Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) (9 page)

Ghosts ogled me, several approaching to pinch my arms and give me a once-over, like they were all qualified physicians.

“Only twenty make it to Midwinter,” one told me, “and only a handful make it to New Year. You must be very honored.”

I smiled grimly. “I’m honored.”
That I’ll be the one to end you all.

The spinning hat dancers bowed to appreciative applause. A clown pushed his way through the crowd.

“You’re applauding that?” he cried in mock surprise. “All you need is a flexible neck!”

The lead dancer whisked out a long tobacco pipe and a china dish. The clown protested, “Where did you find that?”

“Your mother’s kitchen.”

“
Aigo!
Umma
’s priceless heirloom!” The clown’s eyes bulged in horror as the leader spun the dish around on his pipe, and then tossed it to a fellow dancer. He, too, caught it, and then tossed it so high that it was lost in the darkness above.

“You be careful with that!”

“Don’t you trust us?” the leader asked, eyes twinkling. “What we do is so
easy
, remember?”

The plate came spinning back down, and the leader caught it with a gracefully sweep of his elbow. The ghosts cheered.

A white arm snaked out from the onlookers and hooked my elbow. Alarmed, I tried to slip free, and only found my arm twisted more painfully behind my back. I was dragged back into the shadows, where Duck Young was waiting.

“It’s your fault she’s dead,” the skull-like face spat at me. I didn’t know if it was just me, but Duck Young looked like he was showing signs of age. His cheeks had sunk in, and his black hair hung sloppily around his desperate eyes. The failure to retrieve his soul must have been weighing heavily upon him.

“I entrusted Colleen with an important task, and now you’ve fucked it up, just like an Alvarez!” Duck Young twisted my arm higher, and I wedged my jaws shut so I wouldn’t scream. “Is that all you Alvarezes are good for? Fucking?!”

“I couldn’t help Colleen!” I gasped out. “I was trapped in the shower!”

“Stupid girl! You, of all people, allowed yourself to be trapped by water?”

I shot him a quick glance. So. The vampyres more than suspected my affinity for water. And if Duck Young knew, then Khyber most certainly did. Just the confirmation that this strange phenomenon with water was really happening, that it wasn’t all inside my head, made me feel safer. I wasn’t alone here.

“Ay!”
Duck Young released me to bury his hands in his hair. “Where is it?” he asked in a more reasonable voice.

“Where’s what?”

“The butterfly knife.” His eyes were flat, impenetrable night. “You don’t have it.”

I didn’t speak.

“Ay!” he cried again. “I would kill you now, but you’re my brothers’
favorite
! For some inconceivable reason I can’t understand… They just want you for your soul, you know. Even if they make you a bride, your nights are numbered.”

“They aren’t now?” I asked softly, thinking of my sister Marisol’s poor imitation of life.

“My Prince, what’s happening?” She appeared at his side like a faithful hound, unable to stray far from his side. I couldn’t look at her impressive up-do, that shimmering gold make-up done just for
him
. She was the reason I hadn’t expected to find anything in the girls’ sleeping chambers.

Duck Young was still watching me. “Ah. It’s an inconvenience to have family around, isn’t it? They know so many delightful things about you…like your illegitimate status within your family. You are the wedge that drove your mother and father apart. Why, your own brother can’t even stand to
look
at you. Isn’t it true that when your mother left for Korea, your brother drove you to the airport and told you to get on a plane after her?”

It suddenly felt insufferably hot, even in the tiny dress. I glared at Marisol, tears stinging my eyes. She’d told him that? That was a memory I’d told myself to forget, because it was so terrible—my seven-year-old self wandering around the airport, crying. I’d told myself that Miguel must have been in one of his “crazy” moods. Why else would he have just left me there? I’d kept searching passing faces for Mami’s. They’d all remained strange and frightening. The cleaning lady had found me locked in a bathroom stall, bawling my eyes out.

“They’re happy we took you.” Duck Young smiled. “Sure, they will be sad, at first. But as time passes, they’ll guiltily realize that the family ‘problem’ has been solved. And they’re right. You see, I don’t believe, like my brothers do, that you are special. I think you are the weak member of the herd, and we would have been better off with any of the others. Of course, that will be remedied soon.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded, but predictably, he didn’t answer. With a possessive touch to Marisol’s wrist, he meandered off into the throng.

“Mari, what does he mean?”

“You look pretty tonight, Raina. Seductive, even. But stop crying; you’ll ruin your mascara.”

“What does he
mean
?”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

“Because I think you’re a murderer.” I stared her boldly in the eye, then. It didn’t hurt any less to see those bemused puppet eyes staring back. Her earring studs didn’t match. Her mascara was clumped on too thick. And I realized that the puppet was beginning to mirror her master.

Then something else broke through, and she lifted her head proudly. “Listen carefully to me, dear sister: I…have never killed…
anyone
.”

“Why should I believe you? You told him the
airport
story, Mari!” My throat clamped up. “Not even Citlalli knows about that! How many other people have you told? How long have you been broadcasting that I’m
weak
?”

Marisol’s nostrils flared, and she stomped her foot. “Don’t you understand, Raina?” she cried. “They asked what makes you weak because they want to keep you fractured! They want you to be that little girl torn between heritages!”

I was startled the vampyres would take an interest in that. “Why?”

“Because if you haven’t reconciled those parts of yourself, then you really are what they think: weak. But I know you’re not.”

Then she spun on her heel and fled after her master.

Thunderous laughter rolled across the crowd. The players of the comedic
ttangjaeju
bowed out, and the entire hall rumbled with an abrupt creak. Fingers pointed, and I craned my neck up to see the entire ceiling groaning and shifting. It slid back to reveal a clear winter night, dizzying with stars. Against the velvety night sky was a tightrope.

“Ooh!” The ghosts clapped eagerly, and a lone figure stepped out on the sky-high tightrope with a bow.

“Magical, isn’t it?” A masculine growl curled each of his words. I felt golden arms encircle me, and tilted my head back to see Donovan’s empty teal eyes fixed not upon me, but on the heavens above. It was the first time I had seen anything other than female flesh enchant him.

“What I wouldn’t give to fly on a night like this!”

“Why can’t you?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Why can’t I.” Donovan’s mouth flattened for a moment, but then it was back to flirtatiously exploring the skin on the back of my neck. “I’m needed here, of course. All of the princes are to be present. It’s so rare we get to spend time together. Ridiculous, how we spend it. Little competitions. Fighting with each other for Mother’s attention. When I become King of Eve, I will decree family time only once a year. Once all of my brothers have given me tokens of their fealty, they can float off to Antarctica in their coffins for all I care.”

The next King of Eve
, I thought.
You must really be convinced that your soul is safe
.

“So you wouldn’t kidnap girls and force them through hellish ordeals?” I sank a little bit deeper into his arms.

“I would tell the Dark Spirits to go screw themselves. And I wouldn’t need to kidnap new girls. I’d be quite content with the ones I had.” His fingers brushed aside the hair at the nape of my neck so he could kiss it. Quivers scurried up from my stomach before I could stop them. His hands found the spot where he had bitten me, and I felt his breath quicken with excitement.

“Still visible. My mark on your right side, and Khyber’s on your left. Which side do you prefer, I wonder?”

“The left side is traditionally bad luck.”

His satisfactory chuckle tinkled like wind chimes. “Ah, you’re being naughty tonight. Giving me hope.”

“I’m in a good mood. I can see and hear again.”

“Yes, no one should be blind to a night like this.” Donovan stretched an arm once more, longingly, toward the sky. “See? Aren’t you happy I talked to Queen Maya for you?”

I froze. “Y-you? You asked her to remove my blind and deafness?”

He seemed surprised. “I told you I would. You should have come to me sooner. Did you think I would let you suffer a second in darkness, like Khyber did? It was a powerful curse she placed on you. Even I was surprised at the cost to remove it.”

From his pocket, he withdrew a familiar spring knife. My dread deepened.

“This is yours now.” Smiling, he folded my hands over Colleen’s butterfly knife. “See? With me by your side, you came out of peril stronger than ever.”

I waited until he strode away before my knees buckled. I felt nauseous. That awful, sickening cold that had descended upon the shower…it had stolen Colleen’s breath and restored my sight and hearing. I remembered Duck Young’s ferocious snarl:
“It’s your fault she’s dead.”

She’d died because of me.

Chapter 12: The Seductress

“That’s her.” Lillian fretted in the arms of Crispin, her intended. “The girl who threatened us all like a madwoman.”

The green wings popped out, eclipsing the last of my light. “Don’t worry about her, my love. Worrying will give you wrinkles, and then you will be unattractive to me. Now, how do you want her to die?”

Lillian brightened considerably. I watched Maya’s fourth son approach. Common sense urged me to run. But vampyre venom burned in the two bite marks on my neck, coaxing me to stay still. Didn’t I want to experience that euphoria again? That ecstatic, otherworldly high that could wipe the identity of Colleen’s murderer free from my mind?

“Raina.”

Someone still remembered my name. That it was Khyber, the long-lost vampyre prince who confused and intoxicated me by turns, didn’t matter. I was human. I needed that person who understood.

“Raina. How do you want
him
to die?”

Crispin stopped in his tracks when the shadow of his eldest brother swallowed him up. Raising a superiorly trimmed black eyebrow, he returned to spinning Lillian around on the dance floor.

“How do
you
want to die?” I asked Khyber instead. “And how can I die with you?”

Immediately, I was whisked away upon a rustle of black wings. I opened my eyes to find us standing on a moonlit terrace. The same radiant sky that Donovan had sighed for rained starlight upon Khyber and I.

“No sixteen-year-old asks those things.”

“No sixteen-year-old has forgotten what the sun looks like.” I was startled to find that no tears clouded my vision. For once, I was clear-headed and dry-eyed. I’d shed all the tears I could.

“I did.” Khyber slumped against the wall. “How old do I look?”

“Early twenties.”

“I don’t know.”

I looked at him in surprise, and he laughed again, clutching his hair. “I don’t know how old I was. I don’t remember the date. I don’t remember if I’d had my first kiss, or if I’d traveled beyond village Namyangju. I don’t
know.
All I can remember is climbing.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Sabin.” He glanced toward me. “That’s the name I tell everyone. Can’t remember if I was a Lee or a Pak. Does it even matter, when I’ve lived a life time of Khybers, Francoises, Dylans, and Jinhos? Why should I remember a family name when I can’t even remember my own mother and father?”

I closed my eyes and hugged my goose-bumped arms. “I’m sorry for you. But what happened to Colleen was evil. I don’t know how old you were when you lost your life, but I do know that Colleen was younger and better than both of us.”

“I’m sure she was. The older you get, the brighter innocence seems. That child Colleen was a lighthouse. And the thing about lighthouses: the older you get, the more you get used to the dark. The quicker you are to put the light out.”

“So Maya killed her.”

“It was the only way to lift the curse. The brilliance of her innocence to help you see and hear again. It was why I never came to you.” Khyber clutched the railing, leaving inch-deep nail grooves in the stone. “But I watched you. Always. If they had thrown you from the window, I would have caught you.”

I seized his face in an instant. I traced my finger along his jaw bone because I wanted to, because I wanted to feel the irregularity and suffering shaping his bones. My fingers tangled in his jet-black hair, and then I kissed him, fiercely. I kissed him because I knew he wouldn’t resist, because I knew that he’d had numerous girls before me, so what was one more? But I needed this kiss, because beneath the vampyre venom smoldering in my veins was human desire. I secretly hoped he wanted me back. Because the next kiss and touch I gave wouldn’t be willing.

I didn’t want to do this. I was only sixteen. I wanted to wallow in my insecurities and daydream about what could be while the future seemed bright. But midwinter had already descended for girls like Colleen, so I knew I had no time.

“Give me what I need to catch Donovan’s soul,” I whispered in his ear. “I’m ready.”

He handed over a beautiful flower lantern far too quickly, and that’s when I knew, in the darkest recesses of my mind, that he didn’t care about me. He’d tried, but he couldn’t. Immortality had made it impossible for him.

“I found this soul-catching lantern in Busan. In the old days, Busan was a tiny fishing hamlet.” Khyber chuckled, shaking his head. “Now it is Korea’s second largest city. Yet still, it fishes.”