by Tiger Gray
"Do what?" Ashrinn asked, calmed by the ritual.
"Pretend we're a normal family," he said, "like we're the kind of people who serve people fucking lemonade."
Ashrinn fumbled the tea cup, put it down just short of dropping it. Thankfully it didn't shatter. "What makes you think we're not a normal family?"
"Never mind, Dad. I shouldn't have said it." Coren grabbed the cup of tea closest to him. He splashed some on his hand and Ashrinn winced. The water wasn't boiling, but it certainly wasn't cool. Coren didn't seem to notice. He disappeared into the living room and Ashrinn watched the space he'd left behind for a long moment.
When Ashrinn found it in him to appear in the living room with the remaining teacups, Coren had gone. Kiriana and Randolph sat opposite one another on the wrap-around couch. She looked up at him and smiled as he made his careful way down the short step into the sunken gathering area. He felt a flash of pride as he managed it without mishap. He smiled back. Nothing strange in her eyes now.
Normal. We can be normal.
"Well," Kiriana said, "I'll leave you two to talk."
She rose and crossed the room to where Ashrinn stood, pausing to kiss him briefly before making her way upstairs. He pressed a tea cup into Randolph's waiting hands. He tried to ignore the way Randolph handled the dish. Surely what healers they did have could do something for arthritis?
"I heard you say someone tried to run you off the road."
"Yes," Ashrinn said, trying to calm down, "Lizbet and I."
"The dryad? Yes, we've got her set up with a place to stay. I think she was trying to tell me about it, but I can barely understand her."
Ashrinn could imagine that with no effort. Lizbet excited, speaking in heavily accented English and mixing in French whenever the mood took her. "I'm guessing Cultists. Their eyes."
"How do they know about you? You've only been a member of the Order for a short time and we've done our best to hide you."
"I've no idea."
"I'll give you and your family what protections I can, but I'm afraid that isn't much at the moment. It makes your team an even bigger priority, though, assuming this hasn't ruined any attempt at secrecy. What kinds of weapons did they have? Did they use any magic?"
"Shock sticks. They might have had some magic to them, I don't know. I was being hit by them at the time, so remembering their exact specifications was not high on my priority list. Guns. If they had anything else they didn't get to use it."
"What became of them?"
"Some of them got away. I had to call the familiar. But remember, I'm still no one to them. An interesting nobody, maybe, but unless I am in a situation where I have to manifest fully I should be able to operate effectively for now. Going to have to change the plates and the paint job on the car, however."
"They didn't draw blood, did they? It's not much of a stretch to think they're doing some kind of blood magic. If they had that kind of hold over you..."
Ashrinn felt something outside himself writhe and mutter. He shut out the voice with all the desperation of a man hiding from enemy soldiers much better armed than him. "What's blood magic?" He didn't like the sound of his own words, breathy and weak.
"It's old magic," Randolph said, sitting back. His eyes slid half closed as he reflected. "The most obvious example being Christ on the cross, with Odin on the tree of knowledge close behind. Whether you take those stories literally or not, they endure for a reason. People believe in the power of blood and sacrifice. The reason the Clockwork Collegium outlaws it for their mages is partly because the Collegium is famously hidebound, but also because its results are rarely predictable."
"What the hell good does it do them, then?"
"They could use it to ensure loyalty, maybe, or power rituals and spells. Or if they're summoning something, it would be required."
"Summoning something?" He wanted to curse, and only not wanting to do so in front of his superior kept him from it. "Like?"
"Their god, I presume. What their god really is, is another matter."
"They certainly had a reaction to my familiar."
"Some kind of serpent spirit wouldn't necessarily surprise me. A demon, maybe, but I doubt they have the strength or the blood to do it. That kind of magic would take specialized knowledge, and the willingness to deal in infernal pacts. Demons usually need a set of very specific criterion to come forth. Maybe being here has something to do with that. The Cult is clustered in cells all over the Pacific Northwest; the leader doesn't have to be in Washington State unless there's some religious reason."
Ashrinn looked into his cup, half expecting its contents to have transformed to sludge. The smell of rose petals and black tea wafted up to him, and the normalcy of it confused as much as it comforted.
"We're going to have to learn more about the particulars, then," Ashrinn said, "find out if we really are dealing with a demon." He didn't bother with feeling surprised. At this point Randolph could have told him that were-poodles existed and he would have believed it.
"So we come to the reason for my visit. Ashrinn, we need your team more than ever, and quickly. You know that." Ashrinn also knew, when Randolph fixed him with that sharp look, that he wouldn't like what his leader had to say next. "There's a werewolf in one of our holding pens. A werewolf who wants to see you."
Ashrinn coughed and pulled the flask from his inner jacket pocket. He poured a healthy measure into his tea before draining the entire cup in two swallows. He set it down and let the warmth in his throat pass before he spoke.
"A werewolf? You mean a horrible eldritch monster with no sense of decency that likes to drive people mad just by looking at them? That kind of werewolf?"
"She claims she is one of the Free Wolfen we sent a recruitment request to."
He hadn't really thought they'd answer, but if misfits were most likely to join up with him it didn't get much more freakish than a werewolf. "You're going to make me do this, aren't you?"
"Considering she just changed, yes. Otherwise I might have to have her shot."
"Look," Ashrinn said, even though he knew his attempt at reason wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. "I can't take just anyone. Lizbet proved herself competent, at least so far, but she doesn't have a drop of military training. That's bad enough, but now you want me to interview a werewolf, presumably so insane you'll have to have her euthanized if I don't take her?"
"I told you that you would get the dregs."
"This is different, dammit. She could shed a lot of innocent blood, and then whose hands are really stained? Mine, for letting her roam around free."
"Just meet her. She's contained." Randolph got that look that Ashrinn had come to associate with his life suddenly becoming more difficult. "Beggars and choosers."
"I hate you sometimes. I hope you're all right with that."
"As long as you get the job done. You can feel however you like about me."
"You can't be serious."
"Love your fellows, Ashrinn."
"I'll have you know I am not very adept at turning the other cheek, either," Ashrinn said through gritted teeth, glaring. Especially since Randolph looked like he was trying not to smirk. Randolph stood and straightened his coat with beringed fingers.
"You wanted a mixed group. It sounds like you've got it. Interview her. What can it hurt?"
Ashrinn thought of what he knew of werewolves and knew it could hurt terribly. He stood and watched Randolph as he made to leave.
"What about Tielhart?" Randolph asked.
Ashrinn thought of Malkai, and that now-familiar mess of mixed emotions began its characteristic slow simmer. "He'll come around."
"Good. Let me know what you decide to do with the werewolf."
Randolph left.
Apparently not even magic powers protect you from being emasculated by your boss.
* * *
"Want to go buy us some lotto tickets?"
Jericho looked over at her partner in the passenger seat, a big black mother
fucker who looked like he could fold even the toughest PCP addict in half. "Man, don't packets of heroin ever pay off."
"Doesn't mean these street niggas know that."
"Shut up, Williams, acting like you ain't street."
"Girl, you know you as street as me with an ass like you got."
She snorted, laughing. Williams had a way of cheering her up even when the beat sucked worse than usual.
"You couldn't handle this ass anyway, motherfucker," She said with nothing but love. "You might be built like a brick shithouse, but I'd still climb you like a tree."
Williams grinned at her but he caught sight of their location and that cut him off. "This is the place. Damned if I know what's going on. I said lotto tickets but the shit I've been hearing about this area doesn't sound like a bunch of heroin addicts."
She parked the unmarked car near some overflowing dumpsters. There wasn't hardly shit around here, just closed store fronts tagged and wrecked. The city block, riddled with alleyways, looked like it had rotted from the inside out.
Like the city has leprosy, she thought as she and Williams waited for shit to go down, always pieces falling off.
"They gonna spot our rotation," Williams said. "This shit is hinky."
"They ain't gonna see the car," she felt it too, though, that sense that something could go bad way too easy. "Slow your roll. You sound like you the one on drugs."
Jericho could wait for a long time. When she was a kid she'd done a lot of waiting, when Mamma had to work at the strip club and couldn't find someone to look after her and her sisters. Williams never had gotten used to it, though, and he fidgeted in his seat.
"There," he said after what had to have been a solid hour, "you see that?"
She leaned forward and peered out the windshield. A dark shape, turning to go down an alley. Something just wasn't right about the way the guy moved.
"Yeah. What the fuck?"
"That's what I'm saying."
"It's where we're supposed to be. Not going to ruin all that fucking vice work because the nigga looks like Frankenstein."
She got out before Williams could argue with her. He hadn't seen the shit she had, working this lead. She'd never seen addicts feen so bad for their poison. Not even crack heads, and that was saying some real shit right there. She couldn't shake the feeling, then or now, that there was something wrong with their eyes. The way they stared right through her, the way they were the wrong color, somehow. And the fucking crazy talk.
But it didn't sound all crazy. Sounded like a language.
She shook her head. She didn't have time for that right now. She heard the click of the car door as Williams got out to cover her, and she made sure her piece was loose in its holster. She didn't like drawing it. Too easy for a cop around here to get an itchy trigger finger, and nothing good ever came of that, but this time that deformed figure made it so not having it in her hand felt way too vulnerable.
The alleyway stunk like piss, but she couldn't say that smell didn't crawl up her nose at least once a day. Hardly bothered her now. The oily, greenish sheen on the concrete did, though. Dread and instinct played her spine like a cheap xylophone. One of the shadows broke away from the others obscuring the back of the alley, came towards her.
She pulled her gun and for a moment her and the shape faced off. Where the fuck was Williams? she wondered, though the rapidly-eroding rational part of her brain told her about his heavy footfalls at the mouth of the alleyway.
"What the fuck are you?
"You want my gift, human?" the thing hissed. A hammering headache started right between her eyes and the world swam out of focus. Fuck, its voice. She couldn't stand it. She tried to make her hand work, tried to pull the trigger, because all her worries about shooting someone who didn't deserve it had evaporated like the piss under her feet would when the sun hit it in the morning.
"Stay away. Stay away!"
It lunged. Not human at all. Its eyes. Holy shit, its eyes. It all happened in seconds but in her mind it slowed down like the fucking Matrix, except she wasn't no chosen one and there was no way in hell she was getting away from the thing barreling towards her. It leapt, changed shape, it fucking changed shape, and when it hit she felt its claws like a set of white hot kitchen knives, ripping her open.
She stumbled back, disbelief shielding her from the soul-burning pain she knew she was in, and fell into William's arms. The thing shot past her, big like a mastiff. She could hear Williams shouting, cursing, and it turned into something else, a language that crawled into her and squeezed her brain in a red hand.
Then, thank god, nothing.
CHAPTER TEN
~This so-called Redeemer will not help you.~
Jericho groaned and turned on her side away from the door, as though the voice belonged to someone standing outside her cage rather than in her head. The floor wasn't any better against the other hip. Maybe she ought to be more thankful for those voices; they represented minds who had somehow kept her from falling into the rushing whirlpool of whatever the fuck it was. Like crazy, if crazy had a color and a shape.
~That is what awaits you, if you do not join us.~
The memory of that twisted up dog-thing in the alley wouldn't leave her alone, but these new voices wouldn't shut the fuck up either. She wondered if this wasn't how going insane felt, then what in hell would it have been like to get eaten by the shit they'd pulled her out of. Maybe she should have been happy about it but she wasn't. Fuck sharing her head with a bunch of pushy strangers.
She snarled at the presence. The one talking to her right now seemed like the leader, a woman named Brenna. The murmuring chorus always in the back of her mind whispered agreement; she'd guessed right.
Ugh.
She got to all fours just in time to be sick. Brenna's mind, as bright as a star, never wavered.
~Do you want this? The sickness? We rescued you from the worst for now, but if you do not come to us we can't help you further and it will destroy you..~
~Fuck. You.~
She crouched there like an animal and shook with weakness.
Like an animal.
The thought made her want to puke again, but there wasn't nothing left in there. She collapsed and this time the cold stone felt good. Damn sure had a fever.
~You're not an animal. You're a werewolf. A Wolfen. A Free Wolfen, if you listen to reason.~
~What? So you can take me to some bullshit underground cavern like in a bad comic book? You gonna tell me that thing was radioactive and I can shoot webs? Fuck you. I don't want you. I don't want any of this. I can see your thoughts, too. I know you live in some kind of permanent acid trip and I don't want to sit around singing on the sharing circle like a Charles Manson groupie for the rest of my life.~
~You will go mad.~
~Then you better teach me how not to.~
~Not if you do not join the hive mind.~
~Yeah? That what you want, you shaggy bitch? Some crazy ass Wolfen with no idea how to control herself out on the street?~
~What makes you think this Redeemer won't put you down, if you act like a rabid animal?~
~He might. But you don't want that, huh?~
The other minds howled and moaned. She smiled. Brenna stayed quiet for a long time.
~No.~
~Yeah, that's right. There aren't a lot of you, huh? Most of your people be crazy.~
She didn't bother whitening up her talk for this woman. No way was Brenna going to get her professional face.
~Yes.~
Jericho felt a sting of unexpected regret. Brenna's loneliness and defeat cut at her, if only because she could read them so easy now. That gave her back some of her anger. She could only do that because these mangy mutts had burrowed into her head.
~Then you better show me how to control it. Before this guy shows.~
Jericho felt Brenna's defeat before her mindvoice confirmed it.
~Your form is no longer fixed. Watch...~
* * *
&nb
sp; Ashrinn could feel the corruption long before he got to the holding cell. He worried that even the spells and guards that kept mundanes out of their part of the Underground wouldn't hide that. He felt curiously devoid of fear, however, as he passed by the paladins at the door and entered the cellblock. The same sense of being cocooned, shielded from terror, that he used to enjoy before a battle had come to ease him as much as it could.
The smell of vomit hit him, jarring him as though he'd jumped from a precipice and misjudged the distance to the ground. He fought his answering gag reflex and scanned the cages. Nothing, save for the one in the middle. His mood changed in an instant, from numb with false calm to incensed. He could feel the gaze of the guards, two men standing at attention in the shadows by the door. He turned to them. Each held an M-14 and each had a stony expression, betrayed by the shade of fear clinging to them.
"We're not going to shoot her yet," Ashrinn said. "Have you given her water, at least, if she can't keep down food?"
"I'm not putting my hand in there!"
The one on the right. Ashrinn turned his unwavering gaze on the young man, and he thought he recognized a regulation buzz cut, the hairstyle that made all military men look vaguely like they belonged in the same family photograph. One of the adherents from Ft. Lewis?
"How long have you been with this Order?"
The other boy stayed silent, to his credit.
"Two months," the first boy said.
"Then I'll have you know that this isn't the kind of place we run." A groan of pain from the cage at his back made Ashrinn close his eyes for a moment, trying to deal with his anger. "She might be a prisoner, but even if we have to kill her in the end, we're not going to deprive and torment her. Bring. Water."
The kid at least moved his ass. Ashrinn went to the cage door, trying not to betray his own nervousness with faltering footfalls. Some kind soul had at least dimmed the lights all the way to nothing; if the woman had a fever, darkness would be a mercy.
He could see her, though, turned on her side. Just her outline at first, then a few details emerging from the sea of shadows. Pulled back in a tail, at least her hair was still clean. He couldn't say that for the rest of her. Her clothes didn't look like they belonged to her, either, pants too loose, shirt too tight.
