A Fistful of Charms

I settled my feet more firmly in their boots, feeling my fists begin to sweat. This wasn’t fair, damn it! They took my magic away, so the only thing I could do would be to try to beat her off, but she wasn’t going to feel a thing! I was toast. I was dog chow. I was going to be really sore in the morning. But I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

Karen’s ears went back. It was the only warning I got.

Instinct overpowered training, and I backpedaled as she lunged. Teeth snapping where my face would have been, we went down, her paws on my chest. The floor slammed into me, and I grunted. Hot dog breath hit my face, and I kneed her, trying to knock her breath away. There was a startled yip, and dull claws raked my side as she scrambled up and back.

I stayed down, rolling to my knees so she couldn’t push me over again. Not waiting, she jumped.

I cried out, stiff-arming her. Panic struck me when my fist went right square into her mouth. Her paws, the size of my hands, pushed at me as she frantically backed off, and I fell backward. I was lucky she hadn’t twisted her head and taken a chunk out of my arm. As it was, I was bleeding from a nasty gash.

Karen’s echoing, racking coughs turned into an aggressive growl. “What’s the matter, grandma,” I panted, flipping my braid out of the way. “Can’t get Little Red Riding Hood down your throat?”

Ears pinned, hackles raised, and lips curled to show her teeth, she came at me.

Okay. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. Karen slammed into me like a flung door, rocking me back and sending me down. Her teeth went around my neck, choking. I grabbed the foot that was pinching me, digging my nails into it. She bit down, and I gasped.

I made a fist and punched her in the ribs twice. My knee came up and I got her somewhere. There was silky hair in my mouth, and I reached up and pulled an ear. Her teeth gripped harder, cutting off my air. My sight started to go black. Panicking, I went for her eyes.

With no thought but survival, I dug my nails into her eyelids. That, she felt, and yelping, she jerked off me. I took a ragged breath, levering myself up on an elbow. My other hand went to my neck. It came away wet with blood.

“This isn’t fair!” I shouted, mad as hell as I scrambled up. My knuckles were bleeding, my side hurt, and I was shaking from adrenaline and fear. I could see Mr. Finley’s excitement—smell the rising musk. They were all getting off on the chance to see one of their own “legally” maul a person.

“Nobody said it was supposed to be fair,” the man said softly, then gestured to Karen.

But her impetus to attack hesitated at the ding of the elevator.

Despair crept over me. With three more alphas, she wasn’t going to feel anything. Not even if I cut something off.

The doors slid open to show David leaning against the back of the lift. His face had a bruise that was likely going to turn his eye black, and his sport coat was torn and filthy. Slowly, he lifted his head, a murderous look in his brown eyes.

“Leave!” his boss said sharply.

“I forgot my briefcase,” he said, limping forward. He took in the situation in a glance, still breathing heavily from escaping the three Weres who had dragged him off. “You challenge my alpha, I’m damn well going to be here to make sure it’s a fair fight.” Shambling to his briefcase, he picked it up, dusted it off, and turned to me. “Rachel, you doing okay?”

I felt a flush of gratitude. He wasn’t coming to my rescue, he wanted to make sure they were playing fair. “I’m doing okay,” I said, voice cracking. “But that bitch isn’t feeling any pain, and they took away my magic.” I was going to lose this. I was going to lose this so bad. Sorry, David.

The surrounding Weres glanced uneasily at each other now that they had a witness, and Mr. Finley’s complexion darkened. “Finish it,” he said roughly, and Karen came at me.

Her nails scraped on the plywood floor as they scrambled for purchase. Gasping, I fell to my back before she could push me down. Pulling my knees to my chest, I planted my feet against her as she landed on me and flung her over my head.

I heard a startled yip and thump and David shouting something. There were two fights going on.

I spun on my butt to face her. My eyes widened and I flung up an arm.

Karen smashed into me, pinning me to the floor. She covered me, and fear stabbed deep. I had to keep her from getting a grip on my throat again, and I cried out when she bit my arm.

I’d had enough.

Making a fist, I smashed it into her head. She jerked her muzzle up, raking my arm and sending a pulse of pain through me. Immediately she was back, snarling and more savage. But a ribbon of hope rose in me and I gritted my teeth. She had felt that.

I could hear thumps and cries in the background. David was interfering, breaking their concentration. The round was falling apart. I couldn’t best Karen, but sure as hell she was going to walk away remembering me.

The anger and excessive adrenaline wouldn’t be denied. “You stupid dog!” I shouted, slamming my fist into her ear again to make her yelp. “You’re a foul-breathed, dung flop of a city-bred poodle! How do you like this? Huh!” I hit her again, unable to see from the tears blurring my vision. “Want some more? How about this?”

She latched onto my shoulder and picked me up, intending to shake me. A silky ear landed in my mouth, and after failing to spit it out, I bit down, hard.

Karen barked and was gone. Taking a clean breath, I rolled over onto all fours to see her.

“Rachel!” David cried, and my splat ball gun slid to within my grasp.

I picked the cherry-red gun up, and on my knees, aimed it at Karen. She sat back, her forelegs scrambling to halt her forward motion. Arms shaking, I spit out a tuft of white fur. “Game over, bitch,” I said, then plugged her.

The puff of air from my gun was almost lost in someone’s cry of frustration.

It hit her square in the nose, covering her face with a sleepy-time potion, the most aggressive thing a white witch would use. Karen went down as if strings were cut, sliding to land three feet from me.

I rose, shaking and so full of adrenaline I could hardly stand. Arms stiff, I aimed my gun at Mr. Finley. The sun had gone behind the surrounding hills across the river, and his face was shadowed. His posture was easy enough to read. “I win,” I said, then smacked David when he put a hand on my shoulder.

“Easy, Rachel,” David soothed.

“I’m fine!” I shouted, pulling my aim back to his boss before the man could move. “If you want to challenge my title, okay! But I do it as a witch, not with my strength washed out of me! This wasn’t fair, and you know it!”

“Come on, Rachel. Let’s go.”

I was still aiming at his boss. I really, really wanted to plug him. But in what I thought was a huge show of class, I lowered the gun, snatching my bag from David as he handed it to me. Around me, I felt an easing of tension from the watching alphas.

Briefcase in hand, David escorted me to the elevator. I was still shaking, but I turned my back on them, knowing it would say more clearly than words that I wasn’t afraid.

I was scared, though. If Karen had been trying to kill me, not just cow me into submission, it would have been over in the first thirty seconds.

David hit the down button, and together we turned. “This was not a fair contest,” he said, then wiped his mouth to make his hand come away red with blood. “I had a right to be here.”

Mr. Finley shook his head. “Either the female’s alpha shall be present, or in the case of his absence, six alphas may serve as witness to prevent any…” He smiled. “…foul play.”

“There weren’t six alphas here at the time of the contest,” David said. “I expect to see this recorded as a win for Rachel. That woman is not my alpha.”

I followed his gaze to Karen lying forgotten on the floor, and I wondered if someone was going to douse her in saltwater to break the charm or just dump her on her pack’s doorstep unconscious. I didn’t care, and I wasn’t going to ask.

“Wrong or not, it’s the law,” Mr. Finley said, the alphas moving to back him. “And it’s there to allow a gentle correction when an alpha goes astray.” He took a deep breath, clearly thinking. “This will be recorded as a win for your alpha,” he said as if he didn’t care, “provided you don’t file a complaint. But David, she isn’t a Were. If she can’t best another with her physical skills, she doesn’t deserve an alpha title and will be taken down.”

I felt a stab of fear at the memory of Karen on top of me.

“A person can’t stand against a wolf,” Mr. Finley said. “She would have to Were to have even a chance, and witches can’t Were.”

The man’s eyes went to mine, and though I didn’t look away, the fear slid to my belly. The elevator dinged, and I backed up into it, not caring if they knew I was afraid. David joined me, and I gripped my bag and my gun as if I’d fall apart without them.

David’s boss stepped forward, his presence threatening and his face utterly shadowed in the new night. “You are an alpha,” he said as if correcting a child. “Stop playing with witches and start paying your dues.”

The doors slid shut, and I slumped against the mirror. Paying his dues? What was that supposed to mean?

Slowly, the lift descended, my tension easing with every floor between us. It smelled like angry Were in there, and I glanced at David. One of the mirrors was cracked, and my reflection looked awful: braid falling apart and caked with plaster dust, a bite mark on my neck where Karen’s teeth had bruised and broken my skin, my knuckles scraped from being in her mouth. My back hurt, my foot was sore, and damn it, I was missing an earring. My favorite hoops, too.

I remembered the soft feel of Karen’s ear in my mouth and the sudden give as I bit down. It had been awful, hurting someone that intimately. But I was okay. I wasn’t dead. Nothing had changed. I’d never tried to use my ley line skills in a pitched fight like that, and now I knew to watch out for wristbands. Caught like a teenager shoplifting, God help me.

I licked my thumb and wiped a smear of plaster dust off my forehead. The wristband was ugly, but I’d need Ivy’s bolt cutters to get it off. Removing my remaining earring, I dropped it in my bag. David was leaning into the corner and holding his ribs, but he didn’t look like he was worried about running into the three Weres he had downed, so I put my gun away. Lone wolves were like alphas that didn’t need the support of a pack to feel confident. Rather dangerous when one stopped to think about it.

David chuckled. Looking at him, I made a face, and he started to laugh, cutting it short as he winced in pain. His lightly wrinkled face still showing his amusement, he glanced at the numbers counting down, then pulled himself upright, trying to arrange his torn coat. “How about that dinner?” he asked, and I snorted.

“I’m getting the lobster,” I said, then added, “Weres never work together outside their packs. I must have really pissed them off. God! What is their problem?”

“It’s not you, it’s me,” he said, discomfited. “They don’t like that I started a pack with you. No, that’s not true. They don’t like that I’m not contributing to the Were population.”

The adrenaline was fading, making me hurt all over. I had a pain amulet in my bag, but I wasn’t going to use it when David had nothing. And when in hell had Karen scored on my face? Tilting my head, I examined the red claw mark running close to my ear in the dim light, then turned to David when his last words penetrated. “Excuse me?” I asked, confused. “What do you mean, not contributing to the Were population?”

David dropped his gaze. “I started a pack with you.”

I tried to straighten, but it hurt. “Yeah, I got the no-kids part there. Why do they care?”

“Because I don’t have any, ah, informal relations with any other Were woman, either.”

Because if he did, they would expect to be in his pack, eventually. “And…” I prompted.

He shifted from foot to foot. “The only way to get more Weres is by birth. Not like vampires who can turn humans if they work at it. With numbers come strength and power…” His voice trailed off, and I got it.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I complained, holding my shoulder. “This was political?”

The elevator chimed and the doors opened. “ ‘Fraid so,” he said. “They let subordinate Weres do what they will, but as a loner, what I do matters.”

I trooped out before him, looking for trouble, but it was quiet in the abandoned lobby, apart from the three Weres slumped in the corner. David had sounded bitter, and when he opened the main door for me, I touched his arm in a show of support. Clearly surprised, he glanced at me. “Uh, about dinner,” he said, looking at his clothes. “You want to reschedule?”

My feet hit the pavement, the cadence of my boots telling me I was limping. It was quiet, but the stillness seemed to hold a new threat. Mr. Finley was right about one thing. This was going to happen again unless I asserted my claim in a way they would respect.

Breathing deeply of the chill air, I headed for David’s car. “No way, man. You owe me dinner. How about some Skyline chili?” I said, and he hesitated in confusion. “Go through the drive-through. I have to do some research tonight.”

“Rachel,” he protested as his car gave a cheerful chirp and unlocked. “I think you deserve at least one night off.” His eyes narrowed and he looked at me over the roof of his car. “I am really sorry about this. Maybe…we should get the pack contract annulled.”

I looked up from opening my door. “Don’t you dare!” I said loudly in case someone was listening from a top floor. Then my expression went sheepish. “I can’t afford the rider everyone else makes me take out on my health insurance.”

David chuckled, but I could tell he wasn’t satisfied. We slipped into his car, both of us moving slowly when we found new pains and tried to find a comfortable way to sit. Oh God, I hurt all over.

“I mean it, Rachel,” he said, his low voice filling the small car after our doors shut. “It’s not fair to ask you to put up with this crap.”

Smiling, I looked across the car at him. “Don’t worry about it, David. I like being your alpha. All I have to do is find the right charm to Were with.”

He sighed, his small frame moving in his exhalation, then he snorted.

“What?” I asked, buckling myself in as he started the car.

“The right charm to Were?” he said, putting the car into gear and pulling from the curb. “Get it? You want to be my alpha, but have nothing to Were?”

Putting a hand to my head, I leaned my elbow into the door for support. “That’s not funny,” I said, but he just laughed, even though it hurt him.

Two

Dappled patterns of afternoon light sifted over my gloved hands as I knelt on a green foam pad and strained to reach the back of the flower bed where grass had taken root despite the shade of the mature oak above it. From the street came the soft sound of cars. A blue jay called and was answered. Saturday in the Hollows was the pinnacle of casual.

Straightening, I stretched to crack my back, then slumped, wincing when my amulet lost contact with my skin and I felt a jolt of pain. I knew I shouldn’t be working out there under the influence of a pain amulet, lest I hurt myself without realizing it, but after yesterday I needed some “dirt time” to reassure my subconscious that I was alive. And the garden needed attention. It was a mess without Jenks and his family keeping it up.

The smell of brewing coffee slipped out the kitchen window and into the peace of the cool spring afternoon, and I knew that Ivy was up. Standing, I gazed from the yellow clapboard add-on behind the rented church to the walled graveyard past the witch’s garden. The entire grounds took up four city lots and stretched from one street to the other behind it. Though no one had been buried here for almost thirty years, the grass was mown by yours truly. I felt a tidy graveyard made a happy graveyard.

Wondering if Ivy would bring me coffee if I shouted, I nudged my knee pad into the sun near a patch of soft-stemmed black violets. Jenks had seeded the plot last fall, and I wanted to thin them before they got spindly from competition. I knelt before the small plants, moving my way around the bed, circling the rosebush and pulling a third of them.

I had been out there long enough to get warm from exertion, worry waking me before noon. Sleep hadn’t come easily either. I’d sat up past sunrise in the kitchen with my spell books in search of a charm to Were into a wolf. It was a task whose success was slim at best; there were no spells to change into sentient beings—at least no legal ones. And it would have to be an earth charm since ley line magic was mostly illusion or physical bursts of energy. I had a small but unique library, yet for all my spells and charms, I had nothing that told me how to Were.

Inching my pad down the flower bed, I felt a band of worry tighten in me. As David had said, the only way you could be a Were was to be born that way. The bandage-covered tooth gashes on my knuckles and neck from Karen would soon be gone with no lingering effects but for what remained in my memory. There might be a charm in the black arts section of the library, but black earth magic used nasty ingredients—like indispensable people parts—and I wasn’t going to go there.

The one time I had considered using black earth magic, I came away with a demon mark, then got another, then managed to find myself said demon’s familiar. Lucky for me, I had kept my soul and the bargain was declared unenforceable. I was free and clear but for Big Al’s original demon mark, which I’d wear along with Newt’s mark until I found a way to pay both of them back. But at least with the familiar bond broken, Al wasn’t showing up every time I tapped a ley line.

Eyes pinched from the sun, I smeared dirt over my wrist and Al’s demon mark. The earth was cool, and it hid the upraised circle-and-line scar more reliably than any charm. It covered the red welt from the band the Weres had put on me, too. God, I had been stupid.

The breeze shifted a red curl to tickle my face, and I tucked it away, glancing past the rosebush to the back of the flower bed. My lips parted in dismay. It had been trampled.

An entire section of plants had been snapped at their bases and were now sprawled and wilting. Tiny footprints gave evidence of who had done it. Outraged, I gathered a handful of broken stems, feeling in the soft pliancy their unstoppable death. Damn garden fairies.

“Hey!” I shouted, lurching up to stare into the canopy of the nearby ash tree. Face warm, I stomped over and stood under it, the plants in my hand like an accusation. I’d been fighting them since they’d migrated up from Mexico last week, but it was a losing battle. Fairies ate insects, not nectar, like pixies did, and they didn’t care if they killed a garden in their search for food. They were like humans that way, destroying what kept them alive in the long term in their search for short-term resources. There were only six of them, but they had no respect for anything.

“I said hey!” I called louder, craning my neck to the wad of leaves that looked like a squirrel’s nest midway up the tree. “I told you to stay out of my garden if you couldn’t keep from wrecking it! What are you going to do about this!”

As I fumed on the ground, there was a rustling, and a dead leaf fluttered down. A pale fairy poked his head out, the leader of the small bachelor clan orienting on me immediately. “It’s not your garden,” he said loudly. “It’s my garden, and you can take a long walk in a short ley line for all I care.”

My mouth dropped open. From behind me came the thump of a window closing; Ivy didn’t want anything to do with what was to follow. I didn’t blame her, but it was Jenks’s garden, and if I didn’t drive them out, it would be trashed by the time I convinced him to come back. I was a runner, damn it. If I couldn’t keep Jenks’s garden intact, I didn’t deserve the title. But it was getting harder each time, and they only returned the moment I went inside.

“Don’t ignore me!” I shouted as the fairy disappeared inside the communal nest. “You nasty little twit!” A cry of outrage slipped from me when a tiny bare ass took the place of the pale face and shook at me from the wad of leaves. They thought they were safe up there, out of my reach.

Disgusted, I dropped the broken stems and stalked to the shed. They wouldn’t come to me, so I would go to them. I had a ladder.

The blue jays in the graveyard called, enjoying something new to gossip about while I struggled with the twelve-foot length of metal. It smacked into the lower branches as I maneuvered it against the trunk, and with a shrill protest, the nest emptied in an explosion of blue and orange butterfly wings. I put a foot on the first rail, puffing a red curl out of my eyes. I hated to do this, but if they ruined the garden, Jenks’s kids would starve.

“Now!” came a loud demand, and I cried out when sharp pings pinched my back.

Cowering, I ducked my head and spun. The ladder slipped, crashing down into the very flower bed they had destroyed. Ticked, I looked up. They were lobbing last year’s acorns at me, the sharp ends hard enough to hurt. “You little boogers!” I cried, glad I had on a pain amulet.

“Again!” the leader shouted.

My eyes widened at the handful of acorns coming at me. “Rhombus,” I said, the trigger word instigating a hard-learned series of mental exercises into an almost instinctive action. Quicker than thought, my awareness touched the small ley line in the graveyard. Energy filled me, the balance equalizing in the time between memory and action. I spun around, toe pointing, sketching a rough circle, and ley line force filled it, closing it. I could have done this last night and avoided a trouncing, but for the charmed silver they had put on me.

A shimmering band of ever-after flashed into existence, the molecule-thin sheet of alternate reality arching to a close over my head and six feet under my feet, making an oblong bubble that prevented anything more obnoxious than air to pass through. It was sloppy and wouldn’t hold a demon, but the acorns pinged off it. It worked against bullets too.

“Knock it off!” I exclaimed, flustered. The usual red sheen of energy shifted to gold as it took on the main color of my aura.

Seeing me safe but trapped in my bubble, the largest fairy fluttered down on his mothlike wings, his hands on his narrow hips and his gossamer, spiderweb-draped hair making him look like a six-inch negative of the grim reaper. His lips were a stark red against his pale face, and his thin features were tight in determination. His harsh beauty made him look incredibly fragile, but he was tougher than sinew. He was a garden fairy, not one of the assassins that had almost killed me last spring, but he was still accustomed to fighting for his right to live. “Go inside and we won’t hurt you,” he said, leering.

I snickered. What were they going to do? Butterfly kiss me to death?

An excited whisper pulled my attention to the row of neighborhood kids watching from over the tall wall surrounding the graveyard. Their eyes were wide while I tried to best tiny little flying things, something every Inderlander knew was impossible. Crap, I was acting like an ignorant human. But it was Jenks’s garden, and I’d hold them off as long as I could.

Resolute, I pushed out of my circle. I jerked as the energy of the circle raced back into me, overflowed my chi and returned to the ley line. A shrill cry came to ready the darts.

Darts? Oh swell. Pulse quickening, I ran to the far side of the kitchen for the hose.

“I tried to be nice. I tried to be reasonable,” I muttered while I opened the valve and water started dripping from the spray nozzle. The blue jays in the graveyard called, and I struggled with the hose, jerking to a halt when it caught on the corner of the kitchen. Taking off my gloves, I snapped the hose into a sine wave. It came free, and I stumbled backward. From the ash tree came the high-pitched sounds of organization. I’d never hosed them off before. Maybe this would do it. Fairy wings didn’t do well when wet.