Chapter 18

Minerva stood next to Kat as Kat swept the box open.

“As they are saying,” Kat said, grinning and standing up. She flipped around in her hands something surprisingly small and deadly and metal - something that looked to Minerva like it had come from the 21st century, not the 20th. It was short and stubby, with venting holes cut along the barrel in a pattern like a cheesegrater and a wooden stock that looked like it could fit snugly against a shoulder. “Bang bang soda pop.”

She held the weapon out, one palm under the barrel, the other cradling the stock. “This is a Maschinenpistole 18. MP-18, for short.” She shifted her grip as, next to her, Gregory took one out and hefted it up in his hand, grinning eagerly. Minerva took the weapon with a gulp as Gregory held up a circular magazine, like something from an American gangster movie.

“I’ve seen these, their stormtroopers had them. Thirty two round detachable magazine - bitch to load, but it’ll feed her for ... not very long,” he explained. “Sounds like a lot, but these will chew through ammo faster than you can possibly imagine.”

She had held a killing tool before - but a wand could do a thousand other things. This weapon felt heavier. More portentous. She made sure to keep her finger off the trigger, despite the lack of the magazine, while Kat continued.

“We have twenty of them, with ammo to spare, the Red Witches ... they would have been ready to fight. We? Not so much.” she clicked her tongue, casually lowering her weapon.

“Whoa, missy! Don’t point that at anyone!” He grabbed onto the barrel of the MP-18 that Gina had eagerly grabbed and aimed in the vague direction of Harry.

“It doesn’t have any bullets-”

“That doesn’t matter. You always treat guns as if they’re loaded. Always.” Gregory frowned. He shot Wolfe a look that the two seemed to share more intimately than anything Minerva and Kat had shared - something that made Minerva wonder if she should be jealous ... or relieved. Kat turned back to face the collected wizards.

“Right. Well, point is, these guns shoot very quickly,” she said. “But you will have a hard time learning to hit anything. Fortunately, we are having an advantage. The bad guys?” She grinned. “They are not going to be having many guns - and they are not going to be expecting us. So, you?” He gesture encompassed the rest of the wizards. Selene. Harry. Gina. Minerva. “You will be suppressing the bad guys.”

Gregory nodded. “Suppressing is when you fire a hell of a lot of lead to make people keep their heads down. If they’re too scared to stick their heads out, then the people who know what they’re doing...” He gestured to himself and Kat. “We can get there and do what needs doing.”

“You can also cast spells,” Kat said. “I will be a little too busy focusing on the guns. But suppress, spells ... that could be be very good, yes.” She grinned, showing off her sharp little fangs. “But I do want us to practice on the guns. Reloading. Firing. To get you at least used to it. But we only have a few hours to go.”

“Why don’t we enchant the guns?” Selene asked, raising her hand. “Make it so they don’t run out of ammo?”

“They experimented with that in the war,” Minerva said, remembering her reading. “It doesn’t work. You can make stuff ex nihilo, but it takes a lot of energy to make something as complex as a bullet - there’s so much chemical energy in it, all of it comes from your calories and it’s not the most efficient transformation.” She frowned. “ ... wait, I have an idea!” She held up her hand and turned around, heading back up the stairs.

When she came back down, Kat had her friends in a line and was taking apart one of the machine pistols, showing them the parts, how they fit together, and then explaining how to clear a ‘jam’. But then Minerva slammed down a small piece of paper, fetched from her very own broom and pressed before the whole lot of them.

“How do you figure these things out?” Kat asked. Minerva grinned.

“I’m afraid I must inform you that your girlfriend is either mad or a genius, Miss Wolfe,” she said, beaming from ear to ear.

“Well, I was already knowing that,” Kat said, grinning. “How does this work?”

“I had the idea last night, after...” Minerva coughed. “After I woke up and, uh, well, okay! It’s very simple! The energy loss, it’s the air. So, we just...” She knelt down, pointing at the scribbles she had put down. “We just don’t convert air. We strap a box to the magazine area, full of lead and brass in the right mixtures, then we enchant the box so that the metal is turned into bullets, with the gunpowder being the only thing produced from air. Or, or, reverse it, we make it so the lead and the copper are made from thin air, and it is a box of gunpowder!” Her eyes shone excitedly. “Uh, how many bullets could, uh, say...” She did some quick scribbles of math, but before she could finish, Kat put her hand over her hand.

“Darling,” she said. “It will always be far, far, far more bullets than any magazine. But if this works, why has no one else done it?”

“Why would anyone?” Harry asked. “Bullets are cheap. Magic is supposed to be secret. They couldn’t hide magical magazines from the common soldiery - and, more, for all we know, they are experimenting with this very thing. The War MInistry has a lot of projects.”

Minerva beamed. “Worth a shot?”

Kat frowned. “I suppose it is.”

Minerva sat in the room upstairs, at her desk, with several bits of metal, fiddling with her wand, while outside, the crack crack crack of gunfire echoed across the quiet grounds. She leaned forward and focused everything on scrawling the glowing runes on the inside of the metal plates. Her plan was fairly simple, even if it’d take a hell of a lot out of her. She’d make the one magazine. Test it. Then she’d use a spell to duplicate it several times - which would be the most energy intensive part - the kind of thing that prevented most magical factories from just using duplication for scaling like this.

But while it’d fail at scaling up to armies, it would work just fine for a ... what had Kat called it? A squad? Or a section? She had used both. Minerva wasn’t sure which it was.

Kat drew her wand away from the metal sitting on the desk, looking at the glowing rune. She took one of the bullets sacrificed to her. Kat had already popped it apart with some tools, and the gunpowder waited to be poured out. Minerva held the bullet above the metal, breathing in.

“Almost done?”

She jerked so hard that the gunpowder dusted into the air. It tingled in her nose - sulfur and death alike. She sneezed, while Kat blanched and hurried into the room. Her trench wand glowed and she whispered a soft spell, flicking the wand tip so the grains of black powder that hung in the air clumped together, then whipped back into the casing.

“I’m so sorry!” she said, putting her hand on Minerva’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Minerva said, rubbing her nose and sniffing slightly. “I ... I didn’t know I was so jumpy.”

“It’s the feeling in the air...” Kat said, her ears twitching. “When I’m not focusing on the mission, on the practice ... I ... I can feel it.” She shivered. “Like a storm is coming.” Her ears twitched up slightly - and they were lupine ears, unexpectedly jutting from her head. Her golden eyes flashed and Minerva put her hand on the back of her hand, squeezing. Feeling the faint bristle of hair.

“I felt it too,” Minerva said. “The working’s getting stronger.”

“Maybe the Soviets can smell it too,” Kat muttered. Then she clicked her tongue. “I doubt it. They’re too far. By the time they feel it, it will be too late.”

Minerva gulped. “Do...” She looked down at the metal plate. “Do you know what the curse will do. If we fail?”

Kat sighed. “No. But I can imagine.”

Minerva rubbed her palms along her shoulders. She didn’t want to imagine it.

Then Kat’s hand slipped out from under Minerva’s. She brushed her fingers through Minerva’s hair and murmured, softly, softly.

“Now, what is this?”

Minerva froze, her cheeks heating. The fingertips of her lover pressed, claw-tip to dimple - against her vampire bite. The fur was growing thicker on Kat’s hands now. The floorboards creaked as Minerva felt her lover growing larger behind her, the shadows casting across the table making her shiver in excitement. A muzzle glided against her ear, and Kat’s rumbling, basy voice crooned into her ear like liquid chocolate.

“Minerva, were you going to tell me about how you said goodbye to the vampire?”

“H-Heh,” Minerva said, her cheeks burning. “I didn’t want to distract you. We don’t have much time.”

“We really don’t.” Paws pressed to Minerva’s hands, pinning her to the desk as the heavy weight of furred, muscular woman ground against Minerva’s back. Warm, wet, panting breath brushed against her ear. “How hard did she fuck you?”

“Real hard,” Minerva whispered, shyly.

“Mmmmhmm.” Kat licked her neck slowly. “Some might think you have a taste for us monsters.”

Minerva laughed. “Don’t you know, I’m a monster too?” She crooked her head back, grinning back at her. “I’d go so far as to say this?” She picked up the bullet, then poured out the powder. It dropped onto the rune and, with a flash, copper and lead formed from thin air. The rune flickered and glowed and faded as the bullet collapsed into place and rolled off the metal plate. “Is downright witchcraft.”

Kat chuckled. “Good god, I want to fuck your brains out over the desk.”

“Later,” Minerva said, her thighs pressed together.

“ ... we may not have a later,” Kat said, quietly.

Minerva was silent for a moment. She picked up one of the other plates - this one would be guiding the bullet from its creation to the actual firing port. She started to slide her wand tip along the pressed steel. Smoke rose from the tip as she carved the rune, carefully. “Yes, we will,” she said, firmly. “After this is all done, we shall talk.”

“Just talk?”

“Of course not,” Minerva said, her cheeks heating. “Consider this incentive to keep your head down.”

Kat huffed.

“Damn,” she said, her claws retracting, her fur shrinking away. Floorboards creaked. Human lips kissed to Minerva’s cheek. “It seems like it is going to even work, my Minny.” Minerva laughed, then leaned back.

Lips pressed to lips.

Then she went back to work.

“I bloody well will!”

“No you will not!”

Minerva and Petunia glared at one another - while across the room, Harry and Gina looked up from where they had been attaching the last of the new box magazines to the sides of their submachine guns. The clock ticked quietly in the corner of the sitting room - the hands creeping towards their chosen hour of departure. Outside, the sun was beginning to drift towards the horizon, and the creeping feeling of dread in the air was growing deeper. Heavier.

“I can help, damn it,” Petunia said. “My leg works just fine. I can carry a gun. I’ve practiced with the others.”

“I-It is true, she has,” Harry said.

“But ... I...” Minerva stammered. “I didn’t want to say it, but you haven’t done much running around for a long while. More than that, you don’t know any magic, Petunia. And...”

“And you’re my friend,” Petunia said, grabbing onto Minerva’s hand, squeezing. “You ... you’ve done so much for me, Minerva. Let me help you.”

Minerva felt her stomach knot. But before she and Petunia could go around again, Gina smiled brightly.

“Well, why don’t you do switchboarding?” she asked, curiously.

Minerva and Gina both looked at her.

“It’s plum easy,” Gina said. “The hard part’s doing it in the field-”

“What’s switchboarding?” Minerva asked.

“ ... cor, right!” Gina put her hand over her face. “You’ve never played proper football.”

“What does football have to do with this?” Harry asked, his brow furrowing.

“You’ve never played proper football either?” Gina asked, scowling at him.

“I don’t think I’d be any good at sports,” Harry said. He sighed. “I heard ... my father was a star player, back in his day. Never got a chance to follow in his footsteps, not with Mr. Villamont and I going on so many ... adventures.” He made a face, then shook his head. “So, enlighten us, star player.”

“It’s plum simple,” Gina said. “You cast a quick little Carrien Trýwþ So, So, So, So, So...” she pointed at Harry, then Minerva, then Petunia, then waved her hand around as if she was tossing each ‘so’ out at various other people. “That makes a mental link between each of em. So you can talk without talking, and show people what you’re seeing. Only problem is you can’t lie - that’s what led to the big brawl during the ‘29 First Division semi-finals, when Craig ‘Lighting’ Rolling-Dowling Poole III got into the switch and learned that Barry Brightwine was rumpling Poole’s sister’s skirts on the regular, quite out of wedlock. The team fair tore itself apart!”

“Huh,” Harry said.

“That ... makes sense, actually,” Minerva said. “Trýwþ is the foundation of truth spells, but I can see how it would link with communication...”

“What’s communicating for if not showing people the truth?” Gina beamed.

“Have...” Harry frowned. “Gina, have you heard of a man named Joseph Gobbels?”

“Is he one of those Nazis?” Gina asked. “Right?”

Harry sighed.

“Can I ... cast that?” Petunia asked.

“Well, there are three parts of a spell,” Minerva said. “The will to cast it, the energy to power it, and the tools to enact it. If you have enough mental skill, you can overcome poor tools. But, well, modern wands are so well made that even a novice can cast incredibly powerful spells. The hard part will be maintaining the spell - you’d have to ... sit back home, eating calorie heavy food - pastries, sweets, custards...”

“So, in short, it’s a way to keep me out of harm’s way?” Petunia asked.

“Nah,” Gina siad. “See, Poole? He was linked to Barry when they were brawling. Broke Barry’s nose, fair broke his own nose too. Linked, like. So, if you’re tied to us and we die, you’re in trouble. Should be okay if just one of us bites it, since it’ll be a big link. But if like, half of us die? You’re toast.” She beamed. “So, you’re running just as much risk.”

“And ... helping a lot,” Harry said, seriously. “Half the times I almost got killed on these stupid things, it was because some soldier or another couldn’t warn me about something. And being able to coordinate, it’s half a battle.”

Petunia beamed. “Well, then!”

Minerva frowned.

But...

She couldn’t really complain. They were all going into the fire together, it seemed.

The evening was preternaturally cool and chill. The skies were clear and the stars glittered overhead - cold and pitiless. The MP-18 felt heavy against Minerva’s hip, the sling keeping it around her digging into her shoulder. Her desk quivered under her, while Harry, Selene, Kat, Gregory, Stevenson and Gina soared in formation around her. Their brooms rustled in the silence - Gregory clinging to Stevenson as they flew along ... and...

Okay. Petunia’s voice echoed in her mind. Nervous.

Minerva felt a nervous frisson run along her belly. Tying herself to Petunia had been more familiar, more easy, than she had expected. She had known her for so long, the connection felt like it had little secrets. The shock of knowing how it felt to ride Gregory and feel his muscular hands clench her was minor - a small part in the glowing union of soul to soul, friend to friend.

But this was where that feeling was about to be magnified. A lot.

Are you ready? Petunia thought.

MInerva nodded. The others - each linked as well - nodded silently.

The connection snapped into place.

Minerva had felt exposed before.

Now she felt naked. Naked to the hearts and minds of her friends. Her comrades. In a blazing, instant flash, she knew every tiny bit of Gina. She knew that the rambunctious energy wasn’t an act, it wasn’t a facade, it didn’t mask a depth of sadness or seriousness - she could feel the buzzing, prickling, bubbling cheerful giddiness of her friend like champagne bubbles under her skin. She could feel the whirling storm inside of Kat, all claws and flashing teeth and snarling, snapping rage, and the cage containing a writhing worm that muttered wordlessly to itself - worried, gibbering half words. Words that almost, but did not quite, sound like German. But the tone came through.