Alex said from the cell, “Sneaky bird brain. Working to get your position now.”
I circled, waiting, trying to make out landmarks below the blanket of white. The layers of snow made it difficult, though I thought I saw a greenhouse.
Alex said, “You’re near the North Carolina Arboretum.”
“Copy that,” I said. “Gee is reconnoitering from downthere and I’m sightseeing.” Minutes passed as I circled, and I identified the tall roof of a greenhouse, a gift shop, flat places that were probably parking lots, a two-story building that looked as if it might be part museum, part visitors’ center.
Over one section of the buildings, my tracker gonged much louder. I dropped lower in a smooth, slow soar, and it gonged again, narrowing the location of EJ’s marble tracker, hopefully still in his pocket, on his person. My tracker continued to gong, slightly louder each time.
From one section of grounds and building I caught a whiff of smoke, cooking meat, spoiled meat, and old blood. I sniffed carefully with my bird nose, which I discovered was very good at certain scent patterns. I detected human blood. Vampire blood.
Not EJ’s blood. “Thank God,” I said, the sound a birdlike chirrup.
The tracker bell sounded.
“There’s smoke,” I said. “Smells like barbeque, maybe pork. Or... Oh.Gack.Maybe human. Yeah. That’s it. Someone is cooking human in a big smoker.” I sniffed again.
“Is it—” Alex broke off.
“Not EJ.” If it had been EJ I’d have wreaked havoc and destruction on the creatures below. I’d have spared no one. I beat my wings once, hard, and rose through the whispering sleet on the cooking-human thermal. Which was gross and horrific in every possible way. I sniffed again and decided it was truly someone I didn’t know. “I don’t think so.”
I placed where the bell tracker was directing me and focused in with Anzu eyes on the building. The bell was loudest when I soared over the visitors’ center or cultural center or whatever they called it, seeing through the distant windows. The building was open space from the lower level to the ceiling two stories overhead, lots of heavily frosted windows, that, in Anzu vision, glowed brightly with light and warmth. The air rising from the heated space smelled strongly of rotten meat/spoiled blood.
“Tell me everything you see, Janie.”
I pitched my wings for an oblique angle around thecorner of the building. Hanging from a second-story window, booted feet dangling in space, was a human-shaped, fully dressed Gee DiMercy. His head was the only part of him that might be visible to anyone inside, raised above the lowest part of the glass. He scampered across the outer wall like a monkey in a tree, or like a spider, hanging by his hands on the exterior window sashes.
“Gee is looking in the window of the visitors’ center,” I said. “The grill is behind that building, and based on the rising thermals, I think they also have a fire in the fireplace in the center.”
In Anzu vision, I knew there were no live or undead humans in sight, so I slanted lower over the grounds. There were several SUVs, two vans, and two cars, each glowing in infrared, only a thin layer of melting snow on them. They had been driven recently. “I see vehicles. Including two bloodred Range Rovers. And there’s more old-blood scent inside them.” In the landscaping below me was an herb garden smelling strongly of rosemary, a garden of what looked like blooming mums, colors fading, but visible even beneath the snow. One garden looked odd, and my empty belly did hungry somersaults at the sight of three deer on the plantings’ periphery, but before I could investigate, Gee leaped off the roof and dropped his human-glamoured shape, falling into his Anzu form. I whipped to the side and out of his way as his wings beat down, sweeping hard, rocketing him upward.
I glanced to the west. The sun was setting. We were either just barely in time, or totally out of it.
“You are not cloaked, little goddess. Follow me closely,” Gee chirped when he drew level. He folded his wings and dove. I mimicked his movements and followed, sleet cutting through my feathers. I shivered hard as we drew even with the visitors’ center, wingtips almost touching. We swept past. I got a good look inside through the windows in the upper story. EJ was sitting on a chair. Sitting in a chair facing him was a dark creature, part human, part... other. His exoskeleton was a carapace so black it seemed to suck the light out of the day. His eyes were round and wide at the nose, tilted high and pointedat the outer tips, like teardrops, and glittering with a prism of light and energy. It was the same colors as the rift—blues and greens and shadows that glistened. Once again I remembered that titles had value in Shimon’s time. One of his titles was the Son of Shadows. How was he a shadow? Or had Judas, his father, been the shadows?
The Flayer rose from the chair and leaned over the little boy. He picked up my godson and carried him toward the door. They passed a scarlet heap on the floor, all angles and mangled limbs. The Flayer of Mithrans’ latest interpreter. The FOM opened a door in the back of the two-story building and carried EJ into the depths. I lost sight of them.
I described what I’d seen. Not that it helped.
“Eli and Bruiser are on the way,” Alex said. “Helo has lift-off.”
“I thought you said we needed the sleet to be stopped.”
“I did,” Alex said shortly. “Like they listen to anyone with sense.”
Knowing our location didn’t get us backup anytime soon. I needed to shift into a primate with opposable thumbs to fight, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have time. I followed Gee up and we landed on the crest of the two-story building, my talons cutting through the ridge into the supports below. The tracker continued donging.
“Do you see him?” I croaked. Now that I wasn’t expending energy staying aloft in a storm, I began to shiver.
“No,” Gee said. “No one left the building. However, there is a circle below us, covered by snow, possibly the circle powering the transformation of the Son of Shadows into whatever he hopes to become, though I must say, it isn’t a strong circle. Not a powerful one.”
Gee leaped off and beat his wings, one powerful down stroke, to make an arc over the part of the grounds where the deer had stood, and once again, my stomach did a somersault. Not from hunger, but from the weird magics there. I wondered if the cancer had just appeared in my Anzu form, then shoved that thought deep inside. There was nothing I could do either way.
Soaring, I studied the patch of ground, trying to see with Beast thoughts and Anzu eyes and brain. There wasa faint ring of magics in a circle on the ground, not nearly strong enough to be witches buried in the dirt, powering a time circle with their life energies. However, human-shaped and sized lumps were in the circle, and the stink of dead vamp and human was strong here. I counted twelve bodies, so the clock concept that we had seen in Natchez was present here. It could be a time circle of some sort.
I swooped lower, into the miasma of death stench and rot, and my bird nose separated out a familiar scent. Legolas. The blond vamp. His blood was here in the circle. A tree had partially fallen near the edge of the circle, and I back-winged over it, catching it in my claws. The tree gave, bounced, and held, roots still in the earth. I folded my wings and sat. Studying. Taking the opportunity to fluff ice off me and to breathe. I needed the rest. Gee settled in a tree above me. I said, “I want to see who and what is powering the circle. If I disturb the circle what will happen?”
“Do not. Your Anzu magics should allow you to see life and death through the snow.”
