Black Wolf

by Steph Shangraw

  Power surged, and the water rippled, as though something large had made a dive just below the surface. A surface that quivered, then collapsed, drawing itself together and up into the form of a huge snake.

  “Ah, hell. Jess, stay behind me, got it?”

  “Right,” Jess said, his voice shaking only slightly. Well, he must be getting somewhat used to magical shocks by now, although they weren’t usually spreading cobra-hoods overhead and weaving back and forth in a threatening dance. “What if we get away from the lake? Into the forest?”

  “They just might switch to calling the lightning,” Shaine said grimly. “Water itself I can fight. Lightning is way too advanced for me, it’ll get us both quite dead.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Shaine spread his feet, and braced himself—this was going to hurt, might very well kill him, but if he could keep them from getting Jess anything was worth it. He turned his attention inside, to the channels where power had once run freely. The little he’d used since blocking off those channels had been a narrow stream, just enough to keep them from drying up completely. Except that now, he needed far more than that stream, he needed the full river to flow again. The spring at the source remained, he knew that, the challenge was to clear the way and set the power free…

  The water-serpent struck at them; Shaine let himself be distracted long enough to shield, and the serpent was bounced harmlessly away.

  He had to reach it, whatever it cost him, or Jess would die, this construct of water would drag him under and drown him…

  Deep inside, something shuddered, and something shattered, and power surged along the dry channels, power so cold it burned, raw against his nerves… but it was there, waiting for him to use it.

  He took a deep breath, and sang cold and ice and winter.

  Somewhere not far away, but far enough away to keep the singer out of immediate danger, he heard a second voice raised, calling summer and warmth. Doggedly, he fought it, and slowly the water-cobra stilled, hardening into ice.

  “Jess?”

  “Yeah?” the wolf answered instantly, alertly.

  “There is no way in hell I can beat a fully-trained mage. You have to get Kevin, he and I together should be able to. I’ll keep him from noticing you aren’t here, just don’t take forever, okay?”

  Rather helpful that Jess was only in the magesilks wolves liked to wear; without even a pause to reply, he shifted, and faded neatly into the forest on four feet.

  An amusing thought flitted across his mind, the scene when Jesse appeared, quite possibly with Sundark already in circle, to haul Kevin away for a mage-battle—of water, not fire.

  Then the water-serpent thawed again, dipped low to threaten him, and forced his attention back to the battle itself.

  It couldn’t actually hurt him—what could it do, pull him in and try to drown him? He kept fighting it anyway, pretending Jess was still behind him, struggling to freeze the serpent into rigid ice.

  The other voice quavered, fell briefly silent; the snake hardened promptly, and the other voice returned with a different song. Shaine reached frantically for the power of the lake beside him, and flung it into a shield as the huge ice statue fell—directly over him. Shards of ice exploded in all directions with alarming force; instinctively, Shaine crouched, lost the thread of the song, but his shield held and none of the ice touched him.

  Round one’s over.

  He searched outwards for the signature of the mage facing him; if he or she were from his family, from the colony he’d grown up in, he should be able to recognize it.

  Familiar, oh yes, it took no effort to identify.

  Oh, hell. That was Lew… how could he fight his own cousin, once his dearest friend?

  No matter who it was, he had no right to attack Jess, and no matter who, Shaine was going to be in the middle.

  Lew waited, granting him the next move. Between equals, it was a courtesy; at the moment, it felt like condescension.

  Shaine gathered together what power he could, and wove it together with his determination. He began to sing again, pouring into it all the darkness he could, all the pain and fear and despair he could call up from his memory. The song forced it on Lew, made him live it, more vivid than the most realistic nightmare, drove it into his senses and memory mercilessly.

  It must have been sheer shock that won him the long few moments before Lew fought back; that wasn’t exactly a conventional weapon for a mage-battle, even between merenai. He felt the shiver of power as Lew attempted to protect himself from it; he lashed out harder, caught him off-balance and Lew lost the half-formed shield.

  Lew’s voice twined into his, reflecting it back at him, locking them both in same reality. Shaine winced, but he’d lived through it already, so it couldn’t affect him as it did Lew; he twisted the song, gave him huddling with Jess in the cold, gave him hunger, gave him kneeling in front of a stranger unbuckling his belt.

  He sensed power near him, not shadow-shifting and fluid but brilliant heat. He fell silent, breathing hard.

  “Where and what?” Kevin asked.

  “Jess?”

  “The others won’t let him out of the house. Where and what?”

  “Full-trained mereni-mage, out in the lake, not far away—maybe out on the island. He has to be after Jess, thinks Jess is still here.”

  “Great. Nothing like fighting blindly.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll defend, you attack. There are things you can’t shield from.”

  “Can you draw enough of an attack to give me a focus without letting on I’m here?”

  “I bet there’s one coming any second now, as soon as he gets over what I just dumped on him.”

  Shaine counted heartbeats, waiting, praying that he could counter anything Lew might send at him. He reached twelve when he heard Lew singing again—a gentle song, one of home and the waters and playing in the waves, chasing fish and dozing in the shallows under the warm sun, an invitation and welcome…

  Nails digging into his palms hard enough for the pain to distract him, Shaine took a deep breath and answered the song with one of his own. It was shaky at best, all it did was deflect the power in the calling away from him and Kevin, but maybe Kevin could get that focus and attack quickly enough.

  “Damn,” Kevin muttered to himself. “All that water’s really going to mess with anything I use. Let’s try this.”

  Lew’s song broke, with a sharp cry.

  Silence, straining to find some indication of the result.

  It came—the wind picked up, whipped viciously around them; lightning danced across the sky, and thunder crashed at a deafening volume.

  “Great, now he’s getting mad,” Shaine said.

  “He’s not the only one who can get mad.”

  “The storm will give him more power to call on—and if you hadn’t noticed, you’ve got less sunlight to play with.”

  Kevin flashed him a feral grin. “He’s not the only one with an extra power-source to call on. Mine’s sitting in the living room in a circle right now. And even though they’re inside, the windows are open in that room and the wind is going to feed Cynthi. And won’t the storm help you, too?”

  “True.” A half-trained mereni-mage and a full-trained elvenmage with his coven behind him, against one full-trained mereni-mage. Why did the odds still feel like they were in Lew’s favour, despite that? “I suggest you hit him with something before he starts calling the lightning down on us.”

  “Hmm.” Kevin frowned thoughtfully, expression briefly distant—consulting with others, maybe? He spread his feet for balance, shook his head to get his hair out of his eyes, and stretched skywards.

  Lightning flashed again, but Shaine felt a surge of power. Much of it was the rapid multi-tonal staccato of fire, but there were other threads twined together to create the whole, the slow drumlike pulse of earth, the high crystalline chiming of air, and a fainter rippling cascade of water, others he couldn’t identify.

  “Come on,” Kevi
n murmured. “Try that again.”

  This time the lightning hit the lake right in front of them, disturbingly close. Shaine threw up an arm to shield his eyes; Kevin didn’t move.

  Another flash, again close. Shaine glanced at Kevin, had to squint to see past the ball of bright-coloured light balanced between and slightly above his palms. Gathering the light from the lightning? That was some trick of timing, Shaine had to admit.

  “I’m going to be pretty open for a minute,” Kevin warned.

  “Right.” Which meant watching doubly closely for the next attack to come.

  It wasn’t lightning. It was another song.

  This one called his name, begged him to come home, back to the waters and his own kind, he hadn’t done anything wrong, he could still return. No more loneliness, no more pain, no more hiding…

  He knew he had to counter it, but he faltered, felt the power in it coil around him like a loving caress.

  Come back and dance the waves with Lew, as once they’d loved to do… all he had to do was leave behind the land-bound world, come into the lake, and Lew would welcome him, they could go home…

  Water splashed around his ankles; he looked down, startled, he hadn’t meant to move. Water on his cheeks, too, but that water was salt. There was too much strength in that song, Lew truly believed it, truly meant it and wanted his lost cousin to come.

  Shaine wrapped both arms around himself, fighting his own anguish. He couldn’t go, he didn’t belong there anymore, in some ways he never had. And he couldn’t leave Jess…

  Jess. That was something to hold on to.

  Somehow, he found his voice, and called on all the depths of his feelings for the black wolf. The seductive luring lost strength, and he backed away, up onto dry land, to stand beside Kevin.

  Pure power exploded; Shaine closed his eyes and turned his head until light levels returned to normal.

  Silence.

  “Is he…?”

  “He’s alive,” Kevin said gently. “I just gave him one hell of a case of backlash shock, from what Flynn can get, but otherwise he’s okay.” He smiled. “Major advantage of being able to channel more power than most mages: I can pull overload tricks.”

  “That’s… good.” He couldn’t bring himself to want Lew really hurt.

  “Come on, let’s go back.”

  With the threat over, adrenaline began to fade.

  By the west gate, overlooking the lake, Shaine halted. He couldn’t seem to make the tears stop. That was crazy, he was a mereni-mage, he was supposed to have some control over water…

  He looked for the blood in the lake, but there was only water, the clouds breaking up and allowing patches of blue sky to glimmer through and be reflected.

  “I can’t ever go home,” he whispered.

  “Then find a new home,” Kevin said softly. “Come on. You’re backlashed too. That’s enough to mess with anyone’s emotions.”

  I can’t go home. Oh, god, I want so much to go home…

  49

  Jess deftly avoided running into someone, without dropping the tray he was carrying. Her apology he acknowledged with a quick smile, as he stepped around her to deliver the plates on the tray.

  “One hot chicken sandwich, one lasagne. Give me a yell if you need anything else.”

  The female elf and male human thanked him, and Jess spun away to another table.

  At the bar waiting for drinks from Tomas, he was joined by Nick, who passed on his own order.

  “Not bad for a Saturday,” the witch laughed. “Feel like coming over for a couple of hours after we get off?”

  Jess hesitated. “Shaine…”

  “Will wake up when he wakes up, and whether you’re sitting with him worrying or not isn’t going to make a difference. Liam thinks the sleep’s best for him.”

  “Well… okay. You’ve got Dungeons and Dragons in mind?”

  “Mmhmm. I think Eva has evil new ideas for us. She was reading the Monster Manual and chortling to herself.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “It’d be interesting to see what you’d come up with in a campaign.”

  “Hey, slow down, I haven’t been playing that long. Wait until I’m sure I’ve got a grip on the rules, would you?”

  “No hurry.”

  Tomas set the required drinks on the bar, left them to take the ones each needed while he went to deal with someone else.

  “Back to work,” Jess sighed, flashing Nick a smile.

  The kitchen closed at eleven, so although Tomas would keep the bar open until one, Jess and Nick and Sonja were free to leave at midnight.

  They stopped on the porch to decide what they were doing.

  “Stop and grab munchies?” Sonja suggested.

  “Good idea,” Nick said. “I bet Liam ate all the popcorn again. Don’t know what we’re going to do with that boy.”

  “Love me?” Liam said innocently, from behind them.

  He looked distinctly satisfied that he made all three jump and whip around; grinning, he got up off the bench. Evaline bounced to her feet, tail waving and ears forward—laughing.

  “Gotcha,” Liam chortled.

  “What are you doing?” Sonja demanded.

  “Waiting to surprise you. It worked, too. Munchies would be a good idea, but no, I did not eat all the popcorn. Just most of it.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “So let’s move already, time is passing that we could be using to get our hands on that bloody Ice Diamond talisman.”

  They turned towards the all-night convenience store, some two blocks away, four discussing strategies, Evaline frisking around them laughing to herself visibly.

  Jess paused, losing track of Liam’s idea, checking the breeze for scents. Something was tickling the back of his mind with danger… He caught the scent clearly, finally, and something inside came awake, demanding that he do something about it.

  He stopped where he stood, and tried to identify which direction. He didn’t know what that scent was, but it was maddening…

  “Jess, what…” Sonja began in confusion.

  “I don’t know. Something smells wrong. Not a predator, I know that smell. Eva?”

  Evaline left off her playing, came to hover close to her coven-mates, but she expressed her confusion, she smelled nothing out of place.

  “This is not a fucking acid flashback, all right? Something is wrong!”

  “Calm down,” Liam said. “No one said we don’t believe you. I’m not picking up anything. Nick? Sonja?”

  Sonja shook her head. “But I’m pretty low-sense at the moment.”

  “Jesse’s right,” Nick said distractedly. “Something’s not balanced… Oh, damn, it just felt me searching…”

  Something tall and inhumanly skinny, with a long heavy tail, stalked menacingly out of the shadows between two buildings.

  “That’s a demon,” Liam whispered. “It has to be. Oh, gods.”

  The demon bared finger-long teeth in a grin. “Meat. Coven of wolf and witch and healer and gifted. My meat.”

  Evaline snarled, ears back and tail low, crouching defensively between the demon and her horrified coven.

  Jess stepped around her, to place himself between the demon and his friends. He heard Sonja cry out, and heard Liam say softly, “Wait. Let him go.”

  His heart felt like it was pounding three times its normal speed, the adrenaline rush was powerful enough to make him light-headed, but on some level he knew with crystal clarity what to do.

  The demon laughed shrilly. “More meat, wolf meat, tastiest kind.”

  “Back off. You’re not killing anyone.”

  It had to look ridiculous, a slender youth in black magesilks, standing calmly before a creature twice his height and so well-armed.

  The demon paced back and forth, angrily, but didn’t try to get by him. “My meat!”

  “Go back to where you belong!”

  “No! You are alone, a child, you cannot win.” It made a dash to the right, clearly intendin
g to go around him.

  Jesse moved sideways, and it scrambled to keep from hitting him. While it fought for balance, he changed and advanced, hackles raised, growling.

  It hesitated, spun towards the four watching frozen.

  Jesse gathered himself into a tightly-wound crouch, lunged at its back, and knocked it sprawling on the street. He tore savagely at it, while it twisted around, trying to reciprocate. Claws raked down his side, across the fading scars from the construct-wolves, and they hurt worse than predator claws, but it left its throat open. Relentlessly, Jesse bit down. It struggled and shrieked, thrashed madly, vainly seeking to escape the merciless grip.

  He felt the spine crunch, and the demon vanished.

  Jesse stumbled, and changed, panting.

  “Nobody ever tell you wolves can’t fight demons?” Nick asked weakly.

  “Guess not. Can somebody check this? It’s too far back for me to see.”

  Liam immediately came close to examine the freely-bleeding cuts across Jesse’s lower back. “They look okay,” he reported. “Three lines, none of them very deep or long.” He laid a hand over them, and the wetness slowed.

  “Jess, by rights you should be in small pieces all over the street, and the rest of us with you.” He hadn’t seen Evaline shift to human, in her blue and silver magesilks. She hugged him, and he leaned against her, grateful for the support—with the adrenaline rush fading, he wasn’t sure he could stay on his feet without help. Gradually, his heart was slowing to its normal rhythm. “How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he told her. “I smelled it and something in the back of my head told me what to do.” The world tilted sideways, and his stomach turned inside out; the area around the cuts felt so cold it burned, and it was spreading, slowly. “I don’t feel so good.”

  “I’ll go get the van,” Evaline said, and raced off on four feet in the direction of Winter’s house, not far outside the village proper. Sonja took Eva’s place at Jess’ side, helping him stay on his feet. Other voices that felt rather far off but probably weren’t, all talking at once, they couldn’t have missed that scream; Liam, calmly suggesting that it had simply been a particularly reckless and foolish predator. That wasn’t going to last past the wolves catching the scent, Jess thought vaguely, but it seemed to ameliorate some of the chaos for the moment, which was probably good enough, until Evaline returned with the van.