The Witching Hour
Rowan
“Can you feel it?” Milo asks, raising his plastic to-go cup high in the air and jiggling the ice about.
I stop dead in the middle of the almost empty parking lot and let my wolf forward.
It’s fully dark out now, and aside from the handful of staff in the gas station we just stopped at, there’s no one else out here—except Milo.
He’s walking just a little ahead of me to where I parked the truck. Curious, I watch him.
His platinum-blond hair isn’t dyed, I’ve come to realise, and under the silvery light of the moon and stars it hosts a pearlescent shine.
Tall and lithe, his long legs advance over the cracked and littered tarmac with ease, and the contrast that exists between his ethereal aesthetic and the surrounding urban decay is striking.
Milo turns then, walking backward with his arms spread wide, and tilts his head, expression expectant as he waits for my answer.
“Naw,” I admit. “I can’t feel anything.”
He smiles, then takes a long sip of his iced tuxedo coffee through the straw. “Yeah, me either.” Spinning back around, he raises his face skyward. “What time is it?”
Adjusting the grip on my flat white, I check my watch. “Zero-zero-ten hours.”
Milo wrinkles his nose while he thinks.
I convert. “Ten past midnight.”
He hums. “It’s the witching hour. Apparently…” He takes another noisy slurp. “It’s a liminal time when the veil between worlds is thinnest.”
I chuckle quietly and press the button on the fob to deactivate the truck’s alarm. Witches and their superstitions.
“They used to make us take classes at this time because communication and divination are at their strongest.” He shrugs. “I never felt anything either.”
I pause mid-stride. Milo is the most unusual witch I’ve ever encountered.
When he puts his hand on the rear passenger door, I assume to climb back into the same middle seat he used on the drive down here, I command, “Up front, Pup.”
He doesn’t hesitate, just diverts course and hops in the front. With that settled, I nod to myself and make my way around to the driver’s side. My phone in my pocket vibrates with a message alert. It’s not my unit because they’ve gone dark until they reach the new Nest in Rome.
Admiral:
You said the meeting was unproductive. You failed to mention it was a hostile environment. Full AAR required.
I balance my coffee on the roof of the truck, and scratch through my short beard with blunt fingernails.
Acknowledged.
Admiral:
Has the Package I sent you been valuable?
I flick my gaze to Milo, his darkened silhouette just visible through the truck’s tinted windows. Magpie’s value is beyond anything I could write in a text. Not that the General’s Office can ever know that.
To be confirmed.
I pocket my phone, drain half my white coffee in one go, and climb into the truck next to Milo.
Turning on the engine, I reset the navigation to direct us out of the gas station near the private North Carolina airfield that Bear used to secure the Dog’s ghost flight and back to the city.
Current estimated time of arrival is 03:24. It’s been a long fucking day.
Beside me, Milo’s plastic cup, wet with condensation, slips a little when he transfers it to his other hand to fiddle about with the truck’s climate controls.
I slide back the padded cover of the centre console to reveal the cup holders hidden beneath, place my coffee cup in one, then gesture for him to do the same.
His jaw hangs open for a beat, then he eagerly tests it out, smiling widely when it fits snuggly.
“This truck is cosier than my home,” he laughs, drying his wet fingers by wiping them on his jeans.
I drop into gear, check Milo is belted in, then set off. “Glad you approve, Pup. It’s the only truck I’ll drive over here because it comes with enough room for a pack of alpha wolves—and Bear’s ego.”
Milo snorts. “Did you just… make a joke?”
I check the rearview mirror, my lip tugging upward at the corner. “I’m a funny guy.”
Those vibrant grey eyes stare at the side of my head. “What’s the real reason?”
“The Yukon XL’s the only truck that comes with a trailer hitch that could tow a boat as standard. Never know what a mission might require, and I like to be prepared. But also…” I glance his way. “Leg room. So we can all travel together.”
He nods as if that all makes perfect sense, then says, “Because pack.”
And maybe it does. “Aye. Pack.”
Milo retrieves his drink, giving the chocolate syrup that coats the inside a poke with his straw, and as he moves it to his mouth, his gaze darts forward and he lets out a squeak.
I see the pothole too late to swerve around it, and peripherally I notice how Milo tries to arrange himself in some protective yet equally avoidant shape around his iced drink. The driver’s side tire hits it at sixty miles per hour.
Nothing happens. The truck’s adaptive suspension transfers the impact through the shock absorbers and away from the cabin. But I can tell from the way he braced that Milo expected he was about to get drenched in cold coffee.
We travel along a bit further in silence, then he releases a surprised bark of laughter. “I thought for sure I was a goner.”
His excited relief travels through him as a full-body shudder that culminates with the rapid tapping of his boots on the mat, then he takes a long slurp of his drink. Happy feet, I chuckle to myself.
“I promise yer safe with me, Magpie…” I almost do what Thriller suggested and let him know that he’s not just a Package, but pack. I cut myself off by finishing my own coffee before it goes cold.
Dropping the empty cup back in the holder, our fingertips brush when he sets his down at the same time. He smiles up at me; I smile back.
“So.” I clear my throat and remind myself that Milo is work. “Ye missed the mission orders last night, but the rest of the Dogs are now on Operation Tempo, and will touch down in Rome at approximately fifteen hundred hours, local time.”
Milo stares at me with blank eyes.
“Oh nine hundred, for us.” I translate, and Milo nods. “While they’re there—getting an ID for Time Guy—we’re still working on locating and retrieving the Luna del Lupo for Operation Magpie.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he says, then sits up in his seat. “Time Guy flipped my room looking for it, and I’m pretty sure he knows what it looks like, so I think we’re safe to assume it’s not there. But when we were at the coffee shop… Where were you, by the way?”
“On the phone with my superior.” I check the rearview mirror again, and Milo’s pierced eyebrow arches. “Outside. Across the carpark, under a tree.”
“And you could hear me from there?”
“Wolf hearing.” I tap my ear, then focus back on the drive. The roads are dark, and even with the truck’s assistive technology, an accident could still happen.
“Unfair,” Milo scoffs. “What was I saying?”
He snatches up what’s left of his drink, melting ice cubes colliding noisily against one another, and sucks aggressively through his straw. I open my mouth to remind him, when his whole body stiffens and he smacks his palm against his forehead.
“Owww,” he whines. “Brain freeze.” He dumps the cup back in the holder. “But I remembered!”
Once again, I find myself wondering if I’ve ever met anyone quite like Milo.
“Time Guy was adamant that I had the Luna del Lupo on me, but I’m pretty sure I don’t.
Because… he crashed into my room in his purple cloak with his crazy magic hands at the ass-crack of dawn, right?
And I’d just showered—luckily I’d had time to put pants on—but like, that’s my point.
I ran out of there in what I was wearing.
So unless the Luna del Lupo is inside my boot, I don’t think I have it on me. ”
He crosses one foot over his knee at the ankle, as if he’s actually considering his boots might contain a several-millennia-old magical artefact, and chews on his bottom lip.
“Except…” he continues. “When he did that purple crackly hand thing—”
I crack out laughing, interrupting him. “The purple crackly hand thing? Yer a witch, Milo. Does that not have a proper name?”
He shrugs nonchalantly, and his foot slips back onto the floor with a thump, but a small smile creeps over his plump red lips.
I refocus on the mirrors and the road.
“Spell casting—but that’s so meh. Purple crackly hand thing describes it better, don’t you think?”
I bite back another laugh, and nod in agreement.
“Anyway, he does that…” Milo holds up his hands, as if in mime of claws, and shakes them. “And it activates a counterspell. So, maybe I do have it on me. Somewhere…”
There’s a growing silence between us while I wait for him to elaborate on his original point—about Operation Magpie and how we might find a lead—but Milo’s glazed over.
I spare him a few seconds, watching the white lines from the dark highway reflect in his eyes, until my wolf unsettles and comes forward to check on him.
“Milo?” I call his name softly.
“Hmmm?”
“Ye said ye’d been thinking about this trinket, and where we can get more intel?”
“Oh? Ooooh, yeah. Yes.” He nods definitively.
White hair that’s almost polar-blue under the glow from the truck’s navigation screen, swishes with the motion. Is it as soft as it looks?
I force my eyes to the rearview mirror.
“So, I was thinking…” Milo picks up his coffee and drinks, but it’s pretty much empty now, and he frowns. “It’s possible to conceal an enchantment, and it’s also possible to craft an enchantment that migrates to a new vessel if the old one is destroyed.”
With my hands firmly on the wheel, I look over at Milo for a steady three count.
I’d known this was possible too, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind.
If the Luna del Lupo is a sentient enchantment that skips between vessels, then it would explain why Time Guy insists Milo has it, and why Milo has no idea about its existence.
“Do ye know how to detect a concealment? Or uncover the enchantment?”