“That’s as good an idea as any,” T. Laine said, sounding grumpy. “Too bad I didn’t think to put up a freaking camera or two.”
“Occam, what can you tell about the gauze?” JoJo asked. “Is it blood?”
“Yes,” Occam said, “but what species I can’t tell. It’s years old.”
“So why did she leave all her focals behind? This stuff has to be hard to gather. Was the witch a novice,” Jo asked, “untrained and trying to make it up out of nothing?”
“Maybe she didn’t know she was calling a black leopard and Rick scared her off?” I suggested.
“Hmmm. I don’t think so. The circle was powerful. All the power had been emptied out, used up, but the traces of the working were there, so strong they practically sizzled. For all I know, more powerful focals may have been taken when the witch left. But the strangest part of the circle is the runes.” T. Laine propped her tablet on its stand so we could see the rendering on the screen. The unit’s witch had re-created the circle but made it of dotted lines, so there was no way to accidently invoke it. “Every single rune was merkstave—reversed—and none of them are traditionally used together. There were twelves spokes on the circle and four runes, each used three times. There were merkstave versions of Uruz, Fehu, Thurisaz, and Wunjo, all of them calling for awful things to happen to the person being spelled. For instance, Fehu reversed means greed and slavery and bondage and failure.” T. Laine looked around at us, making sure she had our attention. “It was a curse circle. It was powerful. And Rick happened to be nearby. If the working had been intended for him, he’d never have called us because he’d have been dead. This is why I think Rick’s attraction to the circle was an accident of proximity.”
Occam asked, “What happens when the local witch coven finds the caster?”
“She’ll be put in a null room for a long time. This circle was very, very bad business,” T. Laine said.
“Rick’s hair looked whiter this morning. Did this spell age him even more?” JoJo asked. Rick’s hair had been turning white for the last few months, and no one really knew why.
“I don’t know,” T. Laine said. She scrubbed her head with both fists as if trying to knock something loose from inside her brain. “I don’t know about the witch or her focals. I don’t know much of anything. Rick’s been aging, but he’s only been emotionally weird off and on for the last few months. I can’t tell what’s causing the aging, or if the problems with his magics have resulted in the white hair and made him more likely to be called.”
“Did you scan Rick for latent magic, something left over from the spell and not part of his own magics?” Jo asked.
“First thing. His magics look the same in a … let’s call it an inspection working, one that lets me see overlays of magical energies. Nothing is clinging to him. Whatever the circle was, the curse working had dissipated before he got there.”
“Occam,” Jo asked, “did you feel anything from the circle when you were there or anything like a calling last night? A need to go catty?”
“Not a thing. It was a peaceful night.” His eyes traveled slowly to me, and when they met mine, he gave me a Mona Lisa smile, his expression reminding me what we had been doing when the call came in. “Very … peaceful.”
“Stop it, Occam,” Tandy said, clearly embarrassed. “Please.”
“Yeah. It’s hot enough in here already without you two starting up whatever you were doing last night when I texted you,” JoJo said.
“Ummm. Details later, bestie,” T. Laine said to me.
Blood fought to heat my cheeks. The women in the church never talked about the night before on the day after. It just wasn’t done. I didn’t know how to respond and so simply lowered my eyes, mortified.
“So Rick was the only werecat called,” Jo went on, either oblivious to my embarrassment or ignoring it.
I pushed away my discomfort and said, “We know that Paka bound him magically and that she used were-magic in her binding. I sorta bound him in some way to heal him. Twice. It’s possible”—almost certain, but I didn’t want to say that—“that I tied him to Soulwood. And maybe, through his own cat and the tattoos, and the were-magic Paka used, he’s more susceptible to spells that deal with cats?”
“I like,” T. Laine said, her eyes going unfocused and distant.
“And why don’t we just ask him?” I added.
Both T. Laine and JoJo hooted with laughter. Jo said, “The boss doesn’t talk about his tats. Like not ever.”
Occam was still giving me that faint smile and I couldn’t meet his eyes. My awkwardness about the previous night, added to my prevarication about tying the werecats to the land, was amusing to him. He could feel the pull on his magics; he knew I had tied him and Rick both to the land when I healed them. When I brought him back from the dead.
“Back to your comment about him being susceptible to cat spells. Twisty, but possible,” Jo said, taking a slice of toast. “And in my opinion, tied to your land is better than being dead.”
T. Laine said, “My personal worry is that his unfinished tats and blood magic, mixed with our old friend Paka’s spells, may have created a magical opening into Rick’s soul, an opening that’s still there.”
Occam sat up, swinging his feet to the wood floor, sliding Cello to his lap. “You’re telling me Rick’s psyche might be open? That any witch worth her salt, or maybe any fanghead strong enough, can reach in and take him over?”
“Yes,” JoJo said.
“No,” T. Laine said at the same time. “Not exactly.” She swung her leg off the chair arm, to the floor, and sat up in the rocker, her motion mimicking Occam’s and making her dark bob swing. “Okay, it’s like this. And though none of this is a secret, it stays in this room until further notice. Verbal discussion only.”
We all nodded.
“You know how Rick has music he plays during the full moon. He got it to help keep him sane back when he couldn’t shift into his cat. And you know how it eases all the shifters who’ve tried it.”
The music was a big part of the full moon protocol in HQ. Occam nodded slowly, his fingers sliding down the cat body. The cat started purring.
“When Rick was turned, things happened fast. He was bitten by a black leopard and the taint got into his system, starting the change. Immediately he was kidnapped by werewolves and they chewed on his tattoos. Think about it. There was werewolf taint in his flesh while he was going through the change into a black wereleopard. That had to cause problems on a first moon-calling, and we all know he couldn’t shift into his cat for two or three years.” She leaned in. “Rick was still with Jane Yellowrock at that time and Jane is the one who got the music for him. Jane is friends with Molly Everhart Trueblood, of the Everhart witches, but Molly is not an air witch. I’m guessing that Molly found an air witch somewhere and got her to make the music spells that disrupted the magic in Rick’s unfinished black-magic tats.”
The magical music also kept the were-taint from consuming his sanity, helping to interrupt the attraction of the moon keeping him from going crazy. The music also had a side effect on all were-creatures, keeping them calmer, more stable, and better able to resist the change, which was why we still played the music in the office on the full moon. Something about that tugged at my brain, but before I could take it apart and inspect it, T. Laine went on.
“You have more control over your cat than Rick does, but even you are more peaceful when the music is playing, right?”
Occam nodded, his eyes narrow as he thought back over the past year of his life. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I am.”
T. Laine said, “What I figured out a few months back, while you were putting down roots,” she added to me, “is that the music also has the ability to plug the hole in Rick’s magic. Plug isn’t a good word, but it’ll do. When the music is playing, it keeps out other workings and dark magics. It also has a cumulative effect, making him more resistant to outside influence. I thought the plug had made Rick totally safe, unresponsive to other workings. I was wrong, and I have to figure out how this curse got through his defenses.”
“So how did Paka get in?” I asked, finishing off my toast and licking the jelly off my fingers. Occam’s eyes darted to my mouth as a finger popped out, too interested. I stopped. Wiped my fingers on a cloth napkin instead.
“If Paka had come along six months later than she did, her magic might not have gotten in so deep,” T. Laine said. “He might have resisted her. Unfortunately she showed up in the first few months he was a werecat.”
“You told Rick all this?” Occam said, more a statement than a question.
“Long time ago, yes. Rick and Soul. I assume the new guy knows it too.”
“I read what I could in the report about the werewolf attack and Rick’s rescue, but big parts were redacted,” I said. “The parts that tell who actually rescued him have been removed. If I didn’t work at PsyLED, I’d have no idea that Jane Yellowrock and Leo Pellissier’s people helped to get him free.”
“Security clearances are so entertainin’,” Occam drawled.
“The most important part wasn’t in there at all,” I said, “which was: did any of the wolves escape? Are there any still floating around who might hire a witch to target Rick? Or is there any other were-creature in Rick’s past who might hire a witch to target him? Anyone considered the possibility that Paka hired a witch, who is trying to get Rick to turn someone, so the grindy’ll kill him?”
“Ohhh,” T. Laine said. “Never thought about that one.” She and JoJo exchanged glances I couldn’t interpret before bending over their tablets. Tandy and Occam were equally involved in file searches, fingers tapping.
Brainstorming was fun.
Sounding as if she was speaking while the primary part of her brain was otherwise engaged, Jo said, “Brute, the unit’s white werewolf, disappeared before you joined us and is currenly staying with Jane Yellowrock. So not him.”
My head swiveled to her. I’d heard about the werewolf, but never seen him. I had thought for a while that the unit was pulling my leg about having a werewolf as part of the team. “Rick hates werewolves.”
“Yeah. We know. He didn’t stay long once we landed in Knoxville, and it was weird having him around.” JoJo yanked on her earrings. “Brute has his own dedicated grindy and is unable to shift to human, so he isn’t after Rick. We have records that other werewolves appeared in the mountains and bit humans but so far as we know, they were all tracked down and dealt with. There’s no indication that any of the werewolves who bit Rick or participated in his kidnapping or torture are still alive.”