A Bird in the Hand

by Douglas Smith

  “Certainly,” he said, blushing. “Please, take your time.”

  “Could I have a glass of water?”

  He nodded and turned away. From her purse, she removed a tube of lip balm. Pushing a large amount of the stick out, she began applying it to her lips, peeking from under half-closed eyelids. Lindstrom sat staring at a folder. Steen was pouring her water. She bit off the tip of the stick and swallowed. The lip balm was back in her purse when Steen returned. Taking the glass from him, she smiled.

  “Tell me,” she said in a low voice. “Am I now in some Department of Justice database as one of these creatures?”

  “Oh no! All of our research is stored on this system right here,” Steen said quietly, pointing to a unit under the table of monitors. “We don’t want others to have access to our work. We do our own backup too.” He patted the pocket of his lab coat where she could see an outline of what she guessed was a USB drive.

  “No assistants?” she asked. He shook his head.

  “How do you manufacture and store the drug?”

  He winked and nodded toward the small open door. “Our lab. We store all samples in a temperature-control unit in there.”

  “Quite the setup.” She then added in a normal level of voice, “Well, I’m ready to go home now.” She tweaked Steen’s plump cheek. “Thanks for the hospitality.”

  As the little man reddened and began to speak, she drew a sharp nail quickly along the soft skin under his jaw. A thin line of red appeared. Steen gave a little cry.

  “Oops!” she said. “Sorry. I scraped you,”

  Lindstrom straightened from where he had been reading and put his hand into his pocket. “What’s wrong?” he snapped.

  “Oh, nothing,” Steen tittered. “Just an accident. I’m sure Miss…” Steen’s face went blank. He staggered back a step.

  Lindstrom swore and stood, struggling to pull the gun free.

  In a single flowing motion, she leapt from the chair to close the space between them. A snap kick to his groin dropped Lindstrom to his knees. One of her hands slashed scarlet furrows across his neck. The other raked his face, slicing a cheek and an eyeball. He opened his mouth, but only a choking, gurgling sound escaped. His head hit the floor with an audible crack.

  She spun around. Steen sat slumped in the chair she’d left, arms hanging like wet towels, breathing in short gasps. His head was tilted sideways, saliva dripping from his mouth, eyes locked on her. She put a finger on Lindstrom’s carotid, then checked that all the door bolts were in place. Apparently, Lindstrom and Steen preferred privacy to having guards readily available.

  Taking her purse, she moved to the computer. Lindstrom had left it on, so log-in security was not an issue. She selected a menu option labeled “Test Subjects,” then chose “Name Search.” It felt strange typing his name. She’d never done that before.

  “No match” flashed on the screen. Other spellings brought the same result. Scanning the data on various victims, she noted that most didn’t show names. And he wouldn’t have told them. Not him. He wouldn’t have said anything. She stood up. Better follow her orders. She removed the hard drive from the server and put it into her purse. Steen’s eyes followed her.

  “Wondering what happened, Steeny? Well, Lindstrom’s dead, and you’re dying, from the snake venom I use for nail polish on special dates. Your cut was small, compared to this garbage.” She kicked Lindstrom’s body. “So you’ll live a while longer.”

  She climbed on a table to disconnect the smoke detector and the heat sensor on the sprinkler system. In the cage, she removed the storage card from both cameras. Pulling the backup drive from Steen’s pocket, she dropped it and the camera cards into her purse.

  “You were right, by the way. I am Heroka.” She watched his eyes widen. “So why didn’t I shift? Well, you made an assumption. Unfortunately—for you—a wrong one.” She began opening filing drawers, throwing the contents onto the floor.

  Stopping at a cabinet labeled “Test Subjects,” she bit her lip. She had to know for sure. Wrenching open the drawer, she began pulling out folders. Each had photos of captured Heroka. Many faces were familiar, but none were his. The photos showed the Heroka as human, then in changed forms in what appeared to be a series of weapon tests. An autopsy report ended each file.

  She was nearly through all the folders. Maybe she was wrong. Sky Mother, please let me be wrong.

  She found him staring at her from the next-to-last folder. Found the eyes she’d wake to on those too rare mornings as he lay watching her. Found his mouth that knew hers so well. Found what they did to him, to that body that had held her, loved her, so often but never enough. Found the pictures of how he died.

  The folder and its contents dropped from her hands. She threw her head back and screamed a scream no human throat could ever produce. Stumbling to Lindstrom’s corpse, she fell to her knees to claw and beat at his face. Finally, the rise and fall of her hands slowed then stopped.

  She rose and walked to Steen. Lifting a bloody hand, she struck him across the side of the head. “Murderers!” she shouted. His limp body slid from the chair. She stood swaying over him. “Murderers,” she whispered.

  Sobbing, she ran into the next room. Equipment and bottles covered a row of tables. She seized and hurled a container against the wall, then overturned each table. Ripping open the doors to two large refrigeration units, she began pulling out bottles, smashing them on the floor.

  She stopped. Holding the last bottle in her hand, she staggered back against the wall and slid to the floor, crying quietly. She had to take a sample back. Her people needed to know what CSIS had. He’d want her to do that. She broke down again, clutching the bottle to her chest. It hurt so much. She never thought he could hurt her, but oh god, this hurt.

  Her sobbing stopped. She sat motionless then rose, moving like an automaton. The last bottle in her hand, she returned to stand over Steen.

  “Figure it out yet, you little bastard? We have two forms, human and animal. One is our natural state. Most of us live as humans but can shift to animal form. But even we have freaks. Like my tribe. Our natural form is animal. We’re rare, even among the Heroka.”

  And she was the rarest. A freak among freaks. But he never treated her that way. She fought her tears.

  “We shift to become human. As humans, we show the same readings on your scanners as other Heroka. That’s why you picked me out.” Putting the bottle in her purse, she removed a perfume atomizer.

  “We set you up. We knew that CSIS was working on a shift agent and that you’d eventually succeed, because we had.”

  Steen’s eyes widened. Walking up and down, she released a mist over the papers scattered on the floor, avoiding looking at one particular file.

  “Our shift agent lets us hold a change longer. I took some, to keep my human form during the unconsciousness we knew would follow my capture.”

  I was used to taking it, she thought. To be with him. To be normal.

  Unlatching the single window, she pulled it open. Good. No bars. She threw the screen on the floor.

  “When I recognized a familiar taste in the water, I gladly drank up. We worried that you wouldn’t give me your drug in time, that I wouldn’t be able to maintain my shift. Your drug let me keep my human form. The scanner readings dropped because you’d made me more human.” She looked out the window. Ten or more stories below, armed guards paced a walled courtyard.

  “Can’t…escape,” Steen rasped.

  She smiled sadly. “After you released me, I took a drug to counteract both shift agents, to allow me to return to my normal form.” Normal? Only for her, for she was unique. “Wondering what I am?”

  She laid the purse under the window. “Legend says that the Hoyl was the only creature in Eden not to eat of the forbidden fruit that Adam offered to all animals. We, the Heroka, also choose not to eat of this fruit, the world of man, your destruction of species, your rape of our Garden.”

  The chemical spray now soaked the
papers littering the floor. Striking a match, she looked at Steen. Tears streaked his fat cheeks.

  “In that legend, the Hoyl was a phoenix. It does not know death. Fire consumes it in its nest, leaving an egg from which hatches full-grown a new Hoyl.” She dropped the match. The fire raced across the floor to lick at the walls and furniture.

  Would that I could be reborn, memories erased, she thought.

  She let her cotton gown fall to the floor. The flames rose, and smoke grew thick, but Steen did not close his eyes.

  Naked, she cried out in another voice. “You, who seek to bind us, look upon that which you would cage. Behold the Hoyl!”

  Raising her arms, she threw back her head. The change began. Her head narrowed and sharpened. Neck arched and shoulders broadened. Legs turned backwards, lengthened and thickened. Her tears dried, and the aching pain in her heart grew dim. She looked down at her skin, flickering now with a thousand colors and lights, until she burned brighter than the flames.

  Though dying, Steen’s face held a terror of another sort as the Hoyl looked down on him.

  See me, little mouse! Taller than a man, plumage of shimmering crystal, talons of sharpened ivory, beak a scarlet scythe under eyes of flame. I am the Hoyl.

  She seized the purse in a claw and leapt to the window. Perched upon the sill, the Hoyl turned back to the room.

  Flames ran and skipped up the walls. Steen lay gazing at her. His lips moved to form one word. “Beautiful,” he whispered, then his eyes closed.

  She stared at him, but he did not move again. Her golden eyes fell on a picture lying on the floor, flames tasting its edges. The picture of a man, somehow familiar, gazed back at her. A feeling washed over her that she could not describe, and an alien thought winged through her alien mind: Beautiful.

  Fire consumed his image, and he faded from her vision and her thoughts. Then with a rush of air and wings, she left the room behind, as the ashes danced across the floor.

  About the Story

  This is the second story I ever wrote, and also the second story involving the Heroka, my race of shapeshifters.

  This story was first published in French in a great little dark fantasy magazine called Ténèbres, and then later reprinted again in French in the equally great French-Canadian magazine, Solaris, which resulted in the story making it to the final ballot for the Aurora Award in 2002 for best short work in French. It was published for the first time in English in the anthology, Warrior Wisewoman 3 in 2010.

  If you enjoy the Heroka, then you should check out my other stories in this universe:

  “Dream Flight” is a short story and a sequel (of sorts) to “A Bird in the Hand,” again with Lilith Hoyl.

  “Spirit Dance” is an award-winning novelette (long short story), featuring Gwyn Blaidd, a Heroka of the wolf totem. This story is a prequel to my novel, The Wolf at the End of the World. “Spirit Dance” is available as a stand-alone ebook and is included in my collection, Impossibilia.

  My novel, The Wolf at the End of the World, takes place five years after “Spirit Dance.” In it, we again meet up with Gwyn, Gelert, Leiddia, Ed, and the Tainchel, and Gwyn meets up again with more shadows from his past. I’ve included the opening to that novel at the end of this ebook.

  About the Author

  “Doug Smith is, quite simply, the finest short-story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres... His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think.”

  —Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author

  “A great storyteller with a gifted and individual voice.”

  —Charles de Lint, award-winning fantasy author

  “One of Canada’s most original writers of speculative fiction.”

  —Library Journal

  Douglas Smith is a multi-award winning Canadian author whose work has appeared in twenty-five languages and over thirty countries. His fiction includes the urban fantasy novel, The Wolf at the End of the World, and the collections Chimerascope, Impossibilia, and La Danse des Esprits. His non-fiction guide for writers, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction, is a must read for any short story writer.

  Doug is a three-time winner of Canada’s Aurora Award, and has been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, CBC’s Bookies Award, Canada’s juried Sunburst Award, and France’s juried Prix Masterton and Prix Bob Morane. A short film based on Doug’s story “By Her Hand, She Draws You Down” won several awards when it toured film festivals around the world.

  His website is www.smithwriter.com and he tweets at twitter.com/smithwritr. You can join Doug’s irregular mailing list at www.smithwriter.com/mailing_list.

  Other Works by Douglas Smith

  Novels

  The Wolf at the End of the World (Lucky Bat Books, 2013)

  Collections

  Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications, Canada, 2010) Finalist for the Sunburst Award, Aurora Award, and CBC’s Bookies Award

  Impossibilia (PS Publishing, UK, 2008) Aurora Award Finalist

  La Danse des Esprits (Dreampress, France, 2011, translated) Finalist for the Prix Masterton and Prix Bob Morane

  Non-Fiction

  Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction (Lucky Bat Books, 2014)

  Short Stories

  “Spirit Dance” (1997) Aurora Award Finalist

  “New Year’s Eve” (1998) Aurora Award Finalist

  “State of Disorder” (1999) Aurora Award Finalist

  “Symphony” (1999) Aurora Award Finalist

  “What’s in a Name?” (2000)

  “The Boys Are Back in Town” (2000)

  “La Danse des Esprits” (2001) AURORA AWARD WINNER (French translation)

  “The Red Bird” (2001) Aurora Award Finalist

  “By Her Hand, She Draws You Down” (2001) Aurora Award Finalist; Best New Horror selection

  “Scream Angel” (2003) AURORA AWARD WINNER

  “Jigsaw” (2004) Aurora Award Finalist

  “Enlightenment” (2004) Aurora Award Finalist

  “Going Harvey in the Big House” (2005) Aurora Award Finalist

  “Memories of the Dead Man” (2006)

  “The Last Ride” (2006)

  “A Taste Sweet and Salty” (2006)

  “Murphy’s Law” (2006)

  “The Dancer at the Red Door” (2007) Aurora Award Finalist

  “Out of the Light” (2007)

  “Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by van Gogh” (2008) Aurora Award Finalist

  “Going Down to Lucky Town” (2008)

  “Doorways” (2008)

  “Radio Nowhere” (2009) Aurora Award Finalist

  “Nothing” (2010)

  “A Bird in the Hand” (2010)

  “Fiddleheads” (2011)

  “The Walker of the Shifting Borderland” (2012) AURORA AWARD WINNER

  “Dream Flight” (2013)

  “The Last of a Thing” (2016)

  Specialty Books

  “By Her Hand, She Draws You Down”: The Official Movie Companion Book (2010)

  A complete list of Doug’s published fiction is available on his website along with excerpts and reviews of his work. An excerpt of The Wolf at the End of the World is also included in the following pages. All of Doug’s works are available in a variety of formats. See his bookstore for where you can buy them.

  Join Doug’s mailing list to be notified of new books and stories, award news, and events Doug will be attending.

  Chimerascope

  Sunburst Award finalist

  Aurora Award finalist

  CBC’s Bookies Award finalist

  Chimerascope [ki-meer-uh-skohp] — a story of many parts…

  Doug’s second collection contains sixteen of his best stories, including an award winner, a Best New Horror selection, and eight award finalists. Stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity’s last stand, from virtual reality
to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.

  “His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think.”

  —Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author

  “A massively enjoyable trek…all filtered through Smith’s remarkable imagination and prodigious talent.”

  —Quill and Quire (starred review)

  “The 16 stories in this collection showcase the inventive mind and immense storytelling talent of one of Canada’s most original writers of speculative fiction.”

  —Library Journal

  “An entertaining selection of stories that deftly span multiple genres.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An engaging and entertaining volume, pieces of whose content resonate after the book is finished.”

  —Booklist

  “Douglas Smith is an extraordinary author whom every lover of quality speculative fiction should read. Rating: A+”

  —Fantasy Book Critic

  “Arrestingly inventive premises in a field where really interesting new ideas are harder and harder to find. …Smith is definitely an author who deserves to be more widely read.”

  —Strange Horizons

  “A beautifully diverse selection of short tales…well-crafted, easily digestible; several of the stories are incredibly moving and stick with the reader long after.”

  —Sunburst Award jury

  “Smith is a master of beginnings…some of the most well-crafted hooks you’ll find anywhere…[with] endings that feel satisfying and right.”

  —Canadian Science Fiction Review

  ~~~

  For more information on Chimerascope, including full buying links for all major retailers, please go to http://www.smithwriter.com/chimerascope.

  Impossibilia

  Aurora Award Finalist

  Doug’s first collection contains three novelettes, including an award winner and an award finalist. Stories of wonder with characters that you won’t forget. Characters who, like any of us, have things they hide inside—secrets, fears, aspects of themselves they keep locked away. Or try to.