Throne to the Wolves: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spell Slinger Chronicles Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  13

  “I need to think,” I said because the room was suddenly too small and didn’t have enough oxygen in it. Justin was standing too close. So was his mom, so was everyone, and oh my god why was everyone yelling at me?

  I backed up, nearly tripping over the stupid oak end table and knocking over a Tiffany lamp. It spun as it hit the carpet and lay there like a toppled tree. Then I bolted from the room like a rabbit. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t. Did they know what they were asking? Did they know who I was? I was the fraking girl at the D&D table who rolled snake eyes when virtually any attack would kill the vampiric half-dragon tarrasque lich. Total party kill would be an amazing understatement.

  How could I decide between the fate of the werewolves and my own clan? I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.

  I hit the door, fumbling at the knob as Justin called after me. I didn’t hear what he said. His words were lost under the screaming in my brain. Was I seriously going to have to choose between saving the people who had hunted me down, who had dragged my people screaming from their beds in the middle of the night and my clan’s plan of vengeance? It seemed insane on the surface, even if I ignored how either decision would lead to death, chaos, and destruction. I couldn’t decide… I couldn’t choose who would live and die.

  The door swung open in a burst of frigid air, and I stepped into the dimly lit hallway to find myself staring at Laura. She was leaning against the wall facing the door and inspecting her fingernails. As I stepped through the door, she raised one eyebrow at me. The blood drained from my face. The breaker was watching? What was I going to do?

  As she pushed off the wall and came toward me, I swallowed hard, trying to find my magic so I could blow her away and escape. Her hand came up and as I reached for the phaser, her hand flew by my ear, shoving the door shut behind me. Something thudded into it a moment later, but Laura held it closed as the smell of melting steel and burning wood hit my nose.

  She had saved me? Why?

  Before I could ask her, I heard Justin again. He pounded at the door and called my name, but I couldn’t register it. I didn’t want this. I wanted to go back to my games, to my comic books, to my friends. It wasn’t because I especially liked my life, but my life had been relatively safe and relatively easy. With my friends, the most I ever had to think about was what nerdy sweatshirt I was going to wear to work. This? This was too much. I didn’t want anyone to die.

  Only.

  Only I did want the werewolves to die.

  I knew it in the secret little part of my brain. The one little corner of my mind I never let see the light of day. I kept it bolted down and shut down tight because if I let it stretch its legs for even a second, I’d know the truth. I wanted the wolves to pay for my brother and my master even though I hated one of them more than words. I wanted them to pay for my being an orphan while Justin got to have this perfect fraking family with ice cream and family pictures. I wanted them to pay for making me love Loraline on camera when she was a fraking werewolf.

  Mostly though.

  Mostly I wanted to hate them all, and that… that was the path to the dark side. I knew if I let that part free, if I truly had to make this decision, what I’d decide because deep down. Deep down, I wasn’t a good person. I was a loathsome, monstrous thing, and I wanted them to pay. If I made this decision, I knew what I’d choose.

  Jesus, I really needed to go back to my old life. Then the hardest choice I’d have to make would be whether or not I wanted my D&D character to drink a potion that would rot off his dick but permanently give him plus two strength. Actually, that one was no contest. I mean, two extra strength points!

  “Come on,” Laura said, taking my hand and leading me away. “I’ll get you somewhere safe.” Her voice seemed kind and as it rolled over me, a sense of calm fell across my soul. It was like getting scratched under the chin, and I very nearly purred which was all sorts of fucked up.

  “Why?” I asked, shaking off the feeling and narrowing my eyes at her. The word was loaded with anger, hatred, and a particularly pathetic sadness, but if it bothered Laura she didn’t show it.

  “Let me guess,” she said, pulling me along. Behind me, Justin continued to bang on the door, which was weird. Why hadn’t he gotten through it? Laura wasn’t holding it anymore. “They asked you to choose them over your own kind, eh?”

  Laura shook her head in disgust and her features darkened, shrouding them in a mask as she pulled me toward an elevator and jammed her thumb violently against the up arrow.

  “Yes,” I swallowed hard, trying to fight down the sea of rising panic and anger vying for control over me. I had to get in control. I had to go someplace quiet and think. Frak, I needed to just kill some newbs for a few hours. Then I could sort this out. Later… I could be noble later. Right now… Right now I just needed a fraking second, okay?

  The elevator dinged and opened to reveal a perfectly normal space complete with stupid music and a Van Gogh print of Starry Night. Before I could blink Laura hauled me inside. She pressed the floor numbers in a seemingly random pattern, causing half of the floors to light up, but as she pushed the one to close the doors, they all flashed silver and went out. Then the elevator lurched upward with enough force to jerk my stomach into my throat.

  “It’s how they are. The royals.” Laura let the words out through her teeth as she slumped against the wall. Her entire body seemed diminished and deflated. “They don’t understand what it’s like to lose. To really lose.” She touched her chest with her hand. “But maybe they will. Maybe that will make things better.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as a single tear spilled from her left eye and slithered down her cheek, leaving a glistening snail trail behind. It hit her chin and pooled there for a moment before splattering to the ground. I shouldn’t have been able to hear it strike the tile floor over the whirring of the elevator, but I did.

  “My clan was wiped out too.” She touched her chest with one delicate finger. “My father was the Breaker before me, but unlike most wolves, we were mages too. For generations, we have been the Breakers, driving away the enemies of the kings.” Her lips quirked into a sad smirk. “It would have been my family that hunted down your clan. The kings would never risk their own people.”

  “I should kill you.” I’d drawn my phaser before I could help myself. I pointed the weapon at her chest and narrowed my eyes as my hand shook with effort. I wasn’t sure if it’d be enough to stop her, but it’d fraking hurt. It wouldn’t bring back my family, my brother. But it wouldn’t fraking hurt either. At least, I didn’t think it would. I was willing to roll those dice.

  “Perhaps.” Laura shrugged. “But like with all things. The kings grew paranoid. They came and slaughtered my own clan in the night. Reduced our numbers to a single family.” She shook her head. “One family with one child only.” She looked up at me. “This is not the life I want for my daughter.” She touched her stomach with one hand in a way that made me think she might be pregnant. “You would not either.”

  “What the frak are you saying?” I asked as the door opened. Sunlight streamed into the elevator, and as I turned toward the opened doors, I realized I was standing on the roof of the hotel. A huge black helicopter like something out of Men in Black sat on the helipad because of course this place had a fraking helipad.

  Laura grabbed my arm and pointed toward the helicopter. “I want you to make the right choice, Annie. The selfish choice.” Her face twisted into a wolfish smile as the door to the helicopter opened to reveal a set of chairs. Laura stepped out of the elevator, and I let her pull me along with her. “I want you to slaughter the royals, Annie.”

  We were moving across the roof now. The helicopters blades beat at the ground with enough force to let me know they’d be able to take off the moment we were inside. Only, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get inside. I thought she’d been trying to help me, and maybe she was, but the way she tugged at me suggested I was going with her one way or another.

>   “I don’t know if I can do that,” I replied, swallowing hard. Going with Laura was easy. I could get on that helicopter and let her take me to wherever. I wasn’t sure where that’d be, but it’d be better than here. Anything would be better than here.

  “You don’t have to do anything, Annie. That’s the best part.” Laura grabbed ahold of the helicopter and made to help me inside. “You just have to do nothing.” She looked at me very seriously, and I could see the rage in her eyes. The all-consuming fire of vengeance within them. I could see how easy it would be to join her. “You’re good at doing nothing, at hiding, aren’t you, Annie? It’s all you have to do. Just do it once more.”

  “Yeah,” I said, and because I was a special kind of coward, I let her pull me into the helicopter. I let her sit me in the seat and buckle me in. I let her turn toward the pilot and gesture for him to take off as she sat in the seat next to me. I let her do all these things because I did nothing to stop her.

  Justin burst through a red steel door on the side of the platform as we started to lift into the air. His chest heaved with effort, and as he caught sight of us, he took off toward us at a sprint.

  Laura screamed something intelligible. I turned toward her to see darkness explode into being next to Laura. It congealed into the form of the King of Wolves, and as it started to reach out, Laura leapt from her seat, planted one foot on the center of the darkness, and pushed.

  The still-forming shadow crashed into the door as Laura’s hands came alight with green fire. The temperature inside the helicopter rose fifteen degrees in a second as her fist punched a hole through the shadow’s torso. The sickly sweet smell of burning meat filled my nose as her hand grabbed the helicopter’s latch and flung the door open. We weren’t high, but wind whipped around anyway. Then she pulled her hand backward as the form finally solidified into the King of Wolves.

  She grabbed him with both hands, took one step to shift her center of gravity, and hurled him through the door right as Justin leapt toward the helicopter. The king’s bleeding, broken body hit him in the chest, knocking them both away. I watched them fall from the helicopter as we banked sharply. I couldn’t see more as she shut the door and sat down next to me. She wasn’t even breathing hard as she put her hand on my knee.

  “Don’t worry, Annie.” She looked into my eyes and the smoldering rage was laced with a calm determination that scared me. That was the look in the eyes of the terminator coming to kill Sarah Conner. “I’ll do the hard part.”

  And because I was a special kind of pathetic, I shut my eyes and exhaled a single word. “Okay.”

  14

  Impossibly, I heard Justin’s scream of anguish over the beating of the helicopter’s rotors as we flew into the wild blue yonder, but I did. It propelled me to unbuckle my seatbelt and leap from my seat. I moved toward the window as Laura stopped fastening her seatbelt and stared at me with enough force to nearly burn through my back.

  “Justin…” I whispered as I put my hand to the window and stared down at the slowly disappearing hotel. The King of Wolves lay on his back with a vibrant pool of crimson spreading around him. Justin knelt over him, head cocked toward us as he gathered his father into his arms.

  The scene hurt even from here, and as my vision started to blur from tears I had no right to shed, I turned to find myself staring into Laura’s stony face.

  “Don’t have second thoughts now, Annie.” There was a lot of menace in those words. They told me one thing. She might have let me escape the building, but I would not disrupt her plans.

  “I’ll have any kind of thoughts I want.” I glared at her, wiping away the tears with the back of one hand. If I was going to go through with this either way, I had to make sure I was making the right decision. If I didn’t, too much was at stake. “I’ll have thirds and fourths and however many it takes to reach the right decision!”

  My gut churned in dread as I said the words, but I tried my best to look fierce. No, that wasn’t true. I was fierce. I just needed to let go, to stop thinking with my gut and my heart and start thinking logically. What was the smart play? The wise play? I wasn’t sure, but I knew how to find out. I let that dark, empty part take over and shove everything down.

  “We do not have time for such a luxury,” Laure replied, shaking her head. “The ritual will be completed with or without you.” Her face softened. “But it would be easier with you.”

  I felt my face empty of emotion as I reached out toward Laura. “Is that a threat?”

  She was fast, I’ll give her that. Her body wove around my casual touch, wrapping around my arm and shifting so I was thrown off balance. My feet went out from under me as I flipped over her and landed hard on my back. My head smacked against the steel floor of the helicopter and my vision went sort of hazy and far off for a second.

  “Do not misunderstand my kindness, Annie.” Laura stood over me, imposing despite her small stature. “I will fucking end you if you disrupt my plans.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot, usually right before I kill the entire other team by myself,” I said, shutting my eyes in an effort to make my brain stop rattling in my head so I could think.

  As I did, I felt my consciousness start to slip away into that dark, empty place inside me. I panicked, my heart leaping against my ribs, but as I struggled to open my eyes, I found I couldn’t. Instead, icy tendrils wrapped around me from the insides of my brain and pulled me down into the non-place of my mind. They clawed upward, gouging into me with ice and fire, and before I fully realized what was happening, I found myself staring into the chasm of the abyss.

  A being of shadow and darkness stood in front of me. It swirled and out of its swirling stepped me. Only it wasn’t me. Not really. She looked like me, but different. She wasn’t angry and broken. She was just me if I’d grown up listening to my parents, eating my vegetables, and saying my prayers.

  “What do you want to do?” not me asked in a voice very like my own.

  “I don’t know,” I replied which meant I was insane because I was talking to my hallucination. I knew ostensibly I was still lying on my back in the helicopter with the werewolves’ traitorous Breaker standing over me, but at the moment, reality felt far away, and well, unimportant.

  “You don’t know?” Not Annie said, cocking her head to the side and peering at me like I was a very strange bug. “I find that incredibly hard to believe because I know, and I’m you.”

  “Well, I don’t. So why don’t you frak off?” I snarled, balling my hands into fists as I stared at not me. I was insane. I was loopy for Fruit Loops. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

  “Yes, you do.” She smiled and in that smile I saw something I didn’t want to admit to myself. “You’ve been hiding from yourself for a long time now, Annie. You’ve been pretending you’re not really part of this world, that you don’t matter, and that you can stay tucked away with toys and games. You cannot.”

  As she spoke I saw all the rage inside me wash away. I saw it replaced by something else, by a sort of hollowness I couldn’t fathom. I saw myself trying to kill everyone to make up for what had happened to me, and I saw how there would never be enough bodies to fill the void within me. The only way. The only way to deal with what I was meant I had to stop running. I had to take ahold of my pain, let its scratches and scars break me down. Then, and only then, could I rise and be free. But only if I let go, if I stopped hiding and stopping pining for vengeance.

  And I wanted to be free. More than anything I wanted to be free.

  My eyes snapped open, and I found myself staring at Laura. She had her hand outstretched toward me. “Annie, let’s just do what we agreed. This time tomorrow you could be sitting on a beach somewhere sipping a margarita.”

  “That sounds great,” I said, taking her hand and letting her pull me to my feet. “Sorry I wigged out on you there.”

  “It’s understandable. The prince is rather alluring.” She smiled in a predatory way that made me wonder if the two of them had slept toget
her. I wouldn’t have been surprised either way, but it sort of bugged me there was a possibility.

  “Yeah…” I said, right before I twisted on my heel and decked her in the nose. She stumbled backward, slamming into the door of the helicopter with enough force to rock the machine to the side.

  The shriek of rotors filled my ears while the pilot struggled to right the helicopter. As Laura narrowed her eyes and wiped the blood from her nose with the back of her hand, I pointed my phaser at her.

  “You can’t kill me with that,” she said and her voice held that hostile, cold edge I’d heard so many times in my life. Disappointment and the desire to see me dead. Granted, it usually came from twelve-year-olds on Xbox Live who despite asserting the knowledge that my mother was, in fact, the largest creature to ever inhabit the earth had all inexplicably slept with her.

  I could see her muscles tensing as she readied herself to pounce. I knew what would happen if she got close. I wasn’t Supergirl. I had no strength or speed beyond that of a normal person. She did. And she had magic and the ability to heal.

  “Yeah, I know. You’ve got too many hit points for this little thing.” I pulled the phaser’s trigger three times in quick succession. “But how many hit points does the door have?”

  As phaser fire hit the helicopter door, Laura did as I expected, she cringed backward. My bolts of energy sheared into the steel, striking the handle and hinges and turning them into slag. I threw myself at her, hitting her square in the torso with my shoulder. The door came free and we tumbled into the air high above the city.