by Annie Bellet
Alek’s logic made a certain kind of sense. Samir was arrogant enough to believe his calculated approach to life was the way anyone would approach things. He wasn’t the type to risk his life for anyone, so he would never understand or conceive of the choice I’d made three months ago. I could have stayed hidden, but friends would have died, and I would have had to leave the life I’d built here.
I was done running. Hence the whole training to use my powers and pretending that if I did, I could win against Samir.
I knew I couldn’t. But I didn’t have the heart to tell Alek or Harper or the twins that. They believed in me; the least I could do was try to go down fighting when the time came.
“I’m taking a shower,” I said. “Joining me?”
“No,” Alek said with regret in his voice. “I’m going to try calling Carlos again.” His handsome brow creased in worry. It was Sunday, which meant he usually called and talked to his mentor and friend, a fellow Justice named Carlos. It had been two weeks since Carlos and he had talked, however, and Alek was worried. I hoped he reached him tonight. A Justice going silent was probably not a good sign.
I came out into the living room after showering the last of the paint out of my waist-length black hair and cuddled up to Alek on the couch. I knew from the worry in his blue eyes even before I asked that he hadn’t reached Carlos.
“Nothing?”
“No,” he said, sliding an arm around my shoulders. “Nothing.”
“Wouldn’t the Council tell you if there was something to worry about?” I leaned into him, tucking my head against his broad chest, and breathed in his vanilla-musk scent.
“Perhaps,” he said softly. He shook his head and took a steadying breath. “I called for pizza while you were in the shower. Half all meat, half pepperoni and pineapple.”
It was a sign of how comfortable we were getting with each other that he knew what to get me, especially considering he thought fruit on pizza was an abomination. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that—the comfort level or the whole aversion to delicious pineapple.
“You still coming to game on Thursday? You aren’t going to dodge it again, right? We’re down a man ‘cause Steve has that family thing.” We’d been trying to get Alek to game with us for months. I’d broken him in to video games, but we’d yet to get dice into his hands.
He sighed. “I’ll be there,” he said, nuzzling my hair and sliding his hands under my teeshirt.
Which was when someone knocked on the door.
“Pizza!” Alek said, grinning as I pushed my teeshirt back down.
“I’m gonna kill that guy for his timing,” I muttered.
Alek opened the door, but it wasn’t the pizza man. Instead a tall, wiry man stood there, his eyes sunken and tired-looking in his nut-brown face, but his irises were still the moss green I remembered and his thick black hair was still cropped close to his skull. Just as it had been when I’d last seen him, over thirty years before.
When he told me I was dead to the tribe. When he kicked me out of my home for good.
“Jade,” the man said, looking uncertainly past Alek.
“Alek,” I said. “Would you kindly slam the door in my father’s face?”
Chapter Two
Alek didn’t end up slamming the door. The pizza guy chose that moment to show up, causing a shuffle of people as we paid him and sent him away, which ended up with all of us standing awkwardly in my kitchen.
“What are you doing here, Jasper?” I asked, emphasizing his name. He didn’t get to be called Dad anymore. “How did you even find me?”
My anger wasn’t pretty. It burned through me, threatening to boil over, and my magic sang in my veins as I struggled not to do something regrettable. I had thought my resentment, anger, and grief long dead. Guess I was wrong about that. I didn’t think Alek would let me blast my father out of existence, however, even if I had truly wanted to. Alek was a Justice and supposed to protect shifters. Dear old Dad was a crow shifter. QED and all that jazz.
“I hired a private investigator,” Jasper said. He glanced at Alek, who was wisely standing by my side and keeping his mouth shut for the moment. “I didn’t expect to find you so close to home.”
“This is my home.” My father looked smaller and older than I remembered but I knew it was likely time and memory playing tricks on me. I’d been all of fourteen and just a kid the last time I saw him. He was still taller than I, his face mostly unlined in that ageless way older shifters had, where he could be anywhere from thirty-five to fifty depending on expression and lighting.
“Jade,” he said, softly this time, his green eyes full of a desperate fire. “I need your help.”
I laughed. I couldn’t stop it from coming out, the hysterical giggles turning into full-blown gasping laughter.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said. “And get the fuck out of my house.”
“Jade,” Alek said, placing a hand on my shoulder. His touch was steadying, even if it pissed me off a little more.
“You stay out of this.” I looked up at him as I gained control of my laughter. “That man kicked me out, they all did. Sent me away to live with a woman who was little better than a slave master and her rapist husband. You know the last words that man spoke to me?” I pointed at Jasper. “ ‘You are dead to the People. You must go away from here and never return.’ So don’t you go feeling sorry for him.”
I hadn’t discussed that part of my life with Alek. He knew I’d been on the street, knew about my real family, the four nerds who took me in when I was a teenager and raised me until Samir killed them. I hadn’t told Alek about the People. They were a dead part of my life.
“Does Granddaddy Crow know you are here?” I asked Jasper. I figured the old bastard who led the cult that was my former tribe would know. No one did anything without Sky Heart’s say-so.
“Sky Heart does not know,” Jasper said. “I have come to you on my own. We are desperate.”
That surprised me. The Crow who were my former people weren’t anything like the Crow tribe, the Apsaalooké, who lived in Montana and were mostly human. Jasper’s Crow were crow shifters, exclusively. Back in the early seventeen hundreds, Sky Heart, a crow shifter and warrior of the actual Crow people, decided crow shifters were special and should live apart. He took a group of them, gathered from many tribes, and went west to finally settle in what became northern Washington state, at a thousand acre forested parcel of land he named Three Feathers. To guard the people and shore up his own power, Sky Heart summoned a powerful spirit, who called itself Shishishiel, the Crow, and from there on out gathered only crow shifters to him. Which involved some fairly underhanded shit like stealing crow shifters from other places, killing those who didn’t want to come live with the People, and, oh yeah, kicking out any children who didn’t turn into crows.
So, you know, typical cult. I hadn’t realized it when I’d been in it, of course. It wasn’t until years later when I talked it over with my adopted family that I had seen how dysfunctional they really were. Before that, all I knew was that I was different and had to leave.
“The pizza is getting cold,” Alek said. His stomach rumbled.
“So eat it,” I said. “Jasper is leaving.”
“I cannot leave,” Jasper said. “Just please hear me out.”
“It cannot hurt to hear him out.” Alek turned those big blue eyes of his on me and I sighed.
So we ended up sitting around the kitchen table, Alek eating his pizza, me picking at a slice of mine, and Jasper clutching the glass of water Alek had offered him like it was the last piece of floating wood in a shipwreck.
Part of me wanted to break the ice and ask how Pearl, my mother, was. But I resisted. This man didn’t deserve a lifeline like that, and nor did either he or my mother deserve my interest or concern.
Finally, after long enough that the awkwardness in the air was as congealed at the cheese on my pizza, Jasper spoke.
“Someone, or something, is killing off the People,” h
e said. “Sky Heart promises he and Shishishiel can stop it, but I think he lies. He says that it is because we have grown too weak, too easy on our young, our blood too diluted with crows who are not Natives. I do not believe this is so.”
“You are half white,” I pointed out. “Wasn’t it Sky Heart who brought in your mother? He is the one who tracks down crow shifters from all over North America and forces them to join you, so he’d be the one to blame if your so-called blood is getting too impure.” The whole thing disgusted me. Ruby, my grandmother, had died before I was born, sometime back around World War Two, but my mother had told me about her, about how Sky Heart kept her imprisoned in his home until she bore him a son who changed into a crow. She was where my father got his green eyes.
“Yes,” he said, not meeting my gaze. “This is a reason I do not believe. There is magic at work. These murders are not natural. Someone is killing us off and no one will act.”
Magic. Samir. No, that would be too easy. If he was killing off my former family to get to me, he’d be gloating more about it. And my father wouldn’t be standing here talking to me. He’d be dead.
“Is Pearl alive?” I asked.
“Yes, your mother is fine. But without magic of our own to stop the killing…” He trailed off, eyes still fixed on the water droplets condensing on his glass.
So, not Samir. I took a deep breath. It wouldn’t, shouldn’t, matter if it were. I wasn’t going to help the people who had declared me dead and cast me out.
“What makes you think I have magic that can help you?” I kept staring at him, hard. When I had left, my powers were barely anything. I could occasionally move things with my mind when I was really upset, but that was about it. It wasn’t until a couple years later, with the help of my new family and some Dungeons & Dragons manuals to act as focuses, that I’d begun to really work magic.
Jasper raised his head. “Because of what you are,” he said. “Because of who your father is.”
My chair hit the floor as I jerked to my feet. This was like a bad parody of Star Wars. “My… father? You were my father.” I made sure, even in my shock, to keep to the past tense. My chest hurt, as though bands were tightening inside my ribs, making it hard to breathe. Alek rose and picked up my chair, gently pushing on my shoulders until I sat again.
“No. Your mother left us for a while, many years ago.” Jasper took a few deep breaths and continued. “After Ruby died, she was unhappy with the People.”
“So she escaped,” I said. I shrugged Alek’s hands off my shoulders. I wished he would leave in the same moment that I was glad he was there. Someone needed to witness the total crazy, I guess.
“Yes,” Jasper said the word like it pained him. “She was pregnant when she came back. With you.”
Came back? “Dragged back by Sky Heart and my father” was probably more accurate if I had to guess, but there was no point asking.
“So who is my father?”
“I do not know,” Jasper said. He held up a hand to stall my exasperated exclamation. “Your mother says he was a powerful sorcerer. She was sure you inherited his powers. Even as a baby when you were angry we saw things shift and move. Do you not have powers?”
I didn’t know if I was relieved by this news. Not being related to the asshole in front of me was sort of nice, but it left me with more questions. And a horrible fear.
“Did Pearl say what this man looked like? Was he Native American at least?” I prayed Jasper would say yes. Universe please, let him say yes.
“Yes,” he said, and the lump in my throat lessened. “She has said that much. You are full blood, if that worried you.” There was bitterness in his tone.
I almost explained. It wasn’t that I cared if I had white or whatever blood in me. It was that Samir wasn’t Native and for a terrible moment I’d feared that I’d been lovers with my own father. It would have made a horrible kind of sense and be just the sort of twisted, fucked-up shit Samir would pull.
I didn’t owe Jasper any explanations, so I kept quiet about why I’d asked. Alek’s considering stare told me he had guessed my reasoning behind the question. I figured there were some awkward conversations we’d have to have later. Much, much later. After I got Jasper out of my house.
“Shifters are dying?” Alek asked, turning his piercing gaze on Jasper. “Has the Council sent someone?” The Council of Nine was a guardian and governing body for shifters, though no one really knew much about them, not even Alek, who worked for them. The Nine were practically shifter gods, there but not exactly reachable by phone.
“They did, though Sky Heart does not recognize the Nine. A man showed up after the third murder. Our leader had words with him, then the Justice left.”
I watched Alek’s face as he seemed to do some mental math and that sinking feeling started up again in my stomach.
“This Justice, was he a white man?” Alek asked.
“No, black. A huge man, I think a lion shifter from how he smelled. Sky Heart was very angry with him.”
Alek moved from the side of the table to loom over Jasper. “When did you see the Justice last?” His tone was intense as he bit off each syllable, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“A week ago? No, a little more. It was Friday, I think, so eight or nine days. Why?”
Alek pulled his silver feather talisman that marked him as a Justice out from under his shirt. Jasper’s eyes widened but an excited expression came over him.
“Good, you can help as well. We need both of you. Shifters being murdered is Council business, no? No matter what Sky Heart says.” His eyes flicked between us.
“The Justice who showed up,” Alek said. “His name is Carlos.” He looked at me. “I have to go contact the Council.”
“What about Jasper?” I said. I knew that this might be Justice business, now that Carlos was involved, but no way was this man staying in my home a minute longer than necessary.
“He will come with me,” Alek said after a moment. He smiled, his face sympathetic, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to punch him or kiss him. That happens to me a lot with Alek.
“You will consider helping, Jade?” Jasper rose as Alek stepped back, giving him space again.
“No,” I said and pretended that the look of despair on his face didn’t tug any heartstrings. “This is Justice business. They can deal with it.”
It was a lie. I knew that if Alek asked me instead of Jasper, I’d go help. Maybe. My wounds weren’t healed even after thirty-three years and I wasn’t sure I wanted to rip off the bandages. My past was better left in the past.
Alek and Jasper moved toward the door.
“I’ll call you or come by tomorrow, yes?” Alek said.
“Okay,” I said, leaning up to give him a kiss. I made sure to put tongue in it, hoping it would make Jasper uncomfortable. Guess I’m petty like that.
“Wait,” I called after them as they were halfway down the stairs. “How many murders?” I asked Jasper.
“Eleven,” he said, his lips pressing into a white line and his expression going flat in a way I remembered from when I was a kid, a flatness that said there was too much emotion beneath for him to handle.
Eleven. When I’d left Three Feathers, there had been about a hundred Crow living there. I closed the door and slid down it to the floor.
Guess it was a good thing I’m a Band-Aid-fast kind of girl, because I knew in my heart that no matter what Alek found out or what his Council said, I was going back to Three Feathers and the People.
Want to read the rest? Look for Murder of Crows at all major retailers or go here http://overactive.wordpress.com/twenty-sided-sorceress/ for links and more information.
Also by Annie Bellet:
The Gryphonpike Chronicles:
Witch Hunt
Twice Drowned Dragon
A Stone’s Throw
Dead of Knight
The Barrows (Omnibus Vol.1)
Chwedl Duology:
A Heart in Sun and Sha
dow
The Raven King
Pyrrh Considerable Crimes Division Series:
Avarice
Short Story Collections:
The Spacer’s Blade and Other Stories
River Daughter and Other Stories
Deep Black Beyond
Till Human Voices Wake Us
Dusk and Shiver
Forgotten Tigers and Other Stories
About the Author:
Annie Bellet lives and writes in the Pacific NW. She is the author of the Gryphonpike Chronicles and the Twenty-Sided Sorceress series, and her short stories have appeared in over two dozen magazines and anthologies. Follow her on her blog at “A Little Imagination” (http://overactive.wordpress.com/)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Excerpt: Murder of Crows
Also by Annie Bellet:
About the Author:
