by Harry Nix
It seemed absurd in this moment to be thinking about her as some potential mate, so he pushed it out of his mind.
“I definitely get my own room?” Roma asked.
She wasn't smiling but her tone of voice had changed slightly. Alex had no doubt she was in shock at what had happened, but at least she was making a recovery now.
“You’ll definitely have your own room. I might just have to evict five or ten werewolves out of it,” Alex said.
“Okay, I’ll come with you,” Roma said. Some small part inside Alex was happy beyond belief at the news, but he quickly suppressed it. This was just helping out. Then, if in a few days, once she got things together, she left and he never saw her again… well, that would be fine.
“We came into town to offload a bunch of rings because we desperately need some money and we only have one car, so it's extremely crowded.”
“Do you have the rings with you now? Give them to me, then meet me back here in an hour,” Roma immediately said. There was some life back in her voice.
“Are you sure? They destroyed your shop for helping me,” Alex said. He didn’t want to reopen the wound but wanted to make sure that Roma knew what she was doing.
“Yes, give them to me. I need your help to find those vampires who destroyed my shop and if you need money then that's my problem. I know everyone around here, and I'll get a better deal than you ever could.” She stood up as she spoke and Alex followed suit, pulling some cash out of his pocket and dropping it on the table to cover both the meals. Roma briefly glanced at it and then back at him.
“Thanks, but that doesn't make this a date you realize?” she said. She walked past him and out the door. Alex followed, seeing Juno, Nia and April looking at him with questions in their eyes as Jacob wolfed down a giant meal.
“I'll be back in a minute,” Alex stage-whispered to them before following Roma out. They went to the car and opened the trunk, Alex pulling out the box of rings. He started to explain what each one was but Roma waved him away.
“I can analyze just like everyone else,” she said then walked off down the street with the box of rings, Alex watching her go. Once he dragged himself away from the sway of her hips, he realized he may have just done something incredibly stupid. That was most of their spare rings. The rest were destined for the werewolves at the compound, plus he had to outfit the rest of his new pack and he still had Julius’s promises to fulfill. He’d just let Roma walk off with a huge amount of magical merchandise. He pushed those thoughts aside as he went back to the Grease Trap, and to the booth where his mates were sitting. As soon as he sat down beside Jacob, the same waitress from before reappeared with a menu in her hand.
“Hi, welcome to the Grease Trap, would you like to hear our specials?” she said, handing him the menu.
“No, I was just here. I was sitting over there,” Alex said, pointing at the now empty table.
“So, would you like to order?” the waitress asked like he hadn't spoken. Knowing that the waitresses liked to get everyone fed and pushed back out so they could turn the tables over quickly and figuring they had at least an hour to wait, Alex ordered again: another heart attack special.
Once the waitress was gone, Juno reached over and pinched him on the arm.
“Can you tell me what you two talked about?” she said in a half-accusing, half-mocking tone.
“Some vampires came,” Alex began. He quickly gave them the rundown on everything Roma had told him and explained how she'd gone to sell the rings after he had offered her his protection. Upon hearing that, his three mates shared a round of raised eyebrows which Alex did his best to ignore. Jacob, ever-oblivious, just churned through his food like a werewolf garbage disposal.
They talked a little about Roma and then changed the topic, unable to speak too loud in the crowded diner. Alex got another meal, and despite the fact he'd eaten part of the last one, still found he had room to spare, gulping down most of it. Nia was eating with an appetite, and so was Juno, doing her best to regain some of those lost pounds from her imprisonment. The waitress came back a few times over the next hour and eventually they ordered dessert just to keep her off their backs, before Roma finally returned. The box was gone, and she was holding a small sports bag. She placed it on the table amongst the dishes and looked down at them.
“Fifty-two thousand dollars. Can we go now? I want to get away from the city for a while,” she said.
“Let's go,” Juno said, clapping her hands, rushing everyone out of the booth. Nia took the bag of money and Roma followed them out back to their car. She took the passenger seat with Alex driving, the three girls and Jacob squashed into the back seat.
They drove out of the city and headed for home, Alex wondering exactly how long the money would last.
19
Alex tried to remember the names of the three werewolves sitting in the back seat but they eluded him. He hadn’t forgotten his promise to know each and every werewolf in his pack, but had come up hard against the reality: having fifty new werewolves was a lot of names and faces to remember.
Jacob was in the passenger seat, drumming away on his knees, seeming exceedingly chipper for the time of morning. Alex supposed it was Yvonne, and although the pack gossip was that she’d finally gotten her way with him, no one was entirely sure because they must have been exceedingly sneaky about it.
Alex glanced in the rearview mirror, spotting Jeremiah driving their second car with his werewolf passengers. Yesterday Alex had handed over the money to him. Jeremiah had immediately put it to work, buying two more near-wrecks, so now they had three spluttering cars to their name. He’d also spent money on food and other things, the welcoming party going into the night.
The fifty werewolves had been spread amongst the various houses they owned and then, to Alex's surprise, the pack had naturally spread further. There seemed to be some unconscious pressure that went with the numbers. Some of them were living ten miles away and Alex was mentally marking the boundaries of a large territory.
That morning they were heading to the old Ignis fortress. Alex has done his best to keep at least one or two of his pack there, rotating in and out, but there’d been some truth to what Wind had said: his pack was small, and between trying to guard their home and keep a presence over there, they were stretched exceedingly thin.
The injection of fifty new werewolves meant that he could station more werewolves there. Although they were still outnumbered by the other three packs, the five he was taking today were a start.
Alex turned a corner and the fortress appeared. Since the battle, the werewolves had been hard at work disposing of dead bodies. The mages were dismembered, loaded into trucks, and taken far out into the countryside where they were buried in mass graves.
Alex had been told by both Juno and April that this wasn't necessarily the best solution as large piles of bones in one area tended to attract necromancers, but with limited resources and time, and the bodies starting to smell, they had to get them out of there as fast as possible.
The packs treated their own dead far more respectfully, taking them away for burial back at their homes. The three alphas, Darius, Simak, and Wind, were no longer at the fortress, although they sometimes came and went.
Alex parked the car and went to the main door which had gone from hastily repaired to as good as new. There were two werewolves standing guard. They were both from Wind’s pack. His pack members were easily the most antagonistic, glaring at everyone and growling for no good reason. They glared now at Alex as he approached with Jacob and the five werewolves.
“Boys,” Alex said in greeting. Now that he was close to the compound, he could feel the slightest hint of that elusive sensation, the pressure he could apply. He wasn't doing it now, figuring he'd save it for when he really needed it, and maybe not even then, given that he still wasn't entirely sure whether it was a good thing to be pushing his will.
For a moment the two werewolves looked like they might step in front of him, bu
t then they moved aside, letting them enter.
Inside, the compound was clear of bodies but Alex could still feel the lingering presence of death. The pool of power that he'd found so easy to draw from was now almost entirely gone, but Alex knew that if he could feel it, there was definitely enough there for a necromancer to feast upon it.
He quickly checked his mana and saw death was only half-full. He drew on the death mana, drinking from the cold source, filling the bar to the top.
A werewolf approached them as he was drawing mana. Alex wished he had Nia in his ear whispering names because he couldn't remember his name either. He knew this was a leader, at least nominally, someone like Jeremiah, who arranged everything and kept things running.
“Five more of my pack to stay here,” Alex said.
“Welcome. Did you bring rings?”
Alex waved to Jacob who was carrying a small cardboard box. He handed it over to the werewolf. He gestured to the five standing behind Alex and went walking off without another word. Alex’s pack glanced at him, an unspoken request for permission, and Alex nodded.
He felt slightly bad about throwing them in the deep end like this. After all, yesterday they’d just come from an enormously long walk from the wilderness and through the blistering heat. After a single day they were being assigned to guard a fortress, but it couldn't be helped. He needed a presence here. Alex knew from working crappy jobs during his college years that it was those who were there who got a say. If Alex didn't keep werewolves at the fortress, perhaps one day the guards would step in front of him.
“Stay with me and try not to piss anyone off,” Alex murmured to Jacob, heading to the interior.
“Me, piss someone off? That's impossible. I'm adorable,” Jacob said with a laugh.
“Adorable like a toad that has fallen out the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
“Hey, it was your mate that said your head was ninety-five percent bone,” Jacob said. Alex scuffled with the young werewolf as they went through the door, good-naturedly shoving each other.
Inside there were various other werewolves from three packs. Alex could immediately feel that they were at least somewhat calm, though they weren’t quite friendly just yet. The elusive feeling was back, stronger now.
Although the three packs were still distinct, the close quarters were helping merge them. It crossed Alex’s mind that perhaps he should ask for werewolves to be stationed there for much longer periods of time rather than rotating in and out.
Then they can be my pack, he thought as he looked around. He spotted what he was looking for on the far back wall. It was a ward battery. Bringing up his spell screen he cast analyze on it as he approached and was surprised to find there were still spells active, although far fewer than there should be. Juno had told him that even the most basic ward was at least thirty spells laid on top of each other. On this one, there were only six remaining. The black rune spell that Alex had cast had destroyed the others, chewed them to pieces and emptied the ward, although still managing to keep it relatively intact.
Looking through what was left, Alex saw there was still a battery there which had a slight charge. One of the other spells he thought was a look, look away, but the other four were incomprehensible to him.
He’d asked Juno this morning when Ruby would be returning but Juno had made up some lie about her grandmother enjoying the windsurfing so much that she couldn't really say. Alex had taken that to mean that it wouldn’t be anytime soon. But he was hoping it wouldn't be long before the old witch appeared so he could bring her here and get help in repairing the wards, and understanding them, so he could begin making his own.
Jacob was getting antsy, standing around, tapping his foot, making noise, so Alex eventually sent him off, telling him to walk around, keep his mouth shut, and definitely not cause any problems. The young werewolf immediately headed in the direction of a stew pot that was bubbling on a stove in the next room.
Alex continued through the fortress, looking for wards, aware that the werewolves were making a very conscious attempt to not stare at him, although they were all watching him. As he passed he counted rings, seeing that, thanks to his deliveries, the werewolves now each had a fireball ring, a shockball ring, healing flame, shock shield, and flame shield: five rings per werewolf.
Alex continued, finding another ward, but this one had been entirely destroyed, half the battery itself on the floor. Alex picked it up, observing with interest that there were curls of metal encased in ceramic. He took a piece to study later.
Long ago, Juno had shown him what happened when he wrote a simple spell on a piece of paper. The spell had drawn passive magic and heated until the paper caught fire. Alex knew that spell books were similar. They were written on specially prepared metal and then as they degraded they became dangerous, liable to explode all at once.
Alex realized he definitely needed to talk to Ruby about the wards again because he hadn't considered that ceramics and metal could be mixed together to hold a charge and spells. As he headed downstairs, the temperature noticeably dropping, Alex smacked himself in the forehead at the large gaps in his knowledge.
“A wand? Moron,” he said, feeling for a moment like he was channeling Juno. Some of the wands he'd seen were just metal, but others were wood and metal mixed together. So he’d already seen hybrid examples of materials that could hold spells but hadn't thought about them any more deeply than that.
Maybe that was the solution to the exploding Great Barrier ring—metal and ceramic. Make it strong.
Alex was down on the prison level now and he shifted to hybrid without even thinking about it. A moment later he growled as he caught the faint remnants of Juno’s scent. The werewolves hadn't bothered to clean down here yet as there was no blood or dead bodies.
Alex went over to Juno’s cell. The door was still where he’d left it after he’d torn it off its hinges. Juno hadn't exactly refused to talk about what had happened, but the story was short and simple. They kidnapped her, put mage cuffs on, threw her in the prison, then left her there. No one spoke to her and they fed her just one meal a day.
It had been Esme, Yvonne, and Pearl who had received different treatment, being severely beaten before being thrown into their cage and sometimes not fed at all. Esme had finally talked to Alex about it, but the two teenage girls had entirely suppressed it as if refusing to talk about it meant it never happened.
The molten remains of Juno's mage cuffs were still on the floor where they'd dripped. Alex scuffed at it with a clawed foot, a piece of the metal coming free from where it had melted into the stone.
Alex gave the area one final check, looking for broken wards, but there were none on this level. As he left the cells, he wondered if he should arrange to have them repaired. Surely there would be more prisoners of war and he couldn't just tie them all to metal beams in the part of the factory covered by the ward.
For a moment, as he stood there looking at the cells, Alex saw the mechanics of empire. He already had Jeremiah working for him, taking the money, buying food, buying cars, the dodgy accountant buying land. Now they'd taken this fortress, which came with cells. If Alex repaired them they could take prisoners of war and extract information from them.
Prisoners of war meant guards and a feeding schedule and then perhaps surveillance cameras. Like when he'd first perceived the true extent of the supernatural world, Alex saw that, by delegation, you could almost become completely unaware that in some small part of your empire, prisoners were being tortured, and you never knew about it.
He already had an example: Wind had taken the surviving Ignis mages and vanished with them back to his territories. Alex didn’t know what happened to them, but if they were still alive, they would surely be living in terror.
Alex shook himself out of these thoughts, realizing he was growling under his breath.
He was halfway up the stairs when he felt a twinge, a disharmony in the slight feeling that surrounded him. A momen
t later he heard the growling and knew a fight was brewing.
He quickened his pace until he was jogging. In the main room, Jacob was facing off against a werewolf who was a good two feet taller than him and easily had a hundred pounds on the kid. Both were growling at each other, Jacob flexing his claws. Between them on the ground was a broken bowl and some splattered stew along with a spoon.
There was a rough circle of werewolves around them. Some of them were making noises to encourage the fight and others were just watching. Alex walked in, and without thinking about it, reached for the slight tendril he could feel.
He gripped it mentally and pushed.
“We're going now,” he said in a commanding tone. Sometimes he put a growl into his voice, but this was different; this command brooked no argument. The power he had over the werewolves was strong, even though it was the barest sliver.
The werewolf facing off against Jacob stopped growling, but didn't lower his claws.
Alex walked past him like he didn’t have a care in the world and Jacob fell in step with him as they left.
The feeling of imminent violence dissipated.
“Dude thinks all the stew was his,” Jacob said.
“I understand. Don’t worry about it,” Alex said automatically. There were still enough werewolves about that he knew he could be overheard, and he wasn’t about to take sides over something as stupid as a bowl of stew.
They shifted back to human before leaving the fortress. As Alex did, he felt his grasp on the faint tendril of power vanish.
They got into their car, which was already starting to bake in the morning sun. Jacob slouched into his seat and hunched down, his eyes hooded.
“So where to now, Jacob? Is there anyone else you want to piss off over a bowl of stew?” Alex teased, hoping to get him out of his mood.
“He smacked the bowl out of my hand for the crime of eating food near him. Did you see the size of him? It’s like he probably wants all the food for himself anyway,” Jacob complained.
