The Forbidden Howl

13. Put The Spell On Me

Dane's POV.

It's the weekend. After a quick meeting with the border patrol, I drive three hours to the east to a remote hut.

I walk into the hut and an old lady exclaims from inside, "Dane!"

She comes to me and hugs me tightly. I return the hug.

"It's good to see you. Come, come, take a seat." She grabs my hand and takes me to the dining table.

"So, what do you want? tea or coffee?"

"Coffee."

She is happily making the coffee on the kitchen counter and tells me, "you know, I knew. I knew you would come today. I had a feeling."

"Only a feeling? Didn't the crystal ball tell you that?" I joke.

Quinn is an old witch I've known since I was a kid. She has been a part of my pack ever since I could remember. She prefers to live in this remote place, away from the main land. She tells us it helps her concentrate.

"Here." She places a cup of hot coffee in front of me. I take a sip. It's delicious.

"So, how's your dad?"

"He's doing great."

"Of course he is. Soon his boy will take over all the pack responsibilities and he'll have an early retirement."

I laugh. "Oh, I don't think he's the retiring type."

She laughs and says, "true. He'll go insane if he can't work even for a day."

We talk some more and I fill her in with everything that's happening in the main land.

I visit her whenever I've the time. When I was a kid, my dad forced me to come here telling me that as a future leader of our pack she's my responsibility. That I should check on her time to time. She doesn't have a family.

But over time, I started coming here on my own. I enjoy our talk.

I'm not close with women in general. They remind me of my mother. But Quinn has been an exception.

Eventually, I tell her, "so Quinn, I've a question."

"What is it son?"

"Is there any way someone can become immune to a witch's spell?"

"Immune?"

"Yeah, like, from a spell that freezes their body, stops them from moving, or a spell that causes pain."

She presses her lips together in deep thought. I patiently wait.

"Well... it's impossible," she says and my heart sinks. "But not for you."

I raise my eyebrows. "Me?"

"Yes.

You see, we've something called 'Larak.' It's when a witch casts a protection spell on something or someone and the magic gets its energy not from the witch but from the host: the object or the person the spell was cast on.

Protection spells are inefficient in general. A constant protection against all threats will start to deplete the energy of the witch who cast that spell and might even break the protection spell itself.

This is why witches use larak. They cast the spell in a way that the magic derives its energy from the host they've cast the spell on.

Typically, larak is performed on inanimate objects. Objects with high spiritual energies because of their importance to someone. This keeps the object from being destroyed.