Enchanted No More

She didn’t know enough about this deadly dimension, would have to research family records to save him. But she’d have to be where he was to haul him out.

Shivers ran through her. She couldn’t bear this. Bad enough that only one of her family had survived the battle. Horrible that he’d been maimed. Worst of all that he’d condemned her as she had blamed herself, bitterly lashed out and cut her guilt deep.

She couldn’t lose him. Not the very last of her family. She must save him.

Then she sensed something else around him. A flickering, fluttering blip. How could that be?

Jenni’s breath stopped as the thing, some other magical being—a shadleech?—swarmed around Rothly, blocking his aura, hung on him batlike. It was here in the interdimension. It—perhaps more than one initially—had trapped him as much as his own crippled power. The shadleech sucked away his magical energy.

Worry gnawed on her like the shadleech on Rothly. She must find out exactly when he’d entered the mist, started so ill-fated a mission. Find him!

She lifted her foot. Another mew and a tug from Chinook, Jenni’s tiny anchor, reminding her that she didn’t dare step away from the place she’d entered.

Time to leave the interdimension, search and find where Rothly had entered the gray mist. Haul him out.

Hope she could save him and not die herself.

CHAPTER 4

JENNI DREW IN A BREATH, STICKY WITH THE strange misty atmosphere of the interdimension, said the spell to leave. Her limbs trembled and her legs gave out and she stumbled until she fell onto the soft bed. She shook not only from the exertion, but also from fear for Rothly.

Fear for herself, too. She couldn’t save Rothly herself, needed to have the help of the Lightfolk to battle the shadleeches. The last time she’d trusted the Lightfolk her whole family had died.

Chinook hopped onto the bed and settled onto her stomach and it was even harder to breathe.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in, Hartha.” Holding Chinook, Jenni panted as she scooted up against the headboard.

The brownie woman set a laptop tray of thick and hearty stew before her. There was more herbal tea, the stuff to build up her energy.

“You weren’t gone long,” Hartha said, some curiosity in her voice. “Less than a quarter hour.”

“Long enough,” Jenni said. There was fresh bread and not from the local deli. Hartha had baked it the night before. Fresh sweet cream butter that didn’t come from the cheese shop. More and more the magical way of doing things was overtaking the human customs Jenni’d lived by for so long.

“We have thought how to repay you for all your kindnesses. We know you want a sunroom and will add one to the house when you are gone,” Hartha said.

Jenni stared, thought of all the permits, shrugged. The sunroom might very well go up overnight. When they noticed, none of her neighbors would say anything to the authorities. People with magic gravitated to Mystic Circle. Not that she’d ever spoken openly about magic or magical heritages with her neighbors. “Sure.” She cleared her throat, did a half bow. “Thank you.”

It took Jenni the rest of the morning to arrange for time off and the journey—first to save Rothly, then to complete the mission for the Lightfolk.

She told the game developers she worked for that she was going on a research trip for the next big expansion issue that they were designing and that would go live in the autumn. She also suggested the idea of including flying horses as optional mounts for players. That made the devs dither enough about the work it would take that they’d be glad she was gone.

The brownies and she discussed her mission and she drew up documents, then she inspected the house from attic to basement. The squirrel holes in the attic were gone, the eaves repaired. In the basement she found that her half crawl space was no longer “half.” There was a new and suspicious-looking polished wood door set in the wall fronting the cul-de-sac.

Jenni decided not to dress in a professional suit; instead she tried an arty look for her appointment with the Lightfolk, feeling more comfortable. Feeling like she might be able to hold her own.

She finally finished the espresso from the coffee shop just before she hopped the bus to downtown. She could transport herself magically with great effort, but she sure wouldn’t be able to handle a meeting with manipulative Lightfolk afterward and she wanted all her wits as keen as an elven blade.

As the bus wove the five miles into downtown Denver, the sky darkened from the crystalline blue of bitter cold to thick clouds of bruised gray. Humidity spread through the air with the taste of snow and Jenni shivered. Wet cold sank into her like nothing else.

She disembarked with many others in LoDo, lower downtown, at the stop for the free Sixteenth Street mall shuttle toward the business district and the Capitol.

“Got any change, lady?” Coins rattled in a paper cup. Jenni glanced at the guy, her hand dipping into her red trench-coat pocket, pulling out change. She swallowed hard. He was…grotesque, with disproportional head and limbs, growths on his face and hands, a yellowish bad-kidney tinge to his skin. The scent of stale bubblegum rose from him.

She shouldn’t stare, but couldn’t help herself. He grinned a broken-and-missing-toothed smile and Jenni’s fingers opened, dropping coins. He caught them deftly with his cup. People streamed around her.

Jindesfarne. It was less the audible sound of her name than a feeling, not quite a mental touch on her mind. Not from the homeless man before her.

She looked across the street and saw a…tall, broad-shouldered being of gray shadows watching her. Magic surrounded him so she knew no one else noticed him.

A hood obscured his features, though she thought they were fine—as fine as the most beautiful Lightfolk. Frissons slithered down her spine and she knew she wasn’t looking at an elf, but a great one of the Darkfolk. Her throat tightened. She would not answer.

You should reconsider this mission for the Lightfolk. Now that he spoke more than a word, Jenni heard rich undertones in the gorgeous voice, seduction. She was glad she couldn’t see his eyes, a gaze that would snag and seduce her into anything.

She couldn’t reconsider. She had to save her brother. No Darkfolk would understand that. They cared for nothing more than their personal plans, one and all. But her inner alarms were sounding. Don’t contradict him. Maybe, Jenni mentally projected.

The figure laughed, showing white wicked teeth. You lie.

To her horror he broke apart before her eyes, into tiny flittering beings that had comprised him. Shadleeches! Most winged away, but one came and fastened on her wrist, claws piercing her skin, hurting! Sucking her magic from her. She flung it off, stopping a cry by clamping her hand over her mouth. Her heart thumped so hard it was all she could hear. People walked by her faster.

The man had not been real, but a construct. How? Clawlike fingers clamped around her ankle. The beggar. He was the real Dark one. He’d created the other, distracted her.

She looked down into wet orbs of eyes, wrenched her gaze away. Shudders ran through her.

My shadleeches are pretty things, the great Dark one said, in that beautiful voice. His fingers tightened, grinding into her flesh and against her bone.

Fear flared and she used it, used her magic to flash heat to her ankle, burn, burn, burn!

The “beggar’s” shriek was beyond regular hearing. She was free! She stumbled, limped, saw the bronze doors of a nearby bank and rushed to them. She barreled through the doors and as they slowly shut, a glimpse revealed the Dark one’s ungainly body cloaked in an “invisible-to-mortals” illusion hanging in midair. His bulbous stomach drooped, his eyes blazed red. “Mistweaver blood is like the finest wine.” A long tongue swept his slashlike mouth. He vanished.

Inwardly quivering, she sank onto a marble bench in the bank’s atrium. His words drummed in her ears. He’d hurt her family, perhaps killed them, and he was back.

Since people were staring at her here, too, she sat stiffly, regulating her breathing from ragged panting. She studied the marks on her wrist from the shadleech. The beggar-Dark-one referred to his shadleeches. Were they all his, or only that bunch? She thought the latter. And the more she thought of him, the more power she gave him. Fear coated her mouth.

She still had the Lightfolk to deal with, had to decide how much to tell them—about a lot of things. She couldn’t afford fear. Sending adrenaline energy and a touch of fire magic to her wrist and her ankle, she let the marks fade away, scanned her body for any dark poison and found nothing except a small weakness in her magic.

It had not been a strong attack. Too many mortals around for that—since she sensed he’d wanted to gut her and feast on her blood and magic. His voice had lost the illusion of beauty, too, crackling and breaking and screeching. He might have been beautiful in all ways once, but evil magic worked on a being.

But he was a great Dark one and she was a halfling. Nothing could change that. She would need the Lightfolk to fight him. So much for the vague idea of saving her brother and refusing to consider the rest of the mission, though breaking her word could kill her and her brother just as dead.

She was truly trapped, and she’d better think smart.

Her pocket computer chimed. Half an hour before her appointment…she’d left very early. She could spare a few minutes to gather herself, sink into a little meditative trance. She had to push the attack aside or the Lightfolk would easily manipulate her at their meeting—she’d have no control over the quest to save Rothly.

So she centered herself and breathed and felt magic surrounding her. Significantly more magic in down-town Denver than there had been six months ago. Good, concentrate on that.

She left the bank and walked, stretched all her senses, let loose the extra one that gauged magic, tasted it, and knew magic rippled like minor waves from a central point.