by Tina Gower
He tucks his phone back into his coat. “I’m not thinking about myself.”
I watch him from the corner of my eye. “You should be.” Becker’s loyal, maybe too much. It could get him hurt. I’ve been there before with Kyle. I don’t ever want to do that to another person. I glance around to be sure we’re well hidden and then I reach for his hand, pulling him further under the steps of the stairwell. He tilts his head, keeping attention to whoever might stumble over us. I bring his face to mine with both hands. His skin is hot to the touch. It warms my fingertips. “You didn’t talk about what was on that disc.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. The shade is messing with us. He’s manipulating me to get a reaction. I can see it now. Lipski and I have a plan.”
I take a deep breath, afraid to dig deeper into this conversation, but I can’t be the person Becker needs right now if I don’t. If I volunteered to be his person, then I can’t go half-assed. Once a wolf bonds to their pack it’s extremely difficult for them to find that same bond somewhere else. If I told him I wanted to stop this, he would. Turning him loose now would be extremely unfair. And there’s something else that I can’t fully admit yet—that I don’t want Becker to find anyone else. My little scare with Ali cinched it.
“I didn’t know one of your pack was pregnant.” I swallow, forcing myself to direct the conversation somewhere it needed to go. “Was it…” I trail off, not wanting to know. Becker had said he slept with one of the women in his pack. It wasn’t love, not from his side, but it kept him confused about relationships and getting close to other people.
He shakes his head. “It’s not what you think. The baby wasn’t mine.” He trips over the word, like rejecting claim is a foreign concept.
“But it would have been yours as part of the pack, right? You’d have been living with them—”
“Yeah.” The tension in his shoulders releases as if he’s glad to not explain that entanglement further. “But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I know I told you about Jaylee. We were careful.”
The books I’d read made it sound like a male werewolf could smell when a female wolf was fertile. It must be what he meant.
“Tonya and Jackilynn had been trying even before I joined. They had a donor they said, but we all knew Ben supplied the sperm. He became way too invested in the outcome.” His lips smirk into a smile, like he’s remembering Ben’s behavior, then his smile drops just as quickly.
Becker’s radio goes off with the static monotone listing of codes. A break-in.
He eases away from my touch and my fingers go cold. “I’ll review the recordings, but I have to respond to this call first. You’d better get back inside, before they suspect.”
I forgot I was at work, that I sneaked out here to get information I shouldn’t be privy to, because Becker is my… what? Boyfriend? It’s beginning to sound more and more reasonable given our relationship and the amount of trust and time we give each other. I massage my temples. “Yeah. I should go.”
My mind fills with impossibilities as I jog up the steps. Were predictions really that fluid? A moved trash can could change one? Throughout history we’d tried to prove predictions wrong, only to have them come true in another form. Whoever orchestrated this had figured a way to lessen or eliminate the ripple effect.
After a prediction is changed, it causes several more new predictions sort of like aftershocks. Often those can be minimized if caught quickly. We’d noticed this one, but were there others that they’d managed to keep under the radar? It would have taken someone very skilled with predictions and probabilities to detect those ripples and where or when they’d occur. It would require noticing the minuscule changes in the forecasted destiny. It would require a hair-thin needle to repair the ripped fate. It would require a vast understanding of the math behind changed visions or a skilled fatecaster. Or it’s the least likely explanation, the one I refuse to accept: a chance prediction.
I toss my purse into my office and tap absently at a few keys, waking my screen. Actuaries issued maybe three faulty predictions a year, not two in less than twenty-four hours. Grass roots free-choice groups popped up every so many years set on changing predictions. Nobody ever found success changing fate to that degree. We never hid predictions—they were public knowledge. Anyone could access the general database.
News groups broadcasted the larger predictions twenty-four hours a day. If some group had figured out a key around cemented predictions like the high probability case over the weekend, then they’d be boasting their accomplishment to the world. Finally, free of fate.
It would be the end of oracles. It would be the end of my job. It would be exactly what Liza Hamilton had wanted. People would be paying closer attention to the unorganized scattering of Outlier Prophecies that have forecasted someone or a group of someones able to bend predictions to their will, rip the fabric of fate, and render our net so unstable it would be useless. Creating people so powerful they’d be considered an outlier in every prediction. They’d defy fate.
I’m jolted back to reality by a ham sandwich, slapped on my desk. And a very pissed off five-foot barista in a puffy down jacket, who happens to be my cousin. She sets the hot coffee down more gingerly than the sandwich.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s technically takeout. I got it from the shop.” Her left eyebrow wiggles like it does when she’s fibbing or leaving something out. It’s unusual for Ali, who usually just comes out with every thought that enters her mind, whether it should be said or not.
It doesn’t take genius investigative skills to figure out she probably made the sandwich.
“I have nothing against your cooking, Ali.” I unwrap her offering from the clear wrap. “You’re a fabulous and talented witch, druid, as well as chef.”
She crosses her arms, tapping her toes. “That’s a start to an apology.” She drags one of my office chairs to sit across from me. “I’m on lunch break, but instead of calling the hot dwarf who left me his number about an hour into my shift, I’m using it to check on you. Spill.”
“You should have used your time to get laid by the dwarf,” I say around a bite of ham and Swiss. I place my hand over my heart and close my eyes, munching with overjoyed enthusiasm. “Wow. This is amazing. Did you make this aioli sauce from scratch? And what are these little bits of red?”
She straightens. “Of course it’s from scratch. I smuggled in the ingredients from the early morning farmer’s market. Those idiots that own the cafe are ignorant of local produce. Everything comes shipped in from goddess knows where.” She pauses and watches me eat for a second. Her nose twitches. “Nice try.” She lowers her voice to barely a whisper. “Now back to you and Becker.”
I lower the sandwich from greedily shoving it into my mouth. I didn’t realize how hungry I’d been. Glancing at the clock, I notice it’s nearly two. Damn. I’ll be playing catch up right until five. I nod to the door and Ali gets the hint and closes it shut. Don’t exactly want everyone in the office to overhear my personal life. After finding out that Howard from Traffic betrayed me over jealousy, I’m understandably wary of my coworkers.
“We’re both emotionally stunted. How well do you think it’s going?”
“Pretty much how I figured.” Ali unzips her jacket and reaches into her green canvas apron. She presents a cake donut with strawberry glaze. “Emergency reserves.”
I take her offering. “Becker opened up for a second this morning, but then he got pulled away on a call. It feels like we’re running on separate paths with different destinations.”
She laces her fingers, rubbing her thumbs together. “Do you want me to talk to him?”
I shove the last of the too-tiny dessert into my mouth. “Are you serious?” I ask around a mouthful of donut. I chew and swallow. “Like we’re in junior high? No. Neither of you can stand to be in the same room for too long.”
She raises her nose in the air and hands me a stack of colorful pastel envelopes from her pocket. I swe
ar to gods, that pocket of hers is like a clown car.
“What’s this?”
“My correspondence with your boyfriend.”
“Ali, he’s not my boyfriend. Stop calling him that.” Although the denial doesn’t carry the same bite it had before.
“Well, he’s marked you. He sleeps with you.”
“It’s different. Werewolves don’t form romantic relationships that easily. He sees me as pack, nothing more.” The words hang. I’m less confident that is the case than I’d once believed. Could he really like me beyond physical attraction?
“Listen to yourself. He marked you.”
“That was…it was a misunderstanding.” My cheeks heat as I remember the night we both were too sleepy to realize what had been happening. We’d taken the close proximity too far. “He wasn’t in his right mind.” I lower my voice. “Nothing sexual happened.” Since.
I’m lying to myself. Ali inspects me with doubt on her face. “He. Marked. You.”
“You said that.” I claw my fingers, then lay them flat, trying to explain again. “He was asleep, his eyes had done that changing thing, where they glow. He becomes different. More aggressive. When he woke up it all fell away. Like it was the furthest thing from his mind.”
“Because he doesn’t know how you feel. He’s worried about you, not himself. He thinks he’s roped you into this and he’s asking for more than you’re willing to give.”
“I know he thinks that, but he also would rather have a pack.”
“I’ve been using herbs to help him with the troubling memories. One of my mother’s old spells.” Her eyes lower for a second at the mention of her mother. I let Ali set the pace for talking about her mother’s condition. She’s been bringing it up more lately. If I force it, Ali pushes me away. It’s so unlike her, it scares me. She glances at me with a half grin. “Lavender and Rosemary work like a charm.”
“It’s not that easy.”
She huffs. “It’s not as hard as you’re claiming. He thinks it’s helping. And you say he’d rather have a pack, well, give it to him. You’re his pack.”
“His old pack, but they’re gone. I’m just a substitute until something better comes along.”
“What else is available? Werewolves hate the city. They stick to the more rural areas.”
I press my thumb into the bridge of my nose. I hadn’t really thought about the logistics of how Becker would ease away from our arrangement. “Ideally the department will bring in another werewolf. Lipski says they’re always recruiting, but it will depend on Becker and who he approves. That would be the most natural progression.”
“And you’d be okay with that?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “As I understand it, it would be about two weeks of withdrawals, trouble sleeping. It fades and then I’m back to my normal life…” Ali shakes her head vigorously as I explain. “What?”
“It doesn’t work that way. Packs don’t change partners like it’s a swing party. Once you bond with someone you either add or keep the numbers low.”
“Well, this pack isn’t getting added to. I’m not up for a ménage à trois.”
“Really?” She arches her eyebrow.
“What happens if one of the pack doesn’t want to expand? You said they like to keep the numbers low. What happens if they grow too fast?”
“From what I’ve seen everyone in the pack has to approve of a new member. If a pack gets too large then you’ll see them split, but they always remain connected to the extended community.”
“What if they have a falling out? A breakup? Divorce?”
“Rare. But they usually work it out. Unless someone is causing harm to another pack mate, they emphasize community.”
“Becker’s not like other werewolves. He’s started over before. He was adopted and didn’t have a pack.”
“His parents would have fit that role. When wolves are young they’re protected by the pack, but when they reach a certain age they’re expected to get settled in another pack. Sometimes they stay. It just depends on how well they see themselves fitting and how well the rest of the pack thinks they’ll cope. But it’s weird; who would want to live with their parents their whole life?”
Right. I take a drink of coffee. It’s too hot and burns my tongue. “Okay, so it’s harder, but we’ve only been at this for”—I check my calendar—“four months. It’s not enough to make him want to stick to me.”
“Trust me. It’s enough.” Ali checks her phone. “My break’s almost over. I got to start heading back in the next ten minutes. We should go out tonight.”
“Can’t. Got an interview with an oracle right after work. Then I’ll probably be working on that case the rest of the night.”
“If you’d let me help, it wouldn’t take you so long to solve these things.”
I laugh. “It would require you admitting you’re using math.”
“Magic is better. I like it when there’s a clear recipe to solve a problem. A formula.”
Letting that one go, I open the case, looking over my notes. “Magic won’t solve two chance occurrences in less than twenty-four hours. We’ve got someone tampering with predictions again, only this time they’ve figured out a way to make a high probability not happen.”
“Not happen. How is that possible?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” I kick back in my seat and cross my arms, contemplating how much I should share. “What if someone could miss a bus and save a life, or move a trash can and cause dozens of deaths?”
“That would require a scryer who could tease out the individual fate threads. Strand by strand. They’d have to know the magic so well that they could see each outcome if one or two threads were plucked. And do it with as little disturbance as possible to the other strands around it? That’s some heavy stuff.”
“You say magic. Is there any magic out there that can do that?”
Ali wrinkles her forehead. “Yeah. But it would require someone who’s pretty accomplished at the art. There’d be maybe a handful of people worldwide who could pull that off. But who would want to? What’s the motivation? No witch worth her salt would join an anti-fate group. We work with the fates to make magic. Go against it and you risk draining your abilities.”
I make a mental note of that. Whoever is doing this, whoever’s at the heart of this is taking a great risk even to just experiment.
“Are there any physical effects?”
“Yeah, it would start as reddening of the eye. It would get worse over the course of a year, longer if they’re spacing the sessions out further apart. Then after a year or so it moves into lesions of the skin, especially under the fingernails. Look for scar cuts in hidden places, like the thigh or toes, where they’ve drawn a little of their own blood to boost the signal. It would take more and more to keep up the magic after a while, hence the use of blood.”
“Can you get me the names of magic users that might have access to this kind of power? Anyone you can trust who might be able to answer some of my questions.”
She shrugs. “Sure.” Then she glances at the door. “I really should get going.”
I stand to see her out. When I get back to my desk I dink around with the probabilities I’m working out to meet the daily quota, but my mind continues to wander back to the case.
Could they have a powerful magic user on their side? Is that the piece I’m missing? Who else would have the ability to expose a prediction down to specific strands of information? Nobody had that kind of knowledge. To know a trash can might alter a car accident. To know that missing a bus would prevent a certain death. Maybe someone who had an extreme talent at scrying who was able to keep their ability secret from the magic users? Unlikely. Ali made it sound like it’s hard to hide that kind of ability from the magic community. And some supernaturals are fate sensitive, but not enough to pull off that kind of power. Who else? Maybe only the oracles themselves?
Or someone close to them.
Hopefully I’d know in a few more hou
rs.
Chapter 8
I’m about five minutes early to the gates of the oracle housing compound. The complex looks different from the last time I’d visited. Of course, last time was an impromptu meeting where Becker and I practiced a little breaking and entering in the black of night. The fact Becker bothered to make an appointment this time is impressive and shows how much he’s grown from my impeccable influence in the last few months.
There’s a newly built check-in station just before the gate. Instead of simply tapping in the passcode, I’m instructed to have my ID and appointment information ready. White arrows that glow slightly in the street lamps that are just turning on as dusk draws closer instruct cars where to drive through. A long yellow-and-red-striped bar provides additional assurances that the driver will not attempt to rush the chain-link fencing. Additional cameras have been mounted at each of the fence lines pointing both in and out of the complex. Trees have been trimmed of low-hanging branches or cut down and replaced with plants, like cactus, that don’t encourage climbing.
The neighborhood surrounding the compound is dotted with the tiny rock bungalows of banshee families, two story gingerbread-like houses of fairies, showy contemporaries of leprechauns, and other heritages that believed being near forecasters would bring good luck. But actually, it usually just brought more frequent personal predictions. Maybe it’s because I work in Death, but I say more predictions aren’t necessarily good luck.
I peek through the fence, curious about any other changes. Hopefully they allowed the oracles to keep the extensive themed organic gardens in the common areas. It would be a shame if they lost their hobbies as well as their sense of safety and freedom in such a short amount of time.
Fifteen minutes and no Becker. My phone shows no messages either. He might have been detained on his last call. I send him a quick text as I absently walk up to the security booth.
Going to get started on the interview at the oracle compound. See you shortly.