by Harry Nix
“You picked the wrong house, werewolf,” a voice said. Alex managed to open his eyes to find a diminutive old lady in her nightgown standing in the kitchen with her hand splayed out. She looked like she was in her eighties, with deep wrinkles on her face and curls of grey hair. She was also ridiculously thin in that way that old ladies can be. Despite her age and size, her blue eyes were alive, and her immense power was undeniable.
“Stop, I’m with Juno,” Alex said. It was hard to keep his eyes open. Whatever was pressing him against the wall felt like it had grits of sand in it. He could already feel the skin on his face abrading. The old lady did something with a hand and the magic changed. He was still stuck up against the wall, held by an immense force, but the abrading quality of the spell, and the roar of the air, vanished.
“Who's Juno to you?” The old lady said.
“She’s my –” For a moment Alex was going to say mate, but then his brain threw in girlfriend as well and somehow in the shock, it all mashed together. “My matefriend. I mean girl… she’s my mate,” he finally said.
The old lady narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips.
“Prove it,” she said.
“She’s blonde, and I… I lived here with her, me and Nia. The ketchup’s in the bottom cupboard.”
“Anyone who broke in could know that. Tell me something no one else could know and maybe I’ll believe you.”
“Juno’s a chaos witch. When she gets upset she frosts over things and makes it rain.”
The old lady did something with her hand and the pressure on Alex's chest increased tenfold, making it hard to breathe. He suddenly shifted, almost against his will, stretching out to eight feet in height, his weight increasing. His werewolf body was stronger than his human one, and the pressure on him decreased.
“Everybody knows that about chaos witches, and if you knew her you’d know that different things happen, not just frost, so I’m going to ask you one more time, tell me something that no one else could know,” she said in a voice that was low and full of menace.
Alex racked his brain but it was hard to think while pressed up against the wall. His leg was hurting too. He must've cut it when he was pulled through the window. He didn't know who this old lady was, but his best guess was that it was Juno's grandmother. What could he say to her? I know the sounds your granddaughter makes in bed?
“You're the one who put the spell on Boris, and all of the stuff in your break-in bag is bedazzled, including your night-vision goggles and your crowbar,” he said, hoping it would be enough.
The old lady harrumphed, sounding almost like Bailey for a moment, but then she smiled at him.
“My name is Ruby. You must be Alex. Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Nice to meet you too,” Alex said, still stuck up against the wall.
“If you're a strong alpha werewolf, the very first lesson you need is to how to escape a spell. So, push and escape, if you can,” Ruby said. She brought up her other hand, and the pressure on Alex increased tenfold again. He could barely breathe now. The wall behind him, which was just a simple kitchen wall, suddenly felt as hard as steel.
Alex strained against the spell, but he could hardly move, only an inch at a time. He saw Ruby gritting her teeth and a bead of sweat run down her face as she increased the power of the spell. He was sure that if only he could breathe, he’d be able to outlast her. Then Alex remembered that he wasn't just simply a werewolf but also a mage, and for a moment cursed himself that it didn't come naturally to him to immediately think to use a spell. He couldn’t move, but he could still bring up a spell screen.
He mentally selected flame shield and cast it by willing it to be. The flames immediately burst out around him but did nothing to stop the spell holding him against the wall.
“Impressive but not enough. Try again, Wolfie,” Ruby said.
Alex suddenly saw where Juno got it from. He’d heard that tone of voice before. He had flames around him now, and the wall behind him was blackening, but the pressure was increasing still and he began to see stars as he began to run out of oxygen.
He went back to his spell screen but he had nothing that was really an offensive spell. Sure, he could make a line of fire stretch out from his fingertip but given that he was pinned against the wall, what use would that do except maybe burn the floor.
His gaze landed on telekinesis, and then across to the kitchen bench where there was a sugar container.
Alex hoped Juno's grandmother was forgiving. Hell, hoped that Juno herself was forgiving. He focused on the sugar container, charged up telekinesis with a dose of pain, and then shot it off the bench and into the side of Ruby’s head. It exploded against her in a burst of light, sugar scattering across the room. Alex realized she must've had some kind of shield, but the force of the sugar container, charged up with pain mana, had breached it momentarily. She dropped the spell that was holding him to the wall, and he crashed to the ground as grains of sugar rained down upon them both.
Ruby had gone down on one knee, panting. Then she looked up at him with a mad grin. She had a trickle of blood running down the side of her face.
“That's more like it, White Fang,” she said.
She stood up, and Alex did the same. He turned to check the wall and saw it was blackened in the shape of a werewolf but, thankfully, not on fire. The sugar container was destroyed and there were grains of sugar everywhere. In his hybrid form, he towered over Ruby. It looked like she was struggling to reach five feet. He knew though that her diminutive size was no indicator of her power.
They stood there for a moment before Ruby cast a spell as she pressed her hand to the cut on her head. It was so fast Alex barely saw a flicker of her spell screen. A moment later she pulled her hand away and the cut was healed.
“I'll give you some training in return for a favor,” Ruby said.
Alex resisted rolling his eyes. What was it with witches and favors anyway? Could they ever just help someone? He didn't get a chance to answer because there was the sound of a car skidding outside, the door slamming, and then the front door of the house crashing open like someone had almost torn it off its hinges. Juno came bolting into the kitchen wide-eyed and then skidded to a stop when she saw the tableau: the burn mark on the wall, Alex in his hybrid form, his shredded boxer shorts on the ground, and Ruby standing there, uninjured but with blood still streaked on the side of her face, surrounded by sugar all over the floor. Alex expected Juno to scream or yell, probably at him, but she turned on Ruby instead.
“No deal, old woman. No favors. No deals. Nothing, capiche?” she said, pointing a finger. Then Juno turned to Alex.
“What did she do to you? Have you promised anything? Please tell me you haven’t promised anything!” she said.
“I haven't, I didn't –” Alex started to say.
But Juno wasn't listening. She turned back to Ruby. “He’s new. He doesn't know what he's doing, and anything he said is null and void completely. There’s no deal, none,” she said, chopping her hands together.
Ruby smiled at Alex, but there was a slyness to it.
“Your young man and I were just having a lovely conversation and discussing how I could help his magical training, weren’t we Alex?” Ruby said.
“Uh…” Alex said
“There is no deal, no deal, no way, no how, not if I don't agree,” Juno said, pointing a finger at her grandmother.
Ruby swatted Juno's finger away. “We didn't make a deal. I was woken up to a half-naked man breaking in through the kitchen window, so I smacked him up against the wall. Turns out it was your man, breaking in for some reason.”
Juno looked back to Alex and then at his shredded boxer shorts on the floor.
“Why are his boxer shorts torn up?”
“Abrading spell… plus at my age I don't get too many opportunities to look, so I thought I'd look. Well done by the way,” Ruby said, grinning at Alex.
“Uh,” Alex said. Then suddenly Juno whirled on him, a
dvancing and poking him in the chest with a finger.
“And you! Disappearing in the middle of the night! Making a false trail! Dumping your clothes somewhere before running up a creek so we couldn't find you? What are you playing at?” she said, yelling at the end.
Alex felt the temperature in the room suddenly drop, Juno's anger setting off her magic.
“I was sleepwalking. It wasn't me. I went to sleep outside Stephen's room and then woke up in the park outside my blown-up building just like last time,” Alex said.
Juno was bristling, breathing heavily like she’d just run a race. She stomped a foot on the floor.
“Wolves!” she growled before letting out a long breath and wrapping her arms around Alex.
“Hello?” Nia called out from the front door.
“Anyone home? Is everything okay?” April said.
“We’re in here,” Juno called out, her face still pressed against Alex. He wrapped his arms around her and realized that she was crying. Then, April and Nia appeared in the doorway, both of them glancing at the burned wall, Ruby, the shredded boxer shorts, and the spread sugar granules.
“Okaaaay,” Nia said.
“Nia, April, so good to see you,” Ruby said, stretching her arms out and giving both of them an enormous hug. Despite the strangeness of the situation. Alex suddenly realized that he and his three mates were all here in Baxter, and that meant no one was back at the village guarding Stephen.
“Where’s Stephen? Is he still alive?” Alex asked.
“He’s outside in the trunk. Don't worry, he's alive,” April said.
Ruby stepped back from her hug and clapped her hands together.
“Who wants some breakfast?” she said, smiling at the group of them.
8
It turned out that Ruby's version of asking them if they wanted breakfast was actually just forcing her granddaughter Juno to cook it all. Soon, Juno was in the kitchen, clattering pots and pans and grumbling away to herself.
There had been a short debate about what to do about Stephen. April and Nia told Alex that he was mage cuffed again, locked in the trunk with no way out. It was slowly getting warmer outside, but it wasn't hot yet, so he wasn't going to cook to death. Alex wanted to talk to his mates and Ruby without Stephen hearing so consented for now to leave the kid out there, although Nia did go outside and move Boris into the garage rather than leaving him on the street.
Alex had gone to Juno's room and found some of his clothes that he’d left behind. He shifted out of his hybrid state and got dressed. Soon he was back in the lounge with Nia, April, and Ruby. Juno was slamming pots around quite loudly in the kitchen.
“You can cook breakfast quieter you know,” Ruby called out. She had a teacup of black coffee which she sipped before she pulled out a small silver flask from somewhere and topped up the cup. Alex sat there on the sofa, his mind whirling but inside he was thinking that Ruby, Lydia, and Esme would get along incredibly well.
“So, we followed your trail until we found your clothes by a creek where you’d dumped them. You must've run up the creek to try to block your scent. That's when we decided to come straight to Baxter,” Nia said, finishing telling the story.
Apparently, it was around one in the morning when someone had realized that Alex was missing. April had been left behind to guard Stephen, and Juno and Nia and some of the pack members had gone to follow Alex's trail, discovering he’d dumped his clothes. They had then raced back to the village, collected April and Stephen, and made their way as fast as they could to the car park where Boris was.
“You really don't remember any of it?” April said, touching Alex on the arm. There was a cool tingle from her fingertips and a light chime as she cast a spell. Alex was happy for her to do it. As she touched him, he felt a wave of relaxation, something he desperately needed right now.
The attacks, the mages, the reanimated dead, silver bombs, the blood golem… it was all bad enough but vanishing? Alex couldn't work out why his sleeping self had laid a false trail. Had it been trying to buy itself time? Alex almost felt like he was thinking of another person. Someone inhabiting his body while he was asleep.
He shook his head and sighed. “It's just black. I went to sleep outside the door and woke up next to a tree, looking at a pile of burnt rubble,” he said.
“Could be a spell. I could check that for you… if you agree to do me a favor,” Ruby said.
“No favors!” Juno shouted from the kitchen and there was an enormous clang of frying pans.
Alex was feeling calmer thanks to the influence of whatever it was April was doing and with that calmness, he saw the opportunity to stir up his little witch mate a little more.
“What kind of favor?” he said loud enough Juno to hear.
“I’m thinking a heist,” Ruby said and sipped her coffee, a wicked smile on her lips.
They heard cursing from the kitchen before the door opened and Juno came out, holding a meat tenderizing hammer. She pointed it at her grandmother.
“I am dead serious. There are no favors happening, not without my permission. And you, don't make deals with witches when you don't understand what you’re doing,” she said.
“What are you talking about? You made me promise you a favor, just for a simple cleanse spell. I didn't know what I agreed to. What did I agree to?” Alex said.
“Yes, darling granddaughter, what was Alex agreeing to when you demanded a favor from him?” Ruby said. She still wore that wicked smile.
“Everyone… shut up. I’m cooking breakfast,” Juno said and stormed back to the kitchen.
“It's important if you have a chaos witch wife to make her a little crazy every now and again,” Ruby said.
Alex relaxed more, April’s spell working on him, the unreality of this morning slowly fading away. Okay, so he'd run miles and, apparently, laid a false trail while he was asleep. He could accept that. Hadn't he planned to come to Baxter anyway? Sure, it hadn't happened the way he wanted but now he was here, so were his mates, and so was Stephen, albeit locked in Boris’ trunk.
There was a problem with the rest of the pack though. They were, presumably, still back at the village. If there was another attack there was no one to heal them. There wasn’t even anyone there with a Purify spell in case they stepped on any specks of silver left from the bombs.
Alex turned to Nia. “I don't know what to do about the rest of the pack. Are they going to be safe?”
Nia squeezed his thigh. “They’re as safe as any other werewolf pack is, which is to say probably not safe at all. Oh, I heard from my father too. The attack was necromancers. Six reanimated soldiers and silver bullets, just like us. His land is far better protected than ours though. The dead soldiers stumbled into a minefield. Only one werewolf got shot but it was a minor injury. They didn't catch the necromancers who sent the dead, though,” she said.
“Necromancers attacking werewolves? It must be a Tuesday,” Ruby said sarcastically.
“They did it to us too. Set off silver bombs over the village. That kid Stephen out in Boris's trunk flew a drone,” Alex said.
Ruby raised her eyebrows. “And he’s still alive? Does he still have both hands and feet? You haven't made him a castrato?” she asked.
“The last time I saw him, he was intact and fine. I want to use him to crack his enclave in half,” Alex said.
“Oh, not just a werewolf mage, but a scheming werewolf mage. I can see what my granddaughter sees in you.”
Thanks to April’s calming spell, Alex was beginning to think more clearly now. He also realized that outside of April, Juno, and Nia, that Ruby was another magic user, a witch and, apparently, an incredibly powerful one. Sure, she was asking for favors—something that Juno seemed apparently adamantly opposed to—but Alex wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity for information or anything that could improve their position.
“The mages and weredogs have been after me since just before my twenty-fifth birthday, which wasn't that long ago. Apparen
tly, I'm the one and only werewolf mage in the world, but I need help. I need someone to teach me more spells and someone to give me advice. If the cost of that is a favor, I’d seriously consider paying it. I have that junior necromancer out in Boris's trunk and a vague plan of sending him back, trying to get in contact with another necromancer who I think can help me but I’m all ears about any other ideas you might have,” he said.
“Don't offer favors to witches. Hasn't Juno taught you anything? I need to know the whole story first before we go down that path,” Ruby said.
“Breakfast!” Juno shouted out from the kitchen.
Over breakfast, which was bacon and egg, fried red pepper, mushrooms, and coffee, Alex told Ruby the story. He’d done this before, of course, with Julius and even as he told it he realized he was disconnecting from it. The sheer terror of his apartment block being detonated, of leaping out the window and crashing to the ground… as strange as it sounded, it was fading. It wasn't some terrifying event that had happened to him, but a description of a terrifying event, one step removed, the vividness of it vanishing. Even the original encounter with the weredog in the cold alleyway had lost some of its power. The weredog had crunched his arm, torn into his jugular. Alex could clearly remember seeing the spray of his own blood jetting up into the air, but sometimes as he spoke it was like he was reading the cold facts of a medical report.
Ruby didn't say much really, grunting and nodding as she shoveled food into her mouth, putting away quite a lot considering her size. Sometimes Juno, Nia, or April added their own details and it wasn't long before they finished breakfast and caught up with the present.
