by Sunny
Mentally cursing, she hopped onto his chest, surprised a little at how big she was. Grabbing each arm with a claw, she spread out her long-spanned wings and flapped hard. Taking off with deadweight wasn’t easy. She ended up dragging his body more than ten feet on the ground before she finally gained air. Flying with him was more strenuous than she had expected, and to think that eagle had flipped a car onto its side with four heavy people inside it. What did the guy eat? Wheaties? Well, if he could do that, she could do this, but it sure wasn’t pretty or easy. Her flight had absolutely no grace or finesse. It was jerky and erratic and rough, real rough. And all the while she worried about dropping Dante and seeing him falling . . . falling like before, that endless plummet, the brutal landing, the crack of bones and spray of blood, the pooling of it around his head in a growing splash of red.
She flew for what felt like forever, with the heavy, dragging weight of Dante clutched in her talons, and still she flew on, until her wings ached so badly she was sure they’d crack and fall off—was surprised they hadn’t done so already.
During all this time, he didn’t make a single sound—not one grunt or moan of pain during the jerky flight. Just the harsh noise of his breathing.
Following the sound of water, Mona Lisa eventually came to a river and landed, laying him as gently as she could on the bank, which was not gentle at all; it was as rough and clumsy as her first landing, maybe even worse. It took two tries before her tightly clenched talons—could talons cramp?—finally got the message and released him. A slight lift and hop away from him and she staggered, let herself fall over, wings folded.
Human, she thought, and pictured it in her mind: her normal self.
A faint, weak shimmer of energy, a swirling and morphing of reality, and she found herself gazing at her bare arm, followed it down to see the skin of her chest, stomach, and legs. “I’m naked,” she slurred, pushing up onto her elbow.
“Tore your clothes . . . during transformation,” Dante said with painful effort.
He was conscious.
Oddly, ridiculously shy, she crept over to where he lay. “You okay?” she asked, wishing for longer hair—something, anything to cover herself with.
“Could be better,” he rasped. “You can use my shirt . . . quickly. Don’t have much time.”
“You think they’re following us?”
“Yes . . . hunting me.”
“You?” Carefully she unbuttoned his shirt and eased it down his left arm. “I’m going to have to lift you a little.”
“Do it.”
The entire left side of his face was grotesquely swollen and matted with blood. She couldn’t tell if his temple and the back of his skull were fractured. His cheekbone was definitely broken, as were both his legs, she noted as she slipped the shirt off his other arm. Blood soaked the left collar and almost the entire back, but it was still a relief to slip it on over herself and button it up. She had lost everything, not just her money, credit card, and passport, which had been in her pocket, but her socks and shoes as well. All but the necklace she still wore around her neck. Only that hadn’t slipped or torn off when she had transformed into a bird . . . a vulture, of all things!
“Build a raft,” he told her. “We’ll float down the river.”
TWELVE
“ BUILD A RAFT,” I muttered as I pushed over my fifth tree and ripped off the branches. I felt better now with a little rest. Enough to feel resentment building up at the situation—lost in the mountainous wilds of Mexico with a demented pack of native Monère savages still hunting us . . . hunting him.
“Why the hell are you so sure they’re still hunting us?” I asked as I dragged the trunk over to where he lay. I’d never realized how pampered and tender my feet were until now, walking around barefoot in a jungle.
“What he called me. Smãileden.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s me—what I turn into.”
“Which is?”
“A saber-toothed tiger.”
I stopped what I was doing. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
Brushing off my hands, I crouched down beside him. “You know how I said that you should smile more?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I changed my mind. It’s starting to irritate me.”
His smile deepened enough to form crinkle lines around his eyes. “You’re cute when you’re irritated.” During the half hour of his rest and my labor, his voice and breathing had evened out. Broken ribs healed perhaps.
I rolled my eyes. “And you’re obviously feeling a little better—as much as someone with a cracked face and broken legs can feel better. Oh, and I forgot, you’ve been shot twice. In all the new trauma, I almost forgot that minor detail.” I shook my head at him, at the situation. “Really? A saber-toothed tiger?”
“Yes, it’s a rare form, and why you’re in this mess. Some tourists saw me and it was reported in the news. My father said that’s why you came here looking for me.”
“Why was I looking for you?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He sounded honestly puzzled.
“I mean, why were we apart? You said we were lovers.”
His gaze fell away. “Things happened. I left.”
I looked thoughtfully down at him. “You said the first time, I shared light with you. Light that you needed. Was it just that once?”
“No, two more times.”
“Were those two other times a therapeutic necessity?”
He shook his head
“Did we break up?”
“Yes.” The affirmation clearly hurt him.
“So why was I looking for you?”
His gaze lifted back up, his odd pale eyes somehow managing to look both tender and tormented. “There are things I have to tell you. But later, not now. They’re hunting us.”
I cast my senses out. “I don’t feel or hear anything.”
“Neither do I, but I know they’re coming.”
“You’ve encountered them before?”
“Yes, a long time ago.” He turned his eyes to the tree trunks I had laid out on the ground. “Gather some vine and use it as rope.”
His sense of urgency communicated itself to me, and I had the trunks crudely rafted and knotted together a few minutes later.
“Let’s see if this thing works,” I muttered. Dragging it into the river, I hopped onto the makeshift structure. It wasn’t the most stable thing, but it floated. Pulling it onto the bank, I returned to Dante.
“Bring some tree branches,” he instructed.
“Why?”
“For cover when the sun comes out. One of the ways to kill us, remember? Me, at least. You, it doesn’t seem to bother.”
I went back and gathered an armload of the most heavily leafed branches. “Enough?”
He nodded and I piled it onto the raft, then went to fetch him. “This is going to hurt,” I warned.
His mouth remained a tight, thin line as I carried him over to the raft and set him gently down.
“Push me into the water. Then I want you to go.”
“Go where?” I asked.
“Shift into a vulture and fly back to where we came from, back to Cancun.”
“No. I refuse to leave you.”
“Fly back and find the others, and return with them for me.”
“That’s a ridiculous idea.”
“No, it’s not. It’s the quickest and most efficient rescue.”
“I won’t leave you stranded on a raft, floating in the water, completely helpless.” My mouth firmed. “You’ll snag on something, get stranded, or capsize.”
“That won’t kill me,” he said with exasperation.
“Oh yeah?” My voice rose. “Well, what about being eaten by a damn crocodile?”
“It’s me they want, not you.”
“So I should just leave you?” My eyebrows lifted in disbelief.
“For a little while, until you get help.”
“I’m n
ot that stupid,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re trying to protect me. You believe that Roberto and his thugs are less dangerous to me than these other men.”
“These hunters will kill you. It’s what they do.” His silver-blue eyes flashed with disquieting emotion. “Roberto, if he manages to get his hands on you, wants you alive at least.”
“No.”
“Chances are you’ll be able to find my father and the others without tangling with Roberto again.”
“Your father?”
“Yes, the big guy with the beard who scooped the others onto his shoulders. Mona Lisa—”
“Shut up, Dante,” I said, not unkindly. Setting the raft in the water, I pushed off and hopped on board.
We floated down the river without speaking. For the most part, the raft drifted without guidance. It was actually soothing, the gentle bobbing of the water, enough that Dante gradually fell asleep.
I looked down at the mess of him. Blood matted his hair and beard, making his appearance gruesome even though the swelling had gone down significantly on the side of his face. My wild man, I thought. So dangerous before. So broken and helpless now.
When the sun came up, I twisted the branches into a makeshift construct that sheltered him from the brightening light. “What about you?” he murmured, awakened by my movements, watching me quietly.
“I’m fine,” I said, shrugging. “I could do with a tan.”
He shifted himself, grunting. “Good, I seem to have the use of my arms back.”
“You didn’t before?”
“No, I think I broke my back. That part, at least, seems to have healed.”
It was amazing how he seemed to take it all for granted, healing paralysis in a handful of hours. His body had to have expended a great deal of energy to accomplish such healing in so short a time. Remembering how ravenous I’d been after waking up from my own accident, I asked, “You hungry?”
He nodded.
I slipped into the water and scissors-kicking, guided our raft closer to shore.
“What are you doing?” he asked, propping himself up on one arm.
“I’m bringing us to shore. Maybe I can find some berries.”
“No need. Come back up.”
“No need as in, I’m not hungry. Or no need as in, I can get food another way.”
His eyes crinkled down at me. “The latter.”
“Okay.” I heaved myself lightly back on board, dipping the raft down.
“Help me closer to the side,” he said.
I did so and watched Dante dip a finger down into the water. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Fishing.”
He continued staring intently at the water. A swirl of energy slapped my senses, and for a moment I thought his eyes glowed silver. I didn’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t the leaping fish that suddenly came out of the water onto the raft.
“Catch it, quick,” he said as I scrambled after the flopping fish. It was a good arm-length size.
Grabbing it up by the tail, I clubbed the fish against the rough wood of our raft and it stopped moving. “Is it stunned or dead?” I asked.
“Probably just stunned. Here, let me.” Dragging himself over to me, he extended his hand. I watched his nails extend into two-inch-long claws. With a quick, neat slice, he cut off the fish’s head.
“Neat trick,” I observed. “Wish I could do that. It would have been much easier to fish the bullet out of you that way.”
“You probably will be able to in time.” With neat, efficient strokes he sliced off the skin and tail, filleting the white flesh into one-inch strips. “Here, try a piece.”
“No, thanks.”
“Think of it as sushi,” he said, eyes crinkling, “which it essentially is.”
“I never ate sushi.”
“Your first time then.”
“No. I don’t think so.”
The smile disappeared. “You need to eat and replenish your energy. Just a small piece,” he urged.
He refused to eat until after I had done so—the only thing that made me swallow a slice of the slippery, raw fish. “It doesn’t taste that bad,” I said with surprise. A belated thought popped into my mind. “What about worms or parasites?”
“It didn’t have any,” he assured me. “Even if it did, your body would easily rid itself of them.”
“How do you know? I’m part human, remember?”
“Have you ever been sick?”
I squinted in thought. “No, never. No colds or ear infections as a child. I’ve never been sick or ill before at all, come to think of it.” Pushing up my left sleeve, I glanced at the clear skin of my arm. The yellow bruising had disappeared. “This is the worst I’ve ever been injured. I can’t believe it’s healed so quickly, even though it took longer than my head.”
“Our body heals our worst injuries first.”
“Is that why your legs are still busted up?”
Dante nodded. “Yes. Back, ribs, and head first—the cheekbone was a simple, clean break and easy to fix. Legs next—a lot of bones were shattered. At least I can wriggle my toes now.”
He made me eat one more slice, and then he finished off the rest of the fish himself. He tossed the skin and bones into the river, and I splashed some water over the side to clean away the blood-tinged residue.
“How did you make the fish jump up like that?” I asked.
“I lured it close with my finger and then compelled it to jump out of the water. A trick I learned over the years.”
“Hmm. Never thought to apply that trick to a fish before.”
We had another aquatic meal for lunch, and a third one for supper. By that time, I was thoroughly sick of raw fish. “I think I’ve had enough sushi to last me a lifetime,” I said. “Berries tomorrow.”
“We’ll see,” he murmured, drowsing under the shaded canopy of the woven branches. It seemed adequate cover for him. I was glad when the sun finally set and the cooler darkness of night set in.
His legs, by that time, had healed enough for him to stand up and stretch.
“The wounds on your back”—from his knife and my fingers—“still haven’t healed.”
“They’ll go last—the least serious. Still finishing up the legs,” he said, glancing down the river. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“Listen.”
I did. After a moment’s concentration, I heard what he had: the sound of water was louder ahead of us. It grew louder still as we journeyed forward, until, finally, we saw with our eyes what we had first heard with our ears. Ahead of us, the river abruptly ended, plummeting down into a waterfall. From the sound of it, it was a long drop.
“I guess we go to shore,” Dante said, gazing out over the distance. I felt him cast his senses outward, and in response, loosened my own senses as well.
“No sign of our pursuers,” I murmured. “I think they stopped following us a long time ago.” If they had even bothered to.
Dante didn’t say anything as I slipped into the water and guided the raft with strong kicks toward shore.
“Just let me do it,” I said in protest when he eased himself into the water. “You’re still healing up.”
He ignored me. “Don’t pull the raft ashore. Let it float down and go over the drop. We’ll follow along the bank.”
“I don’t think it’ll survive intact. It sounds like a pretty big drop, and I spent a lot of time and effort making this raft,” I said, frowning. “Maybe I can carry it down.”
“No, I’d rather you had your hands free. I’ll help you gather up the logs again if they separate.”
It turned out he didn’t need to. The moment we were onshore, a net came flying over us. Silver, I realized, at Dante’s sharp hiss of pain, but it had no effect on me—no pain, no lessening of strength. I tore it apart easily and flung it off us.
Familiar undulating war cries shrilled the air, two close by that we somehow hadn’t sensed. The eerie chant was taken
up more distantly by the rest of our pursuers.
Before we could spring away, another silvery net came down over us, entangling our limbs. I started to rip that away also and felt a stinging prick on my arm.
I yanked a dart out. Silver. But with something else as well. Drugged or poisoned, I had a moment to realize as my limbs grew unbearably heavy. Then darkness muffled me and swept me under.
THIRTEEN
WHEN I CAME to, it was not with a simple and easy drift-to-wake consciousness. No, it was much cruder than that. Pain first, a rough shaking of shoulder, then even rougher slaps across my face. Two voices yelling, angry. One of them was familiar—someone I knew, if only I could wake up. Then a cold, wet splash of water—a bowlful dumped across my face, I saw as I blinked the heavy lids of my eyes open. A dark, frightening face, painted black and brown, with a red eye drawn crudely on the forehead, looked down on me.
Ah, yes. It was all coming back to me: silver nets, a drugging dart, capture by these heathenish Monère. My impression of the race so far wasn’t that great. First a drug lord. Then what I had thought were bandits. Now this half-naked primitive bunch.
I turned my head and saw a familiar face belonging to the familiar voice. Dante. My poor comrade-in-arms. Me, I just hit my head and spilled out some memories, and, oh yeah, turned into a vulture. He was, however, by far getting the worst of things. Atop of his old injuries, now his right eye was swollen shut, with new bruises adorning his chest and arms in garish disarray. Couldn’t tell if his poor legs had been rebroken or not because he was lashed to a pole, arms and legs tied. His single unswollen eye glittered like a hard, pale diamond.
For all that he was bound, he looked more scary than scared.
At a woman’s command, I was pulled to my feet and secured to a similar pole, my wrists bound together with silver ties similar to the material used in the nets that had captured us. My arms were lifted up, tied, and my legs bound in likewise manner below. I was helpless to stop them—my limbs felt leaden and my wits just as heavy and slow. What the hell had they drugged me with?
A woman sauntered into view. The woman who had given the command, no doubt. She had black lustrous hair. True black, not the shade mine had been before, a brown so dark that some had mistakenly called it black before a talented stylist had skillfully lightened the color.
