Over Our Heads

by Jan Stryvant

  "Let's just say I had one of those 'here, hold my beer' moments," Roberta laughed, and tilting her head back, she kissed him under the chin. "Best rash decision I ever made."

  "Yeah, I'm starting to feel the same way about this one!" Sean purred and let his hands start to wander over Roberta's body again.

  "I can't be your wife, Sean," Roberta warned him, "I have a daughter, and I have responsibilities here."

  "I understand, Roberta, Hon. I honestly do. Maybe once all of this is over, we can have that discussion again. Once it's safe for me to settle down and raise a family."

  "Thank you for understanding," Roberta said, rolling over to look up into his eyes.

  "I love you, of course I understand," Sean purred and kissed her as he started to make love to her once more.

  "Lions," Roberta mumbled between kisses, "gotta love 'em."

  The Sorceress Guild

  Sean had one arm around Roberta and Sarah was riding on his shoulder as they went down to the kitchen. While there was a small kitchen in Roberta's apartment, there was a much larger one with cooks who supplied everyone there with meals.

  Apparently the guild really was modeled on an old-fashioned guildhall. There were living quarters, workshops, meeting rooms, even an armory. While not all of the members of the guild lived here, most did, and even those that didn't lived close by.

  As a member of the guild, you were entitled to their protection and support, and you always had a place to stay. In return for that, you were expected to pay your dues, contribute to the well-being of the guild, and support your fellow guild members. Any and all disagreements were brought to the guild, and ruled on by the leaders. Roberta had explained to him that yes, some of the women in the guild could be downright evil, and others probably qualified for sainthood.

  But there were rules that all must abide by, and everyone understood that they were far better off standing together, as the world of magic was heavily male dominated. So while there could be some serious knockdown drag-out screaming fights inside the guild, outside they all acted like they were best of friends and watched out for one another.

  When they came into the kitchen area Sean noticed that it got rather quiet and all of the women were nudging each other and smiling.

  "Oh shit, I forgot to put the collar back on," Sean whispered.

  Roberta laughed, and whispered back, "That's because I'm wearing it, and no, I'm not taking it off, either."

  "Well, that didn't take long!" One of the gals sitting at one of the tables nearby eating breakfast chuckled.

  "Yeah, well, lions," Roberta replied, grinning back at her.

  "Well good for you!" the gal replied and raised her glass of orange juice in salute.

  Sean spied the girls, who were eating breakfast and steered Roberta over towards them, noticing that quite a few of the other women eating also raised their glassed as Roberta walked by, and Roberta was positively strutting rather proudly across the room.

  Roxy looked at him and then Roberta as they sat down, Sarah sliding off his shoulder and grabbing a seat next to her mom, "Jo?"

  "Yes, Rox?"

  "Does that collar being on Roberta mean what I think it does?"

  "Yup," Jolene giggled.

  Roxy grumbled and facepalmed, "Dammit, I saw him first!"

  Daelyn looked from Roberta, to Sean, to Roxy and then to Jolene, "Okay, what did I miss this time?"

  "Sean's going to be a daddy," Jo snickered.

  "Oh? Is that all?" Daelyn looked at Roberta and Sean, "Congrats, both of ya'."

  "Why thank you, Daelyn, right?" Roberta asked.

  Daelyn nodded.

  "Where's Oak?" Sean asked, looking around.

  "Oh, we sent him out with a shopping list," Roxy said. "No one's looking for him, and one of Deanna's girls offered to drive."

  "Ah, Sean said and flagged down a cougar who apparently worked serving food here. He wondered if the chefs where also lycans? Keeping fur out of the food would definitely be a major problem them.

  "Oh, and don't worry, I'll be sure to make you next," Sean said with a wink at Roxy, who brightened visibly.

  "Jo'll be after that."

  "I'm not letting you infect me, Sean," Jolene smiled.

  "He doesn't have to," Roberta said with a smile and then turned to order food from the cougar who had come over.

  "I'm not wearing a collar either."

  "Jo," Sean smiled, "don't you want my children?"

  "Ummm," Jolene blushed, and Daelyn leaned over and whispered something in her ear.

  "What?" Jolene said, looking completely shocked.

  Daelyn grinned evilly, "It's nice being the one who knows something she doesn't for a change."

  "I thought it was just going to be more of a surprise for her when she found out she was pregnant one day!" Roxy laughed.

  "You knew?" Jolene said, looking at Roxy in shock.

  "Course I knew. Honestly Jo, I don't see what the issue is, you'll make a great mom, when your time comes."

  Sean just shook his head and snickered, then ordered from the server as Jolene sat there and quietly fumed.

  "Well, now that we got all of that outta the way," Daelyn said, going back to eating her breakfast, "what're our plans for today?"

  "Honestly, I had other things on my mind," Sean said with a wink.

  "Well, I think we're best off sitting here and lying low," Roxy said. "Until we find out how we got found out."

  "Someone bugged the box the necklaces came in," Jolene grumbled.

  "What?" Daelyn said, looking shocked.

  "Oak told us, after Sean swore him. Didn't know who did it, just that it was a dwarf. Either they owed McConnell, or they're friends or something."

  "Why, I'll..." Daelyn started, stopping when Sean held up his hand.

  "Dae, who knew that the order was from us?"

  "Garth did, he's my cousin and best friend's husband," Daelyn fumed.

  "What about that other guy in the room?" Roxy asked.

  " Branff Knudson?" Daelyn said, "What about him?"

  "That makes two suspects. Who handed you the box with the production samples in it?"

  Daelyn growled, "Branff did."

  "Well," Roxy smiled, "Maybe we need to have a little conversation with him?"

  Sean had been watching Jolene, she really was looking unhappy. Standing up he leaned all the way over the table, which was fairly easy to do at his size. Taking her face in his hands he kissed her, making her blink.

  "Jo," he whispered, "if you really don't want to have children, I won't force you to."

  "Sure you won't," she grumbled.

  "I may ask, and I may beg," Sean admitted a little sheepishly, after what he'd done last night, he had to admit that both he and his lion were very taken with the idea, "but I'll never force it. We can talk about this later if you want, but stop acting like the world is going to end, okay? I love you, remember that. If you're not happy, I'm not happy."

  Jolene sighed and nodded then kissed him back, "Yes, Love."

  Smiling Sean sat back down. Roxy winked at him, he knew she heard it, as she was sitting there in her hybrid form. Daelyn didn't say anything, so he guessed she probably hadn't.

  "We need to go pay Garth a visit," Daelyn sighed, "and have a very unpleasant conversation about his employees."

  Sean nodded and then sat back as his food was delivered. Thankfully there was a lot of it.

  "We also need to see if we can rescue my 'Cuda," Daelyn grumbled.

  "I wonder if they know that we got away?" Jolene asked, sounding a little more like her usual self. "I need to talk to Sawyer and some of my other friends."

  Sean nodded, "And I need to do a few experiments."

  "On what?" Roberta asked.

  "To see if I can make more of these," Sean sighed and fingered the silver tag.

  "What's that?" Roberta asked.

  "This," Sean said pulling it off his collar with a click and holding it up so she could see it, "is what all
the fuss is about." Sean handed it to her, "our brave new world starts with that, I guess."

  "Huh," Roberta said, turning it over and looking at it. "Just looks like a regular metal tag. What's it do?"

  "It protects lycans from silver," Sean told her.

  "What was that quote you said?" Roxy asked.

  "Brave new world?" Sean replied and then took the tag back from Roberta as she handed it to him.

  "Yeah, wasn't that a book or something?"

  Sean nodded, "Yeah, Huxley wrote it. My mother always used to quote the title, even though she hated the book. She's always say 'Sean, you're our brave new world' to...."

  Sean stopped and looked at the tag, something had happened to it, he had felt it. Calling up his enchanting program he looked at it. The encryption algorithm had stopped! That was the password! How, how had she known?

  Sean stared at the tag in his hand, his mother knew, she knew that one day he'd be holding this tag, and that he'd need to get past its encryption. How had she known that? Had his father told her, because he knew what was coming? Had it been just a shot in the dark? A chance?

  Or was there something more going on?

  "Sean? Are you okay, Sean?"

  Roxy was saying his name.

  Looking up, Sean saw all of the others were now staring at him.

  "Are you okay, Sean?" Roxy asked again.

  Sean nodded slowly, and calling up his tarball program, he tarballed the whole tag, everything on it. He could look at it later, but for now, he wasn't going to take any chances. With a thought he turned the encryption back on, and clicked the tag back onto his collar.

  "I'm sorry; I just was struck with a sudden thought." Turning to Roberta, he asked her, "Did Sampson ever tell you anything about my mother?"

  Roberta shook her head, "No, why?"

  "I'm starting to think that there are things about my mother that I never knew," Sean said.

  "Wait, she knew Sampson?" Roxy asked.

  "Sampson is my daddy!" Sarah said from where she was eating her own breakfast.

  Roxy turned and stared at Sean.

  Sean felt his ears go down, and his facial fur stand up, "Umm, small world, isn't it?"

  "Really, Sean," Roxy said, "going after Sampson's girl? And knocking her up? I mean, really?"

  Sean sighed, he wasn't sure if Roxy was mad, or if she was just teasing him.

  "I told you, Sampson promised Sarah that he'd give her a little sister, and well, Roberta seemed rather taken with the idea."

  "And no doubt your lion was too!"

  Turning to face her, Sean grabbed her arms. "Should I get to work on you too? Honestly, Rox, I'd love to knock you up, right here, right now, in the hallway, on the floor, in front of everyone!

  "Yeah, of course my lion liked the idea, so did I! The only reason you're not pregnant is because you haven't asked me to! At least not yet!"

  Sean was pleased to see Roxy's ears go down in embarrassment. More than a few people were looking at them, at this point.

  "Okay, I get it, I'll stop teasing you," Roxy grumbled. "I just sorta wanted to be first, but well, I'm not exactly looking to have kids when we don't even have a safe place to call home."

  "Thank you," Sean sighed and let her go.

  "Still, giving in to such a blatant guilt trip by a six-year-old?" Roxy snickered and shook her head, "Your daughters are going to own you!"

  "Their mothers already do," Sean snorted and shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised to find out Roberta set the whole thing up just to get me to do it. It's pretty obvious that she loved Sampson and because I'm his 'lycan son' I guess she figured I'm the next best thing."

  Roxy nodded, "Probably."

  They went into the quarters that the girls were sharing; Oak was using a room next to theirs.

  "So, what did you need to see from our stuff?" Jolene asked, going over to the pile of neatly stacked items.

  "I want to try and make a few tags," Sean told them.

  "I thought you weren't able to break the encryption on the tag?"

  Sean grinned, "The password was 'brave new world.' As soon as I said it, it unlocked.

  "Well, that explains the sudden pause and look of confusion."

  "And the change of subject," Daelyn agreed. "So, you going to try pushing silver through your shield and try to harness the energy?"

  Sean nodded, "Yes. But we'll need to move someplace safer, so we don't set anything on fire. Also I'll need you, Roxy, to handle the silver."

  "Why me?"

  "Cause if anything goes wrong, you won't be killed by it?"

  "It's silver, Hon."

  "Oh, right," Sean said, and scratched his head.

  "I'll do it," Daelyn said. "I've dealt with hot metal before. Just need to see if they have a smithy here or not."

  "Have you figured out how much energy is in an ounce of silver? You said you'd look into it."

  "Oh! Yeah, that. Alpha decay gives off like four point three million electron volts of energy, per electron."

  "That much?" Jolene said, looking surprised.

  "An electron volt is tiny," Daelyn said. "Without getting into all the math, an ounce of silver, gives off about thirty four hundred kilowatts of power, if you decay all of the atoms."

  "That's a lot!" Roxy said.

  Sean nodded, "But I only get about ten percent of it to use."

  "That's still over three hundred kilowatts," Daelyn pointed out, "and you said it's what? Fourteen to make a tag? That's like twenty-four right there."

  "Assuming I can control it."

  "Where's the other ninety percent going?" Roxy asked.

  "Dealing with the radiation and running all the magic in the device. That ten percent is what runs the shield, if I understood the notes right, and even with that, it's still too much power, which is why the shield expands and gets harder, and then starts to shed heat.

  "So, how many necklaces and tags did you manage to grab?"

  "Eighteen of the necklaces, five of the tags," Jolene said.

  "Well, grab them, Dae, grab the silver please? I'm afraid to touch it with the tag on. Then lets all go see if we can find a place to do a little experimenting."

  "We'll ask Roberta, she'll know," Jolene said.

  "Umm, I'd like to keep this as quiet as possible," Sean confided in them.

  "Sean," Roxy growled.

  "Yes, dear?"

  "Stop being an idiot."

  "Huh?"

  "Of all the sorceresses here, Roberta is definitely the one who will keep your secrets. She's got your child in her, remember? Didn't you notice how much she was leaning into you this morning? Whatever she felt for Sampson, and I suspect it was a lot, she's pretty much focused that on you now."

  Sean looked at Roxy, standing there with her hands on her hips.

  "Yes, dear."

  "Better. Really, your lion should clue you in on these things."

  "We're still giddy, forgive us," Sean grinned.

  "Lions!" Roxy said throwing her hands up in the air. But Sean could see she was smiling all the same.

  "Well, let's go find Roberta and see about a place to do some work."

  "What about Branff? And my car?" Daelyn asked.

  "We need to deal with this first. Then we'll see about that," Sean said. "I still need to get back in there and get my father's book as well, if it's still in one piece that is. But you said it would be a few days?"

  Daelyn sighed and nodded.

  "Tomorrow, I promise."

  Experiments

  Sean was sitting in a chair in his hybrid form, without any clothing on, or anything flammable within ten feet of him. He had his enchantment program open; his monitor program open and he'd already turned off the encryption on the silver tag device.

  The plan right now was simple, Daelyn, would simply throw half ounce slugs of silver at him, that she'd cut off one of the ten ounce bars, while Sean held one of the necklaces in his hand and tried to use his tarball program to enchant it.


  He thought that starting off with something he could do on his own might be a better way to test this. On a metal table to his left were several more chains, as well as the five tags.

  "Ready?" Daelyn asked him. Everyone else was behind what looked like a blast shield. Apparently some sorceresses dealt with some pretty nasty magic of their own.

  "Go," Sean said and as the silver hit the shield he watched as everything did what it was supposed to do. He untarred the program into the necklace and tried to grab the energy coming from the silver tag, but it wasn't coming as fast as he needed it, so he only got a small percentage to use for the enchanting and the rest came from him.

  He got a little dizzy as the surge hit, but he had more than enough energy to create one by himself, and then of course there was all of the energy he got back, as well as the small bit that came from the necklace, which continued at a trickle for another second afterwards.

  "That didn't look good," Daelyn commented.

  "No, I only got a small amount from the necklace, the rest went into the shield to harden it and extend it."

  "Can you turn that off?"

  "I don't know. Throw another piece."

  "Okay, here comes!"

  This time, Sean simply watched the functions of the silver tag as the silver hit the shield. He saw it then, the program that took the energy to buff the shield up. That was where most of the energy was going. If he could subvert that program, the energy would go directly to....

  Sean followed that path, and he found the heat program. The heat program's purpose was to throttle all of the energy that came out of the necklace and only allow a small percentage to go to the wearer. Apparently his father felt that it was better to set someone on fire than to funnel too much energy into them.

  That made him stop and think a moment. Sean knew that he'd recover from being burned, even third degree burns probably wouldn't stop him, well, maybe if he got enough of them they might. But for the most part he'd heal.

  But he had no idea at all what too much magical energy would do to him.

  Looking at the routines in the tag, he could see just how he could make one minor change, in two places, to bypass those routines. But then he'd get hit with all of that power at once. Which was a pretty big shot of power.