Spliced

Wolf and Indi returned to Wolf’s place. Zephyr didn’t come with them since he had an appointment to keep.

They paid a brief visit to the other crime scene. Wolf had argued that there wasn’t much point but Indi had insisted. They’d asked the motel manager some questions but hadn’t gleaned much more than they already knew.

“Well, it’s still useful to know,” Indi had said in the car on the way back to Wolf’s. “What if they had known something and we hadn’t asked?”

Wolf had merely grunted, and now that they were back in his cabin he was trying and failing to think of the next most sensible thing to do while Indi bounced around the room, scanning the names of all the books that filled the shelves on his walls.

“We could try that dreamwalking spell,” Indi suggested as she moved from one shelf to the next.

Wolf wondered how much coffee she’d had today. He shook his head. “I don’t think either of us could do it.”

Indi turned to him and pouted. “Well, there’s no harm in trying.”

“It wastes blood,” Wolf replied, unsure as to how she’d managed to get this far in life without learning the basic concepts of spell making. Sure, schools didn’t really cover blood magics beyond a warning that they were dangerous and frowned upon unless you were a sorcerer, but it wasn’t like they weren’t known about. “So yes, there is harm in trying. And given you’re a half vampire who doesn’t like to drink blood, I’m not sure how that doesn’t bother you.”

“Do they all use blood?”

“Yes.” Wolf sighed.

She looked puzzled. “I thought you could just buy infusements and use them like that?”

“Infusements yes. Spells no.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Spells use infusements, and raw infusement magic, usually...” Wolf hesitated. He wasn’t sure about that now, given what Amanda had said.

“Raw infusement magic?”

“Like, this. Infusement stones.” He retrieved some of the infusement stones from his cupboard and laid them on the table.

Indi studied the white stones.

“It’s like how an infuser can put firestarting into a stone, well in this case they put infuser magic into a stone. It gets used like a glue. When you make a spell you alter the nature of the magic, sometimes combining multiple magics. This is what pulls it together.”

Indi frowned. “How come that’s not more common then? If anyone can just use borrower magic on it’s own then isn’t that more useful than having a specific infusement since you could just borrow the magic of whoever is around you?”

Wolf took a deep breath. “First off, it’s not borrower magic, it’s infusement magic, they are different. Secondly, you can’t use them to actually make infusements. They’re not powerful enough for that. They tie together already loose magic. If you tried to use it to pull magic from a person you’d burn through it extremely fast. And finally”—he reached out and plucked the stone from her—“They are extremely expensive.” He put the stone back with the rest and sighed. “They’re only really used for spellmaking, which is more difficult and much less common than using infusements. Spell making requires blood, the freseher and more intelligent the better. Infusements don’t, most of the time. Spellcraft is blood magic. Infusements aren’t, most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“Depends on how they are made. An infusement is really just any item that has had magic put into it which a witch can pull loose even if it’s not their own magic but they can be made by infusers or by spellcraft.”

Indi squinted at him and cocked her head sideways. “Wait, you just said spellcraft used infusements so how can infusements be made using spellcraft?”

Wolf furrowed his brow and gave his explanation another go. “Spellcraft is really just power boosting and power blending. All infusements are initially made using an infuser but if you add blood and other components then you can boost the power of the infusement and sometimes alter what it does and who can use it. I can’t use a natural infusement, only a witch can, but I can use a bloodcrafted one.”

“And you can use the white stones?”

Wolf nodded. “Anyone can spellcraft, I think.”

“But aren’t they a natural infusement?”

Wolf shook his head. “I’ve never met an infuser who has been able to infuse another infuser’s magic into an item. It’s either very difficult or there’s a very different trick to it. Only the sorcerers know how to make these.”

"Why are they white stones?"

"I don't know. Because they're recognizable? Why are time infusements always a timepiece?" Wolf shrugged.

"Are they?"

"No, but mostly.”

"So, for you to dreamwalk you need an infusement stone and a dreamwalking infusement and blood?"

"Right."

"And for Amanda to do it she just needs a dreamwalking infusement?"

"Right. But using a stone and blood would still make it easier for her."

Indi took a seat on one of the wooden stools that surrounded the table, placed her elbows up on the table and rested her chin in her hands while she considered it.

“However it’s also riskier,” Wolf added. “And in some ways harder.”

“What?” Indi narrowed her eyes at him. “But you just said...”

Wolf held up his hands and nodded. He took a seat on his own stool. “Okay... infusements are easier in the sense that you can’t fuck them up, most of the time, at least not badly. Spellcraft is easier in the sense that it requires less energy to do the same thing-”

“Because of the blood?”

“Correct. But there are about a million more ways for things to go horrifically wrong.”

"Because you can accidentally also do things beyond what the infusement can do depending on what other things you add?"

"Correct. You’re familiar with the three pillars or magic right?"

“Power, control, efficiency,” Indi rattled off flawlessly.

“Good. Spellcraft grants you more power. Infusements grant you more of the other two.”

“More efficiency? I thought they were less efficient?”

“In terms of overall energy yes, but they can be designed so the magic can only be burnt through so fast. And technically they can also be made such that you don’t get much, if any, gain in control. That’s called a loosely wound infusement, as opposed to a tightly wound one, but either way, you get access to a power you wouldn’t normally have.”

“So they can function like rate limiters?”

“Sometimes. But of course, nothing beats raw magic, all else being equal. It is possible for a sorcerer with a high quality infusement to beat a weak magic user of course.”

Indi nodded thoughtfully. "Sooo, do you have a dreamwalking infusement then?"

"Yes, but you'd need the right kind of spell to lure a dreamweaver in and I'm still not certain this is a good idea."

"Like a spell that gives someone nightmares. I saw one of those in your books. One of the ones over here." Indi hopped off her stool and walked over to the back wall and began peering at books.

"Wait, what? When?" Wolf didn't remember having a spell like that, but then he did have a lot of books.

"When we were doing research the day we went in the house. I remember seeing it. Oooh, this one, page 82, 3rd paragraph down." She pulled a book with a blue cover off the shelf.

Wolf frowned. She even remembered the page and paragraph? He hadn’t thought she’d been paying much attention that day. "I didn't even know I had that spell."

She laid the book on the table and he leaned over to see what it said.

"I thought a man always knows where his books are?" She teased, reminding him further of that morning.

Now she’d proven him twice wrong on that point. How did she always manage to remember everything that was said?

"Yes, but evidently not what's in them." Wolf sighed.

“Soo,” Indi started again, her violet eyes practically sparkling behind the black rims of her glasses. “Shall we give it a go?”

Wolf was silent. “I don’t know.”

“If we don’t find the dreamweaver more people might die.” Indi spoke with emphasis and then a little more weakly asked, “We can use animal blood right?”

Wolf raised an eyebrow at her and then he nodded. “It also uses a dreamwalking infusement and...” He hesitated. Did he need the raw infusement? He was curious to try without it. The damn things were expensive enough that it was worth a shot. Had he and Amanda ever tried that when they were young? It had been so many years that Wolf couldn’t remember. Amanda and he had found a pouch of them as kids, along with a spell book, marked in the margins with alterations that actually worked. It almost made him laugh now, knowing how expensive they were, and how they’d played with them like they were toys.

“Well, where did you get it?” Indi asked.

“Hmm?” Wolf was jerked from his thoughts.

“The dreamwalking infusement.”

“Oh, um.” He sighed. She had him there. It, at least was easy enough to replace. So was the blood technically. “Katrina James infused it from Cat’s magic.” He noted Indi’s obvious glee at that and he continued before she could get a word in, “But we still need a way to capture the dreamweaver if we find it.”

“Amanda said to just locate it.”

“Yeah but that doesn’t work if the plan is to lure it here.”

“So, we let it feed for a bit. It’s not like it kills straight away right, I mean...” Indi trailed off with a frown as she realised the problem. “...except for recently... with the victims being in different places and killed so close together I guess it must have... But that still gives us hours... probably. And I have this.” Indi set a vial of white powder on the table.

Wolf’s eyes narowed. “What is that?” He was pretty sure he already knew but he hoped he was wrong.

“Dreamskeep. I have the antidote too.”

“Why do you have that?” Wolf asked gruffly, “Have you taken any?”

“No. I just got some because it was so effective before, like really good coffee, and I figured maybe it would be useful for when I have deadlines and stuff’s just not working except then I got kinda scared to take it... but it’s useful now, right? I mean, if I take it in the dreamworld would it wake me up?”

Wolf took a moment to calm himself. At least she hadn’t taken it. After some consideration he replied, “I have absolutely no idea what that would do, and it’s not coffee. It’s not like coffee. It’s not even remotely the same thing.”

Indi curled her hand around the vial and pouted. “Okay so how do you normally kill a dreamweaver then?”

“You don’t.”

“What was your plan before then?”

“To trap it. You don’t kill it, you trap it, with a binding spell.” Wolf got up from his chair and returned soon after with another book. “It’s a tricky spell. You bind it to an item which prevents it from travelling too far from the item, or for a really good spell traps in inside the item or binds it’s power. And then you dump it in the ocean.”

“Which starves it to death?”

“No. I don’t think so. I think they just get weak. I don’t really know.”

“But the spell won’t last forever right?”

“No.”

“So, are there like a bunch of bound boxes just lying on the ocean floor containing monsters which will one day be freed from their confines and kill us all?”

Wolf studied her. He could swear she almost looked excited at the prospect of it. “Uh. I mean... I’m sure there are ways to deal with them that work permanently. I’m just not sure what they are.”

“But there are others who know?”

“Sure.”

“So we can give the bound dreamweaver to them then? And not pollute the ocean?”

“Yeah.” Wolf considered the options. There were the librarians. Would they take a dreamweaver? Or did you just mail it to the sorcerers? Coal probably knew who could deal with something like that, but that information would cost.

“Excellent.” Indi clapped her hands together once. “So we cast the spell to give us, or me, nightmares—“she frowned and swallowed briefly as if suddenly realising what that actually meant”—which draws the dreamweaver to us and then you cast a binding spell on it and trap it and then we give it to Coal.”

Wolf narrowed his eyes at the mention of Coal’s name.

“Or whomever,” Indi said as she noticed Wolf’s expression. Then she grinned proudly.

“Hmm.”

“Lives are at stake, remember?” Indi emphasised. “Besides we can always phone Amanda if we need.”

Wolf sighed. “Alright, fine. It’s worth a shot.”

“Yay!”

“But you do exactly what I say.”

Indi nodded furiously and tried her best to look serious as Wolf started piling ingredients onto the table.