Black Wolf (62 page)

Besides, she
was supposed to go look at an apartment in an hour or so, one that
sounded quite pleasant, one that would be her own private space
where no one else could come. She could then reclaim her belongings
from her former home, and proceed to get on with her life.

Although,
she'd still love to learn someday who that black wolf-bitch was,
and where she'd appeared from so suddenly...

60

*Jess?* Kevin
said softly. *Planning meeting, or maybe council of war, in the
south second-floor sunporch. Maybe you could come join us for at
least a few minutes?*

*Sure.*

Jaisan paused
in the middle of describing the strategy he and Aindry had used on
a demon some time before, watching him. "Your attention just went
away for a sec."

Jess relayed
the message.

Aindry stood
up from Jess' loveseat and stretched. "They've been at it all
morning. It's about time they remembered us, instead of Sam
slipping off early and leaving us to fall back asleep."

Jaisan sighed,
wriggled off the bed and offered Jess his hand as he followed suit.
"I hope it isn't everyone all together. I mean, they're all very
nice and very understanding, and it's really very sweet of everyone
to want to be here to help any way they can and they're worried
about you..."

"Us," Jess
corrected. "Believe me. It's not just me. They're all bonkers that
way. It's all three of us and Sam."

Jaisan
shrugged. "Worried about us and all. And the healers certainly need
to be safe and inside the healing stuff in the walls and have
people look after them, I wish we could be more useful for that
after what they did for us. And no matter what Sam says about
night-time we have been attacked during the day a couple of times
so I could see being cautious although no one's mentioned
that..."

"Because I
doubt anyone's actually thought it. Seriously."

"I can't
remember not thinking about that. Anyway. For good reasons and all,
but there are a
lot
of people in this house right now."

"Which is why
I bet it isn't the whole gang. You're no use in planning stuff if
you're too scared to speak up. I really hope this means we can get
things moving soon." Jess waited for his siblings before starting
down the stairs. "We can't just hang around forever and wait for
someone to walk up to the gates and yell,
hey you, come
fight!
I'm sick of waiting. I'm sick of running. I'm sick of
other people rescuing me. I just want to fight these damned demons
and get it over with so I can get on with my life. I did have a
life, at some point."

"Are you about
done?" Aindry asked patiently.

"Probably
not," Jaisan said cheerfully, with an impish grin at his twin.

As tense as
things currently were, having Jaisan back beside him meant more
than he could ever have explained to his friends. Jess was pretty
sure they hadn't separated farther than necessary to use the
bathroom alone since he'd woken up with Jaisan there, and the
majority of the time they found themselves instinctively within
arm's reach if not actually touching. There was something intensely
comforting in it, even though they'd been apart for a third of
their lives. Differences had developed, and Jess figured it was
going to take a long time to learn all of them, but it didn't
matter. Together, they were both whole again, that empty spot
inside that he'd forgotten even existed was no longer there, and
all was right.

Other than
worrying about whether they had a future of any sort ahead of them,
anyway.

The
second-floor sunporch on the south face of the house was, as always
on clear days, brilliant with sunlight, the windows on the ends
catching every last bit of the morning and evening sun. Though the
space wasn't large, it had accumulated an old double mattress
resting on wooden skids a few inches off the floor, the whole thing
draped in bright magesilk, more magesilk layered so thickly over
the worn linoleum that Jess couldn't remember what it looked like,
and a considerable collection of pillows that were mostly magesilk
cases with conventional stuffing. In theory, there were magesilk
curtains, but Jess had never seen them drawn closed. The whole
space was a riot of vivid colours, mostly fiery ones with hints of
strong blues and greens here and there.

Not that it
was the favoured hang-out of a couple of elvenmages, or
anything.

Shaine, on one
cushion in a corner, looked more resigned than appreciative, his
own swirled water-coloured magesilks—the cut of which more than
passingly resembled jeans and a T-shirt, though obviously with no
metal hardware—glaringly out of place. Sam's faded blue jeans and
burgundy T-shirt weren't much better, but her expression showed
less discomfort with the colour scheme, as she shared the mattress
with the two elvenmages. And with several plates of cookies,
crackers and cheese, and similar munchies, most of them showing
significant inroads.

"This room is
ridiculous," Jess told Kevin, not for the first time.

"Elvenmage
space," Kevin retorted. "Deal with it."

Lori just
smiled. "Sorry. Can't please everyone."

"Sit," Sam
told them. "This does rather involve you so getting your thoughts
on it would be good. We don't have forever to work out a plan to
act on. The moon is full day after tomorrow."

"Black wolf,
demon wolf," Jaisan sang softly. "Hunt by silver light, Wild
strength, wild soul, Blessed by goddess bright." He blushed, and
sank down next to Jess on a pair of cushions against one wall;
Aindry dropped down on Jess' other side.

"Very good,"
Sam said, both surprise and approval in her voice. "And yes, that's
the most relevant verse. For the most part, demons have less
strength while the sun is up, and moonlight is reflected
sunlight—not as effective, but it helps. Something odd happened
when demon blood mixed with the wolf affinity for moonlight.
Demon-wolves, at least Cassandra's line, are at a perceptible
advantage in moonlight. So, the best possible conditions for
fighting demons include doing it in the open while the moon's
bright."

"Okay, sounds
good," Jess said. "And it's only a couple of days, I might not
squirm totally out of my fur and everyone in the house right now
might not get fired or fail classes. So how do we get the bad guy's
tail in gear so he shows up on Sunday night, and why am I thinking
this part involves Kev?"

Kevin leaned
back against the wall, arms crossed over his raised knees. "What,
you figure I'm crazy enough to outright challenge a mage with
combat skills I've never heard of and who can draw an unknown but
probably very high amount of power through demon allies?"

"Do I think
you're that crazy? Um, you might not want me to answer that
one."

Lori muffled a
snicker behind one hand, then looked innocent when Kevin glanced in
her direction.

"But, um,
yeah, you're kinda pushing your luck with him and I'd really rather
you didn't get creamed. So is there a way to do it that's, y'know,
a bit less crazy, maybe?"

"Challenge
this mage by Sunday?" Kevin said. "Yes."

"Without
getting creamed."

"Alone,
no."

"Since those
fool healers very kindly healed me along with you," Shaine said
dryly, "I now have my gifts full-strength for the first time in
years. Not that a day and a half is enough time to relearn even
what I knew before, and I was only half trained to begin
with..."

"But neither
will this mage," Kevin concluded for him. "Considering that we were
in an alley where I had minimal light to work with, and Shaine
still had his gifts buried, we didn't do half-bad last time. We can
do better now, even if it does have to be at night so the demons
will come so you can kill them. At least we'll have lots of
moonlight."

"And two
elvenmages are better than one," Lori pointed out.

"Didn't we
just talk about that? I don't like the idea of you being in danger
unnecessarily. If something goes wrong, I'd rather he had nothing
to make him go after you."

"I'm going to
be there, and nothing is going to go wrong," Lori said firmly.
"Short of trying to lock me in the house or tie me up, neither of
which you can do since I'm more or less as strong as you, if a tad
less obvious about it,
and
I have a few extra years of
experience using it, exactly what did you have in mind to stop
me?"

"Logic?" Kevin
suggested. "For my peace of mind?"

"Right,
whatever." Lori shrugged dismissively. "You'd be more useful
thinking of ways we can use lots of fire magic and some water magic
against this Lucian."

"Sort of like
surprising a meren with fire magic. Only it'll be surprising an elf
with water magic," Jess said. It struck him as a good idea to
derail this debate right now—the odds of Kevin winning were slender
to none, god only knew why he was still trying. Or why Shaine or
Sam hadn't already settled it.

Possibly
Shaine was enjoying the show, actually. That would be like him. Sam
more likely just figured Lori didn't need any help.

"Exactly,"
Lori said.

"What if these
demons tell him about merenai?"

Shaine shook
his head. "They hadn't told him last time, or he would've figured
out what I was doing, and that I was relying mostly on attitude.
It's possible they've told him since, although I doubt it, I'm not
a priority as far as I know and demons don't like giving away
information they don't have to. Even if they do tell him, that'll
take away the advantage of surprise but we'll still have abilities
on our side that he can't match."

Jess gave him
an impressed look. "Wow. Strategy."

"It isn't an
ability unique to wolves," Kevin pointed out.

"Didn't really
think it was. What kinds of abilities?"

Shaine
shrugged. "Like last time, when he was throwing light-beams around,
I can do mirrors and bounce them." A round disk of shiny ice
materialized in front of him.

It was going
to take a while to get used to magic from Shaine.

"Probably the
most useful thing is to throw a siren-song at him."

Aindry
brightened. "And mess with his head? The way ours got messed
with?"

"Something
like that."

"I haven't
been able to find out any details about the bargains he's made,"
Sam said. "Although what I have found corroborates what we
suspected about the sort of demons he's making bargains with, and
they're the ones that give the rest a bad name. The three that
targeted Unity fit right in. However, since he has to pay for
everything he gets from them, and the prices are probably not nice
ones, it's unlikely that resistance to mythical types of magic has
been high on his list of priorities. I doubt he'd have added it
since even if he now knows about Shaine."

"Believe me,"
Shaine said, "whether he knows or not, I can seriously piss him
off. Time to practice and get more of my skills back would be nice,
but we don't have it, so we'll go with what I've got by
Sunday."

Jess frowned
at him suspiciously. "Are you sure you're Shaine? You don't sound
like Shaine."

"Get a fucking
grip, Jess. I did come from somewhere before I picked you up, and
you're hardly one to talk about secrets."

"Hey! I
never..."

"Bullshit.
Last May you came back after two weeks running around on four feet,
and you didn't exactly come bouncing in the door to tell me you're
a werewolf. If I hadn't thrown you out, you'd still be hopping back
and forth trying to make up your damned mind where home is."

Jess blushed.
"Oops. But you had way more secrets than me."

"If you dare
start counting, you're going to get cuffed up the side of the
head."

Yep, that was
Shaine all right, and it was a good time to change the subject.
"So, this demon-mage isn't going to know what hit him."

"Pretty much.
We're trying to figure out ways to actually combine both kinds of
magic, which would really be a bitch for him to deal with." He
stopped, looked at Aindry. "Sorry."

She grinned at
him. "Make it as hard to deal with as this bitch is going to be,
and I'll be more than happy."

"I'll do my
best. "

"There's...
something else," Jaisan said uncertainly. "I'm not sure how much
you can count on anything."

"How so?"
Kevin asked.

"Demon-luck.
It's more real than you think. I think... that might be what
happened to Unity, too many demon-wolves together, so the luck went
crazy..."

Aindry sat
forward to stare at him, wide-eyed, past Jess. "You've never said
that before."

He shrugged,
eyes low. "I thought it a long time ago. It's just... if we're
around, it might have an effect on things."

Kevin bit his
lip, mulling that over. "Sam?"

"I haven't the
faintest idea," Sam said, small creases appearing between her brows
as she considered that.