Page 37 of Junk Magic

“What the fuck?” someone said loudly.

It was Chris, the usual laid back surfer dude, but he wasn’t sounding so relaxed right now. Maybe because the voice that had come out of my throat hadn’t sounded like mine. Low, guttural, and menacing as hell, it should have shocked me, too.

Instead, I was grateful for it, as the whole class stopped on a dime. I turned back around and raced ahead, and when Aki tried to follow—I could hear the peculiar sound of his sneakers, all worn down on one side for some reason, giving a little lisp to his walk—Sophie threw an arm over his chest. I could distinctly make out the soft sound of her touch impacting the buttons on the front of his shirt.

And then I was through the door to the lobby and out.

A blast of sound and sensation hit me, making the quiet stairwell feel like an oasis. But I wasn’t tempted to go back, because the door had been blunting more than just the five senses. A tornado of terror battered me as soon as I stepped out, like a physical blow.

I somehow stayed on my feet, even while the emotions of a panicked wolf hit me on all sides. Every instinct I had wanted to find, to help, to protect, but training held. And caused me to take a second to size up the situation first.

It wasn’t good.

In front of me was a ring of leather coated war mages standing like rocks in the middle of a crashing surf, motionless against the blurred panic going on behind them. The only motion was in their coats, fluttering around their legs as if caught in a strong wind, and the occasional twitch of a hand hovering over a weapon’s belt. Or the weapons themselves in the case of one mage who had already deployed his arsenal, leaving them circling his head like a deadly cloud.

In front of the mages was a ring of wolves, facing inward and already transformed, with bunched muscles in their haunches and torn clothing littering the ground around them in a confetti of colors. Their bodies were tensed and ready, their hackles were raised, and snarls and growls were emerging from behind bared teeth. They looked like they were about to pounce.

Outside the circle, the high rafters of the old warehouse were ringing with the distressed sounds of normal people who had showed up to renew weapons’ licenses, to report a disturbance, or to apply for a permit, only to find themselves caught in a situation. I saw flashes of wide eyes and dropped jaws, probably because many had never seen a transformed Were before. Some were rushing to get away before they saw even more, while others had stopped to gawk, with one lady letting a slew of paperwork slide out of her hands unnoticed, which scattered everywhere.

But all of that was a haze at the edges of my vision, vague and indistinct, almost irrelevant. My eyes noticed it because they’d been trained to notice everything, and to size up a situation quickly in order to determine the best course of action. Only, this time, I wasn’t coolly assessing anything.

This time, I was furious.

And then two Weres sprang for the small wolf at the center of the circle, who was apparently the cause of all this, and what could only be called a roar echoed through the room. It was loud enough to drown out the panicked background noise and the ambient music the Corps had recently started playing in the lobby for some reason. The roar didn’t sound like a wolf’s howl; it didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard. Which should have been a surprise since it was coming from me.

It wasn’t. And neither was the sight of two large wolves changing course mid-attack, their haunches bunching up around their faces as they veered off to the side. Or half a dozen more war mages’ weapons springing into the air as if on strings. Or the several hundred heads that suddenly jerked in my direction, some stopping and craning their necks to see past the deadly circle.

Nothing mattered except the boy, because he was a boy, a desperate, hurting, still defiant cub, crouched low to the floor but howling his fear into the air, along with his defiance.

At least, he had been a moment ago. But he’d paused at the roar, too, and turned his head as I started toward him, pushing a war mage whose face I didn’t bother to register out of the way in the process. “Lia—” someone said, sounding shocked, and was ignored.

I could smell the cub’s fear as I approached, a tsunami of sensation. And below that, a deep, dark ocean of agony that didn’t know where to go or how to cope. He’d been in pain before, but never like this. For the first time in his life, he was alone.

And was slowly realizing that he always would be, because it was Jace, who had lost his brother barely two days ago.

“No,” I rumbled, and again, barely recognized my voice. “Not alone.”

Someone was shouting a warning, someone else was calling my name—Caleb—who was also yelling at our fellow mages to “Put the goddamned guns down; she’s got this!”

I didn’t know if I had this. I didn’t even know what this was. Except that I was drawn by that horrible pain, that terrible loneliness, and by the strange feeling of possession sweeping over me. A war mage took a small step forward and I growled at him. I saw his eyes fly open in surprise, and although I was currently unarmed, he stepped back.

I turned my attention back to the cub, who was almost nose to the floor now, in a position of respect and submission just short of rolling onto his belly. But he couldn’t do that, couldn’t risk it, not now. His eyes flickered from me to the encroaching circle, but he wasn’t looking at the mages.

And for good reason.

“Vargulf,” a fully transformed wolf snarled, the voice like an industrial sized file scraped across stone. It was harsh enough to cause a man, fleeing just behind him, to let out a little scream.

It didn’t faze me. Weres can talk while transformed, although few do as it isn’t often necessary. The scents coming off the clan, the small changes of expression, the odd telepathy that close family members shared, was usually sufficient.

Like the kind I was suddenly getting from the cub.

Some of the images I recognized: the paint splattered figure of a young man, at a faucet outside of my house, carefully washing off a bunch of brushes; the circle of happy faces around a campfire, jumping with leaping flames; the full moon, flooding over sand, turning a spreading circle of blood black and terrible. . .

But others were new to me: a terrifying race through the night on all fours, blood pounding in his veins, his brother at his side, and the howling of a pursuing pack in his ears; a dilapidated room with dirty windows, but with their meager possessions arranged carefully on cinderblock and plywood shelves; his brother, laughing for the first time in months, with hope in his eyes and the neon lights of Vegas behind him—

“It’s vargulf!” the same wolf growled, his pelt red and ruffled and angry. “Get away. We’ll deal with this!”

It was what they were paid for, I realized. Because these weren’t a random clan who had wondered in here. They weren’t even from the same clan, with no less than four distinct family signatures hitting my nose. And when I concentrated on their wolf forms, I could see a hazy figure of the men and women they’d been a moment ago crouched in the middle of each.

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