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

by Margo Bond Collins

  He nodded, eating some more as she talked.

  “So you think that it isn’t a Gypsy who’s doing it,” he said. She shook her head.

  “There may or may not be one involved, but Bella was very sure that it’s a mage.”

  “You work around or with mages before?” Lange asked. Becca shook her head. Lange flicked his fingers over his plate.

  “What I wouldn’t give to know how you know all that,” he said. “All right. So what are you hoping Carter is going to do?”

  “The other magics,” Becca said. “Bella knows some about them, and so do some of the others, but they’re coming from outside of us. A mage, light magic, dark magic, we need help figuring out who’s doing it, and then stopping them.”

  “Preferably before someone kills Bella,” he said. She nodded. “This is what Argo was so hot and bothered about, the other day?”

  She nodded again.

  “I figured,” he said. “Too much coincidence to be anything else. Not that he told me anything, either.”

  “It’s good, though, that Argo wanted to help?” she asked. Lange twisted his mouth to the side.

  “You’re probably overestimating him some, thinking that he wanted to help. I’d guess that he’s inconvenienced if Bella dies, somehow. Or that something else was making him. If Sam were still here, I’d say it was because of her, but everyone knows she’s gone. Anything they were doing to try to get on her good side is just going to stop. They don’t do favors for nothing.”

  “This isn’t a favor,” Becca said. “This is someone’s life.”

  He narrowed his eyes, giving her a patronizing sympathetic look.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know it hurts to hear it, but someone’s life is a favor to us. Unless you’ve got a demon acting up…” He shook his head. “Yeah, we don’t do the humanoid stuff. Peter maybe, but not the rest of us.”

  “Who is Peter?” Becca asked.

  “New Orleans. Deals with mages day in and day out. Makes him weird. Really weird. But that’s a special case, right there at the edge, because the mages are so tight with the demons to begin with, and they’ve got some really wicked stuff they can do if no one’s watching.”

  “But that’s good, right?” Becca asked. “You deal with mages. They matter to you.”

  He shrugged.

  “In New Orleans, maybe. Around here we’re pretty stuck on just demons, you know?”

  “So how do I get him to help me?” Becca asked. He nodded, pushing plates away so his elbows found space on the table.

  “That is why we’re here,” he said, then sat up abruptly. “I want to walk. Do you want to walk?”

  A waiter came by and took a bill from Lange’s hand before Becca had had a chance to respond, then they were on foot, walking down a crowded sidewalk. He tucked his hair back behind his ear, head up as he watched the sidewalk ahead of them, then he ducked down to put his face closer to hers.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk about leverage. I know you aren’t going to think you have any, but you do. You just have to be creative.”

  “I don’t want to lever him,” Becca said. “I want to convince him.”

  Lange waved a hand.

  “Same thing.”

  “It isn’t,” she maintained. “We need help or Bella is going to die. And he’s the one who is most likely to be able to help.”

  He sucked air through his teeth.

  “You don’t get Carter by being needy,” he said. “He doesn’t respond to that. Besides, is that what you believe? That your Bella is helpless without us?”

  Becca considered it.

  “No,” she said. “They’ve picked the wrong queen to go after, and I think that even without the Gray helping, she’s going to get him. Them. Whoever.”

  “Next mistake,” Lange said, standing straight again to navigate the crowd. “Never call us the Gray. We are above labels and categories. We are just ‘us’. ‘You’, to you.”

  “Doesn’t that get confusing?” Becca asked.

  “Worth it,” he said.

  “That’s dumb,” Becca said, and he grinned.

  “Okay, so come at it again. What do you want and why should he give it to you?”

  “We need someone who can help us figure out what mage is coming after Bella and why,” Becca said. She hesitated. She didn’t know how to convince a stranger to go out of his way to help her, if he wasn’t going to do it simply because he could and she needed it. That was how the world had always worked.

  “Is this what outsiders are all like?” she asked. “This heartless?”

  He shrugged.

  “Like I would know,” he said. “All of us, certainly.”

  “What do I say, then?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Crossing here. Why should we help you?”

  She widened her eyes at him.

  “Because it’s what you’re supposed to do. We turn up when you need us.”

  “We pay you,” Lange said.

  “Is that what we are to you?” Becca asked. “Pay-for help?”

  He nodded quickly.

  “Yes,” he said. “The faster you get that settled in your mind, the faster we can start talking about how to communicate with Carter.”

  She threw her hands up.

  “This is pointless. I should be with Bella.”

  “They sent you out here for a reason,” Lange said. “Jackson doesn’t do that for nothing, and Bella is the best tactician I’ve seen outside of our ranks in a long time.”

  “That’s great, coming from someone with your experience,” Becca said scathingly. He laughed.

  “From the woman who called me old not fifteen minutes ago.”

  “How old are you?” Becca asked.

  “Twenty-two,” he said. “And you… you’ve got your eighteenth birthday coming up, here, don’t you?”

  She glared and he grinned wider.

  “You’ve got to come back after. Now that would be a good time.”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said. He pointed.

  “That’s where we’re going.”

  In between the buildings, she saw a window of green, the color you only got in really healthy, well-watered forests, speckled with the first color changes of fall.

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?” she asked. “The country is full of that.”

  “Yes, but we keep it in a cage here,” Lange answered with a sort of faux patronism. She glowered and he grinned, dropping an arm across her shoulders. She pulled loose and he let his arm swing, unconcerned.

  They walked side by side down the last block and crossed the street into the park. There was more space here, finally a sense that she wasn’t completely surrounded by people, strangers, and she felt like she could breathe.

  “I miss Texas sometimes,” he said. “Not a lot. Argo has plenty going on, sure, but it feels like the action per square foot is just so low. Everything here is always hopping, and it’s awesome. But sometimes I miss how you can just sprawl out and claim a space and no one even notices. Around here, if you set something down on the subway seat next to you, you’re hogging space.”

  She didn’t look at him, not sure what he was hoping she would get out of that. He drew a deep breath and sighed.

  “Let’s find a bench.”

  They followed a winding path to a secluded, shaded section of trail and sat down on a bench. Again he tried to put an arm across her shoulders. She pinched the underside of his arm, this time, and he yelped, clearly pleased with both himself and her.

  “So, three months ago, I’d have told you that if you wanted Carter to do something for you, you needed to convince Sam. She could get him to do anything. With her gone, no one has really managed it, so we’re charting new ground, here.”

  “All right,” Becca said. Life was full of bad timing. “So what does Carter do?”

  He snorted.

  “Hell if I know.”

  She look
ed at him and he raised his eyebrows at her, a hint of a smile.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Sam lived with him. I just use his training room and show up sometimes when he needs another sword hand.”

  “So when does he call you?” Becca asked.

  “Multiple demons,” he said. “Bad terrain, lots of glitching, where he doesn’t think he can contain them all on his own. When he gets lonely, I think.” He held up a finger. “But if you tell him or anyone I said that, I will disown you and tell them you’re lying. He likes being alone. That’s his thing.”

  “So he kills demons,” she said. He nodded.

  “With flair.”

  “What else?” she asked. He shrugged.

  “He goes out drinking at demon clubs. Makes sure they all see him and know he’s around.” Lange nodded. “He knows what’s going on in his district. Better than any of the rest of us, he knows what’s going on because he pays attention.”

  “So he’ll want to know that someone is hunting gypsy queens,” Becca said.

  “Do you call yourselves that?” Lange asked. “I’ve been wanting to ask.”

  “What?”

  “Gypsies.”

  “Focus,” she said, frowning, and he grinned away from her again.

  “Other than that, I don’t know,” he said.

  “And the one person who did know is gone,” Becca said. Lange whistled. “What?” she asked.

  “There is one more person,” he said.

  “Who?” Becca asked. He frowned.

  “No, give me a second. This is a good trick. I just have to figure out how to make it work. Sam was so much better at this than me.”

  She frowned and he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and looked at it.

  “It’s harder, because you’re here,” he said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she answered. He held up a finger.

  “Silence,” he said, dialing. “Don’t pick up. Let the machine get it,” he said.

  “What?” Becca asked. He looked at her with a dramatic frown.

  “Did I or did I not say silence?” he asked. “You need to learn this one. This is just a party trick, but sometimes it really does matter.”

  She gave him an equally dramatic shrug and he put the phone to his face again.

  “Hey, Abby. I know you can’t see me, but I think you’re going to be very interested in the person I’m sitting with right now. I’m in central park. Look for the dead zone.” He paused. “Um. I’m going to hang up now.”

  He waited several more seconds, then, frowning with focus, pushed the button to disconnect the phone. Becca raised an eyebrow.

  “Am I supposed…” she started.

  “What manner of creature have you gotten yourself tangled up with this time, Lange?” a woman asked. She stepped out from behind a tree. “You take forever to get to the point, by the way. Sam would have just said ‘ping’.”

  “But you couldn’t have found me,” Lange said. “Not with her.”

  The woman tipped her head to the side, coming to stand in front of Becca. After a moment, she dropped to a knee to look up into Becca’s eyes. Becca held very still.

  The woman had huge, black, crazy hair that looked like she had stuck her finger into a wall socket and only had a few minutes to try to contain the damage, but she had eyes that were very still, very calm, and very knowing. Like looking into a cobra’s eyes. Becca remembered she needed to blink.

  “What are you?” the woman asked.

  “Makkai,” Becca said. “What are you?”

  “Psychic,” the woman said. “Abby.”

  Becca nodded slowly, without breaking eye contact.

  “Becca.”

  “This?” Abby said, standing. “This is Gypsy Becca?”

  Becca spun to look at Lange.

  “Why does she know who I am?” Becca asked. He opened his mouth and closed it. Twice.

  “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Lange said. Abby squealed.

  “Oh, this is going to be the most fun I’ve had since…” There was a sudden silence and Abby backed away two steps, shaking her head. “No, I don’t talk about that, now.”

  She was speaking to herself. Becca looked at Lange, who twisted his mouth to the side.

  “Sorry, Abby.”

  Abby shook herself visibly and straightened.

  “I thought you would be… different.”

  “Different how?” Becca pressed, shooting a look at Lange.

  “I don’t know,” Abby said, holding a hand up, taller, then two sweeping curves with her hands. Becca felt her face darken at Lange.

  “You’ve been talking about me?” she asked. “About how I look?”

  He gave her a big shrug, putting up two hands.

  “It came up,” he said.

  Abby threw herself onto the bench between them, landing on both of them. Becca scooted away, not sure how to handle herself. Abby’s energy was so easy to like.

  And then Abby hugged her.

  Becca stiffened, completely unprepared, and Abby laughed.

  “He says that you’re feisty,” she said. “And that you’re going to be a great queen someday.”

  “Does he?” Becca asked, leaning around Abby to look at Lange. Abby laughed another delicious giggle.

  “He’s quite taken with you, actually. Says that you’re going to be a catch,” Abby said.

  “A catch,” Becca said. Lange groaned.

  “Direct quote,” Abby said. “Do you really travel around the country in a trailer?”

  “Yes,” Becca said, suddenly cautious. It could be a ploy. Be friendly to try to get her to say things she shouldn’t. Abby laughed.

  “I would love to see the world like that,” she said. “I really would. I can’t leave the city, because of… well, you know.”

  “No,” Becca said, not sure if she wanted to know.

  “The whole raining down destruction and the end of the world thing,” Abby said with a flip of her hand. “Anyway. Right. Why are you here?”

  “You can’t leave the city because… raining down destruction?” Becca asked. “How are those related?”

  “She’s psychic,” Lange said. “Easy to possess. If a powerful demon got a hold of her, he’d bring most of his hellside powers across with him and then he would…”

  He left her a pregnant pause and she nodded.

  “Rain destruction. Got it.”

  She didn’t, but it at least put a dot between the first two for her to try to draw a line.

  “Why are you here?” Abby asked again. “You should be with your tribe.”

  “I’m here to ask for help,” Becca said. Abby frowned, turning her back fully to Lange now and putting an arm along the back of the bench. It appeared that Lange shifted further away so he could lean out and see around her.

  “Help with what?” Abby asked. “You don’t… You don’t involve outsiders in your issues.”

  Becca raised her eyebrows, wondering exactly what issues Abby meant.

  “She’s a bit of a voyeur,” Lange said. Abby elbowed him, doubling him over without ever looking over her shoulder.

  “I watch a lot of things,” she said. “And gypsies, Makkai gypsies, keep everything they do hidden. I can’t see anything here at all.”

  “I make you blind?” Becca said. “Wait. No. Wait. How are you even here? He just left a message on your voicemail.”

  “You make it so I can’t use my psychic vision, yes,” Abby said. “And that was actually pretty clever,” she said, glancing back at Lange as he struggled to breathe. “I’m going to use it again.”

  “Use what?” Becca asked.

  “He told me not to pick up, so I didn’t. And then I listened to the message earlier today so I could be here when he told me to.”

  Becca shook her head.

  “How could he tell you not to pick up? How do you listen to something before it happens?”

  “Psychic,” Abby said, as though Becca were slo
w to pick up on something obvious. “And the phone thing… that’s just something I do. Couldn’t tell you how.”

  There was a moment of silence as Becca tried to figure out what to do with that, then Abby shrugged her shoulders in an easy, dismissive way.

  “Doesn’t really matter,” she said. “Why are you here?”

  “Bella,” Becca said. “Someone is going to try to kill her, and we need…” she paused, “… you to help us stop it.”

  “Oh, I’m not one of them,” Abby said. “But Bella. That’s a name I know. I’ve been watching around the edges of all three of them for a long time. The little one is going to shake continents, if she grows into her powers right.”

  Becca blinked.

  “Who are you?” she asked, not meaning to sound as menacing as it came out. Abby gave her a sympathetic smile.

  “I’m one of the good guys,” Abby said. “Very good at secrets. I know you wouldn’t know it, to look at me.”

  Becca shook her head.

  “I need help,” she said. “They said that Carter is the one I need to talk to but this…”

  “This is all overwhelming and completely foreign,” Abby said. “Yeah, I get that. And you haven’t got Sam to walk you through it.”

  Becca frowned at the repeated references to the woman.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

  “Bella is important,” Abby said. “Go with that. Carter doesn’t like it when people threaten important people. Kind of takes it personally.”

  “That’s good,” Lange said. “Yeah.”

  “Do you know who is threatening her? When? Why?”

  Becca shook her head.

  “No.”

  “They know a lot,” Lange said, giving Abby the information Becca had given him about the magic attack they’d measured. Abby nodded.

  “Definitely a mage,” she said. “Someone I can’t watch, or else I’d just go looking.”

  “Looking where?” Becca asked. Abby shrugged.

  “Everywhere.”

  “It wouldn’t have had to be from nearby,” Becca said and Abby gave her another kind, patronizing smile.