by Al K. Line
Or was it for another purpose? Was it because he wanted to make his home presentable, live somewhere nice? That he had safety here amongst the criminals and where nobody asked questions? Or was there another reason, one I was missing?
See, this is the problem with wizards and magic users, same as with Regulars. Often, they do things for not one reason, but many. And sometimes they don't even know why they do things, only that they can, so they do. Why not make your home look nice? You could pay cheap rent but still live somewhere beautiful. Maybe that was the only explanation there was. It certainly helped him deal with enforcers that came looking for him, that was obvious, but maybe my French quarry really did just want to look out his window and see something pretty.
But he wouldn't, would he? It was doubtful he'd keep the veil down for his own sight at all times. That would be dangerous and foolish. No, he could superimpose the veil over what truly existed if he wished to, take a peek as it were, but he was the one causing it, so couldn't avoid living among the squalor.
"Ugh, this place stinks," said Mithnite, turning his snub nose up at the malodorous air.
"Don't worry about that. Can you see it, the raw reality?"
"Yeah, ready to be bulldozed," he said.
"Okay, good. So, now we go back in and get answers."
Mithnite looked at me like I was nuts. "You know you look awful, right? And you've been in limbo for days, three days. You can't."
"I can, and I will." I rummaged around the car, found a bottle of water and drank it down, spluttering and coughing as it hit my empty stomach. It was warm and gross and utterly delightful, but I knew it was a far cry from what I needed. I needed rest, as even the new and improved Faz Pound couldn't hope to recover from days in limbo immediately, but the half finished snacks, again warm, helped a little and would have to do.
Mithnite kept an eye on the house while I did my best to get my head clear and my body under control, and in just a few minutes I felt better. Whether it was the food, the power within, the water, or the company, I'm not sure, but I knew I was going to get this over and done with so we could get the hell out of here and never come back.
I pushed off from the car and said, "Ready?"
Mithnite nodded and we walked across the potholed road, up the one set of steps that were clean, and Mithnite, pushing me politely to one side, booted the door down.
"Nice moves, dude," I said with admiration.
"Thanks," he replied with a smile.
In we went. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but this time I was ready. At least I thought I was.
Getting Somewhere
Either the dude that came running, or should I say hobbling down the hall wasn't feeling too well, or he'd aged significantly since last we'd met. He must have been twenty years older. It was still Jerard, but he looked like I felt and then some.
"Don't let the veil take you," I warned Mithnite, "and hold on to your tether." I made sure to do the same myself; no way was my soul getting eaten again. How he'd done it before was a mystery, but he was undoubtedly good, although he didn't look it at the moment.
The terrier barked and Jerard muttered something as we stormed after him. He ducked into a room and the dog, after a final warning bark, dashed in after him.
Magic flared through my system, a warning signal that powerful forces not under my control were thick in the air and anything but friendly. This was strange magic, taboo magic, something I knew too little about and thus had to focus hard to stop from taking me over. Even as we ran after Jerard, I felt everything become foggy and distant, my grip on reality tenuous, my grip on myself just as weak. An invisible tug at my essence, at my soul, trying to draw it out and away.
Without needing to discuss it, Mithnite and I both pushed out hard with our combined magic, forcing Jerard's power away as if a forcefield expanded out from our awareness, keeping us grounded and maintaining our identity.
Damn but this guy was something else. I'd never met anyone quite like him before. I'd only exchanged a word or two with him before he took me last time.
In the room that turned out to be a formal dining room, a large table polished to within an inch of its life, with huge carved lion's legs, took center stage. Jerard, dog beside him, was pulling out the chairs to block us, acting manic and entirely at odds with how he had previously. His eyes were wild, darting around the room as if looking for a means of escape, now backed up against the large window like he'd forgotten it was there and the breeze blowing the drapes was unfelt.
I put a hand up and Mithnite stopped by my side. Something wasn't right here, and I don't mean the menacing magic that constantly tried to insinuate itself into our minds in a barrage of sneaky attacks, first coming in heavy, then clawing at the boundaries with ethereal fingers.
I quickly checked Mithnite to ensure he was holding it together and my apprentice winked at me. He needed to tone down the confidence a little.
We stepped toward Jerard, the room silent apart from the panting of the terrier and Jerard's own labored breathing. He was panicked, and I mean really panicked now his veil wasn't working, and he obsessively bent to stroke the dog, never taking his eyes off us.
As we took another step forward, he scooped up the dog and said in his mild accent, "Please don't hurt us. I'm sorry, I had to. Don't take us back to her, please."
"Who's us?" asked Mithnite, looking as confused as I felt.
"Dunno." I turned to Jerard, careful to keep Mithnite protected, and asked, "Well, who's us?"
Jerard, all powerful soul-taker and wizard able to shroud a whole street and make things seem as he pleased, slumped then sat against the windowsill, hugging the dog tightly. He looked more confused than us. "You mean you aren't here to take me and my son back to Morag?"
"Your son? Where is he?" Morag had said nothing about a son, although she hadn't said much about anything at all.
Understanding spread across Jerard's face. "Ah, sent you for her soul did she? Then she will come for him. I will not let her have him."
"Look, mate, I don't know what you're talking about. What does she want with your son? What did she do to him?"
"Isn't it obvious?" he asked. He held up the terrier and said, "She turned him into a dog. Made him shift and wouldn't turn him back. So I took something of hers until she released him."
Damn, but that was cold even by Morag's standards.
"I think we need to talk, don't you?" I nodded at the disordered chairs and, all fight gone, he warily sat while Mithnite and I towered over him like bullies.
That's what I felt like. After all this man had done to me I could see the despair in his eyes, the utter, terrible sadness. Morag had turned his son into a bloody dog and he'd done the only thing he could think of in return. He'd fought back.
Can't blame him for that.
An Explanation
Jerard's eyes were set deep in his head, his body so limp I was amazed he remained on the chair. All he did was hold the dog tight and whisper into its twitching ear, trying to calm it as it growled halfheartedly at us now and then. It was clearly as tired and freaked out as Jerard.
Mithnite and I backed away into the hall, standing at the doorway so we could keep an eye on them but needing to talk about this.
"Do you think he's telling the truth?" asked Mithnite. "Can this Morag woman turn people into dogs?"
"She's old, powerful, utterly batty, and she's got a thing about shifters. Pretty much her life's work is trying to uncover the secrets of how people transform, and she's far gone down the rabbit hole. Yeah, she could do it, has learned how to bring out the inner animal, and I don't doubt she's cruel enough to make someone shift permanently if she wanted to."
"That's cold." Mithnite glanced in at the pair, face full of sympathy. I knew how he felt but had to stay a little detached. I was still wary of Jerard after what he'd done and although he may have been drained from using such powerful magic I knew he was still dangerous as hell, especially if what he'd said was true.
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"Okay, I think we need to keep a close eye on him and get the full story. This changes things, and not for the better."
"How so?" asked Mithnite.
"Because Morag is gonna be dead in a day or two if I don't get her soul back, and then there goes our chance of a baby. But if she did this to Jerard's son then we can't just beat him up until he gives us what we want then leave them to it, can we?"
"Guess not."
Damn, what a nightmare. What was I supposed to do? Maybe I could get Jerard to agree to a trade. But surely Morag had tried that already? Or had she? Probably not. Even as she died she'd be way too stubborn to make a deal—her soul for the son returned to human form. Or maybe they'd agreed to that and she couldn't turn him back. Ugh, utter mess. The time for idle speculation was over, I needed some straight answers.
"Just be careful. If you feel him trying anything funny shut him down, and quick," I said, then we walked back into the room.
"Tell us what happened. Make it short, but tell us why you took her soul, why she made your son shift, and why she hasn't made a deal with you."
Jerard nodded, and then the whole sorry story came out in a garbled rush we had to get him to repeat in places as the more stressed and involved in his tale he got the more his accent became unintelligible or he slipped into French without even realizing.
Turns out they'd been an item for a few years, one of those relationships that was off as much as on. Jerard had lived in a nice part of Paris and was a strong wizard, his son following in his footsteps. But Jerard was no saint, dabbled in the darker arts, the places where you shouldn't spend time, the limbos and the netherworlds where the beasties and the strange creatures not of this world reside.
He was a dark wizard, I guess you'd call him—and that's saying something as all magic has more than an edge of darkness to it. Not a man of evil but somebody drawn to the macabre side of what magic had to offer. Much like Dancer in many ways. Dancer's skills lay with necromancy and you didn't get much darker and more spooky than that. It didn't make him a bad guy, just not what most wizards were interested in once they uncovered the secrets the Empty held.
Jerard used his magic to explore the forbidden realms, the places we go to after death. Spirit worlds. He uncovered many secrets and learned how to guide souls through the afterlives. Jerard also learned how to take them from a living body.
A man of two halves with rather niche interests. He and Morag were together, but the relationship was understandably volatile, and then one day he discovered exactly what she was up to and was horrified. He uncovered the mad experiments and the way she'd turned people into animals. How many such experiments had gone badly and that she used it as a way to inflict the cruelest of punishments on her enemies. He'd had enough.
Morag had lied when she said she'd called it off. Jerard had gone apoplectic, had always thought her rather wild and dangerous but never as cruel and evil as this, and he told her she disgusted him and it was over.
Unsurprisingly, Morag did not take it well.
To cut what became a very long story short, Morag vowed revenge. Before Jerard had chance to flee the city, the night he planned to do so, she brought down terrible vengeance for his snub. She caught his son, unleashed wild, angry, volatile magic upon him when he was busy making preparations, and when Jerard returned it was too late. She sat in his living room, cackling and taunting the dog now trapped in a cage.
But she had thought too highly of herself, had failed to consider just how powerful a wizard Jerard was. He begged and she refused and then he got angry and violent and before Morag could do a thing about it, much like he'd done to me, he unleashed his own secret magic on this woman. He'd told none how far into the afterlife he'd traveled or what he'd discovered, and she was hit with his power full force, unable to resist.
He tore her soul right out of her and fled with his son. Morag had made attempts to get her soul back but was out of her depth. Jerard's wards and powers were stronger than hers in many ways, his abilities numerous and enough to protect himself and his son while Morag faded away.
"And she won't do swapsies?" asked Mithnite. I nudged him in the ribs for being so casually offhand. "Ow! What?"
"Don't be so rude, this is serious stuff," I warned.
"What is this swapsies you talk of?" asked Jerard.
"My rude young apprentice means, won't she release your son back in exchange for her soul?"
"No, she refuses. She is pig-headed, a stupid woman, and she will not agree. She tries to get it from me, sends the, how do you say? Um, the nasty men to try to beat me, but I beat them, haha. I am a powerful wizard, have the veil over this terrible place I am hiding in. I can control things here as nobody will interfere, and I beat the bad men. Me and my son, Pierre."
"And when she dies? Will he return to his human form?" I didn't know whether to feel good or bad about any of this. I hate to say it but a part of me still hoped Jerard would give me her soul, but that was selfish and unfair and I really didn't know what to think or do right at this moment.
"Alas, no. When she dies what she has done will remain as it is. He is stuck. I cannot travel to try to find someone to save him. This is special magic, but if I leave here I risk her capturing us and doing terrible things. We go nowhere, do nothing. Just wait for her to die so we can at least try to find an answer. But my people here, in France, they know little about shifters, only Morag."
An idea came to me, and it was a damn good one. "Don't suppose he's got a pet passport, has he?"
"Pardon?" Jerard frowned at the question, thinking I was making a joke, and even Mithnite jabbed me, returning the one I'd given him. "Okay, I know he hasn't, but I have a plan. Look, if I get your son back, like today, then will you give me Morag's soul?"
"You would give it to her, why?"
"Because she can help my wife bear a child, allow her to be fertile. It's what she offered me in return."
Jerard thought for a moment, and then said, "Give me back my son, and I will give you her soul. Children are so precious. If the evil witch can give you something that brings such joy, then some good will come of this."
"Right, make us a cuppa and then we'll be on our way."
"But where, where is it we will go?"
"Why, to Wales, of course. We gotta go see a woman about a dog. But I have to change first." I wasn't about to go anywhere stinking of wee.
Ooh, Sausages
It felt wrong, yet so familiar. I was meant to be having sexy times with my hot vampire wife in the most romantic city in the world, and instead I was back in Cardiff feeling overwhelmed, underfed, exhausted, confused, running on nervous energy, and with some rather unlikely companions.
But at least there would be sausages, so it wasn't a wasted trip.
"Ah, I love the smell of grease in the afternoon," I said with a sigh as we walked through the front door of Madge's Cafe. The only place I know of where the walls ooze what you're about to eat, the floor has held many preternatural creatures of slender build captive, and the air is so rich with grease you can spread it with a knife.
It's perfect.
Even after missing the last flight of the day, hanging around the airport overnight and burning through cash like it was as fashionable as moccasins ever were, having to maintain a cloud of magic to veil the dog Jerard insisted on keeping on his lap, and then getting delayed in Cardiff airport because a bunch of bored gremlins had gone old school and messed with the doors so everyone got stuck on the plane for two hours, well, Madge's Cafe was still a very welcome sight.
"No dogs," warned Madge as I waded through air thick with echoes of indigestion, bits of burnt toast, and the moans of overfed wizards so ingrained into the very fabric of the place it was almost like you were sucking on their souls.
"It's not a dog, it's his son," I said to Madge as we stepped up to the counter.
Madge eyed the dog suspiciously, me with a frown, and Mithnite with neutral features, which was an honor coming from Madge. What
was that all about?
"Are you French?" she said to Jerard, less a question much more an accusation.
"Oui, je m'appelle Jerard."
"Mappel Madge," she said, running a wrinkled, greasy hand through hair so frizzy and brittle it probably needed the butter-based conditioning. Madge did something weird to her face then. She tried to raise up her lips but her jowls tugged down tight and she began to sweat.
"What you doing?" I asked, feeling out of my depth and like I was in an alternate reality.
"Yeah, and that's not how you say it," said Mithnite. "It's je m'appelle, not mappel."
"It's how I say it," said Madge, like that was the end of that. "And I was smiling at our foreign guest. I like the French. They don't ever use those stupid spreads called I Can't Believe I'm Eating this Instead of Butter."
"That's not what they're called, it's, I Can't Believe it's—Ow!" Mithnite scowled at me and I gave him a look that meant shut up or we won't get any sausages. He understood. He'd been here before, plenty of times.
"Enchanté, Madame," said Jerard, stepping forward, taking Madge's hand before bending to kiss it.
Madge blushed scarlet, something I'd never seen in the many, many years I'd been coming, and she giggled.
"That's it, I must be in a different reality," I mumbled. Madge didn't hear, so caught up in staring into Jerard's eyes was she. What the hell was going on?
"Such lovely soft hands," said Jerard, still holding on to Madge.
"It's the butter," she said, and he nodded in agreement.
"You are Madge, the Madge of the fry-up?" he asked in awe. Even the dog was wagging like crazy, Madge's rule about animals seemingly forgotten under the influence of Jerard's foreign charms.
"What, little ole me? You've heard of me?"
"Bien sûr. Everyone know of La Madge. You are famous with all wizards, you make the best breakfasts." Jerard was either pulling her leg or trying to get a discount on his food. Good luck with that. Or, maybe he was serious. Mithnite and I exchanged a shrug while Jerard fondled Madge's hand. Damn, I think he was serious.
