The Thing About Weres

Horror spiked through me as a fright-mask of a face suddenly sprang out at me from the gloom. Skin as pale as a ghost’s, mouth set in a pitiless smile. And then … the Black Mage was on me. Around me. In me. A stab of pain, and a long cruel finger poked deep within me, scoring things that had never been touched.

I am dirty. I am bare.

“Close your mind!” my Fae cried. “Steel yourself!”

Too late. He was everywhere. Fondling things he should never touch.

Get him out.

His soiled fingers brushed against the Stronghold box—which I’d so carefully packed when I was standing in Trowbridge’s bathroom, blithely considering murder. Inside it, the knowledge of those people precious to me. My Trowbridge, my Lexi, my Merry, and my Cordelia. Harry and Biggs and Ralph, too.

“And me!” shrieked my Fae.

No. He will not touch that which is mine.

With a banshee scream, I lifted my cudgel high and brought it down hard enough to feel the vibration of the strike all the way up to my shoulder. I sensed a sharp recoil and, with it, the game turned—hello, avenging Valkyrie.

I rained blows upon his trunk.

Chips of bark flew, sap ran.

And you know what? For a bit I almost thought I could just chop him down. Strike by strike. But then beneath me, the black walnut began to sway. A whoosh of leaves to the left. A protest of chafing branches to the right.

Trees shouldn’t do that when you’re blindly crouched in them.

That bastard’s going to toss me soon and I’m going to fall and never stop falling.

Screw that.

Dumb luck met desperation—in the frenzy of blows that followed that panic one of my strikes hit a bulbous growth with enough force to crack it.

A loud, reptilian hiss … and the connection was broken.

The tree grew still. But I knew.

Evil was listening.

An elegant dismount was beyond me. I made a quick prayer to the Goddess of GPS—please let the abyss be on my right—and simply leaned far to my left.

I landed less than two seconds later on my tailbone—ow—followed by my head bouncing on the ground—double ow—and then I was lying prone on a crop of rotting stone fruits. They smelled bad. Sweet and acid, a little bit woody, too. I’m lying on the seeds of evil. Move away. My ankle brushed against his trunk, and before the Black Mage could snatch at me again with the hooks of his agile, wicked mind, I painfully rolled past his reach.

Cored out, I lay near the foot of his tree, curled on my side, my billy club clutched in my hand like a warrior’s sword. For a second I studied the scattered dark and wizened fruit, the new deadfall of twigs, leaves, and broken branches that lay near the edge of the world—good, I did some damage to the bastard—then I buried my head in the crook of my arm.

And I tried really hard not to weep for my brother.

“Seek protection with the Old Mage!” urged my Fae. “Go! Now!”

My eyes shot open.

Crap. The tree’s bark glistened with sweat. Right under my gaze, the shiny stuff sloughed off the trunk to pool on the soil, no longer shimmering, but widening in a dark wet stain. In less than half a second, that blot of ugly had gone from a puddle to a shape rising from the ground.

Something wicked this way comes.

I pushed myself shakily to my feet as the shape shifted into the ghostly outline of someone crouched, fingers spread and braced on the soil. Was it the mage? Could he materialize here? Heart in mouth, I was backtracking toward the ward as the shape changed and details were quickly added. Hair, short and roughly chopped. Clothing, loose and homespun. Not the mage, I realized. His feet would never be so small, so dirty.

The devil’s spawn lifted his head.

This ten-year-old was the assailant who’d slunk along the bushes and lobbed fire at Mad-one? He was the person Lexi had called “the little mystwalking freak”?

Shame on both of them. He wasn’t a spawn; he was a cub with a baby-soft mouth.

I pushed myself shakily to my feet.

The kid gaped at me then fumbled for the rough bark behind him. “It’s not Tyrean,” he babbled. “It is another!”

Who’s planning on doing the slog march through the ward again. I edged close enough to feel the vibration of its doom message, while the Black Mage gave the problem a quick think. High up in the boughs of that wicked tree, a purple light flashed. Blip, blip.

The devil’s spawn listened, mouth pulled down, before flicking me a searing glance. “Yes, her eyes are green.” A pause then the kid’s face twisted in a sly calculation. “But she has a stick, master,” he wheedled.

Don’t call him master.

A red mark bloomed on the boy’s pale cheek. “I will do it,” he said sullenly before he lifted his hand. It was a small little paw, vividly red and swollen, at the end of a malnourished arm.

Puny muscles. I could take him.

The devil’s spawn didn’t use any words to call up his magic. The kid merely blinked, and a ball of fire burst into life above his soot-grimed finger. His personal incendiary device was softball-sized; blue toned versus orange, with the requisite tongues of yellow flame.

Shit.

“Get out!” he said, creeping toward me.

“You better hope you can outrun me,” I said slowly. “I burn, you burn.”

That would have been the moment he should have nailed me with it. When he didn’t, I started speculating as to whether or not he could throw his great ball of fire while we were inside the Black Mage’s ward. Even as I watched, the yellow heat licking the outside of his fireball sank low, almost disappearing into the bluish center.

It’s a breath away from extinguishing on its own.

As he crept toward me, I asked, “You’re responsible for all this destruction?”

He gave me an ugly, preening smile. “I am a mystwalker.”

“Didn’t anyone tell you that we’re supposed to protect this realm, not destroy it?” I asked, gaze fixed on the sputtering sphere of flame. “What you’ve done here … doesn’t it feel wrong?”

He made a dismissive noise that was a combination of a tsk and a huff.

Almost there. Come on, you little brat. Just another foot.

“I will burn you,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” I replied, then I puckered up my lips, leaned over and blew. And, just as I suspected, his great ball of fire went out, leaving only a little, itty-bitty flame flickering above his ragged fingernail. Kind of like a Bic lighter, low on gas.

“You’re out, buddy,” I said.

What I’d counted on was for him to act like a kid. You know—get rattled, and then go home crying. Instead, he reignited his Bic finger and went for my hair. Swiftly, I intercepted his wrist. “Put it out!” When he didn’t, I grabbed him in a one-armed bear hug then lifted him right off his feet. His feet bicycled as I blew out his flame. “Stop trying to light me on fire, you little guttersnipe—”

Snipes have teeth.

Faster than a pissed-off Pomeranian, he chomped down on my forearm. He must have had lots of practice at biting … he did it so very well.