“Come on, we should get up there and see what they’ve discovered about the cull.”
He groans sitting up. “They won’t be back yet.”
“Who?”
“The Camazotz sent to Duskwing and Muerte. Sylvana’s bones foretold death, but she couldn’t see who was going to die,” he says.
“Wow, her abilities astound me. Here, let me try.” I rub my temples with my eyes closed and start humming. “The Duskwing are in grave danger if we do not give them aid,” I announce in the deepest voice I can do without choking.
“It’s not funny.”
“I know, but her visions don’t exactly predict much. We know bats are going to die. It was in the freaking newspaper! Those Camazotz need help, and I can’t understand why Strickland isn’t doing something.” Camazotz numbers are down enough as it is. Why on earth would he allow his kin to be slaughtered?
“Strickland sent three members to each colony to warn them. He said he couldn’t have Camazotz blood on his hands even if they were breaking our laws.”
Finally, he’s doing something sensible.
I dig though my closet for something dark. My laundry basket is overflowing, and I’ve worn all Camazotz-camo gear.
“Ah-huh, don’t you dare,” he says, watching my every move.
“What?”
“Change. I like your shirt and so will Bailey.” The shirt he’s referring to is my Easter special. It’s a brilliant blue that almost matches Rocks’ new shirt, but the front is covered in crazy, colored eggs. Mini can spend endless attempts trying to count them.
“I don’t want trouble.”
“What you wear will not cause trouble, and I don’t want you trying to be something you’re not because of my issues. Let’s leave the identity crisis to me, shall we?” He grins.
When we reach the quirky mountain town of Helen, it’s almost dark. Mom wouldn’t let Rocks and I leave because she was so happy to have the family together again. The GoPro got a serious workout. I have a feeling the folks are going to make up for the month they missed with Mini by recording her every step.
The speed limit through this Alpine replica town is probably the same as it was back in the 1800s. Slow doesn’t even begin to describe it. I still smile passing through Helen because it’s like no other place in the U.S.
I brake at one of the many pedestrian crossings, just near the bridge over the river. A young girl dressed in dark clothing, stumbles across the road. She’s looking from left to right and all around at the shops ahead of her. With her attention on everything else, her journey across the two-lane road takes forever. It’s probably her first visit. I know my jaw didn’t close the first time I saw the colorful architecture.
Rocks leans forward in his seat. I follow his eyes back to the thin teen.
“Let me out.” His hand is pulling on the door latch.
“What?” I glance in my rearview mirror; thankfully there isn’t anyone behind me.
Rocks is out of the car and striding toward her a second later. In my headlights, I see her eyes widen in shock, before she collapses on the sidewalk and starts to cry. That’s when I notice her dress is dark and lacey.
A little Goth princess in the making.
Rocks looks up and down the street before scooping the girl into his arms. He points to the side street ahead, so I pull off the main road and park illegally, before going to him.
Moving away from the streetlight, Rocks sets her back on her feet. She’s deathly pale, and her hair is stuck to the side of her face. She wipes her eyes with the back of each hand. The poor poppet looks exhausted.
“Moonshadow, what are you doing here?” The bat in Rocks emerges as his senses take over. He’s listening and sniffing the air, trying to sense danger. “Are you alone?”
She nods. “I escaped the bad men. I’ve been flying ever since, but I couldn’t remember where your market is.”
“What bad men?” I ask, unable to hold back. I silently pray this isn’t the cull.
Her eyes pop as though she hadn’t noticed my presence. I watch as they move to my blond hair and then over my aeronaught Easter egg t-shirt.
“This is Connie. She came to Duskwing one day. It’s all right,” he says in a gentle voice. It reminds me of the night I was lost in the forest. He was so calm despite the fact he knew the Camazotz were angry at the lost gatecrasher. Moonshadow is little Moonshiner’s half sister.
“The men who took my family,” she says, her eyes glassy as though she’s still witnessing the horror.
Rocks reads the worry written clearly over my face. He tells her he’ll take her to the market where she’ll be safe. I offer a ride in the old Honda, but she steps back in fear at that craziness.
“Head for my wagon,” he says to me, putting a hand on her shoulder.
The pair disappears down the side of the nearest building, and a moment later, two bats flap their wings hard to gain height fast. I’m behind the wheel and completely ignoring the speed limit in hot pursuit.
I pull my Honda up at the market, taking up two parking spaces. It’s not like any one else will be visiting after hours. Rocks had said to meet at his wagon so I race up the path, turning left.
“Shit!”
My nose collides with a wall of hard muscle. One second the path was empty, the next I barrel into a hard chest face first. Stepping back, I rub my nose and watch as the Camazotz before me rubs the center of his bare chest. He’s only wearing a vest, and even in the fading light, I can see the dark tattoo across his breast. It’s a large old script M with a shape that reminds me of angel wings hovering above it. He glares.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you flip.” I go to step around, but he moves with me, blocking the path. “Hey?”
“You’re not allowed, naught. You’re banned, remember?”
“Not this shit again—are you kidding?” I study his face. I know this bat. I’ve seen him at the hotdog stand with his constant frown. “You’re Mackie, right?”
The narrowing of his eyes is my only answer. “Leave!”
“Look, I’m here trying to help you. Trying to save your sorry techno-phobic butts. Let me through.”
“The only way you’re getting through is if you go through me.”
“Oh, I’ll be getting through you.” I pull out my phone and dial Rocks. “Tell Mackie the misguided guard dog that I’m allowed in.”
Mackie reacts exactly how I predicted at being called a dog. He’s never going to be my friend, and if he thinks he can call me nothing and get away with it, then he’s got a bit to learn. “Ah-ha. Right.” I hold out my glowing phone. “Rockland would like to talk to you.”
Mackie jumps back a good foot as though the evil, aeronaught device is going to make his wings shrivel up and his fangs fall off.
“Hey!”
“It’s for you.” He shakes his head. I put the phone back to my ear. “He’s too scared of the wittle tewaphone. Can you yell really loudly because I know his batty ears will hear it?” I ask Rocks.
Before I realize he’s not on the line, Rocks flips in the space between Mackie and I.
“The Sire wants to see you. Connie has been providing information on the cull so you better have a good reason for stopping her,” he snarls at the much shorter boy inches from his face. “And if you called her naught, you better apologize. Right. Now.”
I’m not sure how sincere apologies can be when they’re littered with four-letter words, but I’ll take it. Just the look on his face alone was worth the hassle.
“You okay?” Rocks asks, running the back of his finger down my cheek.
He leads me up the path to find the girl sitting on Zada’s lap on the wooden bench seat outside the candle shop. She’s almost too big for a lap, but her fear needs the comfort of touch. Rocks, Zander, Phoenix, and two other Camazotz women I don’t know are crowded around them.
“Pegasus has gone to get Strickland from the roost,” Rocks explains.
Phoenix gives me a shy head nod, which I
return. When Zander greets me by name, the other Camazotz follow his example and offer a polite hello too.
Bailey and several of her pup friends are running around in the dark shadows behind the picnic table. Each of the kids has a Beanie baby tucked under their arms. I guess even powerful Strickland couldn’t pry them out of their clutches.
We all wait in silence. Being familiar with telling scary, unbelievable tales, I’m glad they don’t make the girl tell us what she witnessed twice. I can’t help but notice all eyes checking out my colorful, egg-covered chest, before they dart to Rocks wearing blue.
Crap.
Zander looks up. Doing the same, I spy the stars starting to peep out for the night, and once my vision adjusts to the darkness, a dozen bats take shape in the distance. The arrowhead formation gets bigger and bigger and slowly lowers over the building. A foot away, in unison, they flip. Their heavy boots hit the ground in one low thump.
All the members of the Fold are here, along with Jeremiah, Ash, Mazal, Malachite, and little Moonshiner. Glancing at the young males, I sense it’s a gathering of each Fold member and the son that will take over the autocratic position in time. They slowly pair up, proving my theory as Mackie stalks up the path and takes his place beside his father.
“Where is she?” chirps the usually near-silent Moonshiner, pushing through the sea of adult legs to get to the front of the group. He stops before her.
Rocks explains to his father where we found Moonshadow, while Zada performs the introductions. This is the first time Moonshiner has meet another Camazotz from the Moon wing, let alone one of his siblings.
“How old are you?” he asks.
“Twelve. You?”
“Ten and a bit—”
“Not now, Moonshiner. Go play with Bailey,” Zada scolds.
Moonshiner’s nose wrinkles at the idea of playing with little girls. Some things are the same whether you’re a Camazotz or not. I understand the dozens of questions that must be burning his tongue. Finding a family member for the first time is huge. Strickland kneels before the young girl on Zada’s lap.
“Tell me everything from the beginning. We want to help you, but we need to understand what has happened to your colony.”
The girl’s voice is a half-whisper as she starts her tale, but she soon finds her courage. Just before dawn, two men crept into their roost. She hesitates and stutters when she reveals that the Duskwing colony is high on mountain crag, impossible for aeronaughts to enter. Strickland assures her she hasn’t broken her blood oath, and she continues talking.
She describes strange ropes around the waists of the two invaders, and I know all the bats present have a clear memory of Dad and I decked out in our rappelling harness. These Camazotz know what the shock of two aeronaughts entering their sacred nest feels like.
Moonshadow explains that since her mother is a Fold member and her father is the Sire, she doesn’t exactly have to follow orders like the rest of her colony. I notice Strickland’s eye flick to his son at her admission. The girl says being in her human form is what saved her from the bad men. Strickland asks her if any other Camazotz were human with her.
“Just me. I should have been up with my wing on the cave ceiling. We don’t have enough room for everybody to be in human form.”
She describes the tightly packed scene and explains that the whole colony only gathers in their roost for emergency protection.
The previous day, her Sire had ordered every member to the roost. Only about a third of the Duskwing usually sleep in the roost because they prefer to stay at the farm. All members had been ordered to hide in the roost until further notice because of a deadly threat.
“The cull?” Strickland asks.
She shrugs. “What does that mean?”
“Never mind. What did the bad men do?” Zada asks.
Moments after the men entered their cave, an ear-splitting alarm sounded. Moonshadow recalls it being so loud, that even in her human form, it made her cover her ears and double over in agony. Every member of her colony dropped from the ceiling and nesting nooks to the cave floor.
Unconscious.
Strickland swears and is on the receiving end of a Kelly-worthy glare from Zada. All moms must learn evil eye techniques.
The bad men leaned out of the narrow cave mouth and pulled up a package from below. Inside it were four special harnesses designed to carry lots of bats.
This information causes Rocks, Strickland, and Cypress to swear in unison.
“Am I in trouble?” she asks, looking up at Zada.
“No, little pup. Tell us what happened next.”
“When the harnesses were open on the ground, one man with strange glasses on top of his head, grabbed the other aeronaught and pushed him out of the cave entrance. The falling man screamed and screamed.”
She describes how the first man then cut the ropes attached to the man he pushed.
Holy shitballs!
But the murder of the man—no doubt a county employee—isn’t the surprising part. Moonshadow tells us that more Camazotz than she could count came flying into her home and flipped. The men and women started to load all her unconscious colony members into the harnesses. They worked fast, and Moonshadow was so scared she stayed deep in the darkness at the back of the cave watching.
“Before the sun could even get up, half the Camazotz flipped back,” she says. “The bad man and others helped attached them to the harnesses and then one group at a time, they took my family away.”
Strickland’s chin rests on his hard chest. Nobody says a word. My brain is fuzzy from the huge two days I’ve just survived, but then it clicks.
The Camazotz weren’t culled—they were bat-napped.
Taken.
“Holy—” Several sets of eyes dart to me and I shut my mouth.
Rockland bends down to her eye level. “Did they say anything? Use any names?”
She nods. “I couldn’t understand most of it, but one man’s name was Tronido.”
Cypress lets lose in English followed by Spanish, and Zada covers Moonshadow’s ears. The things he spits out even make my ears burn. The other Fold members all turn on him.
“She swore a blood promise to me that the Muerte were not involved with the human attacks.” It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the man flustered. “She swore,” he pleads from one pissed off member to the next. “On my honor, I did not know of this.”
Seeing Cypress in a jam makes me want to dance like I’m on MTV, but the reason behind it is too serious. The Vuelo de la Muerte has taken over the Duskwing colony—without their consent. Judge and Zander start grilling Cypress about the fact he has a pup with one of the Vuelo de la Muerte Fold members, and apparently doesn’t know of their plan. He was sent to find out if they were involved since he has blood ties, and his word cleared their colony of all involvement when he returned.
“But why would they do this?” I ask, totally confused by the events that have taken place.
“That’s a question I’d like answered,” replies Strickland. “Now we know the Muerte are to blame, we must be vigilant. We could be next.”
“It’s punishment for their love of being human,” Macallister states.
I don’t even try to hide my eye roll. What-ever, McDick!
“It is the presence of a sanguine moon,” shrieks Sylvana, stepping out of the darkness. “Two nights ago was a blood moon.” She shakes her ringed fist at the stars twinkling above, and I can’t help but look up. “A sanguine moon is the marker of doom. A dark omen not to be ignored. Our kin have paid a heavy price this cycle.” She spins around in the center of the group, before howling at the top of her lungs, and little Moonshadow jerks in surprise.
Funny how Mrs. Witchy-bitchy never mentioned this evil omen earlier. I watch as she moves to Strickland’s side and whispers in his ear. If she tries to blame a lunar eclipse on me, I’ll shove those little bones she likes to scatter up somewhere she would rather I didn’t. She’s a constant thorn in my sid
e, so I’ll happily be a pain in her butt if she dares involve me.
Strickland gestures to Pegasus, Jeremiah, Malachite, and a guy with a mean crew-cut. “Inform the Clips and set up night guards. Tell those at the roost it wouldn’t hurt to be” —his eyes narrow and he swallows hard— “to be human for safety.”
My dancing urge morphs into the need to do cartwheels and howl at the moon—regardless of whether it’s red, blue or purple—as well. The Sire issued a directive stating it’s safer to be human. I shove my hands in my pockets so I’m not tempted to offer Rocks a high-five. I must celebrate an aeronaught win with dignity. Who knew it would be this hard to control my glee?
Ash gives me a death stare, and checking the Sire is still busy, I poke my tongue out at him. Dignity be damned.
“Do you still have the picture of Joey?” Rocks asks. Pulling off my bulging backpack, I pray it doesn’t erupt with a spray of shiny, foil-covered eggs when I unzip the sucker. With his help, I rummage to the bottom and hand over the crushed printout.
“Do you recognize him?” Rocks holds up the color screenshot to the nervous little pup.
Moonshadow jumps free of Zada’s arms and stumbles backward away from the photo. Fear and horror cloud the sweet delicate features she shares with her half brother.
“You know him? He’s your friend?” she asks, her eyes bigger than the last blood moon.
Zander’s tattooed arm grabs the girl. “Easy, pup,” he says, pulling her back into the circle of adults.
Rocks talks fast telling her this man tried to kill him and asks again if he was at her roost. The tension drains from her body, and she moves back to Zada’s open arms.
“That’s Tronido. The bad man.”
Everybody—including me—swears.
* * * * *
Rocks and I are sitting on the top step of his wagon keeping an eye on the group of pups. Five-year-old-mother-hen Bailey has adopted Moonshadow and handed over her precious pink seahorse. The older girl acts disinterested in the bedraggled oddity, but when I look back later, it’s resting on her lap.
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