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My fists were clenched so tightly in his
jacket that my fingers had started to ache, and I worked to open
them, unable to prevent a wince as tendons that had been strained
almost to the breaking point flexed again. I shifted slightly when
I realized that I held something soft in my right hand, and Akira
leaned back a bit so that I could pull away slightly, though he
didn’t let me go completely. I didn’t care about anything other
than the comfort he offered, so I was fairly content to stay
sheltered in his arms as his wings formed a large, feathery barrier
against the rest of the world.

I gasped when my hand finally opened all the
way and several large, very crushed black feathers drifted down
onto my lap. I lifted my swollen, aching eyes and nearly dissolved
into tears all over again when I saw that blood trickled slightly
from a cut on Akira’s lips. The result, I had no doubt, of one of
my fists as it connected rather painfully with his face. I reached
out a shaking hand and gently wiped some of the blood off.

My first attempt at speaking was nothing more
than a pained croak, and I swallowed convulsively for a moment
before I tried again.

“I’m so sorry,” I managed to get out, my
voice harsh and rough. I vaguely wondered if I’d be able to talk
tomorrow.

“You have a mean right hook,” Akira said
wryly as he moved his arms so he could stroke my cheeks. He removed
some of the remnants of my tears with his thumbs. “And quite the
death grip. It takes quite a lot to actually rip out a
Tengu’s
feathers, they’re usually a lot sturdier than
that.”

“I’m really so, so sorry,” I wheezed out. My
voice had degraded from a croak to barely a whisper.

“Jane, you’ve had nothing but a series of
shocks tonight, several of which would have sent someone who wasn’t
quite as strong as you are to a mental hospital several times over.
You’ve handled this a lot better than I, or anyone else, for that
matter, could have expected. The last human that witnessed
something similar to what you have tonight didn’t do quite as well.
In fact, she’s the reason I knew to let you go a little while ago,
she wound up vomiting all over my wings.”

I winced again and made a face. “Wet feathers
and vomit,” I rasped.

“Not a pretty combination,” Akira said, his
voice dry.

“Is Maria, is she really,” I couldn’t get the
word out, but Akira understood without me having to say it.

“Yeah, though I’ve never seen anything like
it,” he replied, and there was a rustle of feathers as he pulled
his wings back and away, dispelling the illusion that we were alone
in the clearing. Tears started to trickle down my cheeks again, and
I idly wondered if it were possible to cry yourself into
dehydration. Wasn’t there only so much water a person had in their
body?

Maria was curled up against Dellar in a
mirror image to my own perch on Akira’s lap, tucked up under his
chin with her face pressed against his chest as he gently stroked
her hair and rocked her back and forth. His pale eyes were focused
on Akira and myself, and when Akira pulled his wings back he
whispered something and Maria pulled away slightly and looked up.
Her eyes were just as swollen as mine, and her cheeks were streaked
with the remnants of her own tears. I gulped, pushed against
Akira’s chest, and he reluctantly removed his arms and allowed me
to pull away from him. I tried to stand, but my knees buckled and I
kneeled on the ground, my breath harsh. Maria walked to me and went
down on her knees within reaching distance. I stared at her and
tried to find any signs of a difference, but there was nothing that
outwardly showed proof of what she had told me. It wasn’t until she
took my hand and placed it on her neck that I realized the truth of
her words.

“No pulse,” I rasped, and my eyes filled
again.

“Please, don’t,” Maria said as she reached
forward and dragged me to her, hugging me tightly and I closed my
eyes at the familiar sensation of the sister of my soul being near
me. I had missed her so much.

I sniffled and battled with my tears, and
somehow I managed to vanquish them, but only barely. It was time
that I got myself back under control, and as Maria held me I
concentrated on finding my footing again on ground that was rather
shaky, but still capable of holding me. We pulled away and I sat
back, only to bump against Akira, who had come up behind me and
didn’t waste time to encase me in his arms again. Dellar did the
same with Maria, and we just sat there for a few seconds while
every now and then a gentle breeze would stir the fallen
leaves.

“How,” I rasped and waved my hand in the
direction of Dellar. Thankfully, Maria understood.

“It’s a long story,” she began.

“I want to hear it,” Akira said, “but I don’t
think now is the time to go through it. Too much has happened
already and I’m sure that your parents are worried.”

“Oh crap,” Maria moaned. “Mom’s probably
called out the National Guard!”

“Just the local base,” I rasped and reached
up to rub at my neck.

“You need to stop talking,” Akira said and
shifted. Before I could register what he was doing, he had stood up
and held in his arms, bridal style. I tried to squeak a protest,
but he glared at me. “Remember what I said about not having to be
strong all the time? Let me help you, ok? I doubt you could walk
back to Baker’s, anyway, when you couldn’t even stand a few minutes
ago.”

I huffed and resigned myself to being
carried, though I wasn’t very graceful in my giving in, a fact
which had Akira rolling his eyes at me. Maria quickly caught up and
walked by our side, with Dellar next to her. The gentle
tinkle-clink of my coined scarf, which Maria had picked up, broke
the silence, but it was still a very somber group that made their
way back to my car. As soon as I was within a signal range my phone
started to ring like crazy. I jumped a little and pulled it out of
my jacket pocket, which, thankfully, was the one that faced away
from Akira’s body, and checked the screen. The whole entire ordeal
had only lasted about thirty minutes, but I had at least that many
missed calls, voice messages, and texts from my mother and Mrs.
Dupree.

I wondered just what I was going to say when
I called them since the truth would most likely get me committed to
that mental hospital Akira had mentioned earlier. The decision was
taken from my hands, literally, when Maria reached over and
snatched the phone from me. She hit a few buttons and my jaw
dropped when I heard her talking to someone that sounded like an
emergency dispatcher.

“What,” I said, but she held up her hand and
continued to speak, giving our location and who all was with her to
the operator before she hung up.

“Look,” she said, “you were hurt by the
Oni
and I’m worried about you. We also need a story to tell
about what happened and why I’ve been gone for so long that doesn’t
involve vampires and the like. Now, give me an idea of what to tell
my Mom, because I don’t remember most of what happened.”

“Serial rapist,” I rasped. “He mentioned
other girls. He worked at a gas station. And you were hurt, too,
you know.”

“Yeah, but due to my . . . condition, I don’t
get injured like I used to. Now, just follow my lead after I call
my Mom.”

Maria leaned against the hood of my car, and
I squirmed, embarrassment having finally crept upon me when I
realized that Akira still held me snugly against his chest.

“Down,” I said, and didn’t care that I
sounded a bit like a grumpy child.

“Are you sure?” he asked, and now that we
were out under a street lamp I saw the humor that gleamed in his
eyes.

“Down,” I said again, and squirmed to get my
point across. He laughed lightly and set me on my feet, but held
onto my elbows until I managed to get my knees to stop their
trembling. I stepped back and looked up at him for a moment as
butterflies tickled my stomach at the loss of his warmth.

“Thank you,” I whispered and furrowed my brow
when I noticed two things were missing. “Your wings and katana . .
. “

“I’ll explain later,” he said as Maria
started to talk into my phone.

“Mom? Hey, no, yes, no, calm down, no, Mom,
I’m sorry, Mom, I need, no, stop crying please, Mom,” she grew
quiet for a moment and I could hear Mrs. Dupree’s near hysterical
voice through the earpiece of my phone.

“Mom,” Maria tried again, “Mom, let me
explain, we have an ambulance coming and I need, no, yes I’m ok,
no, Mom! Listen to me! Some creepy guy grabbed me at a gas station
and dragged me out into the park near Mr. Baker’s. Jane found us
and so did Akira Yamaguchi, the guy who came with Jane when she
visited last week. There was a fight and the guy ran off and . . .
yes I called the cops, I can hear them now and, no I’m telling you,
I’m ok. Can you call Mrs. Alexander and let her know what’s going
on? I gotta go, Mom, the cops will be here shortly. Yeah, no, we’ll
most likely go to the hospital, the dispatcher mentioned checking
us out and . . . yeah, no. I love you, too, and I’m sorry. Yeah, I
know, doesn’t make me feel any better. Yeah, yeah, ok, bye.”

I frowned at her when she hung up the
phone.

“I’ve never heard my mother so upset before.
That’s,” she paused and shook her head, unable to come up with
words. “Anyway, I can’t mention Dellar, that wouldn’t be a pretty
picture.”

I thought about Mrs. Dupree and her
insistence on appearances and parties. How the social mask that she
wore had been buried so deeply into her being that it was
permanently attached. Even if she never knew what he was, even if
he turned out to be the kindest person in existence, she would
never accept him due to his appearance alone.

“I need to go,” Dellar said as sirens
destroyed the peace that had enveloped us. Maria nodded and gave
him a swift kiss on the cheek. “We will discuss what happened
tonight and piece together the full story at a later date. Maria
knows how to get ahold of me, and while I’m not averse to being
seen, I do tend to raise more questions than can be answered.”

“Yeah, we need to talk,” Akira said, and I
nodded in agreement. Dellar nodded in return, and slipped away. I
was rather amazed that for someone so pale, he seemed to just melt
into the darkness.

“He kind of reminds me of Mr. Baker,” I
whispered. “Very formal.”

“A lot of vampires are like that,” Akira
said, distracted by the approach of flashing lights. “Comes from
being born in a different time period.”

I wasn’t given much time to dwell or ask
questions as the first police car pulled up to us. Within seconds
Baker’s was filled with cops and an ambulance. The EMT’s came over
with their wonderful little bags full of things with which to poke
us, cops headed over with notebooks, tablets, and other note taking
material and still other cops walked off into the park. I guess
they were looking for the scene for evidence or something. I gave a
frantic look at Maria when one of the EMT’s put a stethoscope to
her chest, but she shook her head and smiled reassuringly.

I wasn’t able to ask her what was up before
the rest of the EMT’s swarmed us. What followed was a flurry of
questions, blood pressure cuffs, peering into my mouth and at my
throat, pokes, prods, questions and explanations. Because my voice
was so damaged from screaming (something about nodules on my vocal
cords), my EMT determined that I should stay as quiet as possible
and not speak unless I absolutely had to. It was left to Maria to
give a full statement, with Akira chiming in and following her lead
and I nodded whenever someone glanced in my direction.

I knew Maria was good at telling stories, she
used to make up all sorts of random adventures for us to play at
when we were younger, but the blending of fact and fiction that she
now wove together was extremely tight and highly believable, mainly
because she stuck as close to the truth as possible while she left
the more fantastic details, like the fact that Akira had wings,
out.

According to Maria, when she had gone for the
walk earlier, she hadn’t meant to be gone so long. She had been
caught up in enjoying being outside after having felt sick for so
long that she wandered further than she had intended. By the time
she realized it, she was quite a ways from home and the battery of
her cell phone had died. She hadn’t thought to check it before she
left the house because she hadn’t been anywhere that had required a
cell phone for two weeks and their house had a landline. She had
found herself near a gas station that still had one of the old
fashioned pay phones outside the building, and went in to get some
change for a dollar she found in her pocket so she could call her
Mom. The attendant had handed over the quarters; she thanked him,
and exited. She said that she didn’t remember reaching the pay
phone, that something had hit her in the back of the head and she
didn’t wake up until she was in the woods and I was fighting with
the man. She told how the man had grabbed me, threatened to rape
and kill me and that he had stated he would do the same to her. She
said she attacked the man to get him away from me, only to be
thrown off and knocked unconscious again. The next time she came to
Akira had arrived and the man had vanished.

“What were you doing out in the park so late
at night,” one of the cops asked Akira, who watched as my EMT
checked my wrists and began to gently rub some antibiotic cream on
them and on the palm of my hand where the branch had stabbed me
with the splinter.

“The people I’m staying with are really old
fashioned and have a police scanner. I heard the request that any
cops on patrol keep an eye out for Maria. Jane’s my friend and I
knew she’d be out looking for her, too, so I tried to call her
cell. When it went straight to voicemail, I got worried and drove
around looking for either one of them. I saw Jane’s car was parked
here, so I walked around and heard the struggle,” Akira answered
smoothly.