Reaped from Faerie: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Stolen Magic Book 2)

by WB McKay

  "Don't panic, Sophie. I didn't call for small talk."

  "What did you call for?"

  "So charming. Never change."

  I never knew if Ava was being serious with me, so I tried to always take her at face value. "I don't plan on it."

  "You sound better than you were at the market. I am relieved to hear the sass back in your voice."

  "You know how creepy I find it when you spy on me with ghosts."

  "Yes, I do," she agreed. "I'll let you get back to the comfortable silence you share with Owen. Your relationship has progressed nicely. You refuse to entrust work tasks to those you've known for years, yet you trust Owen. I'm proud of you. Though, I must say, I'm mostly proud of myself for introducing you. It pleases Patricia immensely."

  "Patricia treats my life as entertainment."

  "All ghosts do, naturally."

  "Naturally."

  "Is this anger I'm sensing from you, Sophie? We didn't call to upset you."

  We. "Why did you and your ghosts call?"

  "I'm deeply sorry for your loss, Sophie. Is there anything you would like me to do for you?"

  "No. I appreciate the call."

  "Do let me know if you change your mind, friend."

  I smiled at that. Ava had been my work contact for a year, and over the past month, had become my friend. My friend who liked to tell me how I felt about things and spy on my life with ghosts, neither of which I was particularly comfortable with, but I wasn't comfortable with the word "friend" yet either. "I won't change my mind."

  "So stubborn." She said it like she thought fondly of the quality, but that must have been my imagination. Everyone thought I was a stubborn pain in the ass. "I'll talk to you soon." It was a simple statement, yet it felt ominous coming from Ava. She did that a lot. She seemed to know everything so anything she said held a weight it wouldn't if anyone else said it.

  "Okay then. Bye bye now."

  She snickered before she hung up. I stopped myself from staring down at the phone and going over the conversation on repeat, as I used to do whenever I talked to Ava. It wasn't worth the energy; I'd never figure out what she meant.

  "The call okay?" asked Owen.

  "Yeah. I mean, it was Ava."

  I didn't know if that was a weird thing to say to him, but he nodded like he understood. We went back to our comfortable silence, and I tried not to let it bring me back to what Ava had said.

  The dirt road crested a hill, and home appeared nestled in the trees below. It was a small, lakeside town. That same sense of identity that always slipped over me took root in my bones—feeling I belonged, but not quite. If anything ever happened to make me forget that's who I am, the sight of home remedied it right quick.

  "Where to?" asked Owen.

  I started to point to the left, where he could make a turn ahead and eventually land in Belinda's driveway, but that was instinct talking. And maybe a little guilt. Instead, I told him to head straight through town, and after the grocery store, make a right for Three Finger Lake.

  Halfway down the hill we were back on smooth pavement. After so many miles of crumbling roads rattling every fixture in the car, the quiet was a welcome relief.

  "So, the crows," he said. I smiled. I rarely noticed them; I was used to it. They were a part of Wailing Lakes. "Is this a homage to The Morrigan?"

  Ugh. "You would think that," I muttered. He was too distracted by the sights to bother hearing me.

  Books were Owen's thing, and he'd owned the only copy of a book with the most accurate information on The Morrigan. It was how we'd met—with me stealing it from him. At the time, he'd spoken of her like she was the great fae legend everyone saw her as, with awe in his voice. Of course none of the books he read said anything about Wailing Lakes. Why would they? It was only home to abandoned daughters of The Morrigan. Who cared about a few hundred banshees? A few hundred banshees, and me.

  "Seriously, what's with all the crows?"

  "They're attracted to banshees." That's what we guessed, anyway. They flocked to Wailing Lakes, but that could have been something to do with the location and why The Morrigan chose it. Or something The Morrigan did, possibly using magic to call the crows. Some of my sisters still believed it was the location, but the ones who left the community insisted that crows followed them more than was normal out in the world. My sisters embraced the crows. Roosting places were built all around the town, fake crows were everywhere—always made to look lively, or they'd scare the poor birds—and food was put out for them on a regular schedule.

  Owen leaned forward in his seat, wide eyes pressed to the windows, entranced by all he saw. Was this it? Was this why he was my friend? To get closer to the legend of The Morrigan? I'd thought he'd understood the reality when we'd seen her in person in Faerie, gobbling up her worshipers. But maybe that had just served to fuel his interest. Maybe that was the real reason he kept trying to be my friend.

  I watched him watching the town, desperate to know the truth. I could have asked him of course. He was fae; he couldn't lie. But that was also the rub: he couldn't lie. If I asked him, he'd tell me the truth. That it was his interest in The Morrigan, or that he hadn't kissed me back and felt guilty not talking to me after, or... Or that he himself didn't even know why he kept hanging around with me.

  I never believed fae who said we didn't ask direct, personal questions because it was rude. They could think what they wanted, but that wasn't it at all. The truth is a bitter pill to swallow. I was messed up enough to prefer sitting in raw, agonizing suspense. Part of me knew it would be better if we broke the silence and just had it out already, so he could leave and never talk to me again. But the traitorous part of me liked having him around, whatever his reasons.

  I was disgusted enough with the self-pity I was drowning in to consider slapping myself, or Owen, or to ruin us both by asking for the truth, when I realized Owen had stopped the car and rolled down the windows. He shivered with his whole body.

  "Scared of banshees?"

  He gave me some fierce side-eye, pursed lips and everything. "I think I'm a little tougher than that."

  "Then what's with the creeps? See a spider?"

  He shivered again. "No. And don't talk about spiders."

  "Seriously?" I couldn't help myself; I ran my fingers up his arm.

  "Stop that! I'm driving here."

  I rolled my eyes. "What was with the shivering?"

  He gestured all around us. "No people."

  "Oh, right," I said. It wasn't like the town was ever exactly bustling, but it was a sunny day. Usually you could count on a few people running around when the sun came out. The grocery store parking lot had one car in it, and the windows were dark. Our windows were down, but all we heard was the wind. A few hours ago, he would have been grateful for quiet like this in the face of the banshees' keening. "They're at the gym."

  He nodded, and then scrunched up his nose, like he thought something was funny but was trying not to laugh. It reminded me of his sister, Ava, who was always scrunching up her nose when something amused her. I didn't point out the family resemblance. Owen asked, "The gym?"

  Whatever playfulness we'd managed in the past few minutes was buried somewhere under the lump in my throat. "Yes."

  Picking up on the shift of my mood, he put his hands back on the wheel without another word. He didn't need further direction to the crime scene; the cars of the other FAB agents lined the road. Every other agent was there to solve the murder—the scythe was up to me. Instead of pulling in behind the other vehicles, Owen parked on the opposite side of the road where we could see everyone else gathered on the shore.

  I grabbed the door handle. "You wait here." I meant to hop out of the car and not give him a chance to argue, but I hesitated, waiting for him to say something. When he didn't, I looked him over. He'd relaxed back in his seat and busied his hands with a game on his phone. There was no reason for him to follow me—he wasn't sanctioned, this wasn't his job, and I'd prepared a whole speech
about that—but I still expected him to try. Probably because I would have. I nodded. Good.

  When I stepped out of the car, I wished I'd taken a second to gather myself before the other agents spotted me. But really, how long did it take to stiffen my spine and solidify my features into aloof, professional interest? Half a second? Dealing with agents from other departments—who always thought their job was more important than mine—had become more intuitive than any other social interaction I experienced. Possibly because of the amount of time I spent doing it.

  Three of the four agents nodded at me in greeting. Sadly, it was already one of the friendlier crowds I'd worked with. I walked past them, toward the bodies lying on the sandy lakeshore. I reached for the hilts of Epic and Haiku, more in search of comfort than anything else. Once I was assured of their presence, I took the last few steps so I could get a good look at the scene.

  Identical chest wounds were all I could see for one horrible moment. Stabbed with swords. I'd inflicted enough of those types of wounds myself to know.

  I took an unconscious step backward and turned my head to check the area. The trees around here were sparse and widely spaced. Four agents stood at my back. I wasn't likely to be surrounded by an angry mob here, and yet, I expected to see a violent crowd any second. I was handling the recent events in Faerie fairly well. Only a few nightmares. Not too jumpy. Until that moment, anyway. I needed to stay calm if I didn't want to get thrown off the case. With a few deep breaths and a reminder that the least I could do for Daphne was track down her murderer, I decided to take in the rest of the scene while ignoring their wounds. There wasn't anything for me to learn there.

  The sand under my feet was wet, and now that I looked, the trees were damp, too. The bodies were dry, minus the blood. It took a long time for anything to dry out in Humboldt, but it rarely went long without a fresh sprinkle of rain. The bodies hadn't been there long. My sisters would be able to offer an accurate time of death when I asked them later.

  Oh, Daphne. While all banshees had dark hair and eyes, they otherwise varied in appearance. I'd always admired the splash of freckles that graced Daphne's full cheeks. We assumed individual traits were passed down from their fathers. Without exception, their fathers were human.

  That didn't include me, of course, always the exception. I didn't show any sign of being anything but full-blooded fae. It wasn't something I thought a lot about. None of my sisters knew their fathers or spoke about them. It didn't seem to matter. Lately, though, I'd begun to wonder if my death light came from him. Everything else I was came from The Morrigan, just like my sisters' magic. Of course, my death light could just be me. Magic didn't have to be inherited. But what if my death light came from him?

  Had Daphne ever wondered about her human father? Why did I have so many questions for her now that she was gone?

  I couldn't pry my gaze away from her body. Her nails were recently manicured. The bright green polish was still pristine on all but one thumbnail. Her dark curls were coiled tight, ready to bounce around her face just as soon as she jumped up and bounded down the beach. When a breeze finally came in and swept one of the curls from her face, drawing my focus to the eyes I was avoiding, it sunk in that she wasn't going to be jumping up ever again.

  I pointedly turned my head to the reaper, a tall blonde who could have passed for a young human woman. There was nothing that screamed "fae" about her, definitely not "all-powerful" or "mysterious", and certainly not "intimidating". Of course, judging the fae by their looks was an easy way to wind up dead. In fact, most of us enjoyed playing others' assumptions against them. Somehow, I doubted a reaper ever bothered with games like that.

  I didn't know the reaper's name. Her file was blank on that part, and most others. Reapers identities were protected, as was information about their magic, places they frequented, how they organized. There was no reaper department at the Faerie Affairs Bureau, as far as I knew. I wouldn't be finding the scythe with help from reapers, that much was certain.

  As far as I knew, I'd never met a reaper before, so I took a deep breath to try and catch a scent of her magic before it faded. I almost gagged on the burnt ozone and moldy dirt smell that filled my nose.

  One of the other agents laughed as he stepped up to the bodies. I didn't spend enough time with corpses for his casual demeanor not to grate on me. "Lovely isn't it?" He scrunched up his nose and flicked out his tongue as if he'd tasted something awful. "Your first time smelling witch magic?"

  "No," I choked out. It just wasn't something I dealt with often, or directly. Once we realized witches were involved, agents working for the Magical Object Division called in human magic experts. While a regular, fae agent stayed on the case, it was mostly in a supervisory role. Human magic was so… labored. And nasty. And unnatural. Not a fun time. And definitely not something I would have expected to sense at that crime scene.

  "Filthy witches. Playing with things they barely understand." He looked down his long nose at the bodies. "Knew enough not to get into a magic standoff with a reaper and a banshee though. The magic you're scenting is from the glyphs." He pointed toward some arcane symbols spray-painted on the surrounding ground. They looked similar to some of the ones I'd seen in fae history texts, but weren't something I'd seen in person before. "Not sure what they're used for yet. Have to get an expert in human magic out here. None of us knew humans worked glyphs. With all the magic they dumped into these, it's good that most of them aren't drawn properly. Stupid humans think the symbols they've passed down for generations are the real things."

  I nodded, not paying much attention to him. While I didn't harbor any special love for humans, and witch magic was something I could stand to never touch again, I didn't wish them ill like a lot of fae did, especially the born fae. I wondered what the werewolf agent standing at his side thought of his ramblings. With both myself and the werewolf not saying anything to agree with him, the long-nosed agent huffed and ambled over to the water's edge, pretending to examine the lake for clues. I was grateful for the space, even with the werewolf agent staring at me.

  The talker was irritating, but he was right about the glyphs. With all the symbols spray-painted around and the magic humming in the air, if they were the work of a fae, we would have all been in serious trouble. I hadn't seen glyphs before and didn't know much about them, but I'd heard mention of them as fae history. The tone led me to believe they were weak and not worth looking into, but even these strange witch markings reeked of power.

  Magic was more complicated for witches. Where fae were magic, human witches attempted to manipulate the magic in the world around them. It made for complex and dangerous efforts. The drawings made me wary, and I gave them as much room as possible.

  Working up the courage to kneel, I looked into the face of my dead sister. She looked peaceful. I squeezed her hand and whispered, "Good-bye, Daffodil." It was a pet name Belinda had used for her.

  "You can't do that," groused the werewolf agent, still looming over me. "They haven't closed the cri—" His words cut off at my glare and he took an involuntary step back. "I forgot you're related to them," he said tilting his head toward town. Guess I was recognizable, even without a proper introduction. His features settled into a solemn mask. I enjoyed seeing how difficult that was for him. If I made him uncomfortable so easily, I'd have loved to have seen what happened when I really tried. Any other day, and I would have done just that. As it was, I let him stand there stiffly, probably struggling with the idea of watching me some more, or getting away from the strained interaction. "Sorry for your loss. Just be careful. We need to preserve the scene so we can catch the asshole that did this."

  I stood up and gave him a curt nod. I didn't exactly feel safe with a werewolf standing over me. While I made plenty of fae uncomfortable, other shifters were always the worst, especially wolves. It didn't help that he was the agent who hadn't greeted me when I arrived. He looked honest, though, and that's all I needed from my fellow agents. "Wait, you said 'asshole',
as in singular?" I shook my head. That had to be a mistake. "They must have had help."

  The agent shook his head and the familiar tilt of his head reminded me his name was Hobbs. I'd seen him around before, but this was the first time we'd ever spoken. He sniffed the air. "Nope, just one witch. No other scents."

  I sniffed the air, doing my best to ignore the witch's magic, and the werewolf next to me. I caught a lingering whiff of the glamour the other agent had left behind. He wasn't only masking his appearance, but the smell of his magic, too. I glanced at his back, and the stiff set of his shoulders, and realized he wasn't trying to fool anyone. He was protecting us. An incubus, keeping the rest of us from being drawn to the natural lure of his magic. Polite, for such a jerk.

  Back to work, I let myself focus on the scents I would have been happy to ignore. Blood, and death and… the sweet jasmine of banshee magic from Daphne, and the cool, earthy smell of a forest in shadow that had to be from the reaper. "You can't seriously be saying that a single witch killed a reaper and a banshee, and got away."

  "They did, but we'll catch 'em," promised agent Hobbs.

  I was about to ask him what they knew about the killer when the other agents crowded in, pushing me aside. Hobbs fell in with them, every now and then casting a glance my way. The others ignored me, consumed with talk of cause of death, angle of attack, motive. Not a single one of them said a word about the scythe. It was like they couldn't see that a stolen scythe would give them clues to who the murderer was. They called in MOD, in the form of yours truly, and then promptly forgot all about the scythe. Typical.

  I just knew the answer we all needed didn't come from "Who killed a reaper and a banshee?", which lead to nothing but speculation, so much as it came from "Who stole a scythe?". It was too unusual a question to not be the key to the whole thing.