by Jen Pretty
"Why don't you tell me about growing up outside of the Sanctuary," he asked.
I sighed. I should get to know Jax better if we were going to fight monsters and warlocks together. "I'm told it wasn't a normal childhood. I grew up in an orphanage run by nuns who didn't believe in technology. So, I basically played with dead people until I was eighteen and got my own apartment."
His eyes were big and round making me chuckle.
"So, you grew up in the Sanctuary?" I asked.
"I was one of the first classes."
Now my eyes almost fell out of my head. "That's not possible"
Niri had explained that the Sanctuary was established after the vampires and warlocks came to an agreement 300 years ago. It was an effort to integrate the two into a peaceful life together. Until now, it seemed to have worked.
"I'm sure you know vampires don't age past eighteen."
I shook my head. "I know that, but it still seems crazy to think you are that old."
"If it makes you feel any better, I don't feel a day over a hundred."
I nudged his shoulder with mine and grinned. "That is so weird." I glanced back at the window-seat. He was still asleep. "So, you grew up without technology too?"
Jax nodded. "The first television was pretty frightening to many people."
I grinned at the haunted look on his face. "Did the people in the box scare you?"
He chuckled but we stopped talking as the stewardess stopped beside him with a trolley.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked.
"Nothing for me, thanks," Jax said.
"I'll have whatever you have in the way of alcohol," I said.
She pointed out the selection of tiny bottles just like the ones I enjoyed in a mini bar in a hotel room.
"Selena, please?" Falcor said. Apparently, he didn't find me as funny when I drank as I did.
"Just one," I said, pointing at a tiny bottle.
Falcor continued his party pooper act. "Have you even eaten today?"
"I ate something in the cafeteria." Okay, it wasn't much, but it was something.
The flight attendant handed me a paper cup and a small bottle. I fished out some money for her and she trundled to the next row.
I downed the tiny amount of alcohol quickly. It was barely enough to get me drunk usually, but within ten minutes, I could definitely feel a light buzz.
The in-flight movie was suddenly entertaining, and my stomach started growling at inopportune moments during the movie. One particularly serious moment, my stomach screamed so loud that window-seat roused from his nap.
"Here," Falcor said from across the aisle. He held out a tiny packet of crackers and Jax handed them to me. "Should soak up some of that alcohol, at least," Falcor mumbled.
I munched the crackers and watched the movie with my knees pulled up to my chest in my seat. It was cramped but more comfortable than just sitting straight in a chair. There was something about curling up to watch a movie that was comforting. As the movie neared the end, it got more and more serious and finally, the climax was a real emotional blow out between the two main characters. The man was leaving the woman to take on a job in the city because they didn't have enough money. The woman was begging him to stay. It reminded me that I hadn't begged Nick at all. I had just let him go and then he got abducted and maybe killed. I started sobbing into a cocktail napkin.
"Shit," Falcor mumbled from across the aisle.
"Excuse me," I said, getting unsteadily to my feet and pushing past Jax. I ran to the tiny bathroom and closed the stupid folding door behind me, then collapsed on the toilet seat.
"Fuck" I muttered as I blew my runny nose. I didn't have any right to beg Nick to come with me. He was doing the right thing. And that's the thing with Nick. He was a good man.
I remembered back to the moment he told me he was staying. How wrong it felt. Of course, he would stay and take his role as King, right?
But he had been sure he wanted nothing to do with it. God, I was making myself crazy thinking about it.
There was a knock at the door.
"Just a minute," I said.
"It's Jax."
I pulled the door open and grabbed his shirt pulling him inside. There wasn't much room for the two of us, but he closed the flimsy door behind him.
"You okay?"
"Not really. I never should have left Nick there."
Jax rubbed the back of his neck. "He was the heir, he had to stay."
"No. He never wanted that. Then suddenly he changed his mind. It wasn't right."
Jax looked confused. "What do you mean he never wanted it?"
"Black Crow literally took over my body to threaten his father into leaving Nick alone, Nick was so opposed to being the king." I collapsed back on the toilet. It was extra weird to be sitting on a toilet in front of him, but whatever. He had seen me all tear-streaked and snotty, this was hardly more embarrassing than that.
"I need to show you something," Jax said, pulling out his phone. He swiped and tapped for a few minutes before turning the phone to me.
There was a video cued up. I clicked play.
Nick's face sprang up, but his hair was brown now. Had he dyed it back? He was standing at a podium and the video was being shot from the back of a large room, the tops of people's heads were visible at the bottom of the screen. Like he was in an auditorium.
"Thank you for coming today and to those of you who will be watching at home." He cleared his throat and it was an action I didn't recognize. Like a leftover from being human that I had never noticed him do before. "I have been waiting for my time to be your King since I was a child. It was my greatest wish to serve you and keep the peace for our kind."
"What?" I said.
Nick looked around the room while everyone was clapping and took a sip from a glass beside the microphone he was talking into.
"What the fuck?" Then it all clicked. "Oh shit."
"What?" Jax asked, but I just shoved him out of the tiny bathroom and took his phone with me. "Watch this." I shoved the phone in Falcor's face.
He hit play and watched. I saw on his face the moment he knew, too.
"That's not Nick," he said.
"What?” Jax said again.
I looked back at him, his face etched in confusion. I didn't know what it meant, but I knew one thing for sure… "That is Nick's twin brother, Ryan."
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Holy shit," Jax said. A little old lady scowled at him from the seat beside where he stood in the aisle. He apologized and followed me into our seats. Window-seat was awake now but had headphones on, so I decided if I whispered, we could keep talking about this.
"If that was Ryan, where is Nick?"
Falcor shrugged. "Didn't you find him once with your weird juju?"
"I don't have weird juju," I whisper-scolded. "But yes. Maybe Crow and I can find him again."
Jax tapped his ear and pointed in front of us. Someone was listening.
I sighed and sat back in my seat. They didn't have Nick. I didn't know where he was, but Crow and I would find him, and everything would be fine. I smiled but bit my lip. It was probably bad to be glad that Nick's twin brother was the one in danger. I didn't even know for sure that the warlocks didn't have both Nick and Ryan, but the weight was lifted off me and I would grasp at any straw I could reach.
It was another hour before the plane finally landed. I spent the whole time staring at the seat in front of me, trying to work out where Nick could be. Had his brother done something to him? Locked him away or something? He could have put him back in the dungeon in the basement of the mansion. I would check there first.
We walked out of the airport and hailed a cab. Night had fallen, but the lights of the city blocked out the sky. Falcor gave the driver the address of a hotel, but I corrected him, giving the driver the address of the mansion.
"What are you doing?" Falcor asked as the car pulled away from the curb.
"I have a hunch."
Falco
r let out a long-suffering sigh, but let the driver take us there.
The car weaved through traffic like a rubber duck on a river. The driver must have been driving in the city for ages, it was almost like a grand theft auto without the violence. Switching lanes and merging into traffic was easy as breathing.
When the car pulled up to the front gate of the vampire mansion, it was obvious that no one was there. We got out of the car and dragged our luggage up to the locked gate. There was no vampire standing guard to let us in, but Falcor used a little of his magic to unlock the gate and Jax dragged the wrought iron gates open enough that we could slip through.
"Let's leave our stuff here," I suggested. The house was creepy when it was full of vampires, but empty it was something altogether different. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
We started up the long driveway, the trees blocking out what little light the moon offered. The silence only added to the creep factor. Not even a cricket broke the silence. I was about the say something, just to cut the tension, but Crow did that for me as he called from above, his feathers rustling as he flew overhead.
His presence calmed my racing heart.
"Why are we here again?" Falcor asked.
I hadn't told him the first time, but only because we were always around humans. I wasn't sure when I started thinking of myself as different from a human, but there it was.
"I think Nick is in the dungeon."
"Why would you think that?" Jax asked.
"Because where else could his brother have stashed him. There is no way Nick would have just vanished. But if Nick's brother wanted to be the king, maybe he thought he needed to get Nick out of the way."
Little did he know, Nick probably would have just given him the job. Ryan was going to get an ass-kicking if he was still alive.
Crow reached the porch and landed on the railing, barely visible in the shadow of the house. I took a deep breath and stepped up onto the first step of the porch, but a strong hand stopped me. I looked back and Jax was staring at the house with one finger on his lips.
I waited, but I didn't hear anything. Jax slipped past me and stepped up silently onto the porch. I waited at the bottom with Falcor for a long moment, until Jax twisted the doorknob and stepped into the house. There was no way I was waiting outside. I could almost feel my magic pulling me forward. It was such a small pull; I wasn't sure it wasn't just my imagination. Or my mind wishing I felt it. Either way, I needed to be in there.
Jax's broad back disappeared into the dark and I followed right on his heel. When he turned to go down a hall toward the king's old office, I went the other way, intent to go down and check the basement first.
Falcor's hand brushed my shoulder and I knew he was coming with me. He could zip me out if we ran into any baddies. When the last of the moonlight faded, I grabbed my phone out and flicked on the flashlight app.
The door to the basement was closed but swung open with a squeak of hinges that was loud enough to wake the dead. I hoped it hadn't woken any dead. I didn't need wraiths involved in this situation.
I started down the stairs but nearly fell when Crow flapped past me, his wing whacking me on the side of the face.
"Fucker," I muttered as I grabbed the railing.
At the bottom, I used the light to search through the cells.
Every one of them was empty.
I scoffed. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy. I looked back at Falcor, but he just shrugged. Damn it.
Falcor turned and I followed him back up the stairs. Hopefully, Jax had found something.
When we reached the top of the stairs, the power flicked on in the house and lights lit up the dark so quickly, my eyes slammed shut. A few blinks later, I could see the entire house.
There were piles of ash that looked like vampire executions. "No, no, no." I started racing through the house, counting the piles. Any one of them could have been Nick. "Oh no."
When I finally got up to Nick's suite of rooms, I threw the door open, but the rooms were pristine. Not that it meant anything. Any of the other piles could have been him. Someone had come in and killed all the vampires in the house. Had they already killed Ryan? I moved to the middle of the room as if being there could help me figure it out. I needed Crow. He could help me find Nick.
Everything was just going from bad to worse.
"There will be war." Falcor's voice startled me.
"That sounds bad."
"It will be very bad. My father wants me home to help."
I collapsed to the couch. I wanted to make him stay and help me. "Will your father attack the vampires?"
"Not the ones who step forward to help end this. But anyone who wants war will get one. There is already noise from some factions of the vampires that want war. There are threats to my father's life."
"You need to go, then. You have to help protect your family."
Falcor shook his head. "My real family is at the Sanctuary." He paused and looked away from me. "And here in Phoenix."
I hadn't expected that. Recently Falcor had been nicer but would never have thought he felt that way about any of us. Even if he just meant Nick, it was still more than I had anticipated.
"Alright, we need Crow. I'll go fly around and find Nick. I'm pretty sure if he is in Phoenix, Crow and I can track him down, somehow."
"Weird juju."
I snorted a laugh. It felt wrong to laugh when I was so worried and anxious. "Yup. Weird juju."
I stepped out the front door of the house. "Come on, Crow!"
His muffled caw came from inside, but it only took a moment until he swooped out past my head, his feathers rustling with each flap of his wings.
The moonlight glittered off his black feathers as he circled the yard in front of the mansion. I took a deep breath and stepped to the edge of the porch.
One more deep breath and he aimed back toward the house.
A final breath and I slammed my eyes closed. The last thing I saw was his eyes trained on me like a bull, charging.
"Shit," I whispered a split second before the air was slammed out of my lungs and I opened my eyes as Crow.
I hopped back to the edge of the porch and called out once before jumping into the air. A heavy sweep of my wings and I was airborne.
"Go get him, Selena!" Falcor called to me.
I glanced back to see my slumped body laid out on the porch, tossed Falcor a Caw, and swept out of the clearing, flying above the trees that surrounded the mansion and then higher until I was looking down at the neighbourhood.
I brought the image of Nick to my mind and tried to sense where he might be, but that did nothing, so instead, I circled the neighbourhood and moved back toward the city.
I had no idea how I would find Nick. Weird juju wasn't a thing I had. I was pretty sure that Crow just knew where Nick was last time. Did he know now? I was helpless and flying around aimlessly wasn't going to help the situation.
I scanned the ground. Car headlights and tail lights combined with streetlights to make the city look like an elaborate pinball machine. Nick could be anywhere. I thought back to the last time we tracked down Nick and realized one big difference.
I had given Crow control. We had eaten bugs and sailed on the wind. We had called back to birds. I had let Crow have control.
Each time since then, I had maintained a distance between Crow and me, even though we were sharing the same body. I had refused to get lost in Crow.
I realized there might be a reason he always knew where I was and could find me whenever he wanted to. Was he omnipotent like a God? Or did he have some bird sense that allowed him to find the people he wanted to? There was no point guessing. I just needed to find Nick.
I wished I had that tracking device strapped to me now, because last time I almost didn't return to my body, having gotten lost in being a bird.
Ugh. I wasn't keen on eating worms again, but I would do it for Nick.
I slowly let go of my grip on my humanity. It felt lik
e a piece of Velcro being pulled apart. A tearing of myself away from who I was. My mind struggled to cling to who I was, but once I started slipping, there was no way to stop it.
One second I was Selena inside a bird's body and the next I was the Black Crow.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The city was too crowded. Too busy. I turned and headed away from the busy part and flapped my wings until I was above a quiet subdivision. The scent of trees and grass was much better. The sounds were quieter, too. Too much noise was hard on my ears.
I circled a small cul-de-sac until I found a nice big tree to land in. The branches swayed slightly in the breeze, lulling me. I wanted to have a nap there above a quiet yard, but I knew I needed to go find the vampire. A short nap wouldn't hurt though. The vampire would wait. I fluffed my feathers and nestled down, so my feet were warmed by my body. I was about to tuck my head in for a quiet nap when the back door of the house opened, and a small streak of fur came racing out. A dog. Yuck.
It began racing around, yapping its head off. It was hardly any bigger than me, but it was obnoxiously loud. I cawed, hoping it would shut up, but it just looked up. Then began racing around the trunk of the tree, barking up at me.
Stupid animal. I stood up and fluffed my feathers before taking to the sky. I leapt from the branch and flapped hard until I was high in the sky. I could easily follow the thread of a pull back to Selena's body, but she was safe with her humans. Instead, I would show Selena that her vampire was fine, then I needed her to see something else, much more important.
I flapped out of the city toward the graveyard. The moonlit the rows of stones, each marking the place where a body lay. One body wasn't quite dead though.
I dropped down onto the stone marked with a name that was incorrect. I hopped down onto the dirt in front of the stone and stared at it, letting my eyes linger over the deep scores so Selena could see. Then I began flipping the dead leaves around the grave, pulling grubs and worms out of the damp soil. She had what she wanted, now it was my turn to take a little break.
The juicy grubs writhed for a moment until I downed them. They weren't as delicious as some of the things she ate, but they filled my stomach and would tide me over until we got to the place we were going. I would need the food to make sure I made it all the way to the Sanctuary.