and I tumbled dozens of feet before I caught my wings under me.
Beast hate stupid bird. Beast hate flying. Beast—
I got it. I got it. Now, hush. I need to listen.
Gee DiMercy angled into my flight pattern and set himself to my right wingtip, still using my energy to soar. Dang bird. Sleet cut through the air. Buried itself in my feathers. I fluffed them out and settled them. Found a height above Asheville at what I felt like was about seven hundred feet. I hoped no local yahoo with a shotgun thought I was a trophy and shot me out of the sky.
To Gee, I said, “I have a bell-chime tracker, and the cell phone is on to Alex for as long as its battery and its minicharger stay active. Starting a grid flight pattern over the city proper, where I-26 meets I-40 and moving east all the way to the edge of the city, then back to starting point and moving west. If we don’t find anything in the city, we’ll expand, quartering the land along I-26 and I-40 in five-mile segments.”
His made an odd bobbing motion, like a pigeon on a window ledge.
Wisely, I didn’t say so.
* * *
* * *
We searched for three hours, silent, listening, and gave up on finding EJ inside the city limits. Expanding our flight pattern, we searched the quadrants from east to south to west to north. We got nothing. Nada. Zilch. I was despairing and my Anzu body was tiring. I was a skinwalker, but like any biological body, this one needed toning and training and its muscles came to me functional but not strong. Snow and ice were building up on my feathers and face. There were good reasons why birds didn’t fly in this kind of weather. I was frozen. “I need another break,” I said. “Alex, Gee, I need food.”
“Can’t help you, Janie, but my big bro says the weather is shifting off to the east and the helo can fly. So if you find the kid, you’ll have backup.”
“That’s good,” I said, barely stopping my bird beak from chattering with the cold.
“We will hunt deer.” Gee banked and dropped below me, swerving toward the Biltmore Estate and grounds and across the French Broad River, speeding toward a leafless, wooded area, near the Biltmore vineyards, where we circled, searching for life in the waning light.
The bell in my pouch gave a soft chime.
I nearly fell out of the sky. “Was that—?”
It chimed again. “Yes! Stay aloft, little goddess. You do not have the gift of cloaking. Their guards will see you.” Gee did a whirling, falling maneuver worthy of a fighter jet. Before I could stabilize and level out my flight, he vanished. Completely vanished. Like, poof. Gone.
“Crap. Either Gee transported there, or he went invisible.”
Alex said from the cell, “Sneaky bird brain. Working to get your position now.”
I circled, waiting, trying to make out landmarks below the blanket of white. The layers of snow made it difficult, though I thought I saw a greenhouse.
Alex said, “You’re near the North Carolina Arboretum.”
“Copy that,” I said. “Gee is reconnoitering from down there and I’m sightseeing.” Minutes passed as I circled, and I identified the tall roof of a greenhouse, a gift shop, flat places that were probably parking lots, a two-story building that looked as if it might be part museum, part visitors’ center.
Over one section of the buildings, my tracker gonged much louder. I dropped lower in a smooth, slow soar, and it gonged again, narrowing the location of EJ’s marble tracker, hopefully still in his pocket, on his person. My tracker continued to gong, slightly louder each time.
From one section of grounds and building I caught a whiff of smoke, cooking meat, spoiled meat, and old blood. I sniffed carefully with my bird nose, which I discovered was very good at certain scent patterns. I detected human blood. Vampire blood.
Not EJ’s blood. “Thank God,” I said, the sound a birdlike chirrup.
The tracker bell sounded.
“There’s smoke,” I said. “Smells like barbeque, maybe pork. Or . . . Oh. Gack. Maybe human. Yeah. That’s it. Someone is cooking human in a big smoker.” I sniffed again.
“Is it—” Alex broke off.
“Not EJ.” If it had been EJ I’d have wreaked havoc and destruction on the creatures below. I’d have spared no one. I beat my wings once, hard, and rose through the whispering sleet on the cooking-human thermal. Which was gross and horrific in every possible way. I