by Martha Carr
“I tell Correk or no deal and I find out what’s going on, on my own. You can count on it.”
“Agreed. Tess the seer is still alive and living in a kemana city under Paris.”
Leira looked confused. “She’s human, that’s not possible.”
“She has the human spark like you do,” said Rhazdon. “The DNA mixes with other DNA and comes out in unpredictable ways like seeing the future, living longer or unheard of magical abilities.”
“No, you don’t talk. Not to me, not yet… or ever. No…” Leira shook her head. “You kept so much from me and you’re my mentor, Turner.”
“I have been keeping Tess’ secret for hundreds of years. Every Fixer makes that promise. Before you ask, no Correk doesn’t know yet. He will not have the pleasure of a smooth transition like I did. Magic is slowly returning to Earth and this time technology is in the way and nothing is routine or predictable.”
“The shifters… that’s your doing. You started this particular string of hell.”
Turner sat down heavily in a chair. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. Rhazdon is not the creator of dark magic, only a grand master at using it. Things happen in layers over time. Shifters were first brought into being so long ago no one can remember how it started. They hide among us on both worlds already and have for years. Many manage to get up, go to work, have families and fit in right under our noses.”
“That’s not what I saw at the vineyard. They looked crazed.”
“That part is my doing.” Rhazdon lifted her chin defiantly.
It reminded Leira of the battle on Lavender Rock. The losses… Larry… Grandmother Willen… There were so many reasons not to trust this woman. A shifter in her own right who took on many forms.
“I combined two very powerful spells to create shifters who found it difficult to think for themselves.” Rhazdon gave an anxious smile. “It seems to have fallen into the wrong hands in my absence.”
“You cursed a Light Elf from the royal court and then topped that off by shoving him into the world in between. You set in motion a plot that killed the Prince.”
“Yes…” Rhazdon bit her lip, choosing her words carefully. “The curse as you call it. It’s why he’s out of control. Lucius always did have a strong mind but he’s fighting the spell and all those years in the void has turned him into something unexpected that draws in the essence of dark magic like metal to a magnet. They seek each other out and it only makes him stronger and yet, adds to his confusion and his rage.”
“I imagine he has a few things to say to you, in particular.”
“I imagine I’m the only thing he really wants in any reality you can conjure so that he can finally absorb me into his revenge.”
Leira finally took her first full assessment of Rhazdon, forcing herself to push whatever anger she was holding out of the way. “You’re hoping he catches you. He’s your ticket out of this world.”
“No… not yet. I have to reverse some of what I’ve done, if I can.” Rhazdon hung her head. “I was wrong to come after you. Let me do some good in the world before I go. Heed my warnings. The darkness that fills his body seeks out energy and since I no longer have much, it wants you. Learn my knowledge while there’s still time. Help the world accept the gates opening.”
Two familiar strands of magic came up through the Earth and entwined themselves around Leira, vibrating as they climbed. Leira smelled lilac in the air and felt the gentle nature of her mother, and the fortitude of her grandmother wrapping around her shoulders. They had felt her pain and come to join her, to remind her of what matters in the end. Leira felt the anger loosen just enough. “You get one chance with me. One narrow chance and only because so much hangs in the balance.”
“Then we had better get started. Removing the darkness from the shifters will not be easy.”
“I take it changing them back to average Joe’s is off the table.”
“That has been tried and usually steals their humanity as well, leaving them as empty shells. The most I can offer is to at least give them back their freedom to choose.”
Leira shifted in her leather jacket. If Nana and Mom can do this… “Okay… I’m listening.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Leira listened to as much of Rhazdon’s stories as she could stand, long into the night. She paced the room, taking breaks to run around the estate, digesting as much as she could, only to come back and listen to more. Rhazdon laid out her entire sordid life, trying to leave out some details but Leira pressed her for every corner.
On one of the runs she circled the estate again and again as Turner stood at the window, watching her under the moonlight. They were getting to Rhazdon’s years as the false prophet and Correk’s name came up. Leira bolted for a run leaving Rhazdon in mid-sentence. She lapped the house several times, finally stopping on the back lawn by the lake, leaping over a cement gnome, sweat dripping off the tip of her nose. I still want revenge. Some taste of it.
She pulled out her phone to call Hagan and hash it out with him. He might be able to see it as a case, despite everything but she saw the time, four a.m.
“Hello…”
“Correk? Did I wake you?” She had wanted to wait to tell him. But she knew there was never going to be an easy time. This would wound him deeply. That Rhazdon held the key to anything and they would have to take her help. That was the thing churning inside of Leira. The bitch still had the power to hurt someone Leira cared about and there was nothing she could do to stop it, except tell the truth.
“No…yeah, kind of. I was waiting up, but I must have dozed off. Where are you? Did something happen?”
She heard the concern in his voice followed by a giant yawn and instantly thought of a joke, something to make him laugh, but she bit her lip, hesitating.
“You still there? Hello?”
He should hear it from me. “I’m here at Turner Underwood’s place. He has Rhazdon. She showed up to help.” Her voice cracked in the middle and she pressed her lips together, determined to let Correk talk it out, but instead there was silence.
For once, she broke one of Hagan’s rules and talked first. “Okay, I guess it’s my turn. You still there?” Fuck, caring about someone… She could feel how fast her heart was beating.
Correk let out the breath he was holding, resting his head in his hand. He sat forward on the couch, trying to figure out what to say.
He thought of his days next to the king. Stick to the mission when you don’t know what else to do. “Has she given us anything useful?”
Leira’s eyes were glistening as she looked up at the stars. “All of it. She’s dying and she says she’s trying to make things right before that happens. Something cliche about the error of her ways.”
“You believe her?”
“Not for a minute. But her intel could help us figure out what the hell is going on and how to get ahead of it before there’s some kind of war. I keep picturing shifters running loose, like a bad remake of Werewolf of London but this version would have the army involved. I saw one tear a powerful Witch’s throat out. She didn’t stand a chance. He was enormous and came walking out of the dark mist. Nana showed up at just the right moment… It was bad.”
Silence fell between them and Leira just let it be for a moment. Frogs sang down by the water. “Nana said he was her tormentor in the world in between. That beast or shifter from hell ran the joint.”
“Lucius… You’re talking about Lucius… He was a friend of my father’s. We never knew what happened to him.” Correk was making himself take deep, slow breaths, even if his fist was clenched at his side.
“You know about that…”
“Turner told me that much.” He looked over at the red velvet chair where Leira always dropped her purse and her blue and orange running shoes, her favorites, one on top of the other by the door. “I can do this. I can do this for the greater good.” He pounded his fist on the couch, willing it to be true. “Get what you can out of her. Do something wit
h it that will help as many as possible.”
Leira blurted out the words. “I’ll walk this with you. We’ll face all of this together. I mean…” Her words tripped over each other. Damn, I didn’t know I had this much awkward in me. Too late now, might as well keep going. “I know we face things together already, but that’s just because you were assigned to watch over me.” Get to the point. “I’ll look out for you… because I want to.”
“Leira… Leira… my assignment ended a long time ago.” He managed to let out a small laugh. “I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because I woke up from almost dying and all I could think of was coming back here to be by you. You can be a little slow on the uptake. You take a fireball to the head?”
She let out a deep breath, relieved. “More like I was standing in the middle of a shifter stampede and lived to tell about it.” She looked back up at the stars, trying to remember the constellations of Oriceran. “I meant what I said, I’ll walk through this with you. May have to be a slow walk, still not the best at the whole feeling thing but I’ll do it. Correk? I wanted to ask her so many questions, to make Rhazdon suffer. But then, I felt my mother’s energy and Nana’s energy and I was wrapped in it and I couldn’t do it. But what she did to you…”
“She didn’t succeed. I’m still here and in one piece. Get what you can out of her and we’ll compare notes. We should tell the Gardener. Perrom thinks he knows more about shifters than he’s telling us. Come home soon. We’ll make a plan.”
“There may not be a fast solution. According to Rhazdon, you have to get close to a shifter to remove the darkness and there’s that whole fangs and claws thing.”
“We’ll get everyone to meet at the sanctuary and work out a plan that can adapt when necessary…”
“Probably daily… I should get back in there and get a little more before I take off. Yumfuck was with me but he took off. Said something about cleaning up the streets.”
“He is Batfuck… You could have stopped him.”
“He can take care of himself. You should have seen him fight today. He is a badass super hero.”
“I’ll be here when you get back… unless the Fixer alarm goes off.”
“This is a much weirder life than I was anticipating a year ago.”
“We’re just getting started… Go get what you can and get home.”
Leira hung up the phone before she realized she hadn’t told Correk everything. Tess is alive and living under Paris. She shook her head. “Information overload.” Her brain was already swimming from all the information. “There’s time to tell him everything. I need a shower, a nap and a breakfast taco. I’m not sure in what order. And I’m talking to myself. Fuck me.” She stretched her back and took one last look up at the moon. “I can do this… we can do this.”
***
Yumfuck Tiberius Troll stood on the curb on the East side of Austin in the dim light of a street lamp wearing his blue cape and mask, slightly worse for wear from the fight at the vineyard. At the last moment he had remembered to gather them up on their way back to the portal. The cape had a rip from a claw, trampled by the shifters as they ran, and the mask was covered in dirt stains. The troll didn’t care. “I am Batfuck.”
He puffed out his chest and put his hands on his hips, turning in a circle looking for trouble. He jumped onto a nearby parked car and scrambled over the top, landing on the hood to get a better view.
Nothing.
A silver Honda Accord was sliding to a stop next to him and he saw his chance, leaping onto the roof and hanging ten over the edge of the front window, his arms out like he was riding a wave, his cape flying behind him.
The car turned a corner as they passed a Ford Explorer and a sleepy child raised his head in the backseat. “Hey, it’s Mighty Mouse! He’s real!” The boy pressed his nose up against the glass, turning in his seat as the Honda pulled away from them. The troll spotted the boy and waved, flexing his muscles. “I am Batfuck,” he chirped.
“Go back to sleep Joey, you’re dreaming.”
The Honda drove toward the frontage road to the interstate and Yumfuck leapt onto a passing red truck just in time. He wanted to stay in the neighborhood streets. Better chance of finding a crime to stop. The truck stopped at a convenience store and the troll overheard the driver calling his wife and telling her he’d be home in a few minutes with the diapers.
No action here.
The troll climbed up to the roof of the cab and held on as the truck finally got going again, pulling out of the parking lot. He saw his chance and jumped to a BMW, hooking his claws under the seam of the convertible’s roof, making it possible for him to stand up even as the car picked up speed.
But before he could do anything about it, the car easily pulled onto the highway headed north.
“Uh oh…” The troll’s cheeks flapped in the wind from the rush of air as he watched the signs fly by. Pflugerville, Round Rock, Georgetown… A semi hauling furniture pulled up behind the BMW, its lights shining directly on Yumfuck who turned and pumped his little arm, startling the tired driver who obliged and pulled the air horn right before he got off at the next exit to sleep for the night. “I am more tired than I thought. My hallucinations are waving at me.”
By the time the sun rose, Yumfuck was in Waco at a cattle ranch listening to the lowing of a herd of longhorns. “Damn, wrong outfit. Should have worn my boots. Next time. Aloha motherfuckers!” He waved to the cattle who looked up for a moment and quietly went back to chewing the grass. “Few hiccups but a pretty good start. Rescued a cat, went on an adventure. Check and check.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Charlie Monaghan sat behind his desk in his home office stewing. No one was taking his calls anymore. His eyes were sunken and his skin was ashen from a lack of sleep and he was wearing the same shirt from a few days ago. Everything he had so meticulously built was falling apart. The board had held a meeting to make him emeritus and remove all daily duties, stripping him of power. They expected a fight, but the blackouts were becoming more frequent and there wasn’t much fight left in him. What there was left of his old voracious ambition was focused on holding the bits and pieces of his sanity together.
That wasn’t working either, and he knew it.
His wife had left their home along River Road in Richmond and gone to stay with her sister in the Hamptons for a while until Charlie could get his shit together. He roamed the house at night, staring at old photographs taken at political rallies and fundraisers where he was one of the stars.
All gone.
He wandered out of his office and headed for the kitchen, toasting a photo hanging in the hallway of himself and the governor, raising a Waterford glass of two fingers worth of Ragged Branch bourbon. “How the hell did I get here?” He took a healthy swallow and set the glass down on a tall, skinny mahogany table set by the stairs. “Somebody has to still owe me something. I know too much! That has to still be a card I could play. What if I started talking about all the Oriceran food getting ground into people’s cornflakes. I can crawl my way back if I have to.”
He wrapped his hands around his head and squeezed tight, shutting his eyes. “No, can’t let in any distractions. Doctors said there’s nothing wrong with me that a vacation couldn’t fix.” He wiped his sweaty face on the sleeve of his pale blue cotton button down shirt and shook his head, hard. “I’ll take a vacation when someone takes my goddamn phone calls!” His shouts echoed in the empty house.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Senator Thatcher’s office, standing up straighter to get into character. “I can do this. Just like a million other times.”
“Senator Thatcher’s office.”
“Hey, Wendy, it’s Charlie Monaghan. Can you put me through?”
There was a slight pause, something new. “The Senator is in with constituents, but I can let him know you called. Was there a message?”
Same kind of bullshit message I tell my secretary to tell people. It wasn’t helping his mood. “
You can tell the sumabitch I have a long fucking memory and to put me back on the list of acceptable callers.” He hung up before Wendy could answer him in what he knew would be the same even, light tone.
He picked up the glass and threw back the rest of the bourbon and headed back to his office.
The spinning relic still sat on his desk, mocking him. “You! You were the start of my problems. I blame you. Had to go playing with magic.”
He rested his fingertips lightly on the edge of the metal, surprised it wasn’t sparking or burning his skin. He gave the artifact a gentle spin, listening to the low-pitched moan it gave off as he poured himself more bourbon.
I can make them fear you.
“What?” Charlie looked up, feeling the edge of the darkness coming over him.
It happened a lot lately just before a blackout. He was finding himself in strange places more and more. Standing on a train platform at 126th in New York City during the morning commute or walking down 6th Street in Austin or even standing in the backyard of Senator Allan Kacy’s home in Hanover County, staring up at an old oak tree in the middle of the night. The howl of distant wolves startled him out of his stupor that time sending a chill down his spine. Wolves in Richmond… really?
You want them to fear you? I can do that for you. Open yourself to me. You can still have it all. No need to settle.
The voice was female, low and soothing, familiar. She had been whispering to him for weeks.
“My only fucking friend is a porn star in my head. Perfect.” He swished the bourbon around in his mouth and swallowed.
Open yourself to me, take back what’s rightfully yours. Make them fear you.
Charlie looked out the window at his lawn, still perfect, carefully tended to by the service that came like clockwork. He blinked his eyes, trying to remember what time of day it was and looked down at his wrist, startled to find his favorite watch wasn’t resting there. Somehow, that unmoored him most of all.