“Chief,” Joe was saying, his voice very calm. “Chief, no. You can’t.”

  Buck’s eyes and weapon stayed locked on the Thunderbird. “Get out of my way, Joe. Wystan, keep your hands down. Rory, if you so much as take a deep breath, I swear on my sister’s grave I will pull this trigger.”

  Rory, who had indeed been drawing in his breath—presumably to use his alpha power to command Buck to stand down—let it out again unused. Wystan’s fingers twitched helplessly at his sides. Even if he did fling up a shield, he’d only be able to protect the Thunderbird. There wasn’t the slightest gap between Joe and Buck’s weapon.

  Step back, Seven willed Joe. If only she was a sea dragon, or fully mated to him, they would have been able to speak mind-to-mind—but he couldn’t hear her silent plea.

  Behind Joe, the Thunderbird had frozen as well, staring down at Buck with lightning-filled eyes. Joe kept his body pressed hard against Buck’s gun, stopping him from re-aiming.

  “We need the Thunderbird, Chief. I know you hate him because he starts forest fires, but we need him,” Joe said. “He’s fighting the demons, just like us. He’s on our side.”

  “It’s a motherfucking murderer!” Buck shouted. His finger was tight on the trigger. “It killed—it killed...”

  “Who?” Joe said gently, when Buck didn’t finish the sentence. “Who did you lose?”

  “My sister. My brother-in-law.” Buck’s voice shook, but his hand stayed rock-steady. “My nephew.”

  Joe exhaled as though he’d been punched. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Buck. But whatever happened, I’m sure the Thunderbird didn’t—”

  A soft rumble like distant thunder interrupted his words. The Thunderbird’s massive head bent. Never taking its eyes from Buck, it nudged Joe aside with its beak. Wystan instantly started to raise his hands to summon his shield, but the Thunderbird’s eyes flashed like lightning, stopping him.

  Slowly, gently, it laid its great head on the ground in front of Buck. The markings on its feathers had faded completely, to the barren color of ashes. It tipped its head back, exposing the soft, vulnerable pulse of its throat.

  “He was a kid.” Buck’s voice was the barest whisper. “Just a kid.”

  The Thunderbird made no response.

  “There can be no justification for what you did.” The point of Buck’s gun started to waver, just a fraction. “I don’t care what you were fighting, or what was at stake. You should never have started that fire. No one should ever die like that.”

  The Thunderbird closed its eyes. It held very still.

  Very slowly, Joe reached out. Buck’s arm fell limp to his side as Joe cautiously took the gun out of his hand.

  “Nobody can change the past, Chief.” Holding the gun out to one side as if it was covered in maggots, Joe draped his other arm across Buck’s shoulders. The Superintendent didn’t resist as Joe steered him away from the motionless Thunderbird. “Only the future. And that’s what we need to talk about.”

  Buck took it all much more calmly than Joe had expected.

  Then again, he wasn’t sure how much the Superintendent was actually taking in. Buck had the fixed, glassy look of a man who would have been drinking steadily, had there been anything to drink.

  Joe knew that look only too well. He’d seen it in the mirror, more times than he cared to recall.

  And I only have to watch people I love potentially die in the future. Buck’s actually lived it.

  But he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

  Buck had chased the Thunderbird across the state for over ten years. But when he’d finally had his enemy helpless at his feet, he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

  Now he sat, blank-eyed and motionless, as the squad collectively tried to explain everything from Joe’s talent to the hellhound attack. They’d moved inside, to one of the long tables in the mess hall. It was stiflingly hot and airless—Buck always growled about 'motherloving state penny-pinchers’ whenever any crew member wistfully raised the possibility of air conditioning—but nobody had even suggested staying outside. They all wanted to keep Buck as far away from the Thunderbird as possible.

  Candice and the unicorns were still with the creature, continuing to tend to its wounds. Callum and Fenrir had volunteered to patrol the perimeter of the base, just in case the hellhound pack returned. Joe didn’t think that they would—he’d checked the future, and seen nothing except the usual cold chains around his wrists—but better to be safe than sorry.

  “So,” Buck said at last, when they’d all finally run out of words. His flat voice gave no indication what he might be thinking. “Hellhounds. Working with demons.”

  “Apparently,” Rory said. He was watching the Superintendent carefully, with the air of a bomb-disposal expert eying a ticking suitcase. “Which is why we might need the Thunderbird.”

  “We know it can sense demons,” Joe added. “And they’re afraid of it, enough to send out some kind of hellhound hit squad. The demons are planning something big. We can’t afford to lose anything that might help us stop them.”

  Buck’s eyes flicked to him. “You’ve…seen this?”

  “Some of it, yeah,” Joe said. “Enough to know that we have to protect the Thunderbird. I’m really sorry, Chief. I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.”

  Buck moved for the first time in an hour, stiffly. Seven, who was discretely standing guard behind the Superintendent with one hand on her stunsword, tensed.

  The glare that Buck flashed her showed that he knew full well why she was hovering at his back. “Relax. Your boyfriend over there still has my gun.” He rubbed both hands across his face, hiding his expression for a moment, then dropped them again. “You can give me that back now, Joe. What with all this motherloving weirdness on the loose, I want to be packing.”

  “Uh.” The weapon was an uncomfortable weight in Joe’s pocket. He’d worked out how to take the magazine out, but he’d still rather have had a live rattlesnake down his pants. “Maybe I’d better hang onto it a little longer, okay?”

  “When even Joe is questioning whether something is a good idea, you know it isn’t.” Blaise swapped the cold coffee at Buck’s elbow for a fresh cup. “Here. Drink this. You must have been driving like a dem—uh, for a long time today. You’ll feel better with some caffeine inside you.”

  Buck made another inarticulate growl. “Motherloving shifters. Nothing but a pain in my ass.”

  Despite his words, he didn’t refuse the drink. He wrapped his large, scarred hands around the mug, staring down at the black liquid as though he was reading the future.

  “Stop staring at me like that, all of you,” he said after a minute. “Y’all look like you think I’m about to swallow your favorite puppy. Or burst into tears.”

  “Are you?” Edith asked apprehensively.

  “Nope. Your damn dog is too big to fit on my grill.” Buck took a sip of his coffee. “And I ran out of tears a long time ago.”

  They all exchanged glances.

  “Do you…want to talk about it?” Wystan asked. His tone of voice indicated that he strongly preferred the answer to be ‘no.’

  “No,” Buck said from behind his mug. He sighed, setting it down again. “But I suppose you all need to know. If only to give you second thoughts about following that motherloving monster around like little lost chicks.”

  “We know it’s unpredictable,” Rory said. “And that it doesn’t hesitate to go through anything standing in its way. But I have to admit, I didn’t think it would kill in cold blood. I’m sorry to have to ask you about this, Chief, but anything you can tell us about its behavior in the past might help us now.”

  Buck didn’t say anything for a moment, turning the coffee mug round in his palms.

  “It was a long time ago,” he said at last. “Thirteen years or so. August. I’d just got back from deployment.”

  Seven’s expression sharpened, as though a puzzle piece had just clicked into place. “You were military?”

  “Marines,” Buck said shortly. “Like I said, it was a long time ago. The Thunder Mountain Hotshots weren’t even a twinkle in my eye back then. Wasn’t nothing but trees, where you all have your butts planted right now. Only people living on the mountain were my sister and her family.” He glanced at Wystan. “Where your wife’s animal sanctuary is.”

  The blood drained from Wystan’s face. “I thought it was just an old, ruined ranch. If I’d know what personal significance it had, I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking to purchase it from you. I’m so sorry, Chief.”

  “Don’t be. Wilma would have kicked my butt for letting the land go unused for so long.” His weathered face softened a little. “She loved her horses.”

  “Wilma was your sister?” Edith said.

  “Yeah. My big sister.” Buck scowled, brushing a hand briefly across his eyes. “She took over the ranch after our parents passed. I spent as much time there as I could, which wasn’t much. But I was back, when it happened. I saw it.”

  “The Thunderbird?” Blaise asked, when Buck didn’t go on.

  He nodded, jerkily, once. “Sheer luck it didn’t get me too. Though whether that was good or bad luck depends on your point of view. I’d gone into Antler to have some beers, raise a little hell. Didn’t notice my phone going off. She called and called, and I didn’t pick up…”

  He paused again, clearing his throat. “Anyway. I didn’t see the missed calls and voicemail until later, when I was dialing 911. But there I was in at the bar, and I suddenly got this sixth sense that something was wrong. I decided to head back home early. Go spend some time with my nephew. He was at that age where kids started acting up. Wilma thought I might be a good influence on him, heaven only knows why.”

  Buck’s gravelly voice roughened even further. “It was a beautiful night. Not a cloud in the sky. And as I rounded the final corner and saw the ranch up ahead, the whole world went white.

  “For a second, I thought it was an IED.” Buck stared straight ahead, into the past. “Wasted I don’t know how long having a screaming flashback, while lightning hammered down all around. When I finally came to, my car was on its side, and I was flat on my front in the drainage ditch clutching a stick like a damn AK-47. And the ranch was on fire.”

  Nobody said anything. Timidly, Blaise reached out to touch Buck’s hand. He didn’t look round, but his fingers gripped hers.

  “I saw it. Through the flames and the smoke.” Buck jerked his chin in the direction of the door, and the unseen Thunderbird. “Looking down at what it had done with those evil white eyes.”

  Wystan frowned. “Pardon the interruption, but are you certain there are no shifters in your family tree? Regular humans aren’t able to see the Thunderbird.”

  “Well, we can when it’s hovering over the ashes of everything we’ve ever loved like a motherfu—like a motherloving vulture,” Buck snapped. He abruptly let out a harsh, dry laugh, rubbing his forehead. “Listen to me. Thirteen years, and I’m still watching my tongue in case my nephew is listening. Wilma trained me too well. Anyway, there’s no freak show stuff in my background. For a while, I didn’t even believe what I’d seen. Thought I must have been hallucinating.”

  “What made you decide it was real?” Rory asked.

  “When I saw it again. Couple of years later.” Buck glanced down, and pulled his hand out from Blaise’s with an embarrassed twitch. “I was a mess for a while. Left the Marines. Joined up with a wildfire crew, thinking at least I could save other people from burning to death. Then, while we were out battling a forest fire, I saw the monster sail overhead. Big as life and twice as ugly. That was when I realized what I actually needed to fight. To stop.”

  “Chief.” Rory’s voice was deep and soft, his golden eyes filled with compassion. “You know what the Thunderbird hunts.”

  “I know now,” Buck said heavily. “And…Wilma’s last voicemail, she was talking about something big prowling around the ranch. Some kind of wild animal. That was why she wanted me to come back. She sounded scared. She was my big sister, she was the brave one…but whatever she saw, it scared even her.”

  “It sounds very much like a demon,” Wystan said. “Chief, I know this doesn’t help, but…maybe when the Thunderbird started that fire, it was already too late for your family.”

  “Maybe.” Buck stared down at his hands. “Maybe they were already gone, and the fire just took their bodies. I hope so. God help me, I hope so.”

  He looked up abruptly. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, and fierce as a hawk’s.

  “And if demons did kill my family,” he growled. “I will burn every last one of them in return. Every. Last. One. So you’d better tell us how we can do that, Joe.”

  Chapter 20

  “Joe.” Seven touched his hunched shoulder, feeling his rigid muscles under her palm. “You have to stop. You can’t keep putting yourself through this.”

  For a moment, he didn’t respond, still lost in his vision. Then he blinked. He looked up from the basin of water at last. The corners of his mouth twitched upward in a faint shadow of his usual grin.

  “I’m okay.” He knuckled his bloodshot eyes. “I can keep going. Maybe I’ll see something new this time.”

  She pulled the basin away as he started to hunch over it again. “You have not seen anything new the last hundred times. You have to rest.”

  Even in her arms, he’d barely slept last night. He’d been up well before dawn. She’d woken to find him cross-legged on the floor of the bedroom, hunkered over a shallow bowl of water. She hadn’t even been able to drag him away for breakfast.

  “You have to rest,” she repeated, yet again. Her own eyelids felt heavy with exhaustion, and she’d only been watching him, not an endless replay of a snatch of the future. “What good will you be at Bluebrook, if you wear yourself out now?”

  “I won’t do any good at all if I don’t discover what’s coming.” He tried to tug the basin back in his direction. “Everyone’s counting on me, Seven. Everyone.”

  She held onto the basin firmly. Water sloshed over the edge. “And you will not let us down. You haven’t let us down. You’ve foreseen enough that we are forewarned.”

  “I haven’t seen enough!” His voice rose. “What am I going to tell everyone? ‘Yep, still going to be a fire at Bluebrook, but all I can see of it is a glimpse of our enemy and then everything goes grey and fuzzy and I wake up in chains?’ Somehow, she’s able to knock me out. Somehow she’s able to neutralize us all. Even though we know she’s coming, even though the whole squad is prepared, even though we’ve got Wystan and his shield. I have to work out how. I have to work out how to stop her.”

  She yanked the basin away entirely, holding it out of his reach. “If you were meant to learn anything more about what is to come, you would have seen it by now.”

  “I’m probably not looking in the right way.” He buried his face in his hands, shoulders dropping in weariness. “Sea, I hate this. Everyone’s relying on me. And I’m just stumbling in the dark. I should have listened to the Master-Seers better.”

  She considered his slumped, despairing posture.

  Then she tipped the basin over his head.

  He spluttered, water running down his face. “Seven! What was that for?”

  “For talking even more utter nonsense than usual.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You told me that the Seers do this with a silver basin and purest seawater. You have a plastic bowl and a bottle of Evian. And even so, you’ve seen more than any of them could ever dream. You’ve done enough, Joe. Now stop beating yourself up about not being able to achieve the impossible.”

  The basin hung lop-sided on his head like a very unstylish hat. Slowly, he started to smile—a real smile this time, that made her heart flutter in answer.

  “I am being kind of a drama queen here, aren’t I,” he admitted.

  “Just a bit.” She rapped her knuckles lightly on the basin, making it tip over his eyes. “Now come and have some breakfast, or I’ll have to hit you over the head with my stunsword. Again.”

  “Ah, but behold!” He pushed the basin back, grinning at her from under the rim. “I am armored against…your…tricks…”

  He trailed off, eyes widening. Then he surged to his feet, letting out an ear-splitting whoop.

  “Er,” said Seven, as he grabbed her hands. “What?”

  “That’s it! Armor! Seven, you’re a genius.” He swung her round in a circle, cackling like a rooster in a henhouse. “I could kiss you.”

  “What,” she started to say again—and then lost the power of speech entirely, because he did.

  His tongue plunged between her lips, fierce and triumphant. She sank into the kiss, her body molding against his. Without conscious thought, she brought her hands up, locking them around the back of his strong neck.

  He pulled back at last, with a last teasing nip that made her breath catch. He pressed his forehead against hers.

  “Not long now.” His turquoise eyes glowed like sunlight through tropical water, alight with barely leashed desire. “Sea, I can’t wait until we can claim each other. Come on! We have to go find the others.”

  She found herself tugged in his wake like the tail of a kite as he plunged out the door. “Why?”

  “Because I figured it out.” He grinned at her over his shoulder. He was still wearing the basin, perched on his head at a jaunty angle. “It’s you, Seven. You’re the key. It’s you!”

  “The key to what?”

  “Everything.” He dragged her onward, not giving her a chance to question him further. “Chief! Chief!”

  Joe’s yell was unnecessary. Buck had already emerged from his office, striding in their direction. He took in Joe’s headwear, and his grim expression turned pained. Seven distinctly heard him mutter to himself, “I am not going to ask.”

  “Chief.” Joe pushed the basin back from his eyes again. “I think I know how the hellhounds will try to take us out. And more importantly, I know how to stop them.”

  “Good,” Buck said grimly. He held up a radio. “Because guess where we just got called out to.”

 

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