Page 5 of Hell and Hexes
I grimaced. “And of course Dallas retaliated.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Werewolf egos. Of course he retaliated. He’s not going to let his pack think he’s weak by letting that sort of thing go. I really don’t know what to do at this point. I’ve gotten in Dallas’s face, burned the beard off Clinton’s face, threatened the pair of them. Neither one is going to back down.”
“Just blow up the mountain and be done with it. No more werewolves, and it would shave twenty minutes off the commute time to Fairview.”
I choked back a laugh because Glenda was kidding. At least, I thought she was kidding. Cassie was the only one of us with an explosive temper, but Glenda had this dry pragmatic thing going on that made me sometimes wonder about her moral alignment.
“Trust me, I’ve considered it,” Cassie said. “There aren’t many options left, honestly. I’ve put down my foot when it comes to some things, but I can’t change hundreds of years of culture and tradition in a few months.”
Thanks to Cassie, wolves were now allowed to leave the pack and live in Accident without being hunted down. But as my session with Alberta and Shelby had revealed, being a lone wolf wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Still, the option was there. And Cassie had told Dallas that werewolves would be held to the laws of Accident, regardless of what their own rules and regulations allowed for. Supposedly that meant due process for any werewolf violating pack law. Basically, they could keep their traditions and culture unless it went directly against the laws of Accident.
Of course, what happened up in the mountains didn’t always come to light down here in the valley. And if it came to it, our legal system didn’t really have the power to enforce law in a pack of hundreds of werewolves. At least not without seven witches backing them up.
But that would be a solution of might, and I wasn’t the only one who knew violence wasn’t the long-term solution to what we’d come to jokingly call the Werewolf Problem. Bending them to our will by force would only get us temporary, grudging compliance that would rebound and smack us in the asses the moment our backs were turned.
“So, you’re just going to let them go at it and hope for the best?” Glenda asked.
Cassie shrugged. “I can yell and set fire to shit all I want, but I can’t stop a werewolf war. I’ve told both Dallas and Clinton this can’t affect anyone outside the two packs, and no fighting can take place off the mountain. I also let them know that any werewolf who wants refuge from the fighting is welcome in town, and I won’t tolerate that being held against them when the dust settles.”
Glenda snorted. “Yeah. Good luck with that. I’m not Ophelia but let me give you my prediction right here: Clinton and his pack are killed. Dallas loses twenty or so of his pack in the fighting. Half the mountain is torn up and all their crops and livestock destroyed. Refugees will be exiled, and we’ll have to take up collections to feed the remaining werewolves through the winter or watch them starve.”
It was a sobering prediction, but neither Cassie nor I denied its validity.
“Dallas won’t budge at all?” I asked.
“Nope. He’s exiled Clinton and the werewolves that left with him and says they need to get off the mountain. I at least got him to say he’d allow them all to remain in Accident as lone wolves, but he won’t make any promises on whether the individuals in his pack won’t continue to attack them or not. It’s too personal for most of the pack, he says.”
“Would Clinton be open to that?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Not a chance. He wants part of the mountain, and he’s not leaving.”
It bothered me that there wasn’t some peaceful solution to all this. I got why Clinton had formed a splinter pack. He’d chafed under his father’s rule and knew there were other members of the pack that felt the same. The werewolf answer to that was to challenge the alpha, but Clinton knew who would win that fight, and it would have been a fight to the death.
It was a huge mountain. There was no reason beyond pride that Dallas couldn’t allow his only son to establish a sub-pack on a section of neighboring land. Maybe there was some avenue to peace that hadn’t yet been explored. Maybe there was some sort of compromise that would work for both of them. I didn’t know what that was, and it was clear none of my sisters did, either.
“Oh, and this all reminds me,” Cassie added. “Do you think you could pull together a charm or two for me? In the next week or two? I’ve got a case on the other side of the wards and it wouldn’t be good if the humans discovered the defendant was a yeti. I just need to improve the odds that the judge will agree to a change of venue so the trial can be held here in Accident.”
I sucked in a breath and looked down at my soup, appetite completely gone. “Sure. No problem.”
Itwasa problem. I just didn’t want Cassie or any of my sisters to know it was a problem.
We finished our dinner and my sisters did a quick clean up before leaving. Once they were gone, I pulled my magical supplies out of the closet and spread them out on my coffee table.
A luck charm or two. That used to be so easy. But now…. It wasn’t as if my magic wastotallygone. I could still feel a tiny thread of it whispering through my body, but when I went to do anything magical, nothing happened. It was as if I called, and either the magic that remained was too faint to do any good or just didn’t respond at all.
Part of me feared this was the way it would always be. Part of me feared my magic would return, but that it would be…wonky. Maybe charms wouldn’t turn out like they were supposed to. Maybe they’d end up being hexes or not providing the type of luck I intended—which really wasn’t a big deal when all I was trying to do was make sure there was enough hot water for my shower, or that there was a front parking space at the mall. A potential for exposure of our world though…that was big. I didn’t want to screw that up.
I hoped that I just needed a little longer to heal and then everything would be back to normal. As for Cassie’s request, well, I had another week or so to rest up, to drink Glenda’s disgusting potions, and to get my strength back. I’d wait on these charms and maybe try them next week. I was sure by then that I’d be fully recovered and would have no problem imbuing them with the appropriate magic.
Yep, I told myself,I’ll be fine by next week. That’s when I’ll do these charms. By next week, everything is going to be back to normal.
