Ghost-Ish- Lazarus Read online

  Then she looked at the cardboard walls around us and the double blanket door and whispered, “What are you? I... you had no path for your soul like you're fixed in place. And I, saw, your chest.”

  I grabbed my hoodie across the zipper like it might magically fall to show her the transparent nothing of my injuries. My voice sounded far away, “I... I don't know.” Path? Soul? Then I saw what she was doing, and my eyes widened as I accused, “Hey! I'm the one asking the questions. What are you, and why are you hunting me?”

  She chuckled at me. Ok, so not as scatterbrained as she was trying to appear. Noted. Damn, cute and intelligent were my kryptonite. But she was... she was a bird creature. A damn beautiful one at that.

  She asked, “I suppose whatever supernatural accomplice knocked me out, is out there keeping guard?”

  I shook my head, she was stalling for some reason, it was more than just refusing to answer my questions. “Not supernatural... ex-special forces.”

  Her eyes widened, and she stiffened, her eyes going golden and feathers starting to sprout in her hair. “Same thing. So you're with Lazarus, not Truit!”

  I backpedaled in the small space scurrying back toward the exit at the mention of Lazarus as her face twisted into disgust, her hands becoming birdlike claws. As I moved my bat up between her and me to keep those claws away from me, I snapped, “If you bring Lazarus down on my people here, it's going to be the last thing you ever do, Tweety!”

  She blinked in surprise, the determination and disapproval melted away into confusion, and she was again, just a cute young woman, whose eyes were threatening to swallow me whole as she put things together. “Your hiding from Lazarus? They did this to you? You're one of their experiments... Fuck, they've succeeded!”

  I snapped at her, shoving my bat in her chest, “I'm going to mess up that cute face of yours if you don't tell me what the hell is going on here. And stop stalling...” Wait... “You're waiting for someone.” Shit, she wasn't alone out there. I just assumed.

  She gave me a shit-eating grin.

  Hell.

  Matt called out, “Umm... Cam? You might want to come out here.”

  I looked at her, then at the blankets blocking our view of the outside. Crap. I couldn't just leave her in here, it would take just a moment to push through the cardboard boxes. “Umm... Come on short stuff, but don't even try to run.”

  She held her hands up, arms at her side, a smug look on her face as she squeezed past, stopping when we were face to face to grin and say, “Whatever you say, hot stuff.” Then she moved past, leaving me standing there, oddly aroused.

  Wait! Damn it, she was playing yet another angle, she must have seen my attraction. I'd have to revise my original assessment of her intelligence and place her in the dangerously intelligent category.

  I grabbed the back of her shirt and held the butt of the bat to her back. She giggled in amusement. I smiled, then frowned. I wasn't so sure that I was the one in control here anymore.

  Though I was a bit entertained by the fact I wasn't freaking the hell out that this woman was some sort of bird shapeshifter. It seems my tolerance for the division between reality and impossibility has gained a hell of a lot of flexibility. If... I... was possible, wasn't everything? I wondered how many myths and fairy tales that have popped up over the centuries had some sort of basis in reality.

  We stopped beside Matt, and she looked at him in his old army jacket and then whined, “Aw man. It was legs here that knocked me out?”

  I was appalled at her crass denigration of a man who gave his legs for our country, and was about to … I don't know. Do something? About it, when Matt chuckled. “I took your chicken feathered ass down didn't I?”

  She smirked at him and said, “Raven, not chicken. You cheated. Special forces training evens the playing field a bit.” Then she actually held a hand out to him. “Rin Bastien.”

  He stared at her hand for a moment, then studied her eyes a moment, then he smiled and shook her hand. “Lieutenant Matt Warren. Now play nice, I'm not big on hitting women, but I will if I have to.” Huh. I see what she did there. She showed him she didn't care about his disability enough to talk plainly. She just got the wary respect of the man. And she was giving him information without having to ask. Grr.

  She caught me studying her then she smirked and said, “Cam,” as she nudged her eyes up to the elevated tracks. How did she know my... oh, when Matt called me out.

  I smirked right back, she was fun. Then I looked up and froze. Two inhuman black shapes were watching us intently, looking ready to swoop down on armlike wings. One was larger than Rin's bird form, but not male, it had decidedly feminine curves, and there was a smaller one, like maybe a young teen. It was hard to tell in the dark. But even the tiny one looked dangerous... deadly.

  The larger one tensed to leap at us, but Rin held up a hand. “I got this shit, Adelaide. I'll see you back at the Winnebago.” Then she froze and looked at the motorcycle and whined like a kid, “Hey! Who rode my bike?”

  The bird woman above shifted nervously but even though she had a dangerous looking hooked beak instead of a mouth, it looked amused at the bike comment. She made a hissing chuff and spoke... “Not if we see you first.” Then added, “You sure? I can feel it from here. It's not natural.”

  It?

  Rin waved her off again. “Its name is Cam. I'll be fine, but she's one of Lazarus', not Truit's. And... I don't think she's dead.”

  That caused some gasps from the few people who were congregating around us, looking afraid of the two birdlike creatures on the tracks. God damn it! Were they going to blab all my secrets out in the open for the people who saw me as one of their own to hear?

  I think Rin saw the new fear on my face and looked around at the other homeless people moving around us. She scrunched her face up when she realized they didn't know about me. “Sorry.” Then she waved off the others again.

  With graceful leaps, the two moved as one, gliding from the tracks to a rooftop, and bounded off.

  Then she leaned in and whispered, “So, apparently we've misjudged you. It doesn't look like you're out to kill me, and I apparently can't kill you. So truce? Let's go somewhere more private to talk to get this sorted out before the Fates get here. They are going to freak the fuck out about you.”

  The Fates? She spoke like they weren't something abstract like mythology, but as if they were people. Well with how weird my life has become, why the hell not?

  I glanced around at all the curious looks I was getting, and the intense regard Matt was giving me. I exhaled loudly and said to him, “Watch Ferret for me?”

  The man sighed, though I could see in his eyes that we needed to have a long talk when I got back. Rin offered a fist, and Matt bumped it. Just great, they were male bonding.

  Then Rin moved and mounted her bike, slipping a helmet on and shoving one in my gut. I growled and handed my bat to Matt and mounted up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. Then we sat there a moment doing nothing.

  Then she looked back sheepishly and asked, “Who has my keys?”

  Oh. I blushed. Then contemplated how I could blush without blood pumping through my veins, due to, you know, my lack of a heart and all. I fished out the keys and handed them to her. The cocky ninja bird just winked, slapped down the visor of her helmet, then started the bike. Moments later we were screaming down the road into the night of the city.

  Rin was insane! I tightened my grip, which just made her go faster. Part of me was elated at the freedom I felt with the air rushing past, and the fact that my arms were around an annoying, manipulative, walking sigh of a shapeshifting woman.

  Chapter 4 – Raven Maids

  After just riding for almost an hour, seemingly on random routes, and through Central Park two or three times, we wound up by the docks. At first, I thought it was that she believed she was trying to hide her route and destination, but that was just stupid because, well, I had eyes, and this was my town. I came to the realization that she just... really liked riding. And it really was a spectacular night.

  We pulled up to an old Winnebago motorhome that was parked in a wide alley between warehouses. The thing had to be a kajillion years old.

  Rin took off her helmet, and I blinked as I reached up to remove mine when a young girl of thirteen or fourteen came running out of the motorhome to hug the ninja bird-girl. “Rin, I knew you'd be ok.”

  This woman, who projected aloof bad-assery smiled widely at the girl and kissed the top of her head, saying, “Hey Lil' Squish, it's me, Aunt Rin. Of course I'm fine.” She shot the young one a look full of confident swagger.

  I slid my helmet off, and the young one turned her attention to me, and her smile turned to that of confusion, revulsion, and then rage. One instant she was a precocious young teen, the next a human-raven hybrid was diving at me, hissing, snapping a small hooked beak at me.

  I started to raise an arm up in front of me since I was backed up against the bike, but the girl just hung in the air in front of me, swinging her little winglike arms, little claws slashing out at me. I blinked when I realized Rin had caught her mid-leap by the scruff of her neck, dangling her off the ground as she chuckled, “Squish, she's with me. She's ok. I know she feels strange, but she's not dead.”

  It was almost comical when the girl slowed and looked between us, then turned her body to start swinging her little claws at Rin. In an odd double voice, she was whining, “Aunt Rin! Put me down!”

  Rin was laughing, and I almost jumped to help as the girl slashed her claws through Rin's arm, over and over, but I hesitated when no blood flowed, and the leather jacket only showed minor scratches when I plainly saw the claws sink through her arm. Were... were they like me?

/>   As the leather-clad woman chuckled at the young one, a woman's voice called out with a slight Creole accent from by the Winnebago, “Kyler Cerise Cumberland, what do you think you're doing? You know not to attack Rin unless you're training.” The voice added, “Or she's being an insufferable pain in the ass.”

  Rin actually winced like she had been caught sneaking out on a school-night or something. She narrowed an eye and said in a wince without turning around, “Hey Adelaide. How's tricks?” She dropped the teen, who was a girl again before her butt hit the ground.

  The girl scrambled back from me, and I watched as a striking twenty-something woman walked up, a wary eye on me, her head cocked at an unnatural angle like a bird. I couldn't quite place her ethnicity, she had features ranging from Latina and Caucasian to African American that all melded together perfectly. She was, for lack of a better word, gorgeous. But she had that same animalistic dangerous air about her that Rin had.

  She scolded Rin, “Soc Au' Lait. The two of you are worse than a couple toddlers terrorizing the bayou.”

  Rin gave her a sorry not sorry grin, and the Kyler girl said almost cutely, looking sheepish, “Sorry mom-ish.” Mom-ish? This Adelaide woman was Kyler's mother? Did she have her when she was like eight or something? She looked my age.

  Rin introduced us as Adelaide's eyes turned a golden hue when she turned to me. I could see her push down an urge to dive at me the way her daughter had. “Adelaide Oliver, Cam something-something.” Then she added, “She's ok. I don't know what she is, but dead ain't it, no matter what our instincts are screaming at us. I thought we could talk, it sounds like whatever made her this way was Lazarus' doing, and not of her own free will.”

  Oliver? But she just called her daughter Cumberland. Was she born out of wedlock or was I reading everything all wrong here? I offered a hand, and little black feathers seemed to sprout along her hairline, making her long curls look even prettier. “Cameron Tourvell.” I eyeballed Rin and almost growled, “And what I am is human. Well mostly. I think.”

  The older of the blackbird hybrid women cocked her head the other way then shook my hand, and for a moment I felt myself being pulled into the stark nothingness with her again until Rin snapped, “Addy, god damn it, she's here to talk.” And I felt solid earth under my feet again. Just what were these women?

  Adelaide grinned at me. “Pleased to meet you.” Then to Rin, as she released my hand, “I just wanted to see for myself. There was no... path... and I didn't taste her life.”

  Rin actually grabbed my arm and interposed her body like she was protecting me. “Well, now you know. If she's running from Lararus, maybe she can help us find them.”

  I sputtered, “What? Find them? Are you crazy? They have been hunting me ever since...” All eyes were on me as I hesitated. What I was going to say was impossible but so were people who could turn into birds and pull people into some sort of pocket dimension that existed just outside of our time-space with some sort of Einstein–Rosen bridge spanning the gap between. It was the only logical explanation for what I saw when Rin dragged what I think was my life energy there. I found myself finishing with, “...I died.”

  It was odd to see the compassion in all their eyes and an understanding that I couldn't fathom them having. Adelaide's demeanor changed from defensive to almost nurturing as she stole me away from Rin, looking me up and down. “Come on in, chere, are you hungry?” Ah. I looked like a... well I was a homeless person.

  Rin let out an exasperated sigh and followed, putting Kyler in a headlock and ruffling her hair. Their antics had all the earmarks of siblings, but they looked nothing alike. Kyler asked as we all moved into the motorhome, “So, Cameron. What are you?”

  I sighed heavily. I wasn't a thing. I corrected her, “Cam.” Then I threw her question back at her. “What are you?”

  She said as she wrapped a wire around the latch after we entered the small space, “We're Raven Maids.”

  Adelaide hissed, but the girl said defiantly, “What? She saw us all in our Raven aspects. Not like I'm tellin' her anything her eyes didn't.”

  Raven Maids? By Adelaide and Kyler's accents, I placed them in the bayou country of Louisiana, by New Orleans. I had visited there a couple time for Mardi Gras with dad. Now that I look back at it, I think they may have been pickpocketing expeditions. One of my dad's other redeeming qualities. Not. But I couldn't think of any stories I heard, from the various groups that make up the rich culture down there, about these Raven Maids.

  The older woman gave her a look, and the little one looked down, embarrassment showing on her reddening cheek. “Sorry mom-ish.”

  I blinked at that again and found my mouth running off without my permission, “She's your daughter? You don't look old enough to...”

  I stopped at the pained and sorrowful looks on all their faces. Adelaide looked ashamed. But Kyler said like I should understand, “Mom's dead. Abigail Truit killed her. It was Addy who brought her soul to her path after her judgment. Since it was Addy, mom sort of lives inside of her now. All her memories are part of her now. It is the Raven Maid curse. Sometimes I even forget Addy isn't my real mom, she acts so much like her at times. So I just call her Mom-ish.”

  Then she slid in beside Adelaide when the woman sat at the little table on one of the bench seats and gave her a loving cuddling hug. I was lightheaded, trying to process all the implications of what the girl had just said.

  Rin grinned as she slid into the other side and patted the bench beside her, “Don't sweat it, Reggie, it takes a while to wrap your brain around it.”

  I screwed my face up as I slid in next to her, aware of our legs touching on the small bench. “Reggie?”

  She snorted. “The way you were flailing that bat of yours around, I figure you think you're Reggie Jackson or something.”

  I parried. “Kept you busy enough didn't I, Birdbrain?” She just grinned at me and leaned into me to shove my shoulder with hers. Damn it, I was grinning back.

  Then she blindsided me when she deadpanned. “So... you've got some parts missing?” She left it at that, an obvious prompt. I knew we both had questions, but I didn't know how much I wanted to share with strangers... who could turn into birds.

  She was looking at my chest in an expectant 'I showed you mine, now you show me yours' manner. I looked around at the expectant and confused faces. I guess the only way I was going to get information was if I shared a little. Quid pro quo. I opened my mouth but then jumped when the door to the motorhome started rattling, the wire holding it closed.

  A female voice chimed out, “Hey brats. You want dinner or not? Lemme in.”

  Kyler bounced up like she was on springs, her eyes wide in excitement. It seemed that teens were universal, whether they were human or bird shifters. They all think with their stomachs. And I found that... I don't know, reassuring? And I relaxed a bit.

  When the door opened, a cute blonde woman stepped in with three huge pizza boxes from Sottocasa's! It was Friday, and that meant... I inhaled, savoring the distinctive aroma, yup, burrata. Mmmm. My mouth started watering, and even though I knew it was just a Pavlovian response since I didn't need to eat, I still knew what tasted good.

  The woman paused when she saw me. “Oh. I didn't know we had a guest. If I had known I would have brought more.” She placed two of the boxes on the tiny counter across from the seating area while Kyler wound the wire on the latch again. The boxes eclipsed the teeny tiny all in one kitchenette. She looked nervous, looking questions to the women, as I contemplated her comment about having to bring more. One of these monster boxes would have fed the three women with slices to spare.

  Rin was just grinning, that left Adelaide to be the adult as the blonde slid into the seat beside her, giving her a quick peck on the lips with her wary gaze trained on me. “Shan, this is Cameron Tourvell. The one throwing our instincts into a tizzy. Cam, this is my wife, Shannon Kingston.”

  The woman corrected, “Oliver.” Then she offered a hand tentatively when the women encouraged with their eyes.

  I shook then offered, “Pleased to meet you. You're like our feathered friends?”

  The woman looked to panic for a moment, darting her eyes to the others like she had let something slip, but they seemed unconcerned. “No. I have common sense, something these three lack. A gift from being a New York native. Plus, you can't improve on perfection.”