Water Witch

by R. J. Blain

  It intrigued me that I understood my body slipped into as close to a state of hibernation as humans could get. One after another, my breaths grew more shallow, and my heart stuttered on its way to a final halt.

  The pain promised I lived, but my body feigned the death I craved.

  When I thought my body had finally had enough and would quit altogether, I persisted. As magic didn’t keep me alive, I could only guess science did. It made sense.

  A pack of determined Fenerec would have found my trail eventually, locating me sometime after the witchbane had pulled the plug on my magic but before my heart could give out completely. Machines could keep me alive, assuming I’d been taken to one in time.

  The Inquisition sucked, and I had no doubt they’d perform scientific miracles for the sake of a pack Alpha—and to keep their newest weapon. With luck, perhaps I’d broken my witchcraft and could return to a somewhat normal life, one where I aspired to become a lawyer.

  In reality, I doubted if I’d pursue the degree I’d founded so much of my life upon.

  Justice was just another illusion.

  I wished the wolves hadn’t hunted for me, and I regretted my lack of foresight. Had I planned a little better, I would’ve erased the system rather than leaving an easy way for others to retrace my steps. If those snooping into my activities looked back far enough, they’d find a trail of failures. Maybe, if they bothered to think about it, they’d understand I had tried.

  I’d lost count of the different types of medications I’d tried. Meditation hadn’t helped, either. I’d stopped after twenty or thirty combinations of herbal remedies. Exercise and exhaustion only redirected my focus onto my own body, part of how I’d learned of my failing heart. That respite hadn’t lasted long. Counting accomplished nothing, although I’d brushed up on my calculus skills without the benefit of a calculator.

  If they tore my apartment apart, they’d find a yoga mat beneath my bed along with prayer beads, a few New Age books, and a Tarot deck I’d used all of once before reassigning it to be a collection of interesting but foreboding artwork.

  Drawing death as the first card had soured me on the whole experience, although the reading of the card mattered. Death could mean many things, including change, but I’d gotten stuck on the what and had left it at that.

  If Dad went through the things littering the space beneath my bed, he’d like my collection of criminal science books, although he’d filet me if he figured out I’d used the knowledge to learn where to locate unethical botanists with an interest in unusual plants.

  In a week, I’d gotten my hands on five strains of witchbane; I’d come away understanding the plant couldn’t help me, not anymore. The best strain had dulled the edge for five whole minutes.

  I’d considered the kind of drugs that would land me in prison for a long time, but I’d chosen against that path. Not only would I have ruined myself, I would ruin my family, too.

  Some prices I refused to pay, and that was one of them. I’d seen the consequences of illegal drug use too many times. The escape they offered wouldn’t last, and I wouldn’t be the one who’d have to live with the consequences of my choice.

  My parents could recover from my death; I’d cost them too much as it was. They’d never recover from the loss of their reputation.

  It occurred to me if I had gone the illegal drug route, I wouldn’t have had a pack searching for me in the first place, something I hadn’t considered before abandoning reality for a drug-induced haze. The same hopelessness that had driven me into the desert in the first place sank in.

  Obsessing over my mistakes wasn’t enough to mute my awareness of my body, which struggled to survive and hung between life and death on a precarious thread. If I’d possessed scissors, I would’ve snipped the cord to be done with it, but while my witchcraft endured, it refused to listen to my wishes.

  As usual.

  Regret dug its claws deep within me. I’d gone so far without accomplishing anything.

  I couldn’t ignore my magic. I couldn’t change it. I refused to accept what I couldn’t change or control, not this time. Within a single moment of rage, I could kill someone. In my hands, life and death began and ended with a thought. At the rate my power grew, it would only be a matter of time before a nightmare might leave bodies around me.

  Since I’d murdered Laurel and her pack to protect others from their illness, I’d been left with only nightmares. I understood the necessities of their deaths.

  The ease of it, however, would forever haunt me.

  I longed for escape, but my only option was to sleep, and I would gain nothing with rest.

  I never did. Not anymore.

  The blue-white wolf found me amusing, and he invaded my nightmare and chased it away, leaving us to stand together in the depths of a night-chilled desert. Frost shimmered on his coat, and he sat, watching me with fathomless dark eyes.

  He made better company than the woman I might’ve loved if not for the circumstances of our lives. “I saw Laurel’s wolf,” I confessed to him. My voice echoed through the valley. “Before I killed them. She was chained.”

  I never wanted to see another chained wolf for as long as I lived.

  Maybe it made me soft and sentimental, but the wolves deserved satin or silk, not steel, and they deserved a choice. It should’ve been a cord they carried with pride, not wrapped around their necks to strangle them.

  The wolf tilted his head and waited.

  “I didn’t like it.”

  The wolf huffed, an amused sound similar to my father’s.

  Maybe the wolf was the equivalent of a priest from some religion or another, there to listen before I finally broke free of life and escaped to whatever waited on the other side. Probably hell, possibly heaven, or perhaps a blissful nothing. “I’m a bit of an asshole.” I hummed. “All right. Fine. I’m a lot of an asshole. I’m an asshole everyone either dislikes or fears, too.” I hesitated, but while the truth hurt, it needed to be said. “For a reason.”

  A damned good reason.

  The wolf didn’t seem to care, and I wondered if he was what salvation looked like: someone who cared enough to just stop and listen without false pretenses.

  I sat beside him and hugged my knees. “Every time I tried to ask another witch for help, the few who feel things like I do couldn’t do what I can. They can’t freeze blood in someone’s veins. They can’t tell who has cancer eating away at them. They don’t hear the drumming of hearts or the whispers of breath entering someone’s lungs. Those who see say all they need to do is concentrate or close their eyes to suppress their witchcraft and escape for a while. Nothing I tried worked. I tried.”

  I wanted to say I was tired, but the words stuck in my throat.

  Why did everyone expect perfection when I couldn’t even breathe anymore?

  The wolf watched, and he waited. For what, I couldn’t guess.

  Any company was better than no company at all, and when I couldn’t find any more words to say to express the hollow space in my chest, we sat together and watched the stars.

  The wolf loved the night, and I wondered what he saw in the stars twinkling above. I credited him for the respite from my nightmares, and I hoped the sun never rose so he might continue to enjoy the moment. I wondered if luck or his presence had changed the nature of my sleep, but I supposed it didn’t matter.

  Unlike anyone else recently, the wolf had nothing to hide from me. I interested him. I amused him. At times, I frustrated him, although I wasn’t sure why. Once, despite not having done or said anything at all, I’d pleased him so much he’d lolled his tongue and rewarded me with the brush of his nose to my throat.

  When sleep was stolen from me, I would miss the pale wolf. He saw me for what I was, and he didn’t fear me.

  He couldn’t hide from my magic.

  Most important of all, he felt no need to.

  If others could have accept me like he could, things would have been different.

  Much to my di
sappointment, I couldn’t sleep forever. To add insult to injury, someone else thought the same. A rather potent stimulant jump-started me in ways I didn’t appreciate. Not only did my heart rate accelerate, the drug tore me away from the wolf and the restful desert evening and forced me to consciousness.

  My witchcraft snapped back to life, and four people, all worried or anxious in some form or another, lingered nearby. The numbers puzzled me. I expected a doctor or a nurse, and for all people bitched and moaned about the poor care they received, I’d been to the morgue and the hospital enough times to sense the truth: they carried the burden of their worries for their patients on their shoulders each and every day. They did their best to keep from showing it, but the good doctors and nurses cared.

  Most were good.

  However much I resented the thought, I supposed the other two could be my parents during some lapse, their fear buried beneath the immediate reality of my death—or not.

  I wondered who’d pushed to keep me alive. With a single thought, I confirmed someone had done something to my heart, something that had eased its swelling and allowed it to function closer to a normal standard. It healed, although it was far from what I considered to be healthy.

  In a few months, maybe a year, it would return to normal. In time, all evidence of its strain might disappear altogether.

  I waged war against the stimulant, determined to return to the peaceful haven with the wolf. While I managed to fight the inevitable for a while, my ascent to consciousness continued until I could listen to a soft-spoken man explain the consequences of an induced coma, the estimated time for a potential conscious state, and the long-term challenges I’d face during my recovery, of which there might be many or few, dependent on if I developed any permanent impairments.

  While my father claimed his wolf could sniff out a lie, my witchcraft locked onto something indicating the doctor skirted the truth.

  The man knew full well when I’d return to a conscious state, and his estimated time was off by at least a full day.

  If he wanted me to play dead, I could do that, but later, I’d have a few questions for him.

  “The chances of impairment?” my father asked.

  I’d need to ask if my father had not bothered sniffing for lies, or if he’d joined me in taking a long walk off a short pier. Damn it, while I expected to keep company with a lot of shrinks in my future, I hoped to hell I wouldn’t be stuck in a group session with either one of my parents.

  “Heart conditions in a patient this young are rare. The tests show the critical enlargement has reduced, but stress and environmental factors could trigger another episode. A healthy man his age would have had no trouble on his hike. With the exception of his heart, he was well hydrated and in general decent physical condition with the exception of his weight, which is lower than I like. That comes as no surprise to me, however. Developing witches have high caloric requirements, and I expect he’s been eating to his previous standards rather than his new ones. That is easy to remedy. The rest is not.”

  “And the witchbane?” my mother demanded.

  “He’s not the first strong witch to use heavy doses of witchbane to take the edge off. He’s not the first to try to burn it out, either. He won’t be the last. If the Inquisition penalized every witch who tried, we’d be attending funerals every other week. He started his life as a witch with six kills. You can’t expect him to emerge from that unscathed. From the questioning sessions I’ve conducted with witches he’s contacted, he’s a far-range empath. He’s picking up the emotions and physical conditions of everyone around him. Considering his killing method, he’s attuned to biologics. There’s no way to hide anything from a newly fledged sensor of his strength. Until he learns how to buffer his magic to a level he can tolerate, he faces a daily war, and it’s not an easy one. Imagine, for a moment. Everyone you know and love fears you—possibly newly hates you. Some may resent him. Others? Who knows. Fear, anger, resentment—they’re all dangerous emotions capable of breaking any sensor. To go from the perception of a loving family life to being surrounded with fear, anger, and resentment, it is absolutely no surprise to me he reached his breaking point.”

  My father grunted. “What do we need to do?”

  “Get your heads out of your asses,” the man, who I presumed was a doctor, snapped. “If you can’t handle being near him without fear or worry, leave him alone. Stay away. Move him to another city—send him so far away he can’t sense anything from you at all. A small town with Normals would be ideal; he can retreat to a safe place, probably in the woods, so he isn’t bombarded all of the time. His choice of locations to get away for a while all points to one thing: he’s overwhelmed, and he doesn’t have a safe place. He has nowhere he can go where he is accepted without reservation. If you can’t give him that, leave and don’t return until you can. All you’ll do is kill him—if you haven’t already. Especially in someone so young, there’s never been a condition so aptly named. Frankly spoken, by all rights, he shouldn’t have made it here alive in the first place. I suggest you go home and take that quiet menace with you when you go. Think long and hard about if you’re capable of caring for someone who knows your every fear and doubt. If you can’t, I’ll personally find someone who can. Choose wisely. Do you concede the fight now and have a chance to win the war, or do you lose the war because your pride as parents dictates you have to be everything? Call me when you’ve figured out your answer.”

  The silence stretched on for a long time.

  “As for the menace darkening my hospital, I recommend you beat sense into them if you haven’t figured out the right answer by tomorrow morning.”

  A chuckle identified the menace as the devil. “I’ll take care of it. You get that young man back on his feet, and I’ll make sure the only people who see him have no fear of him. I’ll call you later with a few ideas of places to send him for a few weeks, and I’ll see if I can locate a competent empath who might be able to solve the puzzle that’s our Dustin’s magic.”

  “Good. Keep that pair out of my hair until I’ve gotten their pup stable.”

  Three of the four in the room left, and something inside relaxed, making it easier to breathe. A door closed.

  “Most of that conversation I held entirely for your benefit, Mr. Walker, so you can quit pretending you’re asleep. You might be able to fool a wolf and your parents, but I’m a witch just like you, and I knew exactly when you started listening in. I also know you’re fully equipped to handle a conversation with me. I exaggerated the risks of impairment so the nosy busybodies wouldn’t bother you for a while. Your parents have already failed my first few tests, and while I’d leave you to that menace without hesitation, he tends to be overenthusiastic and goes overboard. The last thing you need is to be smothered with more positive attention than you’re capable of handling. When some tender loving care is required, I may very well send you to Seattle into the care of the Desmonds for a while, as despite his reputation, Charles has a way with the puppies and a critical understanding of how to handle delicate individuals. His mate is even better at it than he is, and I abhor he’s wasted as an enforcer when he would best serve in other ways.”

  No, I understood the Inquisition’s wisdom in assigning Charles Desmond, a devil on a bad day, as an enforcer. “He’s a good enforcer because of that.”

  My voice emerged tired and weak, and a little hoarse.

  I assumed, at one point, someone had shoved a tube down my throat to keep me alive, or some ass had opened my mouth and poured in some rusty screws and some turpentine to make sure it hurt worse.

  “That he is, but I’ll deny any such claims should you tell anyone. Once you’re stable and mobile, you’re going to be going on a little vacation. A limited number of people will know where you’re going and why. You’re going to be given the choice of whether you go with anyone or on your own, and you’ll be able to propose locations. We have a few candidates as escorts who will know where you are, in case you wish for co
mpany. You’ll find they aren’t nearly as cowardly as other wolves.”

  “Wolves,” I grumbled. “I’ve had enough of wolves.”

  I only told a little lie; I missed the blue-white wolf, although I held concern he’d been brain damaged for his complete inability to fear me.

  “Try not to judge them too harshly, Dustin. Your father’s unaccustomed to being weaker—or even equal—to you, and your mother is incapable of being unafraid. When she’s not afraid of what your powers might make you do, she’s terrified of losing you. She’s a lot of things, but she’s a mother above all, and you did quite the little dance at death’s door on her recently. Some of those dancers were the makings of others, some of your making. They need time, and so do you.”

  I understood, at least a little. The dumbass trio had done a good job of waking me to the real risk and potential of death. The infection from the resulting gunshot wounds had taken me closer to a long-term stay in a hospital than I liked, and I would try not to blame myself too much for breaking under the strain.

  I doubted I would succeed, but I would try.

  “And the devil?” I asked, questioning why Charles Desmond had come to Vegas yet again.

  “You call Charles Desmond the devil? No wonder that one likes you. Most just piss their pants around him. He understands your position. He has no fear of you because he’s seen the man you are. He knows there’s nothing to fear. But, he sent you in for your first kills. He holds a certain responsibility for it. I suspect if I let him, he’d take you home with him, adopt you, and hire you as a permanent guard for his daughters. That one lives to protect his puppies, and there’s few better at protection than a water witch. Once you learn to control your witchcraft, you’ll understand that.”