The cell phone Avery had given Tara sat atop the dresser. It was nearly new, an iPhone model released after she’d been imprisoned here — she was still stunned he’d simply given it to her. Tara glanced at it briefly, opened a drawer, rummaged through the neatly folded clothes, and found her own, much less fancy, phone buried at the bottom.

  Tucked with the phone was a small lithium power bank with an attached folding solar panel. There were twenty more like it in the garage. As solar panels went it wasn’t much, but it collected enough of a charge to power the phone for occasional use when she bothered to set it out in the sun. She headed to the window with her phone, a USB cable, and the power bank in hand.

  Mark. He’d said something inflammatory to the others again, and as she watched, Casey put a firm hand on Avery’s wrist. It was clearly bad because Shana and Avery had renewed the murderous anger on their faces, and Simon looked appalled.

  Personally, she wanted to tear Mark limb from limb, but those instincts were not her own — were they? She wasn’t a violent person unless severely provoked, but the grimalkin had very different reactions. She’d felt adrenaline surging through her veins and a fiery temper rising that had been natural and good at the moment, but now terrified her. The transformation had been complete. She was something other than human, with thought patterns, emotions, and reflexes not her own.

  Calling a black transwoman boy had been the final straw, as far as Tara was concerned. Certain insults should be beyond forgiveness. Avery’s hand on her shoulder had been the only thing tethering her to her humanity and holding back a rising tide of fury, and for that, she was grateful. It had been warm, solid, and real.

  Casey wasn’t wrong. Mark was messed up in the head. She knew that. Anyone who spent more than a few minutes in his presence knew that. She was beyond grateful for Avery’s presence, grounding her. However, if the little fuckstain wanted to know just what his brother had done, she was more than happy to oblige, and she was absolutely certain Nadria would be thrilled with her part.

  She hoped Mark enjoyed the show.

  This time, Casey saw Tara squeeze through the upstairs bedroom window onto the sunroom roof. She padded past the solar panels and satellite dish, planted a hand on the edge just behind the gutter, and lightly vaulted six feet down to the concrete planter below with remarkable grace.

  Avery’s mouth was hanging open as he watched that demonstration of power. Casey was impressed by her athleticism, but through Avery’s eyes, the scene probably had a different connotation. Tara was simply far too tall and female to be Casey’s type.

  Casey nudged his brother with a finger to the ribs. Very low, and without moving his lips, Casey murmured, “See something you like?”

  “Shut up.” Avery, notoriously ticklish, squirmed aside and shot him a quick glare.

  “Careful. You look like you’re about to start drooling.” Casey’s voice was nearly inaudible. He was concerned about Mark hearing, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to harass Avery. It was payback for every single time that Avery had pointed out a cute twink when they were in public and then followed up with all the innuendos.

  Fortunately, Mark was twenty feet away, where he appeared to be using a piece of rebar to poke fresh javelina turds down a gopher hole. As long as that activity kept Mark distracted, Casey wasn’t going to comment on his choice of entertainment.

  “Thanks for being a great wingman,” Avery said, with only mild sarcasm.

  “My absolute pleasure.” Casey flashed him an exaggerated ear-to-ear grin and waggled his eyebrows.

  Tara’s long legs had carried her across the yard to them, and Casey subsided. Mark looked up, dropped the rebar, and hurried over.

  She had a power bank the size of a paperback book tucked under one arm, and as Casey watched, she plugged her small, ancient phone into it and powered it on. Voice even gruffer than usual, Tara explained, “So, that day he turned me into a monster, my uncle told me I needed to treat Todd like any other customer and go to his house — Uncle Gus said he’d fire me if I refused. I should have told him to fuck off and called his bluff, but I had some bills due.”

  She glanced at Avery and added bitterly, “Gus always sent me to the homes of people I didn’t like or that he knew were going to be jerks. He said he was teaching me to stick up for myself. But he never sent me to the jobs I wanted. When I went to your house that time, Avery, I pretended to Gus that I thought you were a freak. He’d have never given me an assignment if he knew I wanted it. He’s unhappy enough that I’m a bi dyke.”

  “What? Why? He doesn’t want you hanging out with other queer people?”

  “Especially if they’re...” she hesitated, then said delicately, “... not macho. He’s always told me that I should ignore the part of me that is attracted to feminine people, regardless of the pronouns they use, and find a quote-unquote normal dude to hang out with.”

  “That’s terrible!” Avery said, clearly appalled. Then his eyes lit up as the rest of what she’d said registered. “You wanted to see me?”

  Tara gave him a mildly alarmed look, then stared at a random point at about forty-five degrees to the side of Avery’s position. Hastily, she said, “I knew you wouldn’t be awful. You’re a good person.”

  Avery purred in a sultry tone, “I do try.”

  Tara jerked her head around and stared at Avery. Unlike nearly anyone else Casey had ever seen Avery flirt with, she snapped her mouth shut and shifted uncomfortably in place. Avery’s gleeful expression immediately disappeared. He glanced over at Casey while suddenly hugging himself. Casey didn’t think Avery had done anything wrong, so he smiled encouragingly at his brother. Tara just wasn’t comfortable with the flirting game, at least not yet.

  Avery looked dismayed for a second, realizing he’d misjudged the situation, but before he could react with what Casey knew would be an awkward but earnest apology, Mark cooed, “Tara and Avery, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!”

  And... that might be why Tara was uncomfortable with flirting, Casey realized. She’d been a fat, conventionally unattractive butch chick for as long as he could remember. Boys would harass anyone like her, relentlessly, for showing the slightest romantic interest in anyone, of any gender.

  “Are you twelve?” Avery’s expression instantly morphed to open and undisguised anger, while Casey cringed on Tara’s behalf. He’d have loved for Tara to admit she liked his brother under any other circumstances, even if it had ended awkwardly, just not in Mark’s earshot.

  “It’s not that!” Tara said frantically, blue eyes wide. “Avery’s just a nice guy! I don’t have a crush on him or anything, I swear!”

  “Bullshit.” Mark smirked at her. Casey found himself wishing he could muzzle the man. Tara had enough going on without having to deal with Mark Riley’s mouth.

  “God, Avery, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel awkward...” Tara was turning an intense, fiery red, rivaling the worst sunburn. Even her eartips were blushing. She wouldn’t look at any of them. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re so awesome.”

  “Why are you apologizing?” Casey said. He didn’t quite understand the depth of her reaction, though; clearly, she was incredibly upset. Half-teasing Avery, but also intending to be reassuring to Tara, he added, “Avery loves it when people think he’s pretty. He doesn’t spend all that time and money on makeup solely to admire himself in the mirror.”

  “Fuck you, CeeCee,” Avery said, but it was with a renewed, if small, smile.

  Tara bit her lip with a fang and then said to Casey, “I know I’m not the kind of girl he’d go for... but he’s so gorgeous... and he’s a nice person.” Tara stared at the ground.

  Avery’s grin was positively goofy as what she was saying registered. Casey was certain he was going to say something completely flustered and adorable right back at her, but Mark interrupted.

  “Wow,” Mark grinned. “You really got it good, girl. He’s so far out of your league that you aren’t even playing the same game.”

  “Hey—” Avery started to object with a flare of real fury.

  Tara whipped around towards Mark, incandescent with rage. Her expression literally bared sharp teeth. “I swear to God, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to gut you alive!”

  She took a step towards the man, and Mark cowered back, twisting away with his arm raised to protect himself from a blow that never came — she stood frozen in place, with one raised arm up as if she intended to shred him alive. Avery grabbed her by the bicep, which was as high as he could reach. Startled by the unexpected contact, Tara snarled aloud, spun back, and whipped her hand towards him with extended claws. He recoiled, then tripped over his own feet and sat down hard.

  It had happened so fast that Casey hadn’t even had a chance to shout a warning. Tara’s expression morphed to horror as she stared at her claws.

  “Avery, Avery, I’m sorry!” she stammered, looking from her hands down to Avery, seated on the ground at her feet. She’d scratched him, leaving a thin line of blood along his cheek.

  Avery flashed her a smile that was probably just sheer nerves and prodded his cheek. When he checked his fingers, there was a little red. The damage was at the level of a paper cut. Casey let out a long, slow breath of relief.

  “That,” Shana said, echoing Casey’s thoughts, “was Avery’s fault, Tara.” She offered Avery a hand up. Her calm helped Casey center himself when all he really wanted to do was hyperventilate. Tara had swiped at Avery with real intent to harm. Only Avery’s lightning-fast reflexes had saved him.

  Tara stared at Avery after he was back on his feet, breath whistling through her open mouth, ears pinned back.

  Avery probed at his cheek, then licked a finger and wiped the blood away. “I’ve done worse shaving. Sorry, Tara. Shana’s right. My fault.”

  For a second, Casey thought she was going to bolt. Her eyes were wide, and she was breathing hard. Then, her face twisted into a snarl as she turned to Mark again. In a voice so deep and loud it rumbled like thunder, she demanded, “Do you want to know what happened, Mark? Do you?”

  “Yeah.” He jutted his chin out, defiance in his brown eyes. “I do.”

  “Nadria?” Tara said, addressing the Book in Casey’s arms. “I need you to do your thing.”

  Casey felt icy energy flow across his arms as Nadria manifested from the Book in his arms, and then he saw the ghost materialize a few feet away from Tara. Tara didn’t seem to be able to see Nadria’s specific location, as her gaze was several degrees to the side, but she was clearly aware of her presence because she said, “Missed you, Baba. It’s been way too long. And thank you for my freedom.”

  Of all the things that Casey would have guessed Tara might call the two-century-old ghost of an elven Lady, Baba was not on the list. Shana, beside him, gave a choked-off giggle.

  With angry flicks of her finger, Tara tapped a PIN number into the cell phone in her hand and brought up a video. Then, she flung her free hand downward. A ripple of energy surged outward, and the ghost lifted her hands up and somehow pulled all the power to herself. Casey watched, fascinated, taking frantic mental notes as the cell phone in Tara’s hand lit with a brilliant glow and a video flickered onto the screen. Power, electric blue and twisting like a snake, coursed from Tara’s hand to the ground.

  “Thank you for the assist, Nadria,” Tara breathed, and Casey gasped as the quilt-bound book in his arms crackled with energy, fuzzy static, and snapping sparks against his arms. He reflexively dropped it, the quilt whipped aside, and pages fluttered open even as it landed in the dust.

  Nadria walked over, translucent and ephemeral, cast Casey a warning look that prompted him to take two steps back, and then held a hand out directly over the open pages. Coruscating tendrils of energy flowed from up and twined around her hand. She turned, holding her other hand out towards Tara, and pulled energy from Tara in a flowing golden rope. Tara, in turn, reached for the leys beneath the land, and now he could see swirls of power around her feet as well.

  “You want to see?” Tara demanded of Mark. “We will show you!”

  Simon said, “Shit.”

  Casey said something that might have been profanity, or it might have just been a choked-off scream. He could feel that they were stripping power from the land in unhealthy ways. The book, he thought, had woven a casting that allowed Tara to pull energy beyond her ability, and then she was feeding that power right back to the old ghost to use for the spell. He hadn’t even realized that a feedback loop like that was possible.

  But... beyond that gut-level sense, what were they doing? His vision blurred into nothing when he tried to watch the fine specifics.

  Then, the world changed.

  Casey had been raised on science fiction movies: Holodecks and holograms, illusions, matrixes, and mind control. He wasn’t sure how to categorize what happened next. One minute, he was standing beside the others, between the Riley house and its rat-infested garage. The next... the world had shifted. He was surrounded by a time and a place that wasn’t now, but it felt as real as any moment in the present.

  Tara stood in the midst of it all, hair rising into the air, energy dancing around her clawed fingers, eyes reflecting ley power with a brilliant alien green. Nadria, facing her, was laughing, head thrown back, mouth open, arms lifted to the sky. The book floated in the air between them, rippling with waves of power.

  He heard Simon swear again. “... fucking grimalkin magic!” and then he saw the man draw his sword and lunge towards Tara. Simon’s expression was enraged, and his movement efficient and deadly.

  Casey barked, “Drop it, Simon! Stop!”

  Tara and Nadria did not pause from weaving the spell, but Tara watched Simon with enormous eyes. For a fraction of a second, the elf resisted the power of Casey’s blunt order, then he sank to one knee, lips pressed together so hard that wrinkles surrounded them. His sword clattered to the ground.

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  Tara visibly exhaled, even as Casey kicked the blade away from the elf and pulled Simon into his arms in a tight embrace. Simon covered his face with his hands. Voice barely a whisper, he said, “Iorge!”

  A word... no, a name from another language, Casey realized. George, with the first ‘g’ gone and the last ‘g’ pronounced with a softer accent from another world.

  Simon trembled. Casey’s gift howled in reaction to Simon’s sudden, shattering, overwhelming grief. But, for now, all he could do was hold Simon tight and close as the magic swirled around them.

  The scene solidified. Casey could no longer see the others, just the vision of a past nightmare cast into the present, and Simon soundlessly clung to him like a drowning man. When he looked down, he couldn’t even see the elf — or, he realized, his own body. It was beyond eerie; the only thing he could compare it to was some sort of bad virtual reality set.

  A van turned into the house’s driveway. Casey recognized Bright Contracting’s battered white vehicle. For a second, he was mildly panicked at the idea that Gus Bright was going to join them, but then he realized he was seeing things that had happened in the past.

  The van parked next to the garage. Casey watched as the human version of Tara stepped out. In comparison to her sleekly powerful beast form, this Tara lumbered a bit, but she wasn’t entirely out of shape; she had substantial muscle under a layer of extra padding. However, her overall posture was the same. She had her head on a swivel, her arms pulled tight to her chest, her fists clenched.

  An oversized man’s Carhartt jacket, battered and paint-stained, reached her mid-thighs despite her solid six feet of height. A green t-shirt from the same brand, well worn, complemented a pair of faded men’s jeans. Jaw-length blond hair in need of a trim tumbled out from beneath a backwards baseball cap — it seemed she was a Phoenix Suns fan by the color.

  At a casual glance, Casey thought she could easily have been mistaken for a man.

  Then, she reached under her coat and touched something that was concealed by the fabric.

  Casey had received his share of self-defense and mixed martial arts training from his father and Avery’s dad, as well as from carefully selected instructors. Both of them had been in the military and had seen action. His dad, in particular, had worried that Casey, gay, might someday be attacked simply for who he was, and he had been certain Casey would jump to Avery’s defense.

  He’d been coached on many things, including how to spot concealed weapons.

  Suspicion bloomed when he saw that quick gesture. She could have simply had an itch in her armpit, but he doubted it. His default assumption was that everyone in the whole of the Rim Country was carrying a gun until proven otherwise — even a little old lady at church could be packing — and Tara had a long history with Todd. Plus, Tara was from a family that had been in this area for generations... Casey had seen her father openly carrying a cheap glock his hip at Walmart. He wasn’t remotely surprised that she’d chosen to go armed to a forced meeting alone with the asshole.

  Movements quick and efficient, Human Tara lowered the van's lift gate and opened the rear door, revealing a fridge strapped to one wall.

  Todd Riley walked into view. He was much heavier than Mark, with a more rugged appearance, and his dark hair was buzzed short. Casey had never liked the expression in his eyes; they were cool and calculating. Even when he smiled, they never thawed.

  Human-Tara turned towards Todd. The same cell phone she had in the present was tucked in her shirt pocket, its camera pointed outward. Her expression was hard and cold, her eyes narrowed. She said simply, "Todd.”

  “Hey, girly.” Todd grinned at her. “Long time, no see.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She gave Todd a deeply suspicious look before scrambling up into the van. With quick, angry motions and twin bright spots of color on her pale cheeks, she slid a hand truck under the appliance, rocked it back on the wheels, and pushed it towards the liftgate. “Where do you want it?”

  “My apartment is in the back of the garage. The door’s over there.” He pointed, then stuck his hands in his pockets. “Good to see you. I asked your uncle to send you out here.”

  “You did.” It wasn’t a question; it was a cold statement of fact. She knew.

  “I, uh, wanted to apologize. For everything I did. I was kinda an ass.” He crowded into her personal space as she wheeled the fridge towards the garage’s side door.

  They all followed the illusion as Human-Tara and Todd headed inside. Casey could hear the footsteps of the others, even though he couldn't see his friends. He kept an arm around Simon’s shoulders except in the narrow confines of the junk-choked passage back to the apartment; there, he gripped Simon’s hand and towed him through. Casey thought Simon’s right to consent to being touched did not outweigh everyone else’s safety. Simon didn’t resist and, in fact, squeezed Casey’s fingers tight.

  Casey stepped inside Todd’s apartment to discover it was a tiny one-room studio strewn with junk of a different style from Mrs. Riley’s hoard. She saved things that had a purpose, but this was something else.

  A mannequin was dressed in spikey black BDSM leather gear, with blood painted around her mouth and on her handcuffed wrists. A giant poster on the wall displayed an anime cat-girl, naked, wrists bound, with exaggerated genitals. He tried not to look at the rest of the "art" that decorated the apartment, as it was variously twisted, the only consistent theme being pain and torture.

  A woman’s bra, with cups big enough to fit a dairy cow, was tossed on top of the unmade bed. More lingerie lay scattered about on the floor. While he wasn’t one to kink shame, he found himself mincing along carefully so as not to step on any of the undergarments, illusory or not. Because, eww. They were stained. This was gross. Had the man never heard of a washing machine?

  Animal bones were scattered about on every flat surface. A tiny calico kitten floated in a jar of alcohol on the counter. The hide of a large, fluffy dog spread across the floor like a bearskin rug, complete with an imperfectly taxidermied head. Multiple dried frogs, lizards, and a single mummified mouse were pinned to a bulletin board like bugs.

  A computer screensaver displayed an image Casey knew would be burned into his brain forever. He’d have taken it for an autopsy, but the girl on the stretcher appeared to be, at least for the moment, alive and conscious. The dead did not scream.

  Human-Tara looked about at the decor, then said, “Wow, love the way you’ve decorated the place.”

  “Aww, I’m hurt,” Todd replied with a grin. “Hey. Seriously. I’m sorry. I just wanted to talk to you a bit and say I regret everything I did to you.”

  Tara stared at him, visibly unimpressed. “You promised me you’d return the Book if I went with Mark to prom. I’m still waiting.”

  “The Book, the Book, you’re obsessed, woman.” Todd glared at Tara. “You were rude and ungrateful. Why would I give something of that power to a rude wanna-be witch? Anyway, you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain. You busted the window out of my car and ran off. You owe me for the glass.”

  She met his stare with a level look, but her fists bunched up. “The Book doesn’t belong to you.”

  “You’re the most arrogant bitch I’ve ever met of all the bitches in this world,” Todd’s face twisted into a thick scowl. “I said I was sorry, and you aren’t even accepting the apology!”

  “This conversation is over.” Pushing the refrigerator before her, she stalked across the room to the kitchen, where she backed it in beside the stove, deposited it in place, pulled the hand truck free with a quick jerk and a loud scraping noise, and headed for the door.

  “You didn’t plug it in.” He was in her way.

  “So?” Tara tried to step around him. He moved, blocking her exit. She stopped short, stared down at him from her full six feet of height, and glared. “Either move out of my way, or I’ll move you.”

  Casey suspected she’d win a fair fight. She might be counting on that, too, though he was more and more convinced she had a gun. Her hand kept twitching towards it.

  Todd was frankly obese, and he moved like someone who spent his days sitting in a chair and playing video games. His mass was around his gut, making him look like a pear on two legs. Tara, at the same weight, was not only much fitter but also four inches taller.

  More to the point, her calm expression, combined with her words, hinted at a particular kind of icy rage. Casey wondered if Todd realized how much danger he was in. Tara had been provoked by a lifetime of harassment to the point that she was out of all fucks, while maintaining her ability to think in a calm, calculating manner. That was somebody who could be dangerous.

  “Plug it in,” Todd said, face twisting.

  “No,” Tara replied, voice terrifyingly level. She slid a hand under her coat and rested it on the butt of the concealed gun. Todd seemed oblivious to that blatant threat. She enunciated, “Let. Me. Go.”

  Todd’s voice rose an octave as he shouted at her, “Arrogant bitch! You think you’re better than me? Huh? Nobody likes you, Tara Bright. Not even your own fucking family. Your father told me he wants to be rid of you. Your uncle thinks it’s funny how much you hate me! How does that feel? Huh? You’re worth nothing to them.”

  “Get out of my way, Todd.”

  “What are you going to do? Huh? March off like the ungrateful bitch you are? I’m a good man. All I wanted was for you to like me, and you wouldn’t even say ‘hi’ or smile at me. Fuck. YOU.” He flung his hand out, and something moved in the shadows in a far corner of the room.

  “All I ever wanted, for my entire life,” Tara said, “was for you to leave me alone. That’s all I ever asked!”

  “I might have, but wouldn’t even talk to me!” Todd snarled, face twisted with fury. “Entitled thundercunt!”

  A staff zipped across the room so fast it was just a blur of motion, and smacked into his grasp. When his fingers touched it, it lit with a brilliant, rippling glow. A crystal sphere the size of a cantaloupe, mounted in a cage of metal on the top, flared with light so bright that Casey squinted and brought a hand up to block the blinding glow.

  “Fine!” Todd shouted while lunging towards her, “You’re gonna have’ta talk t’ me now!”

  Tara, alarm finally on her face, drew the gun and tried to shove him far enough back so she could point it at him. Casey realized with dismay that she wasn’t entirely comfortable wielding it.

  Her push sent Todd staggering into the wall, but he had the staff in hand, and with desperate violence, he swung it hard. The metal-wrapped stone sphere struck her in the side of the head even as she was bringing the revolver up to bear. The sound was like a baseball bat hitting a melon. Human Tara went down hard.

  “Fuck,” Todd said, when Tara’s back arched and her bent arms lifted into the air. As blood flowed across the floor from her mouth and nose, he said louder, “Fuck.” He bent over, picked the gun up, and stared at it. “Girly was gonna shoot me!”

  Wrapped in Casey’s arms, Simon noted in an eerily calm voice, “That should have been a fatal blow. She was turning her head away. He got her in the back of the skull with the staff’s focus-stone.”

  Despite the violence unfolding before them, Casey felt oddly detached, as if it were no more than a scene in a video game. It was strange. He knew he’d relive this later, in unexpected moments.

  “Drel’s the best healer of the children, but a couple of others in the Staff also have that gift,” Grimalkin Tara noted in the present day, her current voice several octaves deeper than her human form. She was located somewhere behind Casey and Simon. Simon, tucked against Casey in a side hug, tried to turn to face her. Casey tightened his grasp. Tara was not the threat here.

  Tara added, after a second, “It’s likely why Todd tried to give the necklace to his mom. He thought Drel was redundant, and he feared him even more than Nadria.”

  “Fuck fuck fuck, what a waste,” Todd muttered, in the illusion of the past. “What a bitch!” He smacked the butt of the staff against the ground and said in a demanding tone, “Heal her, and make it so she can’t leave here! Me and her are gonna get to an understanding. She’s not better’n me!”

  Magic rose. It flowed in a glowing, rippling, visible tide across the floor, where it surrounded Tara’s head. She jerked suddenly. Her head rolled to the side, but her eyes didn’t open.

  “You know what?” Todd said, an evil expression crossing her face. “Make her a cat-girl! You can do that, right? A transformation? That’ll teach her to be so damned entitled! And fix it so she’ll die if she tries to break it, don’t want her witchy elfy relatives freeing her!” He pointed at the anime poster on the wall. Though it was a dozen feet away, blood spattered across it. He had struck Tara with devastating force.

  The magic hesitated, pulling back from Tara in a living wave.

  Tara said, “He might not realize it, but that’s probably what saved me. The souls in the Staff aren’t powerful healers, not like Drel, but they likely repaired my head injury in the process of the transformation.”

  “Turn her into a cat girl!” Todd slammed the staff into the ground again, hard and angry. The sound rang through the small room, metal against a concrete floor. “Or you’ll regret it! I can start dissipating all of you, starting with that newborn baby! She’s useless anyway!”

  Tara roused a bit and screamed as magic flowed around her. Her limbs lengthened. Her face stretched out into a muzzle. Her ears moved up the sides of her head. Claws sprouted. The sneakers on her feet burst open to reveal large paws.

  When it was done, she lay on the floor, panting, covered in blood. She’d peed and shit herself; it stained the back of her jeans. Abruptly, she rolled onto her side, pushed herself up on an elbow, and vomited a torrent of puke.

  “Oh, gross,” Todd poked her with the end of the staff. “This wasn’t what I meant by cat girl—”

  Tara exploded into motion. One minute, she was huddled on the ground, wiping her mouth with the back of a newly clawed hand. The next, she was grabbing for the Staff and lunging at Todd, all in the same motion. He swung at her again; she deflected it with a raised forearm and went for his throat with the claws of the other hand. He blocked her hand with his wrist, and she slammed him bodily into the wall.

  “Undo it!” she demanded, her voice a thunderous roar.

  Todd screamed. He tried to shoot her, jamming his finger down on the trigger. His eyes widened in panic when nothing happened. Casey realized that neither of them had flipped the safety off when the gun didn’t fire.

  “Fucking undo it!” She shoved her entire weight against him, and her claws closed around his throat. Blood trickled down his shirt.

  “Don’t kill me!” he begged, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorrrryyyyy!”

  “UNDO THE SPELL!” Her voice was so loud, and her demand so sharply phrased, that Casey jumped.

  Todd still had the staff in his hand, but he didn’t have a good angle to hit her with it again. He tried anyway. She grabbed for it, releasing his throat, and for a second, both of them wrestled, with Tara clearly having the upper hand by virtue of grimalkin height and power. Todd shouted, “Get me out of here! Help! Help!”

  The wall melted behind him, forming into the rainbow swirls of a portal. Todd tumbled backward through it, Staff and her gun still in his hands. Tara frantically grabbed for him, claws snagging his shirt, then jerked away as the portal snapped closed. The event horizon missed slicing off her fingertips by a fraction of an inch.

  Then, she stood alone in the room, covered in her own filth and blood, chest heaving, terror in her eyes.

  In the present, Beast-Tara dismissed the illusion with a wave of one hand.

  The only light now streamed through a single dirty window. The most horrific decorations in the room, plus the computer, were gone. Casey suspected they were either in a police evidence locker, sold, or thrown away by Mark. Several bras remained, kicked into a corner. Rat shit covered the bed. The cat-girl poster lay crumpled on the floor.

  Tara’s skin was far too pale, and she was trembling. Avery reached a hand out towards her, as if to offer her a hug. She flinched back.

  Nadria disappeared back into the book.

  Simon asked, voice flatly emotionless, “Tara, are you going into leyshock?”

  “I... don’t think so. I’ve never channeled that much energy before.” Tara gave the elf a sideways look. Casey didn’t blame her. Minutes ago, Simon intended to kill her. She folded her arms across her chest, then added, “If I knew he’d created a Soul Staff from the spirits of the Book, I’d have approached everything differently. I thought he was just a petty bully and a thief, and I was filming so I could expose him on social media for everyone to see. I didn’t think he had the power to do this to me. I didn’t think he’d do anything but mouth off at me, and maybe try to grope me or something.”

  “You brought a gun, though,” Avery pointed out. “You had to be expecting the possibility of trouble.”

  She pinned her ears back at him. “Dude. I always carry a gun. A female contractor going to the homes of strange men in these parts? I’d be stupid not to.”

  “She’s got a point,” Shana agreed. “I’d do the same thing.”

  “I hate guns,” Avery muttered.

  “We know.” Shana reached up and patted him on the back. “But not everyone is you.”

  What Avery wasn’t saying, Casey knew, was that being in the presence of firearms gave Avery horrific intrusive thoughts about self-harm. He wasn’t suicidal. Depression was not a feature of his messed-up brain chemistry unless things got extremely bad, but that didn’t stop his mind from torturing him with thoughts and images that he claimed he would never act on, but which were utterly relentless on bad days.

  Mark said loudly, “Tara, was the only reason you agreed to go to prom with me because he promised to give you back the Book?”

  That, some strangely detached part of Casey’s brain noted, was the first time he’d ever heard Mark call Tara by her real name. He always called her Fugly.

  “It certainly wasn’t because I like you! Todd said he felt sorry for you, so he offered to give me the Book back if I went with you. Then, you two didn’t even take me to prom. I fucking got lost after I bailed from that car. It took me until dawn to find my way home!” Tara snapped. “I thought about strangling him from the back seat, you know. I actually unbuckled my belt. I was going to wrap it around his neck and not let go until he was dead. But, I didn’t want to go to jail and I figured the cops would ask why didn’t I just jump out of the car... so I busted the window and jumped out of the car.”

  Mark stared at her. “Todd never felt sorry for me in my entire life.”

  “I’m done here.” With that sharp statement, Tara spun and stalked out of the room.

  Casey touched Avery on the wrist, getting his brother’s attention. “Go after her. She shouldn’t be alone right now, and I think she likes you better than the rest of us. Just be mindful of her personal space, okay?”

  After Avery left, Casey turned to Simon. “And... you and I? We need to talk.”