Magic Currents (Cursed Angel Collection)

by Jayne Faith

  Damn. With my head down, I turned to follow the woman with the rolls.

  I tried to move at the same pace as the people around me, even though my pulse was urging me to break into a sprint. The sidewalks and street were becoming more and more congested as people realized what was happening and tried to flee the Hunters’ path.

  I could hear the jingling of the Hunters’ shackles not far behind, and their bullying shouts. I actually welcomed the bodies closing in around me, hoping I could dissolve into the sea of people. Just one more generic face among dozens.

  But then the shifting mass slowed and alarmed voices rose above the noise.

  I chanced a look up ahead, and my blood went cold. Another troop of Hunters, and they were already threading through the crowd. One of the Hunters, a broad-shouldered man with dark hair, cropped beard, and shockingly ice-blue eyes, locked gazes with me.

  I inhaled sharply and looked down, trying to shrink into the mob. I knew this Hunter. But from where? My brain seemed to freeze, refusing to call up why he seemed familiar. My breaths became short with panic as I flicked my eyes from side to side, looking for an escape. But people were pressing against me from all sides as the Hunters hemmed us in.

  I began trying to move laterally, struggling to sidestep between people. There was a stairway off to the right. If I could just race up, I might have a chance at hiding in the maze of flats.

  I was nearly there. Just another dozen feet and I’d slip away.

  A hand clamped around my upper arm and yanked me back.

  “Not so fast.”

  I tipped my gaze up and looked into the face of the dark-haired Hunter, and my heart seized with fear.

  His hand gripped my arm harder as we were jostled by the crowd. When the people around us became aware that the Hunter was trying to apprehend me, they began backing away, opening up a bit of space around us. As if I were already guilty and it might be catching.

  I pulled fruitlessly against his grip.

  “On what grounds are you detaining me?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

  It wasn’t anger that clamped my jaw, but terror. It was every witch’s worst nightmare to attract the notice of a Hunter.

  His eyes flashed pure white for a moment, my only signal that he was drawing magic. I couldn’t feel his power, but he was certainly using it to probe me. I held my breath, praying that the charm obscuring my magic not only held but remained completely undetectable.

  His gaze sharpened and his expression tightened into one of purse-lipped irritation. But it seemed he hadn’t detected my magic.

  When his hand loosened a bit, I thought I might be in the clear. But instead of letting go, he took his shackles from his belt and dangled them in front of my face.

  “Someone has named you a witch,” he said.

  My knees nearly buckled. No. Oh stars, no.

  But then suddenly it came to me why this Hunter was familiar. Amy had pointed him out several months back. She’d heard that he abused his position, accusing women of witchcraft, but then promising to let them go if they offered themselves to him.

  She’d spat on the ground as we’d watched him from a safe distance. “Devil strike him down,” she’d said.

  I peered at the Hunter. “Then what is my name?”

  He grunted.

  “What is my name?” I asked loudly. “If someone named me, then they would have had to use my name. You see how that works? What’s my name?”

  My entire body was trembling, but I managed to keep my voice and my gaze steady.

  From the corner of my eyes, I saw someone approaching us. I flicked a glance past the Hunter’s right shoulder and let out a little squeak of surprise that fortunately for my pride was lost in the street noise.

  It was him. The warlock.

  He tugged at the Hunter’s sleeve and took on a wide-eyed, half-witted expression.

  “Sir,” the warlock said. “Sir, please. Your comrades need you around the corner. The crowd has gotten unruly, and weapons are being waved about!”

  The Hunter looked in the direction the warlock pointed, hesitating. Finally, he released my arm. He turned and began to stalk away, but then stopped.

  “I’ll be looking for you later,” he said to me over his shoulder with a smile that chilled me to my bones.

  I knew I should’ve run, but all I could do was press a hand to my stomach. My breath hitched as I nearly hyperventilated.

  The warlock dropped his act and his eyes sparked as he made a rude gesture at the Hunter’s retreating back.

  “Damn, farking, devil-loving, shat-slinging . . .” His muttering tirade continued as he took my arm—only slightly gentler than the Hunter had been—and began leading me through the thinning crowd in the opposite direction the Hunter had gone.

  When I felt I could breathe well enough to form words, I looked up at him. “In the name of God, who are you?”

  “Let’s get some distance from this mess, and then we will talk,” he mumbled near my ear.

  His nearness and the intensity in his eyes sent a shiver winding through me. There was intelligence in those eyes. Not just intelligence, but knowledge. A depth that spoke of experience with the world, and a guardedness that said he didn’t trust easily. His attention flicked from face to face as we walked, evaluating each person in a split second. I wondered how he’d managed to sober up so quickly. Only a few hours ago, he’d been so inebriated he could barely stay on his feet.

  I allowed him to lead me for a block. But as my racing heart began to calm, reality returned to me. I stopped and pulled away from him.

  “I don’t have time for this.” I lifted the sack with the medicine, the paper now crumpled from being so tightly clenched. “I need to get this home. I have things to do. A job I’m going to be late for.”

  As my panic drained away, so did my curiosity. I’d already had, what, three very close calls this morning? That was enough to keep me for the next decade. I didn’t really give a shell what this man wanted or who he was. I didn’t even know for sure that he’d killed that Hunter in order to help me escape. I wasn’t interested in intrigues or mysterious warlocks.

  “But this is vitally impor—”

  I held up a hand. “Don’t care. I appreciate your help back there, but I have responsibilities. Stop following me.”

  His expression contracted into anger, and he spat a few words in a language I didn’t recognize, but I had a pretty good idea that they were of the four-letter variety.

  “Listen to me, witch,” he hissed.

  My heart froze, and I whipped my gaze back and forth to see if anyone had heard him. Fortunately for me, no one had been close enough to hear, and no one paused or looked twice.

  I’d had enough. I stepped closer to him and brandished my finger under his nose.

  “For the last time,” I ground out. “Leave me alone, warlock.”

  I had nothing against warlocks in general, but this one had pushed me past my limit. How dare this man call me a witch in public, and with such derision? If he hated witches so much, the Demon Lord would gladly take him as a Hunter.

  I whirled around and aimed for home.

  “I’m not a warlock.” His voice trailed after me.

  I almost took the bait, but instead of pausing I sped up, going as quickly as I could without drawing attention.

  What was wrong with me, allowing myself to get swept up in this stranger’s influence, even for a few minutes? For Heaven’s sake, he’d followed me clear to the estuary and spied on me while I was naked. Who even knew what his true intentions were?

  With a wave of relief, I finally made it into the lobby of the Royal. Head down, I managed to get to the stairs without anyone trying to engage me in conversation. I truly didn’t have the energy for small talk. On the third floor, I paused outside the door marked 307, collecting myself.

  I forced my expression into what I hoped was an easy smile, and used my worn keycard to let myself in.

  All of the girls were u
p and dressed except Chelle. Karen and Kira, the twins, were helping the two youngest, Nadia and Voni, with their hair. Sang-Hee was digging around in her patchwork bookbag.

  They all greeted me, and I touched shoulders and heads, acknowledging each of them as I walked through the living room to the bedroom.

  Chelle was still under her blankets, but I could tell by her posture that she was awake.

  “Got something for you,” I said softly.

  She sat up and opened her mouth to reply, but a bone-rattling cough took over before she could speak.

  I pressed my palm to her forehead. Damn, too warm. Again.

  I pulled the glass bottle from the apothecary bag and waited for her coughing spell to subside. “Open up.”

  She complied, and I placed three dropperfuls of medicine into her mouth.

  She grimaced, but then forced a smile that nearly broke my heart. “Thank you, Victoria.”

  Chelle knew I had to get clever in order to buy this medicine, though I’d never told her exactly what I did to pay for it.

  “Of course,” I said. I gently pushed her back down. “Try to go back to sleep, and let the medicine do its work. I’ll have one of the girls run back up with some food for you.”

  She sank back down to her pillow and blanket with no resistance, and I reached for one of the other girls’ covers and piled them on top of Chelle.

  My throat thickened with the threat of tears. Chelle had been the fieriest of all the Watchtower orphans I’d taken in—defiant, angry at the loss of her parents, and ready to fight anyone who dared look at her crossways. We’d butted heads constantly when she was well, but over the past several months, sickness seemed to take all the spark out of her. It killed me to see her reduced to this.

  This wasting disease wasn’t one that could be cured—at least that was what the doctor said the one time I was able to afford an appointment—but flare-ups could be managed and the progression slowed, if Chelle were very lucky. So far in her young life, it seemed that very little luck had graced her.

  I brushed her hair off her forehead and then rose and left her to the quiet of the bedroom to go tend to the others. This morning, I opted not to go down to breakfast with the girls, preferring to watch over Chelle for a bit. Before they departed for school, Karen and Kira came up with my and Chelle’s allotted bowls of porridge.

  After making sure Chelle was settled and had her porridge and a glass of water within reach, I gave her one more dose and then found my apron and set out for work.

  When I stepped out of the Royal, my former anxiety returned as I remembered the blue-eyed Hunter’s threat that he would come looking for me. I couldn’t completely dismiss it, knowing his history of threatening and blackmailing women, but at the same time I hoped he would forget. Or even better, meet the pointy end of a knife as his mate had this morning.

  The pub where I worked was only three blocks away from the Royal, so I didn’t have to stay exposed on the street for long.

  The Lead Feather Pub was the sort of place that didn’t pretend to be anything other than what it was: a neighborhood watering hole where the patrons were mostly regulars who congregated for cheap beer and greasy baskets of chips.

  Peter, the owner and bartender, greeted me as I came in, stifling a yawn against the back of my hand.

  “Late night, Vicki?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “More like early morning,” I grumped, but managed a smile.

  I’d been working for Peter since I was nineteen, and he was the pub’s new proprietor at twenty-four years old. I’d been the first server he’d hired. He was a good man, a bachelor with kind, twinkling eyes and a hearty laugh.

  I knew by the way he treated me and looked at me that he wished for more than an employer-employee relationship, but I’d always been careful to keep our interactions platonic, and he’d never had the courage to inquire if we might move that line that I’d drawn. He was handsome and there was nothing about him I objected to, but I didn’t have the capacity in my life for a man. And, if I were honest with myself, I’d never gotten over Armand. He may have been gone, but as far as I knew, he wasn’t dead, and with that knowledge my heart couldn’t seem to move on.

  If things were different, simpler, I might have considered Peter a prospect. But life in The Colony for a hidden witch with half a dozen orphans to care for was about as far from simple as it got. I could never tell Peter that I was a witch. And what kind of relationship would it be if I had to keep such a huge secret?

  For some reason, at that moment my mind chose to bring up the carved face of the warlock. With a frown, I pushed it away and accepted the steaming mug of coffee Peter slid across the bar into my waiting hand. He always had a pot brewing in the morning, and didn’t charge his employees for helping themselves to it.

  “Mm, thank you. Exactly what I need,” I said, appreciatively sipping the dark liquid.

  We had an hour before we’d open for the early lunch crowd, and I was grateful to lose myself in the mundane tasks of moving clean glasses from the washroom to the bar, heating up the fryers, and replenishing miscellaneous supplies.

  The cook hadn’t arrived yet, so I tended to the fryers, starting a basket of chicken legs, another of organ meats, and three baskets of chips. With the timers on the fryers set, I grabbed a pen and order pad and went out front to see if any customers had shown up yet.

  There was a table of harbor workers who were regulars, occupying their usual spot in a corner booth. A lone man sat at the last stool at the bar with two shot glasses in front of him, one of them already empty. A bit early in the morning for hard liquor, but maybe he was a night shift worker. He looked up and angled his face toward me, and I stopped short.

  It was the damn warlock.

  Chapter 4

  I MARCHED OVER to the warlock and smacked my pad on the bar next to his empty shot glass.

  “What in the name of the devil are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice low and terse. “I told you to leave me alone.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Peter take an interest. He closed the cash drawer of the register, leaned a hip against the counter, and crossed his arms, watching.

  The warlock had the nerve to crook a little smile at me.

  “Nice to see you, too, sweetie.” He picked up his second shot, knocked it back, and only grimaced a little as the liquor went down. “Though the view was much better when you were going for your nude morning swim.”

  My nostrils flared and I tried to ignore the warm flush creeping up my chest and neck. I wasn’t ashamed of my body, but I didn’t particularly like being reminded that he’d spied on me.

  He turned on the stool, facing me fully with one fist propped on his thigh. He looked me up and down as if I were an object in a shop window he was considering for purchase. His eyes flashed with a disconcerting mix of mild amusement and focused interest.

  “You’re probably nothing special, but I need to know for sure,” he said. His accent was odd, with drawn-out vowels that gave his words an almost sensuous quality. He squinted, peering at me.

  I shook my head. What in the world was he talking about?

  “You’re going to get me in trouble,” I said through gritted teeth and with a glance at Peter. He looked like he was trying to decide whether to come over and interrupt. “You killed that Hunter. And with my knife, no less. You can’t just go around doing that!”

  “Would you have preferred I let him take you? He would have. He sensed your magic,” he said harshly. “It was either you or him, and I chose you. Did I choose poorly?”

  I stared at him for a moment, but finally shook my head, though it pained me deeply that a Hunter had lost his life. Men like him were brainwashed into service, and didn’t deserve to die for it any more than witches deserved to die for being witches. But I had six girls depending on me, and I couldn’t bear the thought of suddenly leaving them on their own, not after the abandonments they’d already suffered.

  “Then let’s st
rike a deal,” the warlock said. “Speak to me during your breaks, and I’ll leave you alone while you’re working.”

  I gave him an incredulous huff. “So, what, you’re just going to sit here and watch me in the meantime?”

  “Nah, I’ll be drinking and eating and catching up on the news.” He reached for a folded daily newspaper on the stool next to him and lifted it as if to offer proof of what he’d said.

  “Vicki?” Peter called. “We’ve got tables.”

  I glanced around the dining room. The place was starting to fill up.

  “At least tell me your name so I know who to curse in my mind,” I said.

  “Name’s Lorenzo,” the warlock said.

  “Could you do me the favor of trying not to murder any more Hunters, Lorenzo?”

  He snorted, which wasn’t really an answer. Ignoring me, he raised his finger to beckon Theodore, the bartender who’d just come on shift. As I stalked away to start waiting tables, I heard the warlock—Lorenzo—tell Theo to keep the shots coming.

  I sighed loudly, trying to let go of my irritation and assume my pleasant waitress persona. With any luck, Lorenzo would soon be too drunk to bother me.

  I jotted down orders for four tables and ignored Lorenzo when I had to pass near him to take my slips to the kitchen pass-through.

  Peter was back at the grill. “Everything okay out there, Vicki?” He cast a pointed look at the end of the bar where Lorenzo sat.

  “Yep, I’m good,” I said. “I ran into him earlier and he came here to speak to me.”

  “He followed you here?” Peter’s look of distrust changed to warning.

  “No, no.” I waved a hand. “Nothing to worry about.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but as much as Lorenzo annoyed me, part of me did want to know what he had to say.

  Peter’s jaw muscle flexed. “I’d be glad to toss him out for you, if it comes to that.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a fleeting smile.

  The lunch crowd was picking up, and I stayed so busy with tables, a couple of times I nearly forgot about Lorenzo. Every time I remembered, a little jolt of agitation and unease punched through me. Yes, he was pushy and rude, but I couldn’t let that distract me from the fact that he recognized my magic and therefore held my life in his hands.