He couldn’t see her well, not back in the shadows like this. If he could pick out the shape of a griffin, he probably just thought it was Cooper, who was still out of commission.
Not, in other words, a healthy, barely hurt, newly fledged lynx-falcon griffin eager to stretch her wings and flex her talons.
Cooper saw the direction of her gaze. He didn’t hesitate. All he did was grin, as if he knew exactly what she was feeling.
“Go get him.”
Gretchen launched herself into the air, her wings slicing furiously through the sky. Phil could have bested her on sheer size and muscle, and he had more experience on his side, but he was no match for the exhilaration and passionate anger coursing through her blood. He couldn’t be. He hadn’t expected this moment before today, and one way or the other, she’d been waiting for it her whole life.
She collided with him in midair, raking her talons across his scaly hide.
He let out a shrill shriek and puffed a little more weak flame at her—it was a pale yellow that almost seemed to dribble out of his mouth like water. It didn’t even hurt.
She thrashed against him, snapping at him with her beak, driving him to ground. He was going to have this confrontation with them whether he liked it or not, and he was going to talk to Cooper man-to-man. He couldn’t hide anymore—not behind his supposed grave and not behind his dragon. He was going to have to stand there and look at Cooper and explain himself.
Phil fought her, but there was no real contest there. Her strength was new and unbridled, and his was mostly spent.
He crashed against the rock with a last flurry of his leathery wings, beating up a cloud of dust that hung in the air like a glittering veil. It was just another illusion, Gretchen thought, another barrier Cooper’s team had thrown up between them and the truth.
And as far as distractions went, it wasn’t even Phil’s best work.
Gretchen opened her mouth—her beak—and let out a screeching, ear-splitting cry. It might not have been as satisfying as a lion’s roar, but it was just as effective. The dragon winced back. It looked like it was trying to tuck its skinny shoulders up around its ears.
Good. If he hated hearing her shriek at him so much, he could just turn human again. Facing the music had to be better than facing her griffin’s battle cry.
He must have understood that too, because slowly—agonizingly slowly—his body shrank. It was like he was withering away. All the crimson strength of his dragon bled out, leaving only pasty human skin behind.
It was Phil Locke.
It was one thing to know it had to be Phil and another thing to actually see it. Now that they were face-to-face, she remembered him from all the news coverage. The press had been particularly fond of using one very flattering photo of him, one where he had a warm, friendly look on his face. I’m a nice guy, the look had said. You can trust me.
He’d probably been thinking about murder at the time. Or money. Or both.
In contrast, the photos of Cooper had been notably terrible, and Gretchen suspected it had taken some time and effort for them to dig them up. Then again, his team had probably been happy to supply them to anyone who asked—or even anyone who didn’t.
Right now, Phil’s warmth and friendliness weren’t exactly evident.
To be fair, she had just finished pummeling him midair and dashing him against a mountainside. To be even more fair, she didn’t want to be fair to him at all. He had an ugly soul, and she liked to think that over half a year of relative solitude had made some of that ugliness start to show on his face. He wore a twisted sneer, and he looked straight at Cooper without even a hint of shame.
Gretchen wished she could have spent more time throttling him. She shifted back too, just so she could give him what she knew was a death glare.
Cooper had been slumped over a little with pain, but he straightened up now as he came out of the shadows of the crevasse. His gaze was clear and direct.
“Phil,” he said. “Long time, no see. I was starting to think you were dead.”
“You’re not going to get away with this,” Phil said.
“With what?” Gretchen threw in incredulously. “With telling the truth?”
He tossed that ugly sneer her way. “How did it work out for him the first time?”
Cooper smoothly stepped in between the two of them, as if, even wounded, he needed to do whatever he could to protect her from Phil. “Not that well, obviously. But I’m hopeful. If you and the team taught me anything, it’s that people can get away with a whole hell of a lot. Faked deaths, frame-ups, hallucinations. Proving my innocence should be a cinch compared to what you guys pulled off. I’m almost impressed.”
“It didn’t have to go down the way it did,” Phil said. Now he sounded almost wistful, but Gretchen suspected it was just a front. Even if he did feel bad, there was no possible way he felt bad enough. Not even close. “We were thinking of bringing you in. But you had to play the hero.”
“I had to do my job.”
“You could have been rich.”