Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  I shuddered and recoiled.

  The rod whacked my shoulder with such force, my knees quivered. Jolting twinges shot through me. An involuntary cry fell from my mouth. Everything happened too fast for my brain to make sense of it. I stumbled and hit the brick wall with my back. Between the slashing rain and darkness, my vision strained.

  Footfalls to my right. I swung away, but the crack of the pole, or whatever the hell they used, struck me across the shoulder blades. I arched and grimaced, clenching my muscles, riding out the torture. Dread curled in my chest as I became convinced I’d die out here beaten to death by a stranger and I wouldn’t know why. No one would help… The motto in Amber City was never to poke your nose in anyone’s problem.

  I scrambled to my feet as a second figure emerged from around the corner ahead. Dressed in black from head to toe, he carried the same damn weapon. I rubbed my eyes, finding the other attacker also in black feet away. Who the fuck were these guys and what did they want? Scarlets didn’t do ninja gear; they were flamboyant and in your face.

  The assailant twirled his staff, gliding it from one hand to the next, and with a flourish, he jutted one end at me.

  I leaped sideways, inches from being speared.

  The only people I’d seen wear such outfits and brandish these weapons were bojutsu teachers and trainees at Little J’s.

  “Okay,” I said, “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m no one important. You must have the wrong person.” My wavering voice did zilch to aid my case. I reached into my pocket, my fingertips running across the smooth surface of the three marbles. Their electric charge sparked at my touch. Each was made of a different material. I closed my hand around the coldest one—metal.

  A ninja lunged. I threw myself sideways, in between two cars. Pain exploded on my back. I screamed. Twinges ripped through me. I tightened my hold on the metallic ball, calling for its power. At once, the crackle of energy slithered up my arm, icy cold, then coated my skin. I took on a faint silvery hue, and while I lost none of my flexibility, my exterior was impenetrable.

  With the sphere back in my pocket, I faced the two asswipes. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  The moment the tall ninja thrust his stick into my stomach, the wood hit resistance and bowed. I didn’t feel the pain. Instead of breaking, the rod straightened in a sudden pop, driving the attacker backward.

  “My turn.” I charged for the dickhead on my left. He swung his weapon in a dizzying barrage of attacks, hitting my head, arms, legs. The dull thump resonated through the night, but it only pissed me off more. I reached for it but missed each time. I had ten minutes to kick their butts and uncover what the hell they wanted before my metallic energy waned.

  I blocked another strike with my hand, catching the wood, and yanked it out of his hold. I now gripped the four-foot weapon with two hands as if it were a wooden sword. I delivered blow after blow against the ninja’s body, driving whoever it was toward the fence. “Who the fuck are you?” I yelled.

  I glanced back at the second asshole creeping closer. “Don’t worry, you’ll be next.” I pummeled the pole against the assailant in front of me, never stopping. Once he crouched, shaking, unmoving, I spun toward the other and charged. Both ninjas were on the ground. I approached the closest and grabbed his mask.

  In that same moment, someone crashed into my side with such force, I lurched off my feet and hit the ground hard. Suddenly, a needle jabbed into the side of my neck. My metal shield only worked on fast attacks of force, not on a subtle injection. Did the attacker know my weak point, or was it pure coincidence?

  Heaviness pressed onto me, and panic dug its claws in my chest. My vision blurred and my thoughts danced. What had they injected into me?

  My arms were wrenched behind my back and tied. I kicked and bucked, screaming, figuring someone might help. But no one even turned on the light in their apartment. If someone called the cops, they would take too long to arrive—if they did at all.

  Someone pinned down my legs and bound them together. Then, I was heaved to my feet by my arm and I swore it would pop out of its socket. One ninja slapped tape across my mouth.

  Not a word from the faceless dickheads in masks. The large guy picked me up by the waist, threw me over this shoulder, and hurried down the driveway. The world wavered, and my eyes fluttered. Next thing I knew, I was tossed into the rear of a van, hitting the steel inside with a thud. The doors snapped shut. The rain drumming on the roof deafened me, adding to the suffocating feeling consuming me.

  My eyes rolled upward, and I couldn’t hold on as darkness took over. Was this how Dash had died?

  Chapter 8

  A sickly sweet aroma filled my nostrils, teasing my throat, when a deluge of memories steamrolled through me. Attacking ninjas had jabbed me in the neck with an injection. And with it came the overwhelming sensation of being suffocated. My mind filled with images of me buried alive. I snapped my eyes open to see a white ceiling with a layered chandelier dripping in crystals.

  Moving proved a mistake. Every inch of me groaned in pain, and my head rocked with a monster headache. I scrambled to my feet, my pulse a river, my gaze swinging left and right. Where the fuck was I?

  Windows lined two sides of an office, the lights giving them a mirror effect at night. Several feet away sat a man behind an oak desk. I knew I’d seen him before, yet making sense of my fogged brain was like wading through sinking sand.

  His hands linked behind his head, and he studied me. His short and manicured deep mahogany hair was parted on one side and slicked flat. Wide eyes set below thick brows, a narrow nose, and a pointy chin. He had to be in his early thirties, tops, with a chiseled jaw. Not to me. I preferred my guys rugged, not pampered.

  “Fucking asshole, you kidnapped me.”

  On the wall behind him, a museum of knives, swords, and daggers sat on tiny mantles.

  “How are you feeling, Robyn?” His brandy words washed over me as if they were fresh rain, unknotting my muscles, erasing my aches. I didn’t know how he was doing it, but I welcomed the calm clearing my head.

  “Mayor Lash Wright?” The mayor of Amber City. “What’s going on?”

  He laughed, the sound piercing as if a pipe had sprung a leak and it drenched the room. “Girl, this is my office, and I arranged for you to visit me,” he explained smoothly.

  “You had those assholes beat me up and snatch me in the middle of the night?”

  He cocked his head, his shaped eyebrows arching. “Call it an impromptu meeting.”

  “Whatever happened to an old-fashioned phone call and asking me? And what the fuck did they inject in me?” I clutched the side of my neck, which hurt to touch, and paced in front of his desk. Fire charged through my veins.

  “What the hell is going on?” I never thought much of the mayor of Amber. Two years ago, the guy had appeared in politics out of the blue. He bought his way into office, and suddenly, he was running the show. Yet no one seemed to question him, where his money came from, what his credentials were.

  Lash lifted a glass, half-full with a honey liquid, swirling what looked like rum, then gulped it down in one go. He got to his feet and slammed the glass on the desk. Tall, at least six-foot-one. While he wasn’t a built guy, he stood with authority, his shoulders squared in his charcoal shirt tucked into tailored pants. His gold cufflinks glinted from the light.

  “Semantics. What matters is that you’re here.”

  I gritted my teeth. None of this made sense. “What for?” Across the room was the only door—my exit, yet I couldn’t move, not until I discovered what was going on.

  “Take a seat, you’ll feel better,” he said with a toothy grin.

  My body moved of its own accord, and by the time I sat down, I couldn’t remember what I’d been thinking.

  “Now, Robyn. Lukas Balen tells me you do some freelancing work for the local precinct. And I need your help.”

  I didn’t appreciate the police chief pimping my services.
Regardless, considering the manner with which the mayor had dragged me in here, he could go fuck himself. “Who exactly do you think you are to kidnap me and ask for my h—”

  He cut me off with a curt wave of his hand. “I’ve got a small project for you.”

  “Well, here’s the thing. Being a mayor doesn’t mean everyone will bend over for you. I’m sure you’ve got a band of followers who suck up your ass, but that ain’t me.” I stood, eying the door, then remembered Dante’s words about the mayor making the call to tear down the Lower Corner for a shopping complex. I stepped close, hands clenched.

  “Sit!” His voice boomed.

  What was I doing again? My body listened to the mayor, and I plonked back down on the sofa. Why did it seem as if the room spun around me? Each thought drifted miles away, and I couldn’t quite remember anything. What was happening to me? My name was Robyn, and I pictured my home, where I worked, Ryker, Dante, the kidnapped kids. Yet in that moment, my brain clogged up.

  “Now, listen to me carefully, little bird.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants. His shiny black shoes hit the floorboard hard with each step toward the window. “The chief told me you saw things in the visions you had.”

  “Actually, that’s not—”

  “Don’t speak until I’m finished. Just sit there.”

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Ice locked in my stomach. I gripped my throat, unleashing a scream, but nothing came. When I pushed myself up, I kept falling down as if an invisible hand shoved me. Dread crushed my lungs. What was happening? Was I having a stroke?

  The mayor passed by the sofa, thumbing a beaded bracelet on his wrist between his fingers. The more I watched his movement, the calmer I grew. “I was told you received a vision that the Hood was involved in a recent case.”

  When he said the word ‘Hood’, the earlier invisible blanket tightened around my chest, strangling me. I gasped for oxygen, clawing at my neck.

  “Isn’t that right?” he asked, louder.

  At once, my air pipes opened, and I filled my lungs. I nodded, then stopped myself. What was wrong with me? Was it the drugs they’d given me, or how hard had I hit my head?

  Lash crouched in front of me, the few lines beneath his eyes deepening. A thin mustache highlighted his frown. “The chief explained that you often receive small snippets of insights days after the event.” His soothing voice softened over my shoulders, caressed my insides to where I lost myself. I could sit there and listen to him speak all day. I floated on air, and every other thought left my mind. Only what Lush said mattered.

  “I want you to come and see me,” he continued. “The moment you sight anything on the Hood in your vision. Who they are, their whereabouts. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I croaked, nodding, staring into deep eyes, waiting for him to smile, to tell me I’d done an incredible job. It was crucial he understood I’d complete my mission at any cost.

  “Good, good.” He patted my knee, and at once, adrenaline coursed through me. Wait, I know the Hood and could lead the mayor to them right now. Eager to get his acceptance, to have him stare at me with that approving look in his eyes that told me everything would be all right, to make him proud of me.

  “I know—”

  A sudden explosion detonated outside, and the floor shook beneath me.

  The mayor shot to his feet and ran to the window, me alongside him. An inferno of flames engulfed a massive warehouse blocks away, fire licking upward, reaching for the heavens. The wind tugged on the black smoke, twirling it toward the center of the city.

  “Fuck!” he yelled.

  What was going on?

  The door behind us slapped open and several bodyguards, beefy and in suits, ran inside. “Sir, we need to evacuate you as a precaution,” a male guard said.

  My head spun with confusion, still drifting in a fog. Most important was pleasing the mayor, needing to tell him about the Hood.

  He grabbed my arm and wrenched me across the office, then faced me, his rum breath all over me. It smelled divine. “You won’t remember any of this once you leave the building. Just the mission and coming only to me when you receive intelligence from your vision on the Hood. Is that clear?”

  Before I could speak or reach out to touch him, he nudged me out of the room. “Take her outside—now!”

  The next thing I knew, hands gripped my arms, dragging me into an elevator.

  Nothing made sense right then, only the need to please… Wait, who was I impressing again? The lower we descended, the more my thoughts turned to mush. And once we hit the ground floor, I stumbled from the whirlwind swallowing me.

  The two guards hauled me through a marble foyer. The glass doors slid open, and they shoved me out. I stumbled forward, lurching as if I’d drank a bottle of bourbon. Crashing into a trashcan, I caught my breath. The world swam. Tall buildings surrounded me, streetlights revealing cars parked on the curb, sirens ringing in the distance. A sinking sensation engulfed me.

  The cold wind carried a heavy cloying smell of smoke and burned the back of my throat.

  I turned and faced the Town Hall, a lofty building with two sitting lion statues flanking the entrance. Darkness lay beyond the glass walls. There was no one in there this late. So what was I doing in this part of the city? How had I gotten here?

  Ninjas had attacked at my place, and now I stood on the sidewalk in the city. Why couldn’t I remember?

  More alarms went off, and a heavy smoke smothered the heavens. What was all the commotion? I bolted down the street and in between two buildings caught sight of a massive blaze several blocks away. What the hell had happened? Enough sirens filled the night to tell me they headed to the fire.

  The more I mulled over how I’d gotten into the city center, the more my brain turned into a spinning top. Yet, a familiarity lingered. Heading home was the answer… Damn, at least I remember my address. I pushed into a run in the opposite direction toward my home, praying I spotted a cab.

  After an hour of rushing through the metropolis, across a bridge, and reaching home, I panted for air. Adrenaline pumped through me, but my head refused to clear. I’d lost a period of time in my memories and couldn’t work out how to gain it back.

  Once inside, I scaled three flights of stairs of the apartment building and locked myself in my studio. I stared at the silvery moonlight illuminating my sofa, my kitchen counter, and the bed. I checked every inch of the home, the bathroom, under the bed, inside the cupboard. No intruders or ninjas. Crashing on the couch, I drew my knees to my chest and hugged them, drowning. Still, I couldn’t work out why the ninjas had attacked, then dumped me in the city. I patted my body… Nope, no cuts or bandages from having my organs stolen. So what the fuck?

  It had to be what I’d been injected with, so I prayed that whatever it was would wear off and my memories would return in the morning. Had someone interrupted my attackers and they’d dumped me to hightail it away?

  Vulnerability overcame me, and the urge to curl up and hide in my apartment until someone came to find me was strong. Ryker. I took out my phone and found three missed calls from him, plus the text message, “Hey, beautiful, just seeing where you are.”

  Coldness washed through me, and I hated myself for not texting him the moment I’d entered the city. But with everything going on, and then Dash’s farewell, it had slipped my mind. Not because I didn’t care for Ryker, but due to the enormous boatload of issues tugging me in every direction. There were no excuses for making him worry. As tempted as I was to send him a quick response, I’d only panic him out of sleep, considering it was so late at night. I’d call him first thing in the morning.

  Besides, my head remained foggy, so how could I explain the events of the night when I couldn’t remember them? Not knowing was a vice squeezing my lungs. When I’d first left the Hood, the same emptiness had engulfed me as if I’d left something behind, and I detested that sensation. It had me looking over my shoulder, checking every shadow.

 
If I told Ryker, it wouldn’t help. I couldn’t remember shit, only that the ninjas had been using bojutsu and had thrown me in a white van. I planned to pay Little J’s a visit. Grabbing the remote from the coffee table, I flicked on the television, finding the news channel.

  “Firefighters are still battling the blaze at Custom Constructions. The police believe the explosion onsite was a deliberate attack. The authorities have several leads but aren’t releasing any details yet. Custom Constructions had just commenced work on the new shopping complex in the Lower Corner. This is one of a dozen projects—” I muted the volume, remembering Charity’s words about the Hood doing something major to help the Traveler community from being evicted. And destroying the construction company was a Hood trademark… Scare companies away and ensure no one wants to touch the project. But the news reporter had said the police had leads. Perhaps Ryker would share information with me. I’d have to ask him that as well when I called him in the morning.

  Tomorrow had to be a better day because nothing beat the craphole I’d endured today.

  Chapter 9

  Night cloaked around me. I stood at the rear of Little J’s, and the wind was a banshee in my ears. Nearby stood Peter, the kidnapped kid. Brown hair fluttered in the wind, and he wore blue flannelette pajamas. I lurched forward but couldn’t move my legs. My feet were submerged in the lawn, trapped.

  “Peter,” I called out.

  But he ambled away from me, from the building.

  “Come back. Where are you going?” I reached out to the boy.

  He glanced over his shoulder, staring at me with such intensity, I swore he demanded I watch him. Peter kept going, hopped off the curb, and stood in the middle of a barren intersection. From the asphalt, a black mist rose around his feet.

  A slithering sensation crawled up the back of my knees, the kind that left my insides feeling filthy, disgusting.