Werewolf Mage Box Set 1

by Harry Nix

  Monroe scratched the back of his neck. “Didn’t anyone tell you that's a rude question to ask?”

  “I'm kinda new at this whole supernatural thing. It’s only been a few weeks.”

  “What do you mean a few weeks? Haven’t you been a werewolf your whole life?”

  “Nope. There was some kind of spell on me so I didn't know. Then I shifted, and suddenly I had magic,” Alex said.

  He became aware that he was giving away all the secrets. There was something so comfortable about Monroe. It was easy to talk to him with his kind of comfortable sleepy grandpa demeanor. Alex shut his mouth and then crossed his arms as if to try to make a barrier to remind himself not to say anything incriminating.

  “Were you just at the Corvus outpost?” Monroe asked. What Alex didn't answer he shook his head.

  “I know you were because I saw you, after Juno went in with a head full of fire. Do you want to explain why she did that?”

  Alex found the urge to answer almost overwhelming. He wanted to set this record straight.

  It's a spell Alex thought.

  He cast Know Thyself. There was indeed a spell working on him but it was question marks. Monroe hadn’t told him the name so it didn’t have one.

  “Whatever it is that you've cast on me you need to stop it right now,” Alex said, letting the growl into his voice.

  Monroe chuckled and then waved his fingers. A small trickle of gold dust fell from them. The compulsion to talk vanished, as did the question marks from the list of active spells.

  “I'm a fae, or fairy, but we prefer fae,” Monroe said. They stood there looking at each other for a moment before Monroe spoke again. “We found the Bronson's. Both dead and clothes muddy. To the normals it will look like they were kidnapped so the apartment block could be blown up. But you and I know the necromancers took them so they could track you.”

  Alex had heard a similar story from Stephen, the young necromancer they’d captured. His mind suddenly leaped across to wondering if Howey and Puzo were at risk now. Would they be executed and brought back from the dead just to hunt him down?

  “So anyone who knew me is at risk?” Alex asked.

  Monroe shook his head. “It's a very short-term thing from what I understand. Provided you don’t live with them, or beside them, they can’t be used that way.”

  They stood there in silence, Alex realizing that Monroe was using a technique on him, trying to get him to fill the awkwardness.

  Despite the fact there was no spell on him compelling him to trust Monroe, Alex felt like he could.

  “Bailey's dead. You know him?” Alex said.

  “The pawnbroker. I heard his shops were empty and seared clean. Do you know who did it?”

  Alex told him about what he had found, Bailey tortured and pinned on a spike. Monroe wasn't writing anything down but kept nodding and sometimes gritting his teeth.

  “So that explains why Juno went after Corvus, being the most likely to torture,” Monroe said. Alex nodded and then just let it all out in a rush. The blood golem, the missing werewolves, the attacks, the necromancers. He glossed over drugging and eventually killing the mercenary but said that a dying mage had given the name.

  “That was you at the mall with the silver everywhere and the screaming normals?” Monroe said.

  “I was meant to be meeting with the head of Xavo. I got Henry Markovic instead. We talked and then someone attacked. I don’t think Henry was behind it, as far as I know.”

  “Wherever you go, problems follow. You notice that?”

  Alex felt a small burst of anger, partially because Monroe had nailed some of his own thoughts.

  “I'm not causing this. The mages back off and I’ll go live my life in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I heard there was a change in one of the packs. You have some new territory... in the middle of nowhere.”

  Alex nodded, but didn't answer otherwise.

  Monroe lowered his voice and stepped closer. It was only then that Alex noticed he had a stain on his shirt, a small sticky handprint from a child.

  “The mages and the vampires have been working together for as long as anyone can remember and anyone who is not a mage or a vampire gets destroyed. So, personally, I'm glad that Corvus outpost is gone. You need to watch out now kid. You fight one of them and the rest can get pretty angry,” he said.

  Alex wasn’t quite sure what to say so he stayed silent.

  “What happened to your eyes anyway? They’re glittering,” Monroe said.

  “It’s a long story,” Alex said. The tiredness was catching up on him.

  “It always is,” Monroe said. He got back in his car and then drove away without another word, leaving Alex standing out on the street wondering what exactly the hell had just happened.

  Alex finally gathered himself, went back to Boris and retrieved Juno and his bag before going inside.

  The lounge was still cold. The television was partially frosted over but most of the ice had receded. Alex dumped the bag of wands on the table and carried Juno to the shower fully clothed. It was finally under the warm spray that the little witch stirred, sleepily opening her eyes as Alex scrubbed the blood off her clothing.

  He began to undo her buttons to get her out of the bloody clothes.

  “You’re cute so we can if you want to but I'm just super tired so you're gonna have to do everything,” Juno murmured, throwing her arms around his neck. She kissed him on the side of the neck but then fell asleep again.

  She didn’t wake up again, not even through him drying her off and laying her on the bed.

  Alex laid down beside her, feeling the lure of sleep calling. It was hard to believe he was back in this bed again. The intervening time was like something out of a horror movie.

  As he dropped off to sleep his last thought was of Harmony. He hoped the scared teenager would be okay.

  23

  Alex padded through the forest with Juno sitting on his back loudly eating from a bag of chips.

  He wouldn't say she was back to her old self, or entirely happy, but overnight she’d recovered somewhat, even cracking a few jokes here and there. In the morning they'd gone to the Grease Trap and had breakfast before visiting a variety of magical shops to offload the rings and wands in exchange for cash.

  They’d bought a magical defense ring for a breathtaking sum and Alex was already was working on copying across the gibberish code, hoping later he’d be able to work out how to edit it so it was stronger. They’d also bought a few more protection rings and at the last minute had kept a wand that fired bolts of electricity, so Alex could examine it.

  Juno had floated the idea that they should start their own shop as a good way to get access to magical items and various spells so Alex could study them. Alex wasn't sure about the idea but Juno had good logic behind it.

  They’d talked about the hearts and minds that they needed to win and Juno's position was that running a shop where mages could bring in rings and wands and have them strengthened for low prices would win him a lot of goodwill, in addition to making connections. After all, it was becoming clear that not every mage in an enclave thought the same way.

  Despite buying the magical defense ring they still had a decent wad of cash. Alex deposited some of it into Howey’s bank account to help out with the rent and they took the rest back with them. He had to work out how much food a pack twenty-strong ate and then see how much money he needed to keep it all running.

  With everything they’d had to do in the morning, it was now mid-afternoon with a reasonable amount of walking ahead of them.

  As he walked and Juno crunched chips, occasionally passing him one, Alex found his mind straying back to Harmony. Hopefully they hadn’t shot, or rather, tortured the messenger.

  Thinking about her led him to think about the attack on the Corvus outpost itself and Juno. They hadn't discussed it at all; not her leaving her home, the frost in the lounge, nor her seemingly unstoppable magic power literally tearing mag
es in half.

  Juno’s magic went up and down of its own accord but it also seemed connected to her emotional state. She’d become enraged and her magic rose to the occasion. It almost seemed to Alex like the magical version of going wild.

  But Alex was staying silent about it. If Juno wasn't ready to talk he wasn't going to ask, at least not yet.

  They continued marching along, Juno soon finishing a bag of chips. Alex had grown tired of copying the gibberish code from the magical defense ring and instead had returned to his homebrew fireball spell.

  It was longer than his homebrew healing spell and he felt like he was close but not quite. He had the bits to summon the flame in the palm of his hand and then another part he thought would change the size but still wasn't quite sure how to disconnect it from his body so when he tried to throw it, he didn't end up with a long thin line of flames.

  He’d examined Juno’s spell quite a few times but there wasn't anything he recognized that performed the function he wanted.

  The day was warm and it was pleasant walking through the forest. The further away they got from Baxter the better Alex felt. The scent of the trees seemed to grow the feeling of happiness inside him. He felt like he wanted to dive into a lake to wash pollution off his skin.

  Although, he did recognize it was his current form affecting his position on the issue of civilization. The wolf loved the wilderness. The hybrid version of him wanted to fight, to take his mates to bed. The human version of him wanted to go to the Grease Trap and have hot showers and sometimes watch a movie, although preferably nothing from the Air Bud series.

  Alex could see he would have to make a decision soon. After all, his pack was now twenty-strong but it was quite a distance from Baxter, which didn't exactly make going back and forth to fetch rings and other things to edit very easy.

  And what if he decided to take up Juno’s idea to run a shop? He’d essentially have to live in Baxter and then what would happen? He'd abandon his territory and drag a bunch of werewolves into a city that they hated?

  Maybe he could visit Julius, check the map and see if there was any land closer to Baxter that didn’t smell like exhaust fumes all the time.

  But of course that probably meant challenging another Alpha. Surely it couldn't be a good thing to murder for territory. He could somewhat justify killing Jasper, at least on the grounds that he perhaps was behind the attack. But taking territory to make your commute easier? There must be a better way.

  This is what Julius had been talking about. The wild violent nature of werewolves and trying to overlay civilization atop it. In civilization if you wanted a piece of land, you worked out how to buy it, if you could. But for werewolves that acquisition was based on violence.

  Alex heard a howl from the trees and recognized it as one of his new pack members. He also heard Nia and his heart left at the sound.

  Alex howled with all his might, Juno hanging on for dear life and laughing. Werewolves came running out of the trees, Nia leading the charge. She practically pounced on him.

  Juno managed to scramble off his back at the last moment as Nia pushed Alex over and rested on top of him, nuzzling at his face. She eventually let him up and shifted into her hybrid form.

  “More werewolves are waiting to join the pack,” she told Alex.

  Alex nodded and then Nia shifted back to her wolf form. Juno got on her back, grumbling that at least this time she wasn’t going to be thrown off.

  As a group they walked the remaining way back to the small village. When they arrived Alex saw a congregation of werewolves up on the hill, on the outskirts. He wanted to see April first before dealing with them so he went down to the main house. As soon as he shifted to hybrid form, Nia stepped closer and looked at him with concern.

  “Your eyes have so much silver in them now,” she said.

  Alex had seen himself in the mirror on and off but the change must have been too gradual for him to notice. He looked down at his hand, the one torn off and regrown.

  It still had a few small flakes of metal in it. It seemed the metal was slowly disappearing. Alex had hoped this was what would happen with his eyes. He realized then that he’d cast purify at the Corvus compound to get the bullet out of his chest and it hadn’t ripped the silver out of his eyes.

  April came rushing out of the house to give Alex a kiss and then stepped back, looking at his eyes too.

  “Wow, they really sparkly,” she said.

  “Are you, like, a secret Twilight fan?” Jacob said from behind Alex and started laughing. Alex turned around to look at the young werewolf.

  “Hey, you’re the one called Jacob, who’s a werewolf,” he said.

  With his mates laughing and Jacob and a few of his pack, Alex felt great happiness rising up inside him. It felt like he was home.

  “They've been waiting a while up there,” Nia said, pointing to the assembled werewolves on the hill.

  “I’ll be right back,” Alex said, shifting to his wolf form and padding up to them, some of his pack accompanying him.

  He did a quick headcount when he got there. Seventeen werewolves. Twelve women, four men and one child, a little girl who was maybe five years old. Alex wasted no time in holding out his hand and pulling each werewolf across the line one by one, bringing them into the pack.

  With the new additions they’d be up to thirty-seven… and their food situation would become much more serious.

  When he was finished, he told them to take back their homes and get some food.

  After that, Alex raced back to the main house, eager to see Nia, Juno and April, an idea on his mind about his silver-infused eyes. He found the three of them in the kitchen along with Esme and Lydia. They were all talking and cooking but mostly drinking out of teacups filled with whiskey. Juno’s eye were reddened and she was hitting the whiskey harder than the others. Alex assumed she’d told them about Bailey.

  “Here’s old bright eyes,” Esme said when he walked into the kitchen. Lydia and his three mates all broke into laughter.

  “April, can I talk with you?” Alex said, nodding towards the door. April wiped off her hands and followed him out down from the kitchen to a smaller room set up like a meeting space. She gave him a kiss as she passed by him.

  “Is there any risk casting a superpowered Know Thyself? I want to know what’s happening with my eyes,” Alex asked.

  She shrugged, a movement he watched with great interest, considering she was wearing a white tank top and no bra. She was still wearing the stolen necklace which was resting in her cleavage.

  “No risk apart from draining your mana. But there’s a limit to what it will show you. You'll find out the percentage of fat on your body and how much your bones weigh, how much calcium you have but once you get to a certain point that's it.”

  Alex took a seat at the table.

  “You want to be my spell buddy for a minute?”

  April nodded and sat down beside him, within arms reach.

  Alex opened his spellcasting screen, quickly checking through the various manas. He had his standard blue, which was filled to the top. Red, sex magic was full, gray pain mana was full. Death was but a sliver that he’d pulled through the dead chicken. Nature was three-quarters full. Alex hadn't used it so wasn't quite sure how strong it was, but he figured he had enough to cast massively powerful Know Thyself spell.

  As he was checking, he realized he should start naming things properly. Sex magic was only called that because that’s what Juno called it. But then he thought of them as mana, not magic. The blue bar didn’t even have a name, either.

  He’d stopped programming the game only recently but already he was getting sloppy.

  Alex brought up his homebrew healing spell and had another read through it. He was fairly certain it wasn’t to blame for the silver in his eyes – after all his hand had metal in it and he hadn’t used the spell then. But something was clearly happening with his eyes and he didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night screami
ng as silver decided to start burning again.

  He closed the healing spell and brought up Know Thyself, the very first spell he’d learned

  Working quickly, he began compressing it, folding it over on to itself. At first it was easy but soon it felt like he was pushing heavy weights. He began to feed mana into it as he went, and it grew easier again.

  He had to use a significant jolt of red sex magic to hit Know Thyself 50x. Then he made a new one, repeating the process until he had another. That exhausted most of the red.

  Pushing the two 50x spells together was like trying to move a mountain. Alex started dropping bursts of pain into it.

  Finally he grit his teeth and pushed. For a moment he felt like his skin would split and then suddenly the two spells collapsed together. As it did, it gulped down what was left of the red sex magic, all the pain and some of the nature. He had the sliver of death remaining, a bit of blue and what was left of the green.

  “Okay, maybe that's enough,” April said from beside him, sensing what he was doing.

  Alex had up his status screen and was looking at his eyes. There was no new useful information there.

  With his mana dropping rapidly from powering the spell, Alex glanced over the rest of the screen.

  Active spells:

  Great Barrier

  Know Thyself 100x

  Alex frowned. He knew the Great Barrier was a spell, but it had never appeared in his list of active spells before.

  He looked at it, curious, and his desire to know what it was manifested itself. The spell opened up.

  Normally a spell would be compressed gibberish that he’d need to crack with more power but the Great Barrier was readable code, with no compression on it.

  A new screen opened and code spiraled down it. Alex felt a pain in his lungs as a deep and ancient cold settled there. The Great Barrier was millions of pages, maybe billions. It was libraries on top of libraries with uncountable books within.

  “What was that?” April asked in alarm.

  Alex started flicking through the code, looking for anything that made sense. His mana was dropping precipitously now to keep the code open.