Page 85 of Of Flame and Fate

His motions calm him, and he takes another drag. Again, another bird forms, this one smaller, the tail dissolving into three smaller birds that follow the leader out.

He flicks the ashes as Tahoe comes into view, the rising sun just a blip of light across a horizon filled with gentle waves. The road inclines and Johnny takes another drag, once more another white bird takes shape within the smoke, stretching out its wings and soaring into the air.

“What are they?” I ask.

“Huh?” Johnny asks, appearing lost in his own thoughts. “Oh. Doves,” he says, turning around to speak to me. “I’m saying goodbye, you know? To my people.” He returns his focus outside. “I won’t get another chance to, will I?”

“No,” I say. That’s one of the things about the human and supernatural worlds, as much as they interact, they continue to be separate entities with different rules. They can’t know about us, and given everything we spare them from, they wouldn’t want to anyway.

“Who was the first dove for?”

I only ask because he seems to want to talk about what happened. Johnny grins, the smile excruciatingly split between bitterness and joy. “My manager.” He laughs. “For the most part, Drake could be a real asshole. ‘You can’t eat that shit, Johnny,’ he’d tell me. ‘People won’t pay to see a fat bastard.’” He shakes out his hand when he sees the disgust on my face. “It gets better. My personal favorite was, ‘You have to stay fuckable, for the women and the men. Make them want you and you’ll never go to bed alone, even long after your balls shrink and gray.’”

“You’re right,” I say. “He was an asshole. God rest his soul.”

Johnny laughs again, like before, it’s with that same stoic humor that reveals another layer of pain. “Yeah, but you know what? He helped me. He was the one who hooked me up with the right people and put money in my pockets.” He returns the cigarette to his lips and takes another puff, creating another dove who doesn’t appear as ready to leave him. It circles his head twice, its wings flapping fretfully before it sweeps out of the window and takes to the sky. “Without Drake, I’d still be on the street, starving and begging for change.”

That didn’t give him the right to mistreat you.

It’s what I want to say, but I don’t. Regardless of how he was treated, Johnny loved Drake, and mourns him. I let him because he needs to.

I lean against my seat, the motion reminding me how long it’s been since I last lay in my bed, and how one more night has passed without me sleeping.

I stayed with Destiny following Gemini’s call. It’s not like I could sleep after learning what happened, nor could I bring myself to leave her.

She’ll be gone soon. No more feathers, no more funky zebra and polka dot prints, no more glow-in-the-dark booty shorts.

I left the house in tears, struggling to come to terms with her impending death. As I waited for Gemini and Johnny’s plane to land, I cried even more. I couldn’t help thinking about how unfair life is, not just to beings who are different like Destiny, but to those like Johnny who only appear to have it all.

“What about the other dove?” I ask, forcing myself back to reality. “The one with the little chicks?”

A cobweb of red lines crawl across Johnny’s sclerae. I think he’s going to cry again, but the tears don’t come. For now, the well has run dry. “That was my publicist, Jude. She was nice, smart.” He swallows hard. “She had three kids, used to talk about them all the time.”

“Oh, God,” I say.

“They’re grown,” he adds, his voice hollow. “Nena, her youngest daughter just graduated law school.” He shrugs. “Still, she won’t get to tell her mama goodbye so I did it for her.” He rolls the cigarette between his fingers. “Starlight was the third. She was Jude’s assistant and was always stressed out, worried she’d say the wrong things, but always managing to say the right ones.”

“She sounds sweet.”

“She was,” he agrees. “She was from the south, Mississippi, I think.” He chuckles. “Always called me, ‘sir’, no matter how many times I told her not to and that I was too young for that shit.” His voice fades further away. “Paulo was the last bird. He was my stylist. If I was gay, I probably would have dated him. I’m not, so we settled on being best friends.” His smile dwindles. “He was a great guy, the first person to tell me it was going to be okay, even when it wasn’t.”

He flicks the cigarette out of the window, something I hate that people do. But I can’t call him out, not when he’s falling apart.

“How will anyone know they’re gone?” he asks.

Gemini answers, like me, he’s been listening closely. “There was enough blood on the scene to suspect foul play. The police will rule it a homicide and the appropriate people will be notified.”

“What about the shapeshifters? Any chance they’ll be arrested?” he asks.

Once more I’m reminded how little Johnny knows about this world. “Shapeshifters aren’t exactly human,” I explain. “They’re born witches and they can resume their human forms if they choose, or as they die. For the most part, they maintain the form they feel most powerful in, usually a predator or something that can do a lot of damage.”

“You mean something killer, like a dragon?”

“Dragons were never real, kid,” Bren says from the front. Like Gemini, he doesn’t trust Johnny, but at least he keeps his voice fairly neutral.

I grab onto the armrest when Gemini makes a sharp turn and takes the highway leading to Squaw Valley. “As much as they can command any form, they’re limited to creatures that exist or existed in the past,” I explain.

“Like dinosaurs?”

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