The Cursed Fae (Accessory to Magic Book 2)

by Kathrin Hutson

  “Then quit laughin’.”

  Only after he said it did Jessica realize she actually was laughing. She really needed to stay away from the booze.

  “Can’t.” Another bark of a laugh escaped her. “’Cause this is just perfect.”

  The orc growled and released her with another hard shove, stepping backward across the alley. His eyes flickered toward the mostly empty, silent street, then back again.

  “Aw… Don’t tell me you’re chickening out on me now.” Jessica pushed herself away from the wall and spread her arms. “Come on. You came to hurt me, right? Maybe knock some sense into me? Hell, at the very least some fear.”

  “What are you doin’?” The orc stepped back again, his eyes wide and glowing yellow as he pointed at her hands.

  “I dunno.” She shrugged. “You tell me.”

  “Listen, bitch. Whatever you’re tryin’ to pull with that shit, you need to cut it out right fuckin’ now.”

  “What do you mean?” Jessica raised her hand to point at the orc’s smashed, green-tinged face and the crooked tusks protruding from his bottom jaw. Only then did she see the snaking tendrils of her magic rising from the tips of her fingers. A crazed laugh escaped her. “Oh, this? Nah. Nothin’ to worry about. Just a little side effect.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The black threads of Jessica’s magic curling up into the air like smoke flickered and sparked. Not bad for being wasted. She probably couldn’t hit the guy if she tried, but at least it made for a good show.

  “If you don’t put that shit away right now, you’ll—”

  “I’ll what?” Jessica cocked her head. “Be sorry? Yeah, it’s too late for that one. Go ahead. I’m giving you a free shot, here.”

  Why the hell was she saying this?

  “Fuck off.” He shoved a meaty finger toward her and shook it. “Just remember what I said, huh? The reckoning’s been opened, and you better keep moving things along. Or I’ll find you again.”

  The orc turned away from her to head back to the sidewalk, but Jessica wasn’t done. The alcohol had completely taken over, and she didn’t even want to get away.

  “Where are you going?” she shouted after him. “You can’t just out—just walk away after something like that!”

  A burst of black light shot from her hand and nicked the magical in the shoulder. Yeah, no aim at all. She’d been going for the back of his head.

  The orc roared and spun around toward her, summoning a ball of green flames in his hand. “I said fuck off!”

  “Now that’s more like it!” A wild cackle that didn’t even sound like her burst from her lips. What existed of her own magic inside her burned down her arms and shuddered at the tips of her fingers as she stepped into the center of the alley, waving him forward. “You wanted to make this real, right? Get dirty? Let’s go!”

  The orc snarled and tossed his green fireball at her.

  Somehow, Jessica managed to dodge away from it without falling on her ass, and she laughed again. “You been drinking too?”

  Blast after brilliant, fiery-green blast shot down the alley past her, barely missing her head, her shoulder, her other arm as she raised her hand toward the orc. She didn’t even have to think about launching a bolt of crackling black energy at him. It shot from her hand like it had a mind of its own and struck him in the upper thigh.

  The orc shouted and doubled over, clutching at his leg as he staggered toward the wall of the alley. Her magic wasn’t nearly as effective used this way as it would have been if she’d laid her hands on him, but it got the point across all the same.

  Jessica glanced down at the smokey, snaking tendrils curling and whipping around her hands, then looked back up at her would-be attacker and smirked. “Wanna tell me who sent you?”

  “I’m done. You’re shitfaced.”

  She puffed out a sigh through loose lips and shrugged. “Probably. I’m happy to send a message back with you, if you want. Seeing as you’re the one stalking around town following someone else’s orders. They tell you when you get to eat and shit too?”

  Stop talking. She had to stop talking, because this was going way too far.

  “You little—”

  The orc’s next ball of green flames rushed her before she had a chance to move or even realize it was headed her way. The attack crashed into the center of her chest, sending a searing heat coursing through her as the world tilted in slow motion. Then she was lying on her back, coughing and staring up at the stars visible through the top of the alley.

  Fuck.

  Footsteps approached as she struggled to catch her breath and the heat faded out of her chest and upper arms. Then the orc loomed over her with another sneer, bending down to stick one more fat gray-green finger in her face. “Finish it. That’s all you have to do.”

  “Yep.” She didn’t even realize what she was doing until she heard the guy screaming bloody murder right beside her face.

  How did he get on the ground next to her? And why was he screaming like that when Jessica was the one who’d just been knocked backward—

  Her gaze flickered toward her hand clenched around his finger, the black filaments of her magic pulsing across the back of his rigid hand and up his arm. Something snapped within her grip, and she immediately jerked her hand away.

  The orc clutched weakly at his blackened hand and groaned. Then his yellow eyes rolled back in his head, both arms thumped down on the floor of the alley, and he lay completely still.

  Shit.

  “Come on, man.” Jessica reached toward him but fortunately stopped when she saw her own half-baked magic still flickering across her fingers. With a deep breath, she pulled it back inside until there was nothing around her hand but the last few puffs of drunken power. Then she nudged the orc’s shoulder. “Hey. Hey. Get up. We’re done.”

  He didn’t reply.

  With her head swimming, she pushed herself up off the ground and grunted at the remnants of pain clutching at her chest. She rubbed herself just beneath her collarbone and felt the bank’s glass pendant beneath her shirt. Pulling away her shirt collar, she spared a brief, dizzy glance at the pendant’s blue glow fading quickly into nothing again and thought she saw something like a burn mark right there where the orc had blasted her backward across the alley. Or maybe that was just a trick of the light. Or the booze.

  Damnit, this was a terrible idea.

  Jessica half-crawled toward the alley wall and used it to climb to her feet. When she turned around, the orc was still right where she’d left him. Unresponsive but still breathing.

  “Wake up.” She stumbled toward him and nudged his shoulder with the toe of her shoe. Nothing.

  Great. She’d gotten into a drunken fight outside the bar, and now she was staring down the evidence of her own dwindling grip on her magic and everything she couldn’t do with only half of it still flowing through her veins.

  A knot of guilt twisted in her gut. Gritting her teeth, Jessica stumbled down the alley toward the sidewalk and almost fell flat on her face when she bent to retrieve her cell phone. The screen was cracked, but at least it still worked. She cast a final glance at the asshole who’d tried to threaten her into quick action—something about the Gateway. Something about finishing what she’d started.

  Good thing that didn’t apply to thugs dressed up like homeless men who yanked her into dark alleys and tried to terrify her into something she didn’t even know how to do.

  It took her three tries before she finally pulled up the Uber app and requested another ride back to Golden. To Winthrop & Dirledge. Home.

  Jessica booked it down the sidewalk away from the alley, trying not to look as wasted as she felt. Bad idea. Really, really bad idea to spend three hours at a bar downing more beers than she’d had in one night since before she’d been incarcerated. The last time she’d gone this far off the deep end had been in mourning. Because Rufus had been a mistake.

  The orc would’ve been too, if she’d been running around oper
ating at full magical power. So there was that, at the very least. The guy was still alive, and he’d wake up some time later with a pounding headache just like Jessica. Maybe some residual issues with his hand, but that wasn’t her fault. He’d attacked her.

  She stopped five blocks down and tried to focus on the little car symbol of her Uber driver heading her way to come pick up her drunk ass. And even as she stood there beneath the street lights on Santa Fe, her vision darkened. Tomorrow was seriously going to suck.

  If she ever made it back.

  A growing heat pulsed in her chest, warring with the sharp pain poking into her back from the base of her skull all the way down to her tailbone.

  Jessica groaned and tried to blink, but her eyes just didn’t want to open. What the hell was stabbing her?

  She leaned sideways to swat at the pressure along her spine, and her booze-addled head spun all over again. It was enough to send her reeling, then she found her cheek smashed up against a cold, smooth floor. At least the stabbing pain in her back was gone. Her chest still throbbed, though.

  Where was she?

  The Art District. Mel’s art show opening. Black Mark. The alley with that fucking orc…

  Jessica’s eyes flew open, and she tried to shove herself off the ground before a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. A thump of something heavy on wood followed by the mad-dash scrabbling of claws headed toward her. Two seconds later, she was staring at Confucius’ scaley face, his golden eyes blinking at her. The lizard opened his mouth and let out a loud, angry hiss.

  “Oh, come on.” Her voice was raw and scratchy, barely more than a whisper, and she cleared her throat. Even that small act sent a flare of pain racing through her spinning head. “Let’s just…hold off on the condescending noises for a little longer, huh?”

  She shooed him away with a flick of her hand, but the reptile stayed where he was.

  Then she realized she was in the bank’s lobby, laid out on her face like she’d stumbled through the front door and passed out right there.

  She had.

  Jessica pushed herself slowly up into a sitting position and realized she’d made it back. So the Uber driver had pulled through after all, and she’d made it as far as the front door of Winthrop & Dirledge before sitting down for a nice little nap with her spine pressed against the corner of the shelf on the other side of the front windows.

  “Real classy, Jess,” she muttered.

  At least she was alone.

  Confucius took two skittering steps toward her and hissed again.

  Okay, mostly alone.

  “What time is it?” She groaned and slapped a hand against the highest ledge of the shelf she could barely reach behind her. Her phone was on the floor where she’d passed out, and she snatched it up before dragging it with her as she stood on weak, woozy legs.

  Right back inside the bank. Without any memory of it and nothing to prove she’d even stepped out. Except for her own stupidity.

  She lunged toward the front door with wide eyes and reached out for the lock. The door flashed with blue light, echoed by another pulse of the same glow from the pendant at her chest, and harsh laughter filled her mind.

  ‘You think I’d let you waltz back inside and leave the place unlocked all damn night?’

  Jessica froze. “You can talk.”

  ‘Oh, come on, witch. We’ve been through this already.’

  “No, I mean…” Her hands felt completely disconnected from her body as she struggled to pull out the pendant from beneath her shirt. “I mean again. You’re back.”

  ‘Yeah, sure. If we ignore the fact that I’ve always been here…’

  Rolling her eyes, Jessica dropped the pendant and gazed around the lobby. She had to squint with one eye closed just to keep her vision from doubling again. “So…what? All I had to do was go out, get wasted, and fight off some creeper orc making threats? Is that what you needed?”

  ‘No idea. But for now, I feel pretty right as rack.’

  “What?”

  ‘Wait. Right as rhino… No, right as—’

  “Stop, stop, stop. Just…” Jessica pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long, slow breath. “Forget the modern sayings, okay? Just give me a second.”

  ‘Totally. Hey, how’s your chest?’

  She slowly lifted her head and glared at the back wall. “Right now, it’s my head and my back, thanks.”

  ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t have chosen the corner of a shelf as a bed. Even without a body.’ The bank tittered. ‘But you should probably take a look at that burn.’

  “I’m fine.” Shuffling across the lobby toward the back hallway, Jessica pulled her shirt away for a brief glimpse down the front of it. A snaking pattern of bright-red lines crossed her flesh. The skin hadn’t been broken, and there weren’t any blisters.

  ‘Because it’s magical fire. Hello?’ The bank tsked. ‘You haven’t been out of the game that long, Jessica. You need help.’

  “This’ll heal just fine.”

  It would’ve healed a lot faster if half her magic wasn’t in that beat-up tin box upstairs, but this wasn’t remotely bad enough to make her even consider opening that box for a little bit of extra healing. At all.

  ‘I meant your head.’

  “What?” Jessica glared at the witching vault and the eerie green light seeping out from beneath the door, then kept walking right past it and turned into the kitchen.

  ‘You’ve got some serious issues in there. In here. I mean, yeah, I guess we can just say I’m in your head and leave it at that.’

  “I already said my head was an issue. And you constantly talking in it again isn’t helping.”

  ‘Aw, you really did miss me.’

  She grabbed a glass from above the kitchen sink, taking a lot more care than usual not to slam the cabinet door shut. Served her right for racking up a massive hangover after not having touched alcohol like that in a year and a half. The tap rushed way too loudly in her ears as she filled up the glass. Even the sound of her own heavy, parched gulping sent thuds of pain lancing up into her head.

  Her phone blared with an obnoxiously loud alarm, and Jessica nearly dropped the glass. With a grunt, she set it down on the counter and scowled at her phone before stabbing off the alarm. Then she saw the pre-programmed message that came with it scrolling across the screen.

  Meeting with Hairball. 7:15 a.m.

  “Oh, fuck me.”

  ‘Eh…’

  “Shut up.” Jessica chugged the rest of her water, slammed the empty glass down, and winced at the migraine growing behind her eyes.

  ‘Who’s Hairball? You have a meeting with a cat or something?’ The bank snorted. ‘Personally, I hate cats. Always getting into places they’re not supposed to be.’

  Jessica turned around and leaned back against the kitchen counter. Her gaze fell on Confucius standing in the entryway to the narrow kitchen, and she slowly shook her head. “Your lizard might as well be a cat, then.”

  ‘He’s not my lizard. And at least he doesn’t shed.’

  She ignored both magical entities—one covered in scales and staring her down, the other suddenly reappearing as the most annoying voice ever in her head. Even worse than her own, back when life was looking pretty grim for Jessica and she’d blamed herself for so many things that had gone wrong. That had landed her behind bars with half her magic.

  ‘And half your memories too. Hey, any progress on that, by the way?’

  “No progress on anything,” she muttered, scrolling feverishly through her phone for the number she wanted. “And now I’m going backward. Just be quiet for a second and let me make this call.”

  ‘Not really the call you should be making right now, though. You don’t have to—’

  “Shut up!” She clenched her eyes shut against the renewed stab of pain in her head, then made the call and pressed the phone to her ear. “Please. I need to handle this without sounding like I’m completely falling apart.”

  ‘Right. Like anyone on
the other side of a phone call can see into your fracturing mind like I can…’

  Without thinking, Jessica shot off a spray of red sparks with her free hand. They blasted into the cabinets beside the fridge and knocked a cabinet door halfway off its hinges.

  ‘Ow! Hey!’

  Confucius scrambled backward across the hall, jumped when he bumped into the wall, and skittered away toward the lobby.

  She gritted her teeth against the blaring ring of the phone at her ear and took a deep breath.

  ‘You’re fighting me now too? Maybe we need to have a talk. Ever seen that show Intervention?’

  “Please shut up,” Jessica whispered.

  ‘Hey, I’m back. Again. Still. Whatever. Why are you all bent out of shape?’

  “Because Hairball’s my fucking parole officer, okay? And there’s no way in hell I’m making this meeting in half an hour.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Whoops.’

  This wasn’t a whoops. This was a big fuckup on Jessica’s part. The only reason she’d been granted parole after a year at MJ Pen was because she’d been a model inmate. Which was in and of itself an oxymoron she’d given up trying to wrap her head around. Six months on the outside, and she hadn’t missed a single meeting with her PO. Six months of being a model citizen again, and if she didn’t make this right, she’d be facing a lot more shit coming down on her head than just a talking pain in her ass and a slew of asshole magicals trying to threaten her into finishing what she’d started.

  Which had to be the Gateway.

  ‘Yeah, but you can’t just stop now. Meeting or no meeting. And this Hairball guy sounds like a real asshole too.’

  “I swear to all the gods I don’t even believe in,” Jessica muttered through clenched teeth, “if you don’t shut up right now—”

  The line picked up, and the monotonous, droning voice of the correctional office’s receptionist filled her ear and her pounding head.