The Calling (Darkness Rising 2)

Did I believe his story? I didn't want to. I wanted him to be lying, to be evil. Otherwise, he really had wanted me and when we finally got a chance to meet, he was on the side of the people chasing me. He was my father, and he was my enemy. He claimed to care for me, and he killed the guy I cared about. He wanted to give me a better life, and he seemed hell-bent on destroying the great one I already had.

So yes, I had angst.

More than angst, because when I thought about my biological parents, it forced me to think of the one thing that worried me more than anything else. The one thing I'd been struggling so hard not to think about. My mom and dad.

They thought I was dead. Dead. What were they going through? How were they coping? Were they safe?

Angst. Fear. Stark, gut-twist

ing terror. It didn't make for an easy sleep.

I tried to clear my head, but when I did, I realized how horrible this cabin was. Even Kenjii's dog smell wasn't enough to mask the stench of the mattress.

There was no place better to sleep inside. I left the cabin and walked until I was so exhausted that I didn't care how hard the ground was. Then I curled up with my dog and fell asleep.

TWENTY-TWO

MY DREAMS STARTED INNOCENTLY enough. I was at home, undressing for the night, then I collapsed into bed. I didn't stay there for long. The next thing I knew, I was in a medieval torture chamber, roped to the rack, being stretched until I screamed with... I wasn't sure how to describe it. Not pain. It was like stretching for a run, only it felt wrong, like I was overdoing it, my brain screeching for me to stop before I tore something, only I couldn't stop, because I wasn't in control. The ropes pulled tighter and tighter, until I was covered in sweat, gasping for breath.

I didn't know what my tormenters wanted from me, but apparently "screaming like a girl" wasn't it, because they ramped it up to a form of torture seen only in sci-fi movies--injecting bugs under my skin. I didn't actually feel the injections. But I felt the bugs. They crawled all over my body and burrowed into my flesh. That led to more screaming.

I lay there feeling my body being stretched beyond its limits, watching it writhe and contort as bugs skittered beneath my skin. And then, with no warning, the ropes were cut and the beetles vanished, and I was left panting with exertion and exhaustion, eyes squeezed shut until I dared to open them and--

I was lying on the ground. I caught a glimpse of one of Kenjii's paws and I remembered where I was. I blinked and yawned. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another of Kenjii's paws jerk, and I glanced over to realize it wasn't hers. It was the huge tawny paw of a cougar.

I leaped to my feet. Or I tried to, rolling awkwardly. I managed to get half up, then reached out to push to my feet and--

I screamed. Only it was no girlie scream this time--it was a snarling yelp. I looked down again at my hands, stretched out before me. Not hands. Paws. Cougar paws.

I gulped air. Even that didn't feel right and when I closed my mouth, a fang caught my lip.

I'd changed into a cougar. Transformed in my sleep.

As I swung my head, I caught sight of Kenjii. She was still fast asleep. I stared at her. If Kenjii wasn't leaping up with a cougar standing two meters away, then there couldn't be a cougar standing two meters away.

I was dreaming.

Oh.

I told myself I should be relieved, that I wasn't ready to deal with the shape-shifting, that I needed more information first, I needed to be prepared. Yet there was part of me that didn't want to be prepared. Didn't want to be so damned organized and informed all the time. The part that longed to just leap and experience.

Yet the transformation couldn't be that easy, could it? For the body to turn from human to animal must involve pain. Vast amounts of real pain, not just discomfort. That was only logical.

Damn logic. Why couldn't I have a little magic in my life, instead?

I sighed. It came out as a feline chuff, jowls quivering.

Oh, get over it already. You want magic, Maya? How about the ability to heal animals? The power to become one--painful or not.

That was magic.

I stretched, catlike, hindquarters up, front paws out. I stayed back from Kenjii, though. Part of me still hoped I wasn't dreaming, that she was just soundly asleep from her long day of adventure. After everything I'd been through, I was entitled to enjoy my fantasy while it lasted.

As I stretched, I flexed my paws and my claws shot out like switchblades. I relaxed and they retracted. In and out, in and out.

I took a closer look at my paws. They were as big as splayed human hands, oversize for climbing. If I looked closely at my flanks, I could see very faint spots, all but disappeared.

I pushed onto all fours and took a few steps. It wasn't as awkward as I'd feared. I knew how animals moved, and when I put that image into my brain, it was like an instruction set. My muscles obeyed and I walked. Forward. Back--