Othersphere Read online

  Caleb.

  I wished that I had told him I loved him today. I wouldn’t get another chance.

  The voice called again, ordering me to do something. But the point of Orgoli’s incisor began to impale my skin, cutting through the thick muscles around my spine and throat.

  “Dez!” Caleb’s voice cut deeper than Orgoli’s claws. “Not a tiger! A house cat! I call upon you—get smaller!”

  I would have laughed if I had any breath. The answer was so simple. And it wasn’t to become stronger, larger, or more powerful.

  I closed my eyes and obeyed the call.

  Instantly, my wounds healed. The teeth pressing into my throat slid up and away. The great paws flexed, empty. The giant, smothering body no longer pressed down. I was small, compact, and lithe.

  Far above me now, Orgoli’s eyes were wide in bewilderment. He focused down on me as if not quite taking in what he saw. He dabbed a paw at me, testing to see if I was really there.

  I darted between his paws just as I had slithered between the writhing stems of the bloodthirsty thorn bushes of Othersphere. While Orgoli blinked down at where I’d been, I zipped along the hallway toward a tall figure in a long black coat. Like climbing a tree, I scrambled up Caleb’s leg and into his arms.

  His warm lips brushed the top of my head. “Well done.”

  Nearby, Lazar led a more focused-seeming Ximon with November right beside them, a strange glint in her eye.

  London and her wolves were there, too. Behind them, Arnaldo was gesturing up at Morfael, who descended the metal stairs, holding his great wooden staff in his hand. The lasers must be ready to fire again.

  Orgoli was pawing at the floor, looking around, confused. His huge head turned, to look over his shoulder, about to catch sight of us.

  A blur of movement surged out of Othersphere, and he tensed, roaring. The Amba were coming.

  I climbed onto Caleb’s shoulder, craning my head to look over Orgoli’s huge body. Six Amba, not much smaller than Orgoli, leapt right through the doorway. He disappeared under a maelstrom of slashing claws and bared teeth.

  The earth heaved upwards, a vast beast awakening beneath us. The tunnel of tubing around us shuddered and screeched. Dust and small pieces of the ceiling hurtled down around Morfael. Arnaldo, hand over his head, dashed into the mouth of the tunnel, but Morfael ignored the tremor, moving in a stately manner toward us.

  The shaking had not dislodged the Amba. They were caterwauling, biting and shoving Orgoli toward the doorway. Blood splattered the sides of the tunnel and coated the metal walkway with sticky redness. Orgoli fought, fiercely, desperately, but I had drained him. Every time he threw off one of the Amba, another jumped in to take its place, to harry him some more. The scene in the shiny tunnel of tubes was like a pile of angry striped snakes, twisting and thrashing and slipping in their own blood.

  London launched herself at the wriggling pile of Amba, her dire wolves following. But they didn’t bite or attack; they shoved, pushing Orgoli toward the doorway. Once he was there, Arnaldo and Lazar could use Morfael’s staff as a focal point for the lasers and shut it forever.

  “To hell with it!” November shouted, and ran up, arms out, to also shove at Orgoli’s back end. His hind legs were braced against the floor, scrabbling desperately.

  “Yes.” It was Ximon’s voice, a quavering shadow of what it had once been. His eyes were bright and feverish. “Yes, be gone foul demon!” He slipped away from Lazar, and walked up behind November and the Amba as they propelled Orgoli forward.

  November whirled on him, her face a mask of hatred and disgust. “You’re the demon, you sick old man,” she said. “You’re worse than he is. You killed Siku.”

  Ximon’s face fell, his watery eyes staring at her. “You’re not wrong, little fiend. You’re not wrong at all.”

  Morfael entered the tunnel and extended his staff to Arnaldo.

  But Arnaldo was shaking his head. “I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t think it’ll work. Given my calculations based on the material November gave me, your staff is less dense than Orgoli’s because it’s wood, not stone. We need more material from Othersphere for it to work.”

  The brawling ball of Amba was squirming over the threshold of the doorway. A few Amba had been hanging back, with no room to enter the fray, and now they surged forward. The wolves backed off and November grabbed Ximon by the back of his shirt to shuffle him back. The Amba leaned into Orgoli from behind and pulled at him from the front with one last, all-out effort.

  Then, like a tooth being pulled, he slid out of our world into Othersphere.

  Arnaldo ran forward, gingerly holding Morfael’s staff in one hand, shaking his head. “I’m telling you, guys, it won’t be enough. We need something else from Othersphere.”

  “Well, let me just pull out my handy slab of Othersphere and give it to you,” November said, running her hands nervously through her hair, making it stand up even straighter. “Come on! Just try it.”

  On the other side of the doorway, Orgoli had one of the Amba by the throat. I could see he was growing bigger as the blood ran down his gullet. A small winged creature flitted above them and shifted.

  Khutulun, bigger than all of them in her tiger form, stared through the doorway at me. As the other Amba piled on top of Orgoli to hold him down, she dipped her great tiger head and sank her teeth into the back of Orgoli’s neck. He jerked in surprise and pain.

  I felt vaguely sick. Was that what I had wanted to do? Was that who I was becoming? More than anything, I wanted the doorway closed now.

  Lazar was at Caleb’s side. “We need to shut that door.”

  Caleb was patting his pockets. “I know. If Orgoli doesn’t threaten us, then she might. But I don’t have anything from Othersphere.”

  Orgoli let go of the Amba and flailed in Khutulun’s grip. I dug my needlelike claws into the worn cloth of Caleb’s coat. It was like witnessing a slow execution. Khutulun closed her jaws around Orgoli’s throat for one more time. He kicked weakly, paws trembling. Then the great golden eyes rolled over, and he lay still.

  Khutulun raised her bloody snout and licked her whiskers with relish. Come, little cub. Join us.

  I knew what I had to do. I jumped down from Caleb’s shoulder and shifted into human form, wearing nothing but the Shadow Blade.

  “Dez?” Caleb was automatically pulling his coat off and wrapping it around me from behind.

  I unbuckled the shell clasp on the leather belt around my waist and held the Shadow Blade and its scabbard out to Arnaldo. “This is from Othersphere,” I said. “Take it.”

  “Are you sure?” Arnaldo reached out hesitantly.

  Caleb grabbed my shoulders, turning me partway around to face him. “Dez, that’s the part of you that’s connected to Othersphere. If you give it to Arnaldo, it’ll be destroyed.”

  “And I’ll lose my bond with Othersphere,” I said.

  I looked back at Morfael. His moonstone eyes were shining, his narrow lips pulled back in his strange version of a smile. “I won’t be able to walk through the veil whenever I want. I’ll be just another tiger-shifter.” I couldn’t help smiling. Joy sang in my heart as I looked at the faces of my friends. “Here in this world, with all of you.”

  “Fine.” November snatched the Blade from my hand and shoved it at Arnaldo. “Hurry up.”

  “Let’s do it!” Lazar pivoted and ran down the tunnel, over to where his laptop was set up, hooked into a computer bank.

  Arnaldo took the Blade from November warily, and laid it carefully on the floor right on top of the buzzing border of the doorway, jerking his hands away from it as if shocked. “Back up!” he shouted, waving us away from the doorway. “Back up to the end of the tunnel. Lazar, get ready to fire.”

  London and her dire wolves herded Ximon back down the tunnel, away from the door, with November and Arnaldo following.

  On the other side, Khutulun stepped over Orgoli’s body, coming toward us, blood dripping from her lips. This i
s your last chance. Come be what you really are.

  I slipped my hand into Caleb’s. He lifted it up and kissed my palm, and we backed up the tunnel together slowly. “I am already myself,” I said. “I am what I chose to be. Good-bye.”

  Khutulun neared the doorway, her gaze circling it, calculating.

  We reached the end of the tunnel. Ximon, wobbly and bewildered, hesitated there, staring down the metal hallway at the doorway, at Khutulun, at Othersphere.

  “Here,” said November to London. “I’ll get him.”

  The wolves backed out completely. November took Ximon by the shoulders, standing at the mouth of the tunnel. “All clear, Arnaldo!” she called.

  “Ready!” Arnaldo shouted.

  Lazar pressed a key on the laptop, and the entire half-sphere of tubes and metal piping lit up. A hum of electricity hit my skin.

  “Aim!” Arnaldo said, lifting his right hand.

  Lazar pressed several more keys. “Target acquired.” He poised his index finger over the last key, eyes on Arnaldo, waiting.

  Khutulun paced along the perimeter of the doorway,

  Good-bye, and good riddance.

  Silhouetted in front of the giant bank of glowing machinery, November’s hands on Ximon’s thin shoulders tightened.

  I had a strange, sick premonition. “November!” I shouted. “Wait!”

  “Fire!” Arnaldo ordered at the same moment.

  Lazar tapped the key.

  “So long, asshole.” November shoved Ximon into the tunnel. He stumbled forward, clattering down the metal hallway.

  Caleb, Amaris, and Lazar staggered forward a step at the same astonished moment. Caleb would have kept going, but I tightened my grip on his hand instinctively, pulling him back.

  Amaris cried out wordlessly. Ximon tottered into the doorway to Othersphere and turned back, just a thin, lost silhouette, teetering on the brink. I couldn’t tell if he was through the doorway or not.

  The high hum of the machinery hit a peak. Hundreds of thousands of red laser beams struck Morfael’s staff and the Shadow Blade at once. Everyone winced back at the brightness, throwing hands in front of their eyes, squeezing lids shut, turning heads away.

  There came a soft whumph of air. Like a window swinging shut.

  The light assaulting my eyelids dimmed. I opened them cautiously.

  The doorway, the staff, the Shadow Blade, and Ximon were all gone.

  CHAPTER 18

  Everyone was staring at November, aghast. She dusted off her hands, as if her work was done, and gazed right back, unashamed. “He thought Othersphere was hell,” she said. “So that’s where he deserves to go.”

  Tears were pouring down Amaris’s face. Caleb and Lazar exchanged wordless glances, and then walked over to their sister and put their arms around her. The three of them stood like that for a long moment. In spite of the horror of all that had just happened, my heart lifted a little to see the siblings so bonded at last.

  An alarm clanged, startling me. The red light by the open metal door flashed. My tech-fu had only shut it down for a short period of time. With my connection to Othersphere severed, I’d probably never be able to do such a thing again.

  I was smiling. That was fine by me.

  “Better get out fast,” Arnaldo hollered over the claxon. “The shifters outside can’t knock humdrums unconscious indefinitely.”

  November was the first up the stairs.

  Detaching himself from Lazar and Amaris, Caleb came to me, hands outstretched.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “About your father.”

  His expression was more pensive than upset. “And I’m sorry,” he said, “about your biological father.”

  We started up the stairs after Lazar. Amaris came right after, with London and her wolves clustered around her in silent support.

  “Thanks,” I said to Caleb. “Part of me is horrified—at the Amba and Khutulun, and at November.”

  “The other part of you thinks Orgoli and Ximon got what was coming to them. I know,” he said, as we walked side by side through the metal door. As always, he’d read my thoughts exactly.

  We quickly wound our way through the NIF hallways, passing unconscious guards at various checkpoints, and burst outside to the parking lot. Surrounding it was a chain-link fence topped by razor wire with a large, grizzly bear–sized hole in it.

  I’d expected to find the tiger-shifters milling about, and a lot of other kinds of shifters, too, but there were only three large SUVs waiting outside the fence.

  Jonata, the lynx-shifter on the council, climbed out of one of the trucks and waved. We streamed toward her over the parking lot, Morfael elegantly bringing up the rear.

  “So good to see you,” she said as we climbed through the hole in the fence, shaking everyone’s hands as they passed her. “Everything all right?”

  “Orgoli’s dead,” I said. “The doorway’s closed for good. And Ximon . . .”

  I looked up at Caleb. “We don’t need to worry about him anymore,” he said.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “Oh, we shuttled the tiger-shifters and everyone else out of here lickety-split when the alarm went off again,” she said. “Various cat-shifters volunteered to house the tigers till we can get them back to their own countries.” She leaned into me, smiling. “They told us how you saved them. Nice job.”

  “There was a Bengal, a kind of leader,” I said. “Can you let them know he died fighting Orgoli?”

  She pressed her lips together in regret and nodded. “Of course. Some of them expressed a wish to come visit you at the school.”

  “Great,” I said. Arnaldo was motioning us toward the school SUV. Sirens were approaching in the distance.

  I heard incredulous shouts down the dark street, which was unusually deserted even for such a late hour.

  Jonata grinned. “Better get going. Bears and mountain lions on the road can only keep the cops busy for so long.”

  She climbed into her truck, and the woman beside her hit the accelerator. “Whose car is that?” I asked, pointing at the third car.

  “Mine,” Caleb said. “Confiscated from the Tribunal at the lodge.” He bent in close to me, hand reaching into his own coat, which I still wore. His face got within inches of mine, and he smiled, drawing out a set of keys. “Hey, pretty girl. Want a ride?”

  I nodded, laughing low. “One second.”

  I turned and ran over to throw my arms around first London, then Amaris, Arnaldo, and November. “Yes, even you,” I said, squeezing her tiny form against me.

  Her voice, muffled against my chest, said something very rude about what I should do with myself.

  “Even me,” Lazar said as I let November go. He put both arms around me and kissed me on the cheek.

  “I know why you did it,” I whispered. “You broke up with me for Caleb’s sake.”

  He pulled back, his face relaxed and resigned. “You’re what he wants most in this world, what he needs,” he said. “We talked a little on the ride over,” he said. “Not about that, exactly. But we might end up brothers after all.”

  “Oh, Lazar,” I said, my face flushed with a thousand emotions. “That’s wonderful.”

  Caleb appeared next to me. Lazar drew away self-consciously, but Caleb reached his hand out to Lazar to shake. “Well done today, brother,” he said. “We’ll see you back at the school.”

  “Class begins tomorrow morning at six a.m.,” Morfael said, opening the passenger side door. It was weird to see him without his staff.

  Everyone groaned, until Morfael’s face lit with a wide, teeth-baring grin. He climbed into the shotgun seat, as we all looked at each other.

  Lazar shut the door, looking vaguely astonished. “I think he just made a joke.”

  “It better be,” November said from the depths of the SUV. “Get inside, handsome. If you sit next to me and keep me warm, I promise not to shove any more of your relatives through the veil tonight.”

  “Shut up, ’
Ember,” London said.

  “Yeah,” said Amaris, who was snuggled with London in the back. “For once, shut the hell up.”

  November’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. She opened her mouth to make a smart-ass remark.

  “You heard her,” Lazar said warningly.

  November shut her mouth, smirk wiped away. Lazar climbed in. He did sit next to her, but not close enough to keep her warm. Her eyes slid up and down his long lean body, and the smirk returned.

  “See you all in a few hours,” I said.

  Amaris and London waved. In the driver’s seat, Arnaldo tapped the horn softly and grinned. November stuck her tongue out and Morfael lifted one hand in blessing or farewell. Or both.

  Lazar leaned out to grab the door handle to pull it shut. His brown eyes were rueful, but smiling ever so slightly. He leaned into me, his voice low. “This is going to be an interesting ride home.”

  The door slammed shut, and I ran back to Caleb’s SUV. He was already revving the engine. I climbed into the passenger’s seat and saw he was holding his phone up, talking to someone via Skype.

  “Hold on, she’s right here,” he said, and handed me the phone. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

  “Desdemona!” My mother’s sweet face, slightly distorted by the wide-angle lens of her laptop camera, peered at me, grinning so big I could see her back fillings.

  “Hi, Mom! Everything okay?” I beamed back at her, warmth spilling out of my heart into every corner of my being. It was so good to hear her voice say my name, the name she’d given me after fighting so hard to adopt me from that Russian orphanage all those years ago.

  She flapped her hand at the camera. “I’m fine. Caleb called just now and told me you had a bit of an adventure but that everything’s fine. You’re a sight for sore eyes, my girl.”

  I shot an amused glance at Caleb. He was cranking the wheel and stepping on the gas, grinning. “Oh, Caleb called you, did he?”

  “He’s a considerate boy,” Mom said.

  “He’s the best boy I know,” I said.

  Caleb, smile widening, reached out and put his hand on my knee, sliding his fingers over it and down the inside of my thigh. Heat burned its way up my thighs where he touched me. I tried not to gasp in front of my mother and smacked his hand.