“No, it’s me trying to protect my pack.And figure out what’s going on before anybody else ends up like Lia and Noah!”
A group of magic workers passed me, almost filling the corridor.My senses were immediately mixed up again—it was so hard to control them in this form—and now it was taste muscling to the forefront.Each of the people had a different flavor, some like candy on the tongue, some like spice, but the dark ones...
The dark mages looked like everyone else, illuminated by the light spilling out of a nearby shop.But they tasted like recipes gone bad—cloves and lemon, ginger and spice, mustard and turmeric—but overlaid with shit.Stolen magic, bought from some of the vendors who avoided the bright and busy caverns to set up their stalls in more secluded regions...
Like that one.
Something reeked from somewhere ahead, still distant but so pungent that it was suddenly all I could smell.The trail I’d followed here had smelled like that, all jumbled up, with traces of many people’s magic, but this was worse.I could discern hundreds of strands, but they were sickly, decaying, like meat left out too long in the sun...
Wrong, and for now, that was good enough.More than I’d had.And the boys must have agreed, because they were moving that way, too.
The crowd thinned as we plunged down a small side tunnel, which narrowed and twisted, burrowing through the soil like a snake.The only light was that of the boys’ flashlight up ahead, bouncing off the dirt walls.And the only sound was their harsh breathing, and thedrip, drip, dripof water from some unseen source.
Therewerepeople here, however, if fewer of them.Dim shapes appeared, gazing out of doorways or slipping silently down the narrow stretches, many wrapped in dark cloaks like black ghosts.I could hear the boys’ breath speeding up, their group drawing closer together, and their steps hurrying as much as the low light would allow.
“Fuck it, I’m Changing.Can’t see shit down here,” Lee said.
“Yeah, that’s a great idea,” Andy hissed.“Why don’t you slap a big old ‘I’m a Were’ sticker on your forehead.I heard some guys are looking for new recruits!”
“If you’re so worried, let’s grab Chay and go home—”
“I’d like to see you try,” Chayton said mildly.
“Is that a challenge?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be, bruh.”
“And what the hell does that mean?”
“It means you came after me; nobody asked you.And I’m gonna do what I came to do.You wanna come with, fine, or you wanna throw down, also fine.I’m ready any time—”
“Would you two cut it the fuck out?”Andy said.“And anyway, I brought a flashlight for a reason,” he added, right before one of the dark shapes lunged at him from a doorway.
And was met by the flashlight, which appeared to be well-made, that Andy used to bash the figure in the head, while his shocked screams echoed off the walls.“Fuck!Fuck!Fuck!”
He was hit by a spell for his trouble, but didn’t go down, and when three other figures came to the first assailant’s rescue, the corridor was quickly filled with fur and fangs and fury.The mages didn’t seem to have expected that, and turned tail immediately, all except for the one Andy was battling, although not by choice.But because one of his claws had become snagged in the man’s robes.
“Augghhh!Augghhh!”Their twin cries echoed loudly in the stillness, each as terrified as the other, until Lee swiped a paw through the material.And ripped the cloak away from a skinny mage with horror written on his features, perhaps because he was suddenly alone and facing four angry Weres.
He turned and ran, stumbling and tripping, but quickly scrambling back to his feet again.And firing protection spells behind him as he did so, none of which would have stopped the boys had they wanted to pursue, as they weren’t strong enough despite him using other people’s power to augment his own.I could taste the bitter mix of their magic clinging to him as he disappeared into darkness.
“Pussy!”Lee called after him, and Andy slumped against a wall, still clutching the man’s cloak and breathing hard.
“You know, it’s good you came to rescue me,” Chayton said dryly.“I don’t know what I’d have done without—”
“Shut up,” Andy muttered and pushed off the wall.“Let’s get out of here before we’re jumped again!”
“You do what you want.I gotta see a guy—”
“Bullshit!”
“Does anybody have any money?”Jace asked, pawing through the boys’ ripped-up clothing on the floor.“We’re gonna need to buy something to wear for the trip home.”
“You didn’t bring any?”Andy asked.
“You didn’t say we’d need it.You said, we’re just gonna go get Chay before he does something stupid—”
“See, this is what I’m talking about,” Chayton said.“I was not doing something stupid—”
