Snow: The White Crow (14 page)

But why immobilize and not kill.  I started putting it together when I thought about them turning Amanda Danes.  They had two objectives here in the States.  Finding this Black Crown, and capturing and controlling the Red Hood or killing her.  The specific talismans they used showed they were expecting her.  That's why they split up with one group meant to be bait for her. They wanted to use her as a weapon or destroy her if they couldn't.

That's what the trap in the lodge was all about.  They wanted to trap her and turn her like they turned Danes.  Then that Alpha talisman would have enslaved her to their and their master's will.  The trap in the ravine was meant for her too.  Without the Alpha talisman, they couldn't control her after they turn her.  So paralyzing her or putting her in stasis, they could turn her and hold her like that indefinitely until they got another Alpha talisman or an Alpha could come to America to enslave her.  And if they secured this Black Crown, then nothing would be able to break the compulsion they would hold her to.

It seemed they were equally determined to complete both missions.  But then, what about the group of druids that vanished in Seattle?  Are there even bigger plans in the works?

I looked at my wolf.  “It's a trap for Maireni, all their efforts outside of finding the Black Crown have been to capture and turn her and put her under the control of the Alphas.”

She growled as comprehension darkened her eyes.  I looked at the ravine.  “We needed another route.  I don't think I can get us up the cliffs with my plants.  It would be too risky near the top.”

She nodded and pulled out her cell.  “Damnit.  No coverage here and the map is back at the car.”

We'd have to backtrack and lose even more time.  “I wish I could fly like Perchta could.”  I caught a faint glow from my lips as I said her name.  I was caught up in ecstasy as my shoulder flared.  Layers of nature magic blanketed me.  I 'was' that nature.  I marveled at my naivety just a moment before, it was all so simple.  A cloak of white feathers settled around me as my beautiful antlers grew out, I had missed them so.

I looked over to the little wolfling, she was so beautiful.  I felt the glow of love, belonging, and rightness when I looked at her.  I realized she was mine, of course I had already said that.  I knew this feeling, it was love.  I had felt it before, when I was not me when I was Perchta.  She had loved me, I had loved Gretta.  The weird duality was confusing me, but my Rachel was a bright light that focused me.

She was staring at me slack jawed.  I smiled warmly at her and stepped up to her and cupped her cheek in a hand.  I could see myself through her eyes and said, “Hello beautiful. It is an amazing feeling knowing we are part of all that is around us.  I love that smile of yours, it makes the world sing around us. Let me see what I can see.”

I kissed her gently on the lips, sharing a part of me with her, sharing with my love, my mate.  I saw her lips glow then return to normal.  Then with no effort, though a tiny part of me was panicked, confused, and afraid, I simply spread my wings and fluttered up to land on Rachel's shoulder in my white crow form.  A tiny voice inside me was asking myself, “I have a white crow form?”  I chuckled at that small piece of me and consoled my Gretta self.

Rachel had wonder in her eyes as she reached carefully to me and then caressed my wings.  I shuddered.  Good lord that felt arousing.  I cawed at her then leaped from her shoulder and spread my wings to catch the wind.  I flapped powerfully and gained altitude quickly.

My keen avian eyes took in the terrain.  But the rest of me reached out, I was aware of everything.  I was every living thing as far as I could see, it was a surreal feeling to the Gretta me. I wish I could feel like this always.  I knew where the crones were, even where the Red Hood and Daria were, I could not feel them, but the eyes of the forest saw them.  The birds and rabbits, the deer and bear, the insects and spiders, they were all my eyes.  I saw everything at once.

I spiraled down to my heart and landed on her outstretched arm.  She was smiling hugely, she looked excited and amazed.  She was almost giggling.  I smiled internally and my Gretta rubbed my head against Rachel's jaw so that she scent marked me.  I cawed at her then hopped off her arm and... I was Gretta.

I swayed at the disorientation of the feeling of the world, of nature, shrinking around me.  I immediately missed it.  It was like I was deaf and blind suddenly with almost mortal senses.  Though my magic reservoir was so much larger and I could peripherally sense nature, it wasn't the same as my Perchta self.  No, my Queen of Nature aspect.  Though I felt like Perchta, I knew I was Gretta in that form, just infused with her life force.  I know it all sounds confusing, just imagine living through it.

Rachel said breathlessly, “That was amazing Gretta, I didn't know you could do that.  Good god you were sexy in that forest maiden form.”

Part of my soul thrummed when she said 'Gretta' and I wanted nothing more than to merge with her.  I noticed her lips glowed softly when she said my name.  Oh, good lord, I had bound myself to her in yet another way.  It was the spell Perchta had used that would call her to me if I uttered her name.  The kiss I shared with her while I was in my other aspect had done it.  I thought about it, I remember wanting to do it, and that made it so.

“Gretta, are you ok?  ...Gretta?”  She prompted and knocked me out of my thoughts.  I swallowed as my need to be with her peaked and I had to kiss her... desperately, wanting to be one with her.

In between kisses, I gasped out,  “I think I infused... part of my life force... into you when... I kissed you.”  I pulled away as the need reduced to my normal lust levels for the woman.  “It was the spell Perchta used that allowed me to call her to me.”  Then I fought back a tear realizing that I knew how she felt about me back then and I was too stupid to know.  It is how I feel about Rachel now.  It was a spell binding my heart to her.  “You have to stop using my name.  You don't know what it is doing to me.”

She said, “Then what do you want me to call you... Gretta?”  She smirked as my body thrummed and I pressed against her in want.

I kissed her then flicked her nose. “Bad doggie!”  Then I cringed.  “Call me... Snow.  Until I can figure out what I did.”  I winced at her smile.  She only used the name it to tease me now, and I was used to people calling me Snow, so better that than me wanting to become one with her all the time.

She reached up and I was in nirvana as she stroked my antlers.  I froze, they were almost six inches long now.  I reached up to touch one.  “Oh good lord!  I'll need to grind these down just to pass for human now.”

She tilted her head. “Why?  They are beautiful.  And face it love, neither of us is strictly human.”

I pondered that and what caused them to grow.  Then it hit me, the warning about the brand.  It wasn't saying I'd take on the Queen of Nature aspect when I expended too much magic.  It was that I'd lose myself in that form more and more, each time I changed.  Eventually, I would be stuck in that aspect forever.  I remembered the amazing feeling.  Was that such a bad thing?  As long as I had Rachel by my side.

I smiled at her then said, “They are heading toward an abandoned mine, not more than three miles ahead in rough terrain.  We have to hurry.  Maireni and Daria finally caught the real scent and are heading there almost faster than my animals can track them.  They are ten miles out but will get there before us since I have to slow down for you.”

She looked at me. “Hey!”

I bumped her hip as I walked past toward the ravine.  “Come on slowpoke.”

She grabbed my hand as I passed and pulled me to a halt.  “The trap Snow.”

I shook my head.  “I thought it was so sophisticated and complex and would take an hour to dispel.   But my other aspect showed me how simple it was.  I know what string to tug on now to unravel it, it is so fragile.”

I allowed myself to expand into the forest around me and I could see the black threads of the weaving and reached out my hand as a symbolic gesture and tugged at the air.  The frayed thread hidden beneath the rest came free and the whole structure started falling apart around it.  The dead space came back to life and the insects, frogs, birds, and snakes in the ravine woke up again and fled in fear, not understanding what had happened to them.

I smiled at Rachel and just stepped into the ravine.  She hesitated, and when I didn't collapse she followed.  I teased, “Oooo, a chicken wolf.”  As we started running.

She tried to outpace me as she grinned. “Those of us not magically inclined are a little more cautious and prudent.”

The terrain was daunting, there was an overgrown access road to the north, that Mari and Daria were following straight to the mine.  We were not even half way there when we heard a great crashing sound followed by a “whump”.  We could see a plume of smoke and debris over the trees.

I stated the obvious.  “The fight has begun.”  I looked at the cloud then at Rachel.

She growled in anticipation of a fight then snarled, understanding my frustration.  “Go.  I'll catch up.”  I nodded once then leaped and a branch caught me and thrust me forward.  I sped toward the sounds of the fight with my forest propelling me forward, doubling my speed.

I crested a hill to see Red and her hellhound mate in the middle of some devastation staggering to their feet.  This wasn't as bad at the one from the previous day.  Only an acre was flattened.  I noted the crone with a talisman at the edge of the blast zone surrounded by the compelled infected.  How many objects of power did she possess?  I didn't see the leader.  She must have gone on while the lesser lamia fought.

Daria howled.  It was full of anger and power, for a moment I had an urge to run away.  I realized it wasn't my thought but in the power that rippled out in Daria's howl.  I grinned as most of the people surrounding the witch turned and started to run until the crone raised a hand and said something.  They stopped then surrounded her again.  She was using them as a shield.  She knew that Mari and Daria would be reticent to attack them in human form.

I came to rest high in a tree, the branches making a platform two hundred yards from the new unnatural clearing.  I unslung my M4 and popped the covers on the scope and chambered a round as I settled in.  I murmured, “Let's see how you'd look with a third eye,” as I took aim.  I took note of the wind and adjusted the scope then settled the cross hairs between the lamia's eyes.  I exhaled and gently squeezed the trigger.

One instant the witch was standing there, the next instant she was three feet over and the round buried itself into the ground beside her.  She looked away from Red for a moment and looked in my direction with a snarl on her face.

I whispered in bemusement at my miss, “What the hell?”  I chambered another round then took aim and gently squeezed.  Keeping the scope on her the whole time.  She was in my sights then she wasn't as another round hit the ground to her left.

I hissed in frustration.  Something was going on here.  I reached out, connecting with the forest, I could feel the heat from my brand.  I used to be able to do so much before the brand heated up, but I think it wanted the change.  No... 'I' wanted the change.  I willed it to stop and it did, only I knew I had started the change because I saw so clearly, and felt like I was part of everything.

In this hybrid form, I looked through my scope and I could see it.  The other witch had spelled her.  It was some sort of prism weaving, that was protecting her from mortal weapons.  She was there but not there when it came to them.  A blurring if you will.

That limited me to two choices, the same choices I knew Red had since she didn't have any weapons drawn as she charged at the woman.  Physical attack or magic attacks.  I leaped out of my perch and realized I had my cloak of feathers but was still mostly in my Gretta aspect.  I didn't use the trees to help my descend as the wind fluttered through my cloak and I landed on the forest floor softly.

I ran out into the devastation and tried to catch up with my two allies who had already closed the gap by half in the moments it took me to reach the ground.

The crone pulled out another talisman and invoked a harmonic trigger and dark energies rippled out in front of her.  The three of us hit a barrier and Daria yelped and I barely caught myself from falling back after impacting the almost invisible surface.  Red stopped millimeters from impacting as she saw Daria rebound, her reflexes were superhuman.

I looked at the barrier and could see the weaving clearly now, it was fairly simple.  I was tempted to let my Queen of Nature aspect take over since I knew I'd be able to dispel it in seconds.  The lure of the power was so seductive.  Instead, I started concentrating and went about probing the tendrils of dark energy to start disassembling it as Red put a hand out and started walking around the barrier's perimeter to see if she could feel any weaknesses.

I said in a voice that was only half human, sounding of nature and the rustling of leaves, the babbling of brooks, “It is a sphere Maireni, I'm unweaving it.  Give me a few seconds.”

Daria stepped beside me, interposing herself slightly between the crone, her protectors, and me.  I smiled at her, she was protecting me.  I let one hand drop to the huge female werewolf and scratched her neck under her downy ruff as my other hand went about pulling at the loose threads in the shield.

The lamia snapped her eyes to me and hissed in anger and hate.  This would be her end.  The poor cursed couldn't stop us from ending her.  They were weak in human form.