When the Crow Calls (The Hooman Saga) / The Hooman Saga (ePub)

Sue had been though a world of pain already.

Surviving re-entry to this planet in a powerless escape pod. Learning to speak with telepathic canines that had become the dominant sentient beings on Earth. Finding she could shape-shift and create very real illusions.

She brought the end to a civil war between their pack and those nearby. Peace on Earth - at least this little part.

By learning only a tiny bit of the special skills she was capable of.

That tiny bit might save the rest of the world as well - if she could learn to master what she didn't know.

One warm summer's night, a messenger brought her to meet a greater being than she thought existed. To learn a secret she could use to get what she most wanted.

All she wanted to do was rescue her family - only 240 thousand miles away - on the moon. First, she again had to solve multiple threatening situations at once...

Excerpt:

The crow landed in the murky-gray mist. On a dead but sturdy branch of a tree she had visited for hundreds of human years.

She cried out to signify her appearance.

At that, the moon seemed to peer through the dark cloud-like substance and give her definition and form, detailing her wing and body feathers with the highlights they would have in sunlight. Only with a cold reflection rather than warm.

How she looked mattered little to the crow. How she flew was more important. Her preening was more to keep her streamlined in flight for speed and maneuvering. 

Even between worlds and time-lines, such things were important.

If one wanted to continue to exist as a messenger, the messages had to go through. You could say she was very good at getting her messages delivered. Hundreds of years worth of proof.

The moon wasn't a moon, but another spirit. As much an elemental as not. 

The crow stood silently, looking at the moon. First with one eye, then the other. 

The gray mist closed over the moon's glow after a while.

The crow flapped her wings once and lept into that mist. Knowing what her message was and where it needed delivering.

The branch of that tree was soon lost to sight as the crow flew on, certain of where she was and where she was going...

- - - -

It was a warmish night, and I couldn't sleep. The air was warm, and the only promise of a cool night was some hours ahead, just before dawn. But it was cooler here than in the den, because at least out here the air moved.

The full moon was bright tonight, and bigger in the sky than I had ever seen it. Almost like daylight, but not the same. For the light had no heat or sharp definition. 

I lay here in my wolf-shape, since my fur was easier to keep clean than that one outfit of a white buckskin dress I'd been given by the pack. 

On a night like this, I would wake and watch the sky for these meteors that the moon colony sent to earth. These reminded me of the family I left behind and one day hoped somehow to rescue. However feeble that hope seemed at times.

The moon's bigger brightness brought many creatures out into the night who normally were only diurnal, or day animals.

Still, I was surprised to see a crow fly in and land on the branch above my head. I sat up on my wolf haunches to look at her. There was something I could not place about her. Was it the gleam of her feathers, or something in her eyes.

So I sat and watched, and waited. I would hear soon enough, I thought.

And at that, the moon seemed to dim, but then I saw everything around me was dimming, growing darker...