Witches, Voids, and Other Sanity Suckers

I don’t want to incite panic in the Paranormal Community by sounding the alarm about the test tube Shifters. It’ll make my pack a target for the scared and the trigger-happy. I can’t, in good conscience, leave the PC in the dark, either. Though I don’t attend the monthly mixers or open houses, I am a member of the community. They are my friends and my clients.

“I don’t want to go back in there.” Princess digs in her heels outside the club. She winds her arms around her waist in a self-hug and curls in her shoulders. Her eyes look wilder than before. She shakes her head sharply enough to rattle her brain. “I’m not being difficult. Promise. I shouldn’t go in there. There’s too much.”

Okay. Okay. I’m not going to push her. Not for this. If this plays out the way I dread it will, I’m going need her at the top of her game. “I can call Jose and have him pick you up.”

We should have brought him, anyway. He’s being paid to be her handler. He can be the one to hand her mouthwash and water. He can remember to pack the barf bags. He can walk with her around the building when things get too heavy. He can be the one she uses to limit the amount of magic… no, actually, that’s not too bad. I’ll keep that one. She drains from the most powerful in the room, and that’s always going to be me.

She points at a café across the street. “I’d rather go have a cup of coffee. Greer wants an update on the Claire thing, and you may need more info for the Patriarch.”

“Do you have your phone on you?”

She jangles her purse.

“Sit at one of the tables in the window where I can see you. One cup of coffee. Then you come back here and wait outside.”

Because she hasn’t done enough to my blood pressure, Az dashes across the street without looking both ways. Or even one way. She’s damn lucky it’s too early for heavy traffic. I wait until I see her plop down in a chair near a window to return to the club.

The Patriarch and Greer cut off their discussion as soon as I step inside the bloodbath. Greer looks shifty. Then again, he often looks shifty. I’m starting to believe it’s his natural state. The Patriarch looks troubled. Just wait until he hears what I have to say. But I won’t announce it in front of an audience.

Greer is responsible for investigating crimes that involve the PC, but he doesn’t understand the members of the PC. He doesn’t understand how we think or how we act. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be hunted.

“Where is Reader Stanton?” The Patriarch asks.

“She required a break.” I need to speak to the Patriarch alone. Hopefully Az won’t be too pissed at what I’m about to do to her. I catch Greer’s eye and tilt my head toward the door. “I apologize. She was pretty shook up. I should have prepped her better. This was her first big crime scene, and she wasn’t ready for all the gore.”

Like the good Boy Scout he is, Greer offers to sit with her. The way he pants after her is nauseating, and on any other day I’d smack him down for it, but today it works in my favor. He feels the need to play the white knight, and I need him out of my hair.

The Patriarch strokes his beard as he carefully navigates around the bodies between us. Pretty damn impressive considering I have trouble with two legs and he has four. Wizened brown eyes hold my gaze. “What is so sensitive as to require such secrecy and subterfuge, Alpha?”

“May we speak in private?” There are a few cops and a handful of the Patriarch’s guards milling around. I’m not ready for this to go public just yet.

He leads me to a back room. It’s cluttered and smells like a blend of maraschino cherries and beer. He stands behind the rickety metal desk and gestures at a padded office chair. One of the wheels is missing. The padding smells like a brewery. I think I’ll stand.

“We’re under attack,” I announce. Despite their preference for flowery speech, centaurs prefer to receive bad news bluntly. It’s just one of those lessons you learn the hard way.

“The magic on the victims,” he surmises.

“You smelled it.” I should have known. If it was enough for me to smell on the small bit of fur Az stole, then there must have been enough for the Patriarch to pick up.

“Yes, but I cannot place its origin. It is as familiar as it is foreign. Quite the conundrum.”

No shit. “Have you heard of a Gravita Inker?”

His eyes widen. His nostrils flare. The distinct odor of fear overpowers the scent of stale beer. It’s not much of an improvement. “I have lobbied to have them banned.”

“There is a shop in town that has sold several to local witches. The list of witches spans covens. There does not seem to be a pattern to the purchases, either.”

“The Inker is as dangerous for you and yours as it is for my kind.” The Patriarch braces his hands on the desk. “Do you mean to tell me that the Inker was somehow used to perpetrate these murders?”

Az and I haven’t fully fleshed out our theory, but I explain the basics to the Patriarch. Some jackoff is controlling witches to do his dirty work, the main gist of which seems to be geared toward creating a race of magic-created Shifters he has complete power over. The jackoff uses his fake Shifters to take out anyone in the area who would stop him so he can fill the void created by the lack of a Mage in the area.

It sounds as crazy out loud as it does in my head. It also sounds a lot like a certain Mage I know and despise could be the puppet master. Az said that there was a battle over territory. There isn’t a Mage alive who doesn’t want more power. It’s as fundamental as the need for oxygen.

“Has young Astraea Vardan given any indication that she knows the name of the architect of this nefarious plan?”

Yeah. Okay. He knows who Az is. Just as I figured. “Regretfully, Az Stanton does not know at this moment, but we are working diligently on it.”

“You have incorporated her into your pack?”

There hasn’t been a formal ritual because I don’t care much about that ceremony crap. I don’t trust the gleam in his eyes. Centaurs are crafty bastards. Most people say it’s because they’ve had a lifetime of being under attack. Shifters don’t exactly live on easy street, either. We protect what’s ours even if it means pissing off the Patriarch of the Herd.

“She’s mine.”

The Patriarch bobs his head in acknowledgement. “I applaud your acquisition of such a valuable resource. Rest assured, Alpha, that I have no desire to see her removed from your pack.”

“Thank you.” I don’t bother telling him that it just sort of worked out this way, or that he’d change his tune about valuable if he spent more than a handful of hours with her.

Funny how it just worked out that the Mage of New Orleans’s daughter drops into my lap right before all this shit blew up. Funny how she’s exactly the sort that fits right in with my pack. Funny how she’s crazy and non-threatening and cute and easily worms her way past my long-held defenses. Having her around is as natural as breathing.

Funny how she’s standing in the room when I told her to wait outside. Okay, so that part is not surprising. I’d have been shocked if she actually followed instructions.

My grip on her bicep is just short of punishing. I don’t want to alert the Patriarch to my sudden suspicions about Az. “Please pardon us, Patriarch. I need to speak to my reader outside.”

Az doesn’t protest as I march her out the back door and into the alley. She doesn’t try to free her arm either. It isn’t until I look at her face that I realize she’s mumbling to herself. The fingers of her left hand twitch as if she’s counting off something.

“Why are you here?”

No answer.

I shake her shoulders to get her attention. When she finally looks up at me, she has to blink to focus. I give her another shake just to make sure I keep her interest. “Why are you here, Astraea?”

“Right here in this alley or are you asking for a more existential answer?”

“Being cute won’t help anything.”

Her grin stretches from ear to ear. Playful and cheery. It’s infectious. Pity I have to ruin her good mood. “It never hurt anything, either. What’s going on?”

“Your father is trying to take over my city, and you’re spying for him.”

Her grin doesn’t falter. “No.”

That’s it? Just no? No outrage? No laughing it off? No trying to plead her case?

“To which part, Princess?”

“To all of it.”

She starts to lean against the wall, but stops before her shoulders make contact with the brick. Probably a good idea. No telling what sort of action that wall has seen.

“This is too sloppy to be a Mage,” she says. “There’s no finesse. It’s blunt. Ugly. A show of brute strength. If a Mage wanted to take over your city, you wouldn’t know it was happening until one day you realize you’ve been paying dues to the Council.”

“So your father is not behind this? You’re not just saying that because he’s blood?”

Az’s grin melts like ice cream in August. Her eyes flick down to her shoes before rising to meet mine. I expect to see shuttered pain, but open honesty shines brightly. This Az – the one who is serious and straightforward – should be my favorite incarnation of Princess. It’s not. I miss the playfulness. I’m a masochist, but that’s an internal debate for another time.

“He’s no saint. Not by a long shot. And whatever I feel for him is nothing more than nostalgia. When I tell you that it’s not him, it’s not out of affection. It’s logic. He wouldn’t have sent me here if he was performing this type of magic. He taught me this magic. He knows that I would recognize it and could offset it.”

It makes sense, but it doesn’t allay all my doubts. “He expected me to kill you. He all but ordered me to do so.”

If she’s disturbed by either the thought of me killing or her father ordering her death, she gives no indication. “That’s a pretty big risk to take. Shifters don’t obey orders from Mages.”

“Did he know this was going to happen? You said you’d recognize the magic and could negate it. He trained you. Did he send you here to keep someone from taking over?”

“Not everything is a grand conspiracy, Ricky.” She shrugs and pauses as if contemplating some deep philosophical matter. “Should I tell you why I’m here and not under lock and key in another hellhole in an M state?”

“Gee. The truth. That’d be nice.”

The sarcasm goes right over her pretty head. “I’m not supposed to know. No one is but I’m home so infrequently that he forgets when I’m in the room. There are two warlocks in Dad’s territory – one in Lafayette and one in Tuscaloosa – that are just itching to get out from under his thumb. Every time he puts me somewhere, he has to spend an obscene amount of money bribing people. Then he has to burn a bridge when he wipes memories and moves me. He can’t afford the money or the loss of contacts. Not anymore.”

So basically Daddy Vardan got off cheap. Well, now I feel used. Judging by her arched eyebrow, I’d say she knows how I interpreted her words. Touché, Princess.

“And you aren’t here to spy for him.”

She rolls her eyes. I suppose that’ll have to do for an answer. Given that all he likely sees is the crazy Az, he wouldn’t consider her a reliable source of information. I won’t apologize for my suspicions. She hasn’t been exactly forthcoming until now, and I don’t trust convenient situations.

“Where is Greer?”

“Outside the club. There was an… incident… with a motorcycle.”

I don’t even want to know. “Why weren’t you waiting for me out front like I told you to?”

Az perks up. It’s as if our previous conversation never happened. One of these days she’s going to give me mental whiplash.

“We need to find the dead witches!” Trembling fingers dig a cheap paper napkin out of her cardigan pocket and thrust it at me. “See. I did the math twice just to be sure. It adds up.”

I hold the napkin between two fingers. Nearly every inch is covered with ink. Letters and numbers blend together in a strange hybrid of calculus, physics and magic. Just glancing at it makes my temples throb.

“I wasn’t aware there were dead witches.”

“There have to be. No one person can handle the amount of magic required to create even one Shifter.”

The things that did this are not Shifters. They don’t deserve the appellation. Their obvious loss of control is the complete opposite of how Shifters are trained. Those mindless beasts wouldn’t last two minutes in a real pack.

I don’t realize I’m growling until Az flinches. She shuffles away from me, wraps herself up like a mummy in that damn cardigan. As if that bit of cotton could save her from a Shifter claw.

“Half-assed Shifters. Not-Shifters,” she corrects quietly. “The point is, he had to funnel the magic through several witches. It would have burned them out. Worse than what I did to Claire. Nothing but husks left.”

“He uses them as conduits.”

She nods enthusiastically. “Drained and useless as dead batteries.” She blanches, presses a hand over her lips. “That was rude.”

Rude, but accurate. And potentially useful. That level of magic transfer leaves residue in the air. Three years ago, the heads of two covens had a spell-casting duel in the middle of Hermann Park. For six days afterwards, the park was quarantined due to a critically high level of magic.

Thanks to that little incident, there are sensors all over downtown that monitor the magic levels in the atmosphere. Areas outside the beltway aren’t monitored as closely, but several neighborhoods have independent monitoring systems. All are hackable. If we don’t pick anything up through the sensors, I have my own magic detector handy.

“You have a plan, don’t you?” Az asks, peering up at me through her lashes.

“We find the dead witches.”

“Good plan.” She loops an arm around my waist. Apparently I am forgiven for frightening her. “Just so long as I don’t have to lick anything.”