“Yeah. I’d dig in deep, too. And pray hard for the hand of death to pass me by.” She jerked her chin toward his secured laptop that he’d used to post his message on the Drab’s network. “That the real reason for your declaration of war?”
He nodded even as disgust, fear and hopelessness threatened to overwhelm him. The human race couldn’t afford such significant strikes against them. It’d taken a hundred years of hiding from the Drab tracesakers who’d been assigned to hunt them down, to rebuild their underground population back from the near-extinction levels that had almost wiped them off the planet.
Their planet.
Another hit like this and they might become history, after all.
“My little tantrum should get the heat off the survivors. ... If there are any. The tracesakers will start looking for me now.” It was what the Drabs always did whenever they sensed a threat.
Any action required a swift and direct overreaction.
Anjelica tsked at him. “Boy, you’re insane. You done bought yourself all kinds of hurt.”
“Perhaps, but remember what William Blake said. The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow. If I can buy them even an hour of peace, I will give up my life for it.”
Josiah meant that. Yet he had no intention of dying. Not to today.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever.
He was, after all, a crow. And crows were sacred to his people. They were messengers and harbingers. A gateway from this world to the next.
As his mother used to say ...
One crow caws for sorrow.
Two crows sing of joy.
Three crows fly to borrow.
Four crows are a ploy.
Five crows warn of tomorrow.
Six crows bring much gold.
And seven crows caution you of all the stories left untold.
Beware the seventh crow. It could bring prosperity or death. Its choice. But until it sung its tale, no one knew which way it’d fly or where it’d go to roost.
Josiah had been the seventh crow born in his family. His mother’s youngest.
Her deadliest and most unpredictable.
“I swear, Joey, you came into this world backwards and you’ve been that way ever since. Cantankerous and stubborn as the day is long. Ain’t no one ever been born what could tell you what to do.”
But then that, too, ran deep in his blood. Deeper still in his people and his Southern family.
Again, the Drabs should have learned something of the culture they sought to override and destroy. It was easy to hate without context. To destroy without understanding how difficult it was to build something.
Unlike them, he’d taken his time to carefully study his enemies. Intimately. He knew how they thought. How they lived and how they’d developed into their current hive mind-set.
Now he was going to use that to annihilate them.
Once and for all.
Starting with the one who’d delivered the deepest blow to his heart.
Without a word, his gaze fell to the poem he’d written just before his declaration. This particular bit of his writing, he would forever keep to himself.
A silent promise. Just between the two of them.
Her name, he didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.
She knew who she was.
He knew who she was. What she’d done. And so did she. That was all that mattered.
And he would have her throat for it all. Come hell or high water. Come nuclear devastation. Even if he had to fight his way back from death again.
Josiah would bathe in her blood and he would feast on her black heart. After all, that was where his middle name had come from. His mother’s original maiden name.
Allred.
Given to their ancestor who’d been known for coating himself in the blood of his slain enemies and reveling in the violence of war. Her entire family had been peace-loving until crossed. Then it was on to such an extent that his father used to joke their unwritten family motto was: I’ll kill you.
And Josiah wouldn’t rest until he saw this through...
Tick tock rang the clock. The talons of death came nearer nigh.
In the dark, all was stark. And only your breath was heard as a wretched sigh.
On the wall, the shadows fall. As you ran the entire hallway’s span.
Yet with every step, you continually wept. For you knew the end would be coming soon.
No matter how hard you tried, or deep you cried, still you felt your impending doom.
You felt it there, beneath the stair, or lurking in the shadowed pane.
And still you tried. Still you vied. Ever seeking to grow your infernal fame.
All the while, you lived in denial. Knowing for you there’d be no reprieve.
Not for ye who always deceived.
Coward, liar, thief and whore.
May you get all you deserve and more.
To hell I hope you will soon be bound.
And never again will ye be found.
May your name forever be stricken from each and every tongue.
And may never again let any praise for you be sung.
For you have spread poison and lies upon this land.
And you deserve nothing save utter misery and deepest reprimand.
In time I hope you come to wear,
All the shame you once dispensed with giddy flare.
For this to the heavens I do so decree.
And know in my heart that so will it be.
“From me to you, bitch. From me to you.”
Chapter 2
They are among us.
Daria Stazen shivered at the electronic signs being broadcast all around their school. Images flickered on the walls and lockers, showing all the shapes and sizes and disguises those creatures could take and how they could easily blend in without anyone ever knowing.
It was such a chilling thought that one of her classmates could be one to them in hiding.
A human being.
She shuddered in revulsion and fear. Then glanced about suspiciously at everyone in her hallway. How would she ever know? Could it be the strange girl on her right whose gray skin was a shade darker than the others? Or the boy to her left whose skin was a tiny bit bluer? Or the teacher whose lips held more black to them?
What about the custodian whose black eyes had pupils that didn’t seem to dilate properly? He said it came from an accident in his youth.
What if it wasn’t?
Could he be a human using some kind of magic or drug to disguise his real features? The documentaries all warned that humans were extremely cunning.
Highly dangerous. Capable of any imaginable treachery. They were unpredictable animals. A shiver ran down her spine.
“Are you all right?”
She almost screamed as Tamira came up behind her to speak in her ear. “Don’t do that!”
“Do what?” she asked innocently.
“Sneak up on me when I’m scaring myself with really creepy thoughts about humans being here in our school!” Daria waved her hand in front of her unit to open it automatically and pull out her sweater and gear for gym.
Like her, Tamira Czaren was slightly taller than average and rather muscular, with pale gray skin and dark ebony eyes and hair. They were both from warrior caste families, but Daria’s father had been granted a special dispensation to attend university after he’d scored exceptionally high on his entrance tests in upper primary.