The Calling (Darkness Rising) (14 page)

“Situation averted,” I said. My voice still sounded strange.

Daniel squeezed my hand again, reassuring me. But the others said nothing. I looked back to tell them it was okay, she was gone, and we were safe, only they weren’t staring after the cougar. They were staring at me.

I released Kenjii and started to speak, then coughed to clear away whatever was making my voice sound so odd. I reached up to rub my throat. When my fingers brushed my skin, they felt strange, rough.

I looked down at my hand. It was … wrong. Misshapen. My fingers were thick, my nails almost like claws. There was hair on the back of my hand. Thick tawny hairs. As I stared at it, my hip started to throb again.

I looked over at my other hand, the one Daniel was holding. It was the same way. He squeezed it again and leaned toward me, whispering, “It’s okay.”

I wrenched away and ran.

I
RACED PAST THE
others, who stared at me like I was a sideshow freak. Kenjii tore after me. Daniel did too, calling my name. I stumbled into the forest, branches scraping me from all sides. I didn’t look for a clear path, just barreled through the dense trees until I tripped over a log and went flying. Then I lay there, facedown. Kenjii caught up, licked my face and nudged me.

“Maya?”

I pushed up and scrambled into a patch of dead brush, burrowing into it, Kenjii tunneling after me. When I was sure I was hidden, I stopped and pressed my rough palms to my eyes, heaving deep breaths as my heart thudded.

I stretched my hands out. Were they going back to normal? I touched my face, running my fingers along the familiar planes and contours. They felt … off. Not completely different, just off, like the lines had shifted, cheekbones lower, chin less sharp, nose flattening.

I rubbed my face hard.

“Maya?”

Kenjii lifted her head from my lap. When I still didn’t answer Daniel, she whined as if to say
Are we hiding on Daniel? It’s been a long time since we played this game
.

“Maya?”

“I—I’ll be out in a minute.”

I heard him come closer. He didn’t try to peer at me, just grunted as he lowered himself to the ground.

“How about we back up?” he said.

“What?”

“Back up to before we went in the cabin. I was going to tell you what I thought was going on. With you. It starts with that old woman at the tattoo studio. The one who said you were a skin-walker.”

“I—”

“Not yet. This is my chance to look brilliant. So she said you’re a skin-walker. You’ve always had a way with animals. Especially cougars. Lately they won’t leave you alone. We looked up skin-walkers, and saw that they change shape and have healing powers. Now, we could’ve made the leap and said that proves she was right, but we didn’t, because that would be crazy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Like getting sent to a book about Italian witch-hunters—when I’m Italian and I’m good at fighting—and deciding that’s what I must be. Crazy. But then I found that note at Mina Lee’s place. A list of four terms, including
skin-walker
and
benandanti
. That made me think some more about your healing powers and the big cats and the visions and the old woman at the tattoo place and your birthmark. I thought about me, too, the weird vibes, how they keep getting stronger, and about what my dad says, and dreams I’ve been having, and some other stuff—just small stuff, but it’s been bugging me. At that point, it was starting to look a little more odd, but it was still too big a leap.”

“So when did you make it?”

“I came close to a conclusion when I sent that helicopter pilot flying, but I wasn’t really ready to commit until Sam’s story sank in. With you? I wasn’t sure until that Moreno guy mentioned Annie. Rafe’s sister. I remembered the signs of a cougar around their cabin. I was worried. You brushed it off. Then Rafe freaked out about her going missing, and you two were whispering. When Moreno mentioned her, I flashed back to the cougar who appeared at your party. The young female with a mark on her flank. Annie’s a skin-walker, isn’t she? She changes into a cougar.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what the mark means. Her mark and yours.”

“Yes.”

I told him the story. About Annie. About Rafe. About why Rafe came to Salmon Creek. About what he found there: me. What he told me about us, about my mother, about the experiment.

Then, slowly, I crawled out of the dead brush until I could see him sitting there, arms wrapped around his knees, listening. Just listening.

“So that’s why Rafe came to Salmon Creek,” I said. “He was looking for the skin-walker. That’s why he was going through the girls. That’s why he focused on me. He figured it out.”

Daniel shifted over until he was kneeling, his face a foot from mine.

“He did like you,” he said softly. “That wasn’t an act. I’m sure of it.”

And I’d liked him. Really liked him. I realized that now. Too late, I realized that.

When I’d first felt an attraction to Rafe, I told myself it was just that. Attraction. Then I discovered we were both skin-walkers and that seemed to explain it. I’d probably have felt the same for any skin-walker guy who showed up, and he’d have felt the same for any skin-walker girl.

That made it easier. Easier than admitting I’d fallen for a guy who’d conned me. For a guy who might not really like me back. But now I realized how wrong I’d been.

When I thought of Rafe, I did remember his touch, his kiss. But what I thought about most of all was him. Just him. His laugh. His eyes. His serious side. His fears for his sister. His worries for her, for himself, for me. His honesty that night on the roof, when he’d opened up. Wanting me to get to know him better.

Now I never would get to know him better, and that’s what really hurt. Too much pride. Too few opportunities.

I rubbed my face.

“It’s back to normal,” Daniel said.

“What?” I peered at him through my fingers.

“Your face. It looks normal, so you can stop rubbing. It wasn’t bad before anyway. Just a little … different.”

He reached to pull one hand from my face. “I know you’re worried about what happened to Annie and whether it will happen to you. You’re probably worried about the whole ‘changing into a cat’ part, too. But it’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out and we’ll find help and it’ll be okay. I promise.”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“About what?”

“Yesterday. I made that bone-headed comment about werewolves, and you decided not to tell me yet.”

“No, that’s not—”

“Liar. It was a dumb thing to say.”

“Um, no, I’m pretty sure that changing into an animal does qualify as a crazy idea.”

“Sure, but in a crazy cool way. I’m jealous. What do I get? Some kind of sonic boom shout? As superpowers go, very lame.” He settled in beside me. “So tell me everything else. Have you ever started changing like that before?”

I smiled. “Later. Let’s start with you. You mentioned dreams and other things. Tell me what’s been happening.”

He leaned back. I looked over at him, his face turned up to catch a few rays of sun streaming through the treetops.

“The dreams started a few months ago,” he said. “Dreams of fields. Fields of grapes and olives, which is weird enough. I’m not even sure if I knew how olives grow, but in the dream, I knew that’s what they were. I—”

“Daniel?” Sam’s voice.

We could hear all three of them tramping through the bushes. Kenjii got up, growling.

“You tell them, girl,” Daniel muttered. “No rest for the weary.”

“No,” I said. “No rest for the endangered. We have to—” I stopped. “Nicole. Oh my God, I forgot about Nicole.”

“What about Nicole?” Sam asked as they came into view.

They were still eyeing me warily, but I ignored it. Explanations later. Right now, I had to tell them what Moreno had said about Nicole. And, admittedly, I was happy for the diversion.

“So Nicole’s alive,” Sam said after I finished talking.

“Somewhere.”
Daniel’s look said he knew exactly where this was headed. “They won’t be holding her around here.”

“Why not?” I said. “She’s their best source of information about us. And she’d be the perfect lure.”

“Which is exactly why we can’t try to rescue her. It’s a setup.”

As Daniel and I argued, the others were quiet, still assimilating the news.

Corey spoke first. “Okay, it’s freaking amazing that Nic is alive. I have no idea whether we should look for her or not, but I’m pretty sure we need to discuss a few other things. Like what the hell happened to Maya back there.”

“She’s a shape-shifter,” Daniel said. “Eventually she’s going to be able to turn into a cougar. Sam and I? We’re demon-hunters.”

Corey studied Daniel’s face, then mine.

“This is going to be a long talk, isn’t it?” he said at last.

“Yep. Better sit down.” Daniel pointed at the bag in Corey’s hand. “And break out the granola bars and drink boxes.”

W
E TOLD THEM EVERYTHING—WELL
, almost everything. I was saving the stuff I’d found out at the cabin. This was enough for now. Too much actually. Despite having seen our powers in action—my near-transformation and Daniel knocking out the pilot—Corey and Hayley couldn’t seem to process it.

Corey kept saying, “Are you sure?” tentatively, as if he didn’t want to insult our intelligence, but he couldn’t help thinking there had to be a logical explanation. Hayley just stared at me.

When I finally stopped talking, she said, “Are you crazy?”

“Hey!” Sam said.

“No, seriously. You think you’re going to change into a cougar? Maybe in thirty years you’ll start thinking college boys are kinda hot, but that’s the only sort of cougar you can turn into, Maya. Anything else is nuts.”

“Right,” Sam said. “So you weren’t here an hour ago? When her face started changing?”

“Yes, something did happen to her face. I don’t know what it was, but I’ll bet it has to do with those vitamins and drugs they were feeding us back in Salmon Creek. That’s what all this is about. They were doing medical experiments on us. It explains what Daniel did on the helicopter and what happened with Maya’s face.”