A Grave Magic: The Shadow Sorceress Book One

by Sheehan, Bilinda

  Madeline’s wings unfurled from behind her, their leathery appearance sending a thrill of revulsion through me. There was nothing beautiful about her; every account I’d ever read about her discussed her beauty, how she was one of the most radiant of all the Fae at the royal court.

  What stood before me now was nothing like the woman I’d read about.

  “What are you?” I asked, staring at her, my expression of shock and disgust refusing to cooperate with my brain’s commands.

  If I pissed her off….

  What was she capable of? I had no idea what she could do; if the records were this out of date, then I could only imagine everything they’d written about her abilities were also behind the times.

  “I’m still Fae, if that’s what you mean. But this is what happens when you’re exiled, this is what you become when you’re forced to live in a place where you don’t belong. I’ve adapted to my surroundings—don’t you approve?” There was humour in her voice but I couldn’t see the joke.

  “But how?”

  “They did this to me, the Royal Court, said I wasn’t fit to be like them, that I was the one who wasn’t truly Fae. They said I was dark….” She cut off, her blood red eyes slightly unfocused as though she was watching something unfold before her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

  “What for? You didn’t do this. You might have power, Amber Morgan, but even this is beyond your abilities.”

  I didn’t say anything to her. What was the point? Correcting the only Dark Fae in the room seemed like a suicide mission and that wasn’t what I was here for.

  “I need answers, and you’re the only one I could think to come to. My mother said if I ever needed guidance then….” It was my turn to trail off.

  I wasn’t being strictly honest; my mother hadn’t exactly told me to go to someone like Madeline if I needed help. In fact, if I was recalling the conversation correctly, it was completely the opposite. Under no circumstances was I to involve myself or the Coven with an abomination like Madeline….

  “You’re a terrible liar, Amber, the same as your mother. How is she, by the way? Still practicing white magic?”

  “She’s none of your concern—will you help me or not?”

  Madeline laughed, the sound echoing off the invisible walls and bouncing back, magnified. The sound cut at my ears and it took all of my strength to stand my ground and not flinch.

  “You can have your answers, if I possess them, but I require something in return from you.”

  The thought of making a bargain with whatever in Hell she was left a foul taste in my mouth. It was a mistake, if I agreed she could ask me for anything … anything at all. What choice did I have?

  “Fine, what do you want?”

  “Just a favour, something I can call upon from you any time I please.” There was an eagerness to her voice that caused uneasiness to coil in my gut.

  “Just a favour?”

  “A tiny one, you’ll barely know I asked … simple and straightforward.”

  “Is anything ever straightforward with your kind?”

  “Stop being tricky, Amber. You want to ask me your little questions and I want a favour, do we have a deal or not?”

  It was strange she’d accused me of being tricky when she was the one being evasive. The fact that she wouldn’t tell me what the favour was before I agreed to it worried me even more. Whatever it was, it would be bad news….

  “We have a deal,” I said, swallowing back my unease.

  There was nothing I could do about it. I needed somewhere to start and if anything was going to have the answers, it would be Madeline.

  “Come here then, let’s seal it with a kiss.”

  I grimaced and shook my head. “No offence, but you’re not really my type….”

  She took a step towards me and something reptilian slithered across the floor.

  Great, she’s got a bloody tail too! What the hell is she?

  Madeline moved out of the darkness and crossed the small gap between us, giving me a clear view of all the changes that had happened to her since she’d been exiled.

  The black leather dress she wore did little to conceal her body, not that it really mattered; all the important parts of her body were covered in snake-like scales, their shimmering black colour picking up what little light there was in the room and reflecting it back like a prism. Her black hair was streaked with red and piled high on her head, exposing the scales that climbed the side of her neck.

  Her face was untouched; the skin glowed with an inner alabaster light that hurt my eyes if I stared at her for too long. But her eyes, well, they were even more terrible up close. The red that I had thought was just her iris had bled out into the white of her eye, and the violent purple veins that criss-crossed through the red seemed to spark and flare with their own light.

  Was that the part of her that was still Fae? Purple and violet were practically the same colour….

  “You don’t have a choice, Amber; seal it or there is no deal.”

  “Can’t I just sign a contract or something?”

  “I am the contract,” she smiled, a curling of her blood red lips that revealed glimpses of her rows of razor sharp teeth.

  She leaned in closer and I could pick out the trace scents of sulphur and smoke. If this wasn’t Hell, then why was she starting to seem more and more like the Queen of Hell?

  She lifted one hand—the black scales had crept down and covered some of her fingers, whilst leaving others untouched. Her fingers brushed against my cheek, a feather-light touch.

  “Just one kiss,” she said, leaning closer.

  It wasn’t something I was going to get out of and a kiss was just a kiss.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” That one word slithered across my skin as her tail wrapped itself around my booted ankle. It climbed my leg, winding in ever tightening circles before pausing as it reached the top of my thigh.

  Her hand slid down to my neck, gripping me tight enough to make breathing a little harder. I didn’t move as her lips brushed mine, keeping my mouth closed and my eyes open. The kiss was a chaste one until I felt something tug at my core.

  I tried to jerk out of her grip but she had a hold of me and I couldn’t shake her loose.

  She bit down on my lip, drawing blood, and I opened my mouth to protest. Magic coiled up from within, magic I had never felt before, never even knew I possessed. It curled up through my body, heat flowing through my chest as I felt it spill up my throat.

  I felt Madeline smile against me and it dawned on me why it had all been such a mistake. This had been her plan all along. She wanted to steal my power, steal my very essence.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have found it funny to think someone like Madeline would need power from someone as pitiful weak as me. I wasn’t powerful, I wasn’t something to be feared, not the way she was. Hell, I could barely light a match with my gift and I’d brought my family nothing but disappointment.

  Yet, there was no denying the power that surged up through me. I felt it touch my lips, a cold icy wave before it poured out of me and into Madeline’s mouth.

  There was a moment of nothing, where the world itself seemed to hang in suspension, time paused and unmoving as it waited for the balance to be restored.

  Madeline’s eyes widened. I watched as the blood red ruin that was her iris seemed to pulse as though everything inside her had its own separate heartbeat.

  She flung me away from her, sending my body spinning up into the air and backwards into the darkness as the magic she had tried to steal crammed itself back down my throat and into its hiding place deep within.

  Madeline howled, the sound shaking the very foundations that made this place. I hit the ground, stunned, my body aching as though something had tried to rip out my insides. In a way, that was exactly what had happened.

  Chapter 16

  “What the hell did you try to do to me?” I demanded, c
limbing to my unsteady feet.

  Madeline glared at me, her red eyes still a little wider than they should have been.

  “I just wanted a taste but you,” she jerked her finger in my direction. “You come into my house and insult me in that way. I should strip the skin from your body.”

  I shook my head and gripped my athame, the feel of its sturdy hilt in my hand giving me more confidence and steadying my nerves.

  “You can’t be serious. You cheated; you and I both know that, Madeline.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head.

  “Don’t try to deny it. You screwed up; what happened is simply pay back. You don’t mess with someone else’s magic. As a Fae, you should know that only too well.”

  She didn’t try to deny it, but I could practically feel her anger pulsing against my skin. She wanted me dead, hated me, because her plan to steal my power had somehow been thwarted. I wasn’t sure how it happened, but I certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “Ask me your questions and then get out.”

  “What murdered Joanna Sidwell?”

  “A vampire,” Madeline answered, her tone filled with boredom.

  “But she came back. She wasn’t a vampire, and she wasn’t a zombie. I’m not even positive I know what she was….”

  “It was a zombie,” Madeline said, sounding utterly convinced. The only problem was I’d seen Joanna; what had animated her was more than some sort of zombie voodoo.

  “Why did it take her daughter?”

  Madeline grinned and shook her head. “Now, that is something I won’t share with you. You finding the truth out for yourself will be far more entertaining.”

  “You said you’d answer my questions,” I reminded her, tightening my grip on the athame.

  “I said I would if I had the answers. I don’t have the answer to this.”

  “Why not? If it was a vampire, then you would have the answer….”

  “The one who holds him doesn’t want someone like me interfering too much in their business.”

  “There is someone else involved?”

  “I’m bored, now, and done answering your inane questions. All you are, Amber Morgan, is a child wandering in the dark, and you have no idea what lurks out there waiting for you to trip up. And you have no idea of the plans some have for those of your kind….”

  Her words weren’t making sense anymore, but she was still the best chance I had at getting the answers I sought. I couldn’t let her walk away now, not when this might be my one and only opportunity to get to the bottom of the matter and get Joanna’s daughter home safe.

  “Madeline, you are oath bound to answer my questions…” I called out to her, but her laughter rang out, sending shivers of fear racing up and down my spine.

  “Only the light Fae are oath bound, Amber; I am dark. I owe you nothing.”

  Her voice caressed my skin like a lover’s fingers and I tried to jerk away from it, but no matter where I turned in the encroaching dark, I couldn’t escape her touch.

  Darkness swarmed around me—I’d been so caught up in getting my answers that I hadn’t noticed it creeping in closer—and Madeline herself was gone from view.

  I spun around as something tangled in my hair, the athame out in front of me.

  “Get out,” Madeline said, appearing in front of me out of the darkness.

  She lashed out with her arm as I tried to slash at her with the dagger. Her blow hit me and I was no longer sure if it was physical or if she’d side swiped me with her magic.

  Not that any of it mattered, it all ended up in the same way.

  Darkness closed in around me as the ground rushed up to meet me once more. Pain flared in the back of my head and the last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me whole was the grating sound of her laughter ringing in my ears.

  Chapter 17

  “Wake up!”

  The voice filtered down through the pain-filled fog of my mind, the pressure of someone’s hand against my shoulder letting me know that I was at least, for now, still alive.

  “Get off me,” I said groggily, forcing my eyes open.

  The alley I’d entered through was gone, replaced by an alley just like it, only this one smelled a hell of a lot worse. Madeline it seemed had a sense of humour after all.

  “So you’re alive, then?” The familiar male voice said to me, and I turned and stared up into the stranger’s grey eyes.

  “It would seem so,” I said, pushing up onto my knees and grimacing as I realised exactly where I was lying and why it smelled so bad.

  “Shit, she just had to dump me out in the garbage,” I said, picking my way gingerly out from among the black bags and spilled food waste.

  “I wouldn’t take it personally; this is the back door,” the stranger said, eyeing the alley carefully.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway, and how do you know this is the back door of Sanctuary?” I said, climbing onto my feet and brushing the dead banana skin bits from my hands.

  He grinned at me and straightened up. “I’m Dominic, or Nic, as my friends like to call me.”

  “Why don’t they call you, Dom?” I said.

  “Too Fifty Shades of Grey, and that’s not my style…” he said, with a slow smile.

  “So you know about Sanctuary how?”

  “All the Hunters do. It’s where we get most of our work and our best leads….”

  I felt my eyes widen a little. I’d never met a hunter before, but there was a first time for everything, and it really had only been a matter of time before I’d met one.

  But I’d never imagined a hunter to be anything like Dominic, or was I supposed to call him Nic?

  When I thought of hunters, I pictured them older with more scars … not young, muscled, and drop-dead….

  I cut my own train of thought off. There I was, going again, letting my mind run away with me when what I needed to do was concentrate on the case in front of me.

  “You’ve never met a hunter before, have you?” he said, a smirk playing around his lips.

  “Nope, and I don’t particularly want to meet one now, either, so beat it.” I started down towards the mouth of the alley, but Nic caught my arm and twisted me around to face him.

  “What’s your problem?” he said, the smile gone from his face.

  “I have no interest in spending time with someone like you,” I said, and quickly regretted my words.

  How was he supposed to know what my true problem was? He wasn’t a mind reader and I was being beyond unfair to him; he had, after all, helped me get inside Sanctuary.

  Without him, I would have been forced to sign my name in blood or leave empty handed. Not that I’d truly learned a whole lot from being in there. Well, the only thing I’d really learned was that Madeline wasn’t to be messed with.

  But I’d already been warned about her, so it hadn’t come as a surprise to find out it was true.

  “Someone like me?” he parroted back to me. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Look, you don’t know me and….”

  “I know what you are and I haven’t turned you in yet,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

  “What is it with everyone knowing what I am? Do I have a neon sign flashing above my head or something, advertising it for the world to see?”

  “No, but it’d be kinda cute if you did,” he said, this time with his smile firmly back in place.

  “Listen, Nic, you must agree that you and I hanging around together is a bad idea. If you know what I am, then you know we don’t mix, and for good reason.”

  “I know my kind hunt your kind,” he said, but there was something in his voice that made me take extra notice of what he was saying to me.

  There was no joy in him over what he had revealed, no pride. And that was something I hadn’t expected. Every hunter I’d ever read about back home took their jobs seriously, loved their jobs, and the only thing that would prevent them from carry
ing it out was their untimely demise.

  Most of them didn’t make it to collect their hunter pension.

  “Then you know why I want nothing to do with you,” I said.

  “I’m not like the rest of my kind. Fine, yes, I hunt, but not without reason, not without cause. I wanted to join the Elite, but the family business kind of prohibits that.”

  “You tried out for Elite?”

  “Yeah, they turned me down as soon as they found out who I was. You see, you think you’re the one who has it so hard, you think being what you are stops you from doing everything you would like to do. But it does the same for me….”

  “Being a hunter doesn’t mean you have a secret to keep that your life depends on,” I said, the bitterness in my voice unmistakable.

  I would have given anything in that moment to be able to hide it, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t fit to and I knew why.

  I was in King City for a reason and it wasn’t because my life-long dream had been to become an Elite. I was here to find out what had murdered my father, track it down, and take its heart.

  Unlike the rest of my family, magic wasn’t my forte, but I could fight, and I was good at it. It had been one of the ways I’d managed to ace my Elite entrance exam.

  But in order to do that, I needed to make sure my cover with Elite stayed intact. If I was compromised, then it was all over, and the promise I had made to my mother, to my dying father, would all have been for nothing.

  I would have failed. Again.

  “You’d be surprised what it means,” he said and he sounded just as bitter as I was.

  “I have to go,” I said, giving a pointed look at the grip he had on my arm.

  “You should let me help you,” he said as he released me.

  “No can do.” I turned on my heel and fled from the alley as fast as my legs would take me.

  There was something about him, something that got beneath my skin and made me want to forget the real reason I was here. And that was something that, at all costs, I needed to avoid.