Witches, Voids, and Other Sanity Suckers

“Seriously, Rick,” Greer says, rubbing the back of his neck. “What the hell is going on around here?”

Az pops up from the chair. She’s as skittish as a deer. “Okay. You boys have fun here. I’m going to find Olivet’s secret stash.”

What? No. I need her to help explain this to Greer. This isn’t like the other crackpot theories I’ve brought to him before. This takes stretching the imagination to a new level. “We’ll get to it after, Princess.”

“But, this is just surface stuff. I don’t think he did much of the hardcore magic here, but there has to be something. You can talk to Greer without me.”

“Sit. Down.”

She sits. And glares. She mouths something at me, but I can’t understand her. I know it’s not a balding spell or anything like that, so I don’t worry too much about it.

Greer doesn’t sit. I don’t either. He paces in front of window with his hands stuffed in his pockets. I lean against the front of the desk and cross my ankles. The position may appear relaxed to anyone who wanders in but every muscle is tensed in preparation for an attack.

“Olivet is using magic to create creatures that are similar to Shifters,” I say, knowing that being blunt is the best way to start.

Greer snorts. “He’s making Shifters? How stupid do you think I am, Rick?”

“They’re not Shifters,” Az corrects. “We’ve been calling them not-Shifters. Get it?”

No one laughs. Her glare morphs into a pout. Greer and I ignore her.

“From what I figure, Olivet is a warlock looking to take over the city. He can’t do that while the pack is around, and he can’t beat us on his own.”

Comprehension irons out the creases on Greer’s forehead. He swears under his breath and slams a hand against the wall. “So he’s creating his own army to take you down.”

“Yes.”

Greer eyes me warily. “You’re too calm about this. How long have you known?”

“No confirmation until today,” I say. Telling him that I’ve suspected for days would only piss him off even more. He doesn’t need to know, and I don’t want to deal with a tantrum. It’s bad enough I have to deal with the pouting Princess.

“How is he doing it?”

As one, he and I turn to Az. She rolls her eyes but launches into an explanation about centaur blood, various rites, and how it’s a little like reanimating a stuffed animal. At least, that’s what I get out of the explanation. She offers to detail the math and specifics of the rites, but Greer waves her off. I wonder if his head aches, too.

“Goddamn witches.” Greer slams his hand again. I hear a bone crack. He doesn’t complain. Lines of pain blend in with the anger on his boyish face.

“That seems to be a common sentiment,” Az observes.

Greer’s eyes narrow on her. He takes one step forward. A second. Something about the stiff line of his spine sets my teeth on edge. Before he can take a third step, I growl. He stops walking but continues to try to eviscerate her with his stare.

“Olivet calls you a witch.” Greer’s statement is bit out through clenched teeth. His fists are on his hips. His face is nearly purple with rage. “How the fuck do I know I can trust you? How do I know you aren’t in on this? What if that memory thing was just a trick to get me to trust you?”

Az is out of the chair before I move to rip Greer’s venomous tongue out of his mouth. The warm, soft hand she places on my forearm is the only thing that keeps me from tearing off his head. Despite my best efforts to keep her behind me and away from Greer, she positions herself so that she’s between us.

“Detective Greer, I understand your frustration. Having something as sacrosanct as your mind violated by anyone can be a terrifying thing. It can make you suspicious of everyone.” She tries to smile, but it comes off more like a grimace. The hand on my arm twitches. “But Olivet’s notes also say that I’m the daughter of the Mage of New Orleans.”

Oh, God. Where is she going with this? Pointing out the one thing Olivet got right about her is not a good way to refute Greer’s claim that she’s a witch.

“So?” Greer asks. He barks the question, but his fists have relaxed. He’s softening towards Az. Probably due, in part, to the fact that she’s a pretty girl in a pretty skirt.

This time, the smile blossoms into something genuine. “Do you really think the Mage of New Orleans would let his daughter go anywhere without a cadre of guards? That he’d let her hang out with – gasp – a Shifter?”

Greer can be obtuse at times, and he irritates me more often than not, but even he knows that Shifters and witches – and warlocks and Mages by extension – do not get along. Witches think they are better than Shifters while Shifters know that they are better than witches.

“But you were able to break the memory spell. And you’re Rick’s magic expert. All that equals witch.”

Oh hell. There’s someone growling in the room and, for once it’s not me. Maybe I’m glad I am not the one between Az and Greer. She is terrifying and beautiful when truly angry, like a vengeful goddess descending from the heavens.

“You don’t have to be a witch to know magic.” Az’s hand falls away from my arm. She settles one fist on her cocked hip and gestures passionately with the other. She is radiant with rage. “In fact, most witches don’t know jack about real magic. When you have the power, it’s easy to ignore the details. You forget things like the origin and intent of spells. You don’t give a damn about where the power comes from or how easily it can be taken from you.”

Greer throws his hands up in supplication. “Okay, you’re not a witch.”

“You don’t see me walking around calling anyone who has ever played Clue a detective, do you?”

“I am very sorry, Ms. Stanton,” Greer apologizes.

Az deflates. Swings back to cheery in the blink of an eye. “Oh, it’s okie-dokie. Everyone makes mistakes.”

Greer’s mouth falls open. It seems our dear detective has as hard a time as I do keeping up with her mood swings. He should try living with Az and Ike.

Of course, he can’t let it go like anyone with two brain cells would do. “You broke the memory spell.”

“Breaking spells isn’t the same as creating them. I can negate magic.” She doesn’t tell him that it’s not something she has a choice over, nor does she go into specifics about what it means to be a void. “Nothing on the scale of these not-Shifters, though, I am sorry to say.”

“And you said something about the items in this room being only the surface stuff?” Greer’s segue isn’t exactly smooth, but it will keep all his limbs intact.

Az gestures at the items on the desk. “This is what you’d expect to find in any warlock’s drawer. It’s practically a magic-user’s starter kit. Olivet has to have the good stuff hidden away somewhere.”

We find Az’s “good stuff” in the small room off of the master bedroom. The room hits every cliché for a secret, dark magic den of iniquity. Fat, black candles? Check. Stinky cauldron? Check. Shelves of jarred herbs? Check. Eyeballs swimming in a preservative solution? Check. Animal parts? Check. Thick leather-bound, yellowed magic book? Check.

Gravita Inker with dried blood smeared on the side? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Az sends Greer off on a search for a box while she and I search the room. I don’t need her to remind me to keep my hands in my pockets. Unlike her, I don’t have built-in protection.

“If I promise none of this will harm the pack, can I bring it home with me?” she asks. “I’d like to take my time, and having Greer breathing down my neck messes with my concentration. He is remarkably annoying today.”

Understandable. I’ll have to talk with Ike about building a magic bunker somewhere in the yard. Not only will it protect the rest of the pack, but it will give her a place to breathe. Tensions can run high when Shifters stay cooped up for too long.

“We’ll pack up whatever you want, Princess.” The sooner I can lay eyes on my pack mates, the better. I have gotten status updates from those who went to work, but that doesn’t ease my worry.

She sets down the muslin bag of herbs she’d been examining and studies me instead. She reads my face as easily as she reads her books. “Do you want me to call Jose and check on the others? I’m sure everything’s okay. He or Hank would have called if something was wrong.”

“We’ll leave soon.”

Greer returns with two cardboard boxes. His phone is propped between his shoulder and his ear. He hovers in the doorway while Az tosses in the items she wants to take. I expect her to take the Gravita Inker so that it won’t fall in to anyone else’s hands, though I’m not happy about having it near my Shifters.

Without a word of explanation, she picks up a pestle and proceeds to bash the hell out of the Inker. By the time she is finished, all that remains is an unrecognizable lump of metal. She covers it with both hands, pauses for a moment, and then chucks it in the trashcan.

“That was potential evidence,” Greer protests as he returns his phone to his pocket.

Ha. “Do you really think that once I get my hands on Olivet this will go to trial?” I ask, perfectly serious. He’s deluding himself if he thinks that this will end any other way.

Greer slaps his hands over his ears. His glare bounces off my skin. “I can’t hear things like that, Rick!” He frowns at Az. “I don’t condone the destruction of evidence. Do it again, without good cause, and I’ll arrest you.”

“That was something highly dangerous and of no use to you.” She arches a pale eyebrow. “Unless there’s something you’d like to tell me, Detective.”

“What did it do?”

Without batting an eyelash, Az lies to Greer. “Drains blood. I’ve been told it also causes permanent male pattern baldness and sterility. Possibly syphilis. Breaking it renders it unusable, and I killed the magic.”

Greer swallows, but doesn’t raise a fuss over the destruction of the inker. “That call I got? Two centaurs were killed. A father and son. The son was home sick from school, and the father was staying with him. Initial report looks like a break-in gone bad. They lived in River Oaks.”

A break-in gone bad? At a centaur’s house? Shortly after a massacre at a known centaur hotspot? Yeah, right. Looks like I won’t be going home anytime soon.

When I look over at Princess to see how she’s processing this development, she is scribbling furiously across the side of one of the cardboard boxes. She’s whispering to herself, oblivious to the two men staring at her. The formulas left in the wake of her pen are familiar.

I tap on the table to get her attention. “Az?”

She blinks up at me, pen still poised over cardboard. “The pack killed at least two not-Shifters yesterday. He has to replace them, but it takes one centaur to make one not-Shifter. I hadn’t quite gotten that far in my calculations, but it makes sense. You can stuff something full of magic, but it takes a spark to bring it to life.”

So if we know how many centaurs Olivet has killed, we can get an idea of how many not-Shifters he has. “Greer, can you do a search on centaur deaths over the past eighty days? I’d say a 200 mile radius is a good start.”

“I’ll call it in on the way to the scene,” Greer agrees.

“You’re going to find at least one dead witch,” Az predicts grimly. “Not at this scene, but somewhere in the city.”

“Like the ones off Riley Fuzzel?” Greer pales. He tugs at the collar of his shirt. Pansy.

“Yes,” she says. She glances around the room and closes both cardboard boxes. “I’m done here.”

“We’ll follow you to the scene.” I tuck one box under my arm while Az carries the other. I need to make sure the magic inside the house didn’t batter her defenses too badly. There’s no telling how much magic we’ll encounter at the crime scene.

“You’re worrying,” Az says as soon as the SUV doors are closed. “It makes me antsy. I’ll call Jose right now.”

“No. I mean, yes. Call him for an update. That’s not what I’m worried about, though.” The way she jumbles me up is alarming. What happened to my self-control?

“I doubt the not-Shifters will launch an attack so soon. If it were me, I’d want to analyze the results. Figure out where the not-Shifters went wrong and try to correct the problems.”

“Or you could hit while the pack was still weak, and try to finish them off.”

“But that would put your soldiers at risk, which increases the likelihood of defeat. Plus, you’ve used up a great deal of magic, and even if you’re using witches as conduits it takes its toll. You’d need a breather. Performing magic of this magnitude when exhausted is a surefire way to blow yourself up.”

“But you’d kill two centaurs in cold blood in daylight.”

“Two centaurs, safe at home, aren’t a pack of Shifters.” Az nods as if that’s the end of the debate. Before I can voice my counterargument, she’s on the phone with Jose.

A simple phone call to check on my injured Shifters takes her fifteen minutes. Not only does she report on the pack, she informs me that three trackers were removed from vehicles, dinner is likely to be pot roast with veggies, Oscar and Tommy aren’t on speaking terms, and Jose has a coffee date with his librarian in three days.

“I think Tommy should be the one to apologize,” she muses. “Even I know that Oscar is sensitive about being smaller than everyone else. I mean, minks are cute and all, and he is a behemoth compared to real minks, but still. He’s no wolf or fox.”

“I think we should let them sort it out themselves. If they can’t or if they pull others into their fight, then I’ll get involved.” When it doesn’t look like she’s going to agree with me, I tap her knee until she meets my eyes. “I mean it, Az. They have to work it out on their own. No meddling.”

“Fine,” she huffs. “Are you through worrying now, worrywart?”

“Are you going to be okay going to the crime scene?”

“Are you going to make me lick anything?”

“No promises.”

She gags, but doesn’t argue. “I’ll be fine. I still feel a little wonky, but I should be able to pick up on anything out of place. I didn’t absorb too much in the house.”

There isn’t anything at the crime scene for her to lick. The Centaurs were shot in the forehead and then drained of all their blood. Nothing magical about it at all. I won’t be a jerk and call it anticlimactic, but it is a disappointment.

“He’s getting desperate,” I suggest to Az. “No time for magic or finesse.”

“Well, it does make it look like a botched burglary so maybe he’s trying to cover his tracks,” she responds, eyes on the silent widow standing near the two covered bodies. “She’s standing Eraga. It’s a centaur tradition of protecting the spirits as they travel to the otherside. I’d like to help her, if you don’t need me. Grief should always be shared.”

I wave my hand in dismissal. My compassionate void scarpers off to the widow’s side, murmurs in the woman’s ear, and then stands between the two bodies. After few moments, the female centaur shuffles closer to Az and rests one small hand on Az’s shoulder. Az raises a hand to cover the centaur’s.

When the centaur opens her mouth and starts singing a low, mournful dirge, I search out Greer. He is outside the house examining the busted kitchen window. It’s the point of entry. They exited through the back door.

“Two sets of footprints.” Greer points to the impressions in the soft soil underneath the window. “The techs think the smaller set belongs to a female. The larger set is definitely male.”

The larger set is huge. Size thirteen, at least. Olivet’s feet hadn’t been that big. The footprints could belong to a not-Shifter. A not-Shifter to kill the centaurs and a witch to gather the blood?

“Detective!” a tech calls out from inside the kitchen. “You should see this!”

Greer and I poke our heads through the open window. The tech holds out a pair of tweezers. Clenched between the two metal pieces is a tuft of fur too dark and dense to be from a centaur. Fur like that comes from real animals or from Shifters.

Or from not-Shifters.