Witches, Voids, and Other Sanity Suckers

Az manages to charm the Patriarch of the Herd into forgetting her rudeness. I try to follow the conversation, but the fast-paced, stilted formality loses me. I figure my role is to stand behind her and just generally look threatening. It’s a role I excel at.

When she pinches my arm, I bow to the Patriarch. He bows in return. Formality. The centaurs eat it up.

“Our honored brother, the Alpha of Pack Houstonian,” the Patriarch greets. “It is a shame that we must meet under these circumstances.”

“I am grieved over the loss of your people,” I say.

It’s lame, but it’s the best I can come up with. I don’t know how he can stand there so calmly with centaur corpses only a few feet away. If they were Shifter corpses, there isn’t a force in the universe that would stop me from seeking out the killer and exacting retribution. I sure as hell wouldn’t wait for civilian law enforcement.

“Rick,” Greer says as he slaps me on the back. “You made good time.”

Touching me? He’s touching me? After I had to give up my morning to answer his summons? After I had to watch one of his rookies embarrass the department and all mankind with his quick trigger? All it takes is one low growl to get Greer to remove his hand before I remove it for him. At the elbow.

“Ms…,” Greer scratches his head. “I don’t know that I got your last name.”

“Stanton. Az Stanton.” Az holds out her hand for Greer to shake. He keeps it brief. Good for him. “Maybe you’ve met my brother Ike?”

“The architect. Mousy little thing,” Greer says, mostly to himself. “Yeah, I can see the resemblance now. Face and nose. I see it.”

People are, generally, stupid. The only thing Ike and Az have in common is color of hair and shade of skin. If Greer is the best the HPD has to offer, we’re all in deep shit.

The Patriarch looks at Az askance but doesn’t call her out. I don’t know if he’s met the Mage of New Orleans; it’s possible he knows her true parentage. I can only hope that the centaur’s’ distrust of witches won’t extend to Az.

“What has your expert said about the death of Claire Eras?” Greer asks.

Princess wraps her arm around mine again. “She was murdered. The killer used -.”

“Astral projection,” I interrupt.

Her head jerks up so quickly I’m surprised her neck doesn’t snap. Stormy blue eyes narrow a fraction. In times like these, I almost wish for telepathy. Come on, Princess. Don’t contradict me. If we can figure out that someone is from one of the old families because they used the Rite of Yulaga, then that someone can figure out that you’re from an old family because you recognized the rite, too. Come on, Princess.

Az blinks. She turns back to Greer and offers up that brilliant, thought-scattering smile. “Technically, the killer used Poerign. It’s a spell. An extreme form of astral projection. The caster has a measure of influence over physical surroundings.”

“Who would be able to perform such a spell?”

Az shakes her head and clucks her tongue as if she’s disappointed in Greer. “I will tell you everything you want to know about Poerign at a later date. We are not here to discuss the late Claire Eras. We are here for other, more pressing, matters.”

Greer’s ears turn a fascinating shade of crimson. He puffs out his cheeks and blows out a breath. One arm sweeps out to encompass the trashed club. “It was a waitress’s birthday, so the staff and a few regulars stayed after closing time to celebrate. Around four this morning, five male humanoids burst in through the back doors, killed one busboy on kitchen cleanup, and then started in on the main room. They took out two of the bouncers first.”

“Five male humanoids?” I don’t believe it. Five men did all this damage? The club is completely trashed. From what I’ve seen of the corpses, they did not go down easily. This looks like the scene of a massacre.

“I’ve scanned the security tapes. Events correlate with witness statements. The aggressors are large but they appear to be humanoid.” Greer leads the grim procession to the bodies of two dead centaurs near the swinging doors to the kitchen. “These are the bouncers.”

The centaur closest to the door has fewer defensive wounds. The attackers likely surprised him when they burst out of the kitchen. The blood pool around him is expansive. His throat is torn open. The edges are jagged. Could be a serrated weapon, but my money’s on a claw. Or teeth.

The other centaur is a mess of deep gashes, shallow cuts, and swollen bruises. Compound fracture of the right ulna. Left arm looks like someone ran it through a meat grinder. His throat is intact, but there’s a gaping hole where his heart should be. I lean in to get a better look at the wound. All I can smell is centaur blood. No gunshot, then. No smooth edges from a blade. Ripped out? By a humanoid? It doesn’t add up.

“I think I’m gonna hurl,” Az groans as she lowers herself to a crouch beside me. “Centaur blood smells like rotten bananas.”

Yeah, it does. In a minute, I’m going to ask her what it tastes like. I should have tossed a few barf bags in that purse of hers. “Look at his heart.”

She presses a hand over her mouth and another over her stomach. “I am.”

“Could a spell do that?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes widen as understanding dawns. She swallows twice; her stomach burbles. God, I hope she doesn’t puke. For a hotshot detective, Greer has an awfully sympathetic stomach. He can handle the goriest crime scenes, but it’s like a chain reaction if someone else loses it first.

“Which one?” I ask.

“Oh, there are a few. Ulain gives the caster the strength of twenty men. The Rite of Illi creates a fireball that melts flesh.” Her eyes drop down to the corpse at our feet. One pink-varnished nail points at the uncharred chest wound. “Guess that one’s out of the question. Still, someone could have used the Grainga spell. That’s a nasty one.”

“We’re not here for guessing games, Az,” I remind her.

“Oh, Rick, don’t make me do this,” she begs. She even manages to squeeze out a fat tear. “Please?”

“If Ms. Stanton doesn’t want to use her unique skills we can wait for the results to come in from the forensic lab. They’ve already taken swabs,” Greer says, hovering over us like a thundercloud.

I ignore him. This is between me and a member of my pack. A member currently in danger of disobeying a direct order. I fold a hand over hers and drag the tip of her index finger across the edges of the chest wound before holding the finger up to her lips.

“I am not waiting around for results when something capable of this is in my city.” My eyes are locked on Az’s. I don’t get off on making her do things she doesn’t want to do, but life isn’t about doing only what you want. I tap her finger against her bottom lip. “Now, Az.”

Her glare promises fiery retribution, but she sucks the tip of her finger into her mouth. She pales. For a minute, I fear she’s going to vomit all over the corpse, but she manages to hold it together. While she processes whatever she’s tasted, I retrieve one of the bottles of water from her purse, uncap it, and offer it to her. On the way home we’ll pick up several travel-sized bottles of mouthwash. I’m sure this won’t be the last time she’ll have to do this.

She gulps water like a man in a desert. When the bottle is half-empty, she shoves it at me and wipes her mouth with the back of one shaking hand. “No magic,” she rasps.

“What?” Greer asks.

“No magic.” She won’t meet my gaze. Odd. “No one used magic to kill this man.”

I rise and hold out a hand to help her up. She doesn’t shove it aside, but she rises on her own. Eyes fixed firmly on the laces of her ridiculous shoes, she shuffles closer to the Patriarch.

“I am so sorry for the pain your people felt. Knowing what I do about centaurs, I am sure the pain was felt across the Herd.” She executes a neat curtsy. “I am also sorry, so sorry, for this,” she says just before snatching the Patriarch’s wrist and dragging her tongue across the center of his palm.

“Az!”

“Ms. Stanton!”

I don’t know who is more mortified: Greer or me. The only two who appear unconcerned are the licker and the lickee. The Patriarch elegantly wipes his palm on a linen handkerchief. Once his hand is dry, he pats the top of Az’s head.

“It is quite all right, Alpha, Detective. It is common for readers to establish a baseline.” He dips his head to whisper in her ear. The rumble of his voice is pitched just low enough that I can’t make out his exact words. I do hear her name – her true name. I guess that cat’s out of the bag. Still, it doesn’t look like he’s going to announce that she’s the Mage of New Orleans’s daughter.

“I’ve only tasted centaur blood once,” she explains with a grimace. “That was in a controlled setting, and it was ages ago. I had to make sure I was getting things right. Like Shifters, the magic’s an intrinsic part of centaurs. Woven through muscle and bone.” She weaves her fingers together to demonstrate. “It’s fundamental, the magic, can’t separate it. Unbreakable bond. Can’t hide it. Can’t change it.”

And she’s starting to sound like Crazy Az. From one drop of centaur blood? Why hadn’t she said anything? If I had known it was going to affect her so strongly, I wouldn’t have pushed so hard. It isn’t until I have her back by my side that I realize my mistake. Not craziness. It’s apprehension. The tang of nervousness rises in the air between us. It always reminds me of fresh garlic.

Standing surrounded by death – horrific death – I can’t blame her for being nervous. Well, actually, I can because that means she doesn’t trust my ability to keep her safe. Still, it’s an offense I can forgive under the circumstances.

“So no outside magic?” Greer asks.

“Nope,” she says. “Next, please?”

The third victim is a scantily clad succubus. Head twisted nearly off. A large chef’s knife protruding from somewhere very uncomfortable. Judging by the blood trail down her thighs, though, it wasn’t post-mortem. Sadistic bastards.

I don’t ask Az to test for magic. She does it anyway. There is no grimace, but the nervousness doesn’t go away. When we reach the fourth victim, a centaur with two legs cut completely off, Princess gets over whatever bug crawled up her ass and wraps both arms around my waist.

“Are you okay?” I ask, because I know the stubborn void won’t tell me when she’s reached her limit.

“Yes,” is the unusually terse response.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

It’s a lie. I can practically see the deception wafting off her. “Now is not the time for games or petulance, Az.”

“Now is not the time to be a grouchy, demanding son of a bitch, but that’s not stopping you. Let’s see you do this and see how cheery you are, sunshine.” She slaps a hand across her mouth before more vitriol can spill out. Her face scrunches up for a second before smoothing out into a placid mask. “Sorry. I have no idea where that came from.”

I take it as a sign that the atmosphere and the magic in the room are getting to her. Time for a little preventative action. Once we’re at the fifth victim – a bisected leprechaun with steak knives through both eyes – I keep a hand on her shoulder when she kneels on the fringe of the blood pool.

“I can’t do leprechauns,” she says, without a trace of regret. “I’m allergic to the toxins in their blood.”

It must be some sort of protection the race has in place to keep them off the snack bar. Matt snacked on a leprechaun once and broke out in the nastiest case of hives I’ve ever seen. She’s off the hook for the leprechaun because odds are she’s a whiny patient. Besides, she’s not on the pack insurance yet.

While Greer and the Patriarch are discussing the timetable for releasing the scene, Princess plucks something off the leprechaun’s sleeve. I expect her to hold up for Greer to bag. She doesn’t. She quickly sniffs it before folding her palm over it. It’s one thing to steal a crystal from a crazy, homicidal witch, it’s quite another to steal evidence from a crime scene.

“I need air!” she announces loudly.

Before anyone can respond, Az bounds to her feet and drags me out of the club. She doesn’t let go of me until we’re a block from the club. She paces a quick, short circuit in front of a used bookstore. Her lips move but my ears can’t pick up any sound.

Unwilling to interrupt her thought process, I lean against the store’s brick façade. When Greer pokes his head out of the club, I wave him off. If Az needs air, then Az is sure as hell going to get all the air she wants.

After a minute of pacing, she stops and pivots to face me. Her eyes flick from my boots to my face, down to my arm, and then back up at my face. “I can’t decide if I want to kiss you or lick you,” she blurts.

“Lick.” I know where her tongue has been, and I don’t want it anywhere near mine. Like the magnanimous alpha that I am, I pretend I don’t see her eyeroll and offer up my left arm.

Her tongue darts across the inside of my wrist. Twice. When she goes in for a third taste, I pull my arm back. “Not an ice cream cone, Princess.”

“Salted caramel,” she mutters distractedly, staring at the object in her hand.

Okay. I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, either. “What’d you take? You just can’t steal shit from crime scenes. Not only is it illegal, but it tends to make Greer pissy. If Greer’s pissy, then I’m pissy, and that just makes everyone miserable.”

“Smell this,” she says just before shoving her hand in my face.

This is a wad of matted, tan fur. I sniff. Process. It’s familiar, but something is slightly off. I feel like I should recognize it, but I don’t. I can’t quite place the scent. Whatever it is supposed to be is overshadowed by the acrid odor of dark magic.

“I know, right?” Az grins and stuffs the fur in her pocket. “It’s like my brain wants to say Shifter, but it’s not.”

“You think that’s Shifter fur.”

“I think someone wants us to believe it’s Shifter fur. The same scent and taste are all over the bodies.” She winds her arms around her waist and resumes pacing. “It’s like how cheap, artificial vanilla is the same but not. When it first hits your taste buds, you go, ‘okay, this is vanilla,’ but then that chemical aftertaste coats your mouth and you know it’s the fake stuff.”

“This is cheap vanilla.” I think I’m actually keeping up with her, which frightens me more than I can say.

“Cheap Shifter,” she agrees. “Knockoff. Except it’s not chemicals. It’s magic.”

“You said there was no magic.”

The expression on her face clearly indicates she doubts my level of intelligence. “Yes. Because I’m going to announce, in front of Detective Kiss Ass and the Patriarch who just lost three of his Herd, that I think a not-Shifter killed seven people.”

“If Greer had seen a Shifter on the surveillance tapes, he sure as shit would have said something already.” Then again, it’s not a lot of fur. Probably from an arm. So it’s possible that there was no actual Shift. Fur sprouts when emotions run high. It’s usually a prelude to a full or half Shift.

“There’s more,” she says, as if the bombshell she dropped wasn’t nuclear enough. “I couldn’t really tell on the centaurs, but on the succubus I could taste a blend of centaur and not-Shifter.”

“You can’t turn a centaur.” It’s Shifter 101. Sorta like how you can’t turn a vampire into a Shifter or vice versa. The magic that makes a centaur a centaur overrides anything else added to the mix.

“I didn’t say they were centaurs. I said that it was a blend. Like cake mix.”

“Cake mix?” She’s lost me now. No. No, she hasn’t. “Magic. Cheap vanilla Shifter magic and a centaur base courtesy of the Gravita Inker, a little time to cook, and instant test tube Shifter.”

Centaurs aren’t the toughest creatures out there, but they’re difficult to kill. Succubae are vicious bitches when threatened. Leprechauns have a tendency to use physical and magical means of defense. The other two victims were a witch and an ogre. If you’re looking for a cross-section of the PC to test minions against, then the Dora’s Box crowd is a good place to start. It explains why the cash registers and safe went untouched, too.

Looks like the test tube Shifter project is in the beta phase. And we’re all up a shit creek. Joy.