Two hours later (Friday, April 29, 2022) West 30th Street Heliport, Hudson Yards, New York, United States

Isaac kept pacing. He knew this was faster, but he kept wishing he was in a car driving, then he would feel like he was doing something.

The wind whipped at his clothes. Charlie motioned to him and they approached the platform and boarded the waiting helicopter.

She handed him a headset and he started to strap himself but the helicopter took off and started climbing rapidly.

He slipped on the headset and caught Charlie talking to Jade.

“…pull some favors for this flight permit. Dad will be so pissed. Go faster you idiot!”

The pilot didn’t respond but did start climbing even harder and they felt pressed into their seats.

“Where is she exactly?” Charlie asked.

Isaac didn’t know. He just knew what Peelatchachía told him and he pointed. Peelatchachía said she had done something monstrously stupid and dangerous.

“I called Bahu in the car on the way here,” Jade said. “She didn’t know what happened, but she is going to Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks, that is where they were.”

“Can’t this thing go any faster?” Charlie kicked the seat the pilot was in. Isaac had to calm her down.

Jade was texting on her phone. “No response from Ella.”

Charlie handed Jade her phone. “Text Adra too. He is probably with her and in trouble.” Her voice sounded nervous even though she was yelling over the helicopter.

The flight passed painfully slow. Peelatchachía flew along the helicopter, somehow gliding smoothly outside of it despite the roots overhead.

Isaac brooded. Ella was… well it was complicated he supposed. He liked her a lot, but when Peelatchachía had come in and said she was in trouble, he had immediately called Charlie and started to head to rent a car and head upstate. Without hesitation.

The miles passed by, and Isaac stared out the windows at nothing. The pilot finally spoke, “We are here. Looks like there is a fire.”

“Must be her. Let’s go.”

The helicopter flew onwards to a plume of smoke in the air and they arrived to see park rangers and firefighters trying to put a blaze out, some log cabin had been set ablaze. Park police were also there and had cordoned off areas.

“They are radioing up to see what we are doing here,” the pilot reported.

“Tell them we are…” Charlie thought, “tourists on a scenic ride. Snd we saw the smoke.”

“What about your friend?”

Charlie took a deep breath, “What did my father say when he hired you?”

“Do whatever you say, ma’am.”

“Then do it.”

The pilot radioed down and then they flew off a bit and landed in another clearing south of the first one. They moved away from the helicopter.

“What do we do now?” Isaac asked.

“We try and find Ella. That whole thing reeked of the kind of mess she would get herself into.” Charlie’s face was determined. Her voice almost flat. Jade looked at her friend and saw a stranger at that moment.

They started walking, following Peelatchachía. They didn’t have weaponry except the one handgun Jade had handed them, so they didn’t bother hiding, just strolling as if hiking or out for a walk. Which they ruined by periodically calling out for Ella.

“Hello.”

A figure came out from behind a tree, limping. Davcina made her way to Isaac and Charlie.

“Who are you? How did you get here?”

“Hey Davcina, you look like shit,” Charlie said brightly emerging from behind Isaac. And it was true. Davcina had blood stains down one leg where she had been shot, a makeshift tourniquet from her now missing sleeve. She was covered in dirt. She was using a rifle to walk with. And her face was tracked with tears.

“Yeah… well.” She said, “it’s been a kind of a shitty day.” Even that moment of levity cost her. She was trembling.

Charlie wanted to ask about Adra but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to hear the answer, but Isaac had no compunction.

“Where is Ella? What happened?”

Charlie looked at Davcina and held out her hand to Isaac. She walked forward slowly and hugged Davcina. Who dropped the gun and then hugged her back.

“They came from the west. One platoon of soldiers. Tauthe and I were on patrol. We jumped two of them and got their guns and shot several others.

“And then they got Tauthe. She was right next to me. We were going to warn the others, and she… she peeked her head out, and then she was on the ground and there was blood everywhere.”

Charlie held her longer. “The others? Where are they?”

“Adra and Zaidu were at the cabin. Where the smoke is coming from. I don’t know.”

“Ella is that way,” Isaac pointed in the direction Peelatchachía had told him, the direction the smoke was climbing into the sky. “Maybe a mile or so.”

“I can walk a mile.”

“No. You can’t.” Jade said. And then she did the thing she didn’t want to do, but the right thing. “I’ll help you back to the helicopter. Isaac, Charlie, you go on ahead.”

Isaac nodded. Davcina didn’t protest, she knew it was the right move. Davcina fumbled at her waste and handed the handgun to Jade to hold and gave the rifle to Charlie who shrugged. She didn’t know anything about guns.

Jade let Davcina lean on her shoulder and started walking her back.

Isaac and Charlie went on, following Peelatchachía’s cues. They got closer and closer and heard a yell, “Not one step.”

“Adra?” Charlie yelled.

“Charlie?”

The reunion involved no military decorum as they ran to one another and started kissing.

“I have Ella here, but she is in bad shape.”

“We saw Davcina, but nobody else. She is hurt.”

Adras face fell. “I think Tauthe and Etana are dead. Not sure about Zaidu.”

“Let’s get Ella. We can get her treatment and look for the others.”

They walked behind the brush and saw Ella. Her clothes were charred and smelled of ash. Her face was blistered and her hands were raw and weeping. She was taking short, rapid breaths.

“Ah shit.” Charlie said.

They looked at the partially finished litter Adra had made: strips of wood lashed together with fabric. Isaac got to work finding additional wood to finish it and cutting his shirt into pieces to further reinforce the litter.

They gently eased Ella onto the makeshift litter, and Adra and Isaac picked up each side gingerly and started carrying her. They brought her to the helicopter in the clearing and loaded her in. Charlie and Isaac had to stay on the ground to make room for Jade, Adra, Davcina and the prone Ella.

“Get her to a hospital.” Charlie told the pilot, “Now!” The helicopter took off as soon as they managed to strap everyone in.

“Well shit. I don’t have enough signal.” Charlie said looking at her phone.

“Let’s find out what happened up there and see if we can find this Zaidu guy.” Isaac suggested. They began the long walk to the column of smoke.

Adirondacks, Tupper Lake, New York, United States

Charlie said, “I can’t go out there. Look at how I am dressed.”

Isaac finally paid attention. He had been wearing his wrangler jeans and a flannel shirt that was now gone. But Charlie had raced from work and had on an ivory silk blouse and grey woolen pants. And her emergency pink ballet flats.

“What do we tell them?” Isaac nodded to the clearing where the police, firefighters, and others were. Charlie looked at him and then at the clearing.

“Shit.” She rolled up her wool pant legs to make them look like baggy shorts. Then undid her top a bit. She kicked off her ballet slippers.

“We were fucking and someone stole our stuff. We saw the smoke and came out here to get help.”

“That’s your idea of a cover story?”

“It’s all I got…”

“No. Just no. We were swimming and someone stole our stuff.”

A few hours later Upstate University Hospital, Syracuse, New York, United States

The ICU was a cacophony of beeps from monitors, doctors and visitors.

Bahu looked at Eleanor. She had stopped breathing on the way here and Jade had been giving her CPR in the helicopter. Now she was intubated, alive, but barely. Her skin was sloughing off in places and her eyelids had almost burnt off. The doctors were changing her wraps and applying antibiotics.

The doctors had let her in without much fuss. They said she would probably not make it. That she had burned from the inside out.

What had happened? Where was Zaidu?

Adra and Davcina were finished up, Davcina had been shot and roosted to the hospital it was a hunting incident. Bahu knew she should go over there and get a debrief, but she was…. she was scared to leave Inanna Reborn. Their savior was here, ready to fulfill prophecy, and she was dying.

Bahu fell to her knees by the bed. To pray for what? To whom? She would have prayed to The-Bastard-Utu if she thought it would help.

She still prayed, deeply. So deeply she didn’t hear the commotion outside until a woman burst through the curtains.

“Eesha!” A very beautiful, middle-aged Indian woman jumped, not to the bed, but to the chart the resident was writing in and shoved him aside, flipping through it rapidly.

Bahu continued to pray.

A Caucasian man, equally as handsome as the woman, and if about the same age, walked in and went to the bed and kneeled next to Bahu to hold Eleanor’s wrapped hand gently.

The parents, part of Bahu’s mind registered, but she continued to pray.

“You. I am Dr. Jindal-Witten. I want the attending now.” The woman’s voice was so tense. Close to breaking.

She stepped away from the bed and started talking to the attending physician in a curt, quiet voice, Bahu could not make out what she was saying.

The man, Eleanor’s father, just held Eleanor’s hand, “Oh my dear. What happened to you,” he whispered. She could hear him weeping.

Eleanor’s mother came in and finally registered Bahu and said, “Who are you?” She sounded angry now.

Bahu stood up and adjusted her uniform. She had been wearing it for hours since she had left the base.

“I’m Major Khouri of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I… I am Eleanor’s friend.” Bahu did not know what to say.

“Defense Intelligence Agency? What is that? Why do you know Eesha? Is this your fault?” Her mothers voice was almost raw with tightness and sudden anger.

“Eleanor was caught in a fire. I came right up.”

A nurse interrupted, “You can’t all be in here.” Far too experienced to be cowed by Eleanor’s mother, he shuffled Bahu and Ella’s mother off, the father being the only one to stay.

They were sent to the waiting room where Charlie and Isaac were sitting. Charlie’s eyes were red form crying. Isaac was pacing the room.

Eleanor’s mother looked at Bahu in her still crisp military uniform, Charlie in a dirty work pantsuit with blood on it, and Isaac who was in dirty jeans and a black T-shirt. She didn’t say anything, just crossed her arms and waited.

Bahu stood at parade rest. She was thousands of years old and no woman, no matter how impressive, and Eleanor’s mom was already quite impressive, would phase her.

Charlie and Isaac though shuffled and squirmed. Before they could say anything, Bahu took the narrative.

“Eleanor was camping with some friends. There was a fire, and she was burnt. I don’t think some of her friends made it.” And that was a blow for the Aqrabuamelu. To lose any of their last crèche was a horror. And Blessed Innana. Utu would pay for this.

“And you two?”

Charlie looked up, her face had tears pouring down it. “I came up as soon as I could. We took… we took a helicopter and I had it fly Ella here.”

Eleanors mother took it in with impressive countenance, “A helicopter?”

Bahu collected the witnesses in Davcina’s hospital room. Davcina had a look at that Bahu knew too well, that of your first lost comrade. It didn’t matter.

“Report!” Bahu barked at Davcina.

“A hostile platoon came from due west of the cabin. Tauthe and I ambushed two of them, and took their weapons. We engaged in a firefight as a delaying action. We were about to make a tactical withdrawal to the cabin when she was shot and killed. I escaped south and was shot in the leg by pursuing hostiles. The other hostiles continued east.” Davina motioned to Jade, Charlie, and Isaac. “These three had arrived via helicopter approximately three hours later, and had the helicopter evac both Ella and I here.”

“Adra?”

“Sir, I was at the cabin with Zaidu when Ella came at us at a sprint. She reported a platoon of fifteen to twenty combatants due west and approaching the cabin. We collected the weapons and Zaidu rigged the cabin to explode. We set an ambush, Ella and I north of the cabin and Zaidu south.”

Adra paused.

“Hostiles were identified as US private contractors. One squad was killed by the house explosion. We engaged with the other two squads in a firefight.”

“Ella approached the enemy using the burning house as cover. She cast some sort of spell that killed most of the enemy. I eliminated the remaining two and retrieved Ella. She was heavily burnt, perhaps from the house.”

Jade who had been sitting there, jumped in, “Bahu… Isaac said she burned herself using magic.”

“Who?”

Jade pointed at Isaac who was talking to himself in a corner of the room.

“And what do you know about Eleanor, Mister…”

“Isaac, Isaac Black Wolf ma’am. I… have a spirit bird that tells me things.”

“A spirit bird?”

“Yes ma’am. It tells me the three of you are bugs?” And Isaac looked at his shoulder and started talking to thin air, “What do you mean scorpions? Like the thing you said about Charlie earlier?” They started bickering although the others could only hear one side.

Bahu just lifted one eyebrow.

“Miss Bahu,” Charlie said, “Isaac told me and Jade what happened. I chartered a helicopter to fly us out where we found Davcina and Ella. Is it true? Are Tauthe and Etana dead?”

“I think Tauthe is, Davcina saw it. No idea about Etana.”

The Aqrabuamelu solder guarding the door gave a sharp rap before poking his head in. “Major, Dr. Jindal-Witten is asking to see you.”

“Let her in.”

Eleanor’s mother looked more strung out but holding herself together with a tight control.

“Who are these people? Why was this one,” pointing to Davcina, “shot at the same time. Why is my Eesha,” and at this her eyes tightened in anger, “dying?”

“Dr. Jindal-Witten, I am still finding out what happened to Eleanor. There is nobody in the whole world that wants to know what happened more than me. Nobody.” Bahu’s voice was bitter. Her people were dead. This would find out who did this and torture them to the ends of their creativity.

“Who are all of you? How does she know you?” the voice was new, and Bahu looked past Eleanor’s mother to see her father there. “Navneet, sit down.” The father was openly crying.

Bahu did another introduction and they sat down. Isaac looked uncomfortable.

“We came as soon as we could,” Isaac said lamely, knowing it wasn’t enough.

“Something doesn’t add up here,” Ella’s mother said. “How did you know Eesha was in trouble?”

Isaac and Charlie didn’t know how to answer that and looked uncomfortable, almost guilty.

Ella’s father saved them. Henry Jindal-Witten looked at them all and quietly said, “I am glad Eesha has such wonderful friends.”

And even bitter as she was, Bahu felt herself soften to the parents grieving for their child. She had seen her children die in lives both short and long. How could she not?