by Dixie Lyle
“Neither does the new lawn in Oswald’s pen, but it’s easy to verify. In fact, you could take a little stroll down there right now.” I smiled sweetly at her, and she took the hint more gracefully than I thought she would.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Ben,” she said. “First class is promptly at ten o’clock. Don’t be late.” She sauntered away without wishing me a good night.
“Ten?” I said to him. “That seems kind of late. What happened to dueling at dawn?”
He slipped an arm around me. “I have to serve up breakfast first, remember? And this isn’t going to be a duel. It’s instruction.”
“Just remember there’s no teacher’s petting in this class.”
“I promise. You know you have nothing to worry about, right?”
I looked him in the eye. “Of course not. Just because you and a gorgeous woman with superpowers are going to be spending a lot of time together in another dimension where no times passes and nobody can see what you’re doing and you’ll probably both be drenched to the skin within minutes and okay, maybe I’m a little worried. I mean, this is not exactly an ordinary level of trust you’re asking for, here. For all I know she’s going to tell you that the only way you’ll ever learn how to master your abilities is to have wild, mind-blowing eagle sex.”
He frowned. “What’s eagle sex?”
“It’s where two eagles lock talons while flying and go into a cartwheeling dive, pulling apart at the last second before they hit the ground.”
“Sounds next to impossible. For one thing, I’m pretty sure I don’t have talons. And even if I did, I doubt that’s where my sex organs are located.”
“It is impossible. It’s a myth. Which is exactly my point—if she told you something like that, how would you know if she was telling the truth? Everything about this is mythical. Thunderbirds, Unktehilas, ghosts, and gateways to other dimensions—she could tell just about any lie and get away with it.”
He reached down and took my hand. “Not everything is a myth, Foxtrot. The real world is still here, ticking away like it always does. And there are real things in it, too. Like me and you.”
He kissed me. It was a nice moment, a verging-on-momentous moment, because he was coming awfully close to saying that particular phrase, the one that’s so hard to say the first time and eventually turns into something you say so often it loses all meaning.
Which is when, in a flash of clarity, my brain made a connection it hadn’t before.
I broke the kiss and pulled back, leaving Ben staring at me with a puzzled look on his face.
“The real and the unreal,” I said. “I’ve been trying to make them fit together the whole time, because that’s what my life has become. But what if they don’t go together? What if this two different kinds of weirdness that both showed up at the same time?”
“I’m … not following. But I know that look.”
“I need to go do some research, right now.”
“Yeah, that’s the look I meant.” He shrugged. “Okay, go. I’ll see you at breakfast?”
“Absolutely.”
And then I sprinted to my office and hit the Internet. Whiskey looked up, heaved a doggy sigh, and put his head back down on his paws. Tango, curled up on the couch, only twitched her tail.
* * *
It was dawn before I’d gathered enough information to formulate a solid theory. I’d had to make some long-distance calls to firm it up, but the murder finally made sense to me. I’d figured out who’d done it, and why. The how was a little trickier, but only the actual method the suxamethonium was delivered by; I already knew that Anna’s death by drowning was caused by chemical paralysis.
I talked things over with my partners. We made some plans.
And then we called a meeting.
I held it in the study, just before breakfast. I was already seated, Tango in my lap, when the first attendee showed up: Ben. He was dressed in his chef’s whites and looked a little distracted. “What’s up, Trot? I have eggs to Benny.”
“Have a seat, chef. This won’t take long, but it will be instructive.”
He shrugged and sat down next to me on the divan.
The next to arrive was Teresa Firstcharger.
I already knew she was an early riser, but she’d still sounded a little annoyed on the phone at being summoned at this hour. She was dressed casually, in track pants and a tight neon-orange jogging top, her long black hair tied back in a ponytail. “I’m here, Foxtrot. What’s so important it couldn’t wait?”
“Answers, Teresa. Answers to some very important questions. For instance, the Unktehila: What is it, really?”
She regarded me coolly. “The ancient enemy of the Thunderbird race. I already told you that.”
“That’s one answer, sure. But some questions have more than one answer, don’t they? Don’t answer that, it was rhetorical. I seem to be asking a lot of those lately.”
On my lap, Tango stretched and yawned.
I ignored that and continued. “Another answer to that particular question is: ‘a big scary monster that can control minds and look like anyone.’ Right?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“No, that’s how you put it. Because answer number three is, the Unktehila is the bogeyman. Kind of the ultimate paranoia inducer, isn’t he? Not just the monster under the bed, but a monster that can disguise itself as a dust bunny and make you doubt your own judgment.”
Teresa crossed her arms. “Are you trying to tell me the Unktehila doesn’t exist?”
I leaned forward and picked up my mug of Irish breakfast tea from the coffee table. “Existent, non-existent—those are such narrow definitions, aren’t they? Like you said, this is the stuff of myth, of legend. Extraneous details change, right? Facts are just window dressing. Which is awfully convenient for someone trying to inspire fear in a potential follower.”
“Not a follower,” Teresa said. “A student.”
“Uh-huh. My point,” I continued, “is that for a teacher, you don’t seem to have a lot of regard for hard data. And the reason for that is simple: You don’t know as much as you pretend to.”
“I see,” said Teresa. The smile on her face was dangerously close to a smirk. “Are you feeling a little threatened, Foxtrot? Information is supposedly your domain, but now someone’s come along who knows more than you?”
I smiled right back. “Oh, I have no problem with that. Lots of people know more than I do; I spend much of my time figuring out which ones they are, so I can pay attention and learn from them. As a side benefit, I also wind up figuring out which ones are trying to snow me. Whoops, sorry, little weather joke there.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Teresa sighed. She pulled a pair of earbuds out of her pocket and plugged them into the music player strapped to her upper arm. “I’m going for a run—”
Which is when Kaci walked into the room.
Ben frowned. “I thought Gorshkov left—”
“He did,” Teresa said. She took a step backward, away from the dog. “I saw him get into a cab yesterday.”
Kaci sat down. She stared at Teresa intently.
“The Unktehila could be anyone, right?” I said. “Anyone at all.”
“That’s just a dog,” Teresa said. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but—”
Kaci changed shape, flowing into something that looked like a pit bull covered in scraps of dirty cloth. (Trust me,) she said. (I’m a lot more than that.)
Teresa shrieked, holding her hands in front of her to fend off any possible attack—and then twin lightning bolts crackled from them.
Kaci, though, was too fast. She shrank down to Chihuahua size in the blink of an eye, the bolts passing over her head.
“Stop!” I yelled. “That’s not the Unktehila!”
Teresa glanced at me, her eyes wide with fear, then looked back at the dog—who shifted into a much more familiar form: Whisk
ey’s.
“What?” she said. “Your dog is—”
“Not a giant mind-controlling snake,” I said. “But yeah, he is a shape-shifter. See, you don’t know everything.”
[I apologize for the deception, madame. But it does illustrate Foxtrot’s point rather well, don’t you agree?]
“I don’t agree,” said Ben. “Exactly what is your point, Foxtrot?”
“Exactly what I just said—that Teresa doesn’t know everything. In fact, there’s a whole bunch of things she doesn’t know, and the first and most important one is this: that giant snake we’ve been chasing? Not an Unktehila. It doesn’t have horns or a mystic crystal embedded in its forehead, and I’m not sure it’s even hostile. What it is, is Australian.”
Ben and Teresa both replied at the same time: “Australian?”
“Yeah. See, the Rainbow Serpent myth pops up in more than one culture, and means more than one thing. In Australia, it’s a god of creation, associated with all sorts of life-positive things: watering holes, menstruation, healing.”
Teresa looked skeptical. “If this Rainbow Serpent is so life-positive, why did it kill Anna?”
“It didn’t. It’s not an Unktehila; it doesn’t take on any form it wants, nor does it control minds. It brings life, for the most part—though it can also have quite the temper. Want to know how it demonstrates anger?”
“Eating people?” Ben ventured.
“No. It causes storms—thunder and lightning and flash floods. See, the Rainbow Serpent is also a weather spirit.”
I paused for a moment to let that sink in. “Anna went into the outback to test her abilities. She must have attracted the attention of the resident weather manipulator—who then followed her all the way here.”
“For what purpose?” Teresa demanded.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know one thing: It wasn’t to inject Anna with a paralytic that caused her to drown in a swimming pool. That kind of thing was just barely plausible for a shape-shifting bogeyman, but we’re talking a whole other level of power here; the Rainbow Serpent is closer to a god than a monster, the kind of being that puts the super in supernatural.”
“That—that actually explains quite a bit,” Teresa muttered. “The vision I had never showed me the serpent’s head, just the body. And the power I felt flowing to this place—I thought it was just three Thunderbirds coming together, but it wasn’t.”
“Nope. Three Thunderbirds, two turtledoves, and an Australian Rainbow Serpent. In a tree.”
Ben gave me a look, which Teresa seconded.
“Okay, there’s no tree. But ostrich enclosure didn’t scan and anyway, you just admitted you got most of your information in a peyote-induced haze.”
Teresa glared at me. “I never said anything about peyote.”
“No, you didn’t. You also didn’t say anything about trying to manipulate Ben into accepting you as his teacher by scaring him with monster stories. But that’s exactly what you did.”
“It wasn’t manipulation. I honestly thought he was at risk—that we all were. But even if it wasn’t an Unktehila that killed Anna, she’s still dead. So who’s responsible?”
And then, with utterly perfect timing, the last person I’d invited to the meeting walked in.
“What’s this all about?” said Efram Fimsby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Dr. Fimsby,” I said. “Thank you for joining us. I’ve been thinking hard about your offer, and I’ve decided to take you up on it. Please sit down; we need your help.”
He glanced at me and Ben, then looked more intently at Teresa. She looked back neutrally. Fimsby chose an overstuffed chair and sat. “Well, I’m overjoyed to hear it. I take it we’re all … informed as to the situation?”
“Not quite,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons I called this meeting. There’s been a lot of secrecy and paranoia about the ‘situation’ as you call it, and that has to stop. We’re going to share our information, and hopefully arrive at some conclusions.
“First of all, as you may have guessed, Teresa Firstcharger is also a Thunderbird.” I paused, mainly to enjoy the uncomfortable look on Teresa’s face. “Yes, that’s right,” I continued. “Teresa, Dr. Fimsby here not only is aware of the existence of Thunderbirds, but also assisted Anna when she first discovered her powers and fled to Australia. Though he took a very different approach, he was trying to do for Anna the same thing you’re trying to do for Ben: teach a fledgling weather spirit how to spread their wings. A noble goal.”
Fimsby gave Teresa a warm smile. “It seems we have something in common. I do hope we can stand united against a common threat.”
“Perhaps,” Teresa said. “Though Foxtrot seems unclear on exactly what that threat is.”
“Oh, I know exactly what it is,” I said. “It’s somebody who’s targeting Thunderbirds. Somebody who killed a Thunderbird in such a way that only another Thunderbird would know it wasn’t what it appeared to be. Well, another Thunderbird or somebody familiar with their abilities, anyway.”
“Why?” asked Ben. “If it wasn’t an Unktehila, then what was the motive?”
“Twofold. The secondary reason was to attract the attention of other Thunderbirds, so they could be targeted as well. The primary reason was fear.”
“Fear?” asked Fimsby. “Of what?”
“Of a race of supernatural beings that could control the most powerful force on the planet—the weather. To the killer, this was like handing the trigger of an atomic bomb to a toddler. They were so afraid of the possible consequences that they decided the only course of action left to them was to kill each and every Thunderbird they could locate. I imagine they thought they were saving the human race.”
I looked Fimsby in the eye. He looked back calmly, but after a moment, he blinked, then looked shocked. “What? Surely you don’t think I’m the guilty party!”
“You’ve insisted on secrecy from the beginning, implying there’s some sort of threat. When I mentioned the Unktehila, you acted as if I knew what I was talking about, though actually you were just playing along—because, as it turns out, there is no Unktehila. You admitted to being in the pool the night Anna died … because you were the one who killed her.”
Fimsby said nothing for a long moment. When he spoke at last, his voice was soft but urgent. “Nonsense. I’ve done nothing but offer my help. You have only the vaguest circumstantial evidence—”
“You’re not just a meteorologist,” I said. “You have a medical degree, as well. Not only a smart person, but a compassionate one. Is that why you quit medicine to concentrate on exotic weather patterns? You thought you could do more good on a grand scale than a personal one?”
Fimsby got to his feet. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to these groundless accusations—”
“Doctor,” Teresa said. “Sit down, or I’ll electrocute you on the spot.”
Fimsby froze. And then, very slowly, he sank back into his seat.
“I haven’t known Foxtrot for very long,” said Teresa, “but I do know this about her: She doesn’t jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts, and she is very good at collecting facts. If she says you murdered Anna Metcalfe, then you need to explain why she’s wrong—and it better be an extremely good explanation.”
Ben still hadn’t said a word, but the look he was giving Fimsby said it all. I hoped we weren’t about to have an indoor hurricane.
“Anna must have told you about Ben,” I said. “That’s probably what tipped you over the edge—the idea that Anna wasn’t just an isolated case, there were others like her. You convinced her that you could help Ben the same way you helped her, but insisted on secrecy. Once she was dead, it was easy to suggest someone was out to murder Thunderbirds—because there was. You.
“On your second attempt,” I continued, “you tried to frame Teresa by shooting Ben with a crossbow. Native Americans didn’t use crossbows, but that’s a minor detail, easily glossed over. Lots of people miss little d
etails like that—and it’s usually up to someone like me to catch them. The details, I mean. Like the fact that an old-school buddy of yours back in Oz fondly recalled going hunting with you and your Barnett Ghost 410. Which is a crossbow. One that’s probably in a Dumpster miles away from here by now.”
Fimsby’s face hardened. “Fine. In the end, it doesn’t matter what I say, does it? I’m only human. I can’t generate terajoules of energy with a wave of my hand, or drop the ambient temperature a hundred degrees on a whim. You’re going to do whatever you want to anyway, and to hell with insignificant human customs like the police or courts. If you can ignore natural laws, why should you pay any attention to ours?”
And there it was. The Unktehila in the room, so to speak. When it comes to deception, violence, and manipulation, you don’t have to go looking for mythological monsters; the human race makes its own all the time.
Ben leaned forward. Suddenly I could smell ozone in the air. “You did it. You really did it. You killed my sister.”
“You have no idea what you are,” Fimsby hissed. “It’s not just your potential for destruction, which God knows is immense. No, it’s the very fact of your existence. You invalidate the idea of science itself. You should be impossible, yet here you sit; mocking everything I know to be true, revealing that the world as I know it is an illusion, an ill-fitting suit of rational clothing hung on a ravening beast of chaos. There is nothing you can do to me worse than you have already done.”
“You’re wrong,” Ben said. “About everything. No, the universe isn’t the clockwork mechanism you thought it was. It’s big and messy and confusing and contradictory. So what? People—and yeah, I count myself among them—are made to deal with messy and confusing and contradictory. We try, we screw up, we figure things out and move on. It’s not reliable or predictable or even consistent, but there’s this terrific concept built in. It’s a term engineers like to use, but it’s popular with chefs, too: forgiveness. You’d probably call it chaos, but I like to think of it as freedom. It’s what lets you make mistakes. Making mistakes is how you learn, and learning is how you stop making mistakes and get it right. That’s what Anna was trying to do, and that’s what she thought you were helping her with.”