Magic of Home: an Uncollected Anthology story Read online

  The music switched to a different surfer rock song, and the dancers on stage began a new routine that looked like the last routine, only the dancers had switched places. Or the changelings had flowed their bodies to slightly different configurations—bigger breasts, narrower hips—to confuse the drunks. Twig wasn’t sure which. A topless waitress was circling among the patrons, delivering drinks and fending off unwanted caresses.

  For the first time Twig saw the club as an outsider must see it—tacky and tawdry and depressing, even with the upbeat music.

  She’d never felt depressed here, not back then when this all seemed new and exciting. Had Jocko’s excitement really been that contagious? And was his depression that contagious now?

  Jocko stood up, sending his chair skittering backwards across the concrete floor. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Let’s?

  “All I want is an introduction,” she said.

  “And all I wanted was a quiet night so I could sit in my corner and drink myself stupid. Looks like neither of us is going to luck out.”

  What the hell had happened to him?

  He glared down at her. “I don’t have all night.”

  Twig didn’t have to be told twice.

  She stood up and turned the chair back around, all in one fluid motion. Jocko headed toward the hallway that led to the offices at the back of the club, and Twig followed like the dutiful child she no doubt appeared.

  They were halfway down the back hall when her sensitive ears heard the motorcycle cry out in fear and horror, and she knew they’d run out of time.

  Gillfoil had found them.

  * * *

  Twig slammed out the back door of the club, her feet flying so fast she nearly took to the air. She didn’t know if Jocko was following her, and she didn’t have time to worry about what would happen if he wasn’t.

  The door led into a service alley that ran along the back of all the buildings on the block.

  Things had died here. Twig could still smell the stench of rot and decay, and she heard the quiet, sorrowful remnants of magic that had belonged to the dead. A Merlin could have called to that magic, used it to augment his own, but Twig wasn’t a Merlin. She was just a headstrong elf who couldn’t admit to herself when she’d been bested.

  She’d left her friend at the far end of this alley, tucked behind a trash bin that serviced one of Jocko’s neighboring businesses.

  The motorcycle was still there, but it was no longer alone.

  Gillfoil stood waiting for her halfway between where his own malevolent motorcycle stood guard over her friend and the back door of Jocko’s club. Magic flowed around him, a storm of anger and triumph.

  “Thought you’d get away with it, little girl?” he said, and he grinned at her. “You should know better.”

  The enforcer had been human at one time, but that time was long before even Twig’s parents had been born. The demon he’d allowed to possess his body had long since driven what was left of the man insane—a good quality in an enforcer. Not so much in someone you couldn’t beat in a fair fight, and this fight would be anything but fair.

  Gillfoil still had the compact, sturdy body of a man used to heavy armor and the hard work of wielding a sword to defend the honor of his king. In this modern age, the only armor he wore was the black leathers of the gang.

  His arms hung loose at his sides as he waited for her, dark energy crackling around his fingertips and illuminating his face. Hunger danced in his charcoal eyes.

  Hunger for her soul, and to take back what had never been his to steal in the first place.

  He held no weapon. He didn’t need to. Gillfoil commanded enough dark magic to kill her with a flick of his fingers.

  Twig’s only weapon was a small iron knife hidden in a concealed pocket of her leathers between her shoulder blades. It wasn’t a throwing knife. She’d never learned that particular skill. She’d have to get close to use it.

  She sprinted down the alley straight at Gillfoil.

  He brought his hands up, not to ward her off—he would never be frightened of someone like her—but to begin to focus his energy.

  That was her cue.

  She turned, using the momentum she’d built up to run halfway up the side of a building.

  She launched herself off the rough brick wall and flipped her body backwards over Gillfoil’s head.

  He’d never seen her fight like this. Her skills at sensing hidden magic had been more valuable to the gang than whatever small assistance she could offer in a fight. She’d made herself indispensable, a shining star among their other old ladies, when in truth the only reason she’d spent so long in their company was to earn the trust of the being held captive in the motorcycle.

  She hadn’t been able to tell Jocko when she’d left the real reason she’d joined the gang. She hadn’t told anyone for fear that the gang would destroy the motorcycle rather than allow anyone to release the being inside.

  She unsheathed her knife as she flipped over Gillfoil’s head, reaching out to slice at his unprotected neck.

  The cut didn’t have to be accurate. The iron in the blade would do most of the work for her.

  But she hadn’t fooled him at all.

  He swatted her away like an annoying fly before the knife could nick his flesh.

  She fell hard. The knife flew out of her hand and landed in a pile of trash surrounding a group of overflowing garbage cans.

  Twig channeled the energy from the fall into a roll that brought her to her feet just in time to feel a surge of magical energy strike her in the middle of her back.

  Pain shot down her spine, white hot heat that set her nerves on fire and brought her to her knees.

  Gillfoil laughed.

  Twig didn’t know what hurt most—the physical pain or his gloating laughter.

  She struggled back to her feet. She wouldn’t die on her knees, not in front of this creature.

  Stop! The motorcycle’s voice shrieked in her head, loud enough that she knew Gillfoil had to hear it. I will go back!

  “No, you won’t,” Twig muttered through clenched teeth.

  To go back meant punishment followed by a slow death for her friend.

  “You heard,” Gillfoil said. “That sure sounded like a voluntary surrender to me.”

  “But not to me,” a familiar voice growled.

  Even with her sensitive ears, Twig hadn’t known that Jocko followed her into the alley.

  Gillfoil hadn’t known either, not if the way he whirled toward Jocko was any indication.

  Jocko stood near the back door of his club, and he wasn’t alone. Twig heard the same magic that she’d sensed from the changelings who’d been on stage, only now they’d morphed themselves into trolls.

  Huge trolls.

  Huge angry trolls who weren’t afraid to use dark magic. The maces they wielded practically crackled with dark energy.

  Jocko didn’t have that kind of magic. What he had was an iron axe.

  Even with the strength gifted her kind, Twig didn’t think she could have lifted the thing, it was that massive. She had no idea where Jocko kept a weapon like that so it would be in easy reach. She’d never seen him use anything other than a gun or a nightstick, just like every other cop.

  Gillfoil didn’t hesitate.

  Energy crackled from his outstretched fingers toward the changelings. They swung their maces and intercepted Gillfoil’s magic with magic of their own, and the alley erupted in sparking light so intense it nearly blinded her.

  Jocko charged into the battle with a roar that nearly drowned out the bellows from the trolls, ax raised over his head.

  Twig couldn’t stand on the sidelines and let Jocko and the changelings fight her war.

  She rummaged through the garbage until she found her own knife. She snarled as she launched herself into the fight.

  Gillfoil never even turned to face her—she was that unimportant to him—until she slammed her knife into his back, burying the blade to the hilt.


  He screamed, pain and surprise warring on his face as he clawed at his back, but he didn’t have the flexibility of an elf. He wouldn’t be able to pull the knife from his body. Twig had made sure to strike him where he couldn’t reach.

  The energy crackling from his fingertips turned an ugly, sick green as the iron worked its way into his system.

  He just managed to step out of the way of the ax as Jocko brought it down, attempting to cleave the demon in two. The iron blade hit the alley instead, and the ground trembled beneath Twig’s feet as the power of the blow created a fissure in the concrete.

  Two of the trolls backed away, but the third, a smoking wound making a charred mess of her shoulder, swung her mace one-handed.

  Gillfoil tried to block the blow, but his magic was nearly gone. The mace caught him in the upper arm, and he shrieked as the blow flung him against the rough brick wall that Twig had used to launch herself into the air.

  Twig heard the demon flee the enforcer’s body. The stylized skeleton on the back of Gillfoil’s leathers, the image that symbolized the gang, faded into nothingness, and Gillfoil crumpled like a deflated balloon.

  Without the demon that gifted him such an extraordinarily long and powerful life, he was no more than a discarded lump of dying flesh.

  The fight was over.

  Behind her, Twig heard a second shriek from the malevolent beast trapped inside Gillfoil’s motorcycle. Its protector—its master and tormentor—was dying, and it was alone in the world.

  She almost felt sorry for it.

  Almost.

  * * *

  They left Gillfoil alone in the alley. The police would eventually show up, and no one wanted to answer any questions about what had happened to the gang’s enforcer.

  One of the changelings gave Twig an address where she could find a Merlin capable of doing the spells Twig needed.

  She rode on her friend’s back one last time down darkened city streets toward the waterfront, only now they weren’t alone. Jocko rode beside them on the motorcycle that had belonged to Gillfoil.

  In the end she couldn’t leave the beast that Gillfoil had imprisoned inside his motorcycle to the same fate that had nearly broken her friend. Twig had explained to the beast what she intended to do, and she had extracted a promise. In return for its freedom, the beast agreed to leave the city without harming Jocko or the changelings for the part they played in killing its former master, nor would it seek retribution from the being that was her friend.

  The beast refused to make the same promise where Twig was concerned.

  If it ever came back for her, she figured she could handle it, but she doubted it would come back. Without Gillfoil, the beast felt broken, the tones of its magic discordant and scattered.

  This particular Merlin turned out to be a woman, which surprised Twig.

  Years ago, before she’d gone on this quest to free a gentle spirit enslaved by evil, she wouldn’t have presumed that any Merlin powerful enough to cast the spell would be a man. Perhaps she’d spent too much time in the company of men who believed all women, magic folk or not, were their inferiors. She wondered what they would think if they knew three changeling women and a slip of a female elf had beaten their powerful enforcer.

  The three of them—Twig, the Merlin, and Jocko—made their way to the end of a deserted pier with the motorcycles so the Merlin could cast her spells. The sky was still clear overhead, although a hint of the coming day blushed the skyline a deep rose on the eastern horizon.

  From where they stood, Twig could see the shadowy outline of Marlette Island across the bay. The musty smell of seawater and the sight of the tall pines of her kin’s enclave silhouetted against the night sky made Twig’s heart ache for home.

  Or at least that’s what she told herself.

  The first to be freed from its prison was the beast.

  It was hideous to look at, its proportions so wrong that it hurt her eyes. The harsh tone of its magic grated on Twig’s nerves. More spirit than flesh, it fled into the darkness in the west, chasing the waning night. It didn’t pause to look back at them or thank them for their efforts.

  Jocko snorted. “Good riddance.”

  Twig couldn’t agree more.

  Before she moved to the second motorcycle, the Merlin gave Twig a long look. “You might want to say your goodbyes now,” she said. “This spirit has been imprisoned too long, its energy is too weak. It may not be able to manifest once I set it free.”

  The Merlin had a kind heart, but Twig shook her head. “Don’t make it wait any longer,” she said.

  Goodbyes were for sentimental fools. Twig would take whatever comfort she might need in knowing that her friend was free.

  This time when the Merlin worked her spell, a gentle breeze seemed to emanate from the motorcycle. The breeze brushed Twig’s face with the scent of a salt water spray kissed by the sun. The magic that touched her heart was filled with the kind of joy Twig had only known as a child when she’d been rocked, safe and sound, in her grandmother’s arms.

  She choked back a sob as her friend’s magic enveloped her, its tones soft and melodious.

  Home, said the familiar voice she’d heard in her heart all these months, and then, thank you, my friend.

  The water spirit held her for a moment longer, and then it left, diving deep into the bay it called home.

  Twig swiped at her cheeks, annoyed with her tears, until she glanced at Jocko and noticed that his face was wet as well. She decided not to mention it.

  The blush to the east was turning into a rosy glow. Twig needed to pay the Merlin so she could leave before the fishermen and dockside vendors arrived to start their day.

  “I don’t have much,” Twig said, “but whatever I have is yours.”

  The Merlin shook her head. “Not necessary.”

  Twig wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Merlins who dabbled in unlicensed magic tended to be an unethical, greedy bunch.

  She glanced at Jocko. The Merlin was the changeling’s contact, which meant Jocko might have a better idea what was expected. He’d wiped away his own tears, and while he wasn’t exactly scowling, he didn’t look happy either.

  “There’s always a price,” he said.

  “Yes, there is,” the Merlin agreed. “You’re not the ones to pay it. You’re the ones who put things right.”

  Twig got it.

  There was a price, all right. Since Gillfoil wasn’t around to pay, the Merlin would be seeking her due from the rest of the gang. Twig wondered if the water spirit had told the Merlin where to find them.

  After they parted company with the Merlin, Twig and Jocko rolled the motorcycles down the pier toward the street. The motorcycles were innocent machines, used by Gillfoil as prisons, yet Twig felt uneasy climbing on the back of the motorcycle she’d ridden to Moretown Bay. The metal felt stiff and unyielding without her friend to give it heart.

  Jocko didn’t appear to have the same misgivings. He sat astride his motorcycle—and it was clearly his now—and gunned the engine, smiling at the deep, throaty, vibrating roar.

  Wait a minute.

  He was smiling.

  “That looks good on you,” Twig said, shouting to make herself heard.

  His smile got wider, but he let the engine idle. “Where are you headed?”

  It was a good question.

  Twig didn’t think she could withstand the emotional upheaval of returning to her kin’s enclave on the island, not just yet. She certainly couldn’t go back to the gang, not that she wanted to.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m kind of without a home at the moment.”

  Jocko gave her a long look. The smile on his face was reflected in his eyes. He always did like a good fight.

  “You’ve got a home,” he said at last. “You always did.”

  That wonderful ache settled in her heart again.

  Somewhere along the line, Jocko had figured it out. He’d guessed why she’d left Moretown Bay to join the gang an
d why she couldn’t tell him the reason, and he’d forgiven her.

  She smiled back.

  “Then let’s get a move on,” she said. “It’s been a hell of night.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Award-winning author Annie Reed describes herself as a desert rat who longs to live by the ocean. Since she hasn’t yet convinced her family to relocate to a nice chunk of beachfront property, she’s done the next best thing—written a series of stories set in a contemporary Pacific Northwest city where magic and reality go hand in hand. Private investigators Diz and Dee populate Annie’s more lighthearted stories, while denizens of a much rougher neighborhood lurk in her Tales From the Shadows.

  A talented and versatile writer whose fantasy, science fiction, and mystery stories have sold to a wide variety of publications, including five of the first seven volumes of Fiction River’s inaugural year, Annie is also the author of the Abby Maxon mystery novels Pretty Little Horses and Paper Bullets, as well as A Death in Cumberland.

  For more information about Annie, go to www.annie-reed.com.

  THE UNCOLLECTED ANTHOLOGY STORIES

  The Magic of Home is part of the innovative Uncollected Anthology series.

  Every three months, these talented authors pick a theme and write a short story for that theme. But instead of bundling the stories together, each author sells their own. No muss, no fuss—you can buy one story or you can buy them all. (We’ll be honest; we hope you buy them all!)

  If you’d like to keep reading more fine stories featuring this issue’s theme—magical motorcycles—click on the links below:

  DANCING WITH TONG YI

  Tong Yi works for Huli Transport, a company that specializes in rides and transportation for those who aren’t quite human.

  When the newest job comes up—delivering a message to Zhang Guo Lao, one of the Eight Immortals—Tong Yi assumes the job will be tricky because the immortal likes to play games.

  He has no idea that Zhang Guo Lao isn’t the only one interested in “dancing” with him.