Atonement Sky, page 7
part #9 of Psy-Changeling Trinity Series
• • •
Jacques snarled when Adam told his best friend and most senior wing-second about the visitor in town. “She the liar?” he asked, because Jacques and Adam had been friends since the day they met, and now that Adam’s grandmother was gone, Jacques was the only person in the world who knew this story. Or at least most of it.
Adam had never actually told Aria—but she’d been his wing leader as well as his grandmother. She’d known the instant she’d looked at his face in the hallway outside the courtroom. “Ah, Bear,” she’d murmured when she caught his gaze on the J-Psy trainee who had, at that point, been standing with her senior outside the courtroom. “What trouble are you getting into now?”
Despite the lightness of the question, her tone had been uneasy…concerned. Because Aria had already understood what it had taken Eleri’s betrayal for Adam to comprehend: Psy could not be trusted.
Not even Psy who made their changeling hearts sing.
“She was the junior on the case,” Adam said to Jacques today, because what she’d done was bad enough; there was no point in blaming her for something she hadn’t done. “Around the same age as us.”
Jacques’s brown eyes didn’t soften, the mahogany of his skin stretched taut over thick muscle. “We knew right and wrong at that age.”
“Yes, we did.” Adam was fully aware that his anger at Eleri was irrational—because he’d always been more angry at her than at the now-dead senior J who’d made the actual scan and done the witness broadcast.
He’d expected her to be better. And she’d let him down at a point in his life when he’d been the most wounded, the most vulnerable. The same Eleri who’d offered to tend his cuts with a sweet and unexpected empathy had thrust a stiletto straight into his stupidly soft and unshielded heart.
That she was Psy and could never truly grasp the injury she’d inflicted? Neither man nor falcon cared. Because he’d seen how she’d looked at him the day they’d met, witnessed the glimmer of realization in the hazel that altered color as quickly as Eleri altered loyalties.
Some part of her had known.
“You want me to run her out of town?” Jacques walked with him to the edge of the Canyon plateau, the hot desert winds making their wings stir against the inside of their skin as their falcons readied themselves for flight.
“Fuck you,” Adam said without altering his tone. “I can run anyone I want out of town.”
A wicked grin that came out rarely among strangers but was deeply familiar to Jacques’s friends. “I dunno, man. You’ve always been weird about her.”
The other man ran his hand over the dark hair he kept cut close to his skull, the edges shaved with the same precision he showed in his work for the clan. “You raged about her after you got home, and it was only later that I realized she hadn’t been the actual J on the case.”
Adam shrugged and gave his best friend a partial answer, not able to share the rest even with him. “Maybe it was because she was close to our age. Not as cold or as hard as the older Js—I expected better from her. Expected her to care.”
Jacques’s smile faded. “That was ten years ago. She still like that?”
“No.” Adam couldn’t get over the sheer flatness of her emotional response, the complete lack of personality. It was a stark contrast to the girl whose pupils had gone huge with shock at a connection that had hit them both without warning…and yet she’d stayed, offered him a bandage…and looked back to meet his gaze when she was called over by her superior.
What had happened to Eleri Dias in the years in between?
Jacques blew out a breath. “So, why’s she here?”
When Adam told him, Jacques frowned. “Her theory makes sense, but we only have her word for it. You going to touch base with your Enforcement friends to verify?”
“Yeah. I’m not about to take her allegations on trust.” Once, she could’ve told him the sky was green and the earth blue, and he’d no doubt have followed along like an infatuated puppy. Adam didn’t know how to put limits on his love—he was all in with his family, his friends, his clan.
But Eleri had put paid to that possibility between them with a single act of complicit silence.
“Let’s debrief after I get back.” Lifting his arms, Jacques stripped off his T-shirt to reveal a chiseled chest brushed with curled dark hair. Over his shoulder draped part of a tattoo that Adam knew covered the left half of his back.
He’d been there when Jacques designed that tat—and when the final DNA-encoded ink was needled into his cells. Adam was no scientist, didn’t know how the ink held through the shift, but that it did was unquestioned.
He knew not just because of Jacques, but because of the tattoo he carried on his own left front pectoral, a memory of grief etched in flesh that had, over time, become a reminder of love.
Two falcons side by side, their wings forever stretched in flight.
Adam would never forgive his parents’ murder, but he was no longer blinded by it until that was all he remembered of them.
Or he hadn’t been.
Until her.
“Seriously?” Adam managed to keep his voice light even as his spine threatened to lock, his talons to release. “I do not want to see your pasty butt.”
“My butt is a delicious chocolate brown, per any number of admiring lady friends, thank you very much.”
As they laughed together with the ease of old friends who’d shifted together many a time, Jacques stripped to the skin and threw his clothes over a nearby rock before shifting into his falcon form.
Like Adam, he was a peregrine, but his feathers tended toward a more intense gray coloration with less of a blue undertone. As for the tattoo, it didn’t vanish but was scattered across one wing in a spray of black that gave him a distinct appearance. Ink wasn’t always that visible in both forms, but Jacques had a lot of it; the one that had caught Adam’s eye today was far from his only one.
After fussing with and settling his wings a couple of times—a pure Jacques trait—WindHaven’s second-in-command dropped off the edge of the plateau, his wings opening out in a smooth glide, a falcon at home in the skies.
Adam watched his best friend soar across Raintree.
Shaking off his own need to fly, to just get this energy out, he grabbed the other man’s clothes and dropped them in one of the closed bins they had out here for that purpose. The bins were sunk into the earth, with only the lids visible. Once he’d placed the clothes inside, he entered Jacques’s name on the digital label so his friend could find his clothes on his return.
No one stopped him on his way back from the plateau, and he deliberately avoided venturing into the section on the right that held a cluster of residences up against the cliff edge.
Today wasn’t a day to stop by for a chat with clanmates.
Instead, he entered the internal part of the Canyon, then made his way to his office, where he input the comm code that would connect him to a human friend in Enforcement. The investigative service had a bad rap because it had been controlled and manipulated by Psy for a long time—not just politically, but through interference with the minds of the humans who made up a large percentage of Enforcement ranks. Unlike changelings, humans had no natural protective shield.
That didn’t mean there weren’t good people in there, people who wanted justice and worked toward it. Adam’s contact had survived unmolested because he’d made certain he didn’t get promoted beyond the first rank of detective.
As a result, he was often the “junior” on important cases, even though his experience meant he knew far more than his supervising officers. Since he also didn’t care for credit, his senior officers let him do pretty much what he wanted as long as he got the work done.
Today, when the other man answered, it was to showcase a face with countless prison-style tattoos and a large and thick black beard against truly pasty skin. “Undercover?” Adam asked the man four years his senior with whom he’d once played hockey in college. “Or a really bad drunk that left you with permanent reminders?”
Damon’s grin was huge, revealing a newly chipped tooth. “You’ll have to stay in suspense until the next favor you ask me.”
“According to my records, I’m in favor credits.” Truth was, the two of them had long ago stopped keeping track.
“My mama always told me to watch out for smooth-talking birds. So, what’s happening?”
“You know anything about the Sandman?” Adam gave him the basic facts—including why he was asking the question.
Damon scratched at his upper jaw through the mass of the beard. “I’ve been on a big drug case the entire time since that kicked off, but a couple of my buddies just got pulled into the task force, so they’ll know more.
“I have heard about your J, though. She’s got a reputation—a good one. No personality but also no bullshit, and she always finds the bastards once she’s on the hunt.” He scratched the other side of his jaw. “Fucking beard’s driving me insane. Anyway, give me a few hours and I’ll see what I can scare up.”
“Thanks, man,” Adam said. “Don’t drop your guard on the home stretch.”
“No chance. Got a hot date waiting.”
“Say hi to Mira for me.” Adam had no idea how Damon’s relationship with his sweetheart of a wife remained so strong with how often the other man had to disappear into underground worlds, but the two had been married for seven years and counting, so they’d gotten something right.
Just like Adam’s parents, he thought as the other man shot him a lazy salute before signing off. Even though Taazbaa’ and Cormac Garrett had never felt the pull of the mating bond, they’d been a forever pair, their breaths entwined. Adam had grown up in the warm shadow of that love, their wings spread over him until he’d begun to display a need for independence.
Then they’d taken him flying, taught him the ways of the Diné and of his father’s Irish ancestors…and set him free. That was the falcon creed. They didn’t cage their young or keep them to tightly contained areas—such would be torture to a winged being. Rather, they set boundaries meant to ensure a child’s safety, taught their fledglings how to protect themselves in the air, and took them flying often with the family and clan unit when younger.
“Remember, Adam.” His father’s hand ruffling his hair. “Stay above the safety line. You don’t want some idiot kid from school shooting up with a gun, real or meant for sport, and clipping you.”
“You’ve only told me three billion times, Dad.”
“You got off easy, then,” his sister had interjected in her droll way. “I was at four billion by the time I got to fly solo.”
His father’s deep laughter, intermingled with his mother’s kiss on the cheek, followed by a from-behind hug for a giggling Saoirse. “Just wait until you have a fledgling,” she’d threatened her nineteen-year-old daughter, her laugh bringing out the dimple in her right cheek. “I’ll be sitting right there with a glass of wine watching you lose your mind as your baby bird flies the nest.”
Many years after the sky ceremonies that had set their parents’ spirits free, when Adam was in his mid-twenties, Saoirse had told him something that she could only share with an adult little brother, and not the young teen he’d been during the events themselves. They’d been seated at a bonfire on the plateau, and Amir had taken both Malia and Tahir over to roast marshmallows, his arms around the children as he crouched down to their height.
“I was scared when I got pregnant at twenty,” Saoirse had murmured, her eyes on her mate and children silhouetted against the firelight. “I mean, it was with my mate, but I was so young. But now, I think it was a gift. Mom and Dad got to meet both my fledglings, and they stood with us the entire way, until we figured out what we were doing.”
She’d taken his hand, tears thick in her voice as she said, “I know I’m not Mom or Dad, Bear, but when it’s your time, I’ll be there for you like they were for me. Amir and I will teach you and your mate all the things Mom and Dad taught us for our fledglings.”
Able to feel the weight of her guilt that she’d had the chance to experience something he never would, he’d hugged her close. “Don’t be a silly goose, Chirp.” A kiss pressed to her curls. “I loved seeing them with Tahir and Malia, loved teasing them as they went from strict parents to grandparents who loved to spoil the babies.”
He’d been there when Taazbaa’ watched Malia learn to fly, a doting grandmother who’d plied her granddaughter with tiny food treats after each fall and cuddled her until Malia was ready to try again.
None of them had ever imagined that she wouldn’t be there by the time her adored “baby Mali” was ready to fly solo…or that Cormac wouldn’t be around to take Adam for his first adult drink as he’d promised. “You’ll be having a Guinness, my lad, else your Irish ancestors will roll in their graves!”
How could either he or Saoirse foresee the nightmare to come, their mom and dad the ones who’d find themselves shot out of the sky?
Chapter 8
The serial perpetrator known as the Sandman is a highly organized killer who (at this point in time) appears to be further refining his skills with every abduction and murder.
The only hint of disorganization (and it is a significant one) is in the timing of his kills—the first two were four months apart, but the third only seven weeks after the second. Should this trend continue, he could strike again in less than a month.
—Working profile on the Sandman, prepared for the joint California-Arizona Sandman Task Force (10 December 2083)
Jacques had intended to fly with no particular destination in mind, but Adam’s comments about a possible killer in their territory had him turning east; he wanted to check out something he’d spotted the previous day in the desert. In a hurry to make a meeting with his wing at the time, he’d noted it with the intention of sending a couple of junior soldiers out to check what it was and clear it up if necessary.
From his fleeting glance, it had appeared to be either a dumped vehicle or parts of one. The folks around this area were good about not polluting the landscape, but there remained the occasional idiot who thought to take the cheaper route, never mind what might leach into the soil and from there into the water supply.
But the spot he’d noted would also make an excellent place to stash a vehicle, Jacques had realized after he took flight. All but invisible from the air, it was directly off a dirt track that was pretty much unused, but that did eventually lead to a major highway. The specific area wasn’t quite a canyon, more a depression in the landscape with a few scraggly trees around, and there, an overhang below which a large object glinted metallic under the sun.
After ensuring there was no movement below, he came down to land on the immediate top of the overhang, where he sat and listened for any hint of another presence.
Nothing.
Satisfied, he flew down to land in front of the overhang before peering into the shallow cave beneath with his falcon’s piercing vision.
This, thought the human part of his mind, was no dumped vehicle.
While hardly the newest model or in the best outward condition, it was obvious to him that the vehicle was in working order. Similar to the kind of rugged four-wheel drives the clan used to go up and down the Canyon, the tires were high, with an excellent grip, the body one that could handle the harsh desert environment.
Shifting in a cascade of light that was pure pain and brutal ecstasy, he rose from his crouch to look inside the vehicle through the windows, but made sure not to touch anything. If it was being used for criminal purposes, the last thing he wanted to do was wipe off or contaminate the evidence.
Though the likelihood was that it was wholly unconnected to murder—could just be a local who liked off-roading in the desert. If that were the case, however, there’d be no reason to leave it out here, exposed to the elements—the overhang was enough to shield it from overhead sight, but not from the desert winds and heat.
Unless, of course, it wasn’t registered or had issues that meant it wasn’t roadworthy, but the owner considered it plenty good enough to drive around the desert—and had a strong dislike of any kind of authority. Jacques could appreciate that. He didn’t exactly like any authority aside from his wing leader’s. Many of the humans in Raintree felt the same way.
There was a reason they lived in a town without a mayor.
He spotted nothing much inside except for a crumpled-up wrapper from what might’ve been an energy bar, and a bottle of water, but that was enough to tell him the vehicle was in current use.
No dust on the dashboard, either.
As for the back, the windows were tinted to such an extent that he couldn’t see anything through them. It didn’t matter. He had enough to run the car, find out to whom it belonged.
He shifted back into falcon form.
As always, his vision became even sharper, his heartbeat faster, his sense of himself expanding and contracting at the same time. He was now closer to the ground than in his human form, but the span of his presence was wider, his wings bigger than his arms. He took off with the raptor part of him at the forefront of his consciousness, his aim to head directly back to the Canyon.
Despite his focus on his destination, however, he never lost sight of his surroundings—he’d been a scout for the clan in his younger years, had excellent peripheral senses and reflexes—so he saw the shiny car parked on the side of the road a bare five-minute drive from the hidden vehicle. Spotted, too, the person next to it.
That person lifted their arm in a wave, and Jacques dipped his wing in reply. When the individual waved him urgently closer, he went lower. He had no reason not to…and no reason to expect that the next thing the person raised would be a weapon. He was fast, he was trained, and he was strong. He managed to turn enough that the first shot from the laser weapon barely singed his wing.
But he was also a creature of the air who’d been lured too close to the ground. The second shot pierced his torso while he was still climbing—even as he released a warning cry to his clan. Agony exploded through his body, but some part of him was thinking through the pain, and that part attempted to shift.
