And it seemed that the bird had figured out that much too.
It screamed. The first sound it had made, a raw tearing shriek that came from everywhere at once and set my teeth on edge. And then it stopped playing. It came apart. Not literally. It scattered.
Dozens of black-crimson feathers burst outward from wherever it hung, spinning down through the frozen air, each one edged and humming with a sick corrupted light, and the world in front of me turned into a storm of little falling knives.
I couldn't see. That was the point of it. Vision gone to whirling black, every feather a cut and a distraction both, and somewhere inside the storm the real strike was coming, the beak, the killing line, hidden in the noise. Old me would've swung blind. Old me would've panicked, which was exactly the meal it wanted.
Instead I stopped looking for the bird.
