The Spirit Warrior Read online

  I can’t trust Jiichan or the others to help me. I need to remember what Sakura said. Then maybe I’ll know what to do.

  Chapter 9

  The Jade Jaguar

  Across town, Gabriella’s grandmother shook Gabriella awake. The night before, Gabriella had filled her abuelita in on their successful mission to Japan, followed by the disaster when Mack put on the magatama.

  “Mack seemed better when we left,” Gabriella had said. “But he’s sad and scared. I’m worried about him.”

  “I’ll talk to the First Four about next steps,” Abuelita had said. “Your aunt will be here tomorrow to help with your training. Try not to worry about it now. Get a good night’s sleep.”

  Gabriella didn’t think sleep would come. But it must have been the stress of the battle in Japan or something, because she conked out and slept a deep, dreamless sleep. Now her grandmother was shaking her awake at a time that seemed much too early.

  “Wake up, niña,” Abuelita sang, opening the curtains.

  Gabriella opened one eye and then turned over with a groan. She buried her head under the pillow to block out the light and the noise.

  Her grandmother shook her again. The sweet, gentle voice was gone. “Up,” she barked, sounding like a drill sergeant. “We have work to do.”

  Work? Gabriella thought. It’s Sunday.

  The events of the night before started to come back to her. The battle in Japan. The magatama attacking Mack.

  She sat up, and her grandmother handed her a cup of xocolatl, the spicy hot chocolate the family turned to on rainy afternoons and bad days.

  “Mmm,” Gabriella hummed, breathing in its spicy sweetness. “Mom doesn’t usually let us have chocolate in the mornings.”

  “It’s our secret. She and Maritza went to New Brighton for a concert,” Abuelita said. “Besides, you need the energy. I talked to the First Four last night, and after what happened with the magatama, we think it’s best that we speed up your training. You’re going to have to learn a lot, and quickly.”

  Gabriella remembered the stricken look on Mack’s face last night when the necklace attacked him. Quickly is right, she thought. What if I can’t learn enough in time to help break Sakura’s hold on him?

  Instead of confessing her doubts, she sipped her hot chocolate. The smell of the chili peppers tickled her nose, and the cobwebs of sleep began to dissipate. “I practiced my meditation a lot this week,” she said. “I think I have that part down. Pulling back when I start to feel like I might become one with the energy feels natural to me now. I even used the deep, meditative breathing with Mack last night to help him calm down. I think it helped him. I think it helped everybody.”

  “That’s wonderful, mija,” Abuelita said, kissing her on the forehead. “You’re a natural leader, and you’ve made good progress. Now it’s time for the next lesson. Once you’re in that meditative state, you can spirit-walk in other people’s minds, but you need to learn how to form defenses to use when you’re there.”

  “Defenses against what?” Gabriella asked. “I know I can risk losing my own spirit if I let go and forget myself. What else could happen?”

  Her grandmother nodded seriously. “Mack’s mind could try to hurt you.”

  “When I was in Darren’s thoughts nothing attacked me. He just kept wandering into different dreams and memories. I didn’t feel like I was in danger.”

  “Most people aren’t capable of defending their minds without practice, but Sakura has powerful, dark magic. And she’s smart. Before she went rogue she was trained by the best: Akira Kimura. She’ll be expecting someone to spirit-walk in Mack’s mind, to try to help him, and she may have planted different things in his head that you’ll need to find your way around.”

  “Like what?”

  “It may be as simple as defensive strategies that could push you out of Mack’s thoughts before you can really see what’s happening in there,” Abuelita said. “But it could be more than that, too. Sakura might have planted magic that will automatically attack any intruder it detects.”

  Gabriella no longer needed the xocolatl to wipe the sleep way. She was wide-awake. “What would those attacks do?” Gabriella asked.

  “We really don’t know,” Abuelita admitted. She closed her eyes and sighed. “I hate that we’re putting you in so much danger.”

  Gabriella shook her head. “If I don’t do this, we’re in even bigger danger, aren’t we? Sakura is seriously evil.”

  “She is,” Abuelita said, “but good outstrips evil every time—at least in the long run. And your tía and I are going to make sure you’re ready for whatever comes.”

  Gabriella took a last sip of her xocolatl and put down the cup. “Let’s get started.”

  Together, they headed into the guest room where Abuelita was staying during her monthlong visit. A minute later, Tía Rosa knocked on the door.

  “Are you ready to tiptoe through my thoughts and dreams?” Tía Rosa asked with a smile.

  “Wait . . . I’m practicing on you?” Gabriella asked.

  “I’ll try to think good thoughts,” her aunt joked, “but you’re going to have to work for them.”

  “Think about what you’re going to give me for my birthday,” Gabriella joked. “That way I can get a sneak peek.”

  Tía Rosa was about to respond when Abuelita clapped her hands. “Come, let’s get serious,” she said. “There’s no time to lose. You’ll enter Rosa’s mind, and she’ll put up defenses for you to try to work around. She will even attack you.”

  Gabriella got serious too. “Really?”

  I know Tía Rosa won’t hurt me, but there’s so much that could go wrong, she thought.

  “I’ll be at your side, helping,” her grandmother said. “We’ll do it together. Are you ready?”

  “Ready,” Gabriella answered.

  Both she and her grandmother began to meditate. Soon, Gabriella could feel the two of them breathing in unison. Then her grandmother took Gabriella’s hand. They left their bodies and willed themselves into Tía Rosa’s mind. Gabriella glanced back at her body, still breathing in unison with her grandmother’s. I will never get used to seeing that, she thought before she fell into her aunt’s thoughts.

  She saw her aunt letting herself into the house that morning.

  It’s not as strange as it was when I stepped into Darren’s mind, Gabriella thought. It’s becoming more natural to me. Oh no—

  Before she had even finished the thought, Gabriella was pushed out of her aunt’s mind.

  “Try not to stay so rooted in your own thoughts,” Abuelita said after they both came out of their meditative states. “You want to know what Tía Rosa is thinking and feeling.”

  “Okay,” Gabriella said with a nod. “Let’s try again.”

  She and Abuelita started to breathe together once more, and—faster this time—they willed themselves into Tía Rosa’s mind. For a moment, Gabriella felt fuzzy, as if she were asleep and about to enter her own dream. Then her grandmother broke through the mist.

  “Stay with me, Gabriella,” she said.

  “I’m here,” Gabriella answered. She could see that both she and her grandmother had taken their nahual forms.

  The mist swirled, and they were again in Tía Rosa’s mind. This time Gabriella saw flashes of images—Tía Rosa driving along the coast from New Brighton to Willow Cove, pulling into the driveway, and opening the front door. Then Abuelita got her attention again. As Gabriella watched, her grandmother transformed from a nahual into a fluffy kitten and then into her human form.

  “You can hide your appearance,” Abuelita explained. “You don’t always have to take your jaguar form. That way you can hide in your target’s mind.”

  “Hide?” Gabriella asked.

  “If you seem like you’re simply a part of a memory, or a dream, it’ll be easier for you to slip by a person’s mental defenses. Someone who would put up a fight against a jaguar, for instance, wouldn’t worry about a kitten or someone they k
now well.”

  Before Gabriella had a chance to try to transform, Tía Rosa’s mind had moved on to a family barbecue just before school started last summer. She didn’t notice Abuelita, who had taken her human form and fit nicely into the scene. Rosa was putting paper plates, napkins, and utensils on a picnic table. But she saw Gabriella in her jaguar form and used a mind defense technique to push her niece out of the memory.

  Gabriella tried to push back, to stay in her aunt’s mind, but the effort woke her up from the meditation. She was back in her house, blinking at the sunlight coming through the window.

  Tía Rosa smiled at her. “Now you know why it takes most of us years to master spirit-walking,” she said. “But that was a good effort. You tried to push back, which is exactly what you are supposed to do. If you were in your human form, I might not have noticed you at all.”

  “Let’s try again,” Abuelita said. “It’s natural for you to take your nahual form when you spirit-walk, but try to transform the minute we enter Rosa’s mind.”

  “Is it different from transforming when I’m in my actual body?” Gabriella asked.

  “It’s just like transforming when you’re not spirit-walking. You think about it, and then it happens. At first it’s difficult—it takes concentration and determination—but it soon begins to feel like it usually does,” her grandmother answered.

  “Okay,” Gabriella said. “I’ll try.”

  Once again she and her grandmother entered their meditative states. Then they willed themselves into Tía Rosa’s mind.

  This time Gabriella found herself in what looked more like a dream than a memory. Her aunt was running down the street dressed like the Emerald Wildcat. Shortly after Gabriella learned she was a Changer, she had stumbled across her aunt’s crime-fighting mask in the attic. Dressed in black and wearing an emerald-green mask, her aunt had used her nahual powers to fight crime and bring justice, just like a real superhero! Gabriella had discovered that many of her own nahual powers, like her aunt’s, were available to her in her human form—especially on the soccer field.

  Still in her nahual form, Gabriella kept to the edges of the memory. She watched her aunt chase down a purse thief. The memory was so exciting that Gabriella forgot to try to transform her appearance until she saw Abuelita, in her human form, standing on the sidelines and cheering with the onlookers.

  Gabriella concentrated hard, willing a change into her human self. The next thing she knew she had transformed into the Jade Jaguar, the sidekick she had dreamed up for the Emerald Wildcat in a homemade comic book.

  “Nice threads, mija,” her aunt said as they left the street and scaled a building.

  “Thanks!” Gabriella leaped across rooftops on her aunt’s heels, still in pursuit of the purse thief.

  The thief reached the edge of a rooftop. The distance between that and the next one was too far for him to jump, not without falling to the street below. He turned on them, ready to fight.

  Gabriella had to focus again and bring her nahual powers to battle the thief, but this dream—just like a real one—took strange twists and turns. The purse thief morphed into Abuelita. Now Gabriella’s grandmother was trying to push her out of the dream.

  This time, Gabriella pushed back. Nobody messes with the Jade Jaguar. Mack taught me everything I know about superheroes. He showed me how to create a hero who’s strong and daring, unbeatable in a fight. And now I’m going to be the hero who saves him.

  “Well done, mija,” her grandmother said. Then she signaled that it was time to leave Tía Rosa’s mind.

  Gabriella had almost forgotten that she was really in the guest room. “You talked to me when I was running with you,” she said to her aunt. “Did you know it was me? Or did you think it was part of your daydream?”

  “I knew it was you and not a memory, but only because I knew to look for you,” Tía Rosa answered. “You were so convincing that in a normal dream, I would have thought you were just another dream element. Abuelita was right. Well done, mija.”

  Gabriella felt exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. Transforming inside her aunt’s mind was harder than she thought it would be, and standing her ground against that last push took every bit of energy she had.

  “That push is part of an ancient set of skills known to spirit warriors,” Abuelita explained. “Some of us have mastered fighting skills using only our spiritual energy. You’ll learn to draw on your feelings—your love for your friends, for example—to fight. Just let the power of the emotion surge through you. It will give you a strength you didn’t know you had.”

  “I was thinking of the comic I created with Mack’s help when you tried to push me out of Tía Rosa’s mind. And then I thought about how I was doing this to help him,” Gabriella explained.

  “Remember that feeling,” Abuelita said. “You were strong and determined. That will see you through.”

  “As a spirit warrior your nahual powers can be multiplied as long as your spirit remains strong and unbroken,” Tía Rosa said. “That’s the strength that will allow you to save your friend. To battle against whatever evil Sakura has planted in his mind.”

  “Don’t ever doubt the good and true emotions, like love and friendship, that are driving your spirit,” her grandmother added. “Doubts will cause your power to crumble, and then you won’t be able to help anyone, not even yourself.”

  Gabriella nodded. She was feeling stronger than ever. Looking down at her hands, she felt a rush of reassurance in spite of the dangers. I am a spirit warrior like my grandmother and aunt before me, Gabriella thought. And I’m going to save my friend.

  Chapter 10

  Una

  On Monday afternoon, Fiona ran down the hall to Changer class. Mack, Darren, and Gabriella were already training when she arrived. Mack was aiming fireballs at a moving target while Darren practiced creating stronger and stronger force fields. Gabriella moved through an agility course, slipping through it on quiet paws, twisting and turning to avoid obstacles that leaped out of nowhere.

  “Sorry, Ms. Therian,” Fiona called, giving everyone a small wave. “I got held up.”

  Ms. Therian walked over to Fiona and said, “What did you and your mother work on over the weekend?”

  “The tide song again,” Fiona told her. “I think I’ve got it down now. At first I couldn’t control the size of the waves, but now I know how to modulate my voice so that I can make the waves big or small or even gigantic—whatever I might need.”

  “Very good,” Ms. Therian said. “Work on that some more in the pool today.”

  Fiona was a little disappointed—she could only sing selkie songs in her human form. While she was grateful to have finally learned a few (they were, after all, her only defense against land-based attacks), she loved every minute in her selkie form and would have gladly just swam in the pool for the entire period.

  “I need to step out for a minute,” Ms. Therian told them. “Keep on with what you’re doing. You all look great.”

  Fiona turned back to the pool. She had to concentrate harder and sing for a longer period of time than she did in the ocean before her waves began to form. Selkie songs relied on the natural ebb and flow of the ocean waves and the tides. A pool doesn’t naturally have tides or waves, so she had to work harder to achieve results. And those results weren’t nearly as spectacular.

  Because the pool was a lot smaller than the ocean, before Fiona realized it, her waves were bigger than she expected. The next thing she knew, one had burst free from the pool and came crashing down on Mack and his fire bow.

  Mack transformed from a drenched kitsune to a drenched boy in the blink of an eye. Steam rose from his feet and hands where there had been fire a moment before.

  Fiona laughed playfully. “Sorry, I—”

  Mack turned to her, his face pinched and angry. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry. It was a mistake,” she said. “This is only my second time singing the tide song in th
e pool. It’s so different from in the ocean. I didn’t mean—”

  “ ‘I didn’t mean,’ ” Mack imitated in a high-pitched girlie voice. “Get some control.”

  “Dude, it was an honest mistake,” Darren said, walking over.

  “Yeah, she didn’t mean it,” Gabriella added.

  “Oh great; now you’re all ganging up on me,” Mack said. “And when you’re not ganging up on me, you’re leaving me out.”

  Fiona tried to explain again. “Mack, that’s not—”

  “Cut it, Fiona, I don’t care what you have to say.” Mack stepped back and surveyed the three of them. “I am so sick of being your punching bag.” He stomped over to the bleachers and grabbed his backpack. “Things are going to change, and soon. I hope you’re ready.” Then he threw the backpack over his shoulder and stormed out of the gym, passing Ms. Therian on the way.

  “Mack, what happened?” she asked.

  “Ask them,” he snapped.

  Fiona watched the doors swing shut behind him. “I don’t know why he got so angry,” she said. “I got him wet by accident, and he was furious.”

  “We tried to calm him down,” Darren added, “but that just made everything worse. He accused us of ganging up on him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fiona said, blinking back tears. “It really was an accident.”

  “It’s not your fault, Fiona,” Ms. Therian said. “Mack’s on edge right now. If it wasn’t your wave, something else would have set him off. You can’t blame yourself.”

  The bell rang to signal the end of the school day.

  “Go on and catch your buses,” Ms. Therian said. “I’ll let Mack’s grandfather know what happened. We can talk about it tomorrow after he’s calmed down.”

  Fiona didn’t want to leave things until tomorrow. She hated to think that Mack believed she got him wet on purpose. And his idea that they were all using him as a punching bag was even worse.

  Does he really believe that? Or was he just yelling to let off steam?