Shadow Magic

by Jayne Hawke

  The small bed had been shoved against the far wall, leaving room for a large desk running along the wall to my left. Heavy blackout curtains hung over the small window at the foot of the bed. I took a cautious step forward and felt something squelch beneath the pale blue pajama bottoms.

  Looking down at the fabric I decided not to look. It was better I didn’t know. I carefully picked my way through the clothes and fallen papers, making my way to the desk. There were six drawers on either end of the desk, each with shimmering black locks on them.

  “Ah, good, we can see if you can crack locks,” Ethan said.

  There was an edge to him. His eyes glinted with the predator just beneath the surface. I was so screwed.

  “I’m sure I just got lucky with the glamour. I don’t feel anything around these locks. Really, I’m not sure they even have any magic there.”

  Lies. I could feel the intricate web of magic wrapped around them as clearly, if not more clearly than I’d felt that glamour. I knew that I could break locks. I’d done it once when I was twelve to break into Dad’s study. That had been when he had broken down and told me what he was, and what I was.

  I remembered it all too clearly. The magic had snapped so neatly beneath my fingertips. Pride had swelled up within me as I slowly turned the door handle and crept into the room. Dad hadn’t been draconian about keeping me out of the study, but he said they’d called me Kit because I had a fox kit’s curiosity. I just wanted a quick look around to see where Dad hid sometimes. It wasn’t meant to have been a big deal.

  Dad had sighed behind me as I peered at the intricately carved desk. The desk Matt and I had had to sell years ago to try and keep food in the cupboards.

  “I think it’s time we had a talk, little fox kit,” he’d said with his smooth baritone voice.

  “I didn’t touch anything, I swear!” I’d said, alarmed that he’d caught me.

  He was a large powerful man, and yet he moved with the silence of a feline shifter.

  “Kit, promise me you’ll be safe. You must hide that magic within you. Never let anyone know you have it. Do you understand? Promise me, Kit.”

  He’d been so insistent. Of course I promised. And now I was having to break that promise with the most dangerous threat of them all.

  “You’re just not used to using your magic. This is a good chance to help you get started with making the most of it. Think about how much better life would be if you could put that bit of magic to good use,” Ethan said as guided me to the desk.

  He had one hand on my lower back, a possessive, controlling gesture I didn’t mind as much as I should have. The other slipped down over my wrist, leaving goosebumps in its wake as I felt the soft touch of his fingertips against my bare skin.

  “Locks aren’t so different to glamours. You just need to picture it in your mind and break it,” he said with his strong chest almost pressing against my back.

  I was trapped, and all I could think about was the feel of his strong hard muscles against my back and how they’d feel beneath my hands and tongue. He was death wrapped in silk, and I was inviting him closer.

  NINETEEN

  The front door to Montgomery’s apartment crashed open. Ethan shot out of the room, and I was hot on his heels. We came to a stop just inside the living room. Three burly red caps were spread out at the entrance to the living room. Their simple pointed caps were already red with the blood of their victims for the day. Long curling yellow nails tipped the ends of their thick powerful fingers. The leader pulled his thin lips back to reveal sharp dark-yellow teeth. His small eyes glistened with pleasure at the thought of the pain he was about to inflict.

  Each of them was built like a rugby player with arms as big as my thigh formed of knotted muscle. They were brutish killers, and the fact they were there meant we weren’t the only ones who knew the god magic was still there.

  “Hand over the magic and you walk free,” the leader said in a deep rasping voice.

  By “walk away free,” he meant he’d break our necks.

  I laughed. It wasn’t the most reasonable thing I could have done, but the laughter bubbled up.

  My daggers were in my hands as I stepped around Ethan and began making my way towards the red cap on the left. His once-white t-shirt had been stained with old blood and a few black splatters that I didn’t want to identify. At first I thought Ethan was going to stand back and test me again. Then he moved so fast he was almost a blur. He had a large black sword in his hand, which he swung at the leader’s neck.

  The cu sith moved with such incredible speed and grace. His powerful arms flexed as he brought the sword up to sink into the thick neck of the red cap. Ethan’s face was almost entirely blank, the corner of his mouth tugged up into the thought of a smile. The red cap saw it coming and blocked the heavy blow with his forearm. Its thick dark blood oozed down Ethan’s sword, and I had to look away.

  The red cap I’d been heading for was barrelling at me, his teeth bared and curling nails extended ready to sink into my flesh. I stood my ground until the last second, when I ducked away and drove my dagger into his back. It wasn’t my classiest move, but if he was going to storm at me like a bull...

  The third red cap was hanging back, watching how his brothers handled things. I saw his small dark eyes flick to the lab. My own red cap swung a meaty fist at me, the stench of him filling my nostrils as I stepped back and twisted away. Old blood mingled with rotting flesh and months of sweat and dirt. I swallowed hard and tried to hold onto my lunch.

  Ethan twisted away from a haymaker and retaliated with his sword. The red cap’s head fell away from his neck, leaving a clean wound behind. The body slowly drooped and dropped to the ground. I should have been paying attention to my own opponent. The red cap tried to sink his nails into my shoulder. Thankfully, the jacket Ethan had bought me had enough protection magic in it to stop them from breaking through the leather.

  I surged forward and stabbed the red cap in the stomach with a rapid succession of deep thrusts. His eyes slowly widened as I finished him with one final savage blow, driving my dagger up through his diaphragm into his heart.

  Red cap blood coated my hand, and I tried not to wretch. Blood didn’t normally concern me at all. I couldn’t afford to let it. There was something about the dark viscosity of red cap blood, though. It felt as filthy as the rest of the being looked and smelled.

  To my alarm, my hand began to tingle and something happened with the blood. I quickly wiped it off on the couch. The tingle faded, but I felt different. More alert. More alive.

  Ethan was looking at me with a raised eyebrow. His pretty mouth pursed slightly as he looked from my hand and back up to my face.

  “Red caps are disgusting. I don’t want any part of them on me,” I said with a shrug.

  It was more than that. Something had happened with that blood, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what.

  TWENTY

  I’d gone to the kitchen sink to scrub off my hands and hope that I hadn’t contracted some awful red cap disease. Ethan didn’t have the patience to wait for me to wash my hands in half a bottle of dish soap and so went to the bedroom. I heard the creak and crunch of breaking wood. He wasn’t one for subtlety.

  Once I was finally satisfied that I had removed all traces of the blood, I went to see if there was anything I could be doing that didn’t involve using magic. The desk drawers were in pieces. The front pieces where the locks had been were all pristine. The rest of the drawers had been reduced to chunks of pale wood. Ethan was carefully sifting through the paperwork hidden in the drawers. They had been placed in small piles, each spaced evenly apart on top of the main desk. He was a contradiction.

  “I’ve looked through these three,” he said, gesturing to the three closest to me.

  I made my way through the mess and began rifling through the paperwork furthest from him. Everything was handwritten in a script that I couldn’t quite decipher. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was even in English. It could h
ave been some form of fae. The harsh straight lines stood in contrast to the delicate loops at the bottom of the y’s and g’s.

  Nothing stood out to me as names or anything else useful. It could well have been a detailed guide on where to find the gods and what they were doing to them for all I knew. I began looking through the second pile when I came across a small emerald green notebook. Flipping it open, I found lists of names, dates, and numbers.

  Grinning, I showed it to Ethan.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said with a broad smile.

  He closed the notebook and tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  “You’re something special. You do know that, don’t you?” he asked with surprising tenderness.

  I snorted and walked around him. I’d gotten myself into enough trouble that day. I wasn’t going to throw myself into that particular trap.

  “I’m just a dumb bounty hunter who’s good at hacking people up.”

  “You know you’re more than that.”

  “I know I’m in desperate need of a good shower,” I said with a smile over my shoulder.

  He smirked at me, and sinful thoughts filled my head. I bet he had a really nice shower, and we could spend a long time cleaning each other up.

  I cleared my throat and hurried out of the apartment. My curiosity wasn’t going to kill me. Not that day.

  Ethan had dropped me off back at home, and we’d agreed to meet up at eight the following morning. His gaze lingered on me as I undid my seatbelt. There was something in the expression on his face that I couldn’t quite decipher. His eyes held a softness, but his mouth was fixed in a devilish smirk. I looked away before I did something ridiculous.

  It was Matt’s day off, and I was glad of it. He’d done far more research into magic and everything than I had. I was hoping he’d be able to tell me if the tingle from the blood meant I’d developed a plague or something. I toed off my boots when I got in the door and padded into the living room. Matt was sitting on the couch poring over a heap of second-hand books with a look of deep concentration on his face.

  I sat down next to him and glanced at the books. They weren’t the marketing textbooks I’d been expecting. Frowning, I took a closer look. They looked like they were alchemy textbooks. He’d always said that he was going to be a marketing executive and live a cushy job with a huge office. We’d agreed to stay far away from magic.

  “Dude, what’s this?” I asked.

  He jumped and immediately looked guilty.

  “Don’t kill me, but an amazing job offer came up a few days ago. I’ve been studying magic and alchemy for a few years now-”

  “What? We promised each other no magic after Dad vanished!”

  I felt betrayed. We were supposed to tell each other everything.

  “I’m sorry, Kit, but listen to me. We can live a good life. This job, if I can land it, will change everything. The pay is far better than either of us could achieve otherwise. And I really enjoy it.”

  My throat had gotten tight and my hands were curled up into fists. What else had he been hiding from me?

  Closing my eyes, I exhaled slowly.

  “This will make you happy?” I asked.

  “Yes. I know marketing is awesome, and I have really been studying marketing, too, but alchemy is incredible! I have enough innate magic within me to do it, and my cait sidhe side gives me an advantage on the more difficult death and blood stuff. That’s the areas where we can make bank. This job will put me through a full apprenticeship, then we can disappear to Scotland and have the amazing life we always dreamt of.”

  His eyes shone with pride and happiness. I couldn’t take that away from him.

  “Ok, tell me more about this job.”

  He grinned at me and pulled out the old laptop. It took a minute to boot back up, but it did it. Matt pulled up a bookmarked site that led to Black Dog Alchemy. He clicked on the available jobs tab and turned the laptop to give me a clearer view.

  “This is the best alchemy business in the fae isles. They’ve never opened up an opportunity like this, and they contacted me directly asking me to apply! I just have to pass a test next week, and then I think the apprenticeship is mine,” Matt gushed.

  There on the screen was a picture of Ethan Hale in a beautiful slate grey suit. Below it was a tag showing him to be the CEO. I knew no good could come from this.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Do you know anything about this guy?” I asked gesturing at Ethan.

  “Yea, I did a lot of digging. He’s a cu sith.” Matt put his hands up. “I know, I know, they’re dangerous, but he looks like he’s actually a good guy! Admittedly, he’s the best hunter in the fae territories, and only the Shadow Fox is a better assassin than him. But he puts money into charities that help fae mongrels like me, and this apprenticeship is specifically for people like me. How many fae can you say help those with human blood?”

  I had to admit, that did make him seem kind of nice. Although Matt was completely ignoring the part where he was an insanely good assassin. A lot of people didn’t think the Shadow Fox was real, that she was a myth, and given the hits she’d supposedly pulled off I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Ok, fine, that is a nice thing to do. What else?” I pushed.

  “He offers amazing packages for his employees, and people are dying to work for him because he’s such a good boss. He’s supposed to be a really cool guy. This isn’t the first time he’s helped people no one else will touch. I read that he has a cait sidhe in his pack that was rejected by all of fae. You know that fae who’re kicked out of their homeland are usually left to die in some god-touched backwoods somewhere.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Ethan was going to be the end of me. He was just too damn perfect.

  “Just be careful, ok? And keep up with your marketing studies in case this doesn’t work out,” I said sternly.

  He stretched languorously, a very feline gesture that showed he felt he’d won this little discussion. I let him go with it.

  “So, a weird thing happened earlier.”

  Matt turned to give me his full attention.

  “Weird how?”

  “I stuck my hand inside a red cap, which is really gross by the way. My hand was covered in his blood, and then it started tingling. Am I going to die of a horrible plague?” I asked melodramatically.

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “It tingled?”

  “Yea. It was a really weird sensation, my skin tingled and then...”

  “And then?”

  “I felt better. Is this going to be one of those cruel deaths where I become euphoric and throw myself to a pod of mermaids?”

  He laughed before he covered his mouth and looked very serious.

  “You know your mum wasn’t human, right?”

  I froze, my chest became very tight. As far as I’d been aware, mum was as human as they came.

  “Actually, no.”

  “Ah, sorry, I thought dad told you when he gave you the talk about what he is and how you have to hide your magic.”

  “What was she...?”

  Matt looked away for a moment.

  “She was a dark witch. I don’t know all of the details. I think she was tied into one of those heavy-hitting dark gods. You know one of the really, really old ones that deal in blood sacrifice and all of that. That tingling was you pulling the magic from the blood and turning it into life force for yourself.”

  I stood up and paced around the room, dragging my hand through my hair.

  “No, she was human. And why now? I’ve been covered in blood hundreds of times.”

  “You used your magic earlier, didn’t you? For something new.”

  I stopped and narrowed my eyes at him.

  “How did you know?”

  “Because when you did, you unlocked something within you, and that’s brought mum’s magic to life.”

  It wasn’t sinking in. He had to be wrong. Mum was so human. She baked pie and had the most beautiful warm
smile. She could have been on an advert for perfect human mum with her beautiful golden-blonde hair, and her incredible cooking. She never raised her voice or swore, she was always so calm and helped me learn from my mistakes instead of condemning me for them. Matt had to be wrong. He had to be.

  “Dad said she was an incredible woman. He said that she never used her magic for anything nefarious.”

  I tried to remember how close Ethan had been when that stupid blood had been on my hand. Had it been close enough for him to feel my crazy new blood magic?

  My heart hammered in my chest.

  “She did die in a mugging, right?” I asked weakly.

  Matt looked away. His face shimmered where he was considering shifting into his cat form.

  “The hounds got her,” he whispered.

  Hope blossomed within me. There was a chance I could get her and dad back. I swallowed hard and focused on that. Our little family could be complete again.

  I just had to survive my time with Ethan Hale.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Once again, someone banged on the door long before 8:30 am. I stumbled down the stairs bleary eyed with a rounders bat in my hand. It had been easier to grab than one of my daggers, and easier to use in my half-asleep state. I cautiously opened the door and found a line of men with cardboard boxes waiting for me.

  “You have the wrong address,” I said.

  “Kit MacGowan?” the red-headed pixie said to me.

  “Yes...?”

  “Then we don’t have the wrong address. Kindly let us in.”

  “They’re from Mr. Hale,” the black-haired human behind her said.