by Devon Monk
We had made our way down the corridor and were aiming toward the exit nearest where Duncan had parked.
It was dark outside, the sky mottled with clouds. It would probably rain soon.
“It’s a lot of things, I guess.”
“You are killing me here with the vague answers.”
“Seeing the shifts in the third…” The images of all the magic-infected people dropping to their knees while the normals shouted and cheered from the stands, rolled through my mind.
“You’ve seen guys shift before.” Duncan’s tone was calm.
“I’m still getting used to being here. To belonging here.”
“Here as in Portland? Or the team?”
“Portland’s my home. I’ll always belong here. But the team…” I just left that hanging.
“You belong.” Said with authority he should not possess. “Coach wouldn’t have picked you if he didn’t want you.”
“I’m not complaining.”
He slid a look at me. “Right.”
“Okay, so I’m complaining. But that doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. I’m just trying to figure out how the hell to do this.”
“Play hockey? Well, see, that’s easy. You take your little stick and hit the flat rubber disk into a net.”
“My stick is not little.” I laughed.
“That’s what they all say, brother.”
We pushed out onto the bricked courtyard in front of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where a few people lingered in the hazy light from street lamps. Traffic was thick, but moving pretty well out of the parking garages and onto streets.
“Hazard! Hey!”
I knew that voice: Genevieve.
She sat on the curved brick median that framed the courtyard like a wave. A woman about her age with bright white hair sat next to her. I recognized her as the other guitarist in her band.
I lifted my hand.
“Still lame,” Duncan muttered.
“Shut up.”
Genevieve stood, dusted the back of her jeans, then sort of hopped down the steps and walked toward me, her friend following.
“Hey,” she said when we were close enough not to yell.
“Hi. Sorry I’m a loser.”
Her eyes went wide.
“I mean the game. That I lost. That we lost. The, you know, that the game sucked.”
“Are you kidding me?” Her face lit up with that smile. “It was amazing! You didn’t tell me hockey was so fun, and so fast, and so bang, pow! Why didn’t anyone tell me hockey was such a rock-n-roll contact sport? Like roller derby with sticks and walls to slam into.”
Uh, it was nothing like roller derby.
“Maybe you’re hanging out with the wrong people?” Duncan suggested. Then he stuck his hand out. “Duncan Spark.”
She shook his hand and I realized she looked surprised that he was standing next to me.
Her eyes had been on me, and me alone. Like she hadn’t noticed anyone with me.
That sent a warm tingly vibration down my spine. I liked that she was looking at me. Seeing me.
“Genevieve Brooks,” she said. “And this is my friend, Pippa Li.”
“Hey.” Duncan shook her hand too, and when she smiled, it made her dark brown eyes spark.
“Hey,” she said. “So you’re on the team too?”
“Yep. I’m the handsome one.”
I smacked him.
“I saw you out there,” Genevieve said. “You two played at the same time. What does that make you?”
“Linemates,” I said, hoping her attention would turn back to me. It did. Warmth bloomed from my chest, pushing lower and higher. “Fourth line.”
She shook her head and grinned. “I have no idea what that means, but it sounds important and cool? Is your head okay?”
I rubbed at my forehead. She was full of energy, animated, excited. The side of her I’d seen at the doctor’s office was smart and composed, the singer side of her was passionate and focused. And hockey Genevieve? Well, she looked like she needed rocks tied around her feet to keep her on the ground.
“It’s good. No big deal.”
“Yeah, my man Haz is tough as nails. Little love tap like that wouldn’t put him down,” Duncan said as he slung an arm across my shoulders.
I rolled my eyes and Genevieve’s dimples pressed little shadows on either side of her mouth. I wanted to step closer to her to erase the space between us. Then I wanted to tip her head up, because she was still an inch or two shorter than me, even in those rocker boots of hers. I would rub my thumb right there, at the edge of her lips, tracing the indents of her smile. And then I’d follow my thumb with my mouth.
“Concussion?” she asked, snapping me out of my little fantasy. “That’s nothing to mess with. Especially with wizards.” There was Work Genevieve, that serious tone that sounded like she’d drive me to the emergency room if I didn’t make it clear that I was not brain-bruised.
“Trainer looked at me. Says I’m clear. No concussion. I have a headache, but took a couple pain pills. Did I pass the test, doctor?”
She leaned a little closer, her eyes darting back and forth as she stared at first one of my eyes then the other. Close enough I could smell her perfume—wildflowers that I suddenly couldn’t get enough of—and could feel her breath, a puff of warmth in the cool night air.
I liked this. Everything in me liked this. And it seemed like I should make a move. Maybe touch her, or say something. Ask her on a date. But I was struck still again. Unable to move or look away from the light that was Genevieve Brooks.
“You don’t appear to be compromised,” she said softly. As if this were a very private moment between just the two of us.
“Funny,” I said. “I feel a little dizzy.” My hand lifted almost of its own accord. I brushed away the stray strands of her dark, heavy hair that had swung forward and caught at the edge of her mouth.
My fingertips skimmed the curve of her cheek, my gaze locked with hers. Her lips parted slightly as I tucked the strands of silky hair behind her ear.
She leaned toward me, just an inch.
I leaned toward her. Just an inch.
Her friend reached out and grabbed her hand. “So, it’s been great to meet you. Thanks for the game. We gotta get out of here, Gen. It’s really late.” Pippa glared at me.
Genevieve blinked and whatever had been building between us was gone.
I wanted it back, wanted to make that tenuous connection strong. But instead, I let my hand drop, took a step back.
“I gotta—” She sort of waved toward her friend.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
“Thanks for the tickets. It was really fun. Really.”
“Anytime. Just let me know. I’ll get you tickets again, no problem.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She was already walking away, but still looking at me instead of where she should be going. “Maybe I’ll call?”
“Yes. That’d be great. Anytime.”
“Good. Great.”
“Night,” I called. They were almost to the sidewalk now.
“Night,” she yelled. “Sorry you’re a loser!”
I grinned and she grinned and I didn’t feel like a loser at all.
“So,” Duncan said as we just stood there and watched them walk away. “She’s hot. So’s her friend.”
I shoulder checked him and started moving. “She’s smart too. Works at the place where I took my test.”
“What place?”
Oh. I hadn’t told him about that.
“Coach sent me to a place to test my m-magic ability.”
“Did they test your ability to say it without stuttering?” He was annoyed. I didn’t blame him. “Or about keeping secrets again from your best friend?”
“It wasn’t a secret.”
He shot me a look that could have left a bruise.
“I wasn’t hiding it from you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Okay. I was. But only because I didn’
t want you worrying. When you worry your dad always knows. And then he would have wanted to fix whatever was wrong and there wouldn’t have been anything wrong other than I had to go, um, get my, you know abilities rated on a chart of one to ten and it felt weird to do it in front of you.”
“They don’t strip you naked, Ran. And even if they did, it’s not like I haven’t seen your junk. Like, for years.”
How did I explain to him that it wasn’t physical nakedness that bothered me. “Not…it’s not a body thing with wizards. It’s a…brain thing, I guess. I didn’t want to do something weird or dumb in front of you.”
“You’re always weird and dumb.”
We crossed the street to the parking structure where Duncan had left his ancient car.
“Not with magic. And that’s…it’s something I don’t even know about myself. I’m twenty-two years old and don’t know what I can do with magic. I mean, what if I’d gotten there and had been unable to do it?”
He smoothly raised one eyebrow, which always made me jealous because whenever I tried to do that, I looked like a constipated clown.
“You are not a magic virgin. You’ve done it before. Three whole times, buddy.”
“But not on demand. Not when there was nothing at stake, no life-or-death circumstances. What if I couldn’t do the test right? What if my magic only worked when I thought someone was about to die?”
He shook his head. “For a hockey player, you sure do overthink things. I blame your mother.”
Yeah, well, he might be right about that. Being abandoned as a child made me hyper-cautious of some things; usually things that dealt with my self-worth.
“So?” he asked.
“So?”
“The test. The one you didn’t want to tell me about. The one you didn’t trust me to know about? How did you score?”
I thought back on what the doctor had said. Something something something exemplary. Something something something remarkable.
“Good. High score, I think. He wasn’t really talking in full sentences after the test.”
Duncan whistled low. “Nice. Maybe he was stunned by your brilliance?”
I shrugged, shifting the weight of the duffel on my shoulder. “Or easily impressed.”
Duncan snorted and then stopped moving, his chin lifting as he sniffed the air.
I stopped too. Didn’t ask him what was wrong. When a wolf shifter goes all wolfy it’s best to let them listen, let them smell, let them interpret the world through the beast inside them.
When we were nine, he’d crawled into bed with me in the middle of the night, whining. Seconds later there had been a very small earthquake; a low hum and slight vibration that left no damage. Duncan had felt it like a volcano blast.
So this could be trouble, or he could have caught the scent of a particularly good pizza joint and was hungry.
With Duncan, it could go either way. Since we were post-game and I was starving, I was hoping for the pizza joint.
“Ran.” Duncan eased his duffel off his shoulder. “You need to get in the car.” He tossed the keys at me, which I caught.
“What?”
He tugged his shirt off, and was already toeing his way out of his shoes. He was also staring toward the darkened side of the parking garage, at a stairwell that led to the street and the upper levels of the garage.
“Get in the car,” he said. “Lock the doors.”
He was no longer the joking, friendly Duncan. This was all protector, warrior, wolf.
“You gonna shift?” That was a stupid thing to say because of course Duncan was going to shift. He had already shucked out of his sweats and boxers and crouched down on the balls of his feet completely naked and unashamed, one hand propped in front of him by the fingertips. He looked like a sprinter setting up against the starting blocks.
“Don’t,” I said. A shift this close to the outlay of physical exertion he’d used in the game could be dangerous. Especially without a heavy meal in his belly.
Shifting on low resources meant less control over the beast and a longer recovery time when he changed back to his man form.
The last thing I wanted was to try and tackle Duncan in wolf form. He wouldn’t hurt me, but with only magic and the mind of the wolf fueling his body, he probably wouldn’t listen to me.
“Get in the car with me,” I said. “Whatever is out there, we’ll drive and get the hell away from it. Cars are faster than wolves. Even your car.” Maybe.
It was too late. He exhaled a stuttering breath and his body flexed and flowed as magic rolled across it like invisible hands over wet clay. Shaping, forming. Stretching and smashing.
The air filled with that lightning-strike sensation, heavier than electricity and sweet across my tongue. Magic gushed.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Duncan was full wolf and beautiful. His thick fur was a mottled mix of sandy brown and gray. All four of his feet were covered in fur white as new snow, something I used to tease him about mercilessly when we were little.
He crouched, ears flicking backward, tight against his skull. He wasn’t growling yet, wasn’t showing teeth.
There was a furious negotiation going on in that head, in that body. The outcome would either be a wild wolf loose in the middle of a grease-stained parking garage, or man in wolf form loose in the middle of a grease-stained parking garage.
I was so focused on Duncan—waiting for the proof that he had the upper hand on his wolf—that I didn’t notice the movement against the far wall.
But Duncan did. He growled, low and guttural.
Shivers ran up my arms and the back of my neck.
Growls answered him. Cat sounds.
It could be anyone. The world was full of shifters. There was no reason for me to think the cats—three of them—pacing our way were members of the Tide.
But that lead cat? The black panther? The way he moved between the mountain lion on his left and the leopard on his right was familiar.
It reminded me of how Steele moved, those eyes just the way he stared at me.
“Duncan, you need to get out of here. We need to get out of here.”
Duncan was not listening to me. He bared a row of impressive teeth and growled loud enough it reverberated in my chest.
The cats paused, tails flicking back and forth, heads lowering so that their shoulder blades stuck up on either side of their spines. They snarled, that haywire broken string sound of big cats on the hunt.
Duncan shifted his weight, not moving yet, but about to. About to move in front of me, to protect me.
I didn’t need protecting. If those cats jumped at me, I could do…
…magic. Throw a wall maybe, or a cage. Stop them with a spell.
The smart move would be to get in the car. A defensible position. Throw magic from there.
But that would leave Duncan out here. Alone. One against three.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
“Damn it. You all couldn’t just leave it on the ice.” I griped as I dropped my duffel to the ground. “I know it’s you, Steele. And I don’t know you two, but I will as soon as this is over. So you might as well knock it off and leave us alone.”
Duncan growled at me, trying to tell me to get in the damn car.
Nope. No.
I could take care of myself. Even without being a wizard there were things I could do to make sure the cats didn’t pounce on me. Call 911. Use mace on them (not that I had mace, but if I did, I could totally use it.) And if I were the kind of guy who used mace, I might also be the kind of guy who carried a gun and rubber bullets, which were perfectly legal for citizens to use on shifters.
But I wasn’t going to call the cops on a couple of thickheaded hockey players with a grudge.
“You won the damn game. What do you have to be mad about?”
The cats yowled and slid a few steps closer, overhead lights pulsing across their muscles like water over stones.
“Stop.” I ordered, like a co
p with a gun. “Back away now. If you don’t knock this crap off, and go the hell home, so help me, you’ll regret getting in my face.”
I heard movement around us. Footsteps, some slow, some faster. I heard that fake camera-click of phones and someone was narrating quietly. Random people who were witnessing this, filming.
Great. Just what I needed. Another video.
I’d managed to duck out of the after-game interviews today. Lock had fended off the curiosity about the first game the team had played with a wizard teammate.
The first game we’d lost.
I could imagine the headlines.
Wizard Loses Game Then Loses Cool
Wizard Conjures Payback For Game Injury
Wizards Aren’t Tough Enough To Play Hockey
Steele snarled again, all teeth and fang and bristled fur.
Duncan snapped a ragged bark.
“Enough!”
My voice echoed off the wedges and slabs of concrete surrounding us. That one word carried power. Magic.
Sweet honey filled my mouth and poured down my throat. I swallowed magic, letting it fill me until I was something more than just Random. Until I was everything more than Random. Until I was magic, wild as the shifters around me.
The cats didn’t pause. I hadn’t expected them too.
Everything around me seemed to slow, slow, slow. Reality tightened down screw twist by screw twist.
Even my heartbeat calmed.
The cats fanned out. One mountain lion angled to get around behind us, the leopard flanked Duncan. The panther headed straight at me, eyes hatefully bright.
I knew Duncan would throw himself in front of me, fight Steele for me.
I knew what kind of injuries shifters could inflict upon each other. I’d been there when Duncan had been in bed for days at a time recovering from those injuries.
That was not going to happen here.
I drew upon magic. And it sang.
I needed to shut them down. Shock them into knocking this shit off.
So I threw that emotion, that need to end this situation, to fix this situation without bloodshed, into the magic.
Magic responded with two things: rubber balls and catnip.
