Tiger Works

Her mother wouldn't stand for anything but a spotless house, and Cass didn't want any infections to set in.

No, she did a bad job of hiding the more personal evidence. Haphazardly wrapped cuts, blood showing through the gauze, a barely-there limp… but she didn't care. No one cared, and so neither did she. After a while, she forewent bandages entirely. The fabric of her pants from the knee down to about mid-calf was perpetually spotted with blood.

She didn't care. She didn't. And whenever she found herself caring too much, she slipped into the bathroom with a lighter and a knife.

Cass knew for a fact that her mother hated cats. Hated them with a deep and abiding passion, and only partially because she was allergic. However, Cass was sure that, if her mother had to pick one, she'd choose one of the bone cats. Cass was equally positive that the cat would be right at home in her mother's house.

It was a surprise, but only briefly, when Cass swung the bathroom door open and was met with round, golden eyes. Not human eyes, certainly, but also definitely not cat eyes. They were set into a body made mostly of wood, with what appeared to be sand beneath the shifting plates of bark and sprays of lobed leaves. Smoke rose languidly from its back, drifting up into the air in lazy curls.

Cass slipped through the open door and closed it softly. The cat continued to watch her calmly, moving only her head to keep her eyes pinned on Cass.

Stepping around the cat, Cass set her lighter on the counter and flicked her knife open. It wasn't anything special, just a switchblade she'd bought at a corner store when she'd saved enough to stop using cheap razor blades. She glanced, briefly, at the cat.

The cat who was still watching her, sitting in the same place with her head turned almost a hundred and eighty degrees.

Cass jumped, almost dropping her knife, then forced her racing heart to calm down. She had been aware, distantly, that the bone cats weren't exactly alive, and the 'cat' in her bathroom could be nothing but a bone cat. To see her completely ignore things like how spines were supposed to work was something else entirely.

It didn't matter, though. The cat still wasn't moving, and Cass could get on with it. She lit the candle.

A few minutes later, she methodically wiped blood off her knife. The floor was clean already, since she hadn't gotten any blood on it in the first place. She'd found that if she used the knife fresh after being sterilized, it would mostly cauterize the cuts.

She flushed the paper towel she used to clean the knife down the toilet. She couldn't put it in the trash can, not because it would make it clear that something was wrong, but because she was only allowed in the bathroom that any company also used. If someone snooped around and found a bloody paper towel or two, it would look bad on her mother.

As she finished, Cass felt something like sandpaper swipe up her leg, tearing at her new cuts. She spun, knife still in her hand.

Behind her, the bone cat, who had been still and silent the whole time, had finally moved. The sandpaper had been her tongue, swiping at the few dots of blood on Cass's leg. Cass nudged the cat away with her foot, ignoring the sensation of warm polished wood on her skin.

"Just because you're the bone cat of blood doesn't give you free reign over mine." Cass's voice came out soft and hoarse, shaking slightly. It had been a while since she'd said anything. Maybe a day and a half? The cat only gave her a sad, piercing look and turned away.

The cat became a staple after that.

She was nowhere to be found most of the time, which was a blessing in and of itself. Cass had the faint inkling that the cat had been drawn to her, and that would be bad publicity for her mother. Instead, whenever Cass slipped into the bathroom for more… selfish purposes, the cat was always there before her.

Every time, the cat would sit as still as a tree in one place, watching her like a hawk… or an owl, based on the flexibility of the cat's neck. Then, when Cass was done, the cat would move.

Sometimes she would 'clean' whatever unhealed cuts Cass had, her tongue literally made of sand. Other times, when Cass lingered on the bathroom tiles, the cat would move to sit next to her, leafy tail flicking silently. Rarely she would merely walk out, not looking back.

If Cass sat on the floor and the cat sat next to her, then Cass would absently run her hands over the cat's head and side. Her head was made of thin slats of polished wood, and her back and sides were larger plates of rough bark. Where a normal cat would have had tufts of fur in her ears, on her ankles and elbows, and at the end of her tail, the bone cat had bushy clumps of what Cass had come to recognize as oak leaves.

"Cassandra." Knuckles rapped on the bathroom door, startling Cass out of her stupor. "Open this door immediately!"

Cass scrambled to her feet, lunging for the door and fumbling frantically with the lock until the door clicked open. He mother stood sternly in the open doorway, staring through her special gold-leaf glasses at Cass.

"You need to be ready in five minutes," She said briskly, "The mayor's wife is coming to tea today and you need to look presentable. Do something about your nasty scars, too!"

Cass nodded numbly, still holding the door handle. Warm bark brushed against her leg, and then her mother screamed.

"What is that!? What is that demon creature!?" She stumbled back a step, her face gray with terror. Cass glanced down, confused. There was no way the bone cat was normal, but she wouldn't call her a demon at first sight-

The wood-and-leaves cat Cass had come to know was gone. In its place was a true hell creature made of molten glass and blood-red fire. The calm golden eyes were gone, replaced by burning yellow embers and the cat was spitting blue sparks, her back arched with flame.

Without a second thought, Cass grabbed the cat around the middle and yanked her back. The bathroom door swung shut, seemingly of its own accord.

Cass knew what fire was like. She had an intimate knowledge of how it felt to be burned. Even before she dropped the cat on the ground in a flurry of instinctive wariness, she knew she hadn't been burned. As always, the cat felt only mildly warm.

The cat wound around her ankles, and Cass watched in wonder as she transformed in real time. Flames died slowly, and molten glass hardened and shattered at the same time into grains of off-white sand. The sand simmered and sifted, and the familiar bark and leaves and polished oak wood appeared as though they were driftwood bobbing to the surface.

The cat nudged Cass with her head, and a voice spoke directly into her mind. It was a voice of banked fire and ever-growing always-dying forests.

'Hello,' it purred, 'My name is Sword. I am yours to wield.'

It began for me several years before anyone else noticed. It is my stock and trade to do things when no one else notices. It began, in fact, with a particularly clever lie.

I'm beating around the bush.

There was a company. It sold magical items. They were all fake. Alright, they were mostly fake. Some of them had magic in them, it just wasn't the magic that was advertised. Some of them actually did what they were supposed to, but I didn't advertise them for what they were. Some of them were useless tchotchke and trinkets.

There was a skull. Its origin was unknown, certainly not human, and it sat on my counter to watch my customers.

Ah. My apologies. The mysticism comes naturally now, I suppose.

I had a cat skull on my counter. It looked sort of arcane, I guess. As mysterious and magical as any skull looks, sitting on the counter of a shop of mystical things.

In the end the skull, like everything in the shop, got sold off. I recall only vaguely; I think I sold it to a blonde woman who stopped into the shop to look around. She was strange, but she had good money, and I, too, am rather strange.

I told her it was the skull of a bone cat, one of Satan's runaway pets. That was before they'd become so widespread, only a rumor on the wind, and she believed me. The next day, the cat was there.

From what I can gather, most of the bone cats have some facsimile of life. Skin made of ice or fur made of fire. This one – the one I would grow to call Scrappy – had none of that. He was just bone, yellowed and worn. Not even a likeness of eyes.

I was skeptical at first, of course. Wouldn't anyone be? I had just been telling tales of bone cats, and one shows up on my doorstep. Before they were anywhere near as widespread as they are these days, too. It must be an illusion, or a construct, or some such thing. What else was I to think?

Oh, dear. There I go again. I'm lying.

I knew, somewhere deep down, that he was truly a bone cat. I tried to pass it off as some sort of trick, but I, at least, knew. I had just been telling false tales of bone cats. Of course one would show up on my doorstep.

Of course I held the door for him. The absence of his eyes almost- ah, nevermind. If this were any other time, I would tell you I felt compelled to let him in. Do something evil or wicked or whatnot. I wasn't. I just have a soft spot for cats, and I learned that day that my soft spot extends to the undead pets of the devil himself.

Scrappy didn't take me up on it. That time.

After that, though, any time I glance out the window there was a good chance he'd be waiting. Watching me with his sightless gaze. After a while, I gave up on letting him in. He didn't want to come in, so I stopped trying.

I don't even know the first time he got into my house. My house, not my shop. He just appeared one day, sitting on my counter while more living cats milled around my feet.

Well, that one's only a little bit of a lie. I didn't know it was him when he first showed up. Honestly, looking back on it, I should have realized. I only learned after I knew him for a while that the bone cat of silence haunts liars.

He came in under a disguise.

It wasn't at all what I would have expected of him, and I say that completely honestly. For one thing, he was healthy. Healthy enough that I couldn't believe he had been a stray for long, though his fur was dirty enough. I gave him food anyway, since I wasn't going to turn a cat away and only the most desperate of strays cared to stick around for the dry brown pellets I dished out.

It was weeks after that when, as I was filling bowls of water, he stopped in front of me. I had gotten used to his false appearance by then, and merely nudged him away with my foot. He bit me. Hard.

He's no ordinary cat skeleton, I can tell you that. Having had a cat skull sitting on my counter for so long gave me a decent working knowledge of how long their teeth are. How he even fit those in his mouth, I don't know.

The instant his fangs hit my skin, I could see through his illusion. That was a bit of a shock, I'll tell you that much. Okay, so I jumped out of my skin and dropped the water all over myself and a few very disgruntled strays that were standing around me.

After I replaced the water, I went to treat whatever Scrappy's dagger-like fangs – and I say this as someone who has a great deal of experience with daggers – had done to my leg. Scrappy came back to me as I was attempting to disinfect the bleeding gouges in my leg. He rubbed his head against my wrist, and his voice spoke directly in my mind.

'Hello,' He said, short and to the point, 'I am Pitfall.'

Angelina leans against the counter and listens idly as they wind through the store, picking up items to make a remark or point something out before setting them down again. They bring the dozens of small scents that people don’t realize they have with them when they pass by the register, and Angelina absentmindedly sorts through them.

Dog, dirt, grass, oil, a bit of blood, the cinnamon-sugar from the churro cart on the corner, fancy soap, detergent, sawdust, nail polish, makeup, hair dye.

The scent of sunshine is still lingering in the shop over the background smells of dusty fabric and old wood, so Angelina can’t pick out some of the more subtle scents.

The man snaps his fingers and one of the women giggles. The other woman has wandered off to the other side of the store.

“Excuse me?” The man asks, voice directed towards Angelina.

“Yes sir?” Angelina tilts her head up so she’s vaguely facing him, automatically pushing her glasses up to make sure they’re covering her eyes.

“This doesn’t have a price tag on it, does that mean it’s free?” He waves something absently in the air – it smells like old paper and ink, so Angelina assumes it’s one of their books.

“I’m sorry, Sir. I have the prices of everything on record here if you can just tell me what the title is…” she trails off, standing to reach the records shelf. She runs her hand gently along the spines until she finds the one with ‘Books for Sale’ stamped along it. She slides it off the shelf while the man chuckles and the woman still standing next to him giggles.

“Sir?” She prompts, propping the book open.

“Can’t you see it?” He drawls, gesturing with the book, “Just look right here. It’s just about the size of your sun-touched head.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Angelina says, not a hint of bitterness in her voice despite the insult, “I’m blind, I can’t see it at all.”

The man goes quiet. The woman goes still. Across the store, Angelina can hear the other woman almost drop the item she’s holding.

“Ah…” The man trails off, seeming unsure how to respond to that. He defaults to pretending it didn’t happen. “It’s, er, it’s called ‘The Facts and Foci of the Fae’.”

“All right, let me look that up.” Angelina chirps, running her fingers down the page. It’s a book she recognizes as having come in not long ago, so it doesn’t take her long to find it.

“That would be eight hundred and fifty American dollars, sir.” Angelina tells him.

“That’s outrageous!” he exclaims, clearly gearing up for a rant on the price of books.

“Oh my goodness, that cheap!?” The woman across the store hurries up to the register, still absently carrying the item she was inspecting, “Adam if you don’t buy that I will!”

“But- it can’t be that expensive.” The man – Adam – protests, turning to her.

“It’s a college-level textbook,” The woman says, exasperated, “that they don’t make anymore, they don’t teach the classes for, and it’s illegal to practice what it teaches. Of course it’s valuable.”

Adam surely would have replied to that if the first women doesn’t finally overcome her shock enough to speak.

“You can’t be blind!” She blurts, shoving her friends out of the way, “Stop lying to us!”

“I assure you, ma’am, I’m not lying.” Angelina says, baffled, “I truly am blind.”

“That’s bull!” The woman snaps, “Blind people can’t run stores!”

“Kathy, leave it!” Adam hisses, a rustling of cloth and a sharp jerk from Kathy suggesting that he grabbed her arm and she pulled violently away.

“No!” Kathy screeches, “You’re lying, you aren’t blind you’re just faking it!”

Angelina’s temper is fraying dangerously fast, and her mind keeps straying to the small container of dried human blood stowed under the counter. She’s in her own place of business, so a transformation isn’t automatically illegal, but short of being actively assaulted she won’t be able to convince the Enforcers it was self-defense.

“I am not lying.” Angelina repeats, teeth gritted, “I’ve been blind since an accident when I was twenty-three.”

“Liar!” Kathy howls. Before Angelina can stop her she lunges across the counter, fingers scrabbling at Angelina’s glasses.

Angelina yelps and automatically tries to fend Kathy off. The woman is unmoved, clawing at Angelina’s face until she has one of the lenses clutched in her talon-like nails. Kathy retreats back to her side of the counter with a self-satisfied ‘humph’, Angelina’s sunglasses in hand.

Angelina has a hand up to cover her face in time to prevent… unfortunate revelations, and she reaches out with the other.

“Please give me my glasses.” She says, as calmly as she can manage. It isn’t very calmly. She can feel the hand over her eyes shaking with rage, and the roof of her mouth aches from holding her fangs up.

“No.” Kathy says smugly, “not until you admit that you aren’t blind.”

“Kathy,” The second woman starts, “I don’t think you should-”

“Nonsense.” Kathy interrupts her, “She shouldn’t be pretending to be blind if she doesn’t want to be called out on her lie, Sophie”

“I am blind!” Angelina protests, pulling her outstretched hand back to hide it as she clenches it into a fist.

“Then you shouldn’t mind showing us your eyes.” Kathy says, “Hiding them just makes you look guilty, you know.”

Something in Angelina snaps, and she retaliats the only way she legally can. She obeys.

Angelina knows – vaguely – what her eyes look like. She’s seen a few vampires that have been sunscarred, and she’s seen her own Transformation Lines on her hands and feet and even in the mirror on her eyes. Sunscarring is tragically beautiful. It’s perfect lines and precise angles frozen in a brand of pain and loss.

Angelina pulls her hands off her eyes and glares – as much as she can glare – through Kathy. She stops resisting her instinctual threat display and let sher mouth drop open and fangs fold down behind her human teeth. The whistling hiss that always accompanied the threat is actually breathing out through her fangs, narrow holes in the bone that allow her to suck blood or inject venom.

Kathy screams. Adam shouts and the book thumps to the ground. Sophie yelps, fumbling the item in her grip again and dropping it for real.

In moments, Kathy is out the door and down the street, letting the chaotic scents of the outside in yet again. The smell of sunlight has only gotten stronger as the sun rose, and it makes every already-tense nerve in Angelina’s body stand on end.

She can hear each person’s individual heartbeats, even her own thumping slower than a human’s in her chest. Adam’s breath comes in erratic stuttering gasps and Sophie is hardly breathing at all. Angelina can practically taste the sunshine in the traces of warmed stone, thriving plant life, and hot tar on the air.

Adam stammers something, tripping over his words, and Angelina automatically turns towards him, hissing erratically. His flow of half-syllables abruptly stops and he follows Kathy out the door.

Sophie is still in the store, and every one of Angelina’s senses is trained to the max. She can’t hardly smell anything, not under the overwhelming scent of sunshine that seems almost all-consuming in her panic. She can’t see, can’t smell, can barely think.

“Hey.” Sophie says, calm and collected, and it slices neatly through the building crescendo of panic crashing through Angelina.

“Hey,” Sophie says again, in the same level voice, “I don’t want to hurt you. I have your glasses if you want them.”

Yes. Angelina does want them. Despite herself, Angelina reaches a tentative hand out, expecting… she doesn’t know what. Instead of some unspecified terrible thing, Sophie deposits the sunglasses in Angelina’s hand. Angelina scrambles to put them on so fast she almost stabs herself in the eye.

“Thahnk yu.” She manages, fangs blundering her speech slightly.

“Of course.” Sophie says, and Angelina can hear the smile in her voice, “I’m sorry about them. I had no idea they would react so… brainlessly, I suppose.”

“I’s fin’e.” Angelina says, trying to muster a smile, “I’ used tu it.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have to be!” Sophie snaps, abruptly angry, “No fae should have to be constantly hated like that.”

“I’s fin’e.” Angelina says again, straightening the record book in front of her, “Du yu ‘an’t tu ‘uy that ‘ook?”

“Ah, yes, thank you.” Sophie says, though she doesn’t sound especially willing to let the matter go, “I’ll pay you nine hundred dollars for it.”

“It’s only priced for-” Angelina starts, finally managing to pull her fangs back up to stow along the roof of her mouth.

“I know.” Sophie says, “I figure you deserve it after what Adam and Kathy were up to, anyway. Plus, it’s still an absolute steal at that price.”

“Alright,” Angelina consents, ringing her up with the ease of much practice.

“Also, uh. I was wondering- well.” Sophie clears her throat, and Angelina can tell she looks away from the way her voice changes, “Well, do you know where I could get… more materials like this?”

And just like that it makes sense. The smell of sunshine that hung around the shop when it should have dissipated, Sophie’s strong interest in the book for training wizards, even the way the scent of sunlight surged so strong when Angelina was angry. Sophie is a wizard. She brought the sunlight to the shop, and it spiked when she was frustrated and scared.

Beside him, only feet away, Mara sprouts scales. The cheap inflatable kiddie pool they’d brought for her rapidly begins to fill up with rainwater, and Mara flicks her new tail into the bounds of the plastic rim. Her eyes are luminous, glowing pinpricks even under the torrential rain.

Eli feels the rain shake when Mara opens her mouth, and somehow the sky – already dropping buckets – tears even further apart. All visibility is gone. Eli can’t even see Mara anymore, and he’s pretty sure he can only hear her song from the sharp thrill of magic that it shreds into the air.

Eli waits, and Mara sings. The clouds thunder and rain falls, but no lighting shatters the sky. Not a single flash of light breaks through the storm, and Eli would be jumping at shadows if only he could tell the difference between air and water.

He almost startles out of his skin when a hand touches his shoulder. It’s clawed, black talons tipping the fingers and black lines spreading jagged, geometric lines up the arm almost to the elbow. Eli doesn’t want to know how much human blood went into the power overload Nathan has.

Wet fur brushes his leg, and Eli glances down to find Mason, his were-form looking like a miserably wet cat instead of the fluffy arctic fox Eli knows he is.

Eli takes a deep breath of rain-soaked air and sinks slowly to the ground. Nathan crouches next to him and Mason presses his soaked side to Eli’s equally-soaked shirt. Mara watches him, glowing eyes fixed on him even while she sings. Eli ducks his head, focuses on the little flash of magic that comes from every single rain drop, and dunks his hands into her pool.

Effulgence is – according to what little information Eli could get – entirely metaphorical. It still feels real to all his senses, though, when he opens his eyes on the ice floe.

The only other practicing wizard Eli ever met described Effulgence as ropes, hanging from glowing heights. Eli doesn’t know if they were making it up or if Effulgence is so metaphorical that it’s different for different people. He does know that – at least for him – Effulgence is ice floes.

The ice floes are white and perfectly cylindrical, like someone took a cookie cutter to a snow-covered lawn, and the water they float on is golden sunlight, gleaming from some unknown source. His own ice floe is the same color, a pure, molten gold that blends so well with the sea that he’s always afraid he’ll lose it some trip.

Eli breathes the warm, sunlit air and looks out across the sea of sunshine. There are three ice floes right next to him, each one with a perfect sphere settled in a small divot in the center. He knows them well, but the only way to tell them apart here is by their foci.

Nathan’s focus and floe are black, writhing inside the transparent sphere like an angry snake trapped in a marble. His focus is also huge, larger than Eli has ever seen a focus before. Mara’s focus and floe are blue, a dark gray-blue of storm clouds that sloshes gently inside its orb despite the lack of movement. Mason’s fox sits calmly and patiently in its sphere on his silver floe, the same position Mason had – and probably still has – outside of Effulgence.

The focus sphere that rests on Eli’s ice floe is not actually touching it. It’s the same gently-waving orb of water that Mara has, and it hovers just barely over the golden surface of Eli’s soul. No man can be two fae at once, and Eli’s golden ice floe marks him as an unchangeable wizard, for better or for worse.

Eli scoops the orb into his hand. In this form, with no one to give it extra power, the orb is only about the size of a tennis ball. The water inside it doesn’t move the way it should, slowly undulating in smooth, even waves no matter how carefully or recklessly the sphere is handled.

Eli tucks the orb into the harness hanging from his belt and steps boldly into the glowing ocean. Or, rather, onto. Effulgence’s ocean has always reminded him of a science project he did in school, where they mixed corn starch, water, and food coloring to make a material that flowed like water most of the time but hardened like stiff rubber when under force. It doesn’t take much force to solidify the sunshine sea, but that in and of itself is a terrifying possibility if Eli ever lets himself sink in.

Eli lines himself up between Nathan and Mason, facing away from his own island, and starts off. The occasional ice floe shows up near him, and Eli takes brief moments to rest on them when he needs it, catching chaotic glimpses of who they belong to, but he eventually moves on.

Finally, after an unknowable amount of time, Eli finds what he’s looking for. It’s a huge gathering of ice floes, drifting slightly in the sun-sea and sometimes clattering against each other. Eli jumps off the surface of the sunshine sea and begins stepping from floe to floe. It’s much less nerve wracking to step onto floes than it is to dance across the sunshine sea, and Eli manages to relax enough to look for his target.

Vampires are easy to hide in the physical realm. As long as they never drink human blood it isn’t hard for a vampire to go undetected for their entire lives. Creating a vampire is also easy, though. Just a vial of blood poured into an open wound is all it takes to make a vampire, and any vampire worth their salt can tell exactly where an open wound – even a tiny scratch – is.

Eli finally spots his target near the center of the crowd. The senator’s focus is just large enough that he’ll have felt his fangs appear and start to put two and two together.

Eli jumps across a dozen ice floes and lands – finally – on the senator’s. The golf-ball sized focus on the ice floe sits in a tennis-ball sized divot, freshly carved by the introduction of vampire blood into his system.

Eli has done this switch before, but never on a fae so freshly Turned that he barely has his fangs. It’s incredibly easy. The shadow from the vampire’s blood is small, and not being fed as it should be right after a Turning. The senator’s soul – for all that his mind objects – wants something to fill the space in it.

One neat, Indiana Jones-style switcharoo later Eli is holding the tiny focus and the senator’s ice floe has the orb of water in it, waving gently as ever.

Eli barely steps off the floe before the whole thing turns vibrantly blue. It’s a true ice-blue, like the frozen side of a glacier. The senator must have been drinking some sort of flavored water for him to start Passing Through so quickly after a focus swap.

Eli books it.

He sprints across the sunshine sea in the direction he thinks he came in, not stopping until he sees the trio of silver, black, and blue that marks his friends and his own ice floe. He skids to a stop just long enough to leap the half-step up onto Mason’s ice floe then jumps from there to his own.

In a final flash of light Effulgence is gone, leaving Eli in the real world with his friends pressed around him. Mara is still singing, and the storm is still raging, and Mason is still pressed encouragingly to his side. Eli takes a breath of dark, wet air and it seems to billow and condense in his chest.

Mason barks and Nathan and Mara both turn to Eli. He smiles at them as best he can, but he knows its thin and wan. He’s never been in Effulgence for so long before, and the sudden lack of sunlight and magic are like a deep, bone-shaking loss.

Nathan hoists Mara into his arms and she finally stops singing. The clouds will still take at least half an hour to clear, which is far longer than they need to get out, but it’s better safe than sorry. Mason shifts from his wet-cat of a fox form to his equally wet-cat of a human form, wearing tight exercise shorts and a tank top. Without a word needing to be exchanged, he hoists Eli into his arms, and they set off.

The tricky part, Dylan knows, is figuring out which one is which.

The port of Silthaven smells like saltwater and fish, pitch and oil. There are ship hands and port workers tromping over the floating docks, carrying crates, ropes, barrels, and nets. One side of the dock is roughly full of charter ships and the other is for working ships. Makeshift shops are set up on the shore, selling last-minute supplies for travelers and always-needed supplies for the workers.

Dylan strides through the crowd, glancing at boats and men propped against the wall. Someone catches his eye, and he inspects them closer.

He’s sitting on the edge of the dock, boots hanging over the edge. His hand flashes in neat, practiced motions with the netting needle. There’s a small knife at his side, unornamented but it looks like good quality. His skill with the netting needle means his can’t be an amateur, so probably not an adventurer or hero, and he isn’t paying more attention than necessary to those on the dock, so most likely not an enforcer.

Pirates – when they can help it – don’t do much actual fishing and poachers use harpoons mostly, to spear larger game like mermaids and kelpies. Dylan settles onto the dock himself, pulling a whittling knife and a chunk of wood that will eventually be a whistle from his satchel. He keeps half an eye on the dock to watch for thieves or trouble and another half eye on the ‘fisherman’.

He sits there for about fifteen minutes, whittling his whistle. The fisherman stays too, then stands when his net is mended.

“Ho there!” Dylan calls at the fisherman, and he stops and turns behind him. “I’m looking for passage out of Silthaven. Do you think you could help me?”

The fisherman-smuggler watches him with an unreadable expression, “The charter boats are over there.” He gestures with a rough hand.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya’. But there’s some close scrutiny on the charter boats.” Dylan says, his tone and manner are casual even as he pushes his bangs slightly to the side. The brand on his forehead – a spiraling, jagged symbol that everyone across the continent recognizes as a convict’s mark – is visible for a brief second before his bangs settle back into place.

“I’m Hyd.” The fisherman says, dark eyes flicking back to Dylan’s, “You will pay me double for the trip.”

“But of course, captain Hyd!” Dylan says, shouldering his bag, “anything else?”

“I leave at sunset,” Hyd tells him brusquely, “I will not wait for you. I will not fight for you. I will not lie for you.”

“I expected nothing more.” Dylan assures him, “Can I stow my pack on your ship now?”

“You may,” Hyd says, “She’s Wave Singer, the mosaic one.”

Dylan gives him a smile and a wave of acknowledgement before turning to the main dock. He saw Wave Singer before, and the ship stuck in his mind as an oddity on the dock. It is certainly a mosaic, as its hull is covered in hundreds of thousands of pieces of sea glass. They’re every color imaginable, even ones Dylan hasn’t ever heard of being found: green, white, brown, blue, purple, red, yellow, gray.

Dylan hops into the boat, swaying as it rocks underneath him. It’s like a typical fishing boat, but also not. The decoration encrustment continues on the inside of the boat, but it’s no longer sea glass. Instead, it’s sand dollars, bones, scales, shells, and other things Dylan can’t determine the origin of. The sail has feathers and nuts sewn to the bottom of it.

Dylan drops his pack on the deck of the Wave Singer, near the dock so potential thieves won’t see it on a passing glance. There isn’t much of a ship to poke around, but Dylan doesn’t want to spend any more time on the dock. Docks are full of travelers, and the wrong traveler could recognize him.

Dylan settles down with his wooden whistle.

Hyd leaps into the boat a few hours later, just before sunset. “Sit here.” He says brusquely, gesturing to the wall right in front of the tiny cabin “Do not move. I do not need your help.”

Dylan sits. He watches carefully as Hyd brings them out of the port and under way. The boat continues for quite a ways from the port, sailing elegantly over the waves like a fanciful bird. They stop far enough out that land is barely more than a speck on the horizon.

Dylan has been on many boats before, from clunky river rafts to sleek pirate ships, and he’s never seen a ship handle so smoothly. Not only that, but a one-man fishing boat of this size so far from land and so long past sunset would be a difficult craft to control. Hyd handles it just fine, though, with only the occasional tug on a rope or twist of the steering wheel.

“I am fishing here.” Hyd tells him, “It will be a while. When I am done, I will take you on.”

Dylan nods his thanks and pulls the whistle from his bag. Hyd casts nets and sets a few lines with bait that Dylan doesn’t recognize. Even the ropes of his nets are woven of a strange black-and-white fiber that Dylan hasn’t ever seen before.

Hyd settles onto the deck after all his nets are cast, watching the moon rise. There’s a long span of silence, then Hyd glances at Dylan’s work, which by now looks mostly like a whistle.

“You a sorcerer?” Hyd asks bluntly.

“Of a sort.” Dylan says, peeling a slice off his whistle, “I appreciate a good bit of magic every now and again.”

Hyd grunts, then heaves himself up to check the lines and nets. Dylan keeps carving his whistle, but he keeps an ear trained on Hyd. Most people that aren’t from Nimbus couldn’t tell a burglar from a serial killer, but the combination of magic-craft and a convict’s brand leads some to make a very deadly connection.

Hyd is apparently not bright enough to put it together, or smart enough to not let on that he has. Either way is fine with Dylan, as long as he keeps up the façade for long enough.

Hyd knows too much now. Luckily, Dylan knows all he needs about how to sail the fisherman’s boat, and he’s never had qualms about murder.

Dylan stows the whistle in his bag, then draws a different whistle out of it. The one he had been carving was small and weak, a simple thing for starting fires and lighting torches without the need of flint and steel. The one he draws is a war whistle, though its really more of a flute than a whistle. It’s long and sleek, made of a silver tube with grenadilla keys that form a striking contrast.

It takes Dylan an instant to position his hands, fingers falling into place instinctively after years of practice. The first note he plays seems to still the night air, freezing everything in place. Everything except Hyd.

The fisherman startles, spinning around from where he’d been bent over the wale. Dylan doesn’t pause his attack, and Hyd, too, begins to slow down. Only a few measures in, the world is entirely still, with only Dylan’s music breaking the silence.

The wind doesn’t blow, the boat doesn’t rock, and the fisherman doesn’t move from his half-lunged position, even his eyes frozen wide in shock.

Dylan stops playing. The wind slowly picks back up, but just as it took Hyd longer to slow down, it will take him longer to regain his speed. Dylan has a knife drawn and raised to slice Hyd’s throat before the man can take a single step.

The knife bounces off.

Dylan stares at the kife for a solid moment, baffled. It’s a moment too long.

Hyd – not as slow to recover as he had seemed – lunges forward.

Dylan raises an arm over his face and finds it abruptly lacerated by the razor-sharp talons that sprout from Hyd’s fingers. The fisherman’s eyes – initially a queer blue gray – have gone a pale, glowing gray with tiny, slit pupils.

Dylan barely ducks under a snap of rows upon rows of serrated teeth and scrambles for his war whistle.

Hyd screams. It’s a sound like shattering glaciers and too-close lightning, drowning out every sound Dylan makes and replacing the stillness with roiling waves and gale force winds.

Dylan stumbles on the bucking, lurching deck. Clouds swirl overhead in mere seconds, and rain bristles from them in pounding sheets. Dylan can’t see, and his balance is completely shot on the suddenly wild boat.

Hyd pauses to take a breath and Dylan hears what’s truly bringing the chaos. A trio of voices, too perfect to be human, singing a wordless, winding song. Mermaids.

Dylan doesn’t get more than an instant to give his realization, as just as quickly as Hyd stops screaming he lunges forward again. Dylan’s hand drops to the deck, war whistle still clutched in detached fingers. Dylan’s body rapidly follows it, and his head a second later.

–––

Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters rides his ship through perfectly gentle waves, the deck stained with only the faintest traces of blood. His nets are empty and his lines untouched, but he had half expected that when he accepted the magical stranger onto his craft. The ahuizotl and makara he hunts normally would cause far less trouble than a warlock. Better to be done with the later before going after the former.

Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters will make a profit today anyway. The warlock’s war whistle is only one of almost half a dozen high-end whistles he had stowed in his bag. Each will bring Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters more than he could have gotten from a week’s worth of hunting, and that’s without the bounty the warlock no doubt had on his head.

Spray, Froth, and Crest leave him as he nears the port, and Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters steers under his own power without their songs to carry his little ship. He has had a great deal of practice, though, and Wave Singer glides to port as effortlessly as if she had carried herself.

The most danger her were-form poses is to herself.

Lucy used to have cats. The moon-mad were-coyote that mauled her also killed all three of her cats, and no natural animal has ever liked her since her infection.

The moon rises higher, and Lucy feels it singing in her blood. She has solid blackout curtains – the kind they market to older vampires – on her bedroom windows to block the moonlight and she’s taken her sleeping pills. The night should be smooth sailing.

Something wakes her halfway through the night. She knows in her blood and bones that the moon has just barely passed its summit. She’s always on a hair trigger on full moon nights, and her senses are sharper even in the complete darkness of her room.

The sound comes again, of shuffling fabric. Lucy flicks a sensitive triangular ear she doesn’t have, senses strained to the max. There’s a hint of chill in the room from the window she’d left open. The room smells like night air, blood, and – underneath it all but still painfully penetrating – silver.

Lucy is out of her bed in an instant, sliding to the floor on instinctively silent feet. Something in the room moves with the faintest brush of motion and Lucy darts towards it.

A muffled thump of something hitting the floor breaks the tense silence seconds before Lucy reaches the intruder. It sounds light, much too light to be a person. A sharp hiss fills the darkness and Lucy flinches away on instinct. She dances back, away from the snake.

It takes a moment of fumbling to find the light switch, and every second Lucy can hear the steady rasp of scales on hardwood. When she flicks it on her eyes adjust in a split second to the dazzling light and Lucy knows her eyes must be slitted and narrow like a cat’s.

It certainly is a snake, but not nearly what she had expected. It’s barely over a foot long, with a dark brown strip along its back and paler gray-brown belly and sides. The most startling feature are its eyes. They’re a vibrant emerald green and seem to take up a solid third of the snake’s angular face.

The snake is halfway across the floor, frozen by the sudden light. Lucy pounces before it regains its wits, snatching the snake around the throat, close to the head so it can’t bite her. Her fingernails, she notes worriedly, are retracting into her fingers under a pale sheath. It looks eerie and wrong on human hands.

Lucy finally stops to catch her breath, strange snake squirming weakly in her careful grip. Her heart is racing with adrenaline and her moon-mind is urging her to kill and eat her prey.

Instead, Lucy props open the lid of the decorative fish tank on her desk and settles the snake into it. She clasps the lid before the snake can slither free and settles into her desk chair. She won’t be sleeping tonight. Not now she’s woken up.

Lucy types ‘brown snake big green eyes’ into the search bar and clicks on images. The second one looks just like her visitor, and a bit more searching reveals that it’s not only incredibly venomous, but native only to Africa. None of the nearby zoos have boomslangs.

“You must be a were-beast.” Lucy tells the snake. She feels a little strange talking to a snake, but if it really is a were-beast it should be able to understand her.

The snake shakes its head in an incredibly awkward, human way. Lucy raises an eyebrow at it.

“Either you’re not too bright, or you’re really deep in denial.” She tells it, “In case you hadn’t noticed, snakes don’t typically respond to questions or shake their heads.”

The were-boomslang sinks down close to the floor of the fish tank, hiding behind a plastic castle. Lucy’s going to interpret that as embarrassment.

“If you promise to behave, I’ll take you out of the fish tank.”

The were-boomslang rises out from behind the castle. Lucy isn’t great at reading emotions, and she’s never had the pleasure of trying to read a snake’s, but it looks surprised. Lucy cocks an eyebrow at it. You heard me.

The were-boomslang nods, another awkward, human gesture that doesn’t fit its body at all. Lucy unlatches the lid and reaches a hand into the tank, and the were-boomslang readily slithers up her arm just in time for the doorbell to ring.

Lucy looks up. The were-boomslang looks up. With a put-upon sigh, she slides her flip flops on and starts for the door. She flaps noisily down the stairs and into the entryway, flipping lights on with her left hand.

“Come into the mud room.” She says into the intercom system. “I must warn you that it’s the full moon and I am a were-beast. Enter at your own risk.” The door swings open and bangs shut, and Lucy waits for a moment and pulls the door on her side open.

Three people stand in the mud room, each one bearing the dark vest and silver trappings of a Stalker. Two men and one woman, their faces impassionate and their uniforms impersonal.

In the face of Stalkers, Lucy is made painfully aware of her yellow slit eyes and the tapered ends of her too-high ears.

“How can I help you?” She says, as cheerfully as she can manage just past midnight on the full moon.

“We’ve been tracing a new were-beast.” The man in front – evidently the leader – says almost over Lucy. “We found a similar signature in this house.”

He’s looking at the were-boomslang on Lucy’s arm.

“I’m sorry,” She says as lightly as she can manage under the abrupt, crushing realization of just who he’s hunting, “No-one’s here but me and Max.”

He watches her steadily for a moment, and Lucy wonders wildly if he can hear how much her heart has sped up. She sure can hear it pounding in her ears, and every part of her screamed at her to run, hide, get away from the threat.

“He’s Max, then?” The female Stalker asks, gesturing at the snake.

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Lucy holds up the arm with the snake, begging every deity she can think of that this will work, “This is my friend, Max. He was visiting me tonight.”

“Why was he visiting you?” The leader asks, staring at the were-boomslang.

“Helps to have a friend.” Lucy makes up on the spot, “To deal with the moon-mind.”

“How come he’s shifted?” the third Stalker finally chipps in.

“The curtains weren’t drawn properly in the bathroom.” Lucy says, forcefully resisting the urge to over-elaborate. She’s learned to lie very well in her time as a were-beast.

There was a long, weighty pause, and Lucy can tell she’s being examined closely. She keeps her – now fully feline – ears perked and free of guile.

“Very well then.” The lead Stalker, apparently deciding there isn’t anything they can prosecute her for, spins on his heel and strides for the door. Before Lucy has the chance to react, he flings the door wide open, and moonlight floods into the mudroom. The other stalkers followed him, leaving the door hanging open.

Lucy stumbles towards it, one hand reaching out to close it, but it’s far too late.

The were-boomslang drops to the floor with a thump as fur courses up Lucy’s arms and her feet lengthen to the point of uselessness. Unprepared for the transformation as she is, Lucy manages to shuck her flip flops and shirt, leaving her in just her sleeping shorts and a sports bra. The transformation is too fast for much else, and Lucy lets it overtake her.

Lucy drops to her feet, sniffing the air. It smells dirty and stale, but oh! There are many wonderful scents coming from out there!

She turns to the open doorway, tail swishing behind her. She’s hungry, and she can smell sleeping night creatures ready for hunting.

Something makes a sound, a dangerous sound, and Lucy flicks her head towards it. It rises up in front of her, tongue flicking, hissing its threat. Lucy hisses back, ears pinning back and spine arching. She darts a paw out, then snatches it back just as quickly when the snake lunges for it.

Lucy spits angrily, batting at the snake again. It’s unmoved by her attack, staring her down with huge eyes. Predator’s eyes.

She edges to the side, trying to get around the snake to the outside full of prey. The snake matches her slither for step. It hasn’t bit her yet, just hovers and hisses threateningly. That’s… strange. But Lucy has no time for strange. There’s a snake! Between her and her prey!

Lucy pounces forward, claws flashing. The snake sways away from the attack but doesn’t retaliate. Why…?

Lucy’s human mind abruptly rushes back to her, shoving the moon-mind away. She can’t go outside. She can’t leave the house in this form or she’d be killed out of hand. The were-boomslang had saved her life. Just as she’d saved theirs.

Lucy pushed her puffed-up fur back down and stretches, flicking her tail at the were-boomslang. They flick their tongue at her and lower themselves back on their belly. Lucy bounds inside, then waits for the were-boomslang and nudges the door shut. The mudroom will be fine with the door open the rest of the night, and she doesn’t want to give the Stalker’s any ideas by getting close enough to close the door.

The house is still lit up, but Lucy can jump high and the switches only need to be turned down. The door to her room is a lever handle, and Lucy can manage that too. The were-boomslang follows her the whole time, watching with huge green eyes.

The darkness and night scents make her moon-mind want to hunt, but Lucy’s pesky human mind insists on sleep instead. If she hunts anything, even in her house, her moon-mind will take over, and the window is still open.

There was someone else standing at the doors, someone Ainsley didn’t think he’d seen before.

“Sorry, sir.” The night man – his name tag says Ciaran, so that isn’t his name – bares too many teeth in a disturbing imitation of a smile, “we’re only accepting new guests at this time.”

Ainsley kept walking.

“Sir?” There was something wrong with his voice, something that made the solidly human part of Ainsley ache and shiver, “Feel free to… check out, Sir, but you won’t be permitted to leave.”

Ainsley knows better. There’s more than one meaning to the term ‘check out’, and if he lost his concentration now, he would be torn apart in seconds.

“I agreed to spend a night.” He managed through clenched teeth, “’A’ here meaning one. I have spent one night. You have to let me leave.”

“Very good sir, but the night is not yet over.”

Ainsley stared at Ciaran, trying to think and keep his shield of ‘human, human, entirely human’ up. He turned slowly and stared out the window at the sun that had just peaked over the horizon. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the image of the sun and sky started to melt.

It dripped away seemingly at the speed of molasses, revealing the barely-lightened pre-dawn sky. A final illusion, hoping to make him break his word to Oriana and leave before the night was done.

Ainsley shuffled to a bench in the lobby and sat down. Hellhound prowled inches in front of him and basilisks gazed unblinkingly through him, but Ainsley kept his aura high. He didn’t know how much time passed, how long he sat there focused purely on brandishing his humanness in a protective layer.

The sun had risen completely when he left the Moonshadow Lodge, magic pulling on his limbs like he was running in a dream. He settled into his car, still waiting patiently in the tiny, overgrown parking lot, and the magic vanished.

Ainsley’s footsteps muffled suddenly as the bare stone changed abruptly to thick carpet. He almost slowed, almost paused to gain his bearings, but a banshee thrummed her song of death and Ainsley practically stumbled over his own feet to move faster.

A door loomed in front of him, sturdy and thick. With the hallway behind him seething with fae and magik, Ainsley had nowhere to go but through it. If it was a magik door it would be locked no matter what he did, but if it was a fae door or an unused room it may be open, and Ainsley was relatively sure he was near the outside wall. It was hard to tell in the confusing winding hallways that went on longer than they should.

The door was unlocked.

Ainsley shoved through it with barely a shiver of foreboding to slow him. It was ominous for sure, but there was nothing he could do about it. He barely caught a glimpse of the room, but it was enough. Rich red furnishing with darker red stains. Glossy stained wood shining with the presence only real things can have. A circle chalked into the ground, warding the inside from the out and the outside from within.

With no other option available, Ainsley stumbled into the circle. Magiks and monsters spilled into the room, seething and swarming in a ghastly hoard. Ainsley could feel his mind failing looking at the crowd and quickly averted his gaze to the chalk circle on the floor. He knew it was a trap. He knew. There wasn’t any other reason for a protection ward to be drawn here. Better the devil you know, though, right? Ainsley knew all the high-ranking devils and demons. His heart wavered then soared reading the name written in the rim of circle.

He wouldn’t lose his soul today. The master of the Moonshadow Lodge – for so long sought after and hunted by his associates – was not what any of them have been searching for.

Ainsley gathered himself together, reaching deep into his soul to find what he needed. Every other hunter he’d ever met was special. Grandson of a demigod, blessed by a dragon, unicorn rider, Phoenix friend. None of them would survive here.

Ainsley summoned every drop of pure, true humanness he had. Every incorrect assumption and mistake. Every clever moment and stroke of genius. Every chink and crack in his mind and personality, fear and hatred and guilt and greed and laziness. Every virtue and strength in his soul, courage and love and redemption and generosity and hard work.

Immundus, demon king of corruption – once the angel of purity – can’t touch humans. They’re perfectly balanced in the middle of corruption and purity, born to be right and wrong, light and dark, good and evil. His servants and guests also can’t harm a real, true, untouched human.

An array of counterfeit people swirled around Ainsley, their auras and voices and magiks blending together. Some, Ainsley knew, were fae themselves. Shining hooves unhidden by any illusion danced between polished boots and bloodstained claws.

None of the other fae that wandered near him touched him. Ainsley had heard very little of the Moonshadow Lodge – none that entered ever lived long – but from internal reports he had heard that there was a sort of honor among they fae that were permitted there. Ainsley had already been claimed by Oriana, and none would risk the retaliation of the Lodge’s master if they interrupted the hunt of another.

Oriana herself was somewhere in the throng, and Ainsley could hear her laughter – just a little too wild – cut through the low thrum of noise. When he chanced a careful look up, he caught brief glimpses of beings that had once been human. They glittered now with real diamonds and another’s fire, a lost wildness in their eyes that no true human had.

They danced with reckless abandon, whirlwinds of sparkling motion. Some clutched small items in their furious motion, eyes blown wide and trained unmovingly on the item they held. Others clenched their eyes tightly shut, unaware of anything around them yet never once colliding. Both sent chills down Ainsley’s spine and urged him to reach for his rosary.

He ached with his own memories and the urge to dance them away. Memories of his old hunts, losses and failures. Memories of this last night when he fell prey to the Moonshadow Lodge’s curse. Memories of his weakness again just before midnight, when he gave into the Moonshadow Lodge once again to follow the alluring voices down the halls and to the dancing courtyard.

‘Come dance’ the sourceless music hummed through his veins, ‘you are safe and encouraged here, leave your shameful past behind you. The courtyard is beautiful, and those who dance are delighted. Come and join them. Forget your guilt. Never remember again.’

Ainsley pressed his back to the wall and his lips tightly closed. He hadn’t danced since his first hunt years ago, and he knew that someone in his profession – someone who chases fae and captures sirens and mimics– could never afford to give in to the call of music.

He also knew he wasn’t truly welcome here. Not until he let the magic in the music pour through him and danced like the sparkling, perfect victims that flocked to Oriana’s flame. He had no proper piece of etiquette to excuse his refusal to dance, and the fae that saw him braced against the wall would be free to press their magic against his mind in an effort to force him.

Still the unearthly song drifted in his mind, and despite all his training Ainsley couldn’t pinpoint where it came from – if it was even still audible.

‘Welcome’ the music tingled darkly in his soul, ‘you are welcome here, let down your guard. The building is beautiful, and the people are kind. Welcome. You are welcome. Never leave.’

On instinct, Ainsley put his hand on the wall. The rough stone scraped against his fingertips, helping to ground him in reality. Oriana glided past rows upon rows of doorways, some closed and forbidding and some cracked open ever-so-slightly to let firelight or darkness or soft murmurs into the corridor.

Ainsley trailed behind her, gaze locked on Oriana in a desperate attempt to keep it away from the tantalizing magic trailing from the open rooms and calling voices. He had to focus now. His life and soul depended on it.

Oriana was dressed much better than Ainsley remembered. Diamonds – real ones, as far as he could tell – glinted in the candlelight, spilling down her shimmering silver dress. Her talons clawsnails shone with real gold leaf, and Ainsley couldn’t tell if they reflected the fiery glow of the candle lighting the path or if they were heated with their own internal flame.

His question was answered when Oriana finally stopped, turning towards him. Her eyes glowed with blazing desire, and her fangsteeth were stained faintly pink with what Ainsley knew without thinking was the blood of many, many unlucky souls.