Phoenix Alight

by Isadora Montrose

  They had explored underground no deeper than the hot springs. But even mortals knew that beneath the Balderas magma pulses rose. Seismic activity was neither rare nor infrequent. If she took the ill-named, ill-famed Gateway to Hell, from the hot spring cave, she would find the white-hot magma that would transform and heal Cameron.

  During the day, the hundreds of hot springs open to the desert sky were every shade of green and blue. Limpid turquoise pools tempted humans and wildlife. Some were mild enough to swim in. Some were innocent enough – bathwater hot and faintly sulfuric – until with sudden violence plumes of steam spurted fifty feet high. Parboiling any creature luckless enough to be frolicking in its depths or flying overhead.

  At this moment, she was flying over a spring that no one – animal or human – would drink from or swim in. Huge sticky, iridescent bubbles covered the surface, rose, burst and were replaced by others. The gases that were released poisoned the air and land. Surrounding the bubbling pool, were large rings of blue and yellow rock covered in mineral deposits from thousands of years of this caustic bubbling. Not even the hardiest lichens or bacteria had staked out a toehold.

  Her phoenix vision could discern the energy fields beneath the springs and desert landscape. The danger that lurked underneath the bubbles and rocky terrain. And yet the deadly water traps were beyond beautiful. As was the desert that surrounded them. You just had to appreciate the austere charms of lava outcrops and plants surviving in a jumble of gray rock and gritty dust.

  Even though sage bushes had grown right up to its mouth, she easily located the entrance she and her family had always used. Plants could not conceal the paranormal energy seeping out of the tunnel. At once, the vegetation yielded to her beak.

  The opening was narrow and the passage beyond it only four feet high, and two feet wide. It was necessary to fold her wings and waddle along the rocky floor, head down, back scraping the rocky roof.

  She could have changed to human, but the hazards of this underground passage should not be met except in phoenix form. Her plumage gave her protection from the paranormal radiation and the heat. As kids they had come in lesser phoenix, but if she wished to take lesser phoenix now, she would have to first pass through human. That would use a vast amount of energy she might need later.

  She had deliberately chosen to travel in greater phoenix. Both because with a twenty-two-foot wingspan, distance was nothing, and she was in a hurry. But also because shifting from one morph to another used up a ton of energy. She was strong. But energy was energy. She would just have to make this arduous hike in greater.

  There was, of course, no true light underground. But she carried her own illumination with her in her feathers. Besides, these rocks had so recently been alive, they still possessed a faint paranormal luster. It was enough for her phoenix eyes to see by.

  The rocks however were agony to walk on. Her talons were not designed for prolonged tramping. And these rocks were jagged and unweathered. No wonder her parents had had them make the journey in lesser so they could fly. Unfortunately, she knew of no other route to the majestic cave she sought.

  In places the passage grew even narrower. She had to crouch even lower and wriggle past. And then she went around a bend and hit a wall. Literally. A rock fall had completely blocked the passage. She could feel the spring beyond the blockage. But she could not pass.

  Taking lesser phoenix was still unwise. If she returned to human, she would be vulnerable to the paranormal radiation she could feel seeping through the rockfall. And if after taking lesser phoenix, she needed the greater strength of the larger morph, she would have to once again pass through a human stage. Doubling the danger.

  Richard Milhous Nixon. What should she do? Move tons of rock with just her beak? Or go around? Was there any way to bypass this obstruction? She had passed four other holes that she had sensed led underground. But because she was sticking to the route her family had always used, she had ignored them. Could one of them lead her to the underground pool?

  Taking a detour rather than to trying to shift this much rock would be far safer. She didn’t need her engineering degree to recognize that just by jiggling the wrong rock she might trigger another, more violent rockfall. She could wind up buried alive. No point in regenerating if when you were through you were still trapped.

  She had to be sensible. She was alone and no one knew where she was. There would be no rescue if she made a mistake. She beat back her panic, noticing absently that she was singing what Mom had always called her worrying song. Good. That tune helped her think calmly. She was in danger only if she acted recklessly.

  Returning to Texas empty-beaked was not an option. Not when Cam woke daily to his living nightmare. She would have to risk the unknown passages. Go slowly in those uncharted depths. The first passage petered out rapidly, disappearing into a slot in the ground through which she could only pass as fire. But it was pointless to become fire if there was nothing to sustain a flame.

  She had to conserve her energy. Here in these barren tunnels, the rocks were dead. There was no water. She had no means to restore her strength. That meant putting a brake on the thrill that the heightened danger gave her. This was no time to give in to her impulsive nature.

  The tunnel was too narrow for her to be able to turn around. She backtracked arduously to the opening. Now that she was moving backward, the jagged edges of the rocks ripped painfully into her feathers. Each feather was attached to her skin and surrounded by many nerves and muscles. She could adjust each feather when she was flying or preening. Catching them on rocks hurt. But she could endure this for Cameron.

  * * *

  Cameron~

  He sat up. His heart was pounding. Sweat ran down his face and pooled on his back. He felt claustrophobic. And hot. He had to have been dreaming, although thankfully the dreadful dream had vanished.

  What he recalled was that at dinner he had grabbed Frankie and mauled her. She had blown his mind and his dick. He had exploded into the fiercest orgasm he had ever had. And then nothing.

  The room was almost completely dark. But he could see a narrow frame of light around the blind. It was enough to show him that he was alone. Well, what the fuck had he expected?

  He had had all the fun and immediately passed out. Women didn’t like that kind of behavior. No wonder Frankie had gone home and left him to sleep alone. Shift. Shift. Shift.

  He needed a leak and a drink. Maybe a cold shower. Something to dissipate this sense of impending doom. Here in Texas, he was safe. Frankie was safe. His anxiety was unnecessary and inappropriate. There was no danger.

  Even after a trip to the bathroom and a shower, his self-talk hadn’t helped him regulate his anxiety about Frankie. He found his pillbox on the bedside table. Took the next batch with the water Warrior Woman had provided.

  She couldn’t have been that pissed off if she had left his meds and water handy. Could she? He knew that he had deliberately picked that fight with her. Provoking the hot make-up sex that followed.

  It had worked. Except for the part where he failed to satisfy his woman. Who wasn’t his woman. Why did he keep forgetting that? Now that she had stopped singing to him, his head was aching again, and once again it was hard to think. But he remembered that fight.

  His anger hadn’t been faked. He didn’t want Frankie D’Angelo to feel sorry for him. To think of him as an invalid. He wanted her to see him as a man. Her man. Dammit, she was his mate. Except that she wasn’t. Not anymore. Still didn’t make her playing with his mind right.

  The fact that the singing helped, didn’t give her the right to hypnotize him. At least not without first asking him. That was Frankie’s trouble. She charged ahead full steam without thinking things through. It made her a fearless pilot. But it also made her a loose cannon.

  Look at how she had interfered between Grant and Gen. If he hadn’t had his brainstorm and fixed it so Tasha, Bev and Diana set the record straight, there might well have been no wedding. Not that Frankie had
thanked him. Of course, it was entirely possible she didn’t know about his intervention. Just what had she been thinking when she dropped her bombshell on her best friend?

  Look what he had avoided. If he had married her, he would have had a lifetime of fence mending in front of him. But the prospect of a peaceful life without his little shift-disturber seemed bleak. He loved her. He had for years. Last summer, the instant he had set eyes on her, he had resolved to woo and win her back. Of course that was before. Now everything had changed.

  He couldn’t offer her a bear bond. Hell, he had zip squat to offer her. No bear. No job. Nothing but his broken body and his trust fund. As if the thought of living on his inheritance wasn’t enough to make him hurl. Let alone proud, independent Frankie. She too had family money. But she lived on her Air Force pay, as he did. Had.

  He drifted back to sleep, trying to think of a way around his dilemma.

  * * *

  Frankie~

  She got lucky on her third attempt. This passage sloped down and turned and twisted, and was harder going than either of the others. The pebbles on the floor were razor sharp shards of obsidian. But each time she shuffled forward on her torn talons, the remembered scent of the hot spring grew stronger. She was limping when she pressed between two pillars of basalt and emerged into the steamy chamber she sought.

  The water seethed with living blues and greens and a senses-dazzling array of paranormal colors. It looked as pure and inviting as it had when she had played there with her twin. She took stock of herself. Her plumage was disordered and frayed. She had loose feathers. Her feet were bleeding.

  A restorative swim to recharge, followed by a grooming session was in order. Preening wasn’t about looking better. Flight feathers that had come unzipped didn’t work in the air. Any bird that attempted to fly with dirty plumage would literally fall out of the sky. Phoenixes included. Physics was physics.

  The hot pool was almost completely circular. It had been formed when the volcano erupted. The rock was layer upon layer of compacted ash and reasonably smooth. The water was crystal clear and steaming hot. Frankie plunged into the turquoise depths and found it as exhilarating as it had been to her adolescent senses.

  It eased the aching muscles in her feet and legs, washed the grit out of her eyes and cleansed her feathers. Only the thought of Cameron waking to discover her gone, made her scramble out onto the rocky floor of the cavern. She had no time to cavort.

  So deep beneath the earth, it was blisteringly hot. A scorching wind blew through the cave. But she was a phoenix and she reveled in the heat. She spread her wings and stretched them out as far as they would go, allowing the wind to dry her feathers. Then she ran each barb of each feather through her beak to realign the barbules and rezip them tightly so she could fly when she next needed to.

  At last she felt smooth and ready to tackle the rest of her journey. She was going to go really deep. Down to where the magma welled up from the center of the earth. According to her father, the way down was broad enough for flight. But she knew she would be battered by the superheated headwind rising from the magma flow.

  No matter. She would do more than fly through plasma for Cam. And she had enjoyed parts of this adventure. The flight to New Mexico had been sheer joy. The hot spring had brought back good memories and perked her up after her strenuous excursion. Soon she would have a piece of lava to transform her bear. Her luck was holding.

  She would not have to backtrack in order to fly home. Once she found the magma flow, she would be able to leave through the chimney directly above it. And on this outward journey, she would have the gale behind her. She could not be sure how long she had already been underground. Longer than she had intended, for certain. But she thought she would be back in Texas before noon.

  Her feet and legs protested at the walk to the Gateway to Hell. She turned to look behind her and was unsurprised that she was leaving bloodstains behind. The obsidian she had shuffled over was scalpel sharp. But as soon as she took to the air, her feet would heal.

  The Gateway was phoenix high – if she flattened her crest. Beyond the opening the cavern soared. Dense steam and smoke obscured the ceiling, so she could not be sure how high it was. That same smog prevented her from seeing more than a few yards in front of her. Van Buren. She was going to have to propel herself entirely on wingbeats.

  With such limited visibility, gliding was out of the question. She thought she was making progress until the heat of a hundred blast furnaces caught her right in the face and slammed her straight backwards into solid rock.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Frankie~

  The roasting hot gale lifted her like a dry leaf and hurled her into the rock with such force that her tail feathers snapped and she spun to the right. Her right wing collided with the rock wall. The bones of that wing shattered like dry sticks. Shift and Van Buren. Stunned, she crouched on the floor while the hurricane raged over her head.

  A cloud of acidic gas had come from the center of the earth propelled by the ferocious gale. It stank of danger. Even if she had not been injured, she could never have flown into this storm. The searing mist settled into her plumage, burning through to the skin. Her lungs shriveled in the vitriolic fog she was inhaling.

  Coughing and choking, she hobbled back along the passage with the tailwind alternately lifting and dropping her like paper caught in a storm. It was too dangerous to fly, even had she been able. Her broken wing dragged on the ground making each step torture. If she had been above ground, she would have taken fire and regenerated. But who knew what other disasters might await her? She had to keep something in reserve.

  Time stretched out into an eternity as sulfuric acid ate through her feathers. But eventually her agonizing retreat ended in the hot spring cave. Here the air was clean and pure. A cool, dry draft flowed through the enormous cavern bringing the scent of the desert air to mingle with the hot currents from below. The result was steamy, healing dampness. The cool draft informed her it was still dark. If the sun had risen, that air would be daytime hot.

  Every muscle ached to get into the hot spring and neutralize the acid soaking her plumage. When she dove in, she must have lost consciousness, because the next thing she was aware of she was cupping her hands and drinking as if she were dying of thirst. Van Buren. Andrew Johnson. Taft. She hadn’t lost control of her talent since she was thirteen.

  She moved cautiously. Rotated her right arm. Felt her tailbone. Returning to her human form had apparently mended her. Probably some property of the hot spring. At least her right arm and shoulder seemed strong. She was a little bruised, and her shoulder ached as badly as her tailbone, but she could raise her arm over her head and perform the crawl. And drink. How was she able to tolerate the scalding heat in human form?

  The tightness in her chest had eased. The pain deep in her bones where birds had lung tissue had also stopped. Every breath now made her feel better. Every gulp of water soothed and healed her raw throat. The water was intoxicating. She felt ready to fly. Ready to hunt down the flaming rock. As if they were on fire, the walls of the cavern shimmered before her astonished human eyes. How was that possible?

  Richard Milhous Nixon. She was drunk and incapable.

  It was perilous for her to be in human form this far underground. The paranormal radiation was too intense. There were other hazards too, if Dad and Granddad were to be believed. But her priority had to be leaving the water. If she didn’t get her sorry drunken ass out of the hot spring, she would drown.

  Her human legs did not reach the bottom. The rim was far above her outstretched arms. The sides of the basin did not slope at an angle that permitted her to crawl out. In order to leave it she had to shift.

  Greater or lesser phoenix? She needed a clear head to choose, but the water she could not stop drinking clouded her judgment.

  * * *

  Cameron~

  He threw off his suffocating blanket and sat up coughing and spluttering. Frankie was in danger. He h
ad to go to her. He grabbed the bedside clock, 0300 hours. Where the hell was she? What was she doing? She needed him.

  He was on his feet before he could think. He had forgotten that damned knee. It buckled. He stumbled and nearly fell. Had to catch himself on the bedroom door.

  His eyes burned and watered. His skin felt as if it might peel off. Another spasm of coughing doubled him over. He peeled off his T-shirt but that didn’t help. He staggered into the bathroom and stood under the shower until the feeling of being eaten alive by fire ants passed.

  His anxiety remained. Frankie was in danger. Drowning. He had to get dressed and find her. He was pulling on his pants when common sense asserted itself. What was he doing? Going off half-cocked was Frankie’s way. Not his. He was a plodding, prosaic bear to her flighty, flashy, volatile phoenix.

  He sat on the edge of the bed to assess the situation. Deliberately controlled his breathing. The coughing had stopped. His lungs felt fine. There was no reason to be hyperventilating. He had had years of training in regulating every aspect of his nervous system. In the field, blind panic killed. He could do this.

  Think, Reynolds, think. If he was going to help Frankie, he had to overcome this frantic sense of dread. Common sense told him that his mate was safely asleep in her parents’ house. So where had this impression of doom come from? As his heart slowed and his breathing calmed, his spirits rose. The pressure to act dissipated.

  Shift. It was all in his head. Another hallucination. Or a nightmare. What danger could have her sprayed with acid one moment and then threatened with drowning in a hot tub next? Frankie was okay. And if she wasn’t, she hardly needed the aid of a cripple. It was a disheartening realization.

  As the physical therapist had shown him, he straightened his left leg, pressed down on his thigh, forcing the new joint to fully extend the calf. Pointed his toes. Flexed them. Shift. It hurt like hell. No wonder he had been avoiding these exercises. Each repetition was more painful than the one before.