The barn had been finished inside, and the front area looked like it was fully stocked with anything a veterinarian might need. Luc didn’t recognize half the objects in the room, but the sterile scent of antiseptic made the room’s purpose clear enough. Taryne didn’t pause there, however, leading the two men through a door in the rear.
There, separate stalls had been renovated into small tiled rooms. It was much warmer back here, too. And in the last stall, a pair of cots had been set up, with a small nightstand between. One cot was empty.
Zack was on the other.
Taryne checked her watch. “Jace should be here soon.”
“Thanks,” Zack said.
Someone had shaved his hair, which Luc understood once he saw the neat line of stitches across the cut over his ear. His hands were nowhere near as swollen, and his broken fingers seemed to be well on the path to being mended. Only three were still in metal sleeves.
He regarded Luc and Anders with a puzzled expression.
“Do I know you?”
“Not really,” Luc said. “I was present the night you were attacked, but not until after you lost consciousness. My friend Curtis called me for help.”
Zack blinked. “Matthew’s friend.”
“That’s right.”
“Apparently, I owe you guys a thank you, then.” He looked at Anders. “You smell kind of like a demon.”
“I am a demon.”
Zack tapped his nose with his left hand, the index finger of which seemed fully healed. “The nose knows.”
“He’s still on some painkillers,” Taryne said.
“Which, let me tell you, were very welcome,” Zack said.
“I thought you could tell them what you told me about your attackers.”
“The demons?” Zack shrugged. “They came into the shop, threw me down, beat the crap out of me, and wanted to know which wolf had killed their friend. I told them I had no idea, but it wasn’t one of my pack. They didn’t like my answer.”
Anders blew out a breath. “Kavan said his pack was angry.”
“Oh, they were,” Zack said.
“Zack isn’t the only patient I’ve had,” Taryne said. “Happily, the warning came through pretty quick, but since this began, I’ve had three werewolves cross my path as well as Jace. Zack was the worst off, but I’ve treated burns and breaks.”
“How’s your ink?” Anders said.
Zack’s arms were under a long-sleeved cotton shirt. He sighed and pushed one of the sleeves up. Although the flesh looked almost healed, the missing lines from the various tattoos that had once covered Zack’s skin had been burned away.
“That sucks,” Anders said.
“I can get them redone,” Zack said. “But it’s a bitch, yeah. Thanks for asking.”
“None of the werewolves I know attacked the demons,” Taryne said. “I know you’ve only got my word, but if it means anything to you, I do swear it.”
Luc believed her. Nothing about her body language said she was hiding anything. The problem was, it left them even more adrift than before.
“Are there werewolves you don’t know in the city?” he said.
Taryne frowned. “It’s hard to say. I can feel the wolves, especially the ones I know and have met. My ties to earth, moon, and sun make that easy enough. But if a wolf who had the knack didn’t want me to feel him?” She shrugged. “It would be possible for him to hide himself. And, frankly, that’s why I thought I was feeling Faris come and go.”
“So you said before. You felt him,” Luc said.
She nodded. “That was why I went downtown. I’ve been spending as much of my free time near the downtown as I can, in hopes I could track him down and have a conversation with him.”
“She says conversation,” Zack said. “But she totally means ass-kicking.”
Taryne spared the lean werewolf a pat on the head. He grinned up at her. “Painkillers,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“But if you’re right and he’s dead, then someone is manipulating my senses,” she said.
“Has this happened before?” Luc said.
She shook her head. “Not in at least seven decades.”
Luc blinked. He wouldn’t have said Taryne was a day over thirty.
“Druid,” she said. “There are perks.”
“I see.”
A series of beeps made Luc turn back to the small hallway.
“That’s Jace,” Taryne said.
A few seconds later, the werewolf came to the room. He smiled at Luc affably enough, then frowned at Anders.
“Demon?” he said.
“That a problem?” Anders said.
“Gentlemen,” Luc said. “Anders, this is Jace. Jace is Matthew’s partner and Curtis’s friend. He’s the werewolf who helped defend Curtis from the demons who attacked at the pub.” Luc gave the demon a warning glance. “Anders is the third of our triad,” he said, looking at Jace.
Jace grunted. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah. That.” Anders crossed his arms.
“Boys,” Taryne said, rolling her eyes.
“Men,” they both said, and then they frowned at each other.
Luc hid a smile behind his hand. He wondered if anyone had ever compared demons and werewolves and found more similarities than differences.
“I’m here to spring you,” Jace said to Rhedey. “I’ve got tonight, and Candice said she’d handle tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Taryne said. “If you keep him close, he might not need any more pills for the pain. His ribs are pretty much set, and his fingers are almost healed. Just don’t let him tire himself out.”
“Sitting right here,” Zack said.
“Got it,” Jace said. He pulled off his backpack and set it on the floor, then shrugged out of his jacket, hanging it on the small peg by the door. He sat on the cot opposite Zack’s. “I brought my laptop. Matt put some horror movies on it for you.”
“Awesome,” Zack said.
Taryne motioned to the door, and they left the two there.
*
“If I hear anything,” Rhedey said, “I’ll let you know. But again, it wasn’t one of us.”
“Thank you for being so open.”
Rhedey shrugged. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Then she left them, walking to a pickup that looked like it had seen roughly a million kilometres of travel in its life. Still, it started with a dull rumble, and she was gone seconds later.
“Car now,” Anders said. “It’s cold.”
They climbed into his SUV, and the demon flipped on the seat warmers before he even turned the key.
“That thing she said, about sensing Faris off and on,” Anders said.
“Yes?”
“Kavan said the same thing to me. He could feel Flint. Coming and going, he said. Like he was there, and then not there. He also said it was pissing off the other demons, almost subconsciously.” He pulled out of the parking lot, aiming them back toward home. “So the question is, how do you fuck with the senses of a demon, and a werewolf, and a druid?”
Luc only had one answer. It kept coming back to the same answer, really. The bindings. The necromancy. The illusion of Flint. And now the fooling of the very senses of a reportedly powerful werewolf druid.
“Magic.”
Anders tapped his hands on the steering wheel.
“Fucking magic,” Anders said.
Fifteen
Pretty sure it’s not werewolves. Where are you?
Curtis stared at the text from Anders. He picked up his phone and typed a reply.
Library. Woke up early. You’re sure it’s not a werewolf?
It only took a second.
Pretty. Luc thinks so, too. What you doing at the library?
Curtis rubbed his eyes and checked the clock. He’d been working at the library for nearly three hours and hadn’t found a thing. He’d seen more literature about werewolves than he’d imagined existed. Unfortunately, most of it was folklore from a variety o
f cultures, and all stuff he’d already known or was flat-out wrong, but part of popular culture. Nothing struck him as helpful. Certainly, he hadn’t read anything about magical knives and what werewolves might do with them.
Reading about werewolves. Maybe you could have left me a message it wasn’t a werewolf before you went to bed?
Anders’s reply was a selfie, looking more or less contrite. The fact he was naked and sporting a hard-on sort of ruined the whole “apology” vibe, though.
Nice, Curtis sent.
Come home. Nice is waiting for you.
I’m meeting Matthew and Mackenzie soon. I’ll be home after.
He put down the phone, trying not to be annoyed that he’d just wasted hours on werewolves. If this really was just someone with a gift for illusion at play, then all they had to work with was the knife. Those strips of removed flesh were no illusion. Neither was the necromancy.
He looked back at his laptop screen. There were roughly a billion types of knife, but Kavan had described the knife as short and curved. Short and curved, it turned out, wasn’t helpful. And it wasn’t like he could just do an internet search on “short and curved magic knives.”
He frowned.
Why not?
Sure, even if he found something, it probably wouldn’t be quite right. Like all the popular culture stuff about werewolves he’d just wasted three freaking hours reading, it would be a mess of misinformation, folklore, and mythology, but it still might give him something to go on.
He typed it in and hit enter.
He got a dozens of hits on how to equip characters for various online games.
“Of course,” he said to himself.
“No luck?”
Curtis turned. Mackenzie and Matthew had walked right up to him without him even noticing.
“I don’t know why I thought I could find anything useful in the university library, but…”
“You wanted to try,” Mackenzie said. “I get it.”
Curtis stretched. “How is he?”
“He hasn’t woken up again,” Matthew said. “Rebekah’s staying with him. Dale and Tracey are bringing her some stuff from home. How about you? How are you?”
“It was the worst headache of my life, but I feel better now. Not to be repeated any time soon, though. I slept a tonne yesterday, which is why I got up so early today. When I’ve got time, I really need to make a new pair of glasses. I can’t knock myself out every time I want to see what’s going on.”
“Probably not,” Matthew said.
“So, do I get to know what happened?” Curtis said.
“Pardon?” Matthew said. He looked uncomfortable.
“You held Kavan’s hand yesterday, before I went all blinding migraine. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Luc and Anders in case you wanted to keep your inheritance a secret. But you held his hand. I’m guessing you read him.”
“Oh.” Matthew sighed. “Yeah.”
“And?”
“There was almost nothing,” Matthew said. “That’s never happened to me before.”
“Most of him got stripped away,” Curtis said, then paused. “Almost nothing. So there was something?”
“I’m not sure what it meant. It was pretty faint.” He held out his arm, even though it was covered by his winter jacket. “It’s never been vague before.”
“What was it?”
“A satyr, I think. It came and went pretty quickly. I think it was a satyr, sort of lying sideways on the ground, like it was in pain or something,” Matthew said. He sounded apologetic, as if he couldn’t come up with anything else.
“A satyr?” Curtis tried not to let the frustration weigh too heavily in his voice.
“We were trying to think what it might mean, from a symbolic point of view all the way here,” Mackenzie said. “Wine, dance, song, lust…It’s pretty much just an old reference to a demon. And the pain makes sense.”
“Yeah,” Curtis said. “Pain and demon. And that’s what he is, so…” He stopped. He looked back at the two. “Except, no, it’s not.”
Matthew frowned. “Kavan is a demon. I mean, mostly.” Obviously he was in the know. Curtis wondered if Mackenzie had told him or if Matthew had already known.
“No.” Curtis rose. Moving helped him think sometimes. “He’s not. Not any more. It was all taken from him by some sort of magic knife. So why would your gift show you a symbol of what he isn’t?”
Mackenzie looked at Matthew. “It was really faint. Was it supposed to represent what was taken, maybe?”
“Honestly? It barely felt like it had anything to do with him at all,” Matthew said. He shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s really hard to make sense of this one. It’s like the ink couldn’t speak to me the usual way. Usually it’s clear. I get a sense of a person’s past, the present, and a potential future, and it uses images which just sort of click for me. But with Kavan there was only the one image, and…” He blew out a breath. “I think it’s letting me know Kavan doesn’t have a future.”
“So maybe the satyr was an image of how his past is fading,” Mackenzie said. “Since the demon was taken from him.”
“Satyr.” Curtis frowned, still stuck on the point. “Why a satyr?”
“It’s symbolic. And, really, in the past, I imagine that was just another word for demon,” Matthew said. He shrugged. “Sort of like the whole Greek gods were wizards theory.”
Curtis blinked. “Beg your pardon?”
“Personally, I think it’s bull,” Mackenzie said. “But some wizards think all the powerful gods in the various mythologies were the wizards of their day. It would have been before the Accords, obviously, so they could all run around and do whatever they wanted with their power, right?”
“Or whoever, in the case of Zeus,” Matthew said.
“Says the pansexual,” Mackenzie said. Matthew winked at her.
Curtis laughed. “Because the Families don’t have enough arrogance, they decided they’re the actual gods of history?” He tried to picture himself worshipped as an olden-day god and failed. God of what? Last-minute essay writing?
Matthew shrugged. “Something like that. And of course, the, uh…‘lesser’ beings were relegated to the roles of satyrs and dryads and what-not. Demons, lycanthropes, you name it. It would make sense, though, right?”
“Well, if they were just wizards, it would definitely explain why so many gods rose and fell,” Mackenzie said. “They were all so petty and self-important. They sure took offence at the drop of a hat.”
Curtis looked up, mouth open. Offence. Satyr. Strips of skin.
“What?” Mackenzie said.
“You’re a genius,” Curtis said. He sat back down, turning his laptop toward him.
“Thanks,” Mackenzie said. “How so?”
“I can’t remember the story. Crap. There was definitely a satyr, though.” He held his fingers over the keys. “We studied it in my poetry class, I think…” He tapped away, and the search engine returned a list of hits. There it was, halfway down the screen.
“Marsyas,” Curtis said.
“Gesundheit,” Matthew said.
Mackenzie looked over his shoulder. “A satyr who was flayed alive by Apollo for offending him.” She looked at Curtis. “I don’t follow.”
“Wait. Click there,” Matthew said.
Curtis clicked where Matthew was pointing. A painting of the flaying of Marsyas came up on the laptop’s screen. Apollo had a foot on the satyr’s leg, and the satyr’s arms were bound above him to a tree. The god was cutting the satyr’s skin away.
“It was this image,” Matthew said. “That was the satyr my ink showed me. Exactly that.”
“Marsyas,” Curtis said.
Matthew stared at the image on the screen. “I’ve never seen this before, and I sure didn’t know the story. Usually my ink speaks to me in a symbolic language I understand. I don’t get it.”
“You said it shows you the past,” Curtis said.
“Yeah, but I never go
t the feeling it was Kavan’s past.”
Curtis looked at him. “Most of Kavan is gone. I saw that when I looked at him. And you say it didn’t feel like it had anything to do with Kavan at all. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe your inheritance showed you the next best thing.”
The two looked at Curtis.
“Maybe it showed you the history of the knife.”
They stared at him. Matthew spoke first.
“If that’s right, then…This knife? It’s old magic. Like, thousands of years old.”
“I think we should talk to Professor Mann,” Mackenzie said.
It was Curtis’s turn to stare. “What?” They both had Professor Mann, though different classes. He was definitely one of the best professors Curtis had ever had, but he didn’t see how Mann could help them now.
“He’s a Stirling. Adopted,” Matthew said. He wouldn’t meet Curtis’s gaze.
Curtis leaned back in his chair. “You’re kidding me. My poetry professor is a wizard?”
Mackenzie shook her head. “No. He’s a sorcerer.”
*
Mann’s office was on the fifteenth floor of the arts tower. The three rode the elevator in an awkward silence, which had been the same way Curtis had packed up his bag and computer and how he’d walked across the quad from the library. Curtis knew he was scowling, but he couldn’t quite rein it in.
“Curt?” Matthew said.
“Are there other spies I should know about?” Curtis finally said. “Is there someone at my local tea shop, too?”
Matthew winced, and Curtis felt a dark satisfaction.
“That’s not fair,” Mackenzie said. “You know Matt didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Curtis sighed. “I know.” He shook his head. “What kills me is I thought I was lucky to get into his class. I was so surprised when they offered. ‘On the merit of my previous academic record,’ they said.” Curtis laughed. “I’m such an idiot. Malcolm just wanted another pair of eyes on me, right?”
“I don’t—” Matthew shifted uncomfortably. “Probably.”
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