Free Free Agent by J. C. Nelson

the look in his wide eyes, and his face was pale for a wolf. Something had them frightened all right. I held up the shotgun like a wand. “Yeah, I’m an enchanter. Back off or I’ll turn you all into sausage.”
    He leaped six feet back in one smooth, graceful motion. With a single swing of his arm he smashed the wolf next to him in the head and tossed him toward me. “Enchant him. It was his idea.”
    I wasn’t going to bring up little details, like the fact that I had no magic ability, at the moment. We stood as tense seconds rolled by, then the leader growled. “You’ve got to the count of twenty. Either we eat him or you.” The wolves began to change. Arms grew shorter, mouths longer, and their smell—well, their smell stayed about the same. Wolves smelled like nursing homes and the entrails bucket at a slaughterhouse combined with cheap cologne.
    I tried to think of things I’d heard the help say, or the little rhymes they used to transform terrorists into toads and such, but I hadn’t paid that much attention. Fifth or sixth time you see someone turned into a toad it gets old. What came out would have made me the laughingstock of enchanters everywhere. In the trailer, pigs squealed and screamed in terror as wolf howls filled the air. I swept my arm back and forth and chanted.
    â€œThis little piggy made pork chops.
    This little piggy made ham.
    This little piggy made bacon.
    This little piggy made spam.
    This little piggy cried wee wee wee and got cut up for dog food.”
    With that, I threw the trailer gate open and let loose a blast with the shotgun. Pigs went everywhere.
    The wolves were mostly animal by now and reacted on pure instinct, chasing the pigs through the square. A wolf leaped on the first one and tore into it. The scent of blood drove them into a frenzy.
    I made a run for the building where I’d seen the hands. It isn’t hard to shoot off a lock, but there’s hardly ever reason to. This wasn’t designed to keep people from getting in. It was meant to keep them from going out. I pried open the rusty latch using the shotgun as a lever, opened the gate, and let a flock of kids gush out. Must have been eight of them in that tiny shed, the youngest maybe six, the oldest eleven.
    â€œRun for the van,” I said, and they did. I glanced inside and saw him. A child, a child who glowed in the darkness, and not with light. Magic. The tattoos on his face marked him as a fae child. The moment I saw him, I felt something snap into place between us, a feeling so powerful I dropped to one knee. I shivered as his fear washed through me. I couldn’t leave him.
    The screams of pigs filled the country air, and if we didn’t hurry we’d be adding ours to it. I kicked the door to get his attention. “Come on.”
    He looked at me and then back down. There’s this thing about the fae. You don’t ever touch them. For one, their touch can be deadly, or so I was told. The other problem of course was they considered us diseased and filthy.
    I stepped into the larder, ducking my head to fit, and approached him. I took a deep breath and put my hand on his back. It tingled like an electric fence, but my heart didn’t stop, so I took his hand and led him out, one step at a time.
    At the entrance I met a wolf and gave him my last shotgun shell. I knew I’d told everyone in the wolf village where I was. The fae child didn’t flinch at the gunshot. He looked at the gun as if it were curious and then looked up at me with those gray and white eyes. I tossed it on the ground and ran for the van.
    Billy had the good sense to open the van door, and most of the kids were in. A howl went up from one end of the village. The wolves had noticed my pantry raid. “Run,” I yelled to the child, but he continued his plod toward the van like he was sleepwalking.
    My gun carried the same wolf ammo we’d always used: silver, garlic,