Geir looked down at the child. With his altered senses he could make out the exact shape and movements of her body but couldn’t see much of her face.
She wanted him to save her brother. Geir made a rough gesture in the direction that the muffled yells, howls, and gunshots were coming from. Other people, he thought, were surely already there.
“Two of the other scientists took all of the smallest animals in another cage. It took this one longer to get me out because I bit his finger.” She grinned savagely. “That’s why he only had one cage.”
He nodded, feeling faintly proud of her. She was a little warrior, protecting herself and the others.
“I can tell you where they are,” she confidently. Then she looked a little nervous. “I mean, I think I can.”
Ah, she was one of those that the People called a power sharer or something along those lines. He held out his hand.
She looked at him skeptically and he gave an encouraging nod. With his beak, he could only communicate in clicks and gestures. The time and pain it would take to change back would only distract them from their goal. Not to mention that he might need to use his beak again.
Tentatively, she reached toward his hand. He sensed that she wasn’t untrusting, just unsure of what he wanted.
As soon as their fingers touched, he gripped her hand, dropped his tentacles to the forest floor, and expanded his vision.
This other form of sight was coming easier to him now, the world around him expanding and blossoming with the life that had always been there, but now felt closer. Connected.
The child’s frantic need for her brother brought him right into focus. He knew exactly where to go.
He realized however, that he could feel everyone. The two other souls whose hearts beat next to the opossum’s brother. The lost children still imprisoned and those who had snuck or scratched or struggled their way into the wilderness. All of the People fighting for them.
Declan, who was worried, but still safe in the van.
He could even, faintly, feel the flickering glow that must be Rohahen. He hoped that he was safe, then gave a snort of surprise at his own feelings. Rohahen was Declan’s friend, of course, but he was also a good person. Someone meaningful and connected to the people around him.
They were all his and he would protect them.
He had forgotten this power, this way of being in the world. He was more complete now, with this little warrior at his side. Everything was clear.
Because he could sense where the enemies were, too.
He dropped the child’s hand, snapping them back into the present moment, though his enhanced sense of everyone around him endured. He pointed back toward the vehicles, hoping the child would understand and obey his wordless instruction.
Instead, she shifted again and scampered up his back. He pointed again, but she dug her claws in deeper, sixteen individual points of pain and commitment. What a brave little warrior.
He took off running toward the glow of those three heartbeats, noticing as he ran that he could still sense them. In this monstrous half-shift, he didn’t need to touch the ground and concentrate. He simply knew.
Three of the enemy ran with the captured children, two right beside them and one lagging behind.
He went for the slower one first, not making an effort to disguise his attack. He had strength and speed on his side, and he wanted to get to the children quickly.
He hoped to communicate something to the child on his back about jumping off and hiding in the trees, but he had no way to convey his message.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter. When the first enemy was just within reach, the man turned suddenly and held his ground.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” he yelled. He sounded confident and his shape was outlined with small protrusions that were probably weapons.
Geir reacted instinctively, shooting a well of ink from the opening below his beak. The man staggered back, hands clawing at his face, as the sticky liquid clung to him.
Geir had forgotten that trick. It helped him remember another one, though.
He placed one tentacle over his beak, covering it completely, and then pushed with the unique internal muscles that squeezed his poison gland. The thin liquid sprayed onto his tentacle. He slapped it onto the enemy’s exposed skin on his face and hand, not even turning to watch him fall.
He ran on, slowly gaining on his quarry. He could sense the trees opening up in front of them, some cleared space. No, it was too straight and even for that. It must be a road.
The two enemies were near something large and boxy—a vehicle. A jeep, perhaps? Something not entirely closed. He put on another burst of speed, no longer hampered by having to dodge the trees.
Relying on years of honed battle tactics, so ancient that he hardly remembered practicing them, he fell on both of the fleeing adults at once. The one without the cage he didn’t try to capture, tagging the exposed back of his neck with the poisoned tentacle and then releasing before the touch was even noticed.
Simultaneously, he crashed into the other one, grabbing the cage with his clean tentacle while he dove his beak into the back of her neck, killing her instantly.
It wasn’t a fair battle. He hadn’t given them any more chance than they’d given the unsuspecting children.
The cage felt suddenly heavy as it slipped from her twitching fingers. He let the body drop.
The opossum scurried down his arm and jumped on top of the cage, squeaking at whatever small animals were inside. A lizard of some kind, he thought. Perhaps a squirrel? And something smaller. Vole? Mouse? They were standing within range of a streetlight, but with his altered vision he couldn’t make them out clearly.
He looked down at the cage. This one was tiny, with thinner metal than the first one. But even a drop of the venom that now clung to his beak would instantly kill the tiny animals. He was more danger to them now than help.
Could he open it with his hands? Was there some tool he could use in the nearby jeep?
He set the cage on the ground, preparing to shift back and explain.
But the clever opossum was already at work, using her small opposable thumbs to flip the latches on the sides. Once she had them open, he lifted it off with one clean hand.
The animals scampered out, instantly shifting. The lizard barely came to his knee, just a toddler. It started to cry.
The tiny mouse or vole grew to a tall, stocky teenager who, judging by the tight hugs, was the brother they’d been seeking.
The squirrel shifted last and came up to his chest.
Geir wasn’t sure what to do now. The children were more relatable in animal form. A crying toddler was beyond his understanding.
He felt unexpectedly close to them, though. Their small hearts beat close to his in the intricate web of life that spread all around him. Now that he was near them, now that they were safe, he could see that these children were special. Not just to their parents and their tribes, but simply because they were human. And the opossum had been so brave.
He still didn’t know what to do with a crying toddler.
Fortunately, the squirrel shifter scooped it up, patting its back and making comforting sounds. That was one less thing to worry about with the battle still raging around them.
They had to get back to the others, he decided. He looked at the jeep. If there were keys nearby he could drive it, though he wasn’t sure where the roads connected. He also worried about the children touching the poison or the poison spreading if he or the children rifled through their clothing.