Page 9

9. One Predator to Another

Kerry

The next morning, I stood with my hands in my coat pockets and watched the sky. I had an idea, and the bird circling in slow loops overhead would do nicely.

“Hey, Jax, can you do something for me?”

“Sure.” “See the bird there?” I pointed. “Can you make it come down?”

Jax looked in the direction I was pointing and whistled.

“That’s a peregrine falcon. You sure?”

“Yeah. ’S just a bird, right?”

“Actually—” Jax began, but Gigi cut him off.

“Oh, no, Kerry, you asked for it. The professor is now going to launch into lecture mode.”

Everyone laughed.

“Ha ha ha.” Jax made an ugly face. “ Anyway , the peregrine falcon is one of the world’s best hunting birds, and it’s the fastest animal anywhere. It’s been recorded stooping, which means diving, at more than 240 miles per hour. It’s a raptor, which means it eats other birds, and, due to its courage and intelligence, it’s one of the best birds to use in falconry. That’s a sport where you train raptors to hunt for you.”

“You don’t need to explain every big word to me,” I snapped. “I can figure out a lot on my own, you know. Look, I’m not gonna hurt it or anything. I just want a closer look.”

“Sure. Wait a minute.”

He disappeared into his tent, then came back with two long, thick leather gloves.

“They aren’t the right gauntlets for this, but we’ll have to make do.” He slid one on and tossed the other to me. “Even with me controlling him, he’s going to have to balance himself, so his talons may pierce through.”

The others wandered over as he called to the bird. Gemma stopped next to me, and I smiled down at her. My heart did that squeeze thing when she smiled back.

“Look at all the colors in its feathers!” she said. “I’ve lived my whole life in a big city. I’ve never seen a bird so close before except pigeons. Their feathers are pretty, too, but not like this.”

The falcon landed on my hand and, surprised, I looked at Jax.

“He doesn’t trust me because I’m holding him against his will.” He shrugged. “He doesn’t like that any more than you would.”

“You can talk pretty clearly to him?”

“It’s not like ‘Bird’ is a language or anything, but we can understand each other.”

The falcon jerked his head around and looked at each of us.

“Tell him I respect his grace and speed,” I said.

“What about his fine feathers?” Tara asked. “Gemma’s right. His coloring is beautiful!”

“Predators don’t care about what they look like.” I rolled my eyes.

“Okay,” Jax said, “I told him all that. He’s pleased and curious now.”

“Ask him to stretch his wing as far as he can so we can see it better,” Gemma said, her eyes wide with wonder, so I kept my trap shut about it being silly.

The bird stuck out the wing on the opposite side of my head. It measured just shy of two feet, I guessed, and curved like a boomerang.

“Those stripes are so startling!” Maddy said.

“They’re called bars on birds,” Jax corrected her.

“He’s so gray and plain on the backside,” Gigi chimed in, “and hiding all that under his wings like a secret.”

“Ask him how he breathes and sees when he dives so fast.” I tilted my head when the bird did.

Jax explained the bird had a thin, clear eyelid to shield his eyeballs. The falcon raised a yellow foot to point a wickedly sharp talon at a small hole at the very top of its beak. Jax said the hole was something like a valve that redirected or slowed the air or something.

“Jet engines have a way of controlling the airflow that may be similar.” Travis nodded. “I can find out more about that, if you want.”

“So, Jax, you can’t see through his eyes or anything?” I asked. “You can only talk with him?”

“That’s right.”

“What are you kids doing?” Clem, eating an apple, joined us.

“Saying hello to the neighbors,” John told him.

Meeting the bird was cool, but, if Jax couldn’t do what I’d hoped, my idea wouldn’t work.

“Okay, Jax, thank him and let him go,” I said.

“Raise your hand over your head so he can flap his wings for take off.”

I did that and waited a few seconds, but the bird didn’t move. I looked over at Jax, who shrugged.

“I released him. He’s staying on his own accord now.”

The bird turned its head and looked me dead in the eye. We stared at each other for a full minute before the falcon blinked and made a squeaky call.

“Uh, are you gonna be here long?” I asked, and the others laughed.

“Hold up!” Jax said. “He wants to know if you’re going to get rid of the bad ones further up the mountain. He doesn’t like them because they’re scaring away his prey.”

“Bad ones?” Clem and I spoke at the same time.

“Hellhounds. Lots and lots of Hellhounds. Down in a ravine.” Picking up a twig, Jax started to draw a map in the snow.

“Good. Tell him those are what we’re here for,” I said.

“Then he wishes you good hunting and asks that you leave none alive.”

I stared into the bird’s eyes again and a dark grin spread across my face.

“He understood that, Kerry.” Jax seemed amazed.

“Of course he did,” I snorted. “One predator to another.”

The falcon took off and was back in the air in seconds, and I watched as he became a smaller and smaller dot in the sky.

#

We followed Jax’s map further into the mountains. After about three miles of hiking, we came to a rocky area, and I inhaled, then followed my nose. Gemma went with me as I walked over to a wide, flat boulder and knelt next to it. She helped me brush away the vines and leaves, and we found a circle of sigilla worked into the rock face.

I recognized enough of them to know something was wrong.

“Clem?” I called.

“Yes, I see it.”

“What?” Gemma seemed to know something was up. “What’s going on?”

“This is a summoning circle, but it don’t look right. Hey, Travis!” I could see him frowning before he even reached us. “What do you think?”

“Infernal sigilla mixed with Angelic? How odd.” He started to take off his backpack. “I’ll need to work at this for a little while.”

So I called Maddy and told her to guard Travis while he looked around and we kept on the scent. She nodded, drew an arrow, and laid it across her bow string.

“I’ll catch up in a minute.” Clem took a knee by the circle, his frown intense.

I threw up a hand in acknowledgement, then led the rest on. We traveled maybe half a mile before I came to a dead stop.

“What is it?” Jax looked around the area.

“A Diabolical scent, but it’s old. Almost nothing is left now. It’s coming from over there.”

I pointed to a hillside, and we went over and looked around. It wasn’t long before Tara found a small cave. I stuck my head in and took a deep breath, then wished I hadn’t. I jerked out of there real quick.

“Yep.” I spat a couple of times, even though it didn’t really help. “Something Diabolical stayed here for a while.”

This time, I took a breath before I stuck my head in the hole. Skeletons of little animals, eggshell fragments, and bits of fur were scattered throughout the den. I could see a few places where fights had broken out, most likely over food, and there were white claw marks on the walls. As my air started to run out, I saw a leather cord with teeth and talons and grabbed it before pulling out.

“Gremlin den.” I held up the necklace for the others to see. “They wear these to show who’s the best.”

“The best at what?” Gemma wanted to know.

“Surviving. The more on your necklace, the higher your standing in the tribe.”

I knelt down, rooted around in my backpack, found an empty plastic bag to put it in, tied the top closed, and shoved it in the front pouch of my pack. The others waited in a loose circle around me, and Tara gave me a strange look.

“Why are you taking it?” she wanted to know.

“In case the wardens can tie it to an attack. Who knows? Maybe even the one at the Sanctuary on Halloween.”

“That would be too much of a fluke.” Gigi shook her head. “I don’t believe in flukes.”

I brushed a stray tangle of hair away from Gemma’s ear and asked her what a fluke was.

“A coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence, either.” I shrugged. “But fate is a b— Um. Fate has a sick sense of humor.”