Moonlight Magic

by Alexander, K. R.

  He shook his head. “It should mend with keeping clean and the medication.”

  “Not a full round of it.”

  “It’s not bad.” He looked ahead as we walked on.

  “It came from a bad source.”

  Gabriel said nothing.

  Jed ran up to Zar with a stick the size of a man’s arm. Zar grabbed for it but it turned out Jed was only passing by. The stick clobbered Zar in the head. Zar bit it. Jed roared and galloped away, bringing the thing to me.

  He tossed his head, tail raised and waving, holding the branch at a lofty angle befitting a fresh kill.

  “You’ll have to find something smaller if you want me to throw that.”

  Jed considered. He rolled his eyes to the stick.

  “It’s bigger than a baseball bat—or cricket bat, whatever. It’s dangerous. Anyway, wouldn’t a small, aerodynamic stick be more fun? You’d have to track it down in this.” I waved to encompass the steaming grass and bracken.

  Jed glanced around, making Gabriel and I jump back as the branch almost whacked our legs. He had just started away when Zar came up with a smooth, straight stick rather like a ruler.

  “There you go. That’s perfect.”

  Zar hesitated, then held the stick up to Gabriel. He didn’t wag his tail, didn’t look pleased with himself. If anything his pale golden-brown eyes were sad, his whole bearing like a fur version of Gabriel’s stance.

  We all watched him.

  Zar didn’t expect Gabriel to do anything. I’m not sure why that was so clear, but I didn’t have to think about it. Zar was proving a point. Had Gabriel perhaps accused him, Zar, of being morose or needing to reach out? After what I’d observed last night I could imagine Gabriel having done such a thing with Zar in private—and Zar taking the advice with understandable incredulity.

  Whatever may or may not have happened before, Zar’s tone now was somehow unmistakable. You’re so smart? Let’s see you loosen up and forget your sorrows.

  Zar gave him maybe half a minute, while Gabriel only looked back or glanced at Jed. Then Zar walked away, turning his back on us both.

  I’d meant to tell Gabriel we should go for the motorcycles. Instead, I wanted to vanish.

  A muscle worked in Gabriel’s jaw as he watched Zar stalking away. In a few long strides, not limping, he practically lunged at Jed, grabbed the massive stick in both hands, yanked it from Jed’s startled mouth, and hurled it like a javelin.

  Zar looked around as the branch sailed down the slope to land on end at a remarkable distance. It snapped off part and fell while Jed raced in.

  Breathing quickly, Gabriel walked on, up the slope and away from all of us. Zar watched him, the smooth stick still in his mouth. Jed bounded after. He cut Gabriel off, tossing his head with the still sizable remains—as if what Gabriel had done was in the greatest good spirits and Jed was eager for another go.

  Gabriel stopped, stared at him, then flung the thing again.

  By the time he reached the crest of the hill, with me following slowly, Jed had returned the branch twice more. Zar trotted up the hill but did not approach. Gabriel went to him instead.

  Zar growled when Gabriel reached for the smooth stick. Gabriel ignored him, twisting it against his jaws to get Zar to let go.

  Zar bristled and showed his teeth, the growl turning into a snarl, pulling away. Gabriel, staring into his eyes, looming over him, fist clenched on the stick, growled back. Zar blinked, letting go and flattening his ears at the same time.

  Gabriel threw it along the crest where steam had faded and the bracken was bathed in fresh sunlight that made us squint. It went a long way, this one spinning, while Zar simply stood, watching the arc.

  Jed, dashing back up the slope, dropped his own branch at the sight of a new fast-moving object, and tore after it.

  Zar’s head snapped up. He ran forward, clearly offended.

  Jed pounced, snatched the smooth stick in his jaws, and shook his head violently to kill it. Just as he was making his happy turn back toward us, Zar plowed into him. A fast, furious bundle of French gray, smaller than Jed but taking him completely by surprise, Zar tumbled him off his feet with the first blow and set about biting like a tornado. Jed yelped, the stick knocked from his jaws, and snapped back, twisting to get his paws under him. Zar clamped down below Jed’s ear and shook his head, slamming Jed back.

  The noise was terrific. As if a whole pack was at it—snarling, roaring, yelping. Then Jed was on his paws, Zar sprang clear, and they faced each other, bristling, lips writhed back, tongues flicking out, stances wide to withstand a charge.

  After ten seconds of knife-edge tension lips eased down over fangs and the noise subsided. Hackles still on end, still growling, Zar stepped deliberately past Jed, who turned to keep facing him, and snatched up the ruler stick in his mouth. With a final growl and fluttering lip at Jed, he trotted back to Gabriel.

  He looked like he’d gained weight: his handsomely mottled fur puffed like a scared cat.

  Gabriel made no comment. He took the stick that Zar offered him and sent it spinning all the way down the slope with Zar racing after. Jed ran as well.

  They brought it back. Gabriel threw it. Now Jed competed but Zar still got there first and returned it. Another throw. Jed got it this time. Another. Zar fetched it. Another.

  Then … Gabriel was talking to them. As they growled and jostled each other, he walked and said he’d bet Scottish hikers would like a glimpse of them for their social media accounts. He asked Jed if he knew what social media was. He told Zar he would get him a real phone if he’d use one, then added that Zar would use one if only he knew how useful they could be.

  “The community is online some. You just have to know how to look.” He glanced around at me, trailing twenty feet behind them in silence.

  “That’s right,” I told Zar. “You might like a phone or tablet, Zar. It’s not just about keeping in touch or taking selfies. It’s an information storehouse. You can keep a library in your pocket. You can look anything up. You can stay connected with people world’s away.”

  Then they were off running again.

  “You’re welcome to my current iPhone,” Gabriel told him on the next return. “I’ve been thinking of a trade-in, but can as easily buy a new one and clear out the old one. It’s in perfect condition.” He threw.

  Jed got it that time and returned the stick to me. I put magic behind the throw, sending the thing an impossible distance across the glen and into the edge of the woods, where they had to engage in a frantic search to find it before the other did.

  A sleek, raven-black form burst from the trees with the stick in his jaws. Jason, chased by Kage in fur, and Zar and Jed when they saw what had happened, tore across the glen, back up the hill, then around and around us.

  Isaac and Andrew were walking back. I waved to show where we were in the blinding light. The bowl of the valley that had remained longest in shadow still steamed profusely. The wolves raced through it, coats soaked from the bracken, zigzagging and cutting out at different angles, while mist rose around them like spirits embracing us all.

  It was the brothers I watched. Mostly Gabriel watching them—an expression again on his face that could have been wistful. Which might even have been how his two brothers looked at him.

  Chapter 29

  The motorcycles were still there. Reavers were not. Even ones that Gabriel or Isaac had seen drop as if destroyed—all gone. Other than some marks in the mud there was no trace that they had ever been there.

  I was not allowed into the conversation puzzling over this with Isaac, Andrew, Kage, and Gabriel. I’d been unanimously sentenced to confinement with Jason in the Jeep. He, Jed, and, most unusually, Zar, had all remained in fur for the drive up. The latter two, along with Gabriel, rode in the trailer.

  Watching the three together like that cut such a striking figure, I wished I had a photograph of them. The alluring “man” in black leather jacket and boots with the two over-large wolves, one
dark, one classic. That was a spell in itself—an image of pure magic.

  Since Zar hadn’t changed, we couldn’t discuss reavers with him, having proposed that they seemed to only be out at night and we wanted to go for the bikes. He had not exactly leapt for joy, but hadn’t noticeably objected either.

  He’d hardly stepped out once we arrived. Kage ordered him back in: too noticeable in case of passing cars. But, as they discussed the situation of everything being so tidied up, no trace but the bikes, Jed patrolled for scent and Kage eventually returned to my backseat door.

  “Should I scry them?” I asked as he opened it. I still didn’t want to scry casters, didn’t want to scry any of this more than we could help.

  “Only want his nose.” Kage yanked the door wide, jerking his head at Jason, who leapt across my lap and landed with uncanny lightness on the narrow road. There were no cars at the moment and he hurried up and down.

  I gave Kage a look but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Good they’re in fur,” he muttered. “He’ll tell us if get gets a scent to match those pricks last night in the pub. Now that you’ve seen them and he’s scented them…” He drummed his fingers on the door. “Hunt Moon, Jed—” Suddenly shouting.

  “Leave him alone. He already checked. He can go.”

  Jed had nosed until Gabriel gave him the wool ball from the muddiest motorcycle. Now he was trotting past, returning to his trailer with purpose—both his job and his interest in the proceedings at an end.

  “The git,” Kage said, then shifted his gaze to follow Jason’s patrol. “Jay has a better nose anyway. Better than anyone.”

  “He’s rather unfairly gifted now that you mention it…” I also watched Jason while the others got the motorcycles sorted out. They emptied all their things into the caravan. “Great nose, perfect singing voice, brilliant mind, physically beautiful, black coat, impeccable actor, master manipulator, devoted mate… Imagine all that in one person.”

  Kage turned to give me a savagely patronizing look, arm on the top of the door, walling me in.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Think I’m thick, don’t you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Think I’m a bloody great lout—chewing lice, dragging my knuckles in the dirt?”

  “What are you—?”

  “Telling me to ‘imagine that’ like I don’t notice? Stumbled into you two? Even a blind hog finds an acorn?”

  “Kage, I’m not sure what you thought I was implying, but I was making an observation about Jason. Not you. Not everything is a personal—”

  “Observing like maybe I didn’t know—”

  “No—”

  “Like a parched tosser stumbling into an oasis. Any fool can get lucky.” He waved a finger at my nose. “Not what happened here. You look at the record, then say I don’t know what I’m on about. Like I’ve not noticed who I’ve got. Do I look like that?”

  It had taken me a while to catch onto the point, but I shook my head tiredly. “No, Kage. You look like a genius for having chosen Jason for your mate. Good job in doing so well.”

  “And…?”

  “And what? Me? Sure, you have a clean record. Two great catches.”

  Kage nodded sharply as if I’d just helped him prove a point in a courtroom. “Bloody right. Anyone notice? No. It’s all, ‘Blimey, Jason’s a sharp bite.’ Or, ‘Cassia’s one kir canny witch.’ Do they say Kage is a canny wolf? A sharp hunter for bringing them in?”

  “I suppose not…”

  “Corpse-nose!” Andrew called over from the trailer. “Give us a hand, mate!”

  “What are they doing?” I asked. “They’re not…?”

  They were. They somehow managed to put Andrew’s scarlet motorcycle, the sleekest and lightest of the bunch, into the trailer. I wouldn’t have thought they could make it bend into the walkway, much less come to rest fitting inside. But they did it, Kage and Isaac picking the thing up and turning it on its rear tire. Huh…

  I half expected them to try another, maybe fold up all the motorcycles into that space like a magical handbag. No, they stopped at one, but it did work, and meant one less person we had to worry about on the road.

  While they were busy, I tried a tentative scry. Just a peek, having first to seek for a meditative state. Who came here to clean up the reavers? Show me. Met at once with the blank nothing that made me race back for safety of the waking world, throwing out another ward around myself and the vehicle for good measure.

  Zar and Jed stayed in the trailer, Jason returned to me in the back seat, Gabriel and Kage took the two remaining motorcycles, and Andrew climbed up front with Isaac.

  Before Kage pulled on the helmet, coming over to shut the door after Jason, I stopped him: reaching to catch his hand, leaning out from the Jeep.

  “Kage? In case we don’t get another chance, I wanted to tell you how beyond reproach you are when it comes to judge of character types of life choices. You’ve done a great job.”

  He smirked and pulled on the helmet. “I know. Was just messing with you.” Raising his voice to call to Isaac. “Gabe and me ahead, westbound, right?”

  “Southeast,” Isaac shouted back as Kage slammed the door, apparently chuckling.

  I looked around at Jason, who was panting in my face—the morning having warmed with dazzling sunlight, even up here, and the Jeep getting hot.

  “He’s so weird sometimes,” I said.

  Jason cocked his head, jaws closing.

  “What? You don’t think he is? Sorry. Want me to give you credit for his existence like he wants for yours?”

  “Cassia?” Isaac started the engine but glanced around at me. “Did you mean to scry the place? See if we can learn anything about the bodies having been removed?”

  “I did. Nothing.”

  “You couldn’t tell anything?” Andrew asked. “Or blocked?”

  “Blocked. By—I’m pretty sure—the same people who have blocked us before.” I pulled on my seatbelt. “Speaking of which, I keep thinking of the standing stones, but not sure what’s to be done about them. I’d say we should go there now but…”

  “Solstice party?” Andrew asked.

  “Yes.”

  We followed the two motorcycles out of the mountains, east, then south, breathing easier once we came to a populated motorway—still a relative term—and began passing an occasional town. Nothing chased us. Nothing attacked. Yet it still seemed I could hear those two mages laughing.

  Chapter 30

  The fire grew, gradually filling the stone pit as casters tossed in logs and the evening sank past twilight. A crowd of fifteen besides us became thirty, then dozens. Headlights still bumped their ways up the rutted driveway to the farmyard where they parked any which way, boxing each other in, two hours after we’d first arrived in Brethgillian to join the celebration.

  I hadn’t known a potluck was even a thing in the UK, but everyone had the routine down here. Many platters of dips and spreads, sandwiches, crisps, and finger-food, plus curry bowls and frittatas, fried rice and salads, and an array of desserts from a huge chocolate cake to cream puffs. We’d brought a platter of cheese, olives, nuts and crackers, a fresh party tin of shortbread, and a case of flavored sparkling water which the younger guests were enjoying. Most here seemed to be drinking homemade meads and wines—including Gabriel, who had a cup of mead. I longed to join him, or a glass of the red.

  We’d procured the food in Edinburgh, where we’d paid to park the motorcycles for a week, though not called on Traigh and Isla—too jumpy about being observed. Then shopped for a few articles of clothing for the guys. Kage stood in for sizing while Jed waited in the trailer.

  Now with all seven in skin the wolves “snacked”—going back for many platefuls—or slunk about the parameter of the gathering as any proper wolves would. Firelight gleamed in their eyes while they edged around the fence or dry stone wall, or leaned into the corner of the ancient stone cowhouse, or byre, that had been converted now into
a modern residence for the farm’s goats and a few elderly horses living out their retirement here.

  A young woman with a decidedly un-Scottish accent told me about these ill-used rescued horses and the great people who owned the farm and hosted “us” every year, and how she came in from Manchester just to be here. Manchester? That put things in perspective as far as the trouble we’d been to all day in our drive and preparations to come. It also gave me a chill to consider how small the whole of Great Britain and Republic of Ireland really were. People could be here from anywhere. Trouble on the south coast and links to those people on the north coast suddenly felt a lot more practical.

  I didn’t ask her about the wild mages. Surely it was locals, or anyone from north, not south of here, who we had to talk to. Yet … I also wasn’t asking anyone else.

  The events of yesterday, and another long day today, had left me hesitant even to come. Now, hours in and with the sun set, still having spoken to few people besides Shona and my own pack, they were the ones I really wanted around—really needed right now.

  Children hurled more logs in and took pictures of the blaze on their parents’ phones—or their phones? How young did kids get their own phones these days? What would be her fathers’ take on this child’s technological upbringing? Hardly as if we agreed on everything, yet there was much about their culture and lifestyle I admired.

  Reminding me it was autumn, another day had passed, yet, somehow, I still hadn’t said anything. Tonight then. Tell them tonight after the party.

  Back at the food tables, now for dessert, I asked casually of an older Scottish couple if they knew of Calum and Frim. Turned out they were from Glasgow, and no, but I must try the cranachan—which she’d personally made in the style of a trifle for large servings. With a mix of strawberries and traditional raspberries.

  “Strawberries?” I perked up at that and gobbled my chocolate cake—there were brownies to come back for—so I could fill the plate with cranachan. It was like a serving bowl of a parfait: layers of whipped cream, berries, and something I couldn’t make out in the dark, oats or crumbled cookies.