by Nicole Kurtz
“Oh? I’m sure she was just having a good time, trying to find herself.” Prentice realized that Rachel parroted bits and pieces of Finch household exchanges.
“Yeah. She was fun. I miss her.”
There. That was genuine emotion and original feeling.
Prentice heard the grief in those words. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Sniffles. Silence. Then a soft, “Thank you.”
“Where does this forest go?” Prentice asked in an attempt to change the subject.
Rachel shrugged. “It’s Finch woods. Uncle Evan said when he was little, he could sneak through them to bypass the front gate and see Aunt Skylar.”
“Is that so?” Prentice found it surprising the residence had such a lapse in security.
“I dunno. The Reed family, that’s Uncle Evan’s flock, live over by the church. That’s far.”
Prentice nodded, but realized that, to a young child, the distance would appear great, but, to a smitten teenager, not so much. Was there a path that connected the woods between the Finch residence and the church green? If so, that could be how those bodies ended up there. She filed that tidbit of information away for later.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. The cold breezes brushed across them, stirring Prentice’s desire for a warm fire and thick blankets. Her wings were stiff, but the fiery burning in her eyes had started to recede.
“We’re at the gate.” Rachel climbed down from Muffin.
The rattle of chains and the clatter of the lock announced the creaking gate’s opening. The metal clanking disrupted the evening’s quiet.
Prentice walked toward the gate, moving slowly and carefully, her hands on the bars to guide her. Soft hands grabbed her right one and tugged.
“This way.” Rachel guided her through the gate and out onto the sidewalk. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay? It’s cold. It’s dark.”
Prentice said, “Yes, I will be fine.”
She put more confidence into those words than she felt, but the young Finch had more to worry about than a hawk’s foolish pride. Prentice waited until Rachel re-locked the gate and Muffin’s galloping hooves grew faint.
Once alone on the quiet street, Prentice started walking. She used her hearing as a guide, and remembered that most of the road ahead didn’t have anything to run into per se. The gurgling Sugar River drew her attention and she drifted closer to the sound. She slowed and, feeling the bushes blocking her path, lowered herself to the ground. Here she’d wait until her sight returned and then head back to the church.
She placed both hands on her talons, lowered her head, and dozed.
Prentice’s eyes flapped open, and she bolted awake with both talons pointed in the direction of the noise. She could make out shadows—two, maybe three—hovering in front of her. From what she could gather, it was still night or early morning dark.
“Ma’am, I’m Eagle Jamison, and this is Eagle O’Neil. We got a call of a suspicious person loitering around the neighborhood,” he said. “You’ll want to put those weapons away and come with us before someone gets hurt.”
They smelled like eagles, earthy and fishy. They also sounded like eagles. Their arrogant tone held nothing but contempt for the subject they addressed. They often entertained the illusion that, as eagles, they were the order of the egg and them alone, a mistake that led to abuses of authority and loss of life. Prentice frowned at the intrusion.
Why are they here, bothering me?
Prentice pushed herself to stand, both talons pointed at the two shadowy figures. “I’m Hawk Tasifa. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not doing anything wrong or that violates the order here.”
“A hawk?” The other eagle, O’Neil, barked out a laugh. “We don’t need hawks up here.”
“Look, clearly you don’t belong in this neighborhood…” Eagle Jamison reached for her.
Prentice fired with limited visibility. The eagles’ approach, by design, was meant to unsettle and disarm. It wasn’t working.
The eagles scrambled, pulling out their own shields to protect themselves. She missed, but that had been the point. They didn’t know she couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Ma’am!” Eagle Jamison, angry, and more than a little scared, shouted. “This is a residential neighborhood. Put down your weapons.”
“No. I’m Hawk Tasifa, requested by Dove Balthazar Rue to investigate the death of Gretchen Finch. I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when you two pigeons show up to harass me.”
Prentice didn’t like that some nosy neighbor, probably someone within the Finches’ home, called the eagles on her. “So, go back to whomever called this in and tell them to stuff it. Or better, call the dove and ask him. I’ll wait.”
Damn her vision. She wished her eyes to repair themselves faster. They’d need to contact Balthazar and that would take time, which she needed.
Eagle Jamison sounded shaken up, but he said, “All right. I’ll call the dove.”
The shadows moved back. Prentice kept her guard and her talons up. She didn’t actually trust them, but she could hear the caller’s squawk and then see what could’ve been a cloudy bubble. Or at least that was what she thought she was seeing based on what she could make out.
After several minutes, one of the two eagles approached her, with his hands up.
“I apologize, Hawk Tasifa. Dove Balthazar asked us to return you to the church,” Eagle Jamison said, his tone humbler than before. Balthazar must’ve have set them right.
Prentice didn’t lower her talons. It could be a trap to get her into the carriage.
“Please, lower your talons.”
Prentice remained in position. Although not in severe danger, she was at the eagles’ mercy.
“He said you’d be resistant. So, he also said to tell you, he will have your sweet milk, whatever that is, when you arrive,” Eagle Jamison said with relief. “I’m glad the dove confirmed your identity.”
“Okay.” Prentice lowered her talons and placed them in their holsters.
“Thank you! Now, if you’ll follow me,” Eagle Jamison said.
Prentice could make out figures carved from darkness and managed to get into the carriage along with Eagle Jamison. The other eagle had climbed up top to drive the carriage. With a shout, they pulled forward into the night. The lantern-lit streets soon faded away as they left the residential area. Prentice closed her eyes. In the carriage’s dark interior, the eagle wouldn’t be able to make out her face anyway.
After several minutes of hushed quiet, Eagle Jamison, broke it. “We don’t get hawks up this way. I’m sorry we didn’t believe you.”
Prentice shrugged. “It’s over now.”
“I should’ve recognized your talons. No one has those but hawks,” he added.
“Have you seen talons before?”
“Only in the training manuscripts.”
“Then you wouldn’t have been able to identify them. A hawk’s talons are different for each individual person.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that. Tell me, we found Gretchen Finch, but there was something other about her death,” he said. “That’s why the dove called the Order. Would’ve been nice of him to tell us you’d arrived.”
“Yes. What do you mean, other?” Prentice sat up straighter and shook off the desire to doze.
Eagle Jamison shifted in the seat across from her. “Clearly, someone beat her to death. With a blunt object, if I had to guess. But the body wasn’t there the day before. We searched the entire church green. Nothing. In fact, we worked our way from the church outward to the woods.”
“So when the body appeared on the green…”
“It must’ve been either one of two things. One, someone dumped her there, but they’d have to get by the eagle we’d placed to watch over the green and the lock on the gate. Or two, magic.”
“The lock was forced. Still, what kind of magic?”
“Well, I dunno. I’m not a hawk.” Eagle Jamison smirked. “But the
body didn’t smell right. It didn’t seem right if you take my meaning.”
“I do.” Prentice pondered the eagle’s information.
“It’s so surreal.”
“What is?”
“You being here. Gretchen being dead…” Eagle Jamison trailed off. “It’s always hard when you know the victim.”
“Who’s in charge of the investigation?” Prentice asked, shifting the topic away from emotions and back to facts.
“We’re only an office of ten. O’Neil and I are the senior members, but I am the head investigator,” Jamison explained.
The carriage slowed to a trot and made several turns as it snaked through the streets to the church. She’d come into Gould this way and could tell from the scent of oak and pine trees, and something sweet, that they were close to the church.
“Did Gretchen have a lover?” Prentice asked.
Quiet. Then Eagle Jamison said with a heavy sigh, “You’re gonna hear this anyway, but yeah. She courted Boris, a local rooster.”
“Did you talk to Boris?”
“We can’t find him. We sent out a team of four to search the outer shell for both Boris and his brother, Brian, but so far, no success. They might have flown to other parts.”
“Maybe,” Prentice said. From Darlene and Dale’s account, Boris had loved Gretchen. He wouldn’t leave if she was missing, and definitely not once she’d been found dead. He might hide from the eagles, but so did most in the outer shell.
“You don’t believe it was him. Do you?” Eagle Jamison asked.
She could hear the smirk in his tone.
“I don’t know. I would like to talk to him, so it’s important we find him. Can you double your efforts?”
“Sure. Anything to help the Order,” he said.
It didn’t sound like he meant it.
It didn’t matter. She’d hold him to it.
The carriage stopped.
“I’ll come by later today to get more information about the investigation,” she said. Her vision hadn’t returned, but it had improved from shadows to more defined images and colorful blurs.
“Sure. I’m on the evening shift, but I’ll leave directions for Eagle Kovacs.”
She got out and waiting for her, with his arms folded in complete disapproval, stood Balthazar Rue. He wore an ivory robe and matching slippers.
“You just had to go over there tonight.” Balthazar rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“It went well. It isn’t my fault the neighborhood is a group of elites,” Prentice said. She started up to her room.
“I placed some sweet milk beside your bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Make it afternoon.” Prentice waved good night and entered the church.
Balthazar followed, making sure to lock the doors. Prentice took the steps two at a time, despite her body singing in fatigue and agony. She was tired of dealing with people and their secrets. Now, she wanted to recharge and heal.
Balthazar disappeared down the stairwell again.
Once she got the guest room’s door closed, she removed her belt, her holster, and her talons. Her body hurt. She took the sweet milk in hand and sat down in the center of the bed. While she sipped the soothing liquid, she removed her healing kit from one of the pouches on her utility belt. She’d delayed using it earlier because she couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t spend time wandering in the woods.
In the room’s warmth, she removed the metal tin of shea butter balm. The pleasant scent reminded her of home, her real home, not the cold indifference of the Lanham court. Tison, the egg by the sea. The aroma called up warm sands and cool sea-salted breezes. Laughter and succulent mangoes or crunchy coconuts.
Using her thumb, she worked the lid off and dipped in her index finger to scoop out a tiny bit. She spread it across her upper cheeks and then around her eyes.
She whispered, “Uponyaji.”
Bright cerulean sparks sprouted, and she closed her eyes. It stung. She spied the magic working through slits. It rushed to the spots, and it didn’t cause any additional agony. The pain fed into the lingering pain she already suffered.
She panted as if she’d run a great distance as it warmed. Tomorrow, she’d have bruising around her eyes and upper cheeks, but nothing too horrible.
The smell of the shea butter brought back more memories of home. The local watering hole where all the birds gathered. Her parents and uncles, aunties and cousins all dressed in their traditional colors of vibrant greens and scarlet reds, royal purples and stunning blues. Her mother’s hands, braiding her hair, and her little sister’s laughter at the faces Prentice made. Despite her mother’s blindness, she knew how to braid and lock the strands of her hair.
Prentice sighed. She missed her family. Since being dispatched to the Order’s court at fourteen, she hadn’t had a lot of time to return. Perhaps after this case, she’d be able to go home. A glimmer of hope rose in her heart.
She finished the milk and lay back on the bed, allowing the magic to continue to heal the optic nerves in her eyes and repair the damage to her hawk abilities.
Tomorrow, she would go back to the church green and look at the ashes and the skeletal remains, if Balthazar hadn’t had them removed. She couldn’t shake the fact that the three deaths had to be connected. Although Gretchen’s killing had been the most prominent and the reason she’d been dispatched to Gould, the other two people most likely had families and friends too. Why hadn’t they been reported missing?
Maybe they had been. If they lived outside the egg, Balthazar wouldn’t have any reason to know, but the eagles would. They were responsible for the entire egg, including the outer shell.
With the following day mapped out, Prentice shifted her thinking into meditation. She didn’t want to deplete her life energy while healing.
Her wings stretched wide and then wrapped around her. She hummed a song her mother had taught her. The words didn’t translate into the High Speech because it had been passed down before the hawks were members of the Order. When her people, and others like them, didn’t belong to the kingdom. The kingdom didn’t even exist.
Prentice pulled her wings closer, feeling their warmth and softness against her skin. She cleared her mind and continued to hum, moving into chanting the chorus. Her body lifted from the bed, buoyed by the internal magic housed in her core. Derived from the ancestral power of the women who came before, it pooled in her blood. She couldn’t see it, her eyes were closed, but she had seen others in the cocoon, lifting her and placing their hands on her. In this, they sent their strength into her. It came with a beautiful cerulean glow.
The words filled the room as her ancestors joined in. Eventually, they too fell away. Nothing existed except Prentice in the warm embrace of the cocoon formed by her wings and her magic. It pulsated across her skin, across her feathers, and kept cadence with her heartbeat.
Prentice allowed the magic to envelope and heal her.
She still had work to do.
Chapter Eight
Golden rays poured sunlight onto the lush church green. Prentice stood at the spot where the pile of ashes remained. A secluded area shielded by trees with giant leaves, the pile of ashes didn’t show any signs of a struggle on the vegetation around the blackened bits. The scene hit her as weird. Now, in the illumination of day, she took in more than she had a few days ago, when her attention had been focused on Gretchen’s body.
Why burn it? Why not leave it for discovery like Gretchen?
The killer had been angry and wanted to punish the victim, inflicting as much pain as possible. But even more so, he wanted her erased. Gone. Obliterated.
Prentice had bad vibes about all of this. She crouched down and inhaled. Sure enough, beneath the char were hints of musty magic, the same earthy notes she had smelled around Gretchen’s body. Same killer. She took her hand and carefully dug into the pile. Had the killer snapped and killed this person with flame? It had to have been conjured. Ordinary fire would’ve burned through
all of the surrounding field, and it probably would’ve drawn the dove’s attention.
A deafening silence descended over the spot. No animals prowling. No insects. A growing sense of emptiness settled inside her. She crouched down and dug her fingers through the ashes. There! Her fingers came in contact with hardened objects in the soft, flaky ash. Once she blew off the soot, she recognized them as bits of teeth and bone. She took out a small glass container and slipped them into it. She’d have to try to dowse them to see if she could discern the identity of the person.
As she stood, she sighed. She moved across the green to the other body, the skeletal remains. It looked pretty well intact. Her investigation progressed slowly, like paint fading. The stench of rotten flesh had disappeared long ago. Only hints remained, those tiny bits clinging to bones. She crouched down here as well, careful not to get too close and disturb something important. The remains had been here a while.
This person had been the first one to die. Strings of hair clung to the head. A grown individual if the skeletal length was any indication. The forearms bore cut marks on the bones. This killing would’ve been grisly, and—judging by the dried blood on the vegetation—it happened here.
How did the eagles miss this?
She searched the area around the remains. This far back on the green and so close to the woods, the attacker could have lain in wait. Judging by the pelvis, she noted this victim, too, was a woman. What precarious situation had landed her here?
Three women had all been slain and dumped. If she had to guess, by the same calloused and troubled soul. Was this a statement against the church?
Prentice leaned over and plucked the strands of hair from the head and placed them in another glass container. She needed to solve these women’s murders before more happened.
She stood up.
“Hawk Tasifa!” shouted Balthazar from the path. He waved.
From this distance, he sounded drained. Prentice approached him with her newfound clues in her utility belt. Once she reached him, she asked, “Yes?”