by Holly Evans
If anyone found out who I was and what I could do... I shuddered at the thought. A stray cloud covered the moon, adding darkness and a cold chill to the city. I pulled my leather jacket closer around me and picked up my pace. It was time to curl up in my armchair and chase away the nightmares with a familiar action movie and a beer. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t remember the details of the nightmares in the morning.
My alarm jolted me out of a familiar nightmare. I opened my eyes and looked at my hands to check that they weren’t covered in blood. My heart raced, and my breath came in short, sharp bursts. You’d have thought I’d be used to it by now. I’d been having similar nightmares since that fateful night some eight year ago.
The sun was making its daily ascent. It was at that delightful point where it hovers right in my line of sight as I stumbled into the kitchen. I hadn’t drunk anything the night before, I was just exhausted. A quick look through my fridge and cupboards confirmed what I thought - I was out of food and down to my last ten euro. Payday was supposed to have been two weeks ago, but my boss kept ‘misplacing’ the paperwork. He’d made it very clear he didn’t want an abomination in his territory and given the Order would have his balls if he fired me, he was trying to make me quit. It was going to take a lot more than an empty stomach and some passive-aggressive comments to make me give up. If it really came down to it, I’d go and hunt. There were plenty of rabbits in the countryside.
I grabbed a quick shower and pulled on some fresh jeans, long-sleeved shirt (it was still cold out there), and my leather jacket. I double-checked I had my knives on me. Enforcers weren’t allowed to carry guns in Ireland. Even if they were, they likely wouldn’t extend that to made. Not that there were many of us among their ranks, since it was rare to have a made be stable enough for the role of supernal guard dog. No, guard dog isn’t fair; we were the police keeping the supernals under the Order’s watch in line. I’d told myself that I was going to make the world a better place, that no one would suffer the way I had if I became an enforcer. It turns out it was less saving the world and more wrestling drunk pixies.
Four
The benefit of riding a motorbike was that I didn’t have to fight for a parking space in the small car park outside of the office. It was a nondescript building in a dark and dirty cream colour with small windows and a heavy metal door. There was no sign or explanation for its presence anywhere nearby; it was just another dingy office on the edge of Dublin. I left my motorbike under the only tree in the area and walked across the car park with my head held high. I could feel the eyes of the only two other shifter enforcers in this territory. It was unusual to have shifter or lycan enforcers. We needed to be more dominant than anything we might encounter on the job, and beings of our dominance were usually alphas running their own packs.
Even when there were shifters or lycans in a territory, there couldn’t be more than two, and only one pair of either shifters or lycans. If there was more than one pair, they were prone to getting into dominance matches, and lycans liked picking fights with shifters. They say that shifters began as broken lycans. Where lycans shift into a man-wolf form, shifters transform into the full predator form, be that a wolf, big cat, or sometimes even a fox. No one quite knows how shifters really came about, but they did and do occasionally show up in lycan bloodlines. The lycans hide them away or kick them out. It brings shame on the bloodline and pack.
The dark yellow carpet was stained with old blood and ancient dirt that had been trodden in long before I’d started working there. The hallway was narrow, a pale grey that reminded me of hospital wards. All in all, it was a miserable place. The hallway opened into a large room with cheap flimsy desks scattered throughout it and pigeon holes with names above them on the back wall. A whiteboard stood next to the pigeon holes. I glanced over it and ignored it when I didn’t see my name. That meant I hadn’t been given any of the larger, more interesting jobs, which was hardly surprising. They paid well, and Sean, the boss, wasn’t going to pay me a penny more than he absolutely had to.
I half-expected my pigeon hole to be empty; it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d had to march in Sean’s office and demand he give me a job. I pulled out the tatty piece of paper and sighed. There was a pair of pixies near the Temple Bar district that had been seen flashing their true selves at people and using the distraction to rob them.
“For fucks sake, I signed up to do something worthwhile, not bring in thieving fucking pixies,” I growled.
I normally prided myself on keeping my frustration to myself, but I was exhausted and starving.
“Settle down, abomination, I’ll trade you if you’re that short of cash,” Shannon said.
Shannon and her partner Adam were both born sidhe. They were born into a lower family, so they had to earn their keep and prove their worth. Their predatory nature and keen senses made them good enforcers. Shannon’s smile seemed genuine enough, but you could never let your guard down with a fae. Her baby blue eyes and delicate bone structure meant she could have any man she chose - by human standards, she was stunning. I’d watched her use that beauty like a finely-tuned weapon.
The starvation must have been getting to me. I smiled back at her and handed her the paper with the details on the pixies on it. Had I have been thinking, I’d have asked what she was trading me. As it was, I was happy to have anything but damn pixies.
My stomach sank when I looked at the cream paper she handed me back. I’d just traded a quick bag and tag for a feral lycan. No one wanted to handle the ferals. They were incredibly vicious and had lost all sense of self-preservation and so were even more dangerous. Add that to the incredible strength, long, razor-sharp claws, and teeth, and you had the makings of a really bad day.
Five
The other enforcers had watched me like a condemned man as I reread that piece of paper and headed out into the chilly spring day. There were plenty of whispers from people glad to see me go. None of them thought I’d come out of this in one piece. I had my own doubts. Enforcers usually worked in pairs, but no one wanted to work with the made wolf, and, truth be told, it suited me. I’d been alone most of my life. I wouldn’t have known what to do with a partner.
My mind turned to the idea of pack. It was a natural desire as a shifter. Of course, I’d never run a pack. Even if I could pull together a bunch of made shifters, the chances were they’d be crazier than shithouse rats and far more trouble than they were worth. Whether I liked it or not, a lot of made had earnt the reputation as abominations. The early attempts had been nightmarish horrors that resulted in broken souls, minds, and sometimes bodies, too. I had no idea why the goddess had smiled on me, but I was grateful for it. Most of the early made had to be put down, for their sakes as much as everyone else’s.
I pulled my helmet down and pulled out into the morning traffic heading out of Dublin. The lycan was said to be out near the county border in the middle of the countryside. At least it had been spotted before it got too close to civilisation. Why no one had dealt with it immediately, I didn’t know. The landscape changed around me from well-worn buildings to brilliant green countryside, always with the obligatory smudges of grey from the incoming rain clouds. I’d never get used to the rain. It made everything miserable and dampened every mood.
My magic flickered deep within me and slowly began to unfurl as I got further down the country road with high hedgerows marking the borders of the farmers’ fields. I tried to push it back down and bury it deep. No good came from allowing that forward. Made beings didn’t have magic, and if anyone knew I did, I’d be dragged to the Order and dissected as an experiment. There had been rumours they’d done that with some of the early abominations, to try and see what exactly we were. A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of it.
The Order was a relatively new thing, the full name being the Order of the Arcane. They were the ones running the enforcers. Originally, before I’d been born, there hadn’t been a set organisation for those keeping supernals in line. Ther
e were just hunters, people who were born and trained to do what they felt was best to keep supernals where they belonged. The hunters were all humans entirely without magic. That changed in Prague just before, well, everything changed. One of the hunters there bonded to a hellhound and somehow took on the hound’s magic. Some blame them for the fact it all started in Prague.
I refocused on the task at hand when I almost missed a turning down towards the section of countryside the lycan had been spotted in. My magic bubbled up and slipped into my veins, and my mind flitted back to that hellhound. They walked the Earth just as the made did now. They were rare, but they were present. I hit a puddle and fought to keep my bike under control, cursing as I did so.
“Get your head in the game, Niko, what the fuck is wrong with you today?” I growled at myself, instantly feeling like a fool.
My hackles rose as I felt the presence of another predator nearby. Pulling my bike into a gateway, I put my leather gloves on and retrieved my pair of silver double-edged knives, complete with moonstone hilt. The problem with fighting a feral lycan is the bastards have the same weaknesses I do, the biggest one being silver. If the lycan managed to turn one of those knives against me, I’d be completely screwed. I slipped them into their sheaths and focused. My magic was a raging inferno within my chest screaming to be let loose.
I put my helmet safely away and slowly turned a circle, listening. My wolf was creeping closer to the surface, eager to chase a rival out of its territory. It took a great deal of effort, but I managed to push both my magic and my wolf back deep within, leaving me with the familiar knot of darkness. My ears pricked as the wind brushed over the hedges, and I strained to pick out something that could tell me where the lycan was exactly.
“You smell wrong. Wolves shouldn’t smell of fire,” a deep male voice growled from behind me.
I spun around, knives in hand, and faced down the biggest lycan I’d ever set eyes on.
Six
The lycan towered over me. My head barely reached his collarbone, and I’m a comfortable six feet tall. Short, coarse brown fur covered his naked and very heavily muscled body. His legs had half-shifted, putting them somewhere between human and wolf form, his jaw had started to elongate, and his teeth were all wolf. Sean had better pay me well for this.
I started to spin the knives in my hands and slowly circled around him. The spinning of the knives drew his eye and gave me a moment to assess him. My wolf told me to go for his legs to slow him down. Seeing that he had fragile weak hocks where the knees hadn’t fully changed to the reverse joint of the wolf, I agreed with my wolf. Once I’d slowed him down, I could go for the abdomen, assuming I could keep out of the way of the long claws that tipped his short stubby fingers.
The distraction of the knives gave me roughly three seconds to decide how to get over the narrow ditch between the road and the field and make my attack. I needed to get him on the defensive, and away from the fucking road. If a motorist saw him, the Order would have my hide as well as his.
The lycan pulled his dark lips back and snarled, his long teeth fully on show as he snapped at the air in front of him. I gave him a predatory grin and leapt over the ditch directly in front of him. He sank down and prepared to pounce on me, likely with plans of driving me down into the ditch. I shot forward with my knives close to my side. Only amateurs keep them extended in front of them. The lycan predictably swiped at my stomach, which knocked his balance ever so slightly off. I saw the way his left hock flexed in a way it shouldn’t have. My heart was in my mouth as I felt the claws brush over the thick leather of my jacket. He’d have gutted me, if I’d have been in a normal shirt.
I kept my body low and side-stepped his second swipe, putting me almost behind him. He tried to move too quickly to keep me in his sight, and his balance was thrown again. I took my opportunity and sliced the tendon at the back of his hock, the silver of my knife cutting off his natural healing and making him howl with pain. Thick dark blood trickled down through his brown fur and coated my knife. He lost any semblance of control and lunged at me. His arms were extended towards me, those claws aiming for my throat. His eyes were a deep, savage amber colour, his lips curled back to reveal grey-pink gums. Something was wrong with him. Even a feral shouldn’t be grey.
The distraction of wondering what the fuck was wrong with him almost cost me. His claws raked my cheek as I ducked under him and spun around to his side. Blood trickled down my neck - my blood. The smell of it filled my nostrils and antagonised my wolf, driving me to end the beast. I went to hack at its hock again to cut off its ability to move cleanly, but he saw my plans and drove his elbow into my ribs. The crack of them breaking was audible. The air left my lungs, leaving me to gasp while the lycan grabbed onto my throat.
“You will make a fine meal, fire wolf,” he growled, his face barely inches from mine.
His claws sank into the soft tender flesh of my throat. My vision was beginning to turn black around the edges. I had no choice. My fire exploded into my veins and engulfed my hands before I even realised I’d let it loose. I reached forward and grabbed onto the closest piece of the lycan I could. He cried out and dropped me as my fire consumed the flesh of his chest where I’d sunk my fingers into the fur.
His pain was quickly replaced by pure fury, but I was better prepared this time. My body was already healing my ribs. I could breathe again. I was ready for his sloppy attack as he shot in to tear out my throat with his teeth. I sank my blade deep into his lower abdomen and quickly sliced upwards, gutting him before he knew what I was doing. He stumbled backwards, his hands reflexively going to his torso to try and hold his innards in. I leapt forward and dragged my knife across his throat. His eyes opened wide in shock as his body crumpled.
My magic licked at my consciousness, just below the surface. I drove it back down deep inside and looked around to make sure no one had seen. After I’d turned two slow circles and been satisfied there were no witnesses, I glanced down at the grass where the lycan had taken his final breath. His body was already beginning to return to the gods. I knelt down and cut away a piece of his pelt at his shoulder and dug out his canine teeth. It was an unpleasant job, leaving my gloves covered in blood and gore, but Sean wouldn’t pay me if I didn’t return with some evidence. The body would be nothing but some fine brown dust within five minutes, and even that would vanish within the hour.
I shoved the teeth and pelt into an alchemically enhanced bag that all enforcers carried for just this purpose. My heart was thundering in my chest, and my breath came in short ragged bursts. I needed to bury my magic deeper. Had that have happened somewhere more built up, it would have been the end of me. I closed my eyes and took a calming breath as I mentally rebound my magic in darkness.
“You didn’t survive this long by panicking. Get a grip,” I told myself.
I fixed a confident smile on my face and cleaned myself up as best as I could using the bike’s mirrors and some baby wipes I kept on hand. If the other enforcers saw any sign of an injury on me, I’d get even more shit than I already took. Of course, it was normal to get injured on the job, but that was a sign of weakness I couldn’t afford in that pit of vipers.
Seven
I held my head high and bared my teeth in a wolfish smile at the pair of human enforcers who stopped mid-conversation to watch me walk through the office area. The bags containing the feral hide and teeth hung from my hand for all to see. I’d taken down a damn feral by myself. Sean’s office door was wide open. Awful country music came from his computer as he leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed and a thin smile on his face. Sean had gotten his position through blood, not work, and he took every possible opportunity to remind people of that. What he seemed to forget was, he worked with a group of predators, and it was only a matter of time before someone finally snapped and took him out.
Given my mood had been souring on the entire journey back from the feral to the office, there was an increasingly large chance that I would be that preda
tor, if he wasn’t very careful. My stomach growled with hunger and my wolf pressed forward, pointing out that Sean was a soft human - prey.
“You owe me, Sean,” I growled as I dropped the bags on his desk.
His eyes snapped open and flicked to mine before settling on my cheekbones. Good choice, trying to stare me down would end in broken bones.
A small crease formed between his brows as he looked down at the bags.
“You killed it? By yourself…?”
I widened my grin.
“Yes. Which means you owe me a large bonus. Pay up,” I said.
I was pushing, but fuck it. If he tried to fire me, I’d take the issues I’d had with him to the Order, get myself reassigned, and start somewhere new. I wasn’t all that attached to Dublin anyway. What I really wanted was to go back to the Scottish Highlands and my cabin.
“The paperwork will take time,” Sean said gruffly.
I slammed my hands down on his desk and leaned towards him.
“Now, Sean.”
He met my eyes and flinched as he did so. The familiar sweet tang of fear filled my nostrils and made my wolf bay for blood. He swallowed hard and pulled out a collection of forms from his drawer.
“Five minutes. I’ll make a phone call. Wait outside,” he said in what I assumed was supposed to be a firm dominant tone.
