Page 3 of Witch

She glanced up at Kana briefly, blinked in surprise to see him still there, and waved toward the door with her free hand. “Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow before the news people come, and I’ll let you know how the tests go if we finish them before you’re able to join us.”

Kana put a few of his tools away and cleaned his workspace but obeyed Johanna’s orders. The lab he worked in wasn’t a private space, but there were so many labs in the hunters’ building Kana often had the room to himself. The hunters’ association had converted an old McMansion into a research space as well as living quarters for most of the researchers on staff. Construction had taken nine months, and the building still smelled of new paint and construction dust.

Kana was one of the exceptions because he didn’t live on-site, however he didn’t live far. The association had chosen their house because it was next door to the werewolves’ city pack house, and Kana lived there with his boyfriend, the pack’s alpha, Ember Maxwell. The association could keep an eye on the pack, and Kana benefited because of his incredibly short commute.

Ready? Kana asked.

Sora let out a wide yawn and flexed his front paws so his claws flashed in and out. Yeah, after that much magic use, I want to go home and take a nap.

Mika was hanging out with Ember for the day, but he was listening in to the conversation through their shared link. Food first, please, he said.

You always want food, Sora grumbled as he hopped from his perch on a nearby shelf and landed on Kana’s shoulder. A few days after Kana had started working in the lab, the shelf—which had been intended to store supplies—had somehow been upholstered like a couch cushion with padding covered in simple blue cloth. Kana didn’t know who had done it, but he—and definitely Mika and Sora—appreciated it a lot.

And you don’t? Mika shot back with a derisive snort.

Kana left them to it, enjoying their banter as he abandoned the lab and walked through the halls to the front door. He let himself outside and followed the long driveway to the black iron gate at the end. The gate was inset into a ten-foot wall, which had taken the longest to build out of all the construction. The hunters had copied the wall around the pack house, so it at least created continuity in the neighborhood. A small guardhouse stood adjacent to the gate, and a hunter popped outside when she saw Kana coming.

“Done for the day?” she asked as she tapped the code into the keypad to open the pedestrian door adjacent to the massive gate.

“Yep,” Kana answered with a smile for her.

The security inside the walls was manned by hunters, but the association had contracted with the pack to guard the perimeter and patrol the surrounding neighborhoods. Kana therefore wasn’t the least bit surprised to find a wolf in wolf form sitting on the side of the street, his tongue hanging out as he panted in the afternoon heat.

“You’re my escort today?” Kana asked and the wolf nodded his massive head.

Werewolf biology was an interesting subject. A hundred and fifty pound human turned into a hundred and fifty pound wolf, which meant the werewolf strolling at Kana’s side was as tall as Kana’s waist. Their muscles, claws, and teeth were all sized to match their large form. Their hair color as a human became their fur color. While this wolf looked ordinary brown, Kana had seen blond wolves too. In fact, the only thing they really shared with a real wolf was the basic overall shape to their form.

Werewolves were completely different than Kana’s familiars, who appeared to be regular nine pound house cats, but in their human form were about a hundred and forty pounds, and in their primordial shape—which was a mix between a tiger, a lion, and something wild only magic could dream up—they were approximately six hundred pounds. Kana hadn’t ever found a scale to measure their weight with, but they made floors creak when they walked on them and had torn apart two powerful vampires without getting hurt themselves.

The werewolf at Kana’s side wouldn’t stand a chance against Sora should Sora decide to stop lazing on Kana’s shoulder and change forms; the wolf knew that, and, more importantly, Ember knew that, but Ember had assigned Kana the escort anyway. Partially, the escort was a show of force—to prove the wolves protected what they considered theirs at all times—but it was also to help Kana because only a select few actually knew his familiars had their primordial forms or even how strong Kana’s magic was. Besides, as mate to the alpha, Kana was afforded certain extra entitlements, including a guard whenever he stepped outside the protected fence.

The pack house—and the hunter’s association—was located down a quiet side street in the suburbs of Schenectady. The houses were huge, on equally big parcels of land, but the neighborhood still managed to come across as quaint, if a bit snooty. The two adjacent properties with their massive walls surrounding them didn’t quite fit in, yet at the same time, Kana had a feeling the rest of the houses might as well have a wall around them too. Certainly the neighbors hadn’t been particularly welcoming so far.

“Yoo-hoo,” someone tootled from across the way, putting a lie to Kana’s thoughts. The wolf tensed and Kana turned to look, only to find a lady wiggling her fingers at them from the end of the driveway across the street. She was sitting under her mailbox, digging in the dirt to bury the flowers lying at her side in cheap plastic tubs. Her hair was once brown but was now heavily graying and her eyes were covered by a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. Farther up the drive a moving van was parked, the contents being busily unloaded.

“Hello,” she chirped, her voice sounding cheery like a stereotypical grandmother’s from the best kids’ movies. It was so sickly sweet Kana’s teeth ached in sympathetic reaction. “We’re new to the neighborhood. It’s so nice to see you out walking your dog. Where do you live, dearie?”

“Are you moving in today?” Kana asked instead of answering her question. If she had been outside for longer than five minutes, she had to have seen Kana leave the hunter’s association, so at the very least she knew he was associated with them.

Mika, can you ask Ember if he knew about this? Kana asked.

I already did. He doesn’t, Mika replied immediately. Like when the hunters moved in, he didn’t even know the house was for sale. He says he’s assigning someone to figure out how these house purchases are happening without our knowing. He also wants to know if you have any idea if it’s just a regular human, or if it’s someone we should be concerned about.

Good question. I’m leaning toward being concerned at this point. Kana sighed mentally. I’m sure we’ll learn really soon.

“Oh, yes, dearie,” she continued in her far too chipper voice. “It’s a lovely day to move in. My daughters are overseeing the furniture and unpacking, but I thought it might be nice to cheer up the place with some flowers. As she spoke, she gently placed another flower into the ground and pushed the dirt to fill in around it until it was firmly in place. Her fingers brushed the small petals of the purple flower bud.

Had Kana blinked, he would have missed it. Magic flared, but so subtly it took him a minute to pinpoint how. The flowers, he realized, were planted in a circle, and the one she had just placed completed a star. The mailbox might be in the center, but that was irrelevant to the spell. The flowers weren’t touching to make perfect, unbroken lines, but magic connected them anyway, similar to how Kana’s quick-set circles worked when he drew them with only magic in the air. The flowers helped anchor the magic, much like chalk, but Kana realized in the half-second before the spell formed, the combination between anchor and magic to set the circle gave the circle an extra boost. It was similar to using candles in a circle, and yet Kana had never heard of using plants.

The spell arrowed, not at Kana, but at the wolf at his side. Kana didn’t have time to do anything more than gasp and futilely grab for his own magic before the spell hit. The wolf grunted but otherwise seemed okay.

“Go on, now,” the woman—the witch—said, her voice still genial, but it had lost that sugary syrup tone. “This young man and I need to have a private conversation.” She made a shooing motion with one hand.

The wolf locked his knees, but Kana could see them trembling as he fought the spell. He let out a low growl as his body started to shake under the strain.

Kana couldn’t let him continue to suffer. “It’s okay,” he said. “Go on.”

The wolf whimpered, but he obeyed, reluctance clear in every movement as he slowly walked off in the direction of the pack house.

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