You cannot honestly expect me to believe that this is for your health, mental or otherwise."

“Billy, please move."

"No."

"Billy, move."

"Not until you talk to your brother --" He stopped when Heda's eyes began to glow. Her Gift was on. She picked him up as easily as if he were a dining room chair, spun around, and put him down on the other side.

"-- about what you're doing," he muttered as Heda climbed onto the windowsill, shifted, and took off into the night sky. He turned and headed back downstairs, muttering unflattering things about bird-shifters in general.

Heda was able to see the neighborhood from a ways off, her sharp eyes able to pierce the darkness with the aid of moon and star Light.

She flew low, looking at the house numbers. Professor Hill's old house was set back a bit from the others, and did not look to be in the best condition. There was a "For Sale" sign out front, and Heda wondered if it had been like that since Hill lived here. The front yard consisted of several acres of wooded area that was going for the overgrown natural look. She did a pass over the back, seeing that the property butted directly up to the woods and mountains.

She perched on the chimney and began to look around. The place was incredibly quiet. That was when Heda realized that she did not hear any birds. No insects. Nothing. There were no animal sounds anywhere on the property.

‘That's not right,’ she thought. She was getting ready to launch again when a large raven landed on the chimney next to her.

Birds were not normally known for their facial expressions, but the black bird was shooting the eagle a look that could kill. If birds could blush, Heda would have. She shifted back to her human form, which was sitting buck-assed naked on a chimney. The raven shifted as well, and Edgar stared over the brick structure at her.

“And you would be doing what?" he asked slowly and acidly.

“Exactly?”

“Looking at potential investment real estate? At eleven o'clock at night?"

"Heda, go back to the house. After you explain why the hell you're here. No, on second thought, go back home, then you can explain -—"

Heda shifted but rather than flying home, she floated to the ground and then shifted back. Ed joined her, after a moment of quick shifting on his own part, and he looked vexed.

"Heda ——"

“Listen, this guy is obsessed with his dead professor. This is where his idol lived, and this is where he died. That gives this place some serious meaning for our boy. I just thought that he might come here."

“So you're master plan was to come here, by yourself, naked, and challenge an insane sorcerer with delusions of being a voodoo priest to . . . what? A game of scrabble, winner take all?"

“It'd be nice. I would totally kick his ass. Ed, do you sense any other animal life around here? Besides us?"

Ed looked like he was going to say something snarky, but then he looked confused, followed shortly thereafter by alarmed.

"No. I don't.”

Heda hurried over and looked in the window of the house. She saw no signs of life in there, and would have been willing to bet that no one had been there in years.

Edgar noticed an exterior cellar door, and when over to check on it.