High Voltage (Fever #10)(107)

Throw.

“Huh? How, where?”

I’ll correct its course. Just throw it.

I did, launching it into space, then Y’rill spun midair, batted it with her tail and sent it rocketing off at such speed that it vanished from sight as if it had entered a black hole.

It is done. He has received your message.

I understood a bit about travel in space and said, dryly, “When? Five million years in the future?”

I adjusted it so that he would receive it at the proper time.

“You can manipulate time?” I was awed.

She nodded.

“I can do that, too?” I practically shouted.

Thank the stars, NO! You must grow into your Hunter powers. It takes a very, very long time.

“Do I have any Hunter powers right now?” It may have come out sounding a bit peevish, but seriously, I was a dragon. I wanted some juice.



Y’rill chuffed. There’s my Yi-yi. A few. But when you become human again, no.

“You mean except for the lightning.” I liked my lightning bolts. I wondered if I’d be able to use them now without turning black.

Not the lightning. That is part of the birthing process. You will be as you were before you changed.



Sucky, still, “But I’m immortal now, aren’t I?” I said, and if I’d been human, I’d have been bouncing in hyperspeed from foot to foot.

You can be killed in your human form until you’ve spent enough time as a Hunter that you complete the full transition. You must be careful when human, Yi-yi.

“For how long?”

You would consider it a very long time. Now come, let me show you your new home.

My new home. All the worlds were my oyster, half my life. The world I loved was mine for the other half. I turned my head from side to side, drinking it all in; the velvety, exquisite, enormous expanse of space and, one day, the mysteries even of time. Beyond that, if I chose to die, I could become as a planet.

This was, I decided, bemused and stunned, the greatest superhero gig of all.

I was a Hunter.

Like the caterpillar, compelled beyond reason to spin itself into a cocoon, I’d grieved the transformation, believing I was losing my life. Deep down, in a place I never let myself feel, I’d actually been…afraid. I’d mourned. Only to discover wonders I’d never dreamed possible. Become an entirely new thing.



I might fly Ryodan up into a starry night sky. Soar overhead while his beast hunted. A dragon and a beast, roaming the Earth together. God, the things we could do now!

It was a future I couldn’t wait to explore.

“How many months?” I demanded.

For what?

“To shift.”

I said years.

I said smugly, “Right, how many months? Come on, Shazzy-bear, break another rule for me.”

Y’rill sighed. You’re going to be a handful.



I grinned. “As if you weren’t. I get to be the kid now. Teach me how to fly like you do. Teach me how to sift. C’mon, Y’rill, show me everything!”

With pleasure.

When Y’rill turned with a sharp, beautiful dark swoop of her powerful Hunter body, curving the merest tip of a wing, I imitated the motion and, together, we glided off into the starlit sky.





There’s nothing left to do tonight but go crazy on you





FOUR MONTHS LATER


I LOPE UP THE FRONT stairs of Chester’s, marveling at the sensation of having a woman’s body again, and at just how much Ryodan accomplished while I was gone.

Chester’s-above is a stunning, modern six-story building of pale limestone and vast expanses of glass. The wide, curved staircase leads to ornate steel doors, heavily etched with wards, as is everything of that man’s; he likes to protect his property. As I push one open and step inside, I smile.



The domed foyer has sleek black marble floors, simple white and chrome furnishings, windows all around, and faceted skylights casting rainbows on the floor. I can feel the bass from here, rising up from the many subclubs below.

I’m a woman again. It’s strange and exhilarating but I have to admit, being a Hunter, flying among the stars for the past few months was beyond my wildest dreams. Y’rill and I played with the abandon we’d shared Silverside, with one difference—no predators, no enemies, just adventures. I’d visited worlds beyond describing, drifted inside nebulae, played hide and seek in meteor fields, watched stars go supernova, slingshot around moons, played in the gaseous rings of planets, my Hunter body impervious to harm. I’d barely scratched the surface of discovering what it was to be a Hunter; Y’rill was downright mysterious about many things and full of annoying, “patience, grasshopper” sayings. According to her, I would learn when it was time and no sooner. Still, I had a fair idea my potential was virtually limitless, one day in the future.

Unlike Shazam, who lived to break rules at every opportunity, Y’rill preferred to adhere to them. It had taken me weeks to convince her to help me transition back into my human form before I’d learned to do it myself, then another four months to get her to actually do it.

She’d then warned me that I had a single week in human form before she came to reclaim me.

I thought it was half and half, I’d protested.