Smoke and smog reared up in the night winds, winds that gently blew, lifting her in her flight: ascending over the sordid squalor of poverty that was the dark, ill-lit slums, home to danger and darkness, concealing more than the obvious perils.  No caw no crow of the raven's call, no hark of the cacophonous cry that so often rang in the ears of those below her flight; silently, she advanced toward the quiet of uptown.  As the raven moved toward the daunting megalopolis, she carefully and carelessly ascended and descended among the solemn spires of steel and glass that pervaded the sprawling urbanity beneath her wings—stopping to look at neither the skyreaching nouveau-riche glass towers or the ancient brick buildings, castles, churches, and stores: grey and red, dark brown and white, well-lit emptiness—forging ahead to something beyond the maze-like sprawl, foraging for hope.

            Her deep, glossy black feathers ruffled delicately in hypnotizing heats; her nostrils, usually shielded by stiff feathers, fell prey to the rushing winds, and the stank sterilized smell of the city permeated her senses; the bitterness of the smog and petroleum pollutants interwove with the foul waters, too much garbage, all-too briefly punctuated by the occasional crisp clean wind—all but the last which were an aversion to her pure soul.  The raven reminisced, recollecting: emembering it all.

            She had known it well and had remembered it all:  the "A" was no surprise to her.  She could feel the transparently jealous stares of her classmates as if their eyes had risen out of their sockets and struck her physically.  What was she to do; she could not forget what she had been taught—ever—her recall was total.  What did she care?  Her father had taught her to forget those stares; they would go away, they would learn she was not getting the grades to spite the others' seemingly lower intelligences, just as they had in past years.  She had learned, throughout her education, from elementary school to high school, to deal with that.

            Yet more difficult were the other stares: glares of adolescent lust from her classmates, admirers were they almost all.  Her shining, ebony hair fell straight and perfect, her face sharply cut, so much so that it seemed as if her face was not a face at all, but a sculpture cut by Greek artists, seeking to mimic the perfection of the gods; neither parent was the obvious antecedent to this, rather it was a gift of genetic permutations that had randomly resolved right: Gaea's giving to her to gain where others fell short. 

            She stood up from her desk, her strong, slim frame moving up and out of the classroom, not so much with a strut, but with a walk of confidence which wasn't so much as seen as it was sensed:  a perception of the subconscious, completely inunderstood by the woken thought—and something which was totally alien in a high school classroom.  Again, she could feel the other students perceiving her assurance as an insult to their mediocrity.

            She tucked the paper into her bag (the "A" still fresh in her mind, causing a slight smile) and walked into a hallway full of moving students and thoughts and stares and jealousies and petty rivalries: walking through it all.

            She stopped at her father and climbed up onto his lap, smiling yet another time at his gruff features: his fine black beard and his sharply defined face, with high cheekbones and bird-like nose.  She ran a hand over his crewcut hair, begging to be talked to.

            "Tell me a story?" she asked.

            "There's so many to tell, Cammy," he said, a wistful look in his eyes.  "But right now I just want to tell you that I love you."

            "I love you too, daddy."  She kissed him.  "Story?"

            Clothed in black, a katana sheathed on her back, an HK416 automatic rifle holstered over her shoulder, a SIG P250 pistol strapped to her waist—she was ready.  The forest's preternatural darkness taunted her with what was once hers, but through gentle perversion was now not an probably never would be.

            Her father laughed softly.  "Okay.  Okay.  A story it is."

            "Goody," she said.

            Cameron's father looked skyward for a moment, still wanting to say what he could not yet say but finally deciding to exorcise his anxiety in a veiled truth hidden among words and lies which were to be ultimately sorted out by the listener, as people would do when their self-control was parched by impatience.

            "I'll tell you about the ravens, Cammy,” her father said.  She moved forward, moving across the dead branches and dry leaves easily, the dark facet of this wood that so taunted her, and did still, could not give her away; in that respect, she was too good—too in tune with Mother Earth.  "The ravens were powerful fliers," her father said softly.  "Strong in the sky winds that carried them, largest among their families of birds.  The other animals knew this; most importantly, the wolves, who were the powerful protectors of the earth knew this.  Even they who didn't like many of the other animals—believing themselves foremost in Gaea's (Mother Earth's) eyes—knew the Ravens were important to protect the world from the evil and corruption of—uh, well—of the evil serpents, who were winding their way around the earth, slowly infecting it."

            "They the bad guys?"

            "Yes, Cammy, the snakes are the bad guys."

            She held the HK416 rifle ready.  As she moved past the last of the trees, she was convinced that on this unholiest of nights there would be no sentinels, no sentries about.  After another cursory ocular exploration, she moved into the mouth of the cave.

            "The ravens were great friends of the wolves.  You see, they could fly where the wolves could not, another step and another, foot before foot, never once making a single sound, the only thoughts on her mind were that of complete antipathy and of avenging the evil that had so egregiously disrupted all that she had ever known and had so maliciously mocked her mere existence, and many had a gift called the voice of the mimic: they could repeat conversations they heard with the exact voices in which they were originally spoken.  Some even had such a good memory that they could recall such conversations exactly, word for word."

            Cameron giggled.

            "Yeah," her father said, tickling her gently. "Yeah."  She laughed again.  "These ravens were the spies of the warrior wolves and they were paid well for their services, always doing the heroic acts which made victory over those bad guys possible."

            "Yea!"

            "Uh-huh," he whispered as Cameron leaned her head into his chest, feeling his soft sweater against her pale skin, inhaling the mix of deodorant and cologne that she knew only as her father's smell.  He held her slightly more gingerly, but no less lovingly.  He kissed her forehead softly, gently, and whispered a prayer to his gods that they would watch over his daughter in her pregnant state.

            She could smell their dank perversion as if it had a smell of its own; with all she had seen and experienced she knew well the smell of evil.  No one thing person group thought or idea had the handle on evil and corruption as well as the they: those known as they—those known as the Death Dancers—and she had long sworn to see to their extermination as longs as she saw fit to draw breath.

            Softly, the blonde woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties, cradled the baby in her arms, amazed at how quiet it was.  The mother examined the child’s soft skin, her tiny strands of black hair, sparse on her almost-bald head; her lips and nose and eyes, all so small.  And those eyes—those jet black eyes which she had never seen the likes of, but loved so much if for no other reason than that they belonged to her daughter.

            The cradle stood next to her, empty, its vacant stare and the woman's own enervation telling her that it was past time to return the child there and allow it to sleep again; yet, she could not set it—her—down.  Her left arm cradled Cameron and the other played gently over her, holding her fingers out for the newborn to grasp with its own minuscule hands.  She tickled the baby's diminutive feet with a laugh, a humorless laugh that was beyond any explicable feeling, one that erased the hours she sat there, holding the baby beyond consciousness and beyond her own only to be wakened by her husband hours later.

            "My turn, my turn!" his daughter yelled, stomping frustratedly by the side of the swings, frowning at another classmate.  The boy stuck his tongue out at her.  She put her hands on her hips, angry.  Looking around, she spotted the slide, unused surprise and ran to it, climbed up the stairs, looked down from the top, smirked at the boy, and slid down.  As she did, arms up in joy, the boy suddenly fear jumped off the swing and ran towards the slide.  Hands in the darkness pulling dragging muffling no!  She beat him around to the ladder and looked at him.

            "Let me go down," he whined.

            "After me, then we can share," Cameron replied, turning and climbing upwards.  The boy agreed without so much as a single voice of dissent.

            In the shadows beyond the fence that separated the street from the playground, her father watched, ignoring the other children and torn ripped beaten pushed down, stripped, beaten intimidated cursed dark fear no no!! their teachers, his eyes only on his daughter.  She has won, he thinks.  She did not fight him or get angry, she used her brain and worked around her initial impulses.  She will make a good  tears flowing integrated rivers as blood flows penetration pain held down forced repeated emotions sowed and naught but pain reaped of mind soul and body nooooo!!! one of us.

            She plays on, ignorant of the duty of the Wereravens.  If only she could know the wonders her life will later hold, he thought.  No end degradation intimidation persevering evil brought by none but this man yet she is the one becoming mad straining every muscle in her weak body to fight the potence of malice only she can't too thin and frail only more pain and tears and pain and more blood goddamn him and it and all the unholy world stop the indignity and pain please please!!!!

            Hats fly through the air and smiles roll amongst the crowd: interwoven with cheers and hugs yet standing in the crowd she stands alone because what could such graduation mean when she'd already become an adult unwillingly; they all have families and friends and colleges and grades and drinking and good fucking to look to; all have something more and less arduous than her own studies and training.  While the rest cheered, she cried.  When they came to hold her, she hid her pain and held them emptily, feigning the emotions they felt, poorly acting the part she had to, and, in the end, walking away: not yet able to deal with her fate, though desperately desiring only to meet and destroy it.

            Through the aphotic ambiance, Cameron continued to soar, no longer struggling to find peace amongst the crowded city of thoughts sprawling below her mind's eye; once she anticipated the nighttime lights of the South Side as if they were harbingers of hope for her own torn life, as if somewhere within the golden orbs of luminescence, the shining answers of truth and justice could be found, and a solace of sorts would be doled out where due.  Yet those answers never appeared except through the tribulations and tragedies of her life that culminated in the future present-now.

            As she flew above the city in her raven-form, she mingled her timeless recollections in streams of consciousness, floating in and out of different realities all of which converged upon the single moment that she replayed them.  They all played out penultimate to the moments when she passed judgment and saw them for what they were and not for what she had felt then through the bias of instant adjudication and emotion that was and is inevitable.

            She remembers the surprise on their faces when they see her.  What surprises them more, the very presence of her in the Death Dancers' inner sanctum or that she does so on the unholiest of holidays?  Or is it the malice on her face?  Do they think that she will walk the spiral with them?

            "You are not a warrior, Cammy."

            "No, father, you are not a warrior.  I will be!"

            "Our people are spies and messengers, Cameron. We change and fly and report what we see. That is who we are. "

            "Then do not count me as one of you!  I will fight like any werewolf and better!"

            "No, Cammy. You're no loup garou!  You don't know what you're saying.  You're just angry that—"

            "Don't you even dare say that, father!"  Unheeded, tears streamed down her face, accenting the seething anger that leaked through her pained visage. "Don't even mention that!"

            "Why?"

            "What the hell is—"

            "Watch your mouth!"

            "Why do you think, dad?"

            "You're not dealing with it.  You're not seeing it with perspective."

            She approaches them, a walk of confidence in her stride and they perceive thus:  what wereraven would walk alone into their sanctuary with only a few small, mundane weapons?  Their long ears and hairy black fur stand on end, a deep rumbling in their throats.  Although the grimness of black eternity may be all that awaits her at the end of her temporal string, prudence disappears in the lust for vengeance and the supposed ghosts it will put to rest in her throbbing, pulsing, mad head which has been eaten and eaten and eaten and eaten by tragedy beyond what any normal person should ever have the haplessness to befall yet which we all do.

            "Goddammit," Cameron said, striking her father in the chest repeatedly, "I need to deal with it!  I'm goddamn trying to deal with this."

            He grasped her wrists in his hands, stopping her barrage.  "Let time deal with it, let us help you deal with it.  Your solution is that of an impassioned youth.  Yes, wronged, but misguided."

            "No," she said, as he took her into his arms. "This has to be the way."

            "There's no way any of you will leave here alive."

            "No.  No."

            "Funny, we were just thinking the same thing."

            "Father, I am going to be a warrior.  I will never be caught so weak again."

            She pulls the HK416 around to fire. "You'll all burn in your hells long before I even ever begin to feel sorry."

            "Please, just consider my—our—way, and give it time."

            "Oh daddy," she looked up at him, an apologetic look on her face.  "I'll try.  I'll try, but it's so hard.  It's so hard, and it hurts so much, so much."

            Cameron's jaw drops, as does her mother's.  Her mother holds her tight as the doctor shakes his head consolingly, laying his hand on her shoulder, which she immediately if rudely slaps away.  The mother reaches out to the doctor, explaining.  The doctor doesn't know what to do and only tells her that he will be available for counseling if need be.

            The hurt so temporarily forgotten, only to surface in the haunting reoccurring nightmares and when she sees one of them not her father reemerge and flashes of violence pain and violation strike her like physical blows she cannot escape, curses fly to her mouth and escape on fallen angels' wings, as the warrior in her suffers again and suddenly the stars under which she had prayed for so long to relieve the torture and torment which she could not escape spell out in an obvious fashion the truth she had always indeed known and had only denied herself surreptitiously, surfeit with illusions of tradition and forgetting the nature of entropy that breaks down and decays from one point of view, while polymorphing and reinforcing from the other.

            Cameron holds her stomach, sicker than ever before, stupefied by the stagnation of the loom for its choice of her fate and then and only then swears stoutly that all the misery and blackness that has been brought into her life will in months to follow be purged and the plague that suffers her shall become a gift of the gods into again the family, properly used and tempered by her as she was by nature, thus preventing the tragedy that so far was her life.

            Slimmer and trimmer than ever, Cameron rounded the corner at a healthy trot, sweat trimming her brow: her hair falling behind her, bouncing with each step, fluttering in the wind.  Her breasts, held tight by a sports bra, jostled only the slightest as her other extremities pumped back and forth in stride through the moonlit neighborhood on a late night jog: immersed in the memory of the lips of another, a smile on her lips, she savors it, sliding through the membranes of her mind, content with the promises yet to come.

            Endeavoring to hold back the new pounding of her heart and the heavy breathing, pretending it relates only to her run, Cameron tries not to jump too far ahead beyond those said promises which even in themselves have not come but were only in her head so much as she wished she had heard them; the kisses and caresses were enough for now, enough to finally carom her to a different place from whence she began so wrong.

            Aroused as she was by the cold wind running over her, dreams floating through her head, she had almost forgot the time and how tired she actually was, how when with him she had lost all concept of time and had bathed herself in such a radiant glow to him that it had become infectious to her reality too, and she had found herself actually possessing the energy that she had originally only fronted.  She realized now that she was rather weak and weary; and, as she saw her own home, shadows of doubt rippled through her brain, though she wondered why.

            Had she seen it or not?  Everything appeared to be in order.  Gazing at the house—still a block away—she stopped her gamboling and entered instead a gallop without knowing for what reason she did; consciously there was nothing wrong, nothing had happened, or maybe nothing had; perhaps it was her imagination.  The merriment that had moments ago inundated her thoughts returned.  Yes, there was nothing there.  If she had seen it, she would have remembered.

            She stopped her run which she had just realized that she didn't even remember that she had begun in full swing, and came to a walk, again content to enter the reverie of happy thoughts that pervaded her reality up until the moment that she had thought she had seen something.  He was such a nice boy—or should she say young man; it didn't matter—she had quite a crush on him and if he didn't feel the same way she would be shocked.  And more than that—

            The door was open.

            She couldn't ever remember the door being left open at this time of night.

            Cameron looked around, as if whatever she had thought she had seen so scarcely seconds ago would still be lurking around waiting to either unleash further harm or to relish in her discovery of the harm already done; after nervously looking over both shoulders, she conceded that nothing was there.  Cautiously, she stepped in through the doorway, hearing nothing: not a sound not a creak nor a peep out of the house or from anyone inside.

            "Mom?"  Cameron said.  Nothing.  No reply.  Nothing.  She stepped further through the entryway into the living room, making her way through the dark as one accustomed to moving through that room unaided by light, having subconsciously memorized the exact layout of all the furniture, walls, and steps.

            "Dad?"  Still, there was no answer. 

            She wished for any uncertain rustling: a creak of the floor, the screams of the dying, or any other sound rather than the fantastic horror of absolute silence where one's body was tensed not so much as from the lack of noise itself, but from the expectancy of it; each second becoming more and more tense as if afraid that she would miss that resultant sound, only the tenseness was given no reprieve as she heard nothing.  What insanity, Cameron wondered, was she inflicting on herself unnecessarily—how often had she had snuck into the house in an identical fashion, blessing the silence which carried her safe to bed, undetected by her parents.  What made this any different from any other night?  She did not know.  More nothing in the kitchen, dining room, and bathroom.  Yet, this was not abnormal; it was late, too late for anyone to be about.

            Cameron headed up the stairs, still looking sensing begging for something awry to justify her tension—getting only the relief of hearing the stairs creak once then twice, which only served the momentary appeasement of the broken silence and did nothing to soothe either the new silence nor her profound feeling of wrongness.

            At the top of the stairs her heart stopped and she thought she would die when she saw a single, blood-spackled finger; one solitary, detached finger.  No no no her heart moaned, breathing prayers to gods to prevent what she knew in her deepest wells of souls had already happened and she feared she could never endure.  Holding her hand to her mouth she leaped off of the stairs toward her parents' bedroom, as if leaping away from the forebodant finger: as if she could escape it.

            Her hand still at her mouth, she stifled another yelp as she found another finger leading the way to her parents’ bedroom; she did her best to ignore it and the small streaks of wetness stubbornly forcing their way down her cheeks.  She slipped on another one and let out a short scream, holding her hands out to stabilize herself.  She was barely able to breathe, no no, two more and an arm, a thin, petite one—no no no don't do this gods please no—the door, painted with blood she opened only to find a scene beyond her own nightmares (fierce as they were), no no; Camerons dropped to her knees to curse all that had ever been given to her because she would give it all to prevent the sight, the carnage was too much.  She turned, ignoring the torn legs, the other arm, the mutilated torso, and the head, laid on the bed gently, a look of excruciating agony on the once-pretty face as if it had been the last thing to have been removed.  She held her stomach trying desperately not to physically manifest the revulsion her soul had been force-fed (that she and it had rejected wholeheartedly);  she turned, rejecting it all entirely not able to cope with the existing terror, no gods gods gods gods gods gods, gods.  Too forcibly, comparable memories flooded back to the defilement and derangement she had already undergone, the transformation and only acceptable truth of reality as she had never known before.  Why why why why stop stop—good enough, bitch, you like that you fucking whore and now spit—no no no no—tearing pulling tugging but now from inside what did he do what did he do?  My mouth burning tearing tugging, by eyes, by arms my legs, god what is happening—what the hell am I becoming?

            He stands paralyzed, uncontrollably fearing what his mind cannot possibly accept.  Black feathers erupt as if they were under her outer epidermis and have just for the first time broken free, like a newborn child from the womb.  Her legs lose their soft pink tone and become hard, black, bird-like; claws protrude from her hands and the pain of virginal transformation tears through her like then but now it is a wondrous pain, diluted under the crescent moon only by the mistaken correlation drawn between the two losses of innocence, an incestuous allusion at best: a hard, sharp beak extends from what was a face of blood and tears, and the change emerges and her mind already out of control rebels and rage reigns as she lunges forward—the victim inversed and vice versa. And now more blood.

            Twelve burning candles, eleven boys and girls, and her.  They are all singing and smiling, her mother and father bring forth presents and cards, patting her and hugging her and she loves them as they love her.  The candles are blown out and her mother cuts the cake.  Her father retrieves a gallon of ice cream from the freezer and begins to scoop it out.  The children laugh and rollick, eat and frolic—finished they run, they play; the parents watch, holding hands and the girl turns and runs to her parents giving them a big hug before returning to her friends. 

            "What?"

            Her father tilted his head and looked down at her as he often did, his lips puckering every so slightly. "I said I hope now you'll change your mind about what you want to do with your life."

            Her eyes widened again and she looked away from her father, her head cocking quickly before it darted back and she stared at him, her eyes roaring.  "What makes you think that this changes anything?"

            "It's gone.  What he did to you is—"

            "It?"

            "I mean—"

            "You're calling my baby—"

            "No, I didn't mean that Cammy, and you know that."

            "No, I don't.  I don't know what you mean at all!"

            "Cammy—"

            "I can't believe that you aren't just as mad about this as I am!  I—"

            "It's been nine months Cammy, you have to move on."

            "I—ugh!  I can't even talk to you.  Mom—"

            "Your mother knows nothing of this!"

            "Why not, she's lived with you for almost twenty goddamn—"

            He grabbed the hand she was holding up in the air.  "You watch your mouth, young lady, I'm still your father."

            She jerked her hand away, "I'm not even a lady.  I'm a monster, and you're just trying to make me a nice, quiet, sit-down-and-do-what-I'm-told monster.  Well, fuck that!  I'm gonna fight back.  I'm gonna start training, so the only question is: are you going to help?

            So easy.  It was so easy to remember now; and flying though the buildings and rounding the Sears Building, she had plenty of time and space to do it, to let her mind rewind through time and replay the images in her brain as fresh as when they had first occurred.  So much anger, petulance, and impatience in those days—but of course it was not just the foolishness of youth that had plagued her but also the heinousness of the situations that had pervaded her life—though one and the other were not necessarily indistinguishable, because her reactions tended to be more than just opposite reactions but also internal reactions based on who she was, an aggregate of any number of characteristics that made her her and not just a "natural" reaction to a situational happening.

            Nevertheless, deep into the darkness, peering inwards and not out, there was no more wonder or fear, doubting or dreaming, because she had lived it all already: more perhaps than she deserved, but maybe no more than anyone else; while who she was cast it in a different light than others, it really came down to the same thing only more dramatic and more focused, and that what there was in her horror was an escape to others—life did not make exceptions beyond temporary heavens and led no one to any further bounty, but neither did it make such promises.

            Cameron did not regret what her life had become.  She was not the same as she had been as a teen; she continued to battle, but not with anger, not with rage; she had learned to fight as a dancer, flowing like a river, but striking like a tidal wave, be it with melee weapons,firearms, or her fists.  But never did she revel in the damage done; it was only with regretful acquiescence to what she knew must be done for justice and goodness that she fought.  Whoever else she was or was not, she unquestionably followed that tenet and would more likely disallow the intake of breath into her corporeal self and allow her wings to fold and her fall down to a sudden death than to betray it.  She flew on.

            The door slammed.  Her head snapped up, her tear-soaked hands pushing her up.  She could hear her father's voice, no.  She sprung to her feet and soared through the open doorway, no.  She could hear her father's voice again, no no.  Her feet pattered quickly across the hallway carpet and she leaped down the stairs two or three at a time, no; her heartbeat rocketed and her brain racked for something to say, some way to postpone her nightmarish reality from being true: as if her father's acceptance was what made it real and that if she let him know then there was no going back.

            She ran headlong into him, her stained face and ruffled hair all but telling her father that some tragedy had fallen into his lap as suddenly as she herself had.  He held her head softly and gently asked what it was that had upset her so.

            Nos and don't moves were all he got, and she couldn't say anymore.  His eyes lingered on the stairway, which she had just descended so harrowingly; he suddenly realized how late it was and wondered exactly what it was that his daughter was doing still up, what she would be so upset about; he also wondered why her mother wasn't—slowly, but innocently, he asked she tapped her big stomach gently and rubbed it, smiling.  Her mother smiled back, her arm over her daughter's shoulders, assenting that she too had never wanted to see her grandchild to be sired so, but nonetheless proud that her daughter had made the decision to keep it even though the place it came from was where is your mother—What—Your mother—No no no no.  Tears and more tears; she could feel him stiffen:  no don't leave, please—he pushed her away, first softly, then less so; he climbed the stairs, she tried to stop him, he bounded away from her, finally seeing the first finger at the top of the stairs.  His head followed the gruesome trail, his head sinking and his knees beginning to lose strength, he put his hand on the railing to support himself.

            Cameron was happy doing what she was; she much preferred to offer the greatest insult to such said malevolence under which she had conceived simply by letting it come into the world under her gentle No.  They were his words they were hers, they were indistinguishable, the two were one as he forced himself to go on, into the bedroom, while she collapsed again.  Mother, mother was the only thought on her lips: her god was dead.

            Her mother sat next to her, sipping coffee; husband and father had been long gone to them both so they endured until he would return—it was business.  They understood.  Of course both wondered if the new baby screams of pain not understanding cursing moaning woe would be like her mother and its grandfather someday or would the new child share only the grandmother's weaker blood.  Cameron reached out, softly putting her hand on her mother's forearm, as she slowly sipped on the water in front over her, looked over the cup directly into her mother's warm gaze.  He ran out of the room torture and torment painted across his face and her constrained to swallow it all; she took it in as only tears came to mind between the physical urges to vomit and her father stormed away and out.  Even if her father did not understand, her mother did, and she was grateful for that; she had gone through enough as it was:  the pain, the haunting memories, the stinging nightmares that left her snapping upward drenched in sweat, her heart beating too fast; she was ready to move on and not let that beat her, not let the rape—him—beat her, but rather have the baby as her own and not as a spawn of what was: he was gone and dead and with him so would in time the negativity that she hoped would last no longer than the curiously fading dreams from her mind.

            As the silver tracers of death found their destiny and the allergies of the unholy dealt final death to these black monsters they fell back only meters from where their strong muscles had propelled them moments before and black oozing blood both splattered and gurgled out from their hole-riddled bodies, both torn and pierced.  He returns.  Although by sheer number they mount closer and closer, their stench beginning to burn her olfactory sense, she drops the HK416—no good anymore—and draws the SIG P250 from her waist, firing and finishing them with spears of equal strength, only coming slower, but still imbued with born weakness exploitation and she now dodging the closing blows of evil from these corrupted wolves The rage and madness is out of his eyes, but the pain is not: it is written across his brow, his lips, and his facial muscles, all of which spell out the grief which only mirrored her own.  She kicks and punches, dropping the last shards of death that she possesses between blows and then finally stops and stands facing the final rush as they surround her at last, waiting pausing savoring what slaughter is next; there are too many of them and not enough of her and they know that she knows it.

            He tells her that he went to the wolves, the loup garou, to seek vengeance; but, that they replied that their balance of power with the Death Dancers, by whom the deed could only have been done, is too tenuous.  He guides her to her bed and tells her that there is only one more thing to do and she must go to bed now.

            She pulls her last weapon, her first weapon, her favorite: the katana.  She pulls it slowly out of the sheath and it makes a sound that is metal scraping on metal: softly, but they all hear it.  The Death Dancers smile darkly, their protruding fangs clenched together to present their sharpness and bitterness over what shall surely be a victory for these evil wolves only with heavy casualties which is all that she has to console her.

            In her room, they find it ransacked and revulsion strikes them both and she looks at her father; she realizes that he is more scared than her but she doesn't understand it until she comes to understand what it was that has him so.  He diverts her to the guest room as she pleads for him to let her go with him and gently too gently he says no and she has no choice but to obey and sleep.

            She holds his hand and smiles innocently she squeezes it lightly and he returns the touch; she skips her step ever so slightly and no one can see but her and she likes it and its her secret and she wishes that he liked her she thinks he does but how can she know there's no way to know for sure he's so cute, she stops and he smiles and kisses her then and her heart soars with excitement and flies and loops and loops and she feels as if she will never fall with these emotional wings to propel her and she wonders how she is supposed to kiss and she's quickly nervous and hopes she's doing it right but he's smiling and that's good right?  She does it again and again is this how you do it is he feeling the same, it's so confusing but happy and oh my God boys are so amazing and I can't believe I used to be nervous about this and them the changes of school so many now, junior high, well, it doesn't matter; I'm older and boys and boys and kisses how do the movie TV people do it with tongue I think don't know how I'm so happy he's still kissing me now and how can so many thoughts go through your head while you're doing so much, and, oh my gods it feels so good all over though how is that my body is tingly and excitement jumping up and down and back but I'm not but I feel like it, heart is racing his hands touching mine oh my gods oh my gods, we're so close and it feels so good I don't know why it feels like this and is this right, I'm not doing something bad am I, daddy doesn't like want oh who cares this can't be wrong everyone does; do I have to stop what if someone sees us I'd be so embarrassed maybe I should try using my tongue I don't know what would he let me okay oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods he opened his mouth too he let me he let me It's my birthday, such a useless birthday, but my birthday I should go wake dad up—she climbed out of bed this feels so right so good is this right oh my gods I'm so nervous: palms sweating, does he notice does he feel so tingly so excited oh my gods at least I'm not a teenager anymore—she opens the door to wake him up: "Wake up" nothing could possibly be better than this if only I'd opened myself up earlier, it's so weird my mouth is so wet is that his saliva or mine oh my gods what if he thinks it's all mine and it's gross would he think—don't care don't, just feel the moment feel it enjoy it yes yes enjoy what I can.

            "Wake uh-up."  She has a smirk on her face as she steps into his room, he stares at her and she smiles about to speak when the empty gaze of her father speaks to her and she stops scared that the past is doomed to repeat.  She runs forward and pulls the sheet off of her father.  His body lies laid out, his head, his arms, his legs, and even his penis, all detached forcibly from his body:  the under sheets stained in blood and only the top cover to deceive her; the stench of death ravages her and she screams and drops to her knees crying again as she swore she never would damning everything that she can think of and lamenting, misery overtaking all mentionable reality, the flow of water is unstoppable as she wonders as she has wondered every year for the last four, as all innocence has been stripped from her forcibly by horror upon horror and all she can ask is all anyone can ask without every hoping to receive an answer even though in these times she dares demand one:  why?

            She walks alone, wandering through a maze of people, the surreal atmosphere choking her and the tears of the blood red moon blind her to the reality that her life has become and the macabre.

            Cameron circles, stopping over an inner city park; she circles lower and higher, oscillating in altitude over the same spot, unable to simply hover; below, mother and daughter prance around the playground, the child running into her mother's arms—the Raven sees the father standing not so far away, a grin on his face and happiness beyond seeing their play apparent.  The city is dark and hopeless and in such a world she often feels lost, though the irony is clear, for in memories it is often the ill ones that stand out and she like others dooms herself to a kind of suffering with such remembrance, yet, it often takes only one good sight to redeem life and relieve the depression which such a dark world will leave her.

            She would land but she does not wish to as here is not where she intends to stop her journey; she simply cannot ignore the glory of the mother and daughter that so many take only as burden and argue the albatross they feel weighing them down; children see parents as making them unhappy, masters who unmercifully bring them down; mother and father sing dirges of her hope that became melancholy burden and forget that sometimes love is not caring or perfection but something that exists to which there is no word for and signifies the appreciation for such said thing which is by nature indescribable and is only condescended by mere words.

            She remembers too much like the wereraven that birthed her and their sires, she remembers it all and sometimes it hurts too much to dare recall the memories; but the horror of it all is that she recalls them with the clear distinct feeling and freshness as if they had just happened: smelling the cologne and remembering the touch or the tingle that it caused to run through her body, or the fear and loathing and rank smell of corrupted wolves intermixed egregiously with the taste of death and a sight that even now makes the body shake and the heart race and fury burn in her heart like the fiery roaring tongues on raging flames of napalm while hatred rears through her soul unforgiving the sins which first incurred this feeling, making it all still real and never allowing it to fade as it burns through the synapses of her brain and thus such meager word that might dare try to describe what to others is nothing ends up in making such words thoughts and stories merely trite to those that hear that read and one can no better explain them than one could the chaos and whimsy of a dream.

            Screams of pain again they hurt she wants them—they hurt I want them these are okay they bring they love She walks.  Fuck this hurts the baby oh gods oh gods everything about that night every fight gone mother holds my hand oh fuck.   The rain falls softly pattering on her overcoat, her legs brush against the long coat, making a soft swishing sound.  Oh God squeeze her hand squeeze her hand why didn't I take more drugs fuck.  She looks up and her eyes squeeze shut as she lets the rain fall onto her face, praying for a cleansing of sorts that she had so desperately hoped would have come from vengeance.  Here it comes he said that he said that fuck him he's not having the fucking baby it's not coming out!  Oh yes it is gods this hurts no sight no smell no taste only my mother's hand the doctor's loud voice, my mother's reassuring voice, and that fucking little monster come the fuck out of my body.  Her hands lost in her pockets, her mind lost in a hazy cloud of confusion; she can't forget but that doesn't make her understand.  She survived everything; she defeated the pain of childhood, she fought wars of vengeance and brought death to those that deserved it, spurned those that hadn't been there, and made herself the favorite of the god of war—all that she had wanted to be—but where was she but alone and empty?  No one knew her anymore and she didn't know what to do.

            It's out!  It's out!  It's over.  Oh gods, oh gods.  Nothing ever felt so good oh goda.  My mother brushing my hair out of my face let me hold my baby.  Let me hold her.  What?  No no no!

            The rain falls harder and she can smell the wet grass; she leans over and inhales the leaves, the trees, the maple smell, the smell of soft plants that was as indescribable as emotion and she tried to pretend it mattered in lieu of realizing that all she had done had not.  Standing done raging screaming not realizing that the battle was over, adrenaline-justified malice and pure blood pumping hatred induced gratified by victory,  She thought foremost that the vengeance for her parents' death would be gratifying; she had fought against impossible odds and won because she had trained for it—even before her parents deaths—she had been learning and waiting and when her father was no longer there to stop her she unleashed all her righteous fury and anger, wrath of Gaea hand-delivered, blood spilling over her arms in her hair, the sick smell of death, the still pungent odor of their black blood, these most holiest of deaths do cleanse and clear the horrors and spilt blood of damn them yes their souls will rot for all eternity in a never ending spiral of torment such as they momentarily inflicted upon those that brought me into this world as I justly took these miscreant beasts from it; yes yes vengeance is mine, I the avenger have done all that they said could not be done from ages of antogonism, by the loup garou who would not do it: tears of joy and she falls, falls, adrenaline leaving her shaking , thinking yes yes, I did it.

            Cameron stands in the rain, the city no longer haunting to her, but calling in unclear whispers to her, the ballerina of death, unbeatable handmaiden of the reaper: with her hands, with weapons—the power of her wereraven, human-beast form that is her too, though only the raven-bird form does she regularly use.  Yet, who she is and can be or see now or ever, is clouded by a past she does not understand and which she cannot interpret well enough to see where she is headed.

            Her infant mind reels and tries to understand; she tries to imitate she falls she falls.  Her mother holds her hand; her father, lying on the floor looks up at her, smiling and gesturing for her to come to him.  Her mother behind her picks her up again and this time she stands, she walks to her father, not realizing that until she had gotten there that she had done so on her own that she had for the first time walked alone:  she laughs and cries out with happiness as young ones do.  Her father hugs her and holds her and she falls on top of him.  Her mother too puts her hands on her back and spills words of love onto her daughter which she so vividly understands as a life she brought into this world, and looking at her father, both the Nevards understand and smile and hug their daughter and smile at her and love her and know it must last forever.

            Weathering uprising wind gusts, the raven fights to stay steady and so follows the winds, choosing not to combat them, but rather go with them; she takes it up and once again looks at the dreary city below her and wonders if it with all its horrors hidden and mundane was any more terrifying now then on that fateful night in eighteen-seventy-one: at least then you knew the flames of destruction did not lurk so far away.

            Cameron lands on a shady sill, finding a respite on the granite ledge; now she knows and now she sees, not just with her small black eyes but with her entire being—not that old yet but enough so as to have lived too long and seen too much—the trials and juries of childhood and even young adult life having left a curse upon her no matter what the verdict might have been because everyone leaves that time marked and scarred by what has been done and endured and everyone changes and changes again only to find one's self not that far from the child one once was only now the adult knows one is right. 

            She sits and sits and now understands that nothing will go away and raking her claws on the stone below her, making a cacophonous sound, she does not wish it to.  The joy and terror that has been her life is also who she is and for what has eclipsed all else and seemed to overtake her, it is this good and bad and the little things in between too, all together unified and indivisible that she must hold on to as she holds on to her own sanity, because it is the way of the world and she has no choice but to deal with what she has been dealt.  So as she ruffles her feathers and twists her small black head, only the slightest of blue-black tingeing her otherwise fully ink jet black plumage, she looks up and down, watching the city:  the lights the moving cars the walking man or woman, the smell of the smog and the industrial presence, the coolness of the stone sill beneath her and the light touch of the wind on her bill and her wings and her tail and her leathery legs.  The anger is gone and the questions are left alone.  She is at peace because she has come to terms with the bargain laid on the table signed at her birth by fools in bliss, and thus weathers what comes through the yesterdays present in the hopes that on the way to death she can somehow improve the lot of those below.

All Rights Reserved © 12/01/1996