Coyote's Howl (Cape High Series Book 17), page 7
“You will not touch him,” Coyote says from behind him.
“You disowned him,” Badmoon says, not turning and looking back. “He’s not under your protection, little brother.” He turns and looks at his brother of over a hundred years. He hates him, passionately, but he finds himself coming back, every time. He has no one else.
“No,” Coyote says, looking away with a strange expression, “he isn’t. He gave us a warning.”
“What would a child know?”
“He says the Hall is coming for us both.”
“How does he know?”
“Because he might not be under my protection, but he is under theirs.”
The two look at each other. For a second the world is still, the sound of the wind rattling the few leaves still on the trees. The two are gone in a blink of an eye, a single set of paw prints left behind.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Sooo…” Skye says, turning in a circle and searching the plains that we’re standing in the middle of. “I could have sworn I felt something here.”
“So they’re not here?” Sandra asks her, turning and looking, as well.
“Nope, no one for miles.”
“Maybe she shifted?” Sandra says, looking at me. “What all did your mom turn into?”
“I only ever saw her shift into a bird—a peregrine falcon,” I admit. “She said she loved to feel the wind under her wings. Maybe…” I go quiet, suddenly realizing, “maybe that WAS her only form.”
“So girls couldn’t be the Coyote?” Sandra asks, “Figures.”
“I don’t know, actually,” I admit. “I never asked. I mean, it’s always been ‘him’ in the stories. Maybe there was a female Coyote at one time or another. I… Well, I’m not going to ask my grandfather about it, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe your mom will know!” Skye says. “We’ll ask her when we find her.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Can you find her again?”
“I’ll try,” Skye says. She starts to dance, only to pause and grab Sandra’s hands. “Dance with me, Sandra!”
“I don’t dance,” Sandra says as Skye keeps trying. Sandra doesn’t budge, but she doesn’t shove the older female away, either. “I’ve got two rock feet.”
“Anyone can dance! Whether they dance well or not, well, that’s another subject. It’s like art!” Skye declares.
“Can you find her?” I ask, since it seems like she’s trying to distract us.
Skye goes still, looking at me, and then staring with widened eyes. “I… I think we should go back, actually.”
“Why?” I ask, only to jerk as my body starts to shake.
“Because you’re about to have another… incident,” she says. Almost as if her words induce it, my body starts shifting. I start as a dog this time, and then a moose, and an otter, and the list goes on for a good twenty more shifts before I stop at coyote. I lie down, panting heavily. In my mind, I see an image of a beetle before it fades. It’s replaced by a cockroach, which fades, and a lizard, which fades as well. It goes on, with more and more tiny creatures appearing and fading from my mind.
I’ve lost them, I think as I feel Sandra scoop me up in her arms. I can’t help the mournful howl that escapes me. I can’t cry in this form, not properly, but I can mourn. I feel myself pulled closer to a rocky wall, and a hand gingerly, delicately running over my back. “It’s okay,” Sandra says quietly. “We’re here.”
I shift again, taking my human form. Even in this form I feel delicate compared to my zoo sibling. I ignore that, slowly pulling away. She lets me go.
“I’ve lost my smallest animal forms,” I say quietly, “including the ones that impressed Century. I guess I’ve probably lost my job, as well.”
“But you still have your larger ones, right?” she says.
“For now,” I tap on my com-bracelet and they grab on. A second later we’re standing in front of the school campus. I need to talk to Nico. “Thank you,” I say, looking at them both. “I appreciate what you’re doing, but… I’m just going to wait to try and find my mom. I don’t think I’m… capable of going anywhere right now.” I check the time and head for the apartments instead of the school. The panel comes up and I see Jack on the screen.
“Hey, Lance. You’re all cleared to enter,” he says.
“Are you sure?” I ask, wondering if he even has that ability.
“I’m manning Nico’s computer, so yeah, I’m sure,” he says. I turn, looking at the two that followed me here. I didn’t expect Sandra to. I shrug and press my hand to the panel, stepping onto the glowing footprints and heading inside. When we get inside, I’m a bit shocked to find the entire Liberty family just standing in the entryway of the apartment building, waiting for us.
“Oh, Lance,” Star Spangled says, pulling me into a hug, much to my shock. “We want all of you to come up to our apartment. We’ll get you some hot chocolate and cookies to get you warmed up.”
“I’m not cold,” I say.
“I don’t get cold,” Sandra says, watching them with a hint of curiosity.
“Well, it’ll calm you down, regardless,” Star Spangled says in a firm tone.
“I’m going to go see Liz, first!” Skye announces, already heading up the stairs. “You two go with them, okay? I’ll be over when I can smell the cookies!”
“I need to talk to Nico,” I say.
“You can, once he gets back,” Ken says. “For now, why don’t you come with us? I’m sure it will help.”
“I think I’ll just go to the dorm—” Sandra says, taking a step back as the Liberty boys turn their attention on her.
“Come on, Sandy, you can come see our empty bedroom,” Jack says, grinning evilly.
“Why would I want to see an empty bedroom?” she asks blankly, only to yelp as he walks over and takes her hand, tapping on her com-bracelet and turning off her illusion watch. “Hey! I wanted that on!” she yells at him.
“We don’t allow illusion watch use in the apartments,” he says.
“Since when?” she demands.
“Oh, five minutes ago.”
“Jack, you stop teasing the poor girl!” Star Spangled says. “Sandra, you can turn it back on if it makes you feel better, but we think you’re perfect just the way you are, sweetie.”
“But Ma—” Jack starts out as Sandra turns the illusion back on.
“I’ve wanted to talk with you since Ken first told me about you,” she goes on, completely blowing Jack’s excuse off as she moves to Sandra. “I’m so happy that you’ve come to visit! We should get to know one another!”
Sandra stares at her, and I can practically read her mind. She’s got this dislike of beautiful people—she didn’t seem to mind being around Skye that much, but, well, as much as I like Skye, I have to admit that she’s nowhere near Star Spangled’s level.
“You can call me Jeanie, Sandra,” Star Spangled says. “Do you want to use the elevator or the stairs?”
“Lance?” Ken says, making me look up. “Do you need to talk?”
I stare into his earnest blue eyes and feel myself nod. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I do.”
***
“The house is empty,” Nico says, stepping out of the rather rickety looking building with a frown. “It looks like he was just here not more than a few minutes ago. Maybe he’ll come back, but…”
“But?” Century asks.
“He left his pipe lit. My guess is somehow he found out we were coming.”
“Are there any signs that he was harboring Badmoon?”
“Possibly,” Nico says. “There are two rooms that have been slept in. Unless he’s in the habit of bringing other people over for sleepovers, that is.”
“From what we’ve gathered, Coyote barely talked to the people in the nearest town. They only recognized him from his picture because there are two stores and a gas station in the entire town.”
“No Walmart?” Nico asks.
“No Walmart.”
“Wow, that IS a tiny town.”
“Only one street,” Century agrees. “We’re going to have to bring in a cape finder, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Nico says. “Rocco’s still on Christmas vacation—”
“And Isotonic has Shadowman at the moment. He’s heard rumors of Atlanti heading towards the North Branch waters.”
“Why?”
“It’s possible that she’s realized the same thing that Badmoon has. They can hide where stronger capes are. You don’t get a much better hiding spot than the North Pole.”
“You just want to sic us on your brother, don’t you?” Nico says.
“I would never!” Century says in a patently false tone. “My brother just happens to have three hundred and sixty four days of lounging around while his elves do all the work for him—it’s no wonder he’s gotten fat,” he says. “He wouldn’t last a day as a Hall leader, either, I’d like to mention. And if you dare let him near Sandra—”
“He’s after Piper,” Nico says, staring at his com-bracelet with a slight frown.
“The little dreamer girl?” Century asks, looking thoughtful. “As much as I hate to admit it… I could see her being a good elf. It still chafes to hand over a perfectly good psychic type.”
“It’s up to her,” Nico says. “I had a talk with her earlier, she’s thinking about it.” He goes silent, looking at Century for a long moment. “Now, about Lance…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t hold this against him,” Century says. “It’s not his fault he’s related to these people. We all have a skeleton or two in our closet.”
“You come from the Santa Claus line,” Nico points out.
“And you don’t think I’m ashamed of it?”
It startles a laugh out of Nico, distracting him from the real problem for about a second. He goes right back to it, though, wondering how much he should tell the older man. The only reason he even considers it is because he needs permission. With that thought in mind, he turns, looking Century in the eye. “Lance is losing his forms.”
Century jerks, looking more shocked than he would have been if Nico had hit him. “What do you mean?”
“It seems that his body is rejecting his multiple forms. Pan thinks it’s a natural thing—that it’s happening so that the body isn’t too strained when it reaches adulthood. I’m not sure what it is, really, but…”
“That can’t be true—how would Coyote still be able to shift into anything he wants?”
“We think Badmoon is Coyote’s brother,” Nico says. “Maybe some in the line keep all the animal forms, while others lose all but one. Super genetics don’t work the same way as human genetics do, we all know that. In a lot of cases, there’s probably alien DNA somewhere in the mix—”
“Including yours.”
“Exactly.”
“So you think that Lance will wind up like Badmoon?”
“He won’t,” Nico says. “Not if you help me.”
Century looks at him before saying, slowly, “You have a plan, don’t you?”
“I want to move Star Born out of the new Cape Cells and back to the Hall. Whether it’s Central or yours, I don’t care. I’m not letting him lose his powers because of some sort of glitch in his genetics.”
“That means going up in front of the council, son.”
“I realize that,” Nico says, “which is why I’m starting with you.”
***
She’s only sticking around because Lance is here, Sandra tells herself as she walks into the Liberty family’s apartment. All of the furniture is massive, she notices as Jeanie leads her through the front room. She broke her bed frame a long time ago. Instead of asking for a new one, though, she’d merely thrown the frame out her door and put the mattress on the floor. Banshee had offered to get one specially built, but she’d told her not to bother. It’s not like sleeping higher makes a difference.
“Hey, Sandy, check this out,” Jack says, heading past her. It looks like they took the wall down between their apartment and the one next to it, she realizes. “Over here,” the metal-coated teen calls, waving her over. “This is that empty room I was telling you about!”
Sandra looks over as Ken and Lance step in. “Why don’t you come to my office, Lance,” she hears Ken say. He has a hand on the teen’s shoulder. She almost feels she should protest—that whatever they have to talk about can be talked about in front of everyone, but that’s a lie, and she knows it. Instead she meets Lance’s eyes, nodding at him. A talk with Ken can help, she’s found that out for herself.
“Sandra, is it okay—” he says.
“I’m going to go look at an empty room, apparently,” she says. “Take your time.”
“Okay,” he says, looking at Ken again before heading into the office. That leaves her with Jeanie, Jack and Trent looking at her expectantly.
“Why don’t I make a snack?” Jeanie says. “You three go check out the room and I’ll have cookies and hot chocolate ready for when you’re done!”
“Sounds good,” Trent says. “Come on, Sandra, I think you’ll like this.”
Sandra shrugs, since she doesn’t see how an empty room can be liked or disliked. It’s just a room, right? But since Lance needs someone here, and she’s volunteered (much to her own shock, whenever she actually thinks about it,) she might as well indulge the crazy guys in front of her. One time, she actually snuck out during training hour and watched them fighting. It had been… both goofy and intense at times. She had barely managed to stop herself from trying to jump in.
She stops thinking about that as soon as she steps into the “empty” room. The walls are covered with jagged looking crystals. “Nico helped us out a bit with this part,” Trent says, flipping a switch. The lights go off and the crystals start to glow, slowly changing colors—blue, purple, pink—they fade one into the next.
“What’s this room for?” she asks. “Just staring at?”
“For now,” Jack says. “Of course, we had to add in a television wall,” he adds, pulling out his phone and tapping on the screen. A thin panel comes down, covering one of the rocky walls and lighting up.
“We think there should be a bed, right about here,” Trent says, moving to a corner. “It’ll be harder to put up things like posters or mirrors, but if the person sleeping here wanted them, we’d figure something out, probably holograms for the posters. That would make them easier to change, anyway.”
“Person sleeping here?” Sandra repeats.
“Mom and Dad want to adopt, again,” Jack says with a little smile. The two tanks look at her, as if she’s supposed to figure something out from that comment.
“Good luck with that,” she says, heading out the door. She can just picture the kid brought into this family—picture perfect, probably a baby—babies are always the ones that get adopted. Are there baby tanks? It seemed to be a theme for the family—
“Sandra, honey, what do you like in your hot chocolate?” Jeanie asks from the kitchen. “I’ve got whipped cream, marshmallows, cinnamon, peppermint, chocolate, ummm… I’m sure I can dig out more things to put in it, if you want!”
“Do you have any jawbreakers?” Sandra asks, only to groan at herself. People don’t put jawbreakers in hot chocolate! Well… not that she knows of…
“I do!” Jeanie says. “The little ones or one big one?” she asks.
“Little ones would be good.”
“Okay! I’ve got a platter of cookies just for you, as well! Come sit at the kitchen table, sweetie, it’s all ready. Would you like to help decorate the gingerbread men?” she asks. “I just finished another two!”
“I’m not very good at fine detail stuff,” Sandra says a bit dryly.
“Oh, there’s no need for fine details for our gingerbread men,” Jeanie says, heading into the kitchen. Sandra follows, curious, only to stare in shock as Jeanie pulls out two cookie trays from the oven. Each tray has one massive gingerbread man on it. They’re probably eighteen inches tall. “See? What we need is a lot of frosting! The boys never let it sit long enough to appreciate the details, anyway,” Jeanie says, shooting her an impish grin.
“That’s not a gingerbread man, that’s a gingerbread giant,” Sandra has to point out.
“It is, isn’t it?” Jeanie says with a laugh. “I tried making the little ones when Trent was little. He and Ken kept playing with the poor things—the hangman scene was a bit… well, let’s just say I don’t buy those ABC cereals around winter time. Especially since Trent went in and ate all the vowels.”
“Your family is weird,” Sandra points out, trying not to laugh.
“They wanted to glue the poor thing back together with frosting, too,” Jeanie says. “By the time the game was done, it was more of a snowman than a gingerbread man.”
“Did it taste good?” Sandra asks.
“Oh, of course it did,” Jeanie says. “But this year I told them that they each get ONE gingerbread man a week until spring. So… well, obviously I wound up compromising,” she admits, motioning to the gigantic gingerbread men. “I’ll make one for you!”
“No, I—” Sandra starts out, only to watch as Jeanie pulls a ball of dough out of the fridge.
“You can eat your snack and decorate while I get this ready! The frosting is right there—Trent likes the M&M’s, Jack prefers Hershey kisses, but you can throw pretty much anything on them and the boys will eat it, they aren’t picky. Oh, but put the frosting on first.”
“How much frosting?”
“Mmm, half an inch will be fine!”
“Half an inch of frosting?” Sandra repeats, her eyes going wide with that image. “It’s a good thing supers don’t get diabetes,” she mutters as she starts sorting through all of the sugar on the kitchen table.
“I vote an inch,” Trent says, almost making her jump as he comes into the kitchen. “Want some help?”
“Not with mine,” Sandra says, looking a bit sick at the idea of an inch of frosting topped with candy on a cookie this large. Before she knows it, though, the two teens are sitting at the table with her, fighting over who gets what on their gingerbread man—and she’s doing all the actual work. She stares at them as a bag of gumdrops bursts open, scattering everywhere. “Who’s going to clean up—”
