by Kimbra Swain
“No worries my dear, we know how to make up for lost time,” he leaned in and kissed me. He faced me and hoisted me up. I wrapped my legs around him, and he carried me to the bedroom.
I laid in the bed next to him. He had an abundance of energy I could barely keep up with him. He decided to make a few calls and inquire about the auction and what exactly was for sale. As he made the calls, I snuggled next to him. It felt like the days before our relationship got very dark. The darkness didn’t bother me, but I did miss this somewhat. He talked to a female on the line currently,
“Ah yes, I am aware of the item,” he explained. I listened to her talk, but didn’t use magic to overhear. It would make him angry. “Thank you very much for the information. Please call me anytime if there is anything I can do for you. Goodbye.”
I looked at him waiting to see if he would tell me what he had found out. He looked at me and caressed my face. “Did you find something out, my dear?”
“Yes, I did. And you will go to Paris and buy the item for me,” he said.
I raised up in the bed and sat there looking at him curious about what the item that had intrigued him so much. “What is the item, may I ask?”
“It’s a book. A magical tome. The blackest of magic. It contains spells and rituals that can destroy the earth,” he said smiling. “My favorite kind of book.”
“How interesting that such a book has become available considering our activities,” I remarked.
“It is no coincidence, I assure you. Whomever owns the book either wants to lure us out with its sale or wants to maximize profit on the book when it would be in high demand. There will be plenty of abominable creatures there. You must stay safe while there. You must come home with the book. Is that clear?”
“Yes.” I said. He got out of the bed and headed for the bathroom. I heard the water start running in the shower. I’d have to make a few calls myself. I would need a dress, shoes and a date. I was thrilled he was going to let me go out and do this on my own. I heard him humming in the shower. He must have had a wonderful evening. That made me a little sad, but I suppose if he was eating souls I didn’t want to be involved anyway.
I got out of the bed and went into the other bedroom where I kept all my clothing and belongings. I jumped in the shower. When I got out, he was already gone. He left a note on the counter saying he’d gone to speak with the Director about the auction and not to expect him home tonight.
That’s okay. I had plenty to do myself. Time to make plans.
When I awoke in the warm bed, I smelled bacon cooking. I jumped in the shower. Afterward I threw on black utility pants and an army green t-shirt. I made up the bed. I did not want George cleaning up after me all the time. I put my boots and socks on the chair next to the bed and padded down to the kitchen in my bare feet. The cool tile floor felt good against my feet, and I followed my nose to the kitchen.
Abby stood there over the stove using a fork to turn bacon in a frying pan. She wore khaki utility pants, but they were shorter than mine. They cut off at her calves. She wore an off-white tee shirt, and her hair up in a ponytail. She was barefoot, too. I smiled at the coincidence.
“Good morning, handsome,” she said. I blushed, but recovered quickly.
“Good morning, bacon maiden,” I said. She threw her head back and laughed.
“There is some on the table already with eggs and coffee.” She pointed to the table with her fork, and I went over and sat down.
“You sleep okay?” I asked.
“Yes, better than I thought I would,” she said scooping the last of the bacon up and laying it out on a plate. “Go ahead and eat. You don’t have to wait on me.”
“No, that’s rude. I can wait,” I said as she washed her hands off and sat the second plate of bacon down.
“George, it’s ready if you want some,” she called out to the house. I did not see George on my way to the kitchen which was unusual. He was always cleaning.
“Go ahead and eat. I’ll eat later,” he called back from the direction of the sitting room. She sat down and put several strips of bacon on her plate.
“Oh, I forgot my tea,” she got up and picked up a plain white mug from the kitchen counter and sat back down. “Now eat!”
“Are you going to cuss me for eating your bacon?” I poked fun at her.
“For your information, Tadeas Duarte, I made that bacon that day, but once it was done I didn’t have the appetite to eat it. But right now, I’m going to eat your share for you if you don’t hurry up,” she poked back.
I shoved a whole piece in my mouth and grinned. She shook her head and laughed at me, and we both ate. We chatted about the class later on today which would actually be early in the morning in Boulder. This time zone change stuff could be complicated. I was excited she planned to come to class with me.
“Perhaps we can have a real match now,” I said.
“You wouldn’t want that,” she said as her green eyes smiled over the mug.
“Oh please, I went easy on you,” I smirked.
“I know. Good thing, too. I’d hate to have to hurt that pretty face,” she said putting the last bite of bacon in her mouth.
“I accept your challenge,” I said.
“Oh good, come on let's go fight,” she said and got up. She headed for the door.
“Wait what about the dishes?” I asked.
“Don’t make excuses Duarte, because you are scared to be beaten by a girl,” she said as she rounded the corner out of sight.
George appeared in the small doorway to the back of the house on the other side of the kitchen, “Go. I’ll clean up.”
“Thanks, George,” I said and sprinted after her.
She was halfway down the hallway when I caught up to her.
“George said he would get the dishes,” I explained.
“I know. You have no excuses now,” she teased.
“I suppose I don’t.” And we descended into the basement. I supposed I didn’t need my shoes if we were going to spar. We walked into the large training room, and the lights automatically turned on with the motion in the room.
“Well, how do you want to get started?” she asked. “Kata, Wushu Taolu?” I stretched a little.
“No, I want to fight.”
“Okay. Whatever you want,” she said.
We faced each other on the mat, and bowed. We fought back and forth. Neither of us giving up much room to the other. She was extremely skilled. We didn’t talk; however, I enjoyed myself. I rarely had the chance to go against someone who had as much or more training than myself. I took a lot of my time off from the Agency to travel to new teachers and new disciplines. She obviously had traveled around a great deal herself. She presented forms of Karate, Ju-Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Aikido and many others. Throughout the entire workout her heartbeat remained steady. Strong. It was a wonder. She remained very calm in a fight. I got tired rather quickly. “Where in the world did you learn all of this?” I asked between heavy breaths.
She stopped and bowed to me. I returned the bow.
“When Samara taught me magic, we traveled all over Asia. Every town we went to, he made me learn whatever flavor was most revered in the town,” I said. “You would have thought it would have taught me a little more discipline, but it was hard for me to connect the real-world obstacles to the training. In hand to hand fights, yes, but when magic got involved. I didn’t get it until much later on.”
“You are very good,” I said.
“You are the best I’ve ever gone against. The animal instincts help, yeah?” she walked to the back of the room where there was a small counter. She threw me a towel from it, and opened the cabinet underneath to reveal a mini-fridge. She got two bottles of water. She gave me one and sat down on the mat.
“They do. It’s how I initially saw you holding back.”
“The whole reading the muscle thing. Honestly, that’s amazing to me,” she said admiring my talent.
“I’m not sure it’s all
that great,” I said and sat down across from her.
“It is. I see it. One day you will too,” she said confidently. “I do want to see you shift. I figured here was as good as any. It’s quiet, and I can concentrate on how the environment changes to determine exactly what variety magic is going on there. It will help us in the future if I know more about your gifts.”
“I wouldn’t call them gifts,” I muttered. She continued to praise this side of me that I kept hidden. That I kept restrained.
“I would. It’s magnificent. Shifters are all very special. You are one of a kind, Tadeas. I looked it up in the Agency records. There are no other black jaguar shifters in the world. There are very few leopard and jaguar shifters at all, but no documented cases of a black jaguar.”
“I don’t think my coloring makes me special,” I said standing up and looking down at my feet.
“What’s wrong with your feet?” she asked leaning over to look at them.
“Nothing. Why?”
“You keep looking at them,” she said trying to get me to smile. “Tadeas, if you don’t want to do this, I’m fine with that too. If you aren’t comfortable with it, I don’t want to upset you at all. Honest. I won’t be angry if you say no.”
“I’ll do it. It’s just that I’ve always considered shifting a bad thing. And you came along and to hear you praise it like you do, it’s just different,” I admitted.
She stood up and she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “It is a good thing. It is not a curse. And the only way you can ever learn to control it completely isn’t really magic at all, it’s learning to accept it for what it is. I just propped it all up, but put it in perspective what you do is no different than my magic, it’s a talent. You can use it for good or bad, but you can’t really use it at all until you accept it and try. You know your Bible, right? The parable of the talents?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one. Two servants took their talents and multiplied them. One man put his talent in a hole, and the master took it away from him.”
“That’s actually the best condensed version of a parable that I’ve ever heard,” she laughed. “No one is going to take your talent away, but it could take you away to a very dark place if you don’t control it. You’ve kept yourself in an isolated place and on a routine. And the last few days all of that has been ripped from you, thanks to me,” she paused and sighed. “But now you have the opportunity to make what I already know is a wonderful talent, into one you can believe in and use for good.”
I heard what she said. And parts of me knew it to be true, but there was that nagging voice in the back of my head that kept saying I was a murderer. If I ever did anything to hurt her or Meredith or even one of the students, it would destroy me. Finally, I gathered myself up enough to speak.
“I want to try, but I still can’t see it that way, Abigail,” I admitted. It felt nice to be truthful with her. She didn’t flinch or back down.
“Then we will try. And eventually you will see what I see. Now, you shifting for me or no?” she winked at me.
I nodded my head and pulled on the coolness of the spirit would, and my jaguar body morphed into place. She circled me. I stood there twitching my tail as she shifted her sight between the magic spectrum and reality. The golden edges to her eyes glowed. I noticed like before when I shifted, I had no urge or desire to harm her. I was curious to see what she was doing as she paced around me. She bent down in front of me and looked in my eyes. And then I heard her voice muffled in my head, and jumped backwards several feet, startled. I turned my head sideways to indicate, “what the hell?” She laughed at me, and sat back down on the floor and crossed her legs.
“Can you hear me better now?” It was like her voice filled my entire head. I twisted side to side and shook my head. “Oh, it’s too loud,” she said in almost a whisper. I sat down where I was looking at her from the distance.
“What the fuck?” I thought very clearly. She rolled back on her back laughing. “Seriously, you can talk in my head. Fan-freaking-tastic!” She laughed some more.
“Yes, I can, but I can do this while you are human, too. However, I couldn’t do it if you weren’t willing.”
“How can I be willing if I don’t know you are going to do it? Don’t go poking around in my brain,” I let out an audible whine.
“If you were afraid of me or hated me, I wouldn’t have been able to make the first contact. I imagine it came though kind of muffled. But once you concentrated it on it, it was like giving me permission to communicate with you in this way. And I promise, I would never poke around in your brain. I can’t do anything other than what you let me do. If you want me to stop talking to you this way, just say so.”
“You promise you aren’t in my brain?” I asked her and bared my fangs.
“Easy kitty. I promise. I swear it on my power,” and I felt a rush of the seal of a power oath swirl around her, and bind it to me. In my form as the jaguar I could physically see the swirl of glittering gold power wrapping around her, then forming to a little glowing ball and fly into me. A power oath meant that she just gave me a small bit of her power. It’s basically like I can hold it over her head and destroy it if she breaks her promise. I thought back to the orientation when I joined the Agency. We had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but there was a binding oath there too. It said if the Agency had any questions about a major crime or questionable activities, that one of their wielders would have the power to enter my mind. They could retrieve any information they wanted to. It made me uneasy, but everyone that entered the Agency signed the paperwork. I figured I’d be training students for the rest of my life and signed it. I realized that Abigail was probably one of the people that could enter a mind and take what she wanted. However, in just the few days I’ve known her, I know she would never do that without permission. Her oath to me was strong. I could feel it.
“Wow, but that wasn’t necessary,” I said.
“Sure, it was. I wanted you to know I was serious. Meddling in people's minds is a big no-no. And while I generally ignore a lot of what the TCA has to say, they are absolutely correct on that one.” She looked like it pained her to admit it.
“If I’m ever like this you can always communicate with me by just thinking the words?” I asked.
“It’s a little more than that, but I have to focus on you and your aura, and there is a small communication spell involved. Like I said, I can do this while you are human. It’s helpful in many situations, but of course you have to allow me to do it.”
I got up and walked over to her and sat in front of her. “Do you want me to switch back?”
“Yes please,” she spoke out loud.
I pulled on that unnamed place where my human body waited and switched bodies. I had watched myself do it in the mirror before to see what it looked like. It was a shimmer and a bit of a blur and the bodies just switched. I sat across from her in my human body and mimicked the crossed legs. “Do it like the head thing with me like this,” I said.
“Communico,” she said in Latin. Then her voice lightly brushed around in my head like a breeze, “Hear me?”
“Yes,” I spoke.
She held her finger in front of her mouth like she shushed a child. “No like this,” she spoke again in my head.
I concentrated on her, “Better?”
She smiled, “Much. It will get easier. It’s harder as a human. Humans are far less trusting than animals. Your spirit form, which is what it is by the way, trusts me more than you do.”
“Spirit form,” I said out loud again, “Damn it. I’m sorry.”
She laughed and spoke out loud, “No it takes time. We have time to practice it. I’m going to break the bond of the spell. That way, I’m not sitting here holding a spell in place for no reason. Adimo.”
“You will have to teach me these Latin words so I will know what you are doing. Sorry, Latin isn’t one of my known languages,” I said.
“Sure. Adimo is to take away, or withdraw, to s
teal. I withdrew the earlier spell which was Communico. It is not simply communicating, but it’s actually more like sharing, because we both have to be willing to share our minds for it to work.”
I nodded. “The other day you said Quies in the corridor.” I hesitated to bring up the memory, but the word stuck in my head. Much like the one the dark figure at my exorcism used. I would never forget it. I tried looking it up once, but I was never able to determine how to spell it or its origin.
“Quies is peace. And yes, that will stick with you,” she explained. “It was not a request like the communication spell. It was a demand.”
“There was a word, a spell someone used on me many years ago, and I wonder if you might know what it meant,” I decided to ask. She knew a lot about magic maybe she knew.
“Sure, what was it?” she asked willing to help.
“I might not say it right, but I’ve heard it twice before, hodéezyéél.”
You would have thought I told her something horrible. Her face went pale and she scrambled to her feet. She covered her face with her hands and turned away from me. I stood up, and started to step toward her.
“No, don’t. Wait,” she choked out. She lowered one arm to her stomach and held it like she might be sick. The other she still held in front of her mouth.
“Abby,” I said quietly. I wanted to apologize, but I had no idea she would react that way.
“No, it’s okay. Just give me a second,” she said quietly. She turned to me, and tears streamed down her face. “Where did you hear that word?”
“Twice in my life a dark figure approached me in the spirit realm. Father Sergio tried to tell me it was a demon. Once was during an exorcism. The other when I killed...” my voice trailed off.
She winced. She took the back of her hand and wiped the tears. She drew several deep breaths, steadying herself. I resisted the urge to wrap her up and hug her. Whatever I had said was extremely painful to her.
She looked up at me with those green eyes sparkling with tears, “That was no demon.”
