Legally Red

by A. A. Albright

  And it was probably safe to assume that the rest of the Gaunts’ neighbours would be just as unhelpful as the first one we met, so asking them for help would be pointless. It was time to come up with Plan B.

  The block was arranged with the doors facing out into the open air, with a small balcony between the residences and the edge. I stood there, looking out over the enclave. It was one of the larger Dublin enclaves, not much smaller than Warren Lane, because the werewolves needed plenty of space to run.

  I almost wished that humans could see it, if only so they’d know just how much hidden space there was in their city. Right now, the wildflowers on the meadow beyond the flats were swaying in the breeze, lit up by the late afternoon sun. The meadow backed onto a huge, private park, one I knew that only the Lupin Lane pack were allowed to access.

  I thought I heard a series of howls coming from that direction, but a glance at the street below told me no one else was concerned.

  ‘They’ll pretend they don’t hear it,’ Candace said wearily. ‘Patter told me that everyone pretends not to notice the stuff his dad gets up to. And you know how that park is supposed to be for the whole of Lupin Lane? Well, only the inner members actually get to go there. That’s why you get so many werewolves hanging around the human parks come full moon.’

  I’d already been worried, but now my fears were escalating. Those howls had sounded frightening – especially seeing as full moon had been and gone. I tried to call Wanda again, killing the call when it went straight to her message minder. ‘I suppose I could leave yet another message at the desk. I could tell Todge that I’m about to take matters into my own hands. Pretty sure he’ll pass that one through on time.’

  Candace studied my face. ‘You’d just be using it as a hurry-up tactic though, right? You’re not actually taking matters into your own hands?’ She chewed on the corner of her lip, looking up at me with the most serious expression ever worn by a girl of eleven. ‘Because if you are, then I want to help.’

  I looked down at her. She might be smart, stubborn and brave – but she was far too young to be involved with this. ‘I think you need to get back to Miles.’

  ‘Melissa, if you’re going into that stretch of wood, then I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘And if you try it, I’ll freeze you. I’m sorry Candace, but your part in this little misadventure has come to an end.’

  18. This Girl’s Got Stones

  Normally I liked forests. I’d spent many a happy afternoon walking through the land around Mack’s cabin, exploring the Wandering Wood. And while the Wandering Wood did have its dangers (the fact that it actually wandered being one of the largest) compared to this place, it was a walk in the park. Oh wait, I’ve used that analogy already, haven’t I? Shrug.

  These woods felt bad. Like every dodgy thing that had gone down had left its impression. But I kept going, despite the many little voices in my head telling me to run the other way. Because as insistent as my crazy little voices were, they weren’t nearly as desperate as the howls, cries and sobs I could hear coming from the centre of the wood.

  I knew all too well that times of raw emotion or desperate need could force a wolf to turn even outside of the full moon. I also knew that some wolves didn’t just turn at the wrong time out of necessity. There were rumours of werewolves who chose to turn outside the full moon just for crimes and giggles. Some of those werewolves turned almost every night – I guess it was so they could tick off some of the items on their To Do List of Dastardly Deeds.

  As far as I was concerned, those werewolves were playing with fire, and one of these days their fur was going to get burned. Because I’d seen werewolves who’d spent too long in their animal form, and the results were never pretty.

  The light up ahead was growing brighter and the howls and sobs were sounding louder, so I knew I was close. I slowed down, finding a tree to hide behind, while I looked out at the clearing before me. When I saw what was going on, I held a hand over my mouth to stop myself gasping.

  No matter how many fully-turned werewolves I’d seen, there was nothing so frightening as seeing someone who really was half-wolf, half-man – or, in the case of Nails, half-woman. Her blonde hair was now sprouting all over her body, and her teeth were sharp and long.

  She wasn’t the only one half-transformed. There was a man there, too – I guessed he was Patter’s dad, Mr Gaunt. His bottom half was still human, while his arms had elongated and his snout was coming out to play. He had Nails tied up with ropes that looked rough and ready. But the fact that she couldn’t break out of them even with her superhuman strength told me that those frayed old ropes must be much stronger than they looked. There was a tipped-over bottle next to Nails, and she was doing her best to move away from it.

  ‘You can kick away as many bottles as you like, Nails. I’ve got plenty more where that came from.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I mumbled below my breath. ‘Well I see your horrific bottles of poison, and I raise you a nick-of-time freezing spell.’ I lifted my hand, pointed a finger at Mr Gaunt and said, ‘Conáil.’

  Nothing happened.

  Well, that was anti-climactic. I shook out my hand and tried again, but the spell refused to work. What the heckity-heck was going on?

  While I tried again and again (and failed again and again) to get my magic working, I kept my eyes on the scene.

  ‘C’mere, little fella,’ Mr Gaunt said, turning to look behind him. ‘Bring me one of those truncheons I made you steal. I think I might have a little bit of fun before I kill her.’

  A boy stepped into the clearing on the other side, with a truncheon in his hands. I recognised the boy from Candace’s list of Nemo hopefuls. This was Patter. And in person he looked a lot less defiant, and a lot more scared. He handed his father the truncheon and scuttled away.

  When I saw it was one of the older models, I inwardly groaned. The old police force, the Peacemakers, used to use their magical truncheons to electroshock suspects. The problem was, they used to suspect pretty much everyone who wasn’t a witch.

  The newer truncheons could electroshock someone, but not with the same sustained level as the old ones. This meant Patter had been stealing from law enforcement for a very long time. It also meant that his dad was even worse than I’d feared.

  As he took the truncheon in his hands, I tried spell after spell, fearing in the back of my mind that my magic was not going to win the day.

  Mr Gaunt pointed the truncheon at Nails. And then he shook it out, the same way I was shaking out my hand. ‘Hey!’ He spun on his son. ‘What have you done to this, you silly little runt?’

  Patter might have been scared, but when it came to pretending you were incapable of being hurt by your deadbeat dad, this kid was giving Candace a run for her money. He narrowed his eyes and gave his father a flinty stare. ‘I broke it. On purpose.’

  Mr Gaunt growled. His teeth lengthened some more, and when he spoke again, he had a slight lisp. ‘You’d better not have broken any of the other stuff,’ he said, picking up a small, round device from the ground.

  As I looked at the object he was holding, my lack of power suddenly made sense. Truncheons weren’t the only thing Patter had stolen. The device his father had in his hands was what the Wayfarers used to disempower magical criminals. Mr Gaunt had obviously been afraid someone might interfere before he could get the job done. Maybe he was afraid of Patter – Candace had told me that the werewolf could channel magic. Or maybe he was afraid of the Wayfarers showing up.

  The funny little smile on Patter’s face told me that he knew an interesting fact that his father didn’t: sure, disempowerment devices could stop any magic working in the area, but the Wayfarers had other equipment that made them immune, because otherwise, the devices would be kind of useless – not much point stripping a criminal of their magic if you’ve also put your own on the fritz. So if the Wayfarers did turn up, Patter’s dad wouldn’t stand a chance against them, disempowerment device or not.r />
  If only I had some of that handy Wayfarer equipment on me right now. I balled my fists, annoyed at myself for wishing – once again – that I was in a different line of work. If I was here as a Wayfarer, I’d be able to stop this from happening. Instead, I was a useless onlooker.

  But surely it wouldn’t be long before the actual Wayfarers did turn up. Right? Any minute now they’d appear all around me. Any … minute …now …

  Rats! I needed to hurry Wanda and the gang along, but how? I sank down behind the tree for a moment, covering my phone so that no one would see the light while I sent the exact coordinates to Wanda, to Finn, to Todge, to my mother, to Wanda’s mam … basically, to everyone in my contact list that needed to get their behinds in gear and save the day.

  When I was finished, I cautiously peeped out again. Mr Gaunt examined the disempowerment device and said, ‘Good. Seems to be working. Now be a good young pup and get me the tubing. If you don’t want me to torture her, then you can make her drink the poison. It can be your first kill.’

  ‘I told you, you great big stupid idiot, I’m not helping you with any of this!’ Patter cried. ‘Do your own dirty work you filthy mutt!’

  Nails laughed. ‘Hah hah! Even your son doesn’t listen to you. Some alpha you’re going to make.’

  ‘I’ll make a better alpha than you or Decon ever could.’ He bared his teeth and snarled. ‘It didn’t have to be like this, Nails. I didn’t want to kill you. I just wanted to set you up for your husband’s murder. Then he’d be dead, you’d be in jail and I’d be alpha. But your stupid boyfriend had to go and ruin it all by confessing to a crime he didn’t commit. I mean, why would he do that? Why?’

  ‘Because he loves me. That’s why. So is this what you did to Decon? Tried to force him to drink some Jinx so it’d look like I killed him?’

  He shrugged. ‘It was a lot easier with him, actually. I just laced his beer with poison. But you had to go and refuse any food or drink I’ve offered you. Almost like you were suspicious of me or something. Which is why I have to get rid of you in a much more unpleasant way. You’ve given me no choice.’ He looked at Patter. ‘Now do as I tell you and bring me the tubing. Obey, or I’ll kick you out of the pack.’

  Patter growled. ‘I keep telling you that I don’t want to be in your stupid pack. You’re all a bunch of regressive monsters. Why would I want to be one of you?’

  ‘Regressive?’ His father glared at him. ‘That’s a big word for such a small boy. It’s that smug little witch from the reading club you’ve been hanging around with, isn’t it? I knew letting you go to the library was a bad idea. Her and those books she’s been giving you have been putting all sorts of notions in your head. Y’know what I’m gonna do when we finish this job? I’m gonna burn that precious library of yours to the ground. You won’t be so smart then, will you?’

  This guy wanted to burn down a library? Yip – that was some seriously scary evildoing right there. I looked around desperately. Where the heck were the Wayfarers? I’d given them the exact location a hundred times over – not to mention the messages I’d left with Todge telling him I was about to take matters into my own hands. He was probably too busy eating jam sandwiches to pay attention to a word I said.

  I gritted my teeth, suppressing a grunt. If I could just get to that disempowerment device and switch it off, then I could save Nails’s life – and save poor little Patter from having to be the one who killed her. But Mr Gaunt had laid it on the ground two feet away from him. I’d need a miracle to get to it before he killed me. I’d need to be the luckiest witch alive …

  Wait one holy moly minute! I was the luckiest witch alive. Because I had some jewellery on my ankle right now that was decorated with Ádh Stones.

  Mr Gaunt stalked towards Patter, picking him up by the collar. The boy’s legs dangled in the air while his dad said, ‘Kill her, or I’ll kill you. And after that, I’ll kill that little witch you’ve been hanging around with. That’ll teach her to put ideas in my son’s head.’

  ‘I’m not putting ideas in his head!’ shouted an all-too familiar voice, suddenly. ‘He has his own ideas already!’

  Oh, good Gretel. I stared at Candace as she walked into the clearing. What did she think she was doing? She hadn’t seen the disempowerment device yet, and she took a wand out of her pocket, pointed it at Mr Gaunt and said, ‘Conáil.’

  He laughed, dropped his son, and lunged at Candace.

  Patter managed to get in the way, half-turning like his father, snapping and snarling as he tried to protect Candace. They might be the bravest kids on the planet, but they were still kids. It was time for me to pluck up some courage – well, incant up some luck, anyway.

  I clutched one of the red stones on my anklet and said:

  ‘A spell of luck I now do need,

  Through any task I shall succeed.’

  The stone faded away in a swirl of glittering red dust, and I lunged out of my cover and rushed into the fray.

  Mr Gaunt snapped his head around, laughing as he saw me. ‘Oh look, it’s Little Red Riding Hood, come to face the Big Bad Wolf.’

  Come on. I might have red hair, but I sure wasn’t wearing a hood. And I was well above average height, so I wasn’t little, either. As criminal taunts went, this one wasn’t too clever. I swallowed down my fear and kept my eyes on the device. The thing about Little Red Riding Hood was that she didn’t know she was about to face the Big Bad Wolf. She thought she was just paying a nice friendly visit to Grandma’s cabin. But I knew exactly what I was facing, and I had a feeling he was a far worse wolf than the one in the story.

  As I drew nearer to the device, though, I realised that luck really was on my side. Mr Gaunt lunged for me, swatting at the air around me with his hands (hands that had, by now, lengthened into huge, clawed paws – all the better to hurt me with!). He snapped at me with his teeth (teeth that were, by now, much too large to be Grandma’s – all the better to eat me with!).

  But every lunge and snap somehow, miraculously, missed me. I could pretend that it was just down to the flexibility my many yoga classes had given me, but who would I be trying to kid? This was all down to the Ádh Stone.

  Candace was a clever kid, though. She had finally seen the disempowerment device, and with Mr Gaunt’s eyes on me, she tried to grab it. Just as it was nearly in her palm, he turned and lunged in her direction.

  He almost had her pinned when Patter jumped on him, pulling him away from Candace. Patter might have saved his friend, but Mr Gaunt had gotten what he wanted: he clutched the device in his large, furry paw.

  I gritted my teeth. ‘You don’t get to keep that,’ I said. ‘Not today. Today is my lucky day.’

  He laughed, a sound that was somewhere between wolf and human. ‘Your lucky day? If you consider the day I’m about to kill you lucky, then sure,’ he said. He took a step in my direction.

  I sidestepped. He took another step, and I sidestepped again.

  He switched from stepping to bounding. I switched from stepping to jumping. We ran around the clearing in the scariest game of chasing I had ever played. I wasn’t sure how much longer this spell of luck could hold out. I was even more unsure as to how much longer my energy reserves would keep me going. My hunger was stronger than ever, and I felt like I might keel over any minute now with the agony of my pangs.

  Mr Gaunt certainly wasn’t running out of steam. He ran faster, grew bigger, lunged further, and snapped those teeth of his some more. Each time he snapped, I could feel the breeze his quick-moving jaw made as it moved closer and closer to biting at my neck.

  I was just about to reach for my anklet and use up one more stone when I saw it: the tubing he had been going to use to force-feed the poison to Nails. It was on the ground a few feet to his left, half unfurled. It wasn’t really a trip hazard – but then, today was my lucky day. I veered left and jumped over the pile of tubing, looking over my shoulder as Mr Gaunt followed behind.

  And then I stopped running, finally, as he tripped
over the tubing and sprawled to the ground. The disempowerment device fell from his paws and rolled its way along the forest floor, into the waiting hands of Candace. As she hit the button, I pointed a finger at Mr Gaunt and cried, ‘Conáil!’

  And as the Big Bad Wolf froze on the ground before me, I sank to my knees in exhaustion, then grasped my ankle bracelet and whispered, ‘Thank you, Mack.’

  ≈

  When the forest finally filled up with Wayfarers, Candace, Patter and I were busy untying an incredibly grateful Nails.

  ‘Better late than never,’ I said, and pointed to Mr Gaunt. ‘That’s your murderer. You’re welcome.’

  As the rest of the Wayfarers rushed to bind him and to check out the scene, Wanda walked our way and pulled Candace into a huge hug. When Candace finally wriggled away, Wanda turned to me.

  ‘Sorry it took us so long,’ she said. ‘Me and Finn were interviewing suspects – the wrong suspects, clearly – all day. Todge sent in your first message on a piece of paper covered in jam. It’s getting to be his thing. We might have to ban jam sandwiches at work. When we finally figured out what you were trying to tell us, we came straight here. So fill me in. I see a disempowerment device on the ground, so how did you and Candace manage to freeze Mr Gaunt?’

  Candace and Patter began filling her in. Surprisingly, they gave me most of the credit. Even if they’d hogged all of the glory for themselves I would have been too tired to recount much of the tale. I was growing much hungrier, too.

  While the kids yapped away to their hearts’ content, I kept my eyes on the crime scene, watching the Wayfarers at work. Late arrival aside, I was awed as I watched them. They were so good at what they did. Mr Gaunt was taken away quickly, while every inch of the scene was scoured and photographed. Shane, the healer, saw to Nails’s injuries, while Finn oversaw it all with his usual no-nonsense precision.