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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “I’m trying to get Brie to tell us where she’s been,” Pilot said.

  “Again?” Adele asked.

  Rykken had also joined them, though he never spoke to her much. Sometimes he seemed to appear out of nowhere, but he never seemed particularly comfortable to be there.

  “Has she answered you yet?” Pilot asked Adele. He swung over the couch, squeezing between the Adele and her.

  “Pilot, stop!” She smacked him lightly across the shoulder, but he just laughed at her.

  “Come on, Ry,” Pilot said to his friend. “Squeeze in next to Adele.”

  Rykken looked uncomfortable, but he did as Pilot asked.

  “So?” Pilot said.

  “So what?” Brie asked.

  “Does anyone on this couch know where Brie van Rossum disappeared to today?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “You can’t let it go, can you?” She felt embarrassed that Rykken and Adele had to witness Pilot and her fighting. It was bad enough that he was hounding her and treating her like a child. Why did he have to involve them, too?

  “Stop,” she said again as he poked at her shoulder, demanding her attention.

  “You two,” Adele said, shaking her head at both of them. “That said…” She turned to Brie.

  “Not you too.”

  “You did disappeared on us today, babe. I must have called you a hundred times—which you already know, because I checked your phone. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Brie said quickly. The three of them stared at her and she couldn’t stand the attention.

  “You were gone for over an hour,” Pilot said. “Then you showed up here out of nowhere, in a complete daze.”

  Brie shrugged. Her memories were a bit foggy. She vaguely remembered attending the funeral, then vaguely remembered walking home afterward…

  “Brie, you have to tell us,” Adele said. “We’re worried about you.”

  Brie shook her head. “My mom is dead. Just let me be.”

  She didn’t look up to see it, but she felt it, that look that passed between her brother and best friend.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sighing. She didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to keep sitting there, staring at random strangers who didn’t even know her mom but showed up for her funeral anyway. “Look, I know I have to return to life someday. I know that I’ll be at Braxton next year, and I’ll walk through the halls again, and I’ll care about grades and tests and the school newspaper. But for now, I just need space.”

  “No one expects you to move on,” Adele said, waving her hand. “Ever. There’s no time limit on a loss like this.”

  “Exactly,” Pilot said. “I just want you to tell me where you’re going so I don’t have to text you a dozen times.”

  She heard a familiar voice echoing through the foyer and looked up.

  “Ugh,” Brie groaned. A group of older guys had just walked in, led by one who had a thing for her. Andy Koelscher had prom-posed to her, even though she was only a freshman, but her mom wouldn’t let her go, and she didn’t like him enough to push the issue.

  She really didn’t want to deal with Andy today. She knew he wanted her to beg her mom to make it happen, and she couldn’t deal with the memory of that or any hidden motives he might have now that her mom was gone.

  Adele knew all of this, thankfully. Her eyes followed Brie’s line of sight and she stood up. “I’ll take care of them,” she said cheerfully, before strutting away.

  Both Pilot and Rykken watched the group of guys with wariness, but Brie didn’t care. Andy waved to her, looking slightly somber, but his eyes gave him away when they lit up as she waved back.

  Brie watched Adele’s ruby red lips move as she greeted the guys with a toothy smile. She directed them to the food—a good choice given her audience—and all but Andy happily walked in that direction.

  Andy looked at her again, until Adele wrapped her hand around his bicep, guiding him physically toward the food and whispering something to him.

  She looked back at Brie and winked, and Brie mouthed, ‘thank you’ to her. Adele was and always had been the best best friend a girl could ask for.

  Pilot leaned down to her level, lowering his voice as he spoke. “Can we go to the kitchen? There’s something I need to tell you.” He looked at Rykken. “Both of you, actually.”

  Brie’s eyes met Rykken’s, but he shrugged. Pilot was already headed to their kitchen. They filed behind him.

  He bit his lip, watching her as if she could break at any second.

  This couldn’t be good…

  “I wasn’t going to tell you this today, but when you mentioned Braxton, I just—I didn’t want to keep it a secret from you. Plus, Dad will probably say something to you or someone else at some point today, and I don’t want you to find out with an audience, or worse, the media watching.”

  “Just tell me,” Brie said quietly. Her stomach was already turning.

  “Well,” Pilot said, gulping. “Dad has decided that it would be best for us to move in with him after everything dies down around here.”

  Brie’s lips parted in surprise. “With James?” she said. She pulled out one of the stools at their kitchen island and scooted onto it. “Honolulu, Hawaii. We’re moving to Honolulu, Hawaii?” She tried to inhale, but instead felt her throat closing and a tingling rising through her chest.

  “Brie, I don’t know what to tell you,” Pilot said. “I asked him if we could stay here with someone, or if he could split his time between Los Angeles and New York for just a couple years. Or both, really.”

  “I just assumed—” Brie had finally regained her breathing, but now she was inhaling and exhaling too rapidly, gulping down air as if she couldn’t get enough of it. Her mind slowly cleared as it received more oxygen. “When?” she asked.

  Pilot dropped his head. “About a week or so from now. But the good thing is the school Dad wants to sign up for is the same one Rykken goes to already, and the coach already knows me, so he’s letting me try out for the water polo team—”

  “Why?” Brie asked, interrupting him.

  Pilot looked confused. “Why is Coach letting me try out for—”

  “No, not that,” Brie snapped. “Why is he making us move there? It’s not like he’s ever there anyway. If he’s just going to spend all his time in Los Angeles, why can’t we just stay here?”

  “I don’t know,” Pilot admitted. “I think it’s because the media is nuts here. He wants to get us out of the spotlight.”

  “But it will die down eventually,” Brie argued angrily. “There are paparazzi everywhere. They’ll just follow us!”

  “Brie, I—” Pilot shook his head. “Ry, you got anything here?”

  Rykken’s eyes widened, like he had been called on in front of the entire class without knowing the answer. “Uh… I guess I can say that the weather is good. The beaches are good. DeRosa is a good school.” He looked down apologetically. “I don’t know. I’m sure it’s not your first pick, but… yeah, I guess give it a chance? Who knows. Maybe you could make some new friends. Be happy there someday.”

  Brie listened to him, wiping the tears from her eyelashes. She wondered if she had a mascara line dripping down her face. He didn’t seem to be able to meet her eyes.

  He also didn’t seem particularly empathetic… but then, Pilot was one of his best buddies. Things would work out nicely for them. She was the one who had never spent much time in Honolulu with James, preferring to spend summers in New York with her mom. She was the one who only visited the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and only because her mom said it was written into her parent’s divorce agreement.

  “It won’t be as bad as you think,” Pilot told her. “They have a school newspaper there. And you love summer here. Well, summer is year-round there.”

  She looked away, toward the exit. She felt a strong urge to run away again.

  “I should probably go clean up,” she mumbled guiltily. She was using the bathroom
excuse again.

  She disappeared upstairs to the private family bathrooms, where she found some tissue to dab her eyes. She sat on the toilet seat lid for several minutes before she heard a pounding on the door.

  “I know you’re in there,” Adele sang. “And yes, before you ask, your brother sent me to make sure you were okay. Brie, he’s seriously losing-his-shit-worried over you.”

  She took a deep breath and opened the door to let Adele in. They sat on the

  “Can you try to be nicer to him?” she asked. “I know he’s smothering you, but girl, he’s your brother. You’re all he has left and he just loves you to death. Got it?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Got it.”

  “Good.” Adele pressed her lips together. “I know this is the very last thing in the world you want to do right now, but a bunch of the kids from our school are hanging out on the rooftop deck. They all came out to support you and Pilot, and you’re both completely M.I.A.” She smiled gently. “I’m not saying you have to talk to them about whatever stupid shit they’re into right now, or that you have to pretend to have fun. I’m just saying, it might be nice to just sit there and show your face for a few minutes.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do that right now.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell Adele that it probably didn’t matter what the kids from school thought of her. They wouldn’t be in her life much longer, anyway.

  “Pilot might feel better not having to do it alone,” Adele said. “And besides, I’ve already warned everyone not to mention your mom or do anything lame, like tell you about their blessings or that they’re ‘sending you love and hugs.’ It’ll be totally chill, just like a regular night.”

  Brie sighed. A part of her felt like she could spend the rest of her life on this bathroom floor. The other part of her knew that she would do anything for her brother… and that she hadn’t been a great sister to him lately.

  She stood up, dusting off her skirt. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  They walked upstairs and Adele was right—all the kids were hanging out there already. They all greeted her cheerfully with no mention of the sadness happening just a few floors below. A few kids were drinking; Jennifer had somehow made her way into Andy’s lap, which was fine with her. Rykken was chatting with some of the other guys, probably about sports.

  But the only person Brie cared about finding was Pilot.

  She sat down next to him at the edge of the rooftop, where he was dangling his legs through the railing. “I was at Mom’s art studio,” Brie confessed. “I’ve been going there sometimes. To write. I just—it was just a space of my own for a moment. Mine and her secret. I felt like I could talk to her there.” She turned to her brother. “Does that make any sense at all?”

  Pilot nodded, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “I’m sorry I keep disappearing.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Brie.”

  “Are we going to be okay?” she asked in a small voice.

  He nodded again. “Yeah,” he said. “I know you’re not happy about this move, but I can’t help but think it will be a good thing.”

  Brie didn’t know if she agreed, but Rykken was right. She didn’t have any control over James’s decision, and he was still her legal guardian. She could at least give Honolulu a chance.

  Sitting side by side, they stared out over the city skyline that would soon no longer be her home.

  Sirena

  Sirena looked out the window of the apartment she had broken into for the night, watching her niece and nephew and friends spend time on the rooftop of their building. Pilot was like a miniature version of his father—protective, insistent, persistent—and she rarely wondered about his earthlie life.

  But for some reason, his sister Brie often drew her attention, even without her noticing right away. She didn’t look like anything special, just another depressed and abandoned earthlie teenage girl, trying to get through her mother’s death. She wasn’t significant, wasn’t important, and yet… Sirena couldn’t stop watching her.

  She longed to know her. Aside from Brie’s long mahogany hair and green eyes that contrasted with Milena’s dirty blonde hair and brown eyes, mother and daughter looked practically identical. They had the same oval faces and small noses, and nearly the same frame. While Pilot was a spitting image of his earthlie father, her young niece had the look of a daughter of Michael, even if she would never be one due to the earthlie blood that ran through her veins.

  More importantly, though, were the similarities between Milena’s and Brie’s personalities. Sirena had never spoken to Brie directly, and had only observed her from afar. But even from afar she could see that Brie had the same mannerisms as Milena. In interviews with the media, it was clear to Sirena that Brie wanted peace and comfort, the same way her sister had before her. Milena had never been built for war, and it was clear that her daughter wasn’t either.

  Which begged the question that had been puzzling Sirena the whole evening: why was Milena working with a witch in the first place?

  She twirled the vial of potion between her fingers, twisting it back and forth. Milena had chosen to marry an earthlie and have children with him, in part to start the aging process. Once a Hallow or Nephilim had a child, he or she began to age from the teenage state to a regular earthlie adult.

  Milena, though, had given up even more than most Hallows and Nephilim. In addition to her powers and extended lifespan, she had also given up her crown and the baggage that came with it. The two of them had to hide from the New Order as they posed a huge threat to President Mateo Vega’s control over the Hallow government. He had been searching for them for years—nearly a hundred.

  So if Milena had given all of that up to have children and build a life away from the Archworld, why would she risk everything, including her children’s lives, to get involved again?

  Even more peculiar, she was clearly working with both a Hallow man and a Nephilim man, neither of whom Sirena knew. Why would the three of them be working together? And what could they possibly be working on where they might all be on the same team? Hallows and Nephilim didn’t mix unless required, as a rule. The two peoples had different and opposing interests, as each side battled the other to collect the souls of earthlies for their two gods.

  Not only was it strange that two people from opposite sides might be working together, but it was also strange that Milena would be of any use to them. Because of the aging process, her Hallow abilities and powers would have faded quickly. Unless it was something that only a daughter of Michael could do, Sirena couldn’t see how Milena would be of much use to the other two.

  And that was the problem that Sirena couldn’t wrap her mind around. Milena seemed to be in charge of whatever the three of them were working on. It made sense; her sister had always been great at bringing people into her vision and convincing people to follow her. Sirena didn’t get the impression that Milena was in trouble, or had been blackmailed into helping anyone. This was her master plan. No one else’s.

  But Milena didn’t want to be a part of the Archworld. Sirena knew that for a fact, too. She had tried endless ways to convince Milena to rise up with her against the New Order. Milena had refused.

  So what exactly would have gotten Milena off the fence and into the game? What had changed since Sirena had last spoken to her? And what game was Milena playing anyway? Something worth risking her life for? Or was it all just an accident, like Thessa and Cora believed?

  She set the potion down on the dresser next to her and looked out through the window again. Her niece sat by herself near the edge of the rooftop, arms dangling through the railing. She didn’t seem engaged in the conversation. She kept looking down, like she might jump.

  Don’t concern yourself with her, she told herself. She couldn’t be the last daughter of Michael and also take care of her sister’s earthlie children. It wasn’t possible. She needed one alliance and one alliance only. She would n
ever be able to choose the Hallows over her niece and nephew in a life-threatening situation, and she would never be allowed to choose her family over her duty.

  That must have been why Milena asked Thessa to take care of them. She would have to trust that decision.

  And she would have to follow the trail she was on regarding Milena’s death to its conclusion. She would have to trust that at the end of the trail, she would have more answers about what exactly her sister was up to before she died and who had killed her.

  Her life and sanity depended on it. For the first time in several years, she had a purpose again. She hadn’t realized while she was hiding how much she missed being out in the world and doing things, even if those things were challenging.

  She wasn’t sure if she could go back to how things were before.

  Sirena

  The next day, bright and early, Sirena entered Harmon’s shop.

  “I thought I told you not to come back,” he sniped.

  She ignored him, thinking it best, especially given Luca’s advice from the day before. “I was supposed to have a message delivered this morning?”

  “Does this look like a mailroom to you?” he asked. “If you’ll excuse me, I have customers to attend to.”

  She looked around, finding only an empty shop. “Seriously?”

  He glared at her. “I have customers to prepare for, merchandise to sort and put out—”

  “I get the picture,” she said, cutting him off. “I will happily be out of your hair, I just need one teensy little piece of information. An address, a building name, a set of coordinates—whatever that baboon of a witch left for me. And then I’m off.” She smiled at him sweetly.

  He huffed and hobbled to one of the back doors, which he disappeared behind momentarily. He emerged shortly with another slip of paper.

  He stepped behind the counter and held it out to her with one hand, while picking up a pen with the other.

  He marked something down on a ledger in front of him. “Get out, Ri.”