by Jill Nojack
He blasted after her and poured on the speed to catch up. He jumped her before she got a bite of the enticing meat. Even newly dead, it smelled delicious. Fresh. Ready.
Human.
She clawed at him and hissed. He let go and backed off, not wanting to hurt her, but also knowing he had to draw her away, no matter how difficult she became.
He lured her on steadily, lunging and giving her a bite on the neck or the ear and then running away again. When the smell of her intended meal was far enough away and the calico stopped fighting and trying to go back, the black cat fell to the ground in a seizure. But the seizure soon became something else. From the jittering form that had been a cat, the jittering form of a man took shape.
The calico followed his lead and, in seconds, the form of a dainty woman emerged from the yowling, morphing mass.
When she regained control of her body after the shift, Cassie threw her arms around her husband, shuddering. “Thank you. Oh, thank you. Sheba wouldn’t let me go. She was so determined.”
“I know. It’s okay now.” He rubbed her upper back gently, then folded his arms around her as she shivered against his chest. “When you have more experience controlling her, that won’t happen. I promise. It’s only been a couple of months, and I’ve had years and years of practice snatching back control when I’m with my animal.”
“But omigoddess, if she’d . . . omigoddess.”
Tom reached for the small, not-at-all-smart phone that dangled from the collar he wore around his neck and shrugged. “You don’t need to tell me. I’ve been there. I’ll put a call in to the police.”
“Ummm. Let’s hold off. I want to call Nat first. You remember how she needs a corpse for the ritual to make a new ward? This could be it. This could be what she needs.”
Tom handed her the phone. “Sure. But tell her that it makes us square. I won’t owe her a striptease at her birthday party.”
Cassie grinned. “I think she’d be willing to let that go for this.”
A few minutes later, Cassie said, “Nat and Gilly will be here in about half an hour. I asked Nat to bring us some clothes.”
He wrapped his arms around her again. “Good idea. It’s cold as a witch’s tit out here” He brushed a thumb against the closest inspiration for his metaphor and Cassie giggled in spite of herself.
“We’ve got about half an hour, you said?” Tom turned her around to face him, pulling her close, skin to skin, and she began to heat up as he purred in her ear, “Baby, I can think of a way to keep warm until then, if we hurry.”
***
Cassie was focused on trying to control her shivers despite being wrapped in Tom’s arms when she heard Gillian’s “Yoohoo” through the trees.
“Over here,” Cassie called.
The two older witches appeared soon enough. Natalie was in muddy, knee-high boots, mechanic’s coveralls, and a hunter’s red plaid hat on her head with the flaps pulled down to cover her hair. Her makeup was flawlessly executed, but Cassie guessed she hadn’t had time to do her hair as well. Gillian slogged beside her in galoshes with her flowing flowery skirt pulled up between her knees and tucked in at the waist so that it didn’t drag in the leaves and mud.
“Well, where is it?” Natalie asked while Gillian handed thick cotton robes to Cassie and Tom.
“It’s this way. Or, she’s this way, I mean. By the lake. She was definitely female.” Cassie’s smile faded.
They trudged back in a line the way the two cats had come, mostly silent. Cassie was still cold despite the robe, and tired, too, from her and Tom’s brief but satisfying attempt to stay warm. Besides, there was really nothing to talk about in the presence of unexpected death.
Cassie pointed. “Over there.”
Natalie walked to the body, put a hand on its topmost shoulder where it lay on its side and scanned the surrounding woods. Her eyes stopped as she looked to the north.
She spoke quietly, turning away from where whatever she’d seen had held her eyes. “This will work. She hasn’t taken her portal. She’s angry about the whole thing. Stridently angry about it, but I have no idea who she thinks she’s yelling at. I can get what I need and then give her a little push on her way. At least, that’s what a death witch is supposed to do. This will be good for both of us.”
Gillian said, “So how do we help?”
“If I’m to get that ward to keep the spirits away, I first have to hold this one here long enough to coax a piece of the afterlife’s essence out of her portal. That’s not an easy thing to do. So, first we need to figure out who she is. I need a name to anchor her. I don’t want to have to speak directly to her and give away that I can see her. That might be uncomfortable for both of us, and it might also distract her from taking her portal like a good little spirit when all of this is done.”
Cassie asked, “Why not go through her pockets? She’s got to have ID on her.”
“No,” Nat promptly replied. “Going through her pockets either physically or magically could leave traces that would foul the police investigation.”
Gillian nodded her head. “We certainly don’t want to interfere with either her passing successfully or the police finding who did this.” She walked to the other side of the body where it lay face down near the low brush. “She looks familiar, but I can’t quite place her. Oh, and she . . . this is definitely not a natural death. No wonder she’s angry.”
“What do you mean?” Cassie asked.
“She’s been strangled. You can see her face from this side and there are bruises around her neck. But the rope still lying here is probably the biggest hint. Come take a look and see if you know her.”
Cassie hung back, all too aware that she’d nearly allowed Sheba to have the unfortunate woman for dinner.
Nat walked to the to the other side of the body and shook her head, then said, “You, Tom? Take a gander.”
He did as he was told. “No. Haven’t even seen her around the diner.”
Cassie didn’t have a choice. She made a circuit around the body and looked into the corpse’s wide-open eyes. She gasped. “It’s that woman, Caroline. The publicist. She returned a picture to the gallery yesterday.”
“Caroline it is,” Natalie said. She waved Tom away with one hand. “Off home with you. Cassie will be along later. The ritual circle of the Triple Goddess should never be tainted with male essence. I won’t allow anything to interfere with my having a ward to keep the specters of the dead away.”
Tom handed his robe to Gillian and transformed back into a black cat. Cassie knew the shift would have been extra painful coming so soon on the heels of the last. As Kit, he brushed softly up against her legs before loping into the woods.
Natalie placed Cassie and Gillian equidistant around the body in a triangle, leaving the third corner for herself. She traced a circle around them with the coven’s jeweled athame. Cassie wasn’t an experienced witch yet, but she took it as a good sign when Nat didn’t caution her not to break the circle until she’d used the athame again to cut it. She was one of them now, all the way. Knowing that Natalie trusted her warmed her nearly as much as Gillian’s thick robe.
Natalie lit three purple candles. After handing one to each of them, she stepped confidently into her own place.
Holding the candle out from her body, she closed her eyes and stood still for a long time as the candle flame grew brighter and taller. Purple sparks leapt from the flame and hovered in the circle she had drawn around them, competing with the morning sun that slipped through the surrounding trees.
Cassie expected a soft, rhythmic chant, but when Natalie finally spoke, her voice was loud and pleading. “Dear Goddess who grants us magic, lend me your strength today. For I have been lost and . . .”
Natalie’s plea ended abruptly, and her eyes opened wide, darting to the north. Her candle dropped into the wet carpet of forest mulch and extinguished. She pulled the athame out of the pocket of her coveralls and brandished it in the direction where she’d indicated the de
ad woman’s portal had been. “You $@✴#! You @@$*#ing $@✴#$! How could you?”
Cassie had never heard Natalie swear before. Not a real swear, an angry swear. One that was nothing at all like “Great galloping golliwogs” or “Fluttering fairy goodfellows.” She looked at Gillian across the body, confused. Gillian whispered, “I always knew it was only a matter of time before she lost her mind.”
“I heard that!” Natalie said as she leaned over and cut the circle without breaking her stride as she moved purposefully forward. “You’re going with her,” she screamed, then broke into an awkward trot, her hands in front of her, palms up and open, ready to give something a shove. Whatever it was, it was something the others couldn’t see. Something in the land of the dead.
Then, with a whimper, she stopped abruptly and slumped to her knees like a broken doll, all the fight gone out of her, her head hung low. “Why are you still haunting me?” she whispered. “What right do you have to keep me from getting what I need? I only want some peace . . .”
Cassie and Gillian both started toward her, but she looked up at their approach, fury building in her eyes, warning them away.
They stopped in their tracks. Gillian turned to Cassie and said, “Go on. Catch up with Tom. We’d never be able to explain why you were out here in a robe, and somebody has to call the murder in. It doesn’t look like Nat’s capable.”
Cassie steeled herself against the pain as she shifted. When it was done, she bounded through the woods, distracted here and there by the activity of the other wild things, leaving messy human emotion behind.
***
It took only fifteen minutes from Gillian’s call until the police arrived. The approaching sound of damply scuffling steps was accompanied by a male voice saying, “Natalie Taylor. Imagine you being smack in the middle of things when something suspicious happens.”
Natalie adjusted her gaze to see Police Chief Karl Denton making his way toward her. She sighed. He was hardly who she wanted to deal with after today’s disappointment. Dr. Don, the coroner, whose crisp black dress slacks and jacket over a starched white shirt contrasted sharply with the chief’s lived-in uniform, followed. One of the town’s patrolman completed the parade.
Dr. Don mouthed, “Drowning?” with a lift of his eyebrow from behind the chief’s shoulder. The coroner was not himself one of the magic-using inhabitants of Giles, but he understood that his high-paying, underworked position as the full-time coroner of a small town depended on discretion. Mysterious deaths from unnatural causes, even if the body was found overhead in a tree, would often be determined to be the result of careless use of the nearby lake if the mayor or a select group of his friends said so.
Natalie knew he had an inkling of what the residents were up to, but he also knew not to talk about it. The witches of Giles weren’t dangerous by intent, but there were accidents. Spells backfired. Demons possessed a resident or two and went out for a night on the town. That sort of thing.
Natalie met his eyes and shook her head nearly imperceptibly to indicate the death would not require a cover up, then answered the chief with, “We were out walking. Beautiful day for it, don’t you think?”
“Sure it is. Neither of you will mind if I ask you to empty your pockets and bags while the doc here takes a look at the deceased?”
Gillian handed her crocheted shoulder bag to the young officer while Natalie turned her pockets inside out. Dr. Don moved to the body and began taking pictures from all angles as he began his initial physical investigation on site.
When Natalie pulled the athame out of the wide top of her boot, and the officer called, “Chief? You’ll want to see this,” Denton stalked toward them and held out his hand for the blade.
Natalie offered it to him, hilt first. “That’s an antique. Treat it gently. My grandmother used it to gather willow bark like I planned to do today. There’s a nice stand of pussy willow around here somewhere.”
Chief Denton took the knife, inspecting its delicately etched blade and jeweled handle. When he was done, he raised his eyes to hers. “It looks clean, but I’ll be taking it with me until we rule out it hasn’t been used on the victim.”
Natalie harrumphed. “Of course you will. Might as well harass little old ladies out to collect the ingredients for their headache powder while the real criminals laugh about how they got away with it. Perhaps you’d like to take off with Gillian’s bag, too? She could easily beat someone to death with the thing, given the sheer volume of her daily essentials.”
Gillian was busy repacking an assortment of hair accessories, cones of incense, candles, books, bags and bottles of herbs, and general flotsam back into her bag. “Natalie, leave him alone. The man is only doing his job.”
“Fine,” she replied. “Are you done with us now?”
He rocked on his heels for a moment, then said, “Let me . . .”
He was interrupted by a “What the heck?” as Dr. Don fell backward onto the seat of his previously spotless pants. One of the corpse’s hands had fallen open, and a plastic set of chattering teeth clattered loudly as they jumped up and down in the dirt.
Dr. Don scrambled up, composed himself, and stood looking down at the body. When the clacking sound had stopped, he said, “That’s odd. I wonder what that’s about?”
Natalie’s face froze.
Strangled.
Toy.
There was only one more piece.
“The rope. The rope that was used. Is it wet?” she asked.
“And an odd question added to the mix,” the coroner said. “Let me check.” He reached out to touch the rope that was still wrapped around the woman’s neck. “It’s damp.” He next put a hand to the woman’s blouse. “But her clothing isn’t. There was no dew last night, and the rain had cleared up by yesterday morning. How did you know?”
But Natalie was already stalking away from him, her big boots kicking up last year’s leaves as she went. “I’m done here. I’ll come in tomorrow to make my statement. And I’ll be needing my knife back sooner rather than later.”
Gillian gently held out a hand to stay the young cop as he started toward Natalie. “Hang on a minute, Nat. Please?” she called.
Natalie stopped. But she tensed where she stood, ready to move again at any minute.
Gillian turned to the chief. “Robert wouldn’t have a problem with you letting her go and talking to her tomorrow at the station. You know how she can be. You also know she’s not involved with this. I was with her the whole time, so I can fill you in on everything we did before and after finding the body.”
The chief nodded. “Ms. Winterforth, for the mayor’s sake, I can accept an assurance from you that she’ll be there. But after that bit of prognostication, she definitely has questions to answer.”
Gillian looked at Nat, who dipped her eyes in subtle agreement. Gillian said, “She’ll be there.”
Natalie stomped away.
***
Sheba darted in through the newly installed kitty door and raced around the big living room, leaping with claws extended at particles of dust, looking for her playmate. But Kit was nowhere to be found.
She discovered her favorite wadded-up ball of aluminum foil under the couch. It made an irresistible scritching sound as it shot across the hardwood floors. It was fun to bat around, but it was too predictable to be fun forever. The spider she found crawling up one side of the fireplace was not only fun but also tasty. But it wasn’t as tasty as the meal that had been stolen from her in the woods would have been.
She padded up the stairs and ran down the hall to the big bedroom and found Tom there instead of Kit. She mewled up at him, disappointed, but willing to accept an ear scratching if he could be convinced by her soft, seductive self. Still, if it was Tom instead of Kit lounging on the bed, playtime was over. When he didn’t reach out to her, she curled up in a ball, her tail twitching at the tip, her green eyes glaring balefully into his. She was going to be pushed into the background now before she even had a proper na
p.
Tom stood, stepping to the side of the bed so Cassie would have enough room to transform in the middle of the mattress. At least the bed was softer than the forest floor.
Cassie’s eyes were still shut against the last of the pain when Tom lay down next to her, taking her in his arms and stroking her hair gently. She knew it meant a lot to him that she had chosen to share all parts of his life by joining with Sheba when he joined with Kit, and she had never once regretted it, but she often wished this part of their partnership didn’t hurt so much.
When she opened her eyes and smiled, he kissed her on the forehead. “So how did it go? Did Natalie get what she needed?”
She frowned. “No. Something went wrong. I’ve never seen her so angry. You know how she is, always in control no matter what’s simmering under the surface. She uses negative feelings to keep focused, you know? No way would she let them take her over and cloud her judgment. But today? She broke down. Literally broke down.”
“Nat? Our Nat? Scary old Nat?”
“That’s the one. Gillian sent me away while Natalie was still on her knees after she cut the circle and ran out of it, yelling at someone we couldn’t see. I don’t know what happened.”
Tom’s smooth brow wrinkled. “That can’t be a good thing.”
“Yep,” she said. “If you can’t depend on Nat to keep her feelings hidden, what can you depend on? Something big is up with her.”
Her eyes jolted wide open, and she pushed his sheltering arms away so she could sit up. “Omigoddess! I need to get dressed and then I need to call Daria. I just realized that since her cousin was involved in a fight with Caroline the day before she turned up murdered, the police are going to need to know about it.” She groaned.
“Why would they?”
“Caroline assaulted the boy that Daria’s cousin was with, and then Twink—that’s her cousin—went after Caroline. So the boy stepped in to protect her. And the woman those two kids had a big, screaming, public fight with has now turned up dead in the woods out by the lake.” She groaned again, longer this time. “I mean, it looks bad. I don’t have a choice. Somebody else is going to report it when they put two and two together. There were plenty of people downtown that day, and you know how everyone gossips around here. I need to get there first with the real scoop. Or, better yet, Twink should do it. Because as soon as word starts to spread about a murder, there will be plenty of people running in to have their say.”