Shadow Realms

by M K Mancos

  Nineteen

  Malachi

  I chanced a glance at Kells and noticed she had a peculiar look on her face, caught somewhere between amusement and revulsion. The woman was a complete contradiction at every turn, and I found her completely fascinating. She’d not turned away from magic, but she hadn’t exactly been schooled as well as she might have been coming from a family as prolific in magic as my own.

  This worried me, and not for the first time.

  We were kind of in a crunch situation here, and I didn’t have time to take a nearly untrained talent through all the steps of what she needed to know to run with the big dogs. Believe me, the Convention were the biggest, baddest dogs in the junkyard.

  “You want to talk about it?” I offered, not thinking for a moment she’d share her thoughts with us.

  “I was just amusing myself with what the ID photos of beings from the shadow realms might look like.” She turned to me with laughing eyes and a sweet smile on her face. Damn, did I ever want to kiss her right then.

  Her ability to bounce back after a harrowing experience was amazing, but then magic did run in her blood.

  However, I could do a little careful instruction as we drove. “Unfortunately, I think the truck driver was a human infected by the shadow realms. It does happen. More frequently than it used to, I’m afraid.”

  “Explains a lot, though not how the truck levitated off the ground.” She gave a shrug and turned away again. Her smile was gone and that long, contemplative stare that could pierce a man returned.

  “Can’t be just a garden variety asshole for us. No sir,” Colvin complained from the back seat.

  I turned down another road that would cut back to Fox Run and come up closer to the office and farther from the farm. This worked better for dropping off Colvin, but it was a road that wound around the hills so much that it took an extra fifteen minutes to reach our destination.

  After a few minutes of silence, Kells turned to me. “Why do you think the driver was an infected human and not just an entity sent here?”

  I was really beginning to appreciate her ability to cut through the bullshit. “Well, I can’t be positive, but he sure knew how to handle a vehicle enough to drive one reasonably well and came out of thin air.”

  When she looked at me this time, it was with dawning understanding. “They used a portal. Probably a well-established one that they use to cross back and forth often.”

  “When we were driving down to the City the other day, we encountered a well in that very spot. That’s why I stopped. To check it out. It had been closed. No residual energy remained.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Not buying it. There's always residual energy. You should know that, Mr. War Mage. Even the act of closing one won’t disperse it entirely.”

  She had me there. Then why hadn’t it shown up on my sensors? And why hadn’t I listened to Colvin when he’d insisted that they were wrong?

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. Colvin stared at me. Yeah, I owed him an apology. “What do you think the odds are that there was another spell there to cloak the energy from the portal?”

  Colvin raised a brow. “You want my thoughts on it now? Or you trying to sucker me in, so you can cut me off at the knees again?”

  I blew out a breath. “Dude, I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. You were right. I was wrong. Now, moving on. I want your opinion.”

  “I think the chances are really good. It was a low-level spell though. I could barely feel it across my senses. More of an ‘I don’t want to be here’ feeling than an overt cleansing of the area.”

  I took a moment to digest what he’d said. It made perfect sense. Instead of being ham-fisted and leaving all kinds of trace energy around, the shadow realms had simply set an urge for anyone looking for the portal to simply feel the need to be ten miles down the road.

  Luckily for me, I knew where it was located. I also knew a bit of the history of that particular well. A several times great aunt, Melody, had a run-in with that very same well during the 1910s.

  "All right. We need to discover who's been manipulating it and why." Though it sounded like a pretty straight-forward quest, it was anything but.

  Kells turned to me and gave me a knowing look. "Oh, yeah. That's not a tall order. You could barely tell the thing had been tampered with."

  If sarcasm was an art form, she'd have been a Michelangelo. I let it go. What did she say that wasn't the truth? The well had been established over a hundred years ago and by the shadow realms. They had a habit of manipulating time with the ease of breathing.

  Jealous? Yes. For a war mage, manipulation of any kind was hard to manage. Years of training had gone into learning my craft. I may have been born into magic, but I wasn't a magical being—not like the shadow beings.

  Kells was right, it was a tall order.

  We dropped Colvin at the office with promises that he'd be in touch when and if Gutenberg came up with anything of note. In my heart, I knew it was a long shot, but Jane Porter needed to be recovered, even if it was to bring her to our time. I know that constituted a paradox, but the fact remained she was safer here with us than in the shadow realms.

  But first we had other fish to fry, so to speak.

  The farm was on twenty acres of rolling hills in the northwest corner of Fox Run. When my cousin, Ward, bought the place it had pretty much run to ruin. Even the land was a disaster. He'd taken years to bring the house back up to where it was livable. Unfortunately, it had sat empty for a while. Not because Gemma had abandoned it. She didn't. As far as I could tell, she'd given it to a relative before moving back to North Carolina.

  All this I'd gotten on a quick search through records via my phone. It hadn't taken long. I'd managed it when we were in the airport and Kells had gone to the restroom. If that had failed, I would have called a friend who works in the property office in Fox Run.

  Not that it would help to find the grimoire, but I felt the more information I had about who had occupied the house over the years, the better chance we had of chasing the grimoire down if it had been stashed at the farm.

  Still, it was a long shot.

  We pulled up to the farm. Ward was standing on the porch with a cup in his hand. The splash of Doran blood he had in his veins had given him impeccable timing.

  He stood with his shoulder against one of the porch columns. One hand down in his jeans pocket. He lifted the cup in a salute as I brought the car to a stop in the circular drive, right behind the big Ford pickup.

  I got out and came around to open Kells' door, but she'd already launched herself from the vehicle and started up to the porch. No grass growing under her feet.

  "Ward, this is Kells Holland. Kells, meet my cousin, Ward Fontana."

  Ward held out his hand, which Kells took. "Pleased to meet you, Kells."

  "Likewise. You won't believe how happy I am that this house belongs to someone Malachi knows. It makes it so much easier." She flashed him a smile that should have been illegal for the power alone.

  Ward wasn't immune. He curled his lip into what women liked to call a sexy smile but made me feel a bit inadequate. All right, my cousin might not be a war mage, but he was one hell of a handsome guy.

  "Come on in. I'll show you around." He waited on the porch for us to walk up the few steps and then held the door open for us.

  I'd only been out to the farm maybe twice since he'd bought the place. I'd always liked the energy of the land. Probably in no small part due to Gemma having lived here. I knew from touching the painting of Kells that her energy was good. Positive.

  We entered the foyer, and a feeling of peace and coziness entered me on a wave of rightness. I'd never envied my cousin more than in that moment.

  The closest I could come to describing the interior was man-cave-meets-sensible. The lines were clean, the colors muted and warm. Nothing fussy or sterile about the place.

  "Wow. This is really nice." I tried to take it all in as we moved through the living r
oom and into a large sunken den that held a huge television that took up one wall. The back of the house was composed entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows with a double slider built into the center.

  "I did quite a bit of work on it." He stood and put his hands on his hips and looked around as if taking in the surroundings for the first time. "I hate to say it, but it was a real shitwreck when I bought it. Had been abandon for years."

  I watched as Kells expression went from anticipation to disappointment.

  She swallowed and placed a hand to her upper chest. "Did you find any books or handwritten journals in here when you started your renovations?"

  That cocky smile returned. "No, but I did receive something odd from the lawyer when I closed on the property."

  He ushered us into a home office with a gorgeous stone fireplace. Above the mantle hung a painting of Gemma.

  Mesmerized by the realism of the portrait, I walked over to study it closer, and my heart nearly stopped. There, on the third finger of her right hand, was the symbol of the Convention of the Rose Hand.

  Twenty

  Kells

  Distracted by how still Malachi had gotten, I watched him as Ward moved over to a desk and opened a drawer.

  "What is it?" I crossed the few feet that separated us and followed his gaze to the painting of Gemma. She was really exquisite in her prime. I only wish I had remembered her better from my childhood. However, I was glad to have the memories of her as a contemporary.

  He dragged his attention from the portrait and scanned my face. "Her ring. It's from the Convention. She was a member."

  "What?" I moved closer, standing on the stone hearth and on my tiptoes. The actual design on the signet was hard to see, but I figured Malachi knew the device better than I did. Hell, I had no idea what it looked like. Unfortunately, I didn't remember Gemma wearing that ring when I was a kid. I damn sure hadn’t noticed it while we were in Jane’s rooms.

  Ward came back over, holding out an envelope yellowed with age. My name was written across the front in an elaborate scroll. Gemma's own handwriting.

  I frowned and took the envelope, then split open the top. The letter was only one page with a brass key rolled up into the folds.

  "'My dearest, Kells. If you are reading this, it means you made it back to your time safely and are on the trail of Jane's grimoires. I have saved the one you found. Use the safety deposit key at box one-twelve at Fox Run Trust. I couldn't find the original grimoire and fear it might be in the hands of the shadow realms. Please use all caution and care on your quest. All my love, Gemma.'"

  Ward frowned. "All that mystery over some old grimoires? I thought it was at least a bundle of money."

  I shook my head. It told a lot about Ward’s character that he hadn’t opened it in the interim. His instructions might have been very explicit in that regard. It was also quite telling that he didn't ask about the time travel and shadow realms mentioned. "This is more important than money."

  He cut a narrowed gaze from me back to Malachi. "This is heavy duty. I don't like the sound of it."

  I turned and put the letter and key in my jeans pocket. "Regardless, this is what it is, and I can't believe the grimoire has been hanging out in the Fox Run Trust for so long."

  Really, I had a streak of panic running through me due to the fact it had been so long. What if someone had unlocked the safety deposit box. What was to stop someone from the bank thinking the box had been abandoned and opening it in order to allow someone else to use it? Didn't a person pay rent on those things?

  Silence filled the room. I looked up at the painting of Gemma and frowned. "What are you doing with a painting of my great-grandmother anyhow? I mean, I realize she lived here, but why keep it?"

  Wade smiled and looked up at Gemma’s face, painted so faithfully in oils. Adoration filled his eyes. “Look at her. Who wouldn't want her hanging on their wall?"

  The words were said with a laugh, but deep down they rang hollow. He hid something from me, but I didn't know why. He really didn't owe me anything. He'd given me what I came for, after all.

  Still, I wanted to know his story. I’m sure he had one. Most people did, and even those who didn’t think they were interesting had tales to tell. Little tidbits of life that made the fabric of existence so much richer.

  We thanked him for his time. Malachi agreed to stop by again soon and stay for dinner. Really, we had a time schedule to keep. The bank closed at five, and it was already after four.

  We left the farm and a pinch of nostalgia hit me. I wished I knew what it looked like in the days when Gemma called it home. Why had she moved back to North Carolina? Knowing her in the past, I wanted all those questions answered, but doubted they would be unless Rallie knew, or I had occasion to run into Gemma again. Goddess forbid. I wanted no more brushes with time travel.

  The bank was on the other side of town—a good twenty minutes of winding roads and uncooperative traffic lights away. Time ticked down as we drove. I felt it pressing down on my shoulders, making me want to put my foot over the console and slam it down on Malachi’s to make him go faster. As it was, he’d already broken several traffic laws, the least of which was speeding.

  The Fox Run Trust was situated in the middle of Paper Bird Street. An odd name that made me wonder how it had gotten its name in the first place. Parking was abysmal to nonexistent, which made me wonder how they stayed in business all these years. However, there was public parking at the end of the street in the form of a large lot. Malachi pulled in and found a spot at the far side. An old-fashioned parking meter stood at the front of the space.

  We both got out and Malachi dug in his pocket. “You’d think they’d retrofit these to take cards like most of the others in the civilized world. But no. Fox Run has to hold onto its traditions with a vice-like grip.”

  I dug into my own pockets and pulled out a couple of quarters. “Here. If we’re taking a collection.”

  He gave me a smile that warmed me in places I had no right feeling at the moment. After shoving the coins into the slot and hearing them rattle to the box, he took my hand and we hurried through the lot to the sidewalk.

  We got to the bank as the teller turned the lock in the door. I sank into myself in defeat, but Malachi wasn’t so inclined.

  “Dora? We need to get into the safety deposit boxes.”

  Dora took one look at me and then Malachi and shook her head. Her eyes were dark, almost pupil-less. Vacant. The tilt of her head almost unnatural. “We’re closed. Come back tomorrow during business hours.”

  “Please. It’s important.” He didn’t seem disturbed by her appearance. Maybe that’s what she always looked like, but it struck me as very wrong. Menacing.

  “If it was important, you would have come earlier.” She snapped the words out like a crocodile taking a bite from a bird.

  I shuddered.

  This was getting us nowhere. I touched Malachi’s arm and shook my head. “We can come back first thing in the morning.”

  Hopefully the possessed bank teller wouldn’t be around.

  He let out a growl and turned away from the door. I caught the teller’s expression as we walked away. I wanted to punch her right in her shadow being face.

  “Old girlfriend?” I had to ask. Judging from our reception, I could only imagine what he’d done to piss her off.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “You could say that.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Though that wasn’t the Dora I remember.”

  “What’d you do to her?” I poked the tiger to see if he’d acknowledge what I saw or if I’d have to drag it out of him.

  He flung an arm out. “Not that!”

  So he did see it. It wasn’t just my imagination and the waning light.

  “Should you go back and try to help her. Free her?” I pressed.

  “It’s a complicated process, and I don’t have the resources at the moment. I’ll shoot a text to Astrid and let her send someone.”

  I followed him dow
n the sidewalk. Each step was slower, harder. Something was happening separate from our conversation, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Almost like the world had plunged into thick molasses. I had a hard time putting one foot in front of the other.

  The white truck from earlier rolled down the street in a near crawl.

  "Malachi?"

  "I know, sweetheart. Let's get to the car." He held out his hand, and I linked my fingers with his.

  When we touched, our magic connected in such a way I felt the power infuse all my nerve endings. Every inch of my body tingled. It also made my feet move a little faster, gave me enough speed to make it to the car before the storm hit.

  We dove into the car and closed the doors just as a barrage of insects hit the vehicle. They splattered on the windows and hit the doors, hood, and roof. They pinged and panged like the worst hailstorm I'd ever been in. But they were bugs. All shapes and sizes.

  "This is how the plagues of Egypt started, you know?" I was more than a little grossed out.

  He smiled at me even though with each dinging hit of bug on metal he cringed. "I’m going to need a ton of body work after this."

  I tried not to make a dirty innuendo out of his comment, but it was difficult. I mean, I really wanted to offer to do body work on him. Primarily, I blame that odd tingle that continued to race up and down my arm from where we'd touched. As for the insects themselves, I had no explanation, but the attack came from the shadow realms. I mean, I knew natural phenomena in the insect world happened. I've watched amazing documentaries on the lifecycles of some insects in different regions of the world. I really doubted this was one of those heavy migrations that happened every ten years or some other bullshit.

  I might be persuaded to that argument if only for the fact the bugs were all different. At least those I could see through the windshield were different. Bees, beetles, dragonflies, cicadas, wasps, others I couldn't identify.