by SM Reine
“There’s a better way,” I said, mentally kicking myself even as my mouth kept moving. I shouldn’t do magic. I shouldn’t get involved. I felt like Sarah in Labyrinth when she falls down into the chute full of hands and chooses to keep going down. Too late now.
“I can do a spell,” I continued. “There’s enough with the signature and fingerprint that I can probably design a tracking thingy. If he or she is within twenty miles, it’ll point right at them.” There, that was more or less the truth. I carefully didn’t look at Alek, though I could feel him looking intently at me. He didn’t trust me anyway, so fuck him.
Hmm. Fucking Alek.
My brain hung up on that idea for a moment and I had to ask Harper to repeat herself once I realized she’d asked me something.
“What do you need?”
Technically, I didn’t need anything. But I wasn’t about to go along. This was clearly Justice business. If the kid was involved, nothing I could do would stop the death sentence on his head for messing with shifters. Justices were judge, jury, and executioners. In most of the world outside the shifter-dense population of Wylde, shifters hid, maintaining a careful line between themselves and normals. Anyone stepping over the line risked humans finding out about the things that go bump in the night on a larger scale and nobody wanted that. The Inquisition? The Nazis? Not just about persecuting humans. A lot of shifts, warlocks, and witches had gotten caught up in human madness over the centuries.
The Council of Nine and the system of Justices keeping peace and shifter law had come about sometime after the worst of the Inquisition, from what Ezee had told me. Compared to outright slaughter and experimentation the inflexibility of shifter law was pretty understandable.
“A compass,” I said. “I have the rest of what I need here.”
“I will be right back,” Ciaran said, turning and dashing back out my door.
He came back with a brass compass done up to look like an old fashioned pocket watch.
“Perfect. Just give me a minute.” I took the compass and the folder and went into my bedroom, locking the door behind me.
Deep breath. This wouldn’t take a lot of magic. We’d still be safe. Wylde has so many ley lines, a full coven of witches, a couple thousand shifters, and probably a few other paranormals I didn’t yet know about. One tiny spell wouldn’t give me away. Probably.
Wolf materialized from thin air, like she does, and jumped up on my bed, watching me with her head cocked and ears perked. I couldn’t tell if she approved or not.
I sank down onto my knees and put the compass on the floor on top of the thumbprint. Wrapping one hand around the large silver polyhedral die that hangs around my neck, I focused, bringing my magic up from the deep well inside.
This kind of magic isn’t my specialty. In my old life, before I almost got killed and eaten, I was more of a fireball throwing, showy sorceress. Form a magic sword instantly out of ice that won’t melt? No problem. Want to cause a localized earthquake or rain down acid? Again, I could do that, once upon a time. Samir and I used to train in an abandoned bunch of warehouses he’d bought up in Detroit, sometimes going out to lone islands in the Great Lakes to do the really spectacular stuff.
I’d grown up and honed my magic on Dungeons and Dragons manuals in the nineteen eighties, raised by an awesome bunch of programmers and gamers after my family kicked me out. Todd, Kayla, Sophie, and Ji-Hoon had taken me in after I’d spent a hellish year on the streets of New York. They had been the closest thing to real family I’d ever had after my birth family kicked me out. Until Samir destroyed that, too.
Another deep breath. I let the past flow away from me and focused on the fingerprint, its ridges and whorls etched in black ink. There wasn’t really a DnD spell precedent for what I wanted to do, but that was okay. Role Playing Games are just that, games. They aren’t any more real than Godzilla or He-man. I’d used the spells as a sort of channel when I was growing up, a way of learning how to focus and impose my will on the power that flowed naturally within me.
I focused on the fingerprint, then on the idea of the hand that had formed the signature. My power flared into my amulet and poured down into the compass. The needle twitched, then spun, then stopped, pointing not north but now to the north-west. Toward Juniper College.
I sealed the spell with another focusing of my will, visualizing a thread of power like a monofilament line from the d-twenty around my neck to the compass. It would hold until I let it go or it got too far away, keeping the compass connected to my power.
“Wish that kid luck,” I muttered to Wolf as I rose and took the compass back out into the living room.
“Here.” I handed the compass to Alek. “This will point you right the owner of that fingerprint. And, uh, be careful. Whoever did that to Rose isn’t a nice person.”
“I am not a nice person,” Alek said with another killer-inside-me smile. “And I have certain defenses from magic that most do not have.”
I almost asked but managed to close my mouth before it got him even more suspicious of me.
“Find him and make him undo the spell. Promise me, Justice.” Harper’s hands were curled into white fists in her lap as she spit the words out. I couldn’t actually tell if she’d asked him to promise her justice or if she was using his title. Maybe both.
Alek started to shake his head as he said “I will…” but I pinched the back of his thigh and twisted, hard, giving him my best don’t-you-dare-crush-my-friend look.
“I will do my best,” he amended with only a slight twitch in reaction.
He had really firm thighs. I shoved that thought away into the overflowing paper bag in my head labeled “inappropriate thoughts about Alek.”
After he left another awkward silence descended. Harper finally broke it by standing up. “Where’s mom?”
“With Dr. Lake,” I said. “She wanted to keep her under observation, monitor her vitals. She’ll call me if there is any change.” I tapped my jean’s pocket where my phone was jammed. Under observation and monitoring vitals sounded good, clinical and nice, like Rose was just in the hospital after an accident instead of locked magically into her fox body, paralyzed and helpless.
Okay. My thoughts really weren’t on the helpful train today.
“I want to go home,” Harper said. “But I don’t know if I can face Max. Oh god.” At the thought of her brother, her eyes started leaking again.
“We’ll go with you,” Levi said.
“Yeah, of course,” Ezee and I agreed.
“Okay. But maybe we don’t say anything. I don’t know. I need to think.” Harper took a deep breath and stood up.
“I’ll be at my place, if you need me,” Ciaran said, excusing himself.
“Thank you, Ciaran,” I said, squeezing his arm as we all moved toward the door. “And Harper, we’ll say or not say whatever you want. It’s going to be okay.”
I could have stabbed myself for saying that last part, but the look of hope she gave me made the lie worth it. Hell, for all I knew, maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe the Justice was as badass as he thought and he’d kick in a door or drag the guy who did this back to Dr. Lake’s, and we’d be having tea and cookies with Rose in her country-chic kitchen by moon-rise.
After all, in a world full of shape shifters, witches, gods, and sorcerers, maybe miracles can happen.
Chapter 5
Dusk fell over us like a shroud as we drove out of the town proper and down the narrow two-lane road toward The Henhouse Bed and Breakfast which Harper and her family called home. I rode in the back of Levi’s Honda Civic with Harper but we all drove in silence, each lost in our own thoughts, I guess.
The locals, like my friends in the car, call the River of No Return Wilderness “The Frank,” after the prefix, since it’s technically the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. I resisted calling it that and in bleak moments like this its name fit. No return. Whatever happened after tonight, after finding Rose and whatever dark magic was trapping her like
that, nothing would be exactly the same here. We were friends, sure, but we’d never faced any real adversity together. We sat around a table a couple times a week and pretended we were mages and bards and barbarians fighting dragons and evil liche kings.
I stared out the window so that I wouldn’t be staring creepily at Harper and watched as the sun disappeared in a bloody smear behind the black spikes of the fir and pine trees.
Yeah. My brain wasn’t feeling morbid and hopeless at all.
“Do you think she’s awake? Conscious I mean. Like, could she hear me?” Harper said softly. Her face was still pressed to the window, her eyes staring out into the darkening trees.
I knew what she meant though. I’d been worrying over the same questions. I had no real answer though. Harper had asked me what I thought, so I decided that would allow another small lie. It’s almost funny how we destroy things by inches.
“I think she’s sleeping. Magic like that takes a ritual. I bet she was asleep and still is. Big, blond, and scary out there will find the bastard that did it and stop him. Then she’ll wake up, like sleeping beauty.” I smiled at her in what I hoped was a reassuring way.
“But without the rape and having a baby after one hundred years thing,” Ezee said over the back of his seat.
“Oh god, what if he did things to her before the spell? Or after?” Harper started sobbing again.
“Not helping, dumbass.” I leaned in and flicked Ezee’s ear.
“Alek will find him,” Levi said. “The Nine never fail to get justice.”
“We should have gone with him,” Harper said. “I should have.”
“And what?” I said. “None of us have law enforcement backgrounds. None of us know shit about tracking down someone or how to deal with hostile magic.” Wow, I was just full of lies tonight. Why quit when you’re ahead, right? “We’d be in the way. Remember what you guys told me about the Justices? They are highly trained from, like, birth, and equipped to act as supernatural judge, jury, and executioner. I don’t think any of us want to get in the way of that.”
“I guess,” Harper said, sitting up a little.
“We could always nerd the guy to death, I suppose,” Levi said.
“Ooh, yeah, new torture technique. We’ll make him watch nothing but Highlander 2 and Star Trek 5!” Ezee twisted in his seat, reaching back to squeeze Harper’s knee.
Harper giggled a little through her hiccupping sobs. “Anyone would give up their secrets to make that stop, huh?” Her smile was pretty weak-sauce, but at least she wasn’t staring blankly out the window and letting her mind run all kinds of horror scenarios.
My phone started playing the Mega Man 2 theme and I fumbled it out of my pocket. Ciaran.
“Sup?”
“Two men, guns,” Ciaran said quickly in Irish. In the background I heard someone, a male voice for sure, say something about speaking English and Ciaran say it was just a greeting. Then he continued, and it sounded from the echo like he had me on speaker phone. “Jade, there’s a problem with that stuffed fox I sold you. Sorry about the late hour, but could you bring it by the shop as soon as possible?”
“Sure thing. I’ve got it with me. I can be there in thirty?” It would only take us maybe fifteen to get back into town if Levi stepped on it.
“Sounds good. Come in the front, I’ll leave it open for you.”
“Cool. See you soon.”
I made sure the phone was clicked off and then growled at Levi. “Turn the car around. Two men with guns have Ciaran and are looking for Rose. We have to go back.”
Levi hit the brakes and executed the quickest three point turn I ever want to experience ever. His car might look compact and reliable, but inside is a beast of an engine that probably isn’t even street legal and we felt the full g-forces of it as he floored the gas and shot us back toward town.
“Call the sheriff?” Ezee asked.
“Not yet. We don’t know what we’re dealing with and I don’t want to get Ciaran killed. Let me go in and see. If I’m not out in a few, you guys can call then. I’ll leave my phone line open to you so you can hear.”
“How come you get to go in?” Harper said. “If they want my mom, they’ll have to go through me. I don’t fear bullets.” She looked ready to go furry and get her serial killer on.
“They are expecting me. Going psycho on them might feel good, but it won’t really solve anything. Also, we don’t know yet what we are dealing with. They might be human, in which case killing them is kind of murder and even our cops might get mad about it,” I said. The local sheriff was an elected position, so of course she was a shifter, but I think the last time our town saw an actual murder was back in the era of buggies and gunslingers in saloons wearing ten gallon hats.
“Can you go faster?” Harper said.
“Maybe,” Levi answered.
He could, it turns out. We got to Ciaran’s store in less than fifteen minutes, slowing down to drive past it and not look like maniacs. The main street was almost abandoned after dark in our sleepy little down. Most people would be at the bars on the other end or over at the diner. All the shops were closed here and there was no foot traffic.
We pulled an emergency blanket out of the back of the Honda and I shook it out and then crumpled it into a bundle in my arms. They were expecting someone to bring something in, after all. I figured worst case I could use the blanket as a lame distraction.
“Okay. Harper, stay out here by the car and keep an eye on the front.” She started to protest and I gave her my best pleading look. “Trust me? I need you out here watching my back.”
When she finally nodded and her shoulders slumped, I continued with my plan. “Levi and Ezee, head around back. If I’m not out in ten or if I say anything about my grandmother over the phone, call Sheriff Lee. I don’t suppose anyone thought to get Alek’s number?” I sure hadn’t. I touched my amulet. The spell was still active, the link thick and strong. Alek likely wasn’t far away if he still had the compass.
Head shakes met that last question. “Okay. It doesn’t matter. Don’t get shot.”
Easy for me to say, I thought as I walked into Ciaran’s Curios. The store was dark except for a light in the back hallway from the open office door. The dimness only emphasized the odd shadows cast by various lamps, statues, cabinets, and other items. I’d never noticed this place was so creepy at night.
I’d never walked in here expecting armed men either. Correlation is not causation, but I could make a pretty good case on this one.
I tried to quiet my random thoughts and come up with a real plan other than don’t get shot. I thought about using magic to somehow subdue the men, but just upkeeping the tracking spell was making me more tired than I thought it would. A headache had vice-like fingers around my temples.
Magic for a sorcerer is like a muscle, if you don’t use it much, you won’t completely lose it, but it will atrophy and not work the same later. I did exercise my power on weekends sometimes, lifting small rocks and holding them up in various patterns. Nothing big, nothing that would jiggle Samir’s web of informants or sensors or however he tracked me, and bring him after me like a starving spider.
Maybe I could do something more coincidental, like more White Wolf mage than Dungeons and Dragons mage. Jam the guns. Knock a cabinet onto their heads.
Only, I had no idea how to jam a gun. Nor did I have a clue how much magic would get me noticed. The ley lines and supernatural population could only hide so much, especially from someone who knew my magic and what it looked and felt like.
So, I was down to just winging it. No magic. Maybe I should have gone to my place first and grabbed a knife. I recalled some saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight and it not being a good thing. Okay, we were down to hoping I could take out two men with only my wits and a scratchy wool blanket. Great plan.
“Ciaran? I’ve got the fox,” I called out as I carefully wove my way through the shop. I didn’t want to surprise anyone with a gun.
�
��In my office,” Ciaran called out.
I saw a shadow move in the hallway beyond the office. It was way too big to be the leprechaun. One of the gunmen?
Then I caught a gleam of eyes, the way a cat’s eyes pick up light and shine in the dark. Alek stepped just enough forward that I could make out his features but he hung back so that he was still hidden from anyone inside the office itself. He raised a finger to his lips, and then made a get away motion. I shook my head.
“Ciaran,” I called out again. “It’s really dark out here. Can you come turn on a light or something? I feel like I’m going to kill myself running into something and this fox is super bulky.”
There was muttering from the office. I crept forward, trying to be stealthy and not knock over anything. I let the blanket slide down my body to the floor and kicked it under a table, ready to follow it if bullets started flying.
“Be right there,” Ciaran yelled.
He emerged from the office, a taller, thinner man standing directly behind him. I assumed that guy had the gun pointed at Ciaran’s back.
“Drop the gun and tell your friend not to do anything stupid.” Alek’s voice was calm and deep. And cold enough to send chills down my spine.
“Fuck man,” said the guy behind Ciaran. He twisted his head and saw Alek’s huge form in the shadows, pointing a big hand gun at his head. “Jimmy, don’t do anything stupid.”
“There’s a guy here with a gun,” someone, I assumed Jimmy, said from inside the office. “What do we do? What? No, don’t. Don’t do that. We’re sorry. We can fix this. Shit!”
The guy in the hallway turned slightly toward the door. “What’s he doing?”
