Nina Berry: Othersphere

I let the SUV’s taillights disappear before I sped up, teeth clenched so I wouldn’t bite my tongue as the threadbare tires of the bike clomped and bounced over the unpaved road. I got close enough to see Amaris turn right when she got to the main road, heading south.

Once on the graded asphalt, I could go a little faster. The wind buffeted my ears and forced me to squint into the cold. It was late February up in Nevada’s Spring Mountains. Old piles of snow rimed with dirty ice lined the road. In the spare light of the stars, the frosty evergreens spread over the peaks like a chilly green-black cloak.

I’d followed Caleb like this not long ago, when he had sneaked away from the first location of the school to meet Amaris. That was before I’d known they were brother and sister. Perhaps it was fitting that I was making the same trek now behind Amaris to meet Caleb. Maybe this trip would also lead to a life-altering revelation.

Or maybe I was a crazy person with a propensity for stalking people.

Before long, Amaris turned the SUV downhill onto Kyle Canyon Road, and we swooped out of the mountains into the spare beauty of the desert at night. The landscape flattened out in a hurry, and the trees vanished in favor of low scrub and a lot of dirt and sand. It was very dark before moonrise, but my acute night vision made it easy to keep tabs on the lights from the SUV without using the motorcycle’s headlight.

A glow up ahead resolved itself into lights around a building, and Amaris stepped on the brakes to slow down, about to turn into the complex. I remembered the place from the many times we’d driven past—a modest but attractive resort catering to hikers and snowboarders spending a weekend in the Spring Mountains, away from the hustle of Las Vegas, but still equipped with slots in the lobby and the bar.

The SUV pulled into the far end of a half-empty parking lot, away from the cluster of trucks and family vans closer to the main entrance to the resort. Warm light spilled from wide glass windows there, and music with a driving beat announced a party. Figures were bouncing around, dancing, and a woman in a long white dress twirled into view, held by a man in a black suit . A wedding reception. It must be Saturday night. Weeknights and weekends blended into one when you studied at Morfael’s school for otherkin.

I drove onto the groomed dirt alongside the parking lot and came to a stop. The SUV’s lights went dark, but Amaris did not emerge. She had to be waiting for Caleb, which meant I would wait, too. I killed the bike’s engine and climbed off to walk it farther away from the arc of the resort’s light so I could sit in deeper darkness.

My eyes went to the bright windows and the celebration ongoing behind them. The bride was petite, with a curly cap of dark hair, and the groom towered over her. They were laughing and stepping on each other’s feet, until he leaned down and swept her up in his arms, to dance with her that way.

I heard calls of “Good-bye!” and an older woman emerged from the double doors at the front of the resort, buttoning up her coat. An early departer heading home.

A long black car rumbled into the parking lot, and Amaris’s SUV flashed its lights twice. Alertness pulled me up straighter. The vehicle looked vintage, an old-time muscle car from the 70s, and exactly like something Caleb would steal for himself if he had to. Before we’d met, Caleb had made his way by taking whatever he needed whenever he needed it. He’d probably gone back to those old habits in order to stay alive now.

I crouched and inched closer to Amaris’s SUV as the muscle car approached it. The car’s windows were darkened, but I zeroed in on the driver and peered closer. Thank you, cat-shifter night vision. I discerned a familiar brooding silhouette, the strong nose, the square jaw, the unruly black hair, and my heart rumbled with a guilty ache along with the car’s engine. It was Caleb.

He stopped a space away from Amaris’s SUV. Her door opened, and she stepped out, arms hugging herself against the bite of the wind.

I should go. I’d seen Caleb. That’s why I was here. That and nothing else. I didn’t need to overhear their conversation, to eavesdrop and possibly catch up on what Caleb had been doing. It wasn’t my business anymore. The longer I stayed, the more likely it was that they’d spot me.

But with your hearing, you won’t need to get much closer. It was so easy to justify not leaving. I crawled closer, down nearly on all fours now, moving right up to the edge of the parking lot asphalt. Caleb was a mere fifty feet away.

Just one real look at him. Then I’ll go. Caleb was too much of a gentleman to let Amaris open her own car door. As I knew he would, he turned off his car engine and got out, his long black coat fluttering behind him like a cape as he swept around the back of his car and wrapped his arms around his sister.

For a crazy moment it was like his arms were around me. I remembered how he smelled, like the woods after a rain; how warm he was, how the beat of his heart sounded beneath my ear, how our bodies melted into each other and became one....

Is it him or Lazar you’re thinking of?

Something was beating very loudly, but it wasn’t Caleb’s heart. I shook myself from reverie and turned up toward the sound, at the star-pocked sky. Part of it was blacker than the other, and the black patch was moving, the thumping quickly getting louder.

Helicopter.

My blood raced, every muscle tensed for attack. I stood up to my full height to see it better, but it was painted black with no identifying marks.

It can’t be the Tribunal. They’d attacked us with a helicopter before, one larger than this, and Arnaldo had single-handedly, well, single-talonedly, brought it down. In our most recent attack on their facility, we’d seen no signs that they had another. Copters were expensive, and Ximon had poured all his money into the particle accelerator, the huge underground device engineered to turn the otherkin into ordinary human beings.

But I had destroyed the accelerator, and Ximon was on the run with only a few followers left to shelter him. This machine had to belong to some humdrum rich person, arriving at the resort in style.

Caleb turned toward the sound, too. In the indirect light from the resort I saw Amaris’s eyes widen in fear. Caleb said something to her, pushing her toward her SUV. She looked startled, and then turned to obey.

The air around me stirred crazily, whipped by the machine’s rotors. The black insect form of the copter was lowering itself to the center of the parking lot, exactly where a wealthy person would get dropped off. Dust and snow lifted and swirled, obscuring my sight. I focused instead on my hearing, trying to discern any other noises that might be—

Wheels screeched. Metal hit metal with a horrible crunch. Amaris screamed. Caleb shouted. I lurched forward, pulled by their cries. Closer now, I picked shapes out of the whirling snow—a large pickup truck had slammed into Amaris’s SUV, shoving it like a toy thirty feet away. Amaris had been knocked flat on her back, but was rolling over to get to her feet. Three or four figures in gray emerged from the truck.

The Tribunal. Their followers favored gray when they ventured out on a night mission. It had to be them. But how?

Another truck skidded to a halt behind Caleb’s car. Two figures standing up in the bed threw a large net, enveloping Caleb. They yanked hard, bringing him down hard on his side, thrashing like a black shark pulled from the sea.

Fury surged through me, expanding my connection to Othersphere. I welcomed the darkness inside me as power surged outward from my heart, and I shifted. My jacket ripped like sheer cotton as my chest deepened, my shoulders rippled with muscle and striped fur. I shook my tufted ears and sent my hat flying, hind claws cutting the paving beneath them like cloth, haunches gathering.