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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “I’ll answer it for you,” he said sharply. “You did. Of course you did. And she died anyway. Because no one ever bothers to learn anything outside of your special little Makkai world.”

  She stared straight at him, unyielding. He gave her a little nod.

  “You’re going to need that,” he said. “Lange says you’ll be queen some day. Maybe you’ll actually see what it takes to be an important one.”

  She looked back at wherever Lange had gone.

  “Lange has a big mouth,” she said. When she looked back at Carter his attention had strayed, but she heard him speak once more.

  “Yes, he does.”

  The evening had been weird. Lange had finally taken her to a hotel and paid for a room, then left with a wink. She didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand him, or Carter, or the why of anything. So far, it appeared to be working, though, so she kept at it.

  They’d talked magic all night. Light magic, dark magic, natural magic. The sliver of magic that Makkai used was insignificant compared to the breadth of magic that a mage would have at his disposal, the way Carter made it out, and while Becca suspected he underestimated what the Makkai could do, she could see his point.

  He’d been mean. Ruthless. Asking pointed questions to make sure she was paying attention, changing subjects without warning, contradicting himself. The first time she’d called him at that, he’d been angry, told her she wasn’t listening. She’d told him he was drunk and confused, which had made Lange laugh.

  Somewhere off behind Carter’s head in her line of vision, there was a swarming, swirling mass of demons dancing to too-loud music, and off to her right, there was an absurd man in a throne on a stage. He was also a demon.

  As far as she could tell, every individual in the place was demonic save the three of them, and she was beginning to have her doubts about Carter. She was the only one with a breath of pigment in her clothes. Everyone else wore black. And skin. Lots of skin.

  He’d eventually agreed that he’d changed his story to make her work for it, and she’d told him that was dumb.

  “But you won’t forget,” he’d said. He was right, little as she liked admitting it.

  It was like trying to cram for a quiz underwater. She had to remember to breathe, she had to remember to listen, she had to remember.

  Demons.

  There had been a few creatures that the Makkai had identified as demons in the last months, but they were broken, burnt, hissing creatures, the stuff of nightmares. These were people, and mostly beautiful ones at that, in their dark, angry way. She thought at one point that night that Lange, Argo, and Carter fit better with this crowd than they would have with the Makkai.

  “Okay,” she’d said at one point, probably interrupting Carter, though she hadn’t been paying enough attention to know, at just that moment. “So they’re all demons.”

  Carter raised an eyebrow at her. She had interrupted him. Oh, well.

  “Yes,” he finally said.

  “Why?” she asked. The other eyebrow came up and he waited. She motioned at the room with open hands. “Why are they here? What do they do? Why do they look like people?”

  “Where would you be, if you were a demon?” he asked. “Hell?”

  “Isn’t that where they go?” she asked. Lange, behind her, laughed, but she didn’t look away from Carter. Something about those eyes, the way they took her in, more like a thing than a person. It gave her a cold shiver.

  “Someday,” he said finally. “But so long as they can get out, they’re going to.”

  She’d grimaced at this, and he’d gone back to a discussion of how light and dark magic mixed, and how they tended to conflict.

  The hotel room, now, was deafeningly silent, after the chaotic volume at the theater. She sat at the end of the bed, not really trusting it, and held her cell phone in her hands, just looking at it. She felt like she needed to report in. To tell someone what had happened, make them responsible for it, rather than her. But it was four in the morning. In Colorado, it would be two. Everyone was asleep.

  She couldn’t sleep. She knew that much. She wasn’t sure if she would have been able to sleep in this room at all, but not with everything in her head that she had right now. She turned on the screen on her phone and looked at it, something in her already decided. She was going to call Dawn. Yes, she would wake her up, and yes she stood a good chance of waking up Jackson and Bella as well, but she wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t a part of the crazy in New York.

  She started scrolling up from Lange’s number, but on her way to ‘D’ she passed Grant and pushed the call button.

  She didn’t know why.

  She didn’t even know what time zone Robbie’s family was in.

  But she put the phone to her ear and listened to it ring.

  The instant before she was sure she was going to have to hang up or leave a message - heaven help her, if she knew what that was going to be - Grant picked up.

  “Hello?” he asked with that sleepy voice that said that he wasn’t quite sure what was going on yet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it’s late… or early… whatever. That you’re asleep. I just… It’s been a weird day, and I… I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  There was a long silence, and she wasn’t sure if maybe he’d fallen asleep again, then his voice came again, clearer this time.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “No, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just been really weird and I wanted to talk to normal for a while.”

  He coughed.

  “I’m normal?” he asked. She laughed.

  “As normal as it gets right now.” She could have called her mom, she supposed, but there was no telling what the woman was up to, or what Becca would be interrupting.

  “What was the question?” Grant asked. “I’m awake now.”

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Becca said.

  “How is everything there?” Grant asked. She shook her head.

  “I’m actually not even with everyone else right now,” she said. “I can’t really talk about it. It’s just all really weird.”

  He sighed.

  “No, I understand that,” he said. “Robbie is tough, but I’m learning a lot. Different, when he can actually sit with me and talk, instead of driving or doing stuff at the camp.”

  She nodded at the empty space in front of her.

  “Yeah, it gets busy.”

  “Scarlett is really nice, though,” Grant said.

  “I haven’t met her,” Becca said. “Did you meet many people from the tribe while your dad was the protector?”

  “No,” Grant said. “Nobody. When he came home, it was like they didn’t exist. Were either of your parents in a tribe?”

  “My mom and dad fight like cats and dogs. I love both of them, but they can’t be in the same house, not to mention the same relationship. I honestly don’t know if my dad was in one or not. My mom was, for about six years, until she had me.”

  “Do you know anything about it?” Grant asked.

  “No,” she said. “Don’t even know who the queen was, or which tribe it is.”

  “What does she do?” Grant asked.

  “She makes things, travels around the country from big craft fair to craft fair and sells them. Knows every family table restaurant in the country, I think.”

  He laughed.

  “She’s a people person, then.”

  “Yeah,” Becca said. “Loves strangers. Not a huge fan of family, but loves strangers.”

  “Is that what you want?” Grant asked.

  “Which part?” Becca asked. “I’m not very good at crafts and stuff.”

  “No, the wandering,” he said. She shook her head.

  “No more than any other Makkai, I guess,” she said. “I think Bella’s mom’s house is really nice. That would be a nice way to end up. What about you?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “I just
knew I wanted to be in a tribe. Do important stuff. But the stuff Robbie said. I hadn’t even really thought about what came after that.”

  “Do you want to get married?” Becca asked. She wished she hadn’t, but she did it anyway.

  “No,” Grant said. “Not right now. I don’t know. I never really liked any of the girls that were around.”

  She nodded. She’d liked plenty of boys, but she wasn’t about to say it out loud.

  There was a long silence.

  “It’s kind of late,” Grant finally said.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m sorry,” Becca said. “I’m glad you’re doing good.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Look… I’m…” Becca waited. And waited some more. “I’m glad you called,” he finally said. “It’s fine that it was the middle of the night. Really. I’m glad you called.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  “Well,” he said. “Good night.”

  “Night,” she said and hung up. She scooted back across the bed spread and tucked her knees against her shoulders, listening to the sounds of the night. In Colorado, it would be cold, almost silent but for the sound of the breeze through the trees and the generators running to keep the electric heaters in the trailers going. Her ears were recovering, her mind recovering, enough to hear the sounds of cars around her, a siren now, and footsteps in the hallway a minute later.

  The swarm of bodies dancing at the theater. Gypsies danced, but not like that. Not with the body against body intimacy of it.

  Lange draped across the couch, a foot hooked up on the back of it as he waited for Carter.

  He would move like that, if he wanted to. Move around her like that. If she wanted to.

  She felt her face heat even as her chest did at the thought of it, and she turned her face away.

  Grant creeping back to bed somewhere in the dark.

  Carter. Angry and intense and maybe on her side.

  Jackson afraid for his wife’s life.

  There was so much.

  She tipped her head back against the headboard, and then it was morning.

  Lange didn’t answer his phone the next morning. Probably hung over and still asleep. Carter had ordered beer for the three of them, and she’d drunk two of them over the course of the evening, but he and Lange had both hit the liquor pretty hard. Someone else had driven Carter home, and Lange and Becca had taken the subway. He was drunk, but still moved like a viper, fast, accurate, purposeful. She wouldn’t have known he was affected by the alcohol at all if his eyes hadn’t gone funny.

  Not soft and unfocused, the way she would have expected. He started watching everyone, sometimes to distraction.

  Carter, she was less sure. He drank too much to not be drunk, but his mind never wavered, his speech was clear and his motion was perfect.

  She got up and went to his apartment, taking the elevator from the main floor up to the top one and knocking on the door.

  She got no response, so she knocked again, louder.

  He wasn’t going to like it if she woke him up, but that was his own dumb fault. He shouldn’t have been out that late drinking that much when there were so many important things going on.

  She knocked once more, then tried the doorknob. It had the distinct feeling of not doing anything. She tried a final time, then sat down, checking her phone for the time. She’d try again in fifteen minutes.

  Ten minutes later, the elevator doors opened.

  “Go away,” Carter said. “I’m busy.”

  “I don’t have anywhere else to be,” Becca said, scrambling to her feet. “So I’m here until you help me.”

  He looked down at her then opened the door to his apartment.

  “Lange got you a hotel room,” Carter said. “Go order room service and be expensive.”

  “Is that what you would be doing, if someone important to you were in danger?” Becca asked, following him into the apartment. He went behind the counter and pulled out a loaf of bread, starting to make a sandwich.

  “You make the mistake of thinking people matter to me,” Carter said without looking at her.

  “I’ve been lead to believe they do,” she said, not sitting. He snorted with what might have been humor.

  “Then someone has played a trick on you.”

  Speak out of turn. Speak out of turn.

  “What about Sam?” she asked. Yup. That struck a nerve.

  He put his knife down.

  “If you think that coming in here and being demanding and precocious is going to make me think that you’re like her and make me like you, you’ve got a death wish.”

  “No, that was Abby’s idea, but they both thought it was too risky,” Becca said.

  He looked up, taking a breath. It sounded like the breath you took when you were trying to control your temper, but Becca couldn’t be certain. She didn’t want to believe it, anyway.

  “You play a dangerous game, Gypsy.”

  “Make me go away,” Becca said.

  “How do I do that?” he asked, a demand more than a question.

  “Tell me what I need to know and tell me what you’re going to do after I leave to help Bella,” she said.

  “And what do you need to know?” he asked.

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here,” she answered. His face was dead calm, like a shark’s.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’m making scrambled eggs, but you’re getting them exactly the way I take them.”

  Her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, if you didn’t count the beer.

  “Okay,” she said. He glowered at her.

  “Sit,” he said. “And do not speak again until I’m finished eating.”

  She nodded quickly, going to take a chair at the table and tried not to look too pleased with herself as he cooked.

  The eggs were excellent. Not as good as Colin did, but better than her mom’s. Carter devoured them like he would have been more comfortable eating them with a soup spoon, then he went and poured two glasses of orange juice and brought her one. Becca wasn’t a huge fan of orange juice, but she drank it anyway, because any sign of goodwill from Carter was one she wanted to foster. Finally he sat back in his chair and folded his arms.

  “I’ve been ashing demons all night,” he said. “As little as you may believe it, yours aren’t the only problems in the world.”

  “I understand,” she said. “But that doesn’t make them unimportant.”

  “It may not make them unimportant, but they still are,” Carter said.

  “You don’t have many humans in your life, do you?” she asked.

  “Does Lange count?” he asked sardonically, then stood. “All right. Give me what you know about your mage. I’ll make a list of things to check, watch for, and protect against. And then I’ll start asking around in the community about any mage who has it in for gypsies. Anyone picking up new magics that sound like they’re targeting Bella. And you leave me alone until I find something out.”

  She shook her head.

  “No,” she said slowly. “I’ll be back. If we find anything new out, and if you take too long to find anything out, yourself. I’ll be back.”

  “But you’ll go,” he said. She nodded.

  “Get on a plane and get out of here,” she said. He nodded.

  “Good. Give me what you have.”

  She pulled out the slip of paper she had from Gramma Bella and read it, everything they’d figured out from the combinations of magics they’d measured, everything they’d guessed, everything they weren’t sure about.

  “And you’re sure it’s human,” Carter said.

  “Why would anything else come after gypsy queens?” Becca asked.

  “Don’t care,” Carter said. “You have something on the human or demon who attacked Bella…” he paused. “You didn’t say how they attacked her, either.”

  “Killed her do
g,” Becca said. She wasn’t sure if she should have kept it back, but he had agreed to help. She was going with it.

  He nodded.

  “There are demons out there who hate companion animals. It doesn’t rule them out. How do you know that this is a human?”

  She looked at her list.

  “Light magic?” she asked. He glowered.

  “Give me that.”

  She handed it to him, and he went to get a pad of legal paper out of a drawer in the kitchen, coming back and transcribing it from the receipt paper, shaking his head and muttering the whole time.

  “So you’ve got at least a human involved. Maybe an angel, but that would be unheard of. Angels like gypsies.”

  “We’re descended from one,” Becca said. He snorted, but didn’t give her any further comment.

  “So at least a human, one who is willing to do light magic and cause destruction, which isn’t as short a list as you might think. But I’m not convinced your dark magic isn’t a demon.”

  “Why would a demon care about Bella?” she asked. He tipped his head, looking at her.

  “How many times? I don’t care about your gypsy problems. I don’t care why. It’s a simple exercise in what and how.”

  “But what if you’re missing something obvious?” she answered. “Why could point to who.”

  He set his pen down.

  “If I let every sob story wandering the streets down there come up here and tell me all their whys, I’d never get any sleep. And I’d never get to go to Toby’s club just to put a thorn in the side of every demon there.” He smiled, like a cat with feathers in its teeth. “You know they’re all talking about it, today. Everyone’s angry at me about that.”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was a tiny bit amused at being able to bother demons just by being around them.

  Seriously. How cool was that?

  “I’m not getting involved in your problem. I’m just sorting through who is interfering with Bella. If it’s a demon, I’ll take care of it.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  Argo had given Bella a box of crystals and said it was because he didn’t want to deal with them. Carter insisted that it could be a demon who was going after Bella. Was this the same thing? Was he looking for an excuse to help?