by H. T. Night
The world spun. Blood gushed from multiple cuts around my eyes and forehead. I needed just a moment to get my bearings, to clear my head, and then that fucker Wyatt was next.
He continued backing off. Good, I caught my breath. My eyes and head cleared slowly. Wyatt was strong as hell, too, and his punches had done some damage. And that’s when the battered raven flew back, alighting on the ground next to Wyatt.
A moment later, the raven began to spread out, to elongate. I was sure my head was still spinning. Perhaps my eyes hadn’t fully adjusted. I watched as each wing and spindly leg continued to stretch and reform and fill out. Perhaps ten seconds later, the wounded raven was Atticai.
My mouth dropped open. Blood spilled from my mouth, and there was an excellent opportunity. Wyatt had knocked loose a tooth. Still, none of that concerned me. All that concerned me was that I was convinced I was losing my mind.
Atticai straightened out his neck and spit out some blood of his own. “You can close your mouth, Josiah. It’s all true. Everything you might have heard. And you nearly killed me, too, which was an unfortunate move for you, bro. Too bad, too... I liked you.”
Now I was certain I was dreaming. I mean, c’mon. Yes, that made a lot of sense. Perfect sense. It made the only sense. I was dreaming, and Tommy was still alive, and Atticai most certainly didn’t just turn into a raven—and then back again.
I stood before the four of them, too stunned to speak, waiting to wake up, willing myself to wake up. So far, my tortured brain felt it necessary to continue this bizarre dream.
Atticai and his four friends circled me. Dream or not, for the first time in my life, I felt fear. I powered through it.
“Face me one at a time, you vampire fucks. Or not, I don’t give a shit. Just do something. You’re certainly not getting any prettier.”
Famous last words. All five ran at me. Worse, all five turned into fucking black birds at the same time. One minute they were on their feet running, and the next they were black missiles were hurling at me. Missiles with claws and beaks and little beady eyes.
Okay, Josiah, you can wake up now!
No such luck. The first bird dive-bombed at my face. I threw myself to the ground, ducking. Now they were all on me, squawking and clawing and pecking. At first, I thought they were trying to eat me alive. They weren’t. They were gripping me, hooking their talons into anything they could grab: my jeans, my shirt, my flesh. Amazingly, I found myself lifting up off the ground.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
I looked down, and I was flying. A cold wind rushed over me, whipping my hair crazily. They flew me higher and higher. I assumed they were just going to drop me, and that this was it for me. I said some prayers and just waited.
But they didn’t drop me, and as best as I could tell—since it’s hard to get your bearings when you’re flying over treetops at night—we seemed to fly in a massive circle. The Flatlands appeared below, a massive clearing in the high forest. The ravens somehow worked as one, and soon we were dropping together. Moments later, I felt the ground beneath me, and I had never felt so relieved in all my life. The massive ravens released their hold on me, and I tentatively found my feet. My knees shook.
I wasn’t out of the woods yet, no pun intended. The ravens weren’t normal sized. These suckers were big, and now I knew why. Want to know surreal? How about being stared at by five enormous, shiny black ravens?
Suddenly, Atticai and the others transitioned back into their human selves. Or vampire selves. Or whatever the hell they were. One moment, the five ravens somberly regarded me, and the next, the five men stood ten feet away, stretching their arms.
Atticai said, “You a believer now, Josiah?”
I was pretty shaken up. “I believe in something.” Actually, I believed in two things above all else: Either I had gone insane with grief over losing my friend, or I was still dreaming.
“Now that you’re a believer, Josiah, we’re left with only a couple of choices. You see, you now know way too much. You’re a risk to all of us. We would normally just kill you at this point.”
He said this matter-of-factly, as if he had done this very thing before, perhaps dozens of times before. “Then why don’t you?” I said.
“Because even though you tried to kill me, I like you. I see your potential. You’re the toughest Tandra I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something. Imagine if you became a Mani. Imagine how powerful you’d be as a vampire.”
I wanted to laugh this off, but it was hard to laugh off five dudes who could turn into ravens and take you on a nighttime flight high above the treetops.
“A vampire? And what kind of life would I have?”
Atticai grinned. “A longer one than what you’ll have now. I’m giving you an offer of a lifetime. A chance to live forever.”
I hadn’t realized he was giving me an offer. I knew what I wanted, and what I didn’t want, was to be one of them. “Atticai, I don’t want to be a Mani. Or a vampire. Or a damn bird. I just want to be a regular person. You must remember what that was like... being a regular person?”
I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I think I was trying to buy some time. If by some chance that this shit was real, there was a real chance that I might not make it out of this clearing alive tonight. And I sure as hell didn’t want to go around sucking people’s blood for the rest of my unnatural life.
Listen to you. This is nuts, I told myself.
Nuts or not, I had five guys surrounding me, five guys who had just taken me on a flight from hell.
Atticai was smiling again. For someone who had nearly been choked out of existence by me, the tall fucker was sure pleased with himself. “A regular person? Hell, that was back in the 1700s. Life was a little more boring back then, Josiah. We didn’t have the internet or Xbox or Starbucks. The whole vampire gig was a pretty decent deal.”
Wyatt grinned. So did some of the others. Somewhere in the near distance, I could hear a strange rattling noise. I didn’t think it was my own teeth, or my knocking knees. I felt fear, but I wasn’t afraid of Atticai, or anyone. I just didn’t want to die. Not out here. And not by them.
I said, “So, if I say no, you guys just kill me right here and now?”
“No, we won’t. The rattlesnakes will. You do hear them, don’t you? Coming for you? I’ve summoned them. It’s a trick of mine. It’s one of the bag of tricks I have in my arsenal, to summon the things that slither over this earth. Some of us can just do it better than others.”
I could hear a rattling. I could hear lots of rattling. Hundreds of rattling sounds rising in crescendo all around me, like maracas in the hands of possessed folk musicians. Okay, now my knees were knocking. Snakes? Hundreds of them?
Oh, sweet, sweet Jesus.
“I just want you to know one thing, Josiah. I did not kill Tommy. His disgusting Carni brothers did.”
“And why would they do that?”
“How would I know, Josiah? Maybe they mistook him for Kibble N’ Bits or puppy chow. They’re filthy animals; that’s all I know.”
The rattling seemed to grow louder. Were there seriously rattlesnakes coming for me now? I looked around, scanning the darkness around me. I couldn’t see anything, but I seemed to hear a whispering, the sound a slithering body makes moving over the earth. Hundreds of slithering bodies. And then I smelled them, the snakes. Snakes have a distinctive smell when they are threatened, something I learned in high school biology. I smelled the slight skunkiness in the air—snake musk.
“Last chance, Josiah. Join me.” Atticai reached out his hand to me. “Join me and live.”
I looked at his proffered hand. The rattling was indeed getting closer. Good God, this wasn’t happening. Atticai might have liked me, but I hated him. He could say what he wanted, but he was responsible, one way or another, for Tommy’s death.
I shook my head. “I’d rather die out here.”
“So be it.”
Suddenly the five vampires transitioned into ravens. They circle
d me in what could have been a ceremonial farewell, and then flew off into the night.
Chapter Twenty-one
So, there I was, completely left alone to die.
And not to just die, but die a horrific death at the fate of hundreds of approaching snakes. I spotted a long branch on the ground nearby and grabbed it. I looked up at the sky and looked for the North Star. I knew the way down was to go south. So, I needed to go opposite of the star. I tucked my pant legs into my Doc Martens shoes. I was still wearing my leather jacket, which gave me some comfort. Could snakes bite through jeans?
Next, I said a prayer and took off running south. There was some moonlight, and I was able to use it to find a game trail. I followed it and kept running, praying like hell that I didn’t break an ankle.
Or come across like... a million snakes.
That thought alone sent me scurrying through the forest, running as fast as I could run. My adrenaline was on high. I had never run so hard in my life. I was hopping over bushes and, yes, over snakes. I could feel them underneath me, but I refused to stop. I ran as hard and as fast as I could move. I had no idea how long I was going to have to do this.
It was nearly thirty minutes later when I looked up at the sky. Shit. I had totally lost track of my direction. I was now facing the North Star. Which meant I had been running in circles. I was exhausted, and my side hurt. Nearby was a giant rock. So, I jumped on top of it. The rattling of the snakes echoed everywhere. I looked around me, and the ground seemed to be moving. Snakes, everywhere. Slithering, inevitably approaching me. My skin crawled. How Atticai had done this, I don’t know, but the man—or vampire—was surely dealing with some dark magic.
There was no way that I was going to make it around them. I was going to have to attack them.
I jumped down and started swinging the branch. I swung it like a crazed, steroid-induced baseball player. I tried to make room, so I could get around, but there were just too many of them. Snakes flew in every direction. I severed some in half; I bashed others. But there were just too many. I was tiring and losing hope, certain I was going to be smothered by thousands of rattlesnakes, when suddenly I heard a squawk. A familiar shrieking squawk. It sounded like Daphne. Kee-eeeee-arr, kee-eeeee-arr.
This night was getting weirder and weirder.
She flew in like a missile, wings folded close to her body. It was dark, and I couldn’t see what the hawk was doing, but it was something. She flew in low circles, and the snakes began to scatter. I jumped back onto the boulder, and just stood there and watched Daphne in action. The undulating forest floor, once alive with snakes, now calmed. The rattling disappeared into the distance. In a matter of minutes, the snakes were gone, beaten back by the angry hawk with a shrill voice and no fear of them. Incredible.
All the snakes had gone away. Or so I thought. As I jumped down from the rock and moved through the high grass, I heard a sharp rattle, and then a biting pain. Turns out the little shits can bite through jeans.
I kicked my leg hard and the little fucker went flying. The pain in my ankle was intense and immediate. The poison quickly took effect, perhaps because I was depleted emotionally and physically. I fell to my knees. My eyes blurred. I was losing consciousness. I could hear a lot of noise nearby. More snakes? More birds? More vampires? I didn’t know or care.
Still, someone was close by. Someone or something. As strange colors flitted just behind my eyelids, perhaps an effect of the poison, I felt something bite deeply into my ankle, the same spot where the snake had just sunk its own fangs. Another snake? No. I could feel hands gripping my leg.
I closed my eyes. The pain in my ankle was excruciating. The person sucking the venom did so with ferocity. I forced open my eyes, and through the swirling colors and light, I saw Yari.
“Yari?” I gasped, convinced I was hallucinating.
“Shh. Quiet, Josiah. We’ve need to get you out of here.”
I looked at Yari, and she started transitioning in the way Atticai and the others had done. But Yari didn’t transition into a raven. Yari transitioned into... Daphne, my faithful hawk friend. Yari was Daphne?
It was then that I passed out.
Chapter Twenty-two
I opened my eyes, and I found myself in my bed.
Was everything a dream? I looked down at my ankle, and there were two sets of raw, swollen puncture wounds. The snake and Yari?
Not a dream, I thought. Last night was real.
So then how I was home?
I stood up and went to the living room. It felt like morning, yet, my house was still completely dark. I soon saw why. Someone had duct-taped the blinds so that no light could get in.
A voice spoke from the darkness, startling me. “In about three hours, I can go outside.” Yari was sitting on the carpet cross-legged in the far corner of the living room. She looked as if she had been doing yoga in complete darkness. If not for her pale complexion, I probably wouldn’t have seen her at all.
“So, it’s all true,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “Vampires, sunlight, werewolves, full moons—all of it.”
“It’s all true, Josiah.”
“I still can’t believe it.”
“Believe, Josiah. You have seen it with your own eyes.”
I stared at Yari, sitting there in the corner of my living room, in complete darkness, a beautiful woman I had slept with just weeks earlier, a woman I had watched turn into a fucking beautiful red-tailed hawk. I sat down and held my head. I wasn’t suffering from overwhelming grief—although my heart ached heavier than ever, knowing that Tommy would never set foot in here again. I wasn’t running on adrenaline, and I certainly wasn’t high or drunk. This was real, and there was no talking my way out of this. Could I still be dreaming? Sure, maybe, but I doubted it.
This was real. Real.
I asked the only question that I could think of at the moment: “Since when did vampires start turning into birds? I thought it was supposed to be bats or fog or something.”
“You mortals—and your writers, in particular—were the ones who fabricated that nonsense. Hell, we don’t even refer to ourselves as vampires. We are something else.”
“Mani,” I said.
“Yes.” Yari stood up and walked over to me. “Josiah, I have done a horrible thing.”
“What would that be, exactly?”
She paused, and then sat down on the couch. She was being exceptionally quiet. I walked over and sat next to her. “What is it?” I asked.
“Josiah, I saved you. The Triat won’t like that. The Mani won’t like that, either. Especially Atticai.”
“Why is it so awful that I know? Lena knows, and nothing seems to happen to her.”
“Lena is different.”
“How so?”
“There is so much about us that you don’t understand. There is a history, and there are many things that have been prophesied. I can’t go into that right now. When I am at full strength, we need to get you out of here.”
“Where would I go, Yari?”
“Anywhere but here. Atticai knows where you live, and I know him; he’ll get suspicious if there is no word about a man dying in the wilderness. He will assume you survived.”
“So, what am I supposed to do? Run? I’ve never run from anything in my life.”
“Can the macho ego bullshit, Josiah. These guys will kill you without a second thought. The Triat gives them the right to do so. Please, we must leave. Soon.”
“And go where?”
“Far away.”
“Come with me.”
Yari stared at the floor for a moment before looking up at me. “Josiah, I will always be with you.”
“No, don’t be with me as Daphne, the hawk. I want you to be by my side as you... Yari. You. Whatever you are, I want to be with you.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Look, do you have an extra set of keys to Tommy’s car? It should still be parked at the ranch from the other night. His keys must have fallen out when he fought Atti
cai because he didn’t have them when I dropped him...” her voice drifted off.
“When you dropped him off at the hospital,” I said suddenly, as the realization hit me that it had been Yari who tried to save my friend’s life. “Why would you do that if you knew he was a Carni?”
She looked away. “Because I knew you cared about him. I did it for you.”
This whole thing was almost too much for me to handle. I sat down and cradled my head in my hands, thinking. “You’re going to have to turn into Daphne and go get his Mustang from the ranch. You are going to need to bring it back here. It’ll be dark soon, so I guess you won’t have a problem, you know, transitioning, or whatever you call it.”
Yari smiled and looked at me for a heartbeat or two. She reached out and took my hand, and we sat like that until the sun finally set. And when it did, she stood from the couch and stepped away from me. “Do you have an extra set of keys, Josiah?
“Yes, we both kept a set of each other’s keys in our bedrooms just in case of an emergency. Can you carry them as a hawk?”
“Oh, I can carry much bigger things than keys, Josiah. I’ll need the keys to the Mustang. Now.”
I nodded and fetched the keys, and when I returned, a beautiful red hawk was sitting on the arm of the couch. She opened her talons, and I carefully hooked the key ring inside the claws as they closed over the key ring. I opened the door, and the hawk shot out of my apartment like a cannon shot.
“Be careful!” I yelled after her, wondering what my neighbors were thinking. With any luck, no one saw the hawk.
About a half hour later, Yari made her way back in Tommy’s Mustang. During that time, I had packed a few things. We jumped into the muscle car and headed straight for the freeway. I kept looking up in the sky for ravens.