by S. M. Beiko
“NO!” I screamed, reaching. All I saw was a bank of flame, and all I felt was the white pain that came after a claw as big as my face snagged my outstretched arm and threw me backwards into traffic. This time I bounced off a windshield, and was stopped only by the railing on the opposite side of the bridge.
Everything hurt, no big shocker. I was surprised my body hadn’t just burst open like a garbage bag of vegetable soup. But I was coming back to with a strange awareness as I tried to remember that getting up and getting away was the goal. No. Before that. Phae. Barton. Sil.
Panicked drivers had stopped the flow of traffic in light of the teenager being thrown around the bridge like a badminton birdie, and I felt someone’s hands on me, saw a troubled man’s face as he searched my bloody one for signs of life. He was saying something, maybe asking me if I knew my name, but it was behind a curtain of nonsound, of a pinging alarm. You look so worried about me, I thought. But I’m the least of your problems.
My blood surged like lava, and the nonhuman part of me wrenched my body back into motion. I grabbed my pedestrian saviour around the middle and tackled him backwards as the flurry of murderous feathers descended once more. I got the guy to his feet.
“Get out of here!” I shouted, shoving him back towards the Shell station. Cars honked, people screamed, LED cellphone screens flashed as the unhelpful uploaded the scene to Everywhere On The Internet. Could they see the thing coming after me, or was I the spectacle? I ducked, my pursuer now hidden in the darkened sky somewhere, waiting to strike again. I stumbled into the street, weaving through the stopped cars. “Phae! Sil!” I screamed over the din. The wall of fire I’d seen was now just a bundle of flames coming from the hood of the crashed van, front end crumpled into a light post, my friends not readily visible.
But there was another light, fingers of crackling blue coming from behind the van. I slipped as I rounded the crash, praying for a bloodless outcome on the other side.
Barton’s wheelchair was overturned but not crumpled. Phae looked at me, appropriately a deer in the headlights. She was crouched over an unfamiliar body under the bent but wrenched-open passenger door. Probably the driver. She took her hands off him, and the obvious head and neck injury he’d suffered seemed to be knitting itself right again under her shaking hands. I fell to my knees at her side as Barton plucked away his busted glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“Couldn’t have taken the flash off, huh, Phae?” he coughed.
Sil was sniffing the body. “He’ll live. Leave him. We must get out of here. The Owl won’t be satisfied until he takes out his mark.” I didn’t need to meet her eyes to know it was me. This was getting old already.
I ignored Sil and stared at the side of the van that faced us. “Phae . . . what did you do?” The van’s exterior was bent around us in an embrace. It was like it’d crashed sidelong into a steel sphere. Or a crackling blue one . . .
“I just —” She was still shaking, rubbing her hands on her thighs as though they’d fallen asleep. “I couldn’t help it. I just wanted to stop the van.”
“With a force field?” I cried. “Since when can you make force fields?” Phae just shrugged. What answer did I expect? “You guys have to get out of here.” I righted Barton’s wheelchair, and we helped him into it. “Get off the river. Go back to Phae’s place. Lie low.”
Phae grabbed my arm in a vise grip. “You’re coming with us.”
I put my hand over hers. “I’ll follow you,” I lied. “Just get to the other side of the bridge, okay? I’ll be right behind you.”
She touched my face, and I felt the blood leaking from my head recede back into its rightful place, the gashes on my arm closing up and starting to scar. Sure, she could heal me, but as long as I was near her she was a target, and so was Barton. The only one here with literal firepower to fight back was me.
I broke our staring contest to look over at Barton, who nodded at me. I glanced down at Sil. “Besides, I’m not alone. I’ve got a bona fide firefox. It’ll be easy.” Sil looked dubious but said nothing about the last time she had used her powers. I turned back to Phae and Barton. “Go on, before the crowd thins out. I’ll see you soon.”
Phae hesitated.
“Go!” I barked and, as she retreated, I looked back out onto the bridge from behind the van, stepping over the extremely-lucky-to-be-passed-out driver. Sil and I searched the skies — evening was settling fast, creating thousands of places the monster could be hiding.
“So what’re we dealing with here, chief?”
Sil’s fur rippled. “A Therion. A powerful Denizen that can take on the Ancient form of the Families.”
“Sounds pleasant,” I sighed. Though my adrenaline was still pumping, I had the presence of mind to look down at my arm, the slash marks huge under my ruined coat sleeve. Definitely not your average city owl.
“Yes. And if it dares to attack you out in the open, then it’s gone rogue. Direct conflict is against their code of non-interference. It may be working for Zabor.”
“Oh good. Well, whatever it is, it sucks as usual. So what’s the plan?”
A growl rumbled through Sil’s small body like a thunderstorm, and before I could ask, I felt the tiny hairs on my arms rippling to gooseflesh. I caught it, too: a familiar scent, faint but menacing, cutting through the breeze like ozone. We both knew it was coming.
“We flush it out into the open,” she snarled. “We kill it.”
Sirens were fast approaching as the first responders pulled up from River Avenue. I crouched down, trying to keep out of sight. We needed to act fast before more people got injured. “Look, I’m all for killing river hunters and their pissy mom, but that’s a person we’re talking about, aren’t we? We are not killing other Denizens!”
“It means to kill you, Roan! Now it’s time to put your training into action. There are greater things at stake than the life of one villain.”
I froze, heart pounding. “But . . . but there are so many people around —”
“Who will die if you do nothing. Hide here, and the Therion will just start killing anyone in its path.” Aren’t you responsible for enough deaths already?
I knew she’d never say that, but the accusation still sprang to mind. I turned my head, watching the movement of bystanders and evacuating pedestrians as though I was floating above it all.
“Now it’s your turn,” I said.
“What?” Sil half barked.
I smiled, but I was less than thrilled, trying to keep my head. “Go and find Phae and Barton. Make sure they’re safe. And get as far away from here as you can.”
She was silent. She didn’t beg me to let her stay, to fight by my side. She knew that this was my fight, and that I’d need to get used to it before this ended. She whined nonetheless, paws hesitating on the pavement. I didn’t look at her. Then, in one fluid movement, she turned tail and ran off.
I sighed. I half wished she hadn’t gone, but what was done was done. I took stock: My bag was lost somewhere in the chaos of the bridge, and with it the garnet blade I’d come to rely on. Not like this thing would stay still long enough for some hack-and-slash. I just needed . . .
I looked up at the street lights. They were flickering again, and I followed the trail of lights all the way down the south side of Osborne Street. Light standards with traffic signals blinked out first. Then the building floodlights, then street lights, pops and showers of glass preceding the darkness. I stumbled up and checked out the north side. The lights were going out, too, extinguishing towards me. Time slowed. It knew where I was. The final light standard was just above my head, warm and persistent. Warm. I closed my eyes, reaching for it without the intention of touching it at all, just holding that warmth within me. Kindling it into something greater.
I felt the glass snick past my hand, through my blunted hair, bouncing off my shoulders. But I didn’t need the glass. Just the spa
rk that followed, the one that touched my hand and set me on fire.
And in the light of the flames, the darkness split aside to reveal the Owl hurtling talons-first at me. I sprang up on the bridge rail and met it. My quarry howled in a voice of startled rage and pain as the flames climbed up the outstretched leg I clamped on to. The fire is in the dance, Cecelia whispered to me from her letters, and I twisted around, all elegance while vaulting onto the wreckage of the van and hurling the Owl headfirst into the concrete partition where I’d been only minutes ago. Another thought: Imitation is the sincerest form of revenge.
The flames had welled up my arm and stayed there, the heart of them cool and calming against my skin as the van toppled, and I leapt onto the hood of a nearby Honda Civic like I was playing hopscotch. One foot stayed firmly planted on the roof and ready to spring. The street went quiet, and I wondered how long it’d take before the video went viral on YouTube.
Enough of that, though. The Owl’s dark body shimmered like a mirage. Sil was gone. She’d keep my friends safe. She trusted me, and I her.
I raised my flaming arm-lance. Time to show the haters what they were up against.
The Owl gathered itself up, trying to find its feet. I hadn’t yet seen its eyes, but its head, which had gone almost all the way around with the impact, swivelled back and pierced me with an unforgiving glare. It stretched out its burned leg, which steamed in the cold as it shed feathers more like scales. The looming, six-foot Owl stretched out its enormous wings, pulling arms out of them with the sound of bones breaking and viscera slopping to the ground at its feet. I didn’t think the bird suit was more than just a bad Owl mind-trick, until human hands tore the wide Owl face away with a sucking exhale, tossing it aside with the rest of the ripped-up bird body newly disposed of on the asphalt.
I swallowed my gorge, but disgust was quickly replaced with fury. I was staring down my paparazzi, the one who’d caught me over the body of the first dead girl — silver eyes and all.
“You.”
He only smiled, and moved to raise his hands . . .
“STOP!” came a booming cry over a loudspeaker. Cops. I glanced sideways, resisting the urge to stand down obediently. I saw raised guns and frightened people. Sigh. Talk about a pile-on.
“Put down your weapons immediately and put your hands in the air! We will come to you.”
I lifted an eyebrow. Weapon? Maybe they thought my arm was a flame-thrower. But come on, they couldn’t think I was the guilty one here. Hadn’t they just seen birdbrain strip down in the middle of the street? I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt, but I wasn’t about to back down. I hoped that if I ignored the cops, they’d go away.
My adversary, meanwhile, seemed pretty amused with this turn of events. “Don’t you just hate it when the rabble gets uppity?” He had an educated, arrogant voice that I immediately hated. Scottish, maybe, but I wasn’t in the mindset to trace accents. And he was talking to me as though we were buds. Those piercing eyes sparkled for a moment above his well-formed cheekbones. I clucked. Gimme a break.
“Yeah, well, best-laid plans and all that,” I shouted back, trying to match his casual air. “Why don’t we take this party elsewhere? Or better yet, you go back to roost under the bridge you came from. Wouldn’t want to ruffle any more feathers.” I brandished my arm, the shrugging motion causing the flames to leap from shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, as though I was shuffling a deck of cards Gambit-style.
His hands dropped to waist level: Was he conceding defeat? Doubtful. “Your concern is touching, truly,” he admitted dryly, hand to his heart. “But I must apologize. Tight schedule.”
The feathers and gore at his feet shed only moments ago lifted from the ground, changing to the consistency of ash as they swirled around him. Another Owl illusion? I kept my face blank as I checked my senses: Sil had taught me to close myself off from the psyche-infiltration the bird-baddies were known for, but you could always feel the prodding. I had felt it with that cop, Seneca, but now . . .
Speaking of cops. “Drop your weapons, or we will open fire!” Damn, the rabble were agitated. Something bad was about to happen, and bullets were no mean thing to avoid, either. I wasn’t made of Kevlar.
I couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, though. “Ha! Oh man. It’s a firearm,” I waved it around, the irony almost too good.
The Owl’s face had dropped to implacability. He was done with the banter. So was I. I took a defensive stance, ready for whatever he was about to throw at me in the middle of his char-cyclone as it sped up. I could hear the fuzz shouting again, locked and loaded as they were, and was prepping to jump back behind the Honda, but my sharp-eyed compadre swept his hand towards the police, sending a massive gust of ash right for them. I was nearly caught in it, too, bracing myself in a crouch on the car roof. Through a gravelly sheet of black, I saw the assembled crowd — police, pedestrians, et al — suspended mid-air, contorted and unable to land, tangled in the ashy threads of the Owl’s former body. The lines cut into their throats, choking them to silence and paralyzing them.
I let out a guttural howl, which should’ve been a dignified Stop it, you giant assface! but the fire had exploded inside, and I rushed him like a comet. I slammed into him — or what I thought was him. I was suddenly careening around his body, trapped in the vortex of wind that he still controlled. Whipping me aside into an abandoned Lincoln, he came at me full force, face contorted in vicious delight.
I rolled just as his hand, now a bladed talon, cut through the hood. “This is just what I needed!” he cried gleefully, whirling and striking blows that seemed almost too easy to deflect. “We should’ve done this ages ago.”
White-hot rage couldn’t begin to describe the fire as it blazed higher in me. I felt like I was slipping out of control again as I grabbed his temples and slammed my head into his. That sent him reeling, enough for me to conjure the blaze back into my hands, hurling what felt like molten lava after him. The vortex whipped back up, pulling him out of the way as the railing behind him melted, the hot remains dumped into the river.
The adrenaline pumped through me with the beat of the drum — one, two — and then I crumpled, strings cut. The fire had gone out and blood whooshed behind my eyes. I threw up. I’d reached too far. I wiped my mouth with a shaking hand and saw my dumbfounded contender staring at me with renewed interest — maybe even respect. He cracked a genuinely pleased smile.
“Well, well.” The smile gave in to pain. The head-butt had left a massive burn scar over his entire forehead, part of his eye. His talon hand reached to it dumbly, then recoiled, the disbelief palpable. “You bloody, fiery bitch.”
“Yeah, yeah, big words,” I panted, the frozen air cutting into me now that I’d lost the heat that kept me moving. I tried to get to my feet but that wasn’t happening.
“Here, let me help.” I heard him above me before the claw clamped around my throat, lifting me from the ground and squeezing at the tender windpipe beneath. He brought me close to his face, and all I could smell was burning flesh and hair.
I must’ve smiled, because his fury grew. “Yes, it is funny, isn’t it? No juice left and you’ve lost the whip-hand. For a second I thought you had a chance. Now I see you’re just a stupid child with power you can’t even control.”
Maybe it was the tunnel vision coming on, but I could’ve sworn I heard more voices than just his in my head. I coughed, weakly scrabbling at his claw. He liked that. He carried me farther into the street, where I could get a better view of the bystanders still trapped mid-air. Without the street lights I couldn’t see much, but my waning spirit eye told me that these victims were awake and aware — I could even pick out their disappointment in me. Heroes fall fast around here.
“You will be an example, Roan Harken,” said the thousand voices, “of the courage it takes to dig your grave and lie still in it.”
I may have been weak and hanging a fo
ot off the ground in his horrible Owl hand, but I had enough left to reel back and kick him in the leg I’d already burned. He stumbled, concentration broken, and I heard shrieking as bodies thumped to the ground. The threads were cut, the people free. At least I could do that.
The talon’s grip tightened, and I found myself smashed into multiple cars with the precision and rage of a whack-a-mole mallet. Maybe your senses level-up before death, but I could’ve sworn I felt blood escaping from the bones in my skull.
The Owl brought me up to his face again, eyes slanting at sharp angles, feathers growing out of his skin like blades. I felt the sweeping air, the beat of wings. We both lifted away from the ground, and he floated down to the broken bridge railing. He turned me around, shifting the talons to the back of my neck as he hung me over the now open river.
“The debt will be paid,” he — they — whispered, “for the good of all, at the hand of Eli Rathgar and his ancestors. Tell it to your forebears in the land of the dead.”
As I dropped, limp and broken, I thought of my parents. I wondered if I’d see them immediately, if they were waiting on the other side. All I saw now was the black of the sky, and I forgot to take my last breath. The water was hungry as it sucked me down.
Part IV
Inferno
The Hunter-Child’s Secret
Deidre clicks the bathroom mirror back into place as soon as she’s retrieved the nail clippers. Her forehead crinkles as she cuts away a self-inflicted hangnail. She hasn’t chewed her nails since grade school, priding herself on the self-control required. But everything has fallen out of control in recent months.
Her stomach twists as she clips the hangnail, and the flesh gives way to blood. She drives the finger into her mouth, sucking for relief. But it’s only fleeting; her next thought runs to her husband, as her troubled thoughts often do. And shortly after, they go to her niece, and her stomach drops again.