A Flight of Raptors (Paws & Claws Book 2)

by Ralph Vaughan

  “I heard what you told the Parrots, heard the lies you were filling their heads with,” Ripper said.

  “You’re the expert on lies here, Ripper,” Levi said mildly, oddly devoid of fear. “Dogs only tell the truth.”

  “Shut up!” the Osprey screamed. “You’re not the only one who will die tonight because of those lies. Benedict will get what he should have got.”

  “And which you lied about,” Levi reminded him. “Lied to cover your failure, lied because you are a failure, not only as a bird but as a conscious and self-aware child of the universe.”

  “Silence!” Ripper yelled.

  “Silence, because the truth reveals you as a coward and a fraud,” Levi accused. “A petty tyrant who trades upon fear and pain, a bully whom no one calls ‘friend’ and whom no decent Raptor true to his kind would willingly call ‘brother’.”

  “Shut up!” Ripper commanded, flapping his wings rapidly in consternation.

  The Parrots were now greatly agitated, fluttering upon their perches nervously, squawking and screeching. Even Ripper’s shouts were all but lost in the cacophony. Levi was quite pleased by the tumult, sure evidence that Ripper’s hold over the Parrots was fading, and he felt a grim satisfaction about the confusion evident among the Hawks. The Parrots were not the only ones slipping from the mad Osprey’s grasp.

  “You will die!” Ripper promised. “You and Benedict and Christobal and however many others it takes till they all learn it’s futile to challenge me.”

  “They know the truth about you, Ripper, see you for what you really are – a bully who is nothing without them and their fear,” Levi taunted. “Hear the laughter? They are laughing at you, you ridiculous and idiotic bird-brained fool.”

  Ripper screamed and leaped at Levi, murder in his eyes, talons seeking the defiant little dog’s blood.

  Levi did not back down. Instead, he charged, but not at Ripper. He evaded the Osprey’s extended claws, rushing toward the Parrots and barking furiously.

  The Parrots were already nervous and agitated, on the verge of a wild panic. By barking loudly and at close quarters, Levi triggered the flight response instinct in the Parrots. As if reacting with a single will the Parrots leaped from the perches. In less than an instant they were transformed into a swirling tornado, buffeting anything in their path. Even the maddened Osprey could not withstand the Parrots when they moved with a single purpose.

  Normally, their instinct would have impelled them to seek escape by the most obvious exit, the ragged opening in the roof. But that path was blocked by the Hawks, so instinct drove them from it.

  “Lead them out through the auditorium!” Levi told Benedict and Natividad. “Quickly! And stay by Christobal, make sure he remains safe.”

  Benedict leaped into the air and called to the others in a forceful and confident voice, to which the Parrots instantly harkened. As the swarm of Parrots responded to Benedict’s command, Natividad and Christobal followed after. Even the elders who had at first doubted Levi’s message and resented Benedict for abandoning them leaped up to pursue the young Parrot to an unknown future; among them an old memory stirred, of hearing such a strident and compelling voice years ago…just before a crate shattered and freed them.

  “Levi, what about you?” Christobal demanded.

  “Go! Go now!” Levi ordered as he harried the battered Osprey, leading him on a merry chase. “Natividad, get Christobal out of here.”

  The Parrots had almost all vanished into the passage from the aerie before Ripper realized what was happening.

  “After them!” he commanded his Hawks. “Stop them! Kill them! Kill them all! Exterminate the birds!”

  Responding to whatever shred of authority Ripper still held over them, the Hawks fled to the shadowy opening. They paused only long enough to glance at the maniacally glaring Osprey, then plunged into the blackness, forced to make their way along awkwardly and blindly.

  Ripper swooped down and caught Levi across the shoulder with a talon, opening a shallow but ugly wound.

  “It’s just you and me now, groundling,” Ripper sneered.

  “Wrong!” Levi laughed. “It’s just you!”

  And Levi bounded the length of the aerie above the theater as fast as his ridiculously long legs would carry him. Just before the opening he leaped into the air, sailing inside, sliding along. When he hit the bend in the tunnel, he scarpered as fast as he could, digging his paws in and ejecting himself into the red-lit projection room. He heard Ripper coming after him though the passage, but away from the open freedom of the air the Osprey was slow and ungainly.

  Levi bounded down the stairs with practiced ease, knocking aside the Hawks like so many bowling pins as they awkwardly navigated the dark stairs. Running the length of the aisle to the shuddering stage, he discovered more than half the Parrots were already through the opening and into the alley. He could heard Yoda and Sunny issuing orders.

  Above Levi, the silver screen rippled and shivered.

  “Stay off the stage!” Levi ordered. “Don’t bump against any of the supports!”

  Levi froze as he heard a murderous screech very close by. He turned and saw Ripper soaring down from the clotted darkness of the theater, bearing down on him with wings extended, talons thrusting out before him.

  Levi reared, hoping to come up between the talons and either sink his teeth into Ripper’s chest or force Ripper to veer off. But the Osprey was too close, the attack too swift. Bird and dog collided, talons sank into muscled flesh, and they both tumbled against the screen. The stage groaned and shuddered, started to collapse.

  “Let me go, you fool!” Levi shouted. “We’ll both die!”

  “No,” Ripper countered, raking his claws. “Just you!”

  Levi felt the pain, saw the screen buckling above him, starting its apparently slow-motion collapse, then laughed. After all he had been through, all the peril and dread, to finally be put to sleep here, slashed by the talons of an evil bird, crushed by something that had played such a great part in his self-awakening, caught between irony and a universe at its most ridiculous.

  And he laughed even harder.

  An expression of extreme confusion struck the Osprey. Terror was the only emotion he understood, for he fed upon it, sought to inspire it in his victims, but, now, in his final moments, the creature whom he needed to terrify more than any other refused to be afraid. The dog should have been screaming, but he was laughing.

  “Shut up! Stop laughing, curse you!”

  In that instant of frustration, Ripper relaxed his talons a bit and reared back, intending to ram his wicked beak through the mocking dog’s laughing face.

  Levi recognized an opportunity.

  Before Levi could take advantage of Ripper’s abrupt change of attack, however, something large and heavy slammed into Ripper, dislodging him and sending him tumbling. Ignoring the pain, Levi flipped onto his paws.

  “We’re even now, dog,” Vortex growled.

  “This way!” Levi yelled to his unexpected rescuer.

  Levi, followed by the Hawk, fled the stage just before the screen punched through it. On the other side of the destruction, Levi saw the Osprey glaring at them with flashing hatred, but the image was gone in an instant, and Levi fought his way to the exit.

  Benedict and Natividad were seeing the last of the Parrots to freedom.

  “Go!” Levi yelled to the two birds. “It’s all coming down!”

  The duo pushed through into the safety of the alley.

  “Levi!” Benedict called from outside. “Hurry!”

  “Follow me, Vortex” Levi called to the Hawk behind him. “This is your only chance.”

  Thinking nothing but thin thoughts, Levi dove through.

  Shards of stone and projecting lengths of jagged wood pressed against him, but Levi ignored the pain, refused to let any obstacle hinder him. With one last burst of energy and resolution, Levi burst into the cool night air, slamming against the asphalt, rolling. In an instant, he was bac
k on his paws.

  “I’m stuck!” Vortex cried. “I can’t get out.”

  Returning to the exit, Levi saw the big Hawk caught between destruction and salvation.

  “Help me!” Vortex pleaded.

  Before he could do anything, however, Levi was shouldered aside, Sunny pushing past him. Towering over the pinned Hawk, the Golden Retriever closed her great jaws, engulfing half the great bird and sinking her fangs into his flesh.

  Vortex screamed in terror.

  Sunny had powerful muscles attached to her jaws and could have easily bit through the bird, snapping his bones as she might those in a turkey dinner. But these were also the same jaws that had rescued Christopher the Wren when he fell from his nest, that had carried him secure from harm until he could be returned to the nest. Sunny bit down on the Hawk till she had a secure grip, then backed up slowly, not stopping until Vortex was safe.

  “Thank you,” Vortex gasped weakly.

  “Humph!” Sunny snorted, dropping him. “As if you deserve it.”

  At that moment, there was a sustained roar within the theater and a mighty crash. The outer wall shuddered, divesting its coating of urban dust and soot. Smoke geysered out the exit, and when it cleared they saw the opening was hopelessly choked with debris.

  “All the Parrots escaped,” Sunny reported, gesturing with her muzzle to the birds perched upon the surrounding roofs.

  “The Hawks too,” Yoda said. “They high-tailed it out of here.” He glared at Vortex and said: “You’re all alone now, pal. Wanna fight?”

  “I think perhaps I always have been alone,” Vortex said. “And, no, I don’t.”

  “What we ought to do to you is…” Yoda started to say.

  “Thanks for saving my life, Vortex,” Levi said.

  “Like I said,” Vortex told him. “Now we’re even.”

  “What about Ripper?” Yoda asked. “Is he still in there.”

  “He never came out.” Sunny looked toward the totally blocked exit and shook her head. “He must be dead. He could not possibly have survived the collapse.”

  “No, he’s still alive,” Levi told them. “When the screen and the last supports gave way, he was on the other side of it from us.”

  “Great.” Yoda muttered. “All he has to do, then, is make his way back up and fly out through the roof.”

  “I suppose he’ll come back to haunt us,” Sunny moaned.

  Levi heard a soft whispery sound above them and looked up. In the night sky, occulting the stars in their passage, was a maelstrom of huge black birds, wheeling about on glossy ebony wings as they funneled in through the opening in the theater’s roof.

  “No, I don’t think we will see Ripper,” Levi said. “Ever again.”

  Within the ruins of the theater, Ripper extricated himself from the debris. He looked about and saw he was alone. Obviously, there was no hope of escape the way taken by his enemies and former soldiers. He grew hot with fury as he thought of his betrayal by the Hawks, and swore he would drink their blood. If no escape that way, then, he could still get out through the roof.

  The sooner the better, he thought as he lifted into the gloom and soared toward the doorway. How he hated it in here, the closeness of the walls, the lack of any opening to the welcoming sky. He went out the door and forced himself to mount the stairs that were too narrow to fly. In the projection room, he paused in the bloody light, considering the tasks before him. First, of course, he would finish off the dog who had caused him so much trouble, then the dog’s friends. And exterminate all the Parrots, but should he kill the Parrots before or after hunting down and butchering each and every traitorous Hawk?

  So much killing, so little time.

  He hopped into the opening and navigated his way back toward the aerie. Even before he reached its terminus, however, he sensed there was something wrong. He paused near the end, heard soft breaths in the darkness. After a moment, he fluttered out and landed on the nearest support.

  The aerie was filled with enormous black Ravens, perched upon every roost available. They totally blocked the ragged-edged exit.

  “What do you want?” Ripper demanded.

  But the Ravens did not answer, did not flit or flutter. They merely regarded Ripper with eyes full of contempt and judgment.

  “Why are you doing this?” Ripper cried, his voice breaking. “You have no power over me!”

  The Ravens stared at Ripper with eyes of cold fire.

  Ripper felt an intrusion within his mind, a presence he had never before felt. He had always disdained the beliefs of others, belittled what he could not understand. He had mocked the Parrots and their prayers to Quetzalcoatl, and his own Hawks whenever one would mention Thunderbird or Garuda or any of the other spirits supposed to be manifestations of a mysterious universe that strove to bridge the gap between itself and creatures everywhere. Ripper believed in his lust for power and blood, and nothing else; he would not believe in what he could not see, feel or hear.

  But he could see the Ravens.

  And he could feel the presence of an Entity.

  Then he heard a Voice.

  “You were created, Ripper, to soar through the skies and to play your part in the natural order of things,” the Voice said. “You were not created to spread pain and sorrow.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “Are you…” Ripper paused, uncertain whether he dreaded more the asking of the question or its answering. “Are you Quetzalcoatl?”

  “Let me ask you, Ripper,” the Voice replied. “Do you think I am Quetzalcoatl?”

  “No,” Ripper answered after the briefest of moments. “I do not.”

  “Why is that?” the Voice asked.

  “Because Quetzalcoatl does not exist,” Ripper snarled. “This is just a mind trick of these filthy Ravens. I’ll find you, even if I have to rip out the guts of every Raven here to do it. And then I’ll start my campaign of revenge, drinking the blood of my enemies!”

  The Voice sighed. “I feared that would be your answer.”

  In a moment of utter terror, an instant that ended almost as it began, Ripper the Osprey learned why a gathering of Ravens was called an Unkindness.

  The Parrots atop the nearest building, a one-story carport for a house on the street to the west, suddenly fluttered upward in fright. A huge cat appeared over the edge of the roof, then bounded easily down to where the dogs stood. The birds on the ground backed away.

  “Is everyone all right?” Smokey asked in his soft and gravelly voice. “We came as soon as we saw those Hawks leave their watch of the house.”

  Groucho and Mitch appeared, causing more Parrots to flutter in consternation. The two cats joined Smokey in the alley.

  Levi saw the way the cats stared at Vortex. “It’s okay, guys, he won’t cause any trouble.”

  The cats smiled revealing sharp scissoring teeth.

  “Too bad,” Smokey remarked.

  Briefly, Levi recounted the final events leading to the downfall of Ripper and the Birds of Prey.

  “Now that all the malefactors have been punished…” He glanced at Vortex. “…or redeemed, all that remains is to get the Parrots home.”

  Christobal, Benedict and Natividad stepped forward.

  “Home?”

  “Did you find out anything that could help with that, Smokey?” Levi asked.

  “Every Thursday…”

  “Tomorrow’s Thursday,” Yoda yelped.

  “S.T.O.,” Sunny murmured softly.

  “Every Thursday,” Smokey continued, “a cargo plane departs Brown Field just after dawn for Villahermosa, Mexico. From what I was told by my contacts any number of enterprising Parrots could possibly stowaway and escape detection.”

  “Do you think you could do that?” Levi asked Christobal.

  “For even the slimmest hope of going home we will give it a try,” the old Parrot announced.

  “It should be easier than stowing away on a dog,” Bened
ict quipped.

  “I wish we could help you get there,” Levi said, “but we have our limitations.”

  “I’ll help them get to Brown Field – I know where it is,” Vortex said. “I’ll help them get on the cargo plane, cause a diversion or whatever is necessary.”

  Parrots and dogs and cats stared at the Hawk.

  “I cannot change what I’ve done in the past,” Vortex explained, “but I can choose to fly a new path.”

  “Yes,” Levi agreed. “You can.”

  Christobal and Benedict approached Levi and pressed their heads against his neck, nuzzling fondly. Levi grinned in embarrassment.

  “You may not believe you are the emissary of Quetzalcoatl,” the old Parrot said, “but we do not always know which forces shape our destinies. There is no way I can express the thanks we feel for what you and the others have done – you ended our enslavement, brought to us a means to end our exile in a land that has never truly been home, and you have given me back my grandson and future leader of our tribe.”

  Levi considered all the many things that could be said in this last moment with the Parrots, all the acknowledgements and accolades and boasts. He thought of all the speeches and testimonies that could be uttered. He thought of all those things, and more.

  He said: “You’re welcome; it’s late and we should be getting back home.”

  The wounded and weary operatives of the Three Dog Detective Agency and their feline allies turned and made their way down the alley, heading home to a well-deserved rest.

  Epilogue

  As dawn was breaking, Levi awoke and made his way outside without disturbing anyone else. In the backyard he sat on the walkway and let himself be warmed by the first rays of the sun.

  He felt so very old.

  As he sat in the warmth of the new sun, he saw some dark specks moving in the sky. As they neared, the colorful feathers of dozens of Parrots glinted in the golden sunlight. They flew in formation, and in the lead was a Hawk. They tipped their wings in salute, then wheeled about and headed southeast, toward Brown Field and a rendezvous with hope.

  A new hope, Levi thought as he watched them vanish into the distance. A new day.