“Who is he going to tell?”
“Everyone.”
Johan strode ahead and began making a noise that reminded her of the koel bird exhibit in the zoo.
Phoenix murmured, “What was that about?”
She quickly summarized what Johan revealed, and Phoenix went silent for a moment before saying, “So my being injured is one of the methods of shifting.”
Nadirah nodded. “And it must be somewhat common since we saw it with Zafira by the ruin.”
“Johan got shot but didn’t seem affected,” he mused aloud. “He knows how to control it.”
“He also mentioned fasting and meditation. Might be something to try.”
“Let’s hope I get a chance. I think we’ve arrived at our final destination, and we’re not alone.”
At first, she didn’t understand his statement, because, while they’d entered a clearing—wide and grass-covered, with the gnarliest trees circling it—she saw no one but their two guides. That quickly changed as the boughs of the trees circling the open area filled with striped bodies, more tigers than she’d ever seen in one place. It led to her shuffling so close he practically could count her as clothing.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I don’t sense any menace, just curiosity.”
Johan stood in the middle of the clearing, waiting as the ambush of tigers gathered. Only then did he launch into a speech, which Nadirah translated for Phoenix.
“I put out a call for you to gather here today for a few reasons. The first being we’ve recovered the sacred stone from the lost temple.” He held up the carved tablet, and the gathered tigers uttered a chuffing sound that must have been their version of applause.
“We shall secure this most sacred of writings that it not fall into the hands of those who would hunt and abuse us.”
More of the approving noise erupted.
“Now on to some strange business.” Johan paused. “You have obviously noticed the two strangers I brought with me.”
A few low growls showed some weren’t too happy about that decision.
“I took every precaution before bringing them but felt it necessary because of this man’s story.” Johan turned to eye Phoenix. “He claims to be harimau.”
A few sharp yips seemed to argue that fact.
“I’m aware his scent is not like ours, yet there’s no denying he carries the blood. But it’s how he became harimau that is concerning.” He glanced at Nadirah. “The ambush will now hear the tale of his creation. If you could please translate.”
She nodded before murmuring, “They want to know how you became harimau.”
Phoenix launched into his story in great detail, starting with how he’d been taken captive by his own military and injected with an unknown solution, but when he got to the part where the general shot him to induce the shift, several of the tigers chattered.
Johan frowned. “None of the experimental harimau can shift without injury?”
It took Phoenix a second to answer since she had to translate Johan’s question first and then reply with his answer.
“A few can, but in most cases, only severe injury causes them to morph into an animal. The majority of them seemed to turn into wolves. Phoenix says there was one other tiger in the group and a bear, plus some other creatures that didn’t seem to thrive.”
“Wait, they don’t all turn into tigers?” Johan’s brows raised, and at his exclamation, the felines perched in the trees shuffled restlessly.
Nadirah translated for Phoenix, and when he replied, relayed the answer. “It would seem everyone has the potential for adifferent animal within, and this serum the Canadian military developed is able to bring it out.”
“Tell more,” Johan ordered.
Phoenix launched into how he and his friends spent months being tested like lab rats, their eventual escape, and finally, his quest for answers that led him to Malaysia. Then, without prompting, he also orated everything that had happened since his arrival. The only thing he left out? His aversion to blood when a tiger.
By the end of Phoenix’s story, a few of the tigers in the trees had chosen to hit the ground and transform with an ease that had Phoenix exhaling, “Damn, they make it look so simple.”
