Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  “Eh.” Sade threw the slats in the corner and continued to talk as if nothing was wrong. “You just need to get out and relax a bit. Maybe you should go spend some time skiing. The snow always seems to clear your mind and relax your muscles.”

  “Yeah, just like my flaming sister does?” I asked while kicking a few pieces of wood over to the same pile she started creating, my anger at her prank fueling my actions.

  “Pfft. You need some fun in your life,” she stated matter-of-factly.

  “I’ll get right on that after people stop jumping out at me from the goddamn closet. And for your information, fun was what I was trying to have tonight,” I muttered. “Except all I got was a bad date, chased home by some malus with an attitude, more stitches in my side, and a damn heart attack from a smart-assed sister.” I didn’t look at her. I was still too pissed. She had no idea just how badly she had my adrenaline pumping and how close she'd come to battling my fucking frostbyte.

  “Wait, what?” Sade’s eyes went wide as she suddenly got serious. “Who chased you?”

  “Not sure who or what it was. I honestly had no desire to figure it out after the night I had,” I said with a huff. “It smelled awfully foul though. Chased me all the way to the border of my property.”

  “Did it say what it wanted?” she asked, her tone getting graver by the second.

  “Nah. No words, only grunts… and a shit-ton of running,” I explained. “Why?”

  “Because I had some black-eyed shithead after me just last night,” Sade explained. “I chose to run too, even though that’s so totally not in my nature.”

  She was right. It wasn’t like either of us to run from a malus out of laziness, fear, or anything else. My siblings and I were nothing if not fierce, no matter how egotistical that sounded. Other sancti might’ve thought of us as unimportant, but our blood still ran thick with power when it came to the realm of supernaturals.

  Sade and I both thought it’d be wise for her to stay, despite the fact she was already making me sweat with her close proximity. Sometimes I needed her near me in order to melt the frost I would inadvertently create, but now, I just wanted to chill, silly pun totally intended.

  As I watched her walk back downstairs, sheets in hand for the couch, I thought back to the days we were young and completely oblivious to our powers. Life was simple. We never questioned why all five of us children were the same age, or homeschooled for that matter. We never cared. Our dad made our lives full, complete, despite the almost constant absence of our mother.

  It wasn’t until our eighteenth birthdays that we learned why… why we were kept from other children, why our mother was hardly ever around, and why we were clearly so different in nature than the humans we’d encountered.

  The large city of Relic looked completely different from our eyes after that day.

  Unbeknownst to us, we all harbored powers greater than our understanding. Just remembering back to that day made me despise the glasses that sat on my face—a safety measure I’d taken ever since. You’d think I would be thankful for them, for their necessity, but instead, they were a constant reminder of what I was.

  An elemental.

  A freak of nature.

  A danger to humanity.

  Our father, a human, a mortali, was in danger from the day we were born. His fate was sealed. Yet, he stayed. Arvo Ranta was a great man, and he knew just what was coming for him once we were of age. The last day of his life still haunted me to this very moment, even though I’d never been able to wrap my head around what had really happened.

  Water had always been my power… and my kryptonite. Most would think having control over water would be easy, painless, but simplicity was never the case when Mother Nature was involved.

  Mother Nature’s name was Mari Ranta, and she was still a bitch to deal with, no matter how long she’d graced the Earth with her presence.

  My siblings and I were known as moras—what the sancti, the paranormals of our world, liked to call a mutt, a freak of nature that was a mixture of both supernatural and human. Being a mora was nothing to shout from the rooftops. It made us special… and very dangerous. The control we had over our powers was subpar, and the sancti knew it.

  So, while I might’ve been meant to have control over water, I instead created frost, my body submerging anything I saw into temperatures that would kill both mortali and sancti alike.

  It was why I needed my glasses. They kept my powers at bay so I didn’t accidentally freeze everything and everyone in my path, even though I had been tempted to at times.

  The only being who could overpower me was Mari, my birth mother and the ruler of our planet’s nature and stability.

  She was also the reason my father was dead.

  And I hated her for it.

  I still resented her for everything she had done… for taking my father from me, for bringing me into this world cursed as a mora, and for coming back into my life like she ruled me.

  On our eighteenth birthday, we all woke up with different ailments. For one, I’d thought I was dying—my eyes had hurt so bad. The only thing I could think of was to stay in complete darkness for relief. Sade cried that her hands hurt, shocks pulsing through her fingers with every beat of her heart. My sister Tuuli cried out with overwhelming emotions whenever she heard us complain, a sudden roar of wind following each tear. Pinja, another sister of mine, couldn’t feel her lips and said her tongue tasted like dirt. And finally, the most perplexing of all our siblings, was Veli, who seemed to have zero reaction to the chaos surrounding him. It was as if nature ripped the heart right out of his chest and made him completely void of compassion for his sisters.

  It didn’t take long for the ever-pleasant Mari, our mother for all intents and purposes, to make her existence known. Seeing her sitting calmly in the living room had my blood boiling, or freezing, I couldn’t quite tell which. Her presence hushed the house, and I knew then and there our lives would never be the same. It didn’t take a genius to realize she only showed up when the situation was dire.

  I still remembered her words to this day. How could I not? Her voice sent chills up my spine with each syllable that spilled from her lips.

  “You’ll need me here as you come into your powers,” she said, her voice calm as if she were telling us what we were going to eat for dinner. She said nothing more. She just stared.

  We were all speechless. Couldn’t even spit out words to express our outrage at her sudden appearance, let alone understand what the hell she was ranting about. Powers? We knew nothing of our abilities at the time, and we damn sure didn’t feel like dealing with a mother who was losing her goddamn mind.

  I turned and bolted away, running to search for my father. He would’ve given me answers without riddles wrapped around his words. I didn’t remember much after that, only my eyes hurting as if they were going to pop out of my head at any moment.

  According to accounts by my brother and sisters, I killed the family cat, even though they had no idea how at the time. It didn’t matter one bit that I hated the creature, not to mention that the horrid feline couldn’t stand the sight of me either. I still never wanted a living thing to die. So, to hear I managed to freeze her poor little heart put me in hysterics. You’d think Veli would’ve been the one heartbroken over his cat’s death, but my sisters said he just stared at me, his eyes empty of any emotion. At the time, they just thought he was in shock, but now we all knew better.

  While my sisters and I were coming into our powers, it seemed he was losing his. To this day, I couldn’t understand what it meant to be void of powers, of a heart. But that was my brother—his soul, which was once full of love and compassion, was now empty. Mari claimed it was his power—it was what he was blessed with—but none of us saw it that way, especially when it came time for our father’s funeral.

  I stared at the ceiling fan, the motor now frozen in my wake, and continued to think of my father and how much I missed him.

  “Kirsi, you’re m
aking the entire house cold with your emotions. If you don’t stop dwelling on the past, I’m going to come up there and force you to shut your brain off,” Sade yelled from the living room downstairs.

  She was right. I needed to stop fucking up my mind with memories I couldn’t change, as much as I wanted to. Plus, her stunning abilities were the exact reverse of mine and seriously no fun for me.

  Sade was my opposite in almost every aspect of the word. While we both controlled the temperature around us, we still warred with every degree. My eyes would freeze everything in sight, but her hands sent a jolt of fire even my frosted abilities couldn’t battle. When we were first coming into our powers, we had some wickedly fun fights, but now it seemed so silly to take such atrocities lightly. Yes, our powers were curses to us, a burden we had to deal with every single day.

  It didn’t help that the paranormal community hated us, or that we were the focus of some seriously angry entities out to usurp our powers. Burden was an understatement when it came to our powers.

  A bang had me jolting awake as a door slammed shut. I must’ve fallen asleep thinking about my horrible lot in life, and I cursed the light that was still on in my room.

  Before I knew it, I felt more than saw my roommate standing in my doorway.

  “What the hell is that firestarter doing in our house?” he demanded as I scrambled to put the glasses back on my face. I wasn’t surprised to find him standing in my doorway, his arms crossed over his chest in a seriously menacing manner.

  Meet Calder, my super charming roommate, who was also a necromancer. I’d met him at the bar our family owned, and he and Sade never managed to get along to save their motherfucking lives.

  “Go away, Calder. She’s not hurting anyone,” I said while putting a pillow over my face to block out the unforgiving light above me and wishing I weren’t mashing my frames into the brim of my nose.

  “I didn’t agree to share a home with two moras, so this better not become a regular occurrence,” he mumbled as he turned off the light, shut my door with a slam, and stomped away.

  He was seriously making me wish I could afford this place on my own.

  I still didn’t understand why Calder and Sade didn’t get along. They were two peas in a pod as far as I could tell. They were both stubborn as shit, and they both practically lived to annoy me. You’d think they’d get along dandy with those similarities.

  Sade told me she couldn’t stand Calder because he had sex with the dead. Whether that was true or not was none of my damn business. Of course, it wasn’t far-fetched since he was a necromancer… his ability to bring back the deceased in bodily form was impressive, and rather creepy, but still nothing to get all up in arms over. It was his life, and with his dark powers came some serious sacrifices. I had no issues letting him live it how he wanted.

  Calder still wouldn’t express why he hated Sade’s guts. It wasn’t like he was a man of many words, which usually meant he was a quiet roommate—most of the time.

  Tired of my thoughts, I rolled over, removing the glasses from my face once again, and went to sleep.

  The next day was rather eventful as I tried to persuade Sade to leave the protection of my home. She needed to get to her apartment so she could shower and dress for her shift at the bar tonight. She knew the wards were the reason she was safe here though. As badass as we let people think we were, the fear of running into a malus was real and extremely intimidating. No one wanted to actually walk into the path of danger. No one sane anyway.

  “I’ll walk her home,” Calder blurted as he rounded the wall separating the stairwell from the living room.

  “The hell you will!” Sade exclaimed. “I’ll just go myself. It’ll be a much more pleasant trip with the risk an enemy will be after me than it will be with him,” she added, stabbing a finger in his direction.

  “Why the fuck don’t you two have cars?” Calder asked, the only argument he had ever brought up to me. He didn’t care much for phones, internet, or television, saying the frequencies muffled his ability to speak to the dead, but he sure as hell hated the idea of walking anywhere. “Okay, fine,” he said with his arms up in the air. “I’ll drive you so that we don’t have to be together any longer than necessary, but you’ll be a hell of a lot safer in my car than you will be on foot by yourself.”

  “I highly doubt that, grave robber.” Sade was nothing if not blunt.

  “Curses, Sade. He’s just trying to help. Swallow your pride and get your ass in his car,” I said, my voice firm as a rock so she understood just how important it was to me. Even though all of us were the same age, we still had a bit of a hierarchy within our family. Sade, gods love her, was at the bottom of the rung. Without our mother in sight for most of our adolescence, she relied on her brethren to care for her when it was really necessary. We all did.

  “Fine. But I can’t promise to hold my tongue,” she said as she stomped toward the door.

  I just looked at Calder and mouthed the words thank you before he stood up straight from where he was leaning on the couch and followed my stubborn sister out the door. The look on his face would’ve been comical if I knew he wasn’t walking the plank toward his imminent misery for the next ten minutes. I knew he was doing it for me though, and for that, I was thankful.

  Those two were going to be the end of me.

  Huffing, I suddenly realized I’d left my clothes in the fucking washer again.

  “God! What is wrong with my brain?” I said to myself as I bolted to the laundry room just off the kitchen.

  To my surprise, my clothes were already in the dryer, the lint sheet making them smell absolutely tranquil. There was no way Calder would’ve done this for me. He was lucky to do his own laundry.

  It had to have been Sade.

  She was stubborn, but her sweet side would peek out from the shadows from time to time. She also knew I was retarded when it came to doing my laundry.

  I chuckled at the fact Calder would hate this and texted Sade to thank her for helping me out with the clothes. Imagining his reaction to the phone’s frequency had me laughing out loud, to myself obviously since I was now gloriously alone in my home.

  My glory was short-lived when my mind wandered to the fact I had to work, yet again, at the bar.

  The Relic Pub was our family-owned business my dad started when we were teenagers. It was now a hopping hangout for other sancti in the area. Humans frequented the bar often as well, but they usually never knew what went on behind the scenes.

  Since Daddy’s death, the business had grown, to the point where we bought the upstairs apartments and gutted them, making a two-story reprieve for the supernatural and humans alike in the city. We kept only one apartment, and it was where Sade now lived. She said she enjoyed living above our bar. The liveliness of the area gave her purpose in life.

  I thought she was nuts. Our other sisters thought she was just sentimental—unable to leave something our father had his hands and heart in. Our brother couldn’t care less, his heart void of anything we thought was important.

  Hauling my ass back upstairs, my hands full of clean laundry, I started making a mental note of what to wear to work. Chucks were a must. Comfort was everything while working the bar.

  Sex appeal was also important. Not to sound slutty or anything, but the men, both human and sancti alike, didn’t tip based on my drink-making skills alone.

  I chose to wear my hair down; the straight blonde strands a stark contrast to the leather jacket I donned over my black tank. Skinny jeans and a pair of classic high-top chucks completed my ensemble… I felt both comfy and chic.

  I didn’t dare forget the one and only piece of jewelry I always wore—a snowflake pendant my daddy gave me on my tenth birthday. It wasn’t until my eighteenth birthday I knew how significant it was, and how clueless my father was not. He was always wise beyond his years. It just took my entire adolescence to figure out how great of a man he was.

  Keeping it close to my heart was incredibly importa
nt to me, and I never left the house without it.

  After slapping on some smoky-eye makeup and taking a deep breath, I headed out of the house just as Calder stepped through the doorway.

  “You survived,” I said with humor lacing my voice.

  “Barely. Your sister is a piece of work,” he responded with an exhausted huff. “She spent the whole way there bitching about my air freshener.”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes. “That’s her.”

  “Want me to give you a ride too? I got nothing going on tonight.” It was the first time he’d ever offered to take me, and the surprise I felt didn’t go unnoticed. Calder held his hands up in defense. “No strings. I just didn’t want you to think I was willing to tote your awful sister around and leave you stranded.”

  I recovered and smiled. “Thanks, but no thanks. I love to walk, and it’s not like it’s far.”

  “Suit yourself. Just watch your back,” he said, his words a friendly warning.

  “Will do!” I hollered just before the door slammed behind me.

  The pub was already busier than normal when I walked in, and I knew I had to hurry, throwing my shit behind the bar and getting my ass to work.

  Which was why I was too busy to notice what walked in.

  Sade nudged me. “That big guy keeps staring at you.”

  Usually, when she stated the obvious like this, it was because she thought I should go talk to the person, her humor unable to mask what was considered her idea of matchmaking. She thought any guy who sat there staring wanted to get in my pants.

  But this time, her tone was different—a warning of sorts. And as the big dude’s eyes narrowed in my direction, I could tell he heard her.

  It was then I knew just what he was.

  Before I could utter my suspicions, my other sister Tuuli walked up, bumping shoulders with me. “That vamp wants to talk to you.”

  I pretended to act like he wasn’t focused on me, shrugging as I wiped the condensation and spills off the bar top. “Can’t one of you two wait on him?”