Spliced

Cat was sitting slouched down in her car across the road from Nolan Perninski’s place, silently waiting for him to do something. A sharp tap on her window made her nearly jump out of her skin. She turned to see her niece, Katrina waving from outside the car.

Cat reached over, opened the passenger side door, and yanked the teenager quickly inside.

Katrina gave a surprised yelp.

“Shh,” Cat said as she eyed the Perninski residence for any sign of movement.

“What are we doing?” whispered Katrina once she’d gotten comfortable. It was harder than it looked, while the black leather seats appeared cushiony at first glance, they were in reality quite firm. Cat had specifically hunted these ones out for as much off-track use as on. She found them comparatively comfy. Passengers didn’t usually agree.

“We...?” Cat frowned at her, “...are on a stakeout.”

“Whose house is that?”

“A man by the name of Nolan Perninski, and it’s not a stakeout unless you’re quiet.”

“I doubt they can hear me all the way in there,” Katrina replied. “Wait! Did you say Perninski, as in Perri Perninski?”

Cat spared her a confused glance. “That’s his daughter, how do you know her?”

“She goes to my school. Also she’s Lily’s friend. Her dad’s a real brute.”

“How do you know that?” Cat had turned her attention fully away from the house now and was studying Katrina.

Katrina bit her lip and twisted her hands in her lap. “Promise you won’t tell mum?”

“Sure,” Cat replied without even taking a moment to consider it. Looking at Katrina was almost like looking in the mirror. The girl had inherited the James family signature dark hair and green eyes. Even her bone structure was similar, sharper and less rounded than either of her sisters or their mother. Even her clothes weren’t so far from the sort of thing Cat had in her own wardrobe, a lot of black and not much fabric, although Katrina’s stuff tended toward a little more lace than Cat’s, but Cat knew the girl idolised her. Both of her brother’s eldest girls did, in different ways. Before she’d gotten pregnant, Gemma had often come around to practice her sparring. She was damn good at it too, at least she had been. Almost a match for Cat. It had been good training for Cat too. But she’d been down a sparring partner for awhile now and given her own pregnancy she was starting to wonder how she was going to manage to keep fighting fit over the next several months. She didn’t want to lose her ability to defend herself and her unborn child.

Cat wasn’t sure why her brother’s kids looked up to her of all people but she imagined her kid looking at her the way these kids did and she felt a mixture of both warmth and fear.

Katrina didn’t answer straight away. She shifted in her seat a bit first. “Well, I might have used some mindwalking and read Perri’s mind.”

“How?” Cat was fully focused on Katrina now. Magic, other than Cat’s own, or hell, even including her own, was out of her wheelhouse, but Cat knew Katrina spent quite a bit of her time learning about it and mindwalking could be useful here.

“From Ally, another one of Lily’s friends. The whole group of them was staying at our house, for a sleepover. Perri’s dad showed up and yanked her home. Like he almost physically dragged her out of the house. Apparently his wife had said yes to the sleepover but hadn’t told him.”

“What did your parents do?”

“Well, not much. I mean, mum said some words to him, but then he and Perri left.”

“Figures,” Cat muttered under her breath as she turned back to eye up Nolan’s house.

“Well, what were they supposed to do?” Katrina argued. “It’s not like they could hold her there against her parent’s will or beat him up or anything. Besides, he didn’t hit her in front of them or anything. He was just kinda rough.”

Cat didn’t take he eyes off the Perninski place. What should be done? That was the question. Katrina was right, beating the man up once wouldn’t do it. He’d probably just take it out on his wife and kids later. And she knew from practice that reporting it to the authorities didn’t accomplish anything either. What was it she had always wanted someone to do? Steal the kid away? Except this girl’s mother was still alive. Cat knew from experience that you couldn’t make the spouse leave. Even if they did leave, they often went back. And as far as she was concerned, they were an adult, they made their own choices. But the kids...

Katrina’s voice continued. “I think he does worse than just hit her though.”

It drew Cat from her own head and she turned to look at Katrina again. “What?”

“I peeked in Lily’s head. Went looking for memories about Ally and Perri too. I wanted to practice mindwalking and I was curious. But I found this one memory where Lily saw Perri’s arms and how she has cigarette burns all along them. And then one afternoon I saw Perri sitting alone after school, waiting for her mum or dad to pick her up I think and I looked in her head too.”

“You saw him doing that? In her head?”

“No, But I saw her parents shouting at one another. It was weird. It was like I was her for second.” Katrina shivered.

Cat was too focused on what else she might have seen to really register Katrina’s reaction. “Did you see him hit her?”

“No. No. Just her own memories. One where she was hiding under her bed and her parents are yelling and she’s cuddling her sister, before she died I guess.” Katrina shivered again then a concentrated look appeared on her face. “Maybe if I was in his head though.”

Cat looked back toward the house then to Katrina again. “Can you read him from here?”

“No, too far. I had to get pretty close to Perri, like a couple metres. I think it should be possible to do it from further away. Mum said across the room should work but even that was too far. I tried mindwalking with Jade while in class but it didn’t work. Maybe I just need a stronger infusement.”

“How much is left in your current one?”

“I dunno. A few more reads at least. I think there’s still enough magic there, it’s just not strong enough for more distance, or I’m doing something wrong. Every infusement’s different. Every person is different. I just need more practice.” Katrina got a determined look on her face.

Cat glanced from Katrina to the house again. “What about from right outside the house?”

Katrina glanced up with a surprised look on her face, evidently only now catching onto her aunt’s line of thought. “You want me to read Perri’s father’s mind?”

Cat nodded. “I think he killed his other daughter.”

Katrina’s eyes grew wide and her face paled, but a moment later the determined look returned. She bit her lip. “It’s harder through walls, but maybe.”

Cat studied the house thinking. She didn’t want to push Katrina into doing something she didn’t want to do or put her in the way of danger, but she needed to know if Nolan had really killed his other daughter.

Katrina evidentially didn’t fear the danger too much for a moment later she suggested. “I could knock on his door and pretend to be selling cookies? I’ve mastered the art of not falling over while I mindread now. I think I could even hold a conversation at the same time.”

Cat frowned and then studied the girl. She looked eager again, no trace of that fear that had been there a few moments ago. “We don’t have any cookies.”

“Well, I could just be doing a survey then? Or maybe I was out camping and I got lost?”

Cat cocked an eyebrow. “In those clothes?”

Katrina scowled. “I’m a teenager. Okay, how about I was walking home from a party?”

Cat checked the time. “It’s late afternoon.”

“Teenager. We do party in the afternoon sometimes. Okay, fine, ooh I got a good one. How about I was with my boyfriend and he dumped me and then I got lost. I can do great fake tears. I can just ask to use his phone to call my mum but not actually call my mum, because she would definitely kill us both if she knew what we were doing.”

“Yeah, I suppose that would work. How did you even find me here by the way?”

Katrina shrugged. “Location spell, mum uses them all the time to check where we are, although probably not right now, I hope. I needed more dreamwalking magic. Mum used it all.” Katrina held up her cat charm.

“On what?”

“I dunno. She wouldn’t tell me.”

“Probably hunting the dreamweaver,” Cat said more to herself than to Katrina.

“The dreamweaver?” Katrina gave her an interested look.

Cat barely heard her. She was already focused back on the house again. The street was borderline suburban, heavily wooded, with enough space between the houses for some privacy, but Cat doubted his neighbours hadn’t noticed anything at all. They probably just looked the other way. It wasn’t remote like her childhood home where you could have screamed at the top of your lungs and not been heard.

She glanced back again when she heard Katrina rummaging around in the dash compartment. When she turned to look at her, the girl was putting on lipstick, Cat’s dark red lipstick.

Cat frowned. “You’re supposed to be mindreading him not seducing him.”

Katrina paused with her mouth still hanging open. She turned toward Cat and then shut her jaw. “If I was visiting my boyfriend then I’d be wearing lipstick.”

“You were already wearing lipstick.”

“Well, I like this colour better. Can I keep it?”

Cat rolled her eyes. “Fine. How are you going to get out after? You use his phone and then what? Maybe we should just do the survey thing.”

Katrina shook her head. “Pretending to be on the phone will give me more of a chance to focus on the mindwalking. I can just ask to use their bathroom and then sneak out a window afterward or something.”

“Maybe I should do it...” Cat trailed off thinking.

“You don’t know how to mindwalk,” Katrina quickly pointed out.

“It can’t be that different from dreamwalking, can it?”

Katrina shook her head. “It’s very different, and it’s dangerous if you get it wrong. I’ve had practice.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll be fine, besides you’re right here. If anything goes wrong, I’ll scream. I’m told I have an excellent scream.”

“Do you know what his power is?”

Katrina nodded. “He’s an ice elemental, pretty minor though.”

“What if Perri recognises you?”

Katrina dangled another necklace in the air, a silver buffalo head. “Shapeshifting magic. I’ll make my face look difference.”

“If you’re going to shapeshift, what was the point of putting on the makeup then?”

Katrina shook her head and lifted up the small compact mirror that Cat always kept in the dash. “I don’t shapeshift the makeup. That stays. The less stuff you shift the easier it is to maintain a form. I just alter my bone structure a little. See.” She tilted her head this way as that as the profile of her face altered. “I elongate my nose slightly, square out the jaw, puff the cheeks a little, and maybe add some dimples, and voila, cute as ever but even my own mum wouldn’t recognise me.”

“I bet she would,” Cat remarked offhandedly. Even though, it was uncanny how different Katrina looked with just a few structural changes. There was something similar there too though.

“Yeah, I don’t know how she does it. Once I tried to sneak out looking like Bobby and she knew it was me.”

“Maybe she picked up on your facial expressions.”

Katrina’s eyes widened and Cat decided there was definitely some familiar in the way her face moved if not in her face itself.

“I bet that’s it!” Katrina exclaimed. “I’m going to have to practice that.”

“Somehow, when it comes to your mother I don’t think it’ll make a difference. A mother knows her kids.” As Cat spoke the words, she wondered if that would be true for her own child. Would she one day be able to pick her out of a line up of shapeshifted faces? How did Amanda do it? Did a mother really just know her kids that well? What if Cat wasn’t up to it? It was a dangerous world. What if she couldn’t protect her? It would be a lot less dangerous without people like Nolan Perninski in it though. As her mind wandered, her eye line found his house again.

“Hey, aunt Cat?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you really pregnant?”

Cat snapped back around to look at her. “Who told you that?”

“Gemma.”

“Who told her?”

“I dunno, mum probably. Maybe she overheard.”

“Hmm.” Cat frowned, then sighed. “Yes, I’m pregnant.”

Katrina was silent for a moment.

“Are you going to keep it?”

Cat scowled and replied sharply, “What sort of questions is that?”

Katrina didn’t flinch at Cat’s tone, she simply replied, “When Melanie Higgins got pregnant last year, her parents sent her away to live with her grandma for awhile and when she came back she wasn’t pregnant anymore.”

“How long’s awhile?”

“Like a month.”

“Oh. Well, yes, it’s here now.”

“That means I’ll have a little cousin who I can teach about fashion right from the start,” Katrina replied with a happy smile. Then she added, “Sasha’s too close to me in age and fashion sense didn’t naturally catch on with her. Oooh and magic too!”

“You’ve got a little niece of your own now.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think Gemma will let me teach her the important stuff. But you’ll let me teach you daughter right? Or son... hmm I suppose if it’s a boy I can just teach him boy fashion.”

“It’s a girl.”

Katrina’s mouth dropped open. It was still weird to look at her without her own face on.

“You know?! Cool! I’m gonna be the best cousin ever.”

Cat smiled, then she glanced at Nolan’s house. There was work to be done before that.

Looking back at Katrina again, she asked, “ How long does that shapeshifter magic last?”

“Oh, ah, a little while but I should get started. We’ve got a bad guy to catch. So, I need to read his mind and find out if he killed Perri’s sister and where the evidence that will convict him is, right?”

“Right,” Cat agreed, even though it was only really the first part she had been thinking about. Physical evidence wouldn’t hurt but she doubted it would help either.

Katrina gave a decisive nod and reached for the door handle.

Doubt crept into Cat’s mind. Worries for her own child suddenly making her realise how precious kids were to a mother. Amanda would not approve of this, not one little bit.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Cat asked Katrina.

Katrina flashed a cocky smile. “How hard could it be?”