Spirit Magic (Dragon Born Awakening Book 2) Page 2

  When the Magic Council had found out Naomi was a Spirit Warrior, that she possessed a rare fairy power which allowed her to travel between earth and the spirit realm, they’d tried to force her into service. But Naomi didn’t want to spend the rest of her days exiling people who’d annoyed the Magic Council to an eternity in hell. Hell was no paradise, and she would have had to live with the fact that she’d been the one to make those eternal sentences possible.

  Naomi glanced at Sera. “Luckily for me, most people are afraid of Kai, including his comrades on the Magic Council.”

  “Kai is harmless,” said Sera. “A big softy.”

  “Yes, his dragon scales are particularly soft,” Alex whispered to Naomi—but not that quietly.

  Naomi clasped Sera’s hand. “Sometimes, it really pays to have an in with a mage who can shift into a twenty-ton dragon.”

  “So Naomi escaped a horrible fate, and Kai added the world’s only known Spirit Warrior to his enforcer squad,” said Sera.

  “An enforcer squad funded by the Magic Council,” Naomi added. “With a sizable cut of that budget taken by Kai’s company for handling the administration.”

  Alex whistled, long and low. “Your fiancé is one crazy, clever dragon,” she told her sister.

  Sera shrugged, but she wasn’t pulling off the nonchalant act very well. She was practically bursting at the seams with pride. “He has a degree in business.”

  “You can certainly see that in action here,” Naomi said.

  Sera honed in on Alex once more. “Logan should join the enforcer squad too.”

  “Oh, yes,” Alex said, rolling her eyes. “He’d love nothing more than to have to do whatever Kai says.”

  “For Logan, doing Kai’s bidding is definitely right up there with eating cheese out of a bottle,” Naomi agreed.

  Alex snickered. “Calling that yellow sludge ‘cheese’ is an affront to cheeses everywhere,” she said in a deep voice vaguely resembling Logan’s.

  Naomi was shaking so hard with laughter that she nearly dropped her bow.

  Alex slapped her on the back like she was dying from hiccups. “Real professional, Naomi.”

  Confusion crinkled Sera’s brow. “What am I missing?”

  “Logan has been coming around my house a lot lately,” Naomi explained. “He and Makani are bonding over their love of crafting weapons.”

  “And making snide comments about our cheese,” added Alex.

  “There’s been some wrestling too.” Naomi licked her lips.

  “Yesterday’s match was a killer. I didn’t blink for the whole ten minutes. I was afraid I’d miss something.”

  Naomi tapped her head. “I have it all stored in here. Every muscle.”

  “Every rip of fabric.”

  Naomi fanned herself.

  “This is what you two were doing yesterday? This is why you were apparently too busy to hang out with me?” Sera said.

  “If you’d been there to watch, you’d understand,” Naomi told her.

  “Sera is a good girl,” Alex said, a sparkle in her eyes. “She doesn’t watch half-naked men wrestle.”

  “Which reminds me.” Naomi turned toward Sera. “Did you get my invitation to the cookout at my place next week? Bring Kai too.”

  Alex tittered.

  Sera considered Naomi and Alex, then she said, “I was going to say yes, but now I’m wondering if you have ulterior motives.”

  “Oh?” Naomi cast a swirling halo of sparkling pink Fairy Dust over her head.

  Wind magic funneled around Alex. A pair of translucent wings unfolded from her back.

  “You two don’t fool me for a moment,” Sera told them. “This evening will not devolve into fisticuffs, I trust.”

  “Not fisticuffs. A tournament to test their prowess,” Alex said. “Guys like to do that. Especially when they have an audience.”

  “Magic flashing. Knives flying,” Naomi said, setting the scene.

  “Shirts coming off,” Alex added.

  “Their shirts will come off?” Sera asked.

  “Sure,” Alex said. “Just like in those romance novels you like to read, Sera. The ones with the topless men on the cover.”

  Sera blushed.

  Naomi gave her a cheerful smile. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Sera.”

  “I’m not ashamed. I just don’t see what possible reason the guys have to take off their shirts.”

  This time, it was Alex who was fanning herself.

  “They get hot and sweaty,” Naomi explained. “On account of the exercise.”

  “And their need to show off their bodies.”

  “For our benefit. In fact—”

  Alex pressed her finger to her lips. “I heard something.”

  Naomi grew still. “What kind of something?”

  “I’m not sure,” Alex said. “But it’s not Santa Claus, that’s for sure.”

  “Too bad, because you’ve been such a good girl this year,” Naomi whispered.

  Alex grinned. “Follow me, girls.”

  They’d reached a four-way intersection in the vast hall. Overhead, the glass panels of the dome drew together like a star. Alex headed left. Naomi and Sera followed, trusting her heightened senses to lead them right into trouble.

  They stopped when they saw the bodies. Mages and vampires and fairies were strewn all across the floor, all dead, inside a grand chamber at the end of the hall. Their blood had stained the carpet a darker shade of red. The bodies hadn’t simply been killed; they’d been butchered. Slashes so deep that their bodies were hardly holding together, wounds so vicious, cut over and over again—Naomi had never seen anything so horrific.

  And the noise Alex had mentioned… Naomi heard it now. It was the hollow, echoing sound of dripping blood. A body lay on a long conference table, his blood trickling over the edge, a soft staccato splash slapping the floor every few seconds.

  Alex knelt down beside one of the bodies. “These wounds were inflicted while they were still alive.”

  Which meant these people had suffered. A lot.

  “What do you think? A demon summoning gone horribly wrong?” Sera asked Naomi.

  “I’m not sure. You can summon the hell beasts without the demon. The beasts can exist in this realm without taking a host.”

  But Naomi didn’t see any sign of hell beasts. No fur and no gashes in the walls. The wounds did look like they’d been made with claws, though, not knives.

  “But if this was a summoning, who summoned the demon?” Alex said.

  “Maybe there was someone else here, someone who walked away with a demon inside of them.”

  Naomi did a quick, cursory scan of the room. Her gaze never lingered long on a body—or on the horrors inflicted upon it. She focused on the small details; that helped her not see the horrible big picture.

  “I don’t see any signs of the magical herbs used in a demon summoning. No Cream of the Abyss. No Sunshine Leaf or Crushed Velvet. Nothing.”

  “I don’t smell any of those herbs either,” Alex said.

  “There’s nothing here,” Naomi said. “And yet…”

  “And yet there is,” Sera finished for her. “There is something really strange going on here, an odd magic in the air.” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it.”

  “An aftertaste of hell,” Naomi realized.

  That was that bitter taste burning her tastebuds. It was very weak, though. It might have been the hell beasts or even a fully-fledged demon. The scent was too diluted for Naomi to tell.

  One thing she did know for sure, however: it was magic born in the spirit realm. Naomi couldn’t sense magic like Sera and Alex could—at least not earth magic. But she did have a nose for spirit magic.

  Naomi went to the body that lay on the conference table. There had to be a reason it was lying there, when all of the other bodies lay on the ground. What was special about this body?

  Naomi checked the body for a demon mark. Every person a demon killed was left with a mark. And every dem
on’s mark was distinct. If they found a mark on the bodies, they’d not only know that these people had been killed by a demon; they’d know which demon had killed them.

  “There’s no mark on the body,” Naomi declared.

  “None on any of these either,” Sera said, rising out of a crouch.

  Minus a demon mark, Naomi was left with the method of murder. There were all kinds of different demons—and each one killed its victims in a slightly different way. Disease, madness, drowning, fear. But which demon killed people by tearing them apart?

  “This doesn’t look like a magic killing,” Sera said. “It looks like someone tore apart these people without purpose or reason.”

  Naomi moved in closer to the table. A fountain of red and orange sparks shot up. A translucent blue sheen rippled across the dead man’s body. The ground shook, and the air cackled like a demented witch.

  “Take cover!” Naomi shouted, sprinting for an antique cabinet as an elemental cocktail bomb exploded behind her.

  Fire, water, earth, and lightning collided, ripping through the room in a series of magical explosions. Naomi’s cabinet shield groaned, then fell over. Luckily, the fireworks were already over. Naomi rose, looking up at the shards of burning wood and broken glass raining down on her. Alex and Sera stepped out from behind the massive storage box they’d used for cover.

  The furniture was in ruins, the bodies in pieces, and there was now a huge open hole overhead where a glass ceiling had been just a few moments ago.

  Sera sighed. “It’s time to call the Disposal crew.”

  2

  Prince of the Pacific

  “For once, I wish we could come back here not leading a Disposal procession,” Sera lamented as she, Naomi, and Alex walked down the hall of the 28th floor of Drachenburg Industries’ San Francisco office.

  Drachenburg Industries was the world’s largest magical research company, with offices in over thirty countries. The company’s interests covered all things magical—from potions to poisons, from spells to creatures. But they were also home to something else: the Magic Council’s enforcer headquarters, the special squad that eliminated magical threats.

  Naomi looked back at the Disposal crew who walked behind them, carrying body pieces and other evidence fragments that had survived the blast. “I bet they are wishing the same thing.”

  A vampire named Link winked at Naomi. He and his brother Lolek had been two of Kai’s special agents in Munich, but they’d been reassigned here upon the formation of Kai’s enforcer squad.

  “At least we did come back,” said Alex. “That was way too close. Who boobytraps a murder scene with a magic bomb anyway?”

  “The same sort of person who butchers twenty people,” Naomi said glumly.

  The mystery of the body laid out on the central table had been solved; he’d been placed somewhere so conspicuous to draw them toward the bomb that was supposed to blow them up.

  They passed a row of paintings, each one depicting a scene of supernatural beauty and peace. A unicorn nuzzling a mage summoner’s fingers, the brook rumbling softly in the background, the scent of spring flowers sweet and soft. A vampire playing a harp, its lyrical notes stirring Naomi’s soul. A trio of fairies taking a break from washing themselves in a river to playfully splash one another; their laughter rose from the painting like chimes in the wind.

  Every painting had been created with magic, capturing the full spectrum of human senses, bringing you right into the world of the painting. The artwork was the distinctive style of master painter and fairy illusionist Bellatrix Raven.

  By the time Naomi reached the end of the hallway, her nerves, frayed ever since their experience at the expo center, had calmed; she felt like she’d just spent the day at the spa. That was the magic of Bellatrix Raven’s work.

  “Hi,” Naomi said in greeting as she, Alex, and Sera entered the commandos’ big open office, the Disposal crew trailing them.

  “Love the new office, boys. So tidy,” Alex commented.

  There had been some recent remodeling and reorganization in the building to accommodate the new enforcer squad.

  Tony watched them from behind his desk, his face composed, his dark honey-colored eyes sparkling with calm intelligence. He was in charge of the squad, which meant he had to deal with the fallout of their battles with monsters and misbehaving supernaturals. Luckily, he was the sort of man who remained forever rational and never lost his cool, even in the heat of battle—or even when the enforcers strolled into his office covered in debris.

  “Don’t jinx it, Alex,” he said. “We just moved into the room this morning. I’d like it to last at least until the end of the week.”

  “I bring nothing but well wishes and good luck,” Alex assured him with a smirk.

  “You mean chaos and mayhem.”

  “That too.”

  The Disposal crew dropped the neon orange bags on Callum’s desk and the bright green ones on Dal’s desk.

  Dal opened one of his green biohazard bags and pulled out a severed hand. The Disposal crew labelled anything that was or had once been alive as a ‘biohazard’.

  Dal’s gaze shifted from the hand to Naomi, who was standing in front of his desk. “Body parts,” he said drily. “You shouldn’t have.”

  Callum looked more satisfied with the contents of his orange bag. There hadn’t been much left at the explosion scene, but the Disposal crew had managed to collect a few electrical parts from the bomb and some melted, frayed wires. Callum began placing the pieces into a tray on his desk.

  “You three never can leave a crime scene in one piece,” Tony teased Naomi and the Dering sisters.

  “There was a failsafe, a boobytrap left behind.” Sera pointed at the remains of the device that Callum was trying to piece back together.

  “A nasty bomb too,” Callum commented.

  “Someone obviously did not want us snooping around,” Sera said.

  “We’re lucky that we are still in one piece.” Alex stood in front of Dal’s desk, watching Dal sort through the body parts.

  “I can’t do much with a few bones, a head, a hand, and part of a foot,” Dal declared, but he took a close look at them anyway. He noted his observations in a notebook. “How about traces of magical substances at the scene? Did you get any samples for me?”

  “No,” Naomi said.

  “They were obliterated in the magic blast?” Dal asked.

  “No, they were never there. No Cream of the Abyss or Blood Rose. No Sunshine Leaf or Crushed Velvet,” Naomi said. “Nothing whatsoever. No potions or herbs. There wasn’t so much as a healing cream.”

  A crinkle formed between Dal’s eyes. “What kind of demon summoning was this?”

  “One we’d better hope was not successful,” Naomi said darkly, the memories of all those dead bodies flashing through her head.

  “Do you need us for anything else?” Sera asked the commandos.

  Dal looked down at the body parts on his desk. “No, you’ve done quite enough already.”

  “We’ll look over everything,” Tony told them. “Hopefully, we’ll have something to share with you by the morning.”

  Callum held up the tangled mess of wires and made an unconvinced grunt.

  “We should call in Riley,” Dal said to Tony. “We could use the extra help on this.”

  Tony nodded, picking up his phone.

  Riley, Sera and Alex’s brother, a genius in the magical sciences, had a desk in the commandos’ room too, but he wasn’t around at the moment.

  “Go,” Tony told Sera, typing on his phone. “You’re already late.”

  “Late? For what?” Naomi asked her.

  “For my date with Kai at Illusion.” She lifted her arms in the air and turned around once on the spot. “How do I look, girls?”

  “Like you just survived a bomb blast,” Alex told her.

  “Perfect,” Sera said with a delighted smile. “The posh clientele of Illusion will love it.”

  Then she gave
them a wave and walked out of the room.

  “And what about you? What are your plans tonight?” Alex asked Naomi. “Hot date on the town?”

  Naomi glanced down at her own clothes, which looked even worse than Sera’s. That wasn’t surprising considering how close she’d been to the bomb. Her jeans were torn, her tank top scorched with black burn marks. Dirt and smoke smudged her face, and her hair looked like she’d used a landmine for a pillow.

  “No date tonight,” Naomi laughed. “I wouldn’t be caught dead going out like this.” She was far too vain for that. “And you?”

  “Logan and I were supposed to check out a lead on a Convictionite terrorist cell in San Jose.”

  “You should take a break,” Naomi told her. “Relax. Have some fun.”

  Alex shot her a devilish grin. “This is fun.” She patted Naomi on the shoulder, then headed out.

  Which left Naomi alone with the commandos. The Disposal crew had already gone off in search of the next disaster.

  “See you tomorrow morning, boys,” Naomi told the commandos.

  Tony looked up from his computer. “It’s your turn to bring breakfast tomorrow, Garland.”

  “And none of that new age fairy-drugs-granola like last week,” Callum added.

  “It wasn’t drugged.”

  Callum’s blond brows lifted. “Then how did I get high from the first bite?”

  Naomi snickered. “That was from the Silverweed that Dal slipped into your coffee.”

  Callum’s head snapped around to Dal.

  Dal didn’t look up from his desk, but a sly smile curled his lips.

  Naomi left the room, throwing a final wave over her shoulder.

  As she walked down the hall, she overheard Callum asking Dal, “So, buddy, any chance you’ve got some more of that Silverweed?”

  Chuckling, Naomi stepped into the elevator. When the doors opened again, the vast marble desert of the lobby lay before her. During the day, it was a busy, bustling place, but right now there was no one working behind the desks. The click of Naomi’s boots against the glossy white floor echoed in the hollow expanse.

  As she crossed the parking lot, she pulled out her phone to check her messages. The first was from her mother.