by Harry Nix
“Nice statue,” Alex said.
“Thanks, I made him myself,” Roma said, heading to one of the workbenches.
It was only as he'd followed Roma to the backroom that he realized behind her gigantic leather apron she was actually wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Seeing the way she walked, he mentally downgraded her age. She couldn’t be thirty. As he was doing this, he suddenly wondered what the hell he was thinking. He had three mates and that was definitely enough. So what was he doing checking out this random woodworking shopkeeper?
But the sway of those hips…
Roma dropped the rings on one of the tables and then turned around. She must've caught some expression on Alex's face because she suddenly looked him up and down, clearly appraising him. It only lasted for a moment though, before she clapped her hands to her hair, smoothing it down again, and practically bolted to the other side of the room near the small kitchen.
“I’ll make you a coffee while you work,” she shouted out. Alex wasn't quite sure what was going on. The best he could see, putting two and two together, was that she didn't like to be touched and perhaps looking at her like he wanted to touch was a no go, too.
Alex turned towards the rings, ignoring the bed, and also the wolf inside him. It was saying ridiculous things like go over to where she was, kiss her, take her to the bed, and make her yours. It took a few moments for him to get his mind back on what he was doing, but he took deep breaths, and then, one by one, enchanted the rings, using the remainder of the sex magic to power them up. It was far faster this time, incredibly so. By the time Roma returned with a cup of coffee, he was done and shaking his head in disbelief at the speed of it.
“Here you go,” Roma said, putting the coffee on the bench and taking two giant steps backward, holding her own in front of her like a shield.
“I'm all done. Thanks,” Alex said. Despite the fact she didn't seem dangerous, he cast Purify on the cup of coffee anyway, but nothing happened. He took a sip of the coffee, which was rich and delicious.
“You know there are some poisons purify doesn't work on, right? Like, I feed you a drink that has one kind of thing in it and give you a biscuit that’s got something else in it and they combine in your stomach and make the poison and then you die,” Roma said. Alex noticed she was munching on a biscuit and saw that she had placed one on the table too.
“I know this might be forward, but are you a witch?” Alex asked.
Roma shook her head. “I'm just a woodworker and now you’re done talking are you going to enchant those rings?”
“I already did. They’re all done. Five rings, so five thousand dollars,” Alex said with a grin.
“No way,” Roma said. The lure of the rings and the surprise must've made her forget herself as she walked past Alex and picked them up, casting Analyze on each one. Then she put one on her finger and summoned up a fireball. Alex wasn't quite sure if she was going to throw it or not and was a little surprised when she walked over to the kitchen sink and dropped it in before turning on the faucet, letting it fizzle out.
“Go out the front. I’ll be there in a moment,” Roma said, a strange look on her face. Alex took his coffee with him and left the biscuit behind. He felt like he'd tempted fate enough today and if he was going to a bar later, he might need all the luck he could get. It wasn't long before Roma came back out to the main room with a handful of cash. She set it on the counter and then stepped back, making a space between them again.
“It's all there. If you come back tomorrow, I'll have more to make another deal,” she said. Alex took the money and quickly shuffled through it, counting out five thousand.
“How much is that relaxation chair over there by the way?” he asked.
“Nine thousand dollars.”
“Nine thousand! Incredible. Although, it was relaxing,” Alex said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, five thousand dollars isn't going to be able to get you anything in here,” Roma said. Alex put the money in his wallet and then put it back in his bag. He finished his coffee, so he put the cup on the counter, noticing that Roma had taken a step back as he moved forward to do so. He took a step away from the counter and saw she moved closer, as though she was trying to keep a permanent fixed distance between them.
“So, tell me where this bar is,” he said
16
The bar was dark and dodgy. As Roma had said, it was only a few streets away. Alex was half expecting it to be full of supernatural creatures—orcs and elves sitting at tables like The Lord of the Rings but it was mostly full of normal-looking people. He did see a few mages wearing robes sitting at the back. As he walked in, he was thinking it was going to be like an old western where the piano player would stop, and everyone would gasp and look at the door. But those in the bar just ignored him.
Alex slipped one of the hundreds into his pocket, not wanting to show his cash and went up to the bartender. He was a short, pudgy guy somewhere in his fifties with a bald head that was gleaming in what little light there was.
Although it was early in the day, most of the tables in the place were occupied. Everyone appeared to be nursing their drinks, so the bar area was currently empty. The bartender was doing a crossword and didn't look up when Alex sat.
“A beer and I'd also like the card with my face on it,” Alex said, cutting straight to the chase. The bartender glanced up at him and then back down at his crossword. As he moved, Alex caught the slightest blur, like he had when watching Bailey, who’d been using some kind of illusion to cover his true features. Sure enough, a moment later, the bartender made a grunting noise sounding like an old frog clearing his throat.
“I need a four-letter word for suicidal,” the old man said.
“I'm not really good at crosswords,” Alex said and placed a hundred on the bar.
“I'm thinking Alex, yes, that's it. I need another four-letter word for are you bloody serious?” The man shoved the hundred back towards Alex and then pointed the door. “Get out of here before someone takes your head off,” he said.
Alex quickly glanced around the bar. It didn’t look like anyone was bothering to even look at him. He turned back to the bartender.
“What’s your name?”
“It's Zig and you want to get out of here while you can still walk,” he said.
“Nice to meet you Zig, my name is Alex Lowe.”
Zig glanced down the bar towards the back of the room, where the mages were sitting. They seemed absorbed in their drinks from what Alex could see.
“I know who you are, and I want you to leave,” Zig said in a quiet voice.
“How about instead of that you give me my beer, and you give me my card,” Alex said. He let a little bit of a growl into his voice.
Zig looked down the bar again, back at Alex, and snatched the hundred, quickly filling a glass of beer, and then returning with his change.
“The card costs two thousand because I can't exactly claim a commission on it from you killing yourself, can I?” Zig said.
Alex choked on his beer but managed to recover.
“Two thousand dollars for a card! Are you out of your mind? Why does it cost that much?”
“Yeah, I heard you’re new. Because, there’s a contract on it, magically enforced. I give the card out, the person does the job. They collect the money and are obligated to pay me my fee, otherwise their balls will drop off, or their dick evaporates, or a number of other horrible things happen to them. Normally I give the cards out cheap, sometimes free. But if you want your card, it's gonna cost two thousand dollars,” Zig said.
Alex still had almost five thousand but there was no way he was about to hand two thousand of it over. Acting on instinct, Alex reached over the bar and grabbed Zig's wrist, feeling reptilian skin. Zig jerked back, pulling his arm free, taking a step to the door that was hidden in shadow behind him.
“None of that,” Zig warned.
“Do you know Bailey?” Alex asked, sipping his beer.
“I did. I
also know how he met you, and now he's dead.”
“That's true, I think Corvus did it, which is why I went to the Corvus outpost and killed every mage there except one,” Alex said.
“I heard wind of that too,” Zig said. Although he was still near his escape door, he seemed to have relaxed, crossing his arms, and leaning back against the wall.
“Good. Then you might also have heard that I killed Jasper, head of the Greenacre pack, and took his territory. You might have also heard that I destroyed a blood golem and have killed countless weredogs sent against me. Finally, you may have also heard that one of the spells I created was flame shield where whoosh, I burst into flames all over my body, perfect for hugging someone who doesn't want to help me,” Alex said. He kept the growl out of his voice this time, speaking in a level tone and occasionally sipping his beer. At the mention of the flames, Zig stepped closer to his exit, his hand resting on the doorknob.
“I’ll give you the card for a thousand dollars, then you get out.”
“How about you give it to me for five hundred and you tell me anything else you heard about me?” Alex said.
Zig looked back down at the mages again and Alex followed his gaze. They were still talking amongst themselves, but once or twice they glanced down to Alex was.
“Better talk fast Zig,” Alex said.
“Okay, fine. Gimme the money,” Zig said. Alex quickly reached into his bag and, trying to conceal it as best he could, counted out five hundred, which he slipped across the bar to Zig. He was sure now, of course, that Zig was the same kind of frog species that Bailey had been. The way the illusion slightly blurred as he moved gave it away. Zig inched forward and grabbed the cash before leaping back to his exit, his hand on the doorknob.
“Okay, so all I heard is that Corvus, Xavo, and Ignis are now after you, plus everyone else dragged out of the woodwork by the bounty,” Zig said.
“Where is this card?”
Zig turned away from Alex, rummaging in a box that was on the shelf behind him. He was obviously extremely nervous because he kept looking back at Alex, as though expecting him to leap over the counter at any moment. Eventually he pulled out a playing card which he dropped on the counter.
“Put it away, look at later,” Zig urged. Alex was tempted to defy him, to keep playing this bravado role, but out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a few more glances in his direction so he slipped the card into his bag.
“Any information about why these three enclaves are after me?” Alex asked.
“The Corvus thing. Mutual protection agreements, you know. You take on one, you take on all of them,” Zig said.
“What, like NATO?”
“Yes, exactly, like NATO, except with magic spells and crazy powers and enough mages to wipe you off the face of the realm,” Zig said.
Although Alex was in human form, his senses were turned up to maximum. From the corner of his eye could see three mages openly staring at him now, talking to each other, and a woman at another table was looking hard too, fiddling with something in her lap. Alex had finished his beer by now and although with his heightened werewolf metabolism, it required a lot of alcohol to get drunk, just the one beer had taken the edge off, making him feel a bit looser, a bit more reckless.
After all, he had gone for a walk and suddenly made five thousand and learned there was a bounty out on him. Plus, he had the name of another enclave that was after him, which meant another target; more mages he could take on; an outpost he could find. If they wanted to pull this mutual protection garbage he’d just go to the next enclave outpost, rip some arms off, and then see how the next group felt.
“Please leave my bar,” Zig urged in a whisper. He was pressed up so closely against the door that he’d almost faded into it.
Alex turned to face the three mages who had come from the back of the room. All three were wearing dark red robes. At first glance, they appeared to be related, all blond-haired and blue-eyed, about the same age as Alex. He swiveled on his stool towards them and shifted into his hybrid form, the charm taking his clothes, the bag, and the money too. The stool creaked under his weight.
“What do you Aryan race halfwits want?” Alex said. He had his claws out and tapped one on the bar.
From behind the bar, Zig had opened the door, and out of the corner of Alex's eye he saw the behind it was desert, somewhere remote and hot.
“No fighting in the bar, you know the rules,” Zig said.
“You're Alex Lowe,” the mage in front said.
“That's right. Alex Lowe—werewolf mage,” Alex said and then summoned a fireball into his hand. The three mages took a step back, and everyone else in the bar went quiet. “No wand. It's just me,” Alex said. He wasn't confident enough to juggle a fireball from one hand to the other as Juno did. As far as he could tell, if he moved the fireball to his other hand, he’d end up severely burning himself
The door to the bar opened, a stream of light bursting in, then he heard a familiar voice.
“Alex so good to see you. How are you? How is everyone?” Monroe said, walking over to where Alex was sitting. Monroe was in his police uniform, and he was breathing heavily, as though he’d come running. Alex glanced across at Zig and saw the small button recessed into the cabinet next to the box that Zig had been messing with.
“I'm good, Officer Monroe, how are you?” Alex said. He wasn't quite sure how long he could hold the fireball with his homebrew spell, so he canceled it, or at least tried to. When Juno did it, the fireball just evaporated in her hand but clearly Alex's spell didn't allow for that. With a shock, he realized that the fireball had only ever been thrown twice: at the back fence and Roma had dropped one in the sink covering it with water. Alex looked behind the bar and was relieved to see an enormous tub full of ice cubes and lemon wedges. Pretending it had been his plan all along, he reached over and dropped the fireball into the ice where it immediately melted its way down, sending up a cloud of lemon-scented steam into the room.
“Can I help you three gentlemen with something?” Monroe asked the three mages.
“No, thank you,” the first one said. Then they split up. Two went back to the table at the rear of the bar and the other walked out the front door, leaving Monroe and Alex alone at the bar. Zig had finally closed his escape door but was still standing close to it, ready to leap at any moment.
“Can you get him out of here now?” Zig asked Monroe.
“How about we have a beer first?” Monroe said. Zig let out a frustrated sigh, but then quickly filled two glasses, setting them on the bar.
“I got it,” Monroe said, putting some money on the bar.
Zig performed his snatch and grab maneuver again before dumping a handful of change back in front of Monroe. Alex and Monroe both took a gulp of their beers and Monroe held his up to Alex.
“Cheers to your good health,” he said.
“Cheers,” Alex said, clinking his glass against Monroe's. In his hybrid form. Alex was significantly larger than Monroe and also felt like he was hunching over the bar, but there was no way he was shifting back now, not with the two mages still in the room plus whoever else was there. The woman who had been fiddling with something in her lap was now just sitting, watching the pair of them with her hands below the table.
“I heard you had some trouble with the dead and some silver,” Monroe said, lowering his voice.
“Xavo. Six dead soldiers with silver bullets. Then ten teenagers, apprentices I guess, flying drones, dumping silver dust on my home.” Alex said. He tried to keep the tone out of his voice but now he was in hybrid form, the anger was so much closer to the surface. He had to concentrate on not flexing his hands and squeezing the glass lest it shatter.
“Silver drones are something Tradinium got into and now it’s spread out. New technology, new methods. If I were you are be getting some guns, learning to shoot moving targets out of the air,” Monroe said.
Alex gulped down his beer then tapped on the bar for Zig to get him an
other one. Zig took the payment from the pile of change Monroe had left on the bar.
“They killed one of my pack, Bish, and another one, Gem, she was in a coma last I saw her. You’re police. What can you do about it?”
Monroe sipped his beer and then let out a burp to the back of his hand. Now Alex was in hybrid form he could see more clearly in the dim bar. He saw Monroe had something sticky on his pants that looked like strawberry jam, probably from one of his grandchildren.
“I can do exactly nothing. The Great Barrier is everywhere and if a supernatural is involved in a crime, cameras stop working, backup tapes are lost, there are mysterious fires. The moment there is the chance of exposure, something goes wrong.”
“These mages marched six dead soldiers out of the forest. One of them pulled the trigger on a gun and shot Bish in the head. There would be ballistics. You’d be able to find who bought the gun, track them down maybe. We still have the gun.”
Alex had gulped down half his third beer by now and was starting to enjoy the relaxed sensation running through him. Despite that, he was getting frustrated.
“I agree, but I'm not sure you’re understanding what you're asking. The Great Barrier is everywhere. You deliver a dead body of a supernatural with a silver bullet in its head and a hundred things will happen. Somehow the coroner’s report will be lost. The person who does the dissection will see but not see. They’ll get sick. Somehow, things will suddenly get busy, There’ll be some unexplained emergency causing them to look away. They'll sign off on a death certificate with some nonsense and go on to the next job. I've seen normals step over a dead mermaid on the bench and when I asked one of them what they saw, they said it was a dead seal. What I saw was a half-naked woman spread out on the sand with a knife in her heart. What I felt was the Great Barrier pulling on me, urging me to cover it up, to hide it from the normals. What I saw as well were the other supernaturals in the area, pulled by the same force, and you know what we did? We pushed her back into the sea, letting the tide take her away just so the Great Barrier would stop hurting us,” Monroe said. He finished his beer and signaled for another. Alex gulped the last of his beer and then tapped on the bar again but Monroe waved Zig away.
