Chapter 7

Thursday April 27

I had to drink a gallon of coffee this morning. I was tossing and turning all night.

I couldn’t get any more info from the Coven - at least remotely. Maybe I can talk to some of them face to face. Or maybe I can ask their rivals. But it’s a long shot. I don’t know enough about the secrets of the wizard world to bluff convincingly. I don’t even know what words they use for what they are. Are they wizards? Sorcerers? Mages? Witches?

I decided I needed to break into Laurel’s apartment. I needed access to her computer - or a roommate’s, or at least access to her WiFi. I had a good sense of the inhabitants’ schedules, and they only have a guard outside their door when they’re home, so I figured it was low risk. I was very wrong.

Hoodie, jeans, gloves, tinted glasses, lock picks. I brought a spare concealable camera (with no fingerprints) just in case some opportunity popped up. It looked like your typical college apartment, except with a few more houseplants than normal. The plastic tarp covering most of the living room floor was an oddity. I had to cross it to get to the desk in the corner where a desktop computer sat, but I’m pretty light-footed.

There was a card with handwriting on it on top of the keyboard. It read:

If you don’t struggle, you won’t be hurt.

At first, I thought it was some sort of dark motivational message. Turning it over, I saw that it was written on my business card. I reached epic heights of freaked-out in an instant. She knew I would be there. But I only had a moment to consider it.

Something very heavy slammed into me. I hit my head on the edge of the TV stand on my way down, and my glasses went flying. My mind was fuzzy, but I was aware of very large, very strong jaws on my neck. The thing was not gentle dragging me into the center of the room. I was pretty sure I was about to die: my weight was nothing to this thing - it could easily have thrashed me around until my neck snapped.

My mind cleared from the impact and then the adrenaline took over. Strangely, the creature and I both held very still for several minutes. I’d love to say it was a conscious strategy, but my fight-or-flight instinct was running the show, and that was its decision. It was weird to feel my heart beating three times per second while remaining frozen, but that was my instinct.

Slowly, my heart slowed some and I regained a glimmer of higher thinking. I could feel blood from my head soaking into my hoodie, but I couldn’t tell how bad it was. And then it occurred to me: that’s what the plastic tarp was for - she knew I would hit my head and she didn’t want me bleeding on her hardwood floor. A more reasonable explanation, I quickly decided, was that the tarp was meant to contain the mess of my mutilated body if I struggled.

I was facing away from my captor, so I couldn’t see it. The shape of its jaws seemed dog-like, but I don’t think dogs can get that big: it had to bend down quite a bit from its standing posture to hold me. Eventually, it lay down, with its paws on the ground under my head: they were bigger than my hands. The breath from its nose roared past my ear and created ripples in the plastic tarp.

In time, I grew bold enough to try speaking - asking some questions in a soothing voice. It didn’t respond. It did growl, however, vibrating through my body, any time I made the slightest movement. With patience, after a hundred tiny movements, I managed to take my glove off and touch its paw. It didn’t have fur, and its skin felt a bit like wet clay. I also recovered my glasses.

After an hour, I was exhausted: my body had spent everything it had to be ready for some do-or-die moment that never came. A half hour after that, my bladder control gave out. That’ll teach me to drink coffee before breaking and entering. I began to wonder whether that was the true purpose of the tarp: that instead of blood or entrails, it was meant to protect the floor from urine. Could Laurel have had that much foresight? I decided that my understanding of the world around me is very, very lacking. I was reasonably calm again by that point, although I felt like complete crap. But the creature clearly had orders not to kill me ... yet.

Once I heard activity at the door I started to freak out again. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen now. Laurel’s roommates came in but they couldn’t see me right away - there was a partial wall between the entry and the living room. They talked casually about class or whatever while they set their things down. But then Kate - the girl in the wheelchair - caught sight of the beast and me, and she froze, calling out Laurel’s name. The guy - Baz - rounded the corner an instant later, and added, “Lucy! You got some `splaining to do!”

Laurel ran in from the hall to catch up to her roommates and then sheepishly said, “Oh yeah.” I guess laying a trap in her home with a great big monster wasn’t an especially noteworthy part of her day.

I decided I needed to try to set the tone. “Hi. I’m Lexi. Will you please let me up so we can talk?”

I couldn’t see Kate but her voice carried plenty of attitude. “I think if I were in your place I would shut the fuck up.”

“So ... new pet?” Baz asked.

“She was going to break in. I had to stop her,” Laurel explained.

“What the fuck, Laurel,” Baz said, laughing. He was fucking laughing.

“So what happens now? Do we call the cops?” Kate asked.

“She can’t,” I offered. “Not with this thing around. Besides, that’s not how problems are solved in her world. Right, Laurel?”

Laurel moved almost aggressively to the floor near me - not in front of me, but where I could see her. My heart skipped a beat. “You really need to shut up!” Then she closed her eyes and hugged her knees to her chest. She started to cry. “I’m so tired of having enemies. I’m tired of having to do things to them. I hate all of this! I thought I was helping the world, but it’s just been one bad thing after another.” Baz knelt beside her and put her arm around her.

“Why is she here?” Kate asked. Laurel didn’t answer; she looked at the floor, shrugged, and shook her head.

“I’m a private eye,” I volunteered. “I’m looking for someone. The trail ends at her.”

For a bit, all I could hear was Laurel’s sobs and Kate’s angry breathing. Then Kate addressed me. “Okay - you, thief: forget about the police. You understand that she can do much worse than this to you, right? Or if she doesn’t, she has allies who are less forgiving.”