Birds of a Feather: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 2, Summer

by Savage, Vivienne

  The valravn towered above all of us, black-feathered and stinking of decay. The smell of death hung around it like a shroud. Its beak had no keratin, not any longer, and when it met my gaze, I froze, staring at empty sockets. I couldn’t move, my feet glued to the floor. I couldn’t breathe, paralyzed by the sight of what happened to all wereravens who went dark.

  And then it laughed. The fucker laughed, and I knew it was laughing because I’d spent my entire life among wereravens, and the godawful sound of it coming from that rotting throat turned my stomach.

  Blood pounding through my skull, I drew my handgun and fired as a shotgun roared beside me.

  Into Douglas. The big bear had shifted and been mid-leap toward our attacker, only for a shotgun blast to take out the back of his skull. I followed the long barrel back to its source and stared into the face of my fellow sentinel.

  Thibodeaux had shot Douglas point blank.

  Our guy. Our partner. The guy we’d been working with for days since arriving here had pulled the trigger.

  Not far from him, my cousin lay sprawled on her back with a line of blood running down her brow into her hairline.

  All hell broke loose, and the cramped corridor became a frantic dash for weapons.

  Someone screamed from the holding cells, “Darklings on the premises!”

  The noises downstairs didn’t sound any better. Crashes and screams, shouts and gunfire. Fuck, we were under an all-out assault and none of the protective charms on the building had done a damned thing to prevent it.

  At that moment, Beaumont snapped the chain connecting his restraints, which shouldn’t have been possible. He whipped the runed cuffs against Count Pichot’s face, drawing blood, and knocked the surprised elder aside.

  “You sonofabitch,” I snarled.

  Thib had the audacity to grin at me. “Sorry, kid.”

  When he swung his firearm toward me, I knocked the barrel upward and his shot went wild, bringing down plaster onto our heads. Without giving him time to recover, I stepped in and kicked his kneecap.

  Too much happened all at once to keep tabs on Uncle Hiroto and Sky. Despite the fast pace of the fight, I tried to keep her in my field of vision. She was dragging Aya to safety.

  Thib had a few pounds on me, but my quicker reflexes took him off his feet. He flipped through the air, came out of it in his raven form, and landed again unharmed to take another shot at me with his handgun. The bullet clipped my thigh, barely a flesh wound.

  Uncle Hiroto shouted in surprise. A surprised shout was better than nothing—it meant he was still holding it down.

  Then a streak of gold and pink fairy fire sailed down the hall and splashed over Beaumont in a beautiful sizzling display, like a weaponized roman candle. I fucking loved that woman.

  Ignoring the screeching vampire and the fried bacon smell of his roasting skin, I focused on Thibodeaux. Weaving in and out, we exchanged blows; mine always faster, his always harder. As his combat knife swung toward my chest, I pivoted on a heel and caught him by the arm. Turning the other shifter’s momentum to his disadvantage, I took him down to the floor.

  Two things happened at the same time. One, he shouted out in pain, landing at what had to be a painful angle for his ankle. Two, I noticed the sentinels from the holding cells had joined Uncle Hiroto’s fight. Thib tried to overpower me, but I had the upper hand. I counted myself lucky for all those years my dad sent me to Japan for lessons at my uncle’s dojo.

  I swung around to his back and put him in a chokehold.

  I could kill this dude. God, it tempted me. Even as his nails dug furrows into my forearm, I wanted to squeeze until the pulse stopped. He’d hurt my cousin, maybe even killed her.

  Then he burst apart into gore and slime, a writhing mass of maggots, centipedes, and hissing roaches. Shouting, I stumbled back to my feet and let him go.

  “What the fuck!”

  But an inkling of logic spiked into my brain the moment I let him up. Illusion. Not his, either. It had to come from Annalise. I still felt the slithering on my skin, the slime of the maggots and the scuttling legs of the centipedes. The sensation lingered with me.

  Telling myself it wasn’t real didn’t help, and something told me Thib was still on the floor, gasping for breath.

  Not too far from us, Uncle Hiroto staggered back from his opponent. Blood trickled from an open fracture of the left arm. One of the jailers lay on the ground, sliced in half. The other slumped against the wall beneath a bloody smear.

  “No, she’ll kill you!” Sky grabbed me by my arms and dragged me back with all her strength into the sparkling confines of her Prismatic Barrier.

  “She’ll kill everyone if we do nothing.”

  “No, she won’t. She’s not here for us! She’s here for him.”

  I hated that she was right. With her element of surprise and everyone in the rest of the station scrambling in the dark, we didn’t have a hope or a prayer of taking her down. Not when a vampire lord and one of our own stood on her side.

  Beaumont’s restraints clattered to the floor, and then Thibodeaux reappeared beside him, the traitorous prick holding a key in one hand. As one melted into a cloud of mist, the other shifted to his raven form. They both escaped out the open window and left the valravn behind. Not that she needed their protection or help. Everyone was gone. Bodies littered the hall, covered in viscera and gore. I didn’t see my uncle among them, but I also didn’t search for his face.

  “Come out, come out little fae.” Her cold voice clacked, dry and hard as stone. She approached with measured steps, bleached white beak glistening with fresh blood. “You can’t hide forever.”

  Skylar trembled against me.

  A powerful wing battered the magical dome protecting us. The darkling’s serrated beak jabbed above our heads, hard enough to send magical splinters through the barrier.

  Another hit or two and she’d burst through.

  The valravn’s black tongue slithered out from between her beak. “I wonder if your liver is as sweet as the rest of you looks, little fae. Come out, and I’ll let the other one live. What a shame it would be to destroy such a handsome specimen of my kind. Come out, and he will live. On this, you have my word.”

  I squeezed Sky harder and locked my arms around her, just in case she was even considering sacrificing herself for me. I wouldn’t let her.

  I didn’t need to. Her barrier surged, and the single splinter sealed. “I don’t know how long I can hold this,” she whispered against my ear.

  The cold, icy grip of fear claimed me, because if her shield fell, there was absolutely nothing I could do to save her. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. None of us had been prepared for taking on a valravn.

  “Just hold on, help has got to be on the way.” I hoped. Faint crashes echoed below us, indicating fighting elsewhere in the building.

  The attack continued, talons and beak ripping Sky’s shield faster than she could replenish it. The strain showed on her face and in her tight, quaking limbs, until she cried out in alarm and the magic popped like a bubble.

  And I had exactly one split second to throw myself between Sky and Annalise, hoping to provide just enough time for her to run. She seemed to have the same thought, both of us moving at the same time. We collided, and in that moment, our attacker crowed in triumph and moved in for the final blow. Her bloody beak and black, soulless eyes filled my vision.

  Skylar’s necklace flared red, too bright to look at without risking a retinal burn. As soon as I realized what was happening, I hid my face against her hair while the heat wave swam over us. The area was stifling, and something told me that holding on to her was the only thing keeping me alive.

  The valravn reeled away from us, hissing. The inhuman noise jarred my brain, mentally liquefying it until I couldn’t string together cohesive thoughts and natural instinct was all that remained.

  I squeezed Sky and held her like my life depended on it.

  When the light dimmed, Hiroto lay in a pr
one position at the end of the hall with a long rifle sighting the spot where our foe had stood, and the count wasn’t far from us. Curls of dark smoke rose from his stylish jacket and dark hair.

  Thibodeaux, Beaumont, and the valravn were gone.

  13

  Answers and More Questions

  The rest of the night passed mostly in a blur. Everyone involved, injured or not, had been rushed to the nearest medical facility. Sky escaped unscathed but exhausted from her magical expenditures, and my arms only needed cleaning, the wounds halfway healed before we were even seen.

  Others hadn’t been so lucky.

  A heavily armed sentinel escort accompanied us to our hotel where, as far as I was aware, they remained the rest of the day while Skylar and I slept like the dead. Two different sentinels met us that evening and accompanied us back to the office.

  From the outside, I’d never have known there was an attack. The broken windows on the third floor had already been replaced and not a single sliver of glass remained on the street. Uncle Hiroto greeted us inside the main office, his bruised face grim and his left arm in a sling. Arm breaks were one of those things wereravens never underestimated—let a bone heal wrong there, and we’d never fly again without surgery.

  God, compared to the senior sentinels, Sky and I had gotten off easy, all thanks to the mystery necklace of a fairy queen around her neck.

  He took us upstairs to his office.

  “How’s Aya?” I asked once we were all seated.

  “A concussion, but nothing serious. She taking Thibodeaux’s betrayal particularly hard and is convinced she should have seen it. I insisted she take a day off.”

  “She couldn’t have known.”

  “So I told her, multiple times, but you know how stubborn your cousin can be.”

  I did. Stubbornness seemed to be a trait in both the Maki and Fujimoto family lines.

  “How’d the valravn even get inside?” Sky asked, her gaze darting to the office window.

  “Thibodeaux compromised all the wards throughout the station. He damaged several of the glyphs critical to protecting those windows otherwise she’d have never shattered the glass. Darklings are strong, but not that strong.”

  “I hate to ask it, but are we sure he was working alone?” Where there was one rat, there tended to be others. I loathed that my uncle had to deal with any of this.

  “He was a hard blow. It would be crushing to discover more traitors in our midst, but I have not disregarded the threat. In fact, the count is beseeching his monarchs to have all SBA offices vetted for traitors.”

  The enormity of the task seemed impossible, but I understood the request. Of course, the other Conclave leaders would have to agree, but considering the reason behind the request it seemed likely no one would protest.

  “It just goes to show how deep the Hidden Court is embedded.” Skylar bit her lip and sighed. “They’re everywhere, just like Beaumont said.”

  “And as frightening,” Hiroto said. “The valravn must have been his mistress. Annalise.”

  “Any idea who she is?” Sky asked.

  “No, but you can be certain we, and every other sentinel office, will be looking into the matter. As of now, considering the significance of the matter, I consider the two of you to be free from duty. Your work here is done.”

  I frowned. “Are you sure? Uncle, I don’t mind helping.”

  “I know you don’t. You and Skylar have been of great help to all of us, and I appreciate everything you did for the department. But it is time for you to enjoy the summer holiday. Please.”

  “Your shortage is even shorter now.”

  Hiroto sank back in his seat, the worry lines prominent in his face. “The loss of Jolene and Douglas hurts more than Thibodeaux’s treachery. They will be missed. On top of that, we lost other active duty sentinels during the confusion down below.”

  “What happened down there anyway? I heard the crashes, but…”

  “Her illusory ability is greater than anything I’ve ever seen before. She put an entire department under her spell, except for us. Perhaps she wanted to be seen. Maybe she wanted someone to survive to tell the tale. I cannot say for sure. What I do know is that she convinced forty-five members of my personnel that they were under an attack from zombies. The injuries were in the double digits.”

  “Christ.” She hadn’t even needed line of sight to cast her magic.

  “Is everyone going to be okay?” Sky asked.

  “One casualty from the event on the department’s main floor.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking pained. “One of our rookies panicked during the confusion and shot another sentinel in the head. It’s understandable, given the circumstances. Now he’s on administrative leave pending a psych eval, and Martina is dead.”

  “God. I’m sorry, Uncle. Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?”

  My girl squeezed my thigh. “I’m definitely staying if Gabriel is staying. I don’t mind.”

  He shook his head. “The sentiment is appreciated but unnecessary. More sentinels will arrive from other departments by the day’s end. Several are coming in from Europe and Asia.”

  “Wow, international help.”

  “With the Hidden Court a strong presence only in the States, it felt prudent to find help outside their sphere of influence.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Indeed.” He smiled, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes, his tired features strained. “But enough of that. Skylar, I know it isn’t much, but I sent in a letter of commendation to the provost. Your help has been truly appreciated and I hope they will recognize your efforts. Same for you, Gabriel. You may no longer be a student, but you’ll have some solid work history to add to your resume.”

  “Thank you,” we both said in unison.

  “No, thank you. Now all that’s left is to turn in your gear and enjoy a safer New Orleans. I have no doubt they’ll have long left the city by now.”

  * * *

  The ride back to our hotel was quiet. Another sentinel drove and dropped us off with a gentle reminder to enjoy the rest of our vacation.

  Right.

  Skylar’s glow had dimmed, and her steps seemed heavy. Sluggish. Not that I was any better. We left Ama at the front desk since she seemed to be enjoying herself. At least someone was. Her cage door stood open and she perched on the check-in counter beside a bowl filled with chopped veggies. I’d come back for her later.

  Maybe she sensed my mood, because, for a moment, she allowed me to stroke her gold head and actually leaned into my touch. No bites. That came as a big relief, despite the moment being short-lived. Ama abandoned my affection and returned to her snack.

  As I caught up to Sky, the elevator doors opened. Perfect timing. We headed up to our room, but rather than hop in her bed for a long, well deserved nap, Sky pulled open the balcony doors.

  “You all right?” I asked, watching her slink into a chair. Sunlight brought out the oil slick colors in her hair.

  “Yeah. Just thinking about what happens now.”

  “We enjoy the days we have left in New Orleans.”

  She wrinkled her nose and shot me a dirty look. “You know what I mean.”

  I sighed and dropped into the chair opposite her. “I honestly don’t know. Coming face to face with that valravn was rough. I honestly froze for a minute.”

  “That’s only natural. She was terrifying.” Sky drew her knees up and hugged them. “And she’s still out there. Somewhere.”

  “She is. Thibodeaux as well. Which really gives us two options.” She glanced over at me, lips pursed. “We hide in fear and don’t live our lives because we’re waiting for the boogieman to come and get us…”

  “Or we move on with our lives but never forget they’re out there,” she finished.

  “Something like that, yeah. If we let every bad guy get us down then, in the end, they win.”

  “When did you get so wise?”

  “I’m a font of wisdom,
didn’t you know?”

  She laughed, abandoning her chair for my lap. I looped my arms around her waist, content to have close.

  “You’re right, so I’m not gonna let this cast a shadow on the rest of our trip. Still, at least we have a name now to share with Sebastian and Simon.”

  “Annalise?”

  Sky dipped her chin. “Yeah. I mean, could she be the same person responsible for all the attacks the past two years?”

  “Likely so. I mean, you did say a valravn attacked your folks. The odds of there being two in the area just seem unlikely.”

  A tremor rippled through her body, leading me to pull her in against me. She curled up in a ball, head on my shoulder and knees drawn in to her chest. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  “Me too, but we won’t let them win. We keep going forward, only now, we have more information to arm ourselves with.” Even as I said the words, I had my own doubts. “There’s something you should know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll learn about it later this year but you deserve to know now. There’s a reason the valravn was so strong that night. I don’t think I’d ever be able to maintain illusions in a completely different room the way she did.”

  “Does it have to do with killing Jolene?”

  This time I shuddered and Sky’s arms tightened around me. “Yeah. Valravns gain power from the hearts they eat. By devouring Jolene, her magic was amplified.”

  “Is it permanent or is it like a temporary boost?”

  “A little of both. She’ll retain some of the magic Jolene possessed, but valravns sorta get this…extra hit of juice right after a kill. Everyone says that a grendel is the most dangerous kind of shifter darkling, but that isn’t true. It’s the valravn, because they retain all of their intelligence, and they gain the powers of their victims.”

  She shuddered. “They always teach us that the grendel and wendigo are stronger.”

  “They are stronger. Danger doesn’t have anything to do with strength, Sky.”