Witch's Shadow (The Hemlock Chronicles Book 1)

by Emma L. Adams

  “Because they think I’m a guild lackey, except with more power than they have.” I might not have spent my entire life living with the mages, but I’d lived among them long enough to see how cut-throat the upper echelons of the supernatural community were. If you had power, you had to expect to defend it on a constant basis. The reason the most powerful often ended up as leaders was because being in charge meant having more allies—and because if they already had a target on their backs, they might as well make use of it. That’s what Lady Harper had always claimed was the reason she’d served on the mage council twice.

  I’d never wanted power, much less to have to fight to defend it. Sure, I’d met a few people—Ilsa and Morgan being two of them—who had shit-loads of power but didn’t want to wield a position of authority. But they’d both nearly died for it several times. And I was in way over my head.

  My phone buzzed. Lloyd. “Yes?” I asked. “Lloyd, I’m literally outside the guild’s doors. Why not come and talk to me face to face? What did you need to run to the archives for?”

  “I found something, Jas,” he said, in a low voice. “I looked up the ritual we found, afterwards. Out of curiosity. And I found…”

  I beckoned Isabel to follow me inside. “Look, I’ll come and find you. I’m with Isabel, and she has an update on the witches—”

  “Your coven was involved with the guild,” he said. “It took some digging, but… the guild arrested someone with the surname ‘Hemlock’ for practising blood magic. She was put on trial and executed.”

  Coldness spread through my chest, to my bones. “Seriously?”

  Pain bolted across my forehead, sharp and sudden, I braced myself against the wall, my eyes watering, as a resounding scream echoed through my head, bringing the grey haze of the spirit world.

  “What the—?”

  Another scream echoed in my head like the cry of a fury, so close, it was like it came from right next to me—on and on, like a relentless howl of anguish.

  Evelyn was screaming, too. The noise, the awful howling through the spirit realm, was hurting her.

  “Evelyn!” I tapped into my spirit sight, the lobby swaying before my eyes, but the greyness was too blurred even to sense Isabel next to me. “What the hell is going on?”

  Isabel shook her head, clutching her forehead. “Not witch magic. It’s coming from—everywhere.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s coming from inside the spirit realm.”

  The front doors flew open, and a blast of necromantic power roared through the lobby, sending me flying onto my back. Three people ran in. All were male, and none wore necromancers’ cloaks.

  “Hey!” I yelled, rolling to my feet and running at the intruders. One of them raised his hands and hit me with another kinetic blast. I dodged, reaching for the witch’s magic—and nothing happened. The blast struck me in the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs, and my back slammed into the marble floor once again.

  Whatever they’d done had hit Evelyn twice as hard as it’d hit me, and I couldn’t reach her.

  Or her magic.

  18

  A second later, the vampire’s hands were on my shoulders. I twisted out of his hands and gave him a sharp kick in the fork of his legs, reaching into my pocket. Without Evelyn’s magic, all I had were spells, and not enough of them. My vision swam with the haze of the spirit realm, but worse than that—the wards on the building ought to have stopped them from getting inside. How had they brought down the security?

  I kicked the vampire in the gut while he was down, glimpsing Isabel grappling with the second. Presumably due to her coven’s defensive magic, he couldn’t get a grip on her, but the third had vanished from my line of sight.

  Damn. I had to stop the bastards before they got their soul-sucking hands on anyone in the guild.

  My attacker lunged at me again, and this time my boot connected with his nose. Cartilage cracked beneath my toes and he fell back, swearing. Injuries in this realm wouldn’t impede his spirit sight, but why had the screaming attack in the spirit realm affected us and not the vampires?

  I left the vampire bleeding and scanned the lobby for his friend. There. The third vampire sprinted in the direction of the stairs, and I threw a trapping spell at him. Lines of red light pinned him to the ground, and two cloaked necromancers climbed down the stairs and stumbled over his body, eyes wide with shock. Several others followed. Backup. Thank god for that.

  “Someone raise the alarm!” I shouted. “Get the senior necromancers in here. Now.”

  Whatever the vampires had done to the spirit realm was beyond any novice necromancer. The settings around the building were fixed so that no dark magic could be used inside, nor any summoning that wasn’t under the control of a guild member—but the wards were at least partly responsible for that, and the enemy had already bypassed them. If the vampires had the chance to unleash the extent of their powers, people would die.

  The vampire I’d trapped twisted onto his back. Oh crap. The spell wasn’t designed to trap a person, certainly not one as strong as him. He lunged for one of the novices, who screamed.

  “Stop!”

  I threw another spell at him. The impact blasted him into the stairwell, causing him to let go of the novice—but as he hit the stairs, he slammed his palms into the floor. A shimmering line appeared, blocking the stairs.

  Shit. I wasn’t the only one carrying witch spells.

  “Nobody’s coming to save you now, witch,” hissed the vampire I’d kicked in the face. His arms locked around my ankles, sending me sprawling onto my back. I kicked out, determined not to let him get a grip on me.

  “I always wanted to feed on a necromancer,” he said, his smile bloody where his broken nose dripped down his face.

  “Ew. No thanks.” I wrenched my legs free from him, and the front doors flew wide, allowing another group of intruders in. Goddammit.

  I worked another explosive spell off my wrist and threw it at the intruders, blasting three of them through the half-open door. The spell blocking the stairs wouldn’t be permanent, but novices were no match for one vampire, let alone five.

  I swept the vampire’s legs out from underneath him and sprinted towards the stairs, but a second resounding scream rocked the spirit realm. An anguished howl from the depths of Death tore through the air, making even the waking world shimmer, distorted. More, quieter screams came from closer in the spirit realm—the sound of necromancers in horrible pain. My head pounded, my knees giving out, while blood trickled from my nose. I gasped, tasting copper on my lips, the vampire blurring before me as he reached for my spirit.

  “Get… back.”

  I lashed out wildly. By some small miracle, my hand actually grasped him, despite the tremors shaking both my body and spirit alike. I pushed with one hand, the banishing words flying from my tongue.

  He merely laughed, and a blurred shadow appeared behind the man.

  Dead. He’s dead.

  The vampires were piloting these bodies from a distance. No matter how much damage I dealt, they’d stay alive, and the guild’s own defences would prevent me from banishing them.

  The still-bleeding vampire’s vessel lunged in my direction, and I threw a trapping spell. Red lights expanded to cover him and the neighbouring vampire, giving Isabel the chance to kick away her attacker, dual-wielding spells of her own. Even she wouldn’t have a limitless supply, but unlike me, she wasn’t dependent on someone who’d gone awfully quiet.

  How had they made my connection to Evelyn disappear?

  There was only one explanation: they must have known about the shade and attacked her directly on purpose. That, or they’d aimed their attack at the spirit realm in general, to take the entire guild out of commission. Despite the barrier on the stairs, no noise came from the staircase at the lobby’s other side, and even the other necromancers’ screams had died down. Lady Montgomery and Ilsa had been upstairs, but there was no sign of a single higher ranked necromancer. Only novices, who would nev
er have seen a vampire before in their lives.

  “Watch out!” I yelled at the nearest cloaked necromancer. “They’re like overpowered zombies. Someone is controlling all of them at once.”

  The vampire I’d used the trapping spell on broke through the lines of red light, crashing into me and knocking me onto my back again. Of course, not using his real body meant he could do as much damage to himself as he liked and he wouldn’t feel any pain. I could fend off an attacker using hand-to-hand, but only a banishing would force the vamp to let go of his vessel, and the bastards had short-circuited my spirit sight. Nobody else was using necromancy at all.

  Looked like my second guess was right—they hadn’t been aiming to take out Evelyn, but the entire spirit realm. No. It can’t be permanently broken. Otherwise, we’d have ghosts materialising at every corner.

  I ducked his grabbing hands and caught his wrist, twisting hard. Then I hit him again in his broken nose, for all the good it did. Even if I destroyed this body, the vampire would just send another one after me.

  Grey fog filled the room, and I grabbed for the shadowy shape of his spirit in front of me. It was like trying to grab a rocking boat while tossed about in the tides, and while the threads of blue light gradually became visible, they kept slipping through my grasp. How could he have a strong grip on his vessel when nobody else could use necromancy at all?

  Pain exploded through my skull as he threw me to the floor, right in my own trapping spell. Blood dripped onto my face and I blinked the grey away. The vampire leaned over me, teeth bared in a bloody smile. “Surrender, little witch.”

  “No chance.” I rolled to the side, fetching up against the red lines of the spell. Witch magic. Lloyd was right—I didn’t need the spirit to use it. I was as much a Hemlock witch as she was.

  The power came in a faint trickle at first as I gripped the threads holding me captive. My fingertips lit up, white-blue, and the vampire’s eyes widened as the trapping spell’s lines vanished. A whipcord of magic caught him around the ankles and slammed him to the ground again. Whoa. There was the cranky spirit I knew. Calm down, Evelyn. You can’t go mad in here. People will get hurt.

  People were already hurt. Bodies—black-cloaked bodies, some of them teenage novices—lay inert, drained dry, as the vampires’ spirits pulsed with more power. I’d been too late to save them.

  I forgot all about keeping the spirit’s magic under control and leapt at the nearest vampire with a hoarse scream, my hands seeking his spirit. He growled and tried to buck me off, but this time, my grip held true. I screamed the banishing words, and the vessel’s body grew limp, falling to the ground. I climbed off him, looking for Isabel. She’d backed against the wall, cornered by two vessels.

  “Two on one isn’t fair,” I said, but the words didn’t come from my mouth, and the spirit that moved my limbs wasn’t mine.

  White-hot energy lanced through the nearest vampire. He screamed, his legs folding at the knee, blood pouring from lacerations in his skin.

  Another vampire ran at me, and the whip-like thread of magic caught his legs, sending him flying into the wall. He slid to the ground, leaving a vampire-shaped bloodstain behind.

  Whoa. Good job blood magic didn’t work inside the building. Evelyn didn’t care how much damage she did, only that she revenged herself on whoever had knocked her out.

  Right now, I was pretty much in agreement.

  Isabel threw a spell at the last standing vessel. He collapsed onto his front, and through the spirit realm, I felt the vampire’s grip on the vessel slip. With a roar of rage, I lunged towards him, reaching for the threads of blue light before they faded. “Tell me where you are. Tell me.”

  “It’s worth more than my life to tell you, Hemlock… I hope you all burn.”

  Evelyn’s magic sizzled through the connection, and the vampire’s grip on the vessel cut out. He was gone.

  I released a breath. “Evelyn, you are deep in the shit.”

  “Was that her?” Isabel asked, staring at the bodies. I didn’t need to check into the spirit realm to tell which were dead, and which weren’t.

  “Yes.” I swore. “How am I supposed to explain how I did that?” I pointed at the vampire-shaped bloodstain halfway up the wall.

  “Cleansing spell. I’ll do it. Are the wards still on?”

  “I’m guessing not.” I looked down at my bloody hands. I’d been intending to grab a weapon, but I took back every thought I’d ever had about witch magic not naturally being designed for combat. Evelyn had a real bloodthirsty streak, and she’d taken total control—again. I grabbed a cleansing spell from my pocket to clean off the blood before running to check the wards outside the front doors. Something had gone horribly wrong.

  Outside the front doors, the walls shimmered with light, faintly. Even before I touched the walls, I knew there was a gap in the defences, a spot where the inbuilt protective spells had begun to unravel.

  A witch had done this.

  Okay, now you’re going to behave yourself, Evelyn. Help me fix this.

  I pulled her magic under my control, focused on the same warding I’d used in the hotel room, and pushed it into the wards already on the building’s exterior.

  Isabel moved alongside me, her hands moving, whispering under her breath. The walls shimmered, and I released a breath, breaking the connection. “I think it’ll hold.”

  “It will,” Isabel confirmed. “I need to help the injured.”

  “I’ll undo the barrier on the stairs.”

  We re-entered the lobby. Isabel ran to a stirring novice, pulling a healing spell from her pocket. “I’ll handle things down here. You get that spell undone and check upstairs.”

  “Will do.” I ran to the stairs, Evelyn’s magic already springing to my hands, cutting through the barrier spell like paper. Someone had made an advanced witch spell to bind the place, but whoever had attacked the spirit realm had been no witch. But since when could vampires do that kind of damage?

  I dragged the body of a fallen vessel aside and scrambled up the stairs, finding myself face to face with Morgan Lynn lying half-conscious on the steps. He groaned faintly.

  “Hey. Do you need a healing spell?”

  “No,” he said, scrunching his face up. Blood streamed from his nose. “I need to know who the rogue psychic is so I can knock them in the face.”

  “Rogue… psychic?” That scream… oh, god. “Did a psychic attack the spirit realm? Is that who screamed?”

  He lifted his head. “Yeah. Must’ve been. Nothing else is that strong.”

  Shit. The enemy had a psychic. No wonder they’d known my name. Psychics, I’d heard, had the ability to read thoughts and impressions from powerful necromancers… and I’d bet my second soul that included vampires. But I hadn’t known they could unleash a psychic scream that shook the whole spirit realm and prevented anyone from using necromancy at all.

  “How in hell did it not affect the vampires?” I asked, climbing past him to see the whole stairway was blocked by passed-out necromancers. “Those vessels were under tight control. Unless the vamps were wearing the equivalent of noise-cancelling headphones or something, they shouldn’t have been able to interact with the spirit world at all.”

  “Iron,” Morgan said immediately. “Iron dampens psychic powers and makes you less open to spiritual attacks whether you’re a psychic or not.”

  I stared at him as he pushed to his knees. “Iron? Seriously? This whole building’s made of it.”

  “Yes, but the spirit realm’s still accessible on the inside. They blew the wards out, I guess, so the attack got inside here.”

  I fixed it. But for how long? The attack had even been strong enough to affect non-necromancers, though it explained why Isabel had recovered faster.

  “The boss needs to know,” I said, half to myself. “If there’s a psychic out there—someone has to find them before they strike again.”

  “The boss?” said Morgan. “Any high-ranked necromancer who got hit wil
l be out cold. For sure.”

  Having two spirits had saved me. Again. “Shit a brick. Nobody should be that powerful.” I stared at the bodies in the lobby. With a psychic on their side, the enemy could take out any necromancer who opposed them.

  Isabel appeared at the foot of the stairs. “I’ve helped everyone I can down here, but I don’t know how many people got hurt upstairs. Does the guild have enough healing spells?”

  “They do,” said Morgan, half leaning on the wall. “Most senior necromancers will be out for the count, but I can find them.”

  “Good, because we need to find that psychic.” I turned to Isabel. “That’s what the blast was—a psychic, screaming loud enough to crack the spirit realm. Every necromancer above a certain degree of power is going to be pretty much catatonic for hours at least.”

  Isabel swore, pulling out her phone. “If every necromancer is out, how did those vampires get in?”

  “Iron.” I spotted a discarded knife and picked it up. “It blocks psychics from your mind. It helps that you’re not a necromancer, but—” My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. “Lloyd?”

  Silence. Nothing more than ragged breathing.

  “Lloyd?” My heart jumped into my throat. “Lloyd. Answer me. Are you in the archive room? I’ll send—”

  “Not the guild,” he gasped. “Don’t come—”

  The call cut out.

  I met Isabel’s eyes. “They took him.”

  19

  Keir picked up his phone after one ring. “Jas,” he said. “I’m outside. The wards won’t let me in.”

  “I redid them after the vampires attacked us. I guess you probably sensed them when you were running to the guild, right?” I moved in the direction of the doors, my fist clenching around my phone. “It had better really be you.”

  “You’re welcome to check.” His voice sounded breathless, like he’d sprinted here.