Murder of Crows (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 2)

by Annie Bellet

  When he told me I was dead to the tribe. When he kicked me out of my home for good.

  “Jade,” the man said, looking uncertainly past Alek.

  “Alek,” I said. “Would you kindly slam the door in my father’s face?”

  Alek didn’t end up slamming the door. The pizza guy chose that moment to show up, causing a shuffle of people as we paid him and sent him away, which ended up with all of us standing awkwardly in my kitchen.

  “What are you doing here, Jasper?” I asked, emphasizing his name. He didn’t get to be called Dad anymore. “How did you even find me?”

  My anger wasn’t pretty. It burned through me, threatening to boil over, and my magic sang in my veins as I struggled not to do something regrettable. I had thought my resentment, anger, and grief long dead. Guess I was wrong about that. I didn’t think Alek would let me blast my father out of existence, however, even if I had truly wanted to. Alek was a Justice and supposed to protect shifters. Dear old dad was a crow shifter. QED and all that jazz.

  “I hired a private investigator,” Jasper said. He glanced at Alek, who was wisely standing by my side and keeping his mouth shut for the moment. “I didn’t expect to find you so close to home.”

  “This is my home.” My father looked smaller and older than I remembered but I knew it was likely time and memory playing tricks on me. I’d been all of fourteen and just a kid the last time I saw him. He was still taller than I, his face mostly unlined in that ageless way older shifters had, where he could be anywhere from thirty-five to fifty depending on expression and lighting.

  “Jade,” he said, softly this time, his green eyes full of a desperate fire. “I need your help.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t stop it from coming out, the hysterical giggles turning into full blown gasping laughter.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I said. “And get the fuck out of my house.”

  “Jade,” Alek said, placing a hand on my shoulder. His touch was steadying, even if it pissed me off a little more.

  “You stay out of this.” I looked up at him as I gained control of my laughter. “That man kicked me out, they all did. Sent me away to live with a woman who was little better than a slave master and her rapist husband. You know the last words that man spoke to me?” I pointed at Jasper. “ ‘You are dead to the People. You must go away from here and never return.’ So don’t you go feeling sorry for him.”

  I hadn’t discussed that part of my life with Alek. He knew I’d been on the street, knew about my real family, the four nerds who took me in when I was a teenager and raised me until Samir killed them. I hadn’t told Alek about the People. They were a dead part of my life.

  “Does Granddaddy Crow know you are here?” I asked Jasper. I figured the old bastard who led the cult that was my former Tribe would know. No one did anything without Sky Heart’s say so.

  “Sky Heart does not know,” Jasper said. “I have come to you on my own. We are desperate.”

  That surprised me. The Crow who were my former people weren’t anything like the Crow tribe, the Apsaalooké, who lived in Montana and were mostly human. Jasper’s Crow were all crow shifters, exclusively. Back in the early seventeen hundreds, Sky Heart, a crow shifter and warrior of the actual Crow people, decided crow shifters were special and should live apart. He took a group of them, gathered from many tribes, and went west to finally settle in what became northern Washington State, at a thousand acre forested parcel of land he named Three Feathers. To guard the people and shore up his own power, Sky Heart summoned a powerful spirit, who called itself Shishishiel, the Crow, and from there on out gathered only crow shifters to him. Which involved some fairly underhanded shit like stealing crow shifters from other places, killing those who didn’t want to come live with the People, and, oh yeah, kicking out any children who didn’t turn into crows.

  So, you know, typical cult. I hadn’t realized it when I’d been in it, of course. It wasn’t until years later when I talked it over with my adopted family that I had seen how dysfunctional they really were. Before that, all I knew was that I was different and had to leave.

  “The pizza is getting cold,” Alek said. His stomach rumbled.

  “So eat it,” I said. “Jasper is leaving.”

  “I cannot leave,” Jasper said. “Just please hear me out.”

  “It cannot hurt to hear him out.” Alek turned those big blue eyes of his on me and I sighed.

  So we ended up sitting around the kitchen table, Alek eating his pizza, me picking at a slice of mine, and Jasper clutching the glass of water Alek had offered him like it was the last piece of floating wood in a shipwreck.

  Part of me wanted to break the ice and ask how Pearl, my mother, was. But I resisted. This man didn’t deserve a lifeline like that, nor did either he or my mother deserve my interest or concern.

  Finally, after long enough that the awkwardness in the air was as congealed at the cheese on my pizza, Jasper spoke.

  “Someone one, or some thing, is killing off the People,” he said. “Sky Heart promises he and Shishishiel can stop it, but I think he lies. He says that it is because we have grown too weak, too easy on our young, our blood too diluted with crows who are not Natives. I do not believe this is so.”

  “You are half white,” I pointed out. “Wasn’t it Sky Heart who brought in your mother? He is the one who tracks down crow shifters from all over North America and forces them to join you, so he’d be the one to blame if your so-called blood is getting too impure.” The whole thing disgusted me. Ruby, my grandmother, had died before I was born, sometime back around World War Two, but my mother had told me about her, about how Sky Heart kept her imprisoned in his home until she bore him a son who changed into a crow. She was where my father got his green eyes.

  “Yes,” he said, not meeting my gaze. “This is a reason I do not believe. There is magic at work. These murders are not natural. Someone is killing us off and no one will act.”

  Magic. Samir. No, that would be too easy. If he was killing off my former family to get to me, he’d be gloating more about it. And my father wouldn’t be standing here talking to me. He’d be dead.

  “Is Pearl alive?” I asked.

  “Yes, your mother is fine. But without magic of our own to stop the killing…” he trailed off, eyes still fixed on the water droplets condensing on his glass.

  So, not Samir. I took a deep breath. It wouldn’t, shouldn’t, matter if it were. I wasn’t going to help the people who had declared me dead and cast me out.

  “What makes you think I have magic that can help you?” I kept staring at him, hard. When I had left, my powers were barely anything. I could occasionally move things with my mind when I was really upset, but that was about it. It wasn’t until a couple years later, with the help of my new family and some Dungeons and Dragons manuals to act as focuses, that I’d begun to really work magic.

  Jasper raised his head. “Because of what you are,” he said. “Because of who your father is.”

  My chair hit the floor as I jerked to my feet. This was like a bad parody of Star Wars. “My… father? You were my father.” I made sure, even in my shock, to keep to the past tense. My chest hurt, as though bands were tightening inside my ribs, making it hard to breathe. Alek rose and picked up my chair, gently pushing on my shoulders until I sat again.

  “No. Your mother left us for a while, many years ago.” Jasper took a few deep breaths and continued. “After Ruby died, she was unhappy with the People.”

  “So she escaped,” I said. I shrugged Alek’s hands off my shoulders. I wished he would leave in the same moment that I was glad he was there. Someone needed to witness the total crazy, I guess.

  “Yes,” Jasper said the word like it pained him. “She was pregnant when she came back. With you.”

  Came back? Dragged back by Sky Heart and my father was probably more accurate if I had to guess, but there was no point asking.

  “So who is my father?”

  “I do not know,” Jasper said
. He held up a hand to stall my exasperated exclamation. “Your mother says he was a powerful sorcerer. She was sure you inherited his powers. Even as a baby when you were angry we saw things shift and move. Do you not have powers?”

  I didn’t know if I was relieved by this news. Not being related to the asshole in front of me was sort of nice, but it left me with more questions. And a horrible fear.

  “Did Pearl say what this man looked like? Was he Native American at least?” I prayed Jasper would say yes. Universe please, let him say yes.

  “Yes,” he said and the lump in my throat lessened. “She has said that much. You are full blood, if that worried you.” There was bitterness in his tone.

  I almost explained. It wasn’t that I cared if I had white or whatever blood in me. It was that Samir wasn’t Native and for a terrible moment I’d feared that I’d been lovers with my own father. It would have made a horrible kind of sense and be just the sort of twisted fucked up shit Samir would pull.

  I didn’t owe Jasper any explanations, so I kept quiet about why I asked. Alek’s considering stare told me he had guessed my reasoning behind the question. I figured there were some awkward conversations we’d have to have later. Much, much later. After I got Jasper out of my house.

  “Shifters are dying?” Alek asked, turning his piercing gaze on Jasper. “Has the Council sent someone?” The Council of Nine was a guardian and governing body for shifters, though no one really knew much about them, not even Alek, who worked for them. The Nine were practically shifter gods, there but not exactly reachable by phone.

  “They did, though Sky Heart does not recognize the Nine. A man showed up after the third murder. Our leader had words with him, then the Justice left.”

  I watched Alek’s face as he seemed to do some mental math and that sinking bad feeling started up again in my stomach.

  “This Justice, was he a white man?” Alek asked.

  “No, black. A huge man, I think a lion shifter from how he smelled. Sky Heart was very angry with him.”

  Alek moved from the side of the table to loom over Jasper. “When did you see the Justice last?” His tone was intense as he bit off each syllable, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

  “A week ago? No, a little more. It was Friday, I think, so eight or nine days. Why?”

  Alek pulled his silver feather talisman that marked him as a Justice out from under his shirt. Jasper’s eyes widened but an excited expression came over him.

  “Good, you can help as well. We need both of you. Shifters being murdered is Council business, no? No matter what Sky Heart says.” His eyes flicked between us.

  “The Justice who showed up,” Alek said. “His name is Carlos.” He looked at me. “I have to go contact the Council.”

  “What about Jasper?” I said. I knew that this might be Justice business, now that Carlos of the not calling in when he usually did was involved, but no way was this man staying in my home a minute longer than necessary.

  “He will come with me,” Alek said after a moment. He smiled, his face sympathetic, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to punch him or kiss him. That happens to me a lot with Alek.

  “You will consider helping, Jade?” Jasper rose as Alek stepped back, giving him space again.

  “No,” I said and pretended that the look of despair on his face didn’t tug any heart strings. “This is Justice business. They can deal with it.”

  It was a lie. I knew that if Alek asked me instead of Jasper, I’d go help. Maybe. My wounds weren’t healed even after thirty-three years and I wasn’t sure I wanted to rip off the bandages. My past was better left in the past.

  Alek and Jasper moved toward the door.

  “I’ll call you or come by tomorrow, yes?” Alek said.

  “Okay,” I said, leaning up to give him a kiss. I made sure to put tongue in it, hoping it would make Jasper uncomfortable. Guess I’m petty like that.

  “Wait,” I called after them as they were halfway down the stairs. “How many murders?” I asked Jasper.

  “Eleven,” he said, his lips pressing into a white line and his expression going flat in a way I remembered from when I was a kid, a flatness that said there was too much emotion beneath for him to handle.

  Eleven. When I’d left Three Feathers, there had been about a hundred Crow living there. I closed the door and slid down it to the floor.

  Guess it was a good thing I’m a Band-Aid fast kind of girl, because I knew in my heart then, that no matter what Alek found out or what his Council said, I was going back to Three Feathers and the People.

  Alek showed up at Pwned Comics and Games, my store, late the next afternoon. I was grateful he didn’t have Jasper in tow, but any hope I had of his talk with the Council going well died when I saw the expression on his face. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so grim, not even when he’d been pissed at me for trying to run away three months ago instead of facing the evil warlock hurting my friends.

  “Bad news?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “No news. The Council showed up in a dream last night and told me to stay.”

  “They showed up? I thought they just spoke through weird visions and feelings and stuff?”

  “Usually,” he said, running a hand through his white blond hair until pieces of it stuck out at odd angles. “Last night they spoke directly to me.”

  “So you are staying,” I said. It wasn’t really a question. Alek was a Justice. He wouldn’t go against his gods.

  “No. I’m going. Only question is if you are coming with me.”

  Apparently I can still be surprised by people. I came around the counter and slid my arms around his waist. He smelled good, as always. Solid, warm. He was worth risking things for, worth keeping safe.

  “Oh,” I said. “Uh, okay.” There wasn’t much else to say. I had already decided the night before that I would go if the Council wasn’t going to take care of things. The People had thrown me out, but they were still people and I couldn’t stand by and let them all die at the hands of some crazy murderer. Nor could I let Alek walk into the situation alone.

  Especially since I had a niggling feeling that murderer might be Samir, or at least instigated by my psycho ex.

  “Good,” he murmured into my hair. “I’ll be glad for your company.”

  Yep. Definitely worth risking life, limb, and heart for.

  We decided to leave in the morning, early. Three Feathers in Washington State was a ten to twelve hour drive from Wylde, Idaho. Jasper had left ahead of us, as soon as Alek assured him that he, at least, was coming to help.

  Alek and I took his truck and his little gypsy-style trailer. I left an annoyed Harper in charge of the store with a promise to call her with updates.

  On the ride, Alek filled me in on what Jasper had been able to tell him about the murders. The killer, or killers, was somehow hiding from the expert hunters, and also somehow able to leave the bodies spectacularly displayed where they would be found immediately. Not an easy task in over a thousand acres of old growth forest on the side of the Cascade Mountains.

  The method of death? Something a Hannibal Lector fan would approve of, I guess. Removal of the organs was all Jasper would tell Alek. He said we would have to talk to Sky Heart if we wanted to know more.

  I had packed light, wishing I had more magical gizmos to bring. Over the last few months I’d been trying to craft some items, but apparently my player hadn’t gotten the “craft magic item” feat at char gen. So far my attempts to store magical energy in things had resulted in some impressive pockmarks in my kitchen floor and little else.

  I hadn’t tapped into the memories that Bernard Barnes, the former evil warlock whose heart and power I’d consumed, had left inside me. It was too gross, too disturbing to see his life laid out in my head and to pick through the madness and murderating for the potential gems of useful knowledge.

  For now, I was just trying to work with what I had. Too bad I was a lot better at slinging fireballs than more finessed
, useful magic.

  I just hoped whoever this killer was, he wasn’t immune to fire.

  “What am I walking into?” Alek said after I don’t know how many hours of diving had gone by. He refused to let me drive his truck, so I stared out the window trying not to think about anything at all until his question pulled me back.

  “What do you mean? With the People?” I shifted on the bench seat and stared at his handsome profile.

  He nodded, his eyes flicking to me and then back to the road.

  “Fuck if I know,” I said. “I haven’t been there in thirty-three years. I assume a lot of the people are the same, since Sky Heart doesn’t let his people go. It’s like a cult. Everybody with the same last name, half the people related somehow to the other half except a few people who got dragged in at some point. Mostly Native Americans, few Whites, few Hispanics. Sky Heart is the one who picks people, ordains if they are good enough to be there. And every damn one will be a crow shifter, you can bet on that.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What? You want a biography of all hundred or more people at Three Feathers? How old are you, really?”

  His eyes flicked to me again. “Sixty-one.”

  “How much of your childhood do you remember? Can you name what the adults were doing and how they thought about things when you were ten? I was fourteen when I was kicked out. I remember a couple of my cousins, people close in age to me, and I remember my parents. But mostly I’ve spent all these years not remembering.”

  Alek took a deep breath, then nodded slowly. “All right. I see your point.”

  “You look good for your age,” I said, trying on a smile. I shouldn’t have asked his age. It wasn’t something us long-lifers did much. Time wasn’t the same for us, age wasn’t either.