I brought only my backpack up to the room. I’d sorted through things in the caravan and Jeep last night with others coming and going.
I had plenty of extra: papers and books from home to look through. But everything had been beating at me from inside: words of the others, of Jason’s tone and Jed’s inability to defend himself with anything that made sense against attempted murder charges. Of Andrew pounding on Jason’s face like a gangster movie and myself scrubbing the carpet until Zar took the bottle and rags from me to finish.
I’d sat out there in the camper for half an hour, reading snatches in the notebooks, trying to think of something else. Everything was numb over hurt. Pain and numb. Fear and numb. Grief and numb. I didn’t know who to talk to, what I’d have said, what to do to help—them or me or anyone.
The word “druid” had caught my eye and I read notes I’d made as a pre-teen when my mom was still alive and teaching me. Large druidic community in Missouri, of all places. And Colorado—more understandable. I almost smiled. Full circle? Well … I was good at leading people in circles.
I flipped more pages. Some scry notes there. Nothing about magical attacks. More about fringe magic communities.
Stone circles and history, vampires and druids, wild mages and reanimated faie… Where did it all come together?
She’d been lonely, my mother. I hadn’t understood that then. Not until I’d grown up myself and realized how lonely, how painfully isolating and damaging being a witch could be. Strengthening my resolve not to be one.
She’d traveled sometimes just to connect with caster communities beyond fringe magic. A weekend workshop in Texas, a conference in Seattle or New York. That was the biggest. That had been the last. She used to go most years. That year, when I was thirteen, she’d promised that the next one we could go together. I was growing up and she wanted me to meet these people: learn from them, understand this other side beyond simply that she and I were witches and there were a few casters in Kansas City.
Next year. Then the train wreck: the out of the blue, almost unprecedented derailment of a train in Upstate New York, and she was gone. Never came home. Never went to another. I’d never gone. My friend Skye had, and invited me.
It was each fall—huge, a worldwide event. There would be people there who had known my mom and grandmother. There would be that other world waiting to embrace me. But I wouldn’t go with Skye and Marc, or anyone else.
Even Melanie had been to New York City, working a summer internship there, where she’d met Henry—who was there for a work travel. I never had.
Cost of the whole trip aside, I wouldn’t go because I didn’t want that world. I didn’t want those memories. I just wanted to be a normal woman with a normal teaching job and a family.
Until this.
Magic had separated me from my peers in school, been the reason for the death of my mother, prompted Nana to whisk me from my home, father, and sister, leaving Melanie and I to finish growing up states apart—her with no idea why, me not wanting the gift I was given. I hadn’t needed magic. I hadn’t asked for it. I’d needed my mother.
For the first time in a long time, I’d known again as I sat in that trailer that I needed her. That I needed someone to sit with me and say, When this happens in life, here’s what you do. When everyone you know and love is turning upside down and the rug is gone from under your feet and you can’t breathe and no one is bringing a raft, here’s what you do.
Zar and Andrew had been waiting for me since it was a walk back to the house. I couldn’t even sit and meditate and ask for my guides to help me. And I wouldn’t have the space for it at the house. So I’d finished gathering what I wanted, zipped up the blue duffel bag, warded the place again, and returned with them.
Andrew had needed to change, heal his head and maybe spend the night in fur. Jason already had changed, curling up with Kage upstairs.
Madison had gone to bed. Isaac was on the couch with Storm and the TV on. All else quiet until I started for the stairs and heard scratching at the back door.
It turned out Jed had also changed to fur for the night and was out there with his wool ball. I opened the door to let him in, but he retreated in the dark with only the hall light beyond the kitchen and a couple of neighboring outside lights revealing his dark bulk. His tail was up and waving, his ears pricked, mouthing the ball and tossing his head, backing away from me.
I’d only stared at him from the doorway, Zar coming up to see what was wrong.
When I did not rush at the opportunity for shared happiness, Jed must have decided I didn’t understand. He brought the ball to my feet and set it down on the threshold before prancing backward, ready for the throw, still wagging his tail.
Finally I said, “Are you serious?”
He cocked his head, tail slowly sinking.
“This is fur? That was skin?” I asked quietly. “That’s what you think? Carry on like normal no matter what you do in another form?”
His tail was hanging straight down by then. He only watched me.
“I’ve seen a lot of nastiness from you. But that does not have to be you, Jed. You’re better than that. I know it because I’ve also seen kindness and love and openness from you. What you did to Isaac… I’m sorry. We’ll have to talk another time.”
Jed’s head lifted sharply at Isaac’s name, startled.
“What? I’m not referring to tonight—not you and Jason and Kage. I’m in no position to assign blame or hold grudges about that. I have no idea what all happened between you—although I’ll go out on a limb and say all three are partly to blame. That’s not what I’m upset about. Everyone has their own personal hot buttons that get under their skin. I guess this is one of mine. Which is to say seeing someone you love turn on someone else you love and publicly out and attack him based on gossip. For no earthly reason besides fear and suspicion. Attacking someone, in fact, who is part of your communal family. Someone who once stood up to your entire pack to save your life. Right?” I lifted my hands. “I’m sorry. I’m probably overreacting. I just … had higher expectations from you. Thank you for staying and looking after Kage. I’m sorry we have to leave.” I flicked the ball back to him with my foot.
Jed picked it up.
As I left, Zar stepped out—maybe would have thrown the ball for him. Jed turned his back on his brother and walked off into the dark of the far end of the yard.
I didn’t want him sunk back into his own anger, his self-loathing and the negativity he had about himself. Yet I didn’t have the emotional power to help anyone—including myself—right then.
A long time later, Isaac or Zar had let Jed in because he was lying at the foot of the daybed in the morning, the ball beside him, chin between his paws. There he had remained while we all got up with the early alarm and prepared to leave.
And there he’d also remained without even a roll of his eyes while Zar and I had said goodbye.
Now I had only my backpack, new coat, change of clothes, toiletries, phone, small purse, not much else. Well, there were the four wolves. And the little miracle.
Still no morning sickness. That was something. How about the rest of those feelings? Pain and numb. Grief and numb.
I hadn’t had a doubt before. Not about them when it came to this pregnancy. For the past forty-eight hours now it seemed endless doubts and pain tinged the numbing effects of having to go on and get something done and push through no matter what.
I wished I’d thrown the ball for Jed last night. First, I wished we’d been able to talk—two-way street—and he’d apologized to Isaac, and everyone else had started talking to Isaac again. Then, I wished I’d thrown the ball.
At the same time, I knew that thinking so much about Jed and Isaac was a defense mechanism to not think about Jason.
My arm still hurt, though my head seemed better, the arm already improving. I used my right hand some, at least. As long as I kept the arm still it wasn’t bad. Of course, this was because I continued taking meds for i
t. All part of the needed numbing.
Zar was distressed about our hotel rooms being so far apart. They needed to be with me, and so on. I warded the two rooms with all the energy I could muster—a feeble thing to start and leaving my headache returned and my knees almost shaking.
We had to go straight out to 77 Rue du Raccourci, find it, see what we were up against, so no respite after the warding.
The address had been so clear, and it even came up on maps, I couldn’t believe it was really the answer. Most likely, it would be a false lead: scry for them and see this instead. But was it? Were the wild mages so confident that they simply didn’t care? That they didn’t ward their doors at all?
Pondering these questions while we walked in the now dark but illuminated city to the Seine helped with grounding. At least we were back at work. Even if we didn’t feel like the same people we had been three days ago.
It was a confusing walk to the D911 bridge, then over this amidst heavy traffic that must be the end of rush hour, with compact cars and buses rumbling past, motorcycles roaring between them, and, yes, tobacco as well as exhaust fumes in the air. The Seine didn’t smell all that wonderful either.
This was not classic Paris. Rather an outlying district, feeling international, though hard to get a good impression of any new place at night, fatigued, and now this headache. For the first time since we’d left the Lake District at the crack of dawn, I was glad to be with all four of my tense companions.
There was some sort of park to our left—the pet cemetery according to my map, though I didn’t see any headstones. We turned left, along Quai du Dr Dervaux, had to wait a very long time for a light to cross four lanes, and finally made our way to Rue du Raccourci. We wandered around the residential side street, getting a sense of the area, came out at Square Marechal Joffre, a large, walled park, then started back, beginning to look at numbers.
That name, Joffre, distracted me as I tried to place it. I’d read it before. School books. Reading about Paris? France? History? Something to look up later.
77 Rue du Raccourci, Asnières-sur-Seine, Paris, was a battered, old corner terraced building of four stories and as much charm as a cardboard box. The whole row of old homes needed at least a lick of paint. Not that it seemed to be a bad neighborhood. They were big places, probably cost a fortune—near transit, restaurants, three or four parks. But it wasn’t exactly the glamorous wild mage image either.
What it looked like was exactly the sort of place I’d tell someone to find me if I didn’t want to be found in this city.
“This can’t be right,” I said under my breath as we stopped before it, gazing as one to the rusted, lopsided 77 dangling off the black door.
“Not what you saw in the scry?” Zar asked.
“No, it’s exactly what I saw. That’s part of the problem.” I shook my head and trotted up the three concrete steps to the door.
“Wait, Cass, what—?”
I thumped on the iron knocker: boom, boom, echoing inside and away through what must be a large foyer.
“Cassia—” Also alarmed, Isaac followed, taking my good shoulder to get me to step back. It had been a while since he’d touched me.
“Should we have had a … plan or something?” Andrew asked.
“It’s fine,” I said, already turning, walking back past Isaac and Zar. “They’re not here.”
“You saw something else?” Zar asked.
“It’s just ridiculous, isn’t it? Look at the place. I knew it was off when I got the image at all, but we had to come looking. Now that I see it…” I sighed again. “They’ll have their real headquarters—if they even have such a thing here—blocked and warded and some trigger image being sent out from it to show this place if someone scries for them.”
“But you’ve protected yourself against scry feeds,” Zar said.
“I don’t think it would matter here. Cart before the horse. If there are really wild mages here their magic is far more powerful than mine. It’s nothing personal, no intention of feeding me something. It’s just that they could have planted an image in the world and I went looking for it and saw it. The trouble is…” I looked around from the sidewalk, back to Isaac still at the door now three steps up. “What do we do about it? This isn’t much but it’s also our only lead. Hear anything? Anyone coming to the door?”
Isaac shook his head.
“I wish Stefan would call back. If we can get in touch with any caster in this city, they might be able to help.”
“Or they might be murdering bastards,” Andrew said. “Deaths in France and the Czech Republic? We don’t know how big this is. We can’t keep going around asking for help when the one thing we do know is that casters have to be involved to make the reavers.”
“And the killers are at least sometimes in this country,” Isaac said. “And we know of them. Cassia knew of wild mages. If your friend in Portland was able to get you in touch with a caster here whom you’d never heard of, that seems a safer bet as far as trusting someone.”
As Isaac talked and I looked up at him, something … moved in the air around him. I lost the train of what he was saying and stared, yet couldn’t pin it down. The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. I shivered and blinked.
“Cass?” Now Zar touched my shoulder.
“Isaac, come down from there.”
He did, joining the rest of us on the sidewalk. “What is it?”
They followed my gaze back to the door and, for a moment, we all looked. Nothing.
I walked up the steps with Zar saying my name again, trying to hold onto my hand. I pulled away. With my good left, I reached, palm over the center of the door. I opened the energy, the magic, but did not look with a scry—only felt and breathed and smelled with the magic around me.
Then I felt it in return: a buzz through my palm, a tickle in my ears, a tart, glittery taste in my mouth.
I stepped back, almost falling down the steps, shivering. Zar caught my left arm and I rejoined them.
“I … stand corrected. I have no idea if this is where they are or if it’s a plant, but there’s some sort of magic here. We’ll have to try this place after all.”
“As in try the door?” Andrew asked. “Been there.”
“As in try again and see if we can find anyone. And yes, maybe we should have a plan.”
“Dinner?” Isaac asked me—uncertainly, it seemed, as if he thought I might be offended by the one-word question.
“Isn’t it a little late?”
“You haven’t eaten anything all day, Cass.” Zar bit his lip, eyes at their most mournful as he watched me with his chin tipped down.
Hadn’t I? There had been some offers. Bottled water, coffee and a shortbread cookie, chips later… Maybe that had been it.
“Dinner…” I repeated. “Okay. It’s late. Dinner and we’ll get some sleep. There’s breakfast included. We can make our plans in the morning and get back over here. May have to keep an eye on it all day like we did in London.”
Only London hadn’t cost us $200 per night to stay and at the price of abandoning two of our pack while we searched.
I swallowed, mouth dry. “I hope this is right.” I looked at the door and shivered again.
“Everything looks better on a full stomach,” Andrew said.
“What do you want, Cass?” Zar started to reach for my hand but caught himself and dropped his own to his side. He glanced around as if to spot potential pubs across the street. “Is there any good food around here?”
We all stared at him.
“Zar,” I said gently, “we’re in Paris.”
“Oh … right…”
Chapter 28
All unhappy in our own ways. Which was no excuse for making one another miserable.
We had to try a few restaurants to find a spot with open tables not demanding reservations. Although it was extremely late for dinner by my standards, they were just getting warmed up here. Besides, the French liked to linger over meals so much, some o
f these people with reservations had probably been here for two hours already.
Once we did find a place in Clichy, a ten-minute walk from our hotel, I handled the rest. “Deux tables, s’il vous plait. Un pour deux. Et un pour trois. Merci.”
Nods from the waiter, who was civil about my French and did not behave as if I were speaking Swahili—which many French waiters seem to take a particular glee in doing in the face of an American accent butchering their language—although there were some frowns from my companions.
Andrew had opened his mouth when the waiter selected only two menus to lead off the first two to our table.
“No,” I said. “I’m going to talk to Isaac. We’ve needed to talk ever since I got out of the hospital. You all please enjoy your dinners and we’ll see you for the walk back. You might want to order appetizers. We’ll be a while. Do any of you have some French?”
To my surprise, all three nodded. It must have been part of their homeschooling, and probably very useful at least for Andrew in his hotel jobs in Brighton. Isaac spoke Gaelic, but no French that I was aware of. There was a lot about Isaac that I wasn’t aware of.
He and I had a tiny table along the wall, while the others were shown to one that, to my relief, was out of my line of sight by the kitchens and just visible to Isaac past others. The place was not rowdy noisy, but mellow noisy and plenty loud to keep away prying ears even of a cat.
Vintage paintings hung on the wood panel walls. The illumination was so low it felt candlelit, although not hard to see. Romance lighting that went with the seductive wine and brown butter aromas of the place.
They offered French Mediterranean style cuisine, very heavy on seafood and butter, which made me smile, thinking of Jason—which then made me not smile, feeling a heaviness in my chest again. They had everything from snails to steaks, fries to salads on the menu, so I was sure the guys would be happy with the food.
We grievously disappointed our waiter right off by both ordering herbal tea instead of a bottle of wine as expected. Isaac wanted to try the escargot. I’d eaten frog legs—which do not taste like chicken, but a lighter, more delicate version of chicken, plus garlic due to the way they’re almost universally prepared—but I had to pass on the snails. I got a salad to start instead.
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 17
