Chapter 14
Mirage
The humans stand still while they stare at us, but every bit of my essence prickles like my body wants to scatter into pieces and run away in different directions. Which these people might actually approve of.
A few of them have instruments holstered at their hips that I think are those shiny whip things that can sear right through our beings. A couple hold bundles of glinting strands that I know are the hunters’ preferred type of net.
What will they do if we don’t listen to them? Will they bundle us off into cages to poke and prod—
The memories of my past captivity rise up in a surge of icy panic. The air around us wavers, a metallic sheen glinting onto every surface. Spikes sprout from the SUV’s windshield; war bugles go off in the distance.
Oh. Those aren’t real transformations. I’m projecting illusions unconsciously.
The news crews stare at them, one of the camera men taking a step back, but the hunters don’t react. Even as I yank my powers back inside, my gaze catches on the shiny metal circles pinned to their shirts and jackets.
Right. Those trinkets stop my powers from reaching their minds. When they’re wearing them, they can’t see my illusions.
I’m not sure that’s a good thing. The odd gleam and the imaginary sights and sounds vanish as quickly as they appeared, but I kind of wish I’d unsettled the more aggressive people we’re facing.
Peri sets her hands on her hips, unfazed by my slip or the hostile humans glaring at us. “Why are you interrupting us? We were helping the city.”
I hope she can feel the rush of affection and awe that fills me as I watch her. She’s half a foot shorter than even the smallest of the hunters and so much softer looking, but so strong she faces them head-on, no shying away or shivering.
The leader of the hunters flicks his gaze toward the darkness behind us, taking in the thinned area where Peri’s been working her powers and the sludgier shadows beyond it.
His stance tenses, maybe because of the audience of warped shadowkind creatures who are staring right back at him and his colleagues from the murk.
A couple of the creatures have gotten to their feet, tensing in turn. Even the ones still lolling on the pavement have lifted their heads with sharper alertness.
Are they picking up on the hostile atmosphere and giving in to the usual aggressive impulses after all?
I don’t think a sudden rampage is going to help this situation.
I aim a subtle illusion toward the beasts, making them imagine soothing lights and cozy surfaces around them. If I can lull them right into sleep, even better.
One with a cheetah-like head gives a jaw-cracking yawn. That might be a good start, although one of the hunters flinches at the movement.
The lead hunter jerks his attention back to us. “It doesn’t look very helped.”
Jonah steps forward, the new sorcerer he’s been trying to work with at his heels—hanging back as if she thinks she might want to hide behind him. More uneasy frustration skitters through my nerves.
We only want to make everyone happy. That’s all Peri has ever tried to do. Why can’t the humans just let us?
Why do they always have to boss everyone around, no matter who it hurts?
Jonah holds up his hands in a placating gesture. “Dealing with a mess this big takes time. Like Peri said, we’re working on it—doing what we can to clean up the city. I’m as human as you are, and so is she.” He indicates the other sorcerer. “Would you really want us to stop?”
The leader of the hunters narrows his eyes. “Do you really think the monsters are going to fix things instead of breaking them more? I hear dozens of humans have already gotten hurt.”
Raze’s jaw tightens as if he’s suppressed a wince.
Hail’s hands clench at his sides, but he flexes his fingers out of the fists and lifts his chin.
“We aren’t a hive mind. Some of the creatures are running wild, and the rest of us are doing our best to rein them in.
And doing a pretty good job of it.” He points to the creatures which have gone back to looking more sleepy than scary in the grips of my illusion.
One of the hunters snorts.
The leader lets out a cold laugh. “I’ve dealt with hundreds of you fiends in my time. There’s nothing natural or safe about any of you. Get away from the city, or we’ll make sure you do.”
Jonah frowns. “Does Colonel Hueber know that you’re going around threatening beings he’s approved to pitch in?”
The other man sneers. “Mr. Military Big Shot welcomed us and said he was happy to have more people around who can ‘control’ the monsters. It didn’t sound like he liked having any of them on the loose. He didn’t lay down any rules about where we could step in.”
I’m guessing the colonel didn’t even think about the fact that some of us shadowkind are actively working to protect the city and the people who fled it. He seems to have tried as much as possible to pretend we don’t exist.
Maybe he thinks the hunters would do a better job cleaning up the city anyway. He might have not mentioned there were some beings they shouldn’t hassle hoping that they’d run us off and he wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore.
Raze’s posture has slumped, but he speaks up in a low voice. “We want the same things you do—to keep the humans around here safe. To get them back to their homes.”
“Well, forgive me for not believing that,” the leader says in a tone that’s not at all apologetic, and gestures to his colleagues.
Those with whips unfurl the gleaming lengths like slashes of light—light I know will sear right into my being if one hits my body, even in my ephemeral state if I move into the shadows. The two with nets shake them looser, ready to throw.
The leader glowers at us. “Get out of here, now, or you’ll regret it.”
Peri pipes up with her unshakeable good cheer, though little trickles of fear tingle into me through our bond. “Now, hold on. There’s no need to make this a fight. Why don’t we all go talk to Colonel Hueber again, and he’ll—”
“I told you to go,” the hunter snaps, and with those words, his colleagues barge toward us.
I’m not totally sure why I react so swiftly. Maybe it’s the signs of distress in my friends—Raze stiffening his limbs rather than bracing to spring, Hail shoving his hands downward rather than raising them to cast out his icy magic.
They don’t want to prove these humans right by hurting any of them like they have before.
I can’t let the humans hurt any of us either. Not like the scientists with their iron chains and silver blades. Not like the men and women who yanked me around and dizzied me with pain.
But I have to make sure my powers can reach them.
“Hail,” I say in a sharp whisper. “Can you freeze the metals off them?”
He stares at me for just an instant before resolve hardens his features. His fingers twitch at his sides.
Little snowballs erupt right beneath the silver-and-iron trinkets—and snap their pins off the fabric they’re attached to. As the protective brooches clink against the asphalt, I hurl my illusions forward.
A whirlwind of chaotic images flies up around the hunters. Shadowy shapes soar past them, snapping razor teeth and pinning them with glowing red eyes. Thorny brambles shoot from the road and the sidewalks as if to pen them in.
They could walk right through the illusions if they tried, but the visuals look real enough that they stall in their tracks.
A heavy rumbling like incoming thunder sounds overhead, then a rattling as if an earthquake is shaking the nearby buildings. I give the hunters the impression that the ground is lurching beneath their feet for good measure.
I have to make them want to go away. Make them run so far they’ll never bother us again, never touch any of us with those whips or nets.
The panicked urgency propels more of my power out of me.
The brambles twine and grow, sprouting sharper thorns that glint a poisonous purple hue.
A fearsome roar reverberates down the street.
Scarlet lights flash right before the hunters’ eyes where only they can see, tinting everything the shade of blood.
Just a little more, and I can open up the thicket behind them so they’ll dash away.
Even as I think that, a gentle hand comes to rest on my forearm. Peri’s concern and love seeps through her warm touch.
“Mirage,” she murmurs, with another caress of her soothing emotions, “this isn’t how we make things better. The creatures are getting riled up. And I don’t think it’s good for you either. You always want to make people laugh, to play with them, don’t you? What if we played with the hunters too?”
My immediate instinct is to balk. Play with these pricks? We should tell them to suck their own dicks!
But her encouragement has twined through my essence enough to produce that rhyme, to bring a smile to my lips at the rhythm of it—if also a little at the picture it presents.
She is right. I don’t really want anyone feeling as trapped and anguished as I did in the scientists’ cage.
The hunters are being ridiculous. Calling us monsters when we’ve done more to look after the humans here than any of their fellow humans have. Let’s show them that absurdity.
The resolve has barely clicked in my head before my illusionary barrage shimmers in a new direction. The roar gives way to bright, childish giggles. The ground steadies and cushions the hunters’ feet as if they’re standing on a vast, cozy mattress.
The thicket’s vicious thorns sprout a rainbow of flowers giving off an upliftingly tangy scent. They stir in a soft breeze, and the brambles contract so rosy sunlight can drift across the figures within.
Bluebirds chirp and flit merrily overhead, one and then another flipping in a loop-de-loop. A couple of them tuck their wings together and spin in a little dance that I don’t think any real birds could manage, but it looks like fun.
The hunters shuffle backward, poised shoulder to shoulder. Their expressions look more befuddled than frightened now. I make one of the flowers form a face that blows a raspberry at them and then grins, and a couple of the humans actually chuckle.
The leader’s head jerks around as if he’s offended by the sound. I send a few of the illusionary bluebirds leapfrogging past him in a bouncy chain, and he pauses as if in a daze.
The sunlight I conjured spreads into a rainbow of colors, glowing vibrantly over the street in Peri’s honor. She squeezes my arm with a waft of affection.
Finally, the leader swipes his hand through the flowers around him—and realizes his body passes straight through the image. He waves his arm around some more as if trying to dispel it like a puff of mist. “What the fuck is the point of all this? Get it out of our way!”
“It’s not really in your way,” Peri points out. “You can walk right through it.”
He glares at her. “And we will. If you think your crazy games are going to change anything—”
Several more figures stride forward at the edge of my vision. The reporters and their camerapeople come to a stop just a few feet away from the group of hunters.
I was so focused on our potential attackers, I’d forgotten the other humans were even here. Have they been filming this whole scene?
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
One of the reporters has planted herself right in front of the lead hunter.
She raises her microphone to her lips. “We’ve just seen a vivid display of how unsettling exteriors can turn out to be deceiving.
Who doesn’t need more flowers and rainbows in their life?
Sir, do you have any evidence that these specific…
shadowkind, I believe they call themselves…
have caused any harm in or around the city? ”
The leader grimaces. “Well, I— You can’t go by the powers they throw around. They’re trying to deceive you.”
Another reporter pushes in. “It sounds like you’re the one dodging questions.
We’ve been watching these so-called ‘monsters’ at work, and they really have been lightening the darkness that’s fallen over the city and calming down the violent creatures inside.
Look at how they settled down the monsters over there right now. ”
I glance over my shoulder. The warped creatures have returned to their lounging, their expressions relaxed rather than fierce. A smile tugs at my lips.
My ferocity riled them up… but my playfulness chilled them back out again.
Another of the hunters barrels into the conversation, her voice harsh. “You can’t believe anything these things say or do. They’re lulling us into a false sense of security so we won’t be ready to defend ourselves.”
The first reporter lets out a skeptical cough.
“I don’t know. I think it’s already been proven that we couldn’t defend ourselves from whatever this onslaught is.
If these supernatural beings wanted to hurt us, we couldn’t be more vulnerable.
Everything I’ve seen has shown that they’re trying to prop us back up. And that we could use that help.”
The third reporter jabs his microphone in the lead hunter’s face. “So tell us: are you and your colleagues going to be part of the solution or only add to the problem?”
As the leader opens his mouth and closes it again, struggling with his words, the other hunters seem to deflate.
Peri shoots me a flash of a smile, and my spirits settle back to their normally breezy state.
There could be more battles up ahead, but we’ve won this one—with dancing birds and cheeky flowers.