Witching Ways

by T K Eldridge

  “Yeah. I just call them Creators because they weren’t demanding worship or fealty or anything that what we now consider a god would have demanded. They just created.”

  “Okay, so what was so earth-shattering? I mean, we all knew we didn’t just poof into existence,” Grams asked.

  “Think about it. The Creators created Elementals. They were the first beings.” I watched her face and waited for the realization.

  “Oh. Ohh,” Grams said and looked up at me, eyes wide.

  “Right. The elementals were the first beings. From what Grandma Maggie, Oak, and I could put together, the fae were created to tend to and protect the elementals. Somehow that morphed into the fae controlling and subjugating the elementals. The elementals then went back to the Creators and the two groups created witches to counterbalance the fae and work with the elementals as the Creators had first designed.”

  “So, witches and fae were always meant to be on opposite sides?”

  “Not exactly. Fae were supposed to tend and protect elementals, and witches were supposed to channel power through elementals to help with the growth and healing of the world. Of course, like anything else, you add free will and society and it all goes to hell.”

  “And then witches created shifters to help protect them against those that hunted witches – mostly human, but some fae – and it just got even more tangled. Good gravy, Siddie.” Grams took a breath and reached for the wine. “So how does this all connect to the ley lines?”

  “Who do you think spun the web of ley lines around the globe?” I asked her and held out my glass to be topped off.

  “Huh. The Creators did that, of course. Right?”

  “Right. The elementals use the ley lines to feed their essence. The fae can only do elemental magic, and they have to work through the elements to do their magic. So, while fae don’t pull on the ley lines for their power, they pull on the elements that are tapped into the ley lines. That filter between is what keeps the fluctuations from impacting fae magics. Witches pull directly on the ley lines.”

  “But witches use the elements for their magic,” Grams said.

  “Not really,” I replied. “Witches use elements for focus, but their magic power is drawn directly from the ley lines, not from the elements. It’s like using a candle to meditate. The power of the meditation comes from inside of you – but the candle is the focus.”

  “That’s going to piss off a lot of witches,” Grams said.

  “No, what’s going to piss off the witches is that the reason they are impacted is because the Creators are trying to get our attention so we can straighten things out. The witches are the last line of defense. They need to work with the elementals – the sylphs, draiads, nymphs, and so on – as well as the fae – to appease, or please, the Creators once more.”

  “Oh boy. That’s not going to happen anytime soon,” Grams said.

  “And now you know why I needed to talk this out with you. We need to figure out how to get the witches to refocus their anger and work together for a common goal that doesn’t include killing the fae. These Creator beings didn’t just disappear. Their creations, however, grew too populous and powerful to remember where they owed their gratitude. Disrupting the ley line vibrations is their way of knocking on the door – for lack of a better analogy.”

  “None of this is anger-inducing, though. Why were you worried about telling me?” Grams said.

  “Well, one of the longer-term fixes is going to piss a whole lot of people off – and maybe even you. If the species mixed more – if witches bred with fae, shifters, and mythics more, then they wouldn’t be as heavily impacted by ley line fluctuations.”

  Grams just let out a slow breath. “I’m going to have to ponder that one. You’re correct. My knee-jerk reaction is to snap in anger at that idea. But after what you just told me, it makes logical sense. Particularly now that we’ve got that potion that stabilizes the magic so mixed breed babies can survive.”

  “You already figured out the problem, which is what gave me some of the ideas of where to look,” I told Grams. “Using magic to stabilize the magical weaving between species had me wondering why the flows were so different for each species and how did the magics develop. It’s all connected, Grams. All of it.”

  “Explaining that to each species in a way that they can comprehend is going to take skills, Siddie.”

  “And it’s going to take explaining this to members of each group that trust and respect us. But first, we need to figure out how to calm the witches and get the Creators to ease up on the ley lines.”

  “Haven’t figured out how to chat with the gods yet? And here I thought you were so brilliant,” Grams teased me and lifted her wine glass to tap mine. “To texting the gods. If anyone can do it, I have faith in you.”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes, but she was correct. I needed to keep digging to figure out how to communicate with the primordial beings we now called the Creators.

  ***

  The one thing I hadn’t tried to discuss with Grams last night was how to talk to Grampa Walsh about this. I had to grab him at our breakfast chat before Grams could pillow-talk him into being annoyed I hadn’t caught him first. And yes, I did physically twitch at the mental image of my grandparents in bed together. I adore them both, and they’re really good for each other, but they had been such icons in my eyes for so long, it would take me a bit to adjust to the realization they were normal beings with a healthy sex life and not some creatures on pedestals. My six year old memories were stubborn things, probably because Liam Walsh had supposedly died back then. For fifteen years, my favorite Grampa had been dead to me, so I gave myself a little grace on the adjustment period, and carried our favorite coffees and breakfast sandwiches into his office.

  “Bacon, egg, and cheese bagels, and Columbian dark roast this morning. Hope you’re hungry,” I said as I set the bag on the desk and handed him his coffee.

  “Thank you, Siddie. It’s been a long morning already and it’s only eight-thirty.”

  I unpacked the sandwiches and settled in my chair. “What’s going on, Commander?”

  “One of the witches we had in custody after the full moon riots, killed herself sometime early this morning. Preliminary investigations show that she poisoned herself, but we have no idea how she obtained the poison. She left a suicide note that has been verified as her handwriting, but I’m still confused.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Sophia Marais.”

  “The one that nearly killed Sin? Woah,” I said.

  “Yeah. Now you know why I’ve been covering every angle to make sure we can show it wasn’t an inside job. Unfortunately, I can’t yet show that it wasn’t one of ours that gave her the poison. You’re in the clear because you’re shorter than the figure dressed in a hoodie and jeans that visited her last night – but Sin’s not yet cleared.”

  “You don’t think he did it, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. But I have to make sure he’s legitimately cleared and not just a ‘well, he’d never’ comment. I’ll have Tasha question him when he comes in this morning, and record the whole thing. You and I both have to stay away from him until then.”

  “What did the note say?” I asked, the few bites of sandwich I’d eaten now a lump in my stomach.

  The Commander turned his tablet around for me to see. A photo of the note was on the screen, and it said “I can’t do this anymore. I attacked someone I cared for, someone I once loved, on the advice of an evil old woman. She has asked me to do worse. I can’t be part of this, and I can’t get away from what I did. Tell Sinclair Boudreau and his family that I am sorry for my part in hurting him. Please forgive me. Sophia.”

  “What evil old woman is she talking about?”

  “We have no idea. The others in custody have been asked if there was an older woman giving the orders and every single one said no. They also looked terrified that we had asked.”

  “Which means there is someone pulling the string
s. And ‘old woman’ doesn’t describe Margot Sullivan, so it’s not her acting from Galliol,” I said.

  “No, and she’s bound, physically and magically, so she’s not getting messages out to anyone,” the Commander said.

  Margot Sullivan had been the driving force behind the Purist movement that ended up with my grandfather – and the Commander’s son in law- James Sinclair Boudreau, being shot and killed by my father. Yeah, we can add patricide to the list of accomplishments in my family – but it saved my brother’s life, so it was warranted. It still sucked.

  “I can grab Tino and we can go over any of the video footage we gathered from the full moon riot and see if there’s someone that looks like they’re directing the action. It’s not likely, but it’s something.”

  “I’ll task Tino with that. I want to hear what you came in here ready to discuss this morning.”

  “How did you know I had something to discuss?”

  “You brought bacon, egg, and cheese bagels. You only bring sandwiches when you need the extra time it takes to eat them, to talk over something with me.”

  “And you say you don’t miss being a detective. I call fibs on that one,” I teased as I tried to figure out just how to shift the topic from one volatile situation to another.

  “Just spill, Sidonie. You know I respect and admire your skill with intelligence. I’ll listen first and question later,” the Commander said.

  “I’ve already laid this all out for Grams, but I wanted to tell you before she did, so you could ask your questions. I’ll be honest, it’s still taking me some time to wrap my head around everything as it’s so contrary to what we’ve always been taught, or assumed was the way of things. Then again, I’ve had to accept that I’m part of all four of what we considered the main species, so I’m getting better at letting my world view expand.”

  “What we considered to be the main species?”

  “See? You do pick up on things. Basically, the Creators made the elementals, then made the fae to tend to the elementals. The fae got too big for their britches and started to subjugate the elementals. The elementals and the Creators then made the witches to work with the elementals and keep the fae from taking over, and the witches made the shifters to be their army and protect them from the growing number of humans that became more of a threat than the fae did.”

  “Okay, that’s not exactly the creation story we were led to believe was the truth, but it makes sense. So what’s with the ley line fluctuations, and why are the witches most impacted?”

  “I’m thinking the fluctuations are the Creators trying to communicate with us all. The witches use elemental focus – like candles, smoke, crystals, scrying bowls of water, and so on – to do their magic. They don’t use the actual elements in their magic. All their power comes through them from the ley lines. Fae draw their power from the actual elementals – sylphs, draiads, nymphs, for example - not from the ley lines, so the fluctuations don’t impact them. Shifters were made of magic, so it doesn’t impact them.”

  “So how do we calm the witches down?”

  “I think we need to get people to work together, and honor the Creators. It’s all connected and it all has to flow together or it won’t flow at all.”

  “Yeah, getting the witches to accept their place in the story and work with the fae? That’s asking more than I think we’ll ever get,” the Commander said. “And while this is eye-opening, it’s not as shocking as I was led to believe it would be.”

  “I haven’t got to that part yet. One of the things that will keep us all from being so dependent on the ley lines for the balance of power – is if more species mingle. Mixed-race people are having a lot less issues with the fluctuations.”

  “And your Grams has that potion now that balances things out.”

  “Right, but did you notice – Mira didn’t need it? Sin is mixed, she is fae, and there were only a couple of stress points in the pregnancy, brought on by outside stressors, not anything genetic.”

  “But Alicia made it up in case there was a need. I lost track of the fact that she never had to use it with Mira. Only on those two couples that were made up of one parent a pure shifter and one a pure witch.”

  “Exactly. So, there is a little proof of the concept. That’s more of a long-term fix, though. In the short term, we need to get the fae and witches working together.”

  “We also need to get the shifters and mythics to stay out of it. Mythics are what, though? They’re not fae, witches, or shifters,” the Commander said.

  “Mythics are elementals – and shifting elementals. Witches gave shifter abilities to creatures we thought were mythological creations, but they were originally from elementals who bred with other creatures.”

  “So, in the hierarchy, the mythics are the original creations?”

  I sighed. “It’s not a hierarchy, Grampa. It’s a collection of beings that need to work together before they lose everything.”

  “Now that is going to take some mental adjustment. I’m so used to thinking of it all as a hierarchy of creation.”

  “There are a lot of preconceived and traditional concepts that we’re going to have to let go of before people can come together and figure this all out,” I said. “Unfortunately, the only way that usually happens is with tragedy, violence, and social disorder.”

  “Like what we’re dealing with now?”

  “No. Ten times worse. Like Civil War level.”

  We shared a look, and I watched the realization sink in and my grandfather’s expression change.

  “Well, hell,” he sighed.

  Chapter Seven

  Sin

  I got into work and before I could even reach my locker, I was told to report to interrogation room two. Once my gear was stowed, I tapped on the door to two and stepped inside.

  “Morning, Tash, what’s up? I was told to report here?” I asked.

  “Sit down, Agent Boudreau.” Tasha said, a folder and tablet in front of her.

  “Could I grab a coffee first?”

  “No, please sit down.”

  Her tone had me worried, so I sat in the only other chair in the room – the one across the table from her. I looked around and noticed the light on the recording system was on and my stomach clenched. “Tasha, what’s going on?”

  “I am Tasha Campbell, Agent with the Special Forces division of the Supernatural Police, here to question Agent Sinclair Boudreau, also with the Special Forces division, about his activities of the night in question.” She then gave the date and time, then said, “Agent Boudreau, are you here of your own accord and volition?”

  “I am, although I have no idea why,” I said.

  “Where were you at approximately three this morning?”

  “At home, in bed.”

  “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  “My wife, Mirabella Boudreau. My infant daughter, who I was up with to change her diaper at four? Although, Reina’s not exactly verbal enough to handle an interrogation.”

  “Anyone else?”

  I sat there and thought for a minute. “We track all incoming and outgoing traffic on the access gate to the farm. You can see that I did not leave or return outside of my usual work hours. I didn’t even go to the store last night. I got home from work, and didn’t leave again until this morning on the way in.”

  “Are you not also a shifter with the ability to change into avian forms?” Tasha asked.

  I just stared at her. “So? You think I flew to wherever I was supposed to have done something bad enough to have me in interrogation? No. I was home. I watched TV with my wife after the kids went to bed, then we went to sleep. I took the four in the morning shift to change Reina, then went back to bed for another two hours before I got up to shower, eat, and come into work.”

  “This ends the questioning of Agent Sinclair Boudreau,” Tasha said and hit the button to turn off the recording equipment. “Follow me.” She got up, collected her folder and tablet, and left the room.

&nb
sp; I followed her out and up one floor to our offices where she entered hers and pulled me in enough so she could shut the door.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” Tash said and let out a breath. “I’ll fill you in in a minute, but if I don’t get a coffee, I’m going to scream. Want one?”

  “Gods, yes, please,” I said and dropped into her one spare chair.

  Tasha came back with two coffees, then pulled out a flask from her drawer and added a shot to her own. My eyes widened since Tasha was the most straight-laced cop I knew. She wiggled the flask at me and I shook my head no, and just took the coffee from her.

  “I’ll leave it here,” she said and put the flask on her desk. “You might need it after I tell you what’s going on.”

  “Now I’m worried,” I said, “More than I was when I was being interrogated.”

  “Sophia Marais killed herself last night.”

  I blinked, then reached for the flask and added a shot to my coffee. I took a sip and sighed. “How?”

  “Poison. Her suicide note said she couldn’t live with being told to do awful things to people she cared about, and she apologized for what she did to you. The figure on the cameras was about your height and build, dressed in jeans, a hoodie, and gloves. We couldn’t see a face or any skin tones at all. Me? I didn’t think it was you, but it easily could have been if all we went on was the figure.”

  “But there’s no way I’d have asked Sophia to harm herself. Even though my brains almost fell out all over that alley, I still hoped she might get her shit together.”

  “I know that. We all know that, but this has to be handled completely by the book or we’ll have a worse riot than we had that night.”

  “Another Species War. We really don’t need that. Witches are losing their shit and I’m at a loss as to how to calm them down. A witch without their magic – it’s like losing a limb. I feel horrible every time I have to bind Reina’s magic after her one hour or so a day of playing with it. She cries, every time we turn it off.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” Tasha said. “But I hear Sidonie might have some information. She was in with the Commander this morning. They’ve both been avoiding me until I could do your questioning so they weren’t seen as trying to influence things.”