Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 2

  “You ought to ask for hazard pay,” he said. “It’s exploitation, what Larsen does.”

  “It’s work.” I shrugged. “I get the benefits and accept the hazards. If I asked for a raise I’d be out on the streets.” I had no intention of ending up out there again. I’d grabbed the job ten years ago when people were desperate enough to hire anyone to help with their supernatural-related problems, even a sixteen-year-old girl. I’d clung to the position ever since, though I wondered why I bothered more than I cared to admit. I grimaced as I knocked back the shot, knowing Isabel would accuse me of running away from my problems again.

  I don’t see anything wrong with running away from problems that’d happily eat me alive.

  A shout rang across the bar and I snapped my head around, the back of my neck prickling. My eyes traced over the crowd until they landed on a short, dishevelled man in jeans and jacket, too far away for me to make out his features.

  “Not Swanson again,” said Steve, resting his elbows on the counter.

  I turned back to the bar, watching the man out of the corner of my eye. “Who?”

  “Swanson. Guy over there… his kid went missing last night.”

  A chill raced down my spine. Hearing those words always sent my mind careening in directions I didn’t want it to, even though children disappearing was hardly uncommon here in the suburbs where supernaturals and humans mingled and the faeries had left irreversible damage.

  Swanson stood, moving into the light so I had a better view of the scene. The man he spoke to, who’d been hidden in shadow, wore a suit entirely too well-tailored for an establishment like this. His strong-boned face, well-combed hair and smart attire would have drawn my attention even if he hadn’t pulled out the sword.

  It’s not unheard of to see someone carrying a sword on the street. It’s less common to see someone pull a hand-and-a-half-long sword out of thin air.

  My second thought was that the first guy had picked a fight with the worst possible opponent in the room—including me.

  I kept stock-still. If I moved now, I’d draw attention to myself. Mage Dude lazily pointed the sword, but from his stance, I could tell he knew how to use it. If the other guy so much as moved, his opponent could lunge in one quick motion and take his head clean off.

  Yeah, I shouldn’t have left the flat tonight.

  I couldn’t look away. It was like watching the burning aftermath of a car wreckage. The guy who’d yelled sank back in his seat, stark terror flitting across his expression.

  “Shit,” he said. “I didn’t know you were—”

  “Lord Colton, the head of the mages,” said Steve, behind me. “Oh, boy. He’s in trouble.”

  I felt the blood drain from my own face. The guy was the head of the goddamned mages, and he’d just walked right past me. If he’d seen me… if he’d seen the tell-tale glow of faerie magic around me… my cover would be blown.

  I looked down, the table cold against my hands as I gripped the edges. Few things in this world scare me, but this particular master mage had acquired a reputation and a half in the last few months he’d been in office. Rumour had it he kept a bunch of troll heads hanging from the corridor walls inside the mages’ headquarters. Yet I didn’t give a rat’s ass whether he knew about my unconventional magic—I cared more about word reaching places I didn’t want it to.

  I glanced up at the Mage Lord, unable to help myself, but whatever glow magic cast around him was smothered by the dim bar lights. He wasn’t all that old, not like the last Mage Lord I’d had the displeasure of meeting. He didn’t look mad, either, but then again, appearances can be deceptive. Anyone who’s been around faeries knows that.

  Lord Colton leaned across the table to watch the man who’d shouted at him, who now looked like he was pretending to be part of the furniture.

  “If you’d like to have a more civilised conversation before things get nasty, what did you wish to ask me?”

  “My kid,” said the guy. “He went missing a week ago. The police are doing nothing, your people are doing nothing, and we’re out of options.”

  “I thought that’s what you shouted at me,” said the Mage Lord. “Missing persons aren’t my area, unless you wish to hire one of my mages. We charge reasonable rates.”

  “Do you, now?” The man appeared to recover some of his confidence, leaning forward. “Your doorman slammed the door in my face.”

  Oh, man. He’d picked a fight with the wrong guy, that was for sure. Mage Dude didn’t look angry—that I could tell from this distance, anyway—but the sword’s gleam had drawn the attention of everyone in the bar. Most people seemed glad of the fake smoke to hide behind. Including me, come to that. I couldn’t help giving the Mage Lord a cursory examination, wondering what his gift was. And also wondering why all their leaders seemed to be Generic Thirty-Something Man in Suit. This man, though… I wouldn’t call him generic. The light of his blade was reflected in stormy grey eyes visible even through the smoke, and barely-restrained power crackled above his shoulders like he’d brought a full lightning storm right into the bar. How in the name of the Sidhe had nobody noticed him before?

  To have so much power and still be able to sneak around unseen made the man possibly the most dangerous human magic user I’d ever seen.

  His voice, however, betrayed nothing. “If you wish to hire one of my mages, please address all correspondence to my receptionist, Wanda. I don’t take bribes, and unless magic is involved in this case, it’s absolutely none of my business.”

  Friendly. What a piece of work. And I’d thought the other mages were bad. Why had they gone while their leader stayed behind, anyway? Weird. Missing kid or not, threatening the head of the mages was a good way to end up with your head on a pike.

  I shouldn’t have had the impulse to get involved. Gritting my teeth, I ducked my head as Mage Dude’s gaze swept the bar. Go away, I thought at him.

  At last he left, his long coat sweeping behind him. Like the sword wasn’t dramatic enough.

  I breathed out, the tension in the room easing. Everyone returned to their previous conversations, though considerably muted. Mages never come in here, I heard more than once. Creepy as the necromancers, they are.

  “Scary dude,” said Steve. “I didn’t even see him come in.”

  “Probably blended into the crowd,” I said. Or used a mage trick. Like with the sword. What the hell kind of magic was that? Most mage magic was flashes and sparks, fire and lightning. Not screwing with the laws of physics. Magic rarely astounded me these days, but that was a hell of a party trick.

  “Right, I’m off.” I hopped off my stool. I’d had entirely too much excitement for what was supposed to be a quiet night off. Isabel was off at a coven meeting, so I’d have an early night before anything else happened.

  Wishful thinking.

  I trailed up to the flat, scanning the shadows out of habit. Our small flat lay in the grey area between witch and shifter territories, the best we could get for as low a price as possible, so occasionally, nasties from work followed me home. Wards blazed from every corner, protecting us from just about every kind of supernatural threat, and an unbroken ring of magic-forged iron also surrounded the place. Just in case. The garden was empty save for some flowerbeds of herbs Isabel used for her spells. The closest I’d come to telling her about Faerie was when I’d explained why I’d prefer not to have plants inside the house. The scars all over my body from a bad experience involving a faerie’s magical thorns turning me into a human pincushion spoke for themselves. But even Isabel didn’t know how it had really happened.

  Once over the boundary, I relaxed my guard and approached the doorstep. Then I stopped, heart sinking, as a figure stepped from the shadows.

  Angry Dude Swanson from the pub waited outside my flat.

  Chapter 2

  Swanson, whose kid went missing, and who’d managed to piss off the head of the Mage Lords, looked at me with desperation in his eyes. I could put two and two together pretty
easily.

  “You want to hire me?” I asked.

  A nod. If the wards had let him in, he didn’t intend me harm, and he was pure human to boot. He was far from the only client to visit me after working hours, but after what I’d seen at the pub, I’d only trust him if the wards let him through the door.

  “I usually close after five, but you can come inside for a chat.”

  Sometimes, I want to knock myself for being too nice. But after the way that obnoxious mage had treated him, I just didn’t have it in me to turn him away. Besides, I needed the money.

  Or so I told myself.

  Thanks to Isabel’s top-notch dirt-repelling wards, no blood or questionable stains remained on the stairs or in the carpeted hallway from when I’d walked in here in my ruined clothes. She’d put the spell over our flat a few years ago when I’d come back from a bad job covered in redcap entrails. Try scrubbing the insides of a faerie out of the carpet with an irate landlord hovering over you. My bloodstained clothes, meanwhile, were soaking in the bathroom, so the flat smelled strongly of spell-disinfectant. I switched on a couple of lamps before Swanson stumbled over the many obstacles littering our living room. This room also doubled as Isabel’s workshop and had so many warding spells on it that if Swanson had meant me any kind of ill intent, he’d have been bodily thrown outside. As it was, he nervously hovered near the door as I locked it.

  A piskie flitted overhead. “Get out,” I told it. This specimen, who went by the name of Erwin, had been here almost since we had, and no amount of iron would deter the little bugger from flying around like he owned the place. The inside of the flat remained dark, aside from the faint glow of Isabel’s ever-burning candles around the pentagram chalk-drawn into the middle of the carpet. Very good job the landlord rarely came around to inspect.

  The piskie buzzed into Isabel’s room and I closed the door on it, smothering a sigh. How the creature had managed to continuously fly past our iron wardings, I’d probably never know. It had the intelligence and attention span of a gnat.

  Swanson looked a little alarmed at the display of potions on the coffee table and the five-pointed star on the carpet. Well, I didn’t have an office, and Larsen’s place was closed. “Sit down,” I said. “I’d offer you a drink, but I guess you’ve had a few already.”

  He didn’t look angry. Just tired, eyes sunken with a despondent look I tried not to look to closely at. This was going to be rough. Maybe I needed another drink after all. “What happened?”

  He cleared his throat. “Dustin didn’t come home last week after a night out at the park. It’s not the first time, but… I got a bad feeling. He’s been in trouble before and the police won’t help. I’ve tried everything,” he said, his voice rough and scratchy. The desperate undertone clawed me somewhere deep inside. Because even if I could afford to be picky with the jobs I took on, I couldn’t quell the instinctive response. Missing children cases—missing children in a city teeming with magic and savage monsters—were my kryptonite.

  “What’s your offer?” I asked.

  “Ten thousand.”

  My jaw hung loose, at least until I schooled my expression back into something resembling professionalism. Ten grand would more than make up for my erratic rent payments. I might even be able to rent a proper office.

  Wait a second. The guy cast a shifty look over his shoulder. I’d chalk it up to not wanting to be overheard, except I’d sealed the door, and he’d seen me do it.

  “What else?” I gave him my best no bullshit stare. “What haven’t you told me? There’s got to be a reason you picked a fight with the head of the mages. And don’t tell me you wanted him to put a hex on the police. You know mages don’t deal with missing people.”

  “No,” said the man, “but I thought they might deal with changelings.”

  The word rang through my head. I stood rigid, a trickle of sweat running down the back of my neck. Cursing my body’s instinctive response to the word.

  Changeling.

  I was getting the hell off this case. Now.

  “Sorry, I can’t help you,” I said crisply. “I’m strictly for human cases, or minor spellwork. Nothing faerie-related.”

  The guy’s face went pasty. “Please.”

  God damn you. No. I couldn’t. Searching for missing kids? I took every case, even the ones with the worst outcome. But not if the Sidhe had taken them. Their realm and ours were severed. Changelings didn’t—shouldn’t—exist. Not anymore.

  “Twenty thousand.”

  “Fuck.” The curse escaped before I could stop it. “It’s not the money I care about. I don’t deal with—them.”

  “Then why do you have a piskie living in your house?”

  “Piskies are harmless household pests. Faerie lords are… not.” There were a hell of a lot of things I might say in place of ‘not’. Like sadistic dickheads with a penchant for torturing humans for kicks—but I couldn’t say it in front of him. That fact alone was reason enough to turn him down and walk away with my life and sanity intact. But the guilt would burrow deep inside me if I said no. I’d never be rid of it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my tone softening. “I don’t think I can be much help. If it is a faerie… I wouldn’t even know where to start looking. You should talk to the mages again. They know more than I do.”

  A lie. I didn’t know every corner of the city like the mages did, but I knew more about the faeries than a lifetime of therapy would erase. And I knew you only escaped their realm alive once.

  “Please.” His voice cracked on the word.

  Dammit. “Tell me what happened. If the faerie isn’t in our realm anymore, nobody can follow. I’m not refusing to help, I’m stating a fact. How do you know it’s a changeling?”

  “He’s not acting like Dustin. He… he tried to kill our dog. There was blood everywhere. He’s thirteen and usually mature for his age, but I’ve seen him talking to the faeries before. I just got a horrible vibe. I found him surrounded by spells and… dead things.”

  I shivered, trying to hide my reaction. “Have you tried iron wardings around the house?”

  His blank look told me he hadn’t lied about his lack of knowledge, at least.

  “Okay,” I said. “You probably need a crash course in all things Faerie. I can’t promise it’ll be pleasant. But for now, put an iron ward around your whole house. Here.” I leaned over to the coffee table, careful not to knock any of the candles over, and picked up a metallic-coloured band. If activated, it’d cover the immediate area in a faerie-proof ward. Isabel had a whole cupboard full of them. Our own flat had more powerful wards on the outside—the effect of this iron spell wouldn’t last more than a week. Which meant I needed to act fast to solve the case.

  He took the band, wearing a sceptical expression. “So does this mean the faeries are coming… like the ones that came twenty years ago?”

  “No,” I said, a little too sharply. “Those were Summer and Winter Sidhe lords, and it’s against their laws to steal human children. If there’s a changeling, we’re looking at someone who’s breaking the laws of both realms.”

  “Jesus. Why would they pick us? We’re not magical.”

  I opened my mouth then closed it. I never understood how faeries’ minds worked. I hadn’t been magical, either, when I was taken. It didn’t seem to matter. Some people just drew the shitty straw. “I’ll ask more questions tomorrow,” I said. “Once we’ve figured out what happened. If the faerie involved is still in this realm, I can help. If not…”

  His eyes went wide. “Then they’re in the Faerie realm?” His voice cracked.

  “It’s unlikely,” I hastened to explain. “A pure Sidhe lord would need good reason to risk pissing off the courts by crossing over and taking a human child. More likely, it’s a faerie from this realm.”

  I hope.

  “This realm… and Faerie. Why can faeries come over here?”

  “Most can’t,” I said. “The realms run parallel, but only highly adept Sidhe lo
rds can cross over. The one exception was the invasion.” Which I’d missed most of. “Sidhe lords operate on their own rules. I can’t pretend I understand how it works, but I know humans can’t cross through realms. Hell, most faeries living on this side can’t go back to their own realm. They’re stuck here.”

  His eyes widened further with every word. Poor guy.

  “The good news is, the faerie’s more likely to be in this realm than not. Summer and Winter Sidhe lords—they’re the top rank of all faeries—wouldn’t have a reason to steal away a human.”

  His throat worked as he swallowed. “Are you sure?”

  No. Maybe. “Ninety-five percent sure.”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “If you give me your address, we can deal with it at yours,” I said. “I’ll bring my standard contract. Unless you’d like to sign now.”

  “Yes,” he said immediately.

  Huh. I sat in the shadows of a witch’s living room with the smell of blood and spell-disinfectant lingering around. Hardly the definition of professional. But he was desperate.

  “Okay.” I crossed the room to the writing desk, which was also covered in witch paraphernalia. I shifted a stack of spell ingredient lists aside and found the form, which multiplied itself at my touch. Swanson gawped at me, his bloodshot eyes widening. Witches might not be into flashy magic, but they had a fair few party tricks of their own. I handed him the form copy, which already displayed my signature and my terms. His eyes roved over the page, but I knew he didn’t take in a word. He was desperate enough to trust a stranger with his son’s life.

  Someday, maybe I’d feel pride, not guilt at the realisation. Isabel’s spells are the best in the region. I’ve no trouble tracking people within this realm.

  Bring in the faeries, though, and all bets were off.

  “That okay?” I asked, when he’d handed me the signed form. “Call me tomorrow morning and we’ll get started. I can’t make any promises. Faerie magic isn’t something most humans understand. I certainly don’t.”