Blood of Stone: A Shattered Magic Novel (Stone Blood, #1)
Jayne Faith
Chapter 1
WITH AN IMPATIENT tug on the cross strap of my broadsword’s scabbard, I watched the bouncer, a lanky man of Elvish descent, examine my mercenary credentials. He scanned the I.D. and activated the magical hologram to verify its authenticity. Among other things, the card displayed my name and the Fae ruler to whom I was sworn.
“Petra Maguire,” he read from my I.D. in a lilting Irish accent. His shoulder-length orange-blond hair was pulled back in the requisite Elf ponytail, exposing the pointed tips of his ears. “Bit of a runt for a New Gargoyle, ain’t ye?”
He peered down at me, his eyes flicking over what little skin I had exposed, looking for outward evidence of my stone blood.
I bit back a smartass retort. My Fae bloodline sometimes aroused some reaction, especially among the Fae races who seldom interacted with my kind. Curiosity was the most common, though revulsion still cropped up occasionally. I reached for my I.D., and he yanked the card back beyond my fingertips.
“You’re half a foot shorter than all the New Gargs I know,” he pressed.
I seriously doubted he knew any New Gargoyles. For one thing, there weren’t that many of us. New Gargs were a new race of Fae spontaneously formed at the Cataclysm, a catastrophic shift in the magical world that occurred a few years before I was born. In a transformation that defied logic, a few hundred Fae abruptly acquired new magic and different features. My father was one of them.
Music pulsed from within the bar, and a line formed behind me. My impatience grew, becoming an itch in my palms, a desire to draw my sword. The Elf, though over six and a half feet tall, wasn’t a fighter. He stood back on his heels, and his upper arms and chest had hardly any muscle tone. He wore a light caliber magi-zapper, a magic-powered stun gun holstered on his hip, but it wasn’t even turned on. If he actually needed to use it, he’d have to wait several seconds while it warmed up. Amateur.
I could have him on the ground, screaming for his mother with a dislocated shoulder in less time than it would take him to reach for his gun. But I knew I had to behave. I’d save my aggression for my mark, who I hoped was inside the bar.
The Elf was still waiting for me to fulfill his curiosity.
“I’m not full-blooded New Gargoyle,” I said, finally relenting.
His mouth widened in satisfaction like a cat who’d just cornered a mouse. He didn’t care about my answer so much as the fact that he’d manipulated me into giving one. Elves could be such assholes.
He settled his weight onto one hip. “Your kind is known for fighting. Maybe I shouldn’t let you in.” He tapped the corner of my I.D. against his lower lip, as if he were going to stand there a while and consider his options.
My temper began to flare in earnest. I needed to get past him before he really tempted me to pull Mortimer on him.
The nightclub I was trying to get into was an establishment on the Faerie side of the hedge, the name for the border between the Faerie world and the Earthly realm where humans and other non-Fae lived. He couldn’t bar me from entering based on bloodline alone. In Faerie, you couldn’t discriminate based on race.
“That’s illegal, and you know it,” I growled. “You’ve wasted enough of my time.”
In a blur of movement, I snatched my merc I.D. from his hand and darted around him before he could react. As I passed, I hit the back of one of his knees with my heel. He grunted as his leg buckled, and he scrabbled for the door handle to catch his balance.
A satisfied smile tugged at the corners of my lips. I relished taking people by surprise with my quickness. New Gargoyles were known for being extremely strong, but not swift. My non-Garg blood had diminished my size but also gifted me with reflexes and agility that full-blooded New Gargs didn’t possess. Only thing was, I had no idea what made up the rest of my bloodline, because my father refused to tell me who my mother was. Just one of several bones of contention between me and him.
The bouncer didn’t come after me, as I knew he wouldn’t. I was tempted to pull Mort from my scabbard, sneak back to the entrance, and give the Elf a little parting poke in the ass just for good measure—nothing fatal, of course—but I reined in my focus. I had work to do. A faint zip of energy streaked across my back, the broadsword’s response to the possibility of some action.
“Soon, friend,” I said under my breath.
The bar, called Druid Circle, had only recently sprung up in this newly-established Faerie territory of the Spriggan kingdom, anchored near the famed Las Vegas Strip. Every Faerie territory had an invisible anchor, or attachment, to a location in the Earthly realm. Up until the Cataclysm, all Faerie territories were anchored in Old World locations—mostly Ireland, Scotland, and England.
Faerie and the Earthly realm were like two parallel worlds. There were points, called doorways, where Fae could pass back and forth between Faerie and the Earthly realm. The doorway outside of Druid Circle was one of the new ones. It was a bit like the normal world versus the Wonderland that Alice found when she fell down the rabbit hole. Two complete worlds that existed separately.
Pausing off to the side of the nightclub’s entrance, I reached down and pretended to adjust the zipper of one calf-high boot, allowing myself a moment to get my bearings and let my eyes adjust. I shifted my attention to my magical senses so I could feel out the crowd. The place was full, but not yet packed. Mostly Fae, with a sprinkling of vampires and human magic users who’d come over from the Earthly side of the hedge. Non-Fae could come into Faerie, but only with a Fae escort.
I couldn’t imagine how King Sebastian, the ruler of the Spriggan kingdom, had managed to grab a piece of Faerie territory anchored so close to the Las Vegas Strip. It took specialized, extremely expensive magic to carve out new Faerie territories. Plus, the Strip offered the opportunity to easily bring in high rollers from the Earthly realm, so it was valuable territory from a financial standpoint and there would have been competition for this piece of Faerie land. The Spriggan kingdom wasn’t particularly large or rich, and I wouldn’t have guessed Sebastian had the resources for such a land grab. I’d heard no rumors about the transaction, but that didn’t mean much. I usually made it a point to stay as ignorant as possible about Fae kingdom politics and power plays, unless such info might somehow help me catch a mark. My job kept me in the action I preferred: taking out menaces of supernatural society as a bounty hunter for the Mercenary Guild.