Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 3) (26 page)

“Remind me never to get into a vehicle that Marek is driving,” Alex told Eva as they stepped out of his car. She would have kissed the ground too, but that might have been a tad over the top.

Marek shrugged. He was wearing a black mesh dress shirt and black leather pants with a thick belt. And black combat boots. Marek, first tier mage, the nightclub edition.

“Subtle, he is not,” Alex said.

Eva chuckled, her green eyes twinkling.

“What?” Marek asked them. “I’m wearing black. Black blends.”

“Darling, you don’t ever blend. You stand out.” Eva cast a long, leisurely look down the length of his body. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Fire erupted from his hands.

“First tier mages.” Alex rolled her eyes. “Insufferable.”

He cracked a smile. “You do realize you’re insulting yourself when you say that?”

“I’m the battle axe of subtlety.”

She was wearing all black leather. So was Eva. Yeah, not one of them was subtle. They looked like the supernatural death squad on tour. Logan would have had an aneurysm if he’d been there to see them. Well, he wasn’t. He was too busy reminiscing with Zinnia about all the times they’d had sex in a church. Not that Alex was peeved. A nearby fire hydrant blew its top. Ok, maybe just a little peeved, but it was nothing a good, sweaty battle with an unstoppable foe wouldn’t fix.

“Let’s kick some necromancer ass.” Alex drew her sword and walked toward the shop.

They were on a quiet residential street. The only business in sight, the antique shop, was inside a two-story house on the corner, complete with friendly green shutters and flower boxes of red geraniums hanging from the balcony rails on the upper level. The lower level had a white door with an old-fashioned wooden sign dangling over it. It read ‘MARS: Magisches Antiquitäten und Raritäten Sammelsurium’, whatever that meant.

Marek shook his head. “No idea.”

“Magical Conglomeration of Antiques and Rarities,” Eva translated.

“Well, someone has been doing her homework,” Alex said. “Bonus points for the blonde in leather.”

Eva’s hair melted from blonde to black. “I’m going raven tonight.” She winked a long, glitter-kissed eyelash at Marek. “It blends better.”

Alex reached for the door, which hung awkwardly on its hinges. Magic oozed through the opening—big, bad necromancer magic. The residue Zinnia had found was only a shadow of the real thing. It looked like the necromancer had figured out where the ring was being kept. Maybe he’d already killed Margery Kensington. Alex exchanged loaded glances with Marek. His eyes hardened with determination.

“The necromancer is still here,” Alex warned them, sliding past the door. “Be careful.”

Marek’s gaze spread across the undamaged walls. “No green fire tonight?”

“It’s an old door,” Eva said. “It can be picked. Or hit hard enough that it flies open.”

At least the owner was away. Eva had told them he’d left last week to go on a cruise. Alex took the lead, zigzagging around the stacks of furniture in the showroom. She stopped in front of the door at the back. It hung open just a crack. Alex peered through that crack into what was obviously the storage room. Packed full of furniture towers and piles of boxes, it made the showroom look sparse and tidy by comparison. In the center of all the chaos stood a tall figure in a long, sweeping cloak.

“The necromancer,” Alex whispered. His magic was giving her the heebie-jeebies, like spiders crawling across her skin. And death. Lots of death.

“He’s brought friends,” Marek said, indicating the five people searching through the drawers.

Alex probed their magic. “Friends from the other side of the grave. Undead mages.” They felt like stale magic that had been hit with lightning to bring it back to life. “They aren’t as fresh as the undead fairies Logan and I fought earlier.”

“That means the necromancer’s power has grown,” said Eva. “He can now reach into the spirit realm to call forth the dead, not just capture recently killed souls before they depart our earth like those fairies you described.”

“Great.” Alex pressed her eye to the crack to get a better look inside the room. “How many undead can he summon?”

“That depends on how much magic he has,” Eva told her.

“The answer is a freaking lot. We have to move now, before they find the ring.” She leaned back to look at Marek and Eva. “I know where it is.”

Surprise and magic flashed in Marek’s eyes. “How?

“I can feel every focal point of magical energy in this house. The three of us. The Titanic of the Undead over there. The five mages. And four magical objects. One is hidden inside the drawer of the desk with the empty vase on top.”

Eva peeked through the crack in the door. “That mage with the suit is almost to it.”

“Hence the need to move quickly.”

“Wait.” Marek caught Alex’s arm as she crept forward.

She looked back at him. “What?”

“That’s four artifacts. Where are the other three?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Maybe they clashed with his outfit.”

“He might not have wanted to keep them all in one place,” suggested Eva.

“No time to worry about it right now. We have to move,” Alex told them. “Marek, I need you to create a distraction for the necromancer. Eva and I will try to get past the mages and nab the ring.”

“What kind of distraction?” he asked her.

“A flamboyant one. That should be easy for you.”

Marek shook out his hands. Magic sizzled to the surface, dancing across his skin. “Indeed.”

An explosion echoed inside the storage room, then a huge dragon uncoiled in front of the necromancer. Made of magical spells of light bound together, the beast was as red as Marek’s car. Alex and Eva rushed forward through the door, blasting the mages with magic.

The mages fought back.

They were a team of elementals. They might not have been as smart as living mages, but they didn’t need smarts to ceaselessly bombard Alex and Eva with magic, keeping them from advancing. Alex shot back. Her fire burned the hand of one of the mages. He simply patted out the flames on his skin and continued shooting. The blank look on his face said he didn’t even feel it, probably on account of already being dead. Eva shot Fairy Dust at them to no effect. The problem with shooting fairy knockout magic at undead mages was you couldn’t really knock out what was already dead.

A stream of green fire roared toward Alex. She tackled Eva to the ground, then sprang back up. The green fire had turned, raging toward Marek’s dragon. Emerald flames sparkled, eating through the magical bonds that held the beast together. A now-familiar scent burned at Alex’s nose, the scent of all magic being scorched from the immediate area. The walls touched by the green fire quaked and spat out chunks of concrete. One of those chunks shot toward Marek. Alex flicked her hand, blasting it away with wind magic.

“Thank you, Alex,” he said, crouching down beside her and Eva. “I’ve never seen anything like this. My dragon began to disintegrate as soon as that green fire touched it. How did he do that?”

Alex looked at the necromancer. “Not he. She.”

The hood had fallen from the necromancer’s face. She was a tall woman, built strong and powerful. She had blonde hair pulled back into a long braid that extended halfway down her back like a whip of sunshine.

“Wow, that is a woman,” Marek commented.

Eva glared at him.

“Not like that, darling,” he said quickly. “Not lovely like you. I meant, she is so fierce.”

Eva continued to glare.

“You’re not helping,” Alex told him.
 

“I realize that, but I’m not sure how to fix it.”

“The word you’re looking for is
large
,” Alex said. “No woman wants to be called large.”

“Large will do,” Eva agreed. “So, our necromancer is a woman.”

“Man or woman, she is trouble. She took Marek’s mother, and she needs to go down.” Alex emerged from their barricade. “Hey!” she called out to the necromancer. “You, necromancer!”

Over the cold silence in the room, she heard Eva whisper, “Does she always shout at her opponents?”

“Shout, make snarky commentary, insult,” Marek said.

Alex moved closer to the necromancer. The green fire was out—for now. But it could come back at any moment, so Alex readied herself to run. She wasn’t sure her magic could hold the green fire back. Her purple dragon fire would do the job—if only she could summon it.

“Where did you take Margery Kensington?” Alex asked the necromancer.

“I did not take the old crone.” The necromancer’s voice was soft, yet vicious. Like a rose covered in spiked armor.

“We found your residue where she disappeared.”

“I did not take her.”

Alex couldn’t feel the lie in her magic. Thanks to that green fire, the magic in the room was still scorched beyond her senses.

“We will find her,” Alex declared.

“Good for you.” The necromancer’s cold dark eyes stared at Alex.

They stood across from each other, silent, waiting. Then the necromancer wound up her arm and launched a burst of green fire at Alex. Throwing up a lightning barrier, Alex dodged and rolled away. Her barrier melted almost instantly, but that precious extra second gave her a chance to get away. As she ran, she shot blasts of magic at the necromancer. The green fire expanded to swallow it, moving in smooth, natural waves, like it was an extension of the necromancer’s body.

The undead mages were looking through the drawers again. Alex split the earth beneath the necromancer’s feet, and she fell in. But Alex knew she only had a moment. She blasted the undead mages with a rapid fire of magic, knocking them aside like leaves on the wind. Then she sprinted for the desk and grabbed the ring out of the drawer.

The necromancer was already rising up from the hole in the floor. Green fire gleamed in her dark eyes. As Alex rejoined Marek and Eva, the undead mages surrounded them, blocking them in.

The necromancer strode forward, her steps clomping like a war horse. “You have something that belongs to me.”

A smile twisted Alex’s lips. “It’s not really your color.”

The necromancer blinked in obvious confusion. “It is a colorless stone.”

“She doesn’t appreciate my wit,” Alex told her companions.

“We can appreciate your wit once we get out of here,” said Marek. “
If
we get out of here.”

“I know how to draw teleportation glyphs. Theoretically,” Eva tacked on hastily.

“I’ll take it,” Alex said. “It’s the best we’ve got. You draw. Marek and I will hold back the army.” Alex threw up an ice wall to block the undead mages’ advance.

“I don’t have enough magic to send us outside this room,” Eva warned them.

The necromancer poured green fire down the wall, melting it, but Marek had already put up another one.

“Don’t worry about that,” Alex told her. “You draw. When the glyph is done, I’ll pour magic into it to get us out of here.”

Eva began to wave her hands, weaving patterns with strands of purple magic. When the next barrier fell, her hands shook, displacing her drawing.

Alex cast a new wall of ice and topped it with spikes of lightning for good measure. “Easy now,” she said to Eva. “You focus on the glyphs. Marek and I will handle the barrier.”

Eva nodded and went back to work manipulating the strands of magic. As she did that, Alex and Marek took turns making barriers to stand against the green fire. Finally, the glyph was ready.

“Fantastic.” Marek kissed her on the head as he wrapped his arm around her.

He was trying to act strong, but Alex could see the sway in his step and the sweat beading on his brow. Putting up all those barriers had bled his magic dry. She was feeling it too, that strong urge to curl up and take a nap. Later. First, she had to get them and the ring out of there. She was not going to fall to a necromancer’s undead army.

Casting the final barrier, she turned and ran onto the glyph Marek and Eva were already standing upon. She primed it with a bit of her magic, and the circles lit up, glowing turquoise. As Alex’s lightning barrier fizzled out, she slammed her magic down hard into the glyph. She could sense Logan, somewhere a few blocks away. She focused on him, using their bond as a beacon to send them to where he was.

They landed in a large, shadowy hall. It looked like an underground gym. Logan and Zinnia were standing beneath an arena of spotlights. And they were in the middle of a fight to the death.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Death's Army

LOGAN AND ZINNIA continued to fight. Either they hadn’t noticed the new arrivals, or they were simply too busy trying to kill each other to care. Alex was betting on the latter. Logan’s senses were too good to have missed them, and there really was no overlooking that deadly gleam in his eyes. She only hoped this wasn’t a precursor to something else. There was also no denying the look in Zinnia’s eyes. Hunger.

Alex stepped forward, her rage overriding her fatigue. She threw up a wall of fire between the two fighters. Logan and Zinnia both stopped and looked at the new arrivals.

The spark in Zinnia’s eyes shifted from hunger to annoyance. “Why must you always interfere?” she demanded. “When are you going to realize that you’re not wanted?”

Alex stepped up beside Logan, meeting his hard stare. “Do you want me to leave so that you can finish killing her?”

A wretched cackle burst from Zinnia’s lips. “So you think that’s what this is about? This fight is mere foreplay.”

Well, at least Alex had been right about her intentions. She kept her eyes on Logan and asked again, “Do you want me to leave?”

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said, his words laden with ice.

Ignoring the fury and hurt boiling inside her chest, Alex nodded and made to leave, but Logan caught her hand as she turned.

“I wasn’t finished,” he said. “You shouldn’t have come because that woman is dangerous and vindictive, and I don’t want her anywhere near you. I was tracking her.”

“Oh?” Alex asked. At least tracking was better than kissing. “Why?”

Zinnia smirked at her. “Isn’t it obvious, dear?”

“No one asked you,” Alex snapped, then looked at Logan.