His flippant reveal hung over the room for a moment. Talya cleared her throat in the silence.
“I see,” I replied, after a few seconds of digestion. “As in, werewolves?”
A few people grimaced in distaste, except for Jenner and Duke. They grinned.
“The wolves are not here tonight. This murdered couple, they were from our circle. They were Pathrunners.” Karim spoke up this time, a proud cant to his head and an arrogant look in his heavy-lidded eyes. He had a strong French accent, clay-brown skin, and designs shaved into his hair and through the thick stubble on his cheeks.
“You make it sound more significant than I understand it to be.” I turned to look at them both – really look at them. Maybe it was my own ideas about what a shapeshifter should be, but I was searching for the animal in each of them now.
“Pathrunners are the keepers of law in our communities,” Michael said. “Our members are the rats, raccoons, birds, and other small animals… those who live quickly and die often. Our Ka run ahead to guide all other creatures, learning much from each brief lifetime.”
“I don’t know anything about your Art or your traditions,” I said. “So start from the beginning.”
“We will not give you much,” Michael replied. “Our laws are our own.”
“We’re not Phitometrists, if that’s what you mean,” Spotted Elk said. “Weeders – shapeshifters – have a human face and an animal face. Ib and Ka-Bah, to borrow the Pathrunners’ preferred Egyptian terms. Human heart and body, animal soul. Two sides of a coin.”
“The human changes,” Karim said. “The animal remains the same from life to life. It is not the human who turns into the Ka. The Ka takes human form.”
There was a brooding heaviness over the room as these men spoke. I had the distinct impression that if I rejected this knowledge, the lot of them weren’t going to let me out of the room alive. I doubted anyone would find the body.
“Our children are born at random,” Spotted Elk said. “Across cultures and states, often to families who don’t understand them. There are different… approaches to the way we live our lives. The Pathrunners are our law-givers, and they arbitrate between our communities and gangs and packs. They find and gather children, raise them in the understanding of our ways, and then the children decide where their hearts lie. Some of them join outlaws like Jenner and Mason. Some of them join wolf packs, or lion prides, or flocks. Others throw in their lot with the likes of me when they come of age.”
“Some of them change their minds.” A young man with a chicken neck and a beaky, pointed face muttered, glancing at Talya. She was still pressed against Zane’s arm. If anyone else heard, there was no sign of it.
“So the murdered couple and the missing kids were all shapeshifters?” The surrounding threat was palpable, but dangerous knowledge and interesting knowledge were often the same thing. “I thought the government was rounding up all the supernatural elements nowadays.”
“’Rounding up’ isn’t the point,” Ayashe said. “The Vigiles is trying to bring supernatural elements under law. Wolf Grove worked with the NYPD and the Northern Supernatural Support Unit. Pastor Aaron here is the SSU chaplain and caseworker for magically gifted kids. I’m supporting the Unit as a specialist in shapeshifters, part of the deal I negotiated with them when the Vigiles was formed. The Jammies and Blanks were… are all registered for adoption and training. The Weeder kids are in the system, but they have to be of age to choose their affiliation. A few of them stay here, but Lily and Dru send them to a school in Texas and a lot of them end up living there by choice. We have to let them decide. That’s the tradition and the law.”
“Jammies?” I arched an eyebrow.
“Children with magical potential.” The Chaplain added. “As in, they’re still sleeping… and so they’re in their pajamas.”
“So what you’re saying is that these missing children were part of a tag and release program.” The nape of my neck crawled. I had been born before the Vigiles, in a time when the only special interest groups for magi had been the various organized religions, a range of secret societies, and the street. As of 1985, they’d begun screening kids reported to churches and doctors for the common signs of magical talent. Poltergeist activity, apparent possession, talking to ghosts, minor psychokinetics, injured pets spontaneously healing or reviving. Back in the day, they called those miracles or hauntings. Now, the government was hunting for it. Where the children went… who knew?
Ayashe sighed. “If you want to get cynical about it. The two adults are dead and twenty-one kids are missing. Of those, fifteen of them were Weeder kids. The other six… two Blanks, four Jammies.”
“Right.” I rubbed my jaw, scruffing the palm of my glove over the stubble. “It is safe to assume the police are handling the murder.”
“They’re trying, but this is way over the head of the local SSU.” Ayashe said. She sounded tired now, a little guttural. Somehow, I doubted she got much sleep. “Even with the V.M. on site, it’s not going anywhere. We know that someone somehow managed to pull off a mass kidnapping and a double murder and get away clean. There’s no physical evidence we can use beyond some basic shit. Besides some drawings and weird symbols, there wasn’t any arcane evidence left behind. The NYPD went stomping around in the house and shifted anything that might have been useful to our medium. She didn’t find no resonance, no tracers, no nothing.”
“Why do you think a Spook can do anything that the police can’t?”
“There were occult elements to the murders,” Spotted Elk replied. “The murderer… took some things. There were some demonic symbols left in the house, acts of blasphemy and desecration. Lily and Dru were both religious people. Devout, modest people. That’s what brought them together in the first place, and that’s why we and all the other stakeholders of New York agreed to let them care for our young.”
I had visions of a church home where these elders and gang-leaders went to fish for recruits. Maybe it was good, maybe it wasn’t, but the whole thing made my skin crawl. “You said the murderer took some things. What did they steal?”
An uncomfortable silence hung over the room until Ayashe finally spoke. “Body parts.”
I rubbed my face again, frustrated. Even with open questions, it was like wringing blood from a stone. “Right. And what kinds of animal did they transform into?”
Jenner laughed, harsh and crow-like. Talya grimaced. Zane’s face froze into a pleasant mask. I’d stepped on a landmine.
“That is a vulgar question,” Michael said. “All matters related to the Ka are private unless the person desires to share it. Even the dead.”
“It’s important to know.” I jerked my shoulders, trying and failing to read faces. “The organs and body parts of various animals are used in specific magic rituals. If I know what animals we are talking about, then I can probably tell you more about who would have done this.”
Jenner didn’t seem to be nearly as annoyed as the rest of them. She planted her hands on her hips. “What kind of magic?”
“Magic like the rituals in the Liber Virtutis Animalium,” I said, focusing on her. “A lot of medieval spells used the body parts of particular animals for various things. The hearts of dogs were used in love spells, bulls’ hearts were used to gain strength. This kind of magic was popular in esoteric Church rituals. Catholic and Protestant.”
Aaron shifted in place, but he didn’t deny it.
I continued on. “Different organs have different applications, so if I knew what their alternate forms were…”
“Fair enough.” Even Spotted Elk sounded a little stiff. “Michael? Karim?”
“Lily was Hyena.” Michael grunted, after a reluctant pause. “Dru was Hoopoe.”
Oh – now that was interesting. I nodded. “Both hyenas and hoopoes have a powerful connection to medieval church magic. Let me assume that they had taken Lily’s right hand, and Dru’s brain, heart, and blood?”
That made a few people sit up. Mic
hael averted his eyes, as did Aaron. Jenner snorted, a mingled sound of disgust and amusement. One of the nameless silent observers in the Four Fires quarter had gone very pale, and other people had linked their arms around her shoulders. There was a uniform niceness to the people on Spotted Elk’s side… maybe all of them had been rescues at some point in their lives.
Spotted Elk regarded me intently. “Yes. What do you know about this?”
“Hoopoes are one of the most significant birds in the European magical tradition,” I said. “They’ve been used for ritual since Ancient Egyptian times. They were regarded to be king of all birds, and they symbolize virtue. Their organs were used to bind summoned demons. The brain, tongue and blood were particularly valued by medieval sorcerers. Genitalia, especially from men, have always been used for ritual purposes.”
My only answer from the assembled were looks of distaste and disbelief. I cleared my throat.
“One old and prominent spell uses the right paw of a hyena as a talisman,” I continued. “Specifically the right paw. It was believed that anyone carrying a hyena paw charm would be successful in politics, able to sway and convince kings and lords to do their bidding. So if those are what they took from your dead, I can assume that this is someone who is well versed in medieval ritual church magic and the creation of talismans. They must also have known what Lily and Dru could transform into.”
Michael and Karim looked at one another, and then at me. Talya covered her mouth. Spotted Elk sat back, glancing at Ayashe.
“Sometimes it takes an outsider to spot something that’s completely freakin’ obvious,” she said.
“Neither of our Elders were involved in politics,” Michael said. “It is forbidden.”
“They wouldn’t have had to be involved themselves,” I replied. “It’s not their politics that matters: it is the magician’s. The magician turns the body part into a talisman. Are there drawings of the symbols found at the house?”
“We have photos,” Ayashe said. “But what the Vigiles don’t have is resources. The way the government has us set up, we don’t have access to anything that’s actually useful half the time. That’s why we need a Spook, a good Spook. Someone more mobile who can work faster without having to clear a slip for every damn book they borrow from the Masonic vault.”
Someone not placed under the artificial restraints of the law. And someone expendable. I felt a tic form beside my eye. “You said you hired another Spook to look into this before. What did they find out?”
“’Hired’ isn’t the right word. This guy was searching for a missing person, and he was sure that the murders were tied into it,” Ayashe replied. “He tracked down Spotted Elk and me and made the initial contact. Told us that he didn’t want anything up front, just our help.”
“Yes, but what did he find?”
“The last we heard of him was about a week ago.” Ayashe paused for a moment, her frown deepening. “He said he was looking into some human trafficking ring while he investigated the occult leads. He was going to get the info for me, and then I was going to file the report with my boss and see if we couldn’t mobilize an operation. The last thing he went to go do was to visit Lily and Dru’s changing ground. They had-”
“No,” Michael said. “We can compromise on discussing the dead, but I refuse to allow discussion of the changing ground with a stranger.”
“You can’t hide evidence in the course of an investigation,” Ayashe retorted. “I don’t know where it is, anyway. You were the one that told Angkor where it was.”
“Yes,” Michael replied. “I regret my decision.”
My stomach chilled. Human trafficking ring? I only knew of three organizations in New York who dealt in human trafficking. The Triad, the Cartels, and the Yaroshenko Organizatsiya. “Why hasn’t anyone gone there?”
“It is a changing ground,” Michael replied, as if it should be evident. Even though his voice was soft, when he spoke, the room went quiet. “They are absolutely confidential. Only I know where it is, and I made a mistake in telling Angkor where to find it.”
Spotted Elk, Ayashe, and Jenner exchanged glances, and Ayashe spoke for them. “We are concerned that the kids might be killed or trafficked for magical purposes. Angkor didn’t elaborate on what he knew; told us it was speculation until he gathered proper evidence. We… decided to wait until we had something other than hypotheticals.”
They weren’t telling me something about this mess. My instincts were certain of that fact. There was a skeleton in this particular closet. “I’m can probably help you, but I need the case file and photos, and I’m not working for free.”
Ayashe scowled and opened her mouth, only to be waved down by Spotted Elk. His thin face was graven, and it was clear he was tired. Tired of death, tired of talking. “I accept this and vote that you come and assist us. We don’t have a lot of money, but between us, we will do what we can. If you can shed some light on the death of our friends and the abduction of our children, we will pay you proportionately.”
“Me and Mason can front up,” Jenner said. “Rex knows his shit. I vote to take him on.”
“His knowledge is already proving valuable,” Michael said. “I vote the same.”
Ayashe frowned. “I still want some references.”
Jenner chuffed, and waved her down. “What’s the kill fee?”
“For a job as complex as this one, I’ll accept a trade of services from your people in advance of any money.” I faced the Tigers’ President front on. “It’s grunt work. I need to get into my old apartment, retrieve my magical tools, and rescue my cat.”
Both of Jenner’s eyebrows shot up towards her hairline. Zane, standing to the side of me, also turned his face. Ayashe looked up, and her foot stopped twitching.
Now, I had to lie – or at least omit the truth. “I lost everything to some violent squatters who seized my things, including my familiar. It bears some explanation, but I won’t be much help until I have her back.”
“Wait. Seized?” Ayashe leaned forwards. “Who seized the apartment?”
“That is none of your concern.” I rolled my shoulders, jerking them back. “It just needs doing.”
“Who? The bank? The Mafia?”
She was musor. Police garbage. She was the only person in the room I didn’t mind lying to. “I just told you it was none of your business.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Ayashe. Just quit it for one fucking day, will you?” Jenner snapped. “He didn’t ask you shit. I’m down with that trade, Rex. We can handle it.”
“Wait, no. We don’t need no one that comes with baggage.” Ayashe stood, as did several of the Four Fires crowd. “Me and Aaron are putting our jobs on the line just being here. What am I supposed to do? Pretend I don’t hear Jenner talking about breaking into someone’s house? Why didn’t you call the police?”
“It’s my apartment,” I said. “We’re not ‘breaking in’ anywhere. There are people squatting in my home and I need to get my things back.”
“And you want muscle to go kick them out. Illegally.”
“Illegal? Me? We wouldn’t do anything illegal.” Jenner leered, and wiggled her little finger next to her face. “Pinky promise.”
“Are you listening to this? John, come on.” Ayashe threw her hands up.
“You are outvoted,” Michael replied. “It is within our limits. I accept this trade: It is no more difficult or illegal than what we ask this magus to do for us.”
“Ayashe, if human law means more to you than our youth, you are welcome to leave,” John added. “This man has demonstrated knowledge and is willing to make the commitment. His request was given to Jenner, not me, and it is her decision.”
“We don’t know anything about this guy! Where he’s from, what he does…”
“He’s trying to help us!” Talya drew herself up to an imposing five and a half feet, hands fisted by her sides.
“You shut your damn mouth in the presence of your Elders.” Ayashe whirled on her, eyes fl
ashing, and Talya shrank back. “You’re here to listen.”
“Hey. Cool it.” Zane lay a hand on Talya’s bristling shoulder.
“There’s only so far you can push the law, Jenny.” Aaron spoke for the first time since the meeting had started. “And John, same thing goes for you. In my unofficial capacity, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear this. Any trouble that ensues will be on your conscience and your head.”
“The Covenant of Ib-Int is still in effect, like it has been through twenty of my lives,” Jenner snarled. “If the Vigiles is so fucking great, wash your hands of this meeting and I’ll do the work, as usual. The only reason I’m not out there breaking thumbs to find these kids is because of your fucking law.”
Michael held his hands up. “Jenner, Ayashe-”
“The Ib-Int is worthless in the modern era if we can’t live side by side with human law,” Ayashe said, her voice low and cold. “I fought every damn day to protect those kids from the government and the streets. And that’s all I’m here to say. Go do what you want, but if you wind up in a cell, I ain’t helping you.”
“Please, Ayashe. We’re not deliberately discounting you.” Spotted Elk held up a hand again. “We are doing what has to be done. You said it yourself. The Vigiles is not well-resourced enough or flexible enough to help us.”
“No, it’s not.” Fuming, she sat back.
“Bring the photos and the casefile to Rex in the morning.”
“I’m not bringing a classified file-”
“That is an order, Ayashe.” The smaller man’s voice deepened momentarily, and Ayashe snapped her teeth together. “You may disagree with our decision, but you are bound by ties of blood and soul and our ancestral law. You agreed to bring in a freelancer to help where the police cannot. You are outvoted.”
“Fine.” On her feet, Ayashe was nearly six feet tall. She looked fit, too… triathlon-fit. “Now excuse me while I go figure out how not to get caught up the shit that’s about to get flung through the fan.”
No one else had anything to say. As Ayashe stormed from the room, they looked to Aaron. He rose from his seat.
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