A squall rose in my mind. A tidal wave. It crashed down, thundering against the cool pockets of reason I was trying to protect. The peppermint magic was washed away. All that existed was a hurricane of raging, demanding power.
My liege’s power. My liege’s will.
My grip on my knife loosened.
“Step. Back.” My liege’s command forced my compliance.
I stepped back, taking my knife with me.
My liege stumbled forward, using my shoulders to hold herself upright. I allowed my weapon to fall. But instead of hitting the ground, it settled automatically into the sheath strapped to my thigh.
Crystal blades scissored around my neck from behind. “Shall I dispatch her, my liege?” an elf asked.
“No,” my lady said. She pressed a hand to a wound in her chest. “I still have need of her. We have need of her.”
The elf removed the blades from my neck. Reluctantly, he stepped away, moving to where the others were bending over the foes I’d vanquished.
I could see the yellow sleeve of the jacket the pretty elf had been wearing. It was damp with rain and … empty. Her magic had departed this world.
One of the elves hissed harshly. A blade she had tried to pick up clattered to the ground.
“Collect the weapons from the fallen,” my liege said, commanding me once more.
I didn’t move. I didn’t want to move. I stared at the empty yellow sleeve …
My liege coughed. Then she coughed some more, spraying blood into the palm of her hand. It was almost the same color as her skin. She stepped up to me, pressing fingers slick with that sticky, thick blood to the gemstone in my forehead. “Collect the weapons.”
Lightning strikes of agony backed her command. I turned and did her bidding. The pain abated to an ever-churning surf in my mind.
The vampire had fallen to the other elves. But he was without weapons, so I paid him no heed. The sword of the blond I slung over my shoulder, alongside my own.
“I’ll have to cut off her hands,” an elf said, drawing my attention. He was standing by the green-haired woman. His blade was set next to the golden cuffs she wore.
My liege waved her hand dismissively. “No matter. She is the least powerful among them. We can do without her.”
“No!” I cried.
My liege narrowed her eyes at me. She was hunched over, favoring the wound in her chest.
“I … I can remove the cuffs,” I said. Not certain why maiming, potentially killing the green-haired woman grieved me.
My liege nodded curtly.
The hulking elf stepped away. He snarled quietly as I passed by him to kneel by the unconscious woman. I had to use my magic to coax the gold cuffs from her wrists. Once removed, I placed them in my bag.
I stood, crossing to and bending over the broad-shouldered man. His chest was rising and falling steadily, and the burns on his neck were already healing. I took his blade, but then paused. The magic of the weapon danced in my grip.
His magic? Or …
Wasn’t his magic supposed to taste like … something …
My liege shifted into my line of vision, watching me. The other elves were picking up the fallen, who I’d divested of weapons. They were having trouble lifting the tiny blond.
I glanced down at the blade in my hand again. It felt as though it might also belong to me. But why would the broad-shouldered man be wielding my weapon?
I looked at his face. Was it familiar? Perhaps I’d fought him before. Perhaps he’d taken the weapon from me?
I shook my head, unable to answer the riddle. I tucked the blade into my bag.
My liege was speaking, but not English. Or perhaps she hadn’t been speaking English at all? I lifted my hand, brushing my fingers against the gemstone in my forehead. Pain ricocheted through my skull, but not like the earlier hurricane …
This felt like a wound. An open wound.
I glanced at the other elves. The gemstones in their foreheads looked … natural.
“She’s going to fix the dimensional gate.” My liege was speaking to the tall, hulking elf who’d wanted to slit my throat and cut off the woman’s hands. “And when those who are ours have walked through, then you may have her head.”
They turned to look at me. I remained crouched by the broad-shouldered man, watching them.
“Hand your weapons to the traveler, dragon slayer,” my liege said. “Then you will carry this one.” She nudged the tiny blond with the toe of her foot.
I straightened, looking her in the eye. “Hand over my weapons?”
My liege looked concerned for a moment. Perhaps I shouldn’t have questioned her orders, but I didn’t hand over my weapons to anyone. Did I? I was, after all, the wielder of —
“No matter,” my liege said, backing her words with a forceful push of magic. “Take the guardian. You may deposit the weapons in the cache if that makes you feel easier.”
I nodded, stepping over and lifting the extraordinarily heavy blond over my shoulder. The hulking elf — the traveler — bared his teeth at me, crossing back to lift the broad-shouldered man. He couldn’t get him fully off the ground.
I laughed. Then I followed my liege past the chrome bear and between the buildings.
No one retrieved the yellow jacket the pretty elf had worn. I felt bad about leaving it behind, but I didn’t get to decide these things.
A dark-haired man was watching me from a niche in the rounded wall of the stadium. The place my liege had selected as her command center. I wasn’t certain why she called it that, but the tiny blond was heavy, and I was just so … weary. So I followed her and didn’t ask any questions.
I could feel the man’s magic. But it was nothing compared to the power of those the elves carried, so he was no threat to them … to me … to us. He was just a man. A lone sorcerer.
He raised and pointed a weapon that glistened with his magic at me. Targeting me specifically. With some sort of … gun. The gesture should have felt threatening. But the weapon could not harm me. How I knew that to be true, I wasn’t certain.
I shifted the burden on my shoulder, not bothering to alert the other elves to the man’s presence. Together, the elves and I crossed through the large doors of the huge stadium. Traveler barked out a word I didn’t understand, and magic slammed shut behind us, sealing the doors.
I turned, looking for the dark-haired man through the glassed entranceway. A thick wall of magic stood between us now. He lowered his gun, looking … dismayed? Concerned? Terrified?
Then he turned and ran away, swallowed by the dark night.
That was good. A good choice.
He was safer away from the elves.
Though … wasn’t I an elf?
Why wouldn’t he have been safe from me?
I stood staring through the crystalline bars that secured the tiny window. A city sprawled out beyond the magic that coated the walls, the windows and bars. A neatly made cot stood to my right, with an empty built-in bookcase beyond that. Tightly woven beige berber carpet ran underneath my feet.
It was deep into the evening. I was supposed to be sleeping. I’d been ordered to sleep on the cot in the tiny magically fortified office. Hours ago. After I’d begun to fumble and drop minuscule but important pieces of metal, accidentally cracking one of the gems that adorned the machine. But I wasn’t the only one who’d needed to rest, whose magic had been drained. So much so that I’d begun to feel … her … her thoughts, then her concern about the feedback moving through the connection we shared.
The connection that had been forced upon me?
The window was too small for me to escape through.
Though if that was the case, it was odd that it was also barred.
I reached for my knife, but it wasn’t on my hip.
Didn’t I have a knife that could cut through magic?
But if I did … why would I need it? Why would I need to fit through the window at all?
Movement. Outside. A flash of red, draw
ing my attention to street level. A girl wearing a bright red poncho was staring up at the building.
No. She was young, tiny. But not a girl.
I frowned, pain spreading across my forehead. I was still wounded there, still healing. But from what injury, I couldn’t remember.
I squinted. The young woman was carrying something. Something small … something domed-shaped, with four legs. An animal of some sort? I couldn’t make it out in the dark.
She shouldn’t have been standing out in the open, exposed. But some part of me … warmed at seeing her there.
Didn’t I know her?
I raised my hand, waving.
The young woman looked away, talking to someone over her shoulder. She gestured with the animal she held. A turtle? People didn’t usually carry turtles around, did they? That felt like a fact I should know.
I dropped my hand back to my side. The young woman couldn’t see me. She couldn’t see me through the magic that encased the building. Maybe no one could.
No one but me. I saw through magic.
A dark-haired man stepped up behind her. The sorcerer from outside the stadium. With the gun. He drew her back into the shadows of the building across the street.
I was glad that she had someone to protect her. But I felt … bereft at losing sight of her. As if without her, I had no idea who I was or what I was doing.
I reached up, wrapping my hands around the bars. Magic seared into my skin, but I held fast. Then I started to pull. The thick crystal creaked, shifted.
I could pull these bars off the window. I could rip through the magic. Then the young woman in the red poncho who’d been looking up at the building — looking for me? — would be able to see me.
I could escape.
Heavy-duty locks clanked and clicked behind me. The magic that sealed the door to the hall shifted. The door opened.
“Come,” a pale-skinned elf in white blood armor said behind me. “Our liege says it is time for you to go back to work.”
I turned and looked at him.
He took a step back into the hall. His hand was raised, ready to trigger the magic that sealed the door.
Scared of me?
Good.
Good? Why would that be good?
I tore my hands away from the bars. Some of my skin stayed behind. I glanced down at my palms and fingers. They were burned. Badly.
I didn’t much feel like going wherever the elf wanted me to go. Or doing whatever it was that I was supposed to do. I hadn’t felt like sleeping either, though that was what I’d been ordered to do right before the door had been closed and locked behind me.
I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want to stay.
What was it that I wanted, then?
My hands healed as I watched. Dark-red burns easing into deep pink, fading into a lighter —
The elf left, locking the door again with magic and metal.
Time passed.
I might have slept, standing there looking down at my hands. My skin was the wrong color. Pink, and not finely scaled like the elves’ skin. That was an important thought, an important distinction. There was a reason for the differences between me and the elves …
Magic shifted again. My liege appeared in the doorway. “It’s time for you to complete your work, dragon slayer. To open our path.”
She looked tired, withered … weak.
Wounded.
“I don’t think so … Reggie.”
Magic crashed into me, but I could hold it at bay. I could hold it, even counter it with my own magic, my natural resistance …
Everywhere but through the gemstone embedded in my forehead.
I, too, was wounded.
I tried to raise my hand, to cover the spot that was vulnerable to the elf’s psychic assault, but the hurricane rose in my mind. The storm of her magic battered my resolve. Pain streaked through every nerve ending, every cell of my body.
Despite the agony, I clung fiercely to the idea of … the idea of … the young woman in the bright-red knit poncho … looking for me. I was needed … I was necessary … I was … I was …
My liege pressed her fingers to my forehead. She was snarling something, intoning a spell … a curse … but the words didn’t matter. Magic drilled deeper into my brain, blowing through my resistance.
I didn’t want to upset my lady. She shouldn’t have been angry. All I wanted to do was to please her. I’d go wherever she wanted. I would do whatever she asked.
I fell to my knees before her.
I wanted to kneel.
I wanted to obey her.
Didn’t I?
What happens after the warriors fall?
Find out in the three novellas, narrated by Mory, Rochelle, and Jasmine, that comprise Dowser 8.5.
* * *
PREORDER LINKS
Are you interested in baking the cupcakes from the Dowser Series? Well, now you can!
* * *
Sign up for Meghan Ciana Doidge’s
NEW RELEASE MAILING LIST
to download your copy for free.
Join Meghan Ciana Doidge’s NEW RELEASE MAILING LIST to be the first to know when the next book in the Adept Universe is available.
Acknowledgments
For Michael
Misfits. Together. Forever.
* * *
With thanks to:
My story & line editor
Scott Fitzgerald Gray
My proofreader
Pauline Nolet
My beta readers
Terry Daigle, Angela Flannery, Gael Fleming, Desi Hartzel, and Heather Lewis
For their continual encouragement, feedback, & general advice
SFWA
The Office
The Retreat
For the Vancouver weather update — Karen Lam & Kelly Sarmiento
For the clothespin game — Amanda Shackelford Elliott
For the paper-and-ribbon bouquet idea — Vicky Deeble
For naming Chill in a Cup — Erin Wilson
For naming Tingle in a Cup — Linda Randall
About the Author
Meghan Ciana Doidge is an award-winning writer based out of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. She has a penchant for bloody love stories, superheroes, and the supernatural. She also has a thing for chocolate, potatoes, and cashmere yarn.
* * *
NEW RELEASE MAILING LIST
* * *
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
* * *
Please also consider leaving an honest review at your preferred retailer.
* * *
For recipes, giveaways, news, and glimpses of upcoming stories, please connect with Meghan via:
www.madebymeghan.ca
[email protected]
Also by Meghan Ciana Doidge
Novels
After The Virus
Spirit Binder
Time Walker
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1)
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser 2)
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser 3)
I See Me (Oracle 1)
Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser 5)
I See You (Oracle 2)
Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic (Dowser 6)
I See Us (Oracle 3)
Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1)
Tangled Echoes (Reconstructionist 2)
Unleashing Echoes (Reconstructionist 3)
Champagne, Misfits, and Other Shady Magic (Dowser 7)
Mistfits, Gemstones, and Other Shattered Magic (Dowser 8)
* * *
Novellas/Shorts
Love Lies Bleeding
The Graveyard Kiss (Reconstructionist 0.5)
Dawn Bytes (Reconstructionist 1.5)
An Uncut Key (Reconstructionist 2.5)
* * *
www.madebymeghan.ca
&n
bsp; MISFITS, GEMSTONES, AND OTHER SHATTERED MAGIC (DOWSER 8)
Copyright © 2018 Meghan Ciana Doidge
Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions 2018
Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
www.oldmaninthecrosswalk.com
* * *
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada
Doidge, Meghan Ciana, 1973 —
Misfits, Gemstones, and Other Shattered Magic/Meghan Ciana Doidge – SWASHWORDS
* * *
Cover design by: Elizabeth Mackey
ISBN 978-1-927850-76-3
Misfits, Gemstones, and Other Shattered Magic (Dowser 8) Page 24
