“If I’m right then we need to seriously look into the caster lineage for each person involved. Worthingham fits. If the others do too…” Wren said, looking at Saint. Teddy watched them exchange a few pointed looks, clearly on the same page without exchanging words.
“Shit,” Saint said, running a hand through his hair, messing up the already hopelessly mussed hairstyle Eerie had installed on his head.
“Still not following,” Cyrus said.
“It’s an old practice we learned about in animal curse classes at Nexus. Outdated and outlawed,” Wren said. “Komodo dragons’ venom was found to give a power boost to casters when taken in a really small dose and applied topically.”
“Like a cream?” Trace asked.
“You take a drop and spread it on your hands before you cast. It should boost you up enough to manage a cast that’s just out of reach for your normal level. Nothing too crazy.”
“These cases are definitely not nothing crazy, Wren,” Cyrus said.
“I think whoever is behind this has bastardized the practice beyond recognition. Research into it was quickly stalled and banned and it stayed buried…until now. It wasn’t just the animal cruelty issue. It’s that a body can’t take more magic than it was born with without shutting down. I think if we look at the other cases, we’ll probably find all the other perps have low-level casting scores. My guess would be they saw this as a chance to try and get power.”
“They turned the venom into drugs they thought they could continuously take and actually role-play as casters,” Teddy murmured in sickened awe.
“But what about the other venoms we found?” Saint asked with a frown. “Not all venoms boost powers, as far as I remember from classes back at Nexus.”
“No,” Wren said, “not as far as we know. But like I said, the research was banned and anything we have on the subject is classified and over eighty years old.”
“So what now?” Trace asked.
“I’ll do my part and dig into the family lines here,” Cyrus said. “LEGALLY! Please stand down and allow me to not draw any more attention to what we’re doing so the dogs over there don’t catch the scent that we’re on to them.”
“Can I come?” Black asked.
Cyrus growled. “I just said no attention. Arcstead, behave. Wren, try.”
“We have our work cut out for us too,” Teddy said. “It will keep us busy.”
“But not out of trouble,” Cyrus said.
“Yes, well,” Teddy said, “you have to take what you can get.”
“We need to visit the pet shops,” Wren said.
“Hanson and Burley will love that,” Saint said. “We barely managed to get them off our backs tonight. Whoever fucking called PUMA needs to get their fingers caught in a drawer.”
“We’ll work around them,” Teddy said.
“What about the investigation of the other cases in Arcstead?” Trace asked.
“It makes sense to split up the animal cursebreakers,” Teddy said, face already flaming as he said, “Trace, you okay to go with Saint?”
Wren whipped around to face him while Saint began to splutter.
Trace met his eyes. “Sure. Stay safe out there.”
Teddy caught the double meaning.
Chapter 16
Teddy
“You paired yourself with me,” Wren said, fiddling with the hoodie he’d thrown on after the quick shower they both had before heading out. It was Teddy’s.
He sounded smugly satisfied, and Teddy tried not to let it get to him. They were supposed to be concentrating on the police car parked down the street.
