by M. J. Caan
The werewolf nodded, squinting to get a good look at the man. “Yes. that’s definitely him.”
“If he was following her then she was his creator,” said Opal. “We just need to figure out how she did it.”
“Well, at least we know why there is so much of that weird mud back there,” said Jasmin. “She obviously used it to remake her husband and bring him back from the dead.”
Opal wagged one finger at her sister, shaking her head. “No. This is not her husband reanimated. This is a lifeless, soulless husk, devoid of reason and emotion. It is a stand-in for the real thing, but nothing more.”
“Maybe that’s why she made him,” said Torie. “They were together a long time, living here in this house, probably not spending any time apart. When he died, it was like losing a piece of herself. She must have been overcome with grief to do something like this.”
“But how did she do it?” asked Jasmin. “Where did she find enchanted mud? Even after crafting this thing, how did she bring it to life?”
Torie snapped her finger in excitement. “Remember what the hunter said? That the humans in town were doing things…playing with magic they had no business messing with. Elric, you said the same thing. Maybe this was part of it.”
“There’s a huge difference between animating a vacuum cleaner and bringing a statue made of mud to life,” said Jasmin. “Still, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look further into it. It’s not like we have any other leads at the moment.”
“What about Max?” asked Elric. He was starting to pace in frustration. “The woman we found here is not going to be of any help, and this…golem can’t tell us anything. This was little more than a dead end. We could have used this time to track the hunter and find Max.”
“Hey, it’s okay. We are certainly going to find Max. That’s a given,” said Torie.
“If he’s still alive,” said Opal, half to herself and half to the group.
“He’s alive,” said Elric, glaring at the witch. “He was my alpha once. We may not be as close as we once were, but I’d know if he were dead.”
Opal’s head snapped around as she studied Elric. “Of course! Shifters of a same species are typically connected by a shared bond through the magic that created them. That’s never truer than with werewolves. And you two were alpha and beta…that makes you even more connected. Can you sense Max right now?”
A look of confusion passed over Elric as he considered her words.
“Actually, no, I can’t feel him anymore.”
“What about when you fought at the house?” Opal continued.
Elric thought about it for a moment. “Now that you mention it, no. Even though I was fighting him, it was like…”
“He wasn’t really there,” said Opal, finishing his thought. “Just like with the golem, right?”
“Yes. In the heat of the battle I didn’t notice it. But it was like Max wasn’t even there. He didn’t register on any of my senses except for what I could physically see.”
Jasmin’s eyes widened as she started to grasp where her sister was going. She moved over to stand in front of the golem, slowly reaching for him.
“The hunter had to be controlling Max with some type of divinity object. It’s the only thing magical that she possessed and only magic could bend a werewolf’s will to hers. That means…” she began to pat the pockets of the golem, feeling first those on his plaid shirt and then moving to his loose-fitting khaki pants, “this golem could possess the same type of object. Something that not only gives him life, but also renders him invisible to magic and any mystically enhanced senses.”
She finished patting him down and stepped back, perplexed.
“Nothing,” she said, folding her arms dejectedly.
“Hold on,” said Opal. “There’s nothing on him…but he’s made of mud. Maybe what we are looking for is inside of him.”
“How do we find something like that?” asked Jasmin.
“I know,” said Torie. “We take him to the hospital. They have equipment there that can look inside the body, right? Surely someone there can help us?”
“Great idea,” said Opal. “Let’s head over there. You,” she pointed at Torie, “bring the golem.”
“Wait…what? Why me?”
Opal grinned. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? It’s your magic that animated this lump of mud. That makes you his new master.”
17
The ride to the hospital was uncomfortable, to say the least. Opal and Jasmin sat up front while Torie crammed into the backseat with Elric and the golem, who sat silently between them.
“So, I don’t understand how you could just forget to tell me my magic is inside this man. What does that even mean?” asked Torie.
“So how do you think she stumbled across the mud?” Jasmin said to Opal, ignoring Torie.
“No idea. But she also had to know the mud alone wouldn’t be enough. I’m betting that’s where a divinity object of some sort must have come into play,” replied Opal. “She wasn’t a witch, so she had to use a magically charged item to jump start him.”
“That, combined with the mud, was enough to make a golem. Interesting. And the mud? You think that has something to do with the hunter being able to control Max? Fionna said he stepped in some and it freaked him out.”
Opal nodded. “That’s a theory. But who knows for sure.”
“Hello? I’m here too, you know,” said Torie.
“And what about the smaller golem that was on the table. What do you think that was about?” said Opal, again speaking to Jasmin.
“Maybe she was making some kind of messed-up golem family?” Jasmin replied before turning to face Torie. “And he isn’t a man.”
“What?” said Torie, slightly annoyed.
“You said your magic is inside ‘this man’. It isn’t a man, and you need to remember that.” She gave the golem a look of disdain before turning back around in her seat. “As for how your magic got in it…well…that’s anyone’s guess.”
“Or not,” said Opal. “I have a theory. One that the Elders we visited on the astral plane pretty much confirmed.” Their car was eerily silent as all eyes, with the exception of the golem’s, fell on the witch. “. Remember, magic can’t be destroyed. Torie didn’t lose her powers, she gave them up; tossed them away like so much garbage.”
“Hey, that hurts,” said Torie.
“Sorry. I’m not one for mincing words. But it should hurt. You’re a witch; those powers were your birthright. And yet you threw them away.”
“I had a reason,” Torie said.
“Yes, to save a newborn from a warlock. No one is faulting you or saying you made the wrong choice.”
“Really? Cos that’s exactly what it sounds like to me.”
“Opal, that isn’t fair,” said Jasmin. “You weren’t here. The sacrifice Torie made saved all of us. You can’t come in and armchair quarterback by telling us what we should have done differently.”
Opal didn’t speak but glanced briefly at her sister and nodded.
“You’re right. That isn’t my place. What’s done is done. I apologize.”
Torie looked from one sister to the next before releasing a sigh. “Well, of course I accept. Could you please go on with your theory?”
“I think that when you…relinquished your powers, they had no place to go. Normally, when a witch passes on, her power returns to the source of our magic naturally. Meaning it returns to Mother Nature…Earth, if you will. There it is recycled into the natural course of things; becoming one with the universe until it is time to be tapped again and given to a new witch. But in your case, you didn’t die. Your magic was forced out and into the world in a most unnatural way. It had no meaning, no place to go; so, it made its own course. Settling into the environment around us.”
“Wild magic,” said Jasmin.
Opal nodded. “Wild magic. Free roaming hex power, looking for a home. I’m betting that is what Myra Simms used to create this golem.”
Torie sat back, sho
cked at what she was hearing. Elric slipped a hand over hers and gave her a gentle, reassuring caress.
“Hey, this is good news, right?” he said.
“It is if we can figure out how to get the magic back into Torie,” replied Opal.
“Shouldn’t be hard,” said Jasmin. “I mean, it belongs to her, right?”
“Correction. It used to. She gave it away. Now it belongs to whoever has claimed it. And since this golem can’t talk, it was claimed by his dead wife,” said Opal.
Torie remained silent, unsure what, if anything, she could do. She glanced at the silent golem sitting next to her and wondered how her magic could have created something like this. It was not something she had ever imagined doing, and yet here it was. She closed her eyes and placed a hand on his, trying to probe with her mind and heart.
Nothing.
Why was it that Elric and Opal could sense her magic inside him, but she could not? Had she truly closed herself off to what had become the most important part of her being? And if that was the case, how would she ever regain that which was lost?
She opened her eyes to see Opal watching her. The witch just smiled and nodded. It was as if she knew what Torie was trying to do and in some small way was encouraging her.
“We’re here,” said Jasmin, easing the vehicle into the parking lot of the community hospital that sat just outside of Singing Falls.
“Not here,” said Opal. “This is the emergency department entrance. No way we can even get out of the car without being noticed. Take us around the back. Try to find a loading dock.”
Jasmin did as she asked and slowly maneuvered her way to a darkened side lot next to an empty dock with a gray, metallic door with a single, dim light overhead.
“This will work,” said Opal. “Hopefully there are no cameras.”
“This is a hospital. There are probably cameras everywhere,” said Torie, glumly. “How do we get in? And even if we get in, where are we going and what do we do when we get there?”
She was starting to fidget. Her nerves were strung and the more she thought about it, the less she liked this plan of action.
“Just calm down,” said Jasmin as she took out her phone. “Fionna is here with Glen, remember? I’m going to give her a call and ask her to come meet us at the dock.”
“Are you sure she’ll be able to find us?” asked Torie.
“Of course she will. When they were first dating, she used to spend a lot of time here with Glen. They were sneaking in and out of every closet in this building. She knows it like the back of her hand.” She gave Torie a look, her brows furrowing. “What’s going on with you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just don’t like hospitals. They freak me out.”
She wasn’t lying; she just wasn’t voicing the full truth.
Jasmin turned around in her seat and spoke quickly on the phone before clicking it off.
“Okay, Fionna’s going to open the door and meet us. Let’s go.”
They made their way out of the car and towards the concrete steps that led to the loading dock. Torie gripped the golem’s hand and pulled him along.
“We look like bandits standing here,” said Torie as they waited for Fionna to open the door.
“I don’t know what kind of bandits you’ve met, but trust me, we ain’t it,” said Opal.
The sound of metal scraping against metal rang out as Fionna lifted the latch on the other side of the door and swung it open for them.
“What are you guys doing here?” she asked, eyes wide. “And who is that?” She narrowed her eyes at the golem trailing along behind Torie as they entered the building.
She leaned in and sniffed him.
“More like what is that?” she mumbled.
“First things first. How is Glen?” Torie asked.
Fionna took a deep breath. “Her liver is bruised pretty bad from the beating she took. But nothing that a few weeks’ rest won’t heal. She was lucky.”
“Is she awake?” asked Jasmin.
“She is. Well, she’s in and out, but she’s definitely out of the woods. They want her to stay here for observation for a couple more days, then I’m taking her home.”
Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“So, what are you guys doing here with…him?” Fionna asked.
“He’s a golem,” said Opal. “And I think he has something buried inside him that we can use to find our friend, the hunter, and Max as well.”
Elric perked up at the mention of his friend. “Really?”
“I think so. As we said, his wife wasn’t a witch, so she would not have had the magic to bring this lump of mud to life. That means he has an external source of magic.”
“Like a battery?” said Fionna.
“Exactly. Only this battery was charged by Torie’s magic. I believe that her magic, once it left her, attached itself to certain properties and settled in them.”
Jasmin snapped her fingers. “Crystals!”
“Yep. That’s my guess,” said Opal.
“Okay slow down. You’re both way ahead of me,” said Torie. “What crystals?”
Jasmin turned to her friend. “Certain types of minerals and natural elements can be conduits for magic. The most common are rock crystals. That’s why so many witches use crystal balls and healing crystals. Magic seeps into them over time, and witches can draw on that stored power to perform all kinds of feats.”
“Crystals like the ones you brought to my house for me to use?” said Torie. “But I wasn’t able to access the power in them.”
“Yes. But I had no idea at the time that you were completely bereft of your powers. They respond to witches. Your hex power was gone, so that explains why you couldn’t get the slightest response from them.”
“So what changes?” Torie asked.
“Well, now that we know the problem…maybe we can come up with a different angle to attack it from,” said Opal.
Elric cleared his throat. “Not to interrupt, but how do these crystals help to find Max?”
“Divinity objects operate the same way. They are just objects that store magic and are used at the discretion of the one wielding them. When the hunter showed up at the bar, she was wielding a small gold chain as a divinity object. But a divinity object like that has a very specific purpose. I’m betting she didn’t have one that would allow her to enslave a werewolf.”
“So that means she must have stumbled over a crystal, just like this golem’s wife did. She used it to do her bidding, namely, take control of Max,” said Jasmin.
“But wait…I thought you said that these crystals only worked for witches? How is a hunter, and, for that matter, a town full of humans, able to wield them?” asked Fionna.
“Good question,” said Opal. “I think the difference comes in the form of the magic that is in the crystals. In the wild, that magic accumulates little by little over great periods of time. It comes from natural sources; the decay of Mother Nature, the ambient energy that is created by the natural life and death cycle of living creatures. But in this case, it was a sudden rush of magical power that soaked the area; it wasn’t part of the natural order. So that is allowing anyone who happens to stumble across it to access it.”
Torie looked at the golem. In many ways what Opal had just said made sense. But if that were the case, why wouldn’t she be able to access her own magic? Why was it so cut off from her? That thought made her more afraid than she had been when she thought her hex powers were gone for good.
“So how can I help?” asked Fionna.
“We need to test that theory. We need a way to look inside him,” said Opal.
Fionna thought for a moment. “Well, the X-ray technologist on duty is a hawk shifter who owes Glen a favor. Maybe we could sneak him down to radiology and he could have a look inside him…it. Whatever,” said Fionna.
“Now that sounds like an excellent idea,” said Jasmin, giving Fionna a big smile. “Why don’t you lead the way?”
; They made their way through the maze of back hallways that skirted the emergency department and the intake reception desks, eventually emptying out into a corridor that was awash in yellowish light and lined with huge, blue linen carts draped with green cloth meant to keep the towels and cloth gowns clean. Sitting between two of the bins was a metal stretcher with a thin, gray pad.
“Here, put him on this,” Fionna said, pulling the stretcher away from the wall. She then went to one of the laundry bins and retrieved a sheet. “Hopefully he’ll just look like any other patient being wheeled into X-ray if we’re seen.”
Torie led the golem to the stretcher and persuaded him to climb on board. Once he was resting on his back, they covered him with the sheet and Fionna pushed him towards a set of free-swinging double doors marked “Radiology”.
As luck would have it, there were no other patients or employees in the hall, and they moved easily through a couple of corridors until they came to a desk with a large man perched behind it. He stood, towering over them and looked suspiciously at the man on the stretcher and then at Fionna. Finally, he glanced at the company that filed in behind her and frowned.
“Uh uh, not at all,” he said, his voice gruff and low. “Whatever you’re doing, Fi, I want nothing to do with it.”
“Gerald,” she replied, her voice taking on a familial and pleading tone, “I just need this one favor. You owe me and you know that.”
“Girl, I don’t owe you shit. I owe Glen…but you ain’t her.”
“C’mon, man, if she were here, Glen would be asking you to help us out. But she’s not here. She’s lying in a bed upstairs after being critically injured. And what we are asking can help us find out why she was hurt…and catch the person who put her here.”
Gerald gave her a steely-eyed stare before rolling his eyes.
“Fine. But if anything gets me fired, I’m coming to live rent free with you. What do you need?”
Jasmin pushed in front of Fionna. “We need you to X-ray this…man. Head to toe. We are looking for a foreign object.”
“What kind of foreign object?” asked Gerald.
“Anything that shouldn’t be there. Can you do that?” asked Jasmin.