I realize it’s been a long time since I thought of the various patrols that go on around these woods, and around me in particular, asguards. But of course they are. None of the powers in this valley mess around with what’s theirs.
Though I do wonder how it is that something is running around committing bloody small-mammal murders and taking the time toarrange the corpses like some grisly art project without ever coming to the notice of those guards.
I make a mental note to spend less time on my sweet, unassuming smile that no one believes anyway and more time on a few important questions when I see more of my pack members in the woods around here.
Savi comes sweeping into the back door then, dropping the temperature around her the way she always does. Her scent is like water, crisp and cool, with a hint of something darker and colder beneath. Winter, on the other hand, smells a little bit of that bright humanity, the distinct scent of vampires in general and Ariel Skinner himself in particular, plus something else that I suspect is whatever magic makes her the oracle.
I can pick up all of these things without even trying, here in my human form, but I can’t pick up the perpetrator who’s only been getting bolder this week. There was a bat crucified and hung on one of Savi’s cottage windows last night. I’m pretty sure that what I nearly tripped on two days ago was a raccoon head.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what might make Ariel move into a tiny little cottage next to a run-down house in the hills,” Winter says, gazing at Savi while the toaster hums behind her. “But he doesn’t even really like to stay in the house. Yet you do?”
Maybe she’s still coming to terms with how powerful her tenant really is.
“A marvelous thing about containing multitudes,” Savi says as she swings open the refrigerator and gazes at her shelf inside, “is that you can always make yourself comfortable wherever you find yourself. That’s real magic.”
“That and she gets an in with the oracle, obviously,” I say, and shrug when Savi lifts a brow at me. “What? It’s true. That’s exactly why you and I moved in here.”
Savi pulls out some of the strange things she claims she loves to eat, all variations on the same sort of theme. Like nuts that become milks,or worse, cheeses. “Meats” that are ... not. “I hope I never live too long to fully enjoy the beauty of a rustic cottage.”
“It’s okay,” Winter says quietly. “I know how things work now.”
I glance at Savi, then touch my shoulder to Winter’s. “If that was the only reason we stayed here, we would have left by now.”
Winter presses against me for a moment, then busies herself with her toast as it pops back up.
“I’m glad we’re all here,” Savi says merrily as she arranges her Frankenstein food on a plate and then brings it over to the table. “Winter, we need you to look at your cards.”
“You and everyone else,” I think I hear Winter mutter. I grab myself a few things from my own refrigerator shelf and head to the table too.
“Maddox and I keep finding dead things around,” Savi announces, almost merrily.
Winter fixes herself a sandwich on her toasted bread, then joins us at the table. “What kind of dead things? That’s a pretty broad term around here these days. You could mean that the zombies are rooting around in the trash again. They better not be.”
“Little dead things,” I assure her. “Basically roadkill. Just not, you know, killed on the actual road.”
“Are you worried about this roadkill?”
“‘Worried’ is a strong word.” Savi makes a show of drinking whatever it is she has in front her. Essence of something. “We want to see what the cards have to say, that’s all. Just to make sure we’re not overlooking anything.”
“I haven’t seen any dead things,” Winter says.
“In fairness,” I drawl, “you’re sleeping with one. That might blur the vision.”
Winter laughs. She also gives me the finger. What she does not do is make any move to pull her cards out when we all know she has them on her. They follow her wherever she goes.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” she says. Dismissively, I think. “It’s December. Things die.”
“That’s true,” Savi murmurs. “What they don’t normally do is eviscerate themselves and then arrange their mutilated bodies like offerings to a dark lord of one sort or another. So you see the issue.”
Winter takes a huge bite of her sandwich and then takes her time chewing. Then even longer, it seems to me, for the swallowing. “The cards and I are having a small break when it comes to any personal questions I might have,” she says, when I think she’s never going to speak again.
“Maybe that’s why your visions are muddy,” I suggest.
Winter shrugs, though I’m not sure I believe the nonchalance. “Maybe. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. The cards and I just need to get to know each other again, and not in a crisis. But I’ll be happy to look into your poor, murdered animals once we’re good.”
“How can you have a breakup with a pack of cards?” I ask her.
“You say that like they’re a pack of playing cards and I’m trying to play 52-card pickup.” She sounds a little touchy then, and Savi’s lifted brow suggests we both think this. Winter frowns at her sandwich. “You know perfectly well that the cards are a whole thing. Right now they only want to tell me about the overwrought romantic lives of whatever creature shows up in the coffee-stand line.”
