“Been sipping from the Grim Reaper’s cup?” Sera asked.

The fairy stiffened, turning up her nose as though she’d smelled something bad. “His name is Alden, and he’s the greatest man who has ever lived.” Nauseating devotion burned in her eyes. “And you…you are nothing.”

Naomi wove a web of sparkling pink magic around the fairy. “Well, this nothing just put your ass on ice.”

The fairy tried to walk, but she couldn’t move. Her arms flailed about wildly. Naomi had frozen her from the waist down.

A look of pure outrage flashed across the fairy’s face. “You are the Spirit Warrior.”

Cutler looked at Naomi with interest.

“That’s right,” Naomi said.

“You haven’t won. I was unprepared. And you play dirty.” She lifted her hand, as though she wanted to cast a spell, but no magic came.

Naomi flashed her a smile. “I hope you’re enjoying your own personal slice of hell.”

The fairy growled at her but remained frozen.

“How did you do that?” Sera asked Naomi.

“I surrounded her in a field of spirit magic that sucked her magic dry.”

“Cool.”

“Yes,” Cutler agreed. “Very.”

Naomi looked at him. “Don’t tell the Council. Or anyone for that matter.”

He made a zipping motion with his lips.

“Why? What would the Council do?” Sera asked.

“Spirit Warriors are rare,” replied Naomi. “The Council doesn’t have any right now, and they really, really want one.”

“The Spirit Warriors can open passages into the spirit realm,” Cutler added. “The Council has a longstanding tradition of banishing criminals there. The work isn’t easy on the sanity of the Spirit Warrior, seeing the anguish on all those people’s faces as they are exiled to a perpetuity of hell. And the Magic Council has a way of forcing people to work for them whether they want to or not.”

Sera set her hand on Naomi’s shoulder. The fairy began to cackle. Sera glared at her.

“You were a fool for coming here,” the fairy declared.

Sera felt them the moment before they stormed into the cottage. More of Alden’s followers, all four of them fairies. This fairy’s family, Sera realized. They had a similar feel to their magic, a common flavor that family members shared.

They attacked all at once, using swords and magic. Sera blasted them outside with a gust of wind.

“The great Alden will strike you down when he rules the world,” the frozen fairy said. “The unworthy will be put into chains to live as slaves, just like the dirty humans they protect.”

“Someone put a sock in her,” Sera called out as she charged the fairies scrambling to their feet outside.

Cutler held the fairies in a telekinetic field, suspended several feet in the air. Their feet kicked wildly.

“How many can you hold at once?” Sera asked him.

He shrugged, shooting her an easy smile. “A hundred, give or take a few.”

“One day I’m going to ask you to put your money where your mouth is,” she told him.

“I’m looking forward to that day,” he said, allowing two of the fairies to drop to the ground.

“I’ll bet you are.”

Sera marched up to the pair of disoriented fairies. Before they could get up, she kicked them in the head. That’s the first thing you learned as a mercenary: always kick them when they’re down. That and not to take on any saving-the-world, pro bono nonsense. Sera was still working on number two.

Cutler clapped his hands together, and the two fairies still suspended in the air crashed into each other, then dropped to the ground. They didn’t get up.

“Are they dead?” Naomi asked.

“Of course not,” he replied, pretending to look offended. “It’s hard to interrogate a corpse.”

“You’re crazy,” Sera told him, walking back into the cottage.

Someone had knocked out the doom-telling fairy, probably Naomi. Sera bent down and threw Alden’s mouthpiece over her shoulder.

“Whoa, look what I discovered,” Naomi said.

Sera turned to find her standing next to a stack of notebooks. Naomi had one of them open in her hands.

“This is some messed up stuff.” Naomi’s eyes panned back and forth across the page. “These fairies were controlling the beasts, enchanting them, making them attack humans.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure, but I bet it’s in here somewhere. I’m bringing these notebooks along.”

“Trying to get out of body-hauling duty?” Sera asked, carrying the fairy out of the cottage.

“You bet.”

Sera laughed. She wished she could get out of it too. It was a long way back to the van, and the unconscious fairy wasn’t getting any lighter. By the time they made it to the parking lot at the trailhead, Sera’s arms were feeling pretty unconscious themselves. While she bound the fairy with restraints and shoved her into the back, Naomi packed the notebooks inside a waterproof, fire-retardant bag, standard Mayhem issue for storing corpses and evidence.

Those bags would be put to good use soon enough, Sera thought as Cutler walked up to the van, a swarm of four sleeping fairies and two dead wolves gliding through the air behind him.

“Show off,” she muttered.

He winked at her, set the fairies and beasts on the ground, then headed back down the trail to collect the rest of the wolves.