by Izzy Shows
"But I is hearings that's a no good, very bad place!"
"Who told you that?"
He suddenly turned tight lipped, avoiding my eyes.
"Fred...who have you been talking to?"
"Spirits talk, Miss," he said, still not looking at me.
"Please, please, don't tell me you have been having weird spirit parties in the basement," I said, letting out an exasperated sigh.
He didn't say a word.
"Fred!"
"You is sayings not to tell you!"
I growled under my breath. "That is not what I meant," I said. "I wanted you to say that you hadn't been doing that."
"Miss Blair would not likes it if I was lyings to her," he said, sounding almost mournful.
"Oh my, Gods," I said, resting my elbows on the table and leaning my head into my hands. "This is ridiculous. I don't even know how to handle this. Are you grounded? I think you're grounded."
Fred snorted, a surprising sound. "You is not groundings me, Miss Blair."
"Oh?" I jerked my head up. "Says who?"
If he had eyebrows, they would probably be raised right about now. "I is just sayings, you is wanting informations..."
"Are you...are you bargaining with me?"
He grinned at me, the little imp.
"Fine, fine, I don't want to know about it. Let's leave it at that. Are you going to help me?"
"I is not knowings what you is wanting, Miss. I is finding it hard to believe there is more than one wolf in London."
"Well, that's just what we're dealing with. It's the only logical conclusion. Unless you have some brilliant other idea on what we should do?"
He was quiet for a moment, tapping one long, thin finger against his red lips. "Aha!" He scampered off the picnic bench and danced over to the silver circle inlaid in the ground. "We is callings an ether spirit!"
My eyes widened. "An ether spirit, have you gone mad? We can't call one of them down, that's just asking for problems."
Truth be told, I knew little of ether spirits. Raven had mentioned them once, two years ago, and my memory was a little hazy on what they had told me. It had been right before I'd found out that Aidan and I were charging headlong into a suicide mission, so...you know, priorities.
Fred gave me a look. "Is nothings to worry about if you is being smarts."
"OK...how do we do this, then?"
Fred and I started getting everything ready, piling supplies around the circle in the center of the basement. He insisted we needed a sandwich, though, which I thought was a little ridiculous, but when I went upstairs and made it without too much argument. Kailan didn't seem to find anything odd with me coming up just to make a sandwich and going back down again; probably because it wasn't the weirdest thing for me to get hungry while working with Fred. I ate downstairs a lot.
We finally had everything ready, and Fred instructed me to sit on the ground in front of the circle. He gave me the words to chant, effectively using me as a puppet. That was OK, though, I didn't know what I was doing and I trusted Fred implicitly. I would put my life in his hands if the situation called for it, without hesitation.
Mist began to coalesce inside the silver circle, then slowly turned denser and denser until it almost resembled a fog, swirling about the insides of the circle.
"Who calls me?" A disembodied voice came from the center.
Fred nudged me.
"Uh. It is I! Blair. Of London. I'm calling you."
I am so smooth, I thought to myself.
"Blair of London, do you know the punishment for calling me without due cause?"
"I'm going to guess it involves frolicking through a field of posies?"
"What?"
I snorted, covering up a giggle with my hand. A quick look at Fred told me that I was not at all behaving in the way he had expected me to. Well, tough, this was how I responded to situations that were stressful in nature. I made jokes. I thought everyone knew that by now.
"Sorry, my bad. I think I have due cause, though. Since there's something tearing through the citizens of London, and I'm pretty sure it's a werewolf, but there's only one that I know about and it's not him. So, I guess I've called you here to ask you if you know about other werewolves in London? Or maybe it's a shifter, and I was lied to...That's always a possibility, but I like to think that I wasn't lied to. Can you help me?"
"You are young and foolish," the voice said.
"Well...yes, that's sort of true. I mean, I'm not that young anymore," I said. I was twenty-six now, and I had seen more than my fair share of shit. It had been a fast two years, I couldn't believe how much had and hadn't happened all at the same time.
"I will tell you what you seek to know."
"Oh, fantastic! Let's start with the werewolf, then."
"First, I require payment."
I blinked, casting a nervous glance at Fred. He hadn't mentioned payment. "What, um...what payment?"
"A memory."
Now, I looked down at my lap, my brow furrowed. A memory? It wants a memory from me? I thought to myself. "I don't have any good ones to give you," I said.
"It need not be a pleasant memory. But it must be important, rich, filled with meaning. The essence of humanity."
Fuck. Well, I guess I could do 'essence of humanity,' if that was what it wanted.
"How do I give it to you?"
"You have but to think it in my direction, and I will receive it."
I closed my eyes, placing my palms on my knees, and recalled a memory. A memory that reeked of humanity.
THE SWING SET CREAKED OVERHEAD as I pushed myself forwards and backwards, watching the other kids to my right. They were all huddled around a new toy, some electronic handheld game.
Trying not to be obvious, I strained my eyes towards their corners, trying to see what it was they were playing.
"Oh, my goodness, it's so cool!" Another girl shrieked, jumping up and down.
Envy squeezed my heart, and I looked down at the dirt in front of me.
I didn't want to just walk over and look at it too, what if they didn't want me to play? What if they told me to go away?
It wasn't like all of the other kids had all been invited to look one by one—the boy had just run into the playground and shouted for everyone to come take a look. I was part of everyone, wasn't I?
I bit the inside of my cheek, frowning at the dirt.
I was never part of everyone. I was always the kid on the outside, that didn't get invited to play hide and seek or tag or whatever the other kids were playing. It was stupid to care about it. The latest foster mum told me so, told me that caring about it didn't make it change at all.
It didn't stop me from caring.
I dragged my feet in the dirt to bring the swing to a stop, casting a hesitant glance over at the group of kids. No one noticed me, and I breathed out a sigh of relief and disappointment. It would have been nice to be noticed.
I clutched the rubber that coated the chains holding the swing in place.
I told myself I was just building up the courage to go over there. Even I didn't believe myself.
Other kids didn't feel the need to analyze every single interaction, did they? Look at those kids, they were all just giddy and bouncing around like everything was fine and happy. And here I was sitting on a swing and thinking about how happy they looked.
Well why couldn't I just go over there then?
I will. I'll just stand up and go!
Only my feet stayed glued to the dirt beneath them, as if the thought had never occurred.
"Hey, Blair, come check this out!" One of the boys shouted, waving me over.
Elation lit up my face as I jumped from the swing as if propelled by some otherworldly force and ran over to the kids, joining the crowd.
I oohed appropriately, as all the other kids did, not so much amazed by the device though. I was just happy to be in the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with the other kids.
"Here, try it, try it!" The boy encourag
ed the kid next to him. "Pass it around! It's awesome!"
There was so much glee in his voice, to be sharing his toy with everyone, it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement.
Squeals of delight erupted from each kid as they grabbed the device and mashed buttons at random—no one really knew what they were doing with it, with the exception of a few, but everyone wanted to touch it, try it, play with it.
When the kid next to me held it, I got a good glimpse of what was actually happening on it. It was some kind of fighter game, very simple set up of two overly muscled men attacking one another with each mash of the buttons.
Nothing that I would ever actually want to play with, most likely—it actually looked kind of boring if I sat down with it for an hour or two—but that wasn't really the point.
It was shiny, and new, and it let me hang out with the other kids.
The girl next to me handed me the game and I cradled it in both hands cautiously. It suddenly seemed expensive and fragile, something I hadn't picked up on before, and I became very anxious that I would drop it.
A few seconds passed, with the other children eagerly encouraging me to play with it, and some jostling going on in the crowd. The jostling only made me more anxious. I pressed a button, then a second one, and tried to breathe through the anxiety.
What if I break it and they all hate me? What if they already hate me and this is an elaborate trick to embarrass me? What if...
The thoughts continued in my mind, my vision blurring to the point that I could barely see what happened on the screen when I pressed buttons, and my heart began to pound against my chest.
It felt like the sound of my heart beating would be audible to everyone around me, which only made me think that they would mock me for it.
My heart raced faster and my mind began to spin, I clutched the device more tightly in my hands.
And then I heard the small pop and saw the smoke rising from the device. The screen had suddenly cracked.
I gaped at it, and looked frantically around at the suddenly quiet kids.
No one spoke, no one moved.
The boy who owned the device sniffled, breaking the silence.
"You broke it!" He shouted, pointing a trembling finger at me.
"No, I didn't! I didn't do anything!" I said, begging them to believe me. My eyes widened, brow furrowed, and my breath came in quick, little gasps. I needed them to believe me. I needed them not to hate me.
A child next to him stepped forward and shoved me, hard, knocking me down into the dirt. The toy spun out of my hands and hit the ground, though no one looked at it anymore. All of their attention was focused on me.
I had never wanted to be so invisible before.
Another kid kicked at me, sneering down at me. "Get lost, pikey. No one wants you here."
"Yeah!" The other kids jeered, jabbing at me a few more times before they began to walk away.
I choked back a sob, not wanting to make a sound, and draw their ire back to me.
"She's not a pikey, though. She doesn't look it." I heard a voice pipe up, faint as they walked away.
"Yeah but that always happens with pikey's. So, she is one."
"Oh okay."
I stared after them, waiting until they disappeared from view before I curled up into a ball on the ground and let myself cry.
THE MEMORY ENDED. I was shaking, my cheeks were wet, and I felt humiliated. But to me, this was humanity, the core of it. The cruelty. All I had ever wanted was to be a part of things, and one little mistake—a mistake I hadn't even made, truth be told—and they'd all pushed me away.
A crowd could turn on you at any minute, don't fool yourself for a second that it won't.
"Your memory serves, mage."
Ah, well, glad it could measure up. That was totally worth reliving. I huffed out a breath but kept my thoughts to myself.
"The werewolf," I said, prompting the spirit to tell me what I had been after in the first place.
"There is but one werewolf in London," it said. "No more, no less."
I blinked. "Well, that's impossible. I saw a wolf, and I know it wasn't Geoff."
"It was not a werewolf," the voice intoned dispassionately.
I frowned, chewing on my lip as I thought about this new piece of information. If it wasn't a werewolf, what on earth could it possibly be.
"So, it's a shifter, then?"
"I would need more information to tell you what you are or are not dealing with."
I was starting to get nervous that I was going to run out of questions that the entity would be willing to answer. Like a genie, where you only get three wishes. How many questions would it give me?
"Well, OK, so there was an attack a few nights ago out on a campground on the outskirts of town. Absolute massacre of people, torn limb from limb. And then there was another one last night, only this one was in an alley, but it was still a group of people just torn to pieces. Bloody mess, unlike anything I've ever seen. I did a spell to see the last moments of one of the victims, and it was a giant wolf with amber eyes that was attacking them. I saw it. Oh! And, I was in Peckham earlier and I was attacked by a werewolf—or something that looked like a werewolf, I guess—and had to fight it off. My magic did almost no good against it, it didn't seem to even care that I was throwing fire at it."
Fred choked beside me, and I remembered then that I hadn't got around to telling him I'd been attacked in Peckham. Whoops.
The entity was silent, the mist swirling around and around, it seemed to move fast and then slow down for a minute before speeding up again. Was it thinking? If mist could think, I suppose this is what it would look like.
"What you are dealing with is neither shifter nor Loup Garou," it said, continuing to swirl quickly. "But rather an entity capable of masquerading as one. You would do well to be cautious, young Blair, for I believe what you face is more than it seems. You may have met your match with this one, she who pretends to be Wizard."
And with that the mist was gone, as if it had never been in the circle in the first place.
I turned to look at Fred. "She who pretends to be Wizard?"
"Spirits talk," he said, shrugging. "I is not sayings that it is I who is talking, but spirits talk."
"Hmph," I said. "Well...fuck. Fuck a doodle do. What am I going to do now? It's not a werewolf, it's not a shifter, it's not an anything. I'm back at square one!"
I got up off the floor and stomped over to the picnic table, debating sitting down, but having too much energy coursing through me to do that. No, I needed something else...But what? I paced. I needed to think, and that was hard to do when you were sitting idly. I needed movement, to get the blood going.
If it wasn't either of those, then what could it be? What could take the form of a werewolf, and yet...and yet...
Then it hit me, and I felt like the worst kind of fool.
It was not a werewolf. But I would need to make damned sure I was right about what I thought it was.
33
"Where are you going?" Kailan barely got the words out of his mouth before I reached the front door.
"Need a smoke. Need to think," I said, barking the words at him as I yanked the door open and darted outside, slamming it shut behind me.
I grabbed my pack of cigarettes out of my jeans pocket and lit one, inhaling the nicotine, letting it wash over me and bring me the calm that I needed to think properly.
Walking away from the house and into the neighboring field, I let my mind drift.
This can't possibly be, I thought to myself as I walked, lifting the cigarette to my lips again. I looked up at the sky above, angry storm clouds cluttering the night sky. There was going to be more rain. Shocker, there. Rain in London? Who would have thought?
Maybe a good drenching would shock me back into reality and give me a thought that made sense. I certainly felt the need for it now. I looked out at the forest line at the far end of the field, felt the call to drop my cigarette and run. Just run
until the world made sense again, run until I couldn't think or feel or be anything other than human for a single second. Until the only thing on my mind was the need to breathe, to pull air into burning lungs, to fight the urge to fall down when my thighs burned from exertion. That was what I needed.
I looked back at the house, wondering if they would be OK for the few moments it would take me to run...
The decision was made for me a moment later, when I turned back and found myself looking at a figure in the field. So, no running then. I backed up a few steps, my heart starting to beat erratically. I didn't have any of my gear on me just now, didn't have anything but the magic in my bones, and it had been a while since I had used that in a fight.
I was spoiled by my foci. The pain alone that was necessary to call magic into reality would leave me debilitated in a fight, I knew that. Maybe the adrenaline would get me through, like it had that one time...
The figure moved, a jerky motion that reminded me of a cockroach. I shivered, taking a few more steps back but not turning to run to the house—I didn't want to put my back in view of whatever this figure was. Because there was no way in hell that a friendly visitor just popped into a field in the middle of the night for a visit.
Dropping the cigarette to the ground, I stomped on it to make sure it went out, and continued easing my way back towards the house. How far from it had I walked? It couldn't have been that far, surely I would find myself stumbling over my steps in a moment here, I'd be able to put my door between me and whatever this thing was, and get my wards up.
My wards would keep me safe.
The figure jerked again, flashing across the field, and appearing in front of me in one motion. How the fuck had it done that?
"Blair," it said, its voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard. I cringed, trying to hold myself steady. "I have looked for you."
"What are you?" I tried to keep the horror out of my voice, but it did no good. I was looking at a mishmash of humanity and creatures I couldn't recognize, pulled together to form a body that resembled a human at least in outline alone. It had one human hand and its other arm looked alarmingly like an octopus’ tentacle, its face was freakishly human, but it had scales instead of hair. Its legs...looked like the hind legs of a wolf standing straight up.
