The last time she’d felt like this, it had been out at Tyson. Then it had been the treetop terror. That same deep quetzal memory. By the time they’d dealt with that, at least three people, probably more, were dead, and they’d blown up half the forest. The treetop terror had still managed to escape.

I emptied an entire magazine into that thing. She remembered the explosive rounds hammering into the monster’s wide belly. And it had absorbed the punishment, sort of folded in on itself, and kept right on fighting.

“Dek, for God’s sake, tell me you smelled that, and you’re backing off!”

Even as she said it, the bang of a rifle came from up ahead. Immediately it was followed by a soul-searing shriek the likes of which Talina had never heard.

77

As the Song flowed through him, Felix decided that he really liked the ax. It was a little shorter than the length of his arm, felt firmly heavy in his eight-year-old grasp, and was capable of marvelous things. Swinging it, he’d completely destroyed the com system, bashing the monitors. The quantum computer had split open with a satisfying clatter of broken ceramic matrix—fragments of which had spilled across the floor.

As it did, the Song spilling out from the stairway changed; the harmonics charged his nerves, and filled him with excitement. He could see Felicity and Sheena’s reaction, like his own, almost glowing and energized.

They had finished with the com when Toni had appeared in the doorway; his shining eyes looked odd and totally black. Like, with no pupils or whites. And each time he breathed, the swellings in the side of his neck pulsed and the slits at his collar bones fluttered. When he opened his mouth, it wasn’t to talk. Instead, his utterances carried the same notes and intonation as the Song rising from the UB. Even as Felix watched, Toni’s already-green skin seemed to darken. What was that all about?

Then he looked at his own fingers; the deep-green color had spread through his hands and into his wrists.

The Song changed, seemed to vibrate in the air around them. Urgency, that was the message behind the changed harmony.

“Got to go now,” Sheena told him absently. “Toni’s ready.”

“Got to go,” Felix agreed. Definitely the right thing since Toni had joined them.

Weird how different Toni was. The vile little brat was gone. Toni didn’t walk like a kid anymore but had a purposeful stride that got better with each step. He looked, well, somehow smarter, like he was someone Felix didn’t want to know. The change made Felix uncomfortable. Like he was seeing some stranger inside Toni’s body. Freaking spooky!

He hoped that would never happen to Sheena. She was his best friend, and he didn’t want her to turn into some mean stranger.