I opened a tiny Gateway in midair, the size of my shoulders. With a nervous gulp, I leaned forward so that my upper body was entirely through the opening – which would startle the living hell out of anyone who saw my legs, so I made it quick. My head was in a narrow alley on the other side of the crowd, about a block away from them. It was empty, thankfully. Or else I would have been able to add scaring the actual shit out of a homeless person to my resume.
Considering one of the chants I had just heard, I belted out a loud, mournful howl, impersonating a wolf. The sound reverberated off the narrow alley walls, echoing and amplifying. I did it one more time, in a slightly different pitch, and then quickly pulled my head back out of the alley, letting the Gateway vanish. I walked back around the corner, staring ahead as if I had heard the wolf howling as well, and was nervous about continuing forward.
But no one in the crowd noticed me, because they were suddenly shouting, screaming, and running towards the sound, brandishing their candles and several bludgeoning weapons I hadn’t noticed before: tire irons, sticks, and baseball bats. Since we were in Missouri, I knew there would be a handful of guns as well, and instantly felt bad, hoping that no one accidentally stumbled into the alley.
The cops followed the crowd, hands on their pistols, and obviously unsure whether they should be halting the crowd or supporting them, because my howl hadn’t been the type of sound a dog would make. It had been more feral, wild, and dangerous.
Which left me a minute or two to observe the crime scene undetected.
I ducked under the tape and extended my magical senses, holding out my hands. The steps had been scrubbed clean. I felt nothing immediately alarming, but I did feel a presence that was definitely magical. I sniffed the air, not just with my nose, but enhancing my senses with magic to pick up on any supernatural scents.
And then I caught it.
A familiar stench. Werewolf.
But something else was present, too. I tried to focus on it, but it slipped away elusively. I realized my emotions were running hot with the wolf angle, focusing on the third wolf I had let get away earlier this morning. The local wolf pack was gone, so it seemed likely he was my guy.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and focused on my mental feather, discarding all personal thoughts, and focusing on the scene before me. Something was… wrong. Like a flicker of motion out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to look it was gone.
I pulled deep, trying to force the scene to talk to me. Force the world to obey. I struggled, strained, reached, clawed, stretched…
And I felt a small flush of heat deep within my stomach. I gasped as something astonishing seemed to open up inside me. Not entirely open, but as if I had cracked open a door.
I slowly lifted my head, frowning as my fingertips began to tingle. I stared at the scene.
That’s when I saw it. Something entirely different than the wolf. A cloaking spell. And it was much more recent. I followed the trail, relying solely on this strange power inside me, turning as the world seemed to whisper to me, pointing me away from the church. It almost felt like my senses were heightened – much more so than with my usual magic – and that it was an extension of this strange feeling inside me from within that cracked door. Not really that I was more aware of the world around me, but as if…
The world around me was talking back.
The street before me abruptly flushed silver, as if everything had just been splashed with chrome. And I saw a wavering ribbon hovering in the air, leading across the street. A hooded figure abruptly materialized at the end of the ribbon, and he flinched looking startled as his hood locked onto me.
I heard a throat clear politely, and flinched as I realized someone was standing only a few feet away, staring at me.
Detective Killian studied me with a frown, dressed in colorful workout clothes. I blinked back at him in confusion at the sudden colors, then glanced over his shoulder where I had seen the apparition in my mind. The chrome world was no more. Had that chrome power showed the present, or some replay of earlier in the day? I saw a faint shift against the bricks, almost like a heat wave, and I was suddenly running.
Chapter 20
I barreled past Detective Killian and across the street, ignoring his shouts as I pursued the hazy blur that was suddenly tearing down the sidewalk. I heard Killian racing after me, but I ignored him, trying to bring back the chrome world I had briefly glimpsed, whatever the hell it had been. Because trying to keep my eyes on an almost invisible heat wave couldn’t last.
My fingers tingled abruptly, and the chrome world flickered back into view. I gasped at what I saw, reacting instantly as the silver world flickered away, revealing a clear sidewalk. But I had already leapt, extending my foot forward and tucking up my back foot like I was running a hurdle race. The trash can that had been leaning against the building abruptly slid underneath me. Without my jump, I would have slammed into it. And I hadn’t sensed even a whisper of the magic that had shoved it into my path at the perfect second.
But in the silver world, I had seen the trash can skidding sideways in slow motion, directly into my path.
I strained for that silver world again, pulling through the cracked door inside me as I ran. It began flashing intermittently over the real world, like I was running in a strobe light that wasn’t bright enough to hurt my eyes. I heard the cop trip and stumble behind me, but I didn’t turn to look, stretching out my strides to catch… whatever this hooded guy was.
The figure darted into a dark alley right before the silvery world flashed into view for a moment – revealing a silver comet slowly shooting out from the depths of the alley. The world flickered back to normal, but I trusted the silver world and ran up the alley wall directly ahead of me rather than darting down the alley in immediate pursuit. I managed three steps up the wall before turning it into a backflip.
As I spun upside down, I saw an icy flash of power brush the tip of my ponytail, singeing the hair slightly. My feet struck the ground a heartbeat later, and I continued to run.
I heard the policeman shout in alarm as the blast shot past him and into the street, but I didn’t hear any major damage – like I would if it had struck him or a vehicle or a window or something.
Briefly seeing another silver warning, I dropped to my knees, skidding as I leaned all the way back – parallel to the damp ground, feeling my hair sliding through a greasy puddle.
A nearby dumpster exploded outwards, the contents flying laterally across the alley, directly over my head and chest to splatter into the opposite wall. I heard a muttered curse ahead of me as I scrambled to my feet, following the trail that kept flashing into and out of existence. The darkness of the alley made it so that the only time I knew I was on the right trail was with the silver world wrapped tightly around me, so I grasped it like a lifeline, feeding my power into the strange world, feeding it. If it disappeared, I would lose my lead. But I knew the power was fading, because I felt it slipping.
I lashed out with a blast of power that was not magic – simply a duplication of what I had seen the figure ahead do – and three golden ribbons of light launched from my hands like a braid of golden rope, hammering into the figure and blasting away his concealment spell, leaving him visible to the naked eye for the first time.
He stared back in surprise, but the dark alley didn’t let me get a clear look at his face. It was more his body that looked familiar to me. Strong, stacked proportionately, and very athletic.
But that didn’t help me. Every single guy I had seen lately had exhibited a banging body.
I didn’t slow down, but actually increased my speed. He abruptly did the same. He made a sharp left a few steps ahead of me, and I held up my hands as I rounded the corner, shielding myself from whatever might be coming my way. The silvery world almost flickered into view one last time, but instead vanished like a cloud of smoke, and I almost collapsed with a groan.
I stared at a dead end, and I was entirely alone.
> I heard panting behind me accompanied by pounding feet.
I let him approach, folding my hands on my hips, breathing heavily as I glared at the wall, making sure I didn’t appear threatening. The exhaustion seemed to fade quickly now that I wasn’t trying to tap into my strange new power, but I knew that if I tried again, I would likely pass out in a heartbeat.
“Good fucking god, woman! What the hell is going on?” Detective Killian wheezed, stopping a few paces behind me.
I slowly turned to face him, and found him clutching his knees, staring up at me. He didn’t look threatening, especially not doubled over like that. But he also looked like he was trying not to appear threatening. As if he hadn’t suspected me of doing anything wrong, and had simply been pursuing me to make sure I was okay.
“I saw someone. He looked shady.”
He blinked up at me, sucking in air. “I didn’t see a damned thing. Other than some kind of fireball shooting out of an alley and things exploding.”
I nodded absently, not answering his unasked question.
He finally straightened, leaning back against the wall and peering over my shoulder curiously. Seeing nothing, he assessed me. “Does this have anything to do with your hocus pocus stuff back at the crime scene?” he asked.
I blinked at him, suddenly very nervous. My eyes shot to his hip, looking for a gun, but he slowly lifted his hands, showing he was unarmed. He even spun in a very slow, dramatic circle. I remained silent.
He took another deep breath, seeming to regain his control. “You could literally push me out of the way right now, and I wouldn’t be able to stop you. You can fucking run,” he said, shaking his head as he laughed, complimenting my speed.
“Yeah,” I said numbly, not sure what else to say. “You saw me at the crime scene?” I asked. I had been standing in the center of it when I noticed him for the first time, but my question was more what he had seen me doing.
He nodded, and then let out a casual shrug. “You weren’t hurting anything,” he said.
My eyes might have widened at that. “That really doesn’t matter, though, does it?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Most would cuff you and bring you in.”
I let the silence stretch, cocking my head at him, at a loss for words. He was definitely a Regular. No power at all radiated from him. I realized I was using my magic without effort, proving that the new power had nothing to do with me as a wizard. I studied him, not understanding. He didn’t seem terribly concerned about me tainting his crime scene. “Well… I take it you aren’t going to cuff me?”
“I’m not really into bondage,” he said, smiling teasingly.
Against all odds, I found myself smiling in relief. Because if he found it necessary to arrest me, I was pretty sure I would have to comply. He already had my information and knew where to find me. So even if I escaped, he would just be back in the morning to arrest me, probably with a contingent of fellow officers.
“Neither am I,” I admitted, referring to cuffs.
He nodded, folding his arms. “What I do want to know is exactly what you found out and why you took off like a bat out of hell.”
He must have seen the confusion on my face, my inner debate on how to answer him.
He held up a placating finger. “How about we walk and talk,” he offered.
I nodded, and he turned to lead the way, a subtle gesture that this was entirely voluntary and that he wasn’t escorting me out under guard.
Then again, maybe it was a whisper of chivalry – to walk ahead of a lady in a dark alley.
I wanted to laugh and say that monsters rarely struck from the front. Like animals, they struck from the side or behind, from the shadows, from stealth. And if they did come head on, they intended to simply rip him in half to get to me.
A coffee cup rolled on the ground loudly and he instantly brandished twin daggers.
Big long ones. Definitely not standard issue. They were butterfly knives. I hadn’t even spotted them on him. Seeing it was only a cup, he glanced over his shoulder sheepishly, sheathing the blades at the base of his spine. He met my eyes and shrugged. Then continued on, hands at his sides.
I followed in silence until we reached the street. Then he sat on the bench, patting the seat next to him as he glanced over to the church. “I don’t want to be over there when the crowd returns,” he said casually. “I’m assuming you don’t either…”
I shivered. “No thanks.”
“So, I take it you’re not a pyro technician in disguise as a beautiful woman…”
I smiled sadly, shaking my head. “No. I’m not,” I admitted.
“Okay. Well, I’ll be honest with you in hopes that you’ll return the favor. But I want to make one thing clear.” He met my eyes, and I nodded. “You’re not obligated to answer me. But… I really hope you do, because I feel like I’m going crazy.”
My breath caught. Who the hell was this guy? He could legally force me to talk. Badge on him or not. And… he had seen magic, that much was obvious.
“The tooth marks on the body belonged to a very large animal, resembling a wolf, but different. For example, the saliva didn’t match anything in our database. We were planning to run more tests…” he hesitated, sounding angry. “Until the paperwork on the evidence got mixed up. The body and evidence were incinerated. All of it.”
I blinked at him, mouth opening wordlessly. Shit. That meant the killer wolf had friends in the force… He nodded, reading the look in my eyes.
“I just watched you make a ring of fire out of thin air, and then half of you disappeared. I saw you howl, since I was close enough to you to actually hear you. But at the same time, I heard the howl two blocks away.” He met my eyes meaningfully, and I began to fidget. “Then, you twirl around in the center of a crime scene with your eyes closed, smiling. After finally noticing me, you bolt past me as if you saw your mother’s murderer.” I flinched as if struck at his choice of words. He winced, not knowing the reason why, but sensing he had misspoken.
“It’s… fine,” I whispered.
He cleared his throat. “You run down the street, dodging things before they were in your way, as if looking into the future, not once, but three times. And then I see a flash of golden light and find you standing alone in a deserted alley.”
I swallowed nervously as he waited. “I’m…” I let out a quick breath, seeing no other option. “I’m a wizard. And I was chasing something dangerous. I just don’t know what it was,” I said in a rush.
He mouthed my confession silently, as if it would help him suddenly make sense of it. He did look startled, but not horrified. More like a teacher had just taught him something he hadn’t known. I pressed on. “A werewolf killed that woman.”
“Well, I did ask,” he finally said with a tired sigh.
I watched him warily, gauging his reaction. Was he in shock? I decided to bring us back to his reality. “Why don’t you have your badge? Or your uniform?”
He glanced down, tugging at his shirt. “I find it more helpful to return to a crime scene in plain clothes. Witnesses are more likely to speak freely with a compatriot than a uniform.”
I nodded. “That’s… actually very clever.”
“I know,” he said, smiling.
“You okay? With all of this? Or do you think I’m crazy?”
He let out a tired sigh, leaning back. “If I hadn’t seen it, maybe I would think you were crazy. Or that I was crazy. But… I did see it. I can’t deny what I saw with my own eyes. This actually makes more sense than anything else I came up with.”
I frowned at him. “Have you already suspected things like this before? Because most people who hear about this for the first time aren’t so calm.”
He shrugged. “I’m not most people,” he said unabashedly. “Now, tell me how to keep myself safe. Is it pretty much like the stories?”
I rounded on him. “That’s it?” I asked, almost shouting.
He looked tense and uncertain, but�
�� there was a fire in his eyes as he nodded. “What do you want me to do? Freak out? Cry? Shout? Denounce what I saw with my own eyes?” he said, shaking his head angrily. “Fear will get me nowhere. I just found out something horrifying, but rather than focusing on that, I’d rather know what will keep me alive. What to look out for.”
I just stared at him. “That’s not rational,” I said, “you should be scared…”
He chuckled, and shrugged. “Maybe it’s hyper rational,” he argued. Seeing my doubt, he pressed on. “If I was hunting in the woods and saw a dangerous animal I’d never heard of, I wouldn’t run around screaming that it was a monster. I would just… figure out what to do next,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve never really been scared. Not for more than a few seconds, anyway. My mind just kind of rolls with the chaos, I guess. Then I just… adapt. Fear gets you nowhere…” he trailed off, eyes distant for a minute. I scanned him for magic again, delving deep to see if this was all some ruse. But he was clean. “Fear got my partner killed,” he finally said in a whisper.
I finally opened my mouth to respond when I heard a collective scream from nearby. We both jerked to our feet, staring at the alley where I had mimicked the wolf howling, and where a sudden crowd of protestors were suddenly crashing back into the street, screaming, shouting, and crying.
Killian and I shared a look, and then took off toward the chaos.
Maybe he had a point. You could get used to fear…
If you learned how to adapt to the crazy.
Chapter 21
We reached the opening just as the last of the crowd raced past us, practically invisible to them in their terror. We slipped into the alley, Killian just behind me this time. “I thought the alley was empty!”
“It was!” I snapped, preparing myself for whatever might be lurking in the shadows. Maybe it was the hooded figure I had just been chasing across the street. The one who had mysteriously disappeared. I grimaced as I saw the two police officers on the ground, still breathing, but unconscious. Killian cursed, checking on them, but I pressed on.
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