Shit!
Clearly, that was no ordinary eagle, Rhys thought, as he watched it sweep upward again, breaking through the trees and soaring upward, clearly preparing itself to turn for another pass.
No ordinary eagle would be doing anything likethat– whoever it was working for, Hargreaves or someone else, it was clearly a shifter.
“We have to move,” Rhys said, pulling Maisie upright before catching her with an arm around her waist.
Even though Rhys knew he’d never swap his shifter form for anything else, he found himself cursingjusta little that he didn’t turn into something a little more able to blend in with the crowd. If he could turn into a bush turkey or a stone curlew right now, he could run all the way to the docks and no one would look twice. But a griffin was the kind of thing that really tended to turn heads.
What is the point of shifting into something that does not turn heads? Why would you be a shifter, if you could not display your magnificence to all and sundry?
Shut up, you pompous idiot!Rhys snapped, as he and Maisie slid down an enormous plastic dinosaur tail.Do you want to end up as a permanent exhibit at Australia Zoo?!
… Maybe,the griffin said mutinously.Perhaps at least there I would be properly appreciated.
You know what? I’m not talking to you right now,Rhys told it.If you don’t have something useful to say – somethingactuallyuseful – you need to shut the hell up. Maisie’s life depends on it.
That, it seemed, was enough to shut it up, though it seemed like a close-fought thing.
“Whoa!” Maisie gasped as she yanked Rhys down behind a giant fake racing car, just in time to avoid a second attack from the eagle. Rhys winced as the steering wheel came off in the eagle’s talons, carried off to be dumped who knew where – it would be just his luck that someone would spot them, and they’d get pinged for the damage.
Maybe he could bill it to his work.
“Look,” Maisie whispered, and it took Rhys a moment to work out what she was pointing at – but there, hidden amongst the greenery, were a couple of putters that some lazy resort visitor had obviously decided to dump on the course, rather than return them to the kiosk.
“Fantastic,” Rhys muttered as he darted out from cover to grab them, before ducking back behind the car. They weren’t ideal as defensive weapons, but they’d definitely do in a pinch. At least they hadsomethingto ward off the eagle with now, even if Rhys wasn’t sure they’d be good for anything other than a single use.
“We need to get moving,” he said, and Maisie nodded determinedly, clutching her golf club tight. They scurried along the putting green and pushed through some bushes, coming out at a hole that was dominated by a giant windmill. The two of them slid in behind it, taking a moment to get their bearings.
Maisie looked up at Rhys, eyes wide, chest heaving with exertion. She looked scared – but also exhilarated, the color high on her cheeks.
“We’re almost there,” she whispered. Rhys nodded back.
An ungodly shriek had him whipping his head around, but he knew that sound even before he saw the source.
Plovers. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Not that a plover would kill him – well,probablynot, anyway – but they could be vicious bastards when they wanted to. He didn’t particularly feel like dealing with souped-up shifter plovers right now… or at any time, really. He liked his eyes intact.
He dared to look around the edge of the windmill, only to see a swarm of birds amassing nearby. A plover, that eagle from before – though apparently now without its steering wheel – a magpie, a cockatoo, a kookaburra…
Great. All the arsehole birds. And they’re all coming for us.
“Cover your head,” he muttered, and Maisie nodded, bringing her arms up over her face as the birds took off, gathering speed. Maybe if they could make it through the first salvo unscathed, they could escape out the back while the birds were regrouping.
Or maybe…
“Wait here,” he hissed, and before Maisie could reply, he darted out a few steps to the tee-off point.
I’d better be right about this, or I’m going to look like a fucking idiot,he thought grimly as he waved his arms about.More than I do now, anyway.
He waved his arms higher, jumping a little in front of the windmill.
You’d better be motion sensor activated. Come on. Come on!
For a long moment, nothing happened. He was aware of the birds coming in at one hell of a pace, screeching in a way that he did have to admit was pretty disconcerting, and he leaped back behind the windmill and wrapped himself around Maisie –
Just as the windmill blades creaked to slow, cumbersome life, spinning first slowly and then faster.
