by Harry Nix
Bailey gulped and then let out a garumphing sound again. He edged forward to quickly shake Alex's hand before leaping back to stand near the rear door.
“Give me some time and also don't cast a fire spell anywhere near me ever again,” he said.
“It's a deal,” Alex said. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of there with Juno following close behind.
5
“Slow!” Juno yelled hitting Alex square in the chest with the spell as he struggled to get his balance, before toppling over on to the concrete floor.
After leaving Bailey’s, Juno had been quiet but clearly plotting something. They only stopped off at her house long enough to collect April and then together the three of them drove out to the abandoned factory where they'd twice now faced off against mages. Nia was still somewhere in town, following up on Alex's adoption records.
Although Juno had mentioned her plan to beat the living hell out of Alex magically, talking about it was very different from the reality, mainly being far more painful.
Now with his shifter charm, Alex could keep his clothes, so he shifted into hybrid form just in time for Juno to hit him with a dose of vertigo. It had been an hour so far and Juno and April weren’t letting up on him.
“Cold,” April shouted and thrust to hand out towards him. Alex's fur immediately crisped over with frost and a deep chill sank into his bones. He had Know Thyself running and under the section of external spells now had slow, pain, and vertigo. A line of ???? changed to cold as April said the spell name.
Although it only been a short time, Alex was already adapting to vertigo, the small resistance he'd gained overnight lessening the worst of its effects. Most the time he could manage to get to his feet although walking was still impossible.
“You should have seen Bailey! That frog hopped so fast away from the counter to his exit when Alex cast flame shield. He was so scared he opened the door to the other side of the planet. It was night out there!” Juno yelled over the sound of her and April casting spells.
“Maybe it’s the greatest idea wolf boy ever had or possibly the worst,” April replied.
Alex rolled over to his hands and knees and struggled to stand up but the slow that Juno had cast upon him was simply too strong for him to overcome. He was literally moving in slow motion. Thankfully, it was only a short-lived spell and soon broke. Alex's sudden change in speed caused him to stumble and fall again flat on his face.
He rolled onto his back with a groan and then stood up once more as the spells the two girls had cast on him exhausted themselves. In his spell screen his list of injuries as long as his arm. He was bleeding, missing a tooth, covered in scratches and thanks to April's cold spell was verging on hypothermia.
“Stop, I have a question,” Alex gasped, holding up a clawed hand.
“Is it can we stop because the answers gonna be no way Jose. In this scenario, you’re Jose if that’s not clear,” Juno said.
Alex shook his head and then immediately regretted it. He had a pain in his neck and it felt like something had been squeezing his brain, probably caused from crashing into the concrete floor of the abandoned factory one too many times.
“Why didn’t those mages who attacked us twice never bother with any of these spells?” he asked.
“No mage likes to drain their mana if they have a wand or a gun they can use. Their reliance on artifacts or devices is their weakness,” Juno said.
“Why don’t they just carry wands that shoot vertigo or cold?” Alex asked.
It was true he was stalling for time. The spells April and Juno will casting were no joke, especially pain, which was sometimes an all body agony in every muscle and other times specific. Juno had hit him in the gut with it earlier and the pain had been so sharp he’d blacked out for a moment on the way to the ground.
“Most spells don't do well sticking to wands. They’re temperamental. You never know how much the mage you’re going up against has done either. You fight someone trained against vertigo and they’ll just brush it off like it’s nothing,” Juno said.
Alex finally managed to get his breath, standing up straighter. He glanced at the spellcasting screen as new resistances appeared. Vertigo and pain were already there. Slow and cold shimmered into the list as he watched.
Still no numbers no matter how much he concentrated on it but he’d still take it.
“Four resistances now,” he said to Juno with a grin to deliberately tick the little witch off.
Juno turned to April throwing up our hands. “Do you see what I'm dealing with here? This is his butt and here are the handkerchiefs,” she said, making a very explicit gesture.
April waved Juno away and turned away from her.
“Okay, okay, I get it. I don't need the puppet show too, it’s gross.” She walked over to where Alex was standing and looked him up and down.
“Shall we continue?” she asked.
She had a bag of earth on her hip, collected from the abandoned property next door to the factory. Alex had learned that most of April's magic was very closely connected to the earth itself and so fighting on a pure concrete floor put her at a disadvantage.
Although the factory floor did have a few cracks in it, giving access to the earth below, it simply wasn't as good as the handful of dirt tossed down to cast a spell on.
“Hell yes,” Alex said and then a wild impulse rose up inside him that he obeyed without thinking, stepping forward and kissing April on the lips. When he stepped back her eyes were wide and so were Juno's.
“Well, I don't have all day,” Alex said to the two of them.
Juno and April glanced at each other, some unspoken message passing between them. Alex saw that April had blushed a little too, a pink spot appearing on a cheek that matched her pink hair.
“You asked for it, you cheeky wolf,” April said finally. She tossed a handful of earth across the ground and then shouted vine. Above her Alex saw the translucent screen open up and the code streaming down and heard the music he’d heard before, out at the house when they were fighting blood golem and the weredogs. From the earth near his feet thick vines shot up, wrapping around his ankles and climbing to his knees.
“Fireball,” Juno said, flame suddenly appearing in a hand. She hurled it without waiting for him to be ready. Alex raised an arm to block it. The fireball hit, immediately burning off his fur and charring his skin. He couldn’t dive out of the way because of April’s vines around his ankles.
He roared in pain, howling at the roof and saw both girls jumped back in shock, before they recovered. Although Juno was his mate and April waited in potential, the pain of the attacks was pushing the wildness up, seeking to transform him into a mindless animal.
Alex let out a breath and tried to calm himself, wondering exactly what would happen if he did go wild around Juno and Alex and April. Surely the mad wolf inside him wouldn't kill his own mate, right?
“Vertigo,” Juno called out, hitting him with the spell again. This time Alex managed to stay on his feet, even as he felt his stomach lurch like he wanted to puke his entire breakfast onto the floor.
“Oh let’s do that again,” Juno said, seeing she hadn’t managed to knock him down.
After that, the spells blurred, Alex frequently hitting the floor, getting charred by fireballs and getting flung across the room.
He knew eleven spells himself but it seemed that Juno and April had an endless list virtually. At one point April hit with a spell she called gasp and he'd found his mouth shut sealed shut, his lungs unable to move.
It was only short-term, a minute or so but he’d been on the brink of passing out before the spell had broken.
It had obviously taken its toll on April, who was swaying on her feet from the effort of it.
Alex lost track of time, but eventually at some point the two girls ran out of mana. He found himself on his back, looking up at the rafters and the roof high above, feeling every part of him hurting. After a moment of laying there he managed to
get to his feet, feeling the sickening lurch of vertigo still working on him.
Juno and April were sitting with their backs against some giant piece of machinery, the pair of them exhausted. Alex managed to take three steps towards them under the influence of vertigo before he fell to his knees, finally losing his balance.
“You two would be so screwed now,” he said crawling on hands and knees toward them.
He saw the translucent screen open above Juno, the little witch looking like she was about to pass out from exhaustion.
“Yeah, well, telekinesis,” she said and waved towards a little pebble that was sitting on the concrete between them.
Alex wasn't quite sure what happened next. All he saw was a blur of walls and door as he went shooting away from Juno and April, out of the building, through the open gate and halfway down the street. Thankfully, vertigo had canceled out and despite his exhaustion he managed to land on his feet, although his claws left long gashes in the road.
Somehow, Juno had thrown him hundreds of feet with little more than a wave of the hand.
The moment Alex got his balance he felt the digging sensation of fishhooks in all of his muscles, the Great Barrier pulling on him. He looked around but he couldn't see anyone, but that didn't mean that there was no one there. Although this part of town was the dying industrial section, interspersed between factories were abandoned homes and in them sometimes there were squatters.
The pain of the Great Barrier grew, lancing through every muscle, the fishhooks pulling with extreme force. Despite the fact he was still quite injured. Alex couldn't maintain his hybrid form and instead immediately shifted back to human. The agony of the Great Barrier receded the moment he did.
“Holy crap,” Alex said to himself, looking around. He saw a shadow moving away from a dusty window, probably the person who’d seen him land in the street and the cause of the Great Barrier acting on him. The pain of it had been so extreme it had literally shifted him back to human? He’d have to remember that.
Alex decided not to hang around out there. As he hobbled back to the factory he looked over his stats again, seeing that now he was in human form he was healing far slower.
There wasn't much he could do about it. He could feel eyes upon him, curious people watching from abandoned homes.
Eventually that feeling vanished as he reached the factory and went back inside to find April and Juno sitting together. Juno was unconscious, laying back with her mouth open, as though she was asleep. April had her hands around her, hugging the little witch. Now he was out of sight of curious onlookers, Alex shifted to his hybrid state and immediately felt better as his healing accelerated again. He crouched down beside Juno and touched her. Her skin felt cold like she’d just emerged from chill water.
“Chaos magic must've surged but then it took too much,” April said, stroking a hand down the side of Juno's face. Alex realized that April was drip-feeding Juno what little mana she had left.
Although he needed his mana to heal, Alex pushed most of what he had into Juno. As he watched, a pink flush returned to Juno skin and she opened her eyes, looking up at Alex.
“Did you see how far I threw you? Should get a medal for that,” she murmured and then gave a smile.
“It’s lucky we parked Boris to the side. I would have taken the poor guy out,” Alex said, squeezing her hand.
The stayed like that for a little while until Juno was able to get to her feet. It was obvious the day was well and truly done. They went back out to Boris, April taking the driver's seat and Juno and Alex sitting in the back.
Juno was awake but silent, the surge of chaos magic seemingly to have exhausted her.
April yawned as she started Boris. They drove out of the abandoned industrial part of town, heading for home. Alex and April talked a little on the way back about his newfound resistances, April confirming they were growing far faster than any other mage she’d ever heard about.
It was late afternoon by the time they arrived home. Alex was still in his hybrid form, the last of his injuries healing up. He got out of Boris and immediately smelled blood. Werewolf blood.
Nia’s blood.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. Juno was finally steady on her feet unaided so he rushed out of the garage and into the house to find Nia calmly sitting at the kitchen table in hybrid form, doused in blood, methodically eating cinnamon donuts. She had long cuts down one of her arms that were slowly seeping blood as her body worked to close the wounds.
“Nia, what happened? Are you okay?” Alex said, reaching out to touch her hand. Nia nodded and swallowed a mouthful of donut.
“I had a run-in with some mages when I was on my way back from the central records office. I had to leave two dead bodies in a park a few streets in here, unfortunately.”
She must have seen the expression on Alex's face and knew what was happening inside him. The wild rage felt like it had risen to his ears, and now he was barely keeping his head above the water. She reached out with cinnamon sugar coated fingertips and touched him on the cheek.
“I want to know where that Corvus outpost is,” Alex growled. April and Juno had finally come into the kitchen. Both approached Nia who quickly reassured them that she was fine and recovering well.
“I really am okay, but I agree with Alex. We need to get moving on Corvus as soon as possible,” Nia said and then calmly took another donut.
Alex stood up, feeling the urge to howl into the sky. In his hybrid form the wolf was much closer and had much more sway over his decisions. He wanted to run straight to where these mages were and tear them to pieces.
The rage didn’t care his mana was almost exhausted and still receding from what it took to heal his injuries. It was dumb and violent and wanted mage blood.
With great effort he managed to turn his thoughts away from murder and violence. There were only four of them against who knew how many Corvus mages plus any mercenaries they might have hired. He had to be smarter than he felt in his hybrid form.
“Here, eat,” April said, passing him a sugary donut and then stroking him down the arm.
Alex took a bite of it. As he did he saw a glance pass between Nia and Juno laden with meaning, Juno trying to hide her head nod towards April. Nia raised her eyebrows and Juno forgot all pretense of secrecy.
“He kissed April in the middle of training,” Juno said, gossiping as though Alex wasn't standing right there.
April blushed and looked at the floor. Although Juno and Nia were tired, they laughed, the sound of it calming Alex's fury.
The four of them here were safe together and although April wasn't part of his pack the wolf inside him was certain that she would be. That calmness the contentment, the feeling that everything was as it should be was overwhelming.
“We need to get to the shower and then cleanse all this. Otherwise when my mother and grandmother get back they’re going to kill me,” Juno said.
There was more than one bathroom in the house and despite the undercurrent between April and Alex she went her separate way to get clean. Nia, Juno and Alex went into the large shower together. Nia’s wounds had finally stopped bleeding but she was still exhausted from the effort, Alex noticing she was regrowing fangs. He and Juno gently washed the blood off her.
Not long after that they were in the kitchen eating the dinner that Alex had prepared. He was too tired to put much effort into it so it was mostly cold cuts, salami and cheese and olives, some strawberries, chopped apple with bread with butter and orange juice. Despite the simplicity of it they all gulped it down.
By the time they finished it was only just past seven in the evening. But soon the house was quiet and dark as everyone went off to bed early. As usual, Alex found himself between Juno and Nia. Juno was asleep the moment she touched the pillow. Alex was still in his hybrid form, the last of his injuries fading away, facing Nia, who was falling asleep.
“So was your day as exciting as mine?” Nia asked him sleepily.
“Wel
l… April and Juno beat the hell out of me and I may have made a deal with Bailey to spread to magical society my name and the fact I’m a werewolf mage and that Corvus attacked me and were behind the blood golem. So I don’t know how that’s going to turn out.”
Nia raised her eyebrows at him in the dark.
“Well, that almost beats my news. There's paperwork at the central office about your adoption. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bureaucracy they want us to go through, so when we’re feeling up to it I think we all need to break in and steal what we want,” Nia said.
With that she gave him a gentle kiss and then closed her eyes, quickly falling asleep.
Alex rolled over on to his back and stared at the ceiling. Despite the exhaustion flooding through him, he found sleep elusive. The idea that just a few miles away there was a building and in it some paperwork that might reveal who his parents were was suddenly unnerving.
He'd never even glanced at the papers that Jane had given him, stuffing it into a box, deciding in his teenage mind that she was his mother and not the ones who’d abandoned him.
Now that he was an adult he was realizing perhaps that wasn't the entire story. Someone had cast a spell on him, something incredibly powerful that lasted until his 25th birthday, keeping him hidden and also separate from his true werewolf nature. It had also protected him from the insanity that took over werewolves who didn't shift.
Such actions spoke of protection and care. Maybe even love. Considering the significant forces arrayed against them and the attacks they'd endured, Alex was starting to piece together a hypothesis that seemed to make his stomach turn worse than vertigo did.
This was it: there was something very different about him, his magical nature, and when it had been discovered, someone had attempted to kill him. His parents had hidden him and perhaps had given their lives to preserve his.
Alex could feel his old teenage anger still. It didn’t care about excuses or reasons or motivations. There was a hole in his childhood. The knowledge that he’d been abandoned. Although Jane had been wonderful a mother to him in every way she could be, there had been some kind of loss, a kind of crack in his soul.