Phoenix Falling

by Laura Bickle

  “We’re running out of resources . . . I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to send anyone out on horseback or on ATV to look for her. It’s been pretty much chaos here.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Not anything, really. We keep getting pushed back, and the fire is creeping out of the park on the southeast edge. We have no control. Smaller fires keep popping up and joining the main fire. The National Guard is here, so hopefully, they’ll have some ideas.”

  “Shit. Man, I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, did the sheriff’s office get in touch with you about your dad?”

  “No. Did they find him?” Her heart thudded in her throat, and she white-knuckled the phone.

  “Dammit. They should have told you. There was an incident at one of the checkpoints leading into the park. Your dad was in a car with an older woman who died. I’m not clear on the details, since the deputies are being tight-lipped. What I do know is that they said your dad took the wheel and busted through the vehicle barricade into the park.”

  “Shit.” She rubbed her forehead, and her heart ached for the old woman. What was her father thinking? “I swear to God, I’ll show up on Owen Rutherford’s doorstep and . . .”

  “I tried to call him and got voice mail. None of his deputies can get hold of him, either. They have no idea where he is. Hopefully, he’s sleeping off a hangover in the back of a bar somewhere, but don’t count on getting any answers from Owen. His deputies have circled the wagons and are saying nothing. Whatever he’s up to, it’s not likely to be anything good.”

  “Are they even looking for him?” She had mixed feelings about this. If they were looking for her dad and found him, it wouldn’t be good for her dad. Especially if he was to blame for two deaths.

  “They are. So are we. Haven’t seen any sign of the car, but it’s just a matter of time. He’s one old dude with a turquoise Buick. He can’t hide forever.”

  Unless he gets barbecued. Petra didn’t say it aloud. She thanked Mike, got some more details about her dad’s last known position, and hung up. She stared at the phone after it went silent, wondering if the next call she received would be someone notifying her that her father was dead.

  She dialed the bar. Lev picked up on the third ring: “Compostela.”

  “Lev, it’s Petra. How’s our piece of glass?”

  “Haven’t looked at it. I got it up to the maximum heat, let it cook like you said, and then dropped it back to eight hundred fifty. I cut the gas and it’s cooling.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate you taking this science project over. I owe you.” Again. At the rate she was going, she’d be owing Lev well into the next lifetime and the one after that.

  “It’s actually been pretty interesting,” Lev said. “I’ve always been kind of curious about glass, and it makes me think I might be able to use the pizza oven for more than pies. I’ve got a couple of cracked panes of stained glass I’d like to restore.” She could almost hear the wheels turning in his head before he changed the subject. “Did you find your dad yet?”

  “No. I think he’s in serious trouble. And I think . . . he may have killed at least two people.”

  There were a couple of beats of silence on the other end. “You’ll catch him. Even though he’s an alchemist, he’s still an old man. He’s got to wind down sometime.”

  “Well, he’s not our only problem.” She told him about Lascaris and the watch.

  Lev was silent on his end.

  “Lev?”

  “I’ll keep an eye on the glass until you get back.” Lev’s voice was tight. “Watch your backs.”

  And he hung up on her.

  Gabe reached for her, touching her elbow. “Is everything okay?”

  “I have to go look for my dad,” she said, her throat closing. “My dad is out there. Sounds like he’s killed another person, and now he’s got a car.” Her father might be a murderer. She’d thought him capable of many thoughtless and self-centered things over the years, but she never thought it would come to this. It had to be his illness. It couldn’t really be him. Whatever was going on with him, she had to find him, protect him. If Lascaris was roaming about . . .

  “If he’s got wheels, he could be anywhere,” Maria said, handing her a cup of tea.

  “I have to look for him anyway.” She felt like she was doing nothing, and time was slipping through her fingers. She set the cup down on the table and reached for her boots.

  “I will look for him,” Gabe said quietly. “I’ll look for him and for Lascaris and then I’ll go back to the tree.”

  She stopped breathing for a moment. The Lunaria. She had shoved the tree into the back of her thoughts, and exhuming it now caused her to wince. “It’s not safe to go back to the tree.”

  “It’s not safe for you. It won’t hurt me. I’m all it has.” Gabe leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

  “I’ll look from the ground,” she resolved. “I’ll . . .”

  Gabe shook his head. “Lascaris may be out there. Stay here until I get back. We will find him, but with night coming, there’s only so much we can do.”

  Her throat tightened, and she promised herself that she would not cry.

  There was a knock at the door. Maria moved to answer it.

  A group of men and women stood on the porch, dressed in jeans, T-shirts, hats, and hiking boots. Pearl chirped and greeted them with her tail waving in happiness. The middle-aged woman in the center of the group picked up Pearl and began to scratch her ears. These were clearly friends of Maria’s.

  “You came,” Maria breathed.

  “Of course we did.” The woman holding Pearl kissed Maria’s cheek, and she ushered the group in.

  Maria made quick introductions. “Petra, Gabe, this is Vicki. And these are Vicki’s children, Luke, Basil, Willow, and Liz. They’re the best trackers and hunters I know.”

  “Well,” said Vicki with a self-deprecating smile. “My grandparents were better, but we do what we can.”

  “Nine has been found,” Maria said. “But Petra’s father is still missing.”

  Petra’s heart swelled. Complete strangers were willing to help her. With a quavering voice, she told them what she could while she and Maria handed out sandwiches and passed out tea. The group listened closely from the couch and kitchen chairs. Vicki asked questions and made notations on a map.

  “Okay. We have a good idea where he was last seen. We’ll start in that area.”

  “I am worried that he’s violent,” Petra admitted. “A nurse is dead, and I don’t know what happened with the woman who died, but I assume the worst.”

  “We will do our best not to harm him,” Vicki’s son Basil said from the couch. He was built like a linebacker, but was wearing a blissed-out Pearl over his shoulders like a scarf. Pearl batted lazily at his sunglasses cord. “Liz has a Taser if we need it. It’s not ideal, but we’ll get him under control as gently as possible.”

  Liz, a woman in her early thirties with short raven hair, nodded. As she did, her multiple-pierced ears glittered. “We’ll be gentle. We promise.”

  “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” Petra said. “Don’t do anything that would endanger yourselves. If you find him, call me, and I’ll come get him.” She couldn’t deal with anything more on her conscience.

  “But then he could hurt you,” Liz said.

  “He won’t hurt me,” she said with a confidence she didn’t truly feel. Curious, she asked, “How do you go about tracking people in the backcountry?” Maybe she could pick up some tips she could apply.

  “Oh, we have our ways.” Willow, the youngest daughter, grinned and crooked a finger at Petra. She led them out to the driveway to their vehicles, an old pickup truck and a Jeep speckled with dried mud. She gestured to the pickup truck, and Petra peered into the bed.

  “Drones? Cool!” Petra grinned at the robotic devices sitting in cardboard boxes, secured to the bed of the truck. They looked like sleeping metal spiders. A charging bank of radios
sat beside them.

  “Each one has a range of about three and a half miles,” Liz said, grinning proudly. “We use them occasionally for work with the reservation EMS. Last year, we used them to find a lost child.”

  “A boat like the one he’s driving will run out of gas sooner or later, and we’ll find him. Don’t worry,” Basil said.

  “After this is over, will you teach me to fly one?” Petra gazed at the tiny craft, fascinated. Maybe she could fly one with Gabe’s ravens, to see what he saw. And if she could prove that it would be useful in her geological work, maybe she could convince her superiors back on the East Coast to approve it.

  “Sure!” said Willow. “We can always use more eyes on the Rutherford Ranch.”

  Petra’s eyes narrowed. “What’s Owen up to now?”

  “Nothing lately, and that worries us. With the drones, we discovered that Sal pushed the fences back on our land by a quarter mile. If we don’t patrol our edges, Owen would have his cattle on Main Street.”

  “I would love to learn to do that.” After all, she spent enough time skulking around in Owen’s back forty. The least she could do was take some pictures and keep fence creep in check.

  “We’ll be in touch.” Vicki swapped phone numbers with Petra, just in case cell service was available, and the crew climbed into the Jeep and pickup. They headed away down the dusty road. Seeing them on the case, Petra felt hopeful.

  Gabe stood beside her. He drew her into an embrace and kissed her soundly.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  “I will. It’s high time that the Lunaria and I had a . . . conversation.” He stepped away, gazing up at the twilight sky.

  “Gabe?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have, um, clothes back at the tree?” It seemed like an insignificant thing, but she wanted to know if she should drop off laundry.

  He grinned at her. “Yes. I have clothes back at the tree.”

  He kissed her on the cheek. He glanced around to make sure that none of the neighbors were watching, and dissolved into a riot of black feathers. The birds climbed up into the sky, cawing, blotting out the first solitary star that had begun to burn through the hazy blue.

  Petra gazed after them. He had work to do with the tree, and she knew that she couldn’t help him. She had her own work to do as well. She picked up his clothes, and Lascaris’s pocket watch slipped out of his shirt. She stuffed the pocket watch into her cargo pants and folded Gabe’s clothes.

  She came back inside the house to find Nine sitting at the kitchen table. Her damp silver hair was flung over her shoulder, and she was devouring a sandwich the size of her head.

  Nine paused in gobbling down the sandwich when she saw Petra. “The phoenix,” she said. “We tried to stop the phoenix.”

  “And failed,” said Maria, who came to sit beside her. “We offered it everything valuable we had. And Nine offered herself.” Her fingers chewed at the bread crusts on her plate. She explained what she’d seen before Nine had slipped away, then glared at Nine.

  Nine gazed down at the table. “And I came back without your necklace. I’m so sorry.”

  “The necklace doesn’t matter. What matters is that you ran off without so much as saying goodbye.” Hurt rattled in Maria’s voice. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I went to protect the pack. They were cornered by the fire. I couldn’t leave them.” She reached out for Maria’s hand. “I promise that I will never leave without saying goodbye again. I swear.”

  Maria’s brow wrinkled, and it seemed as if Nine was saying something deeply significant that was lost on both her and Petra.

  “And when you found them, the wolves knew you?” Petra asked, feeding a piece of her sandwich to Sig.

  She nodded. “Yes. They knew me. They must have recognized me from the Eye of the World, somehow. Even though I’m pretty sure I smell different.” She wrinkled her nose. “Anyway, we made it to higher elevations. I think they’ll be safe from the fire, there. And the hunting is better. Lots of weasels and rabbits.” She picked thoughtfully at a tooth with a fork, as if something was stuck there.

  Petra didn’t ask her if she ate weasel on her walkabout. She didn’t dare. There seemed to be more that Nine was about to say, but she changed the subject, seeming to think better of it. Petra didn’t press. Nine, like so many of the people and creatures here, had a double life. And it was not up to Petra to pry into it.

  “So you’ll be going to the Eye tonight to look for your father?” Nine asked instead.

  “Yes.” Petra took her plate to the sink and rinsed it. “Dad hangs out in the spirit world. It makes sense that I should be able to catch up with him there. And kick his ass,” she said under her breath. “Assuming that the Eye cooperates. And that Lascaris isn’t on the other side.” The Eye was more than capricious with her—going to the water’s edge was no guarantee that she’d be granted entrance to the spirit world. Her excursions there were always hit-or-miss. She never knew what—or who—she’d find if she did get there.

  “I can go with you,” Nine said.

  Petra shook her head. “You rest. Have another sandwich. Or five. I’ll take Sig with me.” She reached down to stroke the coyote’s ears. Sig’s eyebrows worked up at Petra.

  Nine nodded. “You’re in good hands with Coyote. And . . . I know that there are always some things we must do ourselves.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.” She chewed her lip, thinking. “Nine, we saw a black toad today, at Lev’s. It made me wonder if it was connected to your Toad God or the toad that spoke to you.”

  Nine paused in her demolition of the sandwich. “I don’t know anything more than what I told you.” And she turned her full attention back on her sandwich, letting the curtain of her hair fall over her face.

  Petra frowned. Something had spooked Nine, and she wasn’t talking. She’d need to find answers for herself. She laced up her boots and headed out into the starlit darkness with Sig on her heels. Or, it would have been starlit darkness on another summer night. Only the brightest stars were able to burn through the smoke haze; she could find Regulus and a few other stars in Leo. She waded through the brittle grasses of the field, moving toward the Eye. She noticed that Nine’s feet had worn a path from the house to the spring-fed pond, pressing down the grasses in a regular pattern.

  Sig stuck close to her, trotting just ahead. He wasn’t distracted by critters of the night; instead, he focused on getting to the Eye. For once, he was all business.

  And she needed to become all business. Tomorrow morning, she vowed to return to the Compostela to see if the mirror was finished. She had no choice but to do what she could to stop the phoenix. Her father . . . She felt as if she were abandoning him. But if she didn’t find him tonight, her conscience wouldn’t allow her to simply focus on him. Others needed her more, and only she would have the mirror, the only hope of stopping the firebird.

  The Eye of the World was dark and silent. It seemed to reflect the smoke in the sky above, seeming thick and opaque as soup. Sig trotted to the shoreline, ears lifted. He pounced on something, then sprinted a few feet, snooted around, and yelped.

  “What do you have?” Petra asked, catching up to him.

  A dark shape, the size of a lump of coal, hopped away. Sig snapped at it.

  “Sig, no!” She reached for his collar in enough time to keep him from devouring the toad.

  The toad plunged into the water and did not resurface.

  “Sig,” Petra scolded him. “That toad might know something!”

  Unrepentant, Sig huffed at the water and growled. She released his collar, irritated that somehow he and Lev had the same opinion about toads. They kept turning up, and Petra refused to believe that was insignificant.

  She knelt beside the pool. Her golden pendant spilled from her collar, and that bright spark of light embedded in her dark silhouette shone back at her. Sig gave up snarling at the spot where the toad had disappeared to sit beside her. Curiously, she noticed tha
t he cast no reflection in the water.

  Her brow wrinkled. The Eye had played tricks on her before. She reached out to Sig to convince herself that he was real and solid. He licked her hand and whined, as if to say: Get on with it, already.

  She cupped her hands, leaned forward, and scooped some of the dark water out.

  “Please show me my father,” she whispered before she drank it. It tasted of smoke.

  Sig stepped to the pool and drank in noisy slurps. He came back to lie down beside her and put his head between his paws.

  She closed her eyes, hoping that the Eye would bring her to her father, wherever he was.

  She had the sensation of falling, that stomach-pitching feeling of hurtling through the dark. When she landed, she found herself on cool ground. She opened her eyes.

  She was lying on a thick mat of pine needles, on a forest floor. She pulled herself up to a sitting position, finding Sig beside her. The coyote stretched and yawned with a squeak, ears pressed back and toes buried in the pine needles.

  She looked around her. It was night, but she could make out a perimeter of stones set out in a circular pattern. The stones were interesting, and unlikely to be all native to the area. She picked out larimar, quartz, amethyst, sunstone, and even a piece of watery blue topaz the size of her fist. Petra was no magician or alchemist, but she thought it was a fair bet to believe that it was a magic circle of some kind, constructed for either containment or protection. She noticed that there was a set of footprints here, the same shining bioluminescent color as the fireflies that milled deeper in the woods.

  She gazed into the forest, looking for threats. She glimpsed no movement, no sign of monsters. She stood carefully, taking inventory. She was dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing at the Eye, and she was still armed in the spirit world. Her gun belt was slung across her hips, and she plucked out her guns to stare at them. They seemed to be in the same condition they had been in the physical world, only they were engraved here. One with the word Thought on one barrel, and Memory on the other.

  “Odin’s ravens.” She smiled. The spirit world had a sense of humor. But if there were threats beyond the circle, she would face them armed.