Flying Blind Ch. 01

It had finally been decided that it would probably be just as safe for the shifters go out in large groups as it would be to hole up in their rooms in smaller groups or alone, so Joanna had finally convinced a bunch of students to actually have a shifting party.

Volleyball practice had been canceled that week due to the incident, meaning that Heda really needed a physical outlet. She wasn't the kind of girl who liked just sitting around like a couch potato, unless she was into a really good book. Even then, she'd rather hike somewhere in the mountains for an hour and then sit on a log next to some running water and read until she was almost out of light. So she had allowed Joanna to talk her into this outing, even though Anthony was going to be there. She should probably just admit to him that she was gay and put him out of his misery, though she suspected he might try the "But maybe you just haven't met the right guy yet" crap. Still, it was fun to play with him, and being focused on her gave the other freshmen girls a bit of a breather. Most of them didn't want a break from the gorgeousness that was Anthony Valentine, but they were getting it anyway.

They had taken about four cars to get everyone out there, with Joanna and Anthony calling in every friend they had as well as some people who just wanted to be friends. Everyone was a little creeped out, but tensions were eased as the changelings got deeper into the woods. They reached a clearing that was off limits to most people, but every shifter on campus had a special sticker on their student ID that acted as a get-out-of-jail-free card if one of the rangers came by.

Heda climbed out of her jeep and looked around, shivering in delight as a cool evening breeze stroked the mountainside like a familiar lover, sliding past the people into every crevasse. She could almost hear the mountain sigh beneath that touch. The sun was still up in the low in the sky, bathing everything in a pleasant glow.

'I'd like to get touched like that,' she thought briefly. She hadn't gotten laid since that hot blond in Amsterdam. She grinned at the weirdness of it. In high school, she'd never thought that she would be as amorous as she had become, starting shortly before her year in Europe. Hell, she'd been shy bordering on comatose until her body filled out in some places and trimmed down in others, making all the boys sit up and take notice. Now, she thought about sex more often than the guys did, and that was saying something.

Joanna jumped out of the passenger side, as did two guys in the backseat whose names Heda couldn't remember. "I am SO needing this!" she said. She smiled sweetly at the driver. "So, would you like to come over here and kiss my royal feet now while I still have feet? You'll be needing the practice."

"Laugh it up," Heda replied with a laugh. "Ain't no WAY you're going to out-hunt me." On the drive up, the four shifters had gotten into a spirited discussion about hunting prowess, and Joanna had made the bold claim that snakes were the best mousers on the planet. Heda had laughed in her pretty face. She could spot a rodent a mile away and get there before any snake could finish telling itself how pretty it looked and even started to hunt. The guys in the back seat had egged them on, seeing as both of their animals (a giant panda and a bullfrog) weren't exactly the type to chase mice or rats to ground. Finally, a wager had been made. First one to catch a rodent and bring it back to the car was the winner, and the loser was their slave for a day. Joanna had made jokes about having someone rub her feet and do her laundry. Heda had dropped many sexual innuendos that she knew she would never enforce. Joanna was a flirt and not above a little teasing play, but she was straight. Still, teasing her was part of the fun.

Joanna looked around at the people who'd come with them. "Okay all, if you're a shifter that needs or wants the water, there's a lake just a hundred yards down Bear Paw trail. It should be warm enough for everyone, but make sure to remind me to tell everyone where the heated pools are so you'll have a place to go once winter rolls around. Stay in groups," she told them. "We'll meet up here come high midnight, so get naked and show everyone what mother nature gave ya!"

People were laughing and clothes were flying off everywhere. While seeing naked people was still enticing for them, shifters were a lot more casual about nudity than their human counterparts. There were jokes, teases, and several looks of longing, but the changelings took it all in stride.

Heda noticed that Anthony was watching her, openly grinning as her lacy bra and boy-short panties came into view.

"Daddy likes," he said. Anthony was already naked, and even the gay chick had to admire the packaging.

"I ain't gonna call you daddy, no matter how much you beg," Heda replied, tossing her remaining clothes into the driver's side of her car.

"Damn! How can I get abs like that?!" Joanna said, running a hand over Heda's washboard stomach.

"Lots of crunches," she replied. "And I burn a lot of calories when I fly." She was staring right at Joanna's gorgeous tits, wondering how far she could push "playfulness" once she won the bet.

"Well, let's get this started," Joanna said. "That ass of yours isn't going to kick itself, so I'll have to do it. No half-forms. Full animal form only, and first one back with a prize wins." With that, the blond girl shifted, bones and skin melting and reforming in a way that Heda almost saw as sensuous. Joanna, still with a green aura, had turned into a beautiful twelve-foot king cobra. She flared her hood and hissed at Heda.

"Yes, you're very pretty . . . for a belt waiting to happen," Heda responded. She lifted her eyes to the sky and spread her arms, letting the change run through her. It hurt to shift, but changelings were pretty used to it by the time they were teenagers. It was like ripping off a band aid in that the faster you did it, the easier it was to move on. She could feel her arms becoming wings and the hairs on those arms morphing into feathers. Her beak sprouted from her face and her eyes could see from horizon to horizon. Sharp talons clutched the ground and she let out a great cry that made everyone still in the clearing take notice. She was a warrior of the bird family, and a proud one at that. Her wings had a span of eighty-eight inches and she weighed fourteen pounds, making her one of the largest eagles anyone was likely to see.

"Told you she was a hot chick," Anthony said to one of the passengers from Heda's car.

"Ready . . . set --" the passenger said.

Heda spread her wings while Joanna got a coil underneath her.

"Go!"

Joanna certainly got going faster, disappearing into the woods as Heda slowly climbed high into the sky. Eagles were meant to soar, but they weren't exactly what you would call nimble. But she didn't need to get too high. She had maybe an hour of daylight left, and she needed to make the most of it. Eagles had great vision most of the time. Their night vision . . . not so hot.

For a moment, she forgot all about the bet. It felt good to be in the air, mocking gravity with gentle grace. Up here, the eagles ruled. Falcons might be faster and the condors might be larger, but eagles were the power. At least in Heda's ever-so-humble opinion. She focused those eyes on the ground for any sign of movement.

'Hell with a mouse,' she thought. 'Let's find me a rabbit.'

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Elsewhere . . .

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"Are you sure you're up for this?" Bill asked, "You're normally a night flier anyway." The enormous man held the door open so that Madison could get out. He knew that she wasn't so helpless as she made out to be, but he couldn't help himself. Besides, her hands were trembling just a little bit. She was totally freaked out about finding the girl in the cage. They had just left the hospital where Madison had been visiting with the young woman. The girl was actually doing better, but Madison had been asked not to talk to anyone about their conversations until the police were ready for a formal statement. Apparently stumbling across the girl's cage first had made Madison her savior, so she was willing to talk to her. Madison was more than a little bitter that the girl probably never would have given her the time of day under normal circumstances. She knew what people called her. But that was a petty and selfish thought and she pushed it away. The girl needed an outlet and if Madison could give it to her, then so be it.

Madison had heard the whole story. The girl, Carla Cowan, had been out in front of the library reading a book and waiting for a friend to show up. She got a call saying they weren't going to be able to meet so she headed home. She hadn't heard anything . . . just suddenly there were arms around her and a cloth over her mouth. She hadn't been able to shift or scream, and she blacked out. When she had come around, Carla was in a cage and her ankles and wrists had been locked. The cage was surrounded in a bright light and the rest of the room was pitch black. It had been cold . . . Carla remembered the cold. She screamed, but all she heard were the echoes, making her think the room couldn't have been that large. Then the voice started.

"It sounded . . . mechanical," the girl had whimpered. Carla couldn't even verify if the voice were male or female. It kept repeating one phrase over and over again: "Tell him I'm coming." That was it. No explanation as to who "him" was. She had said she couldn't deliver a message if she didn't know to who, but the voice didn't care. Then the shocks had begun. She was in a metal cage, and whoever it was, was sending shots of electricity through it. It hurt a lot, but never enough to kill her or even let her slip gratefully into unconsciousness. It would stop for periods of time, but she didn't think the person had left. Then the shocks would start up again at random intervals. She'd only been given one glass of water a day and no food at all. When she soiled herself, she was sprayed down with a hose, then shocked again.

Finally, the day that Madison had found the cage, the voice had said, "It's time to let him know." She'd felt something sink into her arm, then she had woken up in the cage on campus. She didn't know how she'd gotten there. When she'd seen Madison, she'd actually thought that she was an angel and that Carla had finally died.

"She thought I was an angel," Madison muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," she replied. Her face pointed towards the sun. It was true that bats were mostly nocturnal, but it wasn't like echolocation didn't work during the day. "I haven't had a chance to fly in a while."

"Okay, if you insist." Billy had parked next to a creek just deep enough for him to submerge. He and Madison often came up here separate from everyone else. He was the only one she was comfortable enough with. "I'll just be lounging down here catching fish. Say an hour?"

"An hour is good," Madison replied, waiting until he was on the other side of car.

Billy shook his head. He had no carnal feelings towards his friend, though he certainly thought she was sexy. It was just that Madison was the only shifter he knew that was uncomfortable being naked in front of people. It bothered her that she couldn't see their expressions unless she cheated . . . couldn't see if they were judging her body the way that they judged everything else about her. He'd tried to tell her that everyone would say the same thing he did . . . that she was beautiful and shouldn't be worried. Madison wasn't the type to take anyone's word easily. She'd been burned way too many times.

After a moment, he saw her place her tights and dress in the car, then she quickly shifted into her bat form. She was a tiny creature, no more than seven inches in wingspan and three inches long. But when she took off, he remembered how agile a flier she was, vanishing into the woods looking for a tasty bug. In her human form, she sometimes felt guilty about that, seeing as she was a vegetarian. But her animal form was an insectivore, so bugs it was. Billy was convinced that she enjoyed chasing them a little more than she would admit.

Billy would have been right. Madison had nailed a couple of crickets within a few minutes of leaving the clearing and she was anxiously looking for more. She was tearing through the trees with amazing skill, caught up in her three dimensional rendering of the world. Seeing as she wasn't fooled by shadows or the like, she was able to navigate better than creatures who relied on sight. She was having a great time . . . she should have known better.

She started picking up other signals that made her nervous . . . other bats. But most bats shouldn't be up this early. And there was a weird hodgepodge of high frequency signals . . .'Shit,' she thought. 'Multiple species of bats which probably means that it's Alvin and his crew.' Alvin, who had persecuted her endlessly since the moment she stepped foot on the campus of FCU. He hated her for being a freak, and he hated her more for the fact that she had outscored him in all three classes they had together. He hated the fact that she wasn't going to run away to another university just because he told her to. He was the son of one of the most important and influential bat shifters on the planet, so other bats usually just did what he wanted. Most of the other bats on campus were his toadies, and he had a couple of the smaller bird shifters in his circle as well. All of them gave her a hard time, and now they were out in the middle of nowhere. There was no way to warn Billy, but she had to try to get back to him. No one fucked with her when Billy or Sasha were around. Billy was just big and bad. Sasha, Billy's girlfriend, was just mean. The human sorceress was also Madison's kick-boxing instructor and self-defense coach.

Madison banked and headed back to the car, but she could hear the other bats homing in. They were after her all right. She made like a proverbial bat out of hell for the layer just below the canopy. If she stuck close, it would make it harder for the other bats to track her. Then something came barreling through the trees, and she could easily tell that it was some kind of hawk.

'Alvin's got a Harris Hawk in his crew,' she thought frantically, turning quickly and going back up into more dense foliage. It would slow her progress, but she could easily outmaneuver the clumsier bird in the branches.

There were four bats on her trail and at least one coming in from her left. She had no idea how they had found her, but guessed they'd followed Billy's truck out, knowing she'd be with him. The bat to her left came up on her quickly, and she could tell at this range by the shape of his head and his size that this was a vampire bat. This was Alvin. He felt a claw nip her wing and it burned like hell.

Madison's little heart went cold. He was escalating his harassment. He could be punished severely for what he had just done, regardless of who his father was. Important didn't make you a monarch, and all the monarchs didn't tolerate hunting other shifters, and the Reptile King was just miles away. But she would never be able to prove it, since she couldn't say for sure that she had been attacked by a changeling. For the billionth time in her life, she cursed her blindness. There were bats behind her and a hawk below her, so she was out of options. Madison climbed upward.

Up above the trees, Heda was soaring happily when she noticed a commotion in the forest below. If she could have smiled, she would. Ruckus like that generally meant prey animals were around, so she circled for a better look. She saw a bat come barreling out of the green, skimming the treetops frantically and dodging too and fro. That was when Heda saw a raven shifter swooping in out of the sun.

'Idiot,' she thought, 'the sun doesn't mean shit to something not using its eyes.'

Sure enough, the bat dodged easily and the would-be attacker almost collided with an enormous evergreen.

'Hold on.' Heda felt surprise and then rage. The bat was a shifter too! She saw a bunch of other bats come up out of the trees, as did a hawk, and they were chasing the poor creature higher. Soon, another crow and an osprey joined the hunt. There was no mistaking that hunting is just what was happening. A bunch of creatures persecuting one lone bat? It didn't take a genius to figure out who the scared would-be prey was.

With a scream that echoed across the mountains, Heda came down like a lightning bolt to intercept the pursuing mob. The bird shifters scattered to the winds, none of them even vaguely capable or willing to take on the eagle. The bat shifters disappeared as well, diving back into the trees.

Feeling proud of herself, Heda looked around, but the bat she assumed was that Madison chick was still hightailing it. 'Some gratitude!' she thought. 'I can't protect her if she's avoiding me.'

Madison's little heart was almost exploding in her chest. From out of nowhere, an eagle had shown up and she could only assume that it was another of Alvin's people. She thought the other birds were flanking her, because she couldn't pick them up anymore, and the bats were keeping her from going back into the trees. That damn enormous bird . . . all she could do was keep fleeing. Just then, she reached the clearing where Billy was parked and she dived. As soon as she was on the ground, she shifted back. She looked to the sky, wondering if her pursuers would continue their persecution even into human form. She was crying her eyes out in frustration and running to the stream, jumping naked into the cold water and looking around for Billy.

Billy quickly emerged and shifted. He had just been enjoying a leisurely soak when Madison had almost stepped on top of him. She was lucky he didn't take a chunk out of her leg just out of instinct. Snapping turtles had powerful jaws, and could've done a lot of damage.

"What the hell --" he started to say, then was interrupted as she wrapped herself around him, suddenly unconcerned with nudity, and cried onto his shoulder. The face he made could have curdled milk. Someone had scared her. She had a cut on her arm that had mostly healed when she changed, but it was still obvious . . . tender-looking and red.

"Who did this?" he asked. Then he saw an eagle circle down into the clearing and land on his truck, looking over in his direction.

"Buh . . . buh . . bats and a hawk and . . . a fucking eagle! Alvin's got an eagle? I thought they were supposed to be honorable and . . . and --" She broke down crying again. If she would let go for just a second, he planned on making a feather duster out the nation's symbol.

Something occurred to him . . . the bird was sticking around. Alvin's guys never did that. Then the eagle started to shimmer and there was a sexy young woman standing there, and she looked concerned.

"Hey, are you --"

Madison shrieked and moved around to the other side of Billy's massive frame. "Who's that?"

"My name's Heda --"

"Crap!" the girl shouted. "That's Alvin's new girl! She's his new Trojan Horse!" Now the girl was more mad than afraid, and a quick scan with her echolocation told Madison that the girl was alone. She could take the girl one on one.

"Madison!" Billy said, a little frantic himself now. Didn't she know what she was doing?

But Madison was incensed and she strode forward, putting her hands out in front like Sasha had taught her. She was going to kick this bitch upside her head.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Heda said, watching the girl angrily approaching. "And what the hell is a Trojan Horse?"

"According to the mythology of the Trojan War," Billy started, "the Trojan Horse was a giant hollow wooden horse created by Epeius that --"