Copyright Agreement
The Author of this Book has been granted permission by S.E. Smith to use the copyrighted characters and/or worlds created by S.E. Smith in this Book; all copyright protection to the characters and/or worlds of Magic, New Mexico are retained by S.E. Smith.
Magic New Mexico Series Forward:
Imagine The Worlds of Magic, New Mexico... A series that brings together outstanding paranormal and science fiction authors to expand a town where witches, aliens, vampires, werewolves, goblins, sorceresses, pirates, time travelers, and paranormal live in harmony - when they aren’t joining forces to defeat the bad guys. A magical town where being abnormal is the norm!
I’m S.E. Smith, the creator of Magic, New Mexico and I invite you to curl up with each book now and discover all the action, the magic, and the love that makes Magic, New Mexico the ultimate go-to series for Paranormal / Science Fiction Romance readers.
For all the stories, go to MagicNewMexico.com. Grab your copy today!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074ZMGXTP
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter One
The twins, one wearing a tall black hat, the other donning a curved white one, galloped through the forest in Magic, racing to keep pace with the fairies they found sitting on the dandelions they were blowing. The Doppelgängers loved it when they sent the fairies twirling through the air.
“They sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks when we make them laugh,” Jonah giggled. The boys were only distinguishable by the hats they wore. Today, the one with the black hat ran fastest. They were the Drayton twins. Simon Drayton, a centuries old werewolf and reclusive billionaire, had fallen in love with Tory Carson, following her to the world of Magic, New Mexico. Like his English ancestors, he was elegant and tall, with pale skin, shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes.
The twin’s mother, Tory, a beautiful vampire witch with an intoxicating radiance and deadly allergic reaction to any blood type except A, was so lovely their half-vampire, half-warlock grandfather, Charles Carson, had been known to toss boys off roofs and chase others down drainpipes to keep her from falling in love. Tory’s father was protective because his daughter was as stunning as her mother Sophie, the absolute love of his life. They’d been married for over a hundred years.
Both boys had inherited the gift of poofing from their mother. Jonah decided to do it today because he wanted to find a way to get the jump on Joseph. And off he went. Poof! He transformed himself into a puff of smoke, flew passed his twin and reappeared.
“We said we were going to run without magic,” the other twin pouted. “You’re cheating.”
Poof. Jonah reappeared. “No—I’m not,” he walked backward so he could look at his brother.
“Mom said using magic for good is not cheating. And beating you is good—no matter how I do it,” he chuckled. He could never resist the urge to tease his brother. His musical laughter pealed through the forest.
Joseph took his brother’s lead and began poofing himself in to a huff to chase him. They were soon disappearing and reappearing in puffs of smoke—racing each other. They soon forgot all about the fairies they’d blown off the daffodils.
Poof! Jonah, exhausted, transformed himself back into existence and began walking backward so he could face his brother who’d also grown tired of the game and was now walking.
“I just decided...” Plunk. Jonah fell with a hard thud onto his bottom. His outstretched hand helped cushion his fall—a little.
“Ouch! Golly! That hurt!” He looked down at his hand which was buried in the soft emerald grass of the forest to see what was on it. “Something feels squishy.” He looked down. Wet, sticky, red—blood. He tried getting it off his hand by sliding it onto the grass.
He heard a distant moan nearer to the creek. “Did ya hear that?”
“I did, brother. Could it be a wounded animal?”
“Maybe.” Jonah sprung to his feet and listened. He followed the sound.
“Mom will be mad at us if she knows we’ve gone this far into the woods, Jonah,” said Joseph, a little afraid of what they may find. Maybe we should go back.” Even though Joseph loved adventure as much as his twin, he was the more cautious one today.
“What if an animal is wounded, or needs food? Maybe we can help. We’ll only go a little further,” Jonah promised as he inched toward the sound. “If we don’t...”
“Oooooooooooooh,” another groan.
Both boys grabbed hands, looked at each other with fear in their eyes and gasped at the desperate sound.
Behind a felled log they came upon two beings. One was conscious and remained in human form. The other was semi-conscious, but he kept shifting between a human, lion and some sort of bird. His shifts were so vague, the boys had trouble deciphering all but the lion. And his hair—one minute it would be short, the next it would grow past his shoulders, almost like a lion’s mane. He seemed to be becoming more and more erratic—having trouble keeping a viable shape. The two boys looked on, not sure what to do next. Their instinct of helping animals kicked in.
At home, they had a menagerie of snakes, birds, hamsters and whatever else they could find. Tory, their mother, put her foot down when Jonah and Joseph tried to sneak a pony into their collection. Even though they’d shrunk it and snuck it into their bedroom, she and Simon could hear the horse whinnying. They’d explained to their look alikes that their powers would not permit the horse to stay little for long.
“He’ll become big and anyway, you two have no hay,” their dad had told them. Once the boys let the pony go, Tory and Simon couldn’t help but laugh at their ingenuity.
The twins loved animals. And they loved to heal them with magic.
“Let’s get some water.” The Drayton twins ran to the creek and Jonah removed his water pouch from his shoulder. He twisted off the top and sank the pouch into the running stream to fill it.
They dashed back to the wounded beings. Jonah tried giving the unconscious human water by pulling his lips apart with his fingers. When he found he couldn’t hold them and pour the water, he beckoned his brother.
“Help me, brother. Hold his mouth like this while I put water in.”
Joseph hesitated. “What if he tries to bite me?”
“He’s too weak. Help me. Whoever they are, they are hurt. Look at all this blood. They might die out here if we don’t help them. Understand, brother?”
Still hesitating, he eventually ran to his brother’s side to help. He took over holding open the human’s mouth. The being reacted to the water trying to go down his throat by coughing. He was still too weak to move.
They patted water on his face with their little hands then turned their attention to the human whose shifting was still erratic. Holding his mouth would prove more difficult.
Jonah decided it might be best just to splash water onto his face, then onto his mouth. Jonah reasoned, the beasts inside him may have more control over him than he does them. They needed to be careful. The water seemed to have a calming affect on him, as his shifting stopped, and he was able to stay in human form.
“Thank you,” he murmured, tryin
g to sit up.
“Don’t. Rest a minute. Your wounds are bad.” Jonah told him.
“But I must take care of my brother, Troy. Where is Troy?”
“He’s over there,” the twins said it in unison then pointed to where the other injured man was lying.
The human looked over at his brother, who was still unconscious. Any fight in him left. He laid back, going limp. “I’ve killed my own brother. I’ve killed him.” The Drayton twins looked at each other and started to move away. “Why would someone kill their own brother?” Jonah and Joseph both asked the question at the same time. They both looked back at the stranger with wide-eyed curiosity, and he continued.
“I’m not fit to live. You must leave me here to die. When I am strong enough, I will bury my brother, but you must leave me here. Once I’ve told you what I’ve done, you’ll know why you must.”
Chapter Two
The injured man began telling Jonah and Joseph what had happened in the forest. They sat across from him with their legs crossed and listened as he began, their big brown eyes transfixed on the stranger.
“I’d just learned to master my shifting skills to transform into a hawk. I told my brother he soon would be able to change into a magnificent bird and fly high, like me.”
“Look at me!” I boasted to him. “I yelled down and flew circles around him on our journey to The Cave of the Ancient Rippers. We are from the Red Fire Pride of werelions. We are descendants of The Ripper Society.”
“What’s that?” Asked Jonah. “It sounds like some sorta spy mission.”
“It is a spy mission of sorts,” my young friends. The stranger with little strength smiled at the twins. “We are an order that goes back hundreds of years. We protect the realms from creatures who don’t belong here.” He was careful not to scare the young boys with talk of souless men with hearts black as coal.
As he struggled for the strength to gather his words, his mind plunged back to the consequences that occurred when Rippers failed. The last unwittingly unleashed Hitler onto the world. Everyone knew by now that men with hearts the size of Hitler’s do not deserve to walk among The Decents. He coughed, still weak. Jonah moved closer and gave him more water. His cough did not quiet for a while, and a shiver went through him, but he soon continued.
“It is an order of ancients that goes back thousands of years. Each of us have made a sacred vow to train deep inside the mouth of the Cave of the Ancients for years to become mighty and wise enough to cast out evil beings who walk the Seven Realms, typically either in human, alien or shifter form. These beings disguise themselves as to blend into society, but they mean harm to whomever they encounter. We’re sworn to protect—The Enchanted Realm, The Alien Realm, The FAE Realm, The Animal Realm, The Monster Realm, The Ghost Realm and the Earth Realm.
“We can enter The Ripper Society only by being a direct descendant of someone who became part of The Society thousands of years before. Our mother spent hundreds of years training me and my brother to hunt and prepare for our sacred obligation. We are the strongest of our Red Fire Pride.
“Almost two weeks ago, our mother, Mara, told both of us it was time for us to travel to The Cave of the Ancients. She told us we must train and dedicate ourselves to our mission to protect the realms. She also told us we were not to return to take our rightful places—I as leader of the pride—and my brother as my lieutenant. She told us most importantly—to look out for each other.
“My mother warned me about trotting off into unknown places in the forest, but I didn’t listen. Troy came with me to keep me safe. He traded his life to keep me from harm.
“That is why you must leave me here. I have failed before we even arrived to the cave. I’m an outcast. Please go. Leave me here to die with my brother.” He stopped talking and began to cough. His head was ablaze. He could not stop the pounding inside. He began to spasm.
The Drayton twins were unsure what to do next. Jonah spoke first. “We can’t leave him here, brother. No matter what he says, he’s not bad. If he’s what he says he is—the worlds need him. And anyway, we didn’t even get a chance to tell him that his brother isn’t dead. He’s not like the ones we see in the graveyard. He’s just weak. They both need help.”
A determination came into their eyes as they stood. They connected with their mother in their minds. In just a few seconds, she stood in front of her twins with her hands on her hips and angry brows clouding her face.
“You know I’ve told you both about venturing too far out in the forest,” she scolded.
“We know, Mom. “Joseph said we’d get into trouble, but we found these two humans—they are hurt and need our help.”
She looked beyond her twins and the two wounded strangers came into her view.“What happened?” She gasped.
“We don’t know. We heard one of them crying for help—that’s why we came this far. We thought one of them wasn’t moving anymore, but he still is—a little.”
“This one started to tell us what happened, but he started shaking again.” They pointed to the stranger who’d struggled to tell them what occurred. Tory walked over to the two humans, bent down, and examined their wounds.
“They have severe injuries.”
“He told us they were going to a cave of , uh, Crippers,” Joseph said, trying to recall what the stranger had told them.
“Rippers,” corrected his twin.
“The Ancient Order of the Rippers. Boys come and stand by me. We must get them help—fast.”
Chapter Three
“This never gets old,” Fawna could barely contain her excitement while she sat next to the pilot flying the private jet she’d leased. It was against regulation for civilians to fly in the cockpit alongside the pilot, but he made an exception since she was the only passenger aboard the large private jet. “Oh, please, please let me sit in the cockpit with you,” she begged. I promise I won’t touch a thing. I want to look out at the horizon.”
“Ok, Mrs. Zanobia-Walker,” the pilot relented. “Come on in.”
The weather in Chicago had been blustery and nasty the night before, halting most commercial flights. As soon as the skies cleared, she’d decided she wanted to avoid the chaos at O’Hare and rent a plane instead. She was itching to get home and spring the surprise she had in store for her husband.
“I probably land in this airport more than ten times some months,” she told the pilot. “The lights below still blow me away every time.” The lyrics of Fly Me to The Moon by Frank Sinatra began playing in her head:
Fly Me to The Moon, and Let Me Play Among the Stars, Let Me See What Spring is Like on Jupiter and Mars... She sang the tune in her mind while watching in delight as the miniature skyline below twinkled in the moonlight. Three layers of awesome: the clouds, the stars and the city below.
Fawna imagined the clouds were created by some invisible giant puffing away on an enormous wooden pipe until he puffed out a blanket-like pattern of cottony clouds covering the sky below. It seemed as if they were floating on top of them. Little did Fawna know, she’d played on some of those clouds with the same giant she thought she’d only imagined.
Some of the stars burst onto the dark night like fireworks while others clustered into swirls, as if someone had thrown glitter onto the sky. And the shimmering city below sparkled in the glow of electric lights. Bridges became straight lines of neon racing across the water, while streets and highways snaked throughout the enormous city. From skyscrapers kissing the heavens to small houses, Chicago laid lit up before her like an enormous light-filled Christmas snow globe.
“I’ve always wanted to be a pilot,” she confessed.
“It’s the best job,” Captain Robert Chavez admitted while he flipped a few switches, checked gauges and kept a steady hand on the wheel, readying the flight for descent. “I fly in and out of dozens of airports, see hundreds of different types of landscapes. So many that it’s easy to take for granted. It’s sort of like living in an exotic place like Hawaii or Switzerland. O
r even near a gorgeous mountain landscape.
“When you see it everyday...day in—day out...it’s easy to go beyond seeing it and almost become blind to it. Sometimes, when I get that way...taking it for granted—I do what you’re doing now. Stop and mindfully take in the beauty of it all. Nothing beats it.” He beamed as he looked out of the planes crystal clear windows at the breathtaking landscape.
Fawna Zanobia-Walker looked on as the pilot talked, wishing she knew what it felt like to command a jet plane. Sadness overtook her a moment as she thought about Mr. Brown, her high-school counselor who’d chuckled when she asked him about becoming a pilot in the Air Force.
He did what most people did who she dared tell her dreams to. They told her to get her head out of the clouds (literally—even though that’s where she wanted to be) and become an actress or model. Something that wouldn’t waste her good looks.
As gorgeous as she was, with her green eyes rimmed in gold flecks, thick curly ebony hair and honey-golden skin, thanks to her Greek ancestry, Fawna could’ve cared less about her looks. Against advice from her mom and dad and Mr. Brown, in eleventh grade and with full intentions of becoming an Air Force pilot, she signed up for the ROTC—Reserve Officer Training Corp—a program that prepares young adults to become officers in the Air Force. It was not to be. When she was 17, a talent agent spotted her while she was at Dairy Queen enjoying ice cream with her family. The agent urged her parents to bring her in for a photo shoot.
The agency signed up the 5’9” natural beauty on the spot. Still, she insisted on finishing out her remaining ROTC training for the year, determined to one day join the Air Force. She finally gave in and began modeling when she was almost 18.
Even she had to admit that traveling to exotic places—taking photos in lovely clothing was not nearly as vacuous as she thought it would be—though the hours could be long. And the money couldn’t be beat. She made millions. For about three solid years, her face and slender body were splashed on the cover of every fashion magazine all over the world. She became one of the most well-known international supermodels. She was able to buy her parents and new house and her sister, Nell, a brand new car.
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