Chapter Three

Cassandra

Another day. Another disappointment.

“Hey, buddy.” She set her bag and keys down and crawled to the table Zero was hiding under. He lifted his head to lick her face, his tail twitching on the floor.

She cuddled him under the table for a while before having dinner, dressing down, and getting into bed. She didn’t have to whistle or call his name. Zero heard the rustle of the pages and then he was on the end of her bed. Cass read aloud while Zero began to droop. She reached an interesting point in the story that detailed some lore behind the dragon race, which was too interesting for sleep to claim her quite yet.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Cass instinctively glanced at the sound, but the window was covered by blinds. She ignored it and continued to read.

Tap. Tap tap. Tap.

This time she glanced at Zero, who was alert and trained on the window.

Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap.

“What the fuck?” Cass huffed and set her book down, spine open, on the bed. She hauled the blinds up and glared at the crow on her windowsill. “Dude, what are you doing? Shoo! Shoo!”

She tapped the glass, but the crow didn’t budge. Another flew up, placed a shiny copper penny on the sliding ledge in the middle of the window, then settled on the sill beside his buddy.

Cass blanched. The bright penny was not the only offering on the ledge. There was a button, a quartz crystal, and something that resembled an earring or pendant.

She’d heard of crows bestowing gifts to humans they favored, or humans who helped or fed them. But why her? Hadn’t she been telling them off and shooing them away since the day she noticed them? Suddenly, it didn’t feel so crazy to think they’d been following her. She’d have to be more kind to them. It wasn’t their fault she and nature weren’t getting along lately.

She tapped the window again. “Thank you for your generosity, but you’re bothering my dog. Please come back some other time. Shoo!”

They retreated to the tree in her yard, where there were dozens of the little buggers speckling the orange hues of the leaves.

“Sorry about that, bud. Where were we?”

She hadn’t made it back to the mattress when she heard a loud caw. Irritation bubbled in her veins until she felt the thump, thump on the blanket and saw Zero sitting upright, his tail weakly wagging, tongue hanging from his panting mouth.

“What is it?” She scratched his ear and followed his gaze. “You need to go outside now?”

The tree was entirely blacked out now. The sound of wings and caws carried through her bedroom.

Zero jumped from the bed gracelessly. He barked and panted.

Cass gawked at him. When was the last time she’d seen him this animated?

What the hell is going on?

Zero barked again.

“Okay, okay. Let’s go.” No quicker had she spoken the words than he was off, waiting for her at the front door. She slipped on her house shoes and heavy shawl.

On the doorstep was a red envelope, the wax seal broken. Cass recognized it immediately. Her pulse gained a beat as she snatched it from the stoop. The beat of wings and the blur of black in her peripheral made her dizzy.

“What kind of paranormal bullshit is this?” she asked Zero, but when she glanced to her side, he wasn’t there.

He was up ahead, trotting with a limp, trailing behind two crows. They were dancing around each other like they were lovebirds instead of the birds most commonly associated with death and darkness.

“Zero! Wait!”

She chased after him. He paused, barked, and kept on.

I guess we’re doing this. Whatever this was, she couldn’t find it in herself to pull Zero away. Was he friends with crows now? Could crows and dogs communicate? Her brain, always inquisitive, couldn’t find a logical answer. So, naturally, she was intrigued.

They walked for a while. Long enough that the paved road turned into gravel, with the tree line right up against it. Cass shivered, worried about Zero overexerting himself. They would need to turn back soon.

“You know we have to walk all the way back, right?”

They reached trees where the road curved slightly left. Their soaring guides flew into the branches and disappeared.

Disappeared? That can’t be right—

“Zero!”

He ran headfirst into the woods and straight up vanished.

“Zero!”

Cass sprinted after him without hesitation. Branches smacked her face, stickers and spiky leaves attacking her calves. A puff of wavy heat swept over her, like diving for a pan of cookies without letting the heat waft from the oven first.

A mansion appeared.

Looming above her was a tall, run-down, haunted-looking Victorian mansion. The windows were either wide open, busted apart, or full of cobwebs. There were at least three visible spots where the roof was caved in. Wooden boards were missing from the foundation, and the latticing was decrepit. Two massive gargoyles depicted with angry glowers, vicious fangs, and crudely disproportionate cocks perched on either side of the steps leading up to the porch, where a wooden love seat swing had collapsed in the middle.

She’d been to some very convincing haunted house displays in the city, but those were all popular Halloween hot spots. This was too realistic, too lived-in, too rural.

Cass reached down to pat Zero’s head. He nudged her palm and licked, panting. He was ready to collapse. She turned back to the door and sighed.

“We’re here now. Let’s at least take a moment to rest. I am not sleeping here, though. I mean it, Zero.”

They waded through overgrown grass. Crows eerily lined the rotten porch, the entire roof of the entryway covered in beady black eyes and glossy black feathers. A caw rang out from the door handle.

“There’s no way someone lives here. Right?” she wondered aloud as she thunked the brass door knocker against the peeling red paint of the door. When no one answered, she turned the handle. The door squeaked open. “Hello?”

Zero pushed past her and wobbled to a gothic red couch, where he feebly climbed up with a puff of dust and lay down, cuddling his tail. Cass snorted inwardly but returned her attention to the weird setting.

Two grand staircases lined the wide entry room. Red carpet draped the steps, pouring onto the tile like blood. The swirling design on the handrail was a combination of rusty red and black, and converged in an unsettling rendition carved into the balcony railing. People, but they were eating each other? She squinted and stepped closer. Vampires? It was surprisingly warm inside, too. The house didn’t seem to be made for show, but if it wasn’t, then why were there so many creepy things jammed inside?

“Who dares enter?”

The voice surrounded her, sounding as sinister as the devil himself. She searched the corners for a speaker system.

“I, uh—I didn’t mean to trespass. I thought this place was abandoned. My dog ran off, and the crows . . .” She glanced around. “Where are you?”

A figure stepped from the balcony. They stopped there, still bathed in shadow, a cloak hiding their features.

“Leave!”

A crow flew to the person’s side and landed on their shoulder. It let out a long, low sound.

To fight the panic racing up her spine, she braced her palms together. She glanced at the bundle on the couch. “My dog is sick. I’ll leave as soon as he’s rested. Please.”

The rustle of wings was the only sound for an eternity. She took the silence as an answer and started toward the couch, shrugging out of her shawl. A red envelope crinkled in the fabric.

“Wait.” Events clicked in her mind. The crows at her workplace, the letter, more crows leading her here. “Are you the one who sent this letter?”

“Have you changed your mind?”

She gaped up at them. She couldn’t make out anything of note. The cloak jutted out abnormally from their back, like they had a hunch. Their face was too far away to discern any features, but she glimpsed gray skin. Were they sick?

“No.” She watched for a reaction, but they remained as still as the gargoyles on the front porch.

“Then it doesn’t matter.”

“Why would I take credit for something I don’t know the answer to? How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

The figure didn’t shift, didn’t move a fraction, but made a huffy sound. They muttered something too low for her to hear. All she could make out was Borelli, mumble mumble Tesla, mumble mumble Galilei and never denied, mumble mumble.

Cass laughed. “You’re gonna have to speak up because I thought I just heard you name drop the leader of the scientific revolution. In the seventeenth century.”

“Silence!”

Something in the person’s voice, the edge it used to slice through her laughter and render the room ice-cold, made Cass wince. There’s something wrong with this person and their weird castle. She glanced at Zero, wishing she had the strength to carry him all the way back home.

“Your pup won’t live through this pandemic without my help.”

Cass curled her hands into fists. “I’ll save him.”

“Not soon enough.” Their tone wasn’t patronizing. It was sad, empathetic maybe, although flat.

“I won’t blindly trust someone. Especially not someone who won’t even show me their face.”

Cassandra stood her ground even under the weight of their stare.

“Will you accept my help if I show you my face?”

“Maybe.” Her heart thudded faster. “But only if we work together. I won’t sign my name on something I had no part in.”

More mumbling. They turned to the side and lowered their hood.

Their profile was shocking.

A tuft of black feathers sprouted from a peak in their forehead and framed their face, with jet-black hair threaded through. The feathers were identical to the wings that had blotted out her window, sleek, black, proud feathers that stood straight and strong. Their skin was the color of titanium, with deep-set eyes cast in a shade close to black where they were carved into the strong planes of an angular face. Dark and keen, their gaze pierced straight through her.

It was Cassandra’s turn to mumble. She incoherently wondered aloud all the basic questions that precursor every solution. How? What? When? Why? Who?

What kind of fucked-up science had done that to them?

Cass fumbled backward, any words she might’ve uttered mixing with the bile gathering in her throat. She wanted to apologize for whatever had happened to them. There was no way it’d been consensual.

Simultaneously, she wanted to study them. They must have an insane amount of strength, both mental and physical. Because whatever had done that, they’d endured.