Feral Pride (19 page)

We’re soldiers now.

It’s a hair past sundown at Pine Ridge R&R, a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of Kayla’s hometown. A half-dozen log cabins are appointed with copper birdbaths and river-rock stepping-stones. Paper lanterns hang from branches. “This was my mother’s big listing,” Kayla says, undoing her seat belt. “It’s been on the market at 1.2 million since last fall.”

“I bet the interfaith coalition bought it,” Clyde muses aloud in the backseat.

Next to a converted barn with a screened-in porch, five SUVs are parked side by side. They’re big; they’re expensive. They can each comfortably transport several werebears. Next to Quincie’s yellow convertible, another long, low vehicle is covered by an army-green tarp.

I say what we’re all thinking. “Aimee should’ve checked in by now.”

“Aimee never should’ve left with her asshat father in the first place,” Clyde grumbles.

I glare at him in the rearview mirror. “If you hadn’t —”

“It’s none of your damn —”

“Enough!” Kayla scolds. “You can argue about it after we’re all dead.”

I park my car alongside Quincie’s, graze Kayla’s wrist with my fingertips, and get out.

Grams bursts from the porch at the same time. She’s leading three dozen men and women, most of them shifters, dressed like us and carrying gas masks. Five — make that six — are buck naked and empty-handed. They look alike — protruding noses, weak chins, and bony shoulders.

Werebirds. Before our eyes, feathers sprout from their skin, their arms contort, their legs retract, and beaks erupt from their faces. Their scent becomes fishier, brine and yeast. It’ll take a few moments for their feathers to dry.

As Clyde climbs out of the backseat, my nose takes inventory of my allies . . . slightly more men than women (two who’re menstruating, nobody who’s pregnant), a handful of old folks. Most of those suited up are werebears, including Zaleski, plus Wertheimer, a weretiger couple, three pygmy wereelephants, a couple of Buffalo I recognize from a bar fight (no hard feelings), Leander’s Liger, the Armadillo king Karl Richards, along with four of his personal Dillo guards, and a werebeaver, which doesn’t sound intimidating until you imagine the world’s largest rodent gunning for your ass.

Then there are the humans — Freddy, Roberto Morales, and others I don’t recognize. A skinny guy in a turban is bent over a leather-bound book, whispering to a woman wearing a Waterloo High T-shirt. I make out the words
foretold
and
sacrifice.

Because I’ve only seen him on television, it takes me a moment to place the man in the rumpled suit, carrying a briefcase. That’s Aimee’s dad, Graham Barnard.

Clyde recognizes him right away. “Where is she?”

Barnard holds the case over his chest like a shield. “I
had
to leave her. Seth and Boreal would’ve killed us both if I hadn’t —”

Clyde’s in mid-spring, his clawed hands extending toward Barnard’s throat, when Grams’s boot meets his gut. The Wild Card goes down hard, skidding on the gravel drive.

She snarls, “If that’s the best you’ve got, boy, it’s a good thing you’re the one riding in fancy.” Before I can say anything, she gets in my face. “Be grateful I don’t kick you for taking my truck without permission.”

Freddy offers Clyde a hand up. “Noelle, would you come with us, too?” He leads them toward the building, calling, “Mr. Barnard? This way, please.”

“About Aimee,” I begin. “What —?”

“So far as we know,” Freddy says, “she’s alive and will remain so until she can be rescued from the discord demon and the
Homo deific.
”

Quincie — ungodly sexy (and Joan of Arc) in a hooded chain-mail jacket over her black clothes — holds the door for them as she exits the porch.

Blocking my way, Grams points at Kayla. “It’s past time you high-tailed it home, young lady. I promised your parents we’d have you back by now.”

“What?” Kayla exclaims, reaching for my hand. “No, I’m going with Yoshi.”

Grams will hear none of it. “You’re not ready for this, little girl. Take a look around. These people are professional law enforcement, trained private security, and seasoned interfaith coalition operatives, many of them former military.”

“What about Yoshi?” Kayla counters.

Grams looks me up and down. “Yoshi survived the jungle hunt on Daemon Island, and nobody cares much whether he lives or dies except his big sister, but she’s biased.”

“I care,” Kayla protests, and I stroke the back of her hand with my thumb.

“Well, then.” Grams gets in her face. “You want to get Yoshi killed, protecting you? Because, believe me, he’s stupid enough to do that.”

I am. I really am. I’m also distracted by the Birds. How does the old saying go? If it walks like a wereduck and talks like a wereduck . . . Not that there’s such a thing as a wereduck anyway. They’ve shifted enough that I can make out their species — six turkey werevultures and ten wereteratorns. The Vultures are local. Their heads are red, and their dark wings appear tipped in white. Teratorns are originally out of Argentina, distantly related to an ancestor of the condor that died out in the late Miocene. Their human-form noses are ginormous, and their bird-form wings span up to thirty feet.

“What about Quincie?” Kayla wants to know. “She’s —”

“
I’m
the senior operative here,” Grams says. “And I’m telling you no. This is no time for amateurs. Now, be a good kitty and scamper home.”

MY GRANDMOTHER MARCHES
to open the back of one of the SUVs and motions me over.

“That wasn’t condescending,” Kayla says. “I don’t want to leave y’all like —”

“Don’t worry about me,” I say, putting my arm around her. “Nine lives, remember?”

“That’s house cats,” she whispers with a kiss.

“Yoshi!” Grams hollers. “You in or out?”

I’m in. Roberto Morales comes over to offer Kayla a ride home.

I sidestep the full-bodied Dillos, giving Richards a quick salute. Some people may joke about his species, but he’s ten times the king Leander is.

“Your gas mask.” My grandmother tosses it my way. “You’ll have to stay in human form to wear it, and if you don’t, the incapacitating agent will mess you up.” She hands me a shoulder holster with a tranquilizer gun and a waistband holster with a Taser gun. “You’ll have to stay man-shaped to use these, too.” It’s a strategy call, prioritizing that evolutionary wonder: the thumb. Grams asks, “You want chain mail?”

What if I have no choice but to take Cat form? Best to shift buck naked, but at least cloth tears easily. “No,” I reply. “What do you mean, incapacita —?”

Grams plugs my mask into an oxygen bottle and secures that with buckle straps against the small of my back. “Our werevulture scouts confirmed Junior’s report of shifters patrolling the woods and the adjacent state parkland. Over a hundred heat signatures. Based on their speed, they’re not humans or yetis. We’re sending the Birds back out to drop knockout gas.”

She wags her finger at me. “Avoid tooth-and-claw combat. Avoid physical contact — period. Get where you’re going, fast, with minimum fuss. Once you hit the resort’s main guest area, you should be able to breathe freely. Wind permitting. The Birds are skipping that section so as not to tip ’em off, but watch out for
Homo deific
security.”

I buckle the waist holster. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Aren’t you a smarty-pants?” If she were in Cat form, Grams’s ears would be flat against her head. “A dosage of gas sufficient to knock a Bear or Moose off its hiney would kill a smaller animal-form shifter like a wereraccoon or wererat. We had to dilute it. Anybody weighing in over 175 will feel woozy, but they might still be dangerous.”

That’s why I have the dart gun: to give anyone still swinging a booster dose.

Grams goes on to explain that we would’ve gone with a preemptive strike, but coalition chemists didn’t sign off on the knockout gas formula until about a half hour ago. “For everybody else, the goal is to reunite the captives with their families, packs, herds, and whatnot. Not you. You back up Quincie. Get her through safe.”

Grams startles me with a quick hug. “You’re not absolutely worthless,” she mutters. “But I still like Ruby better.”

“I WAS WRONG,”
Aimee’s dad admits. “There are greater threats to humanity than werepeople.” He still considers us a threat but uses the more PC “werepeople.”

Barnard sets his suitcase on a cedar log table. He opens it to reveal vials marked
MCC INJECTIONS
. The case, the vials, they’re identical to those Yoshi found in Agent Masters’s car. “This isn’t the new suppression drug. It’s an improvement over the original black-market transformeaze,” Barnard informs us. “More stable. MCC biochemists solved the problem we were having with behavioral side effects.”

Barnard loads a vial into a syringe. He reaches for my arm.

I ask, “Why should we trust you? Are you going in with us?”

No reply. He’d only get in the way, but . . . “You don’t deserve Aimee or her mom either.”

He has the grace to look ashamed. “I know.”

“Do you trust me?” Freddy asks, taking the syringe. His tone is light, but there’s an undercurrent to it. We need to focus. “You can’t speak in full-Lion form; you can’t pass for Leander in human form. Without help, you can’t hold in between for long enough to accomplish anything.”

I don’t have much choice. “Do it.” I grit my teeth as he slides in the needle.

Freddy strides across the wood-plank flooring. He shakes hands with Barnard. “Thank you for your valuable contribution. We’ll bring your daughter home safely.”

I’ll
bring her home safely.

Barnard shrinks back a bit, passing Noelle as he exits the building. He leaves his briefcase of poison where it is.

I watch him go. “Freddy, promise me you’re sure that whatever —”

“The transformeaze in your system was analyzed in the newly established interfaith coalition lab in Cedar Park.” Freddy sets up a standing trifold mirror in the corner. “We’ve studied its chemical composition, and in theory —”

“Analyzed?” Noelle enters the patio. She brought Leander’s car for me to use. “How long has Barnard been —?”

“I get it.” I rock back on my heels. “You injected me with the transformeaze that was on Agent Masters.” That’s why there was time to analyze it. They switched the briefcases. “What’s the point? Why bother to make nice with Barnard?”

It’s Noelle who answers. “He’s trying to help. There’s hope for him, and whether it means much to you or me, it might mean the world to his daughter.”

“What’s more,” Freddy adds, “there’s the mother lode of documents incriminating MCC Enterprises in the file box he brought with him.”

YOSHI
— decked out in black leather holsters and cool secret-agent weapons — strolls into the barn. He takes one look at me and cracks up. “Nice pants.”

“Nice grandmother.” According to Freddy, they’re “amethyst” harem pants. The zebra-trimmed robe, fastened at the neck with a gold medallion, matches.

I’m also sporting the priciest digital watch money can buy — its face surrounded by yellow gold encrusted with yellow diamonds. On loan from Leander, his signature bling. It’s been synchronized with the runners’ watches distributed to the rest of the team.