I laughed. “Those are just stupid stories. And, fyi, I don’t need to look at you to take control of your minds.”
The jaws of my magic clamped down on Icy Blue’s mind, locking it in my will. He turned around and joined Slap Happy in defending me. I’d planted one simple thought in their heads: that the fate of the Earth depended on their protecting me. It was an easy sell to their werewolf brains, feeding their innate desire to be heroes. I could take over all the other mercenaries’ minds without shedding a drop of blood.
The werewolves had other ideas. The four of them shifted all at once. I felt my two defenders slipping away as the magic of the pack worked on them, as they connected minds and combined willpower to resist my compulsion. My spell popped, ripping like a satin slash torn to shreds. My two werewolves changed into beasts, no longer mine.
They charged at me from all sides. I cast a fire barrier around myself, cutting them off.
“What are you?” Icy Blue demanded as they all stalked the border of my fire wall. “You can’t have the powers of a siren and an elemental.”
I’d never before heard a shifter talk in beast form. While I pondered that, one of the wolves jumped high. He was almost over my fire barrier, and then he would drop down right on top of me. I’d stolen their free will from them. They wouldn’t bag me now; they’d tear me to shreds.
I extended the orange flames up into the air, swallowing the wolf. Then I froze the fire to ice. The wolf fell to the ground with a thump, encased inside an ice block.
The other five werewolves snarled, spittle flying everywhere as they bared their yellow fangs at me. They circled around in a right formation, jumping at me from different sides, like five silver cannonballs. Unfortunately, my last spell had dissolved my fire shield, so nothing stood between me and them.
I dodged the wolves’ lunges, grabbing a string of the downed festival lights. They were still sizzling with a residual jolt of Magitech. I poured my own magic down the translucent string. The lightning charge on the string grew stronger, crackling and snapping. Slashing it like a whip at the wolves, I zapped one of them unconscious. There was enough power hissing on that string to take down an elephant—or one of those dinosaurs that thrived on the Black Plains, for that matter.
I slashed and snapped, striking down more wolves, then tying them up in the sizzling string. Four down, two to go.
Only I couldn’t see one of the wolves anywhere. His comrade knocked me down from behind. We wrestled and rolled across the dusty street. I was pretty strong, but unlike my opponent, I didn’t have claws or fangs. Under normal circumstances, I could have shifted to even the odds, but I’d already expended a lot of magic fighting the mercenaries. The wolf had me pinned down, his snapping fangs mere inches from my face.
He yelped once, then collapsed in a heap on top of me. Pushing his unconscious body off of me felt like bench-pressing a brick house, but with a few grunts and a lot of swearing, I made it back on my feet. Bella stood a few paces away, glittery magic powder glowing on her hands.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I told her. “Perfect timing.”
“Don’t celebrate yet. There’s another one around here somewhere.”
“He’s on the roof of the grocery building,” I muttered under my breath.
“How do you know?”
“I can hear him breathing.”
“How do you want to do this?” she asked me.
“We go to—”
Above us, a gun fired off a single shot. A large, furry mass dropped to the ground and landed with a sickening thump on the cobbled road. I looked down at the dead werewolf—and the bullet hole in his head. How had he died from that? Like vampires, werewolves were pretty resilient. It took more than a single shot to the head to kill them.
“The wound looks wrong,” Bella said beside me.
I inhaled deeply, picking up a harsh bitter scent. “Poison?”
“Likely.”
Wires snapped and magic sizzled behind me. I looked back to find the three mercenaries I’d wrapped up so neatly in festival lighting had broken free. They were all in human form now, their magic expended. In unison, they drew their guns and aimed them at me. As gunfire echoed off the buildings, I grabbed Bella and jumped out of the way.
But the shots weren’t for us. The five remaining werewolves lay on the ground, dead. I ran up to the rooftops, looking across the town to find the shooter who’d executed the mercenaries, but whoever it was, he was long gone. It was as though he’d vanished into thin air.
Frustration and anger twisted up inside my stomach. That shooter was linked to the bombing of my town, and he’d gotten away. I really wanted to punch something, but knocking holes into people’s houses wouldn’t help matters. So I hopped down and joined Bella in looking after the wounded.
“You were right, Leda,” croaked the townie who’d asked me to do magic tricks just an hour ago. “Magic isn’t a toy.”
“No, it isn’t,” Calli said.
Relief flooded me. She was all right. There were a few noticeable scratches and bruises on her skin, but nothing Bella couldn’t heal.
“Magic is a weapon,” Calli continued, brushing slivers of wood off of her. “And it’s dangerous.”
I gave the townie a small vial of healing potion to drink. “Rest now. Give the potion time to work.” I joined Calli.
“Have you seen Gin and Tessa?” she asked me.
“No. They were over by the dunking tank right before the explosion.”
Bella walked up beside us, and we searched the debris pile that covered the spot where the dunking tank had once stood. We didn’t find Tessa or Gin. We found a dozen dead paranormal soldiers instead.
“They were attacked,” Calli stated.
Bella looked down on their mauled bodies. “Those wounds were made with knives, not claws.”
A pained moan called out from beneath a wood board. I grabbed it and tossed it aside to reveal Brokers, the paranormal soldier I’d spoken to earlier. He was still alive.
“What happened?” I asked him as Bella grabbed her potion pack and tried to heal his injuries.
“Attacked,” he croaked, wincing like it hurt to speak.
One of his ribs had broken through his chest. I glanced at Bella, who shook her head. His injuries were too severe. He didn’t have long.
“Mercenaries?” I asked, even as Bella tried to save him. She refused to give up.
“Yes.”
“Werewolves?”
“No, different mercenaries,” he choked out weakly. “Not sure what they were.” His hand gripped my shoulder and he met my eyes. “The mercenaries took them.”
“Who?”
“All the young ladies between the ages of seventeen and nineteen.”
I looked around, frantically searching for my sisters. “My sisters?” I said.
His chest shook, and he coughed up blood.
“Tessa and Gin?” I asked, my heart racing.
“Gone,” he said, his voice like the drop of a coffin lid. “The mercenaries took them and fled across the Black Plains.”
6
Shifting Reality
As Bella healed the wounded, I brought Calli up to speed on our encounter with the werewolf mercenaries.
“Why did the shooter on the roof kill them?” I finished. “What was he afraid of?”
“He was afraid the werewolves would be interrogated and give away something. Some information,” Calli said.
“Like where Gin, Tessa, and the other kidnapped people are being taken. And who is behind this kidnapping.”
Calli nodded. “Right.”
“One of the werewolves is still alive,” Bella called to us.
We joined her beside the mercenary I’d frozen inside an ice block. He’d shifted back into human form, but that hadn’t helped him break free. His limbs were still trapped. I glanced at the bullet frozen inside the block. It hadn’t been able to penetrate the magic ice. As Bella excavated the bullet, Calli turned her eyes on the werewolf. Her jaw was set, her mouth hard. She’d put on her interrogation face.
“Your allies abandoned you,” she said. “They turned on you and your pack. They tried to kill you all. They mostly succeeded. You’re the only one who survived.”