Shifting Stars, page 6
She changed back to her usual self. She didn’t much like being a Trickster demon, but she would do it if it meant she could finally get her hands on Shifting Stars.
“I don’t even need to do anything much. Maybe knock the odd rubbish bin over, grab people’s washing off the line and swap it with next door’s. Silly things; nothing dangerous. And if it just so happened to be a day when you’re supposed to be delivering to Renjaf…”
“…Then he’ll leave his tower and come into town,” Jacob concluded. “But you can’t be in Compton and at his tower at the same time,” he pointed out.
“Don’t need to be,” she countered. “You know what it’s like when a Trickster turns up – people start blaming it for everything!”
She was quite right, gentle reader, and it’s still the same a thousand years later. A gust of wind blows some rubbish bins over, it’s the Trickster. A freak rain shower ruins a garden party, or someone misplaces their keys, it’s the Trickster. That’s people for you – all this time, all the progress, and they never really change.
“So, what exactly is your plan?” Jacob wondered, with some trepidation.
“Well, I realise my plans don’t always work perfectly…” she began.
“How very self-aware of you!” Jacob returned. That earned him a playful shove.
“…and I’m keen to make you completely blameless in all this,” she continued, ignoring his remark.
“That would be appreciated.”
“So, I’m thinking, what if you planned to deliver as usual – at your discretion – and the ‘Trickster’ stole something from you…something that would make it absolutely impossible for you to complete your deliveries?”
When Cat outlined the rest of her idea, Jacob told her, “That has got to be the most ridiculous radical plan I’ve ever heard in my life.” He grinned. “Sounds great, let’s do it!”
“Ridiculous radical plan,” Cat echoed. “I like that!”
It had a good ring to it, she decided.
Catriona rewarded Jacob’s support in the bedroom that night, and a few days later, the day before Renjaf’s next delivery was due, Catriona and Jacob set their plan in motion.
A ‘Trickster’ did indeed appear in Compton and start causing mischief. Jacob delivered as usual, despite having to track down a few items that went ‘missing’ from his cart. (Actually, hidden by Catriona in pre-arranged places.) Jacob was commended for his efforts and reminded that he need not make his deliveries the next day if the Trickster were still around. Jacob said he was determined to go anyway – after all, it was only a Trickster out there, wasn’t it?
That first day, the Trickster was tolerated as people simply hoped it would get bored and go away, but by the second day, they’d decided enough was enough and did what people always did in these situations: call in a demon hunter.
Demon hunters loathe Trickster cases. With all the second-hand rumours and false sightings flying around, getting to the truth is almost more trouble than it’s worth. Usually, some novice demon hunter is sent in to sort it out, both because none of the more experienced ones can be bothered and because they had to do it when they were novices. In fact, by Catriona’s time, it had become a rite of passage for some young demon hunters. Especially ones who felt they had something to prove.
Chapter 7
The second day of the Trickster attack on Compton was the day the rains came, although Cat and Jacob both knew it was neither a real Trickster nor a real attack. It was, however, real rain, in case you were wondering. Weather notwithstanding, Jacob set out on his deliveries as usual, ‘intending’ to do his full rounds, including going all the way out to Renjaf’s tower. Along the way, however, true to Catriona’s ‘prediction,’ he managed to lose his horse. Naturally, everybody would blame the Trickster demon, as they always did in these cases, and in a way, they were right. Just not in the usual way. The horse was, in fact, not really a horse at all, but Catriona herself.
Where was his real horse, you may ask, gentle reader?
Well, that morning, my mother had got up early, taking her ‘sort-of-Jacob’ form and ‘stealing’ Bonnie. If anybody happened to see them that morning, in the dark, from a distance, it would not arouse any suspicion. She had considered stealing the horse as the Trickster, but the last thing she wanted was to attract the attention of the demon hunter she had heard was in town.
The previous evening, when going over the plan, she had asked Jacob to draw up a list of all the locations in and around Compton that he would look for Bonnie if she ever wandered off. Places where a horse could be safely left for a few hours.
Now, having been ‘stranded,’ he could still make deliveries within the boundaries of the town itself, though it would obviously take longer, while at the same time ‘looking’ for his horse. But Renjaf’s delivery was out of the question, so he simply took his packages back to the depot and ensured that a message was sent. During the day, as he did his rounds, Jacob planned to ‘look’ for Bonnie in all the places he usually would, making sure that he ‘found’ the correct one as late as possible.
Meanwhile, Catriona made sure that the Trickster was seen all over Compton that morning, never staying in one place for too long. It wasn’t easy, staying two steps ahead of the demon hunter all that time. She had nearly been caught on one occasion, already, but had managed to give her the slip by running around a corner, shapeshifting into her red-banded falcon form and flying away.
Around midday, Cat decided she had pushed her luck enough for one day and, seeing an inn up ahead, she decided to stop for a drink and a bite to eat. Cat rolled her eyes at the tacky name ‘FaerWay Tavern’ – obviously making a ‘clever pun’ out of her Faery heritage. The sign – a nonsensical tiny winged Faery hovering above a road – was even worse, and as a rule, she would refuse to go inside on principle. But going anywhere else would waste time she didn’t have, and she really was famished, so she stuck to her plan.
When she stepped outside again, she began walking, searching for a suitably secluded spot to shift to her falcon form once more, so she could quickly fly to Renjaf’s tower to watch for him leaving. She had to walk quite a distance away from the town centre, as the early afternoon was a busy time in Compton. It didn’t matter that the Trickster wouldn’t be around the rest of the afternoon; no doubt the rumour mill would be enough to keep the demon hunter busy.
Unfortunately, Catriona was so busy checking all around to make sure no-one would see her, that she failed to look where she was putting her feet and stepped right into a demon trap. A small bubble of magic surrounded her, keeping her inside.
“No, no, no!” she cursed herself. “I don’t have time for this!”
She tried to use her druid magic but cut off from nature as she was, it wouldn’t respond. Nothing they had taught her at wizard college would help her in this situation, either. Attempts to retrieve her staff from her pocket dimension also failed to yield results, not that she could have used it, anyway. Even if she could unlock its power, when her Angel spoke of a ‘dire emergency of worldwide cataclysmic proportions,’ it was unlikely that ‘getting out of a demon trap that you blundered into and is only there because you’re running around, pretending to be a Trickster,’ is quite what they had in mind.
Fortunately, the demon hunter came by before long to check on her trap. She cut quite the imposing figure, dressed all in white from her tight-fitting top and short woollen skirt over white leggings that were just visible before disappearing inside long white boots that finished over the knee. The only splashes of colour were a silver-embroidered, purple leather mask that covered the upper half of her face, just leaving her mouth free, and a matching bandana tied around her neck. By her side was a large, ferocious-looking leopard.
The demon hunter looked Catriona up and down, then finally spoke not to her, but to her leopard.
“Well, Shyleen,” she sighed, taking a beer bottle out of a pocket, popping the cap and taking a good, long swig, “looks like we’ve got ourselves another one.”
“Hi, any chance of getting me out of here?” Cat asked with a sheepish grin, feeling incredibly embarrassed at having been so careless.
The demon hunter scowled and took another drink.
“I suppose you’re going to blame the Trickster like the last one?”
“The Trickster?” Cat wondered, then quickly seized the excuse she’d been offered. “Oh yes, that’s right,” she giggled, “the Trickster, erm, pushed me in here.”
The demon hunter drank some more. She seemed unconvinced.
“Twice in half a day, that’s already wearing thin. Personally, I think you people just need to watch where you’re going!”
Cat decided honesty was probably the best policy if she was going to get out of this before it was too late, so she confessed that she had, indeed, just stepped into the trap by mistake.
“I knew it!” cried the demon hunter. “The gods only know how you people manage it! The last one, at least he had an excuse, carrying all that stuff. What were you doing, daydreaming?”
Catriona spread her hands, helplessly. “Pretty much, yeah. Sorry. So, any chance of getting me out of here? I don’t mean to be rude, but there’s, erm, somewhere I need to be, really quite urgently.”
“Oh yeah?” The demon hunter shot back, taking one more swig from her bottle. “Well I have a Trickster to catch really quite urgently, but instead I end up wasting half my time chasing rumours and the other half rescuing townsfolk from my demon traps!”
Cat was getting really desperate and frustrated. Yes, she’d blundered into one of her traps. Yes, it was stupid and careless. Yes, she had definitely wasted this young woman’s time, but she needed to get out, and she needed to get out now.
The demon hunter’s eyes narrowed, shrewdly. “How do I know you’re not really a demon yourself?”
“What?” Cat forced a laugh. “What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s a Trickster demon running around here, somewhere,” said the demon hunter, intending to take another drink, but discovered her bottle was empty. She held it up to the light and peered inside as if to check if she’d missed any and got a drop in her eye for her trouble. She swore and turned away for a moment, lifted up her mask and used the corner of her bandana to wipe her eye. When she turned back, her mask was back in place.
“I was chasing it, earlier,” she continued. “Thought I had it cornered. Next thing I know there’s a bird with weird markings on its leg, and the Trickster’s vanished somewhere.”
Cat tried to suppress a panicked look. “What, erm, what’s that got to do with me?”
“Well, I don’t know. All I know is there’s a girl stuck inside a trap that’s supposed to catch a Trickster. So that gets me wondering: Maybe you’re not really a girl at all. If a Trickster demon can turn into a bird, what else can he turn into? Things aren’t always what they seem, believe me, I know! So, as I say, maybe you really are a girl, or maybe you’re really a Trickster demon that’s just pretending to be a girl. How am I to know, eh?”
Catriona’s pulse was beating rapidly. This demon hunter was so, so close to the truth. Too close. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Fortunately, she was saved from having to think of anything.
With a flourish, the demon hunter pocketed her empty beer bottle, and disarmed the trap, allowing Catriona to step free, although she was so nervous by now, she could barely stand up.
“Nah!” the demon hunter said, dismissively. “Only messing with ya! Of course you’re not a demon! I mean, come on: shapeshifting magic? Pfft! As if!”
“Yeah,” Catriona laughed, allowing her nervous tension to flow out of her body. “As if!”
“I should know better, really. The rumours in this place are out of hand already, without me giving you lot any more ideas! Honestly, if I were to believe all the stories, the Trickster would have to be in two places at once. Fortunately, thanks to my link with Shyleen here,” she indicated her leopard companion, “I can be, too.”
“Well, if it helps, I’m not really from Compton,” Cat assured her, secretly delighted that her ruse had worked so well and sparked so many false rumours. “Just passing through, so they’re not actually ‘my lot,’ and I definitely won’t be spreading any daft rumours about shapeshifting Tricksters.”
“Thanks for that, at least,” said the demon hunter, “and sorry about the wind-up job. You must have thought I was totally mad and drunk to believe such a thing.”
“To be fair,” Cat smiled, “you are drunk.”
“Well, of course I’m drunk! You’d have to be mad to do this job sober!” the demon hunter quipped. “Anyway, didn’t you say you have to be somewhere?”
“Yes, I do,” Cat agreed. “Shame. It was actually kind of fun meeting you.”
“You have a strange idea of fun.”
“Oh, you have no idea how I get my kicks around here…er…I’m sorry, I got your leopard’s name, but not yours.”
“Mandalee,” she replied.
“I’m Catriona. Cat to my friends.”
“Ah, now that explains it,” Mandalee said.
“Explains what?” asked Cat.
Mandalee stroked Shyleen’s head and replied, “I’ve always got along really well with cats!”
Cat grinned and hurried away, this time making absolutely sure she was out of sight before shapeshifting to her falcon form and taking to the sky. She knew Renjaf would have received his message about his waiting packages by now and if he were true to form, he would want, however grudgingly, to leave his tower and get them as soon as possible. Cat just prayed she wasn’t too late. She couldn’t pull this stunt a second time, and she had no other ideas of how she was going to get her hands on Shifting Stars. Without that, her research into her Angel, her staff and everything related to it were at a dead end. Frankly, this research was such a part of her now that she couldn’t imagine what she would do with her life without it.
This was so important to her, it felt as though she was burning inside. She felt like she was on the verge of a new phase in her life, and it was imperative she did not miss her chance. Renjaf’s tower had been in her way for too long already. Catriona thought about the things Renjaf had said to her last time. He wasn’t merely stubborn, and it wasn’t that he didn’t understand or care about what this meant to her as he had first suggested. No. He knew, he understood perfectly, and he was actually enjoying her suffering. She had no idea what had happened to make him that way, but she was done feeling sorry for him. Now she felt only the burn.
She let these feelings fuel her, energise her for what she was about to do. This was it: this time she was getting that book, even if she had to destroy Renjaf’s tower to get it. Because she’d figured it out, now – that demon hunter had given her the answer. No matter what wizard magic Renjaf had in place, defending against intruders, there was one thing he couldn’t possibly have prepared for because nobody believed it existed. Mandalee had practically seen it, and she still didn’t believe it: shapeshifting. But not just changing her own shape. Her magic had grown significantly through working on Renjaf’s land, and she’d already done what she needed to do. She’d just been doing it backwards.
Chapter 8
The rain that had met the day in Compton was very much present in the outlying areas, too, which helped Cat in her reconnaissance of Renjaf’s tower. Muddy footprints leading away from the tower told her that the wizard had already left the building. That was good news in one way because she wanted the tower empty for what she was about to do – she had no wish to harm him. In another way, however, getting there late meant she did not have as much time to do what she was about to do, as she would have liked. Still, it was now or never.
This was a turning point in my mother’s history. You see, gentle reader, what Catriona had finally realised, was that when she had been trying to think of a way to affect entry, she had been thinking too much like a wizard. It was how she had been taught to think in college, but she now knew those lessons were valuable in only one respect: they were an excellent example of what not to do. She didn’t need to penetrate the shields and wards that were attached to the stonework of the building. That’s what a wizard would try to do. For all their fancy tricks, much of wizard magic came down to power and pure mathematics. To penetrate the shield, the power of the attack would have to be greater. Different types of magical attack might work better than others, as shields tended to be unequal in their resistances, but ultimately, it was all about the numbers.
Druid magic was different. It wasn’t about power. If Catriona could use her druid magic to reshape and repair his stone walls, then she could use that same magic to tear them down.
Catriona inhaled a few deep breaths and took a firm grip on her staff. She wasn’t going to pull power from it, but it did serve as an aid to concentration and focus. She sent forth her magic, not quickly and violently, but slowly and gently. In moments, the stonework began to reshape itself, growing softer and eroding away as if the building had not seen any maintenance for centuries. At last, with an almighty crash, the tower collapsed under its own weight.
‘What about the shields?’ you may ask, gentle reader.
Well, you see, the shields were attached to the surface of the building, but when the building was reduced to rubble, that surface area grew exponentially. Through it all, the magical shield tried its best, but ultimately, there simply wasn’t enough of it to go around, and so there were gaps. Catriona sent her locator spell through the remains of the building until it found Shifting Stars. It was buried beneath the rubble, but that was OK, she just asked the debris very nicely if it would mind moving a bit more in one place, allowing her to retrieve it. The rubble didn’t much care what shape it took, so it was a simple task to move it aside. When Cat finally got her hands on the book, she found it somewhat worse for wear, but again, that was no problem, she just used her magic again. It was all just shapeshifting when she got right down to it; she just needed the book to return to the shape and condition it was in a moment ago when it was sitting on a bookshelf, and soon enough it was. It was all a question of imagination and explaining to Blessed Alycia what it was she wished to do. The Mother of Nature freed up a tiny portion of the energy she was holding in, which was channelled through Catriona, used to accomplish what she needed and then recycled back into the cosmos.
