I continued through the empty landscape. I was alone. I could sense it, see it, feel it.
I moved over springy, green grass that stood little chance once the brief winter rains ended, once the heat set in again. Southern California is mostly desert, and never is it more apparent than in these barren hills.
The moon was nearly full. Uh oh. That meant Kingsley would be, ah, indisposed for a few days.
My body felt strong. As strong as the wind that had now whipped my hair into a frenzy. Sometimes I felt elemental, too. Tied to the days and nights, to the sun and earth. Tied to blood.
Elemental.
Like a dark fairy. A dark fairy with bat wings.
I headed deeper into the desert, following a natural path that might have been a stream bed in wetter times. The rock underfoot was loose, although I rarely lost my balance. Down I went, down the slope, following the rock-strewn path, until before me a deep blackness opened up. A ravine.
I stopped, breathing in the cool, desert air, although these days I no longer needed much air. I opened and closed my hands, feeling stronger than I ever had. Then again, I always feel like that, each and every night. Stronger than I ever had.
I continued on, skirting a copse of stunted milkwoods along the edge of the ravine. I felt a pair of eyes watching me. I turned my head, looked up. There, a coyote sitting high atop a nearby boulder, eyes glowing yellow in the night. Its eyes, amazingly, like Kingsley's. Now I saw more movement from around the boulder. Heard claws clicking, scratching. More coyotes. I could smell them, too. Intoxicatingly fresh blood wafted from their musky coats. They had just feasted on a recent kill.
My stomach growled.
I cursed and moved on as the pack watched me silently, warily, keeping their distance. Soon, I reached what I had been searching for: the cliff's edge. Here, light particles swirled frenetically, seemingly caught in the updraft of wind gusts that moaned over crevasses and caves and outcroppings of rock.
My toes curled over the edge. Loose sand and rock tumbled into the ravine. Behind me, I heard the coyotes turn and leave.
I listened to the wind moving over the land, to the insects scurrying and buzzing, to my own growling stomach. I inhaled the last of the lingering, haunting scent of blood before the coyotes were too far off for even my enhanced senses.
I looked out over the ledge. The cliff dropped straight down, disappearing into blackness, although I could see an outcropping of rock about halfway down. I would have to avoid that.
I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. If my life hadn't been so weird over these past seven years, I might have been surprised to find myself standing naked at the edge of a cliff, in the high deserts outside of Orange County.
But now weirdness was the norm, and so I just stood there, head tilted back a little, hair whipping in the wind, hands slightly outstretched, until the flame appeared in my thoughts.
Within the flame appeared something hideous...and beautiful. The creature I would become.
With that thought planted firmly in mind, I leaped from the cliff's edge and out into the night.
Chapter Six
I arched up and out.
I hovered briefly in mid-air at the apex of the arch, my arms spread wide, my hair drifting above my shoulders in a state of suspended animation.
From here, as I briefly hovered, I could see Lake Mathews sparkling under the nearly full moon. I could also see the barb wire fence, too. Only in southern California do they surround a lake with barb wire. Beyond, the cities of Corona and Riverside sparkled like so many jewels. Flawed jewels.
And then I was falling, head first, like an inverted cross. The bleak canyon walls sped past me, just feet away. Dried grass swept past me, too. Lizards scuttled for cover, no doubt confused as hell. Dry desert air blasted me, thundered over my ears.
I knew the protrusion of rock was coming up fast.
I closed my eyes, and the creature in the flame regarded me curiously, cocking its head to one side.
Faster, I sped. My outstretched arms fought the wind.
The creature in the flame, the creature in my mind, seemed somehow closer now. And now I was rushing toward it - or it was rushing toward me. I never knew which it was.
I gasped, contorted, expanded.
And now my arms, instead of fighting the air, caught the air, used the air, manipulated the air, and now I wasn't so much falling as angling away from the cliff, angling just over the rocky protrusion. In fact, my right foot - no, the claws of my right foot - just grazed the rock. Lizards, soaking up what little heat they could from the rock, scurried wildly, and I didn't blame them.
Here be monsters.
I continued angling down, speeding so fast that by all rights I should be out of control. Wings or no wings, I should have tumbled down into the ravine below, disappearing into a forest of beavertail cactus so thick that my ass hurt just looking at them.
But I didn't crash.
Instead, I was in total control of this massive, winged body, knowing innately how to fly, how to command, how to maneuver. I knew, for instance, that angling my wings minutely would slow me enough to soar just above the beavertail, as I did now, their spiky paddles just missing my flat underside.
Yes, completely flat. In this form, I was no longer female. I was, if anything, asexual. I existed for flight only. For great distances, and great strength, too.
Now, as the far side of the canyon wall appeared before me, I instinctively veered my outstretched arms - wings - and shot up the corrugated wall, following its contours easily, avoiding boulders and roots and anything that might snag my wings or disembowel me.
Up I went, flapping hard. And with each downward thrust, my body surged faster and faster, rocketing out of the canyon like a winged missile.
In the open air, I was immediately buffeted by a strong wind blowing through the hills, but my body easily adjusted for it, and I rose higher still. I leveled off and the thick hide that composed of my wings snapped taut like twin sails.
Twin black sails. With claws and teeth.
Below, I saw dozens of yellow eyes watching me silently. I wondered just how much these coyotes knew...and whether or not they were really coyotes.
The wind was cold and strong. I was about two hundred feet up, high enough to scan dozens of acres at once, as my eyes in this form were even better, even sharper.
I was looking for the ravine that I had seen in my vision. Only a brief flash of a vision, of course, but one that remained with me, seared into my memory. In particular, I was looking for what had been tossed into the ravine.
No doubt, whoever had tossed it had thought the package was as good as gone. After all, even a team of policemen and state troopers couldn't cover every inch of this vast wasteland.
I flew over hills and canyons, over Lake Mathews and its barbed wire fence. High above me came the faint sound of a jet engine, and in the near distance, a Cessna was flying south. I wondered idly if I showed up on their radar, but I doubted it. After all, if I didn't show up in mirrors, why would I show up on radars?