Fiendish Magic Read online

  "The Goddess must like me better," I said, smiling slightly.

  "You won't make this," Rabbit said with a glare.

  I walked around the table. It was a hard shot: a bank shot. The cue ball needed to get down to the other side of the table, strike the eight ball, then send it back in the other direction. If I didn't hit it hard enough, the eight would never make it. Too hard, and it would bounce right out of the pocket like it had for Rabbit.

  With the end of the cue, I tapped the table. "Eight ball, side pocket."

  My breathing slowed as I leaned over the pool table. All of my attention focused on the white cue ball filling my vision and the black eight ball that lay beyond it. White and Black: all that there was in the world. There was no conception of using my power, even the buzz of need playing along my senses had receded to the periphery.

  I pushed the cue with a strong, quick thrust. It flew down the table, bounced off the far edge and rolled back to strike the eight ball. To me, the eight ball moved impossibly slowly. It took hours instead of mere moments for the black eight ball to reach the side pocket and fall inside with a soft clack.

  "Yes," West shouted, jumping to his feet.

  More circumspect, I settled for a small triumphant smile while Rabbit glared at us both.

  "You cheated," he wheezed.

  "Yeah, right." I slid my cue onto the rack on the wall. "Pay up."

  "I can't believe I lost a bet to a weasel and a fucking preschooler." Rabbit slumped into a chair with a grumble. West and I took the seats across from him.

  "Watch your mouth," I snapped. West may have been a weasel: always figuratively and literally about half the time, but I wasn't a child.

  Rabbit snorted and stuck a cigarette between his lips. "This thing you felt. It was big?"

  "Huge," West confirmed.

  "Big enough that we should have seen it," I added, leaning my chair back to put more distance between us. "But there was nothing out there."

  "Was it a dragon?" Excitement tinged West's voice.

  Rabbit and I shared a small moment of perfect understanding. West was an idiot. The last dragons were killed off before the Renaissance. There was a chance a few were still left in the mountains of Mongolia, but anyone who went out there looking for them never came back. Just another one of life's little mysteries.

  "No." Rabbit paused, his expression solemn.

  "Then what?" I said sharply, my patience running thin.

  When his answer came, I wished I'd waited to hear it. Whether whispered or spoken, one word had the power to level me completely.

  "Blooded."

  I instinctively pushed my chair back from the table, muscles tensed to flee, before I forced myself to calm. West had gone still next to me.

  "You're sure?" he asked.

  Rabbit took a slow drag. "Sure as death."

  He tapped the cigarette with his thumb. Ash broke from the end to float gently to the floor. I watched it fall and thought of fire. Burning, consuming fire that could lay waste to my life.

  "Why?" I forced the words out through the painful lump in my throat. I felt as fragile as glass, a single breath and I would shatter.

  "I hear they're looking for someone." His gaze rose to meet mine, boring into me with harsh intensity. "Wouldn't want to be that unlucky bastard."

  The Blooded were the boogeymen of the supernatural world, only more dangerous and far more real than any childhood nightmare. Judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one devastating package. It was because of them that magic was kept secret: reserved for those born to it and never shared with humans. Any resistance was dealt with in as final a way as possible.

  Deadly and unstoppable, they struck in the night and were away again before their target even realized they’d been dealt a killing blow. Most people had no idea who they were or what they looked like. Violating the one major law of the supernatural world — sharing magic with a human — was a sure-fire way to meet them face-to-face. That face-to-face meeting would happen in the split second before you died.

  If you had enough power to attract their attention, the Blooded sometimes acted like enforcers for the truly powerful in the magical world. Either way, you definitely did not want them coming after you because it only ever ended one way.

  And the Blooded controlled who attended the Proving Grounds, where they trained potential recruits drawn from the most powerful supernatural families in the world. I’d spent the last year trying to forget that place existed.

  I’d only seen them in action once before and that had been enough to last a lifetime. The Blooded might have been the worst thing that my world had to offer. And now they were here.

  "You don't know who it is they’re looking for?" West asked. The conversation had continued without me. I was lost to the spiraling waves of fear threatening to overtake me. The desire was like a figment, long gone and practically forgotten.

  "Wish I did. We're talking a huge force here, enough to feel from a mile away. I want to know who pissed them off that much."

  "I think I'll just stay out of the way."

  "I here you."

  But I remained my silent, my thoughts too tangled and thick for me to focus on anything else.

  Because I knew exactly who the Blooded were coming for. Me.

  Chapter Three

  Jinx

  The bouncer eyed me with neutral interest as I burst from the building, as if people racing out of there was a regular occurrence. I slowed to a brisk walk as my heart beat painfully in my chest. It wouldn't do any good to call more attention to myself. In fact, that was a good way to get myself killed.

  My bike was still parked where I'd left it. Even with the lights from Rage and the perpetual splendor of a city that never slumbered, the night seemed darker and stiller than it ever had before as if the entire world were holding its breath.

  I felt overly exposed as my gaze passed up and down the deserted street. There were no places to hide. I threw one leg over the body of the motorcycle and moved my key towards the ignition. The sooner I got away from this place the better.

  "What the hell, girl?” West jogged towards me from the direction of the club, loping like he had four legs instead of two. I considered revving the engine and squealing away, leaving him alone in a cloud of engine smoke, but I decided against it.

  My eyes narrowed as he approached. I blamed him a little, irrational as that might have been. Coercing me into coming to Rage, forcing me to face the monsters creeping in the darkness of the city, I never should have come here with him. All I’d done was delay my inevitable departure from the city. I should have run the moment I’d felt the presence of dark magic at the race.

  I was better off not knowing what waited in the dark. Then there might be some chance I could sleep at night.

  "I'm going home," I said shortly once he was in earshot.

  "I got that." He breathed hard through his nose. "What’s wrong?”

  "I don't want anything to do with the Blooded." The ridiculous level of that understatement was almost funny enough to make me laugh. "I might skip town for a while, just until it all blows over." Which was a bold-faced like, I was never coming back here.

  "You want me to make sure you get home okay?"

  I eyed him suspiciously. West didn't know where I lived and that was the way I liked it. Safety in numbers aside, I didn't trust him that much. Hell, I didn't trust anybody that much.

  "I'm good." I gunned the engine and West took an automatic step back. "We'll catch up in a few days, maybe."

  He nodded once, his face expressionless. I felt his eyes on me as I maneuvered the bike away from the curb, sliding smoothly onto the deserted street. My back tensed under his detached regard. I knew if I looked back, he'd still be standing there. Watching me.

  But let’s face it, I had a right to be paranoid.

  Wind whipped around me as the bike flew down Halsted. Chill air crept through the opening of my leather jacket and numbed my lips.

  I�
��d always loved the night, all witches do. The city fell silent and still, creatures unfamiliar with the day came out of hidden places to taste the dark. Every shadow was full of mystery and promise. But tonight those same shadows seethed and twisted. Unease tightened the muscles in my back and I leaned forward to urge the bike faster.

  I recognized magic, the smell and taste of it was as familiar as air or water. And what I'd felt during the race was the blackest sort of magic — thick with demon stink and darkness. I recognized that too, and I’d spend the rest of my life trying to avoid it.

  Abandoned store fronts and empty lots slowly made way for neat rows of townhouses and renovated Victorian walk-ups. This neighborhood was clean and vibrant. Kids played in the streets during the day and the Jewish couple who owned the deli on the corner always remembered that I took ham on rye with spicy mustard.

  It was a good place to land. I was lucky.

  The modest apartment I lived in belonged to two Sisters of the Faith. Sister Maeve and Sister Mohan were recent converts. They had worked for my family for more than a decade — though they used different names back then — before up and disappearing five years ago. My mother used to joke that they’d found religion.

  The Faith was a sect whose followers believed that magic should only be used for the aid of mankind and never for personal gain. The most devout of their order did not believe that magic should ever be used at all. That kind of thing didn’t really jibe with the rest of the supernatural world, most of them believed the exact opposite. So Followers of the Faith often lived as outcasts.

  It took me more than a month to find the Sisters and almost that long again to convince them they could trust me. I’d defected as completely as they had and I had the scars to prove it.

  Sister Maeve worked at a butcher shop during the day so she always came home smelling faintly of animal carcass and old blood. Sister Mohan cooked hearth charms on the kitchen stove to sell, boring stuff like healing poultices and luck stones. They did a decent job of keeping under the radar. Helping me was their biggest risk.

  I parked my bike next to a small utility shed in the grassy lot behind our building. When I cut the engine, silence descended. Usually the quiet was a comfort, but not tonight. Tonight the quiet was just the calm before a storm.

  I reached the door of the apartment and put my key in the lock. But I stopped before turning the knob as a hint of wrongness washed over me. I pushed the door softly, and it moved a scant distance. Neither of the Sisters would ever leave a door unlocked, whether they were home or not. Maybe for the first time, in all the time I'd known her, Sister Mohan went to the store and forgot to lock up behind her, but I sincerely doubted it.

  Taking a slow, deep breath to steady my nerves, I kicked at the door. It swung open hard enough that it slammed against the far wall with a loud bang.

  Bookcases in the living room had been overturned, spilling their contents onto the floor. The walls were dented in places as if something heavy had been thrown repeatedly against them. The upholstery on the sofa where I slept had been shredded and pieces of it littered the carpet.

  This was my worst fear confirmed. The confluence of my past and my present, spelled out in harsh relief as I surveyed the destruction of the apartment.

  In the kitchen, all the cupboards had been flung open. Broken crockery and torn cartons of food were scattered on the counters and linoleum floor. My feet crunched on pieces of spilled cereal as I walked across the small space. The door to the room that the Sisters used was closed, and I moved slowly towards it.

  Concern for them was what drove me forward. I still had time to run and never look back. But I had to know what lay on the other side of that door.

  Would I find broken bodies flung aside in a paroxysm of slumber, the sight of their contorted faces one final punishment before I joined them in death? Or was the creature that had done this still in there, lying in wait for its intended prey?

  My heart beat impossibly fast as I touched the cool metal of the doorknob. So fast that at any moment I imagined it would burst from my chest. I slowly pushed open the door, expecting the worst.

  The bedroom was deserted.

  Relief was short-lived as I surveyed the damage.

  Clothes were torn from the closet and lay in haphazard piles on the floor and bed. A window facing the alley between this building and the next was broken. Traces of red coated the remaining pieces of glass in the frame. There were no shards on the floor. Something — or someone — had gone out the window. Careful to avoid the sharp fragments in the pane, I peered out at the ground three stories below and saw only an empty alley

  Bags were missing when I checked under the bed and I breathed a sigh of relief

  The destruction in the living room and kitchen wasn't the result of a struggle. Whoever or whatever wrecked the apartment did it out of frustration at finding the place empty. The Sisters must have gotten away safely.

  I grabbed my backpack, took it into the bedroom and stuffed it with clothes and toiletries. For good measure, I dumped the contents of the spare change jar that Sister Maeve kept under the sink into the bag as well. I doubted she'd begrudge me having it.

  I locked the door out of habit on the way out before I realized how little it mattered. The Sisters knew better than to come back here. I slipped the key under the mat for the poor landlord to find and hiked my backpack up on one shoulder.

  It was time to run again.

  West was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when I burst out of the building.

  I glared at him, immediately suspicious. “What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I followed you."

  My eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?"

  “Things didn't seem right after you left the club," he said with a casual shrug. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

  I eyed him carefully, debating whether to tell him about the thrashed apartment and the missing Sisters. Months of keeping my own secrets won out over the desire to have a confidante. “I'm fine."

  He nodded at the full bag slung over my shoulder. "Leaving already?"

  "You should too. The Blooded aren't good for anybody."

  "I can handle myself." He glanced up the building. I followed his gaze to the third floor and the bedroom window of my apartment. "What about those women you live with, Sisters right?"

  My suspicions grew. I couldn't remember ever telling him about Sister Maeve and Mohan. There was a chance I'd mentioned them before in passing, but it was just as likely that I never had.

  "They're already gone," I said slowly.

  "That's good." He stuck his hands in his pockets. The slight rise in his voice made his next words a question. “You know where you're headed?"

  "I'll figure something out." I was suddenly very aware of the fact that we were standing alone on a deserted street. The world was at its most dangerous in the wee hours where the night was thick and the day hours away, when the darkness seemed endless and inescapable.

  "You need money?"

  My eyes rose in surprise. "You offering?"

  The spare change jingling at the bottom of my bag represented the bulk of my current resources.

  "Maybe I could rustle something up." West glanced nervously down the street. His furtive movements reminded me strongly of the animal he turned himself into. He spent too much time in his other form and it was starting to show. "Meet me at that place where you work in an hour. I'll have something for you.”

  I watched him walk away, his shoulders hunched against the winter wind. Indecision raged within me. Something wasn't right about him. Maybe the Blooded coming to town just had him spooked.

  Or maybe it was something else.

  I weighed my options. Money was definitely among my more immediate problems. But even if I could solve that issue, I still didn’t know where I was headed next. No place on Earth was truly safe from the Blooded, my only hope was in staying one step ahead of them.

  At this point, I was certain that
I was the one they had come to town to find. What else could explain my trashed apartment and the disappearance of the Sisters?

  Regardless, I knew if I turned down West’s offer I'd probably regret it later. It wouldn't do much good to avoid the Blooded if I starved to death in the process.

  The bell above the door jingled as I entered the restaurant.

  Big Larry was hunched over the counter, dirty apron still tied around his waist, as he tallied up the register receipts.

  He glanced up as I approached, greeting me with a grunt. "Didn't I let you go home hours ago?"

  "Just meeting someone." I slid into a bar stool across from him and let my bag fall to the floor.

  Larry grunted again and ignored me.

  I looked furtively looked around, angling so my back wasn’t to the door. The place was empty, save for a kid in a hooded sweatshirt hunched over a cup of coffee in a booth by the window.

  Nancy, a pretty single mom with two boys at home, worked the late shift. She always made a point of changing out of her uniform booty shorts and crop top before leaving. I nodded in thanks when she brought over a cup of coffee and set it down on the counter in front of me.

  "Long night?" she drawled, southern Illinois accent elongating her words. "You look like hell."

  I gave her a wan smile and took a careful sip of the hot coffee. "Pretty much sums up how I feel."

  "Something going on, honey?” Concern tightened the laugh-lines in the corners of her eyes.

  "Sort of." I glanced over at Larry, who studiously pretended like he wasn't listening to our conversation. "I need to skip town for a few days—" I paused and my fingers clenched around the coffee mug. "Family emergency. That okay, Larry?"

  "You're fired," he said, not taking off his eyes off the tiny slips of paper spread out around him.

  "Don't mind him." Nancy waved his words away with one hand. "I'll take your shifts. Lord knows I need the money."

  "Thanks, Nan," I said, gratefully. She patted my hand and moved off to check on the kid in the booth.