by Jaime Munn
There are no magic spells, not really. Magic is shaped by the mind of a witch. It is energy given shape and form through pure will alone. Every witch casts those energies through the filter of her mind. No two spells are ever identical, even when shaped by the same witch. Of course they differ in ways that are not immediately, sometimes even never, visible. So it’s not like you can spot the differences and join the dots to the point of origin. It does mean that moody witches who cast spells were guaranteed changeable outcomes, which said a lot for why I’d never met a bipolar witch before. Certainly I thought that they’d be doomed to dramatic failure.
It did make me wonder what casting a familiar spell and a transforming spell while fuelled on fear and panic did. The answer wasn’t as obvious as Frankenstein Cat. Although in the end that was what it amounted to for me. I really hoped my cat was gay. I had a strong feeling that Frankenstein kitties wouldn’t have any kind of structured menu in place.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Cleo took us back to the werewolf apartments. I noticed that the building had a name this time as we drove past the entrance on our way to the underground parking garage. Heartwood. I still hadn’t seen the forest in the centre of the apartment building. I wondered if I would get to see it before I left.
Cleo had Boytjie park the car. I figured it was her way of dismissing him and taking personal charge of my activities within the pack’s rather impressive den. We entered the same elevator and as soon as the door closed Cleo got chatty.
“Do you still need the newspaper articles?”
“They’ll help. I’m going to try persuasion as a first line.”
Cleo nodded.
“Talk is cheap,” she said. I didn’t think she was using it in the common vernacular. Rather it sounded like sound business advice. “We’ll stop by my apartment then.”
She pressed the unlabelled button twice. She seemed a little nervous, nibbling at her glossy fingernails. I noticed that she had bronzed the tips. I wondered how the paint and lacquer handled her wolf transformations. Her nerves were easily explained by the spelled pendant. I said nothing.
“Tonight, I’ll introduce you to Bella.”
It took her a lot of effort to say the words. I thought I was right about her thoughts and that she was battling her inner demons even now. Rejection is the greatest human fear in my opinion. It beats death and taxes in spades. Walking in Cleo’s shoes, I wondered if I’d have allowed the pendant to be crafted at all. I wasn’t sure I would be strong enough. The wait couldn’t be making it any easier, but I could understand why she’d put it off. Tonight, Cleo’s world would change. Neither of us knew whether it would be for the better or for the worse.
The elevator opened onto a corridor with only a handful of doors. Cleo didn’t have far to go to her door. It was almost directly opposite the elevator. F.C. and I followed her and she unlocked the door and waved us through.
It was neat and sparsely furnished. It had an unlived in feel to me, like it was Cleo’s office and not her personal living space. Everything was elegant and showed the werewolf lieutenant had an eye for curves and elaborate finishes despite her Spartan tastes. Still it struck me as cold and impersonal. I wondered if all the rooms were as devoid of life. I half expected to stumble across unpacked boxes because Cleo was anything but cold on the inside, however hard her exterior.
Her apartment forced me to wonder if I had misjudged the level of emotional depths within Cleo, until I thought about how I’d glimpsed the forest at the heart of the building through her. That was her real home here. The hidden place within Heartwood where the wolves could sleep under the stars and the moon and hear the wind whisper through a canopy of leaves. I doubted that her apartment was more than a place to keep her clothes for Cleo.
“Straight ahead to the desk,” she directed from behind as I wondered where we were headed. The lounge was where Cleo held court I thought. I could imagine her gang of enforcers standing in the room around the large desk. Positioned in front of the glass windows it offered another view of the city. It was almost as impressive as Sebastian and Hadrian’s view from their dining room.
Cleo’s desk held little more than a laptop and a few select pieces of stationary that shimmered with individuality and personality. The vibrant red and gold Monte Blanc pen showing one side of the werewolf. The Top Bitch mug filled with colourful paperclips showing another.
She passed me by as I stopped in front of the desk and opened a drawer to pull out a folder of documents. It wasn’t very thick. It amounted to the sum total of the pack’s research into Daudie Schalko. Or at least the Schalko twin who’d survived the fire that had killed off his entire family.
Cleo handed it to me and offered me a chair. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Coffee?” I asked hesitantly as I sank into a burgundy arm chair with small silver fleur-de-lis stitched into the fabric. It was comfortable, but still felt new. I wondered if any of Cleo’s muscle had ever been invited to sit down. I doubted it. I doubted anyone had spent much time partaking of the werewolf’s hospitality.
“Coffee it is. Shall I just shovel in some sugar, or would you rather you did it yourself?”
I almost laughed, but I wasn’t sure if Cleo had made a joke.
“Err…I don’t mind.”
Cleo snorted and left F.C. and I alone. I opened the folder and began to read through the articles. They were standard media fare, big headlines but light on the detailed content. Somehow arson had never come up. I wondered why. A few pages into the folder I found the article that depicted both the Schalko twins together. They looked identical to me.
Cleo returned with two coffees in mugs that had ring handles elaborately encrusted with faux gems. She handed me one and I took a tentative sip. Cleo hadn’t skimped me on the sugar and the coffee itself was surprisingly good. There was a subtle undertone of flavour. I thought it was nutmeg and cinnamon. Cleo was clearly a coffee nut too.
I sank back into the chair with a blissful sigh and the werewolf laughed. She slumped into a chair beside me.
“I’ve never really had time for people, you know,” Cleo said out of the blue. “Boredom sucks. No one appreciates how important a few small surprises can be.”
I pondered her words.
“I could fix that,” I said.
Cleo was already leaning towards me before I got the first syllable out. I wondered if it was curiosity drawing her forward or frustration as she waited for me to get the sentence out.
“How do you mean?”
“A spell,” I said quickly, wondering if rappers would have better luck defeating Cleo’s precog talent. “Sort of like an invisibility spell, only keyed to your precognition.”
“You could do that?” Cleo asked coolly. I totally missed the point behind her tone.
“Sure.”
Cleo scowled.
“That’s a very bad piece of news,” she said, her darkening mood suddenly very clear to me.
I could connect the dots now that she’d made it a little more obvious for me. Cleo’s talent might make the world a bit on the dull side, but it did also make her perfect at her job. I had a feeling that being perfect was important to the werewolf. I realised too that there was another reason why she’d be nervous about a wolfy charm that would allow her to speak to her silent sweetheart. What if Cristobella bored her as much as the rest of us? What if she gave dull chit chat?
I hastened to smooth over my unintended bad news.
“It’s not that damning,” I told her. “You’d notice it when it happened. Only those who figured out exactly what it was you did would know enough to protect against it.”
Cleo nodded, like she’d already considered that and thank the moon and stars the silly little witch had finally caught up. It was my turn to scowl at her.
“Let’s test it out then…so you’ll recognise it in the future.”
I arched a brow at her and cast a little spell, drawing a frail thread of sugary energy from my body�
�s store. It was as simple as making me invisible to Cleo’s gift, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a rather complex spell. I was almost certain it had worked when I finally released the shaped energy, but I couldn’t be positive of it until Cleo confirmed it for me.
I tried to think of something witty and interesting to say. Oh to be one of those silver tongued action heroes in the books and movies, who never fail to drop some witty repartee as the villain leans in with a potential coup de grace. Nothing came to mind, so I fabricated something before I looked stupid.
“You do it on purpose, don’t you? Compartmentalise your life; treat people differently depending on how nervous they make you?”
The reaction from Cleo was unexpected and instant, although there was a definite sense that the director had only yelled action after I’d said my piece. She leapt from her chair into a standing position, her coffee cup still in hand and on the dangerous verge of spilling its contents all over her expensive furniture.
“I felt that,” she said in wonder as I framed ‘don’t hurt me’ on the tip of my fear stilled tongue. “I didn’t get the flash forward, but I definitely felt it not happening…like it was an event in itself.” She studied me. “Fascinating. Don’t do it again though…” her words trailed off into silence.
I had the feeling the rest of the sentence involved jaws and delicate throats. Instinctively I reached up a hand to stroke the tender skin there and F.C. got up from under my chair and gave Cleo a menacing, deep throated growl. I might have imagined it, but I thought Cleo sobered up real quick. Maybe she even looked a little paler.
She sank slowly back into her seat and took a sip of her coffee.
“Could you do the reverse?”
I frowned, trying to catch her meaning.
“Could you make it difficult or even impossible for anyone to use that kind of magic to shield themselves against me?”
“Sure,” I said, forcing my hand down. I took a shaky sip of my coffee. “I could make a charm for that, but you might be better off without it. In a way it would be like a big neon sign right above your head saying, precog here.”
Cleo nodded. “I’ll have to think through the pros and cons,” she agreed. She gave me a searching glance, like she was weighing up the pros and cons of keeping me sweet or making me dead. It wasn’t a very comfortable moment for me, but I got that Cleo was shaken by the loophole I’d just shown her in her best defence. “How long till it wears off?” She asked.
“The spell? Maybe a day. I could revoke it right now though.”
She waved a hand dismissively. I didn’t think she was as untroubled by it as the gesture indicated. Clearly I had just rocked Cleo’s world, which would have been cool if it wasn’t so damn scary.
Now I had a mental image to go with the phrase shaking in my boots. Not that my comfy shoes were in any way, shape or form boot-like, but I totally got it. Quite frankly I was just glad I hadn’t wet myself.
“Like you said,” Cleo didn’t look me in the eye as she spoke, “let’s test it out. Let the spell play itself to the end for now.”
She took another sip of her coffee and we drank together in silence for a while.
Then Cleo said, “You’re right. I do tailor myself differently from one group to the next. I don’t like them mixing much.” I realised she was answering my earlier question. “It’s more than just my talent though. It’s about keeping control. When you’re dealing with so many people under one roof, you need to keep control. Especially if some of those people go off their meds every full moon. Trust me that’s one monthly cycle that really is a bitch to deal with.”
F.C. lost his rather rigid pose and sank down onto the floor between us, closing his eyes and seemingly falling asleep. I didn’t imagine for one second that he was any less alert than he had been a moment ago, but it made me feel more relaxed in the werewolf’s company again.
“I suppose so. I guess the one reinforces the other.”
Cleo nodded. Her eyes were still a little wide I thought, like she was somewhat in awe of the spell that kept my words from reaching her first. I suddenly thought that in school Cleo must have been the know it all kid. That wasn’t a winning formula for making friends and influencing people. Except maybe the teachers. She’d probably never had friends until she joined Hadrian’s pack . Now that she had that, she’d fight to the death to protect it.
I swallowed. I really didn’t want to go from asset to liability in the werewolf’s eyes. I resolved to make her the charm that would protect her against this kind of spell in the future and let her decide whether she wanted to use it or not. It would balance the scales again. I tried to convince myself that then she’d know that she had a defence against my witching around her talent. It didn’t help my nerves thinking that only a fool would believe that a witch couldn’t find a way around her own magic. Cleo definitely wasn’t anybody’s fool.
I figured I’d already blown the chance to be BFFs with her. In a way it took a bit of the pressure off. I finished my coffee.
“The view of the city must be spectacular at night,” I said to Cleo when I noticed her peering at me. I wondered if she was reading every anti-precog event and cataloguing them for future reference.
She shrugged.
“I hardly ever look at it. There’s a better view if I’m in the apartment.”
She rose and beckoned for me to follow. F.C. made sure he followed first. He kept himself between the two of us like Cleo had made his naughty list and he wasn’t letting her get off it until she’d proven herself a good little werewolf again.
Cleo led us through to her bedroom. It was simple and decorated in greens accented with cream, like the theme was guacamole. The bed itself was brass, polished and new looking. It stood against a bay window. Cleo went to stand on one side of the bed, leaving me to stand on the other, where the bed allowed a little space to peer out through the window.
I had an idea of what I would see, but it still took me by surprise. Whoever had landscaped for the pack had done a wonderful job of turning an enclosed parcel of land into a forest. It was easy now to see through the illusion that was created from the outside; that the apartment building covered an entire block.
“It’s magical,” I said.
“There are no windows on the ground floor into that little private bit of paradise,” Cleo told me. “The walls are covered in ivy. The city can never truly vanish from your senses, but when the moonlight falls down through the tree canopy you can pretend that it has. This is my favourite view.” I could hear her love for the wolf park in her voice. “If I’m not there in the forest with her, I can watch over her from above.”
Perhaps her love of the wolf park was entwined with another love; Cleo’s love for the werewolf Cristobella. As though drawn forward, there was movement below. In a patch of open land a white wolf emerged and I could imagine her looking up at us.
We stood there a moment in silence, both of us watching the white wolf. I wondered how many werewolves roamed the park at night in their animal form. I didn’t know how many werewolves there were in Hadrian’s pack. It was one of the largest packs in the city and the members had come from across the country. Like drew like. Having a uniquely queer werewolf pack gave Hadrian’s wolves a magnetic pull that was irresistible. I doubted there was a bigger pack anywhere in the world. Their private wolf park could never accommodate them all. Perhaps there was a schedule to it, which probably would explain why Cleo would spend any time in her bedroom at all.
“Are you ready to tackle Sofy’s uninvited guest?” Cleo asked suddenly, turning away from the window.
I faced her and nodded.
“Ready as I will ever be, I guess.” I said and wished I could have sounded more confident about it. I suddenly felt tense at the thought of failing Sofia.
Cleo said nothing, but I thought I saw a disapproving glint to her eye. It was entirely a matter of perspective I knew. Glints in eyes might be purely down to the play of light across surfaces, but that kind
of logic doesn’t work for emotional beings.
When you think your toaster hates you it’s never about logic or science. All that matters is that you try a little sweet talking to the appliances and hope you don’t get burnt bread for breakfast. The glints in Cleo’s eyes spoke volumes in the language of emotions, but at least they weren’t glints in Sofia’s eyes.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
We took the elevator outside Cleo’s apartment for a quick journey to the penthouse suite. Cleo led us quickly down a corridor that gave me glimpses of rooms that made me wonder just how big Hadrian’s apartment was. I wasn’t sure I could find my way back to the elevator by the time we arrived at a door. Cleo opened it to reveal Sofia laying on a bedspread the colour of sweet violets.
I paused on the threshold sensing that there was a spirit in the room. Cleo turned to me, a question on her lips but then she tensed a moment before relaxing.
“Hadrian,” she told me though I wondered how she could be so certain. I couldn’t sense anything more than a presence, but its strength was clear to me. I didn’t think it was Daudie Schalko, recalling the wane spirit that I’d glimpsed last night.
After a moment I had to accept that Cleo had been right. I wondered if there was some subtle telltale I’d missed. A figure solidified beside Sofia’s bed. First a frosting of the air and then colours bleeding into the form till a man stood there looking directly and disconcertingly at me.
Hadrian had a muscular frame that reminded me a little of Boytjie. His eyes were dark under grey brows. His hair was short and coloured shades of grey. He didn’t look grandfatherly though, but rather like a man at his physical peak. I’d read once that men reached that peak in their thirties, but Hadrian looked like he had come into his zenith in his forties.
He wore a suit that was so closely tailored to his physique that it seemed a second layer of skin. It was charcoal and dark against the paleness of his skin and the crisp white of his shirt. He didn’t wear a tie but looked otherwise like a businessman who doubled as a wrestler by night and over weekends. I could picture him with Sebastian; one the picture of perfect male beauty, the other the epitome of raw masculinity.