Touched by a Sprite

by E. A. Reynolds

  Which was only one of the things that bothered him. “I’m not sure yet,” he said as he slanted another look at the table. His gaze lingered on the shorter man with his long black hair and skin kissed gold by the sun.

  His eyes danced merrily as if he was enjoying himself.

  “That’s part of what’s worrying me, though.” Kirkyn turned his gaze back to his unit. Then, he nodded to the door. “Our boy has arrived. Keep it easy, light, and non-confrontational.”

  Drinzel joined them with Kamoa taking the chair Snevil abandoned to exit the coffee house.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Drinzel said coldly.

  “My man is just doing what yours is, I’m sure,” Kirkyn remarked. “I don’t imagine you just brought your right-arm.”

  Drinzel studied him a long moment before continuing, “What do you want?”

  Astarte slid a paper file across the table to Kamoa.

  “I’ll just cut to the chase,” Kirkyn said. “You might think you can reason with, trick, or even bargain with Bancoo, but he’s out of your league. He’s from a realm where he’s akin to a god. Demons bow down to him, obey his every whim and command. You’re nothing more than a low-level whelp waiting to do his will.”

  “That’s not the impression I got,” Drinzel retorted, the belligerence clear on his face.

  “You’ve met with him? What did he say his goal was? To move in down the street and start a new life for him and his family?” Kirkyn demanded.

  “His plans aren’t your concern, but at any rate, he did ask permission to settle in my territory, and I gave it.”

  “Where?”

  “None of your business,” Drinzel muttered. “If there’s nothing else—”

  “He’s from Darth?” Kamoa asked, fear flashing in her eyes.

  “His home is dying, and the five lords are looking for a new world to inhabit. They won’t all settle in one place, but they are looking to settle here,” Kirkyn answered. “They’ll change the countryside, make the land inhospitable to humans, and possibly even some demons won’t be able to live here.”

  “What do you mean? How will they do that?” Kamoa asked.

  “The land will effectively reject the crops it’s sustained, the waters will be poison, so will any food that grows, because it will be what grows in Darth.”

  “They can’t create that kind of change,” Drinzel said and laughed. “You’re lying, just like Bancoo said you would. He said the Council of Ways merely wanted to take him in because he won’t comply with them.”

  “Do you think anything is that simple, Mr. Drinzel?” Kirkyn asked. “If it were, I’d bypass all the niceties and just find him and take him out.”

  “We wouldn’t need you,” Astarte said as if she didn’t think he understood.

  “He also said you wanted to help Wayfaire take over my territory, and I’m not going to go along with that. If you want Bancoo, you’ll have to get him on your own.”

  Kirkyn leaned toward him. “I don’t want anything of yours, but I’m not going to allow Bancoo and his buddies to get a deeper foothold in this world. If you aren’t going to be part of the solution, I’ll consider you an enemy.” Kirkyn rose, and so did Astarte. “Good day.” He strode from the shop with her on his heels.

  “She wants to help,” Astarte spoke when they were inside the truck. “She might be persuaded.”

  “I’m not looking for her to cross him,” Kirkyn told her. “In fact, I have no interest in either of them at the moment. When I do, it’ll be to take them out.”

  Chapter Three

  Drinzel remained on edge the rest of the day. The alternatives played out in his mind. The file the other demon had given him had been more precise than anything he’d had on Bancoo before and painted a picture of a world he didn’t want to live in.

  He had no dreams of visiting the fatherland of demon realms. He liked Earth and all it had to offer, good and bad. From what he’d heard today, he stood to lose everything he’d worked so viciously and carefully to put into place.

  “I talked to my father,” Anissa Malone, his lover, commented from the couch behind him.

  He surveyed the land before him, the solar lights allowing a decent if not ethereal view of the gardens.

  “What did he say?” Drinzel quizzed. Anissa’s father was someone he trusted. The man had backed him in his bid to get rid of Simmer, the former demon ruler of this area.

  The only price for the support he provided was that Drinzel go out with his daughter once.

  “He said Wayfaire started the rumors,” she told him. “Bancoo is European, and he’s here to take over Wayfaire’s stake and overthrow him. Bancoo wants nothing more than what you want. Freedom. He also wants an alliance from you.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s taking over some property soon that’s in Wayfaire’s jurisdiction, and he wants your support. At the very least, he wants you to stay out of the conflict,” Anissa told him. “My father thinks it would be a good idea to let someone else deal with Wayfaire, considering he hasn’t truly kept his end of the bargain.”

  “I know he’s still snooping around,” he murmured, then sighed.

  “He’s just waiting for the right time to make his move on you,” she said. “Bancoo doesn’t want to destroy you, just help you build a wall around this area, so others like Wayfaire and the Council of Ways can’t come in and tell you two what to do.”

  No matter what he decided, this wasn’t going to just go away.

  Drinzel raked his fingers through his hair. Kamoa was right about a few things, but the truth was, he couldn’t go back to where he’d come from.

  Having his title stripped, his power usurped, and his accomplishment turned into comic relief would be too much for him. Wayfaire was probably laughing at him now, thinking he was buying this game he was running.

  “I’m not going to ally with him,” he said. “At the same time, I have no interest in any fight Bancoo has with Wayfaire. Let them settle their differences without me.” He turned and strolled over to sit next to her. Drinzel ran his fingers along her thigh, left bare where the short dress she wore rode up.

  Anissa gave him a smile as she put her hand on his. “You’re probably making a wise decision,” she murmured.

  “Tell your father I said continue to watch this situation,” Drinzel told her. That was all he could do for now. Jumping into this while he was still reticent wasn’t a good idea.

  * * * *

  “Gram was a little upset with you storming out on her,” Blade said as he came to stand behind Baylee at the pond.

  “I know. Who was that guy you and Alisa were talking to this afternoon? What did he want?”

  “He wanted to buy our land and hotel,” Blade said. “But it’s not for sale. Anyway, with Gram’s clan calling the water ways around it home, I don’t think it would be safe. Then, there’s the nymphs we’ve forged a bond with. We can’t break that.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t break oaths with sprites or nymphs. It’ll create bad juju for the land and its next inhabitants.”

  He nodded. He was still learning about what it meant to be a sprite, but Baylee already knew his grandmother was a bitch if crossed. That was one of the reasons he was being so careful not to enter into any agreement she set up.

  “Besides that, we don’t want to sell. Alisa and I were thinking we’d give you fifty percent of this hotel as a wedding gift.”

  “I’m not getting married anytime soon.”

  “Even if you don’t, I want you to have it,” Blade said. “A man needs an investment, something he can fall back on, husband or no.”

  “You seem cool with me being gay. My family tried to change me, shame me straight.”

  Blade chuckled. “You’re like a little bro to me,” he said. “I don’t give a crap who you take to bed as long as they treat you with respect.” Blade gave him a one-armed hug, pulling Baylee against his side.

  Baylee partook of the comfort, needing it
right now. He was in a tangle of emotions that didn’t bode well, because everything was telling him to run when all he wanted to do was stay here and see how life played out.

  “Blade!”

  “I better go see what your cousin wants.”

  Alisa’s scream made him tense, while beside him Blade took off like a shot.

  Getting his bearings and shaking off the worry, Baylee followed in his wake. When he reached the edge of the hotel’s garden, his eyes widened.

  A demon with black markings on burgundy skin had Alisa in a headlock with black claws of one hand at her temple.

  “Do as I ask, or her brains will leak all over this pretty grass,” the demon said in a warning tone.

  “Okay.” Blade held up a hand. “Whatever you want. I’ll do it.”

  “Sign the hotel over to Bancoo, now.”

  “What?” Blade demanded.

  “I thought your pretty wife meant a lot to you. Not more than your property?”

  Baylee eased back into the trees. Alisa was pregnant, so he didn’t understand why she wasn’t drawing on her power to protect the lives she carried. But he had no choice, since Blade was stuck in a quandary of his own.

  Baylee closed his eyes and hummed softly. Behind him, the pond sighed before tendrils of water broke free and slithered up the banks to rest at his ankles. With a hard wave of his hand, Baylee directed the water forward.

  The blue tendrils rushed with the speed of light, and as they snaked past Blade, Baylee jerked his hand up. The water rose, and Alisa turned her head, allowing the cool freshwater to smash into the demon’s face and coil around his head.

  “Alisa!”

  A hard grunt floated on the air, and Alisa let out a scream. Baylee hurried from the cover to find the demon on the ground and the man he’d run into straddling the demon’s back. The demon howled and then turned to ash before their eyes.

  “Oh god,” Blade said on a gasp. “Who the hell are you? Bud the Demon Slayer?”

  Alisa let out a burst of nervous laughter, and Baylee couldn’t help but do the same as he moved forward to stand at his cousin’s side while Blade pushed her behind his back.

  The man rose to his six-foot-two inches and came to stand in front of them. Those blue-gray eyes were so compelling, Baylee couldn’t look away no matter how hard he tried.

  “I’m Kirkyn,” he said. “I’ve been tracking this guy’s master for weeks on behalf of the Council of Ways.”

  “I’ve heard of them,” Blade said. “What’s he doing here? What does he want?”

  “And how do we know you aren’t here to back him up?” Alisa demanded, though she didn’t move from behind her consort.

  Kirkyn’s lips lifted in a faint smile. “I could have let her die,” he said. “He would have killed her and you, sprite.”

  “He couldn’t have gotten us all,” Blade muttered. “Again, what brought him here?”

  “Let’s go inside,” Kirkyn said, casting a look around. “I don’t think it’s safe to talk out here.”

  Baylee held his position, and finally Blade made his way to the hotel. Baylee followed behind his cousin in case of a second attack.

  Once inside the side entrance of the hotel, Blade shifted his wife to the other side of him keeping himself between her and Kirkyn, while Baylee stayed at her back.

  “There you are, boss.” A woman came to a stop several steps from them. She threw an uncertain gaze to them and then looked back at her boss.

  “Give me a minute, Astarte,” Kirkyn told her patiently.

  “Right. Sure. This can’t really wait, though. It’s about Bancoo.”

  “What about him?” Blade demanded. “Is he here?”

  Kirkyn nodded, so Astarte answered Blade’s question. “No, but he’s dispatching men to this location to take over the property,” she said. “Baraq overheard the talk while out on patrol with one of Wayfaire’s men.”

  “Shit,” Kirkyn said. “The guy outside was just the emissary. You need to secure your grounds immediately. Can you use water to weave a protective shield? It’s all that’s going to prevent this demon from tainting your lands and poisoning your water.”

  “I’ll get Gram,” Alisa said. “Come on, Baylee.” Alisa took his hand and led him back the way they’d come.

  * * * *

  “What kind of demon are we dealing with?” Blade asked.

  Kirkyn tore his gaze from Baylee’s retreating figure to fix them on the man before him. “He’s a demon of pestilence and war, technically. War is his forte, and pestilence is one of the weapons in his arsenal.”

  “His specialty is poisoning?” Blade asked.

  Astarte had given him the background of the hotel’s owners even before they’d gotten suites here. So, he knew them as well as he could, including the cousin, Baylee, who had no real traceable past before six months ago.

  “Yes. Food supply, mainly fields and water. He’ll have gnomes with him who’ll take control of earth and make it reject you. You need to connect with the wood nymphs and wood sprites if you aren’t already.”

  “I’ll go talk to them,” he said. “I’m not going to allow those fucking demons to steal my land for whatever reasons they have in mind.”

  “I’m glad you have that fighting spirit, because you’re going to need it,” Kirkyn told him grimly. “I’m not leaving, and I will use your lands as a defense point, because apparently, this was meant to be the demon’s new home.”

  “We’ll discuss this later,” Blade said, backing up.

  “No, we won’t,” Kirkyn told him. “You’ll follow my lead or lose your lives.”

  “Fine, you want to play hardball?” Blade got up in his face then, his eyes blue pools of water. “This is my and my consort’s property. We’ll work with you, not allow you to take us over. As such, we’ll do that through a liaison.”

  “What?”

  “Baylee. You’ll discuss your every move with him, and he’ll bring it to us.” Blade was off like a light.

  “Well, I guess that’s something,” Astarte said. “We can’t expect sirens and sprites to just work with us. In fact, we should take this. They could demand a liaison from the Council come down.”

  “I know,” he said. The sirens and sprites were often thought to be of the same race, but all they had in common was their water lineage. They were different creatures. However, a siren represented all water people on the Council.

  They were more delicate beings, psychic in nature, weaker physically than the demons, vampires, and witches that made up the Council.

  As such, that put them at a disadvantage of sorts in a physical confrontation. Consequently, the Council had agreed to give them a bit of autonomy as long as they weren’t the aggressors.

  In this case, the delay would only allow Bancoo to move in and take over. That wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

  “Let’s get out front and get our own protections in place,” Kirkyn said.

  “Snevil is already working on it,” Astarte said and followed on his heels. “Sir, we should do something about that.” She pointed to the construction site. “An all demon crew is working it.”

  “They could have already begun weaving dark energy into the structure,” he murmured. “Give me the skhorlk.”

  She reached into her pocket and removed a large chunk of shiny black crystal.

  “Go, help Snevil.”

  Kirkyn headed into the shop and stood in the center of it and held the crystal in his left hand as he sensed for dark energy. He found a pocket of it, but it wasn’t the walls or the floor as he’d expected. It was a collection of small red rocks from Darth that stopped the flow of blue energy, of sprite water energy.

  Kirkyn studied the crystals discretely place around the room deciding now was the only chance he would ever get to try something he’d always wanted to. Corrupting Darth energy and using it to do good.

  Stripping out their energy wouldn’t take long if you didn’t consider thirty to forty-five minutes long. />
  He picked up the first one and ran his fingers over the smooth surface. The stone was light in his hand and had a faint glow. The stone had a low hum and could be used as a weapon to control rocks, even concrete and dirt.

  The hum increased, telling him water was near, and it was a strong force the Darth energy took exception to. However, Kirkyn didn’t need the red bloodstone to tell him his mate was near.

  The sweet enticing scent of him always announced that fact well in advance. It took all his energy just like hours ago when he’d first laid eyes on him again not to grab him, to reach into his mind and cage it, strip it of all resistance to him.

  Kirkyn pocketed the stone and stroked the wall, attempting to sense if any dark energy had been more deeply embedded.

  “What are you doing?” Baylee demanded in a suspicious tone. “Stop it, or I’ll drown you.”

  The water’s swell was strong enough that Kirkyn felt the current as soon as the power left Baylee’s hand. He whipped around and brought out the red stone. Holding it up, the blue energy collided with it.

  The meeting of power was a force so strong that it flung Baylee backward out the door.

  Chapter Four

  Baylee crashed into a chair in the lounge and tripped over it. He quickly came to his feet prepared to deal with the demon.

  Honestly, he was prepared to run and fight another day, because he knew just how powerful this demon was.

  “What are you trying to do, kill me?” Baylee demanded angrily.

  “I need your help to disable this,” Kirkyn told him.

  “What is it?” Baylee asked carefully. He put a hand on his wrist where the bracelet was.

  The gris-gris should keep his mind safe from the demon’s telepathy, but he wasn’t relying on much other than his ability to move out of harm’s way as fast as possible if need be.

  “It’s called a coilstone. It’s from Darth. One of your workmen put it here. The intention is to ensure the gnomes they send in to deal with sprites can do so easily.”

  “Gnomes?” he asked. “I don’t understand. Why would gnomes help demons?”