by Ben Reeder
“Ictus!” I yelled, and the bolt of pure force sent her flying into the air. “Ictus!” I called out again, and caught her at the top of her arc, sending her even further. I turned to see how Sinbad and Shade were doing, more out of curiosity than any real concern for their safety. Shade was an alpha, and Sinbad…I’d learned a long time ago that men and women like him were old for a reason. Shade had her knee between her guy’s shoulders and his right arm at an unnatural angle. His left hand was slapping against the floor, but she showed no signs of letting up.
Sinbad, on the other hand, had his by the throat and had forced him to his knees. “You dare try to lay a hand on me, pup? I’m a prince among the Clans.”
“We didn’t know,” the man choked out. “We were just told to teach you a lesson and bring you back to face the Elders.” His face held the look of a man who was experiencing fear again after a long time. Both of the Weres they held down were well dressed and neither one looked like they’d missed a meal in a long time. The crowd behind me let out a gasp, and I turned to see my opponent coming back over the roof tops. Wands came out as she jumped to the ground and started my way.
“I’d think twice,” I said as I pointed my wand at her. She stopped a few steps away and dropped into a ready stance.
“You won’t beat me with the same trick twice, little boy.”
I raised my hand and said “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” Moments later, her eyes went wide as the band of telekinetic force closed enough for her to feel it around her throat. It was the only spell I knew that had an English casting phrase, and I had to do my best Darth Vader imitation to pull it off. It never failed to catch people by surprise. “It’s a good thing I don’t use the same trick twice. Now, behave yourself or the next time I hit you, you’ll need a passport to get back home.” Her hands went to her neck, and I stopped the spell’s constriction short of actually cutting off air.
“This is Were business,” the woman said. “Leave and I’ll forget you interfered.”
“You threw the first punch at me, lady,” I said.
“The Clans have gone far astray, if this is how they conduct their business,” Sinbad said. “You will take us to the people who gave you your orders so that they can give me a direct apology.” The woman paled, and I looked over to the man Sinbad held. His face was ashen as well. Shade let her man up as Sinbad released his hold.
“You sure it’s a good idea for me to come with?” I asked.
“You’re her gothi, kid,” Sinbad said as he wiped his hand off on his pant leg. “You need to be there as much as she does.”
“The things I do to take you to Homecoming,” I said as I released the spell. Shade just chuckled and put her arm around my waist.
“I’m worth it,” she said, her voice breathy in my ear.
“Damn straight.”
“This is about a dance?” the were I’d released asked.
“That’s pretty much the size of it,” Sinbad said. “Your Clan Elders are getting all worked up over two kids goin’ on a date.” The girl made a noise of disgust, and one of the guys growled.
“It isn’t for us to judge them,” the third man said.
“It is for me,” Sinbad said. “Now, get your asses in gear.” The three Weres all but jumped, then nodded toward a black van parked in an arched tunnel. Milk crates were set on the floor, most upside down, but one was filled with the usual kidnappy stuff: duct tape, and black cloth hoods.
“You were going to black bag us?” I asked. “Seriously? That’s the best the elders could come up with?”
“It works well enough,” one of the men said.
“It’s overdone,” I said. Sinbad got in on the passenger side, and Shade and I took the two milk crates behind the seats, leaving the other two to sit on the bare metal of the floor.
“Drive,” Sinbad ordered. We emerged a few seconds later on the streets of Boston, and the driver headed toward the water. Eventually, we pulled up near a restaurant that advertised “Fresh Seafood!!” under the faded sign of The Wheelhouse. A large fishing boat was docked behind it, and a taller building butted up against the left side.
“Where were you supposed to take the kids?” Sinbad demanded.
The driver pointed toward the larger building. “The processing plant,” he said.
“Let’s go then.” He got out and opened the side doors for us. “You two stay here, and be real quiet.” He closed the doors without waiting for their nods and turned toward the packing plant. We went in through a pair of double doors and found ourselves in a mostly empty room. A conveyer system snaked its way through the room, but most of the other machinery was gone. Most of the room was dark, with shafts of light coming down through regularly spaced skylights. In one of the pools of light, a pair of chairs waited near a metal cart.
“Make yourselves comfortable, kids,” Sinbad said with a nod toward the chairs. He turned toward the Were with us and pulled a shotgun out of his duffel bag. “You. Go get your bosses. And play it cool or I’ll blow a hole in you big enough to drive through. You got it?” The Were nodded and backed away.
Shade and I went to the chairs and sat down. She slouched forward while I let my butt slide forward and crossed my arms over my chest. After a moment, she looked over at me and put a hand on my forearm.
“Have you been working out?”
“Fencing club,” I said and curled a fist up to show the new definition my forearms were taking. “And pistol club. So I’ve been working a lot on my wrists.”
“Are you still running?”
“Every morning, now,” I said. “I’m also in the cross country club. Did you try out for cheerleader?”
“No,” she said. “But I did join the tennis team. The rest of the pack is staying away from face-to-face competition, just like we talked about over the summer. Cal wanted to play baseball, but it’s still too risky.”
“You said you hated tennis,” I said.
“I do, but Mom loves it. I figured it’ll keep her out of my hair over you.” She leaned in and kissed me.
“Get your heads in the game and shut the hell up,” Sinbad hissed. Shade squeezed my hand and leaned forward again, her eyes blazing amber. I pulled my wand from my jacket pocket and palmed it so that the tip was laying against the bottom of my forearm. Sinbad had faded into the shadows, and I heard voices approaching.
“No, sir, we caught him completely by surprise,” our guide was saying to someone.
“I suppose it’s for the best,” a deeper voice replied. “Even the young ones can be arrogant little pricks, though. I’m going to enjoy watching him squirm.” Our guide emerged from the darkness with an older man in a black suit and a white shirt. Silver touched the hair at his temples and dotted his hair everywhere else. “What the Hell is this? I said I wanted them bagged and bound.”
“Change of plans,” Sinbad said as he emerged behind them. The sound of the shotgun’s slide being worked was like a thunderclap in the open room.
“Reginald,” Eugene said. “So, the prodigal bastard comes slinking home, hiding behind children.”
“Cut the bullshit, Eugene. You were planning on torturing the girl with silver. And judging from the smell, she’s not the only girl you’ve put to the knife down here.”
“You expect me to let some upstart bitch go wandering around in my domain unchecked?” Eugene turned to face Sinbad. “You expect me to let her walk in here unclaimed and not take her for my own?” Beside me, Shade bared her teeth, and the older were stiffened. He shot her a glare before he turned back to Sinbad.
“She’s a kid, Eugene,” Sinbad said.
“That’s irrelevant. She’s an unclaimed female in my territory. It’s my right!”
Shade growled and got to her feet. “I’m not a trophy,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’m not a prize. And I will gut any man who tries to take me.”
Eugene took a step forward, his eyes glowing gold. “No wolf walks through this town without swearing loyalty to me
alone. Especially not some uppity bitch who thinks she’s an alpha.”
“Sable, Shade, can the bullshit and the posing, both of you!” Sinbad snapped. I got to my feet and went to Shade’s side. The look on Sinbad’s face was as closed to concerned as I’d ever seen him, and that made my gut clench up.
“I’m not posing,” Shade said.
“If you know what’s good for your pack, you are.” He gave me a pointed look as he put an arm across Eugene’s chest. That he’d broken and called Eugene by his pack name, Sable, told me how important it was to get things back under control.
“Shade, don’t try to kill the man,” I said as I wrapped my left arm around her shoulders. “He hasn’t tried to do anything stupid yet.”
“He’s made the threat,” she growled and looked at me with a mix of pain and anger in her gaze. “And no one stopped him.”
“You did,” I said, meeting her gaze. “You’re the alpha here. And I will follow your lead. But we need to avoid bloodshed here if we can. Something isn’t right.”
She relaxed against my arm. “And you’re my gothi. I’ll take your advice.”
“What the hell is going on with you, Sable?” Sinbad demanded. “You’re more territorial than a vampire.”
“An apt description, Reginald,” another voice said. It filled the room, even though it sounded no louder than someone having a regular conversation. A thin man walked into the light, his pale skin almost translucent under the filtered sunlight. The room went cool and damp like the inside of a grave as he looked from person to person with flat, expressionless eyes.
“You’ve got to be shitting me, Sable,” Sinbad said. He pushed Sable away and leveled the shotgun at him. “You’re in bed with suckface here?”
“Sinbad, please,” Sable said as he raised his hands and shook his head.
“I assure you, it’s as distasteful to both of us as it is necessary,” the thin man said. “Distasteful necessity is something I believe you’re well acquainted with.” Even without the physical clues, like how he didn’t breathe, the dank, grave-like aura that he gave off set monkey brain to screaming in my head. Between my screeching thoughts, one word kept blazing across my thoughts. Vampire! Well, that and Run! But, like the idiot I tended to be, I stood my ground. Shade was right there, and I wasn’t about to leave her side.
“Why is it so necessary?” Sinbad asked.
“Something was hunting us,” Sable said. “Vampire and were alike. We couldn’t fight it; we couldn’t even see it. Only a couple survived the attack, but not for long. Their Anima had been ripped away by something they couldn’t see or fight, and they died within hours.”
“What about your people?” Sinbad asked. “Did they give you your souls back or some shit?”
“That which infuses us is profoundly different from the Animus that your kind are so dependent upon,” the vampire said, his voice cultured and condescending. “For simplicity’s sake, it can be said to serve similar purpose. As a rule, however, we do not survive the initial attack.”
“How do you know it’s the same thing then?”
“My people are more social. When the attacks occurred, there were witnesses each time.”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” I said softly, but even across the room, tall pale and cadaverous picked it up. “You know what kind of magick they’re using.” The sound of air hissing in through his nose carried across the room as he straightened and looked down at me.
“Who gave you permission to talk, boy?” the vampire sneered. He made a gesture, and I felt the compulsion splatter against my newly strengthened mental defenses.
“You must have a defense against it,” I went on, and he took a step back. “Otherwise, there would be no reason for the alliance between you. And you kept it to yourself.”
Sinbad turned to Sable and gave him a hard look. “Is that true?” Sable just gaped and shook his head.
I took a step forward and pointed at the vampire. “You left everyone else to deal with this on their own, while you had a way to stop it. Who else did they target? Who else lost people while you cowered behind your own defenses?”
“Watch your mouth, boy,” the vampire said. “It’s about to get you killed.”
“And yours just got you seriously dead,” Sinbad growled. The vampire turned to face him with a frown and found himself looking down the barrel of the shotgun. “Kid’s one of mine.”
With his eyes on the shotgun, he was a fraction of a second too slow to react when I brought my wand up and called out “Arripio!” Bands of telekinetic force wrapped around him before he could do much more than bare his fangs. Sable turned to Sinbad and gaped for a moment as the shotgun swiveled back to bear on him.
“Wait!” Sable cried out. “The boy was right, we did have a defense! But we never knew about the others until after it was too late to help them.”
“Shut up!” the vampire snapped. “The boy was guessing.” The vampire struggled against the spell, and I felt sweat break out on my forehead as I fought to hold him in place.
“And the first thing you did was threaten him,” Sinbad said. “If you thought you had a chance, you would have denied it first.”
“And you really shouldn’t have threatened my gothi,” Shade said as she emerged from the shadows behind the vampire. His sneer turned into a gasp of pain as she put one arm around his throat. “I really like having him around.”
“Your advantage is temporary,” the vampire said, then hissed as Shade moved slightly.
“That’s the first inch of two feet of oak I have at your back,” Shade hissed. “Threaten my boyfriend again, and I’ll give you more than just the tip.”
“But what will you do now?” the vampire said. “Kill me, and the head of Clan Hrovingr? It’s well known that you were being brought here. Oh, you might escape, you might even make it back to that cesspit you call home. But war will come for you and your mongrel packs, and you will watch your city burn.”
“No, I won’t dirty my hands with you,” Shade said with a chilling tone in her voice. “I won’t need to. All I have to do is walk away. You’ll be alive…or whatever things like you are. And while I’m walking, I’ll be talking, telling whoever I meet that you knew how to stop the attacks months ago, and choose to keep it quiet, outside of the wolf packs. Or was it just one clan? Either way, if you think you’re going to deliver a war to New Essex, I’ll deliver ten to your doorstep. And when the wizards get wind of it? How bad is that day gonna be, baby?” she turned to ask me.
I grinned. “Extra crispy.”
“And how do we avoid our mutually assured destruction?” he asked.
“I’ll ask some questions, and I won’t tell anyone where I got the answers,” I said. “Shade and I will go to homecoming, like normal kids do. And pretty much no one else dies.”
“Save your questions, then,” the vampire said. “I already know what you want. But do please unhand me, girl. If we’re going to be civilized about this, let us dispense at least with the appearance of violence, shall we?”
Shade let go of him and stepped back, and Sinbad lowered his shotgun. “Start talkin’,” the older Were said.
“Very well,” the vampire said. “Whoever is behind these attacks, they are using a form of Muvian blood magick. It can be countered with the blood of the intended victim’s line. Thus, Sable was able to ensure the safety of his clan with his own blood, as I was able to ensure the safety of my broodline with my own blood. I doubt your wizard families are so closely connected.”
“Good luck getting them to use Muvian magick, too,” I said. “Okay, so we know it’s Muvian blood magick. That gives us a place to start.”
“As to allowing a rogue wolf to simply walk into our lands without swearing at least temporary fealty to us, or paying us some sort of tribute…” Sable let the sentence fade as Shade favored him with a snarl.
“Have completely forgotten the Ways of the Clans?” Sinbad asked.
“I AM the Clan!” Sable countered. “
My word is Law, above reproach. And any wolf who doesn’t like it is free to challenge me.”
“That isn’t our Way,” Sinbad said as he raised the shotgun. “If you’ve forgotten the Clan Laws, then I’ve been gone too long.”
“You don’t dare kill a Clan Alpha in cold blood,” Sable said.
“You aren’t a Clan Alpha,” Sinbad smiled. “You never beat me in challenge. This Clan is still mine if I want it. So challenge me, Sable. Take this Clan from me.” Sable shook his head and backed away.
“I don’t have to,” he said. “No one knows.”
“They do now,” Sinbad said. The Were who had brought Sable to us stepped into the light, and the two from the van joined her. “Shade, Chance, go outside. This is Clan business, and you aren’t Clan.” I nodded, and we headed for the door. This had the sound of politics, and that almost always got formal and stuffy. And the last thing I wanted after more than a month away from Shade was formal. Besides, we had a van and a few minutes to ourselves.
Chapter 12
~ No man will follow me because another tells him he should. Let him follow me because his heart tells him he must! ~ George Washington, “Brother to Magi”
Shade’s face was still red, and I figured mine was at least a shade darker, but Sinbad seemed to be done talking about catching us making out. Of course, none of it kept us from finding a way to touch each other. Shade’s arm was draped behind the passenger seat in the van, and her hand was inside the neckline of my shirt, her fingertips warm against my chest as she played with the little vial around my neck. I laid my head against her forearm as I pulled my own cellphone out and dialed Dr. Corwin’s number again.
“Chance, excellent timing, we just landed,” he said when he picked up.
“Dr. C, I found out what kind of magick they’re using,” I blurted.