Rising Fury (Hexing House Book 1) (16 page)

Thea crouched in one of the peach trees, much as Graves had the night she came into the orchard looking for a purple dragon. Now she was the purple dragon. Flannery was unconscious and bleeding. Thea had balanced her awkwardly between two branches, and gripped her shoulder tightly to hold her in place.

It had been an enormous effort, getting her even these few miles to Aunt Bridget’s with Thea’s wounded wing. But there was no phone in Pete’s cottage. No place else for Thea to go.

And when she got here, she’d found one fury flying around, and two humans wandering the fields with flashlights.

Once she’d had a chance to rest, Thea picked Flannery back up and darted from tree to tree. Avoiding the humans would be easy, but she didn’t know how many furies might be watching from above. Eventually she decided that Flannery was losing too much blood, and she had to just risk it. She went through the barn and out the other side, then hurried around to Aunt Bridget’s kitchen door. It was locked. That was unusual. She raised a hand to knock.

“You can stop right there.”

Thea turned and found her aunt holding a shotgun.

Bridget took a step forward, then froze again when she saw who was in Thea’s arms. She started to cry out, then lifted the gun again, aiming it at Thea’s face.

“You let her go.”

“Aunt Bridget. It’s me.”

Bridget dropped the shotgun on her own foot. Thankfully, it didn’t go off. “Thea? I didn’t even… you look so…”

“Let me inside, Aunt Bridget. It’s not safe out here.”

Aunt Bridget roused herself from her shock and opened the door. Once inside, Thea put Flannery down on the kitchen table and Aunt Bridget rushed to see where the bleeding was coming from.

“What happened to her? Who did this?”

Thea avoided the second question. “She was clawed. I don’t think the wounds are deep enough to have hit anything major, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Why would you bring her here instead of to the hospital?” Aunt Bridget glanced impatiently over her shoulder, but her eyes rested on Thea’s wings. “Well, I suppose because they’re not accustomed to seeing creatures there. I have to get her out of here.”

Thea ignored the pang of hurt at Aunt Bridget’s use of the word
creature
. That was what she was. And Aunt Bridget didn’t even know the worst of it.

“Call 911,” Thea said. “I’m going to hide upstairs if it’s okay with you. Just tell them you found Flannery dumped on your doorstep like this.”

“Be careful once we’re gone. There are prowlers outside.”

“Yes, I know.” Thea thought for a second. “In fact, when you tell them someone left her and took off, say it loud. Mentioning a purple dragon wouldn’t hurt. Maybe we can convince those prowlers that I’ve gone.”

Aunt Bridget went for the phone, but hesitated for the briefest of moments to give Thea a fleeting hug. “Be careful. Thank you for bringing her back to me. You’ll have to tell me all about it later.” As usual, her calm acceptance of the extraordinary was soothing. Thea half expected to be offered a muffin.

But Aunt Bridget sounded frantic on the phone. Maybe that calm was an act for Thea’s benefit, and always had been.

Thea crouched up by the window of her old bedroom and watched, first as the ambulance pulled up and then, after several minutes of voices downstairs, as it pulled away again, siren wailing. The house was quiet. Thea stayed where she was until she saw a fury flying off into the darkness, away from the farm. Then, exhausted from her flight, she curled up in her old bed and slept again.

She woke up to a tinge of orange on the horizon, and jumped out of bed. She hadn’t meant to stay so long. She didn’t want to be there when Aunt Bridget came back, didn’t want to face her questions. Or her anger. Flannery was probably awake by now, and she would have told Bridget who’d hurt her.

Thea was sure Flannery’s wounds wouldn’t require more than some stitches. At least, she hoped she was sure. Maybe she just kept telling herself she was sure because she couldn’t bear the thought of anything else.

She hesitated. When it came down to it, she couldn’t hurt you.

And you had no trouble at all hurting her. Ruthlessness is a virtue, is it? Do you really believe that?

But she’d pulled back. She could have eviscerated Flannery with those claws, but as soon as she felt them grazing flesh, she’d pulled back. Hadn’t she?

This was ridiculous. She’d done what she had to, and no more than Flannery deserved. Furies weren’t
really
monsters.

Thea washed and brushed her teeth, then froze as she came out of the bathroom. There were sounds coming from the kitchen. And while she didn’t smell muffins, there was a definite aroma of coffee.

Shit
was her first thought, and then, closely following:
You coward. Go and face her
.

Thea straightened her spine and walked downstairs slowly, preparing her defense as she went.

“Well, hello there, Gumdrop.”

Pete. He sounded normal, cheerful even. He had that in common with Aunt Bridget: the sky could be raining hellfire and the earth opening up to swallow them, and Pete would show no outward signs of distress.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Checking on you. I just came from the hospital.”

“How is she?”

For a second Pete just stared down at the coffee pot he held. “She’s fine, if you mean the scratches you gave her.”

“She told you, then.”

“Yeah, but I’m too pissed off at her to be pissed at you. She told me enough for me to figure out what the fight was about.” He poured coffee into two mugs and handed one to Thea. “She did this on purpose.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m sure she didn’t mean for it to get so out of control.”

“Why are you defending her?”

Thea shook her head and sighed. “Habit is the only excuse I can think of. Or because I’m sorry to see you hurt.” She narrowed her eyes at Pete as she sipped her coffee. “Why aren’t you surprised to see me?”

“I told you, I came to check on you. Bridget told me you were here.”

“Yes, but did she tell you I was winged and purple?”

“Oh. That.” Pete laughed at her look and said, “No. Cora told me that part.”

“
Cora
?”

Pete turned and surveyed the counter. “Does she have muffins? Or scones or something?”

“It’s Aunt Bridget. Check the bread box. And stop avoiding.”

“I’m not avoiding. I just know what you’re like when you’re mad and I want to fortify myself.” He sat at the table with his coffee and a blueberry muffin.

Thea sighed and sat across from him. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Well, don’t be mad at her either. It took a lot of emails before she broke down and told me the truth.”

“And you believed her?”

“She sent pictures.”

“What the… she’ll be in so much trouble if they find out.”

“They won’t. She’s routing it specially and using encryption. I like her, by the way.”

“Yeah, I thought I liked her too. What do you know about routing and encryption?”

“I’m not the yokel you think I am.”

“Well, I’m the yokel I think I am, because I don’t really know what that stuff is.”

Pete shrugged. “Different hobbies. Have a muffin while you tell me the whole story about Flan and you and this Hexing Hole.”

“Hexing House.” Thea told him everything, from the first meeting with Graves in the barn. Pete didn’t say anything during the parts about the lab and Flannery, but he looked broken by her betrayal. Thea wanted to claw her all over again.

They talked for almost an hour, and by then the sun was fully up.

“Shit, Pete, I have to go. Aunt Bridget isn’t going to want to see me.”

“What makes you say that?”

Thea got up to wash the coffee mugs. When her back was to Pete she said, “She’s her daughter.”

Pete reached beneath her folded wings and put his hands on her shoulders. “So are you, in every way that matters.”

Thea stepped out of his reach and ignored that. She didn’t want to cry on Pete’s shoulder. She didn’t want to cry at all. “Anyway I have to get back.”

“That seems like a terrible idea. You should go back to my cottage.”

But Thea shook her head. “No. I’ve had a chance to think about it now, and the fact is, Pete, for better or worse I’ve made my choice.” She lifted her wings and pointed at one of them. “There’s no turning back.”

“But you could lay low for a while, at least until your wing heals.”

“I could, but by then who knows where they’ll be with this…
superhex
. It might be finished by then, and the things they could do…” She shook her head again. “That’s my colony and it’s my place to protect it. I’ve got to blow the lid off this whole thing. Other than the people who are in on it, I’m the only one who knows.”

“Brave of you.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve changed.”

Pete cocked his head to one side, studying her. “I can see that.”

Thea looked away, feeling self-conscious, wondering for the first time what he thought of her, looking like a monster now. Then she reminded herself that she was well past the point where that should matter to her. “I have to go,” she said again.

With frequent stops to rest her injured wing, it was mid-morning by the time Thea covered the short distance to Hexing House. She spent a lot of that time looking over her shoulder, but nobody seemed to be following her. Maybe they’d given up. Or maybe they were waiting to ambush her back on campus.

As she crossed the fence into the forest, she landed in a tree for one last break, wiping sweat off the back of her neck. It was hot and hazy, and the thick air wasn’t helping.

But it’s not
that
hazy.

There was something rising off to her left that looked an awful lot like smoke.

Thea flew toward it as quickly as she could manage. The smell of burning wood hit her, and then grew stronger.

The cabin they’d used for their blood drops was engulfed in flames that were spreading to the surrounding trees.

Ignoring the protests of her wing—and the rest of her body, for that matter—Thea rushed to the Security building. She was wheezing and nearly falling out of the sky by the time she got there.

“Fire,” she managed as she stumbled through the doors.

Without looking up from his computer, the fury behind the front desk said, “That damn oven in the dining hall again? You want Facilities for that.”

“I think we’re going to want
everyone
,” Thea said. “It’s in the forest. We need to hurry.”

That got his attention. It wasn’t two minutes before Thea was flying again, this time assisted by a guard on either side of her. She led them to the site of the fire. After that, everything was chaos.

It took several hours and every able-bodied member of the colony, often working in shifts, to contain the fire. There was never any question of putting it out. They didn’t have a fire truck, and even if they did they wouldn’t have been able to get it back into the woods. Instead they cleared what small growth and young trees they could, and made a fireline with water, trenches, sand, everything and anything they could find to make sure the fire couldn’t spread. While they were working, Thea saw Nero only briefly, and Cora and Elon not at all.

Eventually, the cabin and surrounding area were a charred, smoldering scar on the land, but the danger to the rest of the forest and the campus itself had been averted. By then it was the middle of the night. Alecto told everyone to go home and rest.

Thea hung back, getting as close to the mess as she could—it was still hot. Her first thought was that somebody knew she was coming back, and was trying to cover their tracks. But then she saw something that made her wonder whether the fire didn’t have an entirely different cause. Something that stood out against the mostly blackened ground.

“That’s salt,” she said out loud.

“Beg your pardon?” Alecto was behind her, arms crossed and glowering. The intimidating effect was somewhat diminished by the dry croak of her voice and the bags under her eyes.