Witches, Voids, and Other Sanity Suckers
Chapter 9

Everyone gathers fordinner nearly every night of the week. I started the practice to promotetogetherness and a family-like mentality with the pack. I'm not sure how muchgood it's actually done, but it's too late to change the routine now. Jose andGreta take turns cooking while the rest of us split up the cleanup.

As soon as we returnhome from the police station, Jose gloms onto Az. He drags her into the kitchento help him prepare for dinner. Fine. She can be his kitchen gopher. I onlyobject when he hands her a sharp knife and a bunch of celery. Seeing her with apotential weapon makes me twitchy.

Dinner is a raucousevent, as usual. The rumble of conversation is underscored by the clinkof silverware on dishes and the thunk of dishes being passed around.Greta shares a story about a drunk patron she'd had to kick out of the bikerbar where she works as a bouncer. Ike's tale of architecture woes garners fewerlaughs than Greta's story. Mostly it's because Ike's a terrible storyteller,but some of it is because being an architect is not half as interesting asbeing a bouncer.

After serving slicesof tres leches cake, Jose announces that he's found a job. As it's thefirst job he's had in over two years, silence descends like an iron curtain.Jose is a genius with engines and anything with wheels. I've set him up oninterviews with local garages, but he's had a rough couple of years so I don'tpush. The pack takes care of its own.

"Where are youworking?" I ask before the silence can go from heavy to downrightuncomfortable.

"I hiredhim," Az offers quietly. Too quietly. She looks up from her dessert totoss a tight smile in my direction. "You said part of that money is mine,and I need an assistant. I don't drive, remember?"

"I remember."It's not that Az hiring Jose is a bad thing, necessarily, but I don't likebeing kept out of the loop. Especially when it concerns someone I'm responsiblefor. I can't object with everyone staring at me. Not that I want to object.Having a job and being needed will be good for Jose's self-confidence.

"We're goingshopping tomorrow," Jose says, grinning. "Clothes and magicsupplies."

Okay. Now I'mdefinitely not objecting. If Princess needs a shopping buddy, then she's madethe right choice. Besides, Jose will protect her. He's not alpha material, buthe's fiercely loyal and startling vicious.

"Good,” I say,putting my stamp of approval on their arrangement.

Az offers to takeHank's dishwashing shift. Since washing mostly involves rinsing dishes andputting them in the dishwasher, it's not as grand a gesture as it sounds. Shestacks plates like a seasoned waitress and carries them to the sink.

"Where are thepots and pans?" I ask. Jose has a habit of using every available pot andpan whenever he cooks. His meals are delicious, but the cleanup is usuallyhellacious. It's my turn to dry dishes and put them away.

"Already washedand put up," she responds, turning on the hot tap.

Sweet. My job for thenight will only involve wiping down the table and the kitchen countertops.Almost as easy as takeout night.

It isn't until she'sdumping the last handful of forks in the silverware basket that something shesaid earlier hits me. I'm an idiot for not catching it sooner. "If theRite of Yo-Yo Ma has been banned for centuries, how is it that you know aboutit?"

"Yulaga,"she corrects, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

"Whatever."

Her eyes don't meetmine. "Dad taught me when I was five."

I grab the box ofsoap packets from under the sink and hand it to her. I'll talk to Jose or Gretaabout giving her a tour of the house and showing her where all the cleaningsupplies are.

She stares at thebox. "Jose taught me how to load the dishwasher earlier, but he didn'tmention this part."

"You've neverused a dishwasher before?" How is that even possible?

"No. Washed byhand, yes, but never with a machine."

Of course. She's beenpassed around from magical hideaway to magical hideaway like a family heirloomno one wants. She copes so well with most everything that it's easy to forgetshe had an unusual childhood. I show her, twice, where the soap goes and how toturn the machine on.

"Thank you fornot giving me a hard time about Jose."

"Yeah, well, alittle warning next time would be nice. I don't like replaceing things out lastminute, especially not publically. It won't happen again, Astraea."

"Sorry. Ipromise that it won't happen again." Az leans against the counter andcrosses her ankles. "He needs this as much as I need him. He needs to feelimportant, and he is. He knows the area. Knows which places to avoid. Knows thepolitics. He can go into certain stores for me. I'm not good for magicstores."

"Let me knowbefore you send him on that particular errand. There are things we need tostock up on."

"Will do. I'mgoing to go check in with him and start my list for tomorrow. He'll work on thememory protection after we pick up supplies. Good night."

She makes it twosteps before I grab her wrist. She's good at changing the subject, but it takesa lot to distract me. "Your father taught you the Rite of Yulaga."

Az's nose crinkles.It's clear she was hoping I'd forget that little gem. Sorry, Princess. I'm notas easily misled as your previous handlers.

"Yes. When I wasfive. He tried to cram as much magic in me as he could before it became obviousthat I wasn't going to be able to perform a single spell."

"How did helearn it?"

"He was probablytaught by his father. Who was taught by his father. That's what happenswith the old families," she says, shrugging. "The teaching starts inthe cradle. Nothing is off-limits."

"Do you rememberthe rite? Not generics but the actual words?"

"Don't needto."

Before I can tell herthat yes, she damn well does, she shakes her wrist free. Her hands immediatelygo to the button on her jeans. She pops it open but stalls with her hand on thezipper. Her eyes squeeze shut and a line of concentration creases her forehead.

"Nope. It's along one. Left shoulder." Nodding once to herself, she quickly pulls offher t-shirt. It lands in the damp sink. She slips her left bra strap down herarm.

I resist the urge toslap my hand across my eyes. I'm no prude, and she's not the first half-nakedwoman I've seen. Her pink lace bra is modest enough and she's not taking anyadditional steps toward removing her jeans. If this is another distractiontactic, it's not very original. Possibly effective and certainly enjoyable, butnot original.

"What in thehell are you doing?"

"Huh?" Hereyes are open and confused. "You said you wanted the words to therite."

"Yeah. I didn'task for a floor show."

She waves a hand ather shoulder and turns so that her back is to me. "Give me a sec. It'sbeen ages since I had to do this."

I don't get a chanceto ask what this is. She braces both hands on the edge of the counterand flexes her shoulders. I can see her reflection in the kitchen window. Hereyes are closed again, that small line of concentration has returned. Sweatbeads along her hairline.

Words, small andneatly written, appear on her shoulder. Rather than a bold black, they are amuted gray. Dark enough to stand out on her pale skin. A few lines of textcross the nape of her neck but disappear after only a second. The paragraph onher shoulder remains.

"Should be tenlines or so," she says through gritted teeth. "Oh! It stings.I'd forgotten that."

"Is this therite?"

"Yes. You mightwant to take a picture or something. I'm not sure how long I can hold this. I'mout of practice."

As soon as I snap apicture with my phone, the words fade. Az sags against the counter. I brush myfingers across where the words had been. That portion of her back is hot whilethe rest of her is cool. Though there are no bumps or visible marks, it feelsas if I could trace the words.

"Are youokay?" My feet are itching with the need to run to my office and print offthe picture. I have to make sure she's all right though. The health of the packtakes precedence over everything else. Even my curiosity.

"Yeah," shepants. "I'm fine. Just drained." She splashes water on her face andtakes a few sips from her cupped hands. I pat her on the shoulder beforedashing across the hall to my office.

When I return withtwo copies of the picture in hand, she's still slumped over the sink."C'mon, Princess. Let's see what this says."

With a pained grunt,she straightens. The t-shirt she lifts out of the sink is soaked. It lands backin the sink with a wet plop. Rather than go upstairs for a fresh shirt -like a normal person - she sits at the kitchen table in just her bra andjeans.

"Here." Itoss my flannel shirt at her, thankful that I'd thought to layer. It's a littletoo chilly to be sitting in the kitchen in just a thin white t-shirt, but atleast I won't be distracted by pink lace and smooth pale skin. Or the glaringevidence that she's cold. At least I know my judgment isn’t wrong – her breastsare definitely a perfect handful.

Az only bothers tofasten four buttons. She has to roll the cuffs six times and even then only thetips of her fingers are visible. She looks ridiculous. I only hope Gretadoesn't decide to come down for a cup of tea. She'll draw all the wrongconclusions, which would be a fitting end to a terrible day.

"Any other ritesor spells you have hidden away?" I ask, sliding one picture across thetable to her.

She laughs but thesmile doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Oh, I've got scads of spells.Dad's final resort. I wasn't getting the magic the way he thought I should, sohe wrote them on me. Words have power."

Anyone with half abrain knows that. It's why you have to be careful when speaking to witches andgnomes and damned leprechauns. It's why the words "I wish" have beenbanned from the pack house. A person's name can be more deadly than anautomatic weapon.

"Written wordshave more power." I may not know all the ins and outs of magic, but I canconnect dots fairly quickly. There has to be a reason spell books are guardedso closely and why Mages never sign their full names.

Az beams at me like Ijust burped out a rainbow. "Exactly. So Dad wrote the most powerful spellson me hoping that the magic would spark something. He used phoenix blood for anextra boost. In the end, all I did was absorb the magic and the ink."

My void is a walkingspell book. Lovely. "And the words there don't have any power atall?"

"They're anecho." She frowns. "That's not accurate, but it'll suffice. Phoenixblood is like an acid - which isn't quite accurate either. It etches into themuscles and bone. All it takes is a little concentration to make the wordsvisible. The more you practice, the easier it gets. And the less it stings."

She stretches herright arm across the table and shoves the cuff of her borrowed shirt over herelbow. It only takes a handful of seconds for three lines of gray text toappear on the underside of her forearm. "Spell to protect againsttelepathic attack." She flips her arm over. There are more words."Rite of Olwen. Conjures goblins."

Well hell. What am Isupposed to do with her now? She's even more of a liability. "Dangerousthing to do, writing spells on a little girl. What if someone replaces out and decidesyou're better than a boring ol' paper spell book?"

The look she shootsme makes it clear she regards my intellect on par with that of pond scum."Only I can make the words appear. And I have to do it deliberately. It'snot like if I get frightened or hurt they magically turn visible. They aren'taffected by electrical or magical shocks, either. There's no spell that bringsthem out."

"How do youknow?"

"I just do.Trust me."

She tucks her handsback in her sleeves and draws her knees to her chest. Ashen, exhausted, anddressed in a shirt three sizes too large, she should look pathetic. The sightof her should bring out all my protective instincts.

It doesn't. There's adefiant light in her eyes and in the tilt of her chin that keeps her fromcrossing the line into pitiful. Mostly, I just want to lock her in her pinkprincess palace and drink enough whisky to forget I ever met the Mage of NewOrleans' magic-sucking, spell-covered, craziness-spouting, maybe-kinda-cooldaughter.

Wait. Scratch thatlast part. She's the opposite of cool. She's hot. No. Wait. That's not what Imeant. Damn. I blame this entirely on her. Too much time spent with PsychoPrincess has obviously damaged a few of my brain cells.

"He could befrom an old family," she says, oblivious to my mental meltdown."Someone could have taught him the rite the same way I was taught it.Without the phoenix blood, of course."

Of course. When isanything 'of course' with magic? "Aren't the Mages big on genealogy? Like,obsessive I-can-trace-my-bloodline-back-to-the-Inquisition big?"

"Yes.Great-grandfather Vardan claims he can trace his lineage all the way to SimonMagus. Mom's family goes back to Alice Kyteler."

The names don't meananything to me, but she's confirmed my point. The old families keep records,and there are records of the old families. Surely it can't be too difficult toreplace out which members of the old families live in the Houston area.

"I can't hackCouncil records. I wouldn't know where to start," she says before I cantell her my plan. Either she's smarter than I gave her credit for or she canread my mind. I dearly hope - for her sake - that I'm guilty of misjudging her.

"Is that theonly way?"

"No, but you'renot going to like the alternative."

There isn't a thingabout this I like. A witch with a mysterious vendetta against Shifters tries tokill me, that witch is then killed while she's in prison, I nearly blow up in saidwitch's apartment, and there's a big shot magic user with the power to killpeople from a distance. I'm sure that whatever Az is going to have to say isgoing to send my blood pressure skyrocketing into the stratosphere. I wave ahand for her to go ahead and say it anyway.

"I can call theMage of St. Louis. He's my godfather. He's not like Dad. Not at all. He'd helpme. I could bounce an idea or two off him regarding Claire's spell, too."

Nothing is ever forfree when you involve the Mages' Council. "What'll it cost?"

She has the goodsense not to contradict me. Her hands flutter off the table to her knees."I don't know, but whatever it is, I'll pay it."

Yeah right. She'spack now. Whatever price the Mage of St. Louis demands will come out of thepack's hide one way or another. Hello rock, meet hard place.

"Make thecall."