"Why do you even have such a spell?"

  "It allows us to hide in the cracks of rocks and boulders in the mountains of our homelands. That was where it started. Then someone discovered that it could be used for other spaces. Bottles and lamps were the ones that came first."

  "So any kind of container?"

  "No, it has to be something you can't just reach inside of. Also, there are size limits."

  "Huh, interesting."

  "Why all these questions?"

  "Because I honestly know nothing about it, other than some of the stories, and I'm trying to think of how they were planning to use you."

  "To smuggle things in and out, I would guess."

  "Well, the two ifrits my brother met were using those three girls to smuggle in the other girls for sale. But why were they selling them, as well? Why were you being sold?"

  "Maybe to smuggle things out?"

  "I guess," Troy said with a shrug, "but from what you said, djevels can't go inside a bottle, and what else would they want to smuggle out?"

  "I don't know for sure that they can't go inside. I'm just guessing."

  "Something else I guess we'll need to investigate."

  They were almost back to the room when the alert went off.

  "What's that?" Nadinc said, jumping a little.

  "That's the alert. I need to see what's going on;. I'll be gone for a little while, okay?"

  "Umm, okay."

  "I'll meet you either back at the room, or at dinner." He gave her a kiss. "Later, Nadi!"

  She blinked, and he was gone, just like that.

  Troy ran up to the alert bird just as the last of the crew were climbing in, and waving to them, he joined them. Thankfully, he'd been geared up, as he'd been at the range with Nadi. Of course, that also meant he was low on ammo, but he wasn't here to get into any firefights.

  Looking around, he noticed it was the same crew as before, mostly.

  "Where's Healy?" he asked as they took off.

  The copilot waved her hand.

  "What're you doing up there?" he asked.

  "Backup pilot. Craig's on leave."

  "Craig?"

  "Our usual pilot. So Hawkeye moves to pilot, and I move to copilot."

  "Ah. What's the callout for?"

  "Same thing as last time, just in a different area. Further west."

  Troy nodded and checked his ammo supply. He had one reload for his pistol, and one for his rifle, and he only had those because he'd been reloading his magazines at the range until he'd decided that Nadi had had enough practice.

  "What happened to your mags?" Rod, the wolf E3, asked him.

  "Was teaching the wife how to shoot."

  "She's here?" Healy asked over the comm with a surprised voice.

  "Yes, and be a good girl, and you can go through the interview process tomorrow," Troy said in a deadpan voice, causing several others on the crew to snicker.

  "Interview? What's that like?" the leopard door gunner asked.

  "What's your name, anyways?"

  "Oh, I'm Den, short for Denton. The guy on the other side," he motioned towards the wolf on the starboard gun, "is Dan."

  "Got it. Yeah, first there's an oral, then a practical," Troy said with a wink and a grin.

  "Oral? As in Miss Head gave you some head?" Healy grumbled as they flew along.

  "No," Troy said with a snicker as the rest of the crew laughed. "You meet the wife, and we have a nice talk."

  "Oh," Healy said, sounding a little abashed.

  "The practical is where I fuck your brains out in bed with the wife!"

  The helicopter jerked for a moment, and Troy could see that Hawkeye was laughing his ass off while flying them along. Obviously, he had his mic off. Several of the others were gasping, they'd been laughing so hard.

  Healy turned and gave him a look that was not a pleasant one.

  "We will be having lunch tomorrow," Troy said, looking back at her with a smile. "Because I very much want you to meet the wife."

  "I'm not so sure about that now," she growled over the headset.

  "Well, I am," he purred back, "but we can talk about that later. For now," he made a circling motion with his finger, "let's take care of this job."

  "Ya knew he was a smartass when you started chasin' him, Heals," Jasper said. "Now don't be getting yer tail in a knot 'cause he's better at it than you are!"

  "So," Troy said, changing the subject, "I had no idea we had more pilots than we do aircraft. I thought there was a shortage?"

  "I'm Lycan Army, not Regular Army," Healy replied. "This is a US Army Blackhawk, so their pilots get priority."

  "How many folks here are Lycan Army?" Troy asked, though he was pretty sure he knew.

  Hawkeye, Dan, and Den didn't raise their hands, but Jasper, Kevin, and Rod did.

  "Dan, Den, Hawkeye, you guys natural or infected?"

  "Natural," Den said, "all three of us, as well as Craig, who's not here. Why the twenty questions?"

  "I'm a scout, so I don't usually get to play with the duty crews. I didn't know there was a separation like this."

  "Eh, only with the aircraft. I think it's more that the accountants don't want to mix and match the crews because of pay rates and such. We all answer to the same boss."

  "Why would pay rates enter into it?"

  "Because our flight pay doesn't time out if we're not flying," Healy said. "If Craig and Hawkeye here don't get enough hours in, they lose theirs."

  "Damn, that ain't right."

  "Tell me about it," Hawkeye finally said, speaking up. "We're two minutes out; lock and load, everyone."

  Troy slid over to the starboard side of the helicopter and stood up, bracing a hand on one of the grab-rails so he could look out over the head of the gunner when Hawkeye banked the helicopter to orbit, which would make it harder for him to see the ground.

  "They're going to be coming up on the port side," Healy called back.

  "There they are," Den called out. "Six bonde and at least that many gnashers."

  "No råge?" Troy asked.

  "Nope," Den replied, and then opened up with his machine gun, as Jasper and Kevin took shots with their rifles.

  "What're we looking for?" Dan asked.

  "Something hiding to the north of them. You know, like last time?" Troy told him as he scanned the area.

  "Well, last time they had an RPG, so warn us if you decide to try anything," Hawkeye called as he banked them up and orbited the djevels the other three were now cutting to pieces.

  "They're not turning and running," Den said.

  "Is that what they usually do?" Troy asked.

  "Yup, or at least try to. This is a lot more than normal, too!"

  Troy swore and, checking his framework, he threw the biggest shield spell he knew of around the helicopter. Dropping prone to the deck, he grabbed the side of the doorframe, pulled himself up until he could see over the edge, and looked down beneath them as they completed their first orbit, and he was looking north again.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Dan asked.

  "Get ready to take evasive action!" Troy called out.

  "Ah, shit," Hawkeye swore, and Troy popped off the magic missile spell his dad told him he'd stolen from some djevel lord or something. It didn't do a lot of damage, but it blew past their shields, and you didn't have to aim it all that well.

  Sure enough, three råge, a ridder, and a biskop stood up from where they'd been hiding in the brush.

  "Trouble on right! Starboard!" Troy called out, and damn near lost his grip, as Hawkeye rolled them back the other way, and then he was hanging halfway out the side, as Dan opened up with his machinegun. Bracing one of his legs against a seat, Troy cast a fireball, then reached back with his free hand to grab his rifle, as someone kneeled on his butt, pinning him in place, and took shots over his head with their rifle as well.

  Unfortunately, two of the råge had RPGs this time, and both of them fired within a couple seconds of each other. The first one hit the shield as Hawkeye banked over and pulled up. Troy could see he was trying to protect the main rotor and the tail rotor from being hit, as that would ruin their whole day.

  The problem was, the second RPG came through the section of the shield spell the first one had blown a hole in before the spot could close back up, and it hit them right in the portside foot-well window, burning a hole through the armored glass, sending a jet of shrapnel and fire on an angle up through the cockpit and into the panel above Healy's head.

  Unfortunately, it had to go through both of Hawkeye's legs to do so, adding a fountain of blood, flesh, bones and other gore to the mess.

  The helicopter spun out of control for a moment as one of Hawkeye's severed feet hit the rudder pedals, but Healy immediately got control of it and dove for the border.

  "Get him out of the seat! Get some tourniquets or something on his legs!" Healy screamed over the comms as Jasper grabbed a fire bottle and sprayed the panel over Healy's head, which was sparking and trying to catch fire, dripping molten plastic and other parts onto her helmet.

  Pulling himself bodily into the back of the helicopter with his left hand, Troy immediately pumped healing spells into Hawkeye as they pulled him back, keeping an eye on his mana levels. The fireball and the shield spell had taken a lot of his mana, though he had several multipliers.

  "What are you doing?" Rod yelled, as he was knocked off Troy's back. He'd been the one pinning him inside so he wouldn't fall out.

  "Healing spells! I'm a mage!"

  Den and Kevin had Hawkeye unbelted and in the back in an instant, each of them grabbing a leg and trying to arrest the flow of arterial blood. A human would probably be dead already, but lycans didn't tend to bleed out, as their healing ability typically sealed off the wounds immediately.

  Also, the spells Troy'd hit him with had helped a little.

  Troy looked Hawkeye over. It didn't look good. Losing one limb was bad; losing two was often a death sentence. The heat from the jet of fire as the RPG had burned through the armored glass had cooked his legs and arms pretty well. This was when Troy noticed Hawkeye was also missing his right hand.

  Surprisingly, Hawkeye wasn't screaming, yelling, or even whimpering. He was gasping for breath, wide-eyed, and when Troy looked at him, their eyes locked, and Hawkeye tried to grab his arm with his missing hand, not even realizing it was gone.

  "Can you heal him?" Den asked.

  "Can ya keep him alive long enough ta get back to base?" Jasper called out.

  "We're not going back to base; something punched through to the hydraulics. We got about a minute of flight time left!" Healy yelled.

  Turning his attention back to Hawkeye, Troy pumped all his remaining magic into him, but he could see it wasn't enough. He'd taken too much damage too quickly, lost too much blood before his own healing had stopped it. He was going into consumption shock as his body tried to heal itself, and having run out of the innate magic essence that made lycans what they were, it started to cannibalize his life energy.

  "Shit! We're losing him!" Den yelled.

  Looking up, Hawkeye was still staring at him, giving him that look—that look that said, I know what you are, please, save me.

  Troy was desperate. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he reached out to the lion power pool. He wasn't supposed to be able to use it, because he wasn't a lion, but he wasn't supposed to be able to go to the mountain, either, as his brother had mentioned when they'd last talked.

  He knew about the pool; he'd heard Dad talk about it with SJ, Mike, Sharon, Beth, and the others, because they were lions, and it was a part of what they were. He'd heard his father tell them some of the things they could do with it, all that 'mystical shit' his father jokingly referred to it as. One of those things was dealing with consumption shock, something lions did for lycans whenever they could, now that there was enough power to do it.

  Until now, he'd never tried to do anything with it. He knew it was there, he'd even been able to feel it, if he concentrated. Now he was going to grab it and see if he could force it into Hawkeye before he died, because for a lycan, there was no worse way to die than from consumption shock. That was how silver had killed them, back before his father had given them the silver tags.

  It took him a minute to figure out how to get his hands on it. It definitely wasn't easy, and he really had to concentrate to hold on to it. The first time he got a hold of it, he suddenly felt what was happening to Hawkeye, who was gasping and convulsing under his hands. He could feel his life draining out of him, and it scared the shit out of him. He could feel it burning. He could feel the pain.

  In a panic, he desperately grabbed at the pool again, and pulled on it, sucked at it, dragged at it, and then pushed it into Hawkeye before he died. It took him a couple of attempts to figure it out. The first time he tried, he couldn't maintain contact; the force of it made it hard to control, hard to keep his hands where they belonged.

  The second time, he got some power in, enough to stop the decline, to hold it off for a minute, but having that power run through him, it felt…different. It burned, but it didn't quite hurt. He was used to channeling some power—he was a magic user, after all—but this…this wasn't the same, and there was just so much of it!

  Digging his claws in to Hawkeye as well as the power, he closed his eyes tighter, and with a growl deep in his chest, he held on tight, pulling from the pool and cramming it into the wolf underneath his hands. He pushed and pulled and dragged more and more out of the pool, and pushed it all into the body beneath him. Fighting back the pain and the fear. The pain, the fear, and…and then…he felt it. For a brief moment, he felt it. The wolf inside Hawkeye cried out to him for his help, his protection, his blessing as he connected with him, pouring in not only enough power to bring him out of consumption shock, but enough for his body to heal itself.

  Opening his eyes and gasping, he fell back from Hawkeye, who was staring at him, eyes wide in shock. Looking down past the remains of the charred flight suit, he saw two legs that had almost completely regenerated.

  They hit the ground at just that moment, hard enough that they bounced, but not so hard that anything broke.

  "Everyone, grab a fire bottle and hose down anything that looks suspicious!" Healy called out as she shut down and secured the controls.

  "Den, Dan, dismount the machineguns!" Jasper called. "We're taking them with us!"

  "Did we make it out?" Troy asked as he realized he was wobbling back and forth on his knees, his head spinning as some of the excess power from the pool flowed around inside him.

  "No! We're twenty meters from the fence. Reinforcements are on the way. How's Hawkeye?" Healy yelled, as the comms units had lost power.

  Troy looked at him. He was alive, but unconscious, his eyes closed.

  "He'll live," Troy said, still wobbling a little as he got to his feet.

  "You okay?" Jasper asked, looking at him.

  "I'm fine, just a little tired…"

  "Kevin, you can carry Hawkeye," Jasper said. "Rod, help Dan with his ammo. Healy, help Den." Jasper lowered his voice then. "Can you still walk?"

  "Yeah, but help me get out of here."

  "What the hell did you do? He was as good as dead."

  "Turns out 'as good as' wasn't good enough," Troy joked a little weakly. "Just keep it to yourself. I don't think I ever want to do that again."

  "Hurt yourself?"

  "No. Worse. I scared the shit outta myself," Troy told him as he carefully climbed out of the helicopter and stumbled down to the ground. Looking it over, he was surprised to see there wasn't any real damage to the Blackhawk. Healy had landed it between a couple of very large boulders without hitting either of them.

  "What broke?" he asked, looking around.

  "I'm not sure," Healy said, looking over at him. "Either the RPG managed to penetrate through the top of the cabin and into one of the systems, or something shorted out in the overhead control panel and killed the hydraulics systems."

  "Someone run up to the top of that rise," Troy motioned a little weakly to the north, "and see if we're about to have any company."

  "I got it," Jasper said, and unslinging his rifle, he trotted up the small hill.

  "We can't stay here," Healy told him.

  "If they're not coming for us, I'd like to take a few minutes to catch my breath before moving out."

  Just then, his phone rang. Or rather, it roared.

  "What the hell?" Healy asked as they all looked at him.

  Troy dug out his phone and answered it.

  "Hello, Dad."

  "Are you okay?"

  He could hear the concern in his father's voice.

  "Yes. We took a hit and had to land. If you can get somebody to us before the djevels get here, you could probably rig a sling and haul it back to base. Our pilot didn't even ding it when she landed."

  He heard his father repeating what he'd said to someone, and heard a voice replying that they were on it.

  "Obviously, I felt that," his father continued.

  "Huh, really? Is that how it works?"

  "Only because you're my son. The First probably felt it, too. You grabbed a lot there."

  "Yeah, umm, this isn't the best place to talk about it, Dad."

  He heard his father snort. "Probably not. Check your skills program. It should latch onto this and tell you what powers you got."

  "Yeah, umm, I don't know. I'll have to think about that. I gotta run here, Dad. I'm a bit frazzled, and for all I know, we're about to have company."

  "I'm looking at a live feed from one of our recon drones. Set up on the rise; you've only got a small party coming your way. Shouldn't be an issue."

  "Sure. Thanks, Dad."

  "We'll talk later."

  "Yeah," Troy said, still gathering his wits. "I'd like that."

  Hanging up, he put his phone away.

  "That was?"

  "My father. We've got a small party coming from the north. He wants us to set up on the hill and hold them off. They're sending some folks to rescue us and pick up our helicopter."

  "You okay?"

  "Yeah, just a little frazzled. Let's get up the hill."

  By the time he got up the small rise, Den and Dan had their machineguns set up, and everyone was laying prone, waiting for the djevels to show up. Checking his mana, Troy saw he was completely out. He wondered a moment if he should try to tap into the power pool again to see if he could refill it, but this probably wasn't the best time to be experimenting.