by John Conroe
“Nothing… yet.”
“Oh. You think I left something at your family’s home. Something nasty that will do something bad over time or some shit like that? Because I do so much of that? Because I’m known to be such an evil bastard that I hurt people’s families.”
A lot of emotions flooded his face. Worry and fear were still the chief ones but I think I might have seen a touch of regret flash by. “You’ve stopped talking to me. You’re ignoring me. I figured that you knew and you went to Boston to get revenge.”
“Well, you got part of it right. We were pretty sure you were placed here, but why would I need revenge? What have you done?”
He shrugged, or at least tried to. I loosened the bands. “Mason, I swear I haven’t done a thing to your family. Not my style. If we have an issue, you can depend on me to come at you head on. You can hear the truth to my words.”
Despite himself, he could. It’s really, really, really hard for witches to lie to each other. We can tell. It was a major pain in the ass growing up.
“So what did you do?” I asked again.
“I report on you to them,” he said. “It’s what I have to do.”
“Yeah, okay. That’s what I thought. But honestly, what can you tell them? What do you know?”
He shrugged again. “I know about your batteries. Your magic batteries.”
“Everyone knows about those. I have this class making them and charging them.”
“No, not those little ones. The big ones.”
“How do you know about those?” I asked.
“I snooped in Mack’s stuff when he was hitting on that Swedish witch. At dinner. He left his stuff out.”
“That’s what they want to know? About my batteries?”
“They want to know everything. Everything and anything,” he said.
“What else?”
“I know you keep all kinds of secret stuff at your aunt’s restaurant,” he said. “But you’ve got those things guarding them.”
“You actually went out there and snooped around?” I asked, feeling my eyebrows raise themselves.
“I caught an Uber ride to the restaurant, had dinner, and then snuck around. Saw your truck there. I was trying to get past your wards when that flying thing flew overhead and then the really massive one just kind of appeared out of the ground. So I took off and ran.”
“You ran all the way back here?”
“Just into that little town. Castle something. Then I got another Uber ride back here.”
“Omega?” I asked out loud.
“I was aware, Father, of his visit. He got nowhere and, as he said, ran off. You were pretty fully occupied at the time,” my AI buddy said from my phone, causing Mason’s eyes to get big.
“Hmm,” I said, not real happy that Omega hadn’t told me about it. “Was I…” I stopped, realizing I couldn’t say anything about being off world or Mason would know.
“You were on Fairie, weren’t you? You have a secret portal out there in your barn, don’t you?” Mason asked, now defiant.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re making giant magic batteries, and for what? I know regular portals take huge amounts of power, so what about an inter-dimensional one? Even more, right? And you disappear for days and my handler always pushes me to find out where you are, so that means they can’t find you either. Gotta be Fairie.”
“Have you told them that?” I asked. Kid was smarter than I gave him credit for.
“Yeah, told them that was my best guess, and if you make me disappear, they’ll know,” he said, defiant.
“Jeez, you really think I’m like the Antichrist or something, don’t you? No, I’m not going to make you disappear. I’m gonna make you an offer.”
His defiance had been masking his fear, but now curiosity replaced both. “What kind of offer?”
“I’ll give you stuff to tell your handlers. Real stuff. Stuff they’ll want to know,” I said.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“To control how much and what they get. In return, you keep me informed of what they are asking you to do and what they want. And I’ll have Omega make sure your family’s visas become permanent. I can also get them better jobs if they need them or want them.”
“They’ll be suspicious if you do that,” he said.
“Nope, they’ll see me helping both you and your family, like we’re buddies or something. It actually fits in with my character, a lot more than making people disappear or any of that bullshit. It’s what I do. The cool part will be that it’s all real. Real visas, real jobs.”
“What if I say no?” he asked.
“Then you find you have almost nothing to tell them because now that I’m fully aware of your actions, I’ll make sure you get nowhere. In fact, I’ll tell Director Stewart that I know about you and they’ll stop wasting time and money on you. Then where will you be?”
“That’s not nice… that’s not nice at all. You know they’ll throw my family out of the States and it will be your fault,” he said.
“Nope, yours. Decide.”
He looked at me for like thirty seconds, then nodded. Choice made.
“So, ah, how ya get that shark doodad to work?” I asked. “Salt water is a no go for even Water witches.”
He shrugged, looking a little pissy.
“Come on, dude. Don’t be that way. I’m not punishing you for spying. I’m actually gonna help you be a better spy and your fam will be better off because of it. Now tell me about this truly slick little piece of magic,” I said.
I could see him battling with himself. His wounded spy pride fighting with his preening witch pride. The fact that he had made magic that I had never seen before beat down the fact that he’d been busted as a reluctant spy.
“Fishes,” he said.
“What?”
“My thing is fish. My only real skill as a witch—I can talk to fish. Even saltwater fish. Particularly, it seems, sharks. That’s how I came to Oracle’s attention. Our boat to Italy was overloaded and a piece of shit to begin with. It sank, real slow like. The Italian Coast Guard came to our rescue, but the sharks were circling before they got there. I kept them away. One of the Coasties saw me push away a couple of sharks and he mentioned it in a bar. Somehow the Americans heard about it and sent some Oracle agents to interview me in the refugee camp. They pulled us out, fed and clothed us, treated us great. At least till we got to the States, then that Stewart guy told me about you and Arcane and your computer. Then it got real.”
“So because of your ability to talk to saltwater fish, you can make magic stick to seaweed?”
“Nah, it sticks to the shark case, to the baby shark. It fades pretty quick, but it’s got a real sharp bite to it,” he said. “So what should I tell them about you?”
“What do they want to know? Usually?” I asked.
“Stuff about whatever magic you’re doing, if you can find a way back to Fairie, if you can make your computer do anything you want it to, stuff like that.”
“Okay. Tell them I can get to Fairie anytime I want, but I can’t make Omega do anything,” I said.
“Tell them that I tend to follow his wishes pretty closely though,” Omega said, “As in I have already upgraded your family’s visas. Additionally, your mother will be receiving a new job offer today—a company that works with Demidova Corporation”
He looked at me for a few seconds, struggling with whatever he was feeling. “I still think you lead a charmed life,” he said. “We’re not friends.”
“Nope. Now go make your reports and leave me the hell alone,” I said, putting the last of my teaching stuff away. When I looked up again, he was gone.
Chapter 38
I found the person I was looking for in the dining room. At any given time of the day, other than class times, there was a high degree of likelihood that he’d be there.
“Dick hand,” he said to me as I filled a bowl with ice cream, nuts, and caramel sauce.
“Smellwood,” I said. He frowned. “You’ve already used that one,” he complained.
I waved it away. “I’m really busy, okay?”
“Time management, buddy. Time management,” he said, starting to scoop giant globs of chocolate ice cream into the big mixing bowl his sister had bought him on Church Street.
“You, ah, find out anything?” I asked, voice low.
“Took a while. But my mother’s cousin’s daughter, Missy, married into the New York Pack last year. She told me that a whole string of lower echelon wolves have been challenging your girl.”
“Why? She doesn’t hold near the position she could if she wanted.”
“Missy says it’s super weird and the whole pack is confused. Brock and Afina have absolutely forbade full-on wolf fights because people are going to get killed, but they can’t outlaw human fights. Pack law. Missy says your girl is messing people up, big time, but they keep coming.”
“Got any names?” I asked.
“You gonna kill ‘em?” he asked.
“Not unless I have to. I just want to find out what’s behind it. She’s getting worn out and it’s messing with her emotions big time. Won’t talk to me about it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“She’s my girl, dude. My… mate,” I said, uncomfortable with the most real word I could use. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Wolves can smell lies too. I had to be honest with him even if he clammed up.
Instead, he nodded. “Good answer. Here’s the last dude that got his ass beat,” he said, eyes full of approval as he handed over a slip of paper.
It took two days before I could find the right moment to head to my aunt’s barn. I made a new portal that opened into a space between small neighborhood homes in a pretty decent part of Newark. Stepping through, I closed the portal down and squatted in the shadow of an ornamental cedar bush. Newark, in spring, was a whole lot warmer than northern Vermont.
My phone screen lit up: Family inside. The adult male is watching television in the finished basement. The female is upstairs in the bedroom on the far end of the house. There is no alarm system, but the doors are locked.
Omega had sent a set of tiny drones to scout the house earlier in the day. I unrolled a sheet of heavy leather three feet in diameter. A circle had already been burned into the leather and a partial set of glyphs was pre-marked around the arc. I used a sharp piece of chalk to fill in the rest, then powered it from one of the two big crystal and copper batteries I had in my vest. My designs had improved immensely after seeing the Summer Queen’s necklace and studying it from more drone camera angles than an NFL touchdown review. The amount of magic I could now carry in a small space was pretty impressive, if still not at Zinnia’s level.
The leather on the inside of the circle disappeared and a beige rug appeared some distance down. I jumped through, instantly throwing bands of kinetic power around the man who sprang out of what looked like a brand new recliner. He got out a couple of yells before I could wrap him in a circle of silence.
“Inbound,” whispered in my ear and the door to the basement slammed open, a female werewolf jumping down the entire staircase in one leap, a Louisville Slugger held easily in one hand.
I bound her too, then pushed them both against the nearest wall.
“Hi,” I said brightly. “Let’s have a talk.”
The man went apeshit, or maybe wolfshit. Struggling, writhing, slamming his body around under my kinetic bonds so hard, he buckled the sheetrock wall behind him. Hair sprouted on his hands and his bones started to pop and snap. His wife, however, just watched me with yellow wolf’s eyes, and of the two, she might have been the creepier.
“Hey, dude, calm down. I just want to talk,” I said. He freaked out even more. I heard a sharp crack, followed by another. It took a second to realize the cement block wall underneath the sheetrock was breaking. Time for drastic action.
Mentally, I pressed on the sides of his twisting, snapping neck. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then his yellow eyes lost focus, then drooped, then shut. He hung limply in the bands of magic.
“You killed him,” his wife hissed, her own features twisting into something beastlike.
“No. I just choked him out. I’m here to ask questions. Then I’m gone,” I said.
“Then you’ll kill us,” she said.
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I just need answers,” I said.
“You’re a witch! A male witch,” she said, a light going off in her eyes.
“Yes. I’m her witch and I want to know why your husband challenged her,” I asked.
She studied me for a moment, then looked away, keeping her silence. Upstairs, a baby began to cry.
I turned and looked up at the ceiling. My phone buzzed. Last bedroom in the second floor hallway. Infant son. Birth certificate on file indicates the child is three months and four days old, Omega wrote.
I turned back to the wife and found her horror-filled face staring at me. “Will he go back to sleep on his own?” I asked. Eyes wide with true fear, she finally shook her head, just a little.
I turned and headed for the stairs. It was her turn to go apeshit. “Calm down. I’m bringing him to you,” I said, heading up the stairs. I found the kid right where Omega had said. His crying stopped when I scooped him up, but I wasn’t his parents and he started wailing again almost immediately. I took him straight to the basement where his mother was still struggling. She stopped instantly when she saw her son. Beside her, the male was beginning to wake up.
“Here, take him, but if you try to slash me, I’ll probably drop him,” I warned her as I reduced the bands around her arms. Both hands shot forward but it was in an open hand grasp, one that I put the baby werewolf right into.
The father opened his eyes and started to struggle but the mother growled at him and he paused to take in the presence of his son.
“Why did you challenge Stacia Reynolds to a fight?” I asked him. He looked away and for the first time, I noticed the scabs on his left chin and right cheekbone. His forehead was gashed and both his hands looked beat to shit. “A fight it looks like you lost,” I added.
He didn’t answer, just focused on me and snarled. I turned to his wife. “Help me out here so I can leave you all alone,” I said.
She was bouncing her baby, still stuck to the wall, but the look of anger on her face got mostly directed at her mate as she glanced his way. “He had no reason. He couldn’t beat her. The first four wolves couldn’t beat her. He wouldn’t even explain it to me. Just sits in that stupid chair and broods all day. And now you’re here,” she said, giving him another vicious glare.
“So he’s not normally this…” I looked for a word.
“Stupid? No. It’s a recent development,” she said. The baby cried and without taking her eyes from mine, she pulled open a clever flap on her shirt and stuffed a boob in his mouth. I was careful to keep eye contact.
“How recent?”
“I don’t know. He’d been all broody down here for a few days before the Pack Gather, ever since he won that stupid chair,” she said, shoving her chin at the recliner. I turned and looked at it.
“How’d he win it?” I asked, moving over to study the chair.
“Some contest he didn’t even remember entering,” she said.
I sat in the chair, then leaned back. The male snarled at me and I almost killed him. A sudden overwhelming need to crush his body to liquid paste and then burn the remains to greasy ash.
Instead, I sat up and bounced out of the chair, looking at it in a whole new light. Or rather, looking at it in a whole new Sight. At first, I saw nothing, but a second glance made me focus on the headrest. A subtle shift of light, a shadow moving despite the direct glare of the overhead inset light. I touched the headrest. A strand of black stuck to my finger when I pulled back. Very thin, very light, easy to miss, but I could feel it squirming against my skin. Trying to cling, trying to get in.
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br /> I brushed it off, flicking my hand. It clung like cobwebs, and that was the first clue as to what I was dealing with. A sheen of fire rolled across my hand, burning the strand of magic away. Turning back to the headrest, I flicked a finger. A focused blade of Air slashed the leathery fabric, cleanly cutting a six-inch incision. Using two pencils from my magic bag, I pulled apart the material. Shadow blocked my sight, cast from the bright light overhead. I pushed the chair back on its springs a bit, swiveling the base till the light filled the cut opening. A tarantula the size of my hand stared back at me. I might have jumped a little. Just prudent, if you ask me. The spider didn’t move.