by E. A. Copen
Thunder suddenly shook the silence and the black bird dove out of the sky. Talons grasped the back of my coat and tugged me into the air a foot, then five. Ten. In mere seconds, I looked down in a panic as I watched the waves wash over the front of Sal’s truck. Sal disappeared in the water and I frantically searched the ground for any sign of him. I twisted to search to my right and the fabric of my coat tore, prompting me to be still.
The bird flapped its wings a few more times and we soared in the sky for a few moments more until the water settled and no trace was left of Zara. Then, we gradually lowered toward the ground. My jacket tore with three or four feet left to go and I tumbled the rest of the way and landed on my rear in water that went nearly up to my shoulders. The shockwave of the landing reverberated up through my spine and into my jaw. I cursed and winced as I shifted my weight away from my aching tailbone.
Meanwhile, the big, black bird glided a few feet further before touching down on the surface of the water, at which point it promptly transformed into Logan Creed and his dog, Bolt.
I blinked repeatedly as the bronze-skinned man rose from a crouched position and the dog shook out its black and tan fur, panting.
“Well, now, I’ve seen everything. A woman that can turn into a giant snake and a bird that’s actually a man and a dog?” I tried to rub the sight out of my eyes, but it didn’t work. When I took my hand away, Logan and Bolt were advancing toward me.
Logan’s jaw was clenched and his eyebrows drawn together. The march told me he was angry. The perked ears of his dog told me she was alert and ready to attack if ordered. I dared not move a muscle.
“Judah Black, did I not warn you that she was dangerous?” Logan marched up and then paused in front of me, gesturing behind him. “Now look what you’ve done. She’s gone again, and this time she may not come back. Do you have any idea how long I have been chasing her?”
I stared at him. “I’m still trying to get over the fact that you and your dog Voltron into a Thunderbird.”
“This is not a joke.” He crossed his arms. “If she remains free, more people will die. Those lives will be on your head.”
I stood and shook some of the water off me, keeping a careful eye on the dog. “I’d love to stand here and argue with you, but my friend got caught up in that wave. I need to know that he’s safe.”
Bolt growled when I turned my back on her.
I turned around and growled right back. She paused, not quite sure what to make of that. “That’s right, doggie. My son is a werewolf. I know how to stare you down when I need to. Now, excuse me.”
I stomped away, sifting through debris looking for Sal. Sal could swim, I told myself. I’d seen him do it. Not long after I’d defeated the wendigo, Andre LeDuc, the whole pack had thrown a pool party and rented a bunch of inflatable pools and bouncy houses. That’s how I knew Valentino couldn’t swim. After a few beers, he admitted to it openly. Sal, however, had spent most of the afternoon in the pool for no other reason than to gather glares from Valentino as he splashed him from the edge. Sal could swim and he was good at it. I kept telling myself that so I wouldn’t consider the alternative that he’d been knocked unconscious and drowned.
A lot of rocks had washed up with the wave, and some larger sticks. There were bits of plastic and trash everywhere, but I didn’t find Sal until I made it over a small rise and saw him lying on his back with his hair washed over his face. I broke into a run down the rise, stumbling as my feet caught a soft spot in the ground on my way down. I used the momentum to fall to my knees next to him and gently pull the hair away from his face. If he was breathing, I couldn’t tell because his chest wasn’t moving. My ear went to his chest where I heard the thump of his heart, but no intake of breath.
Just then his whole body jerked with my ear against his chest. He rolled toward me and spat out a mouthful of dirty water.
“Oh, you have no idea how glad I am you’re not dead,” I said.
His answer was a groan as he sat up the rest of the way and held his head. “What the hell happened?”
A shadow fell over us as Logan and his dog closed. Logan crossed his arms and frowned down at me.
Sal gave him an annoyed look. “And what the hell are you doing here?”
“You mean besides morphing with his dog into a giant bird to fight a giant snake?” I shrugged. “Mostly being a pain in my ass, it seems.”
“Zara has gone underground,” Logan reported to Sal, ignoring my remark. “We’re going to have to flush her out if you want to save your friend and time is running out.”
“She’s a giant snake,” I said. “How hard can it be to find her?”
The ground under my feet rumbled and I looked down, watching ripples move through the shallow water.
I should’ve known better than to say that.
Chapter Ten
Bolt growled and lowered her head until her chin dipped in the water. Logan turned and surveyed the empty, water-logged land around us. “I am told you slew a wendigo,” Logan said. “Is that true?”
I steadied myself as the rumbling in the ground increased. “I had a lot of help.”
“What is coming is far fiercer than any wendigo.” He narrowed his eyes at Sal, who had gotten up on all fours. “She’s coming back.”
The ground suddenly crumbled under my feet and I was thrust into the air. It took a long moment before I realized I hadn’t just been tossed, but that I was sliding down the back of the enormous snake. Her scales shifted underneath me as she rose higher into the sky. I gripped at them, desperately trying to find something to hold onto. It wasn’t until I slid down to her wings that I finally found something. My fingers closed on a handful of white feathers and I held on for dear life, squeezing my eyes shut so I didn’t think about how high up I was. When she stopped moving, however, I just couldn’t help myself.
I cracked one eye open and peered down fifty dizzying feet at the ground. Below, Logan had taken off running, his dog beside him. He threw his arms wide and, in a flash of light, changed from man back into Thunderbird. Logan flapped his wings and rose, fingers of lightning erupting under his wings and propelling him higher.
At the sight of him coming, Zara recoiled and let out another ear-splitting screech. But this time, she didn’t plow down at him. She too flapped her wings wildly and we began to lift away from the ground.
If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have told you something as big as a Thunderbird could never fly without having something tall to glide off of. Condors take off from mountain sides and their huge wingspan and body size isn’t close to Logan’s. Zara was even bigger. There was no way, according to everything I knew about physics, that she should have been able to use those wings to fly.
And yet she did.
Zara propelled us into the sky at breakneck speed. Between the wind pressing against me and the flapping of her wings under my hands, I couldn’t hold on. The sheer force of gravity kicked in and pulled me away from Zara and back toward Earth at a deadly speed. I fell facing the sky and not the ground. Wind resistance pushed against the back of my head, throwing my limbs up. It was a lot of effort to move and fight the drag. It was part instinct and part gravity that made me turn over. Panic set in as I watched the ground close. I’d have three seconds, maybe four before I hit and splattered the ground with my entrails.
A black shape loomed underneath me and I hit it before I could process what was happening. Pain lit up my chest where I’d struck and forced all thought from my head. The wind never stopped rushing against me, and when the pain lessened enough that I could draw breath and think, I saw that I was on Logan’s back and we were headed back into the sky. Unlike Zara’s frantic flapping, Logan’s wings moved smoothly and with more control, keeping me from falling off. I had more to grip, as I held onto what felt like strong bones on the forefront of his wings. On his back, we climbed into the sky and leveled out next to but slightly above Zara’s head.
I fought the wind to open my eyes and turn to look
at her. Why wasn’t Logan attacking and hitting her with his lightning? If we didn’t force her to the ground, she’d get out of the reservation for sure and then there was no telling where she’d go. We had to stop her. Wasn’t that his primary mission?
As we glided next to her, I realized he probably couldn’t use his lightning and thunder, not unless he wanted to electrocute me. So why climb all the way up there? Was there something he wanted me to see?
Something only you can see, a voice in my head answered, a voice that was not my own.
I was so shocked by the sudden intrusion, I nearly let go of Logan.
He shifted his flight slightly to keep me from falling. Hurry up! We’re running out of time.
Her aura, I thought. He wants me to look at her aura.
There was no time to argue. Zara was headed for the edge of the reservation. Thankfully, it was the unmanned edge, so we weren’t in any danger of being shot, but I’d have a lot more explaining to do if we brought her down on the outside as opposed to inside.
I closed my eyes and fought to clear my mind, concentrating only on the ebb and flow of magick all around me. There was a lot of it, and very little was mine, so it was difficult, but I managed by focusing on drawing in and out breath. When I opened my eyes, it was with another sight, the one that let me see the auras that surround and run through all living things.
Auras can be all colors, from deep navy blue to brilliant gold. The meanings of those colors is open to interpretation and a subject under much debate in academic circles. Those of us who can see them know that color is no good indicator of anything because each shade of every color also comes with a feeling. Some of the most terrifying auras I had seen were gold but felt inky black. In some, a deep red felt more like a burning passion, while it meant vengeance in others. The feeling associated with what we see tells us more than any one color ever will.
Zara’s aura was a flowing river of rainbow colors except for a single white scale in the center of her forehead. I’d never seen anything like it, nor had I felt anything similar. I felt the pain of loss, the agony of confusion, and... something else. Something that reminded me of a summer afternoon in West Virginia when I was a teenager.
I’d been mowing the lawn and hit a nest of baby rabbits. Two had escaped, but one little guy got caught by the mower and sliced up beyond the possibility of survival, but he didn’t die right away. The poor baby laid there in pain and suffering and I was faced with a terrible decision. I could either put the poor bunny out if its misery and kill it or let it suffer until it died a natural death. I searched the area frantically, not completely sure what I was looking for, and my eyes settled on a brick. One hard strike with that, and the dying rabbit would find a merciful end—or so I thought. I gripped the brick and lifted it high, watching the little rabbit’s insides twitch. Tears streamed down my face and I turned away as I brought the brick down hard, twice just to make sure. Then, I glanced up and saw another rabbit at the edge of the yard, staring at me, this one too big to have been one of the escaped babies. Mamma rabbit had watched me murder her baby. Guilt couldn’t begin to describe how I felt as something died in me that day. I couldn’t mow the lawn without crying for the rest of that summer.
I snapped out of the memory to find I was crying again.
Zara had shifted her flight path back toward the ground near the edge of the river and Logan had followed. She landed in the water gracefully, still a feathered, antlered snake. Her body lit up with a bright light and, when that light faded, Zara stood as a human woman again. She cast her eyes up at us, that same guilt and sense of loss etched into her features. Then, she dove into the river and did not come up.
Logan did not come down in the water, but turned and flew back to the shallow water where we’d taken off and then a few yards more to find dry ground. He hovered near the ground, which I took as my sign to get off. I’d never been so happy to be on solid, dry ground in my life, but I was crazy dizzy from the fall, the flight, and the toll the magick had taken. I almost fell over.
Logan shifted back into a fully-clothed man and his dog and then stood from where he knelt. “What did you see?”
Exhaustion settled in, but I fought it. I had to see this through. There’d be plenty of time to sleep when I was dead. “Beauty and pain. Guilt. Loss.”
“All words that describe her tale equally.” Logan nodded.
“I’m going to need you to explain some of this.”
Logan’s eyes shifted beyond me and he smirked. “I think the boy’s eyes may fall out of his head.”
I turned to regard Sal who really did look shocked. His eyes were wide and his jaw slack, leaving his mouth open. “You’re a... You really are?”
Logan chuckled and came to give Sal a firm slap on the shoulder. “So much for ‘it’s just a story,’ huh? Come. Let’s go find something worth eating and talk. I’ll tell you everything.”
~
Sal was all too happy to invite us all back to his place for some reason, though he spent the first ten or fifteen minutes we were there cleaning. I’ve never seen a bachelor run around picking up empty beer bottles and wiping crumbs off the couch with such worry on his face. He ushered Logan to the place he’d cleared, but only after throwing a clean blanket over the furniture to make sure it was suitable for someone to sit on. Then, he got Bolt some water and tossed some cut up bits of beef into another bowl that the dog gladly gobbled up.
Meanwhile, I busied myself moving a stack of medical magazines and books from the old chair in the corner and sat across from Logan while Sal rushed around the kitchen, pots and pans clanging.
“Just so we’re clear,” I said, leaning forward, “no more poking around in my head, no matter how important you think it is that you tell me something. You either talk to me as a person, or write it down, or something. My brain is off-limits. I don’t care who you are.”
Logan smiled and pulled off his boots to reveal his sopping wet socks, which he also stripped off and then placed inside his boots before putting his bare feet up on Sal’s coffee table. “You have secrets.”
“No, I just don’t like people poking around in my head without my permission.”
He shrugged and then relaxed back against the sofa. “Everyone has secrets. Direct communication is more efficient, especially considering in that form my voice has been known to deafen humans such as yourself.”
“Which brings us to the matter at hand. You’re not a normal shifter, are you?”
Logan closed his eyes and folded his hands over his chest. “All your questions will be answered in time. For now, rest your tongue. I imagine it’s tired.”
I sucked in a deep breath and worked to restrain myself from snapping back at him. The only thing that really kept me from telling him where he could shove his opinion on how much I talked was the fact that Sal called me into the kitchen.
“Enjoy your nap,” I mumbled as I rose.
“Thank you, I will.” Logan didn’t even open his eyes.
I went to join Sal in the kitchen where he’d taken out a large, round yellow squash and sliced it in half. He was busy scooping the seeds into another bowl. “Will you hand me that olive oil over there?”
I grabbed the bottle he’d gestured to and unscrewed the cap setting it in front of him. “Why is it you’re suddenly being a hell of a lot nicer to this guy, Sal?”
He grabbed the bottle and dumped a few tablespoons worth of olive oil in each half before proceeding to massage it into the squash. “Because he’s not just a guy. He’s a Thunderbird, Judah. That’d be like... Well, if an angel showed up at your door.”
“I’d tell him the church was across town.” I crossed my arms. “I know better than to let uber-powerful supernaturals put me in a situation where I’m likely to be indebted to them or them to me. I’ve got enough to worry about. Besides, I’ve never thought of you as the religious type.”
Sal put the squash open end down on a baking pan and slid it into the oven before going to t
he sink to wash his hands. Luckily, he had one of those older ovens that ran on natural gas instead of electricity. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have worked with the power still out. Once he’d washed his hands, he pulled out an egg timer, wound it and sat it on the stove.
“I don’t know about that. I’m apprenticed to a Shoshone healer and second in his pack of werewolves. I suppose my faith’s been on shaky ground since the war. Not that this changes that it’s just... Judah, there’s a guy out of my bedtime stories sitting in my living room, a guy who has parts to play in creation myths that have been passed down through my family for generations. It’s not someone I want to piss off.”
That was true. I supposed you couldn’t be an apprentice medicine man without having some degree of Faith. Chanter would have scowled at me for even thinking the phrase ‘medicine man,’ since that’s an English word and a corruption of the truth. But the term was so widely used now, there really wasn’t any good substitute.
“Besides,” Sal continued, “Chanter gave me a responsibility to represent the pack for today. I have to make sure I do that right.”
“What does that mean, exactly? How does it change things?”
Sal shut off the water and dried his hands on a worn red dish towel. “There are eight of us in the pack right now and one prospective member. The alpha always has a sense of what’s going on with each one of us through the pack bonds, even if it’s just background noise. He can feel on some level what the others do and monitor how they are, but he can also pull on those bonds if needed. Pull too hard, and the connection can break. The alpha becomes disconnected from the pack and the bonds shatter top down. Some use it to make themselves stronger. I know Chanter can use it to heal faster or pass that healing to someone else. He’s transferred a good bit of that power to me to see how I can handle it.”
I studied him closer. He looked tired, maybe more tired than usual, but that was probably because he’d barely slept since yesterday. No, there was more to it than just looking tired. An invisible weight sat on his shoulders, forcing them down. The muscles of his whole upper body looked strained. He looked like he was sick, or fighting being sick. “And how are you handling it?”