Death's Endless Enchanter

by Ruby Loren

  January noticed that he wasn’t meeting Bella’s eyes.

  Bella continued to stare and Ryan continued to avert his eyes, until January couldn’t take it anymore. “So… how do you guys know each other?” She asked, a little too brightly.

  Both jaguars turned to look at her in surprise. She realised they’d both forgotten that she was still there.

  “January… this is…was… my fiancée, Bella,” Ryan said, and January’s whole world fell apart.

  “Oh,” was all she managed to say, before walking back out of the bar in a daze. No one came after her and when her head stopped buzzing, she realised she was already halfway to the place where they had band practice in Hailfield.

  What just happened? Her mind repeated. She stepped out of the car, dragging her heavy, Fender Jazz bass after her. She walked past the ancient, prospective drummer in the car park with a mere nod of her head and didn’t hear him when he asked for her name. She didn’t even know why she was here. Why did something as stupid as band practice matter when a bombshell like that had been dropped on you? The man she loved was already engaged!

  Red light flashed behind her eyes when something else occurred to her. Why didn’t he tell me?! But she knew the answer. They were still waiting for the right moment to talk properly about Ryan’s role working for the Official Board of Shifters. With the opening of the bar and the meeting with the wolves, they’d been able to neatly avoid talking about anything personal for a couple of weeks.

  Also, if he thought she was dead and buried, what’s to tell? January thought, her anger replaced with deep rooted misery. She pushed open the door to the practice room.

  “Well, hey there!” Leah said, grinning from her position behind the drums.

  It took all of January’s concentration not to throw her bass in the day-walking vampire’s direction, turn into a unicorn, and skewer the treacherous witch once and for all.

  Leah’s smile got wider when she saw January’s pained expression, both of them knowing she couldn’t do anything while there were normal humans around.

  “What are you doing here?” January asked, keeping her voice level. It was hard not to explode, given the day she’d already had.

  “Being ‘out of town’ wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I missed you guys and wanted to be back in the band.” Mike walked in just as Leah finished her little ‘heartfelt’ speech.

  “You’re here to stay? Really?”

  January rolled her eyes, hoping that he wasn’t about to start crying.

  “Yep!” Leah said, looking smug as hell.

  “Mike! She left the band! We have a potential replacement here tonight. You can’t just let her back in…” January tried to sound reasonable.

  Mike wafted a hand at her. “What are you saying? Leah’s one of us! We’d never kick her out!” He turned and smiled at the drummer. She beamed back, even adding in a completely unnecessary wink. Mike turned scarlet and backed out of the door, mumbling something about letting the other drummer down gently.

  January turned back to Leah, her eyes daggers. “I hate you,” she said.

  Leah nodded, happily. “I know! But, you can’t get rid of me for now, and pretty soon, you may actually decide you want me here.” Leah twirled a drumstick.

  January was forced to bite. “Why would I ever want you anywhere near me? You did everything you could to kill me!”

  Leah waved a hand like it was all water under the bridge. To a vampire as old as Leah was, it probably did seem like a blip in time. “Things change! I had some time to do some thinking. You’re an immortal enchanter and we immortals should stick together.”

  January waited but Leah didn’t say anything more. “How does that make me want to have you around?”

  “Oh! Did I forget to mention? The Clan still want you dead. They’ve probably already sent someone else to do the job. I did try to plead your case.” She shrugged and January shot her an unconvinced look. “But they think you’re better off dead, blah, blah. So, I’m throwing my lot in with you. Sort of…”

  “Sort of?!” January snapped, feeling like her head was about to fall off.

  Hey, with the renewed threat of bounty hunters on her tail, it actually may do!

  “The Clan think that the plan is for me to come back and gain your trust by pretending to be on your side. I’m supposed to warn you about bounty hunters, who are on their way. I’ll offer to help you against them, and so on. Then, I’m meant to report everything back, and if the new hunters fail, I’m meant to kill you.” She paused and tilted her head. “Or maybe I’m just meant to kill you whenever I get a clean shot. The details were a little fuzzy. Oh, and if you turn out to be hard to kill because of the immortality thing, I’ve been instructed to kill you again… until you’re really dead.” Leah flashed her a disconcerting smile.

  “What you’ve just said… sounds exactly like what you’re doing,” January observed.

  Leah nodded, enthusiastically. “That’s why it’s so great! They’ll never know I’m really on your side because I’m actually doing everything they say. If I were on their side… would I have just told you the whole plan? Think about that!”

  “It might be a double bluff,” January countered. "What about…” She stopped and used witch sight for the first time since entering the practice room. She discovered that they were surrounded by pink streaks of light – the colour of Leah’s magic.

  Leah tutted. “Getting a little rusty, aren’t we? They won’t hear, if that’s what you’re worrying about. I’ve been with them for ages. I know all of their tricks!” She tilted her head again. “Well, most of them.”

  January sighed and shook her head. “I’m not trusting you. Not ever.”

  “Good, it might keep you on your toes when the real bad guys come knocking. Trust, or not, as long as you’re in this band, you’re stuck with me. Don’t think about leaving either, I’ll just follow you around. That would be even more annoying, wouldn’t it?”

  January gave her a rude gesture, which was all she could think to do, given the limitations of the situation. She hurriedly plugged a jack lead into her bass when Mike and Cherri walked into the room.

  “Good job, everyone. It’s great to have the band back together. Leah and January, you guys need to work on meshing together. Bass and drums sounded like they wanted to have a fight tonight!” Mike said a couple of hours later. He chortled at his own joke and waved them goodnight, but not before he’d reiterated to Leah just how pleased he was to have her back in the band. To January’s disgust she’d smarmed and simpered right back.

  “What role are you playing now? Some kind of enchanter groupie?” January hissed at Leah, once the guitarist and singer had driven away.

  Leah rolled her drum sticks between her hands. “Nope, although I do think what you are is pretty interesting. Being a witch and a vampire is one thing, but you’re still, you know - alive - and have the potential to be the most powerful magic wielder, well - ever! I think that’s why The Clan want you dead. They know you’re becoming a real threat to them. Perhaps one day, you might even be able to beat them…” Leah’s mouth twisted up at a corner. “The challenge is staying alive for that long. Have you tested out whether or not you can die yet?” She asked.

  January shot her a ‘get lost’ look. The pink magic may still be around them, but that didn’t mean she was going to tell Leah anything.

  In truth, she hadn’t given much thought to her immortality, beyond knowing that it was something she really didn’t want. If she actually was somehow immortal, (and all she had was the word of Tor Bennett and an unorthodox blood test to suggest that was the case) she wondered how she could be killed. Would it be like the vampires, where you were dead if you lost your head, or got a stake to the heart?

  Of one thing she was sure - she didn’t want to find out.

  “See you tomorrow for the gig!” Leah cheerfully waved at January, acting for all the world like she hadn’t been trying to kill her just a few weeks previ
ously.

  January didn’t wave back.

  She’d be stupid to forget that Leah had behaved in the exact the same friendly way when she’d actually been trying to kill her.

  January blinked a little when the strange, almost green light of the house poured out onto the street after the door was opened. She hoped that Tor Bennett didn’t have curious neighbours.

  “Ah, excellent! You aren’t dead!” The old man greeted her, demonstrating that he and his wayward son, Simon, did have some things in common after all - even if it was just their dark sense of humour.

  “I thought you said I couldn’t die?” She quipped back, but received a frown for her trouble.

  “I said no such thing! Immortality does not mean you can’t die. It just makes you more of a challenge to kill – something that your adversaries will probably see as the kind of challenge they’d be more than happy to accept.” Tor raised an incredibly bushy eyebrow.

  “So, what’s my Achilles heel then?” January asked, bending to admire some kind of amphibian that was wriggling around in a jar of gold liquid.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t suggest you try to find out either. It should be stating the obvious… but it will get you killed.”

  January couldn’t help but smile a little at Tor’s dry tone. “Boring enchanter stuff aside, what’s today’s lesson?” She asked, already relishing the opportunity to learn some more magic.

  Tor sighed and sat down on a pink chintz armchair. “I’m afraid things aren’t going to work the way they used to,” he said.

  January’s eyebrows shot up.

  “The problem we face is that your enchanter magic is all theoretical. There have been theories about the possibility of enchanters for centuries, but to my knowledge, you’re the first one to actually exist. In theory, your magic should be like a nuclear bomb - volatile and ready to explode at any second. You should be able to flatten an entire country or dominate the world - if you woke up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and decided to. In fact, there are several witch cults who have been waiting for an enchanter for exactly that purpose. They believe that with such strong magic, the supernatural beings of this world will finally be able to crawl from their hiding places and return humans to the dirt.” He raised a single bushy eyebrow at January, waiting to see her reaction.

  “But that hasn’t happened. I don’t have that much power. At least, I don’t think I do. I only ever seem to have enough power for what I need to achieve at any point in time. What if it’s not enough?” She said, voicing her concerns aloud and neatly sidestepping Tor’s moral enquiries.

  “If you focus on bettering yourself and listen to your magic, I believe that any problems and obstacles will simply fall away… one day. However, that too is theoretical, I’m afraid.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I can teach you more of the basics and even the advanced magic, all of which I have no doubt you’ll be able to do already, but that’s the limit to what I can do. The greater power that has been prophesied can only be found by you. If it exists at all,” he added.

  “Tor, are you really sure that I’m an enchanter?” January asked. She’d always felt like just January - an awkward quirk of nature, ever since she’d come of age. There’d never been the feeling of a huge reservoir of power bubbling away inside her.

  Until she’d been forced to play her hand against Luke Bingley, she’d never even known she had magic beyond the obvious unicorn quirk and the ability to read magical writing. The way Tor had said it the first time had made her think that he believed she was responsible for the way she’d turned out - by somehow turning her magic on herself without knowing it. That was no doubt another one of his theories. Who knew how she would ever be able to discover if it were true or not? And what had come first… the endless enchanter, or a spark of raw magic that she’d somehow wielded to make herself into this magical improbability?

  “To the best of my knowledge, yes, you are - but I’m not saying that the test is infallible. There is always a chance that you are something else entirely. But I can’t think of any other creature whose blood would show the changes in such a way. There is only an enchanter - a being that is just as fantastical and impossible as a unicorn.” He lowered his head and looked over the brim of his glasses at her. “You’ve already proved that the impossible is actually possible once, so why not twice?”

  Fortunately, he rest of the lesson was on a lighter note. Tor taught her how to use her magic as a weapon – but with control. January had been uncomfortably reminded of the last time she’d used her magic as a weapon. She’d ripped a spell off a wolf and had smashed every bone in his body in the process.

  Tor had showed her how she could use the magic she had to force objects away from her, so it worked as a push. January could immediately see how that would be useful in many situations, even in the pack. This magic would make it possible to separate fights and push anyone behaving aggressively away from her - without ripping them to pieces.

  “Oops!” January said when the living room wall exploded in a shower of rubble. She was greeted by the sight of a very confused man in next door’s kitchen. Fortunately, Tor’s house was so bewitched that the wall recollected itself and then bounced back like rubber.

  “Don’t worry, everyone on this street is under a very strong ‘everything is normal’ spell. He won’t remember what he saw,” Tor reassured her. January opened her mouth to ask if that was ethical but then closed it. What would have happened just then if the street hadn’t been littered with spells?

  “I suppose I should work on this a little more,” January said, gesturing to the reformed wall. So much for her idea of separating fights. At the moment, she’d probably end up obliterating anything in her path.

  Tor’s forehead creased. “Yes, learning control is the key. Especially as now that you’re using your magic, it’s rising to the surface far more readily. The analogy of a nuclear bomb might not be so far from the truth.”

  January bit her lip. That wasn’t good. “But I don’t feel any different!”

  “Try to levitate. Go on. Just try it! Use the push magic and figure out how to make it work this way. Don’t push too hard. You might open a hole to the centre of the earth, and even this house isn’t warded enough to deal with that,” he warned.

  January tried, cautiously at first, and then a little harder. To her surprise, she was soon hovering in the air. After a few more experiments, she could control it so she could actually zoom around the room in a horizontal position, much like a superhero.

  “Hey, I’m Supergirl!” She said, coming back down to earth with her hands on her hips and her chest puffed out. “I should have my own comic!”

  Tor wasn’t smiling. “Now do you see my point? You couldn’t have done that when we first met. I distinctly remember you rolling over the top of my fence and squashing my dahlias.”

  January chewed her lip. “But I just didn’t know the right technique then.”

  Tor shrugged and stood up, signalling the end of the lesson. “Everything is starting to happen for you January. I just hope that you aren’t the uncontrolled decimation machine that some theorists have predicted.”

  She nodded, humbly, secretly thinking that pretty much nothing was starting to happen for her right now. She was at the lowest she’d been since her return to Hailfield.

  “Thanks for the lesson,” she said, handing over the token fee.

  Tor looked at her with his x-ray vision. “Stay out of the woods, if you can,” he said, cryptically, and then shut the door.

  January was left wondering over his strange words. She didn’t doubt their truth. Tor’s advice had never been wrong yet. It was just annoying that everything he said tended to look really obvious after the thing she’d been warned about had happened.

  4

  “I owe you an explanation.” January blinked the sleep from her eyes and realised that Ryan was standing in her kitchen.

  “Are you okay?” January asked, seeing his bloodshot eyes a
nd the dark purple bags beneath them. Her feelings for Ryan were overcoming how distraught she felt. Ryan started to nod but then shook his head, halting the automatic reaction.

  “You have to believe me when I say I really thought that Bella was gone - completely gone. She thought the same of me, too.”

  “I know. Anyone could have known that from the way you two were when you saw each other,” January said, quietly.

  “Do you want to hear about it? I’d like to talk to you about everything. I just hope you won’t hate me by the end,” he finished, his eyes firmly fixed on the floor. January put a brave smile on her face and decided to try and do the right thing.

  “Sure, just let me get some coffee and I’ll listen to anything you like,” she said, as cheerily as possible. Inside she felt hollow and empty. Something in her heart was telling her that this was the end for she and Ryan, and this time there’d be no getting him back.

  “Bella and I grew up in the same pack, down in Cornwall. There was a small group of jaguar families living near each other. It was pretty tough being a jaguar in those parts and all of those ‘escaped big cat’ news stories you might have seen was usually one of us getting spotted. Excuse the pun.” He smiled a little and shook his head. January thought she could almost see the memories dancing across his eyes.

  “It’s not a very original story, but we fell for each other. By the time we were both twenty, we were engaged. A short time after that, everything went wrong.” Ryan started to pace a little, the way he always did when he was nervous or upset. “I’m sure you’ve seen the scars on my back.” He looked up to meet January’s eyes. She saw a raw pain and anger there that sent a chill through her body. “Well, this is how I got them…” He took a deep breath and then told the story he’d stayed silent about for so long.

  “We didn’t know things weren’t okay with the local pack. We were both young – too young for politics - and we were cats, not wolves. Beyond telling us to be careful when we were out alone, no one mentioned or maybe knew that there was a pack of wolves trying to make a move on the wolves in our area. I guess the main pack thought that they wouldn’t bother the shifters, so they didn’t share the info.” He sighed. “They were wrong to keep it to themselves.”