by Harry Nix
With all the werewolves inside, the shop suddenly felt quite crowded, although the room was spacious. Alex strolled over to the counter, pulled fifteen thousand out of his pocket, and slapped it down on the counter.
“What can I get for this?” he asked.
Despite Juno being missing and everything else that was going on, he was in a good mood that morning. They'd finally captured two Ignis mages who had so far only given up their names but April was confident they would give up much more. Ruby had delivered the money, which led to the second point of feeling good: they’d already made a stop that morning to the dodgy accountant who introduced himself as Jack Smith, a name that seemed so boring that it had to be fake. He'd accepted Alex's request to set up a front to purchase properties, set up utility accounts and the like, without blinking an eye. Alex had felt a small pang in his heart as he handed over a quarter million in cash to a guy who was working out of a tiny office wedged between two restaurants.
Alex had instructed Jack to make an offer on the factory, and the properties surrounding it, to see what he could get for the quarter-million. They’d kept thirty thousand for themselves, and half of that was set aside to help feed the werewolves. The rest was for buying rings and weapons.
“I got most of what Juno wanted,” Roma said. She excused herself and went out through to the back room.
“It's interesting how pretty she is and how you never mentioned that,” Nia said, appearing at Alex's side as though she'd teleported there.
“Yes, I find that quite interesting too,” April said, appearing on his other side.
“Pretty? Is she? I hadn't really considered it,” he said.
Alex heard Jacob snicker from somewhere behind them, which certainly wasn't helping the situation. The young werewolf was alternating today between a glazed expression and being a little shit.
“What I think is that you would like to have someone who makes furniture in the pack,” Nia said, lowering her voice.
“Which we could make happen, but you just have to admit first that she is pretty,” April said. Although they were bantering, Alex felt for a moment that he was in the grip of a vise, getting squeezed from either side. He also felt like this was that dangerous territory when you girlfriend points out another girl and says do you think she's pretty? Thankfully, Roma returned before he was forced to answer, carrying a cardboard box which she set on the counter.
“I couldn't get everything but look at what we have,” Roma said and quickly took the money before stepping back away from the counter, making some space between her and Alex.
Alex took the top of the box off, and he, Nia, and April began going through it, setting the contents out on the counter. Alex wasn't quite sure how Juno had done it but, somehow, she'd convinced Roma to buy an assortment of magical rings and weapons with the promise that Alex would pay her back. He cast analyze a few times and saw April was doing the same, going through the various rings. Alex hadn't discussed it much with Juno apart from get things will be useful for us, but now that he saw the rings, he suspected that Juno had been thinking along the same lines as the advice that Ruby had given. Most of the rings were what you would call small magic. There was one, for example, designed to chill whatever you were holding. In the notes it was described as working best when holding a glass of water or a beer, and that it would be able to chill it down to near zero instantly. In terms of fighting for their life, this wasn't something that was useful, but as Alex cracked the code open in idle curiosity, he saw there were new structures within it. Perhaps if he studied this for long enough he might be able to replicate or magnify the effect.
Juno had a spell where she could summon a ball of ice to her hand, but it was ridiculously complicated and too large for Alex to copy. He thought this could be a good path to working out something like that. Perhaps the next time they were attacked by Ignis mages, the werewolves would be hurling ice.
“You just have to admit it, is all,” April said lightly, before touching Alex on the back of the hand and zapping him with a spark. He pulled his hand away. She laughed and then passed the ring to him. This was even smaller magic, a kind of joke ring designed to zap people with an incredibly low charge.
“Oh, cool, do I get a gun?” Jacob said, peering over Alex's shoulder. In the bottom of the box were two handguns and a few boxes of ammunition. This was another thing Alex was learning about the will of the pack and how the alpha interacted with it. He was the boss, sure, the King, the decision-maker… except sometimes he wasn't, and he was more like surfing the group’s opinion, perhaps able to guide it, but sometimes acceding to it.
Although Juno had had some handguns which were now long lost, Alex had gathered that the werewolves weren't much on weaponry, preferring to use teeth and claws instead.
“Maybe if you’re good,” Alex said. He was wondering whether the shifter charms would be strong enough to take not only their clothes but also weaponry if it came to it.
“Is that everything I can get for today?” Roma said. She had a tone of voice that Alex recognized: the one where the person working in a shop wants you to leave, or the waitress wants you to leave your table so they can give it to someone else. He looked up at her and saw that her eyes were darting around the shop between each of the werewolves, most of whom were wandering around looking at the furniture, except for Matilda who was now lounged in the red massage chair that Alex had used last time he was here.
“We’ll come back if we need more and maybe we can sell you some rings too,” Alex said. Roma nodded, not taking her gaze off the werewolves walking about.
It was one of the other small changes that Juno had instituted before she was kidnapped. In the past, she had visited various shops to buy rings and sell them on. After the attack, she restricted the number of places she would sell to, to try to keep the number of locations that they would visit down to a minimum. Roma, despite her apparent nervousness, had agreed to keep buying from Alex and even to supply him with new blank rings, which were currently sitting in a small paper bag in the corner of the box.
Alex nodded to Nia and April and they quickly repacked the box. They were just putting the lid back on it when the bell above the door chimed. Even before Alex turned around, he knew it was trouble from the look on Roma's face. He felt the magic around him lurch, something behind him disturbing it, and he dived sideways, taking April with him as Nia went in the other direction.
A spell flew past, smashing into the front of the counter as Roma dived behind it and shattering it into pieces. Alex was up in an instant, transforming into hybrid form, and turned around to see it was two women who had entered the shop. He knew immediately that they weren't mages. It was as though he could sense it on some deep instinctual level.
They were both blondes, one in her forties and the other one in her early twenties, perhaps mother and daughter from the way they looked. The younger one was holding a wand, which was clearly the spell she had hurled at Alex upon entering the shop. For a moment Alex cursed himself for forgetting to tell two of his pack to stand guard outside the shop to ensure they weren’t ambushed, but there was no time to dwell on that now. The two women moved so fast they were a blur. The older one hit Jacob so hard that half his teeth came out of his mouth, and he got knocked out cold as he went flying across the shop to crash into a set of cupboards, obliterating the doors. The younger woman shot the wand at Matilda, who tried to dodge it but was hit in the leg and went down screaming as the bones shattered.
“Vampires,” Nia growled, launching herself. The old woman moved so fast that Alex wasn't quite sure what happened. Nia suddenly went smashing through another chair, splintering it. He heard a chime from behind him as April cast a spell and threw a handful of dirt at the same time—she usually had a bag of it somewhere on her person. The dirt scattered and vines burst out, gripping the younger vampire by the leg and holding her still.
Alex had been practicing casting spells in combat and it was finally starting to pay off, alt
hough the werewolf side of him just wanted to jump in and start slashing. He now had enough sense to cast magic first.
He cast haste upon himself and then on Zara and Summer. The two of them were going after the older vampire, who was blurring around them but struggling to fight both of them off at the same time. As soon as Alex cast haste on them, the tides of the battle turned, one of them managing to slash the woman across the face, spinning her across the shop. Alex, for his part, dived on the younger vampire, swiping at her with his claws, intending to tear off her arm. He only got the wand instead as she somehow pulled her fingers out of the way and it splintered.
Alex only had the barest moment to close his eyes before the detonation flung him back and through the counter. In destroying the wand, he'd released most of its magic in a single burst. Alex opened his eyes and found himself beside Roma, who was crouched, hands on her head. She was chanting to herself, “It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.” He wasn't sure why he did it, but he reached out and touched her wrist. She opened her eyes and, for a moment, it felt as though she would pull away her arm, but then she didn't. Alex wasn't quite sure of the extent of his injuries, but from the look on Roma's face, it was bad. Her expression turned from horror to anger as he stood up, his head still ringing.
She suddenly shoved past him and headed for the younger vampire who was almost free of the vines. There was no spell screen that Alex could see but he felt the lurch in the magic as Roma hissed at the younger vampire. The younger vampire put her hands up in fear, as though to block an attack, and Alex saw her fingers turn to stone. It washed over her hands, up her arms, and across her head in an instant. The older vampire screamed in such a heartbroken tone of voice that, for a moment, Zara and Summer slowed their attack. But Nia, who was now back on her feet, had no such compunction. As the younger vampire turned to stone, Nia stabbed her claws in the older vampire's back, and she instantly dropped to the ground, her spinal cord severed.
“Who hired you!” Nia roared once she'd pulled her claws free from the vampire’s back. The older woman wasn’t answering. As the younger vampire turned to stone going from the top to bottom, her legs had given out and now she appeared to be a statue as she toppled over to the ground, one of her arms snapping off, spreading a whitish-gray powder across the floor. The older vampire was looking at her and sobbing between shallow gasps.
The sudden change in the room brought the werewolves to a halt, and Alex cast healing flame, intending to use it on the vampire, but April pulled his hand back and shook her head. The vampire gave a few more gasps between sobs and then died. The change from chaos to the abrupt end of the battle was like being thrown in a vat of ice water.
Matilda was down, her leg broken in who knew how many places. Jacob was unconscious and both Summer and Zara had wounds all over them that were bleeding freely. Roma was standing in the middle of the room in front of the vampire she'd killed, her hands on her head, chanting, “It's okay,” again. Alex immediately got himself together and went to Jacob. The older vampire had done a number on him. Most of his teeth were missing, his jaw was broken, and part of his muzzle had caved in. Although Alex was wearing some healing flame rings, he cast the spell, charging up with extra mana to make it stronger, running it over Jacob's face. No matter how many times he saw it, he was still amazed at the effect of flesh reforming, teeth regrowing. Once the caved-in bit of his muzzle popped back into place, Jacob opened his eyes and then groaned before sitting up.
“Did we get them?” he asked.
“Yeah, we did,” Alex said, running the healing flame until he felt Jacob had no more serious injuries to mend. Everyone else had used their own healing flame rings on themselves to patch up their wounds, then April had gone to work on Matilda before waving Alex over to add his magic. Whatever the wand spell was, it had been incredibly powerful, and in using the healing spell, Alex could sense the depth of some the injuries. It was as though the bones in Matilda's leg had been broken into splinters. Even with charging up his mana, it took a good five minutes of healing before she was able to stand again. By then Roma had disappeared out the back door into the rear room, leaving the werewolves amongst the wreckage of her shop and the blood. Catching Alex gazing towards the back of the shop, Nia came over and touched him on the arm.
“She’s a Medusa. There’s not many of them left,” she said.
“You mean like Medusa Medusa? Snakes for hair Medusa?” he said.
“Yup, and I think she was about half a second from the snakes coming out, which wouldn’t have been good for anyone,” Nia said. Alex heard a chime as April got to work, cleansing their blood. He took a moment to look at the statue of the younger vampire that was on the ground with its arm shattered off. He went to lift it, to see if it could stand upright again, but it had clearly broken when it hit the ground, cracking somewhere down in the torso. Alex let the statue go and stepped back, unsure about what to do next. The cardboard box full of their supplies had somehow survived the destruction of the counter and the top was still on it, but Roma's shop was a mess. Most of the furniture was ruined. Streaks of blood were everywhere.
“We really need to get going soon as I’m done,” April said, casting cleanse again.
“Just give me a moment,” Alex said and went through the back door out into the room beyond. Roma was standing at the small kitchen counter, facing away from him, making a cup of tea. At least that's what he figured she'd intended to do. As he watched, he saw her adding sugar to it, stirring it, then adding sugar again, as though she had forgotten what she was doing.
“I'm sorry about your shop,” he said. Roma didn't even turn around.
“It’s not safe for you back here. You should leave,” she said in a small voice.
Alex didn't leave, however, but instead glanced across at the few statues Roma had on the other side of the room. Naked young men. When he'd first seen them he’d assumed that they were just incredible sculptures, but now he understood the truth: they had once been men but were turned to stone. Upon seeing them, he remembered the statues he'd seen at the vampire’s mansion. The vampire with his arm around Roma, and her cringing at his touch. Now that he knew their source, he wondered just how sick and twisted the supernatural world really was that a man turned into stone was considered some kind of art.
“Who is that vampire to you, the one at the mansion? What was his name?” Alex asked.
Roma finally stopped adding sugar to her tea, clinking the spoon against the cup before setting it down on the counter.
“His name is Prince. He’s my… benefactor you could say,” she said.
Although he barely knew Roma, before the thrall had hit, Alex had had some crazy thoughts, part of his mind getting annoyed that the vampire touched Roma. How dare he touch my mate? he’d thought, even though Roma wasn't. Now the thrall was gone, Alex was glad to find that those crazy feelings were too, but they weren't entirely. He felt an urge to protect her, and there was some small part of him that had definite thoughts about her being his. He didn’t like the way she said benefactor. It didn't sound like a good arrangement.
“We’ll find some way to pay you back,” Alex said.
Roma actually laughed as she picked up the spoon again, then added more sugar to the tea. She was still resolutely facing the wall.
“That wardrobe out there that your young apprentice or whatever it is you werewolves call them destroyed sells for twenty-five thousand and the coffee table was eight. I haven't quite tallied up the rest of the damage, but it's a ridiculous sum of money, so, no, I don't think you’re going to be paying me back,” Roma said.
“I give you my word. Keep working with us. Supply us and sell the things we make, and I promise we’ll pay you back for what just happened,” Alex said.
He saw Roma reach up and touch her head again, stroking her hair before she finally turned around. She had her eyes closed.
“Thank you, but now I think it's really best that you and your pack leave,” she said. Alex was suddenly c
urious about the magic she'd used, why there had been no spell screen, what Roma was exactly. Most of the furniture out in the front room was imbued with spells, and after having a wand explode in his face, Alex was now wondering why half of them hadn’t exploded upon being destroyed.
“Alex, time to get out of here,” April called from the front room.
“I’m sorry about the bodies. We could maybe come back later tonight—” Alex started to say.
“It's fine. I will dispose of them. Now go,” Roma said. She turned away again to face the wall, her hands feeling for the cup of tea that she finally picked up and sipped from although it was surely mostly sugar. Although he wanted to go closer, to touch her on the shoulder, to provide some kind of comfort for her, Alex turned on his heel and left the back room.
It wasn't long after that that they were all stuffed in the wreck of the car, Nia driving them back home. Jacob was once again in the back seat, crushed under a pile of girls, but no one was making the jokes about it like they had on the way into town. Matilda was still gritting her teeth at the pain running through her leg, the limits of healing spells having been hit.
Alex, in the front seat with the cardboard box on his lap, gazed out the window as they drove away from the city and out to the ruin of the industrial area. As the houses grew more dilapidated and the fences more rusted, it matched his mood, which was plummeting. He had no idea who the vampires were. Assassins, or perhaps there to collect the bounty.
If he hadn’t been with his pack he could have been killed. Not to mention if that first spell from the wand had landed, shattering every bone in his body. Alex tried to pull himself away from his dark thoughts by bringing up Juno’s Cantrip, but that was a mistake too. At the thought of his mate who’d been taken from him, that coal of anger began to burn again, and Alex felt the urge to shift to hybrid form, to go into the factory once they got home and shred the two captured mages to pieces.