Faery Realms: Ten Magical Titles: Multi-Author Bundle of Novels & Novellas

by Rachel Morgan

  “My father turned on the woodsman and almost tore out his throat. That’s all that gave me the strength I needed to knife my father in the back. The woodsman hacked off my father’s head. I reached into the corpse and freed my father’s soul, and my mother’s soul, and my grandmother’s soul, and sent them all to the realm of Faerie.

  “That is how I became a werewolf hunter. I married the good man who had helped me, and we joined a band of other such hunters in the woods. After my death, I became a fairy…”

  “Whoah, slow down. Huh?”

  “Didn’t you pay attention to anything I just said?”

  “Yeah, of course, that’s why when you said, ‘after my death’ I said, ‘whoah, slow down’ because how can you be dead? You’re alive!”

  “Honestly, Roxy,” she said, and even though she still looked fifteen, at that moment, she sounded exactly like a granny, “Did you play hooky from all your Sunday school sessions? The body is perishable, but the soul is immortal.”

  “Gosh, Granny Rose, somehow my Sunday school teacher forgot to mention the part about fairies and werewolves. Too bad too, cause I would have paid a lot more attention. How do fairies work into it again?”

  “There are many planes of existence, called Echelons. Taken altogether, the universe, the Echelonium, is more than the three dimensions of space that we see here in Midgard. It consists of other realms that extend beyond ours in multidimensional space. These other dimensions cannot be detected by the kind of science that you’re familiar with, but are just a real as the three dimensions we know.

  “You have an immortal soul. It is not part of the three familiar dimensions either. It extends into multidimensional space, which is why it survives when the flesh dies. All souls begin here, on this plane, which we call Midgard, the middle plane, or the Cradle of Souls. After death, souls are drawn to the echelon most similar to their own nature, where they acquire new bodies…”

  “Reincarnation?”

  “Not exactly. They aren’t born as little babies. A new body coagulates around the soul, as cream congeals in a bucket of butter as you churn it…”

  “You mean they respawn onto the next level like creepers in a video game?”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “Well, I didn’t even know that cream congeals.”

  Granny Rose decided to let it go. “Very pure souls go through a Door into a Celestial Echelon. They become angels. Extremely polluted souls go through a Door into a Hadaen Echelon. They become demons.

  “But most people aren’t that good…or that evil. Those who are tipped slightly toward the angelic side become fairies. Those who are slightly worse become ghouls.

  “Ghouls and demons don’t want to leave Midgard after death, because they know that what awaits them is going to be worse. They try any trick to stay in Midgard. Including stealing other bodies, other souls. That’s what vampires and werewolves are. They must kill, but not to eat—they aren’t alive, they don’t need food—but to send another soul to Hell in their place.”

  “So the thing that took Granny’s body—I mean, your body…”

  “Was a ghoul. From Ghoulie.”

  “Ghoulie.”

  “The opposite of Faerie. Faerie is a catch-all name for hundreds of fae Echelons. Ghoulie a catch-all name for the hundreds of Echelons in the upper levels of Hell. Inhabited by goblins, trolls, pretas, wendigos…. All the monsters you’ve heard about are real. But so are all the fairytales…and I have guarded you your whole life, as I have all my daughter’s daughters and my son’s sons. I have many descendants, but only one heir at a time. Right now, that’s you. You are the new keeper of the Clogyn. So, what is your plan?” she demanded. “What magic did you invoke to free yourself?”

  I held up my phone, which had been in my pocket. “I texted my sister. Unlike me, she has a magical vehicle called a ‘car’ and should be here any minute now.”

  Someone knocked on the trap door.

  Chapter 8. Gratuitous Nudity To Boost Ratings

  Knock, knock.

  Rosamunde and I froze. Well, I froze; she wafted. Someone pounded on the trap door again.

  “It’s me—Bryn!” came my sister’s voice, muffled by the door. “I captured a dangerous lunatic lurking outside the house, but it’s safe now!”

  “How do we know it’s really her?” I asked Rosamunde. “Could the wolf have jumped into her body?”

  “Body jumping is hard, and there’s no guarantee he’d win the struggle for control. He’d only jump if she killed his current host.”

  “Bryn wouldn’t kill your body,” I said. “Sounds like she’s captured it. But how did she know it wasn’t you?”

  “That’s my cue,” said Rosemunde. “If Bryn came in, the Wolf may have already moved on, or he might be in hiding.”

  She vanished.

  Thanks a lot, Fairy Godmother! I climbed up, pulled back the deadbolt, and heaved open the trap door.

  My sister stood framed dramatically in the archway to the kitchenette, and as she’d promised, she was not unarmed, nor was she alone. Granny’s body wasn’t anywhere to be seen, however. The prisoner Bryn held at gunpoint was a stark naked man.

  Bryn still wore the conservative charcoal suit and cream blouse she wore for work. Her russet hair was yanked back into a French braid so severe it was like maximum-security lockdown for hair. The solitary shock of color on her face was her crimson lipstick.

  The man wore only his nakedness, but, holy hamburger with a side of fries, he wore it well.

  There was more to him than met the eye, however, and that’s saying something, considering how much of him was meeting my eye. I’d only been wearing the red jacket one day, but I had already seen into the souls of dozens of men and women on my long bus ride over, enough to know that most people’s true souls are grubby at best, fiendish at worst. His soul showed something greater, not less, than his muscles and dimples.

  If he had the body of a lumberjack, he had the soul of a Paul Bunyan. His inner self had true strength of character, as if he were the most ripped, toned, muscled, amazing piece of male at the gym of virtues. Like a giant with the cut abs and bulging biceps of a bodybuilder…except, you know, not one of those gross ones on steroids, just a naturally gorgeous Hercules. It was a shining soul, illuminated. It was a princely soul, majestic. His soul showed a man for whom honor was not a term with an expired Best-By date.

  There was a big ditch in front of me called Love and I tripped and squealed and fell right in, face first into the squish.

  I know, I know. I never believed in Love At First Sight either. But when your first sight is soul deep with a Deep Soul, how can you not fall in love? I knew this was a guy who—if only he could love me—would never lie to me, never cheat on me, never betray me, never give up on me, never abandon me, never stop fighting for me.

  “I caught this this creep exposing himself outside the back window,” Bryn sneered.

  “Look, Lady, I told you, I’m not a pervert, I’m a Forest Ranger!”

  “So you decided to show us all your timber?”

  “What? No!” He cupped his hands, to hide any wood. (Thanks a lot, Bryn!) “Some asshat sucker-punched me and stole my uniform and my truck. I followed the truck here.”

  “You must be Cormac!” I exclaimed.

  Cormac tore his gaze away from Bryn for the first time. He nodded warily. “How did you know?”

  “Tell Bryn your last name. Bryn, go down into the basement and look at the name on the uniform there. If it matches, you’ll know Cormac is the Real Deal.”

  In so many ways.

  “I’m not lowering this gun,” Bryn said.

  “Lady, like I said, if you weren’t a girl, that baby-gun wouldn’t save you. You have seriously pissed me off.”

  “Bring it on, pervert, if you want your ass handed to you.”

  And what a fine ass it was too. I shook myself. Focus, Roxy. No, not on that.

  “Bryn, just get his uniform and check h
is story.” I retrieved more ammo for my gun out of the false bottom of my picnic basket. “I’ll watch him.”

  “You have a gun too?” Cormac demanded. “And you keep it in a picnic basket? What is wrong with you people?”

  “Says the naked perv,” snapped Bryn. “Roxy, where did you get that gun?”

  “Tell her your last name, Cormac.”

  “Huntsman,” he said gruffly.

  “I knew it!” I squealed.

  Bryn grumbled, but she climbed down into the basement. I knew she’d reached the bottom of the ladder when I heard her shriek.

  “She’s found the body,” I told Cormac.

  “It figures,” he sighed. “You’re a family of cannibals, aren’t you?”

  “It’s the body of the guy who took your uniform and left you for naked.”

  “You killed him?”

  “He was dead when I got here.”

  Bryn returned with the sage uniform. She tossed it at him. He grabbed it out of the air.

  “Where can I change?” he asked.

  “Right there, and the sooner or better.”

  She loftily ignored the arrows of pique Cormac shot at her. While he dressed with minimum movement and maximum speed, she averted her gaze and addressed me. “He could have learned the name of the real Forest Ranger any number of ways.”

  “The uniform fits him pretty well,” I noted. Really well.

  Bryn snapped her attention back to Cormac. Her eyes bugged and her jaw slacked. Personally, I thought he’d looked damn fine without a stitch on, but he did look dashing all gussied up, and Bryn had always had a thing for a man in uniform. On the other hand, Bryn had always had a thing for stubborn, too. She crossed her arms.

  “So the uniform fits impeccably over his incredibly broad shoulders. That doesn’t prove it belongs to him.”

  “You are one nutwing headcase, Lady. Take a look at my driver’s license, if you still don’t believe me.”

  He tossed Bryn his wallet, which had been in his pocket. I crowded next to her to examine it over her shoulders.

  “His driver’s license photo matches.”

  “It’s pretty suspicious,” said Bryn. “Nobody looks that good in a driver’s license photo.”

  “Thanks,” he said dryly.

  “And his badge,” I added.

  “Since when do Forest Rangers even have badges?” asked Bryn.

  “And hey, look at this…” I pulled a folded up bit of paper from the wallet.

  “No!” His face flamed bright pink. “You don’t need to read that!”

  “Ha, now we’ll see what you’re hiding,” Bryn said triumphantly.

  “Pretty sure we saw that already, Bryn.”

  “Shut up, Roxy. Let’s see what…oh.”

  It was a feature article from National Park Magazine, honoring Cormac Huntsman, with full color photographs. Bryn’s face turned as pink as Cormac’s.

  “Wow,” I said, perusing the article over Bryn’s shoulder, “Did you really evacuate a family from a burning house, save a seeing-eye dog from drowning, and rescue an endangered grizzly bear cub from poachers?”

  “The reporter made a much bigger deal out of that stuff than necessary,” he muttered. “It was a team effort, I just happened to be point man a couple times. I was just doing my job—any one of us would have done the same.”

  Bryn held her hand over her face. She hissed at me, “Roxy, is your gun loaded?”

  “Sort of, uh…” –with spirit bullets, but…

  “Good, please shoot me now. I can’t believe I held a naked Forest Ranger at gun point.” Her voice rose into the octave used by squeaking rodents. “I called him a pervert!”

  “Ladies,” said Cormac Huntsman, “This has been great, barely, but…”

  “But now we need to call the police,” Bryn said. Her bottom lip trembled. “I suppose my sister and I are both suspects. I swear to you, we had nothing to do with that man’s theft or murder, but I understand you can’t take our word for it. After all, I didn’t take your word for who you were…” She strode to him and lifted her crossed wrists to him. “Are you going to handcuff me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sheesh, Bryn, why not just ask him to spank you for being naughty while you’re at it?”

  Bryn and Cormac both blushed in complimentary shades of pink again.

  “That’s not what I meant!” Bryn said.

  “I don’t need to handcuff anyone,” Cormac said at the same time. “I’m more concerned about protecting you. I believe that man might, ah, have accomplices. And there’s no need to call the police. They are already on their way.”

  He had a deep, calm voice, but I was staring right into his soul when he said that, and saw it grimace and flinch.

  I lifted my gun and aimed it him. “Get away from him, Bryn. Now.”

  Bryn moved away, even as she argued with me. “Roxy, what’s gotten into you? You’re the one who said he was trustworthy.”

  “He’s lying. He hasn’t called the police.”

  Cormac stood very still. Tension sizzled between the three of us.

  “Okay. No. I haven’t,” said Cormac. “Lady…Bryn… your sister may not be trustworthy either. I know you can’t understand this, but that man whose body is in the basement might not be exactly dead. He might be here, influencing your sister.”

  A jolt of surprise struck me.

  “You know what he really is?” I asked cautiously.

  “Do you?” he retorted.

  “Do I?” asked Bryn. “Are you guys not talking about what I think you’re not talking about?”

  “You think his soul jumped into my body,” I said. “He didn’t. He took Granny Rose’s body.”

  “You mean he’s really a…” Bryn trailed off.

  “So you know that he’s a…” Cormac trailed off.

  “Werewolf, people, the term is werewolf,” said a disembodied voice coming from a sparkle in the air. “Let’s agree we all know the secret, and we all know we all know, and get on to the good stuff. I came to warn you not to go out through any of the doors. I’m not sure yet about the windows. I need to check them for traps too.”

  Rosemunde, still in her go-go girl mod mini and white boots, settled on the ground. The soft glow around her ghostly body became much brighter. She materialized until she almost looked solid. Cormac watched the process without surprise. But I could tell the moment that Bryn noticed her, because Bryn’s eyes widened. Also, she rushed up to the fairy and tried to slap her. The slap went right through, but obviously Bryn could now see the sprite.

  “You! I warned you to leave my baby sister alone, you fairy bitch!”

  “So you know about her, great,” I said brightly.

  “What have you done?” Bryn demanded. “What have you done to her, Granny Rose? Why is there a body in the basement? Where’s the werewolf?”

  “So you know that too,” I said, less happily. “Uh, so, wait a minute, let me get this straight, Bryn, you knew about all this already and you never told me? The Clogyn, everything?”

  “Mom told me.” Bryn frowned at the red leather jacket I was wearing. “She tried to give me that hideous thing, but I wouldn’t take it. After she explained everything, I didn’t want anything to do with our so-called legacy.”

  “You’re Bel Hood’s daughters!” Cormac exclaimed.

  We both jerked our heads toward him, like rival eagles honing in on a rabbit.

  “Bryn Hood. Huh. Who’d’a thunk when you pulled that gun on me in my birthday suit that you were Bel Hood’s heir.” His warm, earthy brown eyes traveled over me. “And Roxy Hood. So that red jacket is the Red Hood? But why is the younger sister wearing…” Cormac cleared his throat.

  “You knew our mother,” Bryn said. Her voice was absolutely flat, a dangerous sign.

  “I only know of her. Granny Rose is my Fairy Godmother as well.” He added dryly, “The whole ‘fairies are real’ took me a while to get used to.”

  “What about ‘werewolves are real�
��?” I asked.

  “Nah, I accepted that immediately. Thought it was kinda cool.”

  Bryn gave him a look.

  “I was eighteen when my parents told me,” he shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “They also told me it’s my destiny to hunt the werewolves and other monsters, and I would probably need to take a job that enabled me to keep track of activity in forests and wilderness areas. These days, that translates to national parks. I was pretty cool with that too. I never much cared for cities.” He pulled something out of a hidden pocket, a silver ax medallion on a silver chain. He put it on. “Like you, I possess a Talisman that enables me to see souls and dispatch ghouls and demons back to Hell.”

  “Let’s go after the wolf,” Rosamunde said. “Roxy needs to kill it.”

  “Too dangerous,” Cormac said. “I will hunt the werewolf alone.”

  “She has to face the wolf herself!”

  “I knew you would say that, Granny Rose,” he said, “Which is why I’m going to make sure she stays here.”

  “Hey!” I said. Pretty weak, I know. The truth is I kinda felt like, hey, if he wanted to hunt the werewolf instead of me, go for it, dude.

  Bryn shook her head. “Neither of you is hunting the werewolf. I will. Because I know where he’s going.”

  “Where?!” Cormac and I asked at the same time. Rosamunde just looked shifty.

  “Cormac, protect my baby sister,” Bryn said.

  She strode to the front door, but when she opened it, the edges glowed eerie green and the world flickering beyond was not the woods of the Angeles National Park forest.

  “Bryn! No!’” I shouted. “There’s something wrong!”

  “It’s a trap!” Cormac cried.

  But even as we were yelling out those futile warnings, Bryn stepped across the threshold and vanished.

  “She doesn’t have a Talisman,” Rosamunde said. “She couldn’t see the spell.”

  “Screw that!” Cormac hurled himself across the threshold.

  I was one step behind him. I only delayed to grab my basket.

  Chapter 9. Welcome To My Heck Of The Woods

  I stumbled as I crossed to the other side, because I had hurtled myself through the door so quickly, and because something tripped me. I fell face first into a fetid pile of rotting leaves mixed with trash. A roach the size of a Chihuahua wriggled its antennae right in front of my face. I shuddered.