Spies Among Us Read online

  Fairy Wars: Spies among Us

  Book 2

  by

  L. L. Bower, PhD

  © 2016 Dr. L. L. Bower

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise without the express permission of the author, except as provided by U.S. copyright law.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Every name, place, event and description stems from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, situations, or entities is purely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Synopsis of Book 1 – Fairy Wars: The Dark Ones

  Preface—Brutus’s (the Wolf’s) Story

  Chapter 1 – Calen’s Despair

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  Chapter 2 – Brutus and the Quest for Calen | (Three Weeks after Calen’s Disappearance)

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  Chapter 3 – Liberation

  Chapter 4 – Enemies Attack

  Chapter 5 – Reunion

  Chapter 6 – A New Threat

  Chapter 7 – New Allies

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  Chapter 8 – Battle Ready

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  Chapter 9 – A Casualty of War

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  Chapter 10 – The Source of Evil

  Chapter 11 – An Enemy We Can’t Fight

  Chapter 12 – An Enemy we don’t have to Fight?

  Chapter 13 – More of Galdo’s Surprises

  Chapter 14 – A Present for Galdo

  Chapter 15 – The Dragon Pit

  Chapter 16 – A Lamb to the Slaughter

  Chapter 17 – A Dangerous Trip

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  Chapter 18 – Simean’s Past and Brambel’s Revelation

  Chapter 19 – Troll Country

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  Chapter 20 – Attempted Murder

  Chapter 21 – A Harrowing Encounter

  Chapter 22 – A New Danger

  Chapter 23 – Galdo’s Army Builds

  Chapter 24 – Off to the Land of Fairy

  Chapter 25 – Darkness Follows

  Chapter 26 – Dark Mysteries Await Us

  Chapter 27 – The Girl of my Dreams

  Chapter 28 – Trolling for Trolls

  Chapter 29 – A Mysterious Visitor

  Chapter 30 – A Storm and More Unexpected Visitors

  Chapter 31 – A True Fairyland

  Chapter 32 – Fit for a King

  Acknowledgements

  Look for Fairy Wars: The Final Battle to be out sometime in 2018. | Dr. L. L. Bower

  A sneak peek at Book 3 – | Fairy Wars: The Final Battles | Chapter 1 – Calen’s Quest

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  About the Author

  Dedication

  To my wonderful husband, Steve, a marvelous proofreader, my best friend, my co-journeyer through life for 46 years now, and my true love.

  Prologue

  “In the more than eighty years I’ve lived and the numerous battles I’ve led, I’ve learned that war accomplishes very little. When one side finally declares a victory, the cessation of fighting only brings a brief lull between battles, for the root cause of the conflict—hatred—is never resolved. Still, we fight to deter evil in all its forms and maintain our liberty and principles. I’ve often wished for another way to bring peace to Fairyland.”

  General Pholas Eneas, Centaurian Commander of NextGen, leader of the Fairyland Centaur Armed Forces, and son of Lionel

  Synopsis of Book 1 – Fairy Wars: The Dark Ones

  Dear Readers: If you’ve read the first book, feel free to skip to the preface.

  In Book One, Calen Bartholomew Ambrose, a young, solitary clock repairman, accidentally stepped on a fairy prince and was given a rare opportunity to view a world invisible to humans—Fairyland. As a result, he learned about numinals, or supernatural creatures, that inhabit the woods of Mansentia, where he resides.

  He met dozens of delightful light creatures there, including brownies, fairies, gnomes, pixies and many others. Along the way, he also encountered the dark enemies of these benevolent Fairyland residents—like trolls, ogres and wraith-like bogles. For centuries, these dark beings have sought to conquer their mystical world by dominating and even killing the beings that walk in the light.

  When Calen (pronounced with a long A) stumbled over the royal fairy, he was drawn into this conflict as a “champion.” According to the light ones of Fairyland, this designation is pre-ordained by their deity (the Creator) and bestowed upon those the Creator deems worthy. Along with this title, Calen was granted enhanced senses and the ability to heal quickly from almost any wound.

  The only weapon that can kill Calen must be made of pure silver and must be plunged into his heart. After an unsuccessful attack by an ogre with a silver dagger, Calen decided to adopt a dog as added protection to warn him of intruders. In town one day, he came upon a strange little man named Zamir who was selling a German shepherd puppy named Burt, who Calen bought and took home.

  To fulfill his role as champion, Calen then began combat training with two famous centaur warriors, Pholas and Chearon. During his training, he discovered the Creator had gifted him with the ability to control the weather, and the ground gnomes gifted him with two remarkable swords, which he named Noblesse and Nobliege.

  Because the dark ones wanted to attack Calen in his weaker, untrained state, he was fervently sought after and nearly killed on several occasions by members of the dark kingdom. For protection and to hide his identity, he was changed into a centaur and renamed Magnus by Crisa, a kind and powerful sorceress. She could not only cast spells, but could also talk to animals, transform into an animal or numinal (magical being) and read minds. One spell she cast changed Burt into a formidable wolf, now named Brutus, to further guard Calen’s new identity as a centaur.

  After Calen became a centaur (half human/half horse), he and Brutus went to live in the centaur village of Equis. Concurrently, Crisa, who lived nearby, taught him how to control his supernatural weather abilities.

  With the aid of his new powers, Calen joined the centaurs as they confronted and killed hundreds of half-human harpy children. These half-harpies had invaded the human realm and stolen and mutated humans’ cats, as well as stealing and fouling Fairyland’s food production. They relocated the immortal harpy mothers of these hybrids to a distant island. But Calen was overcome with remorse, when he saw the hundreds of dead half-harpies on the battlefield, and wondered if a peaceful solution to Fairyland’s age-old conflict could be found.

  After Equis’s annual centaur games (similar to our Olympics) where Calen placed second, an evil sorcerer and leader of the dark forces named Galdo, together with his fleet of dragons, attacked the village, searching for Calen. Galdo is the son of a very powerful wizard, Delbo, who was killed by a previous human champion, Simean. (As a side note—when Delbo suspected his end was near, he cast a prophetic spell that would banish his killer, in this case Simean, to limbo, aka the Realm of Shadows, after the wizard’s death.)

  Galdo’s dragons were of five tribes, red, blue, black, purple and green, each tribe with its own specific deadly weapon. Red dragons breathe fire; blue dragons freeze things; black dragons shoot goo that blackens and withers whateve
r it touches, purple dragons zap objects with lightning, and green dragons spit acidic slime.

  During Galdo’s invasion, the Creator told Calen to hide, while Pholas, the centaurian commander, told Galdo that Calen had left Fairyland because he didn’t have what it took to be a human champion. Even though Pholas convinced Galdo of Calen’s exit, the dragons destroyed much of the village, and the sorcerer killed the winner of the centaur games, Horatio. As a result, Calen became all the more determined to defeat Galdo and stop the continuing bloodshed.

  While living in Equis, Calen learned that the dark side’s attacks were becoming more concentrated, and that oftentimes the light ones didn’t know how to fight back. He decided to travel through the kingdom and train these gentle beings to battle the dark ones.

  As he headed to Crisa’s cottage to seek her aid in this quest, he happened upon a bugbear, a large dark creature named Grog. This bugbear was caught in a bear trap and would have died at the hands of other predators, if Calen hadn’t rescued him. By bugbear law, Grog was now obligated to become Calen’s bodyguard. Because Grog was a dark creature, Calen was wary of the bugbear’s sincerity. Even so, he allowed Grog to accompany him to Crisa’s house because the bugbear claimed his own kind would kill him if he didn’t fulfill their laws.

  To safeguard Calen and Grog from Galdo during their training travels, Crisa changed Calen back into a human and concocted two potions. One potion made Calen look like an aged gnome to light creatures and a large bugbear to any dark ones. The other potion caused Grog to appear as a gnome boy to beings of light and his imposing bugbear self to the dark side.

  Using an invisibility spell conjured by Crisa and under cover of night, Calen and Grog taught their fighting techniques and dark battle strategies, which Grog understood, throughout the kingdom. Along the way, Calen stole a dragon’s egg and hatched a beautiful green dragonette he named Jade.

  Upon completion of the training, the light ones planned an all-out attack on the dark ones, some of whom Calen believed were redeemable. Hoping to negotiate with the dark side’s leaders to avoid bloodshed, he returned to Crisa’s house the day before the battle where he was captured by Galdo’s henchmen and thrown into an underground dungeon. Calen soon discovered that he was in the company of many other light creatures in that prison, all of whom were being used for evil, dark experiments.

  Preface—Brutus’s (the Wolf’s) Story

  It wasn’t by chance that Zamir, my supposed former owner, and I stood on a street corner that day in the village of Lambert, when Calen came shopping for a dog. By word of the head of the fairies, King Aubrey, Prince Enlil’s father and Zamir’s sovereign, the Creator commissioned me to become Calen’s protector. There I sat, wagging my tail and trying my best to look cute. I was sure to lick Calen’s cheek with my wet tongue to seal the deal. I can be very persuasive when I want to.

  You see, Zamir is actually a powerful magician. He’s not as powerful as the sorceress Crisa, who can shapeshift and communicate telepathically with animals, but he’s mighty nonetheless. That day he made himself appear old and feeble and made me look like a German shepherd puppy, though that’s not my true form.

  Calen may have thought himself lucky to find a puppy, right when he needed a dog for protection against the dark ones. If you know the Creator though, you know there are no coincidences, only carefully laid plans.

  As you may have guessed, I’m not just doggone cute. I’m also a ferocious guardian. I told Crisa of my true identity when she first read my mind. Her response? “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  Okay, so are you ready to hear my secret? Drum roll, please. Da—da—da, dat—da. I’m a lycanthrope or, as you may know my kind, a “werewolf.” That’s right, both human and animal, but Calen doesn’t know that.

  Unlike the rest of Fairyland, my race is visible to humans, even without the aid of the Omniweed (a magical plant that enables humans to see Fairyland creatures). Many werewolf stories are told in your world. Those tales, I must say, are exaggerated. Silver’s not lethal to us, and a regular old bullet will kill us, just like it’ll kill you.

  And we don’t change with the full moon into brutish, uncontrollable beasts. Instead we transform from wolves to humans and back again with a little concentration. We’re as gentle as they come to anyone with a kind heart. Be assured, however, I’ll use the full lethality of my teeth and claws to stop anyone who tries to harm Calen.

  Because Calen and I were chased by goblins who saw my puppy form and to protect Calen’s new identity as a centaur, Crisa pretended to change me into a wolf, now known as Brutus. Actually, all she did was wave her wand and remove Zamir’s illusionary puppy spell.

  Since I’m able to sniff out darkness in all its forms, I’ve protected Calen all along, without his knowledge. Unfortunately, I haven’t always been able to fulfill my duties, like the time Calen ordered me out of his house during a basilisk attack, and the time he told me to “stay” outside Crisa’s ransacked cottage. Being the “good dog” I am in canine form, I have to obey my master.

  Being a rebel at heart, however, I wriggled out of my leash to follow Calen several times in his earlier Fairyland adventures. I shadowed him in hooded human form into Lambert, when he purchased training supplies.

  Later, I escaped to be by his side when Galdo, that evil and powerful sorcerer, appeared in Equis, the centaur village, with his dragons. Unknown to Calen, I’ve also protected him from bogle attacks in his training journeys across the kingdom.

  A bogle is an extremely dark creature, formed when a fairy commits a heinous act, like killing an innocent. That fairy then becomes a larger, evil wraith, doomed to wander the earth as neither alive nor dead. A bogle has a formidable skill set—no corporeal form, a scythe that can cut through bone and the speed of a cheetah.

  To keep bogles from taking over the world, the Creator gave werewolves like me the power to kill bogles. And we’re the only numinals (or magical beings) that can. The Creator also made our barks sound like high-pitched, pain-filled squeals to their ears. I love to sink my teeth into those darklings, but I have to be speedy to do it.

  Okay, so now you’re thinking, if I’m such a good bodyguard with the power to kill bogles, why didn’t I prevent Calen’s capture by Galdo?

  The day of his capture we traveled to Equis and then returned to Crisa’s cottage where he commanded me to remain outside her gaping front door while he went in to investigate. Being the good dog I am, at least from Calen’s perspective, I obeyed. I thought the dark ones were long gone, as I didn’t smell them nearby, although there was a faint, lingering stench of darkness.

  After about ten minutes, I decided to follow him and found Crisa’s normally immaculate cottage a disaster. I tried to avoid the broken glass from her shattered chandelier, but glass was everywhere, and it cut my pads.

  I searched from ruined room to ruined room until I discovered an escape tunnel in the basement. I crept through it and ended up in her back yard, but didn’t see either Crisa or Calen. The recent scent of dark creatures was stronger there, but I couldn’t tell where they’d gone because I couldn’t find any footprints. I thought perhaps dragons had swept my friends away. I became frantic, certain that something terrible had happened to them. For hours I searched the surrounding area for clues until, exhausted, I had to give up.

  Obviously I’m not the terrific protector the Creator thought I would be. The Creator tells me, however, he has a purpose for Calen’s capture, which makes me feel a little better.

  Yet, I feel like I’ve failed both the Creator and Calen. I must make up for my blunder and, using all my wolfish senses, find Calen as soon as possible.

  Chapter 1 – Calen’s Despair

  I’m at the mouth of a dragon lair, Noblesse in hand and Jade, my dragon, beside me. She’s communicating telepathically with the other dragons, but, despite her message of peace, they snort and stomp their feet.

  When they rush forward, she sidles in front of me to shield me. The other dragons h
url their arsenals of acid, slime, cold, fire and lightning at her. She spits green acid at them, while I look away, not willing to see what they’ve done to my dragon. Some human champion I am.

  I hear a scream and wake up, my heart racing. Despite the frigidity of my cell, I’m saturated with sweat. As the echo fades away, I realize the scream has emanated from my parched throat.

  The dream seemed so real. I once read, if you die in a dream, you die in real life, which is probably an urban legend. Even so, I feel like I’ve cheated death. My heart races and I gasp for breath.

  I look around and realize nothing’s changed. I’m still underground in a dark twelve-by-twelve-foot prison cell with a tiny barred window, a piss pot, a pile of moldy straw to sleep on, and a rusty water pipe that drains into one corner, its continual drip, drip, drip reminding me of the ticking clocks I’ve repaired. The only other sounds, from time to time, are the distant screams of victims from whatever wicked experiments Galdo has devised.

  For food each day, I receive a crust of stale bread, a mealy, wormy apple and unsatisfying sips of the metallic-tasting water. The odors of my prison, a mixture of mold, urine and excrement, haven’t changed either. I wish I could turn off my fairy-enhanced sense of smell in here.

  By the cycles of what little daylight filters into my small barred window, at least three weeks have passed since my capture. I’ve given up on being rescued by my friends. This underground dungeon is so well hidden and so well guarded by dragons that, even if my friends could find me, they’d probably die trying to help me.

  I’ve talked to the Creator often, and I know he hears me. But so far, no response.

  So, in the last week, loneliness has shadowed my every breath. I miss Crisa, Grog, Brutus, Jade and my fishing buddy Gambole, my last link to the human world. I’ll bet he wonders what’s happened to me, why my manufactured excuse of attending a two-week horologists’ convention (I never told him where) has extended to several months, during which I completed my champion’s training and traveled through Fairyland.