Wind Magic
Nicolette Jinks was born and raised on a fish farm in Idaho, an intermountain state south of Canada and west of Wyoming. She began storytelling at an early age by terrifying her cousins with tales of stranded travelers entering haunted houses during terrible thunderstorms.
Instead of taking up the family farm, Nicolette sold her cows to pay for a degree in English. She now writes fantasy novels in the UK.
Check out her first long short-story series, Blissed, entirely for free.
Wind Magic
The Swift Codex
Book 4
Nicolette Jinks
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
First Edition Copyright © 2016 by NICOLETTE JINKS
Electronic Edition Copyright © 2016 by NICOLETTE JINKS
NICOLETTE JINKS asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations for reviews.
The characters and events written about in this book are completely fictional and of consenting age. Any resemblance between the characters and persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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You may contact the author via email: [email protected] or check in at https://nicolettejinks.wordpress.com/.
Independently Published by author
For My Readers,
Who make doing this worthwhile.
Chapter One
The portal stopped in the absolute middle of nowhere in desert shrub lands, a far cry from any place I knew in the magical world. Granted, there was a road, a two-wheel dirt track but nobody had driven by.
My watch read 2:45. I watched the very distant headlights make their way towards me over rough desert terrain in a jostling crawl.
“Fera!”
Railey appeared with a giggle in the night air, the noise increasing as her ghostly body formed before my eyes. Moonlight slid down an exposed hand, then off darkish pigtails which hadn't changed in decades. She sat cross-legged in midair over the top of a roughened boulder.
The light of the stars just outlined the shape of her pale daisy-patterned dress, the dress she had been buried in if I recalled correctly. As always, she appeared her usual twelve-year-old self although she was the same age as I was.
“Hey, you. What's so important that I'm breaking house arrest?” I asked, hands on my hips in a mock scold. I was glad to see her after so much had happened, and she appeared to be healthy with a steady presence unlike anything she’d had for years.
Brilliantly white teeth grinned down at me. After the whole tear-filled good-bye, Railey had departed from my presence to go into the greater world beyond.
She asked, “What trouble have you been up to?”
My smile fell. I forced myself to not explode on her.
What have I been up to?
Here we were in the middle of no where, me breaking the rules, her out of what was supposed to be her resting place, and she was asking me what I’d been up to?
“I don’t have time for this.”
Reaching into a pocket in my spider silk dress, I withdrew a piece of short white chalk and knelt to the ground to start a portal home. Railey flooded my vision with her instantly cold shadowy body to force me to listen to her.
“We're going to steal Cole's prisoner!”
I gaped at her and the way she'd learned to animate her pigtails into performing swirling tricks. Her pigtails moved all on their own accord with this declaration, wriggling up and down and in spirals. To call it distracting would be an understatement.
A dozen questions went through my head, but the two which came out were, “What? Why?”
“Shh, it's a secret. You can keep a secret, can't you?”
While I contemplated how to answer a ghost who had gone a little bit nutty, she leaned backwards into a gentle roll, making three full rotations before she stopped moving. I’d never been around a ghost who had crossed over and returned to the living world again, so I had no way of knowing if Railey was sane. A vision of Death contacting me to hunt her down filled my mind. It was not a pleasant thought, nor did I know what I’d do in that situation.
“Railey, are you sure it’s not you that I’m stealing?”
“What?”
“You didn’t break out of the land of the dead or anything, did you?”
Railey cackled as if I were the one who had gone bonkers, and maybe she was right, maybe I had. She lifted her voice in a distinct mocking tone which she knew would irritate me. “Well, then, I won't tell you why we’re stealing Cole’s man. Simple as that.”
Angry, I assumed her tone in return. “Well, then, I won't do it. Simple as that.”
“Death says you have to.”
“It's not like I'm a child and he's my mom, Railey. Being out here is risky. If you're wasting my time, I'm going home.”
“Well, aren't you quick to forget that you owe him your afterlife. An afterlife which, I might add, he can revoke at an instant.”
Dang, she had a point with that.
What felt like ages ago, I’d died and been resurrected for the purpose of being Death’s proxy to stick my nose into his business for him. The fact that his business and my business overlapped made this arrangement bearable, but I didn’t appreciate being reminded of the situation.
I heard the growing hum of an engine drawing closer.
I wouldn’t think about her implied threat right now. Instead, I focused on the practical aspects of this wild goose chase. The half-mad ghost and the car approaching. The bed at home I really wanted to be passed out in. The warm embrace of Mordon’s arms. Maybe I should tell her where to stick it and go home, at least I’d get a few hours of decent sleep.
Silently I held out my hands and looked at the assortment of rings and things. Gleaming with dark beauty, Mordon's brood-ring rested on my finger. With it came a stab of regret for having lied to him to come out here, all alone and without a clue as to why. I needed to make it worthwhile.
The ghost tapped her foot against the ground, stirring up little puffs of dust.
I crossed my arms at Railey’s impatience. “How do I know you're speaking for Death?”
“I'm here, ain't I? I crossed over, didn't I? Not goinna be able to show up in the Living Realm again without his say-so. And he don't like doing it none, but he knew you'd listen to me, so shut up and pay attention, Fera. I ain't got long.”
How fallible or infallible her logic was depended entirely on how true her statements were. I hadn't a clue. She wouldn't be beyond feeding me lies, but what she said seemed plausible.
“Alright. What is it that Death wants me to do?”
Railey pointed at the road where the headlights were drawing near. This close, I guessed that they belonged on a large vehicle—perhaps a truck or SUV. “In there's the prisoner. I’ve been following them all day. Now listen close, this is very important. Whoever is inside is really, really big. Death needs whoever-it-is to be able to roam free.”
I frowned. “One of his agents?”
I was an agent. One of many, if I understood the little clue
s Death gave me correctly. Not immortal, not by a long shot. If anything I was kept on a shorter lead than the average person, since I was already on my second life.
Curiousity roused beyond my sense of reason, I tucked the chalk back into my dress pocket. Then I grabbed a smooth-enough stick and used it to spear my hair into a disorderly bun. No point in going into battle with hair obscuring my vision.
Railey tipped her ear towards the road, shook her head with a puzzled frown. “Nah, Death don't go through this much trouble for an agent. If it were you, he'd send a Shade around once he knew you were stuck for good, but that's all.”
She drifted through a waist-high sagebrush to get a better view of the coming vehicle. It had stopped, its people were yelling at one another. They sounded as if they’d had a very long night and still had a very long day to go.
“A Shade?”
“Big bullies in the Resting Realm. They don't let me do a thing that's fun.”
They sounded more like peacekeepers to me, but I didn’t know enough about this Resting Realm to say for sure. I tugged my spider silk dress out to form sleeves, pressed the cuffs to be tight against my skin. Whatever protection it gave me against spells would be nice.
I said dryly, “Great, so instead of sending me someone useful, Death sends me you.”
Railey shook her finger at me. “I told you, he needed somebody you know. It ain't his fault you're bullheaded.”
“And so, whoever this mystery person is, they're the Commandant's prisoner.”
I mulled the fact over in my head. There, not far from us now, was a container filled with answers to my pesky questions. Amongst them, why he or she was wanted by the Commandant.
Commandant Cole's title was new and presumably less-than-fairly gained. Cole and I loved each other the way a mongoose and a cobra did, and had about the same relationship. Had he not killed me once to hide his obsession with discovering spells so nasty that they'd deliberately been forgotten, I would probably just have a negative gut feeling about him.
“Why does he want this guy? Something to do with the Unwrittens?”
Railey stamped a foot impatiently, this time failing to stir up even a hint of dust. “Why don't you free the man and ask him? Come on, they're nearly here!”
The headlights were indeed much closer now. If we were going to find a way to stop the van—yes, it was a van, of a dark color—then we needed to get our act together now.
“So, do we find a way to unlock the door and make our escape with the prisoner?” I asked.
“I think it's best if we eliminate the guards and steal the vehicle,” came a deep, rich voice.
A cold rush of adrenaline hit me.
I knew that voice anywhere, absolutely anywhere. Usually it was right beside me, through thick and thin, and at this moment it was the last voice I wanted to magically appear.
“Mordon?” I looked around for him frantically.
His form solidified in the night. He seemed bigger than his relatively moderate frame truly was. The lighter pattern in his red hair stood out brilliantly against the deeper hues. The dramatic lighting rendered his expression very scowling.
Even royally miffed, Mordon stole my breath away. Slightly funny-looking, maybe, but there was power that radiated from his presence. I was drawn to him as a wolf to the moon. What had me in speechless admiration, though, was wondering how he had concealed himself. Others repeatedly told me I was hard to pursue, and evidently Mordon had done so without my knowledge.
Competence got me intrigued.
“Did you manage a bit of wind magic to get Whiting’s Cloaking spell to work?” I asked, astonished. As much as the fire element was the bane of my existence, wind was the bane of his.
He held up his right hand where he held my invisibility ring between thumb and forefinger.
“Oh, that's where it went.”
I was glad I hadn’t lost it to the endless depths of my storage chest. I’d spent a frantic ten minutes turning my jewelery drawer upside down searching for it before I gave up and came here without it.
Mordon’s theft explained how I’d mislaid it. Not that I was annoyed with him—borrowing a trinket from my necklace without alerting me to its absence was a very impressive feat in itself.
“I thought I'd follow. Seeing how I didn't believe you were going to keep from this meeting.”
“Oh.” I smiled at Mordon, still feeling guilty for deceiving him.
Railey clapped her hands eagerly. “Three is perfect! Fera will be the distraction. You wear that ring and take care of people from behind. Just be sure you get in the van before Fera drives off.”
I tried an apologetic smile in Mordon’s direction. It didn’t feel right. He studied me for a long heartbeat, and I thought for certain he would refuse.
With a sigh, Mordon frowned. “Let's do this.”
Chapter Two
Railey stood by the side of the road in the shape of a big deer. Our plan was to have Mordon hit the windshield with his invisible tail at the same time they hit Railey. Then I was to cause chaos and lure everyone out.
Basically, I was to be the scapegoat, the thing to take attention away from Mordon.
I tried frantically to come into contact with magic.
Other sorcerers found their magic easily. It grew with them from childhood, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. I had lost access to it at an early age. Regaining it as an adult had been like dog paddling and learning to backstroke before coming to a fast spot in the river.
More often than not, I could connect with my magic and bring it to do my bidding, but sometimes I couldn't. This was one of those times when I felt distant from my element. I just felt normal, as if I had no magic at all.
Patience, Mordon's advice rang through memory, don't be so hard on yourself. Half-feral magic such as mine tended to work at random intervals.
I just had to keep trying … Suddenly, it clicked.
As if I were groping about in the dark with my hands, I felt the wind as it moved over the landscape. I felt the pillow of air which rolled over the van's windshield and down the sleek armored shell.
“Now!” I urged Railey.
Mordon's tail sliced through the air. Glass cracked, spider webbing across the passenger's side. The van slammed to a stop. Voices erupted from inside the cab, followed by the beam of a flashlight and the glowing orb of a sorcerer.
From the resistance the van gave to the push of the wind, it was heavy and designed to withstand combat. Spells were scraped into the paint felt like wounds in the van's smooth surface. One was a protection rune, one was for speed, but the others I didn't know by blind touch.
One person bailed out, examined the van, then searched for the deer they must have hit.
“Nothing's here! Check the back.”
A man put his hand flat against the hatch door and lifted, bringing the door open as if he'd stuck himself to the car. They'd removed all other handles and methods of entering the back of the van. Clever.
“Rush him!”
At Railey's words, my heart thudded in my ears and I shoved with the wind. It gathered its strength as it bolted down the peak reached maximum velocity at the flattened ground, and it hit the man.
He tilted to the side, his feet left the ground, and he crashed against a rocky outcropping. It was as if someone had rammed him around the waist and tackled him to the ground. That would have been a nifty trick if that was all that had happened, except the wind had gotten carried away in my panic.
It had also hit the van.
Heavy though the vehicle was, it still rocked to the side so the wheels nearest me rose from the dirt road.
My breath stilled as the wind bucked against it. Did I want the van to tip over or would that be worse? In the end, it teetered then slammed all four wheels back to the ground.
An outraged yell came from the van and the driver's door opened, admitting a severe-looking woman into the night.
Railey yelled in return and charged down the
hill. She shouted over her shoulder, “Shift and get your butt in gear!”
With the excitement of being around her again coursing through my veins, I found my skin thickening and becoming scales.
Assuming a second form didn't come easily for me, but this time it happened smoothly, calmly, like a trickle of water sliding over a polished rock. Scales formed over skin, wings blossomed into existence. It was just me, feeling a bit of strain as if I was touching my toes after I hadn't done it in a couple of days. A little uncomfortable, a little tug on tendons and across muscles, but not anything that strained or hurt. I could feel the wind on the webbing of my wings.
“Get down here, she's a vampire!” Railey yelled at me. The woman stood by the van, examining the night with narrowed eyes, as if it was a lot harder for her to see than me. “Hurry!”
The woman heard Railey and reached for the door. Railey beat her to it. It snapped shut as she touched it. The man was moving now, too. With a snort, I took wing and swooped into the scuffle.
A flash of metal, a concussion wave as a gun fired.
I got a face full of buckshot. By virtue of the point-blank range, all the projectiles hit my snout and jaw, saving my eyes if not a tooth or two. It felt like a punch in the nose, a lot of pressure in place of pain. How deeply it penetrated past my scales, I didn't have an idea, but I'd be surprised if my natural armor had been completely useless against a shotgun.
Once it registered in my mind that I'd been shot—I'd been shot!—anger overtook me. Terrifying images ran through my head about what I wanted to do.
Rend, tear, disembowel.
I saw in perfect, unthinking clarity, the way her expression changed when I finished my lunge right before my jaws closed in around her. She spun, her escape limited by having her back to the van. I got her arm. Teeth sliced through tissue and struck bone. A gush of blood spurred on the desire to do more damage.
The vampire screamed an outraged cry and floundered for an instant. Her arm cut through the air. The barrel of the shotgun rammed against my nose. The first time I hardly felt it. The next blow sent tingling, disorienting pain through my face.
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