Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  She scrubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “I want to be me. The real me.”

  “Finding ourselves is a lifelong endeavor,” Jim said. “Some people never achieve it. And those who do find what they seek don’t always have the strength to take it back. You, I think, are different. I think you’ve been training for that moment your entire life. If anyone can achieve it, it is you.”

  Aerie forgot how to breathe for a moment. Pop had never spoken to her like that. Even Trevor and Greysen, her biggest supports, never said anything so simple yet so validating. There was absolutely no precedent.

  So, she did the only thing that made sense. She walked over to him, shook his hand firmly and solemnly, and left the room before her deepest emotion could manifest and ruin the perfect, perfect moment when someone told her she was worth something.

  Finn stopped at a coffee shop before getting onto the interstate. Maybe he’d sensed how worn out she was from the whole de-possession thing. At the very least, she was too tired to bicker. “Your dad. He’s really nice.”

  “I think he likes you.”

  She nodded, suddenly shy. “I like him too. You guys have a really good relationship, don’t you?”

  “We’re close. After mom died, it was just the two of us.” Finn swallowed and glanced at his mirrors. “Nobody matters more than family. When you lose someone like that, the family you have left suddenly seems much more important.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” She pulled off the lid of her cup, watching the steam rise. Too bad he hadn’t ordered it kid temp. It was too hot to drink, and drinking would give her an excuse not to talk about hard things. “My father is nothing like yours. If anything, I lost him, too.”

  “Was it hard growing up with him?”

  “Compared to what? No, I know what you meant. Hard? No harder than anything else. He’s not a huggy person. But, I think he’s a good guy. He’s smart and successful. We always had a nice home and he’s got a great store. Anyone would be proud to have him for a father.”

  “Just no hugs.”

  “No.” Aerie toyed with her bracelet. She wasn’t raised on hugs. She was raised on self-defense, on self-preservation, on—on—on keeping from getting hurt because she got hurt when people got close. She was not big into people getting all up in her personal space. “But hugs aren’t the most important thing in the world.”

  “No,” he said, his voice almost too gentle. “But they’re one of the nicest.”

  “Maybe.” She sniffed, rubbing her nose, and looked away. “I don’t have a great wealth of experience in the matter.”

  “There’s time.” He reached across to her and grabbed her hand, giving it a quick squeeze.

  Just the same was Cara would have. Cara, who understood her and knew her. Cara, who was her one true best friend.

  He released her before she could yank her hand away. Flicking on the blinker, he changed lanes and focused on the road ahead. “No one is ever too old to learn something like that.”

  She nodded and blew over the top of her coffee. As much as she’d wanted to thrash his ass sometimes, she had to admit sometimes he might be right. She might not be a champion hugger anytime in the near future, but she hadn’t gone into anaphylactic shock when Jim put his arms around her, either.

  Maybe she was getting soft. Maybe she was growing tolerant. Or maybe there was simply something about these Meehans that made it okay to not be a full-frontal bitch all the time.

  Although they didn’t talk much more on the ride back to Vanguard, she caught herself smiling often. She just looked out the window and smiled, feeling like maybe—just maybe—for once, good times could be good for the repo man, too.

  16

  She awoke the next morning to the sound of nagging. Rubbing her eyes, she looked around at her empty room. Yes. Nagging.

  The amulet, inside her Holding Plane, was apparently feeling ignored because it was mentally chewing her ear off. It was worse than actually listening to someone hen-peck her. In the Holding Plane, the spirit’s agitation resonated with her own magic, setting up a cacophony, like plucking the strings of a hundred ukuleles all at once. Sharp and annoying and physically painful.

  “Ugh!” She unzipped the Plane and pulled out the amulet, careful to touch only the chain. “Knock it off, already. You’re giving me a headache.”

  The voice was a hollow distant howl, rather than the piped-in direct line to her brain. “Aerie, you must listen. Time is running out. You have to find it.”

  Yawning, she scratched her head and resisted dragging the pillow over her face. Not that it would do any good. “Find what?”

  “The book.”

  “Oh, no.” She groaned. “Not you, too.”

  “The book is the answer.”

  “The answer? To which question? How about, who are you? Pop thinks you’re Dez. The amulet says you’re Eilis. How about telling me who you actually are?” She shoved off her blanket, all hope of sleeping in vanished. Pulling her sleep tee over her head, she grabbed a bra from the floor next to her bed. “And how about that demonic ley? That’s bad power. I know it now that you aren’t hijacking my soul. An Asmodeus amulet can only hold evil. Why should I think any of your answers are the truth?”

  “Aerie…”

  “I don’t want to talk to you. I think you’ll pretend to be whoever you have to so that you can manipulate people. So, you know what? I’m giving you to Pop and I’m telling him everything.”

  “You cannot, Aerie! You don’t know what he’s capable of doing. He’ll use me. He’ll use you.”

  “Repos will say anything to get out of their contract.”

  “I can give you proof.”

  “Proof, huh? How about this? You have one chance to give me this proof. Then, when you fail—and you will—I plunk you down on Pop’s desk.”

  “Then go up to the attic.”

  “Wait.” She glanced at the amulet through narrowed eyes. “How do you know about the attic?”

  “Go.” The distant howl became screechier with every passing minute. “Now.”

  “I’m going to regret this.” Aerie tugged on a pair of jeans and the University sweatshirt she’d more or less permanently borrowed from Cara. “Listening to you is only going to get me in trouble. I just know it.”

  Barefoot, she stepped out into the hallway and cupped an ear. Pop in the office in front. Okay. Stealthily, she slipped toward the back, rounding the corner to the third-floor stairs.

  The air was close in this narrow passage, stale and ignored. The heat was oppressive.

  And the steps were creaky. The first one brayed like she’d stepped on a cat’s tail. She had to pause and remember the pattern of getting upstairs noiselessly, like she did when she was younger.

  Three steps from the stop, the amulet gave her a little resistance, making her stop.

  “This attic is…warded. You did this?”

  Unsure if she had to speak out loud for the spirit to hear, she ventured a stage whisper. “Yeah.”

  “Charles taught you a lot, didn’t he?”

  “Not really.”

  “How did you learn?”

  “I read.” She’d spent enough time alone to have read entire libraries. “I asked other people. I knew a lot of alt-mages whose magic was different. But mostly I read. Pop always made sure I had stacks of books. He said I was a fast learner, the best he knew.”

  “You don’t sound proud of that.”

  “Because he wasn’t proud of me. No matter how good I got, he was never proud. Just disappointed.”

  “Because you lose things.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe you just forget where you put things.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Not at all, especially…” The voice took on a sly tone, almost oily with secrecy. “If someone made you forget.”

  It made Aerie take notice. She forgot to keep her voice down. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you should look in
the attic.”

  Aerie reached for the doorknob and yanked it.

  The air was close and hot and dusty, worse than in the stairwell. They never opened windows up here. She tugged the sticky door tightly shut behind her, twisting the lock.

  This was her safe place as a child. This was where she played. This was where she hid from the ones who wanted to hurt her.

  This was where she first started training, push-ups and sit-ups and other exercises, anything to get stronger, tougher. This was where she hid her first piece of equipment—an old store mannequin that Pop had tossed into the dumpster. She had dragged it up here and used it as her first sparring partner.

  She borrowed books from the public library—anything she could find on martial arts and karate and weapons training and self-defense. She hid these up here, too, sneaking out of bed to read them after Pop had fallen asleep. No one ever found her secrets up here. And it never occurred to her to wonder why.

  When she was younger she figured it was too out of the way. Grown-ups were busy in the store below. And it wasn’t comfy up here. The air was too quiet. There were always heaps of spider webs, although she’d never actually seen one of the monsters up close.

  Plus, there was a weird cold spot that never went away. Pop once said cold spots were bad places. Maybe that’s why he never came up here.

  She didn’t mind the cold spot. It was the only nice place to stand when she was a kid. The air was ionic and fresh and cool.

  So many memories flooded back as she glanced around, the corners too dark and the air too dry. She was too tall now to stand fully upright without bashing her head.

  “Look for it.”

  “I have,” she snapped. Sweat beaded on her face, dampening her collar, making her itch. The oppressive atmosphere was making her irritated. “I looked in every corner, every cubby, every box.”

  “Did you look in plain sight?”

  “I’m looking right now.” Pacing slowly, she scanned the dim outlines of scattered objects along the edges of the room. A flashlight. She took her cellphone out and tapped on the app, sweeping the light into the probably-spider-infested corners. As she turned to search the corners behind her, she absent-mindedly brushed against the cold spot, still in its original spot, before dismissing it. “I wish I had my compass. Stupid Finn. Wait. Maybe I can call Mickey up here…”

  “What is that?”

  “Mickey? He’s a rat I spelled to be my new locator compass. A little skitsy—”

  “No. What was that…cold air?”

  “A cold spot. It’s always there. I figure it’s a leak of the AC from downstairs.”

  “Three feet off the ground?”

  Frustrated at having to explain something she never bothered to wonder about, she bunched her hair back and flapped it against her back, trying to stir the air. “I guess. I’m not an engineer. I don’t think about it much.”

  “But you are a person of magic. What is a cold spot?”

  “That old thing again? I don’t know why you keep bringing it up.”

  “Or why you can’t focus on it, hmm? So, think of your learning, your book work. A cold spot. What are the causes?”

  Aerie shrugged. “An energy drain, most likely. A ghost?” She reached down to feel the dimensions of the spot. “No. I’d remember if I…”

  “So, remember.”

  “You don’t understand,” Aerie said, wishing she could stand up for just a hot minute. “This spot always felt familiar. Not like I’d seen it before, but more like…I’d tasted the magic before. That kind of familiar.”

  “So. A magic origin. And you had this room warded. Do you suppose it could be your magic?”

  “Hmm?” Aerie turned her flashlight toward another the louvered window. It was a grey mess of cobwebs that just—ugh. “Could what be my magic?”

  “The cold spot.”

  “Oh! That.” She waved her fingers through the cold spot, glad for the relief. “My magic? Why would my magic cause a cold spot?”

  “Because it’s consuming a lot of energy to stay hidden, perhaps?”

  “Nothing can hide in thin air without a steady source of energy.”

  “Unless…?”

  And then it clicked.

  “No. It can’t be.” Aerie knelt down, once more child-sized, the room so much bigger from her lower vantage point. “I couldn’t have.”

  She circled her fingers and reached into the cold spot and drew a line—

  Unzipping a Holding Plane. One of hers.

  One that she’d forgotten about.

  Breathlessly she reached in and felt around. Her fingers brushed against something warm and solid. And big. She needed both hands to lift it out, setting the item on the floor. A big book, leather-bound with metal clamps holding the cover shut. Age had withered and split the edges of its cover and left the pages dark and brittle.

  A grimoire.

  The book she’d lost when she was just a kid.

  She stared at it, dumb-founded. “I hid it? Why?”

  “Because you knew it was important and that you had to keep it safe.”

  “Did you always know it was here?”

  “I remembered, once. It’s difficult to hold onto things here. I remember, and I have it, but it slips away—no. Focus, Aerie. Reach back inside.”

  Aerie reached in, feeling around the dimensions. There, in the furthest corner. She grabbed the second object and pulled it out. A tightly-wrapped cloth bundle.

  “Unwrap it.”

  Aerie yanked at the ribbon that tied around and around in knots, pulling and tugging. A knife would make quick work of it—she paused, hand on her pocketknife. She didn’t want to destroy this.

  Summoning her patience, she worked at each knot until at last the ribbon slipped loose and the material fell free.

  It was a shiny amulet, brand new, a twin to the one that was currently the largest pain in the ass Aerie had ever had the misfortune to wear. The shape, the weight in her palm was the same. Asmodeus class, status inactive. She turned it over. In the thin light from the louvered window, she could make out an engraving.

  Light. She needed more light. Lifting her cell phone, she slowly aimed the beam at the amulet, holding her breath.

  Ciaran.

  She palmed it, squeezing it hard. Not Aerie.

  Not her name. Not her.

  The relief trickled through her like a cold stream, but in its wake it left an uncomfortable weight. None of it added up. Pop said the spirit was her mom. The spirit inside the amulet certainly knew him—lies, lies, which ones were the lies?

  Finn was right about one thing: a second amulet. One spirit trapped, another targeted—upset and unsettled, Aerie wished for a spell to go back in time, far back enough so that she never had to be involved in this mess.

  “Do you still think I’m manipulating you, Aerie? That I will say anything to be free? How can I lie to you and to them the same exact way? What would be the endgame?”

  Her heart pounded, a relentless hammer. The air was running out all around her. She reached for the cold spot, a bit of fresh air, but it was gone.

  “Take these out of the attic, Aerie, outside the wards, and put them in a different Holding Plane. Now.”

  There was no room for thought. Aerie’s brain was a tumble of thoughts. I found them, I found them, I don’t lose things, I hide them—

  Hide. She hid them. There had to be a reason why.

  “Child!”

  Aerie pushed up to her tingling feet and obeyed. She scooped up the book and the bundle, yanking open the sticky door. Once outside the wards, she unzipped a Plane. Voices from downstairs made her look toward the stairway.

  Pop. He was calling her.

  “Put me in there, too. You must travel, now.”

  She carefully lay the amulet inside, nestling it in its cloth. That cloth, so fleecy and pink. Like a baby blanket. Numbly she closed the plane and stumbled downstairs, breathing deeply when she hit the fresh air.

  She�
��d demanded the amulet give her proof.

  Well, it gave her a hell of a lot more than that.

  After a forever of searching for what she’d lost, she found it—and found a piece of herself as well. She felt solid. Whole. Capable.

  Now. Time to find out who Ciaran was, and prevent another soul from being taken captive.

  17

  She hot-footed down the stairs, muscle memory guiding her to the quiet steps. Not a single creak. Congratulating herself, she skidded around the corner of the staircase, lifting her palm to push open the bathroom door.

  “Are you alright?”

  She froze, not wanting to turn around. Pop was in the hallway. He must have heard her upstairs. No surprise since she’d practically bull-moosed her way around.

  “Yeah, I…” She stammered around a mouthful of hasty excuse. “I was just going into the bathroom.”

  “Were you just upstairs?”

  “Um, yeah.” She stuck her hands in her front pockets, yanking them out when she thought she’d looked like she was hiding something.

  “Look at me.”

  Her palms were sweating now and she was acutely aware that without her sunglasses, he’d see her eyes, devoid of hellfire. Finn’s glamour still coated her skin but here in the dimly lit end of the hall, her eyes were shaded and dark. She pushed open the bathroom door, letting the sunlight stream into the hallway. “Pop, I kinda hafta pee—”

  “I said, look at me.”

  She twisted her head once, giving him a half-look, keeping her eyes averted. “What?”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” He seemed to be scrutinizing her. He gestured with a finger toward the lump of fake amulet under her t-shirt. “We should get back to work getting that off. The constant contact must be uncomfortable.”

  She rubbed her sternum, careful not to shift the replica. “It kinda sucks.”

  “I’m having a new spell book delivered this week. A sorcerer from Belize has done extensive work with Asmodeus class artifacts. He’s written extensively on the subject. I’ve read his work before but I can’t find my old copy anymore.”