Divine Knight

by Michelle L. Levigne

  DIVINE KNIGHT

  A Neighborlee, Ohio, Novel

  By

  Michelle L. Levigne

  Uncial Press Aloha, Oregon

  2012

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-140-0

  ISBN 10: 1-60174-140-5

  Divine Knight

  Copyright © 2012 by Michelle L. Levigne

  Cover design

  Copyright © 2012 by Judith B. Glad

  All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five (5) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Published by Uncial Press,

  an imprint of GCT, Inc.

  Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com

  Author's Note

  The events of Divine Knight overlap events of Death by Chocolate, the fourth book in the All's Fae in Love and Chocolate novellas, and Quartet, the second book in the YA fantasy series The Hunt. You don't have to have read the All's Fae stories to have an understanding of the Fae "facts of life/rules"-- but it helps! If you've met P.I. John Stanzer and Dawn Dover in previous Neighborlee books, you have an idea of what's going on with The Hunt. If not...don't worry. You'll figure out what's going on in Neighborlee.

  Chapter One

  Angela dreamed, which was rare.

  She knew she dreamed, and that worried her.

  A garden surrounded her, overgrown, with faint glimpses of the order that had once reigned there. The moonlight and shadows hid the colors, turning red to black, lavender to silver, and green to heavy, gritty gray.

  The familiarity of this place disturbed her, nibbling at her awareness, prickling at the base of her neck. Yet this mid-forest tangle was nothing like the ordered serenity of her garden, not even where it slid down the slope to the Metroparks and gave way to the meadows and woods.

  Where was she?

  Wrapping her arms around herself, she gave in to the chill that came from the core of her and sent a rustling through flesh and clothes. Her skin told her she wasn't wearing her usual, worn-comfortable blue dress. Angela's fingers lingered over lace and silk and the faceted beads that adorned her clothes, and refused to bow her head to see what she wore. A deep breath revealed the binding of multiple layers of clothes enfolding her.

  Perhaps the question should be: When was she?

  A thicker patch of moonlight ahead hinted at a clearing. Her pace quickened and she wasn't too proud to admit that her pulse and breathing had sped up, too. She held out a hand, reaching for the silvery light.

  And she paused, her hand in the light, one foot raised to step over the boundary from the shadows.

  That wasn't a tree on the far side of the moonlit space, but a man.

  A man in dark armor, splotchy with hints of silver. For a moment, she thought he was just a statue of a knight, with moss covering the silvery-white stone, but the helmet moved, just enough to turn into the moonlight and reveal the dark blue eyes framed by the slanted oval eye-slits.

  Those eyes sparked with fury. Angela froze, hearing the sharp intake of breath. That gauntleted hand clenched and the knight stepped toward her. She braced for the first shout, the accusation, the condemnation.

  An alarm clock clattered out in the living room, followed by a slow, syrupy wave of magic sweeping through Divine's Emporium.

  Angela sat up slowly, exhaling in relief. She smiled as she envisioned Maurice being swept downstairs to the furniture room where his normal-size clothes waited. It was midnight of the day of spring equinox. Today, Maurice was his normal size, magic-less, wingless, free to roam their little town of Neighborlee and spend the day with his sweetheart, Holly, the librarian. Less than nine months remained of Maurice's exile to the Human realms, in shrunken form, with shrunken magic, and gaudy, glittery, humiliating wings attached to his back.

  Downstairs, she heard the sounds of Maurice jumping around, flexing and limbering up and enjoying being six feet tall instead of six inches. Angela sighed and swung her legs over the side of her bed. Maurice had told her she didn't have to get up and make breakfast at midnight, but she wanted to. Holly would be here soon, and she wanted to give the sweethearts a send-off, with a little magic thrown into their food to give them energy and alertness to enjoy every minute of the twenty-four hours they would have together.

  Angela's knees trembled and folded as she slid out of bed, and she shivered as she clutched at her mattress to stay upright. She pressed a hand to her cheek and flinched when she found her face damp with sweat. Her hand shook faintly. Her heart raced and she suddenly felt breathless, as if she had run all the way from one side of Neighborlee to the other.

  What had happened?

  The protective net wrapped around Divine's Emporium flickered--perhaps a little more than normal--as Holly activated her passkey talisman to make the front door open for her.

  "Overly sensitive," Angela muttered. She took a deep breath, silently scolded her body to behave, and got up.

  Running footsteps and sudden silence downstairs told her more clearly than a closed-circuit television that Maurice and Holly had run into each other's arms and were trying to make up in five minutes for the kisses they couldn't share outside of their dreams since Christmas. Angela calculated she had a good ten minutes to get breakfast on the table. At the very least. She snapped her fingers and awakened the few rarely used helper spells in her kitchen. What was the good of having magic at her fingertips if she didn't use it once in a while? It would get rusty and deteriorate from lack of exercise, just like anything and anyone else. By the time she had dressed, brushed her hair and washed her face, the aroma of fresh coffee and waffles drifted out to meet her.

  Crossing the little front room, her glance fell on the sketchbook she had been doodling in while Maurice read to her last night.

  The overgrown garden, trapped in moonlight and shadow. The knight, caught between life and stone. They were both there, trapped within the meaningless lines. No one would see them but her.

  No one could see them but her.

  "It's been years," Angela murmured, and tore her gaze free by force of will. She wrapped her arms around herself once, tightly, and moved on. There were some things she preferred to do herself in her kitchen, rather than leave it to magic.

  She hadn't dreamed of the knight and the garden in so long, she couldn't remember how long it had been.

  Why had that dream returned now?

  And why did he look angry with her, rather than sad?

  "Hey, Angela?" Maurice nudged the apartment door open and peered in, only showing his face.

  "What do the two of you have planned for today?" she called, and stepped out with the coffee pot in one hand and a bowl of mixed berries in the other.

  "You okay? Something felt kind of hinky, just before the inflation spell hit."

  "I'm fine."

  "Nothing that staying in bed in the middle of the night couldn't cure," Holly said as she pushed the door open and gave Maurice a nudge over the threshold. "You really don't have to cook for us. Not that we don't appreciate it. Usually we're so busy running around, we forget to eat."

  "I lik
e sending you off. Like a good mother on the first day of school."

  "Yeah, and it's not like I'm not still learning lessons," Maurice said. He deftly stepped around Angela, blocking her from going back to the kitchen. "Sit. Let me."

  "Thanks for training him so well for me," Holly said in a stage whisper.

  "I heard that," he called from the kitchen, drawing out his words in a singsong tone.

  "You were supposed to."

  They were all laughing softly when Maurice came back with a deep casserole of waffles and put it in the middle of the table. He went back for the bowl of clotted cream, and when he returned, his smile had faded.

  "Something happened, didn't it?" he asked, sliding into the third chair. He rubbed his fingers together on one hand, indicating he felt a residue tingle of magic in the air.

  Angela speculated yet again that when Maurice was deprived of his magic, he was triply sensitive to the currents, the vibrations of it at work, as well as the echoes after a particularly strong or strange spell had worked itself out. She was grateful that he wouldn't let the matter drop when she ignored his question the first time he asked if she was okay. Sometimes, especially after the dream she had just had, she felt as alone as if she had lived in the midnight garden of her dreams for a thousand years.

  "I had an odd dream. That, combined with the transformation spell... Well, maybe they clashed. And equinox is always an uneasy time. Especially in the spring, when winter still struggles to keep the land and plants half-asleep. Forget about Samhain and the walls between the worlds growing thin." She shook her head and offered a smile to the other two. "We've been having so much Fae traffic through Neighborlee lately, it's no wonder that things are unsettled."

  "You're sure?" He glanced at Holly and reached for her hand, resting on the table between them. "What if Big Ugly sleeping under the town is starting to wake up again? We're hitting the islands today, but if you need some backup... You don't mind, do you, sweetheart?"

  "Honestly, it's not like I haven't been fending off monsters and boogie-men and malevolent inter-dimensional intruders for the past century--by myself, I might add." Angela laughed, despite the clutching feeling around her heart that threatened to have her eyes gushing in another moment. Especially when Holly didn't hesitate to nod and murmur agreement with Maurice's offer. "The two of you are going to the lake and ride the ferries and you're going to get sunburned and have a wonderful time. Go play mini-golf and tour the winery and eat extra-thick onion rings at that incredible burger place just off the docks. That's an order." She narrowed her eyes at them, stuck out her bottom lip and glared, looking back and forth between them until first Holly, then Maurice grinned and laughed and gave in.

  She came close to tears when Holly suggested later, halfway through their waffles, that maybe Angela should close up the shop and come with them to bum around the Lake Erie islands. How long had it been since she had a day off, anyway?

  "Excuse me, but I'm a little too old to think it's fun to race the sunrise to the lake." Angela put on a prim face, which earned laughter from Holly but a skeptical look from Maurice. "I plan on going back to bed once you two finally get out of here, and then getting up at a civilized hour."

  "You know, there's such a thing as being too civilized," he said under his breath and looked up at the ceiling.

  "That kind of thinking got you exiled from the Fae realms," Holly said.

  "Are you complaining?" He waggled his eyebrows like a melodrama villain.

  She just giggled, shaking her head and blushing.

  Angela held onto her trademark superior smirk, while inside something ached and wet heat pressed at the backs of her eyes. She was sure that once, very long ago, she had teased and laughed with someone just as precious to her as Maurice was to Holly. Not with those exact words, but the same attitude, the same loving taunting. The hungry, lonely pain took her breath away just long enough to threaten her shell of serenity.

  She walked Maurice and Holly downstairs, and stood at the door, watching as they got into Holly's car and drove away. Whispers, just on the verge of real, understandable words, pressed at her awareness. A soft breeze tugged at the hem and sleeves of her dress, and she fancied for a moment that someone--or something--tried to nudge her out of the doorway. Angela took a step backwards, planting herself more securely inside the shop. Shivering, she glanced over her shoulder, looking for something moving in the familiar darkness, ready to pounce and shove her out of the sanctuary of Divine's Emporium.

  That certainty, that taproot of knowledge deep inside that had guided her through the many decades of her guardianship, urged her not to let anything or anyone push her outside the walls. Not before the sunrise.

  Humming softly, Angela called all the winkies to her. Not just the regular residents of Divine's, but all the winkies living within the boundaries of Neighborlee and the Metroparks. Anywhere that magic whispered through the air and ground and water, winkies watched and listened.

  She walked around the shop in the comforting, warm, familiar darkness, trailing the sparkly bits of awareness and magic at every doorway and window, every slit in reality, every portal from one dimension to another. In theory, nothing could get into Divine's Emporium without her awareness or her permission. However, Diane and Troy had proven last year that the most carefully woven safeguards could be penetrated if the enemy had enough knowledge, skill, motivation, and patience.

  Then she went to bed.

  The dream didn't return. Not even a hint of the dark knight or the moonlit garden. When she woke, Angela couldn't decide if she was disappointed or relieved. Once she opened the shop for business, she didn't have time to think about it.

  The students from Willis-Brooks College who didn't go home for spring break descended en mass in the afternoon, in search of candy and old movies and used books. Angela let the bustle and laughing voices divert her. She watched them, reading their spirits, seeing who had grown a little more sensitive to the magic pervading the entire town, and who had let their ideas of success and their goals for the future make them a little less aware than the last time they had visited her.

  Despite being so late into the school calendar, there were always a handful of students who hadn't come out to visit Divine's yet, and their amazed, confused, fascinated reactions amused her. The ones who shriveled up a little inside themselves as they walked through the shop and sensed the magic waiting to burst out, the thin spots where otherness tried to come through--those particular students made her want to cry a little more than usual, when she saw someone resist the call of magic. If they would listen and open their eyes and other senses to the wonder around them, the potential for magic in their lives, they could embark on amazing, fulfilling lives.

  But there were always a few who sensed the silent song of magic, and resisted, closing their ears and souls to it. They wouldn't come back to Divine's again this school year, and they likely would transfer to another college next year. Saying no in their spirits to Divine's Emporium changed them in some way, so that living within the boundaries of Neighborlee became like itching powder constantly sifting through their clothes, or a mosquito hum by their ear. They would flee the irritation. As always, witnessing this pivotal moment in those strangers' lives and knowing how they would choose broke Angela's heart. Yet today, for some reason, it hurt more than ever.

  As if she had witnessed someone precious to her make the same choice, repeatedly. Destiny broke the rules to offer the chance and choice, again and again through the centuries, and yet he--she was sure the person was a he--kept saying no, growing colder and more calloused and deaf as the years ground on.

  Angela's thoughts and her heart skittered away from that knowledge. She threw herself into laughing and teasing with her friends among the students, pointed out new treasures she had brought into the shop, and listened to her regular customers talk about plans for the rest of their break, or term papers they were working on.

  She almost forgot about her dreams by the ti
me she closed up the shop and went upstairs to make dinner. The warmth of the spring day had collected in her apartment. After opening the windows and turning on the ceiling fans, she decided the heat wouldn't dissipate fast enough to suit her. She made a salad and a fresh batch of iced tea and went out into her garden to enjoy the soft breezes coming up the slope from the Metroparks.

  "Where are you?" she whispered, startling herself.

  Where had that thought come from? Who had she been talking to?

  The aching feeling inside her hinted at memories she had either put away for the sake of self-preservation...or she had lost altogether. But how could that be? Taking a deep breath to brace herself, Angela moved backwards in her memories, investigating that disturbing dream from the night before. Perhaps the answer was there? She tried to see the knight's features inside the shadows of his helmet, tried to make out the colors of the garden, anything that would give her a stronger clue to where and when, if this was nothing but a dream, or a valid memory. And if a memory, why had she put it so far away in her mind that she had forgotten it?

  More important: Why was it coming back to her now? What magic was at work, sifting through the images filling her memories from her very long, full life, attempting communication in those pictures? Friendly magic, warning her? Or inimical magic, attempting to paralyze her with fear, or distract her from something she needed to sense so she could protect against it?

  A queasy ripple in the net protecting the shop yanked Angela out of her thoughts. Her heart leaped as she looked around. The shadows had grown long all around her, like cold, dark hands reaching from the night to enfold her. Her hands and knees shook faintly as she hurried to gather up her dishes and go back into the shop. That shiver of fear bothered her more than the sudden certainty that something was out there in the darkness, watching her.

  Worse was the realization that she had lost all sense of time and location, just long enough to be terrified. Which was ridiculous. She had done it to herself. Hadn't she?