Minerva stood next to Kat as Kat swept the box open.
"As they are saying," Kat said, grinning and standing up. She flipped around in her hands something surprisingly small and deadly and metal - something that looked to Minerva like it had come from the 21st century, not the 20th. It was short and stubby, with venting holes cut along the barrel in a pattern like a cheesegrater and a wooden stock that looked like it could fit snugly against a shoulder. "Bang bang soda pop."
She held the weapon out, one palm under the barrel, the other cradling the stock. "This is a
Maschinenpistole
18. MP-18, for short." She shifted her grip as, next to her, Gregory took one out and hefted it up in his hand, grinning eagerly. Minerva took the weapon with a gulp as Gregory held up a circular magazine, like something from an American gangster movie.
"I've seen these, their stormtroopers had them. Thirty two round detachable magazine - bitch to load, but it'll feed her for...not very long," he explained. "Sounds like a lot, but these will chew through ammo faster than you can possibly imagine."
She had held a killing tool before - but a wand could do a thousand other things. This weapon felt heavier. More portentous. She made sure to keep her finger off the trigger, despite the lack of the magazine, while Kat continued.
"We have twenty of them, with ammo to spare, the Red Witches...they would have been ready to fight. We? Not so much." she clicked her tongue, casually lowering her weapon.
"Whoa, missy! Don't point that at anyone!" He grabbed onto the barrel of the MP-18 that Gina had eagerly grabbed and aimed in the vague direction of Harry.
"It doesn't have any bullets-"
"That doesn't matter. You always treat guns as if they're loaded. Always." Gregory frowned. He shot Wolfe a look that the two seemed to share more intimately than anything Minerva and Kat had shared - something that made Minerva wonder if she should be jealous...or relieved. Kat turned back to face the collected wizards.
"Right. Well, point is, these guns shoot very quickly," she said. "But you will have a hard time learning to hit anything. Fortunately, we are having an advantage. The bad guys?" She grinned. "They are not going to be having many guns - and they are not going to be expecting us. So, you?" He gesture encompassed the rest of the wizards. Selene. Harry. Gina. Minerva. "You will be suppressing the bad guys."
Gregory nodded. "Suppressing is when you fire a hell of a lot of lead to make people keep their heads down. If they're too scared to stick their heads out, then the people who know what they're doing..." He gestured to himself and Kat. "We can get there and do what needs doing."
"You can also cast spells," Kat said. "I will be a little too busy focusing on the guns. But suppress, spells...that could be be very good, yes." She grinned, showing off her sharp little fangs. "But I do want us to practice on the guns. Reloading. Firing. To get you at least used to it. But we only have a few hours to go."
"Why don't we enchant the guns?" Selene asked, raising her hand. "Make it so they don't run out of ammo?"
"They experimented with that in the war," Minerva said, remembering her reading. "It doesn't work. You can make stuff
ex nihilo
, but it takes a lot of energy to make something as complex as a bullet - there's so much chemical energy in it, all of it comes from your calories and it's not the most efficient transformation." She frowned. "...wait, I have an idea!" She held up her hand and turned around, heading back up the stairs.
When she came back down, Kat had her friends in a line and was taking apart one of the machine pistols, showing them the parts, how they fit together, and then explaining how to clear a 'jam'. But then Minerva slammed down a small piece of paper, fetched from her very own broom and pressed before the whole lot of them.
"How do you figure these things out?" Kat asked. Minerva grinned.
"I'm afraid I must inform you that your girlfriend is either mad or a genius, Miss Wolfe," she said, beaming from ear to ear.
"Well, I was already knowing that," Kat said, grinning. "How does this work?"
"I had the idea last night, after..." Minerva coughed. "After I woke up and, uh, well, okay! It's very simple! The energy loss, it's the air. So, we just..." She knelt down, pointing at the scribbles she had put down. "We just don't convert
air
. We strap a box to the magazine area, full of lead and brass in the right mixtures, then we enchant the box so that the metal is turned into bullets, with the gunpowder being the only thing produced from air. Or, or, reverse it, we make it so the lead and the copper are made from thin air, and it is a box of gunpowder!" Her eyes shone excitedly. "Uh, how many bullets could, uh, say..." She did some quick scribbles of math, but before she could finish, Kat put her hand over her hand.
"Darling," she said. "It will always be far, far, far more bullets than any magazine. But if this works, why has no one else done it?"
"Why would anyone?" Harry asked. "Bullets are cheap. Magic is supposed to be secret. They couldn't hide magical magazines from the common soldiery - and, more, for all we know, they
are
experimenting with this very thing. The War MInistry has a lot of projects."
Minerva beamed. "Worth a shot?"
Kat frowned. "I suppose it is."
***
Minerva sat in the room upstairs, at her desk, with several bits of metal, fiddling with her wand, while outside, the crack crack crack of gunfire echoed across the quiet grounds. She leaned forward and focused everything on scrawling the glowing runes on the inside of the metal plates. Her plan was fairly simple, even if it'd take a hell of a lot out of her. She'd make the one magazine. Test it. Then she'd use a spell to duplicate it several times - which would be the most energy intensive part - the kind of thing that prevented most magical factories from just using duplication for scaling like this.
But while it'd fail at scaling up to armies, it would work just fine for a...what had Kat called it? A squad? Or a section? She had used both. Minerva wasn't sure which it was.
Kat drew her wand away from the metal sitting on the desk, looking at the glowing rune. She took one of the bullets sacrificed to her. Kat had already popped it apart with some tools, and the gunpowder waited to be poured out. Minerva held the bullet above the metal, breathing in.
"Almost done?"
She jerked so hard that the gunpowder dusted into the air. It tingled in her nose - sulfur and death alike. She sneezed, while Kat blanched and hurried into the room. Her trench wand glowed and she whispered a soft spell, flicking the wand tip so the grains of black powder that hung in the air clumped together, then whipped back into the casing.
"I'm so sorry!" she said, putting her hand on Minerva's shoulder.
"It's okay," Minerva said, rubbing her nose and sniffing slightly. "I...I didn't know I was so jumpy."
"It's the feeling in the air..." Kat said, her ears twitching. "When I'm not focusing on the mission, on the practice...I...I can feel it." She shivered. "Like a storm is coming." Her ears twitched up slightly - and they were lupine ears, unexpectedly jutting from her head. Her golden eyes flashed and Minerva put her hand on the back of her hand, squeezing. Feeling the faint bristle of hair.
"I felt it too," Minerva said. "The working's getting stronger."
"Maybe the Soviets can smell it too," Kat muttered. Then she clicked her tongue. "I doubt it. They're too far. By the time they feel it, it will be too late."
Minerva gulped. "Do..." She looked down at the metal plate. "Do you know what the curse will
do
. If we fail?"
Kat sighed. "No. But I can imagine."
Minerva rubbed her palms along her shoulders. She didn't want to imagine it.
Then Kat's hand slipped out from under Minerva's. She brushed her fingers through Minerva's hair and murmured, softly, softly.
"Now, what is
this?
"
Minerva froze, her cheeks heating. The fingertips of her lover pressed, claw-tip to dimple - against her vampire bite. The fur was growing thicker on Kat's hands now. The floorboards creaked as Minerva felt her lover growing larger behind her, the shadows casting across the table making her shiver in excitement. A muzzle glided against her ear, and Kat's rumbling, basy voice crooned into her ear like liquid chocolate.
"Minerva, were you going to tell me about how you said goodbye to the vampire?"
"H-Heh," Minerva said, her cheeks burning. "I didn't want to distract you. We don't have much time."
"We really don't." Paws pressed to Minerva's hands, pinning her to the desk as the heavy weight of furred, muscular woman ground against Minerva's back. Warm, wet, panting breath brushed against her ear. "How hard did she fuck you?"
"Real hard," Minerva whispered, shyly.
"Mmmmhmm." Kat licked her neck slowly. "Some might think you have a
taste
