by Harry Nix
“Good work,” Nia whispered in the dark, stroking a finger down his nose. “Now go to sleep Alpha.”
It wasn’t a spell but it may as well have been. The warm dark rushed in and Alex welcomed it with open arms.
8
“Five weredogs dead.”
“Six actually, if you count the first that found him.”
“And Johanson too. He was strong – how did that happen?”
“We don’t know. He’s traveling with another werewolf. We found some of her blood in the alleyway. Maybe together they managed to kill him.”
“Five weredogs and a mage of Johanson’s caliber against two werewolves should have been a slaughter – of them! Where did he die?”
“A house about a hundred miles from Baxter, we think. We can’t pin it precisely. You know how the elementals blur things.”
“Any idea where they are now?”
“Our best guess is Baxter. They’ve clearly received aid from a witch. They cleansed their blood earlier today. We can set some weredogs after them but it’s going to be needle in a haystack and blind luck that we find them.”
“All samples are gone? Even the original?”
“The witch was good, and thorough.”
“Next time we go after him send twice as many people than you think we need. One werewolf mage is bad enough on his own. Now he has a second werewolf and has clearly roped in a witch, too. It won’t be long before he has a pack and becomes significantly harder to kill.”
“We’re watching his apartment and office. He’s been listed as a missing person too so that gives us some cover if anyone finds him dead in an alley, say from a drug overdose.”
“No – no body will ever be found. I want him minced, burned to ash and that ash taken two hundred miles out to sea and tipped in. No body, no blood, not a hair of him is to remain, understood?”
“Of course. We have a small problem though – Ames wired his apartment to explode.”
“If it explodes and kills him then fine. We’ll just have to move quick on the cover-up. But if not – no body. Vanish him.”
“Certainly. Is there anything else?”
“Yes – I want you to start gathering blood.”
“It’s going to be difficult to hide that kind of magic.”
“If we fail to kill Alex Lowe in the next few days then hiding blood magic is going to be the least of our problems.”
9
Alex awoke to the scent of bacon and a roaring hunger that was like a fire in his stomach. He leapt out of bed (Nia was already gone) and pulled on the jeans he’d stolen yesterday. Halfway up his thighs they got stuck and then ripped when he tugged on them.
What the hell? They’d been tight yesterday but they still fit.
He took them off and noticed his thighs seemed larger. All over he was more defined than yesterday. Spotting a mirror leaning against the far wall, Alex checked himself out.
“Yup, that’s more muscle,” he said to himself, prodding his shoulder.
For a guy who’d pureed multiple weredogs yesterday, he was looking good. The bite marks on his arm were faint bruises now. By lunch he guessed he’d be completely healed.
Abandoning the jeans, Alex put on the t-shirt, struggling to pull it over his newly grown muscle. He finally got it to fit and then figuring it was a good idea yesterday, made a toga out of the bedsheet. He’d have to arrange some new clothes pronto... which meant there was no point going back to his apartment to retrieve his old clothes. If his laptop wasn’t there he’d be tempted to never return. But it was there and despite it being what he was starting to think of as his “old life”, it was pretty much everything of value he owned. That, and a kickass stick blender.
Alex followed his nose to a cozy kitchen were he found Juno frying bacon, mushrooms and tomato. She saw his toga and saluted with the spatula.
“Hail Spartacus!” she said before giving him a wink.
“No unicorns today dearest?” Nia said, slinking up behind him and gently dancing her fingers down his back. Alex shivered and a trail of goosebumps followed.
“Okay, stop that, because I need to think and it’s hard when all my blood keeps going elsewhere,” he said after giving her a kiss.
“Aw,” Nia pouted but obeyed, taking at seat at the kitchen table.
“Does that apply to me too? Because I have things to say about... um... what is your job?” Juno asked.
“I’m making a computer game with two friends from college,” Alex said.
“Ooh ooh, pick me, pick me, I got one,” Juno said, waving the spatula in the air.
“Yes, the little blonde witch,” he said, pointing to her.
“Yo momma so fat it takes a forty-man raid to summon her!”
Alex laughed and then shook his head. “That wasn’t sexy!”
Juno seemed to take that as a challenge. She bit the edge of the spatula and put on a come hither look.
“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice low and seductive.
“Okay stop it, because I need to concentrate too,” Nia said. Her cheeks were turning pink.
Juno just laughed and turned back to the frying pan.
Alex poured himself a glass of orange juice to ease the hunger that seemed to be eating him up from the inside. He felt like he could eat everything Juno was making and then go searching the pantry for more.
As he gulped it down he thought about where to start. Juno was magic and so was he, apparently? Someone was after him? What was the next move? Juno and Nia had been or were lovers?
He decided to skip that last question. He was still only wearing the toga and it didn’t leave much room to hide what certain body parts might do.
Although someone trying to kill him was high on the list, the magic he’d seen and felt yesterday was too enticing. For a lifelong gamer it was a dream come true. He’d flung spells in every game of note since he was a little kid. To do that in the real world? If the cost was a few assassination attempts he was down for it.
“What was that green screen floating above your head yesterday Juno? I saw your spells, like code running.”
Juno turned around and gave him a puzzled look.
“Screen? Above me?”
“Yeah, it was like a translucent green glass. You cast the cleanse and I saw you casting the spell that drained the magic from the wand and rings.”
Juno’s frown deepened before she shook her head.
“Okay, let me get this breakfast served up and then we’ll talk this nuttiness you’re proposing.”
Nuttiness? Alex mouthed to Nia, who just shrugged.
Soon Alex had a plate pile high with food in front of him. He dove in, demolishing it. As soon as he was finished Nia pushed food off her plate on to his and Juno did the same, earning a strange look from both of them.
It seemed all three were starving because they didn’t talk until their plates were empty and Juno served up steaming cups of coffee.
“So, wolfboy, if that is your real name, every mage sees their magic in their own way. For me it’s symbols and pictures mixed together. For others it’s sounds or runes. Some of the old ones are stuck with imaginary scrolls. But translucent glass with code on it? I’ve never heard of that before. Do you mean like computer code?”
Alex finished his coffee and Juno refilled it immediately, like a waitress working hard for her tip.
“That’s right – it looked like a programming language. That draining spell even looked like it was written by someone else. Am I correct?”
Juno nodded and Alex saw a look pass over her face – pain – that was quickly swept away.
“That spell was from someone I knew. She’s, uh, gone now. But what you’re saying is incredibly advanced magic. To put it bluntly – you can see your own stuff but not others. To see what I was doing is ridiculously high level. Like vanish the Statue of Liberty kinda stuff.”
Alex sipped his second coffee slowly, feeling the big breakfast catching up on him. Although he’d slept we
ll he felt like he could easily go back again. But there was far too much to do for that.
“So how do you learn magic if it’s unique to every mage or witch?”
Juno reached over and touched his hand. He felt a tug of magic and then suddenly became aware of it all around him. That feeling of being in an ocean returned. There were currents, warm and cold spots.
“You connect. You observe. You copy. It’s an apprenticeship of doing. There are magic books too, but they’re rare and the enclaves keep them locked up tight. Follow me.”
For a moment Alex thought she meant to go somewhere with her but Juno merely smiled as she drew on the magic surrounding them. He saw the green screen appear above her head and a short program fill it. Like yesterday this one was filled with a multitude of symbols but far less than previous spells. Even as he looked at it, it changed, filling with brackets and transforming to look more like code. He swore there was a line defining a class.
“Now copy,” Juno said.
Alex looked at the code again and then jumped in his seat as a second screen appeared in front of him. It was translucent red and had a faint blinking cursor, awaiting input.
What the f- Alex thought and saw the text appear on his screen.
“Observe and copy,” Juno repeated. The code on her screen flashed up again, this time with even fewer symbols spread through it. It was getting close to readable. Something about defining subject as self. Questioning self? Getting info on self?
“Know Thyself is what you’re looking for,” Juno said.
“Are you reading my mind?” Alex asked and saw the words appear on his screen as he spoke.
Juno tapped the back of his hand with hers.
“We’re connected so I get a sense of it. It flows both ways. Now, observe and copy. You can do it.”
Alex looked back to his screen. As thoughts shot through his mind he saw them flash up on it and then vanish. It seemed the cursor was printing up whatever he thought, no matter how small. He saw a line appear about wondering if there was more food, wondering if Juno was wearing underwear...
He quickly squelched that thought, wiping it off the screen but not before seeing the little witch smirk. Had she sensed what he was thinking?
He took a deep breath and cleared his mind as best he could. Okay, if this was like a computer program for him then he could copy and paste, right? Just look, copy, paste...
Alex looked at Juno’s code and thought copy. A tiny symbol appeared at the bottom of his screen of a piece of paper with lines on it. Okay, paste.
The screen filled with code, the time with no symbols in it. It was in largely readable English, albeit with structures he wasn’t familiar with. It looked a little javascripty, a little other computer programming languages.
“Good, now cast it,” Juno said.
As soon as she spoke, a button appeared on his screen: Execute.
Alex waved his free hand in the air, tapping the button and was surprised to see it change color to a bright green.
The spell he’d copied ran, shortening down as it did and pulling on him. It was only a tiny amount but he could clearly feel that he was powering the spell. But what did it do?
“Now here comes the fun part,” Juno said, letting go of his hand.
“Juno did this for me once, it was cool,” Nia said and took a sip of coffee.
The spell flashed away and then the screen expanded in front of him. Know Thyself appeared across the top in capitals and then the page filled with text and values.
“A character stats screen?” Alex asked in disbelief. “You can see your stats?”
“Correction: you, Alex the werewolf mage, can see a character stats screen. I see pictures for mine. But the general idea is the same – information about yourself, your magic, presented to you.”
“Mine were colored circles with bits missing, like pie charts,” Nia said.
Alex raised a hand and scrolled through the page, taking it all in. Strength, health, magic level, mana, agility, and more.
Spells known: 1.
Know Thyself.
Pretty self explanatory my dude. Know things about yourself, duh.
Alex frowned at the descriptive text. Was that his own spell giving him sass?
Juno was in the kitchen starting to wash dishes. He wasn’t sure they were still connected but the witch seemed to be still reading his mind.
“That’s my spell you’re casting there. You copied all of it,” she explained.
“Self explanatory my dude, huh?”
“You can change it if you want,” Juno said and stuck out her tongue before returning to the soapy dishes in front of her. Nia went over to help while Alex kept scrolling.
A little edit button appeared next to the text and Alex pressed it. He saw he could delete Juno’s sass but he decided to leave it. He hit a small exit cross, seeing the page was changing even as he looked at it. It was resembling a true computer screen now with save and edit buttons and a toolbar. Across the top three tabs appeared: Human, Hybrid, Wolf.
He tapped each in turn and got pages of stats and other information. Each stat had pages under it that expanded in turn, drilling down. On his Hybrid page he saw a panel titled Special Skills. Under it was Advanced Healing.
In Hybrid form you are stronger, faster and heal far quicker than in Human form. Recovery rate can be enhanced using additional mana. You can still die but have the limited ability to regenerate, including limbs. Note: if more than 50% of mass is missing, regeneration may fail.
“This is nuts,” Alex said aloud, still scrolling through pages.
“You’re right there – seeing a floating computer screen for spells? What kind of weirdo nerd does that?” Juno said and she and Nia snickered.
Alex smiled but otherwise ignored them. In his gaming life he’d usually whip up a character (mostly mages or spellcasters of some kind if he could) and play the game. Now he just wanted to read every stat and piece of information he could see displayed. He switched over to the Spells tab and saw his single spell again, Know Thyself. It was listed as active with a date and timestamp next to it. Down below everything else was a long blue bar that was missing a tiny amount at the top of it. As he watched, it refilled. Clearly mana or amount of magic he had.
“What’s with the date and timestamp?”
Juno was still washing dishes but she dried her hands and came over to sit beside him. She put her hand back on his and he felt their connection again, and the magic surrounding them. For some reason he couldn’t feel it without her.
“This is serious, one of the most serious things you’ll learn: don’t cast too many spells at once. If you cast anything that is continuous, like a spell to hide yourself or a trap for someone, something that persists... every day at the same time you cast it the first time, it will drain magic from you again. So you cast three in the afternoon today, tomorrow it will renew and drain the same amount of magic. Cast too many and you can kill yourself quite easily. If you’re asleep or unconscious when the time rolls around, the spell will renew anyway. So, keep an eye on any persistent spells. Anything that uses more than twenty percent of your magic, think very carefully about keeping it running. Plenty of mages and witches have died this way.”
Alex nodded and looked at Know Thyself. It was draining an incredibly small amount of magic and clearly less than he was regenerating because the blue bar was staying full.
“And because you’re new – don’t cast spells on your own. They may take more energy than you have available,” Juno added before returning to the kitchen.
“Okay,” Alex said, his gaze drifting across to a large compose button that had appeared. He hit it and got the empty screen with blinking cursor.
Hmm... he thought and saw the text appear on the screen. He deleted it with a swipe of his finger.
Okay, so clearly he could think spell code... if he knew how to write a spell. In every computer class taken in the world the very first program ever learned was Hello World,
a simple program to display hello world on the screen. What was the magic spell equivalent? Was it Know Thyself?
He saw a small button with Know Thyself appear on the side of the screen. Whatever was happening with the display, it was still clearly evolving, adjusting itself to his expectations. He touched it with a fingertip and dragged it on to the composition screen. The button planted itself, a little self-contained program. Becoming curious, Alex dragged another copy of the button and then another until he had five lined up, one after the other.
The little execute button sat at the bottom just begging to be pressed.
Alex glanced over at Juno and Nia but the two of them were as thick as thieves, speaking in lowered tones.
Well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs he thought and hit the button.
The spell on his screen compiled, casting Know Thyself five times over. Each time it did, it drew on his magic, the mana bar dropping. A small tab appeared at the top of the screen with the spell title on it and then again and again.
“Hey, I said be careful,” Juno said suddenly.
Although the spell was weak it consumed a quarter of his magic in under three seconds, casting multiple copies of itself. In his active spell list there was now six copies of it running.
“Just playing,” he murmured, watching his mana bar slowly dropping. Now with six copies running he was using more mana than he was making.
He watched it for a minute, flipping between the tabs and seeing that each one held a complete breakdown of all his stats. Then he hit the tiny X that sat next to each active spell, shutting them down until only one remained. As he did he felt the drain on his magic lessening.
“That’s exactly how mages die. Oh, I’ll make a Haste spell. You know what would be cool? I’ll run it ten times over at once. Oh, look at that, I just killed myself but I was super fast so it’s all good.”
“Listen to her Alex, she knows what she’s talking about?” Nia said, drying a plate.