The rescuers were halfway to us, about twenty feet away, when the head and shoulders formed for the third time out of the dark in front of us. It hovered menacingly. The thing howled so loud that the ground shook. Tentacles whipped out from the body mass. One of the limbs hurled a gleaming spear. My eyes riveted on its point, I shouted "Stop!" and flung up my cholla-studded arm. My magic made the spear falter and pause, pointed down at us.
A gust of wind dislodged me from Cullen, and I fell backwards. The spear jerked, overcoming my spell, and plunged into Cullen's chest. He collapsed next to me, pinned to the ground. He thrashed, and his face twisted. As the group from the porch reached us, the spear vanished with a sucking sound. Cullen went limp. Blood poured out of his wound.
Above us, the dark mass formed into a bird-shaped creature larger than an eagle. When Jake raised his staff, the creature shrieked and flapped its wings. Jake called out a burning spell, and a ball of fire surrounded the bird. It exploded, sending out a shower of black ash.
Vidoc and Kai, ranch counselors and the wizards who'd accompanied Jake, kneeled over Cullen. Vidoc pulled off his shirt and pressed it to the wound. Kai shouted into her phone for an ambulance.
While Jake told the other residents and REM staff to stand back, Ira lifted me up. "Hey," he cried, "are you hurt? Where did that creature come from?"
Somebody breathed in gasps. It was me. I trembled and had to lean on Ira to stay standing. I couldn't speak or move my gaze from the sight of Cullen bleeding on the ground. I should have tried harder to protect him. I hadn't done enough.
Jake squeezed my shoulder as he walked around us. His healing touch ought to have helped me, but I felt no warmth. He bent down and placed his fingertips on Cullen's forehead. I sagged, knowing Cullen was too badly injured to be healed. Even a powerful wizard like Jake didn't have the skill to repair muscle, skin, nerves, organs, and bone so thoroughly torn apart. I hoped Jake could comfort Cullen.
Cullen's grunting breaths quieted. His distorted lips loosened so that his teeth no longer showed in a fierce grimace. A spark flashed in his eyes as he flicked a look at me. "The darkness—you—" Blood gushed out of his mouth.
CHAPTER THREE
A crowd surged around us. "Is he dead?"
"Put pressure on the wound."
"Do CPR."
"You can't do CPR with a chest wound."
Jake gestured them back. He nodded at staff from REM. "Escort them back to the house. Keep this area clear for the paramedics." He grabbed a tall, thin man. "Linc, bring some towels, fast." He returned to Cullen, where Vidoc pressed down on the wound with a blood-soaked shirt.
Jake lifted my arm studded with the cholla buds. It seemed insignificant compared to Cullen's injury, but he beckoned to a resident lingering on the steps. Of medium height, she had the broad shoulders and narrowed hips of a female athlete. "Adrian, I need your help here."
Adrian Stottle was strong as an ox. She wanted the body of a man. Her desire had led her to shapeshift into a male form and hang out in the guy's locker room at her gym. When she refused to stop, the Wizards Council eventually sent her to the ranch. Whatever her gender identity issues, she was a model student, hardworking and generous with help.
"Take Petra inside for some first aid," Jake told her.
I couldn't take my eyes off Cullen. Blood stained his chest and lips but no longer poured out. He was dead. My knees buckled. Adrian, her lips pressed tight, coiled her arm around my waist and led me toward the house.
In the women's restroom she positioned me in front of a row of three gleaming white sinks. I almost didn't recognize myself in the mirror—the blank eyes, white lips, and limp dark hair.
Adrian squinted at my reflection. "Besides your arms, where are you injured?"
I didn't want first aid. I wanted someone to explain what had happened. "You should be outside helping with Cullen. I fell into a cholla cactus. That's all."
She lifted my left arm and glared at the cholla buds. "First aid is not going to help anyone with a hole that big in his chest." A spasm passed over her face. Its normal ruddy color deepened to purplish red. "I've already asked you once. Are you injured anywhere else?"
The venom in her voice made me step away. "I'm okay, if I can just get these things out." The needles of the cholla buds stung and itched. "You go help someone else."
Adrian dropped my arm. "Jake told me to help you. Stand still." She yanked down a case labeled First Aid from clamps on the wall. After scowling at the interior, she opened the restroom door. "I'm going to get tweezers and a comb."
While she was gone, I replayed the scene with Cullen. I tugged at the cholla buds, but they stayed stuck. I couldn't understand where the bird and the shadow creature had come from. I hadn't done enough to protect Cullen.
The irritation from the cholla buds lessened if I didn't move. As the minutes dragged on while I waited for Adrian to return, the new tattoo on my upper arm burned and itched. My familiar, a red-winged blackbird, could be stirring. He'd imprinted on me a week ago, leaving a tattoo of his shape, but then had refused to emerge. Come out. Would he ever listen to my mental messages? Act like a true familiar, comfort me, help me with my magic. Nothing.
I knew I'd been lucky when my first familiar, Ruby, had attached herself to me early in my stay at the ranch, since not all magical people had familiars. Typically, these magical creatures chose humans who had just turned twelve. The selection wasn't complete until the familiar bonded with the wizard or witch by imprinting as a tattoo, which acted as the familiar's landing place when not in physical form.
Ruby had been destroyed defending me a few days after she imprinted. This second familiar had literally formed from Ruby's ashes. Ever since his birth, the little red-winged blackbird had followed me around but hadn't interacted with me until he'd imprinted.
Come out, and I'll name you. I needed him. I'd give him a name and make him part of my life.
Armed with a comb and tweezers, Adrian returned, grabbed my arm, and held it over the sink. "I'm not using a dissolve spell on the buds because I'm not sure I can do it detailed enough. Don't want the cholla and your arm to disappear." Her lips twisted.
Using the comb, a sturdy one made of steel, she worked off the four buds. Cholla needles don't just impale the skin. They enmesh themselves with tiny hooks. With each bud's removal I felt a wrenching sting. I bit my lip to prevent a cry of pain because Adrian's hostile attitude made me reluctant to let her see me flinch.
As I watched Adrian, I tried to figure out why she was angry with me. It could be displaced emotion from the sight of Cullen's terrible injury. I'd never had problems with Adrian. In fact, she'd recently given me some tips about a client who had shapeshift issues. Right now, Adrian seemed to be channeling all her emotions into anger.
"Thanks," I said when she'd removed the last cholla bud, since I was grateful to her in spite of her major attitude. Dots of blood showed where the cactus had impaled me. I turned on the faucet and let water run down my arms, soothing the stings and itchiness. Outside, a siren squawked briefly. "The ambulance. They're taking Cullen away."
"Don't be too sure." She pulled off a wad of paper towels. "It might be the cops wanting to talk to you." She thrust the towels at me. "You were the only person close to Cullen when that spear attacked him."
The restroom door banged open, and Kai looked at us—Adrian clutching a wad of paper towels and me with my arm wet and dotted with cuts that dribbled blood. Kai's Hopi heritage showed in her bronze skin and straight dark hair. Her big black eyes normally radiated calm strength, but now they were red-rimmed. When I realized she'd been crying, I felt tears spill down my cheeks. Even Adrian forgot to be angry, staring at Kai's sad visage.
Kai had to swallow before she could speak. "They've taken Cullen away. He's passed." Her face clenched up as if something hurt, and she left, closing the door gently.
The memory of Cullen's bloodied body overwhelmed me. I sank to the floor and cried. I hated myself for not havin
g helped Cullen. I should have saved him.
Adrian loomed over me. "Do you want to see the paramedics?"
"No." I lurched to my feet. "They can't help me."
"You're going to need someone to help you." Her voice, normally melodious and low, had sharpened. She shoved more paper towels at me.
I dabbed at my arm until blood stopped flowing. "What do you mean?"
Riffling through the first aid kit, she selected a tube of ointment. "When we were on break from the REM meeting, I recognized you and Cullen on the path. Then some shining pointed thing attacked Cullen before we could save him. You were the one with him. What else can we think but that you did it? Maybe you were just fooling around and lost control of your magic." She thumped the ointment tube down on the edge of the sink. "Or, you did it on purpose."
I gawked at her. She held me responsible for Cullen's death. For her, and probably everybody else at the ranch, I was the prime suspect in Cullen's murder.
CHAPTER FOUR
I had to bite my tongue to keep from defending myself from her accusation. She was too mad to listen to me. I had to be careful what I said—from now on my words would be used against me. The lawyer part of my brain clicked on and clamped down on my tongue. I squirted ointment onto my palm and slicked it over my forearm. The ointment's oily smell filled my nostrils.
I swiveled to confront Adrian. "You can leave."
She raked her brown eyes over me. "I'm not leaving until someone can take charge of you."
I resisted the urge to run, which might arouse her predator's instinct to chase. Someone pounded on the restroom door. "Ladies, I need to talk to Petra."
Jake's voice made me weak with relief. Surely he would be on my side.
Blood spattered Jake's shirt. His whole face turned down. "Petra, Chris is coming to act as your lawyer. I called him. The street cops are sorting things out. They just started talking to us. They're waiting for a detective to take charge."
"Chris. That's a good choice." Being told I needed a lawyer, something I should've figured out for myself, jabbed me as sharply as the cholla needles. Instead of acting as an advocate, I'd have to play the client role.
The logical part of my mind appreciated Jake's forethought and choice of attorney. Chris Rollins and I'd been friends since law school fifteen years ago. I'd worked with him on my last murder case but had dropped out when I entered treatment, thanks to the effects of a botched spell by Ernie the dysfunctional street wizard. Ernie's blessing had awakened unsuspected magic powers in me. Up to the time of Ernie's spell, I'd thought myself a non-magical person. I'd been adopted as a baby by non-wizard parents, and I didn't know my heritage. When by the age of fourteen, I hadn't developed magical powers, I assumed I never would since the ability to do spells usually emerged when children were twelve. After Ernie's spell, I ignored the first signs that I had magic powers. Jake had convinced me I needed help to avoid hurting myself and others with bungled spells.
Realizing Jake had been watching me think, I nodded. "Good idea getting Chris."
"You are to talk to no one without a lawyer," Jake ordered.
"I know that."
Adrian stomped out.
He looked after her. "Adrian took care of you?"
"She wanted to make sure I was in good shape to face a murder charge."
He gripped my elbow. "I have complete faith in you. We all saw the shining spear attack Cullen, but nobody knows exactly what happened immediately before. You were the closest eyewitness, although the police will have the video of the surveillance camera out front, whatever that will show."
I faced the camera above the sink. "I can't believe I sometimes forget cameras are everywhere here."
He turned his back to the camera. "With all our cameras we live lives of complete transparency. You haven't had any real privacy for the past two months."
We residents had found some ways to get around the surveillance cameras, but I was never sure how much Jake knew about the loopholes. "It's not about privacy. I don't care about that anymore. I have to make a record of my innocence with everything I say and do."
Jake headed for the door. "Come with me."
We went to his office, the spy center for the ranch—television monitors covered three walls. Each room of the ranch appeared on at least one screen since the Wizards Council required Jake to exercise 24/7 visual supervision of his dysfunctional magic people. I paused at the screen that showed my room, a ten by ten-foot square. The raven, Loki, perched on his spell book. His beady eyes looked right at the camera. He'd attached himself to me on my first day at the ranch because he wanted me to take his book out of the library. A strange bird, a human wizard trapped in the raven's body—he had issues.
I dropped into one the wooden rockers in front of Jake's desk. "I don't understand what happened."
Jake moved the other rocker around to face me. His thinness exaggerated his height. I knew from jogging with him that he had a tightly muscled body. He tapped on his chest, and the image of a beating heart cupped in long slender fingers materialized on his shirt. "I'm a priest of our Mother of Mercy. What you say to me nobody finds out. If you speak to me as a priest, I black out the cameras."
I trusted Jake and admired his deep spirituality. Being a priest of the Mother of Mercy meant he could manifest her presence in the form of a blue light. But my training as a lawyer insisted I save my story for Chris. "I'm sorry. I'm not a believer, so I won't use your services as a priest. Anyway, there is no official church for the Mother of Mercy, so I'm not sure the pastor privilege applies. What I really want is to make some sense of the terrible thing that attacked Cullen. How did you interpret the scene between us?"
The heart on his shirt faded. "You were far enough away that I couldn't hear your words, but I sensed he demanded something you didn't want to give."
I longed to tell Jake the details so he could explain the bird as well as the shadow creature, although he apparently hadn't seen that. "I know you want to help, but I should talk to Chris first. What's going to happen next?"
"Until Chris arrives, I'm confining you to your room. It's for your protection."
I added mentally and the protection of others. I understood his reasoning. I was a suspect.
When we arrived at my room, he stepped inside and put up an alarm across the entryway. It would make a noise and alert his phone when anyone came in or left.
"Here's what I'm going to tell the police, Petra. I don't believe you have the magical ability to create the things that I saw, the spear and the black bird form. You have vigorous but undisciplined power. If they don't accept my opinion that you're innocent, I'll explain that the Disclaimer Ranch has 24/7 surveillance of its residents. You have never been aggressive. You do not need to be removed from here and put in protective custody."
I swallowed. "I hadn't thought that far ahead, of them taking me away because I'm dangerous."
Jake's brown eyes gleamed with gold, different from the red glow when he was angry. "I'm working on damage control. This is a new experience for all of us. I'll argue that we can increase supervision of you, which may mean you'll lose some privileges. You will learn from this experience." As he left the alarm pinged.
CHAPTER FIVE
After the discovery of my magic powers a little more than two months ago, I didn't need any more learning experiences. I stretched out on the ledge bed formed out of the cinder blocks of my room. From the ceiling a naked bulb shone. Over the entry a camera watched me. Jake had enhanced the cameras with spells. If I spoke or mouthed the word help, the camera instantly sent a message to staff.
One arm crossed over my midriff, I relived the scene with the bird that turned into the shadow creature. When I got to the part where the spear had pierced Cullen, I jumped up and paced.
I bumped into the desk chair riveted to the cement floor. This noise aroused the raven, Loki, who flew off his book, This Is All You Know of Spells and All You Need to Know.
He landed on the desk and coc
ked his head. "What ho, Horatio?"
I never let him know I couldn't identify most of his remarks, all of which sounded like literary quotations. In response to his question, I summarized what had happened with Cullen, curious about the reaction of this wizard involuntarily stuck for the past six years in a raven's shape. After Loki had chosen me as his keeper/companion/assistant, I'd researched his backstory. In the middle of Loki's divorce from his witch wife, she'd put a curse on him that froze him in a raven's form. Since then, he'd chosen to communicate mostly in quotations.
While I explained what happened with Cullen, Loki used his beak to turn the pages of his book that had spells to cure everything except his own problem. "He should have died hereafter."
"So," I said, "you're annoyed because you think this murder will be a distraction from the task you've dumped on me?"
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly."
In the six years he'd been at the ranch, Loki chose a new assistant every year to help him break the curse. Like me, the previous assistants had made no progress.
I had sympathy for him, so I tried to be reassuring. "Even if I'm arrested for murder, I'll keep researching ways to return you to your human form. Jails do have libraries. Although why you chose me to be your sixth magical helper is beyond me."
"Ah, sweet mystery of life."
I suppose being stuck in a bird's body for six years would make anyone difficult. "Any insights on my situation?"
"Only connect." He vanished into his book.
I suspected him sometimes of fake quotations. I didn't mind because his pronouncements always sounded significant. Before being put in the raven form, Loki had been a Master Wizard. Although his skill hadn't enabled him to fix himself, he still did magic. He activated the spells in his book by tapping on the appropriate page. If he really concentrated, he could work a spell by simply fixing his beady eyes on an object.
Loki had participated in intense therapy when he first came to the Disclaimer Ranch, but he gradually refused to join in group activities. Jake, not one to give up, was sure there would eventually be a breakthrough.
Murder Lifts the Spirits Page 2
