“Oh hell.” Cooper knelt beside me, staring at Pal’s wounds. “What bit him?”
The moment my boyfriend asked me that question, I knew what was happening, and realized things were far worse than I’d imagined: during his fight with the rats in the steam tunnels, Pal had been infected with some kind of viral lycanthropy. My brain had skimmed right past that scenario, dismissing it before it reached the level of a conscious thought. I couldn’t imagine him turning into a rat purely on the strength of a virus, not with his alien physiology. And I’d seen what happened to people who got infected but couldn’t change their shape due to some quirk of fate or body. The disease made their bodies boil with malignancy, cancers erupting viler than Ebola, ulcers and tumors swarming over healthy flesh until at last their systems collapsed. At the end, flesh and bone liquefied into red muck.
My brain wouldn’t willingly entertain the idea of Pal suffering that kind of horror, so I’d been blind to the possibility. Let myself be blind to it.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“What bit him?” Cooper repeated sharply.
“Rats. Wererats.”
“Shit.” My boyfriend shook his head, looking grim. “His body’s destabilizing. I … I can’t do anything for this.”
“Jessie!” Pal’s voice was weak. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“I’m right here.” I put my hand on the side of his head.
“I’m rotting from the inside out; I can feel it.” He blinked cataract-blinded eyes at me. “Promise me … promise me you’ll kill me if there’s no cure for this.”
“It won’t get that bad! We’ll figure something out.”
“Promise me!” He heaved himself back and forth on the floor, trying to stand but he was too weak to get his legs under him.
“Stop that! Lay still, or you’ll hurt yourself!”
“Promise me!”
“Okay! Okay.” I felt my breath hitch in my chest. “I—I promise.”
Pal lay back on the floor, his sudden anxious energy spent.
My vision blurred, and I realized I was crying.
“Are you okay?” Cooper touched my arm.
“No.” I wiped my eyes on my flesh forearm.
“Here.” He held the pocket mirror out to me. “Call your father; maybe he can help.”
“Okay.” I took the compact from him and went outside onto the sand.
“I wish to speak to Magus Shimmer,” I told my red-eyed reflection.
The mirror went dark, then resolved to a view of the empty high-backed wooden chair in my father’s workshop.
“Hello, Dad?” I’d said the D-word without thinking, but it left a strange aftertaste. “It’s Jessie—we need some help out here.”
I heard him flip-flop across the floor, and a moment later he plopped down into the chair.
“What’s happened?” he asked. “Has your familiar taken a turn for the worse?”
I nodded. “He’s got viral lycanthropy. Cooper and I are sure of it. He got bitten by at least one wererat, and there’s no way his body can change.”
“This is most serious.” My father looked grave.
Tears rose in my eyes again. “I can’t lose him. I just can’t. I’ll do anything to save him. Is there anything we can do?”
“I’ll send another potion; it will help with his symptoms for a few hours. I lack the skills necessary to help him, but I know someone who may provide a cure.”
“May provide a cure?” I repeated, feeling the blood drain from my face. “As in, it’s not a sure thing?”
“I’m afraid it is not certain, no,” he replied. “Curing lycanthropy is a complicated process that involves any of several ingredients that are most hard to come by. If the ingredients cannot be found, the cure cannot be made, no matter the skill of the healer. I recommend that you take your familiar to Madame Devereaux as soon as possible. He should be feeling well enough to travel shortly after he gets the potion.”
“How do we find her?” I asked.
“Her location is a sensitive matter. A great many people with bad intentions would like to find her, and we’d rather that didn’t happen. I can give you directions to her home when you are ready.” He paused. “Hold on, the potion should be there momentarily.”
There was a blue flash high in the sky, and a dark speck began to plummet to earth, just barely visible in the moonlight. It slowed as it neared the sand, and I realized it was a green bottle. I plucked it from the air and ran back inside to give it to Pal.
chapter
twenty-four
Madame Devereaux
The new potion was black and smelled like iron and dirty socks. Pal gagged on it, but he kept it down and it seemed to take away the worst of his pain. However, even after a few minutes he still had trouble standing, his leg muscles trembling and unable to support his weight. Walking was clearly not going to happen for him anytime soon.
While he rested, Cooper and I got dressed and then went out into the moonlit brush to gather palm fronds and a few branches from an orange-flowered kou tree. With the aid of my Leatherman tool we lashed the fronds and branches together with palm fibers into a triangular Pal-size litter. We carried the litter back to the beach house, put the futon pillow on it, and managed to roll him over onto the middle. Cooper cast a buoyancy charm on the litter and it rose, lifting Pal a few feet off the floor.
I opened the mirror and called my father again.
“I think we’re ready to go,” I told him, then flashed the mirror on Pal so he could see for himself. “He can’t walk on his own, though, and we probably can’t take him through narrow passages or dense trees. What do we do now?”
“If you would, once you’re all outside, please pull the cord again.”
Cooper and I gathered our stuff—I grabbed a few changes of fresh clothes from the garment rack and stuffed them into my backpack—and left the house, careful to stay on either side of Pal in case the litter started to tip over. Once outside, I did as my father had asked and gave the cord poking out of the corner of the house a good hard tug. The house folded in on itself as if it had been made out of playing cards, shrunk down to the size of an armchair, and then shot up into the sky, vanishing behind a burst of bright blue light.
“What do we do now?” I asked, hitching my backpack and shotgun straps higher on my shoulders.
“Well, your familiar’s inability to walk or fly complicates your path slightly,” he said, frowning at something to the side of his mirror that I had no way of seeing. Then he brightened. “Ah, found it. Begin by carrying him down the beach to the south; keep your mirror open, and I’ll tell you where to stop.”
My father led us to a portal near a rocky cove. I pulled off my glove to open it, and was nearly blinded by the midday sun shining bright on a stretch of desolate salt flats that had to be on the other side of the world.
“I hope you two are well rested,” he said, “because I am about to jog you around the world in eighty seconds. Keep moving; the Virtus Regnum may catch on to your location if you remain in one place too long.”
I never had time to take in much of the surroundings during the next minute and twenty seconds because my father had mapped out a route to Madame Devereaux’s that had us going through so many entrances and exits I lost count. In almost every instance the doors leading from one portal to the next were practically facing one another and the three of us were suddenly characters in some door-slamming stage comedy or a Warner Brothers cartoon. But my father guided us, his voice strong and confident, and I followed his directions without question, something I never would have imagined myself doing a few months ago.
I tried to stay in physical contact with Pal and Cooper every time we entered and exited a portal to make sure we remained together, but it was difficult. The journey became a dizzying, almost terrifying mosaic of doors and sounds, odors and rapidly shifting climates; for three seconds that felt like three years we walked six feet between portal doors in what had to be the middle
of Antarctica; luckily Cooper knew not to breathe as we crossed the knife-edged icy ground, and Pal’s breathing was so slow that he was never in danger of having his lungs freeze. The ice-wind felt like ten million razor shards being hurled at us with the force of a jet engine. By the time we threw ourselves through the next portal, our eyebrows and eyelashes were frozen solid, as was Cooper’s hair.
“Keep moving,” my father said. “Not far to go, but time is not our friend.”
No kidding? I almost said, feeling something trapped between fear and frustration blossom in my chest.
“Last one,” said my father as Cooper and I scrabbled and stumbled our way across a rock-strewn mountaintop toward the final door.
“Seventy-five seconds,” I heard Cooper shout across the screaming wind. I pushed ahead, almost skinning my hands raw on a small outcropping of jagged stones just beneath the shelf where the door stood. I opened the door and this time let Cooper push Pal through the exit before me.
We were on a muddy red dirt road. I could hear a hawk screech somewhere in the piney woods. The air was so humid I could almost see the atmosphere ripple as we moved through it; it was an actual weight like an invisible sponge pressing down on us. I could smell water both fresh and stagnant in the distance.
“Holy shit, Susie Q,” said Cooper. “I do believe we are in Creedence country.”
“Welcome to the bayou,” said my father. “I have contacted Madame Devereaux, and she is expecting you. Continue down Mossy Hollow Road until you reach a blue house. There’s a statue of a man by the mailbox.”
He paused, looking again at something to the left of his mirror. “I must attend to another matter. The arrangements with Madame Devereaux should be straightforward, but if you need anything please do not hesitate to contact me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
I closed the mirror and Cooper and I began to guide Pal’s litter down the muddy road. It wound through a copse of oaks furred with Spanish moss and lichens, and then we came to a sprawling blue ranch house with a white barn out back. A huge magnolia tree bloomed in the front yard, the white blossoms humming with bees. The front door was open behind a closed screen. Beside the galvanized steel mailbox was a stylized African statue of a man decorated entirely with cowry shells of different shades of white, yellow, and brown. He held out a small bronze bowl that contained an assortment of blue glass beads; whether they were offers from or to visitors I couldn’t tell, so I left them alone.
A knock-kneed girl of nine or ten in a purple jumper and bright pink Chuck Taylors came running around the side of the house, then slid to a dead stop when she saw us.
“Gran-maaaAAAA!” she hollered, pelting into the house, curly black pigtails bouncing. “There’s people heeeere!”
A moment later, a stooped old woman came out of the house, squinting at us from behind thick old-fashioned bifocals. She leaned heavily on a staff of gnarled black wood, and a cowry bracelet hung off her bony wrist.
“Who are you people, and what do you want?” she demanded, her voice implying a strength that seemed impossible given her apparent physical frailty.
“I’m Jessie Shimmer,” I called back. “My father is Magus Ian Shimmer. He told me he made arrangements with you? To help my familiar?”
“Oh.” She blinked at us, looking irritated. “Wasn’t expecting y’all for a few more hours. Got my shows on the teevee right now. Guess I can pause ’em.”
She stepped toward us, looking over the tops of her spectacles at Pal, who was still asleep on his litter. “Lord have mercy, that’s one strange-lookin’ critter you got there. Hurry now, bring him round back and put him in the barn, afore someone wanders down the road and sees him … they’ll think the Devil done come to town!”
The old woman turned back toward the house. “Shanique! Press the yeller button on the remote. I’ma be out here awhile.”
“Okay, Granma! Can I watch Alton Brown?”
“Why you want to watch that skinny little twerp fer? I cook a hunnert times better’n the people on them fancy shows! All you gots to do is pay attention in the kitchen once in a while.”
“Granma, pleeeeease?”
“Fine, watch the fool show if you want.” Madame Devereaux made a disgusted face and began to limp across the yard toward the barn. “Come on, shake a tail feather, bring yer critter, I ain’t got all day!”
Once we had Pal settled on a pile of straw in the barn, I secured the enchanted litter in a horse stall so it wouldn’t float away. Cooper shut the doors while the old witch pulled a milking stool over and began to examine my familiar’s wounds.
“Change-rats?” she asked.
I nodded. “He got bit a few days ago.”
She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “I can heal him, I reckon, but I’m a mite short of heart-juice for the potion, and it’s three more nights to the dark moon … you’d need to do the harvest then, when there’s nothing but starlight. I’ll tell you what to do, and Shanique can take you there, but y’all have to do the juice-collectin’. I’m too old to go running around in the bayou after that critter.”
“What critter?” Cooper asked.
“Sap Daddy. The beast come here with the Spaniards four hunnert years ago; they let it go in the swamp when it got too big to keep as a pet. And there it stayed, eating gators and getting bigger and bigger. When it died, something in the swamp kept it alive. It’s more plant than animal now, but that don’t make it no less dangerous. Its heart makes a black sap every month, and that and a little silver nitrate and some other bits and bobs are just the thing to cure most any case of the Change.”
“He’s got it pretty bad,” I told her. “Can you keep Pal from getting any worse until we go out hunting?”
She nodded. “I ’spect I can. I got enough juice left to get him through. Y’all will have to keep yourselves busy till then. There’s a Motel 6 off the highway, but that’s about twenty miles from here. You folk got a car?”
“No, ma’am,” I replied. “And I don’t have a credit card, either. Or much cash. We … can just stay here in the barn with Pal, if that’s okay.”
The old witch sighed, looking conflicted and annoyed. “I got a couch in the den and cot in the room off the kitchen. Y’all can have those, I guess. But don’t be keepin’ me up at night with your hanky-panky! And if you make a mess, I ’spect you to clean up after yourselves. And you help cook—I ain’t running no bed-and-breakfast out here!”
“Yes, ma’am,” we said, and she grumped back to the house to the comfort of her sofa and television.
chapter
twenty-five
Distraction
I’d just gotten a bucket of fresh water for Pal when the mirror in my pants pocket began to shake. I set the water down and pulled the mirror open. Randall gazed back at me, looking anxious. Spike was perched on my brother’s shoulder, his gleaming tail raised in alarm.
“Hey, sis, is your guy there?”
“Yes, he is.” I handed the mirror over to Cooper.
“What’s up?” He frowned down at Randall.
“I hate to do this, but you really need to get back here,” my brother told him. “One of the other kids just flipped the fuck out. The Warlock’s gone over there, but last I heard things weren’t going so well. We could really use your help with this, bro.”
“Dude … no.” Cooper’s frown deepened to a scowl. “Jessie needs me here. Pal’s sick, and we have to chase down God-knows-what kind of monster, and … just, no.”
“But—”
“Tell my brother to put on his big-boy pants and deal with it himself. Seriously. He can take care of our little brothers on his own for once.”
Randall blew out his breath; clearly he hadn’t expected this response from Cooper. “Okay. Whatever you say, bro. I’ll tell him.”
“Good luck. Let me know what happens.” Cooper closed the mirror, stuck it into his back pocket, and sat down on the milking stool. He rubbed his face, looking troubled.
&n
bsp; “Honey, if you think you need to be there, I really don’t mind,” I said.
“I mind,” he replied. “You’ve had to go through so much without me around to help, and I don’t want you to have to do all this by yourself. We should take care of Pal together.”
“Do you think the Warlock can handle whatever’s going on by himself?”
“Sure.” The worried look didn’t leave my boyfriend’s face. “He’ll be fine.”
An hour later, we were watching Pal eat a ripe cantaloupe from Madame Devereaux’s garden when the mirror buzzed in Cooper’s pocket. He pulled it out and opened it.
“Ohgodohgod I made it worse!” I heard the Warlock holler. “The kid’s totally out of control!”
Oh crap, what now? I wondered as I peeked over Cooper’s arm at the mirror. The Warlock was crouching down behind an overturned SUV to avoid branches and trash hurtling through the air in a tremendous swirling windstorm. I’d never seen him look so freaked out. In the sky behind him, a Victorian house and the plot of land it was built on were hovering unsteadily about one hundred feet above the rest of the neighborhood. It looked as if a giant had scooped the house out of the ground and flung it into the air. Water and sewage spurted fitfully from the torn pipes dangling from the root-packed earth. The slate roof was on fire.
Cooper swore. “Where are you?”
“Clintonville! Pacemont Road, just a few blocks from High—can’t miss it!”
“I’ll be back there as soon as I can.” Cooper snapped the mirror shut and rapped it against his forehead in frustration. “Dammit. There’s no way I can backtrack through all those portals. And I don’t even know where we are.”
I pulled the mirror from his grip and opened it. “Let me call my father; he can get you back home.”
Cooper blinked at me. “But that means I’d be taking the mirror.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “I’m sure there’s another mirror around here someplace if I need to get in touch with you.”
After I opened a connection to my father and he agreed to direct my boyfriend back to Columbus, I walked with Cooper back up the dirt road.
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