Warlock 4 - Preview Chapter

A clarification from the poll - when I said one option is two chapters and the other eight, I was referring to the series of chapters in a row on that topic, not the size of the next drop. Sorry for any confusion - the drops remain one chapter a week (or more if they're smaller) for the time being.

Chapter

“What have we learned?” I asked, after dinner.

We’d spent a few days each reading all the paperwork and files we’d taken photos of in the DCS office, with a break to sit in the Fielding’s waiting room. I figured if we each read things independently and then came together to discuss, we might have more ideas to discuss and we had time to concentrate on other things, since we’d agreed to talk to the Fieldings at the Conclave. I had a couple ideas for what to do next, but they were based on things Gabriel had said, not any of the records we’d found — I was hoping the girls might have seen something I’d missed.

Cassandra pulled out her laptop while Rachel went into the living room and returned with a plastic box.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, reaching for the dish of leftover peach cobbler now behind Cassandra’s laptop screen.

“Leave it,” Cassandra growled. “Baby want.”

Sam sighed, but left the cobbler where it was. “Our kid’s a selfish brat — I blame Noah.”

Mel smiled gently. “I have another in the kitchen.”

“I’ll get it!” Sam called over her shoulder.

“The box?” I asked Rachel as she opened it, because it was clear Sam had been distracted by cobbler.

“Short-throw laser projector,” Rachel said, setting a device on what I’d been reliably informed was a sideboard. As opposed to the very similar piece of furniture in the living room, which was called a credenza.

The difference?

A couple inches in height and depth, but mostly which room it was in.

Why did I know this?

Because I’d made the mistake of asking a question about cottage-furnishings.

Some things are best left to the girls to decide and tell me what was happening.

“A laser projector?”

Cassandra nodded, taking a cable from Rachel and plugging it into her laptop.

Then the pregnant witch’s head came up to stare at Sam returning from the kitchen.

“Strawberry?” she asked, nose twitching.

“Strawberry-rhubarb,” Mel said.

Sam and Cassandra stared at each other for a moment, then Sam looked at each of the other girls in turn and nodded.

“Tell the baby we’ll trade him half the strawberry-rhubarb now for half of what’s left of the peach and half of whatever’s leftover from tomorrow’s dessert,” Sam said. “It’s a good deal.”

Cassandra pondered, then nodded as her stomach rumbled. At least I hoped it was her stomach and not my son growling for a shot at more cobbler.

“Deal.” She pushed the dish of peach cobbler toward the other side of the table. “Put the baby’s share in here and we’ll eat it later.”

Once the cobblers had been divided and some portions dished out to those who wanted seconds, Cassandra started tapping at her keyboard.

“Slides? Really?” I asked as the image appeared on the wall above the sideboard.

Operation Backward Bassinets

Phase 1A

Department of Child Services Data Analysis

Cassandra Blackwood and Rachel Blackwood

“Backward Bassinets?” Morgan asked.

“Because we’re trying to work our way backward to when you guys were babies,” Rachel explained.

I nodded rather than rolling my eyes because Cassandra was looking at me.

“So,” Cassandra said, tapping her keyboard.

The title slide was replaced by a map of the city and surrounding areas.

“The first thing we did,” Rachel said, “is map the relevant locations against the timeline to get a good understanding of what we do know, including the baby drops you were left in —”

Cassandra tapped her keyboard and two markers appeared on the map.

“— and the different homes you were moved to.”

More markers appeared, blue and red to differentiate the homes Morgan and I had been moved to before winding up in the same one, one by one, along with dates next to each.

“I don’t see any pattern,” Morgan said.

“Exactly!” Rachel nodded. “There’s no correlation or pattern in the locations whatsoever, other than the two we knew about already — that you were both put in baby drops the same week, but a year apart, and that you were both transferred to your last foster home within a similarly short time period.”

“That’s helpful?”

“Absolutely,” Cassandra said. “No pattern is as informative as a pattern.”

“Really?” I asked.

Rachel nodded. “Oh, yeah — it helps us eliminate some possibilities.”

Felicity perked up as a laser dot appeared on the wall, but Sam distracted her by twitching her napkin.

“For instance,” Rachel said, drawing an image on the wall with her pointer. “We found no evidence that someone was trying to draw either a circle or pentagram around the city with either of you — so we know they weren’t trying to open a hellmouth or something.”

“Hellmouths are a thing?” Morgan asked.

Cassandra shrugged. “There’s a lot of different things that someone like you might consider a hellmouth — but we don’t have to worry about any of them for this.”

Leaving open the need to worry about hellmouths for other things didn’t really comfort me.

Or the girls could be fucking with Morgan and me … even odds, I thought.

“We know what the Cait wanted,” I said. “To bring back the Morrigan.”

Rachel nodded. “But we don’t know what whoever moved you around wanted, or what they wanted by putting you in the same home as Morgan.”

“I was there first,” I said. “Maybe it had nothing to do with Morgan. Usually when I was moved it was because … um, I did something.”

“Like kick some guy’s ass?”

I shrugged.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Sure — a witch and a warlock wind up in the same mundane foster home. Totally a coincidence.”

“I got moved a lot,” Morgan said. “Like, once a year since I was six.”

Rachel nodded. “Every four hundred days,” she said, as Cassandra tapped her spacebar to proceed to the next slide.

“What?”

Rachel pointed at the wall. “According to the records, you were moved every four hundred days — exactly. It probably felt like it was kind of random and about once a year, but it was exactly every four hundred days until you got to the home with Noah.”

“Does that mean something?”

“Nothing useful to us now, I think,” Mel said. “Four hundred days is a Great Cycle amongst the fae. It represents a resurgence or return to power — possibly something the Cait performed to assist in his rite to bring back the Morrigan.”

“But it stopped when I was twelve — when I got placed with Noah.”

Mel nodded. “That is significant — the Cait should have continued the moves right up until the end to build power for the ritual.”

“So why stop?”

“The Cait said it got hard to move her,” I said. “Like, with the Department people being too lazy or something.”

“I can’t imagine the Cait willingly risking his purpose because of the difficulty,” Mel said. “He’d already changelinged a witch — I doubt a few office workers were so much more intimidating.”

“I don’t know,” Morgan said. “Mrs. Ingrahm could be a real hard ass. She bitched about everything.”

“Glamour can usually put a stop to bitching,” Cassandra said.

Morgan raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t,” I warned.

“So what changed?” Morgan asked, ignoring me.

I believe a number of things contributed, Felicity thought at us. The Cait did express a great deal of annoyance at the growing difficulty of moving Morgan, and having discovered Noah, his adherence to the Great Cycle would have been broken if he’d moved her again after just doing so, which may have contributed to his decision when he discovered Noah there only days after placing Morgan.

Felicity paused.

As to why he didn’t move her four hundred days later, well, I do believe he was truly curious as to the purpose of Noah’s presence in mundane foster care — and concerned there were other Powers at play, which he wanted to understand before acting.

“Curious enough about something to risk his whole plan?” I asked.

Felicity stared at me for a moment.

Do not underestimate the consequences of unsatisfied curiosity. It is a powerful drive.

“So we’re still on for tomorrow?” Morgan asked.

I nodded. “Now that we know exactly where we were each dropped off, we’ll go over there and take a look around the places. Maybe ask some questions.”

“Do you really think anyone will remember what happened twenty years ago?” Priscilla asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe we could use Hindsight?”

I was kind of wishing we had Hannah around for more than one reason.

“Hindsight has limitations,” Priscilla said. “Twenty years is a long time.”

“The consanguinity rite went back over two thousand, though.”

“That’s different. The rite was finding connections between two known points — you and Melaina. Hindsight works by attaching to traces of mana in the past — and those fade with time.”

“And the mana from an event can be covered up by future events,” Rachel added. “Like around a busy fire station or hospital.”

Mel was nodding, so I guess Rachel and Priscilla were right.

“Even if Hindsight could reach that far back and find something, it would take a huge amount of power just to get there.” Cassandra said. “It’s not like we can follow someone for twenty years with Hindsight to where they are now.” She looked at me. “Sorry, I know —” She bit her lip. “It won’t let you see her.”

“It’s okay.” I nodded, but glanced at Mel.

She was shaking her head. “Even I might attempt to look back a year, at most — possibly more in a rather desolate area, but nearly twenty? No, there would be nothing left to find magically.”

“I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.”

Honestly, I thought breaking into the Department’s office hadn’t gotten us much more information than we already had.

“Mel?” I asked, glancing at Morgan. “Anything on Morgan’s family?”

Mel was already shaking her head.

“Neither any of the Council nor the Independent Families had an infant die eighteen years ago. I even had the records checked for five years before and after Morgan’s birthday, in case the Cait had done something with time in Fairy. The Outcasts are less meticulous about records, but none of those I’ve spoken to have any knowledge of such a thing.”

“Maybe a Family didn’t say anything?”

“Pregnancies and births are rather important to us. It would be quite odd for one to be kept secret. I’ll move on to the European Families and reach out to some of the more responsive Outcasts next.”

Morgan’s shoulders slumped and Sam started running a hand over her back.

“Which brings us to the pictures,” Cassandra said.

An image of a naked baby appeared on the wall.

“Aw!” Morgan exclaimed. “Look at his cute little wee-wee.”

I closed my eyes feeling my face flush as the girls all added their own comments.

“Why the naked picture of me?” I asked.

“Because it’s significant,” Cassandra said.

“It sure is,” Priscilla added.

My face got hotter.

“Noah,” Cassandra said, “was dropped off with nothing.”

“What?” I opened my eyes, trying not to look at the projected image. “No — I was dropped off in a blanket. It had horsies on it and —”

“Horsies?” Morgan asked.

Redder. Hotter.

“That’s what I called them when I was five,” I said. “That’s when I lost the blanket.”

I was certain that little shit Timmy Donovan had stolen it and probably thrown it out, but I could never prove it.

Rachel was shaking her head. “Sorry if they told you that, but there was nothing left with you.”

“That would have been wise of your mother,” Mel said. “Anything from her might have been scryed by Gabriel, whereas you, alone, would be protected as he had nothing of yours.”

“Well … shit,” I muttered.

I was probably going to have to track Timmy down and apologize … a lot of his shit went missing that year. I mean, I still thought he took it, so deserved to lose some shit … just, maybe, not as much as he had.

“The same cannot be said for Morgan,” Cassandra said, tapping her keyboard.

The image projected on the wall changed.

“What?” I asked. “No naked baby-Morgan?”

I sighed, realizing what was coming.

“Just a little creepy, Ashe.”

I ignored her and examined the projected image.

The picture was a small square of cloth with a length of red thread. It was creased and wrinkled, with some kind of residue.

“A soska-obereg,” Mel said, frowning.

“A what?” Morgan asked.

Rachel was frowning too. “A nipple that protects?”

“Cool,” Sam said with a grin. She threw her shoulders back and alternated thrusting each side of her chest forward. “Pew! Pew! Battle nipples!”

Morgan narrowed her eyes. “You’re really kind of a freak, Hexual.”

“We agree on that, at least,” Cassandra muttered.

Sam’s eyes widened and she pointed at Cassandra. “Hey, you know what would be —”

“No.”

Sam blinked. “You haven’t even —”

“No. Zena cannot have …” Cassandra sighed and closed her eyes. “Battle nipples.” She opened her eyes and glared at Morgan. “No more homebrew.”

Cassandra was still pretty wound up about how often Morgan used her custom Lesser Fireball spell during our RPG campaigns, and I could kind of see her point about letting in Battle Nipples.

“It’s a traditional pacifier,” Mel said, thankfully getting us back on track.

Cassandra nodded. “That makes sense. Even as a baby she needed something to shut her up.”

And … we have left the tracks again.

“Yeah, Elsa, talk some more about needing to suck things?”

“Hey!” I said, cutting things off. The last thing I wanted was for Cassandra’s warlock-compliance techniques to turn into a negative amongst the girls.

“You’re just mad because —”

“Yeah, yeah, you were first at something,” Morgan said. She grinned and raised one finger at Cassandra. It was the one with a ring on it.

Cassandra pulled her collar down to show her mark, then raised a finger at Morgan in return. It wasn’t one with a ring on it.

“Girls —”

“You know,” Morgan said, glancing at Sam, then grinning at Cassandra. “If you’re really worried about matching firsts with Hexual, there is a tie-breaker.”

“Morgan!”

I ran my eyes over the suddenly quiet witches.

Sam was clearly amused, maybe a little thoughtful, while Rachel and Priscilla were looking down at the table as though wishing they were somewhere else. Mel was smirking at me, looking even more amused than Sam — she was probably watching me handle this and comparing me to a couple thousand years of warlock-observations. I wondered how I was measuring up. Felicity was staring at me, head cocked to one side and tail twitching, about as inscrutable as a … well, cat.

Cassandra was glaring at Morgan, while Morgan was looking at me expectantly.

I took a deep breath.

“Morgan, that’s enough. Cassandra’s trying to help us here.”

Morgan held my gaze for a moment, then ducked her head.

“You’re right — sorry, Elsa.”

Then she shivered a little as I saw mana fill her Surrender resonant.

I glanced at Cassandra, paying attention to her mana generation, because something felt off. Morgan was generating a lot of different mana, but nothing like the sickly-green of Malice that filled Cassandra when she was being mean. If anything, Morgan was enjoying herself — which made sense, since Morgan just liked to fuck with people.

Cassandra, on the other hand, seemed happy?

She wasn’t spinning off Anger or anything like hurt feelings, despite the glare she was shooting at Morgan. Instead it was more some sort of satisfaction that I couldn’t understand.

There was a lot more complexity to the cheat codes than I could understand — and I wondered if I ever would.

Probably have some kind of epiphany on my death bed or something and finally understand women.

The shock of which will likely be what kills me.

“Mel?” I prompted.

“Thank you, dear. Soska-obereg — it’s a cloth wrapped around a piece of bread or soaked in honey. Sometimes with poppy oil.” She frowned. “Tied with the red string like that, though — thrice. Cassandra, send the photo to me, please.”

Cassandra started typing while Mel pulled out her phone.

“Done.”

Now Mel was tapping at her phone, then she set it down.

“I’ve sent this to Magistra Cassian — hopefully she’ll respond soon.”

“Why Magistra Cassian?” I asked.

I was really asking what Magistra Cassian might know that Mel didn’t — The Blackwood being two thousand years old, and all.

“She —”

Mel’s phone rang.

“Good morning, Eleni,” Mel said, answering and setting her phone on the table. “I’m here with Noah and his coven.”

“Dobru utru, uchitelyu le. Good morning, magellae, Magellus Blackwood.”

“Good morning, Magistra Cassian,” all of us but Morgan chorused automatically.

“I’m sorry to bother you this late, Eleni, but I thought you might have some insight into the picture I sent you.”

“Is soska-obereg,” Magistra Cassian confirmed.

“It was found with a witch,” Mel said, “when the witch was a babe.”

The phone was silent for a long moment.

“With witch? No, is to hide,” Magistra Cassian said, finally.

“That is what I thought,” Mel said, her frown deepening.

“That makes sense,” I said. “The Cait obviously wanted to hide Morgan.”

“No — is from witch.”

“So it’s from Morgan’s family? To keep her safe and the Cait kept it with her?”

Magistra Cassian sighed. “Not made from witch — hide from witch. Is mundane-magic.”

Now I was frowning. Why would Morgan, a witch, be found with a mundane charm to protect against witches?

“Why would the Cait leave her with a mundane socka … serka …” I glanced at Sam and shrugged. “Why would the Cait leave Morgan with a Battle Nipple?”

A strangled sound came from Mel’s phone.

“I’m sorry, Eleni,” Mel said, glaring at me. “We had a bit of a translation issue earlier.”

“If it’s to hide a witch,” Priscilla said, “could he have wanted to hide her from her family?”

“I hope not,” Mel said. Her face was serious. “The red thread makes it protection against a rather specific witch.”

“Only Vyatka women still tie thrice against gorska baba,” Magistra Cassian said. “Beyond Volga, they forget words.”

“Gorska Baba?” I asked. It sounded familiar, almost, but I couldn’t place it.

“The Forest Witch,” Mel said.

I frowned. “Isn’t that, um, you?”

Mel sighed. “All forests got a witch in mundane legends, I suppose. I may have become that for the West, but to the East there was another.”

Magistra Cassian’s sigh from the phone matched Mel’s.

“Baba Yaga.”