“You’ll save your sister. I believe in you. And tonight, we’ll get started on planning exactly how we’re going to do that.”
Somehow, hearing him say it twice actually helped. I smiled up at him, my mind spinning with ways to find my sister and break the curse on her. I came up with nothing—but that didn’t mean it would stay like that.
I’d find a way to save her. I had to. And with the help from my friends, my odds seemed even better.
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Excerpt Of Hidden Magic
Jungle, Southeast Asia
Five years before the events in Ancient Magic
“How much are we being paid for this job again?” I glanced at the dudes filling the bar. It was a motley crowd of supernaturals, many of whom looked shifty as hell.
“Not nearly enough for one as dangerous as this.” Del frowned at the man across the bar, who was giving her his best sexy face. There was a lot of eyebrow movement happening. “Is he having a seizure?”
“Looks like it.” Nix grinned. “Though I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this. We’re basically in a tree, for magic’s sake. In the middle of the jungle! Where are all these dudes coming from?”
“According to my info, there’s a mining operation near here. Though I’d say we’re more under a tree than in a tree.”
“I’m with Cass,” Del said. “Under, not in.”
“Fair enough,” Nix said.
We were deep in Southeast Asia, in a bar that had long ago been reclaimed by the jungle. A massive fig tree had grown over and around the ancient building, its huge roots strangling the stone walls. It was straight out of a fairy tale.
Monks had once lived here, but a few supernaturals of indeterminate species had gotten ahold of it and turned it into a watering hole for the local supernaturals. We were meeting our contact here, but he was late.
“Hey, pretty lady.” A smarmy voice sounded from my left. “What are you?”
I turned to face the guy who was giving me the up and down, his gaze roving from my tank top to my shorts. He wasn’t Clarence, our local contact. And if he meant “what kind of supernatural are you?” I sure as hell wouldn’t be answering. That could get me killed.
“Not interested is what I am,” I said.
“Aww, that’s no way to treat a guy.” He grabbed my hip, rubbed his thumb up and down.
I smacked his hand away, tempted to throat-punch him. It was my favorite move, but I didn’t want to start a fight before Clarence got here. Didn’t want to piss off our boss.
The man raised his hands. “Hey, hey. No need to get feisty. You three sisters?”
I glanced at Nix and Del, at their dark hair that was so different from my red. We were all about twenty, but we looked nothing alike. And while we might call ourselves sisters—deirfiúr in our native Irish—this idiot didn’t know that.
“Go away.” I had no patience for dirt bags who touched me without asking. “Run along and flirt with your hand, because that’s all the action you’ll be getting tonight.”
His face turned a mottled red, and he raised a fist. His magic welled, the scent of rotten fruit overwhelming.
He thought he was going to smack me? Or use his magic against me?
Ha.
I lashed out, punching him in the throat. His eyes bulged and he gagged. I kneed him in the crotch, grinning when he keeled over.
“Hey!” A burly man with a beard lunged for us, his buddy beside him following. “That’s no way—”
“To treat a guy?” I finished for him as I kicked out at him. My tall, heavy boots collided with his chest, sending him flying backward. I never used my magic—didn’t want to go to jail and didn’t want to blow things up—but I sure as hell could fight.
His friend raised his hand and sent a blast of wind at us. It threw me backward, sending me skidding across the floor.
By the time I’d scrambled to my feet, a brawl had broken out in the bar. Fists flew left and right, with a bit of magic thrown in. Nothing bad enough to ruin the bar, like jets of flame, because no one wanted to destroy the only watering hole for a hundred miles, but enough that it lit up the air with varying magical signatures.
Nix conjured a baseball bat and swung it at a burly guy who charged her, while Del teleported behind a horned demon and smashed a chair over his head. I’d always been jealous of Del’s ability to sneak up on people like that.
All in all, it was turning into a good evening. A fight between supernaturals was fun.
“Enough!” the bartender bellowed. “Or no more beer!”
The patrons quieted immediately. Fights might be fun, but they weren’t worth losing beer over.
I glared at the jerk who’d started it. There was no way I’d take the blame, even though I’d thrown the first punch. He should have known better.
The bartender gave me a look and I shrugged, hiking a thumb at the jerk who’d touched me. “He shoulda kept his hands to himself.”
“Fair enough,” the bartender said.
I nodded and turned to find Nix and Del. They’d grabbed our beers and were putting them on a table in the corner. I went to join them.
We were a team. Sisters by choice, ever since we’d woken in a field at fifteen with no memories other than those that said we were FireSouls on the run from someone who had hurt us. Who was hunting us.
Our biggest goal, even bigger than getting out from under our current boss’s thumb, was to save enough money to buy concealment charms that would hide us from the monster who hunted us. He was just a shadowy memory, but it was enough to keep us running.
“Where is Clarence, anyway?” I pulled my damp tank top away from my sweaty skin. The jungle was damned hot. We couldn’t break into the temple until Clarence gave us the information we needed to get past the guard at the front. And we didn’t need to spend too much longer in this bar.
Del glanced at her watch, her blue eyes flashing with annoyance. “He’s twenty minutes late. Old Man Bastard said he should be here at eight.”
Old Man Bastard—OMB for short—was our boss. His name said it all. Del, Nix, and I were FireSouls, the most despised species of supernatural because we could steal other magical being’s powers if we killed them. We’d never done that, of course, but OMB didn’t care. He’d figured out our secret when we were too young to hide it effectively and had been blackmailing us to work for him ever since.
It’d been four years of finding and stealing treasure on his behalf. Treasure hunting was our other talent, a gift from the dragon with whom legend said we shared a soul. No one had seen a dragon in centuries, so I wasn’t sure if the legend was even true, but dragons were covetous, so it made sense they had a knack for finding treasure.
“What are we after again?” Nix asked.