by Jen Pretty
"Did I ever tell you I could read minds?" Falcor asked, looking erectly at me.
"No," I said frantically trying to remember everything I ever thought about in Falcor's presence.
His chuckle wasn't particularly kind, but his next words eased my mind.
"I try to stay out of yours. I definitely don't care to know what you are thinking, but I can sometimes get a glimpse of what people are thinking and this idiot has information he didn't think was relevant to share."
Our eyes all turn back to Anlon.
"Out with it," I said, turning in my chair to face him.
"I can't, he'll kill our whole coven."
I squinted at him for a moment, unsure if I should be angry or sympathetic. What the hell was going on? Crow chose that quiet moment to appear in the room with a piercing caw that scared the shit out of me. I was glad I was sitting down and wasn't holding a cup of coffee.
"Thank you, crow, for another wonderful entrance," I muttered, turning back to Anlon. "Just fucking tell me. I don't have time for this shit," I said. Okay, I might have been a bit hangry and tired.at
Anlon didn't look like he would say anything until Crow screamed again and somehow the room darkened but everything became infinitely clearer.
"Oh fuck," Anlon muttered. "Your eyes."
I looked at Falcor, but his features were as shocked as Anlon's. Something was different about Falcor, he had a mark on his forehead that looked similar to the invisible one I bore. Mine was a blue feather, but Falcor's was a scythe. Like the Grimm fucking reaper.
"Your eyes are solid black like your crows," Falcor said.
"Gross," I replied, looking back at Anlon, unwilling to let the moment pass. I needed the information.
"The king made us do it. It was he who wanted the monster. He said it would bring his heir back to the city. I'm sorry, please don't kill me," Anlon shrunk into himself until his tall frame was hardly any taller than mine. The fear in his eyes startled me.
"The king?" I asked just to be clear. "Of the vampires?"
Anlon nodded.
"Well shit," the detective behind us muttered.
"How did you do that? Like, how do we send it away?" I asked as the room returned to normal and I hoped my eyes returned to normal too.
"The kids found a spell. We kept Lolita and the rest of them out of it. It wasn't supposed to kill people, just hurt them and get attention. I thought it would be fine, but then it started to get out of control. I was so glad when you guys showed up, but then we realized that it was too powerful. The king got angry because it was drinking blood and laying the blame on vampires. I didn't know what to do, but we couldn't stop it even when we tried. You have to believe me."
"So, you and a group of teenagers brought forth an evil monster thing?"
Anlon nodded but dropped his eyes to the floor.
"And, you don't know how to stop this thing?"
"I'm sorry."
I bit my lip. "It possessed Nick," I finally said quietly into the silence.
Anlon's eyes shot up to mine. "Oh, fuck. I'm so sorry, Selena. I didn't think it could be this powerful. It must have jumped bodies."
Falcor looked at his uncle and their eyes met with some kind of knowing look before Falcor returned his glare to Anlon. "You know what the punishment is."
I looked back and forth between all the warlocks in the room. "What is the punishment?" I asked.
"They will be stripped of their magic," the detective said.
"Whoa," I said.
"Please! You have to spare the kids; they didn't know any better. It was me that decided to go along with the vampire king."
"And that's why we don't have contact with the vampires," Falcor said in a snide tone.
There it was. His hatred for the vampires had been sitting under the surface, but now it was out, and I could see it clearly.
"We should leave Nick in that cell as a reminder to the king not to meddle with us," Falcor suggested.
"What?" I said, my eyes boring holes in Falcor's head. He wouldn't turn to look at me though. "You have to be kidding." I paused again, but he still didn't say anything.
"He is mine!" I yelled, my fist coming down on the corner of the desk. Crow screamed to add an exclamation to my statement and finally, Falcor looked at me, his eyes wide. I had forgotten he wasn't there when I declared Nick my own or Black Crow's own, anyway. Whatever.
"Your black eyes are really creepy," The detective said. I hadn't even noticed the room changing this time.
"Whatever," I got out of my chair and stopped. " Falcor, get off your ass, we are going back to get Nick and save his ass."
"I think you should talk to Lolita first," the detective said from behind me.
I glanced back at him. He was still leaning back in his chair as Crow leafed through the papers on his desk as if they were leaves in a forest. Sometimes I thought that bird might be missing a few marbles.
"Oh, here we go," Falcor said with a roll of his eyes.
"You could try listening to your elders once in a while, Falcor, you might find they have more to offer than you think."
Falcor shook his head.
"Well, I, for one, have no problem talking to Lolita, she was a nice weird old lady and if she can help, I'm not leaving until I see her."
"I'll take you," the detective said. "Anlon has some bathrooms and drunk tanks to clean here until I return."
"Yes sir," Anlon mumbled. "Trina has the spell we used. If you want it."
Stunned, I shook my head. "How did you convince the whole coven to move without an explanation?" I asked before we left.
"I told them the monster was targeting young witches. It wasn't a stretch after Mandy was killed." Anlon looked grief-stricken by that statement at least. I couldn't believe Anlon was the same guy who got me out of the police station. He had seemed like such a gentleman.
I glanced at Falcor, but he was still staring at Anlon as if he wanted to go throttle him.
"The king of the vampires is just as culpable, if not more. What the hell do we do about him?" I asked.
"Might I suggest, you deal with the monster and leave the king to the magic community?"
"Uncle," Falcor said, with a look of shock. "You would try to overthrow the king?"
The detective snorted. "Not try, Falcor. We will overthrow him. I just hope he has chosen a successor."
"Shit," I muttered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We followed Anlon to the new coven house and picked up the book of magic spells from Mandy, who was crying when she opened the apartment door. I didn't bother trying to console her. I took the book and Anlon led us to Lolita's apartment.
Anlon knocked on the door and then turned and walked away. The coward. I couldn't believe how wrong my first impression of him had been.
"Come in," Lolita's voice called from beyond the door.
I turned the knob and Falcor and I entered an apartment that looked almost exactly like her old one. The same furniture and decorations, the same rocking chair.
"Oh, hello dear!" she said, rising from her chair and leaning heavily on her cane. "Let me make you some sandwiches. Who's this you have brought with you? He looks like he’s from the Watson line."
I had to admit, the resemblance between Falcor and his uncle was uncanny.
"My name is Falcor. I am Minette's son."
"Hmm," she said. "A lot of magic in you, isn't there?"
Falcor nodded, his eyes on the floor.
"Very well, let's find you some food too. Your mother would be horrified by how thin you look." Lolita crossed the apartment and pulled open the fridge, but then she went to work using magic to put the sandwiches together. The last time I met her, she hadn't used any magic at all. Most witches and warlocks I knew hardly ever used magic.
"Why don't you make food like that?" I asked in a hushed tone as Falcor and I sat at the small kitchen table.
"It requires a lot of power. Lolita is just reminding me that her line is ju
st as powerful as mine. There is a bit of a history there," he straightened in his chair.
I would have to hear about that history someday.
"We came to ask you about a spell," I said as Lolita set sandwiches down in front of us using only her magic to float the plates and set them gently before us.
"Oh, what spell is that?"
I opened the book I had been holding tightly and turned to the page I had marked.
"Oh dear," she said holding her glasses slightly off her nose and peering at the page. "That is a very dangerous spell. I hope you aren't planning on doing that, Falcor."
"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Anlon and a few younger members of your coven did this spell in Phoenix. It's what created the monster that's killing people."
"Oh dear," she said, sitting down in a chair across the table from us.
"This is an excellent sandwich," Falcor said, breaking the silence that followed. I noticed he had already eaten half of it. How he could eat at a time like this I had no idea.
"Thank you," Lolita said. "This is a shame on our family."
Falcor didn't disagree with her and it didn't look like she had expected him too.
"Please. Eat. I will tell you what I can about this spell."
"Thank you," I said, taking a bite of the sandwich. It was delicious. I wasn't sure what kind of dressing she had used on it, but there was definitely bacon. So, I was sold.
Crow flapped into the room quietly, unusual for him.
"I see our new wards are not quite as powerful as the ones on our old building," Lolita said. "Not that we had intended to keep you out before."
Crow called out a few times as if he were replying to Lolita, then hopped across the table and flipped the top off the untouched half of my sandwich, helping himself to the contents.
"Hey," I complained, but he continued.
Lolita had been staring at the spell on the page. It was written in a language I couldn't understand, but as I stared at the page, its shapes and squiggles slowly made sense. Thankful again to Crow's weird powers, I read through it. It seemed almost like a recipe for some type of weird baking.
Falcor snorted and then chocked on his bite of food. When he recovered and looked at me. "You just pictured the creepy bat guys face on a gingerbread man."
"I did not," I said, trying to think back to what I had been thinking about.
"Oh yes, you did. It was fucking hilarious."
"Watch your mouth, young man," Lolita scolded.
"I'm sorry, Lolita," Falcor said, still grinning like an idiot. I hadn't ever seen Falcor look so amused.
"Stop peeking in my brain," I said, going back to reading the instructions in the book.
Finally, Lolita shut the book and looked up at me. "Well, all I can tell you is that this spell is unstable. Those fools never should have tried to do something like this."
"So, no ideas as to how we can undo it?" I asked.
"Well, you could kill the form it's taken."
"Unacceptable," I said immediately.
"Or you could raise some of our ancestors to help you banish it."
"You mean from the sacred ground you mentioned?" I asked, suddenly interested.
"Yes. It's in the old section of town, behind the Church of All Saints. You will know when you find it. Our people have a special connection to the black crow."
I smiled at her. "Thank you, Lolita."
"No problem, dear. Safe travels."
Crow vanished, and we said our goodbyes.
As we rode down on the elevator, I called Niri and had him arrange our flight home. It wouldn't leave until the morning, so Falcor and I checked into the hotel.
As we were getting our key card, I remembered that Zander was on his way. He would have to turn around and go right back home again. I gave him a call and left a message, hoping he would get it before getting on his last flight to New Brunswick.
I was so exhausted, I didn't even bother changing when we got up to the room, I just kicked off my boots and collapsed on one of the two twin-sized beds. The fact Falcor was sharing a room with me Hadley even registered on the weird meter.
My eyes closed, and I was out.
***
I was flying above my old home town at night, passing the cemetery I used to raise the dead in before I started all this black crow stuff.
I could just make out a form standing in the moonlight.
My wings flapped once more and then dove in for a closer look. The closer I got, the surer I was that I was looking at Dorothy.
Her shape and hair had never changed. They were etched into my mind from childhood and I would never forget the way she stood or the lines that creased her eyes.
I landed lightly on a tombstone in front of her, bobbing my head in hello.
"Hello there, sweetheart," she said, her voice soft and familiar. "I'm sorry I had to leave you."
I wanted to ask her where she was and why she was standing here, but it all came out as a deep caw that conveyed nothing. Only my human body could speak to her.
"You will understand someday. I hope then, you will forgive me."
She turned, but I leapt from my perch and landed in front of her again, cawing loudly and cursing internally that I couldn't speak to her.
She walked past me, and I hopped along the gravestones, trying to keep up with her, but eventually, she turned on to the street and I was stuck. I couldn't fly after her or chase her down. My feet were ensnared in something and the more I struggled the worse it became until I was screaming out.
***
"Selena, wake up! Security is going to knock down the door if you don't stop screaming."
I sat up bolt straight in bed and glanced around until I caught my bearings. "Oh shit. I saw Margaret." I rubbed my forehead. The invisible feather marked there tingled oddly. I had never felt it before, in fact, most of the time I forgot it was there.
"Was it a dream?" Falcor asked.
It was a strange question, but as I looked at him, I knew the answer. "No. It was something else."
Falcor nodded. "We should get something to eat. It’s almost morning and we will have a hell of a day on airplanes."
I grunted. "Can you order for me?" My skin was slicked with sweat and my clothes were damp.
"Sure," Falcor said, eying me suspiciously.
I slipped into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. The feather on my forehead that I almost didn't notice anymore was flickering slowly. The blue hue matching the sparks of my magic, wavering slightly. I thought about Falcor's mark and wondered if he knew it was there. If he didn't, I wasn't going to tell him till I knew what it meant. I would need another trip to Francis in Canada. I had just assumed mine was because I was the Black Crow. But what would a scythe mean?
I turned away from the mirror and flicked on the hot water to scalding. The hotel we were staying in wasn't the finest, but they had a ton of hot water and I praised whatever god or goddess would hear me as the water slid down my skin and my mind moved back to when Nick had attacked me. Or the moment whatever monster was using his body had attacked me.
A shiver raced down my spine and I pushed the nightmare out of my mind. There was too much going on. Too many balls in the air. I needed to focus on one problem at a time. First was getting rid of the monster. Then I could start to think about what happened and Margaret. I remembered the wraith from the airport before we left. I would have to deal with her too if I could find her when we got home.
Stepping out of the shower, I flicked the water off and, in the silence, Falcor's voice raged from the main room.
I dried quickly, though I could tell he was on the phone. I needed to get out there and hear what he was saying and find out what was going on.
Quickly, I yanked on some clean jeans and a t-shirt before pulling my hoodie over top. If we were going to be on planes all day, there was no use taking time with my hair, so I just pulled it up in a bun and called it good.
By the time I s
tepped out of the bathroom, Falcor was no longer on his phone. He was sitting on the couch, staring at it.
"What's going on?" I asked.
He looked up as if I had snuck up on him. "Jesus, Selena," he muttered. Then he snorted and shook his head. "Do you know why they paired Nick and me together?"
"I have no idea." They hardly got along, so it wasn't because they were friends.
"It's because we are both the heir to our respective thrones."
I raised my eyebrows. I couldn't picture Falcor as an heir to any throne, although he had the condescending thing going on sometimes.
"And neither of us want it," he continued. "though our parents insist. Anyway, enough of my sad privileged child story, food is here, we need to leave in half-hour." Falcor rose and grabbed his suitcase before going into the washroom and closing the door with a decided click.
I couldn't help but feel bad for Falcor suddenly. He seemed almost human as he explained his situation and the look of turmoil crossed his face.
Almost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The flight home was exhausting. I couldn't help but think of Nick locked in the dungeon and wonder if he was aware. I prayed he had no idea what had happened and that once we got rid of the evil being that was using him, he would be back to the old Nick.
My nerves jangled as the final plane landed. I had slept fitfully, but with only one layover, our flight home was much faster.
When I finally flicked on my phone, I found that Zander had got my message and was heading back to Phoenix to meet us. He was one flight ahead of us, so he would be there when we arrived. I used the map feature on my phone to look up the graveyard the witches and warlocks buried their ancient relatives in.
It was impossible to tell from the map if it was hidden enough to raise dead in, but I hoped it was. I tucked my phone away and stared out the window. Once again, we were coming into the city in the dark. At least I wouldn't have to wait before heading to the sacred ground. The plane ride had nearly driven me mad with waiting.
Falcor was still staring at his phone when the fasten seat belt light came on.