Chasing Thunderbird

by J. Leigh Bailey

  I twisted away from the caress. “Don’t touch me. I can’t believe you’d do something that horrible.”

  “I don’t enjoy it, but our secret is so important that sometimes we have to take drastic measures.”

  “But—”

  “Simon, lives depend on our secrecy.”

  A terrifying thought occurred to me, and I fell back and crab-walked away from Ford. I had to put some distance between us. I knew their secret now. Ford would have to take his drastic measures. Against me?

  I scrambled to my feet. I don’t know what expression was on my face, but Ford stayed back, hands out in a placating gesture. Probably needed to dupe me into believing I was safe from him. And while part of me wanted to believe that Ford—the man I’d spent the night with, the man who’d come to my rescue—wouldn’t hurt me, I couldn’t lose sight of the fact that his family had spent years discrediting my family. Or that he somehow had the ability to shock people’s brains, which was too disturbing to even think about at the moment.

  “I’m leaving. Stay away from me.”

  “Simon.”

  “I can’t even look at you right now.”

  He stepped toward me. “We need to—”

  My breaths were coming in short little bursts. Panic and hurt and betrayal swirled within me, a murky soup of emotion I couldn’t quite get a handle on. I flung up a staying hand. “I’m going home. I can’t stand here and watch you do… whatever… to these guys.”

  “Damn it, Simon. We’re ten miles out of town, and it’s below freezing. I’ll take you home.”

  “No.” I kept up my backpedaling. I wasn’t even worried about tripping. I just needed to get as far away from Ford and this craziness as possible. I needed time to wrap my head around things.

  “Ford, someone is stirring. You’ve got to do it now.” Nicky nudged one of the bodies—maybe Peter?—with the toe of his boot.

  Ford squeezed his eyes shut, and a battle waged on his face. To follow me or to do his brain-scrambling business.

  “Ford, come on, man.”

  I kept inching backward. I wasn’t comfortable turning my back on them just yet, but I didn’t want to be any closer to the jerks than I had to be. These guys—or at least their kin—were responsible for every slur and joke told at my family’s expense. And Ford. Shit, Ford. I didn’t know what to do about him. Every time I looked at him, I remembered breaking down in front of him, sharing my grandfather’s story. And he’d accepted it. Comforted me with his lies of omission. If he’d cared at all, he would have told me. Maybe explained it. Something.

  “Derrick will take you into town. He can come back for Nicky and me.”

  Since my feet were already numb in the canvas high-tops I wore, and I was pretty sure frostbite would take all my toes over the course of the ten-mile walk, I let practicality win. “Fine. As long as I don’t have to see you.”

  I trudged to Ford’s truck, ducking my head against the wind that had picked up. Snow swirled and eddied around my feet, and thunder boomed in the distance. I wanted so badly to turn around and watch. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch so I could observe the unfamiliar, or if fear drove me to keep an eye on the possible threat. I hoped that the fact that he let me walk away without doing something to my brain meant he didn’t intend to fry me. That had to mean I was going to survive this.

  Derrick sprinted ahead and pulled open the passenger door for me. He even gave a shallow bow. I don’t know what I did to deserve the mocking gesture, or if he was always so irreverent. “Are you the hacker?”

  The left side of his mouth quirked up. “Yep. Nicky’s the creative one. He’s an engineer. Sometimes he likes to blow things up, but mostly he’s the logistics guy whenever we’re sent out. Which is why I’m designated driver, and he’s staying here.”

  I jumped into the seat. None of this was any of my business. Of course, that had never stopped me from getting answers before, but it was about time I made MYOB my new motto.

  My resolve to ignore Ford completely lasted a whole thirty seconds before my gaze sought him out. He’d turned away from Derrick and me and was standing above the crazy cultists. Clouds or fog or smoke—it was hard to tell in the dark—boiled and billowed at his feet. As Derrick walked around to the driver’s seat, and then while he turned the ignition, Ford bent his head back. An aura of platinum infused with pulses of pale blue built up around him.

  Derrick put the small pickup into gear and sped off toward town. I watched in the rearview mirror as Ford—who again seemed to be wearing a suit made of lightning—squatted next to a body.

  Stomach lurching, I dragged my eyes away.

  Derrick didn’t ask for my address or directions. At first I assumed he’d ask once we reached the city limits, since there were only so many ways to get to Cody. But when we hit the first stoplight and he turned left, immediately followed by another left—as though following GPS directions to my house—I realized he knew where he was going.

  “Were you one of the people Ford had watching me?”

  He glanced at me. “Nah. I was strictly information gathering.”

  “About me?”

  “About you, your family, the current situation.”

  Nausea roiled within me again. “Why?”

  “Ford doesn’t get involved with humans. Ever. He barely tolerates other shifters. So when he asked for help figuring out who was out to get you, we knew it was serious. Then to find out you’re a Coleman on top of it? You bet your ass we were all over it.”

  I grunted. It wasn’t like I had anything to hide, so they could dig all they wanted. My life—hell, my whole family—was an open book, infamy and delusions and everything.

  “I don’t get you.”

  It was my turn to look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Ford broke generations of rules and protocols for you. He’s put himself, his family, hell, his entire species, at risk. All to save you.”

  I clutched at the cross-body strap of the seat belt. “Huh?” It wasn’t the most articulate response I’d ever given, but after a night like tonight, I deserved to be a little dumbstruck. “To save me?”

  “He shifted in front of you. A human. He let you discover what he is. What we are.” He said the last bit with a growl that reminded me that, chatty and affable as he seemed, he was a relative of Ford’s, which meant he was also a thunderbird. I had no doubt that Ford’s whole extended family was made up of dominant predators. “Revealing ourselves to a human is a violation the rest of the Hunt cannot ignore. Fuck, the future Primary of our Hunt, Ford, is responsible for punishing those who break our laws. Do you have any idea what a cluster this will become?”

  “Hunt? Primary?” Given the context, I thought I knew what this meant, but I was never going to take anything for granted again, especially not supernatural creatures who could control the weather.

  Derrick rolled his eyes. “The Primary is the leader of the Hunt. The Hunt is to thunderbirds what packs are to wolves. I shouldn’t be telling you this. It’s not the kind of information we need getting out. Ford’s father, the current Primary, is going to be livid. Ford should never have shown himself to you. He clearly lost his mind. He would only have needed to wait a couple of minutes. Nicky and I were right behind him. When he ran after you, we figured he’d appreciate a little privacy. Ford’s never been one to flaunt his relationships in public.” Derrick shook his head. “I still think that if it weren’t for the tranquilizer in his system, Ford would never have made such a boneheaded decision.”

  “Which was the boneheaded part?” I asked. “Coming after me, or coming after me in shifted form?”

  He snorted. “No one would question the rescue attempt. Those guys really are our archnemeses, if you’ll forgive the melodramatic phrasing. But there was no reason for him to shift to do it. He shook off the tranquilizer pretty quick and could have followed you in his truck, like we did. His way got him there sooner, but, as you saw, his way is going to require more severe cleanup.”


  Silence descended in the cab of the truck as I let the words sink in.

  “I would warn you not to tell anyone, but I won’t have to.”

  “I won’t—”

  He kept speaking, cutting me off. “You won’t have to worry about it.” He looked almost regretful as he pulled into my driveway, then put the truck into Park. He folded his arms over the steering wheel and gave me a look that curdled my insides. “We have rules against mind wiping people not involved with the Eternal Serpents. But you’re more of a threat than any of them. Ford’s father isn’t going to let this go. It’ll be better for everyone if Ford takes care of it. He really is the most skilled. Anyone else would run the risk of causing brain damage.”

  Holding my breath, I fumbled with the door handle and pulled, practically falling into the driveway in my haste to exit the truck. I slammed the door behind me and rushed into my duplex. I didn’t even look back to see if Derrick left. With shaking fingers, I struggled to latch the lock, but eventually it caught. The simple dead bolt wouldn’t be enough to stop Ford, but even that slim protection from the outside world comforted me a little.

  There was no lock big enough to dull the realization that Ford was going to have to zap my brain because I knew too much.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I SAT alone at my kitchen table with a glass of whiskey at my elbow. I’d already downed two, but the alcohol hadn’t kicked in enough yet. I had warmed my blood, but I could still think.

  On the upside, I wasn’t afraid anymore. The fear had done a glorious transformation into anger. And the hurt…. I stared at the neat rows of books Ford had helped me rearrange the day before. Well, the hurt would take a little longer to fade.

  But the anger. The anger felt just. It felt righteous. Because all along, my family had been right. All the ridicule. All the judgment. They maintained their belief through it all. And Ford and his family had done this to them. My grandfather was dying, and if it were up to Ford and his cousins, he’d die never learning the truth. I refused to let that happen. I would get validation for my family. And I knew just the e-zine reporter I could call to make that happen.

  I pulled out my laptop and searched the Cody College directory. Then I dug out my cell phone and dialed. At the sound of the voicemail kicking in, I cursed. It didn’t matter, though. My information would be just as good tomorrow morning as it was this night. “Hey, David. It’s Dr. Coleman. You interviewed me at the start of term. I have a story for you. One that will make your name in journalism. Call me.”

  I disconnected the call, then swallowed back the last of the whiskey. I had some observations to record. Ford might have to wipe my mind, or one of his relatives might scramble my brains, but I would do what I could to at least get a little validation for my grandfather, and his father before him, and his father.

  I spent the next hour transcribing the events of the last week, from the existence of shape-shifters at Cody College, to the psycho cult of snake worshippers who actually thought genocide would bring them superpowers, to Ford’s daring rescue. Toward the end I realized I might have been using a few overly romantic words to describe Ford in all his thunderbird glory. I’d spent a large amount of time describing in detail the magnificence of his wings and the way platinum lightning flashed in his eyes.

  At some point the stress of the last couple of days—or maybe the three tumblers of whiskey—sucked me into an exhausted sleep.

  I DON’T know how much time had passed since I’d fallen asleep, but when I cracked my lids open, watery rays of sunlight glinted through the windows. I squinted and scrubbed at my eyes. I expected to find myself face-planted in my laptop. Instead I was stretched out across my couch, the comforter from my bed draped over me and one of my pillows beneath my head.

  Then I saw Ford.

  He sat at the kitchen table, my laptop open in front of him. He wasn’t facing the computer, though. He was watching me, his legs stretched out in front of him, hands folded at his belly.

  I froze. “Are you here to wipe my mind?”

  He cursed, jerking his head in an aborted shake. “Damn Derrick and his big mouth.”

  It didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t answered the question.

  “I don’t like doing it. The mind-wipe thing.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “It crosses a line for me.”

  “But you did it? Last night, with Matthew and those serpent people?”

  He nodded. I could practically see the guilt suffocating him. “It had to be done, and better it was me than Nicky or Derrick. Of the three of us who were there last night, I am the only one who can do it without causing permanent damage. If it’s done right, it’s a temporary disorientation with short-term memory loss.”

  I swallowed, almost afraid to ask my next question. But I had to know. “Did anyone do that to my relatives? Did someone mess with their brains?”

  “No! Like I said, it crosses some murky lines for us. We only do it in extreme circumstances, and only with Followers of the Eternal Serpent.”

  A buffalo-sized weight lifted from my chest. “But you did mess with their evidence.”

  He shrugged, kind of uncomfortably. “Well, not me specifically. But my family. Or someone connected.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about that,” I admitted. I sat up a little until my back rested against the armrest. I kept the comforter tucked around me, a down-filled shield.

  “I get it. I do.” He pushed back from the table and joined me in the living room. Yeah, this conversation probably shouldn’t be had from two different rooms. He sat on the couch, keeping as far from me as he could while being on the same piece of furniture. He perched on the end, elbows propped on his thighs. “But, Simon, literally the lives of my entire family and every thunderbird alive is at risk.”

  “How is that different from shifters in general? Or, I guess, is it different? Do all shifter groups go to such extremes to protect their secrets?”

  He shrugged. “Yes and no. Most shifters don’t have a deranged group of fanatic Horned Serpent-worshipping crazy people whose whole purpose for generations has been to eradicate thunderbirds. All of them.”

  I grimaced. “Yeah, I got the impression they’re a little… intense… about it.”

  “That’s one way to put it. You need to know that we protected your family too.”

  “In what way?”

  “As closely as my family has kept an eye or ear out for any references, the Eternal Serpents were watching just as closely. They have their own groups of researchers, but they also monitored the other prominent scholars. Of which, let’s be honest, your grandfather and great-grandfather were at the top of the list. They came closer to true discovery more than any other individual or group. Which meant they were being watched by the Eternal Serpents.”

  “So you turned them into laughingstocks.”

  He cringed. “It probably doesn’t help much, but it didn’t start out that way. It was a side effect. Eventually it became useful. As long as everyone assumed they were out chasing unicorns and bigfoot, they were safe from both my kin and the Followers of the Eternal Serpent. That way, even if they discovered something damning, no one would believe them.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. Duh.

  “It was the only way to protect them, and us,” he added, noticing my disgruntled expression. “Just look at you.”

  “Me?”

  “You managed to shake your family’s reputation. And the minute you were perceived to have discovered something, you were targeted.”

  I nodded, hating that he was right. “So what does this mean?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you come after me last night?”

  He scowled. “What kind of question is that? Did you think I’d let those freaks kidnap you?”

  “I asked that wrong. I get why you came after me, but why did you come after me in your other form?”

  He shrugged. “It was faster that way.�
��

  “But by doing it, you revealed your secret.”

  He shrugged again.

  “Derrick said that your father—”

  “Derrick needs to learn to keep his big mouth shut.” He reached out and laid his hand on my blanket-covered feet. “Yes, my father is going to be pissed. But I’ll deal with it. With him.”

  “And if he tells you to wipe my mind, will you?”

  “I’ll refuse. It’s too risky.”

  “Derrick said—”

  He leaned close and grasped my shoulders. He practically had to straddle my legs to do it. “It’s too dangerous. I won’t risk your brain. I fell in love with your mind before I met you in person. I will not let anyone, not even my father, put that at risk.”

  Holy fucking shit. Did he just drop the L bomb?

  Or, well, he was in love with my mind. I wondered how he felt about the rest of me.

  My cell phone rang from its place near my laptop. The open laptop with my story for David the e-zine reporter. The screen was lit. If I’d been asleep for a while, the screen should have gone into sleep mode. Which meant it had been woken up at some point.

  I shot a look at Ford, who met my gaze solemnly.

  My heart beat sharp and deep behind my ribs.

  The phone rang again.

  I slid out from under Ford and the comforter to walk to my phone. The display read David Sherman.

  “You should answer that.” There was something in his voice. A resigned sort of acceptance.

  “But—” How could I explain to him that this was not a phone call I could take with him sitting on my couch, where he’d tucked me in when he found me asleep at the computer? The same computer I’d used to write up what amounted to an exposé on shifters and, more specifically, him.

  “It’s the third time he’s called.”

  “I—” I didn’t know whether to apologize or explain myself or pretend I didn’t know that he knew what I’d planned.

  The damning ringtone blared again.

  “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.” He stood and crossed the room. He picked up my phone, swiped the icon to accept the call, then handed it back to me.