Marked Fur Murder (30 page)

The wind picked up, going from a gentle breeze to a blustery gust in seconds. Maybe I wasn't going to get to eyeball the action itself, but I had a ringside seat to the consequences. I scuttled farther back on the rock and tried to find a more secure place to wedge myself into, which turned out to be easier than I thought; there was a natural little cave at the base of the tree, hollowed out by nature. I ducked inside and found that I still had a pretty good view of the sky out the entrance.

And what a sky it was.

The gray clouds were retreating, churning as they went like some kind of upside-down landslide in reverse. When they got high enough, they tore themselves in two and the sun blazed out of a blue rift in the middle.

The clouds piled themselves up on either side, two huge tidal waves of dirty gray poised to crash into each other. I expected the thunderbolts to start crackling between them any moment—but that's not what happened.

The cloud fronts surged together instead, two sumos made of smoke trying to outbelly each other. They met, merged, and began to spin. A storm cell was forming right above me, the eye of a developing hurricane. The wind howled outside my little shelter like a crazed animal.

Then
the lightning started crackling. And the eye, instead of expanding, got smaller and tighter and turned into a tornado. Which was then attacked by another tornado, except the second one seemed to be full of hailstones, and then it started raining really hard. Sideways.

I was starting to get the picture. This duel wasn't so much about inflicting personal harm on the other guy as it was about demonstrating who was better at flinging weather around.

I sat back and sighed in relief. “Okay. This isn't a fight, it's a
dance-off
.”

One that still had dire consequences for losing, but at least I could be reasonably sure Ben would survive it. And hey, it was pretty amazing to watch.

Ever seen snow flurries with a rainbow in the background? Me neither. Or sheet lightning flashing through hailstones, turning them into a skyscape of brilliant, falling diamonds?

But it wasn't all about flashy moves. Some of it was about power, pure and simple, and when I saw one of the storm fronts abruptly recede across the sky, pulling back all the way to the horizon, I thought I might be seeing a surrender.

I was wrong.

Something was forming, out there beyond the curve of the Aerie. Something big and black and circular. It almost looked like a gigantic mouth.

Opposite this was a wall of white, an endless expanse of cloud that reached from the surface of the Aerie to the top of the sky, a huge blank piece of paper.

I could see the shape of the thing on the horizon now, a long, writhing tube of black and white that looked very much like a gigantic serpent. It was a tornado traveling lengthwise, a whirling tunnel of wind and hailstones carrying a terrifying amount of kinetic energy. It charged forward, lightning spitting from the depths of that dark maw, and in the instant before it slammed into the wall of white I saw the silhouette of a large winged shape above it.

And I knew, in my heart, who that winged shape had to be.

The tornado ripped the wall of white apart. Shredded it, consumed it, made it part of the tornado itself, until there was nothing left but a huge, whirling funnel cloud writhing overhead. It withdrew, back toward the horizon, and a second later I saw an almost identical tornado appear on the other side of the sky and get closer. A retaliation?

No. It drew closer and merged seamlessly with the first tornado, forming an unbroken loop of whirling wind encircling the entire Aerie, an orbiting vortex of air. And a declaration of victory.

The winged shape had been hidden on the other side of the tornado ring, but now it swooped around into sight, one wing tip almost grazing the tornado's edge. It made a few lazy circuits around the funnel cloud, then dove into the rushing winds like an osprey hunting a salmon.

When it emerged, it held a still figure in its enormous talons.

Ben.

 

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

The Thunderbird—what else could it be?—swooped down to the flat rock Ben had deposited me on and dropped Ben on it. She was fairly gentle, but I rushed out of my hiding place and over to him immediately. “Ben! Ben, are you all right?”

“He's fine,” Teresa said. I looked up into the face of the giant bird of prey a few feet from me and did my best not to glare. Up close, she looked a lot like a bald eagle, except her head was more of a silver color than white, and her beak was black as night. Part of my brain was marveling at the fact that only a few short months ago this would have boggled my mind, and now it seemed almost ordinary. Almost.

“What did you do to him?” I demanded.

Teresa cocked her head at me and blinked. “Sucked all the oxygen out of his lungs through rapid depressurization,” she said. “He's unconscious, but he'll recover quickly. You don't have to worry.”

“No? You just used a tornado to beat the crap out of my boyfriend and now you're looking at me like I'm a fish dinner. In a world, I should mention, that seems remarkably devoid of fish.”

She chuckled. “Is this form bothering you? My apologies.” Her beak began to shrink, her feathers became skin and hair, and her body shifted from avian to humanoid. In less than a minute there was a naked woman standing in front of me instead of an oversized falcon. It didn't really make me any more comfortable.

“So now what?” I said. “Did you suck all of Ben's abilities out of him along with the air? Or is that some whole other ritual?”

Teresa shook her head. “Foxtrot, do you know what
counting coup
means?”

“I do, actually. The Plains Indians used it to commemorate acts of bravery—usually touching an enemy with a hand or coup stick, then escaping without injury.”

“That's right. The idea, as my first husband explained it to me, was that it took more daring to not harm your enemy, while proving that you could have. By choosing not to hurt them when you could, you demonstrate not only that you have power over them but that they have none over you; by giving them their lives you assert your superiority. It's a strategy I have a great deal of respect for.”

I cradled Ben's head in my lap. He coughed a few times, and his eyelids fluttered.

“So that's what this is?” I asked. “You're counting coup on another Thunderbird? Why? Who, exactly, are you demonstrating your bravery for?”

She shook her head. “This isn't about bravery. It's about me asserting my power over another member of my tribe. It was never my intention to steal Ben's powers, Foxtrot, but it was vital that I demonstrate exactly where he and I stood in relation to each other, and that I do it in a formal, ritual manner. He was raised in a culture very different from that of his ancestors, and I needed to remind him of his roots.”

“What?” Ben moaned. “Ahh. Make the world stop spinning…”

“Many Native American tribes are matriarchal,” Teresa said. “So are Thunderbirds. I'm not Ben's enemy, Foxtrot. I'm his
teacher.
”

Ben sat up. He looked at me first, a little groggily, and said, “I don't want to go to school today, I'm sick.”

“It's okay,” I said. “You can stay home, drink ginger ale, and watch cartoons.”

He put one hand to his head. “Oww. Did I win?”

“Not so much. But you did come in second, and that's still pretty good.”

He mustered enough energy for a glare. “I'm not finished.” He tried to stand up, failed completely, and wound up rolling away from me. He made it to his knees, then lurched over to the edge of the rock and retched.

“No,” said Teresa, “you're not. You're just getting started. Meet me here tomorrow, same time, and I'll show you how to do that ice tornado trick.”

Ben turned around, stared at her, and blinked. “You're not going to de-thunder me?”

“Not if you show up on time and pay attention in class.”

“Uh … okay?”

“Good. I'll see you tomorrow.” She rose into the air, a whirlwind forming around her, and vanished.

Ben and I looked at each other. “Why was she naked?” Ben asked.

I grinned. “After what just happened,
that's
your first question?”

“It seemed like a good place to start.”

“I'm guessing she ditched her clothes when she changed shape.”

“She changed shape? Into what?”

I sighed. “A gigantic marshmallow man. Into a bird, doofus. Any guesses what kind?”

He rubbed his forehead with both hands. “No, that one seems pretty obvious. Sorry, my brain's still in neutral. What just happened?”

“A giant supernatural bird just kicked your butt with an electric hail vortex. But you put up enough of a fight that she doesn't consider you totally hopeless, so instead of taking your powers away she's going to train you how to use them. Got it?”

“I think I'm going to throw up again.”

But he didn't. He just took a few deep breaths, stared out at the sky—which was now a pretty, cloudless blue—and said, “She's not the enemy.”

“Doesn't look like it. We had a talk before you woke up, and she informs me that Thunderbirds are a matriarchy. She just felt she needed to make that clear in a way you would understand.”

“Huh. She could have just told me.” He didn't sound resentful, and I thought that was probably a good thing.

“Like you would have listened.”

“I'm not completely thick-skulled.”

“No, just mostly.” I walked over to where he stood and took his hand. “You need to learn when to let people help you. Nobody can do it all on their own.”

“Says the woman who does everything for everyone.”

“Yes, but not by myself. I have partners. I have friends. I have people I trust to look out for me when I can't look out for myself.”

He met my eyes, then looked away. “Okay, okay,” he sighed. “I may have a problem when it comes to letting others give me a hand. It's just that I always felt I needed to
prove
myself, you know? You might think suddenly being able to control the weather would make you feel powerful, but mostly I feel like I'm a kid again. Not knowing exactly what I'm supposed to do, just knowing I can't screw it up.”

“That's not how kids are supposed to feel,” I said softly.

“Maybe not. But that's what it was like in my family. ‘You're responsible for your own success and your own mistakes,' my father always said. I guess that's why I always fought so hard to win on my own terms—if I was going to take all the blame for my failures, then I was sure as hell going to take all the credit for my accomplishments.”

“No one's trying to take anything away from you. Especially not me.”

He looked back at me, his dark eyes serious. “I know that. You're good at giving—I'm just not so good at receiving. Some part of me needs to
earn
what I get, and another part feels that I've haven't earned
anything
in my life. I didn't earn these powers, I inherited them. I didn't earn my job, it was given to me.”

“No. Opportunities are what you were given. It's what you do with them that earns you the right to keep them. That's how it works for everyone. And you do a damn fine job of earning that, every day.”

“Well, I haven't given anybody food poisoning, yet. Or flooded a town.”

“True,” I said. “And as much as you hate to accept gifts, you've just been given another opportunity—the chance to learn how to really use your powers. Which, considering your stance on responsibility, I really think you should take advantage of.”

“So you trust her now?”

“Hell, no. But I trust you. And I don't believe she means you any harm. She may not be a stellar human being, but she seems to be on our side. Or your side, anyway.”

“And how about you?” He took my other hand in his. “Are you still on my side?”

“Always,” I said. Then, being no fool, I kissed him. On the cheek, because he'd just thrown up.

Did I mention that times passes differently in the Thunderbird realm? You can stay there for an hour or two and only minutes go by back in the default world. Why, you could spend a whole morning in the Aerie—even sunbathing in the nude if you wanted, because who would see you?—before going back to plain old reality. Yep, you could totally do that.

But it would help if you came prepared.

*   *   *

“Next time?” I said as the winds spiraled up and Thunderspace faded away, “I'm coming prepared. A blanket, some sunscreen, and definitely some food. I am
starving
.”

He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me closer. “Well, we did burn off more than a few calories…”

[Ahem.]

“Oh, hello,” I said to my two partners. “We're, um, back.”

Whiskey discreetly sniffed the air. [Indeed. May I conclude from the post-coital pheromones you're both exuding that the duel went successfully and this is a celebratory occasion? Or is it more in the nature of a reconciliation in the aftermath of crushing defeat?]

I looked around, stretched, and yawned. “Not as simple as all that, kitty. Ben lost the duel, but won … a scholarship, I guess.”

[Intriguing. She's taking you under her wing, then?]

my
line!>

[No, your line was going to be about dismembering and eating a Thunderbird, and speculations about its flavor.]