Grabbing a jar from the kitchen table and popping the lid, I sprinkled some more St John’s wort into the brew. Then Pauline stopped stirring so I could blow on the liquid, which instantly erupted in a teal flame as if I’d flambéed it. In a magical sense I kind of had.
Just as the flames were dying Viviane came in with a gush of cold air that was probably responsible for her rose colored cheeks.
“Is the tea ready? They kind of need it.” She leaned against the counter, fanning herself. “And I could use it, too. God, those shifters…They don’t hurt the eyes but certainly my heart.”
“A heart that belongs to another,” I reminded her.
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’ve gone blind.”
A smile on my lips I looked out the window to the clearing that was the shifter’s backyard and where now more than a hundred half naked shapeshifters stood, prepared to change forms as soon as the magic hit. Most of the males were clad only in sweatpants, leaving their strong chests and feet bare, and their eyes glinted with the fierce beast inside of them. Yep, quite a yummy sight to behold.
“Well, that’s what you get when you’re so adamant on wanting to live through the Turn here instead of at home, on our rooftop.”
“We talked about this Maiwenn.”
Talked about it, my ass. First my tutor and roommate had betrayed me by agreeing with Kylian, the leader of the shifter pack, that it was safer to be in the Bois de Vincennes for the Turn behind my back, and then they had ganged up on me and told me to move my behind into Kylian’s woods. Pauline kept on and on about wanting to be together with her boyfriend Ben when the magic hit, so I would have gone just to make her stop. However, they lost no time and pulled out the big guns anyway: Mathieu. My little brother by heart was part human, part shapeshifter and part something else entirely – and we had no clue as to what – so the Turn was especially scary for him. Of course, I wanted to be there for him and I would have gone to Kylian’s Furry Village without any convincing needed just to be near Mathieu, but by that point it had been kinda funny to watch them all talking their heads off and so I had taken my sweet time with agreeing.
I nodded my head seriously, but there was a twinkle of mischief in my smiling eyes that Viviane easily caught on, “Yeah, sure we talked about it.”
“You aren’t still mad about that, are you?”
Smiling reassuringly at her I shook my head. “No.”
However, I knew the main reason they wanted me to be in these woods, surrounded by my strongest ally who had over hundreds of shifters behind his back and would fight beside me no matter what. My aunt. The woman who wanted me dead.
Morgan le Fay was a Celtic goddess that had made my mother’s and especially my father’s life a hell with her poisonous jealousy and greed for more. Her machinations had ended with her son killing my father and therefore forcing my mother to escape her home, pregnant. No one had known about the child she carried and that probably had saved her life. After a rather unpleasant encounter with my cousin Mordred, Morgan’s son who had recognized me, I had expected nothing less than the bastard running straight to mummy. I hadn’t reckoned with her impatience, expecting her to wait for the Turn to attack me directly. But she had sent the Wild Hunt into my city instead. She had even added a little surprise by forcing my father’s dead soul to lead the Wild Hunt. Yeah, I had to admit that had been a nice, wicked twist, which had lead me to killing myself rather than letting anybody else get hurt.
Someone had saved me though, someone besides my father and Kylian had been there and had decided my time wasn’t up yet. It gave me the creeps, since it meant that that someone was at least one step above the crazy bitch goddess who wanted me dead and in consequence very, very powerful. No one seemed to know who the guy had been or where he had disappeared to, and I didn’t like that one bit. He might have saved my life, but for all I knew and with my non-existing luck he might have done it only so he could take it himself.
But even though I knew nothing about the new player in the game, Morgan stayed my most immediate concern. She had taken me by surprise, or rather her impatience had, and I wouldn’t let her have the advantage over me again. If Morgan had waited until the Turn, until her powers were back full force, she could have succeeded with her plan. But I guess Viviane, the Lady of the Lake was right by saying that Morgan’s arrogance and impatience would be her downfall. I knew my aunt would come for me again. I knew she might even use the panic and confusion that was sure to rise after the Turn to get to me. However, there was one thing everybody seemed to forget. Morgan wouldn’t be the only one who would get her full powers back once the curtain dropped, I would too. And I was sure the blood of my godly father running through my veins would come in handy.
Viviane’s lovely but hoarse voice pulled me back out of my thoughts. “Besides, I’m fairly certain the sight would have been equally heart-stopping once the magic hits, but in a less pleasurable way.”
Pauline snorted. “Humans might know about us now, might know what’s out there, but that’s only in theory. So… looking at humans panicking due to theory turning into first-hand experience or at a bunch of handsome, half-naked shifters? Hmmm, let me think.”
“Well, if you put it that way…,” I grinned.
The Council, an institution established to govern the magical community, had come out of hiding only a few months ago and had tried its best to prepare the human population and their governments for what was to come ever since.
The reversal of Earth’s magnetic field was referred to as The Turn, and would result in the opening of the gates between realms – and it would hit any minute now. Basically it meant that magic would flood our world once again turning it upside down. This global shift happened rather regularly – roughly every thirteen hundred years or so – but sometimes also very unexpectedly. So it came as no surprise that magical creatures like faeries, vampires and shapeshifters lived right next door to ignorant humans; some had stayed out of free will, others had been left without a choice. Those creatures, of course, didn’t stay celibate all those centuries and mingled with the humans instead, passing on magic through the blood. Even if it was just a drop, in your grandma or son or the nerd next door, it was enough. Therefore not knowing who would change into what magical creature as soon as the magic hit was our biggest problem – and not knowing how the people would handle it.
The human governments tried their best, which of course meant an increasing number of heavy armed police and army patrols roaming the streets. Personally, I thought having those wannabe Rambos turn into panicked stuff of legends was bad enough as it is. But add them holding machine guns in their hands and the picture really wasn’t pretty and reassuring in the least. Nevertheless, I really hoped the Council, humans and basically everyone out there could keep down the panic and therefore the number of deaths today.
Philippe floated into the house. And when I say floated I kind of meant that literally. Philippe was Mathieu’s best friend and a ghost, a life-sized ‘love and peace’ cliché from the sixties. “They are getting a little restless outside. Kylian wanted me to get a heads-up on the potion making.”
I looked at him. “Tell him we’re nearly done.”
He was paler than usual and it troubled me. When I had asked him about it, he had tried to calm me down by telling me it was the magic. Two weeks ago magic had started to leak through the gates between realms, quickly turning into a constant trickle that was gaining strength now like a river after snowmelt. Only a drop of it had felt like a freight train slamming into me. Since there was no reason why Philippe would be lying, I wasn’t sure why my gut told me something was off – and that didn’t calm me at all. My gut was good, I trusted it. So I couldn’t help but be worried.
“I really want to get it over with. This waiting around is killing me,” Pauline remarked and I couldn’t help but agree with her.
Though we were magical creatures and could wield power, some more and others less, we weren’t used to magic surr
ounding us like that and so it was a strange and yet familiar, hot buzz in our blood. My body was vibrating with it, ready to explode and coiled tight with tension that was almost painful by now and I knew the others didn’t fare any better.
“No one likes it, even Mother Earth doesn’t,” Viviane remarked.
I only grunted in agreement. Yeah, the climate hadn’t been exactly kind with us the last month. Everything was amplified, from heat to cold, flood to draught, and all kinds of natural disasters – storms, earthquakes, tsunami, you name it – announced the coming change.
I started pouring a small sip of the strong potion into several thermos flasks standing at the ready on the table, while Pauline watered it down, filling them up with regular tea. “Hopefully this will help us all settle down a bit.”
Viviane took the first tray to carry it outside. The moment I opened my mouth to argue, she flipped me off in her own way – by chastising me. “Wanna make me feel like an old grandma who can’t even carry a goddamn tray? Girl, not long ago I could wipe the floor with your ass, don’t you forget that! And wait till I have my magic back and I might just show you that I still can.”
Guessed that fell under no good deed goes unpunished and all that. “Oui, Madame.”
Pauline snickered.
Then the earth trembled and groaned, such a deep, hurting sound, as if it was a living thing. The house shook and everything that was inside. Through the window I could see the wind kick up, the force of it whipping at the trees, bending them. Branches that didn’t stand a chance became lethal missiles.
“Get away from the window!” I shouted a moment before glass shattered and sliced through the air.
I looked for Viviane. She was still in the doorway, the tray at her feet. I ran to her, and pulled her inside.
The magic hit.
Oh God, it hurt. Screams, of pain and of wild beasts, echoed throughout the forest. It was like touching a high-voltage power line. My blood was singing with magic, scolding hot with it, and I wanted to scream with the pain and power suddenly flooding me. The magic was molten lava in my veins, my insides a ball of fire. My heart was ready to burst, and suddenly I wasn’t sure whether I would make it, whether I could withstand it. It hurt so goddamn much. I tried to calm myself but found I couldn’t breathe.
The ground beneath my feet still trembled, and then a chunk of it opened and shot up, throwing me against the kitchen counter. My ribs took most of the brunt. Aw, fuck. I slid to the floor, my eyes searching the room as my vision was fading. Darkness crept up on me.
I thought I got a glance of Pauline. A ball of fairy dust, a swirl of golden flakes surrounding her. Through it I could make out her eyes wide with shock, her mouth open in mid-scream. I couldn’t see Viviane. Only a gray mass, like a tornado with a wind and life of its own.
The magic was squeezing my lungs, while I wanted to explode. White-hot pain seared my wrist and I looked down. The gargoyles’ magic bit me there, marking me with the coat-of-arms of the person I had sworn to protect. I didn’t get a good look at it, but was sure I saw wings. The different magics - the one flooding our world and calling to my own and the gargoyles’ - were too much for me. All of it wanted inside of me while my body wanted to turn inside out. I closed my eyes when the pain became too much to bear.
I must have passed out. The moment my eyes opened I knew something was seriously wrong. Silence greeted me – though nothing was exactly calm around me. Screams and shouts echoed through the woods, but at least the earth was quiet. After shocks vibrated through the ground, but the inhuman screeching and groaning that had made my ears and heart bleed had mercifully stopped.
Something was wrong with my eyes. Well, either that, or the world had bled a little color and was suddenly a bit more...gray. The rest of my body felt weird and I decided to take stock slowly. I tasted the metallic bite of blood in my mouth; probably bit my tongue in all the chaos. For whatever reason, everything felt weird – off.
Two pair of bare feet stepped inside my frame of vision and I looked up.
Pauline was nearly naked, strategically placed flowers and greenery that almost looked like a tattoo on her skin or body paint curled and swirled along her skin covering her private parts. Her flaxen curls were wild around a face that was dominated by large, intensely violet eyes. She had been utterly beautiful before the Turn – now she was earthly, ethereal magnificence personified.
Viviane was dressed in an old-fashioned, simple white gown and oozed power. Her eyes were filled with it, swirling green and gray reminding me of mist covering rich green hills. The Lady of the Lake.
Both looked at me with an expression I really didn’t like.
“Oh my,” Pauline breathed which didn’t help my nerves at all.
I wanted to tell her that much, but when I opened my mouth, it didn’t form words. A bark came out instead.
Oh shit. Oh no. This couldn’t happen.
I looked around me and noticed my clothes were lying on the floor. Fear and a very bad feeling of apprehension held me in a tight grip as I started to look down at my body. I saw the paws first. One white, the other a reddish brown. Then turned my head to discover more reddish brown fur covered my body which ended in a white-tipped tail.
A tail.
A whine escaped me.
“Honey, everything will be alright.” Viviane tried to soothe me.
“You look so cute,” Pauline added and I growled. I didn’t want to growl, would have preferred a little sarcastic comment actually, but apparently that was the only way to make my feelings known in this new form of mine.
Movement drew my attention and I caught my reflection in a big piece of glass. A dog, I was a freaking, red-and-white Welsh sheepdog. With ears slightly folded at the tip and a patch of white ran down from between my eyes to my snout and broadened towards my paws and belly.
I sighed – well, whined was more like it – and shook my head. As a human I was the Patroness of Paris, protecting innocents, and in my animal shape I was a herding dog. Go figure.
“Maiwenn!” a deep voice yelled. Kylian. His voice was a little rougher and hoarse but I recognized it instantly.
“Get your ass out here.”
Right, who was I to think I would get a little reprieve after a giant magical shift.
A wild roar filled the air and the house shook. “I could really use a hand. Now!”
I snorted. Ha. Sorry pal, but I only got four paws.
***
About the Author
Natalie Herzer is a twenty-six year old indie author living in France. Much like her travel bug, the love for words has always been there, and after "rewriting" some books in her head she finally decided to give it a shot and to write her own.
She is the author of The Patroness, an urban-fantasy series, and Snapshots, a collection of short stories.
For more information and news visit
n-herzer.blogspot.com
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Ivory Guard Page 25
