Chapter 6

A furious pounding on his front door woke Quinn from a sound sleep. The clock on his bedside table read 3:00 AM. He stumbled to the front door. A stocky nude Amerindian woman stood on his porch holding a puppy with green eyes. Her voice was ragged, she looked to be on the far edge of exhaustion.

“Take my baby, Keeper. Protect my baby.” She thrust the puppy into his arms. Her form blurred, and she shifted into a black timber wolf. Her head rose, nose up to taste the scents in the air and dashed off into the rainy night.”

“HEY, wait a minute...” The wolf-kin had disappeared into the dark, long gone before Quinn hollered.

He cuddled the wet, shivering pup and closed the door.

“What the hell am I going to do with you?” The pup was soaking wet and shivering so Quinn set her on his couch and went to get a towel.

As he was briskly rubbing her down, the runes that had been spelled into his back flared hot and shocked him fully awake—they sensed some major spellcasting outside. A triumphant shriek sounded from the backyard.

“Sweet mother, now what...”

Quinn dashed to the kitchen, flipped on the yard lights, slid the patio door open and stepped out onto the cold, wet grass.

A woman stood at the edge of his yard, half in and half out of the mass of rain-soaked rhododendrons. She wore a dark green raincoat open at the front. A drooping slouch hat covered her hair and a heavy silver and turquoise necklace hung outside a gingham patterned blouse.

Cold malevolent eyes glared at him out of a bone white face. A shapeless animal body lay twitching at her feet. As he looked closer, he realized it was the wolf-kin woman who had been at his front door.

The witch, with a flare of magic surrounding her, held a black knife in her right hand. She eyed Quinn and reached down and slashed the black wolf’s side.

The copper smell of blood magic told him instantly what she was— a Blood Witch, An immensely powerful one as well—maybe a twelve or thirteen circle adept.

A fucking Hag in his back yard.

Another form flickered into being behind her, a seven-foot, stick-slender elf with huge amber eyes with vertical slitted cat-like pupils.

Sweet Mother, a Dökkálfar prince in his backyard.

“Hail human, “ the tall elf sang in fluting alfar.

Quinn collected his wits and answered back in the same singing whistle clicks. “Begone Erendriel, you are not welcome in this realm. Go lest the dirges sound at your House lamenting your true death like they did for your brother.”

“Shadow Walker, I will end you soon, “ the elf’s perfect features curled in hate. His form flickered.

“You have the shifter whelp,” the hag-witch interrupted. “I need her. She is mine. Give her to me.”

“Get lost witch,” Quinn said, “if I had the shifter, you two would be the last people, I would give her too. BEGONE.”

Her eyes rolled back in her head. One hand clutched her necklace, the other held the bloody knife. She chanted out again, her voice girlish, shockingly at odds with her appearance.

A wave of powerful magic pulsed out.

Quinn was hit again with a sudden smell of apricots overlaying the stench of blood. His back flared white- hot as the glyph wards again activated.

Her eyes widened as she saw her spell-craft had no effect on him.

“What are you,” she shrieked. And began her casting again.

By now, Quinn had finally gotten his shit together. He twitched his wrist and reluctantly awakened the lethal symbiote weapon that the troll women had gifted him--a dragon lizard razor whip that wound around his right arm like an ornate full sleeve tattoo.

The symbiote unfurled itself from his arm with a shriek.

The activated symbiote in turn awoke the Other from its long sleep in the back of Quinn’s mind.

“Kill? The Other was not gifted with nuanced reasoning when it perceived a threat, it went to tried and true.”

At the sight of the whip, the elf’s eyes widened, and he finger-signed a spell then disappeared.

Quinn caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

The two teenage witches who had been following him earlier stood at the other end of his yard, side by side with their athames in hand. With faces as pale as chalk and eyes impossibly wide, they held hands and began chanting.

Sweet Mother of All, they were going to try to bespell the Hag, the idiots. They had no chance facing an Adept of this level.

The Hag muttered and gestured again. Quinn smelled the sharp scent of apricots again and again his glyphs flashed as the magic washed by him and flowed over the girls. It froze them in mid-chant—their mouths and eyes wide open in soundless panic.