Spliced

Katrina found her mum sitting at the kitchen table when she finally got back from hanging out with Jade after school. Amanda was sorting through bills, putting them in different piles when Katrina walked in. In front of her was a cup of something.

At the sound of footsteps behind her, Amanda made to hide the cup, but when she saw it was Katrina she relaxed.

“Oh, hey, how was school?” Amanda asked.

Katrina eyed the cup for a moment. She could guess what was in that but she didn’t comment. Her dad and older siblings disapproved, even though Gemma was kind of a hypocrite about it. But as much as Katrina didn’t drink much alcohol herself, she kind of liked the way her mum was always a little more relaxed after a couple of glasses of the stuff. She could be more fun and was much more likely to answer any questions Katrina had about spellcraft. Katrina felt it put them on more equal footing.

“It was fine,” Katrina replied. She didn’t mention that she’d been trying out the mindwalking charm again or even that she had it. She longed to ask her mum for tips but she knew she couldn’t just blurt stuff like that out directly.

“Are you feeling okay?”

Katrina was surprised by the question. She frowned. “Fine. Why?”

Amanda shook her head then gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “No reason.”

Katrina thought her mum looked tired, but she still needed to be careful what questions she asked about magic. She started with something simple, related to an infusement she’d misplaced. “Mum, have you seen my dreamwalking charm?”

She hadn’t been expecting the look that crossed her mum’s face.

Her frown deepened as her mum held up a very recognisible cat charm.

With a sigh, Amanda replied, “Sorry, I needed to borrow it for something.”

Katrina took the charm back. She probed it with her own magic. “It’s empty!” she exclaimed. Then realisation crossed her face and with some excitement she took a seat at the table. “Were you casting a spell?” Eagerly she leaned forward, wanting to know the details.

But Amanda gave her a firm look in reply. “Never you mind.”

“You took my charm without asking,” Katrina countered with a measure of indignation.

“And I’m sorry for that, but on that note Wolf says he’s missing a necromancy book. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?” Her mum raised an eyebrow.

Katrina made her expression blank. “I...”

“Katrina, necromancy is dangerous.”

Katrina deflated with a sigh. “I know.”

Suddenly the lights above them flickered and then went out. Both woman glanced upward. A moment later their came a whirring sound from the basement as the back up generator kicked in, and then the lights came back on.

Amanda immediately shuffled through one pile of bills until she found a specific one. “Crap,” she mumbled.

Katrina frowned. “Are we out of money?”

Amanda shook her head. “No we’re fine. I just haven’t paid the power bill yet. I’ll get that done today. Now go grab me that necromancy book.”

Katrina sighed and took off up the stairs, past Bobby who was on his way down, and past Sasha who was sitting with her legs hanging through the banister, watching a large green spider scuttle its way up and down her arm.

Katrina wrinkled her nose. Snakes were bad enough. Spiders were like a million times worse. Why couldn’t her sister stick to puppies and kittens?

As Katrina passed, Sasha mumbled sadly, “I miss proper power cuts. They were way more fun when they lasted more than a second.”

Katrina rolled her eyes. She did not share her sister’s enthusiasm on that either. No power would mean no computer, which right now, amazingly had no annoying brothers using it. She paused long enough to ask, “Where’s Salem?”

Still in that sad tone, Sasha replied, “He went to the arcade with Robbie. There’s some competition on tonight. Salem said I wasn’t allowed to come. It’s boys only.”

“You don’t even like video games.”

“I like the one with the different coloured cats.”

Katrina had been intending to head straight to her room for the book. She had no plans to get caught up in whatever it was her sister was or was not doing. But Sasha’s sad tone tugged at her heartstrings. With a sigh, she stopped and asked, “Why aren’t you hanging out with Beka and Sarah then?”

“I was. We went to the mall but then they closed it cause there was a zombie outbreak.”

“What?!”

“Some lady tried to necro her dead baby and then got bit by it,” Sasha explained in a bored tone.

In a hushed voice Katrina asked, “Does mum know?”

Sasha shook her head. “Bobby said not to worry her.”

Katrina crouched down next to her sister. “Did you see it happen?”

Sasha glanced at Katrina as if surprised by the interest, and then she shook her head. “We just heard the shots and some screams. Then Bobby and Lily, older Lily, appeared and we left with them. They took all our names before they’d let us out of the mall.”

“Was other Lily there?”

Again Sasha shook her head. “She’s over at Ally’s place with her other friends tonight.”

Downstairs, Amanda was just about to call the power company when Bobby’s voice behind her asked, “Are we broke?”

“No, we’re fine. I just forgot to pay the power company. I’m calling them now.” Amanda held up one finger and dialed them before Bobby could ask anymore questions.

Bobby waited patiently while she gave them payment details and talked them into reconnecting the power tonight.

When she was done she glanced at her son who gave her a sceptical look.

“Are you sure we’re not out of money? Because I’ve got some savings-”

Amanda cut him off with a shake of her head and the raise of one hand. In a tone that invited no debate she repeated, “We’re fine.”

“Okay.”

“How was your day?” Amanda asked him in a more conversational tone. “Anything interesting happen?”

“No,” Bobby replied.

Amanda had intended it as just a casual question but his reply gave her pause. Had that been a slight squeak in his voice at the end of that word.

She frowned but was interrupted from questioning him further as Katrina returned with the borrowed necromancy book. Bobby took his chance to escape, dodging his mother’s suspicious glance as he stepped out of the room with a far too casual smile on his face.

“Here you go,” Katrina said as she placed the book on the table. Then she took a seat. In a sing-songy tone, she said, “You know if you wanted to prevent me from making future mistakes you could give me some specific pointers on how not to do necromancy.”

Bobby, who caught that last statement on his way out could be heard giving a snort from the next room.

Amanda narrowed her eyes at Katrina, who was making an attempt at an innocent look that fooled no one.

This time Katrina’s persistence outlasted her mother’s.

With a sigh, Amanda replied, “Fine.”

Katrina made an attempt to hide her surprised look.

Her mum ignored it, having already conceded to giving her at least some pointers on what not to do. “First things first, necromancy is illegal, unless you have license for it?”

“What about people whose power is necromancy? Do they just not use their power until they’re licensed? Don’t people learn magic better when they’re young?”

Amanda nodded. “Under supervision is the exception. Your teachers will have had training in different magics.”

“But they’re not sorcerers.”

“No, but they will have been taught by someone who was.”

“But they still only let us use our own powers.”

“I thought you did a little bit with infusements in class? We did, when I was probably a little bit younger than you actually.”

Katrina pouted. “Yeah but it was only like an introduction. I mean, I get to do a little more, since infusing is my power but only with powers my classmates have and none of them are necromancers. There’s only like a couple of them in the whole school. It’s all telekinesis and shapeshifting and elemental stuff. And empaths. I hate empath magic.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s boring. Why would I want to know how other people feel about things. Mindwalking is way more useful.”

Amanda gave her daughter a thoughtful look. Carefully she replied, “Emotions don’t always match up with thoughts. You might read a mind and hear someone thinking horrible things about you but where those thoughts come from can very different. It might be what they actually think or it could be that they’re jealous of you or you did something to upset them, or perhaps they’re just having a bad day and what they think about you in brief moment that you are listening has nothing to do with you at all.”

“That still doesn’t seem that useful. You could just mind read for longer until you have a better picture.”

Amanda sighed.

“Have you done mindwalking?” Katrina asked.

In a wary tone Amanda replied, “Yes.” With another sigh she added. “Mindreading is also a little invasive. If you’re going to use any of the mind related powers I’d suggest you stick to mindtalking, rather than mindreading, and especially not mindwalking or control. Those two are dangerous.”

Katrina rolled her eyes. “Everything’s dangerous.”

“I just said mindtalking was okay,” Amanda replied.

Katrina frowned. “I thought mindtalking and mindreading were the same thing?”

“In terms of power yes. But they’re implemented very differently. Mindreading is to look at someone thoughts, to view their private mind. Mindtalking is to invite their view and thoughts into your own head. A talented mindtalker can separate out a section of their own mind and open a comms line between one or even up to several people while still keeping their own private thoughts hidden. It lets people choose what they think to you and lets you communicate across the room without saying a word. It’s actually quite useful and generally harmless but tricky to master.”

Katrina considered it, her eyes glinting with ideas. “I suppose it would be quite useful during a test.”

“And almost certainly considered cheating,” Amanda replied sternly, but she’d done her fair share of cheating by mindtalking with Wolf when she’d been a youngster. Katrina was smarter though. She took after her father. Amanda knew she wouldn’t need to resort to such things to get decent grades. The idea of it obviously appealed to the girl but Amanda thought that it was more likely the possibility to just chatter during a test that Katrina would want to use it for. Katrina didn’t like having to be quiet for very long.

Katrina grinned.

“Perhaps we should leave it there,” Amanda suggested.

Katrina’s face fell. “What! No. Tell me how to do mindtalking.”

A knock at the door interrupted them however.

Amanda answered it to find a tall green-eyed man with a thick, wavy head of lustrous brunette hair standing there. He was wearing jeans, simple dress shoes, and nice dark green coat woolen coat that matched his eyes.

“Felix.” Amanda greeted him in surprise. He was one of her clients, the one whose unicorn she’d slaughtered for the spell. A spell which was a ticking time bomb for Lily and maybe Katrina too. She thought she’d got it right for the latter at least, and maybe she had, Wolf’s experiment hadn’t been perfect and, as he’d reminded her over the phone after she’d runshed out of his cabin, there were still two unbroken teacups left. Katrina was more than likely fine. The shattering cup had scared Amanda though and reminded her that she was running out of time for Lily. Wolf had said if another one went then they were definitely on borrowed time.

“Amanda,” Felix replied in a polite greeting. “May I come in? I won’t be too long.”

Amanda stepped aside so he could enter.

“I wanted to apologise,” he started. “For the way I spoke to you on the phone when you last called.”

Amanda brushed him off with a wave of the hand. “It’s fine, you’d just found out we’d lost your unicorn.”

“Yes, well, regardless, I was perhaps a bit harsh. We’ve been working together for what? Several years now? And you’ve always done a great job with the animals before. I know the broken leg was an accident. Rabbits are incessant no matter how hard to try to get rid of them, they’re always making new holes, and new rabbits. The paddocks at home are constantly refilled with them. And even though I do wish you’d called me to do the healing, I can understand why given the circumstances you chose to attempt it yourself.”

“I am truly sorry,” Amanda told him.

“Yes, well, healing is a tricky art-form. Trust me I do know.” He sighed. “Anyway, I know you said you’d pay me back and you’ve given me a suggested repayment schedule, which is all very well. it’s just, I think it would be better for the both of us I we found a faster way to resolve this. I’m sure you don’t want that dept hanging over your head for years and the truth is there’s something else that you might be able to help me with.”

“What?” Amanda asked, confused. For a moment she’d been worried he was going to ask for earlier repayment but now she had no idea. Felix wasn’t an aristocrat, nor was he the sort to ask for anything of a lewd or questionably moral nature. To be quite honest, of all the unicorns she could have used as a sacrifice, Felix’s one had probably been the one with the smallest consequences. Even though he’d been very upset at first, as he had every right to be, once he’d calmed down he’d been perfectly accepting her offer to pay it back. So reasonable she had felt bad lying to him about what had happened. But even though they’d known each other for years, she didn’t know him well enough to trust him with the fact that she had done that sort of blood magic.

Felix was a vet who resided in Marblewood. He was the expensive kind of vet, the kind with healing powers. Amanda had used his services occasionally, when the costs could be passed on to clients, but never for her own animals, not even the best of her competition horses. Felix loved animals and competed in show type events occasionally, with dogs, horses, and sometimes other exotic species. Amanda couldn’t begin to imagine what it was she could do for him that would be worth a unicorn.

“Dragons.”

“Dragons?”

He nodded. “Three to be precise, ideally still in the egg phase.”

“You want three dragon eggs?”

“I’m willing to pay market prices for two of them. The third plus the act of getting them all would make us even for the unicorn.”

“Dragons are illegal to sell in Little Rock at the moment.”

“For the time. I think that will change next election, and no one really pays much attention to it anyway.”

“A lot of the trade for them has dried up here over the last year.”

You’ve still got some contacts surely?”

Amanda considered it. Even if she could find a local dragon trader who was still in business following the law change, the profit from two dragons wouldn’t make up the cost of the third, but it would greatly decrease the debt she owed. There was always the option of going further abroad too.

“How long have I got?” she asked.

“Give it a few months. If you don’t have me some dragons by then then we can go back to the repayment schedule,” Felix replied.

She nodded. That didn’t sound too bad. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Excellent.”

There came another knock at the door.

They both looked at it curiously.

“Busy house tonight,” Felix remarked.

Amanda had strange sinking feeling that whoever was at the door, it wasn’t good news. She opened it anyway.

Another man stood on her door step, one she didn’t know. White hair cut short and spiky, piercing blue eyes, and a cloak. The kind of cloak sorcerers liked to wear. A leaf-shaped bronze clasp held the neck of his cloak together. Small spectacles perched on his nose. He was shorter than Felix and he stood straight like a rod, all business-like. He swept his way inside without asking for an invitation.