by Faith Hunter
“Maybe it helped a little,” Occam said. He sat back in his chair, his sandwich in front of him on its wrapper. “He was human enough to remember to come here. That isn’t a cat’s thought. Lemme eat and I’ll see what’s up with the boss.”
T. Laine flopped in a chair and said, “I’m not quite done with it and it hasn’t been tested, but I’ve devised a leather and black titanium collar for Rick, with GPS tracking, to track him when he shifts.” She plucked a chain from her pocket and placed the necklace on the table. We passed it around as she said, “It’s not too girly, not too disco or surfer boy. It can be worn with the witches’ amulet without the workings going boom. The black titanium chain won’t show in his cat coat, and it kinda looks like Rick.”
It was a small rough nugget of stone, something with a crystalized shape that caught the light but diffused it in the thin linear crystals. It was wrapped with black metal and hooked to the chain, which closed with a lobster claw clasp on one of three rings, making it adjustable. Magic tingled all through the small stone, but muted, as if it was a passive working. “You can track him with it?” I asked, handing it on to Occam.
“Pretty much. Don’t ask me how. It’ll hurt your church-girl feelings, all black magic and stuff.” Her tone was sarcastic but T. Laine’s eyes were dancing with laughter as she bit into her sub. Chewing, she added, “Because he isn’t in the null room, I can follow the magic in real time to test it out. Anyone thought to take the leopard a sandwich?”
“He’ll be in too much pain to eat until after we let him out and let him shift,” Occam said.
“You’re gonna let him out?” JoJo asked.
Occam said, “As soon as he’s fully shackled his cat, yeah.”
“You can tell when he’s in charge?”
“Scent never lies.”
“He’s hurting,” I said softly. “Is it okay for me to pull on Soulwood to calm him and take away some of the pain?”
“Yes,” Tandy said. “That would help.”
I glanced from the screen that showed us Rick in his misery to Tandy. The empath was pale and sweating, reacting to the strongest emotion in the building. Rick’s pain.
JoJo frowned and said, “Oh. Damn. I didn’t realize—Fine. Go for it, Nell. Tandy, if you need to, go use the null room. If not, why not go lie down for a bit.”
Tandy nodded and left the conference room for the break room, and the sofa there.
I went to my cubicle and stuck my fingers into the soil of a potted plant, hearing the unit talking about Margot Racer and how they should handle her. The dirt was Soulwood soil, and the farm answered my call instantly, coiling around me like a snake or a living vine. I reached out with the power of my land and found Rick, a familiar snarl of cat magics and new red pulses of energy that weren’t there the last time I soothed him. I held back, studying the magics. Spook School classes had taught me that foreign magic wasn’t something to be trifled with, and this was different from Rick’s usual magic. This was a bright pulse of light with a braided luminescent tail. The pulses seemed to wrap around his heart and his brain and twine through his tattoos. I slipped in between the pulses and called on the magic that claimed Rick for my land. I drained off some of his pain and felt him chuff and settle.
• • •
An hour later, Occam opened the cage door and Rick crawled off the silver tray that was keeping him in cat form. He lay on the hallway floor, panting and mewling softly in pain, his legs still at odd angles, even with were-creature healing abilities. The breaks had been thorough. JoJo turned off the camera, giving Rick an illusion of privacy, and we waited, only Occam and T. Laine close to the cage when the boss shifted, Occam to stop Rick if he lost control, Lainie under a small of hedge of thorns, to evaluate the magic of the amulets and Rick’s shifting.
I had hauled T. Laine aside and explained, verbal report only, what I had seen in Rick’s magic and what I had done to calm him. “Not bad, Ingram,” she’d said. “Good work.”
The simple words made me feel as if I had contributed something important to the unit, more than filing reports, transcribing anything Clementine missed or messed up, and the occasional reading of the earth. Being useful felt good.
The shape-change took fifteen minutes, shorter than the last time I measured his shift. The camera came back on when Rick was human shaped and dressed in jeans, his hair longer, face with a silvered beard. He was still bare chested and the tattoos of cat eyes were glowing gold in a field of dark tattoo ink and scars and his olive-skinned chest. Occam handed him a T-shirt. Rick dragged it over his head and I heard T. Laine say, “Jo, don’t turn on the antispell music yet. Thanks to Ingram’s insights, I did a scan working and looked at Rick’s magic. Someone’s using the spelled tats to call him.”
“Hurts like a mother,” Rick said, his voice rough and pained. He rubbed the mauled tattoos on his shoulder and arm. “And the cat-tat eyes are burning hot. I need the music.”
“Just gimme a minute,” T. Laine said. “While you were shifting, I followed the magic calling you. It came from out toward the river. If you’ll hold still I can try to get a more precise location and can pinpoint it with a scry.”
“Hurry.”
Rick stood still, half sitting on the cage that had held him, rubbing his arm, his body tense.
“Okay. Got it. Music.”
A woodwind melody played by an air witch flowed through the speakers. A measure in, Rick released a pent breath, walked to the conference room, and took his place at the table. Occam gave him a cup of coffee and a paper-wrapped deli sandwich from the fridge. Rick said softly, “Thank you.”
Occam nodded, his eyes kind. “When you’re up to it, I need to ask you some questions.”
“Okay. I’m good now that I got music,” Rick said, biting into his hoagie. “Go ahead.”
“Tell me where you were, what you were doing, and anything you remember.”
“I was watching the game at a sports bar on State Street. It was midafternoon and the moon had been up for hours, but I wasn’t thinking about it consciously. Why should I?” he asked, as if asking himself the question. “It was nowhere near full. Hell, it was nearly moonset. I was wearing the amulet. I should have been fine. But I felt the draw of the summoning. It started like a buzzing in my chest and my fingertips. I remember that I paid my bill. Got in my car. Somehow ended up here.I probably have all kinds of tickets coming from traffic cameras.” He chuckled wryly. “Worse, I have to wonder how many security cameras got footage of a big black cat racing the streets.”
T. Laine entered last and placed a paper map on the table, the creases worn. “I think I have the location of the witch circle, at least the general area. It’s different from the last time. It’s out off Alcoa, near the Woodson Drive exit, on the bank of Spring Creek. There’s grassy areas and wooded areas there.” She looked at Rick. “Do you want us to try and get there?”
“No point in running lights and sirens.” His face wrenched down in banked rage. “It’s starting to ease up. I think the witch is finished with the spelling. You can wait and check it out in daylight.”
Occam leaned over the paper map. “As the crow files, that’s more than five miles. Either she’s getting better or she used a bigger sacrifice. And we still don’t know if the effect on Rick is deliberate, coincidental, or incidental.”
“The calling was drawing on Rick’s tattoos,” I said. “I saw it. It isn’t coincidental.”
No one replied.
“What does that do to any overlapping areas?” JoJo asked.
“Swings it all over the place,” T. Laine said. “Why can’t it be easy?”
“Why can’t what be easy?” I asked, not understanding, frustrated.
“We were hoping that there would be overlapping areas of the spells that might lead to a narrow part of the city where the witch might be staying,” Occam said. “No such luck.”
“I have a thought,” T. Laine said, her hair swinging forward to cover her face. She took a bre
ath and pushed back her hair, holding up the titanium tracking necklace she had made. “We have the option of belling the cat with the tracker.” She slid her eyes to Rick. “Next time, you could let go, let the spell take you, and we could follow.”
Rick looked from T. Laine to each of us in turn.He drained his coffee cup and held the empty in his fingertips, tilting it. “What does Soul say about that possibility?”
“She finally called us back. She says it’s stupid. Though she used more diplomatic wording.”
“And FireWind?” he asked, an edge to his voice.
Occam sat, facing the window, his back to Rick, which I figured was a cat thing. “We thought it best not to contact him. He’s still dealing with that black-magic case in Maine.”
Rick made a hmmming sound that was close to a purr. He reached out and took T. Laine’s necklace. “What’s it do?”
“It’s a black tourmaline. It’s aligned to this one.” She dug in a pocket and lifted up a similar stone. “It puts out a signal I can follow.”
Rubbing his finger over the black amulet, Rick said, “Okay.” Fingers moving quickly, he combined the two necklaces and settled both stones under his T-shirt. “If I get forced into the cat, you can track me.”
The cat. Not my cat. Interesting. “Your shift was faster than from before I was a tree,” I said.
Rick’s face split in a grin at my tree comment and a breathy laugh followed. “Yeah. I haven’t been a cat for long, but I’m getting the hang of it.”
“Occam has a fluid shift from human to cat and back again,” I said, “as if he shares the body of the cat, even with his scars. You’re more binary—human or cat, with little of the cat in the human and little of the human in the cat, and both fighting for domination.”
Rick narrowed his gaze on me, listening.
I let the magics I had sensed during his shift slide through my mind. “I’ve always thought that the mangled tattoo spell might be keeping the parts of you more separate than other weres and … I might be able to ease your pain during a shift and speed it up a bit. I’ll watch next time you’re on Soulwood and see if I can help. And you can also try to make friends with your cat-self.” I took a breath. “And you can tell us about your tattoos. More than is in the official reports.”
“You been reading my official reports, Ingram?” There was a soft menace in his tone.
“Yes,” I said, calm in my own. “We all have. You were missing and in danger. You should expect a complete lack of privacy.”
Suddenly the rest of the team was busy with chores or their tablets or laptops. Rick looked like he was about to get mad, so I said, “The unit wants to believe you aren’t being personally targeted. But there’s strange new magic in your tattoos. You’re being called to sites of black magic. There’s secrets and then there’s stupid secrets.”
Rick rubbed his shoulder, seemed to realize what he was doing, and stopped. He cursed once, hard and crude. “Early in my career undercover …” He stopped. Turned. Went to the coffeemaker and dumped used grounds and their filter into the garbage.
His back to us, his hands busy, he continued. “I was chatting up a vampire, Isleen, for information.” He stopped, as if telling the story was painful. His hands started shaking, a delicate tremor. “She … She drugged me. I woke up chained to a black marble slab, in the center of an old witch circle, in a decrepit barn. She brought in a witch.”
He hesitated, his voice sounding hoarse when he said, “Her name was Loriann.” His head ducked forward at the name, like a twitch of pain. Rubbed his shoulder. “Before you ask, the circles are not Lori’s handiwork.”
Lori, I thought. And I wasn’t the only one to notice the sweetness in the name.
“Isleen forced Loriann to ink me in a blood-magic tattoo of binding. The tattoo was intended to make me into a blood-slave, something Isleen hadn’t been able to accomplish with her own blood. I don’t know why. The tattoo inks were mixed with vampire blood. Cat blood. Gold foil. There was a blood-magic spell involved.”
I noted the two names in my cell, spelling them phonetically.
Tandy asked softly, “A vamp forced the witch to ink you?”
I realized that this was the first time Rick had talked publicly with his unit about the event. He found a bag of his favorite dark roast Community Coffee in a drawer, opened it, and scooped out grounds. His movements weresluggish, as if he was moving in his sleep, the rich scent filling the room. When he spoke again, his voice sounded strangled, the words little more than a whisper, halting and slow.
“Isleen … had killed Loriann’s grandmother while the family watched. Had taken Loriann’s … sibling. As hostage. Was forcibly drinking from …” Rick stopped. Cleared his throat. The grounds poured with a nearly silent shush. “Loriann had no choice. But she managed to … to get help.” He folded the coffee bag up again and put it to the side. “Leo Pellissier … killed Isleen. The binding was never finished. It wasn’t a problem for years, until I was bitten by a black wereleopard and then the werewolves … chewed on them.”
He lifted the coffeemaker reservoir, turned on the tap, the water scudding into the bottom. We all waited. Silent. He replaced it and slid the coffeepot on the coffeemaker. Placed both hands on the counter, steady but paler than normal. He bent forward and his hair swung over his jaws, hiding more of his face.
JoJo said softly, “I’m guessing that the unfinished binding merged with werewolf saliva, fighting the black leopard were-taint.”
Rick nodded once. “The combination damaged my were-magic. Kept me from shifting. Then Paka came, supposedly to help me.”
He punched a button on the coffeemaker and turned to face us. His voice sounded stronger. “My tattoos were tested by a witch in Spook School. There was no breach, magical or otherwise, in them. Soul keeps an eye on them. No breach.”
“That they noticed,” T. Laine said. “Once there’s a fissure, there’s always a weak spot. And Soul isn’t here now.”
Rick nodded. “I’ve been feeling … odd. Restless. For the last few months, during the waning moon.” He reached up and touched the scarred tats, his fingers uncertain. Then he smiled, his lips quirked up on one side, and he looked younger, less harried, and wry. “We’ll assume for now that I’m a security risk.” Rick’s job, his career, was on the line. “Meanwhile”—he turned his dark gaze to me—“were the local vamps attacked by this spell?”
My mouth opened in an O and I punched my cell on again. There was nothing from the vampires on e-mail or text so I dialed Yummy.
“Maggot,” she said by way of greeting. She was trying to be mean and I’d had just about enough of it.
“Yeah, Fanghead,” I said.
Yummy laughed, a human kind of laugh, the kind that meant they were not thinking as blood-suckers but as the people they had once been.
“Did you guys get spell-called today?” I asked.
“No.” Her tone sharpened and took on that faint Louisiana accent I heard from time to time. “Why? Did you all?”
“One of our cats, yes.” I dragged the paper map to me and traced my finger across it. “And the spell was likely cast within two miles of your lair.”
“Nothing. Not a thing. But if it was in daytime, we wouldn’t have felt it once we were sleep.”
“Okay. We’ll talk later.” I ended the call and reached for T. Laine’s map. “The spell site was closer to the vamps than the night they were called. So either proximity wasn’t a factor or daylight changed it. I think this is still a spell in the planning and designing stage.”
“I agree. It feels different each time, but planning for what?” Rick asked. He drummed his fingers on the table and then said, “I’m not taking any chances. I’ll be sleeping in HQ for the duration of the case.”
“Good.” JoJo pointed at a view from an outside camera and T. Laine power-walked to the door at the top of the stairs. “Margot’s here and needs an update on Ming of Glass, the fact that we’ve made a report to the governor’s office,
Rick’s new amulets, and his likelihood of being a security risk. All of whichI can handle.”
T. Laine called back to us, “I’ll get her security codes and an ID for the doors.”
“Great,” JoJo yelled. Margot followed our witch inside, T. Laine giving her what she called a down-and-dirty debrief. She finished with, “If you’re taking the night shift, we need someone to visit the scene of the spell casting and see if there are common areas, overlapping places where the witch might be staying.”
Margot, dressed in business pants and jacket, settled into an empty chair at the conference table and when JoJo finished the recap, Margot said to the group, “Okay. I’m up to speed. I have additional info that falls under the umbrella of PsyLED, if it’s true. The FBI just heard rumors that a small group of rogue vampires have established a hidden lair here in the Knoxville vicinity. They want me with your unit until we determine what the vamps want and if the local witches and the vampires are working together.”
“Local?” Rick asked softly. “The FBI thinks the local coven is involved? Vamps and witches generally hate each other and we have evidence of only one witch at the circles. And rogue vamps do not lair together. Ever. What evidence?”
Margot lifted her left hand and inspected her nails. They were painted green with sparkles in the polish. “Evidence? Not a damn thing.”
“So why suggest that there might be a collusion of para activity against Knoxville citizens and PsyLED itself?” T. Laine asked, censure in her voice.
“Not me. The acting head drew all the conclusions and made the decision. I’m just passing along supposed CI info that might or might not be true.”
The table went silent and still as we all processed her words. CI meant confidential informant. But it sounded as if Margot didn’t believe it was true information so much as a big ol’ lie.
Margot showed teeth in a smile worthy of any were-creature. “New vamps in town? That part’s confirmed. My bosses are determined to make this a witch hunt. They don’t know I come from witches. I am the perfect person to liaise because my agenda won’t match theirs.”
