Enchanted No More. Robin D. Owens

being of gray shadows watching her. Magic surrounded him so she knew no one else noticed him.

      A hood obscured his features, though she thought they were fine—as fine as the most beautiful Lightfolk. Frissons slithered down her spine and she knew she wasn’t looking at an elf, but a great one of the Darkfolk. Her throat tightened. She would not answer.

      You should reconsider this mission for the Lightfolk. Now that he spoke more than a word, Jenni heard rich undertones in the gorgeous voice, seduction. She was glad she couldn’t see his eyes, a gaze that would snag and seduce her into anything.

      She couldn’t reconsider. She had to save her brother. No Darkfolk would understand that. They cared for nothing more than their personal plans, one and all. But her inner alarms were sounding. Don’t contradict him. Maybe, Jenni mentally projected.

      The figure laughed, showing white wicked teeth. You lie.

      To her horror he broke apart before her eyes, into tiny flittering beings that had comprised him. Shadleeches! Most winged away, but one came and fastened on her wrist, claws piercing her skin, hurting! Sucking her magic from her. She flung it off, stopping a cry by clamping her hand over her mouth. Her heart thumped so hard it was all she could hear. People walked by her faster.

      The man had not been real, but a construct. How? Clawlike fingers clamped around her ankle. The beggar. He was the real Dark one. He’d created the other, distracted her.

      She looked down into wet orbs of eyes, wrenched her gaze away. Shudders ran through her.

      My shadleeches are pretty things, the great Dark one said, in that beautiful voice. His fingers tightened, grinding into her flesh and against her bone.

      Fear flared and she used it, used her magic to flash heat to her ankle, burn, burn, burn!

      The “beggar’s” shriek was beyond regular hearing. She was free! She stumbled, limped, saw the bronze doors of a nearby bank and rushed to them. She barreled through the doors and as they slowly shut, a glimpse revealed the Dark one’s ungainly body cloaked in an “invisible-to-mortals” illusion hanging in midair. His bulbous stomach drooped, his eyes blazed red. “Mistweaver blood is like the finest wine.” A long tongue swept his slashlike mouth. He vanished.

      Inwardly quivering, she sank onto a marble bench in the bank’s atrium. His words drummed in her ears. He’d hurt her family, perhaps killed them, and he was back.

      Since people were staring at her here, too, she sat stiffly, regulating her breathing from ragged panting. She studied the marks on her wrist from the shadleech. The beggar-Dark-one referred to his shadleeches. Were they all his, or only that bunch? She thought the latter. And the more she thought of him, the more power she gave him. Fear coated her mouth.

      She still had the Lightfolk to deal with, had to decide how much to tell them—about a lot of things. She couldn’t afford fear. Sending adrenaline energy and a touch of fire magic to her wrist and her ankle, she let the marks fade away, scanned her body for any dark poison and found nothing except a small weakness in her magic.

      It had not been a strong attack. Too many mortals around for that—since she sensed he’d wanted to gut her and feast on her blood and magic. His voice had lost the illusion of beauty, too, crackling and breaking and screeching. He might have been beautiful in all ways once, but evil magic worked on a being.

      But he was a great Dark one and she was a halfling. Nothing could change that. She would need the Lightfolk to fight him. So much for the vague idea of saving her brother and refusing to consider the rest of the mission, though breaking her word could kill her and her brother just as dead.

      She was truly trapped, and she’d better think smart.

      Her pocket computer chimed. Half an hour before her appointment…she’d left very early. She could spare a few minutes to gather herself, sink into a little meditative trance. She had to push the attack aside or the Lightfolk would easily manipulate her at their meeting—she’d have no control over the quest to save Rothly.

      So she centered herself and breathed and felt magic surrounding her. Significantly more magic in down-town Denver than there had been six months ago. Good, concentrate on that.

      She left the bank and walked, stretched all her senses, let loose the extra one that gauged magic, tasted it, and knew magic rippled like minor waves from a central point.

      All the stray molecules in the atmosphere of magic were being pulled to one source, then emanated from it, like a recycling pump…her nose and tongue and skin and scalp told her that the new magic emanating from that point was just a little richer than it had been.

      Walking close to a concrete wall, she trailed her fingers. As she’d suspected, the building was soaking up magic. It was penetrating into the electrical system. Fascinating.

      After skirting a winter-dry fountain, she crossed to the doors of one of the tallest buildings in Denver, hesitated as she put her hand on the door pull, which sparked energy against her palm. She suppressed fear that sparked with the magic—fear for her brother, for facing great Lightfolk who assigned missions that only caused her hideous loss.

      But she had to save her brother and the Lightfolk had information and the quest was the price.

      With one last deep breath, she entered the building and approached the security desk. There she showed her human ID that stated her birth date was fifty years later than it had been. She would be twenty-five for a while yet.

      As the guard scanned her ID against the computer’s appointment list, Jenni studied the directory. Eight Corp was the only business on the thirty-second floor. The guard murmured “Good afternoon,” and indicated the correct elevator, not that she could have missed the bay. The magic was much stronger there.

      During the elevator ride, she breathed in a calming rhythm, checked that her natural fire was banked. Losing control in these negotiations would be disastrous.

      The door opened and Jenni stepped out onto moss. To humans it might look like a dark green sculpted rug, but it was true moss. Her toes wiggled in her shoes.

      She faced a gray-blue marble wall that framed a large granite desk with a top-of-the-line computer system. Fountains bubbled somewhere near.

      The female dwarf receptionist—dwarves traditionally guarded entrances—didn’t stand when Jenni swished in, the layers of her filmy, multicolored skirt rustling. But the receptionist gave her outfit a glance and frowned at the bright gold blouse Jenni wore, easily seen since her red leather trench coat was open.

      The dwarfem’s wide nostrils flared, “Djinn and elf,” she stated, then, “half-breed human.”

      Dwarves responded well to rudeness. Jenni showed her pointy incisors. She could be ill-mannered, too. She scanned the female with all her senses. “Full dwarf, ancient fem.” She didn’t meet the receptionist’s gaze. “And I am an elemental balancer.” A quality that no one else now in this world could claim. “Why would anyone choose a dwarf as a greeter?” She let the question hang. “Surely one of elven blood would be much better.” But pure elves wouldn’t see the job of greeting others as important.

      The receptionist grunted, a sound like pebbles rolling down a rocky slope, then said, “My apologies, Jindesfarne Mistweaver.”

      A full-blooded dwarfem apologizing to her. Things certainly had changed. Jenni curled her tongue to the bottom of her mouth, letting the taste of magic coat it. The best, finest kind of magic, all four elements in nearly equal measure.

      Then the atmosphere changed and the tang on her tongue turned to honey. More elves had entered the suite. Odd to even think of elves in a modern office building…any of the Lightfolk.

      “Djinnfem?” The receptionist was prompting a reply to her apology.

      Jenni didn’t know the dwarfem’s name and the scrolled-and-engraved brass nameplate on the granite stated Mrs. Daurfin. Jenni snorted. No Lightfolk would ever put a real name out for anyone to see. Jenni narrowed her eyes but did the proper thing, naming the