Free Call of the Raven by Shawn Reilly

were half frozen made them sting all the
more. He stuck both hands under his arm pits to try and gain some
feeling. When she stood in front of him, he boldly looked her in
the eyes, which is something he seldom did. And the fact he was,
caused her to wrinkle her brow in suspicion.
    “I know you’re worried and despite what you
think I’m worried too, but so is Asher,” he told her. “The truth of
the matter is they’re spiritually linked and if Asher would just
stop resisting Ari, he could probably hear him. Besides, I can tell
Asher’s really worried about him.”
    “Then you believe Asher really does care for
Ari?”
    “In his own odd way, yeah.” Nixon seriously
took her hand in his and lightly kissed the top of her knuckles.
“See that wasn’t so bad now was it?”
    She rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky I didn’t
deck you.”
    “Come on,” he winked, “let’s change. It will
make the trip back warmer and faster.”
    Kennedy quickly agreed, “But keep your talons
to yourself.”
    Letting a flirtatious smirk cross his lips,
Nixon licked them very slowly. “I make no such promises.”
    Kennedy started to say something but Nixon
changed into his falcon form and flew away. He wanted to talk to
Asher alone. When he reached the manor Nixon spotted Asher opening
the dining room window, so he flew inside. Miscalculating his speed
he hit the long table and fell off the end, transforming back just
as his body landed in something wet and cold.
    Instantly Nixon’s nose was assaulted by the
strong scent of pine cleaner, and something else just as equally
repulsive. With the booming qualities of Asher’s laughter
resounding in the quiet house, he slowly walked toward Nixon. Asher
was in full Aikido gear—white wraparound jacket, ranking black belt
around his waist, black pleated trousers, and headband to keep his
hair out of his face, with the emblem of the Ki on the front.
    Nixon smelled his hand. “Is this…pee?”
    “Yes, according to the old healer I have the
ability of scaring it out of little children. I had the cook clean
it up but apparently she didn’t do a good job. Now,” Asher said,
lowering down on his haunches, “what did you find?”
    “We found Ari’s car nose first in a ditch not
too far from here. It looked as though he might have hit his head
on the window,” Nixon explained. “But Kennedy didn’t pick up any
traces of blood.”
    “Then he could be out there in this weather,
disoriented. You useless bird, didn’t you even try to track him?”
Asher stood and thoughtfully stared off in the direction of the
window.
    Nixon sat up, crossed his legs in front of
him and ran his wet, pine smelling urine soaked hand along the dry
area of the rug which drew a growl of frustration from Asher. “I
didn’t see the point,” Nixon said. “I got into a bar fight last
night with a band of outcasts, of which three were fowlers. I lost,
but nonetheless they were still pretty pissed afterwards. Actually,
they were pissed at you—”
    “Do you have a point?” Asher cut him off.
    “The point is I smelled them on the wind, the
same fowlers from the bar near Ari’s car.”
    Nixon noticed a familiar twitch of impatience
in Asher’s jaw. The one that he often got whenever he was trying to
hold on because he knew there was more to the story than the teller
was relaying, and then a light literally glowed in Asher’s weird
mood-ring eyes. They sparked red. Drawing his brows together he
looked down at him, and this time Nixon could tell that he was
putting thoughts together like the pieces of a puzzle of which the
picture wasn’t all that pretty.
    “You wouldn’t have gotten into a fight on the
account of me because you don’t like me anymore than they do? So
tell me Nixon just what did they say that set you off?”
    “They started ragging on Grant. They said he
had a child, a child with an outsider, but I know that’s not true.
We would have known about it.”
    “Oh, you were just