Magic Awakening: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spirit War Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Author's Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  To the friends in Room 115 in Budapest—Matt, Neil, Rob, Jan, Claus, Emily, and Deanne—for providing awesome stories that inspired this absurd series.

  Author's Note

  “That’s a hell of a trip.”

  It only took six words (seven, if you don’t like contractions) from my friend upon my return from a one-month vacation in Europe to inspire the series that lies in the pages ahead of you. It’s a series that answers the day-old question, “What happens when you mix a childhood of intense Catholicism, an overseas trip of intense traveling and partying, and an intense passion for hilarious yet deep heroines?”

  The answer is you get The Spirit War Chronicles, a series that will follow Sonya Ferguson for five books before going toward a few other stories within this particular universe.

  But to put it in such simplistic terms would be an injustice to my favorite part of this universe—the characters, especially Sonya.

  It’s become (for the better) a trope in Hollywood to add a badass heroine who saves the day and shows no fear in doing so (think Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jyn Erso in Rogue One, other female leads in other film franchises, etc.). I’m in love with this trope for the simple reason that it’s good to see girls kick ass in IMAX. But the danger in film is that it’s easy to settle for glistening special effects, intense action sequences, and, especially in the case of women, attractive but shallow characters. Books can remedy that problem—books have a chance to show inner monologues, emotions, and passion in a poetic way that movies just can’t replicate.

  But the key word is “can.” They don’t automatically. A woman that looks good on the cover, shoots up a bunch of monsters, saves a city, and goes home with a hot man but exits without any growth, emotional self-reflection, or actual signs of personal strength is no different than the girl in film who sports an assault rifle, cleavage, and somehow perfectly combed hair during a battle.

  As I outlined this book, I knew that, yes, some of these tropes would happen in my book. It’s not really a spoiler to say that there are demons, there’s a city that needs saving, and there’s a romantic interest in the series. But even with hitting all these surface-level tropes, there’s a reason I am hopeful that I turned Sonya into a complex, relatable human being.

  And that’s because she is based on a real human being, one whom I met on my travels through Europe.

  It’s rare that you come across a person, man or woman, like this girl, who can go from comforting a stranger struggling through a relationship breakup in a foreign city to challenging you to a Jagerbomb chugging competition (and then beat you) in a nightclub—all in the same night. It’s rare that you would meet someone who will talk with you until 6 a.m., and then join you for a run at 10 a.m. through the urban sprawl of Budapest because she promised she would four hours earlier. Though this girl is not a CIA agent in real life (I think), nor has she fought demons in Europe (this I’m also pretty sure of), those details are periphery, elements to enhance a story, not define it. The things that define a story are your characters, characters who you’d want to do a shot with, cry with, laugh until your abs hurt with, and travel the world with. And the only way you can do that with a character is by getting to know them on an intensely, almost frighteningly, deep level.

  To be sure, not everything in Sonya’s story is exactly what this girl experienced. But the Spirit War Chronicles are not a written government report on my experiences in Europe and my relationship with everyone I met—it’s a tale that reflects the friendships, the romantic pursuits, the hilarious encounters, the fights, the nights out, the hungover mornings, and the unbreakable bonds. It just so happens to involve the forces of heaven and hell and some creative licensing in bringing those elements to life.

  My hope is that as you read this and the next four books, even though such a story can never actually take place, you realize just how real it is.

  Chapter 1

  A fiery lake full of boiling red water, screaming souls, faces contorted with pain and grief, and a massive, skyscraper-sized demon stood in front of me. The demon, with scaly, cobra-like skin, glaring red eyes, wings stretched beyond my vision, and a sword large enough to destroy a city block, stared down at me, its movements causing stones to hail from the sky. I leaned forward on my white Pegasus, my fists clutching the reins, and my trusted guns, Ebony and Ivory, on my hips. The demon grumbled as I held my ground, determined not to give any indication of fear—even as I nervously felt like I’d met my match.

  “Sonya Ferguson!” the demon roared. “Your soul is mine. The rise of hell shall begin!”

  The demon raised its sword, and I looked back. I saw a rocky trail behind me, covered in red pebbles and clay, littered with skeletons of both humans and other beasts I could not—and, frankly, didn’t care to—identify. As much as I loved Ebony and Ivory, I had to listen to my pragmatic side, which yelled, “run!”

  I launched the Pegasus backward, galloping past both the skeletons and wounded demons with scars that looked fatal—but then again, I guess that term meant something entirely different here. The clop-clop clop-clop of my Pegasus gave me hope that I might outrun and escape the Empire State Building-sized monstrosity.

  But the demon just laughed, its guffaw echoing as if inside my head. I yanked the reins of the Pegasus to the right just as the gray sword shattered the middle of the pathway, producing such violent tremors that I nearly fell off my ride. This was not acceptable. I might have been pragmatic in running, but I wasn’t going to flee forever. I had to let this asshole know I could fight too.

  In one swift motion, I pulled out Ebony and Ivory, my trusted M1911 black and white pistols, and twirled them on my index fingers as I shifted on the Pegasus. Aim for the face? It was a far shot, even for my favorite weapons. As much satisfaction as I would’ve taken seeing that demon bleed and cry, it would’ve wasted ammo. For the wrist, holding the sword? Pragmatic, possible, and potent. Light ‘em up!

  Holding the guns on their side, my wrists horizontal to the ground, I yanked on the trigger of my trusted arms, firing dozens of magically-enhanced rounds at the demon. The monster cried as it dropped its sword from about forty feet up. I continuously shouted, “Hell yeah, hell!” until I realized I had to again yank my Pegasus away once I had quickly placed Ebony and Ivory in their holsters.

  This time, however, the Pegasus didn’t do quite as good a job at banking right as last time, and I rolled on the ground at the too-sharp turn. Damn winged horse.

  My back felt like Floyd Mayweather had used it as a punching bag, my right leg went numb, and blood poured out of my hands. I got to my knees, dusting myself off, aggravated at the turn of events. I had to find a way out of here, and so far, the trail looked exactly as it had the couple of hundred feet before.

  I gazed at the path and realized, to my horror, the trail never did seem to end. A shot back at the demon confirmed I had gone nowhere. Whatever place in hell I had reached, whateve
r circle I had descended to, it had no exit. And no entrance, either—I honestly had no idea how the hell I’d here.

  “You can’t run, Sonya,” the demon said, its voice deeper than a tall baritone singer. “I thought you had learned that by now.”

  It raised its hand, and a ball of black energy began to grow in its hands. I tried to run, but it felt like something slimy yet sharp, like a thorn covered in mucus, had me pinned to the ground. I didn’t dare look away. I would stare this dangerous situation down until the end. I refused to call it death—I made a living off of escaping death and dangerous situations for the CIA. But I had to be real, taking down threats from Mother Russia or those who swore allegiance to ISIS seemed like grabbing a kitten by the collar compared to this moment.

  A massive roar came from above, one that I vaguely recognized. I glanced up and felt a sudden surge of hope—my dragon had come.

  A sharp-nosed, black-scaled, yellow-eyed dragon roared, its face on a straight dive for me. The hope I had vanished. I did not recognize this dragon.

  “Sonya!”

  I breathed heavily, reaching for my guns as the dragon accelerated. I pointed Ebony at the dragon and Ivory at the demon. OK, I might actually die, but damnit, I wasn’t going to die without giving these guys face lifts.

  “Sonya!”

  The dragon opened its mouth. The demon reared its head back.

  “Sonya!”

  My body violently trembled as I awoke, shaking my head. When my vision came back, I wasn’t in hell. There was no demon. There was no dragon.

  Instead, to my left, was an airplane window, the kind too small to see anything out of but with enough glass to make your shoulder uncomfortably warm. On my right, my older brother, Brady, looked at me with an amused look that masked the concern he had.

  “Christ, you done shaking and groaning like you’re back in the Middle East?” he said, his smile now trying to comfort instead of playfully tease. “You looked like you were trying to reenact—”

  “For the record, you only wish you had the dreams as vivid as I have,” I interrupted as I pushed my legs forward, then cursed when I remembered that leg room on airplanes wasn’t even enough for toddlers. “It’s a sign of intelligence, you know, that my dreams are as awesome as mine. It shows an active imagination, creativity, and—”

  “Yeah, yeah, and it also shows that you know how to make our neighbors gawk at us.”

  “Since when do we ever care about that?”

  Brady considered the statement, shrugged, and looked down at his phone, mindlessly going through his music playlists. I knew I had him, because while Brady never liked to admit defeat, the shrug was his lifelong signal of his surrender and one that always made me victoriously smirk.

  I turned back to the window and gazed out. An endless blue sky stared back at me, and if I sat up just enough and glanced down, I could once more see the Atlantic Ocean some seven miles beneath me glittering. It wasn’t anything different from what I had seen before I fell asleep a few hours earlier after leaving Boston. But knowing where I was heading made this the most precious view I’d ever had.

  My first time in Europe on vacation. My first vacation from the CIA in God knows how long—probably ever, at least since joining it at 18 years old. My first long vacation with my brother since… well, since we’d been on our own.

  I tried not to dwell on the last point too much. It saddened me too much to think about my mother and pissed me off too much to think about my father—whoever he was.

  I instead focused on the things we’d get to do while in Europe and our first stop, Amsterdam. We’d get to see all the new cultures. I’d get to hear new languages. I’d get to explore all of the historical monuments and churches—the Vatican, Oktoberfest, the Colosseum, the Berlin Wall, just to name a few—I read about in school or learned from my brother. Strangely, I even looked forward to the hostel experience—I had never gone to college and lived in a dorm, and whenever my brother talked about his one semester there, he talked about the friendships and parties that came just because you lived with a dozen other people in one hallway. Maybe by the end of the second day, I’d hate the lack of privacy, but I handled discomfort better than anyone I knew outside of the CIA, so I considered privacy a luxury, not a right.

  But the hopeful future kept getting interrupted by my mind lurching back to the dream I’d just experienced. It seemed almost too vivid to be a dream. I could feel myself grabbing Ebony and Ivory—guns which, as I quickly confirmed, I still had. Thank you, federal agent status. I could hear the screams of the dying, the damned, the condemned, the “sinners.” I could still see the scaly demon and the dark dragon. It also wasn’t the first time I’d had that dream, though this time around it seemed far more vivid than before. The sensations just seemed that much stronger and that much more realistic. I’d had other dreams involving demons… but then again, I’d had some bizarre dreams involving everything from werewolves to angels.

  I softly laughed and told myself to get a grip. Demons weren’t real. Religion was more cultural than it was factual. Dragons seemed like the most likely thing to exist, biologically and scientifically speaking. But until someone found the eggs of Godzilla in the Pacific Ocean or the bones of Smaug somewhere in Europe, I would believe they were just a figment of the imagination—an awesome, kickass, I-wish-they-were-real figment, but imaginary all the same. And if demons were real, they were only real like depression was—a mental condition that had no defined physical form.

  I took my black-rimmed glasses off to rub the sleep out of my eyes as the “bing” sound of the flight deck came through.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our final descent into Amsterdam. At this time, all electronic devices must…”

  I tuned the flight deck out. Perks of the job and title, I thought with a smile. Suddenly, to my right, Brady cursed as he looked at his phone. Football. Silly.

  “Aww, I’m sorry, did the Jets lose again?” I said, teasing him about his favorite NFL team.

  Brady didn’t look at me, his eyes locked on his phone, but instead murmured, “It’s so stupid. The refs always have it out for us, and I’m utterly convinced that there’s a Gang Green bias in the league. You watch. Look, look at this penalty discrepancy!”

  I looked to appease Brady but just glossed over the screen. I just waited for the endless diatribes that I would smile and laugh at. I swore I heard more conspiracy theories from Brady about the NFL than I did from the internet about the CIA.

  “You could use a drink, methinks,” I said when he finally finished ranting a few minutes later after he finally admitted that the refs alone could not have manufactured a 19-0 loss.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t get one, Miss I’m Finally Legal in Europe,” he said.

  “That’s because unlike you, Mister I Still Party Like I’m in College, I’m waiting until we get to Amsterdam. And in any case, we’re not going there first for the alcohol. We’re going there for the specialty that we need a month to purge.”

  Again, the shrug. Again, the victorious smile from me.

  “You think space cakes will help you get over Real Madrid losing?”

  “For the record, it’s pronounced Ree-Al, like the name, not real like a real person. And no, but I also am smart enough to not attach my happiness to a team that always chokes right when things look promising.”

  “Cold,” Brady said, but even he had an acknowledging smile. “You’re buying your own first round.”

  “At about five euros for a space cake? I’m so flattered you think I can afford one.”

  “Know. We work in the same place, remember?”

  “Same company, different department, sir.”

  “All right, smartass,” Brady said, rolling his eyes as I laughed and playfully punched him.

  Other passengers looked at us with annoyed expressions, perhaps aggravated by our banter at 11 a.m. fresh off a red-eye flight. What was I supposed to do, stay quiet and act like a nun? I could kick an
y of their asses—though, as my boss pleadingly reminded me all the time, that didn’t mean I had to. Besides, even if I wasn’t fluent in German and trained in Muay Thai and Krav Maga, I was a 20-year old grown woman who had supported herself longer than most people in their late twenties and had more experiences than most people had in a lifetime. I think I’d earned the right to talk a little bit of shit with my brother if I wanted to.

  A flight attendant came by, holding a plastic trash bag, and locked eyes with me.

  “Any trash, ma’am?” she asked politely. “Don’t lie, Sonya Ferguson. We’re watching you.”

  “Uh, no,” I said, trying to ignore the weird, taunting, twisted voice that echoed in my head. I hadn’t imagined it.

  Nor, I felt sure, did I imagine the flight attendant’s eyes flickering yellow for half a second, almost like someone had turned on a light by mistake and quickly turned it back off. The attendant thanked me and walked to the next row. I looked to Brady, who had turned his attention back to his phone, and nudged him.

  “What?” he said, mindlessly scrolling on his phone.

  “You need the distraction from football anyways,” I said, waiting for him to look at me. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” he said, but there was something about his voice that didn’t sound confused.

  “The, uhh, voice that said don’t lie, we’re watching you?”

  Brady cocked his head to the side and scrunched one eyebrow as The Rock had made famous. Typically I laughed at this, but this time, I wasn’t going to indulge Brady.

  “You’re serious?”

  “I’m serious that I think I heard it,” I said, but I regretted using the words “I think.” It made it sound like I wasn’t actually sure.

  Brady’s perplexed look remained for a couple more seconds before he shrugged, albeit more casually than he would if he was conceding defeat.

  “I think you’re just tired. Your dream is still sticking with you. Just enjoy the view and pass out when we get to our hostel. We got a full three nights here, no need to rush everything in the first afternoon.”