Winging It

by Deborah Cooke

  I decided I would not worry about it if he got lost on the way.

  I knew it was a lie. I was getting used to His Majesty, watching over me as I slept and flicking his tail at me with attitude in the morning. He sat on the kitchen counter and yowled when he thought it was time to eat, which happened about twice a day.

  He had, to his credit, even made my dad smile.

  Looked like we were going to Graceland together.

  That’s an old song, isn’t it?

  The city was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  It gave me a sense of foreboding – assuming that I wasn’t carrying that along all by myself. This was it, the big test.

  And I still didn’t have the answers or know what to do.

  No pressure.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that it started to snow again, much less that it would snow harder with every passing minute. The flakes were as big as my fist by the time I met Isabelle at the subway station.

  The cat yowled and wound around her ankles, proprietary and obviously glad to see her. And no wonder – she picked up Ol’ Lard Butt right away. We didn’t talk much as we walked to the cemetery, although I was pretty sure we were both thinking about Meagan. Could we haul her back from the dark side?

  Although the snow had been plowed on the city streets, we sank up to our knees in the white stuff as soon as we entered the cemetery. It was quiet there, and might have been peaceful if I hadn’t been fretting about Mages.

  We hadn’t gone far before I noticed the wolf. It stood on the far side of a gravestone, as still as the shadows, watching us with those unblinking pale eyes.

  ‘Derek?’ I whispered, not daring to hope.

  His Royal Fabulousness hissed.

  I saw, though, that the wolf had one blue eye and one that was gray. So, it wasn’t Derek – just one of his kind. Okay. I was encouraged that another wolf shifter had turned up. Would this one follow my lead? Be on my side? Or was he with the holdouts who didn’t want to follow a dragon girl?

  The wolf turned away, slipping into the darkness just the way Derek did. I wasn’t quite ready for him to disappear. It seemed like I should be able to make some argument in my own favor. I leapt after him, sinking past my knees in the snow.

  Then I saw that there were dozens of wolves in the shadows. Like the cats in the sewers, they were all heading toward a point of convergence. The moon touched their fur with silver, making them look both precious and ethereal.

  Relentless hunters.

  I remembered Derek’s comment about dogs seeing in black and white. They would decide whether to follow me based on my performance. Deeds over words. I was sure of it. The wolves turned as one and looked toward the far end of the cemetery.

  I followed the direction of their gazes and saw the sickening swirl of spell light.

  Beckoning.

  The wolves were moving toward its vortex with purpose.

  Could they see it? Smell it? Or were they just drawn to it?

  ‘That way?’ Isabelle guessed and I nodded. ‘Creepy enough place to eliminate species.’ She shuddered as we turned our steps in that direction. The wolves kept apart from us, several regularly casting glances our way.

  I had the feeling that I was being watched. Not just by occasional wolves, either. I looked around and noticed a monument in front of me. It was a large square block of stone, which wasn’t very interesting. The figure standing before it, though, made my heart stop cold.

  It was a hooded figure, its face hidden by the shadows of the hood.

  It could have been Urd, except the cloak wasn’t black. It had the patina of verdigris.

  I had the feeling it was the one watching me, like a guardian.

  An angel of death, maybe.

  But I couldn’t see its eyes. I needed to see its eyes. I wanted to know who was watching me, friend or foe.

  I swallowed and walked closer to it, seeing the spindle that had fallen in the snow only when I nearly stepped on it. I reached for the spindle, uncertain whether it was real or not. My fingers closed on cold wood. The eyes within the hood glinted.

  Relief swept through me. Better the devil you know.

  ‘Hey, Urd, want to come along?’ I asked and handed her the spindle.

  Isabelle had stopped to watch me. She probably thought I was nuts. I heard her swear for the first time ever when the figure’s arm moved. Skeletal fingers reached out to grasp the spindle as I heard the creak of Urd’s bones. She turned it in her hands, checking it. Then it and her hands disappeared beneath the hem of her sleeves.

  She abruptly stepped down from the monument. I continued and she followed us, her cloak leaving a trail in the snow. Isabelle’s eyes were round and she looked straight ahead, holding tightly to the cat. He stared over her shoulder, watching Urd with obvious suspicion.

  Urd began to murmur as we walked. It was a spooky sound, one that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I halfway didn’t want to know what she was doing. I couldn’t see any spell light, but I could feel energy in the air.

  A few moments later, I saw one monument from my trip to Trevor’s memory. It was the crusading knight, shield planted on the ground, gaze fixed heroically on the horizon. This presumably was where daring deeds were being done. Urd strode to the side of the gravestone, still murmuring. As I watched, she made a gesture, like blowing a kiss to the knight.

  He turned his head to look at her.

  He lifted his visor.

  He gripped his sword more resolutely.

  Then he hefted his shield and marched behind us.

  I stared. He was stone. He was a carving. But Urd’s kiss had him moving like a man of flesh and blood.

  Albeit one that was about nine feet tall.

  When the monument of the little girl stepped out of her glass box to walk behind the knight, I guessed the pattern. I pivoted to stare over the cemetery, seeing the array of shadows following us. Urd had awakened the stones, turning stones to people instead of the other way around.

  The exact opposite of the Mage spell cast at Trevor’s party.

  ‘I thought this place couldn’t get more creepy,’ Isabelle murmured, but I was relieved.

  We weren’t going in alone. We were going in with an animated army of rock.

  Couldn’t hurt.

  There was no question of our destination. The beat of the spell was insistent. Even if I hadn’t been able to see the spell light, I would have felt its allure. It wound into my thoughts and urged me closer, drawing me to certain destruction.

  Isabelle was caught in it, too, this time. We didn’t have to confer at all about our path. We just trudged along. I didn’t doubt that she was trying to keep it from completely claiming her thoughts, just like I was. It was really strong. I fought despair. Futility. A relentless sense of being doomed.

  As we walked, the snow stopped falling. I felt the breath of wind and looked up to see the clouds being swept away. They were thinning fast, patches of starlight becoming visible.

  We halted when we saw the triple circle of Mages. It was just like my dream. Two circles facing outward and one facing inward. In the middle, I could see Trevor, Meagan at his side, a frenzy of golden light swirling around her. She stared at Trevor with apparent adoration. The guys were there, too, and I was so relieved to see they were still alive that my knees nearly gave out.

  They struggled against their spell bonds, snared in human form.

  Jessica was there also, although she seemed to be more tired.

  Or resigned to her fate.

  Derek seemed watchful, caught in a haze of spells and snarling. What did he see two minutes into our collective future?

  His Regalness leapt from Isabelle’s arms and strode through the snow toward the circle with verve, his tail waving like a banner. Isabelle might have gone after him but I stopped her with a gesture.

  The cat Meagan had saved, the gray one she’d named Mozart, was sitting on a stone closer to the circle. His tail lashed as he watched
the scene avidly. Fish Breath leapt to sit beside him. They exchanged quick glances, then simultaneously began to clean their paws.

  I wasn’t fooled. They weren’t that disinterested. They would have stayed warm and cozy at home if they didn’t care.

  I looked to either side and saw that the shadows were alive everywhere. I could barely discern the silhouettes of wolves all around us. Mostly I saw the pale glitter of their eyes.

  And incredibly, mingled between them and gathered in smaller groups, there were dozens of cats. Maybe they were survivors from the sewer adventure. Maybe they were other ones.

  But they weren’t all house cats. I saw black panthers with golden eyes. I saw sleek and spotted jaguars. There were golden cougars with massive teeth watching from the trees. I understood that they were all shifters, all cat shifters, and that was why they’d come. Adrian had shifted to a lion, but lions must be the only cat shifters that the Mages had exterminated.

  And Kohana had lied to me about it. Big surprise.

  We were all here.

  And we were all focused on the Mage circle.

  The woman I’d seen in Trevor’s memory stepped forward and there was a quickening in the air. Urd exhaled in a hiss behind me. The woman raised her hands just as the last of the clouds cleared and the light of the full moon shone on the circle.

  She raised her hands and started to sing.

  The ceremony began.

  ‘Behold the NightBlade,’ the woman sang and held the dark blade high. I didn’t like the look of it any more than I had in Trevor’s memory. The chorus echoed her words, singing them so that they reverberated. ‘Gift of the ShadowEaters. Carved of a meteorite. Possessed of the power to liberate shadows.’

  Just as before, she waved the blade, making symbols in the air. Isabelle caught her breath, so she must have recognized them. The spell light was a vivid frenzy and the light emanating from the blade pounded into my brain. I thought my head might explode from the light show.

  ‘We invoke the ShadowEaters,’ she sang. ‘And invite them to our feast. Come, come among us, exalted ones. Come and partake of our offering.’

  I was sure she would reach for Jessica or one of the guys. I was desperate to think of a way to stop her.

  But she turned to Trevor.

  He grabbed Meagan’s shoulders from behind. I saw her horror. She struggled, but his grip was tight and the spells were wrapping around her as well.

  ‘The ShadowEaters demand a sacrifice for your initiation,’ sang the woman to Trevor. The light was getting sparkly and I could see those shadowy shapes taking form between the Mages.

  ‘And so it is offered, in good faith,’ sang Trevor, pushing Meagan forward.

  Hey! It wasn’t supposed to be this way!

  Meagan fought and bit against Trevor’s grip. The guys struggled with new force against their bonds, as if they wanted to help her. Even Jessica was writhing in the snow. The wolves slipped closer to the circle and the cats watched unblinkingly, their claws bared.

  ‘The ShadowEaters demand a spellsinger as admission to the inner sanctum,’ the woman sang, her hands high in the air.

  ‘And so I have snared one. Behold, your humble servant who does only your will.’ Trevor pushed Meagan forward so that she stumbled. He fell to his knees and pulled her down to hers.

  ‘Blood and shadow,’ sang the woman as she grabbed Meagan’s hair and pulled her head back. ‘We shall all eat well at this feast.’ She lifted the NightBlade, its edge gleaming with evil.

  She wasn’t going to cut Meagan’s shadow. She was going to cut her throat.

  ‘No!’ Isabelle screamed. She lunged forward through the snow.

  And we were revealed.

  ‘Don’t touch her!’ I cried and raced toward Meagan. Urd hissed and slid behind me, beckoning her army with a bony finger.

  The Mages were astonished. The woman looked up in surprise, frozen with the blade an inch from Meagan’s throat.

  ‘No!’ Trevor roared and pushed his way through the circle to fight me. I shifted shape en route and leapt into the fray in dragon form. It felt good to breathe fire and set a lot of Mage robes alight.

  I heard the wolves growl and then they were in, too, biting and snapping. Cats slipped between Mages, slashing and snarling. Figures that had been stone just an hour before beat on Mages, making up for all the time they’d been trapped in rock.

  The guys shifted shape, taking their dragon forms, but they were still helpless and bound in Mage light. Jessica became a snarling jaguar, but she, too, was still trapped.

  The woman who led the Mages started to work what was obviously a familiar spell. They all joined in, adding their voices to the chorus even as they fought. They weren’t going to sacrifice my friend to make Trevor more powerful.

  Sacrifice.

  The prophecy! I was kicking butt, my thoughts spinning, when I suddenly knew how to get the knowledge and power out of the beryl.

  I had to surrender something.

  I had to give up the beryl in order to get the rest of my powers. It was elegant, so perfectly logical that I knew it had to be right.

  And Urd – Urd had come here to help me. They were like my fairy godmothers, the Wyrd sisters, and they were on my side.

  Which explained the stone army.

  I smashed two Mages’ heads together, then beckoned to the crusading knight. He came to me, then fell on one knee, his sword and shield outstretched.

  I was running on instinct, but then, that’s what Wyverns are supposed to do. I shifted back to human form to get this done.

  Before I could think about it too much, I took off my ring and pushed it onto the sword instead, jamming it down the stone blade as far as it would go. I pulled the rune stone out of my pocket, focusing on the circle inscribed on one side. That clue had been there all along, looking me right in the eye, but I’d missed it.

  And then I smashed the black-and-white glass ring and the rune stone together, shattering the ring against the knight’s stone shield.

  It broke into a thousand shards and made a sound like crashing glass. The sound stopped the fight, as if a movie had been frozen in mid scene.

  It was just like the party at Trevor’s, except I was the only one who could move.

  I saw ghosts rise from the debris of the ring to float above us all. Suddenly I was surrounded by the ghosts of all Wyverns past. There had to be a hundred of them, all in their shadowy dragon forms. They were all white, all glittering like ice. They were ethereal and magical, a long line of female dragons of which I was the newest member.

  Urd made a noise of approval. Yup, the past was her territory.

  It looked like the snow had started again, falling thickly all around us. On closer examination, though, I saw that it was really an avalanche of feathers, white ghostly feathers shed by the Wyverns. They moved. I stared in wonder. Urd nodded.

  This was it. My big test.

  The Wyverns flew in a circle, making a blur of white and silver that surrounded me. The circle moved faster and faster. I heard their names like whispers on the wind, each echoing in my thoughts, then immediately disappearing. I felt like I was standing in a cloud.

  And then I had it. Traditionally, the Wyvern retreated to the clouds and the mists. They avoided life and its entanglements. I didn’t do very well with that worldview. I liked to be in the thick of things.

  That was what had to be done differently to change the future.

  In the same moment, I saw the flash of one Wyvern’s eyes.

  They flashed with fear.

  On impulse, I leapt. I slipped into that Wyvern’s memory. Her memory was like a fog bank, all half-glimpsed images and mysterious shapes. Then the mists parted and I saw her observing a Mage ritual. I tasted her dislike of them. I felt her horror when she witnessed the first sacrifice they made. Her revulsion flooded through me, her reaction the same as mine had been in seeing the mermaid lost.

  That sacrifice had been a griffin, a ferocious shifter that screame
d and bit until it breathed its last. Its death had not been easy and the Mages had not made a clean job of it.

  I felt the Wyvern’s horror, her sense that she should intervene.

  But I felt her hesitation as well.

  She chose to turn away rather than to expel this wickedness.

  It was easier to retreat, to decide that what happened in the world was beyond her influence. I knew what had happened next. Unobstructed, the Mages had continued to recruit and slaughter, to grow in power and control.

  Because my forebear had chosen to avert her gaze instead of make a difference.

  I understood the prophecy with aching clarity. I knew the role I had been born to play. I knew what I had to do to change the role of the Wyvern forever. The fact that I couldn’t sit back and watch the view was the good bit, the part of me that could make the difference. That’s why it was my job to lead the fight.

  I had to make this right.

  Now.

  It was time to trash the Mages and do what should have been done way back when that griffin had died. The Wyverns fluttered all around me, their eyes bright even as they trembled with fear. If sacrifices were on the menu, I had a bunch of possibilities.

  I wasn’t afraid.

  Or if I was, I wouldn’t show it.

  I stepped forward and whistled to the Mages, setting the scene in motion one more time. Chaos and fighting surrounded me on all sides.

  ‘I think I’ve got something you need,’ I shouted, and held Kohana’s black feather aloft. ‘Want to trade?’

  The Mages fell silent.

  They turned as one to stare at me.

  Their spell light flickered orange, as if it too was uncertain how to proceed. The light was agitated, sparking as if calculating new variables.

  Then the leader strode toward me, one hand outstretched for the feather and the other holding the NightBlade high. The moonlight glinted off that dark blade.

  I stood my ground.

  Even though I had guessed what would happen, I was still shocked by how fast he moved. Kohana streaked out of the sky, screaming outrage. He threw thunderbolts into the assembly of Mages, and the earth boomed with their impact. Lightning flashed from his eyes, crackling across the night sky.