Magic After Dark Boxed Set (Six Book Bundle)

by Deanna Chase

  I popped the cap on a second beer and walked back into the living room.

  Killian was lounging on my fat, plaid couch looking like he was ready to move in.

  “Your home is quite pleasant,” he said, waving his bottle in the general direction of everywhere.

  My place was a cozy two-story, arts and crafts style cottage I had picked up earlier this year. I had some extra cash and needed a change in scenery, so I met up with a nice realtor witch who was able to pluck my dream house straight out of my brain and, with a few tweaks, grow this place for me. It was almost all I had ever hoped for, but to Killian, I just shrugged, “Yah… well. It works.”

  “You have many human items here, down to this delicious beverage we are partaking of.”

  “I spend a lot of time on Earth.”

  The truth be told, I had never quite felt right living in the Other Side.

  My father had been an Other Sider, though. He met my mom on Earth. They set up house, had two kids, and for awhile, we lived the California dream. But they had to move the family to the Other Side of the border after a little incident where I discovered I wasn’t quite Earth material.

  Some guy on the playground made fun of my math skills. So I tried to deck him. He ducked and my hand disappeared. I punched through dimensions. Most cultures would have thrown me a coming of age party, but evidently this Quinceañera involved packing boxes and a moving van.

  My sister was smart. She hightailed it back to Earth as soon as she could steal Mom and Dad’s keys. Got herself a nice boring little job in finance. But with my special little gifts, I was stuck living amongst the magical folk.

  No matter what wonders lay on the Other Side, it wasn’t where I grew up and, color me crazy, I kind of liked the order found in a place that abided by the laws of physics.

  But a girl has to pay her rent, and since my typing skills were lackluster, I went into the tracking business with my dad. And business is business.

  “Okay, Killian. Tell me what I need to know.”

  Killian put down his drink, “Tracker Maggie, there are terrible things that walk the night…”

  “In plain speak, please.”

  He breathed deep at the difficulty of translation. Ah, elves. Only they would get bent out of shape for having to say things as they actually are.

  “We are in trouble and we need your help.”

  I nodded. Now we were getting somewhere.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “There is an imbalance. Echoes from this world are appearing in the other.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “That invisible hand that threw your…car…”

  I could see he totally wanted to say “moving vehicle” or “mechanical steed” or something equally ridiculous. I wasn’t going to make this easy on him.

  He shook his head in frustration. “It has been some years since I took Human Dialects 401 at university. I was once fluent,” he offered apologetically, “It is why I was sent.”

  Yes, Human Dialects 401 is an actual upper level class here on the Other Side. It’s a requirement for any Other Side language major, so that told me this guy wasn’t a slouch. Sure, English wasn’t too far off for the elves, but sorting out American sayings from Cockney slang, Chinese euphemisms from Hindi cuss words, well… it takes a pretty smart cookie. I spoke a little Elfish myself, but sounded more like a bad actor in a community theater production of Julius Caesar.

  “It’ll come back to you,” I said as I leaned back and took another sip of my beer. “Keep going.”

  He closed his eyes again in concentration, “That force that threw your car… It has been happening all along the boundary. My mistress, the Queen of the Elves, wishes to put a stop to it.”

  Crap.

  “The Queen of the Elves wants ME to look into this.”

  Killian nodded.

  “Why me?” I asked, rubbing my forehead, wishing that this was all just a bad fucking dream.

  “Your family can walk within the two worlds thanks to your father’s powers. Your family can see through the boundary and sometimes into the future thanks to your mother’s gift of sight. The Queen has heard you possess both their gifts.”

  He was right. I did. My specialty was portal creation, though. I could get from Earth to the Other Side with a little more than a howdy do.

  That said, I didn’t want to howdy anything he was doing.

  “Is it too late to back out of that favor?”

  Killian took my hand in his, and perhaps it was just the effects of shot-gunning two twelve ounce bottles in five minutes, but I didn’t punch him in the nose.

  “Dear Maggie, we know the vampire who almost killed you today was no accident. He was not like those you normally track.”

  I thought back to the words the sucker had uttered as we had struggled.

  “He said there is a bounty on my head…”

  Killian nodded. I hated that I knew he wasn’t lying.

  “Any idea why?”

  “My mistress believes it is because you are a child of your particular parents, parents with gifts of dimension travel and sight.”

  Ah, family.

  “So, this makes the bad guys want me dead or alive?”

  Killian nodded again, “Or worse.”

  He got me right where he needed me. Dead I could handle. It’s the “or worse” part that sends chills down my bones.

  “Crap.”

  I leaned back against the couch. I was spooked.

  “You are not alone in the Queen’s task,” Killian said.

  “We’re all alone,” I replied.

  “I am here on behalf of the elfin kingdom to aid you.”

  I rose from my seat, “Show yourself out. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  With that, I walked upstairs and went to bed.

  Chapter 6

  I woke up with Mac smothering my face. I don’t know what it is about cats and the whole “the rest of the bed is not good enough for me, I want to be where your head is” action, but fortunately, he’s cute, so I let him live.

  The sun was shining through my windows and I stretched to greet the day.

  And then remembered the conversation from the night before.

  What a way to ruin a perfectly good morning.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures and it appeared to be time to pull out the big guns.

  Time to visit my mom.

  I walked downstairs and realized there was a man sleeping on my couch. Okay, so an elf man, but a figure of the male species. Killian, rather than showing himself out, had decided to spend the night. God, the elfin men are pretty creatures. I tried to ignore the way the sun and shadows lay upon his face, causing his sleepy bed head to glow like an angel’s halo. It was nothing but elfin magic and I knew better.

  Great.

  The day was improving with each passing moment.

  I stomped into the kitchen and fired up the coffee pot - Other Side or Earth, there is only one civilized way to greet the day. While it perked, I fed Mac, since it appeared his highness was on the brink of starvation, and set about getting breakfast for us second class citizens. I was slicing the bagels and fruit when I felt Killian’s presence even before he spoke.

  “That looks good,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. “Good morning, partner.” He then walked over and helped himself to the coffee, leaving me standing there with a knife in my hand and the unfortunate decision whether or not to disembowel him. Since it was before my first cup, I decided to wait until the caffeine kicked in.

  “You’re still here,” I remarked dryly.

  Killian shrugged, “Think of me as your own personal body guard.”

  “I’m a tracker. I don’t need a body guard.”

  “Then why did you sleep with your neckguard on?”

  My hand reached up and touched the Kevlar collar. In truth, I had been so tired, I had just forgotten. Or at least, I wanted to tell myself that was the only reason. I had learned to fall asl
eep in it long ago. The sun was up, though, and there wasn’t any need for it during the day.

  “I just forgot.”

  I twirled the dial of the locks, my fingers knowing the clicks to release the combination. It opened slowly like a heavy door. I took it off and placed it on the counter, rubbing where it had cut into my skin overnight.

  I could see Killian’s eyes widen as he looked at my neck. I had gotten used to that look. Hellz, you’d think a guy had never seen a girl with scars before. I had plenty more to shock him with.

  It was just that the scars were on my neck. A vamp gets your carotid artery and you’re done. He’ll either kill you or turn you and there’s no going back. One of those bastards almost got me. Once. I staked him good and enjoyed the sound of puncturing his heart. Still, he left me with a mess of scars that no amount of makeup could cover and nightmares that still left me drenched in sweat. That’s when I started wearing the neckguard. It helped.

  Killian raised his hand as if to touch one. I involuntarily flinched away.

  “Don’t.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’ll have to buy me a couple more drinks before you get that story out of me.”

  He lowered his hand and nodded, before volunteering, “I could make them go…”

  I cut him off. I knew what he was trying to say, “What, and owe you another favor? Not on your life.” I pulled two dishes out of the yellow cupboard and made up breakfast plates for both of us, “Besides, they’re from a vamp. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

  Killian stepped back, “My apologies.”

  I had accepted the horror of them long ago, “Yah, well, they cut short my burgeoning career as a supermodel...”

  We both sat silently, lost in thought as we ate our breakfast.

  “I think they make you look even lovelier,” Killian finally said quietly. “Please pass the bagels.”

  I suddenly felt very awkward. So I lobbed the bagel at his head.

  Chapter 7

  Elves are not fans of driving. Shoot, they could run faster than I could drive, especially in Other Side traffic, but Killian was buckled up in my passenger seat, ready to start our grand adventure ridding the world from the forces of evil, before I could shoo him away.

  I had other plans.

  “Listen, Killian, I appreciate the whole protection thing and stuff, but I’ve got an errand I need to run.”

  “I shall go with you.”

  “The kind of errand that I need you not to go on with me.”

  “If it is of a personal nature, have no fear of offending me…”

  Part of me thought about bringing him along just to see him suffer, but then the little angel on my shoulder started whispering about the fact he staked a vampire for me and I probably owed him.

  “I have to go see my mother, all right?”

  Yah, that made the blood drain from his face.

  “You may let me off at the mouth to the Woods,” he said.

  Smart man. I wished I could go with him.

  I pulled over in front of the arched gate, its carved wooden flourishes marking the entrance to the elves’ domain. I waved to the horse and cart behind me to go around. The horse gave me a disgusted glare as he passed, his owner gave me a sympathetic nod.

  “Okay, Killian. Here you go.”

  “I shall await your return.”

  God, the guy just doesn’t get a hint.

  “Listen, Killian, you’re really nice, but you’re walking that fine line between clingy and stalker-esque. I promise I will make good on that favor owed, but you gotta give me a little space.”

  “I am here to help.”

  Without thinking, I accidentally looked deep into those baby blues of his and man, I was going to have to turn on the defroster to unfog the windows. I couldn’t seem to get my mouth and my brain to synchronize.

  I closed my eyes, “Turn off the glamour, punk. I fight the bad guys, right? I can’t be getting all mushy if there is ass kicking to do.”

  “I apologize. I forget my effect on human women.”

  Right. How convenient.

  But the pheromone ocean subsided and my pulse slowed down to a normal enough rate to hear him when he said, “Maggie, after you speak with your mother, please do not go after this foe alone.”

  That made me look at him a second time, “Wait. What does this have to do with my mom?”

  “My Queen has directed that I say no more.”

  I suddenly felt like I was about to learn that I had walked into a great big game show of The Multiverse’s Next Top Stooge, “Riiiight.”

  Killian exited my car and leaned against the doorframe for a moment to let me know, “I shall wait for you here.”

  I put the car into gear and drove off wondering, as I stared at him in my rear view mirror, what he wasn’t telling me.

  Chapter 8

  The neon palmist sign hummed in the red curtained window, foxglove and wolfsbane growing in the postage stamp sized yard. I opened up the picket gate and walked down the cobblestones to the front door.

  “Hey, Maggie! Long time, no see!”

  I waved at my mom’s neighbor, Jack. He owned the business next door. He was a fix-it man, a jack-of-all-trades. Get it? Ba-d-um-dum-ching. Oh, the Other Siders and their highbrow humor.

  This was an older part of town, filled with curiosity shops and bakeries. Mom owned a psychic eye tearoom/den and ran it out of the front of her house. Psychic shops were about as glamorous in the Other Side as Radio Shacks are on Earth, but Mom had a dedicated clientele and had proven time and again that she had the gift.

  Which is why I didn’t visit very much.

  “MAGGIE!!! Who is the tall blonde man?”

  Christ. Already…

  Mom stepped through the beaded curtain separating the living room from the kitchen. She wore a purple muumuu, her curly red hair fro’ed out in a triangle around her head.

  “Hey Mom…”

  She gathered me up in her arms and gave me a sound kiss on the cheek, “You need to visit more often. I know you won’t be back for a couple weeks, but still, you should stop by.”

  “I’ll try. Things have been very busy lately…”

  “Sit down! Sit down! I have your favorite tea brewing!”

  I sat on the poufy couch, sinking in between the tasseled pillows and feeling like I was twelve years old again.

  “You’re lucky that vampire didn’t get you last night!” she called from the other room.

  “I was wearing protection!”

  She hustled back in with two steaming cups on saucers, “Well, you woke me in the middle of the night. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. A mother shouldn’t have to feel that much fear coming from her daughter. Can’t you find a nice daytime job? Perhaps something in cosmetics?”

  This was not going well. I went to sip the tea, but she stopped me, “Don’t scald your tongue.”

  I stopped and blew upon the surface dutifully.

  “Now, tell me about this tall blonde man in your life.” She practically bounced as she asked.

  “He’s an elf…”

  “Ooo. Do tell! I’ve always loved the elves.”

  “I know, Mom,” I said, trying hard not to die.

  “So, he is an elf…”

  “Yes, he’s an elf named Killian...”

  “And he mysteriously came into your life…”

  I set down my teacup, “Do you want me to tell you or do you want to save me some time?”

  She gave me a wink and pushed my teacup towards my mouth like a toddler who can’t figure out his sippy cup, “Drink up, dear, drink up!”

  “Mom, he said that there is a break in the border between the Other Side and Earth. He said I’m the only one who can stop this. He said you’d know why.”

  Well, that shut her up.

  I’ve never seen my mom scared.

  I mean, she pulled the injured bird act whenever she needed to manipulate a situation in her favor, but my mom
is a force of nature. So, I was a little thrown when her teacup started rattling in her hand. She sank into her chair and put her drink on the table beside her, “I did not see this coming.”

  That was a first.

  “See what, Mom?”

  She jumped up and began pacing the room, wringing her hands, “I thought we had left this all behind us.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Of course you wouldn’t know…”

  “Mom?”

  “I should have told you sooner…”

  “MOM?”

  “How was I to know that he would find us here…”

  “MOTHER WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”

  “Your uncle, dear.”

  The words knocked me flat on my ass. I had no uncle.

  “What?’

  Mom came over and patted me on the knee, “Your uncle. We thought this chapter of our life was over, so that’s why your father and I never spoke with you about it.”

  “We have an uncle?”

  It was a foreign word on my tongue. Uncle. Family. Beyond my parents and my sister. I had an extended family. I mean, sure it was too late for him to take me to the zoo and buy me a camel ride, but still. I had an uncle.

  “He wasn’t a very nice man,” she said.

  Strike that, I had an evil uncle.

  “Whose brother?” I asked.

  “Your father’s, dear.”

  And then Mom let out a deep sigh and her face became very serious. She tucked a loose strand of my dark hair behind my ear, “Did you ever wonder why we moved to the Other Side?”

  I had. I had wondered every day since I was ten years old and had come home to find all of our belongings in a moving truck. I had wondered as we had made that drive up Mulholland and driven off the cliff. I had wondered as we dropped into the Other Side with its steam powered machines and nightmarish creatures. I had wondered every day as I tucked garlic cloves in my pockets and strapped a crossbow across my back. The Other Side is no place for a human child to grow up.

  “You said it was because I was beginning to show that we were not like other families.”

  “That was a half truth, Maggie. I’m afraid it was more because your uncle was beginning to realize that we were not like other families.”