by Harris, Noah
Johnny had taken to the training with great enthusiasm, even though it was at a lower level than he should’ve rightfully been, never acknowledging the years of illegal magic use on Johnny’s part, treating Johnny as if his knowledge had ended when he’d left the Coven.
“I still say it’s stupid for them to start us off so low. You’re better than where they started you, and I can do so much more than make a few things float in the air,” Kell grumped.
Johnny hummed. “True, but they’re doing the best they can with what they have. To even train someone like me is outside their old laws, something I’ve heard the Sage muttering about constantly. But they’re training me, which is all that matters.”
Kell cocked his head. “I do believe I’m hearing you defend the Coven right now.”
Johnny laughed. “I know I haven’t spoken highly of them before, and don’t expect me to sing their praises anytime soon. However, they have been dealing with quite a lot in the past generation or so. The past century has seen a lot of changes in the human world and the Children have been scrambling to keep up. It’s caused no small amount of fear and paranoia about where the world is headed, and what place the Children have in it.”
“Cell phones are pretty scary,” Kell teased.
Johnny looked up from the patch, frowning. “It’s far more than that. In the past century, the leaps and bounds humanity has made…well, if it hadn’t happened, we’d call it beyond belief or possibility. Humanity went from large groups, surviving with wooden and some metal tools, into the people they are today. In the span of a hundred years, humans invented cars, discovered flight, harnessed nuclear power for weapons and energy. The whole of humanity has rocketed forward and they’re different from those we knew before. In the past, for humans to pose a threat to even a single Child, they needed to form a mob and have at least a degree of knowledge. Now? All you need is one human with a halfway decent gun and they could take down a whole group of witches.”
“This is about the Vigil,” Kell offered.
Johnny shook his head. “This is about humanity as a whole. It’s not just the danger their weapons possess, it’s about the shift in outlook. Humans operate on a worldwide scale that was unheard of in the past. You could be in Japan tomorrow by taking a plane, communicating with someone in Germany through the internet on the flight. Wonders and miracles are commonplace in the modern world, something that was once the province of the Children. The world has changed around them and they’re scared.”
Kell frowned. “So what, double down on the old way of doing things? I’m sorry, I can kind of understand how the world would be scary, but sticking to outdated ways isn’t going to help.”
“And I think they’re beginning to understand that. Which is why you’re here, and so am I. I know it’s difficult to see while they’re training you in the old ways but what’s new isn’t always right either. You barely knew magic and werewolves existed until recently, and now you’ve got all this power inside you. The Coven isn’t wrong in making sure you understand the basics before teaching you greater spells,” Johnny said, sitting back as he spoke.
Kell plucked some of the grass in annoyance. “I know. I get it, sort of. It’s just frustrating. I know I can do so much more than this but it feels like I’m being penned in, made to fit what they expect.”
Johnny grinned. “I’m familiar with the feeling and you’re not totally wrong either. They’re treating you like a budding witch, one with admittedly greater potential than even me.”
Kell looked up. “Than you? You’re a genius at this stuff!”
Johnny looked down, shaking his head. “I’ve simply had more practice than you.”
Kell wasn’t so sure about that but he allowed Johnny to have his modesty. He had, however, watched Johnny while he was being trained by the Coven, and had been amazed at what he’d witnessed. Even with the practice and former training, Johnny was a talented witch and adept student. Considering the hodgepodge manner of his magical knowledge after leaving, Johnny was quick to fill in the gaps the Coven teachers provided. More than once, Kell had seen or heard a teacher’s surprise at how fast Johnny was picking up something they were teaching him.
“The training is nice to have again, I suppose, though I can’t say it’s necessarily thrilling to be back in the fold. Even if it’s not the place I was originally trained, there are still echoes of my childhood,” Johnny continued with a frown.
Kell certainly believed that Johnny was being reminded of the past more often than he liked, but he wasn’t so quick to accept Johnny’s dismissive attitude about his training. Just as Kell had restrained himself from commenting too heavily on Johnny’s love of gardening, he’d held his tongue about the moments he’d caught Johnny’s expression during training. During moments where Johnny excelled, or suddenly understood a concept the teachers were trying to convey, the man’s eyes would light up and a smile would grace his face. If Kell chafed under the restrictions of the Coven’s teachings, Johnny was thrilled to be living and breathing magic once again.
Johnny looked up. “I know it’s frustrating. If there’s anyone here who understands what it’s like to be frustrated with the way the Coven does things, it would be me. However, I’d like to believe my time in the world has given me a greater understanding of how things work.”
“Wisdom with age?” Kell asked with a grin.
Johnny scowled. “With experience, thank you very much. You know, I don’t recall you being quite this difficult when we first met.”
“I was also being chased down by nutjobs and a little desperate. Now things have calmed down a little and you get the full Keller Experience,” Kell said with a smirk.
Johnny’s smile faltered. “Ah, the Vigil. They’ll always hang in the back of our collective minds, and have for some time.”
“The Coven still doesn’t know what happened to the ones they’d originally taken as prisoners?” Kell asked.
Johnny shook his head. “They still say they knew nothing of it.”
The story, which had originally been told to Kell and Johnny, was that the Children had chosen to retreat with their lives intact when they’d awoken on the side of the road. Kell had wondered briefly why they hadn’t chosen to take him and Johnny while they’d been unconscious but realized they might not have known how weak he’d be upon awakening. For all they’d known, the Children could have taken him prisoner only for him to wake up and unleash a greater power upon them in his anger. It wouldn’t have been the case, but Kell and Johnny had both done nothing to alleviate them of the worry. As far as the Coven was concerned, Kell was powerful and capable of drawing upon his great power when needed, which made him worthy of respect and a little bit of fear, as well as a candidate for extensive training.
However, the Children had insisted that not one of them had touched the still unconscious Vigil members. The carnage of the battle had been eventually discovered by humans and the cops. A road littered with the armed and torn apart bodies of humans in armored vehicles was bound to catch attention, and Kell hadn’t been surprised to hear it had made national headlines. It had worried the Children briefly, but Kell assured them the attention would die away after the next great tragedy took over. Meanwhile, the authorities had the reports of the scene on total lockdown, and no one had yet managed to get an autopsy report of the bodies.
“You’d think a few witches might be able to magic themselves the reports,” Kell said.
Johnny chuckled. “They wouldn’t know where to look, and scrying wouldn’t help without more information on the victims. In all fairness, the Vigil has probably locked down any information about what happened and would ruin any attempts on our part to look into it.”
“They really know how to ruin a person’s day,” Kell complained.
“That’s part of the problem. They operate in the human world, and through it. More than a few of the Vigil’s attacks on the Children haven’t been done with guns and fire. Werewolves have lost land from legal p
roceedings they were ill-equipped to deal with, and some laws pushed through by the Vigil have made it difficult for certain magical supplies to be acquired. The Children are struggling in the modern world and they’re not sure how to fix it,” Johnny said, sighing heavily.
Kell nodded. “Well, maybe the first step to fixing that problem is the one we’ve already got them to achieve, working together and easing up on their strict laws a bit.”
“You have a strong foot in the human world, and now you have one in the witch world as well. Perhaps that might be enough to help bridge the gap a little,” Johnny said.
Kell frowned. “If only I could have one in the werewolf world, too, then I could really start closing the gap.”
It was the first time Kell had neared the topic of his and Johnny’s distinct species difference. Though their relationship had deepened with every passing day, and they cared deeply about one another, Kell’s lack of werewolf status hung in the background. Neither of them had been bold enough to address it, for fear of ruining the bubble of happiness around them.
From the look on Johnny’s face, he wasn’t going to start addressing it anytime soon. “Speaking of the werewolves, they stopped by this morning.”
Kell cocked his head, frowning. “Wait, they did? Why didn’t I notice?”
Johnny smirked. “Because you were too busy snoring away to notice anything.”
“I don’t snore,” Kell insisted.
Johnny snickered. “Don’t worry, I think it’s cute.”
Kell narrowed his eyes. “What did they want?”
“They wanted to speak with you, and me, privately when we had a free moment. I told them we have a free day tomorrow, so they were free to stop by and visit,” Johnny told him.
“Well thank you, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate you managing my schedule,” Kell teased.
Johnny sat up straight, adopting an overly prim and proper pose. “You are most certainly welcome, Mr. Thorne.”
Kell paused as he felt something in the air shift. As he watched, the wall of shimmering energy that surrounded the cabin disappeared naturally. It was only gone briefly, coming back into existence a moment later, and he heard the familiar call of his teacher from the front of the house.
Kell sighed. “Our work never ends.”
* * *
The werewolves came around the next evening, two women and a wolf. Kell watched them approach the gate in the dying light of the sunset. One of the women was tall, dark-skinned, and beautiful in the same fierce way Alyssa was. The other was a smaller woman, nearly as white as fresh snow, with a thick sheet of black hair framing her face. The wolf was absolutely monstrous in size, black as coal, and walking with long strides as the taller woman muttered the phrase necessary to bring the barrier around the property down.
“Johnny, they’re here,” Kell called, throwing down the book he’d been reading on the nearby chair.
Kell walked to the door as he heard the footsteps and flung it open to greet them. His words stopped in his throat as he was met with the sight of a very tall, very naked man. Kell had to crane his neck upward to look into the man’s face, far more than he did with Johnny. A mop of dark hair sat atop the man’s head, locks of it hanging over his dark green eyes, which flashed with a wicked intelligence.
“Uh, hi,” Kell sputtered out.
“Evening,” the man said, grinning impishly.
The taller woman sighed. “Good evening, Windward Kell. I’m Lydia, and this is Earl.”
“And I’m Melanie,” the smaller woman added with a wave.
“Weren’t expecting an impressive looking naked man on your porch, were ya?” Earl asked, grin growing wider.
Kell blinked up at him, unsure what to say or do. He knew werewolves didn’t take their clothes with them when they passed between forms and that turning into human form involved at least a small time period of nakedness. However, he really hadn’t been expecting the wolf to be a rather large, and yes, impressive looking, man, when he’d opened the door.
Fighting to keep his eyes anywhere but Earl’s groin, Kell motioned them into the house. “Please, come in.”
Lydia pushed past Earl. “Put some clothes on, Earl, the man doesn’t need to see everything you have.”
Melanie slipped by him more gracefully. “I apologize for Earl—he enjoys his games.”
“He’s not going to get used to being around werewolves if we keep tiptoeing around being ourselves,” Earl said, though his smirk ruined the seriousness.
Johnny appeared around the corner, snorting at Earl’s nakedness. “I see.”
Lydia reached into the bag at her side, balling up a handful of clothes and tossing them at Earl forcefully. “Respect the man’s house and cover up already.”
Kell turned so he wouldn’t be tempted to look at Earl again. “So, how can I help you?”
Johnny was watching him with amusement, hearing the tightness in Kell’s voice. “Yes, you weren’t forthcoming about your reasons for wanting to visit.”
Melanie shot a pointed look toward Earl. “Although you wouldn’t know it, we are here on a formal matter. Lydia and I run the show, and Earl over there, despite his lack of manners and tact, helps us. He’s our Shaman.”
“Shaman? The guys who speak to spirits?” Kell asked, remembering some of his high school days.
“Speaking with spirits is one of his many talents. He’s also the one who deals in our collective history, our rites, and a few of the myriad hedge magic spells werewolves can perform,” Melanie explained.
“And even more tricks and treats,” Earl quipped from behind Kell.
Lydia rolled her eyes. “Ignore him, he was raised by wild wolves.”
Unsure if she was kidding or not, Kell cleared his throat. “Okay, well that explains who you are. That doesn’t tell me what you want, however.”
“Simply put, you’re a ten-moon child, which is of interest to us,” Lydia said.
Kell frowned. “Ten-moon? Oh! Ten-month, right, okay, I’m with you.”
Earl appeared in Kell’s sight once more, thankfully dressed. “There’s a little-known fact about ten-moon shifter children. It’s one we keep because the witches and the lunatics might take advantage of it.”
“The Vigil,” Melanie explained at Kell’s confusion.
Kell blinked, then snorted. “Alright, well that makes a lot of sense.”
“Anyway, most babies, human and Child are born within the expected eight-to-nine-month period. But there’s a little bit of an irregularity when it comes to werewolves. Some can wait until the tenth month to be born. This presents a bit of a problem for us, as human women can be pregnant with a werewolf pup, believing they’re having an overly long gestation. The problem being, a ten-moon werewolf pup usually suffers from an…obscuring of their nature,” Melanie explained.
“Basically, it means they’re born a werewolf and don’t know it. They can go their whole lives without knowing what they are, even if they do deep down. Werewolves are half-animal in their souls, and it can affect these lost ones. They end up struggling with themselves their whole life and usually get slapped with all sorts of mental labels. They’ve usually got a lot of emotions they don’t know how to deal with, as well as some heat and rut issues, even if it comes off as a bit of horniness,” Earl explained with a grin.
Kell looked at Johnny. “Do I want to ask?”
Johnny snorted, sitting himself down in a nearby chair. “Heat is what an omega goes into when they’re ready to breed. Rut is what happens when an alpha is ready to breed.”
“Breeding means kids,” Kell said, thinking of male alphas and omegas.
“Welcome to being a Child, where even men can get knocked up,” Earl proclaimed, slapping Kell on the back.
Kell stumbled forward, barely staying on his feet. “You’re fucking kidding.”
Earl shrugged. “I mean, it only happens with werewolves, and only when an omega is in heat. So it’s not like it happens all the time.”
“How is that even possible?” Kell asked, closing a hand over his middle.
“No one’s really sure, though they’ll certainly slather a whole mess of stories and theories about the gifts of the moon and all sorts of other things to explain it away,” Earl said.
Lydia motioned sharply at Earl, silencing him. “The point is, being a ten-moon child marks you as a Windward, but it could very well be concealing your werewolf nature as well.”
Kell blinked. “You think I could be a werewolf?”
“You certainly have the smell of one, or at least partly. A few other senses indicate that you’re probably a ten-moon lost wolf pup,” Melanie explained gently.
“Senses like what?” Kell asked, trying to wrap his head around the possibility.
Earl winked, tapping the side of his head. “The ones I’ve got as a Shaman, very reliable, save for when they’re not. Anyway, we decided it might be a good idea to pay you a visit and see if we might give you a good poke in the right direction.”
Kell eyed Earl doubtfully. “A poke?”
“A ritual, very brief, quick and easy,” Lydia said.
“It has to be, since we don’t usually find lost pups wandering down the street,” Earl said with a snort.
“Where do you find them?” Kell asked.
Melanie answered softly. “Psych wards, prisons, halfway houses. Many lost pups are so internally lost and confused, not knowing why they feel the way they do or how to control it. In order to gain the release and control they seek, they have to make contact with the wolf within them first. Which is what this does.”
“Also, it’s less of a ritual and more of a shot,” Earl said as, with a flourish, he pulled out a small, opaque bottle.
Kell took it. “Uh, drink it?”
“Yeah, but it’s gonna taste absolutely awful, you’ll wish you had a chaser to go with it. But you shouldn’t drink or eat anything for about an hour afterward, give it a chance to get into your system without being diluted,” Earl said.
