Werewolf Mage 3

by Harry Nix

  Alex wished that Stephen had just stayed one more day, so he could work on the enchanting and get better results—maybe make some more money. At the thought of the kid he thought about the code change ring. Should he make another and then text it on a normal? Alex wasn’t quite so sure. Ethically he had no problem injuring himself but hurting some normal in experimentation didn’t feel right. Still, getting normals to see past the Great Barrier would be useful…

  Alex picked up one of the newly enchanted rings and opened the spell code on it almost without thinking. If he'd just bought this from someone, he wouldn't hesitate changing a three to thirty just as he'd been doing. So why was that a problem now? Alex suspected that he knew the answer: the other rings held more complicated spells. There was some kind of scale in there, adding more charges was somehow changing the battery spell that was inside it. He couldn't edit his own to change from a three to a thirty, not without making the ring a bomb. Alex closed the spells and dropped it back into the pile before picking up a fresh ring. Thanks to Stephen's help, he had enough to dump various spells onto the rings, and also, thanks to Stephen's help, he had a fireball spell.

  Ruby had asked why he couldn't send a flame through someone's body that would injure them and Alex didn't have an answer to that just yet, but he knew that he could make a fireball and then throw it as evidenced by the black mark on the back fence.

  But first he wanted to try out some of the other manas. He followed the usual procedure, except this time charged it with red. In comparison to natural mana, it seemed ridiculously powerful. The spell screen opened faster, and it seemed easy to drop in the code. It took a smaller slice of the overall bar. Exactly a minute later, Alex had a shield ring fully compiled and charged. This one he took to the other side of the room and set in a clear area, returning to his pile. He opened more code, this time dropping in his homebrew fireball spell. It was slightly harder, the spell within a few characters of filling the space. Along with the recharge and strengthening spells, it all just barely fit but the execute button lit up and Alex hit compile, watching the code shrink down in it and flicker into a mathematical expression before vanishing.

  Alex immediately took the ring to the other side of the room and set it in a clear area before returning to his pile. Over the next hour he used natural mana only, churning out shield rings, and soon he replaced the ones Stephen had taken and made a pile more. It wouldn't be long until he'd used up all the rings are Ruby had brought. Eventually he quit and considering the two new rings hadn't exploded, decided to make a few more.

  Alex glanced through the various manas he had at his disposal: natural, sex, pain, nature, and death. Alex focused on using up sex magic. Two of his mates were gone, but Juno was still around. Alex quickly counted up the rings he had remaining. Fifteen to go. Five he cast as fireball, five more he made healing flame, and the final five fire shield.

  Once they complied, Alex collected all of the rings, doing his best to keep them separate and went upstairs. Ruby and Juno were at the kitchen table again, and this time Alex got a closer look at what they were doing. Ruby had a cardboard box full of bits of crystal. Some of it looked like smoky quartz but other pieces had strange colors through them. There was a second box full of black crow feathers. Ruby and April were using red thread to tie the crystal and the feather together in a complicated pattern, murmuring as they went, their spell screens flickering above their heads. Once they were done, they would put the completed crystal and feather into a third box.

  “I'm all out of rings. Now I have a lot of shield rings in here plus a bunch of healing flame, fireball and flame shield. I think we can definitely get some money for these,” Alex said.

  Ruby put a completed crystal and feather into the box and then held out a hand.

  “Give me one of those fireball ones,” she said. Alex handed it over and the old lady slipped the ring on her finger before standing up and going outside.

  “You better hope that doesn't explode and take off her finger because she's gonna get really mad if that happens,” Juno murmured, picking up another feather and crystal.

  Alex moved to the window to watch Ruby use the ring to summon a fireball in her hand. He saw her looking at it and then at the black mark that was still the fence. Although Juno had gone out yesterday to collect supplies to paint over the mark and also fix up the kitchen, it hadn’t been done yet. As he watched, Ruby threw the fireball at the back fence, hitting a different spot, The flames burst out and the wood caught fire. Alex was about to run out there, but then a spell screen flickered above her head and a sudden small localized shower of rain started directly above the fire, quickly putting it out. Ruby then stalked over to investigate the fence. Even from where he was standing, Alex could see that the burn pattern was identical. He turned to Juno, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  “Okay, so funny story the other night when we were outside drunk, me and Stephen, I may have thrown a fireball at the fence,” Alex said, all in a rush.

  “What? And you were letting me take the fall for it?”

  “You seem better equipped to deal with your grandmother,” Alex said.

  Juno smacked him on the hand but then went back to what she was doing.

  “It's a good thing you’re cute,” she mumbled.

  Soon, Ruby came stalking back into the house, spinning the ring on her finger.

  “Very interesting burn pattern from these fireballs, very interesting indeed,” she said. She came back to the table and collected up the pile of rings. She took them over to the table and separated them into their individual spells before grabbing a notepad and writing down a few figures.

  “I want you to let me sell them,” Ruby said.

  “No commission,” Juno said automatically.

  “Five percent,” Ruby said.

  “One percent”

  “Ten percent,” Ruby countered.

  “You can't go up in percentage higher than your starting bid. Two percent and I don't put you in that super dodgy old folks’ home that I found down the road.”

  “Three percent and I don't tell Alex about the great custard incident,” Ruby said in a sly tone.

  Juno shot up from her chair and turned to point a finger at her grandmother. “You wouldn’t dare! That is such a low blow.”

  “What's the custard incident?” Alex said, stirring the pot.

  “I'll tell you if I don’t get my three percent,” Ruby said.

  “Fine, you get three percent, now shut it,” Juno said, turning back to her crystals.

  “I'm sure it's not that bad, come on tell me.”

  “Sorry, Wolf, deal is done. My lips are sealed… for now,” Ruby said turning back to her calculations.

  Alex wandered over to the table and picked up one of the completed crystal feather combinations. He could feel it tingling with power, so he cast Analyze on it, the small screen opening up, revealing a few pages of code.

  “What is this spell?” Alex said.

  “Sleep spell. These are activated by velocity which means you need to throw them. But once live if you touch them you get hit by a sleep spell that will knock you out for five to ten minutes depending on your resistance,” Ruby explained.

  Alex wasn't quite sure why he did it. The thought crossed his mind and before he knew it, he'd tossed the crystal towards Ruby.

  “Hey Ruby, catch,” he said.

  The old witch turned and caught the crystal. There was a flare of magic and she suddenly crumpled to the floor.

  “Oh, she's gonna be so mad when she wakes up,” Juno said.

  “I… it was just meant to be a joke,” Alex said, coming over to kneel beside Ruby.

  “You might want to make yourself scarce,” Juno said. She stood up and opened a kitchen drawer which was stuffed full of phones. She passed one to Alex.

  “Here, take this, I’ll call you later,” she said.

  Alex wasn't sure if Juno was joking but he wasn’t going to take the risk, so he took the phone, qui
ckly grabbed his wallet and a few of the rings and left. Once he was out on the street Alex picked a random direction, vaguely heading towards the city and kept walking. It didn't take long before he was in the city proper, still wondering why he'd thrown the sleep crystal to Ruby. It felt like the impulse had come out of nowhere.

  Although Alex had left with no real plan, now that he was in the city, he started looking around for any kind of magical shop. Maybe he could sell a few rings, see what else he could buy to learn from.

  It wasn't long before he found one, but it wasn’t a pawn shop like Bailey’s had been, with the gloomy interior and broken things stuffed in the window. This one looked upmarket and had various pieces of furniture in the front window: chairs, a coffee table and an ornate bookcase.

  “Roma’s,” he murmured, looking up at the sign.

  Even from the sidewalk, he could sense the magic within.

  He cast Analyze on one of the chairs but whatever spells were on it were too high for him to understand. He just got question marks. Alex went inside.

  There was a woman behind the counter with glossy black hair who he guessed was near thirty. Although the shop itself looked quite upmarket with tastefully arranged pieces of furniture all over the place, the woman herself was wearing a large leather apron and was actually whittling something as she sat behind the cash register.

  “Come to get yourself some fancy furniture, have you?” she asked, barely looking up at Alex.

  “You must be Roma? I have some magic rings to sell,” Alex said.

  “That’s me. Give us a look then,” she said.

  Alex approached the counter and dropped a handful of rings on it. Roma glanced up and he saw her eyes widen in recognition.

  “Sorry, do you know me?” Alex asked.

  “I saw your face on a card recently. It comes from a small deck of cards you definitely don't want to be in,” Roma said.

  The only types of decks of cards with photographs on them that Alex had heard of were the ones used in war to hunt down terrorists. Alex guessed it had worked over in hot and sandy countries so it figured the mages or whoever it was would use it here.

  “Where can I get one of these cards?”

  “From somewhere you really don't want to go. How about we have a look at the rings and then you think about whether you want to be walking around the city unaccompanied? You do have a pack, right? Never travel alone and all that?”

  She went to pick up one of the rings that Alex had placed on the counter, but he stopped her, putting his hand on hers. The moment he did, she pulled her hand away and made a noise that for a moment sounded like a hiss. She dropped what she was working on, and stepped back from the counter, putting her hands on her head and smoothing her black hair down.

  “It's okay, it's okay,” she said. Alex realized she was talking to herself.

  “Sorry, I didn't mean to touch you without your permission, but if you've seen that card, you know who I am. Alex Lowe, the one and only werewolf mage and you know that people are hunting me. Tell me where I can get one of those cards,” he repeated.

  “There's a bar a couple of streets from here. There’ll be one there but you need to realize that if someone has one of those cards, it’s most likely because they enjoy hunting people. The bartender will have one. They work on a commission basis, taking a few percent cut. They’ll give you one or they might just try to collect the bounty themselves.”

  Roma finally finished smoothing her hair and returned to the counter. Alex stood there thinking while she picked up the first of the rings and he saw a spell screen flicker above her head. Hers was deep green and murky.

  As he watched she picked up one of the fireball rings and cast Analyze, before frowning again and looking back to him.

  “How have you done this then? Is this some kind of fake?” she asked.

  “It’s a fireball spell—three of them on the ring, and it charges from the wearer,” Alex said.

  “I can see it's a fireball spell. What I'm asking is how you managed to get three of them on to a ring and not a wand,” she said.

  “I just put it on there. What do you mean?” Alex asked. Even as he said it, he suddenly realized what she was saying. The only offensive spells he had seen had been on wands.

  Was it unusual to put an offensive spell on a ring? Juno and Ruby hadn't said anything about it but, then again, they'd been arguing about the percentage and then Alex had accidentally knocked Ruby out with a sleep spell.

  “You really are different aren’t you? The smallest fireball spell anyone ever saw still needs a wand to hold it, and here you are sticking it on a ring, a cheap ring too. I’ll give you two thousand dollars for this one.”

  Two thousand! Alex couldn't believe it.

  “Why are you willing to pay so much?” he asked.

  “I know an old mage I can sell this to for four thousand dollars. I’ll take the rest you have too but it might have to be on commission because I don’t have that kinda cash around the shop.”

  Alex’s mind was suddenly spinning. Two thousand for a fireball ring? He’d made five of them this morning. He only had two with him now, but all five meant he could make ten thousand dollars?

  “I made five of those rings today. Would you actually buy all five for ten thousand dollars?” he asked.

  “Are you serious?” Roma asked. She seemed to have forgotten her earlier shock when she had jumped away from Alex after he touched the back of her hand. In fact, she'd picked up the wooden object she had been carving and was now pointing it at him like some kind of weapon.

  “Yeah, I am. I need money, so do you want to buy them? In fact, if you have any empty rings around right now, I can make some and you can buy them off me,” Alex said.

  “Go sit in that red chair over there, it’s a relaxation one and then I’ll be right back,” Roma said. She rushed past Alex without another word and out the front door, leaving him alone in the store.

  Alex gathered up the rings off the counter and put them back in his pocket before starting to wander around. He occasionally cast Analyze on the various bits of furniture but all it brought up were question marks. He charged up Analyze to see if he could crack open some of the question marks and read the spells inside but they were resistant and Alex didn't want to use up all of his mana just to find out the spell had something to do with making you more relaxed and comfortable.

  He soon found himself over by the red chair. It was made of leather and dark mahogany. Figuring that Roma hadn't tried to trick him, Alex sat down in the chair and immediately felt a soothing wave of relaxation come over him. Idly he opened up his spell, screen, casting Know Thyself. He saw there were no less than twelve spells working on him at that very moment. As he sat back in the chair he felt his muscles relaxing, a gentle heat flowing through them. He wondered which spell was doing that and then a second question appeared. Would he suddenly develop resistance to it? Would his body recognize a relaxation spell and resist it on basic principle?

  Alex was wary of falling asleep or into some kind of magical stupor, but it seemed the chair was pretty much a magical version of a massage chair. His body relaxed, and he felt himself calm and warm as he sat there. With the physical relaxation came mental relaxation as well. He realized he’d been working himself up to finding out wherever this bar was, going in, and getting a hold of the card that had his name and face on it. He also realized he hadn’t asked Roma how she'd seen one of these cards. Had she has been hanging out in the bar or did she know someone? It wasn't long before Roma returned and stopped in front in front of the chair.

  “I have five empty rings here. I’ll give you a thousand for each one you can enchant now,” she said.

  “Sounds good,” Alex said and then yawned before pulling himself out the chair. He followed her over to the counter where she put down the five rings that she'd apparently just purchased. Now that he was moving, the relaxation slowly faded and Alex realized he might have been duped. After all why say yes immed
iately to a thousand dollars a ring when she’d just offered him two thousand for one?

  “Wait, I want fifteen hundred dollars per ring,” Alex said.

  Roma shook her head. “I normally wouldn't say this, but I only have five thousand cash on hand, so if I give you fifteen hundred a ring, I can only buy three. How about this? You make me five, I'll give you five thousand and then when you come back, we’ll make a better deal.”

  Alex looked at the five rings that Roma had purchased. They seemed higher quality than the ones Ruby had bought, and he wondered if that made a difference at all. He was tempted to say yes, partially for the lure of five thousand, which would solve a lot of problems in one stroke but also he was hesitant as he had no idea really what such a ring would be worth. It dawned on him that if he was the sole manufacturer of a fireball ring, perhaps it was worth far more than Roma wanted to pay him. Maybe that was why Ruby had been arguing so hard for a percentage.

  Alex stood there for a moment, the idea of money churning around in his head before he remembered the whole hearts and minds thing. Hearts and minds meant making connections, forming relationships, building trust. Why not start here?

  “Okay, I'll do it. A thousand a ring,” Alex said.

  “What do you need? I have another room, out back,” Roma said.

  “Yeah, let’s go out back in case someone comes in,” Alex said. Roma gathered up the rings and then waved at Alex to follow her.

  Much like Bailey’s she had a door behind the counter. Alex followed her out there, down a short corridor that opened into what appeared to be part woodworking shop and living space. Along two walls were various lathes, benches, saws, hammers and partially completed projects. The other two corners of the room were her kitchen and bedroom. There was also a sofa and television. The bed was a four-poster and draped with fine fabrics. There are also houseplants over that side, spilling out of their pots. Standing over in the corner beside the refrigerator was the marble statue of a grinning man, completely naked.