The Deer Prince's Murder: Book Two of 'Fantasy & Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 2) by Michael Angel Read Free Book Online Page A

And his left antler was still little more than a bony nub, but it too had grown a couple of inches, and smoothed out its jagged edge.
    “I think Shaw’s on to something,” I remarked.
    “There must be,” Liam agreed. “Once I was crowned Heir, I felt…charged somehow. Like the very woods themselves were sending me energy. I feel stronger. More potent, magically.”
    Galen immediately stepped forward, his ever-present curiosity aroused. “In what way? How has it affected your spell casting?”
    “Let me see.” Liam closed his eyes and concentrated. Again, that same tiny whisper of magic that I’d felt as much as heard, when Liam had clashed with Wyeth – and thrown the bigger, heavier stag back.
    A cloud of bright blue jays, yellow-crested kinglets, and rainbow-sheened songbirds materialized from the nearby trees and swooped in, serenading the Fayleene Heir with their song. A dozen of the jays grasped the barding on Liam’s back and carried it off, while another half-dozen did the same with his headdress. With a whirl of color and a final trill of song, they flitted back into the trees as quickly as they came.
    The griffin’s tongue flicked from his beak and he exclaimed, “How marvelous! Thou canst summon snacks now!”
    “Shaw,” I said, “stop with your teasing.”
    “I wasn’t speaking in jest! T’was a very useful form of magic, in my opinion.”
    Galen cleared his throat before Liam could add his two cents and get the argument rolling. “Speaking of useful forms of magic, it is time to turn Dayna back to a human. Unless, of course, she’s found the Fayleene form such to her liking that she wishes to remain a doe for a while longer.”
    “No, thank you!” I threw Liam an apologetic look. “No offense, Liam. I like the enhanced senses, but I’ve got a meeting back in Los Angeles this afternoon. They’re going to look at me funny if I arrive like this.”
    Liam chuckled. “I understand. Though in truth, I will miss seeing you in this form.”
    I went to stand next to the tree where all of my clothes still hung, as if from an evergreen clothesline. Galen spoke a few sentences of magical incantation, and a golden circle of light began to form overhead. It grew slowly in brightness, like a fluorescent lamp that was just warming to the task.
    “The spell returning a subject to their original form is much less dramatic,” Galen explained. “In the next minute or so, the light will envelop you and allow your body to revert back to the one of its birth.”
    I nodded, shifting back and forth on my cloven hooves in anticipation. I hadn’t been kidding when I told Liam that I liked the enhanced senses. But aside from the fact that the Fayleene were a bunch of snobs – with the occasional psychopath like Wyeth thrown in – I couldn’t wait to get my human hands back. Among other things, I needed them to pick up freshly brewed cups of coffee.
    My three friends continued to watch as the shimmering light slowly grew in intensity. And right then, believe it or not, a thought occurred that made me blush.
    “Um, guys?” I said. “When I change back to human, I’m going to be naked as a jay bird.”
    My three friends traded a puzzled look between themselves that all but cried out: Do you know what Dayna is talking about? Because I don’t have a clue.
    “Yes,” Galen acknowledged. “Typically, jay birds are without clothes.”
    “Well, it’s kind of…embarrassing for me to be without clothes in my human form.”
    “Why?” Liam asked. “You see us without clothes all the time.”
    “That’s different.”
    “And you’re without clothes right now, aren’t you?”
    “I said, that’s different!”
    “How?”
    The shimmering light began to peak in intensity. “It just is, okay?
    “Truly, ‘tis a strange notion,” Shaw added. “While human haunches are not as tasty-looking as those of a Fayleene, certainly one wouldst–”
    “All right!” I barked, at the top of my lungs. “Everyone,