The bird was tired.
As he perched on a rooftop, he breathed a sigh of relief. The trip was over. Yet, the danger was approaching fast. He could feel it in his blood.
He would rest for the night. By day, the battle would have to begin.
Dusty screamed as loud as he could, screamed for help, as he was trapped inside the green marble. The varying shades of green swirled violently around him as he pleaded for help, pleaded for mercy. The interior of the sphere was unrelenting, however, and in the end...
He woke up.
He sat up in bed, rubbed his forehead, and looked to see what time it was. Only five o'clock in the morning. He groaned, and fell back into his pillow.
The dream had been interrupting Dusty's sleep ever since Annette's run-in with the wooden cat. He knew that the green marble had had nothing to do with that incident, but his subconscious obviously thought otherwise. To add to the problem, Alex continued to report more and more appearances of the number 26, the number that had plagued the boy so much before their battle against the wicker frog.
Despite the incidences occurring elsewhere, Dusty himself had not been bothered by any sort of bizarre circumstances, other than the disturbing dream. He knew, however, that that had to change. With that thought, he pushed himself out of bed, knowing he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep now, and prepared to take a jog.
It had been almost three months since they had all been together, running after an orange, and perhaps saving the lawyer population; a sort of double-edged victory that one.
Yet one man had died that time, and the situation had to be explained to city officials because of that. It had never happened that way before. Dusty had always managed to keep it a private battle, but this time he had failed, and it cost a human life. That fact had haunted him more than the dreams had. The move to Redding made it easier to cope, but by only a small amount.
Now he had to deal with the absence of his friends.
As he returned from his jog, he noticed a small bird staring at him rather intensely from his roof. When he looked more carefully at it, he came to a horrible realization.
It was the mockingbird.
"What are you doing here?!" He yelled at it.
"Trying to save your ass, for all it's worth." The bird replied.
Dusty chose to ignore the comment. "How are you still able to talk, anyway?"
The bird fluttered down and perched on Dusty's shoulder, putting a wing on his ear. "Oh, Dusty. Do you actually believe that pouring a pot of coffee over me would stop the effect of tequila? All it did was cease my drive for liquor, and without that, I'm no longer a threat."
"Just an annoyance."
The bird tilted its head. "Haven't changed a bit, have you?"
Dusty grabbed the avian off of his shoulder. "What did you mean when you said 'trying to save your ass'?"
"Just that. Actually, save both of our asses." Its voice seemed more serious now.
"Why would our asses need saving?" Dusty asked. "Did you upset a tequila worm?"
The bird rolled its eyes. "No, that's not what it is, moron." It managed to wrestle free of Dusty's grip. "There's a Stellar's jay coming this way who has swallowed a piece of that green marble you've been playing with lately."
Dusty's eyes widened. "A piece of the marble?"
"Yeah, after you ran over that orange, that marble shattered everywhere. Surprised you didn't get a splinter yourself."
"Wait, how do you know about any of this?"
"I followed you guys around. Most interesting conversations I've ever heard take place between you and your friends." The bird replied, then held its beak open slightly in what Dusty assumed was the avian equivalent of a grin. "I spotted the jay eating that shard of marble, and followed her and Annette to Seattle. She found out that I was tailing her, and she almost pecked me out of this world. Needless to say, I got my ass outta there."
"So she's following you now?"
The bird looked over its shoulder and ruffled its feathers. "Yeah, she knew where I was going. That damn marble controls her, and it wants a piece of you boy."
"Great." Dusty murmured while leaning against his door.
"Yeah. It's great." The bird, once named Jose by Dusty, suddenly rattled its wings wildly. "It's here!"
Sure enough, another avian flew in and perched on a narrow tree branch. "So here you are, twirp." It paused. "The both of you."
"What kind of powers does it have?" Dusty whispered to Jose.
"I have powers beyond anything you have encountered thus far." The jay replied.
"An acute sense of hearing." Jose stated after the fact.
Dusty rolled his eyes, and took a step closer to the tree that the bird currently occupied. "So, you want to kill me, eh?"
"As you have done to me twice before."
"Ah, but you did not die, per se. Your host died. The marble lives on."
The jay hopped down a couple of branches. "Let us not get into philosophy. All you need to know is that I am here, and you are going to have to defend yourself. And well."
The two stared at each other for a moment, but Dusty could read nothing from the bird's blank expression.
"Bring it on." Said Jose, who leapt into the air and flew toward the jay. It quickly responded by dodging and landing a little bit further down the branch. Jose, unheeded, flew directly into the trunk of the tree.
"My quarrel is not with you, fellow avian." Said the jay. "I will ignore this recent display of hostility if you resign now."
Jose, shaking his head to clear it, replied: "Not a chance in hell."
The jay nodded. "That is unfortunate. Now I must kill the both of you."
"And how do you plan to do that?" Jose asked. "You haven't done anything but make idle threats so far."
Dusty smiled. "Yeah, maybe you're all squawk and no peck."
Jose erupted into laughter. "That was pretty good, Sparky!"
The jay flashed them both a hateful look. "You do not think I can kill you?"
Jose and Dusty shook their heads. "I don't even think you can use a contraction." Jose remarked in addition.
"I don't think that sliver of marble is powerful enough to let you kill us. And it's probably being digested as we speak." Dusty crossed his arms across his chest.
The bird blinked, as the comment hit home.
The momentary confusion caused Jose to fly headlong into the jay, knocking it off of its perch, and the two falling to the ground, scrabbling all the way down. Upon impact, they separated, stared each other down, and rammed into each other again, wings spread in displays of avian machoism.
As Dusty looked on, helpless and rather intrigued, the two birds, still fighting, flew into the air several feet, and fell to the ground again. This process was repeated until the jay landed a stunning, but not immobilizing blow to Jose's head, allowing it to break away from him.
"You fight well." It announced, obviously not pleased about the fact.
"You fight dirty." Said Jose, rubbing the side of his head from the last blow.
The jay lifted off of the ground. "I will have to kill you later. Now, I must attend to more pressing matters." It dove toward Dusty.
Jose sped to intercept, neck extended, beak aimed at the jay's belly. "Prepare to attend to those matters in hell!" His angle was correct, and he managed to impale the jay just before it hit Dusty. The two birds went down in a tangle of feathers again.
Jose pulled his beak out of the jay's abdomen, hoping that he had exposed the piece of marble. He had not, and the jay landed a painful shot to his stomach with its talon. Jose winced in agony, and staggered back a couple of inches, but knew that he was not hurt as badly as was the jay. He drove forward again, clawing at one of the jay's wings. It squawked its increasing discomfort, and knocked Jose off with its other wing. As Jose hit the ground, the jay rose into the air, and started a dive, talons extended, that would have left a good size hole where Jose's throat had been...had a powerful stream of water not blindsided the jay before it got a foot from him.
As the gasping bird fell to earth, drenched, Jose looked up to see Dusty standing with garden hose in hand, ready to thwart the jay again.
"How very damn timely of you." Jose picked himself up, and dusted himself off.
The jay could not move, although it was desperately trying to, its wounds and its wetness wreaking havoc with how it wanted to function. Jose propped a leg on its chest. "Say uncle!" He commanded victoriously.
Instead, the bird began coughing furiously, and two small specks of the green marble shot out and disintegrated before they hit the ground. The jay had been exorcised.
"Is it dead?" Dusty inquired, dropping the hose and drawing closer.
Jose felt for a heartbeat with the tip of his wing. "Barely. If you want it to live, I'd get it to a vet."
"Yeah, you're right."
"Remember, I said 'If'."
Dusty ran in to the house, retrieved a towel, bundled up the jay, and proceeded to the veterinarian. Jose watched the proceedings with tired eyes, and when Dusty was gone, flew into an open window of his house, falling asleep perched on a showerhead.
Jose heard the jingle of keys hitting a counter, and woke, finding himself hanging upside down from the showerhead. A moment of panic set in, and it was only the frantic flapping of his wings that saved him from falling headfirst into the bathtub.
After gathering his wits about him, he screamed for Dusty to let him out of the bathroom, pounding on the door half-heartedly with one of his wings. Dusty responded quickly, and the mockingbird was free.
"Thanks." Jose said as Dusty closed the door behind him. "How's the jay?"
"Resting comfortably," Dusty replied with a smirk. "I've asked the vet to release it after it recovers."
Jose bobbed his head in approval. "So you've had to deal with this crap four times now, haven't you?"
"Yes." Dusty replied grudgingly. "Pretty unfortunate, huh?"
"I'll say. If I were you, I would have gone bonkers by now. Would've started talking to little birds." He looked around. "Oops."
Dusty laughed. "By the way, why are you helping me out? I drowned you in coffee."
Jose shrugged. "You wouldn't let me have that bottle of Guinness."
Dusty's brow lowered. "What? But I thought..."
"We both know it's better from the tap." Jose gave Dusty a meaningful look, and then held is beak open, grin-like.
Dusty chuckled again. "Now that I think about it, if the coffee didn't work on you...then what about Annette's cat...?"
The phone suddenly rang.
Jose barely got out "I wonder who that could be" before he burst into laughter.