| |
THE THUMP OF A STRIX against a window. A metallic clang as another one hit the roof. The crack of glass chipping but not breaking, then another hit against a glass door.
Metal covered more of the bus’s surface area than glass did, but the strixes still smashed themselves against the glass more often than not, like they were aiming for the windows. Probably because they could see through them. So maybe if we covered the opening with something non-transparent, even if it wasn’t a real barrier, they’d avoid the broken glass? It wouldn’t guarantee anything, but if it improved our chances even a bit...
I needed something big enough to drape over the opening. We hadn’t brought anything like that with us—we were stuck with whatever we found aboard.
So what would every bus traveling outside the safety zone have? First aid kits came to mind immediately, but even if we didn’t already have those ourselves, they were useless. Tony would reach a good road and sail way past the strixes long before we could put up enough gauze to block the window.
What else? What basic supplies would a bus need to protect its passengers from common hazards? What common hazards would a bus need to prepare for?
Damaged tires, jaculi venom...Fires.
I rushed to join Cristian, who’d busied himself rummaging through a small stockpile in the back. “Do you know where buses keep fire blankets?” I asked him.
“You want to cover up the view? I suppose it might be all we can do. Yes, I can find one.”
Three minutes later, he was pulling out exactly what we needed to lower the risk just a little bit—when a dark shape barreled through the opening in the glass, slamming into the other side of the bus with a loud crash.
A strix. Inside the bus. Shit, we were too late.
The strix found its feet, coming up to my waist in height. Then a bump along the road sent it lurching to its left, wings lifted slightly to help maintain its balance. Because unlike us, the strix couldn’t hold onto anything. So every time the bus veered slightly to the right or left as Tony tore through the overgrown vegetation around us—the strix veered along with it.
Beside me, Cristian brushed his hand against the gun holstered at his hip, but didn’t draw it. His eyes passed over the space beyond the strix, filled with the rest of my team and our legend allies. There was no way he’d be able to fire at the strix without the risk that he’d hit one of us, not from this position. His hand fell away from the weapon.
“Jordan,” he said, “we need to reach the others so I can take care of this. The creature is unsteady. Do you see the sets of seats to the side of where it landed? We’re going to run over those, as fast we can, until we get past the strix.”
...in a moving bus, while Tony was behind the wheel. What could possibly go wrong.
“Don’t fall off,” he added, apparently at least a little aware that one of us didn’t have military training. “I’ll tell you when.”
The bus took a corner. The rest of the interior curved out of my line of sight for the space of a few seconds. The strix, my teammates, they all disappeared from view as Tony turned us onto a smoother bit of road. Not a fully maintained concrete road, not yet, but one that’d let us move faster. Maybe even fast enough to lose the strixes flying after us?
Then the back of the bus turned to realign with the rest of the vehicle, the strix up ahead becoming visible again—notably steadier on its feet now that we’d stopped bouncing from side to side. Its eyes landed on me. Lifting one clawed foot, it took a step closer to us, then another. The urge to back away from it was almost overwhelming. But Cristian stood next to me holding his ground, waiting for the right moment to enact his plan.
Was I confident I had the acrobatic skills to follow him without toppling over? Not particularly. But was I gonna stay here by myself when he made a break for it? No way.
A sharp swerve from Tony had me clutching at one of the metal rails to stay in place. The strix, facing the disadvantage of not having hands, slid towards the edge of the bus. That was when Cristian broke into motion, shouting “Now!”
He ran over the seats, keeping as far from the strix as possible, overcoming the momentum of Tony’s turn that should have pulled him off. Meanwhile, I didn’t even have enough balance to stand still without bracing myself against something—let alone whatever he was doing. But I couldn’t stay here, either. The further Cristian moved from me, the closer I came to being left alone, cornered by the strix. That thought drove me to let go of the rail, to stumble my way after Cristian.
I stepped onto the first seat, already feeling the momentum of the bus tugging me off. Pushing forward, I fought to stabilize myself enough to reach Cristian as he hopped off the other end—but one jerk of the bus just as my foot was about to make contact with the next seat and I slid off, toppling towards the ground...where the strix was.
My back crashed against the floor with a force that left me winded. Each second that ticked by before I could finally get some air in my lungs had me panicking over where the strix was, what the animal was doing. I finally managed to turn my head...and saw the strix stumbling towards me, clawed feet drawing uncomfortably close—until something hooked under my arms, pulling me away from the legimal. Cristian, getting me away from the danger before helping me back onto my feet.
That put us between the others and the strix. Leaving nothing behind the strix except for the empty back of the bus. Cristian finally pulled out his gun, raising it, before—
“Don’t kill him!” Thefarie yelled.
Cristian froze in place. “What?”
“You don’t understand. The strixes, their minds are connected to each other in ways we’d never suspected.”
What did that even mean? And how could he know about it? Illusions wouldn’t let him access the strixes’ minds...but there were rumors about the House of Tanaquil and their rapport with eagles. What if they had another ability, some kind of telepathy that they could use with birds? What if Thefarie had that power? I mentally reassessed the extent of his powers, because he clearly hadn’t told us the whole truth.
“If you kill him,” Thefarie warned, “the others will only increase in the ferocity of their attacks!”
A scoff came from Cristian. “What, worse than what they’re already doing?”
Thefarie’s voice held absolute certainty. “Trust me.”
Clenching his jaw, Cristian paused for just one instant—but then a defiant light appeared in his eyes. “You are making assumptions. If you’re right about that connection of theirs, then it’s more likely killing one will hinder the rest of them, giving us a better chance of shaking them off. Can’t pass up an advantage like that.”
He lifted the gun up again, taking aim, his finger on the trigger—when the Remus appeared beside him, grabbing the sniper’s hands in his own, redirecting the weapon towards the broken window as the bang of gunfire resonated through the space.
My ears rang, but everything else froze for one moment. The Remus keeping Cristian’s gun pointed at the window, all of my friends shocked as they tried to process what the hell was going on, even the strix stopping its progress in our direction. Then Cristian pulled out of the Remus’ grasp.
“Are you serious?” he snapped.
The Remus regarded him evenly. “Thefarie is the one who touched their minds. He is the closest you will find to an expert on this. His conjecture is worth more than yours.”
Cristian muttered something under his breath in Italian, before raising his voice. “Fine,” he said, exasperated. “Do what you will.”
His eyes locked on the strix, as he took a step between it and the rest of us. And I was left to wonder if anyone had an actual plan. Because as it stood, we needed to get the animal out of here alive before it hurt someone. And before we reached the safety zone, because we couldn’t exactly take it inside with us.
I honestly didn’t know if those things were even possible.
#
THE REMUS LOOKED AT Thefarie like he’d find the answer for handling the strix there. But Thefarie—hunched over and taking deep breaths—didn’t look like he could shoulder the responsibility of saving us more than he already had. Vegoia must have agreed, because the moment she noticed the Remus’ gaze, the concern on her face turned into determination. She stood to face him, stepping between him and Thefarie.
“He can’t help you right now,” Vegoia said. “But maybe I can.”
Vegoia’s sudden confidence was surprising, especially since the time for divination-based magic seemed to have passed. Maybe my imagination was lacking, but all the ways I could think of her abilities helping—like maybe warning us about the breaking window—would’ve happened before we’d been boarded by the strix.
“What can you do?” I asked, trying not to let my doubt show.
She turned to me with wide eyes, a pleased smile on her face. “That’s the question I’ve been waiting for, Jordan. And you’re the one who asked it. That means the answer is Janus.”
I blinked at her. “Janus? That’s it?”
Her confidence wavered. “Divination using lightning strikes is...well, depending on what you want to know, the answers might be...”
“It is alright,” the Remus interrupted, voice gentle. “We will simply have to figure out what it means ourselves.”
“Fast,” Cristian added, backing up a few steps while holding his arms out—pushing me and the Remus back with him and away from the strix that’d resumed its approach. “We’ll need to figure it out fast.”
“Janus is a Roman god of passageways,” Tony’s anxious voice drifted back towards us. “A cult to him once existed on the Janiculum Hill—do you think that’s the riddle? That I should drive us to the hill?”
Maybe. Though I couldn’t see how that’d rid us of the strix, no matter how I turned the idea around in my head. “Anything else?”
“The temple,” Thefarie muttered without looking up.
That didn’t mean anything to me. Catching the look of confusion on my face, the Remus decided to elaborate on Thefarie’s behalf. “In ancient times, the doors of the temple of Janus stood open during war, closing only when Rome knew peace.”
“That’s it,” Hayley said, suddenly excited. “The doors of the temple. And guess what else has doors?” She gestured dramatically to the ones on the bus. “They would be closed when it’s peaceful—so when Thefarie still had the strixes pacified—and open in times of war. Like, when the strixes are swarming the bus.”
Luca gave her a skeptical glance. “You think the lightning wants us to open the doors? What if you’re wrong?”
“You got a better idea?” she tossed back at him.
“No. But Tony does. He literally just told you what it was.”
He did, but I just didn’t buy it. As for Hayley’s idea...if the lightning wanted the doors open, then that’s how it foresaw the strix leaving, obviously. But if we opened a door, the other strixes would have even more options for getting inside—except that the crashes against our bus had gotten less frequent since Tony’s speed increased, hadn’t they? It was still a risk to open those doors, but a smaller one if the strixes were already struggling to keep up.
“Whatever you decide, you need to do it soon,” Cristian insisted, pushing us back again.
But neither of the options made sense. And I refused to complacently follow a prophecy when I couldn’t figure out what it meant. Vegoia’s hint indicated that a solution was possible, but we needed to do something to make it possible first.
The Janiculum Hill was on the other side of the safety zone, so driving there would only force us to stay inside with the strix longer. Opening our door would immediately give the strix a way out—but why would the animal take it? Why fly away from your prey when your entire hunting party was on the attack?
Unless the lightning was telling us that we could get it to leave?
Still, with what? The only thing making the strix do anything it didn’t want to do right now...was the momentum of the bus, forcing it to slide in one direction or another. Momentum that Tony could control. Not precisely enough that I would ever attempt using it without a freaking prophecy suggesting it might work. But with the clues from Vegoia’s divination? Clues I couldn’t think of a better way to interpret?
“Hurry!” Cristian cried.
We’d never make it to the Janiculum Hill with how fast the bird was approaching us. We had to take the chance. “Tony, open the door closest to the strix and make a sharp turn.”
“Fucking what?” Tony’s voice filled the bus. “You think I can fling the carnivorous bird out of here by turning?”
“The lightning does,” Vegoia informed him.
“Don’t worry about the results,” I told him, projecting a confidence I definitely didn’t feel. “Just open the door and make a sharp turn. You’re great at sharp turns.” He had a horrifying amount of practice with them.
The doors slammed open even as Tony started up a string of curses. The strix’s head swiveled towards the noise, taking in the change to its environment, the sudden rush of wind coming in. I glanced towards the front windows, spotting the next turn up ahead. Three, two...
The bus began turning. Grabbing the nearest seat for balance, I watched the strix began to skid towards the open door. Its full wingspan filled the space, clawed feet digging against the floor for some kind of traction—then it dove for the opening itself, flying out into the night.
“Close it!” Cristian yelled.
The doors shut with a decisive thump. The view outside the windows told me we were close to reaching more maintained roads, where Tony would be able to accelerate to his heart’s desire—enough to lose the strixes once and for all. We sped towards the safety zone...
...and the cries of the strixes died down as the bus slowly outpaced them.