by D. R. Perry
“Woah, dude.” I shifted my weight and put my hands on my hips. “I came to help investigate, not get dating advice.”
“Package deal, my friend.” Blaine turned his head, smirking at me. “You bring it, I advice it.”
“Millennials.” I sighed.
“Gen X-ers.” Blaine’s eyes rolled so far back in his head that he could probably see his brain.
“Whatever.” I blew my bangs off my forehead.
“I just. Can’t. ” Blaine held his hands out in front of him like he held an invisible basketball.
“Are we done now?” I tapped my foot.
“Nope.” Blaine dropped his hands along with the invisible basketball. “You want to help this investigation? You accept that invitation. Let the girl decide. Everybody knows you’re into her. The two of you have the luxury to decide whether to date in the first place. You’re lucky. Some of us, not so much.”
“Fine, I’ll go.” I blinked. “I’ll just hang out, let her choose like you said. But I’ve got competition now.”
“It’s your mind, think what you want in it.” Blaine opened his backpack to reveal three familiar-looking brown paper bags on top of a pile of clothes. I realized why he’d chosen the location he had.
“Nice idea, putting them over water so they can’t affect you.” I stepped around to the other side of the bags, putting my back to Narragansett Bay.
“Well, if any of them have Water magic, they could.” He squinted down at the bags even though he wouldn’t see anything more specific than the presence of magic in human shape.
“I think that’s not too likely.” I put my hands on my hips.
“Well, what did you find anyway?” Blaine shook his head. “Never mind. We’ll compare notes after. Stand back a little more. You don’t want to be this close to me when I shift. Air displacement might knock you down.”
I went where he directed. When Blaine transformed, I couldn’t look away. Scraps of fabric flew around him in a nimbus before drifting back down to earth. I’d seen other shifters do their thing, but most of those were regular-sized and changed out of their clothes ahead of time. Wolves, bears, coyotes, some birds. Shifters came in all sizes, but dragons were the biggest. Blaine took up the entire lawn, and it would have been more if he hadn’t doubled up his tail and kept his wings folded. His scales were reddish and edged with some lighter color. Trails of smoke curled and twisted up from nostrils the size of my hand. Blaine turned his head and blinked. A clear inner eyelid closed over the vertical slit in his orange iris, followed by an opaque scaly outer lid. When they opened again, Blaine glanced at his backpack.
I stepped closer, taking the bags out and lining them up on the deck. I tried to sense which was which. No dice. I grabbed the one to my left and opened it. Blaine stared at a spot on the deck. I peeked in, seeing immediately that I’d have to upend it carefully. Good thing there wasn’t any wind that night.
The net of spider shifter silk drifted down, coming to rest on one wide wooden board. The smoke from Blaine’s nostrils got thicker and whiter. If he kept that up, it’d get hard to see. I almost fell over in shock when his voice sounded in my head. I had no idea dragon shifters did telepathy. No wonder they could see magic and psychic energy. They actually used both in dragon form.
“Supernatural spyware, huh?” Blaine blinked again. I watched his eye swivel back and forth in the socket. “Imbued with Air magic, a classic choice for listening in. Where’d this come from?”
“Nocturnal Lounge, right where I work on stuff.” I shrugged. “No trace of who it came from, or who built the device. Whoever imbued it was a Magus careful not to touch it and definitely not a vampire. We’re just about the only people who can handle spider shifter silk without having to remove it with scissors.”
“You sound like a cop.” Blaine blinked with his clear lid.
“Worked with them a few times before the certification requirement.” I shrugged.
“Ah.” Blaine watched me put the gossamer filament back in the bag. “Next.”
I tucked the bag back in Blaine’s backpack and opened the next. This time, the tarot card slipped out, face down. I turned it over so Blaine could see the image of two people in love. I waited for his telepathic commentary.
“Psychically , the emotions on this make me think of lost love, but you already knew that.” He opened his clear lid again. “This belongs to the Headmistress. It’s got her Air magic all over it, plus a few traces from the PPC Magic Lab. She’s the only one working there right now.”
“Are you sure? I mean, can you tell how old the energy is?” I refused to believe Henrietta had anything to do with the attacks or the fangs. Not after the conversation we’d had on Friday. Still, she’d let the most experienced Summoner in the state go on medical leave. No. She wouldn’t murder vampires, harvest their fangs, and leave them in her lab. She wasn’t that evil or that stupid.
“Hmm.” Blaine tilted his head, peering at the card. “Huh. Her energy is older than the lab’s. That’s weird.” He blew a pair of smoke rings. “Where’d this one come from, do you know?”
“Crime scene. Dead vampire.” I shivered.
“Tiamat’s Scales.” The epithet came through my mind at almost a whisper, not thundering like I expected. “Someone’s trying to frame Headmistress Thurston for murder?”
“That’s what I thought, too.” I shook my head.
“How? You can’t see the magic.” He lined his left eye up with my face.
“Those emotions are all wrong for her.” I didn’t dare move. The background feelings coming through Blaine’s telepathic link were tense and guarded. One angry breath from him and I’d be literal toast.
Now it was Blaine’s turn to look at me like I was from Mars or something. His gaze would have been unsettling if he hadn’t been humming the latest WBRU earworm. I wondered whether all dragon shifters used music to focus, or just Blaine. I’d have to get him listening to something better than the navel-gaze hipster stuff the local alternative station played.
“I’m not going to bother asking how or why you’d know something like that. It’s pretty obvious you’re about her age and this is a small state.” More smoke rolled up and out of his nostrils. “I’m guessing the police aren’t bothering with a formal investigation because the victim’s a vampire.”
“Nope. They’re investigating all right.” I shuddered despite my efforts not to. “A fang was found. In the PPC Magic lab. By Maddie.”
“Shells of the Mother’s Egg.” That was just about the strongest oath a dragon shifter could invoke. “A crime against Extrahumanity? Now what I really want to know is, how’d our plucky little gaggle of college students end up with something that should be in an evidence locker?”
“Olivia’s way sneakier than anyone suspects. She found these things on Lynn’s hunch-based errands.” I jerked my chin at the last remaining one. “I hope they give these to someone official once we’re done here.”
“So Josh believes.” Blaine blinked. “No wonder Chief Dennison wants to meet me on Wickenden later.”
“Yeah. Made a deal with him for it.” I looked at my feet, the water between the deck’s slats, a nail in one of the boards.
“Said deal didn’t involve you avoiding a certain Umbral magus, did it?” I put the tarot card back in the bag to avoid meeting his heavy gaze.
“You’re too good at guessing these things, Blaine.” I sighed. “You’re like the sitcom character who tells people to just kiss, already.”
“Somebody’s got to do it. Anyway, there’s just one left. Out with it, already.” He set his head back down on the edge of the deck. “Why put it off?”
I didn’t tell Blaine the reasons for my reluctance. Maybe he could sense them, anyway. It felt like fear, doubt, and anticipation all joined hands in my heart to play ring-around-the-rosy. I shook my head to settle myself, then turned the last bag’s contents out on the deck. The bronze amulet clinked slightly, hitting a crooked nail as it came to rest.
“Wow.” Blaine raised and lowered his inner eyelids a few times. I watched his pupil widen, then narrow. The amount of scrutiny he gave the amulet made me uneasy. He even flicked his forked tongue out a few times like a snake, as though scenting with it. “This is crazy-go-nuts.”
“How?”
“This amulet is designed to help suppress large amounts of magic energy. It’s a little like Maddie’s, and it has your Psychic energy all over it. But it’s old, and has no unliving energy. So that means you made it before you got turned. And it’s definitely you, not some other Memory Psychic operating at the same time. I’m comparing the energy right now, and it’s an exact match except for the stuff that comes with being a vampire.”
“What’s that mean?”
“First of all, you’re a strong Psychic. This amulet still works.” He tilted his head again, peering at me and then the amulet one more time.
“If it still works, why’d the owner get rid of it?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I can think of three reasons.” Blaine flicked his tongue out again. “One, owner’s dead. Maybe even the dead vampire. Two, owner figured out how to suppress their magic energy some other way. And three, which is my personal favorite because I’m paranoid. The owner wants all that magic now. They could have dropped that just so we'd know how powerful they are.”
“I think you’re wrong on number three, Blaine.” I sighed. “I don't think villains get that mustache-twirly in the real world. You sound like Tony, not a big, bad dragon shifter.”
“You’re right. But that’s not too surprising.” Blaine’s tongue flicked out again. “The big whackadoodle about this amulet isn’t on the Psychic side of things. It’s the magic. Whoever you bound it to has just about every type of magic energy except Unliving.”
“That’s impossible. No Extramagus on record has ever had that many schools of magic.”
“On record. You’re a Memory Psychic. You know records aren’t always the whole story. They’re limited. There are sealed records of Extrahuman Council trials where the only things on file are a case number and a memory amulet. One of these from back during Prohibition was about an Extramagus, actually. The identity was sealed, something about protecting the family from the sins of the forebear. This Extramagus had a physical limitation—paraplegia. Kept trying to get turned to keep all that magic and lose the limitation. When the vampires refused, he started picking them off during the day. Extrahuman Council agreed to take him out. I only know about it because my mom was part of that squad.”
“So how come I don’t remember making this?”
“No idea. There are too many ways you might have forgotten.” Blaine turned his head to put his eye next to my face again. “Some of them might even incriminate you.”
“You mean I might have agreed to wipe my own memory, or let the Extramagus do it with Mind magic? Not as incriminating as you might think. I agree to that kind of thing all the time. Keep a stash of amulets hidden away. Evidence galore in case someone decides to screw me over later.” I sighed. “All I’d need is time to go through them.”
“So the right amulet might tell us exactly who the Extramagus is?”
“Yup.” I straightened, finally feeling like I might be useful in this whole mess.
“And there’s a whole new reason you’re the target, my friend.” Blaine blinked slowly with his outer lid. “You might be able to out this Extramagus at any time.”
“Not really.” I sighed. “The thing is, I don’t remember which amulet is which. It could take months to find the right one. Years even.”
“Then start working on that as soon as you can.” Blaine blew three more smoke rings before thinking at me again. “If you helped the Extramagus before, that explains why it’s a Summoner attacking you now. Big bad Extramagus has to use a cat’s paw. Get the clothes out of my bag, please. It’s time to shift back, and I don’t want to get arrested for indecent exposure.”
I nodded and dragged out stacks of Blaine’s not-so-neatly folded clothing. Then, I repacked the amulet. I didn’t have to look up to know Blaine had shifted back. The surrounding air got cooler and felt emptier without the huge dragon on the lawn. I zipped the bag, waiting until the rustle of fabric ceased before standing and looking up. Blaine shouldered his backpack.
“Hey, wait, what’s this?” Blaine trotted over to the edge of the deck. He rolled one sleeve all the way up his arm, then reached down to the water.
I approached, watching him fish something round and about the size of a bocce ball out of the flotsam on the water’s surface. It glimmered faintly with a naggingly familiar iridescent energy. Blaine turned around, pulled a small towel out of the front of his backpack, then wiped the orb.
“What is it?” I scratched my head. I couldn’t remember seeing anything like it before, and the strange energy had me puzzled.
“Japanese sea float. Kelpies, Selkies, and Tanuki think they’re lucky. Can’t hurt to have in a pinch, even though I don’t know anyone who can use Faerie and Water magic.” He passed it to me. “Check it out.”
“What’s that weird haze around it? Not the magic, the other golden glowy stuff?” I turned it over, watching its energy swirl and twist over and around the other magic like an oil slick, only much more pleasant-looking.
“Gold, you say?” Blaine raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like luck energy. That’s something I can’t verify without shifting back, and we’re out of time and wardrobe for that sort of thing. I’ll check into it tomorrow or something.”
“Okay.” I peered at the sea float, then handed it back and let Blaine stow it under the paper bags. The object held me transfixed in a state of fascination until Blaine zipped up his backpack.
“Let’s meet Chief Dennison and go have fun, old man.” Blaine slapped me on the shoulder, snapping me out of my reverie. He strode away across the winter-yellowed grass, breath puffing out of his mouth in the cold. The fact he was a dragon added to the volume of vapor trailing behind us as we crossed the bridge. I could almost pretend I was really alive.
We headed down the ramp on the Fox Point side. When we got to the street, Blaine waited. A PPC Campus Police car pulled up, and the window rolled down. The guy inside looked a lot like Josh, but older and with a buzz cut instead of a spiky hairdo. He asked for the bags.
“Here you go, Chief Dennison.” Blaine set his backpack on the passenger seat, unzipped it, and let the Chief take the three bags out.
“I expect a formal report from each of you by tomorrow afternoon.” He looked straight ahead instead of at either of us. “Bring it in-person.”
“No problem.” Blaine pulled his backpack back through the window and waved. I just nodded even though Chief Dennison hadn’t looked at me once.
Chapter Fourteen
Maddie
“Yes, Mom. I’m actually going out with people who remember me.” I spritzed my hair with just a little water, wanting my curls to perk up, not freeze.
“That’s awesome!” Mom’s squeal made me jump and squirt my face instead. I even heard her hands clap in the background.
“Mom, your eighties is showing.” After patting my face dry, I gave my eyeliner an appraising look. I’d have to fix it now.
“I don’t care.” She lowered her voice and cleared her throat. “Is it a guy? It’s a guy, right?” She reminded me of the seagulls in Finding Nemo.
“Yeah, Mom.” I sighed. “There's a guy.”
“Oh, now that doesn’t sound like something you’re happy about.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s just a guy, not the guy.”
“Oh. Sounds disappointing.” I could picture her, pulling at one of her springy curls and letting it go. I’d ended up with a hair type somewhere in between her tight, natural curls and Dad’s straight, thick tresses.
“It is.” I rummaged in my cosmetic bag for my eyeliner. “This guy, when he asked me out, it was like he had to or something.”
“Then don’t
go.” I heard the clink of a teacup on a saucer. Even out of town, Mom always settled in with a book and a cup of oolong. “Don’t put up with that, Maddie. You deserve better.”
“I know.” I uncapped the liner. It’d only take a few seconds to fix the smudge. “I invited friends along, so I don’t care that Josh is being weird.”
“Wait. Which one’s Josh?” When I heard Mom’s tiny gasp, I pictured her clutching the front of the robe she’d tie-dyed herself before I was born. My mother was too earthy-crunchy to clutch pearls. She said flannel was just fine for her, thank-you-very-much. “He’s not the fellow I hired to make your amulet, is he?”
“No, Mom.” I blinked, nearly poking myself in the eye with the brush. I don’t mess around with a pencil for that. Liquid all the way. As I braced my elbow on the counter, the real meaning of my mother’s words sank in. “Did you see something about Henry?”
“Sweetie, I couldn’t tell you if I did.” Her sigh might have carried wistfulness over Mount Everest if it hadn’t come through the phone first.
“Yeah. I figured it had something to do with your Precognition.” I fixed the line on my upper lid and put the brush back in the bottle, twisting the cap. “Josh is a wolf shifter. Kind of Alpha-jerky, but does the right thing most of the time. His dad runs Campus Police.”
“And he’s the indifferent asker-outer?” She muffled the slight slurp as she sipped tea.
“Yeah. I think someone put him up to it.” I chuckled, so she’d think it wasn’t a big deal, but that effort fell flatter than a pancake from the Empire State Building.
“Lame.” Mom clicked her tongue again. “And yes, I did say that back when I was your age.”
“It applies.” I had to get her off her tangent. “Mom, I called to ask you something serious, and you’ve avoided it the whole time we’ve been on the phone.”
