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That was pretty much what Grandfather had said.
“They’re territorial and they have disputes with each other,” Ms. Helen said. “These three were a father and his sons. They were forced out, so they boarded the first ship they could find and ended up here two years ago. They destroyed the local gangs and built their own.”
Mr. Keelan’s eyes went green. “And you kept it to yourself?”
The werejackal raised her hands. “It never came up?”
“Helen, for future reference, this is the kind of information I need to have as your alpha. Do we understand each other?”
She nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”
“Good. Let’s go clean up.”
“Okay, I get the minotaurs, but what about the pigs?” Ms. Jynx asked.
“Clean up, Jynx,” Mr. Keelan said. “You’ve met the Consort before. Focus on what’s important.”
It took an hour to get all the corpses and body parts into a pile. It took longer for them to burn in the bonfire. I even had to feed some of my magic into it to get it hot enough. Once it got going the smell and the smoke were awful.
When we were done, Mr. Keelan took my wereboar’s head and placed it on the ground in front of the fire. Right next to the head of the largest minotaur.
“Well, that’s the last of them.” Then he stood back and just looked at them for a while. “Great big bastards, weren’t they? I don’t know about the minotaurs, but the two hogs smelled like wereboars to me. Usually, shapeshifters turn back to human after death but not these pigs.”
“They were cursed,” I said.
Mr. Keelan raised his eyebrows at me.
Ms. Jynx ran over to us. “Good news! I figured out the pigs! They are—”
“Cursed,” Mr. Keelan said.
She blinked at him. “How did you know?”
He nodded at me.
“I tasted the magic when I bit off his ear,” I explained. “It was witch magic. Very strong.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Mr. Keelan asked. “Do we need to purify you somehow?”
My grandmother had been a witch and Mom was one too, when she needed it. I knew how to protect myself, but it didn’t matter, because the curse was very specific. “I’ll be fine.”
“Well, anyway,” Ms. Jynx said. “I had a chat with that fire mage. She took an arrow in the knee, and she doesn’t deal with pain well, so she was very cooperative. Apparently, the two werehogs are local boys, Buck and Grady. They are—were—first-grade assholes. They did home invasions, collected gambling debts, assaulted people, your low-level muscle shit. Somehow, they got the bright idea to break into a house of a powerful local witch. They went in human and came out as that. Apparently, she told them that since they lived their lives like pigs, she would make their outside match their inside. So yeah. They didn’t turn back because they couldn’t. They are permanently stuck like that.”
They were. It was over now.
“Good work,” Mr. Keelan told Ms. Jynx.
She grinned at him and walked away.
Mr. Keelan studied the heads some more. “Looks like you’ve got the best trophy of the night.”
“No, sir. The one my dad killed is bigger than mine.”
Mr. Keelan scoffed. “Nonsense, lad. You’re young yet, you lack a proper sense of proportion. That porcine shithead was twice your size. How did it feel?”
“At first I was scared,” I admitted.
“Anyone would be. Wereboars are as tough as they are stupid. Even the bears don’t like fighting them. After you were afraid, what then?”
“I was mad.”
“Why?”
“They broke into our home. They wanted to hurt Ms. Jynx. And this one called me ‘little man.’”
“His mistake. Look at him, he’s not bigger than you now, is he?”
“No, sir. He’s just dead.”
“How did it feel to tear that ugly head off his hairy shoulders?”
I’d been exhausted and beat up but honestly, it felt…
“It was amazing,” I told him.
“Aye, it was that. But your father’s got the right of it. It’s a shame your mother will never know how brave you were, but this is shapeshifter business.” Mr. Keelan sighed, “Best not to trouble your mother with the details.” He paused. “Still, even if you and your father never speak of it again, it doesn’t matter. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because I saw it. We all did. My people. The humans. All of us.”
“So?” Why did that matter? I was tired and hungry and wished he’d just get to the point.
He seemed very serious now, like it was important that I understood what he was trying to tell me. It was a little like speaking to Grandfather.
“So, that’s how legends begin, lad. People who were here will tell the story to them that wasn’t. And those people will spread the tale.”
“Of how you and Dad killed three minotaurs? Nobody will believe it. It’s too crazy.”
Mr. Keelan shook his head. “No, lad. The story of how the Beast Lord’s son, when he was just a small boy, beheaded a magical wereboar with his bare hands. That’s the important bit. That’s the part people will remember.”
