Wilder

by Lena North

  I turned to Hawker and his eyes narrowed.

  “Red kites and owl are watching the crystal. The ugly bird is there too. They wait for orders.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I’ll tell Hawker and let you know,” I said and turned to the others.

  “My bird heard from Snow’s osprey. Paolo is going to get the crystal so he can show it to his investors. Hawker’s eagle says cars are moving up the mountain already and he’s following them with the falcon. The kites and the others are already waiting at the site where they think the crystal is and they’re waiting for orders.”

  Stunned silence ensued.

  “What do I tell her?” I asked Hawker.

  “Your bird talks to the other birds?” he asked.

  He looked incredulous, but I stomped my foot, not in the least interested in starting up another discussion about communication channels between the birds.

  “What do I tell her?” I repeated, and he snapped out of his stupor.

  “Tell her we’re coming.”

  Then everything went into overdrive. Hawker was barking out orders, and suddenly Byrd and Kit had set up some kind of command central on my back porch, and they were talking rapidly to Mickey who apparently was supposed to be in charge of it.

  Miller disappeared to come back with the contents of Willy’s gun safe, handing out weapons to Olly, Byrd, and Kit. When he stretched a rifle out to Mac, he got a quick head shake, and then Mac turned to me with an apologetic smile.

  “Another thing I probably should have told you. I have one of my rifles under our bed.”

  I started laughing, and his brows went up.

  “Seems like we’ll have plenty to talk about when this is all over,” I said.

  “Babe,” he said, but he smiled when he walked off to get his gear.

  No one gave me a weapon of any kind, so I calmly walked in and put a holster with a pistol in my belt, securing it to my thigh. I wasn’t very good with small guns, but it would be better than nothing. Then I walked off to get my dirt bike.

  When I got back everyone had gathered in front of the house, and I saw Hawker’s mouth tighten when he saw me, but he didn’t protest.

  “Where are we going?” I asked sweetly.

  “We’ll let the birds guide us,” Miller said calmly.

  “That you can certainly do,” I agreed, but added calmly, “Or you could follow me.”

  I saw how Olly turned his face down toward his bike, smiling widely. Once I explained how I’d been training with my bird and seen where they were, and after pointing out rather forcefully that I had indeed grown up in these mountains, Hawker agreed that it would be better to let me show the way. Everyone got up on their bikes and began starting up their engines. The air vibrated with the roar of pipes, and I wondered how their cruisers would hold up in the terrain, but they all acted as if they drove off-road with them all the time so I figured that they probably did.

  “Wilder,” Sloane said, suddenly at my side. “I don’t know why, but my dragonflies all keep telling me that you need to have this,” she said and pushed a small backpack into my hands.

  I heard a soft clunking sound and felt the shape of the cups from the fire dragons’ swords inside the bag.

  “Don’t ask why because I don’t know. They just say you need it,” she said.

  I thought about the prophecy and how we had failed at making reason of it. We’d tried various ways to get the stack of cups to be of some kind of use but without luck. Kit and Jinx had measured the angles and sat together to do enormous calculations, fighting and laughing, but not coming up with any solution. They were convinced that, with the right angles and enough light, it should be possible to make some kind of condensed light, though.

  Then Hawker called out that we were leaving and since it wouldn’t be in the way, I pushed the pack onto my back and headed up the mountain with a long line of bikes following me.

  When we approached the area my bird, and I had found, I slowed down and signaled to Hawker that we should stop.

  “It’s a few hundred meters straight ahead. Do we stop and walk or do we ride in?” I asked.

  “Bird says Paolo and his men are already there and they’ve heard us coming for a while now.”

  Then he started moving his hands in various directions, pointing and gesturing. Byrd and Kit drove off, and I realized I had stuff to learn because I understood little of it. Mac was next to leave, and he rolled by us, giving me an intense look, and I saw his mouth form words that I thought were, “Love you.” Then he disappeared up the hill, and I was left with Hawker, Miller, and Olly.

  “You go in the back, Wilder. When we get closer, you stop as soon as I give the signal,” Hawker ordered.

  I nodded, knowing well that I was new to this and would be in the way if I made the wrong move.

  “Be careful and stay out of trouble,” he said harshly, and I nodded again.

  Then we drove straight up the hill, faster than before. When we were almost in the clearing, Hawker raised his hand. I slowed down and watched them barge straight into mayhem.

  Shots were immediately fired from several angles, and I held my breath. Then I got off my bike and started walking closer, moving between the trees and crouching down low. It had seemed like a short distance, but it took me some time to get there, and most of the fight was over before I reached the edge of the clearing. I wanted to scream at what I saw.

  Miller and Olly were both on their backs, and they weren’t moving. Paolo was standing in the middle holding a pistol in his hand, pointing it at Hawker who was still standing. I realized immediately that he had no gun.

  “Bird,” I called out.

  “Bird says the man is in place with his long rifle,” she replied calmly.

  I exhaled. Mac was in place. He would shoot Paolo. Hawker must have known that too because he suddenly spoke and he sounded almost bored.

  “Fratinelli,” he murmured politely.

  “Johns,” Paolo sneered.

  “You’ll never get that crystal. You know that, right?” Hawker asked.

  “You’ll never know because you’ll be dead,” Paolo replied.

  “Shouldn’t think so,” my crazy dad snorted with ill-concealed humor.

  What the hell was he thinking?

  Then the shot came, and I gasped. Mac had said that he was the sniper, but I hadn’t realized what that meant. He must have been hidden at a distance somewhere, but he still managed to hit Paolo’s pistol and knock it out of his hand.

  Hawker turned to the side and grinned toward what I assumed was Mac. Then he turned to Paolo.

  “Right,” he said calmly and started walking.

  That’s when Paolo rushed toward him, pulling out a knife he’d hidden under the sleeve of his jacket. He threw himself at my father and knocked him over. I heard Hawker grunt as they landed, and then they rolled around on the ground. Mac would never be able to get a clear shot, I thought. Then Paolo was on top, and he raised the knife. Hawker pushed back at the arm, but Paolo quickly raised his other hand and punched my father straight in the face.

  “Sword of the fire dragons…” my bird suddenly whispered softly.

  Without giving myself time to think I pulled at the backpack, but it snagged in my leather jacket, so I pulled it all off and dug out the cups. They were still stacked together, and I held them out. Jinx’ words came to me, almost as if she was there, whispering them to me.

  “Brain always wins over brawn.”

  We hadn’t figured out how to use them for anything, but Paolo didn’t know that, and I could fool him. I had to because I couldn’t let that horrible man harm my father, so without looking at Miller and Olly, I walked into the clearing. I stopped next to the hole they had dug in the ground.

  “Paolo!”

  My shout echoed in the sudden stillness.

  Hawker was still on his back, and I wasn’t sure if he was dead, unconscious or waiting for an opportunity to attack. I
didn’t dare to look.

  Then I crouched and quickly pulled the tarp covering the hole away, and there it was.

  The crystal.

  It didn’t look at all as I expected. I’d thought it would be somehow like a huge diamond, but it looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was as big as my fist, oval and had a half translucent, white, milky, color. It was beautiful, mesmerizing, and I froze for a second, but then I tore my eyes away from it, stood up and held the cups out over the hole.

  “I will let the light pass through these, and it will destroy the crystal,” I said, thinking that I sounded rather silly and pompous, but with no time to prepare, that was the best I could come up with.

  “You will not,” Paolo said. “That will kill your birds, and you won’t risk that.”

  “Nothing is more important to me than my father, Paolo. I don’t expect you to understand that, but that’s how it is. I will do anything to keep him safe,” I said.

  My voice was strong and sure, and I realized that this was because I told the truth. I’d wondered before if I could kill someone, but right then it was clear to me that to save someone you loved, you could do anything.

  Then I leaned forward.

  “You’ve lost Paolo,” I said calmly, wondering why the hell Mac didn’t shoot the man. Surely he must have a clear shot?

  Suddenly Paolo rushed forward, and he was quicker than I expected. I tried to jump out of the way, but I slipped on the edge of the hole and then Paolo was there.

  He didn’t reach for me, though. He reached for the cups I held in my hands. I held on tighter, and he started pulling, twisting them toward his chest, but I refused to let go.

  Damn it, Mac, I thought. Why aren’t you making the shot?

  “Wilder,” Mac called out as if he’d heard my thoughts, and I heard footsteps moving toward us.

  Paolo jerked, and that brought me closer to him. He continued pulling me until I was bending forward, but I still refused to let go of the cups. Then I heard a clunking sound and looked down. The dragon pendant I had hanging around my neck in its long chain had somehow gotten out of my shirt and swung in the air just above the cups.

  Suddenly, the clouds parted and the late afternoon sun rays fell on the pendant. It swung around and then the light went through the pale green stone that was the dragon’s eye, and into the cups.

  Without any warning, there was a loud sizzling sound and Paolo choked in a weird gurgling way. Then he let go of the cups and fell to the ground.

  I stood there, staring at him. He didn’t move, and his eyes were open, but they had glazed over. I knew without a doubt that he was dead.

  Suddenly there was movement all around me. Kit and Byrd rushed into the clearing, directly to Olly and Miller. Mac came straight toward me, but when he saw Hawker, he stopped and went down on his knees. I ran to them then.

  My father had a long cut on his upper arm and another, smaller in his left thigh. His breath was rattling in and out through a throat that sounded tight. Too tight.

  “Mac,” I wailed.

  “That fucker,” Mac said hoarsely.

  Then he calmly put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a small object, twisted off one end and a long sharp needle suddenly protruded from a slim tube. With a swift, hard jab he punched the needle deep into Hawker's injured thigh.

  I blinked.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I learned from what happened to me,” he murmured absentmindedly. “Epi-pen. Antihistamine and a few other useful things.”

  Then he slapped Hawker on the cheek a few times.

  “Come on, man. Not the time to take a break,” he muttered, and slapped my dad again, slightly harder.

  With a choking sound, Hawker opened his eyes. They came to me first, but he turned to Mac and growled, “Bitch-slap me again, son, and you’ll never make me a grandfather.”

  I chuckled and leaned back but then I remembered the other men and looked around frantically.

  Both Miller and Olly was sitting up, and I gasped.

  “Vests, baby,” Mac said. “Bulletproof, but they got hit close range, so they both went down for a while. Mill’s probably got a few cracked ribs too. Nothing ever harms Olly.”

  Oh. I clearly had more to learn. And a vest to purchase, apparently.

  Mac and a grimacing Miller looked Paolo over, but there were no marks on his clothes or his body, and they couldn’t find anything that indicated why he’d died. Byrd and Olly got into the hole they had dug, and brought out the crystal, wrapped carefully in Olly’s bandana.

  “Strange,” Kit murmured and turned the cups around to look at them from all kinds of angles. “Should have made a laser beam, or something generating heat, and it didn’t. Maybe an electron beam, but I don’t see –”

  “Take them home and show them to the snooty chick,” Miller rumbled. “I’m sure she’ll have some kind of theory, and you can spend weeks and weeks in that lab of yours, figuring it out.”

  “Yeah,” Hawker muttered. “Don’t tell her she was right, though.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Brains won over brawn. This time,” he grinned, but it faded as he looked at me. “Don’t know what the hell you were thinking, though. Thought I’d have a stroke when I saw you walk into the clearing.”

  “You and me both,” Mac muttered sourly. “Ran like the devil, when I should have stayed where I was and taken my shot instead,” he added, clearly appalled at his own behavior.

  “Whatever,” I said. “What do we do with the crystal?” I asked, moving the focus away from me. “Do we bury it?”

  “Maybe we don’t?” Kit said slowly. “At least not yet? We should know more about them, shouldn’t we? I think we should bring it back with us and examine it. Jinx would love to get her hands on it…”

  He trailed off when Miller started laughing, which apparently hurt because he stopped abruptly, although there was still a grin on his face when he addressed his nephew.

  “She wants her hands on the crystal, and you want your hands on her. Win-win, huh?” he asked mockingly.

  Kit blushed, and I raised my brows, but when the others just chuckled and started to gather our things I decided to leave it. For now.

  “What do we do about Paolo?” I asked

  “Leave him. Tomorrow you’re going to show your father around the area where you grew up, and we’ll find him. Call it in,” Hawker said.

  I stared at him because he’d put his hands in the air and twitched his fingers when he said the word find.

  “Did you just do air-quotes on me?” I asked.

  Hawker straightened, and Miller started laughing again, but he stopped abruptly also this time.

  “Ouch, Wilder, don’t make me laugh,” he groaned.

  Then we carefully put the round milky-white stone in my backpack together with the cups. I drove as carefully as I could, knowing that I had a huge part of our history on my back, but we moved slowly anyway, because both Hawker and Miller were clearly impacted by their injuries, even though they both tried to hide it.

  Sloane and Mickey waited on the porch when we got back, and after we’d cleaned up and Mac had put a few stitches in my dad, we all had dinner.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Aftermath

  We all slept late the next day, and if there was a little bounce in my step as I walked into the kitchen to have a late breakfast, no one mentioned it.

  In the afternoon, I took my dad around the property, and lo and behold – we found my stepfather, dead from what seemed to be a heart attack. Hawker called it in, the police came, and after a brief investigation, they told us to go home. It took only a few hours and then we got word that they wouldn’t open up a bigger investigation.

  There had been no signs of struggle, or the men Paolo had brought with him, so they decided that Paolo’s death was likely a heart attack, although an autopsy would have to confirm that.

  “What hap
pened to the other men, Dad?” I asked. “Did you kill them?”

  “What?” he chuckled.

  “Paolo brought men with him, and they are gone…” I said uncertainly.

  I hadn’t actually seen the other men but my bird had told me and I did not like the thought that my father and his friends had been coldblooded enough to just walk in and shoot a few men, and then dispose of their bodies.

  “We haven’t killed anyone in the past few years, Wilder,” he muttered, still smiling at me.

  “But –”

  “How the hell did you get that impression?”

  “I don’t know,” I snapped impatiently. “Maybe because you explained to me that you did things that were against the law and Falk told me he was a goddamn sniper?”

  “You saw his shot yesterday?” he asked calmly.

  “Yes.”

  “Why the hell would the boy kill anyone when he can hit whatever he wants from a couple of thousand yards away?”

  “Oh.”

  “Only a bad shooter kills, Wilder. If you know what you’re doing, plan things well and keep a cool head, then there’s no need to kill,” he clarified what had been obvious already before. Then he grinned crookedly and continued, “We aim for their kneecaps, arms, shoulders… Kit usually tries for the hands, but he’s not a fantastic gunman, so Mac ends up saving his ass more often than not.”

  I felt silly and naïve, but since I didn’t do stupid very well, I muttered sourly, “I guess I’m the only one who has killed anyone then.”

  “I didn’t exactly say that,” he said, suddenly serious. “We’ve all had to do things we didn’t like. When it comes to the other guy or yourself, then the choice is easy even though the act never is.”

  He looked at me for a long time, and then he caressed my cheek.

  “Will it hurt you, honey? How Fratinelli died?”

  “No,” I replied immediately. “Falk and I talked it through last night. I didn’t want Paolo to end up dead, but he did, and it was mostly his own doing. I don’t really feel like I actually killed him…” I put my hand on top the rough, strong hand cupping my cheek, and leaned into it. “I’ll be fine, Dad, don’t worry.”