Closing my eyes as Felicity brought a knife to the throat of the man she was holding, I forced as much of my magic into my dagger as possible, my arms shaking as it filtered through me.
“Let’s go!” Kurt muttered.
Opening my eyes, I lunged forward as I sliced my blade down the invisible wall in front of us. The witches in the room groaned as the spell was shattered. The power of it vibrated down my arm as we pushed our way through. My team fired their weapons at the warlocks as balls of magic whizzed around us.
Heading straight for Felicity, I threw up my free hand and recited a freezing spell. Her arm stopped moving towards the hostage’s throat. Her grunt of frustration was ignored as I sped forward, my boots thumping against the lino floor.
“Watch out!” Gerard shouted.
It was too late. A ball of bright red warlock magic slammed into my right arm. My dagger skittered across the floor as I fell to one knee. The magic melted my jacket, the heat making the leather forge to my skin. Shit, that bloody well hurt.
A hand grasped my dagger. Felicity.
“Oh, no you don’t.” My knee rebounded off the floor as I propelled forward.
Another gunshot sounded, but I ignored it. No one, and I mean, no one, ever touched my dagger. Well, except maybe the team.
Felicity ran over to the cabinet. Thrusting my dagger forward, she screamed when the blade rebounded off the glass, almost knocking her to the ground with the force.
Following her, I threw another freezing spell. She laughed as she turned towards me, her face lit up and a smile lining her lips. “This power,” she shouted. “My, my... it’s-”
She didn’t have a chance to finish her stupid mutterings. My fist ploughed into her jaw. She jumped away, her arm extending as she swiped the dagger towards me. Oh boy, she was going to try and cut me with my own blade.
“Son of a bitch!” Gerard exclaimed.
My head automatically turned to check on him. He was handling himself perfectly. The man on the floor had bitten his leg by the look of it, and now he was knocked out.
A slight movement in the air warned me of the impending attack from Felicity. Stepping back, I almost tripped over my own feet. My blade came at me from the side, catching my thumb as I raised my hand to grab it. The reaction had been automatic, and very stupid.
“Ha!” Felicity cried, spinning towards the cabinet.
Diving at her as she thrust the knife forward, I wrapped my arms around her legs and tackled her to the ground. She cried out as the dagger fell from her hand, clattering right next to my head as I landed on top of her bottom half.
Grabbing it up, I poured more magic into it as I rose it above my head. Felicity tried to turn under my weight, but although I wasn’t heavy, I had her pinned between my thighs. The bitch would pay.
“Devon, stop!” Justina shouted.
They surrounded us, their guns pointing straight at Felicity’s head. My chest heaved as I pulled air into my lungs. Heat from the anger that surged through me tickled my skin.
“Seriously,” Gerard said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Relax and get off her.”
Energy drained out of me as Felicity started sobbing. Her gaze were glued to the tip of my blade where it hovered over her heart. I wasn’t going to kill her. I was an agent, I was trained to bring criminals in. However, her disgusting energy had been smeared on my dagger. And, for a second, I had considered making her pay.
“You’re under arrest,” I said as I climbed off the illusionist witch.
Justina and Kurt landed on her, cuffing her instantly. Gerard grabbed me, checking the cut on my hand before asking if I was okay.
Nodding, I watched as the hostages made for the door. Gerard disappeared to escort them to the police. The room was a mess. Broken lights hung from the walls. Blood splattered the ground where my team had taken down the criminals.
“Do you need to get that looked at?” Kurt asked as Justina hurled Felicity to her feet.
Looking at him, I shook my head. It was only a superficial wound. Although, the blood on the end of my dagger would’ve broken the spell. It had been close. Way too close.
“Well done,” Felicity hissed as she passed me. “You won.”
Watching her leave, I evened my breath and took a moment to myself. The room was empty, save the dead or injured paranormals. All of the ones that remained would be arrested and sent to prison for a very long time.
“Excuse me,” a small voice interrupted my day dreaming.
Well, not day dreaming. More like shock. I was a kickass agent, but that had been a very close call. If Merlin’s wand had been stolen by an illusion witch, who knows what havoc she could’ve caused.
“Yes?” I said, turning to see the woman who had almost been hung.
She wrung her hands together in front of her as she looked at the ground. “Thank you,” she whispered.
When she looked up, tears were hovering in her eyes. I smiled as she came forward and threw her arms around me. I patted her back awkwardly. I mean, I wasn’t used to physical affection. Especially when strangers offered it. It was... strange.
“Er...” I said, trying not to pull away too soon, but longing to disengage myself. “...You’re welcome.”
Letting me go, she stepped back. A quick glance around the room made her grimace. I was about to break the silence when she reached up and rubbed her neck.
“We need people like you,” she suddenly said. “If it wasn’t for you, all of us would probably be dead by now.”
As she turned and walked out of the room, I hugged myself. My dagger was tucked away in my pocket, ready for a good clean. I had to scrub the impure magic off of it before I could use it again. But, use it again, I would. The woman had just reminded me exactly why I put myself in danger every day.
And, damn it, if I had to bleed once in a while for others, I would.
WANT MORE DEVON JINX? Here’s her story:
Witch, Warlock, Whatever...
My name’s Devon Jinx, and, yes, I’m half warlock, half witch. But I couldn't care less about which kind of magic is better. All I want to do is keep my head down and get on with my new job as an investigator at the Hunted Witch Agency.
Read more here... books2read.com/u/bP5XpY
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Siloed
by Dale Ivan Smith
NAZARETH’S HAIR OF the Dog played in the watch room while Margery beat me again in another game of two-player Zombie Changeup.
The scrying mirrors hanging on the wall in front of us in a five-by-five grid, flicked from containment cell to containment cell in the silo, each mirror cycling from a different starting point. There were ninety-one cells, not all occupied, but even the unoccupied ones were monitored, just in case one of the imprisoned manifestations was trying to escape and had somehow managed to squeeze through a crack. Yes, that was nearly as impossible as it sounds, but regulations were regulations, and the scrying mirrors were zealous in following them. Every cell was watched. Period.
“How about another game, Lizzy?” Margery asked me. We sat facing the scrying mirrors in padded office-style chairs, a card table between us.
I shrugged. “Sure.” She dealt us each seven cards, and off we went.
Margery was lead guard of Silo Three. I was her number three. Margery never tired of Changeup. Tonight, it was Zombie Changeup. Last night it had been Martian Changeup. Too bad there wasn’t a Dante’s Inferno Changeup because that’s where it felt like I was.
She laid a finger to her long blade of a nose and grinned at me. “Gotta change with the rules. That’s how you play, Lizzy,” she told me.
I sighed, laid down my card. I knew that, but Margery never tired of reminding me.
“It’s just like life,” she said, for the millionth time in three months.
But while Changeup was a card game designed to keep changing rules on you, magic’s rules were different. You had
to obey them and they didn’t change.
I rubbed my eyes with my thumbs while Margery murmured “Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy.” I’d been here three months and she still wouldn’t call me by my full name, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Anna Marquez, that’s me. I reserved “Liz” for friends, and old Margery was anything but a pal. She had tried hard enough after I arrived to be my friend, a little too hard, and I’d become suspicious. She’d also bickered constantly with Taylor, the third member of our little guard detachment, which wasn’t exactly endearing.
So far, three months guard duty and counting for me since Regulation Union for Normalizing Enchantment had sent me here, to Somewhere, North Dakota, and a prison for supernatural creatures. R.U.N.E. was one of the most important organizations of the magical world, a magical world hidden from the vast majority of humanity.
I missed working street cases for R.U.N.E., missed being in the city, missed being around people who weren’t Margery and Taylor.
I missed my partner, Tomlinson. The jerk had up and retired on me after the Dryad business, and my field supervisor decided I needed to spend quality time helping to guard a silo filled with imprisoned manifestations. I missed driving up and down I-5 tracking down manifestations that were trying to become permanent and causing trouble in the process. It was hard to believe I’d ever been tired of that.
The scrying mirrors continued their never-ending loop.
In one cell, the ebony carapace of a dog-sized duct-mite glistened. In another, Doug the techno-elf performed a yoga sun salutation. In a third cell, Desiderata, the sylph, floated above the metal floor, her nude and hairless body shimmering sapphire. A goblin sat reading in a fourth. I glanced away. You weren’t expected to stare at the scrying mirrors non-stop.
Above us in the watch room the airlock to the outside remained sealed, the giant starfish-like mega-crusty that covered the hatch glowing a soft green. All quiet on the underside of reality.
The mega-crustie was a manifestation, like the prisoners below, a supernatural creature born from the interplay between mana and the collective human subconscious. It took two of us to spell the mega-crustie to open. We did that when we were resupplied, once a month.
I missed the sun and missed the city streets. But outside, beyond the silo complex, was the prairie of North Dakota. Not my kind of place—I was a city girl, through and through.
The watch room was the upper level of the guard house, which was built at the top of the silo. The lower level had the galley, library, supply rooms, our aid station, gym, and our quarters.
Below the guard house, in the silo itself, smaller crusties were attached to each cell door. The scrying mirrors kept us posted, but the crusties, guardian creatures, were what kept our supernatural prisoners from getting loose.
The scrying mirrors continued their endless cycling.
Watch duty could give paint drying a run for most boring activity, ever. Why couldn’t the third member of our not-so-merry little band of guards, Taylor, be on duty tonight, rather than sleeping? The guy was an old tight-ass, but at least he didn’t push games on me like Margery.
Margery rapped the Changeup deck on the tabletop, starting shuffling the cards. She raised a pencil-thin eyebrow. “How about another go?” she asked.
I shook my head. We’d played six games today and I already owed her two weeks’ worth of kitchen duty.
She cackled, looking like a witch in her black sweatshirt, her gray hair spilling every which way loose over her shoulders. Margery was about the right age to be one of the old hippy wizards in The Aquarian Circle, but she’d been a housewife in Des Moines when the Age of Aquarius brought mana flooding back into the world, back when my mother was a baby.
Margery figured out some basic binding spells and forced some goblins to turn over a living Ouija board. She hauled that board all over the Great Plains and convinced marks that they were really communicating with their late loved ones, and not some supernatural cipher that fed off their subconscious. It was kind of like those scrying mirrors. She managed to stay out of R.U.N.E.’s sight, and the Arcane Security Agencies’ view, too, for decades. She’d lucked out. For awhile.
She’d been a prisoner in Silo 1, along with other humans who’d broken The Laws, for a good ten years before the Jailer Board decided she’d reformed. Someone, somewhere, came up with the bright idea of making Margery a prison guard to help monitor criminal manifestations.
They say insanity is just a certain point of view. Personally, I think they are crazy. For sure making Margery a prison guard in charge of helping to monitor criminal supernaturals was crazy in my book.
“How about Faerie Changeup, then?” Margery leaned forward, grinned at me.
She wouldn’t quit with the games today. I shook my head. “No thanks, I need a break.”
Her grinned widened. “Okay, then walk the spiral.”
I opened my mouth to protest but Margery wagged her bony index finger at me.
“You’re still the rookie here, missy,” she said. “Three months doesn’t make you an expert on guarding a silo. You need to practice the spiral walk.”
My eyes narrowed. “I’ve been practicing the spiral walk every day.”
Her grin widened. “Which is why you need to practice it backwards.”
I started to object, but after three months, one thing was clear, Margery was the boss. She was almost as bad as my trainer, Wanda.
“Why backwards?” I asked.
“Improves your concentration.” She reached into a little dish she kept on the table and plucked out three metal balls and began working them in those bony fingers of hers. Clack, clack, clack.
“I’ll be too busy trying not to stumble to concentrate on the spiral enchantment,” I pointed out, trying to ignore the clacking.
Margery could never resist the opportunity to lecture me. “You know the Rules. Walking the enchantment connects you to the prisoners. You stumble and break the enchantment, and you’ll have nightmares for a week.”
No kidding I’d have nightmares. If I messed up, it would set off the manifestations, and their pain would rebound back on my subconscious when I was asleep. I’d love to wring the neck of the genius who’d thought up that sort of enchantment.
She nodded at the stairs leading down to the silo hatch and the ladder. “Time’s a wasting, missy.”
I pushed my chair back and stood. “Do me one favor at least.”
Margery cocked her head to one side like a crow. “What’s that?”
“Crank up the Nazareth. Hair of the Dog was meant to blast, not be played low like lame soft rock.”
She cackled, shaking her head. “You’re lucky I let you play it at all, rookie. Now get walking backwards.”
THE STEEL STAIRS WOUND down one side of the silo as I descended from the bottom deck of the “watch tower” into the silo proper. My binding rod was in its holster on my hip. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to use it.
Low yellow light softly illuminated the interior. It always reminded me of those soft yard lights people in ritzy neighborhoods edged their oversized lawns with. It didn’t seem like the sort of lights you’d use in a maximum-security prison for supernatural beings. But when R.U.N.E. bought a half-dozen decommissioned missile silos from the Air Force they wanted the guards to avoid having to deal with harsh white halogens that could blind magical sight.
Binders like Margery, Taylor and I needed line of sight, and low lighting was best, especially here where the auras from the imprisoned three score and nine manifestations mingled. You really had to look carefully to see a supernatural creature’s aura.
Metallic booms echoed in the silo’s shaft as I climbed down the stairs, sounding like a giant’s hammer pounding the inside of a dumpster. I stopped and peered down into the spiral. The cells lined the inside of the silo. The floor outside the cells spiraled down, like the whorl in a nautilus shell, which fit, since I always felt like I was deep in the ocean down here, with the guardian starfish-like crusties glowing green on each cell
door.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom. Each boom made me twitch. I frowned, trying to figure out where that infernal sound came from.
Just then a cacophony of shouting erupted from the cells.
“I’m hungry,” an ogre bellowed.
“Me, too,” shouted three goblins in tandem.
Other manifestations joined in until I couldn’t make out individual words.
“All right, lay off!” I hollered down the spiral.
The prisoners ignored me and kept on shouting. I opened my mouth to shout again. I’m only five-two and weigh one hundred and ten pounds. But, I had a voice, for a short girl.
“Quiet down!” I bellowed, as loud as I could. But, it was like shouting into a riot. The prisoners kept right on with the cacophony. My binding rod wouldn’t work to get them all to calm down. Manifestations were born of mana playing with the human subconscious. Sorcerers like myself could consciously manipulate mana through spells. Sorcery was complicated and took a ton of effort to learn.
I fingered the pentagram amulet hanging from a chain around my neck. Time to play the boss card. I could only do this once a day, but Margery and Taylor each wore one as well. I hesitated for a moment. I hated to do this. It was bad enough the times I had to apply a little pain to a manifestation when I cast a binding spell.
This would be far worse and hit all the prisoners at once.
I lifted the amulet to my lips. “I order silence,” I whispered in French. The amulet thrummed against my fingertips. The silver pentagram flashed.
The crusties below changed from glowing green to flashing silver.
The shouts changed to yelps and groans, dropping to a collective whimper, and then away to nothing a moment after that. The amulet went dark.
Blessed silence. I felt a twinge of guilt, even if the inmates hadn’t given me a choice. The amulet I wore wasn’t an ordinary pentagrammic focus. It was linked to the silo, and the colossal amount of mana stored here. It was also linked to the door guardians—the crusties, which in best conga line fashion were each linked to their prisoner. The crusties took my silence spell and made the prisoners they linked to obey, making it as painful as possible to get them to obey. Puppets dancing on pain strings, Taylor had told me when he gave me the rundown on the Silo on my first day. I still winced at that expression. Creepy and evocative at the same time, and cringe-inducing. I used the command because I had to. Taylor and Margery didn’t seem to enjoy it, but they were far too matter-of-fact about using the crusties as basically pain amplifiers.
Street Spells: Seven Urban Fantasy Shorts Page 8