Big Bad Wolf

by Jayne Hawke

  "But they will be prepared for it, so they're safe even if they want to be dancers or something."

  "Of course," I said with a smile.

  It was easy to talk about that future as though it was a fact, but it felt no more real than a fairy tale.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Rhian rang us that evening. We'd managed to get a couple of hours sleep, but we were training when she rang. Ash's face was blank as he ran through katas, martial arts moves that kept him fit and ready for whatever might come at us. I picked up the phone. Rhian's voice was tight and rough from exhaustion and stress.

  "Ash, another one of Rhian's wolves has started having nightmares," I relayed.

  Ash exhaled slowly and looked around for his shirt. I didn't miss the slight glisten of sweat over his muscles. The temptation to run my fingers over him formed in my mind. We were meant to be together. Would it be the worst thing to give in to that?

  "You told her we'd be right there?"

  "Of course."

  There was a tension in Ash's jaw as we jogged down the stairs. The apartment was at least keeping us fit. The screams through the night could have been better, though.

  "Did she say anything other than he's having nightmares?"

  "No, she was worried though. Don't you dare try and get free baked goods out of her!"

  Deep furrows formed between Ash's eyebrows.

  "I'm not heartless."

  I felt bad.

  "Although, I wouldn't say no if she offered."

  And there was the Ash I knew.

  The city was unwinding from rush hour. Traffic was busier than we'd like, forcing us to cut down narrower roads. The terrace housing was bustling with life. Music came out from open windows, plants grew in the tiny excuses for gardens in front of each one. I smiled as I saw a group of friends laughing at some shared joke while they walked down the pavement, likely towards a pub somewhere.

  Sometimes I envied people like that. As much as I adored Ash, it would have been nice to have a group of people to share stupid jokes with. That had been a nice thing about growing up with the coven, there were no shortage of people around. They had warned us that we would feel the loneliness of the job at first. They separated out the final years into a smaller cottage where we only worked with our partner. Even then, we would gather in secret with ice cream and watch old horror movies.

  I knew that I could call up Willow, Holly, and the others. They would likely come and we'd have a normal night like that again, but it didn't feel like it was a good idea. Not really.

  Ash brushed his thumb over my cheekbone, bringing me back into the moment.

  "We'll save them," he said softly.

  "I know. We always do."

  "We'll do something nice for your birthday once this is over."

  My birthday was the next day. I'd assumed that Ash had forgotten. There was no point in getting attached to celebrating such things in our line of work. You never knew where you'd be or what you'd be doing. The cases, the innocent lives had to come first.

  "I'd like to go somewhere peaceful for a couple of days. Somewhere we can sleep and relax," I said.

  It was a dream, something we couldn't indulge, but it felt nice to say it out loud.

  "I'll do what I can," Ash promised.

  He'd always been careful not to make promises he knew he couldn't keep. It was one of the many things I appreciated about him.

  We parked in front of the Steel Heart pack house and Rhian threw the door open as we got out of the car. Her hair looked tangled and her eyes had an awful dullness to them.

  "Can we help?" I asked.

  "Tell me who is doing this to my packmates," she growled.

  "We're working on it," Ash said.

  "Work faster. Ben is failing. And now Cian is having nightmares. The young ones are worried."

  I reached out and put my hand on her upper arm, a big risk.

  "We will save him and find out who's behind this," I said firmly.

  Rhian glanced at my hand. Touching a shifter without clear and explicit permission often resulted in their teeth at your throat. Touch was something reserved for pack to help solidify the bonds.

  She nodded and swallowed.

  "Cian's waiting for you."

  "How's Ben?" I asked.

  Rhian shook her head.

  "He refuses to sleep. We tried to offer him a sleeping potion, but he threw it away. He can't bear the idea of trying to sleep. Whatever's inside of him is gnawing on him, slowly tearing him apart."

  My chest ached for her, for the pain that rang through her voice. Anger replaced sadness and pushed me onwards. Whoever did this would suffer for the pain they had caused.

  Cian was a broad muscular man in his thirties at first glance, which meant he was like sixty or more. Shifters aged more slowly than humans and lived longer lives. Humans got pretty screwed on a lot of fronts. I couldn't blame them for hunting for ways to gain some magic.

  The dark-haired shifter lowered his eyes towards Ash and me for a second before he sat. Rhian remained standing. The tension through her legs betrayed her desire to pace.

  "Tell us about the nightmares," I said to Cian.

  "They started last night. Big looming darkness that has tangled itself around my mind today. I'm not as bad as Ben, but I can feel the moon sharpening my teeth and the call for blood."

  "Cian, do you mind if I look at your magic?" I asked.

  His eyes narrowed and he looked at Rhian.

  "You have permission," Rhian said.

  I gave a nod of thanks and reached out into Cian with my mind. The mass of dark knots wasn't as extreme as I'd felt in Ben. It was very clearly present, though. The darkness was a tar-like substance coating Cian's natural shifter magic. When I reached in deeper, I found I could get a much better grasp on it than I'd been able to with Ben.

  Biting my bottom lip, I tried to poke and prod at the black tar to figure out some sort of signature. Every magic wielder had a unique signature, something they left behind on the threads that told whoever could see it something about them. It took me a good few minutes, but I found it. A small fluttery thread buried between two of Cian's core knots. We were dealing with witch magic.

  TWENTY-SIX

  We thanked Rhian and Cian for their time before we left.

  "It was witch magic! Fae don't work with witches," I said as soon as my car door closed.

  "Well, shit."

  "So, we're back to square one. Ok, do we have any covens in the city? Anyone the packs could have pissed off?"

  "No covens. This is such a fae-centric city witches aren't very welcome."

  Ash drove as fast as he was able as we passed through the security measures in place. He strummed his fingers on the steering wheel while he thought.

  My phone buzzed. I opened up the group message with a number of other knights.

  “Apparently that guy with the supernatural zoo has promised a good selection of shifters will be available soon.”

  Ash looked at me with his eyes narrowed.

  "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

  "The same thing we do every night Pinky - try to take over the world."

  We both laughed, needing the break in tension.

  "You know that isn't how that goes, right?" Ash asked.

  "It made you laugh, though."

  "Ok, I can't face being in that damn apartment. Anywhere you want to go?"

  "Pick a quiet cafe. We need caffeine and some peace while we try to pull this together."

  Ash drove through the city, slowing down whenever a cafe came into sight. I took the time to reach out and gather what little bits of magic I could while feeling for other witches in the area. If they had enough talent to bind a nightmare, they could probably hide their presence in the city, too, but there wasn't any harm in trying.

  "What do we know about this zoo guy so far?" I asked when Ash pulled into a parking space.

  The rain had stopped for a short period, but there were still shallow
streams running along the edge of the road. People walked at brisk pace with their umbrellas in hand, ready to use them should the rain begin again. Others were more stoic, walking with their heads held high even as droplets ran down their faces from soaked hair, their coats still drenched through. You got used to the rain in a place like the Isles. You didn't really have much choice about it.

  "Not much. Clearly rich. Well connected. He's managed to hide a lot about himself, which means he's got enough money and connections to bury his past. That tells me he has a past we need to dig into."

  We turned and walked into the small cafe with comfortable leather-covered seats and large oak tables. Most of the tables were empty, which suited me just fine. Talk of the supernatural wasn't unusual, but that didn't mean it was a good idea to tell everyone details of the case.

  Ash chose the table in the far corner where we could sit next to each other with our backs to the wall and maintain a view of the door as well as the entire cafe. We pulled out our laptops, and Ash ordered us sandwiches and more coffee. My blood must have been mostly caffeine at that point, with a healthy dose of pixie dust. I passed Ash a small vial of sunshine to give him even more of a pick me up. We were going to need everything we could get. It was going to be a long night.

  We called in all of our contacts and resources over the course of the night. The more we tried to dig into this guy, the more we realised how well hidden his information was. It was practically screaming 'I'm a bad guy'. No one covered their ass that well unless they were up to something nefarious.

  Ash was on the phone to an old fae partbreed contact he'd made down in Devon.

  "Yea, Claire, I know... Mhm... No, no, I'm eating just fine... Yes, I know it's almost midnight... I have to go... Sure, I'm going to bed."

  I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from laughing. Claire was a very motherly character, and she was sure that Ash wasn't taking proper care of himself. She sent him away with scones and tea cakes whenever he saw her.

  Ash put the phone down and rubbed his eyes.

  "She's a very kind woman, but dear gods she can be exhausting. She told me all about how the Tintagel coven were doing. Apparently little Caroline is all grown up and pregnant with triplets now. Claire's quite sure that they must be part shifter, because no witch has triplets. I tried to point out that her own cousin had triplets, but she was off on some other tangent at that point."

  I mimed playing a tiny violin for Ash, which only got me glared at.

  "Have you managed to get anything?"

  "I can tell you that the name he's currently using is Ewan Cavanagh. He has property around Europe and a few ships that allow him to ship things like witches and hippocampoi over onto the continent. He has enough money to pay the dock workers off so he can get those beings over the borders."

  "Any sign of magic?"

  "He's down as a pure-blooded human for fifteen generations, but that doesn't ring right to me. I mean, he needs magic to get those beings through the borders."

  "He could have artifacts."

  "Oh! Yes, he's a collector of magical artifacts."

  There were a lot of magical artifacts in the world. Some of them fae or witch made, others by the gods themselves. Lots of people tried to collect those artifacts, as they often held powerful magic. Of course, some of them carried intense curses for anyone who tried to handle them who wasn't exactly what the maker had in mind. A lot of the god artifacts were quite vicious if handled by the wrong person.

  "Do we have a list of the artifacts he's collected?" Ash asked.

  "We have the official above-board list. I'm still working on the honest list. He's been all around the world, and he has someone that's usually with him."

  "Lover?"

  "Maybe... people seem to refer to him as a business partner."

  "Must be very close to take him everywhere with him."

  "He could be the magic."

  "Any idea who he is?"

  "He's on paper as a human, but I call bullshit. The picture of him shows him to look human. He doesn't have that sharp otherworldly look fae have. My money's on him being a witch."

  "Talented male witches are rare, and in high demand. Do you really think he could lure one away from the covens?"

  "Ewan certainly seems to have enough money."

  It felt like we were making progress. Slow but sure.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The cafe owner had gotten sick of us and thrown us out. In her defence, it was almost an hour past when she would normally have closed. We were both beyond exhausted and needed sleep. I fell into a dreamless sleep the second my head hit the pillow.

  Wakefulness came far too quickly, and we were back banging our heads against the research. Ash had chosen to take a break from it, saying it was hurting his head. He had carefully set up his bullet-casting assembly. While he could push magic into magically inert rounds in the field, it was a firecracker to a hand grenade compared to what he produced with time to work. I watched as he slowed his breathing and carefully pressed threads of magic from the vials I'd collected into the engravings around the bullet. Each thread was so thin that there was no wiggle room. Ash took his time, very carefully following the twists and turns of the sigils on the outside of the bullet.

  I'd never had the kind of patience he showed as he pressed thread after thread into place. Next came the tapestry of knots. He took his time tying the threads of magic into complicated latices of knots, which he then pressed into the inner reservoir of the bullet. Every move was slow and precise. I'd tried to do what he was doing once. I broke five threads and gave up after ten minutes.

  "You know it's creepy when you watch me like that, right?"

  "It's fascinating watching you."

  "That's even creepier."

  I shook my head and stood up, stretching out my muscles. I wanted to be out there physically doing something, but we didn't have enough information.

  "Relax. This will unfurl," Ash said in his zen voice.

  I curled my lip and paced around a little, running the information over my mind.

  "I can't even put the black stuff in my grimoire, as I don't understand how it works."

  Ash finished up the bullet he was working on, stood, and came over to me. He wrapped his arms gently around me and pulled me close, resting his stubbly cheek against mine. He hadn't shaved in two days, and I had to admit the stubble lining his strong jaw looked really good on him.

  "Save your energy and focus on what we can do," he said softly.

  "I know, I do," I said with a sigh.

  He stroked my hair, and I felt myself relaxing beneath his touch. He'd always had that effect on me, even when we were young. I was always a perfectionist. I pushed myself hard. That meant there were times when I was frustrated and felt like a failure. I would sit beneath the cherry blossoms and try to find some peace in the magic there. Ash would come and find me and lie next to me. Neither of us said a word. We didn't need to. His presence was enough.

  "We can't fail," I said.

  "And we won't. Beating yourself up will only slow your mind down. You need to unwind a little and come at this fresh."

  He wasn't wrong.

  "Come on, we'll watch an episode of something on TV."

  He put his arm around my waist and guided me to the couch. I curled into him and allowed him to pick something out. He managed to find an episode of a sci-fi show called Killjoys. We'd seen every episode many times, but I enjoyed watching them again regardless. There was something so soothing and satisfying about the bonds between the characters. The world was interesting and so unlike our own. I couldn't imagine being up in space.

  The humans had formed the technology to go into space, but the fae had no interest in continuing such things. We had many other planes to explore, they said, there was no need for space travel.

  "What do you think it'd be like up in space?" I asked.

  "Cold, dark, and probably full of body-stealing aliens."

  I laughed.

&
nbsp; "You watched Alien again didn't you?"

  "It's a classic! I don't know. I just don't see it as being friendly or fun. And I don't do well being cooped up for long periods of time."

  "You know, I'd love to visit the god plane. And the fae plane. Everything about the fae plane is supposed to be stunning."

  "Eh, I want to visit the Wilds just to prove they're not as scary as everyone makes out. I bet the rest of the plane is hideous and boring. The fae are just talking themselves up."

  I wouldn't put it past the fae to do that.

  "I'd still like to see it. To feel the magic they have there."

  "One day we'll go there. Together, we'll walk all the planes."

  It was a pretty dream, but one we'd never achieve. Only plane walkers could do something like that, and they didn't exist. There were rumours that the fae allowed a very select few non-fae onto their plane, but they wouldn't be like us. Lowly witches weren't good enough to walk through the veil and taste the magic hiding on that plane.

  "Why don't we start with America?" I said.

  "Yes. I want to see a wendigo in person. They sound freaky as fuck, those big antlers and the black intelligent eyes," Ash said as he did an exaggerated shudder.

  "I want to see a jackalope. The little antlers on that bunny body. Some people try to make them pets."

  "And lose their arm in the process! Seriously, why do people have to try and turn everything into a pet? It's weird."

  I laughed.

  "I admit maybe they're not the best pet."

  "Damn right they're not."

  And just like that, everything felt a little better.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ash had convinced me that we needed a break away from everything. Just one hour to clear our heads so we could be more efficient when we returned to it. I did have a few phone calls I was waiting on. He'd asked Rhian if we were ok to go and sit in the forest behind the pack house, and she had given us permission.