Malicious Magic: An Urban Fantasy Adventure

by G. K. Lund

  “No! I repeated and ran forward, forgetting the raging ghost in the room. I cried out. Several books and a heating bottle smacked into me. I saw the ghost had now shifted its focus, turning its attention on me. Its dead eyes, and ever-moving mouth so intent as it came closer.

  “Foot fungus!” I shouted at it, remembering nothing more than the fruit monger’s turn of phrase. I had no more choice than the thief. The door was behind the ghost. I got up on the windowsill, careful not to be cut by the remaining shards of glass. I looked out and down on chaos. The thief’s fall had caused several stands and carts to fall and there was broken wood, canvas, and produce everywhere.

  I turned back and cried out, completely jarred by the close proximity to the ghost. It was already reaching out toward me, a clammy hand flat against my neck.

  I lost my balance and tumbled backward into the screaming below. Never mind what I’d ever seen in movies. Canopies did not really dampen falls very well. Nor was fruit something soft to land on. My breath was knocked out of me at the impact. There were screams, fruit, and canvas everywhere. I couldn’t breathe for a moment, my brain a jumble, not realizing the fall had only been one floor. Whistles sounded nearby, and the screams turned to shouts, and then barked orders. I was pushing at a load of oranges that had toppled over me when the canvas was pulled aside and a dark-clad man stared down at me.

  “Here’s one!” he shouted at someone I couldn’t see.

  I was about to ask for help when another voice shouted back: “Bring everyone along. We’ll sort it at the station.”

  “All right then, Miss.” The man above me bent down and clamped a hand on my shoulder. “You’re under arrest.”

  Chapter Eight

  The interrogation room was bare and worn down. Paint peeled off the walls, there were coffee stains on the table and other unidentifiable stains and dirt on the cracked tiles on the floor. There was no one-way mirror, though, and no cameras. Things were not quite the same in Atlantis as they were Earthside. Having been moved from the holding cell and in here had given me a respite from the shouting chaos in the big cell. Everyone had been irate and confused after the chaos. I’d noticed one important thing though—the thief was not among the people who’d been brought in to the nearest station house. Another thing that gnawed at my mind was the fact that the ghost of Dekel Chiron had shown up in the doctor’s house. That was a long way away from the order’s house. If the spirit was haunting something, it did at this point not seem to be the order house, but the thief. Was that possible? Could a grudge cause a haunting like this? It sure made the ghost able to move about more. I realized I needed to learn more about the behavior patterns of the dead. In Atlantis, someone must surely have written a book or two about it at one point? Now was not the time though, because the door behind me opened and I heard someone come in. Since I was seated on a hard and uncomfortable chair, my hands cuffed to the nasty table, I couldn’t stand to greet the constable.

  “Isn’t this a little excessive?” I asked, lifting my hands a fraction and making the cuffs rattle. “I was only trying to buy some fruit.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” a male voice answered. There was something familiar about it, and I studied the man with curiosity the moment he came into my view. He was middle-aged, normal height, dark hair, and a face that had some recognizable features like the blue eyes and something about the angle of the cheekbones. They reminded me of my mother.

  “Uncle Alyn?”

  He was opening a file he’d dared put on the table but looked up at this. “That’s Inspector Ciaran to you.”

  “I—” I began, but shut up at this. It had been years since I’d seen him, and the last time the room had been tense. I could remember that much. There had been unspoken things with my parents, and I had been too young for them to tell me much. All I knew was what I’d picked up, that he did not approve of my parent’s involvement with the Red Kin. He was my maternal uncle, and like my mother he’d taken my grandfather’s first name as his last. He’d been a police constable for all my years in Atlantis, probably longer, and I’d always suspected some tension lay there.

  “So you’re an inspector now. Congratulations.”

  Uncle Alyn eyed me a moment, his face void of any emotion, but it was there. “No thanks to you and your parents.”

  Right. My teenage assumptions had been spot on then. “Isn’t it better to achieve such things on your own merits?” I quipped. Boy, was that the wrong thing to say. He stared at me some more. Only this time, he didn’t bother to hide his disdain for me. This was not the way to go about this. I’d already been here for several hours, and my uncle was not here to help. It was rather the opposite, judging by that icy stare. It gave me a bad feeling seeing that. Those eyes were so similar to my mother’s.

  “Listen, Uncle—”

  “Inspector Ciaran.”

  “Listen, I was only there looking to buy fruit—”

  “You’re a convicted criminal, Ms. Morgan.” He kept his eyes on the file before him. Likely a copy of the same file Agaton had used against me last night. “Banished from Atlantis—”

  “Yeah, for two years though. That time is up,” I interrupted and then shut up again.

  “Banished from Atlantis for crimes against the state.” He looked at me again. “And now that you’re back, the first thing you do is buy fruit during a massive theft from the stands.”

  “Massive theft?”

  “In the ensuing chaos of several stands toppling over, quite a lot of goods were stolen.”

  Maybe more thieves like the boy who’d attempted to steal the quinces had been around and taken advantage of the situation. I couldn’t see the hooded man spending time on it in his haste to flee.

  “So you’re saying I was part of a fruit theft?”

  “I don’t know. Were you?”

  “I think you know my father left me enough money not to have to steal food.”

  Uncle Alyn’s eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of his brother-in-law. I had a feeling he blamed him for his sister ending up with the Kin.

  “Are you insinuating I stole fruit because you’re out to get my family? Because I’m sure I can hand that money over to a lawyer who will shred your hostility to pieces.”

  As soon as those words left my mouth, I felt my face turn warm. Where had that come from? I was not one to challenge authority. I was used to following orders, to not think or decide for myself. At least my time Earthside had been good for more than learning how to use my daggers. Uncle Alyn was not appreciative, though.

  “Ask the vendors. I was there to buy fruit,” I added before he could say anything, fighting to keep my voice carefree. I only had to hope none of them had seen my fall.

  I was taken back to the holding cell and placed among the others again. The cell was better kept than the interrogation room. It was a large room with some benches and one wall made of nothing but iron bars. That wall faced the busy bullpen, and I watched my uncle a bit while he worked at his desk. He must have seen my name among the arrested people and taken an interest because he didn’t seem all that involved with the others.

  “That constable causing you grief?” a familiar voice said. It was the woman from the fruit market who’d come up to stand beside me.

  “Why are you in here?” I asked her.

  The woman shrugged. The constabulary became more of an act now, ask later kind of force after the Red Coup.

  “Ah,” I nodded. I hadn’t even known how many Kin members had been inserted into the Lantean police constabulary until after the Kin’s fall. It must have been difficult, not to mention dangerous for the honest constables for many years.

  “It’ll get sorted.” The woman shrugged casually. “It always does. Mind you, I could have tidied up and sold more of my wares during this time.”

  I was seeing why she hadn’t bothered calling the constabulary on the young thief. After all, nothing had been stolen, and the boy had at the very least learned not to steal from this wo
man again.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Marcia.”

  “Emery.”

  She nodded and then eyed my uncle again. “So is he bothering you?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, the best way to stop that is to stab them in the balls. That always gets them to back off—”

  “Yikes, Marcia!” I held my hands up in mock surrender, but with a genuine grimace on my face. “No! It’s not like that. He’s my uncle, but he is out to get me.”

  Marcia shook her head and tutted at me. “So he’s an act now, don’t ask at all kind of constable?”

  “Inspector.”

  “Ugh. That’s worse.”

  “Yep.”

  Marcia gripped one bar lightly with one hand and leaned against the metal. “I suppose it could help then if someone were to tell of your good deed with a young thief?”

  “Well… yeah?”

  “But not, of course, a man jumping out a window and breaking several stands, and then you tumbling out the same window seconds later?”

  I sighed. Marcia grinned, revealing two missing teeth on the right side of her mouth.

  “Just the part about stopping a thief would be nice.”

  Marcia nodded her agreement. “That was your civic duty. Shows your law-abiding spirit, that does.”

  “Um, going by that logic, shouldn’t this be your civic duty too?”

  “Unlike you in your fancy clothes, I can’t afford to be all that civic-minded. If I was better dressed, well that’s another matter… I’d be dressed for the part.” She winked at me and then looked down at my legs, or rather my jeans.

  “You want my jeans? I have no intention of spending time here in my underwear.”

  Marcia thought about it. “We could trade.”

  “No, we can’t because no offense, Marcia, your trousers, lovely as they may be, will be like shorts on me.” Also, they were worn and full of holes, her height being the most polite way of declining. I could see why she wanted a good pair of jeans, though. She wouldn’t wear them out that fast.

  “Well,” she reasoned. “You seem like a trustworthy lass to me. Stopping thieves and all. I believe you’ll deliver them later.”

  I considered this. My uncle was still busy, no doubt delaying what he could. Buying myself out of jail? Not a good start to clearing my name. But I had a partner somewhere. With the ghost obviously no longer possessing Loki, I had no idea what had happened to him. I also had an ex-Kin member in need of help, and I needed to find a missing crown jewel. Being stuck here longer than necessary was not on the top of my list of priorities. I knew I’d get out. Uncle Alyn was just causing trouble because he could.

  “Deal,” I told Marcia, and avoided sealing it with a handshake in case anyone should notice.

  About an hour later, I was signing the paper with my brief statement and the receipt for my confiscated possessions.

  “What’s the deal with that Inspector anyway?” I asked the clerk, who seemed chatty enough, at least about the weather. That kind of chatting had never interested me.

  “Inspector Ciaran, you mean?”

  I nodded. “He seemed awfully…”

  “Tense?” the clerk suggested. Apparently, I wasn’t the first to ask.

  “Yeah. Among other things.”

  “Well, he was passed up for promotion a few times. Not for lack of abilities, mind you. Some criminal in his family, or something. Maybe someone higher up in the Thieves’ Guild?” The clerk made a face that said who knows? “Anyway, he finally got his promotion a year ago. It didn’t make him ease up.”

  “I’ll bet. Thanks,” I told him and took my lone dagger and other things and left. So Uncle Alyn had been held back for years, and likely because of me and my parents. I was seeing how my name involved in any kind of crime would irk him, no matter how innocent I was. And I wasn’t a hundred percent innocent in this case, but he didn’t know that.

  It was still dark when I left the station house, but it was late at night, probably early morning now. I glanced around to locate a nearby clock tower. They were everywhere in the city and confirmed it to be a quarter to five in the morning. I had things to do. First, I needed to go home and check if Loki was there, and to get a pair of jeans for Marcia. Then I needed to—

  A hand clamped around my upper arm stopping my descent of the wide stone steps in front of the station house.

  “You don’t fool me for a bit,” Uncle Alyn said. He’d caught up with me, his face not looking any more inclined to express anything but frost toward me. “You’ve been here a day? And then you show up in Bayside Row, armed nonetheless, and in the middle of whatever happened at the market?” He shook his head as if to agree with his own reasonings.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Uncle.”

  “Inspector Ciaran.”

  “Nevertheless.” I carefully pulled my arm out of his grip, which was lax anyway. “Unless you have a family dinner to invite me to, I have somewhere to be.”

  “In Bayside Row?”

  “In Trenton Place.” Judging by his angered face, my parent’s house wasn’t much better. But he said nothing else, and I walked away. Honestly, I wanted to run. Not because I feared him, but because his anger and mistrust was justified. He’d paid for what my parents and I had been a part of, and now I wasn’t doing anything to mend fences with him. Instead, I’d made an enemy in the constabulary. For someone trying to walk on the right side of the law, that was a mistake, and yet I couldn’t stop it.

  Chapter Nine

  It was daylight again by the time I had tracked down the hooded man for the second time. Loki had not been in Trenton Place, nor had Walworth seen him since we’d left together. Walworth had seemed somewhat relieved, but I was not. Either Loki had done a runner on me and left me to do the job on my own, or he was still in trouble. I’d considered going back to the order first, but since the ghost and the gem were connected to the thief, I’d decided on finding him while he was still in possession of my dagger.

  The familiar pull of the weapon had once again steered me back to Bayside Row and so I’d handed over my payment of exactly one pair of jeans to Marcia. The fruit and vegetable market was back to business by now. It had looked like nothing had happened. Marcia had looked at the brand-new pair of jeans in awe, and I suspected she’d not truly believed I’d deliver on our agreement. I hadn’t considered going back on my word though. How else was I going to go about the gigantic task of restoring my name if I went about being dishonest? I avoided thinking about the fact that paying her off had been for getting out of the station house faster. Small steps and all.

  I was across the street from an old temple when I sensed my missing dagger being close by. The building was old, and in terrible shape, judging by the moss-covered stone walls, overgrown garden, and shutters and doors hanging askew off their hinges.

  Odd.

  Unused buildings were often occupied by those who had little or nothing, but this place seemed empty. Not that I could see through walls, but I did not get the vibe of anyone being near.

  Except for my dagger.

  I quickly crossed the street and entered, taking care to be silent. The building had once been a temple for Atë, goddess of mischief and folly. Her statue still stood at the center of the large open space inside the domed and circular building. Her head and left hand had been broken off a long time ago, but she was standing on anguished human heads. Most temples had been abandoned and then reused for different purposes when the actual gods had turned up and begun living among humans long ago; much like the goddess Atë had once been forced to do. This temple was situated in Bayside Row though. Maybe the Thieves’ Guild had laid claim to it? That would explain why no one else was there. Old wooden benches and tables lay strewn between huge columns that formed a circle between the headless goddess and the outer walls. The wood looked rotten. Some of it seemed to have fallen from above too. Birds flapped their wings up under the now exposed ceiling. The floor
of an attic must have fallen at some point.

  A strangled noise caught my attention. Except for the birds, I saw no one. I sidled closer to one column, taking care not to tread on any of the debris on the floor.

  “Nnghh…”

  What the hell? I bent sideways and craned my neck to see around the column, and my pulse sped up at the sight of the ghost. It had the hooded man pinned down on a broken bench, its clammy hands covering the lower half of the man’s face. I could see him struggling to breathe, his legs kicking wildly next to the ghost.

  “Stop it!” I yelled and emerged from behind the column. I hoped my sharp voice would at least startle the spirit enough to give the thief some air. I needed that man alive. But I was wrong. The spirit’s hands were glued to the man.

  I grabbed a broken chair and flung it at the kneeling ghost’s back. It merely bounced off. I already knew it was corporeal, so that was no surprise. Its intensity in killing the thief was, though. I lifted another chair and moved close enough to slam it onto the spirit’s back.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but a splintered chair.

  The hooded man’s legs kicked slower. I could see the desperation in his eyes. I don’t know what came over me then, but I went to my knees beside him and the ghost and took hold of the ghost’s hands, meaning to pry them loose if I could. But the moment I touched its skin, the spirit turned its gaunt and intense face on me. I jerked back at the sight, but it had locked onto me now. The clammy and cold hands reached for me, and I recoiled and stumbled back, much like the thief had. Hard angles stuck into my back and thighs as the spirit only seemed to flow after me. It didn’t seem to be hindered by the debris all around us. If it was haunting the thief, it had forgotten about him now. Its hands slid uncomfortably across my neck and face, its fingers pressing into my skin. I tried pushing them away, but the strength of the dead soul was too much.

  “Stop it!” I cried. “Stop. I need to—” One hand slid over my mouth, muffling my words. Dekel’s pale and drawn face was all I could see now. He leaned over me, ready to snuff me out. His mouth kept moving, slow, and somehow desperate. The only word I could make out was Avalon.