Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 3) (16 page)

“The thief stole it from the new town hall,” Dal said.

“Which we only know because he didn’t have time to steal or destroy anything else from there,” Alex said, glaring at the stupid crown. “We didn’t figure out anything. We don’t know what items on the other lists are related to this one. We don’t know why the thief wanted the crown. And we don’t know how to stop him. We’ve been sitting here all these hours for
nothing
.”

“We will figure it out,” Logan assured her.

“Not by sitting here.” Alex jumped up and began to pace. After all that sitting, pacing felt good. Fighting the thief would have felt even better. “Staring at these lists makes my head hurt. We need to get back out in the field. We need to get more info and we need to do it in a hands-on way, not by sitting on our hands.”

“With a sword?” Dal asked, amused.

“Yes. Swords are reliable, and when you swing one, you feel like you’re actually accomplishing something.”

Tony laughed out loud. “You and Sera are definitely sisters.”

“Yes we are.”

Alex’s phone buzzed. She reached for it with eager desperation. Maybe it was a monster attack. The possibility made her feel downright giddy.

She glanced at the screen. “It’s an alert from Monster Cleanup. Bodies are rising from their graves at the cemetery. They want us to check it out.”

* * *

Logan wanted to take his car, but a race car wasn’t a practical choice for five people, especially when four of those five were big guys who’d definitely been eating their spinach. Callum offered to let Alex sit on his lap, a suggestion Logan met with cold, stony silence.

In the end, they decided to take the commandos’ SUV. It was big enough to fit the five of them without any squishing—or sitting on laps. Tony was in the driver’s seat, moving toward the cemetery at speeds that would give Logan a run for his money. Callum rode shotgun, occasionally using magic to nudge traffic out of their path. Alex sat between Logan and Dal in the back seat. She peered out the window, watching the sunny day zip by.

When they reached the cemetery, Tony just pulled up onto the sidewalk and parked. That elicited chuckles from his two companions.

“It’s Kai’s influence,” Dal commented.

“There’s nowhere else to park,” said Tony.

Callum nodded. “That’s what Kai always says.”

“You guys can debate this later,” Alex told them. “After we’ve taken care of the rising bodies. If someone complains, we’ll tell the police officer that it was a monster emergency. Monster Cleanup even has stickers for this.” She pulled one of those stickers out of her pocket and stuck it to the inside of the windshield.

“You use these stickers when you have a smoothie emergency,” Logan said, opening the car door.

The commandos laughed.

“Come on, you laughing hyenas,” Alex said, grabbing her sword as she slid out of the car after Logan.

Outside, it was warm and the birds’ voices were raised in song. Sunshine streamed down from the sky, bathing the trees in a halo of golden light. It was like a scene out of a fairytale. Princess Paranormal Vigilante and the Woodland Graveyard. It had a nice ring to it.

“What a beautiful day for bodies to rise from the grave,” she commented, much to the amusement of the commandos.

They ran through a passage between twin stone gates. Strange monster statues sat atop each of the gate’s pedestals. As Alex passed by, she squinted up at them, trying to figure out what they were. People? Lions? Some bizarre monster mashup of the two?

Alex sped up to take the lead, following the stone path. An eerie magic hung over the graveyard. It felt like ants crawling up and down her skin. A cold, biting chill that had nothing to do with the weather cut through her, making her teeth chatter. She wanted nothing more than to turn and run away from that sick, repulsive magic, but she had to track it. She knew it would lead her to the walking corpses.

She turned off the path, cutting through the grass to enter a little slice of forest. There were no birds chirping here. It was too quiet. Unnatural. The only sounds were the slush of their feet against the wet grass and soggy mulch.

 
The magic was stirring, growing more potent. It smelled like decaying bodies. Which is what this was. Between the trees, Alex caught a glimpse of some dead bodies lumbering around in heavy, stiff steps. Some of the bodies were hardly more than walking skeletons. Others were fresher, riper; those ones still had flesh. Sallow, rotting skin hung from their bones. Red lights gleamed in their eyes, but there was no intelligence behind those eyes. There was no thought or life in their magic. There was only death and hunger. Zombies.

A scream pierced the silence. A terrified woman cut through the trees, fleeing in terror from the zombies. The monsters took chase. Just like with the ghosts last night, a dark and sinister magic was controlling the zombies, moving them around like puppets.

Alex ran for them, Logan and the commandos right behind her. She swung her sword at the horde, cutting off the hand of a zombie reaching for the human woman. The severed hand dropped to the ground. The woman looked at the zombie, then at Alex. A shrill scream pierced her lips and then she ran faster. That was appreciation for you.

“You’re welcome,” she called out after the fleeing woman.

Alex turned to stare down the zombie horde. She swung her sword again, separating a zombie from its head. The ugly skull of rotting skin rolled across the grass. Logan and the commandos jumped into the fray, their blades cutting through the zombies like a hot knife through butter. The zombies were falling, and they weren’t even putting up much of a fight. They were complete lightweights. They didn’t even reanimate like the ones at Monster Lake.

I’m really liking this. They’re not even fighting back,
Alex told Nova as she tore through the last zombie.

And that’s when the field of severed body parts decided to blow up all over her. Alex tried to run, but she just wasn’t fast enough to evade the detonating zombies. Covered in foul fluids and decay, she emerged from the danger zone, stopping in front of Logan and the commandos as the final body exploded.

“It’s just not fair,” she told them, kicking a skeletal hand off of her leg. Unlike her, the guys were mostly untouched by zombie bits.

“That happened because you had to be in the thick of things,” Callum told her.

“You’re probably right.” Alex sighed. “Come on. Let’s set these zombie parts on fire before they decide to rise again.”

She didn’t think it likely. The magic controlling them had dissipated, but you never knew what monster would strike next. And the last thing she needed right now was to have body parts rise up and try to grab her leg while she was fighting a new beast.

“What about Monster Cleanup?” Dal asked. “Shouldn’t you let them take care of this?”

“I’ll leave them a message to check out the scene,” Alex said. But she was not waiting around for them smelling like that. Even her iron stomach was starting to moan in protest. She needed a shower asap.

So she and Callum went around, using magic to set the zombies’ remains on fire. By the time they were through, there was nothing of the zombies left. Well, besides what was stuck to Alex. She should have brought a spare set of clothes. And a whole tub of body wash.

When no more monsters tried to attack them, they turned and left the cemetery.

* * *

Tony drove them back home. The stench in the car was bad. Like vomit-inducing bad. They rode with all of the windows rolled down. As they pulled inside the gate, Alex saw that Kai’s big, black SUV was back in front of the house.

“That’s one big car,” Alex commented.

“Sera calls it Kai’s tank,” Tony said.

Alex nodded in agreement. “It truly is.”

Tony parked behind the tank, then they all hopped out of the car as fast as they could. They left the windows rolled down. Alex was pretty sure it was hopeless anyway. The only thing that would get the stench of zombies out of the car was that green fire—which would also melt the car into a crinkled clump of metal.

“Just add that to the list of problems I have no solutions for,” Alex muttered to herself, entering the house.

Sera and Kai were sitting in the living room. She was reading a book on magical herbs. He was reading something on his computer. They looked up.

“Wow oh wow, is that a ripe smell coming off of you,” Sera commented. “And what is that all over you?”

“A bunch of zombies exploded in my face,” Alex told her.

Sera’s face twisted in disgust. “Yuck.”

“Tell me about it. A horde of dead bodies decided it was so nice today that they would celebrate by rising from their graves to terrorize the local population.”

Tony looked up from his phone. “Actually, the zombies were just a distraction. While we were busy fighting them, someone broke into a vault deeper inside the cemetery and stole something out of it.”

“A distraction?” Alex repeated in disbelief, frowning down at her ruined clothes. “My getting blown up on was a distraction?”

“Do they know what was stolen?” Logan asked.

“Yes,” Tony said. “There was only one thing kept in that vault, a pendant worn around the neck of the fairy buried there. It’s gone now.”

“So our thief has struck again,” said Alex. “The magic binding the zombies was the same as the magic binding the ghosts that attacked me and Logan last night. The thief can control zombies too. Great.”

“What do we know about this pendant?” Logan asked Tony.

Tony turned his phone to show them a photo of a silver pendant with a large ruby as the center stone. “The ruby is a magic stone that’s supposed to be like a war cry, infuriating people’s magic, revving them up for battle. It’s called the Hellfire Ruby.”

“The crown the thief stole is also a fairy artifact,” Alex remembered. “Maybe there’s a connection.”

“I’ll send you the information.”

Two seconds later, Alex’s phone buzzed in her pocket. “It sure is nice having connections. Just a few months ago, to get my hands on a report like this, I would have had to steal it.”

Kai snapped his computer shut. “Let’s go,” he told the commandos. “The summit is reconvening in under an hour. We need to head back over there now.”

The commandos waved at Alex, inclined their heads in an appropriately manly manner to Logan, then followed Kai into the hallway. Sera stood up.

“Good luck,” she told Alex. “Also—and I’m only saying this because I love you—take a shower, Alex. Now.”

“Not a fan of zombie perfume?” Alex asked her.

Sera waved her hand in front of her face, then plugged her nose.

Alex grinned at her. “Get going before your boyfriend leaves you here.”

“See you later, Alex,” Sera said with a smirk. Then she turned and walked toward the exit.

When they were alone again, Alex looked at Logan and said, “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Good.”

Haha. Everyone was a comedian today. Alex hurried up the stairs. Yeah, the stench was bothering her too.

As soon as she was in the bathroom, she peeled off her clothes and stuffed everything into a plastic bag. She tied the bag shut, put another plastic bag around that and tied it shut too. Then she tossed the whole stinky bundle into the garbage can.

That was how you contained monster smells—well, at least until you could take out the garbage. She wasn’t even going to bother trying to save those clothes. They were a lost cause. She would never get all that blood and decay out of them.

Alex stepped into the shower, thinking about the alarming rate at which she was going through clothes. She really needed to go shopping with Sera. If things ever settled down, she’d do just that.

She laughed. Who was she kidding? Things would never settle down. She couldn’t wait for a lull in the chaos. The next time she and Sera were together during opening hours, she would grab her sister and head straight for the mall.

Alex turned the lever, and water poured down. It was instantly hot. Whatever magic water-heating system this house had, she wanted one for herself. Instant hot water was almost as good as chocolate.

She inhaled deeply, breathing in the steam. The water hit her skin, punching heat through her body. Heavenly. Absolutely heavenly. She drew in another deep breath and grabbed her bottle of body wash. The sweet scent of lilac battled the yucky stench of decay. Alex kept scrubbing and applying, over and over again. Eventually, the lilac began to gain the upper ground. She scrubbed on, determined to vanquish the stench.

As her sponge rubbed harder and harder against her skin, her vision blurred. She blinked and saw Logan. His body was rubbing hard against hers. She blinked again. He was on top of her, looking down on her, desire burning in his eyes. Her sponge dipped lower. She held her breath for a second, then slid it between her legs.

Her vision flashed. Fires were everywhere. Purple flames raged high and hot, burning people and buildings to ashes. The sponge slipped from Alex’s fingers. She saw blood. Death. Her friends were dying terrible, painful deaths. Sera. Her sister was wounded, bleeding everywhere. Alex stood over her, a sword raised in her hand. She swung it down on Sera.

Alex stumbled, hitting the glass wall of the shower. Hands caught her from behind, steadying her before she could fall. Water mixing with her tears, she looked back to find Logan there.

“It’s ok,” he said in soothing whispers into her ear. “You’re safe.” He held her tightly.

“Everything was burning. There was blood everywhere. People were dying. So many people. My sister.” Her voice gurgled in her throat. “I killed Sera. I swung my sword and killed my sister.”

“It was just a nightmare,” Logan said. “I heard you screaming.”

His face was perfectly calm, but Alex could see right through him. Every emotion pulsed through the magic bond that bound them together. He was scared. Shit, her cool and calculating assassin was scared.

“A waking nightmare,” Alex said, trembling. “I wasn’t asleep this time. I’m not even sure these are dreams. They feel so real. Like visions.”

“Is that a Dragon Born power?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t found anything in the book that mentions visions. I need to keep looking. I need to find out what this is.” She clenched her fists. “Before I go insane. If it’s not already too late for me.”