by Jamie Davis
She almost made it.
One of the claws raked at her back, and Quinn cried out at the burning pain. She managed to break free before the paws gripped her shoulder and pulled her in to get at her with its teeth. She wanted to avoid that.
The evasive move put her only a few feet from her mother, who was still battling the giant slug. It had to be nearly the size of a small car.
“Wanna trade?” Quinn said as she tried to catch her breath.
“What would be the fun in that?” Naomi replied. “By the way, aren’t slugs supposed to be as slow as snails?”
As she finished the sentence, Naomi jumped to the side as the slug swung its front end around to snap at her with its multi-toothed mouth.
“Never mind,” Quinn said. “I take it back.”
She had to find a way to get rid of both creatures as soon as possible. Whoever had cast the spell that created them was probably getting away.
“Mom, I’ve got an idea.”
“I’ll take whatever you’ve got. My sword’s doing very little lasting damage that I can see.”
Quinn leaped straight up to dodge a grab at her ankles by the squirrel. “Get as close as you can to it and get it to roll this way.”
“I’ll try. I’m not even sure this thing has eyes to see me. What’s the plan?”
Quinn ran at the squirrel, ducking under a swipe at her head, and slashed at the whiskered face just above its mouth. “You’ll see. Just be ready to get out of the way.”
When Quinn’s blade scored a red line across the creature’s sensitive nose, it let out a roar that would have made any lion proud. “Uh-oh,” she said, then ran in the direction of her mother and the giant slug. “Here I come.”
The squirrel’s hot breath raised the hairs on the back of her neck, spurring her to draw down more stamina to boost her speed.
The clack of snapping teeth right behind her told her it was just in time.
Ahead, Naomi had managed to get the slug to pivot toward her. She turned to face Quinn. Her eyes widened when she realized how close her daughter and the snarling squirrel were.
“Dodge NOW!” Quinn shouted. At that instant, she gathered all her remaining strength and vaulted to the left. Her mother leaped in the opposite direction.
Behind her, Quinn felt more than heard the collision between the monstrous beasts. As she landed and spun, ready to defend herself, she smiled. The plan had worked.
Squirrel and slug were locked in a death grip. The slug’s circular teeth bored into the squirrel’s chest and gut, while the squirrel’s jutting tusks and razor teeth tore away hunks of slime-covered slug flesh. It was over in seconds. The slug succumbed first. The squirrel stumbled a few feet, entrails dragging on the sidewalk. It stopped and swayed, staring up at the moon before falling over with a crashing thump.
Quinn scanned the area for Naomi but didn’t see her. “Mom?”
“Up here.”
Quinn turned her gaze up to Naomi, who was perched on a lamppost next to the slug. No, scratch that, it was where the body of the slug had been.
“What the— Where did they go?”
The bodies of the slug and the squirrel were gone. There was no sign the fight had taken place, other than the injuries on her and Naomi.
The vampire jumped down from her perch and crouched to examine the sidewalk, then pointed at something there on the pavement. “Not gone, just small again.”
Quinn walked over and stared at the spot where her mother pointed. A tiny slug lay there, looking like something had chewed through the top half of it.
“If that’s here, then…” Quinn turned and took a few steps to where she’d last seen the squirrel. “Yep, the squirrel’s here, disemboweled just like the bigger version.”
Naomi searched the empty city streets around them. “No one nearby. Whoever cast the spell must have run off. That’s why the animals went back to normal.”
Quinn pulled up her HUD and enabled the transparent map overlay. She scanned it for any of the tell-tale red blips that would indicate a known enemy nearby. Nothing.
“It’s a good thing whoever it was didn’t launch the attack while we were on the way to the club earlier,” Naomi said. “There were a lot of people out tonight. It would’ve been hard to hide it from the ordinary public, or protect bystanders.”
Quinn nodded. Her mother was right, they were lucky. Anyone out at this time of night had either been lucky enough or smart enough to stay away from the battle.
She nudged the dead squirrel with the toe of her boot. It looked completely normal now—just a harmless little creature common in the city. He’d never done anything to deserve this.
Quinn ground her teeth together. “It’s not fair. I want this guy, Mom. I’m tired of the secret attacks and random spells they’re casting all over town.”
“At least we know it’s centered on you,” Naomi said. “That makes it likely someone working with Gemma, or maybe Filippa.” She pulled out a cloth and started wiping down her blade. Her face screwed up in a frown as she rubbed away the slug slime coating the metal.
Quinn remembered her Bowie. If she left blood on it for too long, it would etch and pock the magical steel and silver alloy. She pulled the bottom of her t-shirt from out of her jeans and worked at cleaning her own blade.
The mother-daughter team began walking east toward the neighborhood where they lived. Quinn and Naomi had been trying to spend at least one night out together ever since Avery left. Avery, who was Quinn’s new love interest, had an urgent quest: she searched for other women like her, raised as Huntresses by the Fae for their nefarious purposes.
Naomi had suggested she and Quinn hang out more together to take her mind off Avery’s departure. It was also an effort to build on the connection they had started. Mother and daughter had many years to catch up on.
While the encounter with the squirrel and the slug had been terrifying, Quinn had been glad to have her mother along. Strange things had been happening to Quinn for several weeks now, and when she’d reported them to her friends, she’d gotten the impression they didn’t believe her. She couldn’t blame them.
It had started with minor and seemingly random occurrences that when taken alone, could have been discounted as coincidences. However, things had started to add up, to the point that Quinn was sure someone was targeting her. When all the food she ate for two days straight spoiled the minute she touched it, Quinn had decided someone was out to get her. Tonight’s attack was the boldest attempt yet.
Naomi sheathed her sword across her back beneath her blazer, the hilt reaching her right hip. A clip held the blade in place but could be released with the flick of her thumb.
“Based on what you’ve described,” Naomi said, “I’d say whoever is after you has moved from annoying to murderous, yes?”
Quinn nodded. “Up until now, it’s been inconveniences. It wasn’t too bad when all the pans and utensils on my stove turned to paper and cardboard.” Her only frying pan had burst into flame around the grilled cheese sandwich she’d been making. So did the cardboard spatula she’d been holding. She’d avoided getting burned only because she’d dropped it all on the floor and stomped on the burning mess until the flames went out.
Naomi shook her head. “This is a major escalation. You’ve had at least one of these incidents—”
“They’re attacks, not incidents. Someone is out to get me.”
“Sorry. I mean, you’ve had at least one of these attacks each day since Avery left, yes?”
Quinn nodded while her mother continued.
“That makes me wonder if Gemma left the city like we thought she did.”
“I agree, but both Taylor and Miranda say this doesn’t match with Gemma’s school of arcane arts. Besides, you and Clark scoured the city for a week to try to track her down, and you were sure she’d left. Now you’re not certain?”
Naomi shrugged. “If not her, then maybe someone working for her.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Some
one powerful enough to transform living cells and increase mass at the same time. I’m not the expert Miranda is, but it sounds like that would be incredibly difficult to pull off.” She glanced at Quinn, “I don’t suppose you thought to switch on your arcane sight during the fight?”
Quinn bit her lower lip. That ability might have picked up on the source of the magic controlling the creatures. “No, I should’ve thought of it, but I didn’t.”
Naomi nudged her with an elbow as they walked. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. We were a little busy at the time. Next time this happens, try to pick up on where the initial flows are coming from. We might get an idea of where the mage stood when they cast the spell. Any clues we can gather could help us locate them.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll try to remember.” Quinn didn’t want to have a “next time,” but at this point, it was fairly certain she would. That worried her since the attacks also endangered her friends and family just for standing next to her.
“There has to be a connection or pattern of some sort,” Naomi continued. “It can’t be as random as you say it is.”
“If there’s a pattern, I haven’t figured it out.”
“Let’s start at the beginning and go through each attack until this one. Describe them all to me while we walk. You focus on each one in turn, and I’ll try to look for the common thread. There has to be one.”
“Okay,” Quinn agreed. “The first one I noticed was when I got back from taking Avery to catch her flight.”
“That was the floor thing?”
“Yes, the wooden boards in the hallway outside my apartment got soft, I guess. My foot sank in up to the ankle like it was mud. Then it solidified, holding me in place. If someone wanted to launch an attack, that would have been the time. I couldn’t go anywhere until Clark brought Paddy up with a power saw and a chisel to cut me free.”
“Okay, what was next?” Naomi asked. “Tell me everything you can remember.”
Quinn kept going, outlining each incident and ticking them off on her fingers. Each appeared random, and they seemed to have no connection. Tonight was the first time she’d been in any real danger. Until now, the attacks had been merely annoying. She told Naomi as much when she finished relaying the details of the last one before tonight.
When she finished talking, Quinn looked around. She was surprised to see they were almost home.
Beside her, Naomi said, “Well, if there’s a pattern there, I don’t see one.” She’d been taking notes on her phone, and she scrolled through what she’d written while Quinn talked. “It’s almost as if…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head.
“Almost as if what?” Quinn asked.
“If you weren’t the obvious target, I’d call this an outbreak of wild magic in the city. But that’s so rare it’s ridiculous.”
“What’s wild magic? Isn’t all magic wild?”
“Miranda can explain this way better than I can, but the short answer is no. Magic has rules like the things that govern the natural order of things. You can manipulate certain things but only within some basic laws of physics and chemistry. A mage or witch pulls in the energy and uses it to influence a shift in the natural order. The bigger the shift, the more energy required.”
“Yeah, I get that. But what makes these attacks different?” Quinn asked.
Naomi sighed. “This is just a hunch. I really need to talk to someone with more magical skill. The things happening to you are different from each other and seem random, but all have to do with a shift in natural rules.”
When Quinn said nothing and just stared at her mother, Naomi shrugged. “Each is a sort of matter transformation or transmutation. That sounds a lot like how I understand wild magic manifests.”
“You still haven’t explained what wild magic is.”
Naomi shook her head. “I guess that’s because I don’t know. It’s more of a legend than anything else. I don’t know anyone who’s seen it. This sounds like the way legends describe it: mostly as random changes in the natural order occurring in a localized geographical area.”
Quinn started to ask another question but stopped when she realized they’d turned down the alley leading to the O’Malley’s basement entrance. Quinn’s apartment could be reached from a stairway inside.
They pulled open the outer doors and walked into the vestibule, greeting the doorman Jonah with a nod. Quinn said, “I guess I need to sit down and follow this line of thought with Miranda and Taylor.”
“It can wait until morning,” Naomi said. “You said things haven’t happened too close together, usually just one a day. Go to bed. There’ll be time to revisit all this in the morning. Maybe that’ll give us both a fresh look at the problem.”
The inside of the bar was relatively quiet. The band had already packed up and left. Only the diehards remained; three of the local leprechaun tribe were seated at the bar. Juni, the owner’s daughter, waved at Quinn and Naomi as they entered from where she stood behind the bar, chatting with her patrons.
The two women waved back as they split up to go their own ways. Quinn headed to the apartment stairs leading to the second and third floors of the row home above the club. Naomi turned off to go to the storerooms and the long underground tunnel that led to the old Hunter chambers located nearby. Her converted vampire lair was down there.
Quinn rubbed her right hand. Every time she talked about the attacks, her hand itched and tingled. It was more annoying than painful. Tonight it had been bugging her ever since the attack. It was one more thing to track down about this person who was after her. Maybe something would come to her or her mother in the morning after they talked to the others. Quinn was ready to lead an offensive against whoever it was doing this to her, but not right now. Now, she needed rest.
Chapter Two
When the alarm on her phone went off, Quinn switched it off without really waking up. It was an off-day as far as Clark’s never-ending training regimen went, so she decided to sleep in. About an hour later, just before nine, her phone went off with a continuous series of alerts spaced a few minutes apart.
“Go away,” Quinn groaned as she rolled over and pulled the other pillow over her head to hide from the incoming messages.
The alerts stopped for a little bit, and she drifted off to sleep again. Booming thumps on her apartment door jerked her upright, though. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands to wake up, then she grabbed her phone to check the time.
It was 9:15.
Someone banged on her apartment door again, and a muffled voice called out. She couldn’t make out who it was or what they were saying.
“All right, I’m coming already.” Quinn swung her feet to the floor as she stood. Wary at the way she’d been awakened, and remembering the attack the night before, she grabbed her Bowie from the sheath hanging on her headboard and walked out to the living room.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Taylor. Open up, Quinn. We need you downstairs. You have to see this.”
Quinn unlocked the door and pulled it open a crack before turning around to fire up her coffee maker. Behind her, Taylor burst into the room.
Seeing Quinn grab a mug from the sink and begin to rinse it out, she said, “No time for that. Go.” Taylor took the cup from Quinn’s hand and nudged her toward her bedroom. “Get dressed in your best badass Huntress outfit. You need to look the part before you get downstairs.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Just get dressed. I’ll tell you as we head down.”
Quinn pointed to her mug. “I need coffee.”
“Fine, I’ll make you a cup. Get dressed.”
Quinn waited until Taylor started the process before she went back to her bedroom. At this point, curiosity propelled her to see what was going on. It wasn’t an attack. That would have set off her amulet to warn her. Her hand drifted up to brush the silver medallion hanging around her neck. It was body temperature, which meant it was something else, but she had no
idea what that could be.
She slid on a pair of blue jeans, black knee-high leather boots, and swapped out the t-shirt she’d slept in for a clean one. She also grabbed her shoulder rig for her knife. The last piece of her usual ensemble was her waist-length leather jacket, which was draped across the sofa in the other room where she’d left it last night.
Quinn walked back into the living room and picked up the jacket from the night before. The back had been shredded by the squirrel’s claws. She hadn’t remembered it being so torn up.
“Never mind that,” Taylor said. “I found another in your closet. You should buy stock in those things.” Her best friend stood waiting by the door with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and Quinn’s spare jacket in the other. After slipping on the coat, Quinn took the mug and followed Taylor out the door.
“Okay, T, what’s so urgent that you cut short my hard-earned beauty sleep?”
Taylor laughed. “You’re gorgeous enough, believe me.”
“Seriously, what’s going on?”
“The bar’s full of people, all looking for you?”
“Me? What the heck did I do to that many people to deserve a lynch mob showing up here at breakfast time? The bar’s not even open yet.”
“They’re not here because they’re angry with you, they’re here because they need your help.”
Quinn stopped walking and stared at her friend. It took Taylor a few steps to realize Quinn wasn’t behind her.
“Quinn, this is serious, keep up.”
“If they’re not angry, what do they want help with? Why come here for me?”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Because you’re the Huntress, Quinn. They’re here because they’re scared and they need your help.”
That shut Quinn up. She remained silent the rest of the way down the stairs to the basement. The buzz of voices on the other side of the door leading into O’Malley’s pub sounded like more than just a few people on the other side. When Taylor pulled open the door, it washed over her like a rushing wind.
Quinn was three steps into the bar before the people noticed. The rush of bodies in her direction took her by surprise. Each of them called out for help in one way or another.
