by Shelly Pratt
The sheets on the cot were replaced with freshly laundered ones and the toilet received a going over. The floor was mopped before the old man returned to his trolley, replacing all his spray bottles and dirty cloths as he did so. As he made his way to continue down the hall in the direction he had been going, he had to pass her cell. His eyes connected with hers as he passed. They were a dull smoky blue colour that looked cloudy with age. If ever there were a soul that could tell a thousand stories, this was it. She wondered why he still had a job at his age, but any other thoughts or questions were put out of her mind the minute he put his finger to his mouth to silence her. She knew now, that if she had any chance of making it out of here then she was going to need a miracle.
****
Eilam was going out of his mind. His loud cries that were signature to the raven species echoed across the empty landscape. It was just as well he was out of the city by now or every man and his dog would have heard him.
In his raven form, his eyes could navigate the darkness better than the weak eyes he possessed as a human. They scanned every inch of his way home, helping him to fly almost autonomously while his mind kept occupied by more important things. He had been watching Aiyana, like he always did. She seemed to have a hold over him which was quite indescribable. He felt like he needed to be with her, protect her, and yet – he had failed. Failed so miserably that now they had her.
He was determined to get to her, but first he knew he would need the others so they could help him with a distraction. He had been perched in his raven form on a large skyscraper not too far from Aiyana’s own building; watching the balcony with a practiced patience. The balcony was where his focus had been, eagerly waiting for Aiyana to draw the curtains back and welcome him once more. But to his disappointment they had stayed closed.
Of course he had seen her leave the building and watched her return, arms laden with grocery bags – clearly she had been getting food of some sort. What piqued his birdlike curiosity was the man he spotted following her. He knew instantly that this man was trouble, it was like all the other people on the footpath seemed to vanish and he alone stood out, capturing Eilam’s attention. What was he to do about it though? Should he risk exposing himself in the day light in order to warn her, or should he sit back and wait and see what happened?
Later he would wish he’d chosen the risk, because he was now going to have to go to all manner of trouble to get her back. Once Aiyana had gone inside her building he had relaxed momentarily, knowing she was safe enough in there. What he hadn’t been expecting was the man to be joined by more men in the APP uniform, giving him a clear indication that Aiyana was in very big trouble. It was too late to fly to her, and he had to bear the excruciating wait as the men followed her inside. The twenty minutes seemed like an eternity, and he was all kinds of panicked by the time they came back down.
Aiyana was not on her feet either; she was unconscious and was being supported by two of the men into a black van that pulled up to the curb on their exit. He knew that if he let her out of his sight now, he may never see her again. The black unmarked van put on its blinker and pulled out seamlessly into traffic and followed the Gold Coast Highway south.
Eilam raised his wings and launched himself off from the building, being careful to fly amongst the tallest parts of the high-rises so that they could afford him a bit of protection. It wouldn’t do to have both of them caught at this stage. The wind ruffled the feathers on his face as he flew with speed to keep up with the van. He wasn’t yet sure where they were taking her, but he had a very bad feeling about all of this.
The van was speeding, weaving in and out of traffic now, determined to get to its destination in a hurry. They had just rounded the small hill at Burleigh Heads and Eilam knew they would soon be passing over the bridge where the Estuary flowed under and on to Palm Beach. He knew he wouldn’t be afforded any buildings here to provide him with cover, so he made the agonising decision to rise up into the clouds for the short distance it would take him to reach the other side. He was pretty sure he was safe enough to do so as there wasn’t any other way for them to go but forward. His wings flapped mightily so that he could get some lift under his body and he was rewarded by the cool wet kiss of the clouds as he entered the fog. He trained his ears to single out the sound of the van’s engine from the rest of the traffic, eager to keep whatever senses he had trained on the vehicle.
Once over the bridge he descended back down to the buildings and angled his flight path so once again he could track them visually. On south they rolled, making headway against the slow moving traffic in the left hand lane. Eilam knew it would rain again soon, he could feel the heaviness of the clouds that held the rain drops, but he was pleased about this as it was just another blanket of cover that he could travel under. As they neared the end of the Palm Beach promenade, once again they approached a large bridge that ran over the river that went out to the ocean and so Eilam took to the clouds once more.
He contemplated just swooping and smashing his body against the van, knowing that his strength would soon stop it in hurry; but her couldn’t afford to risk Aiyana’s safety or risk a security detail catching sight of him. No, he would have to wait and bide his time and be patient.
On the procession went, further south down the coast all the way to where the state border ran. They didn’t stop here though; they merged with the Pacific Highway and kept on going.
Eilam had completely run out of buildings by now and hung low in the clouds so that he could just see through a thin layer of the cloud without actually been seen from below. He stalked the van like he would his prey, never taking his eyes of it for a second. As the city gave way to the sparseness of coastal living, the van put on its indicator to exit the highway at Fingal Head. He knew they must be getting close to their destination because the road in these parts only went out a couple of kilometres until it was met with the ocean’s edge. The van pulled up to a set of barbed wired gates and waited for them to be opened up. Eilam circled the air like a hawk, waiting to see what their next move was. This little patch of the coast used to be opened up to sightseers and beach goers. They could park here and come and go as they wished down the long path that led out to the lighthouse and the beach.
Not anymore though as the government had closed it off to the general public and had run kilometres of barbed wire fencing around the entire vicinity with strict warnings attached to the fence indicating that intruders would be prosecuted.
As the clouds in the sky descended lower, so did Eilam. He could see six men get out of the van, and the biggest of the lot pulled Aiyana out and slung her over his shoulder like a rag doll. Eilam very much wanted to swoop down and peck his eyes out, but he forced himself restraint, for he was unsure if there were others nearby that he was yet to detect. Instead he watched, waited and followed their every move with a practiced skill.
The procession left their van inside the lot and headed for the bush track that would lead out to the headland. He followed. As they walked along, they said nothing, and Aiyana still did not stir. He was starting to worry about her, panic in fact. What had they done to her to make her sleep so long? Once the men left the path and entered the sand dunes, he knew they were taking her out to the ocean. He left them now and flew to a higher altitude where he could perch on top of the rocky headland without being seen.
He waited and saw them emerge from the dunes and head down to the water’s edge. Here a large boat was being manned by two guards, obviously expecting the party of people and keen to make tracks with the outgoing tide. They all boarded the boat and then turned it out to sea. As it motored off across the ocean and through Giants Causeway, Eilam knew they were heading for Cook Island.
He uprooted off his spot and followed, curious now as to what they were doing out here. Confident the boat wasn’t going anywhere without him knowing about it, he flew on ahead to give the island a fly over. From the shore it had looked the way it always had, but his view from the sky tol
d a different story. What looked like a very new structure on the island was a massive concrete bunker that had been built on the hard rock surface after they had blasted out the centre of the island with explosives. Eilam was careful to stay well hidden in the clouds now, his feeling for danger piqued as high as it had ever been.
He circled the island continuously, waiting all the while the boat made its landing on the far, east side. He then tracked the procession as the party made its approach down a set of steps carved out of the rocky surface that led down to the bunker.
Eilam wanted to call out to Aiyana, but he knew his bird call would alert them immediately and it would be game over for both of them. The concrete bunker was massive in size and ran to the scale of a full sized football stadium. He spotted sentries with rifles in each corner of the structure and there was an additional tower that rose above the centre unit that seemed to be the main control centre that supervised the security of the island.
Eilam spotted closed circuit television cameras all over the place and other indicators that the grounds were being watched on a continual basis. The thing that scared Eilam more than anything though was the sight of a helicopter pad. The helicopter wasn’t there now, but it would mean he would have to keep a very close eye out for it, because despite how fast he could fly, out here in the open – he was no match for that kind of flying power.
He watched as they took his precious Aiyana inside the concrete bunker and knew he had to fly with speed back to his nest to gather some help from the others. Just how much danger Aiyana was in, he didn’t know, but he knew without a doubt he must hurry.
The waves crashed hard around the island as he left it and the rain started to pour torrentially as he flew inland towards the mountains where his nest was. The day gave way to darkness again and he cried out in his raven’s voice to his fellow flock, his tortured pain evident in the cries that escaped his beak. Not far now and they would hear his call. They would gather together and fly with haste back to the woman he loved, for since laying eyes on her, he knew she was destined to be his for all of eternity.
Chapter Nine
In the nest the flock had congregated together, discussing tactics for their onslaught. There would be no calling out to each other once they had left, for surely they would be heard, and it was most likely that their enemy would be expecting them. Their plan had been talked about for some time, each raven debating their own thoughts and views, self-assured that they had made the correct assumption on how events would be played out. It wasn’t like they didn’t know this was going to happen, in fact it had been predicted from the start. How long could two people from the different races expect to get away with such an association, especially considering their mutually entwined fate that could end the raven species for good?
The whole situation had of course been brought to a head last night when the APP had snatched the girl, which ultimately forced their hand to secure their fate once and for all, because now the state was involved, it could mean only one thing - their time to dominate this city was coming to a close. They must by now know how to break the curse, and knowing this would mean they would stop at nothing to ensure they got what they wanted. It was risky to attack mid-flight, but their leader had insisted that the element of surprise must be maintained, as he knew above all others what a smart and shifty breed the raven was, and one sniff of trouble was all it would take to turn the stakes back on themselves.
Despite the apparent closeness that father and son should feel, Einar had insisted to his flock of ravens that Eilam was a sacrifice that had to be made for the sake of their continued survival. Since birth the boy had been different, distant even. He would never stay with the rest of the flock and was never part of their hunting parties. He would stare his coal black eyes of disapproval at them when they came back from terrorising the city, judging in a way that Einar thought amusing whilst he had been a young fledgling, but as an adult, it had just become damn annoying. As an adult he had flown off on his own, and had set out to distance himself from his father’s flock as much as he could. Even more so once he had found out that there was a way to end all the pillaging that he so turned his beak up at, and thus ending the curse that had kept the ravens flying across the dark city for all of eternity.
Einar however, was having none of it. His son had made contact with the girl despite his best efforts to shield him from finding out the truth and he wasn’t about to let either of them take the power and dominance he held over the city. Since his first turning, he had come to realise that the world held so much more potential than he had ever even dreamed, and like conquerors before him, he wasn’t about to relinquish it any time soon.
He had pointed out to his flock that their stance could be to do nothing, and let either the girl kill Eilam on her own, or have the state police force her hand to do their bidding, but ultimately either way the ravens would be gone.
The only other choice was to kill him first to ensure their survival. Either way his son had to die, so why then let it be it at the expense of his flock? The three ravens who had been shadowing Aiyana and Eilam had reported back to the nest with the news of the unfolding events. They knew that Eilam was heading back to the island to rescue his love, and in doing so had sealed his fate with the ravens that were coming for him. Einar knew that the time had come for his flock to gather in numbers and head for the skies to seek out his son, for morning come, he knew their race would be solidified as a permanent fixture on the coastal skyline.
****
Eilam led his flock out of the nest and hit the night sky with abandon. Nothing else mattered until Aiyana was back in his claws and flying to safety. He had warned his flock to be cautious, but felt it hard to display the same reserved caution as he flew into the wind. The rain had now stopped, and he could smell the sweetness it left as the landscape soaked it up.
On the late moon they flew, the breaking dawn still hours away, and as they covered the lush rain forest that canopied the ground, his exceptional eyesight that all ravens possessed picked up the vivid images below.
Other birds flew between trees, chatting and quarrelling amongst themselves after the drenching they had received earlier. Flying foxes trailed the fruit trees and mice ran across open fields. But none of this captured him tonight, for he knew that darker times were yet to come, and he was willing to sacrifice himself in order to restore peace to the world where Aiyana lived. He would fight for her, spend every last breath just to get to her, and he would do it willingly.
As he flew east towards the ocean, he sensed a shift in the atmosphere, something ever so subtle that it was almost non-existent. He craned his neck to allow his vision to reach its full parameters, all the while his wings flapped steadily beside him. His flock still seemed to be in its V formation, so he discounted the feeling as nerves and kept on flying, eager to invade the island that awaited him.
The first signs that they were entering the city started to appear and traffic lights continued to change, even though there were no cars on the roads to use them.
On they flew, the closer to the city centre the taller the buildings and the brighter the lights. But the fog still hung eerily in the air. He noticed that. He asked his father about it once and he said the darkness and fog had been the same on the night he turned and had remained so ever since. He knew he must die, but he wondered if there were ever a time that he may feel the full sun’s rays on his plumage as he flew across the skies. Such a simple thing to wish for, yet it almost seemed like an impossible want. He allowed himself as small cry out of his beak, indicating to the others that they were almost there. They graced the tops of the last of the buildings before the sand and ocean became visible below. The waves crested and fell, leaving the crashing of water upon the shore to be heard for miles around.
Eilam felt the thrill now; he could tell the time was upon him to do what he had been born to do. Power, force and strength – the curse had enabled them all the luxury to do as they pleased, and now h
e would enforce that power to its utmost. As they neared the island they went into stealth mode. Their cries were silenced and communication ceased. Even their wings stopped their incessant flapping, instead they glided in on a wind current that gathered under their feathers and blew them eastwards. Eilam would leave his flock to allow them to relieve the security detail of their postings while he continued to search the external building for a way in to get Aiyana.
They settled in for their final approach, lowering altitude as the first tips of the island passed underneath them. They disbanded their formation now, each raven flying off in pairs of two’s so their strength wasn’t taxed too much in the initial onslaught. The first security man didn’t even see what hit him. One minute he was standing guard, rifle at the ready, the next he found his arms in the claws of the ravens as he was lifted off the ground and taken out to sea. They flew him a couple of kilometres away before dumping him in the ocean and returning to help the rest of the flock with the execution of disbanding the island’s security force.
Eilam meanwhile was circling the entire building, trying to find an entry point. His eyes picked up a rise in the concrete on the west wing, with many pin pricks of light dotted along the walls – walls with bars. He knew this is where Aiyana must be, as it appeared to be a prison of sorts.
