by Harry Nix
Alex gave it one last try, feeling the death around them, the dead werewolves, the dead mages, and pulling on the magic, charging purify, folding it over fifty times in an instant. The spell roared through him, out his teeth and his shoulder, through the bones that Wind had broken. Finally, the black gunk moved, ripping away from Wind’s bones. This time, instead of erupting as a gout, it tore out of him like it was some living thing. Wind gave a great spasm and the black finally shot free of his body, taking a chunk of his chest with it.
Alex crashed to the side, feeling healing flames hit him as some of his werewolves used their rings on him. He cast it himself, using the death again, pressing the cold flame against his shoulder, and the moment the worst of the wound was healed up, he pressed it against Wind’s body. But it was too late. The exit of the black gunk had taken most of his heart with it, too.
Alex staggered to his feet, and then ducked as a fireball went shooting over his head. Twenty mages had appeared from behind the buildings armed with wands. Alex still had haste running and his cold anger was now bubbling. He wasn’t quite sure why he did it. Perhaps so Wind could fight one more time on the right side, not having his mind controlled. Instead of some offensive spell, throwing lightning or fire, Alex cast the reanimation spell, reaching into the dark and pulling Wind’s spirit toward him. There was no doubt there was no hope of saving him, of bringing him back to life. But he could feel the rage of the werewolf, the rage of being deceived, at being controlled. And as it came back, Alex caught a single name imbued with fury.
Eric.
Alex pulled the spirit into the body, and instead of domination this time, there was an encouragement, a kind of letting go, like the way you would turn a wild dog toward its enemies and loose the leash. Wind’s corpse leaped to its feet and then bounded toward the mages, who shot everything they could at it, but they couldn’t stop it. His spirit was powerful and infused with Alex’s magic. His body was far stronger than it had ever been in life. He tore into the mages, a whirlwind of flesh erupting as he did. Alex and his pack didn’t let him have all the fun. They waded in too, disarming mages, executing them, tearing heads off.
Eventually, Wind went down, torn to pieces by a spell, something that Alex only felt. It was similar to telekinesis, but sharpened, ripping him to pieces. His spirit faded away into the dark with a faint note of gratitude for one last final battle. Alex killed the mage who did it, slashing through the last of his shields and tearing his face off before crushing his skull with a great spurt of blood. When he got to his feet, he saw that they were far from the main part of the battle now.
Jacob was laughing, dancing from foot to foot with the sheer joy of it all. Some of the pack were using the last of their healing flame rings, but they were running low, so Alex took a moment to heal every one of them, before applying the cold black flame to his own leg. The sensation of death around them was immense, almost as much as when they had fought Corvus. He could feel, however, on the far side of the battle that the necromancers were drawing from the pool of death, gulping it down. He could feel spirits being hauled back, infused with rage, and let loose. There were even werewolves, their green eyes glowing, attacking their former pack members. Alex clapped Jacob on the shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he roared. They sprinted off toward the main part of the battle, leaping over the buildings and getting closer to a mass of mages and werewolves fighting in chaotic splendor. The closer he got, the more Alex could sense the werewolves around him. There was something about the battle that heightened it, charging the strands of that energy, winding them together like a braid. He could feel every living werewolf, and every dead one too. Through his sensation of death, he could feel every dead mage.
He knew Nia and April and Juno were on one side fighting viciously, Juno waving fire whips infused with chaotic magic, sixty feet long, slicing heads off with every slash. He could feel the vines erupting from the earth, April using them to tear mages to pieces. And between them, Nia dancing, protecting the other two, slaughtering mages with wild abandon. It was in the midst of this that Alex felt a new surge of awareness. The wild pack had arrived. Three hundred and six werewolves Alex knew instantly, without having to count. They had come to kill mages.
There was an enormous explosion then from some last-ditch wand that had been held back. A crater opened among the werewolves, killing seventy of them in an instant. Tendrils like April’s erupted from the hole and began grabbing anything they could and tearing it to pieces, whether it was mage or werewolf.
Alex felt the blow of the deaths like a strike to the heart and he roared, a cry that echoed out over the werewolves. For a moment, he felt their attention. Every werewolf in his pack. All of Darius’s. All of Simak’s. All that remained of Wind’s. He felt the wild packs, too, who saw him, the supreme alpha, enraged and powerful.
The strands of power shot through him like light. Unlike when he was fighting Corvus and drew the power from the werewolves, this time it came willingly, like a gift. As it suffused Alex, he saw upgrade points appear on his spell screen. Ten of them in a burst. They had given it to him, unconsciously perhaps. As it surged into him, in the darkness, Alex saw outlines appear around some of the werewolves. One was a vivid green, like nature. Another red, like fire. Another was a crackling black. He saw a golden light around Jacob, a glowing aura that he understood immediately.
He could use the ten points on himself, make himself faster, have more memory, be able to cast more spells. But he could also make another werewolf mage. It would take all of the points and most of his magic. Alex could feel this moment was fleeting. He had to use the energy now, or it would be lost forever. Jacob had turned toward him, his eyes wide. Alex wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. Perhaps Alex surrounded by light.
“Do you want to be a mage too?” Alex called out. His voice echoed like thunder.
“Fuck yes,” the young werewolf yelled. Alex reached out his claw and the light gathered and shot toward Jacob. It felt like when he was pressing spells together, like he was trying to move a giant weight, as though he had foolishly decided to move a mountain. He poured what was left of his magic into it, every bit of what he had, knowing that he’d only have one chance. The giant, heavy thing he was pressing against gave way. With a jerk at first, and then all at once.
The points were gone in an instant, along with every drop of Alex’s magic, save a tiny sliver of death. Jacob stumbled, and then stood up, and suddenly fire erupted from his hands, two long lines of it raging like a torrent. He jerked back in surprise, and then directed them at the nearest mages, searing through their lines in a white-hot burn as werewolves dived out of the way.
Alex felt a hand on his shoulder, knew it was Juno, who’d somehow made her way to him in the battle, and felt the first trickle of her magic helping to heal him. Then he felt a twist in the air, the Great Barrier itself, the spell turning its focus to him and him alone. Alex felt something rushing toward him as though a planet had been hurled across the galaxy, and as it hit, he was flung into a deep and cold dark that he was sure was death itself.
22
“Of course there’s only meant to be one werewolf mage at a time, so what do you expect the Great Barrier to do except smash you to pieces?” the witch said. Alex blinked, coming back to himself. He was in his apartment, and sitting across from him was a witch wearing a clichéd Halloween witch costume with striped leggings and a black hat. She was young, maybe only a few years older than him. Alex looked down and saw he had a cup of coffee in one hand and a cookie in the other.
“Yeah, right,” he managed to say. The witch looked at him and then winked.
“Oh, good. You’re finally back,” she said.
Alex put the coffee down and set what was left of the cookie beside it. Something was very wrong here. This apartment… It had been blown up.
“This can’t be real. My apartment got detonated by insane mages,” he mumbled. The witch looked around, a smile creeping across her face.<
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“Oh, is that where we are? Your apartment. Can I ask you why there is a single sock down by the side of your bed? What reason does a young man have for a single sock next to his bed?”
He was coming back to himself now. The cheeky witch across from him seemed familiar.
“The last witch who saw that said exactly the same thing. Are witches obsessed with single socks next to boys’ beds?” he said.
She laughed, and despite the feeling of comfort and calm that was radiating from her, he felt a pain in his heart, as though someone had stuck an icepick in there and twisted it. She leaned forward and patted him on the knee. Then a faint memory rose up, that fragment of a dream he’d had, of meeting someone in the forest on that first mad run. She had striped leggings, too.
“I’m just here to give you a little nudge, my darling,” she said. The pain in his heart deepened, and he felt like his head might split open, feeling as though gears were grinding as his perspective realigned.
“You’re my—” he started to say, and then he was trying to open his encrusted eyelids, a cold throb running through his body.
“Mother,” he said and then was confused. Talking in his sleep again. Whatever he’d been dreaming vanished like a puff of smoke. His apartment, a chair?
He was glad to find he was in a bed at least and not wandering the streets, since sleep-talking and sleepwalking are closely tied together. He managed to get his eyes open and found he was in a dim room that he didn’t recognize. He was in human form but had a drip in his arm. He could tell somehow from the coolness of the room that he was in an underground basement. There was a single dim light down near a ground-level power outlet. Alex saw it was a child’s nightlight plugged in there.
He sat up and the ache that was within him rose to a pinch of pain. He carefully pulled the IV out of his arm and cast healing flame on himself. His blue natural mana was about half full, but instead of healing the small hole in his elbow, the zap went to his back and then somewhere inside him. He drained away what was left of his magic, leaving just a sliver, before finally the tiny hole in his arm closed up.
Shuffling out of bed, Alex saw he was only wearing boxer shorts. He had no shifter charm. It didn’t look like he was in a prison, but not wanting to risk it, he waited until more of his natural mana had recovered before sliding his boxer shorts off and shifting to hybrid form. In that form, his healing sped up slightly, although he could tell it was mostly deep healing now, injuries from the battle—
It came crashing back: the mages’ encampment, fighting Wind, changing Jacob to a werewolf mage. Alex stood there for a moment blinking as his head spun. He had changed Jacob into a werewolf mage, and then the Great Barrier had turned on him. With his head spinning, Alex crept over to the door.
“If I have to watch one of those stupid dog movies again, I’m going to murder everyone,” April said.
“I think you used the wrong adjective there. You mean awesome dog movies,” Juno said, baiting her.
“I’m with the nymph. No more dog movies,” Nia said. The surge of joy that went through Alex nearly knocked him over. His mates were safe. Whatever had happened after the battle, they had survived. He opened the door and was halfway up the stairs before Nia appeared at the top. She rushed down them and grabbed him in a fierce hug, nearly knocking him off his feet. Juno appeared at the top of the stairs, too, her mouth hanging open.
Then she seemed to gather herself.
“So you’re finally awake, sleeping beauty,” she said. Although there was a hint of that familiar happy sarcasm in her voice, Alex immediately sensed that something was very wrong. Nia finally pulled herself away from him, and he saw that she was crying.
“What happened?” he said. He managed to get up the stairs with Nia stuck to him like a limpet on a rock. The basement stairs emerged into a kitchen that he didn’t recognize. The girls had been preparing a meal, but April had abandoned her knife and her diced carrots and had vanished into the other end of the house. Alex stopped in the middle of the kitchen, standing in front of Juno, who had crossed her arms.
“On a scale of one to ten, how recovered from your injuries would you say you are?” Juno said. Before Alex could answer, she punched him in the chest as hard as she could. He saw it coming but took it anyway. The little witch drew back her hand and gritted her teeth, before letting out a long breath.
“Wolves,” she muttered, before stepping closer to him and wrapping her arms around his body. He put his hands around her, too, and they stood there for a minute or so, Alex listening carefully for the sounds of anyone else in the house, but apart from April in a distant room, they were alone. Wherever they were had been locked up, too. He could smell dust, and there was something else, too, an odd scent that he couldn’t quite place. Finally, the girls pulled off him and led him to the nearest kitchen chair.
“You’re definitely going to need to sit for this one,” Juno said. Although it appeared she had let go of some of her anger, her seriousness was more terrifying to Alex than anything else. Juno and Nia took seats across from him.
“Okay, so you’ve been unconscious for two months now. It’s autumn, heading towards winter. After you did your little glowing messiah thing and made Jacob into a mage, some spell hit and it nearly killed you,” Juno said. Her breath hitched at the memory, and she quickly wiped away a tear before slapping herself on the cheek.
“Get it together, dude,” she chastised herself.
“We managed to save you,” Nia continued, taking up the story. “We killed all of the mages, especially with that wild pack helping, but then we had to get you out of there as fast as possible because suddenly they weren’t looking so friendly. We couldn’t keep you at the house, so we hid you here to look after you. Then Juno and April starting teaching Jacob,” Nia said.
Alex could see a little down the corridor. He heard the creak of a floorboard. April was down there somewhere, listening in the darkness.
“Jacob is just like you with that whole handkerchiefs out of the butt thing. He might even be better than you. He was learning lots of spells and getting stronger by the day, and then mages attacked at home. We’d lost about seventy werewolves in the battle, but we still had enough to protect ourselves, but somehow they still found us, and even with our guards and scouts, they got the jump on us,” Juno said.
She took Alex by the hand and led him out of the kitchen and down the corridor. He could detect that strange scent again. It was something alluring, but he couldn’t tell what it was. It made him feel happy, but he still couldn’t place it. He heard April move from her position down the end of the corridor into the far room and the door close. She was keeping far away from him.
Juno opened a bedroom door and flicked on the light. Alex stopped, not believing what he saw. Inside were statues. Esme, Lydia, the children, and Roma in the midst of them. She’d been crying, and there was a marble tear streaked down her face.
“The mages set it on fire, her house, and Roma stoned Esme, Lydia and the kids, and herself to protect them from the flames. They’re still in there, apparently, but we can’t turn them back unless we find another Medusa, and it turns out that’s almost impossible. We have no idea where Harmony is,” Juno said.
Alex walked over to the statues, seeing the looks of terror on their faces. He could almost see it, the raging flames, Roma with no way out. He almost expected the rage to come flooding in, but there was nothing there but a cold numbness. He knew this wasn’t the full story. This wasn’t the worst of it.
He turned back to Nia and Juno, who were watching him carefully.
“What else happened?” he said. Juno looked at the floor and started talking, rushing her words.
“Yvonne is dead. Some mages murdered her right in front of Jacob, and he went wild. Capital-W Wild. He had one full month of being a werewolf mage before he lost his mind, and now he’s out there somewhere, just murdering every mage and vampire he can find. We’ve tried to catch him a few times, but he’s too
powerful, too fast, and the mages and vampires have been sending reinforcements into Baxter, trying to hunt him down, so we don’t think he’s going to last much longer.”
The numbness in Alex was spreading. He remembered the midst of the battle, the flood of energy from the werewolves, freely given. It had felt so right, what he had done. For Jacob, who wanted magic, to have it, to become strong like him, so together they could protect their pack. He hadn’t thought what might happen if Yvonne died.
“Do we have any idea where he is at all? Is there any chance of getting him to snap out of it?” he asked, looking to Nia. She shook her head.
“We are looking the best we can, but with so many mages and vampires in Baxter, it’s getting a lot harder. Alex, he destroyed a burger place a few days ago, some Xavo business, went in and murdered everyone, humans and normals, twenty of them dead,” Nia said. Then Alex saw Juno touch Nia on the arm.
“There’s one last piece of news, but it’s not ours to give, and it’s good news so please, please take it as good news,” Juno said.
“What could it possibly be? What good news comes out of this?” he said. He became aware of movement beyond the door, and Juno stepped aside to let April into the room. That scent came with her, stronger now.
“I’m pregnant,” she said.
About the Author
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