One Part Human (4 page)

Her father was leaning over his work desk and eyeing a vial of blue liquid.

He looked up and smiled. “Ah, Beneficia. I am glad that you made it before heading out tonight. Drink this.”

She took it and tossed it back. “What was that?” The taste left on her tongue was hot strawberries and fungus.

Benny handed him the vial, and he tucked it onto a rack next to four other doses of the same liquid.

“It is a protection and concealment spell. I also want you to take the charm that your uncle Magnus left you.”

She winced. “It is so heavy.”

“There was an omen last night. Something is stirring around you, Beneficia. Your safety might be in the hands of the XIA, but they do not know what you are. They can’t guess at how valuable you could be in the wrong hands.”

Benny sighed, and she went to her section of the library. The shelves were filled with some of the most powerful charms ever crafted, and they were all hers. Each one was given to her on a birthday or graduation. The charm that her uncle Magnus had given her was the size of her open hand, but at least it was flat. The weight she hated was actually the magical protection that coated her skin.

She found the case and opened it, sighing as she draped the chain around her neck and settled it under her shirt.

“There we go, Dad. Happy?”

He smiled, his bright eyes tired. “I will be happier when I know that you are safe.”

“Would you feel better if I didn’t go on this assignment?”

“No, it has nothing to do with where you are. Something is coming for you, and it doesn’t matter where you are or who you are with. Some events cannot be avoided.”

Benny blinked at the sober look on his face. “You are really worried.”

He came over and stroked her cheek. The magic of her defenses crackled.

“I am very worried. I have been fielding calls all day. All of your aunts and uncles with a bit of precognition are worried about you.”

She blinked. That was a lot of magical academics. Her childhood had been filled with folk she called aunt or uncle who were unrelated to her. Her family consisted of a long line of only children.

“I will be extra careful. I promise. You know me; I am not going to do anything stupid.”

He smiled. “I know that you are careful, but when this kind of darkness pursues you, you have to meet it head on with as much armament as you can muster. Once we know what we are up against, we can create a battle plan.”

“Like at Easter?” The long-standing making of maps of the grounds and segmenting the areas for maximum egg retrieval never failed to frustrate her mother’s attempts to make it challenging.

Her father laughed. “Exactly like Easter. Now, your mother has some dinner for us. Let’s go.”

He offered her his arm, and she took it out of long habit. They left the library and followed the scent of one of her mother’s dinners. Benny wished that she had inherited the cooking gene, but she would have to be content with the ability to find food.

Before they tucked into the meal, she asked her dad, “Why do I still taste strawberries?”

Her mother portioned out the mashed potatoes. “It is to cover up the taste of troll, Beneficia. It was one of the strongest flavours we could find.”

Benny swallowed and reached for her glass of juice. She gulped it and put it down. “For future reference, nothing covers up the taste of troll.”

Her mother chuckled and her father grinned. It was a normal family dinner at the Ganger house.

She pulled Pooky into the parking lot and locked it behind her while she hustled to the vehicle where her team was waiting for her. “Sorry. Am I late?”

They stood in their dark uniforms and badges, smiling.

Tremble chuckled. “We were afraid we had scared you off yesterday.”

Argyle smiled slowly. “If you are ready, we will go.”

Smith moved around and opened her door for her. “I have been ready to go for an hour.”

Benny rolled her eyes and settled into the SUV with her notepad and pen at the ready.

They climbed in with Smith at the wheel and Argyle on the computer. They really did take turns.

Tremble was next to her, and they left the parking lot with a smooth glide of the wheels.

Day two was underway.

Breaking up bar fights was not normally an XIA duty, but when it was a newly transformed stone giant causing the fuss, it definitely called for additional help for the bouncers.

Benny stared at the familiar logo of Syren’s Karaoke Club. It was not the sort of place that she had ever seen a giant before.

“Stay in the car, Benny.” Tremble muttered it on his way out.

“No. Witnessing this is within my agreement. I just have to stay out of the danger zone, which is about twenty feet for a giant. I won’t get that close, but I need to see how you guys handle these situations.”

“Twenty feet?”

“Yes. Twenty feet away.” She smiled.

He watched the flow of traffic out of the club and jerked his head. “Stay safe.”

She followed him into the club and stuck to the wall. This was her hangout on weekends with Freddy and a few other friends.

When she eased into the main room, she could see the problem. The giant had a group of partiers pinned up against the stage, and the XIA agents were joining another team in surrounding him.

She watched as one attempt from the other team failed. Claws didn’t work. Strength didn’t work and magic bounced off. Benny wondered how they were going to solve this and stayed as close to the wall as she could. When the giant spotted her, a light came to his eyes.

“Sing!”

Benny blinked. “What?”

“You! Sing!” He pointed right at her.

She squinted at his features and tried to see the human that had been inside him. “Holy shit.”

Her mind pasted a picture of a young, gangly man who participated in every week’s competitions and who enjoyed nothing more than to sit and listen to song after song warbled by other contestants.

He brought his fist down on a table shattering it to chunks. “Sing!”

Kobar was crouched near the precious equipment, and he waved at her. “What do you want, Benny?”

“Bring me life.”

Argyle nodded slightly, and Benny took that as permission. She stayed out of the smashing range and eased up onto the stage.

Kobar handed her the mic and brought up the music and display. She didn’t need it. She knew this one song backward and forward.

The lyrics began slowly as the song explained a normal human existence and the longing to be exceptional.

Benny watched, and the giant turned toward her, lumbering to the foot of the stage.

She sang about waking up in a body that wasn’t hers. Breaking her mirror because she had become something new, something dangerous that she couldn’t accept.

The agents got the hostages out.

The song changed to accepting the magic that had lodged inside and the new family, new friends and new life, which blossomed out of the change.

The giant looked at her dreamily, and Benny put as much of her inner siren as she could into that song.

Another officer rushed in on silent feet with headphones. Argyle and Tremble took the headset and eased up to the giant just as the song was ending. The man shook himself out of his stupor and yelled, “Sing.”

She turned to Kobar. “Bring me the power.”

He swiftly moved his hands over the keyboard and the song roared to life. Benny didn’t like singing it first, but it should to a good job of disguising what the officers were up to.

She was halfway through the first chorus when they got the headphones on him. Pure siren song locked him in his own mind, and he fell backward with a tremendous thud.

Benny waved at Kobar, and he cut the music. She put the mic down and crept out to the SUV while the others bodily hauled the giant out of the club.

Smith was the first one back to the car, and he handed her a bottle of water. “I think you need this. You did well. He might have hurt someone before the headset arrived if you hadn’t been there. How did he know you could sing?”

She sipped at the water. “Before his change, he was a regular at the club. He would sing and he had an okay voice, but he would listen to each and every performer. I hang out there on the weekends, and he recognised me.”

“And you recognised him.”

“It took some doing. He must have had a latent shift some time in the last month or so.” She remembered the look in his white eyes and shivered.

“His community officer will deal with him at the station. For now, we got him under control and no one got hurt.”

She looked at the heavily armoured collection van and the four men carrying the giant between them. “I am glad no one got hurt, but he is still trying to fit himself back into the human world. He is in for a rough time.”

The others returned to the vehicle, and Argyle’s fingers moved rapidly over the computer terminal while they all settled in.

Tremble smiled at her. “You have a good voice.”

She swallowed more water and nodded. She had pitched her voice to enthral the giant, an old siren’s trick that she had gotten from one of her great grandparents. Her dad was right; her life was suddenly getting dangerous.

Her blend of magic could be explained, but not all in the same body.

She sat back and quietly noted the next few stops. They checked on some apothecaries and then drove off to arrest an unlicensed precog who was selling slivers of the future.

The young man looked at the officers with contempt, right up until the point where Smith put the cuffs on him. Fear trickled through his expression.

That draining of colour got her attention. He didn’t seem inclined to share his information with Smith, but with her father’s warning in her mind, Benny wanted to know.

She angled to intercept him as he was led to the transport. “What did you just see?”

He leaned back and stared at her. He got a sly look in his eyes. “Why should I tell you?”

“Because I know something that you don’t about your skills.”

He snorted. “I can see the future.”

The officer holding him raised his eyebrows in an indication to make it fast.

“Tell me what you saw and I will tell you what might get you out by the end of the evening.”

The young man mulled it over for a second before leaning forward and whispering in her ear. Benny kept her face impassive, which turned into a grin when he touched his cheek to hers.

He blinked. “What the hell?”

She laughed. “I am warded against casual intrusion. Now, when you get to the agency, ask them to test you for seer focus. That is all you need to do.”

“What?”

“Your talent for foresight is directional. You have options for your vision, and you are choosing the most traumatic.”

He blinked. “How do you know that?”

“It is a natural instinct in your kind. You want to see the worst in order to prepare for it. Unfortunately, you charge people for what you see and that is what has gotten you into this situation.”

“My kind?” He looked both intrigued and offended.

“Human seers. So, ask them to test you for seer focus. It can’t hurt, and it might keep you from being arrested.” She waggled her eyebrows.

He frowned and headed to the transport with the officer behind him.

When Benny turned toward the SUV, her agents were all lined up and watching her. “What?”

Smith grinned, “Is there something you want to tell us?”

“Yes, Argyle needs to drive for the rest of the night.” She sighed. “I will explain more in the car.”

Smith looked at Argyle. “I am okay with it if you are.”

Argyle shrugged. “Sure. But you get to do double tomorrow and Thursday.”

They shook on it, and everyone resumed their position in the vehicle.

When Argyle had pulled away from the curb, Smith turned to her. “So?”

“He saw an accident in which we get a spike through the window on the driver’s side. Argyle could survive the damage, you couldn’t. Argyle also has faster reflexes, so we probably won’t get into the accident anyway.”

Argyle looked up to the rear-view mirror. “Thanks for that.”

She smiled. “If you are injured, you can use me for repair.”

Benny could swear that he licked his lips, but she
knew
that he winked as the next call came in.

Smith gave the address to Argyle, and they were on their way.

The location was a cemetery, and flares of magic had been felt, but the magic users at the dispatch centre had determined that the magic wasn’t human. It meant the XIA had to come in.

Argyle opened his window and shut the lights down as their vehicle glided on the paved pathway of the Heartway Cemetery.

“What are we doing?” She whispered it to Smith because Tremble was focussing, his hands cupped in front of him.

“Tremble is looking for the source of the energy pattern.”

Argyle cruised through the dark space between the glowing white and grey stones.

Tremble opened his hands, and a small orb of light floated up and toward Argyle. The light moved to the left side of the steering wheel.

At the next turn, they went left.

They cruised through a number of turns, and finally, the light lowered. Argyle stopped the vehicle, and a number of hand signals went through the car. Benny could barely make them out; her night vision was her one weak point.

They slipped out of the car, and she took the hint and stayed inside the vehicle.

With no one around her, she reached out with her own senses and picked up on the crackling energy of a communication spell. Someone was trying to talk to a dead person and that person was not using human magic; there was the definite taste of trees in the air.

The spell was interrupted, leaving a lot of power hanging in the air.

Benny made notes as she felt what was going on with the change of attitude in the energy. She finally gave in to her curiosity and followed the power signature out of the vehicle to the group standing around and discussing communicating with the dead without a permit.

Tremble came to stand next to her. Benny whispered, “Is she going to drain the spell?”