Call of the Raven (27 page)

Ari quickly added the last when Mary looked
as though she would panic at the thought. Elle knew exactly how she
felt. The glowering green eyed teenage girl was far more
frightening than the tiger they first encountered.

“I want to stay with her,” Mary protested and
hugged Elle tighter.

“Then she means a lot to you then?”

Mary gave Ari a big nod and he stood and
looked again at Elle. His brown eyes seemed to be pleading with her
for help. Pushing Mary back at arm’s length, Elle looked down into
her eyes.

“Mary look, he’s right. I don’t understand
what’s going on any more than you do, but I can feel it inside.
He’s telling you the truth. Besides, I can’t protect you. Look at
me Mary. I can’t even protect myself.”

The last of her words, Elle had whispered in
Mary’s ear but she got the distinct impression that Ari heard by
his sudden body shift. Elle hadn’t said the words for sympathy
though but when Ari along with the tiger girl closely looked at
her, she became consciously aware of the fact they were, and had
noticed her state of disrepair. She had forgotten about her
bruises.

“But that’s why I want you to come,” Mary
insisted, eyes glistening.

Elle took a step back. “I’ll be fine. Now go
with him, quickly. I’ll go ask one of the firemen for help.”

“But, what about mama?”

Elle turned to Ari then. “Promise me that you
will find her? All little girls need their mothers.”

“I’ll see to it myself personally,” he
nodded.

Gently, he touched Mary’s arm, like a person
offering their hand to a strange dog. When Mary loosened her arms
and took his hand, Ari smiled wide and walked her over to the
awaiting Kennedy. Elle’s throat thickened as she stood watching the
little girl leaving with her huge unsure gaze fixed on her. She
wanted to run after Mary, the dirty little girl that she first
encountered on the alphabet pattered rug but she had no right.

Mary wasn’t hers, and it was obvious that Ari
was struggling with what to do with her. Again Elle felt as though
she were an uninvited bystander in life. After Kennedy and Mary had
walked a fair piece, Ari faced her.

“I’m at a loss,” he hesitated, eyes fixed
again on her face, “I’m not sure what to do with you but maybe you
should come with us, at least, until—”

“I’ll save you the awkward goodbye Ari.” She
started walking backward, away from him. “Please look after M—”
Elle stopped walking. A strange tingle of trepidation filtered
throughout Elle’s body as she noticed a blackbird flying straight
for her. Ari spun around just as Steve transformed from bird to
man, and with a shove, he sent Ari flying sideways into a row of
trashcans.

“I told you I wanted to talk to her Ari!”
Steve shouted angrily. With Ari moaning and trying to get to his
feet, Steve grabbed her by the arm and effortlessly hoisted her
body over his shoulder. Elle tried to scream out but no sound
formed.

With each jolting step Steve took, her voice
was robbed away and an intense pain stabbed through her midsection.
She hit his back with her fist but as nausea swept over her, she
put her hand over her mouth instead. Part of her hoped she would
throw up on him.

At the sound of a loud growl, Elle lifted up
her head to see the chocolate Labrador racing toward them. In one
spinning move, Steve let her loose and Elle flew backward into the
metal dumpster behind her apartment building. She cried out in
pain, as man and dog made contact. In a veil of dust, they took
several hard rolls on the dirt and gravel surface of the alley,
before they became a tangle of leather, fur, teeth and fist.

Elle soon realized she had her own problems
to worry about. She had just become aware that the sharpness of the
jagged metal from the dumpster had cut into her lower back, when a
cramping spasm shot across her abdomen. Moaning in agony, she
clutched her stomach. She wanted to yell at them to stop, that
something was wrong, but neither dog nor man was paying attention
to her now. She glanced in the opposite direction in search of Mary
or Kennedy, and it was then she witnessed the blue glowing cloud at
the end of the alley.

The cloud thinned into a blue stream of
lightening that whipped across the fighting duo, causing one to
scream and the other to yelp in pain. Elle wasn’t sure what she
witnessed but whatever had taken place, seemed to surprise Ari all
the more. Shifting into a man, he lied back on his elbows and
stared mouth agape as footsteps approached.

Elle heard them too and turned to look. She
could see him now all too clearly, a tall man dressed in all black,
wearing a long leather coat with his collar popped up to his chin.
His hair blew wildly about his face, and his eyes were covered with
glasses that reflected the light of the streetlamp above. On his
outstretched hands, he wore gloves with no fingers.

He didn’t look at her but instead headed
straight for Ari. Elle understood then he didn’t see her where she
stood. Ari had warned about others coming for Mary but as the man
approached his hands lowered and she could tell that Ari, although
unmistakably shocked, seemed to know him. Steve on the other hand
had shifted and flown away the second he spotted the stranger
coming

“What are you doing here?” Ari uttered.

Before the man could speak, Elle let out a
whimper and both he and Ari looked in her direction. Even though
she couldn’t see his eyes, he appeared shocked to see her. She
didn’t have much time to notice much else about him, when another
spasm of pain caused her to double over.

Vision blurring, Elle dropped to her knees
and then allowed gravity to win. Her body fell to the gravel alley
and she turned her head so that she could see the apartment
building. She could see the firemen as they worked among the
smoking embers, totally oblivious to her. And it was only then Elle
realized they must not be able to see them, not the blackbirds or
the men.

There had been too much fantasying and
reading of weird books where men shifted into animals. That was it,
the answer. She had finally lost her mind and this was all one bad
dream.

She would wake up.

She would wake up in her own bed and realize
that Julio had truly knocked the sense out of her. As the two
strangers moved to stand over her she looked up into their faces.
She felt the touch of a hand on her neck.

“Just leave me,” she muttered. “No matter
where I go he’ll find me anyway.”

***

Squatting down, Asher
moved the collar
of her shirt aside to expose what appeared to be infected bite
marks. Her lip was busted and there were various cuts and abrasions
on her face and exposed skin. Ari gently rolled her over and pulled
up the back of the man’s jacket that was far too large for her
slender frame, and the tee-shirt underneath, to expose several
other bruises in various shades of healing. Blood dripped from a
long nasty cut on the lower right quadrant.

Instantly, Asher looked away. Removing the
sunglasses he placed them in the pocket of his jacket. She was
unconscious anyhow and wouldn’t notice his eyes. Asher had seen her
eyes though, the eyes that he had drawn for the last year, and
there was no doubt in his mind that the blue pastel had been the
perfect color choice. The shock at seeing her had washed through
him, now it was blanketed in confusion, anger and anxiousness, of
such magnitude he had never experienced. He didn’t understand.

He didn’t understand at all.

“She’s got a nasty cut but other than that
it’s hard to tell what’s wrong in the condition she’s in,” Ari
said. “Maybe Steve gave her too much of a scare, or seeing us
finally got to her, but then again she didn’t pass out until you
showed up.”

Asher ignored the last of Ari’s comment.
“Just how did that come to play, her seeing you? Didn’t you have
your barriers up?”

“We put up our barriers but the second she
turned toward us Kennedy and I knew she could see right through
them. Even then I’m not you Asher. I wasn’t going to turn my back
and pretend she didn’t exist.” Ari bit the corner of his lip
thoughtfully. “But then, that’s before I realized she wasn’t the
girl’s mom.” Laying her back on the alley floor, Ari took her by
the chin and turned her face so that he could see her better. “What
would make a man hit this face?”

“Only a coward would do that.” Asher stood
and glared down at Ari. When he realized he was looking at him, Ari
peered upward, and the light above glinted in his eyes.

“I know that look Asher, I’m about to get
rebuked.”

“Arimus!” Asher exclaimed. He paused to make
sure he hadn’t awakened her since his voice made her whole body
twitch. He wondered if the man responsible for the bruises yelled
at her often. When he spoke again he made sure to keep his voice
down. “What do you mean she’s not the girl’s mom? I was confused
enough when I saw her standing there looking back at me but what do
you
mean
? Are you telling me she’s not Mea Carter?”

“No,” Ari visually tensed, in preparation of
his anger. “She’s the neighbor.”

“The neighbor!” Asher couldn’t think. His
mind was a tumult of mental mayhem and nothing made sense. The
rings were burning, and he knew Ari understood how he felt. But, he
couldn’t see how his anger was his brother’s fault when the true
identity of the woman, lying at his feet, didn’t change anything.
With the heat in his eyes, quickly fading, Asher looked skyward.
“Where’s Nixon?”

“Not sure. He picked a fight with the
Blackbirds and I haven’t seen him since.”

“You should go after him,” Asher said.

Ari looked at him and within his expression
Asher couldn’t help but wonder if his brother hadn’t been prepared
to go to battle on her regard. “My God Asher, you can’t be that
cold. It’s obvious someone beat the crap out of her and you heard
what she said. Besides, the temperatures gonna drop real fast now
that the suns gone down. She’s not even dressed properly and that
burning building was her home. We need to take her somewhere,
anywhere. I knew you would behave this way. but I have eyes too and
hers look an awful lot like someone I’ve seen hanging out in your
office on a sketch pad for the last year. I wasn’t sure what I was
going to do with her or how I was going to convince you, but we
can’t just leave her here.”

Asher heaved a sigh, realizing just how right
he was. Ari had been mentally preparing. “I didn’t say anything
about leaving her behind. We have a doctor on staff at the
Plaza.”

“But,” Ari hesitated, “aren’t you gonna bark
about her being an outsider?”

Ari seemed dubious, even after Asher
responded by shaking his head, but Asher was suddenly aware that
there was far more pressing matters. Turning away, Asher looked off
to the end of the alley. He inhaled the cold air into his lungs but
before he could utter a word or Ari ask what was wrong, his cell
rang.

“Where did you find your phone?”

“I asked Bart to bring one with him from town
when he came to pick me up.” Reaching into his pocket, Asher took
out the phone and put it to his ear. After listening, he snapped it
closed. “Do you still have yours?”

“Yes, I never lost mine. It was in the
car.”

“I didn’t lose—” Asher stopped talking and
took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. “We can discuss
this later. Bart just informed me that he spotted a few Gothi
coming this way. I don’t know how they know we’re here but either
way we need to move, and yes that includes her.”

“What about Kennedy and Grant’s girl?” Ari
pulled the woman forward, and Asher watched as her head lolled
forward and hit his shoulder.

“I instructed Kennedy to take the girl on to
the Plaza in the truck. But unfortunately Bart is parked in a
construction site a few blocks over, and apparently that is where
the Gothi are congregating, so he can’t come for us yet.” Sighing
Asher looked to the sky. “Now go and look for Nixon. I’ll take the
girl.”

Asher ignored Ari’s shock and instead looked
off in the direction of the huge ice cream cone. He pointed to the
building. “I’ll wait there with her,” he said. “Call me when you
find Nixon but if for some reason you can’t reach us, go to the
Plaza and I’ll eventually meet you there.”

When Asher bent over to pick her up, Ari
stood back out of the way, and watched him. Carefully, so not to
wake her, Asher positioned her head against his shoulder. He
brushed her hair out of her face, and inspected the dark circles
under her eyes, along with the busted swollen lip.

“I don’t even know her name,” he
murmured.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask,” Ari said.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing? What about the rules
about outsiders?”

“Ari you’re like a double edged sword. I
leave her and you complain and call me heartless. I take her and
you remind me of my rules but either way you cut me.”

“Asher, I’m just stunned that you…”

Asher had avoided the touch and company of a
woman his entire adult life except for those such as Kennedy and
Linn that he was forced to deal with.

But this was different.

Asher knew he couldn’t make Ari understand
his actions in just a few words. There was no point in trying, so
he just turned with her in his arms and walked away.

There would be time for that later.

Chapter
Sixteen

Outsider

A thick layer
of film covered Elle’s
tongue. She tried to swallow but her throat was dry and burned like
fire. She was cold, very cold. The room was dark save for a faint
light coming in through a broken window. She couldn’t remember
where she was. Blinking hard to adjust her eyes, she looked
straight ahead. As her vision cleared she made out an old soda
fountain and a stove. Yes, a stove, the kind restaurants used. She
turned her head ever so slightly to look out the window. Just as
she made out the huge ice cream cone, something moved out of the
corner of her eye.