The Witchkin Murders

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Running away wouldn’t solve anything. Besides Portland was her home.

  She’d done without Ray before; she do without him again. At least this time she’d have a purpose, witchkin to help.

  She turned back the way she’d come.

  She swam more slowly on the return, but still made the journey in less than two hours. Before, she had been driven by a desperate need to escape; now she was driven by the need to do as she promised, to stop the killer and bring home her grandmother and aunt.

  Now came the difficult part. In order to return to her human self, she had to dry completely. She didn’t want anyone to see her leaving the river, nor did she want anyone witnessing her transformation. Of course the morning sun had chosen to shine bright, offering no shadows to hide in.

  Her normal routine was to use the fog or darkness to disguise her movements as she crawled out the water and into an empty warehouse north of the Pearl District. That wasn’t going to work today. She decided her best choice was to get out at Poet’s Beach just north the Marquam Bridge pylons. They were all that was left of the bridge. A number of hotels and apartment buildings stood nearby. With any luck, nobody would be out this early and see her.

  She swam just below the surface as she searched for what she was looking for among the hotels and condo towers. She decided on the brick-and-glass tower nearest the water. The bottom level contained a parking garage. A clock on the outside of the building to the left indicated it was just after seven o’clock.

  The little marina—built after Magicfall—looked very much like the one she and Ray had embarked from earlier in the morning. A rack of kayaks and paddle boards, and another of canoes sat at one end in the little cemented area where people used to sit on benches and watch the river. The benches had disappeared some time ago. Kayla decided between the racks and the stand of trees to the right of them; they gave her the best cover she was going to get.

  She swam closer until she felt rocks beneath her feet. She dug her claws in, coiling herself to spring. She pushed her head above the surface enough to expose her eyes and get a good look around. Several boats motored behind her, heading along the river in both directions. She heard several female voices from beyond the two racks. She waited, but they did not board a boat, nor did they continue along the path. All the while time ticked.

  She couldn’t wait any longer. Kayla launched herself up in an arcing leap, using her tail as well as the powerful muscles of her body. She landed on top of a rock wall designed to prevent flooding and erosion. Without hesitation she took off running for the base of the building. The women screamed, and several other people shouted. Kayla ignored them.

  Once she reached the building, she dodged behind the cover of some trees, then turning, she dug her claws into the brick and climbed swiftly to the top.

  She crawled onto the roof and curled up in a sunny spot, closing her eyes to wait. Her body felt heavy, and exhaustion netted her in its grip. She’d stopped a whirlpool. A fucking whirlpool. With magic. How the hell had she done that? Had Raven and the dryads known she could? Is that why they called her the Guardian of the River? Just what else did they know?

  The warmth of the sun and roof, added to her exhaustion, soon put her to sleep. She woke to find herself back in her human body, her face pressed against the ground. She sat up, her stiff muscles protesting. She looked herself over, as always surprised that her clothing had returned with her. She checked her pocket for her cell phone. That was there, too. She flipped it open. The water hadn’t destroyed it.

  She eyed it a long moment before returning it to her pocket. She could call Ray, but she had no idea what to say to him, though she had a pretty decent idea of what he’d say to her. She could wait to hear that.

  That is, if he still wanted to talk to her at all.

  She clambered to her feet, not all that surprised when her stomach growled and pinched hungrily. She should have eaten while still in her other form. That body required a lot of calories, and in human form she could never eat enough to satisfy the monster’s appetite.

  Kayla ran her hands through her hair and made a face. First things first. She needed a shower—which she wasn’t going to get since her bathroom couldn’t contain her other self—and some caffeine. Then food. Maybe food first. After that, she’d have to call Ray. She was pretty sure that when everything calmed down on the Island, Raven would have made sure he took the box of information so that he could give it to Kayla. And even if the witch hadn’t, there were still her grandmother and aunt to find.

  As she’d hoped, Kayla found a door from the roof into the apartments. She quickly found the exit stairwell and descended, leaving through a side door to the street. Getting home was going to take her a while, though she supposed she could call a cab, or grab a Biketown bike. She stuck her hands in her pockets. She had no change, though she did find the emergency $20 bill she kept in the hidden zipper pocket inside her jacket.

  A cab it was.

  She hated the idea of spending money when her house was only five or so miles away, but she didn’t have time to waste.

  Pink Lady Cabs had set up shop at the old Avis car rental by the 3rd Avenue Max station. Kayla walked over trying to ignore the delicious scents wafting through the air from half a dozen food trucks parked in the parking lot.

  She went up to the booth at the far end of the lot next to the bus stop. Inside the tiny glass building a slender witchkin woman dressed in hot pink stood on top of a barstool, with a headset over her hot-pink hat, and spoke into the microphone. She held up a finger telling Kayla to wait, and after a moment she turned and slid open the window.

  “What can I do for you, hon?”

  Her eyes looked like polished black marbles and short, gray, velvety fur covered her exposed skin. Her bright-pink fingernails curved into short talons. Pink Lady Cabs had a reputation for not discriminating against witchkin—either as passengers or employees.

  “I need a ride,” Kayla said, then gave her address.

  “Sure thing.” The dispatcher touched a finger to the side of her headset and rattled off a request for a cab. Dropping her hand, she looked at Kayla. “Be just a couple minutes.”

  “How much do you think that trip will run me? I’ve only got twenty bucks.” Kayla couldn’t help turning her head to eye the breakfast burrito truck.

  “It’ll run you about fifteen bucks plus tip,” the witchkin said cheerfully.

  “Terrific,” Kayla said with a sigh. So much for filling the void in her stomach. She’d have to grab something at home. At the moment, time saved by taking the cab was more important than food.

  “You look a little rough,” said the other woman sympathetically. “Bad night?”

  Kayla gave a wry smile and scratched behind her ear. “Something like that.”

  The other woman leaned forward, curiosity sparking in her dark eyes. “What happened to you?”

  Kayla wondered what the woman would say if she told her the truth: I discovered three people murdered in a ritual, then I called the partner I abandoned four years ago and hadn’t seen since, went on a dinner date with a technomage, got called to the scene of a kidnapping, then a bunch of dryads and a witch told me I had to solve some murders before the end of the world, after which I transformed into a monster to save some shifter kids, and oh yeah I told a whirlpool to stop whirling and it did.

  “Shit hit the fan,” she said, deciding that even she had a hard time believing all that had happened, and she’d been there.

  The dispatcher nodded. “Been there, done that. Least you’re on the right side of the dirt. That’s all that counts.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Kayla and the witchkin woman shared a tired smile. Just then a bright-pink Toyota Highlander pulled up. Kayla said thank you to the dispatcher and climbed into the front seat. The driver—human looking—put the car i
n drive and headed out of the parking lot.

  “Where to?”

  Kayla gave her address and then slumped in the seat, eyes closed. She dozed, waking when the cab pulled up outside her house. Foreboding clutched in her stomach. Ray’s blue-and-white was parked in the driveway. She was so not ready to see him.

  As she got out of the cab, her front door opened. Ray filled the doorway, his face shadowed. The set of his shoulders looked tense. She closed the door, standing still until the cab drove away. It wasn’t like she could put this off forever. With a resigned sigh she trudged up the walkway stopping at the bottom of the step and looking up at Ray.

  “Hi.” That was good, Kayla. Could she get anymore inane?

  “You look like shit.” He scanned her up and down, his face unreadable.

  “Coincidentally I feel like shit,” Kayla said with a halfhearted smile. Her stomach growled. She winced. “I seem to be a little hungry, too.”

  He didn’t move for a moment then stepped aside.

  “How did you get in?” She sat on the stairs to take off her boots and then hung her jacket over the railing. “I thought I locked up.”

  “I picked the back door lock,” he said completely unrepentantly.

  “When did you get back?” The words came out amidst a yawn.

  He scowled. “Just after dawn. Where have you been? It’s nearly noon.”

  Her brows rose. “Really?” She must have slept longer on the roof than she thought. Funny how she didn’t feel rested.

  “Really.”

  She wondered why he hadn’t mentioned the whole transformation into a monster thing yet. Then again it wasn’t the easiest subject to broach. What was he going to say? Oh by the way, I happened to notice you turned into a giant water-snake-lizard-thing. What’s that all about?

  “I fell asleep waiting to transform back to human,” she said, picking at a loose thread in her pants.

  When he didn’t answer, she risked a glance. He just stood there looking down at her inscrutably, his hands jammed into his pockets. The silence between them stretched, growing uncomfortable. More uncomfortable, that is.

  “Go get cleaned up. I’ll get something going in the kitchen.” Ray turned and walked away.

  Kayla watched the empty space where he’d been, then gave a confused shake of her head. She grabbed the stair rail and pulled herself upright then climbed upstairs, legs feeling like lead. She stripped, all too aware of Ray being downstairs. She went into the bathroom and eyed the shower wistfully. Maybe one day she’d learn to control the transformation so that she could actually have a shower. Or soak in a bath. These days she had to settle for sponge baths or swims in the river. Neither did much for her hair.

  She ran warm water in the sink, then took a quick sponge bath, drying each section of her body as she went to help keep herself from shifting. She turned the box fan sitting on the edge of the bathtub on high. The breeze across her skin raised goosebumps, but it helped her dry faster.

  When she was reasonably clean, she combed out her hair and braided it. Later after she’d slept—whenever that happened—she’d try washing it. She’d reached the point where if she concentrated and dried it quickly, she could prevent her transformation about 70% of the time. One thing was for certain. She wasn’t going to try it with Ray downstairs. She also wasn’t going to try it in the tiny bathroom.

  Usually she took a plastic tub of warm sudsy water outside, dipped her head in it, scrubbed, rinsed with the hose, then toweled her hair off and rubbed in some leave-in conditioner before grabbing the hairdryer she left on the back patio. It was always a race to see if she’d get dry before she transformed.

  Once dressed, she went downstairs. The smell of cooking food wafting up to the second floor overwhelmed her urge to procrastinate.

  Ray had found a couple of steaks she had stashed in the freezer, and was now searing them on the stove. She went to the refrigerator and poured herself a tall glass of orange juice, holding up the bottle to ask Ray if he wanted one. He nodded and she poured him a glass. Setting his on the counter beside the stove, she fished a handful of hazelnuts out of a canister and tossed a few in her mouth.

  Neither spoke as Ray slid the steaks into the oven. He cut a cantaloupe he found in the fridge into wedges and arranged them on a plate with a sprinkling of blueberries. He set that on the counter in front of Kayla, then started butter melting in a pan. When it was ready, he cracked eggs into it, then popped some bread into the toaster. A few minutes later he pulled the steaks out, layered two sunny-side-up eggs on each, and added two slices of buttered toast before passing Kayla’s plate to her.

  They both dug in, Ray standing up by the counter opposite to her. Kayla practically inhaled the food.

  “This is so good,” she said, her mouth full. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

  His lips flickered into a quick smile, and then it faded. “I guess we all have secrets.”

  His words froze Kayla to the core, turning her breakfast into a hard lump in her stomach. She carefully laid down her silverware and wiped her mouth with her napkin.

  “I guess that means you want to talk about it,” she said, pushing her plate away.

  Ray scowled. “You only ate half of that. You should eat it while it’s hot.”

  She took a breath. It caught in her lungs, and she blew it back out. “I don’t think I can.”

  Ray set down his own knife and fork and gave her a steady look. “This happened to you at Magicfall? That’s why you left?” His flat tone gave nothing away.

  She nodded.

  “You didn’t think I’d be able to handle it?”

  Still no inflection to tell her what he was thinking.

  “How could you? I turn into Godzilla’s fucked-up cousin. I’m a monster. You said it yourself—as far as the cops are concerned, I don’t matter. I’m just another witchkin, just another enemy. I certainly am not police material.” The last two words she said with air quotes.

  At least Ray didn’t try to convince her that she would have been welcome in her new form.

  “I’d have dealt with it,” he said tightly.

  Kayla ran a finger back and forth along the edge of the plate. “It was chaos then,” she said. “All these weird changes and people dying and then the war. Be honest. Anybody who looked at me would have seen a terrible threat to the city. You would have, too.”

  “I guess we’ll never know since you didn’t give me a fucking chance.” Anger boiled in his voice.

  “I did the only thing I could think of to do.” Kayla wanted him to understand. “I couldn’t control the transformation whatsoever back then. Hit me with a couple of raindrops and all of a sudden I’m the beast from the Black Lagoon. Even now I can’t hold it off very long once I start getting wet. Dunk me completely under and I don’t have a hope in hell of stopping the transformation. I can’t turn back until I’m completely dry. It scared the shit out of me. By the time I got a little bit of a handle on it, there didn’t seem to be any reason to tell you. You’d made your feelings clear. What difference would knowing have made?”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have lost my best friend.” Ray’s jaw clenched and knotted. “Maybe I could decide for myself what I could handle?”

  She looked away. “That last day when we got into that fight, you told me to stay the hell away, that you never wanted to see me again. That . . . hurt.” Understatement of the century, but she didn’t know how to tell him what his words had cost her. She gave a little shrug. “I figured once you got eyes on the new me, it would be worse. I couldn’t face it,” she confessed. “I was right, too. You should have seen yourself today when you got your first look at me. You looked like you wanted to throw up, maybe dig a hole, and pull in the dirt after you.”

  He grimaced and nodded slowly. “It was a shock,” he admitted. H
e leaned his hands on the counter and bent toward her, his dark eyes piercing.

  “Look at it from my point of view. You go diving into a killer whirlpool, and I think there’s no way you could survive. Tore my guts out. Worse than four years ago, because at least then I had a chance to see you again. The next thing I know the whirlpool vanishes and a water dragon comes crawling out of the water. I wasn’t even sure it was you. Then you vanish again, and I’m left wondering if you’ll actually come home or disappear for good this time.”

  Kayla could only stare, her thoughts tumbling. Tore his guts out? He cared. Even after all these years, he cared. “After you saw me, there didn’t seem to be much point in hiding.”

  “Thank fuck for that,” he said heavily.

  When he didn’t say anything else, when he seemed to be waiting for her to say something profound or who the hell knew what, Kayla decided to ask the question burning on the tip of her tongue. “And now? How do you feel about me now?”

  His mouth flattened. “The same as I did before we headed out to the Island.” His lips snapped shut with a finality that said he didn’t mean to say anything else.

  Her stomach curled and sorrow weighted her bones. He didn’t hate her more than before—just the same amount. It wasn’t exactly good news.

  “So now what?” she asked dully. Did he want to work with her still?

  “Now we find your grandmother and your aunt, and we figure out who’s killing witchkin and why,” he said. He picked up his knife and fork again and gestured toward her plate with his chin. “Finish that. You don’t want to let a good steak go to waste.”

  He ignored her as she just sat there and watched him. “Who the hell are you and what did you do with Ray?” she asked finally.

  His brows rose. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the Ray that I knew would be asking me a billion questions right about now,” she said. “He’d want to know what I was capable of, if I had any magical powers, how far can I swim, can I go into saltwater as well as fresh, how well do I do on land, and I don’t know how many more things. You’re like Stepford Ray.”