Zora's Dawn (Defender Book 1) (4 page)

Smiling a
bigger smile, Powers continued, “Fortunately it is a different sense to your
sense of direction! Once the others get here we will discuss the best way to go
after the rogue.”

“We? Me?
Travel with a shapeshifter, a fairy and a vampire? And hey, why isn’t there a
werewolf?”

“We are
going to go to other crime scenes, we need to learn as much as we can about
this particular rogue. We believe that this is a dangerous situation that must
be dealt with swiftly. One of the werewolf leaders will meet us at the first place,
he lives there.”

“But why
do you all need me? All I can do is tell you it was a werewolf, and you already
know that.”

“Well
there is another ability that you have Zora. Did you ever wonder what your name
means?” At the shake of her head he continued, “The meaning of Zora is dawn.
Hayes is from an ancient Celtic name O hAodha, or O Haye. It means fire. So
your name essentially means dawn fire. And you bear this name for a good
reason. If you and a werewolf meet at dawn, you have the ability to cause the
werewolf to burn.”

Zora was
fully gaping at him. “You’re not serious! How on earth do I make a creature
spontaneously combust? That’s crazy.”

“You can
Zora, it is part of the fairy spell. That is why the fairy is coming. Your
mother would have shown you if she was still here, and it is a secret passed
down from mother to daughter. This fairy is coming to teach you how be a defender.”

“Oh my
God, my life has turned into a horror movie. I just want to go home and put on
my pyjamas and make a pot of tea, or maybe open a bottle of wine.”

“I do
understand how you feel, but this is real and not a movie. It is unfortunate
that you are not better prepared for this, but being a defender is in your
blood. I believe that you will adjust to it all very quickly if you open your
mind.”

Zora held
out her empty coffee cup. “I need fortification Powers, I need time to
assimilate this, but mostly I need caffeine. And then I need to go home and try
to take it all in.” Powers took her cup and went wordlessly into the house.
Time enough to tell her she wouldn’t be going home when she had consumed more
caffeine.

Zora
glared at the person sitting at the kitchen table. For once it was not Powers
she was mad at, although when he had told her she would need to stay with him
in his house she had been pretty unhappy. No, this was a new person – if person
was the right description. This was the fairy, arrived early that morning while
she was sleeping and apparently fairies were morning people. Zora hated morning
people, fairies, whatever. Nobody should be cheerful so early. And besides,
since when were fairies six feet four and exploding with muscles and
male
!
And where were his wings? It was just all wrong.

She
frowned grumpily and tuned out his excessively cheerful voice as she began to
search for the tea. Powers had better have decent tea in his kitchen since he’d
basically shanghaied her into staying with him. Ok, it kind of made sense that
she may be in danger and that time was short and it was much more efficient for
them to be in the same place once the others started arriving. But still, he’d
better have good tea in his kitchen. Especially since she’d had very little
time to pack clothes for a few days and she forgot her special mug.

Powers
chose that moment to appear fresh from the shower. He’d disappeared as soon as
the fairy – Axel, what sort of a name was that for a fairy – had been
introduced. She turned her temper onto him looking so fresh and calm and edible
while she was frazzled and still in her nightclothes and desperate for her tea
and some earplugs. Powers smiled at the picture she made, like an angry
Valkyrie in his kitchen, but one that could be appeased with a pot of tea.

He reached
into a cupboard and withdrew a teapot, her favourite type of tea (leaves, not
bags) and a fine porcelain mug in exactly the style she liked best. Zora gazed
suspiciously at his offerings and at him, decided that it really didn’t matter
that he did that crawl in her head thing sometimes, and accepted them with a
small frown. Powers deduced, correctly, that this meant thank you but don’t
think it gets you off the hook for bringing this annoying person here and
smiled a wider smile.

Axel,
meanwhile, had continued telling Zora about his plan for her training. Powers
knew she hadn’t listened to a single word, but decided it wasn’t his business
and said nothing. While Zora fussed with her tea he got the coffee machine
going and waved a mug in the direction of Axel who accepted the wordless
invitation with a smile. When everyone was sitting at the table, and Zora had
drunk most of her first cup, Axel turned serious.

“Zora, we
have to try to cram years of training into only a few days here, and then
ongoing training on the road. It’s going to be very tough to have you ready.”
Axel glanced at Powers, but his expression was not accusatory for which Powers
was grateful. “I understand that you have not been made aware of your heritage
until just yesterday. The reasons were laudable so I am not displeased. However
it does make a problem for us.”

Powers
felt a small rush of relief at the words of Axel, and acknowledged to himself
that he had been concerned about the reactions of the fairies. Realising that
Axel was still talking he tuned back into the conversation.

“Of course
we the fairies knew that you were unaware of your heritage little Zora, and we
felt your strength. Your excursion yesterday merely confirmed your powers to
us.”

Zora
stared at Axel, transfixed. There had begun to emanate from him some sort of
glow. She squinted a little, trying to see more clearly. It was almost like a
silver shimmer that enveloped him. Like an aura, she realised. Did this mean
she could see auras now? Or only his? She shifted her gaze to Powers. Nope, he
was gorgeous and he had that citrus scent thing going on, but there was no
shimmer. Looking back at Axel she realised the shimmer was becoming stronger.
She didn’t need to squint to see it now. As she watched – completely ignoring
what Axel was saying – there seemed to be a surge in the shimmer so that for a
second it seemed almost solid. Zora jumped when a handsome silver staff
suddenly appeared on the table. The shimmer around Axel had gone, as though it
had been transformed into the staff that had almost knocked over her teapot.

She stared
at it, then looked at Powers. She was relieved to see he was looking rather
surprised at this addition to his table top. She looked back at Axel (really
her head needed to be on a swivel that was more efficient than her neck) just
in time to catch an odd look on his face. She couldn’t interpret it, but hey,
he was a fairy, she was no expert on fairy facial expressions. Axel picked up
the staff and then gazed at her.  He stared without speaking for so long that
Zora began to feel nervous and also wondered if she had a zit on her face or
something.

Finally he
spoke and the tension that had begun to build up dissipated. “Little Zora, I
believe you just saw a shimmer emanate from me, is that correct?”

Zora
stared in surprise, this was unexpected. Surely Powers had seen it too? She
glanced at him but he was wearing an expression of incomprehension on his face.
It did not sit well on him and she was sure she had not seen it before. 
Probably it would be the last time so she should savour the moment. Belatedly
realising Axel was waiting none too patiently for her reply and he was after
all a magical being, she pulled her attention back to the question.

“You mean
that silver shimmer that surrounded you?”

She felt
Powers start and tried to stop her mind from feeling satisfaction at this. Then
realised that he should have sensed from her what she saw. But he clearly had
not.

Axel
tapped the staff gently on the table to pull her attention back to him. “You
saw the colour also? You have more power than we realised. No human has seen
our power in action in generations, and I don’t think any have seen the colour.
What you saw was me invoking my power to bring this staff from the palace. The
aura you saw was silver for two reasons. One, I was calling on a silver object
and two, the main colour of my aura of power is silver. I am silver, my mother
the Queen is gold. All other fairies are colours specific to their main
talents.”

Zora put
her teacup down quickly before she dropped it, and gaped at him in what she
just knew was an unladylike manner. His mother the
Queen
? He was a
Prince
?
The Prince of the Fairies, fairy royalty was sitting across a battered wooden
table from her, waving a silver staff in her general direction, which he had
just produced out of thin air. Her life was totally a paranormal television
series now.

Axel
tapped the staff on the table top and Zora managed to prevent herself from
hyperventilating. She picked up her cup and took a big mouthful. It was going
cold; she would have to make a fresh pot she thought absently.

“I have
summoned my staff because we the fairies have reached a decision regarding you little
Zora.”

Zora felt
herself begin hyperventilating again. Surely he didn’t plan to smite her with
that staff. Powers snorted beside her, so she guessed he was in her head again
and if he was snorting that meant there was a good chance she didn’t need to
worry about being smited, smitted, smitten, whatever.

“Because
of the events of your childhood you have no understanding and no training
regarding your abilities. We cannot, no matter how hard we work you, possibly
train you fully – physically at any rate - in the limited time we have
available. And we the fairies believe that this is an extremely powerful and
dangerous werewolf. To enable you to be at your full powers, and to give you
the best possible chance of success, we will have to resort to methods other
than the traditional.”

He tapped
the staff thoughtfully on the table. “This is the same staff that I used to
give the powers to your ancestress, I will now use it to enable you to access
your powers. Then our training sessions will be focused on honing your
abilities and not teaching them to you.”

Zora
stared at him in complete disbelief. Axel, tall handsome in the prime of his
life Axel was really hundreds of years old? And he was going to smite her with
that staff and boom! she was going to know everything about her ability? That
didn’t make sense.

She was
probably going to regret it but she had to ask, “So you can teach me everything
I need to know with a wave of your magic staff there? Then why go through the
years of training? Why not just show up on a person’s doorstep, do your magic
thing and jobs cool?”

Axel
smiled gently at her. “Such impatience, so human a reaction. The reasons are
many. If you grow up with this knowledge, it becomes second nature to you. If
you do the years of training, you become strong and your reactions become
automatic. If you learn slowly, the layers of who you are build up strongly
inside you. You are a better person, a better fighter, a more instinctive defender.
Naturally I have the skills to imbue you with all that you will need. However
we will need to work on your implementation so that you can reach for the
skills you need automatically in a crisis.”

Zora
absorbed that, and wished that her mother had told her something so that she
was not the clueless person that she was now. She shook her hair back, and
remembered she was sitting in her pyjamas, in front of
Royalty
. “Well
can I at least shower and change first, before you smite me with that and I
turn into this defender person?”

Axel
smiled a wider smile. “Of course my dear. I am hoping Powers here will cook me
a big breakfast and you should eat also. It is a much bigger undertaking than I
think you understand.”

Zora felt
a shiver run through her at his words, but she shrugged it away. Pushing her
chair back she began to head off to the shower, then turned back to Powers,
“Scrambled eggs with chives and parsley and two slices of buttered toast thanks
Powers.” Smiling angelically she sashayed out of the kitchen and went to make
herself presentable.

An hour
later Zora was not feeling anywhere near ready for this ceremony. She would
have preferred another pot of tea, maybe some more toast because she was still
starving. She supposed it was because of all the supernatural vibes swirling
around the house now Axel was there as well. They were on the veranda, and Powers
had promised coffee and cake when the ceremony was complete. Zora was thinking along
the lines of something more alcoholic, in fact she could do with a shot of
something to steady her nerves right now.

Axel
turned from contemplating the view towards the beach and studied Zora
carefully. “Come closer little Zora, and do not worry. You will feel nothing
but an infusion of power followed by a sense of well-being. All I am doing is
unlocking your abilities so that you can access them all. You are strong,
possibly the strongest of all, and so when you are united with your abilities
you will feel maybe a little like superwoman.”

He smiled
gently at her, as suddenly nervous, Zora approached on tentative feet. She
stood in front of him, and bowed her head at his imperious gesture. Axel
touched her head and each shoulder with the tip of the staff and then stepped
back. Zora looked up, surprised.

“Is that
it?” she asked incredulously.

Axel
sniffed. “We are fairies, the original magical beings; we do not need words or
frippery for our magic to work. We are not witches and warlocks, tied to their
rituals and spells. You will feel the effects soon, best you sit down and drink
your coffee and eat your cake. You will need the extra energy.” While he was
speaking his aura shimmered briefly as he sent the staff back to wherever it
came from.

Zora blinked,
and sat, just as Powers appeared with a tray laden with cake and coffee for
all. Zora still really wanted more tea, but coffee was good too. She didn’t
feel any different and wondered if the bespelling was a dud. Maybe the staff
was too old, didn’t work anymore, or had developed a glitch from its unusual
travelling mode.

Still, the
cake was rich moist chocolate, with white chocolate icing. Truly death by
chocolate cake. And Powers did make a very good coffee. Zora began breaking up
the cake into little pieces on her plate. Powers just shook his head as he
watched, Axel rolled his eyes in a most unroyal gesture. Zora did not notice,
she was distracted by a faint buzzing sound in her ears, and strange sparkling
lights in front of her eyes. Was this what the fairy meant? Felt more like the
onset of a migraine.