A Case of Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Wildes Chronicles Book 1)

by Dominika Waclawiak

  I knocked repeatedly on Leslie's door but she didn't come out. We were not allowed to lock our doors and my door didn't even have a lock. I could just walk in but I didn't want to invade her privacy either. Her grief poured out of her each time I saw her and I wanted to be sensitive to her needs. I knocked again.

  "Leslie, Leslie," I said, my voice growing louder and louder. I stopped right before yelling and bit my lip. She would have heard me even if she had been asleep. The only other explanation was they'd medicated her to oblivion. What if she'd overdosed? My panic broke through my own fog. I owed her to check in and make sure she was ok.

  The door creaked open without too much pushing from me. "Leslie, I tried knocking but you didn't answer and..." I'd found her and I was too late. My shrieks filled the room.

  My dear friend Leslie took another way out. She swayed back and forth, her neck broken by the sheets that she had tied as a noose around it. She had somehow fashioned a hook. Where did that hook come from? My ceiling didn't have that. I should known as I stared at it every night when the nightmares became too much for me to handle.

  My ceiling didn't have a hook. But she had a hook. She had a hook that provided her a way to get out of here. Was that a coincidence? Did she kill herself or did somebody kill her? The thoughts raced in my mind as I stared at the tongue protruding from her mouth, her once attractive face now purple and bloated.

  She'd been my last hope and now she was gone. What was I going to do now? Should I scream, should I go find Dr. Jeremy or one of the orderlies? But before I could make a decision on what to do, a wave of insurmountable grief crashed into me and pinned me down to the ground. Unable to move as an unbearable pain spread throughout my chest, I lay beneath my dead friend. My horror flowered until it became larger and bigger, engulfing my entire body.

  My friend Leslie.

  My friend Leslie was gone.

  She had left me behind and had not said goodbye.

  An overwhelming blackness took me and finally released me from the pain.

  18

  The cold hard floor sent shivers down my spine, waking me. Sobs shook my body as I processed Leslie's passing. I turned my head and could see her stockinged feet swinging back and forth. Leslie was gone. They had broken her. I screamed again.

  "No, no, NO," I screamed. It didn't take long for multiple footsteps to emerge down the corridor. They crowded around me and I opened my eyes to see Dr. Jeremy and four male orderlies standing, mouth agape at the site of my dead friend.

  They had done this to her. In the guise of them trying to help her, they destroyed her.

  The floor heated beneath me and I felt the quake. A faint tremor that began to build force, to shake hard enough for the room to creak and crack. The walls didn't like to be shaken. Cracks formed on the ceiling and on the walls.

  My emotions didn't allow me to hear the others speaking. They came in short bursts of sound. I caught medication, power, and get her out of here. That last one came from Dr. Jeremy, his face hovering above mine. His eyes glowed with hatred, and I knew then he was here to harm us.

  Wherever we were, this wasn't a place to heal. It was a place to die. Just like Leslie did.

  A needle pierced my arm and I sank deeper into a blackness. It was a nothingness like I had never encountered before. I didn't think I could be any more frightened than I was by my nightmares.

  But this nothingness took my breath away. Had they killed me? Was I now descending into the last sparks of energy before my heart gave out? That last thought haunted me until I felt something beneath me again. I dragged my eyes open and saw that they had put me back into my own bed. I was still part of the living and had a chance to escape.

  Time stretched and condensed, leaving me unable to discern how long I'd been under. When I finally came to, I was more awake than I'd been since arriving in this godforsaken place. Leather straps bound my wrists and ankles to the metal bed frame.

  They'd spread-eagled me onto my own bed and I could not move. I had a scratch on the tip of my nose but there was no way for me to reach it. I strained against my bindings but they had bound me tight.

  And then I remembered. None of this was real. If it wasn't real, then these bindings didn't exist.

  I closed my eyes again and willed myself to a different place. Blue light spurted out of my arms as the scales overtook the golden human skin that had been there just moments before. Energy coursed through me and reminded me of a time before here. The blackness faded and I stood in a brilliant green meadow. Old-growth forest surrounded me and the countryside looked straight out of a fairytale. A stone castle sat on top of the hill and small cottages dotted the landscape as far as I could see. What was this place?

  "This is called Underhill. Just past the parapet. It is my version of the faerie realm." A voice I recognized as Callie said behind me.

  "I've never seen anything more beautiful, or smelled anything as luscious," I said. I smelled clover and jasmine, and lilac and freshwater. I wasn't in the hospital any longer.

  "Tell me this isn't dream," I said, terrified of the answer she would give me.

  "This exists but not in the terrestrial world. The mental hospital that they have stashed you all exists in the faerie realm as well."

  I fell into the long grass and stared up at the blue sky above me. "I don't want to go back there. I want to stay here with you," I said and breathed in the sweet air.

  "You have to get yourself out of the mental hospital. Time flows differently here in Underhill. You've only been enslaved for three days. The Fae who they've captured stretches time and you've been gone for a bit longer than four months. They aren't feeding you very much there and all of your cohorts are dying."

  "Is that what happened to Leslie?"

  Callie looked away from me. "She couldn't take the mental abuse anymore. The problem is that once the mind dies the body goes along with it. She was starving but not yet fully dying. She took care of that herself. You need to wake you and everyone else in the next 24 hours or you all will join her. You shouldn't see any lasting physical effects if you break the spell as soon as you are able."

  I hadn't been imagining the scales. I hadn't imagined me being "special" as Dr. Jeremy had said. This was real. I was Fae and half witch.

  Magic existed in the world.

  Tears of joy sprang from my eyes. I hadn't realized how important the magic was to my identity until I thought it was no longer there."How do I wake up from there?" I asked her.

  "You need to use your rage to access Damian's, Henry's and Chance's mind. Those are the strongest of the crew you came in with and pulling your resources together should be enough to find the doorway out of that place."

  "They aren't speaking to me. I pushed too hard and lost my temper," I said, remembering the cold shoulder that they had given me.

  "They think that if they play the game correctly that they will be let out of there." Callie shook her head and sat down next to me. She started braiding a crown of clover flowers. "That's what they want you to think. They're doing something strange to your life force. I don't quite understand what it is. The Seelie Court has been seeing strange flows of magic stopping and starting ever since President Dixon took office."

  "So the Fae don't have anything to do with this?" I asked.

  Callie let out a sigh. "I need to give you the abbreviated version of the way the faerie realm works. There is a Seelie and an Unseelie court. The Seelie court rules over spring and summer and the Unseelie court rules over fall and winter. This doesn't necessarily make the Seelie court good and Unseelie court bad. However, I am only part of the Seelie court and know the intrigues and what's happening there. The Unseelie court keeps itself separate from us and has its own wants and desires. I don't want to say there are more evil Fae there than there are in the Seelie court. But they work very differently than we do. Our assumption is that someone in the Unseelie court is helping President Dixon. Strange flows of magic and life force short-circuiting things here in
the faerie realm are of concern to us."

  "What does this have to do with the mage of Los Angeles and what we're doing here?" I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. "We don't know. All we know is that there have been strange spurts of magic coming from the compound that you are being held at. It was the way that I was able to pinpoint your location. Your rage gave me access to the part of your mind that hasn't been fully taken over.The faerie realm works differently for you than it does for them because of your Fae blood. Only you can get them out right now. You must go back and find a way."

  Her words to me were like a cool spring after a hot summer day. To say that I was the happiest woman would be a lie. However, I felt strangely home. What she had told me touched me on a much deeper level. I had always seen my Fae side as the dark, shadow side that had to be suppressed and ignored. But now I understood that it was a part of me and I needed to celebrate it like I did the human witch part. It was the only way that I was going to be whole. If I got out of my present situation of course, I thought.

  "How do I go back to that hellhole?"

  Callie smiled and pointed her finger towards something behind me.

  "What about my father? Could you tell me who he is?"

  "He's of the Unseelie Court. The defacto right hand man of the Snow Queen."

  "Snow Queen?" I asked.

  "Get out of there first, We can deal with your lineage later," she said and pointed again. I turned and right before my eyes, a small mound grew, maybe 4 feet in height, the long l grass looking like hair. A hole formed at the base of it.

  "Crawl through that and you will be back to your own headspace in the faerie realm. I must warn you, if something goes wrong and you can't access the other's minds, you're going to have to find the Fae that has created that mental hospital realm and release it from its captivity."

  "Release it? You mean the Fae isn't working with Jeremy Nottingham?" I asked, surprised that that was even an option.

  "Fae don't work for wizards. Even if they have something on them, the Fae will figure out a way to get out of it. For this particular Fae, a water fae, by the way, to create an under hill for the use of a wizard, tells me only one thing. He is being held captive. Find him and you will free him."

  "Will I destroy the souls inside of it as well?" She shook her head no. "They will be expelled through the doorway that was created as a backdoor. We always create backdoors to the realms that our minds create. It's a fail safe." I dragged myself up from the sweet grass and took a deep breath.

  "You have saved my life twice now. I know I'm not supposed to thank you but I wish I could show my gratitude."

  She nodded. "You will. I promise you, you will."

  I took one last look back at her paradise and crawled towards the small hole. I had no idea how a human sized person could fit through that but as I started to push my body through, it opened bigger to accommodate my size. My hair caught on roots and I felt the ground crumble into my hair but I didn't care. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel about twenty feet away. I crawled and smelled the deep, rich earth. I felt such goodness here, such peace. It was quite a marvel to understand that Fae could create their own magical paradise, just for them. Like a pocket of heaven to use as a refuge from the terrestrial world. I wished that my mother had told me about this. I wouldn't have carried so much shame about who I was. At least, I still had somewhat of a life left to trample the shame and really embrace the person that I was.

  I got to the hole and before I could scramble through it, my eyes opened and I saw the ugly ceiling of the mental hospital. I was back. And on a mission. The restraints were still an issue though. I wouldn't be able to go and speak to Damian, Chance and Henry on my own. Would I be able to contact them through their minds? I'd never done anything like that and so I focused on Damian's face first. We had a strong enough connection that if this mind meld technique was going to do something, it would be with him.

  I focused on his eyes and then sculpted his entire being in my memory. The way he moved. The way he smiled. "Can you hear me, Damian?" I asked him. My make-believe Damian stood there watching me. He made no sign that he had heard me.

  I tried a different tact. I let the vision of him dissipate and tried to pinpoint the feeling of him. That strange quality that creatures had when they entered the room. My mom used to call it the essence of the soul and I focused on him.

  "Damian, can you hear me, Damian?" This time I got static back. It wasn't a voice but it was something. "Damian, this isn't real. We have to get out of here," I said. The static grew louder and quieter and I felt almost that that was a response in and of itself. Not one that I could potentially use but a response nonetheless.

  I lay there for another hour trying to engage with Damian but the time was passing by me quickly. The light outside was changing and it was going to be time for my medication soon. I wasn't going to be able to mind meld with these guys, I realized. I needed to find another way to access my Fae side. The medication had worn off significantly since the morning dose. If I was going to do something, it was gonna be now.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on Leslie. Leslie my friend. She had stayed true the entire time she was here. Even though she had killed herself, they had made her do it. They had driven her to the breaking point. The cruelty of convincing her that her husband never existed, that their love was never real, sealed her fate as surely as my actions of calling Felicia to help us get Chance out sealed mine. My fury grew and my limbs activated with power.

  This was going to be the way that I woke up from this place. I could use my shadow self, like I had done in the past to engage with my Fae side. They didn't know that I was partially Fae. Or maybe they didn't fully understand how the faerie realm worked.

  I saw Leslie's stockinged feet sway back and forth. Back and forth. As the grief turned into rage, the shackles on my wrists and ankles dissipated.

  It was working. I thought of Dr. Jeremy, who I was sure was Jeremy Nottingham, and the hateful words that he had said to me at that private session. I used the shame he made me feel for even coming to him for help and getting the most horrible things about my personality said to me as fuel.

  I believed his lies and I internalized them. That fury grew even hotter. I had cried over that man saying those horrible things to me. I had believed him when he had told me that the people I had come with hated me. He had done the same thing to Leslie. He had done it to all of us, to make us not believe in our true selves, just so he could suck our power out of us.

  My rage was running red hot and I heard the orderly cart coming down the hall. It was going to be now or never. I ground my head into the pillow and opened my mouth. I poured forth my rage into a black thick smoke that overtook the entire room. When it had filled every corner, it started to burn the walls down. I saw the red embers igniting and then the room was gone. Instead, I was in a concrete bunker, tubes in both arms and a heavy piece of machinery on my head.

  19

  I pulled the tubes out and touched my scalp to make sure that they hadn't incised anything into my actual head. When I had managed to free myself from the head mechanism, I sat up and saw the emasculated forms of the crew that I had come here with. Damian was skin and bones, as was Henry and Chance. Leslie's body had been pushed off to the side and the three other werewolves were there along with her. We looked like skeletons. But I had gotten out. I had gotten out and now I needed to go find the Fae. I slid my legs off the table and underestimating the lack of energy I had, attempted to stand. Instead, I fell like a heap next to the gurney. This was going to be a lot more difficult than I expected. But the hard part was over. I had my head back. I knew what reality was. Now, I needed to find that Fae.

  The sweat ran down my back as I heaved my useless body through the doorway of our makeshift prison. It had taken me fifteen minutes to get here from where I had fallen off the gurney that held my body while I lay in the faerie realm mental hospital. The strangest thing was occurr
ing, however. The more I moved, the more power came back to me. It had to be the Fae blood working through my body and giving me power. Now that that brain machine wasn't pulling my life force away from me, I could use it myself to heal.

  I pulled my body down the hallway faster, expecting the guards that we had met when we had come through the compound gate.

  I didn't encounter anyone, and by the time I had spanned the whole hallway, I had enough energy to pull myself up to a standing position. Now, I couldn't run, but I was able to take steps forward while holding onto the wall. I had to assume that wherever the Fae was being kept, it would be in the same building. I had no idea the kind of distance that was needed to keep souls in the same place but it made sense that they would have to be in the same vicinity. I took a left down another corridor and opened the door to an energy room.

  It had panels and computers with grids but no Fae. I hoped I'd get the time to investigate further but from what Callie had said, my crew was running out of time. By the look of their bodies, I was surprised we had lasted this long.

  I opened up the next door and found nothing there either. Getting stronger enough to walk unassisted by the wall, I headed for the last door in the corridor. I knew my luck had run out when I checked the knob and it was locked. Of course, it was.

  This wasn't going to be easy. How could it be? They must have thought that in case one of us had managed to get out of the faerie realm, that we would have enough sense to come looking for the Fae. If he wasn't being held on this level then where would he be? I put my forehead against the cold concrete wall and focused. Callie had told me that they had imprisoned a water Fae. A water Fae, I thought. Callie had given me a clue of how to find him but I was unsure of what it meant. Then it came to me.