"Thank you so much for this Ember," I said as I watched the werewolf pop the hood on my Jeep. "I realy appreciate your help."

  She shrugged, "It's no big deal. And no guarantee I'm actualy going to be able to do anything, but we'll see? If nothing else I might be able to figure out what's wrong. Or at least come up with some possibilities. And if you know ahead of time what's wrong that can save some money on repairs since you're not wasting time trying to diagnose the problem."

  "You won't get ripped off by them fixing stuff that's not broken either," she added with a scowl.

  When Jenna's friend texted an hour earlier to offer her services as a mechanic I jumped at the chance. I knew she might not be able to fix it, but I trusted her a lot more than some random guy at a body shop. Now it was about noon on Saturday and the wolfgirl showed up by herself with a bunch of tools and things in her backpack, all ready to dive in and get to work.

  With the hood up she had a quick look at the engine, then pulled some sort of handheld electronic device out of her backpack. It was made of a bright yellow pstic, with a dial and a digital screen on the front. A couple wires were wrapped around it, one red and one bck. She unwound them then propped the device on top of the engine and began poking away in the back with the two leads.

  "Battery's fine," she reported a moment ter. There was a frown on her face as she straightened up again, "That's weird, considering the whole vehicle seems dead. Even the simple stuff isn't working, like headlights and dome lights."

  My girlfriend suggested helpfully, "Maybe the battery just jiggled loose? Or are there wires? Maybe the wires came unplugged?"

  Ember chuckled, "The battery's bolted in pretty tight, so that's not the problem. And the terminals are bolted on as well, no unplugged wires there."

  "Could be some blown fuses," the werewolf added as she redirected her attention to the side of the engine compartment. "It's weird though for everything to be dead all at once? Like the lights, horn, ignition, they're all separate circuits..."

  Her voice trailed off as she popped open a bck pstic cover, then she started pulling out and examining the little automotive fuses one at a time. And as she did so her expression gradually shifted to a confused frown.

  She finally shook her head, "Ok this is beyond weird. Every single fuse is blown. That's... it shouldn't be possible. Even if you had some kind of serious short that'd just blow whatever circuit was affected. And ok multiple simultaneous shorts would pop a handful of fuses, but sooner or ter enough of them go and there's no more power. That'd protect the rest of them."

  "I literally can't think of any situation that would make every single fuse blow at once," Ember added as she looked up at me. "What the hell were you doing when this happened?"

  I grimaced and shrugged, "I was sitting at a red light. The engine was idling. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Then the light went green, I took my foot off the brake and the whole thing suddenly just died."

  The wolfgirl shook her head again, "Weird. There's no way for that to happen normally."

  "Of course in this town normal's a retive concept," she added. "If you wanted to instantly and completely disable a car, blowing all the fuses at once would sure do it. If someone had access to magic, it's probably not that difficult."

  She continued in a thoughtful tone, "You don't even need to be a gear head to know that'd do the trick either. In fact someone who knew both cars and magic would probably be a lot more elegant about it? This is just brute-force. Blow all the fuses at once, stop the car in its tracks."

  By that point I had another uneasy feeling in my stomach, and I turned to look at my girlfriend. "Jenna? Did you do anything with magic to try and keep me safe? Because if my car hadn't died when it did, I'd have been the one in that accident. The truck would have plowed into me, instead of those other people."

  My genie girlfriend bit her lip and shook her head, "I didn't. But now I'm thinking about it? I don't want to lose you Vikki, I don't know what I'd do without you."

  I pulled her into a hug and gave her a kiss then whispered, "I'm not going anywhere. Promise."

  She hugged and kissed me back, while Ember focused on the car engine again for now. And once my girlfriend and I finished with the hugging, the werewolf had something else to say.

  She lowered her voice though as she asked, "So if someone did use magic to kill your car st night, maybe their goal wasn't about keeping you safe?"

  Jenna and I shared an uncomfortable look then I asked, "What do you mean?"

  Ember kept her voice down as she shrugged, "This is some conspiracy-theory level specution, but maybe someone wanted the truck to hit that other car? Maybe they messed with your ride to keep you from getting in the way of their actual target."

  The uneasy feeling in my gut only got worse at that point. I frowned, "But why? And who'd do such a thing?"

  The wolfgirl hesitated, then gnced towards the house and half-whispered, "Maybe we should take the rest of this conversation inside?"

  "Anyways as near as I can tell there's nothing actually wrong with your Jeep," she added at normal volume. "Just repce the fuses and it should be good to go. You're looking at maybe twenty or thirty dolrs, and ten minutes of work. If you're not comfortable doing it yourself I can do it for you, once you get the new fuses."

  The sudden change of tone left my head spinning for a moment. I finally nodded, "Alright Ember. Thanks again for looking at my car. I might take you up on the offer, since I really don't know that much about this stuff. I'd be worried about getting the fuses in the wrong pce or something."

  "Anyways let's go inside, maybe I can offer you a drink or some lunch?" I added.

  "Lunch sounds great," Ember smiled. "Lemme just tidy up here first, then I'll be all set."

  She carefully wound up the red and bck leads around her yellow testing thing first, then closed the hood while I made sure the car was securely locked up. Finally the three of us headed into the house, but rather than going into the kitchen so I could make lunch Jenna steered her friend and I downstairs into the games room instead.

  "I'll take care of lunch," Jenna said as the three of us sat down at the card table. "Is burgers ok with everyone?"

  "Sounds good to me," the wolfgirl smiled.

  I nodded too, then with a flick of her wrist my girlfriend summoned up lunch. We each had a rge pte with a gourmet banquet burger, a pile of hand-cut fries, and a small sad. The burgers were thick home-made patties served on a fresh-baked pretzel-style bun. And they were topped with a couple slices of thick-cut maple bacon, and smothered in cheddar cheese. Finally each of us had a rge stemware gss full of ice-cold co.

  "Damn girl!" Ember excimed. "It's gonna take me a while to get used to that kinda thing. Thanks though, this smells awesome!"

  "Thank you love," I added with a smile.

  We all got started on our food, but after a minute or two I looked to our guest and asked, "So what was it you didn't want to talk about outside?"

  After another big bite of her lunch Ember replied, "I watched more of those video clips st night after I got home. Turns out I know who the little three-tailed foxgirl is."

  "I've never met her myself," she added after swallowing another mouthful of her burger, "But she's a friend of the wolfpack, same as Cassandra. Her name's Kaylee Holt, she's actually Cassandra's girlfriend. And she's not a normal foxgirl, she's actually a fox demon. Although most people wouldn't know that just from looking at her."

  The wolfgirl paused for a gulp of her co then continued, "Kaylee's also friends with our pack leader's youngest kid. She and Mallory both go to the same university, down in Mississauga. So she's pretty well known to the whole pack. Oh and one more thing. According to the news, the two humans that were in the car with Kaylee were her parents."

  I frowned, "So are you suggesting someone was going after the demon foxgirl? Or her family?"

  "And who would be stupid enough to try and attack a Goddess's girlfriend?" I added as my frown got even deeper.

  Ember sighed as she looked at my girlfriend, "Have you ever heard of a group called 'The Council'?"

  Jenna was munching on some fries but she shook her head, "Nope."

  "Who or what are they?" I asked our guest.

  The wolfgirl had another bite of her burger, then seemed to think about her answer as she chewed.

  A half minute ter she expined, "They're a bunch of self-appointed pricks who act like world police to the supernatural community. Hippocritical bastards, they use magic themselves, plus they've got money and influence. They're the main reason people like me and Ashley have to keep what we are hidden. According to Belinda, the Council wouldn't think twice about killing any of us if we tried to go public or got caught shifting or something."

  "Anyways with all the demi-humans popping up around town over the st year or so, a lot of us have been wondering how long it'd be before the Council got involved," Ember stated. "So maybe they were going after Kaylee Holt, thinking she was just another demi-human funting the Council's 'paranormal secrecy' rules. Maybe they arranged that accident as a warning to other demi-humans?"

  Our guest paused for a gulp of her soda then shrugged, "The other possibility is the Council were going after Kaylee's parents for some reason? If they know she's a demon maybe they think her folks corrupted her. Or maybe they think they're not even her parents, maybe they think the humans summoned a fox demon from somepce and they're just calling her their daughter. All I know is using magic to try and kill a very public supernatural like that is exactly the sort of crap the Council's known for."

  "People like the Council are the reason my kind don't trust humans," she added with a sigh.

  I gnced at my girlfriend, but it seemed like neither of us knew what to say to all that. Not right away at least. After a few seconds to process all of it I finally responded, "If this council group really did try and target that foxgirl, I have a feeling they just made a huge mistake. I can only assume they had no idea they were messing with a Goddess's girlfriend."

  "Not just any goddess," Jenna added. "An impossible demon goddess."

  My genie ate another of her fries then grimaced, "If this 'council' of yours really tried to hurt the demon goddess's girlfriend, and they really are just a bunch of annoying humans, I dont think they're going to be around to threaten you and your packmates much longer."

  Ember was partway through taking another bite of her burger just then, but she froze and her eyebrows shot up. She ended up staring at my girlfriend with a surprised but thoughtful expression as she munched on her food.

  After she was done the werewolf asked warily, "You really think Cassandra could take out the entire Council? Or that she would? I know she's supposed to be powerful, I thought she was a demon and you keep calling her a goddess. But we see her all the time at college, she just looks like any other shy quiet teen girl."

  Jenna shrugged, "I don't know anything about this council. I'm just saying, if they're humans and they're picking a fight with a demon goddess, then they've started a fight they're not going to win."

  "Huh," Ember frowned. "Maybe I'll try and ask some other packmates if they've heard anything. Half the pack are talking about it anyways. With all the videos and everything from st night it's probably going to be big news for a while yet."

  My girlfriend shrugged again then changed the subject, "If we can get a bunch of new fuses would you be able to fix Vikki's car now?"

  Her friend nodded, "Yeah sure. You can get that kind of thing in the hardware store in the big box mall off First Street. Like I said it's less than ten minutes work to repce them all. It'll take longer to walk to the store and back than it will to swap the fuses."

  "Is this what you need?" Jenna asked with a hopeful smile, as she held up a rge rectangur pstic container. It was the kind that had a bunch of smaller internal compartments, and according to the bel on the lid it contained 'over one hundred assorted automotive fuses'.

  Ember's eyes widened then she ughed, "Like I said Jenna, it's gonna take a while before I get used to that!"

  "And yeah that looks perfect," the wolfgirl added. "Should be everything we need in that kit. I'll take care of the Jeep as soon as we're done lunch."

  My girlfriend grinned, "Great! Thanks Ember, you're awesome!"

  PurpleCatGirl