Darkest Deception, page 16
part #4 of Rise Of The Dragons Series
I approached the elf and half-dwarf. He was healing her. I could feel the crackle of nature-like elven magic from her as the greenish golden glow of his magic enveloped her arm. His face was full of tenderness and concern. A soft, sappy look played over her features. Ugh I didn’t need lovebirds when we had dragons to worry about.
I shifted back to my human form and turned my gaze upwards in the direction the dragons had flown. A mystery for later. I swept an appraising eye over the chaos left of Stonehenge and the cringing captives still on the ground. One of them was still. Great. Looks like there was a casualty after all. I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a long sigh. At least it wasn’t one of my team.
“Right. Let’s wrap this up.” I strode over to where Aloora was putting her smartphone away and trying to look menacing as Maxi’s guard. I narrowed my eyes, feeling my pupils narrowed into slits as I tried to control my anger.
Maxi was hugging his legs to his body muttering, “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” over and over again with a wild look in his eyes.
“I’ll deal with you later.” I dismissed Maxi and pulled out my phone. I walked around the wreckage of Stonehenge, assessing the damage. I had to do something while we waited for the clean-up team and I needed the thinking time.
Within fifteen minutes, a van had pulled up directly at the gates of Stonehenge and several muscled Magical Liaison Officers were sprinting into the field. I greeted them and pointed out our attackers. They must have felt the magical disturbance caused by the dragons. I could sense their magical gear as they grabbed the cultists and roughly marched them to the van at crossbow point.
Bonus Chapter 2
Back in the van, I drove us back. My injured arm was already beginning to heal thanks to my shifter magic.
Dot was sitting next to Maxi in the back, hand on her sword and looking grim. Maxi himself looked awful. His mad professor style hair was even more dishevelled and he gazed despondently out of the window at the fields rolling past.
Madam Mim was sitting next to me. A slight frown played over her brow. It worried me, I’d never seen her as anything other than slightly amused with the world. I clenched my jaw, still trying to think. I pulled up at Avebury, outside her cottage and noticed people running in the road.
I leapt out of the car and grabbed a woman dressed in a flowing skirt.
“What’s going on?”
The rest of the team piled out behind me.
“The ground, it was shaking…the stones…” I let go of the terrified woman and sprinted towards the stone circle. The elf was at my side almost instantly, a grim look on his handsome face.
The field was empty of people and several stones had fallen over. I surveyed the scene. A small mound of fresh earth pushed up through the grass. I sniffed. Earth, ice and that crocodilian smell again. Dragons.
“Hey, this is weir…” I turned as Amethyst fell through the ground and landed hard in a deep, underground cavern.
I pinched the bridge of my nose again. That girl attracted accidents. “Are you alright down there?”
She stared up at me from the earthy floor. “Just peachy!” she wheezed.
I stifled a smile. “We’re getting a rope.”
I didn’t wait for a reply and sprinted off to retrieve a rope from the van. Dot was recovering too but her speed was impaired by her leg wound and she needed sleep not sunlight to heal.
“Keep her talking in case she’s injured,” I shouted over my shoulder to Aloora.
I let the rope down through the hole and heard it coil onto the floor.
“I can’t climb that!”
I sighed. I really needed to insist on basic fitness and combat training before accepting people into any taskforces. I pulled up the rope and dug in my mock crocodile skin handbag I had grabbed for a harness. I secured it then dropped the rope back into the cavern. “Pull twice when you’re ready and we’ll pull you up.”
I felt two sharp pulls on the rope and nodded to the team. We hoisted her upwards. I grunted slightly at the weight. Finally, her head crested the opening. I nodded to the elf to pull her up. She grunted in pain as she bumped onto the ground.
As he healed her – again – I pulled some warning cones and tape from my bag and set them up round the hole. I was glad I had had that bag bespelled so it could carry anything without weighing a tonne. I waved the team away and made another call. The clean-up teams at the Magical Liaison Office were going to have a busy day.
I waited for them on my own. I needed time to think. Someone had used the Office’s speakers to wake the dragons here. Someone who knew what our taskforce was doing. I didn’t like where this was taking me. Maxi. He was the obvious answer. But…we’d worked together for years. I got on with him better than anyone. He’d even put in for a transfer shortly after I’d been made head of the Wales branch so we could continue working together. He knew every handbook inside and out. He was more committed to the Office code of keeping magical and mundane beings living in peace that anyone. Could he really want to betray that code? Was he really a traitor? Something didn’t add up.
A non-descript black van pulled up and I watched as the clean-up squad poured out.
“Hi Gwen.”
“You’ve made a real mess here. Second one today so they told me.”
“I get all the good gigs.”
She smiled at me, then turned to her team, “I’ll put in the calls to the press. Do what you can to patch this place up. It’s a heritage site, so I want it exactly like it was.”
“There’s a hole in the ground!”
“They teach you those observation skills at university did they? I can see there’s a bloody hole in the ground. Figure out how we fix it or failing that, make it look like there was a bloody gas explosion. Get moving before it gets even hotter out here!” Her grey wings unfurled to emphasise her annoyance. I smiled as her team backed away. The harpy could be terrifying when she was riled.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” I liked her efficiency and no-nonsense approach. Gwendoline waved me away in acknowledgement, tucking her clawed wings back against her back neatly as she shouted orders to her team.
Thank you for reading book three in the Rise of Dragons series. If you enjoyed this book, you can get a free prequel to my Rise of Dragons series and join the conversation at Gemma’s book wyrms or see all my books before they’re published on patreon.
As an independent author, your reviews help me decide which series to keep going so please do leave one for Darkest Deception and if you enjoyed this book, try Attack on Avalon, book five in the Rise of Dragons series.
Books in the Rise of Dragons series:
Awakening
Solstice of Dragons
Equinox Betrayal
Darkest Deception
Attack on Avalon
Fated Bloodlines
About the Author
Gemma started writing during the 2020 lockdown and loves fantasy fiction and dragons in particular. She lives in Wiltshire with her family and two cats and also enjoys crafts of all kinds. You can see all her writing on patreon. Join the conversation at Gemma’s book wyrms readers’ group on Facebook.
She also writes children’s books. You can find out more on her website www.gemmaclatworthy.com or follow her on Instagram (www.instagram.com/gemmaclatworthy) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/gemmaclatworthy).
G. Clatworthy, Darkest Deception
