by Lola Kidd
“Don’t jump the gun, wolves,” Jamie advised. “You two are only a last line of defense. I don’t want you to get involved unless we desperately need you.”
Cross whined while Ozzy began to pace in front of the witches. Cross didn’t move from Rory’s side and she was glad to have him. She placed a hand on his back as the three wolves approached. Now that they were in wolf form, Ursula and Jamie started hurling attacks at the Sun Riders. The witches were sticking to weather-based attacks. Hurricane level winds were battering the wolves and golf-ball-sized hail was pelting them. The Sun Riders were almost at a standstill, the winds were so hard.
They still managed to move, though. Centimeter by centimeter they were making their way toward the coven. Jamie looked at Magda. They had hoped to be able to get the wolves to retreat, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. The last resort was to have Magda cast a death spell on them and then dispose of the bodies. It would be a roll of the dice. If the other four wolves didn’t turn tail after seeing three of their brothers brought down, they would also have to be disposed of. That would mean more than a half dozen bodies to get rid of and that was too many for one night. It was also a lot of heavy casting for Magda to do alone. Jamie and Ursula would have to step in and take one or two of the remaining Sun Riders down.
That was the worst case scenario. That would mean ten dead werewolves in one night and more than half the coven would have used the darkest of magic in one night. That would have ramifications the witches all wanted to avoid. Including the murder of Elena, that was a lot of dark magic floating around Cleary. There would be a rash of human crimes soon after and the town would be under a metaphorical dark cloud for a few months. If they could get the Sun Riders to just retreat, all of that would be avoided.
It was impossible, Rory realized. The wolves were getting closer, even with the onslaught of rain and hail. The four fallen riders were also in the middle of turning. Soon they would join their friends on the offensive. It was useless. Rory felt her casts begin to falter.
Cross growled and charged forward unexpectedly. One minute he was under Rory’s hand and the next he was running into the hail and wind. Ozzy ran after him to join the fight. The Moon Brothers had a much easier time navigating the weather casts since the wind was at their back. Still, the hail had to hurt as they ran at full speed to charge the pack of wolves.
“Magda, pinpoint a wind tunnel on the wolf Rory’s Moon Brother is attacking,” Jamie said calmly. “Rory, drop your casts around us and bring them up on the Moon Brothers.”
Rory nodded and changed her casts as quickly as she could manage. She saw at once what Jamie was doing. The wolf Cross was attacking was completely immobilized by Magda’s wind. The rest of its pack was caught in the wind and couldn’t do anything to help. Cross lunged for its throat and shook until the Sun Rider was dead. Then he moved on to a new target.
It was terrifyingly beautiful to watch. Cross was a killing machine in wolf form. With Magda’s aid, he and Ozzy dispatched the entire Sun Rider crew in less than ten minutes. When the last one was dead, Ursula and Jamie dropped their casts. The street was completely silent again. Cross and Ozzy ran to the back yard again. Rory assumed they were shifting back to human form in privacy.
“Do you know how to do clean-up spells?” Jamie asked Rory.
She nodded.
“Good, then help us clean the blood off the street.”
Rory’s stomach turned. There was a lot of blood to clean up. The witches worked in pairs and by the time Cross and Ozzy came back to the front of the house, the only sign left of the struggle was the dead bodies and the riderless bikes.
“What are we going to do with those?” Sara asked, pointing at the motorcycles.
“Those are property of the Moon Brothers now,” Cross said. “You kill another rider, you get his bike.”
Jamie nodded. “That’s fine. Get them off the street fast. Those will bring attention to your pack if the humans see them.”
“We will,” Ozzy said, pulling out his phone and walking a few steps away to make a call.
“We’ll take care of the bodies,” Jamie said. “You’ve already cleaned up one of this coven’s messes tonight. We can handle this one ourselves.”
Cross nodded. “Sounds good to me. How are you doing?”
He was looking right at Rory. She shifted under his intense gaze.
“I’m alright. I really hope these guys weren’t here for me, though,” she answered.
“They probably were,” Cross said matter-of-factly. “Since it appears that this old witch is now the head of the coven, I would assume they also killed Elena too.”
The witches said nothing. Rory wanted to tell Cross that it was dark fairies, but she knew Jamie and her mom would have her head if she did. It physically pained Rory to keep her secret. She felt like she was about to be sick. Dishonesty usually didn’t affect her so much, but she assumed it was because he had just killed for her. She was already getting attached to the wolf.
Ozzy came back to the group. “Grizzly, my dad, Grimace, and Bruiser are going to be here in a few minutes. Grizzly wants to speak with Elena.”
Cross nodded toward Jamie. “Elena’s gone. That’s the new head witch.”
Ozzy looked at Jamie, who nodded that Cross was correct. “Okay, then, mama, Grizzly would like a word with you. He says me and Cross have to stay too.”
Jamie nodded. “That’s fine. I’ll give your alpha an audience. You boys can wait inside while we get rid of these bodies.”
“We’ll meet them by our bikes, mama, thank you,” Ozzy said. Cross shrugged and followed Ozzy to their motorcycles.
“Alright, sisters, let’s get casting,” Jamie said. “I want these bodies gone before the Moon Brothers get here.”
Six
“They were already on the way,” Ozzy said when he and Cross got back to their bikes.
“What?”
“I didn’t call your dad or mine. I called Pete to ask for help quietly. He said he would bring a flatbed out to get the Sun Riders’ bikes, but he told me a crew was already on the way.”
“Why?” Cross asked, leaning on his bike.
“No idea, but I don’t think it’s anything good. Pete sounded weird. I hope we’re not in trouble, man.”
“Stop fucking worrying. We did what we had to do. Those Sun Riders are bad news. This time, they gave me the fucking creeps. I think they’re trying to use some kind of magic.”
“I felt it too,” Ozzy admitted. “You really think vampires would mess with magic just to kill some stupid witch?”
Cross shrugged. “I only know what I felt. It wasn’t very strong and I doubt the witches even noticed, they were so caught up in their own casting.”
“This is getting more fucked up by the hour, man. I don’t like this at all.”
Cross heard bikes approaching. “Well, here comes the gang.”
Ozzy turned toward the noise and saw the four Moon Brothers pulling up. None of them looked remotely happy.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?” Charlie asked as soon as he had his helmet off. “You were supposed to go to the compound.”
“We had to help,” Cross said. “We offered the coven the help of the pack, per approval of the alpha of course, and we defended them from Sun Riders.”
Grizzly looked close to punching his son and Cross prepared himself for a torrent of words.
“You dumb fucking kid,” Grizzly said, shoulders slumping. “What did you two do?”
“We killed a handful of Sun Riders with the witches’ help,” Ozzy said, looking at the ground. “Their bikes are over there. Pete’s gonna come and pick ’em up. The witches took care of the bodies.”
Bruiser slammed his helmet into the ground. “You killed weres in full view of humans?”
“We couldn’t avoid it,” Cross said. “If we hadn’t acted, the witches would have used magic. There’s a hell of a lot less chance of the humans noticing us silently killing shi
t than an onslaught of dark magic.”
“Boy’s got a point there,” Charlie said.
“Anything else?” Grizzly asked.
“Yeah, I think Elena is dead and one of the old witches is the new head of the Cleary Coven.”
That got a reaction from the Moon Brothers. There was general swearing and kicking of stuff.
“What the hell is going on?” Cross asked. “Why did you guys come to talk to the coven? ’Cause I know it wasn’t this fight.”
“Shit’s going down,” Charlie said simply, lighting up a cigarette.
“Come on. We need to talk with the witches. You can find out when they do, since you like spending so much time with them,” Grizzly said.
The Brothers went to the house and knocked on the door.
“Good evening, Grizzly,” the witch who answered the door said. “I’m Jamie, the new head of the Cleary Coven. Please come in.”
Jamie led them to a screened-in back porch. The rest of the coven was already seated around the room. Cross wanted to go sit next to Rory, but that would have pissed his dad off more than he already was. Instead, he stayed with Bruiser, Ozzy, and Grimace, standing behind Charlie and Grizzly.
“I hear you ladies have had an interesting night,” Grizzly said.
“It’s true. I’m sure you’ve heard about the attack from the two young ones, so I won’t bore you with the details,” Jamie said.
“My son did tell me, yes,” Grizzly said. “But the interesting part to me is that he pledged the help of my pack to you.”
When Grizzly had said ‘son’, Rory had looked up with wide eyes at Ozzy and Cross. Cross smiled and tipped his head to let her know that he was the son in question. He was surprised they didn’t know. Though it wasn’t like the pack advertised how they were all related. Still, his being the alpha’s son would be an important bit of information for the local coven to keep track of.
“It’s true. He did offer help and we would gladly accept if he wasn’t overreaching his station,” Jamie said.
“He was ahead of the game with that one. My brothers and I were on our way here so I could offer an alliance myself.”
“Really?” Jamie asked, surprised.
“Why would you want to forge an alliance now?” Magda asked, speaking for the first time.
Grizzly looked at her. “We got some troubling news from Brothers just getting back from a long ride.”
He must have meant Jimmy and Vance. They were the only two Moon Brothers on a long trip. Grizzly had sent them on a gun run a week earlier. The pair should have been home in two days, but the trip had stretched longer unexpectedly. They must have gotten back while Cross and Ozzy were out.
Cross was dying to hear what his brothers had seen or heard, but he couldn’t say anything. He tried to keep his face as neutral as possible. He didn’t want Rory to think he wasn’t in the loop with important pack news.
“Well, let’s hear it,” Jamie said.
“While they were talking with the local pack, they heard a rumor about vampires who were looking for a witch in our parts,” Grizzly said.
Jamie and Magda exchanged a look. They must have worked that much out on their own.
“Do you know why?” Magda asked, reaching for her daughter’s hand.
Charlie shook his head. “We haven’t worked that much out yet, but we decided it was a good idea to get over here quick once we heard that.”
“When we saw the Sun Riders in the woods, we thought it was a random attack,” Grizzly said. “As you know, it isn’t uncommon for weres to stalk young witches or fairies for a fun kill.”
A few of the witches nodded, but Rory and one of the younger-looking witches looked absolutely appalled. Cross was surprised. That was a well-known fact about weres. That’s why there was so much animosity between regular magic users and weres. Something about the scent of magic drove some of his brethren wild. It was an unfortunate fact, but not all of them were like that. He assumed that was why Magda had such a problem with him and Ozzy talking with Rory.
“Now we’re sure that wasn’t the case,” Grizzly said. “We haven’t worked out much, like Charlie said, but we do know that they were after this young lady here.”
Grizzly motioned to Rory. Magda put an arm in front of her daughter and Rory gasped. Cross fought every instinct he had and stayed put. The second he heard Rory was in danger, he wanted to shift and be by her side. There was no way he would be able to go back to the compound now. He was going to have to stay by her side until this was all worked out. To hell with his father. If Grizzly tried to stop him, Cross was resigned to disobeying his alpha, consequences be damned.
“Not only that,” Grizzly continued. “If the Sun Riders want her, that means that there are vampires out there somewhere who want her. We aren’t sure yet who these Riders work for, but we’ll find out.”
Jamie leaned back. “That’s a lot to digest.”
Charlie nodded. “I know. We were pretty damned shocked when we heard, too. As far as we know, this girl isn’t even a member of the coven. What the hell would a vampire want with a baby witch? Do you know anything that could point us in the right direction?”
Rory looked at Magda, who just shook her head. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help, but as far as I know there’s nothing special about my daughter.”
“We also have a proposal to make,” Grizzly said.
“Go on.” Jamie waved her hand.
“I think it’s best if we get the girl to one of our safe houses out west. There aren’t a lot of vampires out that way since it’s so sunny and hot all the time.”
“Absolutely not,” Magda said before Jamie could even answer. “My daughter will stay right here with her coven. We’ll keep her safe; you dogs can watch the streets.”
“Magdalena!” Jamie said sharply. “You will show our guests respect while you’re in my house.”
Magda nodded. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“No harm,” Grizzly said. “You’re not thinking clearly, witch. This place is a hot spot for magical activity since the coven is long-established. It’ll be damn easy for a vampire to tap into that, even one with almost no magical ability.”
Cross growled. His brothers turned to look at him. He bared his teeth. “I think my dad is right. We’ll only attract more attention from the humans if we stay here to fight.”
“I’m not proposing any fight at all,” Grizzly said. “I’m proposing the opposite. I think this little witch needs to turn tail and run.”
Jamie shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. They know where she is. It’s too dangerous for her to go anywhere alone and if we all go, it will be easier to follow us.”
“That is why I propose that my boy and the little witch go alone to the mountains,” Grizzly said. Jamie immediately began to shake her head no. “Hear me out, witch. The Sun Riders know where she is now and, like you said, six of you is a pretty big magic target to follow. But if the baby witch and Cross head out alone, you can easily cast a spell to hide them. It will be almost impossible to track them. And from what I’ve seen this little witch do, I think she’ll be just fine on her own. Not that anything will happen.”
Jamie narrowed her eyes. “Let us talk this over. It isn’t a decision we can come to lightly.”
“Fair enough,” Grizzly said. “Before we go, I have to ask, what happened to Elena?”
“We haven’t worked out all the details on that one yet. It doesn’t appear to be related to this whole Sun Rider business, though. If something important comes up, I’ll let you know.”
“Fair enough,” Grizzly said. “Nice meeting you, Jamie. I look forward to working with you. I’m going to leave two of my guys, Bruiser and Grimace, outside to keep watch over your house. And there’ll be some brothers patrolling the town, too.”
“Thank you,” Jamie said. “I hope this little alliance doesn’t have to last long. No offense.”
“None taken, darlin’,” Grizzly said with
a chuckle. The Brothers turned to leave, Cross very reluctantly. He couldn’t go back home yet!
“Wait!” Rory said before they had left the porch. Everyone in the room turned to look at her. No one was more surprised than her mother. “I’d like to go. Right now, if that’s alright.”
“Aurora!” Magda said, shocked.
“I know you don’t want me to go,” Rory said, looking at her mother pleadingly. “But this is better. You guys can hide us and then I won’t be in danger while you investigate all of this.”
“Maybe,” Jamie said. “But this is something we need to talk about as a group.”
“No, it isn’t,” Rory said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m leaving with them right now.”
She stood up and Magda grabbed her arm. “You can’t! That isn’t what it means to be part of a coven! You need to consult your sisters.”
“Mom!” Rory said, exasperated. “I’m going. We can talk all night and all day. It isn’t going to change the fact that these Sun Riders are after me. I’m leaving. Sisters, you can help me by casting the strongest cloaking spells you know on Cross and me.”
Cross couldn’t help but smile. This was better than he had hoped. It was his dad’s idea that he go with Rory and she was willing. He could protect her now and he wouldn’t be in trouble with his pack or the coven. The night was looking up.
Seven
The witches were all talking at once. It seemed like each of them had a million reasons why the Moon Brothers’ plan would end in disaster. None of the wolves were talking, so Rory knew she would have to convince the coven on her own. Though, even if they weren’t going to help her, she was going with Cross. This really was the best way to protect the town, the Moon Brothers, and the coven.
“Everyone stop!” Rory said, putting her hands over her ears. “I know that you’re all worried about me. You all want to protect me and keep me safe, but I want to do the same for you. Don’t you see how me being here will only make things worse?”
Magda stood up. “No, Aurora. We’re stronger as a unit. That’s why we added you to the coven so quickly. There’s strength in numbers. You leaving would be a mistake.”