Werewolf Mage Box Set 1 Page 7

  “I need to get used to these werewolf legs,” Alex said, pulling himself up. He was reasonably sure falling a good three stories into an empty warehouse wouldn’t kill him straight up but he was glad he didn’t have to test that.

  “I hid your things over here.”

  Nia had stuffed Alex’s bag into a ventilation exhaust duct on the next rooftop. Inside he found his keys, wallet, phone, water bottle and a very badly degraded ham and salad roll he’d made for his lunch days ago.

  “Sorry, didn’t have time to dump that,” Nia said, wrinkling up her nose. Alex did the same – in his hybrid form his sense of smell was enhanced and many hot days sitting on a rooftop hadn’t done the roll any favors. He tossed it aside and then checked his phone, surprised to see it was still partially charged.

  “Eighty-two messages and forty-one missed calls,” he said, quickly scrolling through it. The earliest ones were Howey and Puzo asking if he was coming to work or giving him shit for being late. Then a missed call and more worried messages. There was a message from an unknown number from an Officer Monroe in the Baxter Police asking Alex to urgently get in contact.

  “Man, this is a big mess,” Alex said to Nia, slinging the bag over his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll work it out,” she replied, touching him on the arm.

  “Hey, wolves, we need to go!” Juno shouted out from the alleyway below.

  They bolted to the edge and looked down. Floating down the alleyway were multiple wooden globes, the size of baseballs. Alex counted ten. Juno was down at the crossway with flames dancing on her fingertips.

  “We need to smash them and get out of here,” Nia said. She leapt off the edge and got two of the balls on the way down, obliterating them against the cold cobblestones. Alex saw bits of crystal and circuitry spin across the alleyway.

  Wary that he might accidentally launch himself in the wrong direction, Alex took aim for the largest grouping of balls and dropped off the edge. Like Nia, he hit two, breaking them into pieces. As he did, he felt a small burst of magic set free from them.

  “What the hell are these things?” he yelled out as she swatted another into the brick wall.

  His answer came as a bolt of lightning shooting out from the remaining balls, hitting a shield Juno had hastily summoned in front of him. For a moment he was blinded by the burst of light but then his vision returned, albeit filled with afterimages.

  “The more there are, the more dangerous and mages can’t be far behind,” Juno yelled to him. She flung a fireball that engulfed a ball, dropping it to the ground where it continued to burn.

  Alex sensed it before it happened – a feeling the balls were gathering power for another shot. He threw up his shield just as a burst of lightning shot out from the remaining four. His shield flared and died and he felt a zap in his arm as some of the electricity got through. He wasn’t blinded though – with the reduction in their numbers the power of the lighting was reduced.

  Thirty seconds more and Alex smashed the final ball to the ground under his large back paw. He ducked down to examine it but then Juno called out a warning.

  At the far end of the alleyway three mages appeared, two men and a woman. They were dressed in dark robes, much like the mage Alex had killed at April’s. All three were making complicated hand gestures and as they did, three screens above them flickered with code moving so fast it was a blur. None of it made sense to Alex... although he caught a hint of some kind of shielding.

  “Over here, now!” Juno yelled.

  Alex scooped up the shattered remains of the ball and leapt toward Juno, misjudging it and clearing her head by a good two feet and landing far behind her, his claws sparking against the stones. Nia was more graceful, landing beside Juno.

  Whatever magic the mages were about to cast, Juno wasn’t waiting to see what it was. Alex saw her screen appear and a blur of code. He couldn’t get any hints this time – she was simply too fast.

  Flames appeared in Juno’s hands and then she flung them towards the three mages. Alex expected a fireball but it was actually multiple lines of fire. They stuck to the ground and walls, quickly making a sort of burning spider web directly in front of the mages, blocking their path.

  With that cast, Juno bolted and Alex and Nia followed.

  Running out of the alleyway towards Boris in his hybrid form, Alex got a sharp pain in his head and a distinctly uncomfortable feeling in his body. This is wrong. Stop.

  He saw Nia wince and felt that tug again, the thousand fishhooks in his muscles as the Great Barrier pulled.

  There were people down the street and the Grease Trap was about half full. As Alex bolted across the street he saw many of them do the look, frown, look away.

  They were in Boris in record time and thankfully this time he started first time. Juno floored it and they shot off down the road. As they did, the uncomfortable feeling of the Great Barrier vanished.

  “Were those things waiting for us?” Alex asked, examining the wrecked ball in his hands. He’d grabbed the one he’d crushed and so most of the components were still inside, albeit broken. There was clearly a circuit board, at least three crystals and a black feather.

  “No, they’re weapons, not alarms. Mages uses them to overwhelm their targets,” Juno said, heaving the wheel and sending them sliding around a corner Tokyo drift style.

  “Mercenaries use them a lot,” Nia added, watching out the back window.

  Alex shoved the remains of the ball into his bag and looked behind them. A sleek black sports car slid around the corner and ate up the distance between them. The female mage was driving.

  “They’re following us. We need to get somewhere isolated so we can take them down,” Alex said.

  “Way ahead of ya Big Bad,” Juno said.

  They slid around another corner and Alex saw she was taking them to what could be charitably called the lower socioeconomic region of Baxter. There were strips of rundown houses, most with scraggly trees and peeling paint. This was the thin band of residences before they hit Baxter’s dying industrial belt. As a kid Alex had ridden his bike all over this area with his friends, sneaking through abandoned warehouses and old factories. There were entire blocks that were deserted.

  There was an explosion of glass and Alex and Nia ducked as Boris’ back window blew out. The other two mages were leaning out of the car, firing handguns.

  “Stay calm, don’t go wild,” Nia said, her voice breaking though the roaring red that was filling Alex’s mind. He took a deep breath and pushed the rage away but it was difficult. They were firing at his women! His mates!

  Alex shook his head as he realized he’d included Juno as his mate... although she wasn’t, was she?

  Two handguns landed in the backseat by their heads, Juno tossing them over.

  “Keep them busy until we find a place,” Juno said.

  Nia grabbed a gun and was firing out the broken back window instantly. Alex picked his up and tried to remember everything he’d read about handguns. Squeeze, not pull. He’d only ever used rifles, back when he was a teenager and only to shoot rabbits, and the occasional wild pig, which were always a menace in the forests outside Baxter. A single shot .22 was a lot different to a handgun. He didn’t even know what model it was, although it did feel comfortably heavy in his hands.

  Alex peeked over the back of the seat and saw the two mages with guns were now back inside, holding their fire. It looked like Nia had scared them. Alex took careful aim, a breath and squeezed. He was doubtful he’d hit anything but then there was a flare of light dead center of the windscreen as a shield activated, blocking his bullet.

  “They have a car size shield, why didn’t we do that?” he called out as Juno whipped them around another corner.

  “If you can figure it out Einstein then I’m all ears,” Juno said.

  Alex looked around and saw they were heading to an old abandoned steel mill. It had high brick fences surrounding it and a wide open rusted gate. He’d snooped in the
re plenty of times as a teenager so he also knew there was a massive empty warehouse and large factory floor, still with old machinery bolted in place.

  The sports car appeared from behind them and this time Alex saw a screen floating above one of the mages. Whatever spell he was casting was slower and more deliberate, the lines spooling down the screen far slower than before. Alex couldn’t read it from this distance or at this speed but he swore he sensed fire somewhere in there. Maybe he’d seen it unconsciously in Juno’s spell from before?

  He and Nia kept firing at the car until they were out of ammunition.

  “Juno, they’re making some crazy big spell back there so we need to do something soon,” Alex warned, seeing code flowing and chunks of spells being dropped in. He opened his own screen and tried copy paste but much like the Shield spell, only about few percent of it came across first try. He’d have to copy it multiple times and there was no way that could happen before the mage fired off whatever it was.

  “As soon as we stop in the steel mill, you two jump out and get shredding. I’ll magic their asses back to the stone age,” Juno said. She had the accelerator to the floor and Boris’ engine was roaring as they raced along deserted streets.

  Alex saw the wide open rusted gates of the steel mill approaching but he wasn’t sure if there was enough time. The spell the mage was working on was starting to collapse and compile. He knew as soon as it executed something terrible would happen.

  Out of ammo and with no better alternatives, Alex did the only thing he could think of: he shouted at the mage, trying to write code into his spell to disrupt it.

  Alex was aiming for nonsense, anything to break it up but he saw the shield spell code flash up before him, a little green square that then shot towards the pursuing mages.

  It hit the spell, landing right in the middle of it just before the entire thing collapsed into its purest form and the mage cast it.

  “What the hell?” he heard Juno say as they sped through the wide open rusty gates. He felt it too – the magic that he could normally only touch via Juno was back again but this time it was a roaring hurricane. The spell the mage had cast was sucking in power, transforming what normally felt like a placid ocean into a flood.

  Juno slammed on the brakes and they slid to a stop as the sports car came through the gates. It was surrounded by a silvery bubble, like a shield, projecting about two feet around it in all directions. Alex could clearly see his shouted spell had interfered and the mages inside were panicking. The driver hit the brakes and they stopped on a dime, thanks to the high performance car. The mages tried to bolt but they were trapped, the silver bubble holding them inside.

  “Oh we gotta go,” Juno whispered and hit the gas again but she just wasn’t fast enough.

  A fireball burst inside the bubble and the mages screamed as they were incinerated. It was at first red but quickly went blue and then white hot as the bubble held it in place. Then it exploded, a wall of fire bursting outwards and rushing towards them.

  The last thing Alex saw was Juno heaving the wheel sideways so the expanding fire hit the side of Boris instead of the broken back window.

  11

  Blood and glass and smoke and groaning.

  Alex opened his eyes and sat up, finding himself on a cold stone floor next to a quietly rusting piece of machinery. There was something in his mouth. When he spat it out he found it was a tooth – a fang to be precise. Not entirely sure whether werewolves regrew teeth or not, he found the bloody hole in his gum and pressed the root into place.

  “Alex? Alex!” he heard Nia call out.

  “Here,” he mumbled, still trying to hold the fang in place. He got to his feet and groaned, feeling like he’d been beaten with iron bars.

  Nia came rushing out from behind some machinery, closely followed by Juno. Nia was streaked with blood and had bits of broken glass in her fur. Juno was pale with a freely bleeding wound on her head but otherwise appeared unharmed.

  “We need you to flip Boris back over,” Juno said and then stopped. “Why are you holding your teeth like that?”

  “Fang came out, wasn’t sure if it would grow back.”

  Nia hugged Alex, jolting his hand out of his mouth. His fang came loose and more blood filled his mouth.

  “It’ll grow back, so spit it out. I’m so glad you’re okay,” Nia said, pushing her head against his.

  Alex hugged her and then quietly spat out his broken tooth and some blood. It looked like they’d have to cast Cleanse again.

  “C’mon lovewolves we need to get out of here,” Juno urged.

  Alex and Nia followed Juno, Nia practically attached to his side. The best Alex could figure it he must have been flung out of Boris after the explosion hit them. They were somewhere in the back of the factory.

  The explosion!

  Alex skidded to a stop, looking at the buckled open bay doors. As far as he could tell there was nothing left of the three mages or their sports car. The concrete outside was blackened and looked like glass closer to the explosion center.

  “Mush mush mush,” Juno urged. Alex saw her screen appear and a spell spool out. She put her hand to the cut on her head and a gentle green glow shimmered out. When she pulled it away, the wound was sealing up.

  “You have healing spells?” Alex asked as they followed Juno back to where Boris was, upside down on his roof.

  “I have one healing spell and yes, if you’re good, I’ll teach you,” Juno said. “Now flip Boris so we can vamoose.”

  Boris was in bad shape. All the windows were smashed, his body was dented in a hundred places, front headlights destroyed and the roof had been caved in. Following the path of debris, they must have hit one of the large pieces of machinery while they were rolling over.

  “One, two, three,” Alex said as he and Nia took their positions and strained to tip Boris back.

  “Do we do it on three? Or one, two, three, then do it?” Juno said as the two werewolves heaved against the car.

  “Lethal Weapon,” Alex grunted as Boris finally began to move.

  “Yeah duh, give us a hard one,” Nia said in a strained voice.

  There was an enormous crash as they finally flipped Boris right side up. All four wheels were flat.

  “There’s no way we can drive Boris out of here unless you can magic up four new tires,” Alex said.

  “That’s the idea. You still filled to the brim right now?” Juno said.

  Alex frowned before realizing what she meant. He cast Know Thyself thinking it really needed a better name. The screen of information opened up in front of him. The spell and screen was still clearly adapting because now there was a health bar in red. The top twenty percent was missing but slowly filling. His mana was at about seventy percent and holding still, him using as much as he was generating. There was a new status panel listing various wounds, his missing fang, blood loss, hearing damage and hunger.

  It was only as he read it that Alex realized his ears were ringing. With everything else he’d blocked it out.

  “I’m at about seventy percent or so,” he said.

  “Lend me some magic then and you too Nia,” Juno said.

  Similar to when she’d cast Cleanse in her lounge room, they formed a small circle. Alex watched as the screen appeared, frantically copying over and over as Juno pulled together a spell that appeared to be written in cursive script. As magic thrummed through it he caught the distinct scent of cookies and talcum powder. Another spell from someone else? Alex guessed it must be – after all, how else did you learn spells but from another magic user?

  Juno drew magic out of him and Nia before pushing it through the spell. Behind them, Boris’ wheels reinflated and repaired themselves, the roof uncrumpled and some of the major dents popped back out. The glass was still broken but even as Alex watched, it began to grow back, like coral on fast forward.

  Juno let go of them (Alex saw he was now down to twenty percent mana left and holding) and they got into Boris. The handguns
were still inside somehow so Juno stuffed them into the glovebox.

  “C’mon for mama,” she whispered as she turned the key.

  Boris grumbled and coughed but finally started. He wasn’t sounding good though. There was a shudder running through the car that felt like it would shake it to pieces. But he was drivable.

  Juno carefully maneuvered their way out of the factory, passing the glassy spot where the sports car had exploded. Alex looked around and saw that not a single fragment had survived. There wasn’t even a spot of black metal anywhere. Somehow his spell had self-contained the car and presumably set off the fire they’d planned to cast at them.

  As they rolled out the rusty gates Boris gave a cough and shudder and the deep vibration vanished. It seemed he was still healing himself. The side windows were growing back faster now and there was the occasional thunk as some piece of bodywork popped back into shape. The front windshield was still largely missing, the glass around the edges taking longer to reform.

  “Mercenary mages you say,” Alex said, leaning back in the seat and feeling various body parts complain.

  Nia was pressed up against him, her head against his chest.

  “They tried to kill you,” she said in a small voice.

  Alex reached down to touch her face and felt tears.

  “Hey, we’re okay. We survived and they didn’t. Remember what you said – we’ll figure it out.”

  Nia nodded and sniffed before wiping away the tears and giving him a smile.

  Although Alex was saying reassuring things he wasn’t entirely sure they were true. If he hadn’t been able to disrupt that spell they may have all been killed. Maybe Boris would have been enclosed and they would have been incinerated.

  He managed to stop himself growling as he thought about what had happened. This was his city – he’d grown up here and he sure as hell wasn’t running from it because some mages wanted him dead. It was more important than ever to learn new spells, and get some more guns.

  He need more. More defenses, hell, more people in additional to his current pack of Nia and Juno.