The Calling (Darkness Rising) (22 page)

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

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

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

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

So yes, I had angst.

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

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

Angst. Fear. Stark, gut-twisting terror. It didn’t make for an easy sleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was dreaming.

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

That was magic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Human.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not going to make ours?” Moreno said.

“I’m sure you can manage.”

“I burn everything. My people didn’t cook over fire.”

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

“You know what I mean. Your family.”

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

“Touchy, touchy,” Moreno said. “I was just—”

“Being an ass?” the woman said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Against what?” Moreno said. “Killer bunnies?”