Page 6 of The Witch & the Wolf

“Water creatures.” Z’Hana pointed, and just as they passed a river running, a strange, glimmering blue slip illuminated the water’s surface. “Look, there’s an ashray.”

It was something that looked like a fish or a human with wings on its back. It swam but shrank back from a patch of sunlight hitting the water before bobbing back into nothing.

“That’s the beauty of Dreadmor,” Z’Hana said with pride, her expression exuberant. “We have so many beautiful, mythical beings that have been wiped out in most civilized areas. The wildlands all around us allow them to thrive. We allow them to thrive.”

“Isn’t that… dangerous?” Holly pushed against her seatbelt; her eyebrows knitted together. Arlo quietly agreed with the sentiment. “You’re mentioning dangerous beings that drown people and all sorts of things, right?”

“It is ignorance that makes them dangerous. You will learn about them at the academy, along with your magic and other aspects of your education. Most of these beings are easily avoided or appeased and dealt with. Many enjoy interactions if they are respected. Some, yes, you must avoid, but this in itself is simple. There is only danger if you are foolish enough to disregard nature and trample it. You wouldn’t, after all, pick up a random bear cub, knowing the mother is nearby, right? You wouldn’t disturb the sacred ground, knowing powerful spirits rested in it.”

It seemed Z’Hana’s idea of “simple” greatly differed from Arlo’s idea of “simple.” There were creatures of the wildlands best left as myths and legends. With Z’Hana’s conviction, however, neither of the students felt comfortable enough to raise their concerns beyond some halfhearted questions.

The village itself seemed to drop out of the mist, materializing into being as they drove down a gentle slope, revealing scattered, ancient-looking buildings straight out of a Renaissance fair. Crooked structures, black beams, white-painted homes, thatched roofs, as well as sharp, steepled slate roofs cloaked in moss and bird droppings. Smaller roads were mud-flecked, with deep grooves from footsteps and animal traffic. It didn’t feel like they’d exited the wildlands at all.

They stopped at the morgue, wedged in between a tiny sheriff’s office and a clinic – the place wasn’t big enough for a full hospital or a police precinct. One lonely sheriff waited for them outside the morgue, wearing worn-out clothes and a patched-up hat with a brass star spiked into it. He tipped his wide-brimmed hat to them as they stepped out of the car.

“Good to see you, Ma’am Z’Hana. It’s been a minute since you were here. Last trip was a morgue visit, too, was it not?”

“A high death rate for such a tiny village, Sheriff Michaels,” Z’Hana noted, one eyebrow raised as she examined the sheriff.

Michaels nodded ruefully. “I agree. I’m planning an inspection of the protections around the perimeter of our village, just in case something needs replenishing.”

This sounded like yet another reason not to have a settlement on the edge of a creepy swamp/woodland area. Arlo, of course, said nothing, as Michaels looked very sorry and solemn about the whole situation and beckoned them to come in.

“That necromancer or whatever is waiting for you. Sorry business, indeed.”

Michaels stayed well away from the door as the two students and Z’Hana went through it into a sterile, gleaming room so air-conditioned it was markedly cold, which created an air of quiet and solemn respect. There were ten metal doors in the wall, each containing a corpse.

On the autopsy table lay a shrouded figure, one which the school and the village sheriff’s office expected Arlo and Holly to communicate with. A woman walked into the room dressed in an impeccable white lab coat, glasses on top of her severely tied-back hair. Yellow eyes denoted her as a shifter. She smiled at them both.

“Hello, students. I’m Marisha Raintotem. I’m pleased to make your acquaintances.”

Arlo gave a start at the mention of the name Raintotem. They were one of the oldest, richest werewolf families, with a long, proud tradition at Archon Academy. It seemed he could never escape those who had ties to Archon and the werewolf clans. When picking Dreadmor, he’d honestly hoped to be free of that. But, of course, werewolves and other shifters could be found in all the prominent schools – just that the biggest concentration of them came from Archon.

When he introduced himself as Arlo Sixclaw, Marisha didn’t bat an eye. Any eyebrow movement was reserved for Holly, the wayward medium now under her care.

“This will be a good test of your abilities,” she told Holly and Arlo. “I have not worked my magic on the victim yet since the more times you interact with a body or soul, the more challenging it becomes to do so again in the future. Your main task will be to attempt to interact with the soul. A necromancer does so by retying the soul to the body, which is a little more advanced than just puppeteering the body. The medium, on the other hand, listens for psychic echoes, clues to what happened to the victim, and, if strong enough, they can see and channel the spirit into themselves.” She crossed her arms.

“While you both work with souls, your approaches are fundamentally different. Take your time. Do your best. This is not a test to pass or fail – just to learn. One last thing. The victim’s name was Jeffrey Dawson.”

How encouraging, Arlo thought, noting Holly’s nervous expression. Though he still wasn’t exactly happy with Holly at the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to hate her entirely. She simply didn’t know. She didn’t understand anything about werewolf life. So, perhaps it seemed logical for her to view him as just a stuck-up rich kid. Certainly, some of the upper echelons of werewolves were stuck-up rich kids – and adults. He expected Marisha Raintotem to be one of them, but she appeared wholly focused on her role as investigator and educator.

He closed his eyes and let the magic speak to him. Next to the body, he sensed its muted presence. Something that once hosted the very spark of life was now breaking down to feed other life if humans and supernaturals alike didn’t interfere with the process.

If the body was a biological engine, then the soul was the on switch that connected everything. He began his work on the body, trickling magic into it, trying to re-tether the soul. The soul didn’t seem close, however. At this rate, he would only be able to animate the body and probe the brain for the last residual memories it had, and this was far less accurate than being able to anchor the soul. The brain didn’t work properly without the soul, so getting it to answer questions would be challenging before the magic ran out.

He snuck a look at Holly, who stood there with her eyes closed and hands clasped together. Then she sighed. “Do we have any personal effects of the victim’s here? Something they wore, something they cherished?”

Marisha Raintotem asked for Michaels to bring the victim’s watch, which he’d been wearing when he died. Arlo, in the meanwhile, poured more of his magic into the corpse until a faint, luminescent blue glow ringed it, and it slowly rose, the blanket falling off to reveal a ghastly pale face.

“I’ll try talking to the body without the soul,” he said. “It’s too far away. Jeffrey Dawson, do you hear me?”

The corpse slowly turned toward him, stiff, without the fluid motion of someone alive. “Yes,” it rasped. It was little more than AI at this point, with an imperfect brain breaking down by the second. It would not be imaginative with its responses.

“Tell me what killed you.”

“I do not know,” the corpse said. “I did not see.” It let out a faint, hissing noise, and Arlo’s magic drained at a frightening pace. He rushed to the next question.

“Did something human or supernatural kill you?”

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