by K. F. Breene
Her voice trailed away and I stiffened. “Did he or she die?”
“Yeah. He didn’t even get a chance to bleed out. They dragged him out as the creature scampered away with its bloody hat. The other two wouldn’t go back in. They were rattled. Said this Redcap is much more powerful than the rest of its kind.” She huffed. “But like I said, stories always get bigger to justify a failure.”
I clenched my teeth as I worked my way back toward more of the fairy stuff, the vibrant pops of color distracting among the muted greens and browns. The magic seemed thicker over here, pumping into the air in waves. The smooth trunks and bare branches didn’t harvest any ugly old men, though. No large red eyes blinked at me from the soft shadows in the overcast day. Everything looked peaceful. Serene.
“It should be here,” I whispered, frowning. I turned in a circle, my senses screaming at me. The source of the corrosive magic was in my vicinity. I could feel it.
But where was it?
“People just go wandering by, huh?” I asked quietly, my footfalls soft, my hands held out and ready. I couldn’t feel my fingers. Magic twisted and boiled above me. My upbeat mood was long gone.
“Yeah. The MLE office says no one knows how the hell they missed it. One second it was all clear, and the next they were ambushed. But there didn’t seem to be anywhere for the creature to hide.”
“Hidden in plain sight,” I said softly, trying to work out this problem.
A birdhouse on a stick, unpainted and constructed of faded wood, rose to my left, not nearly as fresh and cheery as the rest of the fairy village. Possibly it was a relic from the time before the village had been created as an attraction for the local children.
Next to it sat a little stone gargoyle-looking thing with a dopey smile, moss covering its head and shoulders, and a cheery red scarf wrapped around its neck in an effort to make it fit in with the surroundings. About ten feet beyond it, I could see another stump with a tiny door and little round stones leading to it. Off to the side, a miniature stone leprechaun lay back in its buckled hat and green coat.
I continued on, my teeth clenched and my spell ready. Shivers crept up my spine. The wind moaned.
The goblin’s magic intensified. Came pulsing toward me in strong waves.
Confused, I stopped and then back-pedaled, feeling for the source of the magic. I stopped five feet from that gargoyle-looking thing with the dopey smile. And the deep red scarf. The color of blood.
Hiding in plain sight.
“You’re positive it can’t shift into other forms?” I asked in a hush, staring at the stone gargoyle. Feeling the potent, vile magic pumping into the air.
Stone eyes moved. Changed. Colorized.
Turned as red as the scarf.
My mouth went dry.
I worked a few final elements into my spell, preparing to blast the thing. I just needed to get distance between us before it launched at me.
Too late.
Stone crumbled away, revealing crusty, deep gray skin. Long, curved claws at the end of knobby, knuckled hands flew up. It pushed out of its crouch and jumped at me faster than I could flinch.
I didn’t even have time to scream.
2
I knew one moment of blind terror before something body-slammed the creature from the side. Reagan. Her sword came up and flashed downward as they tumbled onto the ground.
She’d been across the freaking river! I hadn’t heard any water splashing.
Stupid me. For a second I’d forgotten she could fly-hover with her nutso-powerful magic. Thoughts were slow in getting through my head.
The creature screeched and twisted, swiping a claw toward her face. She jerked back, her faster-than-human speed saving her.
“Fast fucker, aren’t you?” I heard her say in a series of grunts. She hacked at its limbs with her sword, but the creature was on the move, twisting out from under her weight and springing up.
I shot out a stream of white survival magic. After that scare, it was on hand and ready to be used. The creature morphed into stone, one moment an organic, living thing, and the next a bristling stone creature that looked way more like a gargoyle than the dopey thing from a moment ago.
“Oh yeah, it can change shape, all right.” My magic hit its stone surface and bounced off at an angle, catching a tree and burning a hole through its trunk.
“Oh-kay. That’s a helluva trick,” Reagan said as she thrust her sword at its middle. The blade clanged off the creature’s belly and the Redcap morphed back into an organic being, launching at her with a growl. “Bugger!”
She jumped and kicked, her boot hitting it in the face and sending it staggering backward. I shot out another stream of magic, but the creature shifted back into stone as it tumbled across the ground, once again deflecting my efforts.
“Shizlefritz banana hammock,” I ground out, weaving a more intense, highly powerful spell that should twist its head right off. It would be gross, but that thing and its crusty red hat had to go. “How the heck can it make its hat change into a scarf and back?” For some reason, that struck me more than the whole changing-into-stone thing.
I flung my hands forward as Reagan took a running leap at the creature, my spell getting to it just before she did. The spell splatted against the stone but wouldn’t wrap around its neck. Unrealized, it fizzled back into the nature around us.
“Did you do that?” I asked her, frustrated and possibly suffering from cardiac arrest.
“You’ll need to think outside of the box for this one,” Reagan said before ramming into it with her shoulder and rolling across the ground. “Come back to normal, you filthy creature, so I can kill you!”
“Oh yeah, that approach will work, definitely.”
And yet the creature bounded up, bucking her off. Its hiss emitted a putrid smell that made her hesitate for a moment, her eyes going hazy.
“Oh no!” I shot a trapping spell at it before following with a kill spell.
The creature stopped its lunge for her and snapped back into stone right before my second spell could make contact.
“Dang it, Penny, I would’ve had it.” Reagan kicked the now-inanimate statue, catching it in the head and sending it cartwheeling end over end across the ground.
“How was I supposed to know? I thought you’d been stunned.”
“Magic from creatures of the Underworld doesn’t work on me.” Her tone carried an implied duh. She ran after the creature, which had come to life again and was scampering up a tree.
“I didn’t even know vampires existed a year ago.” I sprinted after her. “How in Mary’s cookie jar am I supposed to keep track of the magic of random creatures and how it reacts with yours if you never explain anything?”
“I just did.” She caught up to it as it tried to scurry up a tree. She grabbed it by the ankle and swung her sword around.
As she should’ve expected, the sword clanged off stone. It dropped to the ground. Once there, it changed again, clearly not taxed by the constant shifting like a vampire or shifter would be. It slashed at her with its sharp claws.
She dodged and countered, just as fast, twice as vicious.
Her fist met stone. “Damn it. Stop with that stone crap.”
This wasn’t working. At this rate, it would wear us down until we were tired and making mistakes. We needed a Plan B.
I stilled, closing my eyes for a moment and racking my brain. The name of the game was to stop it from changing to stone. Which meant I had to somehow block it from using its magic.
The nature around me whispered its song, centering me in the moment. Fanning my magic higher. I let it balloon out then blossom, confident that Reagan would keep the creature occupied.
I felt what I was looking for, hidden within the natural elements. A strange sort of magic wove through it, turning certain wisps brittle. The differences between these rogue strands and the heavy fog I’d been feeling were minute, barely discernible, and the magic was slippery when I tried to tap into it. Evasiv
e.
Like the creature. It refused to heed me.
This was a puzzle and I wasn’t totally sure how to put it all together.
“Taking a wee nap, are you?” Reagan asked, then grunted.
Peeling up an eyelid, I realized she was talking to me. I also realized she had met her match when it came to speed and cunning. The creature dodged her attempt to sweep its legs out from under it before ducking under her left hook with a feral grin. She jabbed with her sword, only to hit off stone. She surged in to grab it, but when she made contact, it was once again an organic creature, and its claws swung up seemingly out of nowhere.
Air wrapped around the creature, her ice magic (I could never remember the Latin name) lifting it and then crashing it to the dirt. But stone was more durable than the rain-softened ground, and the battering did nothing more than dirty the creature.
It turned back into itself before striking out. She dodged and blasted it with fire. The flame washed across stone.
“That is the fastest shift I have ever seen,” she said through clenched teeth. “I can’t even burn it. What a crock.”
Stone turned back to gray skin. “I will dip my hat in your blood yet.” Its voice was deep and scratchy, like the words were scraped with sandpaper.
“You’ll have to pull it out of your ass, first,” she replied, facing it with her hand and sword out. “Because that’s where I’m going to shove it.”
“How does it withstand your magic?” I asked her, trying to figure out the riddle.
“It hits off the stone and just…slides away. I have never, ever seen a creature withstand my magic. Never. I can’t feel any spells or anything. I can’t fathom how it’s doing it.”
“I was given special gifts by the gods,” the Redcap said as it tried to circle Reagan, looking for an in. This thing thought it could win. It was not worried. And if I knew Reagan, she shared its sentiment. “I am not like the rest of my kind.”
“Well, aren’t you suddenly Mr. Chatty. How’d you get up to see the gods? A great big ladder?” She dashed forward, faster than lightning. But not faster than the goblin. Her sword tip scraped stone.
“Try to rush it with your magic, not the sword,” I said in exasperation. “And there are gods?” Something else no one had bothered to tell me.
“Killing it with a sword will be so much more gratifying.” She hacked down onto the stone. “This. Thing.” She hit it with each word, putting all her strength into it. Venting. “Is. Pissing. Me. Off!”
Panting, she stepped back, staring down at its dopey smile. “Change back, bastard. I want another go.”
It did as she said, and I caught a little pulse of power, like a subtle spark way down in the depths of the thing’s magic. This was different from everything I’d felt before—this was what allowed the goblin to change.
“Got it,” I whispered, letting my eyes drift closed and focusing.
“Allegedly, there are gods, yeah. Though some people call them angels. The hearsay is vague on that topic,” Reagan said in a series of grunts ending in sword clangs. “Allegedly, I have strands of their lineage. Allegedly, you can only get to their kingdom of paradise through the dreamscape. Which you can only do if you are a Dream Walker, or guided by a Dream Walker.”
“Why do you keep saying allegedly?” I monitored that little pulse of the creature’s magic, feeling how it interacted with mine. I needed to coax it in so I could use it in a spell, but it was still evasive. Slippery. I couldn’t get a proper grip on it.
“Because I have neither met a Dream Walker—they are incredibly rare—nor heard of anyone who has seen, screwed, or gotten rewards from a god. It’s all a little far-fetched.”
“All the crazy in your life, and you think that is a little far-fetched?” I shook my head. “Think, Penny, think.” I squeezed my eyes shut while struggling to open myself to the magic. Invite it in.
“Don’t think…just do,” Reagan said with strained words.
I just did earlier, and that hadn’t helped.
My temperament was too even-keeled for this creature, that had to be it. This would work better if I shared Emery’s personality—wild and unruly, reflective of the harsher sides of nature.
I could work with that.
“Fine.” I rolled up my sleeves and immediately regretted it as the cold bit down on my skin. I yanked my sleeves back down. “You want it, you got it.”
I thought of Emery. Of his strength and power. The force he could wield with his broad, powerful frame. I thought of his occasional mood swings, the death and sorrow he’d experienced in his life plunging him into the depths of torment. Of his rough hands moving over my body as he entered me with a forceful and deeply passionate thrust.
My face heated and I quickly yanked my line of thought in a different direction. I wasn’t after X-rated memories just now, no matter how pleasant.
My magic boiled, turning and rolling above me. My mood blackened at the thought of what the Mages’ Guild had taken from Emery. At what they had taken from me. My father, his brother, our freedom.
Anger surged, soon burning into rage. Despair seeped in on its heels. I had no idea how we would beat the Guild at their own game, on their home turf, something we’d soon need to plan and get underway. Fear rushed in last, the fear that our second break-in wouldn’t go well. That I’d lose all that I held dear. All that I loved.
I let anxiety come crashing into me, blackening my mood.
Sure enough, a heavy dose of the goblin’s magic came rushing in too, feeding on my turmoil. Delighting in my strife.
Nasty little door knocker!
I picked through all the elements, focusing on those rogue strands. Feeling out how to best hijack and manipulate them.
A pattern emerged in the shape of a series of feelings, pushes, and prods more than anything concrete. An ebb and flow of sorts.
“Got you!”
“Penny, look lively!” Reagan shouted.
I snapped my eyes open as the creature lunged for me, its eyes glinting in malice.
It had felt me messing with its magic. Connecting us.
“I got you, you little creep!” I pushed out my hands as a surge of vicious magic dumped out of me. The weave nearly created itself, using some of Reagan’s magic and a lot of the goblin’s.
An invisible wall spread out in front of me, shimmering with magic that would zap the creature full of electricity when it hit. I waited for the goblin’s spark, knowing the creature would sense the spell and turn to stone. I latched on to the spark as soon as I felt it, engaging in more careful analysis of what happened when the Redcap shifted to stone.
“I’ll get it.” Reagan rushed over and gave it a kick, making it skitter across the ground and slam into a little fairy door attached to a stump. The toy door cracked and fell off. “Huh. That was strangely gratifying.”
“Don’t break kids’ fairy doors,” I admonished her. “That isn’t right.”
“I’ll just burn the stump. They’ll never know.”
“That is not the right answer to this problem!”
Reagan ran after the goblin as it turned back into its gross self. It blinked at me with those large red eyes twice before Reagan shot a stream of fire at it. I felt her complex weave, so perfect and tight that it barely made sense. Then came the goblin’s little spark again.
“Ah ha,” I whispered as the goblin’s magic, in stone form, split Reagan’s stream. In my mind’s eye, I could see how Reagan’s magic was being picked apart before the whole weave blinked and died. “Amazing.”
“Not. Amazing.” Reagan was battering the stone goblin with her sword again. “Really. Damn. Annoying!”
“Leave it. Try again,” I said, still crouching, eyes closed. “Don’t let it kill me.”
“Hear that, you little stone bastard?” The clanging stopped. Reagan’s footfalls indicated she was backing away. “Come out. I’m about to kill you.”
“I am invincible,” I heard in that scratchy sandpaper voice.<
br />
“You’re a turd,” came the reply, and the sounds indicated she’d launched at it again.
This time, I pounced the moment I felt the spark. I twisted the thing’s magic and shoved it into mine, counteracting the dank, dark flow with pure joy and light. Dousing the spark with it. Foreign magic flowered inside me, strong and potent and powerful, unlike anything I had ever experienced. It crawled through my body, forcing the air from my lungs. Adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream as I gasped for air, but it was nothing compared to the ancient feeling supercharging my power and winding through my body. I stilled, feeling the lightness of it, the effulgence, as my power pulsed and surged, begging to be used in some grand fashion.
A victory shout went up somewhere in the distance. Light flared all around me. Magic and energy danced. I felt majestic. Invincible.
And suddenly it all dimmed.
“Penny?” I heard, a small sound at the end of a long tunnel. “Penny!”
Something slapped my face. Energy blossomed, and a weave somersaulted from me, attacking my attacker.
“Holy crap, what—”
My lungs burned, no air coming in. Feathers stuffed my head.
I felt so alive with this magic. The feeling was indescribable.
All the while, I was dying from asphyxiation.
A spear of white-hot magic punched through my center before expanding outward, turning colder with each passing moment. It mingled with mine—icy cold heat and light warring with the combination of my magic and the Redcap’s—before fusing with it, rising through my middle.
A shock of magic roared through me. I convulsed, sucking in a huge breath of fresh, delicious air. I choked and gasped, sucking in another while blinking my eyes open.
Reagan was straddling me, a knee on either side of my body. Somewhere along the way I’d collapsed, sprawled out on the cold, wet ground. I could see the abject terror in the lines marring her pretty face. Her velvety brown eyes darted between my eyes, lips, and chest.
