Waging War (2 page)

The Wolf was closing in from my right side,
but the Bear stayed on all fours as I passed above him. The Bear
began to run alongside me, easily keeping up as I sprinted across
the top of the wall – the wall that was going to end in twenty feet
at the hedgerow.

How are our jumping skills?
I asked
Cat. She huffed again, clearly insulted, and I laughed. Confidence
was overriding fear for both of us. There were two big ash trees on
the wild side of the wall, within jumping distance of the hedgerow.
If I could get to them, I could climb up to clear the hedgerow, and
no animal would be able to catch me. But the trees were outside my
human leaping range so I couldn’t rely on my own experience; I had
to trust my Cat. I was glad to feel her understand what I wanted
and add her burst of speed to my own.

The Bear was running full-out, but my Cougar
could sustain a sprint longer than he could, and I sensed he was
near his limit. The Wolf could still outrun me, but he seemed to
hold back just a little to see my plan. Good. I needed any extra
seconds I could get.

The Wolf finally figured it out when I
didn’t slow at the end of the wall, but even his thirty-eight miles
an hour wouldn’t matter now if I caught the biggest branch right.
No matter how fast Connor’s Wolf was, he couldn’t climb.

The Bear roared as I bunched my muscles and
leapt. I was at full speed, and I would have to dig in when I hit
the branch so momentum didn’t carry me right off the tree. I landed
perfectly and my claws bit into the bark. It hurt, but not as much
as falling would have, and I changed trajectory up toward the
higher branches.

The Bear was now trapped on his side of the
wall, and the Wolf would have to go around another stone barrier to
get me when I made it over the hedgerow. The Bear roared again, on
principle maybe, and the Wolf added a short bark to the noise. I
reached the height I needed to clear the laurels, and I allowed my
Cat a moment to savor the view. I’d be able to make it back to
Elian Manor before either of them could catch me now, and if I’d
been in my human form, I wouldn’t have been able to resist the “na,
na, na-na, na” that sang in my head. Yeah, I was mature like
that.

It was a good jump
, I told my
Cat.

She preened.
It was a great one.

They can’t catch us now. We won
. I
tried to keep the smugness out of my own mental voice, but winning
a game of ditch against a Bear and a Wolf was pretty cool.

I coiled my Cat’s muscles to leap over the
hedgerow and down to the field. Cat was dominant and bossy, and yet
I hadn’t let her take over. I was the one in control, and a surge
of strength made the leap from the tree almost as spectacular as
the one that got us there.

Right up until the moment a Falcon attached
itself to my back on my way down.

My Cat roared and tried to spin in mid-air.
The Falcon screeched, dug it’s talons into my fur, and hung on.
NO!
I yelled at her, as she pulled her legs in to roll and
crush the Falcon.
Don’t hurt him!

I wrestled with her to keep control, and I
stuck my landing.

So did Logan’s Falcon.

Get it off!
Cat was shaking with fury
and she tried to turn her head to snap at the predatory bird. I
clenched every muscle we had and fought her command. The Falcon’s
talons were tangled in my fur, and I could feel their pinch, but
they hadn’t actually broken the skin, so my own fighting instinct
was starting to calm.

And then I began to laugh.

I laughed, and I ran, and the Falcon
hunkered down on my back to keep his balance. I could picture him
up there, riding my Cat like a windsurfer, and I laughed
harder.

It’s not funny. He caught us in mid-air
like a flying squirrel.
She was still mad, but my laughter was
infectious and her tone was starting to lighten.

Let’s make him earn the win, shall
we?
I could sense her immediate agreement, and our stride
lengthened. I’d never run so fast, and the Falcon struggled to hold
on. Finally, even my Cat began to have fun as we sped across the
field back to Elian Manor.

Conditions

Liz Edwards hadn’t batted an eyelash when
her younger son came into their garage flat riding the back of a
Cougar like a skateboard. He flew into the rafters, Shifted into a
Spider Monkey, and scolded me with chatter before he sped off to
throw on a pair of shorts. A phone call to the main house and a cup
of tea later, my mom arrived with my clothes to find me sitting
with Liz in her kitchen, wrapped in her bathrobe, recounting the
day.

When I was back in my uniform of jeans and a
stormtrooper sugar skull t-shirt, I joined my mom and Liz in the
kitchen. Claire Elian and Liz Edwards had become friends while
Connor and I had Clocked around medieval France trying to repair
time with Archer and Ringo, and it was always an honor when they
included me in their conversations like an equal.

“As far as I know, Jane Simpson is planning
to open St. Brigid’s for start of term as usual,” my mom said.

“But so many Families have withdrawn their
children. There won’t be anyone left to teach, apart from my mangy
lads,” answered Liz with a head-toss toward Logan, who followed me
in wearing his human skin and a pair of shorts.

“Connor’s the mangy one,” he said absently
as he ducked out of range of his mother’s intended hair-ruffling,
and reached for a slice of cake she had just cut. She smacked his
hand away without even looking.

He turned to me with a cheeky grin. “Had to
try.”

I shrugged. “Naturally.”

Once the cake was plated, Liz slid it across
the counter to him and shot him a teasing glare. “You can do
better.”

“Thank you, Mum,” Logan said with a formal,
mannered voice, then popped a piece of cake in his mouth with his
fingers when his mother’s back was turned. He retreated to the
table and began flipping through a book of endangered animals while
the moms continued their previous conversation.

“The drop in enrollment at St. Brigid’s is
due to fear of Monger reprisals against anyone who dares stand up
to them in the Council. It scared a lot of people when they took
Bob right out of his office,” my mom said.

“What about the mixed-bloods they’ve
kidnapped?” I asked. “What’s the Council going to do about finding
them?”

My mom shook her head. “Unfortunately, the
Council’s problem is that they very likely
are
mixed-bloods.”

I stared at her, shocked she could even
think that. “Mom!”

“Not because of the moratorium, don’t be
ridiculous, Saira. You know where I stand on the subject, and
obviously the Seers are with us.” The Seer Head was Camille Arman,
the formidably stylish and powerful mother of my friends, Adam and
Ava.

“What about the Shifters?”

My mom gave a wry smile. “The MacKenzie is a
bull-headed stick-in-the-mud who refuses to stand with anyone on
any issue brought before the Council. If he can abstain, he
does.”

Liz spoke quietly. “I assume it goes without
saying that Rothchild and the Mongers are holding firm in their
stand for the old laws?”

“What old laws?” Logan asked from the
table.

I appreciated that Liz didn’t even hesitate
before she gave him an honest answer. It said a lot about how much
she trusted her kids. “There are old Descendant laws that don’t
allow mixing Family lines. The laws assert that mixed-blooded
Descendants are abominations because of the unpredictability of
their skills.”

“That is
such
a weak argument,” I
said, annoyed. “We’re all unpredictable in our skills. I mean, look
at Millicent – a full-blooded Clocker who can’t Clock.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “And don’t even get
me started on that Edwards kid who can Shift into any animal he
wants.” He was talking about himself, of course, as if the grin on
his face didn’t give it away.

Liz laughed. “Definitely don’t get me
started on that kid.”

My mom redirected us back to the
conversation. “The problem the Council has with the missing
mixed-bloods is that because of the moratorium, their Families have
never officially claimed them as Immortal Descendants. Without that
designation, the Council has no jurisdiction or power to force
their return.”

Liz added, “We don’t even know why the
mixed-bloods were targeted, and we certainly can’t confirm it was
Mongers who took them.”

“Of course it was Mongers,” I said in
disgust. “It’s always Mongers.”

“Careful, Saira,” my mom cautioned. “No one
is all good or all bad.”

I snorted. “Seth Walters is all bad. Bishop
Wilder was all bad. Jack the Ripper, definitely all bad. And guess
what Family they all came from? Oh, that’s right … Mongers.” I
snorted, and Logan giggled at the sound.

My mom sighed in the way moms do when
they’re too tired to argue. “My point is that the Council’s hands
are tied on the issue of the mixed-blood kidnappings. If families
were willing to come forward to us, or if something definitely tied
the Mongers to the disappearances, then we could step in.
Otherwise, there’s nothing we can officially do.”

“Do any of the Seers have information about
the missing people?” Liz asked.

“If there have been any visions about them,
I’m not aware of it. The Armans have just returned from France, and
in fact they’ve invited us to tea tomorrow, so we can ask them,”
said my mom.

Connor loped into the room wearing jeans and
a Tardis and Link t-shirt. “The Seers
should
know something.
There’s at least one Seer among the missing people,” he said.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“You remember the last person we heard had
disappeared – a guy called Tam that Olivia knew? Well, I saw your
very small Pict friend the other day when she came to visit her
aunt Sanda, and we talked about Tam. He’s part Seer, apparently,
and he was with some friends of Olivia’s the day he was taken. But
these friends, a brother and a sister, lied to the police about
being there when it happened, and they won’t tell anyone what they
know.”

“Has Olivia tried to talk to them?” I was
the closest to the teapot, so I poured Connor a cup.

“Not since the girl, Melanie, first called
Olivia. She told Olivia they had seen Tam get taken, but didn’t
give any details, and now the friends have stopped answering their
phones.”

I looked sharply at him. “Could they be
missing now too?”

“That’s what Olivia’s worried about, but she
can’t go to London by herself to check on them.” He shrugged. “She
gave me their names and an address and asked if I would try to find
them.”

Liz came over and squeezed some lemon into
her son’s tea. “I’m not so wild about any of you going into London.
If the Mongers catch you outside the protection of home or school,
they’ll have very little compunction against taking you.”

“I could go as a Philippine Eagle.” Logan
said, pointing to a page in his book. “It’s the largest eagle there
is, and I could probably fly to London in under an hour, pop in to
chat with the friends, and fly back home.”

Connor scowled at his little brother. “It’s
also one of the rarest birds on the planet, and you’d be less
conspicuous on a broom. If Mum has a problem with me going to
London, it’s pretty much a guarantee you can’t go.”

Logan looked equal parts crestfallen and
defiant, and before he could launch a verbal attack on Connor I
slid onto the bench next to him. “Scootch over and show me.”

Logan was eleven and looked like something
out of a Dickens novel, with shaggy blond hair and a boyish
scruffiness that never went away no matter how often he bathed. His
brother, Connor, was already tall for his age, with lean ranginess
that reminded me of his Wolf. Connor was fifteen, with darker hair,
and a quietness that spoke of too much responsibility too soon.
Since they had come to stay at Elian Manor, when it was clear the
Mongers were looking for Connor, I’d spent a lot of time with the
brothers. And for these last weeks of summer, since we’d gotten
back from medieval France, they had worked with Mr. Shaw to teach
me the fine art of Shifting.

I pointed to the Philippine eagle. “Could
you actually Shift into that?”

He shrugged. “Sure. So could you.”

He meant because I wore the Shifter bone
nearly full-time now. I tucked it under my shirt and shook my head.
“No. It lets me Shift into
my
animal. Only real Shifters can
do the any-animal thing with this.” The Edwards family and Mr. Shaw
were the only Shifters who knew I had the ancient Shifter bone,
because it was clear to us all that I’d get no access to it if
anyone else knew it had been found.

Connor sat across from Logan. “Show her the
bush viper,” he said to Logan before looking at me. “And by the
way, you
are
a real Shifter.”