The Rising (4 page)

Had my grandmother known the truth? That I was a skin-walker? Was I wrong to think my parents hadn't been aware of the experiments?

My gut clenched. I turned to see her standing in the path, her hands to her mouth, her gaze locked on the dark patch of my birthmark.

“Maya.”

She dropped to her knees. I slowly walked to her. When I was close enough, she reached out and grabbed me around the neck, pulling me to her.

“It is you, isn't it?” she whispered. Then she hiccupped a laugh. “I guess, if I'm hugging a cougar and it isn't ripping out my throat, that answers my question.”

She hugged me again.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “You must be so angry and so confused. Are the others with you? Daniel and the rest?”

I let out a chirp.

She squeezed me again. “As horrible as this must be, at least you have each other.” She clutched my face between her hands. “If there's any way for you to visit your parents, please, please do that. Your mother might not believe in the spirit world, but when she sees you, she'll recognize her child. She'll know you took the form of the cougar to come and say good-bye.”

Good-bye? Spirit world?

She didn't know I was a skin-walker. She thought the birthmark meant I had a link to the big cats and that my spirit had taken their form to return one last time. It was like seeing a ghost.

I pulled back and shook my head.

“You can't go to them?” she said, her voice cracking, tears streaming down her face. “Do you want me to tell them I saw you?”

I shook my head again. Then I pulled from her grasp and started to run to the guys, to get them over here to explain.

“Maya!”

As she shouted, I caught a scent on the breeze. One I recognized. Moreno—a man who worked with Calvin Antone, my biological father.

Footsteps pounded so hard I could feel the vibration. I caught other scents. A Nast Cabal team with Moreno, approaching from the south.

“Maya!” Grandma shouted.

I wheeled, growling, hoping she'd see or hear the team, but she just kept running after me, calling my name.

A dart whizzed past. I ran faster. Then I heard a gasp behind me and saw my grandmother falling face-first to the ground, a dart lodged in her leg. I tore back to her.

Footsteps came from two directions. Daniel called for me. Corey shouted, too, telling me to stop, to come back.

Another dart zinged past, so close it cut right through the fur on my haunch. I reached my grandmother. She was out cold, in the grass. I grabbed her shirt in my teeth and yanked as hard as I could. The fabric gave way and I tumbled back, a chunk of cloth in my mouth.

Daniel grabbed me by the loose skin around my neck. “You can't help her! Come on!”

When he heaved on me, I caught another glimpse of my grandmother, lying in the grass. Rage and fear coursed through me and the world turned bloodred. Daniel heaved again and I spun, snarling, jaws opening, fangs slashing for his arm. Then I saw him and swung to the side, biting air instead.

“Maya! Daniel!”

Another voice I knew. One that filled my gut with ice water. Antone.

“Daniel!” Corey shouted. “Leave her! She'll be fine. Come on!”

Daniel's grip on my ruff didn't loosen. He whispered, “Please, Maya. Please.”

I looked back at my grandmother. Then up at Antone. Then at Moreno and two others running behind him, all armed with tranquilizer guns. And it was like when they'd shot Kenjii. When they'd shot Daniel. I'd watched them fall and there was nothing I could do. Not against so many.

I tore my gaze from my grandmother and ran. When another dart whizzed by, I veered to the side. Daniel shouted, then realized I wasn't circling back—I was separating us, making us tougher to shoot.

We were already in the long grass. That made me nearly impossible to hit. I looked over at Daniel. A dart hit the flap of his sweatshirt and lodged there. As he batted it out, I circled, racing behind him and bumping the back of his legs. He understood and bent over, running as low as he could, zigzagging, his dark shirt making him nearly invisible in the night.

“Corey!” He shouted. “Go!”

We made it to the neighboring cabin. That blocked us from sight—and gunfire—and we could hear our pursuers cursing as we slipped under the porch. They cursed even louder when they got around the cabin and didn't find us there. As we hid under the porch, Daniel whipped a stone into the woods. Antone and Moreno took off, with Antone shouting for the others to go back for my grandmother.

Three days in the Vancouver Island wilderness hadn't made Moreno any better at moving quietly through the woods. When he wasn't thundering across hard earth or crashing through the undergrowth, he was cursing. As we waited there, listening and tracking them, I relaxed, and as soon as I did I lost consciousness.

“M
AYA?”

I looked at my paw. Not a paw. A human hand. I lifted my head, blinking, then remembered.

“Grandma!” I said.

Daniel clapped a hand to my mouth. “I heard them talking. They're going to put her in her studio. They figure she'll wake up and think she had a dream. She's fine.”

“Oh.”

My fingers dug into the ground as I struggled against the first prickle of tears.

“I know,” he whispered. “But she'll know the truth as soon as we can manage it. Better for now if she thinks it was a dream.”

He was right, of course. At least the Nast team didn't plan to haul her away and lock her up.

Corey whispered, “I think the other two are gone. Your, uh, father and that guy. Can you hear anything?”

I started to rise up on all fours and felt a chill. I glanced down. I was lying on my stomach. Without clothing.

“Yep, you're naked,” Corey said, with a ghost of his usual grin. “Don't worry, I'm saving all my skeevy comments for later.”

“Thanks.”

I realized then that there was something on my back, covering me down to my butt. Daniel's sweatshirt. It was too tight under the porch to put it on me, but he'd stretched it over my back.

I let out a soft sigh of relief and looked over at him. “Thank you.”

A quirk of a smile. “Anytime. Corey? Keep your eyes on the forest while she puts that on.”

“Seriously? You're going to rob me of the one ray of light in—Oww.”

I crawled from under the porch and pulled on the shirt. Everything was silent. The scents I detected were very faint. Moreno and Antone had passed through the woods and carried on. We had to get moving before they came back.

I found my clothing and got my jeans and shoes on, saving the rest until we were farther away. Antone might be my father, but he wasn't on my side, no matter what he said. My biological mother had run away from the experiment before I was born, along with my twin brother. I didn't remember either—she'd abandoned me shortly after my birth and had kept my brother. I was still dealing with that. I was still dealing with a lot.

We carefully made our way back to the ferry docks. The last one had departed. Corey suggested stealing a boat. We could do it—he was an excellent boater. But it was too risky—they'd be watching for a small craft making a hasty exit. Through otherwise empty waters. Better to hole up in a stretch of woods and wait for the morning ferry.

First we found a park with a washroom. We
did
break into that—we had to. Then we cleaned up as best we could and found a safe place to spend the night.

We waited for the second ferry the next morning. We'd bottlenecked ourselves on the island. There was only one way off. Antone would know that. So he'd expect us to be on that first ferry.

When the time came, we sent Daniel to get the tickets. He had a sixth sense for danger. It wasn't perfect, but benandanti were mainly demon-hunters and Moreno
was
a half-demon. Meanwhile I'd be downwind, on full alert.

After Daniel got the tickets, we stayed hidden in the forest waiting for the departure time. The ferry dock was basically slabs of cement plunked down in the wilderness. A couple of buildings. A parking lot. A long pier. Not the ideal location for anyone trying to sneak on board. Just as we were thinking we might need to just make a run for it, a school bus pulled in and disgorged a couple dozen students.

“Please tell me they're walk-ons,” Corey said.

“Even if they're taking the bus, we might be able to sneak on with them,” I said.

Daniel made a noise deep in his throat. Disagreeing. He was right. Kids on Galiano Island would be a lot like kids from Salmon Creek, where you'd known your classmates forever.

When the first group headed for the pier, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. They were indeed walking on.

“We'll split up,” I said. “Daniel, you go first. Corey, you're next. I'll bring up the rear and keep my ears open for trouble.”

We joined them in the parking lot. Merging with the group wasn't easy. When Daniel cut in, they noticed. The girls did, anyway. They always do. It's the blond wavy hair, the friendly smile . . . the wrestling and boxing champion physique.

When Corey joined, he took some of the attention, but that hardly helped us pass unnoticed. And when I slid in, they all noticed, because I was the only brown face in the group.

“Hey,” one of the guys said to me. “You going to the mainland?”

“I am.”

He started telling me about their trip and I struggled to pretend I was listening while my attention was attuned to the parking lot behind us. I hoped an overly polite nod or two would stop him, but he continued chattering away.

I glanced back. All the cars were on the ferry now, the gate closing.

“Looking for someone?” he said.

“No, I—”

“Right here.” Corey appeared and slung his arm around my shoulders. “I thought you were already on board, baby.”

The guy grumbled and walked faster as we reached the pier.

“Baby?” I said.

“You can thank me later.” He glanced back. “I don't see anyone, but other than Antone and Moreno, I don't know who I'm looking for.”

Daniel overheard, having slowed to let us catch up. “Just watch for anyone acting like they're looking for somebody.”

“Like that woman running toward the gate?”

Corey didn't wait for an answer, just tightened his grip on my shoulders and started propelling me through the crowd.

“Slow down,” I hissed. “Running will only make it worse.”

Damn it, we shouldn't have attempted this. As soon as we set foot on the ferry, we were trapped. I looked up and down the pier, but there was no place to hide. We were being funneled toward the boat and—

“Jimmy!” the woman shouted. “Jimmy! You forgot your EpiPen!”

A few of the kids laughed. A red-faced boy grumbled something and stomped back.

“Bullet dodged,” Corey said. “Now let's get on the boat.”

We stayed with the school group until we were on. The ferry was the
Queen of Nanaimo
. It wasn't a little ship. It had room for a couple hundred cars and close to a thousand passengers.

We headed straight upstairs to the top deck. Some of the kids were already there for the best vantage point. We stayed behind them as we strained to look out. My night vision is better than average, but my regular sight is about the same. There were a few people on the pier as the ship prepared to depart, but no sign—

Daniel gripped my arm and whispered. “Don't move. It's Antone.” He didn't say “your father.” He knew how I felt—my father was Rick Delaney. “To the left. Back at the ticket counter.”

He was right. Even from so far away I recognized Antone, and if I had any doubts, they evaporated when Moreno walked up beside him.

Antone was showing something to the cashier.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Photos. He's showing her . . .”

But Antone turned away and headed back toward a truck.

“What?” I looked at Daniel. “Why didn't the cashier recognize you?”

“Because I didn't buy the tickets.”

I glanced at him.

“I persuaded a guy to buy them for me. Putting my mystical powers to good use. The extra five I gave him probably didn't hurt. He looked like he could use it.”

“You are a genius.”

A genuine smile. “Thank you. Now, as soon as we're in motion—”

The ferry's engines revved and we started pulling from the dock.

“Wow,” I said. “Your powers work on inanimate objects, too.”

He laughed. “I wish.”

He waved me back from the rail, then led us to a tiny room off the main deck. It was a sitting room, with seats, windows, and a private bathroom.

“Um, I think these are reserved for paying customers,” Corey said as Daniel walked in.

Daniel waved the receipt.

“Big spender,” I said.

“It wasn't much extra.” He closed the door. “I figured we could splurge for a few minutes of peace and quiet. And a real bathroom.”