Chapter 6: Full Moon

The wererat quivered as he approached the blind alley where he knew that she would be waiting for him, and when he looked in, sure enough, a pair of red tail lights sat, glowing with imagined menace out of the dark. Only the barest bit of moonlight reached down here, shadowed as it was by the tall buildings common to New York, but what could reach, gently highlighted the shining new Mercedes from which the red lights shone. It should have been out of place, an instant target for thieves, but, he thought, no doubt even a magical null could sense that this was one mark they did not want to mess with. The man himself could sympathize, he didn’t even want to be here, yet even as a wererat far more powerful than any null, when she called he didn’t dare refuse to come. And so, despite his fear, he took a shaky breath, and walked forward.

The window rolled down as he approached and a delicate hand with crimson tipped fingernail held out a sheath of papers at him. He froze instinctively despite the absence of a clear threat. He knew that clear lack didn’t mean that a threat wasn’t actually present.

A female voice tsked, “I know I’m frightening Jones, so,” her voice darkened in menace, “do you really want to disobey me?”

The newly identified Jones swallowed deeply before forcing his suddenly weak legs to move closer. “What do you need from me ma’am?”

“First take these,” she waves her hand, “Or are you going to wait until my hand falls off?”

He receives them and sees they are covered by an extremely intricate ward schema that he couldn’t make heads or tails of, “What are they?”

“Not your business,” she warns waspishly, “You just need to follow my instructions exactly. Now, you know where all the local weres run for full moons, correct?”

The wererat nodded, “Of course, we have to know so we don’t accidentally intrude on another’s territory.”

“Good,” she purred, “Then I need you to bury at least one of these papers in each of the grounds that you know of before Tuesday’s full moon. Somewhere they’re sure to be stepped over. Do this and your debt to me will be cleared.”

Uneasy, but knowing he had no choice he replied, “It shall be done.”

Eyes glowed from the dark depths inside the car, “Good.”

* * *

All of Sunday I stayed in the hospital wing, using the time in between friends’ visits to refresh my knowledge of magic, especially that which I was supposed to have learned in this last week and also, Isra having given me her notes, those new things I’d missed from my classes on Friday and Saturday. I was lucky to find out that Professor Pereira thought that having my brain put through the equivalent of a blender was close enough to dying to not kick me out of Biology; although, I’m sure hearing of my apparent daemon inheritance probably didn’t hurt either. Then, with gleeful, wicked delight they told me what Professor Goryanov did to Professor Angoua for harming me.

It was Friday evening, early into dinner that it happened. Startling all, the cafeteria door was thrown open with a thunderous crash as it hit the wall and Professor Goryanov strode into the room with a furious scowl upon her face. Even the fiercest of students ducked and scurried out of her way like so many mice as she strode between the tables, heading with unerring accuracy towards a certain Mind Magic Professor. It was with a sense of eagerness that the students watched as Angoua slipped from his chair with a clear look of alarm upon his face.

His voice was placating as it spoke, “Now Yuri…”

But the Runes master didn’t even let him finish as she smoothly pulled out a pair of rune covered rocks tied together with rope, raised them above her head and started swinging.

Alarm turned to panic, Angoua shot a quick glance towards the Headmistress, but everyone knew seeing her blank visage that there would be no help coming from that corner.

The bola flew through the air as Goryanov finally released it and the dark-skinned demon threw up his hand, clearly intending to use his telekinesis to stop it, but panic turned to fear as the weapon passed through his power like so much cobwebs. He turned to run or dodge at the end, but the primitive flying weapon followed, wrapping fiercely around him with a jolting force that became suddenly far more than merely jolting as lightning arced between the two stones, electrocuting the man wrapped tightly between. His body spasmed, his back arching as his mouth opened in a silent scream and a sulfur smell caused the nearest students to wrinkle their noses as his bowels released their contents. The electrifying light show stopped and small wisps of smoke crawled up from his prone form. Professor Goryanov stalked over to him like a great hunting cat, a small smirk upon her face as she basked in the glow of the students’ utter silence.

Coming up on Professor Angoua’s still form she none to gently placed her boot down on top of him and roughly pushed him from his side to face her. His groan from her far from tender ministrations at least let the rest of the room know he was still alive. As he fluttered open his eyes she spoke.

“How do you like my newest creation, Marcel? My Lightning Bola was inspired by something my young new assistant made. You know the one, the first year student you attacked and nearly killed just yesterday.” she paused watching as lips moved without sound and eyes swirled frantically. Whatever he was trying to tell her, she must have understood as she said, “Well I don’t care what you thought you knew or didn’t know or whatever your excuses are. All I care about is that you almost cost me another assistant and that I still might lose her yet and if I do Marcel…” she slid one finger slowly against her throat, “I’ll give you the full punishment proven murderers here are promised. In the meantime and to prevent any further accidents…”

She pulled out an iron shackle with runes engraved on the inside, “Here’s a little prevention method to keep you from trying to kill any more students. I dare you to try and test it. I dare you. You might not like the results you’ll receive if you do, of course, if you did so, well you’ll be too far past it by then to care. Oh and do make sure to give the poor girl an apology when you see her next. She deserves at least that much right?” Her gold capped teeth shined as she grinned. Obviously finished, she stepped back, gave the Headmistress a shared nod of acknowledgement then strode over to the meal line, giving no further apparent thought for the man lying collapsed behind her, as if he was a tiny ant to her mountain.

I was shocked and awed to hear of her defense of me and quietly decided to put forth all the effort I could expend to learn what she set me so I would be the best assistant she ever could have asked for.

At last released after dinner that Sunday night, I started to head back to my room, only to halt a few hallways down in complete bewilderment when I realized I couldn’t remember exactly how to get back from here. Certainly an unanticipated side effect of my recent brain injury; I was lucky to see a blond headed girl pop out of a nearby room.

“Excuse me,” I called out.

She turned to look, her face surprisingly taking on an ugly sneer as soon as she saw me, her voice aggressively snooty as she replied, “What do you want?”

“Umm,” I fumbled, confused at her attitude, “I’m sorry, have we already met?”

She started in brief surprise that quickly turned to fury, “Are you really saying that you have no clue who I am, that I’m so unimportant and beneath you that you have already forgotten who I am?!”

“I’m sorry!” I panicked, confused, my words picking up speed as I continued, “I’m not sure if you’ve already heard but I suffered some pretty severe mind damage after a mental attack the other day and have now forgotten quite a few things. That’s even why I stopped you. I was trying to get directions back to the dormitory halls.”

Her anger seemed to mute a bit, “You really can’t even remember where your own room is?”

“Nope, not one bit.” I earnestly reassured her.

“Hmm,” she thought aloud for a few seconds before seemingly coming to a decision, “Fine, since you apparently have forgotten, my name is Alouette Lisle and if you want to return to your room just follow this hallway straight ahead until you come to the second intersection. Take a right, then follow that until you see a staircase on your left. Go down two floors and then turn left out that hall. Your room should be a few doors down on the right.”

Concentrating on trying to remember her directions, I didn’t notice the sly glint in her eye as she gave them, only feeling gratitude to her for her help.

“Thank you,” I told her, sending a brief nod her way as I turned to leave.

“And Jessica,” I paused, looking at her in query, “I’m not much given to second warnings but I’ll make an exception just this time. Stay away from Peter Stojakovic,” then she stalked away.

“Huh,” I thought as I started walking, “I wonder what that was all about.” It was only ten minutes later that I’d realized that she’d sent me in completely the wrong direction.

“Damn blond bimbo,” I grumbled to my feet after another twenty minutes had passed, “I wonder what the hell I ever did to her?” I looked up and felt an immediate wave of relief pass over me as I realized I was only a hallway away from my room, “Thank God!”

I hurried forward and entered my dorm room with a profound sense of gratefulness, throwing myself down onto my bed with a contented sigh. I knew I couldn’t stay like that though, I had things to do, and after only a few minutes forced myself to move. First, I needed to email an encoded report on the week’s happenings back to the Office of Paranormal Affairs. They’d expected to hear from me yesterday, and would surely be worried. I was lucky they’d installed encryption software onto my computer, or no doubt I would have lost the ability to encode it along with my memories.

As I went over the happenings of the last week, I included all that I had learned in my classes (an important part of why they wanted me here), brief descriptions of the teachers and students I had met (glossing over the negative interactions since I didn’t want to sound like I was whining), and then finally I came to the last several days. I was nervous about informing them of my partial non-human ancestry, but felt they deserved to know. Besides, I had already signed on to work for them after all of this and after all, having grown up human, definitely felt more loyalty to that side of my heritage.

When I reached the end, after considering it a moment, I also added the memory I’d recently uncovered. If this Terrence Albot really was my father, then they needed to check him out and find out what a daemon or partial daemon was up to messing in U.S. politics. I emailed the report off and then worked on the homework assignments I’d missed until I was too tired to stay anymore awake and went to bed.

The next morning as I walked to breakfast with Miguel, I noticed that he was twitchy and snappish and wondered why he seemed more than a bit on edge. And he was not alone in this, I saw when we entered the cafeteria and it was noticeably filled with tension. As we ate I looked around, watching as arguments and even the occasional full on fight would break out and I saw that in the majority of these instances there was always a certain feralty to at least one of those involved. The image of the almost full moon I saw the other night suddenly came back to me and I realized that tomorrow night was the night of the full moon.

Pausing between bites of food I asked Miguel, “So how will it work tomorrow?”

Knowing instantly what I was referring to, Miguel swallowed and said, “They’ll separate us by type and lead us to different parts of the island. There will be a place we can change that will have an open entrance to the outside. I’ve heard there are a lot of caves used for this. Being our first change of the year we will most surely be engaged in dominance fights, unless one is clearly submissive,” he barked a grim laugh and I noticed his fingernails were repetitively lengthening into claws and back as he clenched and unclenched his fists in agitation.

Brian must have caught on to my attempt to distract Miguel, because he spoke up next, “I thought foxes didn’t form packs?”

“Usually we don’t,” Miguel replied, “My own clan is made up of loosely connected, but widespread smaller family groupings. But it’s different here at this school. All these non-related weres forced into close quarters together, it’s an obvious recipe for disaster unless a clear order of authority is established.”

I was starting to get worried now, “Still, isn’t that dangerous?”

“Extremely. People have died before in challenge fights, but it’s still less dangerous than letting a group of weres run wild without some kind of leader putting them on a leash. At least it won’t be too bad for me; I shouldn’t have too many fights since foxes aren’t the most common of weres. The wolves though, there’ll certainly be some dead tomorrow.”

“You obviously knew this was coming, yet for some reason, seem a lot more worried than your words suggest.” Isra asked, now starting to get into the conversation.

He ran his claws nervously through his russet-colored hair, “I’ve heard some things about the current alpha fox,” he paused, eyes briefly darting over to a large red haired upperclassman surrounded by several timid looking ferals, before quickly darting back, continuing as if he’d never even paused, “Kivi Vaara, I’ve heard it hinted, apparently doesn’t like to have anyone too dominant in his pack. Too afraid they might get up the gumption to take his position I’d guess, but the point is I’ve heard that he tends to badly brutalize any who looks like they might be interested in challenging him and if they don’t submit quick enough,” Miguel’s next action finished his sentence quite finally as he raked one open clawed hand across his neck.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Shit,” I whispered, “you’re obviously worried then that he’ll think you’re too dominant, right?” We both ignored Isra’s snort to our left as he simply nodded tersely.

“Well is there anything you can do, or that we can do?”

He smiled a little grimly, “It’s nice of you to offer, but besides the fact that outside help is forbidden, you certainly don’t want to be anywhere near a group of weres on the night of the full moon. We won’t exactly be in what you’d call a rational state of mind, if you know what I mean.”

“Well what about magic?” I asked, grasping desperately at straws.

“Any magic not tied up in our change is taken from us in payment by Goddess Moon on that night. There’s nothing I can do,” his movements echoed his words as he shrugged his shoulders and tossed his hands up slightly.

I thought hard, running one hand over the other, before stopping in sudden hope as my hand brushed across the runic shield bracelet that I’d almost forgotten was still clasped onto my wrist.

“What about using a protective item,” I asked carefully, “something that utilizes someone else’s magic, but that you can invoke with a thought.”

Miguel stilled, obviously running the possibilities through his mind before replying slowly as if he didn’t believe the words, “It’d be hard to remember to use it when the wolf is in control, but if it’s something that takes merely a thought to activate… I think something like that might just work.”

Mutely, I unclasped my bracelet and held it out to him, “Just think about using it to shield and it will. It won’t last long without my magic to reinforce it, but it should provide a full shield for at least a minute or two.”

His hands were shaking slightly as he took it from me and I barely heard him as he whispered, “Thank you.”

After breakfast we went to self-defense. Having spent the last week getting an idea of our capabilities, Professor Saab first ran us through warm-ups, then a series of strengthening exercises before slowly splitting us off into smaller groups. Starting with the total beginners, he showed each group a different and increasingly harder sequence to practice with a partner. My own group was no different, the only surprising part being when Peter rushed over to snag me as his partner almost as soon as the professor ordered us to pair up.

“How are you doing?” he asked as we moved a bit to one side for some space.

Having been told of his actions after my attack, I was more than a little unsure of his motivations. He did after all stop Professor Angoua from continuing to hurt me, but what my friends had witnessed him do to me in the hospital wing was more than a little bit freaky. Still, I felt I owed him at least a little and after throwing a punch to begin the sequence Saab had shown us, decided to answer honestly.

“Feeling off-balance mostly. I’ll think that I’m totally fine and then suddenly something comes up that I should have already known, then I’ll realize that it’s just one more thing I’ve apparently forgotten.” I went on to explain what happened yesterday with Alouette before finishing with a lightly huffing voice from the exertion of my efforts, “And I still don’t even know what I did in the first place to set this Alouette girl off.”

“That would probably be my fault,” the vamp answered a bit sheepishly, “At one point my father had entered into preliminary betrothal negotiations with her father on my behalf for her hand. Ever since then, and despite the fact that negotiations were broken off, she has believed that she has some sort of claim on me. Up until now it’s mostly been harmless and my father preferred that I just let her be since her family is a pretty influential one, but she’s obviously crossed a line.” His hand tightened where it gripped my arm as his eyes grew cold, “No one gets in the way of what I declare is mine.”

Continuing the exercise, I pried his hand off by way of his pinky and spun him around, “I don’t believe we ever did finish our discussion on that subject, you know, and I certainly take offence to you claiming me like some kind of object. I say, if she wants you so bad she can have you, because I certainly don’t. And that’s just what I’ll tell her if she tries to start something, cause there is absolutely nothing going on between us.”

He slipped out of my hold like an eel and in an obvious disregard towards our instructions, discontinued the exercise in favor of locking us face to face in place, his arms like steel encircling me in a breath-stealing tight cage.

“What are you..” I began before he cut me off.

“If you really think that there is nothing going on between us, then you’re completely wrong.”

Then he kissed me. It was even more breath-stealing than his grip and I felt a sudden weakness in my knees that surely would have made me fall if he wasn’t holding me up as I quickly forgot my earlier words and even where we were, lost to the sensations he was invoking in me.

It was only when a throat cleared next to us that I was startled back to awareness and realized that the professor and all of the class had stopped what they were doing to stare at us. I could feel my face become bright red in mortification even as I saw Peter throw out a smug grin towards our audience. I could barely stand to look at where I knew my friends were, knowing their thoughts already on this matter, instead turning elsewhere only to be greeted by Alouette’s spitting mad image. Well, shit.

I spent the rest of my free time this day and the next trying to avoid Peter who inexplicably always seemed to find me not long after I’d settled into a new hiding place. My friends were no help at all in this having decided after our earlier kiss that my protestations were merely a ploy to play hard to get and since I was obviously interested in him, despite his creepy stalkerish tendencies, that I didn’t really need, or even want, their help in protecting me from him. In fact, amused at what Isra described as our ‘odd courtship ritual,’ I think they even started actually helping him find me. No doubt, I thought generously, the need to distract Miguel from his anxieties, played a role in their deciding to aid Peter.

Finally, Tuesday night, after the tenth time he showed up where I’d hidden myself, that time with me tucked away in a tiny corner of the greenhouse, I threw up my hands in disgust at friends and would be suitors both and decided to hole up in my dorm room for the rest of the evening. I spent the time before bed doing homework, reading a good book on mind magic that I’d borrowed from the library, and trying not to worry too much about Miguel once the moon rose.

I was deep into my sleep cycle when a sudden loud noise had me instinctively rolling to the side off my bed before I was even really awake. An extremely lucky move since as soon as I forced my eyes open I was greeted by a slavering mouth, teeth only inches away from my face. I ‘eeped’ in shock and naturally tried to use my shield bracelet before quickly remembering that I’d already lent it to Miguel and instead quickly lashing out with a fist. Not a bad move, since it kept the creature from eating my face off, but not a good one either since it had now captured my fist in its mouth. Then the pain hit. I screamed as the white wolf, as I could now see what it was, bit down and completely crunched through all the bones of my enclosed left hand and up past my wrist. I groped desperately under my pillow with my other hand, but had no time for a sense of relief as I finally gripped my Smith & Wesson and pulled it out just in time to watch the wolf chomp down once more and see my left hand disappear down its gullet.

The following few seconds passed in a blur of bright light and thundering noise and exploding blood and gore as I quickly emptied every chamber in my revolver, firing directly into the werewolf’s face and on into its brain, considering myself lucky for the fact that I’d always packed a few silver rounds in it. Then, it was all over, and I paused at the sudden cessation to the bombardment of my senses. I don’t know how long I stayed there frozen in shock, but a wave of dizziness hitting me forced me to look down at where blood was still gushing out from the ruin of my forearm and I moved instinctively to grab a belt and tighten it around the end. Thinking only to get to the hospital wing I stumbled out my door, blackness dancing at the edge of my vision and I was happy to be confronted with the anxious faces of Brian and Isra who’d apparently been about to come in. As I gratefully collapsed into unconsciousness in their arms, I saw a crowd of other students gathered around us in the hall and distantly thought that I was glad I hadn’t warded my room against sound.

* * *

It was the noisiness of the hospital ward, filled with whispers and moans, beeping machines, and the clamoring of multiple people moving about, that woke me up late the next day. I added to the general tumult with my own moan as I moved and pain hit me, the previous night’s happenings coming back to me in a rush as I lifted the well wrapped stump at the end of my arm in disbelief. Luckily, I was interrupted from my increasingly panicky thoughts by a low raspy voice speaking up from my left.

“Hey.”

The individual in question, lying in the bed next to me when I looked over, was a were, still in half-transformed state despite the setting of the moon hours ago, a state probably having something to do with the splint and bandaging wrapped around his tail. Reverting to human form would pull the tail bones back inside the body, a very bad thing if they were broken. The rest of his body wasn’t much better, I saw, with numerous bandages covering large swatches of recently, and badly, shaved skin, including a scarily large one directly across the front of his neck. Looking higher I finally saw russet-colored fur and fox ears twitching at the top of his head and a quick glance at his face solidified the suspicion in my mind.

“Miguel?” I asked a little incredulously.

He gave me a foxy grin and a little nod.

“You look terrible.”

He gave small winces as he spoke and I knew talking must be hurting him, but he did it anyway, “You too, but at least we’re both alive. Thank you.”

“As much as I want to know what happened,”

“Me too,” he interjected.

“But,” I stressed the word, “I don’t think you should probably be talking right now.” So I told him my story instead, leaving out the fact that I’d tried to use a certain shield bracelet I’d lent to him and instead lost my hand.

Still he must have sensed the words I left out cause he shot a pained, guilty look at me along with a brief, “Sorry.”

I shook my head at him, “It’s not your fault. I don’t think anyone could have expected for someone to dump a full-moon crazed werewolf directly into my dorm room. And if it’s anyone’s fault, besides the crazy vamp who did so, it’s mine, cause I was the idiot who forgot to ward my room against shadow-walking despite receiving one attack via that method already.”

“Not your fault,” Miguel rasped earnestly, “mind damaged.”

“See, neither of our faults then, just that bastard who not only tried to kill me but whose actions forced me to kill that poor werewolf, someone who had no real control over their actions and could have been just an innocent bystander in all this!” Tears were creeping out the corners of my eyes as it hit me that I had actually killed someone, a person, just last night.

“Not your fault!” Miguel almost yelled, an action that forced him into a series of painful sounding wet coughs that made him spit up great gobs of blood and flesh. It was only my immediate concern for him that forced me out of the dark space I’d started spiraling down into and instead made me cross the space between us to wrap my handless arm around his back (mentally lamenting my lack of grip at the back of my mind) and holding up a towel to his mouth as the intense coughs wracked his body.

“Shh, shh,” I whispered, “I know I didn’t really have a choice,” I willed myself to believe my words as I continued to comfort my friend, “I guess we’ll just have to find out who’s the one really responsible and make sure that he pays.” I ended on a dark tone, but was forced into a small grin when Miguel held up one shaking fist. I bumped his fist gently with my own and we both settled into a kind of happy shared contentment until the healer came in to check on us and forced me back into my own bed.

Introduced as Jin Ba-Hai, a name I was excited to recognize as the professor of the Academy’s healing classes, the blue-skinned fae was substituting for Healer Barker due to his own transformation the prior night. As he changed my bandages and put a healing ointment on my stump, the Chinese healer explained that while there were multiple routes, including magical prosthesis’, to giving me a new hand, it was the policy of the Academy to allow students, and I quote, ‘the opportunity to discover a working possibility for themselves’ and thus, he wasn’t allowed to give me one. Just yet another example of the school’s sink or swim policies, I thought grimly, setting loose a cripple in a place filled with dangerous predators. But, ha, what choice did I really have?

I continued to stew in my thoughts as the healer changed Miguel’s bandages, only half-listening as he told the fox how lucky he was to be a were since all his injuries were healing nice and quick. If they continued to heal at his current rate, he might even be able to get out of the hospital ward by tomorrow morning. And then he could get on to managing his new pack, Mr. Alpha Fox.

Wait, what?! I hurriedly backtracked the healer’s last teasing comment and looked over incredulously at my friend now looking sheepishly back at me. Just what the hell happened last night?

It was later that day, once Miguel was able to get some paper and a pen to tell me, that I found out what had happened to him was simply that after one of the older students had decided to challenge Vaara, the alpha had decided, after beating down the challenger, that he needed to make sure that no one else got such ideas. According to Miguel, he had planned to play submissive, but after Vaara killed the already beaten challenger, his own fox apparently had other ideas and wasn’t going to put up with being another’s punching bag. As soon as Vaara approached where he was pretending to meekly cower, he rolled, faking like he was going to expose his belly, and instead swiped out with one paw, raking his claws across Vaara’s face, smacking it down and tearing through his left eye along the way.

The ensuing fight was vicious, their growls and snarls and yips echoing through the cave they’d been placed in, their bodies a tangle of flailing limbs and hungry teeth and claws that eagerly sought whatever available chunks they could take out of the other’s hide. In the last few moments, Miguel told me that Vaara faked him out and it wasn’t until he had Vaara’s teeth in his throat that his human mind was able to surface from the beast’s bloodlust and remember the shield bracelet. Activating it at once, the magical barrier threw the other wolf off of him, and tore a large chunk out of Miguel’s neck in the process.

It wasn’t until a little while later, after Miguel’s neck had healed enough for him to sit up without reopening it too much that he found out Vaara had been thrown onto a stalagmite. The sharp stone pierced straight through his chest and completely obliterated his heart. And so, with Miguel’s actions during his challenge having led directly to Vaara’s death, he was now stuck as the new Alpha fox. A situation that his human self was currently none too happy about, especially since he now had three other foxes who looked to him for protection and guidance. In between my snorts and giggles of amusement, I simply told him that at least he had friends to help him out.

* * *

“This is an utter disaster John!” Brian Hastings almost yelled as he burst into his director’s office.

Looking none too surprised at his entrance, Whitman simply continued massaging his forehead, “You think I don’t already know that?” he replied, gesturing with his free hand to the mess of papers strewn across his desk, “There have been dozens (Dozens!) of confirmed lycanthrope attacks from last night. We already have three victims confirmed dead and hundreds more have been injured and might yet die or worse become weres themselves!

“Rats, wolves, coyotes, even two bears and a tiger! An actual weretiger for God’s sake! It’s like every single were went crazy Tuesday night and decided to deliberately change in a populated area! Eleven of them are also confirmed dead, with far too many of their bodies now in hands too dangerous for them to be in! And if that’s not enough, some of them even got caught on camera! Two in the midst of changing! The media is in an absolute, blood-in-the-water, frenzy over all of this and I’m supposed to advise the President in two hours how to deal with these, and I quote, ‘Deliberate attacks against the citizens of our nation.’” He banged one fist down hard onto his desk in frustration.

Hastings stilled as a sudden thought struck him, “Do you think this has anything to do with the information Jess sent us on Albot?”

John Whitman sighed and rubbed at his eyes, “I don’t know Brian. We only just found out about him and haven’t really been able to start digging into his activities. Besides, we don’t even know for certain that he is a daemon! If I judged by the outraged speeches he’s made over this incident, I never would have guessed that he might not be fully human. I certainly can’t see how he could be involved in this deliberate attempt to out the existence of weres. Still, we’re going to have to keep a close eye on him anyways, hope he slips up somewhere. There’s just something that I know I’m missing, some link that I unknowingly crossed somewhere before.”

He shook his head, “I guess that doesn’t really matter much right now. My biggest concern is to convince the President to help explain and cover up these attacks. I still don’t believe it would be a good idea to remove the cover of secrecy just yet. I can only imagine what the other races might feel free to do once it’s gone. We might win the inevitable war, due to our sheer overwhelming numbers, but we’d also probably lose at least ten of ours for every one of theirs. No one wants that kind of blood shed, it’s the whole reason the vow of secrecy was put into place. I’m really worrying why someone has decided to try and break it right now and just what they will decide to do next.”

“I don’t know,” Hastings replied wearily, “but I’m afraid that if someone’s made it their goal to lift the veil on magic, that things will only get worse before they get better.”