Golden Delicious
FAITH HUNTER
Faith Hunter writes urban fantasy: the Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock—Skinwalker, Blood Cross, Mercy Blade, Raven Cursed, and Death’s Rival in October 2012—and the Rogue Mage series, featuring Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage in a postapocalyptic, alternate reality—Bloodring, Seraphs, Host, and Rogue Mage RPG and World Book. This short story, “Golden Delicious,” takes place in the Skinwalker series, after Raven Cursed, and between the short story in the e-compilation Cat Tales and Death’s Rival. When she isn’t writing, Faith likes to make jewelry, run whitewater rivers (Class II and III), and RV with her hubby and their rescued Pomeranian dogs.
Rick’s face was still tender, though the bruising was already yellow and the scabs had fallen off, revealing pink, healed skin. When he was human, it would have taken days to reach this stage of healing, but it had been less than twenty-four hours since he was sucker-punched. There were very few good things about being infected with were-taint, but fast healing was on that short list.
“He was trying to hurt you, yet you held back.” Soul glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. “It didn’t go unnoticed.”
He pushed on his teeth. They were no longer loose. “I’m betting he was a bully in high school,” he said. “Not used to a guy forty pounds lighter and three inches shorter taking him down.”
Soul’s full lips lifted slowly. “Without breaking his jaw, his knees, or dislocating his shoulder, all of which you could have done.” She made a left, turning onto a side road. Shadows covered them in the dim confines of the company car. “You taught him a valuable lesson. There are things out there that are bigger, faster, and won’t care if he carries a PsyLED badge.
“Speaking of things bigger and faster than human, walk me through it again,” she said, shifting their discussion as easily as she shifted gears.
“Human-sense evaluation, initial technology, followed by enhanced senses,” Rick said. “Then the pets and more tech as needed.”
From the back, Pea twittered and Brute growled. Pea was a juvenile grindylow, Rick’s pet and death sentence rolled up in one neon-green-furred, steel-clawed, kittenlike cutie. The werewolf taking up the backseat was stuck in wolf form, thanks to contact with an angel, and he didn’t like being called a pet, which meant that Rick did so every chance he got. The wolf hated leashes, his traveling cage, and eating from a bowl on the floor, but it wasn’t like he had a choice. Since Brute couldn’t shift back to human and had no thumbs, he had two options: accept the leash and being treated like a dangerous dog, or sit in a cage all day. He’d gone for the partial-freedom route, which meant partnering with Rick LaFleur. Rick, who hadn’t been human in two months himself, was at the training facility for the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security—called PsyLED Spook School by the trainees.
The three composed a ready-made unit, a triumvirate of nonhuman specialists. If they could learn to work together. So far, that didn’t look likely. The werewolf might not be responsible for Rick’s loss of humanity, job, and girlfriend, nor for the total FUBAR’d mess his life had become, but Brute had been part of the pack that kidnapped and tortured him. Rick didn’t like the wolf or want him around, but like Brute, he had no choice right now. PsyLED had specifically requested them together, and had refused to accept Rick as a solo trainee. It was a package deal or no deal.
Soul said, “Treat this as if it’s a paranormal crime and you’re the first investigator on-site. If you spot something out of the accepted order, hold it for the proper time. You’ll find that by training your investigative skills to work to a specific but fluid formula, you’ll actually gain a freedom of thought processes that will work well in the field.” Soul pulled into a driveway.
“This training site is the most difficult you will encounter during your time here. In the last two months, three students signed their Quit-Forms and left the program after seeing the site.” Her eyes narrowed, the skin around them crinkling. “And I can’t explain why this particular crime scene has been so difficult on them.” She turned off the car.
The small ranch house was dark, crime-scene tape over the sealed doors, plywood over the windows. The grass was six inches high, the flower beds needed weeding. “Assuming that the grass was cut in the week prior,” Rick said, “we’re looking at maybe eight weeks since the crime.”
Soul looked at him strangely. “You’re the only one who even glanced at the outside of the house.”
“I was a cop,” he said, feeling the loss in his bones. “We look at everything.”
Soul grinned, losing years and making him wonder again about her. She could have been thirty or fifty, tribal American, Gypsy, mixed African and European, or a combo. “I knew getting an undercover cop in this program was going to work. That’s why I asked to be your mentor.”
That was news. Soul was one of the top three mentors at Spook School, and Rick hadn’t known how he’d been paired with her.
Soul opened her door, using the interior lights to twist a scrunchy around her platinum hair to keep it out of the way. “The neighbors called nine-one-one when they heard screaming and a dog howling. It was the second night of the full moon, nearly eight weeks ago. The first officers on the scene secured the area, called Medic, made arrests based on the evidence, and then called PsyLED.”
Rick stepped to the driveway and opened the back door for the pets. Brute leaped out—leash-free this time because there were no humans around—his white fur bright in the nearly full moon. Pea clung to his back, smiling, showing fangs as big as Brute’s. Most people saw a green-dyed kitten when they saw her. It. Whatever. Pea was as playful as a kitten, and could get lost chasing a ball of twine for hours, but if he or Brute stepped out of line and risked passing along the were-taint to a human, she’d kill them without hesitation. That was her job.
“You stay by the door until I’m ready,” Rick instructed. Brute scowled and emitted a low growl. This wasn’t the first time they’d been over this. The last time Rick had brought it up, Brute had walked over to his instruction manual and lifted a leg. Rick had just barely saved the manual from a nasty drenching. Now, he held the wolf’s eyes as the growl began to build.
Eventually, they’d have to deal with the question of who was in charge, and the wolf would have to accept beta status, acquiesce to Rick as alpha. Soul looked down at the wolf. “You’re part of Rick’s investigative team,” she said, her tone cold. “I will not have silliness.” Brute dropped his ears and whined, submissive, and Rick shook his head, wishing he knew her trick. Soul lifted her long skirts above the dew-damp grass and led the way to the door. She unlocked it and stood back, her fingers laced together.
Rick pulled on a pair of black nitrile gloves and flipped on the inside light. There was no furniture in the room, but it was far from empty. “It’s a witch-working, salt-circle, internal pentagram composed of feathers, river-worn rocks, tiny moonstones, and dead plants. Two pools of blood in the pentagram suggest a blood rite, but it’s an odd combo for one. Blood rites usually require full, five-element mixed covens.” He stepped away from the front door, moving sun-wise, or clockwise, a foot outside the circle, to avoid activating any latent spells. “We have five practitioners, from four of the elements—air, water, two moon witches, and oddly, the death-magic branch of earth witches.” Death-magic was rare, little-known, and almost never practiced. Adepts were considered dangerous by other witches, because they used dying things to power workings, and when nothing around was dying, they would steal the life force of the living. In Spook School, he had learned how they worked. They were not nice people.
In the corner, standing with Soul, Brute was growling again, the basso so deep it was more a vibration on the air than actual sound. His mentor put a hand to the wolf’s head, and Brute hunched, his shoulder blades high. Pea was staring at the circle, her eyes wide, one paw-finger at her mouth. It was the animals’ first crime scene, and Rick could imagine how awful the sights and smells must be to them.
“The composition of practitioners made for a lopsided but feasible working,” Rick said. “The death witch was coven leader, sitting at the north, with a moon witch to either side, and air and water at the base, which made for the best balance the coven could get in during the full moon.
“The scorch mark in the center of the circle suggests they called up a demon, likely one that was moon-bound. If they called up a demon, it was for something bad, and I haven’t heard of anything happening that might be demon-born.”
Soul tilted her head, acknowledging his analysis, but not giving him more information.
“The salt ring is broken in three places, which suggests that the working was completed or was interrupted in such a way that there’s no residual power remaining. If this was a fresh crime scene and no one had been into the room, the first thing I’d do is verify with the psymeter that the working is not active. Do you want me to go ahead and do that?”
Soul said, “Not now. Proceed.”
Rick studied the circle. “Because of the blood-magic, I’d call in Psy-CSI to take trace matter and blood samples to be held for possible DNA in the event that we have humans to compare, and in the event that this was a fatal crime.”
Soul nodded, expressionless. “The investigators did so.”
“Photographs, samples of each of the elements used, fingerprints, blood spatter workup—” Rick stopped. He was standing at the air point, studying the blood pattern. It was smeared and splattered over a large area, maybe four feet, but not puddled, as it would have been had the witch collected the blood in a bowl and then spilled or poured it. He bent closer and saw hairs in the blood. There were three, with more in the blood in the center of the circle, a lot more, some in small clumps. Stress caused some animals to lose hair. “—and speciation of the hairs,” he finished after a brief pause. “Then I’d search the rest of the house. Shall I bother? It smells empty.” Spook School knew everything about his situation, had tested his sensory perceptions extensively during his interview phase. Soul knew he had much better senses than a human, even in his current state.
Soul shook her head.
“End of human eval.” Rick dropped to one knee in a tripod position, weight on knee, feet, and one hand. He sniffed in short, quick inhalations. An electric shock slammed through him, triggering the memories. Werewolf. He gasped, the jolt of pain and terror whipping through him. He managed a breath, then another, breathing deeper, forcing the fear and panic away with each breath. The witches had sacrificed a werewolf on the full moon. Rick opened an evidence packet. With a pair of tweezers, he picked up the hair closest. “Each hair is three inches long, pale at the root, fading to gray, and black at the tip.”
Soul watched, assessing his reaction. She had known. Of course she had known. Except for Brute, this was the first were he had scented since the attack, the kidnapping, and the subsequent torture by the Lupus Pack in New Orleans. And his reaction to it was part of what would make or break his qualification and acceptance into PsyLED.
Slowly he lowered the hair into the evidence bag, fighting down the panic attack. He had thought he’d conquered the PTSD. Not so. The scars and the mangled tattoos on his shoulder and upper arm ached, feeling blistering hot, though they weren’t. He forcibly relaxed, breathing slowly to decrease the fight-or-flight response brought on by the scent. The words clean and concise, his brain actually still functioning, Rick said, “Presumption: Speciation of blood in the center of the circle was revealed to be werewolf blood. Second presumption: It bit the air witch, badly enough to transmit the were-taint.”
At the words, Pea launched herself from Brute’s shoulders and scampered across the room, leaping, crabbing sideways; she disturbed nothing. Brute followed slowly, but outside the circle, the overhead light throwing odd shadows, the darkest ones pooling under the werewolf. His growl, until now only a vibration, grew in volume. Rick realized that Brute had already detected the other werewolf, had known what had happened here from the moment they entered the room, and had been kept calm only by Soul’s hand on his head. Rick would have to learn to read Brute in the field—assuming they passed the training
Pea stopped at the center of the circle and scraped at the dried blood with one scalpel-sharp claw. She brought it to her nose and sniffed. She sneezed, hard, covering her tiny mouth with a paw, then raced to the dried blood at Rick’s feet. Brute and Pea stood, nose-to-nose, sniffing.
Slowly, Brute moved to the center of the circle and sniffed again. His ears went back and the vibration of his werewolf growl filled the room, seeming to bounce off the walls into Rick’s chest. Brute’s pale, crystalline eyes stared up at the former cop, his growl increasing in volume before falling away into a whine. If Rick hadn’t known better, he would have thought the wolf was feeling worried, concerned. But three seconds spent with an Angel of the Light could have been no cure for Brute’s cruelty.
Pea stepped over the salt circle and put her forelegs on Rick’s jeans-clad shin, staring up at him. Her tail twitched, her face mournful. “Yeah,” he said to her, stroking her once in comfort. “We’re too late. Maybe weeks too late.” He looked at Soul. “Did the witch turn?” Soul pressed her lips together and didn’t answer. Rick figured that info was need-to-know, and trainees were the lowest on the information ladder.
On his hands and knees, Rick circled the room, sniffing, letting the scent signatures settle into his brain, new memories, new associations. Rick turned to Brute. “You’re up.” The werewolf held Rick’s eyes with a predator’s intensity. This was something they had worked out the first day of school, a Q&A to keep them from having any Timmy-fell-down-the-well moments of attempted communication. “Take scent signatures of the subjects.” Brute snarled at him, but walked slowly around the circle, sniffing at each spot where a witch had knelt during the working. When he was finished, the wolf sat down again, waiting for the confirmatory questions.
“All the witches were female,” Rick said.
“You can tell that by scent?” Soul interrupted, surprised.
Rick held up a finger, watching the wolf. There weren’t many male witches because they tended to die at puberty, but it was always wise to confirm. The wolf nodded, which was a strange gesture on the animal.
“Were all the witches related?” Rick asked.
Brute shook his head.
“Two were related,” Rick said.
Brute nodded once.
“This witch”—Rick indicated a point on the pentagram—“and that one.”
Brute nodded again. Most covens were related by blood, even if widely spaced on the family tree.
Soul’s eyes gleamed and her nostrils widened. Rick could hear her heart rate increase. “Very good,” she murmured.
Pea stood on her hind feet, asking to be held. Rick boosted her up and Pea balanced across one shoulder, her tail curling around his neck, her furry cheek next to his. She didn’t purr, exactly. It was more part-purr and part-croon, rhythmical, musical, and harmonic.
Soul crossed the room, walking widdershins, or counterclockwise. When she reached him, she buried her hand in Brute’s ruff, scratching his ears. The werewolf sighed in happiness. “None of the other trainees did half as well, not even the witches, and they had a better handle into magic-working than you will ever have. Starting a week late, you are better at this than any of the others.” A half smile curled her lips. “Don’t tell them I said so.”
“Psymeter,” he said, not responding to the compliment. Rick knew that, in his case, being the best was not a guarantee that his triumvirate would graduate and go on to be PsyLED agents. They had other issues. Lots of other issues.
Soul lifted the strap of the bulky device from around her head. The training units were older models, having been pulled from field use when the agency got lighter-weight, more compact ones, but the older models still worked. Rick stepped outside, clipped the box to his belt, and turned the unit on. He zeroed it to the outside magical ambience, which should have been close to zero. The meter needle fluctuated and settled safely in the green zone. This particular device had been calibrated just for his unit, taking into account their magical energies, which had higher-than-human readings.
He deliberately did not look up at the sky. Tomorrow night was the first night of the full moon and he got weird close to the full moon, wanting to sit and stare up at it. For hours. Yeah. Weird.
Rick stepped back inside and instantly the meter spiked. Rick stopped and looked at Soul. The meter wasn’t reacting to her—Soul showed up as human though she definitely was not—but to something else in the room. “It’s redlining. This far out time-wise from a working, it should be a low yellow, max.”
“What might that signify?”
“Several possibilities. The working was interrupted. The working is still active, which means they transferred the working to an amulet. Or it had a delayed result yet to be released. But I don’t see signs of anything magically active, so which was it?”
Soul shook her head. “We don’t know yet.” Rick handed Soul the psymeter and she touched Brute’s shoulder, which came to her waist. The gesture was part scratch and part something metaphysically calming, which made Rick once again wonder what Soul was. Fairy? Elf? The wolf started panting and closed his eyes.
Rick said, “I want to see the crime-scene photos, mug shots, and the notes of the OIC and the IO.”
“Why?” She sounded sincerely curious, not if-I-ask-a-question-he’ll-learn-something curious. “What do you think that the officer in charge and the investigating officer might have missed?”
“I don’t know. But the meter’s still redlining. I might see something that the rest of you missed, or something in the photos might hit on what I smelled or saw. I might draw a different conclusion or ask a different question. I want to see all that because tomorrow night is the start of the full moon. And we might have a werewolf out there.”
Soul stared at him, her black eyes speculative. They were even blacker than his own Frenchy-black eyes, and usually they sparkled, throwing back the light like faceted black onyx. But tonight they were somber. Soul pulled a cell phone from a pocket in her gauzy skirt and punched in a number. “Have the on-call administrator call me back ASAP.” She closed the cell.
Rick studied the circle once more. “Did our people make the three openings in the salt?”
That enigmatic half smile lit her features again. “No. It was that way when we found it.” Soul’s platinum ponytail slid to one shoulder and stayed there when she raised her head. She was graceful, small, and curvy in all the right places. He wanted to know more about her, but he also understood that the relationship between trainee and mentor was one of strictly enforced professionalism. There weren’t a lot of law enforcement jobs open to someone who carried the were-taint. He wasn’t going to blow his chance to work for PsyLED by giving the wrong signals. He’d made too many mistakes where women were concerned. He’d lost his humanity because of that. He turned and went outside.
The light inside the house went out behind him and he heard Soul lock the door. He could count the tumblers if he wanted to. Cat hearing was part of the enhanced senses he’d gained when he was bitten by a black were-leopard.
Soul’s cell tinkled, New Age musical chimes. She walked away, opened it, and instead of saying hello, said, “Mariella. Thank you for returning my call.”
“How did your wonder boy do?” Mariella Russo, the instructional administrator, asked.
Though Rick had never met the IA, he’d remember that voice. It sounded rough as splintered wood, as if she smoked four packs of cigarettes and drank a pint of rotgut whisky every day. Soul knew he had acute senses, but she never acted accordingly and he’d learned a lot of interesting things by listening. He turned away so Soul couldn’t read his face. Pea nuzzled his cheek and he stroked her, absently. Brute was a white shadow off to the side, glowering at him.
“Our best PsyLED investigators took two weeks to determine what his unit deduced in only twenty minutes,” Soul said. “And, thanks to his law enforcement training, he added observations that the other trainee units missed. It will be in my report. He wants the crime-scene photos, mug shots, and the notes of the OIC and the IO. I am recommending he be given access.”
“This situation is far too delicate and volatile for a trainee to have that sort of entrée,” Russo said. “So the answer is no, Soul.”
“Rick LaFleur didn’t turn or go insane at the last full moon,” Soul said. “He survived it. Intact. He may see something we missed. Or he may know something he doesn’t realize he knows until the memory is triggered or the association falls into place.”
“What Chief Smythe needs from him is the name of the witch who created his counter-spell music. Get that and we’ll reconsider.”
Rick went cold. Was that why he had been invited to train at PsyLED? Because the department wanted access to his friend, an unknown witch, one not in the databases? Or access to a charm no one had ever heard of before—one that controlled the pain brought on by the full moon? And most important, why would Liz Smythe want it?
Pea made a twitter of concern and he stroked her gently. “It’s okay, Pea.” But it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
“The chief administrator can ask for her own information,” Soul said. “Come on. Let Rick see the crime-scene photos.”
Russo sighed. “Why do you always try to get the protocols changed, Soul?”
Soul’s laughter floated on the night air. “Because I’m the best. Because of what I am. Agree, Rus’. You know I’m right.”
“Fine. An intern will deliver the file to LaFleur’s private chambers before you get back to base.”
Rick smiled tightly, his eyes on the house across the street. The “private chambers” comment said a lot about his entire stay at Spook School.
“She agreed,” Soul said. Brute flinched. Rick held his own recoil in. She had appeared right next to them without a sound, even with his and Brute’s keen hearing. He remembered what she had said to Russo, “Because of what I am.” And he wondered, not for the first time, what Soul was.
—