Raven Song Read online

  Title Page

  Raven Song

  Jennifer Brasington-Crowley

  Copyright

  Raven Song

  Written by Jennifer Brasington-Crowley

  The events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Jennifer Brasington-Crowley

  Published by Balancing Act Design

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission from the publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  PART II

  Stanzie 1

  Stanzie 2

  Stanzie 3

  Stanzie 4

  Stanzie 5

  Stanzie 6

  Stanzie 7

  Stanzie 8

  Stanzie 9

  PART III

  Raven 1

  Raven 2

  Raven 3

  Raven 4

  Raven 5

  Raven 6

  Raven 7

  Raven 8

  Raven 9

  Raven 10

  PART IV

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  EPILOGUE

  5 Years Later

  Liner Notes

  About the Author

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, co-founder of Panthera, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of the world’s endangered cats.

  Dr. Rabinowitz, “The Indiana Jones of Wildlife Protection (TIME Magazine)” was instrumental in creating protected spaces for jaguars, tigers and at-risk cats. He established the first jaguar sanctuary in Belize, as well as the Jaguar Corridor Initiative, connecting jaguars from Mexico to Argentina. He also created the largest tiger reserve, the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, in northern Myanmar.

  He died of cancer on August 5, 2018 at the age of 64.

  PART I

  “California dreaming”

  -The Mamas & The Papas

  Chapter 1

  Stanzie Butler winced, knowing a thin layer of cotton was the only thing that separated her face from the man’s naked buttocks. He was standing in the aisle next to her seat, his crotch at her eye level. His baggy black slacks slung down on his hips, exposing his underpants. She could see them clearly with her crotch-eye view. They were gray boxer shorts with tiny white sailboats.

  He encompassed everything she loathed about air travel: from the medicinal smells and the stopped-up lavatory sink to the seat coverings that harbored countless molecules of ass DNA, but especially the rude, entitled passengers who insisted the rules did not apply to them.

  “Sir,” the irritated flight attendant repeated, “your trousers are in violation of our dress code.”

  “Dress code?” he scoffed. “Which dress code am I violating?”

  “Our guidelines state that you cannot expose any undergarments, and your trousers clearly expose your undergarments.”

  Stanzie buried her face in a paperback and sighed. She could not miss her connection to San Diego.

  “Well then, I’ll just take them off,” the man said.

  “Your trousers?”

  “My undergarments,” he replied with a smirk.

  “Sir, either pull up your pants or I’m going to have to ask you to leave the plane.”

  “I’m not leaving the plane. I paid for this seat and I’m taking it. This is bullshit.”

  Stanzie fiddled with the air vent, trying to keep it from blowing her bangs into her eyes. She turned it off, but another vent blew on her just as violently.

  “It’s our policy,” continued the attendant.

  “Your policy? What, are you trying to keep black kids off your plane? What are you – Aryan Air?”

  Stanzie stirred uneasily. She checked her watch. She could not miss that connecting flight. She had people depending on her to get to the San Diego Zoo in time for the arrival of the addax from the Brookfield Zoo. As one of only a handful of experts in the country on the addax, they needed her there. The animals needed her.

  “Sir,” the flight attendant protested. Her voice indicated she would not be pleasant much longer.

  The man continued. “No, I’ve figured it out. You can’t openly say no black kids allowed, so what’s the next best thing? You find a way to ban a part of their culture.”

  The flight attendant crossed her arms and sighed. “This is ridiculous. I’m calling security.”

  “I’m serious,” the man said, raising his voice. “You find a commonality among the clientele you don’t want on board. When your outrageous ticket prices don’t keep them away, you look for something else. In this case, it’s the fashion statement of the teenage blacks - low hanging pants. You make it a policy. So instead of saying no blacks allowed, you say no saggy pants allowed, which we all know is just another way of saying the same thing.”

  “Are you finished?”

  “Oh, I haven’t even started.”

  “Excuse me,” Stanzie interjected, standing up, now face to face with the man. She recognized him immediately: Raven Xerces, notorious lead singer for Black Talons, known as much for his off-stage shenanigans as for his stage performance. She knew she had to stop this now or it would escalate beyond control; there would be no chance at catching her connection. She grabbed his upper arm and yanked him roughly toward her. “Take my belt,” she hissed in his ear.

  “What?” He looked at her, incredulous.

  “I am not going to miss my connection because of you,” she said between clenched teeth. “Pull up your damned pants so we can get going. Take my belt.”

  He looked down at her body, her waist in particular. He was thin, some would say slight for a man. She was athletic, not skinny at all. In fact, they were practically the same size. He wasn’t but an inch or two taller than her either, probably topping out at five feet ten.

  “I don’t know,” he said, scratching his shaggy black hair.

  “Just do it,” she hissed, untying the multi-colored woven belt she had strung through the belt loops of her khaki cargo pants.

  “I’m making a point here,” he said, gesturing to the flight attendant and raising his voice, “about the ingrained prejudices of this airline. No, wait. Not just the airline, but all facilities who mask their blatant racism through veils of ‘dress codes.’” He made air quotes with his fingers, tipped with chipped black nail polish. “This has got to be exposed.”

  “While I appreciate your quest to rid the world of social injustices, I can’t miss my connection because of it.” She held out the belt. “Write them a strongly worded letter.”

  He took the belt roughly. “Nobody writes letters anymore,” he said, threading the belt through his loops. He hiked up his pants, cinched the belt at his waist and tied the ends in a knot. The orange, red and yellow fabric clashed comically with his otherwise black ensemble.

  He turned to the flight attendant. “Happy?” he asked,
turning around for inspection.

  “Very,” she answered.

  “This isn’t over,” he called as she continued down the aisle. “I’m Tweeting about this, you know. Everyone will know about Aryan Air. Can I Tweet from an airplane?” he asked Stanzie.

  Stanzie rolled her eyes. “Just find your seat,” she said, pretending to go back to her book.

  He looked down at her. “You’re in my seat,” he said.

  Stanzie scoffed, pulled up her boarding pass on her phone. “I am not in your – oh,” she added sheepishly and scooted over to the window.

  “If you prefer the aisle, I don’t mind,” he offered.

  “No thank you,” she answered curtly, then added, “Besides, you can talk to the flight attendant easier this way.”

  He was silent. She thought she had offended him until he suddenly burst out with a laugh. “Shit,” he said, “now I do want to trade seats.”

  “You made your bed,” she said. “You’ve got to lie in it now.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You sound like a grandma.” He stashed his black duffle bag under the seat in front of him, adjusted the seat all the way back, and turned back to Stanzie. “I’m Raven, by the way.” He extended his hand.

  I know, Stanzie thought to herself. Of course she knew him. She had been alive for the past thirty-five years, hadn’t she? Nearly everyone in her generation knew of Raven Xerces and his hard rock band Black Talons.

  She smiled a fake smile. “Stanzie,” she said and shook his hand.

  “Stanzie? What kind of name is that?”

  “Quoth the Raven,” she quipped.

  “Touché. Seriously though, it’s a weird name.”

  She grimaced. “She was Mozart’s wife,” she said defensively. “My parents were classical musicians. What’s your excuse? Your parents ornithologists?”

  “Yeah,” he lied. “Anyway, thanks for the belt.”

  “I want that back as soon as we land, got it?”

  “Yeah, of course. Hey, sorry I almost delayed the flight.”

  “Sorry? I thought you were on a mission to right the world of social injustice.”

  He shrugged. “I was just fucking with her. Sorry.”

  “You should be,” she said under her breath, and made a huge production of opening her book to the correct page and pretending to read again. She really just wanted to get moving. It was bad enough she had flight anxiety no matter where she travelled, but having only an hour to spare to make her connecting flight for what promised to be the most important trip of her career upped the ante and practically made her crawl out of her skin.

  Raven took off his black combat boots and stuffed them under the seat with his duffle, his big toe sticking out through a hole in an army green sock. He rummaged through the pockets of his black denim jacket and pulled out a pair of earbuds, which he stuck in his ears one by one. He placed a black sleep mask on his forehead like a headband and cleared his throat loudly.

  Stanzie could not fight the urge to look over at him, at this larger than life rock star who had plastered the tabloids for years. She always knew he had piercing green eyes like a cat, but never noticed the light brown freckles that dotted his face. He must have them airbrushed out of photos or covered with makeup, she thought. After all, he normally did wear heavy black eyeliner, so it would not be unheard of for him to wear concealer. The freckles softened him, made him look more like a kid and less like the 38-year-old rocker that he was.

  She sighed, shifted in her seat and turned her back to him. He knocked her arm with his elbow. She shifted further away. He hit her again deliberately.

  “What?” she asked angrily.

  “Want some?” he asked, extending a black leather flask.

  Stanzie scoffed. “No thank you.”

  “Come on, loosen up. You seem tense.”

  “I wonder why,” she replied sarcastically. “If you made me miss my connection, I will hunt you down.”

  “I said I was sorry, god. Have a drink. It will calm you down.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, taking a swig. “But it will be here if you need it.” He stashed the flask in the seat back pocket, pulled the sleep mask down over his eyes and folded his arms over his chest.

  The flight attendants performed their final walk-thru, checking the overhead bins, and strapped themselves into their wall chairs for takeoff.

  This was the time of the flight Stanzie hated the most, when the engine’s roar was deafening, and the sudden pull into space made her stomach lurch. She tried to distract herself from the weightlessness that she felt under her feet as the distance from earth grew further and further. She stared out the window against her better judgment and watched as the city of Chicago became a toy in her view.

  The first tone sounded, alerting the crew that the airplane had reached 10,000 feet, a reminder Stanzie wished she did not know. She shifted in her seat and checked the time. The flight to LAX was four and a half hours, and her connecting flight left in five and a half hours. She would have had just enough wiggle room if Douchebag hadn’t delayed them.

  Chapter 2

  Stanzie looked over out of the corner of her eye. It was surreal, sitting next to Raven Xerces. She had just seen his face on the cover of Guitar World magazine at the airport newsstand, holding his signature Gretsch 7594 Black Falcon by its neck, staring with those wicked green cat eyes into the camera lens. And here he was in the flesh, aggravating the hell out of her.

  She tried to recall what the magazine headline read, but she had only registered that it was his face. His face. By all standards, he was attractive in a scientific way. Symmetrical features, bright eyes, high cheekbones, straight nose. In fact, if it weren’t for his tussled black hair, lip ring and barbell eyebrow piercings, not to mention his dreadful personality, she would find him rather handsome.

  He was not wearing his signature black eyeliner today, could almost have been mistaken for another aging Gen-Xer. His eyes were closed, head against the headrest, mouth open slightly. He could have been asleep or passed out.

  Stanzie put away her decoy book and replaced it with her iPad. She was anxious to get to the San Diego Zoo, and even though she knew she was the top ungulate biologist in the Eastern U.S., she also knew the reputation of the legendary San Diego Zoo and was equally terrified.

  She pulled up the statistics on Henry, the addax she was meeting from Brookfield Zoo. He was three years old, 225 pounds and sexually mature. His offspring would become the most genetically valuable of his species in the country if the breeding was a success. The possibility kept Stanzie’s mind occupied and off of her anxiety over catching her connecting flight in time.

  She had been working on this for years, securing DNA, blood samples and genetic results from addaxes in captivity the world over before she found Henry. She had contacted the Brookfield Zoo and visited him and his keeper staff, plus members of the AZA before finally receiving the permission she needed for Henry to travel to San Diego.

  Henry’s potential mate, Zuri, was captive-born at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and was moved to San Diego two years previously. She was genetically valuable to her species as well, but with an estimation as low as 100 addaxes in the wild, it would be her offspring with Henry that would be so vital to bringing them back from the brink of extinction.

  “Oh, cool, an addax.”

  The sudden voice startled Stanzie, jolting her back to the present. “What?” she responded.

  Raven Xerces peeked one eye out from under his sleep mask and pointed at her iPad. “That’s an addax, right? A white antelope?”

  Stanzie looked from Raven to the screen and back to Raven. “Uh, yeah,” she stuttered. Nobody ever knew what an addax was, her life’s work, her passion. Even her parents, her friends. They always asked why she didn’t work with a “fun” or “popular” or “cute” animal.

  “Why not work with the chimpanzees?” People would ask. “They’re funny.”

&n
bsp; “They’d rip your face off,” she would respond.

  “What about tigers? They’re beautiful.”

  “I like ungulates, hoofed animals,” she would reply.

  The response was always the same, a disappointed shake of the head.

  But this guy? This rude, mouthy, unkempt hooligan knew what an addax was?

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “I know more than just three power chords,” he replied.

  She laughed a little, in spite of herself. “It’s just, most people don’t know about them.”

  “Well, I’m not like most people,” he smiled.

  “Obviously.”

  She knew she was being rude, ruder to him than necessary. Sure, she was angry with him for delaying the plane, but he had apologized more than once, had offered her booze (which she should have accepted) and was being genuinely nice to her. This was not like her. She blamed it on flight anxiety, being short-tempered because she was too nervous to think, to converse, to act like a regular human being. She had even paid a hefty sum to upgrade her seat to first-class to try to deter some of her anxiety. Where was a flight attendant with a glass of bourbon when she needed one?

  As if she had read Stanzie’s thoughts, the flight attendant appeared in the aisle, pulling the large metal drink cart. She smiled pleasantly at Stanzie and handed her a napkin with a snack. Seeing her coming, Raven had slipped on his sleep mask and pretended to sleep.

  “Would you like a drink?” the woman asked. Her demeanor had changed drastically since the altercation with Raven, and she had once again become the charming hostess.

  “Can I get a bourbon and tomato juice?”

  The flight attendant knitted her eyebrows. “Bourbon and tomato juice? Uh, yes, that can be done.” Her smiled retuned. The woman relayed the order to another attendant and moved to the next seats.

  When he was certain the attendant was gone, Raven returned the sleep mask to his forehead. “Bourbon and tomato juice?” he asked.

  Stanzie shrugged. “It’s still morning.”