“Anna,” I spoke loud enough for her to hear. Several plants turned their flowering heads and tentacles toward us. She brought up her head, the white had finally fully taken over her coloring. Her magic tended to bleach her skin and hair, turning her albino over the years. She wore her bright colors to combat the bleaching; today she was in a flamingo pink and tangerine dress thing that could blind anyone for twenty yards. She waved with her foot-long shears to point us over. We sauntered slowly, allowing Caleb time to look around in horror.
“What the hell is going on?” he whispered.
“Anna’s place is unusual, she has a special way with plants, and they are well,” I began.
“Nightmares, these are nightmares.” As good of an explanation as any. I have no idea what happened to her to get her obsessed with her plants and their horrific, nightmarish appearance and skills. “I have heard stories of plant mages, but this is a whole new level.”
I shrugged since I really had no idea about plant mages, but Anna made the most unusual things from plant life. “Hello Anna, how do you fare today?”
“Well, gato, look at you. You look better.” She spoke in Spanish; rarely did she bother with English unless forced.
“Thank you, Anna.” I knelt on the ground close to her, pulling Caleb down with me. “This is Caleb, he is stuck with a magic collar that I need to get off him. Can we acquire your services to null the magic, and then I can cut it off?”
“He is a mage, one of the proper ones,” she stated.
“I am,” Caleb replied in Spanish. It was one of the languages he bothered learning ages ago. “But I am also collared and going to be used against my will. I can’t let this happen; I could hurt people.”
“Yes. Most of your caliber has already hurt many people.”
“I have but only upon orders. This is something different, worse.” He spoke calmly even as his pulse raced; the collar began to glow pale silver.
“Breath, Caleb,” I whispered, trying to keep him calm. Hopefully, the power of the collar would not activate. I turned my attention back to Anna, staring at her pale ice eyes, the pupil having nearly faded into the same icy white of her iris. “Anna, what might I offer in trade for this gift of nullifying this spell upon him.”
“Favor, to null out the magic of collar from the fancy mage, this is doable, gato.” She spoke, not looking at me but at something beyond me, something in the world of magic, even the jaguar. I never understood what the mages saw when they looked beyond what I could see.
“And the price of this gift?” Her prices varied from a bag of candy to hours of weeding in her murdering garden.
“What is this boy to you?” she asked, ignoring him. He kept his eyes on her, only giving me a nod to show he understood and was listening.
“An ex of mine.”
“And still you help him, why?”
“He is not a bad guy. His family might be giant flaming assholes, and he follows what they say, but Caleb here isn’t completely awful. He helps people, went to war for our country to protect soldiers and others. Besides, he wouldn’t come to me unless it was bad.”
“Sitting right here, I could answer questions,” he blurted out.
“I did not ask you, high mage. Be silent.” The spell rocked me back as it pushed Caleb away, he hit the ground with a thud. He grunted; he was alive and hopefully learned never to irritate elder mages. “Now, my girl, do you love him?”
“I did.”
“And now?”
“I care enough to help him, but the love I don’t know. I care that other mages like him are collared to be used against their will, and I need to stop this. They will come for us all, my cats, your people, and for that, I need help.”
“Ah yes, you are guardian cat, kanima speaks through your jaguar. I will do this for a future favor, agreed?”
“Agreed, you know how to contact me. Many thanks, Anna.” She nodded, changing into a sitting position. I stood to back up toward my bike to grab the bolt cutters to return as she continued to slow chant as the magic began to dim. I knelt next to Caleb, helping hold him up to prepare for the magic to drop down to nothing. Anna weaved a spell, using words and hand gestures I didn’t fully understand as Caleb watched. Once the magic spell finished, everything dimmed, the plants shrank back, and Caleb grabbed his head in screaming pain. Every color had dimmed with sounds as my cat went so far away it was like we were not one anymore, causing me to be closer to pure human than I have been since bitten. I used the bolt cutter, tilting his head back with one hand and cut the damn silver thing right off with one swift cut. The whole throat area was covered in sores and bloody, with open wounds still attempting to scab over with blackened edges.
I tossed the whole things off into the yard. He pressed a washcloth against the massive wound that had opened back up from the thorn’s removal. Anna watched for an extra minute before releasing the spell. My senses returned to normal, colors, and sound entered again as Caleb started the short spell to heal the more significant wounds. All the plants began to come back to life, several tendrils charged toward the bloody ground. I yanked Caleb back, away from the oncoming plants with Anna smiling as they wrapped around her.
“I must protect myself; he is one of those mages, the ones that hunt and deal with my kind. Leave before my children get him, gato. We remain friends; he is no friend to me.” She
