Spliced

Indi struggled with the door to Wolf’s house as the wind tried to tear it from her hands. No sooner was she warm inside than the storm vanished as quickly as it had come.

She peered narrowly out the dusty window. “This weather is insane,” she remarked to Wolf who barely looked up from the book he was reading. He was seated at the far end of his oversized wooden table. She then added as she surveyed the stacks of books piled on every spare surface, “How do you find anything in here?”

Wolf finally peered up over the rim of the book he was holding in his left hand, and Indi realised he also had another one open in front of him. Well Falco was always accusing her of multitasking, she couldn’t really judge.

“A man always knows where his books are,” Wolf replied, and with a glance to the window added with a sigh “Yeah, the Elemental festival makes things a bit wild for awhile.”

“Is it always this bad?”

Wolf shrugged and thought on it for a moment. Finally he replied “To be honest the weather probably keeps the people quiet for just as long. Those that don’t go crazy being cooped up that is.”

He narrowed his eyes at her as if wondering if she was the type to go crazy when cooped up.

Indi just yawned. It was still early for her.

Wolf frowned and nodded to the table. “Grab a book and start reading.”

“Any book?” Indi asked eyes widening. There were a lot of books.

Wolf nodded. “I put the relevant ones on the table, mostly, use your best judgement.”

Indi nodded as her eye caught the title of a nearby book ‘101 Poisonous Plants and their Lesser Known Uses.’ That one probably wasn’t relevant, but then again who knew. Now curious she picked it up and gave it a skim.

Indi churned through several books, scanning them quickly and then throwing them aside. Wolf mainly seemed focused on a few and he occasionally made notes about whatever he was reading in them. For the first half an hour neither spoke. Eventually Indi moved on from the books at the table, and unnoticed by Wolf, started familiarising herself with the books on his other shelves. But soon she grew tired of that too. She was just trying to think of a conversational topic that would elicit more than a one sentence answer from Wolf, when a large clap of thunder sounded outside, followed by the sound of hail on the roof.

Indi rushed to the window and peered out. It wasn’t easy, and she suspected that the windows hadn’t been cleaned since the place was first built.

“Cat’s got to be hating this,” Wolf remarked.

Indi turned to see he was looking up from his book and toward the window as well.

Indi frowned and took a seat on one of his wooden stools. “How come Cat hates the rain so much?” she asked.

Wolf shrugged. “She hates water.”

“Yeah but... I get being afraid of drowning and stuff, and not wanting to go swimming, sort of, but the rain?”

“Lots of people hate the rain.” Wolf was looking at his book again.

“Yeah, but you’ve seen her surely? She flinches at it like it’s acid.”

Wolf just shrugged again and didn’t look up.

Indi stared out at the rain again. Already the hail had turned to a light drizzle and the sun was shining brightly.

“It not that much weirder than being afraid of clowns,” Wolf added just when she thought she’d lost him to his book again.

Indi smiled. That jibe was meant for her but she didn’t mind. “Yeah well at least 30 people got killed by clowns last year and that was just in the Emerald City.”

Wolf peered up at her over his book, eyes narrowed.

“There was a serial killer that dressed up as a clown, and another guy that had a day job as a clown who killed some kids, so you see that’s at least two killer clowns just within the last year that we know about.”

Wolf was studying her. She couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. She hadn’t lied about any of it though and she hadn’t even mentioned the peeping Tom who supposedly wore clown masks and who may or may not have killed a couple while they slept. Not to mention that dreamwalker from a few years back who’d had fun terrorising people’s nightmares with all sorts of things, including clowns.

“What are you afraid of anyway?” Indi asked

Wolf gave what may have been a cough or a laugh then replied “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Well yeah that’s why I asked.”

He eyed her again. It made Indi a little nervous.

He grimaced, at least she thought it was a grimace.

“Darker things than clowns.” His tone wasn’t mean, it seemed almost wistful and sad. It was Indi’s turn to study him.

He had his face buried in a book again but a few seconds later he seemed to feel her eyes on him.

As he looked up Indi asked in an almost whisper, “What sort of things?”

He looked almost surprised for a second, then a pained but empathetic look crossed his face before being replaced by a smile and finally a soft frown. “What book are you reading?” he asked of the book she had absentmindedly picked up as she’d sat down. It was one she’d fished out from under one of his shelves. Thick with a light purple cover and brown leather straps. She held it up so he could see.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“I thought you said ‘ a man always knows where his books are,’” Indi replied innocently.

He seemed to almost choke and Indi was sure he was trying not to laugh. He gave a cough and held out a hand. “I thought I told you to look at the books on the table.”

“You told me to use my best judgement,” Indi replied completely deadpan.

Wolf balled his fists. Banging one gently against his thighs he tried to avoid looking at Indi, all the while fighting with a smile that was forming on his face.

When he did finally look up though Indi had such a huge grin spread across her face that he couldn’t help giving a smile in return. No one could ever stay mad at Indi.

“All the same,” he he held out a hand for the book, “I’d prefer if you didn’t read that one.”

Indi handed it slowly to him. “Why? It looks useful, it mentions necromancy.”

Wolf took the book and set it aside for now. He nodded. “There are some dark rituals in there. Not the kind of necromancy we want, not even as our backup plan.”

“Why do you have it then?”

“If I didn’t have it some one else would,” Wolf replied, his gaze wandering back to the book he’d been part way through. He glanced up and met her eyes, “And sometimes,” he added, “It helps to have a backup backup plan.”

Indi sat back and watched him read for a bit. Eventually she asked, “Are you sure there’s nothing useful in that book?”

Wolf paused and looked up at her again. “The less people who know what’s in that book the better.”

Indi was silent for another moment before asking one more question, “Where’d you get it?”

Wolf was silent a moment. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I bought it from a guy who probably bought it from a guy.”

Wolf had barely started back on his book before Indi interrupted with yet another question. “Who wrote it?”

He looked over at the book’s cover which bore no name, only a title. He frowned and reached for the inside cover.

“How do you know it’s all real?” Indi asked, “Assuming you’ve never tested it?”

“I don’t,” he replied, still frowning. “At least half of all wares sold as having magical properties are fakes, but I’m familiar enough with ones that do work to pick up on some similarities, so if it’s a fake it’s a pretty good one, and I know that at least some of the spells do work.”

“You did test them?”

Wolf closed the book again, still frowning. “I don’t know who it’s by, there’s no name.”

“You’ve never wondered before?” Indi asked.

Wolf shook his head. “It’s an old book.”

“So because it’s old it’s less likely to have the author’s name on it?”

Wolf sighed. “I just mean, I’ve had it awhile and books like that, of that subject matter, often don’t get named. People don’t like to be linked to that shit, at least not on paper.”

Indi nodded. That made more sense. She looked around the room and for the hundredth time marvelled at just how many books filled the room. “Do you have any food?” she asked.

“Didn’t you just have breakfast?”

“Yeah but I’m... wait a minute” Indi checked her watch “it’s already 1pm!” She tilted her watch to show him.

His eyebrows went up slightly in what she assumed was mild surprise.

“So it is,” he replied. “Hang on.” He got up from his his seat and disappeared through a door into the rear area of the cabin.

“How has it been three hours already?” Indi asked, more to herself than to Wolf.

But Wolf, with his great hearing, replied as he returned, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” From the deadpan tone one could have been forgiven for assuming that he was either being sarcastic or serious. The problem was Indi wasn’t sure which it was. She looked down at book he’d been reading, something about dreamwalking for non-dreamwalkers. She wasn’t sure she would have called this fun. Then again it was easy to get distracted amongst the piles of new and interesting information. Truth be told she hadn’t exactly been reading everything of relevance. She might have gotten distracted a few times in there and by the look of this book it seemed that Wolf had too.

“How is dreamwalking useful for our current problem?” Indi asked as Wolf handed her something. She took it and realised he’d handed her a stick of dried meat. She frowned, unsure if it was going to be the sweet or spicy type. She didn’t like the sweet type as much, she preferred it well-spiced. Yes, she sometimes liked to add cream to bacon but that was different.

“I was wondering if putting her in the dreamworld for an extended period might slow any degradation,” Wolf explained.

“And would it?” Indi asked before hesitantly taking a bite of the dried meat. It turned out to be neither sweet nor spicy, just kind of plain. That was fine with Indi.

Wolf shook his head. “I don’t know, couldn’t find any info on it.” He sighed, took his seat again, and began to eat his own strip of dried meat.

“Tell me you have something more substantial than this?” Indi asked holding up the meat.

“I have more of it.” Wolf laid a small sack on the table.

Indi reached forward and peered inside. There were loads more strips of dried meat.

“It’s home made,” Wolf told her “Venison. Don’t tell me you’re going to complain about lack of vegetables?”

Indi smiled and shook her head. She wasn’t exactly known for her healthy eating habits. That said, both of them needed more meat than the others. “This is fine with me. I don’t suppose you have any popcorn though do you?”

Wolf chuckled and got up from the table.

Indi hadn’t exactly expected him to have any but find some he did. And then he put on a cup of tea. After lunch Wolf pointed her to some other areas she could try, but an hour more and Indi had already gotten bored. Instead she booted up her laptop which she’d brought with her and resorted to her favorite form of research, the internet.

Magical rituals and spells were harder to find on the internet than in books. There had always been some kind of weird social divide between those that liked to use technology obtained from the old world and those that preferred to pursue true sorcery. There were a whole bunch in the middle of course. Ordinary folk, who used technology and whatever powers they’d been born with. But those that delved deeper, into rituals and spells tended to shy away from things like computers, and it’s not like the computers of this world were paticulary usable, one did require some level of technical competence. And those that used computers or pursued scientific pursuits generally were either less powerful magically or just less interested in magic, which often translated to less powerful anyway.

It didn’t help that the old world led this world in the technological space, most technological advancements were brought over by worldjumpers and sold at extortionate prices sometimes decades after initial creation, then reverse engineered. People hadn’t forgotten how the old world had treated witches in their early days of existence. Many saw it as betrayal of magical kind to use human technology but of course the more easy to use and enjoyable things were always a little more tempting. Movies, for example, were significantly less shunned than computers, and phones had caught on pretty well, at least in some regions.

They kept at it until quarter to four when a horn sounded from outside.

“Cat’s here,” Indi remarked. She hadn’t found anything during the last few hours of research and from the look on Wolf’s face it seemed that he hadn’t either.

“Good, I could use a break. I haven’t found shit,” Wolf remarked as he got to his feet and stretched his arms forward.

Indi nodded, got to her feet and moved toward the rear of the cabin. “I’m just gonna hit the head, tell Cat I’ll be out in a moment.”

Wolf nodded, grabbed a few books and shoved them into a satchel and walked toward the door. He waved a hand out and held up two fingers, then waited for Indi.

Moments later they were all piled into Cat’s car and travelling slightly faster than anyone had thought possible on that dusty forest road.