Magical Redemption

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  I shoved my magic out to finish off the illusion, hoping it worked. Otherwise, I was doggy food.

  The behesiff image formed between us.

  Again the air vibrated.

  Holding onto an illusion was hard. It wasn’t my specialty or my kind of magic. There was nothing elemental about it, so it fought against me, but I pushed my intent into what I wanted and it sluggishly responded.

  The behesiff roared.

  I held my breath, never looking away from the black creature. Nothing gave its thoughts away. I didn’t know if it was angry, scared, or what. It was just still, its white eyes focused on my illusion.

  Pushing more magic out, I made the behesiff roar again, louder, loud enough for the earth to shudder and birds to take flight. Things crashed through the brush in the distance. Still, I held my breath, waiting to see how the creature was going to react. After what felt like an eternity, it moved, going back into the shadows, melting away.

  It took its time, keeping its eyes on my Siitha lookalike. I made my illusion look like he was ready to pounce and that seemed to speed up the creature’s retreat. It flawlessly melted into the shadows, becoming one with it until all I could see was inky darkness between the trees. I held onto the illusion until the small hairs on my neck no longer stood up. Even then, I held onto it longer, scared it’d come back once I dropped it.

  Only exhaustion had me dropping the illusion, and I didn’t stick around to find out if the creature was going to make another appearance or not. The valley was another couple miles from my current location, but their magic and wards prevented me from teleporting closer. Resolved to make the difficult hike, I pushed through the bushes and onto a small path.

  An hour later, the village was in view, with a ward in front of me, just at the edge of the cliff. Once I got through the ward, I’d need to climb down the cliff since the barrier and the magic within wouldn’t allow me to teleport without dangerous repercussions. I still hadn’t figured out how they did it, but if I dared to teleport, the ward would knock me out, leaving me lying there defenseless until someone from the village came or a beast ate me.

  I could sense them now, the other beasts. They surrounded the ward, acting as bodyguards. Each beast belonged to one of the residents, like pets, but not quite as tame. Thinking about it, it was probably more like my relationship with the behesiff.

  I pondered that thought as I stepped up to the ward. Using my magic, I gave the ward a gentle knock, an “I’m here” notice for the residents.

  A shimmer of magic flowed through the air, brushing up against me. I hardened my personal mental wards, refusing to give them an inch. They’d try to take a mile. The last time I came here, I saw the results of what they did to those who were too stubborn to leave when they were rejected. The body was a skeleton by the time they were done with it, the magic they had set up sucking the life and everything else right out of the person. I had a theory that a chunk of their ward ran on the deaths of those too dumb to go back when they were denied access.

  “What are you doing here, Little Laila?” the familiar high-pitched male voice asked.

  I forced a grin as I saw the little old pixie step out from behind a tree and stop just a couple of feet away on the other side of the ward.

  “Am I not allowed to visit?” I asked Shetz, the shrewd pixie.

  “You give warning,” he replied with knowing eyes.

  Tilting my head, I wondered if he knew something I didn’t. The occupants of Wild Village made it a point to know what was going on in the forest around them. If the baddies came through here, or even near their village, they’d have known.

  I shrugged. “I thought it was time I came to visit and since I was passing nearby, figured I’d swing by.”

  “You don’t just ‘swing by’ as you put it.” He raised his hand up to the ward and the large black stone on his middle finger turned a murky blue. The ward responded to the ring and opened up a small hole. Without overthinking how this could be a terrible idea, especially against my bank account, I stepped through.

  I’d been making a lot of terrible choices lately, and if I were, it seemed I didn’t know how to stop. Something kept spurring me on to continue on the path that I was. Maybe it was my growing fury against the fuckers who killed Henzie and then nearly wiped out a whole park full of people. Maybe it was the frustration at the guys for treating me with kid gloves. Maybe I was just being stupid. Was I too old to claim teenager hormones making me stupid? Either way, there I was.

  “What do you really want?” Shetz asked, still staring knowingly at me with big dark brown eyes. Shetz wasn’t any taller than my hand. The grass nearly covered him completely. I wasn’t sure how he got up the cliff or around in general because he no longer had wings and being so small made travel difficult. Last year, I had managed to get enough Faerie Brew into him and he had admitted to having his wings torn off as a punishment. I never did find out what he had to do to have that happen to him and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

  His long pointy ears had small golden hoops in them, reflecting the sunlight. I wasn’t sure how old Shetz was, but time favored him. The mumbling consensus I’d managed to pick up from the others in the village was that he was handsome and in the prime of his life. I had no idea considering on some days, I compared him to a bug I’d really like to squash.

  “Come,” he said and led the way to the edge.

  “Does that work with all your female companions?” I asked.

  He turned and blinked at me owlishly before breaking out into a wide grin. “Would you like to find out?”

  “Please wait while I try to swallow my puke,” I said and faked a gag.

  He raised an eyebrow, giving me a look telling me he wasn’t impressed.

  Well, neither was I.

  Shetz led the way to a wooden platform and crawled up on it. The platform was almost taller than he was. I easily stepped onto it. He stomped his foot twice, and his ring lit up again. The platform lifted into the air, hovering about five feet off the ground.

  I tensed my body, prepared for the slight jerk as it moved over the cliff and then floated down to the village. Small specks of inhabitants moved about like ants as we slowly approached. They were black dots against bright green grass. A large bird let out a screech, and for a moment, I had an image of a bird swiping me with its massive claws and flying me to its nest to be fed to its baby birds for lunch.

  The moment I saw the breathtaking creature, I knew I’d be okay. It was a hawk, with a short, curved beak and sharp eyes. The only difference was that this particular bird had three eyes and an extra leg. All the better to see its prey and swoop in and snatch them. The other thing of note was that it was about the size of a horse, without including its wingspan.

  It was also Shetz’s beast, and one of the biggest and baddest around the ward, ready to tear into anyone not welcomed.

  It eyed me with its intelligent dark eyes before letting out a screech. With a flap of its expansive wings, it dove down underneath us before swooping up. Its wind blew my hair back away from my face.

  “Why are you here?” Shetz asked again, ignoring the creature and breaking me from my trance. The darn bird was a vain one, loving to show off to visitors. Whenever I came here, it always made itself known by doing air aerobics.

  “I’m chasing some men and wasn’t prepared to come into the wild.”

  His eyes bored into me, and I refused to look at him. His judgment was already whacking me over the head.

  “When did you get so stupid?” he asked.

  “About the same time a good friend of mine died.”

  He made a huffing noise as the ants in the village turned into human-shaped beings. Or mostly human. Some of them had four legs or an extra set of hands. They didn’t try as hard here to pretend to even be related to humans in some ways. This village had managed to completely immerse themselves in with Nature and many of them were more in tuned with their instincts than us city folks. Which meant I nee
ded to keep my mouth shut if I didn’t want them taking a swipe at me and tearing my head off.

  Every time I came here, I always managed to get into an altercation. Or two. Sometimes three.

  While I was always down for a good smackdown, there wasn’t time. I needed to be going already.

  “You will visit my garden and feed them. Then we will talk.”

  “I don’t have time,” I said.

  “If you want what you want, you will make time. The Aeflowers miss you.”

  “Can I stop by after I’m done?” I asked. Of course he’d jump into negotiations before we even landed in the village.

  “You might be dead. Then where does that leave me? If you want your supplies, now is when you will do it. Not when you’re dead.”

  “I won’t be dead.”

  “You don’t know that.” There was no inflection in his voice. He wouldn’t care if I died. Sure, I would no longer be able to give his garden a boost, but he did well before I came along and he’d do fine after.

  I gritted my teeth, impatience surging through me. My skin prickled with it, and that was a new feeling for me. I wanted to scratch at my skin and release the pressure building. I needed to keep moving. I didn’t have time to sit with his garden. I usually spent a day in them, but even as I stood there, I could feel my targets moving further away from me again.

  We landed at what I called their town square. There was a sculpture in the middle of a beautiful woman with tree vines wrapped around her body and carvings of beasts on her skin. The sculpture was their representation of Mother Nature. Around her was a gorgeous marble fountain with glittering blue water flowing up from flowers. Beings were carved on the rim to look like they were basking in the sun and relaxing.

  As we walked closer to the fountain, I could see a tiger, lion, phoenix, dragon, pixies, leprechauns, gnomes, fae, and others all with their own spots on the fountain. My eyes kept drawing toward the woman. Even as a statue, I felt like I was looking at something otherworldly. If there was a humanoid version of Nature, they nailed it with the sculpture. The woman was motherly, soft, and yet something in her expression said if she needed to, she was more than willing to raise hell. With how the beings flocked to her, there was no doubt reverence in them, and the way she was higher up than all of them, her arms out, it showed she was protective of them.

  Drawing my gaze away from it, I looked down at Shetz—not that he’d ever let anyone look down at him—and tried to come up with a solution he’d be happy with. He was a stubborn businessman. It was his way or nothing at all.

  “I know your garden does better after I visit,” I said slowly, knowing I was going to poke at a line I worked hard not to cross with him. Enemies of Shetz’s never lived for long. He always found a way to get to them. The others in town loved to gossip, and I’d heard too many stories surrounding him. Shetz gave me a warning glance to watch what I said. “How about I spend a couple hours today and then when all this blows over, I’ll come back for two days?”

  “And if you’re dead, I only got two hours’ worth of your time.”

  I clenched my jaw for a moment before forcing myself to relax. “Why are you so determined to kill me off?” I asked. “I don’t plan on dying, and I’m not easy to kill.”

  “You’re here in a land you don’t understand. You’ll die.”

  “I understand more than you think,” I said. “And I made it this far and only teleported when I realized how close I was to you. I need supplies if I wish to continue and if I wish to pay back very bad beings for doing something unforgivable.”

  Shetz snorted. “Unforgivable by your standards with your idealism and moral compass.”

  “By Mother Nature’s standards,” I said in a low voice and that had him freezing.

  His eyes hardened as he glared up at me. “Explain.” Even the high pitch sound of his voice turned into something hard and cold, going down a few octaves.

  “The people I’m hunting, they found a way to create a device that steals all the magic in its vicinity. And I mean everything. They create dead spots,” I said in a low voice. Others around us were trying to pretend they weren’t paying attention, but they were listening in on what was going to be the gossip for the next few days. Within the hour, the entire village was going to know what was up. I licked my lips and kept myself from giving in and rubbing my sweaty palms against my thighs.

  “Finish,” Shetz said.

  “That I know of they wiped out two streets and a park in my city. They’re a walking time bomb. And they’re running around in the wild now. What do you think will happen to Nature if they were to release that bomb, all that excess magic? Or if they need to collect more. They’re going to pull from Her.”

  “They will die if they touch Mother.”

  I looked over at the cliff we had ridden down. “This is a large area, how could you know what they do to Her?” I asked softly. “How will you be able to track them?”

  “And you can do that? Track them?”

  I nodded, not willing to get into the specifics. They really didn’t need to know that the baddies were able to create the device because of information they most likely stole from me. My gut told me that piece of information would be my death warrant.

  Everything in me screamed caution. Shetz was a scary guy, not because he was quick to anger and lashed out, but because he was the quiet type. He planned carefully, did his pros and cons lists, weighed all the risks, and then he reacted, but not quickly. He had a way of sneaking up on anyone dumb enough to drop their guard around him.

  Shetz was quiet as he led the way to his house. He had one of the larger houses in the village, with a garden wrapping around the large two-story building. I’d once made a joke about the pointlessness of a pixie owning such a large house, and my ass smarted for weeks after.

  The moment we entered his property, scents assaulted me. We didn’t go into the house, but headed toward the back, where most of his garden was. Without warning, my body stopped, my legs refusing to go forward without taking a moment to feel it. The garden recognized me the moment I stepped onto its grounds. It took note of me, flowers standing a little taller, their petals shining a little brighter. Trees swayed in greeting, and the birds and bees took flight in their own version of fireworks to let me know they were glad I was there. My magic flared, reaching out to every living thing and greeting them with a warm brush of comfort, an “I’m back.”

  Shetz hated that his garden reacted the way it did to me. He was the master, and yet when I came, that didn’t matter to the plants anymore. All their attention was on me. He would never admit it, but I knew it would hurt his garden if I were to stop visiting. He tried to hide it, but me dying, while not debilitating, was going to make it more difficult for his garden to bloom at its peak. Did he need me? No. He really didn’t. But the quality of his products would decrease enough to put him back at the same level as his competitors.

  “You stay here and meditate. I’ll go and verify what you have shared with me. If it is so, when I come back, I will give you the supplies you need. If you live through this, you are required to come back within the week of its conclusion and give me two days.”

  I nodded and kneeled down, holding out my hand. “I agree.”

  When he placed his small hand in mine, magic zapped through my palm. I held in a hiss as we sealed the deal.

  “Stay. When I get back, I will give you what you need to be on your way.” Without another word, Shetz disappeared, leaving me to his extensive garden.

  ~*~

  I may have pushed a little too hard considering my magic was still on the fritz. The garden didn’t seem to mind and it pulsed with magic and life. Shetz noticed when he came in and paused, his eyes darting around.

  If he were any other pixie, he would have geeked out at being in a very happy and content garden. But he was Shetz, so his eyes just flickered to me as he walked over. He took note of my tiredness as I swayed to my feet, my muscles aching from being still for
so long. He didn’t even flinch when I almost stepped on him as I tried to get my legs stable underneath me.

  “We will help you get what you need,” he said in a soft voice. I thought the reality of it was dawning on him now, how at risk Mother Nature was at with those psychos out in the wild with the device they had.

  I nodded and followed him into his house. I’d only been there a handful of times, never staying long enough to be invited into his home. When I did stay overnight, I stayed in a house they called an inn, but was rarely used since this wasn’t exactly a place people could just stroll through.

  Shetz’s home reflected him. He was materialistic, money being the only language he really knew how to speak. Unless, of course, there was a threat to Nature. He had sculptures of animals only found in the wild and portraits of what I really hoped was a crazy imagination and not so much a brutal history. Not when it was showing a pregnant woman being torn apart while another creature lifted a fetus to its furry, bloody mouth.

  The next room was a parlor. Two others sat in there, waiting stiffly for us. The female was tall and willowy, her eyes a murky brown, her hair deep green, and I was pretty sure there were leaves in her hair, and it wasn’t as a fashion statement. The man was about my height, lean frame, with stormy blue eyes and sharp cheekbones. As in razor sharp. Literally. I did not want to brush up against his face, he’d slice me open. Everything in me wanted to study him more, but the last thing I wanted was him gutting me because he felt offended.

  “They have brought some of what you will need to make sure you don’t die,” Shetz said as he hopped up onto a table and pointed to the bag on it. “Take it and go. We have reports that they are heading southwest, further away from us. There are beings they are getting close to, a small settlement. If that settlement falls, everyone on this side of the lands will be killed.”

  The woman spoke up, her voice soft and wispy. “There are creatures in the wild who should never be disturbed. They care for this settlement and no one will be safe if something happens to them.”