Death Magic

by Holly Hook

  "Huh," I said as he put the amulet back. "Something happened. That was brave of--here the wolf comes."

  The doggy smell hit me just as the sound of loping feet did. The werewolf had exited the airport, which explained the new wave of screams coming from across the street.

  "Are you sure?" Xavier asked as the sirens got louder. The police were on their way.

  I didn't get time to answer. The werewolf bounded across the road towards the opposite end of the parking lot as us. It appeared from behind some shrubs, looked around like it was searching for a parked car, and saw us. The wolf bolted for us, wagging its huge tail. I grabbed Xavier's arm and we waited. The wolf stopped and then edged in between an SUV and a truck, barely fitting in between them. It growled but made no signs of attacking us. Xavier and I waited as it sniffed the air, taking in our scents. It might have tracked us here by smell alone.

  I tensed, readying my sword. I had heard of rogue werewolves who went crazy and went around attacking everyone. This one could destroy us if it wanted but it stayed between the two large vehicles instead, ducking down and trying to hide from all but us.

  "Hey," I said, holding up one hand and waving. "Thanks for getting us away from the ATC?"

  Then the wolf sniffed and its lips curled up as if it were smiling.

  Quickly, almost too quickly, the wolf's form began to shift. I watched as hairy paws lost hair, revealing dark skin as fur fell out and vaporized on the ground. The wolf struggled onto two legs and quickly staggered back further between the vehicles. A police car pulled into the airport behind it, followed by three more. I could see a second reason for the wolf hiding.

  Whoever this wolf was changing back into was naked. I knew that clothes had a tendency to burst off when someone morphed into a hulking wolf form but I hadn't seen it before. At last, a fully human man stood in between the vehicles, crouched and hiding the best he could. It was a young man with dreadlocks, maybe in his twenties. I could only see his top half. I had never seen him before, but there was something familiar about him, something I couldn't place.

  "Hey," the guy managed, clearly embarrassed. "I hope you really appreciate that, because I sacrificed a lot of pride to help out my cousin's friends. If you could get into that red car with the DJ stickers three rows away and grab my jeans and a shirt for me, that would be great. I'm sure a naked guy running around Cumberland will only get more attention put on us, not less."

  "Your little cousin?" I asked.

  "Janine," The guy said, ducking so low between the vehicles that I could barely see his deadlocks. "She sent me. Hurry. I don't want to add indecent exposure to my rap sheet, which is already getting pretty long."

  Our rescuer turned out to be Janine's favorite second cousin, George, the one who had been bitten by a werewolf when he was just fourteen. I wasn't sure how he had found us but I had the feeling all those people filming us earlier had something to do with it. Word had spread that we were captive. Janine had found out. She had done what she could to help.

  Xavier and I fished George's clothes out of his little car which was unlocked. Once George had changed, we piled into the vehicle, which was messy and carried a trace of the doggie smell. Besides what we had witnessed, the car looked like any Normal guy car. It was full of fast food bags, boxes marked as meat lovers' pizza, and pop cans.

  More police and ATC vans passed the economy lot, all headed for the main airport terminal. They had no idea the people they were looking for were in the economy lot. It was lucky George had gotten dressed while he could. It had taken most Normals time to reach the economy lot but they were all here now, herding each other into cars. The place was a mess with vehicles trying to escape, so we blended in as George pulled out of the space and got in line for the traffic signal.

  "That was an interesting night," George said, ducking his head. "You two stay down. You're both going to my place. No one knows what I am and it's staying that way, so we should be safe there. Janine and her mother are both there waiting for you."

  "Well, Janine is," I said, trying to scoot to a place in the backseat where there wasn't garbage. I held my sword above it, trying not to get any dried demon blood on anything. I didn't know a ton about werewolves but I imagined that even in human form, they had a much better than Normal sense of smell. I looked outside to see a faint crescent moon setting over the horizon. So werewolves weren't limited to the full moon. I knew that the full moon forced them to transform, but I hadn't realized they could do it at will, too.

  "I know how her mother is," George said. "She doesn't know what I am, either, and I'm keeping it that way. We'll have to be quiet when we get to my place since she's sleeping. Janine's awake, watching the news."

  "How did she know to send you?" I asked as we reached the light. I stayed low, out of sight of any police that might be setting up a perimeter around the area. It was going to be blocked off soon. More lights flashed, red and blue against the inside of George's little car, but no one stopped us and he sped down the road, blending in with the others who were fleeing. The cops were looking for a hulking, wild werewolf or a naked dude. George had come prepared.

  The adrenaline smells got thinner as we got further from the airport. Both Xavier and George were calming down.

  "Thanks, man," Xavier said. "Alyssa has a good question. How did you know to come for us?"

  "Janine has alerts on her phone," George explained. "That girl is obsessed with social media and gossip. She must have set up an alert for the two of you when she realized you were wanted."

  "Me?" I asked. I guessed I shouldn't have been surprised. I'd been wanted since the incident with the librarian and Janine never knew that Xavier and I had ever headed out on a deadly mission to Turkey in the first place unless Liliana had told her, which I also doubted. My name would be out there. And the people around the ATC office...snapping pictures of the wanted Alyssa Choy...it would have reached Janine's phone for sure.

  Those people had indirectly saved us.

  I had to give Janine a very, very big hug when we got back. We hadn't seen each other since well before our journey to the ruins. It was amazing that I was about to see my friend again at all.

  "At least we're out of there before Thoreau landed," Xavier said.

  "Is it true that he's a demon?" George asked as he stopped at another light. "Janine has been telling me all this stuff."

  "True," I said.

  "Wow," George said, shaking his head. "I thought he was just leader of the Abnormal Haters club, also known as the ATC. I think I infected six of their agents tonight. I didn't kill any of them but I took a couple of gunshots. I figured it was better to let them have a taste of what they dish out to people like me. At least I heal fast."

  "That was awesome," Xavier said. "You should join the Underground. We need people like you."

  "Janine has been telling me about that," George said. "I don't think it's for me."

  I remembered Janine saying that George was ashamed of being a werewolf and went to pains to hide it, even going so far to drive to the wilderness whenever a full moon got near. I could understand that a hundred percent.

  "You know," I said. "You didn't have to come out and save us. What made you?"

  "My cousin."

  "Or maybe you just needed to hurt something," I said. "That happens."

  George stomped on the gas. I couldn't believe I was on this side of the conversation. "The stuff the ATC is doing is getting to me," he said with restraint. "I'm sick of hearing them tell everyone that it's our fault we're the way we are. And the news--don't get me started on how they make us look. Wait. I take that back. I just made us look a lot worse at an airport. What was I thinking?" He slapped himself on the forehead.

  "I hear you," Xavier said. "I'm a War Mage. We're on the top ten list of bad Abnormals, too. We're right under Dark Mages."

  "Stop beating yourself up," I said. "You just helped stop the end of the world." I went on the explain as he continued to drive us towards the other side
of Cumberland. On the way, we passed the ATC building, which would have been our destination if Janine wasn't so obsessed with gossip and social media.

  She was the most awesome best friend I'd ever had. Even though she was obsessed with Abnormals, she had never once asked me to bite her so she could become like me.

  The drive took a while even though not many people were out. The low traffic this early in the morning meant that we'd been lucky. The sky was just starting to turn pink on the horizon and traffic slowly picked up as people drove off to work. George had been able to get to us without too much trouble or backups. One construction zone could have changed the course of the world.

  George's house was an ordinary one in the suburbs, a small brick one that looked like the others. There was a van outside advertising party DJ services in green print. The predawn light fell on the grass as Xavier and I staggered across, tired and weak, and into the house.

  Janine was standing up against the couch and there were bags under her eyes. She was looking at her phone, scrolling through it, but then she looked up at me and Xavier, not comprehending at first.

  And then her face contorted into anger.

  "Don't ever do that again!" she said, trying to keep her voice low and failing.

  "Do what?" I asked.

  "Taking off across the world like that, almost getting yourselves killed," she said.

  "All right, Mom," I said as her expression softened. "I know it was a crappy thing for us to do without saying goodbye to you first." Then I thought about it. It had been a crappy thing. "You were off with your mother and I didn't know where you'd gone."

  "You went to Turkey," Janine said. "Without me."

  "We couldn't take you," I said, careful to keep my own voice down. A clock rimmed in orange neon light ticked on the wall. "It was too dangerous. We fought a dragon, Janine. Wait a second. How did you know we went to Turkey? We never told you." Janine and her mother had taken off from the Underground to come to George's before Xavier and I had found out where the Dark Council met. We had left Janine out of the whole thing. She knew about Thoreau's plan to use Leon's power to vaporize the Underground but nothing beyond that. Heck, Xavier hadn't even told Elsina or Trish about our plans. Trish would have killed both of us if he had.

  Janine swallowed while George stood behind us like he was guarding the door. "A guy came looking for you late last night. He said his name was Mack."

  Xavier and I looked at each other. "Mack?" I asked. "He can't be expecting payment already."

  "He said he was from a junkyard and he found me by using a black mirror. He was trying to track you down with one of your hairs, Alyssa, to see if you were still alive, but it turns out he accidentally had one of my hairs instead, so he got me," Janine said, shrugging. "That guy gave me the creeps. He figured I knew you if one of my hairs came off your clothes, so he asked me if I knew where you were. I told him I wasn't sure so he was happy to fill me in on what you did. He told me about that demon, Allunna, making you promise to bring her and Leon back."

  "Dark Mages can track people down?" I asked Xavier.

  "Well, they can Transpose people to them," Xavier said. "Tracking people is something a lot of Mage types can do."

  "Great," I said. I felt worse. Mack must have picked some hairs off me when I wasn't looking, probably when we were sitting by that black mirror. Janine and I had hugged earlier that day. One of her hairs had come off on me. We both had black hair so it was an easy mistake to make. "I'm sorry he showed up here. What else did he tell you?"

  "He wanted me to give you a message," Janine said. "You need to meet him at his junkyard as soon as possible if you survived your mission. There's a task he wants to give you and it sounds like it's something big."

  "We don't have time for this right now," Xavier said. "Our plan kind of, well, it worked because Allunna's alive and by extension, Leon must be, too. But we killed Thoreau and now he's alive, too."

  We all sat on the couch and George started to make breakfast. The smell of bacon wafted into the room, but it was nothing I could eat. I was back to square one. Meals used to be so simple, back when I had the blood bags at home, but they weren't anymore. Meals meant hurting people and if I kept this up long enough, I would bite somebody who had the bad gene.

  I would turn them, the way Russell Fox had turned me.

  To turn my thoughts away from nourishment, I told Janine about what had happened with Mack and the promise we'd made that we would complete some task for him when he wanted in exchange for his opening a window to the Infernal Dimension for us. We had gotten in deep. I'd thought we would have some time before we had to pay for Mack's services.

  "Thoreau is alive again?" Janine exclaimed at the end of our story.

  "He is," I said. "I'm also descended from a literal dragon emperor and who knows what else. I don't know what that darkness was that blocked out the sky for a minute right outside the ruins. Thoreau didn't give me a lot of clues, but it's bad."

  "That darkness reminded me of the Shadow Wraiths," Xavier said. "If you have a piece of that in you, Alyssa, maybe that was why Thoreau wanted the Wraiths to touch you. They're supposed to bring out whatever dormant thing in you that came from that darkness or whatever."

  "But we don't know what it is," I said.

  "We don't want to know what it is," Xavier said in a way that made me feel gross for a minute.

  I was enough of a freak and now I was feeling like a worse one. Janine was looking me over like I was some rare find in a museum but at least she didn't keep it up.

  She stood when George announced that breakfast was done. I sprawled out on the floor while the others went to enjoy the food, trying to sleep as the morning light got brighter and more orange outside. The curtains were shut, at least. There were no distant sirens out here, keeping me awake. There was just the ceiling and my thoughts.

  I was supposed to have come from a few of the Dark Council members. Gaozu, the floating darkness, and who knew what else. The more I tried to shove those thoughts from my head, the worse they became. I turned over and closed my eyes as the others enjoyed real food out in the kitchen and I finally fell asleep.

  But when I did, there was nothing but the darkness, spreading over everything and sucking all hope from the land.

  Chapter Seven

  "Alyssa. We have to go."

  I opened my eyes and realized I had slept for far longer than usual. The noon sun shined outside, missing the curtains completely. The sun was overhead, which meant bad news. And I was hungry, so much that my mouth was dry. I knew what I had to do soon.

  Xavier kneeled next to me, his blue and purple eyes gentle and understanding. There was no trace of that moodiness I was getting more used to. "Mack stopped by again about an hour ago. You slept through it, but he says we have to get to his junkyard and it's urgent. He has a task for us that he says can't wait."

  Janine stood above me. There were bags under her eyes like she hadn't slept at all. I sat up and realized that the TV was on to the local news, even though the volume was all the way down.

  It was what was on the screen that terrified me.

  Thoreau himself, looking just as good as he had been before Leon's energy had roasted him. His bald head shined in the sun as he stood in front of the ATC building, right by the entrance Xavier and I had stormed through on our assault. He had on his new sunglasses and was decked out in a tan suit that didn't match him at all. A black suit with flames on his tie would have been better. He was talking about record ATC profits, according to the text at the bottom of the TV.

  "I'm sorry you woke up to that," Xavier said, getting up to move in front of the TV. Somewhere down the hall, Janine's mother talked on the phone with someone about a deposit on a new apartment. She didn't get it that they had to stay in hiding for the reason that was on the screen.

  "It's like nothing even happened to him," I said. My limbs were getting a bit shaky. That was bad news. "Thoreau's completely uninjured!"

  "We sti
ll haven't seen my grandfather yet," Xavier said. "I messaged my sister using Janine's phone, but in between her calling me an idiot, she says there have been no sightings of Leon."

  "That's weird," I said. "He should have showed up by now."

  "Well, he and Thoreau would have been resurrected at the same time. In the same circle."

  "Good point," I said. "Maybe Leon's tied up somewhere. He can't be dead or Allunna wouldn't have been in the airport."

  I worried about sounding insensitive, but there was only relief on Xavier's face. That was sad. Xavier was relieved that his grandfather might be captive.

  "It's very possible," Xavier said. "I just wish Thoreau would have stayed dead. Then we'd be rescuing our parents right now." He sat down on the couch. "Now we have to deal with whatever Mack wants us to deal with."

  I stood up. Yes, I was shaky. "We'll get there," I said, aware that Janine was very quiet and waiting. We were about to take off again and leave her here with her cousin and mother. I could sense the disappointment wafting off of her. That, and the scent of breakfast was flowing through her veins. "It's just going to take a bit more time. Thoreau won't hurt them so long as he doesn't have me. They're the only thing he can use to sway me to his side."

  "I guess you're right," Xavier said, giving me a weak smile. He turned to face George, who stood in the doorway between the small kitchen and the living room. "What do you say? Want to go on another adventure?"

  He shook his head. "Last night was enough for this man."

  "That was brave, what you did," I said. I knew how George felt. He hadn't asked to be bitten back when he was fourteen. From looking around the messy house, the guy was single. "You gave those ATC people what they deserved." I imagined them all getting hauled off to their own "treatment centers" and finding out the hard way what they put their prisoners through.

  But then I imagined how I would feel if I bit someone and made them like me. I knew that no Normal was immune to lycanthropy. George had infected every single person he had bitten last night.