Warrior of Fire

by Shona Husk

  Emily swallowed. Witches that made love potions and sold tarot cards. Who healed the injured. It would be easier if they were actually evil. “Should we not be focusing on the Albanex?”

  “We are. If there are no Albah, then there will be no Albanex.” Her mother repeated what Emily had been told all her life. This time she didn’t believe it as much as she should.

  But did they deserve to die just because of something they could become?

  All she’d ever wanted was to make her mother proud, to follow in her footsteps and become a Guardian, keeping the world safe from the white death that was the Albah.

  She knew the tales. The stories of when they had spread across Europe. Their Albanex killing. The breeding with the humans to make more blond-haired babies. More Albah. If the women could hold fire in their hands, it was no wonder people had either worshipped them or feared them or hunted them to try to control that power for themselves.

  “One week, Emily. Then two more Guardians will arrive to complete the cleanup of the area. Don’t let me down.”

  Her mother didn’t think she’d be successful. Was her mother ever going to see her as anything but a soft-hearted failure?

  “I won’t.” She’d make a kill. The phone line went dead.

  She’d make Julian realize what a mistake he’d made by letting her go. Maybe it was time that the Guardians took control and held the valuable men hostage. Maybe then the Albah would obey. They wouldn’t want their precious bloodlines to die out. The Guardians could be in control and use the Albah magic against them.

  Emily poured the contents of the bag onto the table.

  A small pink candle, some sweet-smelling herbs, and a sheet of instructions. None of it seemed groundbreaking or warranting death. A couple hundred years ago it would have been enough for an interrogation by the church. If the spell was provided by someone with blond hair, the Guardians didn’t bother asking questions. If it was provided by a dark-haired woman, the Guardians didn’t waste their time.

  She read through the instructions. Leira’s warning about repercussions in her mind.

  Did she want him when he didn’t want her?

  Why did she want him at all? He was a simple mark. That first night they’d met she’d been watching him for days. They’d had drinks and gone back to his place. She should have killed him then, but by that stage she’d learned he was a doctor and had family.

  One week into their relationship and she’d been trying to find reasons not to do it.

  Maybe she was soft and unfit to be a Guardian. Her mother had always said she was too kind. It had taken her a long time to get to initiation level. Hunting and killing the deer to be accepted had been awful.

  As her mother’s only daughter, becoming a Guardian had always been assumed. What if it wasn’t what she wanted? What would she do with her life if she wasn’t hunting down and killing people who could hold fire? She didn’t know.

  What she did know was that if she didn’t do something within the week, another two Guardians would be on their way to clean up the mess and she would never become a full member. Her mother would be disappointed. Emily drew in a breath. Once she was a full member she’d learn the truth about the Albah.

  Not all of them were doctors like Julian, or cops like his father. Maybe his father was crooked. If they all had magic why weren’t they using it to become powerful and take over the world the way she’d heard they would if their numbers weren’t kept down?

  Maybe Leira was on her way to being undead and that’s why she could hold fire.

  Yeah… Whatever Leira was, she was dangerous. No one should be able to hold fire, and Leira was the reason Julian had moved on.

  Maybe she didn’t want him back, but she certainly didn’t want Leira to have him either. She’d make him hers, then break his heart and see how he liked it.

  That sounded like a plan.

  A kill, her place in the Guardians, and revenge on Julian for making her waste all those months thinking she’d be able to get closer to him and get his father and brother in one hit.

  A love spell wasn’t what she needed. Not really.

  She read the instructions again.

  She was supposed to keep an open mind and ask for her perfect love, not go into the spell with a name. As Leira had said, that messed with free will.

  Free will? Where was hers?

  She’d enjoyed her time with Julian even though she’d known she was supposed to hate him. Perhaps he’d been her rebellion. Her mother thought she’d been with him for the job. Toward the end she’d just wanted to be with him… And he hadn’t given a damn.

  He’d be hers until she was ready to release him, and then he’d be standing in the wreckage of his life. Leira would be dead and Emily would find a way to get to his brother and father. She’d take away everything he loved.

  She made a circle of salt on the linoleum in the kitchen and engraved his name on the candle. She was supposed to write love, but whatever.

  There were no words to say, but she was supposed to toss a pinch of the herbs into the flame and then meditate on what her perfect love would be like.

  She had no idea what her perfect love would be like. Aside from a boyfriend in high school, Julian was the only other person she’d been with. Her mother hadn’t been big on boyfriends. Had called them a distraction. She’d only been with Emily’s father long enough to get pregnant.

  The six women who had been in her branch of the Guardians had been her family. She knew there were male Guardians but they didn’t exactly mingle.

  Her perfect love…

  She threw another pinch of herbs on the flame. The scent was sweet like cookies.

  She didn’t need to picture a perfect love; all she needed to do was think about Julian and the good times they had. Anything else was irrelevant.

  She cracked open her eyes to glance at the spell. How long was she supposed to sit here for? She was bored already.

  This was such a dumb idea.

  * * * *

  Julian walked into the Silvered Moon, dreading getting the reading. He was happy not knowing if Emily would be successful or not, but his father would want to know so he could change what was going to happen. He didn’t see how knowing would change what they were going to do. They were going to find a way to have her arrested. His father locked the door behind him. There was only Leira, Quinn, and him in the shop. “No Saba?”

  “I don’t think Emily knows about her, so just in case she pays us a visit…” Leira shrugged. “I heard about your place. That sucks.”

  “Everything was insured, but it’s still inconvenient.” He had no idea where he was going to stay. Another hotel? Certainly not with his father, which is what Emily wanted.

  She nodded. “There’s empty rooms at my place, Mum’s place.”

  “Thanks.” He didn’t know if he wanted to do that either. Drawing Emily to where Leira lived didn’t seem like a great idea. “My apartment was warded and she still did that.”

  “Warded against theft and she didn’t steal anything. It’s harder to ward an apartment. Lots of people use the corridor and you don’t want to accidentally knock someone out just because they got too close to your door,” his father said.

  All reasons his father had wanted him to buy a house, not a flat, but Julian had liked the convenience of an apartment. He could lock and leave, and there was no garden. It was easy. “It’s not like I anticipated having a Guardian on my ass.”

  Leira lifted an eyebrow. “Or in your bed.”

  He grimaced, but deserved it. “I should be glad that she didn’t do me in months ago.”

  “It would be nice to know why and what her endgame is.” Quinn sat behind the counter.

  “Next time I see her, I’ll be sure to ask.” He could just imagine that conversation. “Though if she was just gathering information about who lived here, why start the threats?”

  “Because you moved on before she was rea
dy. She was really pissed off with me, as though I had lured you away. Right before she took the love spell.” Leira pointed at the shelf of spells. “I think she really liked you.”

  That was the kind of passion he could do without. “I’ve never had an ex set fire to my place before.”

  His father laughed. “If you had, I’d be questioning the kind of women you were dating.” He turned to Leira. “If Emily does the spell with Jules in mind, what will be the likely effects and will he know?”

  Leira pressed her lips together. She made up the spells. Putting candles and herbs in a bag wasn’t beyond her skill level, but magic like that wasn’t exact. Magic to some degree was about intent. When done by humans, intent was all they had. How well would Emily be able to focus to get what she wanted? She’d dated Julian for four months to get information so probably quite well. “There might be a pull toward her. There might be nothing. You aren’t suddenly going to want to buy rings.”

  “So I should know if she’s done it?” He didn’t think he’d felt anything. Not yet anyway.

  “If she does do it, maybe we can use it to our advantage. She’ll think she has you in hand.” His father was looking altogether too thoughtful.

  “I don’t really want to get cozy with a Guardian.” Emily was dangerous. She’d set his apartment on fire and that was not the act of a rational person, or the act of a jealous ex. Ranty drunk phone calls or snarky texts were different. Not that he’d ever had many of them. He’d always been the one getting ditched, usually because he was at work too much and not spending enough time or money on them. He’d thought it would be easier to be the one doing the dumping. He was wrong.

  “Let’s just do the reading.” Leira pulled open the curtain to reveal a table and two chairs.

  “I have nothing of hers.” That had all been in his apartment. Coming here was a waste of time.

  “But if she does the spell, you will have the opportunity to get something,” his father said as though it had been agreed that Julian would play along with the spell.

  “Or she could knife me.” He’d seen too many knife wounds in emergency in Sydney. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end.

  “More likely to be an iron file to the throat or filings in your food. I did some digging into the female Guardians. Did you know that sometimes they’d marry an Albah and then kill him and act like the distraught widow? Back then no one believed a woman could be so brutal. Of course once they’d married in, they had access to the rest of the family.” She gave a small smile. “Sorry, it’s really interesting the way they worked so differently to the men. There really isn’t much about them. Even in our records. For a long time even we didn’t think Guardians could be women. We assumed that it was a boys’ club like everything was back then.”

  “If that is what she was planning, it makes more sense. And is deeply chilling.” He was never going to date another human again. “I can understand why the Albah stuck together for so long.”

  His father shook his head. “Staying together made it easier for them to hunt us.”

  “Splitting up made us vulnerable. We don’t have all four elements, and now some are dying out because we have become so spread out,” Leira said.

  For a woman who didn’t have a handle on her own magic, she knew a lot. She knew more about Albah history than he did. More about magic in general even if she couldn’t use it. He knew enough to get by, bits from his father and bits from his mother’s diary. At some point, he planned to travel to Spain to meet up with some male fire users who lived there.

  After this thing with Emily was done, a holiday was looking good.

  He glanced at Leira. He was willing to bet—which he never did—that she’d jump at the chance to meet other fire users. Instead of pretending he had no magic, they could explore it together. If someone had handed him two plane tickets right then, he’d have held one out to her and said, “Let’s go.”

  Instead he walked toward the little room. “Try not to eavesdrop, Dad.”

  “Saba soundproofed it with magic. I won’t be able to hear anything. You’ll be able to hear me, though, if we come under attack.”

  Julian paused. “You aren’t expecting one?”

  “I don’t think so. There are uniforms looking for her in relation to the shoplifting, the breaking and entering, and now the arson. If I were her, I’d be lying real low.”

  “If she’s a Guardian, she knows that. They’ve been getting away with killing us for centuries while the authorities look the other way.” Leira gave Quinn a pointed look.

  “And we have to make the reports instead of shunning human intervention. Humans aren’t the enemy.” Quinn’s phone buzzed. “Get on with it. I have better things to do than babysit you two tonight.”

  Julian looked at Leira. It was clear that neither of them was going to tell him to leave. She let the curtain fall.

  He glanced around the small room. “So it’s really soundproof?”

  “Yep. Air magic can be handy.” She indicated for him to sit.

  He didn’t take the seat, not yet. “I reversed Dad’s car into the mailbox when I was seventeen and said someone must have hit me while the car was parked at the cinema.” He paused and waited for his father to say something. Then he smiled. It really was soundproof.

  “And now I know one of your secrets.” She grinned. “Sit, so I can find out some more.”

  “You’ve been looking forward to this.” This time he sat. The table was between them. To one side was a silver bowl with a black cloth draped over it. There were three decks of cards, some candles, and a lighter.

  “Yep, all day. I didn’t expect your appearance to be quite so dramatic, though. Is your life always this exciting?”

  “No, fortunately. You could just ask if you wanted to know things about me.” The way most people talked to each other as they got to know each other and see if they shared any interests. He already knew they had things in common. They shared an element that was rare among the Albah, for one. That was a similarity that few could claim.

  “Would you have told me?” She was watching him now, her gaze becoming more silvery as she drew up magic. The circle closed around them.

  “Would you tell me what I want to know? It’s not all magic you have problems with. Why?” She’d just pulled up a circle as easily as breathing.

  Leira shrugged. “I don’t know. I can do this stuff easy. But the fire… It scares me.”

  He knew how terrifying fire could be, but ever since that day he’d also known that he could control it and that it couldn’t hurt him. He’d worked hard to get good enough to be able to help people. He was able to speed their healing. Not enough to draw attention to the magic, but enough that it made a difference to their recovery. Those dicey cases where survival odds were low were where he could make a difference and improve the outcome.

  “But this is your reading, not mine.” She smiled, but it was tight around the edges.

  “What was in yours, the bit I was in?” He needed to know. It was becoming all too easy to see himself spending more time with her.

  She stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “I saw an Albah man on a train. That was how we were supposed to meet. From there you can guess the rest.”

  “And now it’s gone because we didn’t meet on a train.”

  “Yeah. But here you are anyway, so let’s see what you get. I can’t believe you haven’t done this before. I’m your first.” She put a candle in the center of the table and glanced at him. “I’ll be gentle, promise.”

  Was she teasing him deliberately, or was she like this with everyone? He nodded carefully. “You’re the first to pry into my future.”

  Was she in his the way he had been in hers? How much had his future changed if he was no longer in her future? It was starting to make his head hurt. It was a little weird knowing that they could’ve been together. Weirder still to know that even though he could reach out and touch her hand, or lea
n over and kiss her, that he was no longer in her future.

  She focused on the candle and it lit, then swelled to a decent sized ball, the blue center expanding. Her lips parted as she concentrated.

  “What do I need to do?” Was his presence enough?

  “A drop of blood in the flame, please,” she said as though asking him to pass the salt.

  “Um, you don’t ask the humans for blood, do you?”

  “No, that would freak them out. But we know better. It makes the reading more accurate. Don’t worry, the bond will fade in time.” She used the little blade on the table to stab her finger and let her blood fall into the flame. It brightened and swelled.

  Julian reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocketknife. He kept it on him just in case he needed to work stronger magic, magic that required a blood sacrifice. He pricked his finger and let the drop land on the ball of flame. It sizzled on the surface, then was gone, absorbed into the spell. He drew in a breath as something snapped between them. The bond that was made with blood magic. Three uses made an unbreakable bond. For a while he’d be able to sense when she was near and she’d be able to scry for him as easily as though doing a reading for herself.

  Would she?

  He didn’t know.

  Leira reached a hand over the table and he placed his on top, his heart beating hard. Her fingers curled around his. Two of her nails were painted red the other one he could see was gold. She’d been painting them during the meeting. All three were chipped at the edges.

  She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Just breathe. Watch the flame. You might be able to see something.”

  Chapter 10

  His skin was warm against hers and the nerves that had been making her stomach bounce became more aggressive. This was easy. She could do this. She’d done it for Saba and herself many times while learning. Their blood would make it easier, and more personal. Leira tried to keep her breathing even and hoped that her palm wasn’t getting sweaty. That would be bad. Hopefully he wouldn’t get sweaty hands either.