by Devon Monk
Bright, cheery rubber balls fell out of the air like a confetti explosion, ricocheting and squeaking and pinging like some weird rubbery pinball game with extra squeakage.
Meanwhile the catnip drifted through the air like a frickin’ sandstorm, so thick, I couldn’t see three feet in front of me through the stink of green. I slapped my hand over my nose and mouth to breathe.
Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have given magic quite that much leeway.
I mean, where did it come up with this stuff?
People in the garage cursed and yelped. And then, they laughed.
As rubber balls bounced and squeaked and the tornado of catnip piled into thick, drifty hills, men and women laughed.
The cats looked stunned. They sniffed the air and opened their mouths in yawns. The mountain lion batted at the green falling from the sky and rubbed big paws over his face. The leopard dropped onto his back and rolled in it.
Only the cat in the middle, the panther with dark burning eyes, was still on his feet. Finally, even he sat. The lines of anger had been eased out of his muscles. He wasn’t in “kill” mode, but he wasn’t wriggling around like a dork on the floor in magical catnip either.
Duncan still stood next to me. His tail lifted and curled toward his back, both of his ears flicked up into sharp peaks. His mouth was open in what looked like a wide smile, tongue hanging out. His head moved in tiny jerks as he tracked the bouncing balls with eager eyes.
He whined. He’d always loved balls.
“They’re all yours, buddy,” I said. “You can play with them.”
Duncan woofed once at the cats. Roll-on-the-floor stretched and wiggled. Face-rubber flopped down and twisted from side to side. Hatey cat ignored them, him, and me.
Duncan shifted his foot. It landed on a bright yellow ball that squealed.
Duncan’s tail wagged furiously. He jumped back and leaned his head down at the same time, grabbing the ball in his jaws and chewing the ever-living squeak out of the thing.
I laughed. I’d never done something like this. Made a magic thing that made someone so happy. And seeing Duncan trying to get three balls in his mouth while batting at six more at his feet made me feel great.
Also dizzy. This was a lot of magic to pull upon, to draw through me, to cast out of me. My chest ached with the burn of it, my vision getting a little weird and dark at the edges. But I was feeling floaty too. And floaty was good.
But already I was starting to pant like I was jogging up a mountain. What was going to happen when I cut the spell and the catnip ran out?
Would it be all “thanks for the nip, now I’m going to claw your head off”?
I was in no shape to run out of here. Not even to the car. The darkness at the edges of the world rushed in toward me like shifting sand.
Headlines:
Wizard Found Dead In Parking Garage
Hockey Wiz Killed by Stoned Cats
We Told You Wizards Weren’t Tough Enough To Play Hockey
I couldn’t throw another big spell. This much magic was a lot more than what I’d done for my test. And I was fatigued from the game. If I cut the spell now, I’d be lucky not to blackout.
Crap.
“You can break the spell now, Hazard.” A voice to my right. Calm. Deep.
Graves’s voice.
I swallowed, my throat and mouth so dry, my tongue got stuck and my throat clicked. Breathing was impossible. I was covered in sweat, and that sweat was dripping to sting my eyes.
“Random.” Graves again. So steady and sure. His words like an arm under my shoulders, like a body shooting down the ice at the same speed, each step rhythm-in-rhythm. Like a whistle that made me a part of something bigger than me. A part of something more.
“Let go of the spell.”
There were still three cats just a few yards away from us.
But Graves evened the odds. Made it three against three. And he was my defenseman. Fourth line lucky. I could trust him.
“Yes,” he said. “You can trust me. I’ve got you.”
Oh. I must have said that out loud.
“Break it.” This time it was an order.
I imagined scissors, lifted my hand, made the cutty motion with my index and middle finger.
The wide ribbons of magic pouring out of me snapped. An explosion of glass breaking filled the world, and behind that, voices of angels sang.
Magic melted upward, all the colors, all the textures of shiny and bouncy and green and wind and happy and joy, lifted. Up from the oil stained concrete, up the gray pillars, up the stony rafters that hung like squared off whale ribs against the ceiling.
Up, the magic traveled, softening, spreading to gather against the ceiling in swaths of sunset colors splattered over blue skies. Sunset colors that rolled like a storm chasing a horizon then faded, faded, faded.
“Drink.”
I took the water bottle pressed against my palm, lifted it to my mouth with a shaking hand. Felt another hand steady the bottle, drank until it was gone.
Noticed heat across my back, around my ribs: Graves’s arm.
“Eat.”
The water bottle was gone. A bar in my hand was being steered toward my mouth. I did as I was told and ate it in four bites, each time I swallowed easier than the last.
I was still a little dizzy. If I moved my head too quickly, the headache growing there was gonna slosh over to one side and tip me and the world that way. So I didn’t move quickly.
But hey. I was still on my feet.
Score one for the wizard.
“T-they,” I tried, all raw and rucked up.
“I saw, Hazard. I saw it all.”
I was so relieved I didn’t have to explain what had just happened that I shut up and took the second bottle of water he handed me. Held it on my own this time.
Where was he getting these things?
“I don’t w-want problem.”
“There’s no problem.” Graves didn’t move, didn’t remove his arm from around me either. Even though I felt weak, I thought I should be able to stand on my own without his shoulder set to take some of my weight. I just didn’t have the energy to do it yet.
Duncan, having no balls to distract him and no cats attacking me, was now leaning against my left side. Still in wolf form. Propping me up, all fur and strength and loyalty.
“It’s time for you to return to your team, boys,” Graves said.
I frowned, because I was with my team, wasn’t I? Here between him and Duncan.
“Not you, Hazard.” His voice had a layer of exasperation to it.
Oh. Right. He was talking to the shifters. Steele and cat buddies.
I focused on them again.
They were on their feet, looking a little stoned.
“You’ll need water and food when you shift back,” Graves went on, like everyone in the world didn’t know this very basic fact about shifting. “I don’t have enough here with me, but I’m sure your coach and trainers do. So you can go on now. Good game.”
The total weirdness of him acting like this was something hockey players did all the time—play a game, go outside, show how much magic they could throw around at each other—hit me.
Why would he act like this was normal?
“Problem here?” That was a new voice. A stranger’s voice. I turned toward it. Thought maybe we all did. Well, except Graves, who still hadn’t looked away from the cats.
Two police officers were walking our way.
“No problem.” I pulled away from Graves a little too quickly. I overbalanced and Graves’s arm shot out and caught me by my sleeve.
“We’re hockey players. All of us,” I said, setting my weight over my feet more evenly and bending my knees, like I was expecting to be on ice. “These three are on the Tacoma Tide.” I pointed at the cats. “We’re on the Portland Thunderheads. We just played a game. Going home now. Uh…you know. Friendly rivals.”
“We got reports that there was an altercation. Wizard throwing dangerous magic. Would t
hat be you, sir?”
My heart started beating too fast and the rush of blood under my skin was hot and painful. I knew there were laws about what a wizard could and couldn’t do in a public place. I knew it was a law to keep people safe, and I was all for safety.
I didn’t know if what I had done counted as safe or not.
“I…yes. No. I mean, yes, I’m a w-wizard. But n-no dangerous magic.”
Apparently my skills of persuasion were not as strong as I’d hoped.
The taller officer closed the distance toward us. He was at least Duncan’s height—Duncan the human, not Duncan the wolf. He had all the normal looking police officer stuff on his uniform. But he had some extra gear too. Like a metal stick with a wire loop at one end that looked like an even stronger version of the refs’ prod rods and a short, big-barreled gun at his hip for tranquillizer darts that worked on shifters and, I could assume, on wizards.
His partner, a guy only a little shorter and wider than him, was similarly outfitted.
More people had gathered, phones at the ready.
I didn’t know how the word had gotten out so quickly.
“Can you step away from the wolf, sir?”
Could I? Maybe?
I gave it a go, and was glad when my knees held.
I was less glad when Duncan growled.
“Stop, Duncan. I’m not being arrested.” I hoped that was true.
“I need to see your ID,” the cop said.
“My wallet’s in my duffel.” I pointed to where it sat near Duncan and Duncan’s duffel.
“Officers,” Graves said. “I am happy to give a statement. There was no dangerous magic here.”
“Did you see the spell?”
Graves took his eyes off the cats for the first time. The cats hadn’t moved, which surprised me, because it was a smart choice. The way they’d snuck into this place to do…whatever it was they had planned to do…led me to believe “smart” wasn’t on their playlist tonight.
“Yes, sir, I saw it. I’m sure many of these people with their phones recorded the spell too.”
“I’d like you to tell me what you saw.”
Graves smiled, a slash of white that did amazing things to lighten his face and send lines arcing out from the edges of his eyes. “I walked over here when Mr. Hazard and Mr. Spark were headed to their car. Three hockey players in shifted form walked calmly this way and then Mr. Hazard cast a spell.”
I wouldn’t say the cats were calm, exactly. Graves was downplaying that a bit.
“What was the nature of the spell?”
“Friendly.”
The cop didn’t even blink an eye at how vague Graves was being. “And can you describe this friendly spell?”
“He made catnip fall out of the sky. And rubber balls for the wolf.”
Duncan’s tail wagged.
That, apparently, was not what the officer had expected to hear.
“The illusion of…uh, catnip and balls?” I could tell he was trying to deal with this as if it were a serious kind of magic instead of the weird, stupid, and frankly silly spell I’d actually cast.
Embarrassment did a slow burn across my face. I didn’t know which was worse: being exposed as a wizard, or being exposed as a wizard who cast a spell of toys for full-grown adult shifters.
The other officer snorted. He wore the blazing red band around his arm and chest to declare him a shifter. From his build, I guessed he was a cat.
“Can I help you, officers?” New voice. New problem.
Really? Like I needed more people showing up? And Coach Clay of all people?
This was not the sort of attention he wanted brought to the team. He had done everything in his power to distance the WHHL from the wild, bloody, freak league everyone thought it was. And here we were, shifters and wizards facing off in a public place.
Like we couldn’t leave a game without making a big mess of things.
“I’m Elliott Clay, coach of the Portland Thunderheads. Is there a problem here?”
Coach had the stride and voice that managed to convey authority without being condescending.
I was acutely aware of Graves studying Clay like he was the most interesting thing in the world. Not in a player-coach kind of way. More like a personal kind of way.
Huh. I pushed the suspicions to the back of my brain because I was not thinking clearly after that spell. Also, their personal life was none of my business.
The second officer, the shifter, turned toward Coach. “Are these three people on your team?”
Clay glanced over at us. I wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Duncan shifted, but that didn’t matter. He immediately answered. “Yes, they’re my players.”
“And those three?”
“They are members of the visiting team, the Tacoma Tide. Would you like me to contact their coach?”
“Yes. You do that.”
The cats flinched, ears flicking back before popping forward. Steele, still in panther form, had his mouth open and was breathing a little hard.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was fear.
Well, if he was worried about his coach finding out he was running around the city in cat form, he shouldn’t have done it.
Coach pulled out his phone and tapped something on the screen. He waited a second and tapped an answer.
“I’ve contacted their coach. Someone will be here soon.”
And that worked better to subdue the cats than Duncan’s aggression, my magic, or Graves’s reasoning.
The cats lay down and lowered their heads, waiting.
“If you don’t have any other questions here, officer,” Clay continued, “my players would like to go on their way. We have early practice in the morning.”
We do? That was news to me.
“Five a.m.,” he continued. “And we’ll be doing strenuous drills.”
Ouch. That meant we were gonna get a bag skate. Even Duncan winced.
“So I need them to go home and get some sleep.” He might have said that for the officers’ benefit, but I had a feeling it was also a direct order.
The officers nodded. “We’ll need your contact information and the names of your players. Numbers where we can reach them.”
“I’d be happy to supply that.”
“You can leave,” the non-shifter cop said. “But Mr. Hazard, was it?”
I swallowed and nodded.
“Keep the public displays of magic limited to pre-approved areas inside city limits.”
“I will. Sir.” I’d even look them up.
I waited to see if Coach Clay had something else to say, but he was talking with the other cop.
Graves reached over and pulled on the shoulder of my shirt. “Move it, Hazard.”
I moved it. Followed along behind him like a brainless zombie.
Or like a guy who had just pulled on a lot of magic right after a physically demanding game of hockey and who still hadn’t had dinner yet.
Duncan trotted behind us, silent as he moved except for the slightest click of his claws on the concrete.
I belatedly noticed Graves had slung both of our duffels over his shoulders. Right after that, I noticed we were walking away from Duncan’s car.
“We’re back there.” I pointed over my shoulder.
Graves didn’t slow. “You think you can drive?”
“I know how to drive.”
“After you’ve thrown that much magic?”
“I’m fine.”
He gave me a look.
“I am.” I probably would have argued harder, but I was exhausted and hungry and magic was still pushing through me, fluxing like ocean waves rising and falling, looking for a way out of me, or a way into me past my control. Magic burned away at my body; I knew it was burning my fat and muscle. If I didn’t eat, if I didn’t take some time for recovery, it would keep on burning until it was gnawing on my bones.
There was a reason wizards were known for being strong of mind, and weak of body.
Unless we fought for our body’s health. Unless we were very careful to keep ourselves well.
Shifters had a price to pay too. Canidae lost all coordination when they shifted back to human form. If they didn’t eat, they could end up seizing. Felidae suffered from crippling headaches that could become brain bleeds.
The only advantage to being a second-marked and fourth-marked was that carrying a beast just under the skin made a shifter stronger physically, which meant higher healing capabilities.
But that ten seconds after a shift—both ways—was a huge fight between the human mind and the animal mind.
If the human lost, the animal gained control. The feral animal.
And the longer a person remained in shifter form, the more of a chance the animal would smother the human mind. Smother and kill.
Duncan had been a wolf for about twenty minutes now. I knew he was good for up to three hours at least. Different shifters had different endurance, but when pushed beyond that, the animal always won.
Because magic always won.
“Burgers or Mexican?” Graves asked.
My stomach growled. Duncan whined.
We were down at the end of the parking garage where Graves’s big black Chevy truck was parked.
Of course he drove a big truck.
He unlocked the doors and threw our duffels into the back of the bed. “Get in.”
Duncan jumped in and settled on the bench seat in the back of the cab. Since it didn’t look like I was going to be able to argue him out of this, and I sure as hell didn’t have the energy to walk all the way across the garage to Duncan’s car, I got into the passenger’s seat, buckled the belt and leaned my head against the window.
“So?” Graves asked as he started the engine.
“I didn’t start it. We didn’t start it. I don’t know why Steele and those other assholes were there. I don’t know why they were stalking us.”
Graves put the truck into gear, backed out of the parking space and followed the arrows painted on the overheads toward the exit.
“I told the police I was there and saw it,” he said once we’d made it to street level. “I wasn’t lying, Hazard.”
Oh. Okay.
“So?” he said again.
For the life of me I had no idea what he was asking.