by RyFT Brand
this case erasing magic, as long as it carried a strong enough charge. And it did.
A swift kick had the handle off. It hit the floor with a satisfying clink. I checked both ways along the hall and listened a moment. My heart was racing. If I was discovered now, so near the moment of completion, then everyone I cared about would suffer.
But nothing is what I heard and saw. Fortunately, no one thought one tiny, badly injured flower fairy needed much in the way of guarding. And no one would ever expect me, Jazz, certified monster hater, to come after one, unimportant deferred species. But, as much as I was loathed to admit it, I wasn’t the same Jazz. Imminent death has a way of changing one’s perspective.
As I slipped inside I scanned the dark room. Another effect of my shadow sight, the result of a childhood accident, was an ability to see in near absolute darkness. When I was sure we were alone, I clicked on the mallow light. Mallow is a naturally occurring source of magical energy. The room was empty except for some mostly unused shelving along the walls, and one small table in the center. I moved to the little birdcage on the table. “Moxie,” I called to the tiny form laying face down on the cage floor. I knelt down and got my face closer. “Moxie, wake up, we’re going.”
She still didn’t move and I feared the worst, even though I was pretty sure that the lesser fae couldn’t die, they were an elemental force or something. I swung open the cage and reached in. Moxie didn’t move. Her little body was limp and cold. As gently as I was able, I scooped her into my palm and drew her out. Two little nubs were all that remained of her broken wings. Where they met her shoulders the skin was red and irritated and stained with dried blood. “Moxie.” I used a finger and eased her over. Her face was bruised and swollen. She looked terrible, but her swollen eyes cracked open. Then, despite the pain it must have caused her, she smiled and tried to sit up. The illusion that was creating my disguise wouldn’t fool a fae, they were of magic. She wasn’t strong enough to sit upright, but her chubby little hands reached for me. I knew what she wanted. I brought her close to my face so she could touch my cheek. Normally her touch would send little waves of tingly magic though me, but I felt nothing but the faintest brush of her hands. I held her close so I could look in her eyes. Love, mindless, stupid, unconditional love is all I saw there. No matter how badly I treated her, and no matter what she’d been though, all Moxie was capable of feeling was love for me.
I felt something running down my cheek. It couldn’t be, I wouldn’t believe it, but it was there, a tear, and I hadn’t cried in very long time.
“Hold on, I’m getting you out of here.”
Moxie smiled, then collapsed unconscious onto my hand. I laid her into the little amo case on my belt then wiped the tear away on my sleeve. I felt my heart beating faster, and my breathing quicken, and my body getting warm. Yeah, I had a real good rage building. Good, because I planned to use it, but not just yet.
I bolted out of the room and raced back into the big warehouse. Two groups of bvorcs were gathered, one in suits and the other in coveralls. The line of cud demons had reformed in front of the roll up doors. Two big bvorcs in three piece suits stood to either side of an even bigger oaf in an even more expensive pinstriped suit, who stood facing the line of cud demons. I raced over to my platoon and fell in line. The sergeant wailed me in the back of the head with the blackjack. Damn thing hurt, but I bit my lip and let the pain sink in. I could use that too.
“One more screw up out of you, new-be, and you’ll be on permanent latrine duty, got it?”
“Yeah,” I said with a little less bleat. “I got it.”
The hideous oaf in the fancy suit lumbered over to me. He was a dwarf island troll with a magically augmented brain called Boss Geeter, a deferred species mobster, unofficially sanctioned by the wizards council as a little subversiveness that you controlled often prevented larger, uncontrolled subversiveness from ever happening.
The features of his rock-like face barely moved. “Who’s causing the ruckus over here? I hate ruckus,” he said then took a draw from the big cigar he held in two fingers.
The sergeant glared at me from over Boss Geeter’s broad shoulder. “That new one’s been nothing but trouble, Boss, but I’ll sort him out.”
“Sure you will,” Geeter said. He stared at me from those black eyes partially hidden beneath his thick, cliff shaped brow. “What’s your name, grunt?”
“My friends call me, Cole,” I said with my very finest bleat.
“Oh yeah,” Getter said looking to one of his body guards and showing him a condescending smirk. The bvorc snorted and joined in the smile. I was so much fodder to them. Geeter flicked some ash from the cigar. “So what do your enemies call you?”
My heart rate slowed, my breathing deepened, and I couldn’t help but smile. All the disguising and sneaking and spying, they just weren’t my style. But that was all over now. Moxie was safe and I was entering my comfort zone. “My enemies,” I said in my totally natural bleat-less voice. “They call me Jazz, Monster Collector.”
“What?” Boss Geeter asked, his eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open.
I took the egg from my belt case, the egg I’d had a false birth vision cast upon, the egg I’d been saving for a desperate need, and smashed it into Geeter’s face instantly breaking the spell. “Remember me, Boss?” Now I appeared as a nineteen year old human female, dressed in armor padded battle gear including radio equipped rucksack, and armed to the teeth. I still had a pair of goat horns attached to my helmet.
By the look on Geeter’s craggy face, and the egg dripping down it, he was none too happy. Well he was about to get a lot less happy.
He wiped his face, stared at the gooey egg on his hand, and then up at me. “What are you doing here?” as he spoke his voice built into a roar. The cud demons were in a complete state of confusion, looking at me, then their sergeant, then at Boss Geeter. The two bvorc bodyguards were drawing pipes from their jackets. Bvorcs are strong but I’m faster. Before their pipes were clear of the coats, I had my macdaddy revolver drawn, cocked, and jammed in Geeter’s surprised face.
The bvorcs stopped moving and all the monsters around me looked to their Boss for a que. Geeter’s eyes shifted side to side, like the moron was struggling to find a way out. My trigger finger was hoping he would try. Then his eyes focused on me and he growled. “Alright, smart ass, tell me, what do you hope to gain here?”
“Back them up,” I said, eyeing the rabble surrounding me.
Geeter eyed them too, and then his disgusting mouth slid into a half a smile. He jammed the cigar in the other half. “I suppose you rescued that sprite of yours?”
“I did.”
“And they say Jazz ain’t got a heart.”
“I said, back them up.”
“How’d you find this place? Even the enforcer pro-core don’t know about this workshop?”
“Mickey had the tele-com in his pocket. Back tracing a two way link is kid’s play.”
For a second there Geeter actually looked sad. “Mickey’s dead? Yeah, of course Mickey’s dead, that’s what you do, right?”
“Back them up, Geeter. I won’t tell you again.”
“Why?” he asked with a chuckle. “You sure one of them little lumps of antique lead of yours would actually stop a big dwarf troll like me?”
Then I smiled. “Oh, this one’s a special round I made just for you, Boss, something I learned on Earth a long time ago; this little lump of lead will leave a dwarf troll sized exit wound in the back of your hideous head. It will do.”
Geeter’s protruding brow descended, casting his eyes in shadow. He pulled out the cigar and blew nasty smelling smoke. “You said before you were part of the Steam Dragon Accord. I checked, you weren’t there.”
I laughed, I’m not sure why, maybe it was because Geeter was about to die and he wanted to know about ancient history. Maybe it was because I was having so much fun. “I wasn’t called Jazz then Geeter; that was a different life. One when I worked for someo
ne even more repulsive and evil than you. Now, if you’re though stalling, I’d like to kill you.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” Geeter said as he leaned back in a relaxed posture and took a draw from the stogie. “If you shoot me, and do manage to kill me, you’re still surrounded by all my best men. Now I know you’re good, but even you can’t take out all my men by your lonesome. They will overrun you, kill you, and then finish what I started on that little flower speck in your pocket. So why don’t you drop that gun and get back to calling me, Boss?”
I straightened up to my full, five foot five inch height, which left me a half-meter shorter than him, but what the heck, moments like that make a girl proud. Plan S. “Who said I’d come alone? Ship, now if you please.”
Geeter’s face went all terribly horribly scared. He opened his mouth and was shouting something all in a panic, but all I could hear was Ship’s voice though my ear phone. “Oh thank Lord Balish, you were putting me to sleep.”
With a roar of mallow pops and a ringing of metal, bullets, really big bullets, cut through the double rollup doors. Ship’s guns went off like rapidly repeating thunder. Holes appeared, letting in lines of sunlight, in neat little rows that started close then moved away from me. One by one cud demons and bvorcs cried out and fell. Ship’s heat sensors were very accurate and
