Black Crow

by Jen Pretty

  “Let go,” I said.

  “There is nowhere to go, Selena. Just stay here a minute and calm down,” Nick said. Worry lined his face, not ridicule like I expected.

  “I’m not your Black Crow. I’m nobody,” I said, pulling away from him again. He let me go, but he was right, there was nowhere to go. I collapsed on the bed and hid my face in the pillow. The tang of blood reached my nose, and I knew that Peran had sent the wraith away with his blood. I could have done the same if I had my knife and hadn’t panicked.

  Shit.

  I dragged the blanket up to my chin and crushed my eyes closed, begging my mind to stop and let me fall into oblivion. Long after the lights went out and the sound of the TV ceased, I finally fell into sleep.

  The smell of bacon and coffee woke me. I peeked an eye open, and another eye was inches from my face. I moved my head back a few inches, and Nick's face came into view. He smiled, and I groaned, burying my face in the pillow.

  “Come on, Selena. Time to get up. Big day ahead. City to see! Stuff to explore!” Nick was way too awake.

  I rolled over and scanned the room. The source of the delicious smells was a cart with a covered tray on it.

  “Is that for me?” I asked, still eying the cart.

  “Well, it's not for me,” he replied, chuckling.

  I rubbed my eyes and then pulled back the covers and stretched before stumbling across the room towards the prize.

  “Do vampires never eat?” I asked him as I uncovered the tray of breakfast foods. It was way too much for me to eat, but I grabbed a piece of bacon, shoving it in my mouth and then the cup of coffee in one hand and a croissant in the other and moved back to the warm spot in the bed.

  “Some juvenile vampires eat food, mostly because they need to sink their teeth into things, like a child who sucks their thumb, but adults rarely bother.”

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Thirty-two.”

  The sip of coffee I had just taken tried to squirt back out again. I coughed, and Nick patted my back.

  “I forget you don’t know anything about us. About me. It feels like I’ve always known you. We stop ageing at eighteen. Some of us luck out and look magnificent — others are not so lucky.” His crooked grin was back.

  I shook my head and took a bite of the croissant. It was light and buttery. I hummed my simple joy of a well-baked pastry, and Nick laughed.

  “I’m glad I'm not a vampire,” I said before taking another bite.

  The door between our room and Peran and Kai’s opened, and they both came in.

  “Hey, Selena. How are you feeling?” Peran asked.

  “I’m fine. I’m sorry about yesterday.”

  “No need to be sorry. Niri just arrived. He is on his way up,” Kai said, sitting on the end of the bed and turning on the TV. He always seemed to be watching the news. I wasn’t sure if he was looking for something in particular or just liked the news, but it was getting weird.

  I stuffed the last of my croissant into my mouth and then slid off the bed and grabbed some clean clothes out of my suitcase. I had a quick shower, singing a song in my head so I wouldn't think about what had happened here the night before. I didn’t wash my hair, it was fine. I got into the clean clothes, and when I stepped back out, the jolly old wizard was standing in my room.

  “Hello, Selena. I love that you think of me as jolly,” he said, smiling, and I remembered he could read my mind.

  Shit.

  He chuckled. “I just wanted to have a chat with you. Maybe we could go somewhere a little quieter? Would that be all right?”

  I chewed on my lip but nodded.

  He set his arm on my shoulder, and the world went sideways. Before I could blink, we were in a graveyard, headstones lining the hills as far as I could see in every direction.

  Niri strolled forward at a leisurely pace along a pebbled path. The sun was hot on my skin, reminding me of old summers when I would spend the day in the cemetery. I found peace among the graves. The crunch of pebbles and the song of the birds were the only sounds for a while until we came to a grave. It was unmarked, but for a small stone that peeked out of the ground. My magic wanted to spill out and touch the soul beneath the grass, but I dared not.

  Niri crouched down, his old bones creaking. He dusted away the dirt and grass clippings from the marker. It said Johnny Doe, with a date.

  My heart began to race.

  “He was the first that Peran raised. The first victim.” Niri said.

  I wanted to run. To leave the cemetery and never return.

  Niri straightened and then his gaze shifted from the small marker to me. “Peran found his killer, but not the boy's name. The boy had been with the man for so long, he couldn't remember his own name.”

  “I can’t,” I said, taking a step backwards.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything. I just want to start a conversation with you,” he said, his eyes shifting back to the grave. “Peran had nightmares for months. I think he would not want to come back to this place even now if he had a choice. But when we caught the man who killed him, he had another boy locked in his basement. That boy was only four years old. That boy went home to his mother.”

  A tear stung my eye then slipped down my cheek.

  “Tell me about the wraith you saw last night,” he said.

  “The woman was screaming. I didn't give her my blood, so she was silent, but I hadn’t raised her. She just came to me. I think I might have seen her earlier at the nightclub.” I tipped my face up to the sky to stop the tears.

  “She came to you,” he repeated.

  “I think so. How else would she have appeared?” I asked.

  He just nodded instead of answering. There was no other way for her to appear. A wraith needed necromancer magic. Usually, I had to give it to them, but something was different now.

  A loud caw split the air, startling me out of my thoughts.

  “So, it has come,” Niri said.

  I was about to ask him what he was talking about when a big black crow soared down from the trees and dove straight for me. I had no time to react; it hit my stomach like a freight train and disappeared in a blast of ebony feathers. I choked and coughed, doubled over with the wind knocked out of me. I couldn’t catch my breath, I just gasped like a fish on dry land.

  I coughed so hard, my eyes watered, and my lungs burned. I finally sucked in a full breath and coughed one last time, feeling like my lungs were coming out through my mouth. I reached up and pulled a long midnight black feather from my throat, then promptly vomited in the grass.

  When I finished heaving, I pushed myself over backwards and lay in the grass with my eyes closed. The sun burned on my eyelids as I lay catching my breath for a minute.

  “What just happened?” I wheezed, rolling my eyes to the side to get a look at Niri. His face was a look of amazement.

  “You are the one,” he whispered. “The Black Crow.”

  “Shit.”

  I closed my eyes again and just let my mind settle. Magic had always been a part of my life, but apparently now, it was my life. Warlocks and vampires and stupid birds.

  Magic swirled, and I tried to clamp it down, but it pressed at my skin. At first, it was testing, like a shark bouncing off the cage the divers were in, but then it pushed harder until it felt like my skin would split and my insides would burst out. I tried to hold on, but it was no use. An invisible force lifted me to my feet as the magic burst out.

  Dam broken, glittery blue waves rocked from my hands and out in an ever-growing circle around me. I heard a crow calling as my magic reached the limits of my sight. Then I heard a whisper. It was a quiet voice I could barely hear over the rising racket of the crow.

  Someone was calling to me — from beyond the grave.

  chapter ten

  Niri took several steps back, his look of awe morphing to worry.

  “Perhaps this isn’t the best time to raise them all?” he said, like I controlled the magic ri
ght now.

  I ignored him and focused in on the single voice that was calling me.

  “Please, you have to help me!” it whispered.

  I spun towards the sound of the voice. It was coming from the farthest reaches of the graveyard. I squinted my eyes, blinking into the sun. I could see a shape. The magic drew back into my body and pushed my legs to move.

  I sprinted, leaving Niri behind. My legs raced across the sloping grounds, weaving between gravestones and past shrubbery, to get to the one I needed to talk to.

  My heart jumped in my chest as the figure came into view. It was a young woman, standing on freshly turned soil. I skidded to a stop. Her face was a ruin. Tear streaks cut through the bloodstains on her face. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. Shaking my head, I tried to turn around, but the magic held me like my feet had become stuck to the grass. I struggled to get away, thrashing my arms to keep from falling, my eyes locked on the terrified, bloody woman.

  “I can’t,” I screamed, and I heard a crow caw. He swooped down from a tree, landing beside me, then hopped two steps forward. He bobbed his head and cawed at the woman, and she closed her mouth. Her face relaxed, and she floated like a calm wraith except for the blood on her face.

  Niri sifted in beside me, his hand extended. I looked down to find a pocket knife folded in his palm. I looked back at the woman; her face calm, her mouth closed, her eyes blinking at me and I took the knife.

  The crow cawed and hopped towards me. He stayed at my side as I stepped towards the grave. His black feathers glittered in the sun and ruffled in the light breeze. My magic had pulled tight, so it was just surrounding me and the rectangular dirt patch before me.

  She waited patiently; her face still relaxed. I stepped onto the dirt, and the bird joined me. He pulled a worm from the turned ground and ate it with a few quick snaps of his beak.

  Gross.

  I looked back at the wraith. Her form settled on the dirt like most did when I raised them. I knelt before her, as far as I could get while still kneeling in the dirt and I fumbled open the knife. Her eyes watched my hands patiently.

  With the pocket knife opened, I took a deep breath and pushed up my sleeve. A shiver ran down my spine in anticipation. My magic froze and waited for its chance to bring the wraith back to the living.

  In a quick motion, and before I could second guess it, I slit my arm and let the blood run across my skin to build into a drip that fell, splashing onto the dirt.

  “Help me!” The woman screamed.

  I dropped the knife and covered my ears, but the crow cawed and the woman stopped again, her features returning to passive. I watched her for a long moment.

  “My name is Selena,” I said, removing my hands from my ears.

  “I am Delaney. Thank you for coming to me.”

  “Have you been following me?” I asked trying to force my tense muscles to relax.

  “Yes, you have to stop him. You are the only one who can.”

  “How can I stop him?” I asked, not yet ready to ask who he was. If she screamed again, I would bleed on the earth and send her away.

  “You are the gatekeeper. The keeper of all magic. He was too strong for us.”

  I shook my head. I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Please! You must stop him before he kills every witch.”

  “OK, who is he?” I asked.

  “Black eyes,” she whispered as she began to fade.

  The last of my magic leaked into the earth. I raised my arm to squeeze a few more drops out, but the skin was clean and healed. I found the blade. It was dirty, but I used the edge to slit open my skin again and as the drops fell, the last sign of magic and the wraith disappeared. The sun warmed my skin as I sat in the dirt of the grave. The crow abandoned his search for worms and hopped over to me.

  His feathers, sleek and glossy, looked unreal, like bits of painted steel laid together to form a bird-like shape. He stood so still; I allowed myself a moment and raised my hand to touch his feathers, stopping an inch away. I expected him to fly away like a wild bird, but he didn’t move. Just before my fingers touched down on his ruffled back, he snapped at my hand, making me jerk back. He took to the sky with a noisy caw and soared above my head. I looked up to follow his path through the sky, but the sun was high, and it stung tears to my eyes.

  Niri cleared his throat, and I dropped my eyes to look at him. His face creased into a smile and the lines around his eyes deepened, making his eyes twinkle in the shadow of his brow.

  “What is the Black Crow?” I asked, rising and dusting the dirt from my knees. It was no use. Mud caked the material.

  “The keeper of the dead and the most powerful necromancer of all time,” he said. “It would seem the reason you couldn’t handle our Sanctuary is that you don’t require sanctuary.”

  “So, what? I’m invincible?”

  He smiled and rested his hand on my shoulder. A quick spinning motion and we were back in the hotel room, but this time we brought along a crow. He cawed loudly and then took up residence on the top of the flat screen TV, using it as a perch.

  “I’m afraid I must go, young people,” Niri said as everyone stood and gawked at the bird. “Selena, Colvin asked me to say hello for you and that he hopes to see you again soon.” With that, Niri vanished.

  “What happened?” Nick asked, looking from the bird to me and back again.

  “So, this bird made me barf and followed me home,” I said. Everyone stared at me. I explained about the murder victim and what she said, but everyone continued their staring. I shrugged my shoulders, then turned and rooted through my bag, hoping for some clean clothes. The magic I unloaded in the graveyard had left me feeling drunk but also dirty. I wanted to wipe away the day and sleep till the New Year.

  All the clothes in my bag were dirty. I huffed and grabbed the cleanest of my dirty clothes and turned towards the shower. The guys were still watching my bird who had nestled down, his head pulled in to his feathers like a turtle and his eyes closed.

  I locked the bathroom door and did a double take as I caught my reflection in the mirror. My hair was stark white and in the middle of my forehead was a glowing blue feather. “Shit,” I whispered as I reached up and touched the blue feather. It was intricate like a tattoo with fine detail, but would definitely be noticeable as I walked down the street. I ran my finger over it. It felt like normal skin. Nobody said anything about it when I was in the main room.

  I stuck my head out the bathroom door where the guys were feeding my crow bits of a croissant left over from breakfast. He was grabbing the small pieces and then tipping his head back and swallowing them down.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, getting their attention. “Do you see this?” I pointed to my forehead.

  “Your face?” Nick asked.

  “Is there a blue feather right here?” I tapped the place I had seen it.

  Nick looked at me like I was crazy. “Nope, I mean, you have dirt smeared right…” he pointed to his cheek.

  Fabulous.

  I shut the door and turned on the shower. Waiting for it to warm up, I stared at my reflection again. At least it wasn’t visible to other people. I kind of liked it. It looked like my magic.

  Freshly showered, I took my tiny comb and sat on the bed to go through my hair. The guys were in the adjacent room discussing something, so I was alone with the crow. He hopped off the TV and bounced across the bed to stand in front of me, bobbing his head.

  “What?” I asked. He just blinked at me.

  I finished with my hair and pulled up the hood on my sweater then leaned back and thought about the woman in the graveyard. Black eyes.

  The crow jumped up onto the headboard and peered down at me from above.

  “You need a name,” I said. I had a pet mouse when I was a child. It had fallen into a deep bucket and couldn’t hop back out, so I made it a home in there with leaves, gave it some water in a small dish and fed it crackers. It lived in my room for a week before Doroth
y found out. She set it free outside.

  “How about Corvus?” I asked, and he cawed loudly. “I don’t know if that is a yes or no,” I told him. He ruffled his feathers and shook his head. “Ok, I will take that as a no.”

  He hopped down off the headboard and onto my knee.

  “How about Inky?” I asked, staring at his glossy black feathers. He shook again, and I wrinkled my nose at him. “Well, I will have to think on it then, unless you want me to call you Crow.” I laughed, but he bobbed his head up and down. “Oh.” Well, that was a boring name, but who was I to judge? “All right, Crow it is.”

  He cawed again, and the door from the adjoining room swung open.

  “Hey. How are you feeling?” Nick asked.

  “I’m fine,” I replied. Crow hopped back up onto the headboard above me.

  “Ok, so Kai and Peran have gone back to the police station to help in the hunt for the killer.”

  “Do they know anything about black eyes?”

  “No, but we can probably find out. The vampires in this city have a large archive of magic history and folklore. Not all of it is particularly kind to the warlocks and witches,” he said, snickering.

  “What is with you vampires and the warlocks?” I asked, remembering how he spoke of warlocks in the nightclub.

  “I think it’s because we are opposites. Vampires have magic, but can't use it, and warlocks can use it but can’t keep it. We have a natural hatred for them.”

  “You seem OK with Kai,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, Kai is different.”

  “How so?” I asked, sliding off the bed.

  “Vampires raised him.”

  I didn’t understand the significance, but we were walking out the door, so I let it go. As we reached the elevator, Nick took out his cell phone and called for a cab, and seeing his phone reminded me I hadn't heard from Georgia. I would have to try her again when we had a minute.

  We climbed into the cab when it rolled up, and Nick gave him an address. The city swirled by the window, tall buildings gave way to smaller ones and then we were in a subdivision of expensive houses set back on large lots with gates blocking them off from the road.