by Jayne Hawke
The windows were encircled with fresh snow, and the entire house smelled of burning oak, vanilla, and nuts. It was nothing short of incredible. A swell of emotion filled me. I’d dreamt of giving Matt a Solstice like that, but I didn’t have the money or magical ability.
Matt and Kerry emerged from the kitchen with huge grins on their faces. They wore matching sweaters with snowmen on them. I mouthed ‘don’t get any ideas’ at Ethan. I was never going to be a matching sweaters kind of girl.
“We wanted to make this Solstice really special,” Kerry said.
“I spent the last week cooking up some cool alchemical things that allowed us to form the frost and snow, and Sin did all of the plant stuff,” Matt said with pride.
I pulled him into a deep hug.
“It’s amazing,” I said.
“We had to keep you out of the house so they could surprise you,” Dean said.
“You were all in on it?”
Dean grinned, a broad genuine grin.
“We’re making up for lost time,” he said.
He did have a heart under all of that gruff frowning and plaid.
“Go and shower, I’m dying to do the gift exchange!” Kerry said.
I showered as quickly as I could for fear of Kerry coming and dragging me out of there. She was dressed in a pair of lilac pyjamas with black kittens frolicking on them when I got down into the living room. I placed her gifts in front of her and curled up with Ethan. The traditional yule log was crackling in the fireplace. I could feel the fire magic coiled within the centre of the log. It seemed like cheating to have the magic there keeping it burning for the full 24 hours. I wasn’t going to complain, though, as the warmth and crackling swept over me, making everything feel pleasantly relaxed and cosy.
Sin hovered near the edge of the group. Cade pulled him onto the couch and handed him a small bundle of gifts.
“I want to open mine first!” Kerry said as she bounced.
“Go ahead, cat,” Ethan said with a sweep of his hand and a small smile.
She tore into my gifts first, throwing the silver wrapping paper all around her. Her grin widened and her eyes lit up as she read the pins.
I’m purrfect
I’m not kittening around
She read them out with glee and attached them to her pyjama shirt lapel. Then she unwrapped the nail care set with the kittens on the case and she let out a delighted squee.
“These are so amazingly perfect!”
Everyone laughed before she tore into the rest of the gifts. Her little pile of presents was entirely cat-themed, and she couldn’t be happier with that. Dean had gotten her a small stuffed kitten full of catnip and valerian, which had made Kerry even giddier. Cade and Ethan had come together to get a pair of ballet flats with cat ears on, and Sin had given her a set of cat-shaped candies.
I would have thought that she would have been offended by it all, but she was the pure embodiment of happiness in that moment.
TWENTY-NINE
Cade had laughed when he opened up his shirt. To his credit, he peeled off his usual black t-shirt and put mine on. I was relieved to find that not only was it a good fit, but he didn’t catch fire when he put it on. Dean shook his head when he saw his shirt, but I saw the flicker of a smile there.
Ethan’s eyes shone when he opened up the paints I’d gotten him.
“Thank you. They’re wonderful, I look forward to putting them to good use,” he said softly.
I preened. Everything was going beautifully.
Sin was delighted with his chocolates and the art the others had come together to get him. The painting depicted a deep and eerie forest, which Sin looked upon fondly. The warm happiness filled the room, bringing smiles to everyone’s faces. It was contagious, and I never wanted it to end.
Ethan handed me my gift with a flourish. I opened it with great care, making sure I didn’t tear the paper at all. I peeled back the tissue paper beneath to reveal a beautiful leather-bound journal with my name inscribed on the front.
“We thought it would be a good idea for you to have your own grimoire,” Ethan said.
The leather was a stunning deep oxblood, buttery soft beneath my fingertips. I looked inside to find thick heavy paper of the finest quality. It was a thing of exquisite craftsmanship and beauty. I was almost overwhelmed by the gesture; it was so kind and thoughtful.
“Time for lunch!” Kerry said.
I laughed and was quietly glad of the distraction. We really felt like a pack, and that made me all gooey.
The Solstice feast was something to behold. Traditionally, the foods were all seasonal and locally sourced.
“Sin insisted on cooking for us,” Ethan said with a smile.
He’d produced not two but three roasts. We had duck, goose, and venison. They were prepared with seasonal product including chestnuts, blackberries, and apples. The large table was overflowing with beautifully produced food in autumnal oranges, russets, reds, and golds.
“Thank you, Sin,” I said.
He grinned at me.
“Enjoy! Then we will share stories and celebrate,” he said.
Sin followed up the main meal with candied blackberries, sweet chestnuts, hazelnuts, and melt-in-the-mouth apple-y puddings. I wasn’t entirely sure what those were, but they were light and refreshing. Once we’d all finished eating, we returned to the living room in front of the yule log, and Dean handed everyone a small present.
Kerry tore hers open and laughed but kept it hidden from everyone else. I opened mine and saw that, true to form, Dean had given everyone a pair of socks. They were all various forms of plaid and made from very nice quality wool. It was weirdly sweet of him, and hilarious.
“Tell us about the Solstice in the Wilds as an elf,” Kerry said to Sin.
The Solstice was about storytelling and coming together around the fire on the longest night. I had to admit, I was curious to hear about how the elves did things.
Sin settled himself in front of the fire and smiled.
“For us, the Solstice is a celebration of the trees that give us life. All through the year, they have provided us with food, shelter, magic, and wood for our weapons. On the Solstice, they are weary from the short days and lack of light, so we provide light for them. The entire forest is lit up with small orbs of fire, which we place upon the branches. We burn brilliant fires from the fallen wood, feast, dance, and celebrate everything the trees have given us through the year. It’s a time of happiness and unity within the clan.”
“The forest is alive with flickering lights and magic. There’s a smile upon the face of every being. It has been a long time since I’ve celebrated a Solstice or stepped foot in the Wilds. Once the feasting has finished for the night, we turn to dancing and displays of the magic we have learnt and been granted by the forest around us. Younger elves will put up brilliant shows of lights in every conceivable colour. The older elves will show the old stories that are passed down from generation to generation.”
Sin made a small swirling gesture with his hand, and a translucent fox formed of pure light magic formed in front of him. Its ears were pricked, and it appeared to grin at all of us.
“I never learnt how to create the entire cast, but I can do a few things.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said as the fox began to gambol around the living room.
Matt pulled out some small crystal vials filled with a pure white liquid. He carefully set them down on the floor and pulled the stoppers off. A pale white smoke began to lift from each vial. At first, they just looked like clouds, but they began to take the shape of forest animals. A proud stag stood with his antlers raised while a small rabbit hopped around looking at the fireplace. A squirrel shot off along the back of the couch, and a badger ran along the floor looking for all the world like a moving rug.
We watched as the animals joined Sin’s fox and played in the space between us.
When the night had fully drawn in, we began telling stories. Little things at first
, shared memories of past Solstices. Over the hours, they became wilder and more fantastical. Dean had a story about a technicolour wolf that raced through the moors desperately seeking a beautiful white hare. Kerry spoke of a cat made of the night itself and his elf companion.
I slowly fell asleep in Ethan’s arms full of the feeling of contentment from my pack. It was a night like no other.
THIRTY
The quiet days without anything from the necromancer were beginning to bug me. It felt wrong. We’d checked on the other territories and saw no signs of the bastard killing swathes of people. Sin took me outside behind the safe house and pulled an odachi from somewhere. The huge Japanese katana-style sword looked far too big to have fit anywhere on the elf.
“Do you have a pocket dimension?” I asked as I peered at him.
“Don’t you?”
I did not, and now I needed one.
“Today we’re going to work on your sword work,” Sin said.
He had apparently taken it upon himself to spar with me every day and improve my combat abilities. I didn’t mind too much, as long as it kept it to just me and him. There was always a chance he’d call in a rabid Chupacabra from the ether for shits and giggles.
Rolling my shoulders, I began wrangling my god magic and slowly formed a long sword of my own. The magic wasn’t sitting quite right within me. It could have been where I’d been focusing on my witch magic so much. I didn’t know why things couldn’t just play nicely.
The day was remarkably warm and bright for the time of year. The heavy frost that had covered the city for the past few days was entirely missing. It didn’t quite feel right, like having spring at the end of December. I didn’t get much chance to muse on that, though, as Sin swung his sword at my head.
He pushed me hard while looking as though he didn’t even have to think. The elf’s face remained serenely calm as he elegantly pranced around, not a single drop of energy wasted while I was fighting for my life. The magic within his blood sat still, the sparks which had first caught my attention about him were entirely steady, showing that he wasn’t pulling on that. He was just that good, and I kind of hated him for that.
I was preparing for a quiet hour of meditation as I tried to get a better hold on my witch magic when Kerry burst into the room.
“The necromancer’s back! He’s been spotted forming a ritual space in the middle the great park!”
She was grinning from ear to ear as she said it.
“Do you think he’ll have more zombies? They were fun. Oh, oh! Liches! He might have levelled up enough to have liches, wouldn’t that be awesome?”
“Not for the people he created them from,” Ethan said drily.
Kerry pouted at him.
“Spoil sport.”
“Everyone prepare for battle. As Kerry pointed out, he’s had time to gather a lot of magic, and he potentially has a fallen backing him. Wear your armour,” Ethan said, reminding me that I had yet to repair my leathers.
“We’re going to kill him this time, right?” Cade asked.
“That’s the plan,” Ethan said as he pulled a boot on.
I quickly changed into the blood-soaked remains of my leathers, which would protect me from some of the necromancer’s death magic even in the state they were in. Ethan gave me a look, and I gave him one in return. I’d been busy, dammit.
“Any ideas what the ritual is for?” I asked.
“Death, murder, mayhem. Power over the living world”, Ethan said with a shrug.
“Necromancer things,” Cade said.
We piled into a truck with electricity running through us. This was what we’d been waiting for. The quiet had been eating at all of us. Of course, we didn’t want people hurt, but the thrill of the fight, the high of kicking ass was unlike anything else.
I looked out the window at the clear blue skies without so much as a smudge of cloud anywhere. Was the necromancer involved in that somehow? It was late December. The skies were supposed to be buried beneath thick grey clouds heavy with snow. We weren’t supposed to see real sunlight until late February. Normal people would have been rejoicing in the much-needed vitamin D, but I wasn’t convinced.
I swear the day got more idyllic the closer we got to the location. Necromancers were supposed to be suspended in an eternal darkness with lightning and spontaneously generated gravestones, not picnicking under a flawless blue sky. Of course, they were also supposed to be hideously decrepit, and this one looked like a sex angel, so apparently everything was going to be weird today.
We pulled up to the appointed location to find everything looking extremely normal. It felt weird to be going into tactical deployment mode when people were all sitting around the park enjoying the unseasonable weather, jogging or chatting in the sun. When I saw our target standing in the middle of it all with his hands outstretched as if reaching out to a prize only he could see, it felt far more fitting. He wore the full reaper regalia we’d seen before, scythe draped over his shoulder, but the hood was thrown back and his face was all I could see for a moment.
Agony striped his countenance, grief and hunger mingling, his desolation keen and poignant even for me who had come to kill him. Whatever it was he needed, though, would come at the expense of everyone in this park and, in all likelihood, everyone in the surrounding several blocks, and that wasn’t an option.
“He has liches. I count seven,” Kerry said loudly enough for us to hear and no one else. Before I could ask, she continued, “Spirits pulled from living bodies and bound to phylacteries. They’ll obey whoever holds the phylactery. Strong, capable of magic if they started out as witches, more or less just an extremely durable version of their real selves. We can see them because we’re death workers. You won’t see them unless they act. Their intention plays across into the visible spectrum the way nerve impulses pass through your skin. We can break them down if we need to, but its best to get the phylacteries.”
“It’s best to kill him. Can’t command spirits if you’re dead,” Dean said.
“Yeah, or that,” Kerry conceded.
“Kit, Sin, you kill the necromancer. The rest of us will deal with the liches. Remember how much magic he’s drained lately, he’s going to have energy to burn,” Ethan said.
With that, he started the change into the black dog I was almost coming to think of as his natural form, and his pack followed. Kerry was right behind them, shifting fully into a medium-sized black housecat of the most nondescript sort. I had never seen her go all the way to her cat form before. It was... not exactly impressive. I had to trust that the magic she could command in that form was worth the trade-off, but I could see why she didn’t use it much in combat. The urge to scratch it under the chin was almost too strong to resist.
The four of them rushed towards our adversary, and Sin and I ran in behind them. When the first couple people caught a glimpse of the three black dogs coursing across the park in unison, they screamed in terror and headed for the edge of the park. The unearthly howl that pursued them drove the rest of the civilians into flight as well, clearing the field and depriving our adversary of any quick battery top-ups.
I could see the black death magic of the four house pets of our little contingent striking out in whip-like strikes at what could only be liches, grey jolts of energy slipping in and out of existence as the creatures danced and fought. Spiralling torrents of fire came out of nowhere and struck the ground where Ethan had been seconds before, and I fought the urge to rush in to save him. The necromancer was still working on his ritual, and that meant I had a job to do.
We caught up with the line of death workers and pushed through, blades held defensively in front of us to give pause to any lich that saw fit to try and take advantage of our blindness. One did take a chance on me, a glimmer of grey fur swiping at my face from the right, and I swept out with my wristblade and felt it catch before the beast disappeared again. I grinned to think that I’d crippled it for pushing its luck, even though I knew it was just as likely
I’d given it a haircut.
We felt it when we crossed his summoning circle, the tugging sensation of a city’s worth of energy warring to stay in the bodies it belonged to. A glance at our feet showed a heptagon of bonemeal that had been invisible beneath the emerald-green park grass. I grabbed a bit of magic from a building wind and formed a whirlwind at our feet, blowing his circle clear and breaking the spell. I wondered if, somewhere in the city, someone on the brink of death had gotten a new lease on life, but I wasn’t entirely sure if that was even how the spell worked.
Sin’s sword struck just as my windstorm did, the big odachi cutting a diagonal path through the necromancer’s chest. It dragged out a runnel of black death magic and nothing else. Sin seemed unfazed and made another swing that threw free even more magic. Before he could strike a third time, the necromancer had regained his composure and was gripping his scythe and falling into a stance I recognized. A stance my father had taught me.
I wouldn’t let it paralyze me. I threw myself into the fight, thrusting both swords into him from behind and wrenching them free with a feeling like yanking a spoon out of overcooked oatmeal. This really didn’t seem like how it was meant to be going.
“Sin, is this normal? I feel like we’re stabbing spoiled breakfast food.”
“He’s just phasing himself into one of the afterlives to avoid our strikes.” He ducked under a heavy strike from the scythe and caught our opponent in the gut with a pommel strike. “He can’t do it forever. Just pretend you’re chopping jello.”
“Chopping jello? No one chops jello. What would you even do with chopped jello?”
Sin didn’t answer, just made another vicious cut along the necromancer’s gut. I looked carefully at the necromancer’s magic, trying to see if there was some sort of thread I could break to bring him fully into our world, but he was forming it to evade our strikes on the fly each time it was needed. The spell only existed for the fraction of a second our weapons were there, then disappeared again leaving him back in the real world.