Part 8
Justin stared at the woman, and Red felt the same reaction within her. How did this woman know? Were there other shifters like herself? She forced her body to remain still and disinterested as the peddler and the fortune teller discussed.
"What do you mean, she's a woman?" Justin spluttered. "Is this more of your fortune telling hokum? Because if you're still trying to legitimize that crap you pull on unsuspecting country folk--"
"How is it any different than the way you hawk your own fraudulent wares, sir?" Desiree snapped in return. "We are both shysters--I sell dreams of success, and you sell the clothing to match." She waved her hand as Justin tried to come up with a rebuttal to that. "No, never mind trying to make a competition out of it, dearie--I don't care whether you believe in what I do, but know this--I would stake my life on the fact that this is indeed a woman in the guise of a wolf. I don't know how she came to be, nor whether there are more like her, but she is veritably a woman who can change her shape, and you've gone and treated her like a common animal!"
It took all of Red's human willpower not to leap to her feet and howl at the acknowledgement. She rolled over and pretended to look away from them, absorbed in her own thoughts. She needed Justin to continue believing that she was just a common animal. As degrading as it might be, the more wolf-like she could be, the more Justin would perceive her as harmless and controllable--much like his view of Rascal. The more harmless he thought her, the more freedom she had to plot her escape and his own ruin, right under his very nose.
Would this be the end of any chance she had of returning to Queston, then?
Justin folded his arms and stroked his mustaches. "Change her shape, you say? Well, if you are so certain, then--why don't you prove it?"
Desiree melted back a step under Justin's looming stare. "I... I cannot..." she stammered. "I am what they call a seer because I can see beyond the physical realm--You can't expect me to be able to manipulate it..."
"More convenient excuses to cover your shams!" Justin grunted, grabbing the rope still tied around Red's neck. She turned to acknowledge the pressure on her neck, nothing more. He squinted at her. "Well if that fortune teller won't, then why don't you do it, hey? If you really are some kind of magic girl in there, show me what you can do, and I'll untie you and set you free!"
Even if I could, Red thought, we both know better than to trust your word when there is money to be made from my servitude! She ducked her head, pretending not to comprehend what Justin was saying, only responding to his tugs on her makeshift leash as if she expected him to lead her out of the wagon for a walk.
Desiree noted the movement, but her eyes did indeed see beyond what was right in front of them. "She cannot change herself--not just now, anyway. She is trapped as a wolf. If you want to see her shift, you must find what is hindering her and remove it."
All malice and frustration cleared from Justin's face, though the interest and intrigue remained. "Find what is hindering a skin-changer? I don't see how that would be possible--are you sure you can't just ask some kind of Great Wolf Spirit to do it?"
Desiree shook her head, folding her arms and fixing her eyes upon Red until the young lycanthrope met her gaze. "That is not within my purview, Peddler. I can only listen when the spirits speak, and see what they care to show me--What this one needs is a dose of true power-magic, and for that, you need a thaumaturge."
Red felt her ears flick forward involuntarily at the strange word, and she forced herself to flatten them back again. Thaumaturge? What sorcery did these people practice? She felt a small shudder run down her spine, as she thought of all the impossible things that she never knew existed beyond her small mountain community.
"A Thaumaturge?" Justin sneered. "You're talking blood magic, fool woman--I thought your kind didn't practice out in the open, yet you speak as if I can just waltz into the nearest town and find one on a street corner somewhere!"
Desiree all but glared at him. "Do not speak of supernatural practitioners as if they are a different species--you have a shape-shifter tied up in the back of your wagon, for pity's sake!"
The peddler snorted. "So you say!"
"Even your dopey wolf-dog is more domesticated than a typical wild wolf, anyone can see that." The fortune teller waved a hand in Rascal's direction. "In any case, you don't just find a thaumaturge--I know of only one, and she works as an apothecary in Callica."
Again her ears flicked, and again, Red forced them back and hoped the two humans didn't notice. Callica, she knew, was the name of the city at the foot of the mountain. Master Remani had spent a few sojourns there over the impassable seasons.
"Callica?" Justin repeated, an uneasy edge in his voice. "Are you sure?"
Desiree folded her arms over her chest, her cloak falling over her shoulders in a sparkling cascade. "Of course I'm sure. What's the matter? Afraid of the welcome you'll receive there?"
Justin placed an affronted hand over his chest. "I? Afraid? Absolutely not; rather, I know exactly the sort of welcome I'm going to receive. There are certain--ahem!--citizens I would rather not cross paths with."
The fortune teller gave a short chuckle. "Well, you're going to have to risk it, if you want to be able to return this wolf to her human form."
Justin hemmed and hawed for a long while, stroking his mustaches and sighing deeply. "I suppose there isn't another way around this."
Desiree shook her head, the beads on her fringe clacking together. "Not unless you want to drag around a strange wolf who just might resent you enough to finally kill you at some point."
Justin scowled at her morbid grin. "Gah! Be off with you! And take your spirits and tomfoolery shams with you!"
Once Desiree had drifted away, Red thought she was safe in the dying light of nightfall--but then she felt Justin tug on the rope around her neck, hard.
"You!" He growled, "If you really are human in there, then listen good: I am not someone you want to toy with. If we do find this thaumaturge and she changes you back, you'll owe me, for doing what you never could--I am the only chance you have of a normal human life, so don't be forgetting that and running away on me!"
Red indulged herself in a savage snarl, turning her head to nip at his arm. Justin released and twisted out of her reach. He checked the knots on the other end of Red's rope, and settled down beside the wagon to sleep.
This second night, Red found sleep futile and fleeting. Her mind filled with nightmare situations of the worst sort: The screams of villagers as whole bands of roving thugs beset the town, burning and looting the homes while Red could only stand helplessly by, yelping and snarling behind the straps of a muzzle over her mouth... She dreamed they did find the thaumaturge, but whatever spell kept her in wolf form could not be broken, so she was doomed to wander the world as a wolf forever... She dreamed of Justin, in a blind rage, beating her so savagely that all the crimson hoods in the world couldn't save her... All too soon, the sun rose and Red wearily greeted a new dawn with the knowledge that this day would either save her life or end it all, and the only things standing between her and the return to normal life were a greedy, duplicitous peddler, a mysterious thaumaturge, and the untold risk of blood magic.
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