chapter 9
Samantha caught up with Alon and Aldara before they reached their objective. Alon turned to face the threat coming from behind and stopped the instant Samantha appeared.
Aldara bared her fangs. Samantha reared up to face this threat, but Alon extended a hand to stop Aldara. Samantha couldn’t hide her distress. They faced her together with huge yellow eyes, gray, pointed, batlike leathery ears and those terrible spiny teeth. They were near identical except Alon was larger and Aldara had fur-covered breasts. They were the most frightening things she had ever seen, and her body began to tremble even as she reared to her hind legs, rising to her full nine feet.
“It’s Samantha,” he said, his words slurred by his fangs.
“She’s a bear?” hissed Aldara.
“A healer, like her father. We might have need of her.”
Is that why he stopped the attack? Because she might be useful?
Aldara lifted her chin as if listening. A moment later she shuddered.
“They’re here. I can feel them on my skin,” she whispered. “Nagi’s forces.”
Alon went still and then the skin on his shoulders quivered like a horse chasing off a fly. “Yes.”
“What do we do?” Aldara’s huge, bulbous eyes were wide with terror.
“Kill them before they can report back.” His words were hushed, slurred and sinister. The harsh, guttural tone sent a shiver through Samantha.
“He’ll know. He’ll see them in the circle. They’ll tell him where to find us.” Her words were an urgent whisper.
Alon raked a hand through the long silvery fur on his head. It was so fine that the tracks of his fingers remained for a moment.
“Kill them quick. Get the Beta, Gamma and Delta packs and run.” He turned to Samantha. “They will kill you if they see you. You can’t defeat them alone. Your best chance is with us.”
Best chance. Her ears began to buzz.
She growled in acknowledgment as she could not speak in this form.
Aldara leaped away, running on all fours like a baboon. Alon glanced back at Samantha and then raced after his sister.
Samantha dropped to all fours and charged after the twins, who left a wide path through the undergrowth. Before she reached them, the terrible howling erupted again and then a roar. She broke from cover to find two Ghostlings locked together in combat. Alon, she realized, with an intruder.
Aldara scrambled from one small Ghostling to the next, stopping briefly to emit a high-pitched cry before moving on. Six small bodies littered the ground in bloody contortions. Four had been torn open in the middle and two had had their throats ripped out. The Delta Pack, Samantha realized.
She heaved with a wave of nausea at the carnage. Aldara finished her survey and roared. It was a sound that Samantha would never forget, full of pain and wrath and the need for revenge. Aldara leaped on the back of the intruder, heedless of the spines that punctured her, and sank her fangs deep into the juncture of its shoulder and neck. Alon released his foe, and Samantha now saw it was a female. The Toe Tagger twisted and howled in a vain effort to shake off her attacker. The Halfling’s movements seemed to drive Aldara’s fangs only deeper into the vessels and tissue at its throat. She could not shake Aldara off. Finally the Ghostling staggered and dropped to her knees. Only then did Aldara release it. Her bloody mouth gaped and she gnashed her teeth as she stood over her fallen foe.
Samantha caught movement from the corner of her eye. Alon and Aldara faced the female, so they did not see the second Halfling attacker streak from the cover of ferns. But Samantha did.
It came so fast she did not have time to think. Instead, she charged, meeting the thing in midair as it tried to tackle Alon. Her block drove it off course, and they both hit the ground.
The ease with which it knocked Samantha down both shocked and terrified her. The male Ghostling raised a claw that glistened with the blood of the Delta Pack. But his blow never landed. Alon grabbed its raised arm and sank his long, spearlike talons deep between the male’s ribs.
Her attacker gasped as he sank to his knees. Alon withdrew his talons, and red, frothy blood bubbled from the Ghostling’s mouth. It fell forward and lay still.
Alon glanced at Samantha and then turned back to Aldara, who tried and failed to rise as she gripped her chest and abdomen. Blood seeped between her fingers.
Samantha bellowed.
“They’re gone,” Aldara said to Alon. “Their souls have already fled!”
His gaze darted here and there, sweeping the ground. Did he search for the souls of the young ones? The fur on Samantha’s neck lifted as she watched him hunt for what she could not see. She could see ghosts, but not the escaping souls. What was the difference?
She placed her paw over her heart, closed her eyes and concentrated. An instant later she felt the flash of energy and the zip of power as she shifted forms. For one moment she stood naked in her long bearskin cape. She stroked her shoulder, summoning another flash of light. Now she stood dressed in sneakers, jeans and a clean white T-shirt.
Alon did not shift. Neither did Aldara. But Aldara did topple sideways before Samantha could reach her.
Alon charged away. He returned a moment later with a pile of stones.
“I have to check for other intruders,” he growled and was gone again.
Samantha placed the stones in a circle and motioned Aldara to the center.
Samantha tugged the crow feather free from her hair. Aldara closed her eyes as Samantha began to chant.
The wounds healed from the inside out. First the blood ceased and finally the tissue knit. She finished her work and discovered Alon there guarding them both. Still in his third form, he now seemed more imposing than terrifying, and the sight gave her an unexpected sense of ease.
“No others,” he said.
“None of the souls can be saved?” she asked.
He shook his head.
Aldara curled into a ball and wept.
Alon knelt beside her, resting a hand on her silvery back.
“Aldara. We need to find the Beta and Gamma packs and we need to run.”
She lifted her damp face. “What about them? We have to bury them.”
“I’ll do it,” said Samantha. In her bear form the digging would be no trouble.
They both stared at her with those terrifying jaundice eyes. She nearly succeeded in repressing a shiver.
“You both go after the others. I’ll bury them and meet you at the house.”
Alon shook his head. “We can’t leave her.”
“You said there were no more intruders,” reminded Samantha.
“Bury them, please,” said Aldara. She staggered to her feet.
Samantha knew that Aldara would feel dizzy and weak after the healing. But still Alon’s sister dropped to her knees and began to dig. Her long talons tore through the packed soil like steel through sand.
Samantha shifted and joined Aldara. A moment later Alon added his efforts. The result was one long deep grave for the six twins to rest side by side. Aldara made a bed of ferns and blanketed their desecrated bodies with the same. Together they filled the grave, covering the little twins who had not survived their first year. This was what Nagi did to his own kind.
She stilled as she realized this was also what her kind were doing, hunting the infants. Killing them while they were small. Samantha felt sick and ashamed. No wonder Alon and Aldara both hated her.
Samantha shifted back to human form to say a blessing.
“We have to find the rest,” said Aldara.
They did not have far to look. The Gamma Pack had also sensed the intruders. Samantha did not understand it. Alon said they could feel others of their kind on their skin just as they could feel ghosts.
The group of twenty all hid in the cover of thick fern and brush. Alon sensed them first. Aldara met them with open arms.
It took a moment for Samantha to realize that the yipping and snarling was weeping. The Gamma Pack members were mourning for their lost siblings.
Samantha wept, as well.
She felt Alon squat beside her and glanced down to see his elongated foot covered with silvery-blond fur, the nails just as terrible as a grizzly’s claws.
“Are you surprised to see that we can feel?” he asked in that strange guttural voice.
“No,” she said, her denial quick and defensive. She let her shoulders droop. “Yes,” she whispered. “You aren’t what I was taught to expect.”
He left her there and joined his sister, who was trying to explain what had happened to the youngsters. They could not understand why two of their own kind would attack them. Every adult Ghost Child they had ever met had been kind and nurturing.
These Ghostlings were bigger, nearly half Aldara’s size, and imposing in such a large group. Still Samantha did not feel afraid. She listened when Aldara explained about her but could not really understand what was said.
“They know where the Betas are,” said Aldara. “And they’ve agreed to leave with me. To find our parents.”
Samantha glanced to him and found his gaze pinned on her.
“I can’t leave her,” he said, speaking to Aldara while looking at Samantha.
And then she understood. Aldara and Alon, even these little ones, could all fly. She was holding them back and endangering them all.
“But there may be more of them,” said Aldara.
“More reason to stay.”
Aldara glanced from her brother to Samantha and sighed. “You will follow?”
He nodded. “As quickly as we can.”
“We’ll go to the Beta Pack first. Then find our parents.”
She stepped forward to hug her brother and then turned to face Samantha. “Thank you for healing my wounds. I owe you a favor, but if you get my brother killed you answer to me.”
With that mixed message delivered, Aldara made a clicking sound in her throat. The Gamma Pack gathered about her. She pointed to the sky. They nodded their understanding.
Then, right before her eyes, Aldara evaporated into billowing gray smoke and rocketed into the blue. Each of the Gammas poofed into smoke and followed their half sister.
Samantha gaped in wonder as she witnessed their retreat. They could fly!
Alon watched them until they disappeared.
“I’m sorry,” Samantha said.
“We have to hurry,” he said.
How long until the souls of the Ghostlings walked the Spirit Road and reached Nagi in his shadowy realm?
How long until her enemy found her?
* * *
Alon wasted no time getting Samantha back to the house. Fifteen minutes later he was back in human form, dressed in boots, creased trousers and a gray pinstriped shirt with cuffs rolled to the elbow. His mussed hair and untucked shirttails spoke of his rush. He hustled her out to the garage and threw a small duffel into the bed of a red Ford pickup truck. She strapped on her shoulder restraint and he led them out of the mountains, driving as fast as the twisting switchbacks would allow. Samantha had never learned to drive and was relieved that Alon had.
Twilight painted the sky purple. Samantha held on to the armrest and braced her feet on the floor, trying unsuccessfully to keep from banging into the door frame. Many switchbacks later, the road, and Samantha’s stomach, leveled on the valley floor and the sky opened above them, giving her a view of the stars emerging one by one. First the Holy Star, Venus, twinkled bright and then Winter Maker, the cluster called Orion by many, appeared, still clinging to his place in the heavens.
As Alon drove, Samantha told herself to keep her attention out the window, but she could not resist snatching quick glances at him. He was handsome again. She could not get her mind around the reality that this stunning, sexy man was that terrifying, vicious creature who had so effectively used his claws to puncture the heart and lungs of his challenger.
His third form called to mind the ones who had attacked her family. It was a comparison that lifted the hairs on her neck. Had they done the same to her father? Alon thought so.
He wasn’t one of them. This was Alon. Still she inched farther from him and clung to the armrest.
He had been right not to show her his third form. How had she ever kissed him? How could she have fallen for his looks when she knew what he was inside? He’d been born that way. This, what she now saw, was not his natural form. She, on the other hand, had been born human and only later grew into her second shape.
Her entire life had been filled with the terror of being found by Nagi. Always she feared his ghosts and lately his evil monsters. Alon was one of them.
She had not always balanced her fear for her family’s safety and the urging of her heart to do what she was meant to do. What would Alon do with her if he knew that she was also a Seer, one of the three Halflings whom Nagi most wanted dead?
She shivered.
“Cold?” he asked and fiddled with the air system.
She was cold right through to her heart. What did she do now?
She closed her eyes and wished for the kind of life many took for granted, one of peace, security and purpose. Would she ever have that?
When she opened her eyes it was to find Alon casting worried glances at her. Her vision worked well in near darkness and she could see his features clearly, even with only the dashboard as illumination. His ghostly gray aura provided even more light as it stretched toward her. She pressed her back against the door.
When he spoke, the strain in his voice caught her in the chest. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
She knew what he meant. “It’s what you are. As much a part of you as my human form is to me.”
His fingers clenched the wheel, constricting with the relentlessness of a boa constrictor.
“My mother calls it my fighting form.”
“The shape in which you were born,” she whispered, her words an accusation.
He stared out the windshield. “Yes.”
Alon’s aura glowed bright and unnatural in the cab, flaring to the roof the color of pewter. No, that wasn’t quite right, more silver, capped with inky black. Black, she knew, was the color of death, and being born of Nagi that did make sense. But what about the silver?
“Why didn’t you want me to see?”
His eyebrows tented and he gave her a long look. “Because I’m hideous.”
She gasped. Did he think so, too? How terrible. Her unease shifted to empathy. Alon hated his original form, and yet it was a part of him.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want your pity. I want...” His words dropped away.
She folded her hands in her lap, resisting the urge to reach out to him.
His aura flared and arched toward her again, but this time her rust-and-gold-capped aura also stretched toward his. She drew a quick intake of breath.
Electricity charged the air.
Samantha recoiled and banged against the door. He shot her a look.
She’d witnessed something similar before between her parents. Her neck prickled. No, that wasn’t it. It couldn’t be. Simply impossible.
“Am I that repugnant?” he growled.
“Did you see it?”
He swung his gaze about, hunching over the wheel as he scanned their surroundings. “Ghosts?”
She shook her head. “That aura.”
He exhaled his relief and straightened behind the wheel. “I can’t see auras.”
He lifted a brow as if waiting for her to elaborate. Damned if she would. Letting him know she could see them was a mistake. Only Niyanoka saw auras. He must suspect now that she had another gift. Would he still protect her if he knew she was the one Nagi sought?
In the darkness, his eyes glowed bright as any predator, only not the normal green of an animal caught in the high beams, but orange like hot embers.
“How is it that a Skinwalker can see them?” he asked.
She dropped her gaze, knowing she was a terrible liar. When she looked back it was to find him still staring, his gaze flicking from the road to her and back.
“You saved me today,” he said.
She had, too, or at least gave him the time he needed to save himself. Samantha glanced away, staring at the yellow lines that divided the narrow highway.
“And you healed Aldara. You buried our dead.”
“Well, don’t make it out to be more than it is. I need you to get to Bess.”
“No.” He kept his eyes on the road. “It was more.”
“Why did they kill them?”
“Join or die. Only they were too young to even understand the question.” Alon’s grip tightened dangerously on the steering wheel and she saw it bend. He extended his fingers then gingerly returned his hands to the wheel.
Would he ever face that choice?
Someone had to stop Nagi. Could that someone be Alon?
She swallowed back her uncertainty and cleared her throat. “Alon, if he finds you. Would you join?”
His look was incredulous, as if he did not understand how she could even ask. His conviction shone in his crystal eyes. “I fight against Nagi. I fight for the Balance.”
“You would fight against your father?”
“My father is a Soul Whisperer.”
“Nagi sired you. You are a part of him.” She said this aloud for herself. She needed to remember what he truly was.
“A curse I face every damned day.” He glared through the windshield, not looking at her as he spoke. “Nagi threatens the Balance. I will never side with him.”
She exhaled her relief and realized she believed him.
“But neither will I fight with those who hunt my kind.”
Samantha’s brow knit. “You mean the Ghostlings who have joined Nagi?”
He cast her an incredulous glance, and in that instant she understood that he meant the Skinwalkers, the ones his sister had spoken of. The realization made it impossible to hold his gaze. Silence stretched. “You didn’t know?”
She shook her head, already feeling stupid. Her stomach knotted as she prepared to admit she had been spying on him. “I didn’t. Not until I overheard Aldara tell you in the woods. Vigilantes.”
He scanned her face as if assessing her answer. “That’s right. They are hunting newborns. Only they do not give them a choice. They find them. They kill them.”
Samantha shivered and then covered her face with her hands. “Why didn’t you kill me when you found me in the forest?”
“I almost did, but the Skinwalkers come in packs. You were alone.”
She kept her hands pressed to her eyes, as if this could block out the horror of his words. Here she thought she had reason to hate him. He also had reason to hate her. Enemies with only their parents’ friendship to keep them from tearing each other to shreds.
“I am so sorry and so ashamed.” Her words seemed hollow in the closed cab. She’d never felt more alone.
“Do you not think we deserve to die?” Something in his tone brought her to attention. His words were not delivered with sarcasm but something else, something more caustic. Was it self-loathing?
“Of course not. I’ll admit to being terrified of you at first. But you are quite obviously not the nightmare I was led to believe.”
“In what way?”
“You can think, for one, and feel, for another. You are loyal to your sister and your family. You protect the children.”
“I failed to protect them.”
She continued as if he had not interrupted. “You saved me from attack and you rescued the soul of an innocent creature.”
“I also killed one of my own kind.”
“Self-defense. He attacked you.”
The silence returned, filling up the cab until Samantha could not breathe in the gloom that surrounded him. Even his aura was growing darker by the minute.
“Alon, he is hunting your kind. He is killing mine. We can’t let that happen.”
He snorted.
“We have to bring your Ghost Children into the fight.”
He gave a quick dismissing shake of his head. “We? There’s no we.”
“There could be.”
“You’re a runner, little rabbit. Running all your life, you said. Now you wish to turn and fight?”
And suddenly she understood why the Thunderbirds had dropped her here with him. It wasn’t Bess she needed to find. It wasn’t to learn all she could about their enemy. It was to find Alon. Alon, the Naginoka who refused to join Nagi.
She sat back as the realization jelled in her mind. This Ghostling fought for the Balance and for Mankind. Maybe others would, as well.
He glanced at her sitting frozen against the seat.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I—I’m not sure.” She felt nauseous as the shock and fear collided with the certainty of her realization.
He glanced out the windshield, his aura now glowing a pure silver. “Do you sense some danger?”
She shook her head.
“I won’t leave you unguarded. Not until I know you are safe.”
She knew he wouldn’t. He was a magnificent protector. The Thunderbirds could not have done better.
But his allegiance to her was transient. Would he leave her with his mother, or could she convince him to extend his protection to the impending battle?
“My family is trying to bring the Skinwalkers and Spirit Children into an alliance to stop Nagi.” She held her breath, waiting for his reply.
His laugh held no mirth. “They hate each other.”
“They hate Nagi more.”
That wiped away his sarcastic grin. “Perhaps. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”
Sun Tzu, she realized, The Art of War. How perfect that he knew the strategies of so great a military commander.
She glanced at Alon as he drove in silence, the bunching of his jaw muscles the only indication of unrest.
“Even if you defeated his Ghostling army,” he said, “you can’t defeat his ghosts. Once they take possession of a human, even I can’t get them out. Not without killing the host, that is.”
She could. But if she told him then he would know she was a Seer. She wanted to trust Alon with her secret, but she had kept it so long, run so far. It was hard to release it to him.
“And Nagi is immortal. You can’t kill him.”
“I know it.”
“Then he’ll kill you, too. He kills anyone who tries to stop him.”
She held fast to a bravado she did not feel, lifting her chin in defiance, disregarding the worry that gnawed at her belly. “Then he’ll have to kill us all.”
“Yes. I’m sure he’s looking forward to that.”
Samantha stared at Alon, trying to decide what to do. If she told him that she was a Seer, he might abandon her or turn her over to his sire. But there was a third possibility flickering in her heart like a tiny, fragile flame. If she told him she could rescue possessed humans, heal all wounds and cast evil ghosts to the Way of Souls, could she convince him to join their cause?