//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: Shattered Pentacle 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

Lyra stumbled into the bedroom, delirious with exhaustion and pain. She reached the bed, wobbling from the effort. Finally the effects of her night were catching up with her. The last time she had felt this weak, it was while she went cold-turkey from a substance much worse than the worst mortal drug. 
But none of that mattered, not when she saw Bonnie's eyes open. “What happened? I thought... thought I was dead.” She held her right arm against her left, where the tourniquet had been. A faint impression still remained on her skin, and that arm remained an angry red. But when Bonnie flexed her left hand, the fingers responded. She wasn't going to lose her arm.
She settled on the bed beside her, wrapping her girlfriend in a hug as tight and desperate as any human could. “I wasn't sure you would wake up. It's good to hear your voice.”
Bonnie returned the hug, some of her characteristic strength already back. If it wasn't for her internal injuries, she might be in better shape than Lyra. “You saved my life,” she said. “You must've... found me. Did you get the bullets out?”
Lyra shook her head once. She couldn't meet her girlfriend's eyes while she lied. Her best chance of actually fooling her was to spend as little time on that topic as she could. “I cleaned you up. Changed your bandages... but I think you're giving me too much credit. I think you got hit by a car or something—there's a lot of bruising on your belly. 
“They shot me in the gut.” She opened the robe, letting it slide down off her shoulders. No gunshot wound remained on her chest, just a spiderweb of purple bruises, just below her navel. “Right here.” She touched the skin, eyes widening. “Felt like they did, anyway.”
“Maybe you were wearing a vest.” Lyra touched her cheek, turning her attention away from the improbable injury. “What happened, Bonnie? Why did you come here instead of the hospital? If you really were dying, I couldn't have... made a difference.”
Her girlfriend took a few seconds to reply. But now it was her turn to look conflicted. If she thought Lyra had just saved her life...
“Wizards. They're moving in Canterlot. Maybe... more of them than we ever thought. At least half a dozen. My whole cell... dead. Not sure if my superior made it out or not. They have contacts at the hospital... they'd know I was there. Wouldn't wake up. But if you were home...”
Lyra took her girlfriend's arm, pulling it close to her chest. “I was here. You're alive. But I think we should find you a real doctor.”
Bonnie shook her head once. She touched her injured arm, then her belly. “Metahumans are... the most dangerous monsters we've faced. No physical signs, not even a full genetic scan will show you anything. No weaknesses, except for staying in groups. They're way better at killing solo agents. Or... small cells.” 
Her hand fell limply to the bed in front of her. “I need to keep my head down for a while, see if the agency calls. In the meantime...” She slumped backward against the pillows. “Take that stuff off. You smell like a hospital. Help me forget about last night for a while, please.”
Lyra wasn't much stronger than her girlfriend right then—but she could share some of the same feeling. 
She woke up sometime the next morning, resting up against Bonnie's chest. It was one of the worst smells she had ever experienced, a caustic mix of sweat, blood, cleaning solution, and other fluids. She was still sore, albeit in some very different areas than before. She might've closed her eyes and gone back to sleep, if Bonnie hadn't whispered something in her ear, a rush of sudden nervous fear.
“There's something in here with us. Breathing.” She lifted the covers, just enough to show the dagger clutched against her bare chest. “I'll kill it.”
A single green eye emerged from the dark, glowing with reflected light. “It would be better if she didn't. For all involved.”
Bonnie's expression turned confused, and she flopped back to the side. “Hold on. Did I just... was that a cat?”
Lyra rested one hand on her girlfriend's wrist. She didn't try to yank the weapon away—that might get her defensive, or encourage her to start fighting. She held on just hard enough that Bonnie would need to move her out of the way first. 
“His name is Capper,” she said. “I was going to tell you about him when you got home on Monday. Something else came up.”
Bonnie glanced down again, at the deep bruises covering her belly. Many of those had already faded into pale echoes compared to the day before. Her girlfriend had always been a quick healer.
“We've talked about pets before, Harper. They're not on the lease agreement. If he claws up the walls...”
“You won't claw up the walls, will you Capper?” Lyra asked. “Who's a good kitty?”
Could her girlfriend tell what she was doing? If there was anything magical about it, Bonnie showed no sign of recognition. She just sat up, tucking the knife away under the mattress where it had come from. 
He hopped up onto the bedside table, stretching in that exaggerated, feline way. “Get me something to eat, then. A litterbox, a few toys... and a door I can use whenever I want to go outside. Then it's a deal.”
“Talkative little guy,” her girlfriend said. “He looks like a stray, but he doesn't act like one.”
“Long story.” Lyra rolled out of bed, shuffling past the open first aid kit, and all her discarded clothes from the day before. “I still need to pick up some things for him. But I think I'll shower first. You coming?”
She'd never know her girlfriend had nearly died the day before. Bonnie was already strong enough to beat her to the shower. And to do some other things, while she was at it.
The next few hours were almost a return to normal for the two of them—except that her girlfriend didn't put up a fight with her insistence that she adopt the cat. Maybe it was saving her life—however good a job Lyra might've done with the illusion of ordinary medicine, she still caught her girlfriend eyeing her when she thought Lyra wasn't looking.
She thinks I'm hiding something. She's not wrong.
She didn't join Lyra on her trip to the pet store—but Capper did, riding around on her shoulder or occasionally scampering along the ground beside her.
“Your strength is restored,” he said. “You felt it. Gave me a demonstration of it—”
“You didn't have to watch!” she hissed, face turning bright red. “That's gross!”
The cat twisted his shoulders in something almost like a shrug. But they wouldn't be able to talk for long—she was already pulling into the parking lot. Lyra still wasn't sure where the beat up old Civic had come from—but her girlfriend insisted it was safe. God help her if she got pulled over with identification papers from Randolph in the glovebox.
“It is not wrong for you to view from such a human lens,” he said. “But are you surprised that I do not? You should not be. When you can wear an animal skin as I do, you will see. Their thoughts are simpler.”
She smacked the brakes, a little too hard. Hard enough that he went jolting out of his seat, yowling in protest. “I'm not gonna turn... gross,” she said, twisting the key sharply in the ignition. Maybe a little too hard—but this car hardly inspired her to take good care of it. She wouldn't be surprised if parts fell off during the drive.
“Your perspective will shift. If you are a bird or a cat or a horse or whatever, you will think like one. The power to maintain the singularity of human thought requires total mastery of Life. You will never reach that mastery without walking in a thousand shapes. Only when you have worn many skins will you know how to maintain the mind of your own. If you choose. Not all willworkers of the Stone Book make such an effort.”
She said nothing to him during the next little while, which was even worse. While she filled a cart with cat supplies, she could do nothing but listen to his mewed instructions, and not react with more than an occasional pat or whisper. Plenty of other pet owners brought their animal friends into the store. They all needed leashes. Hers wielded the secret truths that wrote the universe.
This one was mostly telling her about how pointlessly prudish humans were, and how she would surely see that once her eyes were opened. While those words largely disgusted her, the truth burned underneath gripped her mind and wouldn't let go: she could change shape. Even the other girls had said as much, if only incidentally.
It wasn't going to turn gross—but some part of her knew that already. Capper wasn't being serious—he was tormenting her, mocking the other humans who came up to give him affection while he mewed immensely graphic, lascivious things he'd done in the back alleys and dark corners of Ponyville.
Finally she was at her trunk, with a cart full of supplies. She popped it, only to stare down in horror at what was inside.
Dozens of plastic cases and little boxes, all set into dense foam. She'd been with Bonnie long enough to recognize what these must be—rifles, handguns, shotguns, various kinds of specialty ammo...
She smacked the trunk closed, and piled everything onto the backseat instead. She had this ready. Does she have a safehouse too? Maybe that's where I'm already living.
“I want to know how to do that,” Lyra finally said, once the door was shut and the engine croaked to life. “Not—don't. Don't even start or you're getting dry food for a week.”
He hopped up into the passenger seat, settling onto his haunches there. For a cat, he clearly understood humans quite well. Better than he should. “Bold of you to assume I cannot hunt my own. I could fell an ox if I wished. More with your magic.”
She shrugged. “You know what I mean. You said you could teach me magic—that's what I want to learn. Changing shapes. I've always...” She looked away from him, pulling back out onto the road. “I've always been curious about what other shapes would be like. Being stuck as one thing... my old master could change, but his was horrible. Like he was ripping himself apart... I got sick every time I saw him do it.”
Capper didn't laugh. “Thyrsus. Of course. In the old days, we understood these things. Some patterns were already written into the human soul. No one knew why. But I am not surprised. It will take time... practice, patience, discipline. You must abandon every lie confining you to one shape in order to be free of it. We can start with something simple. A tail, perhaps. You're clumsy enough to need one.”
She drove along in silence for a little while, considering. The cat wasn't the only one who promised to teach her—the Consilium would do the same. In fact, they would require her to study. She had to learn things... things she didn't remember now, though were all probably important.
“What am I going to tell Bonnie? When I... go off to spend time with the... Free Council? She's an investigator. She's going to know if I lie.”
“Don't, I guess,” the cat said. “Ensure that what you tell her is true. Give her no reason to investigate. You know how she thinks—if anyone could do this, it's you.”
She turned that over in her mind during the rest of the drive. Stop her girlfriend from investigating—there was only one way to do that. She would need to give up working at Octavia's, or at least go part time.
She drove through their favorite noodle shop, and bought more than twice as much food as they really needed. She could probably eat all of it herself—she craved it.
I could keep the music lessons. Sales are slowing down now that summer's over. Octavia doesn't need me every day.
“I don't want to give up my old life, Capper. I liked my life. Liked my work, what I did.”
Her familiar laughed at her. She should really be used to his mockery. “The Lie is comfortable. It wraps familiar arms around you, it squeezes tight. Its words are all lies. To wake from the Lie means abandoning the pantomime it urged in you. Obedience, complacency, compliance. Always cowering to them, head low before the imposter gods. To live is to grow, Lyra. To grow is to improve. Sometimes growing can hurt. But when you finally tear away the last threads of Abyssal corruption and walk your own road into that sacred grove, you will arrive without regrets.”
She wasn't sure what any of that meant—but like so many other things Capper said, there was truth to every word. He could be cruel, he could be uncaring, he could be callous—but he was honest.
“I didn't thank you yet. For helping me save... save her. I couldn't have done it without you.”
He stretched on the seat, pointedly avoiding her eyes. He might speak with wisdom, but he still moved like a cat. “I require no gratitude. If you live long enough, you will know how you can help me. Until then, grow. I am no gardener. Trust me—everything I try to grow dies. But you can learn, and I can help keep the weeds away. I will walk beside you when you first taste the void. I won't let it take you.”
She pulled into their parking spot, then walked around to empty the cat supplies from inside. By the time she pulled the door open, the cat was gone, and one tin of food was missing from the pack.



Lyra found her girlfriend in the study when she finally got everything inside. Granted, she'd never seen the study looking quite like this. 
Every surface was transformed—paintings, computers, desks, all flipped over, revealing a menacing suite of heavy weapons, ammo, and various tools. A single gun rested in a harness on the desk.
Lyra's borrowed gun, with its tank still missing. “Brought the pho,” she said, holding up the plastic bag. “Still warm, I think.”
Bonnie tapped her screwdriver against the side of the gun. “Harper, what happened? My gun—you shot a wizard with it. This tank wouldn't be empty if you shot a vampire.”
A lie came to her mind, something about an accident, maybe banging it against the wall, or something similarly absurd. But then came Akiko's words, when she thought she might die from saying them. She spoke them anyway. Every lie deepens the shadow.
“I guess I did. Didn't really think about it much at the time. Was just trying to stay alive. Or make sure you did, when I got back. How are you feeling?”
“I’ll be better when I know the details. You can tell me over lunch.”
A few minutes later and they had lunch before them, a smattering of mostly-still-warm pho and a few plastic bottles of their favorite lotus tea.
“I think you know more about them than most people,” Lyra said, as soon as they were eating. “Being near them kinda... fries your brain. Makes it hard to think.”
More lies—but less of a lie than what she’d been contemplating before. At least she knew a little of that feeling.
“I need to know where.” Bonnie rested her disposable chopsticks on a napkin, well away from the device. “There’s a GPS beacon in the gun, saves coordinates of where it was fired. But the buffer got wiped. I had to flash the control circuits to get it to turn on.”
“She was throwing lightning around,” Lyra said, almost casually. “Not sure how close it got to me. But I think the gun worked. She flipped the hell out, maybe teleported away? Not sure.”
Bonnie’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not taking this seriously. Throwing lightning? Teleporting? They have weird powers, but they can’t break the laws of physics. They were probably messing with your head.”
The sleeping soul recoils from the touch of magic. Everyone told her as much—unfortunate to see just how right they were. You were supposed to believe me.
Lyra shrugged. “I’m telling you what I saw. Or—I saw the lightning. I don’t know how she escaped. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. Maybe it was an illusion or something. I’m not an expert in fighting mages.”
“Wizards,” Bonnie corrected, almost instantly. “Or witches. Where’d you hear that word?”
She shrugged, digging into her food. She ate in silence for a few minutes, giving her time to think. Finally, she spoke again. “Do you think they’re all evil? I mean... they’re not vampires. They don’t need to feed on people. They’re still humans, like you said.”
Bonnie removed a tiny tank from under the table, securing it in the gun. “I’ve never seen a vampire kill like this. I think I’ll have... nightmares about it.” She slid the gun back across the table towards Lyra. “Next time you use this, try to avoid the line of fire. If we knew where they were hiding...”
Lyra nodded. She took the gun, hefting it in one hand. She half-expected it to explode, or else start lighting up with alarms. But nothing happened. I’m still human.
“What happens now? Did you reconnect with your... organization?”
Her girlfriend nodded weakly. “They’re calling in specialists. With one of our... partner organizations. I’m not supposed to talk about it, obviously.”
Lyra nodded. “And you didn’t. But while you were talking to a witness who survived an encounter with them...”
“It doesn’t matter if you know. They don’t... exist, officially. None of this does. The Order of St. Ambrose. They’re who the Malleus Maleficarum sends in when a few hunters and prayers just aren’t good enough. Witch finders.”
Lyra ate the remainder of her meal in relative silence, staring down at the gun. Its barrel glowed faintly blue in her fingers until she flicked the safety, and it retracted into inert silence. 
What would happen to her if Bonnie fired at her? More importantly—what would her girlfriend do when she discovered one of the “witches” she was hunting shared her bedroom?
There has to be a way to let her see. Now just isn’t the right time, that’s all. She just needs to understand that there’s good ones and bad ones, same as with regular people. We’re not like vampires.
Lyra wasn’t like a vampire. She’d stake herself first.