“Muffin!” The old man turned his attention on her. “Venez ici!” That was “Come here,” but the rest was a blur.
The cat stepped closer, head lowering and fur beginning to rise on her back. Slowly, she humped up and hissed at Isaac.
Someone else was coming down the spiral stairs after all the shouting. The two mages in the room with us had gone silent, however, staring at the cat.
She hissed again, turned her side to us, and puffed out her tail, making herself as large and imposing as possible.
“Muffin?” André frowned from the cat to us and looked back at the old man, asking a question.
The third man stopped at the foot of the stairs, said something vulgar, and also stared. “Who are they?” In French, directed at the room at large.
This man was also younger, thirties, with a pointed goatee and heavy brows. He would have been very handsome, with high cheekbones and sharp jaw, but he wore a huge, brown leather cowboy hat that looked like it had been plucked from Texas about 150 years ago, had a cigarette dangling from his lips, and, besides the hat, wore only purple boxer shorts and three or four gold rings. It was a bit hard to notice his face at all, really. He rubbed his eyes as if we’d just woken him. Which would have been more believable without the lit cigarette and the enormous hat that amounted almost to a sombrero.
Muffin growled, low, and took a step away, hissing again.
The old man snapped his fingers and rattled off another command for her to return.
This time the little cat obeyed. In two strides she sprang onto the desk and whipped around as if we might have chased her, letting out another hiss.
The old man waved a hand at the others, talking rapidly again.
The man in the hat and goatee rolled his cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other, watching us. He shifted his weight from one bare foot to the other.
André was still frowning at the cat, who settled into a meatloaf pose now that she was safe on the desk and continued to glare at us.
Finally, the hat man pulled the cigarette from his mouth and answered the old man with something addressed to us. It seemed to me he said, “What are you?”
The old mage flapped his hands again and stopped him. “Non, Milo! Anglais!” He added that we were too stupid to understand French.
Milo nodded to this and blew out a trail of smoke from the corner of his mouth into André’s face as the latter glared and stepped back, almost into the black fire screen.
“You’re English?” Milo asked.
“And American,” I said. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be here. We only wanted to ask you about something very important—”
Milo laughed.
André looked blank, darting a glance at Milo, probably not understanding what was being said.
The old mage started shouting again, but this time in English. “See? You see how arrogant they are! All night, all day they hammered on my door!”
“I didn’t hear them,” Milo said, grinning, and took another drag.
“You are deaf! Banging like workmen without restrictions. I have not been able to work for twenty-four hours!”
“Why didn’t you go upstairs?” Milo gestured over his own head with the butt, resulting in a shower of ash toppling to the floor to mix with the debris as he struck the brim of his cowboy hat. He still seemed amused.
“This is my office! This is my work!” The old mage opened his arms wide. “I want to know how they got here, how they knew, and what’s wrong with them!” On the last he jabbed a finger at his pet, making it clear that if Muffin thought there was something wrong, there was. “They are spies, liars, inhuman.” Sinking into muttering, he stroked the cat’s head.
Having made her point and apparently sure of her own safety, Muffin had settled comfortably to smirk up at him with that cat smile while she purred in response to his touch.
“So what are you?” Milo asked. “American tourists? Muffin says you’re up to no good.” He lifted the cigarette back to his lips.
“Some of us are shifters,” I said. “Some animals don’t like the smell—”
“Hah!” the old man yelled as if catching us red-handed. Rapid shouting in French, then apparently explaining to André, who had missed the big reveal.
I continued to address Milo, trying to ground myself and focus, the others close around me. “We’re not spies, we’re not here to cause trouble. We only wanted to ask about something. We’re trying to find someone in Britain who may know wild mage magic.”
“Shifters don’t chase magic.” His English was flawless, but I wasn’t sure what the accent was. It wasn’t a straight French one like the old mage. Maybe Italian originally? Or Greek? I couldn’t tell.
“No, but we’re looking for someone who has been attacking shifters.”
André was talking to the old man in French at the same time, all of a sudden taking interest in the conversation, pointing to us, then upstairs. It seemed he thought someone would like to meet us. This gave me a fresh wave of unease.
The old man calmed himself by stroking the cat, over and over, with hard, long gestures while she purred, eyes nearly shut. He nodded and frowned at us.
“You think we have nothing better to do than chase after shifters in that sad nation?” Milo asked me.
“I didn’t say I thought you had anything to do with it. We thought you might be able to help because whoever is doing it has some powerful magic. Magic that, perhaps, has been associated with wild mages.”
Milo shifted his cigarette again and stroked his goatee with one index finger. “An interesting conclusion. What is it you think wild mages do that other casters cannot?”
“I’ve never met one before today. Maybe you could tell us?”
He laughed again.
The old man was shouting for someone. “Jacques! Tayron!” Roaring the names at the ceiling, dissatisfied by their lack of arrival at once, or since they’d had all this time with the shouting. He threw up both hands and a wave of magic energy punched the ceiling, causing a ripple, the plaster to heave, the whole house to tremble, and a great boom to explode through the walls like a cannon blast.
We all jumped back, Andrew pulling me, Zar grabbing his own ears, stunned, as chips of plaster fell, cobwebs danced, and a few objects rattled off their shelves or desk. The ceiling and walls already were busy with networks of fine cracks. The cat only lay back her ears for a moment, then went back to purring when he touched her.
“Jacques! Tayron!”
André, brushing dust from his bathrobe, was saying something about Tayron as well, gesturing at us, looking to Milo.
Milo shrugged and waved him away. “It’s no matter.” He sounded indifferent now, trying to finish off his smoke. His vast hat had protected him from the bits of rubble that had dusted the rest of us. “How did you find us? That’s all he really wants to know. We cannot have tourists finding us. Who told you?”
“I just…” I hesitated, looking around. “No one told me.”
“Liar. Someone had to tell you.” He contemplated the butt and decided he could get one more puff out of it.
“If you won’t help us, we can just go,” Zar said, also addressing Milo.
“Oh, you can’t go when you know where we are. You’ll have to tell him who told you. He’s protective.” Milo flicked the butt at the fire screen. The grate was very close black wire, giving a small flying object no more chance of passing through than a solid door. But it did. It sailed right in as if the grate were open air and landed in the coals.
My breaths were coming too fast again. I’d never seen anything like that. Yet Milo had made no effort, didn’t even glance at the screen.
A couple of older men, both bearded, but salt and pepper, one much grayer and bonier—the word “rickety” came to mind—while the other was a bit younger, the only one in the group who looked like he gave French food its proper respect, descended the stairs.
The old mage, stroking the cat, addressed them angrily in F
rench as they made their unhurried ways down the spiral stairs. The first, younger and more filled out, was Jacques. He wore flannel pajamas including a buttoned-up nightshirt, full pants, sheepskin slippers, and a nightcap. The whole outfit was a soft blue pattern with yellow stars and smiling moons.
The rickety one, with thinning hair and beard as wild as our first host, mostly gray, but with browns remaining, was Tayron. He wore military boots, a khaki wool greatcoat down to his knees, and several small animals on his person. These included a crow perched on one shoulder, a black rat poking from a pocket of the huge coat, and what must have been a mouse in his hair, though it was hard to see. I only spotted it because of the glint of red eyes.
The first old mage clutched his apparently aching head while he rambled at the two new arrivals.
Jacques appeared stupefied to see us, turning to the old man with the obvious question, “And you let them in?”
But Tayron smiled. In fact, he looked so pleased to see us it scared me as much as the locking of the door.
While the old mage was explaining our noise-making, how he couldn’t stand it anymore, and—I guess—that they had to do something about us, Milo held his hand out to Tayron.
Tayron slapped it away. Milo reached again to his breast pocket and Tayron slapped again.
Another black rat poked its head from that pocket, presenting Milo the offering of a fresh cigarette. Milo snatched it, dodging the third slap, and lifted it to his mouth for a drag. By the time it touched his lips, it was lit.
The rat vanished into the pocket. The crow cawed and ruffled its feathers.
The old mage, gripping his head, shouted at them, jabbed a finger at us, then them, then straight into the air, causing a whirlwind to spin around him so violently it threw papers from his desk, tossed his beard around, whipped my hair into my face, made the crow spread its wings for balance, and fanned the coals.
As the tiny tornado subsided the message was clear. I am a busy man with a difficult life. They are a menace. You must do something about them and clear them from my presence.
The four mages—André, Milo, Jacques, and Tayron—looked from him to us.
“They are tourists,” Milo said in English. “Someone sent them here.”
“Sent them here for what?” Jacques asked, leaving André and Tayron frowning and the latter asking in French why the English switch.
Milo waved his cigarette at us. “You ask how they found us, Jacques. They’ll tell you.”
“Yes, yes.” Shaking his head as if he’d never seen the like of us, Jacques came forward, wiping his brow on his nightcap, then pulling it back onto his greasy head. He cleared his throat. “You speak English?” Slowly and carefully.
“Yes. And we’re sorry for disturbing—” I started.
“Someone sent you here?” Still speaking slow, as well as very loud. He smelled like licorice, smoke, wine, and sweat. His nearness made me almost as uncomfortable as Tayron’s smile had.
“No, we came on our own to ask—”
“Then how did you know where to find us?”
“I…” Again, I hesitated, remembering the scry, how easy it had been.
“Jamais!” he gasped and took a step back as if I’d thrown something. “She scried us!” He turned to the old mage, who was just sinking back into his chair with papers he’d snatched, muttering all the time. “She scried this address!” Then shouting apparently the same thing in French to the others.
For the first time, every mage in the room looked shocked. Eyes widened, jaws dropped, the bent old mage, who had sagged into his chair, sat up. The five men stared at me. All their little animals did as well. Muffin lashed her tail.
“That girl?” The old mage sat back, shaking his head, rubbing it again in pain. “That little girl can’t know our magic. She must be tricking you, Jacques.”
“I assure you.” Jacques puffed out his chest, one arm across his middle, the other across his back, very stiff. “I make no mistake. Never. She found us in a scry, she saw this house.”
“It is … no, no, it is … it is not possible.” The old mage was scavenging distractedly through his desk surface, looking for something. The cat stood to participate.
“Tell him,” Jacques snapped at me.
This time, I had the sense not to meet his eyes. I looked at the desk. “It’s true. It seemed a likely lead. I scried for wild mages in Paris. I saw the front door to this house. That’s why we came here. I’m very sorry we bothered you, but we—”
“You see?” Jacques said, turning and holding out both ample arms as if for applause on a lit stage while his colleagues merely stared, two at least not seeming to understand what he said. “Is Jacques ever wrong? No, Jacques is never wrong. Does Jacques know a lie? Jacques always knows a lie.” He bowed and turned back to us, reverting to his slow, loud English. “Young girl, who taught you magic?”
I swallowed. “My mother and grandmother.” My own voice was getting softer. I watched the star pattern on the blue flannel pajamas to avoid looking Jacques in the eye.
“And who are they?”
“Not wild mages,” I said.
“I am aware of that. Our members are male.” He rolled his eyes. “Their names?”
“They were American witches in small towns. They had nothing to do with this.”
“Did you receive training elsewhere?”
“No—”
“Liar!”
“Nothing of note. A conference here or there. One in England…”
“This has nothing to do with why we’re here,” Isaac cut in.
“You are a mage? No…” Jacques shook his head, disappointed. “You are a wolf. Wait…” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with one index finger. “You don’t know what you are. I have no time for fools and hopeless cases. Go away. Are any of the rest of you casters?”
Tayron said something in French behind him, sounding irritated as he was trying to follow the English.
Milo answered in French, then said to Jacques, “He’s right. Why would wolves be with a witch? Wolves are scared of everything.”
“Afraid of magic?” Jacques asked. Laughing a little, he sent a burst of fire from his palm into our faces as he stepped closer. It fizzled and vanished before making contact. “You can’t all be wolves.”
They’d been shifting around me, myself inched farther back, and Jacques pointed to Jason, who remained nearest the stairs.
“You,” he snapped at Jason like a command. “You are a mage?”
Jason was looking at the floor where papers had scattered from the desk, turned away from Jacques as if about to walk to the back of the room.
“We only came here because we’re trying to find out—” I started again.
“No…” Jacques frowned. He said something in French back to the others. “Are they all wolves?” He asked me, looking past Isaac and Zar, startled by the idea, like he thought we were casters who just happened to have a pet.
Tayron answered. The old mage spoke at the same time. All in French.
Milo said, “Muffin knows.”
“Come here.” Jacques snapped his fingers at Jason, reaching out.
Jason tensed, still silent and never looking at him. Then his left arm was jerked sideways as if by a hook, though Jacques was feet away. He crooked his finger as he walked back to the desk, jerking Jason after him so Jason almost fell, stumbling and trying to twist as if out of a hand hold. There was no twisting free of that grip.
Zar moved forward.
I pushed past him. “Please, if you’ll just—”
“What do you want with him?” Isaac asked.
The old mage shouted curses, clutching his ears. “Noise, noise! Enough!” He flung out his hand at us. Something hit me in the face like doing a belly flop into cold water.
Splash, freeze, then gone. I could still move, still see and hear all that went on. But going more than a single step forward was like pushing against clay, while anything I said did not reach the other side
of the sound barrier. Nor was it specific to me. It pressed the four of us back there at the top of the stairs while Jason was yanked to the desk.
“Muffin…” Jacques crooned to her in French and she turned to face him instead of her master. At the same time he was pulling Jason to the front of the desk with his magic lasso.
The cat turned, spotted Jason there, and humped her back again, at once yowling and puffing up.
“Ah!” Jacques clapped his hands. “I knew it! He is a wolf. You, Monsieur Wolf, are truly gifted. You have an elaborate mind, a deep network, une œuvre d’art one might say. It would be my great privilege to train an apprentice like yourself. Who can claim nearly to best the master on his first day of class? Alas, since wolf you be, you cannot channel magic as a caster. Your body is already magical, and your gift runs another way. For shame. Such a waste … terrible waste…” Shaking his head, sighing, apparently grieving the matter.
All the time Jason stood silent, face averted from the mind-scry, and all the mages, never even making eye contact with the cat.
“It cannot be helped,” Jacques continued sadly. “You understand? Tayron? Would you like him?” Then to the old mage. “True sight dictates we do not keep this one around without care. He is too dangerous. The others we can put away. Besides the girl, perhaps?” He tapped his nose thoughtfully with a forefinger. “You may want the girl anyway, Tayron. If you need the sly wolf to behave. He cares very much for the witch, so she would be of use.”
Milo was translating for Tayron, who nodded fervently, smiling again, rubbing his hands together.
“I must know how they found us. Then I want them gone,” the old mage said, sitting back in his chair, eyes shut, rubbing his temples with the first two fingers on each hand. “That is all. I don’t want them. I don’t need them. I don’t like them. How and gone.”
“She scried us.” Jacques shrugged. “The blonde girl. But I don’t see how. She has had no special training, no wild mage guides.”
“Then find out!” Slamming both palms into the desk, he leapt to his feet, this time making the cat jump as she’d still been puffed up at Jason. “Someone find out how a juvenile American witch took a notion to scry for a wild mage and found us! Someone find out and start doing your jobs looking after this place! No one should be able to see us!” Screaming by then, banging on the desk again, changing to French and presumably shouting more the same.
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 23
