Guardian Hound (19 page)

“Oh, a big bad knight in shining armor,” the tall white boy mocked.

“I can take care of this,” Harita hissed at Virmal.

Virmal's tiger soul pushed at him.
Brave
, she purred.

Harita shoved Virmal back, behind her.

No wonder she hadn't told anyone. She thought she needed to deal with the boys all by herself, as a matter of honor.

“
An ambush is stronger than each warrior, alone,
” Virmal quoted to Harita in Hindi, one of the recitations.

“
Each warrior makes her own way
,” Harita quoted back.

“Bored now,” the smaller white boy said. He reached beyond Harita and pushed at Virmal.

“Together?” Virmal suggested, for the first time happy that both of them had taken some warrior training, learning to fight. Harita hadn't taken as much, but he'd ask for her at every class, now.

They took off their backpacks and turned their backs to each other. Virmal spread his legs wider, one a little in front of the other, his weight on his toes, rooting himself in the earth, his hands up in loose claws. Though Virmal couldn't see her, he knew Harita did the same. Then Virmal let out a low growl. Harita echoed him: a human sound, but eerily accurate nonetheless.

The three boys seemed uncertain, suddenly. Then the tall white boy in the green coat sneered. “She can't really fight. I bet you can't either. They're bluffing.” His voice gained strength.

“You're bigger than we are,” Virmal told him calmly. “And there are three of you. But together, we're stronger.”

“What, you and your girlfriend?”

“She's my sister,” Virmal declared. A sudden pride filled him. “And we have greater heart than you do.”

With a second snarl, both Virmal and Harita attacked.

Virmal exploded forward. He couldn't use his claws or teeth—Grandmother
Irita
would skin him alive for that.

However, he could still use the speed of a tiger warrior.

He drove the heel of his palm directly into the lower chest of the Indian boy, making him gasp and stagger back.

Down!
cried his tiger soul.

Virmal ducked.

A wild swing of the tall white boy whizzed over Virmal's head.

Virmal grinned at the white boy, showing all his teeth. Then he
slammed
into the other boy, coming in low and extending up, driving his shoulder into the boy's chest and his elbow into the boy's stomach, pushing the him away.

The tall white boy recovered quickly and tackled Virmal, driving them both to the ground. Then he reared up and smashed Virmal in the face.

Virmal howled, wrapped his legs around the boy's waist, and flipped them so he was on top. Blood pounded in his skull and dripped from his nose. He didn't bite the boy's shoulder, even though he wanted to. Instead, he brought his knee up into the boy's groin, then, using both hands, slammed the boy's head against the ground, once, twice.

Stop
, his tiger soul warned before he did it again.

Virmal lifted himself up and away. The boy groaned but didn't try to get up. Virmal quickly looked over to his sister.

Harita's
opponent was also on the ground. She grinned at him, one eye already bruising, her hair pulled out of its neat braid, her knees as muddy as his.

The Indian boy had run away, deserting his companions.

Harita and Virmal silently picked up their backpacks and walked away. Virmal's face hurt, and he knew he'd have a shiner that matched
Harita's
. But his tiger soul was content. Honor and duty had both been served.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Virmal asked as they turned the next block.

“I could have handled it,” Harita said hotly.

Careful, now
, his tiger soul warned.

“I couldn't have fought all three, not by myself,” Virmal told her. Of course, like his sister, he would have tried to at first.

“Why did you help me?” Harita asked.

The wind blew at Virmal. He was suddenly tired and cold. “You're my sister.”

“But you hate me.”

Virmal thought about it for a moment. Harita always got the best of everything. Even though he was the tiger warrior, Mama and Papa always asked about her first when they called, always talked with her first. She got better grades than he did both at school and at home. Grandmother
Irita
liked her better.

“You're my sister,” Virmal finally said.

His tiger soul gave a comforting growl, as close to a purr as she could.

“But—”

“No. You're my sister. You're clan. You're family.”

Nothing else mattered, not really.

“Those boys might be back,” Virmal warned as they neared their flat. “With their friends.”

“Grandmother
Irita
is going to ask about that,” Harita pointed out, gesturing toward his throbbing eye.

“
The ambush takes care of its own,
” Virmal quoted.

If more boys came, and Virmal and Harita couldn't handle them, they could get help.

Neither of them had to stand alone.

The Viper in Tulum

Mexico, Present Day

Zane woke to absolute blackness. He blinked his eyes, making sure they were open, but he couldn't see anything in the dark.

That didn't scare him as much as the stifling silence did.

Where was
el
océano
and her comforting waves? Where were the little ones just on the other side of the crumbling plaster walls of his decrepit, one-room apartment, and their daily fight over who ate which cereal? Where was the ancient
señora
on the other side, and the whine of her equally ancient TV? The constant scent of burnt toast, peppers cooked in oil, and cheap perfume from the girls three doors down the hall were missing, too.

Zane reached up to feel his eyes, his eyelashes fluttering against his fingertips. Then he plugged and unplugged his ears with his fingers, but it made no difference.

The world still remained at a distance.

Panic jolted through Zane. He couldn't be dying. Not yet. He hadn't finished his mission. He still hadn't met….

Ah
.

Zane took a deep breath and calmed himself. He sat up slowly on his narrow cot, his old bones protesting, then swung his legs over.

His bare feet landed solidly on the cold concrete of his floor.

Zane pushed himself up, and after a shaky step, the world slammed back into him.

His tiny room still looked the same, with stained plaster walls painted a somber peach color—supposedly to brighten the place up but they looked dingy, instead. The corner held a sink with dishes piled high and too many empty
cerveza
and tequila bottles. A dresser stood in the other corner, with his few shabby and never completely clean shirts and jeans.

When Zane turned around, he saw that a shadow still lingered on his bed, like a lone cloud, unraveling and disappearing even as he watched.

“
Tsk, tsk
.” Zane shook his head.

Las
Sombras
were playing their tricks again.

The shadows knew Zane watched. They knew he waited. But after all this time, even with the tricks they played on his mind, they still didn't know for what.

Zane wasn't sure himself, some days. It had been so long since he'd been given this task. And the shadows confused him, as did the
cerveza
, the tequila, and time.

He took a deep breath and let his senses expand. The TV on one side played a light jingle, a happy couple in love with their washing machine. On the other, the little ones argued over who got the last of the orange juice. The
señora
had burnt her toast again, and over that, from outside, drifted the smoke from an
untuned
motorbike. Two blocks away came the scent of wet concrete, new hotels for tourists. Under it all,
la
mer
whispered her dreams to him.

Zane pulled in his senses and shambled over to his sink to splash water on his face. A tiny mirror hung over it, but Zane didn't like how it reminded him of his grizzled skin, the patches of gray whiskers, the dark, day-laborer's tan his hands and arms held; or how his hair grew only along the edges of his overly large skull, and was now more silver than black.

He'd never been handsome, not even as a young man. But he'd had a vitality—the opposite of the old-man exhaustion that hung on him now like a shroud.

He looked up, watching his eyes change from washed-out brown to burning yellow. His pupils elongated, turning into a slit that stole all the color from the world but let him observe even the tiniest movements. He almost didn't recognize himself; it had been so long since he'd transformed.

In a blink, his human eyes returned. However, his viper soul remained close, just under the surface of his skin.

Soon
. The word hissed gently through his blood, as soothing as the morning prayers of his people that he'd forgone long ago.

Zane nodded. Yes. Soon. It was why the shadows had been so merciless in their tricks that week.

Soon it would happen.

His debt would be paid. And maybe his honor restored.

# # #

Zane perched himself high on a wall of the Tulum ruins, next to
El Castillo
overlooking the ocean. The water was calm and so blue that morning, as pretty as the postcards made it look. Below where he sat, gulls hopped from one rock to the next, certain to find some tidbit missed by the others. Off in the distance, tourist cruise boats sailed, free of care.

The sun soaked into Zane's skin, stupefying his viper soul. Or maybe that was also his disguise—the nearly empty bottle of cheap tequila in the brown paper bag beside him. He hadn't meant to drink so much, particularly this early in the morning. The park guards wouldn't approve if they saw him—a drunken day laborer might scare the tourists. From looking at him, they'd never know that he was actually an American and not some down-on-his-luck, back-country Mayan.

But Zane had been here in Tulum so long, gone so native, he forgot himself sometimes.

His friends, the shadows, helped hide him today—at least for now, before they decided to trick him again.

Maybe they weren't really his friends.

Ah, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered today except looking out over the beautiful coast with its perfect white sand and blue-blue waters, and waiting.

Tourists scrambled up the steep pyramid steps behind Zane, but they mostly didn't see him. They remarked about the castle and the gorgeous location, their voices as raucous as the gulls. They snapped pictures like mad when an iguana strolled by.

It warmed Zane's cold heart that the creature recognized him as a threat and kept a safe distance from him, as if he would bother with such poor, unrelated cousins.

The sour smell of the liquor washed over Zane as he finished the bottle. He knew that to play the part of the drunken local, he should just toss the bottle over the side of the wall, but he couldn't make himself do it, couldn't bring himself to dirty the clean white sands beneath him.

Instead he stood, slowly stretching, swaying in the constant ocean wind. Maybe today wasn't the day. He could go back home and nap through the heat of the day, come back out looking that evening.

A squawking laugh echoed behind him.

Black rage clouded the bright day. Zane turned around.

A dark-skinned young man with light-colored, spiky hair raced up the steps. A young woman, pale-skinned with brown hair done up in a ponytail, ran beside him. Obviously tourists, wearing immodest T-shirts, shorts, and sandals.

Though the boy looked fully human, Zane saw what he was, and he couldn't contain his hiss.

One of the raven clan? Here?

Those damn birds had ruined everything, betrayed his clan and all the others.

What they'd done had been worse than his own misdeeds, when he'd been arrogant and young.

Shadows suddenly gathered at Zane's side, their cool wisps sliding across his skin.

Zane had never seen faces in the shadows—he didn't think they had any. They'd never spoken to him directly. They remained like clouds, even after all these years, unknowable.

For the first time, they thrummed with excitement, something Zane understood.

This boy. He meant something to them.

It was finally time.

Zane took one drunken step forward as the couple veered off—warned by some instinct to explore the other tower first.

Before Zane took two more steps, a tour group walked around the corner of
El Castillo
, pooling around their guide at the bottom of the steps.

Zane shot a scathing look in the direction of the young couple, then he let himself shift, subtly, his nose flattening against his face, his cheekbones spreading out as his viper soul rose closer to the surface.

Yes, there was their scent: musty old feathers, the bright glass of armor, the sweet odor of youth and sex.

He had their scent signature now. He could follow them blindly through a crowd at an open market, over the smells of live chickens, fresh tomatoes, and heaps of chilies.

Zane slowly walked back down the stairs of
El Castillo
, the tourists sliding around him like river water around a rock.

It was good that Zane could track the raven warrior and his mate, but honestly, it didn't matter that much.

Damn tourist was a bird. He'd always seek the highest ground, no matter where they went.

And the next time they met, it wouldn't be in so public a place.

# # #

The day continued bright and sunny, with sea winds to keep it from getting too hot. Zane still felt as if a storm were brewing, could almost see it in the heat haze on the horizon, over the miles of ocean blue. Far below the high stone shelf where he sat, the white sand sparkled. An old iguana the length of his leg warily baked on the warm rocks a few feet away. The wind carried the foreign scents of the tourists on the beach, their perfumed oils and plastic toys.

It also brought the scent of his prey, playing in the water.

His viper soul counseled patience, as always. He listened to it better now than he had as a young man, impetuous and full of his own grand schemes.

Soon, he'd be able to right his wrongs.

A few feet down the trail, just beyond the last sharp turn in the trail up the hill, Zane had dragged a large tumbleweed, deliberately blocking the path so no one would accidentally stumble on him and chase him away from his ambush. The path above was blocked as well. He was confident his trap would work.

The warm sun made Zane sleepy, but he kept his watch through
slitted
eyes. Fear also kept him awake. If after all these years, these
décadas
, he failed to….

But he was right. The scent of feathers was suddenly closer.

Zane slipped off his rock and removed the artificial barrier below him, his hands stinging as the thorns pricked him. The raven boy would be too drawn to the highest point to resist, his laughing mate by his side.

Zane had no mate. None would take him after what he did. He would die alone and friendless.

Hopefully, though, he would die satisfied.

The mate led the way up the trail—foolish or selfish on the part of the boy, Zane couldn't decide. They paused just below the last hairpin turn, looking back the way they'd come, admiring the view.

“It is beautiful from up here, Peter,” she murmured.

“Yeah, Sally, the best view is always from up high,” he replied.

Still, Zane held his breath until they came around that last turn, then he stepped out from where he'd hidden behind a boulder, blocking their way down, their easy escape. They stopped at the far side, on a short incline, where the trail was also blocked, with a rock wall on one side and a long, long tumble down the hill to the other.

“You have come, finally, haven't you?” Zane proclaimed, feeling his head go broad, his skin hardening and growing scaly, the color draining out of the world.

At least the boy stepped in front of his mate, his fingers already lost to the knife-like feather-blades of a true raven warrior.

“What do you want?” he squawked. His eyes stared, bird-black, oblivious to the shadows about to take him.

“Your kind betrayed us all, didn't you?” Zane accused him. The pressure along his sinuses increased as his venom sacs filled.

“Centuries ago,” the raven warrior said. “And our young still pay the price.”

“We've never recovered, have we?” Zane hissed. Only a trickle of pilgrims came to the mountain monasteries, so few to hear the mystic messages and carry the word down into the valleys.

“I'm sorry,” the birdman said. He sounded truly sorry, as well, not at all like the boastful bird he surely was.

“And you will be more sorry, won't you?” Zane promised as he took a step closer to the boy. His fangs had started to distend, still hidden inside his mouth but pressing against the bottom of it, longing to come out and sink into something, anything.

Shadows boiled beside Zane, eager for this new sacrifice, beyond the endless ones he'd already made—his family, his life, his true face, and his name.

Though the raven was fast, Zane was faster still. He rushed at the boy, but then brushed past him and grabbed his mate, her pulse a fluttering thing under his palms.

Time slowed. Zane raised one claw-tipped hand, nails dripping with poison. The anguish on the boy's face was a marvel.

Zane almost felt pity.

But this time, he'd chosen the right target.

With a sweeping motion, Zane lightly scratched down the girl's left side, careful not to break the skin, hooking the tendrils of a shadow that curled around her waist and yanking it. With his other hand, he pulled the girl away, separating her from the shadow. He flung her to the side, heard her muffled cry and fall.

He hoped she wasn't hurt, but it didn't matter. He finally had his prey in hand, a shadow. It was unlike the ones that lived with him: This one had come in a direct line from the first tiger warrior who'd been corrupted by the shadows, the one he hadn't stopped.

A shadow made whole around the indents of his poisoned talons.

Before the raven or his mate could do or say anything else, Zane struck the shadow thing, sinking his fangs into it.

Finally, one of the damn shadows was solid enough for him to strike it, though its texture was more like biting into rancid oil, not flesh.

The shadow struck back the only way it knew how: cold upon cold upon cold. Ice seared into Zane's bones, lacing his viper soul with frost. Age dropped on his shoulders like an avalanche, making it difficult to even hold himself up.

Zane hung on, biting deep into the shadow, pumping his venom into its soul, taking away its life as a shadow, forcing his toxin into what served as veins in the creature.

Forcing the shadow to become corporeal, and walk in the light.

After wringing the last drop of poison out, Zane stepped back, letting the thing drop at his feet.