• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Can you change him back?” I asked the older witch.

Octavia looked at me sharply. “Of course,” she said.

“Then why don’t you do it, and we can go from there?” I said.

Octavia looked very startled, and I knew I shouldn’t have gotten up in her face like that. On the other hand, if she wanted to show Amelia that her magic was more powerful, here was her chance. Bob the cat was sitting in Amelia’s lap, looking unconcerned. Octavia reached in her pocket and pulled out a pill container filled with what looked like marijuana; but I guess any dried herb pretty much looks the same, and I haven’t ever actually handled marijuana, so I’m no judge. Anyway, Octavia took a pinch of this dried green stuff and reached out to let the bits drop on the cat’s fur. Bob didn’t seem to mind.

Amelia’s face was a picture as she watched Octavia casting a spell, which seemed to consist of some Latin, a few motions, and the aforementioned herb. Finally, Octavia uttered what must have been the esoteric equivalent of “Allakazam!” and pointed at the cat.

Nothing happened.

Octavia repeated the phrase even more forcefully. Again with the finger pointing.

And again with the no results.

“You know what I think?” I said. No one seemed to want to know, but it was my house. “I wonder if Bob was always a cat, and for some reason he was temporarily human. That’s why you can’t change him back. Maybe he’s in his true form right now.”

“That’s ridiculous,” the older witch snapped. She was some kind of put out at her failure. Amelia was trying hard to suppress a grin.

“If you’re so sure after this that Amelia’s incompetent, which I happen to know she isn’t, you might want to consider coming to see Maria-Star’s apartment with us,” I said. “Make sure Amelia doesn’t get into any trouble.”

Amelia looked indignant for a second, but she seemed to see my plan, and she added her entreaty to mine.

“Very well. I’ll come along,” Octavia said grandly.

I couldn’t see into the old witch’s mind, but I’d worked at a bar long enough to know a lonely person when I saw one.

I got the address from Amanda, who told me Dawson was guarding the place until we arrived. I knew him and liked him, since he’d helped me out before. He owned a local motorcycle repair shop a couple of miles out of Bon Temps, and he sometimes ran Merlotte’s for Sam. Dawson didn’t run with a pack, and the news that he was pitching in with Alcide’s rebel faction was significant.

I can’t say the drive to the outskirts of Shreveport was a bonding experience for the three of us, but I did fill Octavia in on the background of the pack troubles. And I explained my own involvement. “When the contest for packmaster was taking place,” I said, “Alcide wanted me there as a human lie detector. I actually did catch the other guy cheating, which was good. But after that, it became a fight to the death, and Patrick Furnan was stronger. He killed Jackson Herveaux.”

“I guess they covered up the death?” The old witch seemed neither shocked nor surprised.

“Yes, they put the body out at an isolated farm he owned, knowing no one would look there for a while. The wounds on the body weren’t recognizable by the time he was found.”

“Has Patrick Furnan been a good leader?”

“I really don’t know,” I admitted. “Alcide has always seemed to have a discontented group around him, and they’re the ones I know best in the pack, so I guess I’m on Alcide’s side.”

“Did you ever consider that you could just step aside? Let the best Were win?”

“No,” I said honestly. “I would have been just as glad if Alcide hadn’t called me and told me about the pack troubles. But now that I know, I’ll help him if I can. Not that I’m an angel or anything. But Patrick Furnan hates me, and it’s only smart to help his enemy, point number one. And I liked Maria-Star, point number two. And someone tried to kill me last night, someone who may have been hired by Furnan, point number three.”

Octavia nodded. She was sure no wussy old lady.

Maria-Star