by John Conroe
“All of it. When I’m feet on the ground, I feel all of it,” I said.
He looked at me in disbelief for a moment. “How? How can you process that much information?”
“That’s part of the problem. Magic drunk and trying to read the instructions on my new realm is a bad combo… like putting together foreign-made furniture without English translations while doing Tequila shooters.”
“How will you deal?”
“Well, a couple ways. Aunt Ash gave me some spells that will filter the magic around me, slow it down. I’ll ink them in henna on my skin. Plus I’ll wear the uncharged mega batteries I made, letting them absorb the excess power around me. Plus, I’m hoping I have more tolerance this time. You know—like an alcoholic.”
“It’s like that, huh?” he asked.
“I guess. I don’t know much about alcohol. I’ve only tasted a tequila shot, once. The wolves drink sometimes, but they metabolize it so fast they can hardly catch a buzz. But health class in high school spent a bunch of chapters on alcohol and drug abuse, so I what I feel on Fairie must be similar.”
He studied me for a few moments. Finally, he sighed. “Nothing to it but to do it,” he said, clearly uncertain.
“That’s why you don’t hear about drunk witches, ever. They would draw too much attention, or more likely mess themselves up with a spell,” I said.
“How capable are you when magic drunk?” he asked.
“It’s different. Alcohol slows your reactions and disrupts your judgement. Too much magic makes you feel… powerful… godlike… unstoppable, but your ability to manage the Crafting is fine. I’m not saying you still have the best judgement of what’s a good idea and what isn’t, but you’ll execute the spell as well or better than you normally would.”
“But you’re always extremely powerful?” he asked.
“I can carry a lot and I can borrow a shit ton more, so my capacity to mange big magic is pretty high. That probably helps me on Fairie. But it’s so overwhelming that you can get reckless. Like when you’re flush with money—you might blow some here or there just because you can.”
“Reckless spending, only with super powers instead of cash?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“But from all the reports I heard, you didn’t really engage in that sort of thing?”
“My mother and my aunt beat me about the head and shoulders with the need for moderation and restraint. It wasn’t that I couldn’t use magic to make life easier, it was that they were highly disappointed if I did. It wasn’t to be wasted or splashed about; it was precious and secret and always required the utmost discipline,” I said.
“But come on? You were a kid. Kids rebel, right?” he asked.
“Aunt Ash wanted to hide me away from the other kids, but my mom wouldn’t have any of that. She introduced to me to as many kids as possible, held play dates, did all that stuff. And before every interaction, we’d go over the rules. No magic, no talking about magic, no scary stories. Then at home, I could go to the barn and play Wytch War and sometimes she and Aunt Ash would play too. So I knew I was different, but my abilities weren’t repressed, just controlled.”
“And you didn’t slip up? Ever?” he asked.
“Came close a couple of times, but Mom was there in the early years and stopped me. She came up with a nifty spell that dampened the magic around me and whoever I was playing with. It only worked when I was like five but by the time I grew strong enough for the spell to be ineffective, I pretty much knew better. And then she died.”
“You lost her near the same age I was when I lost my family,” he said.
“Yeah, although at least I wasn’t right there when she was killed, like you were.”
“But I bet you wished you had been, right?” he asked.
I could feel myself gaping at him.
“Come on, that’s an easy one to guess. I spent months, years wishing I had had some kind of power or weapon to fight the demon. It came, just four years too late. You already had yours, so why wouldn’t you dream of being there to help your mother?”
“I went through a phase in my teens where I tried to investigate Mom’s murder. Hacked Boston PD’s computer multiple times to review the reports. Hacked into news servers and camera systems. Took a weekend trip there with my friend Rory when we were seniors in high school. I didn’t get far,” I said.
“Any theories?” he asked gently.
“I think it goes back to Ireland and maybe the Czech Republic,” I said, uncomfortable.
“Your father?” Chris asked.
I just nodded.
“How are you and Zuzanna?” he asked.
“Cautious would be the best term,” I said. He quirked his eyebrows, waiting. “I think she’s equal parts worried I’ll kill her dad or become his new favorite.”
“Would you?”
“Well, he’s always lurking around the school, like he’s hoping to run into me as opposed to her. She works hard to avoid me when he’s around.”
“No. I meant would you kill him?” he asked.
“I work hard to avoid them when he’s around,” I said with a slight smile. “It’s the only thing we have in common.”
He frowned.
“Also, Aunt Ash says I’m not allowed to atomize any family members, no matter who they are,” I said.
He smiled. “Well, that seems like the last word on that.”
“I know, right? Doesn’t seem very fair, but she’s adamant,” I said.
“Maybe Omega could help, you know, with the investigation?” he asked.
“I have delegated a subroutine to ongoing review of all information pertinent to the case. Additionally, I have micro drone units infiltrating the homes of persons of interest in Ireland and the Czech Republic.”
That surprised him, although why I don’t know. Had he met Omega?
“That makes sense, I guess,” he allowed, although his frown showed he was disturbed. “What happens when Omega finds something?”
When, not if. Interesting, apparently he did know my AI friend.
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly.
He thought about that for a moment or two, watching me. Then he shrugged. “So, what’s on your agenda today? You know—before your girlfriend gets here.”
“I was gonna try to audit a poly sci class but instead I’m going down to the basement range and testing out a new gun Aunt Darcy gave me to take on the trip.”
He perked right up. “Really, whatcha got?”
“Serbu Super Shorty.”
“Let’s go.”
Chapter 7
Jenks hovered around in the background as we burned up a couple hundred shotgun shells in Arcane’s indoor pistol range. Had I been by myself, I would no doubt have gotten lectured and probably kicked out. I get the whole shotgun-on-a-pistol-range thing, but we were shooting steel birdshot, mostly in small sizes but up to BB size. So no lead contamination and at twenty-five and fifty yards, there was no real wear and tear on the range backstops. But there was nothing he could say to the school’s primary sponsor who he was also completely intimidated by. Which was frankly just good sense. Jenks was a werewolf and Chris had a known history of killing entire packs of outlaw werewolves. By himself. With just his hands and feet.
The little gun was a handful but performed flawlessly and I felt very comfortable with the amount of backup firepower its three shots provided. One of the things we discovered was that I could affect the shot in flight, at least a little, with kinetic power. It was too quick out of the muzzle for me to do much, but if mentally prepared I could alter the pattern of the shot downrange, from very wide to tight and narrow, which might prove really useful. The other effect was that I could bend the path of the shot, just a bit, because it was again, moving very fast. If I looked at one target and aimed at the other, the flight of the pellets would arc just enough that at fifty yards, it would veer over and hit the object of my observation.
We finished up,
cleaned the gun, and policed up the empty shotgun hulls. Chris had a great time, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but still did. So odd that the fallen angel who wielded holy aura and a sword from heaven was a gun guy. But he was—completely. He shot the Serbu just as much as I did, a huge grin on his face the whole time, blasting B27 silhouette targets to smithereens.
When we came up from the basement range, we had just enough time to grab Nutella milkshakes from the dining hall ladies, who about swooned when the God Hammer asked if they could make them. I was about half through mine when Omega told us that Stacia and ‘Sos were five minutes out. Soon enough, we spotted a silver Audi SUV pulling into Arcane’s parking lot and stepped outside to meet it.
Both doors flew open and there was a flicker of white hair and black clothes and my arms were suddenly full of girl. Green eyes studied my forehead, then me, then raked down the rest of my body.
“No other wounds, just the head, and you can see Chris fixed that up,” I said, pointing next to us. We both glanced over and saw a ginormous tan and black wolf up on his hind legs, his forelegs on Chris’s shoulders, snout snuffling his closest friend.
“Who said I was looking for wounds?” she asked, looking back my way, one eyebrow arched, a look of something hot in her emerald eyes.
“Enough of that, you two. We’ve got planning to do,” Chris said as Awasos dropped back down and came over to snuffle me. “Let’s head inside and Declan and I will fill you in on what we’ve been talking about.” He turned toward Arcane and as we turned with him, we all saw the faces in the windows. About a third of the student body was watching us, some immediately disappearing when they realized they were busted.
Dellwood, his sister Clary, and four of his pack just stood and grinned at us. Then Dellwood pointed at Stacia, made a heart shape with his hands, holding it over his chest before pointing at me and waving me off in dismissal.
I flipped him off and he put one hand over his mouth, his eyes getting huge in mock shock at my graphic gesture. Then the pack peeled away from the window and disappeared.
“Looks like things are pretty normal here,” Stacia said as we walked into the building.
“Same old, same old,” I agreed.
“Oh, I don’t know. Wade and I caught part of a wicked good advanced witchcraft class last night,” Chris said casually.
“Yeah? How was the professor?” Stacia asked.
“Pretty impressive. Wade was mildly shocked. Me, I never had a doubt,” he said.
“Really, well, maybe I need to meet this professor. The whole academic thing is sexy,” she said, flicking her eyes my way.
“It really was very good. The witches sure seem to think so,” Chris said. “And I imagine keeping all of them on track can be tricky.”
“Especially when Wade and this one waltz in and set their hearts a-fluttering,” I said.
“Dude, they were totally focused on the portal craft. What did you do to get their attention like that?” he asked.
“A little show and tell,” I said.
Stacia whipped around to look at me, eyes narrowed.
I held up both hands. “I made an inter-classroom portal and they threw pencils and shit through it. It showed them how much power it takes and how dangerous they can be.”
“Cut off some of their body parts did you?” she asked, sounding hopeful.
“Just innocent writing implements.”
“A shame, that,” she said, giving the door guard, Justin, a nod and quick smile as he let us in. Poor guy tried to say something but got all tongue-tied and after a few meaningless noises just nodded, miserable and ecstatic at the same time. I smiled to myself.
The male of the species is a simple beast. Despite knowing she transforms into a giant apex predator, most men forget all that with one simple smile from her. Guys fall all over themselves to help her out, completely ignoring me and her wolfish nature until something forcibly reminds them of the carnivore in their midst. Usually it’s something as simple as watching her eat. Not that she’s messy or anything, but her diet includes more meat than most women her size by a factor of, like, five and more food by a factor of three to four. When she destroys a club sandwich then starts on a second without slowing down, you begin to see the light bulb click on over their heads. By her third, they mostly stop watching, their attention on something else, anything else, as the reality of her two natures sinks in. That’s the point where they glance at me, wondering. And I smile back.
We found an empty classroom and set about filling her and ‘Sos in on our plans. To anyone who doesn’t know him, it might look weird to be addressing him along with Stacia, but Awasos is smart. He understands everything we say and can in turn convey a great deal of his own thoughts back to us. How that happens is a bit of a mystery. Body language is involved, definitely, but there’s more to it than that. After being around him for a time, I noticed that I was understanding how he felt about certain things. Chris, who has been there since his birth, and Stacia, who reads animal body language at an instinctual level, can figure out not just his emotions but understand much of what he is thinking. Especially in a fight.
“So when do we go?” Stacia asked. ‘Sos’s big wolf head tilted as if he too wanted that information.
“Declan?” Chris asked.
“We should be at full charge sometime tomorrow morning, say around 8 AM. We can bust open a portal and pop over anytime after that,” I said.
“Concur,” Omega added.
“So we step over, somewhere in the mountain region, and scout the area. Mostly we’re seeing how D handles the scene, plus he’s getting updates from the… ground? Anyway, at that point, we can either portal back here and chill or pop over to Idiria to get the real story. How do we get a portal open if you’re toasted on magic?” Stacia asked.
“I’m making a semi-permanent portal. When we get there, the first thing I’ll do is fix it in place to keep it ready to go, but I’ll also lock it. Either I or the dozen or so micro drones that Omega leaves guarding it will be able to unlock it,” I said.
“How many drones are going with us?” Chris asked.
“I will send two hundred and fifty micro drones with you and leave fifty to guard the gate here on Earth. In addition, the portal opening here, which will be on Ashling’s property, will be guarded by both elementals, Draco and Robbie. On Fairie, fifty micro units will protect the gateway and the other two hundred will accompany you as scouts and guards,” Omega said.
“Where in the mountains?” Stacia asked.
The wall monitor in the classroom turned itself on and a 3D colorized map of the main continent of Fairie filled the screen.
“There is a cave on the southeastern edge of the mountain range that I plan to use to house the portal. The cave is in a stable section of the mountains, dry and easily defensible. We can leave supplies there too,” I said as a red dot appeared on the map, then the whole picture zoomed in to show a blue wireframe outline of the actual cave.
“Also, the cave is only about a third of the way up the mountainside and hidden from view by multiple rock features. There is a forest a mile down the mountainside that changes over to jungle at my realm’s border. That puts us near Summer’s realm for scouting purposes,” I said as Omega zoomed back out partway, then showed the forest and border area.
“How much knowledge do you get when you’re on the ground?” Chris asked.
“More than I can process. It will be difficult for anything to surprise us in my zone, but the ultra-sharp sense of everything only extends for a couple of miles. I have to focus my attention in order to feel anything farther away, but when I do, I can sense a ton of detail.”
“So our perimeter will be safe but something five miles away might go unnoticed?” Chris asked.
“Sorta. Stuff further away requires a concentrated effort. So when we get there, I’ll immediately know what’s around us for several miles. Then I’ll focus on the next five or ten miles and check it out. After that, I can
keep reaching, so to speak, to either look for specific people or things or continue my mental scouting. My senses end at the realm borders.”
“If we step into Summer’s territory, will she know?” Stacia asked.
“I don’t know what the queens feel. They’ve been tied to their realms for longer than Senka has been a vampire. Who knows what they can do? But definitely if Zinnia’s nearby or focused on it, then yes. She may also be able to feel me if I step over the border.”
“Because you resonate magic or something like that?” Stacia asked.
“Yeah. The two queens and their daughters always stuck out to me like light bulbs when we were fighting them. I imagine I do the same to them. I have no idea what Chris will look like over there,” I said.