by Harry Nix
It looked like every other dodgy pawnshop in town. Bars on the windows, bad lighting inside and the neon sign in the front window had one of the letters blown out and was buzzing as it flickered on and off. WE BUY OLD.
Although they were going to go to Alex's apartment, which was quite close to the Grease Trap, Juno had detoured, explaining to Alex it was time to buy some shifter charms. Given they’d just dropped a lot of cash a new clothing they couldn't afford to have him continue to rip them to pieces every time he shifted.
“Okay, it looks like the coast is clear. Let's go,” Juno said, looking up and down the street.
Alex followed Juno and Nia across the road, his head still spinning somewhat. Although he’d directly witnessed the effects of the Great Barrier when Nia transformed into a wolf girl out on the street and then again when he and Nia had been in their hybrid forms before jumping into Boris, seeing more hard proof of it in front of him was almost too much to believe. He wondered now how many times he’d be driving around Baxter and suddenly see shops and other things in places that he'd completely ignored. How powerful was the Great Barrier? Was he suddenly going to see some Gothic vampire castle towering over the city that only supernaturals could see?
The bell on the door to Bailey's attempted to jingle but was clogged up with rust, so it just made a kind of dull clinking sound. Nia screwed up her nose the moment they stepped inside, and Alex did the same. Although he was in his human form his sense of smell was still enhanced.
Inside Bailey's was dust and musty but not in that charming, nice way that old bookshops have. Here it smelt like mold and wet, damp earth and stone, like the entire place could do with having the roof ripped off and exposed bright sunlight for a month or two.
Alex followed Juno down the narrow corridor that was closely packed with junk. A broken umbrella, a keyboard with missing keys, dinner plates, mismatched spoons, and a ukulele with no strings.
They emerged from this into a smaller shop area that was filled with sealed glass cases as well as open displays. Behind the counter was an old man who looked to be the unfortunate result of a crossbreeding experiment between a rat and a human.
“Bailey! We need two shifter rings my good frog and quick,” Juno called out in a chirpy tone.
Bailey made a garumphing sound like he had a large wad of mucus stuck in his throat.
“I can give you two one-monthers for five hundred,” he said. His voice sounded like he'd been smoking since he was born and spent his weekends screaming at heavy-metal concerts.
Juno put both hands over her face and put on a shocked expression.
“You are out of your frogging mind if you think I'm paying five hundred bucks for two shifter rings,” she said.
“Arkovis got shoved off a chunk of their land. Werewolves are been streaming into Baxter ever since. Supply and demand,” Bailey said. He picked up a pair of glasses from the counter in front of him and start polishing them with a dirty rag, giving the appearance that he wasn't interested in this conversation.
“Supply and demand... c’mon. Five hundred bucks is way over,” Juno said.
“So keep destroying clothes, I don't care.”
As Juno bartered with Bailey, Alex took the opportunity to wander around the shop. Some of sealed cases had wands in them, made of various types of wood and often inlaid with metals or gems. There was a large variety in them – some just looked like sticks you might pick up from under a tree, while others were clearly handcrafted exquisite works of jewelry. There were no prices on anything and no clue as to what the wands would do. The cases were locked so Alex couldn’t touch them and no matter how much he tried he couldn't get a screen to appear above them to tell him anything about the magic within. He reminded himself that as soon as they got out of here, he’d have to talk to Juno to see if there was a Know Thyself spell that could be turned outward.
He came across an open case of rings. He picked up a few and while he could feel they were magical, again there was no information about what they were.
“Hey, keep your paws off the merchandise,” Bailey suddenly called out.
Alex dropped the rings back into the case and then walked over to the counter. The scent of wet and earth and damp grew stronger the closer he was to Bailey. He was surprised Juno wasn't wrinkling her nose up. There was something in Bailey's tone that got his hackles up. Although Bailey looked like a grumpy old man he clearly wasn't. Juno kept making references to frogs and the more Alex looked at Bailey the more there seemed to be something off about his features. When he moved there was a microscopic delay before his face moved with him, as though there was an illusion there. But like the wands and rings, he couldn't see any spells above Bailey and lacking any way to analyze him, he was forced to put up with being talked down to.
“What price do we want?” Alex asked Juno.
“It's still way over but four hundred for two shifter rings that last a month,” Juno said.
“What if you do four hundred for two shift rings, but we also buy two more rings from over there?” Alex said.
A crafty look came across Bailey's face. “Maybe, but what rings you talking about?”
“Juno can choose them. Can you get two varieties that I can study?”
“Um… okay?” Juno said. She walked over to the display of rings when Nia was standing, quickly picked up two and brought them back to the counter. Bailey took them from her and Alex felt two small tugs of magic when he did, touching each one in turn.
“A very minor fire lighter and a very minor deflection charm. I'm sorry, this still isn't enough to give you that kind of discount. I’ll go to four-seventy on the two shifter rings and you can take these two for another two-hundred. Six-seventy all up, best offer,” Bailey said.
Alex looked to Juno who gave a slight shake of her head and then pointed a thumb down. A habitual market goer, Alex had spent time bargaining for all kinds of things, including his awesome six dollar stick blender. He knew the best way to get a discount was to make a personal connection and the best way to do that was to keep the person talking.
“So, what's going on with Arkovis getting pushed off their land?” he asked.
Bailey looked at him and then across to Juno with a puzzled expression.
“He's a werewolf but he’s not up with the werewolf news?”
“He's new… in town,” Juno explained.
Bailey held the glasses he was polishing up to light to check for smudges. Satisfied they were clean he picked up another pair and began polishing them.
“Well, let me dumb it down for you then – the magic ones and the bitey ones have once again teamed up to screw over the furry ones, as since time immemorial. As it was, as it shall always be. Amen, et cetera,” he said.
“Right, so I’m a furry one, the magic ones are mages and the bitey ones are vampires?” Alex said, taking a guess.
Bailey again looked to Juno. “Damn, he really must be new.”
There was something again in Bailey's tone that Alex didn't like and this time he didn't bother holding himself back. He didn't shift because he still didn't have the charm and didn't want to destroy his clothes but he let out a growl.
“How about we just conclude our business, Bailey,” he said in a low tone. That certainly got Bailey's attention. He made another choked garumphing sound and then put down the glasses he was polishing.
“Okay Juno, in respect to the fact that I've known you a long time ago, six-fifty for the lot,” he said.
“Six-fifty? It seems to me that a certain frog who got help from a certain witch for certain male matters might possibly be able to go down to six hundred in light of that help,” Juno said.
“That was your mother, not you. So she comes in here she can have a discount,” Bailey said.
Juno pulled out a phone and held it up.
“Should I call her right now? I'm calling her right now,” Juno threatened.
Bailey put up his hands. “Okay, fine dammit. Six hundred and then get ou
t. Don’t threaten me with Hera.”
Juno's phone vanished and then she was back to all sweetness and light as she dropped the cash on the counter and scooped up the rings.
“Thanks, Bailey,” she said the same chirpy tone and then led the way out.
When they got back to Boris, Juno gave a ring each to Alex and Nia.
Alex felt a small ripple of magic when he slipped it on. He immediately cast Know Thyself. In his active spell panel he now had Know Thyself and a second entry below that listed as Shifter ring/One month.
Upon shifting, clothing, accessories and other items the wearer is touching, up to a twenty pound maximum, will shift with the user and then return upon the resumption of their original form.
“Do you want to tell me why I had to buy these two trash rings and spend all that extra money?” Juno asked Alex.
“I need spells to study, lots of them. I thought it was a cheap way to get a spell,” he explained.
“Right... but spells on rings and other objects don't work like that. It's not like when you see a mage cast a spell and maybe you can read and understand it and possibly copy it. These spells are sort of compressed, and mostly gibberish that no one can read,” Juno said.
To Alex it sounded like she was talking about the difference between code and the compiled program. Code was easily readable and writable by a person, but the compiled program was readable only by the computer.
“Is there a way to cast Know Thyself outward, so I can examine these rings?” Alex asked.
Juno nodded. “Easy, but just be aware, it uses a bit more power than on yourself because it's directed outward,” she said and held out a hand.
Alex took it and immediately saw a faint translucent screen appear above Juno's head, a new spell quickly filled the screen. It was titled Analyze. To Alex looked very similar to the Know Thyself spell in parts, but there were clearly some obvious changes so it was directed outward.
As usual he felt the magic around them gently moving like the tide now he was connected to Juno. It took him a full three minutes to copy the spell, each time only a small portion coming across, which seems strange considering it was quite a short spell. He made sure to slow down and read through each line, which toward the end appeared to make it easier.
Finally, Analyze appeared in his list. He immediately cast it on the shifter ring he was wearing.
A quarter of his mana vanished and a screen appeared above the ring. It listed the name of the ring – Shifter ring/One month – and a date and time stamp which started only a few minutes ago.
Below that was a short block of code that was almost pure gibberish. It looked like someone had mashed up a mathematical formula with a few random alphabets. None of it was understandable.
“Do you see now? Getting spells back off rings and wands and pieces of clothing is actually super hard. I mean, if you study it enough times for long enough you might be able to reverse engineer it, but it's barely worth it,” Juno said.
She passed him the two so-called “junk” rings anyway. Alex didn't put them on, not wanting to activate them, but again casts Analyze.
He went down to around thirty percent of his mana remaining and saw two new screens open up, both filled with complicated gibberish. He tried copying the gibberish across the success rate was even lower than when he was connected with Juno. Less than one percent of the code was successfully copied.
Alex sat there for a moment copying and pasting over and over but quickly abandoned that when he saw how little was coming across. At that speed it was going to take the rest of the day just copy one. As he watched, a small percentage appeared under the code on his screen that showed he had copied one-point-two percent. He copied and pasted again and saw that number rise to one-point-three. Deciding to leave the study for another time he canceled all the spells and saw his mana quickly beginning to rise. It was then that he noticed that all of his injuries had healed as well and his missing tooth had grown back without him noticing. It seemed faster than before.
“So how fast can my healing get?” he asked.
“Wolf girl?” Juno said, pointing to Nia.
“You only shifted recently so you’re still changing but it gets fast. Eventually be able to take a bullet straight in the head and have a pretty good chance of walking away. I still don’t recommend it, though,” Nia said.
“Shall we to the apartment that?” Juno said, starting Boris who grumbled and coughed before finally coming to life.
“Sounds good,” Alex said, lost in his own thoughts. He was looking at the two rings in the palm of his hand. To put things into computer terms it was entirely possible to reverse engineer, or decompile a program to get back to the source code that you could then alter. It might not be perfect source code but sometimes it was close enough to be useful. Juno saying you could study a ring for weeks to eventually reverse engineering sounded like manual decompiling, something which took a lot of guesswork and effort. Alex wondered if there was some way to magically decompile the spells on the rings and then maybe he could replicate them? Maybe even edit them to make them stronger?
Alex gave Juno his address. As they drove, he cast Analyze on his shifter ring again and began the laborious process of copying the gibberish code across.
14
“So this is the palace where Sir Alex Lowe lives. Take note of the turn-of-the-century cornice moldings,” Juno said extending an arm towards the rundown apartment building.
“Wow,” Nia said, pretending to be in absorbed tourist and holding up her phone to take a snapshot.
“Yeah okay, I know it's not the best,” Alex said, grinning at the two girls as they teased him.
Although he’d only been away a short while, now he was back, the three story apartment block he lived in somehow looked far worse than he remembered, as though there had been a Great Barrier covering it that had now been stripped away.
When him, Howey and Puzo had decided to make a game together Alex had rented the cheapest apartment he could find. He'd found this place owned by Mr. Clovis, who lived on the bottom floor. Mr. Clovis was in his late eighties and definitely not up to the task of maintaining the apartment block.
It looked like it had been running down into the ground for the last two decades, which is why the rent was so cheap. Alex's apartment was on the top floor and he was the only resident up there. Every time someone moved out. Mr. Clovis simply nailed their apartment door shut. On the middle floor were Mr. and Mrs. Bronson, a couple in their eighties. Apart from the rats, mice, and cockroaches they were the only people living in the entire apartment block. The best thing about it was the small park across the road, which was leafy and green.
“I don't see anyone here waiting for us, at least not to the naked eye,” Juno said.
“Is there a magical way to look up in my apartment?” Alex asked.
“Watch and learn,” Juno said, reaching back to touch Alex. He watched as the green translucent screen opened up and Juno cast a spell titled Scrying that seemed far more complicated than anything else she’d done. It went on for pages and pages. He only managed to copy a fragment before it compiled and she cast. There was no apparent effect, except Juno started narrating now what she was seeing.
“Okay up on the top floor. Which apartment am I looking for?”
“Number four. That’s my window up there on the front of the building,” Alex said.
“Ah, number four with the flaking blue paint door. Okay going through... small place, not too dirty... oh but someone has left a cereal bowl in the sink half filled with water,” Juno said.
“I was letting it soak,” Alex said.
“Hmm. Well, I see a bed and a television and a very worn out sofa. Succulents in pots along the windowsill are a nice touch. What's this? A sock right next to the bed. Now, why would a young male have a rolled up sock right next to his bed I wonder? Can you guess Nia?” Juno said.
“It's a curious thing to have next to your bed isn't it? Alex, why do you have a s
ingle sock next to your bed?” Nia said with a grin.
“Yeah, both you to shut up. Like I wouldn’t find anything that vibrated in your bedside drawers. Is anyone up there? Does it look like anyone has messed with anything?”
“I don't see anything out of the ordinary. The place hasn’t been tossed if that's what you're asking. I think we're good to go,” Juno said.
Alex felt the magic tug as she let go of the Scrying spell.
“I’m going left, over to those trees. Nia do you want to go right? Alex, if you see anything weird, if you feel anything work weird GTFO of there, okay?” Juno said.
“Ten-four,” Alex said.
They got out of Boris and went their separate ways, Juno heading for some trees that stood on the edge of the park. Nia went the other direction and soon was gone, disappearing like the predator she was.
Alex headed for the apartment block, feeling an odd sort of nervousness as though he was committing a crime just by being here. The multiple messages and missed calls on his phone was weighing on his mind. He still hadn’t gotten back in contact with Howey or Puzo and his home was too close to the office for comfort. It was entirely possible that Howey or Puzo would come walking by and what would he say then? Yeah, sorry, I'm a werewolf now and I don't return calls.
Alex shook his head at himself is used his very aged key to let himself into building. As soon as he stepped in the smells of the apartment block rose up around them. It was age and dirt and dust. There was a row of small letterboxes near the front door that gave off a rusty scent. Alex looked around to make sure no one was watching and then shifted into his hybrid state.
He immediately sensed that no one was home today in the entire apartment block.
At first he couldn’t quite put his finger on how he knew that but then realized he could hear the quick pitter-pattering of heartbeats from small mice and rats the lived in the building. He knew no one else was here because he couldn't hear their heartbeats.