The House (57 page)

The sheer
panic in his voice engulfed me and I found myself connecting to
him. We were still hundreds of miles away but I could feel him. His
mind wrapped around me and I thought that I would drown. He could
hardly think; there was only all- encompassing panic. I couldn’t
even tell what the panic was about. It was just that moment when it
felt like the world would cave in.

It was
Hercules who got enough control of his own mind so that I could
pull out. I had been helpless, utterly and completely helpless. I’d
had enough of feeling like that recently. I needed to feel in
control of my own mind at least.

“Hercules,
what is it?” I asked, glad my voice held up. I didn’t want to panic
everyone else. As if they couldn’t hear Hercules on the other end
of the phone anyway.

“Check the web...check it
now
.” I looked up to find Stripes on
her own coms pad, checking the news. I knew when the page had
loaded because her face changed. From mild curiosity to outright
horror in a single moment. Slowly she held up the screen so that I
could see it. I didn’t want to look; I didn’t want to know what
could put that look on her face after everything we’d been through.
After all we’d seen, I hadn’t thought such outright fear was
possible.

I took such an
intake of breath it very nearly knocked me over. On the front page
of the online Times there was the headline, in sure bold
letters.

SHIFTER COMES
FORWARDS TO REVEAL SUPERNATURAL COMMUNITY

I couldn’t
speak for a moment. It was in the Times. Stripes flicked through a
dozen other journals and newspapers and it was the same thing.
Variations on the same headline. And what was worse, some had
pictures. I had all but forgotten Hercules on the phone as I
watched a video – clearly shot from Hannah’s window – of myself,
shifting into lion form. The nudity had been blurred out but it was
still an incredibly intimate moment to have shared with the world.
I was playing in the clip, carefree and completely unaware of the
betrayal so close at hand. It had been the first time I’d shifted
to have fun in years.

“Oh...my...God,” I whispered. Jalas swore sharply and got on the
phone to the Covenant. That we were in big trouble was an
understatement. “Hannah.” It wasn’t a question; Hannah didn’t like
anyone else in her room and the angle was unmistakable. There was
even a flash of her new curtains in the video.

“She sold us out, Trix,” Hercules said. “She posted all of
this stuff and by the time we saw it, she was gone. She wrote on
her wall, ‘They have the right to know.’ Trix, what if this was his
plan all along?” Hercules didn’t have to clarify who
he
was. Talon: he had
changed Hannah; he must have installed this in all of
them.

Stripes was still showing me images: videos,
documents,
proof
.
I even saw an old family video of mine where my father was doing a
spell. It was horrific to see, broadcast right out there on the
web. And if so many of the papers were running the story there was
no way they didn’t have proof. There would be no hiding it, no
sweeping it under the carpet.

“She went to
the papers...” I said. There were pictures of Hannah with
reporters, live soundbites of her telling the whole world about us:
shifters, witches, vampyre. She’d hung us out to dry. “I have to
go.” I hung up and looked at Jalas. His face was stony.

“I spoke to
Richard.” I briefly registered that he meant my grandfather before
motioning him wildly to go on. “It is a disaster. It was not just
the girl; it does appear that Talon set this up very well. All the
girl had to do was activate it. Samples have been sent to labs all
over the country. She presented herself to a television station and
changed, right in front of them. Scientists have been contacted.
Everyone is furious.

“They...they
can’t cover this up. Richard said that the High Council itself had
called him.” He held up his hand to stop my imminent interruption.
“He said that they do not hold you responsible. There was nothing
that could have prepared anyone for this; I think that they are
still reeling over not having seen it. Not one single seer saw this
coming, not one.” Jalas stared at me. It was a sobering thought.
The seers had a tendency to miss huge things but something like
this? They had never, ever missed something like this before. They
were always on the lookout; the lengths Talon would have had to go
to for us to be blind-sided so badly were extraordinary.

“A spell?” I asked. I’d believed the seers next to infallible
when it came to security. Sure, they didn’t see all that much since
so much was changing all the time but to miss
such
a change – especially one that
had been planned so much and for so long – made me reel inside. It
forced me to re-evaluate what I knew about the world. This would
likely not be the only thing the seers hadn’t seen. Large changes
ripple across the world; it would invalidate most, if not
all
of their
predictions. The supernatural community would be in utter
chaos.

“There is no
other explanation. We must get home as quickly as possible. I can’t
believe I didn’t get this from those boys. They had to have known.”
Jalas’ voice was barely above a growl, his face twisted. He looked
scary, like he did when he tortured people. I would not wish the
fate of those boys now on anyone...because Jalas and my grandfather
had believed them to have no more information. I hoped that they
were already dead. Looking into Jalas’ eyes I thought that wasn’t
the case; it was enough to make me ever more thankful that I had
left. That I was no longer responsible for extracting
information.

The skyrail
moved far too slowly for us. Every moment was agony, sitting and
waiting. Every person who even glanced our way I thought knew our
secret. Knew us. Nobody approached us, but it didn’t stop the
paranoia. We took such a roundabout way home to avoid being
followed that we doubled our journey time. I found myself glancing
over my shoulder every few steps and hiding my face from the
cameras.

Jalas left
without even saying goodbye. He would go to the boys and their
dungeon. He would take his anger out on them. I wished for a moment
that I could go with him. It would be so much more satisfying than
to stay at the House. I knew that we would not be able to leave for
a while for fear of being spotted. Our faces had been plastered all
over the world. We had lost our biggest defence as well as our most
closely guarded secret; we had lost our anonymity.

Hercules
greeted me as I entered. The hall was full of people, people who
had come when they heard. The House was a central point for
shifters and more would come – to mourn and pray, and beg for good
news, for reassurance. I wasn’t sure how much I could give them. I
just shook my head as Hercules gripped my arms. I thought his grip
would break them but he let go in time. I resisted the urge to rub
where his hands had dug into my flesh. It wouldn’t make him feel
any better about everything.

I had to stop
James from leaving. I told Stripes to stick to him and not let him
outside. I would not allow him to hunt Hannah, not yet. She was too
young to know better. That and it would be really, really bad if
she disappeared now. All eyes would turn to us. They would never
leave us in peace. We could not afford to start out as the bad
guys; it was enough of a PR disaster as it was. At least it seemed
that Hannah hadn’t sunk to splashing The House about the papers. It
would take a mater hacker with more than a small amount of magic to
figure out where we lived from our names.

I inspected
Hannah’s message myself and it was exactly as Hercules had
described. I took photos of her room before getting out the paint
to go over it. There were a few clothes left in her wardrobe but
nothing else. She had come with so little that it wasn’t a burden
for her to carry out. She had left – surely and completely. And I
was determined to erase her from the House; she would not be
associated with us. She was a pariah now. A part of me hoped that
she had realised that before starting all this, yet a bigger part
of me wanted to hunt her down like the traitor she was. I briefly
touched my belly before getting stuck into painting.

If I had
thought a child was difficult before, it would be nothing to how it
would be to raise a child with the world watching. I even had a
momentary terrifying thought that they would take my baby away.
They would not leave a child with people they thought of as
monsters. It only hardened my resolve to realise that my child
would be born like me; I didn’t know which was worse.

Eddie came to
help me turn her room upside down. We still didn’t find anything
else. There was no clue to her betrayal. No reason, no apology, no
real explanation of any kind. There wasn’t even a way to contact
her. Clearly, she had at least taken the fear of a death sentence
in before absolutely ignoring everything else I told her.

“Talon had a
way of convincing you of things,” Eddie said as he held me. There
wasn’t anything else to say. I held my hand to my abdomen. How
could I hope to bring a child into this world now? How could I
raise a child amid all this? Eddie must have caught the direction
of my thoughts from my face. Or he had thought the same thing. Our
minds were so closely linked from all the time I had spent in his
head that sometimes feelings passed across. I was never quite sure
which way they went.

“You are not
giving up,” he said. He held my face in a parody of the night
before. “You are not giving up on the possibility of a child
because that bitch did this.” It was unfortunate that the House was
full of people with supernatural hearing. Amongst other things, I
did not want their pity. I needed to be strong; I could not afford
to lose it now. I would have to become their rock – a washed-out
semblance of Marie, sure – but a semblance nonetheless.

We all
gathered outside in a circle. I gripped Eddie’s hand on one side
and Stripes on the other. Every face was defiant. Every mind was
made up. We were not giving up. I think that some of us prayed. I
didn’t; I had long since given up on any form of God who would
allow such things as I had seen in my life. We stood in silence and
we waited. We waited for the strength to carry on. It would be a
long time in coming.

Most of the
shifters went home after confirming that there was nothing we could
do. They went back to their lives. They hadn’t been identified. I
was glad for that at least; Hannah had only identified those of us
that lived in the House. Although, it was little consolation to me.
My life was still changed beyond all recognition. And I still had
to raise a child in this new and terrifying world.

My grandfather
called to tell me to lay low and to congratulate me on my
pregnancy. He told me he’d made an appointment with the Covenant’s
obstetrician for me, and for once I didn’t mind his meddling. The
thought of actually being pregnant terrified me. The thought of
being pregnant when the world had suddenly found out we were
shifters? It was incomprehensible. At least I would get the very
best in medical care. Some of the Covenant doctors were vampyre
that were hundreds of years old. They had seen it all and trained a
hundred times over.

The High
Council was apparently laying low until they could decide what to
do. I knew that there would be much scrambling around behind closed
doors. There would have to be, to prevent any human laws or motions
passing that could endanger us. People had a tendency to panic when
they encountered the supernatural. And they had an uncanny way of
trying to destroy things that scared them. I was betting that we
would scare most people. At the very least, the idea of us would
send them checking the locks on their houses. I wasn’t about to
advertise that we could smash through the wall if we wanted to.

I couldn’t
stay in the House forever but I would wait at least a week before
venturing out. I would wait and watch while the High Council and
the Covenant fought to protect us. They would fight to protect the
witches but they’d throw us in as well because it was good for
business. The shifters were already better protected than the
witches against such things. We were more spread out and harder to
trace. I hoped that it would be enough for those of us who didn’t
have the protection of a larger community.

Eddie still
held me as I slept and we all huddled together during the day. Even
with the assurances from my grandfather, I still worried. I had too
many worries and I would soon have to be stronger than ever. I
would have to have the courage to face the world and hold my head
high against all the people who would hate me. Against all the
people who would want to hurt us and our family. I just had to hope
that I really did have the kind of strength Marie saw in me.

I found a note
from her to me in her safety deposit box. Written in case something
were ever to happen to her:

Dearest
Trixibell,

If you are
reading this, then I am no longer with you. I hope that whatever
has caused this to come about has not harmed you. I hope that I get
to go out spectacularly. I always did have crazy visions about
that.

I have left the House and everything in it to you. All that I
have, and it is not much for what you must do with it, is yours. I
trust you to continue on with my mission; I know that you feel it
is your duty also. We who are bound this way face
many trials but I know that you will be alright.
You are stronger than you ever gave yourself credit for.

You have a
great family around you. Always remember to lean on them as I so
often did, first with my own parents and friends, and then with
you. Know that there is so much that I could not have done without
you.