Fang-Kissed

Chapter 5

I don't go back to my dorm, or near anyone. For a moment I need to be on my own. I avoid everyone by walking into the depths of Fortitude until I find the Restricted Ordnance. No one is here. In this massive chamber, the Fangs store there most prized orbs.

The grey stone walls and their shelves are lit by candle light only. You'd think security would be here 24/7, but all the magic orbs were broken. When they were surrounded by so many shifter-spirits, they were silenced.

I walk in through the shelves and I read through the orbs, which look like glass spheres when they're deactivated. I go through the lowest ranked orbs to the orbs protected by the top runner Fangs.

At the end in the darkest corner is the line I've been looking for. The Orb of Stone... guarded by Toni Fang Claw. Original. I knew about Claw. He was from a line of wolf shifters who were infamous for being reckless but brilliant in battle.

The Orb of Rabbit is guarded by Raphael Fang Gold. Gold... born royalty. Rabbit was interesting. I had heard Wizard Rabbits were teleporters, extremely fast and dangerous in battle. Raphael would have disabled their teleporting abilities by keeping this Orb here.

The Orb of Darkest Night... Ray Fang Gold. Itched roughly into the stone next to his brass plate is Razor. It was a nickname, I didn't even realise that's where Raze must have originally came from. But his Orb is missing.

So, the wizards have Darkest Night back on their side – which explains why the Fangs were doing missions at night, not during the day. The wizards were strongest at night and were conducting their attacks then.

I did not feel any empathy for wizards as they were not human. They were weird apparitions of nature. They made human settlement anywhere near nature a major hazard. They also liked to kill humans for sport, especially travelling humans, so we needed our Fangs. Our shifter protectors and guardians acted as sheep dogs basically, keeping the evil in nature, out of our camps or remote farms. Wolves were the wizards' number one enemy and a special source of power. Wizards loved wolf skins. They also wore them after they killed a Fang.

Shifter's bones, fangs, furs and blood... pure gold to wizards. It fed their ability to live abnormally long lives. One Fang killed could get them another century of life.

I now wonder why they kept stealing Orb of Darkest Night right from under the Fangs noses. Did they have a betrayer in Fortitude, carrying it out of here?

Or did a wizard... hmm...

I look to the Orb of Rabbit.

Teleportation.

"Have you worked it out yet?"

I nearly jump out of my skin when Raphael speaks behind me.

I spin fast, barely keeping in a screech when I see his dark silhouette a few paces behind me. He is leaning on a stone pillar.

"Fuck me, I nearly died from fright," I hiss at him, hand over my heart.

Despite his surprise stalking of me into the Restricted Ordnance, I forget about our fight minutes ago in his office.

In this place, Raphael seems to have forgotten too. His grey eyes are shining in the dark, his wolf shifter genes give him great eyesight at night. Right now, he is staring at his Orb with a grim frown... in this moment, anyway, it's no longer about me.

"I just came to apologise," Raphael speaks to his Orb, catching me by surprise while not looking at me, "I'm not the same since... since my brother didn't come back. Two years. Still... no answers."

I ask tentatively, "...when you do your runs... have you seen a wizard wearing his...?"

"No," Raphael meets my gaze, "That's actually why he might be alive, Clary. It doesn't seem like any wizard took his fur – if he was dead I assure you they'd wear it everywhere like a trophy. And his fur is particularly brilliant, it's a striking silver. You can't miss it."