Spliced

“You sure this is going to work?” Amanda asked Wolf.

“Nope,” he replied as he reached for the necklace Amanda was holding out for him. A tiny silver cat on a silver chain. “It’ll probably go a lot better if you help though.”

She shook her head. “Can’t, gotta get back to the horses. Anyway, I’m not much of a dreamwalker.”

Wolf sighed and studied the dreamwalking infusement Amanda had borrowed from her daughter. He doubted her last statement. Even if Amanda hadn’t done much dreamwalking she’d still done enough and she was naturally talented at magic. Maybe it would be better if he waited to cast this spell. The chances that they’d find the dreamweaver were getting slimmer and slimmer by the day anyway. He should probably just call the search off.

Amanda started to make a move for the door.

“Hang on,” Wolf called. “Before you go, there was one other thing. I seem to have misplaced a particular necromancy book recently. It’s possible someone may borrowed it.” He shook the cat necklace to aid with his hint.

A stern look came across her face and then she nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Much appreciated.”

Amanda turned to go then but as she reached for the door to Wolf’s cabin, the handle twisted on it’s own.

Then the door opened.

“Oh my gods guys! You’ll never believe what I just saw in the paper.” Indi stood on the door step.

“Hey Indi,” Amanda greeted her.

Indi responded by wrapping her in a tight hug.

Wolf was glad he was too far away to have the life squeezed out of him.

“Whatcha' doing here Indi?” Amanda asked once Indi released her.

“Well I phoned your house but you weren’t home but your kids said you were here. Look at this!” Indi held up a newspaper and then threw it down on the table.

Wolf sighed and waited for Amanda to read it and one of them to summarise it for him so he didn’t have to move.

“Cornelius O'Hara,” Amanda read aloud. “Lily’s father?” She looked up and caught Wolf’s eye.

“Yeah!” Indi exclaimed

“What about him?” Wolf asked.

“They found his body in the swamp up at Quartz Ridge,” Indi answered before Amanda could. She sounded far too happy about the whole thing.

Amanda was wearing a frown. “What do you think happened to him?” She looked at Wolf for the answer.

He replied, “I’ll give you three guesses but I’ll bet you only need one.”

“Coal.”

“No way!” Indi cried. “Why would Coal kill him?”

“She’s got a point,” Wolf replied contemplatively. “He was a client.”

“A client on a job that went sideways,” Amanda explained with a shrug. “Either he’s cleaning up loose ends now he’s been paid or he’s paying the guy back for not being straight with him about what the job was.”

“I don’t believe Coal didn’t know,” Wolf replied. Then after a moment’s thought he sighed. “It’s not like him to have a body resurface though.”

“No, it’s not,” Amanda agreed.

“I think you guys are jumping to conclusions,” Indi told them. “Anyway that’s not the only thing I came here to tell you about. I think I have a lead on the missing dreamweaver.”

That got Wolf’s attention. He sat up straighter. “What? Where?”

“About a week ago there was a suspicious death that could be the work of the dreamweaver.”

Wolf slumped. With another sigh he replied, “That’s too long ago Indi.”

She frowned and actually managed to look a little annoyed for once, an unusual look for Indi. “But it might still be nearby.”

“Unlikely, they move around.”

“Not that much, I mean you’re still looking for it in town right? So maybe if we go to where it last was and do whatever-” she gestured at the books and ingredients spread out on the table “-then we might find a hint of it.”

Amanda cocked an eyebrow at Wolf. The look said ‘worth a shot’.

Wolf sighed. “Maybe.” It wasn’t like he had better ideas.

Indi grinned. “Also Jewel says Agatha’s been missing from school for a few days so I was thinking we could also stop by her place and just check in on her, make sure she’s okay.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Amanda mused.

Wolf narrowed his eyes at her. He didn’t see the point. Sure, sometimes dreamweavers revisited old victims and once you’d encountered one once the chances of meeting another increased but if the girl hadn’t been visited by it on her first night then it was unlikely it would find her specifically after that wasn’t it?

Indi clapped her hands together. “Great, you guys want to team up and go check those things out then?”

Amanda gave an apologetic shake of the head. “I can’t. I’ve just go too much to do, but you guys should go. Don’t approach it if you find it though, just try and track it.” Amanda emphasised that last instruction at Wolf. Indi was unlikely to follow that kind of instruction. “Phone me if you find it.”

Indi looked sad.

They said goodbye to Amanda and then Indi turned back to Wolf. “I tried calling Cat but I got no answer. I can try again though, shall I call the others too?”

“I don’t know if we want to turn up to Agatha’s with a whole group of people,” Wolf objected.

But Indi was already dialing numbers.

A few minutes later she was pouting. “I can’t get through to Cat or Kass, Amanda is busy, Sirius is off at sea, I left Falco in charge of the kids. They like to go home for lunch if they have a free period straight after. Zeph said he’d come help though, he’s free until 2 pm. He said he’ll meet us at Agatha’s.” She perked up then. “We’ll be like the three musketeers.”

“Three is a better number anyway,” Wolf agreed.

Indi clapped her hands. “We can take my car. Do you need anything for tracking the dreamweaver once we get to the old crime scene?” She ran her eyes over the ingredients on the table again.

Wolf nodded. “Yeah, give me a minute or two and then we can head off.”

A couple minutes later Wolf sat in the passenger seat of Indi’s car while Indi fiddled with the the radio. Upbeat pop funneled out of the speakers. Indi turned the volume down so they could chat while she drove. She was quiet only long enough to get out of the bumpy, almost non-existent road to Wolf’s cabin.

Then she turned to Wolf and asked, “So, what do you think we should do about the whole Mercy experimental facility thing?”

“It’s not our problem.” Wolf replied simply.

“No,” Indi agreed.

“What?” Wolf glanced over at her with a frown. All of the rest of them always seemed to think everything was their problem. He hadn’t expected Indi of all people to agree with him. Not with the way she was constantly sticking her nose into things. But then her tone was a little off.

“But it could be.”

“What?” Wolf repeated.

She spoke carefully but optimistically. “You’re right, technically it isn’t our problem. We could do nothing and that would be perfectly okay. It’s enough, to live, and see, and experience the world and never help anybody.”

Wolf frowned. She had his full attention. Half of him was expecting a ‘but,’ except the way she spoke was as if she truly believed every word, not a hint of sarcasm. She’d even smiled at that last word.

Indi continued. She took a hand off the wheel briefly to wave it. “To just do no harm you know. We’re not responsible for anyone but ourselves, but also if we wanted we could do something and as long as we’re careful about not making things worse then it feels good to help. Don’t you want to help other people Wolf?” She glanced at him briefly before focusing her attention back on the road.

Wolf sighed. He liked the way she said it and he did want to help others but there were so many others that it was almost a fruitless prospect, and it often seemed that whatever he did, there was always some hidden cost. It was far better, far safer, to keep one’s nose to oneself. Just look at all the trouble Indi was regularly in. And yet something about the hope in her eyes and the lack of judgement almost made him want to try again. “Sure. I want to help.”

“But?”

Wolf had hoped she’d leave it at that, take it as a yes, but it seemed she had sensed his hesitation.

“But nothing ever works out the way you want it to,” he explained. “There’s always consequences, and when you meddle then you are responsible.”

Indi thought on it. She pursed her lips together, something she often did when she was thinking. Wolf found it annoying. Somehow it made her look cute. On anyone else he was sure the expression would have looked stupid.

“Only if you intend for them to happen,” she replied.

“So your argument is no one’s responsible for anything?”

“Well, no...” She frowned and bit her lower lip.

“So, if someone gets in a car and drives drunk and hits and kills a child, they’re not responsible?”

“No, I mean, it depends, if they intended to drive drunk.”

“They were drunk when they made that decision,” Wolf replied. He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to debate with her on this. It wasn’t helping solve their problems, but somehow it seemed important that he not lose this argument.

“Well, I mean, then that would be manslaughter not murder so... unless they’d done it before, in which case they should know better and we’re back to them having intent.” Indi nodded like she’d just figured out a puzzle.

Wolf wasn’t done. “What if someone killed a whole bunch of people with the intent to bring his family back from the dead but instead he creates zombies that kill a whole bunch more people? Is that person responsible for what the zombies they created do then?”

Indi thought carefully before answering. Her face was solemn, serious now. “Well, I don’t think the ends justify the means so the sacrificing is bad regardless. But as to the zombies killing people, no, I don’t think he’s responsible for that part.”

“And if we know about the zombies and we do nothing to stop them are we not responsible for them?”

“No.”

“Then who is?”

“Why does anyone have to be?” Indi spoke a little louder and faster now. She was obviously frustrated. Then she took a deep slow breath and seemed to calm herself. She glanced at him then focused on the road, waiting for his reply. Confident in her own assertion.

Wolf sighed. He didn’t know the answer to that, he just felt that someone had to be. But there was, he felt, an awful lot to be responsible for, if the blame fell on the ones who did nothing. What was the point in trying if you ended up responsible either way? There was, he had to admit, something freeing about Indi’s point of view. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that someone had to be responsible though, that it was right and better that way but he also appreciated that Indi had no expectation or judgement of him. That he could choose either option, as long as his intent was not ill-formed, and she would never hate him for it. There was something comforting about that. He could not quite view the world as she did, nor did he expect that many people did, but sometimes he wished he could.