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

by Carly Hansen

  Still screaming, Ivan banged his feet down on the tabletop in rapid succession. He swung and pulled away. The table creaked and thumped on the floor. Bottles clinked and boxes rattled on the shelves.

  Above the commotion, Alda yelled. “Hold him down! I said to hold him! Keep his head still. You can’t let—”

  Without warning, Ivan flung his left arm up and slammed into Alda.

  She flew right across the room and crashed into a shelf. Books, bottles, and brambles rained down around her as she slumped to the floor.

  Alda quickly got back on her feet. She dusted twigs out of her hair and returned to the table. “Don’t let go, now, boys,” she said as if nothing had happened. “Hold him tight.”

  The three held on to Ivan as his body continued to convulse.

  A few minutes later, his screams went silent. His limbs went limp, and his breathing slowed down.

  Alda checked Ivan’s eyes again. “You can let him go now.”

  Trembling, Fenix stared at Ivan’s motionless body. “Will he be all right?”

  Alda sighed. “I can’t say. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  She picked up a book, dusted it, and put it on a nearby table. Looking stunned, Twain leaned against the wall and stared at Ivan. Java and Fenix went over to help Alda straighten up.

  “You said he was hit close range with a blue light?” Alda said.

  Fenix nodded.

  Alda scratched her head. “I’m surprised he even made it home alive.”

  “Me too,” Java said. “When I saw the hole in his stomach, I thought for sure he was a goner.”

  Alda rolled back on her heels. “What hole?”

  “There was a big hole with pulsating light right here.” Java made a circle over his own navel.

  The witch frowned. “What happened to it?”

  Fenix widened her eyes to signal to Java that he should keep quiet.

  “Fenix made it disappear,” Twain piped up.

  Fenix turned around and scowled at him. “I did not.”

  “Yes, you did. You put your hand over the hole, your hand lit up, and then Ivan’s whole body flared with light. And then, the hole disappeared.”

  Fenix gritted her teeth. Twain’s memory was faulty. She hadn’t placed her hand over the hole in Ivan’s body. She’d merely held one of his hands, and then magic had started flowing from her into Ivan’s body. Twain’s imprecise recollection gave Fenix the opening to shoot down his story without exactly lying.

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “That’s exactly what happened. Or were you too spaced out to remember?”

  “Maybe there was light around my hand, but it didn’t come from me.”

  “I saw it, Fenix.” Twain pushed himself off the wall and puffed out his chest.

  “What you saw must have been a leftover spark from Carpetha’s magic. The demon must have left some magic behind.”

  “Don’t try to tell me I didn’t see what I saw,” Twain shouted.

  Alda raised her hands. “That’s enough, boys!”

  Twain grunted. “But Fenix is lying, Alda.”

  “I said that’s enough!” Alda kicked one of Twain’s peg legs.

  He wobbled before righting himself.

  Alda paced in front of him, looking him up and down. “What do you know about magic, huh? Since when did you become an expert? Who are you to say where that healing power did or didn’t come from?”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” Alda shouted. “Fenix is right.”

  What did she say? Fenix had to fight hard to not let her jaw drop.

  “It could’ve been leftover sparks that healed Ivan,” Alda continued, propping her fists on either side of her waist. “When Fenix sent the demon back to Carpetha, any stranded magic could have become distorted. It’s easy to see how that distorted magic could have reversed some of the damage that had been done.”

  Fenix could hardly believe what she was hearing.

  She had made up that theory on the spot to protect her secret about the strange power she’d suspected had flowed through her hands. But did she somehow hit upon the true workings of Carpetha’s magic? Or was Alda spinning out her theory to back up her deception?

  The second possibility made Fenix uneasy.

  Why would Alda further the lie? The witch didn’t usually play favorites. She couldn’t know the reason why Fenix had made up the lie in the first place. At least, Fenix didn’t think so.

  “Listen, boys,” Alda said in a calmer voice. “This is a stressful time. But let’s not let it get to us, okay? That’d do us no good. Let’s not turn against each other and start fighting in here. You guys are a team, and you’ve got to stick together, to stick up for one another, and act as one unit. Okay?”

  Twain looked down at his peg legs.

  Alda slapped him in his chest with the back of her hand. “Okay?”

  He sighed and nodded.

  “Okay, Fenix?”

  “Sure, fine,” Fenix said.

  “What we go through in our work is hard enough without you guys fighting each other,” Alda said. “I want no more of it.”

  A groan from the middle of the room caught Fenix’s attention. “I think that was Ivan.”

  They all rushed to the table.

  Ivan lay expressionless. His chest didn’t even rise or fall to indicate that he was breathing.

  “Maybe you just imagined that sound,” Java said.

  Fenix shrugged. “I was sure I heard him.”

  Alda placed her hand over Ivan’s face, but as soon as her finger touched his eyelid, he turned his head away and groaned.

  “Yay,” Java shouted.

  Fenix’s heart thumped.

  “He’s alive,” Twain yelled.

  Alda shushed them. She bent to Ivan’s ear and shook his shoulder gently. “Ivan, can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” he groaned slowly.

  Alda was not one to smile much. In fact, Fenix couldn’t recall ever having heard her laugh before. The witch almost always had a serious look on her face. Fenix supposed it came from deep concentration as Alda studied her thick books or mixed up a batch of magic.

  But Alda laughed now.

  She threw back her head and cackled.

  “That’s the best groan I’ve heard in centuries,” she said. “Get him to sit up, boys.”

  The three helped Ivan up. Alda inspected his stomach, his palms, and under his eyelids.

  “He’s going to be just fine,” she said. “Just needs a little bit of rest and a little bit of this.”

  She walked over to a shelf and rested her hand on two brown sachets. “Java, Twain,” she said. “Take these to Ivan’s room and sprinkle them on his pillows.”

  Although small enough to fit in one hand, the sachets looked to Fenix like they must have weighed a ton. Java and Twain bent forward and struggled to carry the tiny parcels through the beaded curtain.

  “I was saving that for something special,” the witch said.

  “What is it?” Fenix said

  “Dust from the ground Heracles stood on when he killed the giant Antaeus,” Alda said. “It’ll help restore Ivan’s strength. He needs all the help he can get.”

  Fenix felt Ivan push away her hand as he raised his own hands to his throat and rubbed it.

  “That’s going to sting for a little while,” Alda said.

  Ivan took a deep breath, then exhaled heavily. “You need to charge more for your work.”

  Alda smiled, and Fenix thought that she should do it more often. It lit up her face.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” the witch said.

  “No, I mean it, Alda,” Ivan growled. “You need to start charging money for your work.”

  Alda stepped back as the lines on her brow deepened. “You’re seriously telling me to ask for money for healing my clients?”

  Ivan’s face hardened into a scowl. “Yes, so that you can start paying us.”

  Alda’s jaw fell. �
��I just brought you back from death’s door and that’s all you have to say to me?”

  “It was all I could think about as I lay there so close to the end. I thought, This is it? I’ve been risking my life all these years carrying around your magic, and all I get in return is room and board. The work I do is worth more. I’m worth more, and I want to make damn sure I get to enjoy my life before I lose it.”

  “You’re saying I don’t provide well enough for you?”

  Ivan slid off the table. “Meals and a roof over my head are no longer enough, Alda. And look at this place. It’s a dump. If you charged the proper price for your work, you could move out of here. And you could start giving us a salary.”

  Alda narrowed her eyes. “Don’t try to tell me how to run my affairs, boy.”

  “But your clients can afford to pay a hundred times more than you charge. You’re wasting the chance to—”

  Alda slapped her hands together right in front of Ivan’s face. “Shut up, boy!”

  Ivan pulled his head back and scowled.

  Fenix squeezed Ivan’s shoulder and stepped forward to place herself between him and Alda. “He’s just delirious,” she said. “He doesn’t really know what he’s saying.”

  “No, Fenix.” Ivan tried to push her out of the way, but he stumbled. She caught him in her arms. Still, he remained defiant. “I meant every word I said.”

  Twain and Java parted the beaded curtain and entered. They looked at Ivan and Alda’s faces, and then exchanged concerned glances.

  “What’s the matter?” Java said.

  “Nothing.” Alda folded her arms and snorted. “Just get Ivan to his bed.”

  ********

  When the others had left, Alda walked over to a window in the corner and opened it.

  From where she stood, Fenix inhaled the salty air that wafted in. In the distance, the waxing gibbous moon shone over the shimmering waters of the ocean.

  Alda stared out and sighed. “I knew this day would come. I guess it was too much to hope it would come later than now.”

  “Don’t worry,” Fenix said. “Ivan will be back to his normal self when he’s better.”

  “No, he won’t.” Alda kept her eyes fixed on the moon as she spoke. “This gang is about to break up. Just like all the ones before.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “The signs are there. I’ve been through this many times already. It’s hard to find good help. But it’s even more difficult to keep ‘em.”

  Alda turned and cast her eyes on the shelves. “‘Charge more,’ he said. I heal my clients, ease their pain, restore their health, and he wants me to charge more for my services? If the ingredients I use weren’t so difficult or dangerous to come by, I’d gladly give my medicines for free.”

  Fenix smiled. “Better not tell Ivan that. Then he’d leave us for sure.”

  Alda didn’t return the smile. “Speaking of ingredients, where’s the powdered wyvern scales I sent you for?”

  Fenix dipped into her jacket pocket for the small package they’d risked their lives for. She handed it over, surprised Alda took it without the usual twinkle that would light up her eyes whenever they delivered some new ingredient.

  The witch was taking this hard.

  Fenix felt she understood. She knew only too well how unsettling it was to have the world ripped apart and how painful it was to lose loved ones. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure things will soon get back to normal around here.”

  Alda shook her head. “After a while, they all leave me. Even you, Fenix Graystone, you will leave me, too.”

  “I have no plans to leave.”

  “But you will,” Alda said with such certainty and resignation that Fenix felt a twinge in her heart. “Someday, you will.”

  “I won’t leave you,” Fenix said softly.

  Alda looked Fenix directly in the eyes, as if searching for something beyond them.

  “Tell me something,” Alda said. “Did anybody else get struck by Carpetha’s blue lightning tonight?”

  “I did as well,” Fenix reluctantly offered.

  “And it didn’t affect you like it did Ivan?”

  “Well, he was up close, but I was about thirty feet away when the demon hit me.”

  Alda shook her head. “That doesn’t explain it. Carpetha delved into Base Magic for this latest spell. A person hit from even three hundred feet away would have been struck down.”

  What was Alda implying? Fenix shrugged. “I don’t know what to say about that.”

  Alda nodded. “Okay,” she said simply and pursed her lips. Folding her arms, she turned to stare out at the moon again. “I wanted to ask you about what Twain said.”

  “About what?”

  “About you healing Ivan.”

  A tense smile stretched across Fenix’s lips. “You said it yourself, Alda. It was leftover magic that reversed the damage. It had nothing to do with me.”

  “You didn’t really think I bought a story like that—” Alda began, but then suddenly fell silent. She pushed her head through the window and peered out.

  Fenix was suddenly aware of a soft rumbling sound coming from outside.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Alda said.

  She brushed past Fenix, almost knocking her over, and was through the beaded curtain in a flash. Her footsteps pounded down the stairs.

  Fenix rushed to the window and looked down.

  A sleek white SUV stood in front of the warehouse. A tall, slender figure in all white emerged from it and closed the door with a soft thud. He pulled the flaps of his jacket closer together and buttoned them. Although he wasn’t brawny, his pecs and biceps showed under the soft fabric.

  He walked toward the entrance of the building with long, confident strides. That’s strange, Fenix thought. To her knowledge, Alda had never revealed her location to clients or suppliers.

  Just before the stranger stepped into the shadow of the building, he looked up. Instinctively, Fenix pulled away from the window. But the brief glimpse she got was enough to show the outline of his face.

  She had no clue who this stranger was, but, at the sight of him, her heart slammed against her rib cage.

  Fenix felt unsettled, suddenly unsure of herself.

  Chapter 3

  Alda had seemed upset by the stranger’s arrival. That was the main reason—no, the only reason—Fenix crept down the stairs after her.

  It was only right that she got as close as possible to see the stranger and to hear his voice. No, what she actually meant was to hear what he was saying—for Alda’s sake, of course.

  Fenix touched the sheathed knife at her side. She flexed her ankle and felt the reassuring pressure of her backup knife in her boot.

  If need be, she would spring to Alda’s defense.

  Yes, Alda needed her to be there. She was only doing her duty to her boss.

  Their living quarters were on the upper floor in the section of the warehouse that was split into two stories. However, in the section leading to the main entrance, there was just one cavernous space where twenty-foot-tall glass windows ran from the floor to the ceiling. Alda used this area to grow various trees and plants for her medicines.

  Fenix crouched behind bushes and ducked behind pillars until she was close enough to get a clear view of Alda and the stranger.

  The garden was illuminated by a network of magical torches Alda kept going at all times, for the sake of the plants. But even in this faint light, what Fenix saw of the stranger sent her heart racing.

  She’d never seen anyone like him in person before. He looked like he’d been pulled out of the pages of the glossy magazines Alda kept one the floor below their living quarters.

  Among the stacks of furniture, appliances, utensils, and gadgets that Alda, who was an incurable hoarder, had accumulated over the decades were boxes and boxes of magazines. On days when the gang didn’t have to deliver or pick up anything, and after Fenix had tired herself out practicing her fighting skill
s, she would spend hours poring through those old, quaint publications. The people in those pages were impossibly gorgeous, including the men.

  Like them, the man who stood before Alda had a sharp nose, high cheekbones, and a clean-shaven, square jaw. His bushy eyebrows drew attention to his eyes, which appeared to be a sparkling blue. He was young, maybe in his mid-twenties, with smooth, unblemished, pale skin.

  His thick, chestnut-colored hair shone even in the low light. Fenix caught herself imagining that it must smell clean and fresh, like a brisk ocean breeze, and that it would probably feel soft and silky if she ran her hands through it.

  What was she thinking?

  She’d dragged a demon or two by the hair during her work. But she’d never run her hands through any guy’s hair like she’d just pictured herself doing with this stranger.

  She shook those distracting thoughts out of her head, knowing she’d be much better off just concentrating on the conversation.

  “…not a very warm welcome,” the stranger was saying.

  His voice was deep and mellow, hitting mid and low notes, and rolling along in a melodious flow.

  It was like rain on the rooftop—a warm sound that wrapped around her like a blanket. It seemed as if it could lull someone into such a deep sleep that they would forget the rest of the world existed.

  “A visit from you can only mean bad news,” Alda said.

  Fenix and the boys had often been in shouting matches with Alda. But Alda was their boss, so Fenix expected her to sometimes come down hard on her underlings. She was somewhat surprised that Alda was giving this visitor such rough treatment.

  “My dear old friend,” the stranger said. “That’s a very negative stance to take.”

  “Listen, Micha, you and I are not now, nor have we ever been, friends.”

  So, the stranger had a name, a nice sounding one at that.

  “Have it as you will,” Micha said.

  Alda folded her arms. “Why are you here?”

  Micha looked around as if searching for a distraction, but then shrugged and splayed his hands. “I’ll speak plainly. I need your help.”

  “You know that’s forbidden.” Alda snorted. “You may have moved Angelo Labs from the Umbra Region to the Eastern Region, but the Academy of Casters’ rules apply here, too.”