CHANGELING: Book Two in the Weaver Series Read online

  He nudged me mentally, “Much, I see much in a little.”

  His gaze focused in on the far side of the bed. The frame we hung our school robes from banged into the wall as Pez struggled to stand. Mez leaned down to extend a hand up to Cass but she put on a burst of speed to give him our back and face off with Pez.

  “I’m a distraction for you and I need to help my sister protect you.” I gave Mez an awkward mental wave and surged toward my fleshly home. The barest trickle of disbelief followed me as he absorbed the idea of us protecting him. There was a second of black transit and then my vision aligned with my sister’s.

  Pez had made it to his feet and his normally spotless blue robes were wrinkled. In his hand he held a cylindrical device that made Mez suck in air through his teeth behind us.

  Pez’s neck wove sinuously. “I wanted you dead more than him anyway. You are an abomination that does not deserve to live. Now I can kill you both at once and be gone before anyone knows.”

  Even with a combined push of speed and strength we weren’t going to be able to stop him from pulling the trigger on us. Cass and I had no clue what that little ‘thingy’ did but based on Mez’s reaction it was deadly.

  I backed our body into Mez and he wrapped his arms around us. We could try to bend somewhere else but I could feel our power levels were low from the healing we’d performed earlier. That must have been why Cass was already on the bed when we ‘ported in. Mez would have no such energy restrictions.

  He must have been thinking the same thing because the edges of the room began to pixelate just as a stream of white hot light erupted from the end of the cylinder Pez had aimed at us. Our eye caught movement where there should have been none as a section of our room’s wall reached out and swallowed Pez whole—along with all of my clothes.

  Chapter Fifteen: Cooties

  Jaz appeared inside the entrance to the tunnel out of our room. I don’t mean she walked out of the shadows, I mean light unwrapped around her like a delicate swarm of butterflies. Her eyes were glittering chunks of obsidian and her headdress was just as tightly wrapped as ever, concealing her fiery hair. Lips twisted in a parody of a smile she brushed one hand on her arm in that insulting gesture that still meant nothing to us as she stared at the wall where Pez had disappeared.

  Mez asked, “How? You are Imini.”

  Cass asked almost on top of Mez. “Did you kill him?”

  Jaz turned her head in our direction and crossed her arms over her breasts to look us up and down. One hand flicked out in our direction as she said to Mez, “You should ask them how. I could not bend light until they healed me. I knew Annis had a reason, so I kept it to myself. Yes, that Aniy is very dead.” She waved her loose hand negligently. “I will make you new robes even though they are ugly.” Jaz sniffed in disgust and looked sideways at Mez. “Wog skin is softer and more sensible.”

  I cocked our head. “What were you doing here?” In all the time we’d lived in Denu Jaz had only come to Kal’s once and that was to deliver the clothes she’d made us as a gift and a thank you for saving her life.

  “I was told you and Kal were seen outside the tunnels without Mez. I was worried The Fid had interfered with your Bindao so I came to check on you. It is good I did. Where is Kal?” Her tone was accusatory and no end of bossy.

  “Hold that thought, Jaz. He doesn’t know we’ve got Mez.”

  She flicked her lenses at us and I got the distinct impression if Axsians could roll their pupil-less eyes she would have. Cass went to call for Kal and I sensed Mez lean on us so I assumed he was off in the Web too, telling his mother he was alive and safe.

  We heard approaching footsteps in the tunnel and Jaz looked back then stepped forward. Lil walked cautiously into our room. Her gaze darted from her mother, to Mez, to us and then again at Jaz where she stood relatively relaxed with her arms still crossed and a shoulder leaning on the very spot on the wall where she’d killed Pez.

  A shudder went through our body at the idea of being sealed in like that. Had he suffered? Did Pez feel the malleable rock invade his body or was he crushed?

  Jaz caught me staring at the wall so I asked Lil, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you usually top side this time of day?”

  Lil’s headdress was tilted as if she’d run all the way but her breathing was controlled. “Are you not supposed to be at the lab with Sil getting examined? Why are you here? I have missed something big, I can tell. What is going on? That is twice you have snuck your Aniy into Denu without Imini knowledge, Min Druta.”

  “Well, your mom just killed an Aniy from the Guild of Discovery who was trying to kill us after we rescued Mez from a secret rebel base. No big deal.” I smiled wickedly at Jaz.

  Lil turned to her mother with a stricken expression. “You killed someone, Modor?”

  Jaz clicked her teeth at me then turned to her daughter. “I did but if I had not others would have died. It was a choice of many or one. I chose one and Annis will understand, Lil.”

  As a rule the Imini were peaceful and rarely felt moved to commit violence. The Aniy were often used as a shining example of what not to do. Prejudice went both ways between the two races. Now Jaz, a leader in the community, had taken a life. It was self-defense but what if the law didn’t see it that way? Should we hide this? Kal needed to get here so we could make a plan and get our story straight for The Elders and Fid Tal.

  Speak of the devil, Cass popped into our head just as Kal materialized at the foot of our bed. His face was paler than normal and a light sheen of sweat was across his forehead. Before he could speak Jaz motioned to us.

  “These ones are more trouble than you, Kal. They brought Mez here and an Aniy who was trying to murder them.” She patted the wall with a palm. “He is dead. How will you fix this mess your gedohtra made?”

  Cass started to get mad and our mouth opened to defend our actions but I was too busy absorbing Jaz’s use of the word, gedohtra, which meant daughters. She had just claimed us as family. Plus we kind of deserved the blame and my twin hadn’t been present when I threw Jaz under the bus with Lil about killing Pez.

  Mez’s arms shifted on our shoulders and he jumped at Kal and Lil’s presence almost imperceptibly. “My modor is here at the arches and asks for permission to enter.”

  I looked up and his attention was on Jaz who sighed and closed her eyes to access the Web. Her chin was tucked down and she looked asleep and oddly peaceful. When Jaz’s jaw clenched I knew she was done.

  Face hard Jaz said, “Vel will escort Fid Tal here. Only two guards are with her, the same ones as this morning.”

  Everyone turned to regard Kal. He threw his hands out in frustration then wiped a palm across his face to rest on his neck. “There is no hiding Pez is dead. His family would have sensed the death. We could lie and tell them Imini safeguards activated and the walls defended Denu. They may not believe that, but to protect the peace Fid Tal might accept that story, at least for the public. The Elders will need to know everything.” Kal frowned and pointed a long finger our direction. “I told you to wait and do nothing unwise without me. What do you call this?”

  We didn’t get the chance to defend ourselves because Mez chose that moment to fall backwards as if his body were a collapsing tent. Kal must have seen it happening behind us and he was able to catch Mez before his head slammed into the floor. His face was worried as his nephew started to fade into an unnatural sleep.

  Cass spoke to the room. “It’s the drugs the rebels gave him. Silver only had time to flush them from his brain not his bloodstream. The adrenaline must have kept him up and now that we’re okay they took effect again. He should be alright, Kal.”

  Our guardian’s voice was throaty and concerned. “Tal will not like to see him like this. All of you help me get him off the floor and onto the bed before my sister gets here.”

  Kal grabbed Mez by his underarms and the rest of us made scoops of our arms to hold his long legs. Cass and I were starting to feel a little lightheaded b
y the time he was arranged like Sleeping Beauty on our rumpled covers. The bed was too short for Mez and his heels hung off the end. Kal leaned over his nephew and crossed the slack arms of his drugged body over his black school robes. It was awkward, all of us standing there looking down at Mez with not a clue what to do next.

  Cass blurted, “We need to eat. Our reserves are low.”

  Jaz and Lil started toward the tunnel to our living area and we followed. As we passed Kal he grabbed our forearm. His face was drawn like a dour disappointed old man.

  Voice low, he said, “You should have waited. Tre revealed the base location. I could have gotten The Elders involved. Now the rebels will move because of this stunt you both pulled. Not to mention you could have been killed. Think before you act.”

  We began to sway in place and his expression changed to one of exasperated concern. Kal dragged us toward the tunnel passage muttering under his breath.

  “I should make you drink fermented wog afterbirth again as punishment.”

  Cass twisted our lips in disgust to indicate our opinion of that idea. When we emerged, Jaz and Lil were doing something to the still sticky parts of the walls. Ripples and waves of dim blue light brightened then faded away as they folded the igneous surface inside itself to get rid of the evidence of our kush fight. Kal unceremoniously dumped us in a chair at the table and went to find us food in the kitchen area.

  I began to pick at the tips of our gloves and then realized we didn’t have them on. Cass sent me the memory of taking them off before she laid us down on the bed earlier. We’d just have to be careful not to touch anyone, mainly Lil, Vel, and our Aniy guests—everyone else already had our cooties. Kal slid a shallow bowl of peeled fruit at us and my sister dug in. The juices were sweet and tasted like heaven in our dry mouth. There wasn’t time to savor the flavor though. We wanted to be done eating by the time Fid Tal got here. For some reason, the thought of having that woman’s eyes on us while we did something so mundane made us uncomfortable.

  Jaz fussed at Lil about her headdress being sloppy and Lil snapped back. Apparently we weren’t the only nervous ones. Kal clicked his teeth at them and hissed for silence earning him double dirty looks. From the passage outside came the sound of loud voices, one female and shrill, the other male and calm.

  Vel came through the arch first, taking in the tableau and frowning when Mez was nowhere in sight. His lean frame was clad in the usual wog skin tunic and pants and his turquoise necklace sat neatly at the base of his throat. The length of Vel’s hair and the shape of his long soulful face still reminded us of Abraham Lincoln.

  Fid Tal, who was about two feet taller, had to duck through the entry. Her bearing was just as regal and arrogant as ever but her black on black eyes were narrowed with worry over her hawkish nose and her clothes weren’t as painstakingly polished as they usually were. The white blousy top she wore was lopsided around the neckline and unevenly tucked into her flowing pants. Perhaps Mez was the chink in her armor; maybe she really did care.

  Her Highness turned her head to Kal. “Where is my son?”

  Cass swallowed the last bite of fruit we’d been chewing and answered in a dry tone, “He’s in our bed sleeping off the drugs Pez gave him. Oh, and Pez is dead. You’re welcome.”

  Fid Tal looked frantically around our meager home, torn between the arch to Kal’s room and the tunnel that led to ours. Vel pointed her in the right direction with an open palm, like a flight attendant or a maître d at a fancy restaurant. Flotsam and Jetsam ducked inside together and scowled at everyone with equal distaste then followed their master.

  Kal sat at the table next to us. We were being terrible hosts. No one seemed to notice because they were straining to hear what was going on in the other room or off in their own little worlds or conversing in the Web. It looked like Jaz was probably filling in all the gaps for Vel since they both had their eyes closed. Lil had wandered over closer to the passage to our room, unashamedly eavesdropping on Fid Tal.

  Our hands were sticky from the fruit so we rose and carried our empty bowl to the red light alcove for cleaning. Cass ran our fingers under the light for good measure and I was pleased to see the steadiness in them. Passing out like Mez wasn’t an option right now.

  Lil gave a squeak and scrambled into the kitchen area with us as Fid Tal and her guards surged back into the room. Mez’s mother was furious.

  Her eyes sought out Kal. “What happened? Tell me now.”

  Kal’s eyebrows crept away from his eyes and up his lined forehead before he responded. “I was not here. You would need to ask your son, Cassandra, Silver, and Jaz.”

  Our lips felt wooden and our tongue felt like it swelled to three times its size as we tried to figure out what we were supposed to keep secret and what we should reveal. Jaz’s ability to bend light wasn’t coming out by us. Kal had said earlier that The Elders needed to know everything but did he really mean that? Was he planning on telling them about our knack for getting through the DNA protocols? Would Jaz be taken away for killing someone if they didn’t buy our story about the Imini safeguards kicking in? Neither of us knew enough about Axsian laws.

  Jaz faced off with Fid Tal. “I was there when the rock took that Aniy. Perhaps my presence was the instigator of the cave’s response—at this point it is moot because he is dead. He should not have been able to pierce our DNA protocols, so it may have been the Will of Annis. That Aniy would have killed your son and our nifta. For any time before that you would need to ask your son’s Bindao.”

  We knew exactly what Jaz had just done. She’d called us, nifta, which was niece, including us in the Imini as family and also named us Mez’s Bindao as a reminder of our place. Not subtle, but then again we really couldn’t afford to be. She hadn’t exactly lied about the way Pez died either.

  Jetsam asked the next question. “How did you come to bring Mez here?” The word ‘here’ was filled with disdain and her regard was calculating as if she were waiting for a hole in the telling of the tale.

  Cass gave me a mental nudge to speak. “My sister and I were waiting here for Kal to return with news about his search for Mez. I decided to see if I could connect through our bond and surprisingly enough we did. He was unconscious so I monitored his vitals and then got a read on the sedatives the rebels had knocked him out with. Mez’s eyes were closed so we couldn’t see where he was being held but someone moved so—”

  Fid Tal interrupted her voice more strident than we’d ever heard it. “You invaded my son’s body while he was incapacitated? I should kill you!”

  Her lips were drawn back from her teeth like she might actually bite us. Fury gathered in our gut as if it had decided to double as a foundry. It felt good to wash away our uncertainty with another emotion and our thoughts crystallized. Speaking through clenched teeth, we stood, our wills aligned such that our voice made the air tremble. “Do not threaten us, Fid Tal. We are through speaking with you. If you want a story, ask Mez when he wakes.”

  Kal’s hand cupped our arm where it met our shoulder and the burning rage turned down to a simmer. It was a waste of words anyway. Her Highness wore an affronted expression but no thread of alarm or contrition graced her face. Flotsam and Jetsam on the other hand were now eyeing us as a threat. Peachy. Fid Tal snapped her fingers at her guards and they turned toward my room.

  “We will be leaving now with my son. Agents will most likely come to question you on behalf of The Elders. I will put in a word for leniency regarding Guild Member Pez’s death. The fact remains though that an Imini struck down an Aniy. There will be consequences under the law.”

  Jaz took a step away from Vel and straightened her shoulders, stance proud. “I will take those consequences gladly. I wonder, though, if the same laws were applied in the death of my first husband when an Aniy killed him. Where were you or The Elders then, Fid Tal?”

  The surface on which we all stood moved. At first I thought I imagined it and then I noticed Fid Tal wave her arms for balance. Flotsam an
d Jetsam halted in alarm just shy of the tunnel to my warren.

  Vel, who usually argued for diplomacy in every situation and who we’d never seen rise to anger, stepped in front of Jaz and crossed his arms. “You will not impose anything upon the Imini without our consent, including your Judgments and your Aniy laws. If you ignore us in the best of times and forget the pacts of old, treating us as less, why would you think we would consent to your discipline? A peaceful nature does not equal timidity. We will stand up. You will not like it. My wife stays here. Our nifta and her Bindao stay here. The dead Aniy trespassed in a way that should have been impossible. You will leave. Right now.”

  The dimly luminescent walls flexed like they were giving birth to maggots all around us. From the rock directly behind Flotsam and Jetsam a lumpy hard glob began to emerge. It was knobby and not even vaguely Aniy shaped. A bone that looked like it might belong to an arm protruded from the ejected mass and Pez’s contained remains slammed to the floor, rocking back and forth like a playground seesaw. The glow didn’t diminish on the grotesque casing and it was throwing every nearly recognizable curvature into stark relief. Mentally we wanted to scream in horror at the sight but Kal’s hand on our arm kept us steady and our face immobile.

  “Take your Aniy dead so his family may mourn him properly. The Imini are not so uncivilized that we would stand in the way of the Codes of Annis.” Vel’s voice was colder than exposed steel on an Alaskan bridge.

  Fid Tal blanched at the still wobbling crushed and encased body parts at her feet. When she opened her mouth to speak Kal interrupted her.

  “Have a care what you say. The Aniy women came to the Imini for an alliance during the wars, not the other way around. You have forgotten, Fid Tal, along with every other Aniy, that the very homes in which you reside can be commanded at a whim by a people you treat as less than nothing. It is true the Imini cannot bend, but that does not make them less.” Kal’s voice was low and cautionary.