She loved taking on the forms of winged creatures. It was the sensation of being utterly and absolutely free. The only problem was that it was more difficult to navigate to human destinations in winged form. Winged creatures, especially raptors, had their own modes of navigation, and they had nothing to do with finding bad guys. They had to do with elevation, width and breadth, temperature, climate and wind change.
Still, there was enough human left within Sam that she managed to remember where to direct herself while she was in the air over the city. She turned left and right, she flew lower and higher, and within some indeterminate amount of time, she was leaving the city altogether.
Her ultimate destination was Chanute Air Force Base, about 130 miles south to southwest of Chicago. It would have taken about two hours by car. But flying, it would take nearly four hours at her owl’s top speed of forty miles per hour, which would cause her to arrive on the scene completely exhausted. Therefore, it was necessary to either perform another transport, one that would at least get her closer, or shift into a faster bird and arrive a little tired.
The peregrine falcon was the fastest bird in the world, but only at diving speed. At continual horizontal flight, it was outdone by the gyrfalcon, which could hold a steady sixty-eight miles per hour easily, and ninety miles per hour if it pushed itself.
A dragon would be faster, but… she’d gone there and done that, and enough tempting fate was enough.
Sam shifted into the gyrfalcon with incredible ease, her body flashing from one animal to the next with nearly no effort. Her jet black coloring remained, but her vision suffered in this new form. She wouldn’t have realized it if she hadn’t been an owl first, and now she fully appreciated how piercing the owl’s gaze truly was in the dark of night.
Still, she needed to cover some distance and fast. Once she got a little closer to the base, she would shift into human form and transport once more to cut the effort in half. She just didn’t want to push her luck with the transports; again, she was new at it. Better safe than cleaved in two by stepping out of a portal mouth and into a sawmill.
Sam caught an updraft and allowed it to carry her into the autumn clouds. She sliced through the thick mist, which formed tiny water balls on her wings. All was quiet in here, the sounds of the world muted by water vapor. Then she was cutting through the last of the fog and into clear night sky lit by stars and a quarter moon, and suddenly the world was a carpet of cottony gray beneath her, and the glittering Cosmos above.
Sam glided over the gossamer horizon, the starlight bathing her wings in pixie dust. For just a moment, she imagined she could climb even higher, and like Peter Pan, take the second star to the right, and fly straight on until morning…. She closed her eyes and let the night pour over her, perfect in its endless mystery. She breathed. Her heart beat. The wind guided her.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Some time later, the clouds beneath her thinned out, and the lights of the highway and intermittent gas stations guided her back down to Earth. Sam felt a pang of regret when she had to land and shift back into her human form, leaving behind the freedom of a set of wings and a sheltering night. But she focused her attention on the task at hand, and reminded herself that if she survived this, she could become a bird later. There would be other nights, so long as she lived through this one.
Sam stepped into a clearing beside the highway out of the view of any passing headlights. She made sure any light from a transport would likewise be invisible from the highway and shoved up the sleeve of her shirt to again expose the carving on her left arm.
It was already beginning to heal. The flight over Illinois must have hastened the process; she’d always healed more quickly when she was happy. Damn, she thought. It needed to stay visible for several days at the least if this was going to work. Come on, Sam. You did it once before when it didn’t even matter. Now you need to do it when it means everything!
If she didn’t prevent the wound from healing, it would scar over in the next hour and then fade completely, becoming useless. There was no way she would remember how the mark looked a second time. She couldn’t make it again, not on her own, and she might very well need to. So she had to keep the injury fresh.
But she had been so very unhappy the first time. The scars on her shoulder had formed as if in honor of the extreme fear, loss of control, and self loathing that had dictated that part of her life. Now…. Sam closed her eyes, just for a second, and flashes of everything that had happened to her in the last few days moved like a chaos movie reel before her mind. The images were pieces of a puzzle. She’d been searching for them her whole life. And for the first time in her existence, the puzzle felt nearly complete.
The emotion that had driven her in her teens no longer sat at the wheel of her life’s vehicle. She was no longer relegated to the back seat. She was in control now.
More or less.
She opened her eyes and bared her teeth, a flash of hope appearing in the most ironic fashion. She wasn’t exactly in control, on second thought, was she? After all, she was risking her life to carry out someone else’s plan to save someone she didn’t even know.
That’s it, she thought. Hang on to that last bit of uncertainty. Feed it.
And now she was supposed to rule over an entire race of people she really knew nothing about? Just expected to accept that enormous responsibility?
Good girl. Get mad!
Come to think of it, had Jack ever even considered that after he found her, she might not want to be the bloody queen? That she might actually turn him down? Say no?
No! He didn’t! The fact that he decorated his plethora of outrageously expensive living spaces catered to every one of her tastes proved that much! He fully expected her to simply step into line and accept everything he threw at her as if it were some kind of edict sent to her by the gods and carved into freaking stone!
Yes! she thought with a confused mixture of renewed frustration and temporary victory. Now focus it! Send it into this stupid make-shift tattoo!
She looked down at her arm and narrowed her gaze, sending her emotion careening into the fresh wound. The glowing intensified, and the marks seemed to deepen, reddening slightly. It didn’t feel good, that was certain. But emotionally, it was fantastic. She’d exerted some kind of control over something for once. To Sam, that was a coup.
Now she put her finger to the mark, thought of her next destination, and hoped for the best.
When the portal dropped her off this time, she was standing in the shadows behind a gas station she’d visited when she’d first been on her way to Chicago a few months ago. It helped with transports to be familiar with your destination, if even a little bit.
“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and turning away as the portal closed once more. She eyed the highway and the lights in the distance. Down there, not too far along the road, was the abandoned Chanute air force base. It was named after Octave Chanute, an aeronautical engineer who was a friend of the Wright brothers and advised them during their experiments. The base had been decommissioned in 1933, and though parts of it had since been utilized for things like technical classes, correctional holdings, schools, and fire department drills and barracks, for the most part the large property was in disrepair.
Sam had never been inside the base, but she’d admittedly flown over it before. There were pictures of it online. There were stories. Lots and lots of military men and students of technical classes posted their experiences at the base over the years. Some believed it haunted. Eventually, Sam had decided to check it out to see whether it would do for a “photo shoot.” That was what she called it when she transformed into a supposedly mythological creature, posed, and snapped a picture of herself to sell later on.
One night in April of that year, Sam drove Raven’s car south of town, transformed into a bird, and flew over the base. She recalled that weird vibrations shook the air. There was a magnetism to the ground that pulled at her in an eerie manner, making her feel
weaker. She decided against the shoot, turned around, and headed back to the car. Then she drove home.
It was ironic that she should find herself back here again, drawn once more into a spider’s web that might have more ghosts in it than arachnids. Which wouldn’t actually bother her all too much, if she was being honest.
Sam took a deep breath, rolled her sleeve back down, and then rolled her shoulders back. This was it. It was show time. She counted to three, nodded, and shifted one last time, again taking the form of a black owl. Her wings caught mid-flight, pumped her from the ground, and gained her height over the highway.
A few short minutes later, she was looking down through a sky cat’s night vision eyes and circling like the bird of prey she was over the building that currently housed the people who had killed her parents.
Chapter Forty
“There is one easy way out,” said the Entity with a smile.
They’d been discussing the fact that the field of suspects amongst the Kings was narrowing well beyond the Traitor’s level of comfort. And now the Entity peered at the Traitor through a gaze filled with hate. Of course his gaze was always filled with hate. He was composed of it.
It was particularly discomfiting, however, when the hate was matched with a smile like the one the Entity wore now.
“What would that be?” the Traitor asked. But he had a feeling he knew the answer.
“Well, no one would suspect you if you were dead. Now, would they?” The Entity chuckled. Coming from the throat it now occupied, the laugh was wholly unnatural. The Entity currently inhabited the body of a man the Traitor was quite certain had never laughed a day in his life. He, too, was a being of hate. They made a good pair, even better than the last.
As he didn’t know whether his boss was currently joking or not, the Traitor decided that no reply was the best reply to that statement.
“Perhaps you’d best prove to me you’re still useful enough to require existence,” the Entity then said, and his smile vanished.
The Traitor knew better than to show any emotional reaction, but his throat burned. “The old witch is dead.”
“Is she?” the Entity asked, his brow lifting. He moved from the broken and partly boarded up window he had been peering through and turned to face the Traitor fully. “Are you quite certain of that, my young friend?”
The Traitor bristled. Friend? How loosely such a creature used such a term. And was he sure? Hell yes, he was sure. He’d watched the old bat die personally. He’d brought the smoke of hell down upon her and she’d finally crumbled beneath it. It hadn’t been easy. The Traitor had yet to heal from the ordeal. He would never heal fully. Even when his arm stopped bleeding, it would scar in ugly fashion and forever maim movement.
It had taken all of his power to do her in. But he had. “Yes,” he said.
The Entity didn’t smile. He didn’t move. He said nothing. He simply continued to stare at the Traitor in that long drawn silence that had the ability to sound like a scream. And in the grip of it, the Traitor began to wonder… had he really managed to kill Lalura Chantelle? Was she truly dead?
If she wasn’t, she’d have come back by now, he thought. The Kings were like fish out of water without her. They floundered, a little more lost than they’d been before.
And that had been the point of taking the witch out in the first place. Still… now that he was faced with his own doubt, something began needling at him. And he didn’t like the way that felt, so he turned away from the Entity and moved to the same window he’d been staring through moments earlier. “What do you plan to do with the magishifter when she arrives?” he asked the Entity, changing the subject.
The magishifter was on her way. The Kings had already proved their confused nature in the sudden and stinging absence of their matron leader. They’d neglected to hold on to the one thing they needed right now more than anything else. Their tenth queen. Their tenth, precious, irreplaceable, and utterly delicious queen.
She was headed this way as he and the Entity spoke.
“I plan to play along with her plan,” said the Entity. “At least for a while. The sting is so much more fun when the victim has been dragged unknowingly along for a time.”
The Traitor glanced over his shoulder at the powerful being who spoke to him. He seemed taller than he had as a human. And even meaner, which was saying something.
“What did you do with the demon, anyway?” the Traitor asked. He wondered what the Entity had done with the powerful demon he’d formerly inhabited.
“Nothing,” said the Entity. “I left him where I found him. I’m sure he’s rather confused and more than a little ashamed of his behavior. But on the upside, he did finally have his revenge. I kept my promise to him. And I did him a favor.”
“Yes,” said the Traitor. “I’m sure that’s how he sees it.” Not. The Traitor turned back to the window and scanned the skies. He could do it a lot better out there, but he needed to know what his orders were. “So when you’re finished letting the magishifter play hero?”
“Then the young queen will meet the man she came here to kill. Maybe she will even succeed. Either way,” he said as he rubbed his chin and smiled, “this body will have served its purpose.”
Oh, thought the Traitor, the Entity had chosen well indeed.
It was only a shame in that moment that he failed to consider how easily the Entity replaced one tool – with another.
Chapter Forty-One
The entire base was warded. It covered the property like an invisible dome. Sam felt it buffet her like something akin to electricity and thick air. She had that unpleasant sensation one gets when they place a fork to the bottom of a pot on an electric burner. It moved through her body with warning.
But they want me here… don’t they? she thought worriedly. If she didn’t find a way in, the entire plan would be shot. Suddenly, she realized she was going about this from the perspective of a flying creature. She was limiting herself. She could become anything.
With that thought, Sam dove for the ground, reaching an incredible and admittedly fun speed before leveling safely out, slowing down, and landing. She ruffled her feathers, drew in her wings, and transformed into a bilby.
Bilbies, or the Macrotis Lagotis as they were technically known, were desert dwelling marsupials found exclusively in Australia. They were endangered in Queensland, and all but extinct if not completely so, in other states. They were furry, gray, adorable creatures with long snouts and enormous ears that provided warmth to the bilby’s tiny body. The reason Sam chose the form of one now was because they were excellent diggers.
Their strong forelimbs and thick, tough claws made holing out the ground quick work, and they were nocturnal, which made Sam’s job even easier this night. She turned toward the edge of the wards; she could sense them even better from the ground, and particularly well in this form. Something about the ears, perhaps.
Sam wasted no more time. Hesitation only led to thought, which led to doubt, which led to more hesitation – so there was no room for it at the moment. Instead, she began digging. The world grew dark, but comforting somehow. She experienced a strange sensation as she was abruptly able to take note of where certain insects were located in the ground around her. She even experienced a sudden craving for one before she forced herself to concentrate and keep digging. Such things often happened when she took other forms; their physiology did exert some degree of pressure on her. But in the end, she always remained in control. She always remained Sam.
She continued to dig, angling downward and toward the base, until she ceased to sense the wards above her. She’d managed to get beneath them. With a silent crow of victory, Sam went another ten feet or so before she began angling upward again. Before long, she was striking asphalt.
Damn, she thought, and experienced a sudden spike of panic. The asphalt might stretch for hundreds of feet in every direction. She turned down again, went another few feet, and once more angled up. This time, she was lucky eno
ugh to find a crack in the tarmac and break through.
Her nose hit the cool night air, and relief washed over her. Slowly, she crept out, her nose sniffing at the space around her, her senses on high alert. Her vision was for shit as a bilby, so she relied on her excellent hearing and sense of smell. At the moment, nothing surrounded her but pollen, dirt, and a faint scent of rain.
She climbed out onto the hard black surface and sniffed again. Then she made a break for it, running in the general direction of the base’s many buildings. Once she reached the sheltering shadows of the nearest and consequently largest one, her heart was racing, and she’d become a nervous little bandicoot.
She wasted no time shifting once more. This time, she was a small black cat. Her eyes cut through the darkness, taking in her location, and her fur sheltered her from sight.
The building beside her really was the largest of the buildings left remaining on the base. From what she could see, the structure that used to be the largest, what she recalled as being White Hall, had sadly been torn down. Blasted by a wrecking ball, it looked like. It must have happened very recently.
Now she stood under the broken windows of what had once been the base’s arena. It looked like a hangar, sort of, at least to her. Except that rings over the front door reminded her of the Olympic rings. They were faded, nearly colorless, and almost every window in the building had been shattered. Some were boarded up. Others had been forgotten or plundered.
Sam gauged the distance to the nearest one, estimated the height, and judged her jump – then leapt up and over the broken glass to land in the space beyond. She was fortunate. The area was relatively clear of glass and debris. She landed a little awkward on her front right paw, but the twinge of pain in her shoulder was gone quickly, and she scanned the large dark space.