Feral Nights (21 page)

“Really?” he exclaims. “You always stalk shape-changers in the jungle?”

“You’re so mean to me. I don’t know how I’ve stayed married to you.”

Teghan whispers, “They’re cocky, coming straight for us.”

“They’re armed,” I reply. “Murder doesn’t bother them. It’s why they’re here.”

I resume listening. The husband had apparently caught his wife fooling around in the shower with one, no,
both
of the other hunters. The only other hunters.

So there are four altogether, just like Luis said to expect.

Killing them if it meant escape sounded easier before they became people to me. Even people I already don’t like.

The middle-aged couple wanders into view. They’re wearing night-vision goggles. He has a rifle slung over one shoulder, and she’s carrying something in her palm.

A few more steps and we’ll have skewered them before they can get a shot off.

I can let this happen. I have to. I have my new friends, a kid included, to think about. Besides, Aimee needs me. She never would’ve gotten caught up in this mess if she weren’t such a fine person, if she hadn’t cared enough to follow me that night to the parking garage.

“Something’s wrong,” the woman announces. “The arrow hasn’t wavered.”

Did they enchant that trinket to track us? If so, what else can they do?

“When we started out, it made sense that the compass directed us into the heart of the jungle,” the wife adds. “Now it should be swinging back and forth, pausing to indicate individual creatures . . . unless they’re
all
straight ahead, waiting to ambush us.”

She unlatches a leather pouch attached to her belt, grabs a fistful of I’m-not-sure-what and tosses it into the air, muttering in . . . Latin, I think.

Trails of glossy-looking white smoke emerge from her palm, coil, and dance.

They hover, then spread like filmy blankets over all our traps.

I hear Teghan swallow hard as the couple gingerly approaches the border of the closest pit. The husband bends to scoop up a hefty stone and tosses it in.

It crashes through the vines and fern leaves to collide with bamboo.

As the white smoke dissipates, the husband peers in and then scans the treetops. Teghan flattens herself tighter against her branch. I instinctively do the same, angling as much of my body as possible behind the trunk.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” the man calls, reaching for his rifle. “All of you.” He aims upward and says to his wife, “I’ll flush them out.”

He begins shooting, hoping to get lucky. Hoping we’ll panic and show ourselves.

A bullet whizzes between me and Teghan, but we don’t flinch.

Suddenly the wife charges the shooter from behind.

With outstretched hands, she shoves him into the pit.

The barrel of his gun jerks up as he squeezes off one last round.

His scream is short. Punctual.

I didn’t see
that
coming.

“I know you’re watching,” the wife — widow — yells, walking slowly backward the way she came. “I won’t try to kill you if you don’t try to kill me. I didn’t want to come on this stupid hunt in the first place.” Retreating, she adds, mostly to herself, “I wanted to hit the menswear fashion shows in Milan and Paris. Maybe buy myself a male supermodel. Now,
that
would’ve been a fitting twentieth-anniversary gift.”

No one moves or breathes until she’s well out of human hearing range.

“Luis said the hunters were monsters,” Teghan whispers. “Dead inside.”

“Not all monsters are supernatural,” I reply.

NOELLE BURIES
her long, tapered fingers in my hair. “How did you not know?”

That’s when it clicks — my parents’ separation, how Mom’s first pregnancy brought them back together. Dad isn’t my biological father. Some Lion is.

Does Dad even know? Why didn’t Mom tell me?

I’ll have to worry about it later, if there is a later.

I turn toward the jungle. “I have to find Yoshi.”

Noelle holds me back. “I thought you didn’t like Yoshi.”

“He’s not the only wereperson out there.”

“Clyde!” she exclaims. “You’re a male
werelion.
Every hunter’s dream trophy!”

I move to embrace her. “Then I should be able to distract them if —”

She kisses me. It’s one of those deep, wet, teeth-and-tongue kisses. My first real kiss from a girl. It should suck or be awkward, but not even.

Noelle hooks a long leg around my waist, and as I grip her hips in greedy hands, she wraps herself tight around me with the other. If not for her drawstring pants, we would’ve gone from zero to paradise by now. It’s perfect, except . . .

Breaking away, I ask, “If I were only a Possum, would you be doing this?”

“What are you talking about, ‘only a Possum’? What kind of nonsense is that?” Noelle disengages her body from mine. “In point of fact, I started thinking you had real potential when you were telling me about Clint, Claudette, Clara, and Clement. I love babies. I love men who love babies.”

“Not ‘Clement,’” I reply. “Cleatus.”

Noelle chuckles. “Cleatus. My, what a burden to put on that poor child!”

“Like ‘Clement’ would’ve been so much better,” I mutter, presenting her with my electro-charged crutches. “Take these,” I say, briefly explaining how to release a blast.

I don’t need a weapon anymore. I’ve become one. And her foot is still injured.

“You know, Clyde, you ought to talk to someone about your low-self-esteem problem.” Noelle tilts her perfect, smudged chin. “The fact that you’re a Lion just means you’ll have the stamina to keep up with me.”

It doesn’t matter that our buddies ditched me and Aimee to visit scenic Vermont. It doesn’t even matter that I’m sans the Bone Chiller. My sidekick days are history.

SEATED IN A REINFORCED CHAIR
in front of the console, Frore doesn’t lower his copy of the
Wall Street Journal
or otherwise acknowledge my existence.

“You’ll want to eat that before it gets cold,” I nudge, gesturing at the stew.

Through dangling white braids, he flicks his dismissive gaze at me, if only because I’m the intern who speaks English. I’m a curiosity, like a mule who can talk.

Gripping my tray, it’s all I can do not to drool over his broad shoulders at the forty-foot-long motor yacht. Do any of the shifters have nautical experience? I’ve heard the snowmen mention Guatemala and Costa Rica and bribing government officials to look the other way. I’m not sure where we are exactly, but I suspect Paxton knows.

At least Clyde is safe in his cage, waiting impatiently for me.

Yoshi could be dead by now.

It doesn’t look like Frore is hungry. I risk trying to draw him out. After all, he’s the rebel, the one who’s been left behind. “Why do y’all need so much money, anyway?” I ask. “Given the way humans have persecuted shifters, I understand why you’d be reluctant to go public. But what’s the point of —?”

“What a shockingly sophisticated question,” he remarks.

Setting aside the paper, Frore says, “That’s what we call Sasquatch talk. These days, the battle for survival-of-the-fittest takes place within the world economy. We’re pursuing a diversified plan, buying out major world banks, defense manufacturers, real estate. . . . We own twenty percent of Texas, and in hopes of further dumbing down
Homo sapiens,
we have underwritten the production of several reality-television shows.”

“You’re kidding.” It just slipped out.

Frore makes a guttural huffing noise that might be a laugh.

“Cameron wanted your opinion of the stew,” I prod, now that the snowman’s defenses are down. “Boreal has been complaining that his cooking is too salty. The demon thinks this batch is better, and I agree, but neither of us has the discerning taste buds of your species.” Somehow I manage to keep a straight face.

With a
harrumph,
Frore mutters, “Boreal complains about a lot of things.”

But he lifts the bowl and slurps. Frore has big, clumsy hands, and maneuvering silverware is a challenge for him — for all of them — though Boreal insists on it in the formal dining room.

After downing the entire meal, Frore drops the bowl, licks his chops, and wipes his mouth with the back of his furry hand. Raising a finger, he says, “The level of saltiness is fine, but I recommend trying more onion, less garlic.” Then he slumps to the side, unconscious.

I shove him out of my way, grateful for the chair wheels.

The console switches are labeled in the symbol-based native language of the snowmen. Unsure which controls the high-frequency barrier, I turn all of them off.

Then I fling Frore’s rifle into the sea.

Throwing open the front door of the darkened lodge, I smell smoke and hear shouting. It must be the distraction that Cameron promised.

I jog toward the ocean and peer through the greenery that separates the two buildings on the compound. The guards have abandoned their cliff-top posts and set down their guns to fight a fire raging at the taxidermy workshop. Crawling between ferns, I drag their weapons into hiding beneath the huge leaves — anything to slow them down.

I consider taking a gun for self-protection, but I don’t know how to use it. Besides, this isn’t like playing paintball with Travis or shooting holy water at the undead. The interns are people, not monsters.

In any case, Boreal apparently didn’t have a sprinkler system installed in the workshop, either. Or, for that matter, any fire hydrants on the island. So the interns are running back and forth to the beach to fill plastic buckets with seawater.

It’s no use. Cameron is hell spawn, and this is demonic fire. Only he can put it out. If anything, the water is making things worse. I wonder . . . Did he enchant only that one building, or will the entire island soon be engulfed in insatiable, unstoppable flames?

SNARLS TURN TO YELPS.
The werewolves are in trouble.

After ordering Teghan to stay hidden in the tree, I jump down, take a running start, and vault over a tiger-pit trap. I slide in the mud as I land — the wet ground is slicker than hell, and we’re low on moonlight, even in those rare spots where it manages to peek between the trees.

“James!” I call. “Mei!” No answer. I hate straying too far from the kid, but . . .

“Psst,”
responds a melodious voice from above. At the top of a rocky incline, some fifteen feet high, the dazzling, voluptuous woman looks like she stepped out of nineteenth-century Spain. Her black veil drapes halfway down her high-necked, long-sleeved bronze-colored gown. If she’s carrying concealed, there are a lot of places to hide a weapon in that outfit.

She waves a dead woodpecker by its tail feathers. “Here, kitty, kitty!” Her other fist opens, and a black leather leash slips down. “Pretty kitty.” The attached, jewel-studded collar is man-size. “Be mine? I’ll stroke your fur and give you fresh treats.”

She tosses me the collar, I catch it on reflex, and her cool, delicate hand suddenly covers mine. She moves fast — faster than my Cat eyes can process. Teleportation-fast.

I had no idea there was this much supernatural power in the world.

“How’d you do that?” I ask. “Where are the Wolves?”