by Briar, Robin
Baldy is stronger than Mason. He proved as much already. If they start wrestling, Mason will lose. Still, for my idea to work, Mason needs to do get in close. To do that, however, he will have to lower his guard. He needs to let Baldy attack. That way he can counterstrike with surprise.
“Mason! Forget the spike! Get in close! Use your claws!”
I can’t tell if he heard me or not. He doesn’t look back at me, too focused on the fight. Not just that, but I don’t know how aware Mason is of his surroundings right now. He always describes being a half-man, half-wolf as a blur, but that’s when the wolf is more in control. Right now he’s fighting more like a man. I can only assume that means he’s thinking like one as well.
“Trust me, Mason! Forget the spike! Fight like a wolf!”
He keeps his guard up as Baldy explodes with renewed ferocity, but gives ground as his opponent advances on him. That’s when Mason sidesteps and Baldy drives past him.
It happens quickly. I didn’t even see it coming. Mason anticipated the attack and simply got out of the way.
Baldy is off balance, leaving his flank wide open. Mason spins around, using the momentum of his dodge. He can stab him through the back, maybe even the heart if his aim is true. He can end the fight right here.
If only it were that easy.
Baldy pivots on one foot and turns his body around with enough time to bring his own spike up and deflect Mason’s attack. He’s still off balance and heading to the ground, but he’s not going to die, having blocked the killing blow.
The force of Mason’s attack does send him reeling into the drywall.
It was a perfect feint, but Mason had to set it up first, taking a beating to reach that point. Baldy won’t make the same mistake twice. Not only that, he’s freakishly fast. Now Mason really does need my help, but only if he does what I say. I can help him take Baldy out, but only if he listens.
“Throw me the spike and get in close. I’ve got your back!”
Mason looks at me, just for a second, but nods this time. Good, he heard me. To prove it, he throws me the spike.
It’s still in the air when Mason charges. He collides with Baldy at speed. The force of the impact pushes him deeper into the wall, through the metal and wood. It looks bloody and painful, but Baldy holds on to his spike.
I catch the spike Mason threw me.
Mason braces the arm of his opponent with one of his own, keeping the silver spike away from his body. The two shifters are up close and personal now. Mason has Baldy at a disadvantage, but it won’t last.
Their arms strain against each other, but Baldy manages to slowly elbow his way out. Mason makes him work for it, resisting every inch of the way. At least I can see both men clearly. I have to play my hand. It’s now or never.
“Rip the skin off the back of his neck!”
Baldy actually looks at me when I say that. His eyes go wide. He knows I’ve figured it out.
Mason doesn’t hesitate—he grabs Baldy’s neck in one hand and pulls his fist closed, raking his claws across the flesh. It shreds the Norse star tattoo. Mason completely rips the skin off the sinew beneath, which isn’t that different from what I’m about to do.
“Caro Tollere.”
Remove the Flesh.
I’ve known this spell for years, but I’ve never actually seen it work. The effect lives up to the name.
Every layer of skin covering Baldy’s musculature is flicked off him like a cloth being snapped from a table. He explodes with blood. Mason is drenched in viscera, but there’s no helping it. This is definitely better than the alternative.
Baldy stands there in shock, motionless but still alive. I don’t know if a werewolf can survive such a spell, but Mason doesn’t wait to find out.
He wipes the ichor from his eyes, takes the hand off his opponent, still grasping the silver spike, and drives it into the front of his chest, stabbing him through the heart. That did it for sure. There wasn’t even a moment for Baldy to scream.
Mason immediately turns his attention to Cropped Hair. His back is turned. He’s not aware that his partner has been killed, but Candice saw it all. Trent as well. Sylvia remains silent and unmoving in the room, bound by my spell, but she would have seen it too.
Candice keeps attacking Cropped Hair so that he remains focused on her alone, which allows Mason to leap across the room at him.
“Behind you!” Trent roars, but it’s too late.
Mason lands on Cropped Hair’s back on all fours. He sinks his teeth into the back of his neck and rips the tattooed flesh away. He springs off him in one motion, rendering him vulnerable to magic. Now it’s my turn.
“Prohibere Motus Corporis.”
The same spell I cast to paralyze Sylvia. No point in being wasteful by casting Remove the Flesh again, not when Candice is right there, armed and deadly. She winds up and swings hard through muscle and bone. Not even a werewolf can survive a beheading. His body slopes to the ground.
That’s two down. Now it’s Trent against three witches and a werewolf.
“Surrender,” Saffron commands in a voice that shakes the room, “or die.”
She’s still levitating.
Trent looks back and forth between the four of us.
“I don’t know how to do either, witch,” he says in a guttural voice.
“Well then, let’s see if we can make a lie of at least one of those boasts,” Saffron chirps.
Mason leaps at Trent first, claws outstretched. Candice is right behind him with sword and shield.
I thought Baldy was fast. Trent is faster. He grabs Mason by the wrist, still airborne, twists, and spins him around in a circle, hurling his body at Candice behind him. She barely manages to get her shield up in time to protect herself from Mason.
The strength of the man is truly horrific.
Candice and Mason are sent tumbling back into a corner, a mess of arms and legs tangled up in each other. I’m sure that hurt.
“You won’t remove my tattoo so easily,” Trent says.
“No. It seems you’re too quick for that,” Saffron replies in a sour tone of voice. “So be it. Leva Ad.”
She cast the same spell again. Which means she’s activated two versions of the same spell simultaneously. I didn’t even know that was possible. Saffron can wield some serious witchcraft.
She starts using both hands to command objects from around the room. She points at the kitchen oven with one hand and levitates it away from the wall as if it were no heavier than a paperweight. It sails through the air toward him.
Trent catches the oven with both hands, digging his hind claws into the hardwood floor to keep himself from being pushed back. That was the first casting of her spell. What Trent hasn’t accounted for is the refrigerator that Saffron grabbed with her second casting.
She slams it into his back. He wasn’t expecting that at all. Trent actually grunts in pain for the first time.
Now she pours it on.
Saffron pushes the appliances against Trent, squeezing like a trash compactor. Trent turns sideways and tries to push both appliances away at the same time, but he’s struggling from the effort. Something has to give. It’s not Trent.
Dents form in the surface of both metal appliances. His hands, however, remain in place.
Candice untangles herself from Mason and stands up again. She looks to see if Saffron needs help. The Crone of our coven shakes her head almost imperceptibly. Mason stands up as well, but Candice bars his way with her shield.
“No. She’s got this.”
I can feel Sylvia struggling against the paralyzing spell I cast on her body, but she can’t move or speak. She’s watching Trent lose to Saffron, but is powerless against my magic. This needs to happen, no matter how desperately she wants to help him.
That’s when Saffron pulls the refrigerator away. It catches Trent completely off guard. He was fighting a contest of strength in his mind. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Saffron was always intending to use his stre
ngth against him.
The sudden removal of one appliance sends Trent reeling, off balance and unable to stabilize his footing in time. He slams against a freestanding support beam that separates the kitchen from the living room. It lets out a loud crack.
The ceiling above our heads creaks. A disturbing sound, especially when you’re standing beneath it.
Saffron follows Trent with the refrigerator, turning it lengthwise, and drives it against his torso from the waist down, pinning him against the support beam and knocking the wind out of him for the first time.
Then she brings the oven back. Slams it into him above the refrigerator. It wallops Trent from the waist up. He’s in a bad shape, but still conscious.
Despite it all, he manages to push against both appliances at the same time, but can’t anchor himself. All he has to push against is the support beam behind him. That’s when I see Trent smile, even if Saffron can’t. It’s a smile directed at me specifically.
Trent knows the pillar behind him is a load-bearing support beam for the whole house.
“Everybody get out!” I yell. “Run!”
There’s no time to act, not at my speed.
Mason dives toward his paralyzed sister. He grabs her and surrounds Sylvia in a protective hug. Candice raises her shield like an umbrella and leaps for a corner of the room.
I cast the one spell that has protected me countless times. I say the words without a moment to spare.
“Sustento in Carne.”
The second floor comes crashing down on our heads. Everybody is caught in the avalanche, except Saffron. She’s still floating off the ground in the breakfast nook that extends off the house.
If only the rest of us were so lucky.
8. Rock and Hard Place
I’m alive. I’m buried under rubble, but I’m alive.
The spell around my body is protecting me from the crushing weight of the collapsed floor. I can’t move, but I’m not dead. I’m suspended in debris. The spell even repels all the sharp points of splintered wood and torn metal that would have otherwise run me through.
What it doesn’t provide, however, is a way to breathe.
I can hear the sound of debris being moved and shifted, and muffled voices, but I can’t make out who they are or what they’re saying.
They must be trying to find me. At least, I hope that are trying to find me. They probably have no idea where to look, not specifically, at least. Everybody dove in different directions right before the ceiling collapsed, bring much of the upstairs downstairs.
I can’t go without air for much longer. What little I’m getting is humid and stuffy. Not only that, it’s impossible to take a full breath.
Saffron designed the Maintain the Flesh spell to protect a body from outside harm without dulling the feeling of touch. Still, it never took a situation like this into account, when there isn’t enough air to fill your lungs.
I’m already starting to feel faint. Even my thoughts are becoming fuzzy. I’m trying to stay awake by force of will, but the oxygen deprivation is getting to me. I can’t think straight.
Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours. How long have I been here? I hear scratching, but can’t tell where it’s originating, like it’s coming from everywhere all at once. That can’t be right. I close my eyes, unable to keep them open anymore.
That’s when I feel the weight of all the crushing debris on me lessen for the first time. I still can’t move, but the burden against the magical barrier protecting me feels much lighter now. It’s hard to say for sure. It could also be delirium talking. Maybe this is what is feels like to die of asphyxiation?
A shaft of light hits me. It’s blinding, but I can move again. I immediately take a full breath, and it feels divine. Have I really been saved? Maybe I didn’t make it. Maybe I’m ascending to the next life.
Ascending? Really? I thought that maybe some kind of purgatory would be in store for me. Possibly worse.
That’s when my eyes adjust. I’m looking up at a ceiling, but it’s two stories high, which is really high for a ceiling. The edges of my vision start to resolve. I realize I’m actually looking through a hole in one ceiling at the next roof above it.
Right. Werewolf. Pillar. Flying appliances. Floor crashing on my head. I’m still alive.
“I’m not dead,” I say.
“Not if I can help it.”
It’s Mason. I recognize his voice right away. He must have dug me out.
“You found me.”
“I know what you smell like,” he says, still lifting debris off me and throwing it to either side.
“That’s because you’re a wolf. Have I told you how glad I am you’re a wolf? I’m so glad you’re a wolf.”
“You’re rambling, but that’s a good sign,” he says with a smile.
I can definitely see his face more clearly now. He’s filthy and disheveled, but intact. His eyes start to water as he looks down at me.
“There’s not a scratch on you,” he says.
“Of course not, silly. I cast a protection spell. The same one I cast on myself when we have sex.”
My voice is light and playful. Kind of like my brain right now.
Two brawny arms reach underneath me and pick me up out of the rubble. He holds me tightly against his chest.
“You cast a protection spell on yourself when we’re together?”
I throw my arms around his neck.
“Well, yes, silly, but only when you get all wolfy and scratchy. How else do you think we can be together?”
“I see,” Mason says. “That actually explains a lot.”
My thoughts are still fluffy, but I’m starting to realize that maybe I should stop talking now.
“Didn’t you know that already?” I ask, ignoring my own advice.
“No. You told me something else, but that’s not important right now. I didn’t know you were a witch then. I do now.”
I did say something else to him, didn’t I? I told Mason that despite how feral he becomes when we have sex, a part of his mind takes care of me. He expected me to be cut up or bruised after we had sex, but I never was, because of the spell. I lied about that.
Now I’m alert.
I swing my legs up out of his arms and land on my feet to face him more directly.
“There’s a reason I told you what I did, and you deserve an explanation, but can we come back to that?”
“Of course,” Mason says. “Now’s not that time. Let’s make sure your friends are all right first.”
“Thank you.”
I look around for Saffron first, who would have been clear of the rubble.
“Saffron? Are you here?” I call out.
“I’m over here,” she calls back.
We leave the hallway where I was driven back by falling debris and make our way into the conjoined living room and kitchen. That’s when I spot Saffron digging through wood and metal in a corner of the room.
There’s a massive hole in the floor where the pillar used to be, the one against which Trent was pinned behind a levitating oven and refrigerator.
Did it all fall through the floor? I can’t tell. Nothing is moving down there.
Mason and I step around the edge of this room as Saffron uses the Leva Ad spell to clear debris away from the corner, keeping it airborne rather than setting it down anywhere. Candice stands up from under the wreckage and shakes her head. Her shield is dented, but she’s otherwise intact. Just like me.
“Maintain the Flesh?” I ask.
She nods. “You too?”
“Yes.” I look around the room and then at Mason. “Speaking of spells, where’s Sylvia?”
Mason inclines his head toward the breakfast nook. It’s completely shattered. Not just from where Saffron crashed through the ceiling glass—the entire enclosure has been leveled.
Sylvia is sitting in a lawn chair out in the yard, looking back at her house and not moving.
“I grabbed her and leapt outside,” Ma
son tells me. “She was still paralyzed. I hope you understand. That’s why I went for her instead of you.”
I place a hand on the side of his face.
“You don’t have to explain. She was helpless. I would think less of you if you didn’t try to save her first.”
I look outside at Sylvia.
“Still, my spell can’t be active anymore. She should be able to move now.”
“I think she might be in shock,” Mason says, “especially if what I’m feeling from her right now is any indication.”
“Go. She needs her twin brother right now. Let Candice, Saffron, and I deal with this mess right now.”
Mason looks down through the hole and sniffs the air. “What about him?” he says.
I look down at the mountain of rubble that settled in the basement. I can’t even see the oven or refrigerator. There’s just too much broken construction material and drywall, not to mention any furniture from upstairs that came crashing down as well.
“If a house falling on Trent hasn’t killed him, I shudder to think about what can. Either way, let us take care it. Candice and Saffron can sense things without seeing them. Go mind your sister.”
Mason nods. “I’m sure you know spells that are far better at sorting through these sorts of things than my sense of smell, but if you need my nose, let me know.”
He cups the side of my face briefly and then makes his way outside through what remains of the breakfast nook.
The sweat on his dusty, muscular back glistens in the sun. His clothes tore away when he shifted into a half-man, half-wolf, but the top half of his pants remain, albeit shredded.
I notice for the first time that the wounds Baldy gave Mason are still healing. The holes in his crucified hands disappeared almost immediately, but there was a lot more going on at the time.
First of all, Mason changed from a man into a massive wolf, shifting through his half-man, half-wolf hybrid shape. Second, he was being magically infused with his own refined werewolf lust. That must have supercharged his regeneration time.