Raven Cursed

“You are Tsalagi,” he said. “You are of the blood of The People. I have fed upon the Tsalagi for many centuries. No one controls me. Not even . . .” he breathed in again, as if scenting me. “Not even your grandmother, little yellow-eyed child.”

 

 

I jerked, the muscles of my shoulders twitching, my hands twisting the scarf. He smiled, which was just plain horrible. There was dried blood on the beak. His tongue darted out, like a sapsucker, tasting the air.

 

“They called you Dalonige’i digadoli, when you were born with golden eyes like your father and tsa lisi, your grandmother.” Horror swept through me. And longing. He knew me. From before. I put out a hand and Beast slammed down on me, biting me so hard I felt her teeth pierce my skull, creating the mother of all headaches. I had taken three steps toward the trap and I quickly stepped back. The demon laughed. “Yes, I was there when you were born, watching, waiting to see if your mother would survive or if I might take her.” He tilted his head, birdlike, fast. And he whistled, a raptor’s hunting call, long and piercing, but not one I had ever heard before. “There was much rejoicing when you opened your eyes that first time.”

 

My heart was thudding. He had known my family? Or just plundered my fractured memories and woven a story? Was this why no one should indulge in conversation with a demon? Because they knew everything you did, everything you wanted, and weren’t averse to lying and twisting truths to get you to do what they wanted? Yeah. That felt right. I took a breath, steadying myself. And shifted my foot back a step. Another. Toward the stairs.

 

He went on as if I weren’t making my escape. “But when you were five summers old, your grandmother, who was Ani gilogi, panther clan, tried to tie me into the skin of one of her beasts, the pelt of the tlvdatsi. To avenge herself on the white soldiers who killed her son.” I swallowed, and my throat was as dry as sandpaper; the muscles ached with the motion. “She was a fool,” he said. “I left her to die in the snow, her blood black in the moonlight. I thought to find you, but you had vanished into the night and the cold, and I was free. So I took the lives of many of the Tsalagi that night, and many more over the next weeks. I took the days they had left to them, had the white man not forced them on to the long march, and I left them dead. With their days as my own, I walked as human for many years, taking what and who I pleased.”

 

My breath was too fast, my heart pattering, rabbitlike. This thing seemed to know everything I had lost about my past. I vaguely remembered the Trail of Tears, when the U.S. government broke its covenant with the Cherokee and forced us onto the long march west. So many had died of the cold, of hunger, and illness. Or to the claws of this thing.

 

He also knew what I wanted—to fill the empty places in my past, in my soul. I wanted to listen to him now, and he knew it. His eyes were the black of The People’s eyes, dark and wise and kind, and he gestured with the fingers of one hand, to come closer. I didn’t. He said, “I have all the secrets you desire to know. All the truths you have forgotten.”

 

I pressed the scarf against my mouth, smelling Evangelina in the weave. Tasting tears I hadn’t known were falling. Beast bit down. Shattering pain took me, and my vision went white for a moment. I put out a hand and my elbow bumped the wall behind me. I staggered and swore, and caught my balance. When the pain cleared, I could breathe.

 

“Go,” Beast snarled. “He is part of the hunger times. He is part of the fire times. Run!”

 

“Come to me and I will tell you what you desire,” the demon said. I backed to the left. My heels bumped the bottom stair. “I knew your father. I can tell you—”

 

“Jane?”

 

I stopped. Lincoln Shaddock? I heard metal clinking. Lincoln rose, a ghostly image seen through the hedge of thorns. Metal clinking louder, he stepped around the ward. The smell of vamp blood hit me. And sickness. The stench of infection cleared my head. Lincoln was wearing rags. Blood coated his lower legs. He was wearing silver shackles, the bindings made in such as way that any movement cut into his skin. Black and red streaks ran up his calves, infection from the metal poisoning. “Listen to me, girl.” As he spoke, some of the desire to listen to the demon passed. “Tell Leo, I’m mighty sorry. Then get him to safety.”

 

“Why?” I asked, my voice dry and breathy.

 

“Because when Evangelina sacrifices me at moonrise on the full moon, the demon will be bound and will come after him.”

 

I nodded once to show I had heard, my movement erratic. “How are you avoiding the call of the spell,” I asked. “You’re two-natured. You should be walking inside the ward.”

 

“The summoning and binding aren’t complete. Blood from a living-undead Mithran will complete it, but only on the full moon.”