Jungle Blaze Read online

  And Taylor had no idea where it was. He could get as far as Kathmandu, but that was because whenever he’d asked before the elders in his community waved his questions off with a vague “Kathmandu” reply. It had been too long, too many years since anyone from Taylor’s family had even had contact with the elders. It had been years, and by years they meant decades since anyone had ventured that far into the outside world.

  With the exception of Taylor.

  So, he had no idea how long it would take to find them from there. Or even how to go about doing it.

  And yet, they possessed greater knowledge than any other shifter community. And if the one Taylor had grown up in was accomplished at staying hidden, he could only imagine how much more difficult it would be to find the elders.

  He didn’t say any of this. Angelica was quiet as he dropped nearly ten-grand for the two of them to get there and back. Her eyes widened at the amount, though she said nothing. Maybe the return ticket seemed optimistic, but he said he was going to believe in happy endings. She smiled a little at that. They sat and just breathed for a while at the airport with Angelica curled up on the seat beside him. He noted that her position was almost cat-like, but bit his tongue. The last thing he wanted to do now was nag her, especially now when they were both so much on edge. Even just getting this far had proved to be frustrating.

  He stared at his hands. On the last leg of the bus trip, as they neared Duluth, some teens had boarded the bus. They’d been loud, brash, obnoxious. Taylor had been too tempting a target, it was a case of finding the fastest gun in town and calling them out the first day. Some words were exchanged, and at a rest stop they decided to stay for the next bus. In the men’s room. At least, he was pretty sure they would wake in time for the next bus.

  What surprised him was that the cat had been there for the fight. Instead of interfering and making him clumsy the cat instead integrated into the fight and his reaction time tripled, while his flexibility increased by a factor.

  To his surprise, man and beast came to a tight-knit bond. With time to kill while waiting for their flight, he had time to think this through. And maybe very carefully experiment some with that.

  The cat was simply pleased with himself in a way that only a cat could be.

  There are advantages to having two legs and not four.

  And there is reason that we use the expression “moved like a cat.” That was... impressive.

  It was.

  As much as the cat took it in stride Taylor worried about this new relationship, like a dog trying to get marrow from a bone. This was the true power of the shift, the meld. The joining of the two had just taken on a new dimension unheard of by his own people. Forget fantasies of armies shifting and turning into tigers and charging the ranks of bullets and mortars. Think instead of men, fully realized, who could run, move, leap, and flow the way a cat did. Such an army would be irresistible, and impossible to defeat.

  But Taylor had never met anyone before who could speak directly to his cat. You turned, you woke, and you tried to figure out what happened while you were gone. It was that way for everyone. The way it always had been.

  Until he’d been able to change his eyesight while driving from the compound at night. And only his eyesight.

  He’d blown that off with Angelica, acted like it was no big deal. But when it happened, it almost took him off the road that led to Augustine’s barn. He’d driven in pitch blackness and was able to see as if it were noon on a cloudless day.

  How did I do that?

  You didn’t. I did.

  That was startling, too. The cat took the initiative? Changed just that much of him because he needed it? They were supposed to be two bodies in one, but now they were blending. Not just in body, but in mind.

  Taylor was trying to come to terms with this new information, when he heard Angelica gasping beside him. He turned and looked at her. Her eyes were wide with fear and she was staring at the television in the corner, the one with...

  Taylor exhaled as if he’d just been hit.

  On the news bulletin interrupting the courtship between Nancy and Thomas, even though Nancy knew he was the father of Linda’s child, who turned out to be a space alien—the news reader seemed confused and intent. The scrawl line under his face read, LION SPOTTED IN PILLAGE MN. From there it cut to a frantic woman who was gesturing with one hand, clutching a barking terrier to her chest with the other. The dog seemed hell-bent on attacking the microphone thrust in her mistress’s face. The sound was off, so Taylor couldn’t hear what was being said, but her caption was EYEWITNESS TO LION ATTACK. As the woman finished her sentence, the dog squirmed and fell from her grasp.

  The newsreader returned, said something else, and then the television switched to a distorted, grainy view that the caption identified as COURTESY OF PILLAGE BANK. In the picture, a lioness walked in front of the ATM. Worse, she actually looked up into the camera and licked her lips before loping off-camera.

  Isn’t she magnificent?

  A pencil sketch of Taylor followed that image, bearing the identification of PERSON OF INTEREST, and the name JAMES SUMMERS.

  Taylor bent low at the waist and threaded his fingers behind his neck as if he were stretching. More like hiding. He stayed that way until Angelica whispered, “It’s over.”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  He stood and walked to the waiting area of a neighboring gate. Angelica followed him.

  “Where did they get that image of you?” she hissed.

  “Probably from that sheriff,” Taylor said out of the corner of his mouth. An idea occurred to him as he tried to not look around the gate. He fished in his wallet and pulled out a twenty. He handed her the cash and pretended to be very interested in a flyer he found for the treatment of stomach ulcers. “Do me a favor, go to that little store and see if they have any little makeup mirrors.”

  She pocketed the cash, her face so pale it was a wonder she wasn’t attracting attention just for that. He hated putting her through this, to make her walk away alone like that right now. But she proved she still had that inner spark when her chin came up, proud and determined, and she asked, “What do you have planned?”

  Good girl.

  “Something. I don’t know if I can do it or not.” It wasn’t a very satisfying answer, but she accepted it all the same and turned to go, looking not so much frightened as determined.

  I think I can do what you’re thinking.

  He studied the flyer, looking over every inch of it twice, and was halfway through a third pass of it when she returned. She handed him a small grooming kit, complete with tiny mirror. He pocketed the item and headed for the men’s room.

  The first stall he came to wasn’t one he wanted to stay in any longer than it took to back out and try not to gag. The one two down from that left a comfortable buffer between him and the first and was relatively clean. Thankful to be out of sight, he latched the door.

  Are you sure about this?

  No.

  He held the mirror up and let the cat move.

  It was a strange process. It felt incredible. Somewhat painful and more just weird. The nose flattened and shifted. It was too much, and he pulled back by concentrating on where he wanted it to be. The jaw rippled, and though it changed its shape it looked—melted. His brow jutted and his eyebrows lightened.

  It’s a different face but the jaw looks unnatural. I can’t go out like this.

  The cat moved again and thick, tawny hair jutted from his skin around the jaw and over the upper lip.

  The lip is split.

  In response, the hair over the upper lip grew longer. Taylor was now a man who might have been a pugilist and taken one too many blows to the face. With the full beard, though, it didn’t match the hair on his head. The man looking back at him in the mirror was a complete stranger.

  Wow. That’s just... wow. Can you hold it?

  I thought you were.

  He looked again and sighed as a commotion o
utside in the men’s room drew his attention. He stood, took a breath, and unlatched the door. He turned quickly and flushed to complete the illusion of having been in there for other reasons. A very nervous-looking security guard and two policemen looked at him as he left the stall and ignored him. One of the policemen had the sketch of Taylor in his hand.

  Taylor washed his hands and left the restroom. Angelica stood outside, anxiously trying to see past him into the bathroom. He walked past her and returned to their original seat. The police came back out, the security guard shaking his head and looking miffed.

  They went to Angelica and showed her the picture. She shook her head no. The police gave the security guard a long look and he vehemently said something Taylor couldn’t hear. When they left, Angelica was still looking at the bathroom, but her expression was one of complete confusion.

  Taylor picked up his bag and set it in the seat beside him, closest to her. It took a moment, but she noticed it finally and went to sit behind him.

  “Taylor?” She had her gaze focused on a magazine she’d found discarded on a nearby seat, staring at it intently, keeping it raised enough so observers wouldn’t see her lips move. He smiled a little, pleased that she was still thinking despite what had to be a terrifying moment for her.

  “Yep.” He spoke the word softly, stretching and staring across the way at the board that displayed departure times.

  “How?”

  “I don’t really know. Just pretend you don’t know me and get on the plane alone.”

  “But won’t they know your seat number?”

  He shook his head. He hoped not. He’d bought the tickets under a different name. The phony passport in his pocket would hold up to decent scrutiny. So would Angelica’s. At least he hoped so. “All they know is one excited guard thought he saw someone. They have no reason to believe him. Not now.”

  She was quiet a moment. Then, so softly he almost didn’t hear, she said, “That exercise I want to learn.” Her tone was wistful.

  He smiled.

  That’s my girl.

  But I do not think I want her to have a beard.

  Chapter 13

  Angelica spent the entire time on the tarmac holding her breath. She was certain that at any moment the police would bust down the ramp and drag them out of the plane. And no matter how many cell phones there were to record it, she was sure that they could be “disappeared.” What they were was just that important to the government. Any government. She was starting to understand why Taylor’s people never left the north woods of Minnesota.

  And also starting to understand what it cost them to leave there now.

  In the meantime, she did the only thing she could: she maintained the illusion that she didn’t know Taylor. Which was fast becoming more and more far-fetched. She’d been snuggling next to him on the seat for the last twenty minutes. And though he no longer looked the same, the fact that she was in the seat for “Mrs. Summer” while he was seated in the seat for “Mr. Summer” seemed a little too obvious at best.

  Come to think of it, that name was stupid enough for them to both be arrested as too damn clumsy to be spies. While they waited to take off, Taylor busied himself in a Sky Mall magazine and she tried to count the repetitions of a pattern on the seat in front of her. Finally, they were airborne and the odyssey to Nepal had started. There was no going back. Not that she wanted to. She couldn’t get her head around someone recognizing Taylor from a small town to a nation-wide search. It made absolutely no sense—unless, of course, the government was involved.

  “So... how?” she asked as soon as they were safely airborne. She’d been trying to play it cool, but she was no longer able to contain her curiosity.

  “I...I’m not sure.”

  I did it.

  “It was a collaborative effort.”

  “I thought...” Angelica looked around and whispered, “I thought you said that there’s no direct communication between you and the cat.”

  “There isn’t. I mean, there wasn’t. I-I can’t explain it, but whatever that doctor did to me I’ve been actually talking to him and him to me ever since.”

  “What?” Angelica stared at him. “You mean like hearing voices?”

  He shot her a sideways look. “I recognize that look. Don’t go diagnosing me. Remember, a couple of months ago you would have locked away anyone who said they could shift.”

  “Fair point.” She took his hand and held it for a while, even if her brain was still trying to catalogue different mental disorders that would result in hearing voices. “So, um,” she tried to stifle a giggle, “how long are you keeping that face?”

  “Well, we have a stop in Chicago. From there, the next stop is China. Once we’re safely out of the States, I guess.”

  “I like the old you.”

  “To be honest, it kind of aches. It actually hurts holding it in this shape.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully, studying the way his eyebrows formed, the slope of the nose. “Does this mean I can do that, too?”

  Taylor stared at her for a moment. “I’m not even sure how I am. This...” he indicated his face, “this isn’t normal. Hell, being able to communicate with the cat isn’t normal.”

  Angelica started. “Wait, what? I thought those exercises—”

  “I don’t know what my mother told you, but I had you do them because I did. Because my friends did. Because Harold did. All I know is that I haven’t heard of anyone who actually...” he thought around for the word, “coexists with their inner cat.”

  Only inner when you’re on two legs. When we’re free, you’re the inner.

  “I think I’m the only one to ever do this. It’s... I don’t know what it is.”

  “Are you—I mean, did Melinda damage you?” It was a new thought. She hadn’t realized that he’d changed, too. That he’d been struggling with a body he didn’t understand as much as she was.

  Why didn’t he tell me sooner? She snorted quietly. Probably because I never bothered to ask.

  “I feel fine,” Taylor said, waving off her concern. “It’s not like there’s a blood test to determine if there’s an issue with my inner cat.”

  Maybe not, but he didn’t exactly need to snap at her like that. Angelica nodded and sat back. There was something he wasn’t saying, that much she could tell. What it was, now, that was another question. But he was closed off, and her attempts at questioning him were only shutting him down further. His family, the whole thing with his brother—how could she know what he was feeling? It was like being in love with a rock or an iron statue. The worse things got, the less he said.

  With a sigh she curled up as comfortably as she could against the window, her face pressed against the glass. Thankfully it was a short flight to Chicago. In no time at all, they were descending.

  There was a plane change in O’Hare. It was an entire airline change. They had to proceed to a different terminal, a journey of some distance. There was little time to talk as they found a shuttle train that circumvented the terminal and headed out to the international terminal. And when they finally got aboard the shuttle, the crowds were pressed in too close to talk about anything real. At least no one was looking for them.

  “This is like an enclosed little city,” she said as the train sped silently on the edge of the building. Taylor had told her to wait before they boarded. He’d disappeared and then came back shortly. “Shops, restaurants.” She glanced over at him. “I didn’t see what you got. Don’t tell me—you have a secret craving for Necco wafers that I didn’t know about.” Angelica kept her tone light. Teasing. The tension from their earlier conversation had followed them off the plane and she was desperate for a fresh start, for him to look at her the way he had in Africa, or South America. To become him again.

  To her surprise, Taylor held up a book. It was a mystery/spy novel that boasted First Time in Paperback on the cover and had a half-dozen recommendations from people she’d never heard of on the back.

  “Serious
ly? A spy novel?”

  Taylor grinned, and for a moment she caught sight of his old self. “I get addicted to them. I can’t help it. Besides, this next flight is going to be 20 solid hours.”

  “Really?” Angelica sighed. She plucked the book from his hand, wishing she’d had the foresight to find reading material. “What’s it about?”

  The train separated from the building and headed silently out on its own. It glided into the setting sun and she watched the shadows lengthen and deepen, listening to Taylor talk about his favorite authors and characters. She had no idea what a Reacher was or what Ian Fleming had to do with James Bond, but she didn’t care. This was peace finally. Angelica rested her head on his shoulder, and felt the low rumble in Taylor’s chest as he spoke with a soft satisfaction that brought a silent ache to her heart.

  Please let this moment go on forever. It’s a good one. We’re safe right now.

  O’Hare’s international terminal was far less busy than the main terminal. It was calmer somehow, maybe even cleaner. Angelica disembarked from the train, holding her breath. But no uniformed figures waited to intercept them on the way to the terminal. The people milling around didn’t carry fliers with Taylor’s picture. She supposed the goings-on in a small town in deep-woods Minnesota didn’t much affect them. With some relief Taylor excused himself and went into the restroom, only to emerge a few minutes later ‘clean-shaven’. His face had resumed its shape and he looked younger somehow, more alive.

  More him.

  She stroked his cheek with approval and kissed him for good measure.

  The wait for this flight was uneventful. Angelica tried to search the internet for news coming out of Minnesota, hoping to glean some information about Taylor’s family. The media silence was unnerving. Apparently, the breaking news was limited to local coverage and wasn’t the big item she thought it might have been. Should have been.

  Someone’s suppressed it. Someone with the power to suppress it.

  The thought put a knot of fear in her belly that stayed with her all the way across continents and oceans. It followed her into her dreams when she finally slept, safely ensconced in what turned out to be a first-class pod, thirty-five-thousand feet above the rest of the world.