Mind Over Magic by Lindsay Buroker
13
One of theLoups sprang at Morgen, and she jumped back but couldn’t go far. She bumped into the door.
Fortunately, Amar blocked her attacker with his body as he threw a punch. It slammed into the man’s chin, deterring him, but one of the other Loups charged toward her from his other side.
Morgen spun and grabbed the door handle, hoping they wouldn’t follow her inside. Even as Amar traded punches with the first werewolf, he kicked out at the second one, keeping him from reaching Morgen.
That was a good thing because someone had locked the door behind her. What the hell?
She dropped her take-out box and tugged with both hands, thinking it was jammed or someone else was pulling from the other side, but no. It was locked.
Movement at a nearby window drew her eye. Someone pulled the curtains. What, because a fight in the parking lot would disturb the diners?
Morgen spun back, amazed that Amar was holding off three men but afraid he wouldn’t be able to do so indefinitely unless she could do something to help. Thinking of the note, she pulled out her amulet. Seeing their weaknesses didn’t seem that helpful, but she hurried to whisper, “Under the moon’s magic, allow me to sleuth and reveal thy silvery truth.”
The amulet warmed in her hand, but nothing happened to the werewolves. Two punched and kicked at Amar as one growled and whipped out a knife.
Morgen glanced at the sky, afraid the incantation only worked at night, under the moon, or that it didn’t work at all. It wasn’t as if she were truly a witch and knew how to cast spells. She didn’t even know what incanting meant.
The sky had grown dimmer as the sun descended in the west, but if the moon had come out, it was behind the clouds.
As Amar blocked a stab from the knife-wielder, one that would have driven the blade into his eye, Morgen said the words again, speaking more firmly this time, hoping that would help. She didn’t have any weapons, and even if she had, it wasn’t as if she knew how to wield anything more powerful than a keyboard.
Only when Amar dodged another attack did she get a good look at one of the men and realize that something had changed. He was glowing now. All three of the Loups were, a silvery nimbus outlining their forms. They didn’t seem to notice it as they kept attacking Amar. The glow shifted around two of the men, showing flames outlining their bodies, as if a wizard from a fantasy novel had hurled fireballs at them.
For an instant, Morgen saw two versions of the men. The fearless snarling attackers trying to take down Amar to get to her and terrified men glancing in horror at the flames around them. A different shadow fell over the third man, and she saw him both fighting and also having advanced to an extreme age and being killed by a powerful young adversary.
Confused, and distracted by the men continuing to try to lunge past Amar to get to her, Morgen didn’t at first understand what she was seeing. Then she realized these had to be the men’s weaknesses. Two of them were afraid of fire and one of getting old and being taken down by a younger, stronger werewolf.
If she had some fire, maybe she could do something, but all she could think of was the blowtorch that Amar had stuck in the truck bed. Would such a small tool scare the men, or would it take a forest fire roaring down on them? The blowtorch was all she had access to, so she would have to hope for the best.
Morgen scooted along the wall, hoping she could get to Amar’s truck while the men were all busy fighting.
“Stay behind me,” Amar barked.
But she didn’t. As soon as all three of their foes were focused on him, Morgen charged for the truck. She pulled herself into the bed, but one of the men spotted her and broke away from the melee.
Fortunately, with the furnishings gone, it was easy to get to Amar’s tools. She grabbed the blowtorch but fumbled it as she tried to figure out how to turn it on. She’d never used such a tool before in her life.
The Loup sprang up to the bed of the truck without using his hands. He landed on the edge, snarling at her.
A chilling growl came from the pavement, and a gray-and-black wolf charged toward the truck. Amar. He sprang, leaping far higher than a typical wolf should have been able to do, and crashed into the man’s back.
Morgen threw herself to the side, shoulder hitting the bottom of the truck bed as the men—man and wolf—clawed and thrashed in the other half.
That gave her the time she needed to turn on the gas and find the ignition button. The tool clicked and flared to life. Morgen scrambled to her feet, the blowtorch shooting out a blue stream that didn’t look much like the crackling orange flames she’d seen in that vision.
As Amar’s attacker kept fighting him as a man, his face and hands bloodied, the other two Loups turned into wolves. They were the ones who’d been afraid of fire.
Morgen made herself face them as they ran across the parking lot, powerful legs carrying them fast. With one foot on the edge of the truck bed, she held up the blowtorch.
One faltered and didn’t jump, but the second one’s amber eyes were so focused on her that he didn’t seem to notice the tool. He sprang, jaws snapping for her throat.
It took all her courage not to shriek and jump away—she’d thought they wanted to capture her, not kill her.
Morgen held her ground and thrust the flame into his lupine face. The wolf shook his head, growls turning into a yip of alarm, and the stream of flame struck him in the eye. He closed his jaws shy of biting her, but his momentum carried him into her.
Two hundred pounds of werewolf slammed into Morgen, and she crashed back into the truck bed, cracking her head on the side. She barely managed to keep hold of the blowtorch and thrust it above her, turning the flame on her attacker’s chest. With another yip of pain, the wolf sprang out of the truck on the far side.
Next to her, Amar came out on top of his opponent and sank his fangs into the man’s shoulder. The human cry of agony assaulted Morgen’s ears, but she made herself stand up again, afraid the third wolf would attack. As soon as she brandished the blowtorch again, he and the one she’d scorched took off, fleeing the parking lot and disappearing behind another building.
Amar snarled, sounding almost like a lion roaring, and the still-human Loup scrambled out of the truck. He gripped his torn shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers, and shouted, “You’ll regret tangling with the Loups, solitaire Lobo. You don’t get in the way of the pack and live.”
Amar snarled again, blood dripping from his fangs. Even though he faced their enemy, Morgen took an involuntary step back. When he was in that form, his head came up to her shoulder, and he was even more intimidating than he was as a human.
Their enemy limped off after the others. Despite his bravado, he glanced back often, as if worried Amar would spring after him.
But Amar turned to face Morgen, his blue eyes unblinking.
She still gripped the blowtorch, and she reached down to flick it off. A dark shadow lurked over his heart—something lingering from the visions the amulet had given her? She didn’t know what it meant, but it didn’t convey that fire was his weakness. Not that she expected to have to exploit whatever his weakness was anyway.
At least, she didn’t think she would. As he gazed unblinking at her, she shifted uneasily.
When he was in that wolf form, was it possible he didn’t think as his normal human self did? What if he thought like a wolf? Like a predator eyeing someone who could make a tasty dinner?
“If you’re hungry, I brought a doggie bag.” Morgen pointed to the box she’d dropped by the door, though someone had stepped on it and mangled it.
Hopefully, the food inside was still edible. How picky would a wolf be? If Lucky could get away with it, he ate week-old hotdogs found under picnic tables.
“Thanks for the help, by the way,” she said, hoping that speaking would remind Amar of who she was—and that he didn’t need to stare at her like that. “I don’t understand why everyone in this town has it out for me because they think I’m a witch, which I’m really not, but it’s clear I need a bodyguard. And you do a good job. Maybe I could pay you for your time. I’m not flush with cash at the moment, but I do have a semi-substantial 401(k) that I’ve been contributing to faithfully for eighteen years. I’ve even got some stock in the company that just let my team go. Come to think of it, I should probably sell it, because their business is going to tank now that they let go of the IT department.”
Morgen heard herself babbling and struggled to stop. Having him standing there, his cool eyes staring at her and blood droplets and saliva spattering the truck bed under his jaws, made her uncomfortable.
Though she got the sense that he was trying to convey something to her. She hadn’t the foggiest idea what. Apparently, werewolves weren’t telepathic.
“I’d like to go to the Crystal Parlor before it closes to talk to the owner and see if she knows anything about that bone clip.” Morgen tilted her thumb over her shoulder. “Do you want to come along? Or wait here?”
Amar emitted what sounded like the wolf equivalent of a sigh, then slowly morphed into human form, the process surprisingly quiet. It seemed that such a dramatic change should involve the painful snapping and cracking of bones.
When the transformation completed, Amar stood before her, utterly naked.
Twilight was approaching, so the shadows somewhat dulled the starkness, but she had no trouble making out his form. She looked away, lest he think she was ogling him and dreaming ofhaving sexwith him, though this wasn’t the first time she’d seen him naked. It hadn’t occurred to her that his clothes would disappear when he shifted forms.
As she looked away, she noticed something on the pavement. His vest. And were those his jeans by the door? And boots. The jeans appeared to be torn. Maybe that happened when he shifted in the middle of a fight and didn’t have time to remove his clothing first.
“I was trying to convey to you that you might want to get out of the truck if you didn’t want to see me naked.” Amar hopped down to the pavement and grabbed the vest.
“Oh, I thought you were riveted by talk of 401(k)s and unemployed database programmers.”
“No.”
“Well, nudity isn’t a big deal. I mean, I’ve already seen you naked more than my husband in the last year of our marriage, but that’s perhaps not surprising. We weren’t that, uh, conjugal at the end.” Admittedly, they hadn’t been that conjugal for a long time, which was perhaps what had led to him labeling her as cold and aloof.
Amar glanced at her as he put on his vest, and she grimaced, not sure why she’d brought such a topic up with him. She set down the blowtorch and climbed out of the truck bed.
He picked up his jeans, but they had indeed been ripped.
“I guess I’ll have to include a clothing stipend, if you’re going to be my bodyguard,” she said.
“You will not pay me.” Amar tossed the ripped jeans in a garbage can, picked up his boots, and—despite the refusal of payment—grabbed the semi-mutilated takeout box before heading to the driver’s seat. “I will protect you because Gwen would have wished it.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to get in the way of your work or anything.”
Amar didn’t answer, only pulling out a set of jeans from under the seat. They were still folded with a tag sticking out. He pulled it off and put them on, sans underwear. Morgen winced, fearing for his nether regions and things being caught when he zipped them up. Maybe underwear wasn’t practical when one had to remove—or lose—one’s clothing every time one changed.
But how often was that? In the movies she remembered from her youth—a dubious gift that her father had shared with her and her siblings, along with his passion for all the country-western music of the time—werewolves had only been able to change if there was a full moon. And there’d been a lot of biting of innocent people to turn them into werewolves. Did that actually happen? Or was it a hereditary affliction? If the former, would she be in danger if Amar got cranky and decided to chew on her?
“Get in,” he said once he was dressed again.
“I need to make a stop first.”
“The grocery store?”
“That too. And a coffee shop that sounds like a must-visit for me, but I specifically had the Crystal Parlor in mind. I think I could learn something there.” She summed up her encounter with the teenage cashier and showed him the note she’d received. “If magic was used to kill my grandmother, it makes sense to talk to a witch, don’t you think?”
Amar regarded her, his blue eyes the same as they’d been as a wolf, though she trusted he wasn’t trying to convey impending nudity this time. “The witches here are unpleasant. And one or more of them may have been responsible for Gwen’s death.”
“From what your pack—uhm, your acquaintances at the construction site—said, it sounds like werewolves think all witches are unpleasant.”
“They use their magic to control animals, including those of us with moon blood.”
“Moon blood? Is that like witch blood?” She remembered him using that term.
His eyes narrowed. “It is very different from witch blood.” He kept glowering at her, as if offended that she’d implied they were anything alike. “But both convey to the owner a certain ability to use magic,” he admitted, almost reluctantly.
“If you hate witches, and my grandmother was a witch, how come you didn’t hate her?”
“I did not like her at first. I only wanted her wood.”
“Uh, what?”
“The trees that fall in Wolf Wood. They are not exactly enchanted, but some that come from the center of the forest have magical properties.”
“Like those mushrooms?”
“Not usually that strongly imbued, but yes.”
“Does that mean the bench you said you would make me won’t zap me in the butt when I sit on it?”
“It should not.”
“That’s good. That would be a jarring gift.”
“A jolting gift.”
She blinked. “Is that a joke?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed you made those. Your humor seems…” She kept herself from saying nonexistent, since that might offend him. “Subtle.”
“Yes.” He pointed toward the street and the buildings on the other side. “I will wait outside while you speak with the shop owner.”
“Do you think I’ll learn anything useful? Is she a witch?”
“She is, and it is more likely you will get yourself into trouble.”
“More trouble? It’s a good thing I now have a werewolf protecting me, one who doesn’t mind ripping his jeans and getting furry for me.” She smiled, tempted to pat him on the shoulder, but that also might offend him. He was a bristly werewolf.
He regarded her without humor. “Perhaps it’s unfortunate that my bench won’t zap you.”
“I’m not sure that’s another joke, but I’ll pretend it is.”
He grunted and led her out of the parking lot.