There were half a dozen of them, armed to the teeth. Kanesha was in the middle of them. I was actually quite proud to see that she was gagged as well as bound.

She’d no doubt given them good reason to do so. Yes, this was my…friend? I rather thought she might be, for all that I’d somewhat fought against it.

Gagged and bound, and when she saw me, her eyes showed horror.

I couldn’t even mouth trust me or similar. They’d see it too.

“Let her go and I’ll come with you.” I kept my voice even.

“Oh, we’re not taking you anywhere.” One of them pushed Kanesha away from the group. She stumbled and fell to the ground.

I hesitated, moving towards her.

“Step away.”

I did so, smiling, and kicking in her direction. Giving up a blade had been a no brainer. If she could cut free, she could fight or run. Either way, she wouldn’t be helpless.

They pulled guns. I tossed the second knife at the nearest of them, not aiming to kill. To disarm. Killing them could get me arrested. Cutting them up was reasonable self defense.

As they fired, I rolled to the ground, landing next to the bike. Which just seemed to be a bike, but I sensed something. Almost…amusement.

So, I stayed next to it, using it as cover for a moment. Kanesha was trying to get the bonds off of her wrists.

One of them moved towards her. “Stop fighting, or you both die.”

“Nobody dies today,” I informed him, suddenly confident, and then leapt onto the bike. “Kanesha!”

She moved, at that point, trying to get towards the pillion, but there were too many bullets flying, she had to drop again, tossing the knife I had given her into somebody’s leg.

He yelped and dropped his gun. I hit the panic button, but I doubted it would do any good.

Then the bike moved under me, no cue, I hadn’t even kicked up the stand, and I reached to pull Kanesha behind me.

It wasn’t a bike any more, although I could still hear the roar. What I felt under me was a horse. A powerful one, leaping over the men and into the night, running faster than any equine had a right to, the grass under her hooves.

“What the…”

“Trust me. Hold on.” She weaved through a tree, sporadic fire still following us.

It was only then that I realized I’d been hit.

Alone. Effectively so, anyway. The interesting things did include a walkie talkie with a panic button, but there was no guarantee anyone would be close enough to respond before I turned up dead.

They included throwing knives, tucked into my boots, and a fighting knife in an underarm sheath, under my shirt. I knew how to use them.

I didn’t remember learning how, but I knew. Exile. That word had haunted my mind for the last couple of days, but I pushed it to one side.

Knew. Remembered. One day I would, and I felt an odd security in trusting in that. But now I felt no security at all.

I couldn’t leave Kanesha in their hands. I couldn’t…wouldn’t…get myself killed for her. These things went to and fro in my mind, then Thea smiled. “Take the bike.”

“I…”

“You won’t wreck her. I promise.”
She was up to something, but I had always gotten the impression her bike was somehow alive. So, maybe it was… “So, you are capable of cheating?”

She grinned. “Always have been. Take her.”

She’d called the bike a she before. I nodded, and then hopped on. It really was as if…it wasn’t as if I remembered how to ride so much as the bike was treating me as if I knew how and staying under me if I slipped a little bit.

Rather like the one time I’d had the privilege of riding a horse. And something niggled at my brain and I smiled.

I had to leave the concrete path to get to the spot. I did so without hesitation, knowing I wouldn’t fall. Knowing I couldn’t wreck. Wasn’t going to happen. And that gave me confidence that I could handle this situation.

The place was empty. I dismounted, kicked out the stand, waited. Maybe they wouldn’t even show up. Maybe they were leading me here to…

No. I knew what they wanted, so I waited, but I was ready to move at the slightest thing. It did occur to me they could resolve this simply by shooting me.

But then I heard footsteps approaching through the trees.

We headed next to an all-ages club she liked to frequent. They wouldn’t be open yet, but there might be somebody around we could ask.

Loitering outside was the Englishman with the pearl-handled cane. “You.”

He lifted the cane in a salute.

“Do your friends have her?” I didn’t say who. I didn’t think I needed to. Thea stayed three steps behind me, protective. A bodyguard I neither wanted nor felt I needed for this, but a supportive presence. Once more I was torn about having her here.

“Yes. Straight exchange. You for her.”

“Where?”

“Rock Creek Park, 8pm, alone.” He gave more precise directions than that, of course, but the upshot was – alone in an area that would have no witnesses.

I glanced at Thea. She gave me a slight go ahead look.

“Alright.” I had to plan this carefully – I wasn’t going to let them kill me, but I wasn’t going to let them keep Kanesha either. They probably wouldn’t hurt her as long as they thought they could use her against me, but…

We walked away, then. Thea glanced at me. “Okay. We need to work this carefully. It would ruin our plans if they killed you.”

Her tone, though, didn’t lack affection. “I have no intention of letting that happen.”

“So, we need to make sure you have backup. But they think you’re alone.”

“Invisibility spell?” I asked, only half joking.

“Not that easy. Anything like that takes a moment to actually take down…so you’d be vulnerable. And they may have people who can see through it.”

“And if they think you’re around, they’ll disappear.” I frowned. They knew what they were doing when it came to avoiding witnesses, but the terrain in the park was actually quite conducive to hidden ninjaness. “So, stealth, then.”

She nodded. “Stealth, coming in from ways they don’t expect. This is actually a time when Mr. Otter would be useful. If he’d help.”

Her tone suggested that the odds were about even either way. I stored that up. Maybe he would help, maybe he wouldn’t. If he didn’t, I figured it would be because he didn’t know Kanesha, so why would he help her? I couldn’t expect him to.

But he might help me. “And they didn’t say anything about unarmed, did they.”

“A sword might make them back off, but…okay. Let’s swing by the base.”
Which we did. Thea had some quite, quite interesting things in her collection.

The next day I felt human again, completely back to myself. It might have been partly illusory, but I cherished it. The way things were going, I expected I’d be injured more before this was over, perhaps quite a lot more. I knew this could end with my death.

For some reason, that didn’t scare me as much as it had. Except that I couldn’t save the world if I was dead.

So I had to stay alive. I spent some time training with Thea, glad of the physical activity, the practice. It seemed that more and more came back to me with each session.

As we finished up, my phone rang. It wasn’t somebody I expected.

“Prue?”

“Yeah. Have you seen Kanesha?”

“I’ve been busy. Haven’t really seen anyone in a couple of days.” Maybe I should change this number, except…

“She didn’t come home last night and, unlike you, that’s not in character.”

I ignored the jibe. “I haven’t seen her, I promise.” But now I was worried. I’d already had to rescue Barry. Kanesha, black belt or no black belt, was vulnerable to the same crap.

Maybe she could hold her own in a fistfight, but…well. Or maybe she was just out, ended up at some boyfriend’s house. Did she have a boyfriend? I wasn’t sure, but that was also something that changed with the tide at our age.

I didn’t have one and now didn’t want one…between what was going on and the confusion of my feelings for Thea, it was best to stay relentlessly single.

Come to think of it, Kanesha wasn’t so…concentrate! I had to find her. “I’ll check out some of her haunts, if you haven’t already?”

“I got some, but not all. I’ll…call if you find her, okay?”

“I will,” I promised, then turned and cast a worried gaze on Thea.

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

In some ways I didn’t want her with me. In others? I would have felt naked without her.

I woke up with a splitting headache. I know, that’s a cliche, but I really did. I’d say I took time to gather my thoughts, but it wasn’t really like that. It was almost the reverse, as if I was descending from some level of clarity I hadn’t experienced before, but which fled my mind as I tried to seize onto it.

I only knew it had a rightness to it, then I was awake, with a splitting headache, and lying in a bed which smelled faintly of cats. No, actually, what smelled of cats was the weight on my stomach, which was now regarding me with one yellow eye and one blue and a distinct “are you awake yet?” expression on its face.

“I’m awake,” I told the cat. “Gerroff.” I didn’t have the energy, though, or maybe the heart, to actually evict the creature. A moment later, Bruce came in and lifted it off me.

“Sorry. It’s hard to keep track of them all. Drink this.” He offered me a glass of water.

I realized how thirsty I was and drank most of it in a gulp. “I think…”

“Mild concussion. You hit your head when it knocked you over, but we got it.”

“Worth a headache, then.” It was. I wasn’t sure it was worth more than that, but I’d gotten off lightly. I wasn’t going to forget it in a hurry.

“Anyone else I know would have been killed. Who…no, you don’t remember. You still don’t, right?”

I shook my head. Regretted it. “No. Sorry.” In stories, sometimes, a knock on the head restored lost memories. It hadn’t worked this time.

“Drat. Would have been handy…don’t move right away. You might be dizzy.”

I sat up slightly to test that. “No…I don’t think I’m dizzy. Just a headache.”

He handed me an aspirin. I took it with the rest of the water, waiting for it to take effect.

We’d got it. That was all that really mattered.

It caught up with me right before I reached the house. This time I really should have brought my sword. There weren’t exactly a lot of witnesses here. Instead, I struck upwards at it with my bare hands, felt its talons dig into me.

“Bruce!” I screamed, but I was completely entangled with it. The best I could say was that it was now on the ground.

And starting to melt and shift into the far more dangerous horse form. I knew I was in real, deep, trouble.

I shouldn’t have gone so far. And I should have known it was stupid. I thought I heard another caw from the direction of the house, but seriously, the crow hadn’t gone to get me help.

That would be ridiculous.

All I could do was try to keep it off me, breaking free as talons turned into hooves was easy, but its shoulder struck me and knocked me to the ground, the breath going out of me. I rolled to the side, wishing for a sword again, but then realizing it was a good thing I didn’t have one. If I killed it, we would have to wait for it to come back again before getting rid of it.

So, no, I couldn’t, but I also couldn’t run from it. There was no way I would stay ahead, so I tried dodging to the side, trying to make it turn tighter than the equine body could.

It snarled at me, showing fangs that looked as much filed as natural. But I’d managed to get some distance. I really hoped this could be heard from the house, because I wasn’t going to last long. My lungs already burned from exertion. Thea could have done it, but Thea seemed to have almost superhuman endurance.

Or maybe she did. As for me? I was just some girl. Only these idiots thought I was special. Whatever training I’d had, it wasn’t enough.

A hoof struck me in the shoulder and I went down, my vision dimming for a moment from the pain. It was all over. Killed by a stupid shapeshifter…

And then there was a rush of wind above me, the air flowing away from me and towards the kelpie, exploding inwards, and then it was gone.

Vanished.

I couldn’t get up right away. I lay there, my shoulder throbbing, praying it hadn’t crushed the joint or anything permanent like that.

There was water and iron filings mingled in my hair, but the spell that had banished the kelpie had had no effect on me.

Of course not.

I was just…

…a girl.

She’d given me something to think about, though. I also wasn’t looking forward to any more time in a car with Bruce. I decided, instead, that I wanted to go for a walk.

Which I did, along a leafy lane. There was almost no traffic.

I’d been in places like this before. No, what flashed into my mind was true wilderness. Mountains that reached towards the sky, valleys that glowed with wildflowers.

Things you never saw in cities. I stepped to one side and rested my hand on the bark of a tree. I could feel, suddenly, the life flowing within it from root to leaf. An awareness of treeness that might have been magic or might simply have been my own thoughts echoing back into my head. I finally understood why some people hugged trees. A crow flew out of one of the trees, or was it a raven?

No. It was a crow, but there was a sudden shudder of something that approached dangerously close to recognition.

Ravens. There was something…right. I remembered the book. Hunin and Munin, the two messengers of Odin. Thought and Memory. Or was it Foresight and Memory? Come to mention it, the book had listed both. Translations. Probably both equally correct.

Munin wasn’t much use to me, I thought wryly. I’d have to rely on Hunin. The crow cawed three times and flew past me on his way to wherever he was going. Making sure I noticed him, I suspected.
Crows were like that. Showoffs. Attention seekers. So were ravens. I shook my head and leaned against the tree.

Still that slight awareness of treeness and, fading, a flickering awareness of crowness. As if senses I had forgotten I had were awakening.

That was probably exactly what was happening. Dust coming off unused skills. So, maybe I was a witch? The runes fit that. The fighting skills didn’t.

Maybe I’d been trained by some kind of secret society of demon hunters, like that old TV show. That made as much sense as anything else.

Thea was another trained by them. A sisterhood. Why women? Why not women. We weren’t as big and strong as men, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t fight.

But another thought curled into my brain. Valkyries. Odin’s daughters. The choosers of the slain. I laughed it off as ridiculous and kept walking.

It was just…right to be out of the city, although I knew I had to go back soon enough. I needed this, though. I was able to forget, then, about cultists, about shapeshifting fairies, about weird old men.

I was able to forget everything and, finally, let myself recharge a little before what I knew would be the storm.

Then I felt it, wings in the air. I broke into a run back to where I’d left Bruce. I had to lead it to the witch. Then we could deal with it, but not if it caught me first!
The crow flapped past once more. Caw, caw, caw.

Rather than the messy kitchen, we repaired to a comfortable lounge. Which was next to, no kidding, a ballroom. It didn’t look like it saw much use. It would, I thought, make a good salle.

I rolled my eyes inwardly. Couldn’t remember first grade math, knew what a good salle was. Maybe I had fallen out of a fantasy novel or…a fantasy realm. Or faerie.
Was I a fairy? No. My gut said absolutely not. “It’s a kelpie. Thea called it something else, something unpronounceable, but…”

“Each Uisge.”

“That was it. Gaelic, I guess, or something.” I thought I could pronounce it. Maybe. It did hover on the edge of my consciousness.

“Shapeshifters. Feed off of magic, psionics, human flesh, human souls if they can get them. Which is more common lately.”

“Easier to steal somebody’s soul if they aren’t particularly religious.”

The witch…who’s name was Rose…tapped her nose. A black cat wandered in and hopped into her lap. She petted it absently. “Exactly. Yours is in…” She tilted her head for a moment. “…no danger at all.”

“It could still kill me. I thought a couple of times it was going to.”

“Probably afraid of who might come after it if it did.” Rose let out a breath. “But it’s mad with you?”

“Definitely. One of Thea’s friends kicked its butt and I stole prime prey from under its nose. I’d say it hates me right now.”

“So it might well come after you. Easy enough, then. Wait for it to come and get you and…might be easiest if I gave you something to throw at it. A potion, of sorts.”

I nodded. “I don’t need lots of detail. I’m not a witch and I don’t want to be one. Just as long as it works.”

Witch grenades? The image was vaguely amusing, but if it worked, if it was what needed to be done, I’d do it. Throwing something at it. “But I thought we’d need some kind of massive ritual.”

She grinned. “First of all, iron filings. Cold iron. That alone will repel most fairies.”

So, I definitely wasn’t one. “I’ll bear that in mind. Thea doesn’t seem to know that.”

“I don’t know her, but I have an image in my mind. Tough, no nonsense…and likes to see the whites of their eyes.”

I thought about Thea. She was right. But at least Rose didn’t seem too bothered that I knew a stone cold killer. Which Thea was. Which I was, if I was honest with myself. Or could be if I let myself be. “Subtle isn’t her, that’s for sure.”

“But killing these things just banishes them temporarily. You need a binding spell to do it permanently. And yes, there’s a ritual, but it’s not going to stand still for it. So you do all but the very last part of the spell, and tie that last part into an object or an action or a word.”

I nodded. “And if you use an object it doesn’t have to be the same person?”

“Right. Come back in a few hours and I’ll have what you need.”

Bruce drove like he’d learned from a New York cabbie. And his car showed it. It was a junker and it took me two attempts to close the passenger side door, thanks to the dent in it. It also smelled faintly of herbs.

He drove like a maniac out towards Falls Church, out onto fifty. I tried not to double check my seatbelt too obviously. I felt considerably less safe than on Thea’s bike, and then felt even less safe when somebody passed us who was driving even worse, not staying in his lane, weaving to and fro. I pulled out my cell phone, bent on calling 911 and getting the guy pulled over, then decided against it.

Cell phones were traceable in the movies. They were probably traceable in reality too. Besides, I didn’t want to talk to the cops. A moment later, sirens arced past us. I relaxed. Looked like it was going to be dealt with.
As long as they didn’t pull us over too, which as Bruce cut off an SUV with about eight kids in it to take a right exit I hadn’t even seen coming seemed frighteningly likely. We made it safely, though, and I had to grudgingly admit he knew what he was doing, and on the side roads it didn’t seem quite as scary as it had on the highway.

And side roads, and smaller side roads, until eventually he pulled up outside a huge house with a huge yard. Whoever this specialist was, she wasn’t poor. True, house prices weren’t as crazy here as they were in the city, but this thing was a young mansion.

With some beautiful mature trees in the yard. I wasn’t the tree hugger type, but they were gorgeous. Being a city girl, I didn’t get to see big trees very often, and I stopped for a moment to appreciate them as we headed to the house. Which seemed a little…less than well kept as we reached it. The yard was fine, the house?

Somebody enjoyed gardening and hated housework. Somebody also did not lock her front door. The place smelled slightly of litter trays not emptied quite as often as they might be. A silver grey cat padded up to me and sniffed in disdain, then headed up the stairs, tail bouncing behind her.

“How many?”

Bruce held up four fingers. Which wasn’t as many as I’d have expected. A voice came from the kitchen, “Get your butt in here, Bruce.”

I didn’t ask how she knew. Magic or, more likely, she was expecting us. I still thought she should lock her door. Even behind us. It would have made me feel more safe.

Bruce, for his part, laughed and headed into the kitchen. Which was messy, but not in an unkempt sense. She was in the middle of canning something. There were cans and bowls of berries and stuff everywhere. “Let me get you some tea. This is the young lady with the problem?”

“Fairy problem. Bruce said you might be able to make it go away.”

“First we have to find it.”

I smiled. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

Bruce told me he was at the Alexandria waterfront. It was Saturday afternoon and a warm day – I knew it would be busy.

It was. The plaza outside the Torpedo Factory was full of people watching a juggler perform, tossing him coins and notes. Another group were walking their dogs, and half the berths at the marina were empty, sails drifting up and down the river.

I felt like I was on the edge of it all. Ordinary people leading ordinary lives – or perhaps one step above that. Many of these people were, after all, rich. Certainly rich compared to me. Some of them rich compared to most. Not true one percenters, but people who didn’t really have to worry about money.

I saw two men sitting on a bench looking out across the water, and tensed. One of them was Bruce. The other was Mr. Otter.
I stopped for a moment. Seriously, I considered fleeing, or at least hiding until he’d left. I wanted to talk to Bruce, not Mr. Smarmy.

Then I sighed inwardly and headed over towards them. As I arrived, Mr. Otter offered me a cone of chocolate ice cream, which he’d clearly bought seconds before – it was still frozen. I accepted it. “Thanks.”

I supposed he knew I was coming. Well, there was really no way he wouldn’t have known. But I did sit down next to Bruce rather than him. “We’ve got a fairy problem.”

“I heard. I also heard somebody put it down.”

“For a few days, by Thea’s guess.”

“Thea.” Mr. Otter pronounced her name oddly, and with an amused cant. “But, of course, she doesn’t know how to do anything other than stick it with pointy things.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, come on. You know her limitations. Or should. She does, at any rate.”

I had to admit he was right. Thea was very much about sticking things with pointy things. So was I, for that matter. “And I know mine. I was hoping Bruce would know an expert.”

“You need a specialist,” Bruce said, a little grimly. “I know one, but you don’t want to trust her.”

“Meaning?”
“Meaning she’ll do it, but count your fingers afterwards. Almost as bad as dealing with him.” He jerked his elbow towards…where Mr. Otter had been two seconds previously.
“As long as she doesn’t do that, I can deal with her.” I glared at the empty bit of bench. “I didn’t know the two of you knew each other.”

“For my sins. I have no clue what you’ve done to get his attention, but he seems to like you.”

“I have a feeling that’s not a good thing.”

“It depends. Now…I’m going to take you to a witch. Just remember what I said.”

I did and, just in case he meant it literally, tucked my wallet further down into my pocket.