“Screw you. My ears do not fluff. If anyone’s ears fluff around here, it’s yours.”
His face broke into a grin that was all teeth. “That was a terrible comeback. C’mon. Let’s hit the ice until we can’t think straight.”
“Now? You want to skate now? Weren’t we busy telling me I suck?”
“Naw. You don’t suck. You’re just stupid sometimes. Plus, you got somewhere else to be? Some bunny waiting for you?”
That was the problem when one’s life was over. One’s calendar was pretty much open. “You’re gonna pay for the bunny thing.”
“Oh, I’m so scared.”
“You will be once you’re on the ice. I was an Avalanche.”
He stood, popped three of my French fries in his mouth. “For what? Two seconds at a training camp? Then you just couldn’t keep it in your pants, could you? All that magical power. You just had to save a guy’s life. Seriously, Random. You saved a guy’s life. That’s worth something. That’s worth everything, isn’t it?”
It was. That was why I’d saved the guy.
“I hate you,” I said.
“I hate you too, buddy. Honk-honk.”
“Did you just quote the were-car episode of Futurama at me?”
“My gut says, maybe. Let’s go hit something.” He grinned some more, pushed my milkshake into my hand. When I stood up, he looped an arm around my neck.
Together, one guy too tall, one guy too short, he steered us out through the door and into the sunny day.
Three
Once my skates hit the ice, the world and all my problems faded away. It was just me. No magic. No worries.
Just breathing, sweating, pushing. Speed and power and the puck on the end of my stick making me whole. Making me right.
Making me free.
Duncan had packed our gear before we left for lunch so we didn’t have to rent anything. The skating center was scheduled for an hour open skate, and half a dozen hockey players of various ages took up a third of the ice. The rest of the rink was occupied by figure skaters.
It was a little crowded, a little run-down, but with Duncan at my left, and a net ahead of me, it was life, warmth, sanctuary.
We worked lazy drills, falling into familiar patterns. His slap shot had improved since I’d been gone for the last two months, but he was still crap at defending my moves. I could juke and dangle, slipping the puck between his skates, around his stick, and catching it half way across the ice before he even knew I was moving.
But passing a puck across the ice together? Oh, yeah. We were a thing of legend.
Backhand pass, saucer pass, drop pass, tape to tape, we always knew where the other person was on the ice.
I stopped by the boards for a bottle of water. As I drank, a soft whistling caught my ear. It was a low, moody melody, kind of slow and catchy.
I looked around for whoever had just given me an earworm and spotted a guy in the first row of the stands. He lounged in his seat, lanky legs stretched out in front of him. He wore cowboy boots and faded jeans with holes in them that looked like they’d been worn out from honest work, not as a fashion statement.
His hair was dark brownish, so was his close-cut beard. His eyes, even from this distance, were as pale and faded as his jeans, but instead of blue they were the lightest brown I’d ever seen. I thought he might be in his thirties.
He was watching Duncan and me. Only us, and when he caught my eye, he tipped his chin down once in greeting.
Then he started whistling that song again, absently, as if he didn’t realize he was doing it.
His St. Louis Blues T-shirt hugged his flat stomach and showed off the muscles in his shoulders, chest and arms. He was fit and looked all kinds of comfortable here, as if this was his second home.
I might not be able to spot a shifter in a crowd, but I knew a hockey player when I saw one.
“You know him?” I asked when Duncan stopped next to me.
“Who?” Duncan downed half his water, then poured the rest over his face. I pushed back to avoid the sprinkler action as he shook.
“The whistler.”
Duncan scanned the stands. Finally landed on the guy. “Looks familiar, doesn’t he?” He sniffed the air like he could identify the whistler by scent.
And, yeah, maybe he could. Wolf shifters were like that. He tipped his head to one side.
“I’ve seen him before. Too old for WHL or ECHL. Could be AHL. Coach? Scout? Local?”
“Dunno. Hockey though,” I said.
“Obviously. Why’s he staring at us?”
“Like I care.”
Maybe now that I’d used magic everyone could see it on me. Maybe I stuck out like a sore thumb. A wizard playing hockey.
That wasn’t the kind of attention I wanted.
“Let’s find out.” Duncan powered off across the ice. Just like every other time in our lives, I followed right behind him.
The man saw us coming, but didn’t move. Just watched with pale sand-colored eyes.
“Hey,” Duncan said. “You got a problem with us?”
That was Duncan. Friendly and blunt and always straight to the throat of the matter.
Those eyes weighed us as if he were trying to fit all of our details into a very small box.
“Not a problem,” he said.
I’d expected a cowboy drawl out of him, and I got it. I wasn’t great at accents, but I thought maybe Kentucky, or Texas. I couldn’t really tell the difference.
“You’re the wizard, aren’t you?”
Oh. Great. My screw-up was already big enough for someone to recognize me.
“Naw, man.” Duncan played it cool. “You must be thinking of somebody else.”
“Don’t think so.” The guy’s gaze shifted to me. Intense, hard. “That was you I saw on the video clip. Avalanche training camp.”
“There’s a video?” I squeaked.
Duncan pushed in front of me, all shoulders and height and attitude. “You got a problem with him? You got a problem with me, buddy.”
That startled me. Duncan wasn’t the kind of guy who fell into fists at first sight. Ever.
“Whoa, hold on.” I grabbed at his sleeve, yanked. “It’s cool, Dunc. People are going to see…whatever they see.”
I tried not to freak out. I knew there would be a record of what I’d done. The team filmed practices so they could go over the footage and talk to players about how to improve. I just didn’t expect it to be released to the public.
“Are you a reporter?” I wished I still had an agent to handle this stuff.
“He doesn’t have anything to say to you,” Duncan snarled.
The guy smiled, but it was no more than a slight quirk of his mouth.
He thought this was funny?
“Easy, boys.” His voice soothed and vibrated somewhere beneath my range of hearing. “I don’t have a problem with either of you. I said that once. I meant that. This is good ice, a good day, and good conversation. Didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea.”
He stood and clomped over to stand in front of Duncan. He held out his hand like he was calming something that was about to bite.
His sleeve slipped up enough to show the edge of a tattoo. Black ink with a slash of red. His hand was steady, his voice calm, eyes on Duncan and only Duncan.
“My name’s Hawthorn Graves. Folks call me Graves.”
Duncan stared at his hand like he wasn’t sure if he should shake it or hit it.
What was up with him?
I punched him in the shoulder. Duncan grunted. I pushed to one side so he wasn’t blocking my view, his body between me and Graves like I needed protecting.
Duncan finally took Graves’s hand and shook. “Duncan Spark. Call me anything you want.”
Graves, nodded. “Nice to meet you, Duncan.” He didn’t seem dangerous. Just curious and relaxed.
Duncan settled, his shoulders losing that stiff angle, his chin tipping upward just the slightest amount, like he was going to bare h
is throat, though I didn’t think he realized what he was doing.
“Random Hazard.” I offered my hand.
Graves didn’t so much as crack a smile at my stupid name, which either meant he’d already known it, or he didn’t get the joke. “People call me Ran. I’m Hazard on the ice.”
That got a smile out of him. “You’ve said that a time or two, haven’t you?”
“Gotta embrace your weird, right?” I’d used that reply a million times, and it suddenly seemed hypocritical. “You play hockey?”
“I do. Got picked up by the Thunderheads late last season. Hope to put down roots here. Make my last stand. You like this facility better than the one south a ways?”
I nodded. “They’re both good. That one’s newer, but this one’s closer to where we live, so we come here more.”
“The Thunderheads practice here,” Duncan added as if he wanted the guy to pay attention to him again.
“Sure.” He said it like shore. “Just wondered which rink you liked best during public skate. Since you’re local.”
Duncan grinned like the guy had just told him he could eat all the extra fries.
“What’s it like?” Duncan asked. “Playing for the Boomers?”
“It’s good. Hard work. Coach Clay is…well he’s odd, but he knows how to steer a team.”
“I watch every Thunderheads game,” Duncan said. “I don’t remember you on the ice.”
“Played three games total in March. Which is why I’m not sure they’re going to pick me up this year.”
Duncan had been sick for part of March, and also had forgotten to record some of his favorite shows. So it made sense that he’d missed a game or two.
“Well, good luck,” I said. “They played really solid last year.”
The Thunderheads were part of the Western Hybrid Hockey League, or WHHL, which everyone shortened to West Hell. In the early days the WHHL had been little more than an excuse for blood and guts and violence on the ice. The kind of violence that only shifters and retired goons could dish out.
West Hell was the freak league of hockey. Gladiatorial anything goes kind of hockey.
Except for the last five years. Things were slowly changing. West Hell was playing hockey more and bleeding less. Games were starting to look like games. Exciting. Fast. Skillful.
Though it was still ten times more violent than pro hockey.
“Well, I don’t want to take up you boys’ ice time. Nice meeting you both.” He gave us a short nod and rambled down to the exit.
We watched him the entire way, Duncan with the head tip that I wasn’t going to tell him made him look like a puppy.
“Think he played offense?” Duncan asked.
“I bet he’s defense. Shifter?”
Duncan tipped his head the other way. I coughed to cover a laugh. “Yes? But.”
I waited. He was quiet for a long time.
“But?”
“But something.” He shook his head. “He’s. I dunno. Something. Hey, time’s almost up. I’m starving.”
“You just ate, you bottomless hole.”
“A single burger and fries. Two hours ago. Besides, the dinkies are here.”
Squeaky little kid voices bounced off the rafters as a class that looked like a troop of girl scouts zipped out onto the ice in a flurry of pinks, purple, camo, and skulls.
“Let’s get out of here before we accidentally squish one,” he said.
We made our way to the lockers and Graves’s words echoed around in my head. He was putting down roots. Making a stand. I wanted to put down roots too. Not in a city, but in a league.
I wanted my life to start. The one I’d worked for, the one I’d fought for.
But that was done now. Over.
It sucked to think all I had to look forward to now was hobby skating and pickup games. Stealing an hour of ice time between grade schoolers.
I didn’t want to play pickup hockey.
The blood in me, the breath in me, my bones and brains, were all made to compete. To prove myself against my peers and betters.
I wanted to play hockey competitively. Hard. For keeps.
I wanted to make my stand.
Grow roots.
By the time we reached Duncan’s car my mood had gone to shit.
The Chevy Vega groaned to life and Duncan babied it into gear, muttering as he did so. It was ancient and had been given to him when he was sixteen in lieu of payment for mowing an old lady’s yard all summer.
He loved that old wreck.
The car, not the old lady.
“You owe me,” he said as the car rattled forward an inch at a time.
“What are you talking about?”
“For lying to me. You owe me something in return.”
I rubbed at the headache spreading behind my eyes. The early evening sky was a perfect bright blue, the temperature mild and breezy. Summer day all around while I was nothing but storm inside.
“Seriously, Ran.”
“An apology isn’t enough?”
“You didn’t apologize.”
“Oh.”
Duncan stomped on the gas trying to gain some speed for the hills that were ahead of us. The Vega gave it a go, but the fastest it had ever gone was the short trip it had taken rolling off the assembly line.
“I’m sorry for lying to you.”
“All these years.”
“All these years,” I added.
“And you owe me something for that.”
“Fine. Okay, fine. I owe you for lying.” I held tighter to the door handle to keep the door from popping open. The Vega shook like a washing machine full of bricks.
“Fine,” he said.
The car topped out at forty miles an hour and was rattling so hard there were two roads ahead of us instead of one. Somehow Duncan could tell which lane was the right one to be in.
I clung to the frame of the window and reviewed my drop-and-roll technique in case the car flew apart.
“It was good, right?” he sort of shouted once we’d topped the hill.
My ears were ringing but at least the engine was quieter when it was coasting.
“What?”
“Today. On the ice. It was good being out there together. Like it used to be. You and me, the puck, the ice. Except I’m so much better than you now, of course.”
I didn’t know what he was getting at. Maybe he was trying to shake my bad mood and headache.
Duncan was ultrasensitive to the mood of his pack, and he’d adopted me as his pack early. He knew me better than anyone.
“You’re, you know, not too bad for a big, clumsy, slow, stupid guy,” I said.
He grinned and flipped me off. “I’m beautiful on the ice and you know it.”
I snorted. “Sure you are, buddy. Like fine art. You gonna tell me what I owe you?”
His grin didn’t fade, but he kept his eyes on the roads ahead and hit the gas. We went slower.
“Later,” he said.
All right. He had the metaphorical ball in his mouth. I’d just have to wait until he dropped it.
“That Graves guy.” He frowned.
“Yeah?”
“Something about him.”
“You said that before.”
“What did he look like to you?”
“I already told you. D-man. Southern. Texas, Kentucky maybe? I thought he was…I don’t know, a reporter, but when we got closer, he seemed nice enough.”
“Just enough?”
“I think he’d be intimidating on the ice. There’s something sort of quiet about him. Like that one second between pushing the red button and boom.”
“Yeah,” Duncan said. “That. He’s got boom.”
“So do you, Donut. I thought you were going to give him a black eye.”
“If he hassled you, I would have.”
“Look at you. Alpha male all up in here. You’re making me shiver.”
He rolled his eyes. “You suck. We’re no longer friends.”
/> “You love me. Who else gives you extra fries?”
“I can get my own fries. You should eat more.”
“I eat. If you’re gonna give me shit for being a skinny wizard, I’m going to get out of this car right now, walk around to your door and punch you.”
“I’m not stopping the car.”
“The speed this thing goes, you wouldn’t have to.”
That got a laugh out of him.
Me too.
And just like that, my mood was better.
Mr. Spark knew how to make a mean lasagna. He put mushrooms in it and fresh garlic and so much cheese I salivated just thinking about it.
The amazing smell hit me in the face as soon as we opened the door. I groaned.
“Lasagna? Is that lasagna?”
Duncan flopped down on the couch and nodded. “And garlic on sourdough.” Heightened sense of smell was another thing he got from his wolf side.
No one knew why magic infected people in different ways. The whole shifting thing had been a shock and a horror back in the day. Not that people were particularly comfortable or proud about it now.
Most shifters fell into two categories: Felidae shifters—all kinds of cats—and Canidae shifters—all kinds of dogs.
Science argued more people should shift into animals closer to human DNA, like chimpanzees and, I don’t know, pigs or something.
But science hadn’t unlocked the puzzle of magically infected DNA. They were still generating more questions than answers.
The majority of marked shifters went feline or canine. There were a few exceptions. An occasional bear or badger or warthog, but mostly it was cat or dog.
I dropped down on the couch next to Duncan. He messed with the remote, pulling up the hockey channel to see if there was any news.
He had crap timing. The clip—a cell phone video—of me casting a spell in the middle of the neutral zone scrolled across the screen. The video tracked the wall of magic, colors swirling and thick like paint pouring from the ceiling. Then all that paint, all that sound, shattered and disappeared.
I hadn’t realized it had only stood there for four, maybe five seconds. In my head that wall of magic had lingered for hours.
Duncan was stiff. Silent. Didn’t look over at me.
“You can ask,” I said, not looking at him either.