Magic Reborn: The Peacesmith Series: Book1, A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel

by Carly Hansen

  It was Java.

  He swooped down and slashed the demon across its nose.

  The creature roared and covered its face with its hands as dark gray smoke hissed out of the wound.

  With her legs now free, Fenix pulled out her backup knife. She flicked her wrist and pictured another tomahawk. The blade vibrated, but it only went lukewarm. After a flare of pinkish light, Fenix looked down and saw she was holding a filet knife.

  Yikes!

  Time was running out. The demon would attack her again at any moment.

  She gritted her teeth tighter, swallowed hard, and pictured a tomahawk again. It was her preferred weapon because it would allow her to attack from a distance.

  This time, the knife vibrated so hard she had to hold it with two hands. Orange light flashed, and the knife got so hot it scorched her palms.

  Now, she was holding a falcata, a long, curved sword with a pointed end.

  The demon sat up, swinging its arms wildly through the air. The smoke pouring from the wound on the demon’s nose must have blinded it.

  Fenix ducked to avoid being floored. She had no time to make a third try for the tomahawk. The falcata it was.

  Running to the demon’s side, she waited until it swung its hand lower. She had one chance to get this right. As soon as it brought its hand down, Fenix bounded up its massive right arm. She felt the powerful muscles moving under her feet.

  The demon must have noticed her weight because it flung its arm in the air.

  Fenix used the upward motion to her advantage, treating its arm as a springboard and curling into a summersault. As gravity pulled her body downward, she pointed the falcata blade-side down. She held it rigidly with both hands as she hurtled toward where she imagined the demon’s heart would be.

  Her aim was perfect.

  The sword plunged into the demon’s heart as she planted her feet on the beast’s chest.

  The demon howled and shook violently.

  The air hissed and crackled as blue bolts of light shot out from its chest.

  Fenix looked at the demon’s leather pouch. It bulged with unused magic orbs. It would be quite the victory to end this encounter by escaping with more than just their lives.

  She rode the waves of the demon’s death throes and reached toward the pouch. Just as she did, a blue bolt of light hit her in the side and sent her flying across the alley.

  Her back slammed into a wall, and she slid to the ground.

  With a massive explosion, the demon disintegrated. The night air was filled with the creature’s screeches as its essence returned to the witch who’d sent it after the gang.

  ********

  When silence returned, Fenix got to her knees and called out. “Twain, Java.”

  “Over here,” Twain shouted.

  Fenix looked around but saw nothing. “Where are you guys?”

  “Down this way,” Java said.

  Fenix ran toward the sound of their voices. In a dark corner of the alley, two figures knelt with slumped shoulders over a third that lay on the ground.

  Her worst fears played before her eyes as her heart banged against her rib cage. “How’s Ivan?” she whispered as she dropped to her knees beside Twain.

  “He’s barely breathing,” Java said.

  “We dragged him here to get away from the demon,” Twain said. “I think we made matters worse, though. His wound looks bigger than it was before.”

  Fenix put her palm to Ivan’s nostrils. There was only the faintest hint of warm breath. But at least he was still breathing. She looked at Ivan’s lower abdomen where he’d been struck. A hole the size of a fist pulsated with a dull blue light, right where his navel should have been.

  Alda had warned them about this. It was the worst kind of magic. The light would continue to throb and grow. As it did, it would eat away at the flesh surrounding it. It was just a matter of time before it would reach the vital organs. When that happened, all hope was gone.

  Fenix slumped onto Ivan and clutched his right hand.

  Images of him flashed through her mind—the kindness in his voice when he’d welcomed her to Alda’s gang; his efforts to teach her to fight; how he’d laughed at himself when he discovered she was more skilled than he was; the many times on assignment he’d bravely, or foolishly, knocked down their opponents with his bare hands.

  “No,” Fenix cried. “No, Ivan. You can’t leave us like this. You can’t die on us.”

  Her hands grew colder and heavier by the second. It was the strangest feeling. She couldn’t understand what was happening, nor move her hands. When they went completely numb, a soft white glow seeped out from under her palms and between her fingers.

  “Wha—what’s going on, Fenix?”

  It was Twain’s voice, but it sounded distant in her ears.

  Her eyes were open, and she saw how the white light traveled beyond her palms and encircled Ivan’s body. Regardless of the proof before her eyes, it was as if she wasn’t actually there. It felt as if she were outside of herself, watching it happen from a distance to a stranger—one who positively blazed with magic.

  Her head began to spin. The scene in front of her went hazy, and then dark. Silence enveloped her.

  “Fenix! Fenix, are you all right?”

  It was Twain’s voice. He was shaking her.

  “Fenix, can you hear me?”

  She nodded, lifting her hands to her head to stop the sensation of spinning. As she pressed trembling fingers against her temples, she realized her hands weren’t cold or heavy anymore.

  “That was scary,” Java said.

  “What happened?”

  “You must have passed out when you saw Ivan’s wound.”

  A groan came from below them.

  “Ivan,” Java shouted.

  Ivan groaned louder and tried to sit up, but he fell limply back to the ground. “It hurts so bad.”

  Fenix looked for the glowing hole, but it was gone. Ivan’s shirt was in tatters just as before, but his abdomen and everything else looked normal, including his outie navel.

  Twain widened his eyes. “What the hell just happened?”

  “Must have been leftover magic from the demon,” Fenix said. “It probably reversed the destructive magic when it returned to Carpetha.”

  She hoped they’d accept that explanation, but she didn’t buy the story herself.

  What had happened was totally different to anything she’d experienced before. But she knew it was some weird new thing that had happened to her, and, through her, a strange magic had been released. It was one more thing she had to hide about herself, one more thing she had to fight to control, even though she had no clue what it was.

  “Are your sure that this—” Twain was saying.

  Blaring sirens approached. Their impending arrival gave her a quick exit.

  “We’ve got no time to figure this out,” Fenix said, grabbing one of Ivan’s arms and pulling him up.

  “That the cops?” Java asked.

  “Yeah. Let’s get Ivan out of here. Alda won’t be impressed if we fought off Carpetha’s demon only to get arrested for possession of powdered wyvern scales.”

  Chapter 2

  “How’s he doing?” Twain said as he drove Alda’s battered 1970’s Beetle toward the warehouse on the old wharf that they used as a base.

  “Looks like we’re losing him,” Fenix said from the backseat where she sat with Ivan’s head in her lap. The magic that had flowed from her hands had closed his wound, saving him from immediate death. But it seemed the injury ran deeper than she’d first thought, and it was taking its toll.

  Fenix looked up to see the witch in her long, gray dress. Alda gazed down at them from a second-story window in their rundown building.

  This part of Tresmort had fallen on hard times. It had been partially destroyed several decades before in the series of meteorite strikes known as The Events. But what finally killed the area was the bullet train. When tracks were laid down on the other side of t
he city, business on the wharf dried up.

  The other buildings in the area were crumbling and stood empty. Alda’s place was barely habitable and was held up mostly by magic, but it was a welcome sight. Fenix remembered the disaster that had turned her into a runaway in the first place. After having slept on the mean streets of Tresmort for over a year, she always thought of Alda’s warehouse as the closest thing to home she could ever hope to find.

  The building had a heavy metal door that, in times past, would have rolled up to allow trucks in and out. But as there was no electricity on the wharf, the door had seized up long ago. The witch preferred using a magical entry, in any case.

  Fenix squeezed her eyes shut as the Beetle headed straight toward the grimy, red-brick façade. The car ran on lavender water and a drop of dragon bile, which made it a bit slow, but allowed it to enter the charmed portal. The Beetle sliced through the seemingly solid wall, leaving every single brick in its place.

  Three and a half years on and Fenix still hadn’t got used to that.

  Twain brought the car to a stop in the cluttered garage, parking between barrels of lavender water.

  Alda pulled the passenger door open as soon as Twain switched off the engine.

  Though she never revealed her exact age, Alda was extremely old, with the wrinkles and wiry silver hair to show for it. Yet, she was full of energy and quick on her feet. Fenix wasn’t surprised that the witch had made it from the second-story window to the garage in the few seconds it had taken them to enter the building.

  “What happened here, boys?” Alda gasped.

  “Ivan took a close-up hit,” Fenix shouted.

  It had been a tough ride for Fenix, holding Ivan in her arms as he writhed and moaned for most of the way. Now, though, he was near motionless.

  Fenix had been tempted to place her hands over his stomach to see if that would have helped, but she’d resisted. She wasn’t even sure how she’d caused his wound to disappear earlier, and she had no clue what she should have done to ease his pain.

  Besides, she feared the strange sensations she’d felt in her hands.

  She was no shrinking violet. When it came to facing off with the toughest, meanest baddies, she had no problem. The skills she’d picked up during the time she’d bounced from street gang to street gang, plus her charmed knives, made her feel ready to kick butt any day. But the strange power that occasionally flared up in her hands struck terror into her heart.

  Not only did she not know what to make of it, but, if discovered, this unexplained power could get her jailed or killed. She wished it would just go away.

  Twain came around to the passenger side as Java stepped out. They grabbed hold of Ivan’s legs to help lift him out of the car as Fenix tried to help from the backseat.

  “One of Carpetha’s demons attacked us,” Twain said.

  Fenix hopped out of the car once Twain and Java had Ivan, helping to hold him. “It was throwing blue lightning.”

  Alda rushed to the door that led to the stairs. “Quick, get him to my apartment!”

  Tresmort had a massive medical complex that serviced even the smaller towns on its outskirts. But taking Ivan there hadn’t even crossed their minds.

  He’d been brought down by magic, so only magic could heal him.

  Alda bounded up the stairs and ran down the corridor toward her apartment. She held open a beaded curtain to a room that was dimly lit by a dozen candles. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, sagging under the weight of bones, gemstones, tree roots, books, and hundreds of bottles containing strange-smelling liquids, powders, and gasses.

  “Lay him on his back,” Alda said as she quickly removed drying herbs from a table in the center of the room.

  When it came to magical medicine, nobody could top Alda.

  It was her main line of business. She made poultices and potions to heal every known condition. Even took on clients with ailments nobody else in the world had ever heard of. Her charms could mend broken bones and stitch shredded flesh back together in the wink of an eye.

  Her clients were all supernatural.

  The average human believed vampires, werewolves, fae, gargoyles, dragons, and the like to be the stuff of myths. But Fenix knew that any person who’d lived in the rough underbelly of society, like she had, would have encountered supernaturals.

  Species waged war against each other over turf, and individuals battled with others of their own kind in long-standing feuds. Apart from their internal wars, they lived quiet lives in normal societies, keeping their species secret, and those who attacked humans and risked exposing the supernatural community were dealt with harshly. Fenix had heard that what government the supernaturals had ensured that rule breakers were hunted down and killed.

  Because the supernatural community was so violent, Alda had all the business she needed from their members alone.

  After they laid Ivan on the table, the witch held a candle close to his head and peeled back his eyelid. The worried look on her face surprised Fenix.

  “What’s the matter?” Fenix said.

  “He’s in a very bad way.”

  “But you can heal him, can’t you?”

  Alda scrunched up her face. “I don’t know. Carpetha must have added something different to boost her spell.”

  As far as the use of magic among humans went, the handful of witches who held licenses to practice were limited to applying their magic to themselves and a maximum of four helpers.

  Using magic on humans outside of that small community was illegal.

  In the years following The Events, a jittery government had outright banned the use of magic. Alda said it was because of the year a secret grimoire had been released on the Internet. Thousands of would-be witches and wizards had wreaked havoc by casting half-baked spells. Some had caused the entire continent’s wheat crop to shrivel up; took down the power grids of the Eastern Region; made roofs collapse and water mains burst in every major city; and had been blamed for a rash of politicians doing silly things, like stripping down to their briefs in the middle of live, televised speeches.

  After intense lobbying for years by the Academy of Casters, the government had agreed to issue licenses to sorcerers who could prove they had been practicing for at least thirty years before the grimoire had been published online.

  Even so, vigilante gangs had taken it upon themselves to hunt down and torment spell casters, as well as people who illegally sought them out. Magic was so reviled that the police turned a blind eye to reports of suspected witches or wizards being gunned down or strung up.

  Those situations made Alda wary of stirring from the wharf. She preferred to use courier gangs, the latest of which included Ivan, Twain, Java, and Fenix.

  Alda turned and grabbed a large, heavy book off a shelf. “I’ll need to figure this out.” Flipping through a few pages, she stopped to read in the glow of the candles. Replacing the tome, she grabbed four more books off the shelves. She buried her head in them one by one.

  “Might as well give it a try,” she eventually mumbled.

  Fenix, Twain, and Java stood against the beaded curtain to give Alda space as she flitted around the room.

  She lit some incense, then gathered up bottles of liquids and packets of powders and took them to a corner. She carefully measured out small amounts and mixed the ingredients together in a deep wooden bowl.

  Thin plumes of smoke filled the air, along with the refreshing scent of oranges and peppermint.

  Everything was quiet, except for Alda whispering words Fenix didn’t understand.

  Then the witch poured a glowing, white liquid into a small vial and swirled it three times through the perfumed smoke.

  “Okay,” Alda said, looking strained. “This will either kill him or bring him back. But it’s his only hope.”

  Fenix, Java, and Twain stared at each other.

  Fenix knew they were thinking the same thing she was—the gang could never be the same without Ivan.

  Their work
was dangerous, so the four of them had had to rely on each other to stay alive. Naturally, they had grown very close over the last few years. Although no one acted as leader, they often took their cue from Ivan because he was the oldest and had been working for Alda the longest.

  Fenix was the last to join the team. This was the longest she’d been in one place with one group of people since she’d become a runaway. The three boys and Alda felt like family to her. She didn’t want anything about this cozy existence to change.

  “Do whatever you have to,” Fenix said.

  Alda positioned herself near Ivan’s head and beckoned the gang around the table. “I’ll need your help.”

  Java sniffled. “What do you want us to do?”

  “You, hold down Ivan’s legs. Twain, you take his shoulders. And Fenix, I need you to hold his head absolutely still.”

  As they took up their places, Fenix could feel her heart pounding against her ribs.

  “This is a very powerful potion.” Alda looked at them with eyes that burned with intensity. “His body is going to try to reject it. No matter how hard he fights, you must hold him down to give the medicine a chance to work. Understood?”

  The three nodded.

  “Here goes,” Alda said.

  Java squeezed his eyes shut.

  Twain stared at Alda as if he were in a daze.

  Fenix held her breath as she watched Alda force Ivan’s mouth open and pour the glowing potion down his throat.

  Immediately, his shoulders jerked as he let out a bloodcurdling shriek.

  “Don’t let his head move, Fenix,” Alda shouted.

  Fenix pressed down on Ivan’s forehead with all her strength. But he pushed up hard, and Fenix could feel her hold weakening.

  “Keep his head down!” Alda screeched.

  “I’m doing the best I can,” Fenix shouted back. She leaned her entire upper body over Ivan’s head and pressed down harder.

  He bent his knees and tried to pull out of Java’s hold.

  “Grab his legs,” Alda yelled. “Grab him! Grab him.”

  Java threw his body across the table and covered Ivan’s legs. It didn’t stop Ivan from kicking.