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

by Margo Bond Collins

  Ana caught sight of Tybalt’s hand as it moved toward the sheath—toward the now-missing dagger—and she prepared for the next step.

  “What are you up to?” he demanded, and Ana watched as the back of his head shifted slightly to aim his gaze toward the pocket reflection she’d created of herself. “Why are you wasting time? You must know how this will end; you all must have realized that by now.”

  Aderyn and Lash nodded back at her as she gave them the signal that everything was ready.

  In her excitement, Ana’s focused lapsed slightly, and the pocket vision of her shimmered.

  Time to die, Tybalt.

  For the first time since she’d started having the awful thoughts, Ana wasn’t sure which she was hearing.

  “Somebody should’ve told you, Mister Tybalt,” Ana called from behind him. “Never threaten a sibyl.”

  Tybalt spun to face her as she stepped into the waiting doorway back to her pocket dimension.

  With the curved dagger already waiting there for her.

  Sweet vengeance.

  The thought seemed to echo in countless other voices in her head.

  By the time Ana had collapsed the pocket dimension around her, both Aderyn and Lash were already charging toward Tybalt, whose bewilderment at the repeated trick of the vanishing sibyl had him fumbling to defend himself against the two.

  Aderyn’s magic occupied all of the glyphs and enchantments he’d sensed tattooed under the man’s clothes, and Lash, true to his years of practice, kept the man busy with a series of strikes with his Bowie knife.

  “FOOLS.” Tybalt roared, throwing out a hand that carried enough energy to knock Aderyn off his feet. “A few parlor tricks and a thrift store blade against somebody who’s spent years training for worse?” he scoffed and caught Lash by the wrist and, muttering his own incantation, dissolved his weapon in the same way Ana had dissolved his men’s weapons and equipment before. Still gripping Lash by the wrist, he seethed, “What makes you think you can kill me?”

  “I can’t,” Lash admitted, glancing over at Aderyn. “Neither of us can.”

  “Then why waste my time trying?” Tybalt demanded.

  “Distraction,” Aderyn grunted, moving to stand.

  Tybalt didn’t have the time to register this before a small hand passed under Lash’s arm, driving his own dagger into his chest.

  A long, still silence hung over the desert as the many spells littering Tybalt’s body worked to fight the ones set into the dagger, until, finally—true to Aderyn’s prediction—the mass of amplifiers, inverters, and neutralizers cancelled one another out. Then, at that moment, he was only a man with an ugly blade wielding an even uglier history buried in his heart.

  The power within Ana’s head exulted as it was given the death it had been demanding all along.

  But this one, she thought, likely meant something more to the curse.

  Epilogue

  “Well, I mean, I guess that’s done,” Lash stared down at the body.

  Ana trembled and hurried to look away, burying her face into Aderyn’s chest and letting out a stifled sob.

  Looking up at that, Lash caught sight of the mage’s face—showing that familiar expression that he, himself, likely didn’t even know he wore—as he looked down at her. Slowly, moving his hands up, he pulled her into an embrace. Looking up, he saw Lash staring back at him—his right hand already beginning to work the bracelet at his left—as he gave the mage a knowing nod.

  Understanding what the sibyl was offering, Aderyn whispered to Ana.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Seeing his old friend’s tension melt away at that, Lash forced himself to avert his gaze.

  Things might not be the way he’d wanted, but, willing as he was to follow Ana into Hell for her sake, he was just as willing to live through his own personal hell so she might know something better.

  TWO DAYS LATER

  “I’m sorry,” Lash finally blurted out to Ana and Aderyn, who sat across from him in the small café. “I still don’t get all that stuff about that Tybalt-guy’s name.”

  None of the three had any reason to stay—none of them having any home with their respective people any longer—but they hadn’t left. As it turned out, unlimited magic and a little sibyl cunning was more than enough to accommodate their needs while they planned their next steps. For the time being, however, they were content with relaxing.

  Ana frowned and turned to Aderyn. “Hey, yea,” she said, glaring at him. “That still doesn’t make any sense.”

  Aderyn sighed and shook his head. “Really? It’s like from Romeo and Juliet. The character Tybalt gets stabbed under Romeo’s arm.”

  Lash gave him a vacant stare.

  Ana looked down at the table and blinked, thinking.

  “It’s fine,” Aderyn sighed, “I get that I’m a ner—”

  “But it was Mercutio who got stabbed under Romeo’s arm,” Ana said, looking back up at him. “Romeo killed Tybalt after that.”

  Aderyn stopped and stared off.

  Lash blinked, and then laughed. “Wait,” he forced between cackles, “You’re telling me your master plan was built around the wrong scene in the book?”

  “Shut up,” Aderyn groaned, dipping his face into his palms. “Shut up, Lash.”

  “It’s okay,” Ana told him. “I guess you’re not as big a nerd as you thought.” She smiled and moved to rub his back reassuringly.

  As Aderyn continued to wallow in the ongoing laughter at his expense, Ana reached out to give the mage’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Feeling this, he opened his palm to accept hers, and the two awkwardly worked to lace their fingers together. It was, though an increasingly familiar and pleasant experience, one that was still rooted in a series of uncertain emotions the two shared.

  At that moment, though, Ana was more than alright with uncertainty.

  A short distance away from the three unlikely friends, two equally unlikely friends watched, hidden in a shroud of obscurity.

  “Do you feel it was a mistake to cast her aside?” he asked her, sipping his tea and admiring the young mage’s selfless response to another’s affections.

  “A mistake?” she asked, shaking her head and methodically dunking her own teabag into the steaming cup in front of her. “No. Not at all. Her father still does.” An old shoulder shrugged. “It was more for her sake than our own. Why? Do you feel casting the boy away was a mistake?”

  “Would have been a bigger mistake to let him waste his talents with us,” he admitted. “Though I will miss him.”

  “And I her,” she nodded and took her first sip before once again beginning to dunk the teabag, now more out of habit than need.

  “Do you think she’ll be the one to make it work? The curse? It doesn’t have a very strong track record, and she is quite young.”

  She nodded and sighed. “Young, yes,” she said, “but the curse is not without its reasons, and it does not choose its hosts without purpose. Maybe young—maybe she—was a better choice for it than the others.”

  “Maybe,” he submitted to her wisdom, “and, yes, she has gotten further than many. Perhaps further than any other.” He loosed a heavy sigh and shook his head before blowing on the surface of his tea. “But there are new threats to worry about, and, as always, the ongoing challenge of the curse itself.”

  She scoffed and reeled away from him. “You speak doubt of her will while you speak of the mage’s father as though he were not the true threat to be faced.”

  “Yes, well,” he stared back at the table—back at the three—and smirked at the sight. “I suppose I’m more confident now than I would have been before. Still…”

  She leaned forward. “Still?”

  He nodded. “I still fear that the greatest threat those three will face won’t be from others.”

  She groaned and took a long sip from her cup. “I suppose my people have more to lose from that than yours.”

  “I’d rathe
r not lose any of them,” he said flatly.

  She nodded. “That makes the both of us.”

  Smiling at that, he gave a nod and finished with a tug to the tip of his silver beard. “It’s always so nice when we can finish these meetings with an agreement.”

  “You mean,” she chuckled, “rather than finish these meetings without spitting and cursing at one another?”

  “Yes,” he said with a chuckle, “though those times are never without their laughter, as well.”

  “Then I suppose we’ll see what our next visit brings,” the phuri dai offered as she stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my ride is here.”

  “Of course. Of course,” the almaealij alkabir half-rose to give his old friend a half-hug before sinking back into his chair. As she shuffled by, he continued to shield the sight of her from those who might recognize her—those who might not yet understand what this all meant—and called back to her, “I don’t suppose you’ve told them who you visit during these outings, have you?”

  The Sybii elder chuckled and glanced back at the great wizard, shaking her head. “No more than I suppose you’ve told your mages why the location of their pocket changes as frequently as our camp?”

  The almaealij alkabir chuckled at that and shook his head. “Some things, my dear,” he offered, “are more fun when left unsaid.”

  The End

  Watch for more books by Nathan Squiers and Rebecca Hamilton.

  Rebecca’s Newsletter http://www.rebeccahamiltonbooks.com/newsletter

  About the Authors

  Nathan Squiers invents stories and advocates towards the power of creativity against depression and self-destruction by using his own tale of turning a suicide letter into the start of a best-selling series. As a lover of all things creative, he writes novels, novellas, and short stories, as well as comic book scripts (just don’t ask him to draw something if you don’t like stick figures and poorly-executed shapes).

  Now living in Honeoye, New York with his wife and two incredibly demanding, out-of-control demon-cats, Nathan thrives on a steady diet of potentially lethal doses of caffeine and bacon. If he’s not submerged in the realm of fiction, or burning out his retinas with horror movie marathons, Nathan is planning/getting a new piercing/tattoo.

  Read More from Nathan Squiers:

  http://www.nathansquiersauthor.com/

  NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and WALL STREET JOURNAL bestselling author Rebecca Hamilton lives in Georgia with her husband and four kids, all of whom inspire her writing. Somewhere in between using magic to disappear booboos and sorcery to heal emotional wounds, she takes to her fictional worlds to see what perilous situations her characters will find themselves in next. Represented by Rossano Trentin of TZLA, Rebecca has been published internationally, in three languages.

  Read More from Rebecca Hamilton

  www.rebeccahamiltonbooks.com