I screamed at her to get back inside. But my throat and beak called only hoarse, cawing cries. The rogue roared, a sound not human. Turning from me, he raced toward the chapel.
I folded my wings. Dove at his nape. Hit with killing force. Slammed my beak into the base of his skull. A dull, echoing crack. Raked his scalp with talons. He stumbled, shook himself. I toppled to the side. Narrowly evaded his claws. Shoulders rotating, I shot back into the sky.
He leaped at the priestess. I dove, but I couldn’t help. Not against this creature, not in this form, maybe not in human form. I hadn’t understood, but Beast had known. No matter the evidence, this wasn’t a rogue vampire. This was liver-eater, a creature of darkest legend. A creature of black magic.
From the air, my body diving, I saw Sabina pull something from behind her back. Raise it aloft. It was a wood cross. Held in gloved hands. Light blazed from the cross. The creature roared, jumped, shied. Rotated in midair. He screamed a big cat’s pain, like a woman in travail. Landed facing away, a paw over his eyes. He raced away, his body shifting as he sprinted. He went four-footed, his clothes ripping away. A black-tipped mane writhed out. Another crypt exploded, stone shrapnel flying. Sabertooth lion . . . afraid of a cross like a vampire.
I back-flapped, reversing direction, my talons out, wings shoving against the air as if I pushed it away. On the nonchapel porch, Sabina dropped the cross and wrapped her arms across her middle, cradling herself. She moaned with pain, her eyes on me, pupils vamp black, her fangs fully extended. The reek of seared flesh and leather polluted the air.
She took a breath and shouted, “Prophecy!” Claws an inch long extended from the ends of burned suede gloves, constructed to leave the tips of her fingers exposed, like driving gloves or golf gloves, incongruous with the nunlike dress. I wanted to stay, to see that she was okay. Foolish desire for a vamp killer. Instead, I keened in anger and wheeled, following the black-magic skinwalker, who was repulsed by a cross.
He raced across the graveyard, between crypts and into the woods. I flew higher, found a current moving toward the river. Tracking him. There was no way for him to lose me, not in this form. My eyes could follow a mouse at a hundred yards.
He sprinted through the woods, looking often into the sky, at me. A mile later, he crossed a wide road, avoiding car headlights going both directions, running with vamp speed toward a well-lit area, a cul-de-sac where security lights shone, cars and trucks were parked in the street, and the small, square houses were dark. Air conditioners purred. A dog barked. Others took up the warning, a raucous chorus. One house had windows open, a television laugh track spilling into the dark, screen flickering. The rogue burst from the woods. Raced into the open. And dove through a half-open window into the house.
Through the window, I heard snarls, a choked cry. He’s killing someone. Nearby dogs went wild, growling, barking, throwing themselves against chain-link fencing,metal clanking and twanging. I screamed a challenge. Dove. Swooped close. But I was in the air, in winged form. I couldn’t help. And I couldn’t shift back into human form—there was nothing to take mass from, and even if I could risk it, I had left too much of myself back at the garden.
A woman cried out, the sounds gurgling away. I screamed back, damning the sky and the air and the liver-eater. I heard thumps from the house, hollow, reverberating, and then the sound of water falling. A shower, water hitting tile, thudding into a body for a long time. Then there was nothing. The house fell silent. Focusing tightly, I circled higher, watching. Nothing moved. Nothing changed. Helpless, I soared, current to current. The air cooled. A storm raced in on the gulf. Far off, lightning flickered on the dome of the sky. Clouds dimmed the stars. Dawn was near. And still I flew.
A door slammed. A man walked from the house. But it wasn’t the liver-eater. I folded my wings and plummeted close. This man was tall and redheaded, wearing jeans and a T-shirt and an unfamiliar scent. I caught an updraft, not sure what his presence meant. He got into a car. Cranked it up, and drove onto the adjoining street. I followed long enough to place where I was, where the house was, in my bird memory. Dawn was pinking the east sky.
If I met the sun in this form, I couldn’t change back until sunset. Conflicted, struggling with myself, I wheeled and beat the air, back to the garden where I had left most of my mass. I made it just in time, alighting on the topmost stone, wings out, tail feathers wide. Talons on the rocks, scritching rough and rasping. I put a talon on the nugget. And thought about Jane Yellowrock. Human. Scarred. Female. Earthbound. Mass to mass, stone to stone . . .