As River called her name, she ran after him, leaving me standing on the pavement in confusion.
“What did she mean by that? Everyone knows you can summon ghosts by name, it’s basic necromancy.”
Keir stepped closer to me. “Because you might want to summon the shifter?”
“Shit, of course.” Some necromancer I was. “Hope the boss can handle the others. First she has to deal with the mages’ draconian registry crap and now this. C’mon, then, let’s summon a shifter ghost. Wait, I don’t even know his name.”
“It’s Vaughn Sanderson,” Keir said. “I eavesdropped on the mages in the spirit realm.”
We ran around the corner, finding a nearby alley. I didn't bother with candles, jumping right into the spirit world. Then I shouted, “Hey! Vaughn Sanderson, I summon you.”
The air flickered, and the shifter reappeared before us, his hands covered in blood, scales creeping up his arms.
“What are you doing?” Vaughn growled. “Can’t you leave me be?”
“Not until you tell me what that stone is,” I said. “Can it be destroyed? How can it affect you after death?”
He swore, his hands shifting to claws. “The Moonbeam—it’s a piece of the Moonbeam.”
Keir grabbed his arms from behind, stopping him from lunging at me. “What the fuck is the Moonbeam?”
The shifter struggled, guttural snarls escaping. “It's too late for us,” he said. “It's too late—we’re in the Moonbeam’s thrall. Let me go before I’m forced to—kill you.”
“You won’t kill me.” My hands glowed, not with Hemlock magic but with the ghostly blue light of a necromancer. “I banish you beyond the gates of Death.”
The shifter roared, and Keir struggled to hold him still, shouting the banishing words in his ear.
“I banish you,” he growled, holding the shifter’s throat in his grip. “Dammit—Jas, it’s not working.”
“If I can’t banish him, I can at least slow him down. Heads up.” Raising my hands, I blasted the shifter with Hemlock magic, willing it to take the form of a binding spell. The shifter stiffened, his body immobilised. Even then, he continued to shift, scales covering his arms. Those stones, pieces of that Moonbeam—they forced the shifters to continue existing.
Another howl echoed through the spirit realm.
“There are more of them.” Keir released the shifter’s limp body. “We have to find this Moonbeam, whatever it is.”
My phone buzzed, jolting me back into my body. “Hey—Isabel. Where are you?”
Her voice was high, panicky. “I'm with Asher. Shifter ghosts attacked him. We’re barricaded in the shop.”
“Damn. They're attacking everywhere at once,” I said. “They stabbed Drake and someone captured Wanda—the shifter ghost I just spoke to said the enemy’s using pieces of an object called the Moonbeam. Does Asher know what that is?”
A heartbeat’s pause passed. “Yes,” Asher’s voice said into the phone. “The Moonbeam is an item of legend, which once belonged to the shifters. It went missing a long time ago.”
“And like the witch symbols—it’s being used against them.” I clenched my hands. “You’d think the mages would have known that.”
“They do,” said Isabel breathlessly into the phone. “Asher—“ A pause, while the two of them exchanged words. “Apparently some of the mages once owned the Moonbeam themselves.”
The truth sank in, far too late. “Then they knew…”
Someone on the inside was involved. Someone who worked for the mages.
Footsteps sounded, and a shadow appeared behind me. A person-shaped shadow—and not a ghost.
A witch, or someone using a shadow spell.
“Keir!” I ended the call, reaching for my magic, but too late. Neil the mage apprentice appeared, a knife in his hand, and lunged at Keir.
Keir twisted around, but not quickly enough to stop the knife sinking into his side. He staggered forwards, his mouth bleeding, a dark stain spreading across his shirt. As he crumpled to his knees, Neil swung the weapon at his neck.
“Hey!” My Hemlock magic lashed out at Neil, and blood sprayed out. Neil collapsed, the knife dropping to the floor.
I was at Keir’s side in a second. He half lay there, limp, drenched in blood. Healing magic, Evelyn. Never mind that I'd just signed my own death warrant by attacking Lord Sutherland’s son—I couldn’t let Keir die.
The wound sealed under my healing hands, glowing grey-green, but Keir’s spirit remained diminished even as his body healed. He needed to feed.
Evelyn moved before I did, her arms wrapping around Keir’s stunned-looking spirit. He stood rigid, then a blue light kicked in as he began to feed on her. I gaped at both of them, unable to believe it. My stomach twisted at the sight even though I knew full well there was no intimacy between them. Since when did Evelyn care if Keir lived or died?
I turned to the mage apprentice lying dead at my feet. No, not dead. Neil’s body was lacerated with wounds, the pavement was drenched in blood, but his eyes were open.
“My father will slaughter you, witch,” he gasped.
Lightning flashed, blasting me off my feet. He raised a hand and blasted me again, leaving my body trembling with aftershocks. His eyes gleamed, his face a mask of pain—and he pressed his hand to his mage mark. Summoning his father.
Keir rose to his feet and grabbed him around the neck, draining his spirit in the time it took to blink. Neil collapsed into a bloody heap.
“Idiot,” I gasped at Keir. “Now both of us will be in the shit when this is over.”
“I'm not letting you face them alone, Jas,” he said, his jaw tensing. “They’re close. The mages.”
“Fuck!” I threw an illusion spell over Neil’s inert body, though it wouldn’t erase his memory of the attack, and sprinted down the alley—
“Dead end,” Keir said quietly.
I skidded to a halt. We were goners.
The air trembled. Then a dark figure appeared behind us in a swirl of icy air, and the alley vanished.
In its place was an empty hotel room with plain beige walls and grey furniture. I staggered against the nearest chair, dizziness sweeping through me. I scanned the room for our rescuer and my gaze snagged on Vance—he’d used his teleporting ability to save our necks.
Problem: his arms were scaled, his hands turned to dark claws.
At my side, Keir tensed and moved into a fighting stance. Vance’s eyes, however, were clear. “Jas—are you hurt?”
I shook my head, staring at the unfamiliar beige furniture. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere safe. I’m going after Wanda.”
“Wait—do you know where she is?”
He shook his head, his claws gleaming. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. He was in his right mind—so he mustn’t have run into any of the Moonbeam fragments yet.
“Vance, the person behind this is using bits of the Moonbeam—”
“I know they are,” he said. “The mages are a lost cause, but Wanda—if we find her, we find our enemies.”
“I can track her,” I said. “But there's a chance she might not be in this realm and you won't be able to follow her. Also—Neil Sutherland tried to kill Keir and me, and I had to knock him out. Did you know the mages were compromised?”
Vance’s eyes gleamed with anger. “I suspected as much,” he said. “There was no way for me to prove it—I’m not a member of the local council and I’m treading a thin line with my own shifter abilities. I put measures in place to make sure the enemy can’t get near me, but there’s a limit, and they’ve targeted my weak spot.”
Wanda. He cared for her like a younger sister.
“Where’s Ivy?” I asked. “She can travel between realms, like me, and I could use an ally. I don’t know what I might find over there.” I was also starting to suspect that the enemy had taken Wanda deliberately to target Vance himself. He was part shifter and mage. Had they wanted him to take down the Council of Twelve? Nobody el
se on the council was vulnerable to the Moonbeam’s influence.
“I’ll call her.” Vance pulled his sleeve up, exposing a swirling mage mark of his own. “If you find the Moonbeam—or what’s left of it—bring it straight to me, Jas. I already disposed of several of the other pieces.”
“Sure, but—how is it not affecting you?”
“These marks have more than one purpose,” he said, and the symbol on his arm glowed bright green. “I’ll be one moment.”
He vanished. Keir barely had time to raise an eyebrow before he reappeared, with Ivy at his side.
Ivy looked at me. “Lead the way, Jas.”
18
Ivy and Keir both watched me expectantly. On top of Vance’s intense stare, it was fairly intimidating. Not least because Keir hadn’t acknowledged that he wouldn’t be able to follow us into the liminal space.
Ivy turned to him as though sensing my thoughts. “Can you travel between realms?” she asked Keir.
“I've never tried.”
His brother had, though. Was that why he wanted to come?
“I have no idea what's waiting on the other side,” I said. “You might get separated from your body.”
“I'll risk it.” The stubborn set of his jaw warned me not to waste time trying to persuade him.
“Keir, I saved your neck once today. Don’t make me watch you die.”
I wouldn’t say any more with the others there. Ivy moved in to speak to Vance, dropping her voice to whisper in his ear. He shook his head, once, and took her arm, pushing up the sleeve. Sure enough, she wore a mage mark of her own, identical to his.
“If they use one of those stones on Vance, the mark is set to knock him out cold and call me straight to his side,” Ivy explained, seeing me looking. “All right, let’s move.”
I sat in one of the armchairs—it didn’t matter what position I left my body in, but I’d be sore for a while if I remained standing—and plunged into the spirit realm.
It didn’t take long to locate the spirit line. Its grey gleam was visible from here, and my late-night adventures in Death had made it easy to track. I called Wanda’s face to mind, extending my consciousness in that direction, but found no trace of her.
“A little help, Evelyn?”
Her willowy form appeared at my side. “She's not here.”
“Someone is,” I said. “The enemy must be on that line—it’s the central one, and it was damaged.” Pity I couldn’t see liminal spaces from this angle. I moved right onto the line until its grey trail was below my transparent feet, and tried to feel through, the way I had when I’d entered the forest. I called Hemlock magic to my hands, but still… nothing.
“You need to be on our line to do that,” Evelyn said. “I’ve tried.”
I swore. “You’re telling me this now? How am I supposed to find Wanda, run around on foot?”
The line went transparent and for a moment, the scene changed to a field, transposed over the city.
And the transparent field was swimming with hellhounds.
“Ah,” said Ivy.
Evelyn made a sharp noise of impatience. “Ignore them.”
All the hellhounds’ eyes turned to us. I stiffened, ready to fight.
“They can't harm us,” Ivy said, though she didn’t sound certain. “Not when we’re ghosts.”
“Want to risk that?” I felt my Hemlock magic bubbling below the surface, but if I struck first, they’d swarm us.
Keir moved to my side. “My vampire abilities won't work on creatures like them. They're closer to dead than living, magically speaking.”
Ivy raised her sword. “Go,” she told the hellhounds. “Go back to Faerie or taste my blade.”
To my surprise, their eyes all snapped to her.
“I'll handle them,” said Ivy.
“How? There are a hundred of them, easily.”
She waved her sword, which glowed with blue light. Magic… the power of an Ancient. They followed the movement as though hypnotised. “Trust me, I’ve got this.”
The hellhounds were connected with her in some way? Ivy wasn't out of surprises. But we were down one ally and hadn’t even found Wanda yet.
I backed away from the spirit line. “Keir, can you grab a vessel and have a look around near the key points?”
“I can, but vessels can’t see key points.”
I made a low noise of frustration. “I suppose if we look for the Moonbeam first, we might find Wanda too. I’ll bet they must be keeping what’s left of it somewhere nobody can get at.” I’d been so certain that I’d be able to find the enemy as a ghost, but Edinburgh was riddled with places which might hide liminal spaces. Searching the city would take hours.
“The Moonbeam,” said Keir. “You know—I have heard the name before, a few years ago. I’d forgotten.”
“From your brother?” I guessed.
He inclined his head. “I wish I could remember what he said. But I do know one thing… he used to say our gifts originally came from the gods. They’re the origin of our powers.”
“Gods,” I said, staring at him. “You don’t think…?”
“Maybe that’s why they took him,” he said. “Maybe we’re like the shifters. Not direct descendants, but close enough. I mean, we can’t be affected by the Moonbeam, I don’t think, but it’s been stuck in my head for a while.”
“Fascinating,” said Evelyn, appearing at my side. “There’s only one way to get through this spirit line—call someone on the other side.”
“Evelyn, what are you talking about?”
She didn’t respond, floating forwards until she stood directly on top of the line. Her hands glowed with magic. Mine did, too. What the hell is she doing?
The glow brightened and spread through her transparent form until every inch of her glowed.
“Evelyn, I really don’t think—”
“They will notice me,” she said, and her magic ripped down the spirit line.
The vibration sent me reeling backwards, but Keir caught my hand before I went spinning off into space. Magic rippled the air, turning it silver green.
“EVELYN!”
The world faded to grey, and I blinked back into my body.
Ice cracked on my knees as I lurched to my feet from the armchair in the hotel room. Vance’s gaze immediately went to Ivy, who sat in the other armchair.
“She’s holding off the hellhounds,” I told him, my head spinning. What the hell was Evelyn thinking, making a public display like that? Was she trying to get both of us killed? “Sorry. We didn’t find Wanda, or the person pulling the strings.”
Keir jumped to his feet and ran to the window. “What the hell is happening out there?”
I hurried over. Behind him, the sky burned purple-red, vivid and sharp. ““Oh… my god.” Evelyn… what have you done?
Vance briefly glanced that way. His hands had started to gleam with black scales again. “Who is Evelyn?”
I gaped at him. I hadn’t spoken aloud, right?
“You shouted her name before you woke up,” he said. “Well?”
I closed my eyes, my body trembling. Let’s face it, if my attacking Neil wasn’t enough for a death sentence, Evelyn setting loose a hail of magic on a spirit line would be.
Opening my eyes, I faced Vance. “Evelyn is my ancestor. The Hemlocks preserved her spirit beyond death, but she has a mind of her own. I don’t know what she did to the spirit line, but she seems to think it’ll help us get to Wanda.”
Vance shifted his gaze to Ivy, then back to me. “I suppose Lady Harper knew,” he said, each word precise, deceptively calm. “I suspected that the person manipulating the mages and shifters intended to use me to bring them down, but not that you'd help them do it.”
Oh, god. “She’s not on their side, and neither am I,” I said. “She’s on the Hemlocks’—well, her own side. We’re not the enemy. The Soul Collector didn’t die by accident—we killed him. Together.”
His eyes simmered. Oh, boy.
“Look, you must know why I couldn't tell the mage council she existed,” I said quickly. “I need her magic. If we’re sentenced to death, the Hemlocks go extinct and we lose the war with the Ancients.”
“That explains Lady Harper’s fixation, then,” he said, stalking towards me. His hands were clawed, his arms scaled, and the air stirred with menace.
“If you lay a hand on her, I'll kill you first,” Keir said.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” I turned to Vance, exasperated beyond measure. “Leave Evelyn to do her thing. You can’t touch her when she’s nowhere near my body. Kill me, and both of us will haunt you to death. That clear?”
I didn’t want to leave Evelyn to do her own thing. She’d been so convinced there’d be a war that she’d made it an inevitability. Then again, so had the mages.
Vance narrowed his eyes. “If you have brought about Wanda’s death, I will see to it that you regret it for the rest of your existence. Tell me where to take you.”
I cast my mind around, thinking hard. “Isabel’s in trouble, too. Asher knew about the Moonbeam. Can you take us to the witch market?
If Wanda was on the spirit line, I’d have seen her, so the enemy must have taken her elsewhere. I’d go back for Evelyn later, one way or another, but not before I saved my friends.
Vance moved closer to Keir and me, and in an instant, the hotel room disappeared. The next second, the three of us landed the cobbled street just down from the narrow alley leading to Asher’s shop. Before I could open my mouth to speak, Vance had disappeared.
“With friends like yours, who needs enemies?” said Keir, scowling after him.
“Don't you start,” I said. “Wouldn’t you be pissed off if I got one of your friends kidnapped, even unintentionally? Besides, I never should have let Evelyn anywhere near that spirit line. I don’t even know what she did to it.”
The sky was still burning red and purple, with flashes of black like ripples of darkness against the clouds. Throughout the witch market, people gasped, staring up at the apocalyptic visual overhead.
Keir hissed in alarm and grabbed my arm, pointing at a group of figures walking jerkily through the market. “The dead. There are more of them.”
Witch's Spirit (The Hemlock Chronicles Book 3) Page 18
