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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “That’s not it,” Jackson’s Bella argued. “We’re letting it disrupt our lives, just like they did before. Running around like we’re afraid.”

  “I am afraid,” Jackson said.

  “He’s messed with the wrong woman this time,” the elder Bella said. “I didn’t get a swing at him last time because he didn’t come after you, but this time I’m going to get him.”

  “No, I’m going to get him,” the younger Bella said. “I came for help, but I don’t want you or the girls endangered.”

  “Why don’t they number you?” Becca had asked. The entire room had gone quiet, and it appeared that Jackson was strangling himself behind his hand, trying not to laugh. They’d sent Becca out to her trailer, and all she knew, now, as she sat on her bed and waited for someone to come unground her, was that Jackson had left for the airport about twenty minutes ago, and that Becca had been able to hear the argument continuing in the house right up until the door closed again behind him.

  Becca got out her knives and started the maintenance work on them, sharpening and oiling them, regripping a few that needed it, and then she went through her crystals. The jewelry box was a good idea, for small ones, and she needed an overhaul on her organization system. They’d stopped in Raleigh a few weeks back and Bella had distributed the latest cash - it went in tiers, with each member of a tier getting the same amount of money; Becca was in the lowest tier and always broke - as they were going into a Crystal shop run by a Makkai family. Becca was once again flat broke, but she had a pile of new crystals to work on. She’d bought a pocket full of regular copals with the intention of turning them red herself, but she hadn’t found time yet, so she pulled them out and started the work on it. She was so intent that apparently she didn’t hear the door to the trailer open. When she looked up, she found Bella watching her.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to see Gramma Bella,” Bella said.

  “I didn’t…” Becca started.

  “It’s that I don’t like how much this has already taken control of us. I was there, at the end of it, last time. Everyone was frantic all the time and they were never happy. Just… never happy. And that’s not like us. The Makkai are happy people. We face death with a smile, because we know how to cheat it. And when we don’t, our funerals are celebrations, too. Because a life well-lived is the only kind worth having.”

  “Okay,” Becca said, not sure if she should put everything away or keep working.

  “And Makkai don’t belong on planes. We do horses, we do cars, we do boats, but none of us like being someplace where there isn’t a Makkai in charge of driving.”

  Becca frowned. She’d never thought about it like that, but it was true. She’d never been on a plane, and she really didn’t like the idea of it, though she thought it was more because of the can’t-see-the-ground thing than that she didn’t know the pilot personally.

  “Why don’t they number you?” Becca asked, turning and crossing her legs so that she was leaning back against her bed. Bella laughed.

  “Probably did, at some point, but we lost track. It’s not like we care how many of us there have been.”

  “But I don’t know how to keep you separate in my head,” she said. Bella shrugged.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do if there are ever five of us alive at a time, but within the family we go by Gramma Bella, Mama Bella, Bella, and LuluBell.”

  Becca opened her mouth and closed it. Twice.

  “That’ll work,” she said. Bella smiled.

  “This is Billy’s bed?”

  Becca nodded.

  “Smells like him,” Bella said. “Apple butter. He keeps a little jar of it around here somewhere and he puts it on everything.”

  Becca hadn’t noticed, until Bella said it. It was true.

  “Huh,” she said. Bella nodded.

  “If you’re ever looking for a gift for him, for anything, go with apple butter. I made it for him, once, but I think he prefers the stuff that the orchard owners make. They go back generations, making that stuff.”

  “Thanks,” Becca said, and Bella nodded.

  Bella turned her head to look out the window and Becca quickly put some of her gear away so that the floor wasn’t quite so cluttered.

  “I’m not going to die,” Bella said, her voice soft. “I don’t think he’s got that kind of juice. But there are going to be bad things. Lots of them, I fear. I shouldn’t have come here. Not with my daughters here. He wants to make me suffer, and they’re what I care about most in the world.”

  “Why do you assume male?” Becca asked. Bella turned to look at her again, head tipped to the side.

  “Because he’s killing queens. It’s a grudge against someone or something, but he’s killing queens. And he’s powerful. We’ve long assume he’s Makkai, because of his magic, though we haven’t ever really documented it like Mama did.” Bella shook her head. “She thinks of everything. But while I’ve known Makkai women with tempers, and even ones who would hold a grudge, I’ve never known one who would hate queens, just all of them. That feels like something a Makkai man would do.” She pulled her hair around her shoulder and rubbed her neck with the other hand. “But you’re right. We don’t have anything to prove it, one way or the other. Just a feeling.”

  “I don’t believe in feelings,” Becca said. “Not ones that prove anything.”

  Bella smiled.

  “Then I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  Becca dropped her head.

  “No, it will be good to see Gramma again. I haven’t been up to New York lately, and I’ve missed her,” Bella said.

  Becca nodded.

  “Good,” she said. “We’re supposed to be on vacation.”

  Bella laughed and nodded, standing.

  “Indeed. That’s a good way to look at it.”

  Becca didn’t know what to say, so she kept her mouth shut as Bella left, then looked down at the spread of things on the floor in front of her.

  She had so much to learn.

  Becca heard the truck coming back up the drive and jumped up from her memorization work, going to stand outside at the back of the trailer. Jackson drove all the way up to the house and parked it, going around to help Gramma Bella out.

  Not that Gramma Bella was having any of it. She was stooped and gray, warted and wrinkled, and she had a voice like a stick dragged along concrete.

  “Get out of my way, Jackson. I don’t need your chivalry. Save it for someone who hasn’t got anything to prove.”

  Becca stepped back out of sight behind the truck.

  There was a game that little Makkai girls played, a mean one that they only played when there wasn’t a Makkai mother around to remind them that the world was mean enough without them being mean to each other, called Queens and Crones. The story went that all Makkai women grew old into either a queen or a crone, and you went around all of your friends and told them whether they were going to become a queen or a crone. You gave anti-crone treatments. Told stories about why women became crones instead of queens. Dressed up one of your companions as a crone and everyone ran away from her screaming. It went by predictable lines: the pretty, popular girls were always queens, and the awkward late bloomers were always the crones. Becca had been on both sides, and it had never really been a big deal, but she knew girls who would reduce their friends to tears, calling them a crone.

  Gramma Bella was a crone. Mama Bella was a queen, and to look at her, you’d think that Bella would become a queen, in her old age, especially if you had her mother to look at, but there standing in the doorway was the inescapable proof that the Bellas could become crones at age. Beyond her stoop and her skin, she was also inescapably a Bella. The eyes, the demeanor, and the fundamentals of what she looked like beckoned that this was what Mama Bella would look like, in about twenty years. She was beautiful in her power and her confidence. She just looked like a witch from a Disney move, and Becca kind of hated herself for thinking it. It was a mean game for little girls.


  The other Bellas come out of the house and exchanged brief greetings, then the three of them went in and Jackson waited in the doorway for Becca.

  “Where’s Dawn?” Becca asked as she went by him. She’d realized a few hours ago that she hadn’t seen her since that morning.

  “She’s working on some other things Bella asked her to do,” Jackson told her. “She should be done by dinner, I would think.”

  “I would think she would want to be here for this,” Becca said. Jackson nodded.

  “Not every day you get four generations of Bellas in a single house to do magic,” he agreed. “But we’ve got too much for Dawn to do, even before they figure out what kind of magic we’re up against.”

  “What did the test mean?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” he answered. “Maybe it was too much power, maybe it didn’t work, maybe a lot of things. That’s what Bella’s grandmother is here to help them figure out.”

  “Are you really scared?” Becca asked. The friendliness drained from his eyes a bit and he nodded.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t here for the worst of it, when the queens were dying. Grant’s dad was Bella’s first protector, and I came on later. But it was bad, and I don’t want to see what Bella’s going to be willing to do, to prove that she isn’t worried.”

  “Are you afraid for her?” Becca asked.

  “Of course,” Jackson told her, closing the door and looking over at the table where the three women were peering down at the crystals in corn syrup. “What kind of man would I be if I weren’t?”

  “Confident,” Becca said, then gave Jackson an apologetic little smile. “Bella says she isn’t going to die. I believe her.”

  “You have less to lose,” Jackson answered, but not unkindly. They went to stand at the table.

  “You did the treatment right?” Gramma Bella asked.

  “Of course, ma,” Mama Bella answered.

  “It looked right to me,” Bella said. “The reaction was exactly what it should have been except…” she motioned to the crystals. Gramma Bella put her hands on her hips and poked at the corn syrup. Mama Bella sighed, putting her hands on her hips. Becca looked at Jackson, wondering if he was seeing what she was seeing, and he shook his head slowly. Do. Not. Laugh. She turned forward again, holding her mouth firm.

  “How long since you’d flushed it?” Gramma Bella asked.

  “Maybe two weeks,” Mama Bella answered. “I don’t do it that often. It just happened to be really recent.”

  “Someone taught you right,” Gramma Bella grunted and Mama Bella shook her head.

  “Have you done anything interesting in that time?” Bella asked.

  “I have three little girls here,” Mama Bella said.

  “Same question,” Gramma Bella said. Mama Bella glowered then shook her head.

  “We’ve done some things,” Mama Bella said. “But nothing that diverse, and nothing anywhere near that powerful. What kind of Makkai do you think I am?”

  They peered into the corn syrup again.

  “I think we just have to assume it’s right,” Bella finally said.

  “What does that mean?” Mama Bella asked.

  “Means you’ve got a mage,” Gramma Bella said. The room quieted and looked at her and she set her face to the side. “We have a few of them in New York. Come in and talk to me from time to time, hoping I’ll spill secrets. They do all three families of magic.”

  Becca squinted. There ought to be four, right?

  “Light, natural, and dark,” Jackson said quietly for her benefit.

  “List them out,” Gramma Bella said, looking down at the tray. Bella picked up the center crystal and Mama Bella put a bowl rim-down into the tray, holding the crystals that hadn’t moved under it. Then, one by one, they plucked the rest of the crystals out, laying them out on the table, converting the distance from the center of the tray to a distance along the table, with the ones that had hit an edge at the far end of the table and everything else somewhere in the middle. Bella named each crystal as they placed it, one after another after another. Realizing just how big a magic they indicated began to intimidate Becca.

  “It’s dangerous to mix that many magics,” a small voice said. Becca turned her head to find LuluBell standing in the doorway.

  “Yes it is, child,” Gramma Bella said, putting her arm out. LuluBell came to stand under it, letting the old woman hug her. “Whoever cast this magic is powerful and educated, but he’s also taking big risks.”

  “Is that the magic that killed Sasha?” LuluBell asked.

  “Yes,” Bella said, seeing the look from Mama Bella and not responding to it.

  “Why?” LuluBell asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” Mama Bella said. “But we have all three of us here, now, to figure it out.”

  The dark eyes turned to look at Becca.

  “I want to stay,” LuluBell said.

  Becca wasn’t sure what to say.

  “If she gets to be here, I should, too,” the child said.

  Ah. Yeah. That one stung a bit.

  Okay, it stung a lot.

  So hard not to get into a war of words with a nine-year-old.

  Becca looked at Bella, who had pressed her lips.

  “Someday,” Becca said slowly, feeling for the right words. Ones that weren’t insulted and weren’t patronizing. Hard to do when she wanted to be insultingly patronizing, almost more than anything right now. “Someday, do you want to be a queen?” she asked.

  “Yes,” LuluBell said, plainly. Becca smiled.

  “And when you are queen and doing important things, will it be up to you to decide who gets to be there and who should not?”

  LuluBell’s mouth went tight.

  “It’s a fair question,” Mama Bella prompted. “You should answer it.”

  “I will decide what is best, because that will be my job, as queen. Deciding what is best when no one else knows.”

  “Your mother is my queen,” Becca said. “I stay or go as she says.”

  LuluBell’s mouth tightened again.

  “But I know more than she does,” she said, her voice turning to complaint as she looked up at Mama Bella.

  “Yes, you may, or you may not. There are lots of people in Bella’s tribe who aren’t here who know more than you. You remember Dawn?”

  LuluBell looked as though she were only moments away from stomping her foot.

  “You are too young,” Bella said, her voice filling with the authority Becca recognized. “Another time, the decision would be different. For now, I need you to watch over your sisters. For now, and for a long time. You must watch over them just as Mama does, because…” Bella drew a breath. “Because they are in danger.”

  LuluBell’s eyes widened, and Bella nodded once. It was a concession.

  “Now, go. Play with your sisters, and keep them safe.”

  LuluBell hugged Gramma Bella once more and then walked out of the room, casting one more forlorn expression back at Becca, who at least had the decency to feel bad, this time. There wasn’t much victory in besting a nine-year-old who had deserved the win.

  Sad, that.

  “There are layers of magic there I’ve never seen,” Gramma Bella said, returning to the map of magic on the table. “A mastery I don’t recognize.”

  “Then there aren’t many people out there who could do it,” Bella said. “We just need to figure out who it is.”

  Gramma Bella sat, resting her elbows on the table.

  “We need to take a step back and consider that there may be more than one person involved. It takes a mage to mix magics like this, but mastery of this kind is not something I would believe, if someone told me it was a single man or woman.”

  “Okay, so that’s harder to find, but it’s still possible,” Bella said. “The magic is coming from somewhere, and there are people involved with truly distinctive skills.” She stood straight. “This is a good thing. This isn’t a random person taking advantage of momentary weakness.”
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  “No, it’s someone with coordination and planning and a skillset beyond ours,” Mama Bella said, giving Bella a cool look. “With you in the crosshairs.”

  Bella licked her lips.

  “Not beyond ours,” she said. “We have magic they don’t have.”

  “They have a mage,” Gramma Bella said. “Light and dark magic.”

  “Are there any Makkai mages?” Bella asked, beginning to pace, like a dark lioness, back and forth across the kitchen floor.

  “No,” Gramma Bella said. “I’ve never known one. Our skill from birth is with natural magic.”

  “So the mage isn’t one of us,” Bella said. “That means they don’t have crystal magic.”

  “There are things, Bella. Things that you wouldn’t think they could do, without being around them. I avoid them as much as I can, but I’ve seen outrageous abilities.”

  “Like what?” Bella asked, almost defiant.

  “They have psychics,” Gramma Bella said. “Ones who spend their time searching the world for things that they find interesting. Spying on people. Do you keep your wards up full time?”

  “Yes,” Mama Bella said.

  “Yes,” Bella said.

  “They have friends who are demons. Who go through portals to the other side and bring things back. They could actually be spinning magic with a demon.”

  Bella looked at Mama Bella and they nodded a begrudging agreement that that wasn’t something they’d considered.

  “Is the girl still with us?” Jackson asked.

  “The girl is gone,” Gramma Bella said. “It hasn’t gotten out much yet, because it just happened and he isn’t saying anything about it. But she’s gone. She left him.”

  “About time,” Bella said.

  “True,” Mama Bella said.

  “So we don’t have an ally among the Gray anymore,” Mama Bella said.

  “No,” Bella said. “We do.”

  She turned her head, dark eyes freezing Becca where she stood, not cold, but intense, intent.

  “Me?” Becca asked.

  “Call Lange,” Bella said. “You’re flying back with Gramma Bella and you’re going to get an audience with Carter.”