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

by Margo Bond Collins

  Take a hint from them and destroy him.

  The man nodded, smiling at her. “That’s right, Ana. It’s not right. So why don’t you come out and let us—”

  “You agree,” she interrupted, narrowing her eyes at him, “and yet you talk of doing it endlessly. You agree, and yet you’re willing—I’d even go so far as to say eager—to sacrifice countless others who you’d also claim to be protecting. You agree, and yet I’m sure you never stood in this position, forced to negotiate—to actually talk—to any of the others.” She took a step away from the man and shook her head. “Just because I won’t kill you doesn’t mean I’ll let you kill me or anybody else.”

  As she spoke, the mark started to glow and the weapons at the other men’s sides began to crumble like dust in a violent wind.

  Not enough.

  The high-priced equipment met the same fate.

  Not enough!

  “Do you think these things are required for what we do, Ana?” the man asked. “This organization has been doing this since the time of horseback and hand-drawn weapons.” He reached under his jacket and pulled out a curved dagger that, as her eyes first landed on it, sent a flurry of inexplicable panic racing through her. “It recognizes this, yes? I’ve killed many of its prior hosts with it. This is all we need, Ana .” He glanced down at the pile of weapon-and-equipment-dust that hadn’t blown away.

  Ana glared at the dagger and willed it to see the same fate as the guns and equipment. The blade shimmered—a trick of the light, right?—and…

  Did nothing.

  The man tsked her and shook his head, wagging the dagger to-and-fro at the same pace. “Hosts who’d had the power far longer have tried that already.”

  Do it.

  “Needs of the man, right?” she muttered to herself.

  The mark burned hot and Aderyn shifted behind her.

  “Ana,” he whispered to her, feeling her intention through the magic’s connection, “Are you sure?”

  “Not really, no,” she admitted.

  Then she loosed the death spell on the man.

  “No!” Ana’s cry shifted and became a shriek, and Aderyn and Lash both had to jump at her, practically tackling her, to keep her from stepping through the barrier that divided her from impending death.

  Aderyn had sensed the inversion crest that the strange man had tattooed somewhere on his body as it flared to life to protect its owner. In that instant, two things occurred to him.

  First, this man was obviously organized, intelligent, and likely littered with all manner of magical insignia to keep him protected and able to fight the likes of Ana’s curse.

  Second, he, also being organized and intelligent, should have seen that coming. An instant later, Ana watched the five men surrounding her target fall as the crest redirected her efforts to them.

  And in an instant, Ana’s body count was up to forty-two.

  That was when Ana, shaking and overcome by rage, lunged like a wild animal for the leering man.

  It took everything the two had—body and magic alike—to hold the small sibyl girl at bay. Both, knowing that the enchanted man, his indestructible dagger, and whatever other surprises he had would see a quick end to her in an instant if she got through, struggled to contain her. Neither, feeling the same driving desire to see him dead for everything he’d put them through in such a short time, were happy about working to protect him. Granted, it was for Ana’s protection that they were struggling in that compromising position, but with them holding a cursed girl with the power to end everything on one side of a watery divide with a single man in a Gucci suit on the other, it was difficult to see things that way.

  “I feel that this has been a good opportunity, Analetta, to better understand the situation you’re in. I hope that you’ll come to your senses and do the right thing. Know that many before you were, while not as initially polite, eventually willing to accommodate. I am, however, on a very tight schedule, so, if you’ll pardon the hurried introductions, my name is Anthony Tybalt, and it’s my solemn duty to end your life by all means necessary. Your power will only continue to mature and grow and you will only continue to weaken and, eventually, succumb more easily to its influences. This being the case, I offer you a choice. you may stay in that artificial world—protected and in the company of friends—for as long as you like, but I will be visiting your old home tomorrow morning. I will bring my men, and I will bring weapons and supplies enough to turn it all into ash. And by noon, I will be certain that all of that ash is buried in the sand. Should a part of you still be as caring and compassionate as I’ve heard tell, I’ll expect you there by dawn to spare them. Otherwise,” he turned and started up the stairs, “their blood will be on your hands.”

  Chapter 20

  “I don’t like this,” Aderyn sighed, steering loosely with his left hand and all-but turned around in the driver’s seat to face Ana in the passenger seat and Lash behind her in the back.

  “Says the mage who allowed her to leave the pocket, escorted her back to the car, and then fixed the car to enable all this to happen,” Lash rolled his eyes. “Seriously, you could have kept her in the pocket dimension and let this all blow over.”

  “Lash.” Ana glared back at him, shaking her head. “Those are your people, too.”

  Lash raised a hand to counter, saying, “And, like me, not one of them would want to see you—”

  “Eh eh eh,” Aderyn chattered to cut him off, holding up his own hand. “Before I let you go any farther with that thought, buddy, remember that these are the same ones that were prepared to give her the boot in the first place. Saying they’d want her protected over them is an argument that’s already dead in the water.”

  Lash glared at him. “Whose side are you on?”

  “The side that effectively keeps this from happening,” Aderyn defended. “Meaning I’m not going to let you gallantly charge into an argument that’s already leaning in her favor.”

  “Which begs an answer to the question of why you enabled all of this in the first place?” Lash quipped.

  Aderyn sighed. “Because—”

  “Because,” Ana interrupted, “he understands, as you should, that I can do whatever I want with these powers and, stupid or not, I don’t need either of you to get to the camp and face that Tybalt-guy.”

  “Ironic name,” Aderyn muttered.

  Lash looked over at him. “How do you mean?”

  Aderyn shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Romeo.”

  Both Ana and Lash stared at him vacantly.

  Sighing, Aderyn groaned. “Damn, it sounded so good the way I had it scripted in my head. Look, one of you was supposed to get the reference and say something like ‘sounds like you’re onto something,’ and I’d say, ‘well now that you mention it,’ and break off into this wonderful, clever plan I’ve been playing with. Then, upon completion of my well-spoken description of my brilliant plan, I’d accept both of your plaudits and—”

  Lash was already shaking his head. “You just said you didn’t like this. He said that, remember?” he asked Ana before glaring back at Aderyn. “You say that, and then an instant later you’re rambling about having plans and whatnot. What sort of person is opposed to something and still plans for it?”

  “Either a wise person or a person who never said they were opposed to the thing in question,” Aderyn pointed out. “In this case, I’m one and the same. For starters, I like to have a plan for just about everything, especially the things I don’t like—you’d be surprised how often that’s the turn things have a habit of taking. Then, secondly, there’s the little detail that I never said that I disagree with Ana’s decision to take on this walking, talking skid-mark. I only ever said I don’t like it—it, in this case, being the danger element—which, considering I just lost one friend, should come as no surprise to anybody.”

  “You consider us friends?” Ana blushed.

  “Anybody ever tell you that you talk like a nerd when yo
u’re nervous?” Lash said with a chuckle.

  Aderyn divided his attention equally between the road and the two, giving all three the same looks of irritation, confusion, and shock. “I’m beginning to regret having said anything.”

  Ana giggled and shook her head. “Can’t take it back now,” she teased.

  “You even said that like a nerd.” Lash’s chuckle upgraded to a laugh.

  Aderyn growled and shook his head. “Screw it. Perfect plan and nobody wants to hear it? Fine. You can all go march into that mess on your own.”

  “‘Cept if you let her die then your bottomless well for magic dries up,” Lash pointed out.

  Aderyn tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, thinking on that for a moment. “Damn.”

  “Okay, okay,” Ana leaned toward him and offered a sympathetic smile. “Can you please tell us your brilliant plan?”

  “And maybe explain the whole thing about his name while you’re at it?” Lash added.

  Dawn had been rolling over the horizon for nearly ten minutes before a sand cloud rose in the distance to mark the arrival of Tybalt and his army.

  “Black SUVs,” Aderyn mused from the hood of his car, shaking his head. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “This the part where you quip that you’re so super-smart that nothing surprises you or something?” Lash said with a condescending smile, spinning his Bowie knife in his right palm before effortlessly popping it mid-spin into his left and continuing the cycle.

  “What’s the likelihood that he’s got all those cars protected?” Ana asked, doing nothing to hide the disgust and nervousness for what was coming up out of her voice.

  “Let’s find out,” Aderyn offered.

  Ana’s mark grew hot in an instant.

  The force of the resulting explosions was enough to shake the desert beneath their feet.

  Squinting against the growing flames and the low-hanging morning sun, the three caught sight of a single SUV maintaining its course.

  “Safe to say that’s the car Tybalt’s in,” Aderyn sighed, hopping down from his car.

  “How could you?” Ana stammered.

  “With a lot of training, a little focus, a lot of help from that tacky tattoo on your arm. That said, hate me later. I’m sure you’ll find Lash is on my side with this, but that guy”—he pointed off in the direction of the lone SUV—“is coming with the intent to kill everyone you care about if he’s not given a chance to kill you, and everyone else he was rolling up with was just as dedicated to that mission. I think it’s safe to say that you weren’t about to do that, right?”

  Ana whimpered and nodded despite the enraged roar of the dark thoughts rising in her mind at the “stolen kills.”

  Aderyn nodded and, sighing, hooked a finger under her chin and moved it upward until she was looking at him. “Then please trust that it was in all of our best interest that somebody did it. And with Lash a little lacking in the magic department, I made the decision. Besides, if I’d announced my plan, you’d probably have used the magic to stop me.”

  Ana blushed and shook her head. “I don’t know what I’d do in that situation, actually.”

  Lash nodded. “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, right?”

  Aderyn pointed at him and clucked his tongue. “He’s got it. So trust us, okay, Ana? We’re going to need you to do what you do best if we expect this to work.”

  “What I do best?”

  Ana blinked at that, remembering the prior morning in front of the Ceremony Hall, where she’d found herself in a moment of crisis over what, if anything, she was truly good at.

  Even then, she’d only managed to acknowledge that she’d always put the needs of others first. She’d spent so much time focusing on putting others before herself that she wondered, at that moment, why she hadn’t taken Tybalt on his offer and sacrificed herself then and there. It would have been in the best interest of her friends and family.

  But then why was she still fighting?

  Aderyn set a hand on her shoulder, his knowing eyes locking onto her own. “If you haven’t figured that out,” he said, “then you haven’t been paying attention.”

  “He’s here,” Lash announced, turning to face the SUV along with the others as it pulled up a short ways away from Aderyn’s car.

  “You’re early,” Tybalt said with a sigh as he hoisted himself out of the backseat of the SUV.

  Ana shook her head. “No, sir, you’re late.”

  “How do you figure that?” he asked.

  “Dawn means dawn,” Ana repeated the words of the phuri dai with pride as she pointed off toward the sunrise.

  Tybalt followed the gesture for a moment and offered a shrug along with a single nod. “I’ll be honest, sibyl.” He took a step away from the SUV, and, as if awaiting that single step, both of the front doors opened. Ana felt a flash of heat at her arm as Aderyn acted and, before the two men’s feet touched the sands, they both died. Tybalt, glancing back and chuckling, said, “I was pretty certain that you weren’t going to show up.”

  “You threatened my people,” Ana spat at him. “Why wouldn’t I show?”

  Tybalt shrugged at the question as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of black gloves, working to pull them on and flatten them against his hands one-by-one. “Cowardice has a funny way of omitting everything else in one’s mind,” he finally said. “And I had you pegged as a coward.”

  “What made you think that?” Lash asked, still spinning his Bowie knife in his hand.

  Tybalt cocked his head impatiently to take him in before looking back at Ana, answering the question as though she’d been the one to ask it.

  “The brave ones always try to kill me first.”

  Here we go.

  “Sure you’re not confusing cowardice with idiocy?” Aderyn called out to him. “Because it’s usually the idiots that challenge an opponent without knowing the ins-and-outs of their nature.”

  Tybalt regarded him with the same fleeting irritation he’d offered Lash. “Why are these two here?” he asked Ana, holding his arms out to point to the two on either side of her. “The mage I can almost understand—better to have somebody who knows magic around while you learn about your new abilities, though it’s absurdly unnecessary in the long run—but him?” he raised the arm pointed toward Lash slightly higher.

  Aderyn nodded and said, “He’s good with knives. And he’s funny.”

  Tybalt rolled his eyes at that. “How useful.”

  Mumbling under his breath, Aderyn reached up to scratch his upper lip.

  Tybalt followed the gesture like a cat eyeing a scurrying mouse.

  “I thought you were all about knives?” Lash called out to him, holding up his Bowie. “You were flashing that pretty curved blade of yours earlier, I mean.”

  Tybalt’s hand moved to his jacket as he narrowed his eyes at him. “What are you up to?” he demanded, before narrowing his gaze at Ana. “Why are you wasting time? You must know how this will end; you all must have realized that by now.”

  Aderyn and Lash smirked.

  Ana, however, shimmered.

  As though Tybalt was looking at her through a wall of water.

  Several seconds earlier

  Aderyn’s plan was being set into motion.

  Here we go. The dark thoughts were giddy in Ana’s head.

  “Sure you’re not confusing cowardice with idiocy?” Aderyn called out to Tybalt, drawing his attention as Ana willed the power to create her very own pocket dimension. On the other side of the small world-within-the-world that she built around herself, she heard him go on to say, “Because it’s usually the idiots that challenge an opponent without knowing the ins-and-outs of their nature.”

  Tybalt’s attention was diverted for only a moment, though, and as his eyes returned to Ana she prayed to the powers that they not give away one of her very first spells before it was too late.

  We want our kill, don’t we? she repeated in her mind, baiting it with what she
knew it wanted.

  It obeyed.

  “Why are these two here?” he asked Ana, not realizing there was an immeasurable distance dividing them now.

  Then, willing a reflection of herself to take her place as the man who’d come to kill her held his arms out to point to her friends, she told the powers to move her. The dark thoughts had already offered to take her wherever she wanted to go—Like stepping through a doorway, it had said—if she could envision it.

  Envisioning was easy enough, though.

  After all, she was already looking at her intended destination.

  As Tybalt addressed the enchanted reflection she’d painted in her own personal pocket dimension—“The mage I can almost understand—better to have somebody who knows magic around while you learn about your new abilities, though it’s absurdly unnecessary in the long run—but him?”—she stepped through the doorway and found herself standing directly behind him.

  Aderyn nodded to her, though she was certain that the conceited man thought it was still to him, and said, “He’s good with knives. And he’s funny.”

  Tybalt, too preoccupied with the two, said, “How useful.”

  Getting into place, Ana signaled to Aderyn, who mumbled under his breath and made an exaggerated motion to scratch his upper lip with one hand, while, with the other, he motioned with the other, mumbling a spell to try to destroy Tybalt’s sheathed dagger.

  Tybalt, focusing on the scratching-hand, didn’t notice the subtle twists of his fingers or bother to pay attention to the nature of the words the mage was muttering.

  And, while the dagger was indestructible, it did glimmer within its sheath as the spell tried all the same. Spotting its glow, Ana willed another of the power’s doorways to open within the enchanted dagger’s sheath, letting it slip away into itself and appear within the pocket she’d left between the others.

  Sensing that the job was done, Ana smiled to herself—for once taking some personal pride in managing to give others the spotlight—and waited.

  “I thought you were all about knives?” Lash said as he showed off his own knife. “You were flashing that pretty curved blade of yours earlier, I mean.”