Calling the Wild

by Lila Dubois

  “Tired of being human?”

  “I am never human, but I am tired of looking like one.”

  “Is it hard to hold human form?”

  “Yes.”

  The motel had surprisingly tall ceilings, though Kiron still had to bend forward. There was just enough room for him to stand between the end of the bed and the TV stand. He couldn’t really move forward or back. Kiron was looking around, twisting his torso to look at the bed on his right and the TV on his left. He let out a great sigh.

  Moira whooped in laughter.

  “Exactly what do you think is funny, woman?”

  “You, you’re huge!”

  Kiron bent and grabbed her ankle, hauling her to the end of the bed. Moira shrieked and grabbed the comforter, but he kept pulling. Transferring his grip to her hips he flipped her around and held her up.

  He was grinning as he dangled her off the floor.

  “Mayhap I am not huge, rather you are short.”

  Moira lifted her hands and braced them against the ceiling, “I’m rather glad to be short, as I am able to stand upright.”

  “This is not comfortable,” he admitted.

  “Change.”

  “Do you prefer me as a man?”

  “No.”

  “Lie.”

  “You are less intimidating as a man.”

  “My powers are the same. I am the same.”

  “I mean physically you are less threatening.”

  “I showed you in the club that I can command your body in human form also.”

  A wave of heat swept through her at the reminder of what they’d done, the way it had felt to be pinned against the wall by his body, the hardness of his flesh between her legs.

  Their positions, Moira suspended in his hold, his own awkward bent posture, prevented them from doing things, and as Kiron lowered her to the ground, Moira could only assume that was a very good thing.

  When her feet touched the floor, Moira climbed onto the bed and rolled off the other side.

  “I’m going to go get our stuff.”

  Without waiting for a response she headed out the door, using the walk to the van to clear her head. She’d stop trusting her heart a year ago, when blind, stupid emotion almost got her killed. She wasn’t going to risk her chance of survival, and alienating her best ally, by complicating the issue.

  A few hours later Moira was more discouraged than she’d been in a long time.

  “Fifty museums. Fifty! It would take months to search them all, especially considering I have no idea what I’m looking for.”

  Kiron lay on the bed at her side engrossed in the brochure from the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center. There was an open container of pineapple-fried rice propped on his stomach. Moira stabbed a pineapple with a plastic fork and shoved it in her mouth, chewing viciously.

  “Scr-fur-t.”

  “What?”

  Kiron lowered the brochure and pulled the stripped chicken bone from his mouth. “Scry for it.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “What kind of witch are you?”

  “The kind who never learned how to scry.”

  Kiron tossed the bone into the box with half a dozen other bones. “I’ll teach you.”

  “You know how?”

  “Of course.”

  “I thought your magic was tool-less.”

  “It can be, that does not mean we do not know how to use some magical tools. My people invented and refined many of them.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Of course not, you grew up among human magic workers.”

  “Actually, I didn’t.”

  “Then how did you learn?”

  “I apprenticed with a witch in secret once I was old enough to understand what I was, then from books.”

  “Who raised you?”

  “My parents.”

  “Humans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then they cannot be your parents.”

  “They raised me. They are my parents.”

  “You are maddening, you are not human. Even if you were human, you are a magic worker and would have to come from parents who knew The Way.”

  “I was adopted, can we stop talking about this?”

  Kiron looked at her, those disquieting obsidian eyes examining her face, the defensive hunch of her shoulders. “Very well.” He took the brochures from her and started laying them out on the bed, pushing aside boxes of food as he went. Moira slid to the top of the bed, pulling her legs up to make more room. When Kiron was done, the brochures lay in three neat columns.

  “Don’t you need a pendulum to scry?”

  “We’ll get to that. First we need to see if you can do it without the pendulum, for true scrying is a way of manipulating raw magic. It was only later, when the less-skilled magic workers—”

  “Let me guess. The humans?”

  “—began to scry that the dousing rods and pendulums were used. And yes, it was the humans who invented the tools, allowing them to pretend at more power than they had.”

  “What do I do?” Moira rolled forward onto her knees.

  “Hold your right hand out over the papers. Move it back and forth in a sweeping motion. As you move your hand envision the thing you want to find.”

  “Do I have to have a picture of the thing, or only an idea of it?”

  “I have always known it to be with an image in your mind, but the idea should be enough.”

  Moira swept her hands in a small arch from side to side, as if wiping a table. Once she was sure of the motion, she closed her eyes and concentrated on what she wanted.

  I need to find a list, a list of titles, titles of books, books that contain the Dark Prophecies.

  Back and forth her hand moved, until her muscles grew weary. Each time her mind tried to wander, she forced it to focus. The hardest part of magic, and the part which prevented many from becoming skilled, was the need to focus, deeply and completely.

  I need to find a list of books, the Dark Prophecy books.

  Her hand stopped, as if caught in a trap. Moira’s eyes popped open. Her hand hung motionless in midair over the center column of cards.

  Kiron reached forward and swept away the outside columns. They were left with seven choices. Moira gathered them and flipped through. The Field Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, Kohl Children’s Museum, the Peace Museum, National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum and the Swedish American Museum Center. Moira wanted to eliminate some of them, like the Vietnam Vet’s museum, on principal, but since she really had no idea what the list was she couldn’t. If the troll who divided the scrolls and protected them was really as savvy as Drak had made her seem, she might have written the list in a soldier’s diary, or as a border surrounding a Viking manuscript.

  She held out the stack to Kiron, who flipped through them, though he probably had less of an idea what might be housed in the various museums.

  “Now what?”

  “You do it again.” Kiron rearranged the seven brochures into three columns, two of two and one of three.

  Moira held out her hand, repeating the process. She kept her hand moving until it hurt to hold her arm up, and her brain ached from the effort. The harder she tried, the less seemed to happen, and tears of frustration tightened her throat.

  Her hand stopped moving, but not from any magical force. Kiron forced her hand to her lap. “It is not working.”

  “It has to work. I need to know. I need to find the list to find the amulet to find the book to protect myself.”

  “Be calm.” His voice was stern, rough with it. “We will find it, but to do so we need a pendulum, that is all.”

  Moira swallowed her panic and frustration, forcing herself to nod casually, ignoring the fact that she’d been close to tears. “In the morning I’ll find a phone book, there must be a few magic shops in Chicago.”

  “Shops? We have no need of shops, all we could want is out there.” He poi
nted to the door of the room.

  “In…the van?”

  “No, in nature.” He rolled off the bed, and his dark eyes glittered with apparent pleasure. “I will show you.”

  Moira pulled her shoes on and headed out the door with Kiron, mystified as to how they were going to find a crystal and chain for a pendulum in the fields outside. There were no lights in the parking lot. The edges fell away into darkness. The light from the bulbs above each door only made it as far as the second row of cars. Their van was a hulking dark mass in the back row.

  They crossed the parking lot. Moira shivered. It was a cold night.

  “Are you going to give me a clue what we’re looking for?”

  “No. I am going to show you.”

  They reached the van, and Kiron moved behind it so the van stood between him and the building. Moira understood why, when the now-familiar sparks wreathed his body. As he passed out of the shadow of the van Moira saw that he was no more than a wavering outline, a ghost, invisible to human eyes.

  Hoping the darkness hid her since she hadn’t thought to bring the invisibility spell he’d shunned on that first night, Moira followed him into the grass. The sticky blades caught at the legs of her jeans, and when the grasses rose to her knee, then thigh high, Moira’s pace, sluggish compared to his, slowed further.

  “Kiron, wait.”

  He was several yards in front of her. Seeing her predicament, he turned and came back, his tall legs better able to navigate the dense vegetation than hers.

  “You have to slow down. My legs aren’t as long as yours.”

  He tilted his head, considering her. “It will take far too long if we must move at your speed.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can.” Moira stepped on something she couldn’t see, and nearly fell, catching herself at the last minute.

  “It is a great privilege to ride a centaur.”

  “Huh?” Moira was occupied trying to extract a pokey something from her sock. “I don’t understand.”

  “To allow someone to ride on your back is to declare yourself servant to them, lesser, a pack animal.”

  Moira finally understood what he was talking about. She looked up. His face was in shadow, his arms crossed over his bare chest. “Kiron, I didn’t ask—”

  “I know, but I am offering.”

  He held out his hand, but Moira shook her head. “No, I don’t want to make you feel like a servant. I can walk.”

  “I am offering you a great honor, to refuse is a grave insult.” Anger sparked in his voice, and the moonlight highlighted the side of his face. She could see the muscles along his jaw clench. Suddenly the creature standing before her wasn’t Kiron, but the enraged centaur who had arrived in her circle the first night.

  She took a step back, and her hand went to her heart, prepared to form a stunning spell. The cuff on his wrist began to glow, the runes filling with murky red light. She was drawing from him, gathering power to prepare a spell to defend herself against…him.

  She was being crazy. This was Kiron. Kiron, who she’d nearly had sex with in a club, who couldn’t drive, and who’d stood by her side when the water monsters attacked. Moira dropped her hand from her heart and held it out to him. He took her hand.

  Kiron tugged her in close and then knelt, bringing his back to a more manageable height. Remembering riding lessons from her youth, Moira planted her hands on the center of his back and pulled herself up, until she was belly flopped across his back. From there she twisted until she could throw one leg over and sit up.

  “I’m on.”

  “Yes, I know, I can feel it. You’re riding me.”

  Moira wiggled into a comfortable position, realized there wasn’t one, and settled for the least uncomfortable.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Trying to get comfortable.”

  “I’m not a chair, designed for your seating pleasure.”

  “Good thing, you’d make a super uncomfortable chair,” Moira said teasingly. He flicked her leg with his tail.

  Kiron stood, unfolding his front legs, first one, than the other. Moira grabbed his waist to steady herself. She stroked his flesh where it changed from soft pliable human skin to the thicker, tough skin of the horse. She let her hands roam further, to where the coarse hair started.

  “What are you doing?” Kiron gasped, shudders racing up and down his body.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just… touching you. Did I hurt you?”

  “No, it feels, very, very good.”

  “Would you like me to do it again?” Moira raised her hands up and settled them on his sides, just below the lowest rib. Slowly, and with firm pressure, she stroked his sides, her spread fingers flowing over the change in flesh, continuing to slid down over the roughly defined muscled that wrapped the “chest” of his horse body. This was a mistake. She’d resolved not to touch him after that first night, and she’d kept things platonic between them, but there was something primal and sensual about riding him like this.

  Kiron shivered again, drawing in a deep gulp of air. Moira saw his chest expand at the same time his body between her legs expanded.

  “You have…two sets of lungs.”

  “Of course.”

  “Take another deep breath,” she demanded, curiosity cooling her arousal. Kiron turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, quirking one eyebrow. He breathed deep once more, Moira’s body rising and falling on his back.

  “This is incredible. You have two sets of lungs?”

  “Yes, as I just said.”

  Moira was so fascinated by his physiology, she barely noticed when he started walking deeper into the field. The tops of the grass brushed her dangling feet, and the swish of their progress complimented the other sounds of the night.

  “But when you are human you only have one set.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s no wonder that you prefer your centaur body, you have double the organs, allowing your body to perform better.”

  “But my body is larger than when I am a human, so I need larger lungs.”

  “Larger, yes, but you have a whole other set.” Moira twisted to look at his tail. “What else do you have two of?” She started poking at his back.

  “Stop poking me, I have all the same organs in my chest as I do when I am a human.”

  “But what about the things that exist below your waist, as a human?”

  Kiron stopped abruptly, his shoulders twisting as he partially turned to look at her. A grin pulled up one side of his mouth, matching his quirked eyebrow. He gave her quick, lascivious once over, lingering on her breasts.

  “That’s not what I meant.” She hoped he couldn’t see her blush. It didn’t help that she’d just been imagining repeating the scene from the dance floor, this time sans clothes.

  “You can see it if you want. I am not wearing pants.”

  “I realize that, but that’s not what I was asking, I was thinking of er....” Moira blanked on exactly what organs, besides the one they referred to, existed below the human waist.

  “Isn’t there an expression in your language, referring to a man as ‘hung like a—’”

  “Shut up.”

  Kiron let out a roar of laugher. Moira hid her face in her hands, and Kiron started forward again.

  The hotel was a small ball of light behind them. To the left and right they could see a few other signs of humanity’s touch upon the land. Red aircraft warning lights blinked atop their skyscraping scaffolds, the din of cars rushing over asphalt faded bit by bit as they traveled further and further away.

  A night breeze, chill and quick, spun around them, spiraling Moira’s hair into a whirling column of blonde strands. The wind died, with a final snap of cold. Moira brushed her tangled hair from her face.

  The sound of cars was gone, as were the lights of their hotel behind them. Moira looked around again, but the edges of the field faded into black.

  “Kiron...”

  “It’s coming
.”

  “What?” Moira said, swallowing her nerves. He wouldn’t hurt her. She trusted him enough to believe that. Even if he wanted to he couldn’t. But repeating those facts didn’t dim her nervousness that all signs of humanity had vanished.

  “The Wild.”

  Kiron stopped amid the grass, raising one cupped hand, as if he would catch wind. Summoned by his gesture the wind began to blow again, but this was no frolicking, twisting, play of the air. The wind rose to a gale, as arrowed and strong as the winds of a hurricane.

  Around them the grass flattened, lying down before the power of the air. Kiron shifted, bracing his hooves, leaning forward. Moira, protected from the worst of it by his body, felt its force against her legs. Her jeans flattened to the outline of her legs and Moira curled her toes to make sure her shoes stayed on.

  The sound was the worst of it, for there was no sound.

  The gale-force wind should have been accompanied by roaring and bluster, but all was silent.

  Moira opened her mouth in a yawn, trying to pop her ears so that she could hear the sounds she knew must be there. When that didn’t work, she spoke Kiron’s name, asking him why she could not hear.

  Though her lips moved no sound emerged, even the echoes of speech that should have reverberated through her skull were muted.

  Moira’s concern turned to panic. Reaching forward she wrapped her arms around Kiron’s waist, pulling herself against his warm back and laying her cheek on his shoulder. The wind whipped at the top of her head, pulling on her hair until the roots hurt.

  The stagnant silence and wild wind seemed to go on and on, until Moira’s arms and legs went numb to it, as numb and dead as her ears seemed to be.

  When Kiron tapped her leg, Moira didn’t feel it. He had to grab her knee and shake before she looked up, peeking over his shoulder. The wind brought tears to her eyes, but when she saw what had caused him to shake her, Moira sat up straight.

  Rushing towards them, fast as a leaf in a tornado, was a forest. An entire forest. As it sped ever closer, Moira could see individual tree trunks, a dense canopy and dripping vines. The trees stood straight and tall, untouched by the wind.