We need to get help, said Jax. Jake will know what to do. Let's go.
It was mostly Jax beating our wings and sweeping us around in a turn. I felt distant, numb. The sight of Ax's and Tobias' blood dripping from the stump of a hand, the ruin of an eye, played on endless repeat behind my eyes. I realized I didn't know how far thought-speak range extended, so I just started shouting at the Animorphs, not knowing when they'd start to hear me. «Help! I need help! Ax and Tobias are captured! The Yeerks have them!»
I got an answer from Jake sooner than I'd dared to hope: «...Coming – hang on.»
They're slower than us, Jax thought despairingly, taking stock of our surroundings. They've got terrain to cover, and they have to make sure they're not seen until they're ready to attack – what if they get there too late?
What are you saying? That we should go in without them? By ourselves? Go in and kill everyone who's laid hands on our family? And as I said it, the images blazed into my mind: the power of the bison, charging in, tossing Controllers left and right until they got away from my boys. But if I wanted to kill them, if I wanted to fight, what did that say about me?
We don't have to, Jax said. We can wait. But...
We were flying back toward the facility. How hadn't I noticed that rush of wind, the burn of wing muscle, the lights flashing in my face? Did I even want to go back? I wasn't sure. As the desert landscape, scarred by Dracon fire, fell under the pall of brightening sunlight, I saw no more sign of Toby and her people – only the bodies of those they'd left behind. I took a moment to look for armbands. About as many of the fallen didn't have them as did. But they'd taken away a lot of their unconscious brethren, thrown over their shoulders in a fireman's carry.
I have no right to kill these people, I thought desperately. The ones in armbands are no different from the others. They're all just dead.
Jax called to mind Toby's people, how they'd caressed the captured Controllers like long-lost siblings, like Meret and Elgat in Toby's story. They looked across the battlefield and saw family. But they didn't hesitate to fight, for the sake of the family they might save. The Yeerks are enslaving these people, these good and loving people. And now they have Ax and Tobias. These are children of our Lord, Loren, and that makes the Yeerks the Pharaoh. God gave Moses the power to bring the Red Sea down on them. God gave us the power to do the same. Moses was afraid of the power God gave him, but he used it to free his people!
"They have the hruthin!" I heard a Controller say, baring a beakful of teeth. "They're bringing them to the Yeerk pool. I wonder who'll get them as hosts? Ghafrash, we're getting at least two new Vissers today."
I wonder if Moses hated himself, after, I thought numbly. He was raised by Egyptians, after all. The Bible doesn't say. I landed in some thick brush near the door of the facility where Ax and Tobias had been carried, and demorphed, thoughts of baptizing Tobias in the woods bringing my body more clearly into focus than I'd ever been able to before. Only one of us, Jax. We can't just go charging in.
Fly morph, he said. Catch a ride on a Hork-Bajir going in. The fly morph had a good sense of smell, remember? Hopefully it'll be able to sniff out the Yeerk pool.
Then find someplace to demorph where we won't be caught? This is beyond dangerous, I thought.
Not as much danger as they're in, and that thought from Jax spurred me onward. For the moment I still had him, I clutched Jax's fur hard enough to hurt, morphed away the last of my owl feathers, then focused on the bizarre, fragmented world of the fly.
The few moments I spent mostly human overwhelmed my senses: the crackle and smoke of burning brush, the metallic stink of what could only be Hork-Bajir blood, rough calls in language I could only partly understand. It made me eager to escape into fly morph, as strange as the experience had been. Not to mention I was nearly paralyzed with the fear of someone noticing me, even with the cover of bristly leaves. The cover felt more secure now that I was shrinking.
We'll get them, Jax chanted, a mantra that kept me focused. Or at least, we'll hold off the Yeerks long enough for the others to come and get them. We'll do it. They won't get our boys. My vise-tight grip on him loosened as my hand became a chitinous fly leg, then he disappeared altogether.
The fly smelled the dead bodies of the Hork-Bajir, and began to spiral toward them, intrigued. I would have retched if I could. As it was, I wrenched the fly's focus from the dead to the living. As best I could make out, the Hork-Bajir to my right were headed for the door, so if I could just grab on – there! My fly legs grasped the upper curve of a knee blade. The quality of the air changed, the flow of air smaller and more contained. We were in.
How are we supposed to find it? Jax groaned. This place is huge to a fly.
Just wait for a whiff of... something. Like when you smelled something alien at Cassie's place.
The Hork-Bajir smell alien, Jax pointed out.
Yeah. But we can smell that right now. This will be a different kind of alien.
There were at least ten different smells, though, that unnerved the fly's brain at the moment. Even Jax, who was accustomed to using smells as input, couldn't make much sense of it. Then we heard, distantly, but coming distinctly from our right, " – infest the Andalites with – " followed by a whiff of a strange, rich, oily smell we hadn't sensed before.
There was a corridor stretching off to the right, but the Hork-Bajir we were riding on was going straight ahead. Time to bail. I buzzed off the Hork-Bajir's knee blade. I heard the Controller snarl something to its companion, who said, "Khal ethret hruthin," and swiped at me with a clawed hand.
If not for the fly's mind, I'd have been squashed to pulp. It lurched sideways and down, then in a crazy pattern that made my head swim. They think we're an Andalite! We need to hide before they swat us! I took off down the right-running corridor and felt for the change in air current that meant a door or branching corridor. I could hear the Controllers lumbering behind me, talking indistinctly to each other.
There, said Jax, feeling a change in air movement. There was a black chasm to our left, delving into the wall – a doorframe. It was more than wide enough for us to slip through. We heard the Controllers swear and turn around. Jax thought, Is there room to demorph? To morph bison?
Let's find out, I thought. I got a sense of space from the airflow in the dark room. Supply closet? I hoped so. Even if it was too small for the bison, I would make it bigger. Jax thought of how my face would look in a couple of minutes, clammy with fear, but with teeth bared. I imagined Jax crouched a little, as if to charge, hooves planted wide apart. The darkness lost its feeling of an empty cathedral and become as close as any other room. I lost the oily smell of the Yeerk pool as my sense of smell went dull, only to get it back when Jax reappeared. He pressed his nose to the crack of the door, confirming the direction of the Yeerk pool. Yes, we would find it, when it was time.
I found myself breathing hard as soon as I had lungs. I didn't know morphing could be so tiring, I thought. It takes so much focus. I felt like sagging against the door for support. What if I just wait for the others to come? That would be safer. I wouldn't have to do this alone. I wouldn't have to impale a Hork-Bajir on my horn and hear it scream –
From the direction of the Yeerk pool smell, I heard faint snatches of Ax's thought-voice. «Never – you foul – take me alive!»
Jax pressed himself to my shin. You know how Elfangor was. Tobias will hold out hope, but Ax will kill himself before they infest him, if they give him even a fraction of a chance.
No, I cried. I felt so weak, so powerless. I needed to call down the Red Sea, but it wasn't inside me. I needed to be strong.
I need to be the bison, Jax thought, and let her strength fill the spotlight of his mind.
My shoulders exploded outward from my body so fast that I needed to lean against the wall to keep from falling over, top-heavy. Then my legs became huge with muscle too. My spine crunched and twisted itself into a new shape. My skin itched as thick fur sprouted from it. The closet was starting to feel very small, very fast. Get ready, I thought. We're about to lose the element of surprise.
The horns grew from my skull and burst out of my skin, curving upward. Jax was gone, joining me behind the bison's eyes, the bison's nose that could smell the Yeerk pool and did not like it at all. She was afraid. She wanted to go outside. She shoved at a wall of her prison, experimentally, and was pleased when it collapsed easily against the pressure. She stomped out of the prison, but she was still not free. Trapped! Where was the outside?
No outside, murmured a masculine voice, one she trusted, for some reason. The herd is in danger. There are predators down that way who have your son.
I tossed my head and stamped. No one took my children and survived! I gathered my muscles, then stampeded to where the predators had my herd surrounded. The entrance was too narrow for me, I noticed distantly as I hurtled toward it. CRUNCH. Not anymore.
I couldn't see very well, but that had never been enough to stop me. Ax was demorphed, pinned to the ground, fighting off Controllers trying to put shackles on his tail. Tobias was still in morph, unconscious, two Controllers bringing his head toward the roiling leaden surface of the Yeerk pool. «Get off him, you filth!» Ax was screaming.
The bison's anger was my anger. I couldn't draw any border between them. We were two thousand pounds of motherly rage, and we were coming for our son. I was barreling straight toward Tobias, throwing off the Hork-Bajir cutting at me as I went as if they were biting gnats. Tobias' captors saw me coming and turned themselves and Tobias out of the way. Crunch went the side of the Yeerk pool against my massive weight, and the dark liquid flooded over the broken wall. I slipped on the suddenly-slick floor and nearly lost my footing. I heard the Controllers holding Tobias groan in dismay.
«Loren?» cried Ax.
«Help me get Tobias out of here!» I shouted, but Ax could hardly help himself at the moment, let alone his nephew. Some of his attackers had been distracted, though, and were turning toward me. I had given him that much.
I felt a blade bite into my back leg. Instinctively, I kicked backward with that hoof. There was the snap of bone, and a Hork-Bajir cried out in pain. I wondered if it was one of Tobias' captors, but I couldn't turn to see, because three of the Controllers who had been after Ax were now charging toward my front.
Well, my horns were scarier than their blades. I charged right back toward them, trusting Ax to get out of the way.
I felt heavy impact in my skull, but the bones there were so thick it didn't hurt. Blades dug toward my neck, but the fur was so heavy there that they barely nicked my skin. I was a tank. The Hork-Bajir couldn't stop me! I heard screams, and felt something wet trickle down from my horns into my face.
The wall was coming up. Too late to stop now. I crushed a Hork-Bajir's arm between my leading shoulder and the wall. Two more Hork-Bajir were coming for me. No time to turn around. Jax knew what to do, after training at Mike's Dæmon Defense for years as an animal with hooves. He leaned against the wall, shifted his weight to his front hooves, and kicked backward, hard, with both legs. The Controllers went flying backward. I slipped on the wet floor a little and nearly lost my balance. It was an effort to turn around without falling, and by the time I did, there was a blade slashing at my face. A line of bright pain scored across my nose. «Aaaahhh!»
«I'm coming, Loren!» Ax said. «Tobias, if you can hear me, get out of here and demorph!»
No response from Tobias, still. I moved forward and stomped on my attacker's foot with my hoof, making it cry out, but not before it cut half my ear off. The pain made me stop in my tracks for a moment. Then I saw my attacker struggling toward me again, and I stomped again, so it doubled over in pain, and then I stampeded right over it, and thought of it no more. Another Hork-Bajir was swiping a clawed hand toward me, until FWAPP! It had no hand anymore. I was reminded suddenly, painfully, of Elfangor's tail fighting. Ax was just as good, if not even faster.
I took a moment to take stock. All the Hork-Bajir left were dead or wounded. Tobias was still unconscious on the floor, his ruined eye weeping blood. «Wake him up, Ax! He has to get out of here!»
Ax went to him and wrapped his tail around Tobias' arm, shaking him. «Wake up, Tobias. You must wake up.»
His remaining eye slowly opened. «Huh? Whuh? Where am I?»
«The Yeerk pool at the facility. You're injured. Please, we must leave this place.»
The sound of clawed feet on tile. My head whipped toward the corridor. «Ax! Reinforcements are coming!»
Ax turned his stalk eyes to the door. «Where are the others?»
«They're coming, but I don't know when!»
Ax's tail raised into fighting position. «Then we must defend Tobias until they arrive.»
The reinforcements were at the end of the corridor. «I'm going to charge. Scatter them. Be ready to pick up the pieces.» Without even looking back to see if Ax was ready, I gathered my strength and charged down the corridor at the oncoming Hork-Bajir.
The corridor was long enough that I really got to build up speed. By the time I got to them I couldn't have stopped if I'd wanted to. My enemies scattered like bowling pins. The only thing that stopped my momentum were bodies breaking beneath my hooves. A Hork-Bajir grabbed onto my shoulder, sticking on me like a burr with its knee and elbow blades. I shook myself, hard, and when it didn't come off, I heaved my shoulder against the wall, breaking its spine. More Hork-Bajir hacked at my other side. I tossed my head at them, scattering them away from the points of my horns. The pain was sinking its claws into me. Was Tobias demorphing? Was Ax holding his ground? There was no time to think.
The building shook. Thud. Boom. My attackers turned toward the sound. It was like an earthquake. Or like two elephants and two rhinos breaking down a door, Jax thought.
«We're here!» I cried, reaching with my thoughts toward the other Animorphs. «Follow my voice! We're this way!»
«... Door...on our way...» was Cassie's faint reply.
I kicked and bucked as the press of attackers tried to overwhelm me. Ax joined the fray, removing Hork-Bajir from my back with swift precision. There was no sign of Tobias, but I couldn't think about that, I couldn't.
An elephant's trumpet tore through the air. They were coming! My attackers turned toward the sound, and I took advantage of their distraction, tossing Hork-Bajir over my shoulder like sacks of rice. An elephant came running in. «Get away from Tobias, you creeps!» and shook Hork-Bajir left and right with great sweeps of her tusks. Another elephant behind her got one look at me and said, «Oh, wow,» before getting into the fray with her own trunk and tusks. Then the rhinos came and wreaked even more mayhem. The tide was turning.
«Ax,» I said, finally able to focus on something besides fighting. «Where's Tobias?»
«Still in the Yeerk pool room,» said Ax. «Let's get him.»
We went back to the Yeerk pool. It was a mess of brown sludge, dark blood, blue blood, red, lumps of what could only be squished Yeerk, and the bodies of the dead and wounded half-submerged throughout. One of the wounded lifted its head and looked around, at me, Ax and Tobias, and the chaos in the hall. "The seventh bandit," it said, baring its teeth in a ghastly smile. "The human."
My blood ran cold.
Ax identified Tobias and shook him. «Come on, Tobias. Demorph.»
"David," the wounded Controller said. "We still have your parents. They want to see you. They miss you."
«Tobias, Loren and I are here! You must demorph!»
They thought I was the Animorph the others had killed. They had his parents hostage. On pure instinct, Jax declared in loud public thought-speech, in his best imitation of a desperate teenage boy, «Why should I believe you? You don't care about my parents!» Then I turned from the Controller to my fallen son, and said privately. «It's me, Tobias. Loren. I came to get you. Now demorph.»
As disgusting as the process was, at that moment, morphing seemed as beautiful and miraculous to me as Lazarus and Alemetha rising from the dead. The bloody mess of Tobias' eye melted away and reformed as a piercing hawk eye. He shrank, and the grimace of pain was smoothed from his face. When he was fully hawk, he flew up onto my back. «Thank you. For coming for me. I know you must have been scared.»
«I'm still scared,» I said.
«Let's go!» Ax shouted. «Tobias is with us! Go!»
We left that scene of carnage, though we tracked some of its grisly filth with as as we ran. I noticed the blue blood matting Ax's fur in a dozen places, and that he was favoring his left front leg as he ran behind the others. My own cuts were blazing with pain. We really did need to get out of there.
Tobias lifted off my back and flew out in front. «I'll find a safe place to demorph. They'll be crawling the woods looking for us.»
«Looking for Loren, probably. She's scary, man,» Marco said.
«Me? Huh?»
«You're covered in Hork-Bajir blood,» said Cassie. «And other things. Like you took a bath in it. What happened?»
«They had Tobias,» I said, not sure what else to say. «They were about to put a Yeerk in his head. I couldn't – I just – »
«You were very brave, Loren,» Ax said. Some of his exhaustion came through in his voice. We all stumbled outside.
"The bandits are here!" a human-Controller cried. "The human is with them!" Every Controller with a weapon saw us, and with a cry, ran toward us.
«Run!» said Tobias. «Toward the mountains! But not toward the truck, they have it surrounded!»
"Don't go, David!" the human-Controller said, running toward me. "The Andalites can't help you! Only we can help you!"
«Get away from me, you monsters!» Jax screamed.
We ran. We were all of us faster than we looked. We went for the woods at the foot of the mountain where we'd first met. The sun was golden fire at our backs, now. We'd be easier to find. Time was running out.
«When you hit the woods, split up. Harder to find that way. I'll try to lead some of them astray.»
"David!" I heard voices cry behind me, much too close for comfort.
«No!» I cried. «You can't put yourself at risk again!»
«I'm in the least danger of any of you, up here in the air,» Tobias said. «You all saved my butt, now let me save yours.» TSEEEERRR! He dove toward a Hork-Bajir who'd come near us, and it staggered, clutching at its eyes. Just as a Controller had done to Tobias, not long ago.
"If you won't cooperate with us, David, then I have no choice," the human-Controller said.
TSEEEWWW. Dracon fire across my flank! I felt like I was on fire. I could smell my own cooking flesh! I ran even more desperately, veering away from the others as I made for the woods. TSEEEWWW. «Aaaahhh!» I heard Jake scream.
«This way! Come on, follow me, you jerks!» I heard Tobias say. I couldn't think of anything but the dark embrace of the woods ahead of me. Anything for cover from the revealing light of dawn. I didn't even know where the others were anymore. TSEEEWWWW. Another agonizing blaze across my back right leg. I was slowing down. How was I going to make it?
Ahead of me, behind cover, Ax said, «Come, Loren, almost here. Almost. You can make it.»
I put on a last desperate burst of speed. Ax was calling for me. He needed me. I felt the shade fall across me, and I collapsed with relief moments after. Ax was standing over me in a flash. «You demorph first,» he said. «Then morph falcon and keep an eye out for me.»
«Thank you,» I half-sobbed, and fell into the embrace of my own body knitting itself around me. When I was fully demorphed, I lay on my side in the dry dirt, wrapped around Jax in the fetal position, half-tempted to fall asleep right then and there. But it wasn't safe here. We had to go. Jax took the lead, and focused on the prairie falcon.
«Loren? Ax?» I heard Tobias say as the feathers washed over me. «Are you okay?»
«We are,» Ax said. Now that Tobias was here, he let himself begin the morph to northern harrier. His weight swayed as his back hooves melted and reformed into talons. «And the others?»
«Morphing off their injuries.» A pause. «We didn't get anything from the truck.»
I saw Ax's stalk-eyes droop a little. «No. We did not.»
"I saw Toby's people get away," I said. My vocal cords shriveled, and Jax went on. "They freed a lot of their own today. Almost as many rescued as there were raiders, I'd say. So I wouldn't call this a loss."
«Good,» said Tobias, and I could hear the fondness for the Hork-Bajir in his voice.
"They thought I was David," Jax said. "I pretended to be him."
«I heard,» Tobias said. «Jake said it was the right call. Better they think you're him than know we're recruiting with the blue box.»
«So Jax will have to pretend to be him every time we…» I said, falcon enough now to thought-speak. «You're going to have to tell me more about him. This boy you killed.»
«Another time,» Ax said stiffly, shooting Tobias a look with the stalk eyes that still poked from his harrier head. I wondered what dark memories they were silently sharing.
«That was too close,» I said. «I've fought for my life before. I've thought I was about to die before. But – not quite like this.» I stretched my wings, and looked up at the canopy to see Tobias looking down at us, framed by golden light. «It's Sunday morning. Time for Mass. Please, come with me?»
«You said you were not ready to take me to Mass,» said Ax. «You wanted time to prepare.»
«That was then. Just now, I don't think I could let either of you out of my sight.»
«Are you sure?» said Tobias. «You know I'm not... I don't really...»
«You don't have to believe exactly what I do. God knows Elfangor didn't. But I nearly died, Tobias. This is a time for me to heal. A time to deal with the fact that I... that I took innocent lives this morning. You understand, right?»
«Yes. Of course. I'll come with you. Ax?»
«Yes. I think I could use a cleansing ritual myself.»
So we flew together into the dim morning, the sun at our backs.
I stopped in a café near the church first to get coffee, because there was time to kill before Mass started, and I was so tired that without coffee and breakfast I was going to fall asleep halfway through the service whether I willed it or no. I got Ax a cinnamon bun, too, because he was begging for it like a three-year-old, all puppy-voiced, "But please, Loren?" I got the distinct impression from Jax of him staring as I sifted through my carefully-folded bills and felt the edges of my coins.
We sat at a table. It was Jax's turn to stare. Ax and Tobias coordinated so naturally as human and dæmon that I would never have thought there was anything amiss about them. As Ax sat, he kept the shoulder where Tobias was perched high and steady, and Tobias leaned with the motion as Ax settled into his chair. I had seen teenagers with recently settled bird dæmons who didn't have the hang of it quite like they did. Jax continued to stare as Ax scarfed down his cinnamon bun, leaving streaks of sticky icing around his mouth.
I drank my coffee. It was so strong it made me cough. Good. I needed it. "I'm going to tell everyone at the church that you're my nephew," I murmured to Ax. "By my sister Tammy. She died many years ago. Your name is..."
"Philip-puh. My dæmon's name is Tully." Ax frowned. "No. Philip. Philip. Marco told me as we left that I would be in danger at your church if I played with sounds."
Jax's fur bristled. "You are not in danger at my church!"
"Marco said if people saw me behaving strangely in the company of a ve – of a blind white woman, they would call the police. I do not know what he meant, but he sounded unusually serious."
I flushed. I hadn't thought of it – I didn't like to think of it – but Marco was probably right. Someone might think he was dangerous for me to be around if he behaved at all strangely. It wasn't fair, but people made assumptions. "You should take his advice, then," I said, and took another pull of my coffee. My eyes watered. Jax climbed onto my lap so I could get a sense of where the sugar packets were and add one to my drink.
«How do we know when to stand, or chant, or whatever?» Tobias asked.
"The priest will say what to do. If you're still not sure, follow my lead." I finished my coffee and English muffin and brought Ax and Tobias to St. Theresa's.
Ellen was at the door as a greeter, her tapir dæmon Azalben waving at incoming people with his trunk. Heat rose to my face at the sight of her. It had been awkward yesterday at the crisis hotline after I cut my hours. Nonetheless, Jax stepped forward to politely touch noses with Azalben. "Loren!" she said in her most matronly voice. "Good to see you. And who's that young man with you?"
"My name is Philip," Ax said earnestly. He gestured to Tobias. "This is Tully."
"He's my nephew," I explained. "He moved closer to the city recently, so I'll be seeing more of him." I gave him a fond smile. What I'd said was not too far from the truth.
"Well, it's very nice to meet you then, Philip," said Ellen, extending a hand. Ax looked puzzled for a fraction of a second, then Tobias must have mentally nudged him, because he reached out and shook it. Tobias leaned toward Azalben and exchanged their own introductions. The tapir dæmon said, "Have you ever been to Mass before?"
"No," said Ax. Tobias couldn't reply, of course, because his thought-speech would give away the game.
"I'm sure your Aunt Loren will tell you all about it," said Ellen, "but feel free to also take a program." She gestured toward a folding table with materials about the church. I nodded permission for him to go and peruse them. "It's so nice for you to bring family to church," said Ellen. "You know, we have a youth group he could join."
"He doesn't really live in town, just close enough that it's not completely impractical for him to visit," I said. "But you know, I wanted him to see what our church is like."
"That's nice. I'll make sure no one hushes you if you have to explain anything to him. Just keep it to a whisper and no one will pay any mind."
"Thank you, Ellen." I tapped Ax on the shoulder and guided him to an empty pew along the side. He sat beside me, absorbed in his program. Jax settled in his usual curled position on the other side of me in the pew. He saw familiar faces and I smiled in their direction. As they waved back, I felt like I had risen from my bodies, looking down on scarred woman and zebra duiker through my true double vision, not Jax's alone. There she was, going to church just like any other Sunday, except that two hours before, her hooves had been slipping on dead aliens and the blood she'd spilled. Except that there had to be Controllers in some of the pews, unknown to her, who also had no idea they worshipped alongside one of the Andalites who'd attacked the training facility that morning. If the Yeerks really worshipped at all.
Dissociation, Jax noted distantly. Symptom of recent psychological trauma.
Father Dupree is already at the altar, I thought. How did that happen?
I showed Ax how to cross himself as the priest gave the greeting. Then Father Dupree said, "My brothers and sisters, to prepare ourselves for the celebration of the sacred mysteries, let us remember our sins."
I hung my head and felt one of my newly recovered memories spring to mind: the first time I took Elfangor to Mass, soon after our return to Earth. I was awkward in my too-tall, too-rounded body (why had it been so intensely uncomfortable, like my body suddenly wasn't mine anymore?), Jaxom awkward in his newly settled form, and Elfangor and Hala Fala most awkward of all, stranded in new and entirely alien shapes. I'd had to pinch him several times during the Mass to keep him from embarrassing me in front of my mother ("Only one communion wafer, Alan Fangor!") and to keep him from falling asleep during the homily.
After Mass, Elfangor had walked with me hand in hand to the confession booths, Jaxom explaining quietly to Hala Fala what they were for. "So the priest assigns you a ritual through which you contemplate and atone for what you have done wrong?" Elfangor hadn't played with sounds like Ax, but his consonants were muddy at first, as if he had a lisp.
"Yes," I said. I had been surprised, at first, to see how accepting he was of the idea, compared to all the others he had learned of and disdained that day ("Drinking the red blood of your savior? Eurgh.") But then, I shouldn't have been. Andalites had a forgiveness ritual, too.
Elfangor nodded, then went for a confession booth. I grabbed his arm. "Wait," I hissed. "What are you going to tell him?"
"That I betrayed a comrade," Elfangor said, closing Hala Fala in his fist. "An elder who I didn't like, but should have respected. And now he suffers every day for what I did."
I wanted to tell him I forgave him. The Sub-Visser had been a powerful enemy, and Elfangor only an aristh. But I couldn't do that for him. Neither could the priest, though I knew he tried. That was between Elfangor and the Lord. I let go of his arm.
When he came back out of the confession booth, he said, "Is that what your rosary is for, Loren? To count out the chants in the ritual?"
I nodded.
"May I borrow yours, then?"
I passed him my rosary, wordlessly, and watched him kneel with it in his hands, Hala Fala sitting on one bead as he moved the others through his fingers, murmuring, "Mother Mary, full of grace..."
In my pocket was the same rosary Elfangor had used that day. I had lost many things in the accident, but not this. I rubbed my thumb over the beads as the Mass went on, wondering which one Hala Fala's legs had touched.
Ax didn't have the same problem with the communion wafers Elfangor did. In fact, when he learned that they were the flesh of Christ, it was a struggle getting him to eat one at all. «It's not cannibalism, Ax!» Tobias said. «It's just a cookie with symbolism. Stop embarrassing Loren and eat it.»
When Mass ended, many people came by to ask about Ax and Tobias. All I wanted was to be left alone, and I nearly broke down crying, but I remembered Marco's words and worried Ax might be unfairly blamed if I seemed upset. So I told them the same half-lie I told Ellen, until they must have sensed that I wanted to be alone with my family. I sat with Ax and Tobias among the empty pews. Jax looked at the altar, where the gold-leafed halo of Christ and the golden fleece of Magdalene were dimly visible to his eyes. My hands were folded in my lap, my face downcast so no one but Ax and Tobias would see me cry.
A tear fell down my face and splashed hotly on my knuckles. "How can you stand it?" I whispered.
I heard Tobias' feathers hush against each other as he rearranged his wings. Ax said, «My brother had a saying. Love the warrior, hate the war.»
"I never heard him say that."
«He was barely a warrior when you knew him. Now that I have fought so many battles, I think there is something else he should have said. The war that is easiest to hate is the one you fight, and the warrior who is hardest to love is yourself.»
More tears fell. I felt myself prickle with heat beneath my skin. Christ's halo suddenly seemed too bright to contemplate, and Jax turned away. "I wasn't sure I would be able to kill at all, Ax. I nearly told you all that I would only do recon, that I wouldn't use my battle morph to hurt anybody. But it was so easy to kill them. They had you. I would have killed more, to make them let you go. I love you both so much it scares me. I don't even really know you."
«You do,» said Ax. «Comrades in war show each other their true characters as few others ever know each other.»
«It's not a bad thing to want to fight for us, Loren,» Tobias said. «It's a reason to keep going. A good reason.»
He ought to know, Jax noted. His reasons to fight haven't always been so good.
"Thank you for coming with me. I needed you."
«I'm glad,» said Tobias. «I got pretty shaken up myself.»
"Do you need to..." I said to Ax, gesturing vaguely. "You know."
"Yes."
«There's a well-hidden alley a few streets down,» said Tobias. «I'll show you the way.»
I stayed in my pew a minute longer after they left. Love the warrior, I thought. Ax is right. Elfangor was never good at loving himself. That's why he needed me to do it for him.
That's not very healthy, is it? Jax thought.
No. But Tobias isn't very good at loving himself either. So we'll do it for him, until he learns.
"All right, good," said Nazneen. "Now put your left hand on Jaxom's neck, turn your head a little to the right, and look thoughtful."
I posed myself as instructed and bit my lip.
"No, that just makes you look nervous. Hold your stylus a little closer to the slate, and seriously, just think about something."
Jax was looking into the camera and thinking that Nazneen's capuchin dæmon looked like a two-year-old behind that huge lens, but no, that wasn't a profound enough thought for what Nazneen was going for here. Suddenly, I was hit by something intense and real: jealousy. Nazneen had been born blind. If she had been given the morphing power, it wouldn't have gotten rid of her blindness. Everything would be so much better, so much simpler, if that had been what happened to me.
The camera flashed.
"Oh, that's a good shot," Nazneen murmured approvingly, with the slightly distracted air of someone deep in four-eye. "You know, we shouldn't just send this photo series to that school district in Escondido. We should make a website. We can have a blurb for each photo that talks about the advocacy we do. Like you helping deaf people access your church's crisis hotline. I think this could be really powerful." She sat down next to me on my couch, her dæmon between her shins. She reached for the part of the paper I'd already embossed with my Braille slate. "What did you write?"
There was no use saying. She was already touching the back of the paper without my permission. It read, over and over, I am not a hero.
Nazneen frowned. "What do you mean by that, Loren?"
"None of us are heroes," I said. "We're all just trying to make our way in the world. Some of us use glasses, some of us use antidepressants, and some of us use Braille slates. Does that make us heroes?"
"Right," said Nazneen. "Of course."
"I'm just trying to do what's right. Most of the time, I'm not even sure. Even with my faith, I'm still not sure. So why me?" I took my Braille slate off the paper, and set it and the stylus aside. I turned the paper over and ran my fingers over the words. Jax slipped off the couch and looked into the monkey dæmon's eyes. "What do you see in that photo? What do you want the world to see?"
Nazneen shrugged. "Like you said. Just a person trying to make her way in the world. In a different way from most people, but still."
Jax stared at the capuchin monkey. Did he really think he was just like Jax? Was he? If he had found his family embroiled in a hidden war, would he have chosen to take up the sword, to fight, to kill? Would he make the same decision we, the Animorphs, had?
I can't judge anyone for what choice they'd make, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone, Jax thought. That's the choice we protect Nazneen from, and everyone else.
I'm not who you think I am, Nazneen, I wanted to say. I'm an impostor. I used to be like you, but now I'm not. Instead, I said, "Thank you, Nazneen. For seeing that."