comeback.
In two more bites, the steak had disappeared. “There’s plenty
of left-overs,” Whitney said, indicating the spread of cucumber
sandwiches and cheese wedges on the catering trays. She alone
seemed amused by Seth’s lack of table manners. “If you’re still
hungry, I mean.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any Oreos, would you?” Seth
asked, without any real hope. Cookies weren’t exactly in keeping
with the health food in the fridge.
“Are you kidding?” Whitney walked over to the cabinet
above the stove, producing, after a short search, a familiar blueand-black package. Manna from heaven. “Leigh goes nowhere
without her Oreos. She even took a bag on our field trip to the
zoo in first grade. Remember that, Leigh, when you sat down and
Mrs. Paddock thought you’d broken your tailbone because the
cookies crunched…?”
“No,” Leigh said. Baby sister didn’t like sharing his taste in
cookies, apparently. Or possibly she didn’t want the cookiecrunching story repeated in front of Marshall. Seth scooped a
handful of chocolate wafers out of the bag, unscrewing one to get
at the filling. “You need milk,” declared Whitney. “Can’t have
cookies without milk.”
“You don’t have to wait on him, Whitney,” Leigh sniffed, as
Whitney headed to the fridge. Whitney ignored her and poured a
tall glass of soy milk for Seth. When she handed it to him, her
eyes – as sapphire-bright as her brother’s – lingered for a
moment on his face before she turned away.
Leigh flipped her hair over her shoulder. Marshall frowned at
Whitney as she returned to her stool, but Leigh laid her hand on
19
his arm, reclaiming his attention. “So Marshall, what do you
think our chances are of making sectionals this year?”
“Depends on how we do against Sacred Heart without
Bryce,” Marshall said.
And they were off, Leigh peppering him with questions about
state championships and sectionals brackets, segueing from that
right into the equally fascinating topic of who would be
nominated for prom court.
Seth listened without interjecting. It didn’t take long for him
to work out that Marshall, Whitney, and Leigh all attended
Fairfax High, the city’s largest public school, fed, as the result of
either a zoning anomaly or a sadistic social experiment, by both
the trust-fund Castle Estates crowd and the low-income housing
district, Haven Heights. Whitney and Leigh were in tenth grade.
Marshall was in twelfth. Captain of the basketball team.
President of the Student Council. Probably rescued drowning
puppies in his spare time.
He kept glancing at Seth like he felt bad for leaving him out,
but Seth was content to be ignored. If they started asking him
about his life in Philly, where he had gone to school and who his
friends were, he might slip up. He hadn’t fashioned those lies
yet. He had been too focused on reaching Fairfax alive.
Captain Hook continued to observe his every move, dark
eyes pleading. Finally Seth relented; breaking off a chunk of
wafer, he tossed the cookie onto the floor, where the little dog
fell on it like a ravening wolf on a deer.
Leigh shrieked. Seth hissed. “What?” he gasped.
“Seth! Oh my God! Are you trying to kill him?” Leigh said.
“Chocolate is toxic to dogs, don’t you know that?”
Toxic? Really? Seth looked down at Captain Hook. He was
sitting back on his haunches, ready for more cookie. “He looks
okay to me,” Seth said.
Leigh’s sigh was plosive. Marshall covered his mouth with
his hand to hide a smile. “You don’t have to be such a – ” Leigh
started, but before Seth could find out what he was being, they
were interrupted by voices rising in unison from the living room:
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!”
The countdown to midnight. Seth had completely forgotten it
was New Year’s Eve.
20
Whitney jumped off her stool. “Come on, you guys! We’re
missing it!”
She raced for the door. Leigh, with great dignity, rose,
tucking her arm through Marshall’s. “You can come, if you
want,” she said, to Seth. Clearly hoping he wouldn’t. Suited Seth.
Celebrating wasn’t high on his list of priorities at the moment.
He shrugged, and Leigh, without another word, steered Marshall
out of the kitchen.
The kitchen had a back door. The moment Seth was alone, he
went out it, Captain Hook on his heels.
Ice silvered the limbs of the trees guarding the Stewards’
backyard. A wooden deck led out to an in-ground pool covered
by a snow-dusted tarp. There was a shed for the lawn mower, a
gazebo hung with ivy and roses, a brick privacy fence
surrounding it all – everything neat and orderly and secure.
Seth’s legs tingled with the desire to lope across that lawn, leap
the fence, and escape into the wild. As much wild as could be
found in Indiana, anyway. He arched his back, his spine curving
as the magic in his blood heated up. Sometimes his human skin
felt like a cage.
But he couldn’t go running tonight. His mother and stepfather had questions that had to be dealt with sooner or later, if
he planned on staying here. They would have even more if he
stayed out all night in freezing temperatures, wearing just jeans
and a T-shirt.
Seth slunk around the house, fingering the narrow file in his
back pocket. The yellow Hummer in the driveway called to him
like a siren’s song. He trailed his fingers along the wheel well,
humming tunelessly under his breath to drown out the little voice
that whispered this was a bad idea.
He blamed exhaustion for being snuck up on twice in one
night.
A split-second before boots crunched in the snow, the hair on
the back of Seth’s arms stood up. Hissing, he sprang into the air,
farther and faster than any human could have managed. A second
later, he had touched down on the Hummer’s hood, balanced on
his toes.
Captain Hook rocketed back to the house. Seth saw him
disappear under the shrubs around the porch.
21
“Easy, cub,” said a deep voice.
The man who stepped out of the shadows was tall, big-boned
and broad-shouldered. A bowler hat was pulled low over his
bristly red hair, shadowing a red-and-white striped beard.
Underneath his wool coat, his tailored black suit was obviously
expensive.
The clothes hardly mattered, though. Blood calls to blood,
Ben had always said, and Seth’s blood recognized this man for
what he was.
Werekin.
22
Chapter Two: Origin of the Species
Seth let his claws slide out, dagger-like points where his
fingernails had been. “Who are you?” he demanded, hearing the
hiss slide under the words.
The werekin man pushed back his bowler hat. He was
fortyish, with a flat face and a blunt, bearded jaw, in peak
physical condition for a guy his age, not a scrap of flab anywhere
on him. He looked Seth up and down like he was pretty sure he
would need to kick his ass before this was all over, and was
deciding the best way to go about it.
“Regent,” he said. “Werner Regent.”
Steward and Regent, Seth remembered Leigh saying, the
largest firm in the city. This guy was a lawyer? He looked more
like a hit man. “What do you want?” Seth demanded. He hoped
Werner Regent couldn’t tell that his heart was pounding. Seth
had been in fights – plenty of punks in South Philly eager to push
around the short kid, until they found out the short kid could
push back – but never against another werekin. Well, Ben a
couple of times, but that had just been goofing around. Ben
wouldn’t have ripped his throat out.
Ben wouldn’t have handed him over to Chimera.
“I was going home,” Regent said. He held up a hand; a set of
car keys dangled between his thumb and index finger. “Problem
is, that’s my car you’re getting scuff marks on.”
“Sweet ride,” Seth said. He did not budge. He wasn’t giving
up the high ground.
Regent chuckled. “You got a name, cub?”
Seth considered lying. But if Regent was his step-father’s
business partner, he would find out his identity sooner or later.
“I’m Seth,” he said. “Seth Sullivan.”
“Tommy’s kid?”
Regent took a step forward. Seth hissed again, a true cat hiss
that showed his teeth. Regent backpedaled, hands lifted in
appeasement. They were powerful hands, wide enough to span
Seth’s skull, the knuckles like bolts under tufts of reddish-brown
fur, but that wasn’t what made Seth go cold inside. Tattooed on
Regent’s left palm were four numbers and a Greek letter – 157123
ɣ. A brand. At some point, Regent had belonged to Chimera,
whether he had been born in captivity or collared later, in the
Underground. Ben Schofield had been branded, too – born in
captivity, eventually escaped into the Underground.
Regent wasn’t wearing a collar now. Was he still Chimera
property? It seemed doubtful he was Underground. Werekin in
the Underground eked out an existence on the periphery of
human society. They didn’t drive fancy cars and wear expensive
suits. They weren’t Ivy League educated attorneys.
Leaving open the possibility Regent was working for Seth’s
enemies.
“What do you want?” Seth asked again.
Regent opened his mouth – just as the front door opened.
“Werner? Have you seen – ”
Faster than Seth could blink, Regent was between him and
the porch, blocking Lydia’s view of the Hummer. Seth looked
down at himself. His claws were curled in toward his palms, dark
rosette-shaped spots blooming like bruises across his
forearms…He hadn’t consciously decided to skin, yet here he
was, halfway betwixt boy and jaguar. That hadn’t happened to
him in years.
He took a deep breath. The magic cooled; the rosettes faded,
his claws retracting once more into short, ragged fingernails.
“Seth?” Lydia peered over Regent’s shoulder. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, Mrs. Steward. It’s me.” Terrific, Seth thought. Now
his mother was in the middle of their little werekin spat. This was
so not his night.
“Honey, what are you doing outside without a coat?
And…why are you on top of a car?”
Seth looked to Regent for help. “You know boys and
engines, Lydia,” Regent lied, smoothly. “Seth wanted to check
out the horsepower.”
He tapped his fingers on the Hummer’s hood, signaling Seth
to get off the car – which Seth did, by executing a neat sideways
jump. Regent shot him a withering look.
Seth was ninety-nine percent certain Regent knew he had
interrupted him boosting his ride.
Leaving Seth beside the Hummer, Regent walked over to the
porch. Lydia leaned on the railing, tendrils of hair escaping her
24
chignon and tumbling over her shoulder, Rapunzel at her
window. Seth kicked the tires and listened, as Regent had to
know he would.
“Jack wants to talk to him,” Lydia said. Jack would be the
husband, Senator-To-Be Jonathan Steward. Seth’s step-father.
“Tell Jack I took him for a drive,” Regent said. Seth snorted.
Yeah, right. He wasn’t going anywhere with a strange, branded
werekin. Regent would have to collar him first. “He’s a scared
kid, Lydia. Jack will interrogate him, and that’s not what he
needs right now. Let me have a go first. See if I can find out
what’s happened to him. Help him figure out his next move.”
Words meant for Seth as much as for Lydia, and Seth
wavered.
The story Seth had to fob off on the Stewards was thinner
than the crust of ice on Lydia’s rosebushes. He was looking for
somewhere to crash after a major fight with his dad, Thomas
Sullivan, Attorney at Law in Philadelphia. The usual teenage
drama: Dad doesn’t understand me; he wants me to be someone
I’m not; I couldn’t stay there another second. Cue the violins.
Meanwhile, Ben had sworn to investigate Naomi’s murder,
putting out feelers through the Underground to find out how the
hunters had located her, and whether Chimera Enterprises knew
about Seth, an unbranded werekin. A rare breed.
One phone call to the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the
jig was up. Thomas Sullivan had never practiced law in
Philadelphia. He had never even lived in Philadelphia. He had
taken Seth directly from Fairfax to New York, to hide among the
extensive Underground network there, before Seth was six
months old. New York was where they had met Naomi. She had
been the one to spirit Seth off to Philly after Thomas was
collared.
Regent knew Seth was werekin. He was offering to help him.
And honestly, Seth needed help.
On the porch, Lydia was waffling, saying something about
Jack and a “family sit-down.” Seth looked up at her.
“I’d like to go with him, Mrs. Steward,” he said. “If that’s
okay.”
***
25
The Hummer seemed too bulky to fit through the narrow path
between the parked cars. Regent negotiated it expertly, reversing
at full throttle with one hand on the wheel. He didn’t speak again
until they were on the street, roaring past rows of houses still lit
up with Christmas lights.
“Seat belt,” he growled.
Seth rolled his eyes but buckled up. “So you’re an attorney?”
“We used to be Steward, Regent, and Sullivan,” Regent said.
Three best friends in our pal Jackie’s hometown. Hung out our
shingle straight out of Georgetown Law. Tommy and I thought it
was a foolproof plan for our futures.”
These were details of a past Thomas Sullivan had never had
the chance to share with his son. Seth was fascinated. “Foolproof
how?”
“Tommy and I were born in captivity. Gen-3.” Regent
flashed the brand on his palm again. It ended with the Greek
gamma, three. “We always tested high on intelligence, so when
we came of age, Chimera let us bypass the breeding program and
paid for our education in the human world. They do that
sometimes, with the ones they can trust – send you out into the
world, warn you to keep your mouth shut and your nose clean,
stay out of the Resistance and snap-to if they call on you. Once
you’re out, you can even marry with the humans, have kids if
you want, provided you register your offspring with Chimera. If
they’re warrior breeds, Chimera keeps them. Otherwise, you and
your family can lead a normal life. It’s the closest most werekin
ever get to freedom, so it’s good incentive to behave yourself in
training.”
Regent braked for the stop sign at the end of Kings Lane.
Aside from a snow plow moving ponderously along in the other
lane, theirs was the only car on the road. “How did you meet
Jack?” Seth asked.
“At Georgetown. Tommy and I were number two and
number three in our law school class from the beginning. Jackie
was number one. When he suggested setting up shop in Fairfax,
we thought it would be perfect. Fairfax is too small to have an
Underground, and the Underground is where the Resistance
recruits from. Jack’s old man, the first Senator Steward, had a
firm here for decades. He keeled over from a heart attack our last
26
year at Georgetown. We had his client base, local connections,
start-up capital…”
“Foolproof,” Seth agreed. Regent nodded.
They were on the highway now; the Hummer barreled north,
windshield wipers swiping aside snowflakes the size of quarters.
In the dashboard’s half-light, Seth studied Regent, trying to guess
what his skin might be.
All werekin had markings. With Seth it was his eyes, large,
round, and golden – a jaguar’s eyes. With Naomi, it had been her
hair, brindled like a jackal’s coat. With Ben it was his size,
imposing as a grizzly.
Regent had Ben’s size, but not his bulk. His eyes were
marbled yellow-brown, the pupil’s oval-shaped; werecat, maybe?
Not a jaguar, though. His eyes were the wrong shape and color.
A tiger, possibly. Except weretigers were warrior breeds, and
Seth couldn’t feature Chimera willingly releasing a warrior from
captivity. Some werekin breeds, as Regent had said, were put to
uses other than fighting; a werefox like Seth’s dad, for instance,
would have been worth more to Chimera for his brains than his
brawn. And there were other breeds, weremice for one, Chimera
considered valuable only for breeding. Face it, you weren’t
sending a mouse into battle.
But a weretiger, pushing paper? It didn’t add up.
Something else in Regent’s story struck a discordant note in
Seth’s mind, a sharp when the music called for a flat. “You and
my dad and Jack Steward,” he said. “You were all friends?”
Regent didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Yup.”
“Then…You’re saying my mom remarried to my dad’s best
friend?”
“Yup.”
Seth did the sum in his head. Leigh was a year younger than
him. That meant Lydia had tied the knot with Jack Steward
inside two months of Thomas Sullivan bonvoyaging with their
infant son.
Nice to know she hadn’t wallowed in her grief.
Several miles past the city limits, the Hummer left the
highway and roared down a narrow country lane, rattling over a
wooden bridge above an icy, swift-flowing creek. On the other
side, the lane became a private drive winding through sycamores,
27
elms, and hickories. At last, a house loomed up in the headlight
beams. Overlapping pines, wraparound porch, big windows,
stone chimney. Like a hunting lodge. Odd choice of digs for a
werekin. On the backside, rising ten feet above the pitched roof,
was a glass dome, tinted so Seth couldn’t see inside. A
greenhouse, maybe?
Hard to picture Regent as the gardening type.
Regent parked the Hummer by the garage, in front of a wellstocked woodpile. Seth hurried after him across the lawn,
hanging back while Regent unlocked the door. On the threshold,
he hesitated, taking in all he could of his surroundings in the
dark.
Straight ahead, a pine staircase climbed to a second floor
balcony overlooking an enormous great room. A galley kitchen
with a sunken bar was tucked into one corner; the countertops
were spotless, dishes stacked neatly in the drainer.
The east wall was shuttered floor-to-ceiling by metal blinds
with long, vertical slats. In the center of the room, two leather
couches faced one another across a pine coffee table, a slate
stone hearth serving as a backdrop. Shapes were mounted on the
walls; Seth squinted to make them out –
He drew back in horror as an iron chandelier blazed to life.
Dozens of pairs of glassy eyes stared down at him. Lynx.
Grizzly. Coyote. Wolf. Raven. Hyena. Jackal. Whole bodies, not
just heads, mounted on wooden plaques, like a macabre zoo.
Above the mantle was a lioness, claws raised, mouth open to take
a bite out of her prey.
Werekin. They were all werekin. Even in death their blood
called to Seth’s. He fumbled behind him for the doorknob.
“What the hell is this?”
“What the hell is what?” Seeing the look on Seth’s face,
Regent glanced casually at the werekin corpses nailed to his
walls. “Oh,” he said. “Those, cub, would be trophies.”
Was he serious? Seth’s eyes strayed to the werejackal. He
could see Naomi, blood-soaked on the kitchen floor…feel her
paw folded in his hand as she breathed her last…
He opened his eyes. He had closed them unwittingly, trying
to block out the image.
28
Regent had placed a tea kettle on the stove and was taking
two clay mugs from the cabinet. Seth leaned against the door, his
hand on the knob in case he needed to make a run for it. “Did
you kill them?” he demanded.
“They were fair kills,” Regent said, evenly. “In the Arena.
Believe me, they tried to kill me, too. Especially that lioness.
Came damn near to tearing my heart out.” He pulled aside the
collar of his suit jacket. Three jagged scars sliced his chest,
shoulder to breastbone. Must have been a nasty wound to leave a
scar like that, Seth thought. Werekin had amazing healing
powers.
In spite of himself, Seth was intrigued. “You fought in the
Arena?”
“Like I told you, I was born in captivity. I started combat
training in the Scholae Bestiarii as soon as I skinned.”
So he was a warrior breed. The Scholae Bestiarii was where
werekin and hunters alike trained to be killers. The training was
brutal; those who survived became soldiers in a top-secret private
army, deployed on whatever missions their masters saw fit. It
was the fate Seth’s dad had saved him from by taking him into
hiding.
The kettle whistled. “By the time I was your age,” Regent
went on, pouring steaming water into the mugs, “I’d fought a
dozen matches in the Arena. Won my freedom, eventually.”
Ben had told Seth stories about the Arena matches – werekin
versus werekin, forced to fight to the death. Once collared,
Chimera controlled a werekin’s magic; you did their bidding, up
to and including killing your own kind, or had your animus –
your life-force – drained drop by excruciating drop, until you
were dead. Spiritual exsanguination.
If a werekin proved a particularly gifted warrior, the
surviving founder of Chimera Enterprises, Ursula LeRoi, could
reward him (or her) with freedom. It was a rare honor, though it
explained how a weretiger had become an attorney with his
creators’ blessing. Nevertheless…
“How free is free?” Seth asked.
“Afraid I’ll turn you in, cub?”
29
Regent’s smile revealed sharp, pointed white teeth. He held
out one of the mugs of tea. Seth finally moved away from the
door to accept it.
They sat on spindle-backed stools at the sunken bar, backs to
the great room. Regent doctored his tea with milk, honey, and
sugar. Seth would have preferred coffee, but he sipped to be
polite. “Whose ideas were those?” Regent asked, tapping his
brow to indicate the jaguar-spot tattoos around Seth’s eye.
“Mine.” Seth glanced at the werejackal. Do you know what
happens if the hunters find you?
“Bet Tommy loved that,” Regent said.
“My dad is gone,” Seth said, flatly, and told about the scene
in Harlem, the hunters collaring his dad. Ten years ago now.
What had become of Thomas Sullivan after, Seth had no way
of knowing. Chimera Enterprises ran dozens of facilities around
the country, each location top-secret, each one as heavily
guarded as a nuclear missile silo. Thomas could have been taken
to any one of them. And even if Seth had known which one, his
chances of rescuing his dad would have been about zip. Werekin
sometimes managed to break out of Chimera. No one Seth had
ever heard of had managed to break in.
“What did you do then?” Regent asked.
“We had a friend. Naomi.” Seth’s throat felt tight; he took a
sip of the bitter tea to loosen it. “She was Underground, too.
After Dad got collared, she took me to Philly. We stayed off the
grid, like you do Underground – no I.D.s., no schools, jobs that
paid cash under the table. Then, a few days ago, the hunters got
her, too.”
Unless Regent was an idiot, and Seth didn’t think he was, he
had to know Seth was leaving as much unsaid. But Seth was not
outing Ben to Regent. Werekin or not, Regent was a stranger,
and in the Underground, survival depended on anonymity.
Rather than press the point, Regent switched gears. “How
much do you know about our history, cub?”
Seth shrugged. “Everything.”
“Of course you do.” Regent smiled indulgently. “You’re,
what, fifteen?”
“Almost seventeen,” Seth snapped. He hated when adults
patronized him.
30
“Sixteen, then. I stand corrected.” Regent hooked an ankle
around his stool leg. “Well? Go on, cub. Enlighten me, since you
know everything.”
Seth was tempted to tell Regent to screw himself, but he had
come here for help, and Regent had knowledge about Chimera’s
inner workings – knowledge that could keep Seth alive and out
of chains, and possibly help him find Naomi’s killers.
Seth might not have known why Naomi had sent him to
Fairfax, to the mother he had been hidden from for sixteen years,
but he did know why Ben had wanted him here: to keep him
away from the Resistance. Philly had a strong Resistance
movement. Until his rage cooled, Ben wanted Seth as far away
from the werekin who fought Chimera’s rule as possible.
Like Thomas, Naomi and Ben had steered clear of the
Resistance. The point of being Underground was to avoid
detection, and the Resistance wasn’t known for its subtlety.
Naomi had made Seth promise a dozen times over the years he
wouldn’t mix up with them. He thought she would rather have
seen him boosting cars for the Colemans.
Naomi wasn’t here to exact promises from him anymore,
though.
Seth stood. He was naturally restless – it was a cat thing, the
urge to prowl, and sitting still with his nerves on edge was like
dipping his feet in molten lead. He hopped onto the back of the
couch and trotted along the edge, a gymnast on a balance beam,
burning off the nervous energy he had been suppressing for days,
first at the airport and then on the plane and then at the
Stewards’. “Where should I start?” he asked.
“I find the beginning usually works well,” Regent said.
Okey-dokey, Seth thought. You asked for it. “Once upon a
time, when the world was young and humans lived in caves and
hunted with bows and arrows, there was a magical island
paradise called Lemuria. A tribe of shamans lived there, and
every night, they prayed to the animal gods living in the stars, the
Totems, to come down to Earth and bless them with their magic.
One night, the Totems answered. After that, the children born to
the shamans weren’t human. They were werekin. Shapeshifters.
Born with both a human and an animal skin, able to shift
between the two at will.
31
“On Lemuria, werekin lived in Clans according to their
Totem: the Jaguar Clan, the Rat Clan, the Serpent Clan, the
Elephant Clan, and so on and so forth, hundreds of breeds, all
ruled by their queen, the White Swan. Since they were kindred,
the Clans lived in peace and harmony – the lion lay down with
the lamb, the fox made nice with the hen, the tortoise shook
hands with the hare, all that jazz. Until, one day, our werekin
love-fest was crashed by,” here Seth paused dramatically,
“humans.
“At first, the werekin welcomed the newcomers to Lemuria.
Showed them their magic, told them all their secrets, about the
Totems, about their sensitivity to silver, everything. Sadly for the
werekin, the humans decided, as humans tend to do, that Lemuria
was such a nice place they’d like to have it for themselves, and
while they were at it, they’d take the power of the Totems and
harness that, too, enslaving the werekin as soldiers to help them
conquer the rest of humankind. Understandably, the werekin said
no thanks. So the humans called up their buddies back home,
parked their war-ships all around Lemuria, and laid siege to the
werekin motherland.
“The war went on for years and years. Finally, when it
seemed certain Lemuria would be conquered, the White Swan
gathered all of the surviving werekin Clans together and called
upon the Totems to sink the island beneath the sea, to keep their
magic forever safe from human hands.”
Having reached the end of the couch, Seth pirouetted, arms
extended, and back-flipped onto the mantle. From this angle, the
light glinted coldly in Regent’s eyes, bleaching them of color like
his skull had been hollowed out. “How’m I doing so far?”
“About like I expected,” Regent said, dryly. “Go on.”
Storytime would be seen through to the bitter end, it seemed.
Seth resumed his tightrope act. “Okay. Where was I? Oh. Right.
Lemuria did its big splashy bye-bye, the humans sailed home
empty-handed, and for the next gazillion years, the werekin and
their motherland were thought to be just crazy old stories
scribbled in ancient Egyptian tombs and Mayan pyramids. But
some modern scholars, namely Elijah Bishop and Ursula LeRoi,
were convinced Lemuria was a real place.
32
“1960s America. Vietnam. Flower children. Acid trips.
Everyone who wasn’t a die-hard nerd was enjoying the free love,
but Chimera Enterprises was trolling the oceans, hunting for the
lost island of Lemuria. That’s how Bishop and LeRoi discovered
Mt. Hokulani, a submerged volcano off the Hawaiian Islands.
They were convinced it was part of Lemuria. Turns out they
were right. When they sent their submersibles down to check it
out, they found the Ark – a crystal containing the genetic
material of the lost race of the werekin. The proverbial motherload.
“Chimera Enterprises signed an above-top-secret deal with
the U.S. government, establishing what would forever after be
known as Project Ark. First, with Uncle Sam’s help, they sucked
the werekin’s magical chromosomes out of the crystal. Then they
tried injecting the alien DNA directly into test-tube embryos, but
the results were something pretty close to the monster Chimera is
named for, and the Gen-0s, as they called them, had to be
destroyed. Next they implanted the werekin embryos in human
surrogates, and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, nine months later,
through the miracle of reproductive technology, Generation 1
was born. Chimera Enterprises had resurrected an alien race that
went extinct before Rome was getting its Caesar on.
“What baffled the good doctors at Chimera was how the
werekin gene operated. They started breeding us as soon as the
Gen-1s came of age, but breeding a werebat with a werebat
didn’t necessarily produce another werebat, and sometimes, two
werekin parents produced a human child, one with no animal
skin at all. Meanwhile, trouble was brewing between Chimera’s
founders. Dr. Bishop wanted to treat the werekin as equals; Dr.
LeRoi wanted to use them as slaves. LeRoi’s position had the
backing of Uncle Sam, and nothing Bishop could say would
convince anyone that the werekin were a peaceful species and
would not conquer humanity if allowed their freedom. Thus, not
long after the Gen-2s were born, Bishop took matters into his
own hands. He orchestrated a mass breakout of werekin from
Chimera’s facilities.
“The escapees scattered across the globe, doing their best to
live under the radar, to blend in with humans – even
intermarrying with them. But blood calls to blood. Those
33
werekin that could stuck together, and slowly, the Underground
was formed.
“Elijah Bishop was executed for treason, leaving Ursula
LeRoi in charge of Chimera. She has never stopped hunting us,
and because she never will, the Resistance was formed to bring
down Chimera. End goal? Freedom from enslavement and
persecution for every werekin on the planet. And that,” Seth
turned a somersault into a perfect dismount that brought him
back to the floor with a sweeping bow, “is how we all lived
happily never after.”
***
“Very amusing,” Regent said. He did not sound amused.
“Did Tommy tell you that story?”
“No.” What Seth knew of Project Ark had been related by
Ben, the same story over and over, as familiar to him as the
creases in Ben’s whiskery cheeks. “Why? Did I leave something
out?”
“A few things,” Regent said. “You ever hear of the Black
Swan?”
For a werekin, that was like asking if you’d ever heard of
Santa Claus, but Seth dutifully recited the legend: “One day the
Black Swan will be born, the first and only of her kind, a werekin
whose blood, when joined with the blood of all other werekin
breeds, will have the power to raise Lemuria from the depths,
restoring the werekin to their motherland.”
Ben had told him that one, too. Seth had asked if he could
have some magic beans to go along with it. The Black Swan
might have been the rallying symbol for the Resistance, but Seth
suspected their belief in her was symbolic rather than literal.
Lemuria was gone. No mythical savior was bringing it back.
Regent tipped back on his stool. Seth slouched against the
shuttered wall, hands in his pockets. “And why,” Regent pressed,
“would the werekin want to raise Lemuria?”
“Because it’s our home. The one place we could live in
peace.”
“So why would Chimera Enterprises want to raise
Lemuria?”
34
Seth was sure this line of questioning was about something
more than the history of their race, but he couldn’t for the life of
him figure out what Regent was really getting at. “LeRoi wants
the power of the Totems,” he said. “Same as the humans before
her.”
“And that power was?”
What was this, a pop quiz? “Some kind of magic, I guess,”
Seth said. Regent grunted, unsatisfied by Seth’s answer.
Personally, Seth felt there were more urgent matters to discuss.
“Am I allowed to ask a question now?”
“Technically,” Regent said, “you just did.”
Seth tapped the metal blinds. “What’s behind Door Number
Two?”
“Ah.” Regent walked over to a panel recessed into the wall –
what Seth, with a thief’s practiced eye, had marked as a control
pad for a security system. He punched in a code. 1-5-7-1. Same
as his brand. With a whir a motor started up, and the slats
retracted into the ceiling.
Behind them was a wall made entirely of glass. Seth looked
up. High overhead, metal girders supported a domed skylight.
Moonlight filtered down to the ground far below – red earth
overgrown with giant ferns, moss-covered rocks, green
shrubs…A wide creek twisted between the tall, leafy trees, a
tapestry of rubbery leaves and woody vines arcing over the
creek, forty, fifty feet in the air.
A big cat playground.
Seth splayed his palms on the glass, aching with the desire to
scale those trees, dive off those branches, sun himself on the
slabs of sandstone protruding into the creek. He wanted to skin
so badly the urge was almost painful. “This,” he pronounced, “is
wicked. But – how do you explain it to people?”
“I don’t get a lot of visitors,” Regent said. Seth couldn’t
imagine why not, what with the charming décor of dead werekin.
“C’mon. Let’s sit.”
Regent left the blinds open and they went to sit on the
couches, the coffee table separating them. “I can talk to Jack and
Lydia for you,” Regent offered. “Convince them to buy whatever
story you’re selling about why you’re here.” Loosening his tie,
he draped his arms over the back of the couch. This somehow
35
made him appear even larger. “But I’m going to need something
in return,” he said.
Aha. Never a free lunch, as Naomi would have said. Seth
plopped his heels on the coffee table. “My employment skills are
a little lacking, to be honest. Unless you need a car hotwired. Or
you have a mouse problem. I could probably handle that.”’
“I want to train you,” Regent said.
“Train me?” Seth frowned. “You mean, like to fight?”
“No, cub, to tap dance.” Regent sighed. “Yes, like to fight.”
This was not the favor Seth had expected – because really, it
was a favor to him. “Why would you do that?” he asked. “You
won your freedom. If Chimera found out you were helping me,
they’d collar you again.”
“I was your age once,” Regent said. “A million years ago, it
seems like, but I remember how it was to be young. I imagine
you’ve been thinking about joining up with the Resistance ever
since those hunters killed your friend.” Seth didn’t bother
denying it. “I could try to talk you out of it. I could tell you the
Resistance doesn’t stand a chance against an organization as
powerful and connected as Chimera. I could tell you that, to the
Resistance Commanders, you’ll be just another weapon to throw
at Chimera, and when you’re dead, they won’t even waste time
burying you. But you wouldn’t listen to me, would you?”
“No,” Seth said. Joining the Resistance was his best chance
of avenging Naomi.
“Didn’t think so.” Regent sat back. “Tommy Sullivan was a
friend of mine. I owe it to him to make sure his son stands a
chance of surviving. But,” of course there was another but, “I’ll
only train you on one condition: You don’t go looking for the
Resistance until I say you’re ready.”
“No. No way.” Seth shook his head, side to side. “I’ll train
with you, I’ll work my tail off at whatever you give me to do, but
as soon as I see my chance to get the bastards that killed Naomi,
I’m out of here. Fairfax is just a – ”
Regent skinned so fast Seth didn’t even see the telltale ripple
down his spine. One second a buff forty-something dude in a suit
and tie was sitting across from him; the next, a five-hundred
pound Bengal tiger was leaping across the coffee table, claws
aimed at Seth’s throat.
36
Seth’s reaction was instinctive: Pushing off with his toes, he
somersaulted over the couch, skinning in mid-air; to anyone
watching, it would have seemed he vanished, on a shimmer of
displaced air, to be replaced by a jaguar that landed on four
paws, fur bristling, roaring loud enough to rattle the
windowpanes.
Seth was small for a jaguar, five-and-a-half-feet long and thin
enough you could see his spine when he ran. His fur was tawny
with red undertones, spotted with black rosettes; his tail was
long, banded with black. Only his eyes were the same, large,
round, and golden – evidence that, at his core, he remained Seth
Michael Sullivan.
Regent’s eyes were the same, too, marbled brown, though
Seth took little comfort in this as the tiger slammed into him,
with all the gentleness of a freight train; the much smaller, much
lighter jaguar crashed into the bar, cracking his wedge-shaped
skull on the wooden lip. Everything went black, the suddenness
of the blow overwriting the actual pain of it. Immediately, Seth
slid back into his human skin.
He came to on the floor, splintered bits of bar stool stuck to
his jeans and T-shirt. Regent – a fully human Regent – was
leaning against the bar, tie askew, glaring down at him. Seth
fingered the goose-egg on his scalp. Luckily werkein healed
quickly, or he would have had even more explaining to do to his
mother and step-father. “What the hell was that for?” he snapped.
“You,” Regent said, “are a spoiled brat. You think you’re
tough because you can skin into a jaguar? You’re no warrior.
You wouldn’t last ten seconds in the Arena. You’ve only gotten
by this far hiding behind people older and wiser than you are.”
“That’s your recruitment speech?” Seth sat up carefully; his
skull felt like it had been split open along the suture. “It needs
work, just so you know.”
“You want me to give you a hug and tell you it’s all gonna
be okay? Chimera has eyes and ears all over the Underground,
cub. A werejaguar won’t stay secret forever. And if you knew as
much about Chimera as you think you do, you’d know why
they’re so eager to collar you.”
“I know why they want to collar me,” Seth said.
“Werejaguars are warrior breeds. Very rare. Very powerful.”
37
Yeah, he was a real powerhouse, having his tail kicked by a guy
his dad’s age.
Regent scratched his striped beard. He looked like he had
given away too much, and was regretting it. “You have my
offer,” he said, stiffly. “Stay here, stay out of the Resistance, and
I can train you. I can make it so when the hunters come for you,
you’ll be ready.”
When, he said. Not if. Seth shook splinters out of his hair
with as much defiance as he could muster. “Maybe I’ll come for
them first.”
Regent treated this with the derision it deserved. “How would
you do that, exactly? Attack a Chimera laboratory? The hunters
that killed your friend, at most there would have been four. Two
pairs. Hunters always hunt in pairs,” Seth filed that away for
future reference, “and each Chimera facility is guarded by dozens
of pairs of hunters. The one I was held at had forty werekin
warriors, too – forty warriors trained by General David Burke
himself to fight just as well in human or animal skin. And that’s
not to mention the delights Chimera’s scientists cook up. I’ve
seen them pour silver powder into a werekin’s mouth, burn the
tongue right out of his head. I’ve seen them hook werekin up to
silver drips and stand around taking notes on how long they last
before the poison kills them. I’ve seen them reach into
someone’s mind,” Regent moved forward in a flash, caught Seth
by the chin, and pressed his thumb, hard, into Seth’s temple,
“and draw out their deepest, darkest secrets to torture them with.
Sound like something you want to go up against, cub?”
Seth didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Regent mocked him
with a smile. “But what am I thinking? You don’t need training.
You already know everything.”
Jerking his chin out of Regent’s grasp, Seth glared at him.
From some adults, it would have been a motivational tactic –
insult the hot-headed cub so he accepts your challenge just to
spite you. Seth didn’t think that was Regent’s game. He meant
every word. He thought Seth was worthless. Soft. Weak. Maybe
Seth was those things. He had never seen battle, never fought in
the Arena. When those hunters had killed Naomi, he had run
away. He had certainly been scared when Regent was trying to
rip his throat out.
38
One thing Seth knew: If he wanted to survive, he had a lot to
learn. Like it or not, he wasn’t going to find a better teacher than
Werner Regent.
39
Chapter Three: Close Encounters
In the dream, he was back in Philly, standing in the living
room of his row house. At first he thought it was snow swirling in
the wind that howled through the shattered window; then he
thought it was ash – powdery and gray, blanketing the nubby
carpet, coating the bloodstained countertops. It wasn’t until the
wind whipped across his cheeks, stinging his skin, that Seth
tasted silver on his tongue, and realized what it was. Silver
powder.
Silver powder meant hunters.
On cue, a resounding boom echoed through the house. The
front door shuddered; Seth whirled toward the window, ready to
make a run for it – but on the sill sat a small arctic fox, white
coat tinged blue, muzzle flecked with gray. Seth froze.
“Dad?” he whispered.
The werefox lowered his head, gazing up at Seth with sad
blue eyes.
The silver rain fell harder. Seth’s skin began to blister and
burn. Somewhere, a voice was singing, a soft, mournful melody
that called to the magic in Seth’s blood. A dark shadow crept
along the wall, in the shape of a jaguar. The front door
splintered, and hands wrestled Seth to the ground, muffling his
screams in the carpet. In his mind, he heard a voice whisper:
“Save her, Seth. Save her, and she will save us all.”
***
Seth woke, panting, to a cold, wet nose snuffling his ear. He
groaned and rolled over, trying to pull the pillow over his head,
but Captain Hook persisted, pawing at the blankets and barking.
C’mon, soldier! Up and at ’em!
“All right, all right,” Seth moaned. “I’m awake, buddy, I’m
awake.”
He sat up, palms flat on the mattress, and arched his spine.
On the windowsill, Poe imitated him. Rosy evening light slanted
across the bedroom floor. The Hello Kitty alarm clock told Seth
40
it was 4:16p.m. He looked over at Captain Hook. “Any ideas
who ‘she’ might be?”
The little Dachshund whined, like he was advising Seth to lay
off the catnip.
Someone had cleaned Seth’s room while he was asleep. The
floor was no longer covered in clothes, and the nightstand had
been cleared of books and pamphlets. The bare walls and empty
closet made him feel like a guest in a hotel, just passing through.
He trudged into the bathroom, raked a comb through his messy
hai, splashed some cold water on his cheeks. Sufficiently
groomed, he wandered out into the hall with the vague idea of
hunting down some dinner.
The door to the room across from his was open. It looked to
be a psychedelic version of the former guestroom currently
inhabited by Seth: hot pink throw rugs on the same white carpet,
same oak furniture (bed, desk, dresser, vanity), chocolate-brown
walls sponge-painted pink and purple, matching the polka dot
bedspread and curtains. The mirror on the vanity was practically
papered over with photographs. Marshall Townsend featured
prominently, in his blue-and-gold Fairfax High Knights
basketball jersey.
Leigh was sitting on the canopy bed, surrounded by poster
board, markers, and stencils. Her party dress had been replaced
by extra-comfy yoga pants and a long T-shirt that proclaimed
Animals Are People, Too. Ah, the irony.
She glanced up from her stenciling at Seth, loitering in her
doorway, and said, “It’s because you’re a boy.”
Seth looked down at his sleep-wrinkled jeans and T-shirt.
“What is?”
“If I crawled into the house at dawn, Daddy would ground
me for life. But not you. You don’t even get a talking-to.” Leigh
recapped her Caribbean Green marker and traded it for the
Razzle Dazzle Rose. “Parents treat boys differently. I see it all
the time with Marshall and Whitney.”
Seth could not see Marshall Townsend crawling into the
house at dawn, period. “No,” he said, “it’s because your parents
knew where I was. I was with your dad’s business partner.”
“Werner?” Leigh’s tone made Seth think she wasn’t a fan of
his new weretiger guru. “But I thought you – ”
41
Her cheeks colored the same shade as her marker.
Slinking over to the desk, Seth spun the chair around and
lowered onto it backwards. “You thought I was out slashing tires
and smoking dope and generally gang-banging?”
He said all of this with a smile, to show he wasn’t offended.
It was what people assumed, given the dyed hair and tattoos and
the weird werekin vibe. Combing her hair over her shoulder,
Leigh went back to her stenciling. Seth thought she was fighting
a smile. “Good luck finding a gang to bang with in Fairfax,” she
said.
“I forgot, we’re in Hicksville. What do you have here,
posses?”
“You live here now too, you know,” Leigh said, mildly. “So
what did Werner want?”
“To straighten me out,” Seth said.
“Is that something you need? Straightening out?”
Probably, though Seth doubted it would take. Ben and Naomi
had been trying to straighten him out for years. “Regent thinks
so,” he said. “He’s giving me karate lessons.”
Technically this was not a lie. Regent had agreed to train
Seth as he had been trained in the Scholae Bestiarii – in
weaponry and martial arts. Seth had begged Ben to train him for
years, but Ben had refused, on the grounds that Thomas Sullivan
had sacrificed his life to keep Seth from being turned into a
killer. Apparently Regent had no such qualms. Seth tipped back
in his chair. “You must know Regent pretty well. What’s his
deal?”
“You’ve been to his house. He slaughters beautiful, innocent
animals, stuffs them, and hangs them on his walls like a Monet.
Some of those are endangered species.”
Remembering the slaughtered werekin on Regent’s walls
turned Seth’s stomach, fair kills or not. Time for a new topic.
“What’s the poster for?” he asked.
Leigh displayed it for him. Student Vegan Society: Peace,
Love, Vegan was spelled out in rainbow letters above a
cartoonish drawing of the Fairfax High Knights’ mascot flashing
a peace sign. “I’m club president,” Leigh explained, proudly.
“Whitney and I started it this fall. We’re setting up a booth at the
basketball game to recruit more members.”
42
She waved a fat stack of brochures. Every Hamburger Has a
Face. If You Love Animals, Don’t Eat Them. Seth’s stomach
growled; he hadn’t eaten since the steak and Oreos the night
before. Which begged the question: “Didn’t your parents serve
filet mignon at their party?”
“Do not get me started on that,” said Leigh. “I wanted to go
with this delicious vegan lasagna – no cheese, it’s all spinach and
broccoli and tomato sauce – but Daddy says he won’t give up
meat even if they start making tofu-flavored cows.”
Seth laughed. Leigh stuck her tongue out at him, just like a
real kid sister.
***
Lydia was already in the kitchen making dinner when Seth
turned up in search of food.
The Stewards took their meals in the dining room, at a long
mahogany table built to seat a dozen. Jack Steward came in
while Seth, anxious to prove himself the good son, was setting
the table. He couldn’t remember if the spoon went beside the
fork or the knife. Naomi had worked long hours keeping house
for a family in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood; sit-down dinners
in the Franklin-Sullivan household had been rare. Usually it had
just been Seth at the kitchen counter, alone, shoveling down
whatever Naomi had put by for him in the fridge.
“Seth.” Jack offered his hand. Seth’s step-father was familiar
from the pictures on the stairs, a handsome, athletic man with
distinguished streaks of gray in his dark hair, a thin mustache,
and a neat goatee. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a
Georgetown sweatshirt, but the diamond ring on his pinkie finger
said he could buy and sell a punk like Seth. “I hope you’re
settling in all right?”
“Thanks for letting me stay here, Mr. Steward,” Seth said,
displaying those manners Naomi had tried so hard to teach him.
“Of course. As long as you need.”
The words were right, yet they did nothing to warm Jack’s
cold gray eyes. Seth wasn’t foreseeing a lot of father-son outings
in their future.
43
Dinner was homemade spaghetti and meatballs – golfballsize, mouthwateringly juicy meatballs. Lydia dished him up two
dipperfuls, and Seth gave his attention wholly over to the food,
letting the dinner table talk roll by him. Most of it concerned
Jack’s job. Yawn. The Steward and Regent Law Firm
represented corporate clients. No splashy murder trials with
innocent defendants facing the electric chair. Not even a sleazy
divorcee hiding secret love children.
Leigh picked at her salad, watching Seth switch from forking
pasta into his mouth double-time to devouring a second helping
of brownie a la mode. “You eat like a pig,” she observed. “How
do you stay so skinny?”
“High metabolism,” Seth said. “And I’m not skinny. I’m
toned.”
“Is that like saying you’re not ‘short,’ you’re ‘vertically
challenged’?”
“Leigh,” Lydia said. “Don’t tease your brother.” Seth
offered Leigh a chocolate-smeared grin. Take that, baby sister.
“So, Seth.” Jack leaned forward, twirling his coffee spoon.
He hadn’t eaten much, Seth had noticed. “You’ve been awfully
quiet. Tell us about yourself.”
Oh joy.
At least Regent seemed to have kept up his end of their deal,
Seth thought, since he wasn’t getting the third degree about
turning up on the Stewards’ doorstep out of the blue. “There’s
really not much to tell,” he said.
“I’m sure that’s not true.” Jack’s smile glittered like frost on
a windowpane. Yeah, Seth thought, he hates me.
Lydia broke in. “Werner told us you were homeschooled?”
Seth nodded, sticking to the story he and Regent had
concocted the night before. “Dad wasn’t – isn’t – around much,
so I had a tutor. Naomi.” Her name caught in Seth’s throat. He
faked a cough into his water glass.
“What about friends? Sports? Extracurriculars?” Jack
wanted to know. “What did you do for fun there in
Philadelphia?”
Oh, you know, Jack. Grand theft auto. Felony B&E. A little
recreational shoplifting. Out loud, Seth said, “I like to read.”
44
Not even Lydia looked as though she believed this, though it
was true. Seth had spent countless hours in the Charles Santore
Public Library, devouring books on everything from chemistry to
archaeology. Read widely and voraciously, Thomas Sullivan had
liked to say; in their teeny-tiny apartment in Harlem, books had
teetered on windowsills, spilled across countertops, lined the
backs of the steam radiators. He had passed that love of language
onto his son. Seth could quote Nietzsche and Whitman and
Homer – in Russian, French, Spanish, or Italian.
“I like to swim, too,” he added, as everyone seemed to be
waiting for more.
“But that’s wonderful!” Lydia beamed like Seth had just said
he enjoyed feeding starving orphans. “Fairfax High has a swim
team. They won state last year, didn’t they, Leigh?”
“Who cares?” Leigh stabbed moodily at the remnants of her
brownie. “Swimming is lame.”
Had Marshall Townsend been a swimmer, Seth didn’t think it
would have been lame. But he kept that to himself.
The phone began to ring. Lydia hurried into the living room
to answer it. Jack once again nailed Seth down with his iceman
gaze. “So, Seth, any plans for the future?”
His phrasing was barbed, like he doubted Seth had a future to
plan. Giving up on the good son routine, Seth assumed his best
slacker smile. “You know how it is. I just try to be Zen about
things. Why make a plan?”
“Hmm.” Jack reached over, covering Leigh’s hand with his.
Leigh practically glowed under his smile. “Leigh’s had her sights
set on Georgetown from the cradle, haven’t you, baby?”
“I’m going to practice animal rights law,” Leigh announced.
Seth choked.
“Jack?” That was Lydia, in the doorway, carrying the
cordless phone. “It’s Werner. He says it’s urgent. About a
client.”
What could be so urgent about a corporate client on New
Year’s Day was a mystery to Seth, but Jack immediately dropped
his napkin in his plate and went out, phone pressed to his ear.
Seth jumped up to help Lydia clear the table. “I can talk to the
swim coach about signing you up for the team, if you like,” she
offered, leading him into the kitchen. “I know it’s mid-year, but
45
I’m sure they’ll make an exception for a new student. And
speaking of,” she said, “we should pick up your school supplies
tomorrow. And some clothes. It’s too cold for just T-shirts.”
Whoa doggies. Were they talking about what Seth thought
they were talking about?
“Mom!” Leigh shunted Seth out of the way before he could
get his voice working. “You’re taking me shopping tomorrow,
remember? Me and Whitney, for my birthday. It’s tradition.”
Seth froze beside the sink. “Your birthday is tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” Leigh narrowed her eyes. “So?”
“Nothing.” Seth deposited his armload of cups in the sink,
studiously avoiding his mother’s gaze. Leigh’s birthday was
January second. His was January fifth. Two kids, exactly one
year apart, by two different fathers.
“Any-way,” Leigh went on, “Seth doesn’t want to hang out
with us at the mall.” She kicked Seth in the ankle, giving him to
understand that if he contradicted this, he would need to sleep
with one eye open.
Lydia sighed. “He doesn’t have to hang out with us, Leigh.
Seth is old enough to do his own shopping. We’ll all just ride
together.”
While Seth rated shopping right up there with vivisection, the
more pressing matter, to his mind, was school. For most
teenagers, moving to a new city would automatically mean
starting a new school, but it had honestly never occurred to Seth.
Seth didn’t do school. School meant birth certificates, Social
Security numbers, immunization records. A paper trail for the
hunters to find.
Registering at Fairfax High would also require transcripts,
which Seth did not have. Unless Regent could fake some up for
him.
“Can’t you just homeschool me?” he said.
Leigh coughed. It sounded like lameness. “Adleigh Jean,”
Lydia said, sharply. She smiled at Seth, mistaking his reluctance
for nerves. “You’ll like Fairfax High, honey. And Leigh will be
with you. I know she’s in tenth grade, but you can eat lunch
together – ” Leigh looked mortified “ – and you already know
Whitney and Marshall. I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine.”
46
Yeah, Seth could just see Marshall Townsend introducing
him to his varsity all-star buddies. Hey guys, this is my new
friend Seth! Nobody flush his head in a toilet! But bullies were
the least of Seth’s worries. “Maybe you could wait to enroll me,”
he said. “Just for a couple weeks. Give me a chance to adjust.
Spend some time with you.” Hide from the hunters. Live to see
seventeen.
“Honey, you need to make friends here,” Lydia said. And
though Seth did not have much experience with mothers, he
understood the subject to be closed.
***
Shopping, it seemed, was an all-day event that required rising
at dawn. Being, like all cats, nocturnal, Seth was accustomed to
staying out until sunrise, sleeping past noon; thus he stumbled
bleary-eyed into the driveway the next morning, his hair a nest of
flyaways and cowlicks.
Jack was backing his Beamer out of the drive, headed off to
his standing Sunday morning brunch at the country club. He
tooted the horn at Lydia as she started up the Escalade. Leigh
was still inside, doing her hair. Shopping also apparently
required massive amounts of primping.
Seth thanked the Totems he had been born male.
The brick fence around the Stewards’ backyard ended at the
corner of their three-car garage. Only a short border of winterbare shrubs separated their driveway from the Townsends’.
Marshall was outside, shooting hoops at a goal mounted on the
side of his three-car garage. He was wearing dark jeans and a
white V-necked sweater that made his hair look black as ink,
ridiculously bright-eyed for so early in the day.
Seeing Seth, he wandered over, still dribbling the ball.
“Where’s the birthday girl?”
“Inside,” said Seth, slouching against the Escalade’s fender.
“Getting fab-u-licious.”
“Mom!” Seth and Marshall looked up. Leigh, still in her
bathrobe, had stuck her head out the front door. “Have you seen
my pink barrettes?”
47
Lydia sighed and marched up the porch steps. Marshall
looked at Seth. “This could take a while,” he warned. “Leigh is
very particular about her hair.”
Terrific. Maybe he could curl up in the backseat and take a
nap. Seth nodded at the basketball. “What position do you play?”
“Center.” Marshall seemed surprised by his interest. “You
play?”
Seth shook his head. “Some pickup games in Philly. Never
on a team or anything.”
“Well?” Marshall held out the ball. “C’mon, Philadelphia.
Show us what you got.”
There was a challenge in those baby blues. If there was one
thing Seth had never been able to resist, it was a challenge. Even
when he should.
In one graceful bound, he hopped the shrub-fence,
shouldered past Marshall’s block, and tossed the ball up – perfect
three-pointer. Marshall’s mouth fell open. Seth scooped the ball
up and passed it back to him.
“Well?” he said. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Indiana.”
Marshall’s mouth snapped into a grin.
Golden Boy had moves, Seth had to give him that: He was as
light on his feet as any cat, and just as nimble. Seth, however,
was faster. Way faster. In his human skin, he retained his best
jaguar qualities: speed, strength, agility. No mere mortal could
have bested him. When Marshall ducked by him to execute a
layup, Seth stole the ball right out of his hands, sprang off his
tiptoes, and dunked, rattling the backboard.
“Wow, Philadelphia.” Marshall picked up the ball and held
onto it, studying Seth. “You were putting me on about not
playing, right?”
“Nope,” Seth said. “But don’t sweat it, Indiana. I’m just
naturally athletic. Complements my astonishing good looks.”
Marshall laughed. He seemed startled by the sound, and
broke off with his lower lip caught in his teeth; about that time,
the Townsends’ back door opened. “Marshall, Mom wants to
know if you took out the tra…”
Whitney froze in the process of tugging on a wool stocking
cap – the kind with ear flaps and a fuzzy ball on top. Seeing Seth,
she turned bright pink.
48
On her heels was a supermodel-thin woman with blonde hair
and brown eyes, whom Seth correctly guessed was Mrs.
Townsend. She called Seth “sweetie” and insisted he call her
Meredith. “It’s so great to see you again, sweetie,” she gushed. “I
remember when you were born, you and – ”
“Ready!” Leigh sang out; she had appeared on the porch,
this time in jeans and a lacey black sweater, with pink barrettes in
her hair. Seth flipped the ball to Marshall off his fingertips.
“Let me know if you want a rematch,” he said.
“You’re going with them?” Marshall looked surprised, either
that Seth enjoyed shopping (which he didn’t) or that Leigh had
consented for him to go (which she hadn’t).
Seth explained that it was basically a hostage situation, with
his mother as the heavy. Leigh leaned out the Escalade’s back
window. “You could come, too, Marshall,” she said, brightly.
“Keep Seth from being the odd man out.”
Like she cared whether Seth had to skulk around the mall on
his own. Not that he planned to. Seth wasn’t picky about his
wardrobe; as long as it wasn’t frilly or pastel or spandex, he
would wear it. He intended to complete his shopping in an under
an hour, leaving him plenty of time before Leigh’s birthday
lunch to prowl his new city. In his human skin, of course.
Marshall let the ball roll up against the porch. “Sure,” he
said. “Why not?”
Yes, Seth thought, why not? Because what this day really
needed was the chance to entertain his sister’s crush.
***
It was a ten-mile drive from Castle Estates to downtown
Fairfax, if you employed the term “downtown” loosely: a few
high-rise offices, some newly-remodeled condos overlooking the
river, an array of strip malls and chain restaurants. A big Barnes
and Noble across the street from the mall looked promising, at
least.
Seth and Marshall bid goodbye to the girls at the food court,
with plans to meet at someplace called MoJo’s for lunch. The
mall was crowded. Seth, as expected, attracted more than a few
stares, what with his dyed hair and golden eyes and jaguar
49
tattoos. Marshall attracted his own brand of attention from the
roving packs of girls, though he didn’t seem to notice. They
bypassed stores advertising Seven jeans and Lucky Brand shirts
before finally happening onto a storefront with a nondescript
mannequin dressed in a Black Sabbath T-shirt. RE-SPIN, read
the lettering across the window. GENTLY USED BOOKS,
MUSIC, AND CLOTHING.
This was more like it. Seth started for the door.
“You’re going in there?”
Marshall had pulled up short. Seth looked back at him.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “Not Abercrombie enough for
you?”
Marshall rolled his eyes. “No. It’s just – this place has
a…reputation.”
“A reputation? For what?” They were in a mall, for Pete’s
sake. Seth doubted Re-Spin was selling stolen goods out of the
back. Although perhaps he could get in on that action…
“For – you know. For weed and stuff.”
“Well, I’m not planning to buy any weed,” Seth said.
Still, Marshall hesitated. “If my father hears I went in here,
he’ll freak,” he said.
“Is your dad a cop or something?”
“No.” Marshall looked startled. “He’s Chief of Surgery at
Fairfax Memorial. Why?”
“Then how is he going to know?” Seth backed into the store,
beckoning with a crooked finger. “Come on, Indiana. Live a
little.”
Marshall sighed but followed him in.
The store was roomier than it had looked from the outside.
Bins of used CDs lined one wall; at the back, bookshelves
sagging with paperbacks were labeled Mystery, Horror, Poetry,
Classics, Sci-Fi; in the center, racks of secondhand clothes –
mostly jeans, rocker T-shirts, and hoodies – were grouped around
a bank of floor-length mirrors. The walls were painted black,
adorned with grindhouse posters for movies like Switchblade
Sisters and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter. Metal
shelves displayed packaged incense and Tarot cards, accounting
for the spicy hint of patchouli that greeted Seth’s sensitive
werekin nose.
50
A boy about his age was manning the cash register, thumbing
through a copy of Rolling Stone. He looked like your average
teenage hippie: “Save the Earth or Die” T-shirt, strawberryblonde hair tied back in a ponytail, silver St. Francis medal
around his neck. He was also tall, rail-thin, and pale, like an
albino scarecrow. A pair of overlarge ears stuck out from the
sides of his head, the tips as pink as his small nose.
He looked up, saw Seth, and twitched. There was no other
word for it; his whole face spasmed, even his big ears. Seth
glanced down at himself, checking that he hadn’t unwittingly
sprouted claws or fur, and Marshall bumped into him from
behind.
“Ow,” Seth complained, rubbing his shoulder.
“Sorry,” Marshall mumbled.
When Seth looked back around, the clerk had gotten his face
under control, though his pupils were still extremely dilated.
Could be a bad trip, Seth mused. He had read marijuana made
people paranoid. “Hi,” he said, in what he hoped was a calming
tone. Nice kitty. Not gonna hurt ya.
“Right,” the clerk squeaked. “I mean hi. Uh, hey, Marshall.”
“Hey, Emery.” Hurrying around Seth, Marshall concealed
himself behind a rack of concert tees. Good grief, did he think
his father had spies at the mall? “Emery, this is Seth Sullivan.
Leigh Steward’s brother.” Marshall lifted a shoulder, as if to say,
Don’t ask. “Seth, this is Emery Little. We’re in the same class at
school. Seth just moved here, from Philadelphia,” Marshall
explained.
“Ph-Philadelphia?” The tips of Emery Little’s ears turned
even redder; he looked like he was about to say something more,
then changed his mind. “So…uh…you guys in the market for
anything special?”
“Seth needs new threads,” Marshall said. Seth’s eyebrows
shot up. Threads? Were they, like, all so groovy now, man?
While he rifled through clothes, Marshall and Emery
commiserated about the science teacher they both hated, Dr.
Gideon. They seemed friendly, despite Emery not being a jock,
or, from what Seth could see, rich. He must have been one of the
Haven Heights kids, Seth thought.
51
In ten minutes flat, Seth had snapped up some jeans, a couple
of sweatshirts, and a super-cool camouflage jacket with a 101st
Airborne patch on the arm. The jacket he slipped on; the rest
Emery bagged. Altogether his purchases barely made a dent in
the wad of cash Lydia had pressed on him, yet Seth still felt
awkward forking over his mother’s money. When he noticed a
“help wanted” sign by the register, he asked for an application,
and filled it out at the counter, Marshall standing close enough to
read over his shoulder.
Emery’s smile as he slid it into an envelope of other
applications looked rather pained. Seth had a feeling Re-Spin
would not be calling him for an interview.
From the mall, as they still had lots of time to kill before
lunch and Seth was in need of a serious sugar-and-caffeine fix,
he and Marshall hiked across the street to the bright and spacious
Barnes and Noble and ordered coffees and muffins in the café.
Seth paid. He figured Marshall was doing Leigh a favor by
hanging out with her delinquent brother. Shouldn’t cost him
money, too.
“Don’t look now, Philadelphia,” Marshall said, as they sat
down at a table in the back. “You’re being checked out.”
“Huh?” Seth turned. A girl of maybe seventeen, more
striking than pretty, was browsing the magazine section behind
him. She had on skintight jeans and a black leather jacket that
showed off her incredible muscle tone, like Action Hero Barbie,
right down to the maple-brown hair razor-cut to her scalp.
Sure enough, she glanced his way. Their eyes met, hers
wintry blue, tinted silver in the bookstore’s bright lights. For
some reason, Seth touched the jaguar spots tattooed around his
eye.
Save her, he heard the voice from his dream say. Save her,
and she will save us all.
Except this girl did not fit the damsel-in-distress bill. More
like the damsel who stomps you into gooey paste and grinds her
spike-heeled boot into your face afterwards, just ’cause. Seth
turned back around, peeling the paper off his blueberry muffin.
Marshall was watching him. “You should ask for her number,”
he advised.
“Why don’t you ask her?” Seth said.
52
“One, she wasn’t ogling me. Two, she’s not my type.”
Marshall curled his hands around his coffee cup. He had long,
slender fingers, like a pianist’s. “Isn’t she yours?”
Seth shrugged. He wasn’t sure what his type was, actually.
Living Underground was lonely. Hard to make friends when you
couldn’t tell people anything about yourself. Even harder to woo
somebody. Not that he had met anybody he really wanted to
woo.
Over the summer, Seth had finally had his first kiss, with a
girl named Andrea. She was from Flagstaff or Albuquerque or
someplace – blonde, petite, suntanned. She had been in Philly
visiting her grandmother, and had courted Seth with the
determination of a girl who wants a summer fling to tell her
friends about. He had escorted her to the fireworks in the park on
the Fourth of July, and she had kissed him, lying on a blanket
under the stars. It had been all right. They had kissed a few more
times after that, in the swing on her grandmother’s porch, in the
dark movie theater that showed cheap weekday matinees. She
probably would have gone farther, but it had never felt right to
Seth.
In August, she had moved back to Arizona or wherever. They
hadn’t kept in touch.
Seth wondered what Marshall’s type was. And if it was
redheaded and named Adleigh. “Have you always lived next
door to the Stewards?” he asked.
“Pretty much. Dad was assigned to the medical team at Fort
King, before the government shut the prison down. He took the
job at Fairfax Memorial not long after I was born.” Marshall
sipped his coffee. “How about you? Always lived in Philly?”
“Pretty much,” Seth said.
“You don’t have an accent. Aren’t you supposed to say
‘lieberry’ and ‘everyfink’?”
“Not bad, Indiana. You almost sound native.” Seth paused.
He didn’t enjoy lying, even if it was for Marshall’s own good. “I
was homeschooled. Guess I never picked up the dialect.”
“Your father must have been strict with you.” Marshall
sounded sympathetic. Imagining the worst, no doubt – Seth
chained up in a basement for the last sixteen years. And Seth
couldn’t tell him it hadn’t been like that, that, all things
53
considered, his life had been a happy one, when he was
supposedly in Fairfax because he hated his dad.
Instead, he worked up a grin. “Aren’t all fathers strict?”
“My father is,” Marshall said. “He has a lot
of…expectations.”
He ran a hand through his hair, looking away. Seth leaned
back in his chair. “Go on.”
“It’s nothing,” Marshall said, quickly. “It’s just…well…it’s
like, med school, you see? He wants me to go to Harvard, like he
did. And – you know. Basketball and…stuff.” Marshall stared
harder into his coffee cup. The tops of his cheeks were red.
“I thought you liked basketball,” Seth said. Marshall had
seemed to that morning, in his driveway…
“Sure I do,” Marshall said. “When it’s just for fun.”
“When isn’t it fun?” Seth was completely bewildered now.
“It’s a game, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, unless you’ve got college scouts hounding you, and
everybody expecting you to bring home a state title, and – you
know what? Never mind.” Abruptly, Marshall pushed back from
the table. “We should pick out a present for Leigh while we’re
here,” he said. “Surprise her at lunch.”
Seth nodded, unable to drum up much enthusiasm. He knew
it wasn’t Leigh’s fault their mother had whisked Jack Steward
down the aisle two seconds after Thomas Sullivan was gone, but
the fact that their birthdays were so close together still stung. The
ultimate reminder of how easily Seth had been replaced.
As they left the café, he looked around for the girl. His
admirer. She was nowhere to be seen.
54
Chapter Four: Pack Mentality
MoJo’s was a brewery pub catering to Fairfax’s upscale
crowd, serving, in addition to what Marshall swore was the most
delicious deep-dish veggie pizza ever invented, twelve original
varieties of beer. Kind of a strange place for a Sweet Sixteen, but
it had a cool atmosphere – exposed brick walls lined with
wooden booths imported from an old London pub, a real fire
roaring cheerily in a stone hearth opposite the polished bar. By
the time Seth and Marshall arrived, Jack had joined the party,
fresh from his champagne brunch at the country club.
He was accompanied by Dr. Townsend, Marshall’s father.
Wesley Townsend was a tall man with wavy black hair and
honey-toned skin, wearing a suit of Italian silk perfectly tailored
to his lean frame. Easy to see where Marshall came by his cleancut good looks. In fact, the resemblance between them was
almost uncanny.
Jack made the introductions. Seth shook the doctor’s hand,
wincing when the diamond ring on Dr. Townsend’s pinkie
finger, a twin of the one Jack wore, pinched his skin.
“You must take after your father,” Dr. Townsend observed,
looking from Seth to Lydia, like he couldn’t imagine a woman
like her sharing DNA with a punk like Seth.
“In most ways,” Seth agreed, with a straight face.
Their party had a reserved booth near the fireplace. Seth
ended up scrunched against the brick wall, across from Whitney,
who hunched over a moleskin notebook, scribbling poems. Dr.
Townsend hardly seemed aware of her. His full attention was
devoted to Marshall, who sat up straight. Smiling but never
laughing.
Leigh wanted to open gifts right away. From Whitney there
was hand-knitted wool scarf that matched Leigh’s Burberry coat.
Jack and Lydia presented her with a Coach purse she had specialrequested; inside was a special gift from Jack: a pair of heartshaped earrings studded with diamonds and Leigh’s birthstone,
garnets. Just by looking Seth could tell the gems were real.
55
Leigh squealed as she ripped the paper off. “Daddy, oh my
God, they’re gorgeous!”
“Jack.” Lydia, exasperated, watched her display the earrings
for Whitney and Meredith. “I thought we agreed those were too
expensive.”
Jack shrugged. “My baby girl only turns sixteen once. Let me
spoil her.”
Let me show off how rich I am, more like. Seth wondered
what would happen if he put a Ferrari on his birthday wish list.
For the boys’ gift, Marshall had selected the latest album
from Gogol Bordello, a gypsy punk bank Leigh adored. Her
reaction to it was only fractionally less ecstatic than her reaction
to the earrings. “Marshall, I’ve been dying to listen to this!
Thank you so much!”
She kissed Marshall’s cheek, holding his eyes as she sat
back. Seth made a gag me face at Whitney, who smirked into her
Coke. “It’s from Seth, too,” Marshall protested, blushing hotly.
Leigh swiveled toward her brother, green eyes bright. “You
helped pick out my present?”
“Absolutely,” Seth said. “The pink bow? Totally my idea.
Matches your barrettes.”
Leigh flicked him with soda off her straw.
After pizza (which was as delicious as Marshall had
predicted) came the cake, red velvet, compliments of MoJo’s.
They all sang Happy Birthday while Leigh squeezed her eyes
shut tight and blew out her candles. Seth had a feeling he knew
what she was thinking. Oh fairy godmother, I wish for Marshall
to ask me to be his girlfriend, forever and ever!
Dr. Townsend seemed to have other ideas. “I hope you
wished for the Knights to win state,” he said, holding up his cup
for their server to pour his coffee. Lydia was slicing the cake.
“Hey now, Wes,” Jack said. Marshall had sat up straight in
his chair, like he had been poked with something sharp. “The
Knights don’t need wishes to win. Not with Marshall on the
team. That’s one talented boy you’ve got there.”
“Hear that, son?” Dr. Townsend nudged Marshall. “Hope
you’ve been practicing.”
56
Everyone laughed, even Marshall. Although Seth wondered
if he was the only one who noticed that Marshall had put his fork
down, leaving his cake untouched.
***
The party broke up soon after, Dr. Townsend and Meredith
heading home, Jack heading back to the office. “Darling, do you
have to?” Lydia sighed, catching Jack’s hand as he rose. “I
thought we could spend some time together this afternoon. As a
family.” Meaningful glance at Seth.
“Sorry, babe. The campaign trail never sleeps.” Jack smiled
coldly at Seth over the top of Lydia’s head. Yeah, it really broke
Seth’s heart that his step-father didn’t want to spend time with
him. “Oh, I almost forgot.” From his briefcase, Jack produced a
manila envelope. “Werner had these faxed to the office this
morning. Seth’s homeschool records.”
This was total crap, obviously, as Seth had no homeschool
records. Seth stared at Jack. How had Regent falsified his
transcripts so quickly?
The brand on Regent’s palm flashed across Seth’s mind.
Chimera Enterprises had connections at the highest levels of
government. Faking up high school transcripts would have been
a cinch for them. As it probably would have been for a highpowered attorney, Seth’s less cynical side reasoned.
“All that’s missing is the birth certificate,” Jack was saying,
as Lydia stowed the envelope in her bag. “I assume we have a
copy?”
“Of course,” Lydia murmured. Her eyes darted to Seth, the
look on her face almost pained. Saying something about taking
care of the check, she climbed quickly out of the booth.
By the door, she sidestepped four guys in Fairfax High
letterman’s jackets who had just strolled through it. One, a
stocky boy with sleepy green eyes, was hobbling on crutches, his
left leg encased in plaster up to the knee; a muscled-up blonde
poked him playfully in the back, trying to make him lose his
balance. Leigh came instantly to attention.
“Look, Marshall, it’s Cam!”
57
“Who’s Cam?” Seth asked. He was already sick of meeting
people, and he hadn’t even started school yet.
“Cameron Foss.” Marshall tipped his chair back. “He plays
ball with me. All these guys do.”
“They’re the starting lineup of the varsity team, he means.”
Leigh sounded supremely impressed. Whitney caught Seth’s eye,
like, here we go, and slid down in her seat.
“’Sup, dawg?” The guy called Cam greeted Marshall with a
fist-bump. He was bulked up like a pro wrestler, all granite
pectorals and rock-hard thighs, dishwater blonde hair tousled into
an artful bedhead style, so heavily gelled it could have doubled
as a helmet. He jerked his chin at the remnants of cake and
wrapping paper. “You throw a party and not invite your friends?”
“It’s my birthday,” Leigh announced, pertly. She had this
flirting thing down, Seth was not thrilled to see.
“That so? Well, happy birthday, beautiful.”
Cupping Leigh’s chin, Cam leaned down and kissed her, on
the lips. His friends hooted and whistled. Whitney slid further
down in her seat, like she wanted to slide under it.
Seth did not consider himself a violent person. There was a
reason Chimera had to collar werekin to make them into killers:
At bottom, werekin were a peaceful race. But seeing Cam Foss
slobber all over his sister gave him a powerful urge to claw
something. Like Cam’s face.
He released a breath through his teeth. It came out more like
a hiss. Cam let go of Leigh; she sat back, deeply flushed. Seth
didn’t think she had wanted Cam to kiss her, but she kicked him
under the table, her eyes mutely begging him not to start
anything with these guys.
A narrow smirk tugged at the corners of Cam’s mouth.
“Who’s this?”
Marshall made the introductions. Cam, Cameron Foss,
played guard for the Knights; Topher Simmons, a lanky black
kid with close-cropped curly hair, and Gabe Cochran, a brunette
beanpole, were forwards; Bryce Heilsdale, the boy in the cast,
usually played point guard, but had been sidelined by a skiing
accident over Christmas. “Hence the crutches,” he said, waving
one.
58
Every pack had a leader. Seth knew a little something about
pack mentality; as he watched Marshall’s teammates crowd into
the booth, putting Marshall at the center, it wasn’t difficult to
figure out who their alpha was.
Entering a pack’s territory also meant earning your place.
High school or the jungle, it was all the same, really. So Seth
wasn’t surprised when Cam scooted in beside him, crowding him
against the brick wall. “Those are really pretty tattoos you got
there, Seth. What are you supposed to be, some kind of kittycat?”
“Yup,” said Seth.
“Aw, that’s so cute. Don’t you guys think that’s cute?”
Cam looked around at his pack brothers. They all looked at
Marshall, waiting for him to laugh. He didn’t. He twirled his
straw, rattling the ice cubes in his glass. “Cam, lay off.”
“It’s cool, Indiana,” Seth said. “I am cute.”
Whitney’s eyes widened, like she wasn’t used to seeing
someone stand up to Cam. Apparently neither was Cam. His
smirk ticked up a notch. “You know,” he said, “Leigh wore this
sexy kitty costume for Halloween. It had a tail and whiskers and
everything.” He leaned over, mouth-breathing in Seth’s ear. “Bet
she’d let you borrow it sometime.”
“Cam.” Marshall’s voice was razor-edged. “I said lay off, all
right?”
“Okay, okay, Townsend. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
Cam sat back.
The sideways look he slid Seth let him know they weren’t
finished yet.
Seth ignored him. Seth could have shredded Cam Foss, in
either skin, but he wouldn’t. Cam posed no threat to him. Cam
wasn’t werekin. He wasn’t a hunter. He was just a musclehead
cretin.
These guys were all about the game, Seth soon discovered.
Topher immediately began bemoaning the odds of Fairfax High
making it to the state tournament sans Bryce. “We’re like the
Dream Team,” he said, snagging a pizza crust off Leigh’s plate.
“One of us goes down, we lose our magic. Burke’ll walk right
over us.”
59
The name, vaguely familiar, eluded Seth. “Who’s Burke?” he
asked. Like he cared about basketball.
“Connor Burke,” Marshall said. “He’s captain of the Sacred
Heart team. They’re our biggest rivals. They sent us home from
sectionals last year. And they won state.”
“I heard Burke is being recruited by the NBA,” Gabe put in.
He had attempted to snag Topher’s stolen crust, and Leigh was
now using her napkin to mop off the pizza sauce Topher had
smeared on his cheek.
Cam tssk’ed that aside. “Burke’s a pussy.”
“Bro, his dad’s a five-star general,” Topher said.
“I don’t care if his dad is the frickin’ president of the United
States. Doesn’t mean the kid knows dick about basketball.” Cam
blew a spit wad at Bryce. “I can’t believe you busted your ankle,
dipshit.”
“Me either,” Bryce groaned. “If we lose on Friday, we’ve
got zero chance of making it to the playoffs.”
“Then we’d better not lose,” Marshall said. “I promised my
father a state trophy this year.” Yeah, but no pressure or
anything, Seth thought.
A server stopped by then to see if the new arrivals wanted
anything. A round of Cokes was ordered, and a deep-dish
supreme to go. Lydia was still flitting around the restaurant,
talking to people she knew, which seemed to be everybody.
Cam returned his attention to Seth. “Leigh never mentioned a
brother. What planet did you say you were from?”
Seth couldn’t help himself. Really, the guy walked right into
it. “Uranus,” he said.
Cam blinked. Then the joke clicked, and he flushed so
furiously Seth thought his hair might catch fire. “You – ”
Marshall burst out laughing. Straightaway, the rest of the
pack joined in.
Cam fired a filthy look at Marshall. Fleeting, but Seth saw it.
Marshall didn’t seem to. He tipped back further in his chair,
smiling at Seth in a way that popped out the dimple in his cheek.
“You guys should see this kid’s jump shot. He wiped the court
with me this morning. If we can convince Coach to let him try
out, we might still make the playoffs.”
60
There it was. The alpha’s seal of approval. Marshall had just
inducted Seth into his pack. Seth was speechless.
Marshall must have really been into his sister.
Topher, Gabe, and Bryce all wanted to hear about Seth’s
prowess on the court. Could he dunk? What was his free throw
average? How about rebounds and steals? Seth insisted he didn’t
have any experience beyond neighborhood pickup games, but
Marshall talked him up like the second coming of Michael
Jordan. When the pack’s to-go pizza arrived, Bryce reached for
his crutches. “We were headed over to Cam’s,” he said. “He got
this sweet gaming system for Christmas. You guys should come
check it out.”
“Especially you, birthday girl.” Cam blew Leigh a kiss. Seth
envisioned crushing his skull between his teeth – a jaguar’s
preferred killing style.
Leigh, naturally, was all about hanging with the older incrowd. Whitney, with far less enthusiasm, agreed to go, if Leigh
was. Seth wasn’t sure the invitation included him, until Marshall
turned from helping Leigh into her coat and said, “How about it,
Philadelphia? You in?”
Cam’s eyes glittered. “Check it out, guys. Townsend has a
new pet.”
Marshall stumbled back a step. His expression – it was the
same one he had worn when his father had criticized his playing,
stark with an intensity of self-loathing that drained the light from
his eyes, making them as pale as a river seen through ice.
Seth slid out of the booth, in a lazy manner all the more
predatory for being unrushed. If Cam had made a gay joke at his
expense – which he basically already had, with the sexy kitty
costume remark – he would have let it go.
But this wasn’t about Seth. Seth got what Cam was up to.
Cam was beta to Marshall’s alpha, and he wanted things to be the
other way around. Only way to oust a pack leader was through
combat. Lacking the courage for an actual throw-down, Cam
would fight with rumors and innuendo, a knife behind his back
while he smiled to your face.
Werekin protected their own. Call it animal instinct, pack
mentality, whatever – when werekin befriended someone, they
watched out for them. Seth hadn’t expected to be friends with
61
Marshall Townsend, but it seemed he was, and so he planted
himself squarely in Cam’s personal bubble. They were near
enough the same height for Seth to see himself reflected in
Cam’s pupils. The metallic sheen of his eyes was like polished
brass. Not so cute now, was he?
The table had gone quiet. Cam roughed a laugh. “Relax,
Sullivan,” he said. “It was a joke.”
“Ha ha,” Seth said.
“Jesus, you two.” Suddenly Marshall was between them,
elbowing Seth aside. He play-punched Cam in the gut, and Cam
mimed doubling over. “You both need to lighten up. Let’s go zap
some aliens, all right?”
Seth wasn’t prepared for the furious glare Marshall swung
around on him then, like Seth was the one acting like a jerk.
Okaaay. Obviously he had been too quick on the whole
friendship theory. Holding up his hands, he backed away.
“Not really my thing,” he said. “But you guys have fun.”
Marshall’s jaw tightened. But, “Whatever,” he said. “See you
at school, Philadelphia.”
He linked his fingers through Leigh’s, the look on his face
almost challenging Seth to call him on something. Whitney
hurried after them, throwing an apologetic look back at Seth.
Cam’s rattlesnake smirk had returned full-force. “Yeah, kittycat,” he purred, shoulder-checking Seth as he passed by. “See
you at school.”
62
Chapter Five: Traps
Being alone with him made his mother nervous, Seth could
tell. As they pulled out of MoJo’s parking lot, just the two of
them, she fished a pack of Marlboros out from under the
Escalade’s seat and lit one up, inhaling like a drowning woman
coming up for oxygen.
Seth raised an eyebrow. Lydia looked over at him and smiled
guiltily. “Don’t tell Leigh, okay? I promised her I’d quit.”
“You could tell her they’re vegan cigarettes, made from onehundred-and-ten-percent recycled tobacco,” Seth suggested.
Lydia laughed. She had a fabulous laugh, warm as the sun-heated
stones Seth liked to nap on in the summer, along the Schuylkill
River. “Seriously, I won’t tell,” he said. But my silence will cost
you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Definitely. A month’s supply of Mountain Dew and
Oreos.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Seth Michael Sullivan,” Lydia
smiled. “Guess we’ll have to swing by the supermarket.”
The Fairfax supermarket was ultra-clean, ultra-bright, and
ultra-spacious. Lydia navigated it with determined purpose. In
her gray sweater, faded jeans, and high-heeled boots, she was
Supermom Goddess on a mission – like she could wiggle her
nose and dishes would be washed, supper cooked, children
bathed and house cleaned.
Everyone they met seemed to know her. The Stewards sat on
a dozen different boards in Fairfax: the park board, the library
board, the neighborhood watch board. Lydia introduced Seth as
her son like she wasn’t ashamed to claim him, which was cool.
Seth pushed the cart. Lydia shopped. For the human
household there were cans of organic pasta sauce and cuts of
free-range meat; for Poe and Captain Hook, bags of kibble and
packages of treats. Seth, who knew next to nothing about his
mother – Thomas had rarely spoken of her, and Naomi had
claimed to be as in the dark about her as Seth was – took the
opportunity to indulge his natural curiosity.
“Have you always lived in Fairfax?” he asked.
63
“Oh, no.” Lydia plunked a bag of frozen peas into the cart.
“I didn’t move here until I was…Well, let’s see, I was in
eleventh grade, so I would have been sixteen. My dad, your
granddad, was a four-star general. We lived all over the world –
Germany, Japan, South Korea.”
His mother the army brat. Seth couldn’t picture it. Lydia was
too fragile, nowhere near sturdy enough to trek around the globe
in the shadow of a four-star general. “How’d you end up in
Fairfax?”
“Dad got stationed here. There used to be a military base
outside of town. Fort King. It was decommissioned years ago.”
Lydia added a package of hummus to the cart. “I was furious, of
course. I wanted to keep jetting around the world. But Fairfax
turned out all right,” she added, with a wistful smile. Seth
wondered which husband she was thinking of meeting, Thomas
Sullivan or Jack Steward. “I didn’t know that then, though. I
swore I was leaving Fairfax the day I turned eighteen.”
“Where did you want to go?”
“Everywhere. Anywhere. I had this plan to start in L.A. and
go from there. I was going to be a famous rock star.”
Seth couldn’t picture that, either. “Which instrument?”
“Therein lay the problem. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket,”
Lydia said. Seth laughed. “You know, you should decide what
kind of birthday cake you want, since we’re here.”
Seth, who had been coasting more than steering, stopped.
“Birthday cake?” he said.
“Did you want to go out instead? Wednesday will be a
school night, but we could manage it, I suppose…Maybe Werner
could come…”
Lydia looked back at him, so much hope in her expression.
Willing him to play along with the fiction that they were a
normal, happy family.
Seth’s birthday cake had been the same since he was five
years old. Chocolate with vanilla icing. He would have three
slices, with strawberry ice cream and a tall glass of milk, and
then he would open his gifts, in order: Ben’s, then Naomi’s. No
matter how tight money was, he had two presents on his
birthday. No matter how scary life was, he had two people who
64
loved him. That was his family. They hadn’t been normal, but
they had been happy.
It hit him then, as it had to sometime. Naomi was dead. Life
as he had known it was over.
Through force of will, Seth kept his voice from breaking. “If
it’s okay, Mrs. Steward, I’d rather not have a cake this year.
Things are just too…messed up right now.”
By “things,” Seth meant himself; but the light in Lydia’s eyes
dimmed, visible as a switch being flipped. “Of course, honey,”
she said, softly. “Whatever you want.”
***
Alone in his room, Seth started to feel the walls closing in.
He tried to distract himself. First he folded his new clothes
and stacked them in his dresser. (Everything fit in one drawer.)
Then he stocked his new backpack with the pens, pencils, and
erasers Lydia had picked up for him and placed the backpack
beside his tennis shoes, where he wouldn’t forget it in the
morning. His first day of high school. Now there was a panicinducing prospect.
Chores complete, he tried to settle down with a book – a copy
of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, pilfered from the shelves in Jack’s
office – but the hideously pink bedspread disrupted his
concentration. Finally he hauled it off the mattress, stuffed it in
the back of his closet, and fetched a plain brown blanket from the
linen closet to throw over his sheets.
Leigh’s door remained closed. Seth assumed she was over at
Cam’s, fulfilling her birthday wish of becoming Marshall’s
girlfriend. Strangely, that did not improve his mood.
Poe, having claimed her favorite spot on Seth’s windowsill,
meowed a protest when he shifted her to the floor so he could
stretch out there. Pins and needles were racing along his spine;
he shuddered with the effort of holding on to his human skin.
Skinning used to take Seth by surprise. He would go to sleep
a boy, wake up a jaguar. It was how Thomas Sullivan had
realized his son was a werejaguar: He had walked into Seth’s
nursery, and a jaguar cub had been asleep in his cradle. Chimera
policy dictated that he immediately hand his werekin child over
65
to Project Ark for testing and training. Instead, within the week,
he and Seth had left Fairfax for the Underground of New York.
Over the years, Seth had learned control. Mostly it was a
natural process; the older he got, the more conscious he was of
the magic, able to choose which skin to be in, human or animal.
Ben had worked with him as well, teaching him deep breathing
exercise that helped channel and, if needed, suppress the magic.
Anymore the only times Seth skinned without meaning to were
when his emotions ran away with him. Like with Regent in the
drive, when he had been so shocked to find another werekin
living in Fairfax. Or right now, with the grief he had been staving
off for a week clawing at his insides.
Seth had not stopped moving since that hunter’s bullet had
shattered their window in Philadelphia. He had run from Philly to
Cincinnati, stayed on the run, figuratively if not literally, all the
way to Fairfax. Since the plane had touched down, he had been
consumed by guarding his secret, adjusting to life outside the
Underground.
Now that he wasn’t moving, his tough outer shell threatened
to crack, letting the grief pour in.
Naomi Franklin had come into Seth’s life when he was still
in diapers – a pretty young black woman from Savannah, barely
twenty at the time, living in the Harlem Underground. Her
parents had been some of the founding members of the
Resistance, but they had been collared years ago. Thomas had
hired her to watch Seth overnight so he could work the eleven-toseven shift for a gypsy cab company that paid off the books.
Naomi had often said Seth became her cub on sight – crawled
across the living room rug, lifted his chubby baby arms to her,
and skinned into a jaguar the moment she picked him up.
The night the hunters collared Thomas, she had rocked Seth
to sleep in the back of the Greyhound bus that had taken them
from New York to Pennsylvania. He could still her hear singing:
Smile, though your heart is aching; smile, even though it’s
breaking; you’ll find life is still worthwhile, if you just smile…
Naomi had been the only mother Seth had ever known. And
she had died in his arms.
He sank his claws into the windowsill, struggling against
sobs born of guilt as much as grief. Regent had said Chimera
66
would discover the existence of a werejaguar sooner or later.
What if they already had? What if Naomi was dead because of
him? Seth could think of no other reason the hunters would have
killed her. Naomi had been a threat to no one. You’ve only gotten
by this far hiding behind people older and wiser than you are.
Seth sat up, swiping at his cheeks. He couldn’t stay in this
room another second. Being alone with his thoughts was like
wallowing in silver powder. But he didn’t want to go downstairs
and play house with his new family, either.
He wanted to run.
The window eased open without a sound. Seth swung a leg
over the sill. Silently, he stepped out onto the roof. A gust of
wind froze the tears on his lashes.
Twilight painted the world in gunmetal blues. Next door,
lights were on at the Townsends’; wondering idly which room
was Marshall’s, which Whitney’s, Seth slid the sash down and
crept to the edge of the roof, stepping as lightly as only a cat
could. His gaze swept the corners of the backyard. No one
around to see but a small brown falcon, perched on a low
branch…Seth bent his knees, took a breath, and jumped, from the
roof to the garage, from the garage to the lawn – landing on his
feet (of course) and kicking up a little poof of snow.
The Stewards’ privacy fence was six feet tall. Seth sprang
effortlessly on top of it.
Go back.
The voice was so real, so present, that Seth, crouched on top
of the fence on all fours, looked around to see who had spoken.
No one was there. Unless you counted the falcon, he was quite
alone. Branches rustled in the wind, creaking like old bones.
Through the living room window, Seth could see his mother
sitting on the couch, shoes off, a book open on her lap. She
would flip if she found out he had snuck out his window. But the
prospect of returning to his room was just too depressing. He
would make it a short run, Seth decided, and be back before
anyone knew he was gone.
***
67
Fairfax was one of those small Midwestern cities where the
countryside and the cityscape bled together around the edges.
Castle Estates was bounded by a wood that began a stone’s throw
from the Stewards’ backyard, extending for miles in all
directions. Seth jumped off the wall, and before he touched down
on the other side, had skinned into a jaguar.
Jaguars were built to hunt. Show Seth a tree and he could
climb it; show him a river and he could swim it, in either skin.
As a jaguar, he moved like a shadow; prey wouldn’t see him
coming until he pounced. His weapons were his claws and his
teeth. Jaguars could take down boar, alligators, hippos, even
anacondas. They were stronger than lions, the kings of the
jungle.
Werekin weren’t exactly like their animal kin, obviously. A
real jaguar would have been shivering his spots off in this snowy
forest, whereas Seth felt right at home. And even in his jaguar
skin he was still Seth Michael Sullivan, and therefore much
friendlier than any jaguar you would meet in the wild. Unless
you were a hunter. Or a jerk named Cam Foss.
Not that Seth would have eaten Cam, had he run across him
in the woods.
Seth loped north in his jaguar skin, making for King’s Creek,
a tributary of the Ohio River that snaked around Fairfax, feeding
the corn and bean fields. Tree limbs swayed overhead, encased in
ice; powdery snow covered briar patches and woody shrubs in
sparkling glitter. A perfectly peaceful night for a run, yet the
more miles that fell away under his paws, the less peaceful Seth
felt.
The creek, when he reached it, was swollen with snowmelt,
foamy white waves churning up chunks of ice and broken
branches. Seth waded out until the water washed over his flanks,
the magic in his blood making him immune to the cold. His keen
eyes pierced the shadows under the trees.
He was certain now that he was being tracked. Hunted.
Go back, the voice whispered again.
Something crashed, in the woods. Seth spun around, hissing
– but it was only an ice-coated limb, snapped off by the wind and
plummeting through the canopy to thump into the snow.
68
A second too late, Seth realized the real danger was behind
him.
The shot came from the opposite shore. The report scattered a
flock of geese roosting further up the bank; they took to the air,
squawking, as Seth dove – if he could get out of sight, he was
thinking, he could swim downstream, head back into the woods,
hightail it home – a jaguar could outrun any hunter –
He might have made it, too, if the tranq hadn’t grazed his
shoulder as he went under, slicing through fur and skin.
Instantly, Seth’s muscles locked up, like someone had found
all the pressure points in his body and pushed down on them at
once, transforming his nerves into live wires. He slid back into
his human skin, gulping down a lungful of icy water as he
screamed.
Hunters’ tranqs were not some humane sedative like
zookeepers and veterinarians used. They were concocted by
Chimera, infused with silver and mercury, both poisonous to
werekin. They weren’t mean to be fatal – hunters carried the
antidote with them – but the poison was still more than sufficient
to trap werekin in their human skins, in too much agony to fight
back.
Good old-fashioned, bowel-loosening terror got Seth’s arms
and legs scissoring through the water. The hunters would even
now be on their way to bag him. Once he was collared, a tranq
was just a taste of the misery that awaited him in a Chimera lab.
Trying to stay out of sight, he stayed underwater until spots
of light dancing before his eyes warned that he was close to
blacking out. Then he planted his feet on the creek bed and
rocketed upward in a swirl of silt, gasping as icy air assaulted his
lungs. Just breathing hurt. He tried to swim, but his arms were
lead pipes dragging through the water; after a few strokes he
gave up and floated on his back, staring up at the patchwork of
stars.
How had the hunters found him? He had been in Fairfax less
than forty-eight hours. Could they have known he was coming
here, been lying in wait? Did they know his name, his mother’s
address? But how could they? Even Seth hadn’t known where
Lydia lived until Naomi had told him…
69
Seth pushed sopping hair out of his eyes, trying to focus, to
think around the pain. He was fifteen miles from home. In his
present condition, it might as well have been a hundred. He
would never make it back to Castle Estates on foot. He had no
phone, no means to call for help. He couldn’t skin. He couldn’t
fight. Hiding in the woods wasn’t an option. Once the hunters
had your scent, they would find you, eventually.
Anyway, without the antidote, he would die from the poison
in the tranq.
A shadow passed over Seth’s face – not the shadow of death,
thankfully: He was floating underneath a wooden bridge. A very
familiar wooden bridge. Hope sparked in Seth’s chest. He knew
the direction he had been running in; this had to be the bridge
that led back to Regent’s house. And if he could get to Regent,
Seth thought, Regent could drive him to the Stewards’, or better
yet, straight out of town. Back into the Underground.
Seth swam. Every moment a symphony of pain, every breath
a new brand of torture, he set his jaw and persevered. By the time
he climbed out on the bank he was shaking head to toe, too weak
to do more than haul himself up the hillside on his hands and
knees, gashing his palms on rocks and sticks as he dug for
handholds. At the top of the rise, he vomited into a patch of
brown weeds, spewing pizza and birthday cake into the snow. He
was cold, colder than he had ever thought he could be, yet his
skin was scalding to the touch.
When he tried to stand, his knees gave out. He crawled,
propelled by his elbows because his hands were stuck halfway
between claws and fingers. How much time had passed? Ten
minutes? An hour? It seemed an eternity before the pine lodge
finally came into view. The Hummer wasn’t parked out front,
and Seth suffered a fleeting spasm of terror that Regent wasn’t
home, that he had simply crawled here to die, before his fogged
brain registered that the windows were alive with warm yellow
light.
Seth swallowed. His throat was blisteringly dry. “Help!” he
croaked. “Mr. Regent, help – ”
A footfall crunched in the snow. Seth rolled over – just in
time to take a boot to the jaw. He fell over sideways, dazed,
gagging on his own blood.
70
“Are you lost, pussycat?”
The hunter loomed above him, a tall shadow against the
rising moon. He wore snow camouflage, explaining how Seth’s
jaguar eyes had missed him back at the creek. The cheeks
beneath his white goggles were scarred and wind-chapped,
making it hard to guess his age. A tranq gun, a sort of air rifle,
was slung over his shoulder.
Snowman freed a whip from his belt. It was made of braided
rope, longer than Seth was tall, and studded with silver barbs.
Snowman planted a boot on Seth’s chest, flattening him on the
ground. “Teach you to run away from me, pussycat,” he said.
With a flick of his wrist, he brought the whip down. There
was a zip sound as it cut through Seth’s half-frozen T-shirt. The
silver barbs gouged his skin, tearing away chunks of flesh, and
Seth screamed.
Regent must have heard that scream. Dead people in Russia
probably heard that scream. But there were no racing footsteps
inside the house, no roars of werekin rage as the weretiger rushed
to his defense. Seth didn’t blame him. Training him on the sly
was one thing. Interfering directly with Chimera’s business was
another. Regent could stay in his house, peeking around the
curtain while Seth was collared and carted off, then go right on
with his nice life as a well-to-do attorney.
The whip came down a second time. Braced for it, Seth
gritted his teeth and managed to absorb the pain with a whimper.
A shudder rippled down his spine, but the tranq did its job,
preventing him from skinning.
Snowman coiled his whip back onto his belt and tapped his
earpiece, an über hi-tech device that fit invisibly inside his ear
canal. “Bagged it,” he said. Seth hissed at being called an “it,”
and Snowman pushed down harder with his boot, practically
crushing his ribcage. Man, Seth wanted to bite through this
asshole’s skull and crunch. “Meet me at the rendezvous point in
ten. Have the antidote ready.”
Hunters always work in pairs, Seth remembered Regent
saying. Meaning if, by some miracle, he escaped this hunter, his
partner would be waiting to track him down.
Grabbing Seth by the shirtfront, Snowman half-carried, halfdrug him over to the garage, where he threw him down against
71
the woodpile. Seth’s chin slumped onto his chest. “Hold still,
pussycat,” Snowman said. “I’ll get this collar on you, and as
soon as you’re nice and tame, we’ll get you out of here and get
you the antidote. How’s that sound?”
Like he was offering Seth a treat. Here, let me enslave you to
mad scientists for the rest of your life, but afterwards I’ll take
care of the excruciating pain I’ve put you in!
Seth lifted his head. Snowman was holding up a silver torc, a
sort of necklace scrolled with ancient glyphs. A collar. Once it
was in place, Seth knew, he was really and truly caught.
“How’s this sound?” he spit out, and raked claw-tipped nails
across the hunter’s face.
Snowman cursed. Blood spattered the snow. The hunter
staggered back. Seth groped behind him; his hands touched metal
– the axe Regent kept propped against the woodpile. Seth’s
hands were still mostly claws. Willing himself fully into his
human skin so he could grip the handle, Seth used all of his
remaining strength to struggle to his knees; take aim at
Snowman’s back; and hurl the axe, end-over-end.
He heard Snowman scream again, but the momentum of the
throw had pitched Seth forward, onto his chest. He couldn’t seem
to sit up again. His cheek rested against the snow; Seth imagined
he could hear it sizzle against his baking skin. His eyesight
dimmed as the fever spiked, making him drowsy…so
deliciously, irresistibly drowsy…
He felt a twinge of regret that his mother and his sister would
never know what had happened to him. They would probably
think he had just run away, without even saying goodbye…
“Oh no you don’t. You’re gonna be awake for this, you
savage little brat.”
A boot connected with Seth’s ribs, flipping him onto his
back. Blearily, he saw Snowman looking down at him. He had
removed his goggles. Where his left eye should have been, an
ugly black hole was bored into the side of his face, webbed with
scars. Seth’s heart sank. Anybody who could survive a wound
like that would not be taken out by a half-conscious cub.
Then it happened. Snowman froze. “What the – ”
For a split-second, as the spots in front of his eyes turned into
stripes, Seth thought he was dreaming. Then he saw Snowman’s
72
jaw drop, his scarred face draining of color; he scrambled for the
pistol on his belt, but before he could free it, the Bengal tiger had
leapt over the woodpile and crashed into his chest, sending man
and beast rolling across the snow, the hunter shouting, the
weretiger roaring.
Seth could have kissed Regent’s furry snout.
Seth had neither the energy nor the inclination to turn his
head to witness Snowman’s death. There was a sickening series
of tears, like cloth being ripped, only fleshier, ended on a
gurgling scream. By then, Seth’s pulse had slowed to a painful
throb. Distantly, he realized this was a bad sign, although really,
it was hard to care…He just needed to sleep…
Hands shook him. “Damn you, cub, stay awake,” someone
growled.
It was Regent. The weretiger was kneeling beside him, blood
matting his striped beard. “Shoulder,” Seth managed. “No – no
antidote…”
Regent yanked his T-shirt down, saw the graze on Seth’s
collarbone, and cursed again.
Seth was lifted. Head lolled back, he watched the stars morph
into the iron chandelier suspended above Regent’s great room.
There he was deposited, none too gently, on the couch. Regent
stomped out of his eye line, keeping up his litany of curses.
Something about Seth needing his brains knocked out for
running through the woods alone. Did he think there weren’t
hunters outside of Philadelphia? Did he want to be collared? And
so on and so forth.
Actually, Seth had considered Fairfax a safe haven. Beneath
Chimera’s notice because it was too small to have an
Underground.
He thought about the voice he had heard, warning him to go
back inside his house. Note to self, he thought. Next time, listen
to the voice.
A stinging pain in his wrist made him hiss. Looking down,
Seth watched Regent draw a razor blade across his skin, tracing
his veins to the crook of his elbow. Blood welled up in the cut, a
crimson river laced with silver drops. Seth whined low in his
throat. Why?
73
“Have to get the poison out,” Regent grunted. The razor bit
deeper. Seth whined again, loud and sharp. “Don’t look, cub,”
Regent ordered, gruffly.
Obediently, Seth shut his eyes. Within seconds he was
swimming again, into darkness.
74
Chapter Six: Ground Rules
At first, Seth plunged so deep into the dark he didn’t dream,
too separate from his body to notice its suffering. Eventually he
roused into a kind of waking delirium, unable to distinguish
reality from hallucination.
He was lying on the stone hearth in Regent’s great room. The
werekin on the walls came to life, writhing on their plaques. The
jackal taunted him in Naomi’s voice: “Soon you’ll join us, Seth
Michael, and you’ll scream for eternity…”
He woke, soaked in sweat, on a soft mattress in a bedroom
with pine floors, square-paned windows overlooking a snowy
forest. For a moment he thought it was Ben, then realized it was
Regent bathing his forehead with a cold cloth.
“Sleep, cub,” Regent growled. “They’re only nightmares.”
Seth slipped away again.
The blue-eyed girl from the bookstore, his admirer, flitted
across his dreams. Once Seth was sure he saw her at his window
– impossible, since he was on the second floor. He tried to sit up,
but found he was too weak. He heard his mother talking in low
tones somewhere close by. “We have to get him help, Werner.
Professional help. There are clinics – ”
“A professional wouldn’t know what to make of a kid like
Seth, Lydia. I’ve been where he is. I understand him, better than
you think.” Regent’s voice was soft, a persuasive purr. “Trust
me. I can help him.”
Tears thickened Lydia’s voice. “I can’t lose him, too…”
There was no clock in Seth’s sickroom, no way to tell how
many days and nights were passing. He knew it was black as the
bottom of the ocean when, sometime later, he heard Jack and
Regent arguing heatedly.
“This is unacceptable! How could you let this happen?”
“Oh no you don’t. You aren’t putting this on me, Jackie.
He’s living under your roof, remember?”
“I can’t protect him like you can! Regent, he could have
died. I’m responsible for him…”
Seth decided he must have been dreaming. No way would
Jack have ever sounded that concerned for his well-being.
75
The closer he swam to the surface of consciousness, the more
Seth became aware of his body. This was not a happy
development. The lash marks on his stomach burned as they knit
back together, a seam of fire across his hipbones; every brush of
the sheets across his fevered skin was like sandpaper scraping a
wound. Glassy-eyed, he submitted meekly to the spoonfuls of
bitter green liquid Regent tipped down his throat at regular
intervals.
“What is that?” he asked on the first dose, gagging as he
swallowed.
“Old werekin remedy,” Regent said. “To purge you.”
Seth purged all right. Until his throat was raw. When it was
over, Regent would rinse his mouth with clear water, and settle
him back on the pillows.
Werekin remedies must have been pretty psychedelic stuff.
After each dose, Seth would hallucinate. He saw Leigh sitting by
his bed, twisting a leather cord in her hands. A pewter jaguar
charm dangled from it. She sang to him, in a lovely soprano:
“Smile, though your heart is aching; smile, even though it’s
breaking…” Naomi’s gospel choir alto chimed in, perfectly on
pitch: “You’ll find life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.”
Seth opened up to the grief, too weak to run from it, and cried
himself into hiccups.
He was in the jungle, sunning on a rock in his human skin,
gazing up at a triangle of blue sky visible between the fronds of a
bowl-shaped tree. His admirer lounged beside him, wearing a
dress woven from jungle vines. She traced numbers on his palm
with her index finger. A black jaguar paced the branches
overhead, measuring Seth with golden eyes uncannily like his
own.
Seth strained to sit up, afraid the black jaguar would attack,
but the sheets tangled around him like chains. The voice from the
woods whispered. “Save her, Seth. Save her, and she will save us
all.”
“Who are you?” Seth tried to say.
Marshall appeared then, stretched out on the bed, slender
fingers wrapped tight around Seth’s. “Hang on, Philadelphia.
You’ll wake up soon.”
“Indiana?” Seth whispered. “Are you really here?”
76
Marshall dissolved into mist.
It was a relief to open his eyes the next time and know, for
certain, he was awake.
Getting out of bed and down the stairs was a feat akin to
running a triathalon, after having your bones crushed to powder
and your insides mixed up in a blender. Regent was sipping tea at
the sunken bar when Seth stumbled in and flung himself down on
the couch, wearing only boxers – the rest of his clothes had been
ruined in the fight. “Morning,” Regent said, cheerfully. He was
dressed for work in a suit and tie, yet Seth couldn’t stop picturing
him with Snowman’s blood dripping from his beard. “Hope you
feel better than you look.”
How Seth looked was awful. His hair was oily from days of
fever-sweat, the skin under his eyes puffy, stained pinkish-gray.
He wasn’t even getting into how he smelled. “How long was I
out?”
Regent handed him a steaming mug of chai tea. “This is
Friday,” he said.
Seth almost choked. “But – I was attacked on Sunday! I’ve
been asleep for five days?” He had been thinking along the lines
of a day, two at the most. He had missed his first week of school.
Slept right through his seventeenth birthday. “What the hell did
they shoot me with,” he grumbled, “nuclear-strength silver?”
“Wasn’t a regular dose,” Regent agreed. “Hunters don’t take
chances with werecats. We’re too vicious.”
There was some gratification in that, at least. Seth laid his
head back on the sofa, watching Regent move around the
kitchen, putting a frying pan on the stove, taking a package of
bacon from the fridge. “I didn’t know you could do that,” he
said. “Bleed out silver poison.”
“Most of the time you can’t. Not without bleeding somebody
dry.” Regent sounded grudgingly impressed. “You’re tougher
than I thought, cub.”
Seth grinned.
Regent cooked breakfast. Slabs of hickory-smoked bacon.
Cheese and spinach omelets. Biscuits with honey. Seth wolfed it
all down so fast Regent dryly requested he not devour the
silverware, too. Hunger abated, he tugged a quilt off the back of
the couch and wormed into it, revived enough to feel self77
conscious sitting around in his underwear. “Mr. Regent, I hate to
ask,” he said, “but could I borrow some cash? I’ll pay you back. I
just need to get out of town.”
This was the conclusion Seth had come to over the last
twenty-four hours, as his brain had started waking up. The
hunters had found him. Fairfax wasn’t safe anymore.
He had decided to go back to Philly, join the Resistance.
Forget Fairfax. Forget a family he didn’t know, who wouldn’t
want him if they learned the truth about him. Forget training with
Regent. Even though the weretiger had saved his hide, Seth still
didn’t like him.
Still, leaving felt wrong. With her last words, Naomi had told
Seth how to find his mother – a secret hidden from him for more
than a decade. Naomi had sent him to Fairfax. Seth wanted to
stay here until he figured out why, and now, he couldn’t.
“I don’t think you have to leave,” Regent surprised him by
saying. He was sitting on the other couch, tie loosened, jacket
off. “You’ve been sacked out upstairs for going on a week now
and no hunters have busted down my door. Tells me they don’t
know who you are.”
Seth snuck a hand out of the quilt to lift his tea mug. The
spicily bitter brew was growing on him. “Then how did they find
me?”
“Hunters hunt, cub. It’s what they do. They probably got a
tip there was a new werekin in these parts, and you blundered
right into their trap, like the numbskull cub you are.”
Now probably wasn’t the time to remind Regent he wasn’t a
cub anymore. Seth was officially seventeen. “Bit of a gamble,
don’t you think? I go home, play housecat, hope the hunters
don’t whisk me off in the middle of the night?”
“No more of a gamble than an untrained cub joining the
Resistance,” Regent said.
Pointed reminder that Seth had just had his tail handed to him
by a single hunter. “What about my parents? How do I explain
where I’ve been hiding out for the last week?”
“They know where you’ve been. I called them Sunday.
Lydia and Adleigh have been here every day to check on you.”
So Seth hadn’t hallucinated that. “What did you tell them?”
he asked.
78
Part of him was hoping Regent would say, The truth. Seth
might have spent his life hiding his true identity from the world,
but at home, he had always been able to be himself. His whole
self, boy and jaguar. Life in Fairfax might have been more
bearable if he didn’t have to hide who he was around his family.
Another part of him, though, panicked. How would Lydia
react to having birthed a werecat? Would she be repulsed?
Would Future Senator Jack Steward even allow him back on the
property? Hell, Seth thought, Jack would probably call Chimera
himself to come collect him.
He could see Leigh being okay with it. Especially once she
heard how the werekin were oppressed. Seemed like her brand of
crusade. She might orchestrate a march.
“Mr. Regent?” Seth said, realizing Regent hadn’t answered.
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them you decided to run away,” Regent said, “but
you changed your mind and came here instead.” He smoothed a
crease out of his jacket, avoiding Seth’s gaze.
“And?” Seth prompted. There had to be more. Lydia would
have demanded some explanation for how her son had ended up
at death’s door.
“And, I told them you were drying out,” Regent said.
Okay. Seth had misheard. “You told them I was what?”
“Getting clean. Kicking the habit. Going straight. Whatever
you kids call it these days. I’m not hip to the lingo.”
Gathering up Seth’s dishes, Regent headed for the kitchen.
Seth gaped at his broad back. “I – you – I…You told my mother
I’m on drugs?” he spluttered.
“I had to tell them something,” Regent shrugged.
For a moment, Seth was speechless. Then he exploded. “How
about that I came down with a rare strain of the bird flu? Or that I
slit my wrists? Or, I don’t know, that I was attacked by rabid
wolves? Great. Just great.” Fury overcoming modesty, he threw
off the quilt, hopped onto the back of the couch, and began
pacing, heel-toe like a tightrope walker. “Now I’m a cokehead.
Jack will have my bags packed – ”
“Trust me,” Regent said, “he doesn’t.”
Seth glared at the back of his head. “Did I wrong you in
another life or something, man? Why would you do this to me?”
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“Think about it.” Regent turned and leaned against the
counter, arms folded. “If I’d said you were hurt or sick, they
would have taken you to the hospital. How would you have
explained fractures that healed overnight, or mercury in your
bloodstream?” He had a point there. Doctors and werekin did not
mix. Seth had never been to a doctor. “Anyway, human medicine
wouldn’t have saved you from the poison in that tranq. The fever
would have boiled your brain. Quickly, too, small as yours is.”
“Yeah,” Seth said, refusing to be mollified, “but drugs?”
“Didn’t take much for them to buy it, cub. Not once they
heard the record I dredged up on you from Philly. The Coleman
brothers, wasn’t it?”
Seth froze. Since he had never been arrested, Regent couldn’t
be referring to his criminal record. “How do you know about
that?” he demanded.
“I have contacts Underground. All I had to do was drop the
name Seth Sullivan, and I got an earful about your exploits.”
Regent shook his head. “It’s a miracle Chimera didn’t find you
years ago.”
Reckless, Naomi had called his stunts. Showing off playing
pickup games, making impossible jump shots. Loping along the
Schuylkill River Trail in his jaguar skin. The final straw: his
tattoos. And those were only the infractions she had known
about.
So it was true. He had led the hunters right to them. He had
gotten Naomi killed. Seth sank back down on the cushions.
“What now?” he asked dully, since Regent seemed to have it all
figured out.
“Now,” Regent said, “you’ll do what we talked about. Train
to be a warrior.”
And stay on a shorter leash, which Seth suspected was the
real reason Regent had devised the addict story and blabbed his
sordid past to Jack and Lydia. Regent didn’t trust him to keep his
nose clean without hardcore supervision. Well, he had done a
fine job of making sure Seth would get that, Seth thought. He
might be under house arrest now that his new family knew about
his crimes, real and fictitious.
“First things first, though.” Regent motioned Seth to his feet.
“See if you can still skin.”
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Seth stared at him. “Of course I can still skin. Why wouldn’t
I be able to skin?”
“That silver was in your bloodstream a while. I’ve seen
tranqs do permanent damage – ”
Before he could finish, Seth had skinned.
The jaguar turned in a circle between the couch and the
coffee table, checking his reflection in the polished wood floor.
His tail looked the same, long and banded with black; all of his
spots were there, same razor-sharp claws –
Wait a second. Seth had never heard of silver poisoning
stopping a werekin from skinning. He looked up, baring his
teeth. Regent chuckled.
“Cubs,” he said. “So gullible.”
***
More snow had fallen during the week, covering over the
signs of the scuffle in Regent’s yard. The axe was propped
against the woodpile, its blade wiped clean. “What did you do
with the hunter’s body?” Seth asked, hurrying after Regent to the
garage. Regent snapped his jaws. Seth hoped he was joking.
Werekin didn’t eat people. That was just gross. “Any sign of his
partner?”
“Not yet,” Regent said.
He climbed behind the Hummer’s wheel. Seth slid into the
passenger’s seat. After a long soak in the tub, he had donned the
jeans, T-shirt, and camouflage jacket Lydia had thoughtfully
dropped off on one of her visits. He felt human again, or as
human as a werekin ever felt.
Regent lived several miles beyond the city limits, down a
country road flanked by snow-covered fields. Gentle hills rose up
from the flat farm ground like ocean swells; at the top of one,
lazed over by a hazy afternoon sun, was a black bunker-style
building made of liquid-looking stone, its rooftop populated by
rusted satellite dishes. Iced-over evergreen trees circled the
hillside, ringing a chain-link fence topped by razor wire. “What’s
that?” Seth asked, tapping a knuckle on the glass.
Regent glanced out the window. “Fort King. Used to be a
military prison, but the army closed it down a long time ago.”
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As they left the highway for the expressway, Regent laid
down the ground rules for Seth’s thrice-weekly training. His
pathetic performance against Snowman had proven just how
much Seth had to learn; his natural speed and strength would not
suffice against the highly-trained hunters, or other werekin.
Much as Seth hated the idea of killing his kin, if Chimera sent a
collared werekin warrior after him, it would be kill or be killed.
“I’ll teach you what I was taught in the Scholae Bestiarii,”
Regent said. “Martials arts and weaponry. But you have to build
up your stamina. I want you running five miles a day, rain or
shine.”
Five miles was nothing. Seth had run that far in Philly all the
time. He saluted. “You got it, chief.”
“In your human skin, cub.” Seth groaned. That was a
different story. Regent smiled darkly. “And don’t call me
‘chief,’” he said.
He had other rules, too. Monday through Friday, Seth’s tail
was to be parked in a classroom from eight-thirty to three.
Truancy, fighting, mouthing off to teachers, practical jokes, or
other means of drawing attention to himself were to be avoided.
Sneaking out of the house for any reason was strictly forbidden,
as were forays into the wild, in either skin. “Anything else?’ Seth
groused. “You want me to take a vow of silence, or renounce all
my worldly possessions?”
“You’re joining the basketball team.”
Seth laughed. Regent did not, and he groaned, again. “Oh,
come on, man! You expect me to hang out with a bunch of jocks
and not punch somebody’s face in?”
He was thinking of Cam, obviously.
“I expect you to learn discipline,” Regent growled. “Playing
on a team is good for that.”
Regent turned into the Stewards’ drive and threw the
Hummer into park. Seth looked up at the big brick house. He
kind of doubted there would be a Welcome Home from Rehab,
Seth banner over the stairs. “This sucks,” he announced.
Meaning his life, basically.
“Those are the rules, cub. Do as you’re told or you’re on
your own. Up to you.”
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Seth wouldn’t make it a mile outside the city with hunters on
his tail, and Regent knew it. He cut a sideways glance at his
guru. “The ball team wasn’t your idea, was it?”
“No,” Regent admitted. Seth knew it; Regent wouldn’t want
him showing off his physical prowess to the entire student body.
“It was your mother’s. They randomly drug test student athletes.”
Right. Seth had forgotten he was a junkie now. “What’s my
poison, anyway? Heroine? Cocaine? Or am I your standard
pothead?”
“I kept it simple. Prescriptions you swiped from your dad’s
medicine cabinet. Pain pills.”
He wasn’t even cool enough to score smack on the street,
then.
Seth wanted to call Regent a thousand names, each one more
hateful than the last. But Seth knew he owed Regent more than
his life. He owed him his freedom. Asinine as they were,
Regent’s rules would be far easier to endure than life in a cage.
“Mr. Regent,” Seth said, quietly, “I know I put you in danger the
other night, coming to your house with those hunters on me. You
didn’t have to help me, but you did anyway, so I wanted to
say…thanks.”
Seth thought they might have a moment. Old tiger, young
cub. Apparently, Regent didn’t do moments. His top lip curled.
“Feel better?”
Should have kept his mouth shut. “I was just saying thanks,”
Seth mumbled.
“I don’t want your thanks,” Regent sneered. “You dragged
your sorry tail up to my door knowing full well you were leading
hunters to me, and you did it because you assumed I would want
to save you.” Seth flushed. That was exactly what he had
thought. “I know your type,” Regent said, coldly. “You’re used
to everybody loving you because of this pretty face.” He caught
Seth’s chin, forcing his head around, and drug a sharp nail down
Seth’s cheekbone. Seth recoiled. There was a buzzing like angry
wasps in his ears. “Well, I don’t love you, cub, and I won’t save
you again. I’ll teach you to save yourself. If that’s not enough,
you’ll die in a cage. You’re not worth my skin.”
Regent shoved him away. Cheeks burning, Seth shouldered
open the door. Almost before his shoes hit the pavement, Regent
83
was reversing down the drive, leaving Seth to face his family on
his own.
***
Jack did the talking. Dressed for court in a black suit and blue
tie, he stood in front of the fireplace to deliver Seth’s sentence:
curfew of nine o’clock; no phone; no Internet, except for
homework; zero outings that did not involve school, basketball,
or karate lessons at Regent’s. Duration?
“Until you earn our trust back,” he said.
Seth acted all abject, but really, he didn’t care. You needed a
social life for grounding to sting.
Lydia was sitting on the sofa across from where Seth was
slouched in Jack’s recliner. Seth wished she would be mad, or at
least icily disapproving like Jack – anything besides
heartrendingly concerned. “Honey, I just wish you would have
talked to us,” she said, raising red-rimmed eyes to his. “We
would have gotten you help.”
Help for a problem he didn’t have, and the problems he did
have, she couldn’t touch. Seth swallowed hard. “Mrs. Steward,
Mr. Steward, I’m really, really sorry,” he said, glad he could be
truthful about this much. “I didn’t come here to screw up your
lives.”
Jack’s mouth stretched taut below his mustache. “Seth, no
one is saying that.” No, Seth thought, you’re just thinking it
really, really loudly.
“Of course we’re not saying that!” Lydia looked stricken.
“We love you, honey. We’re worried about you, can’t you see
that?”
She was crying again. Blaming herself for Seth turning out to
be a junkie who boosted cars to finance his habit. Seth hated that,
not only because it wasn’t true (the junkie part, anyway), but
because Lydia was not to blame for splitting up their family. Seth
saw that now. One run-in with a hunter had finally shown him
what it was his dad had been running from.
He reached out a hand to his mother. Lydia stared at it, then
at his face; and something, some door, slammed shut behind her
eyes. She stood, abruptly.
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“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” she announced, and
rushed out.
Jack looked at Seth. For a moment, as their eyes met, there
was a look on Jack’s face Seth couldn’t understand. He almost
looked – guilty. Quickly, he turned and followed Lydia into the
kitchen.
Seth let his hand fall back to his side. No one wants you here,
he was thinking. Unfortunately, he had nowhere else to go.
***
After dinner, one of the most uncomfortably silent meals
Seth had ever been forced to endure, he dutifully carried out the
trash. (He had chores now, to go with his grounding.) Leigh had
retreated to the Townsends’ for the weekend – an epic sleepover
with Whitney, fortuitously coinciding with Seth’s homecoming.
Whatever chances he and his sister might have had for a
relationship, Seth’s alleged drug habit seemed to have ruined
them.
The evening was surprisingly mild for January. Marshall was
outside, shooting hoops in his driveway, wearing a blue-and-gold
Fairfax High Knights sweatshirt and sweatpants with ragged
cuffs.
He dribbled in for a layup, spotted Seth sorting the
recyclables, and almost missed his rebound.
“Hey,” he called out. “You’re back.”
“Nope,” Seth said. “This is my ghost you’re seeing.”
“Yeah? Well, kudos. You’re completely corporeal.”
Grinning, Marshall balanced the ball on his hip. Seth ambled
over to the shrub-fence, hands in his pockets. He wasn’t quite
sure what to say. He and Marshall hadn’t exactly parted on the
best of terms at Leigh’s birthday lunch.
“Heard you were sick,” Marshall said.
Seth bet that was what he’d heard. “I’m recovered,” he said.
“Glad to hear it.” Marshall bounced the ball to him; Seth
bounced it back, and he frowned. “You promised me a rematch,
remember? I’m calling you out.”
“No can do, Indiana. I’m grounded.”
“Oh.” Marshall scratched his head. “That sucks.”
85
Seth nodded. It did suck.
Silence fell. Seth wasn’t sure how to fill it. He needed to ask
a favor, something that didn’t come easily to him, on top of
which, he couldn’t get his fever dream out of his mind: Marshall,
stretching out beside him on the bed, promising he would be
better soon. Looking at him now, damp strands of hair falling
across his forehead like spilled ink, Seth felt a peculiar heat creep
across his skin, unrelated to the magic in his blood.
He cleared his throat. “So, listen. Did you mean what you
said, about asking your coach to put me on the team?”
“Yeah,” Marshall said. “I mean, I did.”
Stress on the past tense. Seth turned to go, frustrated at the
obstacles Regent’s tall tale had created in his life. Of course
Golden Boy Marshall wasn’t going to want a cokehead for a
teammate.
“Seth. Wait.” Marshall reached out, his hand falling just
short of Seth’s wrist. Seth looked up at him. “I mean I still will,
if you want me to. I just figured, you know, with you being sick,
you might have changed your mind, or something.” Marshall
blushed.
“I want you to,” Seth lied. Yes, please, sign him up for more
quality time with Cam! “Thanks.”
“We should be thanking you. We could really use your
moves out there.”
Marshall extended the ball hopefully, but Seth shook his
head. Grounded or not, he was too tired for basketball. Teetering
on the brink of death for five days really took it out of a guy.
“Rain check,” he said. “’Night, Indiana.”
“’Night, Philadelphia.”
Upstairs, Seth changed into sweats and a T-shirt. Captain
Hook bounded onto the bed, his whole body wagging when Seth
scratched his belly. At least someone was glad to have him
home, Seth thought.
He considered calling Ben, to ask if he had found out
anything about Naomi’s killers, but he was grounded from phone
privileges, too. And, all right, maybe he was a little annoyed that
Ben hadn’t called to check on him. He decided to just go to sleep,
hope tomorrow would be a better day.
86
As he reached to switch off his bedside lamp, he noticed a
small box beside his alarm clock, wrapped in hot-pink paper.
Inside was a pewter jaguar charm, dangling from a black
leather cord. Seth knew who it was from, despite the absence of a
card. It was the same necklace Leigh had been holding in his
dream. A birthday present from his kid sister.
Feeling marginally less lonely, Seth tied the cord around his
neck – wondering, as sleep overtook him, just how much of his
dream had been a dream at all.
87
Chapter Seven: A New Normal
Sunday afternoon, Lydia presented Seth with his requested
bottle of hair dye from the drugstore. Perched on the edge of the
Jacuzzi, she watched as he slimed his hair with his favorite shade
of Starry Night. He was haphazard about it, ending up with
white-blonde streaks in addition to the bleached tips.
For the weekend, Seth had retreated to his bedroom.
Remembering not to do anything too catlike around his new
family was taxing. It wasn’t like he would have climbed the
living room drapes or used Poe’s litter box or anything like that;
it was small stuff, innate to Seth, like his tendency to slink when
he walked, to arch his spine when he stretched, to draw his laugh
into a purr. Still, it worried him. His parents already thought he
was a drug-addicted felon. What would happen if they found out
he was a werecat? Avoiding the situation had seemed like the
best strategy, for now.
Jack and Lydia had assumed he was sulking and let him be.
Truthfully, Seth was exhausted. Regent’s running regimen would
have to wait. He could barely climb steps without his knees
trembling.
He had cried some more. Felt better for it. If there was a
silver lining to being tranqed, it was being forced to sit still with
his grief long enough to feel it.
“I wish you’d stay with your natural color,” Lydia lamented
now, as Seth sat back to wait for the dye to set.
“Dyed hair is edgier,” he told her. “I was thinking of piercing
my tongue, too. What do you think?”
Lydia smiled. “I think you’re going to drive the girls crazy.”
Seth recalled the flash-burn of desire he’d felt in the
driveway, with Marshall. “About that,” he said. “Do you think
it’s possible to have a crush on somebody you just met?”
“Absolutely I think it’s possible,” Lydia said, with
conviction. “Attraction is a powerful force. But you need to take
time to get to know the person. Be sure they’re right for you.”
She paused. “Is there a particular someone you’re thinking of?”
“Yeah,” Seth said. His mother didn’t press for a name,
which made him wonder if she suspected what he was starting to
88
suspect about himself, and if she would mind. “How do you tell
if the person is right for you?”
“Well…” Lydia scooped up Poe. The little calico had snuck
into the bathroom and was rubbing against her ankles. “It helps if
you’re compatible. If you share common interests. Although I
think the best relationships also open you up to new things. And
you want someone you can be honest with. Someone you don’t
have to pretend for.”
Problem, since Seth’s life was essentially one giant pretense.
“Is that how it was with you and my dad?” he blurted out.
Way too serious of a question to ask with his hair gommed
up in sticky spikes and the bathroom reeking of ammonia.
“Forget it,” Seth said, feeling idiotic. “It’s none of my business.”
“Honey, of course it’s your business.” Lydia, seeming to
unfreeze, went back to stroking the cat. “Seth, your father –
Thomas is a kind, brilliant, gentle man,” Lydia said, softly. “We
loved each other very much. When we were together, he made
me very happy.”
Leave it alone, Sullivan, Seth thought. But he had to ask.
“Does Jack make you happy?”
The look in Lydia’s green eyes was unfathomable.
Frightened. Regretful. Yearning. A little angry. Seth stared at
her, momentarily out of breath; but then Lydia smiled, and she
was just beautiful again. Supermom Goddess. “I’m happy you’re
home,” she said. “Now, come here and let me rinse your hair.”
***
Leigh materialized the next morning, Seth’s first day of
school, dolled up in a forest-green sweater dress and brown
suede boots, auburn hair rolled into a messy bun – ready for the
catwalk or the classroom. Seth was sitting on one of the tall
stools at the teak island in the kitchen, inhaling a double stack of
Lydia’s blueberry-and-banana pancakes. Leigh poured herself a
bowl of Cornflakes and joined him.
“Do you know how many carbs are in those?” she snipped.
Seth speared a bite of pancake, deliberately folded it into his
mouth, and savored it with his eyes closed. “I hope you get fat,”
Leigh said. Seth smirked. Not likely. “Where’s Mom?”
89
“Yoga class,” Seth said. “With Meredith.”
Leigh nodded and returned her attention to her cereal. Seth
saw her looking at him from under her lashes, though, eyes
widening when she saw the pewter jaguar charm around his
neck. “So the birthday faerie visited me,” he said. “She left me
this awesome necklace.”
Leigh’s lips twitched. “Clearly she has good taste. Maybe she
can take you clothes shopping.”
Seth flicked crumbs at her, leading to a mini-crumb fight that
ended when a horn honked in the drive. Seth grabbed his new
backpack off the couch and sprinted out the front door, ignoring
Leigh’s cry of, “Shotgun!” as he vaulted off the porch and into
the front seat of Marshall’s car – a silver Audi TT coupe with a
custom sound system, a sun roof, and all-black leather interior.
“Indiana, your car rocks,” Seth said. “Hi, Whitney.”
“Hi, Seth,” came the shy reply from the backseat.
“Better hide your car keys,” grumbled Leigh, crawling into
the back.
Oh, so it was like that, was it? “As if that would stop me,”
Seth scoffed. “I could hotwire this puppy in two seconds.”
“Good to know,” Marshall said.
Being a golden boy neighbor, Marshall drove Leigh to school
every morning. (He was also the only eighteen-year-old on the
planet to drive his sports car under the speed limit and brake for
little old ladies crossing the street.) Weezer blared from the
speakers, drowning out the girl chatter in the back. Marshall
drove one-handed, shaking back the sleeve of his letterman’s
jacket and tapping his fingers to the beat on the wheel. “Hope
you brought you’re A-game, Philadelphia,” he said. “I called
Coach last night. He wants to check out your moves in Gym.”
“Bring it,” Seth said. He had woken up feeling good as new,
the aftereffects of the silver poisoning having fully faded.
The drive to Fairfax High was a short one. Marshall parked
in the student lot, south of a black-and-white stone edifice that
resembled nothing so much as a medieval castle, complete with
turrets on the corners. Stone paths led past picnic tables and
modern art sculptures in the vein of Marcel Duchamp. A twentyfoot-tall metal knight in medieval armor guarded the front door,
preparing to slay – Seth’s heart did a weird sideways skitter – a
90
three-headed monster with serpentine necks, the body of a lion,
and a scorpion-stinger tail. A chimera.
Coincidence, Seth told himself firmly. It had to be. High
schools had all kinds of mythology-inspired mascots. This was
Fairfax. Fairfax had nothing to do with Chimera Enterprises.
The Audi joined a flock of Volvos, BMWs, Acuras, and
Porsches in the upper portion of the lot, where the Castle Estates
students parked. Everyone Seth saw was wearing designer jeans
and neutral-toned sweaters, not a single Goth or skater or punk in
the bunch. It was like heading off to a GAP photo shoot.
The lower lot was a different story. Kids in ripped jeans and
worn-out hoodies slouched against dented fenders, reclined on
rusted hoods. One boy, a six-foot-six stack of muscle with
beaded dreads hanging down the back of his Chicago Bulls
jersey, sneered in Seth’s direction, the gold hoop shoved through
the cartilage of his nose catching the light. “Who’s that?” Seth
asked.
“Angelo Alfaro.” Marshall’s tone was without judgment.
“He’s got a hell of a temper. My father says his whole family is
bad news, but he doesn’t mess with people as long as they leave
him alone.”
Though Seth had dressed tamely, in a plain white T-shirt and
faded jeans, somewhere between the Castle kids and the Haven
kids, he attracted stares as they headed for the main doors. Seth
had resigned himself to standing out. Clothes couldn’t hide the
magic in his blood. A werekin would never fit in among humans.
Marshall’s pack met them in the main hallway. Bryce,
Topher, and Gabe greeted Seth like an old friend. Cam had his
arm around a petite black girl Marshall introduced as Shanti
Bruce, head cheerleader. Cam, Seth thought, was a walking
cliché of high school jockdom. “’Sup, kitty-cat?” he drawled.
“Rumor has it you’ve been sick. Swallow a hairball?”
Seth glanced at Leigh. She was inspecting her French
manicure in a decidedly nonchalant manner. Decent of her not to
blab his alleged drug habit to the entire school. Then again, she
probably didn’t want to be known as the girl with the junkie
brother. “I’m all better now,” he said, silkily, and turned to
Marshall. “I have to register before classes, so…”
“I’ll walk you,” Whitney volunteered.
91
Marshall looked as startled as Seth. Whitney was so quiet
you could practically forget she was there. “Uh – okay.”
Marshall sounded reluctant. “See you at lunch, Philadelphia.”
Seth nodded, though frankly, he anticipated being bounced
before then. The manila envelope of fake transcripts was
weighting down his backpack like an armload of bricks. He still
had to pass himself off as legit to the administration, and he
didn’t like his chances. Adults never trusted Seth.
Away from the others, Whitney became talkative, naming the
classrooms they passed: the Bio lab, the study hall, the library. A
dog-eared copy of The Bell Jar peeked out of her canvas tote.
She was wearing a sloppy-looking boys’ cardigan over her denim
skirt and chunky brown clogs, signature butterfly barrettes
holding back her sleek bob – slightly off-beat, like Seth. He
found it incredibly easy to be himself around her.
“Leigh was worried about you last week,” she said, apropos
of nothing, as they descended a flight of steps outside the gym.
“I think the phrase you’re looking for is ‘ticked off at me,’”
Seth said.
“She was mad because she was worried,” Whitney said.
Seeing Seth’s expression, she patted his arm. “Girls are complex
creatures, Seth. Don’t bother trying to figure us out. Anyway,”
she stopped, outside a set of glass double doors labeled Main
Office – Ms. Ingrid McLain, Principal, “I’m glad you’re better.”
She looked Seth right in the eye as she said it, her message
clear: Leigh had told Whitney Seth was a druggie, and Whitney
didn’t buy it. He probably should have felt threatened, but
instinct told him whatever Whitney Townsend suspected, she
wouldn’t tell anyone. “Thanks, Whitney,” he said, loading the
word with meaning. She smiled at him as she skipped off.
The first bell rang as Seth entered the office. A long chrome
counter bisected the room, separating a waiting area from a
receptionist’s desk and the teachers’ mailboxes. The slight,
fortyish receptionist looked up at him, starting a bit as she took in
his dyed hair and golden eyes and camouflage jacket. “Can I help
you?”
“I’m Seth Sullivan,” Seth said. “I’m new here.” Obviously.
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“Seth! Hello!” To Seth’s surprise, the receptionist jumped
up, beaming, and rushed around the counter to shake his hand.
“I’m Ms. McLain.”
The principal? Seth’s preconceived notion of a high school
principal was a middle-aged bachelor with bad breath and armpit
stains, whose greatest joy in life was handing out detention. Ms.
McLain looked more likely to serve you a batch of homemade
cookies than to suspend you. She was tiny, almost bird-like, with
curly black hair frizzing around a wide blue headband and
practical white tennis shoes accompanying her pinstripe suit.
Seth liked her immediately.
Weirdly, she seemed to like him, too. The receptionist, she
explained, was out sick, “But I can sign you up for classes,” she
said. “Follow me.”
She led him into her office, which was just as medieval as the
rest of the school: The black walls and white carpet gave the
impression they were meeting atop a life-sized chessboard. Seth
sank into a chair in front of the desk and handed over his
envelope of forged documents, doing his best to appear innocent.
Would he go to prison as an accomplice if Regent’s faked-up
documents didn’t pass muster?
On the corner of the desk was a photograph of a handsome
young man in desert fatigues, posed in front of a tank. Seth
looked from the soldier’s dark hair and coffee-colored eyes to
Ms. McLain’s. “Your son?” he said.
“Hmm?” Ms. McLain glanced up from the papers. “Oh, no.
My nephew. Will. I raised him and my niece after my brother
passed. Now. About these.” She laid her palms down on his
transcripts; Seth held his breath. “These are first-rate marks, Mr.
Sullivan. Not that I would have expected anything less, knowing
your family.” Seth assumed she meant Leigh, his brainiac
Georgetown wannabe baby sister. “I think we’ll put you on the
advanced track. Honors classes.”
Outwardly, Seth smiled. Inwardly, he groaned. Why couldn’t
Regent have made him a mediocre student? Seth looked like an
underachiever. That part he knew how to play. Also, it involved
less homework. “Did you want to continue with French?” Ms.
McLain asked, consulting the doctored transcript.
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Seth frowned. Had Regent known he could speak French? He
couldn’t have, Seth decided. Regent had forged the transcripts
the day after they met. Not enough time to check up on him.
Besides, only Ben and Naomi knew Seth was a polyglot. “Je
préfère l’espagnol, s’il vous plait,” he said. Ms. McLain gaped at
him. Smirking, Seth translated, “I’d prefer Spanish, please.
Unless you offer Mandarin,” he added, thoughtfully. “I’ve
always wanted to learn Mandarin.”
“Sorry, no Mandarin. But Señor Vasquez will love you.”
Ms. McLain hit the print key. As the laser printer started
shooting out pages, she leaned toward Seth, her expression
earnest. “Seth, academically, you’re more than prepared for
Fairfax High – ” bet she would rethink that if she knew his
education came from the public library stacks “ – but I’ve seen
students in your situation before. Homeschooling can create
certain…gaps, in one’s development. Socially.”
“I already know some people,” Seth said. “And I’m planning
to try out for the basketball team.” Under duress.
“Oh.” Ms. McLain relaxed. “Well, wonderful.”
Persuaded he wasn’t a hopeless introvert, she walked Seth
out to the main office and retrieved his schedule from the printer.
Seth scanned it. Biology, English, American History, Geometry,
Spanish…Everything had an H after it, for Honors. The only
classes he wasn’t dreading were Gym and study hall.
“I just need to copy your birth certificate,” Ms. McLain said,
“and then we can – hold on.” She pulled a sheet out of the
envelope and frowned at it. “This isn’t right.”
Seth’s insides turned to water. “What’s wrong?”
“Your birth certificate. It’s a facsimile. A copy,” Ms.
McLain said. “We need the original, and we copy it here.”
Seth had no idea if the birth certificate Ms. McLain was
holding was real, but he knew the Fairfax courthouse would have
one on file. He had been born here, at Fairfax Memorial. He
offered to go pick up the original, but Ms. McLain shook her
head. “No leaving school grounds,” she reminded him. So many
rules. Seth was used to coming and going as he pleased. “Just
have Lydia send the original with you tomorrow, okay?”
Seth started. He hadn’t expected Ms. McLain to know his
mother’s first name. “You know Mrs. Steward?”
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“Oh yes. Very well. Or I used to. Lydia and I went to school
together. I threw the baby shower for you and – ” Ms. McLain
stopped her mouth with a quick, airy little laugh that didn’t quite
come off. “Well, never mind. Ancient history. You’d best be
getting to second period…Oh, Mr. Little, for heaven’s sake.
Tardy again?”
The tall, skinny boy who had just walked into the office
ducked his head. Seth recognized him at once: Emery Little, the
clerk from Re-Spin, at the mall. “Sorry, Ms. McLain, I missed
the bus and Mom – ”
Spotting Seth, Emery broke off, giving a little hop of
surprise. Ms. McLain looked alarmed. “Emery, good gracious,
are you all right?”
“F-fine.” Emery’s oversized ears twitched. “Uh, hi, Seth.”
“Hi, Emery.” Seth smiled – no teeth. What was with this
guy? Humans were put-off by the werekin vibe. They weren’t
mortally terrified by it.
Ms. McLain wrote Emery out a hall pass, warning him that a
third tardy would land him in detention. “Now, be a dear and
show Seth to his locker, won’t you?” she said.
Emery nodded, looking less than thrilled. The principal stuck
her hand out to Seth again. “Good luck, Mr. Sullivan,” she said.
Seth had a feeling he was going to need it.
***
Good gracious. What a way to start the week.
Fingering the small brass key in her pocket, Ingrid McLain
watched the two boys ascend the staircase outside her office. As
soon as they disappeared, she turned, marched into her office,
and locked the door. Taking the key from her pocket, she fit it
into the lock on the bottom drawer of her desk.
Inside was a box of red file folders. She labeled one Seth
Michael Sullivan and slipped the transcripts into it, thinking it
had been some time since she had seen documents so expertly
forged.
It had also been some time since she had enrolled an
Underground werekin at Fairfax High without the Resistance
forewarning her of their arrival. But no one in the Resistance –
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no one in the Underground – no one, period, was supposed to
know who, or what, Seth Sullivan was. Ingrid had helped see to
that sixteen years ago, when the hunters had come for Thomas
Sullivan and his family.
With a pang she thought of Lydia, her stomach round with
pregnancy, green eyes shining with happiness. It’s for the best,
she told herself, as she did every time she was confronted with
the cruel deception that had been foisted onto her old friend.
Ingrid added Seth’s file to the small but growing collection
inside the drawer, locked it, and returned the key to her pocket.
Plenty of registered werekin lived peaceably in Fairfax, with
Ursula LeRoi’s blessing, but in the decade and a half that Ingrid
had been principal of Fairfax High, she had seen more and more
werekin enter the city’s Underground. Soon they would be
populous enough to attract the Partners’ attention.
Werekin recognized one another on sight – blood calls to
blood, the saying went. Ingrid was one of the few humans who
could recognize them, too. Her nephew, Will, described it as a
blurred image, like a photo double-exposed, as had Ingrid’s
mother. For Ingrid, the magic appeared as a nimbus of light, like
a halo, as beautiful as it was alien.
She had never met a werekin like Seth. Of that Ingrid was
certain.
Logging on to her computer, Ingrid bypassed the school
email program and signed in to her private account, typing in her
password when prompted: blackswan. If the Resistance hadn’t
contacted her about Seth, she had to assume they remained
ignorant of his identity. Best to keep it that way. Seth was in
grave danger as it was – graver even than he realized, given
whose house he was living in. Before she acted, Ingrid needed
advice.
She needed to talk to Ben Schofield.
She worded the message carefully, aware that Chimera had
many means of securing information, and double-, then triplechecked it for clues that could lead back to Seth. Satisfied there
were none, she hit send.
***
96
Seth’s locker popped open cooperatively with the
combination Ms. McLain had given him. Emery leaned against
the wall next to it, fiddling with his St. Francis medal as Seth
shelved his new stack of textbooks. “I called your house last
week,” he said. “Your dad told me you were sick.”
“Jack isn’t my dad,” Seth said, overlooking the implied
question of what had been wrong with him. “Why were you
calling me?”
“For an interview,” Emery said. “At Re-Spin, remember?”
“Right.” Seth’s near-death experience had driven part-time
employment right out of his mind. “Are you still hiring?”
Emery said they were. His mother, Melody, owned the store.
Emery, it turned out, was the assistant manager. “You could
come by today,” he offered, leading Seth down the hall toward
his English class. He wore Birkenstock sandals with his tattered
jeans and a T-shirt that said GET HIP TO HEMP, as
underdressed for the January weather as Seth.
“I can’t today,” Seth said. Today was his first training
session with Regent. “How about tomorrow?”
“Sure. Just whenever. We’re a pretty laidback operation.”
Emery stopped outside a classroom with a poster of Emily
Dickinson taped to the door. “Watch out for Miss Janowitz,” he
warned. “She gives killer pop quizzes.”
Flashing Seth a peace sign, he jogged off down the hall. Seth
watched him go, baffled as to why someone who winced every
time he smiled would be so anxious to have him for a co-worker.
Miss Janowitz was young, brunette, and pretty. She also
single-handedly quashed Seth’s hopes that all of his teachers
would share Ms.McLain’s confidence in his scholarly potential:
She looked him up and down with her owlish eyes, signed his
registration slip, and banished him to the back row. Seth
slouched down in his desk, practicing invisibility, and reviewed
the reading list while the rest of the class discussed Robert
Frost’s uses of symbolism. The novels he had read, but he would
have to slog through the poetry. Maybe he would ask Whitney if
she wanted to study together.
After English was American History with Mr. Talbot, a
tweed-and-bow-tied British expatriate who earned Seth’s
undying admiration by singing their class the opening bars of the
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musical 1776 to introduce their unit on the Revolutionary War.
Then it was Geometry with ancient, half-blind and stone-deaf
Mrs. Clark.
Seth’s Honors classmates were all nerdy chess club types,
openly awed by his bad boy coolness. He learned a few names:
Brendan Brighton, Kellen Newman, Yena Lee, Janon Susott.
There was just one boy from Haven Heights, a black boy with
glossy dark hair tumbling in his quick, dark eyes. The Haven
status was obvious in both his off-kilter thrift shop clothes –
pinstripe pants held up by lime-green suspenders, a newsboy cap
askew on his head – and his name, Andre Alfaro, presumably
making him the younger brother of Angelo, though Dre, as
everyone called him, was so small and skinny it was hard to
imagine he shared genes with the giant Seth had seen in the
parking lot. He hunched over a beat-up MacBook in every class,
hands fluttering incessantly over the keys.
Bryce Heilsdale was in his classes, too, following in
Marshall’s footsteps of being a brainy jock. As he was still
crutch-bound, Seth helped him carry his books down to lunch.
“The orthopedist is making me sit out the rest of the season,”
Bryce lamented. His cast was inked all over with his classmates’
names. Leigh’s had a little heart above the i. “Dad went ballistic.
He says riding the bench will hurt my chances at an athletic
scholarship.”
Did all the parents at Fairfax High have their kids’ futures
planned from the cradle? Seth wondered. “I don’t want to take
your spot, man,” he said. Seth didn’t care about basketball. Or
college.
“It’s cool,” Bryce said, perfectly sincere. “I want us to win
state.”
Whitney, Seth’s self-appointed tour guide, was waiting to
escort him through the lunch line. Seth sat between her and
Bryce at the ballplayers’ table, scarfing down a slice of pizza that
tasted like the cardboard tray it came on. Leigh claimed the seat
beside Marshall, the better to flirt with him.
Invisible lines divided the cafeteria, not just between cliques,
as Seth had expected, but between Castle and Haven. Emery
Little sat at a table that included Angelo Alfaro. Alfaro appeared
quite popular with his set. A pack alpha. His little brother Dre
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and a sport-o type girl in fleece athletic pants kept glancing at
Seth. The girl had long, coppery hair and so many freckles
sprinkled across her vulpine features she looked suntanned. Dre’s
glances were curious, but Miss Vixen’s were almost sly, as
though she knew a secret Seth didn’t.
He asked Whitney who she was. Marshall answered. “That’s
Quinn O’Shea. She’s captain of the girls’ basketball team.”
“Planning to make a move, Philly?” Topher teased. Seth just
grinned, but Cam leaned over to his cheerleader girlfriend Shanti
and whispered something that cracked her up. Seth wasn’t sure if
they were laughing at him, or Quinn.
After lunch Seth had study hall, in a large, windowless room
tiled in white and outfitted with long black desks, the sort of
place you expected to be strapped down and dissected. Seth
scooted in with Topher just ahead of the bell. “Beware of Dr.
Evil,” Topher whispered, jerking his chin at the teacher’s desk.
Behind it, on a podium overlooking the student tables, sat a
pudgy, balding man in his late thirties. A plastic nametag was
pinned to his lapel, like a clerk in a copy store: “Dr. Aaron
Gideon,” it read. His bulbous eyes were the color of weak tea
behind thick, square-framed glasses.
He took Seth’s registration slip between his thumb and
forefinger, holding it up for inspection. He wore a diamond ring
on his pinkie finger, the flesh around it humped up like it had
been sized for a thinner man. “It says here you were supposed to
be in my first-period Biology class,” he said.
“It took forever to make my schedule,” Seth explained.
“I see.” Dr. Gideon removed his glasses and cleaned them on
the hem of his shirt, taking his time while Seth stood there,
feeling conspicuous. A few kids had glanced up from their
books, scenting trouble. “You think it’s acceptable to miss your
first day of class, Mr. Sullivan?”
“Uh…no?” Seth guessed.
“No indeed.” Gideon settled his glasses back on his nose. “I
suppose that’s a lesson mommy and daddy didn’t teach you in
homeschool.”
His voice carried like he was shouting into a bullhorn. Seth
snatched his registration slip back and hurried to his assigned
seat, cheeks slightly pinker than usual.
99
So this was why people hated high school.
***
Seth’s final class of the day was Gym. Ms. McLain had
called it “athletic phys ed,” which, Whitney had explained,
meant it was reserved for student athletes. It would be Seth’s
only class with Marshall. And Cam.
He sat in the bleachers with cast-bound Bryce while Coach
Evans, a former Marine with a shiny bald spot, a hint of a paunch
above the waistband of his sweatpants, and a drill sergeant’s
bubbly sense of humor, started the class running wind sprints.
Marshall slipped Seth a thumb’s up on his way down the court.
Coach propped a foot on the bleacher beside Bryce.
“Townsend swears you’re a heckuva ball handler, Sullivan,” he
said, dubiously. Hard to imagine that, underneath the slight build
and delicate features, Seth was all animal. “With Heilsdale here
out, we’re a point guard down, and to be honest, I don’t like our
chances for the post-season with the douchebags on my bench.”
He passed a ball to Seth. “Okay. Let’s see your stuff.”
Seth dribbled out to the opposite end of the court from where
the class was now doing calisthenics, led by Marshall, the team
captain. Though not, as far as Seth knew, an athlete, Alfaro was
among the group. His gym shirt stretched tight across his back,
threatening to split at the seams. He wasn’t just cut, like Cam. He
was massive. Seth was curious how much he could bench. Two
of him, easy.
Cam whistled. “Don’t miss the hole, kitty-cat!”
“Shut your yap, Foss, or you’ll be running laps,” Coach
yelled. He nodded to Seth. “Go on, Sullivan.” He sounded eager
to end Seth’s humiliation.
Seth flexed his fingers. He was going to enjoy this, way more
than he should have.
From the free throw line, the top of the key, halfway down
the court, he sank basket after basket – nothin’ but net every
time. One by one, his classmates drifted over to watch. After
several minutes of this, Coach motioned to Alfaro. “Let’s see
how you do under pressure, Sullivan,” he said.
100
Marshall moved in front of Alfaro. Probably thinking what
Seth was: He hadn’t signed on for David versus Goliath. “Coach,
maybe you should let – ”
“Not now, Captain,” Coach said, firmly. Marshall closed his
mouth on a frown.
Alfaro lumbered across the court, shaking back his dreads.
The beads threaded through them were gold, like the hoop in his
nose. Not the real stuff, but still an impressive dose of bling.
“C’mon, buttercup,” he drawled, when Seth hesitated. “Take the
shot. If you can.”
All righty then.
Seth drove at the basket. Alfaro threw his arms up. It was like
running at a wall, and Seth heard Bryce yelp – right before he
dodged, went in for a layup, and dunked, leaping off his toes.
Gasps from his audience. Wow! The short kid can dunk!
Seth rebounded, his grin daring Alfaro to come and get him.
Grinning right back, Alfaro did – charged at him like a bull,
sneaking in a street ball trick that really should have been a foul,
tucking his shoulder in and slamming Seth sideways; but street
ball was the only kind of ball Seth had ever played, and with
catlike grace, he pivoted, reverse-stepping to stay in-bounds as
he whipped the ball sideways to maintain possession. The move
made him dizzy, which was not normal for him – like all
werekin, Seth had an excellent sense of balance – but he ignored
it and fired off the shot mid-spin.
The ball glanced off the backboard. Seth came down hard,
turning his ankle. He saw Alfaro reach toward him…
He came to on the sidelines, a towel folded under his head.
Marshall was kneeling beside him, checking his pulse. His eyes
were a very dark shade of blue. “What happened?” Seth moaned.
“What do you think?” Marshall glared at Alfaro, who
mugged a gap-toothed grin for him.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Seth said quickly. It must have looked
that way, after that cheap shot Alfaro had taken, but he hadn’t hit
Seth full-force, or Seth was pretty sure he would have landed in
the bleachers. And Alfaro had tried to catch him when he tripped.
“I think – I think maybe I fainted.”
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“Fainted?” Coach appeared over Marshall’s shoulder. The
afternoon light leaking through the gym’s skylights frosted his
bald spot. “Any medical conditions I should know about?”
Well, you see, Coach, I can skin into a jaguar, and last week
I was tranqed by hunters… “I’ve been sick,” Seth muttered,
remembering the junkie story and avoiding Marshall’s eyes.
“You should have said if you didn’t feel well,” Marshall
admonished. He helped Seth up, sliding an arm around his waist
when he wobbled. “Maybe you should sit,” he said. Seth nodded.
Marshall shuffled him over to the bleachers and knelt in front
of him, hands resting lightly on Seth’s knees. Seth concentrated
on taking slow, deep breaths through his mouth, willing the
world to stop spinning. “Simmons, go get the nurse,” Coach
ordered.
“I’m fine,” Seth protested. He didn’t know what would show
up on his lab results if they sent him to the ER, but he had a
feeling it would be funky enough to warrant a call to his mother.
He shot Marshall a pleading look. Help me out here, man.
Flushing, Marshall looked down. “Seth did have a bad flu
last week, Coach.”
For future reference, Seth noted that Marshall Townsend
could not lie to save his life, but Coach just sighed. “Okay, okay.
Sullivan, park it, and don’t puke on my bleachers unless you
want to make friends with a mop. The rest of you, ten laps, then
showers. Now, ladies!”
Their classmates jogged off, Cam smirking in Seth’s
direction. Marshall put one finger under Seth’s chin and tilted his
face up, scrutinizing him with a furrowed brow. “Seth, I think
you should see the nurse. You don’t seem well. Your eyes – ”
Seth looked down at his sneakers. His eyes were his
giveaway. He needed to change the subject, fast. “I don’t mean
to undersell myself here, Indiana, but if you’re looking for talent,
why isn’t Alfaro on the team?”
“Other than the fact that he’s a menace?” Marshall muttered.
Across the court, Alfaro was easily pulling ahead of the others on
laps. “The Haven kids almost never join the school teams. They
don’t like us very much.”
“Us?” Seth said.
102
“Rich people.” Marshall almost sounded embarrassed, like
he was to blame for his parents having money.
“Townsend!” Marshall jumped; Coach was at half-court,
glaring up at them. “Laps! That means you, princess.”
“On it, Coach.” Marshall stood, backing away from Seth.
The flush had not quite faded from his cheeks. “Look,
Philadelphia, whatever is going on with you, if you don’t want
help, that’s your business. But don’t ask me to lie for you again,
because I won’t.”
He jogged off then. Seth wanted to tell Marshall it wasn’t
what he thought. He wasn’t high or coming down off a high or
going through withdrawals. But, since he couldn’t, he didn’t
bother saying anything at all.
103
Chapter Eight: Way of the Warrior
By the time Regent picked him up from school, Seth was
feeling good as new. He opted not to mention the fainting spell,
on the off-chance his weretiger guru might display some
heretofore unknown concern for his well-being and postpone
their lesson. Seth was anxious to start his training. Being taken
down by Snowman had more than scared him. It had galled his
pride. Seth wanted to be a lethal force, taking the fight to
Chimera, not hiding in Fairfax with his tail between his legs.
Regent didn’t waste time asking if Seth had liked his classes
or whether he had made any new friends. Maneuvering the
Hummer into the late-afternoon traffic on the expressway, he
launched right into an explanation of how Seth’s training
regimen would work.
“Werekin fight in both skins. Right now your best chance,
and I’m not saying it would be much of one, would be to fight as
a jaguar,” he said. “You found out the hard way all a hunter has
to do is tranq you, stop you from skinning, and you’re helpless as
a kitten.” Seth groaned at the pun. Regent smirked.
“In the Scholae Bestarii, werekin and hunters train together.
Hunters are the offspring of werekin parents – the ones the magic
skips, for reasons Chimera still doesn’t understand. Genetically
hunters are human, but physically, they’re superior to humans –
faster, stronger, smarter. They start their training as children,
same as werekin warriors. Easier to mold a child than to break an
adult.
“Every hunter child is paired with a werekin child. Partners
live together, eat together, fight together, day in and day out,
until werekin come of breeding age at fourteen. It’s how the
hunters get so good at tracking and killing us. They know us.
How we move. How we think. What we fear. What we love.
“Each hunter is given the key to his werekin partner’s collar
– literally, the key to his life. With it, he has absolute control
over his partner. He can order her to slice her own flesh, to starve
herself, to kill her dearest friend. If the hunter doesn’t do those
things, if he shows mercy, the trainers force his werekin partner
to torture him.”
104
Regent made it sound like the hunters weren’t to blame for
collaring werekin. Seth thought of Naomi, bleeding her life out
on their kitchen floor. “Hunters aren’t collared,” he said. “Even if
a werekin runs away, Chimera can still use his collar to drain his
animus, as long as they have the key. Hunters are free to leave.
They choose to stay.”
“Not all of them,” Regent said. The Hummer was sailing
past the remains of Fort King; sunlight rippled over the hillside,
the snow sparkling like it was made of crushed diamonds. “Some
hunters do run away. Then they spend their lives being hunted,
same as werekin in the Underground. But most of the time, once
they’re old enough to escape, they’re too brainwashed to want
to.”
Whatever. Seth wasn’t feeling sorry for hunters.
The slaughtered werekin on Regent’s walls surveyed him
with glassy eyes as Regent tapped his security code into the
panel by the shuttered wall. The metal blinds retracted into the
ceiling, revealing the jungle enclosure, but that wasn’t their
destination today; Regent turned a dial and a panel in the floor
slid back, along the fireplace. Seth peered down a narrow
staircase into darkness. “What’s this,” he said, “your Bat Cave?”
“Just get moving, cub,” Regent growled.
The staircase ended in a state-of-the-art workout studio-slasharmory. A white rubber mat covered the floor wall-to-wall, like
in a dojo; three of the walls were paneled in mirrors, while on the
fourth, hanging from iron pegs, were weapons. Crossbows. Ninja
throwing stars. Mesh nets threaded with silver. Romanesque
bronze-tipped spears. Seth pitied the hunter who broke in here
anticipating an easy collar.
He took down one of the curved samurai swords. The deadly
silver sickle hissed when he freed it from its sheath, executing a
backhanded slice as he admired himself in the mirror. He looked
seriously badass, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Werecat. “Man, I
could do some damage with this puppy,” he said. “When do I get
a sword?”
“When you convince me you won’t chop your own arm off.”
Regent plucked the sword out of Seth’s hands and returned it to
its sheath. “And its proper name is a katana.”
Seth rolled his eyes.
105
He was given a pair of white pajamas to change into – his
karate gi. Regent’s gi was black, and made him seem more
massive than he already was.
To begin, he positioned Seth in the center of the mat,
weaponless, and tied a strip of cloth around his eyes to serve as a
blindfold. “Is this necessary?” Seth complained, every instinct
crying out at being so incapacitated.
“My house, my rules,” Regent said. “You’re free to leave
anytime.” He circled Seth on the mat, the swish of his footsteps
in the dark causing Seth to tense. Regent growled at him to stand
still. “You fidget, cub. Constantly. Tap your fingers. Dance your
feet.”
“I’m hyperactive,” Seth said. “So sue me.”
“You need to stop wasting that energy. You have to focus it,
bring it to bear on a target. Warriors call it mudana no waza –
eliminating all unnecessary movement.”
Okay, so, standing still was his first lesson. Not as glamorous
as swordplay, but Seth gave it his best: let his arms hang loose in
their sockets, and concentrated on Regent’s words, shutting out
his movements.
“You have to learn control. Control of pain. Control of fear.
The other night, you nearly skinned at the sight of me. The magic
can’t control you. You have to control it.”
He would teach Seth control, Regent promised. Discipline of
body and mind, in both skins.
Seth had never been into martial arts. Never played Mortal
Kombat, never watched The Karate Kid. Ben had one of those
swords, a katana, but Seth had never known it was the weapon
Chimera had trained him to use. Blindfolded, focused on
standing still, he listened closely as Regent waxed philosophical
about balance, honor, courage, and discipline. Always,
discipline.
Physically, Seth was confident he could rise to whatever
challenges Regent presented. The discipline thing, though, that
worried him. Discipline had never been Seth’s strong suit.
“Werekin train for years in the Scholae Bestiarii,” Regent
said. “You don’t have years to prepare, so you’re going to have
to work hard. Harder than your soft cub hide has ever worked,
I’d wager.” He whipped the blindfold off, leaving Seth blinking
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in the sudden rush of light. “We’ll meet three times a week,
Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, and Saturdays. You’ll
practice on your own the other days, and keep up your running –
five miles a day, for now.”
Great. And Seth would sleep and eat and have a life when?
He had ball practice Mondays and Wednesdays, games Fridays,
and if he wanted to stop depending on Jack Steward’s handouts,
he needed to get a job.
But he didn’t complain. Regent was giving him what he
wanted. The means to fight back.
They started with the basics: punches, kicks, and blocks. Seth
wanted to jump straight into knuckle jabs and knife-hand slashes,
kick boxer jujitsu stuff, but Regent insisted on a methodical
approach. They didn’t even spar. They did floor exercises,
Regent demonstrating how he wanted Seth to freeze his limbs in
different stances, then showing him how to flow through them,
like a dance.
Normally Seth’s natural grace was a boon to him, but Regent
harangued him for being too fluid. “You’re like a wet noodle,”
he said, standing off to the side critiquing. “Spine straight.
Stomach in. Control your body, don’t just fling yourself around!
Now, again.”
Two words Seth would come to hate: Now, again. Back to
the starting line, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred
dollars, reset and repeat. As tedious as it was onerous. After two
hours, he was sweat-soaked and bone-weary.
Regent noticed. As Seth slipped back into his street clothes,
he pitched him a towel, marbled eyes narrow. “Have you been
running like I told you?”
Somehow Seth knew Regent would catch him if he lied. “I
was recovering,” he said, meekly.
“Tomorrow, cub,” Regent growled. “Five miles. Or don’t
bother coming back Thursday.”
He started up the stairs. Seth jogged after him. “But
tomorrow is Tuesday,” he said, jumping the last step. Regent was
at the security panel, already twisting the dial to close the floor
panel. “Didn’t you say we’d practice Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
“I’m giving you a day off,” Regent said.
“Ah, boss, is that concern I detect? For moi?”
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Regent grunted. “You’re no good to me dead. And don’t call
me ‘boss.’”
He made to close the metal blinds. Seth held up a hand,
casting an appealing glance at the jungle enclosure. “Would you
mind? I can’t skin in the house. There’s no privacy, Leigh just
barges into my room whenever she wants. And I can’t run
outside anymore, because of the hunters…”
Regent sighed, making sure Seth knew what a pain in the tail
he was. “Knock yourself out,” he said.
***
The big cat playground was, in a word, spectacular. In his
jaguar skin, Seth climbed trees, dove off branches, paddled in the
creek, which was stocked with small, colorful fish. Seth didn’t
eat them; he didn’t need to hunt to eat, and the fish were
beautiful, like live gemstones. They darted in and out between
his paws, recognizing, as Poe and Captain Hook did, that the
jaguar meant them no harm.
Over a week had passed since Seth had skinned – the longest
he had ever gone. Standing on a flat stone slab, shaking water
from his fur, he roared for the sheer pleasure of being alive.
When he at last picked his way up the branches and leapt
through the opening into the great room, tracking muddy paw
prints across the hardwood, Regent was at the bar, looking
lawerly in a sweater and slacks, files stacked around him. He
quickly closed the one he had been leafing through. “Have a nice
romp, cub?”
Seth fell over on his side, swishing his tail. In cat language,
this meant: I had fun! Now I’m tired and hungry, please take me
home! Regent chuckled. “Come on. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Reluctantly returned to his human skin, Seth trailed him to
the garage. He found himself peering into the dark stands of trees
around the house, shivering a little as he remembered that,
somewhere out there, Snowman’s partner could still be searching
for him.
The garage was a repository of lawn equipment, mothballed
for the winter. Stacked in one corner were a half-dozen
padlocked chests. “What’s in those?” Seth asked.
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“Personal effects.” Yanking the tarp off of something Seth
thought was another lawnmower, Regent gave him a look. “And
don’t get any ideas, cub. Remember, curiosity killed the cat.”
But satisfaction brought him back, Seth thought.
The tarp had kicked up a spray of dust. Seth coughed – and
blinked. Underneath it was a Yamaha FZ1. As motorcycles went,
this one was a beauty – sleek as a panther, all black and silver,
with ramped-up fuel injectors and custom-fit handlebars. “You
like her?” Regent asked. Seth practically whimpered. Yes he
liked. It was possible he loved. “Thought you might,” Regent
grinned.
He pitched him a set of keys. Seth’s jaw dropped. “Oh, no
way! You’re giving this to me?”
“Loaning, cub,” Regent stressed. “Just loaning. I’ve got
better things to do than carpool your tail all over the city.”
Loaning, giving – semantics. Seth ran his hand over the
lightweight aluminum frame, absolutely in love with his new
motorcycle. Just one problem. “I don’t have a driver’s license,”
he felt compelled to confess.
“Actually,” Regent said, “you do.”
From his wallet he produced a world-class fake I.D. naming
Seth Michael Sullivan a licensed driver in the state of Indiana.
“You have a BMV file and everything,” Regent said. “But if you
get caught speeding, I’ll have your hide. Got it?”
Seth nodded absently, frowning down at the square of shiny
plastic. Forged transcripts, falsified government records…exactly
what kind of lawyer was Regent? He thought again of the brand
on Regent’s palm, his story of winning his freedom in the Arena.
But if Regent was working for Chimera, why help Seth? Why
save him from Snowman when he had been as good as collared?
Wasn’t it just as likely that Regent, never married and childless,
had money to throw around? And money, Seth knew, could buy
just about anything. Let Regent blow his disposable income on
Seth if he wanted to.
He settled in at the handlebars. The engine purred. So did
Seth.
“My mother will flip,” he predicted.
Regent’s smile was not without satisfaction. “Yes,” he said.
“I expect she will.”
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***
It took Seth two hours to get home from Regent’s. He cruised
his new baby up and down the expressway, all through the
warren of downtown streets, even out to Haven Heights, a
collection of crumbling tenements centered by a rundown park,
bordered by a railroad track. Marshall was shooting hoops in his
driveway when Seth finally turned in. He stared at the bike as
Seth parked it beside the Stewards’ garage.
“Your parents will flip,” he said.
“I know.” Climbing off the bike, Seth scuffed his shoe on
the concrete. After that scene in Gym, he wasn’t sure where their
friendship stood.
All of a sudden Marshall smiled, popping out his dimple.
“It’s totally going to be worth it,” he said.
“I know,” Seth said again. He had to remind himself they
were talking about the bike.
Marshall passed him the ball. They scrimmaged for a while,
until eventually Seth’s stomach growled so loudly Marshall
heard it. “We have cold pizza in the fridge,” he offered.
“Lead the way,” said Seth.
The Townsends’ kitchen was as spacious and modern as the
Stewards’, but with walnut cabinets and granite countertops. A
set of Magnetic Poetry shared the fridge with basketball
schedules and takeout menus. Someone, probably Whitney, had
put together a line from Keruoac: Stare deep into the world
before you as if it were the void; all the atoms emitting light
inside wavehood. Marshall fished two sodas out of the fridge –
Coke for him, Mountain Dew for Seth – and they carried the
pizza, left-over deep-dish supreme from MoJo’s, up to his room.
“Where is everybody?” Seth asked.
“Monday is Mom’s night at the Lady’s Auxiliary,” Marshall
said. Seth nodded like he had a clue what that was. “Whitney is
over at your house, studying with Leigh.”
“What about your dad?”
“He never makes it home from the hospital before ten, if
we’re lucky.”
“He’s a surgeon right?” Seth said. Marshall nodded. “What
about your mom?”
“She paints a little,” Marshall said. “Mostly she’s just mom.”
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He opened the door to his room, and Seth stepped around
him. Marshall’s bedroom was the size of a studio apartment. The
walls were painted Harvard crimson (Dr. Townsend was an
alum) and papered in posters of the greats: Larry Bird, Michael
Jordan, Kobe Bryant. A glass shelf above the window displayed
trophies for basketball championships, merit badges for Boy
Scouts, ribbons for science fairs. A flat-screen TV was mounted
on the wall opposite a king-sized bed, above an entertainment
center boasting every gaming console known to man.
Other than some basketball gear spilling out of a duffel bag
inside the walk-in closet, the room was spotless. Seth, like all
cats a neat-freak, appreciated that.
They took seats on bean bag chairs, the pizza box on the floor
between them. Marshall ate two slices to Seth’s five.
Lightweight. “Coach asked me a lot of questions about you after
practice,” he said, prying the tab off his soda can.
“Oh yeah?” Seth kept his tone casual. “What’d you say?”
The tab snapped off; Marshall walked it across his knuckles.
Seth stared at his fingers, intrigued by the ripple of bone beneath
skin. “I told him I don’t really know you all that well,” Marshall
said, “so if he wanted your life story, he’d have to ask you.”
He raised his eyes to Seth’s. Kept them leveled there, laserpoint, as Seth sat his soda can on the floor and leaned forward,
elbows on his knees. “Something happened, in Philly,” he began.
“Look, Seth.” Marshall caught the pop tab in his palm,
folding his fingers tightly around it. “I’m not trying to get in your
business, okay? You don’t owe me any explanations.”
Don’t I? Seth thought. “Indiana, just – just let me get this out,
all right?” Marshall nodded, looking almost wary. Seth took a
breath, and started again. “In Philly, there was this lady who
looked after me. Naomi. She’d been with me – with us, I mean,
my dad and me – since I was a baby. I loved her. Christmas Eve,
something…something bad happened, and…she died.”
The more he talked, the tighter Seth’s throat felt. He paused,
biting his lip.
Marshall sat forward, gently resting a hand over his. “Seth,
I’m – Jesus, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
Nodding, Seth hurried on. “Anyway, after…I had to get
away. I just ran. I ended up in Cincinnati. I didn’t know what
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else to do, so I called my mom. I couldn’t go back to Philly, and
Fairfax was the only place I could think of to go. The only place
that seemed – right.”
The pad of Marshall’s thumb was stroking Seth’s knuckles,
raising gooseflesh on Seth’s arm. They both seemed to become
aware of this at the same time. Marshall pulled his hand away
and sat back, folding his arms across his chest so tightly his fists
dug into his ribs; Seth laced his fingers behind his head, aiming
for a chipper smile. “So that’s it,” he said. “The saga of how I
became such a complete and utter screwed-up mess right now.”
Not the whole truth. Not even in the ballpark of full
disclosure. But it was more than Seth had shared with anyone,
besides Regent, about his reasons for coming to Fairfax.
Why risk taking Marshall even this far into his confidence?
He was thinking of what Lydia had said. You want someone you
can be honest with. Being completely honest with Marshall was
out of the question. Complete honesty could have gotten them
both killed. As much as he could, though, Seth wanted to be
honest with Marshall. As much as he could, he wanted Marshall
to know him.
Marshall was quiet for a long time, staring out the window.
Seth’s newfound determination to practice stillness was stretched
to the limit before Marshall finally said, “Is that why you started
taking drugs?”
Seth decided he hated Regent for making him live that
particular lie. “I don’t know why I do half the crap I do, Indiana.
You want to armchair psychology me? I have abandonment
issues. Self-destructive tendencies. Sometimes I want to run so
far away no one will ever find me. Sometimes I want to crawl
out of my own skin.”
Marshall looked up at him. “You’re not the only one who
feels that way,” he said, softly.
There was a beat in which they simply stared at one another –
a beat in which Seth had the most insane urge to tell Marshall
everything, every one of his secrets. He had never been tempted
to do that before, with anyone.
He managed to grate out a laugh, breaking the tension.
“What’d you do, man, put truth serum in my soda?” he said.
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“I think you needed to say all that to somebody,” Marshall
said, simply.
He kicked back in his chair, wiping the intensity from his
expression like an eraser moving across a chalkboard. “You
really freaked me out in Gym today,” he said. “I thought you
were dead when you fainted.”
“Sorry,” Seth murmured. Secretly elated that Marshall had
been worried.
“You should know Coach randomly drug tests us.”
Maybe he couldn’t erase that lie, Seth decided, but he could
start over on a new page. “Indiana, I swear to you, I am not on
drugs.”
His vehemence seemed to take Marshall aback. He frowned.
“You mean now, or – ”
“Marshall?”
The boys started. Seth, rather sheepishly, realized he had
been too focused on Marshall to even hear the front door open.
Whitney Townsend’s sleek bob appeared in the doorway.
“Marshall, Leigh wants to know if – oh.” She pulled up short,
looking from her brother to Seth. Seth supposed there was a
weird vibe in the room, from all the sharing. “Sorry,” she said,
ducking back out. “I didn’t mean to interrupt…”
“You didn’t,” Marshall said, at the same time Seth said, “I
should get going anyway.”
Whitney bit her lip, like she was fighting a smile. Marshall,
coloring a little, looked at Seth. “Do you really have to go?”
Seth nodded. “I am still grounded, you know.”
They gathered up pizza crusts and soda cans, and Seth
followed Marshall downstairs. At the back door, Marshall stood
on the stoop, bare toes curled up against the cold. Seth loitered
on the top step, more reluctant to say good night than he should
have been.
“Are you riding your bike to school tomorrow?” Marshall
asked.
Seth shook his head. “That’s just for getting to Regent’s.”
“Well,” Marshall stepped back inside, “then I’ll see you in
the morning, Philadelphia.”
There was a spring in Seth’s step as he jumped the last stair.
On his way past the hoop, he scooped up the ball and popped off
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a three-pointer. The shot swished; Seth mimed the roar of a
crowd, then froze, the skin on the back of his neck tingling.
He spun around, his gaze sweeping down the drive to the
deserted street. No one was there, but Seth was sure he hadn’t
imagined the feeling…
His gaze was drawn up, to Marshall’s bedroom window. The
room was dark, but Seth could have sworn he saw the curtain
move. As though someone was standing behind it, watching him.
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Chapter Nine: Kindred Spirits
The dream began as it always did, with his dad shaking him
awake. In the bluish glow of the city lights filtering through the
plastic blinds, Thomas Sullivan’s vulpine features were gray with
care. “Seth Michael,” he said, a habit Naomi would pick up from
him. “We have to leave, now. They’ve found us.”
Seth dug a fist into his eye. At five years old, he had only the
vaguest notion who “they” were. Hunters. Bad guys.
Thomas carried him, Snoopy blanket and all, down a dingy
staircase, past their apartment building’s laundry room, into a
snow-packed alley. A reeking dumpster overflowed with days’
old garbage. Seth buried his face in his dad’s shirt.
Naomi came hurrying toward them from the end of the alley.
Her brindled hair was plaited into one long braid; Seth,
accustomed to her sensible pageboy, had forgotten she used to
wear it like that. “Thomas, they’re already here,” she said. “Go
back!”
Thomas shook his head. “Chimera knows I’m here. You’ll
have to hide him.”
“Thomas, no.” Naomi held out her hands, imploring. “This
can’t be the way. I can still fix this. Let me call – ”
“No.” Thomas’ voice was firm. “I know what you’re going
to say, and the answer is no. We can’t risk it. It’s done. You have
to take him to Ben. Promise me, Naomi. Promise me you’ll keep
him safe. I can’t lose him, too…”
Naomi nodded, the movement spilling tears.
Thomas set Seth down behind the dumpster. Seth was starting
to get scared. This had seemed like a game at first, hide-and-seek
in the dark, but now, Naomi was crying. Thomas cupped his face
in his hands. “Seth, listen to me. I need you to be brave now, all
right? The hunters are here, and they’re going to take me away.
If they see you, they’ll take you too, and we can’t let that happen.
You’re far too important.”
All Seth heard was ‘going to take me away.’ “Daddy, I want
to go with you!” he cried.
“I know you do. But you can’t.” Thomas hugged him close,
then handed him off to Naomi. Seth hid his face in her neck,
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refusing to look at Thomas. He didn’t want his dad to go without
him. It wasn’t fair. “I love you, Seth Michael,” Thomas said.
“Now, stay here, both of you, and don’t make a sound.”
Thomas Sullivan was a tall man. The two figures filling the
alleyway’s entrance, backlit by street lights, were taller. One
held something round and shiny – a collar, though Seth didn’t
know it at the time. A ripple moved under Thomas’ skin. The next
second, a small arctic fox, his white fur tinged with blue, was
streaking past the hunters, leading them away from where Seth
crouched with Naomi, helpless, in the shadows…
The dream shifted.
Seth was standing beneath the bowl-shaped tree in the patch
of jungle he had seen once before, in his fever-dream. The same
black jaguar observed him from the branches.
On instinct, Seth tried to skin. Found, to his horror, he
couldn’t.
The black jaguar leapt to the fern-covered ground. Instantly,
he skinned.
At first, it was like looking in a mirror. The werekin boy had
Seth’s big, round, golden eyes, minutely flecked with blue; his
arched cheekbones, sloping down to a wedge-shaped chin; his
lazy, feline smile. He lacked Seth’s tattoos, though, and his hair –
neater than Seth’s, clipped military-short – was its natural
golden blonde, streaked with butterscotch and caramel. The boys
were the same height, the same narrow build, but clearly this kid
spent more time at the weight bench than Seth did. Muscles
bunched in hard knots under his black T-shirt and camo pants.
His right palm was branded. Four numbers and a Greek
letter: 4331-ζ. Gen-7.
Was Seth looking at himself, if Thomas hadn’t succeeded in
hiding him from the hunters all those years ago? Was this what
Seth would have become in the Scholae Bestiarii – this coldly
watchful version of himself? “Who are you?” Seth hissed.
The boy slid a bone-handled dagger from his belt. The blade
was etched with archaic glyphs that echoed in Seth’s mind. He
held up his hands. “I don’t want to fight you,” he said.
Seth’s doppelganger laughed. “No,” he said, “you really
don’t.” Then his smirk vanished, and he flipped the dagger
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around, extending it, hilt-first, to Seth. “But you may have to
someday, so take this.”
***
Seth’s Hello Kitty alarm clock pulled him from the dream.
Roundly cursing Regent and his Mr. Miyagi discipline crap, he
kicked off the covers, suffering a reproachful meow from Poe,
nested on his window ledge, when he yanked his Gym uniform
out from under her.
A light glazing of ice coated the sidewalks of Castle Estates.
The houses Seth jogged past were just waking up, lights burning
in kitchens, moms packing lunches while dads loaded racquetball
gear in the backs of SUVs. The sun was a pink smear on the
horizon, stars twinkling in the graying light. The rhythm of
Seth’s footfalls was unexpectedly peaceful.
He would still rather have been in bed.
Running five miles would have been nothing for Seth in his
jaguar skin. But just as he couldn’t bite through an alligator’s
skull in his human skin, as a boy he could never run as far or as a
fast as he could as a jaguar. Which was why he had never
bothered trying, before now.
Whiling away the miles, he sorted through his dream. For
months after Thomas’ capture, Seth had revisited the horror in
nightmares that had reduced him to terrified sobs. Naomi had
been there each time, rocking him, singing him back to sleep,
until eventually the dreams had faded, replaced by the aching
everyday misery of missing his dad.
Naomi’s murder had torn open those old wounds. Seth
supposed it was only natural for the nightmare to return to him
now. Still, the clarity of the memory amazed him. In the
intervening decade he had completely forgotten his dad
mentioning Ben. How would Thomas Sullivan have known Ben
Schofield? Ben was just another werekin in the Philly
Underground, a bartender at a seedy South Philly bar, a haunt of
Resistance fighters recruiting for their cause. For that very
reason, Naomi had forbidden Seth to ever set foot inside the
place.
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Go back, she had warned Thomas. Just as the voice had
warned Seth to “go back,” not to run in the woods, the night
Snowman had nearly collared him.
And then there was the black jaguar. His doppelganger. He
couldn’t have been Seth; as a jaguar, Seth’s fur was tawny with
black rosette-shaped spots. Not even Chimera could change a
werekin’s skin. Nothing changed a werekin’s skin. They were
born with it, their mystical connection to the Totems – magical
DNA.
If he wasn’t seeing himself through a glass darkly, then who
was the jaguar boy, and why did he look so much like Seth?
Seth couldn’t shake the feeling that this dream had something
to do with the voice telling him to save “her.” It all seemed
linked somehow, like those connect-the-dots puzzles he had
loved as kid, when you drew the last line and saw the picture that
had been there all along, waiting for you to make sense of it.
Spurred by these thoughts, Seth had run faster than he would
have believed possible, clocking six-minute miles easy. He
walked the last quarter-mile, pleased that he didn’t feel faint.
Marshall was unlacing his sneakers on the Townsends’ back
step as Seth trotted up the Stewards’ drive. Sweaty hair hanging
in his eyes, a damp circle staining his shirt between his shoulder
blades – he had been for a run, too. Seth waved. Marshall waved
back.
Though his bed beckoned with the promise of another twenty
minutes’ sleep, Seth, exercising superb discipline, practiced his
karate stances before indulging in a searing hot shower. He
toweled off quickly and pulled on jeans and a Flogging Molly Tshirt, swiping a comb through his damp hair.
Then he locked his bedroom door and dialed Ben’s number.
This was fudging on his grounding from phone privileges, but his
dream had given Seth an overpowering urge to talk to Ben, to ask
how he had known Thomas.
It rang a dozen times before Seth hung up.
***
Lydia was at the stove when Seth came downstairs. As
predicted, she had freaked about the motorcycle. She still seemed
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to be fuming as she spatulaed pancakes onto Seth’s plate. He
hopped up on the counter, eating with his fingers, too ravenous to
waste time on a fork.
“Werner can’t be serious.” Lydia was seething. “A
seventeen-year-old with a motorcycle? He didn’t even give you a
helmet!” Because Seth would absolutely not have worn one, he
didn’t say. “No. It’s out of the question.”
“What’s out of the question?” Jack breezed into the kitchen,
briefcase in hand. “Seth,” he said, “the counter is not for sitting.”
Seth jumped down.
“That motorcycle,” Lydia said. She was scrubbing so
viciously at the skillet she sloshed soapsuds down the front of her
yoga pants. (So far as Seth could tell, all the moms in Castle
Estates kept very tight schedules that revolved around
maintaining their figures and shopping for new clothes.) “I’m
calling Werner right now and telling him to take it back.”
Oh no. That bike was Seth’s baby. “Mrs. Steward, it’s really
out of Mr. Regent’s way to pick me up from school and drive me
home after my lessons,” he said. “I promise to be careful. I won’t
even drive the bike to school. I can ride with Marshall.” Huge
sacrifice, that.
As he had last night, Jack sided with Seth. “It’s up to you,
babe, but I say if Seth can pay to fill the tank, let him borrow the
motorcycle,” he said. No doubt hoping Seth would wrap the
Yamaha around a tree and be permanently removed from his life.
“I’ll be home late tonight,” he added, like that was unusual. Jack
lived at his office. “I’ve got to go by the Club, finish up details
for the campaign fundraiser next week.”
He kissed Lydia on the cheek. As the back door closed
behind him, Seth turned to his mother, unleashing his big, round
eyes on her. “Please, Mrs. Steward?”
Lydia sighed. “Oh, all right. You can borrow the bike. But
just for your karate lessons,” she said, sternly, when Seth
pumped his fist in the air.
“And for work,” he said. If he got the job. He planned to
drop by Re-Spin for his interview after school.
“And for work,” Lydia agreed. Drying her hands on a
dishtowel, she came over and dropped a light kiss on Seth’s
temple. Seth felt a smile stretch across his face, even as he
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wondered, not for the first time, why it was his mother so rarely
touched him.
***
After Lydia left, Seth carried a bag of Oreos into the living
room, curling up on the couch to review the chapter on vertebrate
anatomy for Bio. Bryce had warned him Dr. Gideon – who hated
all ballplayers, apparently, having been the weasel-faced kid who
got depantsed by jocks in junior high – was fond of pop quizzes.
After their tiff in study hall, Seth refused to give Gideon the
satisfaction of failing him.
The chapter had a full-color anatomical chart of the human
body, a torso view with the organs drawn in and labeled. Shame
Gideon was his teacher. Bio could have been interesting.
Leigh didn’t come down until almost seven-thirty, as usual
dolled up like prom night in a pencil skirt and tight pink sweater.
She flopped down on the couch and stole an Oreo from Seth’s
bag. “What are you reading?”
Seth held up the textbook. Leigh wrinkled her nose. “Gross!
How can you eat while you look at that?”
Seth shrugged. He could pretty much eat regardless. “Started
to think you were playing hooky,” he said.
“I was up late cramming for World History. I hate that class.
Who cares who won the Trojan War? It was, like, six millions
years ago.” Leigh smiled as she noticed the jaguar charm peeking
out from under his collar. Seth never took the necklace off, even
to sleep. “Are you feeling okay? Marshall said you fainted in
Gym.”
Marshall, Seth thought, needed a refresher on the bro code:
What happens at ball practice stays at ball practice. “Low blood
sugar,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Well, good,” Leigh said. “Because we’ve got a big game
this week, and I hear you’re a hotshot ballplayer now.”
Seth smirked. “Hotshot, huh?”
“So Whitney says. You should hear her talk about you.” And
Leigh trilled, in an exaggerated falsetto that sounded nothing like
Whitney: “Oh my God, Seth is so gorgeous! He’s so funny, he
has the prettiest eyes, and oooh, have you seen his body?”
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Seth shoved her over sideways. “Shut up.”
Leigh watched him stow his textbook in his backpack. “So?”
she said.
“So, what?”
“So, do you like Whitney?”
Why did Seth have a feeling this conversation would later be
analyzed, in excruciating detail, by Leigh and Whitney? “I like
her,” he said, carefully. “I’m just not interested in a girlfriend.”
He tried not to emphasize the girlfriend overly much. The
thing with Marshall could have been a fluke. Seth had only
kissed the one girl, Andrea from Arizona or wherever. Wasn’t
enough to draw a definite conclusion, was it? Maybe there was
some other girl out there who could make his pulse flutter and
his stomach tighten and his knees weak, like Marshall did…
Yeah, he was in denial.
“I told her you were a player.” Leigh scowled at Seth. “Just
promise me you won’t date any skank-whore cheerleaders.”
“Deal,” said Seth. “As long as you promise not to date Cam
Foss, ever.”
Leigh tipped her head to the side. “Like, ever-ever? What if
killer robots from the future blow up the world, and Cam and I
are the only two left to carry on the species? Can I date him
then?”
“Not even then,” Seth said. They shook on it.
***
Seth claimed shotgun again on the drive to school. Marshall
turned the music down – Vampire Weekend today – so the girls
could review for their exam. “I didn’t know you were a runner,
Philadelphia,” he said.
“Indiana, I could write a book on all the things you don’t
know about me,” Seth said. Whitney giggled. Seth grinned at her
in the rearview mirror – and immediately regretted it. He didn’t
want to hurt Whitney by encouraging her crush.
Obliquely, he explained about Regent’s running regimen.
“You guys should run together,” Whitney piped up. “Dad and
Marshall used to run together every morning, before he got so
busy at the hospital.”
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“I don’t know, Whitney,” Seth said. “That might be a bad
idea.”
Marshall glanced sharply at him. “Why’s that?”
“Because I’m not sure you could keep up,” Seth said, and
laughed as he dodged Marshall’s half-hearted punch.
Seth’s first class of the day was Bio. The way the morning
light turned the tops of the tall black tables into sparkling lakes,
glinting off the stainless steel shelves bracketed to the whitewashed walls, gave the room a Gothic vibe, like Frankenstein’s
laboratory. Seth and Bryce arrived after the first bell, slowed
down by Bryce’s crutches; Gideon wasn’t in the room yet,
missing a prime opportunity to make a crack about Seth’s
punctuality.
Seth’s lab partner was Yena Lee, a tiny Asian girl with red
streaks dyed into her jet-black hair. Bryce’s partner was Dre
Alfaro. Seth said hi to him as he sat down at their four-person
table; Dre swiped his bangs out of his eyes with a nod, his beaky
nose so close to his MacBook his breath fogged the screen. Seth
stuck on his pair of safety goggles, Yena stuck on hers, and they
made bug-eyes at one another. Seth decided she would be a cool
lab partner.
Basketball was the topic on Bryce’s mind, naturally.
“Whipping Sacred Heart this week will be a cinch,” he predicted
confidently. Sacred Heart was Fairfax’s Catholic high school.
“Then it’s on to sectionals. Before you came, I’d have said we
didn’t stand a chance against Connor Burke. I don’t care what
Cam says, he is seriously good. Now?” Bryce curved his wrist,
miming a perfect shot at an invisible hoop. “Slam dunk, baby.”
“You guys were a good team before me,” Seth protested. He
wasn’t sure how he felt to have his teammates counting on him.
Seth had never had friends to let down before.
“Sure we were,” Bryce agreed. “We went to sectionals last
year. Got our butts handed to us by Sacred Heart, but we went.”
Seth laughed. “Coach says Marshall could go pro if he wanted.
And Topher and Gabe are good, too.”
“What about Cam?” Seth picked up the pair of tweezers on
the metal tray in the center of their table, amusing himself by
using them to pluck lint off his shirt.
“Yeah, Cam is good, too.”
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Seth noted a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “You don’t like
Cam?”
“He just isn’t a team player, you know?” Bryce watched
Seth dissect the piece of lint with the scalpel off his tray. “He
cost us two games this season trying to make three-pointers from
way outside the key, even though Marshall was wide open. He’s
a ball hog.”
Seth could have supplied another name for Cam. “Have he
and Marshall always been friends?” he asked. The scene at
MoJo’s, Marshall blowing up at him for calling Cam on acting
like a jerk, still gnawed at him. The more he got to know
Marshall, the less Seth understood his dynamic with Cam. Cam
was a bully. Marshall wasn’t.
“I think they used to be,” Bryce said. “Real friends, I mean.
Dr. Townsend and Dr. Foss are golfing buddies. They’ve known
each other forever. But this year, things are…different. Cam acts
all friendly to Marshall’s face, but behind his back, the stuff he
says – it’s ugly.”
“Like what kind of stuff?”
“Like that Coach only chose Marshall as team captain
because his dad is on the school board.” Seth snorted. Anyone
with half a brain could have seen Marshall deserved to be
captain. “Don’t worry,” Bryce was quick to say. “Nobody listens
to him. You couldn’t find anyone at Fairfax High who doesn’t
like Marshall. He’s nice to everybody.”
“Plus he’s hot,” Yena put in. Seth nodded. There was that.
About that time the classroom door opened and Dr. Gideon
appeared, wheeling a metal cart laden with plastic bags. A
sickening chemical smell, like rotted fruit blended into an
ammonia smoothie, filled the room. Kids groaned. The hair on
Seth’s arms stood straight up.
“Gloves on, people,” Gideon commanded, in his nasally
bark. “Safety glasses, too. Pronto, if you please.”
“Oh, crap.” Bryce had whitened to the lips. “I forgot we
were starting this today.”
“What?” Seth demanded. “What are we starting?”
“Dissection,” Yena said, smiling sympathetically at Bryce,
who was turning a moldy shade of green.
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Looking around, Seth saw what he had missed before: the
metal trays on every table, holding scalpels, tweezers, scissors
and latex gloves. Dissection kits.
Gideon wheeled his cart between the tables, thumping plastic
bags down on them. Each one landed with a meaty slap. The
chemical reek was now strong enough to make Seth’s eyes water.
He gripped the table edge, fingernails digging half-moons into
the smooth top as his claws slid out. A sense of wrongness was
coursing through him. “What are we dissecting?” he asked.
“Cats,” Yena said.
Cats.
“Once you have your specimen,” Gideon was saying, “open
the bag – carefully, people, don’t spill formaldehyde everywhere
– and place your specimen on your dissection tray. Do not start
cutting. I will demonstrate how to make the incision.”
The cart rattled up to their table. Bryce shut his eyes. Dre’s
fluttering hands stilled on his keyboard. Gideon slapped a plastic
bag down in front of them, another in front of Seth and Yena.
Inside the shrink-wrap, a small, furry body was coated in
syrupy liquid. Seth released a long breath through his mouth.
Seth was a realist. He knew human life had a different value
than animal life. If his house was on fire and he had to choose
between saving his family and saving his pets, he would have
saved Lydia and Leigh – then burned up saving Poe and Captain
Hook. Werekin knew how it felt to be inside an animal’s skin.
They knew that animals feared, loved, hated, hoped, and
yearned. The creature inside this bag had valued her life as much
as Seth valued his. Now Gideon wanted him to slice her up?
Plastic ripped. Yena, looking a little green herself, held their
bag out to Seth. “Seth, can you…?”
Reaching a gloved hand inside, Seth grasped their cat by the
scruff of her neck, lifted her out, and placed her gently on the
metal tray, stroking down her spine to her limp tail. Embalming
fluid had stained her once-yellow fur the color of molding putty.
Small white teeth and a small gray tongue were visible behind
her retracted lips, as though she had died in a grimace of pain.
As he made to dump the bag in the trashcan – carefully, as
Gideon had said, trying not to slop chemicals on his jeans – Seth
noticed a symbol stamped inside the plastic, like a company
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logo. A monster with the body of a lion, a tail that ended in a
scorpion stinger, and three serpentine heads. A chimera.
A shiver ran down Seth’s back. He looked up; Dre quickly
looked down, hunching over so the tips of his shoulder blades
pressed against his T-shirt like wing bones. His dark skin was
ashy. Seth couldn’t be sure it was only the formaldehyde stench,
even as Bryce moaned, “Jesus Christ, the smell.”
“Ask to be excused,” Yena said.
“Can’t.” Bryce’s voice was muffled by the hand clamped
over his nose. “Gideon never excuses anybody from dissection.
If you ask, he gives you detention.”
“Listen up, people!” At the front of the room, Gideon
clapped his gloved hands. “Position your specimen on its back
and secure one paw to your dissection tray, like so.”
He demonstrated with his own cat, tying a blue string around
the right front paw and attaching it to a hook at the top of the
tray. All Seth could see were the werekin on Regent’s walls –
creatures reared in captivity, lives ended for no reason. They
weren’t curing cancer here. They were an eleventh-grade biology
class.
He raised his hand.
“Now, once you have the specimen in place, take your
scalpel and – yes, Mr. Sullivan?” Gideon said, impatiently. “You
have a question?”
The legs on Seth’s stool squawked as he stood up. “They
aren’t specimens,” he said. “They’re cats.”
Gideon glared at him, pupils hugely magnified by his thick
glasses. “They are vertebrate mammals, Mr. Sullivan. For the
purposes of this classroom, that is all that matters.”
“How did they die?”
“How did what die?”
“The cats.” Seth gestured at the dozen corpses around the
room. “How did they die? Lethal injection? Old age? How?”
“That is not the point,” Gideon bit out.
A few students shifted uneasily, eyeing the cats like they
were seeing their beloved household pets strapped down for
evisceration. Yena raised her hand, and Gideon’s scowl relaxed.
“Yes, Miss Lee? You have a relevant question?”
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“I’ve read that biological supply companies use gas
chambers to euthanize the cats.”
“Ah.” Gideon beamed. “There you have it, Mr. Sullivan. The
cats are humanely euthanized.”
“Being gassed is humane?” somebody whispered.
But Yena wasn’t finished. “I’ve also read that some
companies only claim that to be their practice, though. Really
they inject the cats with embalming fluid while they’re still
alive.”
“That’s sick,” a girl named Kelsey gasped.
“I am going to puke,” Bryce moaned. Dre hastily scooted his
stool to the side.
“And,” Yena went on, really on a roll now, “I’ve even read
that some companies claim to take animals from shelters that
were supposed to be put down anyway, but really, they pick up
strays off the streets.”
Some of the boys shoved back from their tables, wearing
hello no, we won’t go expressions. “Miss Lee,” Gideon snapped,
“I will thank you not to repeat ridiculous urban legends in my
classroom. Now.” He placed his palms on his desk, glowering at
the class, with special attention reserved for Seth. “Animal
dissection is an approved curriculum for eleventh-grade Biology.
Problems with the curriculum can be presented to the school
board. However, as this will be on your final exam, in the
meantime, I suggest you all get started.”
“I’d like to be excused,” Seth said.
“Seth, no!” Bryce was shaking his head frantically back and
forth. “Detention! Coach will bench you!”
Gideon smiled like he had just been told Christmas was
coming twice this year. “Have a soft spot for cats, do you, Mr.
Sullivan? Perhaps you think this specimen might be a relative of
yours?”
He tapped the side of his face, indicating Seth’s tattoos.
“They’re all my kindred,” Seth shot back, “if by that you mean
cats are living creatures deserving of compassion and respect.”
If looks could have killed, Seth would have joined his cat on
her dissection tray. “How touching,” Gideon sneered. “Now, take
your seat. All right, people. Start your incisions.”
No one moved.
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Seth had not meant to instigate a coup, but clearly he had the
popular support in the room. Every eye was fastened on him,
waiting to see how far he was willing to take this little rebellion.
Seth thought of his teammates. Marshall had gone out on a limb
to bring him into his pack; if Seth got benched, Cam would use it
as ammunition against him. Not to mention this was exactly what
Regent had ordered him not to do – make trouble, draw attention.
But Seth could not dissect this cat. He wouldn’t.
“I’d still like to be excused,” he said.
Dre Alfaro stood up as well. “So would I.”
His voice was very soft, like a chirp. Bryce and Yena gawked
at him like they had never heard him speak before. Their teachers
never seemed to call on him, Seth had noticed.
Gideon straightened up, beckoning them from his desk. One
by one, Seth peeled off his gloves, grabbed his backpack, and
strode to the front of the room, waiting silently beside Dre while
Gideon wrote out a hall pass. “Take this to the principal’s
office,” he commanded.
Seth took it, and turned to go. “Not so fast,” Gideon said.
Yeah. Seth had known it couldn’t be that easy.
He turned back. Gideon was holding up something else – a
detention slip. Bryce groaned. “From what I understand, Coach
Evans benches player who receive detention. Too bad. Everyone
had such high hopes for defeating Sacred Heart this weekend.”
Gideon slapped one detention slip into Seth’s palm, the other into
Dre’s, smiling with acid glee. Deep breaths, Seth told himself;
deep breaths. “See you in study hall, Mr. Sullivan.”
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Chapter Ten: Full Disclosure
No one, it seemed, ever stood up to Dr. Gideon. By lunch,
Seth’s rebellion in Bio was on its way to becoming Fairfax High
legend.
Regent was going to pulverize him.
At the ballplayers’ table, Bryce, still mossy green and
avoiding solid foods, dramatized the scene, making out like Seth
was Henry V rallying the British troops at Agincourt. “And then
Gideon was all, ‘Take your seat, Mr. Sullivan,’ and Seth goes, ‘I
still want to be excused.’ I’m telling you guys, it was epic.”
Topher sighed wistfully. YYeah, and then he epically got
detention,” Cam sneered. “Way to go, kitty-cat. Lot of good
you’ll do us from the bench.”
Seth stopped spinning the cap off his Mountain Dew bottle
and looked across the table at Marshall, who had yet to chime in.
Marshall had promised his father a state title. Seth knew he
represented the Knights’ best chance of realizing that dream.
“I’m sorry, Indiana,” he said.
Marshall pushed his untouched tray aside. “What did Ms.
McLain say?”
“She said Dr. Gideon had every right to put me in detention,
but if I agreed to make up the lab, she would talk to Coach about
letting me play.”
“And?” Bryce said, eagerly.
Seth kept his eyes on Marshall’s. “And I said no thanks.”
There was a general groan from the varsity team. Seth looked
down at the table, feeling doubly like a heel. But, “It’s cool,”
Marshall said, as their alpha effectively closing the issue. “We’ll
just have to beat Sacred Heart on our own. As long we have you
for the playoffs, we’ll be fine.”
“The whole thing is completely unfair,” burst out Leigh. She
was perched on the edge of her chair; Seth was amazed she had
contained her righteous indignation this long. “How can they
punish you for standing on your principles? Dissection is cruel
and sadistic. Not to mention unnecessary. You can get the same
educational benefits from a computerized 3-D model of
vertebrate anatomy. I’m talking to Daddy,” she declared. “We’ll
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petition the school board to ban animal dissection at Fairfax
High.”
Seth was alarmed. Dr. Gideon would be over-the-top furious
if Leigh took her crusade to the school board. “Uh, sis, don’t you
think that’s going a bit overboard?” he said.
“Seth, do you know what they do to those poor animals? The
fetal pigs are drowned, and the frogs – ”
“Leigh,” Bryce said, “please, please stop.”
“Well.” Leigh sniffed. “Anyway, it’s about time Fairfax
High got out of the Dark Ages.”
Everyone started talking at once then, congratulating Seth on
getting under Gideon’s ice-cold skin. At the far end of the table,
Cam leaned over to Shanti, smirking in Seth’s direction. Seth
distinctly heard the word “pussy.”
Marshall heard it, too. He caught Seth’s eye, one corner of
his mouth lifting in an apologetic grin. Seth shrugged. Cam’s
snide comments didn’t faze him – as long as they were directed
at him. What he couldn’t understand was why Marshall wanted
to hang out with Cam to begin with. Couldn’t he see they weren’t
really friends?
***
Coach Evans did not share Marshall’s rosy outlook on the
Knights’ chances for winning against Sacred Heart without his
newest point guard. “You want to be a conscientious objector,
Sullivan?” he shouted, reaming Seth out on the sidelines in Gym
while the rest of the class shuffled their feet at half-court. “I’ll
give you something to object to. Laps, Goldilocks. Now!”
So Seth ran laps. The whole fifty minutes. Cam blew him
kisses as he ran up and down the court, sinking three-pointers. It
wasn’t very team-spirited of Seth to wish he would break his
ankle.
On the ride home, sweaty and exhausted, Seth glared out the
window, trying to tune out Leigh’s diatribe on the evils of animal
testing. As soon as Marshall killed the Audi’s engine, Seth
hopped out, climbed onto his motorcycle, and gunned the
Yamaha out of the drive.
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There was nothing quite like a brand-new motorcycle and a
stretch of open road, even if the open road happened to be an
expressway with a sixty-mile-per-hour speed limit, to put a smile
back on your face. By the time Seth reached the mall, he had
remembered he didn’t actually care about basketball, or high
school.
Seth didn’t know if Re-Spin sold weed, as Marshall claimed,
but he was pretty sure the blonde twenty-something clerk
manning the cash register smoked it. “I’m looking for Emery
Little,” Seth said, stepping up to the counter.
The clerk – Chaz, his nametag read – scratched his cornrows.
“Boss is in the back, man.” He pronounced it mon, Jamaica-style.
Party on, dude.
“The back” turned out to be a windowless space combining a
stockroom, employee lounge, and office. Emery Little was seated
at a cluttered desk, conferring over invoices with a tiny woman
whose waist-length, mousy brown hair was trapped in a thick
braid. He did one of those funny hops when Seth knocked. “Seth!
Wh-what are you doing here?”
Seth frowned. Had he misunderstood about the interview?
“Uh, you said to come by? About the job?”
“Right!” Emery laughed, shrilly. “I just didn’t realize you
were coming by today, that’s all.”
He darted a glance at his companion, the only woman over
the age of thirty Seth had ever seen wearing a Green Day T-shirt
and ripped jeans. She was staring at him with her mouth ajar and
her small pink nose wrinkled, as though on the verge of a
scream. What was with these people? Were they all on drugs? “I
can come back, if it’s a bad time,” Seth offered.
“No, no.” The woman’s voice was extremely high-pitched,
practically a squeak. “I’m Melody Little. Emery’s mother.
Please, have a seat.”
She motioned one tiny hand at the chair Emery had just
vacated. Seth sank slowly into it, while Emery went to retrieve
his application. When he came back, Melody scanned it. “You’re
from Philadelphia?” she asked. Seth nodded. Emery was
chewing on the end of his ponytail, hopping from one foot to the
other behind his mother. “And your father was – Thomas
Sullivan?”
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“Uh, yeah. He is.” Seth emphasized the present tense,
finding it odd that Melody had used the past. Everyone in Fairfax
was supposed to believe Thomas Sullivan was alive and well.
The interview was brief. Seth worried he wasn’t making a
good impression; he didn’t have a work history that didn’t
involve confessing to felonies, plus basketball and training
limited his availability. But, after ten minutes, Melody
announced that he was hired. Seth was ecstatic. So it was a
crappy minimum wage mall job. Everybody had to start
somewhere, right?
“Can you be here tomorrow?” Emery asked, consulting the
schedule.
“Sure,” Seth said. “I have basketball practice, but I can be
here by five. Is it okay if I bring a snack?”
“Yes!” the Littles said, in unison. Melody trilled a laugh.
“Wouldn’t want you to get hungry,” she said.
Something was definitely off here. Emery and Melody’s
behavior – it was how animals acted around a predator. And
there were the twitchy ears and funny hops and squeaky
voices…Seth stared at them. Could they be werekin? But why
wouldn’t he have recognized them as his kin? Blood called to
blood, just like Ben had always said…
Seth was still puzzling on that question as he left the mall. He
considered driving out to Regent’s, to ask his opinion, but
nagging doubts about the weretiger stopped him. Regent might
have saved him from hunters, he might have been training Seth
to fight, but Seth still didn’t trust him. It was the trophies on his
walls, he thought. Seth couldn’t bring himself to dissect a dead
cat. Regent chose to live surrounded by the werekin he had killed
– werekin who had been enslaved by Chimera, same as he had
been.
More and more Fairfax was starting to feel like a warzone
Seth had been unwittingly dropped into. Until he figured out who
his enemies were, he was better off keeping his suspicions to
himself.
Street lights were winking on as Seth crossed the parking lot.
Parked beside his Yamaha was a bullet-gray Toyota Tundra with
a gun rack in the rear window. Seth sized up the truck’s anti-theft
system as he approached, mentally calculating what the
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Colemans would have paid for those woofers and tweeters. The
sound system was jacked.
Absorbed in scoping the truck, he almost missed the girl
standing by his bike. Razor-cut, maple-brown hair. Ice-chip blue
eyes. Femme fatale body. His admirer.
With the critical eye of a connoisseur, the girl was trailing
her fingers over the Yamaha’s silver chassis. She wore a white
parka with a fur-trimmed hood, skintight jeans, and spike-heeled
boots. Seth cleared his throat.
The girl glanced up, her look of surprise not quite genuine.
She had heard him coming. Seth was impressed. Usually he
could sneak up on anybody.
“Is this your bike?” she asked.
Her voice was soft and throaty, intriguing to Seth’s welltuned ears. “It’s on loan,” he said. “From a friend.”
“Must be some friend. If this sweetheart was mine, I’d never
let her out of my sight.”
Seth slouched against the Toyota’s fender. The girl ran her
eyes up and down the length of him, and Seth understood that he
was now being checked out along with his bike. “She’s a twentyvalve, right?” Seth nodded. “How’s the throttle response?”
“She’s got some punch,” Seth said.
“Ever race her?”
“Nope. Like I said, she’s on loan.”
An elderly couple hurried past, frowning – at Seth, the bike,
or the girl, it was hard to say. The girl was definitely edgy, Seth
looked like a street punk, and most adults were suspicious of
teenagers with motorcycles. Seth and his admirer shared a
mutual outcast grin.
“I’m Cleo,” she said.
“Seth,” said Seth.
“Seth.” Cleo repeated the name like it pleased her. “Well,
Seth,” she swung onto the bike, patting the seat in front of her.
“Wanna take me for a spin?”
Seth waited for lightning to strike, choirs of angels to sing, or
something, some teenage boy response to a smoking-hot girl
essentially inviting him to have sex, on his motorcycle. Nothing.
No fluttering pulse, no weak knees. He sighed. So much for the
fluke theory.
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“Maybe some other time,” he said. “I’m grounded.”
“Grounded, but at the mall?” Cleo dished up a sultry smile
that was entirely wasted on Seth. “Did you get time off for good
behavior or something?”
“Hardly,” Seth said. “I’m here for work.”
“Where do you work?”
Seth hesitated. A lifetime of anonymity told him to lie, but he
wasn’t Underground anymore. He had a driver’s license,
transcripts, a public record, even if it was fake. What did it
matter if this girl knew where he worked? “Re-Spin,” he said.
Cleo climbed off the bike, popped the Toyota’s tailgate
down, and sat, motioning Seth to join her. He hadn’t realized the
truck was hers. “I’ll have to visit you sometime,” she said. “Or
here. I’ve got a better idea.” She produced a pen from her coat
pocket and handed it to him, turning her hand over, palm up. Her
fingers were callused. Unusual for a suburban hottie. “Write
down your number. I’ll call you sometime, when you’re not
grounded.”
Again, Seth hesitated. “I don’t have a cell phone.”
“So give me your home number,” Cleo said. “You live
around here, don’t you?”
“Seth! Hey, Seth!”
Cleo and Seth both turned. Emery Little was hurrying toward
them, holding Seth’s camouflage jacket. “You forgot your – ”
Seeing Cleo, he seemed to choke on his words. Cleo raised
an eyebrow at Seth. “Friend of yours?” she said.
“Cleo, Emery. Emery, Cleo.” Seth held out his hand for his
jacket. “You didn’t have to chase me down, Em. We’ll see each
other at school tomorrow.”
“Right. Sure.” Emery did not relinquish the jacket. As a
matter of fact, he clutched it to his chest, like a shield. “You see,
the thing is, you, uh, you forgot to sign something. One of the,
uh, tax forms.”
“Can’t I sign it tomorrow?” Seth said.
“No.” Emery was adamant. “We have to process everything
at the same time or your paycheck gets screwed up. Sorry.”
“Okaaaay.” Seth climbed off the tailgate, handing Cleo back
her pen. “See you around, Cleo.”
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Cleo nodded, but her ice-chip eyes were fixed on Emery,
who had paled milky-white. “Count on it, sweetheart,” she said.
***
The next morning, Seth’s Hello Kitty alarm clock went off at
five-thirty on the dot. He groaned, called Regent a name that
made Captain Hook whine, and crawled out of bed.
Marshall met him in the driveway, bundled up in a Harvard
sweatshirt and light-weight knit gloves, jogging in place to keep
warm. He shook his head at Seth’s shorts and T-shirt. “Ever
heard of frostbite, Philadelphia?”
“Please,” scoffed Seth. “Like you corn-fed hicks know from
cold. It’s, what, ten degrees out here? In Philly, we call that a
heat wave.” Marshall laughed.
They followed Marshall’s route: east down Kings Lane, cut
across Princess Street, cross into Castle Park, loop south on the
paved running trails. Now that he wasn’t wrapped up in his own
head, Seth appreciated the stark beauty of the ice-glazed trees,
the clean quality of the light on the dark asphalt. His breath
mingled with Marshall’s, white vapor that dissipated slowly, like
smoke.
Talking to Marshall was easy, Seth soon discovered. Books,
movies, bands, they had more in common than he would have
imagined. Marshall was curious about his life in Philadelphia.
Editing significantly while trying to avoid outright lying, Seth
told him about afternoons in the Charles Santore library, outdoor
concerts at Temple University, walks on the Schuylkill River
Trail.
They talked about Fairfax, too. Their teachers. (Marshall
called Gideon some names that made Seth rethink his Golden
Boy sainthood.) Leigh and Whitney’s Vegan Society. (Marshall
wasn’t a member, either.) Basketball, of course. “I really am
sorry about the game this week,” Seth said, as they started their
cool down.
“Don’t apologize. It’s cool you stood up for what you
believe in.” Marshall pulled off his skullcap. His hair was
sweaty, sticking straight up in the back. “Leigh is the same way,
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you know. Principled. I’ve never known anybody who
champions the underdog like she does.”
If only she knew the odds Seth was up against. “I still feel
bad,” he insisted. “You vouched for me with everybody, and then
I screwed up.”
“Is this about Cam?” Marshall leaned against the
Townsends’ mailbox, peeling off his gloves. “I heard what he
said at lunch yesterday. The pussy comment. I can talk to him, if
you want.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard, Indiana.”
“Whoa, Philadelphia. Chill. Not what I meant.”
“Sorry.” Seth bit his lip. Hey, he was a cat. It was his nature
to be temperamental. Hopping onto the low brick fence around
the Townsends’ yard, he began traversing it on his tip-toes. “I
appreciate the thought,” he said, “but don’t put yourself out. I
couldn’t care less what Cam says about me.”
Marshall looked as though not caring what Cameron Foss
thought was simply inconceivable. “You mean it doesn’t bother
you if people say…”
A deep flush spread across his cheeks. Seeing where this was
headed, and finding it impossible to stand still, Seth continued
his tightrope act. “If people say what?”
“You know,” Marshall said.
“No, actually I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
Marshall shuffled his feet. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Seth rolled his eyes. “Indiana, don’t make me beat it out of
you.”
“Like you could,” Marshall retorted.
He was quiet then, watching Seth continue his tightrope
walk, working up the courage to ask the question. Seth was
surprised by how much he wanted Marshall to ask it. Because of
all the secrets he had to keep from Marshall Townsend, he
thought, maybe this was one he didn’t.
“That stuff Cam was saying, at Leigh’s birthday party,”
Marshall finally said. “You don’t care if people think
you’re…gay?”
Having reached the end of the fence, Seth pivoted, spinning
back toward Marshall. He found him with his hands tucked
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inside his sweatshirt, baby blues fastened on the cracks in the
sidewalk. “Nope,” Seth said. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Marshall looked up at Seth through his lashes. They were
long and dark and thick, the eyes they shaded incredibly blue.
“So…are you?”
“I think so.” Seth sat down on the fence, kicking his heels
against the brick. “I mean, I’ve never kissed a guy or anything.
But I’m pretty sure I’m not into girls.”
“And you’re okay with it? Not that you shouldn’t be,”
Marshall added, quickly.
“Yeah,” Seth said. “I’m okay with it.” And he was. How he
felt when he looked at Marshall, that was as much a part of him
as the magic in his blood. A part Seth was only beginning to
explore, yet a part he instinctively recognized was too essential
to his makeup to deny.
Marshall studied him. Seth sat very still. It wasn’t a
conscious choice, the being still. It was as though he was
paralyzed, waiting for Marshall to say…He wasn’t sure what,
exactly.
Seth had seen Marshall hold hands with Leigh. Had
witnessed her goopy smiles, her incessant flirting. And yet, other
than his sister, Seth had not seen Marshall, the heartthrob
basketball god of Fairfax High, give any girl a second glance –
and yet, he and Leigh were not dating. Definitely not
incontrovertible proof, but Seth wasn’t sure he could feel this
strongly about someone who felt nothing for him in return.
“You keep a lot of secrets,” Marshall said, suddenly, “don’t
you, Philadelphia?”
Seth grinned. “Shockingly, Indiana, that’s not even my
biggest one.”
“I won’t tell anybody.” Marshall said. “You know that,
right?”
“I know,” Seth said. Stepping down from the fence, he
backed toward his house, holding Marshall’s gaze the whole
way. “Why do you think I told you?”
136
Chapter Eleven: Between the Lines
Detention at Fairfax High was held in a basement classroom
near the boiler room, supervised by an old battle-axe Navy nurse
named Ms. Krughman. Seth spent an hour after school there on
Wednesday. It wasn’t so bad. Fairfax High’s delinquent element
consisted of two ninth-graders caught writing their boyfriends’
names on the bathroom wall and a twelfth-grader busted for
smoking outside the gym. Ms. Krughman retreated behind a
magazine to let them do their homework in peace. The girls
whipped out their cell phones and began texting.
Seth had deliberately chosen the desk next to Dre Alfaro’s, in
the back row. Dre’s suspenders were striped today, his gray polo
untucked over his pinstripe pants. He looked too young to be an
eleventh-grader. “Sorry about this,” Seth whispered, holding up
his English Lit book so Ms. Krughman wouldn’t see his lips
move.
Dre closed his MacBook lid. He seemed surprised Seth was
talking to him. “Don’t be,” he whispered back. “Angelo said it’s
about time somebody put Gideon back a step.”
“Angelo is your brother?”
Dre swiped at his bangs – a nervous habit. One of many.
Regent had said Seth fidgeted? He should have seen this kid.
“He’s adopted.”
Explained a lot. “Do you mind if I ask why he isn’t on the
basketball team?”
“Most of us just try to fly under the radar here,” Dre said.
Seth was noticing that about the Haven kids. They didn’t start
clubs, didn’t campaign for Student Council, didn’t play on ball
teams. From what he had seen, they didn’t even talk in class.
Quinn O’Shea was a notable exception. Miss Vixen walked
the halls of Fairfax High like she owned them, copper hair bright
as a battle flag. During study hall, Seth had pulled out some of
the library’s old yearbook copies. Quinn O’Shea’s freckled face
had been inescapable in every one, a standout ballplayer –
volleyball, basketball, softball – since ninth grade. She was in
eleventh now, like Seth, and stood a good chance of being
elected prom queen next year, in Leigh’s estimation.
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Every time Seth passed her in the hallway, she slid him one
of those sly smiles. Topher had confided, in what he probably
considered a helpful aside, that she only dated jocks.
There was a rustle as Ms. Krughman traded her Newsweek
for Time. Seth waited for her to disappear behind it before he
spoke again. “What do you do on this thing all the time?”
He tapped the MacBook. Dre shrugged. “Keep up with the
news. Surf around. I do special projects for people,
sometimes…”
“Special projects? Like hacking?”
Dre bobbed his head. Seth didn’t judge. He had his own
felonious past with the Coleman brothers. “How much would
you charge to hack into Gideon’s email and send him a
pornogram?”
Dre cackled a laugh. Ms. Krughman scowled at him; he
ducked his head, like a bird tucking its beak under its wing,
nearly upsetting his newsboy cap – and all of a sudden, Seth was
struck by something deeper than recognition. He stared at Dre,
the edges of his mind crinkling like paper in a furnace.
“Seth Sullivan?”
Seth spun around. Ms. Krughman had risen at her desk.
About that time, the bell rang, announcing the end of detention;
there was a scuffle of chairs as the released prisoners bolted for
the door, Dre leading the pack, vanishing as he ducked around
the corner. Seth stared after him for a long moment before
walking up the aisle.
“From Ms. McLain,” Ms. Krughman said, and handed Seth a
note. It was a reminder that she needed his birth certificate. Seth
tucked it in his pocket, making a mental note to pass it on to
Leigh. Being the more responsible sibling, she might remember
to tell Lydia.
He dropped by Dre’s locker before he left. As he had
expected, Dre was nowhere to be found.
All day long Seth had kept an eye on Emery Little. In the
hallway between classes, in the cafeteria at lunch. He hung
around with the other Haven kids, wore the same faded jeans and
grungy T-shirts as they did, hippie chic with his strawberryblonde ponytail and St. Francis medal. Like them, it wouldn’t
have mattered if he had dressed in Armani every day, he would
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not have fit in at Fairfax High. It was a vibe the Haven kids
exuded. A not-entirely-human vibe.
Seth intended to continue his surveillance during his first
shift at Re-Spin that night, but Emery wasn’t at the store when he
arrived. Nor was Melody. Seth’s training was to be left in the
hands of Re-Spin’s only full-time employee, Charles Bonaparte,
a.k.a. Chaz.
“Nothing to it, mon,” Chaz assured him, as they shared a bag
of Oreos at the counter. Seth hadn’t eaten since noon, and Chaz,
predictably, had the munchies. “If a customer comes up and asks
about a CD or a book, you just check the inventory chart to see if
we’ve got a copy.”
Trade-ins were more complicated. Re-Spin was a secondhand
shop; for clothes, they paid cash, but for books and CDs, they
swapped, haggling over trade-in value. Just how many copies of
Phil Collins’ Greatest Hits did equal the latest album from JayZ? Bartering decisions were noted in a ledger by the cash
register. Seth thought it sounded like fun.
They had a rush around seven, a bunch of teenage regulars
looking to switch out CDs. Chaz grooved his way through the
transaction with surprising finesse while Seth, the dutiful trainee,
observed, weighing in once with the opinion that Alice in Chains
was worth at least as much as Soul Asylum. The rest of the night
he sat on a stool beside the register, drafting an essay on the
Articles of Confederation for American History. Chaz helped by
supplying deep thoughts on the nature of democracy in a time of
corporate fascism. Seth wondered if Mr. Talbot would ask to see
his sources if he quoted a Charles Bonaparte.
Chaz seemed to know the Littles well, and as Emery and
Melody weren’t around to be spied on directly, Seth decided to
pump him for info. “How long have you worked for Melody?”
he asked.
“Since high school. Great gig, mon. Gives me time to work
on my music.”
Chaz pointed to a flyer in the window, advertising a
coffeehouse concert by his band, Listening Korn. Chaz played
bass. Ah, the life of the small town stoner. “Where’s Mr. Little?”
Seth asked.
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“Dead.” Chaz shook his head, giving Seth to understand this
was a deep, personal tragedy for him. “Killed in a hunting
accident a long time ago. Emery never even knew him.”
A hunting accident? Even if Seth had believed in
coincidences, which, coincidentally, he did not, that would have
stretched credulity. But if there were other werekin in Fairfax,
Seth asked himself once again, why didn’t he recognize them?
***
As Seth drove out to Regent’s for his second training session
the next afternoon, a powdery mist, half-snow, half-sleet, was
already falling. Fairfax High had been buzzing with excitement
that day over the winter storm predicted to drop as much as a
foot of snow on Fairfax by morning. Everyone was rooting for a
snow day – everyone except Marshall, who reasoned that would
also cancel their game against Sacred Heart. “Any day but game
day,” he had said, glaring out the cafeteria window at the
congregating clouds, like he could stave off a blizzard by force
of will.
Seth’s mood was also grim, though it had nothing to do with
basketball. He had tried calling Ben again before and after
school. There had still been no answer. He couldn’t decide if he
was worried about his old Papa Bear, or hurt that Ben hadn’t
called to check on him.
Karate was an excellent cure for frustration. Regent put Seth
through three grueling hours of floor exercises; by the time he
called a halt, Seth’s gi was soaked, and muscles he hadn’t even
known existed were complaining in his legs and back. He
gratefully accepted the bottle of water Regent pitched him and
sat down cross-legged on the floor of the Bat Cave, catching his
breath. Regent leaned against the weapons wall, a dark mountain
in his black gi.
“Heard you had some trouble at school,” he said.
Seth choked on his water. Damn Jack Steward and his big
mouth. “I – ”
“Save it, cub,” Regent growled. “You back-talked a teacher,
started a revolt in your classroom, and ended up in the principal’s
140
office – basically, you did exactly what I told you not to do and
made a spectacle of yourself.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Seth protested. “I wasn’t showing off.
You think I like getting into trouble?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
Seth glared at him. What did Regent know about high
school? He had been raised in the Scholae Bestiarii. As an adult,
he kept himself cloistered, in his law office or his enormous
house. He had no clue what it was like to hide in plain sight
among humans, lying to everybody in your life about who and
what you were. Following rules you didn’t understand. “Look, I
didn’t mean to tangle with Gideon, all right?” he said. “If it’s any
consolation, I’m sure he’ll make my life hell the rest of the year.”
Gideon had already started that morning, in fact, with jibes about
Fairfax High’s impending slaughter by Sacred Heart. “Don’t
worry. I won’t mouth off or egg his house or slash his tires. But
I’m not desecrating a corpse just to pass eleventh grade. I don’t
even want to be in school,” Seth said. He knew he needed to shut
up, but it was like the flood gates had opened. Words just poured
out of him. “My classes are a waste of time. I should be here
training with you. How is calculating the circumference of a
circle going to help me fight hunters, huh?”
“Waste of time, is it?” Regent’s voice was deadly soft. “Oh,
that’s right. I forgot. You already know everything.”
Sure, rub the cub’s nose in his idiot remark. Seth rolled his
empty water bottle back and forth on the white mat. “I don’t
know everything,” he mumbled.
Regent cupped a hand around his ear. “Sorry. What was
that?”
Mangy, flea-bitten old tiger. “I said,” Seth enunciated crisply,
“I don’t know everything. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know
anything.”
“You know, cub, that might be the first intelligent thing I’ve
ever heard you say.”
Was he trying to piss Seth off? Because he was doing a
fabulous job. Seth smashed the water bottle between his palms
and tossed it onto his neatly-folded pile of street clothes in the
corner. “Whatever. Doesn’t change the fact that I should be
learning how to – ”
141
Regent moved so fast he was a red-and-black bur. Not tiger
stripes; that was just the contrast of his ginger hair against his
black gi.
Seth rolled to the side. Regent’s foot swept the air where his
head had been – a kick that would have knocked Seth senseless if
he hadn’t dodged. He sprang to his feet, sidestepping as Regent
attempted to hook a foot around his ankle – slipped in a swift
punch to Regent’s flank, a move they had just spent ten minutes
practicing in slow motion; Regent grunted and grabbed his wrist,
landing two rib-bruising jabs before Seth managed to elbow him
in the jaw and slide away.
Was this a friendly sparring session or a fight to the death?
Those distinctions weren’t always easy to draw with Regent.
It was all Seth could do to block the worst of his blows,
putting into play the punches, strikes, and kicks Regent had
taught him, but Regent was better. Much better. He turned every
defensive counter into an offensive strike. Finally, Seth threw an
arm out to block a kick; Regent’s heel connected with the thin
bone of his wrist, spiking pain into his shoulder; and
instinctively, Seth skinned.
Before his paws touched the mat, Regent had skinned as
well. He pounced, toppling Seth head-over-tail; tiger and jaguar
crashed into the wall, cracking one of the long mirrors down the
middle.
Regent came in snarling. Seth swiped his claws across the
tiger’s nose, getting a terrifyingly close-up view of razor-sharp
teeth as Regent flung all of his weight into him – five hundred
pounds – and pinned him on the mat. Claws raked Seth’s snowy
chest. The pain was searing, almost too hot to be felt, like it had
cauterized his nerve endings. Seth tried to twist free, but Regent
clamped his teeth around his throat.
Instantly the jaguar stilled. All Regent had to do was bite
down, and he would sever Seth’s windpipe.
Seth whined, softly. Nice tiger. Please don’t kill me and stick
me up on your wall…
The pressure on his neck eased. The tiger sat back on his
haunches, regarding Seth with emotionless marbled eyes.
Seth skinned back into a human, hands flying to his throat.
Four shallow puncture wounds marked the placement of the
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tiger’s teeth. His white gi was sticky with blood on the side. Seth
gingerly pulled the cloth away from his skin, sucking in a breath
at the three claw marks running diagonally across his chest. New
blood welled up in them with each shuddering pulse.
Seth stood, turning his back on the tiger so Regent wouldn’t
see him grimace.
“How bad, cub?”
In the mirror, Seth watched Regent, returned to his human
skin, straighten his gi. All he had to show for their tussle was a
scratch on the nose. “I’m fine,” Seth said. He could feel the skin
knitting back together; by morning, he wouldn’t even have a
scar. It hurt, a lot, but he found he could tolerate it. He was
getting tougher.
“Let me see,” Regent said. He turned Seth around. Seth
stared at the rafters, mentally naming all thirty-one flavors of
Baskin Robbins ice cream to distract himself from the pain.
“You’ll live,” Regent pronounced. “But we should probably
clean you up.”
Seth assumed that was Regent’s version of an apology.
He led Seth upstairs and positioned him on the sink in the
master bath. Taking down a first-aid kit, he set about taping
gauze over the wounds. “Was I supposed to learn something
from that,” Seth asked, “or do you just enjoy kicking my tail?”
“It is a perk,” Regent smirked. “I already told you, though
I’m not surprised it didn’t sink in through that thick skull of
yours: Werekin have to fight in either skin. You couldn’t beat me
as a human, so you skinned into a jaguar. That won’t save you
against a hunter, or a trained werekin fighter. What we learn
about fighting as a human we take into our animal skins. Equally
deadly as man or beast.”
He snapped the first-aid kit closed, turning his back as Seth
slid his arms through his T-shirt. Seth thought about the artful
precision of the tiger’s lunge, how Regent had put him on the
mat with a single, brutal onslaught: mudana no waza, no wasted
movement. Regent had a tiger’s speed and strength, but he didn’t
fight like a tiger in the wild. He fought like a warrior. Trained to
go beyond instinct.
His eyes met Regent’s in the mirror. “I want to learn that,” he
said.
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“You will,” said Regent. “But first, you had to understand
it.”
“Okay, Yoda.” Regent frowned; Seth sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I
know, I know. Don’t call you ‘Yoda.’”
“What do you know,” said Regent. “He can be taught. Now,
come on. I’ve got something for you.”
***
“Gee, Mr. Regent, you shouldn’t have,” Seth said.
They were back downstairs. Regent had poured them each a
mug of tea, then placed a leather-bound book, like a journal, on
the bar in front of Seth. Seth ran his fingertips over the spine. He
had sort of been hoping for a sword, to complement his
motorcycle. “You said you wanted to learn about Chimera.
That,” Regent, who was leaning against the counter near the
stove, pointed at the book, “is the journal of Dr. Elijah Bishop,
co-founder of Chimera Enterprises.”
“Seriously?” Seth looked up in surprise.
“See for yourself,” Regent said.
Seth opened the book. It was bound in cracked leather, the
cover stamped with a familiar design – the three-headed chimera.
He thumbed through the pages. The parchment was yellowed,
each page hand-stitched into the binding and filled with tidy,
masculine script. The dates of the first entries began in the early
1960s, when Elijah Bishop had been a brilliant up-and-coming
geneticist at Harvard, and ended in the early 1980s, when he was
executed for treason, after orchestrating the mass breakout of the
Gen-1 werekin.
Almost all of the entries were annotated with complex
equations and scientific symbols Seth didn’t understand. There
were phrases that jumped out at him. Lemuria. Black Swan.
Totems. Project Ark. Gen-0. Something called the Ovid
Experiment he thought he remembered Ben mentioning once,
though he couldn’t recall the details.
In the margins of several pages were hand-drawn glyphs, like
the ones on the collar Snowman had tried to put on him. Seth ran
his fingers over them. “What language is this?”
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“Lemurian.” Regent was looking out the window, at the
thickening snow. “Those symbols were found in ancient
Lemurian texts recovered from Mt. Hokulani, the submerged
volcano where they found the Ark. Do you know what they
say?”
“Sorry,” Seth said. “My Lemurian is a little rusty.”
“Look at the words, cub.”
“I am looking at the words,” said Seth. “And if the words
were French or English or Italian or Spanish, I could tell you
what they say. But, you see, these aren’t words. These are
glyphs. I don’t read glyph.”
“Just look,” Regent insisted. “Without trying to understand.”
More wax-on, wax-off b.s. Too tired to argue, Seth picked
the journal up, leaned in close, and moved his eyes across the
page, bottom to top and left to right, fooling his brain so it
wouldn’t try to process the glyphs as anything more than
meaningless squiggles.
It worked.
Words resonated inside Seth’s head, as though they were
being whispered to him. The dead shall wake and consume the
living; I shall call up the dead to feast on your souls. Cheery
sentiment. Weren’t the Lemurians supposed to be the good guys,
into peace and love and all that Kumbaya-and-tofu stuff? Seth
looked up from the journal. Regent’s gaze was on him now,
steady as a pulse.
“How can I read a language I’ve never learned?” Seth
demanded.
“You’re a magical being, cub,” Regent said. “And Lemurian
is a magical language.”
Wicked.
Seth flipped through the journal, silently translating glyphs.
Regent picked up his empty mug and carried it over to the sink.
“That journal contains everything Elijah Bishop learned, and a
good deal he simply theorized, about the origin of the werekin,
the history of Lemuria, and the legend of the Black Swan,” he
said. “Everything you could ever want to know about Chimera
Enterprises is in there. Their plan for genetically reengineering
the werekin race from the raw material inside the Ark. Their
145
breeding strategies to produce more warriors. Their
understanding of werekin magic. Every – ”
Seth yelped.
Affixed to the journal’s back cover was a full-color
photograph of the most hideous creature Seth had ever
envisioned. It was humanoid, ten foot tall and slender, dressed in
a white garment like a hospital gown. Its skin was hairless,
mottled blue and gray, like the stones quarried in the
Pennsylvania hills; its eyes were onyx-black with no whites, like
an insect’s, its features feral: meaty lips, sharp nose, pointed
chin, slanted eyes. Seth couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
From its back protruded four pairs of jointed, hairy spider
legs, like a tarantula’s. Seth imagined those legs moving,
scuttling across the floor –
He slapped the book shut. “What was that?”
“That, cub, was a Gen-0. The first werekin batch Chimera
cooked up in their labs, when they tried using test tubes for
gestation instead of actual wombs.” Regent leaned back against
the counter. “I’m sure you can see why they were put down.
Against Bishop’s protests, I might add.”
“You mean – Dr. Bishop wanted to keep them around?”
“Elijah Bishop had some strange ideas about the sanctity of
life,” Regent said, drolly. Seth plucked at his T-shirt. Icy sweat
had collected on his collarbones. He was all for respecting the
sanctity of life, but spider-people? Uh-uh. You had to draw the
line somewhere.
A thought occurred to him then. He looked over at Regent,
frowning. “How’d you get your hands on this, anyway?”
“Swiped it from Chimera, before Dr. LeRoi granted me my
freedom.”
“You stole this? Mr. Regent.” Seth feigned horror. “Aren’t
you supposed to be setting an example for me?”
“Something tells me you’re past corrupting,” Regent said,
but he was grinning. “Anyhow, that’s top-secret intel you’ve got
there, so don’t go leaving it in your locker at school, got me?”
“Yes sir.” Seth wedged the journal into his backpack,
between his geometry homework and his history textbook. “Are
you going to start giving me pop quizzes now?”
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“Read it or don’t read it, cub,” Regent growled. “Makes no
difference to me.”
They both knew Seth would read it.
He brushed his hair out of his eyes as he sat up. Seeing those
glyphs, hearing Regent talk about werekin magic, had gotten him
thinking. “Mr. Regent, can I ask you something?”
“You mean there’s something you don’t know?”
“If werekin are magical beings, does that mean we can
perform magic?”
Regent had been drying his hands on a dishtowel. He paused
now, glancing sidelong at Seth. “Some werekin are born with
magical gifts above and beyond what all of our kin possess.
Some are telepaths, able to communicate through thoughts,
particularly dreams. Some are prescient, able to see the future.
They say the werekin queen, the White Swan, could speak any
language in existence. You can develop those gifts through
training, but they can’t be learned if you don’t already possess
them. They’re gifts from the Totems, either in your blood, or
not.”
“But there are other kinds of magic, aren’t there?” Seth
pressed. He could tell Regent was holding back. In his
experience, the questions people didn’t want to answer were the
ones most worth asking. “There are things we can learn. Like
spells.” Ben had alluded to such things a few times, things he had
witnessed in the New Orleans Underground. Juju, he had called
it, in his thick-as-molasses drawl.
“There are things you could call ‘spells’ in the glyphs
they’ve deciphered from Lemuria. But don’t go getting any
ideas,” Regent said, sternly. “Spells require training to cast, and
you don’t have the training.”
“Let’s say I had been trained. What could I do? Walk
through walls? Turn invisible?”
Regent grunted. “You’ve seen too many movies, cub.”
“Okay.” Seth draped his arms over the back of his stool – an
empty vessel waiting to be filled with knowledge. “Then explain
it to me, O Wise One.”
Regent chose to answer, mainly, Seth thought, to shut him
up. “We can’t turn invisible. But it is possible to hide the magic
in your blood from others of our kind. It’s called a glamour. It
147
can give you some protection from being spotted by hunters,
too.”
“Does it – the glamour, I mean – does it work in both skins,
human and animal?” Regent nodded. “For how long? Could you
be, like, permanently glamoured?”
“The spell is connected to an item. Something you have to
keep on you, like a piece of jewelry. Duration would depend on
the ability of its caster, but it wouldn’t be permanent, no.”
A handy skill nonetheless. Seth thought of Melody and
Emery Little, Angelo and Andre Alfaro – of the possibility that a
werekin could hide, really hide, from Chimera, not have to worry
every minute of every day that he would be marked, collared,
and bagged. He sat forward. “Will you teach me?”
The softness around Regent’s marbled eyes suggested he
understood exactly how Seth was feeling. “All in good time,
cub,” he said. “All in good time.”
148
Chapter Twelve: Snow Day
Fairfax woke the next day, Friday, to a record-breaking
eleven inches of snow. Businesses closed. School was canceled.
The Fairfax High Knights got a reprieve from being trounced by
Sacred Heart, and Seth got a reprieve from running five miles, as
Lydia refused to let him out for a jog with the streets all but
impassable, and more snow still falling in powdery waves. Seth
didn’t argue. Being clawed by a tiger wasn’t an injury his body
could forget overnight, even if the gashes had faded to three
white lines across his chest.
Jack braved the roads to get to the office. For a corporate
attorney, he had a lot of life-and-death cases.
After a scrumptious breakfast of waffles, eggs, and bacon,
courtesy of Lydia, Leigh headed next door to bake cookies with
Whitney. The Student Vegan Society was starting a petition
drive to ban animal dissection at Fairfax High, with cookies as
thank-you for supporters – in other words, baby sister was
bribing students for their signatures with chocolate chips. Seth
thought Leigh would make an excellent attorney.
Seth retreated to his room, hauled Dr. Elijah Bishop’s journal
out of his backpack, and settled in under the covers to enter the
mind of a mad scientist.
What Seth knew about Chimera Enterprises had been gleaned
piecemeal over the years from Naomi and Ben, neither of whom
had been eager to dwell on the subject. Elijah Bishop and Ursula
LeRoi had belonged to a minority of scholars who believed the
lost island of Lemuria could actually have existed, home to an
alien race. They had discovered the Ark inside Mt. Hokulani in
the mid-1960s, and from the Ark, they had reengineered the
werekin race.
What Seth hadn’t known was that Elijah Bishop was a
principled man, convinced that to find Lemuria would be to find
the key to saving humankind from itself. His earliest journal
entries, from when he was still a student at Harvard, read like the
diary of a religious convert, describing a quest for the Holy Grail
of scientific discoveries:
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If we could only reconnect with the civilization
described in these ancient manuscripts, humanity
could learn so much about living in peace with
one another! Imagine it: Hundreds, perhaps even
thousands, of werekin breeds existing in perfect
harmony on a single small island. The werekin
never knew war until humans brought it to
Lemuria. I believe, I must believe, that we would
not make the same mistake twice – that having
witnessed the atrocities of two World Wars and
facing the threat of nuclear annihilation in a
third, humankind would choose to learn from the
werekin how to be a better people.
Yeah, Seth thought, ’cause that had worked out.
Read in order, the journal also provided a chronological
history of Chimera Enterprises, growing from Bishop and
LeRoi’s humble brainchild before the discovery of Mt. Hokulani
to a vast underground network of government-supported
scientists and soldiers, known as Project Ark. Dozens of topsecret Chimera facilities were built around the U.S. in the 1970s,
some for breeding werekin, some for training them, some for
experimenting on them. Bishop focused exclusively on the
genetics aspect of the project, trying to ascertain how the werekin
gene passed from parent to child – and why it sometimes did not.
Seth got the impression that, in the beginning, Bishop wasn’t
even aware of the uses LeRoi was putting his creations to.
He wrote about genetics in a kind of scientific poetry. Every
chromosome is its own universe, every living creature the result
of an amazing cosmic accident: that these chromosomes came
together to form this creature, with this consciousness, is a
miracle we will never replicate, even through cloning. Seth
thought of the quote on the Townsends’ fridge, written in
Magnetic Poetry: “All the atoms emitting light inside
wavehood.”
He wondered if Elijah Bishop had been a Keruoac fan.
It wasn’t all sweetness and light, though. In the texts
recovered along with the Ark, Bishop uncovered Lemurian
necromantic rituals for communicating with and even raising the
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dead, alchemical recipes for distilling herbs and metals into
elixirs that could heal, strengthen, and renew right alongside
recipes for poisons like those used in tranqs. The texts made no
distinction between black magic and white. The more he learned
about Lemuria, the more Bishop seemed to realize he had been
naïve to paint the island as a utopia. And the more success he had
with breeding werekin, the more he seemed to realize he had
started something that was no longer in his control. By the end of
the journal, there was less and less science, more and more rants
about using collars to control werekin’s magic, diatribes against
Ursula LeRoi for taking werekin children away from their
parents to be trained in the Scholae Bestiarii.
Bishop took the failure of the Gen-0s particularly hard. He
lobbied for his creations to be spared, but Seth could have told
him to save his breath. No one in their right mind would have
permitted those monstrous hybrids to live, let alone breed.
The journal entries changed after that. Bishop became
obsessed with perfecting the breeding of werekin, puzzling out
why their skin seemed wholly unrelated to the skin of their
werekin parents. The entries became terse, interspersed with
Lemurian glyphs that related back to the legend of the Black
Swan and something called the Source, interrupted by ramblings
about the interference of the military with Project Ark. Bishop
waffled between wanting to see Chimera Enterprises succeed at
all costs, and wanting to see his life’s work go up in flames. In
the next-to-last entry, he wrote:
If anyone finds these pages, know that I do not
ask for absolution. There is no absolution for the
horrors that have been wrought on these innocent
creatures in my name. I wasted my life in the
pursuit of an unattainable goal. Not to raise
Lemuria; that is Ursula’s obsession. If the Black
Swan is meant to be born, she will be. If I
understand anything about the Ark, it is that its
magic does not answer to us.
My goal was to give new life to a beautiful,
peaceful civilization. That aim has been polluted
beyond recovery. Now, all I can try to do is save
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as many werekin as I can. I was young and foolish
to believe Project Ark was ever anything other
than a design to finish what Lemuria’s invaders
began millennia ago: to conquer the werekin and
harness the power of the Totems for humanity’s
dark purposes. That power, placed in the hands of
a species that created the nuclear bomb, a
weapon capable of destroying our planet twice
over? If Ursula succeeds, may the gods have
mercy on us all.
The last entry was chillingly laconic. Faith is not wanting to
know what is true.
Closing the journal, Seth fell back on his pillows. This was
what he was really up against. Not hunters. Their creators.
Which was about as much nihilism as he could take for one
day. Stowing the journal underneath his mattress, where it would
hopefully be safe from his snoopy kid sister, Seth threw on jeans
and a sweatshirt and went to tell his mother he was headed next
door.
Ice had collected on the downstairs windowpanes, refracting
the watery sunlight into lacelike patterns on the rugs. Seth found
Lydia in the basement, still in her gray silk bathrobe, sitting at
her sewing table with a cigarette dangling from her fingertips. He
paused at the bottom of the steps. “Mrs. Steward?”
“Seth!” Lydia jerked around, hand pressed over her heart.
“Goodness, you’re so quiet! You’re like a cat.”
Seth couldn’t even be amused by the irony. His mother’s
eyes were spider-webbed with grief, shoulders slumped like she
had fallen in on herself. He crossed the room and sank down at
her feet on the carpet. The basement was unfinished, home to
Lydia’s sewing things, the washer and dryer, and shelves for
storing Christmas decorations. It smelled like fabric softener.
“What’s wrong?’ Seth asked, softly.
“Nothing, honey.” Lydia managed a wavering smile. “I’m
just being sentimental. Mothers can be sentimental, can’t we?”
Her voice cracked. She turned away, covering her mouth like
she was smothering a sob.
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A cedar keepsake box was open on the table in front of her,
packed with baby blankets, rattles, Onesies. Everything was blue.
Hollowness spread through Seth. These had to be his things,
from when he was a baby, before Thomas had spirited him away.
His birth certificate was lying in Lydia’s lap. Looked like
Leigh had relayed Ms. McLain’s message about his paperwork.
Something came back to him then, and he said, “Ms. McLain
threw my baby shower.”
Lydia whirled on him. “She told you that? What did she tell
you? What did she say?”
“N-nothing,” Seth stammered, completely taken aback.
There was something almost dangerous in Lydia’s expression.
“She just – she sort of mentioned it, in passing. She said you
went to school together.”
“Oh.” Lydia seemed to come back to herself. “Yes, I
suppose Ingrid and I were friends, back then.”
She said “back then” like it was another lifetime entirely.
Seth watched her carefully return everything to the box, close
it up, and lock it with a small brass key, which she dropped into
the pocket of her robe. He made a note of which shelf she placed
it on.
Cats and curiosity – a deadly combination. That flimsy lock
would be no match for him.
***
When Seth knocked on the Townsends’ back door a few
minutes later, the kitchen looked like it had been obliterated by a
chocolate chip cookie dough tornado. Leigh, wearing Meredith’s
Kiss the Cook apron (subtle, his sister), was breaking eggs into a
bowl while Whitney scraped cookie-shaped briquettes off a
baking sheet. Marshall, standing on a chair, was fanning burnt
cookie fumes away from the smoke detector.
Leigh brandished her sticky spoon at Seth. “Not a word, Seth
Michael.”
“Or you’ll what?” challenged Seth. “Force-feed me your
cookies?”
Marshall laughed.
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Dr. Townsend was at the hospital. Meredith was in Florida,
visiting her elderly parents. An afternoon of unsupervised
possibilities stretched before them, but unfortunately, it was too
cold to play basketball, they couldn’t drive anywhere in a
blizzard, the girls didn’t like videogames, and Marshall flatly
refused to break into his father’s liquor cabinet. Once the fresh
batch of cookies was in the oven, it was finally agreed they
would watch a movie.
Proving that she had absolutely no cinematic taste, from the
Townsends’ extensive film collection Leigh settled on a B-movie
slasher, Co-Ed Chainsaw Nightmare 7 or something like that –
all sex and gore, no plot. She scrunched up on the Townsends’
enormous sectional sofa next to Marshall. Seth stretched out at
the opposite end and dropped his feet into her lap.
Leigh protested. “Get your stinky feet off me.”
“So move,” Seth said.
Leigh rolled her eyes and motioned to Whitney, who had
curled up in a recliner beside the fireplace. “Come sit with us,”
she urged, shooting a meaningful look at Seth. Seth shot her a
look in response. Back off, baby sis.
“I’ll sit up,” he said.
“That’s okay,” Whitney said, quickly. She motioned Seth to
lift as his head as she shifted over to the couch, squished up
against the armrest. Leigh was glammed up in stonewashed jeans
and a red cashmere sweater. Whitney had yet to change out of
her Fred Flinstone p.j.s. What made Whitney cool, Seth thought,
was that she didn’t try to be cool. “You can lay your head here, if
you want,” she said.
She patted her leg. Seth hesitated. Putting his head in
Whitney’s lap seemed a little too boyfriend-girlfriend, but how to
refuse without being rude? “Okay,” he said, uncertainly, and laid
his head down on her knee.
As the opening credits rolled, Whitney began to stroke his
hair off his forehead. Seth tensed – but the vibe she was giving
off was more sisterly than flirty. Gradually, he started to relax.
That felt nice, actually. Really, really nice, in a safe, entirely
platonic way. In fact, it was so soothing he had to be careful not
to purr.
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Marshall and Leigh snuck glances at them. Leigh looked
smug. Marshall looked…strained. Seth tried not to read into it.
His kid sister was petting his best friend. Would have been weird
for any guy.
The movie was ridiculous. Leigh spent most of it hiding her
face in Marshall’s shoulder – which Seth guessed was more or
less the point. Whitney was made of sterner stuff. She giggled at
the campy effects, buckets of blood and rubbery-looking entrails.
To Leigh’s annoyance, she and Seth ended up cheering for the
psycho killer.
They were down to two survivors, the starcrossed lovers,
when the oven timer beeped. “Root for chainsaw dude,” Whitney
called to Seth, as she sprinted after Leigh into the kitchen.
On the screen, the buxom heroine was fleeing through a
nighttime forest. Rolling onto his back, Seth halfway closed his
eyes, peering at Marshall under his lashes. There was an
appealing asymmetry to Marshall’s features: cheekbones just a
tad too angular, straight nose slightly off-center. The incongruity
was what made him so good-looking. Well, that, and the thick
dark hair ruffled up around his head, the dimple that appeared by
the corner of his mouth when he smiled, those stunning baby
blues…And, okay, he was ogling. Seth turned back over on his
side – so swiftly a jolt of pain in his recently-slashed ribs made
him gasp.
Somehow Marshall heard it over the roaring chainsaw on the
TV and the giggling girls in the kitchen. “You okay,
Philadelphia?”
“Regent clocked me pretty good last night at karate,” Seth
said.
“You need an icepack?”
“Thanks, Indiana. I’ll live.”
He smiled. Marshall smiled back, and went back to watching
the movie.
Seth almost jumped out of his skin when fingertips grazed his
ankle.
Granted, his feet were sticking in Marshall’s personal space;
could have been an accident, Seth reasoned. He cut his eyes
toward the other boy. Marshall’s right arm was draped over the
back of the couch, his left hand curled, casually, around Seth’s
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ankle, his thumb inside the frayed cuff of Seth’s jeans, circling
the bony knob on the side of his foot.
Seth’s entire body went into tingle-mode. Marshall’s eyes
stayed fastened on the screen, where the madman was now being
dismembered by his own chainsaw. Was it possible Marshall
didn’t realize what he was doing? Should Seth say something, or
just keep still, or what? Marshall’s thumb inched onto Seth’s calf
– Seth bit his lip –
“All right, boys, we need taste testers!”
Marshall snatched his hand back, so quickly his thumbnail
scratched Seth’s ankle.
Leigh bounced into the room, holding a chocolate chip
cookie still meltingly delicious from the oven, and plopped down
on Marshall’s knee. “Leigh,” he protested, darting a glance at
Seth.
Leigh smiled sweetly. Oh, don’t mind Seth, her expression
said. She held the cookie up for Marshall to bite into, staring at
his lips as he licked crumbs off of them.
Yup, Seth thought. This was going to get complicated.
***
Around five, Dr. Townsend called to say he was pulling a
double shift at the hospital, and Leigh invited Whitney and
Marshall to the Stewards for dinner.
Lydia broiled steaks. (For the vegans, there was fried
eggplant.) Jack was home by then. He let them take out the good
china, and just for fun, they turned off all the lights and dined by
candlelight at the long mahogany table.
Whatever had upset her earlier, Lydia seemed over it. While
everyone was helping themselves to seconds, she entertained
them with stories of her childhood abroad with her father the
army general. Leigh must have heard them all before; she kept
bursting in with, “Oh, tell about the time Granddad…”
Lydia told them about riding the train from Nuremberg to
Ansbach, touring the Baroque-era Castle of the Margraves.
About attending the Soyo Maple Festival in Donducheon and
eating hotteok, sugary dough filled with sesame seeds, peanuts,
honey and brown sugar. Again Seth tried to square the
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adventurous girl in his mother’s stories with the spun-glass
woman before him now, likely to shatter at any moment. What
had happened to change her so drastically?
“Why did Fort King close?” he asked, out of simple
curiosity.
Jack gasped: His hand had jerked, sloshing coffee onto his
tie. “Oh, darling, your good shirt!” Lydia leapt up. “Let me get
you a towel…”
She rushed out. Jack picked up his napkin and began blotting
at his tie. The flickering candles picked out spots of color on his
suddenly pale cheeks. “I think the prison was decommissioned as
part of routine military spending cuts, wasn’t it, babe?”
“Well.” Lydia returned to the table with a towel she passed
to Jack. “That was the official story. But I remember when the
prison was closing, Daddy was upset about some allegations of
prisoner abuse there.”
Marshall laid his fork down. Seth remembered that his father
had been a member of the medical team at Fort King. “What kind
of abuse?” he asked.
Jack cleared his throat. “Boys, I’m not sure this is appropriate
dinner table conversation.”
“Oh, Daddy.” Leigh rolled her eyes. “Like we don’t all
know what happens in prison?”
“I don’t think it was anything like that,” Lydia said, quickly.
“Don’t you remember, Jack? It would have been during your
father’s last term in the Senate. There was something about
experiments…on…on prisoners…”
A shadow passed over Lydia’s features. For a moment, she
seemed confused, as though on the verge of remembering
something she hadn’t known was there to be forgotten; then she
laughed, rather shrilly, and waved a hand. “All just some
conspiracy theorist craziness, I’m sure. Probably dreamed up by
those same people who say the moon landing was filmed on a
Hollywood back lot.”
Jack raised his hand, fingers split in the Vulcan sign for live
long and prosper. “I want to believe,” he intoned. Everybody –
everybody except Seth, that was – cracked up.
***
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After dinner, Jack insisted on clearing the table, and Whitney
and Leigh hauled Lydia upstairs for a mani-pedi party in Leigh’s
room. Glittery nail polish, Kelly Clarkson on the stereo, Captain
Hook in a pink feather boa – way too much estrogen for Seth. He
and Marshall escaped next door to play NBA2K on Marshall’s
Xbox.
“Your mom is great,” Marshall said, as they crossed the
drive. That small brown falcon Seth had seen before was pecking
for seeds around the garage, leaving triangle-shaped prints in the
snow.
Seth nodded. Lydia was great. She was Supermom Goddess.
“I worry about her, though,” he said. “Does she seem a little
unstable to you?”
“Maybe a little,” Marshall conceded. “But she’s happy
you’re here,” he said, holding the back door open for Seth. “You
can tell. She never stops looking at you.”
Seth had noticed that, too. Yet the sight of his baby clothes
had practically caused her a breakdown. Not for the first time, he
wished he knew what Lydia was thinking when she looked at
him.
They carried sodas and Oreos up to Marshall’s room and
sacked out on his bean bags chairs in front of the flat-screen.
Turned out Seth was as lethal on the virtual court as he was on
the real thing. “I don’t believe you never played ball in Philly,”
Marshall fumed, on his sixth straight loss.
“Believe it. This,” Seth spread his arms, “is all raw talent,
baby.”
Marshall tossed his controller down. “I give up.”
He leaned back, fingers laced behind his head. His T-shirt
bore a faded Red Cross logo on the front, naming him a blood
donor; the threadbare cotton showed the muscles in his stomach
and chest, and Seth found himself thinking, as he had been all
day, about their moment on the couch. Every time he did, heat
spread through him from the inside out. If he had felt like this
with Whitney, he would have kissed her already. With
Marshall…
Seth didn’t want it to be different, but it was.
“You think Coach will still bench me on Friday?” he asked,
aiming for normalcy.
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“He can’t.” Marshall was adamant. “If we lose to Sacred
Heart, we’re done for sectionals, and my father will kill me.”
“Indiana, don’t get mad at me for asking this, but why does
your father care so much about high school basketball?”
“It’s not about basketball, Philadelphia,” Marshall said,
philosophically. “It’s about my future. I’m hoping for an athletic
scholarship.”
He pointed to a stack of college catalogs on the bedside table.
Duke. John Hopkins. Stanford. UCLA. “I thought you were a
Harvard man,” Seth said.
“For med school, definitely. Those are pre-med programs.
The best in the nation.”
“In that case, I vote for UCLA,” Seth volunteered. “Movie
stars, palm trees…”
Marshall laughed. “It’s college, man, not a rap video. If I had
to choose, I’d choose Duke. You know how cool it would be to
play ball for the Blue Devils?” He plucked at the seam in the
bean bag chair. “What about you? Which law schools will you
apply to?”
Seth snorted. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Marshall shrugged, but Seth got the sense he hadn’t been,
which was flattering. Most people’s first thought when they saw
him wasn’t, Wow, he would make an excellent attorney! “So
what do you want to do?”
Now it was Seth’s turn to shrug. College wasn’t even on his
radar. In the Underground, he had never thought further ahead
than waking up the next morning. “Right now, I want to survive
high school,” he said. Another masterful half-truth. Seth was
getting good at crafting those for Marshall. “And I want to get
some sleep,” he added, rising from his bean bag chair and
stretching his arms up over his head, spine curved so that he
popped up on his toes. “As I recall, we have a six a.m. run
scheduled tomorrow.”
Marshall rose, too, and joined him at the window. Together
they looked down at his shadow-strewn yard. The darkness
outside turned the pane into a mirror, throwing back the
reflection of two boys, one tall and dark, one slight and fair.
“It stopped snowing,” Seth said. His voice sounded too soft,
too much like a purr.
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Without taking his eyes off the window, Marshall said, “You
could stay over.”
Okay, Seth had been hoping he would say that – and hoping
he wouldn’t. Because now, he had to parse out what Marshall
meant. Was Seth staying over as his friend, the older brother of
the girl he had a crush on? Or was he staying over in a wholly
different sense? “That might be difficult, Indiana,” he said.
The Marshall reflected in the windowpane frowned. “Why?”
Did he really not know? “Because,” Seth said, and turned
toward him. His heart was skipping and fluttering, but his mind
was made up. This was what he wanted.
He took a single step forward. Marshall retreated, bumping
into the window. He stayed there, hands at his sides, eyelids
drifting down as Seth stretched up – Marshall was a solid five
inches taller than he was – and kissed him.
Marshall’s mouth tasted cold and sweet, like the Coke he had
been drinking. He made a noise in his throat, like a moan, as
Seth’s lips touched his. For a second, Seth thought Marshall
would shove him away, but then Marshall’s resistance seemed to
melt, all at once, and he grabbed Seth’s waist, hauling him closer
as he deepened the kiss.
Seth’s hands came up to Marshall’s shoulders. Cold air
seeped in around the window frame, smelling of snow and stars,
but Seth’s senses were too full of Marshall to register it –
Marshall’s taste, Marshall’s scent, the feel of Marshall’s lean
body, which he crushed Seth against, clasping him by the hips.
Seth felt like they were lifting off. He had never known anything
could feel so absolutely, perfectly right.
That was until Marshall pushed him away, so roughly Seth
would have fallen over had it not been for his feline grace.
Marshall’s face was beet-red. “Jesus, Philadelphia. I’m not –
I’m not like that, okay?”
Like that, he said. Seth felt his own face heat up, right along
with his temper. “Not like what? Not like a faggot? Not like a
queer? Not like a – ”
“Stop it.” Marshall hugged his arms across his chest. “I don’t
use words like that. Not wanting to kiss a guy doesn’t make me a
bigot.”
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Was he saying Seth had come on to him? After that scene on
the couch? After that kiss? Seth wanted to hurt him, suddenly. To
make Marshall feel as hollowed-out horrible as he felt. “You’re a
coward,” he spit out, hearing the hiss slide under the words. “I
think you are ‘like that.’ I think you’re exactly like that. You just
won’t admit it to yourself.”
“Oh yeah? Well, screw you, Sullivan.” Placing two fingers
on Seth’s chest, Marshall pushed him out of his way. It took
everything Seth had not to push back. “Where do you get off,
kissing me and then saying – acting like I started it? You don’t
know me, okay?” Marshall kicked one of the bean bag chairs.
“You don’t. You don’t know anything about me.”
Pins and needles were racing down Seth’s spine, the
transformation threatening to overtake him. Discipline, cub, he
heard Regent growl. “You’re right,” he said, tightly. “I did kiss
you. But you sure as hell didn’t seem to mind it.”
Marshall’s blush faded as he paled. From beside his bed, he
looked up at Seth, with a desperate kind of anguish; and stupidly,
nonsensically, Seth wanted to comfort him. “Seth, can’t…can’t
we just forget this? We’re friends, right?”
Friends. Right.
Seth started for the door. He had to get out of there before he
did something totally idiotic, like throw a punch. “You want to
forget this ever happened? Fine.” Gladly. “But here’s a ‘friendly’
piece of advice, Indiana. Stop stringing my sister along so you
don’t have to face up to who it is you really want to be kissing.
You and I both know Leigh deserves better than that.”
Before Marshall could say anything, Seth yanked open the
bedroom door, kicked it shut behind him, and fled down the
stairs.
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Chapter Thirteen: Pandora’s Box
As the moon ride higher, Seth paced his bedroom, plotting
escape. Forget skinning. He had the Yamaha. He could be in
Philly by this time tomorrow, if he drove straight through. So he
would never know why Naomi had sent him to Fairfax. He had
given it a go, hadn’t he? Tried to lead a normal life? He wasn’t
cut out for basketball and homework and curfews. He wasn’t
human. He didn’t know how to be human.
Or maybe he was too human, maybe that was the problem.
Seth threw himself down on the windowsill, staring across the
driveway at Marshall’s bedroom window – feeling extremely
human as he relived the pressure of Marshall’s mouth covering
his, the warmth of Marshall’s hands as he had pulled him closer.
What he hated most was that look on Marshall’s face as he
had stormed out. Desperate. Hunted. Trapped. Seth pressed the
heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars, trying to
banish the image.
He tried to practice stillness, seek harmony, all that Way of
the Warrior crap Regent preached. Nothing doing. Finally, Seth
crept down to the basement, the rest of the house sleeping above
him.
The keepsake box was right where Lydia had left it, on the
shelf above her sewing table. Seth lugged it over to the worktable
beside the washer, where Lydia folded clothes. Poe twined
around his ankles, meowing. “Technically, it’s my stuff,” Seth
told her.
Unconvinced, the little calico stuck her tail in the air and
stalked upstairs.
Cats, Seth thought. So persnickety.
He slapped the narrow metal file against his palm – a
holdover from his days boosting cars for the Colemans. This was
a serious invasion of his mother’s privacy, which, under normal
circumstances, Seth wouldn’t have even considered; even his
curiosity had limits. But Jack’s reaction to his innocuous
question about Fort King had started Seth wondering. Instinct
told him this box might have answers to questions he hadn’t even
162
known, until now, he needed to ask. Answers about his past, that
could help him understand what was happening in the present.
The file slid neatly into the lock. Seth twisted, and snick,
open-saysame.
Aromas of talcum powder and baby oil touched Seth’s nose,
stirring something in him, more primal than memory. A feeling,
of being secure. Safe in a way he never had been Underground.
Seth took everything out of the box and lined the contents up
on the worktable. The inventory went like so.
Two baby blankets, blue wool, embroidered with yellow
crescent moons.
Two stuffed bears, brown, wearing blue scarves.
Two rattles, white plastic with blue ducks.
Two bibs, blue, stitched with yellow letting: Mama’s Little
Star and Daddy’s Little Star.
Two pairs of blue booties.
Two of everything, right down to the two locks of golden
hair inside one silver locket.
There was a myth Seth had read once, from the ancient
Mayans, about a yellow jaguar sun god who turned into a black
jaguar when the sun dipped below the rim of the world, stalking
the Underworld in his nighttime skin to slay demons. Seth
thought about his dream, the black jaguar skinning into his
doppelganger. A boy Seth’s own age, ferocious, cunning,
branded. Two locks of hair in a silver locket.
Upstairs, the back door closed.
Seth threw everything back in the keepsake box, rammed it
back on its shelf, and sprinted up the steps in time to see Jack’s
Beamer backing out of the drive. Half-past midnight on a Friday
night, Fairfax buried under a historic blizzard? Seth kind of
doubted his step-father was popping down to the market for a
pint of ice cream.
Only one way to find out where he was headed.
Tiny, sparkling snowflakes clung to Seth’s lashes as he
walked the Yamaha to the end of the drive. He pushed the bike
halfway down the block, out of his mother’s earshot, before
firing her up. The icy wind howling through the trees had created
knee-high drifts in the streets; Seth dodged them, weaving across
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lanes. At the gated entrance to Castle Estates, he just glimpsed
the BMW as it turned left, toward the highway,
The bike’s headlight carved a narrow tunnel through the
dark. Visibility was all but nil with the wind whipping snow
across his cheeks; had it not been for the magic in his blood, Seth
would have frozen to the seat in his light jacket and tennis shoes.
He hunched over the handlebars, squinting to keep the BMW’s
taillights in sight –
Seth jammed on the brakes; his high beams had glinted on
something in the road.. The bike went into a skid; Seth caught a
glimpse of red eyes, white fur, and a fluffy tail as he turned into
the slide, managing to bring the bike to a halt on the gravel
shoulder, where he roundly cursed suicidal bunnies everywhere.
He had come heart-stoppingly close to laying the bike down.
Some injuries not even werekin could recover from.
Keep going, a voice said. You don’t want to stop here.
It was the voice. The voice from the woods.
Seth looked around. “Here,” he saw with a start, was the
entrance to Fort King. He had stopped the bike at the beginning
of a long, paved drive that wound up the hill to the bunker-like
prison, past orderly ranks of snow-covered pines.
The bike’s headlight illuminated the nearest trees, their
needles encased in ice like the forest of a frost giant. There,
burrowed into a snow bank, perfectly camouflaged except for his
pink nose and red-tinted eyes, was the bunny.
He gave a funny sideways hop, his big ears twitched, and just
like that, Seth knew.
In a flash, the rabbit had bounded up the hillside. Seth leapt
off the bike and bounded after him, skinning on the fly.
Fortunately there was no traffic. Anyone passing by would have
gotten an eyeful of a jaguar streaking through the evergreen
trees, ears laid back, teeth bared.
At the hill’s summit, the paved drive circled a massive stone
fountain of a now-familiar creature in Fairfax: the three-headed
chimera. Water spewed from all three of its serpentine heads; its
scorpion tail was poised to sting. Not quite the flag-waving statue
of Uncle Sam one would have expected to find on a military
base.
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From the road, the prison looked like a black jewel crowning
the hill. Up close, it was a labyrinthine collection of long, low
buildings with barred windows, each wing connected to the other
by skywalks, like the tentacles of a giant black squid. Its roof
was guarded by gun turrets and satellite dishes, the whole
structure circled by a chain link fence topped with rolls of razorwire. There was a disturbing organicness to it all, as though the
prison had grown out of the hillside, sprouting guard towers like
malignant tumors. The black stone glistened like a scorpion’s
shell even in the dark.
Seth couldn’t imagine how it would look in the daylight. It
was the sort of place you expected to disappear with the dawn.
Hideous as it was, he felt a strange draw to the prison. As
though something inside was calling to the magic in his blood.
The main doors were corrugated steel, like the doors of a
warehouse. Jack Steward’s BMW was parked in front of them.
Yeah, that boded well. Seth’s tail swished across the snow, his
nose pressed to the fence. What would a corporate attorney be
doing at a closed-down military prison in the middle of the
night? Nothing good, Seth thought, and was about to lope back
down the hill, heeding the voice’s warning that he didn’t want to
be here, when he saw him. The bunny, hunkered down beside the
BMW’s front tire. His red eyes were trained on the steel doors,
like he was waiting for someone to come out.
Silent as shadow, the jaguar scaled the nearest tree – climbed
out onto a high branch – and leapt over the fence, paws landing
soundlessly in the carpet of snow. He tensed for alarms to blare
or spotlights to seek him out or ranks of soldiers to come
marching out the doors, but nothing happened.
Inch by inch, he slunk along the ground, nose skimming the
snow until he was even with the trunk of the car.
With one powerful spring, he leapt over it, landing next to the
front tire so swiftly the rabbit didn’t even have time to jump at
his shadow. In one gulp, Seth had him in his mouth.
The rabbit squealed, thumping his back legs, but no bunny
was a match for a jaguar’s jaws: Seth leapt back over the fence,
padded down the hillside, and, locating the tallest evergreen,
climbed it, all the while holding the rabbit gingerly between his
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teeth. He paced out to the end of a sturdy branch, deposited his
captive on it, and sat back, giving him some space.
The rabbit’s nose twitched, but he didn’t dare jump. At this
height, that really would have been suicide.
A ripple moved under the jaguar’s fur. Seth, back in his
human skin, straddled the branch, swiping snowflakes off his
cheeks with the sleeve of his camouflage jacket.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”
The rabbit’s nose twitched again. In the next blink, he had
skinned as well.
The boys were quiet a moment, listening to the eerie chorus
of the wind. “So,” Seth finally said.
The other boy nodded. “So.”
“So you’re a rabbit,” Seth said.
Emery Little shrugged. “We can’t all be cats.”
***
The Littles lived in Haven Heights, on the fourth floor of a
ten-story tenement that shared the block with a seedy strip club
named The Pony and a liquor store advertising Wild Turkey on
special – about as far from Castle Estates as you could get in the
same zip code. Seth parked the Yamaha in the alley, and Emery
led him up a side staircase lit by a bare, flickering bulb.
The apartment reminded Seth of his row house in Philly,
shabby but clean. The carpet was brown shag, circa 1970, as was
the sofa crouched like a green lizard between the wooden
rocking chair and the brown recliner. He followed Emery into the
kitchen, where he was directed to a seat at the table, watching as
Emery took down glasses and poured chocolate milk for both of
them.
“It’s just us,” Emery assured him, tossing his denim jacket
over the back of his chair. His St. Francis medal was nestled in
the hollow of his throat. “Mom got called out of town yesterday.
Something is going down with the Resistance. Something big.”
“Your mom is werekin, too?” Seth asked. Emery nodded.
Seth sipped his milk, remembering Melody Little’s tiny stature,
her squeaky voice. “Is she a weremouse?”
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Emery said she was. “And you’re what,” Seth said,
“Underground?”
“No. We’re registered.” Hiking up his T-shirt, Emery
displayed the brand above his navel: 2671-ζ. Gen-7. “Most of the
werekin in Fairfax are registered. It’s not like a weremouse and a
wererabbit are much use to Chimera. They didn’t even select us
for their breeding program. They pretty much leave us alone, as
long as we don’t make trouble.”
Meaning as long as they didn’t join the Resistance, as it
seemed they had. In Fairfax. The Resistance had a cell in Fairfax.
Seth scraped his fingers through his hair, trying to wrap his mind
around this turn of events. “Were you doing something for the
Resistance out at Fort King?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“Then what were you doing? Enjoying the lovely weather?”
“Well…” Emery shifted on his chair, big ears twitching. “I
was – sort of – spying.”
“On?”
Emery lowered his eyes. “Jack Steward.”
Seth took a breath. “Maybe we should start at the beginning,”
he said.
He went first. Started with his earliest memories: the Harlem
Underground, his dad, the hunters who had collared him. Moved
on to Philly, to Ben and Naomi, life in the Underground.
Concluded with the events of the past month in Fairfax. Emery
already knew Regent was werekin, so Seth wasn’t betraying any
confidences when he explained about their training regimen, his
intention to join the Resistance as soon as his weretiger guru
gave the okay.
Abbey Road switched over on the CD player while he talked.
Then it was Emery’s turn.
Melody Little was a Gen-6 werekin, born in a Chimera lab
but permitted to live in the human world, like the handful of
breeds Chimera considered harmless (and useless). She had
enjoyed an uneventful youth in Fairfax with her adoptive parents,
both werekin, until a nineteen-year-old werewolf named Aidan
McDonagh had shown up, on assignment for the Resistance, and
sixteen-year-old Melody had been swept off her feet.
“Your dad was killed?” Seth prompted, gently.
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Emery leaned forward, chin cupped in his hand. “Mom didn’t
even know she was pregnant yet when it happened. Dad was
born in the Underground, never registered, like you. He made
Mom keep their relationship a secret. He was afraid Chimera
would target her to get to him. They would meet out in the
woods, at this old cabin near the river. One afternoon Mom was
on her way there when she saw smoke. The cabin was on fire.
She hid in the trees, watched the hunters drag him outside and
execute him. Silver bullet,” Emery said, “right through the
heart.”
How Naomi had been killed. Seth traced the beads of
moisture on the outside of his empty glass. “What did your mom
do?”
“Joined the Resistance. Told them she wanted revenge.”
Seth whistled. “Beware the wrath of the mighty weremouse.”
“You should see her when I forget to take out the trash.”
Emery was chewing on the end of his ponytail again, but Seth
thought it was habit more than fear; Emery seemed at ease with
him now. “The Resistance isn’t picky about their membership.
Any werekin can join, regardless of breed. They were glad to
have Mom’s help. She stayed here in Fairfax, had me, opened
her store – just went on pretending to be a tame little weremouse,
while she secretly picked up Dad’s assignment where he left
off.”
Now they were getting to it. “And that assignment was?”
“To find out if the Ark was being housed at Fort King.”
There was a beat in which Seth only blinked. Then he said,
“Seriously?”
Emery nodded. “Dad came to Fairfax to see if the rumors
were true, that Chimera Enterprises had built Fort King
specifically to house the Ark. He never found out, but it didn’t
take long for him to realize the prison was really a Chimera
facility. Its government liaison was an up-and-coming young
senator from Fairfax, a long-time family friend of the LeRois.”
“I’m going to take a wild guess here and say the senator was
someone named Steward.”
“Gavin Steward,” Emery nodded. “Your step-father’s father.
The Stewards have had a law firm in Fairfax for over a century.
Used to be a small operation, but a little over fifty years ago, they
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started representing major corporate clients from all over the
world. Biotech companies, primarily. They built a brand-new
office downtown, and Gavin Steward got elected to the United
States Senate. When Dad poked around a little, he found out all
of Gavin Steward’s corporate clients could be traced back to one
umbrella corporation.”
“Chimera Enterprises,” Seth said.
“Right again,” Emery approved. “Gavin Steward was still in
office when Fort King was supposedly decommissioned.”
“Yeah, why was it decommissioned?”
“No one really knows. It was shut down before you or I were
born, but the Resistance has never believed for a second Chimera
stopped operating there. My mom thinks it’s a hub.”
“A hub?” Seth had never heard the term applied in the
context of Chimera.
“Hubs are magically-warded locations for securing werekin
captives until they can be transported to another Chimera facility.
When the hunters collar you, they take you to a hub, and you’re
held there until they decide where to ship you.”
Seth pictured the Philadelphia port, crowded with shipping
containers, barges, and railcars. Only instead of cocoa beans and
car parts, it was his kindred being stowed and shipped. “You said
most of the werekin in Fairfax are registered. How many of us
are there?”
“Rough estimate? A couple hundred,” Emery said. “You’ve
probably figured out most of us live here, in Haven Heights. Of
course not all of us are born werekin. There are a lot of mixed
families – werekin parents with human children and werekin
children. And sometimes werekin parents adopt a werekin child
who isn’t a warrior breed, like my mom’s parents adopted her.”
“Chimera doesn’t take the human offspring to train as
hunters?”
Emery shook his head. “LeRoi wants us to breed, even
outside captivity. She knows we wouldn’t if we didn’t believe
there was at least a chance our children could live free.”
Seth tipped back in his chair, struggling to assemble the
pieces of this story into a coherent whole. The clock on the
battered green stove read 2:33a.m. He was so tired he was sure
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he was missing something vital. “If Jack is working for
Chimera,” he said, “why hasn’t he turned me over already?”
“We don’t know that Jack Steward is working for Chimera,”
Emery said. “Gavin Steward died of a heart attack while his son
was still in law school. When Jack came back to Fairfax, he set
up shop with two registered werekin: Thomas Sullivan and
Werner Regent. But he never gave any indication that he knew
they were werekin, or that werekin even existed. And he never
showed any interest in politics, until now. Tonight is the first
night, as far as I know, that he has ever made a trip out to the old
prison. The Resistance didn’t know what to think about him,
from what Mom has told me, so they’ve kept an eye on him, but
otherwise, they’ve left him alone.
“Anyway, things have been quiet in Fairfax since your dad
disappeared. Chimera has always had a presence here, because of
Fort King, but it wasn’t until you showed up that the city started
crawling with hunters.”
Seth supposed it was gratifying to know he had rattled
Chimera’s cage. “Why didn’t you want me to know you were
werekin?”
Emery ducked his head. “Yeah, sorry about that. That first
day, when you and Marshall came into the store, I was already
glamoured.” He held up his St. Francis medal. Almost
unconsciously, Seth touched the pewter jaguar charm Leigh had
given him. “Ms. McLain insists we use glamours at school, just
in case, but that day, we knew there were more hunters in town
than usual, so staying off the radar seemed like a wise idea. The
Underground was buzzing about a powerful werekin coming to
Fairfax – ”
Seth sat forward so fast his chair legs slammed into the floor.
Emery jumped. “How is that possible? Nobody but Ben knew I
was coming to Fairfax, and he wouldn’t have told anyone.”
“Word travels fast in the Underground,” Emery said,
soothingly. “Mom heard about Naomi Franklin’s death the day
after she was killed. Rumor was she had been protecting a
werekin cub, someone Chimera was very interested in, and the
cub had connections in Fairfax.”
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It made sense, but it still freaked Seth out to know the hunters
had been forewarned of his arrival. He folded his arms over his
chest. “Go on,” he said.
“So, like I was saying, I recognized you as werekin right
away.” Emery leaned back, hooking his ankles around the legs of
his chair. “You probably don’t know it, but you give off the most
intense aura. I had never seen anything like it. Mom says it’s
because werecats are the strongest of the warrior breeds. I knew
you had to be the one the hunters were after – ” so much for
being incognito, Seth thought “ – and I was about to drag you in
the back, call my mom, and get you out of Fairfax, but then
Marshall said you were Leigh Steward’s brother, Jack Steward’s
step-son, and…I thought you were a spy. A plant, sent by
Chimera to infiltrate the Resistance.”
Seth made an impatient noise. “Emery, how could I be
working for Chimera? I’m not collared.” He pointed at his bare
neck for proof.
“Collaring isn’t the only way to force a werekin’s
cooperation. Chimera could have been holding your mother or
your sister hostage. Or…”
“Or?”
“Or you could have wanted to help them.”
Seth was indignant. “I’m werekin, Emery. How could I want
to help Chimera? They torture us. Hunt us. Enslave us.”
“Seth, nobody knew what happened to you after your dad
took you away.” Emery had very light green eyes, the color of
new spring leaves; they peered at Seth through a fringe of
coppery lashes. “For all I knew, you had been captured by
Chimera as a baby, raised in the Scholae Bestiarii. If you had
been brought up by Chimera, if you had never been told anything
other than whatever lies they filled your head with, how would
you know you were fighting for the bad guys?”
I would have known, Seth thought. He would still have been
Seth Michael Sullivan, no matter what Chimera had done to him.
Wouldn’t he?
Getting to his feet, Seth began to pace. The black jaguar, his
doppelganger, flitted across his mind; he shut that train of
thought down until he was alone, where he could deal with it.
“Does Werner Regent work for Chimera?”
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“I don’t know, Seth. To be honest, there’s a lot I don’t
know.” Emery had gotten up to pour himself another glass of
milk. He held the carton out to Seth. Seth shook his head. For
once, he had no appetite. “Mom keeps me out of her work as
much as she can. She won’t let me join the Resistance until I
graduate.”
“Why not? You’re of age.”
“Being of age doesn’t make you ready to fight a war,”
Emery pointed out.
“I’m ready,” Seth said. “Sign me up.” Emery laughed. A
thought struck Seth then, and he tipped his head to the side.
“Wait. If you aren’t Resistance, why were you spying on Jack?”
“Well, don’t tell my mom this, because she’d have my hide,
but I’ve been worried about you.” Emery hopped up on the
counter, holding his glass between both of his bony hands.
“You’ve been living under the Stewards’ roof, and I could tell
you didn’t have any idea who Jack Steward might really be. Dre
volunteered to keep an eye on your house – ”
“Dre Alfaro?”
Emery nodded. “He’s registered, like me. A werefalcon.”
Seth knew it. “And then, after we met that hunter girl, I started
following your step-father. I thought, if I could catch him
meeting up with her, that would be proof he was working for
Chimera, and the Resistance could – ”
“Hang on,” Seth broke in again. “What hunter girl?”
“Cleo,” Emery said, like it was obvious. “Wasn’t that her
name?”
Wanna take me for a spin?
Seth whirled around, gripping the edge of the counter. How
could he have been so clueless? The first time he had seen Cleo,
admiring him in the bookstore, was the same day he had been
tracked down and nearly collared by Snowman. The second time
he had seen her, at the mall, she had been so curious about where
he worked, where he lived. He swallowed hard. “How do you
know she’s a hunter?”
“I could just tell. You learn to spot them after a while.”
And she had seen Emery. Because of Seth, she had seen
Emery, hanging out with an unregistered werekin. What if she
decided to take a harder look at the Littles and discovered they
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were Resistance? He should come with a skull-and-crossbones
label, like cans of poison, Seth thought bleakly. First his dad,
then Naomi, now the Littles. How many werekin were going to
end up dead or collared because of him?
He turned back around. “Em, I’m so sorry, for all of this. I
don’t want to cause trouble for you or your mom. I’m grateful for
you looking out for me, but it would be safer if you stayed away
from me.”
“It would be safer for you to go back Underground,” Emery
said, “but you’re not going to, are you?”
Seth shook his head. “That’s different.”
“Why? Because you’re a jaguar and I’m a rabbit?”
Well…yes. But it sounded so conceited when Emery put it
that way, Seth didn’t want to admit it. Emery smiled. “I know
I’m not a warrior, Seth. I’ll never be as dangerous to Chimera as
you are. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help you. Even if
the hunters hadn’t killed my dad, I would still want to help you.
We’re blood. It’s as simple as that.”
He extended his hand. Seth looked at it, the bony fingers and
the blue veins, then up, at Emery’s face: the pink nose, the big
ears, the pale hair. An understanding passed between them, blood
calling to blood. Seth reached out, and they grasped arms, just
below the elbow. A gladiator handshake.
When they stepped back, Seth’s eyes were bright. “About
that glamour you mentioned,” he said. “Can you show me how it
works?”
“Sure.” Emery held up his St. Francis medal; Lemurian
glyphs were scratched into the back. They whispered in Seth’s
mind, speaking of concealment and protection. “It’s a pretty
simple spell.”
Seth took off his necklace. “Can you use this?”
Emery said he didn’t see why not. Seth slipped the jaguar
charm off its leather cord and handed it to him. Emery placed it
on the counter, took a pocket knife from his jeans, and went to
work. A minute later, he handed the charm back to Seth, who
knotted the cord around his neck.
Warmth trickled down him, from the crown of his head to
the soles of his feet – like being dunked upside down in a
summer stream. Seth ran his fingertips over his face, knowing,
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beyond any doubt, that the glamour had worked. He was hidden
inside his own skin.
174
Chapter Fourteen: The Missing Piece
As soon as Whitney Townsend saw Seth, she knew
something was up.
Normally, Seth was surrounded by a brilliant whorl of colors,
like photos of the rings around Saturn. It was the same with that
attorney Werner Regent, and Emery Little and Andre and Angelo
Alfaro and a lot of the kids from Haven Heights, and a handful of
other people she saw around Fairfax from time to time, though
the colors around Seth were more pronounced.
Whitney didn’t know what the colors meant. She just knew
they existed, and most people couldn’t see them. When she was
very young and had pointed out the people with the pretty colors,
her father had sent her for a CAT scan. After that, Marshall had
pulled her aside and instructed her not to mention them.
Today, the halos around both Seth and Emery had for some
reason diminished to shimmering veils. Whitney, bracing her
elbows on Re-Spin’s counter, narrowed her eyes at Seth. “You
look different,” she accused.
“It’s my hair,” Seth joked. “I combed it.” Emery’s laugh was
an octave too high; Seth shot him a look, and he shut up.
“Where’s Leigh?”
“At home, I guess.” Whitney wasn’t surprised, or offended,
that Seth had expected Leigh to be with her. Their whole lives it
had been this way, Leigh Steward and Whitney Townsend, never
one without the other. Cake and Ice Cream, Marshall used to call
them. Although now they were in high school, Leigh seemed to
be leaving Whitney behind for the popular crowd.
In a sack hooked over Whitney’s wrist was the greater
portion of her CD collection – her cover story for visiting ReSpin this morning, to talk to Seth about Marshall before the
situation spiraled any more out of control. She had tried his
house first, but Mrs. Steward had said the roads were clear
enough for the mall to open, so here she was.
“I want to make a trade,” Whitney announced, plunking the
bag on the counter.
Seth rubbed his hands together greedily. “Show us what
you got.”
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While the boys sorted through the albums, Whitney feigned
interest in the packages of incense Re-Spin sold, studying the
two of them on the sly. She wished they hadn’t dampened
whatever force it was that painted them in colors of light, though
she had to say, it was easier to see them, as people, without the
halos. Emery Little was actually quite good-looking. Seth was
too, gorgeous even, but Seth was small and delicate. Whitney
was more into boys like Emery, tall and lanky, with strong
features.
He glanced up, caught Whitney staring at him, and blushed
as hotly as she did. He held up a P!nk album. “Angry chick
rocker phase?”
“I’m into folk now,” Whitney said.
Emery hooked her up with Blood or Whiskey, The Gaslight
Anthem, and that staple of all folk rock, The Byrds. Seth rang her
up. “I was going across the street to do homework at the
bookstore,” Whitney said, “if you want to come.”
Seth turned to Emery. “What do you say, boss? Am I free?”
“Might as well. The rush should be over for today. Most
people are still snowed in.” Emery handed Whitney back her
bag, now bulging with new CDs. “Remember, you can trade in
whatever you don’t want to keep,” he said.
Whitney hoped that was an invitation to come back.
***
Homework and fun were not two words Seth usually placed
in the same sentence, but studying with Whitney Townsend
proved to be a surprisingly good time. They nabbed a corner
table in the Barnes and Noble café, outlined Whitney’s essay on
Julius Caesar for Miss Janowitz, then reviewed the chapter on
the circulatory system for Seth’s upcoming Bio exam, treating
themselves to double-chocolate mochas and blueberry scones for
the occasion. At last, Whitney closed Seth’s Bio textbook with a
satisfying slap.
“Poor Dr. Gideon. He is so hoping to fail you, and you are
going to ace this exam. He’ll be apoplectic.”
Seth popped a stray blueberry in his mouth. “I hope not. I’d
like to fly under the radar from here on out.”
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Whitney raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Good luck with that.”
“What? You don’t think I blend in?”
“I think you’re trying to,” Whitney said, pointedly. Seth
lowered his gaze. Way too observant, this girl. “Actually, Seth, I
asked you here to talk to you. About Marshall.”
Like he hadn’t seen that one coming.
Seth hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and tipped
back in his chair. He had still been awake when his alarm had
buzzed at five-thirty, struggling to process everything he had
learned from Emery. It seemed his whole world had turned
upside down in a single day – and not just the magical side,
either. All the way downstairs, his stomach had been tied in
knots, but Marshall had not been waiting on him in the driveway
for their run. Seth knew it was stupid to have even thought he
might be.
He let his chair fall forward. “Not much to talk about,
according to your brother.” Oh no, he didn’t sound bitter. Not at
all.
“Seth, please don’t be mad at him,” Whitney begged.
Hope flickered in Seth’s chest. “Did he ask you to talk to
me?”
“God no.” Whitney looked appalled. “Are you kidding? He
would freak if he thought I had the slightest clue about you two.”
Snuff. The flicker of hope went out. Seth curled his hands
around his coffee cup. “How do you know?”
“Sisters know things,” Whitney said, airily. Seth didn’t think
that applied to all sisters. Unless Leigh just hadn’t had enough
practice yet. “Anyway, it’s not like I needed ESP to notice the
sparks flying between you two yesterday. I thought the couch
might ignite.”
She was grinning. Seth felt like he was seeing Whitney
Townsend through new eyes. Hadn’t she been the one to suggest
he and Marshall be running buddies? And yesterday, asking him
to lay his head in her lap, had she been trying to make Marshall
jealous? “But Leigh said you had a crush on me,” he blurted out,
and blushed.
Whitney blushed, too. “She wants me to. She has it all
figured out – her and Marshall, me and you. She even has our
couples’ wedding planned. I hope you like Barbados, because
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that’s where we’re honeymooning.” Seth laughed. Whitney
smiled again. “Leigh and I have been friends since we were in
strollers. Marshall was always there, in the background, but he
was older. He had his own friends. Then we started high school
last year, and all of a sudden, Leigh wanted to date him. I think
she worries I feel like a third wheel now. Then you came along,
and, well, you were an easy solution.”
And he would have been, Seth thought, except for the minor
detail that he was gay. “So you don’t have a crush on me?”
“I like you, Seth,” Whitney said. “Just not like that.”
Seth was relieved. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Whitney.
They dumped their trash and wandered around the store,
gravitating toward Whitney’s favorite section – poetry. Seth
pulled a copy of Ariel off the shelf and flipped through it idly. “Is
he okay?” he asked.
Whitney did not need an explanation of who “he” was. “He
wasn’t talking this morning, and he wouldn’t eat. I don’t think he
slept last night. Whatever happened between you guys, he’s
miserable over it.”
Seth shoved the book back on the shelf with unnecessary
force. “I don’t get it. If he likes me the way I like him, why does
it have to be so complicated? You’re cool with it. I think Bryce
would be cool with it, and Topher and Gabe. Is it Cam?”
“It’s not Cam.” Whitney pronounced Cam with a curl of her
lip that conveyed precisely what she thought of Cam Foss. “It’s
our father. He’s so tough on Marshall, Seth. Grades, sports,
clothes, friends – everything about Marshall has to be perfect, all
the time. And Dad decides what ‘perfect’ is.”
Seth thought about the stacks of college catalogs on
Marshall’s bedside table. The spotless room. The fancy sports
car. Marshall’s fear of being seen inside Re-Spin, a store his
father disapproved of. Dr. Townsend’s expectations. “I’m
guessing your dad wouldn’t be marching in any gay pride
parades?”
“I can’t imagine what Dad would do if he found out Marshall
was gay,” Whitney said. She shuddered, though, like she could
imagine, and just didn’t want to. “But Marshall won’t let that
happen. He would never disappoint Dad.”
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She glanced around, as though checking no one was
listening. “Ninth grade, right? The Knights had a game against
Sacred Heart. Last quarter, under a minute to play, we’re down
by one point, and Marshall gets fouled. He misses both free
throws, and we end up losing the game. The whole drive home,
Dad screamed at him. ‘What kind of amateur can’t make a free
throw? You might as well quit the team if you can’t play better
than that!’ I wanted to throw up.” Seth wanted to throw up, and
he was hearing the story secondhand. “Marshall never said a
word. When we got home, he wouldn’t come inside. Wouldn’t
take a shower or eat a snack. It was ten degrees outside, and he
practiced free throws in our driveway for three hours. Three
hours, Seth. He hasn’t missed a free throw in a game since.”
“But Marshall idolizes your father,” Seth said, wanting to
understand. If Dr. Townsend was such a monster, why did
Marshall care so much about his approval? “He wants to go to
Harvard, be a doctor, like your father.”
“Those are Dad’s dreams,” Whitney said. “I don’t know what
Marshall wants. I’m not sure Marshall knows what Marshall
wants.”
Seth disagreed. He thought Marshall knew exactly what he
wanted. He just wouldn’t let himself have it. Didn’t leave him
much to work with.
“Seth.” Whitney took Seth’s hand in both of hers. Her eyes
were as blue as Marshall’s, and equally kind. “I know you have a
lot going on in your life. It’s okay if you can’t talk to me about
it,” she said quickly, cutting off Seth’s feeble protest. “I just
mean that I don’t want to see you get hurt, either. But don’t be
too angry with Marshall, okay? However much you hate him
right now, I promise you, he hates himself even more.”
***
The house at 706 Kings Lane was dark and silent as the grave
when Seth made it home. Captain Hook met him at the back door
with an urgent bark, shooting Seth meaningful, Lassie-type looks
as he raced up the stairs: This way! Hurry!
Fighting a growing unease, Seth trailed him upstairs to
Leigh’s room. All the lights were off up here, too, yet there was
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an unmistakable mound underneath the covers. Seth stopped in
the doorway, claws pricking his palms. “Leigh?”
“Go away,” came a muffled voice from the region of the
pillows.
Seth slunk into the room. “What’s wrong?”
Leigh heaved a sigh but sat up, combing her hair back from
her damp cheeks. She was wearing her extra-comfy yoga pants
and a long-sleeved T-shirt of Seth’s, a half-empty pint of Chunky
Monkey melting on the bedside table. That was how Seth knew it
was serious. Leigh did not blow her diet lightly. “Did something
happen?” he asked, sinking down on the mattress.
“Marshall came over this morning.” Leigh’s voice sounded
like she had a bad head cold. “I thought he was going to ask me
to prom. But he said…he said he was sorry if he’d given me the
wrong impression, and he…he just wants to be friends.”
She all but whispered that last. Seth winced. He had told
Marshall to break things off with Leigh, and now, she was
devastated. Knowing what he knew about Marshall, of course, it
was inevitable her heart would have been broken someday, but
that didn’t make it easy to see his little sister cry.
Leigh drew her knees up, circling them with her arms. “I’m
so stupid, Seth! It’s not like he ever even kissed me. But…I
thought he liked me…”
She dissolved again. Seth put his arm around her, patting her
shoulders while she cried herself into hiccups.
It took some coaxing, but eventually Seth got her down to the
kitchen, where he positioned her at the island while he whipped
up a batch of hot chocolate – the good stuff, with real milk and
Hershey’s syrup and marshmallows on top, like Naomi used to
make when he had a crummy day. A bag of Oreos and a box of
Kleenex later, Leigh was laughing again, entertained by Seth’s
antics with Captain Hook: “Sit!” he commanded, holding up a
Snausage for motivation. Captain Hook rolled over. “Stay!” The
Dachshund cocked his head and barked. “Obedience school
dropout,” Seth chided, but tossed him the treat anyway.
Leigh reached out, tracing the tattoos around his eye with her
index finger. “What do those mean?”
“That I’m an idiot,” Seth replied, archly.
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“No arguments here,” said Leigh. Seth pushed her playfully,
and she grinned. “Please? I’m asking in all seriousness.”
“I like jaguars,” Seth said, cautiously. Aware that Leigh’s
father was likely working for Chimera Enterprises, and unsure
whether that made Leigh his enemy, much as he cared for her.
“But now I wish I hadn’t gotten them.”
“I like them,” Leigh said. “They’re you.”
Buried in those two sentences was another, unspoken:
Leigh liked him. Seth smiled at her. “You know, you’re not how
I imagined,” she said.
Lydia must have talked about him, then. Seth leaned back
against the island. “How did you imagine me?”
“Like the guys on the ball team, I guess,” Leigh said. Like
Marshall, she meant, but she wasn’t saying his name. “I pictured
you going to prep school back East. Suit and tie. Polo on the
weekends. Living in a condo on Ninety-Sixth Street.”
Ninety-Sixth Street? Curious detail. “You knew we lived in
New York?”
“Daddy said that was where your father went when he left.”
Seth was glad Leigh said this into her hot chocolate, or she
would have seen a flash of something unmistakably non-human
in his golden eyes – for it took all of Seth’s self-control not to
skin right then and there, race into downtown Fairfax, and maul
Jack Steward at his desk.
Thomas Sullivan had been a sly fox in every sense of the
word. He would not have told anyone, even his best friend,
where he was taking Seth. But Jack was Leigh’s father. Seth
couldn’t rip him to shreds without proof that he had been the one
to track down Thomas and betray him to Chimera.
If he found proof, that would be another story.
Seth slid off his stool. “When will your parents be home?”
“Our parents,” said Leigh, “are at a dinner party at Dr. Foss’.
They’ll be gone half the night. Why?”
Seth held out a hand to her. “I want to show you something.”
Leigh allowed Seth to lead her down to the basement. She
perched on Lydia’s sewing chair, spinning in slow circles as he
took down the keepsake box, placed it on the table, and used the
metal file to pop the lock. “Where’d you learn to do that?” she
asked.
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“Choir practice,” Seth said. “Where do you think?”
“Well, excuse me. I forgot you’re a felon.” Leigh peered
over his shoulder. “What am I looking at?”
Reaching into the box, Seth took out the teddy bears, the
bibs, the booties, and placed it all on the table. “Oh,” Leigh said,
softly. “I didn’t know Mom still had this stuff.”
Seth’s heart stilled in his chest. “You know what this is?”
“Sure I do.” Leigh picked up one of the teddy bears and
hugged it to her chest. Her expression was wan. “Mom and I visit
his grave all the time.”
Seth imagined a blade, the sharpest blade he had ever seen,
driving into his chest, skewering his heart. “Whose grave?” he
whispered.
“You mean you don’t know? Your dad never told you?”
Leigh looked astonished. Seth shook his head. No, Thomas
had never told him. Apparently, Thomas had never told him
much of anything. And Naomi and Ben hadn’t seen fit to, either.
Pins and needles stabbed his spine. Before Leigh could reach
out to him, Seth spun away and ran up the stairs, straight out the
back door and onto the Stewards’ back porch. He was on the
verge of skinning, which he absolutely could not do in front of
Leigh.
A clear, cold twilight had fallen. Seth gripped the porch
railing with both hands, staring unseeingly across the Stewards’
backyard. Two jaguars, one light, one dark. A box of baby
clothes, everything double. Two locks of hair in a silver locket. I
can’t lose him, too, Lydia had said to Regent, as the silver poison
had burned through Seth. The same words Thomas had said to
Naomi, the night the hunters had come for Seth in New York.
He heard a step, but did not turn. Leigh’s arms slid around
his waist, her cheek resting against his spine. Seth took a deep
breath. The magic in his blood receded, his sister’s warmth, her
solidness, soothing him. “Will you tell me?” he asked, forcing
his lips to move. They felt frozen.
“You were babies.” Leigh’s voice was soft. “Mom was sick
after you were born. Depressed. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She
put J.J. in the bathtub, the phone rang, she went to answer it,
and…he drowned.”
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J.J. Seth closed his eyes, seeing a ribbon of river threading
through the jungle, a black jaguar ghosting through the vibrant
canopy. His doppelganger. His twin. He had a name. J.J.
Seth got it now – the way his mother looked at him, like she
wanted to squeeze him tight and never let him go, even as she
never allowed herself to touch him. He finally understood what
Lydia was thinking when she looked at him. She was thinking of
J.J., the son she had lost.
Except something didn’t add up. Because in Seth’s dreams,
J.J. wasn’t dead. He was as alive as Seth. Seventeen years old.
Seventeen and branded.
***
Ten miles south of Castle Estates, climbing a hillside above a
well-maintained county road, Seth found it. Royal Acres
Cemetery.
An arched iron gate, locked for the night, stretched between
two brick posts, centering a brick wall topped with diamondshaped iron spikes. Seth parked the Yamaha beside the gate and
hopped the fence, his paws leaving soft impressions on the snow
as he padded to the lot Leigh had marked for him on her handdrawn map.
He recognized the gravestone from her description – a childsized concrete angel, hands folded in prayer, beside a bowlshaped tree rising up from a tangle of thorny rose bushes. The
tree was the same tree the black jaguar had watched Seth from in
his dreams.
With his paw, Seth cleared snow off the headstone. Jeremy
Jonathan Sullivan, read the inscription, above an age (two
months) and a benediction: Sleeping with the Stars.
A fluttering in the rose bushes caught Seth’s eye. Snagged on
one of the thorns was a scrap of gray and white cloth – snow
camouflage. A hunter had been here, and recently. A hunter at
his brother’s grave. Chimera was closing in on him.
Seth was pretty sure he knew who the hunter was, and why
she had been “admiring” him in the bookstore that day. Seth and
J.J. were twins. Anyone who had seen one would be sure to
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recognize the other. Stood to reason their animal skins might be
the same.
Seth was convinced, beyond any doubt, that his twin was not
buried in this grave. He didn’t know how Thomas had done it, or
why, but he had convinced Lydia her son was dead, and she was
to blame.
“You tried to warn me, didn’t you?”
Seth wasn’t aware of having returned to his human skin until
he spoke aloud. Snow was soaking through the knees of his
jeans; kneeling before his brother’s headstone, he reached out,
tracing the letters on the stone: the J in Jeremy, the J in Jonathan.
“It’s your voice in my head, isn’t it? Regent said some werekin
have more magic in their blood than others. That we can be
telepathic. And you are. You’ve been watching over me.
Warning me.”
Wind stirred the trees, a whispering voice. This time, Seth
listened. “I know why Naomi sent me to Fairfax,” he said. “To
find you. She knew you were alive. I won’t stop looking, J.J. I’ll
bring you home. I promise.”
Before the hunter at his back could strike, Seth had leapt
aside, sweeping out a foot that cut her legs from under her. She
landed on her back in the snow, striking her temple against the
sharp edge of the gravestone; almost at once, she had rolled to
her feet, dagger in hand, facing him with cold determination in
her ice-chip eyes. Blood leaked down her cheek from the cut on
her brow, but her smile was as feral as a cat’s.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Cleo said.
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Chapter Fifteen: Hostage Situation
Seth lunged.
Cleo spun to the side, dodging the attack so deftly they might
have choreographed it. Something split the air, a centimeter from
Seth’s cheek; from the corner of his eye, he saw moonlight strike
off a sharpened blade. He smelled the carmelized tang of silver
powder on the dagger’s tip as he rounded for a second attack.
The poisoned dagger came perilously close to nicking his ribs,
but Seth seized Cleo’s wrist, twisted it, and swung her around,
face-first into the concrete angel atop J.J.’s headstone.
The dagger thumped into the snow.
Over her shoulder, Cleo glared at Seth, breathing hard in the
frosted night air. She must have been expecting an untrained cub,
Seth thought. Otherwise she would have tranqed him from across
the cemetery. “Someone been teaching you new tricks,
sweetheart?”
She kicked out, catching Seth in the side of the knee with the
spiked heel of her boot. Pain drove like nails through his leg, and
Seth crumpled.
“Hi-YAH!” Cleo chopped the edge of her hand down toward
his neck – a knife-hand strike that would have rendered him
unconscious, had Seth not thrown an arm up to block her. Batting
him aside, Cleo dove sideways – for the dagger. Oh no. If she got
her hands on that again, Seth was pretty sure he was done for.
Gritting his teeth against the agony of a dislocated knee, he leapt
off the ground, tackling the hunter into the snow.
They wrestled, rolling around on top of J.J.’s empty grave.
Cleo got in a punch that sent Seth reeling; while he was still
shaking the stars out of his eyes, she hooked a leg around his
waist, thrust her hips off the ground, and levered him onto his
back.
In a breath she had him pinned, one arm folded beneath him
at an excruciating angle, the other flattened to the ground in her
powerful grip. If she hadn’t been trying to kill him, Seth would
have been impressed by that move.
They stared at one another, noses inches apart. Blood dripped
off Cleo’s chin onto Seth’s cheek. With the hand that wasn’t
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holding his wrist, she wiped it away, trailing her fingertips up to
brush his hair back. Seth showed her his teeth.
Cleo smirked, but the fact that she hadn’t picked her dagger
up and plunged it through his heart yet was as puzzling to Seth as
the sudden dilation of her pupils, black pools in the center of her
ice-chip eyes. “Love the tattoos, by the way,” she said. “They’ll
go great with your new collar.”
Collar this, sweetheart, Seth thought. And skinned.
Cleo let go of him. Really, when one found oneself wrestling
a jaguar, it was the only thing to do. Seth’s claws raked her
shoulder. She choked back a scream as she staggered to her feet,
stumbling into the concrete angel – which toppled from its
pedestal, crashing through the rose bushes at the base of the
bowl-shaped tree. On her knees, Cleo threw an arm out to shield
her face.
In that instant, she was stripped of fury, terrified and young.
As young as Seth was.
He might still have been able to go through with killing her,
if he hadn’t heard that voice, J.J.’s voice, clear as a bell in his
mind. Save her, Seth.
Save Cleo? J.J. wanted him to save a hunter? Was he insane?
Cleo would collar his compassionate tail and hand him over to
her masters. Ah well, Seth thought. What was life without a little
risk?
When Seth skinned back into a human, Cleo’s mouth
rounded in surprise. Seth took grim pleasure from that as he
snatched the dagger up off the ground. He raised it over his head
– and knocked her out, with a perfectly-placed elbow to the
temple.
***
Cleo had parked her Toyota Tundra on an access road near
the caretaker’s shed. By tracking her boot prints through the
snow, Seth found it, drove it around to the main entrance, loaded
the Yamaha in the back (no way was he leaving his baby
behind), and followed the paved road back to J.J.’s grave.
The unconscious hunter was slumped against the headstone,
right where Seth had left her. His first order of business was to
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bind her wrists and ankles with a length of rope he had found in
the shed. (Seth did not take chances with hunters, even knockedout hunters.) Ignoring the ground-up glass that seemed to have
been packed inside his injured knee, he hefted her into the truck
bed.
Cleo did not stir. Her skin was clammy, her lips bluish.
Blood soaked her white parka on one side. Seth’s claws, he saw
when he eased the coat off her arms, had torn her shoulder open
all the way to the bone.
There were other wounds, too, across her chest and back –
old wounds, faded to scars. Seth remembered Regent saying
hunters began their training as children, just like werekin. Just
like werekin, they were taken from their parents, caged, tortured.
Broken down to be remade.
Inside the cab of the pickup he found a duffel bag stocked
with clothes, ammo, food, and a pouch of glass phials in a rich
palette of colors, from burgundy to chartreuse, each stoppered
with wax and labeled with a glyph. Seth selected a Bordeauxesque magenta labeled healing and crawled into the truck bed,
supporting Cleo’s shoulders as he tipped a few drops into her
mouth.
Her eyelids flickered, her gaze focusing dazedly on his face.
Her lips parted. “J.J.?”
“Nope,” Seth said. “This would be Seth. The good-looking
twin.”
Cleo made a choking sound. Could have been a cough. Could
have been a laugh.
She sat up, shrugging off Seth’s attempt to help her. He
scooted back against the wheel well opposite her and waved the
phial of healing potion. “Can I drink this, or will it melt my
insides?”
“It’ll melt your insides,” Cleo said. “But by all means, drink
it.”
Keeping his eyes on hers, Seth calmly tipped the remaining
potion down his throat. Spoiled milk would have tasted better,
but a pleasant, tickling coolness spread through him, reducing the
fire in his knee to a bearable burn. He smacked his lips. “Mmmmmm good.”
187
Cleo left off openly testing the knots in her ropes and looked
at him. “How did you know it wouldn’t kill you?”
“Educated guess. Chimera wants me alive, right?”
Cleo just sniffed.
Seth stretched his legs out. The dagger he had taken from her
was in plain view, tucked through a belt loop. He had cleaned the
silver powder off in the snow. The bone handle was familiar, as
were the glyphs etched into the blade: This was the dagger J.J.
had given him, in his dream. Cleo didn’t seem fazed by it. “Let’s
start with how you found me,” Seth said. “Did you come after
me in Philly? Did you track me to Fairfax?”
Translation: Had Cleo killed Naomi?
Stiffly, Cleo said, “I don’t answer to animals.”
“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but you just dropped to
the bottom of the food chain.” Drawing the dagger, Seth waved
it, pointedly. Cleo said nothing. She had really expressive eyes,
though. At the moment, they were telling him where he could
stick his dagger.
Looked like they were doing this the hard way. “Lie down,”
Seth ordered her.
“You forgot the magic word,” Cleo said, sweetly.
“All right. Please lie down, so I don’t have to knock you out
again.” Glaring at him, Cleo obeyed, curling up on her side near
the back window. Seth tucked her parka around her. “Comfy?”
Cleo’s answer was to call him a creative name involving
pussycats and male anatomy. Grinning, Seth jumped down from
the truck bed, and climbed behind the wheel.
***
Fortunately, Regent was not armed when he answered the
door. Seth stood on the porch with Cleo, bound hand and foot
beside him, waiting patiently while Regent cursed him for being
a soft-hearted, numbskulled cub, threatened to skin him alive and
wear him as a fur coat, and finally directed him to take the hunter
upstairs.
Seth carried her. Cleo was dignified about it, holding onto his
neck with her gaze averted from his face. Seth tried not to jostle
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her. Even with the healing potion, she wouldn’t heal as fast as he
did.
On the second floor, Regent pulled down a trapdoor that led
into the attic. Seth hesitated, peering up the accordion steps.
“You want me to put her up there?” He had been thinking more
along the lines off the guestroom where he had convalesced.
“Won’t it be cold?”
“Does it look like I’m running a hotel for hunters?” Regent
growled. “You want me to baby-sit, she stays in the attic.
Chained up,” he added, tersely.
Okay, so this had been a bad idea. But what else could Seth
do? Keeping Cleo alive had complicated his life by a factor of
about a thousand. He couldn’t very well take her home and
introduce her to his parents. Jack, Lydia, meet Cleo. She wants to
kill me. I’ll just by tying her up in my room for the foreseeable
future…
Letting her go was equally impossible. Cleo knew who, and
what, Seth was now; if he let her go, she would be back, with a
posse of hunters this time, to collar him. There were the Littles,
but if Seth turned a hunter over to the Resistance, he knew what
they would do to her. Maybe Cleo had earned some torture, but
whatever happened to her now was on Seth’s head, and he
wasn’t sure he could live with that. Cleo was still a human being.
Which left him with one option Seth could see. Regent.
“Hold on tight,” he said. Cleo locked her arms around his
neck as he climbed the steep, narrow steps.
Seth heard Regent stomp back downstairs. He hoped he
wasn’t going after a sword.
The attic wasn’t cold. It was freezing. And filthy. The
wooden floor was carpeted in dust bunnies, the single tiny oval
window grimed with decades of dust. For reasons Seth didn’t
care to speculate on, a pair of silver manacles were already
threaded through a bolt in the floor. The chain was long enough
to allow a prisoner to pace the length of the room.
He put Cleo down gingerly. She stood to one side while he
rooted through a chest for musty-smelling sheets, pillows, and as
many blankets as he could find. He piled everything on an air
mattress beneath the window. There was no sink, no shower, no
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toilet. The best he could do was a bucket to serve as a chamber
pot.
Why anyone would want to hold another living creature
prisoner was beyond Seth. Confining Cleo to this frigid, lightless
space, even though, had their positions been reversed, she would
have done the same, and worse, to him, made him sick.
His captive continued to study him thoughtfully as he
clamped the manacles around her wrists. Only then did he cut her
ropes. “Sit,” he commanded.
Cleo sat, on the air mattress. Using the first-aid kit from
Regent’s bathroom, Seth dressed her wounds properly, cleaning
the gashes with peroxide and taping bandages in place. Cleo
never flinched.
He wished she would stop looking at him.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Or thirsty?”
“A little thirsty,” Cleo said.
“I’ll bring you up something to eat,” Seth promised. He
doubted the Geneva Convention applied to hunters, but Regent
had to feed her, at least.
“He was my partner, you know,” Cleo said.
Seth looked up at her. Were they talking about the hunter
Regent had killed – Snowman? Him Seth did not feel sorry for.
“Who?” he demanded.
“Your brother. J.J. In the Scholae Bestiarii.” Drawing her
knees up on the mattress, Cleo lay down carefully on her side.
“He was my partner.”
Every hunter is given the key to his werekin partner’s collar.
The key to his life. He can order him to do anything. To slice his
own flesh. To starve himself. If Cleo had survived her training,
that meant she had done as the trainers instructed. She had
tortured his brother.
Seth stood up straight. “Is he still there? J.J., is he still in
captivity?”
“Yes.” Cleo’s voice was flat, emotionless.
“And you know where? Which facility?”
Something passed across the hunter’s face, too fleeting to be
read. “Yes.”
Seth leveled the dagger at her. His hand was steady. “I’m
going to rescue him,” he said. “And you’re going to help me.”
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“I’m shaking in my boots, sweetheart, I really am.” Cleo
considered Seth with those ice-chip eyes. “Although, I have to
say, I wouldn’t mind being there for your reunion.”
“Yeah?” Seth hoped she couldn’t tell how dry his mouth was.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you have no idea who you’re dealing with.” Cleo’s
smile was more poisonous than silver powder. “J.J. will carve out
your beating heart and laugh while he watches you die.”
***
Regent was sitting on the couch, ankle resting on his knee.
When Seth came downstairs, he tossed the book he had been
reading aside. “Did you get the hunter all settled in, cub? Does
she need some warm milk? Should I bake some cookies?”
Seth pitched Cleo’s duffel bag over by the fireplace. He had
already rooted through it for a change of clothes for his prisoner,
carried them up along with a bottle of water and a box of granola
bars. He had left it all at the top of the stairs. She could pick it up
or leave it there. Seth wasn’t feeling especially charitable toward
his hostage at the moment.
The metal blinds were open onto the jungle enclosure. Seth
walked over and leaned his forehead against the glass, staring
down at the creek. “Tell me about my brother,” he said.
Regent didn’t miss a beat. “What about him?”
So he had known about J.J. Real sporting of him to volunteer
that information. “Why didn’t my dad tell me I had a twin?”
“I can’t really answer that, now can I?”
Seth made a face at his reflection in the glass. He hated when
Regent got all logical on him. “Then tell me what you do know.
Tell me how my mother can believe J.J. is dead, how he can have
a grave, when he’s still alive.”
Regent sighed. “Sit down, cub.”
“I don’t want to sit down. I want you to answer the
question.”
“Cub.” For once, Regent sounded more tired than irritated.
“Sit.”
As insolently as possible, Seth slunk over to the couch and
fell backwards onto it, propping his feet on the coffee table – a
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habit he knew rankled his guru. He had to suppress a grimace.
Even with the healing potion, his knee was still tender.
Regent linked his arms behind his head. He must have been
enjoying a quiet evening at home when Seth had shown up; he
was wearing sweats and a Georgetown T-shirt. The clothes
looked awkward on him. Someone as massive as Regent should
have been in armor full-time. The stuffed lioness above the
mantle looked like a kitten by comparison. “Tommy met your
mother the summer before our last year of law school,” Regent
said. This was not the answer Seth had expected, and he sat up
straighter, losing the scowl he had fastened in place. “We were in
Fairfax, clerking in Jackie’s old man’s law office. Lydia was a
senior in high school, waiting tables at that pizza joint, MoJo’s.
We went there for lunch every day. Hard to say which of us was
more smitten with her, but she only had eyes for Tommy.
“That last year at Georgetown, they called each other all the
time. Tommy agonized over proposing. Lydia was young, she
wanted kids. Tommy had never planned on having a family. He
got lucky enough to be excused from Chimera’s breeding
program, and he didn’t want to bring a child into this world only
to have it enslaved. Of course he couldn’t explain that to her
without violating the confidentiality agreement he had made with
Chimera, when he was released from captivity.”
“What changed?” Seth asked, with genuine curiosity.
“He fell in love.” Regent made love sound like a disease.
One that might be catching. “Started thinking with his heart
instead of his head. They married right after he graduated, got
pregnant on their honeymoon. Tommy held out hope the child
wouldn’t be werekin. No one can predict how the magic will
pass from parent to offspring, or if it even will. But once the
sickness started, he knew.
“Carrying a werekin child is hard on a human mother. The
magic in the baby’s blood draws on her life-force. Makes her
weak. The doctors called it a rough pregnancy – Lydia’s first,
and twins to boot. But Tommy and I knew better. At least one of
the babies would be werekin, maybe both. Twin werekin, now,
that would have been unusual, to say the least. LeRoi was
monitoring the situation closely. Tommy was under orders to
contact Chimera the moment either of his children skinned. So he
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started making preparations, in case either of you were warrior
breeds.”
“What kinds of preparations?”
“He contacted the Resistance.”
Seth sucked in a sharp breath. “No. My dad wanted nothing
to do with the Resistance. Naomi told me. He was
Underground.”
“Use your head for something besides a hat rack, cub. You
think he got Underground with a werejaguar all on his own?”
Of course he was right. So right Seth couldn’t believe he had
never questioned the story Naomi had fed him all those years.
Thomas Sullivan hadn’t been Underground. He had been a
Resistance fighter. What about Naomi? And Ben, was he in on
the ruse? Had anything the three of them ever told him been the
truth?
Did Seth actually know a single person in his life?
Losing his fight to practice stillness, he stood and started to
pace. “What went wrong, then? If he was so prepared, how did
Chimera Enterprises end up with J.J.?”
“Because he wouldn’t leave your mother,” Regent said.
“Lydia had the babies. She was weak afterwards. Listless.
Tommy took her home, stayed by her side, waited for one of you
to skin. He didn’t have to wait long, just a couple of months. You
both skinned at the same time. Twin werejaguars. That was more
of a prize than even LeRoi had dared dream of, but Tommy
didn’t contact Chimera as instructed. He tried to run. And when
he did, the hunters pounced.”
Seth pictured the scene as Regent described it. The rambling
farmhouse in the country, quiet and secluded. The dead of night,
the heart of winter. Lydia asleep upstairs, Thomas toting two
bundles out to the car, already packed for the getaway.
Resistance fighters waiting for him, to spirit him and his sons,
two rare breeds, Underground.
Suddenly, the hunters burst in. Thomas escapes, with one
baby. Seth.
“Chimera cleaned up the mess.” Regent had his hands
clasped over his knee. “Got rid of the bodies, hunter and
werekin. They would have killed Lydia, too, but Jack stepped
in.”
193
The shock that registered on Seth’s face then was real. It was
one thing to suspect his step-father was part of Chimera’s plot. It
was something else entirely to have it confirmed. And to know
Regent had known, but had said nothing…“What did Chimera do
to my mother?” Seth demanded.
“Tampered with her memory.” Again Regent’s answer was
automatic, the brutality of his honesty unblunted by any concern
for how Seth might be taking all of this. “It was Jack’s idea.
They brought in a telepath, one of their most gifted, and rewired
her brain.”
“But why that? Why that J.J. was dead, because of her?”
“Have you met the woman, cub? If she had believed for a
second she could find you or save your brother, she would never
have given up. She had to believe she didn’t deserve you, or
Thomas. She had to believe you were lost to her forever. Because
the fact is,” Regent said, “you were.”
He sat back then, as if to say the story was finished. It was a
neatly packaged story, too. All tied up with a pretty little bow.
Perhaps, Seth thought, a little too neat.
The dagger hissed when it slid free of his belt loop. Regent
remained seated, eyeing him dispassionately as Seth stopped
pacing and turned to face him. “You’re saying Jack Steward sent
Chimera to my parents’ house that night,” Seth said.
“That’s right.”
“Jack Steward,” Seth repeated. “Not you.”
“That’s what I said.”
Seth flipped the dagger around, the tip pointed at Regent’s
chest. “I don’t believe you.”
“Then believe this.” Regent sat forward. The firelight threw
sparks into his marbled eyes. “The only reason you aren’t
collared right now is because my old pal Jackie trusts me to train
you up, turn you into a tame housecat, and hand you over to his
masters at Chimera. He’s been waiting for this day for seventeen
years. He married Lydia for the sole purpose of someday getting
his hands on you, because he knew, sooner or later, you’d come
looking for her. Blood calls to blood: It’s the one thing they can
count on with us. In return, Chimera has given him everything he
ever wanted. Money. Privilege. Power. You think he’s worried
about getting elected? Ursula LeRoi makes one phone call, and
194
Jack Steward is the next United States Senator from Indiana. It
doesn’t matter what the voters want. That’s the kind of pull
Chimera has. You can’t believe how far this thing goes, cub. I’m
talking all the way to the top.” Regent said those last words
slowly, walking his fingers up an imaginary staircase. “The night
you showed up in Fairfax, the hunters were waiting at Fort King
to take you in. I saved you from that. I convinced Jack they
would never break you. They’d have to kill you. And you’re no
good to them dead.”
Regent had said that to him before, Seth remembered. That
he was no good to him dead. He gestured at the macabre trophies
on the walls. “So that story, about winning your freedom in the
Arena, that was a lie?”
“Do you see a collar on me, cub? Do you see me bowing
down to hunters, begging for my life?” Regent rose. Seth danced
back, brandishing the dagger. Regent sneered at him. “Stick that
thing in me or put it away, before I stick it in you.”
Seth told himself he could kill Regent, if he had to. He told
himself he didn’t care. “You knew,” he fairly spit at him. “You
knew Jack was working for Chimera, and you never even warned
my dad, did you?”
“Yes, I knew, and no, I didn’t warn him.” Regent was
wholly unapologetic about it. “I like being free, and ratting out
Jack would have gone against the terms of my release. Tommy
made his choices. Choices I counseled him not to make, I might
add.”
“You didn’t give him all the information! He could have run
away with my mother, taken us – ”
“I told him to do that. Soon as Lydia found out she was
pregnant, I told him to tell her the truth and get the hell out of
Dodge. He didn’t. He didn’t trust her.”
Seth shook his head. “No. You’re twisting it. He wanted to
protect her. If you’d ever loved anybody, you’d get that.”
“He left her, cub. He left her with Jack Steward, and he
never even told you how to find her. You know why? Because
she isn’t kin. Just like Adleigh. You haven’t told your sister your
secret either, have you? They aren’t blood.” Regent passed a
hand in front of him, erasing Lydia and Leigh from the narrative
of Seth’s life. “They can’t be trusted.”
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“They can’t be trusted? You lied to my dad, like you’ve been
lying to me, pretending to help me when you’re really planning
to hand me over to Chimera, and they can’t be trusted?”
Seth’s control snapped. Magic scalded him from the inside
out, and Seth jumped over the coffee table, skinning in midair.
He knew Regent was better than him, he knew Regent would
hurt him, but right then, he didn’t care.
The dagger clattered to the floor, skidding underneath the
couch. Before Regent could do more than stumble back a step,
Seth sank his teeth into his shoulder.
There was a roar, a human roar of rage and pain. Seth was
seized around the middle, and thrown – a fully-grown jaguar –
clear across the room, into the glass wall. His head slammed into
it, fracturing the glass down one side.
The world went black. The next thing Seth knew, he was
being hauled upright. “How many times do we have to have this
conversation, cub? You can’t beat me in a fight.”
Seth struggled, trying to put his feet down, then realized
Regent was carrying him. “Put me down,” he protested, thickly.
“I can walk, put me – ummmph!”
Regent dropped him on the couch so hard he bounced. Seth
glared up at him, rubbing the goose-egg on the back of his skull.
“Now listen,” Regent growled. Seth, sprawled on the
cushions, donned his most so-not-listening face. The front of
Regent’s shirt was soaked in blood. He had gotten his teeth into
the old bastard, anyway. “You know the legend of the Black
Swan. Here’s what you don’t know. Chimera wants to raise
Lemuria. Ursula LeRoi wants to harness the power of the Totems
for herself, and she believes that power still exists on Lemuria,
somewhere far, far beneath the sea. Once she has it, she will do
what only Rome in the entire history of humankind has ever
come close to doing: conquer the world.”
Seth was forcibly reminded of Elijah Bishop’s journal,
warning of the apocalypse if Ursula LeRoi ever succeeded in
raising Lemuria. He sat up. Being petulant felt kind of stupid
when they were discussing the fate of humanity. “Is that why
Chimera is so focused on breeding us? They’re trying to breed a
Black Swan?”
196
“Partly.” Regent sat down on the coffee table, grimacing as
the wounds in his shoulder pulled. A tiny prick of remorse
stabbed at Seth’s heart. “The legend says the Black Swan’s blood
must be joined with the blood of all other werekin breeds in
order to call Lemuria up from the depths. That is what the Ark
was intended to do – to collect the blood of all werekin breeds.”
“But I thought the Ark already contained the genetic
material of all werekin breeds,” Seth said, confused.
“The Ark only contains the seed,” Regent said. “The essence
of our magic. When joined with the blood of humans, as it was
when the Totems first came down and blessed the human
shamans on Lemuria, that seed has the potential to grow into a
werekin, but only the potential. No one controls how the magic
passes from parent to child.
“You see this?” Holding up his right hand, Regent displayed
the brand on his palm. “This isn’t just a serial number. It’s how
Chimera extracts our blood. They need to collect the blood of
every werekin breed that ever existed on Lemuria and return it to
the Ark. That’s why they’re so determined to breed us, to acquire
at least one of every Clan. Then, someday, the Black Swan will
be born, LeRoi can add her blood to the Ark, Lemuria will rise
from her watery grave, and the power of the Totems will be hers.
Elijah Bishop was the one to figure it out, not long before he
helped the Gen-1 werekin escape. Some might say that’s why he
helped them escape – to stop LeRoi.”
“But he didn’t stop her,” Seth said, quietly.
“Nothing can stop Chimera. I’ve told you that from the
beginning. Chimera Enterprises is too big to be defeated. Even
Elijah Bishop couldn’t stop what he had started. Thanks to his
genius, Chimera has the blood of all of our kind, collected over
the last half-century – the essence of the Totem of every werekin
breed, save one: the light jaguar.”
Seth supposed he should have seen that coming.
But he hadn’t, and it was as if his body had been frozen
inside a block of ice. Unable to move, or speak, he simply stared,
horrorstruck, at Regent. Chimera was hunting him. They had
almost collared him twice in less than a month. They already had
J.J., the black jaguar. If they caught Seth, they would be a breath
away from having everything they needed to raise Lemuria.
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Regent’s expression softened slightly. “I told you, cub. They
will come for you. Whether Jack calls them in or someone like
your girlfriend upstairs simply shows up, Chimera will come for
you. Your days have been numbered since that bullet shattered
your window in Philadelphia. I can’t stop them. The Resistance
can’t stop them. What I did was buy you time. Time to train.
Time to learn how to fight. But that’s it. That’s the best I can
do.”
Regent stood up. Seth looked down at his hands, folded
tightly in his lap, his knuckles like chips of ivory under the skin.
He didn’t know what to believe. Was Regent protecting him, in
his own way, by teaching him to protect himself? Was he
training him up to be handed over to Chimera when the time was
right? Or did he have another agenda entirely?
“You could have sent me back Underground,” he said.
“I don’t have the resources to send you Underground. I’m
not Resistance. But if you want to run,” Regent said, “there’s the
door. I won’t stop you.”
Yes, Seth could run. Save himself, like he had his whole life.
But locked upstairs in Regent’s attic was his best chance,
probably his only chance, of freeing his brother. Knowing
Chimera had him wasn’t enough. Seth needed someone to tell
him which facility J.J. was being held at, and then to help him
bypass the security. He needed someone on the inside. Someone
like Cleo.
Running now meant abandoning J.J. And J.J. hadn’t
abandoned Seth. He had reached across the very ether to protect
him.
Then there was the problem of his mother and his sister. Who
would protect them if he ran? Chimera knew who Seth was.
They could use Lydia and Leigh to get to him. Seth didn’t trust
Jack Steward to protect them, not knowing what he knew now.
Save his own skin, or save his family. Wasn’t much of a
choice, honestly.
Seth stood. His head was aching fit to burst, his knee still felt
like it might give at any second, but he didn’t stagger. “I’ll be
back tomorrow,” he said. “For training, and to talk to Cleo. She
knows J.J. She can help me get him out.”
198
“You won’t break a hunter with milk and cookies, you
know. Now this she might listen to.”
Regent had retrieved the dagger from under the couch. He
offered it, hilt-first, to Seth. Seth turned it over in his hands. “I
didn’t bring her here to be tortured,” he said.
“You want to be merciful? Slit her throat. Makes my life
easier. But if you want to save your brother,” Regent said, “leave
her to me. I’ll find out what you need to know.”
This was wrong. Seth could feel it, in his soul. He shook his
head. “No. There has to be another way.”
He didn’t quite know what to do when Regent reached out,
touching Seth’s cheek, gently, with the back of his hand. “Go
home, cub,” he said. “I’ll call you when it’s over.”
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Chapter Sixteen: Hail Mary
Leigh, no more eager than Seth to carpool with the boy next
door, lobbied hard for their mother to allow Seth to drive them to
school on his Yamaha. At first, Lydia flatly refused, but Sunday
night, on the heels of a truly spectacular baby sister tantrum, Jack
intervened.
“I’ve seen Seth drive the motorcycle, babe,” he said, folding
the Sunday Times over his knee. Leigh had her arms crossed on
the couch, glaring in the opposite direction from a thin-lipped
Lydia. “He’s very cautious.”
Seth nodded. He was, very cautious. Unless he was popping
wheelies and spinning doughnuts on the country roads around
Regent’s house.
He wouldn’t have driven like that with Leigh on the bike, of
course.
It was late. Jack was in his recliner, a Heineken at hand,
being observed with one-eyed suspicion by Poe, who was curled
up on the hearth. Seth was standing against the wall. Seemed like
a safe distance from the couch, and Leigh.
It was also a safe distance from Jack, whom Seth had a strong
desire to claw to pieces. Pretending to be oblivious about his
step-father’s true allegiances, when every time he looked at his
mother, at her smile that trembled like a dew drop on a rose, he
wanted to spill the whole story, was taxing Seth’s self-discipline
to the limit. He held back, for Lydia’s sake. Magic potent enough
to make her remember burying a son who hadn’t died was
nothing to toy with; Seth didn’t know if she would believe the
truth if she heard it, or if the illusion would overpower reality.
He could have skinned for her, but if her son suddenly turned
into a jaguar, would she decide she was hallucinating and check
herself into the nearest psych ward?
He hadn’t told Leigh, either, for reasons less magical and
more personal. Revealing that their brother was alive, revealing
that they were both werekin, would mean revealing that her
father was working for the enemy. Forced to choose, Seth
wondered, would she side with the father she had always adored,
or the alien brother she had known for a month?
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“Jack, this isn’t about Seth’s driving,” Lydia said. Emphasis
on driving, meaning this was either about Seth’s criminal record
or his alleged drug habit. Thanks, Regent.
Jack went back to his paper. “Well, if you ask me, Seth’s
behavior has been above reproach lately. I’d say he’s earned a
little trust.”
No matter how much he analyzed that statement, Seth
couldn’t find anything nefarious about it.
***
The Yamaha caused quite a stir at Fairfax High the next
morning. Seth parked in the upper lot; Bryce hobbled over on his
crutches, accompanied by Topher and Gabe and most of Seth’s
Honors classmates, to marvel at the bad boy coolness of being
allowed to drive a motorcycle, to school. Yena Lee started going
on about mass distribution, forward speed, and frame flex,
thereby making her the sexiest nerd ever.
Even Whitney skipped over to have a look. Seth saw
Marshall glance his way, slam the door of the Audi, and hurry
inside, shoulders hunched against the drizzling rain.
The tiny sprout of happiness that had bloomed in Seth’s chest
withered and died.
The day dragged by endlessly. At lunch, Whitney and Leigh
were stationed outside the cafeteria, collecting signatures for
their animal dissection petition. Seth stood in line to sign his
name (he got two chocolate chip cookies and a kiss on the cheek
– big brother privileges), then followed the hobbling Bryce into
the cafeteria, loading up a tray with cheeseburgers, fries, and
sodas for them both.
Over at the ballplayers’ table, Cam was making enginerevving noises. “He’s just jealous,” Bryce said, following Seth’s
gaze. He sounded sympathetic, but Cam was not who Seth was
looking at. Marshall was sitting beside him, wearing that look
Seth hated so much. In that moment, Seth made a decision. “I’m
sitting over here today,” he said, jerking his chin toward Emery
Little’s table.
To Bryce’s credit, his hesitation was only momentary. “You
know,” he said, “I could use a change of scenery too.”
201
The noise level in the cafeteria dropped a decibel as people
picked up on the mini-drama of two ballplayers foregoing the
Castle Estates’ primo real estate to slum it with the Haven kids –
the first time in Fairfax history such a thing had happened. Seth
put his tray down next to Emery. “Is anyone sitting here?”
“N-no,” Emery stammered. Quinn O’Shea lifted her coppery
eyebrows at him; she looked ready to object, but Angelo Alfaro
pulled Bryce’s chair out for him, and she closed her mouth.
“Thanks,” Bryce murmured.
There was a moment of awkward silence as the Haven kids
stared at the newcomers. Then Alfaro leaned around Emery.
“Was that your bike I saw in the parking lot?” he asked.
“Sure was,” Seth said.
“Did you boost it, too?”
Alfaro was grinning. “I have no idea what you’re talking
about,” Seth said, innocently. He casually slid the metal file from
his pocket and spun it between his thumb and forefinger. Dre,
perched on the chair next to Quinn’s, cackled a laugh, and that
pretty well sealed it. Everyone started talking again.
It was sitting there, discussing frontal suspension and shock
absorbers with a freckled guitarist named Ozzie, that Seth finally
understood why it was werekin gravitated to one another in the
Underground, when they would arguably have been safer folding
seamlessly into human society. Seth had never felt so in tune, so
utterly accepted. In Philly, Naomi had kept him apart from others
of his own kind; he understood why now that he knew just how
valuable he was to LeRoi – all it would have taken was one spy
to spot Seth, and Chimera Enterprises would have been on the
brink of winning their war – but Seth had never realized just how
lonely his life up to now had been.
The Haven kids knew he was werekin, of course. As he
hadn’t been glamoured before today, they would have known the
instant they saw him. There were a million questions Seth
wanted to ask them, like who was Underground, who was
registered, and who was Resistance, but he couldn’t, with Bryce
there.
This didn’t stop him from studying them, trying to guess their
skins. Emery had said Dre was a werefalcon. No surprise there:
He was tiny as a bird, and he had those quick, dark eyes he was
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always pushing his glossy hair out of. Between Alfaro’s size,
temperament, and bellowing laugh, not to mention the bull-ring
through his nose, it wasn’t hard to guess what his Totem was.
Ozzie had a distinctive high-pitched laugh and orange freckles
spotted on his forehead and cheeks – a werehyena. And there
was a small boy with bushy brown hair and buck teeth called,
affectionately, Squirrel; Zoe, a slender olive-skinned girl with
sleek black hair like an otter’s; Serena, a whip-thin brunette with
cold gray eyes and a serpentine smile; and Vixen O’Shea, the
very definition of foxy, although something about her didn’t
quite fit with the others.
Wonderful as it was to be surrounded by his kin, Seth’s eyes
kept being drawn across the room, to Marshall. Each time, he got
the feeling Marshall had just looked away from him.
Alfaro followed his gaze. “Is Townsend worried about the
game Friday night?”
“I hear Connor Burke is pretty good,” Seth said, ducking the
need to explain that he was no longer on speaking terms with the
Knights’ captain.
“He is.” Alfaro’s neutral tone made Seth wonder what he
wasn’t telling him. And if he would have, had it not been for
Bryce. “I got a feeling you can take him, though.”
“I have a feeling you could, too,” Seth said. “Why don’t you
go out for the team?”
Alfaro shrugged his broad shoulders. Quinn said, slyly,
“Angelo isn’t cut out for team sports. He doesn’t know how to
play by the rules.”
“I guess that means you do,” Seth quipped, with a pointed
look at her Lady Knights’ hoodie. Ozzie and Bryce both
whooped.
“Careful, mate,” Ozzie cautioned, in a definite British
accent, with hints of Manchester. “You don’t want a piece of
that, trust me.”
“What Ozzie means,” Quinn said, “is that not everything
comes down to brute force. Some of us know how to outthink
our opponents.”
Her cornflower-blue eyes sparkled. Seth tipped his chair
back. “Meaning?”
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“Meaning, if you’d been trying out against me, I wouldn’t
have needed to knock you out to make you a miss shot.”
Now that was definitely a challenge. Seth spread his arms.
“Wanna put your money where your mouth is, O’Shea?”
The Haven kids looked like they were dying to lay bets on
this match-up, but Quinn said, “Easy, player. We’re on the same
team, remember? I’m only saying you won’t always be the
biggest or the fastest or the best trained. Sometimes, if you want
to win, you have to use your head.” She twitched her fiery hair
over one shoulder, exactly like a fox twitching its tail. Seth was
pretty sure they weren’t talking about basketball anymore. “Just
something to keep in mind when you’re outmatched,” she said.
***
Coach allowed Seth to dress for practice that evening, which
Seth took to mean he wasn’t benched anymore. After laps, the
team huddled up around the bench. Seth stood between Topher
and Gabe, avoiding eye contact with Marshall.
“Listen up, ladies,” Coach said. “You all know Sacred Heart
won state last year. Who can tell me why they brought home the
title?”
“Burke?” Topher suggested. Gabe grinned.
“Basketball is a team sport, Simmons,” Coach growled.
“Anybody? What makes Sacred Heart a championship team?”
“Fundamentals, Coach,” Marshall said.
“That’s right, Captain. Fundamentals. Layups. Rebounds.
They run the ball down the court, put it in the hoop, and stop
their opponents from doing the same.” Coach glared at his team
like they were to blame for Sacred Heart being so good at
fundamentals.
He handed his clipboard off to Marshall and their alpha
assumed the floor, swiping sweat off his brow with the hem of
his blue-and-gold jersey. “Coach and I have been going over our
tapes from this season, and we have got to step it up if we want a
shot at state,” Marshall said. “Cam, your defense is awesome, but
you’re no good to us if you foul out, so tone it down a notch.
Burke loves to put his guys on man-to-man, so we’re all going to
have to score under pressure. We’ll start by pressing and get on
204
the board early. But if we want to beat them,” he said, “we have
to stop them at the basket. Especially Burke.”
“That means defense, ladies,” Coach broke in. “Say it with
me.”
“DEFENSE!” the team shouted, their voices echoing off the
bleachers like a ghostly cheerleading squad was haunting the
stands.
Topher ruffled Seth’s hair. “Don’t sweat it, Coach. We got
our secret weapon right here.”
The look on Coach’s face sent Seth’s heart plummeting into
his new Nikes. “Sullivan is still benched,” he said.
***
The locker room – usually a rowdy place, filled with crude
jokes and raucous laughter – was bleak as they stripped down for
showers an hour later. Practice had not been pretty. Seth’s
replacement, a gawky boy named Nate, had managed to trip over
his own feet and foul one of his teammates, twice. “This is crap,”
Gabe pronounced, throwing his shoes, one at a time, into his
locker. “We’d have Sacred Heart crying for their mamas if Seth
was in. Gideon is a jerk, and our team pays for it – how is that
fair?”
“You mean Sullivan is a pussy and our team pays for it,”
Cam said.
Marshall shut his locker with a bang. Though he hadn’t
showered yet, he was already in his street clothes, his dark hair
hanging lank and sweaty across his brow. “Cam, lay off.”
“Townsend, I’m just saying – ”
“I mean it, Cam. You call him that again, and you and I are
gonna have a problem.”
The gray specks in Marshall’s baby blues were like molten
silver. No one moved. It seemed certain this was it, the moment
the beta finally challenged their alpha; Seth saw Topher and
Gabe shift closer to Marshall, but Cam laughed it off. “Sure,
dawg. Whatever you say. Faggot.”
He whispered the last word under his breath. The others
didn’t hear him. Seth wouldn’t have heard him, if not for his
acute werekin hearing. Slamming his own locker shut, he
205
marched into the shower room, cranked the faucet to scalding,
and stood under the spray until everyone else was gone.
***
As soon as he got home, Seth checked the answering
machine. Regent had not called.
***
“She must have talked by now,” Seth said.
He was sitting behind the counter at Re-Spin, watching
Emery sort invoices. It had been one of the longest weeks of
Seth’s life. Through Jack, Regent had cancelled his “karate
lessons” on the excuse that he was down with the flu, which Seth
knew was a lie, but without training as a cover story, he couldn’t
think of a reason to check things out at his guru’s. Every time the
phone rang, he jumped up to answer it, hoping it would be
Regent calling with news on J.J. It never was. “I mean, it’s been
almost a week. How long could she hold out?”
“Depends,” Emery said, absently. “Maybe he’s trying to
starve her into submission.”
“Real comforting, Em. I feel so much better now.”
Emery shrugged without looking up. He did not share Seth’s
concern for Cleo. What werekin lost sleep over the fate of a
hunter?
But Cleo was not just a hunter. Seth had chained her up, left
her at Regent’s mercy, and he had not heard J.J.’s voice since.
Hadn’t encountered the black jaguar in a single dream. J.J., it
seemed, was giving his twin the psychic silent treatment.
Who was Cleo to J.J.? Why had he wanted Seth to spare her?
Seth kept thinking back to how Cleo had breathed his name, J.J.,
as she had roused up in the graveyard. Of the fierce pride in her
ice-chip eyes when she had bragged on what a cold-blooded
killer he was. Like she knew him better than anyone. Like she
cared for him.
Hunters did not care about werekin. Werekin were nothing to
them, less than animals. Seth rubbed his stomach, feeling again
206
the bite of Snowman’s whip. That was Cleo’s partner now. J.J.
remained a slave while she walked free.
“I just wish I knew what to do,” he said. “Do you think I
should get her out of there?” Like he could just waltz into
Regent’s house and demand his captive back. Regent had
whipped him in every fight to date.
“Who?” Emery looked baffled.
Seth sighed. “Could you at least pretend to care about my
problems?”
Setting the invoices aside, Emery hopped up on the counter,
tapping his heels to The Doors. The nice thing about working at
Re-Spin? They were so rarely bothered by pesky customers. “I
do care about your problems, Seth. Like I’ve been telling you, I
think the next time my mom calls, you should let me tell her
what’s going on. Let the Resistance handle it.”
“And how would they ‘handle’ it, Emery?”
“They’d kill Cleo,” Emery admitted, reluctantly. “Regent
too, if he got in the way.”
“If they kill Cleo, I’ve lost my best chance of finding my
brother.” Seth extended a hand. “I want your word you won’t say
anything to your mom about this when she calls.”
Emery twisted his St. Francis medal, his hesitation
confirming that this was indeed what he had been planning to do.
“Seth – ”
“Your word, Emery,” Seth said, firmly.
Resignedly, Emery clasped Seth’s arm below the elbow, a
gladiator handshake that sealed their pact of silence.
More fine drizzle was falling from the gray winter sky when
Seth parked beside his garage later that evening. Marshall was
shooting hoops in his driveway. He did not acknowledge Seth’s
existence with so much as a wave.
There was a note from Lydia on the counter saying she and
Jack were out to dinner with his campaign manager. Popping the
tab on a Mountain Dew, Seth stood at his kitchen sink and
watched Marshall through the window. The grace of his
movements as he fired off three-pointers. The curve of his spine
beneath his rain-damp shirt as he dribbled in for a layup. They
had not spoken a word to one another all week; Seth had been
driving his bike to school, eating lunch with the Haven kids. The
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silent treatment was getting old. Seth liked Marshall. Obviously
he liked Marshall, but he liked him in ways other than wanting to
kiss him until his eyes crossed. Marshall was the first friend Seth
had made in Fairfax. The first friend he had made, anywhere. He
missed hanging out.
He missed him.
Seth looked down at Captain Hook. “What do you think?”
The little Dachshund barked. “Yeah,” Seth said, “I think so too.”
Marshall had just sunk another three-pointer when Seth
hopped over the shrub-fence. “Nice,” Seth said, grinning.
“You’re saving some of that magic for Sacred Heart tomorrow
night, though, right?”
“I guess.”
Marshall’s tone was cool. He looked past Seth, at the hoop,
to measure his next shot. It swished, and Seth rebounded for him.
“What’s up with you wimping out on me, Indiana?” he said.
Color crept up Marshall’s neck. “What the hell is that
supposed to mean?”
“It means,” said Seth, “that I’ve been running all week while
your lazy butt has still been in bed. Ergo,” Seth bounced the ball
back to him, “I’m assuming you’ve wimped out on me.”
A smile spread, slowly, across Marshall’s face. It filled Seth
up inside, that smile, like the sun was rising behind his eyes. For
it seemed his instincts had been right. Marshall had missed him,
too.
He fired the ball back at Seth. “I’ll show you wimping out,
Philadelphia. Bring it.”
***
An incredible storm lashed Fairfax that night – crashes of
thunder that rattled the windows, flashes of lightning bright
enough to switch off the automatic street lights, fooling the
sensors into believing it was dawn.
The storm crept into Seth’s dreams.
From the depths of the turquoise ocean the pristine island
arose, the mountain at its center piercing the blue panel of the
sky. Rolling hills of green trees – the tallest trees Seth had ever
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seen, taller than any trees on Earth – undulated down from it, to
a beach of sparkling white sand.
It was there the werekin were arrayed.
They formed a circle that seemed to stretch around the entire
island, one of every breed, in their animal skins. From amongst
them stepped a young girl in a long black robe, her skin fair as
ivory, her hair black as midnight. Toes sinking in the sand, she
raised her arms. Her wrists were shackled with silver.
A hush fell over the jungle. The Black Swan began to sing, in
a voice like silver bells.
Far out to sea, the ocean began to roil.
Suddenly, Seth was no longer on the beach, amongst his kin;
he was somewhere up above, in the stars maybe, looking down
on an island anchored like an emerald in a sapphire pool. The
ocean changed colors in rings around it, bright blue-green close
to shore, blue-black a league away; out there, in the depths,
something was bubbling, beneath the surface, as though some
ancient god of the sea was stoking his forges, setting the ocean
herself to boil.
Tremors moved under the sand. Even as high up as he was,
Seth could see what was happening on the beach in perfect,
minute detail. His kin began to howl and hiss; the Black Swan’s
song rose to a crescendo, the tremors building with it; on the
last, dying note, the mountain at the island’s center exploded,
spewing flames hundreds of feet into the air, as something large
and dark, like a living shadow, rose slowly, steadily into the
air…
Howls became screams. Golden lava raced through the
jungle, swallowing trees. The werekin on the beach huddled
together, a single, terrified mass, as the ocean at their backs rose
up, as if to meet the fiery flood. But the water was no longer blue,
it was red, red as blood, churning, boiling, carrying on its foamcapped waves – Seth almost gagged – the charred bones of the
werekin ancestors, who had given their lives to sink Lemuria
beneath the sea. To protect humanity from the power of the
Totems.
Standing alone on the beach, one boy turned, tipping his face
up to the stars. His blonde locks were streaming with rainwater;
his golden eyes glowed with every streak of lightning, as though
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the storm Seth could still hear, in the waking world, originated
from inside of him.
J.J.’s smile was more feral than any cat’s. “This is how it
ends,” he said.
***
By tipoff that night, the Fairfax High gym was a sea of blue
and gold on the home team’s side, red and black on the visiting
Sacred Heart Warriors’. Seth, dutifully suited up to ride the
bench, jogged out of the locker room with his teammates to the
Knights’ fight song.
Leigh and Whitney had cornered seats near the Pep Band.
The Haven kids had their own section, directly behind Ms.
McLain, who was sitting with a tall, dark-haired young man in
jeans and a faded gray T-shirt. “Who’s that?” Seth asked
Marshall. Something about the young man was familiar. He was
twirling a chain around his neck. Seth might have thought he was
werekin, and glamoured, if the chain hadn’t been silver.
“That’s Ms. McLain’s nephew. He was a legend when he
played ball here. I heard he joined the Marines and got stationed
overseas somewhere.” Marshall sounded distracted. Seth turned
from the stands to find him staring across the court. “Right now,”
he said, “who we need to be worried about is him.”
“Him” was the kid walking toward them from the Sacred
Heart sidelines – a slim-hipped boy with longish dirty-blonde
hair. He was wearing a Warriors jersey, but his hazel eyes were
so warm and open Seth was taken aback when Marshall said,
“Hey, Connor.”
Seth’s eyebrows shot up. This easy-going kid was Connor
Burke, the Knights’ Public Enemy Number One? “Hey,
Marshall.” Connor Burke stuck out a hand, which Marshall
shook. He had a slight Southern drawl, more Texas than
Alabama. “I just wanted to say good luck.”
“Thanks, man. You too.”
Connor glanced at Seth, noted his dyed hair and tattoos, and
offered a quick, easy smile before wandering over to
commiserate with Bryce about his busted ankle. “He’s nice,”
Seth said.
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“Yeah, Connie’s all right.” Marshall seemed perplexed by
the surprise in Seth’s voice. “Did you think he wouldn’t be?”
Seth shrugged. “Not to us anyway. We are enemies.”
“We’re not enemies, Philadelphia. We’re rivals. There’s a
difference. And he won’t seem so nice when he’s wiping the
court with us,” Marshall added, bumping his fist against Seth’s;
the ref had just blown the whistle to call the teams onto the court.
“Keep the bench warm for me,” he said.
Seth called him a name that made Marshall grin as he turned
away. Seth started for the bench.
“Aw, no kiss for luck, kitty-cat?”
Seth looked up. Cam was smirking down at him. “Only if
you really want one, big boy,” Seth said.
Cam flushed dark red. In the next second, he had grabbed
Seth by the jersey. “What did you say to me?”
“Let go of him.”
Startled, though no more so than Cam, Seth turned his head.
Connor Burke had suddenly appeared beside him. His voice was
even, but the set of his jaw was a reminder, as Topher had said,
that his father was a five-star general.
Before Seth could say he had this, thanks, Cam released him
with a little shove and thrust his face close to Connor’s. Connor
did not back up. “What’s your problem, Connie? You play on his
team?”
“I think we all know you’re the one with the problem, Cam,”
Connor said, evenly.
“Yeah? You want to make something out of it, Connie?”
“Foss!” Cam jerked around. Coach was glaring at him. “Feel
like joining us, princess?”
All at once becoming aware of the silence in the gym, Cam
looked out at the court. The other players were already
assembled, staring at their little scene. Marshall was frozen at the
top of the key, like he had been about to come to Seth’s aid when
Connor had beaten him to it.
Firing a killing look at Connor, Cam, red-faced, trotted onto
the court. Seth figured this did not bode well for Connor Burke’s
chances of making it off the court in one piece, but Connor just
grinned and rolled his eyes, as if to say, What an idiot. Seth
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shook his head as he watched him face off with Marshall at halfcourt. Two Golden Boys in one town. What were the odds?
The Knights won the tipoff, but things went downhill from
there. Marshall fanned his pack out in zone defense, but they
might as well have been animated bits of straw: Connor zipped
right by them, nailing every shot he put up. He wasn’t any better
than Marshall, but his teammates had deduced that Marshall was
the biggest threat to them, so he had two defenders in his face
every time he went down the court. It got physical fast. Marshall
spent more time at the free throw line than in actual game play,
and pretty soon Cam was in foul trouble.
To make matters worse, Seth’s replacement, Nate, tripped
over his own feet every two seconds. In one exceptionally klutzy
move, he managed to knock Marshall down just as he went up
for a three-pointer. The ball hit the rim and bounced into the
stands.
The crowd groaned.
Seth sat on the bench next to Bryce, fists clenched in
frustration, feigning blindness to Gideon’s self-satisfied smirk
from the faculty section. Seth had never cared about basketball.
To be honest, he still didn’t, but he did care about his team, and
his team, especially their captain, cared desperately about this
game.
At halftime, Coach assembled them on the locker room’s
concrete floor, the vein in his forehead standing out as he
lectured them about fundamentals. Why was nobody
rebounding? Had they just decided stealing the ball was too
much work? Regent, Seth thought, would have approved. He
glanced over his shoulder. Marshall had his head tipped back
against his locker, sweat drying on his flushed cheeks. He looked
exhausted. Seth knew he was seeing the state title he had
promised his father slip through his fingers.
If he just hadn’t gotten detention, Seth thought, they would
have been running circles around Sacred Heart’s defense. He
didn’t regret refusing to dissect that cat, but it still wasn’t fair. A
lot about high school wasn’t fair, Seth was discovering.
Leaning back on his palms, he touched the tip of his pinkie
finger to the end of Marshall’s thumb. From the corner of his
eye, he saw Marshall’s mouth twitch into a grin.
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A pleasant buzz started up in Seth’s ears. He didn’t hear
another word of Coach’s speech.
***
Quinn O’Shea was sitting on the bleacher behind the
Knights’ bench when they emerged for the second half, to the
earsplitting crescendo of the cheerleaders’ dance routine. Seth
flopped down beside Bryce again and leaned back so he could
whisper to her. “What’s up?”
“Don’t sound so chipper, Sullivan. Have you not noticed
you’re down sixty-five to eighty-seven?”
“No, O’Shea, I hadn’t noticed that,” Seth said, sarcastically.
“Did you come all the way down here just to rub it in?”
Quinn produced a pen from the pocket of her athletic pants.
“Give me your hand.”
“Why?” Seth asked, as he gave her his hand. Rather than
answer, Quinn bent over his palm, her coppery hair falling
forward and tickling his wrist, as the pen tickled his palm. Biting
his lip, Seth watched Connor Burke pop up for a three-pointer,
and Cam jab an elbow into his ribs. Whistles blew. Coach looked
at Cam in disgust.
“Last warning, Foss!” he shouted, over the booing Warriors’
fans.
“The next timeout, show this to your captain.” Quinn sat
back, releasing Seth’s wrist. He looked down at his palm. A play
was diagrammed on it – a rather clever play, Seth had to admit.
Then again, Quinn seemed the type to always have a strategy.
“Where’s Alfaro?” he asked. Dre was perched beside Emery,
wearing two-toned suspenders for the occasion – one blue, one
gold – but his big brother was conspicuously absent.
“We don’t let him out for sporting events. He has temper
issues. Now listen.” Quinn slid to the edge of the bleacher,
speaking into Seth’s ear to be heard over the band. “Don’t go
showing off out there.”
Since he was benched, Seth didn’t see how this would be a
problem. “I’ll try to resist the urge,” he said.
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“I’m serious, Sullivan. Gideon has no idea the favor he did
you by getting you benched tonight. You don’t want to draw
attention to yourself with this crowd.”
Seth laughed. That was rich, coming from Vixen O’Shea.
“Are you seriously lecturing me about blending in, Miss AllState Girls’ Basketball MVP Two Years Running?”
Quinn pursed her lips. “I’m not like you.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m a werejaguar, big – ”
“You don’t get it.” For the first time, as her eyes fell from
his to her Skechers, Seth saw a chink in Quinn’s relentless
arrogance. “I’m not – ”
She was interrupted by the shrill pierce of a whistle. Timeout
had been called. Getting to her feet, Quinn swished her hair back,
so coolly confident Seth wondered if he had imagined her
momentary vulnerability. “I call that play the Pinball. And have
Townsend tell that idiot Foss to back off before he puts
somebody in the hospital.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched up into the
bleachers.
Coach looked surprised when Seth shouldered into the
huddle, displaying his palm for Marshall. “Sullivan, you’re
benched, in case you hadn’t noticed – ”
“Wait, Coach.” Marshall had taken Seth’s wrist in his
slender fingers and was studying the play inked onto his palm. A
smile slowly formed on his lips, bringing out that dimple in his
cheek. Seth drew his hand back before Marshall could feel his
pulse flutter.
“Will it work?” he asked.
Marshall nodded. “Oh yeah. It’ll work.”
Moments later, the Knights rushed back onto the court, a
bounce back in their step. Seth turned to give Quinn a thumb’s
up – but his gaze was caught by another pair of blue eyes,
remarkably like Marshall’s, trained on him with unmistakable
malevolence.
Dr. Wesley Townsend was sitting with Jack and the other
basketball dads, next to a broad-shouldered man with iron gray
hair and a military-style bearing. Seth swung back around, heart
beating hard. He could think of only one reason Dr. Townsend
would have to look at him with such loathing. Marshall.
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Somehow he had figured out how Seth felt about Marshall. Did
he suspect Marshall might feel the same? How miserable would
he make Marshall’s life if he did?
Worrying about Dr. Townsend would have to wait. Pretty
soon Seth found himself jumping off the bench right along with
everyone else when the Knights managed to score – a more and
more frequent occurrence, as Marshall put Quinn’s play to good
use, zigzagging past the Warriors’ killer defense. The score crept
up: 71 to 89; 75 to 91; 82 to 93; 87 to 93…The roar of the crowd
was deafening, the clock ticking down second by second:
2:00…1:38…1:15…
Finally, Connor Burke went up for a jump shot, and Cam
blocked him – by clocking him in the jaw with his elbow.
Connor hit the court flat on his back with a sickening smack and
lay there, stunned, staring up at the gym’s skylight.
Coach slammed his clipboard down on the bench, shouting at
Cam to get off the court. Whistles were blowing like crazy. Refs
had started waving their arms. “That’s it!” one of them yelled.
“You’re done!”
“Park it, Foss!” Coach barked. Cam stalked over to the
bench and flopped down, refusing to look at anyone. Marshall
was helping Connor to his feet. Even Seth couldn’t hear what he
was saying over the booing fans, but Connor nodded goodnaturedly as he dusted himself off, cuffing blood off his chin.
The scoreboard glared like a red eye in Seth’s peripheral
vision. HOME: 99. VISITORS: 99. If Connor made both of his
free throws – and he hadn’t missed a single one all night – the
Knights would be down by two points with sixteen seconds on
the clock.
This was it. If the Knights lost, the season was over.
Seth kept his eyes straight ahead as Coach consulted his
clipboard. Bryce had his fingers crossed and his eyes closed,
praying to the basketball gods. Marshall had his hands on his
knees, trying to catch his breath. His gaze kept flitting to Seth,
who felt it like a fingertip brushing his skin.
When Coach sighed, it sounded resigned. “All right,
Sullivan. Get in there.”
From three bleachers down, Seth heard Dre Alfaro cackle.
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The Knights’ bench went crazy as Seth took Cam’s place
under the basket. The Sacred Heart fans were exchanging
bewildered looks. Oh, they’re putting in the smallest kid on the
team? Brilliant strategy!
Swish. Connor’s first free throw dropped through the net.
Seth cut his eyes at the stands, looking for Lydia and Leigh,
catching a glimpse of Ms. McLain’s nephew on his feet, hands
cupped around his mouth as he joined in the noise the crowd was
making. Ignoring the uproar, Connor dribbled, measuring his
shot…Seth squinted, trying to make out the charm dangling from
the young soldier’s silver chain…It almost looked like a – but
no, it couldn’t be, Seth thought; a Marine wouldn’t wear a swan
charm…
Burke. Seth did not know why that piece of the puzzle
snapped into place just then, why he suddenly heard Regent say,
forty warriors trained by General David Burke himself to fight
just as well in human or animal skin, as he had driven home to
Seth the impossibility of one untrained cub taking down Project
Ark. A joint venture between Chimera Enterprises and Uncle
Sam, overseen by the U.S. military.
Seth looked toward Dr. Townsend, searching for, and
finding, the iron-haired man he had noticed earlier. His eyes
were the same green-flecked hazel as Connor Burke’s, minus the
warmth.
“Sullivan!”
Seth, startled, spun around. Coach was pointing to the
scoreboard. 101 to 99. Connor had made both free throws; Nate
was waiting to pass the ball in to Seth. Keenly aware of the
seconds ticking down – nine, eight, seven – and the promise
Marshall had made his father to take the Knights to state, Seth
caught it, and turned; saw a flash of white gold – Connor Burke’s
hair, as he sidestepped Topher, making to snag the ball from
Seth’s hands; Seth pivoted – you don’t want to draw attention to
yourself with this crowd – dodged another defender – six, five,
four – poured on a burst of speed – everything about Marshall
has to be perfect, all the time, and Dad decides what ‘perfect’ is
– crossed the half-court line – three, two, one – you know what
happens if the hunters find you –
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But the hunters had already found him, hadn’t they? Jack
Steward worked for Ursula LeRoi. He knew who and what Seth
was. There was no point in holding back anymore, no point in
trying to hide. As the final buzzer sounded, Seth jumped, higher
than any teenage punk from South Philly should have been able
to jump, and fired off the shot.
He did not see the ball drop through the net. He just heard the
shouts of Phill-Y, Phill-Y give way to ecstatic screams.
“You did it, Philadelphia, you did it!”
Someone slammed into him from behind. Seth staggered;
Marshall grabbed his waist, grinning zanily as he threw his arms
around him. His baby blues were the color of a midday sky.
A second later the rest of the team descended on them. Seth
was crushed against Marshall in the celebratory press, holding
tight to his shoulders as they fought to keep their feet. And in
spite of everything, in spite of the danger closing in and the
intrigue all around, he was human enough to be happy.
217
Chapter Seventeen: Failed Negotiations
Regent’s Hummer was not in the drive when Seth parked his
Yamaha beside the woodpile. The dawn sky was clean as a fresh
canvas; wind shook the trees dotting the muddy yard, pelting the
top of Seth’s head with cast-off raindrops as he stole onto the
porch. He tapped, sharply, on the front door. “Mr. Regent? Are
you home?”
No answer. Seth slipped the narrow metal file out of his back
pocket. He wasn’t entirely sure why he had brought it along –
habit, he supposed. Nor was he sure when he had made up his
mind to drive out here. He had come downstairs, prepared to
head off for his morning run, and instead, had snagged his keys
off the peg by the back door and climbed on his bike. He had
expected Regent to be home – where else would he be just after
sunrise? – but, seeing as he was already here…
Seth fit the file into the keyhole. As soon as he twisted it, the
door popped open.
Immediately, a warning beep-beep-beeeeep sounded from
across the room.
In two seconds flat, Seth had sprinted over to the shuttered
wall and tapped Regent’s code – 1571 – into the keypad. The
blinking red light on the security alarm changed over to a steady,
friendly green. Seth smirked. Nice to know he hadn’t lost his
touch.
Outside, the sun was shining merrily on a crisp winter morn.
Inside, gloomy twilight reigned. The dead werekin on the walls
tracked Seth with their eyes as he mounted the stairs in the dark.
How did Regent sleep at night? Seth would have been lying
awake, listening for paws padding down the hall.
A blast of cold air, more frigid than he remembered, greeted
him at the top of the attic stairs. He paused, listening, but the
only sound was the ticking of a clock somewhere below.
Shadows lay across the wooden floor, thick as paint; a yellowed
curtain had been pulled across the only window, and the
overhead bulb did not respond when he flipped the switch. Seth
edged along the wall, hand on the hilt of the dagger tucked into
the waistband of his sweats.
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“Cleo?” he called, softly.
The lump on the air mattress stirred. Seth released a breath he
had hardly been aware of holding. She was alive, at least.
Alive, but not well. Regent had stripped her of the warm
clothes Seth had given her, leaving her in a thin white camisole
and cotton shorts. Her lips were actually blue with cold. Bruises
decorated her ribs, her back, her legs, and those were just the
injuries Seth could see. He shrugged out of his camouflage jacket
and draped it around her shoulders. Her skin was like ice to the
touch.
Curled up on her side, Cleo watched him without expression.
When he reached for her hands, though, she drew them back.
“Cleo, it’s me,” Seth said, gently. He wasn’t sure how much she
was processing in her half-frozen state. “I need your hands so I
can get these chains off of you.”
Slowly, Cleo extended her wrists. The fingers on her right
hand were black and swollen, the small bones bent into unnatural
angles. Gently as he could, Seth worked the file into the keyhole
on the manacles.
The instant the lock sprang open, Cleo lunged.
This was not wholly unlooked-for. Seth tackled her back onto
the mattress, restraining her with an elbow against her windpipe.
“Easy, tiger,” he said.
Cleo smiled up at him, an acid smile of undiluted loathing.
Blood seeped into the cracks around her parched lips. “You
should have killed me while I was still chained up, sweetheart.”
Tucking her shoulder into his, she tried to flip Seth onto his
back, groping for the dagger with her uninjured hand. Christ, this
girl did not give up. “Listen, sweetheart,” Seth hissed, in her ear,
“a little cooperation would go a long way in helping me rescue
you, all right?”
Cleo stilled like he had hit her with a freeze-ray. Seth stared
down into those ice-chip eyes, watching her struggle with the
decision to trust him.
Deep inside of Seth, a small but persistent voice, which
sounded rather like Emery Little’s, was screaming that he was
insane. Cleo was a hunter. He couldn’t honestly be thinking of
letting her go, could he? That was not why he had come here. He
219
had come to talk to Regent, to find out what Cleo had told him
about J.J.
Uh-huh, the Emery-voice sneered. Is that why you brought
your lock-pick along? Why you didn’t call to tell Regent you
were on your way?
Seth made a face. Okay, so maybe this had been a rescue
mission all along. What mattered now was getting Cleo out of
here before Regent came home and skinned them both.
Cleo jerked her chin at the dagger. “How’s this,” she said.
“Give me back my knife, and I’ll rescue myself.”
Yeah, that was happening. Seth stood up. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk,” Cleo snapped.
In the end, she didn’t walk so much as shuffle, leaning
heavily on Seth. He guided her downstairs, onto the couch –
keeping his dagger close at hand, in case she decided to forego
their truce – and fetched her duffel bag from beside the fireplace.
Cleo directed him to a side pocket, where a phial of healing
potion was sewn into the lining. Seth tore it out with his claws.
Her color started to return as soon as she downed it.
There was also a change of clothes in the bag. Cleo slipped
into jeans and a sweater and her trademark spike-heeled boots,
surreptitiously cradling her injured hand, while Seth shoved
supplies into the bag. Just the essentials. Bottled water.
Bandages. Snickers.
As he was zipping the bag, the floorboards vibrated. “We
have to go,” he said. “Now.”
Cleo was a step ahead of him out the front door. They raced
across the lawn, leaving a trail a blind man could have followed;
at the woodpile, Cleo stumbled, and Seth swung her up in his
arms, ignoring her protest, and deposited her on the Yamaha. The
Hummer hadn’t reached the end of the drive yet, but from the
way Regent was grinding gears, it would any second. Either the
house had a secondary alarm he had missed, or Regent was in a
serious hurry to get home to his Saturday morning cartoons.
“Hold on,” Seth yelled over the growl of the bike’s engine.
Cleo wrapped her arms around his waist, Seth opened up the
throttle, and they rocketed away, into the trees.
***
220
Regent’s house was smack in the middle of a miles-long
stretch of woods that bordered Fort King – a lot of ground to
cover, even for a tiger with keen werekin senses. A few miles
south, Seth came upon a road (more of a track, really) that
paralleled the Ohio River, skirting a rocky gorge that separated
Indiana from Kentucky. For some time, they roared past snowcovered fields and scrubby pastures where herds of black-andwhite cows grazed behind barbwire fences.
At last, the dirt changed over to gravel, the road soon after
ending at an abandoned barn on the back forty of some nameless
farmer’s property. Seth drove the Yamaha inside and cut the
engine.
Only the bones of stalls and a rusted ’57 Chevy with a busted
axle, divested of tires and spattered with bird droppings,
remained inside. Seth laid a half-conscious Cleo down on the dirt
floor and started a fire with a lighter he found in the duffel bag,
fed by rotted wood broken off the stalls. The smoke curled up
through a hole in the slatted roof. Seth prayed to the Totems the
farmer wouldn’t come out to see if his old barn was burning
down, but it was a risk he had to take. Healing potion would take
care of Cleo’s bruises and broken bones. Hypothermia was a
different story.
He lay down next to the fire, as close to the flames as he
could stand, and arranged Cleo beside him, his jacket covering
them both. She tucked her head under his chin, burrowing into
him for warmth.
A square of aquamarine sky was visible through the roof,
pierced by rafters like splintered bones. While Cleo slept, Seth
stared up at the drifting clouds, racking his brain for what to do
next.
Handing Cleo over to the Resistance was out. Seth would not
be the cause of further torture. In all likelihood Cleo had tortured
J.J. In all likelihood she had helped kill Naomi, possibly even
fired the bullet that had ended her life. If it came to a fight, Seth
could have killed her. But he didn’t have the stomach to hurt her
more than she already had been. Werekin were essentially
peaceful creatures.
Although, Seth thought, darkly, Regent seemed to be an
exception to that rule. Maybe the gentleness Elijah Bishop had
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worshipped about werekin was like any instinct: With concerted
effort, you could overcome it.
On that cheerful note, Seth closed his eyes, and practiced
stillness.
The sun was falling from afternoon to evening when Cleo
came around. She stretched, making a luxuriating “mmm” noise
as she nuzzled her nose against Seth’s neck. If he had been
another kind of guy, that would have been a real turn-on.
“Welcome back, sweetheart,” he said.
Realizing who she was cuddling up to, Cleo yanked away
and wrapped Seth’s camouflage jacket tighter around herself.
“You,” she said, viciously. “Give me one good reason why I
shouldn’t kill you right now.”
“The fact that I just saved your life doesn’t count?”
The look she gave him said it did not.
Seth fished the bag of Snickers and a bottle of water out of
the duffel bag. Cleo sat across the fire from him as she ate,
watchful as a cornered wolf. Seth reclined on his elbows, toes
toward the fire. The dagger was still in his waistband, covered
over by his T-shirt. He hoped they were past the killing one
another phase of their acquaintance, but he wasn’t betting his life
on it.
“How’s the hand?” he asked.
Cleo flexed her fingers. Thanks to the potion, the fractures
had healed during her nap. “Good as new,” she said. “Where are
we?”
“Middle of Nowhere, Indiana.” Seth tossed a piece of hay at
the fire.
“How did we get here?”
Seth pointed at the Yamaha. Cleo looked from it, to the barn
door, then back at Seth. “Should we be expecting company?”
“I don’t think so,” Seth said. If Regent had tracked them to
the road, he probably thought Cleo and her accomplice had
headed for the highway.
Of course Regent would suspect Seth had rescued Cleo.
Regent wasn’t stupid. Losing his guru’s trust was just another
consequence of this decision Seth would have to live with.
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He was almost certain he would also be grounded. He had
left the house before sunrise without so much as a note to explain
where he had gone. Lydia was no doubt frantic by now.
“Tell me about Chimera,” he said.
Cleo glanced at him across the fire. “What about it?”
“Do you know someone named David Burke?”
“Not personally,” Cleo said. “He’s the military liaison
assigned to Project Ark.”
“And he lives in Fairfax?”
“Project Ark has a presence here,” Cleo said, vaguely.
Seeming to decide this was sufficient sharing, she stood, wiping
chocolate-sticky fingers on her jeans. “Well, thanks for the
memories, sweetheart. Now, hand over the keys, and I’ll be on
my way.”
“Uh, no,” Seth said. “Don’t think so.”
The firelight hollowed out Cleo’s cheeks. Her eyes were a
purplish shade of silver, almost lupine. “If you wanted to keep
me prisoner, you shouldn’t have untied me.”
“I told you,” Seth said. “I’m going to rescue my brother, and
you’re going to help me.”
“Maybe you’re not clear on how this works,” Cleo said,
coldly. “You are an animal. I am a hunter. You do what I say.
And I said, give me the keys.”
“I’m not an animal,” Seth retorted. “I’m werekin. And since
I’m not collared, sweetheart, I don’t take orders, from you or
anyone else.”
“We can change that,” Cleo assured him.
“Actually, you can’t. Regent nicked the collar you had in
your bag.” Cleo cursed. Seth smirked. Poor Cleo. She really was
having a bad week. “Anyway, collaring me didn’t work out for
you so well, remember? Maybe you should try a different
approach.”
“Such as?”
“Such as working with me.”
Cleo laughed. “Might want to ease up on the catnip. It’s
clouded your mind.”
“Think about it.” Seth sat up, losing the smirk. Dirt and
straw were stuck to his elbows; he brushed them off. “You’re
stranded, with nothing but the clothes on your back – no
223
weapons, no phone, no vehicle. And there is a very good chance
one seriously unhappy weretiger is combing these woods for you
even as we speak. I, on the other hand, have a dagger and a
motorcycle, and I am happy to use both of them to get you out of
here, if you agree to take me to my brother.”
“I have a better idea,” Cleo said. “I slit your throat with that
dagger, drive out of here on your motorcycle, and if your tiger
buddy ever finds you, he can make a meal out of your corpse.”
Seth lay back down, arms crooked behind his head. “Go
ahead. You can probably beat me. I haven’t had much training.”
Cleo hesitated, and that told Seth what he needed to know.
Hurting him wouldn’t be so easy for her now, either.
“J.J. told me to save you,” he said.
Cleo could not have looked more shocked if he had
announced he was really the Tooth Fairy in disguise as a
werejaguar. “He said that to you? When? When did you talk to
him?”
Seth gave her a bare bones version of his dreams, the voice
that had spoken to him several times in the last few weeks. Cleo
sat down on the Chevy’s rusted hood, face hidden in her hands.
“Is that something he can do?” Seth asked. “Is he…telepathic?”
Cleo’s head bobbed. Her voice was muffled by her hands.
“Prescient, too. Very powerful. Dr. LeRoi had Xanthe train him.”
“Xanthe?”
“Another telepath.”
“Is that usual?” Seth worked very, very hard to sound casual.
“I mean, does Chimera usually train werekin to use their
telepathic powers?”
“No,” Cleo said. “But J.J. isn’t – usual.”
Oh that wasn’t ominous. Not at all. “But he’s a slave, right?”
Seth said. “What he does, they make him do. Right?”
In the back of his mind, he was hearing Emery. If you had
been raised by Chimera, if you’d never been told anything other
than whatever lies they filled your head with, how would you
know you were fighting for the bad guys?
There must have been an edge to his voice, much as he tried
to keep it smooth. Lifting her head from her hands, Cleo taunted
him with a smirk. “Is that what’s bothering you, sweetheart? I
224
told you. J.J. is vicious. Feral, really. Keeping him collared is the
only way to control him.”
She was lying, Seth decided. She wanted to upset him, and he
refused to be goaded into a fight. He needed her help too badly.
“If J.J. can see the future, and he says you’re going to save us,
that must mean you are. It must mean you and me were meant to
work together.”
“Seeing the future is an imprecise art. I don’t know why J.J.
would think I would help you, or any werekin, for that matter.”
Maybe because he knows you better than you know him, Seth
wanted to say. Except he was a little afraid Cleo might kill him
just to prove her ruthlessness. “Maybe he knew if I saved you,
we would have this conversation, and afterwards we might not
hate each other so much.”
“It’s not working,” Cleo said.
Sliding off the hood, she crossed to the wide doorway.
Darkness was spreading across the treetops like ink spilled onto
paper. Seth looked down at the dagger. The polished blade
showed a sliver of his reflection, tattoos bruise-black across his
cheek, golden eyes tinged bronze by the dying fire.
Had it been just last night he was celebrating the Knights’
victory at MoJo’s with the rest of the team, like any normal
teenager? That was what made life in Fairfax so
discombobulating, he thought. From basketball to break-ins in
under twenty-four hours.
“You should have killed me,” Cleo said.
Seth raised his eyes to hers. Backlit by the sunset, her face
was too shadowed for him to make out her expression. “I don’t
want to kill you,” he said. It was the truth, whether it made sense
or not.
Cleo sounded tired. “It doesn’t matter what you want. Saving
me doesn’t change things between us. You’re werekin. I’m a
hunter. That won’t ever change.”
“Cleo,” Seth said, softly, for she had begun backing away.
One spike-heeled boot crossed the threshold. She tensed, waiting
to see what Seth would do.
Nothing, was what he did. Seth didn’t want to hurt Cleo, and
he understood she would make him, before she would let herself
be captured again.
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“I’ll be back for you, Seth,” she warned. “If I can’t collar
you, I’ll kill you. If you want to survive, don’t let me find you
again.”
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Chapter Eighteen: Light and Dark
Seth went home. Common sense said he should run, but the
fact of the matter was, he didn’t believe Cleo would make good
on her threat. If she really intended to capture him, why warn
him she would be back?
Plus, she was still wearing his coat. Sooner or later, she
would realize that, and she wouldn’t be able to deny what it
meant.
Seth had saved her. Like it or not, they had a connection now.
Seth was under the covers when Lydia came into his room
later that night, to pass on the message that Seth’s karate lesson
was on for the next day. Regent had called, to say he was
recovered from his “flu.” In other words, Seth’s guru wanted an
explanation for where the hunter in his attic had disappeared to.
Seth wondered if he should write out his last will and testament
before he went, in case he didn’t come home.
Lydia sat on the edge of his bed, tucking her silk robe
between her knees. Seth had not been grounded. Turned out
Lydia had called Re-Spin looking for him, and Emery, either
because he had guessed what Seth was really up to or because he
was just that good of a friend, had lied and said Seth was pulling
a double-shift that day.
Lydia smelled wonderful, a mom-smell of lemon dish liquid
and lavender soap. They recounted the Knights’ death-defying,
come-from-behind victory for the umpteenth time, Seth laughing
until his sides ached when she did a pitch-perfect imitation of Dr.
Gideon stomping out of the gym, eyes bulging with fury that
Coach had pulled Seth off the bench.
“He’ll probably flunk me now,” Seth warned, wiping his
eyes.
“Let him try,” Lydia said.
Her green eyes flashed. For the first time, Seth saw that
mama-cat instinct Regent had spoken of in her. He smiled, a little
shyly. “Thanks, Mrs. Steward.”
Lydia cocked her head at him. “What for, honey?”
“For letting me stay here. And, you know. For putting up
with me.”
227
Lydia smiled. “You’re not so bad.”
She reached out, as though to touch his cheek, but stopped
with her hand halfway there. Seth no longer felt rejected. He
understood now, why Lydia never touched him. It was her
penance, for failing J.J.
Reaching up, he caught her hand and tugged her down so she
was lying beside him on the pillow. Tentatively, with just the tips
of her fingers, Lydia traced his cheekbones, his eyebrows, his
jaw. Seth closed his eyes, not wanting to interrupt whatever she
was feeling in that moment.
“You’re so still now,” Lydia said, softly. “When you first
came to us, you moved all the time. Like you were on the verge
of racing out the door any second.”
Memories of that last night in Philly assaulted Seth. Naomi’s
gospel choir alto raised in song. Two presents under the cheap
artificial tree. Blood spackling the kitchen wall. The grief that
always simmered under the surface rose to the top. Behind their
lids, Seth’s eyes stung with tears.
Some of the grief was for Ben, too. Seth had tried every day
that week to reach his old Papa Bear. There was never any
answer. Ben would not have cut Seth out of his life without even
a goodbye. They were more than blood. They were family.
Seth was starting to believe the hunters had taken every one
he loved.
“Regent is teaching me stillness,” he managed to say,
roughly.
“How do you teach someone stillness?”
“It’s a karate thing.” Seth cracked open an eye, checking his
mother’s expression. “Are you really interested in this?”
“I’m interested in everything you do,” Lydia said, simply.
So Seth told her. About inasu, turning blocks into strikes,
flowing seamlessly from defending to attacking; about zanshin,
ceaseless attention to your surroundings, right down to the
currents of air; about mudana no waza, no wasted movements.
He paused then, a little embarrassed by his own earnestness.
“Pretty fruity, huh?”
“I don’t think so. I’m glad you and Werner found one
another. He’s been alone too long.” Lydia’s smile melted into the
228
lines around her mouth. “I wish you and Jack could connect like
that.”
The only connection Seth wanted to make with Jack Steward
was his fist against Jack’s face. “We get along,” he hedged.
“He does try, honey. Having a boy in the house is difficult
for him. He’s only used to us girls. But I know he cares about
you…”
She was leading up to something. Seth sat up. “Did I do
something wrong?”
“No, honey, of course not.” Lydia sat up, too, seeming
exasperated with herself. “You know we have the fundraiser
tomorrow night, at the country club. For Jack’s campaign.” Seth
nodded. Dinner table conversation had revolved around little else
for two weeks. “Jack didn’t want me to ask – he said it would put
you on the spot – but we would really love for our family to be
there. Our whole family,” she stressed, to be sure Seth didn’t
miss the point.
Seth Sullivan at a country club cotillion. Now there was a
concept. Even if Jack hadn’t been the government liaison in
Ursula LeRoi’s pocket, he could not have seen that happening. “I
have a lot of homework to catch up on tomorrow,” he said. It was
true. Mr. Talbot had assigned them two chapters in American
History, he had a set of proofs still to work for Geometry, and if
he wanted to survive the pop quiz Gideon was sure to spring on
them as retaliation for the Knights’ victory, he needed to review
this week’s Biology chapter. “But tell Jack I’ll be rooting for
him.” To be eaten by rats.
“Marshall will be there, you know,” Lydia said.
Seth grinned. Lydia had his number, all right. “Will Dr.
Townsend be there?”
“I’m sure he will. Wesley and Meredith are big supporters of
Jack’s campaign.”
“Then Marshall might be more comfortable if I stayed
home.”
Seth peered sideways at her, making sure she got it. Lydia
glanced out his window, at the house across the drive. Her smile
was a little bit sad.
“You’re very brave, Seth,” she said.
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***
“So you killed her,” Regent repeated, deadpan.
Seth’s guru was leaning against one of the mirrored walls in
the Bat Cave, sipping bottled water while Seth traded his gi for
jeans and a T-shirt. Their training session that morning had been
grueling, even by Regent standards. He was teaching Seth kicks
– roundhouse kicks, scissor kicks, flying kicks. This in addition
to their regular floor exercises. The soles of Seth’s feet were
numb from striking the heavy bag, his leg muscles screaming for
mercy.
Still, he was improving. A month ago, he would have
collapsed within the first half-hour.
He forced himself to meet Regent’s gaze. “Yes. I killed her,”
he said, sticking to the lie he had decided, sometime around
dawn, to tell. A lie Regent would suspect was a lie, but would be
hard-pressed to prove was not the truth. “You told me if I wanted
to be merciful, I should slit her throat, remember?”
Regent grunted. Sweat had pooled under his black gi; he
looked almost as spent as Seth. “What happened to finding your
brother?”
“Did she tell you anything about J.J.?” Regent made a
noncommittal noise Seth decided to interpret as a no. “I saw
what you did to her, all right? If she hadn’t talked after all that,
she wasn’t going to talk. And I couldn’t just let you keep
torturing her. It’s not who I am. But it would have been stupid to
let her go, so…I killed her.”
Regent studied Seth for a long minute. Seth held his breath.
With seventeen years of practice, he could lie impressively when
he needed to, never more so than when his life was on the line,
but Regent was not an easy man to fool.
Finally, Regent pushed off the wall. “Well then. Your first
kill. I say this calls for a celebration.” He motioned at the mat.
“Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
Seth hesitated. Although if Regent wanted to kill him, he
reasoned, he wouldn’t need to be sneaky about it; he could just
grab something off the weapons wall and chop him into jaguarbits. “I take my whiskey straight,” he called up the stairs, as he
sat down, cross-legged, on the mat.
230
Regent returned a minute later and took a seat facing him. He
was holding something behind his back, something Seth couldn’t
see even when he craned his neck. “You like mythology, cub?”
Regent asked.
Seth shrugged. “I’ve read Homer. Personally, I prefer The
Iliad to The Odyssey.”
“Not that kind of mythology. I mean animal mythology.
Ancient cultures revered animals. Did you know every Mayan
god had a jaguar form?”
“Darn skippy,” said Seth. “Jaguar worship. We need to bring
that action back.” Regent gave him a look. Seth cleared his
throat. “Sorry. You were saying…?”
“Abraham Bishop, Elijah Bishop’s father, was an
anthropologist. He spent years trekking through South American
rainforests collecting myths from the Maya. Some say he died
there. Some say he met the Tortoise Clan, the most ancient
werekin Clan, the only one to survive the sinking of Lemuria,
and is still there somewhere, deep, deep in the Amazon, but
that’s a story for another day. The myth we’re concerned with
claims the world of the living and the world of the dead were
ruled by two jaguars – one light, one dark. The black jaguar ruled
the world of the dead. The pale jaguar ruled the world of the
living.”
Night and day, light and dark. Typical mythological themes,
yet this particular myth sent a shiver of unease down Seth’s
spine. “So the black jaguar was evil, and the pale jaguar was
good?”
“The Mayans didn’t associate light with purity and dark with
evil, like we do. Neither god was good or evil. Both were simply
powerful.”
Regent brought his hands around in front of him. Balanced
between them was one of those samurai swords Seth had
admired his first day of training – a katana, Regent had called it.
Twenty-five inches of curved steel soldered to a long, cylindrical
handle fitted with a leather grip. Regent offered it to Seth off his
fingertips. Seth took it.
The sword was heavier than he had expected – the curve was
so graceful, like an unfurled ribbon, he had thought it would be
feather-light. Etched into each side of the blade was a jaguar: one
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dark, with hints of pale spots; one golden, with black rosettes.
The metalwork was so fine you could almost believe the
engraving had been breathed into the steel as it was smelted.
Seth looked up at Regent. Regent’s marbled eyes were
inscrutable. “You’re trying to tell me something, aren’t you?”
Seth said. “Something about J.J.”
“Actually, cub,” Regent said, “I’m trying to tell you
something about you.”
Of course he didn’t offer to explain. And if Seth pressed him,
he would just give him some shogun baloney about finding his
own truth, yada yada, blah blah blah. Oh well. At least he hadn’t
impaled him with the sword for springing Cleo. Seth offered the
sword back to Regent, off his fingertips because he figured that
was a samurai etiquette thing, but Regent shook his head. “Keep
it. I had it made for you.”
Seth’s jaw dropped. “You – made me a sword?”
“I did promise you could have one when you convinced me
you wouldn’t chop your own arm off,” Regent reminded him.
“But if you don’t want it, I can – ”
“I want it.” Seth hugged the katana against his chest. Hell
yes he wanted it. His sword was in-credible. “But…” He glanced
sidelong at Regent, suspicious when what he wanted to feel was
grateful. “Why now?”
“Because you’ve earned it,” Regent said, gruffly. “I had my
doubts about you, cub, but you’ve worked as hard as I asked you
to. You haven’t even whined too much.”
Why did Regent have to pick today of all days, the first day
Seth had ever lied to his face, to dole out a whopping dose of his
rare praise? Softly, Seth said, “Thanks, Mr. Regent.”
“Might want to hold off on the gratitude. Sword training is
no picnic. I want you to bring that with you from now on.”
Regent pointed at the katana. “I’ll teach you the basic techniques,
and you’ll need to practice them, every day. And I want you
adding another two miles to your morning runs, too. Got to put
some meat on those bones if you want to be a swordsman.”
Seth saluted. “Yes, General.”
At that, Regent almost smiled.
***
232
Kings Lane was deserted, Lydia’s Escalade missing from the
garage, by the time Seth made it home. Next door, the
Townsends’ house was dark as well. Looked like everyone in
Castle Estates had decided Jack’s country club fundraiser was the
place to be tonight.
On the kitchen counter, Seth found fifty dollars and a
Chinese takeout menu his mother had thoughtfully put by for
him. He ordered sweet and sour pork, kung pao beef, fried
dumplings and wonton soup, and showered while he waited for
the food to arrive. His new katana he placed in a position of
honor on top of his dresser.
The phone rang as he was toweling off. Seth let the machine
pick up. Whoever it was didn’t leave a message.
He had just thrown on his favorite holey T-shirt and an old
pair of sweats when the doorbell buzzed. As there was no one
home to see, he bounded from the second floor landing to the
entryway, skidded barefoot across the hardwood to the front
door, and yanked it open. “Sorry, I was in the –
“Indiana?” Seth pulled back, blinking. “Why aren’t you at
the country club?”
Marshall Townsend shoved his hands in the pockets of his
jeans, the porch light silvering his inky curls. He was dressed
more casually than usual, in faded jeans and a washed-out Nike
T-shirt. His smile struck Seth as more relaxed, too. “I have the
flu,” he announced.
“Well, quarantine yourself next door,” Seth said. “I don’t
want it.”
“Philadelphia!” Marshall stuck his foot out, blocking the
door before Seth could close it. “I don’t really have the flu. I’m
playing hooky.”
And he smiled, brilliantly. Seth lounged against the
doorframe, studying him. Every time he thought he had him
pegged, Marshall subverted his Golden Boy theory. “You fooled
your father? Isn’t he a doctor?”
“Surgeon,” Marshall corrected. “He doesn’t see a lot of
cases of flu in the O.R.” He paused, looking a bit unsure of
himself, suddenly. “Well? Are you going to invite me in?”
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“I don’t know, Indiana,” Seth said, solemnly. “I’m not sure I
should encourage this behavior. You think it’s just the one little
white lie, but the next thing you know, you’re staying up past
your bedtime. From there, it’s just a short jump to snorting coke
in the bathroom.”
“I hear you’re the man to see about that,” Marshall quipped,
as he slid by him.
The takeout arrived five minutes later. Luckily Seth had
ordered enough for two. The boys ate in the kitchen, sitting
across from one another at the island, dissecting every play
Sacred Heart had made in Friday’s game. The Knights were
likely to face them again in the lead-up to sectionals in a couple
of weeks.
Casually as he could, Seth asked about Connor Burke’s
background. “His father is military,” Marshall said, peeling off a
scrap of marinated beef and tossing it to Captain Hook. Poe was
on top of the refrigerator, one of her favorite napping spots, her
one eye fixed on Seth. “He moved here our ninth grade year. I
think before that they lived in New Mexico.”
“Why come here?” Seth asked. “Fort King is closed down,
isn’t it?”
“Beats me. That’s really all I know about him, aside from his
free throw average.” Using his chopsticks, Marshall speared a
dumpling off Seth’s plate. “Why? You’re not thinking of going
out with him, are you?”
Seth blinked. “Is he gay?”
“I don’t know. Couldn’t you tell, if he was?”
Marshall sounded genuinely curious. Seth shook his head.
“Seriously, Indiana? It’s not like gay people have a rainbow aura
or something. You can’t just spot them in a crowd.” He pushed a
few noodles around his plate. “He is kind of cute, I guess. But I
don’t date the enemy.”
Marshall laughed.
There was something different about Marshall tonight, Seth
thought. The way he smiled, warm and open. The way he let his
gaze linger on Seth, like Seth knew his gaze always lingered on
him. The inhibitions that usually held him back seemed to have
evaporated, and in compensation, Seth found himself more
subdued than usual. They had just gotten back on speaking
234
terms. He didn’t want to cross one of Marshall’s invisible lines
and wreck things again.
The phone rang again as they were rinsing their dishes.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Marshall asked. Seth shook
his head. Marshall looked over at him. “You’re quiet tonight,
Philadelphia. Everything okay?”
“I’m just tired,” Seth said. Again, not a lie. Karate wore him
out.
“What’s that, on your neck?” Catching Seth by the shoulder,
Marshall turned him around. His eyes widened. “Jesus, Seth,
what happened to you?”
Seth looked down to see what had Marshall so upset. A
purple-black mark discolored his collarbone, clearly visible
through his thin T-shirt. Dammit. He had forgotten how battered
sparring with Regent left him. The bruises always faded by
morning, and Seth was careful to wear a sweatshirt over his p.j.s
on karate days so Lydia wouldn’t flip out; tonight, though, he
hadn’t bothered, as he’d been expecting to have the house to
himself. “It’s nothing,” he said, pulling the collar of his T-shirt
over the bruise. “Karate is a contact sport, you know.”
“Regent did that to you?” Marshall was indignant. “He’s ten
times your size!”
“Relax, Indiana. It’s just sparring.” Was Seth the only one
who noticed how close they were standing? He pressed back
against the sink, trying to put some distance between them. “I’m
fine. Really.”
“If it was more than that, you could tell me,” Marshall said,
roughly. “If someone was hurting you, if you needed help, Seth,
you could tell me.”
His fingers brushed the bruise, along the slope of Seth’s
collarbone. Seth gripped the edge of the sink. “No one is hurting
me. I swear.”
It came out a little breathlessly, a fact that wasn’t lost on
Marshall, whose breathing was somewhat uneven, too. His baby
blues turned black as smoke. “I should…I should go home,” he
said, staring into Seth’s face like he was searching for some kind
of answer there. “Before my parents come back…”
“Okay,” Seth said, trying his best to sound normal.
235
But Marshall made no move to leave. His hand ran down
Seth’s arm, shoulder to elbow, elbow to wrist. Seth felt himself
go into tingle-mode again. “Listen, Seth, about…about the other
night. When you – when we – ” Seth couldn’t stop himself from
looking at Marshall’s mouth then, or from noticing how
Marshall’s pupils dilated when he did. It made him dizzy. “I’ve
been thinking, about what you said, and – ”
A split-second before the window at his back shattered, Seth
heard the rifle report.
This time, unlike in Philly, he moved fast enough: Flinging
himself forward, he tackled Marshall to the floor, curving his
arms over his head as glass sprayed his back. Marshall cried out.
A curly-q of blood appeared on the sleeve of his T-shirt. Seth
smelled the trail of silver the bullet had left behind.
Captain Hook tore off into the living room, Poe on his heels,
a calico streak.
Boots were thumping across the drive. A shadow appeared at
the back door, just as another pair of boots stomped up the porch
steps – both exits blocked. Seth cursed himself inwardly.
It seemed Cleo had kept her word after all. The hunters had
come for him.
***
Seth rolled off of Marshall, into a crouch, eyes on the door.
Marshall was saying something about the police. Seth cut him
off. “Marshall, listen to me.” His voice was already a hiss; rage
pumped into his bloodstream, splendid in its potency. “Go
upstairs to my room, climb out the window, and get back to your
house. Stay there. Don’t call the cops. I can handle this.”
“Are you nuts?” Marshall’s whisper was urgent. The door
knob jiggled; it was locked, but locks, Seth knew, would not stop
hunters. “These guys have guns. I don’t know what you were
into in Philly, but you can’t seriously mean to…”
He trailed off, staring, as Seth turned toward him. His
fingernails had already lengthened into claws, the hair on the
backs of his arms thickening into tawny fur; black rosettes
darkened his cheeks, blooming outward from the tattoos around
his eye. “Seth?” Marshall whispered.
236
“Yeah, Indiana,” Seth said. “It’s still me. Now, run!”
And then, as the back door splintered off its frame, he
skinned.
He heard Marshall gasp, but there was no time to worry
about that now. The jaguar launched off the kitchen floor,
swiping his claws across the face of the hunter who had just
stepped inside.
She screamed, staggering backwards. She was in her midtwenties, dark-skinned and butch-looking, wearing leather pants
and a leather jacket – not Cleo. Seth registered that in the
moment before they crashed onto the wooden planks of the
porch, the jaguar on top. The hunter’s rifle sailed into Lydia’s
rosebushes; she reached to draw the knife from her belt, but Seth
sank his teeth into the back of her neck and bit down, puncturing
her skull.
Blood, cloyingly sweet, flooded the jaguar’s mouth. The
hunter went limp.
A strangled cry behind him brought Seth around. Filling the
kitchen doorway was a gorilla-like man, his neck so thick his
brutish face flowed right into it, sans chin. Boulder-sized muscles
bulged beneath his leather jacket. A whip like Snowman’s was
hooked to his belt, alongside the kind of long hunting knife Ben
would have called a Texas toothpick, and an ammo pouch with
extra silver bullets for the Glock .9 millimeter clutched in one
powerful hand.
Forget hunters. This dude was Rambo.
Seth snarled – a hair-raising sound that sent every dog in the
neighborhood into hysterics. Had Kings Lane not been emptied
out for the Stewards’ fundraiser bash, animal control would have
received some panicked calls.
Rambo raised his eyes from his dead partner. Hatred was
written all over his ugly face. Muzzle-flash dazzled Seth’s eyes;
he heard a phht noise as the bullet exited the barrel – the Glock
was equipped with a silencer – but he was already dodging, spine
curving as he rolled in midair, the bullet passing so close to his
neck it ruffled his fur.
Seth skinned as he landed, executing a cartwheel that brought
him within striking range of Rambo’s chest. He kicked out, a
judo-kick Regent had taught him just that afternoon, but it was
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like kicking a solid wall: Rambo just grinned, like, Thanks for
playing, and brought the pistol up again. Ducking under his arm,
Seth seized the collar of Rambo’s leather jacket, jerked him
forward, and slammed his forehead into the bigger man’s nose.
That move he hadn’t learned in karate. That was a lesson
from the streets of South Philly, Seth’s urban jungle.
Blinded by tears, Rambo stumbled into the porch railing,
blood gushing from both nostrils. Seth sprinted into the kitchen.
Upstairs, on his dresser, was the katana – which he didn’t
actually know how to use yet, but hey, it was a sword. It was
better than nothing.
Captain Hook was raising an unholy racket in the living
room, answered by the frantic braying of the neighborhood dogs.
The kitchen was empty; Seth hoped that meant Marshall had
made it safely next door. For all he knew, the yard was swarming
with hunters. If anything happened to Marshall, because of him –
There was a whistling noise from the doorway. Seth, hissing,
ducked behind the island. Rambo’s bullet grazed the top of his
ear.
Crouched there, heart pounding, Seth shut his eyes. Stupid,
stupid, stupid! He had just gotten himself pinned down. He
should have kept running. Now he would never make it to the
stairs without being shot in the back.
“Here, kitty-kitty.”
Splintered wood and broken glass crunched – Rambo had
stepped over the back door. The toes of a pair of black combat
boots appeared beside the island. Screw it, Seth thought. If he
was going out, he was going out fighting.
He tucked his chin into his chest, rolled out from his hiding
place, and back-flipped on top of the island. Rambo cursed;
before he could bring the gun up, Seth had kicked it out of his
hand. It bounced onto the counter, discharging a bullet that
destroyed the toaster.
Seth dove for the gun. Rambo dove for Seth.
Hands gripped the back of his T-shirt. A second later, Seth
was flying – then crashing, into the cabinets above the sink. The
impact expelled the air from his lungs. He must have blacked
out, for when he came to, he was lying belly-down amidst the
fragments of glass from the broken window.
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A boot hooked under his hip, flipping him onto his back. Seth
moaned. A sliver of gray rib bone poked out of his right side,
through his torn shirt. He was too dazed to appreciate the pain,
but he was certain that part was coming.
Rambo cocked the pistol. “Night-night, kitty,” he said.
All Seth could think about was his mother, coming home and
finding his body in a pool of blood next to the stove. He closed
his eyes. Rambo’s finger touched the trigger –
There was a shrill bark, followed by a sharp cry of pain; the
bullet that had been intended for Seth’s brain pan pinged off the
stove. Seth opened his eyes.
Captain Hook was there, teeth clamped onto Rambo’s ankle,
just above his boot. The dog’s sleek little body was quivering
with rage. Come into my house, will ya? he seemed to be saying.
“Get off, you stupid mutt!” Rambo hopped to the side,
shaking his foot. Captain Hppl held on, growling like a
Rottweiler. Seth shouted for him to run, but Captain Hook didn’t
listen. Rambo stopped hopping and brought the Glock around.
Seth screamed. The gun fired.
Blood misted the floor.
“NO!”
Fury let loose inside of Seth then. Forgetting the pain in his
broken ribs, forgetting the natural abhorrence he felt for killing,
he leapt at Rambo, tackling his knees.
The pistol slid under the refrigerator as Rambo hit the floor.
He choked; Seth had closed his hands around his throat, begun to
squeeze. Vicious snarls were ripping out of him, though he was
in his human skin.
Rambo’s eyes bulged. Seth squeezed harder. Rambo twisted,
managing to jab him in the gut, sending shockwaves of agony
through Seth’s broken ribs. He fell over, too slow to duck this
time, and took the full force of Rambo’s punch right on the jaw.
Arms curled around his middle, Seth turned, to see Rambo
unsheathing his long knife. He touched his lips to the blade. Seth
had thought only bad guys in movies did that. Did he have a
name for it, too, like Lady Killer or Soul Biter, and sleep with it
under his pillow?
“Forget the gun,” Rambo said. “There’s more than one way
to skin a cat.”
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His mouth opened around a laugh, but something was wrong.
The knife slipped from his grasp. The hunter looked at his empty
hand in complete confusion. Seth flattened himself against the
counter, still not understanding what was happening, even as
blood bubbled over Rambo’s lips and he collapsed, facedown, at
Seth’s feet.
Buried to its hilt between his shoulder blades was a familiar
bone-handled dagger.
Seth looked up. Marshall was coming toward him, saying his
name. For a second, Seth just gaped at him. Where in the name
of the stars had Marshall Townsend learned to throw a knife with
such deadly precision?
Then he spotted the two figures in the doorway, one chewing
frantically on the end of his strawberry-blonde ponytail, the
other, still wearing the camouflage jacket Seth had wrapped her
in yesterday, smirking down at her kill with deep satisfaction.
“Skin that, bitch,” Cleo said.
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Chapter Nineteen: Aftershocks
Broken dishes littered the kitchen floor. The back door was
kindling, the window above the sink in pieces; snow-swirled air
whistled in around the frame, rustling the grocery lists and
basketball schedules on the fridge. On top of that, there were the
two dead hunters.
Seemed like a situation ripe for adult intervention. Seth
called Regent.
“Stay put,” he growled. He was on his cell phone; Seth heard
the Hummer roar to life. “I’m on my way.”
“Yes sir.” Seth wasn’t sure he could have gone anywhere
just then anyway. He was lying on the sofa, where Marshall had
deposited him before rushing off to retrieve the first-aid kit. “But
the Stewards will be home soon, so…”
“I’ll call Jackie,” Regent said. “He can keep your mother and
sister out a bit longer. And cub?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t say a word to anybody, even Jack, until we get your
story straight.”
Lawerly advice if Seth had ever heard it.
He returned the receiver to its cradle and turned over on his
side. Cleo was in the kitchen, pilfering the bodies for spoils of
war. Emery was at the window, peering around the curtain at the
dark, quiet street.
Poe climbed into Seth’s lap, meowing. Seth thought of
Captain Hook, his limp little body crumpled up beside the stove,
and buried his face in the couch cushions.
“Seth? Are you okay?”
Fan-tastic, Seth thought. He made himself sit up. Emery was
looking at him with kindly green eyes. “Why were you bringing
Cleo to my house again?” Seth asked.
“I wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t mean to.” Emery studied his bony
hands, abashed. His T-shirt said SILLY RABBIT, TRIX ARE
FOR KIDS. “Mom called this afternoon. I tried to call you, but
nobody answered.” Seth thought of the phone ringing off and on
throughout the evening. Only now did he notice the answering
machine light blinking with a dozen missed calls. “Finally I just
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drove out here. When I pulled in, Cleo pulled in behind me. I led
her right to you. Like an idiot.”
Jaw jutting at an irritated angle, Emery scuffed his shoes on
the carpet. Seth sighed. “Em, don’t. Don’t beat yourself up. I’d
be dead right now if it wasn’t for her.” Emery shrugged,
unconvinced. Seth, too weary to argue, let it go. “What did your
mom say?”
“You know she got called out of town because something
big was going down with the Resistance?” Seth nodded. “Well,
it’s the Black Swan. Chimera found her.”
Seth’s jaw dropped.
Save her, he heard J.J. say. Save her, and she will save us all.
What if he hadn’t been talking about Cleo after all? What if he
had been talking about the Black Swan?
But how did he expect Seth to save her when he didn’t know
who – or where – she was? Seth suddenly felt like clawing
something. Why did his twin have to be so cryptic, anyway? Was
that a psychic thing, speaking in riddles? That’s how dreams
work, the more rational side of his brain reasoned. Through
images and symbols. If that was all J.J. had to work with, a
psychic link to his numbskull twin brother’s dreams, how much
more frustrating must this all have been for him?
Wearily, Seth stroked down Poe’s back. Chimera Enterprises
had the Black Swan. Marshall had seen him skin. LeRoi was
sending her hunters into his house to kill him. All Seth really
wanted was to go to sleep and wake up to discover this entire day
had been a bad dream. “Did your mom know where the Black
Swan is being held?”
Emery shook his head. “The Resistance doesn’t have a
complete list of all Chimera facilities. They’re scrambling, trying
to put the pieces together, but – ”
“Found it!”
Marshall had appeared in the doorway, holding up the firstaid kit. Emery stopped talking.
Marshall sat down on the couch. With calm, steady hands, he
cleaned the cuts across Seth’s back, tweezing out shards of glass.
Seth’s broken ribs were already knitting back together, but the
skin above his hip was split where the bone had poked through.
Marshall taped a square of gauze over the gash.
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The blood on his sleeve was a chilling reminder of the
hunter’s near-miss. Silver poison had no effect on humans, but a
bullet was still a bullet. “Is your arm all right?” Seth asked.
“Huh?” Marshall glanced at his bicep. “Oh. Yeah. It’s a
scratch. I’m worried about you,” he said. “You could have
internal bleeding.”
“I heal fast,” Seth said. “All werekin do.”
Marshall glanced up at that. “There are others, like you?”
Seth nodded, careful not to let his eyes stray to Emery.
Someone else’s skin was not his secret to share. “What were you
doing coming back here, Indiana? I thought I told you to go
home and stay there.”
“Right. I was leaving you to face two armed…whoever those
people were on your own.” Marshall snapped the first-aid kit
closed. “My father keeps a .38 by his bed. I knew where it was,
so I got it, and started back, but Emery and that girl were already
on their way in your front door…”
For some reason, when Marshall said that girl, Seth
remembered that before the hunters had burst in, Marshall had
been about to tell him something. Would he still want to, after
seeing Seth skin into a jaguar? “Indiana?” he said.
“Yeah?”
Baby blue eyes met his, and Seth lost his nerve. “You’ll
make a good doctor,” he said, lamely.
“Strictly speaking,” Marshall said, “this may qualify as
veterinary work.”
Seth laughed – and yelped, crossing his arms over his ribs.
“Don’t make me laugh,” he groaned.
“Sorry.” Marshall put the first-aid kit down on the floor.
When he turned back to Seth, all traces of teasing were gone.
“Are you safe, now that those people are…?”
The word “dead” stuck in his throat. Seth could see how
scared he was, but scared for him, not of him. Begged the
question of just how much of this Marshall had already
suspected. “Unfortunately,” Seth said, “it’s a little more
complicated than that.”
“Try a lot more complicated.” Emery closed the curtain and
leaned back against the window. His nose and ears were very
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red. “Seth, you need to get out of here, tonight. Chimera knows
where you live. If they’ve decided to send hunters after you – ”
“Au contraire, Bunny Bread,” said Cleo. “Those hunters
were not Chimera.”
She sauntered into the living room, Seth’s bone-handled
dagger sheathed at her hip, and threw her huntress self into
Jack’s recliner. “Feeling better, sweetheart?”
“Good as new,” said Seth. Marshall had draped his arm
across the back of the sofa – casually, but a little proprietarily,
too. Once this life-and-death crisis abated, Seth would have to
analyze that. “What did you mean, they aren’t Chimera?”
“I found these on them.” Cleo tossed two silver cuffs onto
the sofa. Marshall picked one up. It was carved into the shape of
a swan, the symbol of the Resistance.
Emery had gone white as bone. Seth knew they were thinking
the same thing. Chimera had the Black Swan. Now all they
needed was the blood of the Jaguar Clan, Seth’s blood, to
complete the Ark, and they could raise Lemuria. Was it possible
the Resistance had decided to spill that blood before LeRoi could
take it?
“Are they, Em?” he asked, quietly. “Are they Resistance?”
“The cuffs are.” Emery looked like he had swallowed
something vile. “But, Seth, the Resistance wouldn’t send hunters
after you. The Resistance doesn’t work with hunters. This has to
be some trick of Chimera’s.” He looked pointedly at Cleo as he
said it.
Marshall was looking between them all, mouth slightly ajar.
“Okay, what is a chimera, and what are you resisting?”
“It’s not impossible for a hunter to join the Resistance,” Cleo
said, addressing Seth as if Marshall hadn’t spoken. “Sometimes
hunters go rogue, run away and join the Underground. Who’s to
say the Resistance hasn’t started recruiting them?”
“I say,” Emery said, hotly. “And I also say the Resistance
doesn’t want Seth dead.”
“How would you know, Bunny Bread? Are you a Resistance
fighter? Because, correct me if I’m wrong, I thought you were a
clerk at the mall.”
Emery’s nose wiggled. He looked so angry Seth thought he
might skin, which Seth would actually have paid money to see,
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but he took a deep breath and said, “I think Jack Steward is
behind this.”
Marshall made a startled noise. Cleo dismissively flicked her
wrist. “Steward is Seth’s guardian. He wouldn’t risk killing him
unless LeRoi ordered it. And if Chimera had ordered this hit,
there would have been more than two hunters here tonight.”
“Maybe they weren’t supposed to kill him,” Emery said.
“Maybe they were supposed to collar him.”
“Then where are the collars? I searched them myself. All
they had on them were silver bullets. Bullets, not tranqs. What
does that tell you?”
Cleo leaned back, satisfied that Emery had no answer. Seth
did. Whoever had sent Rambo and his partner, they had wanted
him planted under J.J.’s concrete angel.
He leaned forward. “You called Jack my ‘guardian.’ I heard
him tell Regent he was ‘responsible’ for me,” he said,
questioningly.
“He is,” Cleo said. “Responsible for handing you over to
Chimera in one piece. If he doesn’t…” She drew a finger across
her throat.
“Hold on.” Marshall’s face had paled grayish-white, like the
soupy fog that sometimes crept over Philly. “Mr. Steward is
involved with people who want to kill Seth?”
Emery threw Seth a sympathetic glance. There wasn’t time to
explain things to Marshall like Seth wanted to. Regent would be
here any minute, and Seth’s rescue party needed to clear out
beforehand. He couldn’t very well have Regent discover Cleo in
his living room, after he had claimed to have deep-sixed her. And
he didn’t want Emery or Marshall coming to Regent’s attention.
He was still too uncertain of his guru’s loyalties.
“Emery,” he said, “upstairs, in my room, there’s a book
hidden under my mattress. A journal. I want you to get it and
bring it down here to Marshall. Then I want both of you to go
home, and I want you to promise me, not a word to your mom
about what happened here tonight until we figure out who wants
me dead.”
“Seth, you can trust the Resistance,” Emery said. “Just
because she says – ”
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“She just saved my life,” Seth reminded him. Emery blushed.
Seth sighed. He hadn’t meant to snap, but this was all happening
so fast. “Please, Em, could you just…?”
Mutely, Emery nodded. As he hurried up the stairs to Seth’s
room, Marshall leaned back on the couch and looked hard at
Seth. “What are you going to do?”
Seth shrugged. “Stay here. Regent should be here any
minute.”
“Is that safe? Are you safe here?”
“No,” said Cleo, at the same time Emery, hopping back
down the stairs, said, “No.”
Seth glared at them both. Being ganged up on wasn’t helping
his temper. “I’m not safe anywhere. I’ve been hunted my whole
life, okay? So everybody can stop talking to me like this is my
first day.”
“Then stop acting like it,” Cleo said.
“What do you want me to do, Cleo? Run? What happens to
my mother and sister if I do? Can you honestly tell me Chimera
wouldn’t use them to make me surrender?”
Emery looked like he wished he had never put that idea into
Seth’s head. “The Resistance can send your family Underground,
too,” he said.
“Please,” Cleo said, witheringly. “Chimera has hundreds of
spies in the Underground. You send two humans and a
werejaguar Underground, you might as well take out a front-page
ad that says ‘collar me.’”
“Have you got a better idea?” Emery challenged.
“Yes, actually. He disappears.” Cleo swung her unnervingly
silver gaze onto Seth. “Forget the Underground. Forget the
Resistance. Just run. Get your head down, and don’t ever poke it
back up.”
“Is that what you’re going to do?” Seth asked.
The ice in Cleo’s eyes suddenly melted. Seth understood, as
he hadn’t before, that she was terrified. “We’d stand a better
chance with two of us,” she said.
Marshall shifted uncomfortably. Emery was bouncing on the
balls of his feet, shaking his head frantically at Seth.
Part of Seth, the part of him that had spent his life being
protected by others, first by Thomas, then by Naomi and Ben,
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was tempted to accept her offer, to hide from the fight he knew
was coming if he stayed in Fairfax. How could he hope to win
against Chimera? Even after all his training, he had nearly been
killed by a single hunter.
But he couldn’t save himself and hope Chimera didn’t come
after his family. He couldn’t go back on his promise to bring J.J.
home.
“I’m staying,” he said.
Cold light seeped back into Cleo’s eyes, freezing them once
more into glass. She stood; walked over to the couch; and offered
the bone-handled dagger to Seth, hilt-first.
“Do yourself a favor, sweetheart,” she said. “When the
hunters come for you, use that on yourself.”
***
Midnight was long past when the last police car drove away
from the Stewards’.
Regent’s Hummer had turned into the drive as the back door
(or what was left of it) had closed behind Emery and Marshall.
Regent had sent Seth to clean up while he took care of the mess
downstairs. Seth had brushed his teeth twice, rinsing the
lingering taste of the hunter’s blood from his mouth, stuffed his
bloody clothes into a plastic gym bag, and pulled on his Gym
uniform. Then he had curled up on his windowsill, holding
Captain Hook’s body, while Regent had packed the hunters’
corpses into his Hummer. Regent liked his steaks rare, and Seth
wasn’t having his dog end up dessert.
An hour must have passed as Seth sat there, gazing
unseeingly at the stars. When the flashing red-and-blue lights had
attracted his attention, Regent had called for him to come
downstairs.
No trace of blood had remained in the kitchen or on the back
porch. Seth didn’t know how Regent had managed that. Like the
forged transcripts and falsified government records, it seemed
beyond the means of a small-time attorney.
Seth wanted to believe Regent. Wanted him to be on his side.
But he thought of those locked trunks in Regent’s garage, and
wondered if it was time to indulge his natural curiosity.
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Still, he had been grateful for Regent’s presence as he had
given his bogus statement to the cops. They had gone with the
most straightforward story: Seth had been home alone, heard a
noise downstairs, and gone to investigate, surprising burglars; his
dog had barked, and they had shot him (Seth had cried real tears
at that point, and a kindly sergeant had patted his back); in
teenage panic, he had called his step-father’s friend Werner
Regent, who had rushed over to check on him, calling the cops
on the way.
No mention of dead bodies, and no dead bodies in sight to
arouse suspicions. Seth had described the hunters in detail, and
APBs had been issued for them.
His family had arrived in the middle of this. Jack, tie askew,
had drawn the sergeant off to the side, deep in sober
conversation. Lydia and Leigh had flanked Seth on the couch,
each holding one of his hands while a paramedic had shined a
light in his eyes, felt of his pulse, standard post-traumatic stress
kind of stuff. Seth had kept repeating, “I’m fine, really,” in this
wooden voice that had been slightly worrisome even to him, until
his mother had at last helped him upstairs to bed, hovering until
Jack managed to convince her what they all really needed was
some sleep.
Seth rolled over now, pulling his blankets up around his chin.
His teeth were chattering – delayed shock. He had added a
sweatshirt and a heavy pair of wool socks to his Gym clothes, but
still couldn’t get warm.
Finally, he threw the covers off, eased open his window, and
crawled outside to bury Captain Hook.
The ground was so frozen he had to dig the hole with his
claws, using all of his jaguar strength. He chose a spot in the
backyard near the fence, visible from his bedroom window. In
the spring, if he wasn’t pushing up daisies himself, he would ask
Lydia if he could plant a rosebush there.
His eyes were red when he finished. Seth wiped his cheeks
with his sleeve, smearing dirt into his tears. Only then did he
acknowledge the figure in the shadows, watching him. “I thought
you were running,” he said.
Cleo shrugged. “I decided I wanted my knife back.”
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***
They climbed the rose trellis up to Seth’s room. Cleo plopped
down on the bed and fell over backwards like she had been
sawed in half at the waist. Mud and straw were packed into the
treads of her boots, suggesting she had spent the previous night
in a cornfield. “I hope you like sleeping on the floor,” she said,
“because I am staying right here.”
Dream on, sister. Seth’s ribs felt like they had been massaged
by a jackhammer. No way he was giving up his big, comfy bed.
“I’m wounded,” he said. “You take the floor.”
Cleo popped up on an elbow. “Share?”
Sharing his bed with a hunter. Emery would have declared
him certifiable. Seth nodded. “Share.”
He scavenged up a T-shirt for Cleo to wear as pajamas, then
ducked into the bathroom to discard his muddy Gym clothes
while she changed. Stripped to his boxers, Seth emerged, to find
Cleo sitting in Poe’s usual spot on his windowsill, thumbing
aimlessly through the copy of Othello Miss Janowitz had
assigned them. Seth’s T-shirt stopped at her waist. Under it she
wore a pair of red panties.
Seth crawled under the covers. Minus the skintight clothes
and spike-heeled boots, Cleo looked like a regular teenage girl,
someone you would expect to find playing softball and griping
about Calculus homework. Complete illusion, of course. Cleo
was a trained killer. The first time Gideon assigned her detention,
she would stab him in the eye with a pencil.
Although, to be fair, a month ago Seth couldn’t have seen
himself walking the halls of Fairfax High, posing for yearbook
photos, joining the basketball team. Fretting over the chapters he
still needed to read for American History.
“Okay, Cleo,” he said. “Hit me. What’s our next move?”
Cleo put the book down. “Depends on your endgame. In the
Scholae Bestiarii, they teach us to know your ends before you
decide on your means.” Sounded like some kung fu nonsense
Regent would spout, Seth thought. “But here’s where things
stand. Chimera knows who you are and how to find you. They
haven’t collared you yet, because they want your tiger buddy to
secure your cooperation – ”
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“Question,” Seth broke in. “Why does Chimera need my
cooperation? Isn’t the whole point of being collared that they can
force you to do whatever they want?”
“The collar doesn’t control your mind,” Cleo said. “It
controls your magic. If you were collared, and I had the key, you
couldn’t skin unless I allowed you to. But if I told you to walk
backwards and quack like a duck, you could refuse. I could use
the collar to drain your life-force – an excruciating way to die,
but if you could withstand the pain, I couldn’t force you to
obey.”
“Are there werekin who choose to die rather than follow
orders?”
Cleo stood. Seth tracked her with his eyes as she picked his
katana up off his dresser and admired the jaguar etchings on the
blade. “For most werekin disobedience is unthinkable,” she said.
“Most werekin are raised in captivity. From the time they’re old
enough to walk, every time they disobey their masters, no matter
how slight the infraction, they’re given a demonstration of the
collar’s power. Just the memory of the pain is powerful
motivation to obey.”
“Chimera tortures little kids? That’s…” Seth didn’t actually
have a word for what that was. His dad had gone through that, he
realized. No wonder Thomas had considered never having
children.
“But in your case,” Cleo went on, returning the katana to
Seth’s dresser, “you know what freedom is. Real freedom, no
strings attached. It’s hard to break a spirit that prefers death to
enslavement. Chimera could collar you and extract your blood
for the Ark, but if they want to make a warrior out of you, their
best chance is to persuade you to serve them willingly.”
“Okay,” Seth said. Thus far, everything Cleo had said
tracked with what Regent had told him about Chimera’s plans for
him. But he still didn’t understand one thing. “Then, if Chimera
didn’t send hunters to bring me in, why did Snowman try to
collar me out at the creek?”
“Stefan,” Cleo said.
Seth blinked. “What?”
“Stefan. The hunter your tiger buddy killed. His name was
Stefan.” Cleo sat down on the foot of Seth’s bed. “He wasn’t
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hunting you. He was guarding the perimeter. The creek runs right
along the edge of that old military base – Chimera territory. You
just blundered into one of their traps.”
This reminded Seth. “Emery told me the Resistance thinks
Chimera moved the Ark from Mt. Hokulani to Fort King,” he
said. “Is that true?”
“I don’t know. There’s a lot they don’t tell us. Hunters aren’t
that much better than werekin in Dr. LeRoi’s estimation. She
doesn’t really trust us. I know the fort is used as a hub – ”
“That’s it!” Seth sat up, so suddenly Cleo jumped. “The
Black Swan! Cleo, Emery said Chimera has the Black Swan, but
the Resistance doesn’t know where they’re taking her. What
about the hub?”
Cleo looked doubtful. “If Chimera has the Black Swan, I
can’t see them bringing her through a hub. They’ll take her right
to wherever the Ark is. That will be the most heavily-guarded
facility they have. And I don’t know where it is,” she added, “so
don’t bother asking.”
“But it’s a place to start, right?” Seth insisted, warming to
his inspiration. J.J. had asked him to save the Black Swan. Seth
was sure of the dream’s meaning now. As sure as he was that
saving the Black Swan could be his first step to saving J.J., if he
played it right. “If Fort King is a hub, Chimera ships things from
there to its other facilities. There could be a list of Chimera
properties at the fort. If we could find a list like that, we could –
”
“Seth? Are you awake?”
The voice was soft, and came from the other side of Seth’s
door. Seth froze.
Damn his baby sister. Had she never heard of privacy?
He looked frantically at Cleo, whose eyes were wide. If Jack
found her here, she was in serious trouble; she was on the lam
from Chimera now, too, same as any werekin in the
Underground. Could she make it to the closet before Leigh saw
her? Could Seth get across the room to intercept Leigh before she
stepped inside?
The answer to both was, simply, no, and Seth was about to
panic when an idea struck him. Three o’clock in the morning. A
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half-naked girl in his room. There was one explanation Leigh
might buy for that.
He raised his eyebrows at Cleo. She sighed, but she vaulted
forward, tackling Seth backward onto the pillows, and kissed
him.
Kissed him like she meant it, lips burning against his, hand
sliding behind his neck, into his hair. “Work with me,
sweetheart,” she growled. Right. Seth, who had been too startled
to react, parted his lips, kissing back with all the passion he could
muster.
“Oh! Oh my God, I’m sorry!”
Leigh shrank back in the doorway, shading her eyes with one
hand, like seeing her big brother mid-make-out session might
permanently damage her eyesight. She was wearing a hot pink
robe over her pajamas. “Leigh,” Seth gasped, out of breath from
being kiss-attacked. He had to wrench away from Cleo. “Did
you, uh, need something?”
Leigh peeked through her fingers. “I was just checking to see
if you were okay,” she said.
“Yup,” said Seth, trying to ignore Cleo, who was now
nibbling on his earlobe. “I’m okay.”
“Is this your little sister?” Cleo sat up, walking her fingers
down Seth’s stomach. As in, all the way down. He sucked in his
gut. “She is so adorable! Sweet pea, would you mind shutting the
door?” On your way out, she didn’t have to add.
Leigh backpedaled into the hall. “You might want to lock
this,” she snapped at Seth, and closed his door with an indignant
click.
What followed would thereafter be known as The Most
Awkward Silence, Ever.
Neither Seth nor Cleo moved, her eyes on the headboard, his
eyes on the ceiling, until they heard bed springs squeak across
the hall. Then Cleo looked down at him. “You didn’t lock the
door?” she said, through her teeth.
“I forgot,” Seth said, meekly.
Cleo rolled off of him. Seth tiptoed to the door, peered into
the hallway, just to be sure, and flipped the lock for good
measure. When he crept back to the bed, Cleo had pulled the
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covers up to her chin and was glaring at the ceiling. “Will she tell
your parents?” she asked, stiffly.
“Not a chance,” said Seth. If Leigh told Jack or Lydia, it
would hamper the repressing of this episode from their collective
sibling memories.
Cleo glanced over at him. She was still very flushed, but she
didn’t seem angry anymore. “You know Jack Steward is a threat
to you, right? He can send hunters after you anytime, and he has
access to your mother and sister.”
“What do you want me to do?” Seth said. “Kill him?”
“Don’t tell me it hasn’t occurred to you.”
Oh, it had occurred to Seth, all right. In many a morbid
fantasy. Think rats. Lots and lots of rats, with sharp, pointy little
teeth. But Jack was Leigh’s father. “I’d like to do this without
killing,” he said.
“Seth.” Cleo’s voice was sharp. “This is war. Survival of the
fittest. Get used to it.”
“I said I’d like to avoid killing. I didn’t say I won’t kill if I
have to.” The hunter woman’s face flashed across Seth’s mind.
“I think I proved that tonight,” he added, softly.
He heard Cleo take a breath. She rolled onto her side, facing
him. The ice in her eyes had thawed the tiniest bit. “How are the
ribs?”
“Better,” Seth said. “Or they were, until this madwoman
ravished me…”
Cleo’s smile vanished. “It was grosser for me than it was for
you, sweetheart.”
“I didn’t say it was gross,” Seth protested. Kissing Cleo
hadn’t grossed him out. He just hadn’t felt like you were
supposed to feel when you kissed someone – shivery inside, and
ticklish all over, and – wait. He sat up. “Kissing me was gross for
you?”
“Of course it was,” Cleo said. “You think I get off on kissing
animals?”
“Cleo, we’ve been over this. I’m not an animal. I’m werekin.
I’m both, a man and – ”
Cleo looked pointedly at his bare chest. “Let’s try a boy.”
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Seth ignored her. “I’m a man, and I’m a cat. You wouldn’t
lie down next to a real jaguar, would you? It would claw you to
pieces.”
“So you’re more housecat than jungle cat.” Cleo shrugged.
“Same principle.”
Let it go, Seth told himself. He turned over, putting his back
to Cleo, breathing deeply as he searched for that inner bliss, allis-one harmony Regent preached at him.
It didn’t work. Hunters did not feel remorse for the werekin
lives they destroyed; werekin were just prey to them, to be
whipped, collared, enslaved, or killed, as the situation called for.
Cleo wasn’t like that. “Sweetheart” might not have been a term
of endearment for her, but she hadn’t nicknamed him pussycat,
and Seth found that significant. Even Emery wasn’t rabbit. He
was Bunny Bread.
Why did it matter so much? He didn’t know. He just knew it
did. He wanted Cleo to admit she didn’t think of werekin as
animals.
“That day in the bookstore,” he said. “The day you first saw
me. Were you hunting for me? Did you know who I was?”
“No.” Cleo spoke shortly. “I was just out hunting. Fairfax
has a growing Underground, and I was hoping to get lucky.”
“But you knew who I was when you saw me, right? You
knew I had to be J.J.’s twin. Why didn’t you bring me in?”
“Actually,” Cleo said, acidly, “recognizing werekin on sight
is not one of my many talents. So you look like J.J. and you have
jaguar tattoos. Didn’t mean you were werekin. I thought I’d get
my facts straight before I raised the alarm and bagged some
clueless human.”
“And what would Chimera have done,” Seth asked, “if they
found out you hadn’t reported the possible sighting of a
werejaguar the second you saw me in the bookstore?”
Cleo didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. “Big risk to take,”
Seth said, “to protect a worthless animal.”
Cleo sucked in a breath. Seth smirked at the wall. Score:
werekin – one; hunter – zilch.
Seth was on to Cleo. How she spoke about his twin, so
possessively. How she formed his name, J.J., on a whisper of air,
as though she might give herself away if she were to say it out
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loud. How she had kissed Seth tonight, as if she had been dying
to kiss him for years. As if she never wanted to stop.
She had said it herself. He looked just like J.J.
Nothing more was said between them after that. Gradually,
Seth’s seething frustration receded into an aching hollowness –
aftershocks of the evening’s fight, shaking him to the core. He
hugged his knees to his chest, crying hot, silent tears for Captain
Hook.
Some of the tears were for himself as well. Seth had taken a
life tonight. For all of his blustering about revenge, he hadn’t
wanted to kill that hunter. Had she surrendered, had she showed
the slightest hesitation to kill him, he wouldn’t have.
If Cleo noticed his shoulders shaking, she had the decency to
pretend she didn’t.
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Chapter Twenty: Game Over
Mrs. Townsend (Meredith, Seth remembered to call her)
answered her front door the next evening wearing her Kiss the
Cook Apron and holding a goblet of merlot. “Hi, sweetie,” she
gushed, motioning him inside. Seth was pretty sure she didn’t
remember his name. “Come in, come in, out of the cold! Lots of
excitement around here last night, huh?”
“Yeah,” Seth nodded. “Exciting. Is Marshall home?”
Sarcasm didn’t seem to penetrate Meredith’s Prozac haze.
“He’s in his room,” she said. “Go on up.”
Marshall was indeed in his room. He and Emery were
playing Halo on his Xbox, answering Seth’s question about who
the clunker van in the Townsends’ driveway belonged to. Emery
waved. “Hey, Seth.”
“Hey, Em,” said Seth, crossing to the window. “Hey,
Indiana.”
“Yes!” Marshall slapped Emery a high five. “We are owning
this level. Hey, Philadelphia.”
With barely a glance at Seth, he went back to destroying
aliens. Seth’s insides clenched up. He hadn’t seen Marshall since
last night – no one had even suggested he go to school that day –
and he wondered if, after reading Elijah Bishop’s journal,
Marshall had decided a werekin pal was too freaky for his golden
boy lifestyle. Or, Seth thought, noting the Smurf Band-Aid taped
over the bullet-graze on his bicep, had Marshall just wised up to
how dangerous associating with Seth could be?
He opened the window, and Cleo climbed over the sill. “Take
your time, sweetheart,” she said. “It’s not cold outside or
anything.” Like it was Seth’s fault she couldn’t come through the
front door? They couldn’t risk Meredith mentioning his cute new
girlfriend to Jack, and Jack somehow connecting those dots back
to Cleo.
Seth fell back in the bean bag chair Emery had just vacated.
Emery had scooted onto the foot of Marshall’s bed with Cleo, a
safe distance between them. Marshall tossed his controller down,
suddenly all business. “So,” he said. “What’s the plan?”
Everyone looked at Seth, who took a deep breath.
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All day, while Jack was at the office and Leigh was at school
and Lydia was puttering around downstairs, occasionally
popping into Seth’s room to see if he was okay (at which point
Cleo would hide in his closet), he had turned Cleo’s question
over in his mind. What was his endgame? Originally, his goal
had been to join the Resistance, find the hunters responsible for
Naomi’s death, and exact his revenge. At the time, Seth hadn’t
realized what a tangled web he was snared in. A brother held
captive by his enemies. A mother deceived into marriage by the
man who had betrayed his father and his brother. An immensely
powerful corporation, backed by the full might of the United
States military, breathing down his neck, determined to see him
captured or killed. After last night’s attack, he couldn’t even risk
signing up with the Resistance. It was entirely possible they
wanted him dead, too.
Protecting Lydia and Leigh, freeing J.J., those were Seth’s
long-rage goals. Both hinged on him evading capture. But J.J.
had given him a job to do. Save the Black Swan. To do that, Seth
first had to figure out where she was.
He laid all of that out for his war council, then said, “I think
the place to start looking is Fort King.”
“The hub?” Emery’s nose twitched. “Do you really think
they’d risk taking her through there?”
“Seems like I’ve heard that before,” Cleo said, to the ceiling.
Seth glared at her.
Marshall cleared his throat. He was sitting on the bean bag
chair next to Seth’s, limbs carefully contained, allowing for no
touching tonight, accidental or otherwise. “Forgive me for being
the ignorant non-magical being in the room, but what is a hub?”
Seth explained about Fort King, where Chimera stowed
captured werekin for transport to other facilities. “Therefore,” he
concluded, with a dark look at Cleo, “even if the Black Swan
isn’t at Fort King, we could find something inside the hub that
would help us find out where she is.”
“You’re talking about a paper trail,” Marshall said.
Emery nodded eagerly. He seemed to be warming to Seth’s
plan. “When Chimera ships a captive, they use private cargo jets
or shipping freighters, but they have to file flight plans and
navigation routes just like anybody else. Those records have to
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be stored somewhere. It makes sense for them to be at the hub. I
mean, guys,” he looked around at them all, green eyes wide,
“with that kind of intel, the Resistance could do more than rescue
the Black Swan. They could mount a full-scale invasion of
Chimera facilities.”
“Keep your shorts on, Bunny Bread,” Cleo said. “You have
to get into the hub first. I’ve been to Fort King. You won’t be
able to just knock on the front door.”
“Fortunately,” said Seth, “I have some experience with
breaking and entering.”
“This isn’t swiping a car stereo, sweetheart. I’m talking
about top-of-the-line surveillance and a lethal response system.
Not to mention magical wards that prevent werekin from
skinning.” She leaned back on her elbows, shaking her head. She
had swiped a sweater of Leigh’s, pink cashmere with a crocheted
heart on the back. Not even it made her look less bad-ass. “If you
do this, Seth, you might as well put the collar on yourself.”
“I don’t know.” Emery was chewing thoughtfully on his
ponytail. “Seth and I made it inside the perimeter the other
evening, and nobody came out to collar us. Which, now that I
think about it,” he said, “is a little weird, isn’t it?”
More than a little, in Seth’s opinion. But it was the best plan
they had. Besides, doing nothing was just as dangerous. Chimera
could decide to collar him any day. Or whoever had sent Rambo
and Rambo-ette after him could decide to take another shot.
There was just one more thing Seth needed to be sure about
before making his move against Chimera. For that, he needed a
little more time. Thus they agreed to put the plan into action the
day after tomorrow. In the meantime, Emery volunteered to help
Cleo do as much recon on the fort as they could.
“We could use some backup,” Emery said, meaningfully.
Seth shook his head. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the Haven
kids. If they got caught, the consequences would not be detention
with Ms. Krughman. Bad enough he was putting Emery in
harm’s way. He didn’t want to see little Dre collared, or Quinn,
or Ozzie, or Squirrel. Alfaro especially concerned him. If Seth
was right about his skin, Alfaro was a warrior breed. He should
have been in the Scholae Bestiarii, unless he was Underground.
Seth hadn’t forgotten Dre saying his brother was adopted, or
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Alfaro’s conspicuous absence from the big game the rest of his
friends had attended, right under General David Burke’s nose.
“A small strike force is better,” he said, and Emery, though he
didn’t look thrilled, nodded to show he understood. “But it would
be nice if you had some place Cleo could crash. It’s just tempting
fate for her to stay under Jack’s roof.”
“I’ll talk to Chaz,” Emery said. “He won’t ask questions.
Half of his friends are couch surfers. Let me run it by him
tonight, and I can pick her up tomorrow.”
“Who is Chaz?” Cleo asked suspiciously.
“You’ll love him,” Seth promised her. “He’s totally groovy,
mon.” Emery snickered. Down the hall, “Mr. Tambourine Man”
was playing on Whitney’s stereo. Seth saw Emery glance in that
direction as he opened the window for Cleo.
She climbed over the sill. Seth leaned out after her. “Oh, and
Cleo?”
“Yeah?”
Seth dropped his voice to a whisper. “Don’t wait up.”
Cleo looked from him to Marshall, whom, Seth felt, was
looking especially delicious in his oldest sweats and rattiest Tshirt, his hair a tangled mess from air-drying after ball practice.
Seth saw understanding dawn on Cleo. Gotcha, she mouthed.
From Marshall’s window, Seth watched Cleo clamber up the
rose trellis into his room. She waved before she closed the
curtains, signaling all was well. Emery mumbled some excuse
and slipped off to say hello to Whitney - Seth had hopes for that
pairing - and Marshall and Seth bebopped down to the kitchen
for sodas and fresh-baked oatmeal cookies.
Meredith was on the phone in the living room. She waved to
them. “Night, Marshall. Night, sweetie.” Yeah, Seth thought, she
had no clue who he was.
“Where’s your dad?” he asked.
“He left for a conference this morning,” Marshall said,
opening his bedroom door with his hip. “He’ll be gone all week.”
The moon was riding high outside, gauzed by a screen of
rainclouds. Seth and Marshall sacked back out in the bean bag
chairs. Marshall put on Halo, and they blasted aliens in
multiplayer mode, snagging cookies off the same plate.
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“So. Indiana.” Seth switched from his shotgun to his flamethrower for close-range alien combat. “On a scale of one to ten,
one being you just found out there’s sentient life on Mars, ten
being you just found out the world is actually a snow globe, how
freaked out are you right now?”
“This morning it was probably a four. Now it’s down to like
a two.” Marshall dual-wielded his magnums, mowing down a
line of enemies. “Beats you being a junkie. That was like a nine.”
“Are you mad I didn’t tell you sooner?”
“How do you start that conversation, exactly?” Seth laughed.
Marshall smiled faintly in his direction. “I get it. You barely
know – watch out, that’s an ambush!”
Seth was momentarily distracted by executing a melee attack.
Owing to his superb werekin reflexes, he survived the alien
onslaught. “That’s not why I didn’t tell you,” he said. “I wanted
to tell you. I just didn’t want to drag you into all of this.”
Marshall hit pause, and the screen froze.
He turned toward Seth, legs crossed at the ankle. Seth tapped
his controller against his knee, resisting the urge to wrap his
fingers up in Marshall’s messy hair and pull his mouth against
his, like Cleo had done to him last night.
“The woman you told me about,” Marshall said. “Naomi.
Emery said the hunters killed her?”
A bucket of ice water poured over his head could not more
effectively have killed Seth’s mood. He concentrated harder on
his tapping. “Yup.”
“And you saw it happen?”
Crimson ribbons on the linoleum. Fingers clutching his.
“Yup.”
“So your dad, he’s been…gone, for a while?”
“More than ten years.” Tap. Tap. Tap.
The stitched seam in Seth’s bean bag chair was blurring into
a single white line before his eyes. Marshall was quiet for a
minute. Seth didn’t dare look at him. The smallest movement
would send the tears spilling over.
“Do you want to talk about this?” Marshall asked, suddenly.
“Not really,” Seth said, with relief.
“Okay.” Marshall took the game off pause.
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They played through Level Eight, ignoring the fact that
Marshall’s bedside clock now read 12:07, that Whitney’s stereo
had been shut off for thirty minutes, and that Emery’s van had
departed over an hour ago. Lydia had not called to tell Seth to
come home. It was doubtful Meredith even remembered he was
in the house.
Looked like Seth was sleeping over.
“So Cleo seems kind of into you,” Marshall commented, out
of nowhere.
Zap! Alien down. Seth glanced sideways at Marshall, but he
was focused on the game. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Definitely.” Marshall swiped another cookie off the
plate. “Leigh said you guys had an interesting night. After the
nearly dying part, I mean.”
There was a manic light in Marshall’s baby blues, drops of
turquoise paint on a cobalt background. Optimistically, Seth
wanted to interpret this as jealousy – insane jealousy, of the
murderous variety, as that would have meant Marshall wanted
him as badly as Seth wanted him. But he didn’t think that was it.
“I didn’t realize Leigh was talking to you again,” he said.
“She isn’t. I overheard her telling Bryce about it at lunch –
how embarrassing it was to catch you practically ‘in the act.’”
“That was just for show, Indiana. I wasn’t making out with
Cleo. Leigh came barging into my room, and we had to
improvise.”
“Come on, Philadelphia. We’re both guys.” Marshall said
guys with all of the usual connotations. Guys who played
football. Guys who liked girls. “You’re telling me Cleo spent the
night with you, in your bed, and nothing happened? I mean,”
Marshall laughed, but it was all wrong, hollow and gray, “she’s
completely hot, man.”
“And if I wasn’t gay,” Seth said, “I might care about that.”
He laid his controller down, sacrificing his avatar to aliens.
Slowly, Marshall did the same. Wrapped the controller cord
around his pinkie finger, turning the tip white as the circulation
was cut off, pink again as the capillaries refilled.
“I talked to my father before he left this morning,” he said.
“About this.”
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This included the space between their bodies, molecules of
air charged like the aftermath of a lightning strike. Seth nearly
choked. “You told your father you’re gay?”
“No!” Marshall’s face paled, then reddened, like the cord
was now wrapped around his neck. “Actually, he talked to me.
Dr. Foss told him some stuff Cam has been saying about you,
and Dad was worried, because you and I are friends.”
His no-killing policy did not extend to Cam, Seth decided.
Cam could be carved up into tiger-sized chunks and fed to
Regent. He was playing seriously dirty now, going after Marshall
through his father. “Well, I hope you told your dad Cam is a
supreme ass-wipe,” he said.
Marshall smiled wanly. “Of course I did. But Dad was still
worried. He thought I might be…confused.”
Seth was not so naïve as to misunderstand what was
happening here. He tucked his hands under his knees and looked
at Marshall, silently waiting for him to get it over with.
Marshall’s throat jumped when he swallowed. “He told me
lots of guys our age go through this phase. Girls are so hard to
figure out, sometimes swearing them off sounds like a good idea,
you know? But if you don’t act on the impulse, he said it goes
away.”
Well, there you had it. Being gay was like a rash. Don’t
scratch, and it clears up on its own. “Let me be sure I’m getting
this,” Seth said. “You’ve been confused, thinking you might
prefer guys, and now, you’re all over it?”
Lifting his chin, Marshall looked Seth squarely in the eye. “It
was a phase. I’m over it.”
Something black and icy washed up from the depths of Seth,
breaking over him in waves. He gripped the sides of his chair,
determined not to be pulled under. “Okay,” he said. He even
sounded friendly. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Do you think it could be like that for you, too?” Marshall
asked. “A phase?”
His hands were clenched around his knees. Seth could see
how Marshall wanted this to play out. For Seth to say, I see it
now! I’m straight! Then they would retreat from this precipice
they were on, go back to being best friends shooting hoops in
Marshall’s driveway, and someday, in the not-so-distant future,
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barbecuing on the Fourth of July with their wives and kids (or
cubs, in Seth’s case) in the backyard. It was Leigh’s fantasy:
Marshall would take her, Seth would take Whitney, and if they
ever talked about that one time when they were seventeen and
kissed in Marshall’s bedroom, the kiss Seth considered his first
real kiss, and the most important one he would ever have, it
would only be to laugh about their gay phase.
You want someone you can be honest with, Lydia had said.
Someone you don’t have to pretend for. Lydia, who had called
him brave.
“It’s not like that for me,” Seth said, simply.
Marshall nodded. “Right,” he said. “Okay.”
He picked his controller back up then, Seth hit reset on the
console, and they started a new game.
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Chapter Twenty-One: Treachery
Three days of drizzly rain had washed away the remnants of
the blizzard, creating a soupy mess of mud and dead leaves
around the trees that sheltered the long drive back to Regent’s
house. Seth’s breath turned to vapor as he crossed the lawn,
hands in the pockets of his jeans.
School that day had passed in a haze; Seth had gone, mainly
because he couldn’t stand another day at home alone with his
thoughts, but his mind had been on his mission, not academics.
People had assumed he was traumatized by the “burglary” and
left him alone. Even Cam had backed off razzing him in Gym.
Now, T-minus twenty-four hours and counting to the big
break-in at the hub, rain softened the hard angles of Regent’s
imposing house. The jungle enclosure rose above the roof like a
crystal chimney, the glass smoke-colored in the dark. Lights
were burning behind the closed curtains; keeping to the shadows,
Seth slid the metal file from his pocket. Within seconds, he had
the garage’s side door unlocked.
He stood for a moment in front of the wooden trunks stacked
in the corner, warring with himself. Once you knew a thing, you
couldn’t un-know it, couldn’t go on pretending things were the
way they had been before. Sometimes that was a good thing, like
with Marshall knowing he was werekin, or Seth knowing he had
a brother. But sometimes, was it better not to know?
You can do this.
Seth took a breath. There you are, he thought. “I really hate
this,” he said, aloud, in case their psychic link was two-way, and
J.J. could hear him. Alert for the sound of the front door opening,
he worked his brand of magic on the padlocks.
Raindrops slipped off the bleached tips of his hair, spattering
the lid of the topmost trunk as he opened it.
Personal effects, Regent had said, when Seth had asked what
was inside. He hadn’t lied. The effects just weren’t his.
Inside the first trunk were clothes, neatly folded. Jeans,
slacks, dresses, coats. On top were two leather jackets, belonging
to Rambo and his partner.
Every piece was bloodstained.
264
The other trunks held more mundane items – briefcases,
watches, hats, earrings, purses. No I.D.s or credit cards, nothing
to hint who any of it had belonged to.
Seth found what he was looking for – what he had hoped he
wouldn’t find – inside the very last trunk. He slipped it into his
pocket before closing and locking the lid. He doubted Regent
would miss it. Judging from the layer of dust around the trunks,
he only added to his collection. He didn’t sort through it.
Seth didn’t look back as he walked away from the house.
Recovering his bike from the patch of weeds where he had
hidden it, he drove into the city, down to the riverfront, and left
the bike in a public parking garage as he walked down to the
water.
The shops and restaurants along the riverfront were lit up like
jewels, but no one was out for a stroll on such a cold, rainy night.
Seth found a seat on a bench and watched a tugboat push a barge
around a spur of rocky beach in the middle of the river, heedless
of the damp sinking through his jeans. A long time passed before
he took the box out of his pocket. It was small, wrapped in green
paper with a red bow. Seth held it carefully in one cupped palm.
Leigh had put the idea in his head, when she had mentioned
Jack Steward knowing Thomas Sullivan had lived in New York.
After J.J.’s abduction, the Resistance would have told Thomas
what Regent had neglected to – that Gavin Steward had worked
for Chimera, and they suspected his son might as well. Thomas
would never have contacted Jack with his whereabouts. But what
about an old werekin friend, someone Thomas had trusted to
watch over Lydia? Someone he hadn’t realized was a blackhearted traitor, willing to betray his kindred to save his own
hide?
Seth peeled away the wrapping.
Inside, nestled on a bed of white tissue, was a rosary, the
crucifix carved from pink soapstone, the beads pearlescent glass.
Seth remembered the day he and Ben had spotted it amongst the
craft stalls at the Italian Market in Philly. They had agreed it
would be perfect for Naomi, who never missed Mass. The
saleslady had wrapped it up, in green paper with a red bow. At
home, Seth had written out the tag: Merry Christmas, Naomi!
Your cub, Seth Michael.
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The present had still been under their tree, wrapped, the night
Naomi was murdered.
The hunters that had collared Thomas Sullivan in New York
had been searching for his son. Seth had escaped, thanks to
Naomi, but there had been a trail, albeit a difficult one to find,
leading from that alley in Harlem to their row house in South
Philly. Werner Regent had followed it, though it had taken him a
decade to do.
***
Someone had restored the concrete angel to its pedestal on
J.J.’s grave.
Cleo knelt in front of the headstone, clearing leaves and mud
from the base while Seth paced. Gray winter fog seeped amongst
the headstones. Rain was still falling, a misty curtain.
“I have been so stupid,” Seth declared. “Nobody can forge
transcripts overnight. Regent knew I was coming to Fairfax. He
had time between Christmas and New Year’s to get ready for me.
And of course he knew all about my past in Philly! He was the
one who tracked me down in the Underground. How could I
have trusted him?” He kicked the base of the bowl-shaped tree.
“He’s a skilled liar, sweetheart.” Cleo went on staring at J.J.
headstone like he was really buried beneath it. Seth had picked
her up from Chaz’s shoebox-sized apartment behind the mall.
For some reason, she had been the first person he had thought of
when he had needed someone to share the burden of Regent’s
betrayal. “And he did save your life. What reason did you have
to question the help he was giving you?”
“Let’s see,” said Seth. “The houseful of dead werekin,
maybe?” Seth was not in the mood to be pacified. He was in the
mood to maul himself a tiger. “He didn’t kill those werekin in the
Arena, did he?”
“Doubtful. Chimera studies the bodies of all fallen warriors
to learn more about werekin anatomy. Regent wouldn’t have
been allowed to keep them.”
Seth stopped kicking the tree. “Who do you think they
were?”
“Resistance, most likely. Your tiger buddy – ”
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“Stop calling him that, all right? He’s not my buddy.”
Tight-lipped, Cleo said, “Fine. Regent has probably been
capturing Resistance fighters, chaining them up in his cozy little
torture chamber attic, and interrogating them for information on
your whereabouts ever since he missed out on collaring you in
New York.”
Wonderful. Seth had the blood of who knew how many
Resistance fighters on his hands. And for what? So Regent could
be the one to collar him? “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why would
Regent want to hunt me down? What did I ever do to him?”
Cleo sat back on her heels. Her jeans and sweater were
absolutely drenched, as drenched as Seth’s jeans and camouflage
jacket, but she didn’t seem to care. “I think he told you he won
his freedom in the Arena because it wasn’t too far from the truth.
I think LeRoi gave him the chance to earn his freedom – true
freedom, no strings attached – if he brings you to her. Alive,
preferably, but dead if there’s no other way.”
The full extent of the awful truth was finally sinking in. Seth
fisted his hands inside his pockets. “You’re saying Regent sent
those hunters after me the other night?”
“I think it’s possible. If he didn’t believe your story about
killing me, he might have thought you were planning to run.
Better to hand you over in a body bag than let you slip through
his fingers, or worse yet, join the Resistance. LeRoi would have
had his head for that.”
“But why go to the trouble of having someone else kill me?
He could have done it himself, anytime he felt like it. He could
have done it the other night, when I called him to come to my
house.”
Cleo finally looked up at him. Her eyes were bleached of
color, like sunlight on snow. “Could he?”
“Are you kidding?” Seth laughed. “Regent could snap me
like a twig.”
“No, sweetheart, I mean could he? Could he look you in the
eye and kill you?”
Cleo put the question to him softly. Seth stared at her for a
minute before sliding down to the wet grass, shoulders braced
against the angel, face tipped up to the icy drizzle. He closed his
eyes. Raindrops beaded on the lids, streaming down his cheeks
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like tears. He doesn’t care about you, Seth told himself. Regent
must have had some other reason for sending proxies to kill him.
It wasn’t because he cared.
Finding proof of Regent’s betrayal spelled the beginning of
the end for Seth’s time in Fairfax. Today had most likely been
his last day of relative normalcy – waking up to his Hello Kitty
alarm clock, eating breakfast with Leigh, carpooling to school
with Marshall and Whitney. Tomorrow night, he was breaking
into Fort King to begin the search for the Black Swan, officially
taking up the mission J.J. had handed him. Once he made his
move against Chimera, they would know there was no taming
him. LeRoi would send her hunters to collar him. Seth would
have to run, even if he had to take Lydia and Leigh with him
Underground.
Staying in Fairfax had never been the plan. Seth had washed
up here, shipwrecked on the rocks of life; from the moment the
plane had touched down, he had been prepared to hate this place.
To be the outcast freak, the unwanted son.
Four weeks later, he had found a life here. A mother who
loved him, possibly even understood him. A sister he cared for,
even if she was a nosy brat sometimes. Friends he liked: Topher
and Gabe and Bryce, the kids in his Honors classes, Whitney and
Emery, the Alfaros, even Quinn.
And, of course, there was Marshall.
Somewhere along the way, Philly had stopped being home.
The brick house with the white trim and the Doric columns and
the enormous yard was Seth’s house. The guestroom, with its
white carpet and blue walls and window that looked across to
Marshall’s, was his room. Fairfax was home. Seth wanted to stay
here. Wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything.
Wanted it enough to fight for it.
Fingers brushed his hair off his forehead. “Don’t open your
eyes,” Cleo said.
“Why?” Seth asked, with his eyes closed – a testament to
how much he trusted her not to slit his throat.
“Because I want to show you something.”
“In that case, shouldn’t my eyes be open?”
Cleo didn’t answer. She cupped Seth’s cheek; her palm was
warm against his rain-cold skin. He battled the temptation to
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peek, especially when a match flared nearby, glowing orange
behind his eyelids. “Please don’t immolate me,” he said.
“Fraidy cat,” Cleo teased.
Her voice was soft. She flipped Seth’s palm over and began
tracing it with her fingertips. Her fingers were sticky, like she
had dipped them in paint. Seth sniffed. He smelled incense.
Patchouli. “Found Chaz’s stash, did you?”
“Charles,” Cleo deliberately used Chaz’s full name, “has
enough grass hidden under his couch cushions to seed the state of
Kentucky,” Seth laughed, “and when he smokes his way through
it, his few remaining brain cells will be permanently baked. Now,
hold still.”
“Yes ma’am,” Seth said.
Cleo’s forehead rested against his. Her hands covered his,
weighing them down into the mud of his brother’s empty grave.
The incense tickled Seth’s nose, making him lightheaded. He
breathed out shakily. “Cleo, what are we doing?”
“Listen.” Her voice was inflected with unexpected gravity.
Cleo was all snarky comebacks and clever insults. “I know you
want to rescue J.J. I know you’re planning to look for clues about
where he’s being held when we break into that hub tomorrow
night.”
“How did you know?” Seth’s voice sounded far away, like
he was speaking into a tube.
“You’re not that hard to read, sweetheart,” Cleo said. “But
Seth, you can’t rescue J.J.”
“I can if you help me,” Seth tried to say. Except his tongue
was so thick, the sentence slurred into meaningless mush. He
was sleepy. Why was he so sleepy?
And then he understood. Magic.
Forcing his eyelids open, Seth looked down at his hands.
Glyphs were painted on them, in blood. His fogged brain
struggled to translate the symbols: dream, spirit, share, reveal.
Enough to understand Cleo wasn’t FedExing him to Chimera, or
frying him up for a jaguar steak.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
Seth closed his eyes. Lips touched his eyelids, cool and soft.
White light like the implosion of a star burst inside his mind, and
the graveyard disappeared.
269
***
Seth’s first thought was: This has to be a dream.
But dreams, even at their most vivid, were projections –
holographs, lacking tactility. Seth could feel the grittiness of the
cold black marble under his feet, smell the wood smoke from the
fire in the stone hearth, hear the rustle of wings as birds swooped
past the arched windows, beyond which a fireball sun was
sinking into a molten horizon.
He wasn’t dreaming. He was here.
Here was a library. Three floors of wooden bookshelves, the
ceiling so high overhead even his keen jaguar eyes couldn’t
make it out. Carved into the floor with swirling strokes, like the
flow of water through cracks in a rock, was the three-headed
monster from which Chimera Enterprises took its name.
Seth extended a hand to the nearest bookshelf (the titles were
all written in Lemurian glyphs) and watched his fingers pass
right through the wood. Wicked. He was a ghost-cat.
Spiral staircases to his left and right climbed to the upper
floors. The stairs were iron, the railings gilt, twined with metal
vines; Seth backed slowly up one, looking down at the main
level. Low-backed sofas formed a semi-circle around the hearth.
Silver inlaid double doors at the far end were guarded by
gargoyles, perched as if to swoop.
Seth generally liked libraries, but this place gave him the
creeps.
The second and third floors were more bookshelves and
sofas, more arched windows offering panoramic views of
manicured lawns. The library looked to be part of a large manor
house, perhaps somewhere in New England; dense woodland
ringed the surrounding hillsides, and whenever this was, past or
future, it was summer: The trees were in bloom, ivy and roses
climbing the gargoyles in the courtyard, as though nature was
trying to disguise the grotesque figures. The courtyard itself,
paved in black volcanic rock, was dominated by a reflecting pool
filled with oily water, like thin tar.
Seth was starting to wonder what he was doing here, when he
rounded a corner, and there he was. His doppelganger. His twin.
“J.J.!” Seth cried.
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J.J. did not look up. Right, Seth thought. J.J. couldn’t hear
him. He was a ghost-cat.
His twin was balanced on the back of one of the long sofas,
the soles of his black combat boots planted on the leather seat.
His blonde head was bent over a yellowed scroll, lips moving
like he was muttering the words under his breath. He was still a
cub, fourteen, possibly fifteen. As in Seth’s dreams, he wore a
black T-shirt and black camo pants.
An ornate silver torc, scrolled with glyphs, circled his throat.
The sight of his brother, collared, sickened Seth. In his dreams,
in J.J.’s projection of himself, he was not collared. He could skin
at will.
Cleo, more Action Hero Barbie than ever in skintight jeans
and a black leather jacket, leaned against the railing that
overlooked the main level. Ostensibly she was polishing her
bone-handled dagger, but her eyes kept straying to the boy on the
sofa, absorbed in his studying.
Below, the doors opened. J.J.’s head came up. “Is it Xanthe?”
Glancing behind her, Cleo shook her head. “It’s Dr. LeRoi.”
“Well, that can’t be good,” J.J. said, mildly. “She was
supposed to be in D.C. all week, meeting with the Partners.”
He laid his book down and uncoiled from the sofa (did he
move like that, Seth wondered, so predatory?), coming to stand
with Cleo at the rail. Seth drifted over to join them.
Ursula LeRoi was younger than he would have thought, tall
and slender, her dark hair woven into a thick plait down the
center of her back, gray eyes watchful as a hawk’s. She didn’t
walk so much as glide, one hand in the pocket of the white lab
coat she wore over her smart black suit. A small silver key was
nestled in the hollow of her throat, affixed to a delicate chain.
Following her was a familiar face: Snowman. Seeing him
alive, although Seth had already worked out that this was the
past, came as an unpleasant shock. He wore a leather jacket like
Cleo’s, his whip hooked to his belt, missing eye covered by a
black patch.
LeRoi looked up, saw J.J., and crooked a finger. J.J. stepped
over the rail, dropping three floors to the main level like he was
stepping down from the bottom rung of a ladder. He landed
lightly on the balls of his feet, and Seth rolled his eyes. Show-off.
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Apparently LeRoi thought so too, for she laughed. “Lovely,”
she said.
Cleo, having taken the stairs three at a time, winged
breathlessly to J.J.’s wide. “Ma’am,” she said, stiffly, like a
Marine corporal addressing a general. Seth was surprised she
didn’t salute.
Taking in this tableau from above, he was struck by three
things. One, Snowman was maintaining a healthy distance from
J.J., as though he had seen Seth’s twin eviscerate enough hunters
to be wary. Two, Cleo was cringing like she was terrified the
good doctor would pounce on her and claw her eyes out. Three,
Ursula LeRoi was regarding J.J. with a softness of expression
that bordered on fondness.
She reached out, running her fingers through J.J.’s closeshorn hair, sifting the caramel and butterscotch threads like
individual strands of silk. “Hello, Mother,” J.J. said.
Hold the phone. Had J.J. just called LeRoi his mother?
“Is everything all right?” J.J. asked.
“I’m afraid not, my pet.” LeRoi linked her arm through his.
“Come with me. Cleopatra, accompany us, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Cleo darted an anxious glance at J.J. His cool
gaze barely brushed across her as he fell into step beside
LeRoi…
Seth suddenly found himself in the courtyard he had seen
from the window, reeling from the abrupt shift in locale. The sun
was fully set; nighttime shrouded the grounds in sinister gloom,
battled by torches mounted on iron spikes around the reflecting
pool. The light danced on the surface of the water without
penetrating it.
The courtyard, empty before, was now packed with men and
women in a variety of designer suits and military uniforms.
Arranged in a line at the edge of the pool, guarded by a dozen
pairs of hunters, were werekin – each one collared, each one a
warrior breed, each one in animal skin: a silver-backed gorilla;
grizzlies; polar bears; an orangutan; coyotes; hyenas; a pair of
crocodiles; a raven. The hunters kept high-powered rifles trained
on them.
Front and center was a small arctic fox.
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His tail hung crookedly, as though it had been broken
recently, but he held his chin high over his collar as he watched
LeRoi, now flanked by Cleo and Snowman, take her place on a
raised dais at the head of the reflecting pool. J.J. was anchored at
the doctor’s elbow, his face blank as a fresh canvas.
Seth couldn’t breathe. Though he had last seen him when he
was five years old, he would have known that fox anywhere.
Thomas Sullivan, alive, ten years after the hunters had
collared him.
The assembly had the air of a trial – with LeRoi as judge,
jury, and executioner. She nodded to Snowman. Snowman
produced a much-creased letter from his pocket and, in a ringing
voice that carried to the corners of the courtyard, read out:
“Dearest Ben. I know contacting you in this way is a risk, but our
usual channels are being watched, and we cannot risk our
courier being discovered. We have the location of the Ark. You
must convince the Resistance to strike immediately. Chimera now
has almost everything they need to raise Lemuria. You of all
people know we cannot allow LeRoi to control the power of the
Totems. The werekin here have sworn allegiance to our cause.
We are prepared to die; we will fight on the side of the Black
Swan. Send word to me as soon as you can. I will make sure all
is ready on our end for the attack. Yours in peace, Thomas.”
Snowman stepped back. Seth stared at the letter in his hand.
It was a death warrant for every werekin in that courtyard, and
his father had signed it.
LeRoi’s audience had begun murmuring to one another. An
iron-haired man wearing the bars of a four-star general stepped
forward from the ranks, trailed by a younger, dark-haired man
with a captain’s bars pinned to his desert fatigues. Seth
recognized them both at once: General David Burke, and Ingrid
McLain’s nephew.
It was the tilt of Captain McLain’s head as he stared at
Thomas Sullivan that wrenched the memory into place for Seth.
Sitting in the chessboard office of Fairfax High’s principal,
pointing at the photograph of the soldier on her desk and asking,
Your son?
My nephew, Ms. McLain had said. Will.
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“I think we’ve had enough pageantry, Doctor,” General
Burke said. He spoke with a Texas drawl, like his son Connor’s.
“I’m sure we’re all impressed by this medieval trial you’ve set
up, but executing a handful of traitors is too little, too late. The
Partners have agreed. This experiment of yours has been nothing
short of a disaster. You and Dr. Bishop created a race of superpowered alien warriors which you obviously cannot control. First
Bishop goes off the res and opens the front doors for them, and
now the ones still under your roof are plotting to overthrow
you?” He shook his head. His audience was nodding their
agreement, some eyeing LeRoi like they had been waiting a long
time to see her knocked off her pedestal. “As we discussed in
Washington, the Partners plan to issue Project Ark its cease and
desist orders within the hour. You will hand the Ark over to
Captain McLain and his team, and every werekin in Chimera’s
possession will be terminated.”
The general’s eyes zeroed in on J.J. J.J. smiled at him, a cold,
feral smile. Come and get me, it said.
“I am aware of the Partners’ intentions, General.” LeRoi’s
smile was pleasant, but her eyes glittered like a snake’s.
“However, as I told you in Washington, you greatly overestimate
the wherewithal of this so-called ‘Resistance.’ Even as we speak,
I have hunters tracking down the escapees and their offspring. It
will take time, but we will find them all, and if we can’t collar
them, we will kill them. As for this grand plot you refer to, this,”
she jerked her chin at the three dozen werekin, “is the extent of
it. Less than fifty specimens. A few bad apples shouldn’t spoil
the bunch – isn’t that a saying of yours in Texas?”
“You must be thinking of California,” Burke said, dryly. “In
Texas, we say kill ’em all and lot God sort ’em out.” A few
nervous twitters moved through the audience.
LeRoi pressed her lips together. “I assure you, this little coup
never had any hope of succeeding. My spies intercepted that
letter before it ever reached Ben Schofield, or any Commander in
the Resistance. The Ark’s location remains secret, the Ark itself
too well-guarded to ever be taken.”
There was just a hint, Seth thought, of a threat in the way
LeRoi said that. The lines around Burke’s mouth deepened. “Dr.
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LeRoi, you do not want to countermand the orders of the United
States government.”
“David, do I look like a fool?” LeRoi smiled, pleasantly. “I
simply want the Partners to have all the facts before they pull the
plug on the endeavor that will make ours the most powerful
nation on this planet,” she paused, “or any other we might choose
to conquer.”
The effect of this was undeniable. The murmuring started up
again, with a different tenor now. Power was a persuasive
argument to this crowd.
Burke appeared unmoved. “Seems to me you’ve grown too
attached to your pets, Doctor.”
“You refer to my son, I presume?” LeRoi rested a
proprietary hand on J.J.’s shoulder. Seth felt sick. Why was J.J.
just standing there, like it was the most natural thing in the world
for Ursula LeRoi to call him her son, when their father, collared,
was about to be executed before his very eyes? Was it possible
he didn’t know who Thomas was? “I know you have doubts
about the werekins’ loyalty, General. That is why we have
assembled.”
Cleo whitened to the color of chalk.
LeRoi gently turned J.J. around to face her. “Jeremy,” she
said, “have you spent much time with this specimen?”
She inclined her head toward the fox. J.J. glanced at him. His
eyes were flat as brass coins. “Some,” he said, dismissively.
“Did he speak to you of this plot? Of his intentions to betray
Chimera?”
“No, Mother. I swear.”
LeRoi studied J.J.’s eyes for a long moment, then released
him and turned to Burke. “Well? Does that satisfy you,
General?”
Burke sneered. “No, Ursula, that does not ‘satisfy’ us. It
seems to me your obsession with this specimen has blinded you
to its true nature. It is an animal. Its loyalty is to its own kind.
You may feed it from your hand as long as it wears that collar,
but remove it, and it will bite.”
Something in LeRoi’s triumphant smile made Seth think she
had been hoping Burke would say that. “Very well,” she said.
“We shall see.” From under the collar of her lab coat, she drew
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out the small silver key on its delicate chain. “Stefan, get Thomas
Sullivan into his human skin. Cleopatra, if you would, please
remove my son’s collar.”
A collective gasp rolled through the courtyard. Even J.J.’s
eyes flickered with surprise.
Seth had been standing at the end of the reflecting pool, a
spot that allowed him a view of the entire courtyard. As Cleo
fitted the key into the back of his brother’s collar, he moved
closer. He knew he couldn’t help, couldn’t affect the outcome of
this in any way – whatever happened next had already happened.
He just wanted to be close enough to see his dad’s face when he
skinned.
A ripple moved under the fox’s blue-tinged fur. In the next
blink, a man stood there, older than Seth remembered, and not
only in years; there were new lines around Thomas’ pale eyes,
and his fair hair, cut in lank strips, was silvered with gray. Yet he
was so much the same Seth could almost believe no time at all
had passed since he had hugged him goodbye in that alley.
“Dad,” he whispered.
At LeRoi’s command, Cleo passed her bone-handled dagger
to J.J. She was the only person in the courtyard not to back away
as the collar slipped from around his neck.
J.J. shook himself, like he was shaking out a cramp. Seth
tensed, ready for him to skin and rip LeRoi’s throat out – but he
took a breath, and remained a teenage boy.
Captain McLain’s coffee-black eyes jumped from J.J. to
Thomas. “Sir,” he began, but Burke said, sharply, “Not now.”
The captain subsided.
“Now,” LeRoi said, “we will see whether the werekin can be
trusted to serve. We will see where my son’s loyalty lies: to his
creator, or to his kindred.”
No. This was not happening. This could not be how it had
happened.
Seth’s mind did not want to accept what he was seeing. He
saw it anyway. Saw J.J. palm the dagger and approach their
father, as Thomas stood motionless, eyes sparkling with tears. “I
love you, Jeremy Jonathan,” he said.
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J.J. struck him, hard, with his open hand, the claw-tipped
ends of his nails slicing across Thomas’ cheek. Seth hissed.
“Don’t speak to me, slave,” J.J. said, coldly.
Thomas’ lips moved once more. Seth didn’t catch the words;
he might have been pleading, or praying. Gripping the dagger in
one hand, J.J. closed the other around their father’s shoulder,
holding him in place. He closed his eyes, and plunged the blade
in, straight through Thomas Sullivan’s heart.
277
Chapter Twenty-Two: Behind Enemy Lines
“Emery,” Seth said, “if I ever plan a bank-heist, you will be
my right-hand rabbit.”
Emery Little offered a tremulous smile that stretched into a
wide yawn. During study hall, he had put his role-playing skills
to good use and drawn maps, to scale, even, of Fort King. The
night before (the whole night, apparently, given the way he was
yawning) he had scouted the prison’s layout. The maps were
spread in front of Seth on Re-Spin’s counter now, weighted
down by a bag of Oreos.
According to Cleo, the easiest way into Fort King was a side
entrance used by hunters. She had the passcode for that, though
she couldn’t guarantee the entrance wouldn’t be warded or
surveilled. Once in, they would head for the records room in the
south wing. Cleo knew the room’s location, but didn’t have
clearance to access it. Assuming Seth could pick the lock, and
assuming they hadn’t been spotted and collared by then, they
would grab as much intel as they could and hightail it back to
their getaway car, parked on an access road Emery had marked
about a mile east of the fort.
Seth snuck an Oreo out of the bag. “And you didn’t see any
guards at all last night?”
“Not a soul. The place is like a ghost town.” Emery yawned
again, so hugely his nose wiggled. “Could be Cleo is wrong
about how much security they have there.”
Could have been. But Seth doubted it. He suspected
something else was going on here, and that whatever it was, his
twin was behind it. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
Leaving Emery dozing at the counter, Seth set about updating
the store’s inventory list, pacing the CD aisles with clipboard in
hand. (Inexplicably, Re-Spin possessed six copies of the
soundtrack to Glitter. Probably every copy ever sold.)
Unfortunately, this task was too mindless to distract Seth from
everything he didn’t want to think about. Regent. His dad. J.J.
Most of all, J.J.
Seth’s twin had been silent since his spirit-walk down Cleo’s
memory lane. It wasn’t like they had carried on psychic chats
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before, but this silence was more profound, as though a door had
slammed in Seth’s mind, shutting J.J. out. He didn’t know which
one of them had closed it. He didn’t know how to open it again.
When Seth had come to from his spirit-walk, he had been
kneeling in the mud beside J.J.’s headstone, stomach heaving,
threatening to bring up whatever remained of his dinner. J.J. will
carve out your beating heart and laugh while he watches you die.
Raking wet hair out of his eyes, he had managed a mirthless
smile. “Well, I guess you warned me,” he had said.
“I didn’t want to show you that.” Cleo had been kneeling
next to him, both of them soaked to the skin, fog wrapped around
them like ribbons. “But I had to make you understand. Seth, you
can’t rescue J.J. He isn’t a prisoner. He’s a prince. If wanted me
to save you, it wasn’t so you could be free. It was so Ursula
LeRoi could have you.”
Seth had wanted to tell her she was wrong. He wanted to
believe there was another explanation for what J.J. had done in
that courtyard. But he had trusted Regent, and Regent had
betrayed him. Could he afford to be wrong about his twin, too?
“Sleeping on the job, Bunny Bread?”
Seth looked up from his clipboard. Cleo was strolling in.
Emery jerked awake at the counter, swiping drool off his chin
with the back of his hand. Cleo hopped up on the stool beside his
and pulled the maps toward her.
With her was their getaway driver. Marshall Townsend.
Hands in the pockets of his letterman’s jacket, Marshall
slouched over to Seth. Seth saluted, Vulcan-style. “Hola,
Indiana. Join me in the Sci-Fi section?”
“Thought we were already there,” Marshall said. Seth
grinned.
They took up residence on the floor among the secondhand
bookshelves, side-by-side with their backs against a row of Frank
Herbert novels. Once again, Seth tried to talk Marshall out of
coming along. “Indiana, me, Emery, Cleo, we’re caught up in
this whether we like it or not,” he insisted. “You don’t have to
be.”
“I read Elijah Bishop’s journal, remember? Ursula LeRoi is
plotting to take over the world. I’d say that concerns me.”
279
Seth picked at a frayed spot in the carpet. Possibly he
shouldn’t have been quite so honest with Marshall about the
werekin’s plight. “I still think it’s too dangerous,” he said.
“Oh, like it’s safe for you?”
“No.” Seth poked his pinkie finger through the hole in the
carpet, watching the foam pad underneath spring back into form.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
Marshall looked away. His hand was resting palm-down on
the floor, very close to Seth’s. Marshall had beautiful hands, slim
and elegant. Seth sometimes wondered if it was possible to be in
love with something as simple as a person’s hands.
“Philadelphia, I think you should tell Leigh what’s going on.
Just hear me out,” Marshall persisted, when Seth opened his
mouth to argue. “I’ve known Leigh her whole life. She may act
flaky, but she isn’t. She doesn’t switch causes like she switches
nail polish. She’s one of the most loyal people I know.”
“I know,” Seth said. “It’s not a question of trusting her.”
“Then what is it? She’s already in danger. Would telling her
the truth make that any worse?”
“No,” Seth grumbled. Being told to do what he knew he
should do but didn’t want to do made him grouchy.
Marshall lowered his gaze, blessedly removing the pressure
of those baby blues from Seth. “I’m going to say this, in case you
don’t know it. Leigh loves you.”
“Yeah, but….” Gray carpet fibers were stuck under Seth’s
nails like tiny bird feathers; he focused on freeing them, one by
one. “She loves her dad, too.”
“She does,” Marshall agreed, evenly. “But she doesn’t know
the real him. If she did, I think she would feel differently.”
Aye, there’s the rub, Seth thought. “She doesn’t know the
real me either, you know. What if I tell her the truth, and she
feels differently about me?”
“I don’t think she would. I think she’d be glad to get to know
you. All of you. I think, if she knew what you’ve been through,
everything you’ve lost, she’d want to protect you, as much as she
could. Carry some of this,” Marshall waved a hand, indicating
the whole of the crazy mess that was Seth’s life, “for you.”
Seth peeked up at him through his lashes. “You really think
so?”
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He was no longer sure they were talking about Leigh.
Marshall looked away. “That’s how it works,” he said, “when
you love somebody.”
***
The numbers on the Audi’s dashboard clock were ticking
down to midnight when Marshall turned down the gravel road
that edged the fort’s eastern perimeter. The light rain that had
fallen all evening had changed over to a mixture of sleet and
snow; it was freezing on the windshield faster than the wipers
could keep up with.
So far as Lydia knew, Seth and Marshall were staying over at
Emery Little’s for an all-night midterm cramming session. Dr.
Townsend probably would have said no, but he was out of town
for his medical conference, and Jack wasn’t around enough these
days to know what either of his children were up to. Seth hadn’t
seen him since the night of the so-called burglary.
“It’s just here,” Emery said, leaning around the front seat. A
ROAD CLOSED sign appeared in the Audi’s headlights.
Marshall brought the car to a stop, nose pointed at a partiallycollapsed wooden bridge. Below, King’s Creek babbled noisily
on its way into the woods. To their right, waist-high weeds
rustled in the night wind; to their left, evergreen trees spread out
in a dark maze up the hillside. At the top, the prison sprouted
from the ground like a cancerous growth, liquid black and oozing
malevolence.
They got out and Cleo spread the map on the Audi’s trunk,
the boys crowded in behind her for a look. They had all donned
black sweatshirts (Emery’s had a Metallica logo on the back) so
they looked tough, at least. Seth’s katana was strapped to his
back, in easy reach to be drawn over his shoulder. The bonehandled dagger he had given back to Cleo. It felt wrong to carry
the weapon he knew had killed his father.
“Okay,” Cleo said. “The entrance is just off of Cellblock J,
here.” She tapped a circle Emery had drawn on the map. “If we
keep to the trees, we should be able to make it to the fence
without being seen. Once we’re in, if we get separated, we’ll
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meet back here at the bridge.” Folding the map, she passed it to
Marshall.
Thanks to the days of rain and several inches of melted snow,
the hillside was more swamp than forest. At the fence, they
stopped, looking through the chain link at the prison.
“Like a ghost town, huh, Bunny Bread?” Cleo said, acidly.
Emery shuffled his large feet. “It wasn’t like this last night,”
he protested.
Circling the three-headed chimera fountain in the main drive
were dozens of vehicles. Cadillacs. Porsches. Mercedes. One
canary-yellow Hummer. “Think it’s another Steward campaign
fundraiser?” Seth said.
Emery turned a snicker into a sneeze. Cleo glared at them
both. “We’re leaving,” she said. “Let’s go.”
It was, of course, the only sensible thing to do. Honestly,
sensible wasn’t a word Seth would have used to describe himself.
Besides, he had come too far to turn back now.
He skinned.
“Seth Michael Sullivan!” Cleo hissed.
Ignoring her, the jaguar climbed swiftly up the nearest
evergreen, pranced out to the end of a low-hanging branch, and
leapt off, easily clearing the razor-wire on top of the fence. He
heard Emery pleading for him to come back as he slunk across
the open expanse of muddy ground, making nary a sound as he
padded up to a bank of ground-floor windows. The glass was
yellowed with dirt, barred by a mesh grill. Placing his paws on
the ledge, Seth peered over the sill.
He was looking into a rotunda that rose up three stories to a
vaulted ceiling made, like the floors and walls, of midnight-black
stone. Dead center was a domed cage, fashioned from checkered
panes of glass in alternating white and black; inside it, standing
very tall and very straight, was a slender girl with skin like pale
cream. Glossy raven hair feathered down her back. She couldn’t
have been older than twelve. She had been dressed in a simple
white shift, and appeared to be shivering.
One look, and Seth knew she was werekin.
Dozens of tables were ranged around the cage, covered in
white cloths. The overhead lights were off, the only illumination
the track lighting on the second- and third-story balconies, which
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looked like walkways for upper-level cellblocks. The highbacked wooden chairs were filled with men and women dressed
as though for a cocktail party.
Seth didn’t know their names, but he had seen their faces
before, at the Stewards’ New Year’s Eve party. Maybe Regent
hadn’t been lying about saving his skin that night, even if he had
done it for his own purposes.
Which, clearly, he had. At a table in the center, seated side by
side, were Werner Regent and Jack Steward. Across from them,
resplendent in a gown of blood-red silk, was Ursula LeRoi.
Behind them all, stretched out on a raised dais like he was
sunning himself on a river rock, was a black jaguar.
Even at a distance Seth could tell they would be the same
size; that the wedge shape of their heads would be the same; that
their golden eyes would refract the light in the same diamond
pattern. His heart gave a single, painful throb. J.J.
Blood calls to blood, Ben had always said. But this was
different, this was more, more connected than Seth had ever felt,
to anyone or anything. An echo of a dream came back to him
then, so real it might have been a memory. I don’t want to fight
you, he had said, and J.J. had handed him the bone-handled
dagger, the dagger he had used to kill their father, and said, You
might have to someday, so take this.
The black jaguar’s gaze suddenly flicked to the window, like
he had been called by Seth’s thoughts. He rose, muscles working
beneath his inky fur. Pale spots, clustered thickest along his
spine, glowed faintly in the moonlight. Seth dropped below the
ledge. Had J.J. seen him? Would he raise the alarm?
Snow crunched. Seth whirled, teeth bared, and Cleo bopped
him on the snout. Seth whined. Hey!
“Well, don’t growl at me,” Cleo said, calmly, as she
crouched beside him. Right beside him, like he was a tabby cat
instead of a jaguar. Growing up among werekin, Seth supposed
she had become accustomed to their animal skins, but still. Most
people showed some aversion to apex predators. “I sent Bunny
Bread back to the car to wait on us. Anything interesting
happening in there?”
Seth turned back to the window, as if to say, See for yourself.
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Ursula LeRoi had risen from her seat, tapping her fork
against her goblet. Clink clink clink. The chatter faded to reverent
silence.
“My dear friends.” LeRoi smiled around the room, taking in
each and every face. Seth had the impression she was
memorizing them for later. “How long it has been since Chimera
Enterprises set out with nothing more than a dream: to find the
lost continent of Lemuria and reclaim the power plunged beneath
the seas when she sank. Tonight, my friends, my dear, dear
Partners, thanks in no small part to your generosity and
dedication and, I know, your many sacrifices, that dream
becomes reality. Tonight we celebrate the beginning of a new
era. Our most industrious warrior,” here she beamed at Regent,
“has captured the Black Swan. Soon the Ark will be complete,
the power of the stars themselves will be ours to command, and
you will reign with me for eternity in our Kingdom of Earth!”
Shouts of “Hail, Lemuria!” and thunderous applause. The
black jaguar threw his head back, roaring his approval. The
werekin girl lifted her chin higher.
Regent swirled the wine in his goblet, tiger-eyes inscrutable.
Jack’s hand trembled as he lifted his glass, taking a tiny sip. The
shadows under his eyes made him look troubled and weary,
though that could have been a trick of the wavering light.
Lifting a hand, LeRoi once again called for silence. “My only
sadness is that Elijah Bishop could not be here to see this day. I
will always regret that he lost faith before the end, but I know he
would be proud to see his life’s work finally realized.”
There was a smattering of polite applause. Seth thought of
the last entry in Bishop’s journal. Faith is not wanting to know
what is true.
“Seth.” Cleo touched his paw. She had become very pale.
“We need to get out of – ”
“Good evening.”
The voice was soft, and directly behind them. Seth and Cleo
whirled, Seth ready to pounce, Cleo with her dagger already in
hand; then a figure separated from the shadows, and they both
froze.
The creature was huge, eleven, twelve feet tall, at least.
Membranous wings, like a moth’s – if moths had grown to be the
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size of trees – stirred the air behind it, ruffling the silk train of its
long black robe. Its hairless skin was mottled blue-and-gray;
insectile antennae curled up from the temples of its bald head,
probing the air, moving independently of one another. Seth
remembered something they had read for Bio about antennae
being part of an insect’s olfactory system. Was the creature
sniffing them?
Mothman tilted his head to the side, onyx eyes blinking
slowly once, then twice. He seemed – not menacing – curious.
Logic screamed for Seth to attack, but some instinct, deeper
than logic, held him back. Blood calling to blood. And that was
how Seth knew. Mothman was no monster. Like the spiderwoman pictured in Elijah Bishop’s journal, he was werekin.
Generation Zero, one of Chimera’s first, and unsuccessful,
attempts to reengineer the werekin race.
Didn’t explain how he was still alive. Every story Seth had
ever heard said Chimera had destroyed every Gen-0 in existence.
“Please.” Mothman spoke in a deep baritone. “If you would
come with me, there is someone who would speak with you.”
Cleo looked at Seth. What choice did they have? One shout
would bring every hunter in the building running. On the offchance they made it back to the car, Chimera would still know
Seth had been snooping around its hub with a rogue hunter. His
tail would be collared by dawn.
They followed Mothman.
He glided around the back of the prison, his long, scaly feet
barely denting the surface of the mud that sucked at Seth’s paws.
White veins pulsed under the mottled skin of his arms. If he sank
his teeth into him, Seth wondered, what color would Mothman
bleed?
Now and again he flicked his tapered fingers, murmuring
spells that dissolved the wards meant to prevent werekin from
skinning. Seth felt the magic part around them like an invisible
curtain. At a side door, Mothman tapped a sequence into a
keypad. The keys were printed with Lemurian glyphs in place of
numbers.
“Please,” Mothman said. “After you.”
Seth peered around him. Away from them stretched a floor
made of the same black stone as the rest of the prison, latticed
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with striped shadows like the moonlight was shining through
slatted walls. Cautiously, he placed one paw over the threshold –
Pressure built along his vertebrae, so intense his spine
threatened to snap. Seth doubled over, his shrill whine becoming
a cry as he was forced back into his human skin. He was shoved
forward, face-first into the wall, dimly aware of Cleo shielding
him with her body. “What did you do to him?” she demanded,
fiercely.
“Wards.” Mothman sounded apologetic. “They suppress the
magic in his blood. I cannot remove them here.”
“Why not? You were doing just fine outside!”
“Cleo.” Seth’s voice was hoarse. “Cleo, look.”
Cleo turned around.
Iron bars lined the corridor on both sides, cordoning off a
dozen cells. Inside each one, fenced in by metal and magic, was a
prisoner. They ranged in age from five to fifty, all in human skin,
all filthy, some bloody. They had been laid out on steel
mattresses, eyes closed, collars circling their necks.
“Are they…dead?” Seth managed.
“Sedated.” Cleo spoke tersely. “To sleep off the effects of
the tranqs.”
She would know, Seth thought. She had captured his kin, sent
them to places just like this.
He gripped the bars, staring helplessly down at the man in the
cell in front of him – a bear of a man with bushy salt-and-pepper
hair. His flannel shirt was crusted with dried blood, creased
cheeks so bruised Seth almost, almost didn’t recognize him.
“Ben,” he whispered.
There was no question how Chimera had found him. The
night Seth had arrived in Fairfax, he had called Ben Schofield
from Jack Steward’s house. At the time, he had had no idea Jack
worked for Chimera. No reason to suspect Chimera might be
tracing calls made to and from his phone line.
After that night, Seth had not spoken to Ben again.
“We can’t help them, sweetheart.” Cleo’s hand covered
Seth’s. “They’re collared. We don’t have the keys.”
She was right. As long as the collars were in place, Chimera
could drain their captives’ life-forces, even from afar. Seth still
wanted to draw his sword, slice through the locks on the cells,
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whisk every one of the captives away to freedom. Leaving Ben
here, collared in a Chimera cell, was almost more than he could
bear.
“We must not linger,” Mothman said. “We will be
discovered.”
Save her, Seth. Save her, and she will save us all. Regardless
of his allegiance, Seth thought, J.J. had a point. The only way for
Seth to help Ben now was to rescue the Black Swan. One finger
at a time, he peeled his hands off the bars and marched down the
corridor after Mothman. Cleo walked beside him, ice-chip eyes
frozen solid.
“Where are the guards?” she demanded of Mothman’s back.
“I sent them to search for you.”
Seth and Cleo stopped walking at the same time. Mothman
glanced back at them. His right antennae was standing straight
up, the left one curled in toward his temple, giving the
impression that he was raising an eyebrow. “The fountain,” he
explained. “It informed me of your approach. I told the guards
you were in the forest to the south. No cause for alarm. They are
searching for you in the wrong direction.”
Personally, Seth felt there was plenty of cause for alarm.
“The chimera fountain can talk?”
“After a fashion. It is animated by the souls of the dead.”
“And…you can talk to the dead?”
Mothman inclined his head. “My name is Agathon. I am a
necromancer, belonging to the Alpha Clan.”
What had the glyphs in Bishop’s journal said? The motto of
the necromancers? The dead shall wake and consume the living;
I shall call up the dead to feast on your souls. Lovely. They
couldn’t have been greeted by the florist belonging to the Alpha
Clan?
At the end of the corridor, Mothman – Agathon – ushered
them into what looked like a regular office in any hyper-modern
corporate building: black desk with a day-by-day calendar and
telephone; leather chairs; metal filing cabinets; chrome
bookshelves crowded with medical journals. A bank of state-ofthe-art computers lined one wall. In the corner, a silver birdcage
contained a taxidermy nightingale, her feet glued to a wooden
swing. Seth looked away.
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The nightingale was werekin.
Agathon touched a switch. The desk lamp sprang to life. His
black insectile eyes flared with hints of scarlet, like blood drops,
in the sudden glow. “He told me you would come,” he said.
“Who told you?” Seth asked, though he already knew the
answer.
“The black jaguar,” Agathon said. “Your brother.”
Trust him.
J.J.’s voice was softer than a whisper in Seth’s mind. He
stiffened. Tall order, he thought, when I don’t even trust you.
If J.J. could hear him, he had no answer to that.
Cleo put her shoulders back. “You said we were meeting
someone?”
Right on cue, the door opened, and a soldier walked in.
Seth’s immediate reaction was to skin. But he had forgotten
about the wards: Pain gouged the synapses of his brain, the
magic slamming him back into his human skin; he grabbed his
head and doubled over, retching. His brain felt melted, like a
plastic cup tossed into a fire.
“Seth.” A hand cupped his elbow, keeping him on his feet.
Seth shuddered. Agathon’s skin was like the skin of a rotted
apple, unpleasantly damp and creased. “I apologize,” Agathon
said. “I should have warned you Captain McLain was arriving.”
Seth straightened up. The soldier was tall, dark-haired, and
dressed in desert fatigues. Will McLain, Ms. McLain’s nephew,
who had stood by with General David Burke while Thomas
Sullivan was executed, by his own son.
Cleo snapped to attention, hands folded in the small of her
back. “Sir,” she said, crisply.
“Cleo.” McLain nodded to her. His skin was deeply tanned,
his eyes a rich mocha-brown; he was in his early twenties, if that.
“Seth. We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Will McLain.”
He extended a hand. Ignoring it, Seth turned to Cleo. “You
two know each other?”
“Captain McLain’s unit helped with our training in the
Scholae Bestiarii,” Cleo said, still standing at attention. Seth
wondered what she would do if he poked her in the belly.
McLain sat on the edge of the desk, perfectly relaxed, as
though a closed-door meeting with a moth-man, a rogue hunter,
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and a werejaguar was just a run-of-the-mill weeknight for him. A
silver charm hung around his neck. A swan. “My unit is a black
ops division,” he said, “under the command of General David
Burke. Our missions are classified above top-secret. Officially,
we don’t exist. Officially, none of this exists – not this lab, not
werekin, not Lemuria.”
“And yet,” said Seth, “here we are.”
McLain smiled thinly. “Ben told me you were a real
smartass.”
“Was that before or after you collared him?”
Cleo cleared her throat. McLain waved a hand at her. “I’ve
known Ben Schofield all my life. My father was a soldier, too,
and a close friend of Elijah Bishop. He helped him orchestrate
the escape of the Gen-1. My family helped establish the
Underground.”
Easy claim to make, when there was no way for Seth to ask
Ben if it was true. “Somebody needs to explain to me what
Captain America here has to do with rescuing the Black Swan.
He works for Chimera,” Seth said.
“I don’t ‘work’ for Chimera, kid.” There was an edge to
McLain’s voice now. “I’m a Marine. My unit just happens to be
assigned to Project Ark. As for what I’m doing here, I’m trying
to stop Ursula LeRoi from unleashing Armageddon with alien
technology nothing on Earth could stand up against.”
“Right,” Seth said. “Exterminating the werekin, wasn’t that
your boss’s plan?”
“General Burke is a good man,” McLain said, stiffly. “I’m
proud to serve under him. But on the issue of your kindred,
we…differ.”
“So you think we should be tortured and enslaved, but not
killed?”
Now Agathon cleared his throat, a sound like dry leaves
crunching underfoot. “Seth, Captain McLain is a friend to us.”
Well sure, Seth thought, as long he’s got the endorsement of
the necromancer. “So you’re saying what?” he challenged
McLain. “That you’re here against General Burke’s orders?
Risking court martial and the brig and all that fun stuff?”
“That would be what I’m saying.”
“And where does Ms. McLain fit into all of this?”
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“Aunt Ingrid and I both have a gift. We can see werekin,
even though we’re human. My grandmother had it, too.”
“So you’re, like, a spy, inside Chimera?”
“I’m like a Marine,” McLain said, “who just happens to have
grown up knowing werekin exist, and who just happens to
believe Ursula LeRoi might be the most evil woman alive, and
who would like to see her stopped before she manages to
conquer this planet, and any others that might be out there with
sentient life. Now.” McLain stood, snagging a remote control off
the desk and pressing a button that brought the bank of
computers on the wall to life. “If we’re done debating my
credentials, should we get down to business?”
He certainly looked like a Marine just then, and a pissed-off
one at that. Seth decided there was no disadvantage to hearing
him out.
He flopped down in one of the leather chairs. “Hit me,” he
said.
McLain tapped the remote. A 3-D model of the prison’s
rotunda appeared, blown up so it stretched across multiple
screens. “The Black Swan is here.” With a laser-pointer, McLain
indicated the center of the rotunda, the glass cage with the
werekin girl inside. “It’s inside what we’re calling the Birdcage.
Security around this thing is beyond tight. Up on the catwalks
you’ve got snipers with silver bullets positioned at all four
compass points. And you see this, this vent in the ceiling?” He
directed the laser-pointer to the top of the CG model. “It’s
designed to release a concentrated cloud of silver powder.
Mustard gas for werekin. Any werekin who get within ten feet of
that cage will be sitting ducks.”
Cleo leaned her elbows on the back of Seth’s chair. “Can’t
you just tell your men to stand down, sir?”
“I could, except they won’t be my men. LeRoi insisted on
using her own security.”
“Hunters,” Cleo said, darkly.
“Hunters,” McLain confirmed. “And trust me, this place is
teeming with them. If Agathon hadn’t let you in, you would both
be in cages right now. Your friends out by the creek, too.”
“What about the Birdcage?” Seth asked. “Assuming we
could get to it, how do we open it?”
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“There’s a keypad, on the side.” McLain tapped another
button. A full-scale schematic of the domed cage replaced the
rotunda blueprint. “To open it, you need the access code, which
we don’t have. Only LeRoi does, and she would die before she
would give it up.”
No padlock. Unfortunate. The lock had not yet been made
that Seth couldn’t pick.
“How about a crowbar?” Cleo suggested. “All due respect,
Captain, it is made of glass.”
“Specially tempered glass,” McLain said, “magically
reinforced, and damn near unbreakable. You would need a
tremendous amount of force to shatter it.”
He glanced at Agathon. “Yes,” Agathon rumbled, “I can
break it. But I am not immune to silver powder, or to silver
bullets.”
“What about her collar?” Cleo said. “Won’t we need the
key?”
“She isn’t collared,” McLain said – the best news Seth had
heard all day. “I convinced LeRoi that the cage would be enough.
It’s warded to prevent her from skinning, and LeRoi doesn’t
intend to let her out until she’s ready to bleed her dry into the
Ark. What we need is enough firepower to get her out, and then
we need to get her somewhere Chimera will never find her
again.”
“How did Chimera find her in the first place?” Seth asked.
“We don’t really know. Ben Schofield could have told them,
under torture – ” fat chance; Ben was not the breaking type “ – or
Chimera could have a spy in the Resistance. Or…”
Seth linked his arms behind his head, waiting for it. “Or?”
McLain shrugged. “Or your brother located her. He is a
powerful telepath.”
In his drum-like voice, Agathon said, “J.J. would not do
that.”
Seth was careful not to meet Cleo’s eyes. But he saw her
exchange a look with McLain, a look that reminded him all too
keenly that they had both witnessed Thomas Sullivan’s death,
while Agathon had not.
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“There’s something else,” McLain said. “Fort King is more
than just a hub. It is the location of the Ark. That’s why so many
werekin are drawn to Fairfax, to the Underground.”
“You’re certain?” Cleo sounded breathless.
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
McLain was grim. Seth cocked an eyebrow. “If you’re such a
fan of the Resistance, why haven’t you told the Commanders this
already?”
“Well, I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but werekin
tend to be suspicious of humans they perceive to be in league
with Chimera,” McLain said. And he had called Seth a smartass? “What I need is someone who can take this intel to the
Resistance Commanders, and tell them that if they do this, if they
rescue the Black Swan and take Fort King from LeRoi, the
werekin will have everything they need to raise Lemuria. You
could go home.”
This is how it ends.
In Seth’s mind there was a clear picture of a pristine white
beach, an ocean turned to blood, a mountain deep in the
primordial jungle exploding in gouts of golden flame. “The
power of the Totems,” he said. “What is it? Do you know?”
“It is the power that brought the Totems to Earth.”
That was Agathon. He flicked his tapered fingers. The
screens blinked; a satellite image of the ocean appeared on them.
The picture zoomed in, tighter and tighter until a dark mass was
visible at the very bottom of the ocean. Another flick of
Agathon’s wrist, and a ghostly outline appeared, buried within
the mass, picked out in tiny digital green dots.
The shape was unmistakable. “A ship?” Seth and Cleo said,
together. Cleo’s knuckles whitened on the back of Seth’s chair.
“The power of the Totems is a spaceship?” she said,
incredulously.
“LeRoi’s theory – Bishop’s theory, really – was that, in the
legend of Lemuria, the Totems ‘coming down from the stars’
meant just that. Bishop theorized that the Totems left a means for
the werekin to return to the stars, if they ever needed to. A
transportation device that could carve a hole in time and space.
The texts recovered from Mt. Hokulani say before Lemuria sank,
the White Swan sent one Clan, the Tortoise Clan, away from the
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island with the Source.” McLain pressed a button; a glyph
appeared on one of the screens, overlain with more meaning than
that word, source, but roughly translatable as such. “We don’t
know what the Source is, precisely, but we know it is the means
to activate the power of the Totems.”
“I thought that’s what the Ark was for,” Cleo said.
“You need the Ark to raise Lemuria. You need the Source to
operate whatever is hidden inside that island.” McLain nodded at
the satellite image. “LeRoi is still searching for the Source, but
Burke wants your kind destroyed before the Ark is completed
and she gets her hands on whatever it is.”
“And what do you want?” Seth asked.
“I want what Elijah Bishop wanted,” McLain said, simply. “I
want our races to live in peace. But if that isn’t possible, I want
you to do what he believed the Totems meant for you to do:
leave this planet, and find somewhere you can live without being
hunted.”
Seth stared at him, wishing, suddenly, that he was telepathic.
Was the captain telling the truth? Or was he dangling the
proverbial Holy Grail – the Ark – in front of Seth, using him to
lure the Resistance into an ambush that would secure Chimera’s
victory over them, once and for all?
Seth took a breath, the weight of this decision, the most
important one he had ever been asked to make, bearing down on
him like he was Atlas holding up the sky. He had never felt so
utterly alone in his life. Of the two people whose advice he
automatically wished for, one was a traitor, and one was in
captivity.
Putting aside for the moment the question of whether Seth
trusted Agathon or McLain, there was always the possibility that
J.J., who had essentially arranged this meet-and-greet, was lying
to both of them, too.
It came down to this. Did Seth trust J.J., or didn’t he?
“All right,” Seth said. “I can’t speak on behalf of the
Resistance, but I do have a way to contact them. I’ll deliver your
message, and I’ll let you know what they decide.”
McLain touched his silver swan charm. He looked as
weighted down with worry as Seth felt. “Just tell them to hurry,”
he said.
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Chapter Twenty-Three: First Time
Though the stars were still out when the Audi pulled into the
Townsends’ drive, a gray band around the horizon promised
dawn was on its way. Marshall followed Seth around to the
Stewards’ back door, tiptoeing after him through the kitchen and
up the stairs.
From the fort, they had driven to an all-night diner, one of
those cheesy 1950s Americana places with a working jukebox,
and sipped instant cappuccino while Seth and Cleo had related
everything they had seen inside the fort and everything McLain
and Agathon had told them. It had taken some doing, but finally,
Emery had agreed to call his mother, to ask if the Resistance was
willing to go to war with Chimera.
He had promised to call as soon as he had their answer.
Marshall had stared across the parking lot the entire time, a
million miles away. He had said a grand total of two words –
good night – since they had left the diner, dropping Cleo off at
Chaz’s. Seth couldn’t figure it out. Brooding didn’t fit with
Marshall’s golden boy personality.
He also didn’t know what to make of Marshall’s wordless
decision to sleep over. A week ago, that would have awoken
butterflies of possibility in his stomach. Now he had no idea how
to act. Could they share a bed? Would that be a come-on?
When he turned from closing his bedroom door, Marshall
had his back to him, head bowed as though in prayer. Seth
dropped his katana on the floor. “Man, I am wiped. You take the
bed. I’ll crash on the – ”
Very deliberately, Marshall raised a fist and punched the
dresser.
Like really wailed on it, with such force it rocked back into
the wall. Hissing in surprise, Seth yanked open the door; he
expected Leigh to come barging out of her room, but five
seconds passed, then ten, then twenty, and he released the breath
he had been holding. Seemed baby sister had decided against
investigating late-night banging in his room.
Seth closed the door. Marshall was standing by the dresser,
fists clenched like he wasn’t done punching things.
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“What the hell, Indiana?” Seth said.
“Sorry.” Marshall glanced at the gouge the dresser had made
in the wall. “I’ll paint over that for you.”
“Forget the wall.” Seth didn’t care about the stupid wall. He
took Marshall’s hand in his and turned it over, examining the
split skin across his knuckles. “Did you break your hand?”
“I’m fine, okay? Jesus.” Marshall jerked away. “You don’t
have to be so…”
“What?” Seth’s throat was tight. “What am I being?”
Marshall looked out the window.
Leaning back against the wall, Seth studied him. From the
side, the angles of Marshall’s cheekbones were sharp as
razorblades, silky lashes hooding his incredibly blue eyes. “Help
me out here, Indiana,” Seth said. “What is going on with you?”
“Nothing,” Marshall said. “Nothing is going on with me.”
“Yeah, you’re totally cool. Me, I go around pummeling
furniture all the time. In fact, there’s this dining room chair that’s
really been getting on my nerves lately. Let’s go stomp on it.”
Marshall’s jaw worked like he was holding back a scream.
Seth laid a hand on his back – felt the taut muscles tighten even
further, like a spring about to snap, at the contact. “Marshall,” he
said, softly. “Come on. Talk to me.”
“Seth, don’t you get it? I can’t.”
With that, Marshall sagged forward, the fight bleeding right
out of him. Seth would have preferred being punched. At least
then they could have slugged it out. That simple admission – I
can’t – left him nothing to fight.
He stepped back. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll get ice for your
hand.”
The kitchen was quiet but for the hum of the refrigerator.
Poe, meowing morosely, observed from atop it as Seth dumped
ice cubes into a dishtowel. He could tell she was missing Captain
Hook – for a cat and a dog, they had gotten on pretty well. That
made him want to cry even more.
Marshall was standing right where Seth had left him, still
wearing his jacket and shoes. Seth shut the bedroom door and
held out the makeshift icepack; their fingers brushed as Marshall
took it from him. Turning away, Seth grabbed a pair of sweat
pants and a T-shirt out of his drawer. “Uh, would you mind…?”
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“Huh?” Marshall looked up from his bruised hand, saw Seth
holding his pajamas, and blushed. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, of
course…”
He hastily turned his back. Seth shucked out of his jeans and
into the sweat pants as fast as he could. “You can have the bed,”
he offered, since he wasn’t sure Marshall had been listening
before. “I’ll sack out on the windowsill. Cats can sleep
anywhere, you know. Anyway, we have to be up for school in
like two – ”
“Stop.”
Seth looked up, T-shirt dangling off his wrists. Marshall was
looking at him.
Blue eyes raked down him, sizzling like a flash fire: eyes,
mouth, throat, stomach. Back up, slowly. Seth was paralyzed. It
was possible he stopped breathing. He had never been more
aware of his own skin than he was in that moment.
They stepped forward at the same time, Seth dropping his Tshirt to the floor, Marshall wrapping an arm around his waist to
draw him closer. He buried his nose in Seth’s hair and breathed
deep, like he wanted to inhale him. “Philadelphia, I need to ask
you something,” he whispered. Seth hoped this wasn’t going to
be a difficult question. His brain wasn’t working at top form just
then. “Are you ever scared?”
Seth laughed. Marshall winced, thinking he was laughing at
him, but Seth wasn’t. He understood why Marshall was
frightened. What he had to lose. “Indiana,” he said, “I am scared
all the time. I’m just not scared of this.”
“This scares me to death,” Marshall admitted. And then he
kissed him.
Timidly, at first. One arm still around Seth’s waist, holding
him flush against him, he skimmed his bruised knuckles along
the underside of Seth’s jaw, mouth grazing shyly over his. Seth
made a sound, half-purr, half-growl. Blood was coursing thick as
honey through his veins. Going up on tiptoe, he curled his hand
behind Marshall’s neck, sealing his lips firmly to his, and was
answered by a hitch in Marshall’s breathing that stirred a shiver
right down to his toes.
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Here were all the sparks that had been missing from Seth’s
other kisses. Here was what, and who, could make his pulse
skitter and his head swim.
Marshall’s fingers walked up Seth’s bare spine, doing
unbelievable things to Seth’s nerve endings. They stopped
kissing long enough for him to drag Marshall’s letterman’s jacket
off his shoulders, push it down his arms, and toss it onto the
windowsill; then Seth’s mouth was crushed against his again,
fingers wound tightly in those soft, inky curls.
They ended up on the bed, pillows scattered on the floor,
Marshall pressing Seth down into the mattress as he dusted
kisses down his neck, onto his chest. Seth clutched at the sheets.
He felt like he was unraveling, spooling into delicious darkness.
Marshall sat up suddenly, dragging a hand through his hair,
making it stick out every which way. Seth loved when he did
that. “I just – I need a sec,” he said, raggedly. Seth nodded.
Marshall fell back alongside him. For a moment, the only
sound was their mutually labored breathing. Marshall’s bottom
lip was bruised where Seth had nipped him. Seth saw him touch
it, and smirked.
“You’re thinking of calling me an animal, aren’t you?” he
said.
Marshall hit him with a pillow.
***
Charles Bonaparte lived in Haven Heights above a pawn
shop hocking guns, jewelry, and guitars. Chaz called it a studio.
Cleo called it a dump. Roaches skittered across the linoleum in
the tiny kitchen, hiding in the cracks between the pressboard
cabinets. Mice had gnawed the molding in the living room. The
bathroom was so narrow the toilet was wedged up against the
shower. Last night, her first night in residence, a many-legged
bug had crawled out of the drain and slithered over the top of
Cleo’s foot.
Fortunately Cleo was not the kind of girl who required fourstar accommodations. In the Scholae Bestiarii, hunters shared a
stone cell with their werekin partners, one cot and one blanket in
each, and guess who got those? Not the slave. Not unless the
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hunter cared to take thirty lashes as punishment for being an
animal lover.
It would have been nice, however, for the hot water in Chaz’s
shower to last long enough for her to lather up. By the time she
rinsed the shampoo from her hair, the spray was ice-cold.
Knotting a towel around herself, Cleo climbed out of the
shower and swiped condensation off the mirror above the sink.
Her eyes were smudged with blue, evidence that she had not yet
been to bed; she had just been too wired after that scene at Fort
King. Will McLain on the side of the werekin. She found that
strangely easy to believe. She knew Thomas Sullivan had always
liked him, and McLain had been different than the others
trainers, never one to go in for torture.
The Gen-0 was a different story. J.J.’s telepath tutor Xanthe
was a Gen-0, and Cleo had never been comfortable around him.
And there was J.J. himself. She couldn’t believe Seth would trust
him, knowing what he knew about his twin.
“He’s out of his mind,” she informed her reflection.
Chaz was munching down on Cocoa Puffs when Cleo came
into the kitchen, a flannel shirt she had borrowed from her new
roommate tied over her skintight jeans. Chaz’s gray robe was
unbelted over his boxers, revealing a chest so scrawny the bones
looked like a ladder. Cleo wasn’t sure if he was just getting up,
or just going to bed.
He nodded formally to her. “Cleopatra.”
“Charles.” Cleo fished a clean bowl from the cabinet. Dishes
tended to collect in Chaz’s sink, sprouting yellow and green
mold like tree fungus. She took a seat at the scarred wooden table
and robotically spooned cereal into her mouth, starting when the
phone rang.
“For you,” Chaz said, offering the cordless to her.
It was Emery. “They went for it!” His voice actually
squeaked with excitement. “The Resistance went for it. The
Commanders are on their way to Fairfax right now. I tried to
reach Seth, but the line has been busy for an hour – do you think
something could be wrong?”
Considering whose roof Seth was living under, yes, Cleo
very much thought something could be wrong. “I’ll pick you up
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in five,” she said, and pitched the phone into Chaz’s lap.
“Charles, I need to borrow your van.”
The sun was edging over the horizon, leaking purple fire into
the clouds. Cleo exited Chaz’s building by the back stairs, into an
alley between the pawn shop and the seedy bar next door. At the
far end, a chain link fence screened a construction site, steel
bones surrounded by orange barrels like garish mushrooms.
Beyond that was a row of warehouses, and beyond those, the
river.
She was almost to the mouth of the alley when a figure
appeared there, casting a long shadow in the streetlight that had
yet to wink out. Cleo would have known that shadow anywhere.
She did not stop to think. Did not even bother to scream. She
simply ran.
Down the alley, toward the fence – wedging her fingers into
the chain links, hauling herself up and over – careening through
the construction site, never once looking back, imagining every
second she could hear the soft fall of paws behind her – the last
sound she would ever hear –
Ahead of her spread the river, murky brown waves topped
with white foam. Jaguars could swim as well as they could run;
the water afforded no escape. What she needed was wheels. Too
bad she had fled into a warren of streets hemmed in by
warehouses, everything still closed up for the night, not a single
car on the street. Slowing to a brisk walk, Cleo contemplated her
options, trying to breathe around the stitch in her side. She could
circle back to the van. J.J. wouldn’t expect her to retrace her
steps, and he wouldn’t expect her to have access to a vehicle,
which might give her a tactical advantage. Time to get to Seth,
anyway, before Chimera did.
At the next street, she turned east, weaving back in the
general direction of Chaz’s street, glancing repeatedly over her
shoulder. Sweat had collected under her flannel shirt. When a
pigeon squawked up from behind a dumpster, Cleo nearly
screamed.
She rounded the next corner and walked straight into him.
Before the boy could move, Cleo landed an uppercut to his
jaw that put him on the ground. She yanked the dagger from her
belt, but a foot hooked her ankle, and she crashed to the
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sidewalk. Rolling over almost before she landed, Cleo slammed
into the boy, shoving him against the brick wall of a boarded-up
appliance shop.
Straddling his legs, Cleo could feel his heart beating through
his T-shirt. He was thin, but strong, dressed in black camouflage,
thick-soled combat boots laced over his feet. The gear made him
seem older than seventeen. A knife was strapped to his belt, a
quiver of arrows slung across his back. In a fight, Cleo knew, he
would prefer the knife.
She wondered, fleetingly, why he hadn’t simply shot her as
she had fled from him in the alley.
Thin, scarred hands balanced on the pavement. Golden eyes
gazed calmly into hers. Even now Cleo could appreciate that he
was beautiful, beautiful and deadly, this boy their masters had
sent to kill her.
“You shouldn’t have come after me,” she said, harshly. “I
didn’t want to kill you.”
“You won’t kill me,” the boy said, with confidence.
Cleo pressed the edge of her dagger tighter against his throat.
It fit perfectly beneath his ornate silver collar. “I will, if it means
saving Seth.”
His smile was thin as a blade, and Cleo suddenly felt as
though the dagger was pressed to her throat. “I’m afraid,” J.J.
said, “you’re too late for that.”
***
Screeeech!
Seth jolted awake, lurching over the side of the bed for his
sword. This disturbed Marshall, who murmured drowsily in his
sleep.
Screeech!
Poe’s sharp nails raked down the windowpane again. “Stop
that,” Seth scolded, in a whisper. “How’d you get in here,
anyway?” He distinctly recalled locking his bedroom door.
Poe meowed. Who, me?
Blue skies reigned outside – a gorgeous late winter morning.
Seth checked his Hello Kitty alarm clock. 8:30. Why hadn’t
Lydia or Leigh woken him for school? Then he remembered: He
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wasn’t supposed to be home. He had told his mother he was
staying at Emery’s.
Seth knew he should get up, call Lydia before the school did
to report his truancy, but he didn’t want to leave his room just
yet. He wanted to stay right here, in his happy little bubble,
watching Marshall sleep.
Marshall lay on his back, one arm flung across his eyes, the
other resting on his stomach. They really should have kept the
icepack on, Seth thought. Marshall’s knuckles were swollen and
bruised. Dark hair was ruffled around his face, honey-toned skin
warmed by the flush of sleep.
No use denying it. Seth had it bad for the boy next door.
Leaving Marshall to dream, he padded into the bathroom and
ran the water in the Jacuzzi all the way to the top. Soap suds
collected on the surface like foamy lily pads. Seth trailed his
fingers through them, wishing Emery would call already, end the
suspense of whether the Resistance had decided to move on Fort
King.
They had to say yes. Ben was in that hub. Seth couldn’t just
leave him there. If the Resistance wouldn’t help him, Seth would
have to find a way to rescue him himself. Him and J.J.
Not for the first time, Seth asked himself why he trusted his
twin. He didn’t have an answer. He just kept coming back to that
myth Regent had told him. Two jaguars, one light, one dark,
neither good nor evil. Both very powerful.
Two locks of hair in a silver locket.
Marshall was awake when Seth returned to the bedroom. Poe,
having switched from the window to the bed in his absence, was
purring in his lap. Lucky cat. “Hey,” Marshall said.
“Hey,” Seth said, and started grabbing clothes almost at
random from his dresser: jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, socks.
Marshall kicked the covers aside and leaned against the
headboard, T-shirt and boxer-clad. Nobody had a right to make
rumpled look that sexy, but Seth controlled his hormones, trying
to decipher Marshall’s mood. Would he want to pretend last
night had never happened? Vow to never again “act on the
impulse”?
“Shower is all yours,” he said, zipping up his jeans.
“In a hurry to get rid of me, Philadelphia?”
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Seth looked up. Marshall’s dimple was in plain sight, no
trace of brooding or regret. A weight of dread he hadn’t even
been aware of lifted off of Seth. “Maybe I’m just in a hurry to get
your clothes off,” he said.
“Yeah? ’Cause from where I’m sitting, it seems like you’re
in a hurry to put yours on.”
Did Seth detect a challenge?
Kicking the drawer shut, he slunk over to the bed, leaned in,
and outlined Marshall’s lips with one finger. “Vous ềtes si belle,”
he murmured.
“I don’t speak French,” Marshall said; but rather than wait
for a translation, he captured Seth’s wrist and pulled him down
on the pillows.
Being kissed by Marshall was like floating in a pool of
sunlight, suspended high above the ground, all heat and
weightlessness. Long fingers slid under Seth’s shirt, feathering
his ribs until Marshall’s hands were splayed on his back. “You’re
warm,” he said, against Seth’s mouth.
“Hot bath,” Seth managed. Marshall began to kiss the jaguar
spot tattoos around his eye, murmuring softly under his breath,
words Seth couldn’t really make out, as he was rapidly losing the
capacity for coherent thought – which he didn’t mind, but, as he
had discovered last night, Marshall had, shall we say,
boundaries. “Going to need a cold shower if you don’t stop,” he
warned.
“Sorry.” Kissing him once more, Marshall crawled off the
bed. Seth scowled. He would have to wear down the golden boy
virtuousness.
Propped on an elbow, he watched Marshall rummage through
the pile of clothes on the floor for his jeans. “You’re leaving?”
“Have to.” Marshall sat down on the windowsill to lace up
his tennis shoes. “I’ve got a Chem. midterm after lunch,
remember? Anyway, my father comes back from his conference
today. I’m picking him up from the airport after school.”
Just what their morning after didn’t need – quality time for
Marshall and his father. Seth sat up, bumping his chin on his
knee. Their happy bubble was dissolving. Time to face reality.
“Were you planning to tell him about this?” he asked. He didn’t
say “us,” in case that would seem presumptuous. Did two make302
out sessions, even knee-weakening, pulse-pounding make-out
sessions, qualify them as a couple?
Marshall had frozen halfway through tying his shoelace.
“Because if you wanted to keep it private for now,” Seth added
quickly, “we can.”
For a moment, Marshall remained frozen. Then, slowly, he
returned to his shoelaces. “How would that work, exactly?”
His tone gave nothing away. “It would work like it’s been
working,” Seth said. “We’re friends. We hang out. Watch
movies, play video games. I kick your butt at basketball…”
“I think we’re a little more than just friends.” Marshall
straightened up, shaking hair back from his eyes. “Would you
really be okay with that? Keeping us a secret?”
His casual use of the plural pronoun was not lost on Seth,
whose heart started doing the mamba in his chest. “Well, I will
be disappointed I can’t write ‘Seth loves Marshall’ all over my
notebooks.”
Marshall sighed. “Do you think I could I get a straight
answer here, please?”
Seth took a breath. “Yeah, Indiana. I’m okay with it.”
And he was. Sort of. Seth worried Marshall still thought he
was abnormal for liking guys, queer in the ugliest sense of the
word, while he, Seth, was prepared to snog him in the middle of
the cafeteria, but Marshall had protected his secret. Now, Seth
would protect his.
Marshall picked up his jacket. “I’m not – ”
But Seth never got to find out what Marshall wasn’t, for at
that moment, from outside echoed a terrible, blood-curdling
scream.
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Chapter Twenty-Four: Friends and Enemies
Whitney Townsend’s favorite writing spot was her attic.
Before Marshall was born, their mother had renovated it into a
painter’s studio. The space was ideal: diamond-shaped windows
set into the east and west walls like portholes in a ship, allowing
for generous doses of sunshine. Though Meredith hadn’t painted
in years, an easel was propped in the corner, waiting patiently for
one of the canvases gathering dust beside it; on a butcher’s table
were lined up jars of oil paints, their contents dried to chalk, and
pouches of brushes with bristles gone stiff from age.
This morning, the poem Whitney wanted to write simply
wouldn’t come. Glaring at the blank page, she tucked her feet
under her in the Papasan chair, spreading her long velvet skirt
over her knees. If only she could layer her thoughts onto paper
like a painter laying oil onto canvas. Painting pictures with words
was much harder, in Whitney’s opinion.
For two weeks, Whitney had been trying to describe the halo
of light that surrounded Emery Little. Emery was the sun – wait,
Shakespeare had snapped that one up, to describe Juliet. Emery
was a silver moonbeam shining on white snow, light giving back
light; he was a whirlwind of gold, azure, rose…And here her
pencil slowed as Whitney came up against the same wall she
always did. There were not words to name the colors that haloed
Emery, sifting together like grains of sand. It was the same with
Seth, and most of the kids from Haven Heights. There were no
words to describe how they exuded light, though the light didn’t
come from them; it was drawn to them, like metal shavings to a
magnet, particles of air enlivened to color.
Maybe Emery would have the words, if she ever worked up
the nerve to ask him what the light meant. Whitney flipped her
hand over, studying the phone number he had written on her
palm after the Sacred Heart game. The number was mostly
washed off, but she had already memorized it.
Whitney could imagine calling Emery. Right up to the point
where he said hello. Their conversations tended to involve a lot
of blushing and smiling, neither much use over the phone.
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Whitney set her notebook aside. It was nearly nine o’clock;
she needed to call Marshall, find out why he wasn’t home from
Emery’s to pick her up yet. Marshall never skipped school. And,
speaking of, wasn’t it a little strange that Leigh hadn’t called to
see if she needed a ride…?
Whitney blinked. Movement in the trees had caught her
attention. She rubbed her eyes, and looked again.
It was still there. An enormous tiger, leaping from branch to
branch through the woods, headed away from the Stewards’
backyard. That would have been quite odd enough, but Whitney
knew this was no regular tiger. A regular tiger would not have
been surrounded by a halo of light.
Whitney tore down the stairs to her bedroom and grabbed the
phone off her bedside table. No dial tone; the phone was dead.
Tossing it onto her bedspread, she dug her cell phone out of her
canvas tote, dialing again as she raced toward the front door.
“Hello?”
“Emery!” Whitney practically shouted. “I need to speak to
Seth!”
“Seth? Why would Seth be – ” Emery coughed. “I mean, uh,
he left already, for school…Is this Whitney?”
“Emery, listen to me, I need you to tell me where Seth is.”
Whitney had just registered that Marshall’s Audi was in their
driveway, parked under the basketball hoop. She skirted it,
almost slipping in something sticky beside the rear tire. “Never
mind, I – ”
And she screamed.
Leigh was lying in the grass beside the Stewards’ garage,
auburn hair spilled around her like flame. Her hot pink pajamas
were soaked with dew, her lips blue. For one awful second
Whitney thought she was dead. When Leigh’s chest rose and fell,
she almost screamed again, from relief.
“Whitney!” Emery was yelling into the phone. “Whitney,
where are you? What’s wrong?”
“I’m at home,” Whitney heard herself say, numbly, as she
turned, looking back at the path she had taken across the drive.
Her footprints were visible on the concrete, outlined in
something red. A larger pool of the red stuff, beginning to
congeal, had collected next to Marshall’s car. She didn’t think
305
the blood was his, though. She recognized the gray silk robe
caught in the bushes, shredded at the hem. It belonged to Mrs.
Steward. “Emery, I think – ”
A footstep at her back killed the words on her lips. Whitney
made to turn, but she never got that far; she caught a glimpse of a
black leather jacket, a scarred face with a patch covering a
missing eye; then something sharp struck her in the neck, causing
her to gasp. The light and color bled from the world, and the
phone slipped from her grasp as the ground rose up to meet her.
***
Seth outstripped Marshall on the stairs, leaping straight from
the landing to the entryway. Leigh’s books were spread across
the island in the kitchen, but Leigh was nowhere in sight. Nor
was Lydia. A bowl of pancake mix was on the counter, a cold
skillet waiting on the stove.
The keys to Seth’s Yamaha hung on a peg by the back door.
He snatched them up as he sprinted outside, Marshall on his
heels.
Whitney was lying in the Stewards’ driveway. Marshall
dropped beside her, saying her name over and over. Whitney did
not respond. Her breathing was shallow.
Seth’s golden eyes swept the lawn. A small, circular bruise
discolored Whitney’s neck – evidence of a tranq dart, except this
one must have contained an actual tranquilizer instead of silver
and mercury. He was looking for the shooter, but his eyes fell on
the girl lying beside the garage, and the world tilted like the
driveway was the deck of a ship in a hurricane.
Leigh.
Sliding his arms under her, Seth carried her over to Marshall.
She was unconscious but alive; he laid her down next to
Whitney, brushed her hair back from her face. Leigh had the
same small, round bruise on her neck. Her skin was ice-cold.
Seth felt sick, thinking of her lying out here on the ground, halfdressed, while he was upstairs, oblivious in his happy little
bubble.
“Jesus. She’s frozen.” Marshall stripped his letterman’s
jacket off and draped it over Leigh, as if by habit checking her
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pulse. Only then did he seem to notice Seth climbing on his
motorcycle. He jumped up. “Philadelphia, wait! Where are you
going?”
“Regent’s.” Seth stuck the key in the ignition as he turned, to
the small brown falcon hopping along the shrub fence. “Go to
Emery’s,” he said. “Tell him to get Cleo and meet me there.”
The falcon soared away, cackling. Marshall was staring at
Seth like he had lost his mind. “Seth, I don’t understand – ”
“He has my mother. If I don’t go, he’ll kill her.”
“Seth, come on. This is insane.” Marshall was pale. “Mrs.
Steward is probably just at yoga class with my mom. You don’t
know Regent has her.”
“Yes,” Seth said, “I do.”
He pointed. Marshall followed his gaze, to the paw prints in
the mud around Lydia’s rosebushes – tiger tracks – and the gray
robe fluttering in the weeds, the shredded hem soaked in blood.
Seth heard him draw a sharp breath.
Marshall looked back at him. “You know he’ll be waiting for
you,” he said, softly. “You know this is a trap.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Seth said. He would not let his mother
die to save his skin.
“Then take this.” Marshall reached into the pocket of his
jacket, glanced around to be sure no neighbors were outside, and
produced a pistol – his father’s Colt .38.
Seth gaped at it. “Christ, Indiana, you’re packing heat now?”
Marshall shrugged. “You were breaking into a building full
of hunters last night. If you didn’t make it out, I was coming in to
get you.”
“Do you have any idea how completely stupid that would
have been?” Seth snatched the pistol out of Marshall’s hand and
flung it, with all his might, over the brick privacy fence. “You
think Chimera wouldn’t kill you just because you’re human?”
Marshall shrugged. “Why do you think I brought the gun?”
Oh, very funny. Glaring, Seth cranked the ignition. “Find
Emery,” he repeated, over the engine’s roar. “And don’t think we
aren’t talking about this later!”
***
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The Yamaha tore through four red lights on the expressway,
jumped a curb to avoid a soccer mom minivan, and zigzagged
around a garbage truck before hitting the highway north of town.
Yeah baby. This was how a motorcycle was meant to be
driven.
Cold wind blew Seth’s still-damp hair back, flattened his
shirt to his chest. He could hear nothing over the roar of the
engine and the scream of the wind – and unfortunately, he did
not see the panther-black Kawasaki Ninja bearing down on him
until the other bike was suddenly in his lane.
Seth jerked the handlebars, veering over the center line. The
Ninja shot into position beside him, crowding him further into
the other lane, into the path of an oncoming semi. The big rig
driver blared his horn; Seth cranked the throttle, managing to
whip back into his lane just in time to avoid becoming a hood
ornament.
The Ninja driver grinned at Seth. Eye patch. Leather jacket.
Silver-studded whip. Snowman. Goddamn Regent. So much for
his big story about chowing down on the hunter. Seth should
have known he hadn’t really killed him. They were on the same
side.
Snowman swerved, trying to clip the Yamaha’s back tire.
Seth nudged the speedometer above a hundred miles an hour, but
the Ninja had a decent engine, too; Snowman gained on him,
forcing Seth to weave back and forth between lanes, skirting
oncoming traffic. A deadly game of cat and mouse, and for once,
Seth wasn’t the cat.
Something glinted in Snowman’s hand. A tranq gun. He
raised it, and Seth jerked the wheel again, onto the shoulder this
time. The bike’s wheels crunched over gravel, and Seth fought to
keep her vertical. At this speed, a wipeout would leave him
shredded on the pavement.
To his right, across a deep ditch, a dirt road fronted a
cornfield, paralleling the highway. Seth cranked the throttle as
wide as she would go – shot ahead of the Ninja, throwing gravel
like a hail of bullets into Snowman’s face – and jumped the
ditch.
The Yamaha defied gravity for ten full seconds of hang-time.
When she landed, she bounced so hard her back tire came off the
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ground. By some miracle of the Totems, Seth managed to right
her.
Pacing him on the highway, Snowman lifted his tranq gun
again. Seth saw him frown as he tried to read Seth’s lips.
Behind you.
Snowman turned – just as the canary-yellow Hummer
overtook him from behind.
It was like watching a freight train run down a bicycle. The
Hummer’s grill nudged the Ninja’s back tire; the gun fell from
Snowman’s grasp, disappearing under the assault vehicle’s
undercarriage, kicking up sparks. The bike flipped, its headlight
kissing the pavement; it tipped onto its side with an explosive
crash, and Seth instinctively looked away as the Hummer rolled
right over the top of it, and Snowman.
Through the tinted glass, he glimpsed the driver. Not Regent.
Jack.
The Hummer kept barreling along, a bear chewing up the
Ninja’s bones, but the Yamaha was lighter, and faster: Seth
waved to Jack, swerved back onto the highway, and screamed off
at fighter-jet speed.
He had no clue why his step-father had just saved him. Right
now, he didn’t care. All he cared about was Lydia.
Seth nearly laid the bike down again turning onto the road
that led back to Regent’s. At the end of the twisting drive, he hit
the brakes, locking up the back tire and sending a plume of
rainwater into the air. Almost before the bike slewed to a stop, he
was sprinting for the front door.
Save her. Save her. Save her. J.J.’s voice pounded in Seth’s
ears. Terror flooded him – that Regent had already killed his
mother, that he had already failed. He didn’t know if the terror
belonged to him, or J.J., or both of them. He reached for the knob
–
The front door opened, onto a blaze of red-and-orange fur.
Seth rolled. Claws swiped his scalp, tearing a jagged line
from the crown of his head to the nape of his neck. Coming up
on all fours just inside the doorway, Seth crouched, every lesson
Regent had ever taught him flashing through his mind. Stay alert.
Anticipate strikes. Be equally deadly in either skin.
Be equally deadly in either skin.
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Seth leapt onto the bar. As his feet touched down, he skinned.
The tiger sprang at him –and the jaguar leapt again, onto
Regent’s back, clamping his teeth down on the tiger’s shoulder.
He had been aiming for the neck, actually, to snap it, but
Regent had taught him that move, and he twisted away just in
time. Seth dug his claws into Regent’s sides, hardly aware that
the deep-throated snarls rending the air were coming from him.
For the first time he understood what it was to be a wild thing,
fueled solely by the desire to kill.
Regent arched his spine, whipping his shoulders back and
forth. Seth was flung free; he crashed into the glass wall around
the jungle enclosure – which fractured. For a stomach-dropping
second, Seth was freefalling.
He crashed into a limb and managed to sink his claws into
the soft bark.
The tiger landed on the limb above his.
If tigers could smirk, Regent was. Seth forced himself to look
up, to the lip of the enclosure. There stood Jack Steward, rifle
pressed to his shoulder. From where he crouched, Seth could
smell the silver powder. It was a tranq gun.
So this was it, then. There was nothing to do, nowhere to run.
Jack would tranq him, Seth would wake up in a Chimera cell,
collared, and his blood would be used to complete the Ark. The
Black Swan would be sacrificed, Lemuria would rise from the
depths, and Ursula LeRoi would have everything she ever
wanted.
Seth skinned. He wasn’t sure why. Mostly he just wanted
Jack to have to look into his eyes, his human eyes, as he
condemned him to a choice between death and enslavement.
But Jack was not looking at Seth. He was looking at Regent.
More precisely, he was aiming at Regent, who looked as stunned
as tiger can look.
Jerking the diamond ring off his pinkie finger, Jack threw it
at Regent’s snout. It missed, glanced off the tree, and fell into the
creek far below, still glittering.
“This is for Tommy,” Jack said, and just as the tiger lunged
for him, squeezed the trigger.
It happened too fast for Seth to have helped Regent, even if
he wanted to. There was a human scream, and an animal roar;
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something warm and wet sprayed Seth’s face; he saw Regent,
forced back into his human skin, stumble, yanking the tranq dart
from his neck, crushing the slender glass tube to powder in his
massive fist. “Cub,” he groaned, as he fell, backward, into the
jungle enclosure, crashing through branches on his way to the
creek.
He landed in a heap on a slab of rock and lay there,
facedown, unmoving.
Jack had stumbled out of sight. Seth stood up on his branch.
Searing pain shot through his head; groping along his scalp, he
felt folds of skin separate under his fingers. Claw marks. Regent
had gotten him good. Now that his adrenaline was receding, the
pain began to register.
There would be time to lick his wounds later. Up above,
someone was sobbing. Seth crawled up the branches and hoisted
himself out onto the floor of the great room.
Lydia, wrists and ankles bound with duct tape, was kneeling
beside Jack. She wore black cotton pants and a thin tank-top;
Regent must have surprised her on her way to yoga class. Tears
were pouring down her face. It took a moment for the crimson
stain spreading across Jack’s suit jacket to register for Seth.
He crawled to them. “Seth?” Lydia blinked like she expected
him to disappear. It was how she had looked at Seth the night he
had arrived in Fairfax. The enchantments Chimera had placed
her under were warring with the reality before her eyes, and Seth
was more than a little worried her mind might not be able to
handle the shock. “It’s okay, Mrs. Steward,” he said, gently. “Let
me get you untied, all right?”
He tore the duct tape away with his sharp nails. As soon as
her hands were free, Lydia threw her arms around his neck. Seth
patted her back. Blood – Regent’s – was crusted around his
fingernails, more blood – his own – matting his hair. “Seth,
honey, what on Earth – ”
“Lydia?”
Seth started. He had honestly thought his step-father was
dead.
Jack’s voice was a weak rasp. Blood from his mangled arm
was leeching into the hardwood; the wound was grisly, his right
arm connected to his chest only by thin strips of gray tissue.
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“Lydia,” he said again, with more authority. “There’s a first-aid
kit upstairs in the bathroom. Get it for me, please.”
“Of course, darling.” Lydia scrambled to her feet, kicking
tape away from her ankles, and dashed upstairs. Seth didn’t think
any of this was really sinking in for her. She seemed shellshocked.
Jack drug himself into a sitting position against the couch,
cradling his elbow in his hand. Seth made to pull his T-shirt off,
to hold pressure on the wound, but Jack shook his head. His gray
eyes were sunk deep into their sockets. “Seth, you need to get out
of here. Regent contacted LeRoi. He told her you’re in league
with a rogue hunter and likely working for the Resistance. She
ordered him to bring you in.”
“You know, Jack,” Seth said, “I’d sort of figured that out
already.”
“But you don’t know – you don’t know who she’s sending
for – ” Pain rocked Jack; he grimaced, his face going over from
white to gray. Instinctively Seth moved to him, but Jack pushed
him away. “I didn’t mean to help you,” he said, harshly. “I told
myself I would do anything to save my family. Tell any lie.
Commit any crime. Hand over an innocent boy to be tortured and
enslaved. I thought – I thought it would be easy. And why
shouldn’t it have been? You aren’t anyone to me. You aren’t my
child.”
He said my child in a whisper, almost to himself. Without
wanting to, Seth heard Regent’s words, from what seemed a
million years ago. You assumed I would want to save you. You’re
used to everybody loving you because of that pretty face. “Then
why?” he said, and the hurt in his voice surprised even Seth.
Why should he care whether Jack Steward thought of him as his
child? Seth had a dad. A dad who had loved him enough to die
for him. “Why help me, if I’m no one to you?”
“Because I told myself it has to stop. There are things,”
Jack’s voice dropped even lower, so that even Seth, with his
superb werekin hearing, had to strain to hear, “there are things I
won’t do.”
About that time the front door flew open, and Marshall
stepped inside.
This was so unexpected Seth hissed.
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A step behind Marshall were Emery and Cleo. Emery cried
out, but Marshall took one look at the blood pool around Jack
and strode over to the sink, where he began scrubbing his hands.
“I’ll need gauze to pack the wound,” he said, very matter-of-fact.
“Emery, find some.”
Emery started for the stairs, staring at Jack over his shoulder.
“My mom’s up there,” Seth called after him. “See if she can
help.”
“Seth.” Cleo had continued toward him, spike heels clicking
on the floor. The bone-handled dagger was strapped to her thigh.
“Regent,” she said. “Where is he?”
Seth pointed to the jungle enclosure. Cleo marched over to
the edge and peered down.
“Leigh.” Jack shut his eyes. “Marshall, is she – ”
“She’s fine.” Marshall knelt beside him and began peeling
his suit jacket off. “She’s at my house, with Whitney.”
“Seth.”
Seth looked up. Cleo was holding a hand out to him. He went
to her, somehow already knowing what he would see.
What he did not see was Regent. Where he had been lying
moments before, seemingly out cold, a thin trail of scarlet drops
led away from the creek, across the rocks to an open door in a
corner of the jungle enclosure. A door Seth hadn’t even known
was there.
Regent had pulled the tranq dart out. He probably hadn’t
gotten a full dose. The night Snowman had tranqed Seth, he had
managed to swim and then crawl nearly six miles, and Regent
was ten times tougher than Seth was. Cutting across country, it
wasn’t that far to Fort King and its stash of antidote. Seth was
sure Regent could make it.
Regent had killed Naomi, and someday, Seth planned to pay
him back for that. But revenge would have to wait. He had more
pressing matters to tend to at the moment. Like saving the Black
Swan. And if possible, not dying.
For several minutes now, Seth had been aware of distant
sounds in the forest around Regent’s house. Cleo looked over at
him, her ice-chip eyes silvery-purple. You don’t know who she’s
sending, Jack had said. But Seth did.
“Stay here,” he ordered Marshall.
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He followed Cleo out of the house. In the side yard she
stopped, her arm pressed against the length of his, eyes fastened
on the trees.
At first they were only shadows. Then the shadows became
shapes, and the shapes became animals: a hyena; two coyotes; a
lynx; an otter; a python, slithering through the tall grass; a
squirrel; a small brown falcon that lighted, cackling, on the roof;
even one enormous bull with velvet-black hide and a gold ring
shoved through his nose.
Leading the charge was a black jaguar, proud neck circled by
an ornate silver collar.
“Seth, honey, what are you – ”
Lydia had stepped onto the porch. She froze there, staring, as
the black jaguar leapt from the nearest sycamore.
He skinned as his paws touched the ground. On a shimmer of
air the jaguar disappeared, and a seventeen-year-old boy with
golden hair clipped short around his ears, golden eyes that
dominated his wedge-shaped face, was walking toward them. He
wore black camo pants and a black T-shirt, a torc around his
neck, and a crooked, feral smirk.
Lydia gasped. Clutching a towel soaked in Jack Steward’s
blood, she stumbled to the railing, her lips moving soundlessly
around two letters. J.J.
The sight of Seth’s twin, alive, punched a hole right through
the glass cage Chimera had erected around Lydia Steward. If J.J.
was alive, he couldn’t be dead, and every lie Jack had pushed on
her for the last seventeen years, about himself, about his work,
about Thomas Sullivan, was based on that original deception.
Cracks spiraled outward from that initial blow. Seth could
only watch as the enchantment fractured. He thought his mother
would fracture with it, shatter like one of the crystal vases in
their living room. Instead, she hardened. Fury melted down the
broken pieces of her life, the ways glaziers superheat glass,
softening it to be twisted into new shapes; those pieces coalesced
into a steel core, and Seth’s mother, Supermom Goddess, lifted
her chin, eyes blazing, and stalked back into the house, flinging
the bloody towel into Jack’s face with an impressive string of
curses.
Seth turned back around.
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The Haven Heights kids had skinned at the tree line, where
they stopped, grouping up behind Alfaro. J.J. kept walking. Seth
heard an engine cut off, heard footsteps pounding across the yard
in his direction, but he didn’t take his eyes off his twin as Quinn
O’Shea slid to a stop beside him. “It’s okay, Sullivan,” she said,
breathlessly. “He’s with us. Resistance. Ms. McLain just called
me. She has it on the authority of Ben Schofield himself.”
Seth looked at J.J. “Is that true? Are you Resistance?”
J.J. tilted his head to one side, his smirk sliding with it. It was
like looking into a mirror. “What,” he said, “no hug?”
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Chapter Twenty-Five: Morituri te Salutant
“Are you a Healer?” J.J. asked.
“First responder training,” Marshall replied, tersely. “I’m an
Eagle Scout.” Of course, Seth thought.
In the backseat of the Audi, Seth was sandwiched between
J.J. and Cleo, who was trying not to crowd Marshall as he
strapped Jack’s mangled arm against his side to stabilize it.
Emery had found a stash of healing potion in Regent’s bedroom;
the bleeding had slowed considerably since Marshall had tipped
it down Jack’s throat, although Seth’s step-father was still rigid
with pain.
Emery had taken the wheel. Perched in the passenger’s seat,
knees drawn up under his chin, was Dre Alfaro, tapping away
furiously on his old MacBook. The Audi was racing south,
following the sunset toward Fort King. The rest of their
comrades had divided up between Quinn’s battered Jeep and
Regent’s Hummer – driven, to Seth’s amusement, by Lydia.
Dre slapped his MacBook closed. “Captain McLain is on
site,” he announced. “The Resistance is ready to storm the fort.”
J.J. braced his boots against the seatback. Cleo seemed to be
avoiding eye contact with him. Seth was a little worried about
her. She looked…the only word that came to mind was
unmoored, and he couldn’t figure out why. J.J. being on their
side was a positive development, wasn’t it? “Did he say how
many hunters LeRoi has inside?” she asked.
“A lot,” said Dre.
Emery’s knuckles were white on the wheel. “Not that it
matters. Once we’re inside, we won’t be able to skin, because of
the wards.”
J.J. laid his head back on the seat, smirking at Cleo around
Seth’s shoulder. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Paris,” they said together. A smile touched Cleo’s lips,
flitting away before it could take hold. “J.J. – ”
“I know.” J.J. looked out the window again, at the telephone
poles flying by so fast they blurred. Cleo’s lips sealed into a
frown.
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Seth was rooting for those two crazy kids, he really was, but
seeing as how they were on the brink of a battle… “Can’t
Agathon take down the wards?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s right.” J.J. turned back to him. “You met
Agathon. What did you think of him?”
“He was okay. I like his antennae.” Seth made wiggly
antennae fingers at his temples. J.J. grinned. Cleo smashed her
lips together, ready to burst with whatever she wasn’t saying.
“This is it!” Dre suddenly chirped, and Emery swerved,
narrowly making the turn onto the gravel access road he had
almost flown right by. “Easy, Bunny Bread,” Cleo snapped, as
Jack groaned, and Seth was thrown sideways, into J.J.
Hands gripped his arms. A shock passed through Seth’s
body, like he had grabbed a live wire. We’ll get Ben back. I
promise.
Seth blinked. In the front seat, Emery was still talking – J.J.
hadn’t spoken aloud. Seth rubbed his tingling arm. Twin
telepathy. Wicked.
Everything was happening so fast. Seth felt dazed, unable to
really process that they were on their way to a war zone. A
grassy field whizzed by on their right, hazed by the dust the Audi
was kicking up. Marshall finished tying off the bandage on
Jack’s arm and sat back.
“I hate to be the one to say it,” he said, “but if Chimera
knows you’re planning to attack, won’t they just kill the Black
Swan to keep you from freeing her and using her blood to raise
Lemuria? It seems to me she’s a pretty big threat to them.”
“Sure she is,” J.J. said, evenly. He seemed unfazed by all of
the action. Seth was curious how many battles J.J. had seen.
“Every werekin alive is a threat to them, but they still try to
collar us if they can. Our power is only dangerous if LeRoi can’t
control it. It’s why she kept Agathon and the other Gen-0s alive,
against the Partners’ orders to destroy them. It’s why she keeps
me alive, and Seth, and the Black Swan is more valuable than
either of us. If LeRoi kills her, another may never be born. And
without the Black Swan, there is no way to raise Lemuria. LeRoi
won’t give up on that dream easily. Harnessing the power of the
Totems is her obsession. Anyway,” he said, “she still believes
317
I’m on her side. A spy for Chimera, leading the Resistance into a
death trap.”
He fingered the runes on his collar. Seth, who couldn’t seem
to stop cataloguing these small details about his twin, noticed
that his right palm was branded, the backs of both of his hands
scarred with faded, lacelike patterns, as though someone had
pressed them into broken glass. Glass wouldn’t have scarred a
werekin, though. Their injuries healed completely, unless made
by silver.
Marshall kept looking at J.J., too. The blue of his eyes
matched the blue of the sky Seth could see through the
windshield. Something in them made Seth uneasy.
“J.J., how did you know Regent had kidnapped Lydia?” Seth
asked. “Did LeRoi tell you he was going to?”
“No,” J.J. said. “The cat told me.”
At first Seth thought he was making a joke, like, A little bird
told me. Then he realized J.J. was serious. “What cat?” he asked,
bewildered.
“Your cat. Poe, I think Adleigh named her.”
Seth stared at him. “You’ve been talking to my cat?”
“She’s not just a cat,” J.J. said. “She’s a familiar. I sent her
to keep tabs on you in Fairfax. I knew Adleigh would take her in.
She can’t resist strays.”
Seth’s lips parted. “You – you used my cat to spy on me?”
“I’m not a twenty-four hour psychic channel,” J.J. said, in
his defense. “Sometimes I have to sleep. I needed eyes and ears
on the outside.”
Seth tried to remember if he had done anything embarrassing
in front of Poe, like picking his nose. She had witnessed his
make-out session with Marshall that morning. He snuck a glance
at Marshall. His scarlet cheeks suggested he was thinking the
same thing. J.J. winked at him.
Looked like coming out to his twin wouldn’t be necessary.
“We’re here,” Emery announced.
The Audi slowed. Up ahead, cars were pulled off to either
side of the gravel road, offering a clear view of a collapsed
bridge blocked by a ROAD CLOSED sign. To their left, Fort
King gazed down malevolently on the Resistance convoy.
Emery looked at J.J. “The Gen-0s will help us, won’t they?”
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“Sure.” J.J.’s smile was brittle. “As much as they can.”
***
In Philly, the Resistance had recruited from the Underground
in rundown pubs and back alleys. Seth had stayed away from the
fighters – one of the only edicts Naomi had issued that he had
actually obeyed. He had observed them from afar nonetheless,
impressed by their commitment to what most considered a
hopeless cause. They had carried about them a mystique, like
comic book superheroes battling the forces of darkness.
So he had thought then. Now he saw a group of men and
women battered by a lifetime of war. Their vehicles were
jalopies: a bucket-of-rust Camaro with bald tires and a peeling
paint job; a yellow van with a faded Lucky Dragon Chinese
Restaurant logo on the side; a primer-painted Ford Ranger. Their
clothes were secondhand and travel-stained. One woman, tall,
with a mane of black hair, wore mismatched shoes, as though she
had lost one somewhere and picked another up at random to
replace it.
Underground, werekin lived off the grid, eking by on the
fringes of human society. Seth knew what it meant to go to bed
hungry, to read by candlelight because they couldn’t pay the
electric bill. Even so, those in the Underground had it easier than
Resistance fighters. The Resistance had no headquarters, no
home base – they were guerilla fighters, constantly on the move,
relentlessly hunted. The Littles, with their apartment and their
store, were anomalies, because Chimera didn’t know they were
Resistance.
Small wonder Naomi and Ben had tried to keep Seth from
joining up. They had wanted more for him than this.
Seth was sitting with J.J. on the hood of Quinn’s Jeep,
swinging his legs and munching on the candy bars Dre had
thoughtfully provided. Marshall had insisted on cleaning the
claw marks on Seth’s scalp, despite Seth’s assurances that they
would heal on their own; he knelt behind him, swiping an
antiseptic-soaked cotton ball through his hair and growling at
him to hold still. Emery was pacing, shooting anxious glances at
Melody and McLain, who were conferring near the bridge with a
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group of Resistance fighters that now appeared to include Seth’s
mother.
Afternoon shadows swayed beneath the evergreens. Dusk
was coming up fast; the sun was a brilliant orange disc in the
west, sinking steadily into the horizon. Resistance fighters
scrambled around, passing one another weapons that had been
stashed in trunks or hidden under seats. Mixed in with the
nightsticks, switchblades, and brass knuckles were crossbows,
battle axes, throwing stars, tomahawks, even samurai swords. No
guns. Werekin preferred to fight with their hands. Shoot a deer in
the woods, she can’t shoot back, the logic went.
Melody Little wore a bomber jacket over her faded bell
bottoms, her long hair braided down the center of her back.
Never before or since had there been a more hardcore
weremouse. Seth had seen her stick a pair of brass knuckles in
her pocket, and the handle of a long knife poked out of her boot.
She and McLain were arguing with a rangy young man in old
jeans and a much-worn flannel shirt. He would have been
handsome if not for the swirling scars masking his cheeks. Silver
powder burns.
Melody’s voice rose to a high-pitched squeak. Emery’s nose
wiggled. He looked queasy. “How can you eat right now?” he
demanded. Seth shrugged. He could always eat.
J.J. popped the last of his candy bar in his mouth, smearing
chocolate across his bottom lip. It was the first thing he had done
that made him look like a teenager. It was the first thing he had
done that made him look human. “I wish they’d hurry up,”
Emery muttered.
“Don’t skin, Bunny Bread,” Cleo said. She was stretched out
on the ground, head pillowed on Seth’s jacket.
“What? Oh.” Emery realized tufts of white fur were sticking
out of his ears and drew in a deep, calming breath.
“Finished,” Marshall declared. Snapping the first-aid kit
closed, he sat down on the hood beside Seth. “What’s that
about?” he asked.
He nodded his chin at the brewing argument between
Melody, McLain, and the wolfish man. Even Jack had limped
over to join in, bandaged arm cradled to his chest. “They don’t
want to fight,” J.J. said. He didn’t sound surprised.
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Emery stopped pacing. “Of course they’ll fight. That’s why
they came here.”
“No,” J.J. said. “They came here to decide if they would
fight, or if they can justify running away, like usual.”
His bland contempt for the Resistance was obvious. Emery’s
ears twitched. “What would you know about it?” he said.
“More than you, I expect.” J.J. leaned back on his elbows,
his expression, like his tone, unruffled. The Haven kids, scattered
around the Jeep, had almost unconsciously placed him at their
center – their pack alpha. Even Angelo Alfaro was listening to
him, one huge arm draped around Dre’s shoulders. Quinn
O’Shea, sitting cross-legged next to their werehyena Ozzie
Harris, had yet to take those sly blue eyes off of him. “The
Resistance nibbles at Chimera. But every time they have a
chance to take a big bite, they back off. Play it safe.”
Like the letter Thomas had written to Ben, begging the
Resistance to come after the Ark. Seth surveyed the fighters
apprehensively. Here they were, poised to assault, cooling their
heels as they awaited the outcome of the Commanders’ debate.
Ben was inside that fort. Seth was not leaving him to be
tortured and killed. He would go in alone, if he had to, but he
was going in.
A hand touched his arm. You won’t be alone. I promised you.
We’ll get him back.
Seth swung around, gaping at J.J. “You can read my mind?”
He had no idea why he said that out loud.
“No need. You’re not that hard to read, little brother,” J.J.
said. Cleo muttered what sounded like “told you so,” to the sky.
Seth made a face at her. “Well,” J.J. leapt lightly off the hood,
smoothing wrinkles out of his T-shirt, “if you’ll excuse me, I
have to go start a war.”
***
The wolfish man’s name was Derek Childers. Emery said he
was one of the newest Commanders, a decorated fighter
infamous for especially brutal interrogation techniques. From
what Seth could overhear, his opposition to storming the fort
was, essentially, that their plan relied on McLain keeping his
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word that Agathon would remove the wards. If Agathon didn’t,
and the wards remained in place, the werekin would not be able
to skin, nor would they be able to access the preternatural speed,
strength, and agility that made them such fierce warriors, even in
their human skins.
“How else do you propose we rescue the Black Swan,”
Melody stormed, “if we don’t go in there and take her by force?
Do you think Chimera is going to be so terrified of us they’ll
simply hand her over?”
Derek leaned back against the rusted Camaro, arms crossed.
“It’s a trap, Mel. Chimera is luring us in, and once we’re in there,
helpless, unable to skin, they’ll send their hunters in, along with
his men,” he jerked his head in McLain’s direction, “and collar
us.”
“Derek is right,” seconded a petite, copper-haired woman
who could only have been Quinn’s mother. “If Captain McLain
really is on our side, why doesn’t he just order his men to bring
the Black Swan out here to us?”
“Because Ursula LeRoi is inside that fort, and she will kill
any living soul who tries to take the Black Swan from her.”
The chatter quieted as the assembled werekin, nearly a
hundred strong, turned to stare at the boy who had spoken.
J.J. jumped up on the ROAD CLOSED sign. Outlined by the
fiery sunset, he looked like a wild thing, muscles tensed as
though he might spring at the slightest provocation.
“McLain and his men will help us. So will the Gen-0. But
they won’t make it past LeRoi’s hunters with the Black Swan on
their own. This is our fight. Either the werekin stand up to
Chimera, or we crawl back home and accept being slaves. And I
am telling you, if you walk away now, the Resistance will never
have another chance like this to take down LeRoi and seize
control of the Ark.”
J.J. was good, Seth thought. Resistance fighters were trading
glances with one another, nodding in agreement.
Derek Childers stepped forward. “I don’t know what chance
you think we have,” he said, scathingly. “We don’t exactly have
the element of surprise here.”
“You don’t need the element of surprise,” J.J. said, very
patiently, like he was explaining something extremely simple to
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a small child. “LeRoi may know we’re here, but she can’t do
anything about it. She can’t spirit the Ark or the Black Swan
away while we have her cornered. She doesn’t have time to call
in reinforcements. If we act, here and now, we can crush her,
once and for all.”
He closed his fist around empty air, as though squeezing the
life out of Chimera.
Seth looked around. There was a gleam in the eyes of his
kindred. Stronger than fear was their desire to land a death-blow
to Chimera.
Derek opened his mouth again, but Marshall stood up on the
hood. Amidst the battered fighters, he looked terrifically out of
place in his letterman’s jacket. “Or it could be that you’re
bringing Ursula LeRoi everything she wants – the Resistance, the
Black Swan, and the blood of the Jaguar Clan,” he said. “What
proof do we have that you aren’t still working for Chimera?”
“Marshall,” Seth hissed, mortified. He glanced at Cleo,
expecting her to leap to J.J.’s defense. But Cleo was still
stretched out on the grass, eyes closed, her complexion puttycolored. He wasn’t even sure she was awake.
Looked like it was up to Seth.
Nervously, he rose. “I trust J.J.,” he said. “I don’t need any
proof.”
Ostensibly he was talking to the Resistance, but he needed
Marshall to understand this, too. J.J. was Seth’s blood. His other
half. Seth believed in him, completely.
He realized it made no sense. Seth didn’t know J.J. Couldn’t
have told you his favorite flavor of ice cream, or what books he
had read, or if he even read books. Their connection was deeper
than that. Under the skin. It had always been there. Seth was just
beginning to understand that now. He simply hadn’t known what
it meant, this tether, for he hadn’t known until now that J.J.
existed to be tethered to.
Marshall turned on him, exasperated. “Seth, he’s collared.
How can he fight against Chimera collared? Won’t LeRoi just
kill him?”
We are prepared to die. We will fight on the side of the Black
Swan.
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Slowly, Seth looked from Marshall to J.J. Horror was lapping
at his insides, rising steadily from his toes to his heart, which
seemed to have stopped. Most of the Resistance fighters looked
at the ground. Dre tucked his head against his shoulder like he
was tucking it under his wing. Even the pallor of Lydia’s cheeks
said she understood.
J.J. held his chin high above the silver torc. “LeRoi trusts me.
She won’t use the collar against me until she sees my betrayal
with her own eyes. I should be able to help you free the Black
Swan before then, if we hurry.”
His voice did not quaver. He might have been discussing a
stranger’s death.
Cleo had opened her eyes. They were empty, unseeing. Seth
understood now, why she had been so devastated by J.J.’s shift in
allegiance. They couldn’t remove his collar; they didn’t have the
key. Ursula LeRoi would drain his life away, and nothing any of
them could do would stop her.
***
“J.J., this can’t be the only way,” Seth said.
“It’s not,” J.J. agreed. He was strapping throwing stars to his
belt; all around them, fighters were making final preparations for
the assault, selecting weapons, buckling on armor. Quinn offered
him the bow he had laid down beside the Jeep, but J.J. motioned
for her to take it, patting the knife sheathed at his hip. “The other
way is that I fight against you, on Chimera’s side, and either you
kill me, or I kill you, and LeRoi’s hunters will slaughter every
other werekin here while we’re having at one another.”
“Jesus,” Marshall muttered.
J.J. rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, Doc. I already have a
tombstone. That should simplify things.” He laid his hands on
Seth’s shoulders. “Look, Seth, a lot of us are going to die here
tonight. This is war. I’ve accepted it. If you’re coming with us,
you need to accept that you could die, too.” He backed away,
holding up a hand with his fingers spread. “We go in five. Be
ready.”
How did you get ready for a battle? Seth just wanted to get it
over with.
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McLain was suiting up at the back of the Camaro, doublechecking that his assault rifle was locked and loaded. Lydia and
Jack were sitting on the hood of the Hummer, talking to one
another in low tones. (Seth hoped his mother wasn’t armed.)
Alfaro huddled up with J.J. and Cleo over by the bridge; his
beaded dreads swung as they turned, together, to look up the hill.
J.J. gestured with his hands, miming a battering ram striking a
wall. Alfaro nodded.
“Angelo is always our muscle.”
Seth looked over at Quinn. She had discarded her Lady
Knights hoodie. J.J.’s bow and quiver of arrows were strapped
across the back of her tank top, her fleece athletic pants tucked
into her Skechers. Her hair was the brightest thing in the
gathering dark.
“You’re not werekin, are you?” Seth said.
Quinn shook her head. It had taken Seth until today to work it
out – why Quinn didn’t quite fit with the other Haven kids. None
of them had bothered glamouring themselves for the battle. Their
blood called to Seth’s. Quinn’s didn’t.
She pointed at the redheaded Commander. “That’s my mom.
Josephine. She was a Gen-3, born in captivity. Chimera paid for
her education, let her live in the human world. Then I was born.
Human.”
Seth didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry didn’t seem right;
how could he be sorry that Quinn hadn’t been raised in a cage,
trained to kill her own kind, bred like a prize cow? But he could
tell she was sorry. He had never considered before how it would
feel to not be chosen by the Totems. “What about Angelo and
Dre?” he asked.
“Dre’s parents are registered. So is he. Angelo’s mother was
registered, but she went Underground to hide him, like your dad
did with you, when he was born a warrior breed. After she died,
the Alfaros took him in. Ms. McLain set the adoption up, helped
keep him off the grid.”
“That’s why he didn’t come to the Sacred Heart game,” Seth
said, “isn’t it?”
Quinn nodded. “We couldn’t risk General Burke seeing him.
Angelo is like you. Not very good at flying under the radar.”
“It’s a warrior thing,” Seth said.
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“It’s a boy thing,” Quinn said. “All brawn and no brains.
And on that note,” she pushed off the side of the Jeep, “I think
I’ll go see if I can’t figure out a way to save your brother’s life.”
She sauntered off through the tangle of cars and fighters,
toward Emery and Dre.
True dark had set in now. Marshall’s skin looked gray in the
starlight. He was standing nearby, having listened quietly to
Quinn and Seth’s exchange. He held out a hand, and Seth let him
draw him in until his forehead rested against his shoulder.
“Promise me you’ll stay outside, Indiana,” he said.
“Promise me you’ll come back out,” Marshall retorted. Seth
sighed.
Melody whistled – their signal to form up. There were many
things Seth wanted to say, to Marshall, to Lydia, to J.J., but there
was no time. He bumped his fist against Marshall’s, blew his
mother a kiss, and trotted over to the others.
J.J. grinned at him. He looked amped, golden eyes the color
of syrup, and exceptionally round. “Homo homini lupus,” he
said.
“Man is a wolf to man,” Seth translated. “Really? We’re
marching to our doom and you’re quoting Dr. Zhivago?”
“Actually,” J.J. said, “I was quoting Plautus.”
“How about this,” chirped a small voice. Seth glanced over.
Dre was planted at J.J.’s elbow, his fringe of bangs hanging over
his eyes under his newsboy cap. He looked about twelve. “Draco
dormiens nunquam titillandus.”
J.J. wrinkled his nose. “Never tickle a sleeping dragon?”
“It is the motto of Hogwarts,” Ozzie Harris volunteered.
“I’ve got one,” Cleo said. “Morituri te salutant.”
We who are about to die, salute you.
Melody whistled again. Seth looked back once more at
Marshall. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Then, as one,
the werekin army plunged into the trees, and marched up the hill.
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Chapter Twenty-Six: Mortal Combat
If a bird had been circling above Fort King in the crisp
twilight (as one probably was, had anybody bothered to take
note) this is what it would have seen. A hundred men and
women, raggedly dressed in frayed jeans and patched coats,
streaming out of the trees, charging straight at the bristling line
of hunters in black leather arrayed before the fort’s front
entrance. The hunters were armed with knives and whips and
pistols. They should have used rifles, or better yet manned the
gun turrets on the roof, picking off the Resistance fighters as they
crested the hill. But Ursula LeRoi, who, like a bird in the sky,
was watching the scene unfold from behind the bullet-proof glass
of one of the prison’s tallest towers, trusted her wards to keep the
werekin helpless, trapped in their human skins. She trusted the
warrior she had shot like an arrow into their hearts.
Nothing she saw in the Resistance’s front line made her
question that.
“Go!” McLain yelled. “Now! Go!”
J.J. Sullivan poured on a burst of speed, outpacing his twin
by half a step. Still, Seth was right beside him as their ranks
parted, clearing a path for them. The monstrous fountain loomed
up, and at the same instant, as though they had rehearsed it, the
brothers skinned.
The man beside LeRoi shifted his weight. He was a pudgy,
balding man with an almost comical overbite. LeRoi found his
company distasteful, but like all men of mediocre talent and
tremendous ambition, Aaron Gideon had his uses. “Shall I call
General Burke, madam?” he simpered.
“No.” LeRoi’s voice cut like a blade of ice. Gideon
swallowed loudly, his muddy-brown eyes bulging behind his
thick, square glasses. LeRoi turned from the window. The small,
silver key nestled in the hollow of her throat seemed to pulse.
“No need to disturb the Partners, Dr. Gideon. I can handle this
myself.”
***
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As the jaguars cleared the fountain, the momentary confusion
on the hunters’ faces morphed into stark horror, realization
sinking in – the wards had failed. Surrounded by his kin, Seth
streaked after them as they fled back inside the prison, his roars
adding to the chorus of growls and snarls, howls and screams.
Some of the hunters split off, up the staircases to the prison’s
upper levels. Most were forced straight back, toward the rotunda.
Seth barely had time to take in the liquid-black walls, the harsh
amber lights; an alarm had begun to blare, and he caught a
glimpse of the Birdcage inside the rotunda – right before a set of
steel doors slammed shut, sealing it off.
“Caroline!” McLain shouted, racing headlong at the doors
like he meant to shoulder them open. At the last second, he was
forced to duck down behind an unmanned guard station as the
hunters on the balconies opened fire.
More hunters were appearing on the catwalks, funneling
down the stairs into the wide, high-ceilinged corridor. A gorillasized man rushed Seth, slashing a serrated dagger at his
midsection. Seth sucked his stomach into his spine – the blade
nicked his belt loop – and pivoted, slashing his claw-tipped nails
across the hunter’s throat. Gigantor fell, adding to the blood
spackling the floor.
“Nice,” J.J. grinned. He and Emery were on either side of
Seth, Emery bashing heads with a quarterstaff, J.J. fighting with
whatever came to hand. He had already loosed all of his
throwing stars and traded a morning star-style mace for a pair of
nun chucks that whistled around his blonde head, felling any
hunter insane enough to charge him.
Bullets whizzed everywhere, ricocheting off the walls and
floor, filling the air with the burning scent of silver. Quinn had
taken shelter with McLain and was picking hunters off the
walkways one at a time with her feathered arrows.
A hand clapped Seth’s shoulder. He hissed – but it was only
Cleo. “Come on, sweetheart,” she said. “You’re with me.”
She whistled to Emery. As he and a half-dozen other werekin
broke off from the main group, pelting behind her down a side
hallway that twisted deeper into the labyrinthine prison, Seth saw
J.J. striding toward the steel doors, shouting, “Alfaro! Where’s
the bull? Get him up here!”
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There was a bellow, and a velvet-skinned bull charged down
the corridor, hooves clop-clopping on the stone. McLain shoved
Quinn behind him. Just as Seth turned the corner, he saw Alfaro
ram into the doors with his horns, cracking the hinges.
Then he was running, on Cleo’s heels as she surged into a
circle of hunters in front of a set of glass doors. On the other
side, Seth recognized the cellblock Agathon had led them
through the night before. His heart flipped over in his chest. Ben.
“AAARRGGGHHH!” A hunter with a burn scar waxing his
cheek ran at Seth, screaming a battle cry. Seth cartwheeled to the
side; the hunter’s battle axe chopped into the floor, with such
force it stuck in the stone. Waxman yanked a pistol off his belt
and leveled it at Seth’s heart, smiling wolfishly.
Seth smiled right back. Scissor-kicked him in the head,
skinned, and came down on Waxman’s chest, sinking his teeth
into his neck. Waxman gurgled, then lay still.
“Not bad, sweetheart,” Cleo said, as Seth skinned back into a
human. She was at the keypad beside the doors, punching in a
code on the glyph-keys. The red light above the doors blinked
over to green. Cleo snagged a ring of silver keys off Waxman’s
belt and started pitching keys to the werekin. “The cells should
be unlocked now. Take off their collars, and send anybody who
isn’t willing or able to fight out the back door.”
She pitched a key to Seth. He didn’t have to ask whose collar
it unlocked.
At a sprint, he took off down the corridor. A burly man with
salt-and-pepper hair was stumbling out of the cell at the very
end, scratching his grizzled beard as though puzzled to find
himself free. Seth grabbed him around the waist with a cry.
Ben Schofield staggered; Seth’s arms didn’t even fit all the
way around him. Seth remembered, with a pinch in his throat,
how it had felt to be a little boy riding on Ben’s shoulders. Like
he was sitting on top of a mountain. He tipped his face up. Ben
patted the top of his head with one massive paw.
“’Bout time you got here, runt. Started to think you forgot
about me.”
“We’re rescuing the Black Swan, too,” Seth said.
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Ben swore, his Louisiana drawl thick enough to cut with a
knife. “Stars almighty, I get penned up a few days and the
planets realign. How’d LeRoi get her hands on the Black Swan?”
“I hate to tell you this, Papa Bear,” said Seth, stretching up
on tiptoe to fit the key into Ben’s collar, “but you’ve been
penned up for more like a few weeks.” Ben swore again.
As the collar popped off, a ripple moved under Ben’s skin.
Rescued werekin were rushing past them, toward the side
entrance. Some were just little kids, not even old enough to be in
school. Seth didn’t want to think about what had happened to
their parents.
Dre was ushering them outside, to where Lydia was pointing
them down the hill to safety. She had scrounged up a camouflage
jacket somewhere. “Ben, you should go with them,” Seth said.
“You’re hurt.”
“And miss my chance to see the Black Swan?” Under his
layer of bruises, Ben grinned, one of his cheek-busting grins.
“Been waitin’ my whole life for that. Let’s go.”
***
Cleo led them back to the rotunda by a different route. The
prison was a maze of sky-walks and staircases, but she never
faltered in choosing a path; by the time they came out on the
second-floor catwalk, looking down at the Birdcage, the
Resistance had broken through. Less than a dozen hunters
remained, circled around the checkered-glass cage in the center
of the room.
Out of bullets, they were facing the werekin hoard with
knives and whips. The tables from Chimera’s victory feast had
been removed. The rotunda looked stark without them, a killing
field littered with bodies, hunter and werekin.
The Black Swan had her hands pressed to the glass, dark eyes
darting around the room as though searching for someone. She
was speaking – Seth could see her mouth moving – but the cage
was soundproof. No words came through.
Automatically, Seth looked for J.J. To his relief, he spotted
him standing with Quinn. The collar around his neck cast a
bruise-like shadow on the fair skin of his throat as he turned,
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watching itty-bitty Melody Little stride to the front of the
werekin ranks. “Put down your weapons,” she squeaked,
“surrender to us, and we will grant you quarter!”
“No!” yelled a tawny-haired man Seth had seen skin into a
cougar. Hatred shone in his yellow cat’s eyes. “Hunters don’t
deserve mercy. They track us down, collar us, enslave us – ”
“They were tortured, too.” J.J.’s voice was quiet, yet it
carried easily around the rotunda. “Hunters are forced to serve
Chimera, same as we are. They didn’t ask to be what they are.”
Cleo caught her breath.
“You have my word,” Melody promised the hunters, “that if
you lay down your arms, you will not be – ”
One of the hunters, a gray-haired man with a buzz cut and a
missing right ear, aimed his crossbow at Melody’s heart.
“Bestiarii never surrender,” he growled.
And then, he yelped.
The pane of glass behind him had begun to ripple, as though
the Birdcage were made of water. Seth’s brain struggled to
process what it was seeing. How could glass move, separating
from itself, the panels coalescing into a tall, distinct shape? How
could the shape change color, from checkered squares of white
and black to mottled bluish-gray? Only as onyx eyes appeared
did Seth finally understand: One of the Gen-0 had been standing
in front of the Birdcage all along, chameleon skin blending
perfectly with the multicolored panes.
He was massive. Naked to the waist, wearing a long kilt the
color of fresh moss, bald head and bare chest scrolled with
tattoos of scarlet glyphs. A lizard tail coiled around his webbed
feet.
Lizardman’s forked tongue flicked out, as if tasting the terror
on the hunters’ faces. He raised his hands. The glyphs on his
chest fired as though newly-branded.
Hunters screamed. A rush of warm air swept through the
rotunda; when it cleared, eleven columns of black ash crumbled
into oily piles at Lizardman’s feet.
Emery squeaked. “What is that?”
“Xanthe,” Dre chirped. He was leaning on the railing,
looking delighted. “He’s a Gen-0.” When everyone turned to
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stare at him, he shrugged. “What? I hacked into Project Ark’s
files like two years ago.”
Seth really liked this kid. “Come on, young’uns.” Ben
hoisted his bulk onto the rail. “Let’s get down there.”
They all jumped, even Cleo, who had a disconcertingly
catlike ability to land on her feet. Dre skinned, and the small
brown falcon soared neatly down to the rotunda floor.
McLain had rushed forward, hands pressed to the outside of
the Black Swan’s cage. The young girl inside laid her palms on
the glass, matching them up with his. “We’re getting you out,”
McLain promised. “Just hold on. We’re getting you out.”
“Where’s Agathon?” Seth asked, of no one in particular.
And no one answered, for just then, a gust of wind stirred the air.
McLain’s eyes flew to the ceiling. “Take cover!” he shouted.
Seth made to turn, expecting snipers to be lining the
balconies, but Cleo tackled him, flattening him under her. Seth
twisted, peeking out around her elbow, looking for J.J –
There he was, throwing Emery behind one of the staircases,
Quinn’s hair flashing as she pushed them both behind her. Ben
had Dre and Melody, each tucked under one arm. Something was
falling from the sky, a sparkling cloud tinged with a metallic
scent that stood Seth’s hair on end.
And he remembered. The vent in the ceiling, programmed to
release silver powder if anyone touched the Birdcage.
Silver powder burned the skin right off of werekin.
Fighters were diving left and right. There was a bellow, and
Seth saw sparks strike off the obsidian floor as Alfaro, in his
animal skin, charged at the bank of barred windows. McLain
shouted at him – “Take cover!” – but Alfaro, bellowing louder as
the silver powder struck his flanks, slammed straight into the
glass.
The bars burst apart. Panes crashed down, a waterfall of
jagged shards. The noise was deafening. Cleo curled tighter
around Seth, shielding him with her body as night air swept
through the rotunda, sweeping the poisonous cloud out the doors
at the far end.
Outside on the terrace, Alfaro clambered to his feet, shaking
glass and silver powder out of his dreadlocks – cut and blistered,
but alive, and grinning.
332
Until a shadow passed over them.
Cleo rolled off of Seth, into a fighter’s stance, ready to
pounce. “Wait,” Seth said, catching her arm, as the shadow flew
down from the catwalk and glided harmlessly over their heads,
landing in a rustle of black robes and membranous wings beside
the Birdcage.
It was Agathon. Quite calmly, he raised one powerful fist
above his head and brought it down on the dome. The Birdcage
shattered into a million pieces.
Cries of victory rang out all around the rotunda.
McLain was the first one to leap over the broken glass. The
Black Swan rose, shaking glass out of her glossy black hair, and
placed her hands in his. “Will,” Seth thought he heard her say, in
a soft, musical voice.
McLain beckoned to Agathon. The girl threw McLain a
questioning look; he nodded, grimly, and she bit her lip as she
stepped into Agathon’s open arms. She looked tiny cradled
against his chest.
Running footsteps were drawing nearer, down the corridor,
along the catwalks. Resistance fighters began to pull together in
the center of the room, forming ranks around their fallen kindred.
The fight was not over.
Ben was growling orders. Seth saw J.J. pull Emery out from
under the stairs. His golden eyes met Agathon’s across the room.
Some wordless communiqué passed between them, and Seth had
the sudden, uncomfortable feeling they were agreeing to a plan
no one else was privy to. The other Gen-0, Lizardman, had
disappeared.
Agathon lifted into the air. The Black Swan cried out and
clung tighter to his neck. “Will!”
McLain’s features might have been etched from stone. “Go,”
he commanded, hoarsely. “Get her out of here, Agathon. Take
her somewhere safe.”
Agathon dipped his head. With a flutter of wings, he soared
out into the night, a dark shadow passing across the full moon.
Not a single werekin moved. Ursula LeRoi had just glided
into the room, flanked by a dozen hunters, and twice as many
Marines.
333
***
“These are my terms,” LeRoi said.
She stood on the dais where J.J. had lain during Chimera’s
victory feast, hands in the pockets of her white lab coat. Her
hunters ringed the room, rifles trained on the sixty or so
surviving werekin. Seth stood beside J.J. Cleo was anchored on
his twin’s other side.
The Marines had not budged from the doorway. Their gazes
were fixed on McLain.
LeRoi went on, smoothly. “Every werekin in this building
will submit to being collared. You,” she flicked her fingers at
McLain like she was brushing lint off her sleeve, “will surrender
to General Burke for court martial. If you tell me where you have
taken the Black Swan, I will see to it that your sentence is
commuted from death to life in prison. Agree to these terms, and
most of you,” she glanced at J.J., “will live. Refuse, and we will
exterminate you all.”
“With all due respect, Dr. LeRoi,” McLain said, “you can
take your terms and go straight to hell.”
Seth expected her to order her men to shoot him. Instead,
LeRoi’s full lips melted into a smile. “Tempting, to become
attached to these creatures, isn’t it, Captain?” Her fingers dipped
inside the collar of her lab coat, sliding along a delicate gold
chain. J.J. tensed. “Tempting, to believe their pretense of
affection is genuine – that, were they free to do as they chose,
they would love you, as you have loved them. But they are not of
our kind, Captain. They are not even of this Earth. As I told
Elijah Bishop, if we do not conquer them, they will conquer us.”
McLain looked like he was about to drop the “with all due
respect” part from his next reply. But before he could say
anything, Emery Little broke from the werekin ranks.
He had lost his denim jacket somewhere; his arms were
peppered with burns from the silver powder. Yet he did not
flinch as he stared down LeRoi. “You may have resurrected us,
Doctor, but you know nothing about werekin. We will never
consent to be collared. The Black Swan is beyond your reach
now, and someday, she will finish you. If it’s my last wish on
this earth, I wish that she sends you back to whatever pit it is that
spawned you.”
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Then Emery did the most unexpected thing imaginable. He
skinned.
LeRoi screeched. The cotton-tailed bunny had shot across the
floor – straight up the leg of her pants. A small pink nose popped
out beside her ear, only to vanish again; LeRoi slapped at her
chest, trying to swat the bulge moving down the front of her
shirt. The hunters were too stunned to help her.
Seth was stunned himself. What was Emery doing?
The rabbit shot out of LeRoi’s pants and off across the floor
again. Something small, shiny, and silver was clutched in his
teeth. “Dre!” Quinn shouted. “Now, Dre, do it now!”
LeRoi grabbed her throat. Her face went from white to purple
in a heartbeat. “Stop him!” she screamed.
Hunters scrambled to train their rifles on the bunny. From the
corner of his eye, Seth saw Dre skin, soaring up toward the
rafters. LeRoi lifted her hands, crying out a spell in a language
that spoke directly to the magic in Seth’s blood, like a live wire
had been connected to his heart. He thought for a second she was
cursing Dre right out of the sky, and he started to shout at Quinn
for putting him in harm’s way; but then the collar around J.J.’s
neck began to glow, and Seth realized what LeRoi was doing,
and what Emery had stolen from her.
On a scream of pure agony, J.J. dropped to his knees, spine
arching as pain spiked through him. Seth felt that pain in his
bones, as though the marrow had been turned to scalding lava.
He slumped into Ben. “J.J.!” he screamed.
The hunters were taking aim at the rabbit. In a blink, Emery
skinned; he threw up his hand, and something swooped down
toward it; bullets ricocheted off the floor and walls, but the small
brown falcon weaved through them, making for Cleo; her hand
shot out; Dre’s beak opened; the key – the key to J.J.’s collar,
nicked right off LeRoi’s neck – tumbled, as if in slow motion,
through the air…
…right into Cleo’s palm.
The rotunda had erupted into pandemonium. Enraged, the
werekin ranks charged the hunters. Xanthe the Lizardman
appeared from seemingly out of nowhere and lifted his hands,
casting silent spells that rumbled the walls, burning hunters to
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ash where they stood. The Marines rushed in – but instead of
opening fire on the werekin, they began picking off hunters.
Seth was only distantly aware of any of this. He had crawled
to J.J., who was writhing on the floor, tears streaming down his
cheeks as Cleo fit the key into his collar with trembling hands.
“I’m here, J.J., it’s Cleo, I’m right here, hold on,” she was
saying.
“Seth,” J.J. managed to gasp. “LeRoi…”
Seth whipped around. Through the smoky haze of
gunpowder, he saw Ursula LeRoi racing toward the open
window. Escaping.
He had skinned before he consciously decided to. In two
long, loping strides, the jaguar crossed the room. LeRoi
screamed as his claws sank into her shoulders from behind. She
twisted as she fell, managing to brace an elbow against Seth’s
chest as he snapped at her face. Her other hand came up. In it she
held a pistol. Seth could smell the silver on the barrel.
Something was hurtling toward them, a blur of black and
silver. LeRoi’s lips curled into a feral, triumphant smile; her
finger touched the trigger just as the black jaguar crashed into
Seth, sending them both toppling through the shattered window,
onto grass powdered with newly-fallen snow.
Seth landed on his side, unaware of sliding back into his
human skin as his temple impacted painfully with the ground.
Panicked shouts and stampeding feet sounded distantly in his
ears. A face appeared above his. “J.J.,” Seth tried to say. He
wasn’t sure he actually formed the word. Warmth was spreading
across his stomach. His nose picked up the sweet-wet scent of
blood, the sharp metallic tang of silver.
Blinding pain uncoiled inside of him. Seth’s vision went
white, an explosion of light that hurtled him up, up, up, into the
stars.
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Epilogue
“And that,” said Seth, “is all there is to tell.”
Leigh folded a corner of his pillowcase between her thumb
and forefinger, contemplating the dust motes swirling above their
heads in the syrupy afternoon light. They had done this a lot the
past five days: laid on Seth’s bed, stared at his ceiling, and
talked. It had taken him that long to work through his life story
for her.
Since the battle, Seth hadn’t been up for much but talking.
LeRoi’s close-range silver bullet had ripped him open hipbone to
hipbone, a half-inch below the belly button. Without the
combined healing powers of the Gen-0s and his own supernatural
powers of regeneration, he would not have been around to tell his
tale.
“So.” Rolling onto her side, Leigh launched in to her usual
litany of questions. “Your dad never told Chimera where to find
you?”
“He didn’t know where to find me.” Seth wiggled onto his
side. “He and Naomi agreed that if he was ever collared, she
would take me away, somewhere he wouldn’t know to find us.
That way, Chimera could never force him to tell them where I
was.”
“And how did Chimera find the Black Swan?”
“We’re not sure,” Seth said, “but Ben thinks it’s most likely
we have a spy in the Resistance.”
This was what Ben had told Seth when he had stopped by to
see him earlier in the week, along with Ms. Ingrid McLain, who
had also brought along the homework Seth was missing at
Fairfax High. His books and papers were now piled on his
dresser, with a Get Well Soon card from his Honors classmates
and a big balloon from the basketball team, signed by everyone
except Cam.
Seth’s cover story for missing a week of school and resurfacing with a brand-new scar? Motorcycle accident. He was
trying not to dwell on how much of this weekend he would have
to devote to studying if he wanted to keep his grades high
enough to be eligible for basketball.
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“Naomi hated keeping secrets from you,” Ben had told him,
one of his paw-like hands curled around a coffee cup in Lydia’s
kitchen. Seth had been wrapped up in a bathrobe and a quilt,
recovering from the fever that had accompanied being poisoned
by the silver in the bullet. “We knew if you found out about J.J.,
you’d join the Resistance to save him, and we couldn’t risk
LeRoi getting her hands on you, too, and adding your blood to
the Ark. Thomas made the both of us swear by the Black Swan
never to tell you about your brother. Naomi went back on that to
send you here, to your mother. That was the lie she hated most –
letting you believe your mama didn’t want you.”
Ben had been among the Resistance fighters to help Thomas
Sullivan escape from Fairfax the night J.J. was taken. After
Thomas was collared, he and Naomi had appointed themselves
Seth’s bodyguards.
Six weeks ago, Seth would have been furious about the
deception. Now, he was grateful. Thanks to Naomi and Ben, he
had lived free all of his life. Staying that way was up to him.
Seth crawled off the bed now and started dredging clean
clothes from his dresser. His laundry situation was getting dire.
Almost die saving the world and you still had to wash your own
jeans.
Leigh sat up. “You could have told me, you know.”
Seth had assumed they would have this conversation
eventually. “I was afraid you’d think I was a freak,” he said.
“You are a freak,” Leigh said, and dodged the wadded-up
sock Seth pitched at her. “I’m just saying you could have trusted
me.”
“I do trust you.” Seth sighed. Might as well get the whole
truth out there at once, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “If I’d told
you I was werekin, I would have had to tell you that your father
was working for Chimera, and I didn’t want to do that.”
Leigh lowered her eyes. “I wish you had told me. Then I
would have known what he really was.”
This was as much as she had said about Jack in a week. Jack
had already moved out, packed his bags and set up residence in
the loft apartment above the Steward and Regent Law Firm –
which was just “Steward” now, Seth supposed, since Regent had
skipped town, along with LeRoi. Divorce proceedings were
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underway. Seth thought Jack was lucky Lydia hadn’t skewered
him with his katana. Turning on Chimera in the end hadn’t
counted for much in the face of seventeen years of lies.
Leigh was refusing to speak to her father. She had burned her
Georgetown sweatshirt on a ceremonial pyre in the backyard.
Seth had not spoken to Jack yet, either. He planned to,
though. He had questions, about Thomas, about Regent, only his
soon-to-be-ex step-father could answer.
“Anyway,” Leigh said, unrolling his wadded-up sock and
slapping it against the pillow, “I wasn’t talking about the werekin
stuff. I meant you could have told me about you and Marshall.”
Seth froze with his hand inside his sock drawer. “What about
me and Marshall?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Seth. Maybe that you’re dating him?”
Seth whirled around. Leigh was smirking like the cat that
caught the canary. “How do you know about that?” he
demanded.
“Marshall told Whitney, and Whitney told me. Don’t be
mad,” Leigh said, quickly. “He said she could. I know you guys
are keeping things on the down-low – ”
“Leigh,” Seth closed his drawer, “you are never to use that
expression in conjunction with my love life again. Ever.”
Leigh grinned. “My point is, you could have told me. I
wouldn’t have outed you.”
“It wasn’t about that. I thought you might be upset.”
“Give me some credit, brother dear. We may live in
Hicksville, but most of us here are more progressive than that.”
“Not about the gay part. About the Marshall part. Because
you liked him first.” Nope, this wasn’t awkward…
“You know,” Leigh said, philosophically, “I didn’t really
like Marshall that much. He’s gorgeous, definitely, but he’s
so…nice. Nice gets boring. Now, Captain McLain.” She waggled
her eyebrows. “There is one fine-looking hunk of soldier. I
wouldn’t mind to let him dress me up in camouflage and – ”
“Leigh, seriously, I might want to eat again someday, okay?”
Leigh giggled. Seth sank down on his windowsill. “So Marshall
told Whitney we’re dating?”
“That’s what she said.” Leigh pulled her hair in front of her
face, checking for split-ends. “Is it not true?”
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Seth didn’t know. He and Marshall had never finished their
conversation about being an us.
When Seth had awoken in Fort King’s infirmary, nearly
twenty-four hours after the battle, Marshall had been at his
bedside. Seth’s relief had quickly turned to fury when he had
heard what Marshall had been up to.
LeRoi had vanished. But she would still be out there
somewhere, still searching for the Source, still obsessed with
raising Lemuria. The Black Swan believed someone inside the
Resistance had orchestrated her capture. Someone high-ranking;
only a small circle of Resistance fighters knew who she was, or
how to find her. Until the spy was found, it was safest for the
Black Swan to disappear. And so, like a true Golden Boy,
Marshall had volunteered to take her wherever she wanted to go.
They had driven away from Fort King in his Audi, the boy next
door and the mythical savior of Seth’s kindred.
Sixteen hours later, Marshall had returned, alone.
Bad enough that Marshall, like Seth’s family, might be
targeted by whatever remained of Chimera for his association
with werekin. If LeRoi found out Marshall was the only person
on the planet to know the Black Swan’s whereabouts, she would
stop at nothing to capture him.
They hadn’t fought about it yet, because Marshall had
refused to argue with Seth while he was hurt, and since that first
day, Seth had neither seen nor spoken to him. Golden Boy track
records did not make up for disappearing for over a day – and
then refusing to explain where you had been or what you had
been doing. Marshall was grounded. As in serious lockdown. No
phone, no Internet, no crossing the driveway to visit Seth or
Leigh. Meredith was even driving him to school because Dr.
Townsend had taken his car keys. With good behavior, he might
be eligible for parole around his thirtieth birthday.
According to Leigh, who had seen him at school, Marshall
considered it a small price to pay for aiding the werekin cause.
***
After he shooed Leigh out of his room, Seth took a hot bath
and slipped into jeans and a T-shirt. The ropy scar across his
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midsection had faded to salmon-pink. In time, like the lacelike
scars on J.J.’s hands, it would turn white. But Seth would carry it
the rest of his days. He had been shot point-blank by a silver
bullet. Even werekin healing had its limits.
Peanut butter cookies were cooling on the stove when he
meandered downstairs. Lydia was in the living room, engaged in
one of her thrice-daily conversations with her divorce attorney.
Will McLain was just coming in the back door.
Seth tossed him a cookie. “Perfect timing,” he said.
“A good soldier always knows when grub’s on.” McLain
doffed his field cap with a grin. “Good to see you up and around.
Aunt Ingrid told me you looked pretty rough earlier this week.”
He leaned against the counter Seth had hopped up on. “Your
mom home?”
“She’s on the phone. Divorce stuff. You can wait if you
want, but she may be a while.”
“That’s okay. I actually just needed to leave this for her.”
McLain placed an envelope labeled CONFIDENTIAL on the
counter. “Her credentials,” he explained. “So she can come and
go from Fort King as needed while we set up Operation Swan
Song.”
“Cool code name,” Seth said.
“It was your brother’s idea.”
Seth was not surprised. J.J. had been holed up with the
Resistance command all week. The battle had changed the face
of the war the werekin were fighting. General Burke and his
black ops division, under the command of Captain McLain, had
set up shop at Fort King. Project Ark was no more; whichever
shadowy government committee had overseen the project had,
thanks in large part to McLain’s lobbying, opted to forego
collaring werekin. McLain’s unit had a new mission now:
destroying what was left of Chimera, freeing the werekin still in
captivity, and guarding the Ark. Now that mission had a name.
Operation Swan Song.
The existence of werekin would remain classified, for now.
But no longer would they be hunted with impunity. No longer
would the Resistance operate in the shadows. They were
organized now. They had an H.Q.
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And Seth had gotten his wish. He would be staying in
Fairfax.
“Will!” Lydia came in, beaming. Now that she had her
memories back, she remembered her old friend Ingrid and her
nephew quite fondly. “Oh, are those the credentials? I actually
wanted to talk to you about some things…”
Seth scooped up a handful of cookies and headed to the
basement. He didn’t have top-secret clearance like Lydia.
Lydia had offered to convert Jack’s office into a second
bedroom for J.J. J.J. had declined, instead dragging the seldomused camping gear out of the garage and literally pitching a tent
in the basement. Seth tried not to take that as evidence of how
brief his twin intended his stay with them to be.
J.J. was not downstairs, but Poe was napping on the green
blanket folded neatly atop his cot. “Been spying on anybody
lately?” Seth asked her. She blinked her one eye.
McLain was gone and Lydia was mixing up another batch of
cookies when Seth came upstairs. “You must be feeling better,”
she said. “I haven’t seen you move without wincing in days.”
“Does that mean I can go back to school tomorrow?”
“Honey, don’t you think it’s too soon?” Lydia said. “After
all you’ve been through…”
“Please, Mrs. Steward?” Seth turned on his big, pleading
eyes. “I am so bored. There’s nothing to do here all day. You’re
off plotting with the Resistance. Leigh is at school. J.J. is doing
whatever J.J. does. Yesterday I watched four hours of SoapNet.
Four hours. Is that the life you want for your child?”
“Okay, okay,” Lydia laughed, weakening. “But no
basketball this week.”
“Mom!”
The cookie dough spoon stilled in Lydia’s hand like the
batter had turned to cement.
Seth worked his lower lip between his teeth. The word had
simply burst out of him, as though it had been sitting on his
tongue for weeks.
After a moment, Lydia resumed stirring. “Don’t ‘mom’ me,
Seth Michael. You were shot in the stomach. That means you sit
out a week from sports. However,” she raised a hand to still his
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protest, “I do believe Marshall is in the driveway shooting hoops
right now, if you wanted to get in a little practice…”
Seth kissed her cheek. “Thanks. Mom.”
Lydia tried very hard to make her grin into a stern glare.
“Take it easy, please? No pushing.”
“Got it,” said Seth, backing away. “No pushing.”
“And no dunking.”
“Absolutely. No dunking.”
“And put on a coat.”
Mothers.
Outside, Marshall was going in for a layup, guarded by Dre
Alfaro. “I’m shocked at you, Indiana,” Seth said, as he stepped
over the shrub-fence. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your room,
meditating on your sinful ways?”
“Dad’s at work,” Marshall explained. He motioned for Dre
to pass the ball to Seth. “Stand back, Dre. Let Philadelphia here
show us how it’s done.”
“I don’t know, Indiana.” Seth looked Dre up and down. He
had on his usual pinstripe pants and a vintage Star Trek T-shirt –
Re-Spin attire. “Seems to me Baby Bird has some moves of his
own.”
Marshall narrowed his eyes. Before he could say anything, a
clunker van pulled up to the curb. Emery little leaned out the
window, waving to them.
Emery had come by to take Whitney to see Cleo’s new place.
Leigh and Whitney were hailed, and they all piled into the van,
since Marshall’s Audi was off-limits. Technically Marshall was
not allowed to leave the house except for school and basketball,
but Dr. Townsend was at the hospital, and Meredith was off for a
girls’ weekend in Vegas with her sisters, so he decided to risk it.
Marshall was all kinds of rebelling these days, Seth thought.
Cleo had taken up residence in Regent’s house, which at first
had baffled Seth; it wasn’t like she had happy memories of the
place. The house did have certain advantages, though. It was
close to the fort, for one. And there was the tricked-out
underground training studio, the siege-worthy stockpile of
weapons, the awesome hot tub in the master bath…The
Resistance had also wanted someone to keep an eye on the house
in case Regent chose to return, though personally, Seth doubted
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he would show his stripes in Fairfax again for a long while.
Regent was too clever for that.
Emery parked beside the woodpile, behind a battered Jeep
with a DON’T HATE THE PLAYER sticker on the back glass.
Through the window, Seth could see J.J. sitting on the kitchen
counter, chatting with Vixen O’Shea. He frowned and started for
the front door, but Marshall caught his sleeve. “Wanna take a
walk?” he said.
Seth watched Quinn flip her fiery hair over her shoulder, and
sighed. “Sure,” he said.
***
They strolled down the winding drive, close enough to hold
hands, though they didn’t. Cotton ball clouds dotted the sky,
swabbed pink by the February sunset. Snow clung to the grass in
uneven patches, frosting the gnarled tree roots. Seth had never
appreciated just how peaceful it was around Regent’s house.
Most of the times he had been there he had either been driving
his motorcycle or running for his life.
“Are you feeling better?” Marshall asked.
“Two hundred percent,” Seth said. “Well enough to kick
your butt for that stunt with the Black Swan.”
“It wasn’t a stunt, Philadelphia. Someone had to help her,
and you were a little busy.”
“Agathon – ”
“ – isn’t exactly inconspicuous enough to help a person
disappear,” Marshall said, patiently.
Seth kicked a rock. “Well sure, if you’re going to be all
reasonable about it.”
Marshall grinned and sat down on the trunk of a fallen-over
hickory. Seth remained standing, hands in the pockets of his
camouflage jacket, determined to say his piece. “I don’t like you
being in the middle of this, Indiana. And by ‘don’t like,’ I mean I
don’t want you in the middle of this.”
“Do you think I want you in the middle of it?”
“That’s different. I don’t have a choice.”
“You’re wrong,” Marshall said. “You do have a choice.”
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“No. I don’t.” Seth extended a hand, letting his claws slide
out, rosettes bloom along his wrist. “Born this way. Can’t change
it.”
“But you could run away,” Marshall persisted. “Go
Underground. You choose to fight.”
“Well, that’s me,” Seth said. “It doesn’t have to be you.”
“I’m not interested in being a warrior, Seth. I hope that’s the
last battle I ever see, and I didn’t even really see it.” Shaking
back the sleeves of his letterman’s jacket, Marshall pushed his
dark hair off his forehead. “I did what I did because it was the
right thing to do. If I’m ever in a situation like that again, I hope I
have the guts to do the same thing.”
There really wasn’t anything Seth could think of to argue
with that.
He sat down on the tree trunk. “So,” he said, trying not to
sound nervous. “Before we were rudely interrupted by people
trying to kill me, I seem to recall you and I were having a serious
conversation.”
“Actually, we were interrupted by Whitney,” Marshall said.
“But point taken.” He looked over at Seth. “Are you still offering
what you were offering? For this – us – to be private?”
Seth nodded. His mouth was too dry to speak.
“In that case,” Marshall said, “I have a long answer and a
short answer. Which do you want first?”
“Short,” Seth said, automatically. He was no good with
suspense.
“Okay. The short answer is: I don’t think right now is the
best time to come out to my parents. I’m not saying there will
ever be a good time, but I think there’s enough going on for both
of us right now without adding that to the mix.”
Fair enough, Seth thought. It had been a crazy month. “And
the long answer?”
“The long answer…”
Getting to his feet, Marshall walked a little ways away. He
leaned against a maple tree with his arms folded. The slanting
light cast shadows under his eyes, deepened the planes of his
face, and Seth could imagine how Marshall would look ten years
from now, with all the boyishness gone. He thought about things
like that with Marshall. Seth’s life had never been settled. Even
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now, he wasn’t sure how it would all pan out – if LeRoi would
send her hunters after him, if Operation Swan Song would be
scrapped, the werekin exterminated as a threat to the human race.
He didn’t know how long he would get to stay in Fairfax. He
didn’t know how long he would get, period.
“The long answer is that the night I met you, New Year’s
Eve, I had made up my mind to ask Leigh out, officially,”
Marshall said.
Okay. Not the story Seth had been expecting. He did his best
to arrange a neutral expression in place.
“I didn’t mean to use her.” Marshall drummed his heel
against the base of the tree, that look hovering around his
features again. “I’ve never had a girlfriend. Gone out on a few
dates, but nothing ever felt right. Dad had started mentioning it.
Casually. Asking me what girls I liked at school, who I was
taking to prom. And I’m not deaf. I know the stuff Cam says
about me behind my back.
“I’d only ever thought of Leigh as Whitney’s best friend.
Then she started high school last year, and it was like, all of a
sudden people were pushing us to go out. I couldn’t understand
what was holding me back. Finally I just decided to go for it. At
midnight, when the ball dropped, I was going to kiss her.
“Then you walked into that kitchen, and you were so…you.”
Seth smirked. Cockiness was one of his finer qualities. “I wanted
to stay right there and talk to you, all night, but I couldn’t think
of a single thing to say. Whitney was fixing you milk and
cookies, and you were smiling at her, and I was jealous. Of my
sister. Flirting with a guy.
“I didn’t kiss Leigh at midnight. I was sick. I didn’t want it
to be true. I went home, and I told myself it wouldn’t be true. I
would be your friend, just your friend. But then I saw you, on
Leigh’s birthday, and – I couldn’t.” Marshall finally took a
breath. “Because it is true. This is who I am. It’s like your skin.
You can’t hide it, and you can’t change it.”
He looked away then, into the trees. Seth stood. Closed the
distance between them with one long stride. Took Marshall’s
hands in his, linked them behind his neck, and stretched up on
his toes so their foreheads were touching.
346
“Would you?” he asked, softly. “Would you change it, if you
could?”
Marshall turned his head. Those baby blue eyes locked onto
Seth’s. “Not with you,” he said. “I wouldn’t change it with you.”
347
Acknowledgements
Thanks most especially to my early and avid readers: my
sister, who reads (and loves) everything I write, and corrects my
sports lingo when I err; Abby, who allowed me to immortalize
her in fiction for a second time as the beauteous Quinn O’Shea;
Patti, who assured me jaguars are the most badass of cats; and
L.J., who listened to more drafts than any friend was ever
required to. Thanks also to the readers at FictionPress.com for
their insightful reviews of a much different version of this story –
you inspired me to continue; to Cady, for providing the insider’s
high school perspective; to Ambreena, for persuading me in a
single email of the impact these stories could have on readers; to
Amy and Howard, fellow “mountain climbers,” who keep me
somewhat sane during the writing process; and to Cinda
Williams Chima, for the heartfelt advice that real writers love to
write, others to have written.
Finally, to all of the courageous souls out there, young and
old, gay, straight, bi, or trans, who dare to live in your own skin:
Thank you for making the world a more beautiful place to be.
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About the Author
Jesse Daro spends most of her time writing. Science fiction,
fantasy, and horror are her favorite genres.
She has a Ph.D. in English and teaches literature and writing
in the Midwest.
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