Page 8 of War Games (Jacky Leon #11)

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CHAPTER SEVEN

“ W e’ll be safe here if they try to lash out after we start this,” Niko continued, oozing confidence in the idea and not seeming to notice the surprise of nearly everyone on the call. I was certain they were surprised for the same reason I was. Not that Heath and the werewolves were going to help protect us, but rather that Niko would dare talk about it in front of Hasan. We weren’t sure how he was feeling since the Germany incident, but apparently, Niko was leaving that behind him. We could only hope Hasan was going to choose to do the same.

“Have you two spoken about this? Can you explain a bit more, Jacky?” Zuri asked instead of letting anyone else jump in, including Hasan.

“Y-Yeah. While a few of the werewolves are younger, and we’ll be keeping them away from the edges of my territory and off patrols, they’re also training in case someone attacks.” I was trying to recover from Niko's outing that plan before I was ready or could mention it myself. I was now scrambling to explain. “Even if they can just defend themselves until Niko, myself, or any of the older werewolves can get there, it’s better than nothing. Older werewolves have been doing close patrols for some time, but we’ve extended the patrol to my boundary, so their noses can pick up anyone snooping around the outer edge.”

“Good, very good.” Subira seemed pleased, relaxing in her chair like this didn’t bother her at all, nor was she concerned about Hasan saying anything inappropriate. “I will require you, Jacky, to take at least one werewolf with you on your trips to see these witches as well.”

“What?” I couldn’t stop the word popping out of my mouth, nor could I cover my new shock. The curveballs in this conversation were being thrown too fast for me.

“You’re the youngest, and you’ve twice engaged with witches and ruined their plans intentionally. Three times, if including the original coup that led you to meeting the Everson family.” Subira tilted her head to the side, but I couldn’t read her expression. “Witches can be petty and personal, to their own detriment. You will be a target. Not just an annoyance to the witches you’re investigating but to any witches who think you’ve gotten too involved over the years, intentionally or not.

“With you also being the youngest, you are the easiest of us for them to attack, whether their goal is to kill or capture you. Anyone smart enough to plan an effective attack against you will also be smart enough to know it would be a crippling blow against this family, which will impact our ability to work with the werewolves. We’ll all be left more vulnerable to future attacks or them being able to further whatever plans they may have that could overwhelm us in the future.”

“Take Dirk with you,” Niko suggested when she finished. “She’s thinking of the same thing you and Heath were when you explained how the werewolves working here to protect the territory was important. Take Dirk, and on the days you don’t have anywhere to go, you can train each other.”

I turned slowly to my brother, exhaling a breath that left my cheeks puffing up and nostrils flaring.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I hissed softly, knowing the mic would pick it up, but the words were intentionally directed at Niko.

“Well, you would be babysitting him,” Niko countered, smiling. “I’ll be out of town, so our training plans have gone out the window.”

“Training plans?” Hasan asked, finally breaking his silence, having ignored most of the talk about the werewolves entirely.

“I was going to train Jacky in weapons and hand-to-hand and train Dirk to fight more in his werewolf form since neither of them can join the pack for training. Landon would have to train Jacky since Heath doesn’t want to act that way toward her, and Landon won’t because if he hurt her, he’d upset his father. Landon won’t let Dirk join pack training because if anyone accidentally hurt Dirk, he’d kill them,” Niko explained to the group before turning to me again.

“But, Jacky, you fight extremely well as a werecat. It’s not a perfect translation, but you’ve seen the werewolves fight, too. I know he’s trained before in his werewolf form because Heath would require it in his first year, so he probably just needs experience and confidence. He’ll teach you more traditional weapons and hand-to-hand that I trained him in as he grew up. He’ll be rusty, but it’s just the basics. Basics are better than nothing.”

“Fine. When Dirk and I are driving around and interrogating witches, we’ll train each other,” I agreed, lifting my hands in defeat. “We’ll come back to this after the meeting. Dirk is with Carey at the gun range this morning.”

“Carey has good aim,” Jabari said, humming pleasantly. “That’s a good call.”

“It was theirs, not mine or Heath’s,” I said, dropping my hands to my side as I made a face. “She’s not old enough to legally carry, though.”

“Legally. We’ll figure out something to do about that,” Jabari said as he looked at something, fiddling with it on the side of his desk. “A spell to mask its presence, maybe something like the charm we get done on the cars, so we aren’t pulled over all the time. She’ll just need to not get arrested by your human police while she has it.”

“I’ll talk to her father about whether she needs to carry a live firearm, and then we can work on something,” I said sternly. “Can we move on?”

“We should. There’s a lot to get through,” Zuri said, hitting a button, and I saw a muted symbol show up over Jabari. “Mother and I were looking into the potion that the witches made. It’s not entirely a potion. It can be drunk for short-term use, but the masking effect wears off faster. We found out how they are really using it.”

“It’s a soak,” Subira said, sighing. “You can put a piece of jewelry in it, so long as the material is able to soak in the liquid. That makes the object mask the magic cast by the wearer. When I was looking over the dead witches in Alaska, some were wearing leather bracelets, while others had leather cord necklaces. I could smell the potion on them. We made a few of our own. It can last up to a week between soaks, depending on the strength of the spell and how much magic it whips up for us to smell. Spells manipulate an energy that already exists since there is magic everywhere, all the time, in everything. We can smell it because the distribution of magic in the area has been altered and expended.”

“It also doesn’t stop magic from smelling at all. It makes us nose blind to it,” Zuri continued where our mother stopped. “We Moon Cursed. That’s why our blood is in the mix; it targets us and makes us miss it. This is important since other supernatural species can somewhat smell or feel magic when it’s used in any sort of spell. Father, they don’t have to get involved with our problems, but if you could take a handful of these to those supernaturals for testing, it would be appreciated.”

“I’m sure they will be glad to find out if the witches got one over on them as well,” Hasan said with a nod. “Based on your explanation, if their blood was used, would it be likely to definitely work on them?”

“I won’t ask them to do that sort of testing if they aren’t comfortable, but it would be good to know.”

“I’ll see what I can without the witches discovering this research, then.” Hasan started scribbling, taking notes for the first time during the meeting. “Now, allow me to explain what the other emails are, so I can step out unless there’s something else I must know.”

No one had anything to say that would keep him, so I sat down and listened as Hasan explained what he wanted from Zuri, Jabari, and Davor. Zuri would continue to research with Subira about the use of the charm, as well learning all about the type of magic my brothers and I had discovered in Alaska, which Subira had already been familiar with. Ways to break the control or block it entirely, and things of that nature.

Jabari was going to be talking to the oldest werecat warriors left on the earth about forming a hunting party whenever they discovered a witch who was involved. Hisao would be joining that once he was feeling better. So would Mischa. Davor was scouring every dark website that had witches talking. He was breaking into emails and everything else to see if they could find any suspicious talk.

Only Niko and I were going directly to witches, and I didn’t have any problem with that. I had a problem with something else.

“With that, I will leave?—”

“What about the identity of the boy?” I asked before Hasan could excuse himself.

“I’ve been working on that myself,” Hasan answered, not looking at his camera. “But, if I find myself out of options, I will have a request for you… and the government you have to work with on occasion. A DNA test… but I want to exhaust all of my options.”

“What about the Mygi Pharmaceutical connections?” I said, hoping for anything. That boy deserved justice. Somewhere, there could be parents wondering where their little boy went and what happened to him.

“I’ve already been working on that, but since much of that information was destroyed, it will probably continue to be a dead end,” Davor said, his words sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I only find references, but the way they did it was well hidden away from Mygi entirely.”

“Callahan and Corissa have been looking into it for years and have been only finding dead ends,” Hasan said, shaking his head. “No reason to be sorry. I know we all want that boy to be given peace. I have never met a child werecat I didn’t know the origin of. I find it just as disturbing as everyone here. There’s one more option after a DNA test, but…”

“I would be unavailable for an entire month,” Subira said. “If nothing else works, I will do that spell. His body is secure, right?”

“I’ve had the fae keep it from deteriorating,” Hasan confirmed. “I went to Alvina for the right fae to do it, not Brion. It’s in the Tribunal in a secure location. Only I’m allowed to access it. They can only go in to refresh the spell with me and Alvina there.”

“An entire month, Mother?” Zuri was the one who dared ask.

“A blood memory spell that will leave me living the boy’s memories for a month,” Subira explained. “Easier to do with family, where I am blood-related, but a species relation is not much more difficult. I couldn’t do it to an unrelated fae, for example. It would be too difficult. I haven’t cast it in fifteen years, and before that, it had been hundreds. I don’t do it often, and generally, only for my own purposes.”

“I thought you always saw the past dancing on the water’s surface,” Zuri said, curious about our witch mother. It wasn’t often, as we all knew, that Subira talked about real spells and how much magic she could really do.

“I do see visions of the past on top of the water, sometimes even against my own will when I would prefer just to go fishing. I do this spell when I want to look deeper, need to look deeper, for either more understanding or more knowledge. My visions on the water decide themselves many times while this spell is targeted, expanding on my natural ability and helping me control it for a specific use. Took me years to develop. I would teach you, but you never showed an inclination for the sight that I have, so I’m always wary about how the spell will work for you.”

“Oh, it’s fine. Not the type of magic I would prefer to do.”

I understood Zuri. Spending an entire month living out someone else’s life or all of their memories sounded terrible.

“If that’s everything for today, I should go. Expect another email later. I have another meeting with Callahan and Corissa about what the werewolves have been doing. They’ve been active, but we haven’t been able to discuss progress while we’ve also been trying to get these files for everyone.”

“Be home before the sun comes up, please,” Subira said, to which Hasan actually smiled before he said goodbye and disconnected from the call.

“Anything else we want to talk about now that Father is gone?” Zuri asked.

“Not that I can think of,” I said.

Davor and Niko quickly agreed with my sentiment.

“Tell Heath to feel free to ask me for any advice. I’m not a werewolf, but I’ve fought enough of them to tell him anything effective I saw from packs,” Jabari said before he disconnected.

“I guess I’m doing that later,” I said. “Talk to you all later.” I disconnected from my end and looked at Niko.

“That was fun,” I said, giving him a strained smile.

“It was better for me to give him the news than anyone else afterward,” Niko said patiently, shrugging as my eyes narrowed on him. “Including Subira. I know we’re all adults, and we like to do our own things, but Hasan gets more pissed off when everyone knows something before he does. And look, there wasn’t anything for him to say about it. Subira thought it was a good idea and made a point of asking you to work with the werewolves here more than you even considered. Telling him at the same time as everyone else eased the blow.”

“You put a lot of faith into that idea of Hasan,” I said with a soft, frustrated growl. “And you took me off guard.”

“I said I would use my position here to smooth things over about this plan without other werecats. They didn’t even mention the reputation issue involved. That’s a good thing. Let me do this for you and Heath, so you two can handle other important things.” Niko paused, then nodded sharply. “I’m going to look over the list he sent me tonight. I’ll leave on Sunday once I decide the route I’m going to take. Do you mind if I take the plane in Dallas?”

“Go for it,” I said, shrugging. The plane didn’t matter to me, and he clearly wasn’t going to hear my complaints about how he blindsided me in front of the family.

“I’ll visit werecats I know along the route, using it as a chance to tell them about what you and Heath are doing here, which might not surprise them, but they should know. Keep ahead of things. In those conversations, I can ask them to help look into witches near them to ease some of the work off Davor and Dirk.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said, letting Niko continue his hunting plan. That’s what it was. He was actively hunting witches who might be involved, and being able to recognize that was integral. It made me realize just how well Hasan actually knew all of us. I was looking into people close by who might represent a danger to me immediately or had before and got away. Niko was searching for rarer prey, witches across the continent who think they’re too far from me to be noticed. Zuri was getting to play with magic while Jabari was gathering what was essentially a special forces group to lead.

“I’ll see you tomorrow with my idea, and I’ll need someone to schedule those flights for me,” Niko said, heading to the door. He was halfway out of the office when he turned around, his eyes no longer human but werecat. “And next time, keep all Dirk and Landon gossip away from the rest of them.”

“Sorry. It was an accident, and I didn’t account for Zuri’s naturally meddling energy putting things together so easily.”

“A mistake we all make every so often,” Niko said, sighing. He didn’t move, though. He lingered in the doorway, drumming his fingers.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” I asked, crossing my arms as I studied him.

“Is he okay? I haven’t seen him this morning or heard from him. I… I noticed Landon wasn’t around.”

“Landon is Heath’s problem and still at home,” I answered. “Dirk was tired when he stopped by to pick up Carey earlier. Not too tired, but tired. We think they might have argued.”

“Ah…” Niko nodded then he cursed softly. He leaned back on the door frame as a sardonic smile appeared on his face. “Allow me to give my apologies.”

“For what?”

“You have to tell Landon that Dirk is joining you to visit witches who may be active enemies of the Moon Cursed.” He slapped the doorframe and left, half running out of my house, leaving me with that troubling knowledge. It wasn’t until he was minutes away in his car that I dared open my mouth.

“Fuck.”