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

by Margo Bond Collins

  The bird that had been outside bedroom her window earlier let loose another series of panicked chirps, and before she knew it, Ana had gone around the other side of the building to see why it hadn’t moved. The passing squawks of a bird were common, but this one seemed to be stationed outside her window, and Ana wanted to know why.

  Upon coming around the side of the building, she received her answer. Alas, with college kids came college messes, and the bird had tangled itself in one such mess.

  Ana quickly set to work on net-like length of plastic from a six-pack of beer that had first tangled itself to a length of fishing line snagged on a nearby fencepost, and then to this small bird, who’d likely only been scrounging for breakfast when it managed to get itself halfway through one of the unforgiving loops of plastic before trying to double around through another.

  Like Ana, the bird was trapped—one of its wings twisted through a plastic loop. Even in her hands, the bird flopped around in sporadic bursts of crooked flight attempts that brought it crashing back down again. It didn’t understand enough to stay still so Ana could help.

  “Dammit. Ow!” Ana flinched and fought the urge to pull away as the bird pecked at her dancing fingers. “I know, I know. A moment longer, okay?”

  It flapped more furiously, pecked more insistently, as if Ana were to blame for its predicament.

  “Just a moment.” Ana narrowed her eyes as she guided the bird’s trapped wing out from its confines before slipping its head under the other. “There.”

  Feeling its previously trapped wing gain new flexibility, the bird’s flapping intensified and, now free of its binds, yanked free of Ana’s grip and rocketed into the air, its eager wings carrying it higher and higher into the glow of the rising morning sun.

  “Yeah.” Ana stuck her tongue out after the fleeing vision. “You’re welcome.”

  Then, with the playful gesture still jutting out, she groaned as remembered what she’d been doing moments before she tangled herself up in the bird’s predicament. she’d been heading off to the Ceremony Hall.

  “Oh man,” she muttered to herself. “Like I’m not nervous enough already.”

  Much of their Sybii camp was comprised of the vehicles that made up their caravan whenever they traveled. Strategically set campers and trailers and a few modified portable cargo units created a quaint-yet-otherworldly “small town” effect, and while the foundations of the buildings were, in their case, replaced with tires and wheel locks, it never seemed to deter outsiders when they came in. In fact, if nothing else, their visitors seemed almost charmed by the familiar sense of structure while simultaneously enamored with the idea of so easily moving to what they likely saw as “better” places.

  Though it was the only life she’d ever known, Ana had encountered enough from outsiders to see that many fancied the idea of freedom, and something in their camp’s mobility seemed appealing for that reason. This, Ana thought, was funny—because while the surroundings might have changed when they moved their camp, very little else did.

  They remained the same.

  The outsiders remained the same.

  Their lives remained the same.

  Whatever it was that the outsiders believed the Sybii had access to beyond them was something that likely only existed in their heads, because Ana certainly hadn’t found it yet. Each and every day when she stepped out of her own family’s camper and saw the neighboring campers surrounding their own, almost always in the exact same place, she had to wonder if it really was much different to step out of one’s house and, like every other day, see the neighboring houses that surrounded them every other day. She doubted in the long run that things were that much different.

  Minus, of course, the fear. Their visitors, she was sure, did not have to live in fear the way her camp did. But there was no using dwelling on that. After all, that was their life, had been her life as long as she’d known it.

  And now, her life was about to change, at least in some way. That’s what today was all about. So as she stepped up to the Ceremony Hall, she found herself giving that thought a second consideration. Then a third.

  A home was a home, and a shop still a shop. A caravan might be able to replicate a town in many ways. But she’d never—not once—ever heard an outsider speak of anything like the Ceremony Hall. In fact, for the few outsiders who even roamed far enough away from the rest of the camp to see it, even they didn’t seem to know what to make of it.

  It was one of only three structures that wasn’t built on a foundation of wheels. The men of their camp constructed it with each new settlement and broke it down to prepare for transportation with each new move. It was the only structure that had its very own transport dedicated to its parts.

  Were the truck that hauled its components ever to roll off the road and tumble down a cliff’s peak, Ana was certain the same fate would befall every vehicle of their caravan—they’d follow after their ill-fated Ceremony Hall like lemmings to their doom.

  Constructed more like a teepee, it didn’t resemble its namesake and, unlike the other two structures, which looked more like large, unpainted sheds comprised of four walls and coned roofs, the Ceremony Hall looked more cryptic and dated.

  This, Ana was sure, lent to the outsiders’ reactions whenever they came across it. It did look like something unrelated to the rest of their camp—something that might have been left behind, perhaps for good reason, by some other settlement that had long since passed through. It certainly didn’t spark any sense of familiarity, and, as no one had ever dared to approach it. And while it didn’t seem altogether intimidating to Ana, even she had to pause at its…

  What was the right word for it?

  Energy?

  Power?

  Magic?

  Like the chord of a plucked instrument, it did seem to thrum with a vibration that was felt more in the heart than anywhere else. On any other day—hell, on every other day—this vibration was, despite the reaction it earned from those few outsiders, not an unpleasant one. As she stood before it then, on her day, it was almost enough to send even her running.

  But like the bird she’d found, she was too woven into this life—wing bound to the source—to fly away from her fate. And now she would learn what role she’d be tethered to for the rest of her existence.

  Creating a sense of certainty for something that nobody had any right to declare any sense of certainty about.

  The outsiders paid for that kind of certainty. Her people thrived on it.

  And there, before the thrumming magic of the Ceremony Hall, Ana was to receive her own certainty.

  But she wasn’t sure she even wanted it.

  The rite of passage was supposed to be a joyous moment, even an empowering one for those who, like Ana, were held in high esteem for one reason or another. It reaffirmed that they were Sybii.

  To enter the Ceremony Hall and receive the blessing to step out as a contributor—as an adult—was as crucial to their people as the rising of the sun was to the start of the new day.

  This, in and of itself, was nothing that concerned Ana. She’d always been compassionate and dedicated to her people—to all people, in fact. Like the bird who’d found itself receiving her favor while she made herself late for her big day, many had been offered her selfless consideration. She’d received any number of startled expressions from outsiders upon receiving their dropped wallets or forgotten purses—expressions that intensified when they discovered all the contents untouched, which in many ways stung, though she smiled through it all the same.

  This, she knew, was in response to the rumors of their people, and while she liked to think she was doing the Sybii a service by expelling ugly rumors through her actions, it wasn’t the reason she did so. It was simply who she was: an aid, a support.

  Ana had long since recognized that she was an omega. And for her, the daughter of their leader and the first to be considered to inherit the role, the certainty awaiting her was condemnation to assume an alpha role in
the eyes of her people.

  She cringed at the thought. She’d lived her entire life finding comfort and purpose in being the missing piece. She’d been free to soar and land wherever she was most needed, but always with a preconceived sense of direction and need.

  Envisioning herself as the leader of anything filled her with worry and dread and, worst of all, uncertainty. And certainty was the one thing she knew a leader needed.

  To enter the Ceremony Hall, she realized, was to risk shaming herself and her family by admitting she could not accept the role she was expected to.

  Her only other choice? Risking the very lives of her people by pretending she could offer them something she could not.

  Chapter 2

  As she took the first step toward the foreboding structure ahead of her, Ana heard the growing excitement of her people behind her. A group of mages had come to trade, and despite the terror she felt for what awaited her, surely that was at least a sign of good things to come.

  Wasn’t it?

  “Analetta Lovelli.” Ana flinched as the phuri dai called to her by her full name. “I’d been worrying you’d forgotten.”

  Hard to forget a day dedicated to forgetting about myself, Ana thought to herself. Instead, fighting the urge to whimper or, worse yet, break down into tears, she said, “I couldn’t have.” Then, considering this, corrected with, “I wouldn’t have.”

  The phuri dai nodded, and Ana thought—not for the first time—how the old crone was beautiful in the same way that an ancient piece of art was beautiful, drawing one’s gaze and demanding respect and awe upon receiving it. In this respect, if she were an ancient piece of art, Ana felt that she’d likely be a statue: her old, weathered face offering nothing readable as she turned like the gears of a rusted-yet-reliable machine, her spiraled cane acting as a center point as she did.

  The phuri dai started her surprisingly swift hobble toward the center of the Ceremony Hall.

  The tallest point of the structure.

  As Ana herself walked to meet the woman in the middle of the hall, she felt as though the weight of her anxiety was doubling with each new inch the rooftop distanced itself from her. As though every step’s worth of new space over her head represented that much more of a looming threat. In the deepest recesses of her mind, Ana imagined that the roof was actually flat and that she was actually growing shorter with every step she took.

  She suppressed another whimper. It certainly feels that way.

  When their paths met, the phuri dai frowned. “You overslept then?” she asked, already sounding insulted without the benefit of an answer to be offended by. Then, still without a response, she turned—this time lightning fast like the striking of a snake—and aimed an arthritic finger toward Ana. “Dawn means dawn.”

  Her tone sounded uncomfortably similar to the trapped bird’s squawks.

  Unsure of whether to address the first question or the second statement, Ana only nodded.

  The phuri dai wouldn’t care that she’d stopped to help a bird—she wouldn’t care if she’d stopped to help the entire planet. Either way, the outcome remained the same. She was late.

  Tradition was tradition.

  Dawn meant dawn.

  There was no use in trying to explain herself and risk shaming herself even further.

  Not considering all the shame I’m already in store for.

  Seeming to look past the nod and see something else, the phuri dai made a sound like a deflating balloon and turned her pointed finger inward to scratch at the side of her neck.

  “No matter,” she said in a voice that better reflected her years. “You’re here now.”

  For a long moment, this statement hung between them like the last Autumn leaf. Then, giving a shake that ruffled the faded patchwork blanket she wore over her slumped shoulders, the leaf fell free and a chilling demand of “Now undress,” accompanied a sharp strike against the ground with her cane.

  Ana obliged, pulling off her sweater, boots, and the pair of stitched-up jeans. Then, left in her socks, underwear, and a white undershirt that she’d set aside for this occasion, she waited, fighting the urge to fold her arms across her chest as she let her hands hang at her sides.

  Without another word between them, the phuri dai moved to inspect Ana. Tufts of Ana’s amber hair were parted, pulled, and rolled between the phuri dai’s aged fingers before finally being patted back into place once again. After several passes like this, the phuri dai’s fingers moved to pry Ana’s lids open, and the old woman’s dark eyes rose to stare into hers.

  As the cataract-laced gaze danced side-to-side to take in each of Ana’s eyes, she found herself hoping that all the phuri dai would see were her forest-green irises and not the strained, bloodshot whites that might offer evidence of her earlier tears.

  If the phuri dai saw anything unsettling there, she made no show of it. After releasing Ana’s lids, the phuri dai’s old hands moved to either side of Ana’s jaw, roughly rolling her thumbs against the area before moving to her cheeks, which she pinched with more strength than one might have thought her capable of. Pausing to study the effects of this—though not Ana’s expression if her own was any indicator—the old woman hummed to herself and then moved to part Ana’s lips with her bare fingers.

  The taste of medicated lotion, eucalyptus, and tobacco invaded Ana’s senses as the phuri dai tilted Ana’s head first upward and then downward to check her teeth. Then, with a soft grunt, she flicked an old fingernail against one of Ana’s front teeth, beckoning them to part. Ana obliged again, and again, the phuri dai craned first upward and then downward to examine the inside of her mouth before finally deciding she’d seen enough.

  She pulled her hands away, leaving Ana to flex her jaw a few times against the ache that had been growing.

  “Good,” she mused more to herself as she moved down to Ana’s neck, checking the glands at Ana’s throat before letting her hands fall across the slopes of Ana’s shoulders and finally to her arms. “Good,” she repeated, letting her examination continue as her hands continued to travel down Ana’s arms. “Goo—”

  The phuri dai’s praise, and her wandering hands, stopped suddenly.

  The room seemed to go cold as Ana tried to decide if she should maintain her rigid posture to dare to look down at the elder.

  Silence.

  The phuri dai took a step back, suddenly seeming far older and far weaker than Ana had ever seen her.

  Then the old woman hobbled out of the Ceremony Hall.

  The rite—one of the most sacred of their people—was left unfinished.

  And Ana, who’d been fearful for what certainty was coming her way, came to feel a new brand of terror for what uncertainty this could mean.

  Holding up her arms—the last part of her that the phuri dai had been inspecting before her bizarre departure—to search for any clues toward what had happened.

  There, on her left forearm, was the mark.

  How hadn’t Ana noticed that while she was getting ready?

  Perhaps it was the blur in her sleepy eyes or the distraction of the squawking bird she should blame. Not that placing blame would change anything.

  Resentfully, still wiping at the bizarre mark despite it already proving it wouldn’t even smudge, she accepted that, with how chaotic her thoughts had been that morning, she could have just as easily woken up on fire and likely gone on unknowing.

  Burning seemed a better option.

  At least she knew how that would end.

  She grumbled to herself, evolving her efforts from rubbing with the palm of her opposite hand to scratching at it. Perhaps it was some dried crud—some sun-baked grease from one of the trailer hitches—and she had to get under it to remove it.

  “Ow.” She winced and yanked her hand away, glaring at her own arm as though it were a wayward animal that had bitten her.

  It wasn’t far from the truth.

  The first few efforts to scratch away the black pattern were, admittedly, painful—not u
nlike trying to scratch away a thin, recessed scab, she supposed—but it was a pain that she’d expected. She was, after all, trying to scrape something out of her skin. But that third time?

  That hadn’t been anything like the first two.

  It didn’t sting or ache or throb, though her arm was most certainly doing all three after how she’d been treating it.

  It burned.

  And not in the “I’ve given myself an infection” sense. No. Though Ana couldn’t bring herself to understand how or why, she knew—in much the same way she knew that the left foot should follow the right when she walked—that the mark had intentionally burned her.

  That, however, was foolish. She’d even go so far as to say that it was stupid.

  But so long as she was being stupid…

  “What the hell are you?” she muttered, bringing her forearm closer to her face to inspect it in the limited light of the Ceremony Hall. “And why did the phuri dai run off like that when she saw you?”

  The mark, being a mark and nothing else, didn’t answer.

  Ana nodded. Stupid.

  “Okay,” she said, this time to herself and the empty room. “Now what?”

  Ana, not knowing the answer, provided no response.

  The room, being a room, only lamely echoed her question back to her.

  All in all, between the mark, the room, and herself, Ana found herself begrudgingly admitting that this had been the most productive conversation she’d had all morning.

  “Well”—she shrugged before moving to retrieve her clothes—“as long as we’re breaking tradition…”

  Ana dressed in silence. Even her mind, which ached to ask more unanswerable questions about the mark and the phuri dai’s response to it, was forced into silence. Silence, at that moment, was the only thing that made sense.

  You were hoping for uncertainty, she thought absently.

  Shut up, she thought back.

  Then, considering this “exchange,” she thought, Crazy. I’m going crazy.