Shadow Realms

by M K Mancos

  I swallowed down my panic.

  “No. You mistake me. We don’t want you to leave. Far from it.” Bea held out her hand for me to join her at the table. “Please sit?”

  Well, I couldn’t very well refuse to do as she asked. I’d appear ungrateful. They’d taken me into their home. It was the least I could do to repay them.

  I sat and waited for Bea to take her chair. “Do you know where you are, dear?”

  “Is this a trick question? It’s New York.”

  Bea patted my hand. “Yes. This is true. But you don’t belong here. At least not in this time.”

  My breath eased out. “You knew?”

  Mathilda placed her hand on my shoulder. “Trips through time wells have a peculiar scent. It clung to your clothes. I didn’t think I’d ever get the stink out.”

  Heat filled my cheeks. “Why didn’t you say you knew?”

  “Because we thought you’d tell us, or at least why you’ve come through. Did you have a particular purpose?”

  Oddly, my mind went to an unexpected place and a picture of Malachi Sayer filled my head. “Not that I know of. One moment I stood on a corner not far from here in 2018, and the next I’m back in time almost a hundred years.”

  They exchanged looks with each other.

  “You’ve been touched by the Doran witches.” Bea didn’t make the announcement as an exclamation, but quiet. Gentle. And with great awe.

  “Yes. I have. Two as a matter of fact, but I’m sure they had nothing to do with the time wells. They seemed shocked I can see them.”

  “Nothing good ever happens when the Dorans are involved. Trouble follows them like a rat follows a food source.” Mathilda parked her hands on her hips. “Well, nothing for it. We have to find a way to send you back. Correct their mistake.”

  I started to protest but stopped when Bea gave a subtle shake of her head. Instead, I turned fully to Mathilda. “Why did you want to send me out tonight if you knew I was in a different time? Seems dangerous. What if I changed the timeline and disrupted the future?”

  “Which future?” She raised a haughty brow and spoke like someone who knew more about time wells and alternate realities than anyone of the 1920s should. “Truthfully, I had hoped you wouldn’t be underfoot tonight while I sorted through our possibilities for getting you home. If I’d been wrong, and you were only close to the portal when it blew, I didn’t wish to upset you.”

  “I can understand that. Hell, I’d almost gotten run over by a delivery wagon.” I hitched a shoulder. “So, what are we going to do to get me home?”

  Mathilda crossed to the cupboard and brought out a book. The grimoire was old and weathered. The leather-bound cover was kept closed by thick brass buckles. I almost laughed. It looked like something from the set of a Harry Potter movie. No matter how long I’d lived in a witching family, I’d never encountered a book that actually looked as if it had come straight out of a Hollywood prop department.

  Mathilda put the book on the table and shot me a sharp glance. “What’s so amusing?”

  “Nothing.” I sobered. This wasn’t fun and games. This was real shit. Live and happening to me. Of course, I knew there had to be tomes of this sort somewhere, but I didn’t think New York in the 1920s would be one of them.

  The straps came loose with a little work and a few creaks of protest from the leather. She opened the first couple of pages to what must have been a table of contents. She skimmed a long, pointy finger down the list, her mouth moved as she read silently.

  “Can this wait until after dinner?” Bea stood and took dinner from the oven. “I don’t want it to get cold.”

  Mathilda sent her a long-suffering expression. “I suppose it can. It’s waited two weeks while she cooled her heels in the past.” Her gaze swung around to meet mine. “Don’t you have family that needs you?”

  “Not really. I’m kind of on my own most of the time.” Not a complete lie. The only one who really needed me was my Aunt Rallie. Rather, she was the only one who ever cared if I lived, died, was fed, or had clothes. She was the one who put me through college, and I owed her so much. Poor thing was probably worried sick when she hadn’t heard from me. I had a habit of calling her every night.

  My heart thumped with sadness and a huge dose of guilt.

  We went upstairs to the apartment they kept over the store. Mathilda carried the book.

  Little did I know the night was about to get a whole lot more interesting than going to the local speakeasy.

  Nine

  Malachi

  Two weeks had passed since the time wells opened and caused panic across the magical world. Unfortunately, they hadn’t opened back up again, and I hadn’t been able to locate the woman who’d come to the shop. News reports flashed over the television and social media about a university student who’d gone missing while working on research for her PhD in New York.

  Looking at the picture on the news was pointless. I already knew who they referred to. Her hotel room had been entered and searched by the police. They stated there’d been no signs of a struggle. Her computer and luggage remained in the room, untouched.

  They’d taken her computer and looked through it but found only files of notes on the occult and a genealogy program with a family tree on the Doran family, dating back all the way to the old country, before any of my family had set foot on these shores.

  All this I got from Astrid, who had contacts inside police departments from Philly to New York and all points in between. The FBI had been called in to search for the missing woman. However, those who hadn’t studied the tactics of the shadow realms weren’t going to find Kells Holland. Not here. Not in this time. I knew she’d been lost in that time well as sure as I knew the Convention was determined to get her back.

  I was determined to get her back.

  Stupidity was a nagging ball in my chest. I hated the fact I’d let her slip through my fingers not once, but twice. I should have gone up to her in the diner, but all I’d seen were the visions of how it ended with her, and I’d wanted no part of that pain.

  My heart hurt with the rawness of a fresh break. In the future, she’d be everything to me, and then she’d betray me. I had to keep my distance, even as I wanted to save her.

  I shook my head and moved around my office, collecting what I’d need for a hunt. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what time period she’d fallen into and if she’d met with foul play once there, but not impossible. There were methods arcane—as the Convention archivists would say.

  At that moment, the door slammed open and Astrid bore down on me like a Valkyrie with a bad case of PMS. And believe me, I used that term to sound like a dick. She was really quite frightening.

  To understand this scenario, picture a petite hell-o-fire with bright red hair cut in a bob to her chin, big gold eyes and a tongue that could lash a man at fifty paces as well as any bullwhip. Power radiated out of her with all the energy of seven suns. She might have topped out at a whopping four-eleven and not quite reached a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she was terrifying.

  She marched up to me and stuck her finger in my face. Of course, she had to reach quite far, and actually stepped up on the seat of my desk chair to do it. But she did.

  “I want you to get your ass moving and go to North Carolina. Now! Today! Find her family and talk to them. Interview them and find out exactly what that child’s powers are and how many people know about her.” She parked her hands on her waist. “I’m hearing some disturbing stories coming out of the City that she was taken by a Satanic cult and will not put up with that shit.”

  Oh, great. She was only getting wound up. Every time someone mentioned Satanists in the same breath as witchcraft, it set her off for hours.

  I really wanted to punch the fucker who came up with that theory. However, it did give us some time to plan while the authorities ran around swatting at baseless theories. If I had a buck for every time someone assumed witchcraft was evil, I wouldn’t have to work for a li
ving.

  I held up my hands as Astrid stepped down from the chair and started moving around the office, flapping her arms and ranting like she might take off.

  “Astrid. Hold on. Stop.”

  She didn’t hear me.

  “Astrid. Hold!” I put power behind the words, and she stopped dead in her tracks and pivoted. Golden eyes pierced me through—they narrowed as a viper’s might before it lays fangs and deadly venom into its prey’s neck.

  “Let’s use this theory the police have to buy us time to get in and save her. While their efforts are elsewhere, they won’t be paying attention to what we’re doing.”

  She took a deep breath and straightened the front of her shirt where it had bunched up in her tirade. “Just so long as you’re careful. I don’t want them thinking you’re some kind of cultist.”

  Touched she should worry for me, I smiled. “I will. I’m also taking Colvin with me. If I’m going to North Carolina, I’m not heading into the woods alone.”

  She gave a nod. “I’ve already alerted him to pack.”

  “Good. That’ll save time.”

  I still needed to book us a couple of flights down to North Carolina, and…as I thought this, Astrid held out a packet to me. I took it and started looking through the papers. A dossier of one Kells Holland, plane tickets to North Carolina, voucher for a rental car, and a few sigils burned into paper. Protection spells for Colvin and me.

  I glanced up and offered a quiet thank you. She was one step ahead and across the street from me. Always. Why she didn’t head investigations, I didn’t know. Well, I guess in a way she did. However, she liked to stay behind and direct the action rather than become involved with any of the players. Whatever she did behind the scenes, she did it brilliantly.

  The Convention owned a fleet of planes for use by its agents all over the world. However, I’d never wanted to take them and preferred to fly commercial. Less chance of being targeted by our enemies if we moved in hordes of other travelers, rather than the luxury of the Convention.

  Let the higher ups do so with my blessing, but I had no wish to travel with a target on my back. As a matter of fact, I’d gotten the feeling lately that the shadow realms were further into infiltrating us that first thought.

  I finished packing my kit then went home to throw some clothes in a bag. I wasn’t too fussy about appearance when working in the field. The exception had been my last trip to North Carolina when I knew Kara was most likely going to come down. I had a reputation to maintain with my family; though, in all honesty, I think I’d kind of blown that now.

  Colvin met me at the terminal. He had a pack slung over his shoulder and an odd look on his face.

  I stopped in front of him. “What?”

  “I don’t like this, Mal. Makes me uneasy.” He glanced around the gate area as if afraid someone was going to come up and whup him on the head.

  “What does? Flying or going down south?” I had to ask. I don’t think he’d ever been out of the tri-state area to be honest.

  “Neither. Both. I don’t know. It’s something more. I can’t explain it.” He rubbed a hand over his gut.

  All right, me and gut feelings were simpatico. I listened to them and usually let them do their job, which was guiding me away from doing something stupid. If his goal was to make me nervous about the flight, he’d nailed it. Damn him.

  I’m not normally a nervous flyer. I liked the convenience of getting across the country in a few hours instead of days. But I glanced around the gate to our fellow passengers and let my talent take over. After a thorough study, I didn’t see any of them with ill intentions or even a hint of magic. They were all as they seemed. Travelers.

  Boarding began, and I thought I’d have to drag Colvin onto the plane. He kept looking behind him as if afraid the shadow realms followed us down the gangway.

  “Stop it. You’re going to make the other passengers nervous, and we’ll end up going viral on social media.” That was the last thing we needed.

  Despite Colvin being nervous, we had no problems along the way save some turbulence as we came into the airport in North Carolina. By the time we picked up our rental car and got on the road to Cadence, the skies had turned a horrible shade of gray/black and the rain pelted us, turning the visibility on the winding country roads to nil.

  I leaned into the steering wheel as if that might make it easier to see what might be in front of me. The deluge continued all the way up the mountain and back down the other side. I had no choice but to put the car at a crawl since the roads were only two lanes and some of those hugged the sheer drop to the valley below.

  A terrible cacophony hit the car roof and hammered the windshield. Large pellets as big as silver dollars rolled across the hood of the car.

  “Hail.” The word came out as both identification and curse. “We really don’t need this right now.”

  “It’s the shadow realms fucking with us.” Colvin sounded as convincing as a preacher with the gospel.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.” Though I thought it more a bad weather pattern sweeping across the area. Hell, the mountains and the change of seasons in the south were notorious for bad weather. I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if we’d have been swept up Dorothy style and taken to Oz.

  I’ll admit, my ass hurt as I gripped the seat with tensed muscles. The last thing I wanted was to die on a damn road while trying to chase down the time well that sucked my woman into its hungry maw.

  Wait. Did I say, my woman?

  I took a deep breath and let the emotions roll out with it. I couldn’t afford to think of her as anything other than someone trapped in the wrong time. I’d end up making a mistake that could cost us both.

  We came down the mountain, sliding and slipping on the treacherous hail littering the road. We passed a sign and I stopped.

  “What did that sign say?” I’d been too focused on the road to read it.

  “Cadence, ten miles.”

  Well, at least it was something. We were getting closer to our destination. With any luck we’d be able to make it there without incident. Though ten miles doing only twenty was going to take a while. The best we could do was hope the rain eased a bit or we moved out from under that particular nasty cloud.

  Not to mention night was falling.

  It was autumn, and dusk came a lot quicker than in summer. I’d never liked the shorter days. I preferred sunlight and long days. Lazy summer weekends on the lake. Damn, it had been a long time since I’d been able to enjoy anything remotely like that. I made a vow when this case was closed, and the shadow realms vanquished—yes, we used words like vanquished in the Convention—I would take time and have a real vacation.

  Another sign came up, and the turn for Cadence pointed to the right. I turned off and started down the two-lane road.

  This far into the mountain, the hail petered out. The road was relatively free of debris. I relaxed a little into the seat and finally took a good breath and let it out. Being a person of magical powers, I influenced and amended my surroundings as dictated by the situation. I hated the feeling things were out of my control. Weather was one of them. I’d never had a talent for changing the weather, though I knew a mage who could—but he was a bastard who always made it rain when people he didn’t like planned outdoor activities.

  Unethical use of powers, yes. Harmful, no.

  We pulled into Cadence city limits. Comparatively speaking, the town was about twice the size of Cooper’s Mill. A bit more industrial, but not overly so. Astrid had us booked into a little hotel on the outskirts of town in a residential area. A sign outside the parking lot declared it a hotel and convention center. I couldn’t think of too many conventions that would plan their meetings up a mountain, but to each their own. I wasn’t here to judge—I was here to talk to a family about a missing woman.

  We checked into our rooms, and I pulled open the dossier I’d studied on the plane. First contact would be with Kells Holland’s Aunt Rallie Inskeep, who’d pret
ty much raised her. She seemed the most likely candidate to give us the scoop on her niece.

  I rang the number provided, but it went to voicemail.

  Colvin sat at the table in my room, looking through the pages of Kells’ life spread in front of him. “I say we just go over to her aunt’s place and see if she’s home. She might not be answering the phone, but it’s kind of hard to ignore the door if your car is in the drive.”

  I looked at Colvin as if he’d lost his damn mind. I knew I did by the return expression on his.

  “What?” His question was so innocent.

  I shook my head in pity. “You mean to tell me you’ve never pretended to be asleep or in the bathroom if someone came to your door you didn’t want to see?”

  His light blue eyes rounded in awe. “You mean that’s an option?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” I scanned the page with Rallie Inskeep’s information. I plugged her address into the GPS on my phone and smiled. “We’re only about two miles from her house. Astrid wanted us to make contact tonight, so I think we should chance it. If she doesn’t answer, I’ll do a location spell and find her.”

  Now, I know it sounded odd to not use that spell first, since I had it at my disposal, but at this juncture, the less I used magic that might alert the shadow realms, the better off. Besides, why waste the time and energy performing magic when mundane ways sufficed?

  “Maybe we can get some dinner while we’re out.” A hopeful note rang in Colvin’s voice.

  “No. I’m going to make you starve on this trip. It builds character.”

  Colvin’s eyes grew wider and his mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “That’s not funny, man.”

  I smiled and picked up the keys to the rental. “Come on, let’s go before it gets too late and she’s asleep, or all the restaurants are closed except fast food.”