by SA Magnusson
“That’s just it. I do want to know. You’re involved in something. Hell, you’re hiding a patient that you broke out of the hospital. And then there’s your friend. I remember when he first came to the ER, severely injured in a car crash, and he left AMA. What is it with you and all of these people who seem to recover much better than they should?” She leaned on the counter. “Are you in some sort of cult?”
“I’m not in a cult,” I said.
“Then what’s going on?”
“There are things that I can’t really explain, not easily. Trust me, Jen, you don’t want to know.”
“I’m having a hard time trusting you about anything right now. I’ve known you have secrets, but I always thought it was something to do with your parents. You never talk about them, and the two people you call your grandparents are far too young to be grandparents. It’s been going on for a while now.”
“Ever since Aron came into my life,” I said.
“Right. And like I asked, has he gotten you involved in some sort of cult? You do realize this is the behavior cultists do. They start to abandon their friends, lying to them, and then all sorts of weird shit begins to happen.”
I certainly can’t deny weird things had been happening ever since I had met Aron, but the weirdness went back a lot further than that. “Take a seat, Jen.”
“I’m not going to sit down until you tell me what’s been going on.”
“You want to sit down so that I can tell you what’s been going on.”
She glanced over at John, who simply sat at the table, saying nothing. I can only imagine what he might’ve said to her when she first appeared. It was lucky she hadn’t been attacked.
“Why did you let her in?” I asked John as I took a seat across from him at the table.
“She said she was your friend and that you worked with her.”
“You didn’t think she was lying?”
Jen watched me, a quizzical expression on her face.
“I could smell that she was familiar with you.”
“Hey! Is he saying that I stink?”
“He’s not saying that at all,” John said.
“He’s saying he could smell you on me. What does he think—there we’re some sort of couple?”
Some twisted part of me thought it might be entertaining to let Jen continue to go down that pathway. It would be almost fun to torment her. But she needed to hear the truth—and she needed to hear it from me.
“John is what’s known as a shifter. He has enhanced smell and probably sight.” I looked over at John, and he nodded. I hadn’t known for sure whether or not he did, so having that confirmed was helpful. Maybe he could be of more use even if he was injured. We could benefit from his nose and eyesight.
Jen stared at me. “You want me to believe that this man is some sort of shape shifter? Like a werewolf?”
John grunted. “Not a werewolf. They can only come out at a full moon.”
“Right. I forgot my horror movies.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“If this is some sort of weird initiation for your cult, you can count me out. I thought maybe if you had some deal where you had access to hot guys, I might be interested, but if it’s going to mean that I have to dress up in a wolf costume…”
I sighed. I couldn’t even prove that John was a shifter, especially since he couldn’t do it in my home. If we were outside of my building, maybe he could change, but even then, I wasn’t certain he would be able to fully transform.
But he didn’t need to. All he needed to do was elongate his jaw, perhaps show her his claws, something that would prove he was what I claimed.
“Come with me,” I said, motioning for her to follow me out of the kitchen. I nodded to John. I needed him to come too. “Both of you.”
We headed out of my condo and I closed the door behind us, locking it. Jen eyed me strangely for a moment but followed me without saying anything else. When we reached the end of my hallway and started up the stairs, I realized John still wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“It’s going to be a little chilly out,” I said.
“I’ll manage.”
“The wind nearly took my breath away when we were out on the water earlier,” I said.
“You were out on what water?” Jen asked.
“I went with Aron. We needed to find someone out on Lake Minnetonka.”
“You went where?” she asked.
I shrugged. “It’s just a little chilly.”
“That’s like saying your friend Aron is just a little hot. I can imagine what it would be like out of the water on a day like today. And now I know this has to be some sort of cult.”
I shot her an annoyed look that she ignored, flashing me a smile.
We reached the top of the stairs and I pushed the door open, letting us get out onto the roof of my building. The residents were allowed out here, and quite a few of the older residents would grow a garden. I never really had the time for that, so didn’t spend as much time up here as some of my neighbors, but I had gone up from time to time, if only to take in the view.
Jen wrapped her arms around herself, looking from me to John. “What’s this about? What did you need to bring me out here—up here—for?”
“Show her,” I said to John.
“I’m not some sort of show animal for you.”
“Do this for me. We’ve already told you what we’re going to do for Ariel.”
“Ariel? Do you have someone in your sex cult that dresses up like the Little Mermaid?”
John growled at her. “Watch what you say, you.”
“Apparently he plays the role of Prince Eric.”
I snorted and covered my mouth with my hands, not wanting to anger John any more than we had. I needed him to cooperate, if only so that I could prove to Jen that I wasn’t crazy. And that I wasn’t in a sex cult, though I wasn’t surprised her mind had gone there.
“Do this, John.”
He took a deep breath and I worried he might refuse, but slowly he began to shift.
It started with the rippling of his flesh around his cheeks, and his jaw began to elongate and his ears began to change, pointing upward into his wolf shape. When he had shifted partway, he cried out. It was a painful scream, and it pierced the night.
He snapped back into his human form.
“What of the hell was that?” Jen asked.
I hurried over to John and touched his shoulder. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“You started to transform, but something pained you. You weren’t even shifting your shoulder.”
“No. It’s as if I began to transform, but there was something that restricted my ability to do so.”
I was under the belief I had somehow helped him, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if my attempt to heal him had somehow damaged his magic?
That wasn’t what I had wanted to do, and while I believed I had helped—he was still alive—my inexperience using magic in the way I had been forced to do so made it possible I hadn’t been able to be of aid.
“Do you think you could push through it?”
“It’s possible,” he started, though the hesitation in his voice suggested that even if it were possible, the howl I had heard meant he would suffer significant pain were he to try.
“You didn’t even get to trying to transform when you were injured, did you?”
John breathed out heavily. “No.”
“Hey, remember me?” Jen asked, stepping up next to us. “What is this? What sort of special effects are you doing here?” She looked around, scanning the rooftop. “This has to be some sort of prank, doesn’t it?”
“No prank.”
“So… he’s really a shape shifter?”
“I think he’d prefer to be called a wolf shifter, but I’ll leave it up to him to critique what you call him.”
“That’s not funny, Kate.”
“I know it’s not funny, and this isn’t h
ow I wanted to tell you.”
“You were going to tell me?” When I didn’t answer, she shook her head. “How is it that you know him? Wait… How is it that you know any of this?” She frowned. “Are you one of them, too? Did he bite you or something?”
John growled again. He really did need to work on having a different response to frustrations, but taking him out of the north woods and dragging him to my home might have been too much for him.
“I don’t think it works like that.” I glanced over at John. “Does it work like that?”
He shook his head. “Did you get your magic when someone bit you?”
“You have magic?” Jen asked.
I sighed. Holding out my hands, I pushed out my connection to magic, forming a barrier around me. It created a bit of a shell, an invisible form that surrounded me, and I began to push out with that, pressing against Jen, sending the connection of my magic toward her.
“Try to reach for me.”
Jen pressed her arm out, straining for me, but the barrier prevented her from getting too close. Her eyes widened, and then she tapped on it. There was a strange sizzle, sparks that formed where she touched, and then they disappeared. “What is this?”
“I called a barrier. It’s a way of protecting myself from other magical creatures.”
“Are you trying to tell me that I’m a magical creature?”
“No, but it works against non-magical people, too.”
I released the connection to the magic. I didn’t want to hold onto it too long, and certainly not out in the open like this. There were others in the city who had a connection to magic, and while Aron might be willing to protect me—and defend me when it came down to it—I couldn’t rely on him saving me if I made a mistake and exposed myself to someone else who had power.
“This is what you’ve been hiding from me?”
“Would you have believed me?”
“When you do something like that, I guess I would have. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I wouldn’t have told you now if I didn’t have to.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. You’ve been a great friend to me over the last few years. A best friend. It’s…” Jen wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. I’m not sure that were the situations reversed, I would understand. Nothing about what I was and what I could do made sense to someone outside of the magical world. It was impossible, but at the same time, it wasn’t. Magic had its roots in everything around us, and all of the mythology within our world had roots in real magic. “The kind of things that I can do are not technically permitted.”
“By some sort of magical police? Are you an evil sorcerer?”
“Not a sorcerer, but my magic isn’t allowed by the mage council.”
“Right. And they get to decide who can use magic.”
“When you have family who belongs to the council, they do.”
“Family… Your grandparents?”
“My grandmother.” John was watching me, and I needed to be nearly as careful with him as I was with Jen. She didn’t understand many of the things I would be telling her, but he would. I wasn’t sure how much the council wanted out about its members.
“Anyway, I grew up thinking I had what is called dark magic. It turns out I don’t, but I still don’t know exactly what I am.”
“What makes your magic dark?”
“It’s not dark magic.” It felt strange defending it, especially as I had spent so much time believing that was what I had. It wasn’t dark, and even if it was, I’d seen from the dark mages I’d met that even their connection wasn’t necessarily dark the way the council would have others believe. “But there’s something about the type of magic I use. It’s the nature of the spells they draw upon that makes it dark.”
“She didn’t tell you,” John said.
I turned my attention to him. “She didn’t. I get the sense that’s not her way.”
“Ask the archer what her way is. He as much as anyone knows what her way is.”
I didn’t like the connotation in that, but then again, I suspected John was right. Aron did know things about Solera and had a connection to her that I didn’t fully understand. Maybe it was the same connection the man who’d ferried us across the lake had to her, or maybe it was something else.
“Can we get off the roof?” Jen asked, shivering.
I headed to the door and guided us back down the stairs. When we reached my doorway, I started to open it but felt a tingle of magic. I held my hand up and Jen pushed up against me.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Someone’s using magic nearby. I shouldn’t be able to detect it on the other side of the door, but…”
“You can detect magic used around you? That’s so cool!”
“I’m not sure that cool describes what I can do, but it has been useful, especially lately.”
I wished I had a better handle on what I detected of magic so I could understand what it was—and who it was—on the other side of the door. It didn’t feel as if there was anything threatening to me, but what if that was wrong? What if I misread the situation and ended up getting attacked the moment I pushed the door open?
I had to trust that wasn’t going to happen.
When opened the door, I found my grandparents.
Gran and Gramps sat on the couch, each with a glass of wine in hand. Gramps jumped to his feet the moment I entered, heading toward me and coming to a stop when he realized that Jen and John were with me.
“Katie?”
“Where is Aron?” I asked.
“The archer is in the kitchen,” John said.
Jen turned to him. “You said something about that before. Is he some sort of hunter with the bow and arrow?”
John glanced over at me and I waved them on, wanting them to get into the kitchen as quickly as possible. I didn’t need to deal with the possibility of my grandparents raising questions too soon.
When they left us alone, I stood in front of Gran. I could feel disappointment radiating off her. Gramps stood off to the side, fidgeting as he often did when Gran was like this. She had always been the disciplinarian, and learning that she sat on the council wasn’t much of a surprise, especially considering the way she had been when I was growing up.
“You brought a shifter into your home. And now you’ve revealed yourself to someone outside of the magical world.”
She didn’t raise her voice, but then again, Gran didn’t need to. Her words hung in the air, leaving me wanting to fidget the same way Gramps had been.
“I didn’t bring the shifter into my home, that was Aron. And a series of events revealed this to Jen.”
“A series of events that had to do with the shifter?”
I nodded.
“Katie, what are you doing?” Gramps asked.
“I thought I was trying to understand who and what I am,” I said.
“Not that. What are you doing getting involved with the shifters?”
I told them about how John had come to the ER with my name on a note, and Gran sat there, stone-faced and staring at me, leaving me wondering what she was thinking. I hated when she got like this. It was impossible to know what was in her mind and there was always the sense that I disappointed her.
“And so you called out to the archer.”
“I called out to someone I knew had connections within the shifter world. I wanted to get answers.”
“You could have reached out to us.”
“If I would’ve, the council gets involved.”
It was more than that, though. I didn’t necessarily care whether or not the council was involved. It was an opportunity to contact Aron, and I couldn’t deny that had been as appealing as anything else. I had wanted a chance to call him and had reached out to him immediately.
Maybe I shouldn’t have. But then, Aron had been the one who had introduced me to Ariel in the first place. If anyone would have
been able to understand what was taking place with the shifters, it would be him.
“You ended up needing to get the council involved regardless,” Gran said.
“I didn’t want to. Had I any other choice, I wouldn’t have.”
Gramps looked into the kitchen. “What are we going to do, Cyn?”
“You mean about Jen? I trust her. She’s not going to say anything.”
I worried they had some way of wiping her mind. I had no interest in having my best friend face a magical attack because of her connection to me. Not only didn’t she deserve that, but it was possible that if they did try to use magic on her, they would erase some of her memories, and when it came to practicing medicine, we needed all of our memories. It was our cumulative knowledge that made us effective healers.
“You don’t know she won’t say anything,” Gran said.
“I know my friend.”
“Why did you really call us here?” Gramps asked, putting himself between me and Gran. Always the peacemaker, and even now he did it, though I knew he didn’t agree with my decisions.
“A couple of reasons. I need your help with something.”
“Involving the shifters,” Gran said.
“Possibly. Did Aron tell you nothing on your way here?”
“Aron sent the request and said you needed us, but he didn’t tell us anything about why and what you needed us for.”
This would be a whole lot easier if Aron had helped, but then again, maybe I needed to be the one to ask. “I need you to tell me about the council and demons.”
Gran frowned. “You know all about the council and demons. You’ve encountered them far more than any mage not on the council has.”
“It’s more than just about the existence of the demons. I’m asking about why has the council continued to battle demons?”
“Katie?”
I glanced over at Gramps. “What would happen if the council didn’t attack demons?”
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“Aron brought me to see someone who might be able to provide answers about what kind of magic I have.”
“Who?” Gran asked.
“Solera.”
Gran got to her feet. “You went with the archer to see Solera?”
I glanced from Gran to Gramps. “He thought she might have information for me.”