A Flight of Raptors

by Ralph Vaughan

  “See you later.” The cat bounded away in the bright morning light, moving like a swirling gust of smoke before the wind.

  “Watch out for Raptors!” Levi called.

  Smokey laughed. “They had better watch out for cats!”

  Levi continued his walk along Fifth Avenue, crossing Davidson and heading for E Street. It was his intent to make a full circuit of their territory, something he did regularly, though usually in the company of the others, if for no other reason so that the pets and ferals in the neighborhood, as well as those who watched from outside, would know the Three Dog Detective Agency was still on the job.

  At the corner of Fifth and E, he paused a moment outside the First Baptist Church; inside, a piano was playing On Wings of Living Light. On the other side of E Street, from within Pilgrim Lutheran Church, he heard a pipe organ playing Komm Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott. He was tempted to linger, for here at least was evidence, of a sort, that companions were not quite as dim as they seemed at times, but he had work to do.

  Levi turned east on E, continuing up toward Fourth. Just before the corner, he cut behind Wendy’s Flowers, breathing in the delicate fragrances of the flowers delivered early that morning or set out the night before. To a dog’s sensitive sniffer such a concentration of floral scents was enough to almost induce a sense of euphoria. And after the smells of the night before, the blood and the flesh and the fear, he needed something like this to remind him the world was a place of boundless beauty, despite everything.

  So caught up in the complex play of scents and fragrances was Levi, he did not immediately realize he was being closely watched. He slowed as he passed out of the small parking lot to the rear of the florist shop, at the edge of a house surrounded by thick overgrowths of palms, oleanders, elephant ears, jade and privet. Between the sweet floral scents behind him and the fresh exhalations of the plants before him, Levi might have been in some jungle paradise rather than an urban construction.

  He stopped and looked about, conscious now of a watcher.

  Knowledge that he was being keenly observed did not come from his sense of smell or of hearing; nor from his vision, which although not as sharp as his other two senses was still good, his eyes clear of the cataracts that often affected other dogs his age. Sure knowledge that he was being watched came from that hidden sense that all dogs possess to some degree or another, that primal sense which allowed them to know that something lurked in the darkness beyond the campfire, even when nothing could be smelled, heard or seen, which gave them warning when the trail was haunted by dangers unknown and unsuspected; it is that inexplicable primordial knowingness which makes dogs growl in the dark of the night at a corner that seems empty or a porch that looks vacant – contrary to popular belief, dogs never bark at nothing.

  Channeling the same instinct that allowed First Dog to protect the newest members of his pack from a world fraught with danger, Levi swung toward the overgrowth and uttered a deep, low and long growl, short fur bristling, hackles rising and ears flattening against his head.

  “Levi,” a Voice murmured.

  There was no menace at all in the tone of the Voice. In fact, Levi felt an odd sense of peace settle over him. His growl trailed into silence and his fur settled back to sleek glossiness. He did not, however, relax his alertness. The very fact he could not see the speaker was cause for caution, no matter how much good will he detected in the mysterious Voice, which seemed to come from within the overgrown yard. Slowly, carefully, he passed through the thick privet hedge into the verdant wonderland beyond.

  Levi found himself surrounded by lush vegetation, and by an odd silence. The traffic sounds of the busy street dropped away, replaced by the soft rustle of fronds caught in even softer breezes. He frowned at the sudden change, for he knew he should be able to still hear the passing traffic, the myriad sounds of a city awakening, no matter how thick the foliage. He looked back and was surprised he could not see the road, for the plants had not appeared that thick from the sidewalk; nor could he even see the house. It was clear something out of the ordinary was going on.

  “Where are you?” Levi called, but not loudly. There was something about this garden that made him want to whisper.

  “I am all around you, Levi,” the Voice replied.

  “Why can’t I smell you?” Levi asked. Again, he sniffed the air, calling upon a sense of smell that could be rivaled only by that of a Bloodhound. “Even if you’re hiding, I should be able to smell you.”

  “No dog can smell me, just as no dog can see me,” the Voice explained. “You hear me because I want to talk to you.”

  Again Levi felt his hackles rising, but this time it had nothing to do with any impending feeling of alarm or danger, for he sensed none. The disorientation he had felt earlier, when silence washed over him, was compounded now, not just because of the Voice, for which he could divine no apparent source, but because he could no longer tell where any of the cardinal directions lay, not north or south, not east or west.

  “Are you…” Levi paused, unsure whether he feared more asking his question, or having it answered. “Are you…Anubis?”

  “Now, that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time,” the Voice replied. “Let me ask you this, Levi – do you think I am Anubis?”

  After a moment, Levi answered: “No. No, I do not.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Anubis would not play games.”

  The Voice chuckled. “No, I do not suppose he would. Very serious he is. You know, he started out as just another dog, much like you, even looked quite a bit like you, but he became much more than what he was because he always asked why and why not. A curious chap, great-hearted and always concerned with others. The Egyptians were so impressed with him, they made him one of their gods, though, of course, they had to put his head on a companion’s body for it to make sense to them…not something dogs would do, you know.”

  “Then who are you?” Levi asked.

  “You’re a smart fellow, Levi, and very clever,” the Voice said. “But, no matter how smart or clever you are, there will always be things you don’t know or can’t understand.”

  “I know that,” Levi agreed. “The dog who thinks he knows all really knows just enough to be dangerous; if you do not know your limitations, then you know nothing.”

  “Wise as well as smart,” the Voice chuckled. “You know, I could spend all day, such as we have days here, trying to tell you who I am and still not get anywhere with it; you may be smart and clever and wise, but all the important things in the universe have nothing to do with being smart or clever or wise.”

  “The universe is what it is,” Levi said. “It is infinite, without end or beginning, measureless and indescribable. You can experience the universe, but not understand it. I accept all that.”

  “Very well put, Levi,” the Voice said. “Let us say, then, I am that part of the universe that can be experienced, but not explained.”

  Levi started to protest, then thought better of it. He was in an impossible place, listening to an impossible Voice. If he could accept that without going stark barking mad, then accepting one more impossible thing was but a small step.

  “Why do you want to talk to me?” Levi asked.

  “Do you not think you have perhaps bit off a bit more than you can chew by coming to the aid of these Parrots?”

  “They need help.”

  “But why you, Levi?”

  “Because I can,” the dog answered. “Because I must.”

  “Your little pack has helped any number of creatures with all sorts of problems, but always beings very close to your own nature, creatures bound to the Earth,” the Voice pointed out. “Birds are very different from dogs or cats, from ferrets or monkeys. They dwell in a totally different realm, far from the one you know.”

  “Are you saying I should not help them?” Levi asked.

  “No, I’m saying that you do not understand them,” the Voice countered. “And that ignorance may work agains
t your ability to help the Parrots, perhaps others as well; do you not think it best that birds be helped by other birds, by beings who understand them?”

  “They slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the skies on laughter-silvered wings,” Levi said, thinking of a poem he once had read. “Sunward they climb and join the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds – and do a hundred things.”

  The Voice was silent.

  “I do not have to understand the minds of birds to help them,” Levi said. “Birds are much different from dogs, granted, but we all desire, and deserve, a chance for peace and happiness, and that is a similarity that transcends all differences. We must help the Parrots because we can help them.”

  “Even if it means danger to yourself?”

  “Danger is not to be feared,” Levi replied. “Only fear itself.”

  The Voice sighed, or seemed to. The sigh merged with a breeze that rustled through the branches and fronds of the surrounding vegetation. At the same time, the traffic sounds which had been so conspicuously absent during his sojourn in the garden came ebbing back, like the return of the sea up the gentle slope of a beach. The vegetation was as dense around him as it had seemed a moment ago, but, at the same time, Levi thought, it now seemed different, just a garden in someone’s yard at the edge of a busy street, not a special place, somewhere out of space, out of time.

  With a vague sense of loss, and no small amount of confusion, Levi made his way out of the garden and back to the street.

  He continued his circuit of their territory, deep in thought.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Levi returned home after his solitary patrol, the other dogs were awake and just a little cross at having missed the opportunity to make a full circuit of the neighborhood watched over by the Three Dog Detective Agency. Levi placated them, somewhat, by saying that it had been nothing but a mostly routine patrol, and they would all do it again in a day or two.

  Dogs do not lie.

  Levi winced a bit as his own words came back to haunt him, but he consoled himself by the rationalization that not telling everything was not quite the same thing as lying. In truth, this morning’s patrol had been entirely routine, same as every other day, up to a point, and Levi was still trying to explain that point to himself, but was not succeeding.

  Although he was fairly certain he had had an encounter with the numinous, he could not understand it, and in that, he decided, he was hardly alone. He had read several books, such as Passport to Magonia, The Mothman Prophecies, and, of course, the Bible, in which ordinary beings had entered extraordinary realms or claimed to have conversed with unknowable entities.

  Levi clung to that possibility, for it was the only thing that kept him from considering another, more disturbing, explanation. If he could not trust himself, he could not command the trust of anyone else.

  After much soul-searching, Levi finally decided that the road to Damascus had, for at least a few timeless moments today, passed through a garden in Chula Vista. He was less successful when he tried to convince himself of the truth of an old saw: stranger things have happened.

  Lacking understanding or explanation, he could still live with it.

  It was an epiphany he decided to keep to himself, without guilt.

  The morning newscasts were filled with stories about the dog fighting ring that had been busted in Chula Vista through the diligent efforts of the Chula Vista Police Department, especially its crack K9 Unit.

  “K9 Unit my left foot!” Yoda exclaimed as he lay on the floor in front of the television, watching upside-down with his trotters in the air. “They mean the diligent efforts of the Three Dog Detective Agency!”

  “Now, Yoda,” Sunny chided. “Don’t get worked up about it. You know we don’t really want publicity.”

  “No, that would not be a good thing,” Levi agreed, “for a variety of reasons.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Yoda conceded grudgingly. “Still chaps my hide though.”

  Sunny laughed. “As if anything could get through all that hair to chap your hide.”

  The Pomeranian scowled. “You know what I mean. We’re just like NCIS – they do all the work and the FBI takes all the credit. Grrr! Makes me want to Gibbs-slap a couple of K9 officers!”

  Benedict hopped about excitedly. “You three should have stayed around till the cameras showed up. At least we could have seen you on television…all the animals could.”

  “We work more efficiently in the background,” Levi explained. “Let the K9 officers take the credit; we know what we do, and that is enough.”

  “Anyway, I wanted to get away from that place as soon as we could,” Sunny pointed out. “That place was evil!”

  “I would not have stayed around that place another moment than was necessary, not even to be on television,” Yoda said. “Besides, after all that fighting I don’t think I could have given the cameras a decent Fabio Moment.”

  “All right, let’s turn to today’s activities,” Levi said, stepping on the remote control with his paw to turn off the television. “Things are going to be coming to a climax soon with the Birds of Prey, and I want to…”

  “How do you know that?” Sunny interrupted.

  “It’s just a gut feeling, I suppose,” Levi admitted.

  “News flash: Levi channels his inner Gibbs,” Yoda quipped with a happy little grin. “Film at eleven.”

  Levi smiled as everyone joined in on the laughter, even the young Parrot, who did not really understand the source of Yoda’s jest. When he had earlier awakened from his disturbing nightmares, the little Dachshund-mix had feared there would be some residual stress in his friends from the previous night, a lingering effect from the terror and horror they had all endured. Levi feared more for his pack than he did for himself since they had never experienced the fright and hopelessness at the heart of a canine gladiatorial school, while he had endured the pain, the despondency, the depths of despair, the unending torment of –

  “Levi, are you all right?” Sunny asked.

  Levi looked about and saw that all eyes were turned toward him.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” he said. “Why?”

  “You looked a million miles away,” Yoda replied. “One moment you were there, the next you were just…staring.”

  “Looked like you’d gone all tharn on us all of a sudden,” Little Kitty commented.

  “Like you’re one to talk, Little Kitty,” Yoda retorted.

  “No, I’m fine,” Levi repeated. “Just trying to get my thoughts about today in order.”

  Dogs do not lie.

  Yes, Levi thought, but we do keep secrets.

  “Now, about today,” Levi continued, “the first thing we have to consider is the surveillance this house is under from the Birds of Prey. When I left this morning, we were being watched by at least two of the Hawks. None of them tagged after me when I started patrol…”

  “We should have gone along,” Yoda muttered, still a bit miffed at being allowed to snooze while Levi went solo.

  Sunny frowned as she recalled Levi’s restlessness during the night, the uncharacteristic whimpers and moans as he dreamed, but she held her silence.

  “…which means,” Levi went on, “that their primary goal is still to grab Benedict.”

  “They want to take me back?” Benedict said.

  “No, I do not think so,” Levi replied slowly. “As far as the Raptors know, your fellow Parrots still think you deceased; they have no idea we’ve made contact with your tribe, that your friends now know the truth, know that Ripper lied to them.”

  “Then why would they want to bird-nap Benedict?” Kim asked.

  “I wish somebody would do something with him,” Little Kitty muttered.

  “I suspect they fear Benedict will somehow return to the aerie,” Levi said. “His return would put a lie to Ripper’s words, and that knowledge would weaken Ripper’s hold over the Parrots.”

  Sunny shook her head in confusion. “But the Parrots all by now know that R
ipper lied about what happened to Benedict.”

  “The Raptors are ignorant about that bit of knowledge, or at least I hope they are,” Levi explained. “You have to understand these birds, both the Raptors and the Parrots – the Parrots remain in thrall because of their fear, and the Raptors are empowered by that fear.”

  “Of course we fear the Raptors,” Benedict cut in. “How could we not?”

  “Why fear the Raptors?” Levi asked, fixing Benedict with his most intense alpha stare.

  “Because…” Benedict’s voice faltered as he sought to explain the unexplainable. If he could not explain to himself the instinctual fear with which the Raptors filled him and his kind, how could he possibly explain it to a groundling dog? All that and more he wanted to tell Levi, but there was something about the dog’s gaze that would not let him. “Because…”

  “Because they can fly higher into the burning blue?” Levi suggested. “Because their wings scream as they plummet from the soundless void.”

  Sunny and Yoda looked at each other in confusion, then looked to Kim thinking she might have some clue as to what Levi was talking about. This time, however, Kim looked as clueless as Little Kitty appeared almost all the time.

  “Is it because their talons flash in the sun?” Levi continued. “Is it because they know how to soar in solitary flight while Parrots must ever flock together?”

  In that instant, hearing Levi explain so clearly what had always been naught but vague emotions at the edge of consciousness, Benedict felt as if a veil had fallen from his eyes. The Parrots feared the Raptors not because of the danger they posed, or even the pain they could inflict upon the smaller birds, but because the Raptors could accomplish feats of flight of which no Parrot could even dream – they feared the Raptors because, in their heart of hearts, they held the Raptors in awe. Benedict felt suddenly ashamed that even he, who had seemed to chafe more than anyone else under the tyrannical rule of the larger avians, had remained in thrall because it seemed the natural order of things, that the Parrots had their place in the pecking order, just as the Raptors had theirs…at the top.