Chapter 2 Sneak Peek!

UPDATE: I finally received the pirate map and found the formatting button I needed. Thanks goodness. This one large block of text was annoying me too!

I know I said I wasn't going to put up Chapter 2 for awhile. I wanted to wait until I was almost done with the book, but I have some other things planned inbetween then and now. Why am I putting out Chapter 2? I always planned to. The first chapter gives you a good background on the character, but you don't get to know grown-up Mags and that's who the story is about. I want you to get to know her, so you'll be as excited as I am when the book is available! Enjoy! (I apologize for the lack of spacing, it's blogspot, not me. When I type this up, it's formatted. I will work on getting that fixed.)

"Eew Mags, that's so gross. I AM NOT remaking dinner!" I had just slain a ghoul that was intent on having me for it's evening meal. It just so happened, the arm I severed landed in the pot my roommate, Melissa, was using to make chicken and dumplings for dinner. "What Melissa? Would you rather have had your dinner ruined or been that things chew toy?

Melissa has been my roommate and best friend for the past five years. She was used to my sarcasm by now. That by no way meant I was forgiven for the ghoulie stew though. "I get it, really, I do. All of Hades has it out for you and this is a part of your life, but can you keep it out of the food Mags?!?!" I tried lightening the mood. "So what are you making for dinner?" I ducked as an onion flew past me.

I probably should've been more apologetic instead of sarcastic to my roommate seeing that was the third hell-monster that made it's way past her wards this week. Melissa is a witch, and a pretty powerful one at that. Unfortunately, that meant Iblis just upped the ante on my capture. Damn, I thought I was going to have a quiet night.

Iblis. Besides being a huge pain in my ass, he's one of the biggest, meanest baddies out there. He's the basis for what the humans call Satan. Yup, I had that hunting me down. Oh wait, the hits just keep on coming, I also had the Aelfadl after me too. Aelfadl is Elvish for nightmare and is the name for the elven assassins. They're supposed to be the good guys and they probably are the good guys too, but they've been chasing me since I was twenty, for the crime of being born. They, along with Iblis, could kick rocks for all I care.

I'm a jinn. There are three types of us, the Ifrit, Marid, and Iblian. The Ifrits are the weakest of our kind. They reside in Hades, can change into different animals, and are notorious firebugs. The Marids have to be the most arrogant and vain individuals I have ever met. They are stronger than the Ifrits, prefer watery abodes, and require a great amount of flattery to get them to do anything.

Then there's the Iblian, the most powerful type of jinn and what I happen to be. There used to be three of us. Now it's just me and Iblis. Want to know a sure fire way to tell who's an Iblian? We have violet eyes. We are the only beings that have that trait. I may as well have a bullseye attached to my backside. I can't speak for Iblis, but I prefer my house on the Mistfall side of Harmony, Kentucky, comfy fleece jammies, and am pretty law abiding as long as something isn't trying to kill me.

The Aelfadl doesn't care about the other jinn, just us purple eyed lovelies. About 200 years ago, the powers that be of otherworldly creatures deemed Iblian jinn a threat to all of our kind and decided we needed to be hunted to extinction. I'm not saying they weren't right, but I know of one living exception to the rule. I've been told that Iblian jinn originated the term "hellraiser." I guess they were all in competition for enslaving and ruling the otherworld beings and at one point became a threat. I get their point, but can't a girl get a fair trial?

Iblis...I have no clue why that bastard has it out for me. Shortly after I made it onto the Aelfadl's radar, he started sending his minions after me. Thank Hades for weapons training!! Ghouls weren't the hardest things to kill, but they sure were messy. They were rotting flesh bags with brains and had a penchant for eating their kills. The dead one in my house was starting to stink up the place.

I closed my eyes and imagined the ghouls body and it's recently liberated appendage disappear, along with the ruined dinner. Thinking I didn't want my house smelling like a corpse flower, I magicked a little air freshener too.

I figured I owed Melissa a dinner so I conjured up her favorite, chicken tikka masala. She must've calmed down some, because she was paying more attention to her dinner than she was me. After a few mouthfuls she sighed, "Mags, you can't keep placating me by magicking up my favorite foods every time I get upset. I'm going to get fat!" "You're lucky I make them low cal then, otherwise we'd be hauling you out of here with a forklift." Thwap. The onion made it's reappearance at the back of my head. "Ouch! A bit touchy are we?"

Melissa was smirking at me. I didn't want to get up close and personal with the rest of the produce in the house, so I changed the subject to the Introductory to Magic class she taught. "Have your students mastered the Mistfall spell yet?" (Mistfall was a spell that kept us secluded from the prying eyes of the humans. It looks like fog and if a human was to take a close look, their attention gets diverted elsewhere, making them forget what they were doing). She sighed, "No, not yet. They don't seem to want to learn anything above basic spells and potions." She shook her head, "Not a one of them want to bother with anything that looks, smells, or feels like work. It's all instant gratification with these kids and they're our future. I think my species is doomed Mags." "I'm sure it will all work out," I reassured her.

I felt bad for Melissa. She's a natural teacher. I think her goal in life is to pass on the knowledge she has to someone deserving of it. Deserving young witches were few and far between these days and you could tell it bothered her more than she was letting on. As far as witches go, my roommate had a hand dealt to her by the goddess herself.

Not only was she powerful enough to possibly end up on the witch's council one day, she was beautiful too. She's about 5'4", has honey-blond hair, blue eyes, skin the color of cream, and curves in all the right places. I'll admit I am a bit jealous. I'm not deficient in the looks department, but I feel rather Plain Jane compared to my best friend. I'm 5'8" with long, raven black hair, skinny, and would call my curves proportionate. Nothing to complain about, but every girl has her insecurities.

"Forget about it." Melissa shook herself out of her bad mood. "We should probably change and go train. I'll work off my frustrations on you." "Alright, I'll meet you in the basement in ten minutes," I told her. I went to my room and changed into my favorite pair of black yoga pants, a hot pink fitted tee, and my tennis shoes. I really wasn't in the mood to train since I had battled it out with the ghoul earlier, but Melissa never lets me take a break, regardless of what recent attack I've had. Needless to say, between her and the beasties, I keep in pretty good shape.

"Come on, you're not even trying Mags!" she reprimanded and swung one of a pair of hooked sword towards my midsection. I jumped out of the way in time and deflected her strike with my sabre. It's a slightly s-shaped sword. Why the weapons training if I have magic or why not a gun? It's good to have a back-up defense and bullets, while they hurt like hell, are ineffective.

"I trained earlier Melissa, don't you remember? I made you ghoulash? Get it? Ghoul-ash?" I couldn't help laughing, it was funny. Something hit me in the chest and the next thing I knew I was airborne. I flew ten feet and landed on my back. The wind was knocked out of me.

Instead of getting up, I decided to stay lying on the ground until I regained my breath. "Instead of wasting energy being a smartass, why don't you use some of that and train?" "Alright, just give me a minute," I asked. "You won't have a minute when you're being attacked by the next Aelfadl or goddess only knows what kind of demon spawn, so get up off your ass and fight!!" Yup, I had her pissed now. I wasn't getting out of this training session until I won against her. I miss the ghoul.

Figuring the only way to end this quickly was to catch her off guard, I got up to a crouched position, magicked up some fire, and shot it straight at her feet. From there it took on a life of it's own, encircling her, then growing up towards the ceiling. It gave me the advantage I needed. Melissa had to drop one of her swords to combat my fire attack. As she was extinguishing it, I rushed her, brought my sabre up and swung it down towards her neck. She met my attack and deflected it, but she was just as good with one sword as she was two.

We kept on for another twenty minutes, each of us attacking, deflecting, and using every dirty magic trick there was in the book. I finally got the upper hand when she stumbled over the words to a spell. I conjured a shadow back and to the right of her. It was in her line of sight and I knew she would look since her wards had been breeched and the monsters had gotten past them. As soon as she was distracted, I swept her legs out from underneath her, put my foot on her chest, and brought my blade down, stopping only millimeters above her neck. I had a big, ear to ear grin on my face. "Are we done now?" I looked at my watch. "It's after 9 and we're supposed to meet your dog at 'The Lamp.'

I hoped bringing up her new boyfriend would convince her to lay off training early. "First of all, get that thing away from my neck and secondly would you quit calling Owen a dog? He's really fun to hang out with." I dropped my sabre and let her up.

She was walking towards the stairs when she turned around with a smile on her face. "AND, he's not mine, well at least, not yet anyway." She turned back around and headed up the stairs. "Make sure you house-train him first!" I yelled up the stairs at her. I heard the onion before I saw it and ducked in just enough time. I don't know what she has against this vegetable.