Coyote's Howl (Cape High Series Book 17), page 10
“I LIKE my illusion!” she grumbles as Jack starts walking around her.
“We’ve got a lot of hairline cracks here,” he says, pointing at her shoulder. “Let me see your stomach.”
“This is harassment,” she mutters as she pulls the tank top up just enough to show her navel.
“More cracks here, too, although they look like they’re healing,” he sums up, completely ignoring her. “You’re both coming with me.” He picks Sandra up before she can pull away, and drops her onto his surfboard. “You, too, hop on,” he says to me, motioning to the board. I jump on, not about to argue. The flying surfboard is awesome. “Nico, I’m bringing Lance and Sandra into the apartments on my board, can you keep them from getting fried?” he asks into his com-bracelet.
“You’re good,” Nico says. “How’s Lance’s mom?”
“Still in bird form,” Jack says, looking at me with a hint of worry. I shrug, since I already figured. He hangs up and leads us through the security field before turning to Sandra. “You know,” he says, “you ARE a tank.”
“I know that,” she says, still glaring at him. I see her hand twitch and I can almost read her mind. She wants to turn her illusion back on.
“But you’re still a kid—you’re still vulnerable,” he says. “If you’re in a fight that can damage you, and you’ve got a perfectly good escape route, you should TAKE it. Both of you should have come back with Rocco and your mom.” He turns to stare at me as he goes on, “If I hear you’ve gotten my future little sister cracked again, I’m not going to be happy, understand?”
“Future—I never said—” Sandra stutters. She stops and settles for just glaring at him. “I’m nobody’s little sister. I’m huge.”
It makes him laugh, which has her spluttering with anger.
“Hey, is she okay?” Trent asks from above. We all look up as he jumps over the railing and drops down in front of us. “Come on, Sandy, let’s see the damage.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” Sandra says, glaring balefully at both of them.
“Aubrey!” Jack yells up the stairs. “Come down and check on Sandra—”
“We can go up there, instead?” I offer.
“Yeah, yeah, we can do that,” Jack says. The surfboard shoots up the stairs and I grab on to keep from falling off. It’s only a few seconds before we pull to a stop on the second to topmost floors. “Aubrey! Come on out, would you?” Jack says as he joins us. A door swings open and I go still, looking at Sandra. Sandra hates Aubrey the most of all of us, after all.
“Sandra? Lance? Are you two okay?” Aubrey asks, rushing to us. “Oh, Lance, look at all that blood!”
“It healed when I shifted,” I say, wiping self-consciously at my nose. “Check out Sandra first.”
She hesitates, looking at Sandra. I can’t blame her. She knows better than anyone else that Sandra hates her for not changing her back. “Okay, Sandra, can I?” she asks.
Sandra stares at her stonily, crossing her arms over her chest. “Check her out,” Jack says. “She’s got some cracks.”
Aubrey heads forward touching Sandra’s shoulder. Her hair starts flying and her eyes glow white for a moment. After a second, she frowns and pulls her hand away. “It was superficial,” she says. “It was already healing, but I finished it off. You’re as healthy as can be.”
“You didn’t turn me back,” Sandra says.
“Sandra, even if we let Bobby turn you back, you’d just change back to this,” Aubrey says with a sigh. “This is what you were MEANT to be. You were born to be a rock mimic.”
“You were born to be a tank,” Jack says. “Nothin’ wrong with that.”
“Oh shut up, metal butt,” Sandra snaps.
Aubrey turns to me, and I hold out a hand reluctantly. She’s going to find out that I lost so many of my forms. I wasn’t exactly trying to hide it, sure, but it’s so raw that I don’t particularly want to talk about it, either.
“I’m not sure I like being called ‘metal butt,’” I hear Jack say thoughtfully as Aubrey starts running her scan, or whatever it is she calls it.
“Well, she’s not wrong,” Trent says.
“You’ve seen his butt?” Sandra asks.
“We share a bathroom. Sometimes that idiot doesn’t lock the door.”
“Just theoretically, if I WAS adopted, would I have to share a bathroom with you two?” she demands. “Because the LAST thing I want is to walk in on metal butt.”
“He sings in the shower, too,” Trent offers evilly, “off-key.”
“I’m not the one that’s off-key, you are,” Jack protests. “Not only that, you sing SHOW TUNES; who sings show tunes in the shower?” he demands.
“I don’t sing in the shower,” Sandra says.
“Oh Lance,” Aubrey says, wrapping her arms around me and completely ignoring the bickering behind me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” I say. I guess she noticed, huh? “Is… is my mom okay?” I ask her.
“I was waiting for you to get here,” she says. “I can’t get close to her, and I don’t want anyone startling her.”
“Okay, thanks,” I say, looking around. “Where is she?”
“In the rock room,” Trent says, pointing. I head for the room, looking around curiously. There, in the corner of the room, is a peregrine falcon perched on a crystal jutting out of the wall.
“Mom?” I say, walking to her slowly. “Come down, please.” The large bird flaps her wings before jerking awkwardly. I catch her as she shifts and starts to fall. “There we go,” I say, holding her as she starts sobbing.
“Lance,” she whispers, her arms tight around me. “Oh, Lance, I thought you were dead.”
“I’m so sorry, Mom,” I say, clinging to her. “I’m so sorry—it was all my fault.” I breathe in her scent, only to jerk back. “How long?”
“How long what?” she asks.
“How long have you been living as a hawk?”
She goes quiet, looking away. “You need to understand,” she says quietly. “I tried, at first. I spent months and months looking for you. When it occurred to me that I might be able to find you from the air—I started traveling by air… and then it was just easier to find a tree to nest in—”
“You’re welcome to move here,” Jeanie says from behind us. I jerk. I hadn’t even noticed she was here. “We even have an apartment ready, if you want. I’m sure Nico wouldn’t mind.”
“But—but I couldn’t afford it,” Mom says quietly.
“I can!” I say, only to stop. “Well… I would be able to, if… Century still wants me for his Hall.”
“What are you talking about, Lance?” Mom asks.
“Mom, I’m losing my abilities,” I say. “All of my forms, they’re leaving me—”
“Oh, Honey, you’re going through the transition,” she says. “Have you already lost all of them?”
“No, just my smallest and my largest,” I say. “Mom, will I wind up like Badmoon? Will I wind up like—”
“Like me?” she asks. “It’s possible. I mean, it all depends on you, honey.” She reaches down and grabs my hands. “But I’ve always believed you had the potential to be the next Coyote.”
“How do I do it?” I ask. “How do I become Coyote when I’m not even sure what’s happening?”
“You just be yourself,” she says. “Have you… how have you handled your losses so far?”
I don’t want to tell her that I cried. I feel like such a wimp saying that. I mean, the Coyote now pretty much said I had to be a man about it. “I’m—I’m doing okay,” I lie. “I mean, I’m going to survive.”
“I see,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry for your loss, Lance. It was… it was difficult when it happened to me, as well.”
I nod. “Mom, I want you to let Aubrey touch you. She’s a healer, and if there’s anything still wrong from the fight with Badmoon, she can fix it. She’s… she’s family.”
“I see,” she says. “Um… I’m sorry, I just…” She shifts in front of me, turning back into a falcon. ‘I have to get used to being in human form again,’ she whispers in my mind as she lands on my arm. I turn, motioning to Aubrey.
“Is it okay if she’s in this form?” I ask as Aubrey hesitantly reaches out and touches the wing my mom offers. “She’s not used to human form.”
“Um, yes, it should be fine,” she says, her eyes lighting up as she checks my mom. I watch, feeling worried, until her hair falls again and her eyes change back. “She’s a bit malnourished, and she needs rest, but she’s healthy. I don’t think we should leave her alone, though.”
“Will she be comfortable with us?” Jeanie asks.
I look at Mom. “Will you be?” She lets out a little chirp. “She should be fine. Oh, but Mom, you can’t fly outside, here, understand? There’s an invisible wall of lasers around the place that would fry you if you tried.”
‘Why?’ she asks, and I can hear her shock.
“Because Nico’s paranoid about kidnappers—for good reason,” I admit, reaching up and petting her feathers.
“We need to get her fed,” Aubrey says to Jeanie. “I’m not sure—can she eat cooked meat in that form, or would it be better to get her something raw?”
“Raw,” I say. “She’s a super, so it wouldn’t hurt her even in her human form. Um… I really need to get back to the dorms—”
‘You aren’t staying?’ Mom asks.
“I’ll be back, I promise,” I say. “Can you make her a perch?” I ask them.
“On it,” Jack says from the front room.
“Thank you.” I head through the apartment, right past him—only to get stopped as his arm comes out, blocking the way. “You can take Trent,” Jack says, looking me in the eye.
“I—” I say.
“Jack!” Jeanie says. “I understand how you feel, but Sandra has the right to choose what she does. She isn’t… she has her own decisions to make, and she IS a very good tank already.”
“She got hurt,” Jack says.
“Shut up,” Sandra says.
“You were hiding it, sure, but you were limping,” Jack says, turning to her. “Look, if it was against a regular villain, I would be the first one to shove you forward, but this guy is a Cape Cell—”
“We’ve already done what we needed to do,” I say, cutting the argument short. “We saved my mom.”
“So you… you’re done?” he asks me. I look him straight in the eye and lie.
“Yeah, I’m done.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me. “If you decide you’re not—”
“I want to go this time!” Skye says, sticking her head through the ceiling and almost giving me a heart attack. “It was MY job, remember? You left me!”
“Skye, honey, why don’t you go visit everyone in the dorms with Lance?” Jeanie says. “That way if Lance decides he isn’t done, after all, he’s got someone that can help!”
Jack looks from me, up to Skye. “Yeah,” he says. “Between you and Sandra, the fight shouldn’t last long enough for someone to get cracked.”
I want to say that I’M the one that got his nose broken, that I’M the one losing all of his abilities, but that sounds whiney, even if it’s true. “I helped,” I say quietly.
“Quit picking on Lance,” Sandra says, poking Jack in the shoulder. He doesn’t even budge. That poke would have knocked over half of the dorm, me included.
“I would pick on you, but I know for a fact how stupid tanks can be about their own safety,” he mutters.
“Jack,” Trent says, draping an arm over Jack’s shoulders. “I’m the one that’s supposed to be the overprotective brother.”
“You weren’t doing it right,” Jack says, elbowing his brother in the ribs and actually budging him.
“If you’re going to fight, you need to take it to the school campus,” Jeanie says.
“Not outside?” Skye asks, coming through the ceiling.
“We tried that, it took out the building across the street,” Jeanie says with a sigh. “It would be mean to make them stop fighting—it’s a form of bonding.”
“We’ll do it, if Sandy comes with us,” Trent says, grinning.
“What?” Sandra yelps. “I’m not going to go into your weird man-bonding thing—”
“It’s a tank-bonding thing!” Jack says. “Oh, and here’s a perch for your mom.” I look over, seeing a metal sculpture standing to the side. “We can get Sunny to grow some vines over it, if she likes the natural feel.”
“Sounds good,” I say. “I need to get back to the dorms.” This is wasting time. I need to say goodbye, otherwise I’m going to start sobbing in the middle of their front room. That would be really, really pathetic. I just need to take a few minutes and get this off my chest, and then I’ll, well, I won’t be fine, but I’ll be able to deal with stuff like this better.
I head out of the apartment, leaving them to figure out whatever it is they’re doing. I literally run down the stairs and out the front door, dancing over the footprints and running towards the school campus. I need to acknowledge what I’ve lost NOW, or otherwise I might forget one. If I forget one, even by accident, I feel like I’ll never have peace. I head into the school campus, racing down the steps and to the area behind the science building—
There’s a huge pile of rocks there, just waiting for me. I look around, but there’s no one there—they must have gathered the rocks for me after I left. I let out a heavy sigh before starting to lay out the stones in my makeshift memorial. I name my forms, one by one, and wish I had a marker to write on the stones. For a moment I hesitate before running into the science building and up the stairs—where Zoe is sitting at her father’s desk.
“Lance,” she says. “Do you need some help?”
“Um, I—I was looking for a marker,” I admit.
“Sure,” she says, pulling open a drawer and grabbing one. “What for?”
I hesitate. Kaden said she’s cool, and she DID give us all a really good Christmas party, but—but this is really personal—
“I want to write their names on their stones,” I say, looking down, “so I won’t forget.”
“Then write them down, now,” she says, handing me a piece of paper and a pen, “and we’ll make it so they never fade.” She stands and waves a hand, and items start flying around her head. I watch her for a second before sitting down to write. I don’t know what she’s planning, but she isn’t making fun of me. It will also be good to have a list on hand. “Is it okay to make it out of tile?”
“What?” I ask, looking up from my list.
“Is it okay to make the memorial stones out of tile?” she repeats. There’s a machine floating over her head. “I can cut and carve them out of tile, and then you can place them. I have some extra tile that I can get—we have some set aside for making another campus building.”
“By the time I’m done…” I say, looking at her hesitantly, “there could easily be millions.”
She looks sad, I realize as the machine is placed on the table. “That’s all the more reason to use this.”
I nod. “Tiles will be fine,” I say, going back to writing.
When I’m done with this, I’m going to go finish the job. I can’t let Badmoon keep running around like he has been.
You know, what really bothers me is that he’s giving wolves a bad name. Well, I mean, all of this bothers me, but it’s just WRONG that people can associate him with what’s usually a loving, family-oriented creature. Here he is, making a monster out of a thing of beauty. Making—I stop, remembering the conversation we had with Cheval. He had played a werewolf in horror movies, all those years back.
“Why?” I hear myself whisper.
“Why what?” Zoe asks.
“Why would someone turn their own animal form into a monster?” I ask her. “Would you turn your powers into a—a monster in front of norms? Something to be feared?”
“Well… Panther has the norms afraid of his animal form,” she says, thoughtfully.
“Yes, and no,” I say, since I’ve watched Pan for most of my life. “He has them wary of what the form can do, but he’s a big cat—they ARE dangerous. And never once has he actually attacked someone that’s not a hero, or—”
“He has,” Zoe says. “He attacked the Collector.”
“The Collector deserved it!” I say, vehemently. “The Collector was trying to kidnap his daughter like he kidnapped me and my siblings. He was no norm! He was a monster in norm form! Monsters come in all shapes and forms, Zoe. It has nothing to do with whether they have powers or not.”
“But the monsters that come with powers usually use them for their own gain,” she says quietly. “It isn’t the power’s fault, Lance, it’s the person who wields it. It isn’t Badmoon’s wolf that’s at fault, it’s Badmoon.” I look at her, realizing she knows exactly what I’m talking about. “I love wolves,” she says. “They’re beautiful and amazing creatures. But just because he can turn into a wolf doesn’t make him one. I don’t know why your family genetics work the way they do, but in his case, don’t you think it’s a good thing? He doesn’t respect his one animal form, can you imagine how he would have treated all of those millions of other ones?”
I stare at her, stunned. I never would have thought about it like that. “Then…” I say, looking at my list, “maybe it’s a good thing that this ‘transition’ thing happens. If there were bad people that had this ability—” But my mom isn’t bad, I think. If she could shift into any creature, what would she do? I frown, hating the thought that’s rising to the surface. She isn’t a bad person… but she was really quick to STAY in her animal form…
No, I feel wrong even thinking things like that. I love my mother, and I understand the draw to stay an animal instead of dealing with humans. Humans can be great, sure, but they can also be hard to deal with. But if you follow that line of thought, then how does ANYONE get through the transition without losing all of their forms? No one is perfect. Everyone has some flaw or reason why they shouldn’t have this sort of power. I groan and shove away from the table. “Here,” I say, offering her the paper. “These are the ones I’ve lost so far. Will it take long?”
