Shadow Magic

by Jayne Hawke

  Elise didn’t like giving anything for free, but she understood the importance of caffeine. Bounty hunters needed a little incentive to stay on side, and coffee was a good way of doing that. I made myself a strong Americano and left to go and look at the job board.

  The main room on the bottom floor was devoted to the job board, and the records of the bounty hunter’s bounties. There was a monthly and yearly tally. Elise rewarded those with the highest records. It was usually with a bottle of cream, which was worth more than any of the finest champagnes. Fae had a love of milk and cream, which had driven the prices of those products through the roof when they’d first appeared. I’d never tasted either myself. My precious ice cream was made from coconut milk.

  I wandered across the grey tile floor, ignoring the cluster of witches who were huddled around a small table pointing at a phone and laughing. The Old Flame coven didn’t socialise with the rest of us, and honestly I was happy with it that way.

  “Kit, you might just do it this month!” Jake called over.

  The hulking great shifter grinned at me from the records sheet. We’d met a couple of years ago when I first started working for Elise. The scar running down his right cheek gave him a fearsome appearance - that and the fact he was 6’5 and pure muscle. Everyone had given him a wide berth. Shifters were known to be vicious with hot tempers. I wasn’t fooled, I saw something in him. We’d quickly become good friends.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, that human won’t win,” Sasha spat.

  I rolled my eyes at the pretty blonde witch.

  The job board was a set of cream sheets which had been pinned to the huge cork board. The jobs were split into groups by payment. I didn’t even glance at the higher paying sheets. Instead, I walked into the corner, looking at the little jobs no one wanted.

  Nothing.

  Every single one of the jobs had been crossed out where they’d already been filled. I edged over to the next highest paying sheet. There was a very slim chance I’d be able to pick something up from that sheet. If I pitched it just right to Elise. She didn’t want hunters taking on jobs they weren’t qualified for. That led to deaths and deaths meant paperwork. Elise didn’t like doing paperwork, or paying anyone more than she absolutely had to.

  “Don’t bother,” Mia said snidely.

  I walked away from the witch before it had a chance to become something. I needed to keep my head down, and getting into a fight with one of Elise’s favourite bounty hunters was the exact opposite of that. Knocking back my coffee, I decided to go and make the most of the gym upstairs.

  Elise had fitted the middle floor out with the best gym we could ask for, including three sparring rooms. She wanted us to be at our very best so we could make her more money. Dropping the coffee cup in the bin near the door to the second floor, I tried to get my head in the game. More jobs might come in that afternoon, and I could survive a day or two without another job. It just gave me more time to work out.

  Jake came jogging up the creaky old stairs behind me with a grin on his face.

  “Think you can beat me today?” he asked.

  His shifter nature meant he was faster, stronger, and had better stamina than any human. I could match him, and possibly even beat him, if I let my magic out to play.

  “I’m going to give it a damn good go,” I said with a laugh.

  “Get any good jobs recently?” he asked as he held the door open for me.

  “I grabbed a pixie that had skipped out on some court punishment or something,” I said.

  “Ugh, pixies are such a pain in the ass. They coat everything in their dust, which is a nightmare to get out. I’m pretty sure I still have some in my hair,” Matt said with a groan.

  “I know! You’d have thought they’d find some way to get that under control,” I said.

  “Especially given witches ambush them to steal the free magic,” Jake said with a shake of his head.

  We went to the treadmills as we talked. There was only one other person up there, a young wolf shifter in Jake’s pack. He had earbuds in, which meant that we were free to put on whatever music we wanted.

  “My turn,” Jake said.

  “No way!” I said as I started to run to the music centre.

  “Too late!” he said with a laugh as he beat me to it.

  I groaned as he put on some fae dance music. The heavy beat wasn’t bad to work out to, but I’d much rather some pop country music. It wasn’t cool, or trendy, but I liked it regardless.

  “Come on, we should start with eight miles and then jump on the rowing machines,” Jake said with far too much eagerness.

  I was beginning to regret this plan.

  NINE

  Everything ached, and I was disgusting. The one upside to the headquarters was the showers. We had a thirty-minute cut off point - that was when the water turned to hailstones. Elise didn’t want us wasting our time, and her money, in the nice hot showers. Thirty minutes was absolutely glorious to me, though. I stepped under the scalding hot spray and smiled as I turned my face up towards it.

  Elise even supplied cheap bodywash. It was always whatever she could buy in bulk from a friend somewhere, but it all helped. She had declared that we couldn’t trudge around stinking of bodily fluids. We often did, but we did at least smell nice when we started. I scrubbed every inch of myself with the lemon and lime scented bodywash.

  My hair was full of conditioner when Jake shouted, “Elise is looking for you!”

  Shit. She didn’t summon people for no reason. Images of being fired raced through my head. I really needed that job.

  I washed my hair out as quickly as I could and grabbed my towel before I stepped out into the bitterly cold air. There were small narrow changing cubicles opposite the long line of showers. I raced into the cubicle where I’d abandoned my clothes and struggled into my jeans. They weren’t clean, but I only had two pairs and my other pair was back at home.

  Jake was waiting in the doorway for me with a concerned look on his face.

  “I’ll vouch for you. I’m not letting her fire you,” he rumbled.

  “Thanks,” I said as I smiled up at him.

  He escorted me up the stairs past the stares of fae mongrels and witches, all of whom had stopped to see why Elise had called upon me. It was a big deal, and news had likely spread like wildfire through the building.

  I held my head high and refused to show any emotion. She had no reason to fire me. I was a damn good bounty hunter. Jake barged past a gruff bear shifter who was texting frantically rather than paying attention to his surroundings. The shifter bared his teeth at Jake, who bared his in return.

  “Put them away!” Elise boomed.

  She was barely five feet tall, but people feared her. Her white-blonde hair was cut in a fashionable bob with harsh layers and sharp angles that only highlighted her fae heritage. No one quite knew what exactly she was. Some people whispered that she was the bastard of a sidhe and a leanan sidhe, but no one dared ask her.

  The sidhe were considered the highest class of fae. They were the most prominent in the courts and thus owned the majority of the territories and businesses. Personally, I wondered if she was part hag. She had the ill temper to match what I’d seen of them.

  “Kit MacGowan, come in,” Elise said as she walked back into her office.

  Her office took up half of the top floor of the building. It was a large expanse of open space with a long, broad white desk at the far end. The walls were ice blue and entirely devoid of any personal touches. The white-washed wooden floors and pure white ceiling made everything feel very wintery. She sat in the tall well-padded chair behind her desk and almost seemed to vanish.

  I was halfway across the room before I noticed we weren’t alone. A tall man with black curly hair was standing in a beautiful navy-blue suit looking out the window. He had his back to me, which gave me an opportunity to admire the way his suit pants hugged his tight pert ass.

  “You have been chosen for a very special job, Miss
MacGowan,” Elise said as she pushed some paperwork across the desk towards me.

  I hurried to sit down in the smaller unpadded chair across from her, leaving the more luxurious chair for the man.

  “This is your contract. You will belong to Mr. Hale until the contract is complete. I will receive sixty percent-”

  “Forty,” a familiar voice said.

  I turned and saw Ethan, the cu sith from the night before, glaring at Elise.

  “Miss MacGowan will receive sixty percent of the bounty,” Ethan said with a growl.

  Elise dropped her gaze and pulled a second contact out from the drawer to her left. She replaced the one in front of me with that one.

  My throat had tightened, my stomach had turned into a large weight, and my mind was screaming at me to flee. What was the cursed cu sith doing here?

  “I was informed that you were the best, and I require the best,” Ethan said smoothly as he looked at me.

  “I’m good, but there are better,” I said with a shrug.

  That wasn’t true, but I couldn’t be bound to him. Not a cu sith. That was a death sentence.

  He smirked at me.

  “I have seen your record, and the contract has been written up. If you’d kindly sign the contract so we can begin the real work,” he said, nodding towards the papers in front of me.

  I skimmed the contract and found it wasn’t too far off standard. That is, if I ignored the part where I literally belonged to Ethan until he was satisfied the job was complete. I was sorely tempted to shove it where the sun didn’t shine, right up until I saw how much the bounty was.

  I had to read it three times to be absolutely sure. It was enough to put Matt through college for a year, and to fix up the house a bit. We’d be able to eat real food every day.

  Cu sith or not, I had to sign that contract, for Matt’s sake.

  TEN

  All eyes were on us as Ethan and I walked through the headquarters. Everyone stopped to pause and whisper about us. I gave the witches a little wave and a smile. Sure, I was bound to him, but I was going to make bank, and they’d never let it go that I’d been chosen for such a prestigious job.

  I realised as I stepped out into the daylight that I didn’t know what the job was. I’d been so wrapped up in the money, and the potential for Ethan to end me, that I hadn’t thought to ask.

  “So, what is this job?” I asked as I followed him across the car park.

  The cu sith smiled at me over his shoulder.

  “Do you normally sign yourself over to fae without asking why?”

  I levelled a glare at him.

  “No, I do not.”

  He laughed.

  “I’ll give you all of the details once we’re back at my office,” he said.

  He opened the door to a beautiful blood-red sports car. I wasn’t good at cars. I’d never been able to afford one. Matt would be drooling over it. The sleek lines and way it hugged the road screamed power and money. I slid down into the soft leather seat and knew that I could get used to that feeling.

  Ethan turned the engine on, and it purred. I should have been rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of it, but it felt so damn good as he touched the gas and it threw me back in the seat. We headed out of the city and soon were leaving the walls and old buildings behind us. Rolling moorland replaced the ancient buildings. I had to open the window and breathe in the scent of heather with a touch of sea salt.

  It wasn’t a classically beautiful view, not in the way they put on postcards. The moorland was a dusky purple with grey undertones, and the hills rolled in uneven ways that made the roads twist and turn. There was a wildness about it that I loved. I knew there were shifter packs that ran through that heather each night hunting game - and whatever person was foolish enough to be out there after dark.

  The areas the fae took control of usually became stunning forests like the one near the walls, or else vibrant green meadows. The moors had been left untouched, though, and I appreciated that. Ethan turned down a narrow driveway with mature oak trees dotted at uneven intervals along it. I was surprised to find we were driving up to an old-fashioned cottage that sprawled out behind wildflower gardens witches would be envious of. The splashes of colour against the heather grey surrounding us was a memorable image.

  He parked in front of the cottage with the traditional thatched roof and climbing roses winding their way around the deep green doorway.

  “I thought we were going to your office?” I asked.

  “I work from home,” he said with a devilish smile.

  My heart stuttered for a moment at that smile.

  I followed him down the yellow stone path between the tall brilliantly coloured flowers, each sitting atop a slender stem. I leaned down to take in the rich sweet smell of them and found myself smiling. It really was the little things.

  “No shoes in the house,” Ethan said as he took off his expensive shoes and tucked them on the shoe stand.

  I toed off my battered old boots and left them next to his shoes. They looked absurd with the scuffs and blood stains on them next to his pristine shiny leather Oxfords.

  “Have you had lunch?” he asked as he walked down the hallway.

  “No,” I said as I looked around.

  The hallway was narrow with a low ceiling. The brilliant white walls were the perfect backdrop for the oil and watercolour paintings of various stunning landscapes. I noted there were more paintings of clifftops than forests, meadows, and mountains. Everything clearly had its place and was given room to draw the eye and stand alone without being crowded.

  Ethan was waiting for me in a generously sized farmhouse-style kitchen complete with slate worktops and quarry tile floors. The farmhouse table in the middle was easily as big as my bed. Everything about the room screamed old money. The cabinets were made from beautiful oak with black metal hinges and fixtures. Copper pots hung from hooks over the main workspace, which was easily eight feet long. I barely had enough room to make a sandwich in my kitchen.

  “Would you like tea? Coffee? Water?” Ethan asked as he opened the huge fridge.

  “Any of the above, thanks,” I said.

  He laughed again, a bright genuine sound that brought a smile to face against my will.

  “You know, you don’t look like a murder dog,” I said as I sat at the table.

  He laughed again.

  “You do look like a murder human,” he said as he pulled a large piece of ham out of the fridge.

  He proceeded to make ham sandwiches complete with pickle, lettuce, and tomatoes. It had been years since I’d eaten ham or tomatoes. My mouth watered just watching him make it. I was tempted to see if I could take half of it home for Matt to enjoy.

  Ethan placed the plate with the sandwich made of the most wonderful handmade white bread and a cup of steaming coffee down in front of me.

  “Someone has been stealing god magic and selling it. The people who buy and use it have been killing innocents. I need a non-fae to work with me, as the politics can be difficult and having a non-fae to back up my word will help ease the tensions.”

  “How the hell do you steal god magic?” I asked as I picked up my sandwich.

  “That’s what we’re going to figure out.”

  I bit into the sandwich, and it was even better than I’d pictured. He’d used real butter on the bread. I’d only had that when I was a little kid. To my shame, I wolfed down the sandwich as though I hadn’t eaten in months. Ethan was a gentleman and didn’t say a word.

  I wasn’t used to doing investigation. Usually, I was told that person A had broken X law, and I was sent to bring them in or kill them.

  “So, where do we start?” I asked.

  “We need to figure out where someone could possibly get god magic from, and how it got out onto the street.”

  A chill ran down my spine. There was only one place I knew of that would have god magic on this plane. The hounds.

  ELEVEN

  Ethan brought out a sleek new lap
top and took the seat next to me.

  “I have a list of drug dealers and potential sources of the magic,” he said as he nodded at the screen.

  I looked down the very long list and recognised a few of the names. They were a mix of witches and lower level fae who were working for the higher level fae, not that anyone was supposed to know that.

  “Unfortunately, the last user didn’t survive long enough to question, and none of her family members knew anything about her drug use,” Ethan said.

  “So, we’re starting at square one?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  Ethan got back up and began making more of those wonderful ham sandwiches.

  “Do you have any ideas? You’re coming at this from a different angle to me.”

  Should I mention the hounds? I wasn’t sure if normal people knew exactly what the hounds did, or if Ethan was involved in that. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for cu sith to work with them to bring in the beings the gods took a dislike to. As much as the fae and the god touched didn’t get along and mostly wanted the other dead, there were still alliances forged.

  I decided it was better not to bring that up. If he didn’t know that the hounds stripped the fallen gods and dark witches of their magic, siphoning it off to somewhere I didn’t know, then he would ask how I knew. That would open up far too many questions.

  “Well, could a god touched be involved? I mean, the gods don’t exactly like each other. So maybe one of them is working to siphon off magic from one of the other gods, or some other god touched?” I offered.

  Ethan smiled and nodded.

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Write it down. We’ll put together a list of all known god touched in the area, their alliances and affiliations.”

  This was sounding like a lot of paperwork. I’d managed to avoid paperwork to date, and that had suited me just fine.