A Psychic with Catitude

by P. D. Workman

  “She’s been raised by fairies. How is she going to react to being told she’s a pixie? Would she even know that? Does she think she was always a fairy?”

  “Going to school with other races, she must have realized that she wasn’t a natural-born fairy. But would she have known that she was a pixie? She had already changed enough that she didn’t look like a full-blooded pixie either. The Papillons might have befuddled her, to keep her or anyone else from realizing what she was.”

  “So would she know? Would there be any way for her to figure it out?”

  Starlight jumped up on the counter. Reg allowed him to smell the fresh bandage on her hand and satisfy himself that she was okay before shooing him off.

  “Callie could have gone to someone skilled at scrying. Or she might have been gifted enough herself to cast a bloodline spell, to test her parentage.”

  She looked at Reg and licked her lips, as they both considered what she had said.

  “A bloodline spell. What would that involve?”

  “A sample of her blood… an incantation… a reagent…”

  “So what I saw… maybe it wasn’t a love potion. Maybe it was a bloodline spell.”

  Jessup nodded slowly. “If she did a bloodline spell and she tested it against a pixie relative, she might have broken the spell the fairies had used to hide her.”

  “So that the pixies could find her again and take her back.”

  There was a prolonged sigh from Jessup. “We’re going to need someone who has more specialized knowledge about fairy and pixie magic. If we’re going to go back to the pixies, I want an expert with us.”

  “Do you have someone at the police department who knows that kind of thing?” Reg envisioned going back to the pixies’ burrows with a whole magical SWAT team. They wouldn’t have to go alone again. They’d have backup.

  “I have a consultant. Someone who has done a lot of research into magical history. He has published a treatise on the long-standing fairy/pixie war. He has a lot of knowledge that has been lost from the modern fairy tales.”

  Reg nodded eagerly, smiling. “Sounds perfect.”

  But Jessup was shaking her head, looking sour. “Not so perfect.”

  ⋆ Chapter Twenty-Four ⋆

  R

  eg had a drink to fortify herself before Corvin got there. Jessup didn’t know about the encounter between Corvin and Reg at the party. She didn’t know that Corvin was going to have to appear before his coven for trying to force Reg’s powers from her, and that Reg’s antipathy toward him was greater than ever. Jessup knew their history from the Warren Blake case, but thought that they were reconciled.

  “He’s not coming into my house,” Reg warned Jessup when she proposed to call him.

  “No, I think that’s a wise decision,” Jessup agreed. “But I don’t think we should meet in public, either. You never know when you might be overheard. Pixies are notorious for being able to hide themselves and go unnoticed in crowds.”

  “And in nature.” Reg remembered how Ruan had disappeared, and the ability of the pixies to fade into shadows in their underground settlement.

  “Yes. But I think if we meet in the yard…” Jessup pointed to Sarah’s gardens outside, “Sarah will have the appropriate protections in place. We should be able to talk there without eavesdroppers there.”

  Reg nodded. Talking to Corvin in the yard was not the same as inviting him into the cottage. She could do that without making herself vulnerable to him as long as Jessup was there to supervise.

  They sat on deck chairs in the back yard. Reg couldn’t help the throb of her heart when she saw Corvin, so handsome and attractive. She didn’t want to look at him, but couldn’t help looking into his face to gauge his mood. His face seemed paler than usual, with slight shadows under his eyes. His smile at Reg and Jessup was strained.

  “How can I be of service to the police department today?” he inquired, without greeting Reg. “Is this still the kidnapping case?”

  Jessup relayed their theory that Calliopia had been stolen from the pixies as an infant, and then kidnapped back by the pixies days before. She told him about the changeling left in Calliopia’s place.

  Corvin rubbed his bearded chin, thinking about it. “The pieces fit,” he agreed. “Fairies stealing races other than humans is not unheard of. If Calliopia started wondering about her heritage… maybe the boy said something to her, got her wondering. He might have even suggested the lineage test and supplied a sample of his own blood. If she mingled her blood with his… the pixies would have been able to track her right back to her home.”

  “She was going to school with Ruan. If he thought she was a pixie, couldn’t he have just snatched her from there? Why bother with a test and swapping her back for the changeling?”

  “There are protections at the school. You couldn’t have mixed magical races learning together without some pretty strong deterrents.”

  Reg closed her eyes, trying to see it in her head, testing out his theory. She’d been able to see Callie in the present, in her dark dungeon, and she’d been able to see her in the past, when she had cut herself. If she tried hard enough, maybe she’d be able to see Callie at the point when she had completed the blood test, or when the pixies had come for her. Had she known that they would come after her once she had completed the test of her parentage? Or had she been shocked to have the shadows suddenly swarm into her room to steal her away from the only family she knew?

  She hummed, trying to remember how Calliopia’s song had sounded. She couldn’t remember the words of the incantation; it had not been English, and the words had been too foreign for her to recall them.

  She reached out, trying to picture the knife again. Callie running it down her arm, pretending to herself that her hand wasn’t shaking, drawing blood to complete the test. It was a test of her willingness as much as it was a test of her parentage.

  Ruan had spoken to her at school. He stared at her with those intense blue eyes. “You’re not a fairy. Why are you kidding yourself? You were never meant to live above ground in the harsh sun. You crave darkness.”

  She felt a jolt in her gut. She knew that was true. Her parents had always been frustrated by her attempts to block the sun out of her bedroom or the other rooms she spent time in. It hurt her eyes, burned her skin, left her feeling raw and unsettled. What had she been before? Was he telling the truth?

  Reg forced her mind back to the knife. The key moment when Calliopia cut herself and mingled her blood with Ruan’s. The moment she knew who she really was and the fairy spell that kept her hidden broke. But she couldn’t bring herself to witness that private instant. She clenched her fists, frustrated and angry.

  “Give me the knife,” she blurted, opening her eyes and reaching her hand out toward Jessup.

  Jessup stared down at Reg’s palm, the bandage once more soaked with blood. “What?”

  “The blade. Where is the fairy blade? I need it!”

  “It’s in my car. But…”

  “Go get it,” Reg insisted. She wiped at the sweat on her forehead with the back of her wrist. Her head was pounding and sweat was running off of her in long rivulets.

  Jessup looked at Corvin, who gave a broad shrug. Jessup took another quick look at Reg. “Okay. Hang tight. I’ll go get it.”

  She hurried away.

  “Regina…” Corvin said lowly.

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  She could see he didn’t like it, but he closed his mouth and kept his peace. He was frowning at her bleeding hand. The same way that Starlight would have looked at her, as if she were a child incapable of taking care of herself.

  Jessup returned with the evidence bag. She held it just out of Reg’s reach, tentative. “You can’t take it out of the bag.”

  Reg leaned forward and snatched it from her, heedless of her injured hand. She closed her hand around the hilt, ignoring the thick plastic of the bag, and pointed the sharp tip at her left arm.

  “Don’t!” Jessup
lurched forward to stop her, but stopped when Reg didn’t actually attempt to cut herself right through the bag. Reg stared down at the silver blade, breathing shallowly. The others watched her.

  “What is it?” Corvin finally asked, breaking the silence.

  “This is the blade.”

  “The blade that Hawthorne-Rose used on you,” Jessup agreed, her voice pitched low and soothing. “It was taken from your cottage that day.”

  Reg’s eyes unfocused, seeing Callie in her mind, overlaying the images, comparing the minutest detail.

  “This is the knife Callie used to cut herself.”

  “No, it’s the one from Hawthorne-Rose.”

  “It’s the same one.”

  “Letticia said it had fairy blood on it,” Corvin reminded Jessup. “Normally, if a weapon sheds fairy blood, it is unmade. They will fire it and reforge it as something else.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  “Maybe there wasn’t time. Once she did the test, the spell broke, and they came for her.”

  “Then how did Hawthorne-Rose get it? He was already in jail when Calliopia was kidnapped.”

  “Was he? You only have her parents’ word of when she was taken.”

  “Even if you ignore the timeline problems, Hawthorne-Rose still doesn’t fit. How would he get the knife?”

  Reg lowered the knife, looking at it. She was hot and dizzy. “I don’t know, but he did.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Just feeling a little… light-headed.”

  She felt herself slumping forward in the chair.

  “Regina!” Corvin’s hands were on her, steadying her and keeping her from sliding right out of the chair. Reg was a little startled to find him there so quickly. He hadn’t shown real concern for her before. She believed that he had only pretended to like her or be kind to her so that he could get what he wanted. “Let’s get her into the house.”

  “No.” Reg objected. She wasn’t going to allow him into her house for anything. “I’m fine.”

  “If nothing else, we have to redress that hand,” Corvin told Jessup, pulling Reg’s arm around his shoulder to support her back into the cottage.

  “Stay out of my house,” Reg insisted, taking care not to slur her words.

  “I just put a fresh bandage on that,” Jessup said. “And yarrow. I don’t understand why it’s bleeding so badly. It’s worse every time I see it.”

  “Even so, she still shouldn’t be responding like this to a little blood loss. It’s not enough to put her in danger.”

  Reg did her best to pull out of Corvin’s grip. “Let go of me. Don’t touch me!”

  “I’m trying to help you, Reg. I’m trying to give you medical care.”

  “No.”

  “You’d better let her go,” Jessup advised. “Just let her sit here. I’ll get the supplies. Letticia was going to get some rowan berries. You don’t have any, do you?”

  “Not on me.” Corvin reluctantly settled Reg back into her chair.

  Jessup retrieved the bandages and yarrow from the house and gave them to Corvin. He began to take off the blood-soaked bandage.

  “Don’t touch me,” Reg repeated, pulling back.

  “Let me change the bandage.”

  “No.”

  “Regina!”

  How many times had she heard that tone from foster moms, thoroughly frustrated by Reg’s behavior? She didn’t care about his frustration. She hoped he did feel bad. He should.

  “Let me.” Jessup intervened and took over the first aid care. She looked at the injured hand, shaking her head. “We’d better start seeing some improvement in this before long. I was hoping the yarrow would work better.” She tilted Reg’s hand toward Corvin so he could see the wound. “It just keeps getting worse.”

  Reg’s head spun as Jessup cleaned and redressed the wound. She kept seeing Calliopia cutting herself with the knife and then Hawthorne-Rose cutting Reg with it, trying to torture the information he wanted out of her.

  “It’s the same knife,” she insisted.

  “Okay, it’s the same knife,” Jessup placated.

  “She could be right,” Corvin said. “What are the chances that there would be two knives lying around with fairy blood on them? That’s a pretty rare contaminant.”

  “I still can’t fathom how he would have gotten his hands on it.”

  Reg saw Calliopia in her dungeon room and the wound felt like it had been cut anew. Reg caught it with her other hand, gritting her teeth and trying to get past the pain. Corvin moved in closer.

  “What was that?”

  “I just see her… waiting in that room. She wants to go home. She doesn’t want to be there. Even if she is a pixie, she doesn’t want to live there, like that.”

  “You just saw Callie.”

  “Yes.”

  “And your injury hurt more.”

  “Yes.”

  “Has it been worse every time you’ve had a vision of her?”

  Reg tried to sort her memories and identify whether there was a pattern. She nodded hesitantly. “Yeah. It throbs, and it bleeds more…”

  Corvin nodded. He was too close to Reg. She could feel his breath. But she couldn’t back away from him any farther.

  “It must be Calliopia’s knife,” Corvin said. “It’s her blood. It opened up a psychic connection between the two of you.”

  “That’s why your visions of her are so clear,” Jessup said, her tone suddenly eager. “Infecting your wound with her blood? That’s pretty powerful magic.”

  “It’s Callie’s knife,” Reg said.

  “It’s Callie’s knife,” Jessup agreed.

  “Fairy blood.”

  “Yeah, Callie’s.”

  They were all silent as Jessup finished taping the bandage securely in place. Reg let her hand lie in her lap, not bending or moving it so that she wouldn’t hurt it any more. Corvin started to swear. Reg opened her eyes a slit to look at him.

  “What is it?” Jessup asked.

  “It’s fairy blood.”

  “Yes… I thought we’d established that.”

  “Then Calliopia is no longer a pixie.”

  Jessup looked at Corvin, then at Reg. “You’re right. That’s going to complicate the pixies’ claim on her, but we still have to find her and let the proper authorities work things out…”

  “You said she could turn into a fairy.” Reg wasn’t sure why Jessup and Corvin seemed surprised and disturbed by this fact. But it wasn’t like an animal changing its DNA. Magic made things like that possible.

  “Of course,” Jessup agreed. “But… the timing is really bad. They wouldn’t have stolen her back if they’d known she had already come into her own.”

  “She’s still their daughter, biologically.”

  “But she’s not. She’s a completely different species. One that they are at war with. They could never live as a mixed family. It wouldn’t be tolerated.”

  “We’ve got to get her out of there,” Corvin said. “Before they kill her.”

  ⋆ Chapter Twenty-Five ⋆

  W

  hen Reg tried to get up, her knees were wobbly and weak. She pushed herself up off of the chair, but she wasn’t sure how she was going to stay on her own feet and walk to the car, let alone back down through the labyrinth of tunnels to where Calliopia was being held.

  Corvin moved toward her. She could feel the warmth of the air around him as he got too close. Her mind and body fought, wanting him and yet needing to protect herself from him. How could someone so dangerous be so attractive to her?

  She knew what he was doing, as he stood over her and she started feeling a rush of warmth and energy. He was almost touching her, and she could feel him inching forward, his breath becoming cloyingly sweet as he positioned himself right in front of her face.

  “No,” Reg protested, her body buzzing with the electricity of having him so close to her.

  “I’m just helping you.”

  “Don’t.” Reg t
ried to catch her breath. “Don’t touch me. Don’t… so close…” Even as she tried to push him farther away, she could envision herself grabbing him, pulling him close until there was no space left between them.

  Why did she have to be so careful of him? Why did she have to be the one to say no?

  “Hunter,” Jessup warned.

  Corvin turned his head very slightly to look at her. Gauging her like an animal. Wondering if he could overpower both of them and get what he wanted.

  Jessup put her hand on her sidearm. “You may be long-lived, but as far as I know, you’re still mortal.”

  Corvin’s eyes glinted red and then the animal look was gone. He withdrew a pace from Reg, giving her breathing room.

  “I was just helping. Giving her some strength.”

  Reg found that she was able to stand without shaking. Her heart, pounding strong, pumped a newfound energy through her body. She could do it. She could help them to find Calliopia and bring her back to the fairies, where she would be safe.

  “Don’t trust ’em farther than you can throw ’em,” Jessup said, still looking at Corvin darkly. “We need to find Calliopia and get her out of there now. We’re only going to get one attempt.”

  “Take the knife with you,” Corvin suggested, nodding to the fairy blade in the evidence bag. “We may need it.”

  “We can’t go in there armed with fairy steel.”

  “We can’t go in there unarmed. They’re not going to let you just waltz in and take Calliopia. Even if they have decided they don’t want her.”

  Jessup looked as if she agreed with this.

  “Then we take it,” Reg agreed, picking it up and handing it to Jessup. “What else? Do we have anything else we can use against them? Or protect us from them?” The thought of having to physically fight the powerful little child-faced creatures made her sick. Reg Rawlins was better at running from fights than facing the music.

  “You’ve got fairy blood, which is helpful. Too bad we don’t have the changeling. How about the cat?” Corvin wrinkled his nose. Reg knew he didn’t like her familiar. “Could he come along? Fairies and pixies both despise felis catus.”