Hunted

Chapter 10

When the blurred shape of Atticus fell in front of me, at first I thought he’d simply tripped and I almost laughed, because pratfalls have been amusing since the Stone Age. Then I heard the belated crack of a rifle to the south and Oberon’s startled cry:

Stay with him, I said, as the training kicked in and I turned toward the direction of the shot. I’m on the threat. There was nothing I could do for Atticus that he couldn’t do for himself, except address the sniper. And by address I meant destroy him, no shriving time allowed. My scruples regarding the taking of life evaporate when people try to kill us.

Oberon said. He sounded truly panicked and it began to worry me. But I had to worry about the sniper first. Especially after I felt a bullet whip by my ear and then heard the report right afterward.

I was still invisible, but that was way too close for a random shot—especially since he’d obviously hit Atticus while he was in camouflage. Logic dictated that the sniper must be able to see us—probably using an infrared scope. Our spells did wonders in the visible spectrum but did nothing to mask our heat signatures.

Though I was reluctant to do it, I dropped my staff and said goodbye to my invisibility. Atticus had taught me that superior fighters sometimes lose because of a failure to adapt to a shift in the enemy’s tactics. The enemy had clearly come prepared to fight against camouflage and invisibility, so it was time to mix it up. Sniper rifles are usually mounted on stands or pods and are ill suited to taking out fast-moving aerial targets. So I shifted to a peregrine falcon and flew as fast as I could. I still wasn’t terribly good at flying, but I figured it would get me above the canopy in one piece. Once I was above the trees, he’d have more trouble finding me than I would have finding him.

Stay and guard him, Oberon. Trying to make sure we don’t get shot at anymore. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

I hoped it wasn’t serious. Blood on the ground sounded serious, but I couldn’t begin to think about what that might mean yet. If I allowed myself to get distracted, I wouldn’t survive. Fight now, feel later.

Another shot boomed through the early evening, but it wasn’t close enough for me to sense its passing. I saw the muzzle flash and banked around in that direction.

My eyesight as a falcon made me feel half blind as a human by comparison; I could see three times the detail with my black eyes that I could with my green eyes. I could clearly track the sniper abandoning his stand and rifle and running through the forest from two hundred yards away. From that distance, he was one hell of a sniper to hit Atticus on the run.

He pulled a sidearm from his vest—one of the bulletproof type, not a waistcoat—and loaded a round into the chamber. All black gear, no natural materials for me to bind, and if I’d been trying to follow him with human eyes, even with night vision, he’d be tough to spot. But I was looking at him through a raptor’s eyes: His silhouette stood out against the forest floor like ink on bristol board.

The sidearm would be a problem if he got a chance to use it. He hadn’t exhibited any supernatural powers yet—nothing vampiric, anyway—but he clearly had some paramilitary training at the very least, if not the real thing. I couldn’t take him out as a falcon, so I considered my alternatives as I closed the distance between us. If I swooped down on him and changed to human, he might be able to get a lucky shot into me despite my training. I needed a quick kill. Dropping onto him as a sea lion was obviously a nonstarter, and horses are not generally known for their mad assassination skills. I did have a jaguar form, but it was problematic for me. It came with an extraordinary sense of smell that triggered uncontrollable sneezing fits—at least, it had the first time I tried it. I hadn’t taken the form since shortly after my tattoos were complete. I’d been too afraid to smell all those horrible things again. What if I turned into a jaguar, all snarly and toothy, and just sneezed on the guy instead of slaying him? He’d shoot me for sure, and that would be such a stupid way to die.

But I had done some reading on how jaguars hunt. They had a surefire kill move, and I was fairly certain I could pull it off if I didn’t think about it too much.

The guy looked up over his shoulder and I saw the infrared goggles. I dove in response, assuming he’d take a wild shot. He didn’t; I’m not sure he spotted me. I threaded my way through the canopy and then leveled out underneath it, gaining on him fast and still maintaining some altitude above him. He was changing directions, little jukes here and there to try to fake me out. That wasn’t going to happen. He might be a trained soldier, but there was no way he could hope to be faster than me as a falcon—or as a jaguar, for that matter, or even in my normal form juiced up on the earth’s magic.

I pointed myself to a spot ahead of him and folded my wings in tight against my body, gaining speed as I dove and keeping silent. I quietly opened my beak to its full extent as I approached the top of his head and shifted to a jaguar an instant before landing heavily on top of him. I rode him down to the ground, my jaws clamped around his skull, and bit down as hard as I could. He screamed and shot the gun once, a spasm of his finger more than anything else, and died with his blood filling my mouth. He twitched a few times, and that, coupled with his blood and brains on my tongue, freaked me out. I shifted to human and couldn’t control my revulsion: I spat a couple of times, felt the chunks of brain pass my lips, and then vomited right on top of his body. It was so much worse than sneezing. I crawled away as soon as my stomach gave me half a chance.

Threat neutralized, I told Oberon.

He still hasn’t moved or said anything to you?

Something lurched in my stomach again, and I suddenly felt cold. I heard a tiny voice wail, no no no, but there was no one else around to make those sounds but me.

You didn’t say that before! I scrambled to my feet and pelted back toward the meadow, leaving the sniper’s body to rot.

Wait. What does he smell like?

Oberon held his head low, his ears and tail drooping as he paced worriedly around a still form. The wailing voice that said no no no got louder.

Oh, gods, I hope you’re wrong too.

The enormity of what had happened began to catch up with me. Leif’s warning of an ambush had been legit—it just hadn’t manifested itself as vampires, the way Atticus had thought. I reached Oberon in the next few seconds and my throat tightened at what I saw. Atticus was sprawled on his right side, blood pooled underneath his head. His eyes were open and unblinking. The entry wound near his left temple was a small black hole, not red or a bruised purple. A small black hole.

I knelt next to him and put a finger underneath his nose to see if he was breathing. He didn’t appear to be, and I felt no puff of air on my finger. I searched for a pulse on his neck but found nothing. I tried his wrist. I put my ear down to his chest and hoped I could hear something over the voice saying no no no. All was still. And though these indications were all of a kind and pointed to a terrible conclusion, the worst for me was that Oberon was plainly visible, and so was Atticus. They had both been running in camouflage and Atticus had been the one to cast it.

Oberon asked.

A small black hole. No vital signs. That should have done it, but it was having to answer Oberon, saying it aloud, that broke me.

“Yes,” I cried, my voice quavering. “He’s gone. I can’t do anything.” And then we both howled. We howled the way people do when they don’t care about speaking anymore because the words don’t exist that can properly convey their emotions. Only ragged, broken, discordant noises could come close. And there are always tears and snot and gasping too, gasping because there isn’t enough wind to cry all that they feel in a single breath.

For what else was there to do? CPR wouldn’t help with a head wound. I couldn’t make his heart beat if his brain wasn’t fucking there. Druidry only gave me the power to heal, not resurrect.

He’d died before he finished falling. The little black hole in the side of his head swelled until it filled my vision—a distortion brought on by my tears. Knowing I’d already avenged him gave me no satisfaction.

I had him for only a few weeks. I’d thought we would be happy together forever. And I think I might have said that out loud, to his body, in a sort of high-pitched, incoherent keening that approximated speech but wasn’t intelligible. Twelve years of longing and being with him every day—closer to thirteen if you counted the year of flirting at Rúla Búla before I began my training—thirteen years of repression and stupid surrogate boyfriends so that I would be a stronger Druid, but only a few weeks of openly loving each other, ended by a small black hole in the side of his head. No chance to tell him goodbye or let him know one more time how grateful I was to be bound to the earth. No chance to let him tease me and then tease him back harder. No chance to cuss at him in Old Irish because he said it made him feel young again, or put on strawberry lip gloss and watch him go dizzy. He’d always had a thing about that for some reason.

I don’t precisely know how long we cried over Atticus, but the moon was high in the sky, probably close to midnight, and my throat was raw before I remembered that Artemis and Diana were still after us. We’d probably cried away much of our lead.

Oberon, I said, we have to go.

We have to. The huntresses are coming.