Messing Up Magic

by Winnie Winkle

  “Do we try to retake our prisoners?”

  “Haseya is tasked with that.” Theo watched the glances exchanged.

  “Warlocks, if it is a question of you or a vamp being taken, give yourself up. Topper says the containment is easy to break with an average spell. Keep the vamps out of their hands.”

  “Understood.”

  Theo escorted the vamps to the bank. Martin, the troll banker, opened the vault, shut the vamps in it, counted to ten and reopened it to a flood of bats winging towards the front door. Theo held it open as the bats fled into the night, and the warlocks disappeared with tiny pops.

  “I hope this isn’t a big mistake,” Theo muttered.

  “You’ve got to rest the witches, and sending the fight to the aliens gives them the idea we are fresh and have deep resources,” Martin chuckled. “Half of war is head games, Son.”

  “It’s the other half of war I’m worried about, Martin.”

  Zayn stood on the rocks scattered across the nearby hill, watching the ships. Anger seethed, filling his blood and making his mind dark and unyielding. Everyone had a role, except for him. He got to play the victim. I am a Djinn, the embodiment of fear. I instill despair and loathing. And, I am about finished with sitting on my ass.

  Haseya rose from the ground before him, staring in silence.

  Zayn took in the skin that melded with the night, the gleaming black eyes, the hair that fell to the ground like a cloak. Curious, he leaned towards her and lifted the hair. Naked. She’s running around fighting, naked. His body responded to her, but his mind’s fury was well beyond lust.

  Without thought, he grabbed her, forcing her legs apart. Haseya melted through his fingers into the ground and reappeared, now several feet away from him, sensing his turmoil and his darkness.

  “You spend a lot of time naked, my love. Why are you filled with anger?”

  “These things require eradication. Nobody is doing it. I can handle the whole problem in an hour.”

  “We are not exacting vengeance, Zayn, we are protecting and preserving our own. This fight is another world’s war. Not ours.”

  “That’s bull, Haseya. You preach about saving. Look at you! You are the vision of death,” Zayn’s rage washed over them both in an ugly flood.

  “My appearance and my choices are two parts of a single life, Zayn. So are yours. Is your choice to be two-faced? Kind when it gets you what you want, but clinging to the feeling of power you exact over the weak? If so, you are not the spirit I believed you to be, the one who spoke of change and love.”

  “We are being attacked! I will be what I am capable of, Haseya. Just like you.”

  “No. I am being a healer despite the attack, not using the attack as an excuse to unleash my violence. You do not see this. In that, you do not see me.”

  The pause drew out between them, Zayn’s eyes hard and angry as Haseya’s gleamed with slow understanding.

  “I have made an unforgivable error.”

  Eyes shining with despair and sadness, Haseya sank into the earth.

  “You are wrong!” Zayn roared at the earth where she’d been. “This is the time of violence and destruction. This is the time of the Djinn.

  16

  The bats winged through the murk, checking out the ships, then peeling away. As an alien looked up to scan, he vanished, his recorder and box floating after him, back to the warlock. His muttered spells sent the orb and then changed his appearance to that of an alien. He grabbed the weapon and the box and returned to the alien’s post.

  “I’m in place,” he sent out in a sonar signal. High above, the bats whirled, heading to the other end of the ship to repeat the location, containment and replacement of the alien scout positioned there. Soon warlocks replaced the six scouts at each ship.

  Light cracked as a hatch opened and two aliens came out, approaching a warlock, waving arms and grabbing him. Bats dive-bombed and one sank its teeth deep into an alien neck. A couple of pops and the aliens were in orbs. The bats rose, and every warlock faded back from the ships.

  At the rendezvous, they took stock.

  “We need to see if the bite affected the prisoner,” one warlock said, “and see if the alien blood affected our vamp.”

  The bat who bit the alien landed on his outstretched palm. The warlock and vamp vanished back to town.

  “We took fourteen prisoners, and it’s three hours to daylight. Shall we thin the ranks a little more? Exercise care, everyone. We’ve lost the element of surprise.”

  The bats took wing, surveying the ships from the skies. Below, two of the warlocks watched the main ship in silence. The replacement sentries were the three-eyed types. The warlocks exchanged a look.

  “These are the ones they will sacrifice. Bet they want to get us under the ships and catch us.”

  “We should retreat. It’s time to let them wait and wonder.”

  “Agreed.”

  He released a sonar signal skyward, the bats wheeled as one and turned away from the ships amid the faint pops of the vanishing warlocks.

  “I have an idea,” Topper murmured, as Theo jumped. Did I fall asleep? Crap.

  He took the cup she offered, and drank it down in a couple big gulps, asking, “What?”

  “Rings,” Topper replied. “We can enact rings of spells around the town that will slow them down.”

  “I’m listening,” Theo replied. Whatever she puts in that tea, it works.

  “I’m thinking of outer rings that are spells on their equipment, turning their containment chambers into boxes of fruit, or their weapons into water pistols, things like that. If the spell is clever, they won’t even know.”

  “That means they will keep running towards the center of town. I like it, Topper.”

  Her sassy grin made him laugh.

  “The inner circle will be a reduction zone. We’ll cast individual spells to catch them and orb them once they cross the shrinking spell line, but they’ll be little, and not a threat. The important thing to remember is that if we cross that spell line, we’ll shrink too.”

  “Okay, that’s on the table. Dawn is in two hours, let’s call the meeting.”

  Topper waved her fingers and sent tea to everyone. The citizens gathered around the little platform, sipping, as Theo stepped up.

  “Our warlocks and vamps waged an impressive attack on the soldier aliens last night, capturing fourteen.”

  The crowd whistled and clapped as the bats fluttered and the warlocks nodded and waved.

  “We now know that the aliens get sick from a vampire bite but it won’t stop them. They have a component in their blood that violently disagreed with the vampire that bit the alien. She will be OK, but we can’t afford to divert witches to healers. Since vamps can shift and are a target, but cannot defend themselves, we plan to send the vampires, along with the trolls and dwarfs, into Haseya’s hiding place. They will leave in one hour.”

  Murmurs and nods greeted this information.

  “Witches and warlocks will set ring spells in increments of a tenth of a mile around the town. These spells activate when anyone crosses through them. The outer spells will change the alien’s equipment. We’ve captured a few pieces and can use them to make the spells look realistic. The idea is to remove the containment threat and neutralize their weapons without their knowledge. The final ring, the one closest to the town center, will shrink anyone who crosses.”

  Theo looked around at the crowd. “That includes you. Be careful. If you cross the line, you will get small, and quick.”

  “If we have to evacuate, run to this platform. Understood?”

  The crowd nodded as Haseya rose through the earth near the front of the platform. “Without shifting, I could find no way to enter the ships and save the prisoners. I cannot pass through the metal, only the earth. I am sorry to fail you.”

  Simon stepped towards Haseya. “It’s not a failure, we just don’t have them yet.”

  “Are you ready to take the trolls, dwarfs, and vamps?
” Theo asked.

  “Ready.”

  “Set the spells, except the shrink one, please, Topper,” Theo said. “While the witches are working, we’ll begin the evacuation, Haseya.”

  Slodoon’s ship landed on the far side of the town from the Morduck ships. Having them on the planet in these numbers was a terrible sign. As in a ‘they might kill me’ kind of indicator. I expected a small observation team, not a platoon of fighters. Slodoon’s crew assembled.

  “Nothing, nothing, interests you beyond obtaining shifting life-forms. Remain cloaked at all times. Do not help a Morduck in peril, do not assist each other if it means delaying the retrieval of a specimen. There is no other mission. Go!”

  Donning their cloaks, Slodoon led twenty-five Senior Scientists down the ramp, trotting across the desert, scanners on high.

  Zayn watched the aliens moving around their ships, his rage rising around him like armor. I will destroy you, show you your guts, listen to your piteous cries.

  Haseya rose outside the bank building to move the vamps, dwarfs, and trolls. The bats flew into a bag, she nodded and Topper closed the vault door as Haseya stepped into her twirl. Once at the hut, the bats fluttered out of the bag and shifted back to human form. Haseya closed her eyes and flexed her mind, increasing the size of the hut tenfold. She waved her hand and food materialized, along with blood in jars along the wall. A pump handle appeared, with a bucket for catching water, and piles of big pillows, suitable for sitting or lounging, stacked up along the hut’s walls.

  “This is plenty, Haseya,” Jonah’s mother said, grateful for the comfort. “Go, bring the rest.”

  Haseya twirled back and forth, bringing the dwarfs and trolls to safety.

  “We’re ready, Theo,” Topper said, hair a fiery red, hands on hips, staring up at him.

  This woman. She’s like a mini superhero volcano.

  “Set the shrink spells after I take off. Watch the line once they’re set, folks. Let them come to us.”

  Theo, a little self-conscious about stripping to shift out in the open, decided there was no time for fussing over niceties. Besides, these jeans were his favorite. Topper’s approving expression was his last view before his tail emerged. Theo flapped his wings in a mighty downward draft and took off, ready to decoy the aliens towards the rings of spells. As Theo cleared the town, Topper signaled the witches to cast the shrink spell.

  “Now we wait,” she said, with a little grin.

  Zayn’s nasty smirk pulled back across his teeth. He shifted, becoming electric and circling each ship with a subterranean high-voltage ring. Fry, you mothers.

  17

  Theo landed with a thud, and Zayn slid an eye in his direction. Zayn’s long black hair stood on end, surrounding him in a circle of static electricity. His eyes snapped with electric sparks, and his hands glowed as he shot power into the ground, across the desert to the two ships, surrounding them in circles of death. Theo looked at the glowing deadly subterranean lines, ready to flatline any who step on them, then back at Zayn.

  “You need to stop that,” Theo said in a mild voice. “Unless your plan is to get us all captured or killed.”

  Zayn upped his vibration, and Theo felt the earth surge under his feet. Small rocks and pebbles bounced in staccato patterns around them. Theo was grateful for his impenetrable dragon skin. I need to be impervious in the face of old Lightning McGee here. What is it with Djinn and their tempers? You’d think, after a few thousand years of crankiness they might let it go. Mellow out, have a cookie, take a nap.

  “Your girlfriend moves through the earth, right? When she does, will she appreciate your sparkling personality? You two have a fight or something?”

  The voltage lessened slightly, then sizzled back into Zayn’s hands. His hair floated down around his mutinous face.

  “She doesn’t… she didn’t…. This isn’t the time for… Oh, the hell with it. I’m doing this my way and that’s that.”

  “That always works with women, Zayn. Excellent plan.”

  Zayn’s face went dark and his hands lifted, deciding whether to test Theo’s dragon skin at close range. Theo shot a plume of smoke. Just try it, Djinn.

  Zayn moved, but Theo snapped a wing sideways and knocked him ass over teakettle. The Djinn was on his feet in a flash.

  “This your big plan, Zayn?” Theo roared, sparks shooting from his snout. “To fight me and let the town get overrun by aliens? Let your girlfriend land in a box again? Huh? They will keep sending more ships. The more you kill the more they’ll send. We gotta get on top of this and get it handled.”

  Zayn glowered, then dropped his hands.

  “Think you can bump out of your funk long enough to help? I’ve got to get these aliens headed into town. We’ve got a trap laid but they have to leave the ships. Your Djinn juice containment isn’t helping.”

  Zayn made a noise halfway between a growl and a groan. “What you got in mind, Theo?”

  “Work from the sky and piss them all off for a while. Get them moving, out of the ships, start them herding towards town. Don’t kill ’em, Zayn, but make them mad. Topper’s got them once they get into town, but we want as many of them as possible, running into town at the same time.”

  A wicked smile lifted the corners of his mouth and Zayn closed his eyes. Theo heard a rumble. It sounded like it was coming from inside the Djinn. Pulling his broad shoulders back, Zayn popped them forward with a sharp snap. Theo saw the closest ship rock on its landing gear.

  “What the…?”

  “Shock wave," Zayn said with a crooked grin.

  “Impressive.” Holy crap.

  Zayn rumbled again, hitting the ship hard. Hatches flew open and aliens swarmed off the ship in full tactical gear.

  “Time to go,” Theo muttered, exhaling a cloud of fog. “Need a ride?” Zayn grabbed the joint behind Theo’s wing and swung a long leg over his back. They lifted within the fog, heading to the second ship, and landing some distance away.

  “I had no idea you could do that,” Theo said, lifting off and staring at the second ship, now tipped off its axis and tilted halfway towards the sky. A small army of aliens clambered out of the ship, also in full tactical gear.

  “It appears they were preparing to invade Magic anyway,” Zayn called. “Close your eyes, Theo. I’m about to light this place up.”

  A blast of blue light hit the silver ship, reflecting as the aliens covered their eyes and scrambled for the backside of the ship and shadow. Theo, staying high, flew around the ship. Ducking his head, he felt Zayn push another blast of light at the ship. The aliens abandoned the protection of the ship, running towards Magic.

  “Run, jerks!” Theo added more fog and angled back to the first ship. Zayn’s blue light caught several aliens out in open and they fell to their knees, hands over their eyes.

  “Think the three-eyed ones are light sensitive,” Zayn laughed.

  Theo drifted upward, and around to the rear of the ship, still on its landing gear.

  “They’re hiding under the ship, Theo.”

  “Yep, I bet they think if we have to come to them they can box us up.”

  Cutting a sharp turn, Theo headed back about half a mile and landed.

  “Hit that ship.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Zayn’s rumble built, and he blasted the shock wave across the desert, raising a line of dust twenty feet wide. The ship bounced into the air, tipping up onto one side before flipping upside down.

  Theo’s large yellow eyes watched the alien reaction. A few were pointing their way, but more were turning towards town.

  “Go,” Theo whispered. “Go on.”

  All but four of the aliens moved towards Magic. Two of the four took up the watch on the disabled ship, and the other two, at a fast trot, headed towards Theo and Zayn.

  “They left guards. That means that’s where our prisoners are. Time to go, Zayn.”

  “It is," murmured Slodoon, pushing the hood of his concealing cloak back and pattin
g the containment chambers. “Well done, my Senior Scientists. We have two perfect specimens.”

  Slodoon gestured in a circular motion, recalling the scientists to their ship, and pulled his hood back on. We’ll see who prevails now, Morducks. You messed up a simple scientific mission and extraction. Too bad you didn’t trust the experts. That will cost you. Big.

  “Two Morducks from that ship are heading towards us, High Scientist.”

  “If they attempt to stop us from reaching our ship, shoot them.”

  Haseya watched in horror as the aliens captured Zayn and an orange dragon that reminded her of Theo. What do I do? There are so many of them. They are wearing clothing to hide their bodies, but their life forces shine through.

  Counting, Haseya thought there were at least twenty-five, and one seemed to be the leader. He patted the boxes containing Theo and her Zayn. Well, not my Zayn anymore, I cannot sanction his darkness.

  Haseya and her hurting heart fell back into the ground. Following the group underneath their feet, Haseya listened to their excited mutterings about their captives, and about the energy readings on their little boxes.

  That’s me. The realization gave her an idea. They can sense me, but I don’t think they’re looking under the ground. I appear implausible there.

  The two Morducks, in a flat-out run, were nearly upon the group.

  “Give us the specimens!”

  “You? No. Our mission, our effort, therefore, our specimens.” Raising his weapon, Slodoon shot both of the running Morducks, who tumbled into the dust.

  “Leave them,” Slodoon said as two scientists moved forward. They turned, surprised at the command. “Secure the specimens and prepare for departure”.

  I can’t help my love for him, it’s in my cells, even if we can’t be together. I have to save them. Working quickly, Haseya spread her smoke into a fine particulate cover across the sand, rising unseen to wrap the entire exterior of the ship. Once reconnected to herself, she hummed, singing within her vibration. Singing into the metal of the ship, making every part of the ship carry the message, filling the space with urgency.