me, in crevices and across the upper side of fallen logs. Below me, heavy mist rose from the surface of the water, to bead when it reached cooler temps and plink back down as if from low-lying rain clouds. The air here was at least another ten degrees warmer. A gust of colder air blew through, carrying the rain made of melted sleet and snow. The drops created a plink-tap-rat-a-tat-tat rhythm, the music of nature. The place smelled green and alive, strongly of minerals and water, of warmth. This was a primeval scent my bird brain recognized and knew. A world my Anzu memories and instincts identified by its fragrance. It was something that had been unfamiliar to Beast’s brain. This . . . this was the pathway to home.
But. The area around the pool of water was empty. I could have screamed in fury. EJ wasn’t here. No one was. And I hadn’t seen a vehicle at the parking spot, a fact I hadn’t wanted to think about until now. I shook my wings in grief and fury, ready to leap high and fly home. Get food. Change back to my human form, help the clan think of the next move.
The next protrusion was on the far side of the rift, higher, too far to hop. Not a place I had gone when I was in Beast form. Another gust of colder air spun through the crevasse. As it blew through, I raised my wings and leaped, winging across the pool and up, ready to take advantage of the rising warmer air there. I wing-swept down, across to the far side, to a downed log lodged at an odd angle, roots caught between rocks, the tip balanced in a cleft. I landed. Turned. Prepared to shove off and fly home.
Across from me, below where I had perched before my last hop, some twenty feet down, was another opening in the rock. It was a cave mouth, thirty feet high and twenty feet across at the opening. On the floor of the cave a fire burned. My wings folded as if of their own accord. I went still as a vamp.
The smoke was scentless, which was strange with my improved Anzu nose. From this angle, the cave appeared to be empty, but its floor had been swept clean, and deeper inside, I could make out only a quarter of an arc, perhaps a witch circle on the bare stone, the border made from salt. I spotted a small perch, too small for my feet, but I jumped there anyway. Caught my balance with wings that were too noisy, banging against the stone. Bruising what would be my wrists in human form. Ignoring the pain.
At the edge of the circle was EJ.
Kit! Beast shouted in our mind.
The boy was still. Unmoving. Until his chest rose and fell. Shock slashed a path through me. My heart beat so hard, it felt as if it would fly out of my chest. My godson was only asleep. Drugged or compelled or in stasis. Not dead.
My godchild was alive.
If the Flayer was timewalking, he’d had plenty of time to find this cave, prepare this cave. Do whatever he wanted in this cave. And he could come back and forth through time anywhere. Except for the fire, I had no idea if he was here, now, in this cave. And if he discovered me out here, if he took EJ back or forward through time with him, I’d lose my godchild.
Fear shivered thorough me. I hopped to a better perch, glad for the darkness of the crevasse, glad for the firelight in the cave, which would conceal my presence.
Beside the fire was a flayed vampire, blood tacky on the stone floor, half-dried across her exposed flesh. In the corner lay another vampire, partially skinned, a male. Beside him was a human, female, her wrists and the crown of her head wrapped in silver wire. Her throat was flawless, but her clothing was drenched in dried blood, showing she had been fed from and then healed. A witch? Bled and rolled? Immobilized with null amulets? Over her stood Shimon Bar-Judas. The mouth of his bleeding spokesperson—the female vamp—was moving as she spoke to the witch. I heard nothing, but no matter what words Shimon Bar-Judas spoke, they wouldn’t be good.
I couldn’t hear a thing, not a peep. There was some kind of energy thingy over the mouth of the cave, not allowing out scent or sound, but