Magic Awakening: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spirit War Chronicles Book 1) Page 7

  Begrudgingly, I turned around, ready to ask DJ to walk me home. The thought sucked. I would look like a girl who needed help at best, and at worst DJ would think this was my way of signaling he could have me. But if the thought metaphorically killed me, walking alone with demons around might actually kill me. So I walked back to where we’d nearly… well, done something.

  But DJ was nowhere to be seen.

  I looked at literally every man out on the balcony, wondering if one of them might be DJ. I’m sure I got false hopes up for more than a few guys, but I didn’t have time to care.

  But DJ was gone. Where the hell had he gone to? How had he just disappeared like that?

  And are you sure the reason you walked back was just because you wanted company on the walk home? Or is it because you wanted particular company?

  I walked back inside and still found my brother sliding his tongue into Nadia’s throat. Their kissing had become more aggressive, and it became evident that they were not going to wind up in separate beds tonight. Nor, it became clear as the waitress briefly stopped by, were they going to pay attention to anyone else. The choice was made for me. I would be walking home myself.

  Which was fine. It was beyond fine. It wasn’t hard. I could easily do it.

  I may have been a little on edge after Carsis and Tyrus and the Devil’s Eye, but it was no different than being on edge while in the Middle East or South America on a mission. It sucked that I had to carry this mentality while on vacation, but at least I was good at it and good at compartmentalizing that feeling once I’d gotten home. It’s not being on edge. It’s staying alert. It’s good to stay on alert no matter who you are.

  I walked past my brother and his partner for the night, past the now-occupied DJ booth, past the growing number of men in suits and women in dresses and to the elevator, where no one else waited. I pushed down and looked around. Once more, I got the strange feeling I was being watched, leered at, but not in a sexually glorified way—instead in a dangerous, predatory way. I kept my hands near my jacket, ready to unleash my guns if needed.

  The elevator doors slid open, revealing an empty space. I quickly got on and pressed the button for the ground level. No one else got in and the doors closed.

  The first thing I noticed was that the elevator had no music. Nothing. In fact, it didn’t make a sound, let alone have any music. The whirring of it descending, the ding of the outside door—nada. It was eerily silent.

  The second thing I noticed was that for barely being over a dozen stories up, it was taking far longer to descend than ascend. I could feel the elevator moving down, so I knew it wasn’t stuck, but something definitely felt amiss.

  Finally, the elevator stopped, and the doors lurched open. But the lobby was completely empty and devoid of sound. When I stepped out and my boot hit the marble floor, it sounded like it would echo forever, a tennis ball of sound bouncing off an endless number of frictionless walls. Now more certain than ever that I had entered into the spiritual realm, I lifted my guns out of their holsters and held them down to the side.

  I slowly moved along the wall toward the doorway out of the hotel. It led to a back alley of about fifty feet that opened up to the area near Amsterdam Centraal. It looked empty, but almost too empty—I would’ve expected at least someone to be passing through this alley, as it did lead to a major hotel and lounge, or to at least see people walking along the major street just beyond the alley. I held out Ebony while Ivory remained at my side.

  I took my first steps into the alley. Somehow, despite being outside, it sounded an awful lot like the hotel lobby—my footsteps seemed to echo off of the building walls, reminding me of my isolation in the alleyway. I took a deep breath and told myself no matter what happened, I could—

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

  The demonic laugh filled my ears, one that tormented and teased me and told me I was being watched. I was not going to play this cat and mouse game. Fuck. That.

  “Come and fight me like a man, wherever you are,” I said, my voice steady and sure. “Or has being in hell castrated you of your sense of honor?”

  “Hahahahaha, but why would I do such a thing when I am not a man?”

  I gulped but my hand remained sure. I focused on keeping calm, scanning the area, and returning to the hostel. I’d gotten into this weird section of the world once—I could get out again if I just found Carsis, or figured out how to get out of here on my own. I just—

  Something bulky and hard tackled me to the ground, knocking Ebony to the ground. A thick, dark red arm surrounded my throat, and operating on the principles of Krav Maga—that nothing was dirty and to do whatever it took to disarm my opponent—I bit into the wrist. The man—no, demon—howled in pain and I quickly rolled toward Ebony. I grabbed her mid-roll, aimed the gun at the demon, which sported an ugly dark red face with a single, curved horn up top. I laid waste to it, firing light blue blasts of energy. The creature howled in pain and soon dissolved into dust.

  “A human wouldn’t die so easily.”

  But while I had escaped the initial assault, I knew my actions wouldn’t go unnoticed. I had to make a dash for Durty Nelly’s.

  Without thinking about it, while holding Ebony and Ivory out to the sides, I sprinted through the remaining alleyway, veered left, and began the approximately kilometer-long dash home through the urban sprawl of downtown Amsterdam.

  Everything went exactly as I expected. Unfortunately, that didn’t exactly mean it went as I’d hoped.

  As soon as I had reached the first bridge, ugly, spiked tentacles reached up and lashed the bridge. I may have never seen such creatures before, but I wasn’t about to lose to a blind enemy. I swiftly dispatched the squishy arms with my guns, and the things broke off, flopping worthlessly on the ground.

  Once I crossed the bridge, I heard what sounded like a thousand groans, screams, and guttural cries approaching me. From all angles, demons of various shapes, colors, and even animal types were coming after me. I saw more Cerberuses bounding toward me—and boy, did they look pissed. Demons with massive, bulked up bodies sprinted toward me, and I saw werewolves leaping from the buildings to try and come after me.

  A few hours earlier, this had terrified me. It was never the demons that you knew that scared you, but the demons you didn’t know you didn’t know.

  But their advantage was gone. And now, not only was I not terrified, I actually felt a surge of positive adrenaline rushing through me. I hadn’t had a dangerous tango like this in a long, long time.

  “A dance with a thousand? Sorry, I only take solo acts.”

  With that, Ebony and Ivory began to work their magic, launching energetic projectiles toward all of the monsters charging toward me. They cleared a path for me as I weaved, rolled, side-stepped and in some cases hurdled demons. A couple thought they were being clever by charging from the sky, but all it took was raising one of my guns toward them and getting a clean head shot. The bastards never learned. I had anticipated all their angles.

  The demons’ screaming became more pained and obnoxious. To my chagrin, the intensity of the demons was increasing. They now realized I wasn’t a normal human who would just give them my neck, nor one who would accept damnation and surrender. It almost sounded like fear from the smaller ones, but the bigger ones just charged. At one point, I felt the ground shake as I stared straight ahead, having made my way to the second-to-last turn.

  A demon rhinoceros was charging at me, and he wasn’t the size of a real rhino—he was bigger, probably the size of an M1A1 Abrams tank.

  “Well, damn,” I said. I couldn’t shoot him head on—if he was like a real rhino, he was probably well protected in the front. “Hey man, can you let me pass? I’m out past my curfew.”

  Not surprisingly, the demon just bellowed and charged more at me. I guess I should’ve been politically correct and called him a “demon rhino” instead of “man.” So much for diplomatic back channels.

  And that’s when a crazy thought came
to mind that might as well have been suicidal.

  Seconds before the demonic rhino would have gored me, I approached as if taking it head on. I had no margin for error. At the last second, I slid to the ground as if trying to go under an oncoming train. I had no time to even think. I pulled the trigger on Ebony and Ivory. The creature’s soft stomach split open. Its momentum carried it forward and it collapsed about a dozen feet in front of me, shriveling up and disappearing into nothing.

  “Tastes like black bean soup,” I said as remains of its blood and other body liquids slid down my face.

  I quickly ran down the remainder of that alleyway and turned to the last one when I stopped.

  A red-scaled dragon with six wings, two heads, and furious yellow eyes stared me down. Well, shit. Even I know the slid-and-shoot isn’t going to work here.

  The creature roared at me and shot something—it certainly wasn’t fire—at me. The green cascade of energy narrowly missed me as I ducked back into the street I’d just come from, but I couldn’t linger there—more demons would be on me in a matter of seconds. I held my guns around the corner and fired about a dozen shots, curious to see what would happen.

  When I turned the corner, the answer was simple. Nothing.

  Well, not quite nothing. The dragon had just gotten more pissed off and was approaching.

  “I guess I’m about to be black bean soup, huh? Hey! Siamese Dragon! I’m sorry for—”

  But my words were interrupted when a mighty bellow roared from the skies, shaking both my chest and the ground. When I gazed up, yet another dragon approached—this one a gold and black dragon, diving toward our battlefield. Two of them? Come on, hell. I thought you wanted a fun fight.

  But to my pleasant surprise, the newest dragon instead attacked the two-headed demonic dragon, and the two soon rose just enough to give me a chance to escape. Around me, buildings collapsed, demons howled, and jaws snapped. I ignored it all, making a dash for Durty Nelly’s—or the equivalent of it in hell. Whatever it was, it was the safe space here.

  I came to it and yanked on the door, but it was locked. No time to think.

  I walked over to a window and rammed it with my shoulder. It shattered, drawing a cry from a familiar voice.

  “You fucking idiot!” Carsis yelled. “Now they can get—”

  “Shut up and help me find a place!” I yelled. “You can call me anything you want when we’re safe.”

  Carsis looked at me like I’d just called him every Dutch slur in the book, but I ignored it to turn my guns back out the window, taking down a demonic centaur.

  “I should leave your sorry ass out on the streets now for this,” he said. “But… follow me.”

  Sure seems rather unangelic for a moment like this.

  I looked back to see him heading down a set of stairs at the far back of the bar. I backpedaled toward him, keeping my guns trained on the window opening and firing at anything that I saw approaching. We descended the stairs, and then another flight, before coming to a door. Carsis opened it and I rushed inside to the blackness. Carsis slammed the door behind me, and a dim light appeared.

  “You—”

  “Are we safe here?” I said.

  Carsis snorted.

  “Safe as can be,” he said. “I brought you back to the human realm last time. And I can do it again. But you were lucky. I won’t always be here. I need to teach you.”

  I heard footsteps—or hoofsteps? Whatever, steps—above us. Carsis held out one hand, closed his eyes, and suddenly a white rush of energy, almost lightning-like, shot from his hand. The lightning continued for about a half-dozen seconds, forming a portal about five feet in front of him. When he finished, he opened his eyes.

  “I know how to fight and shoot, not how to use magic,” I said.

  “With humans, yes, but in the spiritual realm, you—”

  A loud slam came at the door.

  “Shit,” Carsis said. “Go! You’ll pass through and wake up in your hostel room.”

  “You—”

  “Go!”

  I didn’t have time to question the logistics or the logic of it. I just jumped through the portal. Suddenly, a white rush enveloped me and I began to feel like I had not slept in a week, let alone for about a day. My feet gave out, and I collapsed onto nothingness. Yet the white space felt like a pillow, not a hardwood floor, and within seconds, my eyes had closed, and I had fallen asleep.

  Chapter 6

  When I awoke, I heard Brady in the bunk above me whispering something followed by Nadia’s giggle. It sounded like pillow talk, but thankfully, I’d avoided the pillow action. And if it started back up again, it’d be easy enough to hit his bed from below.

  I rolled over to my left, making sure to make as much noise as possible. Richard and Nicholas were both passed out in their respective bunks. DJ stood at the window, the morning sun illuminating his body as if he was a statue on display at the Smithsonian. He was rubbing his lats and groaning softly.

  I turned away and tried to make sense of what had happened in the last 24 hours.

  OK, there definitely was something going on with the spiritual realm. I had somehow fallen back into it even after shaking off the effects of Devil’s Eye. Not only that, I had gotten into a city-wide shootout with demons and their creatures, surviving only because a nameless dragon had saved the day—or, more likely, had some silly feud with the two-headed monster over territory or female dragons or whatever the hell dragons fought over. Carsis had saved me, shown me how to transport between realms—and yet nothing made any sense whatsoever.

  When I repeated that exact sequence in my head, it sounded beyond absurd. If I repeated the story to anyone outside this room, I’d get laughs and told to lay off the Devil’s Eye. Even within this room, the only one who I thought might have an ounce of understanding was Brady, for he listened to the initial story without judgment and said something about talking later. DJ might listen to me, but I had a feeling he’d listen more for great story ideas and a chance to use the story to charm me than to actually understand what had happened.

  Maybe it was still the effects of Devil’s Eye? Maybe it was super potent not because it had one moment of feeling stoned, but multiple ones. If so, hopefully…

  No, I couldn’t continue that train of thought. I knew it was a lie. It felt too real to be a dream.

  I thought about what I had seen under the influence of the drug and what I’d experienced last night. Both showed me an Amsterdam descended into chaos. The buildings were the same. The streets were the same.

  But then the question was, how? How were demons reaching into the human world? How had Devil’s Eye started appearing?

  I slowly got out of bed as Brady and Nadia traded more pillow talk. They both ignored me, which was just as well. I didn’t want to explain anything right now, or even talk. I just needed a moment to myself in the bathroom.

  I walked in and locked the door behind me, even though the place was built for two people. I had a feeling the people in my room would understand. I went to the sink and bent down to splash water on my face.

  When I rose, Tyrus smiled at me in the mirror. My heart lurched as I quickly turned. Unarmed. Shit. He snapped his fingers once.

  “Now that we’re alone,” he said. “I warned you not to get involved yesterday.”

  “You think I had a choice,” I growled at him. “Going down the elevator, descending into hell. Running into dragons and rhinos and other shit. What did you expect was going to happen?”

  The bastard had sent me down. Had to have. How else could I have gotten there? No other demon had appeared in the human realm.

  “I would have thought by now you would be smart enough to travel with your brother and others, but I see that I was wrong,” Tyrus said, that obnoxious smile forming as he dusted off his red suit. “Let me explain something to you clearly, Sonya. You should never travel alone. A poor young girl like yourself—”

  “Would you cut that—”

  “Ex
cuse me, I was speaking. Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?”

  “My mother did. I might have taught my father some if he ever bothered to stick around.”

  “I see, I am sorry,” Tyrus said, seemingly dripping with faux sincerity. “Regardless, allow me to continue. You should not travel alone. Mundus watches all that happens in the spiritual realm and its borders. He watches me, most certainly, he watches you, he watches all who enter and are marked with the ability to travel in and out of the spiritual realm.”

  He then nodded toward my shoulder. I looked at him, unsure what he meant, until I remembered our first encounter—in the bathroom, when he had patted my shoulder. Nervously, I reached up and peeled back the sleeve on my white t-shirt. I saw a red triangular shape, one with the ends of the triangle moving out like squiggly lines.

  “The fuck did you do to me?” I said.

  “Simple, I made it so that you can more easily travel between the two dimensions,” he said. “You’re much more powerful than you realize, Sonya. Mundus hasn’t had someone to hunt like you in a long time. He—”

  I slapped Tyrus. I was tired of hearing this nonsense. I was not going to be someone’s puppet.

  “I deserved that,” Tyrus said. “I certainly deserved that. However, for better or for worse, you are now in this game, Sonya. A game in which Mundus is trying to prepare for the takeover of all realms. You will either fight Mundus or take his side. You will soon realize you have powers that very few have, powers that can certainly sway the tide of battle. Those powers will help one side win. I wonder, will you choose our side?”

  What was he talking about? Powers that very few have? What nonsense—

  “Now, Mundus seeks me,” he said.

  “Why do you tell me this?” I said, honestly curious.

  “I told you. Mundus likes games. I like games. It’s more fun when both players are on equal footing. No human goes to watch a movie where the final fight is one punch or one bullet. They go to watch an epic showdown.”