The trouble with magic a.., p.1
The Trouble with Magic and Faery Curses, page 1
The Trouble with Magic and Faery Curses
A Cary Redmond Novel, Book 5
Kat Simons
Contents
Introduction
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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Thank You
The Trouble with Wizards and Old Enemies
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Books By Kat Simons
About the Author
Trouble’s in the Curses…
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Halfway through her test year as a magical Protector, Cary Redmond is starting to think she just might survive. With her leopard shifter mate at her side, she’s even managed to enjoy parts of the journey.
Then her latest job reveals trouble brewing in Faery. Trouble that could affect all the realms and seriously complicate her test year. The path of danger points to the English Faery court—and her former mentor, Jaxer. She wants to help her friend, even though their current relationship can best be described as complicated. But stepping into a realm made entirely of magic, when she’s just discovered she can absorb magic, seems like a bad idea. Especially since she hasn’t learned how to release that magic yet.
With a world-ending threat looming, even Cary’s bosses want her to go. And she won’t be going alone. Both her mate and her mentor will be at her back. But to save the world this time, Cary has to confront her greatest fears. And the knowledge that if she fails…
Her own realm will fall.
THE TROUBLE WITH MAGIC AND FAERY CURSES
Copyright © 2021 by Katrina Tipton
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Cover design: Evernight Designs
Published by: T&D Publishing
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T&D Publishing: https://tanddpublishing.com/
Kat Simons Website: https://www.katsimons.com
Kat Simons Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/OxQQL
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All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
* * *
eBooks are not transferable.
They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
For my beloved family. We made it through a really bad year together.
And I’m so grateful for having you with me on this journey.
To better years ahead.
1
Cary considered the little brownie chattering at her. She couldn’t understand a word it was saying, but it sounded very urgent. The high pitched, rapid fire rolling…language? Yeah, the little guy was definitely talking and those were words he was speaking. Accompanying gestures too. But…
Nope. None of it made the first bit of sense to her.
Behind her, another flash of light from the attacking hobgoblins lit up the air. She could just see the sparks in her peripheral vision. It wasn’t often she found herself protecting one member of the Fae realm from another. They tended to keep this kind of fighting to Faery and out of her world. Which was really handy because the Fae were powerful, overwhelming, and occasionally batshit crazy.
Her faery mentor, Jaxer, would not argue with this assessment.
“I’m sorry, little guy,” she said to the brownie, “but whatever language you’re speaking, I don’t. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
More rapid-fire chittering and frantic hand gestures. Cary frowned. This was really frustrating. She knew whatever he was trying to say was important. His thin little brown body vibrated with urgency. His brown hair, short and raged, waved around his head with every movement. His sharp, angular features tightened with his own frustration. His brown eyes were huge and round, staring into hers as he spoke as if trying to force her to understand by sheer will. And she just knew if she listened to him long enough, she’d figure this out.
Problem was, she didn’t think they had that kind of time.
She glanced back at the three hobgoblins arrayed in a half-circle behind her. They were all standing inside a clump of trees just off the road leading up the hill to the Rose Garden. The air had that crisp, freshness of predawn to it, with a hint of the flowers from the nearby garden faintly perfuming the area. But she could already feel the heat just at the edges. The early summer in Portland had been warm and sunny so far, boding well for the rest of the season, but this week the temperature had climbed into the nineties and didn’t seem inclined to drop. And it was actually more humid than they normally got this time of year. Nothing like that one, and only, time she’d visited her sister in New York City in August—that had been grossly humid and she refused to visit in the summers after that trip—but still, muggy for Portland in summertime. She really hated muggy.
At least this early in the morning, before the sun was up, the area was quiet and no errant humans were driving by to interfere and give her one more person to protect.
The hobgoblins were huge creatures, easily three or four times her width and about twice her height. Their gray skin covered thick muscles beneath rough leather pants and jerkins. That leather was gonna feel miserable in another few hours when the heat really got going.
The center hobgoblin, the one throwing jars of some sort of magical potion at her, had a long, hooked nose and shaggy greenish-brown hair. She kind of thought he might be the leader, but it was hard to tell. He was the one pulling magical Molotov cocktails out of the leather courier bag hanging at his hip. But none of them had said anything since she’d arrived, just started tossing those pretty green glass bottles at her and the brownie. So she couldn’t be sure who was in charge.
The other two hobgoblins were not, outside of their size and being, you know, hobgoblins, particularly remarkable looking. They had some lumps and warts decorating their faces—typical species traits and given the arrangements could be considered handsome to other hobgoblins. She wasn’t sure how to judge that, though. One was bald. The other had a long mane of black hair pulled back in a low tail. They both had muddy brown eyes. And at present, all they were doing was standing there staring at her and the brownie.
Hobgoblins, unlike their cousins the goblins, didn’t tend to come into this realm much. According to Cary’s reading, it was because they didn’t like the smell. She’d also been under the impression they were supposed to be smaller than goblins on average. The one hobgoblin she’d encountered before this had been the same size as the brownie. Either she’d missed her guess on these guys and they were something different, or she just didn’t know enough about hobgoblins.
Which, given the shear amount of stuff she’d been trying to learn over the last six and a half years, was entirely possible. There was a lot of stuff she didn’t know nearly enough about.
She sighed and turned her back to them again to focus on the still frantically talking brownie.
Her bosses had sent her to intervene and save the little guy, waking her from a dead sleep to get her here in time. It was her job as a magical Protector to get between the good guys and the bad guys to keep the good guys safe. She even got paid for it. But typical of her bosses—who were also Fae, though members of a species native to North America—they hadn’t explained why she needed to protect the brownie. Just that she was needed and needed fast.
She’d arrived just as the hobgoblins had stepped through a break in the fabric of reality that separated this realm from Faery and started throwing bottles. She’d skidded between them and the brownie just in time, only getting a little cut from the very first shattered glass. Her magic was purely defensive—and technically not even her own; she just channeled what her bosses had given her—so she couldn’t really do anything to stop the hobgoblins from throwing the magic bottles. But she could stand in their way from now to the end of days and keep the brownie from getting hurt. A wonderful side effect of that was that she didn’t get hurt either. At least, not much.
Okay, she couldn’t be killed while she was protecting. She had actually racked up a substantial record of weird injuries over the years. But nothing deadly. Sometimes , especially when magic was involved, little things got through. And jumping in front of moving bullets was rarely fun. Still, she survived it all. She even had faster-than-normal healing thanks to her job, so the cut on her hand would be all better in another few minutes.
She could be killed, though. The trick for her was being in Protector mode, channeling that shielding magic that kept the good guys safe. If she was in the middle of doing her job as a walking, talking Kevlar vest, she could survive…well, just about anything as it turned out—though sometimes the worse for wear at the end. But when she wasn’t in Protector mode, she was just an ordinary human, as vulnerable to bullets and magic potions as anyone.
She paused at that thought. Turns out she wasn’t as ordinary as she’d previously thought. But that was an ongoing worry she didn’t really have time to dwell on just then. The brownie’s attempt at communicating had grown more frantic. There was something really important he needed to tell her.
“I am so sorry,” she told him, raising her hands in a helpless shrug. “I just can’t understand what you’re saying.”
Damn, she wished Jaxer could be here to help.
Jaxer was a faery—no subspecies, but one of the highborn Fae—and he’d definitely be able to speak brownie. But as her mentor, he wasn’t supposed to help her with anything this year. She was smack in the middle of her seventh year as a Protector and the Seventh Year was a test year. If she managed to survive it, she apparently came into her full powers, whatever that meant. She was much more focused on the “surviving it” goal.
“Is it the hobgoblins?” she asked. Maybe if they were patient, she could work this out. The brownie seemed to understand what she was saying even if she couldn’t understand him.
The brownie nodded, his little head bouncing up and down rapidly. The gesture made his short crop of brown hair ripple.
“Okay. So it’s something to do with the attackers.” Another bottle shattered against her shields, spraying orange sparkles and green glass. “You know you’re safe right now, right? They can’t get through me to get to you.”
He nodded again. Then started talking fast.
“Wait.” She held up her hands. “Are they after you for a specific reason?”
He nodded, making a gesture she didn’t understand.
“So not just a random attack on a random brownie?”
He shook his head. Then stomped his foot and put his hands on his hips.
“Hey, I’m trying here. And this is more information than I’ve previously gotten from all your talk that I can’t understand. Be patient. We have time.”
The brownie made a very pointed look at the sky, which was growing lighter as they spoke.
She sighed. “Yes, yes, the sun is coming up soon. I know. But if you’ll be a little patient, we do still have time.” More glass shattered and scattered around her. This time the sparkles were a bright white. They must be changing up the potions. “So, they’re after you specifically. Did you say something rude?”
Head shake.
“Did you attack someone?”
Irritated head shake and another foot stop.
“Did you steal something?”
He shook his head. Then paused and nodded.
“That’s less helpful. But a hint. You didn’t but you did steal something?”
He nodded, jumping around enthusiastically. He said something she still didn’t understand, and gestured at the hobgoblins.
“You stole from them?”
Emphatic—and again, irritated—head shake no.
“You stole from…someone they work for? Are they, like, guards or something?”
The brownie nodded and made a continue gesture with his little hand.
“They’re guards, you stole something they were supposed to be protecting…?”
He nodded.
“From their boss?”
A rapid and enthusiastic series of words in his language.
“An actual object?” Since he’d said he both did and didn’t steal something… “Or is this more like…information or a secret or something?”
The brownie did a jig and patted her on the hand. Then did another little dance, spinning in circles.
Okay. She’d hit on something there. “So you stole a secret of some kind? The hobgoblins are here to bring you back?”
Head shake.
“Kill you?”
Head nod.
“Wow. That must be some secret.”
Emphatic head nod.
More glass and sparkles burst behind her. She ignored the hobgoblins. “And you stole it from someone powerful?”
Another nod.
“On purpose?”
The brownie made a face and looked away.
“So, not on purpose. You accidentally stumbled on the secret and now they want to kill you for it. Do I have the gist?”
He nodded and held his hands out to the side in a little helpless gesture that made her want to hug him. Poor little guy.
“Well, don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”
She looked around, considering how she could get them back to her house—where, hopefully, she’d find a book in her secret attic with a Rosetta stone for brownie to English translation; she didn’t remember having one, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t picked one up over the years—without putting him into her car.
Almost all the denizens of Faery had an allergy to iron, to one degree or another. The severity of allergic reaction depended on the species. Goblins had the least trouble with it. In fact, they kind of liked the stuff even though it gave some of them a burn. She wasn’t sure if the same went for hobgoblins. Though cousins, the two species had quite a lot of differences.
Jaxer could handle iron better than any highborn Cary had heard of, but he still didn’t climb into cars if he could avoid it because steal had high enough iron content to irritate. Jaxer was counting down until humans had fully developed plastic cars with no actual steel and iron involved—Cary wasn’t hopeful this would happen in her lifetime. He managed to navigate the human world without going into anaphylactic shock or burning up or breaking out in a constant rash. But he still didn’t much like iron, especially pure iron that wasn’t part of an alloy.
As far as Cary could remember, brownies were very very susceptible to the iron allergy. Which meant even her home would be an uncomfortable place for the little guy. But she had a backyard with trees so he could hang out there and be okay. The problem was getting through the city and back to her house. They weren’t exactly an easy walking distance.
If Deacon had been in town, she could have called him and had him just run the brownie back to her place. As a leopard shifter, he was fast enough to get the brownie there in a few minutes, even in his human form, and at that speed, he blurred to human vision so no one would likely notice. But he was still in Eugene at a board meeting for the family business. And he wasn’t due back until that afternoon.
That was another long and complicated bit of her life—having a leopard mate who hadn’t been able to be away from her for very long until only just recently because otherwise he lost control of his leopard half, but who nonetheless had other things to do because he was on the board of directors of his family business which ran a bunch of animal rescue shelters around the country specializing in exotics. And she’d been really really upset that he couldn’t work for so long because he saved animals for a living.
