Feral Curse (24 page)

It’s Evan who recognizes the threat for what it is. “Cops!” he exclaims as Peso tucks his tail. “They know what we are.” Evan takes off, running low to the ground toward the river. He’s fast. Otters are better in the water, but they can jam on land when they want to.

At first I’m sure he’s being paranoid. It’s dark, wet, and we’ve all been raised to be fearful of being sighted in animal form. It’s the fear that lurks just beneath our shifting skins.

I hear a splash. Evan is gone. Safe. He can go anywhere from the river.

That’s when I notice Peter has taken off, too. He’s nowhere in sight. Then again, he managed to evade us for all of Founders’ Day weekend. Wily indeed.

Then a deep male voice booms over a bullhorn. “Shape-shifters, stay where you are.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I whisper as a spotlight zeros in on us. “You figure they’ve got long-range weapons?”

“This is Texas,” Lula answers, climbing out of the wagon. “They’re hunting werepeople. Of course they’ve got long-range weapons.” She puts one hand on my shoulder, one on Kayla’s. “I’m going to draw their fire. I want you two to run.”

Kayla’s mouth drops open. “You can’t! You can’t risk yourself to protect us.”

“What about Darby?” I ask. “And Tanya?” They’re still out cold. We could carry him, but she’d weigh us down to the point that fleeing would be useless.

“You listen to me, young man,” Lula replies. “Better to lose two children than four — period. The fact that none of us asked for it doesn’t change that this may well be war. It’s time for tough decisions. There’s nothing you can do for them now but pray, and even that will have to wait for another time.”

The bullhorn voice threatens once more. I kneel, and Peso leaps into my arms again.

“Think of your sister,” Kayla begs. “We don’t even know what they want.”

“Our skins” is Lula’s answer. “Our heads. One way or the other, that’s always what they want. They’re obsessed with being the dominant species on the planet. They’ll drive us to extinction if we give them the chance. Enough chitchat. Tell Eleanor that I forgave her a long time ago for stealing my first husband. He smelled like pickles and he wasn’t much in the sack, anyway. Oh, and tell her I kept my pin money in the porcelain elephant in the foyer. There’s more than enough to cover that Alaskan cruise she’s always jabbering about.”

She leaps over us, spry for a Cat woman in her seventies, and before the first shot rings out, Kayla and I pivot in the opposite direction. Without discussing it, we’re of one mind that Lula’s sacrifice won’t be wasted. There’s no time now to process the loss.

With gunfire echoing from the hilltop, we race toward whatever future we can find. We’re fast, breathtakingly so, pumping long legs, stretching long muscles. I’d be even quicker in Cat form and so would she, but again, Kayla’s shifts aren’t as seamless or painless as mine. I won’t leave her so much as a step behind, and it has nothing to do with the spell.

It’s not about winning a race or losing it. We’re a team.

Besides, I’m carrying the Chihuahua tucked under my arm like a football. So I stay in human form, stay as low as I can while still really moving, using the picnic tables and barbecue grills and play-scape to help hide us in the steady rain and darkness. The spotlight swings, searching. I’m grateful for the cloudy night, the low natural light.

Trying to escape the threat from the top of the hill, we nearly barrel into its second front at the entrance to the public parking lot on the far side of the recreation area.

“Hold it right there!” It’s Sheriff Bigheart, surrounded by over a dozen . . . I guess they’re state police . . . all pointing guns at us. No, I’ve never seen uniforms like that before. The patches on the sleeve feature an American flag and read:
FEDERAL HUMANITY PROTECTION UNIT
.

I’ve never heard of the Federal Humanity Protection Unit, but they look well organized and funded. Not to mention burly. Where’d the feds recruit these dudes? The NFL?

Whatever’s happening tonight, it’s bigger than me, my friends, this Chihuahua, and one recently departed teen ghost.

“We’re in trouble,” Kayla whispers, crossing her arms over her bare breasts.

“You think?” I reply. They don’t need grounds to arrest us, to kill us. As werepeople, it’s not clear that we’re citizens. They didn’t hesitate to shoot Lula. We have no rights.

Is Lula dead? She must be. If she’s only wounded, they won’t offer her medical assistance, unless it’s just to torture and question her later.

We left Darby and Tanya for them. Just left them there, helpless. God.

“Come this way,” the sheriff says, assuring the feds that he had his squad car reinforced for werepredators.

“Sh-Sheriff Bigheart,” Kayla stammers. “I can explain.”

“No, you can’t.” He takes the dog from me and half tosses him into the rear of the vehicle. We’re cuffed and, with a “Watch your heads,” forced into the backseat.

“I’ll meet you boys at the station,” he announces a moment later, pulling out of the parking lot. We’re turning onto the road when he glances over his shoulder and adds, “They left their vehicles in the library parking lot up on the ridge. That’ll buy us a little time. Somebody knows about you, tipped them off. I heard the phone recording. Guttural, young male voice. You’d recognize it.”

“Junior,” I say through gritted teeth. “We never should’ve trusted him.”

Kayla shoots me a betrayed look that says she agrees.

That’s when it sinks in that the sheriff is on our side.

“Junior,” he agrees. “Somebody, probably the same guy, also filmed and uploaded video of you shifting, Kayla, and sent it simultaneously to every major media outlet in the world. He had great tech, pricey enough to deliver first-rate footage. You just became the most famous teenager in America. We’ve got no more than a four-minute window to get you kids out of here.”

“Out of where?” Kayla asks as he pulls the squad car over on an unlit street.

As the sheriff exits the car, I call, “Wait. About Darby and Tanya —”

“I’ll do everything I can for them,” is his reply. He turns away to hug a newcomer on the scene, and then the girl Kayla waved to coming out of the yoga studio (I never forget a pretty face) — was that only two days ago? — takes his place behind the wheel.

“Jess!” Kayla exclaims, touching the cross that’s still hanging around her neck. “What are you doing here?”

Before Jess can answer, the front passenger door opens and Clyde and then Aimee slide in, her curling up on his lap. “Howdy, naked people,” Aimee says, reaching between the seats to pet Peso. “We’ve got the keys to the handcuffs. We’ll free you once we’re past the Texas state line. But right now we’ve got to fly.”

“Don’t stare at Yoshi,” Clyde scolds, putting a hand over her eyes. “He’s nothing to look at, anyway.”

Aimee makes a
pffft
noise. “Then
you
don’t look at
her.
”

“My parents!” Kayla exclaims. “What —”

“One problem at a time,” Clyde says. “Jess, let’s get out of here.”

“Consider it done,” she replies, flooring the gas.

“We talked to Father Ramos,” Aimee reports. “He and Sheriff Bigheart will do what they can to intercede on Darby and Tanya’s behalf. But the situation is more complicated now. The interfaith coalition got hacked. We’re dealing with seriously tech-savvy opposition here. The established safe houses in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia have all been compromised.”

It’s the goddamned greedy yetis! I just know it.

I take stock of my allies. Aimee and Jess are humans. Kayla was reared by humans, and Clyde was raised a Possum, which is almost worse. I’ve coasted through school, through life. The charming Tom Cat. Daemon Island tested me, but not like this.

It’s time to take up my ground game — stat.

“Jess,” Kayla says, “how did you —”

“Between the two of us, Dad and I figured out that you were a shifter a long time ago,” she replies, grinning at us in the rearview mirror. “Just how lousy a sheriff’s office do you think we run here in scenic Pine Ridge, anyway?”

Kayla laughs at that, and I can hear the relief in her voice, the hope.

Sensing the lighter mood, Peso calms down enough to yip his approval.

“Where are we going?” I ask Jess, leaning forward. “If the safe houses aren’t safe —”

“Osage Nation,” is the reply, and she sounds like she’s looking forward to it.

“We’ll never get past the bridge,” Kayla insists. “We — Wait, where are you turning?”

“Relax, sweetie,” Jess says. “Sooner or later, all roads lead to Indian Country.” The wheels skid against wet pavement. “Hang on, Cats and Cat lovers! We’re on our way!”

Feral Curse
is set in Pine Ridge, Texas, a fictional small town loosely based on Bastrop, Texas. I borrowed the river walk and park as well as its proximity to the historic downtown but otherwise took liberties in peppering it with fictional bands and businesses (like Stubblefield’s Secrets, Bed & Gravy B&B, Lurie’s Steakhouse, Betty’s Baubles, the Brazos Boys, and Davis Family Home Cookin’), streets and residential areas.

Like Pine Ridge, the Bastrop area has suffered from severe wildfires, though I’m not drawing on any specific real-life ones in this novel.

Other fictional locales include Austin Antiques and Sanguini’s: A Very Rare Restaurant as well as the New York Natural History Museum. The International News Network and Catchup are make-believe, too, though you can probably think of media/social networking outlets much like them.

Along these lines,
Feral Curse
follows my previous novel,
Feral Nights,
and both are set in the same universe as my preceding Tantalize series. Clyde makes his debut in
Tantalize
and reappears in
Blessed.
Aimee is introduced in
Blessed,
and we first meet Yoshi in
Feral Nights.

The Bigheart family name is Osage and is used with the gracious permission of the real-life Bigheart family of Austin. The fictional human characters Jess and Sheriff Bigheart are citizens of the Osage Nation. However, the shape-shifter fantasy elements represented in this novel are not inspired by or drawn from any Native American Indian traditional stories or belief systems.

On a more personal note, I’m fortunate enough to write in the company of four domestic cats — Mercury, Bashi, Leo, and the preternaturally serene Blizzard, who inspired a character herein of the same name.

Finally, fans of film, TV, books, and pop culture may notice nods to Jay Anson, C. C. Beck, Pat Benatar, Halle Berry, Jeffrey Boam, Ray Bradbury, Juan Carlos Coto, Joe Decker, Alex Flinn, Misha Green, Geoff Gill, Oliver Grigsby, Anne Hathaway, Dan Hicks, Bob Kane, Simon Kinberg, Eartha Kitt, Susi Kralovansky, Tim Kring, David Livingstone, Chuck Lorre, George Lucas, William Moulton Marston, Irene Mecchi, Menno Meyjes, Lee Meriwether, A. A. Milne, Willie Nelson, Julie Newmar, Joan Lowery Nixon, Bill Parker, Zak Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Edgar Allan Poe, Beatrix Potter, Bill Prady, Jonathan Roberts, Jerry Robinson, Gene Roddenberry, Ryland Sanders, William Shakespeare, John Schulian, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, H. M. Stanley, Elizabeth George Speare, Steven Spielberg, Robert G. Tapert, Carrie Underwood, Clint Wade, H. G. Wells, Joss Whedon, E. B. White, Linda Woolverton, and Tim Wynne-Jones.

My thanks to Kathi Appelt, Anne Bustard, Tim Crow, Esther Hershenhorn, Sean Petrie, and Greg Leitich Smith, the early readers/advisers of a manuscript called
Carousel.
The only surviving element of this re-envisioning is the carousel itself, and even it haunts in a new way. Thank you for helping me grow into the writer who could tell the story this was meant to be.

What’s more, I tip my cowgirl hat to fellow writers Emlyn Addison, Chris Barton, H. Scott Beazley, Gene Brenek, Bethany Hegedus, Jane Kurtz, and Melissa Wiley, as well as to the Bigheart family of Austin. Thanks for buying a ticket to this fantastical ride.

As ever, I likewise remain in awe of the gracious guidance of my agent, Ginger, the diligence of her assistant, Mina, and their razor-sharp comrades-at-arms at Curtis Brown.

And of course I bow gratefully to the genius of my editor, Deb, the enthusiastic support of her assistant, Carter, and the formidable teams at both Candlewick Press and Walker Books.