Ghost Key (52 page)

Sanchez used the fed cell to call the number and the same controller answered on the first ring. “Your badge checked out, Mr. Sanchez. Your video is coming through now. Keep us posted. You’ll have priority for landing when you’re ready. And by the way, there are six military choppers on radar in your area.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Sanchez clicked off, and Delaney said, “Jesus, O’Donnell is going to have a stroke.”

He banked steeply to the north, headed back toward the island, and for the first time, Sanchez had a clear view of the fires burning on Cedar Key. It looked as if it had been bombed. The worst fires raged in the downtown area, all the way out to Dock Street. Even though the marina was nothing but asphalt, the streets that led into it were lined with trees on one side and with shops on the other. The park, which was on one of the possible landing sites, didn’t have any trees to speak of and the ground was mostly sand and gravel. Even so, the playground items were wood and cheap plastic and if flames reached that area, the seesaws and swings would go up as well.

“Okay, people, listen up.” Delaney’s voice boomed in the headsets. “The landing is going to be difficult. I’m going to approach First Street from the west and try to land there. My hope is that Kate has spread the word about where the pickup will be. But even if she hasn’t, they’ll see us. It’s not every goddamn day that a plane lands in the marina. Dominica’s mutants will see us, too. We’re armed, but not well armed. The point is to get as many people on board as possible and get the hell out and hope the additional weight isn’t a problem. We’ve got clearance for Gainesville, but may want to rethink that if the feds move in or if the people we pick up have other ideas.”

It didn’t sound like much of a plan to Sanchez. And when Maddie leaned toward him and squeezed his hand, he sensed her uncertainty, and knew she felt the same.

Delaney circled around the western tip of the island and turned south, a route that would take them over the cemetery, across the water, then over Goose Cove and the animal rescue center, and then into First Street.

It occurred to Sanchez this might be a suicide mission.

And then he saw the crows.

They came from the west, a black cloud that sprawled for miles and quickly spread out in every direction. On the GPS, it looked like some tremendous extraterrestrial craft as large as a continent. “Jesus God,” Delaney murmured. “What the fuck
is
it?”

Wayra’s voice streamed through the headphones. “Maintain your course, Delaney. The crows know what to do.”

“The GPS just went out,” Sanchez said. “And the compass is spinning.”

“Maintain your course,” Wayra repeated.

“How?” Delaney snapped. “None of my instruments work.”

“Instinct,” Wayra said.

Now the wave of crows closed in on either side of the plane and Delaney cut back on the power, extended the flaps. The birds stayed away from the propeller and positioned themselves beneath the tips of the wings, around the edges, and along the sides and rear of the plane, guiding it in for a landing.

The wheels touched down, bounced, careened as if across slick patches of pavement. A thick blanket of ash covered the windshield and Delaney flicked on the wipers. The brakes shrieked and squealed but didn’t seem to do much to stop the plane. Through the filthy half-moons on the windshield, Sanchez saw the end of the marina and the waters of the gulf racing toward them.

“Shit shit shit,” Delaney shouted. “Hold on!”

Seconds before they would plunge over the end of the seawall, Delaney or the crows or both turned the plane sharply to the right and it slammed up over a slight rise and finally came to a halt.

Sanchez couldn’t see a damn thing now. The gigantic crows covered the windows, the front windshield. He heard their claws tapping against the top of the plane and then they started cawing, a cacophony that was nearly deafening.

No one spoke. No one moved.

Twenty-five

Kate stood at the front door, peering out through the glass. She could hear the crows, they all could, the incessant din of cawing that was at times so loud she had to press her hands over her ears for relief. But she didn’t see them. Only the dense fog was visible, hugging the door. She sensed the fog covered the entire complex now, but couldn’t tell for sure; it was still dark outside.

She shone her flashlight through the door and the fog acted like a kind of mirror, reflecting the light back at her. “What is it?” Zee asked, joining her at the door.

“I’m going to take a look.”

He rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know, Kate. I think we should just stay put.”

“It’ll be okay. I don’t think this fog intends us any harm. And sooner or later, we’re going to have to leave this building to get off the island. Maybe that’s what the crows are about.” She gave his hand a quick, reassuring squeeze, opened the door, and stepped outside.

The fog felt damp and cool against her skin, that was all. She walked slowly into it, keeping her flashlight aimed at the ground so she didn’t stumble over anything. When she was far enough away from the building so that Zee and the others couldn’t see her, Kate turned off the flashlight, zipped it into the pocket of her jacket, and shifted. She barely noticed the discomfort this time.

She took off through the fog, down the condo driveway. It covered her as far as the playground, then began to thin, and she could see the narrow beach and the pier where her houseboat, lifetimes ago, had been tied. She heard choppers above her, a lot of them, and as the fog thinned a bit more, she could see them, monstrous black choppers that seemed to converge from every part of the island. Their brilliant searchlights swept across the fog and Kate quickly ducked back into the thicker part of it where she wouldn’t be seen.

Military? Maybe. Or perhaps these black monsters were the government’s janitorial crew, the ones popularized by Hollywood, UFO enthusiasts, and conspiracy buffs. Either way, she didn’t intend to be here when these suckers landed. She moved on through the thicker fog until she reached the edge of the marina. It took her a few moments to process what she saw.

A black mountain rose in front of her, impossibly high and wide, covering everything—even the fog. It fluttered and moved, ebbed and flowed like water, yet was much thicker than water, and alive. The longer she looked at it, the more details her shifter vision allowed her to see. The black mountain was actually thousands of gigantic crows arranged in three separate tiers.

The upper tier of crows flew wing to wing, in a perfect formation, creating an impenetrable barrier between sky and ground that shielded her, which would shield all of them, from the choppers. This tier consisted of the greatest number of crows.

A second tier of crows, hundreds of them, occupied trees, rooftops, the dock railing, a backup army. A third tier stood on the ground, black giants that looked to be ten and twenty feet tall, legs as thick and high as the trunks of trees. Their huge heads swiveled one way, then the other. When their wings were folded, they looked like ancient magicians, cloaked and majestic.

The third tier began to move, undulating snakelike across the marina parking lot. Now and then, feathers floated in the currents their movements made. An odor emanated from them—not musty, like birds in a cage at a zoo, but benign, almost pleasant, faintly sweet, like the scent of freshly mown grass on a hot summer day. She watched as the third tier of crows continued to move toward the Old Fennimore Mill, and understood what she should do.

She loped back toward the condo office, the fog moving along with her. She became aware of a presence within it, then of many voices that spoke with one voice.
Shifter, we broke with the
bruja.
We intend you no harm
. The human part of her thought it might be a trick, but her shifter senses told her it was not. That was all she needed to know. Kate shifted again and ran on toward the office and burst through the door. “The plane is here. Let’s move out. Fast.”

“Where is it?” Zee asked.

“Marina parking lot by First Street.”

Zee held the door open while his people hurried out, then they all joined hands and moved quickly into the fog. “This isn’t Satan’s fog,” Zee whispered.

“It’s filled with ghosts that broke with Dominica.”

“How do you know that, Kate?”

“I just do.”

He took her arm. “Listen, I saw what … you became in that courtyard. In the old days, I thought this kind of … of weirdness was Satan’s work. But, truth be told, Kate, my wife came to me after she was dead and I … I laid with her. It was real, it happened. So I don’t care what … I saw. I know your heart. My feelings for you haven’t changed. You’re still like my daughter.”

Kate hugged him quickly. “Thanks, Zee. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me throughout all these years.” And she was grateful he didn’t prod her with questions.

Their flashlights were bright enough so that when they reached the undulating line of black crows, Zee stopped, balking. “What the fuck.”

“This is how we get safely to the plane on the other side of the lot,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “It’s safe. These creatures are protecting us—from those choppers you hear and from the
brujos.
”

Then the end of the line opened like the gaping maw of some prehistoric fish and Kate went in first, with the others following her rapidly. Once they were all inside, one of the crows opened its wings and the opening vanished. Inside this living tunnel of wings and feathers, the air felt warmer than it did outside and smelled of that same odd sweetness. The caws echoed so loudly it was impossible to speak and be heard.

They moved quickly in a single file, the fog drifting along with them, sometimes slipping like a curious puppy between the crows’ gargantuan legs or curling through the feathers of their wings. The beams of their flashlights revealed the crows’ tremendous claws, ankle high, as thick as a wrestler’s biceps. At one point Zee stumbled into Kate and she caught his arm, holding him upright until he found his balance. He leaned toward her so that she could hear him.

“Can the boots in the choppers see these suckers, Kate?”

“I doubt it. I think that’s the point.”

“But what’s protecting us? And why?”

“The forces of good, Zee.”

The cawing suddenly stopped, and in the subsequent silence, Kate heard the choppers again, nearby and flying low. The fog abruptly rolled back away from the marina parking lot and the tunnel of feathers and wings began to shift erratically, breaking apart here and there until bits of light dappled the ground. At first, she thought it was the early light of dawn, but quickly realized it was searchlights from the helicopters, sweeping across the surreal landscape of crows. It was as if the crows had separated briefly so that she and the others could see the choppers.

Kate urged everyone to move back into the thicker fog. There, they waited for the choppers to lift, for the tunnel of crows to re-form so they could make it safely to the plane. Her heart pounded hard against the walls of her chest and she tried not to dwell on all the things that could go terribly wrong.

*   *   *

Their
truck whipped right into an alley, a shortcut to the marina where a single-engine plane had landed. “Faster,” Dominica shouted.

Whit slammed the truck into fourth gear and it shot through the alley, crashing over cobblestones, clipping a trash can. Then the truck exploded into the street—and Whit slammed on the brakes.

“Holy shit.” Whit threw open the door and leaped out.

Dominica got out as well and peered upward. To the east, the sky lightened, and against that dove gray loomed black helicopters, six, eight, ten of them, coming from every direction. They looked ominous, like harbingers of doom and destruction.

“Ignore them,” she snapped, and got back inside the truck, slamming the door, fuming that Whit would stop so violently just because some choppers had appeared.

After all,
brujos
could seize those pilots at any moment. Moments ago, half a dozen members of her tribe in their natural forms had been here in the truck with them. She wasn’t sure where they were now, but they had to be close, close enough for them to hear her if she issued an order for them to seize the pilots and fly the choppers away from the island. If she issued the command, it would be done.

Her door suddenly flew open and Whit grabbed her arm and jerked her out of the truck and gripped her shoulders. “
Ignore them?
Are you fucking kidding me? These guys conduct the government’s dirty work, okay?
We’re
the dirty work. These choppers move into politically sensitive areas to clean up a mess. They’re a top-secret janitorial crew. They never leave behind a single trace of their existence.”

“So what?” She wrenched free of his grip. “All we have to do is seize them. We have power that they don’t, Whit.”

Whit raked his fingers back through his hair. “Jesus, seize them and then what?”

“With just a single chopper, we can win this battle. Seize the head pilot and he leads the rest of the choppers away from Cedar Key.”

He moved in a small, tight circle, shaking his head. “Nica, listen to me. I want an enclave as badly as you do. But this battle is lost. We’re too fragmented, the tribe has turned against us, Liam commands the fog, our hostages have escaped, and the entire island is on fire.
We’ve lost, don’t you get it?
”

Tears flooded her eyes, and right then she hated him, hated Whit. He was giving up too easily, surrendering in ways that Ben never would have. “We haven’t lost. We—”

The caws of thousands of crows drowned out her voice. They appeared above, these colossal, chaser-conjured birds, their cries preternaturally loud, echoing through the predawn light. This black tide of crows covered Cedar Key completely. The crows formed a dark mantle between the ground and the choppers so that Dominica couldn’t even see the helicopters now. She raised her weapon and fired repeatedly at the crows, emptying her clip. Not only did the gunfire fail to affect the creatures, but the bullets rained to the ground.