Cecy Robson - Cursed By Destiny

I withdrew my hand, feeling pretty pleased with myself, until the elephant noticed me. Turns out pachyderms aren’t the most forgiving of creatures. He swung his massive trunk at me and just missed crushing me with his mammoth feet. I changed and took off running.

Tye’s eyes shot out of his face when he saw us barreling toward him. “Oh, shit!” He kept his human form as he hauled ass and dove into the car.

My four-hundred-pound self couldn’t fit inside a crammed Range Rover so I changed as I leapt through the moving car window. Shayna floored it and—surprise, surprise—I landed naked on top of Tye. Everyone urged Shayna to hurry while Chang hung out the window snapping pictures with his iPhone.

Emme’s head whipped back toward the charging beast. “Oh, my goodness. Celia, I hope that was worth it.”

Tye grinned as I scrambled to pull on a shirt. “Yes, yes, it was.”

Danny whipped through his notes and directed us to the crater. Even with Shayna driving, it took almost two hours to reach the base. When we finally reached our destination, we shot out of the SUV as if it had caught fire. Danny ran ahead and searched the high walls after another glance at his notes. “We need to find a small cave about twenty meters up—it’s shaped like a dragon’s mouth. The stone is supposedly tucked in a ridge, close to the cave’s entrance.”

Bren scratched his scruffy beard as he took in the enormous crater. “I know we should have probably asked a long time ago, but what the hell does the stone look like?”

Danny stuffed his notes into the back pocket of his worn jeans. “According to the scripts, it’s green in color and we’ll recognize it by its splendor when we see it. Come on, this way.”

We jogged around the perimeter for about half an hour until Tye spotted the cave. I expected it to look like a narrow protruding snout, but instead it resembled an open serpent mouth with jagged teeth. The roar of a small aircraft halted our climb. We ducked into the brush as it passed over us. We didn’t move until the engine faded in the distance.

Tye emerged from the dense vegetation with Emme in tow. “It might just be park rangers checking on things, but let’s not wait around to find out.” He stripped and threw his clothes on the ground. “Celia, you and I will go up. The rest of you keep watch.” He changed and climbed swiftly along the crumbling crater wall. I kicked off my sneakers and protruded my front and back claws. He did a double take when I caught up to him with ease, returning my grin with that of his beast. I laughed. Even his lion had a dimple.

A short distance away we heard the plane return. And land. We exchanged quick glances and scaled the wall faster. The cave was in reach when someone fired a shotgun. Tye threw back his head and snarled, his light blue eyes firing with agony. A cursed gold bullet had struck his hind leg. Smoke billowed where it had burned through his flesh. We scrambled the last few feet as the fight between our side and Tribesmen erupted below us.

I fought my way through a nest of spiderwebs and almost cracked my head on the jagged ceiling. Danny wasn’t kidding; the ridge was only ten feet from the entrance. I swept my fingers along the edge. Something with lots of little legs scurried over my hand. I jerked my hand back and shook it violently. Lara Croft I wasn’t. I took a breath and tried again. This time, my fingertips slipped over something large, cool, and smooth. I grabbed it in both hands, ill prepared for what I saw. An emerald the size of two softballs lay in my palms. I hurried out and presented it to Tye. His huge maw fell open, but then he veered toward the edge of the cave and growled.

Four bloodlust-infected vampires scurried toward us at high velocity, their bodies shuddering with the need to feast. At the base our group huddled against the crater, fighting off the Tribesmen who’d cornered them.

Tye panted from pain yet crouched and prepared to attack the bloodlusters that were almost upon us. I yanked at his mane. “Tye, listen to me. Close your eyes and hold your breath.” He snarled when I shoved the stone in his mouth. I hung tight to his fur and winked. “Trust me, Mufasa.”

The first bloodluster smacked his clawed hand in front of us as I shifted. Our bodies broke down into minute particles, allowing us to pass down and through the crater with ease. I surfaced at the bottom as an elephant. A very hungry, sleep-deprived, and cranky elephant. My massive trunk slammed a bloodlust vampire into the wall, hard enough to splatter the putrid green fluid bulging her muscles. I lifted on my hind legs and crushed a cluster of Tribesmen with my front. The element of surprise helped me do some damage, but we were seriously outnumbered and needed to get the hell out of Tanzania. My legs trampled and my trunk walloped, giving Team Celia time to jump on me. I shifted us out, emerging a good distance away and momentarily confusing the Tribesmen.

My elephant form disappeared as soon as I resurfaced. It was strange, but I knew I’d never possess it again. It was either too strong or too large for my spirit to maintain. Yet there was no time to grieve the loss.

Shayna leapt on Bren’s wolf body and pointed straight ahead. “Their plane landed over there. Come on!” She hauled Emme with her and Bren sped off. Danny chased after him, carrying Ying-Ying and Chang. I changed into a tigress and carried Tye the naked human on my back. I plowed through the vegetation, but the shots fired behind us motivated me to dash faster.

Tye panted in my ear. “This isn’t how I pictured our first time together. I mean, I knew I’d be on top, but this is just weird.”

I wished I could communicate with him just to tell him to shut the hell up. But unlike Tye, I didn’t seem to possess that ability.

We reached a clearing and spotted the plane. Tye tossed Bren the stone and we all scrambled aboard. I took in all the bells and whistles on the console and jerked my head toward Shayna. “Did your puppy happen to teach you how to hot-wire a plane?”

“Not necessary.” Tye hit a few buttons and kicked the engine into gear. We taxied along the flat grass field as the propellers gathered momentum. Tribesmen emerged from the jungle before we could take off, lugging some sort of rocket launcher. May God forgive me for the words that flew out of my mouth.

Now, I didn’t speak a word of Korean, but I believe Chang said the equivalent of “Screw this !” He flung open the door and pitched several objects from his pack. One hit the Tribesman carrying the rocket launcher before he could fire. The guy sizzled as if jolted by an electric current as a flash of silver ran up his arm and into the weapon. It exploded with a thunderous rumble splattering chunks of dead Tribesmen against the side of our plane.

Shayna raised her arms. “He brought his balls!”

Chang continued to hang out of the plane as we flew past the remaining Tribesmen. His hysterical laugh echoed over the whirl of the engine while he merrily waved his middle finger.

Tye used Shayna’s cell phone to arrange for Misha’s plane to meet us at the Manyara airstrip. We no longer cared about going unnoticed. We just needed to get to Chaitén.

The moment we boarded, Shayna and I prepared to remove the gold bullet from Tye’s leg. I don’t know whether it was the fever burning through his body or whether it was because he watched Shayna sharpen a spoon into a scalpel, but all his arrogance dissolved like ice cream in a frying pan. His pupils dilated and he practically shook right out of his seat. “Have either of you ever performed surgery before?”

Shayna lengthened the pointy end of the scalpel to a finer edge with her gift. “Well, no. But Ceel and I are labor nurses and we’ve watched C-sections performed about a million times.”