by B N Miles
“I don’t know,” he said. “But there are no other Weres like you in this world. So if that isn’t you in the picture, then someone from your world ended up here, or a world similar to your own.”
“I know who that is,” she said. “He’s from my world, I’m positive. I mean, goddess, I grew up with him.”
“Who is it, Cassie?” Jared asked. He felt a cold sweat drip down his spine.
“My cousin,” she said. “His name is Wade.”
“Your cousin,” Jared said. “You two were close?”
She shook her head. “When we were kids, but his father is my father’s brother, and they don’t get along, so he was sort of… peripheral, for a while.”
Jared nodded. He understood a thing or two about the politics of a large, powerful family, and how it didn’t matter how close you were when you grew up. People changed, power shifted, dynamics pushed people in all different directions. Childhood was a bubble, and that bubble always burst at some point.
“Why would he come for you?” Jared asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense. They could send anyone through… anyone could’ve come looking… I don’t understand why they’d send Wade.” She touched the picture again and her fingers curled, crumpling it slightly.
Jared put his hand on hers and gently relaxed her fingers, smoothing the picture out.
“We need to find him,” Jared said. “Before he can get into trouble.”
“I’m not sure I want to,” Cassie said. “If he was sent here to bring me back, I don’t want anything to do with him.”
She looked up, her eyes wide and frightened. He’d never seen her so scared before, not even when they’d learned that the Medlar were looking for her and wanted to take her away.
Her fear was pure and crystal clear, etched into every muscle in her face.
“I won’t let him take you back,” Jared said. “This is your home now, Cassie. I promise, you’re not going anywhere.”
“We don’t need to find him,” she said. “We can just—”
“Cassie,” Jared said and touched her shoulders. He pulled her against his chest and held her tight. “You know we do. We can’t leave him wandering around out there, breaking rules, getting into trouble. You remember what it was like, don’t you?”
She nodded and let out a sharp breath. “I remember.”
“You’re not alone,” he said. “Me and Lumi and Jessa and Nikki all will keep you here. Nobody’s letting you leave. But we have to find your cousin and figure out how he fits into all this.”
She laughed, a bitter and harsh thing. She pulled away from Jared to look into his eyes.
“How many people are we looking for now?” she asked.
“Just two,” Jared said, smiling. “Taavi and Wade.”
“Yeah, just two.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before slowly letting it out. “I think I can help find Wade.”
Jared tilted his head a little bit. Jessalene appeared in the kitchen doorway and nodded to him before drifting over.
“I don’t think we can let you do that,” Jared said.
“Do what?” Jessalene asked.
“I can scent him,” Cassie said. “It’s something we can do. We’re part of the same pack, so if you let me, I can pick up his scent and—”
“No way,” Jessalene said. “Too dangerous. You can’t leave the wards and you know it.”
“But if Lumi and Jared are with me, it’ll be fine,” Cassie said. “And you both know I can take care of myself.”
Jared shook his head and Cassie pulled away from him. She stepped back and half turned to Jessalene, her hands out like she was pleading.
“If you can scent him, then he can scent you,” Jared said. “Why hasn’t he found you yet?”
“Because I’ve been in here for the past month,” Cassie said and glared at him like it was his fault. He felt that on a visceral level. “The wards keep everything out. He clearly knows I’m in the city, probably caught wind of me all over the place, but that scent’s weeks old. He won’t be able to home in on me here, and he’ll be stuck wandering in circles.”
“If he’s in the city, we can find him ourselves,” Jessalene said. “I can reach out to my clan. We can ask Nikki. Jared and Lumi can use magic to hunt him down. We have options.”
“But none of them are efficient,” Cassie said. “Let me out there. Just one afternoon. I promise, I can find him and we can bring him in, no problems.”
Jared exchanged a look with Jessalene. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head, pursing her lips. But Jared took a breath and turned back to Cassie.
“Let me talk to Lumi and Nikki,” he said.
“Jared,” Jessalene said. “No way. You know the Medlar are watching. They’ll move as soon as she’s outside of the wards.”
“We can’t keep her locked inside forever,” Jared said. “At some point, we’ll have to take a calculated risk.”
“I can find him in one night,” Cassie said. “If you just let me out there, I’ll catch his scent. It won’t be hard, there aren’t any other Weres like us in the whole world.”
Jessalene threw her hands up. “I can’t believe you two,” she said. “After everything we’ve done.”
“Jessa,” Jared said.
“No,” she said. “I’ve been hiding out inside with Cassie all this time, trying to keep her happy and sane while you and Lumi get to go out every day. I’ve been sacrificing too, you know. I haven’t talked to my family, haven’t seen my mom. Do you guys know how hard this has been on me?”
“I know,” Jared said. “I really do, Jessa.”
“It won’t be for nothing, I promise,” Cassie said. She took a step toward Jessalene, but Jessalene shook her head and moved away.
“No,” she said. “I won’t be a part of this. If you guys want to be stupid and risk your lives, go ahead, but I’m not playing this game anymore.”
She stomped to the front door, threw it open, and stared out at the gray world beyond it. She let out a frustrated growl, slammed the door again, then stomped upstairs.
Jared watched her go. Cassie let out a groan and leaned up against the wall, her head tilted back, her eyes shut.
“I hate this,” she said. “I hate that Jessa’s starting to resent me. I hate being cooped up inside. I hate all of this.”
“I know,” Jared said. He leaned up against the wall next to her, his arm against her shoulder. “But you’re right. If you can find your cousin in one night, it’s worth the risk. We just have to figure out how to do it safely.”
“Yeah.” Cassie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll talk to Jessa and try and calm her down.”
“Let her go for a little bit,” Jared said. “She’s just scared and frustrated. We’re all scared and frustrated. Nobody knows the right thing here.”
Cassie looked up at him and he could see the worry and pain in her eyes. Staying locked in the house for a month hasn’t been easy on her, and the idea of going out against Jessalene’s wishes could only make things harder. He knew how close they were and he knew Cassie would never do anything to hurt Jessa, no matter what.
But this wasn’t some small thing. If the Medlar were looking for Cassie because she was a Worldhopper, then they’d start searching for Cassie’s cousin as soon as they realized he existed. It was only a matter of time, and Jared had to beat the Medlar in their little game if he wanted to keep the upper hand.
“Come on,” Jared said. “I want you to tell me as much about your cousin as you can.”
“Fine,” Cassie said. “But it’s not a whole lot. Like I said, I haven’t really known him since we were kids.”
“Tell me what you can.”
He led Cassie over to the table, got her seated in front of the folder, and sat down across from her. She picked up the picture of her cousin again and shook her head slowly like she still couldn’t believe her own eyes.
Jared leaned back in his chair and wa
ited for her to get started.
11
Jared and Lumi stood side by side on the stoop and picked at the wards around the house until they opened enough to let Cassie slip through. It was just after midnight. The streets were empty, and soft yellow light hung in the air, projected down from the wobbly streetlights.
Lumi followed next, a black backpack slung on her back, and Jared paused, the power still coursing through his veins. He looked back into the house where Jessalene stood watching with a scowl on her lips and her arms crossed over her chest.
“Changed your mind?” Jared asked.
“I already told you,” Jessalene said, “I’m not going to be a part of this. Just don’t keep me waiting too long.”
Jared nodded then turned and stepped through the wards. He stitched them back together with the last of the priori he’d taken and looked at the facade of his house.
From the outside, it looked no different. But he knew at least Jessalene would be protected from any outside interference.
“Ready?” Lumi asked.
Cassie took a deep breath and looked around.
“It feels really, really good to breathe fresh air again,” she said.
Jared smiled. “I know what you mean.”
“We should make this quick,” Lumi said. “What do you need from us?”
“I have to shift,” Cassie said. “I can’t scent him like this.”
Jared looked around but the block was empty.
“All right,” he said. “I think we can do a little air shaping to make you look blurry enough to pass as a dog.”
“Little personal fog cloud,” Lumi said, nodding. “But one of us will have to keep maintaining it.”
“I can do it,” Jared said. “Shouldn’t take much. Just enough to make her harder to spot.”
“And you two will just be a lovely couple out walking their dog,” Cassie said.
“We should get a leash,” Lumi said.
Cassie put her hands on her hips. “I draw the line at leashes.”
“Oh, come on,” Jared said. “There was that one night, you let me tie you up, and—”
“Very different rope application,” she said, holding her hands up.
Jared laughed and ran his hands through his hair. He looked around again, beginning to feel nervous.
“We’d better start moving,” he said and reached for the priori. He let a small amount trickle into his veins and called up a memgram he’d learned from Lumi just a few weeks ago.
Black still water in a deep pond drifting up into clouds of thick opaque condensed air swirling dark mist under a bright moon.
He snapped the memgram into place and felt the priori in his body take form in the world. A cloud of foggy mist began to circulate around Cassie, drifting over her in twirling waves, a tiny, slow-moving tornado of gray air. Cassie laughed, ran her hands through the stuff, swirling it around as it enveloped her.
“Weird,” she said. “I can’t even feel it.”
“It’s just fog,” Lumi said. “Don’t worry.”
“I can hold that for a while,” Jared said as the fog finished its movement. It wrapped itself around Cassie and formed a slight bubble around her body.
“Perfect,” Cassie said. She grabbed the hem of her gray t-shirt and pulled it off. She threw it aside, took off her black bra, threw it down on top. Next came her white sneakers, her black jeans, and finally her black panties. She stood naked, wreathed in fog, like she was in a blurry photograph.
Lumi picked up her clothes and shoved them into her backpack before slinging it over her shoulders.
Jared still admired Cassie’s curves, her wide hips, the reddish-brown hair between her legs, her pink nipples and round breasts. She seemed to glow for a second in the night air.
Then she fell forward, her body twisting and contorting out of shape.
Jared had seen her shift more than a few times, but it was always a little strange, and always slightly different. Tonight, her spine lengthened first, her hands and feet turned into paws, her face snapped and turned into a muzzle. Teeth sprouted in her gums, razor sharp and pointed, as ropey thick muscle covered her torso. Finally, the hair sprouted, covering her body in a thick reddish-brown fur, her muzzle looking like it was dipped in black ink.
When she finished, she snorted and nodded her head. The fog remained around her, and Jared wondered if it would be enough to fool someone. Cassie bore a very vague resemblance to a dog, though she was larger than most, and she had the look of a wild animal in the way she moved.
“Let’s get moving,” Jared said.
Cassie sniffed the air for a moment then grunted and motioned with her head. She took off at a walk with Lumi just behind. Jared hurried to catch up, adjusting the parameters of the spell in his mind as they went.
Spellwork wasn’t as simple as calling forth a memgram and holding it in place. For long term spells, like wards, certain conditions had to be programmed into the weave of the magic. Those conditions governed the way in which the wards would respond to attacks, allow bodies to pass through, and all manner of really nasty potential side effects.
Holding a spell like the fog in his mind wasn’t particularly difficult, not after having trained in it for years, but he had to constantly update the conditions. Temperate, light, rate of motion, proximity to other moving bodies, proximity to walls and concrete and trees, it all had to be carefully balanced in his mind.
The actual amount of priori he needed for the magic wasn’t much, but keeping the conditions balanced kept him busy.
Cassie took a right at the first intersection and cut across the city, heading east. Lumi followed right behind, with Jared just behind her, his eyes locked on Cassie as he juggled conditional statements and power hierarchies in his mind.
Fortunately, there weren’t many people out, and most people walked fast and kept their heads down. They walked by a group of drunk girls stumbling along in heels, barely able to keep themselves from wobbling over, like tightrope walkers. They didn’t even look twice at Cassie as they stomped along, laughing loudly, their phones in their hands.
Cassie kept going. They walked by row home after row home, their simple brick facades blending into one long unbroken chain. It was hard to imagine that each house contained families, contained entire lives and loves and hopes. Jared couldn’t dwell on it, though, as another group walked past, this time a couple guys and a little fluffy white dog that yapped at Cassie.
“Sugar, stop that,” one of the walkers said as the dog freaked out.
Lumi gave them a creepy grin. “Lovely night for a walk,” she said.
They stared at her, yanked the little ankle biter, and hurried on.
Cassie turned, headed south for a couple blocks, then turned east again, this time on Wolf Street. Lumi gave Jared a look, but he barely paid any attention, his mind too focused on keeping up Cassie’s little fog illusion.
They kept going, passing little green trees, new construction homes, a bodega on the corner. A school jutted up on the right, surrounded by a high fence. It looked more like a prison than anything else, and the basketball courts were abandoned so late at night.
Ahead, the I-95 overpass hung suspended above the streets. Cassie picked up her pace, heading straight for it, crossing streets, ignoring homes, ignoring the sparse pedestrians hurrying along. They walked past a pub with a stylized howling wolf painted on the side. Cassie came to a stop half a block away from the overpass.
“What’s wrong?” Lumi asked.
Cassie sniffed the air rapidly and grunted. Jared wished he could speak dog, but unfortunately that wasn’t one of the spells he knew.
“It’s up ahead?” Lumi asked.
Cassie grunted again and nodded. The fog swirled around her large, black-dipped muzzle.
“All right,” Lumi said, frowning and squinting at the overpass. “Under there, isn’t it?”
Cassie grunted and nodded again.
“We’ll be careful,” Lumi said. “Let’
s go.”
Cassie turned and headed off. Jared brought up the rear, his body tense. There was a small green space on their right as they stepped into the shadow of the overpass, deeper into the darkness of the night.
On the left was a high fence with barbed wire rolled along the top. Cars were parked in tight spaces, packed beneath the rumbling of the highway above. Cassie turned and walked between a few jutting metal pylons, her paws padding onto softer, dirt-covered ground.
There wasn’t much under the highway. Dark shadows drifted along the pillars that held the street above in place and graffiti covered most of them, just simple gang tags and scrawled names. There was some trash, a drifting plastic bag, an empty cigarette box, an overturned shopping cart, but it was surprisingly clean otherwise.
Jared felt like they were being watched. The rumble of cars came and went like the ocean’s tide as the traffic above sped along, but he kept his eyes roaming along the darkened open space. Cassie turned to the right, padded over to another fence that bordered an abandoned, boarded-up building, and stopped.
She sniffed a few times then grunted and threw her head at the building.
“In there?” Jared asked.
She nodded.
Lumi pressed her hands against the chain link. Jared felt a little flare of energy from her, and a flash lit her palms. She ran her hands down the length of the fence, cutting through the metal, until she formed a large enough slit for them to slide through.
“Hold on,” Jared said. “Something feels off. How’d he get in there?”
Cassie snorted and shook her head. She sniffed again and grunted, pawed at the ground, and nodded her head toward the building.
“We have to check at least,” Lumi said. “Cassie, shift back.” Lumi took the backpack off and unzipped the main body.
Cassie bumped her nose against Lumi, nudging her away from the bag.
“You can’t go in there like this,” Jared said. “If there are other people in there, you can’t be seen.”
“He’s right,” Lumi said. “Do you think your cousin’s alone?”
Cassie sniffed the air and let out a snort. She shook her head.