The Stray Human: A college age urban fantasy with werewolves, werewolf community center book 1

by Abigail Smith

  “So, when he’s killed, he just returns to where he came from?” I was a little annoyed.

  “It’s hard to explain. Perhaps another time.”

  I nodded and helped one of Leonardo’s boys with a little suturing. You’d be surprised how quickly you become adept at it, or maybe I was just good with my hands.

  “In any case, we need to move on with our plan now, no matter the drop in power from the battle with the demon, no matter how much work we have to do to make it seem like we’re not demonstrating to the world that we’re a bunch of mages,” Leonardo said.

  “Not sure if anyone’s explained this to me, but if you’re more powerful than anyone, why hide the fact that you’re mages? Couldn’t you just take over the world and not have to worry about what non-magical people think?”

  “In the start, the philosophy started when a brother noticed that, despite his older brother’s proclivity for destructive and battle-focused magic, an entire army was still able to kill him in very short order,” Miriam said, folding her arms. “And the ever-quickening march of technology only made the capabilities of people who wouldn’t wait for a lengthy explanation to kill us higher than we can reach.”

  “In shorter terms, nukes beat death arrows any day,” the man I was suturing summed up.

  “Yes, quite,” Miriam said, pouting slightly as if she wanted to change that fact.

  Leonardo, his clothes now drenched in blood, walked in scowling. “The media report is nearly finished. How’s the infirmary work—” He looked down at me as I finished suturing the guy. Leonardo growled a bit, then continued to say, “Going?”

  “We should have a force roughly equivalent to sixty-seven percent of our former fighting force, keeping in mind that exhaustion will set in much sooner than normal since you kept them attacking the thing while you should have tried to contain it,” Miriam said with an icy glare.

  “Judging by the fact that the mage only fled and became vulnerable when he died, I’d say that was the only option.”

  “Says the guy who was attacking it with fire,” I said under my breath.

  I didn’t say it aloud because one, I didn’t need to start a fight in the infirmary. Two, I didn’t actually know demons were immune to fire, I just assumed it by the fact they were red and didn’t like ice.

  I walked towards the second floor after I finished up and took a look around. Several people were recovering from minor injuries. Lorenz, Gavin, and David were in the far corner of the darkroom. I looked around for Silvia as I walked over there.

  “How’re you guys holding up?” I sat down beside them and leaned back.

  “We can handle a demon, that’s the easy part. The hard part is putting them down.”

  “It’s mainly about avoiding blows and doesn’t leave much time for attacking. No martial art is very good at that since most assume your target has similar limitations to you,” David shrugged.

  “Meaning that dealing enough damage quickly is often a top priority, if not counterattacking,” Lorenz added his two cents while holding up his hand in his explanation pose.

  “Hey, Gavin, how’d you do that thingy with the claws and the spell the dude cast?” I asked.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gavin said, shifty-eyed.

  “He did something when he went off to help you?” David asked, looking confused.

  “Perhaps she saw something that looked like something else when you knocked him out of focusing on a spell?” Lorenz asked, seeing Gavin’s hesitation as just not knowing.

  I had a feeling, though, that Gavin was lying, albeit not maliciously. The mage had a burst of anger when he saw Gavin break through those chains. Heck, he got real mad Silvia could even crack one.

  “Well, I guess it was just part of your martial art of choice, which I don’t think has been explained to me. What makes savage wolf special?”

  “Well, it makes full use of transformation to confound and confuse the enemy. It takes a lot of stamina. Often, I’ll revert to Clawv Maga for less strain and gunmetal claw if the person has a gun.”

  “That’s another thing, you fight in the earth elemental plane, right? How often do you have to deal with other people with guns?”

  “Other people? Not too often. A few muggings, a few inter-magical faction fights, nothing too lethal, but other planes have beings that have mastered firearms in one form or another, and it’s good to know how to counter them.”

  “Yeah, it’s really hard to sum up the magical world in just one sitting. There’s fae, dragonkin, elemental planes, and we kinda deal with all of it.”

  “As the loyal protectors of the mundane human race,” I said with a smug smile.

  “Oh, you!” David said in a higher-pitched voice than he usually went with.

  I gave him a grin and crossed one leg over the other. I looked around for Silvia once more, and she’d disappeared.

  “Where’s Silvia?” I said, turning to Gavin first.

  “She’s fine, helping out the nurses by fetching some supplies. They are stored in the loading bay, and she often has trouble finding them, so that’s probably why you…” Gavin started.

  He looked at David, who sat beside me and had kicked his shin. It wasn’t hard but forceful enough to drag Gavin’s attention to David.

  He flicked his head to the side, and David looked at me. I turned to him, wondering what Gavin could be gesturing about, and David got up and held out his hand.

  “You know it’s kinda stuffy in here. How about we go check out the roof?” He flashed a winning smile, and I looked to the other two.

  Lorenz smiled, a little more awkwardly than I’d thought him capable, and Gavin didn’t look up. I shrugged and took his hand, and we both walked up to the roof. The roof that had a giant hole punched through it, taking up much of the front of the building.

  The damage was in the centre of the building, but a bit lopsided towards the right side. That little satellite dish, or as I realized partway through setting up the trap for the cultists, a transmitter and receiver that linked to the bugs, was still there.

  “Such soothing destruction,” I teased and turned to David.

  His eyes were angry, but not overly so, more like he was about to try and fix something. I recoiled a bit, not expecting his expression to be… so focused.

  “You’re trembling,” he said,

  I looked at him, then looked down at my hands. They trembled. My eyes went wide as I realized just how unstable I was. I took a step back, and he put his arm around me to try to help me.

  “Oh, God. Why am I trembling?” I asked, finally feeling it in my body.

  Where before I felt a dull throb or exhaustion, now a cold heavy feeling crawled through my veins and body. Every part of me seemed to want to jump, to run, to scrape, bash and get out of there. My body didn’t know whether to fight or to take flight, and all those mixed signals were bouncing around.

  “Here, let’s sit down for this,” David said as he brought me to the side of the building.

  “I…” My thoughts raced as my body twitched and convulsed.

  “Try to stay calm. Oh, God, you’re freezing,” David said, touching my bare skin, I hadn’t noticed till he said it, and then it was ice.

  He looked around, and presumably finding nothing to warm me up, shifted into hybrid form and brought me into his fur. It was quite warm, though I think that just might have been his temperature to begin with.

  “Why am I trembling? I killed before that guy, and I might not even have killed him.”

  “You’re trembling because your body isn’t used to combat,” David said, rubbing my arms to help warm me up.

  “W-what?” I looked at him, confused.

  “Adrenaline and damage are things that aren’t good for the body, but things it has to resist. You went from an adrenaline-filled situation to another and now your body’s starting to lose it,” David said.

  I shuddered, equal measures cold and scared. “W-what does that mean?” I
feared the worst.

  “It means that once this is done, you’re going to have to chill out for a good long while,” he said calmly.

  “I can’t even stay in the fight for the entire duration… what did you guys see in me?” I said, curling up a little.

  “You’re… not going to like that answer,” David said, looking me over.

  “W-why not?” I trembled a bit more.

  “In the books you read, the person taking the helm is a great fated warrior, or the only person who can keep the peace on Earth. They are special, they are the chosen one, and they rise to the occasion.” He looked up at the moon. It was waxing and nearly full but still a few days off.

  “Not everyone can be a chosen hero. Heck, even some werewolves can’t take the pressure of being two beings. It’s hard to live your life no matter what you’re doing. You become scared and overwhelmed by the sensations. There’s only one thing I’ve found as a good reprieve is having friends.”

  “Having friends?” It felt like a non-sequitur.

  “I’m going to go on a bit of a tangent, but every philosopher has started with questions, and the only thing that made them who they were was asking questions. Some asked why some people excel while others do not, some asked why they were here, others asked what being here meant.

  “There’s only one of them who truly got an answer, in my opinion. He asked what makes us happy, and he found that community was a good lead. There was a quote, I forget what it was exactly, but how I interpreted it was when you’re part of a community, happiness is just things going right.”

  “How does that pertain to me?” I was so confused at that point.

  “I’m sorry, I’m really bad at getting to the point.” He chuckled. “Because I’m going on another tangent.”

  “O-okay,” I said.

  “Lorenz and Gavin have always had my back. We were all assigned here mostly together, a year off for Gavin, a month off for Lorenz. We were the three guys who’d goof off and have some fun, run over rooftops at night as wolves, everything.

  “You know how most of the people here look down on werewolves? This wasn’t a home, it was just a barracks, but they made it a home. I felt, even though things weren’t great, I had support.

  “The first time I truly saw the power of community was down in the earth plane. There were three elementals, two were just massive, and the third was crystalline and about half their size. So, about twice the size of us. I was ordered to grapple one, and did so, and it flung me off.

  “I only just barely grabbed onto the ledge, but the plane shifted, and the ledge was turning into a wall. A hopelessness came over me, and I decided I’d let go. I closed my eyes and relaxed only to be grabbed out of mid-air and blasted with rock dust.”

  “Rock dust?”

  “Yeah, because instead of letting me go, Gavin slashed through the rock to give Lorenz room and, well, Lorenz grabbed me. Before I’d just considered myself another werewolf fatality in the sake of keeping order. It happens all the time, but because it was me, and then it meant something, they couldn’t lose one-third of all of us.

  “Then Silvia came from overseas. Gavin was very protective of her. Lorenz and I soon adopted that behaviour. Our little community grew; then, that fateful night, we were having some fun on the way to pick Silvia up. Going in wolf form just so we could walk back and stretch our legs, and we heard her howl, or more like a scream.

  “We rushed to help her, but the closer we got, the surer I was we weren’t going to make it. There was that hopelessness, but instead of giving up on myself, it meant losing a part of the community. I refused to accept it. I charged forward. And as I did, I heard a voice. Your voice, as you came in to save someone you didn’t even know.”

  “I kept your community together?” I said, looking him in his lupine eyes.

  “Well,” his demeanour changed instantly, “that and Silvia begged us to keep you! You were kinda like a sad little stray puppy, and I couldn’t say no!” He smiled and chuckled.

  I punched him. “You dick!” I said, glaring at him.

  “Now, who wants to topple the church?” he asked, standing up.

  I looked down. My arms and legs were fine. My fist was a bit red, because, yes, those furry abs were rock solid but, ultimately, I was fine.

  “That sounds like something a medieval peasant would say!”

  “Of course not. The modern revolutionary spirit wasn’t invented back then,” he said transforming back.

  Chapter 46

  Everyone formed up and took to the other roofs. Leonardo headed the charge. Miriam and her groupies held the back, doing that weird thing they were doing before. I’d assumed it was something to shield the eyes of the mundane people from whatever was transpiring.

  “This is it, solving the problem.” There was a nervous energy around me as I rode along on Silvia.

  The werewolves were quite the unlucky ones when it came to this, having to jump from building to building. The only time they could take it easy in their march was when we had to cross the street. That’s when Leonardo’s goons utilized something or other to make a bridge. Which, of course, had to remain invisible.

  We couldn’t bring any light that wasn’t from the moon above. All we had for navigation was Leonardo and the long march of people ready to get these guys.

  I rode on Silvia, who had her saddle restocked and refitted. A few jumps caused the clang of the sniper rifle hitting the roof below but, otherwise, we seemed good.

  We arrived at a more descriptive part of town shortly. A lot of boarded-up buildings and quite a few homeless were around.

  Leonardo held out his hand and took out his phone, texting Miriam who, with her followers, made some sort of illusion. Whatever it was it sent the homeless running scared. We, either inside the illusion or excluded from experiencing it, heard and saw nothing.

  “Men! In a few moments, the streets will be clear of all but us and our foes! Our base of operations has been hounded by them, but on this day, we’ll lay them so low they’ll have no choice but to disband and harass us no longer! I know we will prevail because I wouldn’t have chosen any other group of mages, enchantresses, and yes… even werewolves.”

  Silvia rolled her eyes, and I bobbed slightly. Fumnaya, who floated beside us, sighed, facepalming. She, of course, was floating thanks to her new grimoire powers.

  “Should you really be using that? The guy seemed pretty, like, attached to it.”

  “It should be fine. He wasn’t attached to it literally. It was probably just something he used to have power,” she explained. “Besides, levitation!”

  She pointed at the ground, and I looked at her floating feet. I gave her a mock smile. “I’m sure once my alchemical tutelage begins, I’ll find a potion of levitation soon enough,” I said.

  “I hope so. You’ve gotta try this! But I’m not giving up the book.”

  “Cry havoc and let loose the man dogs of war!” Leonardo shouted, lifting his hand into the air to get his goons cheering and ready for this battle.

  Each jumped onto a werewolf, and they jumped the six-story distance down to the ground. Once there, they dismounted and marched on the church.

  “Get ready,” I said, holding on tightly to the saddle.

  No matter how many times you drop six stories with a werewolf, the sinking in the pit of your stomach that informs you that you’re falling never goes away. Why it’s there, making you all tense when you could try to do something to mitigate the fact that you’re falling, is just a slap in the face.

  So, I fluttered with the knowledge I’d be falling like that rather soon. I gripped harder onto the saddle, hoping the fall wouldn’t damage the sniper rifle any more than the ride over here did.

  Fumnaya just floated down above us. She couldn’t fly, per se, only levitate, but it did slow her fall. Though she could probably still get to terminal velocity judging by the harsh dip before she rose back up. This was probably why most wizards in the pack grabbed a werewolf
to jump off with.

  Silvia jumped down, I tensed up, and she bounced at the landing, evening out the forces and making sure we were safe. Though since she had much more weight on her than the others, not to mention the fact she was just a teen, she took the landing a bit harder.

  As far as I could tell, the werewolves’ ability to jump from this high up wasn’t a supernatural ability. Just the result of being a bit wider, having four legs, and the strength of a person and a wolf.

  Most likely, a ten-story or further highrise would render them crushed by gravity as much as any other being. I took the alchemical gun in one hand. It’d been pre-filled after a cleaning from the last battle. It was loaded with fire, lightning, and a force blast Silvia told me she’d teach me later.

  I set it onto the force option; that way, if something came up, I’d be able to blast it back and have time to think about which aspect would be most effective.

  The doors were burst open, and the mages summoned their balls of fire. Then they stopped. They looked in, and looked around, searching for… anything really. Leonardo charged towards them to see what was going on.

  The church was fairly plain, with dark wooden pews, a lighter wooden altar, with some electronically lit candelabras beside it. Inside was a bunch of gear, but not people.

  The entire church was empty. Well, not empty. On each pew was a couple of bags, some clothes, and other personal belongings. Personal belongings that’d smell like people. We got up to see it ourselves as we filed inside. I chuckled to myself, which garnered the attention of both Silvia and Fumnaya.

  “Pew, pew, pew!” I said like an idiot, but I didn’t care. It was funny.

  Fumnaya just shrugged, but Silvia seemed to take it personally and let out a whine.

  Leonardo looked like he was about to blow a gasket, and he turned around to the pack of wolves behind him. They were already sniffing the packs and looking around.

  One barked next to one wall. The mages walked towards it, expectantly.

  “That’s just a wall, doesn’t even have a painting on it or decoration,” Leonardo said, putting the pieces together.