by Molly Harper
Zed had to walk a delicate line with the League. He had to give the League enough information and access to ensure that Mystic Bayou was provided the resources they were promised. Yet at the same time, he had to protect his citizens from being intruded upon and his town from getting overrun. And subtlety wasn’t exactly his strong suit. His campaign platform had been, “Let’s get shit done.” He’d put it on his campaign signs and everything. His maman had even threatened to endorse his cousin, just for the obscenity.
He figured that Jillian and her colleagues would not appreciate him canceling all the planning meetings to go back out to the maison de fous to keep working on the defunct shower, which was what he preferred to do, far above anything he had scheduled for that day.
Walking that line every damned weekday was stressing him out. As much as he loved taking care of the residents of Mystic Bayou, he’d felt buried in work lately. He wasn’t sure if it was the increase in town business or because he suddenly had more free time to fill with town business now that Bael was spending all his evenings with Jillian.
He tried not to be jealous or to begrudge the time Bael spent with his lady love. But watching the games alone in his man cave was getting kind of old. He actually had an excess of beer for the first time in his life.
There were times lately when he was lonely, though he thought that might have been sparked by seeing his long-time best friend matched so blissfully to a girl who was not only beautiful but funny as hell and scary-smart. Zed figured it wouldn’t be so bad to be paired up with somebody if she would just let Zed be, not try to polish him up to take home to her mama. Bears usually turned on those who tried to tame them.
So here he was, putting off his arrival at work by taking a few extra meandering roads, just to get some quiet time to himself. He figured it counted as that “self-care” thing Jillian was always talking about . . . and it was less destructive than day-drinking.
Zed sped through a curve just beyond Stolen Pearl Crick, prepared to gun his engine for the last mile to town. And then he damn near fell off his bike.
The sight of a person out in the grass, propped under a dead live oak tree, not moving, startled him so badly that he barely missed slamming on his brakes. All he could think was, “Please God, not again!”
His hackles had never quite relaxed since the town had been subjected to a series of murders, right after Jillian arrived in town. They’d lost several good people to a madman, and Zed still felt their loss, the guilt of knowing he had failed to protect his own.
It took him skidding to a stop and leaping off of the bike onto the grass, before Zed registered that the person sitting in the grass was Dani. He felt a peculiar rush of panic, seeing her sitting there unprotected. What in the hell was she doing this far away from the maison? Had she gotten lost trying to get into town? He didn’t see a car parked nearby, though as far as he knew Dani didn’t have a vehicle. Had she walked two miles from her rental house in the sweltering heat just to take a nap under an enormous dead tree? She was wearing sensible nylon pants and hiking boots, so she seemed to know what she was doing there. Was she not aware that she was a sitting duck in one of the most dangerous ecosystems in the world?
Also, she didn’t seem to be stirring, despite the fact that a pretty loud motorcycle had rolled up within twenty feet of her. He could hear her heartbeat. And he could see her chest moving just a bit every few seconds. So she was alive at least, just . . . odd.
And she still wasn’t moving or acknowledging him.
“Miss Teel? Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
No response. But she was still breathing. Zed frowned, and studied the tree she was sitting under. There didn’t seem to be any fire ant hills or snake holes nearby, so that was something. The tree itself was covered in Spanish moss that had grown so thick in its branches that the tree hadn’t been able to get the light and nutrients it needed. It was a grand old tree that had died a slow death.
And Dani still wasn’t moving. He couldn’t just leave her here alone. Abandoning sweet-faced ladies in the middle of the swamp was not something a Berend did. Or really any self-respecting shifter in Mystic Bayou.
But should he just sit here and watch her? That seemed sort of creepy. He knew he wouldn’t be happy to wake up with a relative stranger standing over him. It would be better to do something besides stare at her while he waited for her to wake up—the problem being that he didn’t carry a knapsack full of books and puzzles on his back when he was riding around town. And his phone had no signal, which meant Words With Friends was out.
His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d only had ham steak, fried eggs, hash browns, grits, and coffee for breakfast that morning. He knew a pretty good hive, just over the bend, near a huge patch of honeysuckle. The bees wouldn’t begrudge him a little honeycomb at this time of year. He could faint away without a mid-morning snack.
But his debate of the merits of honeysuckle infused-honey over Dani waking up to find his bike near her and possibly scaring her was cut short by Dani’s eyes snapping open. She seemed a bit out of it, as if waking up from a wrestling match with Jim Beam. And Zed was glad that he’d stuck around after all. Jillian wouldn’t have wanted Dani left all alone and feeling like she couldn’t remember whether the day ended in Y.
Zed was filled with a rush of relief so profound he actually felt his heart give a little. He sprang forward, throwing his arms around Dani’s body, damn near knocking his head into the tree. Tucking his face into her neck, he squeezed her tight until he felt her wheezing for breath. A guilty expression pulling at his mouth, he leaned away from her ever so slightly to let her catch her air. This put his mouth just level at hers, breathing in her exhalations, lips nearly touching. She tipped forward, meeting him in the middle for the softest, most tender brush of a kiss Zed had ever experienced. He cupped one massive hand around her jaw, gently pushing her back against the rough bark of the tree.
Her tongue darted out, easing along his lower lip, until he parted his mouth and allowed her to taste him. Her long fingers slipped down his shoulders, caressing the warm skin of his arms, leaving agreeable little trails of sensation wherever she went. The urge to possess, to claim and mate and make her belly full of cubs, was almost over-whelming. He felt a little spark of embarrassment under all the delightful charms of discovery, to leap so far from the affectionate warmth she was offering him. He liked this girl. There was a lot to like about her. He wasn’t about to treat her like a plaything here in the dirt, when she deserved the comfort of his cave and proof of his devotion.
Also, he was still kissing her, which might be a problem.
He pulled even further away from her, breaking the kiss. And because she was still so damned pretty, even a little addled, he couldn’t think of anything to say. Zed blurted out, “You know that some people think that Spanish Moss started as hair from the meanest man who ever lived? People say that one day, that mean old man was running through the swamp and his long white hair got all gnarled up in some tree branches. He yanked it out and walked away, but he was so awful mean that the hair took on a life of its own and took over the whole damn tree in revenge?”
Dani blinked sleepily at him, her lips spreading in a slow smile. “No, I’ve never heard that before.”
Zed dropped to the ground in a cross-legged position a few feet away from her. “Well, that’s not surprising. I’ve lived in the swamp my whole life and I’d never heard that story until Jillian moved into town. She lives for that sort of thing.”
“That sounds about right. What are you doing out here, Mr. Mayor?” Dani asked.
Zed scoffed. “What am I doing out here? What are you doing out here? Did you walk here? In this heat? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Not just because of the snakes and the gators and the bugs, but the heat!”
“Just give me a second.” She took a long pull from a bottle of water, took some deep breaths, and then more water.
Zed felt sweat gathering between his shoul
der blades and soaking into his t-shirt.
She shook her head and inhaled deeply. “Sorry. It always takes me a minute or two to perk back up after that much focus. It’s like waking up from surgery.”
“So you weren’t asleep?”
“Oh, no, I was fully aware of what was happening around me. I heard your motorcycle pull up, just like I heard a car pass about forty minutes ago, and the herd of deer that trotted by a few minutes after that.”
“So you heard me talking to you and you didn’t respond? Woman, do you realize I thought you might be dead when I saw you sitting motionless out here?” he exclaimed.
“I’m sorry, but it’s really important that I don’t break out of that level of concentration. Not because I’m self-centered, but for my safety. This is my first day of work here in Mystic Bayou and I don’t want to mess anything up.”
Zed frowned. “What is it exactly that you do for the League?"
“It’s kind of complicated. There’s not really a name for it, even.”
“I’ll do my best to keep up,” he said dryly.
“So the simplest term for what I do is ‘energy witch.’ It has fancier names, ‘dynakinesis’ and ‘atmospheric consultant,’ that kind of thing, but it boils down to this." She held out her hand and spoke in a soft, but focused tone. “No matter where you are, on planet Earth, you’re surrounded by multiple forms of energy. Light, wind, waves in water—hell, the momentum of a speeding car moving down the road. It’s all energy.”
Dani held her open palm up. “Most people move through their everyday lives and don’t even think about it. They might feel a little zing of static electricity when they touch a lightswitch, but eh, they just walk on and ignore it.”
She closed her eyes. “Well, if I picture that energy in my head, the wavelengths, the bright light of it, coming together at a point and collecting, morphing into a mass that I can control, that I can manipulate to do what I want…”
Zed watched as a pinpoint of blue light sparked to life, just over Dani’s palm. It bloomed, growing to the size of a tennis ball. It rotated constantly, the light shimmering over its surface and glimmering with tiny stars.
He’d seen weather witches work before, playing around with water vapor and barometric pressure until they created mini-storms in their hands. He’d seen healers set bones in seconds. But he’d never seen someone pull light itself from the air and turn it into a tiny spinning universe in their palms.
“I thought I was psychic, when I was younger. But I looked into it, read a lot of titles that got me funny looks at the library, went to some meditation masters, studied. And now I can do this.” She opened her eyes, smiling down at her creation.
“What is it?” Zed whispered as if he was afraid to jar the ball out of its stasis.
“What keeps the world spinning and the universe expanding. Energy. Life. Electricity. All of those things and none of them at the same time.”
Zed barely restrained the urge to poke at the ball with his finger. “And what can you do with it?”
She grinned, holding her free hand over the ball and making it expand ever so slightly. “A lot of things. I can help crops grow. If you’re sick, I can push this into your skin and it won’t cure you, but it will make your cells get moving, and you’ll heal a little faster. Or I can just light a room with it, which doesn’t sound like a superpower until you’re stuck in a hotel in Moscow and there’s a blackout. Some can launch these at other people, weaponize them.”
Zed leaned back ever so slightly. “So what are you going to do with that one?”
“I’m not going to throw it at you. I said some people weaponize them. I don’t because I’m not interested in hurting people.”
She raised her hand to her pursed lips and blew on the ball. It floated in a straight line, never wavering, until it reached the tree. It melted into the dry, dead bark like warm wax. Zed watched as the branches overhead sprouted tiny green buds that would eventually become leaves. He stood, his eyes following the healthy flush of life that seemed to be traveling through the surface of the tree like a blush. His head whipped toward her, an expression of wonder lighting his face.
“It was dead.”
She shrugged. “It was sleeping. It just needed a little boost to fight off the moss.”
Zed reverently ran his fingers over the healing bark. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Well, there’s really no real-world name for my discipline. I just sort of pieced together techniques from bits here and there, including stuff I read on comic book forums. I’m really more of a half-assed superhero than a witch. And I’m not the only one, but I’m one of the best.”
“It’s just so hard to believe.”
“The guy who can turn into a bear has a hard time believing I can manipulate air and light?”
“Point taken. So how do you use this for the League?”
“Well, Dr. Ramsay informs me that the rift is de-stabilizing. That it’s leaking energy and causing some issues? She said there was some super-secret rift-related appendix to her book that I would have to sign about ten non-disclosure agreements to read,” she said.
“It’s one of the universe’s little jokes. The very thing that drew shapeshifters and fae to the Bayou in the first place, the thing that made us feel that this place was a safe haven. We feel anxious if we get too far away from it . . . which is kind of screwing us over. The very thing we need is causing us all kind of headaches,” Zed said.
“In my experience, the universe can be a real asshole like that.”
Zed chuckled. “The League has some sort of ‘advanced math’ guy tracking the patterns to make sense of it, but yeah, we started noticing little differences about thirty years ago. Babies with magie gifts being born into families where every single family member was human. And trust me, we’re sure nobody was bouncing on the wrong side of the sheets. We’re getting shifters and fae breeds we’d never seen before. You ever heard of an aswang?”
“I’m not really as familiar with shapeshifters as I probably should be, considering that I work for them . . . ”
“Well, it’s just as scary as it sounds. Imagine a toddler running around town, turning into a tiny bat-monster-ghoul thing in the cereal aisle, when his mom won’t get him Fudge Marshmallow Sugar Pops.”
Dani shuddered. “That does sound terrifying.”
“Well, the real eye-opener was when human adults started shifting. It started off slowly, so spaced out that we thought it was a freak occurrence, but now it’s happening every year. We figure it had to be the rift, because we’ve never heard about humans randomly developing super-powers.”
“The League confirmed that, right?”
Zed nodded. “Yeah, we double-checked before we let their consultants rampage through the town like pissed-off grizzlies in spring.”
“Smart. Jillian said you’re not really telling people that there are problems with the rift, like not even the locals know what’s going on?”
“We didn’t want to cause a panic. If our residents happen to ask, we explain it away with recessive genes. When you live in a town where everything is a little weird, you can get complacent about it, ignore what’s right in your face. Especially if part of you doesn’t really want to know. And we definitely didn’t want word to get outside of the community. We’d have every crazy person who had internet access camping out in town, trying to force a change.”
Dani chewed her lip. “There are a lot of people on those furry internet forums.”
“What?”
She held up her hands in surrender. “Nope. I will not be the one to explain that to you. Google it on a non-work computer.”
“Even if I make a pouty bear face at you?” He gave her his best impression of “puppy eyes.”
“I think Pouty Bear is one of the lead moderators on the furry internet forums.”
“Dammit, now I have to Google it.”
Dani laughed. “So the rift is changing people at a genetic le
vel?”
“That’s the theory. Jillian has the League’s genetics department coming up with some sort of test, to see if there’s a ‘marker’ to make you more likely to be changed or have a child that’s changed. That’s the big trailer in the back of the village with the sign on it that says ‘No, Zed, you can’t come inside and play with the test tubes, Love Jillian.’”
“I haven’t seen that one.” Dani cocked her head to the side, squinting at him. “So what’s the deal with you and Jillian?”
Zed frowned. “What do you mean, cher?”
“Well, you two seem close. You were pretty comfortable without your shirt around her yesterday. And you tend to bring her up a lot. Just curious. I like to know if I’m going to step on any toes.”
Zed felt his cheeks flush and his mouth drop open. She really just came out and said that? She didn’t seem to be brazen for the sake of being provocative. She came across as . . . sincere. She just wanted the information. Maybe she was one of those rare drole that actually said what she thought? The more time he spent with her, the more interesting she became.
“What you’re seeing is two people who look at each other like a brother and sister,” he said. “My maman has all but adopted her. She’s my best friend’s mate. And I would never do anything to hurt him or her. She’s dear to me, but because she’s also dear to people I love, I will do anything to keep her happy and healthy. That’s all.”
“That’s a lot.”
“So why would the rift de-stabilize in the first place? It’s been a contained system for centuries. That doesn’t just change in a decade or two.”
“If I knew that, the League wouldn’t have had to send a consultant in.”
“Good point. So, what is the payoff for the town, in terms of cooperating with the League?”
Zed grinned at her. “Money, medical support, access to a lot of resources we haven’t had for years.”
“Well, just be careful about accepting help from the League. They’re considered a shadow government agency for a reason.”