Conspiracy of Ravens

by J. C. McKenzie

  “No.” She’d meant to look up the name Cole kept calling her, but she didn’t know how to spell it. She ran her hands up and down her thighs a couple of times to warm them up. Ugh. She needed to shave.

  “It’s Irish for ‘little bird.’”

  Her skin warmed. Her face twitched, itching to break out into a wide smile. He’d called her that before he discovered her feather. She forced her mouth back to normal, or her “resting bitch face” as Juni called it. She couldn’t let Mike see her grinning like a giddy teenager. While one part of her brain wanted to dance and ride off into the sunset on a rainbow unicorn, the other part scolded her. Grandma Lu would have a fit right about now if she saw her eldest granddaughter swooning over a pet name given by a serial killer for hire. So, what if the Patron Fae of Assassins called her little bird in another language. It wasn’t exactly a term of endearment, right? “Wait. Don’t the Irish speak English?”

  “Yes. It’s an Irish name, silly. But for the record, when you say Irish as a language, it means Irish Gaelic.”

  “You’re such a know-it-all.”

  “Guess what else I know?”

  She rolled her eyes and waited.

  “Beul na h-Oidhche gu Camhanaich means ‘Mouth of the Night to First Light.’”

  After she got over being impressed and a tad jealous from Mike’s ability to not only find the correct spelling of the fae name, but pronounce it with relative ease, she mulled over Cole’s true name. “So, his name literally means from dusk to dawn?”

  Mike smirked. He paused and leaned forward, his nose inches from the screen. He chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Same questions. At least so far. Looks like Bear’s just as bad at remembering the answers to security questions as you are.”

  “We can’t all be evil geniuses like you.”

  Mike shrugged. Even with his cast, her brother’s fingers flew across his keyboard as he leaned forward and squinted at his screen. He made a little grunt and head bob every time he hit enter and got to the next question. Kind of cute in a total nerdy gamer way.

  Mike straightened, his mouth twisted down in a deformed frown.

  “What is it?” She hated talking to Mike when he was on the computer—nothing but incomplete sentences, long pauses and troubled facial expressions.

  His mouth gaped open, but no words came out. Instead, he leaned to the side and reached out to turn his screen toward her.

  Biological Father.

  Raven’s stomach dropped. “We don’t know his name.”

  “But we all know he was a stud.”

  Raven groaned. Thanks, Mom.

  “Maybe Bear found out?” Mike suggested.

  “How? Mom’s refused to tell us. I don’t see her telling Bear and not me.”

  “Would he keep the information from you if he found out some other way?”

  “I’d like to think he wouldn’t.” Raven’s stomach twisted. “But I’m finding out I didn’t know my twin as well as I thought I did.”

  Mike reached out and squeezed her arm. “Not telling you about his safe house was probably for your own protection.”

  She scowled at him.

  “Think about it. You can’t confess what you don’t know.”

  “I can still be tortured for it.” She picked at her tank top.

  “I didn’t say his system was perfect.”

  She stared at Mike’s computer screen. His cursor flashed, mocking her lack of knowledge, taunting her. Stupid mother fucking computer.

  Raven stilled. Wait a minute...

  Mike pushed his shoulders back and laced his fingers together to stretch them out. Apparently, he was limbering up to initiate his bank hacking attack plan.

  “Motherfucker,” she said.

  “He’s still our brother, Rayray.”

  “No, dummy. Try ‘Motherfucker’ as the answer.”

  Mike shook his head and typed it in. The hourglass popped up in the middle of the screen. A few seconds later, a message confirmed an email to reset the password had been sent. Mike laughed.

  “Motherfucker,” he wheezed.

  “Bear’s always been very matter-of-fact.”

  Mike’s laughter deepened. He bent over and slapped his knee.

  “Calm down. It’s not that funny.” Geez, he laughed like Dad.

  Mike straightened and wiped at the tears forming in the corner of his eyes. “I disagree.”

  “Need I remind you of Bear’s impending doom?”

  Mike grunted and his serious gamer face slid over his expression. Five minutes later, after resetting the password from the email, Mike confirmed no recent bank activity, put the accounts on hold, made new security questions, and added a password hint that said, “Call home.”

  “If he resurfaces, he’ll have to go to the bank or see us.” Mike sat back with a smug smile. “Despite how he might feel about the family, I’d like to think he’d prefer us to the sheep in suits.”

  Her brother’s features pinched in and his shoulders slumped. He looked away and straightened in his chair.

  “Mike.” Raven scanned his face. She recognized the hurt in his expression; she saw it in the mirror often enough. “His distance has nothing to do with you.”

  Her brother grunted again, but his gaze cut away too quickly.

  She reached out and squeezed his hand. “You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Sometimes, she forgot her little brother was only nineteen, and still so new to the whole adulting thing. “I’m serious, Mike. He has some daddy issues, and some...” Her brain scrambled for the right phrase.

  “Insecurities?” Mike offered.

  “Not quite the word I was looking for, but yeah. We’re all shifters, he’s not. He wanted to run in the woods with Dad and make him proud and make him worthy of the man who raised us.”

  Mike frowned.

  “Bear believes his abilities deprive him of this.”

  He nodded. “I get it. Kind of.”

  The pain continued to punch at her younger brother’s features, but she let it go. No amount of words would ease his heart right now. At least none of the words she had to offer.

  She needed to find Bear to save his life, but also to get him to fix this fracture he created in their family. Find Bear, yell at Bear, fix family. Simple. “I don’t suppose Brother Bear had a regular rental payment come out in addition to his apartment?”

  “Too traceable. The big lug isn’t that dense.” He clicked on history. His gaze narrowed as he scanned the chequing account’s activities. Everyone was a little dumb in comparison to Mike. “Hold on.”

  “What?” She leaned forward.

  “No rent, but a regular cash withdrawal near the end of each month.”

  “Same amount?”

  “No. But always over nine hundred dollars.”

  She tapped her chin. “Can’t be a nice place, then.”

  “It’s a safe house. Not a luxury inn.”

  She nodded. “So, this just confirms he has it but not where.”

  Mike continued to click with his mouse and tap away on his keyboard, his lips twisted into an evil grin. “He used the same teller machine.”

  Raven snapped her fingers. “Of course. He wouldn’t want to hold that much cash for long. He probably withdrew it on his way to pay the landlord.”

  “I agree. This bank machine is close to his safe house.”

  “Can you find out where it is?”

  “Can I...” Mike rolled his eyes. He clicked a few more things and suddenly a map of the Lower Mainland popped up on his screen. “This is the machine he withdrew cash from.” Mike tapped the little red icon on the screen. “These are the neighbouring bank machines from the same institution. Bear’s pragmatic and tight-fisted. He wouldn’t use another bank’s machine and accrue extra service charges unless he had to.” Tap, tap, tap. “Assuming the machine he used is the closest to the safe house that means...”

  “He has to be somewhere here.” Sh
e circled the area surrounding the bank machine with her finger. She squinted at the map. “Commercial and Broadway. East Van.”

  Mike nodded. “And right by a train stop.”

  “There’s too many apartments and rentals there. It will take forever to go through them all. Unless...” She smiled at her brother. “We just follow your nose.”

  Mike glanced down at his cast and shook his arm at her. “I’m kind of out of commission.”

  “You won’t need to shift.”

  “In East Van? To follow a week-old trail amongst junkies, patchouli-drenched hippies, the homeless, and hipsters? Yes. Yes, I will.”

  She sighed. Her shoulders dropped.

  “You could take Dad.”

  “Are you kidding me? And have World War III when he and Bear inevitably start arguing?”

  Mike laughed.

  “I’m not sure I even want to go.” She sank down on Mike’s bed again. The comforter puffed out around her and released a cloud of funk. She should’ve remained standing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something Marcus said.”

  Mike let out an exasperated sigh and rolled his hand out as if to say, “Out with it.”

  Like he should talk.

  Mike waited.

  “He implied I might be causing more harm than good if I searched for Bear. I’d basically hand him over to the person he stole from. Maybe.”

  “So, you have to decide between going to Bear’s safe house and risking Cole will go back on his word and destroy our brother, or not going to Bear’s safe house and risking someone else finding him first or that he’s in need of your help.”

  “It’s quite the predicament.”

  “Actually, you have a dilemma. A predicament is a problem with no apparent solution. A dilemma is a problem with two or more undesirable solutions.”

  Raven rolled her eyes.

  “What?”

  “I hope you’re learning more at school than how to piss people off.”

  “This is important stuff.”

  “How? How is it important? When are you ever going to use this crap?” she asked.

  “I’m using it right now.”

  “Ugh!” She picked up his pillow and threw it at him.

  Mike laughed and batted the pillow out of the way. When he straightened, his expression sobered. “What are you going to do?”

  “Cole swore a fae oath. The other option has too much unknown to it. I’m going, and I need a little fox to help me.”

  Mike groaned. “You know what that means?”

  “I’m not sure I can afford this.” Raven’s stomach dropped. She popped open Mike’s bedroom door and hollered down the hall. “Juni!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “To keep your secret is wisdom; to expect others to keep it is folly.”

  ~William Samuel Johnson

  Raven clutched her sister in fox form to her chest as she stared at the bank machine across the street. She ran her hands through Juni’s soft, dense fur before turning to the dark fae lord beside her. “You’ll transport my sister back as soon as we locate Bear’s safe house?”

  Cole peered down at her and nodded. The summer sun shone against his ink-black hair. “And you promise not to try to squirrel your brother somewhere else to hide him while I’m gone. It won’t take long.”

  “Of course. We have a deal.”

  “We have a sworn oath.”

  “Whatever.” She swallowed. She’d love to shield Bear from whatever came his way, but she needed Juni safe and Cole already promised, with a fae oath, not to harm her brother. She couldn’t go back on their deal.

  Raven set her sister down on the pavement and clicked the leash to her pink rhinestone studded collar. If her sister wanted to run off, that was fine with Raven. More than fine, because Juni would inevitably run back to Raven when she realized she couldn’t get into the house without shifting and had no clothes or phone.

  The collar and leash were strictly for show to appease the Fish and Wildlife officers, bylaw officials, and those generally scared of anything furry running around on four legs.

  “Inhumane!” Some hippie yelled at them from across the street.

  “You are the animal!” the hippie woman’s friend with dreads bellowed.

  Cole turned to glare at them. Their eyes bugged and they looked away, suddenly very fixated on the beading of their guitar straps. Raven didn’t think they’d be so brave if they were on the same side of the street.

  Pffft. Not the first time someone called Raven an animal. When Mike was seven, he had a police helmet he felt invincible in. He’d jump off the roof and Raven would cheer him on along with Bear. Mom lost it, screeching at them and calling them animals. Mike had collected himself off the lawn and stepped away from the deep indents his heels made on impact. After he brushed off the dirt on his shirt, he pulled his shoulders back and calmly informed Mom, with a straight face, they were all animals, including her. She sent them to their rooms without bedtime stories.

  Technically, Mike was correct. Homo sapiens and Vulpes vulpes, or red foxes, both fell under the Kingdom Animalia.

  The urge to shout back and correct the entitled hippies across the street today with her superior knowledge of taxonomy bubbled up her throat. She shut her mouth and clenched her jaw. She might not be book smart like her brother, but she had street smarts. Getting into a bickering match with two hippies on Commercial Drive was not an effective use of her time. Instead, she followed her sister with Cole in tow as Juni pranced along the dirty sidewalk.

  When they reached the security door to the ATM, her sister sniffed the pavement. She snorted, shook her head and whined.

  “Suck it up, buttercup. We need to find Bear.”

  A woman standing nearby jumped. Her eyes widened and her mouth turned down.

  Woman, this is none of your business. Raven stared back until she looked away.

  Juni shook her coat and snuffled around in circles.

  Cole leaned in. “Are you sure this will work?”

  Raven ignored him and pulled the hem of her blue tank top down to her hips again. The stupid shirt insisted on rolling up. She should’ve worn a different one. She kept giving this shirt chances to make her look good, and it kept failing. She sighed. The tank top had such potential.

  Juni scraped her sharp claws along the concrete. Her ears pinged forward and she lurched ahead. The leash snapped straight and tugged at Raven’s hand.

  “This way.” Raven followed her sister as she flounced down the sidewalk, looking more like a well-coifed Shiba Inu than an actual fox.

  Pedestrians shied away from their small party. Not because of her or Juni, but because Cole walked beside her, full of menace. He’d be great at a concert or riot. He parted hordes of people faster than she parted her hair. They couldn’t get away from him fast enough.

  Raven didn’t want to run or hide from Cole. Instead, she resisted the tangible need to haul him to a private room and do all sorts of naughty things with him. Along with all that danger emanating from his pores, he somehow embodied carnal pleasure.

  Raven had never been into mixing those two things—danger and lust. She hated watching horror movies and refused to go on any scary rides at the amusement park. She never understood why someone would not only want to get the crap scared out of them, but willingly pay for the experience.

  Now she got it. Oh, did she get it. Cole hailed from a place known for its blurred lines and ruthless consequences. Raven read her sister’s textbooks. Along with other powerful dark fae, Cole created the Shadow Realm by pulling from the essence of the Underworld and the Realm of Light, or ROL. Somehow, the domain of shadows acted like a buffer between the Mortal Realm and the Other Realms, like the annoying middle child inserting themselves into a fight they had nothing to do with.

  The Shadow Realm existed between the spaces of the other domains and all who wanted entry to another realm had to pass through it either by their own magic or a portal.

&
nbsp; “Who rules the Realm of Shadows?”

  “The Queen of Corvids.” Cole glanced at her sideways.

  Huh. Good name. “Why don’t you control the shadows?” He was powerful enough to occupy a position of power and he helped create the realm.

  Cole smirked. In answer, the shadows from the nearby buildings and alleys pooled around her feet and flowed up her body to cover her like a blanket. “I do.”

  Raven shivered. “You know that’s not what I was asking. Why don’t you rule the Realm of Shadows?”

  Cole let the shadows slipped away. “If I ruled, I would no longer exist within the shadows.”

  Huh. She bobbed her head as if his words made sense. They didn’t.

  The sidewalk darkened again, and gray bands wound around Cole until they flowed over him like a cascading cape. She mulled over his explanation some more. Maybe he did make sense. Kind of. If he ruled, he couldn’t hide. He’d be in the spotlight. The textbook explanation of the Shadow Realm played over her neurons. “You exist between the spaces.”

  A salacious smile spread across Cole’s face.

  Oh God. How’d he turn her words into a sexual innuendo with a flash of his straight, white teeth? Heat flooded her body and warmed her core. Illicit images of him existing in her space flashed through her mind like a porn feed stuck on shuffle.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Cole asked.

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Your face is flushed.”

  Juni snorted and bolted forward, pulling on the leash.

  Good timing. Raven quickened her pace to keep up and avoid choking her sister. As much as Juni pushed her buttons and stole her clothes, Raven would never harm her.

  They turned off Commercial and sped along some side streets before coming to a stop in front of a small apartment building. The old construction had a central main floor and two balconies on the second and third floor facing the street. Raven had once rented an apartment in a similar building off Hastings. There’d be balconies on the backside as well, facing the alleyway. This building probably housed eight units in total—four on each floor—with the lobby, laundry and mailboxes on the main level and storage in the basement.