by Mary Karlik
Also by Mary Karlik
THE FAIRY TRAFFICKING SERIES
Magic Harvest
Magic Heist
Magic Reign
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THE HICKVILLE HIGH SERIES
Welcome to Hickville High
Hickville Confessions
Hickville Redemption
Hickville Confidential
First Published by Ink Monster, LLC in 2019
Ink Monster, LLC
4470 W Sunset Blvd
Suite 145
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.inkmonster.net
* * *
ISBN 9781943858248
* * *
Copyright © 2019 by Ink Monster LLC
* * *
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To Madison Midgette
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Magic Reign
Hickville High
Deadly Sweet
To the Reader
Acknowledgments
About Mary Karlik
Chapter One
The dragon-spirit within Ian stirred, and a wave of nausea swept over him. He clenched his gut and wondered if he’d ever get used to feeling like a giant moth had fluttered paper wings against his internal organs. He wiped sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve and reminded himself the thing couldn’t force a shift while he was under the protection of the holy ground. Even so, he felt its hunger for the fairies.
Which is why he stood in the alcove outside the cellar beneath the church and watched as roughly one hundred fairies danced around a glass globe. The globe was waist high to a human and inside was a glass dragon with the sword in its belly—an effigy to the battle they’d won.
It was good to see the wee folk happy, healthy, and free.
Ian blew out a long, tired breath. He was exhausted. But this was the good kind of exhaustion. The kind that happens after taking down the bad guys. The kind that follows with a few pints at the pub. But the anxiety that should have left him with the win had stuck around and twisted his gut too tight for food or drink. He had left the lads at the pub and made his way back to the church and the fairies in sanctuary beneath it.
He and his team of Specialist Crime Division officers would get the credit for taking down Connor Davis. But in the end, it was Layla, a half-human half-fairy with wild, white hair and green eyes, who’d figured out how to free the fairies. It was Layla who’d killed the dragon, Fauth.
Ian swallowed away the dragon’s hunger and eased into the room. He stayed far enough away from Layla to keep the dragon-spirit in him quiet, but close enough to feel the warmth of the bond that had been forged between their spirits during a healing ritual that had saved his life.
She was in her human-sized form clapping along to the music as the fairies danced around the dragon. Her left wing had been damaged in the fight and hung at an odd angle. She’d assured him she was fine, and it was nice to see her happy—even if behind her smile, fatigue etched her face.
Then she flicked those bright eyes at him and flashed a wide smile, and his heart threw in an extra thump, and tingles shot through him from dead center in his chest.
The feeling was probably just a side effect of that tiny piece of her soul left in him during the healing—but he’d take it. He pushed off the wall and walked to her anyway. “You need to rest, fairy.”
“I’ll rest tomorrow. Tonight, I need to celebrate with my people.”
“Then be with them. Dance with them.”
“I’m fine watching. Besides, half-caste don’t mix with the full fairies.” Her smile stayed strong—even danced a little on her lips. But in her words, he heard a lifetime of longing to belong.
She had grown up an outcast in the fairy world. And even now, after she’d saved her people, she stood on the fringes of their celebration. Observing but not participating.
“They gave their magic up for you,” Ian said. “You’re one of them now.”
Her half-sister, Esme, flew to her. “He’s right. Come on. Dance with us.”
“Go on. Get out there.” He jerked his head toward the fairies.
Her wings twitched, and he saw hesitation in those green eyes, but she fairy-sized and allowed Esme to pull her into the center of the crowd. When the next cèilidh dance started, she looked up at Ian and mouthed Tapadh leat—Thank you—and he felt another jolt to his heart.
Colin MacLeod, Ian’s second in command, ducked through the arched doorway into the cellar. If he’d left the pub to come to the church, something was up. Probably something to do with Assistant Chief Constable McIntyre and the little shop nestled in Old Town Edinburgh.
“Boss.” He rubbed his palm across his buzz cut hair. It was a habit that, along with his hooked nose, had earned him the nickname Buzzard. “The chief is at the shop with the crime scene examiners.”
“We knew it was a matter of time.” Ian rolled his shoulders, but it did nothing to ease the knots forming in his neck. “Aye. We’d better come up with a plausible explanation for what happened. I don’t think we can tell him that the shop door was blown out during a magic battle.”
Ian leaned over the circle of fairies. “Layla?”
She flew to him and human-sized. “Problem?”
“Maybe. Assistant Chief Constable is at the shop. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She flashed those heart-revving eyes at him again. “Don’t worry about us. We’re not going anywhere.”
Without warning, she flung her arms around him and pressed herself against him in a full body hug. “Thanks for … thanks for everything.”
He flapped his arms in the general vicinity of her back. He knew better than to touch her wings—he’d been warned enough. But then he did the second worse thing he could have done. He touched a little triangle of exposed skin where her wings attached to her back. How was he supposed to know her dress didn’t cover the beneath-the-wing area?
She fey-sized and shot backward. In a flash, he went from touching her to grasping air, and the change made him stumble forward—at the same she human-sized. Her face smashed into his chest.
They both backed up.
“Are you hurt?” He bent to inspect her face.
“No.” She rubbed her cheek, and he felt like he was twelve-years-old again and had accidentally touched Fiona Kennedy’s right boob in dance class. His face had flushed then, too. “I didn’t mean to … I’m sorry.”
“No. I … shouldn’t have surprised you. Anyway, thank you.”
“It’s fine. It was grand.” He cringed. Had he really said grand?
She nodded. “Good. Well, your chief is waiting.”
“Right.” He turned and slammed into Buzzard. “Warn a man the next time you’re right behind him.”
“Sorry. The lads are
waiting at the shop.”
“Then let’s be off.” Ian jogged up the spiral steps and through the secret door leading to the church. As he walked through the nave, he glanced at a painting of St. George slaying the dragon and prayed for strength. Deep within him, rage boiled and hate swelled as the dragon-spirit gathered its power.
When he pushed through the church doors, the dragon-spirit surged, and anger flared. He swallowed hard and focused on tamping the feeling down. But by the time he’d reached the kirkyard gate, kaleidoscope colors swirled before him, and he knew as soon as that iron gate clanged shut behind him, the dragon would try to take control.
He had to take control first.
Just as the ghost of Father Wilson had instructed, Ian settled an image of the painting in his mind. Filling his lungs with the crisp morning air, he imagined he was the saint holding a spear above the dragon. He closed his eyes, released his breath, and mentally drove the spear into the dragon’s heart. The beast fought the image, and Ian focused harder until he felt the tip of the spear drive through the dragon’s plated skin all the way into its heart and held it there until the beast returned to the place where it lived deep inside him.
“Are you alright, boss?” Buzzard waited at the entrance of the close leading to the high street.
“Aye. It’s just this wee beastie wanting to come out and play.” His tone was light as if he weren’t waging a major internal battle. “Come on, let’s get this meeting with McIntyre over with.” He walked through the gate and caught up with Buzzard.
It was early morning, but as they came through the narrow passage and onto The Royal Mile, Ian saw that the lane was already filled with tourists. They stood on the walks and down the steps to the cobblestone road with their necks twisted up, down, and sideways as they gawked at the restoration-era buildings, buskers in the form of kilt-clad pipers, and shopkeepers opening their doors to sell authentic Celtic trinkets.
Buzzard barely dodged two women watching a street performer as he turned onto the close. “They come earlier every season.”
“It’s warm, the sun is out, of course they’re out early. Besides, it’s not that bad. It’s good for the economy.”
“Who’s? Scotland’s or the shops in China where all the authentic trinkets are made.”
Ian slapped him on the shoulder. “I’m glad defeating a menacing evil dragon hasn’t ruined your sunny disposition.”
The stench of sulfur and rotten eggs hit them as soon as they stepped onto the courtyard in front of the Old World Oddities Shop. Yellow tape cordoned off an area in front of the building, and officers were kitted out in white Tyvek suits from the tops of their heads to the bottoms of their feet. A thick layer of dust and smudge stained the stones that lay scattered across the ground.
One of the bunny-suited officers knelt to inspect scorch marks on the cobblestone where a few hours earlier Fauth had sent a red streak of magic cracking across the ground.
A uniformed woman guarding the cordoned off area stopped them. Ian flashed his badge. “Specialist Crime Division. I’m Ian Cameron.”
The officer stepped back and allowed passage. “Good luck with this one.”
“Brace yourself.” Buzzard tipped his chin toward the shop.
A dark ginger-haired man snapped on a pair of Nitrile gloves. His suit jacket squeezed his shoulders as he knelt to inspect the doorway that Layla had destroyed during the fairy rescue.
Ian made his way to Assistant Chief Constable McIntyre.
The chief rubbed his finger across the black smudge staining the threshold—or what was left of it. “Looks like Connor Davis got into a war with the wrong people. This is your investigation, so tell me, how does your team figure into all of this?”
An alibi would have been nice. Ian scanned the area like he was seeing it for the first time and hoped he was convincing. “That’s some major firepower to blow out the door. What does it look like on the inside?”
The chief stood and pulled shoe covers and gloves from his suit pocket and handed them to Ian. “Interesting.”
Ian covered his shoes and entered the shop.
Across from the entry a wooden sign dangled from one corner. A crack in the wood split through the words “Witchcraft and Magic.” A few hours ago, the shelves were neatly packed with books. Now, the shelves were broken, and the books lay in a heap on the floor.
McIntyre followed him in the shop. He looked at the empty shelves that lined the walls behind the till. “Those shelves were wiped clean. If you were right and the drugs were in the globes, then somebody took them. The question is whether it was Davis or whoever blew this place apart.”
Ian forced his face into a flat expression, but inwardly he smirked at the empty shelves that had once been filled with fairy globes. Because of Layla, those fairies were now free and dancing in the cellar beneath the church. The spirit inside him stirred at the thought of the fey, spoiling the satisfaction he’d felt. Ian took a breath to quiet the dragon-spirit and refocus on the chief and the lie he was about to concoct.
McIntyre continued. “Other shelves are broken, but as far as we can tell, nothing else was taken.” He looked at Ian like he knew he was hiding something. “You’ve had this place under surveillance for weeks. And the one night that there was all-out war, you didn’t have eyes on the place? You don’t know anything about what happened here?”
Ian’s chest tightened. It was true. His team had watched Conner Davis for weeks. They’d reported that they’d thought he was smuggling drugs inside dolls. How was he going to convince the chief that they didn’t know what had happened? Because the alternative was to explain that it wasn’t drugs but magic that Davis had dealt in. And Connor Davis wasn’t really a scum-of-the-earth human but a fierce and feared dragon called Fauth.
Ian kept his face stoic. “Sorry, sir. Were there casualties?”
“Not here anyway.” McIntyre’s eyes met Ian’s in a dead-on stare. No mistaking, it was a silent order for Ian to tell the truth.
When Ian didn’t say anything, the chief raised his brows and dropped his gaze. “Can you believe that with all this damage—broken shelves, blown-out door, scorch marks that look like a firework factory exploded…” He stooped and picked up one of the magic books. “Can you believe with all of this, we haven’t found a single drop of blood?” His tone was thick with suspicion. Or was it condemnation?
Adrenaline bumped Ian’s heart rate up, dragging his breath along with it. He swallowed the sand that his autonomic nervous system had dumped in his throat and shook his head. “Have you looked at the CCTV footage?”
“Not yet.”
Jack Dunn, the mechanic, medic, and eternal optimist of the team, poked his head through the blown-out doorway. “Chief. Can I have a word?”
The chief dropped the book onto the counter with a pop and made his way out of the shop.
Ian tried to step over the threshold to follow the chief but was stopped as if he’d run into an invisible wall. Something or someone wanted to keep him in the shop. And it only wanted him or it wouldn’t have let the chief go.
Ian backed away from the doorway and focused on calming his accelerating pulse. He drew in a couple of breaths and scanned the room. Nothing looked threatening. But he was dealing with magic, so he had to think outside the special-forces-training box.
If he was stuck in that shop, there was a reason, and he was sure he wouldn’t be released until he figured it out.
“Okay, show me what this little shop of horrors is hiding.” He snapped on his gloves and turned to the opposite end of the tiny shop. Displays that had held figures of dwarves, elves, centaurs, and other magical creatures had been knocked over, and the figurines were scattered all over the floor.
He picked up a statue of an elf and turned it over in his hand. The pointed-ear creature had been fashioned in a kilt. Only in Scotland. He set the statue down and reached for another when all at once the hairs on the nape of his neck alerted his special-forces-trained alarm. Someone
or something was behind him. And whatever it was, the dragon-spirit felt it too, because the dragon scales on his right arm glowed green.
He stood, and the energy behind him shifted.
His heart raced. His gut clenched. His muscles went into battle-ready mode.
The floor creaked, and the dragon in him flared. Colors swirled before his eyes, and pain shot through his right hand as it contracted into a claw.
Someone behind him gasped.
He turned and air whooshed from his lungs. “Layla. Get back from me.”
Confusion, shock, and then understanding crossed her face in the millisecond it took her to fey-size and flutter toward the door.
As soon as there was distance between them, Ian’s hand returned to normal, and he was able to suppress the dragon. But his pulse still ricocheted through his system, and the muscles and tendons in his hand screamed with pain. Worse, because of that piece of Layla’s soul bonded to his, he knew she’d felt the pain in his hand. “Are you alright?”
“Aye. I only feel part of your pain.” Her tone was casual and calm but still she massaged her palm.
“What are you doing here? What if you’re seen?” The words came out sharper and clunkier than he’d intended, but he was still struggling with the dragon-spirit simmering in his gut. He backed away, and the dragon calmed.
“I was careful. I snuck in after Jack called your boss away. I wouldn’t have come if it weren’t important.”
“What the—” Chief Constable McIntyre stood in the blown-out doorway staring at the fairy fluttering in front of Ian. He blinked several times, and Ian could almost see the images flick behind the chief’s eyes as his brain tried to lock on to a rationalization of what he’d seen.
