Raven Maid: Out of the Darkness

by Erik Schubach

  I guess the other reason I stopped wondering was... we were talking about some impossible supernatural and spiritual stuff here, which I still couldn't wrap the analytical portion of my brain around. I needed facts and provable data. Actions and reactions, not things that can't be defined or measured, things you have to take on... faith. And I had no faith in things like that.

  I heard the Rin's talons scratching the concrete below her feet as she started to move again. She was in front of me faster than I could follow, and she was slashing at me in a series of successive strikes. I could see her restraining herself as I tried to deflect each blow like she had been teaching me.

  Her talons slashed through the air and I blocked and dodged, but I still felt as if I were flailing about. I was meant to be a healer, not some sort of Vodoun reaper. Not to mention I couldn't seem to control my change yet like Rin could do in an instant.

  She got frustrated, growled and slashed her winged arms across my chest in a crisscross. It burned and almost caused me to fall to a knee. I blinked eyes that I knew were gold and hawkish now, like hers, everything was so much brighter, so much clearer when they manifested.

  She had gotten frustrated with my poor performance and forced my Raven to show herself by pressing me hard. I could feel the light breeze ruffling the feathers at my scalp under my hair. I now had three fingered talons on my feathered hands. They were the only thing about me that impressed Rin. Where my long curved black claws were at least four inches long, her's were only an inch at the most.

  She had assured us that it was just because she was young, and they would lengthen as she got older and stronger. MawMaw had shaken her head and told her, “Not even Lisette or Geraldine's were that long.”

  I had to smile internally, that it consternated the ninja-like girl who was kicking my ass up one side and down the other every day after my classes. I should be hitting the stacks every night like the rest of med students, but instead, I was training to do something I didn't want to do to begin with.

  I told myself that once I tracked down this Abigail Truit and sent her to hell for what she did to my gran and mother, then I'd walk away from all of this and concentrate on becoming a doctor, on healing instead of violence.

  It was obvious to all, that despite my impressive talons, I made a pretty pathetic Raven Maid physically since my manifestation left me mostly human and without the pseudo-wings that allowed Rin to glide when she leapt. It looked so graceful when she covered twenty feet or so in one bound, her feet hanging off the ground. Hell, I didn't even have a beak in my Raven form.

  I slashed and dodged, feeling much stronger and moving faster than I ever could in my full human form. There were both visible and metaphysical sparks when our talons collided, like steel on steel. Even with her beak, I could tell she was grinning now, the way her feathered cheeks dimpled.

  I pressed the advantage, crouching and slashing in an advance as she blocked every one of my blows. It seemed I was stronger than her, though she outclassed me in every other way. She said in an amused tone, “It's about fucking time.”

  I asked as she grabbed my wrist, avoiding my talons and pulled me in a slingshot move to slam me into the outside wall of the abandoned building with a crunch of buckling brick which I barely felt, “So where exactly are you from? MawMaw said she called you, making me think she knew you, but you said you were in San Francisco.”

  She kicked up suddenly with a flying roundhouse, and by pure instinct, rather than any semblance of skill, I crossed my hands and stopped her kick from connecting with my sternum. “Same as you, New Orleans.”

  I narrowed my eyes as she spun out of my grasp and took the three point stance that told me she was about to leap and open a can of aerial whoop-ass on me. She rolled her eyes, the action looking oddly out of place on her avian face. “Not all of us have that Cajun Creole accent.” Then she added in fluent French, “Certains d'entre nous parlent bien le français.”

  I grinned at that and said tongue in cheek, “Snob.”

  Rin launched herself into the air in one of her spinning pirouette moves that seemed to defy gravity as her feathers fluttered as she spun.

  Both of her feet slashed past me in a blur, and I was only able to block one. The other struck me in the chest and flung me back into the wall, more bricks cracking as I hissed from the red-hot sizzle of my spirit being slashed by the smaller talons on her feet.

  I shook my head as she landed with her legs spread wide, one against the opposite wall and the other against a dumpster, suspending herself above the ground doing the splits.

  I complained, “Ok, now you're just showing off. Trying to rub it in?” The smug wench was smiling, wasn't she?

  I placed a hand on my chest. I knew I wasn't sliced open and bleeding, but it felt like it. Then I noted another scratch on the waist length leather jacket and whined, “Hey!”

  She somehow leapt up, in a graceful twist and then pushed off the wall and flew at me across the alley like she was on a string. I dodged to the side, raking both hands down in a great slash, and she attempted to twist away from the slash, but being in mid-air, she was unsuccessful, and I felt my talons slash through her sluggishly like I was pulling them through gelatin.

  She took a hissing intake of breath and collided with the wall, the surprise of the strike, and possibly the pain had distracted her. She crunched into the bricks, and a couple gave way. She said in a voice with tight control, though I could hear a tinge of pain in it. “Good. Better. If you can't bring your Raven fully forth, your speed and strength are your only assets.”

  I glanced over to where Shannon, who had sort of covertly become my best friend without me even noticing, was sitting on a nearby trash can, munching on some chips as she swung her legs idly. She was cocking her head and smiling at me. Marinette preserve me, was it right for your best friend to turn you on like that?

  She sort of inserted herself into my life, and her being the only person to know my secret outside of my family and the junior-ninja, only made me let her get past my defenses unchallenged.

  Then I was oofing as the wind was knocked out of me as talons slammed into my stomach, lifting me off the ground and spinning me around to pin me against the wall. It burned so much, those short talons pinning my spirit there. Tears were stinging my eyes at the sharp pain as Rin scolded in disappointment, “Don't let yourself get distracted, it could mean the difference between a shitload of pain and and a corrupt spirit escaping, and you dragging their ass to hell.”

  I started to nod then snapped my eyes over her left shoulder in shock. She glanced back as she held me pinned against the wall, my feet dangling a couple inches off the concrete. I slashed my talons in a scissoring motion across her breastbone, and she dropped me, staggered back, and gasping for air.

  I grinned like a loon and said in a raspy voice, mimicking hers, “Don't let yourself get distracted.”

  She straightened up, pushing away the white hot pain I knew she felt, and just like that she was human again, smiling crookedly. “That's enough for today.” Then she added like the teenager she was instead of the ageless fighting machine she always projected, “And I don't sound like that.”

  I grinned, she really did sound like that. One day I'd get her to say “I am Batman,” so Shan and I could get a good laugh.

  Speaking of, a grinning Shannon hopped off her perch and started walking to us when my eyes locked down to see a bit of blood peeking out from under the collar of Rin's undamaged motorcycle jacket. I hissed out in concern, “I hurt you!”

  I reached for her, my heart was beating faster as I pushed away the guilt and panic. I needed to help her. That's what I did, I was a healer, but I hurt someone. That contradiction threatened to break me just then, and I don't know why.

  She stopped my reaching hand, which was human now. “I'll heal. We heal fast, you'll see. It is only a scratch, like on your jacket.”

  I exhaled knowing she wouldn't allow me to help her, then whined, “It's my favorite
jacket.”

  Shan stepped up beside me and leaned against my shoulder and asked in an amused tone, “Who's jacket?”

  I looked at her, nonplused, not showing my amusement and deadpanned, “My jacket.”

  Then she surprised me with one of those things that confused and sexually frustrated me as she seemed to get her flirt on. Straightening the lapels on the jacket with an appreciative look up and down as she nodded at me, “And it looks mighty fine on you.”

  I blinked, momentarily forgetting why I had been stressed a moment before, then blushed. I remembered as I turned back to Rin, who was dusting brick dust off her leathers. Oh yeah... her. I stuck my tongue out at myself mentally and grinned then started to reach for her again as she wiped the little blood trail away.

  I blinked, there was only pristine, unmarked skin under the blood. She was healed. We could do that? She looked up at me in amusement and explained, “We're hard to hurt, even harder to kill.” Then she smirked. “Your cuts are probably healed by now too.”

  My cuts? She nodded, our metaphysical form does about as much damage to flesh as to that jacket. Unless we will out talons to do physical damage, but that is exhausting and takes a huge amount of effort.”

  I placed my hand on my belly then pulled up my black tee, there were three red marks above a single red mark where her talons had seared my spirit. I realized there was a wet spot on my tee. Blood? I had healed that fast?

  She nodded as she stepped over to my Metro and shook her head in resignation as she held the door open, inclining her head at the car, “I'm taking my bike next time. This is just silly.”

  Shannon gave her a cute bobble-headed look then slid into the passenger seat, and Rin joined her as they crowded the driver's seat. I defended my car as I slipped into the driver's side, us packed in like shoulder to shoulder sardines, “Hey, a normal Metro has a back seat. Mine doesn't because it's a convertible.”

  She didn't seem impressed as she ground out, “Fan-fucking-tastic.”

  Ok, the deadly little pipsqueak was pretty funny at times. Then I snorted when our honey blonde companion pointed out, “I find it intriguing that you seem to use fuck as a noun, verb, adverb, and adjective. It expands your vocabulary by a factor of four.”

  Rin didn't even look at her, she instead just held her middle finger up right in front of Shannon's face. Shan and I shared a laugh, then she kissed Rin's finger, causing the teen to pull her hand away quickly and mumble, “And you two are supposed to be the adults here.” Which only got us laughing again and a slight smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.

  I glanced over at her and exhaled before starting the car. It was sobering to know that she was the last Raven Maid. Well, her, and myself being a half-assed one. Once she and MawMaw explained why she asked Rin come to help train me. It was because someone has systematically hunted every Raven Maid down over the last six years. And even a couple of the soul guides from the other cultures. So it was just Rin and me for this generation. The surviving children of the other Raven Maids may still develop the gift. Or curse, depending on how you look at it.

  Rin has been targeted four times already since she first called her Raven forth for the first time when she was thirteen. The youngest Raven Maid in the oral history that was passed down through the lines of the Voodoo high priestesses. But the human and zombie hitmen had found the scrappy girl to be a little more than they could handle. It seems she had been taking mixed martial arts since she was five, just in case she manifested the gift like her mother before her.

  The girl certainly was a badass, through and through.

  I asked out of curiosity as we rattled down the road, “If you're from New Orleans, what were you doing in San Francisco?” A flash of insight hit me. “Were you hunting Abigail?”

  She shook her head, dashing my hopes that I was being clever, and she said, “With mom and the rest of us being hunted down...”

  I blinked, this was the first time she mentioned that her mother was killed like mine, why hadn't she said anything before? “... I saw on the news those blurry photos of a supposed bird woman who was flying around San Francisco. People on the street were swearing that she was helping people out there.”

  I nodded, I saw those same reports and assumed it was some sort of publicity stunt for a movie studio or something. All the pictures were grainy or blurred. But that was before I found out what I am. Was this another Raven Maid?

  She continued, voicing my thoughts, “I had hoped that she was another surviving Raven.”

  Run shrugged. “But the people I spoke with all said she was like an angel with wide white wings on her back. So many people said they had seen her and all of their descriptions matched except the hair color of this supposed angel. I've heard everything from blonde, to blue, to black, and a few colors in between.”

  The girl said almost in question, “That got me wondering if it were a whole line of these angel women protecting the City By the Bay or just one. I started believing the people, though at first, I was skeptical, since as hard as I looked, just like their local law enforcement, I couldn't find her, or them.”

  She looked behind the seats to the messenger tube she brought with her everywhere, usually strapped on her back, and pulled it out. She popped the cap and reached inside. I was expecting her to pull out a long blade or something. I blame too much TV on that expectation. Instead, she pulled out a pristine white pinion feather, but it was huge, almost three feet long.

  I glanced between the road and the impossibly large feather as I drove. It looked too real to be a movie prop or something like that.

  Rin nodded at my expression, saying, “This cinched it for me. There is definitely something flying through the night skies in San Francisco. I got this from a bag lady who insisted that a fuckin' mouse gave it to her. Traded one of my boot knives for it.”

  Wait, she had boot knives? I've never seen her with a weapon other than her talons, and her boot would go to wherever her clothes did when she changed. What would she need a... then I got it, our talons didn't do much physical damage since they sank below the flesh into the soul below it.

  She wanted to be able to defend herself if a non-spirit came after her. She and MawMaw had said that humans were involved in the hunting parties too. Though she did say, we could have our talons do physical damage if we willed it.

  I wondered if I needed something to defend myself, something non-lethal like a taser. I never would have thought something like that before I learned of what I was. And I'd give anything to go back to thinking I was just an average med school coed going slowly insane.

  But now, I was determined to hunt down this Abigail Truit and make her pay for what she did to my family... and I needed to find the truth about the fate of my mother.

  Shannon took the feather from her and looked at it in wonder, shaking her head slowly as she said in an awed whisper, “It's beautiful.” She shared a smile with Rin which made the young girl blush and me feel oddly jealous.

  Get with it Addy, Shan is straight, and Rin is still a kid.

  Then it was my turn to blush when she held the feather up and looked through it at me with her teasing smile on her face. It was just how she was, a tease. And I liked it.

  As Rin retrieved the feather and put it back in the tube, my curiosity finally got the better of me, and I asked, “Just how old are you anyway Rin? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  She held her chin up and said obstinately like only a teen can, “Twenty-one, just like my ID says, thank you very much.”

  Both Shan and I raised skeptical eyebrows, and I glanced between the supernatural assassin and the road, and she growled out, “Fine, whatever. Fuck you both. I just turned eighteen last week.”

  Ok, twenty-one was not believable in any way, but eighteen was plausible if she looked young for her age. I wasn't one hundred percent sure it was the truth, but I was willing to believe her. She was going out of her way to train me after all, with only a phone call from MawMaw.

 
Why would... I hesitated and glanced at her again. “You don't talk about your family except when you talk about your combat training. Do they know where you are?”

  She just stared at the road, not making eye contact as she said with no emotion in her voice, which scared me a bit, “It was just my mom and me.”

  We sat in silence for a few seconds as that sunk in. Soc Au' Lait, she was just a kid, alone in this world, being hunted by goddamn zombies and hitmen. That's why, even though she is acting like this is a big inconvenience for her being here, she answered Gran's call.

  Shannon didn't say a word, just rested a hand on her arm, a silent sign of solidarity. Letting Rin know that we were there for her. I had a new respect for the strength of the girl.

  Chapter 7 – Hunting

  The next two weeks were pretty hectic, I was running myself ragged trying to keep up with my studies and the physical training. I didn't have a single moment to myself, and found myself waking up with my face in a book at the table more often than not. Weekends should have been my time to decompress, but I used most of the time to catch up on my studies.

  Med school was unforgiving, it was either pass or fail with no in between, and I feared I wasn't keeping up with the rest of the students. Especially with my mind on the three other souls which I experienced the balance of as Rin took me out hunting.

  She would bring me to where we could overlook a large portion of the district, and she would have me close my eyes. “Can you feel it? The draw? The need to do something?”

  I had just nodded. I felt that all the time since this all started with me, and it unnerved me not knowing what the need was or how to scratch the itch in my head which had this urgent need I hadn't understood.

  She sounded much older and world-weary as she said, “They're everywhere. The spirits that walk the mortal realm. Some are not for us. But the ones that need our specific mercy or justice call to the Raven inside us.”

  I nodded as I felt a pull from many directions at once. I almost whispered, “They're everywhere.”