by MJ Caan
“You know what he is,” I said, motioning to Cody. “So you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on here or I’ll let my friend here take you out back and have a special kind of word with you.”
“How did you do it?” the creeper said. “There hasn’t been one of his kind here in many years. And on a night with no full moon, that’s particularly impressive.”
“What’s he talking about?” said Cody.
“She’s the witch,” said the creeper. “Why don’t you ask her?” His pursed lips drew back into an evil grin. Then his brow furrowed and understanding seemed to wash across his features. “Unless, of course, you don’t know.” That last statement was directed at me. “You don’t, do you? You have no idea what you’ve just done.”
I could sense Hope approaching behind us. This time, I didn’t tell her to drop the gun as she stood next to Cody and me.
“Why don’t you tell me what I’ve done?” I said.
“I won’t have to,” said the creeper. “We are the Order of the Fell. We serve the Grey Seer, Mallis, and he is coming for you. You just broke the last ward. You have made his job so much easier.” With that, he sneered through his discomfort and laughed at us once again. The laughter broke apart as he was racked with spasms of pain. He looked at Cody and coughed. “And you, I almost feel sorry for what is going to happen to you.”
I felt it even before I saw his lips begin to move. He was invoking more magic. A wave of heat rose all around us, and I instinctively grabbed for my own magic, drawing it up to form a shield. We watched in horror as the creeper slowly began to dissolve. Whatever spell he had called upon was eating away at him, as well as his two comrades. It was the same immolation spell I had used on the intruder’s body at the coffee shop. Part of me shivered at my realization as we watched the bodies burn to ash.
15
“Well,” said Hope. “That was horrifying.”
For a split-second, part of me wanted to see if I could figure out a way to wipe her memories. But I had no idea how magic really worked. It was instinctive, I got that, but I was sure something like this would require almost surgical precision. Besides, when my aunts tried that on Cody, it didn't even work.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"What the hell just happened here?" said Hope. "My parents are going to shit when they see this place."
Looking around, it was clear that the house was in pretty rough shape. There were overturned pieces of furniture, a broken coffee table, and of course the demolished French Doors. Actually, the whole thing gave me an idea.
"When are your parents coming back?" I said.
"It's their anniversary," said Hope. "They’ll go to dinner, then spend the night in the city and be back tomorrow."
"Perfect," I said. "You had a party. And it got a little out of hand with a couple of the guys. You called the cops, they handled everything. You're very sorry, and this will never happen again."
"Jesus," said Hope. "I don't know; I've never been in this kind of trouble before. And besides, that doesn't explain any of the shit that just happened and went down here tonight." She glanced at me questioningly and motioned in Cody's direction. "And what about him? Are you going to explain that?"
The “he” in question had been examining the ashy remains of the body and then walked over and stand next to us.
“You know, I can hear you,” he said. He had adjusted the blanket from around his shoulders and now wore it low like a towel. I couldn't help but avert my eyes even though I wanted to let them linger on his flesh. “Is someone going to tell me what's going on?” He watched Hope and I exchange uncomfortable gazes. Hope slowly maneuvered away from him to stand behind me. "And why am I naked? Also, why are you so freaked out around me now all of a sudden?"
“I'm so freaked out because you’re…” Hope began.
I cut her off for she could finish. “She's freaked out because you're naked.”
Hope scowled at me, but she didn't say anything to the contrary.
“Hope, why don't you see if there something in your dad’s closet that will fit Cody?"
She gave us both the side eye, but then nodded and bounded down the hallway toward the master suite at the back of the house.
“There is one thing that I need from you,” I said, turning quickly to Cody. “I need you to fill out a police incident report stating that there was a party here and that a couple of drunk party boys got out of hand and caused some damage.”
“Allie, I can’t do that. You’re asking me to falsify an official report.”
“Would you rather I tell them what really is going on here?” I said. “Good luck explaining that.”
“I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to, because I still don’t know what’s going on. You’re asking me to do something like this, then I’m asking you to tell me why.”
“Fine. But not here. Let’s just take care of this and head back to my place. I’ll tell you everything on the way. We are going to need to consult with my aunts.”
“And you better start with why I am naked. Was it at least for a fun reason?”
I made sure that the look that I gave him told him it was anything but fun. Before he could reply, Hope came down the hall carrying a gray tracksuit that was several sizes too big for Cody. She handed them to me, still refusing to get too close to Cody.
“All right,” I said. “Cody’s gonna do this. He’ll file a report, you just stick to the story. No matter what your father says, no matter who comes to visit you, stick to the story.”
“There won’t be any more visitors, right?” Hope said. “I mean none like these, right?”
“I wish I could tell you definitely no. But honestly, even I’m not sure,” I said. “But I want to try something. My aunt was able to place wards, protective spells, around our house and the coffee shop. They were meant to protect the space from being invaded by any type of supernatural force. I may not be able to re-create a spell of that magnitude, but I can at least leave some type of mystical booby-trap. If anything supernatural happens here it’ll let me know. And no matter what, leave your phone on.”
Hope nodded and looked from me to Cody. She narrowed her eyes as she walked us to the front door.
“I will call you first thing in the morning,” I said. “We have a lot to discuss.”
“Yeah. No shit Captain Obvious.”
We were halfway back to my aunts’ house before Cody spoke. I had been on the verge of telling him what had happened, but honestly I was still trying to digest it myself. How could I explain to him that he had Shifted into a wolf when I wasn’t even sure that that was possible to do? I’d seen it with my own eyes, but more importantly, I had felt it with my magic. Magic unlike anything I knew could be hiding inside me was suddenly talking to me, whispering into the back of my brain, but I wasn’t quite able to discern what was being said. It was as if the magic were speaking to me in a different language, a language that I once understood but could no longer remember.
“Allie,” Cody said, “why do I have a mental image of me being on top of you and you looking terrified?”
I took a deep breath. “Because you were on top of me. You were actually about to bite me.”
I was watching him out of the corner of my eye. I could see him grip the steering wheel a little tighter, but he didn’t seem surprised.
“So that part was real too?” he said.
“Yes. You turned into a wolf, Cody.” The words sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth, but Cody wasn’t laughing. “Are you a Shifter, Cody?”
“Until today, I didn’t even know what a Shifter was. Not really, at least. I mean, we had all heard stories from my parents know about the Big Bad Wolf waiting in the woods to carry us away if we stayed out before it got dark, but nobody really believed that.”
“Hell of a day. You find out you’re Shifter and I find out I’m a witch.”
“But I thought you knew you were witch,” Cody said.
“No, there’s a differen
ce. I knew that I could practice witchcraft, that I had a gift for it. At least that’s what I was always told, that magic ran in our family, but this...this was something completely different from that. It’s like the magic was a part of me, not something that I called and shaped to my will. It felt like it was coming out of me. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”
“It looks like we both have questions that we’re going to need answered. And honestly, your aunts are the only ones who I know of who could be of any assistance to us at a time like this.”
That was exactly what I was afraid of. Whatever had just happened, whatever he had just experienced, was completely foreign to anything my family had ever hinted at. Sure, I had dabbled in magic for a while, learning a few things here and there, but that was it. I didn’t have a spellbook, I didn’t have a broomstick, I didn’t have a crystal ball. I didn’t even know if these things were objects that witches even truly utilized.
“My Shift was connected to your mother’s necklace. I don’t know how, but when you broke that necklace I felt something inside of me break at the same time. That’s the last thing that I remember until I woke up on the floor next to you, with all these weird flashes of pictures of violence and memories of rage inside my head.”
“I sensed it too,” I said. “I was acting purely on intuition. I would have never, ever in a million years wanted to destroy that necklace. It’s the only thing that I have that reminds me of Mom. But every instinct I had at that moment told me that it was the right thing to do. I felt like I had been pushed into fight or flight mode, and I chose fight.”
I looked out the window, watching the trees and the streetlights go by as I waited for the lump in my throat to settle and the tears in my eyes to dry. It hurt thinking about my mom and knowing that I had possibly lost the last connection I had with her.
“It wasn’t just your Shift that was connected to the necklace,” I said. “When I destroyed it, it also removed whatever chains had been binding my magic. I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt free and terrified at the same time.”
“Didn’t your aunts say that your mother had bound your power?”
“Yes. Apparently she did it to protect me.”
“What did he mean about… something about a last ward? What exactly is a ward? I heard you mention that to Hope as well.”
“A ward is a spell of protection. It creates a wall between two objects that you want to keep separated.”
“So the one you put on Hope’s house will keep all of these...things out?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. It’s something I’ve only read about but never thought I could actually do. In theory, it should keep out any type of supernatural creature. But I don’t think that those men were supernatural. I think they were using magic, but they were definitely human.”
We continued on in silence for a few more minutes before I spoke again. There was something that I had to know.
“Cody,” I said, “what did it feel like?” He knew exactly what I was talking about. The real question was how much was he willing to tell me.
“I can’t really explain it, because the flashes of memory that I have are more visceral than visual, if that makes any sense. When I first came to, lying there beside you on the floor, I had no memory of anything that led up to that point. But in the time since then, I’ve been getting bits and pieces flashing into my mind—but it’s more the feelings that I remember.”
He swallowed hard as he turned into my aunts’ driveway. As he eased the car into park, he looked over at me before opening his door.
“What I felt,” he said, “was an overwhelming sense of hunger. I was starving. To be truthful, I still am. I hope your aunts have a full pantry.”
16
Part of me was hoping that my aunts would be asleep when we made our way back to the house. The other part of me prayed that they would be awake. As luck would have it, they opened the door just as I placed my key into the lock. The look on Aunt Lena’s face told me that they knew something. And the fact that she grabbed me and gave me a full body hug only reinforced my suspicions.
“Allie, what happened?” said Aunt Vivian. “We felt so much pain and fear coming from you. And a tear in the fabric of magic.”
“Where’s Gar?” I asked. I didn’t want to have to talk about this in front of him.
“He’s in bed, asleep,” said Aunt Lena. “We can talk in private.”
They both looked at Cody, leaving it to me to decide just what “private” meant.
“First things first,” I said. “Cody really needs to eat. Do you think we can whip something up for him?”
Aunt Lena frowned, but nodded. She made her way into the kitchen and began rummaging through the refrigerator. Cody and I sat down on the couch in the living room as Aunt Vivian headed to one of the back rooms, only to bring back a heavy blanket to place around Cody’s shoulders.
“Thank you,” said Cody. “I don’t know why I suddenly feel very chilled.”
Aunt Vivian glanced at me but didn’t say anything. I looked at Cody and tried to force a smile. Just a couple of hours earlier, he had been generating enough heat to warm up a small room, but now I could actually see him shivering.
“It’s your body readjusting to going from one form to another,” said Aunt Vivian. “You’ll get used to it.”
“No offense, ma’am,” said Cody, “but this is something I don’t plan on ever getting used to.”
“How did you know?” I said.
“You might say I can smell it on him. It’s the mystical equivalent of a wet dog walking into the house,” said Aunt Vivian. “I can smell you too.”
Whether she meant it to or not, that last statement stung. I felt the blush creep up my neck and I looked away to distract myself from her pointed stare.
“What did you do, Allie?” she continued. She sat down on the chair opposite the two of us and leveled her gaze at me.
I swallowed hard, but before I could say anything, Aunt Lena called from the kitchen. She was taking a pan off the stove and placed it on the large center island. She quickly divided some pasta primavera onto two plates and shoved them at Cody and myself. She then removed two chicken breasts that had been warming in the oven. Rather than divide them, she put them both on a single plate and plopped them in front of Cody.
“Something tells me you’re going to need the protein,” she said.
I picked at my food. Cody devoured his. As we ate, I relayed the evening’s events to my two aunts, who were listening with rapt attention. By the time I finished reciting what happened, I was even more exhausted. All of the adrenaline had burned out of my system, and all I could think about was climbing into bed. But I needed answers—answers that only my aunts had.
“Wow,” said Aunt Lena. “Where to begin?”
“That’s pretty easy,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. “Is Cody a werewolf?”
Aunt Vivian eyed Cody before addressing us. “Cody is a Shifter. The fact that he shifted into a wolf form…I can’t say what that means.”
“The bigger question here is why was he able to Shift at all? There have been no Shifters capable of taking on their animal forms for decades,” said Aunt Lena.
“As I’ve said,” continued Aunt Vivian, “your mother was extremely powerful. She was the primary engine that drove the spell that bound the Shifters, effectively wiping their kind out of existence. By rights, she would be the only one capable of undoing that spell.”
“Or her direct descendant,” added Aunt Lena, as all eyes turned to me.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that you are your mother’s daughter. You inherited her gifts. You inherited her magic. You broke the necklace that she created to bind your power. In effect, that could have temporarily broken the spell she cast that halted Shifting.” Aunt Vivian spoke quickly, making statements that left little room for discussion or doubt.
“But what about the bear in the woods?” I
said. “I had nothing to do with that, and he was able to Shift.”
“That was different,” replied Aunt Vivian. “Obviously, that creature had been steeped in spell and potion in order to give him back the ability to Shift. A practice run, as I said. But what Cody did, a spontaneous transformation like that, unaided by concentrated spells, and away from any ley structures…that was a beast of a different color.”
Aunt Lena nodded her agreement. “I believe that the sudden trauma of being freed from the constraints of your mother’s spell triggered the Shift in him. The thing we have to figure out is, was this an isolated incident, or has the original spell that forbade shifting been fundamentally damaged?”
“Cody said that he could sense the destruction of the necklace, and that it was directly tied to the transformation he underwent,” I said. Cody nodded his agreement, mouth too stuffed with chicken to verbalize. “And that’s also what allowed me to use my magic.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Lena. “We always knew you had your mother’s gifts. We had prayed to the Goddess that the day you needed them would never come.”
She got up to put on the tea kettle and began rummaging through the tea drawer, bringing out bags with the comforting smell of juniper.
“Three things are of the most importance now,” she said. “One, we need to find out who this Mallis is and who these men in black are that work for him. Two, we need to find out why Cody Shifted into a wolf.”
“And number three?” I asked, when she did not continue.
“Number three is you, my dear,” said Aunt Vivian. “The necklace you destroyed was meant to bind your powers, to keep you from accessing them. But that necklace was not the last ward that held the warlocks and the shifters at bay. You are.”
17
I was so shocked that I was actually struck speechless.
