Perfect Strangers

by Jan Stryvant

  "What's that?" Roxy asked.

  "I'm feeding some of his power back into him," Jolene panted and then put her hands on Sean, causing his whole body to light up with a hot, but not uncomfortable, feeling and causing him to sway a moment.

  "And now I'm spent," Jolene sighed and sagged a bit.

  Sean blinked his eyes, he could see just fine now. Grabbing Jolene he tossed her over his shoulder and looking behind him, he saw a couple of bloody lycan paw prints from his hybrid form. Using his bare feet he quickly smeared them up, and then headed off towards the sub-basement.

  "Where are we going?" Roxy asked.

  "Sewers," Sean growled.

  "You're kidding me!" Roxy said and made a face at him.

  "I don't want to go back upstairs, do you?"

  "Not really," Roxy sighed, "Sewers it is."

  They got to the entrance before any of them heard anyone entering the basement from above, of course the sounds of the fire alarms that were now going off on the floors above and throughout the building could be drowning them out.

  "Do you think they know where we're going?" Sean grunted and wrinkled his nose as he opened the access way to the sewers.

  "I'm sure they'll figure it out soon enough," Jolene murmured from on his back. "I'd ask you to put me down, but right now I don't want to be stepping in what you two are!"

  "Lucky you," Roxy said and shifted back to her human form. "At least like this, it doesn't smell as bad."

  Stepping into the sewers behind her, Sean closed the hatch behind him, and then shifted as well.

  While the smell was definitely more bearable this way. The feelings of what he was stepping on with his bare feet was not.

  "Which way?"

  "Upstream," Sean grunted.

  "Why?"

  "Because this place is gonna get flooded when the water from the sprinklers kicks in."

  "Oh!"

  They walked the next half-hour or so in silence, that was only broken when Sean coughed up another bullet, followed by the sound of him spitting it out.

  When they finally stopped, it was by a metal rung ladder that ran up to a manhole cover.

  "Damn, how may of those are you going to cough up?" Jolene asked as Sean paused halfway up the ladder to spit out another one.

  "Oh, trust me, he's going to be crapping them out later tonight as well," Roxy grumbled from above them on the ladder. "The body pushes them out to the closest space, and if you don't spit them out, you crap 'em out."

  "You've seen it with your dad?" Sean asked.

  "No, I've experienced it personally. Which is why I don't let myself get shot anymore!" Roxy growled.

  Sean winced at that tone of voice, and even his lion wanted nothing to do with that statement.

  "Um, yeah," Jolene said from her spot between the two of them on the ladder.

  "Okay, let's see where we are," Roxy grunted and pushed the manhole cover up and over.

  "Better check your ward," Jolene warned.

  Sean paused and did just that, recasting his spell. The one from this morning had weakened from the drain on his system, though it was still going. He'd really have to work on that firewall spell he was thinking about, as it wouldn't take any real energy at all.

  "Looks like we're in a neighborhood," Roxy said and then pulled herself out of the manhole.

  "Hurry up, let's get out of here before a car comes!" Roxy said and reaching down she grabbed Jolene's arm and pulled her up out of the hole, with Sean scrambling out behind her.

  Replacing the cover, Sean took his backpack from Roxy and sighed; it was covered in dried blood and pretty badly shot up.

  "So, where are we?" Jolene asked looking around as they moved out of the street and onto the sidewalk.

  "The sign says Carlin Street," Roxy said, pointing at the street sign as they came up to the intersection.

  "If we go south," Sean pointed, "We can get to the river and clean off all this blood and," Sean looked at his bare and very filthy feet, "crap."

  "Or we can go to the Gateway Inn back that way," Jolene pointed, smiling, "and get a nice clean room with a shower and hot water."

  "If I walk in there like this," Sean sighed, "they'll call the police."

  "They have balconies. I get a room, you two can jump up."

  "Well...."

  "They have onsite laundry," Jolene pointed out.

  "I don't... Ow!" Sean stopped and looked at Roxy who had just kicked him.

  "Let's go. I want to get clean," Roxy growled.

  Fifteen minutes later, they had a room on the third floor. Jolene had paid cash up front, and told Roxy and Sean later that the guy at the front desk had seen her here before. He thought she was a working girl, and as she had tipped him well, he'd keep his mouth shut and not call the police or his boss if he discovered extra people in her room.

  "You two hit the showers first," Jolene said, wrinkling her nose and pointing at the bathroom the moment Sean and Roxy stepped through the sliding door from the balcony.

  Roxy growled a little, surprising Sean, but he kept his mouth shut and just followed her inside. Not saying anything as Roxy got the water adjusted, grabbed the soap, and then stepped into the shower with Sean following.

  "Let me scrub your back," Sean said as she stared soaping herself up.

  Roxy passed him the soap, but didn't say anything, and as soon as she was done, she stepped out of the shower and started drying herself off.

  Sean took a couple of minutes longer, and then getting out and drying himself off he walked out into the bedroom. Roxy was standing there, tapping her foot, with a towel wrapped around her.

  Sean sighed, "What?"

  She kicked him in the shin, and as he went 'ow!' she hit him across the chin with a right cross that staggered him back against the wall. She'd hit him harder than Dean!

  In a low, quiet, and very growly voice Roxy took a step forward and got right into his face, "Sean Valens, if you ever, ever do something that stupid again, I promise you that you will not only never touch me again, but that I will personally dig you up out of whatever hole they stick your body in and beat the ever loving shit out of you into the next five lives do you understand me!"

  Sean blinked, "What the hell did I do?" he gasped, grabbing his jaw. He could feel the bones re-knitting! She'd broken it!

  Roxy grabbed the chain around his neck and yanked his face down to hers, his lion had just started to growl and she cut that off too.

  "And don't you dare growl at me! I'm your damn wife, your woman, your mate! If you go off and do harebrained stupid shit, you had damn well better expect to face the music! Do you hear me! And that goes for your lion too! Understand!"

  Sean mutely nodded his head, he'd never seen Roxy so angry before, and right now it was all focused directly on him. Even his lion had suddenly realized that shutting up and taking it was the prudent thing to do.

  "Do you know how close you came to dying?"

  "But we regenerate!" Sean said shocked.

  "Not if they cut your head off, you don't! Do you know how close you came to being taken down? There's a limit to how much damage you can soak up at once! What if one of them had silver? Did you even think of that?"

  "But, we were running out of time," Sean said softly. Roxy still had a death grip on the chain; he was surprised it hadn't broken. Obviously it was made of pretty strong stuff.

  "We still had enough time for you to tell me what we needed to do and for the two of us to take them on, together! I could have flanked them, and between the two of us you wouldn't have gotten shot forty or fifty times!

  "Do you understand what I'm saying, Hon?"

  Taking a deep breath and sighing, Sean nodded, "I'm sorry, Hon. I panicked. I didn't know what to do, I thought we were trapped and I was afraid we were all going to die."

  Sean staggered backwards as Roxy, now sobbing, released the necklace and threw herself at him, and wrapped her arms and legs around him.

  "You scared me so much! When J
olene said you were shot, the panic in her voice, I was terrified! I saw all that blood and thought you were dead! Do you have any idea of just how much you mean to me?"

  Looking down at Roxy, Sean honestly didn't know what to say. Putting his arms around her and holding her tightly he slowly dropped to his knees and leaned back against the bed, trying to steady himself. His body was completely drained, he could feel it.

  "I'm sorry, Roxy. I love you, utterly, totally, and completely." Glancing up at Jolene Sean gave her a weak smile, "You too, Jolene. Don't think you're not a part of this or a part of me either."

  Jolene nodded slowly. "I, I have to say that I was as terrified as Roxy. I know you guys can heal, but, well, you had a big hole in your head where your eye was, it was..." Jolene gulped, "I think I need to use that shower now!" and she ran into the bathroom.

  Sean just stayed where he was, holding onto Roxy, until she stopped sobbing and was just clinging to him.

  "Let's go to bed, alright, Hon?" Sean said to her.

  Roxy gave a small nod, and carefully getting back to his feet, he carried her over to the bed, and climbing under the covers he just sighed and relaxed, thinking about what had happened.

  It could have been the end of him. It probably should have been the end of him, and the girls.

  Worst of all, he should have known better! He picked a place with no easy escape, no defenses, nothing. He'd been playing RPG's and stuff for ages now, and tactics were tactics. If he'd done those things in a game, made those mistakes, his friends would have teased him for months!

  Looking down at Roxy, who had fallen asleep while still clinging to him, he realized he'd just been letting events carry him along, and the only thing he had taken charge of was the girl's bodies. Yeah, sex was great, but if he wanted to keep having it, he needed a safe place to protect not only himself, but what was his.

  When Jolene came out of the bathroom, still damp from her shower, she turned out the lights and slid into bed behind him, cuddling up against his back. The clock on the desk said it was almost four; sunrise would be in a few hours. But he didn't have the time to sleep; it was time to start learning. Seriously learning. Reaching over Roxy he grabbed his watch and slipping it on his wrist, he concentrated on the classroom.

  Learning the Rules

  The first thing Sean did was to start work on his new 'firewall' spell. He'd need to learn a few things to do it. So he made a list of what each of those things was. Attaching a spell to a body took a little work, but not as much as he had thought. There was a book called 'Physical Enhancements' that allowed one to make changes to your own body. That let him figure out just how to put the firewall on himself.

  Then in the 'Enchanting Ways' book he found ways of making such changes permanent. Visualizing the program, he took the time to work it all out, just like a firewall program, and even gave it the ability to open 'ports' on command, so that Jolene could cast her mind magic on him again if he ever needed to remember something he'd forgotten.

  When Sean had finally gotten it all figured out, he cast the spell on himself, and banished the warding spell that protected him from scrying, and watched as the 'pings' from the scrying spell for a while. There was only one person searching for him this far outside of downtown, and their spell was now blocked, it simply didn't get through to him to cause a response.

  Smiling he picked the enchantment book back up and started looking for ways of attaching spells to inanimate objects. That turned out to be easier than attaching a spell to him, but it also took more power, because you had to create a power tap on the object.

  Magical objects could draw power from several different places Sean learned. The first was from the person using the item itself. That was fine for non-magical folks, because they couldn't use their magical potential, as small as it might be, anyway. But magic users didn't like that, so other ways had been devised. The most common was for a device to recharge by just sucking energy out of the world surrounding it. It was slow to do it that way however, which explained how some objects could only be used at daily intervals, or even longer if the spell took enough power.

  The next was to tap the item into a lay line, where it could pick up power at a vastly increased rate. But that also tied it to the line, so it couldn't move.

  There were magical batteries that you could charge, but they didn't carry much energy and were fairly difficult to construct.

  And then there were chemical reactions, you could certain magical compounds, and basically decompose them, taking the energy from the decomposition, like say when an organic substance was digested. Those objects were similar to batteries, only you didn't recharge them by putting them on a lay line or casting magic into them. You recharged them by filling them with a special substance to be consumed. Almost like a magical gasoline. However making or finding the proper compounds was neither cheap, nor easy.

  The only hitch he ran across was that when enchanting an item, the quality of the physical item itself, had an effect on the quality of the spell. Looking at the chain around his neck, Sean cast an examination spell that he had found in the Enchanting Ways book, and started to look at just how the spells on it had been laid down.

  And there were spells on it, a lot of spells. Spells to protect the chain itself from rust or wear, or even breaking. Spells for it to slowly suck power from its wearer in minute amounts, and store them for later use. There were resizing spells, for both the chain and any clothing worn on the user's body, and a storage spell for anything that wouldn't fit when you changed, however Sean could tell that there were limits to all of these things as well.

  Sean could see where it would take days, probably weeks, to lay all of those spells down, effectively coding them each into the item to be enchanted. One after the other. The spells on physical objects had to be put down in a certain order, not unlike a file system being built up in....

  Sean blinked. Surely it couldn't be that easy! Pulling out a piece of 'paper' in the classroom, he quickly sketched out an archiving program, or rather an archiving spell, that would read everything off of a item, starting from the top and work its way down to the bottom, and create an 'archive' of the object he was looking at.

  In effect a tape archive file, a tarball!

  Looking it over he examined it several times, and then pointing it at the chain on his neck he let it run, and watched as an 'archive' spell was created. It was massive compared to the other spells he'd learned so far, so pulling up his character sheet he looked at his mental points. Where he'd had two before, he had three now, and he pumped them all into his memory stat, to help with his spell retention abilities, and then went back to look at what he'd created.

  Sean assigned it a name, 'Lycan Collar Tarball' and watched as his mind classified it. All he needed was an item to play it back into, and energy of course. Right now, all of the commands in the spells were none-functional because he'd just made a stripped down copy of them, just like an archive program made a compressed copy of a program, which couldn't be run.

  How much energy would it take to play back this little tarball of his?

  Sean wasn't sure, but he suspected it would be more than he had, and the consequences of not having the energy weren't lost on him. They could be dire.

  Feeling someone tugging on him, Sean put it all away and exiting his classroom, he opened his eyes.

  Jolene was smiling at him.

  "Hey stud, feeling like a little recharging?" she whispered in his ear.

  Sean looked over at Roxy, who was still out like a light as Jolene reached down and fondled him.

  Rolling over, Sean took Jolene's head in his hands and kissed her deeply, as she spread her legs and guided him into her.

  "Somebody is needy," Sean whispered.

  "Somebody not only needs a recharge, but they want to be reminded that you're still very much alive," Jolene murmured back, between kisses.

  Smiling Sean started to move against her, when suddenly Jolene's eyes got wide.


  "What?" Sean asked surprised.

  "Your energy! It's gone!" Jolene gasped.

  "Wait, what?"

  "I'm not getting anything from you, I can't even feel it!"

  Sean blinked, "Wait a moment," casting the spell to bring up his 'firewall' controls only took an instant. It was only a few seconds more to add 'grant Jolene all' to the permissions 'file'. As an after thought he added Roxy as well.

  "Whoa! What happened?" Jolene gasped.

  "I opened a port in my firewall for you," Sean chuckled and went back to kissing her, and moving his body against hers.

  "Firewall?" Jolene asked, her legs coming up to wrap around his hips.

  "My new warding spell," Sean whispered.

  "Oo! Can I take a look?"

  Sean smiled down, "Of course you can!"

  "Then pick up speed, I need a bit more mana if I'm going to go looking inside your head."

  "Such a slave driver," Sean teased.

  "Mush!" Jolene giggled, kicking his butt with her heels.

  Sean leaned down to nibble Jolene's ear as he complied with her wishes. He still had the spell open, and looking at it, he could see her 'feeding' off of him, draining off his own mana. It was rather interesting to watch, because sex improved his vitality and disposition, fulfilling a primal need, so he was actually recovering mana at about half the rate she was draining it.

  "It's always like that," Jolene whispered in his ear.

  "Ah, you're in my thoughts now," Sean chuckled.

  "Of course! I like it here, your lust and love for me is so honest, it's refreshing. So that's your new spell? Ooo, that's pretty neat! Can I copy it?"

  Sean stuck his tongue in Jolene's ear and she started to pant.

  "You can copy spells from someone's mind?" Sean whispered, a little surprised.

  "When they're sharing them like this? Of course! So, can I?"

  "Of course you can my hot little tantric sexpot! Maybe you can show me a few spells of your own?"

  "You'd have to be in my mind to see them, and mind magic like mine is rare, another reason why they all hate me."