Which works well for us, since we’re planning to make as much of a spectacle as we can manage.
Hail has roped in a couple of his former fangirls… Well, I suppose they’restillfangirls from the glances they keep shooting at him through their eyelashes. But when they turned up, he made a point of sauntering over to me and slinging his arm around my waist. The two he picked aren’t so hostile they’ve bothered to glare at me. They’ve just preened harder.
And then, of course, there’s Falkor the snake-puppy, who’s squirming along the ground around my feet in his weird mix of bounding and slithering. With the way his tongue is flopping with his eager panting, he might be the most excited out of all of us.
It feels a little strange having everyone’s attention on me. Jonah is the only one here who’s had any real authority over us, even if Rollick stripped him of his title as teacher, and Raze is definitely the most intimidating, even if he’s a sweetie under his hulking exterior.
But this is my plan. I insisted that we need to take action. My men have let me take the lead and handle things my way.
That’s how much they trust me.
Everyone here is trusting me right now.
I take a deep breath, resolving that I’m not going to let them down in that trust, and clap my hands. “Let’s get to it, then! You know where the cameras are. Take your positions and wait for my signal.”
Fen grins, one of Hail’s fangirls primps her hair, and our allies vanish into the shadows.
Mirage sidles closer to me and ruffles my hair. “Areyouready, Rainbow?”
I square my shoulders. “Absolutely. We’re going to make history!”
Hopefully the good kind that people celebrate with holidays in the future, not the kind where they set up horrifying museums to warn people to never do it again.
“I’ll set everything in motion,” Jonah says. His expression is tense, I think because he has the most trouble going against Rollick, but he’s giving this mission his all anyway. “Once the cameras are recording, you need to show up as quickly as possible.”
“When it’s time to play, we won’t delay!” Mirage declares, the rhyme sounding more joyful than he has all week.
Raze gives a grunt of agreement, Hail rolls his shoulders, and the four of us shadowkind slip into the nearby patches of darkness as well.
We all ripple and leap around the edges of the camp to the area where several news vans have set up shop. It’s like a food truck alley, except they’re serving a lot of talk instead of delicious eats.
A few of the vans have no activity around them, their inhabitants either gone off to interview more survivors of the odd disaster or holed up inside poking buttons, staring at screens, and whatever else humans do when deciding what images to project to everyone’s TVs.
In a few minutes, if this works, most of them will be projecting images of us.
Reporters and camera crews hang around outside the other vans, chatting and drinking coffee, which as far as I’ve observed is their main source of fuel. And also decoration, based on the various disposable cups scattered around the vans.
Jonah strides into the middle of the area, picking a span of the patchy grass where he’s in clear view of all the vans. A few of the news workers glance over at him, but most continue theirconversations. I guess he doesn’t look all that different from the hundreds of refugees still milling around the temporary camp.
Then he clears his throat and starts speaking. “Who here wants a real story? I bet you’ve heard some unusual things from the people you’ve interviewed. I’m about to prove that the tall tales are all real, so you’d better get those cameras rolling!”
That sends all the humans into a flurry, whirling toward him. Several snatch up their cameras; the reporters scramble for their microphones and headsets.
Questions fly through the air toward Jonah, but he simply takes a step back. The moment I can see that most of the cameras are on, I leap out of the shadows.
“Hi, humans!” I grin and wave. “We’ve got a bit of a mess on our hands here with shadow floods and rampaging creatures. But I’m glad to tell you that lots of beings who live in the shadows want to help you, not hurt you. We’re not gangsters or aliens, just people with some unusual powers who came from a realm next to yours to enjoy all the wonderful things here. I care so much about seeing everyone happy that it makes me literally glow!”
I focus on all the fondness I feel for the bewildered humans in front of me, all my hopes that they’ll come out of this mess all right. A familiar turquoise light streams from my palms and flickers in my hair.
I gesture to my right the way I’ve seen presenters do on game shows. “We call ourselves ‘shadowkind,’ not ‘monsters.’ Some of us do look scary, but we’ll only put that might to protecting you. And we can do that in more than one form.”
Raze emerges from the shadows next, in his human-esque appearance, which is plenty imposing all on its own. He flexes his sinewy muscles before the cameras, his jaw clenching with his nerves, and then shifts abruptly into basilisk form.
One of the reporters shrieks at the sudden sight of a gigantic lizard in their midst. “What the fuck?” someone else mutters.
We can’t risk losing momentum. I step to Raze’s side and wrap my arms around his reptilian neck, still shining with my loving glow. “Look, he’s nothing to be afraid of. He changes so he can take care of all of us better when the actual threats come charging in.”
Raze gamely nuzzles my cheek with a flick of his forked tongue.
