Hurricane #12: The Wards (Patreon)

“She didn’t say anything else about these wards?”

Serrano shook her head at the otter. “No. All she said was that, uh, that they weren’t like anything she’d felt before.”

Stavan rubbed his chin. “Hmm.” He stepped back, looking at the ceiling corners, and traced another rune in the air, studying parallel glowing lines left behind like a doctor reading an EKG chart.

While Professor Snep might have dressed like a wizard from a fantasy novel, his student was thoroughly modern, decked out in chino shorts and a designer T-shirt. He’d still stand out from a crowd, though, because he had the body of a pinup model. Or, at risk of stereotyping him by species, a champion surfer. “So, uh, what does it say?”

“Nothing.” He looked handsomely puzzled.

“Nothing? Like no magic nothing, or faerie magic they don’t teach at the school nothing, or…?”

“Like absolutely no magic nothing. There’s always a…a magical version of background radiation, a baseline energy. But it’s just not here.” Stavan’s thick tail wiggled. He walked to the front door, motioning for her to follow him outside the apartment.

Serrano nodded, watching the next spell he cast. The same spell, maybe: it left the same glowing lines, but this time they spread out slightly, colors shifting.

“It should be like that.” He ran claws through his short, chopped head fur, then paused. “But not like that.” He pointed at one section of line.

She squinted at it. “Uh huh. And that means…”

“I don’t know. This is almost more like radio interference.”

“Yeah, I’m kinda losing your metaphors here.”

“That’s not a metaphor. I mean it behaves like interference leaking over from the electromagnetic spectrum. They’re not the same kind of energy, but they can affect one another. This is getting way outside my field of study, though.”

She furrowed her brow. “Explain it to me like I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, Stavan.”

“I…hmm. Well, I told you what wards are.”

“Yeah, like a shield spell or something to keep out bad magic and magical beings. Like faeries.” She snorted. “Except when you summon them behind the ward yourself.”

“Right. I’m not too savvy with faerie magic, so I don’t know what your, uh, fae acquaintance saw that made her think these are wards. They’re not, though, not in any traditional sorcery sense. They’re suppressing magic in your apartment, and if I’m reading that last spell right—which I can’t promise—there’s some kind of technological basis to it.”

She pointed back through the open door. “Stavan, I summoned a faerie in there accidentally, and she teleported us both from a coffee shop right into my living room. And like I said, there’s some kind of magic that’s been working on me before that.”

The otter shrugged, looking apologetic in a studly fashion. “I don’t know what to tell you, Ms. Layotl.”

“Serrano. Don’t make me feel like I’m that much older than you.”

He laughed. “Sorry. Serrano. I know a professor I can talk to at the school who might have some ideas for you, though. They work with…I don’t know what to call it, exactly, but they work with…you know…” He waved a hand back and forth.

“Mad science?” she guessed.

He made a finger-gun-snap gesture at her. “If it comes up, those were your words, not mine.”

“Awesome.” She rubbed her face with both hands. “Sure, why the fuck not. I already have two staff members at the college full of magical giants suspicious of me, so let’s go for three.”

The otter held up his webbed hands. “When Professor Snep is being dour and enigmatic at you, don’t take it personally. I’ve literally never seen him any other way.”

“It’s the part about him telling me I might be a danger to others I’m taking a little personally, especially after the shit with the faerie wolf who also seems to think I’m a danger.”

Stavan looked startled, then a little wary. “Just what is it you’re doing that’s dangerous?”

“I don’t think…” She trailed off. Honestly, she didn’t want to think she was doing anything dangerous. But she had a smashed car, wrecked coffee shop, and two missing people in the well, actually column. “I think,” she continued carefully, “there are dangerous things being done to me that could hurt others. Whatever Snep and Webb and Scary Faerie are picking up on is connected to it, and these wards—or whatever they are—must be, too. All I know is that if they’re here to protect me, they’re doing a pretty shit job. So who’s the mad science professor?”

“Professor Irsaw. I’ll tell them about your, uh, case, and make an introduction if they’re interested. And you’re interested.”

“Yes, I’m definitely interested.” She couldn’t stop herself from glancing up and down the otter’s body when she said that.

Stavan blinked twice, then grinned. “Good. I have to get back to a study group in an hour, but Professor Irsaw or I will be in touch, Serrano.”

• • •

That night, Serrano lay in bed staring at a crack in the ceiling. It looked like it had grown since the last time she’d paid attention to it. Lovely.

It had been five nights since her “visit” with Sarah, and five nights without dreams. Not counting the unexpected meeting with Chiltepin, it had been five nights ignoring the faerie’s strongly worded suggestion to get in touch with her family. But about what, exactly? “Hey, mom, anything about storm gods in our family history you should have told me about? Do we worship Ulohne? Did you do something that really pissed her off?”

That would be a start, she could almost hear Sarah saying. Then she imagined Chiltepin just staring at her incredulously. Well, maybe if her cousin thought she’d gone utterly insane, she’d stop asking her to be in her band.

Of course, maybe she was going utterly insane. Sighing, she closed her eyes.

The rain picks up, even harder, faster, colder. It soaks through your fur.

No, you know this is a dream. When the figures round the street ahead of you, framed in moonlight, you snarl. Are they the same figures they had been before? There’s a cat, and a rabbit, and…something alien. Instead of calling to you, they’re arguing among themselves, glancing your way nervously.

You’ll give them something to be nervous about. You charge, howling. “I ate the last ones, and I’ll eat—”

The storm becomes impossibly fierce. You can hear them, but they’re becoming hard to see.

“—if she—”

“—tell Sark—”

“Higher! Hurry!”

You’re losing them in the rain. You’re losing yourself in the rain. The water courses right through you, pulling your power with it, your soul with it. You are the source of the raging river, and you can’t stop yourself from being drained away.

Thunderous knocks ring out. Gunshots? Cannons? Thunder? You spin toward them wildly—

Serrano sat bolt upright in bed, panting, and the world spun dizzily for a moment, the knocks still sounding in her ears. Why did she still feel water? The bed was wet. The sheets were damp, like they’d been caught in a rainstorm. The rainstorm.

She leapt out of bed, letting out a terrified bark. This was still the dream, wasn’t it? It had to still be—

The knocks sounded again, urgent, at her door. “Miss Serrano Layotl!” an unfamiliar voice called. “Are you all right?”

No. Definitely not all right. Was this or wasn’t it still a dream? And who the hell…?

A quick glance around for anything useful as a weapon left her with a bottle of blended scotch—cheap by scotch standards, but not by her budget. Gritting her teeth, she threw on her tattered bathrobe, then grabbed the bottle in one hand and unlocked the door with the other, leaving the chain on when she cracked it open.

“Miss Layotl?” The voice was doubtful, as wary as she was, but concerned. “I’m from the school. Stavan Smithson described what he could discern of your…predicament.” The speaker poked a business card through the opening.

Serrano took it and squinted. The card was engraved metal, reading simply ZOË IRSAW, PROFESSOR OF SCIENTIFIC ARTS, MENSURA COLLEGE.

She looked through the door suspiciously. “It’s got to be past midnight. Why are you here now?”

“I was making observations and taking measurements, so as to have a better idea of what might be transpiring around you than what little I gleaned from Stavan’s description. Given what I gather was your repeated mention of curious dreams to him, I wanted to capture any activity that might be happening at night, and to do it without your knowledge, lest said knowledge affect the events in some fashion, whether by your subconscious affecting the dreams or by someone nefarious overhearing us and circumscribing their activities. But upon hearing cries of distress, I thought it best to make myself known now.”

“Uh huh. Did you hear water?”

“I’m…not sure that I understand.”

Serrano pushed the door shut, undid the chain, then threw the door open. “Did you hear water?” she repeated.

The hyena standing before her had feminine curves, but the outfit was pure anachronistic gentleman: a well-tailored black coat over a patterned grey and white Hidalgo vest, the collar of a formal white shirt peeking out from it, with matching long black trousers. All the buttons were wide brass. A matching black bowler hat perched between their ears, nearly seven feet up. A brass-handled mahogany cane rested in their right hand, a leather suitcase held in their left. “I don’t believe that I did. Why…?”

Serrano stepped back and pointed at the bed.

Irsaw took a step inside, then stared silently, motionless past their brows shooting up. Their gaze followed a trail of water, a series of splashes leading from the bed toward the bathroom. After long seconds, they gently pushed the door closed behind them and gestured at the scotch bottle Serrano still held. “An excellent implied suggestion, Miss Layotl.”