by Harry Nix
“Perhaps you can tell me why the necromancer is uncuffed in his room?” she said.
“Trying to get him to trust me,” Alex said.
It was cold in the room already, but the temperature suddenly dropped. Juno rested her hand on the table, and Alex saw faint tendrils of cold begin to creep out from it.
“So, I've been standing up there outside his room, and he's been inside able to cast any spell he wants, able to escape if he wanted, and it’s all so he might trust us—some random teenager from some random necromancer enclave. Meanwhile, we just buried one of our pack, and another one is downstairs unconscious who may never awake. Outside is an entire pack of werewolves who want to kill him, but they can't. All so he can become your friend,” Juno said.
She still had a smile on her face, which is probably the scariest thing about it. The ice creeping out from her hands had reached the pile of jewelry and began frosting it over. Alex wasn't sure whether he should hug the little witch or make some excuse and get out of there. He tried the third, and probably the dumbest option, which was to talk.
“I'm going to set him free. His name’s Stephen and he’s just eighteen. He's a disposable foot soldier. But I think I can use him and maybe I can put an end to the attacks, change it. All I need is you to trust me,” he said.
The frost spilled out across the jewelry as Juno gritted her teeth. Before she could speak he decided that was a good time to hug her, stepping across the room, closing the gap between them, wrapping his arms around her. She was stiff as a board, colder than marble, but after a moment she finally relaxed and the frost began to recede. Juno mumbled something into his fur.
“What was that? Alex asked.
She stepped back from him and Alex saw, with alarm that she’d somehow summoned a fireball to her hand without him seeing a spell screen.
“I said in that case, you're going to guard him tonight all night long until you take him back to Baxter because he can't stay here. Yes?”
She passed the fireball from hand to hand like it was nothing, although it was crackling, and Alex could feel the immense heat of it.
“Yes, absolutely. I’ll guard him myself and take him back tomorrow.”
Juno stared at him for a moment before extinguishing the fireball. Then she stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss before patting him on the stomach and walking out. Alex let out a sigh of relief when she was gone.
He'd seen the little chaos witch when she was angry, and who knew what spell she had up her sleeve.
He looked down at the pile of broken jewelry, most of which was covered with frost and the bits and pieces that Julius had straightened with his claws. He understood Julius's position and the rest of the pack too. There was some part of him that found a bloody pleasure in the idea of taking those who would attack them, standing them in front of their home, and dismembering them as a warning, but that was only if he thought of Stephen as one of them. Unnamed. An enemy, and not a person, not a kid. Brought up in an enclave taught to obey and then sent off to die.
Alex headed outside as the sun began to set, hoping to grab some food before settling in to guard duty for the night. He’d barely made it out the door before Nia came running over.
“Someone has attacked my father's pack, he’s leaving now,” she said. Alex took off up the hill with Nia beside him. They caught up with Julius, who shifted to hybrid form to speak with them.
“No, this is my problem to handle, my battle. Stay here and celebrate Bish. I’ll let you know how it goes,” he said. He quickly hugged Nia then clapped Alex on the shoulder before transforming back to wolf and bolting away before either of them could speak. Alex felt the urge to follow, but it was a long trip back to where Julius’ pack was, and Alex still knew the conventions remained. If Julius didn't invite him into his territory, there could be a serious problem.
“We really need to get a satellite phone of our own. What are the chances the Alpha leaves his pack and then it’s attacked immediately? We should smash the thing to pieces,” Nia said bitterly. Alex wrapped his arms around her, aware that she thought this was all her fault, as she had been the one to contact her father about Bish.
As they walked back, Alex looked across the village. He couldn't get the thought out of his head why the attack yesterday hadn't been worse. They'd only sent six soldiers and ten drones to dump silver on them. They'd sent ten teenagers to run the drones, the senior mages who’d summoned the dead making their escape.
Alex could see that it was almost a perfect plan. If they’d just sent one or two other squads of the dead on either side armed with silver bullets, the casualties would have been much worse. Hell, they could have been wiped out entirely. Between bullets and silver dust bombs to pin them down, all it would take is some grenades and fire and they could have been killed down to the last werewolf. So why hadn't they been?
They arrived back at the village where everyone was setting up for the celebration. Juno waved to Alex and then pointed upstairs at the house. Stephen was still unguarded, and Alex was very aware that any moment werewolves could go up there to murder the young mage.
He kissed Nia and then with a thousand thoughts racing in his mind went inside and upstairs, shifting into wolf and sitting outside Stephen’s room. The celebration got going and he heard the squeals of children laughing, playing, and shouting Ito cow. Alex stared into the dark and tried to construct a plan that didn't start with murdering every mage alive.
7
Alex woke up outside his exploded apartment building. It was early morning, maybe five or so, and there was a chill in the air. He was in boxer shorts, and his feet were a roar of agony. He could also feel that the fishhooks of the Great Barrier had been pulling on him.
“Seriously, what the hell?” Alex said aloud. He looked down the street where a lone jogger was making her way. He figured it must've been her who’d seen him in wolf form and then the Great Barrier had pulled, the pain of it forcing Alex to transform and come out of whatever sleepwalking nightmare he'd found himself in.
He looked down at his feet and saw they were bloody and then the pain from his hands hit as well. His nails were cracked and there were smears of blood across his palms. As he stood there, his mind slowly coming back together, the pain began to creep its way up his forearms and legs. The last he remembered was being in wolf form, curled up in front of Stephen's door, the sounds of the celebration outside continuing. He must've fallen asleep and then…
Alex wasn't entirely sure how far away the village was from Baxter, but he knew it was a decent drive in Boris just to get to the impromptu car park and then a long walk. Had he just run the entire way in wolf form? It seemed impossible but then he reflected that the other times he’d been carrying passengers on his back, Juno or April, on the long trek to the car park. He supposed without passengers, running at full speed, it was possible that he had made his way here overnight.
The pain in his feet and hands was growing stronger now, so Alex opened up his spell screen, and quickly cast his new and improved healing spell.
It was strange how it worked now, the healing magic going to the site of the greatest injury with a zap that felt distinctly uncomfortable. The flame lit on his finger, and Alex touched it to his bruised and bloody hand, but the zap jolted right through him down to his feet first, which were far more injured. He watched his natural mana draining away as wounds on his feet were repaired. There was a second zap as the healing suddenly lurched up to his hand and then a third as it snapped up his arm across his shoulders and down to heal the other hand. He let his natural mana drain down almost to the bottom before releasing the healing spell. The pain had significantly subsided, the healing stitching up wounds, removing injuries.
Now he was feeling better he took a proper look at the rubble of his old apartment building across the road. A temporary fence had been erected around it. When the mages, or whoever it was, had detonated the apartment building, they’d managed to collapse it straight down on top of itse
Alex stood there in the chill, searching his memory for what might have happened but as usual, there was nothing there but the deep black. He'd always been a sleepwalker and a sleeptalker but had never been this bad. At most, he had left his bedroom and gone outside, before waking up a few minutes later, but to run miles and miles through the night completely unaware? It was, simply put, terrifying.
There was also the other question of why it was he was in his boxer shorts. He'd shifted fully dressed, so did that mean at some point in his sleepwalking he'd shifted back to human form, stripped down, and then continued his run? Why would he do that? He still had his shifter charm, which was running low now. Soon he would need to buy another one unless he wanted to start tearing his clothes when he shifted.
That was just another problem on a long list, all of which could be solved with a giant pile of money that he currently didn't have. Alex looked over the rubble from across the road and tried to work out why his sleeping self had brought him here. The last time he’d gone sleepwalking, Juno and Nia had said it was because he'd been living in Juno's house, not shifting to wolf and not going for a run, and that eventually the wolf would break out and go running itself. But now he'd been living in the village and every day he was in wolf form, out in nature, so why would his wolf run all the way to Baxter?
Alex saw another jogger approaching. He stepped behind a tree and waited until she passed.
Maybe it’s later than I think.
Alex looked around, trying to judge by the sunlight what time it was. Maybe it was closer to six than five and that meant he only had a limited time before the streets were full of people. Already he could hear the sound of cars here and there.
In human form, his sense of spell was greatly diminished but still the overpowering scent of Baxter itself was there every time he breathed in. Exhaust fumes, plastics, tires. Alex took a quick look around and then shifted to wolf form. Thankfully, the Great Barrier didn't trigger, which meant no one had seen him.
Howey’s house was actually closer but Alex couldn't think of a good story of why he’d show up in his boxer shorts at the front door, not anything that would make sense, and he knew that Howey and Puzo probably thought he was crazy anyway given how he’d vanished from their lives. So, although it was further away, he started running back to Juno's.
In his wolf form Alex was fast, but it had been later than he thought. The sky quickly lightened so instead of slipping from shadow to shadow, he was now running in the open daylight. The Great Barrier twinged again and again as people saw a wolf running along the street. The closer he got to Juno’s the worse it got as there were now cars driving down the street and groups of people out for morning walks. He hid briefly in a front yard but was forced to run when a woman looked over the front fence and saw a wolf sitting there.
He leaped a picket fence then sprinted, jumping between front yards before finally abandoning that and just bolting down the sidewalk at full speed. Eventually, he made it to Juno's, sprinting around the back, opening the small gate in the back fence, and slipping inside. Alex stopped in the backyard, shaking his head at himself, and smiling. He’d spent a while at Juno's, and there was a kind of peace outside. The succulent cuttings he'd taken from Jane's home were all still alive in the garden bed where he had planted them. A few looked like they'd grown, taking root.
Alex went to the door and found it locked. He checked the windows on the back of the house, and lifted the mat but there was no key, and he couldn't see anything obvious nearby where one would have been hidden. Wondering if the house wards were going to trigger he tested each of the windows until he found the one over the kitchen sink was unlocked. He managed to get his fingers under it and push it up. Carefully, Alex pulled himself up over the windowsill and levered himself inside.
The window was quite small, though, and he was coming out over the kitchen sink. Thankfully, there were no drying dishes sitting there but it was still awkward. He had both hands on the edge of the sink, tipped at a forty-five-degree angle, pulling himself down. Eventually, he got to a point when he managed to pull one leg in. He was just about to get the other in when a blast of magic hit him with immense force. The window smashed as he was flung sideways and then hit the kitchen wall, stuck on it a foot off the ground. The pressure of the blast was like a scouring wind and his boxer shorts disintegrated off his body.
“You picked the wrong house, werewolf,” a voice said. Alex managed to open his eyes to find a diminutive old lady in her nightgown standing in the kitchen with her hand splayed out. She looked like she was in her eighties, with deep wrinkles on her face and curls of grey hair. She was also ridiculously thin in that way that old ladies can be. Despite her age and size, her blue eyes were alive, and her immense power was undeniable.
“Stop, I’m with Juno,” Alex said. It was hard to keep his eyes open. Whatever was pressing him against the wall felt like it had grits of sand in it. He could already feel the skin on his face abrading. The old lady did something with a hand and the magic changed. He was still stuck up against the wall, held by an immense force, but the abrading quality of the spell, and the roar of the air, vanished.
“Who's Juno to you?” The old lady said.
“She’s my –” For a moment Alex was going to say mate, but then his brain threw in girlfriend as well and somehow in the shock, it all mashed together. “My matefriend. I mean girl… she’s my mate,” he finally said.
The old lady narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips.
“Prove it,” she said.
“She’s blonde, and I… I lived here with her, me and Nia. The ketchup’s in the bottom cupboard.”
“Anyone who broke in could know that. Tell me something no one else could know and maybe I’ll believe you.”
“Juno’s a chaos witch. When she gets upset she frosts over things and makes it rain.”
The old lady did something with her hand and the pressure on Alex's chest increased tenfold, making it hard to breathe. He suddenly shifted, almost against his will, stretching out to eight feet in height, his weight increasing. His werewolf body was stronger than his human one, and the pressure on him decreased.
“Everybody knows that about chaos witches, and if you knew her you’d know that different things happen, not just frost, so I’m going to ask you one more time, tell me something that no one else could know,” she said in a voice that was low and full of menace.
Alex racked his brain but it was hard to think while pressed up against the wall. His leg was hurting too. He must've cut it when he was pulled through the window. He didn't know who this old lady was, but his best guess was that it was Juno's grandmother. What could he say to her? I know the sounds your granddaughter makes in bed?
“You're the one who put the spell on Boris, and all of the stuff in your break-in bag is bedazzled, including your night-vision goggles and your crowbar,” he said, hoping it would be enough.
The old lady harrumphed, sounding almost like Bailey for a moment, but then she smiled at him.
“My name is Ruby. You must be Alex. Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Nice to meet you too,” Alex said, still stuck up against the wall.
“If you're a strong alpha werewolf, the very first lesson you need is to how to escape a spell. So, push and escape, if you can,” Ruby said. She brought up her other hand, and the pressure on Alex increased tenfold again. He could barely breathe now. The wall behind him, which was just a simple kitchen wall, suddenly felt as hard as steel.
Alex strained against the spell, but he could hardly move, only an inch at a time. He saw Ruby gritting her teeth and a bead of sweat run down her face as she increased the power of the spell. He was sure that if only he could breathe, he’d be able to outlast her. Then Alex remembered that he wasn't just simply a werewolf but also a mage, and for a moment cursed himself that it didn't come naturally to him to immediately think to use a spell. He couldn’t move, but he could still bring up a spell screen.
He mentally selected flame shield and cast it by willing it to be. The flames immediately burst out around him but did nothing to stop the spell holding him against the wall.
“Impressive but not enough. Try again, Wolfie,” Ruby said.
Alex suddenly saw where Juno got it from. He’d heard that tone of voice before. He had flames around him now, and the wall behind him was blackening, but the pressure was increasing still and he began to see stars as he began to run out of oxygen.
He went back to his spell screen but he had nothing that was really an offensive spell. Sure, he could make a line of fire stretch out from his fingertip but given that he was pinned against the wall, what use would that do except maybe burn the floor.
His gaze landed on telekinesis, and then across to the kitchen bench where there was a sugar container.
Alex hoped Juno's grandmother was forgiving. Hell, hoped that Juno herself was forgiving. He focused on the sugar container, charged up telekinesis with a dose of pain, and then shot it off the bench and into the side of Ruby’s head. It exploded against her in a burst of light, sugar scattering across the room. Alex realized she must've had some kind of shield, but the force of the sugar container, charged up with pain mana, had breached it momentarily. She dropped the spell that was holding him to the wall, and he crashed to the ground as grains of sugar rained down upon them both.
Ruby had gone down on one knee, panting. Then she looked up at him with a mad grin. She had a trickle of blood running down the side of her face.
“That's more like it, White Fang,” she said.
She stood up, and Alex did the same. He turned to check the wall and saw it was blackened in the shape of a werewolf but, thankfully, not on fire. The sugar container was destroyed and there were grains of sugar everywhere. In his hybrid form, he towered over Ruby. It looked like she was struggling to reach five feet. He knew though that her diminutive size was no indicator of her power.
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