Grand Theft Griffin

by Michael Angel

  I stopped and leaned again the wall for a moment. I cradled my head in my hands as the biggest click I’d ever felt in my life came together in my mind.

  Of course.

  Just like before, the solution was right in front of me all along.

  It wouldn’t work without the three people I trusted more than anything else in the entire world. Both worlds, actually. The ones I thought of as my family, now.

  I tried to keep the hope that surged inside of my chest in check. I needed to get back to the office and gather a couple of things. Then home. And before midnight, I could be back in Andeluvia to see if any of the crazy plan I had in mind would work.

  The Long Beach freeway was snarled by a couple of accidents, so I took a winding route through the city streets, moving only marginally faster along the clogged avenues. The OME lot was emptying out by the time I arrived, so I parked close to the building and got back to my office as quickly as possible.

  I made a fresh copy of the printout from the museum footage, and then began searching through the debris of my office for a protective folder to keep it in. Stashed under the bottom drawer of my desk was an open-top bin filled with presentation materials. A quick paw through the messy contents turned up everything for a slideshow I’d done for the Academy of Forensic Sciences.

  I found the folder I wanted, as well as a number of other items I’d used to good effect during my own presentation or while listening to others.

  On impulse, I grabbed one I thought might be important and stuck it in my pocket.

  I heard someone clear their throat from over by the office door. Cautiously, I peeked over the lowest of the paper piles.

  It was the same red and yellow uniformed courier from the shipping company. He smiled again and handed me his electronic pad.

  “Running late today,” he apologized. “Wreck on the freeway, a lot of people are caught in it. I figured…well, you looked like the kind of person that would be here after hours.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, but I let that go.

  “Yeah, sometimes that happens,” I sighed, as I signed the pad.

  He tipped his cap to me as he left. My heart skipped a beat as I spotted the cardboard shipping envelope he’d left for me in the visitor’s chair.

  These were the results from the samples of Holly’s eggs, yolk, and nest!

  I came halfway around my desk and reached across the mountains of paper to snag the slim package. My hip jostled the desk, causing the stack of color printouts that had come with the last batch of griffin test results to tumble to the floor. I let out a curse under my breath as I fished for the printouts with one hand and retrieved a mixed-up bundle of paper.

  I set the envelope down next to my office chair and riffed through the randomly shuffled report. The pages were a summary of the DNA segments in line upon line of G-T-A-Cs. It was a pain to read. That was the main reason I’d ignored these and simply fed the electronic version of the information into the computer. Worse, the idiot who had printed these out had made the page numbers small enough to look like little ink smears.

  Grumbling, I found the top page. That was the letter apologizing for the strangely consistent contamination of avian and feline genetic markers. I quickly sorted through the papers, skimming down the page to find the information I wanted.

  Holly’s name crossed my field of vision along with a lengthy string of letters identifying a sample portion of her genetic code. It was practically a blur that slid by my eyes.

  Until I saw it again.

  I thought for a moment I was imagining it, but I’d trained myself to spot patterns from Day One on the job. I paused and flipped a few pages back. The listing was Ironwood’s. That made sense. Since he was her brother, his code would look very similar to hers. As a matter of fact…

  I held up the paper with Ironwood’s entry right next to Holly’s.

  Ironwood’s genetic code wasn’t similar to his sister’s.

  It was one-hundred-percent identical.

  I scrabbled to find the page with Blackthorn’s information. Sure enough, it was a perfect match to Holly’s as well.

  And I hadn’t seen it, because I’d never compared the siblings’ DNA. I’d only compared each of them against the feather found at the museum.

  But the only way you got a complete match of this sort was with an identical twin. Holly had made it clear that her mother had given birth three times over a period of several years between births. That ruled out identical twin or triplet births. And True Born or not, I doubted that the griffins practiced cloning. So, I was looking at an impossibility. I’d collected each of these samples with my own hands, and nothing could have gotten so badly contaminated that I’d get these insane results.

  Suddenly, my mind flared with memory.

  I hadn’t collected all of the samples with my own hands. I’d let Holly collect the ones from her brothers during the Rite of the Autumn Winds. She’d been gone for a while – I’d even commented on it. She’d had plenty of time to swab her own cheek twice more.

  Holly must have purposely faked the test results.

  Holly must have planted the crystal on Lance Captain Thundercrack.

  But had she stolen the crystals from the museum in my world?

  I rubbed my temples, trying to stave off a headache. I didn’t want to know anymore, I didn’t want to convict her, even mentally.

  A voice inside of me cried, But why not?

  “Because I don’t want to hurt Grimshaw,” I said to myself. “Because I don’t want him at odds, separated from any of his True Born offspring.”

  The voice scolded me. Stop it! Stop pretending that you’re doing everyone else a favor and admit the truth! Why not?

  “Because she’s my friend,” I whispered “As for what Holly feels…I think she wants to be even more than a friend with me. But friends don’t do this to each other.”

  So you let ‘friends’ murder people in cold blood?

  “I don’t know if it was in cold blood! Dammit, I don’t know why she’d do such a thing at all! And if she had no motive, I can’t…”

  My gaze slid down to the side of my chair, where the last report from the genetics lab sat inside its cardboard slip, as venomous in its own way as a pit viper. I didn’t want to open it. I was actually afraid of what I might find.

  But I forced my hands to move. I had to know. Whatever I felt for Holly, I had to know what was driving her forward into realms that I hoped to never see.

  I tore open the envelope and read the results.

  Swallowing hard, I plunked my butt back into the office chair, fired up the computer, and began comparing the DNA sequences.

  “Son of a bitch,” I choked out.

  It all made sense now.

  So why wouldn’t my hands stop shaking?

  Chapter Forty

  Grimshaw paced back and forth across the floor of Galen’s laboratory. His expression looked unconcerned as I outlined my plan, but I knew better. His tail flicked back and forth, and the lion’s tuft at the end bristled like that of fearful tabby cat.

  “Thou hast given me some difficult tasks,” he grumbled. “Certainly, the Council will convene the pride leaders and leading griffins to the Lair of the Elders shouldst I press the issue. But to ask to use magic in order to transport directly into the Reykajar Aerie? ‘Tis a request they will balk at!”

  “Then we don’t request it,” I said bluntly. “We demand it.”

  The old griffin simply stared at me.

  “I believe I comprehend what Dayna is attempting,” Galen put in, as he folded up his gray smock and straightened his wine-colored jacket. “True, no one may utilize a spell to enter the griffin aerie without leave of the Elders. However, that law stems from a treaty with the Kingdom of Andeluvia. Since Dayna is officially an envoy of Andeluvia, she can demand the use of such a spell as a matter of state diplomacy – say, as a negotiation summit between two equal kingdoms.”

  “Yeah, what he
said,” I agreed, pointing at Galen. “And if that doesn’t work, you can tell Belladonna that my dark plans to somehow ruin the Reykajar Aerie is about to come to completion. Surely she’d want to be there for that, to prove to the Elders that she is right and they wrong about her visions.”

  Shaw’s beak twitched a couple of times, as if he were chewing the ideas over in his head.

  “Ever have I trusted thee,” my griffin friend sighed. “Though I sense that little good will come from it, I shall convey thy words.”

  “Thank you.” I relaxed a bit, but I suspected that Shaw would turn out to be all too correct. “Once the griffins have gathered, send a courier to await our arrival at the border. We’ll send him or her back with a message that we will arrive at the Lair within the hour.”

  Shaw’s great golden eyes blinked in amazement. “I do not understand thy intention. Why ask – nay, ‘demand’ permission for transporting thyself into the heart of the Council’s demesne, and then not do so?”

  “I am puzzled as well,” Galen put in. “It does seem to make Shaw’s request superfluous.”

  I put my hand out to touch the wizard’s arm. “I’ll explain what we’re doing once Grimshaw leaves.” Shaw looked a little hurt at my words, so I quickly added, “I’m sorry, my friend, but I can’t lay out all of my cards on the table just yet. I don’t want to put you into a position where you have to evade the Elders questions if they ask what I’m up to. Believe me, we really need the element of surprise here.”

  “Thou senses that there will be combat?” Shaw sounded halfway hopeful.

  “There might be. Given how our luck runs, I think we should be ready.”

  I opened my jacket to reveal my gun, safely tucked into its shoulder holster. I hadn’t had my certification test yet, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that dissuade me. Almost unconsciously, Shaw in turn reached a paw up to tug on one of his chest plate straps.

  “Perhaps I had better employ precautions as well,” Galen agreed. He picked out a long iron staff capped with brass at the base and topped with the sculpture of a dragon’s claw. The claw, which had been finely crafted to show the details on the talons, gripped a sinister looking green gem. “I discovered this in one of Fitzwilliam’s storage cellars recently, and it suits my purposes within reason.”

  “Thy staff looks deadly, wizard,” Shaw growled approvingly. “Dost it shoot fire? Lightning?”

  “Given our recent battles, I have decided to learn a little from Dayna and employ some subterfuge.” Galen nodded at me, and I felt more than a little flattered. “You have observed me casting both fire and energy without the use of a staff, correct?”

  “Aye, that I have. But if so, what magical use is your weapon?”

  “Magically? Absolutely nothing. But I can use it to bash in a recalcitrant foe’s skull if needed. And it shall serve as a distraction. Given its intimidating looks, many foes will attempt to destroy the staff without realizing that it is harmless. That shall give me the time needed to cast my own enchantments.”

  “Very slick,” I said, as I tried to keep a grin off my face.

  Galen gave me a confused look. “What does your use of the term for low viscosity have to do with my stratagem?”

  “Never mind,” I sighed. “Can we transport Shaw to the border of the griffin lands now?”

  “Fear not!” Shaw said, regaining some of his old bravado. “I shall have my people where thou wishes and gain the favors thou seekest.”

  “I never doubted you for a second,” I said, meaning it.

  Galen stretched forth his strong centaur arms and concentrated. “Asha théann tú!”

  A flash-bang of white, and Shaw vanished.

  “That’s two down, and one to go,” I said, half to myself. Galen looked at me inquisitively, so I added, “Just talking out loud. In order for this plan to come off, I needed help from each of my three best friends in this world. I’ve been worried that one of you would say ‘no’, which would leave me up a certain fetid creek without a paddle.”

  “I am not sure which creek you refer to,” Galen reassured me. “Nor, perhaps, do I wish to know. But you underestimate what bonds of friendship mean between the peoples of this world. Especially when they have been forged between such wildly disparate groups. Rest your mind: we shall all play the parts you deem necessary.”

  I had to tamp down the swell of emotions inside my chest. “Thanks, Galen. I forget sometimes. I expect the worst, what with my rotten luck and all, and that’s not always the case.”

  “Sometimes expecting the worst, or at least preparing for it, is a prudent course of action. It also helps one avoid disappointment.”

  I let out a rueful laugh. “Too true. Galen, do you have enough power left for some sustained spell casting? I mean, can you transport someone in from elsewhere, and still leave enough magical energy to go into battle?”

  “I have sufficient, but not excessive power.” The centaur maneuvered his large chestnut-colored equine body to reach a high cabinet in the corner of the room. He retrieved a familiar-looking gold medallion. “I will make use of a pre-existing enchantment. This amulet carries a transport spell that brings the wearer to me upon my summoning.”

  “That sounds like how you brought me here.”

  “The spell resides in the same family of enchantments. It will allow me to make maximum use of the power I do have.” Galen motioned menacingly with his faux wizard’s staff. “To that point…you do feel that there is a high likelihood of physical or magical conflict?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. At least once we get to the Lair of the Elders.”

  “Then I must inquire further: Who do you believe that we shall have to fight?”

  I looked away for a moment. I’d been worried about the reaction of the griffins. But that was small change. I was much more worried about the safety of my friends. I had to keep things quiet before Shaw left. But I would do Galen no favors by playing coy about what might happen when I started pulling out all the stops.

  “I’m not sure who we’ll have to fight,” I said. “Possibly everyone.”

  Galen looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head. “Might I ask you to define ‘everyone’?”

  “I mean, every griffin that arrives in the Lair. Maybe just the Valkir Pride. Maybe just the Reyka Pride. Maybe both. Maybe the entire Council of the Elders.”

  The wizard swallowed, hard.

  “You are not making some strange jest? You are utterly serious?”

  “That’s just the worst of the worst-case scenarios,” I admitted. “I just don’t know how everyone will react to what I plan to show regarding that break-in.”

  “Your intellect is truly dizzying, Dayna. Yet I remain mystified. Do you believe that all the members of one pride concocted the theft? Or, perhaps, that all nine members of the griffin Council of Elders broke into this ‘museum’ of yours?”

  “No, I can’t. But I can prove that the nine members of the Council were all at one very specific place at the same time. And I think that is where the journey towards the museum theft really began.”

  Galen’s eyes went wide as I explained.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The Lair of the Elders had looked appropriately cavernous the first time I’d entered. Now, it was filled with griffins who sat, stood, or paced expectantly. A couple let out small squawks of surprise as they spotted my wizard companion. In truth, Galen did cut a fine figure in his burgundy and silver jacket, shaggy mane of dark hair, and the intimidating-looking dragon-claw staff.

  We’d taken a couple of hours to make our way along the steep slopes of the hills and valleys which led from the border crossing to the aerie proper. It was long, and even when Galen gave me a lift part of the way, I felt the strain in my legs. But I didn’t want to just teleport on in. I wanted time for the word of our coming to spread.

  I wanted as many griffins in the Lair as would fit. Partly to show the truth to as many as possible. And partly because with enough griffins, who
ever considered settling things by combat would think twice. Any fight that broke out in such a small space would be swamped by the sheer number of bodies.

  The room was drowsy-warm from the body heat of all the griffins. Their combined animal musk lay heavy on my nose, as did the tang of salt, as I heard the muffled roar of the surf as it beat along the many hidden passages below.

  Above, the afternoon sun slanted in through the stone skylight. It cast the multitude of side passages and crevasses on the sides of the cavern in stark relief. And it shone through the network of iron chains, which cast a grim net of shadows over the faces of the Council as they sat perched on the boulders waiting for our approach.

  I spotted Shaw off to one side, and he nodded brusquely in our direction. Somehow, he’d managed to swap out the leather riding saddle he’d been wearing for the last several days. Instead, he’d replaced it with an additional set of articulated armor plates that covered both his spine and his belly. Though his wings remained free, the additional weight probably made it impossible to fly. Then again, flying wasn’t really an option with a roof of iron chains suspended just overhead.

  The crowd of griffins contained several members of the Valkir Pride, a couple Korlson griffins I recognized from the practice pride-spar, and the three True Born of the Reyka Pride. Holly, Blackthorn, and Ironwood all sat looking on with carefully fixed neutral expressions. To my surprise, the three weren’t sitting together. Instead, they’d posted themselves at almost equal intervals around the circuit of the vast room.

  I couldn’t waste time to speculate why. The High Elder Belladonna perched atop the highest rock mount in the room, glaring down at me. Her head hung in a low, predatory position as I approached. Given her posture and her unkempt plumage, she looked like a vulture awaiting a meal of carrion to arrive.