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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “It is said that if the Makkai had found a place that was home in their first ten generations, they would have resided there forever and brought to bear the blessings that their magic could create, but after ten generations without a home, they would forever wander, forever be outside of the places the others call home.

  “We do not resent this. It is our life and there is nothing about it we would change, but the world gives and takes, and it is of little doubt that the world took, when it sent the Makkai into a nomadic life, even as it gave us our identity.

  “To some communities, we are simply outsiders. Without hostility or fear, we come, we go, and there is no sense of intrusion or maladaptance. We are us and they are they, and it is not wrong. In others, though, the Makkai are a blasphemy of one kind or another. They see our lives and they question: why would people with nothing to hide never stay in one place? They believe that we are not wanderers, but that we are chased by a history of conflict and deception, because they cannot understand the desire to wander. It is these, who cannot or will not understand, who fear, resent, or hate us, and it is these who so often persecute us.

  “We tell our children from the time that they are small: we do not resent their perception of us. We do not hate them for their hatred. They know nothing of us, so they hate nothing. This is not something that we should allow to bother us. Should we desire to stay in a place, we would be forced to engage with such things, but that is not our desire, and so we move on, away, not running from, but certainly not conflicting with, either.

  “Certainly, yes, certainly some Makkai cannot simply move on. They refuse. They find the insult and the violence against us to be too much and they take action against the outsiders, and we condemn them. To suggest that our condemnation is the same as prevention would be foolish, though, and we are not fools. Certainly it happens.

  “There was a town, a place in time with an echo that spans our entire history and all of the lands we have ever known, where a young man loved a young woman. Yes. It started, as it so often does, with a man who loved a woman. He was smitten with her in a way that my words cannot describe, in a way that poets thrust at without hitting the mark, for how can words capture the feeling of a heart enflamed? Yes, he loved her, and he pined for her in each day, waking and sleeping, he thought first of her. He was a faithful young man, though, and he placed his love for his family, for his mother and father who he traveled with, for his brothers and his sisters who he only saw as the fated winds blew, for his people, he placed his love for these people above himself, and while he was consumed with his love for this young woman, he knew he would put her aside, that he would leave her in time, and so he did not pursue her.

  “The ill-fated event came, though, that the two of them found themselves alone on a road. He was returning home from seeing to an injured man in the town, and she returned from a meal with friends where her companion had taken a sudden illness, himself, and could not see her home. And so the Makkai boy walked with the young woman of the town, and they spoke.

  “She could see in him that he loved her, as she could see her own reflection in a mirror, as they had spoken once or twice before, but now she found that he was very much a young man that she could love, seeing his heart so plainly that evening, even as he tried to hide it.

  “And it was very sweet and very sad, but that would have been the end of my story, had they arrived safely at her gate that night.

  “Alas, that was not what was to be. Four men, hiding by the road side, saw a man and a woman approach. They were there to make fortune of the weakness and lesser numbers of others, and they took no pause in waylaying the young couple, demanding whatever goods they carried about them. And one of the thieves saw that the young woman was of a pretty age, and that the young man was smitten with her, and he made to take advantage of this, to dismay and spite the young man.

  “The young Makkai man could not stand this, and he took charged red copal from his pocket and threw it at the bandits’ feet. The stones exploded, driving the men away. The young woman, though, feared him and fled for her life as well, and so he returned home alone and disheartened that she would allow such a thing to change her perception of him.

  “Again, if this were where the story ended, it would simply be sad, but this is not the way of the world, nor of the way that the Makkai belong in the world.

  “The bandits were angry that he had bested them, and they came to the authorities in the town and told them that the Makkai were practicing witchcraft, summoning demons and stealing children to turn into livestock. And so the town came to the Makkai encampment and demanded that they turn over the young man for trial. In that time and in that place, the penalty for witchcraft and associating with demons was death, and so the Makkai defied them, and prepared to leave. Thus has it been for many generations, and thus will it be for the duration of the line of Makkai.

  “One final thing, though, happened that secured the fate of the young man and the young woman he loved. In the night, she had had a change of heart, and she came to him as he and his family were ready to leave, begging forgiveness. And because he loved her, he stayed and he listened to her. He gave his forgiveness a dozen times over, because he loved her, and they spoke and clasped hands again and again, and were in great pain that he would leave her and that they would never see each other again.

  “In this time, another young man who had long admired the young woman overheard these declarations, and he believed the young woman to be ruined for other men. In anger, he vowed that because he would never have the young woman for himself, neither of the pair would ever know lasting happiness.

  “And he went away changed from what he had been before. Angry and bitter, he fed the lust and jealousy he felt, and he turned that energy toward evil practice. Three seasons hence, he found the young woman outside at her chores and he killed her as she stood. This was not enough, though, and he found himself unsatisfied that she had suffered so little after he had suffered so long. So he taught himself greater evil, and he began to seek out the Makkai young man.

  “Woe to the young Makkai that it took as long as it did for the scorned lover to find him, because when the evil man did finally find him, his evil had grown and so had his experience, and he undertook a great campaign of terror against the young Makkai man and his family. Disease, loss, and death stalked the Makkai man for a decade or more, and then it stopped. They had not done anything to stop it, and a Makkai knows when there is malice in the world around them. He knew that it wasn’t simply a change in his fate that had taken away his losses and his sorrows, and so his fears increased. For another ten years, he spent his waking days searching out the evil that had followed him, defending himself against all manner of curses and traps, and he never knew a day’s happiness.

  “Finally, the scorned lover revealed himself to the poor Makkai man.

  “’Kill me and be done,’ the Makkai said. ‘I will not go on another day.’

  “’Yes you will,’ the evil man answered. ‘You will go on and every day you will fear my return. You stole my happiness, and now I will steal yours.’

  “And so the evil man left, and the Makkai man fell to his knees and wept, for he saw no way out. When he spoke to his aged mother that night, though, she gave him wisdom that he had missed, in his misery.

  “No one can take your happiness without you first surrendering it, she told him. The storm may come tomorrow, but today there is sun, and so we will be happy.”

  “And so have the Makkai lived. We face storms in many of our nights, but in our days, we dance in the sun.”

  That was the story that Jackson had told the night before at the campfire, and remembering it made Becca shiver.

  Jackson was watching her, now.

  “You’ve got the thread of it, don’t you?” he asked.

  “It’s happening now, isn’t it?” she asked. “It’s back. That’s what he said, this morning at the kitchen table. It’s back. Something is stalking us, was killing
the queens.”

  “The young lovers?” Dawn asked. “That’s what this is about?”

  “We never knew who it was after,” Jackson said. “Or why it stopped. Some people thought that Bella stopped it herself. Hell, even I thought it, truth be told. But we never knew why the queens in this tribe kept dying, and what changed.”

  “Was it about Grant’s dad?” Becca asked.

  “He said we don’t know,” Bella said. “And we don’t. It’s more complicated than the story, because we had the Grey involved, last time, trying to figure it out, and they knew more than they let on, there at the end, I think, but… yes. It’s back.”

  “How do you know?” Becca asked. Bella frowned, looking down into her mug.

  “Because my dog died,” she said.

  “What?” Becca asked. Bella nodded.

  “I have a border collie, the offspring of a line of border collies that my grandmother bred, and two days ago, someone killed her and left her in front of my mother’s house.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dawn said. Bella looked up at her with sad eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t unrelated?” Becca asked. Bella shook her head.

  “I can’t be certain, but something small and dear to each of the previous queens died shortly before everything else started happening. It’s the beginning.”

  “That’s why we need to go see,” Jackson said. “Maybe there’s something there that we missed last time. Maybe he screwed up this time and left us something to follow.”

  Bella was watching Becca now.

  “That’s why Argo gave me those. That box is full of all kinds of specialized crystals that might help us. The Gray have no particular fondness for us, but we do good work, and they thought at the time that there was a demon involved. If there’s a demon, they’ll help us. They don’t like that it went unresolved, last time.”

  “You’re telling me that he was being nice,” Becca said. “Sorry. No.”

  Bella smiled.

  “It was the best he could do. He’s still one of them.”

  Jackson nodded.

  “I bet he loaded that thing down with bugs, too,” he said, indicating the box in Dawn’s hands.

  “I’ll find them,” Dawn said. “I did last time.”

  “He always knows when we’re getting close,” Jackson muttered. “Don’t like his eyes riding around with us like that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Bella said. “We don’t wander because we’re running.”

  Jackson took her hand between his own and nodded.

  “No. You’re right.”

  Bella looked at the three of them.

  “We never told everyone the story of what happened last time. Some of them still wonder if I wasn’t the ones killing the old queens in hopes of getting this position myself.”

  “They know you better than that,” Jackson said.

  “You would wonder, if you didn’t know,” Bella said. “Be honest with yourself.”

  Jackson shook his head.

  “Nope.”

  She smiled.

  “I don’t plan on bringing them into it this time, either. We do good work, and I don’t want them going out of their way to try to keep me safe, nor do I want them distracted with thoughts that we should have other priorities. We keep doing what we’re doing. We will go to my mother’s house and I will let everyone go home, and then we will do what we can to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Why me?” Becca asked. Why not anyone else?

  “Because I need someone who is going to flirt on the phone with Lange when he calls,” Bella said with a smile. “You never let stress show. I need that right now because… the kind of person who would do this kind of thing feeds on stress.”

  “And because you weren’t here last time,” Dawn said, nose down in the box again.

  “What?” Becca asked. Bella gave Dawn a stern look, but Dawn missed it.

  “We don’t suspect you,” Jackson said. “We can’t rule out anyone who was here before.”

  “No, that makes sense,” Becca said. “I’m just not much help.”

  “Your mother was a fierce fighter, when she was in a tribe,” Bella said. “I didn’t ever get to see her, but the reputation she carried was impressive. You’ve inherited her spirit, and I feel like I can trust that. Dawn knows so much about crystals and has skills I haven’t seen in all my time doing this, and Jackson is my rock. I don’t need special skills or someone who is going to be here for me every moment. I need someone with fresh eyes, and the kind of fearlessness your mother had.”

  “What about Grant?” Becca asked.

  “What about him?” Bella replied.

  “Why not tell him?” she asked. Bella shook her head.

  “I saw what it did to his father. I’m not going to put him in the middle of this, after all of the skepticism his father went through. If I die, it won’t be on his hands. I refuse to let that be an option.”

  Becca might have argued that Grant had a right to be involved, because he’d already suffered so much because of this, but she had a hard time seeing how he would be any more help than she was likely to be.

  “Okay,” she agreed. Bella nodded.

  “We stay normal,” she said. “We do what we do. Travel, hunt, sing, dance, all of it. This is just a side project to keep in mind. Right?”

  It appeared she wasn’t going to get a response from Dawn, who was completely preoccupied now, and Jackson was a given. Which left Becca.

  “Right.”

  “Got in on a conference with a queen then,” Billy said, propping his feet up on a bench as he sat in the dirt next to her. Becca opened her mouth to tell him she couldn’t talk to him about it and he held up a hand. “Bella takes you aside, you keep what she says to yourself unless she specifically says otherwise. That’s just how it is.”

  She nodded, settling a bit again.

  “You make a good showing?” he asked. “Do me proud?”

  “She wanted someone who would talk out of turn,” Becca said, and he grinned.

  “Got the right girl for that.”

  Dawn was still in the trailer, going through stones like a child opening up Christmas gifts. Bella had sent Quinn in after they’d finished talking, so it was the two of them, at least, but no one had gotten a verbal response from Dawn the entire rest of the time they’d been in Bella’s trailer.

  Grant came to sit down on Becca’s other side.

  “Quinn says there are three stars in the sky that only gypsies can see,” he said. Billy turned a laugh into a quick cough, looking away.

  “Robbie says I have to be able to list all of the crystals by category before he’ll teach me how to use any of them.”

  “I’m close on water,” Becca said. “Earth is hard.”

  Billy nodded.

  “Everyone does earth last.”

  “So that’s real?” Grant asked.

  “I ride with Dawn, so you really can’t help but pick things up, but… yeah,” Becca said. “Sorry.”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “I’ll give you my list,” Becca said. He nodded, stretching his arms over his head.

  “Are we going hunting?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Becca said, suddenly feeling sorry for him. He’d joined up hoping for adventure, and he was going to spend his first three weeks camped while most people left and the ones who remained kept him in the dark about the interesting things that were going on.

  It was going to be a long three weeks.

  “We’re leaving in the morning,” Becca said, smelling the wood smoke as it drifted back toward them in a shift in the breeze.

  “Don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to,” Billy said. He looked around. “This kind of place does inspire stories, though, doesn’t it? Bet we get some good ones, tonight.”

  Becca tipped her head back, looking up at the emerging stars. The
sky stretched forever in every direction and the dry air made the stars visible like pinholes in a blanket to something beyond.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I bet we don’t dance tonight.”

  Even as she spoke, Makkai around her were going to their trailers and getting out maintenance boxes, cleaning weapons and stocking basic kits of crystals. Not instruments, tonight. Becca looked for Jackson, expecting him to start off the stories as he often did, but she didn’t see the protector anywhere. Finally, as the dark grew to a true deep black and the fire became the only light, orange light on Makkai skin everywhere around the circle, Billy clapped his hands together once and rubbed them.

  “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll go first. I’m going to tell the story of the eagle and the box of chocolates.”

  Becca slept in the truck the next day, because she’d been unable to sleep the night before.

  Being Makkai meant having secrets. Argo hadn’t been wrong about that. Having secrets from Makkai, though, was new to her. She’d always viewed the Makkai as an indivisible community, one that had always openly shared knowledge and history with her. She didn’t know how to be herself with Billy, even if Dawn did know what was going on. She wondered if this was how Dawn felt all the time.

  They were driving north along the mountains until they hit Colorado, and then they went west, through country with almost no people in it. Becca thought it was pretty. With almost no warning, the terrain shifted from a sort of quiet, forlorn red to lush and green, mountains ringed with evergreens right up to the edge of their snowy tops.

  They left the highway and took a wandering road that got narrower and narrower. Billy kept ducking his head every time a tree branch clipped the roof of the trailer. Becca wanted to get out and run.

  Eventually, the trees opened up into a space where the sun hit the ground, brilliant and pale, and Becca leaned her head against the window so that she could see the blue sky far overhead. A big bird flew by overhead and she sat back up, looking at the small house at the far side of the clearing. There was a barn, a small paddock, and a relatively large garden that was full of healthy-looking plants just beginning to produce fruit.