I sighed and stood. Beast came to stand beside me, his shoulders at the same level as mine, his wings folded back against his body. I placed a hand against his side to steady myself.
“Am I going to have to carry you?” He asked.
“I can walk; we’re not going far,” I said. “Cynthia, can you come with me?”
I don’t know why I asked, some misplaced feelings on my part was all I could guess.
She shook her head. “How can you ask me that? You lied to me; you hurt Abigail.”
“I’d thought Abigail would want you to keep an eye on me,” I said, only half-serious.
Cynthia’s eyes were moist, but her voice was steady. “Yesterday, before Biers interrupted us, I asked you if I could trust you.”
“Oh?” What was she talking about? And then I remembered, the truth potion, I’d forgotten about it. “And what was my answer?”
“You said I couldn’t trust you, that you’d lie to me,” Cynthia said.
Ouch.
“Get off my property,” Abigail snapped.
I nodded. “Sure Abigail, for now, but I’ll be back. Marian and her other accomplice are going to take that grimoire from you unless I’m there to stop them. When I come back, you can either support me or the mage who murdered those women. I can’t guarantee you’ll survive if you help me, but I can guarantee you won’t if you fight me.”
“You threaten an old woman. Have you no shame?” Cynthia asked.
“Excuse me? She just tried to kill me. Weren’t you paying attention?”
“She wouldn’t have killed you. She was just trying to subdue you.”
My voice came out more bitter than I wanted. I should be used to the reaction of some people to Wanderers, but some things are harder than others to adjust to. “Yeah? Is that right, Abigail?”
“Damn you to hell, Wanderer!”
“I think she’s made my point,” I said. “They’ll be coming after moon rise. If you’re smart, you’ll both leave town until this is over.”
Cynthia’s voice softened, “Where will you go?”
“I think you know,” I said. There was only one other person I could turn to in town and Cynthia knew it. I really needed a few hours to get some of my strength back.
“Beast, I’ve changed my mind. Okay with you?”
His laugh was a growl that would have sent a pack of hyenas skulking to cover. He crouched beside me. I slid onto his back and lay prone between his wings.
“Try not to let anyone see you,” I said as I grabbed handfuls of his mane and held on.
“No worries, Wanderer.”
He leapt upwards and his wings began a power stroke. Manticores, like harpies, pegasi, and dragons don’t have sufficient wing span to lift their mass off the ground, but like the other semi-mythical beast, their innate magic made them practically weightless in flight. Even carrying my nearly two hundred pounds, Beast had no trouble flying full speed.
As the ground receded, Beast voiced a glamour. It was his standard; to any but a powerful magic user we would appear to be a hawk flying low over the trees of central Huntsville.
“I assume you want to go to Cris’s house,” Beast said.
“Do I have a choice?” I asked.
“No, but are you sure she can be trusted? None of these Wiccans are trustworthy.”
“They aren’t evil,” I argued.
“But they would do evil to you.”
“Perhaps, but most of them are just afraid. They can’t help it. They see a power that’s outside their understanding of the natural world and they fear it.”
“Pathetic creatures,” he snarled.
“Don’t start, Beast. Not everyone is born a semi-mythical creature with inherent magic and physical weapons that can make a demon hesitate.”
“It’s true; you weak monkey-men do have a justifiable fear of everyone else.”
“Hey, I’m not in the mood for that racist crap,” I said.
He growled mirthfully and I saw two pedestrians look up.
“Hush, your glamour doesn’t work on sounds.”
He coughed out another growl. “You said don’t let anyone see us, not anything about being quiet.”
“Damned literal-minded beast.”
We reached the house Cris and Cynthia shared. Beast landed in the backyard, harder than was necessary, and I nearly tumbled to the grass.
I slid off his back and steadied myself against his flank. He watched me, and - damn him - I could see he wanted me to complain about the landing. Screw you, I thought. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. It was bad enough I had to have him save me from the fiendish clutches of an old Wiccan. I’d been careless and he wanted to rub my face in it.
I stood and took a few steps. Damn, I was still weak. I needed rest outside of some blasted Wiccan’s circle.
“You should change back. It wouldn’t pay to have the neighbors see you.”
“Have you gone senile? You know I can only morph once in daylight. You’re stuck with me until dark regardless of the neighbors.”
Oh yeah, make me feel more like an idiot. “At least keep the glamour up. A hawk is less odd than a manticore.”
“I,” he said with emphasis, “am not odd.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said as I walked stiffly toward the backdoor.
It opened before I got there and Cris came out. What a sight for sore eyes, the one person in town who neither hated me nor wanted me dead.
“Rafe? What are you doing out here? I didn’t hear your bike.”
“I came a different way.” Perhaps I should have introduced her to Beast, but he was strange about people knowing him.
Cris stopped and stared at me. Then she pinched her nose. “My God, Rafe. What happened to you?”
“I’ve been used and abused. I need a chance to rest before tonight.”
“And why is that?” The second voice came from the shadow of the doorway. I tensed as Special Agent Biers stepped past Cris.
“Rafe, you remember Agent Biers,” Cris said.
CHAPTER 27
I frowned. Why hadn’t Chris warned me?
“Agent Biers came by looking for you and Cynthia. You won’t believe it, but there was a third murder last night.”
“Oh, I think he’ll believe it all right,” Biers said. Her nose wrinkled and she blinked a couple of times, but other than that she didn’t react to the demon stink I wore.
Beast forgot himself (or did he?) and growled low in his throat and strong enough to cause resonant vibrations in my chest. It was the kind of growl you’d expect to hear just after an African lion decided you might be tasty. Unfortunately, it is not the type of noise a large red-tailed hawk makes. The principle behind a glamour is that you use them to go unnoticed. Growling tends to blow that principle.
Biers paled and her hand snapped to the hilt of the pistol hidden beneath her jacket. Cris gave a little cry of surprise and stepped backward.
I raised a hand. “Don’t draw your weapon. He might take that as an attack and he isn’t always predictable about such things.”
“What the hell? Did that hawk just growl at me?” Biers asked.
“Oh my, what is it?” Cris asked and I caught the look of amazement on her face. Hell, who’d have thought her soul-reading ability would work on a manticore?
Biers backed toward the door, she looked ready to draw her weapon and shoot something or someone but had yet to decide who she should shoot first.
“Cris, will you please assure Agent Biers that she’s safe and encourage her not to draw her weapon?” I asked.
Cris stared at Beast, who was doing his best imitation of a hawk, except that I could see the stupid grin on his face. This was why I didn’t let him out to play with people. He had no concept of self-constraint.
“Cris, please?” I begged.
“Oh, okay. Wow, you sure have interesting friends,” she said. “Agent Biers, look, I know it’s more than a little strange, but Rafe really has no reason t
o hurt you. Please trust me and take your hand off your weapon.”
Biers looked from Cris to me and then back to the disguised Beast. “It’s not him I’m concerned about. It’s that hawk. It--it growled at me.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Cris said. Then to my surprise, she cast the spell I’d seen her use on Daniel when he’d irritated her. Biers reacted by trying to draw her weapon but then froze as Cris finished the spell.
“Damn, but she is annoying,” Cris said and turned toward me. “Now, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Hell, I’m too tired for this.” I made my way to the nearest lawn chair and sat down heavily. “Beast, meet Cris. Cris this is Beast. All right, asshole, you can drop the glamour.”
One second there was a two-foot tall hawk sitting on the back of the glider. The next second the six-foot tall manticore was smiling at Cris with a mouth of impressive dentistry.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said.
Cris squealed. “Oh, my, God. A manticore. I can’t believe it. No, of course, I do. You came with Rafe so I have to believe, besides one look in your eyes and I knew you were no hawk. But a manticore, I thought you were…”
“A myth?” Beast offered.
“Well, yes. I’m sorry; I don’t want to offend.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. There aren’t many of us and we don’t visit this earth often. Reports of us are usually relegated to insanity or drug abuse.”
“Wow. A manticore, I just can’t get over it. Wait, Beast? That’s what Rafe calls his Harley.”
Damn him, Beast actually bowed. “One and the same, lady.”
Cris glared at me. “He’s been with you all along and you couldn’t tell me? I thought we trusted each other.”
“Cris, you believed me because you could read my soul and thus could tell what I was like. I don’t have that ability. You know more about me than a handful of living people. I trust you with my life. But Beast doesn’t play well with humans and I make it a rule to keep him away from them.”
“Doesn’t play well? Humph, you’re jealous that I get more attention,” Beast said.
“You only get more attention because you’re a mythological creature. If I grew wings and a tail—”
“You’d be a flying monkey,” Beast interrupted.
“See what I mean, Cris. You can’t have a conversation with him,” I said.
Cris smiled and stepped within reach of Beast. “I see all right. May I?”
“It would be an honor,” Beast said.
She reached a tentative hand out to brush his mane. I swear to God; she giggled like a twelve-year-old girl. Beast smiled at me as she ran her fingers through his mane and down to where the wings sprouted from his shoulders.
The damn manticore purred. To be honest it sounded more like humming if lions hummed, but it brought another giggle from Cris. I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. What was it with women and this manticore?
There was whispered conversation between them that I refused to hear. I needed to rest, not waste energy on useless pursuits. I felt for the nearest ley line and I relaxed, opening to its energies.
The wind gusted around me and Cris’s giggling faded away. I opened my eyes to see the manticore rising above the trees with Cris clinging joyfully to his back. Then Beast activated his glamour and a hawk flew where they’d been.
He had better get her back soon. I closed my eyes and focused on healing my bruised and battered body. I felt like I was forgetting something.
Oh, shit.
I opened my eyes to see the dark bore of a ten millimeter pistol pointed at my face from six inches away.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” Biers demanded.
Was I never going to get a chance to rest? “Biers, I’m just too damn tired to lie to you. But it wasn’t me, it was Cris.”
The fed’s eyebrows crinkled. “Yes, she was saying something strange. Damn, the witch cast a spell on me, didn’t she?”
I nodded. “But how’d you know...Oh, that’s right. Daniel, a fine upstanding Christian, thinks all witches should be burned. He probably told you all about the witch.”
It was her turn to nod.
“I thought so. Damn it, I knew I should have wiped his memory.”
Her hand was steady as she moved the muzzle toward my face.
“Don’t worry; I’m not going to try something like that on you. Doing it to Daniel would have been an expedient way of staying low key while I tracked down these killers. But it’s too late for that.”
“What do you mean?” Biers asked.
“After tonight, it’ll be over one way or another. Either I’ll stop them or there’ll be hell to pay.”
She looked uncertain. “What?”
“Look, put the piece away, Biers. I’m not going to fight you. I’ll explain some of what’s going on and you can either support me or stay out of my way.”
“And if I do neither?”
I lowered my eyebrows in what I hoped was a threatening gesture. “I am not a Wiccan. I don’t use simple spells like that paralysis spell Cris used. My spells don’t run out of energy when I stop thinking about them or get out of range. Now put the piece away.”
She got the “or else” in my tone. To give her credit, she didn’t back down. However, backing down is a sign of intelligence when you need to do it and Biers needed to do it, now.
Damn, why wouldn’t any of the women in Huntsville listen to me?
I activated my watch’s shield spell and it appeared invisible two inches in front of my nose.
Biers noticed the momentary glow from my watch as the spell activated, but before she could react I pushed the shield outwards. It knocked her four feet back to land on her butt. Without standing, I changed the focus to a cylinder around her and squeezed it in.
The invisible barrier surrounded Biers and forced her hands to her sides. I drew her erect and pulled her back beside me.
There was fear on her face, but her anger was greater. “Let me go, damn you!”
“Biers, I told you I’m not one of the Wiccans. If I wanted to harm you, it would already be done. I’ve been around for sixty years and forty of those have been fighting for my life against things as bad as or worse than these killers. I don’t typically hurt innocents such as yourself, but if you push me at the wrong time, I will do whatever is necessary to protect myself and stop these killers. That you can count on. Now are you willing to talk civilized or do I transport you to the South Pole while I take care of tonight’s business?”
The last was mostly a bluff. I could probably do it, but it would involve more energy and time than I had. If I looked as bad as I felt she probably knew I was bluffing. Hopefully my display had convinced her that she was no threat to me and likewise I was no threat to any of the local residents.
“All right, all right, put me down. If you’re willing to answer my questions, I’ll do what I can to help, as long as it’s clear that you’re helping not hindering my investigation.”
Sheesh, I couldn’t buy respect in this town. Well, hell, I felt no need to not answer her questions and it might get her off my back faster. I lowered her to the ground and dropped the barrier from around her. Not being a total fool, I shifted it back between us rather than canceling the spell.
After giving me the evil eye for a few seconds and nervously twitching the fingers of her gun hand, she holstered her weapon and sat down across from me. “Okay, let’s have it then. You’re some kind of witch; magic is real, and you have a plan to stop these killings.”
“Pretty much on the nose, but for the witch part. I’m one of the Wanderers. We’re rare, but much more powerful than the average witch. It’s semantics really; we all use magic and that’s what you meant by witch. Yes, magic is real, as you’ve already seen. The world is a much stranger place than most mundanes know.”
“Mundanes?”
“Non-magic users, humans mostly,” I said.
“Humans mostly? There are others?”
<
br /> “Sure, other people who don’t use magic, but most of the other dimensions understand magic, even if they don’t use it,” I said.
“Other dimensions? Are you serious?”
“I call them dimensions; I was a science fiction fan growing up so my references are biased that way. They could be other worlds, but since we share the same sun, I refer to them as dimensions.”
“And other people inhabit these other dimensions?” Biers asked.
“Mostly, many have visited our world at some time or another, thus our rich mythology.”
“Mythology? Wait those creatures from Greece and Rome were real?” she asked.
“Again, mostly. Some creatures were well documented back then, but since they aren’t in the fossil record, everyone believes them to be mythical.”
“Cerberus was real? The minotaur, the sphinx, all real?”
“Yes.”
“And you, a Wanderer, what’s your role in this?” she asked.
“I’m sort of a roving cop. When things get screwed up one of us show up to restore order.”
“Then those police reports of your name linked to strange events?”
“Yep, all me.”
“But they go back more than nearly forty years.”
“I’m older than I look.”
She tilted her head to look closer at me. “I don’t know about that. Have you looked in a mirror recently? You’re looking a lot older than I remember. What’s up with that?”
Wanderers: Ragnarök Page 26
