Dangerous, Diabolical

I scratched my jaw, looking around. “Some crazy guy decided to fire off magic at me.” My voice was higher pitched than I intended, and from the way Leofstan began to shake his head, I think it rocketed into ultrasonic.

“I was just working, and this thing,” I pointed to the puddle, “wonders into the store.”

“And this was using magic?” His, eyebrows shot up, a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth.

“No, it was a wolf-girl thing. It was the other one!”

“So there were two, and one is now a pile of blood and bones and the other…?” His voice trailed off as he placed his hands on his hips.

“You just missed him.” I supplied helpfully. “He was firing magic out all over the shop.” I pointed my chin toward some of the damage. The council glanced at the toppled shelves, eyebrows rising even higher, but he said nothing. After several seconds of silence, he merely sighed.

“It squished the werewolf,” I whined. Well, aided squishing it. He tilted his head, puckering in his cheek and taking another deep breath, unblinking. “It’s true!” I exclaimed.

Saying nothing he untied his blazer from around his waist and shrugged it on. For a moment, I thought he was just going to leave. Instead, he knelt, studying the remains of the wolf-girl.

“That’s no werewolf.” He noted dryly, holding out a hand and pushing magic into it, muttering something under his breath. I leaned over him to get a good view of what he was seeing.

And I could understand how he’d be confused. The face was neither here nor there. It was a bone and flesh jumble of neither one, what was left of the arm structure was distorted beyond recognition. I couldn’t see a tail.

“It is too,” I argued, “it shifted from girl and everything, it just didn’t do a good job of it. Looked worse before it tried to wolf out actually. The cashier girl saw it, she can back me up.”

He paled.“A human saw this thing.”

“Oh yeah, rotten maggots crawling out of the eyeballs and everything.” I threw a thumb over my shoulder to where I’d last seen her behind the fridges.

It was empty. I groaned audibly, running a hand down my face. “She was there, I swear!”

Lefostan stood. “So you’re telling me, you were attacked by a female werewolf?”

“Yes!”

He frowned but reached up to fish around in his inside pocket. Slowly he drew out a picture. “Did she look like this?” A young smiling teen girl in school uniform smiled shyly on a plain background. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked better for wear.

“Kinda.” It was hard to tell without being able to smell her. She had similar eyes but the rest of the face was too deformed to tell. “Wait. Is this Jessie Chambers?” I hoped he said yes, Willow would be positively sprouting at the news that the corpse from her story had appeared in real life.

Leofstan merely grunted, “You knew her?”

“Plur-lease.” I dragged out the word. “Everyone on this side of the neighbourhood knows she bailed on her own funeral.”

His lips pressed tightly together. “Did you recognise the second attacker?”

“Nah, had a hood down the entire time.”

From outside there were slams of van doors signifying the human law enforcement arriving.

“And the human?”

“I think her name was Jo-something?”

“Joanne?” He supplied, growing a little paler.

“Maybe.” I shrugged, taking advantage of him looking towards the arrivals to snatch the photo. There was nothing special about her, and no way to tell she was dual-natured through the picture. A smear of red spread from under my thumb. Only then did I realise I’d used the gemmed hand and that the wounds had opened up.

It caught Leofstans attention as he tried to recapture the picture from me. He paused, scanning me from head to toe if it was the first time he’d even seen me, trying to take all the bloody patches in.

“Loki heed me,” he exclaimed, “you’re injured!” Well duh, I was swaying, and blood was pouring out of my shoulder and leg.

“She was bitey.” I looked down at the wolf-thing again as a maggot wormed free of her mouth. We both grimaced. “I hope I don’t catch zombism. Do you think I should get a tetanus shot?” Surprisingly his mouth quirked up and under his usual terrible scent, the sweat was joined by the sweetness of humour. He snatched the picture out of my hands, grabbed my wrist and drew it to look closer.

“Hey!” I complained through gritted teeth.

“Freeze!” Called a human from the shattered window. A police team stood, the frontman bracing a taser. A few of them bore riot shields and they were extremely interested in how Leofstan had suddenly grabbed me.

“Zombism?” Leofstan said with a smirk, turning my arm over again studying it.

“Well, it is how it spreads in the movies.” I gave a gentle pull back trying to hint for him to let go.

He obliged. “Tell you what, if you suddenly feel the urge to rise from the dead, let me know.”

I tried to grin, but as soon as he let go it felt as if the last of my energy went with him. The small smile he wore faltered. Realising that staying still was harder than thought, the room was refusing to stop spinning.

“Remain still, arms above your heads!” The human’s attention was quickly changing over to me. How much blood had I lost? I blinked. I’d already fainted once today, albeit unrelated to blood loss. To pass out again, in front of a councilman of all things would be just embarrassing. I was a strong, terrifying predator and I’d not be defeated by a little bit of blood loss.

My knees gave out and I staggered, face flushed with what little blood I had left. Leofstan caught my waist gently and it wasn’t until he whispered “gotcha”, I realised he’d been expecting me to collapse.

Dreamily I stared at my arm. ”I think I saw a maggot.” I told him.

“Last warning!” The policeman shouted. Leofstan didn’t look away, moving to examine my wrist. Finally, he sighed raising an arm of magic toward the police unit.

“There’s been a dog attack.” He began, emitting a push with his magic. “We’re just bystanders.” the policemen became visibly relaxed, hands dropping to their sides. What seemed like the lead turned to his comrades.

“Dog attack, one of the civilians appears to be injured.” He told them as if Leo’s magic hasn’t reached them too. I glanced about for where Jo may have disappeared to. Was she injured? Would she let me lick her blood off? A thrill ran down my spine, what if she’d lost a limb? I smacked my lips.

’Ma’am, we have an ambulance stationed outside for you.” Oh, just great.

The officer frowned, walking closer. “Do you require assistance walking out ma’am?” Wait, he was looking at me. I didn’t want some crazy human doctor putting their hands all over me. They might try to give me medicine.

“No need for an ambulance,” I reassured him. “All the blood just makes it look worse than it is.”

“Celandine, that’s a lot of blood.” Leofstan chided squinting at the gem in my hand. Panicked I crossed my arm behind my back to hide the worst of the necklace burn. That made the blood ooze out of the shoulder wound even quicker.

“A couple of pints never killed anyone.” I snapped back, “Besides why didn’t you go after the robed guy?”

For a second he looked confused, and gently sat me down. I didn’t like that. He was tall enough to tower over me and close enough to be a challenge for dominance. I had to cough to cover a growl. Considering he smelt like he’d run at the first sign of a fight, he carried himself with a completely juxtaposed confidence.

“Who?”

“The robed guy that was firing off all of the magic! The one that ran out when you got here!” I waved towards where he’d been by the fire exit. “The one that squished the werewolf!”

“You weren’t joking? I thought you were trying to cover up disobeying the promise not to use magic.”

I scowled at him.

“Quickly, what did he look like?”

Seriously? “Like a figure shrouded in a dark robe.” I snapped in reply.

“You’re kidding me.” He groaned.

I shrugged as he rushed towards the fire exit, pulling a phone out. “Yes, Grahame, it’s Leofstan, I’m in pursuit of a magical assailant, robed,” his voice became lost as he moved away, “my location is...”

“Ma’am!” The police officer called whilst another began to snap pictures of the wolf hybrid carcass.

Not my problem, the SPCC would have to fix that windfall. A paramedic was running towards me with a medical bag, and I was too weak to evade him. Stupid Leofstan, where were his mind tricks when I needed them? A fresh bloody trickle escaped from my thigh. Well, maybe they’d at least give me a bandage in the noise machine.