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

by Abigail Smith

  Lorenz started the chant, and those next to him listened to the words and followed suit. The demon, finally with his eyes no longer blinded by Leonardo’s solar-powered flash-bang, quickly took in the room and actively started to fight much more than before, trying his best to run out of the circle and smash the werewolves into the dust.

  I gulped and loaded up the sniper rifle. I didn’t care if the elements didn’t match. I needed to keep him off those werewolves.

  Even with Silvia trying to mitigate the recoil, the gun smashed my arm over and over. My shots were going much wider than before, even more so with him deflecting some of them.

  “Cover your woofers!” Leonardo commanded as the mages cast similar spells, creating shields around the werewolves, one of which was instantly smashed to pieces by the demon.

  “I’ve come this far, I will not let you set me back!” he screamed as his business attire melted away, along with a bunch of his fat.

  Boney spines stuck out of the thing’s back and arms. His mouth cracked and shifted form to a much more threatening maw. If that wasn’t enough, the thing then lit on fire! A fire that sent smoke everywhere in the room.

  He raked his claws around the circle, trying to cut through the magic itself. Then down at the werewolves, shattering shields just left of the centre of our formation and sending them flying. They rushed back to position. Some jumped out of his way as he tried to grab them. The red arms were thick and strong and could crush in an instant.

  Those just left of that jumped away from a backhanding, turning to their werewolf or human forms before getting cut in half. They transformed into their other forms and retreated to the back of the room, panting or wheezing depending on the form.

  I aimed and just kept firing the sniper rifle, trying to distract him, trying to get him to focus on what he couldn’t attack. I also repeatedly fired at the barrier that’d formed around him. The barrier that’d drag him back to his plane of existence if only we could keep him off the werewolves.

  The mages tried fireballs, lightning balls, and I think Leonardo tried a variation of that shackle spell the book gas guy used on me and Fumnaya. He just slapped away all attempts to contain him as he growled his unholy wail of anguish.

  A white haze formed around him, he was getting dragged to the other side. The werewolves increased their volume of chanting as the demon’s moves became slower, and for lack of a better term, laggy. Like an actual video game that slowed down.

  “Almost there! Just a little more!” I shouted, keeping up the firing rate as my arm started to go numb from the pain.

  The haze grew as he grabbed at the werewolves, then he finally got one in his hands and slowly lifted him to his face. I froze, having lost track of all my friends in their wolf forms. I loaded up a frost shot and aimed straight for the demon’s mouth, blasting him with the frigid spikes, hoping that’d give the werewolf enough of a chance to escape.

  Even with the werewolf’s enhanced strength, the demon’s single forearm was more than enough to keep him in place. I gulped as the white haze of unsummoning surrounded the werewolf.

  The spell was almost complete. I threw down my sniper rifle and pointed, extending the already numb arm enough for Silvia to see it. She didn’t even question me as she ran through our front line of werewolves into the circle.

  I could feel the strange force of it grip us, too, making us subjects of this unsummoning, but I wasn’t turning back now. Silvia jumped up the thing’s arm and bit into it, trying to tear it away from the captive werewolf.

  I grabbed the alchemical gun, switching it to the force chamber, and braced myself against the two. This thing was made for a controlled burst, but I wanted it all at once. I placed in as many of the two reagents as I could fit down the barrel and aimed it.

  The recoil of the thing nearly squashed my stomach right out from under me, but I maintained control of it as it pushed us back.

  The demon’s body crackled, and sparks flew as the mechanical force seemed to approach the point where we could sever a limb. He let go, and we flew out of the circle, sending the gun flying. Silvia and me rolled, and the other werewolf landed as if this had all been an acrobatic performance.

  “Back away!” Fumnaya shouted, and all the werewolves did so, and the light that contained the demon slowly faded, taking him out of this world.

  Chapter 48

  “You know…” Leonardo started, folding his arms, “that solution is only temporary. He will return to claim our plane again, and we’re right in the hot seat.”

  We were in his office on the fourth floor of the community centre. He’d called us up after we’d helped with the recovery of some of the mages and werewolves who were injured in the fight.

  “I’m afraid even if we’d killed him that would be the case. Demons do not simply die unless they are in the abyss,” Miriam reminded him.

  “Guess that means we’ll need some plucky young upstarts who are so eager to learn magic and alchemy that they’d jump into a war between cultists and werewolves, and stay loyal through to the end,” Anderson said with a cocky smile.

  “The new girl has potential. Another wizard is always welcome here, but the other girl’s a sub-woofer. Sure, she’s learning alchemy, but that doesn’t mean she’s capable of helping us,” Leonardo argued.

  “I’m afraid I can’t stand with you on this one, Leonardo. Despite her flagrant disregard of those in authority, it was only because of her that we were able to win victory last week,” Miriam said, giving me a mild shrug.

  “And since you took her training to such an extreme, you can’t fault her for showing off her skills when she first saw you,” Anderson said, giving the sorcerer a hefty pat on the back.

  “Be that as it may, I have the right to final decision making,” Leonardo said, looking down at me. “One convenient stepping in does not get her off her infractions in this trial.”

  “Mind if I cut in?” Fumnaya said, smiling.

  The three leaders of the community centre looked over to her. “I’m not staying if E-lis isn’t staying. I’m also pretty sure a quarto of werewolves shares that sentiment,” she said, crossing her arms.

  “You’d willingly lower yourself to their level? Just for her?” Leonardo said in disbelief.

  “Look, I woke up one day with scratches all over my body, and I had no idea what was going on, when someone nice came to fix those scratches up and help me learn what was happening. Just because I just so happened to be a wizard, doesn’t change the fact that she’s my only friend here.”

  I smiled. It was nice that she’d sacrifice a next to top tier spot in the magical hierarchy for me. It felt nice to have someone with me, someone to stand up for me, light a fire under my ass, or even just hang out with.

  “Very well, but if you’re going to lower yourself to her level, we might as well give you a similar job,” Leonardo said, stroking his chin. “And maybe get a few more tables in there.”

  Leonardo still stroked his chin, clearly thinking hard about how to proceed. One thing was hanging in my mind. He’d said, ‘Very well,’ and didn’t say I was to be banished.

  “Okay! W-what is her job?” Fumnaya asked.

  “You saw me bartending, didn’t you?” I asked from behind her.

  “Oh… oh! Oh, ohhhhh,” she stammered.

  “Is that an affirmative?” Miriam asked.

  “Heck, yeah!” she said, flashing me a big smile.

  We walked out of the room and down the stairs towards the bar. “Oh, this is going to be awesome. I saw these super cute bartender uniforms online. I could get some for both of us!” she said, hugging me.

  “I dunno. E-lis’s bar-style has more or less been casual Friday every day,” Silvia said, coming up and hugging me from the other side.

  “Oh, please, trust me. You’ll love them! They’ve got little bow ties and stripes!”

  We walked into the room, and it was fairly empty. Most of the werewolves were upstairs, though the emptiness was fairly o
ffset by David, Lorenz, and Gavin standing right in the middle.

  “Hey, guys, what’s up?” I asked, seeing David’s smug smile.

  I bit my lip. One sob story nearly got me to forget about those smug smiles.

  “Well, the first adventure of your time here seems to be coming to a close, or at least the first part of the first one. All we gotta do is one last thing!”

  I looked to Silvia, who shrugged her shoulders.

  “What is it?” Fumnaya asked, getting way into this.

  “The victorious kiss at the end of the book for the triumphant heroines!”

  The three advanced. Fumnaya bolted for Lorenz and nearly tackled him for the kiss as David held out his hand to me. I sighed. This was too cheesy even for me, but I guess he did risk his life, and I wasn’t sure if it was him I was saving from that demon, so may as well humour him.

  “Alright then, close your eyes,” I said.

  He did so, and so did I. I slowly pulled on his hand to get a bit closer. The air between us was tense. I lifted a hand to get a better spatial understanding. I felt his rock-hard abs curl as he got closer.

  Suddenly, there was a squeak, and my mouth touched hair? David and I opened our eyes at the same time and looked down. Silvia had run in between us and placed her head in between ours.

  Gavin leaned in, unsure what Silvia was thinking as both me and David made our kissing sounds. I snorted. David chuckled, and we both broke into laughter.

  “Silvia, all you needed to do was ask!” David chuckled.

  I giggled like a schoolgirl and hugged her as she blushed a deep red.

  “Well, it seems like everyone’s little sister wants her very own heroine kiss moment. How about her big brothers do it for her?” I said, ruffling her hair.

  The three boys looked at each other and shrugged. They came around her, all hugged her, and kissed her on her head.

  “Guys,” she whined.

  We all had a nice laugh and wandered over to the bar, where I prepared some Firecrackers to celebrate.

  About the Author

  Abigail Smith is a new urban fantasy author if you’d like to know more visit her website listed below

  If you’ve enjoyed this book and want to support me or if you want to know more about the world E-liz lives in sign up to the mailing list, all subscribers get access to all short stories and interludes that will be connected to this series.

  At the time of publication the available stories are:

  Silvia’s first trip - a tale about the first trip to the earth elemental plane Silvia ever took.

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