Water Witch

by R. J. Blain

  “Thanks.” I staggered to my feet, all of my muscles complaining. With a frown, Dad fetched my board and freed me from the tether. I should’ve said something, but the entire day chose that moment to bill me.

  It added interest, too.

  “You stupid kid. You went and played yourself out, didn’t you?” Dad ruffled my dripping hair. “Car’s that way, punk. I’ll even be nice and lug your surfboard home. I can’t believe your first mid-life crisis involved surfing in Malibu.”

  “It wasn’t a mid-life crisis.”

  “What was it then?”

  “Avoiding justifiable homicide charges.”

  “I’ll just file this one under boys will be boys.”

  “Appreciated.”

  Dad sighed. “I have one request.”

  “What?”

  “Next time, please take me with you. That way I’ll have earned my beating with the spoon.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised my mom had whipped out the spoon? I thought about it. “Deal, but under one condition.”

  “What?”

  “Next time I go back to the morgue, I better be dead!”

  “Keep dreaming, kid. You’re going to work on Tuesday, even if I have to handcuff you and take you in myself.”

  “Damn it, Dad.”

  “Don’t you start. We took our eyes off you for twenty damned minutes, and you ended up in Malibu.”

  “Forty-five, but close enough. Admit it. You’re just mad I pulled it off.”

  “‘Let’s have kids,’ your mom said. ‘Kids are great.’ I didn’t get a kid. I got an evil genius with a complex.” Grumbling curses, Dad guided me to the car and loaded in the surfboard, which didn’t fit all the way, requiring him to tie the trunk closed. Dan jogged up with my clothes and wallet, and I said my goodbyes before my dad ended up even more annoyed with me.

  Starting the car, Dad cranked the AC and headed for home. “Tell you what, pup. Get through the rest of your internship without running off and terrifying the life out of your mother and me, and I’ll take you surfing somewhere exotic—and I’ll leave your mother at home.”

  “Sold. It better be good, Dad. And don’t lie about leaving Mom at home. She’d follow.”

  “That’s part of the fun. The question isn’t if she’ll follow, but if she’ll catch us.”

  For Fenerec and their mates, such a challenge had one and only one conclusion, something I didn’t want to think about, especially not when my parents were involved. “I get my own room as far from yours as possible. I don’t want to be in the area when Mom kills you.”

  “I have such a caring son.”

  “And my father dumped me in a morgue. I think we’re even.”

  “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Do I ever?”

  Dad snorted. “I’d like a refund.”

  “Take it up with Mom. I’m sure she’ll get right on that.”

  “You’re ruthless.”

  Chuckling, I leaned the seat back for a hard-earned nap, which would start as soon as I could get Dad to stop talking for two consecutive minutes. “You’ll live.”

  “I suppose. Just do us all a favor and take your phone with you when you have your next mid-life crisis.”

  “You sound confident I will.”

  “Yeah, by next week, I’m sure.”

  Something about Dad’s tone worried me. “What now?”

  “Dr. Cannovan wants you to observe autopsies starting next week. By observe, I mean you’ll be using a scalpel. He’ll be observing you perform autopsies.”

  “I need a new life. Stat. Did you forget I’m going to college to be a lawyer? I have no medical training.”

  “They’re already dead, Dusty. You’re not going to kill them. You should be happy. It’s worth a lot of credit hours, and you don’t even have to pay for it. You’ll be getting paid. It’s a win-win. You’re a modern-day apprentice.”

  “In a morgue.”

  “So?”

  “Lawyer, Dad.”

  “You could do a bit of lawyering on the side, I suppose.”

  “Dad.”

  “You’ll have fun.”

  “In a morgue?”

  “Just forget I said anything.”

  I sighed and wondered where the hell I’d gone wrong with my life.

  Four

  A Stormy Day

  Every year, July and August were a living hell for many in Las Vegas. Monsoons popped up with little warning, and a three-foot wall of water could—and did—sweep away everything in its path. The pressure of the building storm wrapped around me and squeezed.

  When the rain came, the heavens would open, and I needed to be outside. The rain called to me, and if I didn’t escape the smothering confines of the indoors, I’d go mad. If I obeyed the storm’s call, the windy deluge would wash everything clean. I needed something—anything—to take the edge off.

  My witchcraft hated me as much as I hated it, I was certain.

  Between my classes and reluctant return to working part-time in the morgue, I was a powder keg ready to blow. No one knew what to do with me; not my father, not the water witch he’d called in to help me, nor anyone else who knew about the Inquisition.

  My dad’s witch could sense fluids too, but she visualized everything. Compared to her, I was as blind as a newborn kitten. When I closed my eyes, nothing changed. When she closed hers, control was as simple as taking a few calming breaths.

  Water glowed blue to her sight. Everything had a different color.

  For me, water was a warm embrace, silk against my skin. When my magic surged, my entire body, even my blood, reacted. Some days, I wanted to scream, and I hid in the quietest place I could find to wait for the pain to subside.

  Sometimes, the flares lasted for several days.

  On a really bad day, I couldn’t leave home. I sensed everyone, and not only did I feel them as though they shared my body, I saw them like Bethany did. Closing my eyes didn’t help, and my only escape was the water.

  I needed the monsoon more than my next breath, and I prayed it would quiet my witchcraft for a little while.

  Instead of going out to dinner with my parents, I headed to the outskirts of Vegas, where flash floods were a real danger for the residents, and water rescues were a way of life. If the raging waters could numb me to the world, I didn’t care if I drowned. Mom and Dad cared, and they’d take a belt to my ass if they heard my thoughts, but I needed an escape.

  All around me, people suffered, and their pain tore at me. Some had no idea they were dying a slow death, their aching bodies trying to warn them they needed help I couldn’t provide.

  I parked my junker on a campground access road, hiked the half mile to the ridge, and climbed to the edge of the Las Vegas basin to watch the storm roll in. It hit hard and fast, soaking me in a single breath. Thunder shook the ground, and my perception of the world shrank to the beating of the rain against my skin.

  I could breathe again, and I sighed my relief. Sinking to the ground, I closed my eyes, aware of the water flowing around me as the parched ground rejected the sky’s offerings, as it would until the moisture seeped into the cracks and softened the soil.

  A spark of life heated my leg, and tiny claws pierced through my jeans. I yelped and opened my eyes to discover a drenched, mewling kitten struggling to climb onto my lap.

  “Oh, hell,” I groaned, grabbing the little beast so it wouldn’t drown. My magic warmed, a good indication I held a little girl beastie. She wiggled in my hand and refused to quiet until I held her against my chest. “What are you doing out here?”

  She answered me with a weak mew, and my magic locked onto her without any assistance from me. Dehydration and malnutrition would kill her if I didn’t do something, and I cringed at her hunger. Nature wasn’t merciful, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t sense anything else alive. Whether she was orphaned or lost, it didn’t matter to the kitten.

  Unless I helped her, she’d die. Leaving her in t
he monsoon wasn’t an option. The storm showed no signs of letting up, and six inches of water was swirling around me. With the lightest touch of magic, no more than a simple thought, I redirected the deepening flood away so it rushed around me, as though I were a stone it couldn’t push aside. In time, the water might wear away at me, but the monsoon would blow itself out long before I faltered.

  The kitten burrowed into my clothes and purred to ease her fear.

  Like so many other monsoons, it didn’t last long, but in the ten minutes it raged, it left its mark. If I had been human, the current would’ve swept me away, and my body would’ve been found in the campground or the city. If I had been with my car, I’d be easier to find but equally dead, like my cell phone, which I had left inside the vehicle so it wouldn’t get wet.

  My car had been smashed into some rocks, and to soften the blow of its loss, I pretended I’d given it the automobile version of a Viking funeral. The driver’s door was long gone, and the rest of it had been crunched like a tin can. While I’d expected flooding, having deliberately gone to a place I could embrace nature’s wrath, I hadn’t considered the potential damage to my vehicle.

  Oops.

  I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t laugh, shrugged, and waded through the draining water towards Las Vegas. I was careful to stay clear of the roads to keep anyone from witnessing the water avoiding my feet because I didn’t want to trip and fall on my way back to civilization.

  I took the kitten home and named her Stormy, which totally nailed my coffin closed. The idiot puppy of a werewolf owned a sopping wet, half-drowned, diabolically cute kitten named Stormy. I’d have to Dad-proof my apartment to keep her safe.

  Sometimes, the price was worth paying.

  I’d have to take her everywhere with me for the next few weeks. Tiny kittens too young to be weaned needed a lot of care, which meant I needed to find a vet.

  Damn it. What sort of idiot was I? Oh, right. I had an Alpha werewolf for a father. It had to be a genetic malfunction. Mom would never bring home a stray kitten. No, Mom wanted children of the human variety and drove Dad crazy because one of me was enough for a lifetime. He had the right idea; some days I was amazed my parents hadn’t killed me yet.

  Kitten in tow, I checked my laptop, got the address for the nearest emergency vet, and glared at the map, which promised an hour hike unless I called a cab. With half the streets flooded, it would take more than an hour for a cab to reach me, so I hit the road.

  A second storm added twenty minutes to my walk, and Stormy was mewling and shivering against me when we arrived. A single look at my new pet got the receptionist moving, and within five minutes, she took my kitten to the back to be checked over, fed, and cared for.

  I sat in the lobby and waited.

  Without my witchcraft, I would’ve worried while I waited, but the fear and hunger I sensed wouldn’t hurt my kitten.

  I waited, and waited, and waited. I waited some more, until boredom drove me to counting dots on the ceiling. The exercise required concentration; if my attention wavered, I had to start over.

  Five hundred and three dots later, I noticed the presence of four other people, their pets, and the various medications nearby were reduced to a tolerable buzz; a buzz I could choose to ignore, isolate, or pay closer attention to.

  The old lady with her equally old dog had cancer, as did he. I counted the intersections in the tiles, one eye on the pair. Her cancer ate away at her breast, and I doubted she knew. While she ached, the pain didn’t bother her. It wouldn’t, not for a while; by then, it’d be too late.

  Her dog wouldn’t last much longer, and he held on for the sake of the woman he idolized. The dog’s emotions were clearer, simpler, than a human’s but just as deep.

  The receptionist called for the old woman’s dog, and the pair left. Sorrow, so strong it cut me to the bone, surged before fading. I averted my gaze to the floor. The old lady didn’t need my magic to tell her what she already knew. Life and death went hand in hand.

  Thirty minutes later, the old woman returned with teary eyes and a weary, lonely heart ready to break for the final time. Behind her, the receptionist gestured to me, nodding to a white-coated man who held my kitten.

  Damn it. I rose to my feet and intercepted the old lady on her way to the counter. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  The old woman smothered her grief. “Yes, dear?”

  “Do you like cats?”

  My question startled her. “Well, yes. I suppose I don’t mind them. Why?”

  My stupid big mouth would one day get me into a great deal of trouble. “I rescued a kitten from the storm, and I thought you two might need each other. I’m in college, so I won’t have time for her,” I lied—well, partially lied. I would have made time for her, smuggling her into my classes, taking her to the morgue, and becoming a nuisance with my doting parents. “I’ll take care of all her bills, if you bring her here for her care.” I toed a dangerous line, and I knew it, but I plowed on. “I’ve no idea how to take care of a cat.”

  “Yet you decided to take one home with you. You young things are all alike. You dive in first and think later. You’re just like my grandson. He does the same shit and drives us all mad.”

  Her cursing startled a laugh out of me. “I’m an idiot often, it’s true.”

  “You’re young. You’re supposed to be an idiot often. That’s how you learn, and I think you’ve learned your lesson. You took responsibility. Where’s this kitten, dear?”

  The vet arched a brow at me when I explained I’d plucked Stormy out of a flood zone, which earned me a scolding from both of them. I endured, grinning like the idiot I was.

  A kitten wouldn’t unbreak the old woman’s heart, but everyone needed a purpose. Stormy’s would be to save an old lady from loneliness. Her new owner’s eyes brightened in the presence of young life.

  Sometimes life found the most unexpected way to remind me that the little things mattered. Magic played no part in my decision to rescue the kitten.

  While Stormy was meeting her new mom, I went to pay penance for my kindness. The receptionist sat and smiled at me. “That was a very sweet thing you did.”

  When the woman on the other side of the desk found out what I intended to do next, she’d think I was crazy, too. “I’d like to pay the bill for her dog,” I whispered, pulling out the family credit card in case the bill exceeded my personal card’s piddly limit. “The whole thing, plus enough to cover any bills Stormy might have for a while, including vaccinations, spaying, and food.”

  The old woman would have to deal with the extras, but I figured without any vet bills, she’d be able to afford little Stormy’s needs.

  I was worried when the receptionist grimaced. “She’s on a payment plan for Mr. Fluffy.”

  Mr. Fluffy? The poor dog. “Charge the entire amount, please.” Stealing a glance at my former kitten and her new owner, I sighed. “Just tell her an anonymous donor paid it—or that the rest has been waived. However you feel is best.”

  Nodding, the receptionist took my credit card, swiped it, and handed over the terminal.

  When my father learned I’d paid six thousand dollars for an old lady’s dead dog and a rescued kitten, he’d kill me. I processed the payment, waited for the card reader to tell me the transaction was approved, and handed the device back. “Thanks, miss.”

  “Are you her guardian angel?” The receptionist handed me the receipt, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Nah. I’m nothing that nice. I’m just a guy who got suckered into helping a cat.”

  She stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had, but I didn’t care. I left before the old woman remembered me so I wouldn’t have to answer any more questions.

  Hell in the form of four cruisers waited at my apartment with Dad’s SUV, but only Jeremiah, the pack’s Second, was loitering outside. I slogged through the incessant drizzle and leaned against the wall beside him.

  “You were trouble from the day you were born.”


  I was too tired to argue with him. “Yep.”

  “Your car’s totaled, your mom fainted when she saw it, and your dad hasn’t stopped growling for four hours. Where have you been?”

  “I found a kitten in the storm, so I took her to the vet. The car was my stupid fault. Was tired when I parked. I wanted to watch the storm roll in from the ridge.”

  “Of course. You can’t do anything the easy way, can you?” Jeremiah pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Rob, your pup’s downstairs with me. He found a kitten, and bleeding heart that he is, he took it to a vet. Says the car was a tired, dumbass Dusty stunt. He was on the ridge and probably wired because we keep forgetting water witches lose their fucking minds during the monsoon season.”

  I heard Dad snarl something.

  “Cranky wants to know if you’re all right.”

  “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I gave my kitten away because an old lady’s dog died. You tell me.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the old lady was dying, too. I hoped her cancer was the slow growing kind, the kind many carried around with them for decades without knowing it was there.

  “Okay, then. Beat him within an inch of his life next week, Rob. The pup’s worn out. Take him home and maybe buy him a puppy or something tomorrow. He’s had a rough day.” Jeremiah hung up. “Stop giving the pack heart attacks already.”

  “Sorry.” I frowned. “A puppy?”

  “Can you imagine your dad sharing space with a cat? It would be World War III.”

  I didn’t have a chance to reply, because my father barreled out of my apartment, plowed into me, and cuddled me into submission.

  Damned Fenerec.

  Five

  Not a Drill

  While working in the morgue had bagged me a lot of credits, I needed so many science courses to fill in the blanks my head spun. I laughed my way through the biology labs; the samples for dissection were so preserved a child with a butter knife could pass without taxing themselves. Real corpses took a far gentler hand during an autopsy. Anything could be a clue, from an unexpected puncture mark to a suspicious bruise.