“What are you doing, Alek?” I asked with an edge to my tone. My heart had jumped to going a hundred miles a minute.
“Just some physical learning suka. Come on,” he said as he gestured at me to ‘bring it’. “Show me your Shape.”
Whenever I was feeling the danger of a situation, the antlers seemed to bristle right beneath my skin. Then it was just a matter of triggering it. The method felt like the inbetween of flexing a muscle I didn’t know I had and releasing some inhibition in my mind. The antlers began to emerge from my arms, coiling up my shoulders and down my hands, wrapping me in interlocking pieces. I had figured out that visualization was important, as there was very little actual sensation that told me that the process was happening.
“You sure about this?” I asked Alek. “They’re sharp.”
He scoffed. “Don’t try to be a badass with me. Just show me what you got.”
I flexed my arms, cracking the thin plating at my joints. My legs shook, even with this seemingly playful confrontation. My control has gotten better. I can do this without risking his life.
I splayed my fingers and antlers forked out. They rushed towards him and Alek held his arms up, protecting his face. The branches split off, shooting down towards his legs. Fine control got harder as the bone grew out further from my body. I had to concentrate. The branches crackled as they coiled around his legs. I felt resistance and heard his clothing rip. By the time Alek realized what was happening, the antlers found the cracks in the concrete to anchor in and I ripped my arm up and away, breaking off the bone.
Alek was immobilized.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Now can you stop messing-”
There was a snapping sound and Alek’s leg whipped up, hitting me in the side. I felt a sharp pain and I spun from the hit. I faced the wall, gasping from the pain.
I heard Alek shaking the rest of the antlers off of himself. “Sorry,” he called out. “Hit you harder than I meant to. This bone is pretty fragile. I’m surprised you’ve managed this long without it.”
I turned back slowly, wincing as I felt my side. “Okay, what do I do to fix that?”
He shrugged. “My advice? Don’t. It’s an instinctual Shape, right? I’m guessing you found yourself in a dangerous environment and your body reacted and came up with something that worked. You didn’t plan for bone to emerge, am I right? It’s just instinct, like raising your hands to protect yourself. It’s not always useful. Hands don’t stop bullets very well, for example.”
“How did you know it was instinctive?”
“Just a guess. It’s simplistic and natural-looking, like tree branches. Oh, they’re hollow.” He held up a piece to peer through it. “In that case, I’m impressed it’s this sturdy. Must be easy to make a lot of it.”
I felt something click back into place inside me and the pain went away. I looked gratefully at Nell. “So I have an instinctual Shape. What else is there?”
Alek tossed the bone aside. “Constructed Shapes. Shapes created with a purpose in mind, so they tend to be more complex in structure.”
I made a guess. “Strengthening muscles doesn’t seem that complex.”
Alek’s smile widened. “You catch on quick, that’s good. It’s not that simple though, because it isn’t just a matter of increasing muscle mass. You have to synchronize an adrenaline spike, the right amount of muscle growth, skin resiliency and elasticity. It gets complex pretty quick if you don’t want to hurt yourself.”
I stared down at my arms, still sheathed in bone armour. “I have no idea how to Shape differently. How would I change something like adrenaline?”
“I can help with that,” Nell said eagerly.
Alek nodded. “That’s where your Witch comes in. You’re not alone in not knowing how to Shape. How could I possibly teach that? Shaping is indescribable. How do you decide to grow taller instead of breathing fire? It’s impossible for us, but your Witch can show you how. You have to experience it, then memorize the feeling so you can replicate it on your own.”
“I’m remembering a feeling?”
Alek raised his arm and clenched it fiercely. His arm bulged, veins standing out on his skin. I could almost see his pulse. Then he relaxed and his arm returned to normal size. “It will get easier with time, but if it helps, you can link it to something that will help strengthen the memory. A trigger. Some Wolves use a spoken phrase, or a specific body motion. I have a complicated Shape that I use music to trigger. Here, check this out.” Alek reached into his pocket and pulled out an old phone, with a pair of wired earbuds wrapped around it.
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s a bit old-fashioned.”
Alek shook his head. “Please suka. I was starting to like you. The databases don’t have the good, hard to find stuff.” He put in the earphones and tapped the phone a few times. Then he started to nod his head to the beat. Finally, he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, flashing the devil’s horn with his free hand. Something emerged, wet and silvery. It dropped and Alek caught it before it hit the ground. He twirled the object between his fingers and when he stopped brandishing it, I saw that it was a thin rod with a crystalline sheen.
“A drumstick?” Nell asked.
“Nyet. A tuning fork.” Alek said, before slamming it against the train car behind him.
A piercing note rang out, terribly loud. Instead of simply lingering, it felt like with every second, the ringing grew louder. I covered my ears and Nell’s face screwed up as she slapped her hands over her ears too.
There was a loud crash and the windows high above us in the warehouse shattered. Light scintillated off the falling pieces and I dashed over to Nell, shielding her head with my arms. The glass plinked off of my armoured body, already too small to break further.
When the rain of glass had ended, I stood up, glaring at Alek.
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, live a little dangerously. It’s not fun otherwise.”
“Your body made a tuning fork?” I asked. “Isn’t that metallic? Non-organic?”
Alek was busy stowing away the phone and earbuds. Then he groaned and tossed the tuning fork under a train car. “Look man. You think there is a textbook on this or some shit? I didn’t make the rules, if there even are rules. I gained all this info through word of mouth and personal experience. The first thing you should know is that we know basically nothing.”
“I thought Shapes were only organic.”
Alek turned his back to me and walked towards the back of the warehouse. “You seem hung up on this. I made it. It’s organically home grown. Now get over here.”
I followed him around the side of a train car. He hauled the door open and inside was a small cooler. As he lifted the cooler out of the train and set it on the ground, I heard something slosh inside.
Nell made a small noise. Alek looked at her. “Can you tell what’s inside?”
“I don’t know,” Nell said, frowning. “A small animal?”
“Bingo.” He opened the cooler, revealing that it was filled to the brim with water. There were around six fish inside, moving sluggishly. Alek plunged a hand in and yanked out a fish with reddish-pink scales. He held it firmly as it flopped around, a hungry look on his face.
“You into raw fish?” I asked tentatively, massaging my side.
He blinked and looked up at me. “What? You never had to fill up before?”
“Is this filling up different from eating?”
“Yebat-kopat. The energy for Shaping is gotta come from somewhere. You don’t want to be sapping your own body mass away, especially when you need to heal, unless you want to become hollow like your branches. This is quicker than eating.”
He clenched the fish, digging his nails into it. Slowly, the fish began to melt. The scales sloughed away, revealing flesh and blood. Layers of tissue began to crawl along Alek’s nails, sinking into his skin around the nail-beds. I watched uncomfortably.
“So this is a Wolf thing too, huh…” I murmured, thinking about Aaron and the cow I had… absorbed.
“I’m sorry, Nick,” Nell said. “You have to repair yourself with something.”
The fish looked like someone was disassembling a cross-section by melting down a layer at a time.
“It’s getting late,” I said, gesturing to the orange sunlight coming through the broken windows. “That’s enough for today.”
Alek looked satisfied, like he had just eaten a full meal. “You don’t want any?”
“Nah. I’ll eat like a human, thanks.”
He shrugged, shaking the water off his hand. “Suit yourself. Just don’t expect that privilege once the going gets tough.”
“Who says it’s going to get tough?”
He plunged his hand into the cooler again. His expression had turned sour. “It always gets tough, Nick. That’s life. But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t get tougher for our kind.”
I looked away before I witnessed another fish get assimilated into Alek’s body.
Our kind? I thought. I don’t want to be like you.