Sacred Light (Armor of Magic Book 1)

by Simone Pond

  Then a sparkle of blue light flickered under the door and glittered into the office. Through my tears, I watched the blue-haired faerie come up out of the light. She stood before me, smiling and waving; her blue hair danced around her dainty face and her blue eyes twinkled. She was an enchanting site. I had almost forgotten I wanted to clobber her.

  “Hi!” she piped.

  “You,” I grumbled. “This is all your fault.”

  She giggled. “I had to get your attention.”

  If my hands weren’t cuffed, I would’ve flung her across the room.

  “Well, it worked. And now I’m screwed. This isn’t fun and games, faerie. There are demons in this building.”

  “There are demons everywhere, silly!” She flapped her gossamer wings and flew in circles around the small office.

  “You’re making me dizzy. Is there a reason why you’re here? To rub it in that you stole my boot?”

  The faerie stopped and leaned down close to my face; her intoxicating scent of lilacs and gardenias swept over me. “I’m here to help,” she said.

  I let out a dry laugh. “Why would a faerie want to help me with anything?”

  She frowned, insulted, then danced across the room and slipped under the door in a sparkle of blue light.

  Fucking faeries. I resigned to the fact that I was either going to be slaughtered or tortured for information by Stone or one of his minions. Not even a full week on the Protector of Light job and I had failed.

  Moments later, the door opened and the faerie stood before me, holding a ring of keys. She came over and unlocked my cuffs. I jumped up off the floor, shaking my wrists to get my circulation going. Once the feeling came back into my hands, I called on my sword and shield—both appeared in a blazing glow of white light. I was back in business!

  twenty-two

  Before I made my getaway from the abandoned office in the bowels of city hall, I tapped the top of my helmet so the Armor could cloak me. The little blue-haired faerie giggled when I disappeared from her sight.

  “Where are you?” she asked in her sweet voice.

  “Oh, you can’t see me? Good!” I teased.

  “You’re much funnier than the other ones,” she said.

  “Other ones?”

  “Protectors. I know what you are. When you’re not cloaked, you can see that Armor glowing from a mile away. You really should be more careful.”

  “I’m kinda new at this Protector stuff, so whatever.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “What’s yours?”

  “Laila.”

  “So why’d you steal my boot, Laila?”

  “Like I said, I wanted to get your attention.” She smiled and morphed into a sphere of blue light and zipped down the hallway toward the exit. I followed behind, mostly because I wanted to get my boot back, but also because the little jokester had piqued my curiosity.

  Out in the hallway, nobody noticed me or the twinkling light that flashed by them so quickly. We were safe for the time being, at least from the non-supernatural folks. Laila flitted out the front doors and onto the lawn. She remained as a ball of light as she spoke to me.

  “You have my full attention, faerie.”

  “My name is Laila!” she snapped.

  “Fine. I’m listening, Laila.”

  “Your boot for your help,” she said.

  “My help? What could you possibly want from me?”

  “First, agree.”

  “I’m not bargaining with a faerie. I don’t trust your sparkly ass, missy.”

  She giggled and a shower of stars sprinkled over me. I couldn’t help but smile at the lovely magical creature. Her blue light intensified and suddenly my body elevated above the ground and before I knew what was happening, I was flying. Flying! Finding balance took a few tumbles mid-air and some nose dives where I almost smacked onto the ground, but after a few minutes I got the hang of balancing my weight and straightened out.

  “Come, Protector,” she sang.

  Laila swirled upwards and zipped around the lawn area, a trail of diamond-like stars following behind. I couldn’t match her speed, but I held my own. Like a tornado, she flew up and began to circle the dome of city hall. Close behind, I moved through the air, looking down a few times to take in the magnificent city streets below; trolley cars dinged as they rounded steep hills, buses barreled down Market Street, and sunlight glistered like jewels across the San Francisco Bay. It was a spectacular sight—my city.

  “Up here!” Laila shouted, as her light twirled around the circumference of the pole where my boot was perched.

  Carefully, I aimed for the pole and flew up higher. The wind was stronger and a few degrees colder, but my Armor kept me at room temperature. As I closed in on the boot, I reached out to grab it off the pole, but Laila beat me to it. The little twit snatched it up and flew off in a blaze of giggles and blue light. So not cool. I flew back down to the grass as quickly as possible just in case her faerie magic didn’t last. I hit the ground hard, sending a jolt of stabbing pain up my spine. It was safe to say that faeries could be added to the category of those not to be trusted.

  Defeated, I walked to the street and aimed myself toward Asher’s guest house. I didn’t have time to play games with the faerie. I’d figure out what to do about the boot later. It was after one o’clock, and I still needed to get home and change for work. Getting captured had really put a damper on my day.

  I zipped across town, the wind blowing in my messy hair, and made it to the Marina in three minutes. Not too shabby. Asher’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, which meant he was working on my house. I raced into the guest house and jumped into the shower—wearing the full suit of Armor—and quickly hosed down. As I dried off, a burst of blue light zipped into the living room area.

  “What do you want, faerie?” I barked, no longer on a first name basis.

  Laila swirled out of the light and stood before me, holding the boot. “Here you go.”

  I snatched it from her dainty hands before she could pull another fast one. Once it was on my foot, I felt a refreshing wave of equilibrium roll over me.

  “Are you going to tell me your name, Protector?” She flipped her sparkly blue hair over her shoulders. Her gossamer wings fluttered behind her, though she stood in place. The dress she wore was made of translucent material, yet covered her body like a suit of aquamarine. I couldn’t stop staring at the bewitching creature.

  Yanking my attention off her and to my bag of clothes, I got dressed. “My name’s Fiona Farrow. And yes, I’m a Protector of Light. But I’m also an investigative journalist. That is, unless I get fired for my utter lack of showing up to the office.”

  “You’re fine,” she told me, grinning.

  “What did you do?”

  “When I saw you get captured by the ugly demon at city hall, I knew you’d be a while, so I put a tiny spell over your office. Everyone thinks you’ve been working diligently all morning. No questions asked.”

  “How’d you know where I work?”

  “I’ve been following you for days.”

  I wondered if she and Ezra were tight. They both seemed to enjoy stalking me. “Full of tricks, aren’t you, faerie?”

  “Please, can we go back to the way things were? I prefer Laila.”

  “Sure thing, Laila. But the second you try something, our budding friendship is officially over.”

  A smile lit up across her delicate face, clearly not privy to my sarcasm. She plunked down on the white couch and kicked her bare feet up onto the coffee table, making herself entirely too comfortable.

  “Um. I still have a story assignment to finish, so unless you can cast a spell to make that magically appear … I need some privacy.”

  “Oh.” She sat up, pouting. “Well, before I leave, I have a request.”

  “This should be interesting.”

  “I need your help, Fiona.”

  “Okay?”

  “I want you to take down that jerk Em
mett Stone.”

  Excitement shot through me. “You know about Stone?”

  “He’s been snatching up my friends and stealing their magic.”

  I sat next to her. “That’s not all he’s doing. He’s using homeless people for their bodies. He’s allowing the disembodied demons to inhabit them. It’s pretty messed up.”

  Laila leaned forward, her sparkly eyes widening. “Oh, you think that’s bad? He has his people do sweeps. They’re collecting all sorts of beings—magical and human—and taking them to a warehouse.”

  Bile filled my mouth as my anger brewed. “What’s he doing with them?”

  “Like I said, stealing their magic.”

  “But what about the humans?” I got up and started pacing around the living room, my head spinning. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the bastard and expose him to the world.

  “Various stuff. Some are sold to vampires for blood, others to demons for slavery. I don’t know all the details because getting into the warehouse isn’t easy. I don’t even know where it is—they’ve got a massive cloaking spell over it. But word on the street is that he’s making a fortune.”

  I punched the wall, making a perfect hole. I had no idea that the Armor gave me that much power. Good to know.

  “Easy, Fiona. It’s best to keep a cool head. We need to come up with a strategy.”

  “We? I don’t think so, faerie.”

  “Hey!”

  “Laila.”

  As I finished getting dressed, I ignored her ongoing chatter as she patched up the hole I had made in the wall. I definitely didn’t trust the faerie, but I had a sudden and annoying desire to help her. Stone thoroughly sucked, but maybe together we could take him down.

  twenty-three

  As much as I was having reservations about working with the faerie, I knew she’d be useful.

  “How long will that spell last?” I asked.

  “Which one?”

  Ugh. How many spells had the little twit cast was the bigger question. “The one at my office where everyone thinks I’m working diligently?”

  “Oh, that will last until you show up for work.”

  That was the best news I had heard in a while. I went to check the time and remembered my phone was still at city hall—the security guard had snagged it before she locked me in that office. I had no way of reaching Charlotte and desperately needed to. We still hadn’t worked things out. The clock on the stove said it was a little after two. The spell over my office meant I had free reign, but I still needed to get to city hall before it closed, retrieve my phone, and get the location of the warehouse from Stone.

  “If you want my help, I have a few rules. I know faeries don’t like rules, so if you don’t think you can handle it, let’s call it a day.”

  She turned a darker shade of blue, folding her arms across her chest. “You don’t know much about faeries, Protector.”

  “I know you’re a pain in the ass.”

  Scrunching her pretty little face, she glared at me for a moment, but then a wide grin curled on her rosebud lips. “I guess you’re right about that. But I assure you, I don’t have any more tricks under my wings. My friends are important to me. I want to get them back. So I’ll be a team player. Okay?”

  I held out my hand—fearing I’d live to regret my decision—and we shook on it. “A deal’s a deal. So, I’m counting on you, Laila. Don’t fuck this up.”

  “Language!” she piped.

  “Before we do anything, I have to get my phone from that security bitch so I can call my friend Charlotte before she writes me off for good. At the moment, she thinks I’m a psychopath who was trying to kill her sister, so I need to explain what I am and what her sister is. And I want to make sure she knows she’s a healer and can use her powers for good before her succubus sister turns her down the wrong path. Okay?”

  Laila nodded. “Easy enough. What else?”

  “Do you think you could disguise me?”

  “Disguise you as what?”

  “One of Stone’s minions. I saw a guy there yesterday, and they seemed like business partners.”

  Her blue eyes sparkled mischievously. “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “Yes, hard to forget.”

  “Okay, close your eyes and imagine him.”

  Laila got to work on disguising me, spinning fast circles in a glister of blue light. I kept my eyes squeezed shut and pictured the business “man” who had interrupted my meeting with Stone the previous day. My insides trembled the faster Laila spun.

  When she finished, she stood in front of me rubbing her hands together, admiring her work. I looked in the mirror and bristled when I saw an exact replica of Stone’s partner, or whatever he was, staring back at me; dark hair and eyes so pale they looked like white clouds. Creepy would be a good adjective. Somewhere under this convincing disguise was the Armor, and I hoped Laila was able to cloak it from detection, since I still had no idea who could and couldn’t see it.

  “Well done. Will any of those asshats be able to see the Armor?” My voice startled me; I sounded just like the man I had heard in my head in Stone’s office.

  “You should be okay.”

  “Should be? I’d like to be a hundred percent on that.”

  “Well, I can’t see the glow, so I’d say you’re fine. We won’t know until we try. We could just stay here and not bother.”

  The little twit was a feisty one, knowing that I wouldn’t back down from a challenge.

  “No, we’re going through with this.”

  “Are you going to share your plan with me?” Laila asked.

  “Not yet. I’m still ironing out the details.”

  I hadn’t formulated an entire strategy, but I planned to get Stone to divulge the location of the warehouse one way or another. I’d come up with something before we got to city hall.

  “We should go before it gets too late,” I said.

  I scribbled a note for Asher and pinned it to my door, just in case he came by after he finished working on the house. Since we hadn’t communicated all day, I had a feeling he’d come by and check on me. He was good like that.

  Standing in the back yard, Laila sprinkled some glitter dust—yes, glitter dust—into the air, and before I knew it, we were drifting above the Marina and heading toward Hayes Valley. We weren’t going as fast as the boots could’ve carried us, but I didn’t mind since I still needed to figure out how to get Stone to give me the location of where he was housing his victims.

  ***

  Inside city hall, Laila floated high above me, undetected. I marched straight to the security guard station, specifically seeking out the three-eyed she-devil who had taken my phone earlier that morning. The stout little demon stood among her co-workers—clearly the alpha of the pack—howling with laughter as she talked shit about random city hall officials. As I approached, the guards stood at attention and lowered their eyes to the shine on my dress shoes.

  “Sir,” said the she-devil, moving to the side to allow me to pass into the hallway. “How can I be of service?”

  I waved her over. “I was informed about an incident this morning.”

  “Yes, sir. A Protector was in the building, but I captured her.”

  “And where is she now?”

  The guard pursed her lips and kept her gaze on the floor. “She escaped somehow.” She stepped back a few inches as though I were going to strike her. The man Laila had disguised me as was obviously a real son-of-a-bitch, but I used my status as leverage and leaned down just inches from the guard’s face.

  “You let her get away? Does Stone know about this?”

  She shook her head, mortified.

  “I should end you this very minute. Do you realize what we could’ve done with that resource? And you let it slip right out of your pudgy little fingers?”

  The guard looked up, desperation wincing in her eyes. Her ego wanted redemption, I could see it in her face. How could she make it up to me and get back in my good g
races? I knew how, but I wanted her to come to it on her own.

  “Imagine the kind of information we could’ve gleaned from her. Maybe where the next Scroll is, or even how to locate other Protectors. When Stone finds out, he’ll ensure the rest of your short life will be painfully brutal.”

  I turned to leave, but the stubby she-devil grabbed my sleeve. “Sir, wait! I do have something that might be of use.”

  Stopping, I looked over my shoulder. “Really?”

  She pulled my cellphone out of her back pocket—I’d know that shitty purple case anywhere. Charlotte relentlessly made fun of it. If she ever talked to me again, I’d let her pick out a new phone for me.

  “And how will that be of use to me?” I asked.

  “It the Protector’s phone, sir.” The she-devil beamed, and I snatched the phone from her grubby hands and stalked off toward Stone’s office without another word.

  From above, I could hear Laila giggling. I couldn’t help but smile at how easily that had gone. I hoped the next phase of the plan would go just as smoothly.

  twenty-four

  Before I strutted into Stone’s office, I texted Charlotte and waited for her response. Normally, she’d get back right away, but the non-response told me she was still very upset. I’d have to call her after I dealt with this Stone business.

  I walked into his office like I belonged there. The assistant—sporting a hunter green pants suit—stood up from behind the desk, her eyes wide with confusion.

  “Sir, you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “We have an emergency,” I told her, knowing this would immediately throw her and Stone off their game.

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “Does it look like I care? Get him,” I ordered.

  I had to say, it was a nice change from the previous day when I practically had to beg for a minute with Stone.

  The assistant got up and scuttled to Stone’s door and knocked, then entered. I didn’t wait for Stone to come out; instead, I barreled into his office with authority. Even if Stone was higher in the chain of command, I needed to put him in a place of fear or at least apprehension. That would give me the advantage.