A few outside tables were clustered outside this Mar tha’s, right by the door. I left Lou to hold a table and went inside for a latte. Morgan wasn’t there yet. I hoped she hadn’t changed her mind. Ten minutes later, I saw her crossing the street toward us. She was wearing those same loose jeans again, but with a shapeless sweatshirt on top. I got the feeling she’d changed into it before coming over, trying for aggressively neutral. She gave me a quick nod and passed by the table, going inside inside to get her own cup of coffee. While I waited, I called Lou over.
“We need her help,” I said. “So put on the charm-don’t lay it on too thick, though. Let her think you’re just an ordinary dog. For now.”
Hopefully she was a dog person. Lou could charm almost anyone, but there are people who simply don’t like dogs, period. Go figure.
She came out, carrying a tiny cup of espresso, and slid into the opposite seat. Lou glanced up at me and I gave a slight nod. He stretched, sidled up to her, and sat up in his cute begging position. She smiled over at me, a good start.
“Yours, I assume?”
“Remember your vision where I was with something like a dog, but not quite? Well, you were right. This is Lou. Lou, this is Morgan. Say hello.”
Lou sat down and offered a paw in the standard doggy-shake fashion. She reached down to take it, and at the last moment he whipped it away and gave a short bark.
“Psych!” I said.
“Well, that’s just rude,” she said, laughing. “I suppose you taught him that.”
“Not at all. He has his own sense of humor, and the canine variety can be rather juvenile.” Lou walked back to her and offered a paw again.
“This is like Charlie Brown and the football, isn’t it?” she said.
“No, he’s apologizing.”
She reached down again and this time he gravely accepted her hand. Then he jumped up in my lap, curled up, and pretended to go to sleep. All of this had a purpose, of course. Not only did it humanize me and ease the tension, but the byplay would get her mind off any suspicions she might be having. Small, friendly dogs are so reassuring.
We looked at each other over the table for just long enough for it to start feeling uncomfortable. She took a sip of her coffee and made a face.
“For what they charge for espresso at these places, you’d think they might do better.” She emptied a packet of sugar into the coffee and tried again. “Worse,” she said. “So what happened to you? And why did you go up there the very next day? Did you want to see if I perhaps was a fraud? That’s a long ways to go just to out me as a fake psychic.”
“Not at all. I didn’t doubt you for a moment. But I’ve been looking for something, something odd. I didn’t know where it was, but your warning at least pointed me in the right direction.”
“Well, that’s ironic.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” She took another delicate sip of espresso and her hand trembled slightly. “What I saw made me nervous. I wouldn’t have gone up there myself. I did warn you, you know.”
“I’m afraid I had to. It was something that needed checking out.”
She leaned forward, putting her cup down with a clink. “And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? What exactly was it, and who are you, anyway? And what do you want from me?”
This was the tricky part. Usually I don’t tell nonpractitioners anything about the world of practitioners, or about my talents. I prefer they think of me as nothing more than a guitar player, which is what I am, really. There’s no rule about telling civilians, and sometimes it works out fine-look at Victor and Timothy.
But there’s a certain reluctance, as if the whole thing is just a bit unseemly. Mostly people don’t believe you anyway. Even a slight demonstration isn’t enough to convince hard-core skeptics-they’d rather deny the evidence of their own eyes than change their comfortable view of the universe.
Morgan might be different, though. She obviously had psychic ability-she’d not only known about Lou ahead of meeting him; she had guided me to the exact place where the Wendigo had taken up residence, and had felt its disturbing presence. Accepting that there might be others with unusual powers shouldn’t be that much of a leap for her.
“Well, first of all, you know I’m a jazz musician,” I said, treading carefully. “But there’s another side to me. You’re a psychic-and thanks for the warning, by the way. I’m a-well, let’s just say that I possess certain powers of my own.” She looked skeptical.
“Such as?”
“It might be easier to show you,” I said. “Lou?” His ears pricked up. “Up on the table.”
He uncurled himself from my lap and stepped delicately onto the tabletop, being careful not to spill any coffee. He sat there stoically. He doesn’t much care for being put on display.
I glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. Doing magic in public is frowned upon, at least by Victor. It obviously could lead to complications. But if anyone noticed my little demonstration, they’d just think they were seeing things and needed to get their eyes checked.
I spotted a woman walking across the street with a cocker spaniel. Every time it stopped and tried to sniff at something she would impatiently pull on its leash. This would be easy-not spectacular, but simple. I reached out, took the spaniel essence, and let it flow into Lou.
This kind of spell is easy. A static spell, one where you change something’s appearance and it stays that way for an extended period, does take some energy. But a fluid spell, one where you basically act as a conduit so the spell lasts only as long as you pay attention and keep the flow going, takes very little effort.
Lou’s coat changed from his normal black and tan into a mottled brown and white, thick and furry. His ears grew long and floppy, his muzzle squared off, and he put on a few pounds as well. In five seconds he’d been transformed into a friendly, smiling cocker spaniel.
Morgan stared at him in disbelief and put out a tentative hand to see if he was real. Then she pulled it back. She wasn’t sure she wanted to touch him. If she had, she would have felt a short coat and a sharp muzzle; I hadn’t gone to the trouble of making a tactile illusion as well-those are tricky and there wasn’t any point.
“Holy crap,” she said. “How did you do that?”
“Just an illusion.” I stopped the energy flow and Lou reverted back to his original form. “That’s just a parlor trick. But there are other, more serious things I can do.”
“Like what?”
“That vision of me you had? I was hunting down something that shouldn’t be in this world at all. I found it, but that didn’t go well. This time we’re prepared and I need your help to find it again.”
“We?”
“I have friends.”
“Friends like you?”
“Sort of.”
She digested this awhile. So far, things were going well. She hadn’t broken out in a cold sweat and quickly departed. Lots of people would have. The next step was more difficult. Would she accept me or fixate on the apparent supernatural? Ordinary citizens can go one of three ways. Morgan wasn’t quite in that category, but she was close.
One, remain skeptical, and insist it’s all some kind of trick. Another is to believe, and get the hell out of there as fast as possible. A third is to become so enamored with the whole concept of magic being real that they can think of nothing else.
If you build up a relationship with a nonpractitioner before you spring it on them, it usually works out okay. They know you, so they’re not as freaked out or blinded by what they see. But if you have just met someone, who you are gets lost in what you can do.
“So, what is it exactly you want me to do?” she finally asked. Her voice was steady, but she wasn’t nearly as calm as she was pretending to be. Nobody could be, not after something so flat-out weird had been sprung on them.
“Do another reading for me,” I said. “Maybe you’ll see me again, somewhere different. I think the nature of what I’m looking for will make it easier for you to see when we intersect.”