Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The crack of the lightning bolt made the wolves jump back, but it was too late.
The water had done its job and most of the wolves were twitching from electrocution, falling into the water, which only increased their exposure to the voltage.
Nick sent another two bolts into the water before the spell faded, the ink peeling off his skin.
“Any more?” I asked.
He shook his head, and I hummed to the water, singing of its sister, ice. Amiably enough, the water hardened into ice, leaving most of the wolves trying to break themselves out of the frigid prison. We were in a refrigerator, and the insulation helped keep the water ice for longer.
A few wolves had already recovered from the electrocution and were pounding against the barrier. The water had washed away a bit of the powder and the barrier was weaker there. My glance gave it away, and the wolves pounded against the weaker part until it gave in.
Then it was a free-for-all. I used the knife Nick had given me to slice at the wolves, going for their weak spots. Eyes, the groin, anywhere they weren’t sure would grow back.
Nick became a whirlwind of movement, powering up and tossing spells without hesitation. He had to know where each spell was and exactly what it did without looking. I would have admired how capable he was, but a wolf that had been in the room with me when I woke lunged for me.
He was tall and thinner than I’d thought. His frame was perfect for attacking, because he could dart in and get out without having the weight of larger muscles. As he crouched lower and sprang forward, I spun along his arm, getting in as close to his core as I could and stabbing into his stomach.
With a surge of power, I heated the blade, and he screamed in agony. A stabbing he could have shaken off. A hot shard of metal in his abdomen was a threat on his life.
As long as I didn’t’t make too much of a mess, he’d heal from it. So, I pulled the knife out cleanly and danced back, using his swaying frame as a shield between me and the wolves behind him. Someone caught him and tugged him out of the barrier.
My next attacker was smart, working in coordination with another wolf, their glances speaking as they tried to circle me.
They’d made the mistake of dripping water all over the concrete and, with a thought, I froze it.
Their shoes slipped at the sudden change in friction and it only took a sweep of my leg to have them on their backs, trying to get back on their feet.
They crab walked backwards, and I took the time to get closer to Nick.
“Plan?” I yelled.
“My car is outside.” He tossed a spell that seemed to shift the whole room forward an inch, jostling wolves so they fell together. The shift in the crowd let me see what was behind them and our need to get out of the room, safely or not, was suddenly more imperative than anything else.
Behind the wolves, there was a dragon. Torres had shifted, growing taller than a Clydesdale.
She looked halfway between a nasty garden lizard and a bird.
Feathers framed her face like a mane, and sharp teeth snapped at the air.
In clear irritation, she swished a tail ending in bright white feathers.
She roared, the sound so loud in the enclosed space that even the wolves winced away from it. It was clear what her message was. Get out of my way.
The pack scrambled away, dragging their wounded behind them. I looked at Nick, who was wilting. Half the spells I could see had faded or peeled off. At my glance, he firmed his shoulders back.
“You good?” I asked.
His lips went white as he pressed them together, but he nodded quickly.
“All right,” I said. I saw my bag, kicked to the side of the room and knew if I got it, we might have a chance.
Nick followed my glance and nodded. He sent out a series of spells which hit Torres in her face, explosions with about as much impact as sparklers.
Still, it gave me an opening, and I sprinted through the shreds of the barrier for my bag.
A couple of wolves tried to grab me, but I sliced at their knees and they danced back.
One handed, I grabbed my bag and pulled it over my head, securing it across my body before sliding back towards Nick on the slick ice.
Torres flicked her tail, and it slammed into me, sending me to my hands and knees. She raised it again, and I used all my magic to yank some water up, so that she came down on shards of ice. A couple pierced her skin, and it gave me the time to scramble over to Nick.
He was panting, sweat darkening his shirt. I didn’t ask if he was okay; it was clear he wasn’t. Coaxing the ice back into water, I reached into my bag and pulled out a handful of leaves. I tossed them on the ground and began pouring my magic into them.
They grew. I’d found them growing green and verdant at the edge of an abandoned property, no water, barely any nutrients in the soil.
Here, with enough water and concrete they could sink their roots into, they grew fast and thick.
I didn’t even know the name of the plant, and they were too starved to do more than take and take.
Still, within a few moments, we had a waist-high hedge of thorny, thick brush. Enraged, Torres lunged at us, the low ceiling preventing her from opening her wings. Nick sent a spell that flew like a frisbee, rolling along her side and leaving a shallow cut in her scales.
The brush began growing up the legs of the assembled werewolves and, in their panic, they shifted into their wolf forms. Their desperation must have had some effect on Torres because she whipped her head back and forth, growling.
Then, like a lion protecting her pride, she broke through the thick brush, the stubborn wood of the branches and trunks tearing her scaled skin as she ran towards us.
At the last moment, Nick pressed his hands into the ground and the shield solidified just in time to take her charge. She crashed into the barrier, making it halfway through. I yanked out a box of salt from my bag and threw it up in the air, sending it unerringly for her open wounds.
Roaring in pain, she withdrew, lashing her tail as the salt dug deeper.
I tossed another handful into the air and it found every open cut: the one along her side Nick had made, the ones in her feet the brush had torn open, even the nicks my ice shield had made earlier.
As effective as it was, I still felt guilty I was literally pouring salt into her wounds.
“We should go!” I shouted, dragging Nick up and towards the door he’d created in the wall.
He scrambled to his feet, and we stumbled towards the wall, almost getting out when a stream of new wolves came through, half-shifted and ready for trouble. For a moment, I thought the Five Dragons reinforcements would be the last thing we saw. Then, inexplicably, the Five Dragons attacked them.
“What—” Nick said.
“Don’t care. Move.” I shoved him forward. We managed another two steps before a couple of the new wolves attacked us.
Nick was tapped out. He pressed a hand to one of the spells remaining on his forearm and it gave a half light before fading. As he raised his gun, I saw the resignation in his eyes.
I slapped my hand on the spell he’d been trying to activate and pumped my own power into it.
Rather than Nick’s pure green, it lit a brilliant yellow and his eyes caught mine.
Alchemists don’t share power. The most they’d do was cast separate spells towards the same goal.
I hoped he’d take my magic in that spirit rather than an assault on his way of practicing.
He began the incantation, sending the spell spiraling towards the wolves. For a moment, it spun around them, and then they swayed, their eyes spinning dizzily.
“Is this an inebriation spell?” I huffed.
He didn’t have time to answer before another pair of wolves charged us, and then it was a desperate scrabble to survive. After a while, I couldn’t tell who we were fighting anymore. The new wolves? The Five Dragons? It all blurred together as I activated spell after spell for Nick.
We got more fluid as we gained practice. I thought it would feel weird powering up an alchemist’s circle. But for all that the spellwork was unfamiliar, it felt exactly like Nick: precise, controlled, and something I wanted to sink into.
I activated a spell and watched him spin what looked like webbing around three wolves. Reaching deep, I grew brush around them, until a hedge encased them. Nick slammed the butt of his gun into the temple of a wolf coming up behind us, and I swept his legs out from under him.
“How’re you doing?” Nick said.
“Good.” I knew I should have been drained a few times over, but I somehow still had some magic left.
It had to be a side effect of becoming Windrose. My well of power had expanded, or changed. Whereas before I was powerful, I now felt even more so. Like I’d had blinders on, and when they’d been taken off, I could see the universe.
“Here.” Nick tapped his chest.
Slapping my hand to his shirt, I couldn’t see the spell, but I could feel it. It was larger than the rest.
“What is this?” I asked.
“We need to get out of here,” he said, eyes darting around.
I powered it up, and felt it sapping almost everything I had left. As it took my magic, I was a little relieved to know there was a boundary, being Windrose hadn’t changed me to the point of being unrecognizable.
Nick began chanting, and I felt the spell pull more from me, dragging out every last dreg of my magic. Around us, the brush shriveled and died off as I couldn’t give it any more magic. With the area clearing around us, I finally got a good view of the melee.
A sleek wolf darted around the room, his teeth tearing as he bounded from fight to fight. He leapt and used his weight to bear down an opponent, and I recognized that move.
“Stop.” I gestured to Nick. I dug deep and found the voice I’d decided to call my Windrose voice. “Stop.”
It echoed in the room, booming with power and resonance. A few of the wolves winced back, yelping. Torres tossed aside a half-shifted wolf she’d been holding in her claws and hissed at me.
“I think there’s been a mistake.” My voice was back to normal, but some echo of the power must have remained because no one went back to fighting. “Malik, why are you here?”
His shift was so fluid you could blink and miss it. He squinted at me, “Parker. What the hell is going on?”
“You’re here to help your allies, the Five Dragons, right?” I asked. “You were on the phone with one of their alphas and you heard her get attacked.”
He’d been bounding around Torres too fast for it to be obvious he’d been trying to protect her. And with all the chaos of two packs attacking each other, all anyone could tell was they were being attacked and needed to have their own claws out or they’d be eviscerated.
Malik looked around the room and hissed. He jerked his head and his pack mates pulled into a tight formation behind him. A few injured were leaning on their fellow wolves.
Torres shifted slower than Malik, but she was more massive and watching the enormous dragon become a petite woman again left me with an odd sense that the world wasn’t right. She was naked and didn’t seem to care.
Placing her hands on her hips, she whistled and the Five Dragons moved towards her side of the room.
“So, a misunderstanding?” she asked.
“We thought since our alliance was so new, we’d offer our help promptly,” Malik said.
“Well good job almost killing your allies,” she snorted. Snapping her fingers, a female werewolf appeared with a robe she draped over the alpha. “Tell him about Dieter.”
She directed the last at me.
“Dieter is working for the killer,” I said.
“What?” Malik said, and Nick turned to me, his eyes wide and lips pressed tight together.
“He showed up here and tried to get the Five Dragons to kill me, but I think his long-term plan was to get them to kill you, Malik.” I glanced at Nick and shook my head slightly. He narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.
“Where is he?” Malik said. “We have to question him.”
Torres turned to look at the two wolves who had been holding him down. They were both injured and whined in submission at her dark gaze.
“He, uh, well, when the wall went down, we, uh,” one of them stuttered.
“He escaped,” Torres said. “You let him escape.”
They whimpered.
“Who’s the killer?” Malik asked.
“I need to go through my photos,” I hedged. “It’ll take some time.”
“Why was he helping the killer?” Malik said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Shrugging, I said, “If the killer threatened to take his life? If the only way out Dieter saw was by handing over other magical creatures?”
Torres was watching me with narrowed eyes and she smirked. “So you lie even to your allies?”
“What’s he lying about?” Malik asked.
“Ask him what magical creatures he’s concerned about,” Torres advised. “And ask him why.”
Malik glanced at me, his eyebrow raised. I sighed.
“I’m fae. The killer found the old Windrose and killed him and they gave me the position,” I said.
“The what?” Malik said. Around him, the wolves shifted at the mention of my nature. I hoped their fear would last long enough for Nick and me to escape without any more bloodshed.
“He’s the arbiter of justice in the fae world,” Torres said. She shook her head. “Even if he knows the killer, he will only bring him to fae justice. Not pack justice.”
“Not if we find the killer first,” Malik said, glaring at me. He pointed at the two women I’d met the night Dieter had tortured me. “Go find Dieter and find out who he’s working for.”
“With them,” Torres said, pointing to two of her own people.
The small posse left, and I raised an eyebrow. “Good hunting.”
“Leave, Windrose, before we decide to keep you here and wring the truth out of you,” Torres said, smoke rising from her lips again.
Nick was pulling my arm, and I didn’t wait to be told twice. We ran.