Chapter 23
“Tiff?” Spencer pushed through a stand of young trees, hands outstretched. “Are you there? Can you hear—ow!”
In his mind, his basilisk hissed. Shift. See. Too dangerous to be stumbling blind through the forest.
“No,” he said out loud. He sucked the fresh scratch on the back of his hand, eyes still shut tight. “I’m too dangerous.”
Who had he stunned? Tiff? One of his other packmates? He couldn’t be sure. He’d only caught a single, fleeting glimpse of wide, startled eyes before his basilisk had taken over, whisking away through the undergrowth with the lightning speed of a snake.
It had taken him a long time to regain human form, and even longer to calm down.
When he’d finally stopped running, chest heaving for breath, he’d found himself in an unfamiliar part of the forest. Not that he’d dared to take much of a look around.
He still had his clothes, but his glasses were long gone, lost somewhere in his frantic flight.
And now, he was lost.
A forked tongue flickered in his soul. We could smell the way back. If you let me out.
Spencer shook his head, pushing his animal away. Eyes still closed, he untangled his T-shirt from the clutches of a buckthorn sapling by touch, biting his lip every time the sharp spines stabbed his skin. Free at last, he edged forward, feeling his way through the forest.
“Tiff?” he called again. She was so tiny in her shift form. Surely she couldn’t have gone far. “Are you okay? It’s all right, I’ve got my eyes closed. I won’t hurt you. Hello? Anybody?”
Something screeched right above him. He jumped, eyes almost flying open before he caught himself. Breathing hard, he pressed his palms over his face, fighting down panic.
“Just another owl,” he whispered. “That’s all.”
There were certainly a lot of them. As he cautiously picked his way around trees, he kept hearing their high, eerie screeches. It was like they were keeping track of him, calling out his position as they monitored his progress.
There had to be a rational explanation, of course. Maybe it was breeding season. Maybe they could sense he was dangerous and were trying to drive him away from their nests.
Or maybe they were calling out to something else…
“There is no such thing as ghosts.” Saying it out loud made him feel a bit better. He drew himself up, putting more conviction into the words. “These are ordinary owls. This is an ordinary forest. No matter what Shan, or Rufus, or anyone else thinks, it is absolutely not haunted.”
He saw it, then. At first, he thought it was just his optic nerve playing tricks on him, misfiring sensors trying to make meaning out of nothing. It was just the faintest flicker, filtering through his closed eyelids.
Light.
His basilisk abruptly reared up, cobra hood flaring. We are not alone.
Spencer stopped dead. “Hello? Is someone there?”
No reply.
Yet the impression of light didn’t go away. Spencer blindly swiveled his head, trying to pin down the direction of that faint, phantom glow.
“Hello?” he called again. “Is that someone from the camp? It’s me, Spencer.”
He held his breath, listening, but there was no hint of a response. No shout in return; no hurrying footsteps. Even the owls had fallen silent, if they were still there.
His heart sank, but he tried one last time. “If anyone can hear this, you’re going to have to come to me. I can’t see you. I lost my glasses, so I have to keep my eyes closed.”
Silence.
Then, that faint ghost of light moved. It steadily brightened, coming closer.
“Oh, thank Darwin,” breathed Spencer. Eyes clamped shut, he moved toward the light, waving his arms. “Here I am! Over here!”
Shan skimmed low over the treetops, hunting for any hint of light.
Below and behind him, staff members were spreading out in a wide ring, searching the ground in animal form, but it was impossible for even the most sensitive nose to pick out the scent of a single tiny weasel amidst the cacophony of smells surrounding the camp.
Tiff had only been able to provide the vaguest idea of which way she’d gone, and she’d been too terrified to notice any landmarks on her way back.
Still, at least the location she’d last seen Spencer should be visible from the air. Shan flew as slowly as he could, methodically searching for Tiff’s abandoned glow sticks.
Off in the distance, other winged shapes circled, quartering the mountainside—but only a small proportion of the staff members had animal forms capable of flight, and none of them could match his own night vision. He had the best chance of locating Spencer’s trail.
Leonie was back at camp, assigning jobs and keeping everyone calm.
With almost all the staff needed to search, it had been impossible to keep the campers unaware of the incident.
When he’d last seen her, she’d been reassuring a tearful group of younger kids that there was no need to worry, and Spencer would soon be found.
She’d spoken with utter confidence. Only he’d been able to taste the lie.
He pushed down his own fear, concentrating on the search. He could only hope that the glow sticks would be visible through the dense summer foliage.
And that he didn’t spot any other lights.
An owl shot out of the forest like a bullet, straight at him. He swerved, swiping at it in sheer reflex. The bird barely avoided his claws, a few brown feathers swirling away. Despite its near miss, it circled him, screeching.
No animal approached a qiongqi. Not unless there was a human mind overriding natural fear.
And there were no owl shifters at camp.
Fighting down his own predatory instincts, he sheathed his claws. The owl fluttered right in front of his face, then dove back into the tree cover. A second later, he heard it screech again, loud and urgent.
He folded his wings, dropping. No time to look for a gap in the forest. He simply crashed through the trees, branches snapping against his striped flanks.
In a shower of pine needles and splinters, he landed heavily on the ground. There was no trace of either the owl or Tiff’s glow sticks, but he immediately knew he was in the right place. The scent of a juvenile male human hung in the air; fading, but fresh.
He shifted, raising his voice. “Spencer! Can you hear me?”
“Shan?” Spencer sounded relieved, though not as much as he might have expected. “Is that you?”
“Yes.” He turned his head, calculating the boy’s position by hearing and scent. “Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you.”
As it turned out, he didn’t have to go far. He found Spencer sitting on the ground a little way off, back against a tree. The boy looked tired and rumpled, but not particularly distressed.
“I’m here.” Shan crouched at Spencer’s side, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him from getting up. “No, don’t move yet. Are you injured?”
Spencer shook his head, eyes scrunched shut. “No. But I lost my glasses.”
“Take mine.” He took off his sunglasses, fitting them to Spencer’s face instead. They were too big for the boy, but at least they covered his eyes. “There. It’s all right. You can look now.”
The boy raised a hand, stopping the sunglasses from sliding off his face. He opened his eyes—or at least, Shan presumed he did, as the boy sucked in a startled breath.
“Oh,” Spencer said weakly, staring up at his face. “So that’s why you wear sunglasses all the time.”
“Yes.” One of the reasons, anyway. “When you’re ready, I’ll fly you back to camp.”
“Tiff was with me.” Spencer turned his head, looking around. “Did you already find her?”
“Tiff is fine. She made her way back to camp and raised the alarm. That’s how we knew to come looking for you.”
A brief expression of relief flashed across Spencer’s face. Then his mouth started to tremble. “Shan, there was someone else out here. I th-think I—I—”
“I know. It was Rufus. It’s all right, he wasn’t hurt. Just stunned for a little while. He’s fine, too.”
Spencer curled up, arms around his knees. “Is everyone mad at me?”
“Of course not. You aren’t in trouble, Spencer. We’re just relieved you’re safe.”
“Not the counselors.” Spencer’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The other kids.”
“Oh.” He sat next to the boy, putting an arm around his shoulders. “No. No, Spencer. Your friends aren’t angry with you. Just ashamed of themselves, and deeply sorry for their actions.”
“But I’m the one who messed up,” Spencer said miserably. “I could have really hurt him. I shouldn’t have shifted. I should have stayed in control—”
“No.” He pulled Spencer tighter against his side, feeling the way he was shaking. “You did nothing wrong, Spencer. You were frightened and had good reason to think you might be in danger. Your animal was only trying to protect you.”
“I hate my animal!” Spencer buried his face against his knees, still clinging to the sunglasses. “All it does is hurt people. It’s nothing but a monster. I’m a monster.”
Raw truth. The taste filled his mouth, rich and bloody, but there was no satisfaction in it. He’d expected his qiongqi to settle, satiated, yet it was still restless. It prowled through his mind like a tiger in a cage, wanting… what?
I do not have an animal. His own words echoed in his memory. I contain a monster.
“Someone once told me,” he said slowly, “that no one is born a monster. At the time, I thought she was being na?ve.”
“I guess you would know,” Spencer said, voice muffled. “If you’re really a secret agent, that is.”
“I am. Though that’s not the reason. I have confronted many people who did monstrous things, Spencer. And yet, I never thought there was something innately evil in them.” He looked away, and inward, into the dark. “Only in myself.”
Spencer’s head rose. “Why?”