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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “Why are you here, then?” Becca asked. “Why don’t you leave?”

  “Because a psychic is a big prize to a powerful demon,” Abby said, looking out the window. “Carter keeps me safe. I know that’s not something I should be proud of - staying for my own safety - but it’s why I do it.”

  Becca sat back against her seat, considering.

  “How likely is this to get one of the Makkai killed?” she asked. Abby shook her head.

  “I don’t know,” she told her. “Honestly. I’ve never seen you work, and I don’t know how you do what you do. It could be really dangerous, or you could have some magic I’ve never seen before that makes it really simple.”

  Becca nodded.

  “I’m going to call her,” she said. “And if she decides we don’t want to do it…”

  “I’ll pay you more,” Abby said. “If that’s what makes the difference.”

  “Why do you care so much?” Becca asked.

  “Because it’s going to break Sam’s heart, to condemn all of those people, and she isn’t going to see a way out of it.”

  “Do you want us to tell her?” Becca asked. Abby shook her head.

  “You can’t make contact with her. If you do, someone can trace it. I’m the only one who knows where she is right now, and she’s going to text Ian, but she can cover her tracks there, just fine. She could never mask the path that you’d leave.”

  “Okay,” Becca said. “Then how are you going to let her know?”

  Abby shook her head.

  “I’m not. She’s going to be miserable and there’s nothing I can do about it. But I can keep the blood from actually being on her hands.”

  “I’m going to call Bella,” Becca said. “Because I can’t say yes.”

  “I understand,” Abby said.

  “But there’s one more thing I want, for doing this.”

  “What’s that?” Abby asked.

  “I want you to tell me how to get to Peter.”

  Abby tipped her head, then nodded, her eyes going vacant for a moment.

  “Peter is very careful,” she said. “I can’t see him directly. And anything I do to get you close, he’s going to change his reaction, which means I can’t look into the future to do it.”

  “Okay,” Becca said, raising her eyebrows. Finally Abby nodded.

  “He’s made mistakes in the past. I can find them. I can’t tell you exactly when it’s going to happen, but if you can be close, I can put you in a room with him.”

  “Thank you,” Becca said, dialing her phone.

  “They say that the winds talk. They roam the earth and they see all, and when they cannot contain themselves any longer, they shout.

  “When they shout so loudly that the air itself cannot contain them, they create sparks of electricity that carry on the wind and hit the ground with great power, causing the ground to rumble and the sky itself to echo it. The crystals that result from such contact with the screaming rage of the wind are important to us, and we use them in magics that are esoteric and rare, but they are highly valuable because of the power it took to create them and the rare quality of their birth.

  “The outsiders use the terms lightning-struck and fulgarite, but we know these to be air-borne crystals, and they have properties that epitomize their classification.

  “We have not always known about these crystals, because they are not easy to find - we look for them in unusual places, and it always takes luck to discover one.

  “The first one was discovered by a Makkai man and woman taking a walk along a beach after a great storm. They found that the sand had been washed away to a depth of at least two feet, and there, sticking out of the beach was a bolt of what at first appeared to be glimmering, solid sand. When the woman put her hand to it, she found that she could feel the depth of it to several more feet, and she could also feel the power of the crystal in her hand. It was clear that it was broken from the storm, but they still carefully excavated what remained, and she brought it back to her camp, spending much of the remainder of her life studying it, for such was the intoxicating power of the air-borne crystal.

  “Other air-borne crystals are composed of higher bases than sand, but the great population of them are complex structures formed of sand and glass and heat, the visceral power of the earth cooking them in seconds, rather than over great time as is true of most of our other crystals.

  “It is for this reason that the earth trembles, for such a power can hardly be contained in sand and glass, and yet we hold it in our hands and use it in our magic. It is fearful work, for many Makkai since have lost the thread of their lives to chasing after the power of the air-borne crystal, and today it is only for the aged, the learned, and the even-tempered to even attempt.

  “Our concern, tonight, though, is for the conversations of the winds themselves.

  “They say that the winds have great knowledge and great wisdom, and why shouldn’t they? They see all; there is very little in the world that can escape the breath of air that stirs where life exists. That breath stirs the universe around it, creating knowledge, creating the great fabric of everything. Earth, air, fire, and water are in all, and they know all, they see all.

  “The air speaks, and when it does speak, we should listen. We chase after it our entire lives, daring it to whisper to us, and then when it screams, we turn our faces away and choose to ignore it. A bolt of lightning is a beckoning sign, but no one yet knows how to interpret it. Does it beckon or warn? Or simply mark?

  “No Makkai alive can guess, but we watch, and we listen. Every bolt of lightning from the sky to the earth tells us that the air screams with meaning, and every time the earth rumbles with thunder, the Makkai stop. We listen. Because while we may not divine the meaning of the importance, we know that we are in the midst of importance, even today, even now.”

  Becca had never particularly liked the story. It reeked of fate and divination and fortune-telling, and she didn’t believe in any of that. It led to Makkai who chased storms and stood outside with their arms up, hoping for a stroke of insight. Becca thought that all they ever got was wet.

  All the same, she could understand why Jackson had told it tonight.

  The tribe was still on edge from Bella’s trailer being struck, and now they were camped above a small valley where a few dozen homes sat, full of people possessed by demons. They didn’t know how powerful they were, or how agitated they would be, but they had made a deal.

  And that deal was the next step necessary toward keeping Bella alive. While few of the Makkai knew that as a fact, Becca thought they sensed it from the intensity that Jackson and Bella had, planning the hunt, from the lack of music the night before. This would be dangerous, but it was necessary.

  Becca stowed away her knives, newly sharpened, and went through her crystals. There were crystals from Dawn to keep her healthy and alert, stave off injuries and illness. There was her focus stone and several copals for in case she got in trouble and needed to blow them up to get away. There were crystals that stored energy that she could use to trap ghosts, and ones that repelled demons, though Dawn had warned her that they wouldn’t be completely effective against possessions, because those demons had real live human skin to protect them from the magic.

  “Dawn will set the first net after they go into the town,” Bella had said the night before, working over a map drawn in the dirt. The town had a single road in and out, and steep sides around it. Sam would be going in quiet and going out with demons in pursuit, and they needed to let Sam and the rest of the people in her car out, and then stop anyone else who would try to chase them. Those were Abby’s very specific orders, and Bella had agreed to follow them exactly.

  “Once Dawn sets the final crystal to complete the net, we need everyone else to come down out of the hills and place their crystals,” Jackson continued, drawing lines that would be pairs and threesomes of Makkai as they came down. “Draw the net in, so if you have to retreat, you’ve got something between you an
d them.”

  “These aren’t going to keep strong possessions from breaking through,” Dawn said. “But they’ll have to work to get through them, and that gives you an advantage.”

  “But it’s just a net,” Robbie said. “What do we do with them when we’ve got fish in our barrel?”

  “First we have to deal with the breakouts,” Bella said. “I’m not letting a single one of these creatures out.”

  “This is the design,” Dawn said, drawing a pattern of lines that resembled a spiderweb. “If a demon breaks through one of the loops, that space is weakened, and the rest of the demons may be able to sense it and come apply pressure to it.”

  “Everyone converges on any active breeches,” Jackson said. “Replicate the pattern in smaller scale around any demon that breaks out.”

  “And if that doesn’t stop them?” Quinn asked. “Because we all know it may stop some of them, but we can’t count on it blocking all of them. Someone down there is setting up the magic to possess people voluntarily. That isn’t easy.”

  “Do we think there are any humans down there?” Billy asked. “Complicit ones, without a fiend in them?”

  “We’re told there aren’t,” Bella said. “Every person in that valley is as innocent as you can be, after inviting a demon into your body.”

  “Abby said she thought they were tricked,” Becca said.

  “That sound like a demon to you?” Quinn asked. “Of course they were tricked. They still signed up.”

  “They’re looking at certain death,” Dawn said. She looked at Bella. “Can I help them, when we’re done?”

  “I don’t know, sister,” Bella said. “We’ll see what we have when it’s done.”

  Dawn didn’t look like she liked the answer, but she took it.

  “When we have them isolated down to into the smallest pockets we can, and it doesn’t look like any more are going to break out, then Dawn and Quinn will give us what they need us to do to dispossess them.”

  “They aren’t going to tell us now?” Grant asked. Becca looked at him. This was the first time she could think of that he’d spoken up at a planning campfire. “What if we get an opportunity before that?”

  “I don’t want anyone with your lack of experience trying this, that’s why,” Quinn said. Grant didn’t seem happy about it, but the conversation moved on without him again.

  “Everything we do, it’s about shutting them in and putting up a tougher net,” Jackson said. “If you aren’t doing that, you need to pick your head up and figure out how you can.”

  “And staying alive,” Bella said. “We cannot underestimate them just because we’re making good progress toward building a net.”

  “Yeah,” Jackson said. “Yeah.”

  There was a quiet consensus, and Bella stood.

  “According to the timeline from Abby, we need to get into position now. Stay out of these regions. She says that if we show up someplace that she’s already watched, it’s going to cause problems.”

  Massive migraine, to be specific, but Becca knew that some of the Makkai wouldn’t care about what happened to Carter’s psychic while they were working, and there was no reason any of them needed to be in the areas that Abby had described.

  “Until Dawn sets the net,” Jackson said. “Then the valley is ours. Got it?”

  Billy came to stand next to Becca and there were nods. They were prepared. It was going to be tricky, dangerous work, but they were as ready as they could be.

  “All right, then,” Jackson said. “Let’s go do this.”

  Becca and Billy lay on their stomachs at the edge of the tiny town, waiting. Watching. They heard guns fire, and there was a chaotic scramble as three figures down at the end of the town tried to kidnap a woman who appeared to be deeply drunk.

  “It’s a new possession,” Billy whispered to her. “Demons take a bit to get situated when they take a body.”

  Becca nodded.

  “So they get the easy one,” she said.

  “That they do,” Billy agreed as a car surged to life and sped out of the town. Becca looked at Billy and he nodded. They each put both hands on the ground, waiting for the signal to come through that it was time, and then there was the slight tremor of the net setting. They pulled out the tiny crystal shards and buried one each, starting down the hill.

  There was already a torrent of people coming out of the little chapel where the conflict had started, and while they had initially started after the car, going to get vehicles of their own or simply running after it, the moment the Makkai circle net completed, they felt it and there was a pause. And then the demons were running toward the hills.

  “Keep moving,” Billy said, scrambling down the hill and squatting to bury another crystal. Becca went with him, burying hers in formation and feeling the power go into it. She was slow - hers had been the last one.

  Billy was already to the next spot, closer to the last one than the last one was to the first, a specific rate of increasing the density of the magic that Billy worked out natively. Becca still needed a ruler to do it right, but that was why she had Billy.

  By the time they got to the fourth one, the demons had reached them, and Billy and Becca quickly buried the last pair and scrambled back, drawing weapons.

  The town looked like it might have had thirty people in it, Abby had specified thirty-eight, and many of them ran blindly at the barrier, just trying to break it. Becca made note of these ones; they would be the easiest dispossessions. The rest were in the center of the town, communicating in the grinding, screeching language of demons, looking at the ring of Makkai around them, evaluating them. A tall man in a hat and jeans, the only one who had interacted with Sam and her two companions, was standing apart from the rest. He looked up the hillside at Becca and Billy and started walking. The organized remainder of the town followed after, and the stray demons on the hillsides who noticed what was happening turned to fall in behind the man in the hat.

  Becca looked at Billy, who spat on the ground and nodded.

  “It’s us,” he said. “Hold your ground best you can, but don’t be brave. We’ve got lines behind us to hold ‘em as the rest of the tribe draws the noose.”

  Becca nodded, feeling with her heels where the next line was. She held a red copal in her palm and a throwing knife in the other hand, and Billy put an arm out.

  “Last resort,” he said. “The people those demons are wearing are innocent. Anything you do to their bodies is permanent. You remember that.”

  Becca sighed and nodded. She hadn’t been looking forward to using it, but she felt more exposed knowing her most trusty weapons were off-limits.

  Across the valley, she could see Robbie and Grant running a loop around a pair of stray demons, closing it with the help of another pair of Makkai even as the mass of demons approached Becca and Billy.

  So that was two down, except that now four of the Makkai were occupied with drawing that net tight, leaving fewer to deal with the pack headed for Becca and Billy.

  “Draw your line,” Billy said. “This is as good place as any.”

  She nodded, bringing out a pinch of copper dust and dropping it in a swipe in front of her. She took one more step back, and then one more really big step as the lead demon hit the line and hissed.

  It was a terrifying noise, up this close and out of the mouth of as big a man as that, but the copper held for now. The demon responded to the restraint with a torrent of hissing and barking that went for language, and Becca set a pattern of emeralds and empress rubies on the ground, moving to the side. On either side of her, she saw Makkai running in, but they would be too late. If she and Billy couldn’t hold them back…

  The copper hissed and burned to black with invisible flames, and Becca sprung back further as the press of demons came up on the back of the one with the hat. One of them picked up a rock and threw it at her. She dodged, but surrendered more steps. How had she not seen that coming?

  The ground next to her exploded in grea
sy orange flame and she dashed back again, grateful that her skirts were treated for things like that, even if she wasn’t sure what it had been, and the lead demon crunched over her emeralds like they hadn’t been there.

  Billy was setting a quartz pattern, kneeling calmly on one knee, and Becca tried to do the same, but there was no time, and no space. She couldn’t draw the net because even as she tried to place the midpoint crystal, the man in the hat was within in arm’s length. He grabbed at her and she rolled away, scrambling up the hill on hands and feet, trying not to trip on her skirts.

  She needed the next line to slow him down again so she could set a defense.

  Where was it? How far back could it have been?

  Someone shouted, but the hissing and screeching from the demons drowned it out.

  The next line wouldn’t be as strong, and there was only one more outside of it. If they got past the last one, containing them again would be nearly impossible. If they knew anything about the magic involved, or knew the numbers of the Makkai, they could just scatter, and maybe the Makkai would catch a few…

  Becca stood, throwing a red copal at the leader’s chest. It wasn’t fully charged, but the explosion knocked him over and tore his shirt to tatters. She pointed when she saw the tattoos.

  “He’s marked,” she yelled. She couldn’t read them, but Billy might be able to. The demon hissed and charged her again, but one of the Makkai set a large quartz near her and she felt the strength of the new loop. They’d gotten around the entire group. She knelt and hurriedly buried a crystal, barely scratching up enough dust to cover it, but it was enough.

  For one moment.

  The lead demon turned and yelled to the group behind him, and more stones flew. Becca got hit several times, and she was pretty sure she’d have bruises tomorrow, but she crept forward, inch by inch, to bury the next crystal.