Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  I flew back, crashing into the wall and sliding to the floor. Stars fluttered in my eyes. I tried to blink them away, coughing and gasping, a sharp pain in my side making it hard to breathe. Now would be a great time to use magic, but Bentley was still here. And after creating the wardrobe illusions, I wasn’t sure how much more magic I could reach.

  I opened my eyes to see the killer storming toward me, and I struggled to stand. The floor tilted at impossible angles as I pushed to my feet. My opponent drove a fist at my face. I barely managed to dodge it, slapping their arm to the side and sending their punch through the wall. White dust sprayed out into the enemy’s dark eyes, the only visible part of their masked face.

  While the killer swiped the dust out of their eyes with a hiss, I slid out from the wall and stumbled to the middle of the room, out of breath and my side screaming. Bentley stood frozen by the door, his eyes wide and mouth open as he looked on.

  “Get out of here,” I told him.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  I didn’t have time to answer as the attacker finished clearing away the blinding dust and reoriented on me. The room was bare, so they had no props to use against me—but there was nothing I could use to slow them down, either. The only place to go was forward.

  Gritting my teeth, I charged toward my opponent, fists ready. They blocked my first strike, but not my second. My fist drove into their stomach, and they folded with a cry, bringing their arms down hard on the inside of my elbow.

  Agony shot through my arm, and it fell limp as I backed away, the combined pain of my injuries so far bringing tears to my eyes. The enemy backed away as well, one hand on their side. At least we both had bruised ribs now.

  We circled each other, and I made sure to put Bentley behind me. A little voice in my head screamed this was stupid, that the only difference between what happened in Morgan’s office and now was the light in the room that clearly showed the way my opponent’s black eyes burned.

  I had only won our last fight with magic. Screw Bentley still being here. Maybe seeing a djinn fight to protect him would influence his decisions as a council member. And I needed whatever I could get to take this murderer down.

  I reached for the little warm tendrils of magic emanating out from my center, the magic that held my illusion in place, and cut them. The dress and the jewelry disappeared, revealing my threadbare jacket, the bolt of fabric wrapped over my off-white pants. Then I gathered my magic, the heat building slowly, sluggish from my exhaustion. The pounding in my head increased as I focused. Lava and lightning.

  The attacker paused, their eyes narrowing as the illusion fell away from my face.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I spat. “And this time, you’re not jumping out a window.”

  “Oh God,” Bentley whimpered. Then came the slap of his dress shoes as he bolted down the hall.

  I didn’t bother running forward. I just lifted my hands and sent a blast of kinetic energy toward the killer with a scream. The heat rushed out of me in an instant, leaving me weak and trembling.

  And my foe batted the energy aside, blocking it like a physical attack and sending the blast into the wall behind them. The wall exploded outward, bits of plaster and brick flying out into the night.

  My mouth dropped open, and my eyes tracked back to my opponent.

  They were djinn.

  An loud, ringing alarm burst through the building, making my eardrums throb. Water rained down from the ceiling as the sprinklers turned on. My enemy rushed forward, almost faster than I could see, and slammed a fist in my jaw. I spun and crashed to the floor, the coppery taste of blood in my mouth. Before I could get up, my side exploded with pain from a kick that sent me tumbling across the room.

  I coughed and groaned, both my sides aching now. The speed and force of the attacks matched the blows I had given in Morgan’s office. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who had magic at their disposal. But if they were djinn, why didn’t they use magic against me then?

  Rolling to my side, I pushed myself to my knees on the hard, wet floor. Water ran down my face as I looked up. The attacker stalked toward me. I tried to gather my magic again, imagining the unbearable heat of molten lava, the sizzling intensity of lightning. But no heat built in my chest or surged under my skin. My chest was cold, my skin clammy from the rain. I pushed again, desperate to reach my power. The slave cuffs seared my wrists, ripping a scream from my throat.

  Then my enemy—who was, impossibly, one of my own people—grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet. I pushed at their arms and slapped at their face, a weak attempt at a catfight that they easily brushed aside. They shoved me against the wall, their hand raised but not touching me. Their magic pinned me to wall.

  “Why are you doing this?” I cried, shouting to be heard over the ringing alarm. “Why did you kill my master and leave me to blamed for it? We are kindred! We should be freeing our people and fighting back with an army, not picking humans off one by one!”

  They didn’t answer, but their shoulders dropped, as if they’d sighed. Their dark eyes locked with mine, and for a moment, they seemed almost familiar.

  Then they tightened their outstretched hand into a claw, and the magic holding me against the wall pressed against my throat in a murderous grip. It cut off my air and pinched my jugular vein. Without blood flowing to my brain, I had seconds to live. My body spasmed, desperate to release the grip on my neck, but to no avail. I quickly began to fade, my vision darkening, my limbs going weak.

  Then the pressure lessened, still cutting off my air supply, but not the blood flow. A little bit of heat bloomed under my skin. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. So I jerked my hand forward, sending the magic out without shaping it.

  The pressure on my neck disappeared, and I crashed to the floor, gasping for air. My lungs burned. A sharp pain dug into one side, a throbbing agony in the other. My legs, arms, and back complained from the fight and the fall, while my tortured throat screamed as I struggled just to breathe.

  When no more pain manifested itself, I peeled my eyes open. The sprinklers still rained, droplets soaking through my clothes and stinging my cheeks. Squares of light flashed on the wall. And Morgan’s killer was gone.

  That certainly had not worked out as planned.

  I laid there for a while, unable to move from the pain. Eventually I realized the flashing lights on the wall were alternating in a pattern. Like police flashers. The fire alarm was still ringing, the sprinklers raining down. Of course there were emergency vehicles outside.

  Which meant soon there would be people in uniform inside. I was exposed without my illusion wardrobe to protect my identity, and I couldn’t summon enough strength to move.

  A dark figure appeared in the doorway of the room, blurry from the sprinkler rain.

  They were coming right for me.

  The figure ran toward me. Galvanizing fear shot through me, momentarily overriding the pain, and I tried to scoot away from them.

  “Adira, what happened?” The figure dropped to their knees at my side, Nick’s face materializing through the rainy haze, his hair plastered against his forehead.

  My shoulders relaxed. The police hadn’t found me. Yet.

  “Adira, talk to me,” Nick ordered. He tapped my cheek a few times.

  I turned away from his hand. “I’m not passed out,” I rasped.

  “You look like death warmed over. Can you stand?”

  I honestly didn’t know. Nick didn’t wait for me to think about it any longer, sliding one arm under my shoulders and the other under my knees. He lifted me off the ground, his biceps bunching as he stood. Exhausted, I let my head rest on his shoulder, feeling cool, wet leather under my cheek.

  “Your illusion is gone, too,” I murmured as he started walking.

  “Yeah, I got some odd looks before I realized something was wrong,” he said. “Tell me what happened. I thought you were dancing with Maguire.”

  “I stomped on his foot.”

  Nick’s c
hest rumbled with a chuckle. “Good for you.”

  “Then Bentley slipped out the back, so I followed him.”

  Nick’s arms tightened around me as he turned down the stairwell. “Bentley was up here?”

  “The killer, too. They were here, Nick. I almost had them.”

  At least until they used their magic on me. I’d been too tired after creating the illusions that got us into gala, while they had been fresh and full of power.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “I just followed the trouble upstream,” he said. “Figured that’s where you’d be.”

  Nick pounded down the last few steps and emerged into the ground floor service corridor. The sprinkler rain flashed in the bright lights as he strode toward the exit. Then he stopped, ducking through a door.

  “Exit’s that way,” I said, weakly lifting a finger.

  “Yeah, but between my leather and your injuries, we look pretty suspicious. We need to blend in on our way out.”

  He set me down on something waist high, steadied me so I could sit on my own, and disappeared. I wrapped an arm around my injured ribs and looked around. We were in the kitchen, and I was sitting on some of the only clear counter space. Dishes lay everywhere, pots and pans on the industrial gas stoves, glasses and pitchers in perfect rows, trays full of appetizers and plated food waiting to be taken out. And everything was wet from the sprinklers.

  “Here, put this on.” Nick returned wearing one of the white shirt staff uniforms over his leather jacket, only two buttons secured. It was already soaked through. He held up another white shirt and swung it around behind me so I could get my arms in. I grimaced as I pushed my arms into the wet fabric, my sides aching. He quickly buttoned it for me, one over my chest and one over my belly. Then he pulled me into his arms again and carried me back into the hall.

  We were almost to the exit when a pair of men in bulky uniforms and helmets came running inside. I tensed. The sprinklers had probably removed all my makeup by now, revealing the bruises around my throat, barely hidden by the limp collar of the wet staff shirt.

  “Go, go, go,” one said, waving us out, his voice distorted by the face mask. They continued deeper into the building without paying any more attention to us.

  But I didn’t let myself relax, no matter how much my head pounded or my injuries screamed. If there were a few firefighters inside, there would be a lot more emergency personnel outside. And they might pay closer attention.

  Nick hurried out the delivery door into the night, lit up by emergency lights and the various flashers on fire engines, police cruisers, and ambulances. People milled around everywhere. The gala attendees were easy to spot amid the uniformed emergency responders, their expensive clothes soaking wet and ruined. A police officer saw us coming out of the building and broke off from the crowd, holding up a hand to stop us.

  “Sir, what happened here?”

  Nick stopped moving, and nerves fluttered in my stomach. It was only a light feathering that barely registered under all the pain, but it was the last straw for my mind, one sensation too many. I heard Nick’s voice as my vision dimmed.

  Then it all went dark.

  * * *

  To Be Continued…

  Find out what happens next in Djinn Rising: Part Two,

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  Fairy Wings

  Louisa Klein

  Fairy Wings © 2017 Louisa Klein

  * * *

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  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 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Fairy Wings

  She was warned. she was given an explanation. nevertheless, she persisted.

  Twenty-two year old paranormal consultant Robyn Wise may be a supernatural freak, but she’s not stupid. So, when a handsome billionaire hires her to help him find his kidnapped girlfriend, who also happens to be a fairy, she immediately knows that something VERY serious is happening in London. And not only because fairies are the most secluded supernatural folks on Earth and they’re not supposed to interact with regular people, let alone dating them! So, what on Earth was she doing in town?

  Plus, facing alone whatever creature is so powerful to imprison a fairy is a one-way ticket to sleeping with the fishes. Yep, she can see ghosts and is even best friend with one, yes, she can sometimes perform fairy magic and has an inexplicable supernatural agility, still … she needs help. And who can help her better than maverick wizard James Turner? He’s powerful, smart, funny and experienced. He’s also annoyingly charming, but no one’s perfect, after all …

  * * *

  NOTE: THIS IS A PREQUEL TO MY MAIN SERIES SUPERNATURAL FREAK AND THE FIRST ADVENTURE OF ROBYN AND JAMES, THE TWO MAIN CHARACTERS. IT CAN BE READ AS A STANDALONE, THOUGH, YOU DON’T NEED TO HAVE READ THE MAIN BOOKS TO ENJOY IT. Hope you have fun!

  1

  The Leprechaun’s Poltergeist

  Every Londoner knows that 50 Berkley Square in Mayfair is the most haunted house in England. Legend varies, but most states that the attic room is inhabited by the ghost of a young lady who committed suicide there. The Georgian house’s eerie reputation is so abiding that no London citizen will have anything to do with it.

  What would be even more worrisome to these Londoners, if the truth got out, is that over the years the house’s dark aura attracted other presences. Presences which started squatting in the four-story building following a chain of suicides amongst subsequent owners.

  The situation became even worse after the Great War, when more and more dark creatures came, attracted by the house’s aura and its convenient surroundings. After all, Mayfair is a quiet, historical area in central London and as they say “location, location, location”!

  Problem is, at a certain point in the early 1920s, the place got too crowded, so the newest arrivals were ‘booted out’ by the long-time spectres, and forced to find accommodation elsewhere. Having no desire to relocate too far, these ghosts moved to nearby houses, making the area around Berkley Square the most haunted neighbourhood in the whole of the UK.

  Lord Charles Basilton’s mansion was no exception to the rule. The poor chap inherited the title from his uncle and moved to London after a lifetime spent in the countryside. He was therefore blissfully unaware of this neighbourhood’s reputation. His ignorance was met with sheer delight by the house’s previous owner, who sold it to him for a very reasonable price, telling him that he was so honoured to be selling to a peer of England that he was happy to deliver it at a huge discount. Lord Basilton, a both vain and guileless man, bought the property without asking questions. His troubles started less than twenty-four hours after his belongings were put in place. That’s when he called me.

  At the time, I was only twenty two years of age. My mysterious supernatural abilities had recently come back to me after a relaxing four-year break, forcing me to drop out of my Latin Literature Ph.D. at Cambridge and return to London. I had more or less come to terms with being a supernatural freak, and so started working as a paranormal consultant full time to pay the bills.

  So, there I was in Lord Basilton’s attic, along with His Grace, Sir William Burrow, Duke of Worthington,
my main collaborator, and incidentally, an aristocratic ghost from the eighteenth century. I met him when I was five in another attic, my granny’s attic, to be precise. He took me under his wing and helped me to stay alive long enough to reach adulthood. I owe him everything since he had saved my life countless times. The only downside was that, having met me as a child, he continued to treat me as one, even after I had grown up, and he tended to be overprotective. That day he was looking particularly handsome, with blond locks flowing, and dress that was even more elegant than usual. Will had died during the French Revolution and forever after stuck with the fashion of the Age of Enlightenment. He wore a bright red frock coat covered with intricate golden embroidery, and tight, black trousers of the same period.

  As I’m sure you know, ghosts can make themselves invisible to humans if they want to, which is what Will usually did when in the presence of a client. Which stands to reason. The people I worked for were usually so freaked-out by whatever supernatural thingy was going on, that I couldn’t ask them to deal with a ghost of my own on the top of that. No matter how polite said ghost was. Lord Basilton was a fortunate exception, he being of an ancient aristocratic family who’d owned old castles and mansions all over the UK, therefore quite accustomed to conversing with the spirits of ancestors. And, this was the main reason Will was attired so elegantly that day; being called upon to converse with a peer of England. It also made everything easier since William could show himself and ask his questions directly, allowing the three of us to brainstorm together.

  “So, the apparition shows up only in here, and only at seven p.m, every day,” I said, looking around the dusty attic. “You’ve never seen it anywhere else, since you moved in?”

  “Quite accurate, Miss Wise,” Lord Basilton nodded, his grey and black curls moving like waves on his noble head. He was a handsome man in his late fifties with nice teeth and rather vacuous, grey eyes. He also had an attitude, like all aristocrats. “And, we’ve been here for over a month now. It’s actually fortunate that this is the only room which it chooses, which means it doesn’t disturb my antique collection, including my Picasso, which are downstairs.