by Harry Nix
“Shifter charms are a little out of our budget right now so we make do with the baskets,” Julius said.
That feeling of being in someone's parent's house intensified. Alex almost wanted to take his shoes off. He followed Julius into a large room that had a wooden table in the middle covered with papers. The walls were covered too. On the back wall there were maps of Baxter and the surrounding territories.
“Werewolf territories. The one on the left is forty years ago. The one of the right is last year. What’s different?” Julius asked.
Alex walked over and immediately saw the differences. In the map from forty years ago the area surrounding Baxter was covered in a multitude of packs. Whomever had made the map had done their best to sketch out territories and written names of packs within them. To the north of the map there was a gigantic territory with Arkovis written across it. On the map from last year the Arkovis territory was down to a fifth of that size and Alex saw there were business names written in the old held territory. He looked for Lowe but didn’t see it.
“Arkovis had a lot of territory and now these companies have it all.”
“It's always the same. Starts with werewolves holding and ends with vampires or mages owning. Always,” Julius said, coming over to stand beside Alex.
“I’ll make you a coffee,” he said, touching Alex on the shoulder before heading over to the side of the room where there was a small bench with cups and coffee-making equipment.
As Julius prepared and stirred, Alex examined various other papers pinned up on the walls. There were endless property sale documents, stretching back over a century. Someone had attempted to color-coded them at one point. Alex saw a V written on some of the pages and M on others which he supposed was vampires or mages. All up, it looked like Julius had spent quite a long time tracking precisely how it was that vampires and mages had been screwing over werewolves for decades.
Alex remembered what Bailey had said to him the first time they'd met, about the bitey ones and magic ones screwing over the furry ones since time immemorial.
Julius returned and handed Alex a cup of coffee, which tasted damn good.
“So is it true what my daughter says about you? You can do magic?” Julius asked without preamble.
“I can,” Alex said, transferring his coffee cup from one hand to the other and summoning a flame to the tip of his finger before extinguishing it.
“I'm just wearing a protection ring. That’s all me,” he said.
“Do you think you could teach another werewolf?” Julius asked. Although Julius was calm and happy Alex sensed a hint of desperation and hope in his voice.
“I don't know. Werewolves don't have magic they can use do they?”
“Much to our dismay and to our tragedy,” Julius said, drinking some of his coffee. He waved Alex over to another large sheet of paper stapled to the wall. On it was lists of enclaves, houses, covens, and packs. There were four headings: Mages, Vampires, Witches, Werewolves.
“The witches are sympathetic to our cause. After all, they do mate with us quite often. There are four seats at the table, but in reality there are only three. Then you look at the power the mages and vampires have from sticking together and realize there are two that are in control,” Julius said.
Alex read down the list of names. Some of them he recognized from his conversations with Juno and Nia.
“There are lots of werewolf packs, why not make alliances?” Alex asked.
Julius smiled and sipped his coffee. “Nia told me you were new,” he said with a laugh, although not unkindly.
“You can't really run a society where any random werewolves can challenge the Alpha and kill them. After all, the one who can kill the president isn't necessarily the best one to be president. I’ve been trying to change it for years. To challenge now you must have standing, must have territory but cultural changes are slow. Werewolves from different packs will cooperate for a little while under certain circumstances, such as when the truce of the call is broken but soon enough it falls apart. Hell, I been trying to get them to build these cabins now for fifteen years and idiot werewolves continue to refuse and some of them burn them down. They're still living in the past where your territory is whatever you can hold. But without a structure and no legal ownership over the land the vampires and mages continue to take whatever they want.”
Alex sipped his coffee to give himself a moment to think. The whole point of this trip was to make alliances, to gather werewolves and now Julius telling him that it was virtually impossible or that it would only hold together for a short while.
But Alex had to try anyway. The maps on the wall told the cold hard truth: disorganized werewolves would always be beaten by organized vampires and mages. Alex wasn't quite sure what the story was with the witches, considering that their power appeared to be symbolic but perhaps they were just as disorganized as the werewolves were.
“Did Nia tell you we were attacked by a blood golem? Mages took werewolves and sent the golem to kill me for some unknown reason. We captured one of the assassins and they said it was Corvus,” Alex said.
“The pain psychos… sounds about right,” Julius said. He finished his coffee and took Alex's empty cup over to the bench before returning to the table, waving Alex over. There was a map on the table covered in red circles with numbers in them.
“I’ve been sending out scouts to talk to other packs. By my count eighty-seven werewolves were taken and we still can’t account for more. Could be easily a hundred which seems right because those Corvus sons of bitches are OCD as well,” Julius said.
Alex looked over the numbers, seeing that the werewolf packs closest to Baxter had suffered the worst, one pack losing twenty werewolves. He wasn’t great reading maps, but he had a rough idea of where they were. There was no circle but Alex asked anyway just to be sure. “Did you lose anyone?”
“I think we’re too far south and too large. They go for the packs living closer to nature, as it were. We have guns and just between you and me, some landmines. I've made a very evident to mages and vampires over the years that any attempt to take what's mine will exact a heavy cost,” he said.
Alex suddenly remembered Henry telling him that to get the attacks to stop, they must cost the mages in blood.
“Can you help me gather werewolves who want to come back against Corvus? Is that even possible?” Alex said.
“Nia told me your plan. I can ask around but first I'm going to send you to meet the werewolf emissary. He belongs to another pack, not far from here, Greenacre. I'm trying to bring some civilization and cooperation to this whole thing is that means I must follow my own rules. You’re going to meet an Alpha named Jasper. He is the emissary of our packs. The one who figuratively and literally has a seat at the table. Tell him your story about the blood golem, the attacks, everything. Show him your magic. He’ll get in contact with the mages, vampires and the witches and we'll see what there is to say.”
It wasn't quite the answer Alex was hoping for. Although he’d somewhat embraced Howey’s idea of asymmetrical warfare and the idea of winning hearts and minds and had even begun to put it into place using Bailey to spread information there was still a part of him that wanted revenge.
Every time they'd been attacked and Nia repeatedly injured, the calls from that side of him were growing stronger and he was finding fewer reasons to resist.
Going wild had felt good. He personally wasn't there, but then to come out of it and discover he'd ripped the roof off the car and was on the brink of slaughtering the mages who’d attacked his mates… it was violent and sweet, like blood. After the attack at the mall Alex had sometimes imagined leading a large pack of werewolves against Corvus, flooding over the walls and tearing all of them to pieces, leaving just one of them alive to tell the story to the rest.
Alex realized he was growling under his breath when Julius clapped him on the shoulder again.
“I understand your anger. If the damn Great Barrier wasn't in place
maybe people would know what was happening to us. It hides all the crimes, protects the vampires and the mages when they come to run us off our land.”
“You know, I spoke to a mage recently who didn't seem too happy with the Great Barrier either,” Alex said.
“I agree with them. After all, it looks like a hundred werewolves just vanished. They’re probably dead by now. Nothing will happen if we go to the police. Most of them don't even have birth certificates. Even when a crime is investigated, the police can't see the clues because the Great Barrier pulls on them. Video cameras get knocked out or fried. I’d tear the Great Barrier to pieces if I could.”
They stood there for a moment, Alex looking at the map on the back wall again, covered in packs. At first he’d thought the Great Barrier was protection for supernaturals but it was becoming clear it wasn’t working for werewolves at all, and not the normals.
It was just another layer of complication, another step down into understanding the new world he’d been thrown into.
“Nia told me you were looking for your parents too. I’m sorry to tell you I’ve never heard of an Alpha called Lowe. But I’m going to keep looking. It might be a fake name so I’m looking for Alphas with witch wives who went missing,” Julius said.
Alex nodded, his gaze running over the multitude of packs listed. Who knew, maybe he was really Alex Arkovis or Alex Trimble.
Maybe Alex wasn’t even his real name.
Before he could say anything more there was a sudden clattering at the front of the building. The door burst open and in came a horde of women talking at high speed.
“Business time is over. Now it’s time to meet the family. I hope you make it out alive,” Julius said with a laugh.
16
The roasted boar was salt and fat and oil and smoky goodness and Alex wolfed it down. All around him the rowdy party that had started late afternoon continued on in full swing. Down the long tables were platters of roasted boar covered in salt and glistening with oil and interspersed between them were bowls of roasted root vegetables and wild gathered salads. It was dusk, transitioning to twilight, and in the distance rock music was playing from one of the cabins.
“You won't find this in the city!” a man across from Alex roared, and then grinned at the cheer that came back. Alex tried to remember his name but it was lost, partially in the blur of everyone he’d been introduced to and somewhat due to the spiced vodka they were drinking.
After Alex had talked with Julius, he’d quickly been introduced to the rest the family and the pack. Three of Nia’s sisters were there: Mia, Lia and Pia (who was pregnant) and if Alex thought it was disconcerting how similar they looked to Nia it was nothing compared to Nia’s mother, Emma. The two of them looked like identical twins. Alex had met other wives, half-brothers and sisters, children and other werewolves but there were simply too many names to remember.
Alex took a gulp of the spiced vodka. It turned out the pack wasn’t just brewing their own beer but also a strong spirit from root vegetables, which they were then distilling in flagrant violation of the law. The first mouthful had nearly blown Alex's head off. Although high-proof, it was utterly delicious, carrying hints of cinnamon and other spices. Jugs of it kept appearing on the tables, some of them flavored with fruit juices, berries, honey, and slices of lemon.
“Do it again werewolf mage!” a drunken girl called out from down the table. Alex dutifully complied, compressing flame finger on itself five times and then casting it. A flame appeared at the tip of each finger on his right hand and a cheer went up from the assorted werewolves, although he did see a few dirty looks here and there. Nia had explained to him that as werewolves didn't possess their own magic some of them were inherently distrustful of it, given their dislike and sometimes hatred of mages and other magic users who used it to abuse werewolves. On balance though, most of the werewolves seemed delighted and happy that one of their own could use magic.
Nia wrapped her arm around Alex, kissing him on the side of the neck before grabbing other jug and filling his glass again. This time the spiced drink was colored deep red with some kind of berry.
“Enough magic you,” she whispered in his ear before pinching him.
Alex canceled the spell, the flames disappearing and went back to his plate that was heaped high with meat and a few of the roasted tubers. Down the table he saw someone's phone light up as they hit a button and changed the song that was playing from somewhere over near the cabins.
Alex shook his head at the incongruous nature of it all. Out here it was wilderness, dirt and dust and remote, the werewolves hunting boars to live on and most of them sleeping in a cave system on pelts they'd taken from bears.
But then there were bits of technology. Some of the werewolves had phones, although there was no signal out here. He’d even spotted a television in one of the cabins that was like a small self-contained unit, complete with a fridge, a washing machine and other amenities.
It was part of Julius’ attempt to ensure their legal hold over this land for the werewolves. Legal hold meant permanent structures to prove they actually lived here and had a continuous association with the land.
“Again, again! Let's run it again!” Daisy yelled as she grabbed his arm. She was six years old, one of the werewolf children who were constantly running around the camp. Because of the lack of shifter charms most of the kids were naked in their human forms so they generally spent their time either as wolves or in their hybrid form.
“Okay, but this time I’m gonna win,” Alex said, hauling himself up off the cut log that was his seat.
All up and down the table people were constantly coming and going to eat and drink but then leaving to sing or run or fight. Children were roaming everywhere.
Alex followed Daisy away from the table and over to the obstacle course where she and other children had beaten him six times straight.
“Don't screw up the hybrid leap this time,” Daisy said seriously. In hybrid form she was quite small and it was still strange to Alex to see a little wolf girl talking to him.
He took a few debt deep breaths, shifted into his hybrid state and then looked around the obstacle course again. It stretched down the side of the camp and out over to some low rocks before looping back again. All through it were obstacles that required he frequently shift between human, hybrid, and wolf, depending on the nature of the obstacle. There were small gaps only a human could fit through immediately followed by a large drop that required he be in hybrid form to avoid injury. There was also a leap up to the top of the rocks after coming out of a tunnel that was shaped in such a way that it was much easier to run as a wolf than as a human. As he shifted, the area around him lit up, his werewolf vision far superior in the dark than a human.
“So what do I get if I win?” Alex asked Daisy.
Daisy snorted and laughed. “You're not gonna win.”
“Okay, what do you want if you win?”
“Teach me how to do a spell!” the little girl answered immediately.
Alex felt a painful constriction in his chest. Although there were werewolves who were distrustful of magic it was clear that most had a desperate desire for it — anything to protect them and their children.
Although most the afternoon had been about fun and joy and meeting countless people, some of the conversations have strayed to dark places… stories of entire werewolf packs wiped out, their lands taken, every werewolf killed down to the last child. Werewolves who would vanish, never to be seen again. Arkovis who’d held all the land and now had but a sliver left.
“I'm working on it,” Alex said and then immediately regretted saying it as Daisy’s face lit up. Damn high proof alcohol. “I mean, I might not be able to do it, but we can still have fun right?” he quickly added.
Daisy nodded earnestly. Over at the table many of the werewolves were watching Alex again. Others had spread themselves out along the obstacle course, laughing and cheering at his previous attempts to beat the children.
“Go!” Daisy said, shifting to wolf and bolting away.
“Hey!” Alex said and then followed suit, heading for the first tunnel. It was pitch black inside which meant he had to be in wolf form to see anything at all.
Watching out for the bars that had been welded across it he ran through it as fast as he could, dodging around the bars and squeezing himself through smaller gaps.
Daisy was already ahead of him, having run the course multiple times. Alex followed, his head spinning a little from the spiced spirit. He quickly switched to human form to squeeze through a narrow gap and to hybrid to jump up and grab the bars of a ladder set like a bridge over a deep mud pit.
Disappointing those who were cheering for him to fall, Alex swung his way along, shifting to wolf as he flung himself off the end and down into a narrow dark tunnel.
As he ran, he felt a strange tiredness coming over him, like he was exercising a muscle he didn't even know we had. Something was exhausting about shifting between wolf to man and back again constantly. He did his best, dodging around a heavy swinging log that he’d cracked his head on earlier in the day before finally reaching the finishing line.
Daisy was waiting for him, standing in hybrid form.
“Okay, you win,” Alex said, panting. He gave the little girl a high five and a quick hug before she ran off into the darkness, followed by a hoard of other children.
Alex felt the presence at his side and turned to find Nia, her lips stained red with the berries from the drink.
“You need to stop playing with those children otherwise my mother is never going to let up about us having some,” she said warmly before giving him a deep, passionate kiss. Alex wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, thinking that perhaps it wasn't just Emma who wanted children but maybe Nia as well.
She'd spent large parts the afternoon with many of the women fussing around Pia, discussing all things pregnancy.