Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria Book 3) (9 page)

Two men carrying a bodybag between them paused to gawk. Logan turned his cold stare on them, and they suddenly decided they had better places to be.

“You’d be surprised how well the scary assassin face works on women,” he whispered against her neck, his hot breath dissolving into her skin.

“Actually, no. I’m not surprised. I know my sex.”

Green fire burned in his eyes.

“Uh, you know what I mean,” she said hurriedly.

“You’re nervous.” He drew his knife.

“Nah, I know you’re as harmless as a kitten.”

“Not quite.”

He spun and launched his knife down the hall toward the two Disposal agents. His blade sank in between the eyes of the monster that had eaten its way through the back end of the bodybag. The two agents jumped in shock, then ran like hell into the lab room, the bodybag jiggling between them.

“I do see the appeal, scary assassin.” Alex arched her back against the wall.

“You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“But you like dangerous games, Slayer.” She slid her arms around his back, peeling the bottom edge of his shirt off his skin.

For the moment, the hallway was empty. His eyes darted to the video camera mounted at the ceiling. “Here?”

“Scared?”

“No. I was thinking of your modesty.”

Alex laughed out loud. “You must have me confused with someone else.” She nibbled on his neck, massaging his skin gently between her teeth.

His hands tightened around her. “Taste me.” His magic quickened.

“Oh, I will.” She slipped out beneath his arm, winking at him. “Later.”

He frowned. “This was all a game.”

“Of course,” she said brightly. “And you started it by trying to seduce me with your knife-throwing skills. All I did was take the game to its natural conclusion.”

He growled at her.

“Later, honey.” She squeezed his butt. “Right now we have work to do.”

Logan caught her hand. “This means war, Vigilante.” He stared at her, something between desire and fury smoldering in his eyes.

“Save the pillow talk for later. I want to see if Stan has any more cookies.” Then she turned and walked toward the door that led to the Disposal labs.

The rooms were even busier than they had been last time. Disposal agents had gathered in pairs around most of the tables, poking at the monsters they’d collected. The two guys Alex and Logan had seen earlier in the hall stood side-by-side, a furry monster sprawled out on the tabletop before them. About four feet tall and covered in a copious coat of white fur, it looked like a miniature Abominable Snowman. Logan’s knife still protruded from the beast’s forehead. The two men stared down at the weapon as though it would bite if they tried to remove it. As soon as they saw Logan, their heads dropped, and they began counting the creature’s toes like it was the most interesting activity in the world.

“I think you scared them,” Alex commented to Logan after they’d passed the table.

“I saved them. That beast had broken through one end of the bag, and it was about to jump up and bite them.”

“Do you want me to talk to them to explain that?”

“No, it’s easier when people are scared of me.”

She snickered.

“Besides,” he added with a sly smile. “It wouldn’t do any good. They’re scared of you too.”

“Of me? Why?”

“They were with the Disposal team that cleaned up after the first mission we did for Monster Cleanup.”

First mission, first mission… Alex tried to jolt her memory. There had been so many missions.

“The one with all the manticores.”

“Oh. I see. Yeah, that would do it.”

Alex and Logan had been sent out to subdue one manticore. That one manticore had turned out to have five buddies. Taking out one manticore was difficult. Taking out six was…well, Alex was usually more than ready to spit in the face of any opponent, but she had no desire to repeat that particular challenge. The Disposal team had arrived to find them standing in a field strewn with debris and hacked manticore. Half of the Disposal agents had lost their lunch promptly upon exiting the van.

“Hey, Stan. Miss me?” Alex called out as they stopped in front of his desk.

The head of Disposal looked up from the dead vampire bat he was studying. He grimaced when he saw Alex.

“Back so soon?” he asked, setting down his knife to pick up his tablet.

“We were gone for hours.”

“You’ve had a busy few hours.” His eyes scanned the tablet’s screen. “How can one person create so much chaos in so short of a timespan?”

“Well, technically I was with Logan, so that’s two people.”

The hard gleam in his eyes told her he was not appeased.

“Hey, this isn’t my fault. I wasn’t the one to let out all those monsters. And I didn’t melt those buildings either.”

“And the barn?”

“Some crazy supernatural-hating extremists blew it up while we were inside.”

“How about the bees? You didn’t even get me an intact sample.”

“Yeah, I was too busy fighting for my life to worry about samples I didn’t even know you wanted.”

“You know me, Alex,” Stan said. “I always want samples.”

“All right, so that was impossible in this case. There were over fifty bees. I didn’t ask them all to attack me at once.”

“Actually, you did,” Logan told her. “When we arrived on the scene to find the swarm of bugs, you shot magic at them, swung your sword around, and shouted, ‘come and get me, you overgrown bumblebees!’.”

“Oh, right. That does sound like me.”

Stan expelled a martyred sigh. “You can create more messes in one night than others can in a month.”

“It’s a rare talent.”

Stan grumbled something under his breath. Alex thought she caught the words ‘mercenary’ and ‘liability’ muddled in there somewhere.

“Believe it or not, I’m not here to reminisce about old jobs,” she told him.

“I’m all out of cookies.”

Damn. “I actually need to pick your brain.”

His eyes darted to her sword. “Not literally, I hope.”

“Only if you require motivation.” She flashed her teeth at him.

Stan paled and scooted backwards.

“I was just kidding. Geez.” She frowned. “Is this about the manticores?”

“Alex,” Stan said, his voice strained. “This is about every job you have ever done for Monster Cleanup. You are the best monster hunter I’ve ever known, but I have to tell you that you scare the hell out of me.”

“But not him?” She glanced at Logan.

“He’s not half as scary as you are,” said Stan. “He glowers and stalks around with that stone-cold expression of his. He doesn’t act like a normal person. Not like you.”

“So you’re telling me that you’re scared of me because I act normal?”

“Yes. You smile and joke and laugh with people just like any normal person. Then a battle begins, and it’s like a switch flips inside of your head. You have no mercy, no humanity, no anything left. There’s only the killer.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? Alex, I’ve cleaned up after your messes. I’ve seen the bodies, the perfect cuts made without thought or hesitation.”

“They’re monsters,” Alex protested. “Not people.”

“Can you honestly say that it’s any different when you fight people?”

“I…” She stopped. She’d killed the Sultan and Shadowstalker, burned each of them to ashes with dragon fire. And she hadn’t hesitated, not even for a second.

“You are a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Stan told her. “A funny, snarky, pretty woman on the outside. But on the inside, you are a cold-blooded killer.”

Alex’s chest tightened.

“That’s why people are scared of you. They know at any moment, even in the middle of a joke, that switch inside of you might flip and you’d kill everyone—”

“Enough.” Logan’s voice cracked like a whip. “You will keep your ridiculous notions to yourself.”

Stan’s mouth clamped shut.

“Alex and I believe the mayhem tonight was merely a distraction for some greater plan. The escaped monsters, the possessed plants, the supernaturals going berserk—that was all to keep us busy, to keep us from seeing what was really going on.”

“Which is?” Stan asked.

“A thief is after something. A number of somethings, actually.”

“The thief has more power than any supernatural I’ve ever faced—or heard of,” Alex told Stan, trying to keep her voice steady. She wasn’t the monster he’d described. She repeated that to herself a few more times, but it didn’t help. “Do you know what kind of supernatural can melt buildings with green fire, disappear into thin air, and control ghosts?”

“Something I’d not want to meet.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, Alex, I don’t know. Are you sure all the thefts were perpetrated by the same person?”

“I felt the same magic at all scenes. Or lack of magic.”

“It sounds like someone straight out of hell.”

“You’re not helping,” she told him.

“I don’t know anyone or anything that can do all of that.” He swiped his finger across his tablet. “I see four reported thefts for tonight along the lines of what you described. You were at two of the scenes. There was one earlier this evening. It happened around the time you two were fighting the bees. Let me see.” His finger danced across his tablet’s screen. “The safe was pillaged. Everything was taken, so we don’t know which of the objects the thief was really after.”

“Melted walls?” Alex asked.

“No, the building is made of wood, not concrete. The door was ripped from its hinges.”

“Like in the new town hall,” Alex said to Logan.

“Witnesses saw a cloaked figure enter the building, but no one ever came out,” Stan told them.

“What about the second incident?” Logan asked.

“A storage building near the airport. The team arrived at a quarter to nine. There was no one at the scene. The door had been torn clear off. The whole safe was gone.”

Alex turned to Logan. “Quarter to nine. That’s when we were at the town hall. The scene was fresh. We couldn’t have missed the thief by more than a few minutes. How did he travel so quickly from there all the way to the airport?”

“Have you considered that your thief is multiple people?” Stan asked. “Like a team of evil super villains.”

“The witnesses from Magic Bean only saw one person,” Alex said.

“If this is a team of thieves, they could have sent a different person to each place,” Logan replied.

“That still doesn’t explain how the thief or thieves keep disappearing into thin air.”

“We’ve seen that before,” he reminded her. “On Lake Zurich. The Convictionites used glyphs to teleport off the boat.”

“We didn’t find any glyphs at any of the scenes,” she said. “They would have lingered on for at least a while before fading out.”

“Unless they were burned out like all the rest of the magic in those buildings.” Logan looked at Stan. “Any other ideas?”

“No, and to be perfectly blunt, I’m far too busy right now cleaning up a city that’s gone to hell to waste time on a ghost hunt with you two. If I learn anything, I’ll tell you. Right now, I have to work, but once things have settled down, I’m going home.”

“He’s right, Logan. Let’s go home. I’m starving.”

“Ok.” Logan wrapped his arm around her. “Send Alex the other two reports,” he told Stan.

The head of Disposal bristled at the command, but he swiped a few times across his screen. A moment later, Alex’s phone chimed.

“You’ve got it,” Stan said. “Now scram. I’ve got work to do.”

“Thanks,” Alex called out as she and Logan turned to leave.

Stan didn’t even acknowledge her.

* * *

“Don’t listen to anything Stan said,” Logan told her as he drove his car out of the garage. “He’s wrong. You are not a monster.”

“Are you so sure? Maybe I became a monster-hunting mercenary because I needed an outlet for my violent urges.”

“You are not driven by bloodlust.” He set his hand over hers. “You are driven by your need to help people.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Then let me be sure for the both of us.”

“I wish it were that easy.” She squeezed his hand. “I really do.”

They didn’t say anything more for the rest of the drive, not until the car slid in through the opening gate of their rented house and turned onto the circle drive to park behind a violently red sports car. It looked like Marek and Eva were back. Naomi’s car was still gone.

Their gothic castle was as big, bad, and imposing as ever. At least the living room was cozy, though. A bed of flames crackled in the fireplace. Opposite it, Marek and Eva sat side-by-side on the sofa, a red fluffy blanket spread across both of them. Their fingers tapped in furious patterns across the game controllers in their hands. Two fairies in skimpy leather outfits battled it out on the television screen mounted above the fireplace. The female fairy launched into the air and shot a stream of sparkling pink dust at the male fairy. He took a dizzy step to the side, then collapsed to the mossy ground.

“We said no Fairy Dust,” Marek protested as the female fairy did a victory dance over her fallen foe’s sleeping body.

“No,
you
said no Fairy Dust.” Eva’s laugh meowed like a litter of happy kittens. Her magic smelled of honey and roses. “After you wasted all of your magic fighting that silly giant carnivorous plant.”

Marek pulled his fingers through his spiked black hair. “It was by no means a waste. I won a new pair of boots by killing that plant.”

“A pair of boots that serves no purpose.”

“They look fantastic.”

Eva snorted. “My dear Marek. It’s always fashion before function with you. That’s why I’ve managed to knock you out the last three times.”

“I’m still warming up.”

“Oh?” Eva arched her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. They were raven-black tonight, which contrasted nicely with her shimmering gold eyeshadow. Her pencil-straight black hair fell to her jawline. She was definitely channeling the Queen of the Nile. “And how long will it take you to ‘warm up’?”

“I don’t know.” Magic sparked in his dark eyes. “Come here, and we’ll find out.” His hand closed around her wrist, and he pulled her on top of him.

Laughing, Eva pounded him hard in the chest, but he didn’t let go. Her feet were kicking with the power of a swimmer, rocking the side table—and the tea tray on top of it. The two cups of tea rattled with every kick.