It was proof that the sentinels were getting to know me. Zhan hadn’t even pulled her gun when we left the house. “C’mon.”
We tromped across the field toward the grove, pushing aside cornstalks to take a direct path. The moon was a crescent hidden behind clouds full of cold rain waiting to burst open. Half the distance in, my vision had adjusted.
“Now will you tell me how you happened to steal these phenomenal creatures?” Zhan asked.
“The fey had control collars on them. The only way to stop them was to remove the collars. They’re quite dangerous when forced to be, so it wasn’t easy. It was like the reverse of mice trying to bell a cat. Once freed from the collars, though, they stopped fighting against us and actively helped us as if they were eager to be away from the fairies.”
“Eager to be home.” Zhan’s steps slowed, then stopped, and she emitted a light sigh. It wasn’t the long, breathy, “wow” kind of sigh. It was the brisk, irritated-with-myself kind.
Though I had pressed on a few more steps, I waited for her and spoke through the stalks. “What is it, Zhan?”
She shook her head as if clearing her thoughts and moved forward. “It’s just so extraordinary.”
That, I could tell, wasn’t the whole truth, but she didn’t have to share more.
A dozen yards later, we left the cornfield and emerged onto the grassy edge of the grove. I shook the bucket. “Thunderbird,” I called. “Hungry, boy?”
Nothing. Not even nest-bound birds or squirrels awakened by my voice deigned to answer. After trying a few more times, my patience was ended. Minding my footing, I entered the grove and watched for movement amid the trees. I called his name again.
Maybe he’d gone flying. There weren’t any injuries to his wings.
I walked around the more open part of the inner grove, searching for the other bucket, thinking to fill it from this one.
When I found it, it was still full.
“Zhan! Help me find him!”
I dropped the metal mixing bowl and launched into a frantic search. As I pushed through the branches, my arms got scraped and I stopped.
He didn’t come this way. Where would he fit?
I scrutinized the dark … and found his path. Following a trail of broken branches, straining to see, I neared the far side of the grove and tripped over Thunderbird’s leg.
I plopped down, twisting to keep from landing on him. Jumping up, I called out, “Here!”
Thunderbird hadn’t made a sound. On my knees, my hands groped all over him. He felt cold and he didn’t respond. Don’t be dead. Pressing on his rib cage, I held my breath trying to detect his breathing or a pulse.
There! Weak, but beating.
Zhan appeared from the grove a few yards away. “Get Mountain and the doc,” I called.
It seemed like forever, but the two men arrived. Mountain tried to lift Thunderbird but couldn’t. “Please, Mountain, I’ve seen you carry a couch!”
“Sorry, Seph. Couches aren’t limp. They don’t have wings and paws and claws flopping this way and that putting me off balance.”
“We can’t leave him here!”
“I could drag him,” Mountain suggested.
In the end, we lifted his front half, pushed a half-rolled tarp under him, then lifted the back half and spread out the length of the tarp. We threaded rope through the tarp grommets and tied it to the backhoe and pulled him to the barn. Mountain dragged the tarp inside.
The griffons left their nests and watched as Dr. Lincoln tended Thunderbird’s damaged eye socket, then inspected the claw. The three front talons had been seared off at the same point. Fax Torris’s beam must have burned them away. Geoff bandaged those, readied a syringe. “This will fight infection,” he said, “but I have no idea what dosage is appropriate for a griffon. I’m calculating it according to weight, and I’m guessing at his weight, so …” He drew a long breath. “Don’t be mad at me if Thunderbird doesn’t make it.”
“I trust your best guess, Geoff.”
He administered the shot, then stood. “Keeping him warm now will help. Can we get him into one of those nests?”
“We can try.”
Mountain hauled the tarp into the sawdust that padded the rear of the barn, and got him near an empty nest, then he put his arms around Thunderbird’s rib cage behind his wings. “When I lift, you yank the tarp away, okay?” When that was done, the griffons crowded around. Mountain tried to shoo them away. “I’m trying to get him into a nest,” he told them. A griffon pushed in between him and Thunderbird and continued to push Mountain until he was off the sawdust.
Two eagle-and-lion griffons moved in on either side of Thunderbird, lying with their bodies against his, and they covered him with their wings. Another hawk-and-cheetah griffon moved in behind them, and the smallest one wriggled under Thunderbird’s neck until his head was cradled upon the other’s shoulders. The rest of them resumed their nests.
“I’ve never seen the like,” Geoff murmured.
My satellite phone rang. It was Menessos. “Hello.”
“Ah, the sound of your voice warms my heart.” He paused. “Or maybe that’s just my dinner going to my head.”
I walked away from the others to a more private spot. “How’s Eva?”
“Drained.”
His blasé answer evoked my sarcasm. “Well, at least your hunger’s satisfied.”
“Ah, my sustenance is the nightly charity of my good people. But finding satisfaction, Persephone, is not so simple as the insertion of my fangs into flesh. That requires the insertion of another part of me into warm and eager flesh.”
“Doesn’t Eva have warm and eager flesh?”
“Of course. But the sweet thrill wanes somewhat when eagerness is so easily elicited. The succulent bliss of the moment is lost.”
Johnny could’ve written a whole song around that one sentence, so I committed it to memory. However, I was in no mood tonight to cater to Menessos’s need for bliss. I selected my next words carefully. “So what’s the purpose of your call?”
“Goliath had some news.”
“Oh?”
“He’s uncovered clues concerning Heldridge.”
Heldridge was the vampire who’d coerced a performer at the Erus Veneficus ceremony to kill Menessos as part of his act. I’d been on Menessos’s lap at the time, so initially we weren’t certain which of us had been the target. “And?”
“It seems the traitor was seen in Pittsburgh but has moved on to Harrisburg.”
“Goliath’s closing in on him?”
“Yes. The word is out that Heldridge has acted traitorously against his Regional Lord, so he has no access to funds, the Vampire Executive International Network has placed a bounty on him, and he will have trouble finding anyone who will speak to him and not betray him. But Heldridge, too, seems to be closing in on his goal. The only question is whether he’ll be able to find appropriate lodging for his days as he makes his way to Washington, D.C.”
“Why would a vampire try to reach D.C.?”
“Our North American headquarters are there.”
So instead of hiding in shadows and disappearing completely, Heldridge was racing to get to the topmost blood drinkers? “Is he seeking some kind of political sanctuary?”
“I believe it more likely that he has information.”
“Valuable enough to save himself?”
“Perhaps. It depends on how he pitches it. And whether or not it can be proven.”
“What does he know?”
“What the fairies wanted him to know.”
That Menessos was alive. Or had been. Thanks to me, he was now truly one of the undead. “Is that relevant now?”
“As I said, the usefulness of it depends on whether or not he can prove it.”
“Can he prove it?”
“Persephone, your own words could be used against you.”
“My words?”
“You are very strong, but if you became his hostage—”
“Hostage? You just said he was in Harrisburg and heading for D.C.”
“I will not underestimate him. He is clever. And, should he capture you … I know his methods. I believe he could make you talk.”