The Stray Human: A collage age urban fantasy with werewolves, werewolf community center book 1

by Abigail Smith

  “Was that a magic battle ritual?” Fumnaya asked.

  “Kinda, used by ninjas,” I said with a smirk.

  “Oh, right, the ninja training,” Fumnaya said.

  The ice on the other roof shattered, and I picked up the rifle to blast him back with a force blast. The mage presumably fell back and into the gas, and I passed the rifle off to Fumnaya, along with a magazine.

  I then received the alchemical gun and started to load in its first chamber. Taser shock, I thought to help me remember the combination.

  A ball of fire formed in the air above the gas. Fumnaya knelt and fired, hitting the edge of the building with the first fire round. “Uh,” she said, blinking rapidly.

  It suddenly dawned on me that she’d not gotten the same gun talk I did. “Back metal bits and front metal bits! Line them up! Take off the scope!”

  “Isn’t the scope how you hit things?” she asked.

  “Things a mile away,” I said as I tackled her out of the way of the fireball.

  Silvia reached down and bit something on the saddle, and it fell off her in a heap. There was also a thud, presumably of whatever was holding the sniper rifle underneath her. Now, with it detached from her body, she transformed and picked it up.

  She had grabbed a few alchemical components and started to mix them.

  “Get him out of the gas. I have an idea!” Silvia shouted.

  I had no idea how we’d do that with our limited ability to switch roofs on our own. I quickly tried to tie the gun to the belt of my martial arts uniform.

  Tying it wasn’t easy, but I did it, and I gestured to Fumnaya to put the rifle on the large magnet of the saddle thing and follow me.

  Silvia quickly mixed as another fireball formed in the gas cloud. Only this one wasn’t alone for long as another formed on the opposite side of the gas cloud.

  I threw my grappling hook onto the other roof and jumped towards the roof side, and Fumnaya did the same.

  This was the most terrifying part since I had to hold my weight up or die trying, literally. Fumnaya seemed to be quite excited at the prospect and was quickly on the other roof.

  Luckily enough, she held a hand out to me for me to grab. I snatched it and lifted myself up as Fumnaya let out a yelp and tried to shift to the side. The fireball went right past her head, and my arm scraped against the hard façade side.

  I grunted in pain but got up to the roof and flopped over. “You know, on most days, that was probably one of the hardest things we’d have to do,” I said, letting out a chuckle.

  Fumnaya looked up, and her head trailed off to the buildings behind the one we were just on. I looked up, and there was Silvia in her wolf form, preparing to jump onto the building we were on.

  A rush of air blew her back as a much larger glyph formed all along the rooftop. It seemed to even bend to fit the area. The man spoke his unholy magical runes into existence, and the entire place erupted in flame.

  “We gotta help her!” Fumnaya cried out.

  I inhaled deeply and quickly loaded in some of the alchemicals on my belt. I hadn’t expected to use this combo. Using some aqua mushroom powder with the pyro putty, you think you’d just get steam, but you’d be wrong. A deluge of water poured outwards and quickly extinguished the flames before disappearing. I splashed Silvia off to hopefully undo any burning, and she shook it off soon after.

  “Where’d you learn that one?” Fumnaya asked.

  “Let’s just say I think I’m getting the hang of this,” I said.

  Silvia jumped onto our roof and turned around quickly, ready to strike.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you two!” a voice said right in our ears. Fumnaya took out a knife and jabbed at the air furiously, hitting nothing.

  The glyph showed up for a split second and seemed to have a circle for each of us. “Oh, that can’t be good,” I said.

  Spectral shackles sprang from the ground and grabbed each of us by the hands and pulled down with a force strong enough to cause my joints to pop.

  Silvia ran and jumped onto our building. With my still enhanced colour vision, I noticed her closing her eyes. It was a sad feeling, seeing such a brilliant blue snuffed out by the darkness.

  Her snoot flared in and out. She was trying to smell him instead of finding him from sight!

  The mage was quiet, and both of us struggled against the binds. Silvia suddenly struck out, slashing the air and hitting something before biting down on it. She shifted back while keeping her head in wolf form to keep him in place, and then splashed what she’d been mixing before onto him.

  This revealed the mage in all his gaudy-robed glory. “Huh?” the mage said with a surprised air about him. “Clever girl,” he teased. “Guess that’s why they said not to try invisibility on werewolves.”

  Both Fumnaya and I had a facepalm moment as we remembered the one defining feature of dogs and wolves. I mean, we would have facepalmed if we weren’t shackled to the roof by magical purple chains.

  Silvia growled and slowly angled herself closer to us. The mage flew up and moved his hand over his book, and it quickly switched pages. Silvia had to let go and dropped to the rooftop, and ran towards us.

  Silvia seemed to say something to herself, or otherwise recite a prayer, and she turned and quickly slashed at the magical chains holding us. Thick, unearthly cyan coloured lines covered the chains and the area in between them.

  That seemed to give the mage pause. “What in the…” he said.

  His entire demeanour seemed to shift, and Silvia let out a howl.

  Chapter 44

  I didn’t know what she was signaling for but seeing the fright in his body language, I decided to push our advantage. I pulled hard with the one chain that’d been damaged, trying to break it, and it cracked some more.

  “That’s not possible!” the mage said to himself.

  I pulled again, and this time, the shackle shattered, sending bits of cyan and purple flying until they hit the ground and turned to nothing.

  “Blasphemy!” the mage shouted, now angry. He flipped back to the start of his book and spoke each syllable, his voice rising to a crescendo. He lost his composure as a large sphere appeared above his head, which he controlled with one hand.

  “Oh, that’s not good,” Fumnaya commented.

  “You think?”

  Silvia rushed him and was zapped by a bolt of pure white lightning from the thing. I aimed my alchemical gun and switched back to the first chamber and zapped him. The tasing shot seemed to slow him down, but that ball of magical energy was growing.

  Another wolf suddenly jumped onto the roof. Judging by how big it was, I guessed Gavin. He turned and looked at the shackles we were both in. He let out a loud guttural growl, and his claws were sheathed in some dark purple energy.

  One slash, and all three remaining shackles were destroyed. Shattered just like the one Silvia and I had collaborated on. I took up a position on the right corner, while Fumnaya circled the left flank. Silvia leaned down in wolf form, growling at the man.

  The pieces of the shackles turned bright white and flew into Gavin like matter into a black hole, no doubt filling him with something to power those claws.

  At that point I knew this was Gavin, it had to be. I knew before he showed up. It was just a little sister trying to imitate her big brother’s super special technique, and now she was calling in the big guns to do it right.

  I gave him a nod, and he turned to the mage, and then to the demon down below. I’m assuming he did a cost-benefit analysis of some sort and decided the demon was the most pressing of problems.

  “You… you cannot be allowed to exist!” the mage shouted, sending the full orb, not at us, but at Gavin.

  It rushed at him, and he backflipped heading down the gap between buildings. The white ball flew faster than he could fall, but once he’d hit the ground, he bolted even faster than that towards the demon.

  He barked an order, and the other wolves jumped out of the way. This lef
t the magic users, Miriam and Leonardo’s lackeys essentially, to figure it out.

  The magical bomb, or what I believe was meant to be a bomb, struck the demon and sent it to its knees, but it looked far from done. The mage flipped his book to another page, and two glyphs appeared, one on each side of him, forming a full circle. The glyph was two colours, an acid green and a cotton candy pink.

  Silvia charged in as he spouted off the runes for these two spells, one rune going to one circle, and the other moving in sync like they were zippered.

  Silvia jumped right as he got to the last rune of the first one, the pink one. On his left arm, where the glyph started to glow, a magical blade formed, which he used to slash at her. The blade went straight up, catching her chin, and sending her flying back.

  I took a few long strides and braced myself against the lop of the roof to prevent her from falling off. The cut wasn’t anything like the alchemical silver blades, but something told me magical blades were bad news, regardless. A bit of blood trickled out from the cut and landed on the roof.

  Fumnaya ran to his right side, and he said the last rune in this double incantation. His right hand became shrouded in an acid green liquid. The liquid formed a kind of cannon barrel, and he shot a glob at Fumnaya.

  Luckily, she dodged it, and it landed on the side of the building and burned a hole straight through. Acid green balls equals acid magic, got it.

  His face, still frothing out black mist, turned to face me, both weapons at the ready, and his book now safely hidden on his back. I stepped away from Silvia and held up my alchemical mixing gun. So far, I’d used two of the three chambers. I had one left, and other than the fire mixture, I was out of ideas of what I could make.

  Silvia followed Fumnaya’s lead and flanked him on the left. Fumnaya crept closer.

  I was still on the first chamber and shot a bolt of lightning at him, but he deflected it with the sword arm. He aimed with his acid gun, and I quickly switched to the second chamber to try to dilute it or otherwise get it away from me.

  The two liquids collided and splashed down, causing the top layer of the roof to sizzle away.

  “Just die already!” he shouted before lifting and charging at me with the sword. I sidestepped so he couldn’t just knock me off the building. He brought the sword down and sliced through the lip of the roof before retracting and slicing horizontally at my head.

  I ducked and shoved him back. I ran around behind him and grabbed for a knife I’d brought with me. I slashed him and backed away before the sword hit me.

  “Why don’t you?” I panted.

  He shot his gun upwards and the ball of liquid burst into a rain of acidic pellets that rained down and burned my skin. I shoulder checked him and grabbed his arm, pulling him over the top of me. Then I got low to try to avoid some of the spray.

  He grabbed me with the gun hand, apparently still free to grab things at his leisure. It didn’t burn, but he clenched down as hard as he could and pointed the sword at my face.

  The next moment, I was flung back away from him with a rush of hot air. I looked back. It seemed Silvia was once again saddled up, and Fumnaya worked the sniper rifle. I exhaled forcefully at the thought of that bullet going right through my head.

  “Your little party is starting to piss me off!” the mage growled and flung himself towards them.

  Silvia jumped up and bit at the sword, managing to latch onto it despite it being magical. Fumnaya, on the other hand, knew what she wanted as she pushed off Silvia, flipped over the mage, and ripped the book off him.

  She ran and looked over her shoulder. The mage stayed in its current body and point-blank blasted Silvia. Thick fur took the brunt of the blast, and werewolf powers did the rest as Fumnaya opened up the book.

  Now was the time to see if my theory was correct, or if Fumnaya was as sub-woofer as I was.

  Her eyes, bright and wide, were framed by a smile as the book lifted, as did she. Her eyes seemed to radiate purple as she waved her hand over the pages, and they flopped to whatever she wanted.

  “Zambol-fira-bu,” she shouted, stretching her hand up like when the mage would summon a fireball.

  To everyone’s shock, a ball of fire formed right above her, and when she threw her hand forward, it went straight for the mage.

  The mage growled and cut through it. “Give that back! Only I should be able to wield its powers!” he shouted.

  Fumnaya giggled like a schoolgirl. “Don’t you remember? I was you for a bit!” She stuck out her tongue and flipped to another page.

  Her eyes glowed, sending a purple haze about her face. There was a reignition in there, like she’d remembered how this worked from being possessed, and even knew of the perfect spell. I could tell she was enjoying this way too much.

  “Zambol-nagur-exulta!” she shouted like it wasn’t gibberish.

  A big smile plastered her face. It was clear that being cut up like a turkey while possessed seemed to be worth this new power.

  The mage charged at her, and as soon as she extended a hand to him, the sword and gun disappeared. Well, flickered. It was a strain on her abilities at this point to keep them out of existence, it seemed.

  “Uh, E-lis?!” she muttered.

  I blinked and remembered I should probably be helping and grabbed the sniper rifle. I loaded it up with a new magazine and aimed, bracing myself for the recoil.

  The demon mage now tried to control Silvia by grabbing onto the thing you hold on the saddle, the saddle horn. Without his weapons, nor his grimoire, he didn’t have many options.

  I looked at his hand, the one that’d exploded in flame when Fumnaya fired at it. He seemed to be using it rather well despite the whole sniper round through it. So, I ejected the lightning round in this magazine and turned to the demon down below.

  Leonardo was still trying to hit it with fire magic. The werewolves were getting in hits where they could. Miriam’s crew seemed to be doing something important behind them. I aimed at the beast’s shoulder and fired.

  A burst of ice filled the immediate area, and it seemed bigger than last time. I slid the bolt up and down and fired again. This ice formed on his leg and caused him to tumble backwards with a limp.

  “Keep him busy, girls!” I shouted back before leaning down. “Force shot incoming!” I shouted as I fired the last shot in the magazine and caused the demon to fall forwards.

  “Werewolves!” Leonardo called while pointing at the demon. “Charge!”

  The entire pack of werewolves, most likely minus Anderson, Dan, Minerva, and Cassy, if I had to guess, jumped onto the thing and bit and tore at it. Either it could fend them off, get up, or deal with the ice, and it was having trouble deciding.

  The mage, jumping over Silvia’s snapping maw, managed to get a hit on Fumnaya. This disrupted her nullification spell, causing his weapons to fully solidify. The demon mage sprinted at me, but Silvia tackled him and flung him back, trying to keep him away from me.

  He aimed with his acid shooter and launched. Silvia tackled through it before charging, presumably blindly into him and slamming him into the wall. Fumnaya summoned up a fireball and tossed it at them.

  Now reloaded, I aimed at the beast. It was grabbing wolves and tossing them. With it focused on that, I ejected the fire and lightning rounds. Giving an errant thought that one day I might regret wasting so much electricity or fire ammunition, I breathed out, calming myself as I aimed at the thing’s head.

  The gun burst back as ice shards splattered off the muzzle, and the bullet flew. This nearly took the beast’s head off with a larger than normal blast of ice.

  “Suck it!” I shouted, having defeated it once more.

  The summoning circle arrived, and the wolves all got off it. Miriam quickly ordered her lackeys to continue what they were doing and floated up to our fight.

  “Damn, you humans are surprisingly resilient, but don’t think you’ve won yet,” he said, looking to Silvia.

  Miriam floated up, with an aura matc
hing one surrounding her lackeys. She reached out and touched the demon mage’s arm. Her arm was shrouded in a brilliant amber glow, which slowly washed over the book gas guy.

  “Begone from this world, foul demon!” she shouted as a glyph weaved its way around her body and towards his robes.

  The robes burst, blowing the gas out like ice turning into steam. He screamed as his excess was ripped from the body he possessed and collected in the amber aura. The aura shrunk, compressing it until it seemed to be sucked out of reality and into itself. Eventually, it was all gone, and the amber aura faded.

  “Little annoyance banished, it’s time to end this thing,” Miriam said.

  The man the mage possessed shook his head and looked at each of us in turn and pulled out a knife.

  “He’s one of them!” I shouted. Before he could even move to shank us, a fireball, a frost bullet, and werewolf claws were at him.

  He fell over, and I didn’t know whether or not he was dead, or which blow was the fatal one.

  We all breathed heavily, looking around slowly. My heart pounded in my chest, and I could hardly move. Fumnaya clutched the grimoire to her chest, and Silvia panted like a dog.

  “Damn, that was so cool,” Fumnaya said.

  Chapter 45

  “I am so glad that guy is gone. He was such a pest,” I said.

  The infirmary was filled with people recovering from demon attacks. Though, for some reason, it seemed like the nurses were more rushed and doing less than last time.

  Miriam stood with her arms crossed, presumably supervising the nurses. “I just banished him but didn’t kill him. If we’re not quick and not careful, his followers might be able to summon him back.”

  There was a begrudging respect in her voice, and with that, I felt way too smug.

  “Wouldn’t they have to do magic for that?” I asked.

  “Not necessarily. He may have entrusted them with the necessary knowledge to summon him back with a gate ritual. With that, he could come back no matter how many times he was banished or killed, if he can be killed.”