Page 5 of Medium
Ellis eyed Ms. Jackson’s plate. “You don’t eat meat?”
Noflashed on the Ouija board.
I nodded. “Good to know. We’ll make sure you have options.”
Greg said, “They tend to eat about as much as an average adult human, but if they’ve shifted into something really big, like the dragon a couple of weeks ago, then they need more.”
Fuck, I kind of wanted to see them as a dragon, but I kind of really, reallydidn’twant to.
Ms. Jackson ultimately decided the artichokes and mushrooms were acceptable, and they finished their meal much faster than the rest of us. Without warning, they got up from the table and wandered over to the couch, stretching out on it.
I snorted to myself. It wasn’t like they’d grown up with a grandmother giving them the evil eye every time they didn’t use good manners.
Ellis took a sip of his iced tea. “Cal, I love the compendium you put together. Once I started reading it, I was shocked we didn’t have anything like it before.”
I nodded emphatically, my mouth too full to politely comment. Good for Ellis, thinking of a way to compliment Cal. Anything to help us stay on his good side.
“Thanks.” Cal shook his head as he poked his fork at his plate. “My learning curve would’ve been much easier if I’d had it to reference in the beginning. Let me know if you think of anything to add.”
I finally cleared my mouth enough to speak. “Any info on the vampires?” Because there’d been no news on Discord, andevery Wonder and magic carrier in Texas was waiting for the next attack.
“No. Nothing. I haven’t had any visions, and neither have Edgar, Delphia, or Reno.”
Four Seers. That’s all we had in the entire state of Texas. And their range was limited. They couldn’t see visions of events more than a hundred miles or so from themselves. Slightly farther if they were bonded, but Texas was huge.
With Edgar and Delphia near San Antonio, Cal here in Bent Oak, and Reno down by the coast in Corpus Christi, if the vampires were planning an attack in my District or Ellis’, we’d better hope it’d be near the borders of the other Districts. The far north and east parts of Texas would be too far away.
Greg stood up to clear the plates. “Before y’all drive home, I’ve arranged for us to test whether Wonders can connect to more than one DM.”
Ellis’ eyes lit up, and I was excited too. A few weeks ago, Cal had asked Greg why Wonders could only connect to one DM at a time, when it’d be safer for them to connect to every DM whose Districts they were traveling through. Ellis and I had volunteered to test the theory out by connecting to a couple of Greg’s Wonders.
“I forgot we were going to do that. I hope it works.” And it would give me a little more time to spend with Ms. Jackson before they were locked in a car with me and Ellis for three hours.
“Great. If you don’t mind driving over to my new house, a couple of Wonders will meet us there. One of them is my general contractor, so he’s already on site, and the other is his daughter.”
We cleared the dishes, and I opened the box of lemon bars Ellis and I had brought. Ms. Jackson heaved themself off the couch to come try them. After one lick they swallowed two of them whole. I was glad we’d bought a dozen.
It was still broad daylight out when we left, but Cal and Greg didn’t seem worried about walking downstairs with a giant tiger.
“They can still turn into inanimate objects like the cat statue we first met them as,” Cal told us. “But when they absorbed all the magic I gave them, they gained a larger mass as a result. It’s not easy to carry them down to the car.” He waved his hand to indicate the empty hallway outside his apartment. “It must be their magic, but no one seems to cross our paths when they’re out with us in public.”
So we walked out of the apartment with a huge tiger by our sides. No one was in the hallway. No one was in the elevator, and it didn’t stop for anyone else on the way to the ground floor. Then we walked to Ellis’ SUV and not a single other person was in the parking lot with us.
But after Ms. Jackson got in the back seat and Cal shut the door? People drove up and parked. Others walked out of the building. It was the weirdest fucking thing.
None of the human magic carriers could affect their environment like that. Our magic was more receptive than proactive. We were magical bottoms, if you will.
And Wonders were made of magic. Some of them had magical skills, like undines could become invisible in water, and shifters could change into their animal selves. But they couldn’t do the equivalent of casting a spell.
Like Ms. Jackson just had.
I was a fuckton more comfortable with Ms. Jackson now than when we’d walked into Cal’s apartment, but at the same time, I thought they might be the scariest creature I’d ever met.
CAL’S CAMPAIGN COMPENDIUM
DISTRICT MONITOR
Type: District Monitor
