Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  “Tea and toast. That’ll help.” She set off down the hall and he followed her into a small kitchen at the back of the house. It was cold, but felt lived-in. There was a calendar on the wall with tiny writing in nearly every square. The small worktop was cluttered with a bread bin, jars of rice and pasta, a mug tree and a small stack of unwashed dishes. Emma bustled about, putting the kettle on and bread in the toaster. She pulled out a chair at the small table and pointed at it. Felix sat down and smiled as he watched her getting teabags out of the caddie and milk from the fridge. “It’ll be better than the crap they provide at the community centre,” she said with a grin.

  “Anything would be better than that.” Felix let out a throaty chuckle and shook his head. He glanced at the floor and saw his sister’s pale face surrounded by blood. He closed his eyes and gripped the edge of the table.

  “What’s wrong?” Emma asked softly, her cool fingers brushing the back of his hand. He peeled his eyes open and gazed into her big, blue eyes.

  “Just a flashback. I’m okay.” He took a deep breath and it shook as he exhaled.

  The kettle bubbled loudly and steam rose from the spout, fogging up the window under which it stood. It clicked and the blue light on it went out. Emma turned and poured the water into their mugs.

  “Afghanistan, or last night?” Emma asked, her back to him.

  “Last night.” Emma passed him his tea and he took a sip.

  “Do you take sugar?” She slid a small sugar dish across the table to him. He added half a teaspoon of it to his tea and stared into the swirling liquid as he stirred. He was afraid to look back at the floor, even though he knew his sister wasn’t there. Emma passed him two slices of toast stacked up on a small plate and joined him at the table with butter and jam. “Eat.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Well we either eat or talk. Your choice.” She started buttering her own toast and he reluctantly did the same. He didn’t want to talk, though he supposed he would have to at some point. He had talked a lot at the hospital when he got back from his last tour. They’d made him as part of his recovery from his injury.

  “I messed up my knee in a bombing,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  “Yeah? My shoulder got injured in a fight with some poachers in Zambia. It was very dramatic. There was a chase through the forest. I got tackled and slammed into a tree.”

  “Are you going back?” Felix took a bite of his toast, glad to not have to talk about himself.

  “I thought I might. My shoulder’s nearly back to full strength so I can shoot a rifle again. So, yeah. But I don’t know now, things have changed here a bit.” She avoided his gaze. “It’s not that simple. Is it?”

  “No, I guess not.” They hardly knew each other. It seemed crazy to change life plans because of them meeting. But they had gone through something intense and every time he looked at her he felt warm inside. If she felt anything like that then he could understand her hesitation to re-enlist. He chewed, swallowed and fought against his thoughts. His eyes ached and his shoulders had tightened up again. “I really need to sleep.”

  “Of course you do.” Emma took his hands and pulled him to his feet. “Come on.” She led him to the other side of the kitchen and through a narrow doorway into a dark passage with stairs leading up to the first floor. His feet dragged on the stairs and he gripped the banister to keep himself upright. Emma led him into the first room at the top of the stairs. It was dark with the curtains drawn, but Felix could make out a double bed with a chequered pattern on the duvet cover. He dropped down onto it and Emma tugged off his boots. He collapsed backwards and covered his face with his arms. Tears threatened to leak from his eyes, but exhaustion claimed him first and before he could say a word of thanks to Emma, he was asleep.

  Chapter Three

  Light filtered through Felix’s eyelids and his throat stung when he tried to swallow. Muffled rock music throbbed up through the floorboards, waking him properly. He rolled over onto his side and winced as his gun dug into his ribs. He peeled his eyes open and saw a glass of water on the bedside table. He sat up gingerly, every muscle straining with the effort. He took the glass and drank deeply, glugging the cold, refreshing liquid down his sore throat. His feet pressed into the thick, purple carpet and he looked slowly around the room. The walls were papered with purple and cream striped paper and heavy, purple curtains covered the window. Light birch-coloured furniture lined the walls. It was clean and tidy with no clutter, even on the dressing table. There was a dish with some jewellery in it and a small bottle of perfume, but otherwise the surface was clear. Next to the coaster upon which his glass of water had stood was a single novel and a small lamp.

  He rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat before standing. His knee clicked several times and he rolled his eyes. It had barely bothered him while he was running all over the city trying to find clues, but now it was paying him back for his exertions. He padded softly to the door, opened it and peeked out into the dark hall. There was light at the foot of the stairs and he made his way slowly towards it.

  The rock music dropped in volume and Emma appeared at the foot of the stairs.

  “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “I don’t think so. I think I was just ready to wake up anyway.” He got to the bottom and drew her into his arms. It felt so good to hold her. He stroked her hair and tilted her chin up so that he could kiss her. “Thank you for looking after me.”

  “You’re welcome. Your phone buzzed a few minutes ago. It’s in your jacket pocket.”

  “Oh.” He stared past her across the kitchen. He released Emma and made his way slowly into the hall to where his coat was hanging. He fished through his pockets and found his phone. He turned it over and saw a missed call from a number he didn’t recognise. Whoever it was had left a message. He dialled into his voicemail as he walked slowly back to the kitchen where Emma was pottering about.

  “This is Detective Harper. Just calling to let you know that we’ve made an arrest in connection with your sister’s murder. We’ll let you know each step of the way, but we’re optimistic of filing charges. Thank you for your help and please call me back if you have any questions.” The officer who had interviewed him ended the call there and Felix lowered his phone in shock.

  “What is it?” Emma asked, staring at him with a tea towel in her hands.

  “They’ve arrested someone. She didn’t say who, but it’ll be Peter.”

  “Well, that’s promising. How are you feeling?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He slumped down into a chair and dropped his phone onto the table. His mind felt blank. His sister’s dead face stared back at him from the tiled floor and he did nothing to get rid of it. It all felt so disconnected from him and he was powerless; just a passenger on the ride.

  “You’ll have your moment,” the voice in his head said softly. “Your fight is still to come. Remember those things that cornered you in that building and kept you from finding your sister in time.”

  He closed his eyes and tears formed behind his lids. He couldn’t stop them from leaking out and spilling down his cheeks. He hated crying. His shoulders shook and a great sob burst from his dry lips. Emma’s arms were around him a second later and she pressed his head to her front. He wrapped his arms around her hips and held her tight. He had no strength in him to fight the tears and he let them fall and the desperate cries rip from his mouth.

  “I’ve got you,” Emma said, stroking his knotted hair. “I’m right here. I’m not going to tell you that everything’s okay because it isn’t. I know it’s all awful right now. But I’m here for you.”

  Felix pushed himself up, her hands sliding down over his shoulders and settling on his waist. He was a mess, he wanted to hide, but she looked into his eyes with nothing but kindness. He grabbed her face and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her with feverish need. She reciprocated and clung to his back, digging her nails into him. He lifted her onto the table and pressed himself hard agains
t her. He needed her, all of her, right then and there. A fire had ignited in him that had been dormant for years, and only Emma could quench it.

  Emma lay in her bed, her ginger hair a tangled halo around her head. Felix watched her as she breathed softly, a small smile on her pink lips. Her cheeks were flushed under her freckles and there was a sheen of sweat on her brow. Felix smiled and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. He kissed her softly and she whimpered, still half asleep.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “Any time,” she murmured.

  “I need to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.” He kissed her again and she returned his kiss with a less sleepy response. He reluctantly pulled away. Her eyes flickered open and she smiled up at him. “I really do have to go.”

  “Okay. I have to work tomorrow. Will you be okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I’ll call you when I get out.”

  “If I don’t call you first,” he said with a grin. The room was nearly dark, with the last feeble attempt at daylight faintly visible through the thick curtains. Felix gathered his clothes and gun holster from the floor and quietly got dressed. He had tugged his shirt and holster off himself in their tangled rush to the bed and she was none the wiser as to his firearm. It appeared that the thing in his head was still hiding it. Emma drifted to sleep before he left and he spared one last longing look at her from the door before heading out. He put his boots on downstairs and left the house with his phone and jacket in hand. The door latched behind him and he set off along the darkening street as he swung his jacket on.

  Street lights flickered to life, casting their sickly orange glow over the wet road and pavement. It was no longer raining, but there was a bite in the air. Felix had spent the whole day sleeping and then making love. It had been a long time since he’d lost a day that way and he walked with a spring in his step. He caught a bus from the main station just around the corner from Emma’s house and rode it almost to the door of his flat. His spirits sagged as he stepped into his messy home. He peeled off his stinking clothes and shoved them into the washing machine before heading to the bathroom for a shower. He washed off the sweat and grime and the very last of his sister’s blood.

  Despair tried to take him, but he resisted. He had work to do. He emerged from the steamed up shower cubicle feeling refreshed and energised. He dried and dressed in record time and scooped up his phone from his bed as he lifted the mattress to hoist out the bag hidden under it with the guns in. He dropped the bag onto the bed, unzipped it, and checked through its contents. Everything was there that should be. He had left the handgun and silver bullet next to the bed and he sat down to load the special bullet into the gun. If it worked, he was going to have to get more of them. That meant meeting the people from the pub again. He wondered what they remembered about St. Catherine’s going missing now, and the people from the church. Had they all found their missing loved ones?

  He picked up his phone and saw a message notification. It was from his ex-wife. A cold, twisting sensation writhed about in the pit of his stomach. He unlocked the phone and opened the message.

  I saw about Julie on the news. I’m sorry, Felix. Call me.

  “I’d rather not,” he said out loud to himself. He locked the phone without replying. She had ignored him for months; she had prevented him from seeing his son. He groaned. If his sister’s death had been on the news that meant he would have journalists sniffing around. That was the last thing he needed. He frowned. Why hadn’t the press already tried to contact him?

  “I’d prefer it if they didn’t interfere with our work,” said his dark passenger. “I’m hiding more than your weapon.”

  “I see,” Felix said into the silence of his bedroom. “Are you hiding me from those shapeshifter things too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks. I need to find them. Can you help me?”

  “I can.”

  Felix armed himself and flung his jacket and boots on before heading out into the night. The voice in his head led him to the back of the museum again. The warehouse opposite was dark and deserted. Felix put his shoulder against the door and held the handle firmly, ready to force his way into the building. But there was a click and the door handle turned in his hand.

  “Did you do that?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes. Go inside.”

  “What are you, anyway?” Felix asked as he slipped in through the door and closed it swiftly behind him. It was pitch black inside and he got his phone out to use the torch.

  “A friend. But if you want to put a label on my species then I suppose it had better be demon. But don’t be alarmed. We’re not all like the creatures from your kind’s mythology. I don’t serve the Devil.”

  “Is there such a thing?”

  “Not as far as I’ve been able to glean, no.”

  Felix shone the light from his phone around the vast and empty warehouse. Just next to the door was a metal staircase up to a gallery and Felix climbed it quickly and quietly. He walked along the landing, peering out through each filthy window. He stopped and used his jacket sleeve to wipe away the grime so that he could see down into the backstreet below. The museum opposite was as dark as the warehouse, with no signs of life. Felix looked around and saw a stool on its side at the end of the landing. He picked it up and set it down in front of the window he had partially cleaned. He settled himself down and watched the street below.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “We want the same thing. We want to hurt the shifters.”

  “What did they do to you?”

  “They hunt my kind. They’ve killed many of my kin.”

  “I’m sorry,” Felix said, shifting his weight to try and get comfortable on the hard, wooden stool. “What do you know about them?”

  “You’re on the right track with the silver bullet.”

  “Are they really werewolves?”

  “These ones are. Some of them take other animal forms. As a whole, they are shapeshifters. But they are all ruthless killers.” The voice in Felix’s head took a venomous turn. “They hunt down anything that they think doesn’t belong in the world and they kill anyone that gets in their way.”

  “You joined me in that other place. Is that where you’re from?”

  “That place is Hepethia. It’s the shifter realm. I was imprisoned there, unable to return to my own world, this one; this is where I truly belong.”

  “So you hitched a lift in my head?” Felix raised an eyebrow.

  “Apologies for that.”

  “Are we stuck together now, or can you leave me?”

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “Maybe, eventually. You’re helping me right now, but what if I want my mental privacy back?” His gaze had drifted away from the street outside and he was focused inward.

  “I can leave you whenever you wish. But I think it would be advantageous to us both for me to remain where I am, for now.”

  “If you leave me I won’t be hidden any more. Is that right?”

  “It is. You catch on quickly.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. Call me Maxwell.”

  “Jones and Maxwell. Sounds like a PI firm.” Felix chuckled.

  “Doesn’t it just?”

  Felix stared into the street, not focusing on it, his mind distracted. He remembered emerging from that other place, Hepethia, and the bizarre phone call from his sister. He frowned and got to his feet.

  “Maxwell? If Julie was killed before St. Catherine’s vanished, how did she call me?”

  “I wish I knew,” Maxwell replied, a mournful tone in his low voice. “It could have been shifter trickery. It could have been a digital echo. Perhaps she tried to call you before she died and the signal only came through when you were close to the hole in the world. I wish I understood these things better.”

  Felix nodded and rubbed his temples. There was so much that he didn’t understand
about the world now, so much to learn.

  Movement in the street below caught his eye and he tensed up, leaning closer to the murky window to peer out. Two figures appeared out of nowhere. One was the old man with the long staff, the other was the Asian lad. Felix squinted to see them in the dark alley. Where had they come from? They moved towards the museum door, speaking in hushed voices. Felix carefully turned the handle on the window. It creaked, but the figures in the street below didn’t look up. Felix turned it some more until the catch was clear and then opened the window a crack.

  “Couldn’t have mended it without your help, Doors,” the old man said gruffly. He patted the young man on the shoulder.

  “I’m exhausted. Aren’t you? It took twenty-four hours.”

  “I’ll feel it when I sit down.”

  The fire door at the back of the museum opened with a clang of the press-down bar behind it. It was too dark inside to see who had opened it, but the two men filed inside and the door slammed shut.

  “What do you suppose that was about?” Felix said.

  “I don’t know,” Maxwell said, a purr to his deep voice.

  “Should I wait and see if they come back out?”

  “Then follow them. Track their movements. It’ll be our first proper stake-out.”

  Felix let out a snort of laughter. He wasn’t sure what his end goal was. He was holding these shapeshifters responsible for his sister’s death, but what did he want to accomplish here? There was a slow-burning fire in his gut that was spurring him on and he really didn’t know where it would take him. He sat in silence watching the back of the museum, waiting for a sign of movement. The backstreet was empty, but with the window open a crack he could hear traffic on the road at the end.