“So it is. But I’ve never cared much for that law. Besides, no one is going to miss a few goblins.”
“You killed them,” I said, the realization smacking into me like a truck. Of course he had. That’s what “making them from scratch” meant. He wasn’t just raising the dead: he was luring them here under the pretense of a portal and then murdering them so he could bring them back to do his bidding. Gross.
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he looked me up and down again, narrowing his eyes. “You’re a witch,” he decided.
“Yeah, I am. So what?”
He laughed and clapped his hands together. “Lucky you, Ms. Warren. You get to help me test the viability of this small army against the Council members.”
He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. The zombie goblins rushed me.
I stumbled, caught off guard, but got my bearings fast. I swung my sword and lopped the head off the closest goblin. Its body slumped to the ground. Other goblins trampled over it as they came at me.
I caught one in the chest and managed to slice the arm off another. My sword was enchanted to be super sharp but the sharpest blade in the world couldn’t compete with these numbers. I swung at the goblin to my left and my blade caught him in the ear, the pointy tip flying off.
Behind his army, Edgar laughed and it echoed through the space. My skin crawled. This jerk had murdered these poor saps and turned them into hungry, mindless drones and now he was laughing as I cut them down.
I managed to get the head off another, but the remaining goblins closed in. There were still eight or nine of them surrounding me, clawing at my jacket and pants, snapping their jaws. Their breath reeked of rotten meat. Their moans curdled my blood. I turned to slice the head off one that was inching closer on my right. Something grabbed my arm. Sharp nails dug into my flesh. I spun and sliced at the wrist that held me. The zombie goblin reached for me with its other hand, undeterred.
While I was beheading the tenacious zombie, something slammed into my back. I fell forward, into a crowd of chomping teeth. My hair got yanked and I screeched as my scalp erupted in pain. One of the goblins had jumped on my back and was using my hair to hang on for dear life as I tried to stand. I spun around trying to lose it and another flew at me. It jumped toward my chest. I dodged, but barely, and lost my balance. My sword flew out of my hand. I hit the ground on my side. The goblin that had been riding me grabbed my arm and bit down near my wrist, where he could get to my flesh.
The pain was excruciating. Goblins had razor sharp teeth. I whirled, my butt still on the concrete, and kicked at a zombie who was trying to tear off my boot. I pulled at my arm but that only made the first goblin bite down harder. I looked around for my sword. Spotted it several feet away under bare goblin feet. Too far to do me any good.
A different goblin reached for my other arm and I shook him off, glad my leather jacket meant none of them could get to my flesh easily.
Edgar was still laughing, finding my impending doom hilarious. Necromantic zombies were not contagious the way zombies in movies were but these goblins would eat me alive given the chance. And one of them was already chomping on my arm. Pain radiated from the bite as he clamped down harder but at least he wasn’t trying to tear my flesh off. Yet. Since I wanted to keep my arm, I inched closer to my sword.
A high whistle pierced the air. I glanced up automatically at Edgar. That was a mistake. It was another attack command. The goblins fell on me like a pack of hyenas. Somehow, they’d still been holding back.
I struggled to get away from them, kicking and tugging at my arm as I scooted across the concrete. It was no use. Little goblin hands clawed at me and grabbed my hair. One used its claws to shred the thigh of my jeans and dig into my flesh.
I usually avoided using my demon magic at all costs. It was dangerous. If the wrong person saw, I’d be dead meat.
But at that moment, I was about to be dead meat regardless.
I gathered my power in my free hand, letting the heat of demon magic move through my veins. It burned, hot and powerful. The fireball formed in my palm. I threw it at the crowd of goblins, starting with the one trying to rip my jeans off. The smell of singed flesh and hair joined the assault on my nostrils. I gathered a smaller fireball and shot it at the forehead of the one with his teeth in my arm. It smacked him in the face and he let go. I yanked my arm back and scrambled sideways, filling the gap left by the goblins I’d shot fire at. Two were dead or at least unmoving on the ground. The others were singed but growling and already coming back toward me.
I got to my feet, panting and nauseated, blood dripping from my arm. Edgar stood at the very back of the mall. He was no longer laughing.
I pulled the demon magic from my aching muscles, leeching it out of myself and into my hand in the form of fire. I used the blue demon flames like a flame thrower. I cut down the first line of goblins and swept back to get the rest. The goblin’s screams turned my stomach. Smoke rose and set off the overhead sprinklers which rained down, soaking me, though water was no match for demonic fire. I swept the line one last time, making sure to get them all.
When the flame extinguished, all of the goblins lay dead for a second time, some of their bodies charred beyond ruin, others in good enough shape to be made into zombies a second time, if that was a thing necromancy could do.
I kicked goblin corpses out of my way and bent down to retrieve my sword.
Edgar’s expression had changed. His eyes were wide and he was frowning deeply, his lips curved into an upside-down “U.”
Sword in hand, I stepped over the bodies of his fallen zombie army and headed straight for him. He skipped backward, hitting the wall behind him.
“You’re no witch! What the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Oh, I’m a witch,” I said. I dug deep and gathered what demon magic I could still muster until a small ball of flame formed in my palm. “I just don’t play by the rules either.”
I tossed the fire at him. He moved out of the way, the flame catching his side-swept hair but missing his face. He squealed. I ran at him with my sword. I stopped with the tip of the blade at his throat. His eyes widened further and he whimpered.
If I were a good witch, a witch who played by the Magic Council’s rules, I’d have handed him over to the Watchers. But he’d seen me use highly illegal magic that I shouldn’t have so that wasn’t an option. “Give me one good reason not to kill you.”
He opened his mouth and struggled to speak with the blade against his neck.
Sirens blared. The sprinklers had probably set off an alarm. Damn.
Edgar used my momentary distraction to slip out of my grasp. He ran down the side alley of the mall from which he’d appeared, slipping on the wet floor but catching himself. I would have given chase but the sirens were so loud I was sure they’d already reached the parking lot. Human authorities would be here any minute. I swore.
Leaving a bunch of goblin bodies for the mortal cops to find was so not cool. I sheathed my sword and rushed for the bodies, pushing them into one big pile. They were sopping wet but demon fire didn’t care. I gathered the last of my power and blasted them with flame until they turned to dust. Demon fire wasn’t regular fire and it turned their bones to ash because I willed it to do so.
Finally, the fire went out, my power nearly extinguished. I could only conjure so much fire at a time, the curse of being a witch and not a demon. A demon would not have run out of juice.
I heard noise from inside the gutted department store. The authorities were here. I high-tailed it out following the same path as Edgar, keeping an eye out for him in case I could grab him on my way. But he was long gone, and after a moment, so was I, leaving only a confusing pile of ash behind.
BY THE TIME I GOT BACK home, my clothes had dried a little but were still damp and my hair was a matted, wet mess. My wrist had stopped bleeding but there was a nasty, yellow bruise forming around the red teeth marks.
My building was an older building near do
wntown Everett, almost right in the middle between the freeway and the Waterfront. The ground floor of the building was home to a small market run by a regular human man, a laundromat, and my private investigator office.
There were four apartments each on the second and third stories, but only two had tenants. The others were shrines to my vampire landlord’s very real hoarding problem. Penelope (the other tenant) and I often joked about holding an intervention but I never seriously considered it. I was too scared Silas would evict me before agreeing to let us declutter his extra units.
I let myself in the side door and climbed the stairs to my apartment on the third floor. Silas was waiting for me. I checked the sky through the window in the building’s hall. Grayer by the minute. Sunrise would happen soon. He didn’t have long.
Silas was tall and pale, with dark hair and a thin face. He’d probably been handsome when he was alive—he was almost handsome now but I’d had enough of the undead tonight to think so. He wore a loose t-shirt and black jeans and leaned against my door like he owned it. Which he did.
“Hey,” I said.
“Your rent is due,” he said, without preamble.
My heart dropped into my stomach. I had most of the money. But I’d used a cool hundred to pay off the goblin and now I was short. I’d hoped to have another day to make up the difference.
“Yeah, about that, here’s the thing,” I said, as I withdrew the stack of cash Lady Rowena had given me only hours earlier. “I have most of your money.”
Silas raised a black eyebrow. “Most?”
“I had the full amount, okay? But then there were these zombie goblins and this asshole necromancer and...”
Silas glanced at my wrist and then laughed. It was strained but it was definitely a laugh. Silas never laughed. He brooded and scowled. Laughing wasn’t really his speed.
“You think that’s funny?” I asked. “Look at me. I’m soaked from mall sprinklers because that’s where this guy was raising dead goblins after he lured them there and killed them.”
“It’s not funny,” Silas said, amusement tugging at his lips because he was one hundred percent lying. “But it is funny that you’re the only person I know who regularly encounters so much trouble.”
“Tell me about it,” I huffed. I offered the cash to Silas, who took it. He counted the whole stack together and confirmed that I was a hundred bucks short.
“This is good enough for now. Have the rest to me by Friday.”
“Really?” I asked, because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut. Friday was two whole days away and plenty of time to take a boring “is my spouse cheating on me?” case (spoiler alert: if you think your spouse is cheating, you’re probably right). But I’d expected the vampire to make a bigger stink, maybe even throw around some threats. Silas liked to remind me that he wasn’t running a charity. I had a theory that my rent and Pen’s were just enough to cover his property taxes so he could keep the building—and all of his stuff inside it—from being boarded up.
He shrugged. “I can be reasonable.”
This from the guy who had six apartments, five of which were just full of useless crap he’d collected over the last three hundred years. But I didn’t argue.
After the night I had, I wasn’t going to complain about being let off the hook. I bid him goodnight, shut and locked my door, and went to bandage my wrist and wash the dead goblin stink out of my hair.
TORI CENTANNI WRITES suspenseful urban fantasy with intriguing characters and elements of humor. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner and three cats. When she’s not writing or reading, she can be found baking, cooking, watching way too much television, and wrangling cats.
Dani Warren appears in The Brimstone Magic Series which will be out in September of 2018. To learn more about that series and Tori’s other books, visit her website at toricentanni.com or find her on Facebook at facebook.com/toricentanniauthor.
Magically Hidden
by Rachel Medhurst
Chapter 1
“Did Paranormal MI5 bother to give us any details regarding this case?” I huffed as I clambered up the outside wall of the museum.
Being an Essex witch didn’t make me fit and healthy. No, I wasn’t a ninja. My agent partner, Gerard, would agree with me. He was constantly trying to get me to train in combat. He just didn’t get that I was connected to the ley line. I didn’t need to be able to traverse physical obstructions. I could magic myself there. Until now.
“Not really,” Gerard said, grunting when I threw myself over the top of the wall and almost squashed him as I landed in his arms. “They just said that there’d been several ancient artefacts stolen from various museums in London in the last week. A witch has left a photo of a pentagram resting where each item had been.”
When my boss at the Hunted Witch Agency had told me that I couldn’t transport myself into the museum that we currently walked towards, I had almost quit. Not because I didn’t love working as an agent, but because I’d just bought a pair of brand new kickass boots. They were pretty, and extremely pristine. I didn’t want to get scuff marks on them. Some people just didn’t understand the importance of gorgeous shoes.
“Are you still brooding over your-?”
“Shush!” I exclaimed as the muffled sound of breaking glass reached my ears.
Taking out my dagger, I crouched low, hiding in the shadows by the wall. Gerard’s gun was raised by his head as he waved me forward. The museum was ahead of us, its granite walls dark in the dead of the night.
“Justina said that the alarm sounded for three minutes before it went off. A security guard called it in to the police, but they put it down to a glitch,” Gerard whispered as we crept towards the front entrance. “She decided that we better check it out.”
Justina was our main boss. She was currently at headquarters, waiting for our report. Her partner, in more ways than one, if you know what I mean, was waiting in the van outside the wall. His name is Kurt, and he’s an Australian witch who prides himself on herbology magic. He covered the exit. There was no way anyone would get out without him capturing them.
Silence descended as we tiptoed up the stone steps and approached the front door. My heartbeat played bongos inside my chest as I tried to keep quiet. I wasn’t exactly the queen of discretion, although I had gotten better since I’d been practicing magic with the ley line.
Gerard put his ear against the big wooden door and listened. I peered through the darkness, trying to find anything to suggest where the burglars had gained entrance.
“There,” I whispered, pointing towards the window nearest the door.
Moving closer, I inspected the broken glass on the floor. Wait. The two windows next to this one were also broken. The intruder must have smashed the last one just after we’d climbed the wall.
A noise inside the building made us glance at one another. Gerard moved to the last broken window. I followed, my boots tracing a path around the glass.
“Hurry up!” someone shouted inside.
Gerard climbed through the gap in the window, his shadowy frame disappearing quickly. My legs kicked into gear as adrenaline made my hands shake. I was through the window, almost falling into the building before I could think. I didn’t want to be left behind. I had to be beside Gerard. Not because I was scared. I was Devon Jinx, kickass Essex witch. I wasn’t ever scared. Much.
“Freeze!” Gerard shouted.
The high ceilinged room had tiny lights above each piece of art. It gave the room a glow which helped us to see the two people who were taking a painting off the wall.
Both heads swivelled towards us. A gunshot sounded, the bullet whizzing in our direction. Throwing up a hand, I froze the movement of the deadly piece of metal with a spell. The cool magic of the ley line filtered into me. My feet absorbed the energy, my veins thumping with it as it travelled throughout my body. I didn’t take in too much. The stuff could get addictive.
The bullet dropped to the floor as the thieves
went for the exit. Gerard fired his gun in their direction. The pair of them were wearing dark tops, the hoods pulled up and over their heads.
“Let’s go!” Gerard made a run for it.
Blinking, I glanced at the painting as I rushed to catch up to him. The colors were all wrong. The grass was purple and the stream was red. My boots slowed as the image moved slightly. What...?
“Devon!” Gerard barked as he thrust into the next room.
Leaving the painting behind, I forced my little legs to carry me into the sculpture room. My small frame was always a hindrance in a chase. Not many people realised that I had to take three steps to Gerard’s one.
My dark hair flung in my face as I looked around. Gerard was ahead, moving towards the next room. A shadow moved behind the sculpture on my left. The thieves were hiding there.
“Incendia!” I shouted, throwing a wall of fire around the center of the room.
A high pitched feminine giggle came from the direction of my spell. Gerard heard it, spinning back to join me as I closed in.
“Don’t believe all you see,” the woman called.
Feeling into the ley line, I allowed the pure witch magic to pulse out from me. It relayed the magical imprint of those in the room back to me. One warlock, one... was that witch energy? It was different, strange.
Dropping my fire spell, I surged forward as Gerard went around the reclining man sculpture. A ball of bright red warlock magic flew out from behind it, only just missing me as I thrust to the side, landing on my arm.
In my world, warlocks used the impure magic from the earth, whereas the witches used the pure magic. Warlocks can only be male. They were originally witches, but they broke from witches when they started using magic for evil, so in return mother earth punished them by never allowing them to have warlock daughters. Any daughters they do have are human.
Gerard was no longer visible, which wasn’t good. He grunted suddenly, swearing loudly enough for me to hear.
Street Spells: Seven Urban Fantasy Shorts Page 5