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

The highway spilled into the city. Eerie glowing eyes peered out from the leafy tops of the trees that lined both sides of the road. Whatever was hiding up there—and the magic felt like more of those bats—Alex hoped they’d stay put. She’d already texted Magic Cleanup about the centaurs, the storm of bats, the dissolved highway entrance, and the werewolves. She wrote up a message about the second group of bats and sent that one off too. Violet, the Monster Cleanup squad’s receptionist, would be absolutely overjoyed to get another one. The organization was obviously already working at full capacity. If she’d summoned Alex and Logan to battle, everyone else at Monster Cleanup was already out there.

“After a whole week of late night monster hunts, this was supposed to be our night off,” Alex said as Logan turned onto a street of little box houses. “I told Violet not to bother us unless hell had arrived on earth.”

“That’s a fairly accurate description of the city tonight,” Logan said, swerving to avoid two grappling flying squirrels drooping tendrils of golden lightning. The flying squirrels slammed into a fire hydrant, and the top of it exploded into a geyser.

“I didn’t even know there were magic flying squirrels around here,” Alex commented.

“There’s a magic zoo nearby.” He slid the car into a parking spot at the end of the road. “I can hear our giant bees up ahead.”

“I feel them,” Alex said, grabbing her sword as she hopped out of the car. “Their magic is really bizarre.”

They ran around the corner onto the next street, then Alex just stopped. Violet’s message had mentioned six giant bees. Well, she hadn’t been wrong about the ‘giant’ part. Each of the poisonous magic bugs was about the size of a house cat, but there were a hell of a lot more than six of them. Covered in a shimmering blue layer of dragon-like scales, there were over fifty giant bees. Their heads were tucked inside of thick helmet shells, and their poison-coated stingers were the size of daggers. Someone might as well have written ‘indestructible killing squad’ on their backs because that’s what they truly were.

“Hello, army from hell,” Alex said.

It was busier here than on the quiet residential nook where Logan had parked the car. Restaurants and clubs lined both sides of the flickering sapphire-blue river of scaled bodies buzzing down the street. The people had fled into the buildings, but the thick, salty mark of their fear still hung heavy in the air, coagulating with the bees’ magical stench of rotting, acid-dripped flowers into a nauseating miasma of crumbling courage and ill intentions.

Drops of crimson sparkled at the outer edges of the sapphire river, like blood floating on the water. But those drops weren’t blood. They were the bees’ beady red eyes. The creatures were keeping their crimson glares trained on the solid rows of buildings—and on the terrified humans watching the monster parade from behind smudged glass window panels.

Logan’s eyes scanned the army of hell parade with cool indifference. “The swarm appears to have grown since we received the monster alert.”

“And you aren’t at all concerned about that?”

“Why should I be? Panicking will only hinder our ability to do our job.”

“I love it when you’re pragmatic.” She blew him a saucy kiss. “And I hope you’re putting that pragmatic mind to work and devising a clever plan.”

“I’m working on it.”

Somewhere nearby, wood splintered. Thick shutters slammed, and a person screamed. Alex looked down the street at an old wooden house that in some past century of its life must have been a barn. Three of the giant bees had broken off from the swarm and were puncturing the wood walls with their sparkling silver stingers. Shaking in jagged spasms that might have been comical under other circumstances, they were already sawing through the flimsy wooden shell. Abandoning their failed attempt to penetrate the concrete building, a second trio of bees joined their comrades. More and more bees flocked to the wood house, quickly covering its outer walls in a shimmery iridescent-blue skin. If they got through, Alex wouldn’t be able to save the people hiding there.

“Planning time is over,” she declared. “We’ll go with our old favorite. I’ll get their attention, then you can sneak up on them from behind.”

“There are fifty bees, Alex. And their stingers are poisonous.”

“Then I’ll just have to not let them sting me.”

“Ok.” His hand lowered to the knife at his hip. “And you’re sure you can get all of them to come at you?”

“I have lots of experience getting monsters to come at me. I think I can piss off a few bees.” She waved him off. “Now, go. The bees have almost cut through the house.”

He didn’t say another word. He just dashed off, melting into the shadows. Alex turned to stare down the swarm.

“Hey, there!” she called out.

They continued buzzing along as though they hadn’t even heard her.
 

“Come and get me, you overgrown bumblebees!”

Nothing. They completely ignored her. Five of the bees turned to chase a pair of men who’d been foolish enough to make a run for their car.

“Fine then,” she muttered, winding up her magic.

A cool breeze whistled across her hands, tingling her skin. Like a blast of compressed air, her magic tore out of her and shot toward the swarm. The wind spell hit the bees…and simmered out. She blasted them again, but her magic wilted off their scaled bodies like week-old lettuce.

They appear to be immune,
Nova intoned.

Thank you, I can see that,
Alex replied.

The bees were closing in fast on the two men. One of them tripped over an empty beer bottle and hit the pavement. The long shadows of the bees rolled over the man as he scrambled to his feet. Alex was already running, but she was too slow. Two stingers dove like the teeth of a gigantic stapler, drilling the man back down to the ground. She leapt up, hurling a ball of fire at the five bees. They sucked the magic right into them. Flames sprouted up across their bodies, and their eyes burned like a tapestry of red stars against the dark shadows of night.

“So you’re immune to wind and eat fire? You’re just a party pack of fun,” Alex told the bees who were still ignoring her.

She shot a pulse of magic-breaking power at the bees. It snapped at their scales, then bounced right back at her. The force of her own magic slammed into her, hurling her across the street. Her back hit a concrete wall, knocking the wind out of her. Her head spinning, she heaved in air as she crawled her way back to her feet. She blinked back splotches of yellow and purple light to glare at the bees, who had continued their reign of terror like she wasn’t even there.

“Now…” Her lungs stuttered. “You’re just…pissing me off.”

A layer of frost crackled down her arms, sliding over her fingertips right before she blasted them with a face full of the coldest arctic storm she could summon. Her magic hit them like an iceberg. The bees hung suspended in ice for a moment, then shattered like breaking glass. As one, every bee in the swarm stopped what it was doing and turned its crimson eyes on her.

It looks like you found their weakness,
Nova said.
Want me to shoot some icicles through them?

Knock yourself out,
Alex told her, drawing her sword with one hand and a syringe from her jacket with the other. She shot the anti-venom through the convulsing man on the sidewalk, then spun around to cut through the suspended bees Nova had packaged up in ice and kindly left for her.

You’re welcome.
Nova’s voice trailed off into a maniacal echo of laughter as she shot another round of icicles through the next batch of bees.

Logan closed in on the swarm from behind, smashing through their ranks to get to her. “My knives don’t penetrate their armor.”

“You have to freeze them first.”

“So I saw. Extreme cold must break down the magic binding the creatures’ armor, making it brittle and easy to crack.”

Alex shot a wave of icy mist at the bees. The sparkling snowflakes spread across their scaled bodies, crusting over their wings and joints. She turned to smile at Logan.

“After you, honey,” she said and extended her hand toward the frozen field of bees.

CHAPTER THREE

Monster Cleanup

THE COBBLED STREET was a carpet of monster parts. Alex stepped between the broken bodies of giant bees and pastel-pink puddles of goo that shone eerily in the moonlight. Every so often, she found a bee that was still twitching and introduced it to the pointy end of her sword.

On either side of the street, humans were venturing out of the clubs and restaurants, brandishing cameras and wide-eyed expressions. A few minutes ago, the crowds had been fleeing in terror, but people had short memories. As soon as it had become evident that the monsters wouldn’t be getting up again, they’d all returned for a better look at the aftermath of the pandemonium. The only thing keeping them from wandering onto the battlefield right now was the icy glare in Logan’s eyes.

Alex stopped beside him. “The monsters are all dead.” She wiped a clump of monster goo that resembled pink snot from the arm of her leather jacket. It hit the pavement with a wet splat.

Logan considered the glop of monster guts on the ground, then the bright pink stuff splattered all across his black leather clothes like Barbie warpaint.

“Missing your days of assassinating evil warlords?” she teased him.

“Those jobs were considerably less complicated.” He stared out across the lumpy expanse of fallen monsters. “And less messy.”

“Monster extermination is always messy.” She pulled out her phone. Wiping the monster goo from the screen—it really did get
everywhere
—she dialed the number for Monster Cleanup’s Disposal crew.

 
While she waited for them to pick up, she grabbed a tiny magic flashlight from her jacket. “Hey, what’s better than pink monster goo?” she asked, shining the flashlight on Logan. As soon as the beam hit his clothes, the pink goo began to sparkle like crushed pink diamonds. “Glow-in-the-dark monster goo. You look lovely.” Laughter punched in staccato beats against the inside of her chest, trying to break free. “That color really suits you.”

Logan didn’t look amused. “Why do you never take your work seriously?”

“I kill monsters, many of them the stuff of nightmares. I’m regularly up to my neck in blood and monster guts. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve almost died. If I didn’t laugh about it all, I’d go mad.”

His hard expression softened. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you make it up to me later.” Smiling, she put away the flashlight. “In any case, I wasn’t just being silly. The flashlight was a gift from Marek. It illuminates magic, showing the rate of magical decay. As soon as a monster dies, its magic should start to decay. The decay shows up as black spots in the glittery structure.”

“There were no gaps in the monster’s blood.”

“Exactly,” she said. “The magic in the bees’ blood isn’t decaying.”

“Disposal,” a harried voice spoke through her phone.

“Hey, Stan,” Alex replied. “The phone must have rung like fifty times. You aren’t ignoring me, are you?”

“I can’t ignore you, Alex. You’d storm into my office with that big sword of yours to get my attention. Please accept my apologies for the delay. The apocalypse has come early,” the head of the Disposal department said drily.

Alex heard running footsteps, clanging machinery, and agitated voices arguing in the background. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is we’re overwhelmed. I’ve never seen so many attacks in one night. Someone released all kinds of weird monsters into Munich. Vampire bats, centaurs, dragonflies, elemental bulls… the list goes on. The entire Monster Cleanup squad is out tonight, and Disposal can’t keep up with the overload of bodies.”

“I have fifty more bodies here for you,” Alex told him.

“Fantastic.” His tone told her he thought it was anything but fantastic. “What’s the job number?”

“4032.”

The rapid fire of fingers across a keyboard stuttered over the phone line. “Giant poisonous bees near the animal park?”

“Yep.”

“I can get someone to pick up your bees in…two hours.”

“You expect us to just sit here for two hours?”

Stan sighed. “There’s nothing I can do, Alex. All my teams are already working at full capacity. Two hours is the soonest I can get a team to your location.”

“I just tested their blood, and there’s no noticeable magic decay. No magic decay after death classifies these bees as a Level 4 magic hazard, which means I have priority in your queue.”

“Been reading up on the Council’s magic hazard guidelines, have you?” Stan asked. He sounded tired.

“Yes.”

“Good for you,” he said. “Look, Alex, I’d like to help you, but the problem is there are ten other Level 4 magic hazards ahead of you in the queue. As I said, the city has gone to hell tonight.”

“How about we dispose of the bodies ourselves?” she suggested.

A moment of silence preceded Stan’s disapproving response. “That’s not standard operating procedure.”

“Neither is sitting here for two hours while giant bees bleed magical poison into the ground. That stuff is toxic, and if it absorbs into the ground, poisoning everything, the agricultural department will have a fit.”

Stan sighed. “Tell me more about your bees.”

“Each bee is about the size of a large house cat and covered in thick blue dragon scales,” she said.

Logan took out his phone and snapped a few shots of the dead bees on the ground.

“Each one has a hard helmet shell over its head and a poisonous stinger the size of a dagger,” Alex continued. “They’re immune to wind magic, absorb fire, and bounce magic-breaking spells. But ice magic cracks their armor. Their blood and guts look like neon pink snot. Logan just sent you some photos.”

“Yes, I got them,” Stan replied over the taps of his keyboard. “They sound like the bees who escaped earlier tonight from the Institute for the Study of Uncommon Creatures, along with a bunch of other exotic creatures who are currently wreaking havoc on the city. Burning the bodies should take care of any lingering magic.”