by Jenn Stark
The world is full of magical things…
With a day job that requires her to hunt down psychics who use their metaphysical gifts as weapons, Tarot-reading Justice of the Arcana Council Sara Wilde has no time for fairy tales. So when her newest case pleads for her assistance against brownies, sprites, and pixie dust, she’s more than ready to file it under “not a chance.”
But these Neo-Celts mean business, with a boldly charismatic leader who vows to return the world to the iron-fisted rule of the ancient gods. That plan infuriates the fiercest member of the Arcana Council, Death, whose deep Irish roots hide more secrets than Sara ever realized, and draws the focus of the dark-eyed, seductive Magician, deftly weaving his ever more twisted schemes.
At the Council’s behest, Sara plunges headlong into Irish folklore, fantasy, and the very real, very frightening truth of the spaces between worlds, where the darkest memories go to hide… Memories that could upend everything Sara’s finally claimed as her own.
Travelers beware! The fairies will all come out to play when you chase The Hallowed Knight.
THE
HALLOWED KNIGHT
Wilde Justice, Book 3
Jenn Stark
Copyright © 2019 by Jenn Stark
ISBN-13: 978-1-943768-50-9
Cover design and formatting by Spark Creative Partners
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase/Download only authorized editions.
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For Elewyn
Shine on.
Chapter One
The first rule of the hustle is—everyone’s hustling something. And nobody hustles nothing like clairvoyants at a psychic fair.
“A reading with Mistress Malificorem?”
I blinked down at the young, towheaded boy in front of me. He wore loose leggings and a hand-sewn tunic with a prominent Celtic tree of life symbol embroidered into it, and like most of the people at the fair, he looked like a time traveler from an era predating plumbing. Unlike the other guests, he held up a postcard. I took it from him automatically, if only to lighten the enormous stack he gripped in his slender hand.
Mistress Malificorem was apparently in tent #370 at the far end of the space given over to the Las Vegas Joyful Spirit Psychic Festival. She promised to reveal more than I wanted to know for the low, low price of fifty dollars per half hour. The card was printed on plain black stock, with bright red and white lettering that felt almost wet to the touch, though it didn’t smear. Still, there was something about the promo piece that legit creeped me out. So, way to go, Mistress Malificorem.
“She paying you to help her?” I asked the child, whose pale blue eyes and winsome smile seemed at odds with the fell tidings of his employer.
“Fifty dollars, just to hand these out,” he said eagerly, his voice flush with pride. He even sounded Irish, and I’d already noticed that this particular psychic fair had drawn more than its share of Emerald Islanders. “If enough people show her the cards from this stack, she may have me help her tomorrow too.”
I smiled at his enthusiasm, waving the card dry as I watched him scamper off. Then I scanned the grounds, which were packed. Late April in Vegas was still cool enough to host an outdoor festival without fear of people keeling over from heat exhaustion. Even better, the garden-like setting of the preserve, with its natural flora carefully roped off from the tents, carny barkers, and food stations, made the festival one of the premier non-Strip events in the city. I hadn’t realized it had become so Celtic focused, but then again, I didn’t usually stay in town long enough to visit any of the local sights. When the psychic festival flyer showed up in my office this morning, however, I figured I should check it out.
Because the flyer didn’t show up in the morning mail—it arrived via pneumatic tube.
Which meant it wasn’t an advertisement. It was a cry for help.
As Justice of the Arcana Council, I was both the 9-1-1 dispatcher and first responder for such cries, as well as the official archiver of every complaint ever leveled against the magic wielders of the world. The short version of my job description was that I helped folks who were victims of psychics behaving badly. The long version involved fireballs, self-generating handcuffs, extensive frequent flyer miles, and a deep and recurring need for more librarians.
Since there’d been no Justice in the position for two hundred years, there was a considerable backlog of cases, all lining the stacks at Justice Hall. Nevertheless, the freshest requests took precedence, since they usually involved either victims or assailants who still walked among the living. Much easier to conduct interviews that way.
So, here I was, along a path that took me deep into a tent city of Irish-themed vendors. Unfortunately, the number scrawled on the flyer—167—went to a tent that didn’t exist in the middle of Celtlandia. Which wasn’t a great beginning for my search-and-rescue mission.
“Yo! Dollface.” In keeping with the cosplay vibe of the festival, Nikki Dawes strode toward me in the guise of Tolkien’s Galadriel—all-white gown, long blonde wig, and ice-blue eyes. The effect was spoiled only a little by the giant cups of beer she was balancing on a cardboard box of churro strips. Nikki, my right-hand woman since my earliest days in Sin City, could always make a look work. Even a look dusted in cinnamon and sugar.
“This is your idea of dinner?” I asked, taking one of the beers from her.
“It’ll dial you down a notch. You’re not even dressed appropriately.”
I glanced down at my jeans, light hoodie, and sneakers. “It’s Throwback Thursday.”
Nikki waved a churro stick at me. “That would mean you actually committed to leaving your wardrobe by Hot Topic behind. Justice of the Universe or not, you still suck in the superhero costume department.”
I reached into the front pocket of my hoodie with the hand not clutching my beer and pulled out my deck of Tarot cards. “When you can come up with an haute couture pullover with pockets, you let me know.”
At that moment, two little girls shrieking with delight burst past us, surrounded by a puff of bubbles that popped like gossamer kisses on our cheeks before we could flinch away. I swung my beer hand high to avoid splattering their strawberry-blonde pigtails. That left my card hand exposed, and the deck went flying.
“Oh—sorry! Sorry!” To their credit, the little girls stopped immediately and gathered up the cards, shoving them back at me while Nikki gamely held my beer. I didn’t miss that some of the cards were facing upright, of course. When the universe beats you over the head with a message involving a Tarot deck, it generally was wise to pay attention.
In this case, though, the cards were a decided drag: the Moon, Five of Wands, and Ten of Swords: Something you never expected is about to hit you square in the face, there’s gonna be a fight, and someone will be betrayed. It was either a hint of things to come or the beginning of a country song. Either way, it didn’t sound good.
“You missed a card.” As I took my first sip of beer, a young woman sporting colorful fairy wings on her back popped out from her tent and plucked an
errant card from the ground, grimacing at it before she handed it to me. “Ah, Death,” she said sagely. “You should sit a spell with me. Have a reading.”
“Thanks, no.” I smiled my apology, then took the card from her and stuck it into my pocket. So Death too. That could mean…any number of things. Transformation. Actual death. Or even a visit from one of my new coworkers on the Arcana Council. Right now, I wasn’t up for any of those options, at least not until I finished my beer.
I took another long draught and thought about said coworkers. The Arcana Council was a group of ridiculously strong seers, sorcerers, and damned-near demigods whose abilities were grounded in the Tarot. Their immortal life’s work was to keep magic balanced in the world, and in the wake of the recent influx of magic, that work had become hella challenging. As the Council’s aforementioned first Justice in two hundred years, I’d been brought on board to help with the overflow of magical cases. Unfortunately, like most things Council related, the job hadn’t come with a manual.
I returned my focus to Nikki, who was eyeing the woman’s gossamer wings with renewed appreciation. “What did you find out? And no. I’m not buying wings. Don’t even think it.”
She sighed. “You would look amazing in wings. But we weren’t imagining the weird energy of this show. This year’s the biggest psychic fair they’ve run. Connecteds and con artists alike filled the vendor slots in record time, starting back in late November when they officially announced the dates.”
“Late November…” I grimaced. It’d been a doozy of a holiday season this past year for the psychics of the world, psychics whose skills ran from fifty-cent card tricks to astral-traveling futurism. Collectively, they were known as the Connected. While every living thing possessed a certain connection to the world around it, Connecteds possessed a higher level of psychic abilities. They made up an international psychic community of individuals who operated largely in ignorance of each other, but who together had been a slowly growing force for centuries.
And as of late November, they’d gotten a woo booster like no other in the aftermath of an epic clash of spectral forces, as a small group of the most powerful magicians on the planet had successfully prevented the gods of yore from coming back to Earth. We’d won, but there’d been some fallout. Some decidedly magical fallout.
Basically, unbeknownst to most of the planet, psychic Earth was now rocking it old style.
“Yep,” Nikki continued. “Normally, the mix at this festival is your standard slate of Tarot readers, aura photographers, channelers to help you connect to loved ones, that sort of thing. This year, they have all that and more—hypnotists, healers, animal communicators, wizards, warlocks, and a whole new subclass of spectral opposition warriors. Basically, everything you need to arm yourself against all things magical.”
My brows went up. “Arm—you mean like the chain-mail-and-hatchet guy we saw near the gates?”
Nikki fended off my concern with a wave of her churro stick. “Not like him—or at least, not exactly, though let me tell you, that was some mighty fine chain mail. These are folk who offer spelled charms to protect people from magical attacks. Charms, not traditional weapons. No guns, no super-sharp pointy things, no mallets. Easily fifteen tents in this place are spectral opposition warrior tents, though, and apparently, this year, they’re hotter than the tantric love healers.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Which is a personality flaw, you ask me.” Nikki grinned. “Attendance is up too—record numbers by a long shot, maybe twenty thousand coming through the gate today alone. The organizers, George and Melinda Carlton, are over the crescent moon.”
“And they haven’t had any trouble?” I glanced down the row of tents, my gaze catching on two young women in long white gowns and tiaras, giggling over one of the stands of jewelry.
“They have not.” Nikki took a long drink of her beer. “They’ve actually never had trouble here, surprisingly enough, even though it’s a little bit of a hike from their usual hunting grounds. They own the Light Spirit Metaphysical Wellness Center over in Summerlin.”
I considered that. “Kind of a fancy location for a psychic shop.”
“Not a psychic shop, a Metaphysical Wellness Center,” Nikki corrected me. “And business is booming, in case you were wondering. Best ever holiday season, and they’ve been hopping since the New Year. It seems like everyone’s wanting to discover if they’ve got any woo in their blood, and the Carltons are more than happy to assure them that yes, in fact, they do.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” I voiced another concern that’d been building in the back of my mind since we’d arrived at the festival. “There’s an awful lot of Celtic-themed tents here. There a reason for that?”
“Not that anyone can figure out, no,” Nikki said, surprising me. “The Carltons are pure New Agers, not adhering to any particular bent for their woo, but they would agree with you on the influx of the Neo-Celt presence.”
“Neo-Celts?”
“Yup, that’s what they’re calling themselves. After the spectral opposition warriors, it’s the second biggest uptick in vendor type. We got Beltane coming up in a few days, but the festival will be over before then. So maybe they’re just in the mood for a party.”
Nikki glanced ahead, and narrowed her eyes. “Yo, we’ve got spectral opposition warrior land dead ahead. Be casual.”
I glanced up, blinking as I took in two massive thugs in desert camo gear flanking the entrance to a row of tents. We were treated to a soft mist of cooling water as we crossed the threshold into the section, though fortunately it wasn’t hot enough to make such precautions necessary. Still, it felt nice.
I glanced around the tidy formation of tents. “Well, this is kind of impressive. They’ve got their own warrior ’hood.”
She nodded. “This where the problem is, you think? Not the tree-of-life huggers?”
“Gotta be.” I gestured ahead. “X marks the spot.” Before us was a tent fronted by a small, temporary placard stuck into the ground: 167.
“Lemme finish this up,” Nikki said, downing the last of her beer and fried bread as I dropped my own half-finished ale in a trash can set off to the side. I didn’t think I’d need to have both hands free to inspect a business that called itself “Spectral Opposition Warrior Services,” but a girl couldn’t be too careful.
The door flaps to the tent were staked open wide, and the place was overflowing with trinkets, jewelry, wall hangings, and chimes, as well as an entire side given over to pots of herbs and stacks of little plastic sleeves for your own personal holistic go-bag. I counted three bright-eyed attendants, none of whom seemed all that prepossessing, but no obvious owner. There were a dozen or so festivalgoers milling along the U-shaped pathway pawing all the junk, so we joined their number.
“Look at this.” Nikki pointed at a small, highly polished amulet on a spongy cushion. “Mind Blocker—prevents someone from reading your thoughts.”
“I’m more interested in the fireguard,” I murmured, squinting at my own find—a small pot of slimy-looking unguent, looking suspiciously like Vicks VapoRub. “Protects you from the damaging effects of spectral fire.”
Nikki looked over. “Only spectral? Or all fire?”
“Only spectral, but who knew it was that common a threat?” I used fire on a near-daily basis as part of my job, blue fire perfectly sized for throwing, good for just about anything that ailed me. Apparently, I wasn't the only one.
“You came.” A compact man suddenly appeared on the other side of the table. His eyes were a bright and piercing green, his skin pale and dusted with freckles, and his hair a thatch of pale orange and bright white curls. The perfect Irish grandpa. “You came, you surely did.”
“You know who I am?”
“Who? Who, I can’t say, exactly. But I know what you are. And what you are is enough, because we don’t have much time.” He shifted his glance to the left and right, then leaned forward.
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I leaned back. “And you are?”
“Seamus McCarthy, leastwise that’s what I’m usually called in the open.” He flashed a grin, his tone light despite the seriousness of his next words. “But they’re coming. Tonight, we think. We’d hoped they’d hold off until the festival closed for the evening, but we worry they’ll come earlier while the world holds fast to sleep.”
“They who?” I asked, trying to follow his words without getting caught up in the lyrical cadence of his speech. It was harder than I would have expected.
“The ancient ones,” he said, with a reverence bordering on awe. “Even more powerful than I would’ve believed. It’s a fae wind that blows no good, I tell you that plain.”
“Ahhh…you contacted me about a fairy problem?” Despite the man’s sense of urgency, I deflated a little. I had precious little time as it was; I couldn’t waste it on pixie dust. “Explain. Are you planning a turf war with the Neo-Celts on the other side of the fairgrounds, is that what this is? Because, no offense, but from your appearance, I’d think you were one of them.”
To my surprise, the man’s gravity only deepened. “And I was one of them, exactly so, until the Green Knight started acting the maggot. He’s dangerous. He truly is.”
The Green Knight? I kept my expression neutral as I tried for casual. I hated not knowing what was going on in the Connected community, especially now that I was supposed to be policing it. The Green Knight sounded like something I should’ve been on top of. “Oh, him.”
“Yes, him. A druid who should know better, given all his training. But no. Instead of fearing the gods and protecting those of us who’ve already defeated them once, he welcomes the Tuatha dé Danann back to Earth with open arms.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. So not fairies, then. Actual straight-up gods. Beside me, Nikki straightened.
“He’s already reached out to them?” I asked. Given the full-on Celtic love fest going on around me, I could see how a summons of the ancient gods of the Irish might happen. We’d already pushed back a legit run from the gods last winter, so the only way new ones could wander in was if a human invited them. Which humans rarely seemed to tire of doing. Never mind that gods were bad news, especially the super pretty sparkling ones. Always. Full stop.
