Automatic weapons were chattering from all directions. She could hear bullets shrilling and tearing chunks from the leaves to either side of her; a green rain was falling all around her. Someone screamed-not Wally-and she heard the sinister, low growling of a leopard. Taking a breath, Jerusha pushed through the screen of greenery and into the clearing, trying to make sense of the chaos.
Everyone’s attention seemed to be on Wally, who had closed on the Leopard Men. The doctor was running toward the lab building, his white coat flapping. The boy that had been with him was also retreating-toward the river. One of the Leopard Men was on the ground, his weapon gone to rust in his hands and his arms broken; the other had shifted to leopard form and was snarling at Wally, ready to leap. The guards were firing at him, and bullets were pinging and whining from his body, gouging shiny dings in the black iron.
Jerusha ran over the broken ground of the grave pit as the vultures scowled at her, not daring to look down and hoping that no one would see her. She plunged her hand into the seed belt, not caring what she brought out. She cast the seeds hard toward the soldiers. Green erupted around them-some were vines that she wrapped around the guards, tearing away their weapons from their grasp at the same time; a few were trees that she brought up thick between them and Wally, who had closed with the were-leopard. She half closed her eyes, trying to be the plants, to control as many of them at once as she could, as closely as she could. She heard the liquid snarl of a leopard.
Behind. Behind.
Jerusha turned even as the creature started its run toward her, lifting into the air with powerful legs, claws ready to rip and slice. She flung the seed in her hand toward it. It was a toss that would have made Curveball proud: into the beast’s open mouth. She tore at the seed with her mind, with the power the wild card had given her, ripping the growth out faster than she’d ever done it before. In mid-leap, greenery erupted from the leopard’s neck and mouth: even as the creature slammed into her, even as she fell and the Leopard Man rolled past her. Roots grabbed the earth and held; the leopard yowled, a terrifying scream, and the cat was suddenly a man again, writhing and tearing at the branches still growing longer and thicker, rupturing his neck and finally tearing his head entirely loose from his body. Arterial blood fountained from the body as the tree shot upward.
A mango, Jerusha realized belatedly.
Two of the buildings were on fire. Jerusha didn’t know why: perhaps stray bullets or ricochets had ignited the oil and gasoline cans scattered through the compound. Yards away, Wally slammed the other were-leopard to earth and stomped on it. The crack of its spine was audible even against the gunfire.
The nearest child soldier flung his weapon to the ground and ran screaming, and suddenly they were all fleeing. Strangely, she thought she saw blood running down Wally’s left leg, a long line of it, and he limped as he took a step and spun around.
Wally shouted, “Lucien! Where are you!” Jerusha could hear the sinister crackling of the fire, and the plaintive, alarmed shouts of the kids in their cages. Wally had already moved toward them, putting his hand on the wires and dissolving them into ruddy powder. He was pulling kids out, calling for Lucien as he did so.
Jerusha shuddered. The were-leopard’s head was staring at her, caught in the fork of a mango branch nearly at eye level. Mangoes were ripening around it, and Jerusha found herself shaking.
She went to help Wally.
Michelle Pond’s Apartment
Manhattan, New York
“You need to pay these bills,” Juliet said in a reproachful voice as she shuffled the piles of mail that covered Michelle’s kitchen table.
“You know, I started going through them, and I just couldn’t concentrate,” Michelle said. “I mean, I don’t really care right now. They aren’t stuck in a pit of corpses. You know?”
She felt Juliet kiss her hair. “They’ll still need to be paid,” she said softly.
“After I find Adesina.” Michelle glanced at Juliet and saw the pensive expression on her face. I am being the bad girlfriend again. And only a week out of her coma. It had to be a land-speed record.
“Sweetie,” she said, touching Juliet’s face. “You did more than anyone has ever done for me in my entire life. I’m sorry I didn’t get around to doing all that grown-up stuff like naming you the executor for my estate, making a will, and us getting, well… anyway.”
She pulled Juliet’s face close, lingering as their mouths met and tongues danced. When they were both dizzy and needed air, she continued. “What I need to do is get to Adesina. And there’s a way. It means asking Noel for a favor, which sucks. But beggars can’t be choosers.”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Joey said as she came into the room. Her hair was rumpled from sleep and there was a crease down one cheek where she’d slept on it. She flopped into Michelle’s overstuffed armchair. “I don’t s’ppose there’s any coffee? Fuck.”
“There’s coffee and breakfast on the stove,” Michelle said. “Eat fast because I’m calling Niobe in a few minutes to see if we can drop by.” It was almost nine o’clock. She could call at nine. Nine was a perfectly reasonable hour to phone.
Michelle had had another dream the night before. This one was a little different. Adesina wasn’t in the pit in this one. She was in a small room instead. The walls were painted a cold bluish white, and there were pictures pinned to the wall of storybook characters. Michelle didn’t recognize most of them-and the ones she did know looked out of place. Someone had tried to make this room less antiseptic and scary, but all they’d done was accentuate that this was not a fun place for a child to be.
When Michelle tried to look around, she had slipped out of Adesina’s memory and into one of her own dreams.
This was an old dream. She was alone in the house. It wasn’t her parents’ house. It was the strange, alien-feeling house that always appeared in this dream. She is inside it and lost. Then she sees the bunny. She starts to follow it. But it runs away. Finally, she comes to a door at the end of the hallway. The bunny must be inside. But when she opens the door, the room is bathed in blood.
Nine o’clock.
Michelle flipped open her phone. “Keep it quiet, I’m calling.” A few minutes later she hung up. “Niobe says we can come over now.”
“So, what do we need to take with us to the Congo?” Juliet asked.
“Well, you don’t need to take anything,” Michelle replied. “You’re not going.”
“You are not going to the PPA by yourself!”
“I’m not,” Michelle replied. “Joey is coming with me.”
That got Joey’s attention. “What the fuck?”
“I need someone who’s good in a fight,” Michelle said. “Someone who can also blend in if she needs to.”
“She’s from New Orleans, not Africa.” Juliet’s voice had risen to a shout. “Have you lost your mind? And what are you going to tell them about her? She’s your jungle princess?”
“Hey!” Joey said.
“She’s going as my assistant,” Michelle said.
“She can’t be your assistant. She doesn’t know the first thing about… about, anything! Arghhhh!”
Michelle was torn between frustration and guilt. She wanted to get to Niobe’s place now, but she also needed Juliet to understand why she couldn’t come to the Congo.
“Look, Juliet, I love you.” She pulled up a chair next to Juliet and took her hand. “That’s why I’m not going to take you into a banana republic where there’s God-only-knows-what horrific shit going on. You’re an ace. But, sweetie, your power, it’s kinda deuce-y.”
Juliet slumped in her chair. Her face crumbled, and Michelle felt sick to her stomach as Juliet began to cry.
“You are stupidly brave.” Michelle kissed Ink’s hand. “My God, you stood up to my parents. For that alone they should give a medal. I will not let you put yourself in harm’s way unnecessarily.”
Silently, Juliet wept.