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A New Family Member
by Elizabeth Sullivan
I took the fox pelt from the woman. Poor creature. It never had a chance. I like foxes. So graceful, so delicately vicious.
"I guess you want that as payment for the curse on my husband?" the woman asked hesitantly. I ignored her. She wasn't important.
I called my familiar, and the woman gasped. Most mortals are shocked when they first see the glowing, barely corporeal form of the shining silver fox.
It growled at the dead fox and looked at me. Chartreuse- my familiar's - eyes turned red and he foamed at the mouth in rage as he prepared to attack.
"No. She's a guest. You know the rules."
Chartreuse let out a sharp yip of disappointment and settled for gnashing his teeth at the terrified interloper.
She huddled against a wall, frightened beyond belief. We were between her and the door, and I chuckled at her discomfort.
"What kind of fool wears a dead fox here? You know I run with them in the night."
"I - I'm not from anywhere around here," she said. "I'm just passing through, and the bartender told me that you might help me."
"That's enough," I said. "Be quiet or I may break my own rule and let Chartreuse amuse himself."
I threw a handful of herbs into a pot of water that I kept at a slow boil on the fire.
"Are those powerful magics to kill my husband?"the woman asked. "Is it a poison?"
"It's to cover the smell of what I'm about to do next, and to brace you. It won't bother me, but I don't want to deal with you fainting. You're bothersome enough as it is."
She looked disappointed. Of course she did. The idiots who come to me expect a show, or some razmataz, as if I was some common street wizard performing for coppers.
I cast a spell on the dead fox. It had been eviscerated and the hide cured and sewn into a long stole. Its lovely lively spirit had been reduced to the vanity of a useless noble woman. Without organs I had to put more work into the spell than usual, but it's eyes opened, and it yipped and cocked its head at me.
When it opened its mouth the foul stench of rotting animal flesh filled my small hut. The undead fox sniffed the air delicately. It looked up to me and cocked its head the other direction.
I knelt so I could get a better look. “Well, aren’t you adorable?”
A scream broke our special moment, and the woman ran from the hut. My newest familiar crouched in fear, looking from Chartreus to me in confusion.
I reached toward it so it could smell my hand. In its un-birth it had become grey, mottled with a pale green patch on its underbelly that looked suspiciously close to the color of advanced infection. Its fur had bald patches as if from mange, and I could distinctly see several ribs through broken skin. It definitely wasn’t my best work, but I hadn’t been given much to work with.
“I think you’ll be a good familiar. What's your name?"
I heard its voice in my head. "Summer? Summer is a very nice name. You're safe now. You have a family, and we protect each other."
I turned to Chartreus, my general among my familiars. "Take it to the den and show it around. The family just got a little larger."
Photo
Fuertes, Louis Agassiz; Nelson, Edward William, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons