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~*~

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An excerpt from

Fairy Metal
Thunder

(Songs of Magic, Book
1)

by J.L. Bryan

Fairy Metal Thunder
is the story of a
teenage garage who steal magical instruments from the fairy world
and use them to become rock stars.

Saturday night, Jason sat at home in his
living room, his guitar in his lap, trying to pick out the music
for “Angel Sky,” the song he'd written for Erin. He was having
trouble getting the music and lyrics to flow together.

His mother had dragged his father to a
collectible ceramics convention in Minneapolis, an hour away, and
they still weren't back.

“
Jason?” Katie asked. His
little sister stood in the doorway of the living room in her Bert
and Ernie pajamas.

“
What is it,
Katie?”

“
Um...” She fidgeted,
looking nervous.

“
What's wrong? You should
be sleeping.”

“
I know, but...there's a
monster.”

Jason sighed and put his guitar down. “Did
you have a bad dream?”

“
It's not a dream! I saw
it go into Mom and Dad's room.”

“
If it's not in your room,
you don't have anything to worry about.”

“
But I could be next!”
Katie looked terrified.

“
You're completely safe,
Katie. There's no monster.”

“
Is too!”

“
Okay.” Jason stood up and
stretched. “Let's go check it out. I’ll show you there's nothing to
be scared of.”

“
Thanks, Jason.” She took
his hand as he walked toward the steps, something she hadn't done
in a couple of years. She really was frightened.

They walked upstairs and to the end of the
short hall in their split-level house. Katie stayed back, clinging
to the frame of her bedroom door, while Jason approached the master
bedroom.

“
See, Katie?” he said.
“Mom and Dad’s door is still closed. How could a monster get into
their room?”

“
He just went puff,” Katie
said.

“
He went puff, huh?” Jason
said. He had no idea what that meant, but Katie had a very busy
imagination.

Jason pushed open the door to his parents'
room and glanced inside. “See, Katie, there's no....”

But Jason
had
seen something. He
looked again.

There it was—a small creature, about two
feet high, standing on his parents' dresser. It looked like a tiny
person, dressed in a ratty, dirty wool overcoat, with a woolen cap
pulled low over its eyes. Its pudgy green hands pawed through his
mother's jewelry box. Jason watched the creature drop a pair of
ruby earrings into a pocket of its coat.

“
Hey!” Jason
said.

The little creature jumped and spun around
to face him. Its face was green and ugly, with an underbite, its
eyes big and yellow under the low bill of the cap.

“
What are you?” Jason
asked.

The thing growled a little, then disappeared
in a puff of green smoke. It reappeared in the space in front of
the dresser, near the bottom drawer, and landed on its feet, which
were clad in small, badly cracked leather shoes. It ran across the
carpet to the window. It disappeared in another green puff, then
reappeared standing on the windowsill.

“
Stop!” Jason yelled.
“Give that back!”

The little creature stuck out its dark green
tongue at Jason, then disappeared with another puff of smoke. It
reappeared on the little ledge outside the window, waved at Jason
with a smile full of yellow, crooked teeth, and then hopped out of
sight.

“
Hey!” Jason ran to the
window and opened it. He saw the creature blink in and out of
visibility as it tumbled to the back yard, leaving a trail of green
smoke fading in the air.

Jason hurried out of his parents' room, past
Katie, who was crouching behind her door, poking out her head.

“
Did you see the monster?”
she whispered.

“
Don't worry, I chased it
away.” Jason started down the steps. “But it stole some jewelry
from Mom. I'll go get it back.”

Katie stepped out of her room and walked to
the top stair.

“
Can I come?” she
asked.

“
No, Katie! Wait here.
I'll be right back.”

“
But I want to come with!”
Katie crossed her arms and pouted.

“
No! I'm serious,
Katie.”

Jason ran through the living room and out
onto their concrete slab of a patio. He saw the little green man
trampling through a flower bed at the edge of the yard. The
creature reached the neighbor's split-rail fence and puffed through
it.

Jason raced to the fence and leaped over.
When his shoes hit the ground, the creature turned its green face
to look back at him, snarled, and put on speed. It puffed in and
out of sight, jumping forward about a foot each time.

Jason hurried to keep up as the creature
shot forward across his neighbor's lawns. The little thing could
move fast, but Jason had much longer legs than it did, and he
gained on the creature.

He was determined to catch it, and not just
to recover his mother's stolen earrings. If this little monster was
the one who'd been stealing jewelry all over town, then it might
have Erin's necklace, too. Jason could already imagine how happy
Erin would be when Jason returned it to her.

He chased the creature into Mrs. Gottfried's
yard, which was full of toy windmills and fake plastic birds. Jason
caught up with it and reached one hand down to grab the creature by
the scruff of its neck. Then the creature disappeared in another
green puff, and Jason realized too late that the little monster had
led him directly toward a low stone bench. Jason was running too
fast to stop.

His shins cracked into the bench, and Jason
spilled forward, falling among a family of plastic ducks.

Ahead of him, the little creature turned and
laughed, revealing its crooked yellow teeth again. Its laughter
sounded like a hyena.

By the time Jason scrambled to his feet, the
green creature was across Mrs. Gottfried's lawn and puffing its way
across the main road outside Jason's neighborhood.

Jason chased him through three more
neighborhoods, activating motion-detector lights here and there
when he came too close to a house. The little green guy seemed to
have no effect on the motion detectors—they only clicked to life
when Jason passed.

Then Jason chased him down an overgrown
trail through the woods. The green creature reached a brick wall
ahead, stuck its tongue out at Jason while waving the stolen
earrings, then vanished in a puff of smoke.

Jason reached the wall and slapped his hands
uselessly against it. The wall was ten feet high, covered in moss
and mold. Jason realized it was the wall around Mrs. Dullahan's
yard.

“
Come back here!” Jason
yelled. He thought he heard a hyena-ish giggle on the other
side.

Jason picked one of the tall old trees next
to the wall and climbed it as quickly as he could. He scrambled out
on a thick limb over the wall, struggling to catch his breath. He'd
been running nonstop.

Below him, the deep black shadows of Mrs.
Dullahan's yard were scarcely pierced by the thin moonlight. It was
inhabited by big old oak trees, almost as dense as a forest. The
few patches of ground he could see were overgrown with tall weeds
as thick as bamboo, and for a moment he was just glad he didn't
have to mow her yard for her.

Then Jason saw a streak of weeds ripple, as
if a rabbit were dashing between them.

He didn't have time to find a safe way down.
Jason held his breath and dropped from the limb into the darkness
below.

Something hard and wooden, the size of a
shoebox, crunched under his ribs as he slammed into the ground.

Jason rolled up to his feet and looked at
his aching side. He'd landed on what looked like a carved wooden
squirrel, its mouth and eyes wide with fright. The fearful
expression was heightened by that face that Jason had just broken
its head from its body.

Looking around, his eyes adjusting to the
shadows and moonlight, he saw more little wooden creatures—toads
and rabbits and even a full-size deer. A wooden owl perched on a
limb overhead.

All around him, little paths paved with moss
twisted through the high weeds.

The paths snaked across the yard, curving
across each other at little intersections. Each path ended at one
of the giant old trees, at ornate little doors no more than a foot
or two high, which appeared to be built into the tree trunks. He
saw the little green creature scurry through an arched green door
in a dark elm tree. It pulled the door most of the way shut.

Jason jumped after him, grabbing the tiny
knob just before the door closed. The brass doorknob was the size
of a child's marble in his fingers.

“
Hey, come back!” Jason
yelled. He pulled the door open, but the little green creature was
nowhere in sight.

The interior of the tree was hollow. A
series of roots formed a kind of staircase that spiraled down below
the tree, out of sight.

“
You're kidding,” Jason
said. He looked up at the dark shape of Mrs. Dullahan's house
against the night sky. Maybe she wasn't a witch, but there was
definitely something strange going on at her place.

Jason stuck his head into the open door. He
looked up, into the hollow shaft of the tree, but it was completely
dark.

Below, around the bend of the root-steps, he
saw the slight glow of distant light. He could hear the faintest
hint of music, and smell traces of wet, blossoming flowers and
baking bread in the air.

He put his hands inside the tree and crept
forward as far as he could. He scrunched his shoulders and squeezed
deeper inside, looking a little further around the curve.

Somehow, he was able to fit even more of
himself through the door, as if it expanded slightly for him. He
crawled further down and around the root-and-dirt staircase,
worried that the little green creature might pop out and hit him,
or maybe bite him in the nose, but he was too curious to stop
now.

The curving space seemed to widen even more
as he crawled forward, so he could let his shoulders relax and
spread out. He crawled down another twist of the steps, and then he
was completely inside the tree.

The stairwell grew even wider as he moved
forward on his hands and knees. The walls were made of packed dirt
and more tree roots, and a few fireflies provided some light along
the way. These fireflies were much larger and brighter than any
he'd seen before, and their light was red and orange.

He crawled around and around, and soon the
stairwell was wide enough for him to stand, though he had to almost
double over, his back brushing against the ceiling.

He followed it down and down, around and
around. Had it been a staircase in a building, he would have
descended five or six stories by now. He kept going.

Finally, after hundreds of steps, he reached
a door. He seemed to be standing inside the round shaft of the tree
trunk, though he should have been deep underground now, far below
the roots of the elm tree. Golden sap dripped along the heartwood
walls. His hands were covered in the sticky stuff, and probably his
shirt, which felt glued to his back.

The door in front of him looked just like
the green arched door he'd entered above, except much larger. He
would still have to duck his head to pass through it, but he
wouldn't need to crawl.

Jason touched the brass doorknob, and then
he hesitated. None of this made any sense. How could there be such
a long staircase under the tree? And where could this door possibly
lead? Was he going to be attacked by a bunch of angry little green
creatures on the other side?

Then he remembered his purpose—recover
Erin's necklace, and his mom's earrings, from the little green
creature, who was probably still running away from him.

Jason took a deep breath and pushed open the
little door.

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Fairy Metal Thunder
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J.L. Bryan
studied English literature
at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, with a focus on the
English Renaissance and the Romantic period. He also studied
screenwriting at UCLA. He enjoys remixing elements of paranormal,
supernatural, fantasy, horror and science fiction into new kinds of
stories. He is the author of The Paranormals trilogy (
Jenny
Pox
,
Tommy Nightmare
, and
Alexander Death
) and
other works.
Fairy Metal Thunder
is the first book in his
new Songs of Magic series. He lives in Atlanta with his wife
Christina, one baby, two dogs, two cats, and assorted attic
squirrels. His website is
http://jlbryanbooks.com
. You
can also follow on him on
Twitter
or
Facebook
.