Page 18 of Flock Around and Find Out

The woman didn’t react with more than a low growl, a warning as though she felt the intrusion and didn’t care for it, but neither did she find it overtly threatening.

Porter shook his had, like clearing something from it, then moved onto the panther woman with the pixie cut. He repeated the action, though she snarled a bit louder. Why? Was she more sensitive to it, or did it hurt in a way it hadn’t with the first?

We all stayed silent as he finished and moved to the last—the wereraven. The boy didn’t so much as open his eyes or acknowledge the strange probe, but his body did tighten, like tension held it that he didn’t want to admit.

When Porter finished there, his hand dropped, less controlled than the others. Had it taken more out of him this time?

He shook both hands, the action almost cute. “I’ve gotten when I can from them.”

“Any ideas?”

“It is the same energy I found in the animals.”

“I thought you already knew that?” I pointed out.

“All energy feels different. It’s how Spirits are made, after all, from energy derived from those clans. However, this energy is Were but feels…wrong. It’s thicker, like it’s coagulated. It doesn’t flow easily as it should. It has a scent to it that’s almost like rotting.”

“So something is wrong with their Spirit energy?” Galen asked.

“That is all that makes sense to me. I can’t explain why it is like that, what has caused it to become so, but I can only say what it feels like. I have never experienced something like this before.”

The raven in the cell laughed, the first time he’d broken the silence. “The young always forget too soon.”

Talk about freaky…

The words in a thick Louisianan accent took me off guard, reminded me that he wasn’t anything like what he seemed. It felt as though it had come straight out of some old Cajun swamp somewhere. He was at least a few hundred years old, and when beings got that old, it became difficult to tell for sure.

Just like humans, they liked to lie about their ages.

“What do you mean?” I asked, coming closer to his cell.

He opened his eyes, then narrowed them. “You smell wrong.”

“Rude to say, but okay.”

“She isn’t a were,” Galen explained.

“Obviously. Only a fool would confuse her for a were.”

“You know, you’re not great at making new friends. Or keeping old ones, I bet.” I crouched down to look him in the eye, hoping that might make the conversation a little easier. The way he stared back at me didn’t suggest it would, however.

“What did you mean about what we’ve forgotten?”

“Thick energy isn’t new.”

“I’ve never felt it,” Porter said, not like an argument but rather as though he needed to understand.

Again, the raven laughed, the sound lacking kindness. “Because the young always think what they see now is how it has always been. Their memories are too short. I recall, a very long time ago, that same thick energy. It coursed through the bodies of Spirits who fell sick, who struggled to survive day by day. They were dragons.”

“Dragons don’t exist,” I pointed out. “I know this because I wanted one, but Galen told me they weren’t real.”

A sharp look from Galen suggested I hadn’t helped our cause at all with that one.

“They don’t exist—now. They did, however, and for a long time they held power. There were never many of them, so they were rare, but they still existed, still had a place in our world.”

“Had? So what happened?” Porter asked, keeping us on track.

“The same thing that happens to all Spirits who have that illness. They died.”

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