by Harry Nix
“Witches,” he muttered.
3
“After you've browned the beef and you have your onion and garlic in there, then you add the tomato paste and let it cook until the scent changes. You’re looking for the Maillard reaction. It's okay if it burns and sticks a little. That's where the flavor comes from. Once you get that scent change, that's when you add your tomatoes and any dried herbs and let it simmer away. You want a woman, you learn to cook. That’s how I got that one,” River said to Jacob, pointing to his mate Matilda.
Alex yawned into the back of his hand as he scanned the city streets below, and half-listened to River giving Jacob cooking tips that he wasn't entirely sure the young werewolf had asked for. He saw Jacob glance across at Matilda, River’s mate, and then back down to the city street below. Matilda was about the same age as Nia and had green eyes and a red tone to her hair. Whereas River dressed like a pirate and acted like one, Matilda seemed quite subdued, almost like an accountant in werewolf form… although when River talked about her, she did shoot him a seductive look before turning back to the street.
“I am so gonna get her once we, you know, get her,” April said.
She was touching Alex on the shoulder, copying over Juno’s Cantrip. Alex figured the more help he got with spell writing the better, and now with Juno gone, the only other magic user he had access to was April. Although April saw her spells as musical notes, he was hoping that perhaps if they worked together, he could get some new insight that would help with his spell writing.
“I saw Ruby use this spell on her, so I know she hasn't developed some counter-defense to it,” Alex murmured. It was two in the morning on a Friday night and so the city below was still somewhat alive, although most of the normal people had gone home by now, and the ones that were still out were either staggering, singing, or possibly preying on the innocent. There was still enough traffic that Alex was having trouble checking each car as it went by.
April finished copying the spell and went back to looking at the street, trying to spot a spell screen.
Nia came padding over and touched Alex on the shoulder. “Position change,” she said.
They rotated, Alex taking the east side of the building, sitting on the corner, and April sitting further down from him. Over on this side was the central street that ran through Baxter, and this late at night it was lit up with neon signs including, Alex saw, a pawnshop that had a ‘We Buy Gold’ sign in the window. The first time he'd seen it he’d felt a pang at remembering Bailey and what had happened to the old frog who’d been crucified and gutted in his own shop, tortured by Corvus pain mages trying to get to Alex.
Alex looked down at the pawnshop window and saw there was an old accordion sitting there and briefly wondered whether the owner was human or supernatural. From this position he could see down an alleyway where they'd parked the wreck of the car they'd bought with cash. The way it sounded as they drove, Alex assumed the engine would drop out any day now. He wished he had Boris. It had good trunk space which would be perfect for stuffing in a few mages.
The night dragged on, two turning to three, werewolves yawning and watching cars. Alex was almost ready to call it a night when a shiny red car turned the corner and he saw the unmistakable wavering spell screen, as though there was a rippling heat haze.
“Red car down there. That’s Ignis,” Alex said. Everyone immediately went on alert, including Jacob who had been struggling to keep his eyes open.
“Can we go now?” Jacob asked, shifting to hybrid in anticipation.
Alex grinned to himself as he felt the pull of Jacob’s shift. He felt the excitement too. It was more than just the thrill of attacking enemies, there was some kind of joy there, like how he felt after a successful hunt.
“Let's go. Human on the ground. Everyone have their rings? We do this fast,” he said.
They went over to the side of the building where there was a small alleyway that was hidden in darkness. Jacob jumped first without waiting for Alex. He quickly shifted to hybrid form and leaped off the edge, closely followed by Nia, Matilda, and River. April went another direction, going the long way around.
Alex landed in the alleyway, splashing in a puddle, and feeling the cobblestones crack under his feet. There was no twinge of the Great Barrier which meant they hadn't been seen.
“So far, so good,” Alex murmured.
Together, he, Jacob, and River shifted to human. Tonight River was wearing a gold bandanna and an outfit that looked like he'd just stepped off a sailing ship from the 1600s. Alex had figured that so long as he was wearing it, they may as well use it.
River went first, along to the end of the alleyway before crossing to the street. Jacob and Alex remained hidden in the shadows. Alex took deep breaths, trying to slow his heartbeat, but it seemed impossible. The air tonight seemed too warm and almost as though there wasn't enough of it. He had to keep taking deep breaths to get enough oxygen.
“Here they come,” Jacob whispered.
The car passed, the werewolves shrinking up against the walls as it did. Alex saw another spell compile on the screen as the mage inside cast it. Then River played his part perfectly, staggering out in front of the car as though he was drunk beyond belief. The car jolted to a stop as River half fell over the front of it, bashing his hands on it with a loud thud.
“Hey! You! Watch where you're… I'm driving here. You’re not meant to be walking where the cars are driving,” he yelled out, slurring. He pulled a half bottle of whiskey from somewhere and took a large theatrical gulp of it, spilling some of it down his clothes.
“He can't help hamming it up,” Matilda whispered from behind Alex. He glanced back at her and saw that she was smiling. The ruse worked well, though. The driver wound down his window, leaned out, and started shouting at River to get out of the way. He just kept shouting back that he was the one who was driving there and that they needed to get out of his way. Confident that the driver and the mages within the car were distracted, Alex and Jacob slipped out of the alleyway and came up from behind the car, one on each side. A moment later the door on Jacob’s side opened, an angry mage stepping out. In an instant, Jacob tackled him, crashing him back inside the car and slamming the door shut behind him. Alex jumped forward and pulled on his door, but it was locked. The windows were tinted so heavily he could barely see anything, but he could make out Jacob, in werewolf form, fighting with three mages in the back of the car. Alex sprinted around the other side to where the driver was and pulled the door open. The mage driving had his seatbelt on, so Alex couldn't move him. Instead, he dived across into the passenger seat, transforming to werewolf hybrid form as he did. The driver only got out a startled shout before Alex ripped his throat out, almost decapitating him before turning and reaching into the back seat to grab one of the fire mages.
As he did, though, the mage cast a spell and burst into flames. The heat of it was intense, and Alex let go as his hands burned. He instinctively cast flame shield himself, bursting into flames and then grabbing the mage again. When he was under the influence of a similar spell, the mage’s flames couldn't hurt Alex.
It had been to Alex's great shame that he hadn't considered what would happen if his pack was attacked by fire mages, considering the rings he’d made for them were fire-based. He heard later that some of the werewolves had thrown fireballs, but all they’d done was make the mages stronger. It was almost a computer game problem: if you're heavy in one element, like fire or water, you could be weak to the opposite. If you came up against something that used the same element you wouldn’t be able to kill it. So far, Alex hadn't been able to rectify that problem. He’d been working on trying to get enough space so he could learn more spells, particularly something like vertigo, figuring it was better to knock mages over and then let the werewolf pack tear them to pieces, than play around with elements.
Alex pulled the burning mage towards him and snapped at his throat, feeling some of his teeth break off on the mage’s shield. In the
close confines of the car, seats were quickly melting and smoke was beginning to fill it. Alex saw Jacob kill one of the other mages, stabbing his claws into his heart before he went to work on the other one, slashing away at him to cut down his shield. Alex gave up trying to bite and started slashing at the mage he had, trying to do the same: wear the shield away until he could get the advantage. He was vaguely aware of River getting in the driver's seat, sitting on top of the dead driver and starting the engine. It was then Alex felt the Great Barrier as a sharp pain in his back and through his arms. Thankfully, a moment later, it vanished as River closed the driver’s side window, blocking the view of what was happening in the car.
It took maybe thirty more seconds of fighting in the confined space for the mage’s shield to break. Alex had to restrain himself from executing the mage right there, barely managing to change a swipe into a punch at the last moment, breaking the mage’s nose and knocking him out. Jacob had a harder time restraining himself, and as the mage’s shield broke, he slashed away at his arm and his leg, opening deep wounds and getting splattered with blood.
“Jacob stop,” Alex called out, canceling his fire shield and pulling the young werewolf back. He was snarling in anger. Jacob came back to himself then looked over the ruin of the mage’s leg which was now gushing blood.
“Dammit,” he swore.
Jacob used his healing flame ring, managing to patch up the mage who was turning pale and appeared on the verge of passing out.
Despite the fact that the car seat was melting, and it was still quite hot, Alex shifted back to human. He had the only set of mage cuffs. Working quickly, he handcuffed the mages together in case they thought to cast spells.
“We’re good, we’re good,” River murmured as he hit the accelerator.
“Don't move or you die,” Jacob growled to the mage he had in his grasp. He had his claws at the mage’s throat now that he’d healed him up, and the mage for his part looked terrified. Alex was glad this wasn't like the Xavo necromancers who all looked barely old enough to be in high school. These two mages were men. Both appeared to be around thirty and the one still conscious was giving Alex hard looks.
“Find a place to stop,” Alex said.
A few minutes later they pulled into an alleyway and leaped out of the car just as the girls arrived, April driving the wreck. Working quickly, they transferred the living mages over to the wreck’s trunk after stripping off their robes and any other wands and rings they had. The mage Alex had punched was stirring now, and the other one was just angry and silent. Alex also saw when he was stripped down to his underwear that he had burn scars all over his body, almost as though he was a pain mage from the Corvus enclave who'd wounded himself deliberately to draw pain.
They took the dead driver and stuffed him in the trunk of the Ignis mages’ car along with the other dead mage. Thanks to Alex almost decapitating the driver, there was a lot of blood. They waited for a moment in the alleyway as April began casting a cleanse. It was another result of Juno being gone. She usually cast the cleanse spells, but now April had to, and she wasn't quite as good at it, so they had to stay closer to the scene where any blood had been spilled for it to work. She got through it quickly enough, then, after wrinkling her nose at the burned passenger seat, got in with River on the other side. He had it far worse, having to sit in a pool of blood from the driver. Nia and Matilda went with them as they headed toward their destination, some abandoned buildings over in the industrial zone but far away from where Alex and his pack were living. They would bury the bodies, hide the car, then April was to cast cleanse to destroy the blood, so the Ignis mages couldn't use weredogs to track down their kidnapped brethren.
April cast cleanse on them, beginning the process that would degrade the dead mages’ bodies and blood. Alex felt the effects of it immediately, the blood on his clothing beginning to vanish as it broke down into its component parts.
Alex let Jacob drive, figuring the young werewolf needed the practice.
The drive back was uneventful, Alex occasionally telling Jacob to take random left or right turns to see if they were being pursued. Although the old car was grumbling and making a strange squealing noise every time Jacob hit the brakes, it managed to get them home. April, Nia, River, and Matilda were already back, having disposed of the bodies and the car after Alex and Jacob had taken their time in a leisurely drive home. They parked inside the factory, inside the boundaries of the ward, which Alex knew would also help keep anyone from finding the two mages they'd taken. They then, not so gently, dragged the two mages out of the trunk and over to a large steel beam that went from the floor to the ceiling. Alex quickly tied up the mages, first with rope and then tape, so they were sitting with their backs against the cold metal on the hard concrete floor, one on each side of the metal beam. Then he shifted to hybrid in front of them and crouched down.
“So, tell me names,” he said. The mage he had punched in the face was fully awake now with dried blood down his face. Some of it had trickled onto his chest. He simply shook his head and tried to look tough but did a bad job of it considering his nose was misshapen and when he breathed out a small bubble of blood came out of his nostril. Alex turned to the scarred one. “How about you. You want to tell me your name?” he asked.
“You've done a lot of dumb things but this is the dumbest thing you've ever done,” the mage said.
“Okay, so I’m gonna call you angry scar princess and then I’m gonna call you busted nose girl until you decide to give me your names. I’m Alex Lowe, the one and only werewolf mage, and you’re gonna be staying with us until you give up every address of every Ignis location. And I want some of your spells too,” Alex said. For appearances’ sake, he summoned a fireball to his hand. When Stephen had helped rewrite the spell, he’d added what he called a temperature gauge. It essentially appeared as an internal lever on Alex’s spell screen so that once the spell was cast he could turn it up, turning the fireball from orange to blue, almost verging on white-hot. He consumed exponentially more mana to do this but Alex didn't care. He had enough to spare right now. Holding the fireball out in front of him, he mentally turned up the temperature, changing it from red to blue and then white, then he dropped it at his feet. The two mages, although fire mages and surely used to working with flames, started as the fireball splashed onto the concrete and melted into it as though it was a hot coal going through snow.
“Okay, boys, I have something for you to drink,” April said as she approached. After the village had been destroyed, April had lost everything she'd been working on, but even after only being here for two weeks, she had rapidly rebuilt, acquiring enough material to start mixing up potions again. Without waiting to be asked, Jacob grabbed Angry Scar Princess and pulled his head back, using sharp claws to pry his jaws open. The mage struggled for a moment before Jacob cut his face with his claw. Then April tipped golden liquid into his mouth and they made sure he swallowed it. Jacob then repeated the process on the other mage, Broken Nose Girl. He was more cooperative, though, drinking the potion and then letting out a gentle sigh as it went to work on him.
“So, what's this one?” Alex asked April as both mages began moving their heads around as though they were pleasantly drunk.
“Imagine if LSD and mescaline had a baby and it was raised by heroin before going on a world tour to hang out with every other awesome drug you've heard of. That's what this one is. We’re not going to push these guys like that mercenary you bought me. They’re going to be sailing the superluminal for days now until we get everything we want out of them.”
April leaned down to Scarface.
“What's your name?” she said.
“And, ant, Anthony,” he muttered and then shook his head before frowning, as though his mouth had spoken of its own accord.
“How about you? You don’t want to be Broken Nose Girl, do you?”
“Nick,” he said.
“Ah, was really hoping I was gonna get to call them Scarface Princes
s and Broken Nose Girl,” Jacob said.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Alex said, giving April a deep kiss before heading next door. He sent back Anton, one of the guards who was normally stationed at the front, to keep watch. It wasn't Jacob he was worried about but April. He’d seen that look in her eye before. The first time he'd seen it he’d assumed it was play-pretend, doing good witch, bad witch, but now that Juno had been kidnapped he knew that under her smiling demeanor there was a bubbling fury.
As he went in to shower to get the last remnants of the night off himself, Alex just hoped that the two mages would be alive come morning, so he could extract some spells from them.
4
Roma had added a bell to the shop door since the last time Alex had been there. It felt like a lifetime ago, before robbing the vampires’ mansion, before the thrall, and before the attack. Although they'd been in town for nearly two weeks, it had been Juno going out to do the negotiations to buy more rings to try to rebuild their stash while they struggled to survive, squatting over in the industrial zone.
Roma was behind the counter, but this time she wasn't wearing the leather apron, but rather a summer dress with sunflowers on it that accentuated her curves.
Alex gave her a friendly smile as he walked in and was surprised to get one in return, but then he immediately looked away to some of the furniture as everyone else filed in behind him. Any time Alex went anywhere these days, it was always with at least one or two pack members and sometimes more. By some unspoken agreement, the pack members decided who would go with Alex whenever he went somewhere.
“Morning, Roma,” Alex said, pretending to examine a dark wood coffee table. Roma merely nodded back. She watched all the werewolves filing into the shop and walking around. Alex smiled to himself and turned away from April and Nia, although he could feel their gazes upon him. Juno had made some pointed comments about how pretty Roma was in the past but Alex hadn't engaged. Nia and April hadn't seen her, but now that they had, they were watching Alex's every move.