Monster

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “I know you meant that as a compliment, so I’ll take it that way.” A thought occurred to me, and I looked at Peasblossom. “Can you glamour the license plates? It’d be a shame if we were interrupted because someone figured out this is my car. Not that I think Liam would consider me enough of a hindrance to tell them to be on the lookout for me, but still.”

  “On it!”

  I waited for Peasblossom to lay her simple glamour over the aluminum plate, and as soon as she finished, I drove the rest of the way to Mia’s house. With my disguise and the car’s glamour in place, I pulled into her driveway as though I had every right to be there. I ignored the car holding two human rangers I recognized from the station and knocked on the door.

  Mia answered with a sour look, her shoulders squared as if prepared to do battle. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so. My name is Beth, and I’m from the twenty-four-hour veterinary hospital. Two days ago, a gentleman’s dog came into the clinic, a beautiful female Czechoslovakian wolfdog named Gypsy?”

  Mia’s shoulders dropped, and concern drew deep creases around her eyes. “Is something wrong?”

  “Could I come in for a moment?”

  She nodded and gestured for me to come inside. “Please.”

  “Thank you.” I went in without looking at the rangers, careful to keep my face and voice composed to match my disguise and false pretense. “I’m sorry to bother you like this, but something’s come up, and Mr. Catello gave your number as a backup in case we couldn’t get a hold of him.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Mia assured me, waving a hand. “What’s wrong? Is Gypsy okay?”

  “She is, but she’s at risk. The woman who worked on Gypsy is a recent hire at our clinic. I was looking at Gypsy’s x-rays as part of a standard review, and I noticed a small hairline fracture in one of her vertebrae. It’s tiny, easy to miss in the heat of the moment.”

  Mia paled. “Vertebrae? You mean her spine? Oh my God, it is serious?”

  “It will heal itself in time,” I said. “But it’s very important that I speak with Mr. Catello. Gypsy needs a splint until it heals, otherwise she could aggravate the fracture. The consequences could be devastating.”

  Mia bit her cheek. “He’s…out of town.”

  “He doesn’t have a cell phone?”

  Mia shook her head. “No, it was… He lost it.”

  It was more likely that Anthony had turned off the cell phone so the police couldn’t use it to track him. I wrung my hands. “I have to find him. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to that poor dog.”

  A door slammed toward the rear of the house and a young man stomped in. He was tall and lanky, five eight and barely one hundred and sixty pounds. A blue skull cap hid most of his shock of black hair, and he wore baggy blue jeans that were in serious danger of being pulled down to his ankles by the chains hanging from his pockets.

  “How long have the fucking cops been sitting across the street?” he demanded.

  “Watch your mouth,” Mia barked. “They’re waiting there in case Anthony shows up. Ignore them.”

  “Ignore them? They’re turning our house into a goddamn prison!”

  “Language!”

  The anger tightening the teenager’s features didn’t let up. He squared his shoulders in a way that mimicked the stance his mother had held when she’d first answered the door. “Who are you?”

  “Greg,” Mia warned.

  “It’s all right,” I told her. I held out a hand to Greg. “My name is Beth, and I’m the veterinarian who helped Gypsy the other night.”

  Greg’s face softened the tiniest bit, though he didn’t accept my offer of a handshake. His leather-bracelet-laden wrists remained resolutely at his sides. “Is everything all right?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. I found a hairline fracture in Gypsy’s x-rays, and I need to contact Anthony as soon as possible.”

  Greg narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “Why?”

  “I have to tell him about the fracture,” I said. “Gypsy needs to stay as still as possible, and she needs a splint to help hold the bone in place. Do you know how to contact him?”

  “No.”

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, and his chin rose higher when he looked into my eyes with intensity.

  He knows where Anthony is. I kept that knowledge from my face and wrapped my arms around myself as if I were worried. I wanted to question Greg, ask everything I was sure Liam had wanted to ask yesterday, but that would blow my cover. “Can either of you think of anyone who might know where he is?”

  “I’m sorry, no,” Mia said, true regret in her voice. “Anthony didn’t have much family, none in Ohio. I think Greg and I were the closest he had.”

  “’Cause everyone else treated him like crap,” Greg spat.

  Mia rubbed her temples. “He didn’t do himself any favors, hon. His attitude made him plenty of enemies.”

  “He seemed a little rough around the edges,” I admitted. “But I saw him with that precious dog. He didn’t seem like a murderer.”

  “Tell that to the cops.” Greg curled his lip in disgust. “They’re going to sit out there forever, waiting for him to come to the only people who care if he lives or dies so they can lock him up for something he didn’t do. Cops are worthless.” He snarled and turned on his heel, heading for the door. “I’m out of here.”

  “Wait, take this!” I dug in my pack for a pen and paper and scribbled my name and cell phone number. Lifting the pen from the paper, I continued drawing, this time etching out an arcane mark above the paper’s surface. I blew on the mark, pulling magic from my core and letting it follow the lines I’d drawn. It burst into brilliant rainbow of color, magic that only Peasblossom and I would see. “Take this.” I held it out to Greg. “If Anthony calls, or you think of some way to get in contact with him, please call me.”

  He took the card, but the nervous tension about him thickened, and he back a step. His lips parted, and for a split second, I thought he’d speak, tell me something about how I could find Anthony. Then he snapped his mouth closed and bolted for the back door.

  “Greg, wait—” I started.

  He didn’t listen. The door slammed behind him.

  Mia sighed and ran a hand through her hair before collapsing on the couch. She melted into the overstuffed headrest with an air of tired defeat. “He isn’t a bad kid, I swear. This week’s been really rough.”

  I nodded, trying to be as subtle as possible as I edged toward the door. “I heard about the murder on the Rocky River Reservation. That was the night Gypsy was there. I gather the police think Mr. Catello had something to do with it?”

  “Yes.” Mia’s head lolled to the side as she followed my retreat. “You saw Anthony, so you can see why the cops jump to conclusions. It’s his damn temper.” She rubbed her hands down her face. “He didn’t do it. If you could see him with Greg, you’d know.”

  She kept her hands on her face, but lowered them enough to look across the room at the family portrait. “After my husband’s death, Greg drifted down a dark path. Always sullen at home, hardly spoke to me. Hung out with the wrong crowd. Anthony stepped up for him, took over where his father left off. He was even teaching him how to fix cars, promising him he’d give him a job if he took it seriously.”

  She obviously needed to talk to someone, needed to explain why Greg acted the way he did. Normally, I would feed that inclination, offer to be the one who listened. It was what a witch did best. But right now, the best thing I could do for Mia and Greg was find Anthony before the werewolves did. It was clear this family needed that man, and if I didn’t get out of here now and find them, I was afraid he might not come back. Not anytime soon.

  “I don’t think Anthony killed that man,” I told her. “You can tell a lot about a person by watching how they treat animals. Believe me, I know.” I put another card on the table, writing my name and number. After a second of hesitation, I pressed another mark to the paper, similar to
the one I’d used for the slip I’d given Greg. “Please let me know if you hear from him.”

  “I will.”

  I promised myself I’d check on Mia as soon as I closed the case. She was exhausted, and Greg definitely seemed on edge. Though there was no way to make raising a teenager alone an easy task, there were some coping methods I could teach her, advice I’d gathered from hundreds of mothers in the same situation. And I wanted to help.

  I headed out the door, pushing my senses out in all directions to feel for the mark I’d put on the card. I needed to speak to the teenager, speak to him as Shade Renard, private investigator trying to clear Anthony’s name, not as Beth, veterinarian trying to help his dog. The arcane mark I’d put on the card I gave him would let me follow him, so all I had to do was ditch the disguise and make sure I wasn’t followed.

  The rangers were still sitting in their car when I crossed the front porch. I felt their eyes on me as I forced myself to walk to my car without giving in to the urge to run. A quick peek in my rearview mirror assured me that the spell keeping me disguised was still in place, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I drew on my magic as I reversed out of the driveway, letting it flow out from me in a wide silver net. A tiny spark of extra-bright silver winked at me from the arcane mark. I smiled and shifted into drive, following the spell.

  Ten minutes later, I was second-guessing my plan.

  “This…is not a good area.” Peasblossom shrank away from the windshield, her wings pressing down against her back as she tried to make herself even smaller.

  She wasn’t wrong. The teenager was on foot, and didn’t seem inclined to follow the street. Rather, he was crisscrossing the city like an alley cat, meandering through alleyways, across backyards, and, at least once, climbing over a fence. If not for the mark pulling at my senses, I would have lost him a dozen times, and even with the magic, it was a close thing.

  “We’re not in Dresden anymore,” I said under my breath. That was an understatement. This was Cleveland, a large city that made Dresden look like someone’s backyard. Or possibly the far corner of someone’s backyard. Buildings towered around me like forbidding sentinels of industry, casting shadows that made every doorway and corner scream “roll for initiative.” It was all I could do to force myself to keep focusing on Greg and not where Greg was leading me.

  The mark stopped moving. I shoved away the unease rolling through my stomach and parked the car on a side street. I waited a few minutes, making sure the mark had stopped. The last thing I needed was to end up on a mile-long foot chase through this concrete jungle.

  “Now what?” Peasblossom asked.

  “Now we go find Anthony.”

  Peasblossom held on to my hair as I got out of the car, her wings trembling as she studied the huge buildings surrounding us. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. A village witch doesn’t have to deal with running pell-mell through smelly, mugger-populated alleys. A village witch stays in her village and helps people. She’s beloved by all, and at little personal risk to herself—or her familiar.”

  Adrenaline gave me the strength I needed to make my legs work, and I lurched toward the alleyway nearest the point where my mark glowed in my mind’s eye. “I’ve chosen my path, and I won’t be scared off it. As shocking as it may seem, solving crimes doesn’t always mean staying in ‘safe’ areas.”

  Peasblossom hid in the collar of my coat, tucked under the protective fall of my hair. “All right, all right, but hear me out. What if you were a village witch who consults for the FBI on a strictly in-office basis? Maybe has a look-see at a crime scene now and again, detecting magical foul play and then leaving it to the Vanguard to investigate?”

  I stepped over a puddle of what I hoped was stagnant rainwater. “Do you remember that half-goblin that was eating cats?”

  “Yes. And I thought you judged him too harshly.”

  I craned my neck to give her a dark look. “That’s not funny.”

  Peasblossom sniffed, then wrinkled her nose as if she regretted it. “It wasn’t a joke. You eat cows; why is that any better than a goblin having a nibble on a cat? Cats are much more ferocious than cows, much more likely to kill a poor little pixie.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “when I found that goblin, he’d just taken his first child. The cats weren’t enough anymore, and he’d graduated to humans. If I hadn’t found him, that child would be dead, reduced to a pile of excrement.”

  “Such a charming way to put it.”

  I crept along the wall of the closest building, careful not to brush against it. “I saved that child’s life. I knew then that I’d found my purpose. There are bad guys out there that aren’t human, and the human police are in no position to find them, let alone deal with them. I can. And I will.”

  “You’re an amazing witch,” Peasblossom said. “But you aren’t a cop. You aren’t even a proper PI.”

  “Not officially,” I said. “But in terms of experience, I’m perfectly qualified. How many missing children have I found?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “And how many murderers have I caught?”

  “Four. But those murderers were monsters—animals, not humans. You want to be a private investigator, and that requires different training than witching.”

  “And I’ll get that training,” I promised. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s studying.” I sidled around a garbage bin, holding a hand over my nose to block out the odor as best I could.

  “You’d have to be,” Peasblossom agreed. “I can’t swear to you how many years we spent at Mother Hazel’s with you reading and studying, but I’d bet my wings it was a few decades at least.”

  “Is that normal?” I stepped over a lump of garbage, almost swallowing my tongue when a fat black insect scurried out from under it. I walked faster.

  “Is what normal?”

  “A witch’s apprentice spending all her time studying? When Mother Hazel offered to be my mentor, I thought she’d be training me to use magic, but she barely taught me any spellcasting at all beyond the basics.”

  “There’s nothing normal about Mother Hazel,” Peasblossom muttered. “That old bat has gone around the bend and enjoyed the trip one too many times.”

  A strange sensation brushed across my senses. Fear lifted the hairs on the back of my neck, and my instincts flared, spilling adrenaline into my bloodstream. It was the universal sensation a person experienced when swimming in the ocean and feeling something brush your leg. Was that seaweed? Or a man-eating shark?

  The adrenaline that surged through my body wasn’t a burn in my veins—it was a solid punch against my entire body, a force that propelled me forward. I ran without making the conscious decision to do it, fled as if my life depended on it. The silver net of detection magic surrounding me heaved like a safety net saving the life of a clumsy acrobat. Or a web hefting the giant furry body of a large spider.

  “Dream shard!” Peasblossom shrieked.

  It wasn’t so much a sound as it was a feeling, cold and hard with an edge sharp enough to draw blood. It dragged down my spine with physical pressure, driving me to run faster. I leapt over pieces of trash, broken bits of cement, and rotting wood pallets. I let go of the silver net, releasing the magic to free up every iota of rational thought I could manage.

  People—I needed people. A witness, a human. Someone Arianne wouldn’t want hurt; someone who would trigger the dream shard to return to its ethereal home. At least I hoped—I prayed—that was how it would work.

  Somehow, in the midst of concentrating so hard on following Greg, I hadn’t noticed he’d led me behind a row of factories. Dilapidated fences created a honeycomb of urban decay, littered my surroundings with obstacles and narrow entryways surrounded by broken wood or shorn metal links. My spirit sank when I realized that most people were smart enough not to wander this area. There were no crowds, no groups of people milling about, or even the occasional solitary walker to break up the empty space.

>   I was alone.

  The dream shard’s first bite sent me crashing to the ground. Invisible jaws closed over me, and my spirit bled liquid terror. I kept my eyes open, but all I saw was a cave, a dark cave with a mouth outlined by shining white teeth and fangs like glittering stalactites. Reality fell away, left me lost in the in-between as the monster tried to eat me, drinking my essence, my magic, everything that made me…me. Here and there I glimpsed the black beast that had inspired my original nightmare, the dream that had spawned this monster. Watching. Prowling.

  “Shade!”

  I followed Peasblossom’s scream. Her little soul hung in my vision like a bright pink flame, and I charged toward that light. My feet scrabbled on loose stones, but I got my balance and threw myself into a headlong dash of desperation that sent me bolting out of the imaginary cave and back into reality.

  A broken fence up ahead offered escape. I overestimated its width, hitting my shoulder hard as I dove through the gap. I cried out in pain as warm blood flowed down my arm, but continued to wrench myself through, stumbling a few steps as I regained my bearings. A warehouse towered over me, abandoned by the looks of the dusty, broken windows. If I went through the warehouse, I’d reach the main road and more people. I lurched forward.

  Something struck my head from behind. Pain exploded along my skull, the sky spiraled, and something hard slammed into my back. The last thing I saw before the darkness claimed me was an angry teenage boy.

  Chapter 13

  “Holy shit, did you see that?”

  “She fucking changed!”

  “How did she do that?”

  The shouting did not help my headache. My temples pounded like animal-skin drums pummeled too enthusiastically by a burgeoning musician. Each strike sent a sharp lance of pain straight through my skull, stabbing at my brains and shredding any train of thought I might have managed to get running. I tried to put my hands to my temples, wanting to hold my brains in, but my arms wouldn’t move. A deep breath dragged the scent of old motor oil, decaying cardboard, mildew, and, over it all, the unmistakable scent of under-supervised teenage boy.