Othermoon (5 page)

CHAPTER 5

London accidentally sniffed out a quiet exit by leading us down a random hallway and
opening up a door marked PRIVATE.

We all peered in to see a tall shirtless man in his thirties with shoulder-length,
dyed black hair and a web of colorful tattoos running up his arms. He was thin, but
a woman with pink hair stood in front of him with an airbrush gun, drawing a six-pack
onto the hairless abs above his tight leather pants. A cage filled with pigeons rustled
softly on his dressing table.

He looked up at us clustered in his doorway. “What the hell?”

“Hey, you’re the magic dude, right?” November asked.

He half-nodded as if he suddenly wasn’t sure.

November laughed and pointed at his airbrushed abs. “Makeup’s pretty magical, isn’t
it?”

The makeup lady came toward us, spray gun aimed. “No one’s allowed in here!”

We backed up, and she slammed the door.

“Look!” London pointed at a sign at the end of the hall marked EXIT – TALENT ONLY.

Caleb placed his hand on the doorknob. “I’d say we’re all pretty talented, wouldn’t
you?”

“I don’t know,” Siku said, lifting up his shirt to look at his own ripped torso. “I’ve
never painted on any muscles. Do I qualify?”

“Oh, yeah, you do.” November slid her hand up his bare stomach, grinning up at him.

He gave her a look from under his thick brows and pulled away, dropping his shirt.
She frowned.

“Can we go now?” London shoved open the exit door.

“I can’t help it if Vegas turns me on,” said November, flouncing through the door
after London.

“Everything turns you on,” said Siku, walking stolidly after her.

London tucked her head in close to mine, talking low. “What is going on with them?
She’s such a flirt, but it’s like she means it with him.”

“I know!” I whispered back. “And I think Siku likes it, but he’s not taking her seriously.”

“Wise boy,” she said.

We exited into an underground parking garage with sloping ramps and a line of black,
white, and cherry-red limousines parked in extra-long spaces. Caleb was already on
the phone with Amaris. “It says Reserved, Level One. Where are you?” His attention
focused on what she was saying, then he covered the mic on the phone and said to us,
“Amaris is one level up, and there’s a guy in a white turtleneck driving a white SUV
watching her.”

“Subtle, aren’t they?” November put her hands on her hips. “What if we steal one of
these limos and sneak out in one of them instead? A stretch limousine would look good
on me.”

“What about Amaris?” asked Caleb. “I could hot-wire one of these for sure, but how’s
she supposed to get rid of the guy up there?”

“We can’t steal a regular person’s car,” I said, thinking hard. “Then the cops would
be after us as well as the Tribunal. And we need to ditch the guy watching Amaris.
So we knock him out—”

“And take his car.” Caleb finished for me, smiling. Into the phone he said: “Amaris,
we’re coming up, and the gentleman watching you will soon be donating his car. Is
there anyone else with him? No? Good. Sit tight.” He hung up the phone. “Okay, she
says that if we go up the ramp, we’ll see her in our van first, on the right, and
about ten spaces up, on the same side, is the guy in the SUV.”

“Can we use the parked cars as cover to get close?” I asked, cautiously moving toward
the ramp.

“Wait, wait, you big, clunky types.” November skittered in front of us, waving us
back. “Let me look.”

London exhaled, pissed.

“I am not clunky,” said Siku.

But we all let her go first.

The ramp sloped upward, then turned sharply left to continue up to the next level.
We big, clunky types stuck close to the wall as November crept forward and peered
around the blank cement wall to see what was going on up there.

“Lots of cars between us and Amaris,” she said. “We can probably sneak up to her without
the SUV guy seeing us.” She turned and gave us all a glare. “If you enormous people
will be careful.”

“Now I’m enormous.” London pressed herself in close to me, as if to shield herself
from November’s words. “Big, clunky, and enormous.”

“Well”—November gave her a toothy grin—“just in comparison to me. Speaking of which,
I’m going to get small and pay the SUV guy a visit. He’s got his window rolled down.”

I couldn’t help grinning back at her. “When she reaches him, the rest of us move in.”

Everyone nodded, exchanging glances. November said, “Somebody better bring my clothes
and backpack.”

“Got it,” said Siku.

The air around November seemed to bend, and then her human form was gone. A large,
glossy brown rat stared up at us from the pile of her clothes, beady eyes shining.
She chittered, waving tiny pink paws with sharp nails at us chidingly; then she scuttled
around the corner and up the ramp underneath the parked cars.

“Stay low,” I said to the others, stooping down, and followed November. I stuck close
to the left-hand wall, knowing that Amaris and the SUV man were against the right-hand
wall, with rows of parked cars between me and them. The others scurried behind me,
bent double, trying to keep within sight of November’s pink, snakelike tail as it
vanished under first one car and then another.

We quickly came parallel to Amaris in the white van, the same one we’d stolen from
the Tribunal over a month ago. Her back was to us, and I could see the top of her
blond head above the van’s driver’s seat headrest. Four cars up from her sat a white
SUV. I got on my hands and knees to scan under the cars. A foot-long whiskered form
leaped silently onto the SUV’s rear bumper.

“Get ready,” I whispered. Still crouched, I made my way between parked cars, getting
closer to the SUV. Caleb followed right behind me, while Siku and London split up
to approach from the other side.

I stilled, listening, and heard the faint
skritch
of those tiny nails on the car’s roof. Risking a glance over the top of a convertible,
I was just in time to see November jump down from the white roof of the SUV onto the
ledge of the open driver’s-side window.

The man sitting there, beefy and balding with biceps that strained against the thick
white fabric of his turtleneck sweater, emitted a train-whistle scream and batted
at her instinctively with both hands. Too late. November had launched herself to land
on top of his headrest, her naked tail slapping against his bare skull.

I ran toward the passenger side of the SUV, Caleb right behind me. Siku and London
ran in from the driver’s side, as the man in white pushed the door open, trying to
get out and grab the walkie-talkie from his belt at the same time.

That’s when November jumped onto his neck and slithered down the front of his sweater.

“Gah!” he yelled, scrambling out of the car completely and swatting at the front of
his own body as a rat-sized lump wiggled its way toward his belt. “Get off me!” He
struggled for composure, his voice deepening. “I call on you, come forth from shadow
. . .”

He had great presence of mind, trying to force November out of her rat form even as
her little rat hands unbuttoned his fly, her tail poking up out of the neck of his
sweater, tickling his ear. It would be interesting to see what happened if she shifted
back to human right there and then.

“Reject your dark form, come forth—Ack!” The power of the objurer’s call was cut off
as Siku charged up and wrapped one arm around his neck in a headlock. The man choked,
clawing at Siku’s clenched forearm.

November leaped off the man and ran up Siku’s leg, squeaking in a way that sounded
uncannily like mocking laughter. London got in front and kicked the guy square in
the crotch, a move I recognized from our brief martial arts class back in school.

The man gasped, doubling over as best he could with Siku holding onto him.

I opened the passenger-side door as Caleb rounded toward the others.

“Low blow, London,” I said.

She grinned. “Yep!”

It kept the man immobile in agony long enough for Siku to release him and for Caleb
to land a neat punch to his jaw, followed by an uppercut and a hook. The man crumpled,
unconscious.

Caleb shook out the fingers of his right hand. “Haven’t thrown this many punches in
one day since the last time we all rumbled,” he said. “I have missed you guys.”

November had run back down Siku’s leg and dived into the guy’s pockets. But I climbed
into the SUV’s passenger seat and jiggled the keys that were in the ignition. “We’d
better move,” I said. “Load everything into this car, and let’s get out of here.”

In short order, Caleb had backed the SUV up to Amaris’s van, and we transferred their
stuff from one to the other, tossing in our own backpacks and suitcases.

Amaris got out of the van and threw the keys into a Dumpster before jogging up to
give me a hug. She looked ten times better than the last time I’d seen her, disheveled
and lost after her father and brother’s betrayal and her decision to leave them and
join us. Now she was animated, alive, face flushed with excitement. She’d cut her
thick blond hair to a layered shoulder-length bob that suited her high cheekbones
and huge brown eyes. Now that she didn’t have to wear the Tribunal’s traditional high-necked
white dresses to cover up her amazing figure, she looked like a Victoria’s Secret
model slumming it in cigarette jeans and a simple green T-shirt.

“Good to see you!” I said, hugging her back.

She pulled back a little and whispered, “We need to talk soon. Alone.”

I nodded, puzzled, as she released me and turned to the others, giving them a nervous
little wave. “Hi.”

They hadn’t seen her either since the night we’d destroyed her father’s compound,
and though they knew she’d changed loyalties to help Morfael and Caleb build the new
school for otherkin, there was still a chill of hesitation in the air between her
and the shifter kids. They didn’t know her through Caleb the way I did, and seeing
her as a friend was going to take more time for them.

“Hey,” said Siku. He was throwing November’s enormous suitcase into the SUV and laying
out the clothes she’d left behind when she’d shifted. November leaped into the trunk
and, from the rustling in there, I could tell she had shifted back to human and was
getting dressed.

“Hi, London.” Amaris made a point of catching London’s eye. “I like your hair.”

London blinked at the compliment. “Thanks.”

“Let’s get a move on,” said Caleb. “I’ll drive.”

“What, not Dez?” November emerged from the trunk, rumpled and pulling down her shirt.
“Don’t you want the car to break down in the middle of the desert?”

Everybody knew about my propensity for shorting out machinery. It made life very inconvenient
at times. As Caleb took the driver’s seat, taking a minute to disable the GPS so the
Tribunal couldn’t track us, I nabbed shotgun next to him. Siku took up two seats behind
us, with November squeezing in beside him thanks to her narrowness.

London and Amaris took the third row of seats in the way back. “You won’t make the
engine die just from being inside the car, will you?” London asked me as she squeezed
her way back.

“Hasn’t happened yet,” I said. “I think I have to be operating the machine to make
it die.”

“Remind me never to loan you my phone,” said Siku.

We slammed the doors shut, and Caleb hit the accelerator.

As we cruised oh-so-casually out of the parking garage, everyone but Caleb ducked
down below the windows, in case there were other objurers keeping watch on the exits.
In the Tribunal’s car, we shouldn’t get as many suspicious glances, but better safe
than sorry. And as an extralegal, ultrasecret organization, the Tribunal wouldn’t
report the theft of the car to the police and risk exposing their own operation. That’s
why, when in doubt, we stole from them. Plus, they deserved it.

We kept an eye out for tails for the next few miles, but by the time we hit the freeway
we felt sure we’d made it away clean. Caleb got off the northbound 15 and headed south
toward the 95. Amaris pulled out some bottles of water and chips, and a contented
munching sound filled the car.

“Okay, so that was cool,” November said after about fifty miles. “But it would’ve
been way cooler with Arnaldo there.”

“Hell, yeah,” said London as Siku grunted in agreement.

“What’s going on with . . . all that?” Amaris asked, her voice a little low and timid.
“I mean, why do you have to go get him?”

“His dad has cut him off from the world,” I said. “His father is . . . he drinks a
lot, and he really hates shifters from other tribes. We don’t know exactly what’s
going on there, but after those Tribunal raids on our houses, we need to be sure he’s
safe.”

“And we’re going to steal him from his parents,” London said, then glanced around
as the rest of us looked uneasy. “Well, that’s what’s really going on here, right?
And only if he wants us to. I mean, most shifters don’t like other tribes. Like my
parents—they think you all can’t be trusted because you’re not wolves, but they’ll
still let me go back to school with you. But Arnaldo’s dad is locking him away from
the world.”

“He hits Arnaldo and his brothers,” November said baldly. “It’s bad.”

“Where’s his mom?” Amaris asked.

Silence for a moment. “She’s dead,” said November. She didn’t say that the Tribunal
had killed her, but I could tell from the sudden tightening of Amaris’s face that
she was thinking exactly that.

CHAPTER 6

Arnaldo’s family’s house lay next to the still, blue-black water of Alamo Lake. The
sun had set not long ago, and in its place the sky thrust up a wall of red-orange
topped with fading lavender and indigo.

The building’s black silhouette was low and unremarkable except for a narrow tower
made of haphazard iron bars and wooden planks that emerged from its center to loom
at least five stories up. At the top was nothing but a wooden platform.

To me, it looked like an observation platform, a good spot for an eagle to watch from,
to look for prey, and to take off for the hunt. Nothing moved on it now, though for
all we knew it held a camera that was even now pointed right at us.

Siku, November, and I had done our best to sneak up to the edge of the backyard, leaving
the others in the SUV about three hundred yards back. Now we waited for a signal,
keeping an eye on the rusty swing set, the ragged vegetable garden, and the stepping-stone
path that led up to the back door.

Probably the kitchen door
, I decided, peering at it again over some acacia. But I couldn’t be sure. There was
so much we didn’t know. We’d assumed Arnaldo was here, at the only address Caleb could
find in Morfael’s files. But no one had heard from him in weeks. He could be thousands
of miles away for all we knew, maybe a prisoner of the Tribunal.

Or, and I didn’t let myself think about this long, he could be dead. We were flying
through the dark with no moonlight to show us the landscape.

A sprig of acacia snapped off in my hand with a crack. November glared at me, and
I mouthed “Sorry.” I was tense. Coming here had been my idea. I’d looked for signs
of a setup, just as I’d told my mother I would. I didn’t find any, but that didn’t
mean it was safe. If I was leading my friends into a horrible trap, I had no one else
to blame.

Tires crunched on gravel on the other side of the house. It was Caleb in the SUV,
with London and Amaris, driving right up to the front door. November cocked her head,
catching the sound, then Siku. He cautiously straightened to his towering full height
to peer at the house over his concealing shrub.

Heat rose up from the ground around me, released by nightfall. I caught the sound
of a stirring creature rustling under the sand nearby, and a faint breeze brought
the scent of frying onions. Someone inside the house was making dinner.

Then we heard three raps on wood. Our friends were knocking on the front door. I nodded
at Siku and November, and we crept up on our toes, past the vegetable garden. November
snuck out her lock picks as I peeked cautiously through the small window in the door.

Relief flooded through me. Arnaldo stood there, all gawky elbows and bony hips, stirring
a mix of onions and other vegetables in a saucepan. His head was turned toward the
front of the house, so I saw only the back of it. He looked taller, skinnier, and
hunched with weariness, as if the last month had stretched him thin. His dark brown
hair had grown long, brushing the collar of his plain brown T-shirt.

His skin was the same smooth brown, except for stripes of darker, almost purplish
coloring just above his elbow. They looked like bruises, as if someone had grabbed
his arm with enough strength and violence to leave a lasting mark. The thought made
my blood rise.

Then I caught the muffled voices filtering through the house, the same voices Arnaldo
was listening to. He froze, no longer stirring the simmering vegetables.

One voice was unmistakably Caleb’s, low and filled with subtle vibrations. I couldn’t
quite catch the words, but he was answered by another male voice, sharper in pitch,
and angry.

November was about to start picking the lock, but I held up my hand, signaling her
to wait, then scratched faintly on the door.

Arnaldo whirled toward the sound, as tense and swift as if he’d heard a gunshot. I
waved at him reassuringly through the window, but at the sight of me his dark eyes
grew wider with alarm, his angular body stiff. I beckoned, but he shook his head and
made a shooing motion with his hands.

“What the hell is going on?” whispered November.

Siku grunted, backing up her impatience.

“Arnaldo’s alone in the kitchen, and I want him to come with us, but he’s trying to
tell me to go away.” I looked at Arnaldo through the window again and emphatically
mouthed: “Open the door.”

He glanced back toward the front of the house, every muscle tense, then stepped over,
unlocked the kitchen door, and inched it ajar as quietly as he could. He only let
it open far enough to poke his beaklike nose out. His bangs had grown out too long,
tangling with his eyebrows and catching in his black eyelashes. His voice was low
and urgent. “You guys can’t be here. My dad will kill you. I mean, literally kill
you.”

Warm, delicious dinner-scented air wafted past us through the gap between door and
jamb. It made November jiggle with hunger. “I didn’t know you could cook!” she whispered.

Arnaldo stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“We heard you,” I said. “Grab a coat and your wallet and come with us.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Arnaldo looked over his shoulder again. “I can’t leave my
brothers here.”

I frowned at him. “Wasn’t your house raided by the Tribunal? All of ours were.”

“What? No! No raids here. It’s been really quiet. We’re fine. Sorry I haven’t been
in touch, but my dad took away our phones and computers.”

Siku shook his head, his long black ponytail swaying. “Why would the Tribunal get
DNA from everyone else who raided their compound, but not from you?”

“And you’re not fine.” I pointed at the bruises on his arm.

Arnaldo slid that arm behind his back, out of view. “It’s no big deal. We’re really
off the grid here, so maybe the Tribunal just couldn’t find us. But if my Dad finds
you
here . . .”

“It is a big deal. Get your brothers and come with us,” I said. “We won’t leave you
with him.”

“Arnaldo?” A small voice spoke behind him, and I saw a boy of about thirteen standing
in the doorway. He had a version of Arnaldo’s impressive nose and hooded eyes, currently
wide with a mixture of fear and wonder as he stared from me to November’s small face
at my elbow to Siku towering above, then back to Arnaldo. “Who’s that?”

Arnaldo inhaled deeply, as if girding himself, then said, “They’re just leaving, Luis.
Go back to the dining table.”

“Maybe we should go,” said Siku. I could hear his feet shuffling uneasily in the dirt
behind me.

“Are they shifters from other tribes?” Luis took a curious step toward us. His feet
were bare, the cuffs of his brown trousers neatly altered to let down the hem. “You’re
not a raptor, are you?” he asked me.

I started to shake my head, but Arnaldo moved between us, turning to face Luis. “I
said, go back into the dining room now, Luis.”

“Papi says the other shifter tribes are thieves and killers,” Luis said, his voice
getting louder. “Are they trying to hurt you, Arnaldo? I’ll protect you!”

“No, Luis!” Arnaldo put out both hands in a calming gesture.” These are my friends!
I told you, I met other kinds of shifters at the school—”

The front door slammed. Arnaldo cut himself off and threw us a terrified look.

A man’s piercing voice called, “Arnaldo?”

Arnaldo’s eyes pleaded for us to go. Siku and November backed up behind me, and I
started to close the kitchen door, but too late.

A tall man strode into the kitchen behind Luis and stopped, glaring at us. Everything
about him was long, lean, and hard. His head was shaved, and his skin, a burnished
bronze, lay like a metallic sheet over the bones of his skull, pointed cheekbones,
and long, muscular fingers, curled now into fists.

Behind him came another boy, about fifteen, stockier than Arnaldo, with a fuzz of
black hair coming in on his upper lip and a large yellow-purple bruise under his left
eye.

I stared at it, and then looked over at Arnaldo. He slid his gaze away, lips pressed
together into a white line.

Mr. Perez pushed past Luis in one swift but slightly tripping step, eyes darting.
I got an impression of great power made sloppy, of intense focus that had been deliberately
blurred.

“Papi . . .” Arnaldo said.

But his father ignored him, taking us all in. His thin lips drew up in contempt. “So.
You dare to come here.”

He slurred a bit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw November wrinkle her nose, then
a strong sweet scent hit me—bourbon. Lots of it. Mr. Perez was drunk.

“We were worried,” I said. “The Tribunal raided our houses, so we wanted to be sure
Arnaldo was safe. . . .”

“He’s safe because I keep him safe!” The alcohol didn’t affect Mr. Perez’s gaze. It
fixed on me like the sights of a gun. “You’re that tiger-shifter who pulled him into
danger. I’m the one who had to pull him out.”

“Danger?” November asked. “Was there recent danger?”

“So the Tribunal did come here,” I said. My heart began to race. This was bad.

Mr. Perez jutted his chin out, puffing up his chest. “What was I supposed to do? After
you sucked my son into your deadly games, the Tribunal came here. They came to capture
or kill me and my family.”

Arnaldo’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “They never came here! I didn’t see
them. . . .”

“While you were visiting your
friends
,” he spat out the word, “they came. Dozens of them, dressed in their precious white,
bearing their guns, and wearing their sunglasses.”

A strange premonition took me. “Yet here you are,” I heard myself say. “Alive and
well.”

“Alive,” he said. “My sons are alive because that day I made a deal with the Tribunal.”
He sneered again, but this time I could see the scorn was for himself.

“No!” Arnaldo lurched forward, hands up, begging for it not to be true. “No, Papi!”

“
Sí,”
said his father. “I pleaded for my sons’ lives that day. I promised them anything.
So, when they asked, I gave them one of Arnaldo’s old hairbrushes, all of our computers
and phones, and I swore to them that no one in my family would ever trouble them again.”

Siku’s voice rumbled. “Maybe we should go.”

“Yes,” said Arnaldo. He turned to us, swallowing hard. “Go. I have to look after my
family.”

That was it. We had to go. My thoughts and feelings were tumbling over themselves,
trying to find something good to hold onto, but of one thing I was sure. This was
my fault. Then my eyes slid over the bruises on Arnaldo and his brother’s black eye.
Not all of this was my doing.

“Who’s going to save your family from you?” I met Mr. Perez’s piercing gaze. If I’d
had fur, it would have been standing on end. If I’d had fangs, they would have been
bared. “We know you beat your sons, sir. We know you drink too much. If you don’t
allow them to come with us, I’ll report you—to the department of Child Welfare.”

In the blink of an eye, Mr. Perez swooped across the room, pushed Arnaldo aside, jerked
the door wide, and grabbed the front of my T-shirt with his powerful curved fingers.
We were nose to nose.

“Then it’s better if I kill you now.” His hot, alcohol-scented breath poured over
my face. I barely had time to remember my training . . .
stomp on his instep, knee him in the groin
. . . before a huge hand reached over me, grabbed Mr. Perez by the shoulder, and
shoved him away.

“No killing,” said Siku as Mr. Perez stumbled backwards, arms flailing. He would have
fallen if Arnaldo’s brother hadn’t caught him.

“Papi, please . . .” The boy squeezed his father’s arm.

“
Cállate
, Cordero,” Mr. Perez said. He jerked away from his son as if his touch stung.

In one furious move, November moved around me to get right in Mr. Perez’s face. “You’re
worried about
the Tribunal
?” She had one hand on her hip, the other poking him in the chest. “The man who hits
his own children? The man who’s all drunk and cross-eyed in front of his kids? What
is wrong with you?”

“I . . .” Mr. Perez swallowed with difficulty and then pushed his chin out again.
His attempt to cover up his shame was hard to watch. “I love my boys.”

I knew then that he did love his sons, and I understood why Arnaldo wanted to stay.
Mr. Perez was a desperate alcoholic who just wanted to keep his boys safe from the
people who had killed his wife. He was doing the best he could. Too bad it wasn’t
good enough.

“Come with us,” I said. “You and your sons. We can help you.”

Mr. Perez frowned as all three of his sons turned to look at me as if my hair had
caught fire. November was nodding, though.

“Help me?” said Mr. Perez, as if the words didn’t compute. “But . . . you’re the problem.”

“Alcohol is the problem, Mr. Perez. Getting help for that is smart. Facing up to the
real problems is the brave thing to do. . . .”

“Yes, come with us!” November bounced a little on her toes and winked at Cordero.
“You know you want to.”

“Come with you?” Mr. Perez said, slurring all the more with anger. “Come with cats
and rats, to live with wolves and bears? We’re nothing but food to you. And you’re
nothing but trash to us.”

“You can trust them, Papi,” Arnaldo said. “They’re my friends.” He looked at me, November,
and Siku. “
Son mi familia
.”

I knew just enough Spanish to know what that meant, and how hard it must have been
for Arnaldo to tell his father that we were his family.

“This is your family!” Mr. Perez gestured to himself and the boys. “Not those bird-hunters.
Only your blood, your tribe, is your family.”