***
“Wow! And you saw them counting money and took only three grand?” The leader was beside himself with shocked excitement.“That’s what Paul caused you to lose, right?” Troy asked.“Yes…no. Actually, we lost more than just the money.” The leader said, licking his lips as if he’d seen something juicy.Troy turned to face the greedy-looking leader. “I hope you’re not talking about interest because…”“No, no.” The leader shook his head. “We lost one of our friends. When we tried to reason with the Stones to give us the three grand, they killed one of us.” He explained. “So Paul caused us the life of one of our friends.”“Is that true?” Troy asked Paul.“I don’t know.” Paul shrugged with a dark scowl. “I know they were six but I don’t know about one of them getting killed.”“That’s because you ran so you have no idea what went down, you chicken shit.” The leader snapped. “I have to give Shatta’s baby mama money for his baby’s upkeep all the time because Shatta is no more.”“Those men killed him just because you went to ask for what was rightfully yours?” Troy looked shocked.“Can you imagine?” The leader gushed. “They are very wicked people. Hey, my name is Blaze by the way.” He reached out and gave Troy a quick handshake.“Troy, I think we should just leave,” Paul mumbled.“Hey, you did this,” Blaze growled at Paul. “Let your magician here make something right.”“And how do you expect me to make things right?” Troy folded his arms across his chest. “Raise your friend from the dead?”“Oh no.” Blaze gave a sheepish laugh. “We wouldn’t want to start no zombie apocalypse. It will be nice to…have some money…for Shatta’s kid.”“And where am I supposed to find that money?” Troy frowned.“Oh, I don’t know… Anywhere we can get some cash…some shops, a bank maybe...” Blaze said with an expectant look. “The kid needs it.” He made a sad face.“Troy, let’s go,” Paul muttered beside his friend. He knew that his friend was a bit naïve when it came to the real world. And he could tell that Troy was buying the bullshit that Blaze was spewing.“How about I go for more money from those murderers for the baby?” Troy asked quietly. “After all they killed its father.”“Troy…” Paul growled under his breath.“That would be great.” Blaze gushed, excited.“Troy, you really don’t have to do this,” Paul said angrily. “You don’t own these people any…”“I’ll just go in, grab a few more, and be out of there,” Troy told Paul gently. “They killed the man after all. That wasn’t right. Now the poor baby has to suffer.”“Yes.” Blaze groaned with a hand on his chest. “That poor, poor child.”“I’ll be right back,” Troy promised his friend and took off for the second time, towards the house from which he’d already taken three thousand dollars.Just as Troy got to the residence of the Stones, he saw a van he’d seen earlier in their driveway, moving away from the house. Inside the van were the six men he’d seen counting money inside the house on his first visit. Since the door to the house was locked, he didn’t have any choice but to go back to Blaze, emptyhanded. The gang leader couldn’t hide his disappointment and anger. He came up with an alternative solution quickly enough.“How about you help us pull a bank job then?” Blaze asked.“As in rob a bank?” Troy stared at Blaze.“He will do no such thing.” Paul spat with a look of disgust.“Shut up, you moron.” Blaze snapped at Paul before turning his eyes back to Troy. “Just once. All you have to do is…repeat whatever you did at the Stones’. We get in, grab some cash, get out, give you your cut, and then we go our separate ways. What do you say?”“I took that three thousand from those people because Paul not taking the cash from them didn’t mean they should not have paid you,” Troy said quietly. “Robbing a bank is different.”“We’re not going to take much.” Blaze implored. “Just a little to get by. We will give some to Shatta’s baby mama and you. Surely you need money.” He cajoled. “The bankers steal the cash all the time anyway. We need the money more than they do. Come on…”And that was how the plan to rob the bank had been hatched. At Paul’s insistence, Troy told Blaze and his men that he and Paul couldn’t be inside the bank with them. He, however, assured the gang leader that they would stay outside and stop the police from catching them if they should show up. They just had to be fast and take just a little bit of cash. Well, from the look of the sacks that those men had gotten away with, it looked like Blaze and his pals had taken a whole lot more than just a little. No wonder they’d been in there for so long, Troy sighed. He and Paul would simply take some of the money for their trouble and go their way, Troy thought as the bus got to their stop.“Remember, we’ll just take whatever Blaze and his men give us, and leave,” Paul said as they made their way to the gang’s hideout. “No argument. This is survival.”“Survival,” Troy repeated under his breath.***“Deloris, we are ready.” Philip Harrington, the Alpha of Stanwood Pack growled low in his throat as he stared at the warlock in their midst. “It’s ten a.m.”“So…the four of us?” Deloris asked, glancing from the determined-looking woman standing before her, to her scowling son.“Mum, I really think you should stay home and…” Jeremy Stanton, the Alpha of all Alphas, started to say but got cut off by his unrelenting mother.“Not on your life, Jeremy.” Gloria Stanton said heatedly. “I’ve told you not to waste your breath. That’s my son we’re talking about. I need to be there.”“Four of us, Deloris.” Philip breathed as he rubbed the back of his neck in obvious agitation. He could feel his wolf going crazy inside of him. He was having a difficult time stopping himself from shifting.“Calm down, Lip.” Jeremy, his boss and best friend murmured beside him. “We need you calm otherwise this will not end well.”“Should I give you something to…” Deloris looked at her alpha with worried eyes.“
***“Deloris, is it possible to do a location spell?” The alpha of all alphas asked the powerful warlock.“Piece of cake.” The warlock grinned as she leaned in to rub Gloria on the back. “I’ll need your blood, Alpha Jeremy.” She addressed the Alpha of Alphas. “And yours too, Gloria. Ryan, why don’t you go get some sleep?” Deloris asked with a frown. “You look sleepy. Amazing but sleepy.”“Well, there’s a reason for that,” Jeremy said with a cocky grin, looking at the faces around the table. “Mum, you might want to brace yourself for this one…” He watched as Gloria pulled out of Joel’s embrace and locked curious eyes on his. “Ryan is pregnant.”The collective gasp that went up said it all. Everyone in the room, except a grinning Deloris, looked shocked.“Impossible!” The High Priestess exclaimed, her eyes wide in shock.“How?” Paige screeched.“Err… you mean lesbians don’t know how babies are…”“Shut up, Stan.” Paige snapped as she turned shocked eyes on Ryan, who considered her his be
***“You must be kidding me.” Troy couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice as he stared at the guns pointing at his and Paul’s heads. “I thought we had an agreement.”“Well, consider it canceled.” Blaze grinned as he relaxed in his seat and lit a joint. He already looked high. And from the traces of white power on the table and the rolled-up dollar bill beside the substance, Troy could hazard a good guess what the gang leader was high on. He’d watched enough TV. “This is a lot of cash.” Blaze pointed his joint at the sacks of cash as he watched the two boys from beneath his lashes. “I don’t want any of this getting out so we have to shut you up…permanently.”“But we helped you get…”“What did you do?” The leader of the gang scoffed as he took a long drag. “Your work was to stop the police if they showed up. They didn’t.”“That was because I changed their course.” Troy was literally shaking with disbelief and anger. He was, however, more concerned about Paul who was trembling and plea
***A shocked Jeremy tore his eyes off his now stiff fireball-wielding brother when he felt a familiar warmth against him. His eyes widened in shock when his gaze landed on his sleepy mate. He was still in the sweats and t-shirt he’d left him sleeping in back at home. He couldn’t even seem to keep his eyes open.“Baby?” Jeremy ran his fingers through Ryan’s disheveled hair. He thought his mate looked absolutely gorgeous with that sexy bedhead. “How…”“Not me,” Ryan mumbled sleepily as he wrapped his arms around Jeremy’s waist and laid the side of his face against his broad chest. “The baby thought you were in danger. It brought me here.” He yawned. “As you can see, I was sleeping.”“What?” Jeremy gasped as he wrapped his arms around Ryan too. “It can do that?” He looked stunned.“It’s your kid.” Ryan chuckled. “What’s going on here?” He looked at a fireball-wielding gorgeous young man and smiled. “Your brother looks pissed,” Ryan murmured.“Oh, he is.” Jeremy chuckled. “At Lip.”“Oh b
***The story of the bank robbers who were mysteriously found with their loot and weapons in a locked police cell was to later become a hot debate in media houses and on social media. Blaze of course sang like a canary, talking about a magician called Troy and his team. Of course the story of the flabbergasted police team who found themselves in another state just as they got to the bank that was being robbed by Blaze and his team, only fueled the story. The story of the Vigilante Magicians was to trend for weeks.Magicians were urged to help the police do their jobs like the selfless group who had, according to the story of the robbers themselves, given up Blaze and his gang. Among the speculations that were rife on media was the possibility of an alien invasion.Meanwhile, in a quiet farmhouse, where unbeknownst to the public, the nine original residents had been murdered in cold blood with the help of magic, five warlocks watched the news with grim faces. They knew for a fact that
***“Paul?” Troy breathed when he heard his friend’s voice on the other end. “Are you at the police station?” He listened for a moment. “Okay, I’ll come and get you…don’t think because she looks like a nice person, she is.” He said urgently. “These people are murder…” Deloris snatched the phone away.“Alright, that’s enough.” She cut the line. “At least you know I didn’t lie to you.”“What do you want from me?” Troy asked quietly. “You’ve already taken everything that I have. My family…”“We are your family.” Gloria finally said softly as she started towards Troy, who looked at her closely for the first time.“Oh no, no, no I’m no kin of you people,” Troy said with a shake of his head.“You are, son,” Gloria said quietly as she stopped in front of her youngest son, her cheeks wet with tears.Troy stared at the woman and felt a strong wave of emotion he couldn’t understand but which made him want to comfort her, sweep over him. The feeling was so powerful he took an involuntary step cl
***“Paul is not here,” Troy said quietly immediately after they materialized in Gloria’s living room. They’d all decided that the best place to break Troy in was in his mother’s house.“He will come over as soon as you and your mother are done talking,” Philip muttered as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and began to type, sizing Troy up intermittently.“I won’t say anything until I see him.” Troy insisted, a dark scowl in place. But he added after a moment; “Please.”“How about we call so that you talk to…” Jeremy began to say but trailed off when his brother began to vigorously shake his head.“How about I see him first?” Troy didn’t sound as if he was going to accept anything else. “I’ve been around warlocks long enough to know the tricks that can be played.” He glared at Jeremy. “For all I know, the voice I heard on the phone in the warehouse was not really his. I just want to see that he’s okay.” He added quietly. “Is that too much to ask?”“And what makes you think th
***Troy’s worried eyes followed Philip until he disappeared through the door. He was surprised at the sudden feeling of guilt and unease that washed over him. He wanted to call Philip back but he stifled the urge. What was wrong with him, Troy combed his fingers through his hair in frustration. He was convinced the so-called werewolves he was in the room with had cast a spell on him. Even if they couldn’t do it themselves because they were werewolves, the Deloris woman could do it for them.“Can I get some water please?” Troy asked quietly.“I’ll get it,” Jeremy said as he turned towards the dining area. He came back in no time with a bottle of water.“Thank you,” Troy said as he took the water from Jeremy. By the time the bottle came away from his lips, it was empty.“Want another?” Jeremy asked.“No, thanks.” Troy shook his head slowly, looking at the bottle in his hands.“Are you okay?” Gloria asked softly but Troy didn’t respond. He kept staring down at the bottle in his hand. Af