Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 3) (5 page)

“Stan, what can you tell me about what’s going on tonight?” Alex asked him as he peered into the glass vial. The bees’ blood and guts were bright pink, but their venom was pitch black.

“I wish I knew. A few hours ago, all hell broke loose. The phone lines were flooded with calls. Monsters were attacking, plants had come to life, and even some supernaturals were losing control.”

“We saw the werewolves,” Alex said.

“They weren’t the only ones. We sent out every agent on-call tonight. It wasn’t enough, so Violet started going down the list, phoning everyone else.
Everyone
. You two worked overtime in the field for the past week. Under normal circumstances, you weren’t even supposed to go back out there for another day.”

“I think we’ve established these are anything but normal circumstances,” Alex told him. “Does anyone know what—or who—is causing all this?”

“No.”

Logan dumped the ugly orange bag on Stan’s desk. “We have your bee.”

Stan slipped on gloves, then reached into the bag. “It’s in pieces,” he said, frowning as his hand emerged holding only the top half of the creature. “Couldn’t you have brought back a specimen that’s fully intact?”

“No,” Logan said coolly.

Stan frowned.

“What he meant was, the bees were pretty tough creatures,” said Alex. “We had to cut through them to kill them. So unless you wanted a live bee—”

“Yes,” Stan cut in.

Alex frowned at him. “They’re dangerous.”

“I know. I.S.U.C. designed them as a replacement for guard dogs.”

“I.S.U.C.?” Alex asked, biting back the comment on her tongue.

“The Institute for the Study of Uncommon Creatures,” he replied. “A few months back, when I heard about the fascinating bees they’d magically engineered, I asked the head of that stuck-up research institute to let me have a look at the creatures. He refused.” Stan pulled out the bottom half of the bee and set it down beside the other piece. “And tonight they became a public hazard.”

“Engineering creatures like these is just asking for trouble,” Alex said.

Stan opened his kit of dissection tools and began to prod the dead bee. “Actually, I meant now that the bees have attacked people, I.S.U.C. can’t keep me away from the them. Public safety overrules a company’s rights to secrecy.” He cut into the creature with enthusiasm that was bordering on glee.

“They’re trouble,” Alex repeated. “Every time people start trying shit like this, bad things happen. Eventually, these experimental creatures go wild, and then people like me have to take them out before they do damage. We got lucky tonight. The bees didn’t kill anyone, but the humans there were pretty freaked out. One of them almost died. If I’d been a few seconds slower with the anti-venom, he would have.”

“You had anti-venom on hand?” Stan asked.

Alex showed him the inside of her leather jacket, where all kinds of tiny medical supplies were attached.

“Wow, I’m impressed,” Stan told her. “That’s really smart of you, not at all what I would have expected from someone as reckless as you are.”

“Indeed,” Logan said. “It was my idea. She never carried any medical supplies before. Can you imagine that, especially with the way she constantly throws herself into trouble?”

“Actually, I can.”

Alex glared at them both. “Very funny, you two. How about instead of making fun of me, we discuss the real problem. Monsters were released into Munich tonight, the night before the Magic Council is kicking off their summit. For the past few weeks, supernaturals have been arriving from all over the world. There are a lot of us in the city right now, and the humans are getting anxious. Tonight’s attacks are playing right into the Convictionites’ hands.

“You think the Convictionites are behind all the monster attacks tonight?” Stan asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe they released them, or maybe it was someone else. But the result is the same: the humans blame us. They fear us. They hate us. This is exactly what the Convictionites want.” She tapped Stan’s monitor. “Hey, do you think you could get me a list of all the attacks tonight?”

“The night is far from over.” Stan took out a pair of monstrous tweezers and plucked a shimmering blue scale from the bee’s body. “But I’ll send you a list after the dust clears.”

“Thanks.”

Logan’s hand darted out toward the chaos sprawled across Stan’s desk. It returned with a bag of chocolate chip cookies. “I’m taking these for Alex.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever. Just go,” Stan said, not looking up from his bee.

“Did you smell the cookies?” Alex asked Logan as they walked back down the hall.

“Yes.”

He handed her a chunky cookie the size of a tea saucer. She bit down on it, and the sweet taste of chocolate exploded on her tongue, jolting her magic awake. She chewed the piece of cookie slowly in her mouth, savoring every second.

“Now that you’re feeling more agreeable,” he said a few minutes later as they stopped in front of his car. “Will you agree to come home with me to rest?”

“Rest and eat cookies?”

“Yes.”

“Your offer is acceptable.”

“Good.” He opened her door. “Now let’s get home and get cleaned up. That pink bee goo smells positively awful.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Big, Bad, and Gothic

THEY WERE RENTING a big house just outside the city. The south side of the plot bled into a forest of frosted blue evergreens. The white frosting wasn’t snow; it was the magic-saturated ashes of the phoenix flock that lived in those woods. The flock was so large that every week another bird was shedding its transient form, snowing down magic ashes on the treetops.

The fiery birds were territorial creatures—and savagely protective of their molting members as they made their transformation. No other magical creatures lived in the forest. There were a handful of mundane ones, but nothing more threatening than a tree squirrel. Even tonight, amidst the mayhem of the monster attacks, the woods were quiet.

A tall stone wall, topped with electric wires and magic boobytraps, surrounded the property. As Logan drove up the long road, the metal gates parted, allowing their car to pass. He turned into the long double-lane circle drive and parked behind Naomi’s silver roadster. Marek’s car, a fire-red sports car that had been designed with the motto ‘subtlety is a sin’ in mind, wasn’t there.

Alex stepped out of the car and walked toward the house. Big, bad, and Gothic, the building actually resembled a cathedral more than a house. Its spire-topped towers shone icy white in the glaring security spotlights Logan had set up all across the property. Arched windows of beautiful, multi-colored stained glass completed the cathedral look. Alex didn’t know how much the rent on this place was, but she did know that the Magic Council was footing the bill. Logan had written that into their contract. He was smart like that.

Alex pushed open the enormous front doors, which expelled an appropriately ominous groan in greeting. Past the long hall of stained glass windows that displayed a timeline of supernatural scenes throughout history, the path spilled into a cavernous living room that they’d made cozier with the help of some fluffy chairs, sofas, and throw rugs over the cold stone floor. Naomi, Alex’s fairy-mage friend and fellow mercenary, sat on the bright red sofa closest to the fireplace. The silhouettes of the crackling flames danced across her face like a shadow theatre playing out a dark, epic tale.

“Back so soon?” Naomi asked, looking up from the computer balanced atop her crossed legs. Her blue eyes flashed in amusement. “Oh, wow. You’re so…so pink.”

Logan stepped up beside Alex.

“You both are.” Naomi pressed her lips together.

“We were called in to deal with some giant poisonous bees,” Logan told her.

“Pink bees?”

“Only on the inside,” Alex said.

“So that’s bee blood?”

“Blood and other monster goo.”

“Well, that explains the smell,” Naomi said, her nose wrinkling up. “I thought you had the night off.”

“That was before the monster apocalypse,” Alex replied. “Vampire bats, poisonous bees, centaurs, werewolves—all the creatures of the night have come out to play tonight. At least it’s quiet here.”

“Not quite. About an hour ago, a pack of a dozen wild magic boars tried to dig their way under the fence.” Naomi shivered. “I couldn’t scare them off and my Fairy Dust had zero effect on them, so I had to shoot them with my crossbow.”

Alex pulled out her phone. “Where are the bodies?”

“Just outside the fence on the south side.”

“They came out of Phoenix Forest?” Alex asked in surprise, texting the location to Stan so Disposal could pick up the dead boars.

“They weren’t in their right minds. Something was odd about their eyes. They were red, as though…possessed.”

“I got the same vibe off of a cactus and a tree at Monster Cleanup. Both attacked people tonight.”

“You can possess plants?” Naomi asked.

“Apparently.”

“That is just freaky.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Do you have any idea what caused the monster uprising tonight?”

“No, but it’s not an accident. I’m sure of it.” Alex chewed on her lip. “Were you planning on going out tonight?”

“Yes, I’m going to hit another club, one called Spitfire,” Naomi said. “It’s the last place a hybrid couple was seen before they disappeared last week.”

Like Alex, Naomi lived in San Francisco, but when her cousin Eva had gone missing last month, she’d come to London to track her down. They had found her in the hands of the Convictionites, the same hate group who had recently become the bane of Alex’s existence. They’d freed Eva and the other prisoners from those fiends, but hybrids were still going missing all across Europe. Right now, those kidnapped seemed to be centered around Munich, so when Alex and Logan had traveled here to kill monsters for the Magic Council, Naomi had come too.

“Maybe I can find clues there as to who took the missing hybrid couple,” she continued. “Assuming the club is still open through all this chaos.”

“The chaos seems to be settling down,” Logan said. “All Monster Cleanup agents are still out in the field, but the flow of new emergency calls has petered out to nearly nothing.”

“And how do you know this?” Alex asked.

“I hacked into the Magic Council’s system.”

“Just now?”

“No, a few weeks ago. I want to know the second they start to suspect you’re different. That will give us the head start we need to disappear. I already have a secluded hiding spot set up.”

“Aww, how romantic,” Naomi said, smiling.

“The Magic Council is going to notice that you’ve hacked into their system. And they’re going to wonder why,” Alex told Logan.

He snorted. “The Magic Council’s people are competent, but not that competent. And as to the why, they know I’m an assassin and a thief. Even if they discover my intrusion—which I seriously doubt—they’ll blame my nefarious ways. If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s people’s prejudice.”

“He’s right,” Naomi said.

Yes,
Nova agreed.

Her dragon must have sent the message to Logan too because he was looking particularly smug right now.

“Do you need any help?” Alex asked Naomi.

“Not yet. Right now, I’m still just chatting people up to figure out if anyone knows anything. But if I need help killing things, I’ll give you a call.”

Fair enough. Talking to people was definitely not Alex’s specialty. “Where are Marek and Eva?”

“Marek took Eva out on a date,” Naomi told her. “Eva has been helping me investigate, but being so close to the issue has been hard on her. The Convictionites kept her in a glass box for days. They did such horrible things to her and to the other prisoners. And they’re doing it again. Even after we freed all their prisoners in London, they didn’t give up. This has to end.” She snapped her computer closed, then stood. “I will make it end.”

“Give me a call if you need me,” Alex said.

Naomi peeled her bolero sweater from the back of a chair and slid it over her arms. “You bet.” She turned and walked down the hall of stained glass, the staccato echoes of her boots trailing her to the front door.

“Come on,” Alex said, smiling as she took Logan’s hand. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

They ascended the sweeping staircase to the west wing. Polished gold handrails curled upward, tracing the dark tiled walls to the next level. Above, a lantern dripped from a high, domed ceiling braced with wooden beams over a canvas of brown and golden bricks. The staircase spilled out into a landing platform. In front of them was a pair of wide arched doors with panels of milky glass framed in wood.

Beyond the ornate entrance, the west wing was as majestic as the common areas downstairs, if not more sparse in design. They hadn’t had much time to spruce it up. The east wing, which Naomi had claimed for herself, was much cozier, and the suite of rooms in the north wing occupied by Marek and Eva looked like a photo spread in an interior design magazine. Well, Alex was too busy to play interior decorator—and she didn’t know anything about design either.

When they reached the end of the hall, Logan opened the door to their bedroom. He did enjoy opening doors for her. Inside, a massive canopy bed draped with thick golden curtains filled up one side of the room.

“Home sweet home,” Alex said, setting her sword on the antique dresser opposite the bed. “At least for this week.”

Logan began peeling off the straps of knives buckled to his body. “Where would you like to go if you could pick any place in the world?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere nice and tropical, I think.”

“Tropical climates are a breeding ground for monsters,” replied the practical assassin.

She hung her leather jacket over the back of a chair. “Logan, in my experience, everywhere on earth is a breeding ground for monsters.” She slid her pink-stained tank top over her head and headed for the sink in the bathroom.

“I suppose that’s true,” he said, following her.

“You bet it is. That’s why monster-hunting mercenaries will always be in demand.” She turned on the tap and icy water gushed into the basin. She poured a generous helping of fabric cleaner onto a brush and began scrubbing it into her shirt.