Hunters of Chaos (19 page)

Mr. Waterman hesitated before he said, “That's the part that concerns me. I don't
know
where they are. They never mentioned travel plans to me, and they knew there would be some final paperwork to sign this week. The house seems to be in order, but when I showed up, the door was unlocked, which is strange.”

“Strange” was an understatement! My aunt never left any door unlocked. She was paranoid about that. If we left the house and she wasn't absolutely sure we'd locked the door, she would drive home to check, even if we were already several blocks away.

Mr. Waterman continued. “I did notice some drawers open, some clothing seemingly missing. I'd hoped perhaps they had gone to visit you, but apparently that isn't the case. Is it possible they went on an unplanned vacation?”

“No,” I said immediately. “They wouldn't do that. They wouldn't go on a trip somewhere and not tell me.” Aunt Teppy thought it was really important that I never felt abandoned, which I guess a therapist friend had once told her is a common feeling for orphans. She wouldn't even leave for the grocery store without telling me.

“Let me ask you: Is this the first time you've called since you've been away at school?”

There was no judgment in his tone, but I felt guilty all the same. “Well, yes. I mean, no. I did e-mail them, and I tried to Skype them a few times, but the connection out here—”

“Ana, please don't misunderstand. I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm merely pointing out that since you've been away at school, you haven't been in day-to-day touch with them. Something may have occurred that prompted a last-minute trip.”

“Something like what?” I urged.

“Maybe there was an unexpected death in the family. Perhaps a work trip? It's possible they took a little vacation to console themselves over your absence. I know how much they love you. In any case, I assure you I will do everything in my power to locate them. In the meantime, I don't want you to worry. From everything I've heard, Temple Academy is a fine school. So you should focus on your schoolwork and enjoy yourself. I'll be in touch if there's any news to share.”

I was about to yell that I couldn't enjoy myself until I knew for sure that they were okay. But as I was about to say the words, the overhead lights began to flicker, just as they had done in the museum the night of the exhibition. I glanced around the main room and watched as one by one the computers shut down, their screens going black. I turned back to my computer to tell Mr. Waterman what was happening, but the call had been disconnected. Mr. Waterman was gone. When I tried to reconnect, I got an error message telling me that the network was unavailable. The Internet was down.
Arrrgh!
I couldn't take any more of these power outages. They always seemed to happen at the worst possible time. I wanted to throw my laptop across the room, but I was fairly sure Shani would kill me if I did.

So instead I gathered my things and walked back to Radcliff Hall, hoping that maybe it was a rolling blackout that had yet to reach my dorm and I could get online there. When I arrived, the dorm was totally dark except for the sunlight streaming through the windows. Several girls—including Doli, Shani, and Lin—were all packed into the common room, chattering loudly, their arms crossed.

“What's going on?” I asked Doli. “Did the power surge here, too?”

“It's worse than that. Mrs. O'Grady said she got word from Principal Ferris that the entire computer network crashed. Plus, we have no electricity,” Doli replied. “Shani is devastated.”

“You joke,” Shani said, “but I am. Mrs. O'Grady is checking to see why the generators haven't switched on yet, but for now we're in the dark.”

Doli motioned for Lin, Shani, and me to follow her to the kitchen, where we wouldn't be overheard. “I've been thinking,” she said. “Ana, you know how you said Lin accused you of causing the earthquakes and storms because they started when you arrived?”

I gave Lin a baleful look, and she had the grace to blush. “Yeah.”

“Well, you weren't the only one who arrived right around that time.”

It took me a moment to catch on. “Dr. Logan!”

She nodded. “And when we were in the basement, Ixchel said that she knew he was walking the Earth again when the strange weather started up.”

“So what does that mean?” Shani said.

Doli took a deep breath. “I think that whenever there's a power surge, or an earthquake, or a thunderstorm that comes out of nowhere, it's because Anubis is nearby.”

Suddenly I felt the blood drain from my face. “Oh, God,” I said. “The night before I left Ohio, there was a huge storm. It raged all night. And now I just talked to my family's lawyer and he says my aunt and uncle have gone missing. What if . . . what if Anubis was there in Ohio, plotting to get rid of me and my family? They're the ones who sent the vase. What if they knew something about how to capture the Chaos Spirits, so he did something to them before they could tell me? Or maybe he was there to try to stop me from coming to Temple so that the Wildcats would never meet.” Every possibility made me shiver to the bone. “What if he has them?” I whispered, dread washing over me.

“You can't think that way,” said Doli. “Your aunt and uncle sound pretty smart. And if they sent the vase, they probably aren't completely in the dark about all this either. Besides, if Anubis had them, don't you think he would have used them against you by now?”

She had a point there. I held on to that kernel of hope as if it were gold.

Shani gave us a mischievous smile. “There is one silver lining about the whole grid being down,” she said. “No lights means no problem sneaking out to the woods tonight to practice shape-shifting into Wildcats.”

Lin let out a disgusted grunt. “Ugh, you mean you want me to trek through the muddy athletic field in the dark so we can run around in the woods? No way. It'll ruin my clothes, and the only shoes I own are designer.”

“I'll lend you something more casual to wear,” I promised.

“But—”

“Lin, learning how to use our powers might be the only way to stop Anubis. If he shows up again, Ms. Benitez won't be around to save our skins,” I said. “We need to be able to defend ourselves. But we've got to do it together. We're a team, right?” I stuck my hand out, palm down, and Shani and Doli piled theirs on top. We all gazed at Lin expectantly.

Finally she added her dainty hand, so different from her tiger paw, on top and said, “Right. We're a team.”

“A
HHH, WHY CAN'T I GET
this!” Doli groaned.

I'd never seen her this upset. She was usually so laid back. But Doli was also used to winning. And at that moment we were all failing miserably at transforming into the Wildcats.

We'd waited until eleven o'clock, when we were sure Mrs. O'Grady had gone to bed, then we sneaked out of the dorm. We trekked through the muddy athletic field in the dark, just as Lin had feared, stopping only when we found a clearing in the woods near an old hiking trail where we could practice transforming. The problem was, we had no idea how we'd done it the first time, so we had no clue how to do it again.

We tried chanting out loud using Navajo words that Doli taught us. We tried spinning in a circle like Wonder Woman. Lin even tried scaring us into transforming, as if she were trying to cure a bad case of hiccups, but she was wearing my Cookie Monster T-shirt and an old pair of my Keds, so how scary could she be? It was now well past midnight and not a single one of us had managed so much as a whisker.

“Maybe it only works in creepy museum basements,” Shani suggested.

“If that's the case, I'm going home,” said Lin. “I need my—”

“Beauty sleep,” we all said in unison. It was the fourth time she'd said it, and we were all sick to death of hearing the same old thing.

Lin looked at us, pouting. “Well, I do.”

“Guys,” I said finally, “maybe we're trying too hard. I mean, these cats are a part of us now. Maybe instead of thinking, ‘Turn into a jaguar, turn into a jaguar,' over and over, we need to just think like an animal. You know, let go and let the cat take over.”

“Sounds a little New Agey to me,” Shani said, “but let's give it a try.”

I closed my eyes. First, I tried to clear my mind. I thought of nothing but the cool night air on my skin and the sound of lizards scurrying through the leaves. I could hear their three-pronged feet scratching into the dirt as they ran. I sniffed the air and smelled chlorine and dead leaves coming from the pool. When my breath was nice and even, I tried to recall the way I'd felt as a cat. I pictured my lean, muscular body walking on four legs, and balancing the weight of it with my tail. I saw myself moving through the woods on padded feet, finding the wind's direction with a shake of my whiskers. I imagined my teeth growing long and sharp in my mouth. . . .

Slowly, tingles traveled up my spine and down into my hands. I detected the musty aroma of fear as the horses in the stables picked up my scent. I felt loose and strong. When I opened my mouth to say, “I think it's working,” what came out was a quiet roar, followed by a loud scream.

I opened my eyes to find Shani and Doli staring down at me with fascinated expressions on their faces. Lin was hiding behind Doli, her eyes just peeking over her shoulder.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Shani exclaimed.

“I think you traumatized Lin for life,” Doli said with a touch of pleasure in her voice. She raised her fist in front of her and gave me a secret thumbs-up.

“Did not,” Lin said, emerging from her hiding place. “I just . . . don't want to get any of her cat saliva on me. Gross.”

I licked my paw and shook out my fur, settling into my jaguar skin, and let out a low growl full of warning.

Lin jumped back behind Doli, and Shani burst out laughing. “Guess we know who the alpha cat is. I'm so going next,” she said.

Her transformation was slow but amazing. At one point she opened her eyes in time to see her hands turn into lion paws so heavy that her human arms were almost too weak to lift them. Lin, probably eager not to be the last human standing among a pack of dangerous—and possibly hungry—wild animals, took only ten seconds to change. Doli, ever the competitor, transformed almost instantly.

We did it!
We had become the Wildcats, on purpose this time.

When the transformations were complete, the dogs in the kennel far from where we were began to howl and yelp.
They must sense that big cats are near
, I thought. I padded ahead to the hiking trails that led down into the valley, where we couldn't be seen from campus. As soon as we reached the valley floor, we took off running.

As a jaguar, I could see just as well in the dark as I could in the light of day, maybe even better. We'd managed to avoid human eyes, but here there were a thousand more. The night was alive! Blackbirds drinking from trickling streams took flight when we passed, and I could see every flap of their glistening wings against the moonlight. Raccoons scurried into their nests, and fat spiders hung from the ends of thin lines of silk, their webs quivering in the breeze. It was such a rush being one more creature in the night, feeling like I belonged here. It was the most fun I'd ever had in my life.

Even Lin looked like she was enjoying herself now. It didn't faze her when she galloped through clouds of buzzing mosquitoes. She just kept running, bounding over rocks and joyfully waving her striped orange tail.

We could have run all night, but the moon, which had been riding high when we first came out, had begun to sink behind the trees as if it were putting itself to bed. It was getting late. Eventually, Doli led us back to the clearing, and this time we focused on what it felt like to be human. I imagined walking upright, my fur replaced with smooth brown skin, my teeth small and even. Being a jaguar felt so natural to me that it was almost disappointing to open my eyes and find that I was a human being again.

When we'd all transformed into our usual bodies, it was Doli who spoke first. “That was incredible. I think we've got the hang of this now.”

“I hope so,” said Shani. “If Anubis comes back and hits us with magic again to turn us human, I want to be able to shift right back.”

“Me too,” Lin agreed. “But not tonight. I'm so tired.”

“We should go back to the dorm one at a time,” I suggested. “Everyone's probably asleep by now, but just in case. . . .”

Shani and Doli headed back first, leaving me and Lin on the athletic field. While we waited, Lin turned to me abruptly and blurted, “So Jason has been texting you?”

Taken by surprise, I furrowed my eyebrows. I vaguely remembering mentioning that in passing, but why was she bringing it up now? “Once in a while,” I said. “Why?”

Lin tipped her chin up so she was looking down her nose at me. “He's like that with everybody at first, you know. He's just friendly. It doesn't mean he likes you. It doesn't mean anything.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “So if it doesn't mean anything, why do you care?”

Her lips tightened into a hard line. “I don't,” she snapped. But it was obvious that she did. Without another word she slipped down the path that led back to the dorm, leaving me speechless.
This is going to be a problem,
I thought.

I knew I should follow Lin back to Radcliff, but something about the early dawn air was intoxicating. No one was going to be up for another hour or so—did it really matter whether I lingered a few more minutes? I looked around and didn't see anyone.
No one will see,
I thought. So I cleared my mind, focused my cat senses, and changed back into my jaguar self once more. For a moment I wondered what would happen if I went into the dorm this way. If Nicole found me scary as a human, how would she react if she woke up and found a massive jaguar waiting outside her room? The image was almost too good to resist. But in the end, I did the right thing. I looked up at the full moon and changed back into my human form, like a werewolf in reverse. But when I turned to face the dorm, I found that I wasn't alone after all.