Rise of the Alphas

by Alexis Davie

  Garrick’s grin was almost certainly ridiculous.

  “You look weird, Garrick,” Brinley said. “Stop making that face.”

  “I can’t, Brin. You’re probably the most powerful witch in the world. In the nation, for sure. Once you learn to control your powers, you could do amazing things. A Valentine witch is just what the council needs. We’ve been fractious for centuries! Why would your father keep this from you?”

  “I don’t remember my mom being particularly powerful, or really doing anything but domestic magic. Maybe he didn’t know?” She took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “Look, can we talk about something that isn’t my dad? It’s bumming me out.”

  Changing the subject was like pushing a cork back into a bottle of champagne. As if that awful warlock didn’t know. He was probably jealous. Warlocks were rarely as powerful as witches, even high warlocks. He’d been hoping Brin would never come into her power, would never know.

  “Okay,” Garrick agreed. “One last thing—who first showed you the book?”

  Brinley smiled. Remembering, he supposed. “My mother. At night, sometimes she would slip into my room and let me hold it, let me trace the family tree. Oh, yeah, I see where you’re coming from.”

  “Did your dad find out about her showing you the book?”

  Brinley finished her slice and took another. “I can’t do this now, Garrick. I really can’t. I’m taking a couple of slices for the road. I promise we’ll talk about everything tomorrow and come up with a brilliant plan to deal with Xander, impress the council, and save me from the doom of married life. But my brain is overflowing with new information. I need to sleep.”

  He knew she would say no before he even offered her a bed, but he did it anyway. She said no.

  “Let me walk you, at least?” She was standing. He was still sitting.

  “I’m not a child!” It was almost a shout. “Sorry… stressed. Today was a lot. I’ll be fine. I need some time alone. The walk will do me good.”

  Garrick knew he wasn’t going to win. He remained sitting as she walked out the front door, two slices of pizza piled in her hand.

  16

  Brinley

  Outside, the night air was cool on Brin’s skin. She shoved about half of a slice of pizza into her mouth, hoping she remembered the way to Mollie Meitner’s and that she still had that key.

  Tonight had been more than she had bargained for. Well, how could she possibly have bargained for any of it? The stuff about her father trading her, and their family’s most prized and apparently powerful possession, was quite the shock. And now all of Garrick’s crap about the Valentines. She didn’t believe it, not really. Then again, Garrick had been around a long time. Maybe it used to be true, and their powers had weakened over time. Or maybe she was a dud.

  She passed by the slip road to the motorway and under a railway bridge, walking past a closed coffeeshop and a brightly lit bar. She was on her final slice of pizza. Her hand was greasy, and she wiped it on her dress. It was black, so it was fine.

  The thing she was most furiously attempting not to think about, as she made her way through the dark London streets, down onto a canal towpath, and then back up again to cross an A-road, was Garrick. Either he had undergone serious changes in the last day and a half, or she’d met him at a very strange moment. He’d seemed so… done. So bored. She didn’t want to admit it, but in the orange glow of a streetlight that lit cracked pavement and her scuff-toed boots, she had to. It felt like something was drawing them together. And it wasn’t just that the sex—the one time, one time they had done it—had been fantastic. Or that she couldn’t look at him without wanting him to touch her, wanting to taste him and feel him push into her—

  Brin nearly tripped on an uneven curb. She shook the images from her head.

  It wasn’t just that. It was that they had been in the right place at the right time, right for one another. And that he made her laugh, and that they had slipped so very quickly into a pattern. That she could read him better than she’d ever read anyone before. Or some of him, she was unsure about some central nugget, the eye of that storm within him.

  Whatever was happening between them, some part of this ridiculous universe needed them to be doing this together. To be sorting this shitshow with Xander out together, and hopefully her situation, too.

  Then she was on the sewage-smelling road. She tried to open the gate quietly, but

  apparently, that was impossible. She made her way up the steps and was about to ring the bell, realizing she’d been given only a room key, when the door opened.

  Mollie was wearing an absolutely voluminous nightgown, with a pattern of pink roses all over it. It rather blended in with her rosy face.

  “Ah ha!” Mollie cried cheerfully. “And I thought we had a stop out. Where have you been all evening, Alice?”

  Brinley was taken aback, but she remembered almost falling down the steps when she arrived earlier and didn’t step backwards.

  “I was seeing friends,” she said.

  Mollie smiled. “Friends round here, hmm? Couldn’t stay with them?”

  Brin shook her head. “They have a very small flat and… a… a baby.” She was so bad at this! She really would get an F at spy school.

  “Late to be up with a baby. Was the poor lamb crying?”

  “They got a sitter. Mollie, can I come in?”

  “Oh, my!” Mollie Meitner laughed and touched her fingers to her forehead. “Of course, dear. Silly me.” Just like last time, she squeezed as flat as she could against the door (not very), and Brin pushed past her, trying to remain polite. Having learned her lesson on the back and forth squeezing, though, she headed right into the hall, towards the stairs. Mollie slammed the door so hard that Brin jumped.

  “Oops!” Mollie said. “Butter fingers!” And then she rushed, in her waddling way, past Brinley, towards the stairs. “Don’t mind me,” she said, “back to bed! Been lying awake waiting for you, you see.”

  What time even was it? Surely not late.

  “Bad knee,” Mollie complained as she faltered and then stopped on the second stair. A bad knee seemed unlikely for a witch, unless she’d got it in some kind of battle. Maybe domestic magic gone wrong. By the smell of Mollie’s cooking, she wasn’t the best at it.

  “Anything I can do?” Brin asked, though she just wanted Mollie to shift so she could lie down in the creaky, lumpy bed and sleep. She was hoping not to dream, not to have to think at all once her head hit the pillow. Though she knew this was rather a pie in the sky dream, what with how her thoughts had been flying around on her walk back to the boarding house.

  “Oh, no, thank you sweetheart, I just need a minute.”

  Brin leaned against the wall at the bottom of the stairs and let her head fall back and rest again the light, seventies-style wood paneling. She closed her eyes. There was a racket inside her head. Somebody’s volatile emotions smacking off the walls of her skull. Were they her own, or…?

  “Tired?” came Mollie’s voice. “Big day, was it, with those friends?” She was looking back at Brinley from the step she was standing on. When Brin opened her eyes, she rubbed at her knee.

  “Yeah,” Brin said. “Look, Mollie, can I help you up to your room? I’m totally shattered. I just need to—”

  “I said to give me a minute!” Mollie barked this in a voice Brin hadn’t heard from her before. She was silenced and shocked into standing up straight.

  A couple of minutes passed, neither woman speaking. There were some creaks from upstairs; floorboards and bed springs, Brinley assumed. Then Mollie began her slow tromp up to the first landing.

  “Sorry, Alice, dear,” she said when she arrived on the first floor, with its selection of pink rugs. “It’s so sore, makes me a real piece of work sometimes.” She was still standing in Brin’s way, but Brin mounted the steps anyway. She was almost face-to-face with Mollie when the woman finally moved back. “I’m in here,” Mollie said, pointing to a door. “Knock if you need any
thing.” Brin nodded. “Night, Alice.”

  Thunk, thunk, thunk, irritation, confusion, guilt, anger—they were throwing themselves around inside Brin. She felt ill.

  “Night, Mollie,” she said, turning to the next set of stairs. She must have looked as odd as she felt, because Mollie stayed outside her bedroom door watching the younger, slighter witch make her way to bed.

  Brin made it to the floor of maroon carpets, then purple carpets, then her own attic floor. She had her key ready in her hand, but the door swung open when she tried to unlock it. Odd. This place was falling apart. And anyway, maybe she hadn’t locked it behind her? She’d been in a rush. Looking into the room, she remembered why. Everything looked moth eaten and even more grimy than it had earlier now that she was comparing it to Garrick’s chic and massive warehouse.

  She entered the room, dropped her purse, and sat on the bed. This, also, felt even less comfortable than before. Garrick’s bed was cloud-like. The kind of thing an angel might be found playing a harp on. Hell, even his recliners were better than this thing. Experimentally, Brinley bounced herself lightly up and down. The bed creaked, and springs dug into her butt cheeks.

  Great. So, not only was her head clanging, but she might actually be ripped to shreds by her mattress. She was going to get a great night’s sleep. And tomorrow was important, they had a lot to work out. She had half a mind to get up and go back to Garrick’s, but that would seem so tail-between-legs after she had left abruptly. Crap! She had left so abruptly she’d forgotten the book! It was still on top of the cupboard where she had left it this morning. Perfectly safe, she supposed, but she felt antsy without it. Like she should keep it within sight at all times, seeing as it was not only a family heirloom but also potentially the only chance she and Garrick had of saving the magical realm. She laughed to herself at this. It was too dramatic to really sink in, all this immortal hero crap. She’d just been running from an arranged marriage, and even that had seemed like a lot.

  Too tired to get up, Brin looked at the still-ajar door. She recited a closing spell in her head. She had used this too many times as a teenager, and out of habit or the way she had learned the spell, the door slammed shut loudly.

  Brinley jumped, and again, the bed screamed. Then she heard the bathroom door open. It had to be the breeze from the slamming door. But as Brin turned her head to check, she caught a flash of black in the mirror. A streak of it. And then someone or something had her by the back of the neck.

  Hitting out behind her, Brin tried to scream, but a hand was over her mouth. The hand was bony and cold and smelled and tasted like old onions. Before she could even make a conscious decision, Brinley was biting down. There was a shriek, and her mouth was released. She tasted blood. She spat. She was about to rise and turn, but now something had her ankles. Something from under the bed.

  She looked down, and now she did scream. It was a snake. Even in a room this bad, she didn’t expect a snake in London. Brin stood, snake around her ankles, and stumbled sideways into the dresser. It was a good job she did, because a bolt of green hit the wall. The snake had to be some kind of constrictor, because it was doing just that, wrapped tight around her ankles.

  When she pushed herself up off the dresser, she managed to turn. The man from downstairs was standing in front of her, cane in hand. His moustache was askew, and he was grinning, showing crooked and yellowed teeth. His eyes were black, like two beetles.

  “Daddy wants you home, little witch,” he said, trying to coax her towards him with a skinny, large-knuckled index finger. His spell was pulling on her, but she resisted. He lifted his cane. He must be using it as his wand, to direct and magnify his spell. Still, it wasn’t hard to stay where she was, though she was losing sensation in her feet where the snake was cutting off blood flow. It must be a familiar, the snake. Unusual these days for reasons of animal welfare, but still sometimes a thing.

  “A snake?” she asked, trying to combine expressions of derision and calm and probably doing a bad job. “Little on the nose for an evil bastard like you, isn’t it?”

  “Goading me won’t work, darling,” said the crooked little man. “I only change my mind for money. And your daddy has a lot more than you do.”

  Mollie’s funny business on the stairs suddenly made sense. She’d been stalling. If Brin’s head hadn’t been so loud… But that had been Mollie, hadn’t it? Maybe it had been everyone in the house. Maybe they all knew. And she had used her name, her assumed name, twice. She’d spat it at her. Stupid Garrick, stupid distracting feelings. And now she was going to be murdered by a second-rate warlock with a snake familiar.

  Of course he wouldn’t kill her, though. He wanted…

  “The book,” he said, almost squeakily. “Where’s the book of Valentine?”

  Brin smiled. If the book had wanted to come with her, it would have reminded her of its presence while she was at Garrick’s. Clever, clever book.

  “The book?” She tried to look confused, knotting her eyebrows. “What book do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” spat the warlock. “Give me the book, and you’re free to go.”

  “The book… the book…” She tapped the side of her face, chewed her bottom lip. “Oh! The gross old spell book? I lost that. Who would want it? Practically rotten.”

  His eyes narrowed, and the snake tightened around her shins, began making its way up to her knees.

  “Your father wants his book back, little girl, and I am going to give it to him. Now, I’ll ask again: where is the book?”

  Brinley didn’t have anything to direct her magic, but she rarely used a wand, anyway. She flicked a hand to fling a hex. He was so damn skinny. And now he was swaying from foot to foot, a moving target. The hex hit the wall. It had only been meant to knock the cane out of his hand, as his white knuckles around it told her he needed it badly, but it missed and hit the mirror. The glass shattered and rained onto the floor. Then, to Brin’s surprise, the wallpaper behind it caught fire.

  “Fuck!” she cursed.

  The warlock had startled and was looking at Brin big-eyed, his smile melted. Brin was shaken. That was not supposed to happen. And the damn snake was getting tighter and tighter.

  Should she keep this idiot act up, or should she tell him that her father needed her and the book, so he may as well let her go until he found it? No, why give up information? She nodded another curse towards him. Trying something lighter, a dizzy spell, hoping it would get the snake, too, as they were connected like all warlocks and familiars, on a soul and a brain level.

  The curse barely glanced off him. It hit a shoulder, but he pitched forwards, and in a second, Brinley was covered in vomit and bile.

  She screamed. Then there was a crack, and another, and she was screaming louder. The snake had broken something. More than one something. She couldn’t think to heal herself, could barely think at all. The warlock was picking himself up off the floor, clambering up the bedstead, supporting himself against it. He smiled again, chunks of solid matter from his stomach now between his teeth. He withdrew something from his pocket. As everything began to go fuzzy, Brin recognized it as an ornament from above her father’s office fireplace. A small wooden ship. He must have enchanted more objects for travel, she thought, but the thought was very far away from her.

  “You’ll have to do,” she heard the warlock say, as though he was far away in a very echoey cave. “He’ll pay for his daughter.” He reached for her.

  Brin wanted to laugh, to say, “I’m not so sure he will,” but she couldn’t. The world was darkening, and then she was gone.

  17

  Garrick

  Garrick went to the window when the door slammed behind Brinley. She was a small, dark figure walking down his narrow street, and then she was around the corner and gone. He ate another slice of pizza, then put the rest in the fridge.

  She was smart, she would be fine. She was willful, though. She would probably do something she knew was a bad idea, just to prove a po
int. Like, for example, that she didn’t need or didn’t want him.

  There were probably people after her. Or there would be soon.

  Garrick was pacing the living room. He was going to worry about her all night. He was going to hanker after seeing her all night.

  He gave it a few more minutes. He paced more. And then he muttered, “Screw it,” to himself.

  He grabbed his small canvas bag, the one with the long strap, and headed out. He opened the garage door, stripped to his underwear, and he slung the bag over his shoulder where it would still fit in the joint to his wing.

  It was dark out, with a bright moon hung above the rooftops. He would have to be careful. And he would just fly to the boarding house and check she was asleep. She’d be asleep by now. She’d said the attic. He’d just glance, just make sure she was safe in bed, and then he’d come home, and he might be able to sleep.

  The shift was as blunt as usual. He had been doing it since he was a teenager, and at first, it had obviously hurt: the stretching, the hardening, the new and strange shape. But over time, he had become two Garricks. He was Garrick the man and Garrick the dragon. They coexisted and overlapped. Sometimes his dragon wanted something he didn’t, and vice versa. If he didn’t change or fly for a long time, his dragon would be restless and fight him, try to take over. But that had rarely happened. Mostly, the dragon was protection, and his skin would become scaled when exposed to great heat. His eyes would widen and reshape to see in the dark.

  The great, silver-green dragon was clumsy on its prehistoric feet. He had to duck and keep his wings tucked to get out of the garage. In the narrow street, there was a certain angle he had to stand at to flap his wings; wings that were large enough to achieve lift off with no run-up. They were built like a bat’s, with great flaps of skin like webbing that caught the air and lifted him almost straight up.