Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  “So… will you talk now?” she managed to ask.

  “Not like I have a choice after all that…” he sighed, looking down at her. “So you’re really after Rumpelstiltskin?”

  She looked away at the name, “Y-yeah. He… he hurt me—tricked me out of my entire family.”

  “He hurt me, too,” Ixion said in a quiet voice.

  “He did?” she looked up, surprised to the confession.

  Nodding, Ixion ran a hand through his hair again. Serafina noticed that he did that a lot when he was stressed or in thought. She bit her lip, running her hand against her crescent moon charm, realizing that she did the same with her necklace.

  “I… uh, wasn’t always the roaring success of a man you see before you. Once, long ago, I was actually a mercenary; part of a team and everything…” he moved to lean up.

  Serafina moved to sit up as well, watching as he leaned back against the headboard. She could see the pain in his eyes as he kept his gaze to the foot of the bed. Reaching out, she carefully took his hand in hers, offering a soft squeeze as she did.

  “It’s okay,” she smiled. “Believe me, I know it’s not easy to confess any of this.”

  He nodded at that and sighed, shrugging. “Anyway, we were a pretty elite group. Step above military, even. Whenever a magical creature decided to run amok, chances are we were the guys that were called on.” H paused to sigh and clear his throat, “But those things aren’t exactly stupid, as you know. The more powerful ones have been around forever by being elusive and cunning, so not many ever get a chance to see them. It’s always the small-fries. But then we started getting a bunch of calls about folks who were losing their kids—newborns mostly—so you bet your ass we jumped in to save the day.” He let his head fall back and palmed his face. “Except what we finally tracked down was something worse than anything we’d ever faced before.”

  She winced at that and he looked up, offering a nod as an apology for the reminder.

  “Anyway, even after everything we’d seen from him, the team and I were pretty confident that we could stop him,” he shook his head and scoffed at himself. “I mean, we didn’t know much about him in the first place, honestly. Just that stupid garbage about his name, but obviously that didn’t mean much, you know?”

  “Yeah, but then again, most legends aren’t true, are they?” she bit her lip.

  “Not at all,” he laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Like the fact that leprechauns are short? Fuck, the last one I fought was nearly seven feet tall. And trolls actually hate bridges. They hate anything near water. But none of that intel mattered—nothing mattered!—because he wiped the floor with us; all of us! And when he killed all of my team in front of me, forcing me to watch as he tortured them… he told me that was punishment enough. Then he just walked away, telling me the devil always collects his dues.”

  “Ixion…I’m so sorry,” she squeezed his hand once more.

  “At first… at first I thought it’d be better if I died too,” he scowled, rubbing his eyes. “But I couldn’t even do that right. Tried twice. I decided that if those two times weren’t enough, I’d try and get revenge. Fucked that one up too, I guess. I’ve just been staying here the past few months… drinking and lost.”

  “I understand the feeling of being lost all too well,” she admitted.

  “Yeah? Well, then you show up. Challenging me every step of the way and then you beat the shit out of me before proceeding to fuck the shit out of me,” he laughed, shaking his head. “Needless to say, you’re sort of turning my life around.”

  “I’m not sorry,” she smirked.

  “Good, ‘cuz that was probably the best sex I’ve ever had,” he smirked, nudging her with his shoulder. “I’m in, by the way.”

  “You’re in?” she blinked.

  “Your revenge,” he shrugged. “I want to help.”

  “Really?” she looked up, surprised to find that she wanted his help.

  “Well, I wanted to get revenge too, you know,” he smirked. “So yeah, I’m in.”

  “Thank you, Ixion,” she smiled.

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t thank me yet,” he sighed, lying back down. “It’s not like he’s an easy force to deal with. We could still die.”

  “Alright, fine,” she leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I’ll thank you once we succeed.”

  “Confident little bitch, aren’t you?” he grinned.

  She winked, “Careful there. I just started to like you.”

  He laughed, “So you didn’t like me before? I thought our little drinking ritual was a sign that we were liking each other.”

  “Uh-huh and then you rejected me,” she smirked teasingly.

  “Fair enough,” he grinned, moving her against him. “Stay here tonight.”

  She blushed at his request and nodded slowly, leaning in against him. As she once again listening to the slowing of his heartbeat, she found herself relaxing. Before she even realized it, she was falling asleep. For the first time in so long, she didn’t wake up to the nightmares of her past.

  Chapter 7

  The introduction of Bailey and Ixion hadn’t been difficult so much as it was awkward. Bailey had shared a glance over to Serafina, giving her a look that practically screamed that she understood exactly what had been distracting her the prior night. Realizing she’d been caught, Serafina couldn’t help but look away from Bailey. This only seemed to stoke the flames of her suspicions, and it wasn’t long before Ixion caught on. Then, raising a questioning eyebrow at the detective, she’d finally asked if the two of them had at least gotten it out of their systems.

  Serafina was relieved to see Ixion blush at that, as well.

  “So, anyway, I was thinking last night,” Bailey offered as she led them through the city streets. “That maybe we are looking at this all wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” Serafina tilted her head.

  “Going over what wrong?” Ixion raised an eyebrow. “You wanna fill me in?”

  “Well, from one of our sources, we found out that Rumpel has kind of a system to where he stays. He changes his location weekly, and in that time he uses his resources and magic to keep himself hidden and protected. He also had a fondness for gold—but, then again, don’t we all?—so he typically surrounds himself in places that have any sort of gold features.”

  “That’s… not as weird as I wish it were,” Ixion sighed. “When we found him, it was at some ritzy restaurant, using the upstairs area as some kind of hotel suite for himself. He had decked the entire room in luxuries. Furniture, electronics, decorations, you name it. Only to stay a week though? Must be a pain in the balls to move all that stuff over and over again, right?”

  “Exactly!” Bailey nodded, “Unless it’s always the same place!”

  Ixion and Serafina stared at her.

  “How could it be the same place if you just said that he’s always moving?” Ixion asked.

  Bailey blushed at the question and shook her head. “The place isn’t moving, it’s… it’s, like,” she sighed and shook her head. “Like, imagine that you have a room that’s always that room, right? But the doorway to get into that room changes every week.” Bailey looked between them. “Can magic even do that?”

  Ixion paused, considering it, before looking at Serafina.

  “It’s possible, yes, but it would take a lot of magic to accomplish,” she admitted.

  “Well this is him we’re talking about. Not like he’s got a shortage of that in his corner,” Ixion sighed.

  Bailey sighed. “So this means we need to expand our search, right?”

  Ixion sighed and started to nod.

  “Not exactly,” Serafina offered, remembering how she’d been able to feel Rumpelstiltskin’s energy back at the hotel suite the prior day. “I have a connection to his magic—I can sense it when it’s near—and if he’s using that much of it to create a doorway, then it shouldn’t be that hard to track. So long as I know what to look for, it shouldn’t be as hard to f
ind as it was before.”

  Ixion frowned at that. “You have a connection to his magic?”

  Serafina blushed and offered a single nod.

  “Dare I ask?” he said.

  She sighed and started ahead without them. “Better that you don’t, actually.”

  It took them almost the whole day to scour the entire city.

  However, while the day was nearly gone, the three had realized that they worked perfectly as a team. Ixion’s strength and speed, as it turned out, was perfect for getting into locations that otherwise would’ve been inaccessible, while Bailey’s knowledge of the city and her prowess as a detective repeatedly giving them the upper hand. Along with Serafina’s magic, there didn’t seem to be much they couldn’t do!

  And, most importantly, their companionship managed to get them where they needed to be in the end.

  “Why the hell didn’t we check here before?” Serafina demanded.

  “This is a special hotel reserved for when politician’s visit, it’s typically never booked,” Bailey defended. “But, once I realized what we were up against, I decided it was worth it to put it on the list of possible sites.”

  “But why wouldn’t we look here first?” Ixion demanded.

  Bailey shrugged. “If we had and Rumpel had turned up somewhere else, would you not be asking me why we didn’t look there first? Be honest with yourself.”

  Ixion sighed and looked away.

  “Thought so,” Bailey belted out victoriously.

  “Either way,” Serafina frowned, looking up at the ever-rising building and biting her lip, sensing his magic inside. “This is it… he’s here.”

  “Then let’s go!” Ixion was already starting for the door.

  “I don’t think so,” a voice chimed from behind.

  Bailey growled. “They just appeared out of nothing, didn’t they?”

  Serafina turned, seeing that the street around them was suddenly empty of all activity other than six of Rumpelstiltskin’s followers standing on the other side of the road. She looked over at Bailey and Ixion, who both gave her a nod.

  “Thought I wouldn’t have something for you,” Bailey muttered, reaching into her bag. “I’ve got something for you!”

  “I like your spirit, detective,” Ixion grinned.

  “Ex-detective,” she reminded him as she drew a bigger, sleeker gun than before.

  The three moved as one across the street. Bailey, laying down a round of suppressive fire, managed to take down two of the lackeys occupying the far left while Ixion focused his efforts on those occupying the right. Though, up until that moment, Serafina had only ever seen him sitting down or in the middle of what threatened at any moment to become a drunken stumble, she soon saw that he moved with every bit the purpose and power that he’d shown her in the bedroom. Yanking his own gun from the waistband of his pants, he began to fire on the group. Though none of the shots found their intended targets, they did manage to keep them huddled in one place long enough for the ex-mercenary to close the distance between them. Taking this all in in an instant, Serafina then focused on her own opponents, lifting her hand, she watched as the two floated above ground, clutching at their throats.

  “When will you stop sending me fodder?” she demanded.

  The two died—too soon—under her grip and frowned. She turned her attention to the hotel, glaring up at it.

  “He’s playing with us!” she snarled.

  Bailey made short work of the two she’d been fighting, Ixion doing the same for his two. Both turned to Serafina at her command and moved to stand beside her, looking up at the towering hotel as well.

  “Should we attack?” Bailey asked.

  “I think we should plan,” Ixion frowned. “The fact that he’s not at all afraid of us nearing does not bode well for us.”

  “Ixion’s right,” Serafina sighed, moving her hand up to caress the crescent moon charm once more. “As much as I hate to say it, we need to have a better plan.”

  Bailey scowled. “But aren’t you afraid that he’ll just move again?”

  Serafina shook her head. “He sees that I can track him no matter where he goes. What good would moving his doorway be if I can just find it all over again?”

  Bailey’s place, simply put, was amazing!

  Her house was in the suburbs of Chicago and was a two-story old colonial house that was huge. It was beautiful on the inside as well and spotless. As Ixion and her traded looks, both comparing the house to their motel rooms, they shared a grin.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you lived so nicely?” Serafina laughed. “The motel we’ve been staying at is awful!”

  “You never asked,” Bailey grinned, putting her phone down as she finished making an order for pizza.

  “So, Sera, what’s the plan?” Ixion asked.

  “Me?” she frowned and sat down on the plush couch in the living room. “Aren’t you this big-deal mercenary? You tell me the plan!”

  “Ex-mercenary,” he corrected, taking a card from Bailey’s earlier response as he sat beside her. “And I wasn’t exactly the tactician of the group.”

  “Lucky for you two you’ve got me,” Bailey announced as she sat on a reclining chair beside the couch.

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Ixion asked, glancing over. “I mean, not for nothing, but do you even have any weapons that might be able to help us against this sort of thing?”

  Bailey grinned, “I was waiting for you to ask.”

  Both Serafina and Ixion watched as she stood, gesturing for them to follow. Doing so, she led them to the back of a house towards a door that had three locks on it. Pulling out a set of keys, she unlocked each one before sliding the door open.

  Both Serafina and Ixion stared at the contents.

  Then they stared at one another.

  As their eyes returned to the weapons laid out before them, there seemed to be angles singing over their heads.

  Bailey, as it turned out, had a full armory in her house.

  “I can see why you have this locked up,” Ixion grinned. “Half this shit isn’t even legal!”

  “More than half, actually,” Bailey shrugged. “Perks of the job.”

  The three moved into the room, Serafina beginning to take inventory on the few weapons she recognized and was familiar with while Ixion knowingly picked up and handled practically everything he came across. Suddenly seeming like a kid in a toy store, he began throwing ammo belts wherever they’d fit before working to fill his arms with every sort of weapon he could imagine.

  “Armed for war, I see,” Serafina grinned.

  “Is this not a war?” Ixion raised an eyebrow.

  “I suppose it is,” Serafina looked down.

  Bailey, though no less enthusiastic, was more modest in her selection. Before long, all three had managed to drag nearly half of the room’s contents out with them and back to the dining room table, where their treasure was laid out and the seeds of a plan were planted.

  Chapter 8

  Serafina had never felt better.

  After she had woken, still wrapped in Ixion’s arms, they spent the day with Bailey. Between the plan they’d hatched the night before—giving them the entire day to do with what they wanted—and the newfound confidence they shared between their group and their weapons, everyone was certain that they were in for a successful outing. The three had even gone so far as to enjoy themselves; sharing stories, laughing, and watching terrible daytime television. Somewhere in the middle of it, Serafina realized that it was the closest she had felt to a family in a long time, and she wondered what would become of things once Rumpelstiltskin was out of the picture.

  It was an eerie calm before the storm, to say the least.

  When time had come to prepare themselves, the room had went quiet, the tension thick as the three began to prepare themselves for what was to come.

  As she finished arming herself, she turned and saw that Bailey and Ixion were already prepared, waiting patiently on her. Gi
ving the two a nod, she straightened herself and started out with them. Though they all wore jackets that, for the most part, concealed the small army’s worth of weapons hidden on their bodies, she was certain that anybody that spent any extended period of time studying them would know what they were seeing. Despite this, she was still uncertain about something, and she stopped, taking Bailey’s wrist in her hand and looked her in the eye.

  “Are you sure you want to continue?” she bit her lip. “I can’t guarantee that you’ll make it out…”

  “Sera,” Bailey glanced over at her. “I was supposed to die two years ago. I was a dead woman walking, and everything since then has been borrowed time. If… if I go out tonight—fighting and on my own terms—than I’d consider it an honor.”

  Serafina nodded at that, “Alright. If that’s how you really feel.”

  “It really is,” she nodded.

  Then, trying their best not to seem obvious, the three made their way to the subway.

  Getting into the building had been easy—“too easy” everyone agreed—and that had already started to put a damper on Serafina’s hopes. If Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t even worried enough to make getting in a challenge at this point, then maybe he really had decided to stop pulling his punches. This, Serafina thought, was practically a death sentence in its own right, as a creature of his power who’d grown tired of toying with them might, at any moment, choose to simply end their lives. But their hearts kept beating, and their feet kept moving. As they made their way to the door that led to Rumpel’s home, Serafina took a deep breath. Moving her hand to the crescent moon charm, she took the door knob in her opposite hand. She wasn’t surprised to find that it not only was unlocked.

  “I don’t like this,” Ixion scowled.

  “What did you expect?” Serafina frowned. “I’m sure he was expecting us.”

  “Correct you are, dear,” Rumpelstiltskin called out of the shadows of the apartment before stepping out into the light.