Malice of Crows

by Lila Bowen

  “I reckon you think you’re armed,” Rhett said, dangling the little popgun in the air.

  Herbert kept on blustering, and Rhett stood and put the pistol in his own pocket. “You’d better stay where you are,” he warned. “Things are about to get peculiar. That little girl you-all found… she ain’t a little girl.”

  “She’s a monster,” Herbert said.

  “More than you know.”

  Just then, Inés shouted, “He got loose! Rhett!”

  Rhett drew his gun as he looked up, but Trevisan wasn’t running toward him, hell-bent on blood like Rhett had expected. The little fool was running toward the half-built house, fast as his short little baby legs would carry him.

  “Goddammit,” Rhett muttered, running over that way, too.

  Trevisan was closer to the house and fast enough, and he quickly squeezed in among the timbers like a swift darting into a barn. Rhett couldn’t get a clear shot, and he hopped up onto the unfinished wood floor to get a better view.

  “Where is he?”

  “Nice of you to show up, Dan,” Rhett said dryly. He glanced down briefly and smirked at Dan’s usual way after changing over from his coyote skin. “And in your altogether. Always prepared for a gunfight.”

  “I was prepared to lay out that hired gunman wandering toward the still full of whiskey. One rock to the head, and he’s not a problem. Any other complaints, Shadow?”

  Rhett snorted a laugh. “You could use some pants.”

  “Where is Meimei?”

  Rhett didn’t even bother trying to look at Cora once he heard her voice. He had to keep all his concentration on the monster that looked like her sister.

  “Somewhere in here, I reckon,” he said, jerking his chin at the house. “I feel him near, but not exactly where.”

  Inés had arrived, too, a small knife in her fist. She didn’t bother apologizing for letting Trevisan get loose, and Rhett liked her all the more for it. He handed Dan one of his guns and held out Herbert’s little peashooter to Cora, his eyes carefully averted from her nakedness. “Don’t forget, y’all – he’s human. I know Cora wants him whole, but I’d rather have Meimei with a shot leg than Trevisan escaping in fine fettle.” He did meet Cora’s eyes this time, now that he’d had a troubling thought. “Wait. Is Meimei human? Or is she… ?”

  “A dragon? No. Like my father, she is human. Otherwise, we would not be in this mess.”

  “Then everyone do your best not to shoot. But if it comes down to it —”

  “Still don’t shoot,” Cora snapped. “She is a child.”

  “And Trevisan can hear us,” Dan observed. “Most likely.”

  Rhett grabbed Cora by the shoulders, feeling desperate down to his bones. “Cora, you got to listen. This might be our only chance. Do you want Meimei to go on like this, or would you rather have an end to her suffering? I say shoot if you can. We don’t take chances.”

  Cora looked down, tears in her eyes. “You are right. Shoot if you must. I would rather she be free, either way.”

  The half-built house was big and full of pits and walls and staircases and fireplaces and unruly stacks of lumber and piles of bricks. Rhett would never have guessed a place could be so full of pitfalls and hidey-holes. With his posse nearby and Trevisan in the general area, he was having a hard time honing in on the feller’s wobble.

  “Everybody… stop being monsters!” he shouted. “Or at least shut up!”

  They hadn’t been talking, but they didn’t start up. And they couldn’t control that monster sense that plagued each of them to some degree, pulling this way and that. Outside of birdsong and crow caws and footsteps, the morning was quiet. Right up until Rhett heard something he usually loved more than any other sound but that made him sick to death, just now.

  “Rhett, he’s running for the feller on the ground! What do you want me to do?”

  It was Samuel Hennessy. And he wasn’t supposed to be here until Rhett was in mortal peril.

  But he was here anyway, goddammit.

  “Stay away from him, Sam!” Rhett shouted, and his voice sounded just like a scared girl, and for once, he didn’t give a shit.

  He was up and running like a mad thing, jumping over wood and squeezing through corners and leaping off the house to land in a puff of dust and take off running again. He registered Sam running in the same direction, toward the fallen Herbert. Josephina was on her knees in the sand beside him, fussing with smelling salts and handkerchiefs and whatever city fools did when faced with tragedy.

  “Sam, stop! Josephina, watch out!” Rhett called as Trevisan zoomed across the yard, something held in Meimei’s little fist.

  But neither person did as he’d commanded, damn them.

  Josephina looked up at him sharply, frowning. Then, seeing the child heading toward her, she smiled like she was seeing heaven and held out her arms, calling, “Mildred! Come to Mama!”

  Trevisan ran right into her arms, and Josephina hugged the child tightly, crying like she’d gotten her fondest wish.

  “Get away from it!” Rhett shouted again.

  Trevisan pulled away from Josephina, and the woman put a hand to the child’s soft cheek. Trevisan turned his head into her palm, nuzzled close, and then…

  Josephina started screaming and held up a hand spurting blood.

  The child – Trevisan – had bitten off part of the woman’s finger.

  Putting two and two together, Rhett put on a fresh burst of speed and got close enough to shove Trevisan to the ground. The child’s body was so light that it flopped back into the dirt, and Rhett stood over it, a boot planted on its frail chest – because it wasn’t Meimei, and it wasn’t Trevisan, it was an it – and cocked his gun.

  “Drop the finger, Trevisan,” he said.

  Behind him, he heard Sam tending to Josephina. Dan and Cora finally arrived, drawing a circle around Trevisan.

  “Meimei?” Cora said, voice wobbly.

  “Sister?” the little lispy voice said, and Cora sobbed and kneeled.

  “Cora, don’t fall for it,” Rhett barked. “Don’t let him near you.”

  “I can see her in there. In the eyes. Trapped in a cage again.”

  “Then you stay the hell back, Cora, and let me get her out. Don’t go complicating things.”

  Rhett felt like he was trying to fend off twenty rabid dogs, but everything was happening too fast. He was trying to call Cora off, wishing Josephina would stop blubbering, wishing Herbert was moving a little more, wishing Dan and Sam could just flat-out read his mind.

  But when he heard Trevisan lisping a spell in Meimei’s voice, he knew he had to act.

  Trevisan was still on the ground, something clutched in each of his fists, and Rhett dropped down beside him, pinned each tiny hand under a knee, and tried his damnedest to stuff his bandanna into the child’s mouth. Trevisan fought him like a cat, twisting and bucking and pinning Meimei’s lips, but Rhett grabbed his little snub nose and pinched it closed until Meimei’s mouth opened. In went the handkerchief, and Rhett snatched the earbobs out of the child’s ears, leaving little drops of blood as thanks for his rough quickness. Cora made a sound of fury, and he turned around to see why nobody was helping him.

  Josephina was acting like a damn fool, on her back and screaming, and good ol’ Sam was tending to her wound, or trying to. Cora was watching Rhett with terror in her eyes, alternating with softness when she looked at the body of her sister pinned cruelly beneath his knees. Dan just stood there, naked, waiting.

  “Help pry open his hands, Dan,” Rhett said, and Dan chose not to be irksome. He kneeled down, parts flopping everywhere, and set to getting Trevisan’s fingers open, which was harder than it seemed. For Rhett, it was hard as hell to do anything that might hurt the child’s body. Everything in his heart and soul rebelled against damaging the tiny bones and soft little fingers, especially after he saw the scrapes on Meimei’s knuckles from his own knees driving them into the stony ground.

  Rhett worked the other hand
, pulling away each tiny finger, terrified that he would break a bone. He was lucky – his hand held only a gold ring and a dead lizard, squeezed to death by the struggle. He finally got both objects out and tossed them over his shoulder. Dan’s hand revealed a worse prize: Josephina’s finger, raggedly bitten and leaking slurry blood.

  “So that’s bone, gold, spark, and spell, stopped,” Rhett said in the peculiar silence.

  Josephina had finally settled into soft sobs, and Trevisan could only squeak through the bandanna. Rhett exhaled, his heart settling back down. Finally, after all this time, they had Trevisan right where they wanted him.

  “Inés, you want to do the spell, or you want me to?” Rhett hollered.

  “It might be best if I say it.” She was so quiet he hadn’t noticed her behind him, but he was glad as hell that she was willing. He knew he was gonna mess up that spell, no matter what.

  “Dan, you and Cora take Meimei’s hands. I’m gonna grab us a familiar.”

  When they each had one of the struggling child’s hands, Rhett stood and aimed his gun for the crows lining up over Herbert’s half-built castle. He took aim at the biggest bastard and pulled the trigger. The raven fell over backward as its inky friends took to the sky, screeching. They swirled up in peculiar patterns, whirled around like a tornado, and took aim… right at Rhett and his posse.

  “Everybody take cover!” he shouted, diving to protect Sam with his body.

  The birds beat down like rain made of fists and knives, and Rhett buried his face in the nape of Sam’s neck. How he longed to turn into the bird and cut a swath of destruction through the flock, but somehow, these birds were different. The last ones that attacked him had been alchemy, feathers and wax and gold and bone. But these birds were solid, angry, and sharp. Beaks pecked at the curve of his neck, claws pricked through his shirt. Somewhere nearby, he heard heavy thunks and realized Inés had to be turning birds into stone. The enraged yipping and growling – that was Dan in coyote form, using his best weapons of teeth and claws. And then he felt the hot licks of flame overhead, searing the hair under his hat. Cora’s fire, demolishing the pesky birds.

  As the breath of flame ended, Rhett dared to look up. Most of the birds were dead, dying, or flying away with all their might. Only problem was, Trevisan was gone.

  “Goddammit!” Rhett hollered. “Find Trevisan!”

  Sam shifted under him, and Rhett briefly buried his face in Sam’s neck. “Not you, Sam. You got to stay safe. He’s a wily little bastard, and he’s still got his magic.”

  “I know that. You think I don’t? But you need me now, Rhett.”

  Rhett brushed a swift kiss along his earlobe. “Just stay safe. Keep away from him.”

  And then he was up and spinning, hunting for that wobble he felt when the Shadow’s quarry was near. There. Trevisan was on the other side of Herbert, fumbling with the big man’s limp hand. Ring or bone or both, he damned well wasn’t going to get it.

  Cora was just transforming back into a woman as Rhett landed a vicious kick that sent Trevisan skittering away from Herbert.

  “Rhett, no!” Cora shouted, and even Rhett felt guilty for the violence of his boot striking that tiny body.

  Trevisan looked up at Cora, letting Meimei’s lip tremble. Cora couldn’t see that he was in the process of slipping Herbert’s gold ring off the man’s bloated finger, that he had recovered Josephina’s bloody finger, that he had the body of a half-dead bird beside him, the last ingredient for his spell.

  If Trevisan had been in any other body, Rhett would’ve busted in his teeth, yanked out his tongue, made damn sure he couldn’t say his shifty goddamn spell. But this was Cora’s Meimei, and she’d kill Rhett herself if he damaged that little body more than he had to. And yet he had to stop the necromancer, or he’d hop bodies, and then they’d be in real trouble.

  The disturbing thought occurred to him that he’d never asked what would happen if Trevisan jumped into a monster’s body. Surely the man could, or he wouldn’t have tried with Rhett in the train car. So was that his plan, now – to take over one of Rhett’s posse? Or would he settle for a weak thing like Josephina? Or Herbert? What good would it do Trevisan to be in a corpulent body with a broken back? Although that form would be best for his financial schemes, it wasn’t gonna do him any good when it came to hiking back into town.

  “What’s your play?” Rhett murmured under his breath as he circled around Trevisan, trying to pick the right angle of attack. Finally he just gave up and threw himself at the child, knocking Trevisan backward and landing hard on top of him.

  That’s when he felt the hot punch of a knife, just to the side of his heart. The next breath he drew was a wispy, incomplete thing.

  Lung, he thought. That ain’t good.

  But it wasn’t a killing shot, either, so long as Trevisan wasn’t strong enough to drag that knife sideways. Rhett popped up and backward, taking the knife with him. Grabbing it by the hilt, he tossed it down. Just a little pocketknife. Trevisan had probably grabbed it off Herbert, thought he could end the Shadow with a good stick to the heart.

  Dumbass.

  Rhett was back on Trevisan in a moment, but now his hands were slippery with blood, and Rhett still couldn’t draw a full breath as his lung twitched and pulled closed, and Trevisan managed to slip out of his grasp. When Rhett went to grab him, he got a kick in the face from a tiny boot.

  “You little turd,” he wheezed.

  Trevisan was a mess of skirts and blood and black feathers and kicking boots, and Rhett needed his lung to heal back up completely so he could get a full breath. “Somebody grab him!” he squeaked, and Dan circled around obligingly.

  Trevisan picked up the knife, threw it hard with terrible aim, and tried to dart away, but Dan caught him, driving him to the ground on top of the bird corpses. Cora was frozen in place, but Rhett was done being gentle. He’d nearly taken a knife to the heart for his troubles, and Meimei could just get a little banged up and heal later. Rhett smacked Trevisan’s fist, making him drop the finger. Then he pried out the gold ring. Swiping them both from the ground, he threw them in opposite directions out into the prairie, as far as he could. If luck was on his side, one of the fanged jackrabbits would make quick work of the finger and take the meat down into its burrow, where Trevisan couldn’t get to it.

  While Dan held the struggling necromancer, Rhett stuffed another handkerchief into Meimei’s mouth.

  “Inés, say the thing!” he shouted.

  Somewhere behind him, she shouted back, “I can’t. You do it.”

  “But Inés!”

  “No, Rhett! You! I’m needed here!”

  “Goddammit,” he growled. He cleared his throat and said, “Cora, bring me a living bird.” Once she’d handed him an angry crow with a broken wing, he clutched it by the legs, feeling all guilty and squirmy with fellow feeling as it squawked and flapped, hating being trapped.

  Rhett stared Trevisan in the eyes, in Meimei’s eyes, and began to say the spell Inés had taught him. Every word, every peculiar syllable, no matter how they fought to twist his tongue. He didn’t stop, he didn’t pause, and he could tell it was working. The bird in his fist screamed in earnest, in agony, and Meimei’s brown eyes went over-wide and terrified. Trevisan struggled frantically in Dan’s arms, but Dan, at least, would not let go. Cora whimpered but kept her distance.

  So close. Just the tricky part left, and then the ending.

  Every word. Every sound. Every subtle slithery accent.

  He nailed it.

  The final line, three repetitions. When the last one left his lips, the bird in his hand gave one final flapping scream and went completely limp and cold, its toes curling up. Likewise, Trevisan collapsed in Dan’s arms, Meimei’s little body losing all tension and looking far too dead for Rhett’s taste.

  They waited an endless moment for Meimei to breathe again.

  “Inés, it ain’t working!” Rhett shouted. “What happened to Meimei?”

  But Inés
didn’t answer, and when Rhett glanced back angrily, he found her and Sam dealing with Josephine and a thrashing Herbert, just a knot of bodies.

  “Don’t bother with the goddamn Mallards, Inés. We got to bring Meimei back! Now!”

  Inés growled and shouted, “Wake her up then, fool.”

  Dan still held the child’s wrists, and he gently laid her limp body on the ground. For the first time that day, Rhett noticed that despite the unseasonal warmth, the ground was as cold and hard as the middle of winter, unforgiving and cruel. He tossed the bird aside and kneeled over Meimei, all too aware that the child wasn’t breathing.

  “Dan, do that thing you did with Winifred. When she drowned.”

  Dan glanced up at Cora, who nodded eagerly. “Do it. Whatever it is, do it.”

  Taking a deep breath, Dan fitted his mouth over Meimei’s mouth and breathed out. The little girl’s chest rose high. Pulling back, Dan watched her chest go back down as the air left her. It didn’t rise again on its own. He looked to Rhett, and Rhett wanted to scream.

  It had to work, goddammit. It had to.

  But it didn’t.

  “Do it again!”

  Putting his face right up next to Meimei’s, Dan shouted, “Wake up, Meimei!”

  Still nothing. Tears pricked at Rhett’s eyes. All this, for nothing?

  “Cora, you try,” he said.

  Naked and beautiful, she curled over her sister. Rhett scooted to make room and wished he had the guts to touch her. A hand on the shoulder or back, some kind of human connection to help her get over what he knew was going to happen next. Instead, he just hovered, waiting for the inevitable. He knew what it was to be broken, after all.

  Cora’s voice went deep like it did when she was a dragon, and smoke curled out her nose and mouth as she put her lips to her sister’s and said something incomprehensible. Her hands, now covered with glittering orange scales and sharp, glass-like claws, gently caressed the tiny face, the sweet curve of a cheek, the pink blossom of a mouth.

  Nothing happened.

  At first.