Trickster's Girl (The Raven Duet)

by Hilari Bell

  Kelsa stopped the bike. There was still no traffic, and her lights would warn anyone who came around the curve. She pushed up the shield on her helmet.

  "Don't change," she told Raven, as he assumed his usual perch on her handlebars. "Otter Woman told me the police set up a roadblock somewhere between here and Good Hope Lake. I don't match the description of the girl who ripped off Charlie, but I don't want to push my luck. Can you scout ahead and circle back to stop me if you see anything?"

  The raucous squawk that answered was completely uninformative. Kelsa grimaced. "One caw for no, two for yes."

  The great wings lifted, almost like a human shrug, feathers rustling. Then he cawed. Twice.

  "Thanks."

  The wind from his takeoff caressed her face like cold fingers.

  ***

  He flew ahead of her all night, swinging back occasionally to reassure her. It wasn't hard to figure out that when he swooped low and flew down the road in front of her that meant go on, and that flying across her path meant stop. He stopped her twice, near creeks both times, where he took a drink and rested on the handlebars for a while. Kelsa took advantage of those brief breaks to relieve herself and down some water or an energy bar.

  He didn't stop her before the town of Good Hope, where the magneto-repellant asphalt resumed and she was able to increase speed, though he did fly back to her less and less often.

  The sky was beginning to brighten in the northeast when he swooped across the road a third time.

  Kelsa, who really didn't want to encounter a roadblock now, turned off the pavement, rode through a shallow drainage ditch and into the trees.

  The mountains had leveled out here and the forest was dry and thinner, very like the Rockies she'd left so far behind.

  She turned the headlight off and waited till Raven flapped down beside her. In the growing light of dawn, the change from bird to man wasn't quite so horrifying. Was she finally becoming accustomed to it?

  "You're going to need a new set of bike clothes," she said, reaching into the pack. "My spare jeans will be too short, but it's better than running around naked, and we can buy you some clothes in the next town."

  "Clothes, yes." Raven pulled the therma knit she tossed him over his head. Her jeans were too short, and also loose around his narrow waist—a fact Kelsa noted with some annoyance.

  "But not biker clothes," Raven continued. "Do you have any shoes that would ... ah, I suppose not. We'll have to buy them too. Give me the highest-denomination bill you've got and I'll copy it."

  "Why not bike gear?" Kelsa asked, pulling the spare cash he'd given her out of her pocket. "You need something reinforced, in case the bike—"

  " We'll have to leave the bike behind," Raven told her. "I turned off both the lights and the surveillance in my cell, but the moment someone on the morning shift brings me breakfast, the police will start looking for both of us. And this bike. Could you become a blonde? Or a redhead?"

  "No," said Kelsa. "But the black will wash out. How can we reach Alaska without a bike?"

  "By turning right when we hit Highway One—it's just ahead—then going east about five miles to Watson Lake," Raven told her.

  He wasn't exactly well dressed as he swung onto the bike behind her, but no one would report them for indecency. And it felt ridiculously good to have him back in his proper place.

  Kelsa turned toward the road. "Isn't Alaska to the west? What's in Watson Lake that we need to go back for?"

  "Trucks."

  CHAPTER 12

  THERE WERE PLENTY OF TRUCKS in the travel center on the outskirts of Watson Lake. Looking over the parking lot behind the long building, Kelsa estimated that seventy or eighty drivers had pulled in to take advantage of the inexpensive hotel rooms—or if they slept in their rig, the chance for a shower and breakfast in the restaurant.

  The store attached to the center was twice the size of most charge stations; its clothing selection was limited and cheap. Kelsa left Raven to spend his newly created money and went into the ladies' room. After some thought, she decided to wash off the dark foundation. Now she looked like neither her PID photo nor the mixie who'd visited a prisoner before his escape.

  She came out, chose a booth, and told the waitress her friend would join her shortly.

  Despite the similarity between this place and the Woodland Café, she wasn't nervous. Sleepy truckers were wandering down the corridor from the hotel, and in from the parking lot out back. Kelsa thought there were already too many human minds for their enemies to control, and more were coming in all the time. Otter Woman might not even be awake yet.

  Kelsa was studying a menu when Raven came up to the booth, wearing jeans stiff with newness and a black stretchie with a skull surrounded by rippling flames.

  "Charming." Kelsa watched the colors shift and wondered how brightly they glowed in the dark. "Inconspicuous too. Can you turn it off, or is the display constant?"

  "They didn't have a big selection." Raven picked up a menu, but his gaze was fixed on the charge bank outside. "I got some other shirts too. Do you think that woman will come in?"

  Kelsa looked out the window. The woman he was watching stood beside her charging car, with a wiggly three-year-old girl in one arm and a boy about Joby's age tugging on her other hand. Both kids wore footed sleepers.

  "With kids that young? You bet she's coming in."

  "Hmm."

  The woman unplugged her car and deposited the kids inside it, not bothering to fasten the protective belts, since they were driving only a few yards to park in front of the door.

  "When she comes in," said Raven, "can you distract her? For just a few moments?"

  "Probably not. And why should I? What are you up to now?"

  "Her car has an Alaska label."

  Their booth was close enough to the doors for a blast of fresh air to disturb the smell of warm pancakes and oil when the small family came in. In addition to the toddler, the woman carried enough packs to topple a sherpa.

  The boy was blond and looked nothing like Joby, but Kelsa wasn't surprised when his gaze shot to the D-game table.

  He looked up at his mother and said something, resisting her tug toward the tables. One look at the woman's harried expression told Kelsa all she needed to know about the answer.

  The boy's lower lip quivered, then stuck out. He planted his feet on the floor, making his mother drag him. The next act was equally predictable. And whatever Raven was up to, what harm could it do to help them out?

  Kelsa rose and approached the woman, who looked like she was about to swear—or give her son something real to cry about.

  "Hey, if it's OK with you, I could give him a game." She gestured to the table. "I've got a brother his age, so I know all of them. And"—she glanced at the woman who manned the cash register—"Cynthia here could keep an eye on us while you take care of the little one. What's your game, champ? Levcar 500? Fighter jets?"

  The toddler was squirming in a fashion that looked serious to someone who remembered Joby's potty training.

  Cynthia took one look at the boy's rebellious face and decided that keeping an eye on him and Kelsa was better than having a screaming toddler in the middle of her restaurant.

  The mother's tight expression eased into a smile. As Kelsa fed coins into the game table's slot, Raven politely relieved the woman of most of her bags and took them to a nearby booth, promising to watch them.

  The kid's favorite turned out to be Maze Run, a game that Kelsa liked too. She was so busy trying to maneuver her red rat through the three-D pipes that she barely noticed when the woman brought the toddler back from the restroom, and settled into a booth.

  When the game ended, Kelsa led the happy winner back to his mother. The woman thanked her so fervently she felt guilty—and she didn't even know what Raven had done, yet.

  "What did you do?" she demanded in a murmur, sitting down on the opposite side of the booth.

  "I ordered for you. Trucker's Special, which has a bit of
everything, but if you don't like—"

  "You know what I mean." Why did rescuing a person make you forget how annoying he could be?

  "I do, and I'll tell you later. For now, why don't you tell me what you've been doing these last few days?"

  It wasn't as crazy as it sounded. The restaurant was filling up for breakfast, and the clatter of crockery and conversation was so loud the waitress had turned off the sound on the sports screens over the bar.

  Kelsa lowered her voice and caught him up on her adventures. And had the pleasure of seeing startled respect dawn in his eyes.

  "You actually fooled Otter Woman? And drugged her?"

  "She should be waking up by now," Kelsa said, "though the stronger dose might keep her out a while longer. Would they really have left you here, powerless, in jail?"

  "Maybe." His expression was sober, but he didn't seem angry. "What's happening with the leys ... it's as important, as deadly, to us and our world as this tree plague is to yours. Everyone knows that the longer we wait, the harder it will be for us to fix the leys. But they're convinced that letting you humans wipe yourselves out, so you can't do worse harm in the future, is the right thing to do. A matter of principle, no less."

  Kelsa understood the grimace that flashed over his face. Her father said more people died from principles than from crime, though he'd admitted he didn't have any statistics to prove it.

  "Who are your allies? I don't want to be fooled—"

  The flash of red across the sports screen caught her eye, but it was the picture that followed the headline "Breaking News" that silenced her. A picture of Raven, in full three-D mug-shot style, turning to show both his profiles, as well as the front of his face. The black eye he no longer had was dark and more swollen than when Kelsa had seen him in the cell. The police must have treated it.

  The face that followed Raven's on the screen was her own, the flat photo from her PID card. The braided brown hair didn't look like the curly black wedges she now wore, but the features were still hers. At least she was listed only as a "Person of Interest."

  Unlike her companion who was "Wanted on Felony Charges."

  The police probably didn't want to admit that they didn't know how someone had broken out of their jail. But Kelsa would bet they'd really like to ask him.

  "Relax," Raven said. "You hardly look like that at all."

  "Yes, but you..." Kelsa's jaw dropped. His face was now more square than round, the cheekbones lower and flatter, the lips thinner. It wasn't enough of a change to make the waitress, who chose that moment to set plates down in front of them, notice. But no one would connect that face with the bruised boy in the mug shot.

  "OK, you're fine, but I don't look that different!" She glanced around nervously, but no one seemed to be looking at the screens. "When they pull up my record in the States they'll learn I'm here illegally. I'm going to be arrested, and I can't shapeshift out of jail!"

  "Keep your voice down." He looked far too calm to suit Kelsa. "It may look suspicious, but they can't prove you had anything to do with my escape. Just say that we met on the road, and I told you whatever you told them I told you. In jail, I asked you to call a number, which you can't remember, and you did. Then you decided to move on, since the person you talked to said he'd take care of it. You don't know who I am, or who he was, or how I got out, or where I went. The worst they can charge you with is being here without permission, and that's hardly a major crime."

  "Improper entry, they call it." The horrifying prospect of ending up in prison began to look less likely, and Kelsa's pounding heart slowed. "I think in Canada they only deport you, though in the U.S. it's more serious."

  "Well, we're in Canada," Raven pointed out. "So that doesn't matter."

  "But they'll still get a complete description of my bike. And then they're going to ... Oh God. They're probably calling my mother right now."

  ***

  After breakfast they took Kelsa's bike and rode it into the woods behind the service center. She rearranged the branches that concealed it three times.

  "It will be perfectly safe tucked into these bushes," Raven told her tartly. "It's not going to starve without you."

  He was packing some necessary supplies into one of the bike's saddlebags, which Kelsa had unstrapped. They didn't have enough food left to need the other.

  "I don't want it stolen. Or damaged." If she'd still had her tent, Kelsa could have wrapped the bike to protect it against dust and weather. "I'll come back for it. It's just—"

  Her com pod chirped. She'd been expecting it, but she still flinched.

  "Don't answer," Raven said. "Didn't you tell me they can trace your location if those things are live?"

  "Not if it's only for a few seconds. And I have to. She'll be worried about me."

  Worried? Her mother would be frantic. Kelsa pulled out the pod, and her mother's white face appeared on the screen. "Kelsa! Where the hell are you? I just got a call from the Canadian police, and I called your aunt, and—"

  Kelsa's mother never swore. "Mom," she broke in desperately. "Mom, I can't talk long, but I'm fine and I'm..." She couldn't say safe, not with Otter Woman and company on her heels. "I know what I'm doing," she finished. "I'll tell you all about it, I promise, as soon as I can, but for now you have to trust me. I know what I'm doing. I'm sorry and I love you. Bye."

  "Kel—" She disconnected in the middle of her mother's shriek.

  "I'm sorry." For once, Raven sounded as if he meant it. He reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  "So am I." Kelsa blew her nose, then turned and put the com pod into the bike's remaining pack. She knew it was much harder to trace a pod when it was turned off, but she wasn't certain it was impossible. And she couldn't endure hearing it chirp again and again as her mother desperately tried to reach her.

  She drew a shaky breath and turned away from the two biggest links she still had to either of her parents.

  "You said something about a truck?"

  There were a lot of trucks in the lot, but most of them were closed and locked. Only a handful had open beds, their loads of pipe or machinery covered with plastic tarps or nothing at all. Not all of them had destination stickers.

  Raven stopped beside one particularly lumpy load.

  "This one is headed for Fairbanks. Perfect."

  Kelsa peered through an open triangle at one end of the thick blue tarp. The twisted lumps of metal were so carefully crated that for a moment she wasn't sure what the contorted humps might be; then she recognized the upside-down shape of a clawed, scaly foot.

  "It's a statue," she said. "A big statue, in sections, on its way to being reassembled.

  "In Fairbanks." Raven cast a swift glance around the lot, tossed their pack onto the truck bed, then heaved himself up after it. "Which means it's going our way. With any luck, we could take this all the way to the border."

  He'd crawled under the tarp by the time he finished speaking, leaving Kelsa to scramble up by herself, even though the truck's flat bed was shoulder height for her.

  Muttering about alien manners, she pulled herself aboard and followed him into the blue world beneath the plastic tarp. The wooden bracing around the statue's pieces created a tangled maze. Kelsa climbed carefully over an upraised bronze arm holding a neatly cut piece of rope. She didn't dare brush up against the plastic, lest someone see the moving bulge and come to investigate. "I don't know if there are two statues, or if this is a cowboy riding a dinosaur."

  "Up here," Raven called softly.

  Between two sections of the statue—definitely a cowboy riding a dinosaur—was an open space about a yard wide. And except for a narrow gap where one of the tarp's seams had ripped, it was completely concealed.

  "It's perfect," Raven murmured.

  "It should work," Kelsa admitted. "Until we either reach the border or have to pee. Then what?"

  "As for the latter, the driver has to stop sometime to do that himself," Raven said. "And for the former, back in the Un
ited States I saw a number of people walking across the border, with people meeting them on the other side. There were even some buses."

  "A lot of buses drop off and pick up at the borders to avoid paying the crossing tax. Because it's based on the value of the vehicle. And sometimes people who drive really expensive cars walk across and have a driver come out to meet them. But you need a ticket to get on a bus, and no matter how you cross, you have to have a valid ... That's what you were doing! You stole that poor woman's PID!"

  "All she has to do is produce a DNA sample when my fake vanishes, and she'll be given a new one," Raven pointed out. "And she probably won't be asked for it till she tries to go back across the border. She lives in Anchorage," he added, handing the card to Kelsa. "But more important, she has permission to travel in and out of Canada at will, just like your legally homeless people. That will show up on the reader strip, right?"

  Kelsa stared at the small checked box on the PID card. "It will show up on the strip. It's not exactly like being legally homeless. I bet her parents live in Canada, and she got that permission so she could take the kids to visit them anytime. But it also says she's twenty-nine, and the reader strip will show that too. Not to mention the fact that I don't look anything like the picture on this card."

  "Give me a minute." Raven took the card back. "I've never done this before, but it should work."

  His eyes were on Kelsa's face, but she could tell his attention was elsewhere. His attitude was so focused that she didn't dare interrupt.

  He stared at her for a long time, caressing the card with his thumb. Kelsa was becoming bored enough to interrupt him when he finally glanced down and then grinned.

  "I really am good."

  Kelsa stared at the smooth plastic surface. The name on the card was still Elizabeth Stayner, but the photo bore Kelsa's face. And the age now read nineteen, instead of twenty-nine. The "1" was a trifle blurred, but not enough for a busy border agent to notice. And the reader strip would send her across the border into Alaska with no questions asked.

  "But how will you—"