Chapter Twenty

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Jack Tar might have smelled slightly better today. It was hard to tell whether it was that, or I’d acclimated somewhat. He at least wasn’t smoking, which was a good start. He was sitting on the ground in the parking lot when I opened the door, and glanced back at me when I did.

“Ey, there you are. Was about to call you again.” He pushed himself to his feet, and stretched like his back hurt. “Where you want to go?”

I paused. “Wasn’t this your idea?”

“Well, yes,” he said. “But I don’t really have a destination in mind. Just want to talk, and I find that walking helps me think. It’s the movement, you know? Helps with working through ideas.”

I could understand that. “Cool. Uh, the river sounds nice, I guess.”

“Awesome.” He started walking, moving at a fairly relaxed pace. I followed. It was quiet for maybe a minute before he eventually said, “So, about last night. I’ve been thinking about things a bit.”

“An awful habit,” I said. “Terrible for your health.”

He snorted. “Yeah, let’s be real, my health’s a lost cause.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “You said some interesting things. Don’t know what all of it meant, and I think that’s probably not an accident.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “I’m sure they told you about the language stuff. Think about it. Questions in the one language we all understood. Icelandic you mentioned Amleth, which incidentally I don’t know if you’ve looked into that, but it’s very relevant. Some guy in an old saga who fakes insanity to cover for clever plans, lures all his enemies into one place, traps them inside and sets it on fire. Audgrim got that reference immediately, and I doubt anyone else knew the name at all.”

“Huh.” I considered that. It made…some amount of sense, I thought. Sure, Jack could look the name up after the fact, but it wouldn’t have registered in the moment. Apparently the Welsh had been specifically convincing to the Sidhe, too. “You think, what, I was ranting in cultural metaphors?”

“To a degree,” Jack said. “But not entirely. In Japanese, it was…talking about storms when you’ve got influence from a yokai of the storm, sure. Falling petals too, very cultural. Transience and all that. Even vengeance and death songs I could go there. But there were two other elements that don’t fit that pattern. One, the black moon, that’s not a symbol that I’m familiar with in Japanese. But the kitsune fucking flinched when she heard it. And it also has obvious relevance that anyone could have parsed. Tomorrow night is the new moon.”

I frowned. “Well, that’s ominous. Probably something big going on tomorrow, then.”

“Yup. And then the other bit was a comment in Japanese about sacred jackals that I know isn’t a cultural motif, because it’s referring to a specific thing that happened to me about a decade back.” Jack shrugged. “I don’t think it’s cultural. I think you were saying things to specific people in languages they knew.”

It took me almost a block to process that, and it was…unsettling was putting it mildly, for a whole host of reasons. Jack seemed happy to just walk while I thought through the various implications. I’d already had speaking in tongues on my mental checklist. Now I added “why was I talking to people in this really odd, specific sort of way,” “how did I even know about Jack Tar’s life events circa ten years ago,” and “wait, if I was talking to specific people, what the hell was going on with the language no one present knew”.

I actually just pulled my phone out and wrote a note about this. I was too likely to forget something, otherwise, with this much on my plate and everything going on. I used to be embarrassed about needing to do things like that, and I guess on some level I still was. But I’d long since been forced to admit that trying to pretend my personal limitations weren’t there didn’t make anything better.

“Okay,” I said once I’d thought that through and written it down to consider later. “That’s…a lot. As far as practical things, though, we’ve got a timeline now. Tomorrow. Probably around dusk, if I mentioned that in Icelandic.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “We do. And another thing on that note. The ritual site you found, I went out and took a look at it. Not my kind of work, but I can at least confirm that the structure is set up for geomancy, channeling ley lines and such.”

“Right. But not aligned correctly, as I understand it.”

Jack waved a hand dismissively. “Sure, but that got me thinking. Just ’cause it doesn’t work there doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. There are lots of ley lines around here, and some of them are pretty big. I don’t think this exact structure is aligned to much of anything, but there are elements in it that could fit together with slight adjustment.”

It suddenly dawned on me what he was getting at. “You think it was tuned for somewhere else?”

“I think it could be adjusted to fit somewhere else pretty easily. And between a couple of local kids and this lunatic druid I know who lives in the hills northeast of the city I think it should be easy enough to get a map together of the local lines that could be relevant.” Jack shrugged. “We’ve got a specific time when something is going down. I’m hoping I can get where. Maybe run the map by some of the wolves; they know the forest a hell of a lot better than my kids.”

I grinned. “Yeah, no shit. Alright, yeah, I think I follow. Worth a shot if nothing else.”

“About what I figure.” We turned and started out onto one of the bridges, one I hadn’t used much. I glanced out at the river, the sunlight playing over the endlessly moving water. It was easier this time, between me not moving so quickly and the lighting being simpler. I still looked away after just a moment.

We walked for a little while like that. I didn’t know what else Jack had to say, but he didn’t seem inclined to stop moving yet, so I assumed there was something.

I was not disappointed. Halfway across the river, he said, “So, there’s one other thing. And this one is maybe a little personal, so feel free to tell me to fuck off if you’d rather not talk about it.”

“I always feel free to tell you that,” I said dryly. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”

He grinned. “Yeah, well. Thing is, you’re a bit of an enigma to me. Far as I can tell, you’ve got a quicker read on magic patterns than just about anyone I’ve met. That fair to say?”

“I don’t know who all you’ve met, but it seems likely, yeah.”

He was quiet for a few steps before saying, in a somewhat delicate tone, “Raiju are not renowned for their acute senses. A bit, sure. They might feel a working here and there, recognize someone occasionally, smell the current in the wires, yeah. But they’re not exactly famous visionaries.”

My smile felt very tight, suddenly. “No. They are not.” It was a thought I’d had myself on numerous occasions. And sure, folklore got things wrong all the time; there seemed to generally be some kind of seed of truth in it, but ultimately it had been passed down for hundreds or thousands of years by imperfect means. But I hadn’t found anything to contradict this portion. Raiju did not have a reputation for this, nor had the one full raiju I had knowingly spoken to seemed to have the same trait.

“Not oracles, either,” Jack continued. “And that’s the part that I wanted to talk to you about. Because I was there last night, no? And it was very interesting to watch.”

“So I am told.”

“I think I recognized it. Not exactly, and hell if I know why it happened. But I recognized it a bit. Thought you might want to know.”

My grin still felt tight, but in a very different way. Did I want to know? I mean…it was a question I’d asked myself so very many times. And if one of the more powerful, experienced mages of the modern era said he recognized it, there was a good chance he was right. But…there was nothing like being an unintentional visionary to teach you that sometimes ignorance really, truly was bliss.

I knew what I would ultimately say, though. My obsession with understanding things was too intense for me to pass on this, and I was self-aware enough to realize that. There seemed to be little point in agonizing about it when I knew that there was only ever one answer I could give.

“Hit me.”

“Not my thing, but thanks for the offer. Aight, well, this isn’t a kind of magic I’m an expert in, so keep that in mind. That said, how much do you know about shamanism?”

I shrugged. “Basics, nothing very specific.”

“Okay. Well, there’s like a million variations on the idea, the word gets applied to a wide range of traditions. The guy I watched doing his thing was drawing on Mongolian practice, but some things are consistent.” Jack glanced over at me. “I’m just gonna list some common themes and then you can tell me what you think.”

I nodded.

“Great. So, spirits are beings which exist but do not have corporeal form, that much is just established as fact; it’s a separate mode of existence which is more about concepts and ideas than the physical world. Shamans generally specialize in working with the spiritual realm. That talent does exist pretty much everywhere, it’s not a common one but it happens. The term is also used to refer to some specific cultural traditions that developed that art more extensively. With me so far?”

“Yeah.” That part I did know, at least in the most basic sense.

“Good. Now, traditionally, this often involves a trance, an altered state of consciousness in which direct interaction with spirits and energy is more readily possible. How someone gets there varies, but music is really common, drumming and singing especially; the guy I knew said that the rhythm became a part of his body and helped to pull him away from himself. This state of trance, often ecstatic but not always, is commonly characterized as involving the creation of an internal experience distinct and separate from the external world, and the guy I knew said that mismatch made interacting with said world very…challenging. But his magical senses were very acute while he was like that, very precise. Ringing any bells?”

I had stopped walking at some point. Jack was just standing there with a smirk that said he knew the answer. “Son of a bitch,” I said. “That’s…I mean, it’s not exactly how I’d describe it, but….”

“But the experience is extremely individual,” he finished when I trailed off. “Yeah. And when your whole thing happened last night, I caught a bit of the energy going on. Not the same as his deal, quite, but it was pretty damn close.” He shrugged. “You have a lot of the same characteristics I would expect from that general group of practices and specialties.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, though,” I said. I wasn’t exactly disagreeing; he wasn’t exactly wrong. It just…didn’t quite fit together. “What you’re describing is a branch or a class of human magic.”

“And a variety of associated cultural traditions, yeah,” he agreed. “It’s complicated. Words get used in different ways by different people. But yeah, the part I’m talking about is the magic. ‛Shaman’ is commonly used as shorthand within magical circles for anyone who specialized in working with the spiritual realm. Shows up outside those cultures, maybe not as frequently but it does.”

“Sure, whatever,” I said. “The point is that I have practically no human magic at all.” I’d established that pretty clearly by now. My father was human, but most human energy signatures were very weak, and they tended to get washed out by other influences; the shimmering feeling common to human magic was so weak relative to the raiju in me that I could barely tell it was there at all. No more than it showed up in Audgrim, or Capinera, or even Melissa. I could see it in them if I tried, but even for me it was a challenge.

“Yup. Like I said, not a perfect match.” Jack shrugged again. “I don’t have an immediate explanation for you. I don’t know that you’re doing the same thing. I mean, shit, as far as I can tell he had to work pretty damn hard to get into that trance state, and I’m not sure yours ever stops. So it’s not identical. But something to think on, no?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking out at the river. “Yeah, I think it is. Thanks, I guess.”

He shrugged. “No problem.” And then he kept walking, and I stayed where I was, watching the water.

---

I stayed like that for a few minutes. There was too much going on, too many things competing for my attention. The topic of shamanism and spirits didn’t seem particularly urgent, but it addressed a question I’d had about myself for such a long time. It was hard to pull myself away from that curiosity, to refocus on the current situation.

But that situation was very clearly urgent. Whatever that vision had been, spiritual bullshit or something else, it seemed really foolish to ignore it. And like Jack said, we had a timeline now. I didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow night. But it was clear at this point that these mages—and their patron, I reminded myself—had a specific plan in mind. Based on their actions thus far, I didn’t think that it was going to involve anything good for the rest of us.

Jack was working on where. So, presumably, were the werewolves; they knew the forest as well as the Tribe knew the city. They had a much better chance of tracking these people now, too. Between them, I was pretty sure those two groups were far better suited to the task than I was. I just didn’t have that much knowledge of local power structures or potentially important targets. And as for what was actually being done, it seemed like a fairly good bet that the Sidhe lord would know something about that. Getting something from his manor, after all, seemed to have been a pretty major goal. I was also aware that he had specifically asked to talk to me tomorrow. Seemed unlikely to be a coincidence if the new moon was important here.

That, I thought, left me to look at why. And I didn’t have much context to work with. Sure, I spent time at Softened Dreams, I hung out with werewolves occasionally, things like that. Derek was the only one I’d spent much time talking to, but I’d met others through him over the years. But I was strictly small-scale, intentionally disengaged from larger contexts, the movers and shakers and the major players who had serious personal power in and of themselves. This was not a small-scale plan.

I was at least decent at critical thinking and inductive reasoning, though. I could do that while other people did more specialized tasks. So I started walking again, and forced myself to focus on the task at hand, rather than vague mystical bullshit that I could look at later.

Who and how were settled enough that I wasn’t too worried about them. But reviewing why, questions of motive and goal, there were some things that still seemed strange. I’d told Saori that I was a lot less inclined now to think of these actions as random. That hadn’t changed. But the attacks on the dvergar still seemed pretty pointless to me. I’d thought information to begin with, but the basis for that didn’t apply now. They’d had other reasons to want to examine that funeral home’s books, not things they wanted to know, but rather things they seemed to want us to know.

They wanted, I thought, to apply pressure, to push emotions higher. Elsewhere that had involved murders, violence and betrayal. Nothing like that had happened with the dvergar, but then, the pressure on Audgrim wasn’t coming from the security company he ran. It was coming from the dwarves he ran it on behalf of.

Which made next steps pretty straightforward. I called Audgrim, and I must have been the one interrupting somebody else for once, because it took him a while to answer. When he did, he sounded terse, like he was forcing a calm he didn’t feel.

“This is Audgrim.”

“Hey,” I said quietly. “I’d like to talk to your family.”
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