Spandex, Spells and Shadows

by Melinda Chase

  I really hoped he sat there on purpose. I wanted him close to me.

  “Why do you always have to be right?” I sighed in mock annoyance.

  “Because I’ve been at this a lot longer than you have.” He grinned cockily at the space around me.

  I was growing frustrated with the cloaking spell, and desperately wanted to undo it. But, as if he could read my mind, Hunter shook his head.

  “I’m not any more a fan of this spell than you are,” he murmured. “But if any other hunters are sent out here to find you, it’ll hide you from their view. I can go a little while longer without seeing your face. I promise.”

  I can’t, I thought, but bit back the words.

  “She lives here in Portland,” I replied, in reference to the halfling. “But I put my foot in it big time with her. And now I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

  “Tell me everything,” Hunter ordered.

  And I did. With a few annoying tears and a massive helping of guilt that would have made more sense if I’d been raised Catholic. When I finally finished telling him what Annabelle had learned from her little hacking adventure, Hunter rubbed at his eyes and stood up to pace the room.

  Instantly, my stomach clenched up tight with nervous energy. I let the thump of Hunter’s boots lull me into calm silence for a few minutes, trying to give him enough time to think.

  “Why would a dream spell affect you like that?” He murmured. “The fae have plenty of dreams spells. Unless it was because the two of you were together. Maybe your magic entangled… wait a minute!”

  Hunter rounded on me, eyes alive with the insanity of a new idea.

  “Did you feel anything when you did the spell?” He demanded. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

  I thought back to that night. I’d been so caught up seeing Laslow, and then hearing Tanya’s terrified scream, that it was almost like I’d had an out of body experience.

  “Maybe?” I winced, knowing that was hardly a good answer. “I can’t remember. Just being near another halfling was already intoxicating.”

  “That’s fine.” Hunter waved his hand and spun around to continue his slightly mad pacing. “Maybe it’s because there was two of you together.”

  Slowly, I stood up to walk to the end of the room so I could get a good look at his face. His brow was scrunched up, and his gray eyes were unfocused and hazy, which was a look I was very unused to seeing on him.

  “You can’t go to her,” he finally announced, turning back toward the bed, completely unaware I had moved.

  “Why not?” I demanded.

  Hunter jumped at the sound of my voice, whipping around to face me again.

  “Stop moving on me,” he ordered. “It’s unnerving.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You can’t go to her because it’ll only make the situation work,” he explained. “She has to be curious already, especially given her history. Add to that the fact that Deedee, Elle, and Adora didn’t have a vision, and her mind is probably churning a thousand miles per second. I know mine would be.”

  “So let me get this straight,” I said, sure I liked the direction he was headed in. “You’re saying that my strategy should be to just… wait. After I spent all this time wondering if there was another halfling out there. After I actually found one. After I showed her magic. I’m supposed to just wait.”

  “What would you have done, Shannon?” Hunter demanded. He turned his piercing eyes in the direction of my face. I wasn’t sure if he managed to miraculously meet my eyes or if I somehow imagined it, but I could have sworn he was looking straight through me.

  “I don’t know,” I hedged, trying to give myself time to come up with a workable lie.

  The truth was that I knew exactly what I would have done, if I’d been in Tanya’s shoes. I’d have gotten the hell out of there and never looked back. Just like she was.

  But I would have grown curious, at some point. Inquisitive minds don’t like to remain in the dark, and I knew I would have eventually gone to seek out the light.

  “Yes, you do,” Hunter nodded, stepping toward me and at once looking at me and straight through me. “You’d get curious eventually. So will she. You just need to wait.”

  “Waiting is not my strong suit,” I laughed.

  “Trust me, I know.”

  11

  Hunter fell into silence again, and I could tell that the information was still churning around in his brain. I couldn’t blame him- it had taken me multiple days to think through everything with Tanya.

  He lowered himself slowly onto the edge of the bed, gripping the red comforter in his fists so tightly I could see his knuckles turn white. His mouth was a thin line, with his lips pressing together harder and harder until I was afraid they might disappear completely and turn him into some sort of lip-less monster.

  Carefully, I took a step toward him, bending down right in front of him until my knees were pressing into the carpet. He didn’t notice, though. His eyes were still focused at the mirror across from us, staring into his own soul with a piercing depth that could have cut him open like a knife, if he’d so wanted.

  I knew better than to ask what was happening in his head. If he hadn’t wanted to say it out loud unprompted, I doubted he’d say it when I asked.

  I could see every part of his face. Every little crease near his eyes, the ones that would normally indicate a life well lived. For Hunter, though, I was afraid it signaled the opposite.

  They weren’t laugh lines. They were squint lines. Every time he intimidated someone, every time he looked at them in disbelief, every time he murdered a fae, innocent or not, he tucked his brows down and squinted his eyes, pursing his lips just a little bit and deepening the lines around his mouth.

  I wondered how long it would take for his true age to catch up with him. I didn’t know the specifics of Hunter’s life prior to me, but I knew he was old. Not scary vampire old, but still.

  Old.

  Much older than I was. And yet, at times he seemed almost naive to the rest of the world, a product of the brainwashing he’d endured when forced to join the Hunter’s Council on their nasty mission to keep the magical world in check.

  I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was the comfort of knowing that Hunter couldn’t anticipate my next move, and therefore wouldn’t be tempted to push me off, or maybe it was just raw, primal instinct.

  All I knew was that I found myself leaning in, pressing my face toward those slightly chapped lips of his, aching to feel them upon my own.

  What would it be like? Would they be soft? I doubted it. I thought they’d be rough and manly, the way his hands were, the way his beard was, the way all of him was. He existed to be that sort of rough, sandpaper-ey kind of man.

  The anticipation lit up inside of me as I got closer and closer, but I was only centimeters away when my entire body was pushed back and flung across the room. It was like I had jumped on a trampoline and then attempted a half-hearted front flip, but missed completely, and slammed down flat on my face. The trampoline rebounded, smacking me back up toward the sky.

  My back slammed into the cabinet, and I couldn’t hold in the anguish gasp that fled from my lungs.

  “Ow!”

  “Shannon?” Hunter was on my feet, crossing quickly to where I lay, crumpled up against the cabinet. “What just happened? Are you okay? Is someone here?”

  He whipped around from side to side, frantically looking for the invisible enemy that had just laid me out.

  Except the enemy was me.

  “Uh, yeah, I just tripped,” I lied, taking full advantage of the fact that he couldn’t see me. “I’m so clumsy sometimes.”

  “Do you need a hand?” Hunter stuck his hand out about two feet away from me, somehow assuming that’s where I was.

  “No, no, I’m good.” I stood up and brushed my jeans off, sweeping away the invisible dirt since I couldn’t take away the embarrassment. “I should probably go. Before those hunter instincts kick in.”r />
  “Oh, yeah, of course.” He stepped back, rolling his head and cracking his neck.

  I had no idea if he knew I’d tried to kiss him. I almost prayed he didn’t.

  But then again, if he did, would he have wanted it? If this stupid cloaking charm hadn’t unreasonably forced us apart, would it have worked? Would he have liked it, and kissed me back?

  Or would he have shoved me off of him and walked away?

  Now was not the time to sit and contemplate, though, because Hunter was already opening the door to his room for me, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

  Awkward was an unusual shade on him, but I liked it.

  “I’ll see you later,” I murmured as I passed.

  “Yeah, of course,” he nodded. “Hey, Shannon?”

  I was hardly out the door, but he didn’t know that.

  “Yes?”

  “You tell me the moment your Mom and Grams know how to break this bond, okay? I’m really tired of not seeing your face.”

  The blush that lit up my cheeks could have started an entire beach bonfire.

  “I will.” He didn’t see it, but I blew him a kiss as I left, as if to seal the deal.

  Hunter would be the first person to know when we found the spell. Obviously. But even if I’d had a thousand hunters to save, I would have saved him first.

  “I need to find that spell.”

  I was alone, in an empty parking lot, waiting for the valet to bring my car back, but it felt like I was speaking to the entire world.

  Tanya was important. The halflings and the fae were important. But I suddenly knew, with absolute clarity, that if I didn’t figure out how to break Hunter’s bond, I’d never be able to do anything else. It was just like Marcella had said.

  My magic worked through feelings. And right now, my feelings were all tangled up in the man I’d just left behind.

  I didn’t need to go home to comb through our grimoire for the thousandth time, or to ask Mom and Grams to try and dig into their memory and come up with a spell they’d never really known in the first place. There was only one place that would have what I needed. If it wasn’t there, well…

  Then I was out of luck.

  “Charles,” I nodded at the statue of the lion as I approached the back of the library.

  But Charles said nothing. He didn’t move, or even acknowledge me. I was just getting my panties in a wad, ready to chastise him for being rude to me on two occasions now, when I remembered that Grams had to turn a knob before he came alive.

  A knob that was in his gaping mouth, with its sharp concrete teeth.

  “Here goes nothing,” I murmured before I shoved my hand straight down in his mouth and all the way down his throat. It was a good thing this guy wasn’t alive yet, or this would be the most wildly uncomfortable vet visit he’d ever had.

  Vacuum pressure flared up around my arm as I felt around for the knob. Finally, my fingers landed on something round that was much smoother than the concrete, and I twisted it around clockwise.

  Then I leaped back as far as I possibly could, lest Charles snap his mouth closed and chomp off my arm with his massive concrete teeth.

  A great cracking sound echoed out across the back courtyard, and I tossed a few quick, furtive glances behind me to make sure we were alone. The last thing I needed today was for some random mortal to come out of nowhere and meltdown when they saw the moving statue.

  “You again,” Charles growled. The stone lion might not have had pupils or irises, but I could swear the animal was glaring at me like I was a hellion come to life.

  “Yes, me again,” I replied defensively. “Is there some unspoken rule that only witches you favor are allowed to enter the library?”

  “You’re not a witch.”

  He made a fair point. But there was no way in hell I was letting him know that.

  “I’m half witch,” I snapped. “Which means I have every right to be in this library.”

  “Nobody said you didn’t have a right,” the lion sighed. “I, however, have a right to dislike it.”

  I don’t know what it was that day, but I’d just had enough. Secrets, lies, hiding, cloaking, all of it. I was done with this whole division in the magical world. Whether we were from two separate realms or not shouldn’t have mattered.

  “Why is that?” I demanded, crossing my arms and stepping closer. I made sure to stay just out of reach of the stone giant’s massive jaws, though.

  “What?” He chuckled, shocked I had the guts to ask such a question.

  “Why is it that you don’t like halflings?” I snapped. “What did we do to you?”

  Charles cocked his large head, considering for a moment.

  “You have a lot to learn, Shannon McCarthy,” he replied slowly. “But I shall start with one lesson. The fae and the witches are not ever meant to mix because the offspring they create are never part of just one world. They are of two, and the division that causes within a single being can prove to be disastrous.”

  “Can prove?” I pressed. “Has it ever?”

  I was sure I had him. It was a trick I’d learned long ago, as a woman in a traditionally male job. When someone said something ignorant, I’d just pressed them with questions until they realized that everything they were saying was completely unfounded and extremely rude. Or, in this case, pretty racist.

  But unlike those men I spent years working with, I didn’t get the chance to feel that insane satisfaction when his mouth flopped open and closed wordlessly. Instead, Charles let out a long, slow laugh.

  “You have much to learn about history, child,” he said. “But you won’t find it in any books. Perhaps one day, you will learn about the past, about the founding of the Council and the halflings who started it all.”

  “Wait, what?” I tried to wrap my head around this information, working to put two and two together. But instead of four, I just kept coming up with infinity.

  “You may enter, now,” Charles slid his massive stone bottom backward, revealing the churning, twisting portal that would lead me to the magical library.

  “Hold on,” I snapped. “I’m going to need some more information.”

  Charles looked at me and sighed.

  “The very first halfling caused mass destruction to this world,” he muttered. “A kind which we have not seen since, and hopefully will never see again. I am not saying that you will cause this destruction, but where one has, the people of this world tend to believe that the next will. And that is why they hate you so much. Your power is unknown to them- it’s unimaginable. Now, would you like to visit the library, or not?”

  I didn’t move for a long second. In fact, the only reason I leaped into the portal was because Charles started to close it.

  But even as the vacuum started to close in around me and transport me from the normal world, I couldn’t focus. I was having too much of a realization.

  The Council knew very well what a halfling was. So they didn’t want me dead because I was so unknown. They wanted me dead because they’d seen ones like me before.

  And they’d killed the one like me, and countless others along with him.

  12

  My feet smacked on the tile floor of the library, and despite my best efforts, I absolutely did not remain standing.

  “Shannon!” A high-pitched voice screeched. I heard the pitter patter of small feet dash across the tile toward me, and then a face appeared right above my head.

  Lemon Drop stared down at me with worried eyes and a furrowed blonde brow. Today, her purple hair had been spiked with gel, giving her a look that was very Jamie Lee Curtis a la Freaky Friday.

  “Ow,” I groaned, doing a mental scan to make sure I hadn’t shattered any bones on my rather clumsy entrance. “I’m never going to get used to that, am I?”

  “It just takes practice,” she shrugged, laughing lightly. “Need a hand?”

  “Please.”

  She reached a hand down toward me, but from the odd angle and a pair of po
ssibly concussed eyes, it looked like her arm was a giant limb coming down to smack me.

  Slowly, I reached up, trying to regain my mental faculties as she yanked me rather unceremoniously to a standing position.

  “It’s okay, you’re not even the worst one I’ve seen today,” Lemon Drop giggled. “We had a faun earlier that somersaulted right through that bookshelf.”

  I followed her finger as she pointed and saw a tipped over bookshelf, cluttered with books, and surrounded by bright pink caution tape.

  “Glad I’m not that guy.”

  “So, what brings you here?” She glanced behind me, probably looking for Mom and Grams. “Alone?”

  “Just looking for some information,” I hedged. Lemon Drop looked at me in confusion, and I tried to decide whether or not it would be prudent to tell her the truth.

  But then I looked up at the stacks and stacks of bookshelves that went up three floors high. Yeah, that would be an impossible mission to try and take on by myself. I’d never make it out of here by dinnertime, let alone fast enough to try and break Hunter’s bond in a semi-timely manner.

  “Anything I can help with?” I glanced back at the tiny, helpful witch, with her massive golden eyes that were nothing but kind.

  “Actually, yeah.” I nodded. “I was wondering if you knew about the hunter’s bond with the Council?”

  “Oh, sure,” she grinned. “Do you want a book on the history of the council? Or a current news update?”

  “More like anything you’ve got about how to break a hunter’s bond with them?”

  It was a risky ask. I had unintentionally lowered my voice as I did so, making sure that none of the various witches and fauns could hear me as I spoke.

  Lemon Drop’s brow creased so deeply I was almost sure she was going to turn me down.

  Or worse, call some sort of witchly authorities. I didn’t even know if they existed, but what if she called up a witch police who arrested me for conspiring to commit crimes against humanity, or something as equally insane as that.

  But, just as my stomach had dropped all the way through my feet and past my actual body, Lemon Drop nodded once.