Girly.
“Is that a stuffed unicorn?” asked Colin.
On a regular day-to-day basis, Becca dressed in dark clothing and had a bit of a goth thing going on. The last thing Colin had expected was pink wallpaper, stuffed animals, and floral bedding.
“Shut up,” said Becca.
“No, it’s nice. I just didn’t expect it. Because, ya know, you’re … well, you’re so—”
Becca raised an eyebrow. “So what, exactly?”
Dark? Scary? Not someone you’d expect to own a stuffed unicorn?
“You’re a witch!” Colin blurted a little too quickly.
“My Mom always wanted me to be a girly girl. She was disappointed when I turned out to be a necromancer. I keep this stuff to indulge her.”
Colin heard Becca’s heart skip a beat.
A lie.
Colin smiled.
“You’re listening to my heart, aren’t you? Fine! I like the unicorn, okay? And I really don’t mind the color pink. I just don’t wear it. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Colin held up his hands defensively. “Hey, whoa, no judgment here. I think it’s adorable.” He sat down on the bed next to Becca and tickled under her chin. “Who’s a cute little witch?”
Becca punched Colin hard in the arm. “Are you going to tell me why you decided to sneak into my room at this unearthly hour? We unicorn-loving witches need our beauty sleep, you know.”
Colin had gotten lost in the moment and had completely forgotten why he was there.
“Oh, yeah. Charles the Demon appeared in my room.”
“That’s not completely strange. He visits Elkwood all the time.”
“Yeah, but I think he did it by accident. He was scared. He said he didn’t have much time. He told me a couple of things and then vanished with a scream. I kind of think something has happened to him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said someone was coming. That he, whoever it is, is using a hellstone. That I had to free the imprisoned and save Elkwood.”
“What’s a hellstone?” asked Becca.
“I was hoping you’d know.”
Becca shook her head. “Are you sure you didn’t dream it?”
Colin got up and began to pace. “No, my dreams are always full of horrible, tragic, violent memories of dead werewolves. Demons appearing in my room, telling me to save people, and then vanishing in a puff of smoke is actually a nice change of pace for me.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“I think we need to make sure Charles is okay.”
Becca stood up. “Well that’s easy enough, we just need to head up to the base.”
Colin grinned. Pink wallpaper aside, Becca was still that same thrill-seeking girl he’d fallen for, always willing to venture out on a nighttime excursion.
“Out the window, dog boy,” Becca said. “I need to change. And we’ll get there faster if you carry me, so why don’t you do some changing of your own?”
Colin climbed onto the window ledge and looked back. “Do you think we should bring the unicorn? You know, in case you get scared?”
Colin saw Becca pick up the stuffed unicorn with the intention of flinging it at him. He quickly fell backward out the window, flipped around in the air, and landed lightly on his feet.
He stripped down, reached for his inner werewolf, and felt the change flood through him. His senses sharpened, and in his mind the mists of the moors were swept aside, replaced with all the tiny details he could see, smell, and hear in his wolf form.
“Psst! Colin!”
Colin looked up to see Becca, dressed in black leggings and a bulky sweater, perched on her window ledge. She carried a backpack slung over one shoulder and her red hair hung loose around her shoulders. She looked every bit the young dark witch of Elkwood.
Colin threw back his head and howled.
“Shhh!” hushed Becca sharply.
Sorry.
From inside the house, Colin heard Mrs. Emerson roll over and then resume her deep snoring.
“Catch me,” Becca said, and jumped from the window.
Colin did as she said, helped her onto his back, and passed his clothes up to her so she could stash them in her backpack. He fell down on all fours and dug his claws into the wet ground. Becca held onto his large shoulders and he could smell her nervous excitement. They’d only done this a couple of times, as Colin imagined, it must be weird to use your boyfriend as a taxi. But at the same time, Becca seemed to enjoy it, as if it brought them closer together.
“C’mon, let’s go already!”
Colin leapt forward, gathering speed, the wind and mist swirling around them as he headed north toward the base.
***
It took a little less than half an hour to reach the old army base. Rather than taking the long way round to the north side to the main gates, Colin simply climbed the cliff face beneath the base and jumped the fence, landing in the middle of the training yard. A soldier Colin recognized as Matthews was guarding the front door to the main building and almost dropped his gun when he saw Colin. The man’s heart rate went through the roof.
Becca slid off Colin’s back and threw him the backpack.
“Oh, Ms. Emerson, Colin, you gave me a hell of a fright,” said Matthews.
“Not used to big hairy creatures falling from the sky?” said Becca.
Colin hid behind one of the many large shipping containers that littered the yard and reluctantly let go of his wolfy side. His bones shrank and reorganized themselves, the hair shed and dissolved, and within moments Colin was a human again. A naked human. He dressed quickly and joined Becca who was trying to convince Matthews that they needed to see Charles.
“I’m sorry, miss, but the base is locked down as we’re on a skeleton crew since Night Watch shipped out for Europe tonight.”
What do we do?
I can knock him out?
Considering how much trouble you’re currently in, that seems like a bad idea.
“What about Varson?” asked Colin.
“I expect he’s asleep,” said Matthews. “I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to wait until morning.”
How certain are you that something is wrong?
Colin knew what he’d seen. He could still see the panic on Charles’s face when he’d appeared in his bedroom. What could such a scary-looking demon possibly be afraid of?
I’m certain.
“We think something might be wrong in Elkwood,” said Becca, pleading a little. “We need to see Charles, it’s urgent.”
“Sorry, miss, your father’s orders.”
Colin could smell the resistance on Matthew. It smelled like cold concrete. The man was a good soldier; he wasn’t going to disobey an order.
“I’m sorry, Matthews,” Colin said, and was about to knock the man unconscious when Becca placed her hands on either side of the surprised soldier’s face. Wind began to whip through the yard, blowing Becca’s hair around wildly. Matthews stood frozen.
“Now listen carefully,” said Becca, her voice taking on a deeper, terrifying tone. “You’re going to fall asleep for exactly two minutes. And then you’re going to wake up, not raise the alarm, and call Varson to let him know we’ve gone down to see Charles and that he should join us there immediately. Now, sleep.”
Becca let go of Matthews’s face and the man crumpled to the ground.
“Just how long have you been able to do that?” asked Colin.
“Do what?” said Becca as she unclipped Matthews’s security card.
“You know, make people do what you want?”
“Really, Colin. I’m a witch. I can always make people do what I want.” Becca winked and slid the card across the security plate. The door swung open for them.
They located the elevator and Becca pressed the blank button beneath the rest that would take them to a separate plane of existence, where Charles the demon lived in a vas
t cave.
“Have you ever whammied me like that?” asked Colin, still in awe of his girlfriend’s growing powers.
“Whammied?” said Becca.
“You know, made me do what you want using your witchy powers.”
Becca kissed Colin on the cheek and took his hand. “Don’t be silly. I’d never do that to you. Although I might consider it if you ever mention my stuffed unicorn again,” she said with a sly smile.
They both laughed, but it was short lived as the elevator began to pick up speed and bend into another existence. Reality began to swirl and Colin’s head swam while the contents of his stomach threatened to decorate the elevator walls. The first time Colin had taken this trip, he’d passed out. He’d been down here a few times since and hadn’t passed out again, but he never got used to the horrible feeling. The elevator felt like it was in a free fall now, and Colin felt Becca’s hand tighten around his.
The elevator shuddered to a screeching stop.
Fire was the single thought that occupied Colin’s mind as the doors slid open and a swirling mass of flames rushed toward them.
Becca screamed.
Chapter Six
Fire Imp
Colin didn’t even think about turning into a werewolf. When he revisited the event later, he concluded it must have been the adrenaline and the fear that had automatically triggered his transformation in the elevator. Because the next thing he knew he was in full wolf form, standing in front of Becca, shielding her with his back to the flames as wave after wave of intense heat swept across him.
His last sensation before passing out was severe pain. He could smell the hair on his back burning and could hear his own skin crackling as it tried to heal and regenerate while being constantly cooked. An alarm had sounded somewhere and some sort of high-pressured mist had shot out of the walls of the elevator. He clung to consciousness long enough to hear the elevator doors close behind him and then he surrendered to sweet, painless sleep.
***
Bright lights glared down at him as he awoke, and for a moment he thought he was dreaming. A lot of the wolf dreams, the memories of past wolves, began with him waking up in a strange bed while people talked in hushed, worried tones around him. And then he heard Becca.
“Colin!” She hugged him and touched his face and his chest. “You’re okay!”
“I am? Where are we?”
“The infirmary, at the base,” said the nervous voice of Elrik Varson. “How do you feel?”
Colin blinked a few times and his vision came into focus. He was indeed in the small twelve-bed ward at the base. Soldiers occupied two of the other beds. Colin could smell burnt flesh and was acutely aware it wasn’t his own. One of the base nurses, Helga, was busy hooking up bags of liquid and applying cold compresses to the soldiers. Becca sat on Colin’s bed, smiling through tears and holding his hand tightly. Varson looked worried. It was the first time Colin had seen the base commander not wearing a suit. He was just wearing a plain t-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts, and his hair was a mess.
“I feel fine.” Colin pushed himself up on to his elbows. There was a dull tingle all across the back of his body but he otherwise felt okay. “What happened?”
“You saved me,” said Becca.
“I did?”
“If you hadn’t shielded Rebecca, she would have been incinerated,” said Varson. “You were both very lucky. I really do hope this will be a lesson to you in the future not to go where you’re not supposed to go. When I think of what could have happened … ”
Varson trailed off and Colin could sense the stress coming off of him in waves. Under his command, Elkwood’s teenage werewolf and witch, the latter being the daughter of Mr. Emerson, were almost killed.
“It’s fine,” said Colin. “I’m fine, we’re both fine. Everything will be fine.”
Becca wiped the tears from her eyes. “It was terrifying. All that fire.”
“Charles? What happened to Charles? Did he do that?”
“No,” said Varson snapping back to reality. “The soothsayer was not in the cave. It took us a few hours to get the fire under control, or whatever that thing is.”
“Thing?”
“It wasn’t just a fire,” said Becca. “It was a creature.”
“The fire was a creature?” said Colin, trying to wrap his head around it.
“It’s contained,” said Varson. “It ended up burning itself out.”
“Can I see it?”
“Maybe later,” said Varson. “All we know at this point is that the soothsayer has vanished, and in his place was this fire creature.”
“So Charles is missing?” said Colin.
“I need to contact Night Watch and let them know what has happened,” said Varson. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Varson hurried out, the stench of stress following him.
“How long was I out?”
“Just under an hour,” said Becca. “The elevator’s safety features kicked in and got us back up to the base level.”
“It’s a good thing you have a strong healing factor,” Helga said, as she busied herself tending to the two wounded soldiers.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” added Becca. “You were healing as you were burning.”
“I remember the smell,” said Colin, wrinkling his nose. “What happened to those two?”
Becca looked over at the two soldiers. “They got pretty burned up trying to contain the creature.”
“They’re ready for you now,” Helga said to Becca.
“I’m going to heal them,” said Becca with a grin.
Colin watched as she sat down on a chair between the two soldiers’ beds and took one of their hands in each of hers and closed her eyes. Colin swung his legs over the side of his bed and stretched his back. Other than the sharp, cold pain from the scar on his back where Mr. Winter had stabbed him with a silver knife last year, Colin felt good.
Not bad for almost being roasted alive.
He’d have to remember to add this to his werewolf notes.
Colin pulled on a pair of soldier’s pants that had been laid out for him and pulled off the hospital gown, replacing it with a base-issue white t-shirt. He sat back down on the bed and watched Becca work her magic.
Aside from the fact that Colin could still barely believe he had an actual real-life girlfriend, he was constantly in awe of how powerful she had become. He made a mental note to ask his grandmother exactly when they were having training sessions because Becca’s witch powers seemed to be growing from week to week.
“Done,” said Becca.
“That was fast,” said Helga.
“They were surface burns, nothing too serious. Just a matter of encouraging their skin cells to duplicate themselves much quicker than they normally would. They won’t even have a scar.”
“Thank you, Becca,” said Helga. “You two are free to go. We already contacted your mother and grandmother and gave them the cover story that we caught you making out near the base. A truck will take you back to the town. Commander Varson will be busy writing up reports for most of the day. He requests that you attend school as normal and, naturally, not mention any of this to anyone until we have more information. Not even your grandmother, Colin.”
“Naturally,” said Colin, even though he thought it was a little strange being that his grandmother was normally privy to most of the secrets in Elkwood.
Colin and Becca left the infirmary and headed down the hallway to the elevator.
“I don’t suppose we could take the stairs for a change,” said Colin. Becca laughed but Colin was only half joking. Stepping back into the large metallic device where he’d almost been microwaved sent a flush of heat through his body as vague memories of the event washed over him and he suddenly had an urge to see the creature that had caused all this.
“Where is the fire creature being kept?”
“Sixth floor. Quarantine. I think they’r
e going to evaluate it and then move it down to the cell blocks with the other prisoners.”
Colin wondered how best to suggest his next thought but Becca beat him to it.
“You want to see it, don’t you?” said Becca.
“I really do. I honestly can’t say why, but I do.”
“I thought it was cats, not wolves, that were naturally curious.” Becca pressed the button for the sixth floor and the elevator ascended.
Silas had told Colin that the base held around a hundred people, between the soldiers, doctors, and scientists who worked there. Beta Team made up around twenty people, plus Silas and Mr. Emerson, and Colin guessed they’d taken some support staff with them. So it was no surprise when the doors slid open and the hallway was empty.
“Anyone on this floor?”
“One of the scientists,” said Colin. “He’s in the washroom.”
“How do you kno … never mind. Let’s move quickly, then.”
They hurried down a series of hallways until Becca led them into a large laboratory. Everything was clean and white and smelled like bleach. The lights were off except for a single spotlight in the center of the room that shone down on a large glass box that had been set on a table. The box was the size of a small microwave oven and had wires and leads running into it.
“Where is it?” asked Colin.
“In the box,” said Becca.
“I thought it’d be much bigger,” Colin said, remembering the swirling firestorm in Charles’s cave.
Colin could see fire burning inside the glass box, but as they approached, he was surprised to see that the flames had a distinct shape.
Inside the box was a creature made entirely of fire. Its head was the size of an apple and consisted of a round-shaped flame with three small indents where you’d expect eyes and a mouth to be. The body consisted of five much smaller flames that made up the creature’s torso, arms, and legs.
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