Call of the Raven (18 page)

“Now we all know that’s a lost cause,” Nixon
chimed.

Ari had kept the battery charged and the
truck in good condition. In spite of how he treated Asher, part of
him always felt like Grant would return to collect the truck. Part
of him never felt like Grant had truly died.

What a hypocrite he was.

Ari climbed in and was just about to put on
his seatbelt when, without warning, Nixon slammed the truck in
reverse and barreled backward out of the garage. The truck came to
a sudden complete stop and he was thrown forward into the back of
Kennedy’s seat. Pulling himself off the floorboard, he caught the
devious look on Nixon’s face.

Stomping on the gas, Nixon slammed his foot
down on the gas pedal, and Ari flew back onto the seat. The truck
bounced over the snowy unplowed drive and Nixon shouted like a
cowboy riding a bucking bronco. Finding the seatbelt, Ari put it on
before he could do something else foolish. Lying back Ari removed
his ball cap, and rested his head on the headrest.

“Well,” he mumbled, “at least it’s a
four-wheel drive.”

“Yeah baby and the snow is bitchin!” Nixon
sang.

Ari shook his head and catching movement in a
second floor window, realized that it was Asher standing in the
office window watching them leave.

“
I think it will become clear to you that
you’ve had reason to hate me all these years.”

Chapter Eleven

The Fighter

Reading to the
kids in the ‘I Read’
book club gave Elle Ison a chance to break the monotony in her
otherwise unpromising day. She was different around the kids.
Around them, she could let her guard down. She could laugh and be
herself and because she was good with them, no one ever asked to
take her place. Elle turned the page and showed the wide eyed
children the picture of the wolf. They seemed to especially like
the stories about humans shifting or morphing into animals.

Hatori Matasuto’s manga book series was their
all-time favorite. The children called the shifters in his book
ani-shifts. The little girl on the end seemed especially interested
this day, even though she appeared to be much older than the other
children gathered around on the alphabet patterned rug.

The children tended to be the same group
every Thursday. But Elle didn’t know this little girl. Being the
central library in the heart of downtown Indianapolis there was a
variety of ethnicity and socio-economic levels, from the affluent
to the poor that utilized the libraries services. Elle had seen and
witnessed many things. Still, she was quite positive that this
particular little girl was the saddest, the most unusual and
pathetic looking child she had ever beheld.

The girl didn’t gasp in surprise like the
others when the man in the book transformed into the wolf. She
didn’t laugh or even tweak out the slightest of smiles when Elle
talked in her baby voice, or made big booming noises to demonstrate
the sounds a bear would make when walking through the woods. The
children adored Elle, but this little girl looked at her with such
strange questioning eyes. There was something forlorn about her,
something that aged her beyond her childhood years.

She was an exceptionally pretty child that
much was true; near Hollywood appealing. But she was also very
noticeably dirty, almost to the point of repugnance. Elle wasn’t
the only one that noticed. The other children scooted away from her
and every now and then, she had to ask them to stop whispering and
making fun of the girl.

Two pages from the end of the book, Elle
noticed that the girl was crying and so did her boss, Francis, the
head librarian. She had been warned about scaring the children.
Elle knew that she sometimes got carried away in voice and actions,
especially if she had a bad night with Julio. However, even if she
was sporting a new bruise on her cheek, Elle was positive that it
wasn’t her bitterness toward him that was coming out this time, and
instead it had to be Anthony’s pig sounds.

Still, she toned down and hurried along. Only
when she uttered the ending words, did Elle look again to see if
she was correct in her assumption. Yes, the little girl had been
crying, but now the tears were nothing but smudges across her dirty
cheeks. Francis was really frowning now. In a flurry of arriving
parents and children embracing her in gratitude for the story, Elle
lost track of the girl. When she did spot her again she was sitting
alone at a table in the children’s section assembling a wooden
puzzle, but Elle became distracted by Francis.

“Miss Ison. I thought I told you to choose
stories that wouldn’t upset or confuse the children. Why is that
such a hard task?”

“But the children like these stories and—”
Elle stopped midsentence. She had felt the need countless other
times to argue her point, but this day her words were mislaid for
other grounds.

A man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and
squatted down next to the little girl. By mere reaction alone, Elle
knew that the little girl did not know him. Anthony’s parents were
divorced and only his mother or grandmother was allowed to pick him
up. She also knew that Karen’s grandpa was newly released from jail
and her mom feared he might try to contact her. Elle was supposed
to make sure all the children were safely picked up by their
parents—all of them, even dirty little girls that no one seemed to
care about.

“That little girl there, the one at the
table,” she said to Francis, “do you know her name?”

“Miss Ison, what have I told you about
getting information on the children? We could be liable if
something happened to one of them.”

“I can’t get information if I’ve never seen
them before,” Elle argued. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I
just looked up and there she was sitting with the other
children.”

“Well,” Francis scoffed, “I find that hard to
believe when she’s been here before among your group.” Francis
didn’t believe her because she thought it was just another one of
her excuses.

Lately, Francis had been getting on her about
being sloppy, but so what if she had put up a few books where they
didn’t belong, or twice now she had failed to put the requested
books on the proper hold shelves. If the work wasn’t done, Elle had
no choice but to leave.

The other employees could stay over or work
up until the last minute because they had cars to drive and busses
to catch. But every day, Elle was forced to walk home because Julio
didn’t trust her with a car, and he refused to give her money for a
bus. Elle didn’t like walking home in the dark and staying over
meant getting home late, and Julio knew exactly what time to expect
her to come through the door.

“I don’t want to argue with you, Miss Ison,
as you are so prone to do with me. The fact of the matter is, no
matter what excuse you were planning to use this time, you should
be more careful with evaluations coming up. Now, while her father
is here, I would ask him to fill out the necessary paperwork. You
can do that, can’t you?”

Elle tended to avoid the opposite sex
whenever she could. Julio liked to show up unexpectedly and he
often accused her of things when the matter could have been
something as simple as showing a male customer where he could find
a particular book. Just thinking about it made the cut tingle on
her lower lip from the big fat ring Julio wore on his ring finger.
He had accused her of flirting with the mailman when, despite the
fact he was cute, all she was doing was explaining that he had
delivered mail to the wrong apartment again.

Breaking from her troubled thoughts, Elle saw
that the little girl was gone. Moving over to the table where she’d
previously been, Elle picked up a wooden alphabet piece and stared
blankly at the letters the girl had lined up above the puzzle
board, which clearly spelled out the word,
help
. Adrenaline
pumping, Elle wildly looked around. She heard her, Elle was sure of
it, a small muffled attempt of a scream from somewhere in the
direction of the fiction section.

Dropping the puzzle piece, she took off at a
fast pace. She could see him in between the spaces of the
bookshelves pulling the little girl by the arm, with one hand over
her mouth toward the back exit.

Spotting Sandra near the movie section with a
cart full of DVDs gave Elle an excellent, however impulsive idea.
Grabbing it, she wheeled the cart as fast as she could to the end
of the row and turned quickly on purpose, causing it to overturn,
contents and all, directly in front of the unsuspecting man. His
shins hit the metal sides of the cart and he fell over it, setting
the little girl free in the process, while DVDs slid in all
directions upon the floor.

Rolling over quickly, the man glared up at
Elle and she saw something flash in his eyes. She was sure she saw
a yellow light. Then a strange almost eerie blank expression
crossed his face. The look totally baffled her. It was as though he
recognized her, when she clearly did not know him at all.

Turning away from him, Elle looked toward the
fleeing girl. She saw her slip on a copy of the
X-Men,
fall
to her knees, and then get up and continue on. Jumping to his feet
the man quickly did the same. Whether he knew her or not, he
obviously didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to chat.

Elle looked over her shoulder as the back
door clicked shut, and then turned around to await Francis. Her
knack for getting on her boss’s bad side had just taken a severe
turn for the worse, but as the little girl’s blonde head
disappeared among the rows of books, Elle realized she didn’t
regret helping her at all.

***

The sky above
her was dark and just as
dreary as her soul as Elle started for home. On Friday’s she always
stopped off at the Ace Cash Advance to cash her check, so she could
take every last cent home to Julio. He usually wanted the money
badly enough that he never said anything about her running late on
paydays. But this night, her time spent in Francis’s office
learning just how much of a looser she really was, caused her to
run even later. On top of that there had been a long line of people
waiting to cash their checks when she arrived.

She thought about calling Julio to pick her
up, since he was more than likely just a few blocks over at the
bar, but calling him was considered an intrusion on his private
life, and Elle didn’t want any more trouble. Not this night and
especially not from him. She moaned longingly. She really did like
that job. Julio seldom came home anymore and it wasn’t that she
cared one way or another, but the loneliness was really starting to
wear on her.

She thought about all the wonderful places
she had read about, and wondered if she would ever have a chance to
experience life apart from the poverty-stricken slums of the east
side. As she passed the window of a bookstore, she slowed. Today
was the day that Hatori Matasuto’s latest book was due to be
released, and she had so wanted to buy it. The book was there, just
as she figured it would be, right in front, displayed on a gold
plated easel like an artist’s masterpiece.

Julio wouldn’t let her watch the kind of
programs she liked on the television, but every now and then, she
found a discarded newspaper in the employee break room. According
to the entertainment section the reviews weren’t the greatest for
Hatori’s latest book in the
Tale of the Two Brother’s
series.

Apparently the author had ended things on a
dark note and critics didn’t understand his reasoning.
Nevertheless, she had waited a year for the book to appear on the
bookstore shelves and she still longed to read it. The book
wouldn’t be in the libraries for another month, and it’s not like
she would be able to visit one to check it out anyway. Other than
working and occasionally walking to the grocery store, Julio seldom
let her go anywhere. On impulse, Elle went inside. The clerk was
closing up, but she just had to ask.

“How much is Hatori Matasuto’s book?”

Elle cringed when she heard the clerk rattle
off the price of $17.99 as though that were nothing. Truthfully,
she couldn’t recall spending that much on anything as frivolous as
a book. Not too long ago, Julio allowed her to make a trip to the
Goodwill Outlet store to purchase work clothes, but she had to
practically beg him to let her do that. Lately, even asking for the
needed quarters to wash laundry was becoming a hassle. Elle never
minded his controlling personality before when it meant keeping a
roof over her head, but things were really starting to get ugly.
She longed for so much more.

In a moment of rebellion, Elle nodded. “I’ll
take one, then.”

She pulled a twenty out of her pocket and
handed it over to the clerk. Only when she started for the
apartment, did the nervous juices in her stomach start churning.
Julio would know when she handed him the cash that she had shorted
him. Even though she had never given him cause to distrust her, he
always asked for the paycheck stub as a comparison. She had no
reason to believe that this night would be any different.

A flock of blackbirds gathering on a park
bench startled her when they suddenly flew away, and began circling
above her in the sky. The birds were becoming a nuisance, feeding
off discarded food and popcorn left behind on the streets from the
corner theatre. Birds always fascinated her, but right now her
interest lay elsewhere.

Stopping on the street corner, she pulled out
the book from the plastic sack and examined the front cover under
the glow of a street lamp. Her eyes took in the silhouette of a
wolf howling in front of a full white moon. Hatori’s main
character, Pain, was a wolf ani-shift. From an early age, Elle
loved reading about the fantasy world, especially of the paranormal
nature. This last book in the manga series was titled
Evil
Angel
.