I leaned against the back-porch railing, stretching as I cooled down. I described the scene in the clearing to her. “So, it looked to me like Dad interrupted those two running off after they planted the explosives, wounded them and chased them into the clearing. They cornered him, he gave the killing bites and when they fell, they trapped him. If he’d jumped over one, he would’ve hit a bomb. He could’ve jumped the other, but he couldn’t sense the explosives like Sin, and I can with our magic.”
“Okay, so I have one question,” Sett said. “How did you know to go to the clearing? Two hours before you’d normally be up and running?”
“Um, I had a dream?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I had a dream. But in my dream, Dad was dead in the clearing.”
“You’ll need to tell your Grandma about this. Precognitive dreams are a whole separate study group of magic.”
“Oh, joy,” I mumbled.
“What was that?” Sett asked.
“Nothing, Auntie. Are we going to get a power circle together?”
“I’ll talk to your Grandma in a few minutes. You call your brother home and go shower and change. No running this morning. Someone has figured out your schedule and planned a nasty surprise. Time to change things up a bit.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Yet. I like to think I would’ve put it together after I had some coffee, but yeah, whoever planted those explosives knew roughly where Sin and I had been running every morning. I sent out a mental call to him to come to me as I ran to our cottage. I slowed as I got closer, the feelings of paranoia made me want to scan around the house too, just to be safe.
It was a good thing I did. Tripwires ran across the front steps, but whatever they were going to trigger hadn’t been set up yet. As I made my way around the house, I saw why. I pulled out my cellphone and took a couple of pictures before calling Sett. “Hey, Auntie. I have a couple of presents for you at our cottage. I need you to come by right now.” Then I sent her the pictures.
I heard her answer through her laughter. “On my way.”
Sin was seated, in wolf form, just below the little awning roof over the basement’s outside door. Perched on the awning, clutching the drainpipe to the roof, were two men in gas company overalls.
“Let me guess. You two do not work for the gas company, correct?”
“Get that wolf away from us, you stupid twat! He took a chunk out of Eddie’s leg and almost took my hand off,” one of the two yelled at me.
“Yeah, like asking me so nicely means I’ll do it?” I reached out and rested a hand between Sin’s ears.
~Go ahead, snap and growl at them.~ I said. As long as we were touching, we could use telepathy.
~Naw, I don’t want to clean the piss off the side of the house.~
~Good point. Sett’s coming with a couple of helpers to arrest them.~
I smiled up at the two and fought a yawn. I was going to eat my weight in food and then sleep after all this.
Sett showed up with two SPD agents and got the two off the awning and into a squad car before they could piss all over the house. She took photos of the tripwire and then took it down to bag up as evidence. I watched her work while Sin went inside to shift back and get some food started.
“Are you going to need us to take the IED down?” I asked Sett.
“No, I’d rather you two stayed here for a while today, out of sight but near to hand. Take today as a book study day, would you? For me? I’ll get an explosives team out to help dismantle the mess in the forest and a couple more teams to make sure there aren’t any other nasty surprises anywhere. Tonight, at moonrise, come to the main house and we’ll all do some different wards using the maps.”
“Okay, we will. Thanks, Auntie.” I hugged her and went inside to shower and change. The wards had been set individually and with several filters since the shop was on the farm and some of the fields bordered other property and we didn’t want to zap a neighbor for chasing an animal over a stone wall or something. Now, with today’s events, we’d have to be more proactive at keeping danger away.
I came down in sweatpants and a t-shirt to find Sin stacking food up on the counter. I pulled out the juice and a bowl of chopped fruit and added it to the pile.
“Thank you for cooking,” I said as I slid onto a stool and grabbed a plate. “I’m starving.”
“Well, I knew I could eat a ton after this morning and figured you would need it too, so I tossed some of those leftover pancakes on a tray in the oven to heat up, nuked some sausages in the microwave and scrambled up eggs. This whole cooking extra for later thing you’ve been doing is paying off.”
“It’s something Mom used to do, and I realized with all of the training and studying we’ve got going on, having some quick meals sometimes would be good.”
“So, what did Sett have to say?”
I swallowed the mouthful of pancake and washed it down with some juice before I answered. “We’re to stay here and out of sight for the day. She asked us to please just do a book study day and hang around the house. I’m cool with that.”
“I wanted to try and track Dad again before too many people mucked up the scent trail.”
“Dad knows we’re here now. He’ll come to us when he’s ready. I’m sure he’s working some angle or something and doing his best to keep us all safe. You know how he works.”
“I know. He was already healed up by the time he lost me along the highway. We did talk a little, once I got furry, but while he was grateful we pulled his ass out of the fire, he was not happy that we were out there at all. So, with Dad and Auntie Sett both wanting us to stay put for a day, I think we should. Besides, I have a lot of laundry to catch up on and you’re three chapters behind me in Procedures reading.”
“That’s because I did my laundry more than once in the past month,” I retorted and pinched my nose. “Your dirty clothes are stinking up the house.”
He stuck a grape on his spoon and shot it at me and I retorted with a handful of scrambled eggs.
Needless to say, the laughter kept on even as we cleaned up our mess and settled in to study. Sometimes, childish antics with your sibling were the only answer to a very weird and unsettling day.
Sin
To be honest, I was just fine with a day at home. Laundry was getting done while I took over one of the couches for homework. Sett had got us into some online classes that would give us a bit of an edge. We were going to need it. Being what we are was going to make things difficult, as we were well aware. It had been difficult for our whole lives.
Most paranormal kids go to what mundanes see as a private school where we learn the usual subjects alongside magic and shifter skills and control. And politics. We learned early that most kept to their own. Witches with witches and shifters with shifters. Hell, even shifters got cliquey with those who preferred fur not hanging out with those that preferred feathers. For a while, I leaned towards my shifter side. Hanging out as a young wolf with a pack of fellow wolves was awesome for a young boy. Sid had always leaned towards the witch side. She is still better than me at spells and magical manipulation on the fly. I’ve always been more comfortable with my shifter side – and that’s all on Grandpa.
When a shifter child is about eight or nine years old, they make their first shift into what will be their primary shifted form. For me? It was a wolf, like Dad. For Sid? A raven. As far as Grandpa was concerned, she might as well have shifted into a toad. He saw me first and cheered, came over and ruffled my fur and talked about how much like the other Boudreaus I was. Then he asked where Sid was and I bounced over to the stump she was perched on top of. He took one look at her and started laughing. “A trash bird,” he called her, then grabbed a stone and threw it at her. Sid hopped to the side and avoided the first stone, but not the second. She tumbled off the stump and I dashed over to protect her from any other stones. Grandpa came towards us and I growled at him, showing teeth. He threw the last rock at me and I took the blow to
keep it from Sid. If it had hit her, it would’ve seriously damaged her. I got her up on my back and we headed home. A young wolf with a raven on his back, making our way through the park to the tree line that backed up to our house. It was about two hours before we shifted back to human and I didn’t see Sid shift again unless she absolutely had to, and then she’d shift back as soon as possible.
It wasn’t until we were a little past eighteen that things changed. Sid and I had gone hiking and at one point, the trail crumbled under my feet and I slid down a cliff. I couldn’t climb back up, the cliff was too unstable to shift. Every time I moved, more of the cliff tumbled free. “Sid, you need to get Dad or Benny to help get me out of here.”
She tied off a rope to a tree a good ways back and tossed it down to me to tie around my waist in case the cliff fell away even more.
“It’ll take forever to get back there. Let me try and pull you up,” Sid said.
“No, Sid. Every twitch sends more of this cliff away. You need to shift and fly to get me some help.”
“Yeah, I’ll run.”
I turned to look up the cliff at her and even more tore away, leaving me hanging by one hand wrapped around a thick root wedged into the crack of a boulder. I dug my feet in a bit more and screamed at Sid. “Just get someone now!”
I heard her choked cry of pain from a fast shift and then saw a raven soar overhead and fly back towards home. Sid was hauling ass, so I closed my eyes and focused. I could solidify the air under my feet for a bit, and then try and lift myself inch by inch. I wasn’t very good, back then, with the float spell, so it only got me up far enough for me to wrap both arms over the boulder and hold tight to the root. Now I just had to hope the hill didn’t let go enough to send this boulder towards the valley below, along with everything else.
It had been maybe fifteen minutes and Sid flew back with a pair of hawks behind her. I felt the shiver of magic from the three shifts and then heard Dad’s voice.
“Hang on, Sin, we’ll have you up in a moment.”
Benny said, “When we say, let go of the rock and grab the rope, use your feet to keep from being dragged against the cliff. Got it?”
“I got it. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us yet, we haven’t got you safe,” Benny teased, and my dad snorted a laugh.
It took them just a few minutes to belay the rope around the tree and pull me up the cliff. I stumbled over to the tree and just lay on the ground for a moment, letting my trembling muscles relax.
Dad was moving up and down the trail area, then took a couple of branches and drove them into the ground, tying some of the rope between them. “When we get back down, we’ll let Tim know the trail up here is eroded and needs to be re-worked further in. This will show him where the damage is.”
“You mean, he won’t be able to tell by the missing section of the trail?” Sid said.
“Don’t be a smart ass. This should also keep any hikers from getting hurt. You two ready to head back down?” Dad said.
Benny came over and gave me a hand up, then turned to my Dad. “I’m gonna fly on back. I left the boys trying to pull an engine.”
“Appreciate the assist, Benny,” Dad said.
“Thanks for helping out, Uncle Benny,” I added. No, he wasn’t our uncle. More of a distant cousin, but he was my Dad’s friend, and around a lot.
I gave Sid a half-hug and kissed her temple. “Thanks for not letting me die, sis.”
“Yeah, make me have to shift again when it’s not time, and I’ll push you over a cliff.”
I could tell by the tone in her voice that she was mostly serious. However, after that, we went out to different places and practiced shifting so that it wouldn’t hurt the next time she did it. She still preferred her witch skills over her shifter skills, but it wasn’t all or nothing anymore.
Policy and Procedure class was mostly reading and going over case studies, then writing what policies called for what procedures in handling each case. Yes, it truly was that boring. I’d finished my last case study yesterday and now I was reading a book written by one of our professors. A psychological break down of several serial killer cases all compiled in one book. I got it in audio, so I was listening to an interview with Dahlmer while folding laundry.
Talk about a creeptastic psycho. I’m going to blame my utter focus on the audiobook and the warm, seductive comfort of laundry on why I had no warning when Sid snapped a thick rubber band and it pinged my ear. I yelled and spun around, tossing the basket of folded laundry in the air and landed on my ass. Sid’s laughter made its way through my earbuds, so I tugged one free and threw a balled-up pair of socks at her head.
“Aren’t you supposed to be doing homework?” I said.
“Yes, but it’s boring. Scaring the crap out of you was much more fun.”
“I’m sure. Well, now you can help me pick up all my laundry. Want to order pizza for lunch?”
Sid had already started to pick up the stuff and had tossed it into the basket. “Pizza? Sure, but I’m ordering.”
“I know, I know – and I’m paying.”
“Yep,” Sid gave me a smug smile as she pranced into the other room.
I swapped the next load around and added it to the now very full basket of laundry. I dropped onto the sofa and the sound of an explosion had me back on my feet, headed for the front door.
Sid ran out behind me and we both stood at the railing, eyes on the smoke.
Moments later, my cell phone rang, I put it on speaker. “Go ahead, Sett. We’re listening.”
“That was a controlled detonation. You guys can relax. Some of the IED were too unstable to transport so we had to blow them. I thought Ty had called, he thought I had called and we both dropped the ball. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Sett. We get it. I’m just glad you got them all. How far were they spread?” Sid asked.
“About three miles deep into the forest and they followed several of the trails, reaching out from the Timmons property to the north and the Stansfelds to the south,” Sett said.
“Holy crap, that’s a lot of boom,” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, so there will be a couple of these controlled detonations. We need to let this cool down and then we’ll do the next, so probably one every thirty minutes or so. I’ll call you when we’re done.”
“Thanks, Sett, appreciate it. Be safe, okay?” I said
“Will do.”
Sett hung up and I let out a breath. “Shit, I thought for sure we were being attacked again.”
“I didn’t know what to think,” Sid said, “Until she said they followed the trails. Our trails.” She turned to look at me and took my hands in hers. “Are we making a mistake by going to the Academy? If they’re going to this much effort to try and take us out, what will they do when we’re in a place where combat and firearms training is the norm?”
Sid was right. What we were doing was insane. It was also exactly what Dad had told me we had to do. I hadn’t shared it with Sid, and I wasn’t sure how to tell her what Dad had said while we were both in wolf form. He had told me that the voices of their kidnappers had been familiar. That the ones that took my parents, nearly killed them and burned our home to the ground – were insiders. He said he didn’t know if it was the drugs, trauma, or something else, but he thought one of the voices had sounded like his father. I told him we’d already cut ties with Grandpa. He said not to cut him out completely. The whole ‘enemies closer’ thing. Yeah, Sid wasn’t going to be okay with that.
“It’s crazy, yeah, but remember what Dad always said? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Getting inside their organization is our best bet.”
“It’s also our riskiest move yet.”
“Yes, it is that. But since when have we shied away from risky?” I said.
“True that.” Sid took a deep breath. “So, how about we twin-tag-team our classes like we did in high school?”
Now that wasn’t a bad idea. “Okay, for the academic stuff
only. We both need to do the physical on our own.”
“Great. So, you can fill me in on Policy and Procedures and I’ll give you Criminology 101. I got through it in three days. It was mostly a refresher for me since I took criminology classes as part of my degree program,” Sid said.
“Slick, sis. That was slick,” I laughed and pointed to my laundry. “Start folding and I’ll get the last load. We can fold and talk.”
Her laughter followed me into the laundry room.
Sid
We were two days away from reporting to the Academy and I was taking some time to hang out with Mom. Whatever the kidnappers had done to her, while she had healed from the wounds, she hadn’t yet regained her strength. Evelyn Rue thought there had been a magical component to the attacks and somehow the drain had damaged Mom’s life essence. She was still a sarcastic, smart-mouthed, brilliant witch - who had become so fragile.
“Hey, Mom. I brought your favorites. Up for some girl time?” I set the bag of snacks on the table by the window and went to throw the old flowers out, putting the fresh ones I’d brought into place. Mom fumbled with her pillows, so I adjusted them for her and helped her sit up.
“What brings you by today, Siddie?”
“Huh. I can’t want to spend some time with my Mom?” I teased. Truth be told, every minute I got to spend with her, felt like a gift.
Mom took my hand and tugged me down to sit beside her. “Sidonie Marie,” she said, a finger tucked under my chin to help me meet her eyes. “Listen to me, my daughter. You can’t make your life about grieving or worrying about when others will die. Life happens in the right now.”
Something about her words rang deep inside me and I felt a burst of fear that she was telling me she was dying. A breath hissed through my teeth and Mom patted my cheek.
“No, Siddie, I’m not dying right this minute. But I almost did and, while I’m not eager to die, I’m okay with it happening whenever it happens. I know there is something else for us on the other side.”
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