Death's Ethereal Enemy

by Ruby Loren

  “No, there was nothing to suggest that your parents had anything to do with what you are. At least, not as separate people.”

  January took a moment to process that. “Adelaide would be able to tell you that you’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said, realising what Emerson may be implying. “It’s nothing to do with who your family is. It’s about planet alignment and billions of rolls of the dice lining up. Didn’t you ever wonder where magic came from in the first place? It must be possible for a spark to come from absolutely nowhere. That, or we all came from magical stock, which has gradually disappeared, but I don’t think that’s right,” January said, feeling it to be true in her bones. “It’s a spark, and the way I was made was like that gift of magic, but pure chance amplified it… somehow,” she said, wishing she could explain it more. It was what Adelaide had told her, and she knew she was only just starting to understand.

  “Thank you. That was… enlightening. I think Warwick’s a little tired of theories right now, though.”

  January’s temper flared. She’d just shared everything she hadn’t been going to share with Emerson, and he was still being an ass. “Is he going after my sister?”

  Emerson raised an eyebrow. “Why do you care? She’s been nothing but a thorn in your side ever since you came back to Hailfield. She even betrayed you!”

  January tried not to compare this weird knowledge of her life Emerson possessed to some tacky chat show. Especially when what she was about to say would play exactly to that script.

  “Jo is pregnant. If Warwick kills her, he’ll kill the baby, too.” She looked at Emerson, strangely feeling the energy start to swirl around her, as she got ready for a change. “Tell me right now. Is he going to kill her? Or am I going to kill you? You’ve already implied I’m weaker in this form, but I think that may apply to you, too.”

  Emerson smirked, but it was a little less sure than usual. “I’ve had a long time to get good at this. This is my domain. I wouldn't try it,” he warned.

  He sighed, dramatically, and examined his ghostly fingernails. “Just when I thought we were bonding, too.”

  “Emerson…” January growled, starting to wonder if he was deliberately keeping her here.

  “No, Warwick isn’t bothered with your sister. He had me watch her, which was about as fun as peeling chewing gum off the underside of a classroom table, but I was able to deduce - without the need to remove any oxygen - that she is every bit as ordinary as your parents were.”

  “Right,” January said, still sensing that this wasn’t the whole story.

  Emerson must have seen her look. “Don’t do anything stupid, January,” he said.

  She just smiled and vanished into particles of light.

  18

  January arrived back in her draughty bedroom to find she was about to die.

  A dark, lupine shape stood in the void that had been her bedroom wall.

  Just as she became fully settled in her body, the giant wolf leapt, its jaw open and snarling.

  January rolled to the side and stood up from the bed, looking into the startled golden eyes of Joe Milan. “You’re too late,” she told him and flung raw power, straight at his face.

  With hindsight, it might have been overkill. Emerson had built her frustration levels up so high that she was aching for a good fight.

  January looked at the second demolished wall of her bedroom and reflected that it was fortunate that they were both exterior walls. It was also fortunate that she didn’t have any neighbours close by.

  She stood on the edge of the house, looking down at the rubble, trying to see if there was anything left of Joe.

  “I don’t believe it,” she muttered when she saw a dark shape detach itself from the wreckage and race away into the woods. She thought back to the moment before she’d thrown her magical bomb into the wolf’s face and realised she hadn’t bothered to check him for spells.

  She used witch sight now and caught a glimpse of some pretty heavy-duty emerald green magical wrappings.

  “Bloody witches,” she muttered, furious that she’d been foiled by something so simple as magical protection. If she’d thought to check before flinging her magic around, she could have unravelled that protection in a heartbeat. Instead, she’d allowed Emerson to get to her and had rushed in like a bull in a china shop.

  She’d allowed Emerson to keep her in that room for too long, too.

  January felt Joe Milan slip through her fingers and silently swore that it would be the last time.

  She was about to collapse back onto her rubble-strewn bed, and think about everything that had happened today, when someone knocked on the front door.

  She looked out of the broken wall and saw Gregory stood on the gravel.

  “I realise that this is largely unnecessary, seeing as half the house appears to missing,” he said.

  January winced. “I’ll put it back together,” she promised, wondering if it were that simple. She tried to imagine the bricks back into place. Little by little, the rubble gathered itself up from the ground and stuck itself back together. Unfortunately, it brought a lot of mud and grime with it, and you could still see were everything had shattered. There were also gaps where some of the pieces must have been somehow lost, or were perhaps too small for her intention to grasp hold of.

  She let Gregory in and allowed him up to look at the repaired walls.

  “I’d say it’s as good as new, but that would be a lie.” He sighed. “I’ll get some builders to come round and fix it for you. Think of it as my way of saying thank you for getting rid of what that vampire did,” Gregory said the word like an insult, despite technically being one of their children.

  “I have a lot to tell you,” she said.

  Gregory looked at her in vague surprise.

  January tried not to roll her eyes. “I know what you’re going to say: you’re surprised that I’m trusting you. But you’re the only one I have left to trust,” she confessed. Simon may generally be on her side, but she knew he loved money, and he was always a slippery character. Who did that leave? Her sister had recently tried to kill her, and now Emerson - who she’d have never trusted anyway - may have been part of a ploy to murder her, using Joe Milan to do his dirty work for him, for the second time! She supposed she might be able to trust Leah, but she was hardly any use locked up in the fortress with the Old Ones.

  A brief frown danced across January’s forehead. Why were they keeping Leah on such a tight leash these days? Was there something about her that had escaped January’s notice, or did Leah hold some key piece of information they thought she might let slip? She would have to try to contact the vampire-witch again.

  She made herself coffee and filled Gregory in on everything that had happened since Adelaide had popped in to see her earlier that night.

  He sat silently for several moments after she’d finished. January waited, hoping he would see something she’d missed. She’d hoped that even by recounting it, she might figure out something that had been invisible before, but nothing had jumped out.

  “We need to go to Paris,” Gregory said.

  “What? Why?” January said, wondering if he was saying they should storm the Old Ones’ compound. Was he still suicidal?

  “I think it’s time we investigated your parents’ murder.”

  They were in Paris before the night was over.

  Gregory had brought his light-tight coffin along and made arrangements to be shipped back. January was already lamenting what a dreadful day it was going to be at the bakery tomorrow. She still hadn’t finished making the cakes for Madame Rose’s Tearooms and the bar. When she got back, she’d have all of that to do and then have to drag herself over to the bakery and do it all again.

  It was enough to make her wish she’d asked Danny to keep covering for her.

  “This is the place,” January said, checking the address with the details Simon had scraped from the French police’s database at short notice. Sometimes it was good to have a
friend as dubiously connected as Simon.

  The exterior of the building was shabby and only brightened by the application of spray painted tags, in-between the years worth of grime. January’s parents had never been hard-up. She wondered what had possessed them to come to a place like this.

  She probably didn’t want to know the answer. Paying for a killer, would be her first guess.

  She sighed and shook her head. Even after everything that had happened, they’d still underestimated her if they’d thought some bounty hunting hack could take her on.

  “Let’s go in,” she said to Gregory. She glanced at the lock and broke it with half a thought. The thing had only been held together with half a prayer in the first place.

  Gregory hesitated on the threshold. “It’s owned by someone human and is supposed to be a residence. I can’t go in,” he explained.

  “It’s quite novel, finding a place you don’t own,” January said with a grin. Back home in Hailfield and Witchwood, Gregory had a monopoly on the majority of property. If anything went up for sale, he’d buy it and then rent it out, or sell a share in the property. The area was a nightmare for anyone actually trying to buy property.

  “You’d better keep watch, just in case,” she said. She knew this crime scene was old, and there was likely no trace at all left, but something was still making her feel on edge. She sensed there were things moving in the shadows that she couldn’t quite see.

  January shook her head and started up the dark, narrow stairs. She was frowning by the time she reached the landing opposite the small room, where her parents had been found. No person of Warwick or Emerson’s size had walked up the stairs she’d just climbed. Even she’d found it difficult to get herself up there. It was traditional, quirky French architecture, and not something a killer would have chanced getting caught in. Perhaps some killers don’t care if they’re caught, she thought, unable to imagine the police challenging either of the ancient vampires. They’d be gone in the blink of an eye. Even so… if they hadn’t used the stairs, it would explain why there was nothing on the CCTV.

  She pushed open the wooden door, flakes of once-pink paint falling onto the lumpy floorboards.

  At first glance, there wasn’t much to see. The room had an open, draughty fireplace. Two bare mattresses on rusted twin bed frames were the extent of the furnishings. She looked across at the windows, noting they were easily large enough for someone to have come in from the outside. Someone like Warwick wouldn’t have had much problem magicking himself up to the third floor and killing her parents, just as Emerson had claimed.

  His explanation still bothered her.

  Emerson had said that Warwick had wanted to put her parents under stress to see if it would spark their magic, but killing them just seemed like a wanton waste of power and a lot of effort for one of The Clan to make personally. Surely analysing January herself would be a far better way to figure out what she was made of. That would have been her starting point - not investigating her family.

  January leant against the window frame and looked out across the glittering lights of late night Paris, which to her had always looked better in the dark. That was when she’d seen it the most.

  She squinted, using witch sight, seeing Paris in a way she’d never seen it before. Magic seemed to spiral up out of chimneys and across rooftops. Countless spells and protection charms, cast over the centuries, still clung to buildings. She supposed every city in the world looked something like this. It was a view that most people never even knew existed.

  She turned back to the small room.

  Emerald green magic floated in the air like a haze.

  January could see where it clung to the frames of the windows and the doors - the remnants of the seal the magic must have created, so no new oxygen-filled air could enter the room. This was how her parents had been killed.

  January examined the shade of magic, noting that it was identical to the spells of protection wrapped around the fleeing werewolf, Joe Milan.

  She growled in her throat, knowing that something wasn’t right. She knew enough about magic to see that the green colour wasn’t something that was spell-specific - as magic could be. It was someone’s signature colour.

  And if memory served her correctly, Warwick’s magic had been silver.

  19

  Emerson had to have lied to her - or at least not told her the whole truth.

  “Shocker,” she said aloud. All the same, she did feel a sense of disappointment. She’d known better than to swallow Emerson’s claims, hook, line, and sinker, but it was still sad to know for sure that he was still playing games.

  She pushed open the window and jumped, using her magic to slow her descent via precise air currents. Those narrow stairs had given a career killer like her the heebie-jeebies.

  “Time to go,” she said to Gregory. That feeling of something unseen going on was only getting stronger, and they were only a relatively small distance away from The Clan’s stronghold.

  Plus, there was no telling when Emerson would drop in.

  Wait… that wasn’t true anymore, was it?

  January permitted herself a secret smile. Whilst Gregory had booked their flights, January had thrown together a simple ‘spirit away’ spell - just like the ones both Leah and Simon had suggested. Emerson would be forced to keep his distance this time around, and after what she’d just uncovered in the apartment, she thought that was probably a good thing.

  Who’s playing who? she thought, knowing she was still in the dark.

  “I think someone’s out to get me,” she said to Gregory, when they walked swiftly back through the crisscrossing streets of the city.

  “I’m sure you’re right. Is it someone new, or just the current posse?” he batted back.

  January smiled. “It’s the only time I’m ever going to say this… but I missed you, Gregory.”

  He stopped walking and looked at her with his storm-grey eyes. “I missed you, too. Well, I think I did. Honestly, I was more bothered about how the world had turned into a black pit of despair, but if I could have thought about anything else, I’m sure I might have missed you.”

  “That’s sweet,” January said, the smile turning into a smirk.

  “I’m famous for being sweet. Just ask my enemies.” Gregory’s face dropped a little. “Shame. That joke doesn’t work quite so well when your enemies are still alive. Are we any closer to changing that?”

  January shook her head. “On the plus side, we know how they know what they know, and how to stop them from knowing more.” She frowned. “That wasn’t confusing at all.”

  Gregory examined his own ‘spirit away’ spell January had made for him. “So, this is my new favourite designer accessory?”

  “It had better be. Unfortunately, it isn’t so effective against the real deal, which is when he’s most dangerous.”

  “What’s to stop him from doing whatever he did to me the first time again?” Gregory asked, looking concerned - which for Gregory, probably meant he was terrified.

  “I would stop him,” January said. It had sounded better in her head. Gregory didn’t look all that reassured, which was pretty insulting. “I got it out the last time and hopefully the ‘spirit away’ charm will work in the ethereal world, too. He said he did it as a way for me to learn - like a magic lesson,” she explained.

  Gregory looked sideways at her. “And he’s proved himself a man of his word over and over, hasn’t he?”

  “You do have a point,” January said and looked at Gregory sideways herself. “I could wrap you up in cotton wool and put you into storage until this all blows over, if it makes you feel any better.”

  Gregory mumbled something incoherent. “Have you noticed we haven’t been dragged out on any assignments recently?” he said, abruptly changing the subject.

  “I suppose Warwick is still licking his wounds,” January said, deciding to let it slide.

  “I suppose so,” Gregory echoed, but he sounded just as unconvince
d as January felt.

  Working at the bakery the next day didn’t lift her spirits the way she’d hoped. Her regular customers (which were most of them) were happy to see her back, and it was nice to have batter - rather than blood - on her hands, but she was still down in the dumps.

  Emerson hadn’t told her the truth. She still had questions about her parents’ death, and - to add insult to injury - her ex-boyfriend, Joe Milan, was still running around trying to kill her, with the benefit of magical aid. It was a sad state of affairs.

  She sighed and finished icing the toffee and chocolate cake that was on the cake stand. Her servers had been shouting back that they were nearly out of cake, and January was hoping a steady influx of new ones would keep her customers from rioting.

  She looked up at the row of cakes, sitting on cooling racks, just in time to see the lemon sponge fall onto the floor.

  January stopped squeezing the icing bag and stared.

  Without stopping to think, she flung the bag at full force right next to where the cake had fallen. It hit something in-between where January stood, and the kitchen wall, and splattered.

  “Well, that’s just rude,” a stroppy voice proclaimed.

  January waited and Cadence materialised. She was rather satisfied to see that her hair was covered with remnants of the sticky icing.

  “What is one of the first vampires doing sneaking around my bakery kitchen?” January asked, as if she didn’t already know.

  “We make regular checks at our discretion,” Cadence said, her eyes like shards of ice.

  January hadn’t liked her the first time they’d met at her house. The vampire had let Max do all the talking and contented herself with looking threateningly at anyone who’d dared make eye contact with her.

  “Emerson sent you because he can’t get close in ethereal form, right? He wanted someone to spy on me.”

  Cadence’s expression never changed, but January knew it had to be true. “I can’t see you when you’re invisible,” she observed.