Shadow Mage: (Witchling Wars: Luxra Echelon, Book 1)

by Shawn Knightley

  The spite that Liam had for me, a complete stranger, made me instinctively want to believe what William was saying. It wasn’t like I had any better explanations for getting attacked by… demons. Or the light coming out of my hands for that matter. But I couldn’t be convinced out of spite. I was academically minded and I needed an academic explanation. Something that took the chaos of the previous few days and turned them into something halfway logical.

  I died. I had to have died. I wasn’t in the normal world anymore. I couldn’t be.

  “Go make some tea,” William ordered him. “And be aware that I will sip it first so don’t you dare put anything in it other than tea.”

  Liam walked over to a small black statue of a snarling wolf standing on its hind legs placed onto one of the many shelves lining the room. The second he pulled it down the wood panel wall moved to the side. It was a hidden room, sealed by a secret doorway.

  The wood panels creaked and shut behind him. I was left alone with William.

  He rubbed his finger over his mouth and let out a heavy sigh, unsure of how to convince me of his sincerity.

  “Your mother and I cast a spell together to make your magic dormant,” he started. “As I said, she wanted you to have a normal life. A human life away from the witchling world and from her past mistakes. But when you died on that operating table, your magic was triggered to keep you alive. With the last beat of your heart, the only thing left running through your veins was your magic. It reacted almost immediately and shielded you from death.”

  None of it made sense. And yet, every single word of it fit into place. I remembered the blue liquid, the glow, the way it absorbed into my skin, and the shadowy beings that watched me as I died like it was some sort of theatrical performance filling them with glee.

  “Why did th-… those demons watch me die?”

  “Because you’re a witchling. They consider any witchling death a victory. It wasn’t until you recovered that they realized their mistake.”

  “That’s why they attacked me?”

  He shook his head. “No. They attacked you once they realized that you are one of the only beings on the planet that can hurt them. Demons tend to go on the offense long before there’s a clear threat. It almost always leads to the innocent being terrorized by them without knowing it. In your case, however, they know exactly what you’re capable of.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Becoming a shadow mage.”

  The wood panels opened once more. Liam came back with three mugs of steaming water with tea bags dipped into each one. He placed it on a nearby table and handed his dad a cup. William took a sip of the water and must have been pleased with the result because he didn’t sneer at the contents.

  “Thank you, Liam. Tend to the store. Kayla and I have more to discuss.”

  Liam took his cup of tea and left the same way he came with a scowl on his face.

  “Drink it,” William said, handing me the mug. “It will soothe you.”

  I took the handle of the mug, expecting it to scald me with how much steam was coming off the top. The water had to be boiling when it came out of the kettle. Only when I touched it I didn’t feel much heat coming from it at all. In fact, it barely even felt warm.

  I took a deep breath and sipped the tea. The scent of lavender and spearmint tickled my senses. It was tasty if nothing else.

  William got up from the stool and walked over to a shelf in the corner. He moved aside a few of the glowing bottles of liquid and pulled out a thick book. I could tell even from across the room that it was a photograph album. After a few seconds of flipping through it, he found the page he was looking for and handed it to me.

  I set the cup down and placed the photo album in my lap. There were several pictures of my mom in it. She was young. So young! I knew my mom had me when she was in her early twenties. Young by most people’s standards. As far as my birth father was concerned, I knew nothing about him. Only that my mom didn’t see him as worthy of being a parent and left him. The one time I got enough wine in her to talk about him all she would reveal was that he wasn’t good father material and she regretted not realizing it sooner. But that she didn’t regret having me for a second. I took that to mean maybe he abused her in some way after I was born and she had to leave. My mom might not have been particularly adventurous but she knew when to draw the line.

  I flipped the pages to see all sorts of photos. There were a few with a younger William. They both stood together with long cloaks in a circular stone room with hundreds of candles lighting the space. Another one had my mom holding a long stick like the one William and Liam had. A ball of light pierced through the tip. My mom wasn’t facing the camera. She looked away and down toward the tip of the stick with a look of longing in her eyes. As if she dreaded what was coming and a sense of doom was washing over her. She was frightened.

  I flipped another page to see a photograph of a man. He had black wavy hair grown down to his shoulders, strange colored eyes, and a strong jawline. He was a Highlander through and through. His eyes were glued to my mom as they walked down the Royal Mile with the moon high behind their backs.

  William watched me as I continued to flip through the pages. I looked at each and every photo, soaking them in and letting what he said sink deep into my mind.

  When I peered back up at him there was nothing but empathy on his face. He rested his chin on his hand, waiting for me to say something.

  “Is this man my father?” I asked him, flipping back a few pages to the one of the man walking down the Royal Mile with my mom.

  William let out a quiet laugh. “No. Good heavens no.”

  “But you know who is.”

  His laugh vanished. All he could do was give me a slight nod of his head. Somehow, I knew this was the detail he was waiting to fill in and yet dreaded to bring up.

  “My father was my mom’s mistake you mentioned,” I went on. “The consequence she was running away from.”

  He nodded and lowered his hand from his chin. His chest no longer moved. He wasn’t breathing. Questions about demons and magic were normal to this man. But a question about my dad made him clench his jaw and pause before speaking.

  “Your father’s name was Lonan Lynch.” His eyes narrowed when he spoke the name. “He was handsome by most women’s standards, charming, charismatic, and quite possibly one of the evilest scoundrels to ever set foot in this realm.”

  “You mean to say that he’s not from this world?”

  I’d often allowed myself to think in terms of heaven or hell, not that I was ever convinced of one religion or another. But the thought of other realms, other dimensions, and other worlds was something I couldn’t grasp.

  William took a sip of his tea, buying himself time to gather his thoughts. “He tricked her. He tricked all of us. His kind are good at that. They do it every day they walk among us. I tried to warn her about him. I suspected over time that something was off. Many of us did. But by that time she was already pregnant. His plan was in motion.”

  “What plan?”

  “He knew she was a witchling. She thought he was normal. A human like everyone else. Someone she could just be with and didn’t have to worry about the duties of being a shadow mage every time she saw him. But he knew from the start that she was a witchling and a shadow mage. The perfect one to…”

  He trailed off.

  I was stirring unwanted memories.

  He cleared his throat. “He wanted her to produce something that by all magical law, standards, and practice is forbidden. Something to help him and others like him to cause the greatest destruction the witchling world has ever known. To birth a child that would be half witchling and half demon.”

  I froze. And I didn’t even need whatever magic Liam used on me back at my dorm to make it happen this time around. “My father was a demon? That means I’m…”

  “Yes, Kayla. Half demon and half witchling. That’s why the demons hunted you after you woke up. You were bor
n of one of the most powerful witchlings in the British Isles. Your mother was born with a special gift. The ability to see demons. Even I can’t see them. I can sense them and I can fight them back but I can’t see them. No other witchling can. Your father somehow managed to mask what he was. He charmed your mother and pushed her away from everyone she knew. Including me. And once she realized what he was she ran. Only it was too late. She was thrown out of the Roganach-Ciar coven for having birthed a half-demon. I helped your mother suppress your magic. Then she ran so your father could never find you. The Roganach-Ciar have known you were here from the day you set foot in Scotland. They fear you. They fear what you might do. But after watching you for months I knew you weren’t a threat. A girl who spends most of her time with her nose in a book and collecting floral patterned rain boots isn’t the sort that makes one think of the daughter of evil.”

  I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? I walked straight into danger without realizing it. I already lost too much. Annette, Caitlyn, and Emily were all dead. I only recovered because of some sort of magic I didn’t even know existed. The weight of it all pressed on me with ungodly strength, pushing into my shoulders and making me want to sink into the bed. Guilt swept over me. I shouldn’t have survived. If what William said was true, if I was the daughter of someone so awful, then I wasn’t the one who should have survived that crash.

  I squeezed my eyes shut when the sting of hot tears pushed through the corners with a harsh sting. “I want to go home,” I whispered. “I don’t want to be here anymore. If they fear me so much then just let me go home.”

  William wanted to comfort me. I saw him reach a hand forward only to pull it back. He was a man of respect, quiet manners, and gentlemanly restraint. “I don’t think the coven in Dallas will have you.”

  My head shot up. “There’s a coven in Dallas?”

  “I contacted the coven master of the leading witchling coven in Dallas once I learned where your mother had settled. They’ve kept tabs on your mother and you from the first day she arrived in Dallas. I told the coven master that there was a spell over Brigit’s daughter to keep her magic dormant and asked if he would help renew it every few years. Given your mother asked me to erase her memories she was no longer up to the task of making sure the spell was working. But now that you’re magic has resurfaced they’ll know what you are right away. They won’t protect you. No coven will. Witchlings have spent far too many centuries fighting off demons to hide much less protect the spawn of one.” He caught his poor choice of words and flinched. “Forgive me,” he said. “I don’t see you that way. I know you’re only a young woman in an impossible situation. A spider’s web of wicked intentions meant to trap you here where you could never leave.”

  A lump formed at the back of my throat. “What do you mean I can never leave?”

  “Exactly what I said, Kayla. Your magic is more potent here in Scotland. The place of your birth. The demons will chase you where ever you go. You stand the best chance of surviving their attacks by staying here and learning how to cope.”

  I shook my head. I was right from the start. Maybe this was a kidnapping. He wasn’t going to let me leave.

  My mind went over his words. He was exceedingly careful about the way he said things. It was as if he was trying to tame a wild animal that might bite him if he didn’t use the right method. One thing stood out above all the rest. He called my situation a spider’s web of wicked intentions. A trap. Someone wanted me to stay here. He was waiting to see if I would pick up on his meaning.

  “You think someone did this to me on purpose, don’t you?”

  He tucked in his bottom lip.

  “That’s not possible.” My fingers gripped onto the white cotton sheets of the small bed. “I was in the car. I saw the accident. It was exactly that. An accident. There’s no way any of that happened on purpose.”

  “Many witchlings have been killed in situations that were made to look like accidents.” His voice was tentative. He knew that if he didn’t treat me with kid gloves that I wouldn’t hear him. “You were not raised among witchlings, Kayla. You wouldn’t even know what to look for if the car wreck was intentional. I do.”

  He leaned into the back of his chair. He had given me too much to handle all at once. I didn’t want to hear anymore. If what he said was true, it meant that Annette, Caitlyn, and Emily were murdered. All to get to me. The guilt of surviving was already weighing down on me like a lead weight that would always be permanently attached to my shoulders. A dark cloud that would haunt me for the rest of my days. And now I had to carry the weight of knowing that someone was willing to slaughter three young women just to get to me.

  “We don’t have to discuss any more right now.” William got up from his chair and went over to a table in the far corner. There was a stack of my clothes neatly folded in his hands with my wallet sitting on top. “Liam brought this along. Take some time to get bathed, drink your tea, change your clothes, and come out when you’re ready.” He eyed the small wolf statue that I saw Liam pull down to make the hidden doorway open. “I’ll make you something to eat. We can take things as slowly as you wish. But know that we might have a limited amount of time to work with. I don’t want to rush you into anything but I also don’t want you to treat the situation as though we have unlimited time to burn.”

  “Before what?” I asked.

  “Before whoever caused the car wreck comes looking for you.”

  8

  I leaned against the white tile of William’s shower, scrubbing the blood off my body and hair with my fingernails. Some of it stuck on my skin as if it wanted to create a permanent home on my flesh. I dug into my arms, my legs, and my scalp until my skin was beet red.

  ‘One breath at a time. Just take one breath at a time.’

  My heart was racing inside my chest. I felt it beating, compelling me to believe that this was real and I hadn’t disappeared into another dimension. Or worse, a space where I couldn’t tell the difference between the real world and hell. Because that was what it felt like. Hell.

  The air in the bathroom became so steamy that I could feel it working inside my lungs, opening up my pores, and encouraging me to enjoy the small moment of privacy. I huddled down on the shower floor and enjoyed the feel of the shower head raining down an endless parade of warm water at my back. The air quickly went from comfortable to so thick that I couldn’t breathe. I had the water turned up as high as it would go and it still felt like it was barely lukewarm.

  I reached for the latch on the bottom of the white window sill above my head and let the cool brush of Scottish air waft inside. The steam from the bathroom rolled out as if it had been begging for an escape hatch.

  I cocked my head at the window and grabbed a hold of the sill to peek outside. I was one story above a small backyard space. A little gate led to a courtyard that went to a lane around back.

  I reached down to the faucet and turned the water off and grabbed the towel William laid out for me by the bathroom sink. If this was indeed a kidnapping, he was doing a bad job.

  Within minutes my body was dried and I had my hair to a point where it at least wasn’t dripping on the floor. I couldn’t strive for perfection. I only needed a way out.

  I listened through the door. I could hear William messing around in the nearby kitchen. From the smell of it, he was cooking some kind of chicken dish. As tempting as the meal was, his words played over and over again in my head. He said I couldn’t leave, that my future would forever be in Scotland, and the demonic shadows would pursue me wherever I went.

  Maybe some of it was true but I wouldn’t settle for being told I was a prisoner in a country not my own. I couldn’t. My mission hadn’t changed since the moment I heard Fiona’s voice on the phone. I needed to get home. To escape whatever hell this was. I would find a way to deal with the shadows. I had to. Because there was no way I was staying.

  I finished getting dressed, stuffed my wallet into my back pocket, and waited until W
illiam was back to cooking. When I heard the pan sizzle through the thick door, I made my move. I stepped into the shower once more and opened the window so I could fit through it. I sat on the window sill, peering down at the ground beneath me. It wasn’t impossibly high. But high enough that I would snap an ankle if I came down at the wrong angle.

  ‘No! This is stupid! I can’t do this. I can’t launch myself out of a window.’

  The car. It hit me in the hospital parking lot and the light coming out of my hands saved me.

  I brought my hands forward and faced my palms down. Nothing happened. I gave them a little shake. Still nothing.

  It was now or never. I had to make a decision.

  I rolled the sleeves of my light jacket up my arm. The air was still hot and humid from the shower. And the usually brisk air outside didn’t even feel cold. My eyes fell on the tattoo on my forearm. It was my silent oath that I would be braver. That I could do things that no one thought I wasn’t capable of.

  I pushed my body forward before I could give it another thought. If what was going on had even an ounce of truth, I had to warn my sister. If I was a witchling, my mom’s blood ran through her veins too. She needed to know. And I needed to go home.

  The same cobalt blue light radiated out of my hands, glowing with impossible brightness that made me squint. I lost sight of the cobblestones below me. Apparently, I didn’t need to see them. My feet touched the ground as if I had been gently guided down by an angel taking me under his wings and softly lowering me to safety.

  I stared back up at the window sill.

  Either William was telling the truth about everything or I was having some sort of psychotic break. I ran to the back gate and thrust it open. The street was abandoned. It must have been early in the morning. I ran several blocks before slowing down. And when I finally did a black car appeared in the distance at the corner of the lane. It was a cab. I raised my hand and hailed him to come over. He stopped within inches of my feet and lowered his windshield.