Legacy of the Claw (24 page)

TEETH BARED, THE BEAST leapt straight at Sucrette. It swiped its giant paw at her shoulder and sharp claws ripped at her flesh. She screamed, stumbling backward. Bailey couldn't breathe. He felt like he was falling from a great height, the same way he'd felt after leaping from the clock tower. The giant animal he'd seen from the rigimotive
was
real. Its hide was a brilliant white, with light gray stripes. It was no ghost, but a beautiful white tiger.

The tiger crouched low, poised to strike Sucrette again, but the gray wolf hurled onto its back and the two animals became a snarling mass of blood and fur. The tiger reared up on its hind legs and whipped its head back, biting into the wolf and heaving it off. It landed a few feet away in the snow, yelping.

The tiger then turned to Bailey. It growled, but softly—a deadly rumbling that echoed in Bailey's bones. He slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. His head and arm throbbed.

“Stop them!” Sucrette yelled to the beasts behind her, though Bailey barely registered her screams as the tiger paced before him, its tail lashing.

A pair of black bears ran across the clearing and lunged at the tiger. Bailey scrambled backward as the three animals crashed onto the ground. The other animals moved into the clearing and closed in on the tiger. Their warm breath rose up as bits of vapor in the cold air.

“Finish it!” shouted Sucrette. But the tiger landed a crushing blow to one bear, then the other, and each of them fell in furry heaps in the snow. They were replaced by a handful of wolves, who leapt into the fray, baying. The tiger snorted and growled as it fought them off—as it fought them
away
from Bailey.

Bailey crouched on the ground, trying to understand. His heart was beating, and he tasted something metallic in his mouth, like blood. Each blow the tiger suffered made him feel panicked and sick. He looked for a break in the rocks behind him, but there was no escape.

Sucrette was at the opposite end of the clearing, and between them, the fight raged on. Teeth and claws and blood. The white tiger rose on its haunches and seemed to spin in the air, knocking the wind out of several wolves with a swipe of one massive paw. It landed close to Bailey, and for the first time, the two of them were eye to eye.

Bailey could swear that in that moment, time stopped. All was quiet and still, and even the snarling pack of beasts seemed to fade from his awareness. He could see nothing but the tiger's face. The breaths of both boy and tiger appeared in the air between them, rising and dissipating in the dark.

Bailey kept his gaze focused on the tiger's eyes—irises laced with shades of blue and gray.

He did not blink or look away. Neither did the tiger.

And then, as if through a trick of magic, Bailey saw the forest in reverse. The same trees, the same grove—but the figure in front of him was not the hulking white tiger.

It was himself.

His new wool coat was torn in one shoulder and he held his right arm, which lay limp and useless against his chest. He smelled strongly of the lentil soup he'd had for lunch, and of healthy, pumping blood. He watched his own eyes widen and fill with understanding. He was seeing himself, from the tiger's perspective.

He knew—of course he knew. It felt so undeniably true that he laughed, as if he had just realized the sky was above him.

He was Animas White Tiger. He had Awakened, and here was his only kin in the world.

His vision seemed to jump, like frames in a picture show, between the tiger's perspective and his own. The tiger's eyes softened, and its whiskers flickered. Bailey knew the tiger—a female whose name, Bailey simply knew, was Taleth—was experiencing the same sudden realization, after years of feeling incomplete. She had felt a pull here, to the woods just outside Fairmount, never knowing it was the need to be near her kin. Until now.

Bailey felt nothing but awe and joy. Their two perspectives switched back and forth as they stared at each other.

But a hoarse, angry cry cut through the quiet, “Kill them both, you filthy beasts!”

AT SUCRETTE'S COMMAND, A massive bear threw itself on Taleth's hide from behind. The tiger roared, her pain shattering Bailey's trance.

The tiger shook the bear off, and Bailey ran to her. The claw marks in her side were deep, but she kept fighting. Bailey grabbed a hold of her flank with his good arm and heaved himself up onto her back. Though his arm throbbed with the effort, he grasped the tiger's hide with both hands. His head was spinning.

Sucrette stood on a tall rock outside the clearing, close to the spot where Bailey had first entered. She was clutching her side, and blood was flowing freely from her cheek. But she was alive. The Dominated animals continued to approach them, ready to fight.

The tiger reared up on her hind legs and shook her striped head, teeth bared and glistening. Bailey gripped her neck tightly, trying to clear his head of dizziness.

Taleth leapt forward, crashing through the melee toward the rock face. A wolf bit into her back leg, but Bailey kicked at its nose until it let go, growling. With one shuddering movement, the tiger hauled herself up onto the rock, with Bailey holding on to her back for dear life. Taleth towered before Sucrette, who did not back down.

“How brave,” she spat as the tiger crouched in front of her. “And how kind of you both to deliver yourself to me so conveniently. Two parts of one prophecy, killed in one stroke.”

The hum of an engine and a strange rattling noise cut through the air. Bailey heard too the flapping of hundreds of wings, and he took his eyes off Sucrette and looked up. The gray evening sky above the clearing was full of birds—falcons and owls—flying in circles through the falling snow.

A bright light bounced between the trees, and Bailey shaded his eyes as the mechanical hum and rattling grew deafening, and something crashed and sputtered onto the large, flat surface of the rock. The tiger reared, and Sucrette fell backward in surprise. As Bailey's eyes adjusted, he saw that it was Tremelo's motorbuggy. Tremelo himself was standing with his feet balanced on the back fender, aiming his crossbow straight at Sucrette's heart. An old man sat in the sidecar, looking determined, but very uncomfortable in Tremelo's spare goggles. Tori sat in the driver's seat with an expression on her face that was both fearful and also very, very smug.

With one look, Tremelo surveyed the scene in the clearing below and cocked his crossbow.

“Where is the Glass?” he shouted.

Bailey was about to yell back that Sucrette had it in her pocket, but as he looked at her, he saw that her bag had spilled when she'd fallen back. The Glass was lying several feet away in the snow, out of reach. At the same moment, Sucrette saw it too.

“There! It's there!” Bailey yelled, and pointed over the tiger's back with his damaged arm.

Two of Sucrette's vulture kin swooped toward the Glass.

“Phi!” Tremelo shouted, and as Bailey watched, a huge bird shot through between the vultures and the Glass, distracting them from their glittering prize. The bird slowed down, and with amazement, Bailey realized that it was no bird at all. It was Phi. The enormous repaired wings allowed her to weave in and out of the formations of the vultures that Sucrette was now sending toward the buggy. As Phi flew closer, Bailey saw that she wore metal spikes on her feet, affixed to her boots, in the shape of curved birds' talons. She kicked and dove, distracting the animals enough to give Bailey a chance to get his bearings. Several wolves pounced after her, and Bailey's heart jumped at the thought that she could be pulled from the sky. The tiger, feeling Bailey's rage at seeing his friends attacked, rushed toward Sucrette. But before Bailey and Taleth could reach her, a gray wolf jumped at them from behind. As the tiger whirled around to fight it, Bailey saw that some of the animals from the clearing had begun climbing the rocks and were lumbering toward them.

Suddenly, Bailey heard a snapping noise, and a bright light burst just a few feet away from him, stunning the wolf as well as several vultures that were circling close overhead. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Bailey saw Hal running out of the woods, past the rumbling motorbuggy. Tori had leapt from it and shielded her eyes from the light enough to reach the Glass before Sucrette had a chance. She lodged the Glass in her beaded bag and then, as Bailey cheered, drew an enormous sword out of a metal scabbard at her side, and swiped at the vultures who had regained their sight. Tremelo had left the buggy behind, flipped his crossbow onto his back, and was fighting off a bear with a short ax.

“Bailey! You hurt?” Hal asked as he ran past. Hal's eyes grew wide as he registered that Bailey was sitting on top of a wild, fighting tiger. Bailey didn't even have time to respond as he reached out with his good arm and punched away a badger who had tried to climb up onto Taleth's shoulder. The forest beasts were becoming too much for them. No matter how injured the wolves, bears, and badgers became, they didn't stop coming. Dominance had made them unstoppable, oblivious to their own pain. For the first time, Bailey understood the true horror of it.

Bailey knew that they had to get through the animals to Sucrette, or they'd never leave the woods. Exhausted, Bailey clung to Taleth's back, until suddenly a vulture flew toward him, its talons extended and aimed for his eyes. As it flew in Bailey's face, he lost his balance and thudded backward.

At first, Bailey thought he'd been struck blind as he hit the ground, because all he could see above him was a black cloud. But as he came to, he realized that the cloud was real. Bats, hundreds of them, swarmed into the clearing and surrounded Sucrette, creating a tower of flapping wings around her.

Sucrette dove forward, breaking through the cloud of wings, the knife in her uplifted hand. Bailey ducked out of the way of her swinging arm, and the tiger inserted herself between them.

A sharp plunk, and the sound of air being split came from behind Bailey, and suddenly Sucrette screeched and cradled her arm. A metal arrow had pierced the tree behind Sucrette, but not before grazing her arm on its way.

“Joan!” Bailey heard Tremelo call. “Stop this madness, or I aim for your heart next!”

Tremelo stood at the trees' edge, his spring-loaded bow aimed directly at Joan Sucrette.

Sucrette held her bleeding arm and merely smiled.

“Parliament has fallen and the kingdom belongs to the Dominae. Stop this madness? The madness is everywhere.” Sucrette closed her eyes. The forest beasts began to plod obediently toward Bailey and the others. Sucrette was weakened, but her power was far from gone.

“Now, Gwen!” Tremelo called out.

Just then, a strange humming sound emerged from the trees. Bailey watched as a familiar-looking girl with red hair stepped onto the rock beside Tremelo, with an instrument—a harmonica—at her lips. She played a low, mournful tune, while Tremelo kept his aim steady.

“What is this?” Sucrette mocked.

Gwen walked forward, shielding Tremelo from Sucrette. While still playing, she held her other hand out as though she could stop Tremelo from walking into harm's way. Tremelo's pendant dangled from his neck, exposed to the light. Sucrette looked from Gwen to Tremelo, then to Bailey and back to Tremelo again. She laughed in disbelief.

“It's
you
! Of course!” Her voice sounded almost excited, as if she'd just found the last piece of an impossible puzzle. But then her face fell, and her eyes widened. “I'm too late,” she said. “Too late to kill the boy  …  I'll just have to kill you all.” She drew herself up tall, and breathed deeply. Bailey knew that she was preparing to command the dead-eyed animals in the clearing, and her gaze was fixed directly on Tremelo.

“Look out!” he said weakly.

Gwen's playing became faster and louder. The mournful tune became a fast-paced, heady jig, and as the music rose, the air filled with the sound of flapping wings. A vast parliament of owls flew into the clearing and settled one by one into the treetops. As she played, Bailey watched the advancing horde of angry beasts slow and hesitate.

“What are you doing?” screeched Sucrette. “After them!”

But the animals looked confused and frightened. Some of them slunk away into the trees. Others inched backward, whimpering. The music, Bailey realized, was
freeing
them—it was healing the bond, and turning it back to good, freeing them from Sucrette's control.

Sucrette turned on Gwen.

“What is that? What have you done?” She took two steps as though to stop Gwen from playing, but she was too weak. She collapsed to her knees. The snow was spotted with her blood.

Gwen kept playing.

Bailey watched as the wolves that had attacked him earlier began prowling around the clearing, this time with their sights set on Sucrette.

“I ask you again, Joan,” said Tremelo, “stop this. Come with us back to the school, where we'll decide what to do with you.”

Bailey looked at her, Joan Sucrette. Whereas this morning in class, she had been chipper and dressed in bright colors, repeating verb conjugations, here she was now: broken, madness in her eyes as easy to see as the blood on her face and dress. Her blond hair was streaked with blood and dirt. Bailey felt a stir of pity.

Sucrette turned her gaze to him. Shivers ran down Bailey's spine. She raised her one good arm, and prepared to throw the knife straight at Bailey.

A roar, a flash of fur and teeth, and a scream—Joan Sucrette lay in the snow, and the wolves that had once been her captives were on top of her. By the time Tremelo managed to clear the beasts with a volley of arrows, they were too late.

Sucrette had large gashes on her chest and neck, but she was still breathing. In fact, she was still smiling.

She gasped, and looked at Bailey.

“There is no stopping the Dominae,” she wheezed. “The old ways are done, and humans will be the masters of this world. Soon all of you will meet my lady. She will find you.” She laughed—a small, gurgling sound that rose from her wrecked throat and echoed in the snow-filled air of the clearing. “Soon you will all belong to Viviana.”

She gasped once more, and then was still.

The vultures who had remained unharmed during the battle stood scattered on branches. One of them voiced a long, keening squawk before, one by one, they each slowly took to the sky. They wound their ways up into the clouds and disappeared. The clearing was suddenly silent, the only movement the still-falling first snow of the year.