Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1)

by Margo Bond Collins

“Yes,” I said, not elaborating. If he knew the truth, why was he questioning me? Necromancy was closer to mage magic than faeries’ was. The only reason the mages didn’t associate with necromancers was that half of them were too creeped out by the idea of animating corpses to want to share an office. Like mages, necromancers had one skill only, except theirs edged towards the dark and creepy end of the supernatural spectrum.

  The Mage Lord continued to watch me as we walked out of the suburban area occupied by houses belonging to the mages, and into a more unsavoury neighbourhood with broken-down buildings on either side.

  I turned to him. “What?”

  “Where’d a witch learn about the faeries? I asked all my contacts for information and most of them don’t even know what a changeling is.”

  “Clearly nobody reads faerie stories anymore.” Though considering most people nowadays had lived one, if they were born before the invasion, I could forgive that.

  “Hmm.” He didn’t believe me. He seemed the type who saw through most deception. Exactly what I least needed.

  I shrugged, rearranging my hair, casual as you like. “I have a loud-mouthed talking piskie living in my flat. You pick up a few things.”

  “Really.” He framed the word more like an incredulous statement than a question.

  “Yes.” He wouldn’t get any more answers from me if I could help it. “Any ideas where I can cast the spell? I don’t want to draw any more faeries to the Swansons’ house. We need to get the changeling’s location first.”

  “I have a field set aside for spellwork.”

  “You own a field?” It wouldn’t have surprised me by this point.

  “The mage council does.” He led the way down a side street which ended at an old car park. Beyond were several dilapidated buildings and what looked like a football pitch. This part of town must have been abandoned after the invasion, though I didn’t see any obvious marks left by the war. Not more than shattered windows and overgrown gardens, anyway. Maybe everyone who’d lived here had been evacuated as a precaution. It was close enough to mage territory to make me pause and wonder if they hadn’t suffered losses in the invasion, too. I’d never asked one about it, for obvious reasons.

  I shoved my own memories away and concentrated on not slipping in the mud stirred up around the field from the recent rain. Lord Colton strode up the slope without so much as getting his fancy shoes stuck in the mud. Actually, his shoes appeared to have been doctored with some kind of mud-repelling spell, because they remained black and shiny even as we reached the field. Jesus. Talk about over-preparing.

  I definitely wasn’t jealous by the time I’d pulled my boot from the sticky mud for the tenth time, nor when dirt splattered the already stained legs of my jeans. They were barely washed-out blue by this point, and probably held together by sheer willpower. I yanked my boot free from the mud and glared at the Mage Lord when he turned around, presumably to see what was taking me so long. I kept my gaze on the old field instead.

  The scorched remains of spell circles marked the dead grass. A faint burning smell lingered in the air, tickling my nostrils, but it was the aftermath of witch magic, not faerie.

  I found a free spot and set up my own spell while Lord Colton watched. I hadn’t reckoned on him witnessing this, and it came as no surprise when he raised an eyebrow at the small container of blood in my hand.

  “What’s that for?”

  “The changeling’s blood.” I’d been scared to death of spilling it, actually, but this seemed the safest way to be rid of the stuff. I could hardly believe the changeling had left it lying around the Swansons’ house. “It was all I could get. Blood’s the most accurate method of using a tracking spell.”

  He grunted, looking displeased. The mages didn’t deal in blood magic, for some reason. Maybe because necromancers did. I leaned over the faintly outlined circle and sprinkled the blood onto the cracked soil, then dropped the container in after it. Every trace would be gone when the spell finished. No evidence.

  Blue light flared up along the circle’s edge as before, but this time a tingling sensation ran through me as blue tendrils wrapped around my hands. Images rushed through my head, of places I recognised.

  I knew where the creature was.

  “Crap,” I said. “It’s hiding less than a mile from here. Near the Swansons’ house. If we set up a trap somewhere in the area, we can lure it away and catch it.”

  “Why not here?”

  “We’d have to wait for it to pick up the scent.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are you that desperate to get away from me?”

  “Yes.” No point in hiding it. Hell, I wanted the whole case over with as soon as possible.

  “How flattering,” he said. “You don’t sugar-coat your words, do you?”

  “I’m a mercenary,” I said. “We’re not known for eloquence and sophistication. Fine. I’ll set up the spell. Wow me with your conversation.” I moved to another empty spot and retrieved the second spell I’d brought—a trap. Or, a red elastic band. Once it hit the grass, it expanded into a larger circle.

  “I’m interested in getting to know you,” said Lord Colton.

  I couldn’t be less interested in him getting to know me. Wait, that wasn’t quite true—hell if I wasn’t curious about his own ability, and the shifter side he apparently kept hidden. There wasn’t so much as a trace of the predator that supposedly lurked beneath the surface.

  But I don’t get on with predators. I’ve spent too long being prey.

  “I’m really not interesting.” I checked the circle was perfectly symmetrical to avoid his eyes. I wouldn’t usually pass up the opportunity to get to know a handsome guy—let alone one who had crazy mage abilities. I mean, pulling a sword out of thin air? Still, I usually dated non-magical, unobtrusive guys for a reason: they wouldn’t become a target for the faeries. Not that the faeries hadn’t done a thorough job of destroying every attempt I’d ever made at pursuing a relationship anyway. Nothing like a fire imp infestation to ruin a first date.

  “I beg to differ,” he said. “You work for Larsen Crawley, but you aren’t a sociopath. You hate faeries, but have a piskie living in your house. You live with a witch, but you aren’t one.”

  I froze at the last part. “Yes, I am.”

  “You don’t belong to a coven.”

  “Witches can be independent,” I said. “Look it up. If I wasn’t a witch, I wouldn’t be able to use these spells.” I indicated the circle, but his gaze never left me.

  “No,” he said. “An unconventional witch, then. I confess myself very interested.”

  A chill crawled up my spine. Last time I’d heard those words, they’d come from the mouth of a Sidhe lord. I looked away from him, suddenly wishing I was anywhere but here.

  “I told you,” I said, my voice brittle, “you don’t get my life story.”

  His arms dropped to his sides. “What’s the problem?”

  I blinked, determined not to look at him, and well aware my behaviour would look downright bizarre to an outsider. He hadn’t meant to speak like one of—them. He’d plainly never seen me in his life before we’d met in the alleyway, so either he hadn’t been there the day his fellow mages turned me away ten years ago, or he didn’t remember. I’d put him at between thirty and thirty-five, so he’d probably been around, but not as a Mage Lord.

  I knelt down by the circle and pretended to rummage through my bag. “You’ve been nothing but disrespectful, and now suddenly you want to have a friendly chat.” I paused. “If you get to ask me questions, then I get to do the same to you.” So sue me, curiosity won out. “What’s your ability, anyway?”

  He seemed to consider my question. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me what yours is.”

  I feigned blankness. “You’ve seen me fight. As for magic, I have the bare minimum. I can use most witch spells, but I don’t know the rulebook by heart. My friend Isabel does, though.”

  I could tell he didn’t quite believe me, but my
explanation made perfect sense and even he, for all his resources, would never guess the truth. Not in a million years.

  “I’m a displacer,” he said. “It means I can manipulate space and matter to some degree.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You can mess with the rules of physics?”

  “Not on a large scale. People think I’m a conjurer, but it’s a matter of displacing an object from one place to another.”

  Wow. I’d never heard of an ability like it. What he’d done—struck down opponents from a distance, conjured objects up from nowhere—was way more impressive than standard mage tricks. Not that I’d admit so to him. He had a high enough opinion of himself already.

  “So you can fetch that stone over there?”

  His eyes followed my hand as I pointed. “Yes. Technically. It’d be a waste of power.”

  “So there’s a limit, is there?”

  “All magic has a limit,” said Lord Colton. “My ability allows me to move around the city without drawing attention.”

  “Because your big-ass sword’s… where? Back at the mansion?”

  “In the weapons room, yes.”

  “Weapons room. How fancy.”

  “You have quite the collection yourself,” he commented, glancing at the daggers at my wrists and ankles.

  “Can’t be too prepared,” I said.

  “They’re all iron-forged?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “You mentioned you mostly kill faeries,” said Lord Colton. “Either everything you fight with is iron-forged or you have a suit of armour somewhere.”

  “Ha ha,” I said. Nice try. “No, I like the element of surprise.” I returned my attention to the circle and placed a number of sylvan leaves inside it, which are practically catnip to most faeries. “There. Faeries never resist the bait. All we need now is a cloaking spell to hide the circle.”

  I set the second circle up around the first, knowing he watched my every move. And yeah, maybe it made me a little cocky. I rarely got an audience. Sure, it was Isabel’s spell, but I still grinned at the mage as black lines spread over the circle. Now all that remained were the sylvan leaves I’d scattered there.

  “Are you sure that will work?” He gave me that sceptical look again. Actually, it couldn’t be plainer from his manner that he disliked not being the one in control.

  “I’m sure.” Wait a moment. “If you can displace things, can’t you reach through thin air and grab the changeling?”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  Ooh. “Can you grab people?”

  “No.”

  Ha. I’d annoyed him now. See how he liked being bombarded with questions. “Animals?”

  “We’ve got company.” He spoke matter-of-factly, but shifted in such a way that indicated he was ready to fight at any second. I did likewise.

  A small figure appeared from a nearby bush. Lord Colton grabbed my arm and yanked me aside, so suddenly I almost snapped at him—but that’d have blown our cover. Silently we crept out of sight, and not a moment too soon. The small creature crawled across the grass. It didn’t look like it was pretending to be human at all—it was the size of a child, but that was where the similarities ended. Its ears were long and pointed, as was its face, while its legs were long and delicate, hardly able to support its body. It wore ragged clothes, the sort you might pick up at a jumble sale. Its eyes—black, twice as big as a human’s—locked onto the sylvan leaves.

  The creature ran towards the trap with a gleeful cry.

  Well, that was easier than I expected.

  Show time.

  I stepped out of the shadows as the trap snapped closed. Grinning, I walked towards the circle. A pair of bulging dark eyes stared back. “Humans,” it whimpered.

  “That’s right,” I said, grinning. “Mind answering a few questions?”

  The faerie writhed and screamed. I’d have felt sorry for it, except the damned creature was faking its reaction. The circle wasn’t designed to hurt, only to keep it contained.

  “Humans, cruel humans, let me go.”

  “You’re harming it?” asked Lord Colton.

  I hadn’t pegged him for the pacifist type. “No. It’s an act. Melodramatic idiot.” I took out my sword, letting the creature see the iron, and it fell silent. “You answer my questions, you get to leave. Simple.”

  The changeling wailed.

  “None of that,” I said. “You were sent in as a replacement for a human teenager. Who sent you?”

  The changeling’s wail reached such a pitch, it felt like my eardrums were bursting. I rolled my eyes and hurled a knife at the circle. The point missed the changeling by a hair’s breadth—intentionally—and it screamed again.

  The mage, however, pulled his sword from thin air again and pointed it at the thing’s neck.

  “Is this a good incentive to pipe down?” he asked. “Who are you working for?”

  “Nobody.”

  “A likely story. I can put you under a compulsion spell,” I lied—those spells were one of the trickiest of all. “Just tell the truth, it’ll be easier. Who sent you?”

  “I didn’t see his face,” said the changeling. “He was… pale. Like a Sidhe, but not. He was human. And Sidhe.”

  “Human and Sidhe?” Lord Colton echoed.

  Half-blooded? Half-faeries had no reason to be interested in a human child. Right?

  “Anything else?”

  “He carried a silver blade. Not iron, but ash.”

  Lord Colton’s expression said that’s interesting. I hoped mine said the same, not what I was really thinking: oh, crap.

  Only the Sidhe lords and their most important warriors used weapons forged from the hearts of their trees.

  “And he asked you to impersonate a teenage human?” asked Lord Colton.

  “Forced me,” the changeling croaked.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Spell.”

  Damn. Faeries here weren’t bound by the laws that governed their lords in their own realm. There, nobody could lie, but that didn’t stop them manipulating the truth if it served them.

  “Somebody put a spell on you?” I asked.

  The changeling’s gaze shifted to me. “Bad faerie!” it said.

  Oh, shit. Lord Colton glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “I’m not a faerie,” I said. “Who put the spell on you?”

  The changeling tried to speak, but could only make gasping noises. I froze, my heart sinking. Oh, no. Oh, god, no.

  It had been a long time, but I knew what a tongue-tied spell looked like. Someone had cursed the creature so it physically couldn’t answer the question.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to answer,” I said quickly, aware of Lord Colton watching my reaction. “Where did he—or she—come from?”

  “Faerie.”

  “You’re all from Faerie,” said Lord Colton. “You’re evading, aren’t you? I’ve heard your kind like to bend the truth.”

  So he’d been researching. But did the changeling mean its creator had recently come from Faerie, or before?

  “Whereabouts was the spell put on you?” I asked it. “Tell me the exact address.”

  “Acacia Road.”

  I stared. That was half-blood district—the closest place to Faerie in this realm.

  In other words, exactly the kind of place where somebody with a lot of magic and a lot of guts could summon up a changeling.

  “So someone from Faerie put the spell on you in this realm,” I said. “Did you see the human child you replaced?” My heart began to pound, cold sweat gathering on my back as I instinctively prepared for the worst.

  “Yes.”

  “Where’d they take him?” My heart beat faster with each word.

  “I don’t know.” The changeling burst into tears. “Let me go, cruel human.”

  “Only when you give us answers,” I said in my coldest voice. “Who else was there?”

  “Faeries,” sobbed the changeling, beat
ing its tiny feet on the charred soil.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Care to be a little more specific? Names?” It took everything I had to speak clearly and confidently, even with sweat running down my spine and old memories threatening to claw their way free. No. He’s not dead. You can still find him.

  The changeling started to speak and choked again.

  Lord Colton turned to me. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Tongue-tying spell,” I said. “Whoever’s behind this figured their changeling might get caught.” Pain in the ass. Not that I’d expected this to be easy. If I couldn’t track the Swansons’ son and the changeling couldn’t speak, we were at a dead end.

  No. I wouldn’t give up so easily.

  “Damn,” said Lord Colton, lowering his sword. “I’d guess it can’t speak the names of anyone involved. What does your master look like?”

  “Pale. Tall. Silver hair.”

  “Sounds like half the faerie-blooded population in this realm,” I muttered. “Great.”

  “Aside from the ash blade,” Lord Colton reminded me. “Trinkets like that aren’t easy to come by.”

  “True.” I had to hand it to him for improvising. He’d likely never encountered this kind of spell before, but you didn’t get to be the leader of the mages by being an idiot. “It’ll be faerie-made… where would he even get that?” I snapped my mouth shut before he got suspicious, and faced the changeling again. “Who was there who you can tell us about?”

  “My brothers.” He cast a shifty look around.

  Oh, shit. There was more than one.

  At that moment, two small figures jumped from the bushes. Three feet tall with long, spindly legs, they waved pointed knives at me. Not regular knives—faeries couldn’t touch most metals—but ones that looked like sharpened twigs.

  How threatening. I nearly laughed, some of the tension knotting in my spine easing slightly. “Get in the circle,” I said.

  The faeries bared their teeth at me.

  I circled them, holding out my sword. “This contains enough iron to make your skin fall off your bones.”

  Two shrill screams followed. I circled back, seeing Lord Colton watching me with amusement in his eyes. “Come on, get in the circle.”

  Fire exploded from nowhere and the faeries screamed, bolting across the field—and right into the path of the circle. I opened my mouth to shout a warning. The cloud of fire disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived, and a hooded figure approached, casual as anything, like a movie star walking away from an explosion.