The Gathering Storm Read online

  When Mr. Kimura didn’t respond, Darren pressed on. “That part was a dream, though. . . . Right?” he asked.

  The fox glanced behind them, as if worried that they were being followed. A dream for now. We will discuss it indoors, he said as they approached a small cottage. There was a light on in the front window. As Darren and Mr. Kimura approached, the front door swung open.

  “Jiichan?” a voice called. “Is that you?”

  Mack was standing in the doorway, a worried look on his face. He blinked in surprise as Darren stepped forward.

  “Darren?” Mack asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hey, Mack,” Darren replied. It was all he could think of to say.

  Mr. Kimura brushed past Darren as he approached Mack. Hurry in, the kitsune said in a low voice. Darren could only obey, watching as the expression on Mack’s face morphed from surprise to astonishment.

  “Jiichan?” Mack asked hesitantly, backing up until he was pressed against the wall.

  The door closed behind them with a loud click, though Darren was certain he hadn’t touched it. The next moment a shimmering light washed over them. When it passed, the majestic fox was gone.

  In his place stood an old man whose eyes seemed to contain all the worries in the world: Mr. Kimura, in human form.

  Chapter 8

  The first four

  “Jiichan?” Mack gasped. He would’ve thought he was still asleep, stuck in the strangest dream ever, if not for the solid wall against his back. “You . . . You’re a . . .”

  “Yes,” Jiichan replied as he strode past his grandson.

  Mack stared at Jiichan, then glanced over at Darren. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” he demanded.

  Darren shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Uh . . .”

  “Forget it,” Mack mumbled as he spun around and hurried after Jiichan. He found him in the living room, the TV remote clutched in his wrinkled hand. This time, though, Jiichan wasn’t watching one of his favorite nature shows. Instead he flipped to the twenty-four-hour weather network.

  “We’re tracking a massive category-five hurricane approaching the coast,” the weather forecaster reported breathlessly. “This is not a drill, folks. We have no indication that this storm is going to shift course or slow down. I repeat, it’s not weakening at all. Now is the time to start making preparations, because once this hurricane hits, it’s going to be too late.”

  Jiichan muted the TV. Images of leveled houses, downed trees, and rescue workers sifting through rubble flashed across the screen, lighting the living room.

  “Well, now you know that I am no ordinary grandfather,” Jiichan said, turning to Mack. “And that, I’m afraid, is no ordinary hurricane.”

  “Are you going to tell us what you mean by that, or are we supposed to guess?” Mack asked. Even he was surprised by the rudeness in his voice, but only Mack knew what his bad attitude was supposed to conceal: the deepest, most unsettling surprise he’d ever experienced. All this time, Jiichan was a Changer—a kitsune like he was—and he’d never told Mack. It hurt a lot more than Mack wanted to admit.

  “Of course I will,” Jiichan replied. “Darren? Would you care to join us?”

  Mack had almost forgotten that Darren was hanging back in the doorway. The boys sat next to each other on the couch, across from Jiichan. “Dorina has kept me informed about your studies,” Jiichan told them. “But I know there is a great deal you still yearn to know. It appears I have no choice but to tell you about it tonight. Circumstances demand no less.”

  “What’s going on?” Mack asked.

  Jiichan nodded toward the TV. “That’s not a storm,” he said again. “It’s an army of Changers preparing to descend on Willow Cove.”

  It was a crazy thing to say—it barely made any sense—but Mack had never seen such a serious look on his grandfather’s face before. It chilled him to the bone.

  “But to understand what’s happening today, you must understand what happened in the past,” Jiichan said with a heavy sigh. “Dorina told you there was a time when humans and Changers lived in harmony. We used to protect villages, summon rain for crops—even heal the sick. But one thousand years ago, an evil warlock came into being. He knew that to achieve absolute power, he would need to harness the abilities of the Changers.”

  “How could he do that?” Mack asked.

  “The darkest magic imaginable,” Jiichan said as a heaviness settled over his shoulders. He suddenly looked older to Mack than he ever had before. “The warlock forged an iron horn, carved with ancient runes we thought had been lost to history. The evil that went into creating the horn and gathering the runes is unthinkable, but when he was finished, the warlock had made the most powerful weapon in the history of magic.”

  “What could the horn do?”

  “It bound the Changers to him, putting them at the mercy of his will. Across the land our armies fell with a single blast. The horn forced them to turn against normal humans—destroy their food, burn their homes, take their lives. Dark days followed. The darkest days our world has ever seen. Changers were powerless against the warlock’s horn. There was little happiness and less hope.”

  Jiichan paused to let the boys take in his words.

  “It wasn’t until four young Changers stood against the warlock that he fell,” he continued. “Four young Changers, untested and unproven, found themselves immune to the horn’s call. Today they are the First Four, the leaders of all Changer-kind.”

  “They’re still alive?” Mack broke in. “That was a thousand years ago!”

  Jiichan smiled enigmatically. “You have much still to learn about our kind.”

  “What happened to the warlock’s horn?” Darren asked.

  “The horn could not be destroyed, so it was locked away, never to be used again. And that, they thought, would be the end of it. Life would go back to normal.”

  “But that didn’t happen, did it?” asked Mack. He’d watched enough superhero movies to have a pretty good idea of what happened next.

  Jiichan shook his head. “The damage had been done. Humans no longer trusted Changers. They’d seen what our powers could do, and no promises or assurances could calm them. Instead, humans decided that Changers must be hunted down and then erased from history. We became myths, folklore, the boogeymen in their children’s stories. And that’s why we live as we do now—lives of secrecy, spent in the shadows.”

  Mack clenched his fists. “That’s not fair!” he said hotly. “It wasn’t our fault.”

  Jiichan smiled sadly. “Sometimes the concept of magic is just too much for ordinary humans to believe. As far as people knew, Changers had tried to destroy them. They then had to live knowing we could destroy them, if we wanted to. I can’t blame them. Fear makes people act in desperate ways.”

  “Why are you telling us this?” Darren asked suddenly. “All this stuff happened—what, a thousand years ago? Why does it matter now?”

  Jiichan regarded Mack and Darren in silence. At last, he spoke. “The horn is gone,” he said. “Stolen by a new warlock who goes by the name of Auden Ironbound—stronger and even more driven than his ancestor, who began the first age of destruction.

  “Even now, at this very moment, Auden Ironbound and his army approach,” Jiichan continued. “That’s why it matters.”

  “Here?” Mack asked incredulously. “Auden Ironbound is coming here? To Willow Cove?”

  “Willow Cove is the final fortress against him,” Jiichan explained. “This is where the First Four live. If they can’t stop Auden Ironbound, no one can. He means to defeat the Four and then take the world for himself.”

  Mack jumped up from the couch. Even though it was the middle of the night, he had way too much nervous energy to sit still for a moment longer. “The First Four live here?” he asked. “Who are they?”

  “You already know, Mack,” Jiichan said. “In fact, you’ve known them your entire life.”

  Mack’s breath caught in his
throat. “Jiichan,” he whispered. “You?”

  Jiichan didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The answer was written on his face.

  This can’t be true, Mack thought wildly. How was it possible that his grandfather—his jiichan!—was one of the most powerful Changers to ever live? Was one of the legendary First Four? Was more than a thousand years old? It was too bizarre to believe. At least it would’ve been if Mack didn’t have a deep sense of certainty in the pit of his stomach.

  Jiichan said I knew the others, Mack thought. So who are they? In his mind, Mack raced through just about everybody he’d met in Willow Cove, from his teachers to his pediatrician to the grumpy lady who worked at the post office. No, no, and no.

  My whole life—

  The realization hit Mack with tremendous force. Of course. How had he missed it? The answer was staring him straight in the face: Jiichan’s mah-jongg set, neatly polished and waiting for Thursday night, when his three best friends would come over to play. But were they ever truly playing? Did he ever hear the pieces move? All Mack remembered was the low talking coming from the other room while he turned up the volume on the TV.  They hadn’t been discussing mah-jongg at all.

  And it wasn’t a coincidence that Ms. Therian and Jiichan were such good friends. No, they were friends because they were both Changers. And if Jiichan was one of the First Four, then Mack had a pretty good sense that Ms. Therian was, too. And so were Sefu Badawi and Yara Moreno, Jiichan’s other mah-jongg buddies.

  “Ms. Therian is one of the First Four!” Mack was practically shouting as he turned to Darren. “And—”

  “It’s time to take Darren home before his family awakens and realizes he’s gone,” Jiichan interrupted.

  Darren glanced around the room for a clock. “My dad gets up pretty early for work,” he said anxiously. “What am I going to tell him if he’s already awake?”

  “Don’t worry. He’s still asleep,” Jiichan said.

  “How do you kn—” Mack started to ask when he suddenly thought, Duh, of course he knows, that’s probably some special kitsune power or something. Mack had so many questions for Jiichan that he didn’t know which one to ask first. And he wasn’t alone.

  “Mr. Kimura,” Darren said as they piled into the car, “if there are all these secret magical beings—Changers and warlocks and stuff—does that mean that vampires are real, too?”

  “What about zombies?” added Mack. “Bigfoot?”

  Jiichan chuckled. “Don’t be ridiculous, boys,” he said. “There are Changers, humans, and what you might call witches and warlocks. That’s all.”

  That’s all, Mack thought as he glanced out the car window. A hidden world full of magic that I never knew existed. The sky was still heavy with clouds; in the distance he could see one of the clouds light up from within. Lightning, he thought. Or was it?

  “Maybe we should get out of town,” Darren said suddenly, making Mack wonder if Darren had also noticed the glowing cloud. “If Auden Ironbound uses the power of Changers to make himself stronger, won’t he just use us, too? Why are we sticking around?”

  “This is not the time to flee,” Jiichan replied. “This is the time to take a stand. We must stop Auden Ironbound before he grows more powerful. Here. Now.”

  “You mean Darren and I are going to fight Auden too?” Mack asked in excitement.

  “You and your young friends will have your role to play, but it will be far from the action,” Jiichan replied.

  “Aw, come on!” Mack groaned.

  “No, Mack,” Jiichan said in a firm voice. “The danger is too great. The First Four—who are immune to the horn—will make a stand. We should be able to defeat Auden, just as we defeated his ancestor a thousand years ago.”

  No one spoke again until Jiichan pulled up in front of Darren’s house. It was dark and still; the rest of Darren’s family was obviously still asleep, just as Jiichan had predicted.

  “Thanks for the ride, Mr. Kimura,” Darren said, stepping out of the car. “I probably should’ve just flown home myself and saved you the trouble.”

  Flown home? Mack thought. Did Darren just—

  Jiichan held up a warning finger. “Please be careful, Darren,” he said. “The danger is greater for you. Should you lose control of your transformation midflight, the consequences could be disastrous. Your human form has the same limitations as anyone else, after all.”

  “You transformed?” Mack asked Darren. “And flew?”

  Darren nodded. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

  “How?” demanded Mack.

  “It happened while I was asleep,” Darren admitted. “Then I flew and ended up in a field, and your grandfather was waiting for me, like he already knew I was going to be there. So, I don’t really know how I transformed.”

  “Oh, I think you do,” Jiichan said. Then he pointed up at the second-story window, which was wide open. “Go ahead.”

  Darren’s grin lit up his entire face.

  Mack watched closely as Darren shut his eyes. His eyelids were doing something weird, Mack noticed—fluttering, as if Darren couldn’t figure out how to open them. His face twitched twice—three times—like something deep inside was causing him pain.

  Suddenly, a shimmering ripple moved over Darren, from his head to his feet, leaving in its wake the striking impundulu. The bird cocked its head, staring at Mack and Jiichan with a glittering eye. Mack had never seen a bird smile before, but this one sure was.

  “Whoa,” Mack said, amazed.

  “Well done,” Jiichan said, but his simple praise was underscored by the delight in his voice.

  Then, while Mack and Jiichan watched, Darren flew up to the window and ducked inside.

  Mack was silent as he and Jiichan drove home. Watching Darren transform had impacted him in ways he didn’t completely understand. It was so glorious and so unexpected; like living in the most exciting superhero movie ever. And yet Mack felt strangely lonely and incomplete. When would it be his turn to experience a transformation? Mack’s longing to take his kitsune form was greater than ever.

  “You seem troubled, Mack,” Jiichan said.

  That’s the understatement of the year, Mack thought. But what he said was, “Fiona and Darren have already figured out how to transform, but I don’t even have a clue.”

  “In time you will find your own path,” Jiichan replied calmly.

  “Time? We don’t have time,” Mack argued, his voice rising. “You just said that Auden Ironbound is on his way to Willow Cove, like, now! Please, Jiichan, can’t you just tell me how to transform? Or—better—show me?”

  “Perhaps you should focus more on the journey than the destination,” Jiichan said.

  “Seriously?” Mack groaned. “Come on, Jiichan! Can’t we just skip over all the pearls of wisdom and get to what really matters?”

  “No, Mack,” Jiichan said firmly. “My word on this is final.”

  Mack sighed in frustration as he twisted in his seat, staring out the window. The sky was gray now; morning was almost upon them, but Mack hardly noticed.

  As much as he hated it, he knew in his heart that Jiichan was probably right.

  Chapter 9

  Battle Plans

  By the time school rolled around later that morning, Mack’s bad mood had worsened. All he wanted to do was finally figure out how to transform, but he couldn’t exactly work on it in the middle of English or science class. Changers class was the only thing Mack looked forward to, the one time in the entire day when he could truly be himself. Maybe today will be the day, Mack thought eagerly as he approached the ancillary gym.

  Inside, everyone was clustered in a tight clump by the bench. Mack could tell immediately that something big had happened, but nothing could’ve prepared him for the sight of a full-size jaguar standing there.

  Mack stood very still, too shocked to move. Even though he knew it was Gabriella—So, she figured out how to transform, too, he thought—it wasn’t easy to approach such a powerful creature.
/>   The nahual turned and looked at Mack with her gold cat eyes. Her long tail, covered with black fur so glossy that it almost looked blue, swished back and forth.

  Not bad, huh? Gabriella’s voice echoed in his head.

  “Incredible,” Mack said, but his voice sounded funny—hollow and small.

  “Check it out!” Darren suddenly exclaimed, and whoosh—the impundulu was back. Mack forced himself to smile through the excited shrieks and chatter from everyone else, but he was painfully aware that he was the only one who still didn’t know how to transform. His eyes met Fiona’s, and as they stared at each other, all Mack could think was Please don’t. Please don’t change. He wasn’t sure he could bear it if everyone was in his or her Changer form—everyone except him.

  Somehow, Fiona seemed to understand. Her selkie cloak stayed neatly folded in her lap, to Mack’s relief.

  Ms. Therian clapped her hands loudly. “Human forms, please,” she announced, and just like that, Gabriella and Darren were back. Mack joined the others on the bench, grateful for the chance to blend in.

  “There has been a significant new development,” Ms. Therian announced. Then she filled in Gabriella and Fiona about everything that had happened overnight—from the full history of the Changers to Darren’s strange dream to the warlock now approaching Willow Cove.

  “I can’t believe you flew by yourself,” Fiona whispered to Darren. “Weren’t you scared?”

  “No,” he replied with a chuckle. “I was asleep! Apparently, I’m a sleep-flier.”

  “Listen carefully, please, because what I am about to say affects all of us,” Ms. Therian continued after a sharp look at Fiona and Darren. “The First Four met early this morning to finalize our battle plans. When Auden Ironbound arrives, Mr. Kimura will lead him to the north side of town, where there are fewer houses. Sefu, Yara, and I will hold his army at the beach. You four will be responsible for patrolling the town. Should any of Auden Ironbound’s soldiers escape the beach, you’ll need to alert one of us. It’s important you don’t try to engage them. Luckily, when the storm hits, everyone should already be evacuated or taking cover in the storm shelters, so it’s our hope that none of the townspeople will be in danger.”