Defender of Magic

by Martha Carr

  Agnes clenched her fists. "Stop lying. You had no choice but to make the deal and with an Elf," she said, her lip curling. "An ex con from Trevilsom Prison, no less." She shook her head. "He can destroy you, and you know it. You're a fool, Sirius and the worst kind. You're doing someone else's bidding and you'll never get what you want in the bargain."

  "Let's talk about delusions and stupidity, Agnes," growled Sirius menacingly. "You sent children out to play with the furry beasts with fangs. No training, no back up and you got some of them killed. Mauled by shifters."

  "That you created!" A vein pulsed in Agnes' forehead.

  "We created." His voice grew calmer, steadier. It was one of his best attributes that when cornered Sirius started to see the angles. Agnes didn't. "You overplayed your hand without a real plan of action. At least I have a destination, even if there's been a few hiccups."

  "You killed the head of the Silver Griffins. You brought hell down on all of us," said Agnes, throwing a book at Sirius' head. He ducked easily, letting it skitter across the floor behind him. "You ended our peaceful reign of mutually ignoring each other. Now, it's not just Leira Berens who wants us gone, it's thousands of our own kind! Our own cousins! Your sister is their new leader." She began pacing around a settee. "I don't know, maybe if I hand them your head and promise we burned the rest of you they'll go back to leaving us to our own devices."

  Sirius arched an eyebrow. "I'd like to see you try."

  "So would I, and someday it may come to that." Agnes stopped pacing. "Be careful, Sirius. You are losing every ally you once had and someday you may find yourself alone with Wolfstan Humphrey and his gruesome plot and he may suddenly see you in a different light."

  "I've got him handled. And I'll get my seat back in the family."

  "Your time here has passed. Move on, Sirius and find a dark hole to crawl into and retire."

  "Not while Leira Berens lives. Everything was working out the way we planned for generations till that bitch showed up."

  "Finally, something we still agree on, but that's the only thing. And no, we don't need your help to take her out. You've done too much already."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Turner Underwood went running down the hall of his house, not even bothering to tap his cane. He passed by his library as the old King of Oriceran looked up from an ancient tome, pulled out of his memories. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

  “Lucius is on the hunt. He’s determined to avenge the stupidity of the Dark Families. I’m afraid they have no idea what they’ve unleashed and won’t see it coming.”

  The King wandered into the hallway, picking up his pace to keep up with Turner. “How do you redress stupidity? He would have to kill them all. Ah, I see your point.”

  Turner ran back the way he had come, passing by the king and stepping into his library, stopping for a moment in the middle of the room, rubbing his chin. “Where is that…”

  “Now what’s happening?” The king turned around, waiting in the hallway.

  Turner went to the library ladder and climbed to the high shelf, pushing himself along hurriedly. “Got you,” he said, pulling out a thin book that was barely holding together. He held it tightly in his hand, climbing down the ladder and moving swiftly in the direction he had been headed. “Lucius will not be easy to stop. He possesses ancient dark magic courtesy of Rhazdon and he is a Light Elf who was powerful before stepping into the world in between.”

  “And he’s a shifter. Why stop him at all?”

  Turner turned and looked at the king in surprise. “You know my oath. I’m obligated to help all magicals on this world. I don’t get to pick and choose.” Turner went to a cabinet in his kitchen and opened it, scanning the rows of apothecary jars, stacked one on top of the other. “Yeah, this is good. Maybe this will slow him down,” he muttered. He slipped the jar of dried Oriceran Baylean leaves into his coat pocket and picked up his Homburg off the kitchen table, securing it squarely on his head. “I’m off,” he said. “You have the run of the house. The fridge is full, and I just added Apple TV.”

  “Not so fast, you old Elf. I’m going with you.” The king opened the coat closet, pulling out his old battle sword he had brought from the world in between. “It was the only place I could find to put it out of the way. I don’t want to be a rude guest.”

  “Then next time clean off the old blood. There’s rags under the sink.” Turner tapped his cane twice on the ground, letting out a high pitched whistle, the air shimmering in front of him, thinning out till a portal opened to the Dark Family estate in Kentucky. “And you’re older than I am,” he said, stepping through.

  A howl went up in the distance, answered by a long series of yips and howls. “Looks like we’re a little late to this party,” said the king, holding up his tall broadsword. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a good battle,” he said, his pulse racing.

  “We’re here to diminish the carnage, not create it. I’m a peacekeeper first, old friend.” Turner listened for the next series of howls and call backs. “That’s not Lucius. He’s not here yet. Those shifters are doing his bidding, gathering the packs in the area. This is not good.” Turner waved his cane over his head, disappearing and reappearing across the field.

  The king rolled his eyes in frustration and took off at a run to keep up. They were well into the trees before he was on Turner’s heels. “I had forgotten about your old tricks. I still don’t see why you don’t let a few of the Dark Family fall. From what you said, they’re hunting your protege. This would solve that thorny problem.”

  “The old guard sent their offspring to do their dirty work. Mere children who don’t know any better. Some of whom may choose differently and leave dark magic behind if given a chance. Lucius is about to take away that chance and despite what some may think, he’s not evil. But he will have to live with the choices he makes today, and he bears enough of a burden.”

  “Why haven’t you called your protege to help? Where is Leira Berens?”

  “Her presence could make this whole thing blow up. The Dark Families would think there was an opportunity and come out with everything they had…”

  “Playing right into Lucius’ hands. Excellent point. But you can’t let the families keep harming others and then rescuing them when there are consequences.”

  “I am not that foolish. There will be consequences, but let it be at their own hands.”

  “You always did like speaking in riddles,” said the king.

  The ground began to shake beneath their feet and Turner held up his hand to silence the king. Finally, he heard the sound he had been waiting for that told him Lucius had arrived and was running with his pack. A roar that sounded more like a lion than a wolf, ending in a howl.

  Doors could be seen opening along the large house and figures running from the barn toward the open field. The king watched them pile out in small numbers and shrugged at Turner. “You may be wrong. You may not be able to save stupid. It appears they’re about to bring a knife to a gunfight.”

  The howling picked up, with intermittent yipping answering back and forth. “Do you hear that?” asked Turner, pulling out the jar in his pocket. “They’re relaying orders.”

  “Lucius has not forgotten his training as a soldier and has come armed with a plan. I’m the one who trained him. No matter what you do, there will be some who get through. Lucius was the best student I ever had.”

  “There’s no need to be proud.”

  “There’s every reason. Every kingdom, every nation likes to think they’re kind and generous but there’s always someone who wants more and if there were no soldiers, they would take it. Lucius is here to show them that they can’t. It’s exactly what these entitled magical imposters need. They believe they should rule, let them prove it.”

  “Why did you come again?”

  “Because you are both my friends and I will fight by your sides every time I am called.”

  The yipping and howling contin
ued, growing closer.

  “I don’t remember calling you.”

  “It was understood.” The king strapped the sword by his side, his eyes glowing. “I won’t harm Lucius or his pack unless they strike at you or me first. But I will try to dissuade them by other means. Lucius is not the only one who learned a few things in the world in between.”

  There was a sharp howl that ended on a high note as the ground rumbled again but this time without pause. The shifters appeared at the edge of the trees, with a large wolf leading the pack. “Lucius,” whispered Turner, taking out a pinch of the powder and blowing it into the air.

  Lucius lifted his snout and snapped his head to the right, glaring at Turner and curling his lip, baring his fangs. He looked over at the old king and seemed to hesitate, his pack howling and yipping behind him. The old king lifted his chin, standing up straighter and finally gave a nod to Lucius.

  “You’re not helping,” said Turner, annoyed, swinging his cane over his head and disappearing again. The king looked around for signs of the old Fixer and it took him a moment but he finally spotted him down by the house, standing in front of the witches and wizards, facing the shifters who were crowding the top of the curving pasture.

  “Old fool,” hissed the king, brandishing his sword to run to the middle of the field. “An oath’s an oath. “Tonight we fight with honor and to the end,” he screamed, lifting his sword high in the air and howling as loud as he could, throwing back his head, his long hair cascading down his back.

  Lucius stood up on his back legs, lifting his large head and howling in return to his old friend.

  Turner rolled his eyes, carefully pulling out the book he had brought with him. “The old guard does love their theatrics.” He opened the book, careful not to rip the yellowing paper. Words appeared as he leafed through it, disappearing as he gently turned the page. “Here it is, at last.” He wet his dry lips and held up his large hand, raising it high in the air. “Clear as glass, strong as steel. By my word. Quoniam iuramentum meum. Make it so.”

  The witches and wizards around him hesitated, waiting for something to shimmer or burn or fly through the air. But nothing happened. They looked at the old Fixer, puzzled for only a moment, surprised that he was standing still and not trying to get out of the way.

  Lucius fell back down on all four paws and began to run, picking up speed as he came down the hill, flanked by the largest wolves of the pack, the others spreading out behind them to the left and to the right.

  They made a V pattern around the old King of Oriceran who whooped and hollered, waving his sword over his head at the thundering paws passing within inches of him, so close he could feel their heated breath as they ran down the hill.

  A witch raised her wand, aiming it at the weaker right side and threw a long line of blue flame, her mouth forming an ‘O’ when the fire hit an invisible wall and bounced back, hitting her squarely in the chest, knocking her to the ground and burning her flesh.

  The king watched the other witches and wizards hesitate, looking at each other and not sure what to do. “Ah yes, consequences of their own actions. You are a clever one, Turner Underwood. Sometimes the lessons an old Fixer doles out are harsh.”

  Lucius stopped short of the glamour the Fixer had built, lifting his snout and smelling the air. He pawed at the ground, opening his wide mouth and growling at the witches and wizards only yards from where he stood. Some of the wolves ran headlong into the glamour only to be thrown backward, hitting the ground dazed and stumbling back to their feet.

  “Let them in,” yelled a wizard, holding up his wand with a shaking hand.

  “If you insist,” said Turner, raising his hand high in the air again.

  A young witch swung her wand around and pulsed energy at the wizard, knocking the air out of him and bringing him to his knees. “He doesn’t speak for us. Throw him out there if he’s dying to be torn apart by them.” The witch stepped closer to the glamour and put her palm against it, flattening her hand. “I’m sorry,” she yelled. “I was wrong.”

  “Coward!” Agnes appeared in the doorway of the house, her wand aimed at the young witch. “We never back down and we definitely never apologize to our enemy.” She whipped her wand up and down, a vine of gold sparks winding its way toward the witch.

  But to everyone’s surprise, her target was ready for her. The witch twirled her wand in a tight circle, swirling the vine over her head and with an overhand pitch, sent it back to its owner, the thorns digging into Agnes’ flesh.

  “Listen up, bitch,” said the witch. “My name is Ariana and I’ve had enough of all of you old bags of bones. The Old Guard. We’re not doing your dirty work for you anymore. You want to carry on these petty feuds, you do it yourself.” The witch raised her wand, creating a wind that moved along the field, her long dark hair swirling above her head. “We are taking over from here. This is our land now and we will align ourselves with magicals. All magicals,” she shouted, “including shifters.”

  Turner Underwood watched with a growing sense of unease even though the wolves were calming down, lining up in rows behind Lucius with only an occasional growl.

  “The other leaders will never let this stand,” screamed Agnes, twisting in the vines and only making them burrow deeper. Blood was beginning to trickle from her mouth.

  “We don’t plan to give them a choice,” said Ariana. “All this time you’ve been bickering with each other, arguing over who gets to sit where at that overgrown table. Want to know what we’ve been doing? Training, day and night. Thank you for setting that up for us, Agnes,” she said, a sly smile growing across her face. “We’ve been forming alliances with other members of the families. Younger members. We were waiting for the right moment. It looks like it’s here. Tonight, things change.” She nodded to another witch. “Put out the call. We are taking the reins, and nothing is ever going to be the same.” She looked at Turner with a cold stare. “Let down your glamour. There’s no battle left here. The shifters are our allies and we will fight together.”

  “Who do you plan to fight, Ariana,” said Turner, already suspecting the answer.

  “Anyone who tries to harm magicals, of course.”

  Turner felt a chill go down his spine as he raised his arm and let the glamour fade away. Some of the wolves returned to growling and pawing at the ground, but Lucius barked at them, and they whined and fled to the back of the pack.

  The king made his way through the rolling masses of fur and muscle, making his way over to Turner Underwood. “You got what you wanted. There was almost no bloodshed.”

  “This is worse,” said Turner, scowling. “This is much worse. We missed what was really happening with the Dark Families. It looked like there was internecine fighting going on, but that was only the surface. Underneath a new regime was building and they will not be willing to hide in the shadows away from the humans, content to rule their small part of the world. Darkness is coming and the question may turn out to be who it will be coming from. Wolfstan Humphrey and his Frankenstein army or the new leaders of the Dark Families and their poisonous alliances.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Correk stood in an alley on Crowne Oaks Circle in Winston Salem, North Carolina, looking at the apartment window above him. “Bryce Mallory, thirteen, wizard. This should be the place.” He double checked the coordinates and tuned into the streams of magic passing by him all the time. The young wizard was still up there.

  He walked over and pulled down the fire escape ladder and ran up the steps, two at a time, his boots making almost no noise. He ran past an apartment with a couple inside, giggling and touching each other’s arm over two plates of pasta. “First date, maybe second,” he muttered, still climbing.

  On another floor a girl was holding her hairbrush like a microphone, singing and dancing around her room. Correk kept going, picking up speed, feeling the panic rising in the tween wizard who was still up one more flight.

  He got to the metal landing outside the y
oung wizard’s bedroom window and paused, knitting his brows together, feeling a drop in the wizard’s energy level. Correk carefully tapped at the frame of the window, the ancient spell he learned turning the lock and lifting the glass. He climbed through, pushing back the curtains and saw the boy curled up in a heap next to an Oriceran conjuring wheel and an oak wand. Tan leather suitcases and a trunk sat neatly just behind the wheel, already packed and waiting for a trip.

  Correk stepped into the room and purposefully tended to the young wizard, rolling Bryce onto his side with his legs stretched out and his mouth open. Almost all the wheel’s arrows had stopped on a spell to increase magical agility. One was pointing at magical creativity and the tip of the arrow had bent in, leaving a scratch in the wood.

  Correk gingerly picked up the wheel as it jerked in his hands, pulling to the right. “You’re an artifact,” Correk exclaimed, examining it more closely. He pulled out a velvet bag charmed for just these occasions and slid the lurching wheel inside, pulling the drawstring tight and tying them in a knot.

  Bryce coughed suddenly, a green gaseous cloud floating out of his mouth that smelled of rotten fruit. Correk knelt on one knee and hovered his hands just above the boy’s chest and watched the stream of magic that appeared in front of him. There were dark spots floating here and there in the young wizard’s magic stream, disrupting his innate magic and causing it to turn on the boy and attack him.

  The new Fixer was about to turn away for a moment to consult a book he had brought with him when something caught his eye. He looked back at the stream, his eyes widening as he realized where he had seen those same markings before. “Lucius.”

  He dipped his hand into the stream and felt the slight burn, pulling back. It was the mark of the world in between infecting the boy’s magic like a virus. Correk scanned the body again as the boy convulsed, the green gas bubbling out of his mouth. He pulled out the book, scanning the words as they appeared on the page, hoping to find something on the world in between.