Raven and the Dancing Tiger (20 page)

Jesse stood and walked to the door. He stopped just before it, with his back to Peter. "Couldn't get you to come with, could we," he stated.

"No, man, I couldn't. My mom and my dad and—"

"
Naw
. That's okay. I get it." He opened the door. "Good luck," he said, nodding toward Peter's desk.

"Hey, you too. It was good to see you. Don't be such a stranger."

"You too, little man."

Peter rolled his eyes as Jesse stepped out the door.

There was nothing he could do about Jesse, no way to ease his friend's flight. He'd draft for him if he could, but Jesse had always wanted his own sky.

Peter paced across his living room floor, from the TV to the futon-couch and back, as he listened to the other end of his phone call ring.

Come on. Pick up. Pick UP.

Finally, on the second call (the first had rung too many times and gone to voice mail) Peter heard his dad's bleary voice.

"Hello?"

"Dad, it's me. There's trouble." Peter didn't know what else to say, how else to explain himself.

Cai cawed, angry and mistrustful.

"Are you hurt?" Dad asked, though it sounded more like a command given through gritted teeth.

"No, I'm not. I'm fine. But Jesse, my friend, who's like me, like
us
, he's—"

"Whoa, son. Jesse?" his dad interrupted. "He was that troublemaker, right?"

"Does it matter?" Peter asked, his mouth bitter ash. "I think she has him."

"Oh."

Everything else was silent. No noise echoed up from the street into Peter's apartment.

Cai thrummed his beak, an odd sound, almost like someone blowing a raspberry. He was obviously unimpressed.

"Dad, you remember the recitations. About not leaving—"

"I'm going to go get Prefect Aaron."

The phone clattered as it hit the table. Then there was more silence.

They were
not
about to abandon Jesse, were they? He was one of their own! A raven warrior.

Peter swung his head, looking first at one end of the room, then the other, seeking anything he might destroy. The colors faded as he prowled. He selected a throw pillow his mom had gotten him a few Christmases ago, then went into his kitchen. The knife drawer screeched as he yanked it open.

"So, Peter, Jesse was here."

The voice of the prefect didn't soothe Peter at all as he selected a boning knife.

"Yeah. First time I'd seen him since he left Ravens' Hall," Peter said, aware that his voice was practically a growl and not caring. "I can't find him." Peter knelt down on the floor, placed the pillow before him, then rammed the knife into the pillow with all his strength, gutting it fiercely. "And she left one of his feathers with a note.
Challenge accepted.
" Peter stabbed the pillow five times in quick succession, skillfully arranging his cuts so a pattern started to emerge. Letters.

"Now, Peter, what exactly do you mean that you can't find him?"

"Just what I said." Peter punctuated each word with another punishing blow of the knife.

"You're quite certain? You searched using
all
your skills?"

Peter blinked and sat back slowly, his vision clearing. He let the knife drop away to the floor. "No, sir," Peter said, sliding into old habits. "There are a few more things I can try."

"Call us back then, after you do, no matter the hour," the prefect instructed.

Peter nodded, though the prefect couldn't see. "Thank you," he said, instead. "For reminding me."

The prefect gave a warm chuckle that was too calculating to be comforting. "We're all a long ways from Ravens' Hall, my boy."

"Yes, we are," Peter said. "Goodbye."

Peter suspected that the prefect had been referring to time, that it had been a while since Peter had tried a finding spell.

But to Peter, it also meant he was a long, long way away from his former teachers, in every sense of the word: not just through time and space, but experiences and viewpoint.

They'd never understand his power now. Nor could they stop him.

* * *

Peter made himself a cup of coffee, letting the pot do its work while he gathered supplies.

Next to the burbling carafe he pulled out the twine from his junk drawer that he'd never been able to get rid of—too many recitation about how raven warriors always carried it with them.

He also fetched dental floss, the extra strong variety he always kept in reserve under the bathroom sink. Prefect Aaron would be appalled at the modern material, but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt Peter or Cai.

After flicking off the living room lights and making sure no one watched from nearby, Peter snuck outside and gathered up a handful of twigs from the gutter. Then he raced back upstairs, heart pounding, as if he'd left a refuge and had dared being captured, or worse.

Peter sniffed the long feather again. He had no doubt it belonged to Jesse, or Jesse's equivalent of Cai. But it wasn't enough to find Jesse; it represented only half of him. Peter didn't have anything of Jesse's though, so he did the best he could. He looked at the sheets Jesse had slept on, the towels he had washed with, but they didn't have that essence of
Jesse
. Finally, Peter dug out a pair of his old jeans out of the laundry basket and cut a square from the bottom of a leg, purposefully rubbing dirt into the material. That reminded him more of Jesse, old dirty jeans and high top sneakers.

With the dental floss, Peter wove the twigs together into a hobo bundle. He'd learned about them at Ravens' Hall, a pile of branches that raven warriors of old always carried with them when traveling, to start fires by the edge of the road. With the twine, he added in the cloth and the feather, then cut a separate three-foot-long piece and tied it to the bundle loosely, with just a hoop knot.

After Peter prayed to Wynne, as well as to
Tasmin
—the god of lost causes—he rubbed his hands together earnestly to raise both blood and magic.

Cai stayed back as Peter started the human part of the incantation. "
Dod
o
hyd
i
fy
ysglyfaeth
.
"

When Peter reached out and picked up the bundle, Cai pushed forward, finding the weak spots, showing Peter where he needed to layer the spell on more thickly.

Peter set the charm on the ground when the spell was complete. Cai curled up in the back of his mind and Peter slumped where he sat.

Magic was supposed to only be a human endeavor. According to Ravens' Hall, Cai couldn't help Peter cast magic. But Peter knew that Cai helped all the time, lending his strength, showing him how to improve things. He'd never understood why Prefect Aaron had discouraged Peter from working with Cai.

But as the prefect had said, they were a long way from Ravens' Hall, and those injunctions no longer held.

Though Peter felt the push to start, to move, to do something, he made himself breathe for a moment, drink his coffee, sit in the stillness of the night. Magic rarely worked in a rush: The more calm he was, the more focused he'd be. Besides, he needed the caffeine.

When Peter could no longer stand it, he walked to the middle of his living room. He held one end of the twine while the lure hung on the other.

After another brief prayer to Wynne, Peter said out loud, "Find Jesse." Then he swung the lure, first from side to side, then around.

Peter let it spin in six full circles and let it go. The lure flew across Peter's living room and landed close to the kitchen.

It hadn't found anything.

Cursing, Peter retrieved the lure and told it again, "Find Jesse.
Find
him." He spun it a second time, but again, it randomly flew and fell.

Peter picked up the lure with a sigh. He didn't want to admit that Jesse was gone, but it was starting to look that way.

Cai suddenly sent Peter the image of two birds, flying high across the endless blue.

Peter nodded, holding the lure for a moment. "Jesse," he whispered. He remembered Jesse's laughter from last night when they'd shared the pizza, his teasing grin, the way he always called him Petie-Peter. "Find
Jesse
," he said.

This time, when Peter let go of the lure, it first flew in one direction, then
curved
before it hit the ground and flew to the far corner, closest to the park, up high on a shelf.

The spell had found something.

Peter raced over to it, stopping himself before he touched it. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, rubbed his hands together again, and then, with his eyes still closed, reached out and grasped the lure.

The image of the park just outside his window came to him. Then the image shifted, flying through the air, to a tree Cai recognized.

Was Jesse there, hiding high in those branches? The feeling was so faint.

Or was it just his body?

Peter shook and asked Cai to help.

In less than a minute, Cai pushed himself through the open kitchen window and headed straight for the tree. The lights were blinding and Cai cawed in frustration.

Fortunately, Cai could fly by feel, the tug of Jesse threaded to him from Peter.

The dark shape appeared to be close to the trunk, though Cai could barely see it. He landed on an outer branch then hopped in closer, his movement sure and swift.

The lump in the Y of the trunk turned out to be a bag, shapeless and rough. Cai cawed loudly, mourning.

It was Jesse's backpack. The thing he was never, ever without.

* * *

After finally getting Jesse's backpack home, Peter pawed through it eagerly. Cai helped, looking at everything without Peter asking, searching for anything to tell them where Jesse might be.

They found clothes, a little money, Peter's key, sugar packets, the toothbrush Peter had given Jesse, soap, a scratched fork, and a folding knife. It wasn't a lot, but Jesse hadn't been in Seattle for very long, and he'd flown in with nothing.

Jesse didn't have any charms, nothing magical, though Peter's throat dried suddenly when he ran across the rough bundle of twine.

Nothing had blood on it, either.

Peter tried throwing the lure again after that, but it either landed on the backpack or in some random corner.

There was nothing left of Jesse's to find.

Peter finally sat back down on the floor and called his dad again. "I found his backpack, but nothing else," Peter told first his dad, then Prefect Aaron.

"Then there's nothing else to do until morning," the prefect said.

"We could go to the cops—"

"Peter," the prefect admonished. "We'll take care of it. This is raven clan business. We take care of our own."

Peter opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap. How Ravens' Hall took care of their own, and how Peter thought they should, were at opposite ends of the open sky.

"I'll talk with Ravens' Hall first thing in the morning," the prefect added
.

"But he's in trouble
now
," Peter reminded the prefect.

"If you're that worried, son, I can call them immediately."

"Please," Peter said, the word bitter in his mouth.

"You should get some sleep. I'll alert the elders and the prefects. You know they'll move quickly, once they devise a plan."

Peter knew he was trying to be reassuring, but he felt even more uneasy than Cai.

"We'll find him," the prefect added. "Or we'll avenge him."

Peter nodded, not bothering to correct the prefect.

He
would do the avenging.

After Peter hung up, he saw the boning knife lying forgotten on the floor, beside the mutilated pillow. He left the pillow where it was, unfinished. He knew, to anyone else, it would just be a series of random cuts.

But in his mind's eye, Peter could still connect the lines and spell out a single name.

Aaron.

* * *

Morning dawned bright and too early. Peter lay on his bed, blinking up at his ceiling, weariness smothering him.

Cai stood with his head under his wing, not interested in stirring at all.

Despite his uncertainty and anguish, Peter had slept deeply, with no nightmares. Just not long enough.

He picked up his phone and debated calling into work sick. He wouldn't be his brightest today. But if the challenge was real, he might need even more time off later. Better to go in and lay the groundwork, say that he had a sick uncle and might have to leave if the call came.

When Peter walked out to his living room, a part of him hoped the previous night had just been a dream, that Jesse would be crashed out on his futon. That they could still drive to the mountains that weekend, and maybe Peter could start teaching Jesse dancing.

But no, just Jesse's pack lay dissected across the floor, the lure still lying beside it.

Peter rubbed his hands together and strengthened the spell, despite how it drained him, then he swung the lure again.

It landed once again on Jesse's pack.

Was that all that remained of Jesse in this world?

Peter explained his distraction to his boss with his story about his uncle. Which then left him justified checking his phone for messages every fifteen minutes or so, alternating between anxious and pissed off that the prefect hadn't called back yet.

When "Little Birds" played, Peter eagerly took the call, though he had no idea what he was going to say to Sally.

"Hey you," he answered, stepping into the rack room for some privacy. Wire shelves holding sleeves and servers filled the cold, small room. He walked over to check that the server he'd had problems with earlier was still clicking along.

"Hey.
Whatcha
doing tonight?" Sally asked.

"I—" Peter stopped and sighed. "I don't know," he said honestly.

"What's wrong?"

"I have an uncle who's sick," Peter explained in a rush.

Cai gave an unhappy caw. Neither of them liked lying to her.

"No, you don't," Sally replied.

"You have a lie-detecting superpower, don't you?" Peter asked, relieved that he didn't have to continue with that lie.