Simon continued climbing. Twice he nearly lost his grip and plummeted, but he held on, his entire body straining.
At last he reached the edge of the atrium. The branches at this height were too thin to hold his weight much longer, and he looked around. The wind whistled through the open panel only a few feet away, and Simon took a deep breath. Now or never.
He pushed off from the tree and leaped toward the opening. The weak branch snapped below his feet and tumbled to the ground, and for one horrible moment Simon was sure he would fall, too. In the atrium below, he heard a chorus of shouts, but there was nothing anyone could do. He was on his own. He slammed into the wall, only just catching the edge of the window. The glass cut his palms, but using all his strength, he pulled himself into the open air.
Every muscle in Simon’s body trembled as he slid across the glass. The roof was flat except for the dome that surrounded the highest branches, but as he moved closer to the edge, he noticed there was no railing. Only the wind stood between him and a forty-story fall.
The skyline spun around him, and he walked unsteadily toward the edge. All he had to do was drop the Predator. There was no way it would survive intact, and no one would be able to use it ever again.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, my boy.”
Orion appeared on the roof, once again in human form. His sleeve was ragged and his arm bled from where Simon had ripped out his feathers, but he didn’t seem to care. With his hand outstretched, he inched toward Simon, his good eye turned toward him.
“Think about what you’re doing. If you destroy it, I will have no way of protecting you against the Alpha and the other kingdoms. As soon as they discover that the Beast King’s line still exists, they will kill you. Or your brother.”
“And so will you,” said Simon, his voice shaking.
Orion shuffled closer. “If that’s what you’re afraid of, then I promise the only person who must die is the Alpha. I will keep you and your brother safe. I swear on all I am that we will figure it out together. As a family.”
Simon inched toward the edge. He had nowhere to go but down. “Family doesn’t threaten to kill each other. Even if I trusted you, no one should have this kind of power. Not you, not the Alpha, no—”
A howl rang through the atrium, and he glanced at the open window. The pack was here. Simon was running out of time.
He was about to let go of the scepter when Orion charged forward. Simon tried to sidestep him, and it took every muscle in his body to stop before he stumbled over the edge. Orion shifted into an eagle before he could fall, and he snatched the weapon from Simon’s hand.
“Hey!” said Simon. Running against the icy wind, he darted into Orion’s blind spot and threw all of his weight against the golden eagle, tackling him to the roof. They skidded across the glass together, and Simon made a wild grab for the scepter.
“No!” cried Orion. His talons dug into Simon’s skin, but it was too late. Simon’s fingers closed around the scepter, and he wrenched his arm from Orion’s grasp.
Scrambling to his feet, Simon raced for the edge. Behind him, Orion screamed, but Simon was deaf to his shouts. Just a few more steps, and—
Something slammed into Simon, knocking him down. He kept his hold on the Predator, but his body went sliding across the glass, skidding closer and closer to that forty-story drop. Simon clawed at the roof, but nothing he did slowed him down. He was going to fall.
Just as the roof disappeared out from under him, someone grabbed his arm. For a split second, Simon dared to hope it was one of the wolves. Darryl, Malcolm, even Vanessa—he didn’t care, as long as he wasn’t alone.
Instead, Orion knelt on the edge of the roof, his nails digging into Simon’s wrist.
“The Predator,” he gasped. “Give it to me.”
Simon dangled off the edge, his sneakers squeaking against the glass panes as he struggled to find purchase. But there were no ledges that would hold him. If Orion let go, Simon would fall.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel anything but the biting wind, Orion clutching his arm, and the five-pointed star cutting into his palm. He made the mistake of looking down, and his head spun.
“Give it to me!” yelled Orion. “If you don’t, we will all die.”
Simon’s mind went blank, and he couldn’t move. He was dangling off the edge of a building, and he couldn’t even open his mouth to speak.
“Orion!” a voice boomed over the howling wind. Darryl. “Let him go.”
“I’m afraid you don’t want me to do that right now,” he wheezed.
“He could be your heir,” said Darryl. “If you kill him, you could kill the end of your line.”
“He is not,” said Orion with startling certainty. “Isabel knows he isn’t—she knows he is the firstborn. That is why she hid him. That is why she told no one of his existence. That is why she gave him the Beast King’s pocket watch. She knows, and now so do I.”
“And if you’re wrong?” said Darryl.
Orion coughed, and his hand began to slip. “There is no use pretending any longer. You have protected him all this time because you know he is the Beast King’s heir. As soon as he shifted, you were going to turn him over to the Alpha so she could gain his powers.”
Darryl limped into Simon’s view, and for a split second, Simon wondered why he wasn’t a wolf. But on the glass roof, his claws would only make him more vulnerable. It didn’t matter how well his uncle could fight. This far above the ground, he would lose.
“I’ve protected him because he’s my family,” said Darryl. “I don’t care what he shifts into. He’s the most important person in the world to me. And if you drop him off this roof, I will spend the rest of my life making sure yours is as painful as possible.”
“I don’t want to—kill him.” Orion clenched his teeth. His arm trembled, and Simon could feel his grip weakening. “That achieves nothing. All he has to do—is give me the scepter.”
Simon’s eyes locked onto Darryl’s. “I can’t,” he managed. “He’s going to kill me anyway, and if he’s wrong, he’ll kill Nolan, and he’ll kill Mom, and he’ll kill you. He’ll kill everyone.”
“I won’t let that happen,” said Darryl. “You’ve done everything you can, but sometimes you have to lose the battle in order to win the war. Whatever happens—you and I will fight it together, and everything will be all right. But if you drop the weapon and he lets go . . .” His voice hitched. “Please, Simon. Nothing is worth losing you.”
The knot in his chest ached, and Simon could barely breathe. At last, without taking his eyes off his uncle, he slid the scepter onto the glass roof.
“Thank you, my boy,” said Orion. “You’ve made the right decision, and now I must once again do what is best for my kingdom. I do hope you know it isn’t personal.”
And with that, he let Simon go.
24
MURDER OF CROWS
Simon opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
He was falling. The cold wind rushed around him, and the world blurred.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.
It wouldn’t matter soon enough, but Simon didn’t want it to end like this. Not without saying good-bye to his mother. Not without telling Darryl how sorry he was and how much his uncle meant to him.
The hot knot in his chest burst, and an aching cry escaped from deep within him. He could already feel his limbs twisting, shattering the way they would on impact. His insides clenched, his voice caught in his throat, and he spread his arms—
He was flying.
The wind seemed to rise beneath him, lifting him into the air. He wasn’t falling anymore. Instead he glided through the sky above Manhattan.
How? He gave his arms an experimental flap. They weren’t arms anymore though. They were wings. And his screams—they were the screeches of an eagle.
He whooped and flapped his wings again. He’d done it. He’d really shifted. He was a living, breathing eagle now, so
aring through the air at an impossible speed.
But Simon’s exhilaration was quickly dashed by blind panic. He didn’t know how to fly, and now he was careening out of control through New York. He might have saved himself from becoming nothing more than goo on concrete, but now there was nothing stopping him from running headlong into a building.
“Flap!” called a voice. “Flap!”
“What?” yelled Simon. A pigeon appeared beside him.
“Flap!” insisted the pigeon again, demonstrating with its own wings. Simon tried to mimic it, and he rose even farther into the air. “Flap!”
“I’m flapping!” he said. “How do I turn?”
“Flap!” The pigeon demonstrated, and with Simon’s keen eagle eyesight, he immediately spotted the shift in the pigeon’s feathers before it disappeared down another street. Instinctively he followed.
Soon enough Simon could navigate nearly as well as the pigeon, provided he didn’t think about it too hard. That was when he got disoriented and his human mind tried to take over. For now, he let the eagle part of his brain figure it out.
“Thanks!” he called to his new friend. “I owe you one.” At the pigeon’s confused look, he added, “Food.”
“Food?” said the pigeon immediately, and Simon laughed.
“Later,” he promised, and he soared through the air, back to Sky Tower.
Even at a distance, he could see two figures fighting on the roof in the sunlight. A wolf snarled, and an eagle hovered out of reach. Relief flooded Simon. Darryl was holding his own.
As he grew closer, however, he spotted a strange cloud swarming the building. Birds, Simon realized. Hundreds of them. And they all went straight for his uncle.
“Darryl!” he yelled, hurtling toward the roof. The wolf snapped at the birds, fighting to break free, but there were too many of them. They pecked and scratched at his face, his throat, his paws, every part of him they could reach. Darryl stumbled, and Orion shifted back into a man, clutching the scepter.
“I was planning to test the Predator on your dear mother, but I suppose this will do,” said Orion. “Give Luke and Simon my best.”
Time seemed to slow. Seconds turned into minutes. And as Simon watched in horror, Orion lunged toward the wolf, sinking the razor-sharp points of the Heart of the Predator into Darryl’s chest.
Simon screamed and dived straight toward them. In the moments before he reached the roof, the wolf curled in on himself, and Orion stared at the scepter, confused.
“Why isn’t it working?” he said. “What have you and Isabel done?”
Darryl managed a wolfish grin despite the blood that began to mat his fur. “Can’t always win, can you?”
Blinded by rage, Simon collided with Orion in a clash of feathers and talons, ripping at the old man with everything he had. In a split second, Orion shifted into an eagle, and they flew through the air, tangled together five hundred feet above the city.
“You survived,” said Orion exultantly, his talons cutting into Simon’s chest. “My heir. My prince.”
“Let Darryl go,” demanded Simon. “He never did anything to you.”
The eagle laughed. “He took you, he took my daughter, and before that, he took my eye. He was never getting out of Sky Tower alive. Besides, it’s too late. He’s practically dead already.”
Dizzy with fear, Simon tore himself away from Orion and turned back toward the roof. Nearly all the other birds were gone now. Darryl had shifted back into a human, and a pool of blood expanded beside his motionless body.
Everything went still. All Simon could see was his uncle, the man who had protected him for his entire life, who had given up his family, his pack, everything he’d loved to stay with Simon. Now he was dying, and it was all Simon’s fault.
The knot in Simon’s chest was gone now, replaced by unshakable fury. He screeched and dived back toward the golden eagle. A primal instinct seized him, the same one that had overcome him the day Bryan Barker had attacked him in the cafeteria, and only vengeance remained. Simon lashed out with his talons, slicing across Orion’s face and grazing his one good eye.
Orion screamed. Clutching Simon’s feathers, he shifted back to human form. “My eye!” he moaned. “What have you done?”
“Stop it!” cried Simon, struggling to get away. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but one moment he was an eagle, and the next his limbs twisted back into a human’s.
Orion clutched Simon’s wrist. “You fool—you have no idea—” He suddenly gasped, panicked. “The scepter—where is the scepter?”
Simon scanned the roof, but he didn’t see anything—only Darryl lying in a pool of his own blood, his chest expanding with his shallow breaths. “It isn’t here.”
Orion roared. “It must be! You have it—I know you have it, boy! Give it to me!” He tore at Simon, grabbing his shirt and stumbling closer and closer to the edge of the roof. “You don’t understand—I must be the one to control it!”
They were inches from the drop now. Simon struggled to pull them backward, but his grandfather was too heavy. “I don’t have it! I swear—”
“You’ll kill us all!” cried Orion. “Every last one of us will die because of you.”
A strong gust of wind hit them both, and Orion teetered. If he fell, he would take Simon with him. Simon might be able to fly, but if Orion kept holding on to him, blind as he was, he really would kill them both.
“Let go.” Simon tried to spin them back toward the safety of the roof, but Orion held on. As the old man lost his balance, Simon twisted against his grip, pushing with all of his might.
Orion cried out, and at last he let go. Clawing at the air, he stumbled backward off the roof and fell into the empty sky.
“Orion!” Simon lunged to the edge, reaching for him, but it was too late. Orion plummeted toward the street below.
Horrified, Simon watched as his grandfather fell. Halfway down, Orion shifted into his battered eagle form and spread his massive wings. Simon didn’t have time to be relieved though. Unable to see where he was going, Orion dived straight toward a brick building.
“Watch out!” yelled Simon, and a split second before he hit the wall, Orion pulled up and circled back to Sky Tower. Simon’s heart hammered as the eagle flew at him, his talons outstretched.
No time to get away. He threw his arms protectively in front of his face and ducked. At the last second, Orion soared past him, close enough for Simon to see that his injured eye was open once more.
With a scream, Orion arched downward, and Simon thought he was going to crash into the roof. Instead, his talons caught something that glinted in the sunlight. The scepter. He had found the scepter.
“No!” shouted Simon, but the eagle disappeared into the bright blue sky. He squinted into the sun, but it was too late. Orion was gone.
A wet cough caught his attention. Simon crawled toward his uncle, his chest tight. “Darryl?” he said, hovering over him.
“Simon.” His uncle’s voice was little more than a whisper, and Simon had to lean in. “You’re alive.”
“We need to get you to a hospital,” he said. “They can help you—”
“Too late for that.” Darryl managed a small smile. “I have something for you.”
He uncurled his hand. The pocket watch was nestled in his palm, slick with Darryl’s blood. Simon took it with shaking fingers, his eyes watering.
“Simon, I need you to listen to me,” said his uncle hoarsely. “Whatever happens, you can’t go after Orion.”
“But—he has the Predator,” said Simon, pocketing the watch and pressing his hands against his uncle’s chest to stop the bleeding. Even through his blurred vision, he could see that Darryl was right. It was too late. No one could lose this much blood and survive.
“Your mother—she didn’t steal the pieces. She and the rulers of the other kingdoms created copies. No one was supposed to know—not until you and Nolan were safe—but the Alpha never had the real ones.”
Darryl s
aid this with a note of triumph, but to Simon, it only meant that his uncle was dying for nothing. A wave of guilt and grief crashed into him, and for a moment, Simon couldn’t breathe. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. “I should have stayed with you. I should’ve met you at the ferry. I should never have gone to the zoo. I should’ve waited—”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Darryl touched Simon’s cheek with his cold hand. “You did it to save your mother. I would have done the exact same thing if it meant saving you.” He coughed again, and blood splattered the glass roof. “Promise me that whatever happens, you’ll get as far away from Orion and the Alpha as you can. Your mother—your mother and Malcolm will protect you. That’s all I want, kid. To know you’ll be okay.”
A sob bubbled up in Simon’s throat, and he struggled to speak around it. “Only—only if you swear you won’t leave me.”
Darryl smiled weakly. “It’s okay, Simon. I’m ready. Just promise me you’ll stay safe.”
Simon pressed harder against the blood pouring from his uncle’s chest. “I—I promise. But—please, you can’t—you can’t die. I need you.”
“This is how it’s supposed to be.” Darryl’s hand settled over Simon’s. “I couldn’t save your father. Let me die protecting you.”
“Please,” choked Simon. “You’re my family.”
“And I always will be. I had my time with you, and they were the best years of my life. It’s your mother’s turn now.”
Behind him, Simon heard the click of claws against glass, and a wolf appeared at his side. Malcolm.
“Brother?” said the wolf in disbelief. He set his paw against Darryl’s chest as well, but nothing either of them did could stop the flow of blood.
“I’m sorry for leaving you,” said Darryl. His gruff voice was fading. “You—deserved better.”
“Impossible. No better brother exists.”
Darryl touched his paw. “Take care of him, Malcolm. He’s your charge now. Heir or not—he’s our family.”
“Of course.” Malcolm lowered his head, and with effort, Darryl refocused on Simon.