by Laura Bickle
What’s going to happen to me? he asked at last, his voice sounding very small in my head.
“You’re gonna be okay,” I said, with certainty. “If Aaron’s sister doesn’t have room, you can stay here. I swear. You are gonna be loved and taken care of.”
He closed his eyes. He had lost everything in an afternoon, and there was nothing I could say to restore it. No magic words, no charm. It was all gone for him. And I wished I could make it better.
I rested my hand on his back, feeling a sigh shaking through his body. I sat with him. As I did so, my hand warmed. It felt a bit like it did when I had held Dalton’s throat, that warm sensation of a limb when it’s fallen asleep in sunshine.
When Bristol climbed to his feet, I examined his belly. To my surprise and delight, his incision looked good. Really good. Better than I had any business hoping for. The expected redness around his stitches had calmed, and the incision had flattened. It looked as if he’d been wearing that zipper for several days.
I looked down at my hand. Maybe, just maybe, I was beginning to tap a little bit of that Summerwood Big Witch energy that had always managed to elude me. Maybe I was beginning to tap into a healing talent. I looked out at the night and thanked the Goddess for whatever favors She found fit to bestow on me.
I let Bristol into the house. I told him he could sleep in bed with me tonight. He walked away slowly, his tail low. It was the smallest thing I could do for him, but I knew he shouldn’t be alone tonight.
I went back to the kennel room to check on the maned wolf and the guinea pigs. As I flicked on the switch, my breath caught in my throat.
A man stood in the kennel room. I stifled a scream and pulled my robe tight around my throat, thinking at first the Casimir had found me. But there was something familiar about this man: he was tall, dark-haired, with hazel eyes that I’d seen in my dreams. He wore a filthy dress shirt and trousers stained with blood.
He turned to glance at me and reached up for the kennel room window. His jaw tensed.
“Wait,” I said. “I know you...”
“Forget you ever saw me,” he said, his voice low and a little musical in its timbre.
He unlatched the window and pushed out the screen. Without a word, he swung over the windowsill and vanished into the dark.
I rushed to the window. The moonlit field spread beyond me, curving around the barn. I thought I could see the figure of a man running, but he melted into the grasses, and I lost sight of him.
I turned back to the room.
I stared down at the maned wolf’s cage.
It was empty.
I RUSHED UP THE GRAVEL driveway to inform the deputies standing watch of an intruder. They descended on the farmhouse with guns and flashlights, sweeping every corner of the house, barn, and field, while my bath grew cold.
“It looks like that guy stole the animal and took off,” Sandy affirmed after they searched the place from the faded carpets to the converted gaslights in the ceilings. “We found no signs of forced entry. You ladies gotta be careful to lock your doors and windows.”
“We do,” Celeste snapped.
I rubbed my temple. “That’s the thing...he was pushing the screen out when I saw him. So he must have gotten in another way, even though that makes no sense.”
Sandy was scribbling on a notepad. “We’ve secured that window for you, and we’re gonna increase the patrols in the area. These guys are gunning for you, Doc. We promise not to let them near you.”
I made the appropriate noises of gratitude and followed her out the door.
“Some good they are,” Celeste snorted after the door closed and I turned the lock.
“And so much for your wards,” I snapped.
“My wards are strong.” Her eyes narrowed.
“And that’s what worries me.” I knew they were incredibly powerful. If the Casimir could get past them, then we were fucked.
I headed upstairs to the bathroom. I ran myself a fresh bath of hot water into the old clawfoot tub and flung in a few handfuls of salt. Celeste had left her potions on the black and white tiled floor beside the tub. I poured in a few drabs of each, plus some rosemary oil, and sank up to my chin in the scented water. Bits of herbs swirled around me, and I took a deep breath.
I had always felt safe at home. Always. Maybe I’d felt a little constricted or stifled, but this had always been a safe place.
Now I knew that there were dead sorcerers buried in the field and live sorcerers out to get us. And they knew where we lived.
I closed my eyes. This was a whole lot of suck that I wasn’t prepared for. I had always viewed magic as my secret ability, something that provided an extra dimension to my life. Magic had always been a plus, a gift that enhanced my work with the animals. It had always supported me and illuminated my life, providing a connection to my heritage.
Now, that magic was a liability that might hurt everyone I loved.
THE MAN WITH THE HAZEL eyes lay, chained, on a concrete floor. I sat beside him in my dream. He was wearing a collar around his neck like a dog, and a thick chain snaked away to where it was fixed to a bracket on the floor. The blood on his neck had dried, and he stared at the floor with glassy eyes.
I wanted to reach out and touch him. I tried to stroke his hair, but I couldn’t. My hand passed through his head. I knew, on some level, that I wasn’t really here, not in this place. I was here to watch, nothing more.
“Who are you?” I asked him. “Why were you in my kennel room?”
He didn’t seem to hear me.
The door to the cell opened, and a tall man with blond hair entered. I recognized his gaunt face, too—he had been at the hospital, accompanying the man with the gunshot wound. He didn’t seem to register my presence, either. I was sure this guy was Casimir, and I was glad to escape his notice, even in dreams.
He squatted down beside the wounded man. “So. You are awake.”
The chained man said nothing.
The Casimir man continued. “You should have left well enough alone, Renan. We tried to pay you off. Surely, what we offered you to turn a blind eye was more than what an insurance investigator like you would make over his entire career.”
The man called Renan licked his lips. “You could never offer me enough money to cause me to abandon my duty. You stole artifacts from the people of Brazil and many other countries. How could you think that anyone would ever allow that?”
His captor shrugged. “You would be surprised. Most of the time, money causes problems to go away. And what money doesn’t cure, death will.”
Renan looked up at him. “Then do it, Silva. Kill me now and be done with it.”
Silva watched him, eyes darkening. “I have plans for you. It would be a waste to kill you when we can use you.”
“I won’t cooperate with you.”
“But you already have.” Silva gave him a wolfish smile. “You remember the Tooth of Thralls?”
“You stole it from the National Museum.” Renan grit his teeth.
“The museum was not using it. It gathered dust in a drawer.” Silva touched a pendant hanging around his neck. A tooth as long as a man’s pinky finger hung there, embedded with what looked like topaz cabochons and silver. “This has unlocked centuries of dormant magic. A contagion, if you will.”
Renan glowered at him. “It’s a focal item for your little cult.”
Silva laughed. “But it’s so much more than that. It’s a connection between man and beast. It allows man and beast to become one.”
Renan narrowed his eyes. “You’ve really lost your shit, haven’t you?”
“It allows for the creation of the ultimate magical familiar, you see.” Silva smiled. “The keeper of the tooth draws energy from all those he’s bitten.”
Renan’s fingers flitted up to the bandaged wound around his neck. “I don’t understand.”
“You will,” Silva said. “You will. As you serve me and the Casimir in the coming war, you will wish you’d taken tha
t money.”
Silva stood and departed the cell, locking it behind him with an audible click.
Renan sat up, his hands in his lap. He rubbed at the collar around his neck with his fingers, trying to find a way to open it. But it was solid, and I could see no way to unlock it without a key. He reminded me so much of a dog in a kennel, then, sad, and depressed. I ached for him.
I ached for him, even as the moon swept its light through the bars on the window. Where the silvery light touched his skin, his flesh darkened and grew furry. He curled up into a ball, bones cracking and shifting. He cried out, but it was with a canine yelp. I smelled magic, heady and thick.
I scuttled back in awe, my back pressing against the wall.
A maned wolf climbed to its feet. It walked to the edge of its chain and strained. It sat down and tried to pull the collar off with his back feet, but couldn’t.
My heart broke. I tried to reach for the collar to help, but my hands passed right through.
With a deep sigh, the maned wolf curled up on the cold floor, its tail over its nose.
And I knew then the full scope of what had happened, the terrible thing that Silva had wrought.
CHAPTER 10
I awoke with a lurch, scattering cats in my bed. Bristol rolled away from my feet, and the cats hissed at him. I slammed my feet on the floor and rushed from my room to Celeste’s. Finding her door locked, I pounded on her door.
Celeste answered the door, dressed in her velvet nightrobe with a sleeping mask askew on her head. “What?”
“I think I know what happened to the maned wolf.”
I flung myself down on her bed. I swept aside the opened spellbooks and sat on the satin quilt, rubbing my face, wanting to blurt out what I’d seen in the dream before it slipped away. I told Celeste everything, from the first dream to the last. She listened with round eyes, tapping her perfectly painted fingernails together, until I lapsed into silence. I stared at the shelves of half-burned candles on the walls, seeing that they’d dripped layers of wax on the dark paneling. Celeste had been busy.
“I had heard that shapeshifting was possible, once upon a time,” Celeste said. “I just never met anyone who could actually do it. None of the other Summerwoods had, either...not that they mentioned in any of their writings. I thought that was just a magical legend, like Excalibur and the Loch Ness Monster.”
“But don’t you see,” I exclaimed. “They can make people turn into animals, to fight for them. This man, Renan, escaped. There might be others that are serving Silva against their will.”
Celeste’s frowned. “And that would make them dangerous adversaries, much more dangerous than in the first Summerwood-Casimir war.”
I looked down at my knotted fists. “There are only two of us.”
“There are only two of us.” Celeste touched my shoulder. “But we have the blood of all our ancestors. We are powerful.”
I didn’t feel particularly powerful, despite the flickers of new magic I’d been feeling lately. I felt like I didn’t know what was doing, and that I was flailing in the dark.
As I always did when I was uncertain about the world, I did what I did best: I took care of the animals. I went downstairs to crack a can of food for the cats. I made a slurry of prescription dog food and water for Bristol and put it down before him. He made a face at it.
“This is just until you heal up, Bristol,” I promised him. “Then you can have regular dog food.
Promise?
“I swear.”
Bristol reluctantly licked at his breakfast. Trying to dodge his mournful stare, I called the hospital. Dalton was improving, and the ICU nurse on duty thought he might be moved to a regular room in the coming days. I breathed a sigh of relief at that, then went to do my animal rounds.
Bristol followed me. I noticed that he hadn’t eaten all his food. I would have to keep an eye on him, not wanting him to backslide after his surgery. I knelt to check his incision.
“Damn, that looks great,” I murmured, admiring the incision. It looked even better than last night. Honestly, I would expect him to look this good a couple of weeks post-op. He was ready to have his stitches taken out. “How do you feel?”
A little sore, he admitted. But I think some real chicken could fix that.
I was being worked over. I rubbed his ears. “Maybe some chicken and rice.”
His tongue lolled from his mouth. Yessssss.
“I think it’s time to take those stitches out, buddy. Are you up for it?”
Will they stop itching? They itch.
“This should help.”
Bristol was A Very Good Boy while I removed his stitches. They came out cleanly, as if I pulled a loose thread from a dress hem. I ran my gloved hand over his belly and smiled, feeling some stubble of fur growing there. This healing thing was rocking my world, and my thoughts swirled, imagining what I could do for my practice if I could control and master it.
I got Bristol finished up, then went to check the guinea pigs in the kennel room. I paused at the occupied cages crossed my arms. “Okay, guys. Tell me what you saw last night.”
Beast and Goblin scuttled to the front of their cage. It was wild, Luna, Goblin said. I woke up to hear the latch on that cage opening. And there was a dude in there!
Goblin’s ears twitched. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but there was a guy in here, definitely. He smelled weird, but it was a dude.
I felt like I was beginning to understand the full picture. “And none of you guys saw the maned wolf?”
Nope, the guinea pigs squeaked in agreement. Just that guy that smelled like a dog but not a dog.
Bristol cocked his head. There are dogs who aren’t dogs?
“Apparently so,” I murmured.
Bristol sniffed the floor of the kennel. Smells like moss and dog and grass and people.
I peered down at him. “Bristol, do you think you could track that smell?”
He looked up at me, his ears flapping back. Maybe. I could try.
I knew that he was so eager to please, facing the specter of homelessness. I rubbed his brow. But I was reluctant to take him out for what could be a long walk so soon after major surgery. He looked good, but I didn’t want to push it. “It’s okay, buddy. If you’re not up to it, you don’t have to.”
No, I want to. His tongue snaked out of his mouth. I want to do something other than think about Aaron and Spot. I want a job.
“Your job is to get better. And you can go for a walk with me if you want. You just have to tell me if you smell that smell again.”
I didn’t want Bristol to get the site of his incision wet, despite that it seemed happily closed. I put him in a tank top that once belonged to my sister, Starr. I rooted through her dresser and found a neon pink one that would have hit her in the thigh as a teen, but it was a perfect fit for Bristol. It was emblazoned with the word Princess across the chest in glitter.
Bristol cooperated. Do I look pretty?
“You are a very pretty dog,” I affirmed.
I headed out to the barn, consulting my phone. I learned that maned wolves were solitary creatures who liked to den up, and were most active at dusk and dawn.
I wondered if I might find a suitable den on my property.
Bristol trailed behind me, and the cats slipped from the house. Theo went first, and Orion slunk in his shadow, heading for the barn. She kept one eye on the rooster who had his back turned, scratching in the backyard with the rest of the chickens.
“You guys should be careful,” I warned the cats.
But they were entranced by the thought of sneaking into the barn and hunting mice, flouting Athena’s mouse-chasing authority. They reached the threshold of the barn door before Marvin, our semi-feral peacock, glimpsed them.
Marvin hauled ass across the barn floor, shrieking: I am king! Leave my kingdom, you filthy peasants!
Theo and Orion zinged back to the safety of the house. Marvin was fast, but the cats were faster. Fortunately.
Bristol watched with round eyes. Oh, my god. What is that? A big chicken?
“He’s a peacock who thinks he’s in charge,” I murmured as Marvin strutted back into the barn, his head lifted high. He paused to spread his tailfeathers before Athena. The owl was not impressed and closed her eyes to sleep.
But does he taste like chicken? Bristol’s nose worked.
Marvin turned around and hissed at the dog. I am no one’s breakfast, you filthy dog with poor taste in clothing!
Bristol blinked, then looked up at me. He’s a mean chicken, isn’t he?
“Yeah. He’s a mean chicken, buddy. Steer clear of him.”
I saddled up Cyrus while Bristol tried to get a whiff of peacock feathers. I wanted to search for the shapeshifter who’d escaped, but I didn’t know what else might be waiting for me out there. I headed back into the house to pick up my shotgun from under the bed. When I climbed into the saddle, it balanced awkwardly when I cradled it in my lap. I slung it over my shoulder from the guitar strap that Dalton had affixed to it once upon a time when we were dating and he’d taken me out shooting. I felt a pang at that memory and focused my attention on Cyrus’s ears.
Where are we going? Cyrus asked. Marvin had fled to the hayloft by then, and Bristol sat beside Cyrus, waiting, one ear perked.
“I’m looking for a maned wolf who escaped last night. That maned wolf can also take the shape of a man. I’m thinking he might have tried to find a place to den up during the day.”
The horse dipped his head to the ground. I knew he could smell better than me, but not as well as Bristol could. He flicked his tail. Where to, Luna?
I gazed out at the field to the forest beyond. “Let’s try that way.”
We headed through the field at a slow pace, mindful not to overtax Bristol. He moseyed out in front and sniffed the grass with interest. He was easy to spot with the pink tank top, and I gave myself a pat on the back for my ingenuity. I watched him carefully for signs of fatigue.
I also kept a close eye out for anything out of the ordinary. I was relieved that it was Renan who was in the house, and not Silva. Still, I knew it was only a matter of time until Silva figured out who I was and where we were.