Fairy Magic (4 page)

She joined him, hacking at the beasts. Even between the two of them, they were losing against the onslaught. With every strike, every blow, they lost ground—until their backs were pressed up against the mountain.

“You need to throw me,” she said. “If I can get high enough, I’ll be able to hit the whole pack with Fairy Dust.”

“That won’t work against them.” He waved his hand, casting a fire barrier between them and the beasts. “I told you. Hell leeches magic.”

He indicated the flames, which were already dipping. They wouldn’t last another minute. But if hell drained magic, why did she feel more powerful than ever here? She could feel her magic bubbling inside of her, longing to get out. She wound it up and released a blast of Fairy Dust that lit up the night sky. It crackled through the air like a pink comet, slamming hard into one of the beasts. A whimper broke its lips, then it went down. The dragon man turned to her in surprise.

“It works,” she told him.

“That shouldn’t have worked.”

“It worked against the beast men on the Fire Plains,” she said. “Now throw me so I can hit these fiends of hell from above.” She smirked at him. “Or are you afraid you can’t lift me?”

His gaze slid down her body like liquid lightning. “You weigh nothing,” he said, giving her a wicked smile. “Like a flower. Of course I can lift you.”

His hands locked around her hips. He was close, so close that her nose burned with his scent. He smelled of forest fires and primal threats, of forbidden secrets and scaled armor. He smelled of dragon.

He lifted her from the ground, tossing her into the air like she really did weigh nothing. As she soared over the hellhounds, she rained down a deluge of Fairy Dust upon them. As one, the beasts froze, then dropped.

“Who are you?” he asked as she landed amidst the sleeping beasts.

“Naomi.” She extended her hand. “And you?”

“You may call me Your Majesty.”

Haha. “A bit full of yourself, aren’t you?” She snorted.

“I was the First Prince of the Pacific in my time,” he said with regal grace. Well, it was nice to see the dragon could act princely. Those manners must come in handy whenever he needed to convince his dinner to hop into his mouth.

“By First Prince of the Pacific, you mean…”

“The Pacific Ocean was my territory.”

“That’s an impressive territory.”

“I know.” A hint of smugness touched his lips.

“Ok, Your Majesty, just how long have you been here?”

“Since the 14
th
century.”

Whoa. “And do you know how long ago that was?”

“Of course.” He looked offended. “Roughly seven hundred years.”

“You don’t talk like you came from seven hundred years ago. Shouldn’t you be using more ‘thou’s and ‘thine’s?”

He sighed. “This place is hell, not a time vacuum, Naomi. Time passes here, and the world evolves just as it does on earth. We have a constant influx of people from your side.”

“The dead.”

“Not only the dead. The nine circles of the spirit realm are linked to the earth. Each realm influences the others. The boundaries between realms—so rigid to most people—are fluid to ghosts. Hell is full of them and of spirits too.”

“Spirits cannot leave the spirit realm,” she said.

“No, but they can pass between the nine circles as though the veils do not exist.”

“And the demons?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Thankfully, demons don’t come to the second circle. The conditions don’t agree with them. Too cold.”

Naomi wiped the sweat from her brow. He watched her closely.

“Too cold for the demons,” he said. “Their raw forms don’t do well outside the core three circles of hell. They are too weak here, and they can’t take hosts in the spirit realm to shield them from the cold. Only on earth can they invade a host’s mind. Here in hell, they must force their will upon people through fear alone.”

“What of the lesser demons?” Naomi asked. “I’ve read they can survive in the upper circles of the spirit realm.”

“Indeed they can.”

He pointed at a pair of creatures poking the hellhounds with their long, spidery fingers. Each one looked like a large house cat with alien paws, a spiked tail, bat-like wings, and the voice of a mermaid. Gurgled purrs buzzed across their rippled fur.

“What are those?” Naomi asked.

“Some of the lesser demons you mentioned,” he said.

She gasped as the two cats bit into one of the hellhounds.

“These are not demons as most people think of them. They cannot possess people and therefore never make it out of hell.”

“Then how can they be demons?” she asked.

“They share something with all other demons: they are native to this realm, so their magic does not fade over time. And unlike the otherworldly, they are corporeal beings.”

One of the demon cats looked up from the hellhound it was devouring, its red eyes pulsing as they met Naomi’s. She reached for her sword.

“You won’t need that,” the dragon prince said, catching her hand. “They only feed on creatures native to the spirit realm.”

Naomi dropped her hand from her sword. “Ok, as you say, Prince Pacific.”

“That is not an appropriate address,” he said. “The Pacific was my dynasty’s territory, not my name.”

Naomi folded her fingers together and smiled at him. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I’m just a troublesome twenty-first century girl.”

“Women have been trouble in every century,” he said. “It’s hardly a twenty-first century phenomenon.”

“Funny.”

He dipped his chin. “You are puzzling.”

“I think you mean enigmatic,” she said with a smirk.

He returned her smirk. “Or perhaps I meant puzzling, just like I said.” He slid his foot through her shadow. “You have a shadow. You have magic. Most people here don’t have either. Hell eats magic. People don’t age here. They just lose their magic over time.”

“What about the beast men of the Fire Plains?”

“Those mages have some magic. They draw it from the beasts native to the spirit realm.” He turned toward the trees. “Come on. We must move. More beasts are coming.”

She turned to follow him, but her feet wouldn’t move. Something hard slammed into her, and she fell. Her hands scraped against raw pavement. She looked up, her eyes blinking, trying to adjust.

She was back on the street where she’d fought the dark fairy. Back on earth. But the dark fairy was gone. A piece of pale yellow paper floated on the tails of his dispersing magic. She snatched it out of the air, flipping it over to read the text written in crimson ink.

“Hybrids,” she read. And right below the word, printed in a smaller font, was an address in Munich.

CHAPTER FOUR

Magic Meetup

NAOMI HAD THE eerie feeling that someone was following her. Admittedly, after what she’d just been through it might have just been her shaky nerves. Taking a trip to hell and then back again could do that to a person.

But just in case she wasn’t completely losing her mind, she kept her hand on the hilt of her sword as she walked toward her car. Shadows shifted all around her like she was caught in a house of horrors. Leather soles scraped against the crumbled dust of age-old cobblestone. The air stank of gasoline and rubber. A gust of wind rippled across the back of her neck. Naomi pivoted around, drawing her sword as she spun. She expected to find monsters or dark fairies or even hellhounds. She didn’t expect a trio of friendly faces.

“Nice draw, Naomi,” Callum commented, winking as he nudged her blade aside with two of his fingers.

Behind him stood two other men, Tony and Dal. Tall, broad, and coiled with hard muscle, the three mages looked like an elite military team ready to infiltrate an enemy stronghold. It was no wonder Naomi’s friend Sera called them ‘the commandos’. They packed quite a magical punch too. Even though they looked tough on the outside, inside they were as sweet as angel food cake. Ok, maybe more like a tart cherry pie. Those commandos had a wicked sense of humor.

Naomi sheathed her sword and swooped in to hug them. “Sorry, guys. I thought you might be that dark fairy again.”

“Dark fairy?” Dal asked, his dark eyebrows lifting.

“Yeah, some weirdo cast creepy magic on me. It made me see…” She shook her head. “Never mind. What are you guys doing here?”

Like Naomi, the commandos lived in San Francisco, but their work for Drachenburg Industries, the world’s largest magical research company, brought them all over the globe.

“We’re here for the Magic Council summit,” Tony said. “Kai and Sera are here too. We just landed. They’re still on the plane.”

Kai Drachenburg’s plane, he meant. Sera’s boyfriend had his own plane. Not that he needed it. He was a mage with the power to shift into a dragon. He could fly anywhere he wanted.

“They sent us ahead to find you,” Tony continued. “Sera sensed you were in trouble. She said your magic felt strange. Distorted somehow.” He met her gaze, his eyes gleaming with calm, kind intelligence. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she told him. “But that dark fairy… He sent me to hell, I think.”

“Hell?” Tony asked.

“Yes.”

Callum patted her on the back. “Well, at least you made it back,” he said with a smile.

Dal and Tony nodded. They’d all been through so much together that they didn’t even miss a beat. They didn’t think she was crazy either. If a portal to hell decided to open up in front of them, vomiting out beasts, they’d deal with that too—while dishing out a few snarky comments, of course. Battle banter. And in-between battle banter. That’s what made the commandos awesome.

“So, where are Kai and Sera planning on staying while in Munich?” Naomi asked them.

“Sera wants to stay with her sister,” Tony said. “We heard you guys are renting a house nearby. Is there room for all of us?”

Naomi laughed. “It’s more like a Gothic castle than a house, but yeah, there’s plenty of space. You’re welcome to stay with us.”

Tony pulled out his phone, presumably to message Kai. His fingers darted across the screen with the dexterity of a professional video game player. “What do you say, guys?” he asked the other commandos. “Can we beat them there?”

“Well, considering how they were looking at each other when we left, yeah, I think so,” Dal said.

Callum snickered.

“The real question, boys, is whether you can beat
me
back to the house,” Naomi told them.

“Is that a challenge?” Tony asked, sliding his phone into his pocket.

“You bet it is.”

“Then may the best man win,” he said and held out his hand.

Naomi shook it. “Or woman,” she replied with a wink.

“We parked next to a little silver convertible with a flowery sticker on the gas cap that reads ‘Fairy Powered’.” Callum’s lower lip twitched. “We figured it was your car.”

“You guessed right.” She extended her hand down the dark and creepy street. “Shall we?”

Defying all odds, nothing attacked them as they walked to their cars. Naomi figured she had the three giant men walking beside her to thank for that. The creatures of the night sure hadn’t been shy so far tonight.

When Naomi reached her car, she laughed at the big, black SUV parked behind it. “Hey,” she said, turning to the commandos. “The FBI wants their car back.”

“I would have preferred something a tad sleeker,” Tony said, sliding his hand across the glossy black surface of the SUV. “But I thought we might need the extra space. The last time we worked with Sera, we found ourselves hauling dead bodies.”

Naomi laughed. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

“Probably not.”

“Ok,” Naomi said. “My sleek race car versus your fat SUV.” She smirked at the commandos. “Want to just give up now, boys?”

“That’s not a real sports car,” Callum said.

“Sure it is. It has racing stripes.” She patted the stripes on the car. “Plus, it can navigate those ridiculously narrow European streets. Your vehicle is built to roll over the outback.”

“Or vampires,” Dal commented.

Naomi arched a brow at him.

“You probably don’t want to know about that one either,” Callum told her.

Naomi sighed. “I’m gone for a few weeks, and you all get delusions of grandeur.” She hopped into her Audi TT. Convertibles did have their perks. “Ok, boys. Ready?”

The commandos flashed her delighted grins.

“Try not to hit any stop signs along the way,” she told them, starting up her engine. “On three. One…”

The commandos climbed into their car.

“Two…”

Their engine roared to life like a bear awakened from its winter sleep. Before she said ‘three’, the SUV shot past her, the commandos’ roaring laughter streaming out of the open windows.

“Cheaters!” she shouted at them, hitting the gas pedal to catch up.

But this wasn’t their first race. Tony had positioned the fat SUV between both lanes, blocking her off. The streets were so narrow that even her skinny car didn’t have space to pass them.

“So, you want to play it like that, do you?” she muttered. “Fine.”

Turning up her music, she shot down a one-way street. She zigzagged from side street to side street. A dozen sharp turns later, she returned to the main road, pulling ahead of the commandos. As the stoplight turned yellow, she hit the gas pedal to speed through the intersection, waving her hand at the black SUV parked at the red light.

Adrenaline and a healthy dose of wicked glee carried her all the way back home to the big Gothic castle.

* * *

Naomi pulled up to the castle’s gate right behind a big yellow van from Wizard House Pizza. She hoped Alex had ordered a lot of pizza. She was starving. Those handfuls of bar peanuts had done nothing to curb her hunger.

“I’ll take the pizzas,” Naomi said, giving the pizza guy a big smile.

He turned away from the doorbell, looking relieved to be returning to his van. Somewhere not too far away, a wolf howled into the night. Or was that a werewolf? Giving Naomi a shaky smile, the gangly pizza guy shoved the stack of six pizza boxes into her arms. As soon as she paid him, he jumped back into his van and sped away, his tires spitting up a cloud of gravel. Naomi set the boxes into the passenger seat, pressed the remote to open the security gate, then drove inside.