Phoenix Reborn (12 page)

“
N
o. I don’t like this one bit,” said Hawke, unable to remain silent. “Ashling, you’re not bait for some psychopath.”

“Well, I suppose we could call the cops,” she laughed, thinking the sentiment outrageous.

“The police chief is an ally to our sorts of people,” said Ranach, who stood by. “He might actually be willing to help.”

“We can’t risk it,” said Ashling. “I’m sure he’s a good man, but if he learns what Hawke is, it could ruin his acting career.”

Hawke began to protest and she held her hand up. “I’m serious,” she said. “Trust me.”

“I understand,” said Ranach. “Well, Ashling. It’s to you to decide. Are you willing to take another risk?”

She looked at her mentor and then at Hawke, the Golden Eagle. The creature who now lay sculpted in silver on her chest, close to her heart.

“I will do whatever it takes,” she said. “I want my life to begin over again, now that I understand who I am. Now that I have Hawke.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed. “I want to find my parents. And we can’t do any of that with this man’s shadow looming over us. So tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”

“Good. So here’s what I propose: You go back to where you camped to retrieve your gear.”

“Don’t you think he’ll know we’re trying to ensnare him?” said Hawke. “It seems pretty obvious.”

“I don’t know,” said Ranach. “He’s not the most rational creature in the world, remember. He may just see Ashling as overly-confident; she’s a Phoenix now, after all.”

“True. But he brought a knife last time — what if this time he brings a gun?”

“Hawke Turner, remember who you are. An Eagle, gifted with eyes that can see to every corner of the cosmos. Your body has the speed of a fastball. You will be at him faster than he can aim any gun. And Ashling has defences that she’s not yet even aware of. Though something tells me she won’t need them.”

“I hope so,” Hawke said.

“Whatever happens, I will be close by,” said Ranach, putting a hand on Ashling’s shoulder. “You are like a daughter to me — the child I never had. I would not let harm come to you. All your life I’ve tried to protect you. But now it’s time that you learned what you’re made of. Are you ready?”

She looked him in the eye, smiling affectionately. Wherever her parents were, as much as she loved them, she couldn’t feel more warmth for anyone than she felt for the old wizard in that moment.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Good. Let’s go.”

Ashling followed the trail that she’d hiked days before. Though Hawke, in Eagle form, flew overhead, there would be no exploring the sky for her today. She was too conspicuous, too much like a fiery comet shooting through the air above, and there was no concealing herself from prying eyes.

In addition to that, though, she wanted the strange assailant to see her as potentially vulnerable; not entirely in control of her powers. A human with a human’s flesh. But as she walked she held out her hands, occasionally initiating a spark or a small flame. At times, she even managed to create the small fireballs which hovered above her hand, ready to be used as projectiles. Ashling had discovered weaponry, and it was her own invention. Even better than a unicorn’s horn.

Though she hoped never to have to use it.

She’d gone, over the course of days, from being an abnormal, insecure thing to something supernatural, superhuman, even. But her flight with Hawke had been the first experience of this new strength, and she hadn’t enjoyed the benefit of training, of learning all that she could accomplish.

And so there was fear as she walked alone, Ranach somewhere unseen, but not too far off, his location carefully hidden. Hawke’s keen eyes were no doubt fixed solidly on her from his vantage point above the treetops. But even with his speed, he would not be able to beat a flying bullet, or even a knife thrown at a good clip. It would be up to her to take on this man. But, if she were successful, her life could begin again; a renewal could occur at last for her. A rebirth as someone else; the woman she’d always been fated to become. The woman she’d always wished she could be.

Stopping for a moment, she threw a fireball at a fallen tree trunk, which erupted in a sea of flame. With her mind Ashling doused it quickly, putting it out as instantly as it had started.
So, I’m able to extinguish fire as well as create it,
she thought.
I’m not the destroyer that I’d always supposed.

The hike to her makeshift campsite seemed to take forever; longer, even than the first time, when she’d been escaping town and running away from Hawke. This time, she walked towards a possible ambush and possible death. Fate, leading her closer to a confrontation which would test her new skills, her strength and her resolve.

And with her, the two men she cared about most in the world. If anything happened to them, she would be devastated. But she knew also that she should focus on herself for now — the man had no beef with Hawke or Ranach. Only with her, and at last she was beginning to understand why. She wondered how many others out there wanted her taken down, stripped of life.

As she neared her campsite among the old house’s ruins, she felt herself tense, shoulders tightening, eyes and ears alert. Deep, nerve-wracking anticipation. But something else ate at her as well. As though another sense were kicking in; an instinct had lain dormant before she’d come fully into her powers.

She could smell him on the air, feel him near, that man who wanted her gone. The shifter who couldn’t hunt her so well — no doubt he would be better at it if she were made of rotting flesh. His interest was only in the dead and those he could destroy.

He didn’t belong in Woodland Creek as she did.

As she did. She belonged.

For once, she had a home, and it all made sense. The magic of the place, its strange forces which had worked at her all her life. The powers that Ranach had concealed from her. Hawke. And others, whom she would one day learn to recognize as her own kind. Somehow it was a relief. Though she might be walking into a trap willingly, though this man might snuff her life out, she finally understood who she was. There were no doubt others in her home town who’d known all her life, who’d watched her protectively. Who’d sympathized with her plight.

If only I shifted into a ground squirrel,
she thought.
No one would feel a need to snuff me out.

At last she saw the ruins, surrounded here and there by the odd flash of colour: her camping gear, lying about on the ground, the tent still erect, pegged into the soil. She walked slowly, attempting not to step on dry twigs or mounds of fallen leaves, to conceal her steps. But she wasn’t so graceful as a cat or as her flying form, and proceeding in silence felt like an impossibility.

The good news was that she didn’t see him: maybe he was gone, having seen what she could do, and knowing that the Golden Eagle was protecting her. Maybe the Vulture had left for good.

But again it came to her: a warning; instinct, telling her that he was nearby, that he wished her harm. That he awaited her. In an instant she knew.

Of course. He was in the tent. Hiding, waiting for her to return, knowing that she would likely come for her gear. She wished that she could somehow transmit the message to Hawke:
I know where he is.
But then, with his eyes, maybe he could see it already, even from the sky.

Ashling stood on one side of the crumbling stone wall, waiting for a sign of movement inside the nylon structure, but saw nothing. As she focused, though, she could hear her enemy breathing, her ears even managing to pick up the sound of his heart beating percussively in his chest. And she knew that she had only one option, with or without Hawke and Ranach’s blessing.

Positioning herself beyond the broken-down frame of an old window, she summoned another fireball, the size of a tennis ball, to her right hand, and watched it rotate slowly over her palm. This would be her only chance to surprise him, and the seconds that followed would determine whether she won the coming battle or lost it.

Rapidly she spun around, throwing the ball of flame towards the tent with all her might. She twisted again, pressing her back to the crumbling wall as she peered around, seeing the flames engulfing the flimsy structure. Within seconds, only the metal frame stood, the nylon disappeared, turned to black ash which sifted through the air. And inside, the greasy-haired man, easing out, his body hunched as he attempted to avoid the raining embers that surrounded him.

“Show yourself,” he muttered. “Let me see you, now that you’ve come into your skills.”

“I’m no fool,” Ashling replied, her voice raised. “I’m not going to make myself a target for you.”

“So, what? Did you come here to kill me then, Fire Girl?”

The man sounded pathetic now, and Ashling’s heart was torn in spite of herself. She’d never hurt anyone deliberately, and memories of the experience from her youth came surging back, reminding her what it had felt like to do someone harm. No part of her wanted to destroy him, regardless of his own malice.

“I only want you to leave me alone,” she said. “I haven’t done anything to you or anyone else.”

“You will. Your kind always does.”

With a deep inhale she stepped out from behind the wall, revealing herself. He stood before her, this time without a knife. There was no gun, even; just a man. Defenceless, injured, his arm in a home-made sling.

“What do you know of my kind?” she asked.

“I was there, when your father hurt people. I know what he did.”

“You knew him?”

“Only a little. He had a temper on him. As you do.”

He was right, of course. Twice she’d lost control and her fire had gotten the better of her. But she was older now, and wiser.

“I have learned to control it,” she said.

“Have you? And what if I told you that I will hurt that movie star boy toy of yours? What if I told you that I’ll destroy him? I’ll tell everyone what he is. Would you hurt me then?”

“If you do that, you reveal what you are as well,” she said. But the Vulture shifter was pushing her — causing her to grow irritated with the threat against Hawke. The young man’s welfare was her Achilles heel; there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect him.

“Do I look like a man with something to lose?” the man said. With that, he stepped towards her, his motions jerky and unpredictable. He moved like someone who was off kilter, clumsy.

“Everyone has something to lose. Everyone has life in them.”

“I thrive on death. My only joy in life comes with the end of others’ lives. I have no interest in your notions of life’s pleasures. But I would enjoy ruining that pretty boy of yours.”

Ashling felt the fire well up within her, even as a bird of prey cried out overhead, warning her against herself.

“You will do no such thing,” she said. She had ceased to care about her own life, her own happiness. No one would ruin what Hawke was. And certainly not this worthless waste of skin. In both hands now were spheres of flame, this time larger than last. She held them steady as they rotated above her palms.

“So you prove me right,” said the infuriating shifter before her. “You would kill me out of rage. You are a danger to our kind.”

“I would kill you to defend someone I care about — someone I love,” she said. “In a second, just as anyone would do. So don’t force me.”

But Ranach had been right; he wasn’t a reasonable man. In a flash he’d shifted into his ugly Vulture form, its wrinkled red face perched atop a neck which bent twice in a twisted S-curve, giving the impression of two separate humps.

Ashling held the fire steady, waiting to see what he might do: did he intend to fly, to attempt escape?

His wings spread slowly, stretching wide to cast a dark shadow on the ground before him. And then her question was answered. No, not escape. He intended to hurt her. The Vulture lunged at her, opening his beak wide as he began to spew acidic bile in her direction.

Ashling leapt to the side, avoiding the stream even as it hit the leaves that had lain under her feet a moment earlier. The acid ate at them, disintegrating them immediately, as it would have done to her flesh.

She flung a fireball which hit the ground before him, causing a small tower of flame to shoot up. Then another, also narrowly missing as he wrenched his body from side to side in deft, albeit awkward, avoidance.

He could no longer speak, of course, but still, she felt him challenge her, deriving his own internal satisfaction from the idea that he was controlling her; that he held the power.

No. She wouldn’t allow it. This maniac didn’t hold dominion over her.

He had no interest in Hawke. She knew that now. He was only using the Golden Eagle shifter as another weapon against Ashling. It was her that he wanted dead — and after that, he would leave. Hawke and Woodland Creek could exist in peace, as long as the Vulture got his wish.

And so, surrendering, she put her hands to her sides.

“I won’t do it,” she said. “If you want to burn me with your disgusting acid, go ahead,” she said. “I will not kill you to prove you right. I will not become what you predict. I’m not a murderer. And I control my own actions.”