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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “So much silence,” Lionel said. “You’d swear we were going to a funeral rather than a party.”

  “Possibly we are going to our own funerals,” Alessa suggested morosely.

  “That’s the joke,” Lionel said.

  It wasn’t much of a joke, but I doubted anyone felt like laughing anyway. Although we were all in favor of rescuing Danielle, both Lionel and Alessa had serious doubts about how we were going about it. Lionel and I both wore tuxedos and had invitations to attend the Cressingtons’ party at Cress House. Alessa wore a black sweater and black pants, suitable attire for a cat burglar.

  “Should we go through the plan one more time?” Lionel asked.

  “We don’t have a plan,” Alessa said, “just a series of hopes and wishes.”

  “You exaggerate,” Lionel said. “It’s not as bad as all that. We have two priorities: freeing Danielle and getting the codes that will allow reprogramming of the magtroller.”

  “Three, if you include everyone getting out safely afterward,” Alessa said. “Or our next mission will be to recover from the fallout of this one, just as this one is a direct result of the failures of the first.”

  “We have a good chance here,” Lionel said. “I know the security at Cress House like the back of my hand. First, I’ll help Alessa get into the grounds, then Slate and I will use our invitations to go through the front door. Once Christian starts his speech and everyone is distracted, one of us will sneak into the back corridors of the house, get a window open for Alessa. Then, between me and Slate, we’ll figure out how to grab Danielle and escape.”

  “It’s crucial that Alessa’s role remains secret,” Gabriel said. “Danielle’s rescue will obviously be discovered at some point; it might even provide a distraction that helps Alessa. But if the Cressingtons learn we’ve taken the codes, they’ll just invalidate the old codes and create new ones.”

  I didn’t really understand how getting magtroller codes was that important when we didn’t even have the magtroller, or any plan of getting it, but Gabriel felt we had to seize this opportunity. The rescue of Danielle provided cover, making it possible that Alessa’s theft would go undetected.

  “You haven’t mentioned the best part of this endeavor,” Alessa said. “While Lionel betrays his family, while I risk my life, Gabriel will put his feet up in the van and maybe have some hot cocoa.”

  “Hot cocoa, I knew we were forgetting something,” Gabriel said. “No matter how much one plans, something is always left behind.”

  “Gabriel will coordinate with us via earpieces, ready to react and give instructions if things go wrong,” Lionel said. “And collect us all after.”

  “I’ve blown my nose with wet tissues that had more integrity than this plan,” Alessa said. “Lionel presumes the magtroller codes are in Christian’s safe. He thinks that his father hasn’t changed the combination to the safe in the last year. He guesses Danielle will be in one of the guest bedrooms on the second floor. So many unknowns. And with most of the Hamilton mage family here as well as practically all the Cressingtons, half the mages in the city are ready to catch us when something inevitably goes wrong.”

  “It’ll work,” I said. “We have some details planned in advance and some room for improvisation.” Knowing that a dragongod was leading the mission meant that I didn’t need to question; I had faith things would work out. “We’re better prepared than when we went into the Dulane Building.”

  Alessa snorted. “Because that went so well.”

  The rest of the journey continued in silence until Gabriel pulled the van to the side of the road and shut off the engine. He nodded out the window. “The grounds are just over that fence.”

  Alessa opened the back door of the van and stepped out.

  Gabriel leaned over the back of his seat. “One thing you forgot to mention, Lionel. And it’s important.”

  Lionel shook his head. “I already told you. Becca won’t join us.”

  “We need her,” Gabriel said. “Or someone with her skills. The codes are no good to us unless we have someone who is involved in the engineering of magictech.”

  “Isn’t he doing enough?” Alessa snapped, leaning back into the van and shoving her face close to Gabriel’s. “Isn’t he giving up enough? If this goes the way you hope, Lionel’s entire family will never trust him ever again.”

  I grabbed Alessa’s shoulder and wrenched her away from Gabriel. “Watch yourself.”

  Alessa turned her attention on me. “And what happened to your backbone, helsing? Lionel told me you were skeptical of Gabriel until he had a talk with you. Then you turned into his lapdog. I thought helsing warriors were strong enough to be their own men, at least.”

  I grabbed Alessa’s top and twisted, the stretchy black fabric balling in my fist as I pulled her close to me. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Alessa grabbed the lapels of my jacket in her fists. “Explain it to me, then,” she said with a snarl.

  Lionel touched Alessa’s arm and spoke in a soft voice. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

  “And leave your well-being in the hands of these fools? I don’t think so.” She released the lapels of the jacket, then smoothed them back into place. “Since you are being so pliant, helsing, I hope you’ll be able to remember we are on the same team. The plan is bad enough even before I’ve started to take into account who I can trust. You know what I’m saying?”

  I slapped her hands away. “I warned you not to touch me. And I’m not going to forget what you are, if that’s what you expect.”

  “Come on.” Lionel guided her away from the van and into the grass verge. The fence gleamed with a white shimmer, showing that magic warded it. Lionel took his pendant in one hand as he prepared to help Alessa cross the boundary.

  “Are you ready?” Gabriel asked me.

  I turned to him. “Alessa isn’t the only one unsure of who to trust.”

  Gabriel lowered his voice. “You’re worried about the traitor?”

  It had been a day and a half since Gabriel had revealed himself to me, and I’d been surprised at how well I’d adjusted to accepting that he was a dragongod, and acting normally around him. Well, relatively normal, at least. I certainly hadn’t been as subservient as Alessa implied.

  With Gabriel in charge of the mage team, leaving was no longer an option, and finding out who would betray us had taken on renewed urgency. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able come up with any decent theories. “I haven’t a clue which of them it could be.”

  Gabriel clapped me on the shoulder. “Not to worry. It’ll work itself out with time. Have you thought much about the other prophecy?”

  “That one, not as much.” Dagger had prepared me for many eventualities, but not the possibility that a choice I made could damn the world. Or save it. The idea was crazy. Talk about helsing warriors being protectors of mankind had always been abstract, as in our race of people, not me personally.

  “I’m sure you’ll know what to do when the time comes.” Gabriel nodded behind me. “Lionel is coming back, and Christian is due to give his speech soon enough. You should get going.”

  I lifted Harps off my lap and placed him on the dash. Will you be okay here, boy? He’d been unusually quiet.

  I should go with you.

  No room in the monkey suit, I’m afraid. I inserted a finger under the collar and tugged, loosening it slightly. Lionel’s tailor had fitted the tuxedo for me, but still it chafed. Only one monkey at a time.

  You look stupid. Harps jumped into the back of the van and disappeared under one of the seats.

  I started after him, then stopped myself. It was best to just leave. I opened the door, wondering if Harps was secretly glad that he had to be left behind. He certainly hadn’t appreciated the dangers that he’d been forced to face in the Dulane Building.

  “The main gate is just on about a hundred yards,” Lionel said. “We might as well walk.”

  “Okay,” I agreed,
stepping out of the van and closing the door behind me.

  Gabriel gave us a thumbs-up and a grin. Then his voice came through the earpiece. “Keep your earpieces on and, if anything goes wrong, or looks like it will, let all of us know so we can figure it out together.”

  Lionel and I walked along the side of the road in silence. No traffic passed us until we were just reaching the gate, when a black sedan turned in front of us, its headlights illuminating the twisted bars of the gate.

  Two men emerged from a gatehouse, each with Cressington pendants dangling outside their jackets and a machine gun slung over one shoulder. One leaned down to speak to the driver, and after a short discussion, the gate opened, letting the car through.

  The gate shut again, and the two guards turned to watch us approach. I couldn’t see their expressions in the darkness, but their postures didn’t seem friendly. They likely didn’t get many people walking to an event like this.

  “Invitations,” the first said, holding out his hand.

  “You recognize me, right?” Lionel said.

  “Invitations,” the guard repeated.

  “This is ridiculous,” Lionel said. “We don’t have the words written on paper, but we are invited. I’m Lionel Cressington.”

  “And you?” the guard addressed me.

  “Slate Blackthorn,” I said.

  “Ring Hadrian,” Lionel said. “Heck, ring my father if you don’t mind interrupting him in the middle of his speech.”

  “Lionel Cressington and Slate Blackthorn. Ring the house and check it out,” the guard said to his partner.

  The other guard nodded and returned to the guardhouse, where he picked up a phone.

  “Weren’t you in charge of your family’s security not so long ago?” I asked.

  Lionel nodded grimly. “I used to be their boss. I don’t know the other guy well, but this man standing in front of us with a finger on his trigger is Jarlath Cressington. How’s your daughter’s asthma, Jarlath? It gets worse in the late spring and early summer, right?”

  Jarlath didn’t reply. His fingers tightened on barrel of his gun.

  The guard in the gatehouse stuck his head out. “They are cleared to enter!” he shouted, and the gates slid open.

  “Remember your invitations next time,” Jarlath said. “And maybe get someone to drive you.”

  Gravel crunched under our feet as we walked up the elaborate driveway.

  “I can’t believe Jarlath treated me like that.” Lionel shook his head in disgust. “Hadrian must be really turning those who work for him against me.” Suddenly, Lionel ran off to the side, disappearing between two bushes.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  Lionel stuck his head back out. “Thunderbirds are no.” He pointed to his right ear.

  He had turned off his earpiece and wanted me to do the same. “But Gabriel said…” I began, then shrugged. “Mage team off.”

  Lionel gestured me forward. “Come with me,” he said. “You’ll like this.”

  I followed behind Lionel as he led me down a narrow path. As bushes and trees pushed in from all directions, the darkness deepened. “Are you sure you know—”

  We came to a clearing, and I stumbled to a stop. Fireflies drifted in the breeze, imbuing the grass and leaves around them with a golden glow. Bright stars stared down through an opening in the canopy of branches. Two homemade swings dangled from a nearby tree. Lionel sat on the nearest, and I took the other, allowing the swing to drift back and forth lazily beneath me.

  The sense of peace that descended clashed with a deeper urgency. Alessa was hiding in the grounds somewhere and Danielle needed rescuing. “What are we doing here? We have to get inside before Christian’s speech.”

  “Christian likes to make an entrance; he’s always late. We have time.” He pointed up into the branches of the biggest tree. “See that treehouse up there? Becca and I built it. No one who saw it thought it’d last a season, and yet it’s still there over ten years later.”

  “You grew up here?”

  “This was a favorite spot for Becca and me. Hadrian, too, when he stayed with us. He wasn’t so bad when he was a kid. The trees around here are perfect for climbing. Strange, isn’t it, with all the expensive toys and gifts we got over the years, none of them had a fraction of the impact of a pair of swings and some trees.” He sighed. “You know that feeling you get when you are home? It doesn’t matter if it’s freezing outside, a sense of warmth gathers just under the skin, and no matter how you felt before, everything looks that little bit brighter. You know what I mean?”

  “My family always traveled from place to place.”

  “But your caravan, your family,” Lionel said. “It’s more a sense of accumulated memories of familiar people. More of a smell and a feeling than a place.”

  “Dagger would give me a clip around the ear if I ever said I felt peaceful or content when I was in our caravan. We were trained to always be alert and watchful.” But Lionel was right about feeling sense of home. I hadn’t been able to relax at the Hawke fair, but the sights and sounds, even the smells, had been familiar. Even apart from all the mayhem that had gone on since I’d arrived in Philly, just being away from everything I’d ever known was proving to be more unpleasant than I’d expected. Everything about the city grated. Sitting on a swing with nature all around was soothing. I wished Harps was there. He would have liked everything about the place. “I know what you mean, though.”

  “Dagger is your father?” Lionel asked.

  “In effect,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The green power of the swirl is not genetic. Children are born randomly around the world, and it’s the job of older helsing warriors to find those with the power and take them to be trained. As Dagger did with me.”

  “So you were kidnapped as a child and raised by a cult? How I view helsings just changed dramatically.”

  “No, it’s not like that at all.” I hesitated. “Well, perhaps if you look at it like that, it seems wrong. But it’s the only way. We needed to be trained by those with our power. If I was left to grow up in a normal family, people who didn’t know what I could do, I might accidentally kill someone, perhaps a playmate even. I needed to learn how to harness my strength and speed.”

  “As long as you are fine with it…” Lionel didn’t know how to finish that thought.

  “Speaking of leaving a family behind, is Alessa right that you’ll never be accepted back by your family after tonight?” I asked.

  “After I help a hood mage escape? I don’t see any way that I’ll be forgiven. Especially not by Father.” Lionel dug a toe in the ground and forced his swing to twist clockwise, then allowed himself to whirl back the other way. He repeated it again, twisting faster. “Perhaps my place in the family is already gone. Christian and I see the world in a very different light. I’m not sure if there’s a place for me in his world.”

  “Will the rest of your family feel the same? Does everything Christian says go?”

  “Pretty much. Becca will always go her own way, of course, but other than that. Mage families are very hierarchical, with a clear definition of who’s out and who’s in.”

  I realized why we were there. Lionel had barely been let through the gate, even before he attempted this rescue. He thought he might never be back and was saying goodbye to where he grew up. “Perhaps we can rescue her and take the codes without anyone knowing you are involved.”

  Lionel shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. I’ve made my peace with the decision. I just hope we are doing the right thing.”

  “Rescuing Danielle or…”

  “The lot of it. Alessa is becoming suspicious about Gabriel. She checked with some friends of hers in Europe, trying to find out more, and not everything checks out. And she can’t find anyone who has heard of a swirl key.”

  “You can trust him,” I said.

  “Alessa told me you’d say that. She thinks he has a hold of some kind ove
r you.” Lionel stood. “I was the first to believe Gabriel. Danielle and Alessa joined up to help because of me. And the necromancer’s attack should have confirmed Gabriel’s story, not to mention his ability to get a helsing warrior to back him up. And yet I can’t damp down my doubts.” He pushed his swing so it arced back and forth without him on it. “We better head up.”

  I got off my swing and joined him. Before taking the path back to the driveway, Lionel turned for one last look, the swings faintly visible in the glow of the fireflies, their arcing motion gradually decreasing until they came to a stop. I wished I could tell him about Gabriel’s true nature, let him know he was making the right decision, but Gabriel had made me promise not to.

  We took a different path back to the main entrance. A yellow sports car was parked outside, its headlights too bright, its tires too wide, its engine too loud. The car’s owner tossed keys to a valet in purple uniform, then escorted his partner, a pretty blonde in an elegant blue gown, inside.

  “Thunderbirds are go,” Lionel said, turning his earpiece back on.

  “Mage team on,” I said.

  As we approached the main door, Hadrian slid across to block our path. “I was told you were arriving on foot,” he said. “Did you get lost on the way from the gate?”

  “I traveled cautiously, hoping to avoid encountering an asshole on the way.” Lionel looked straight at Hadrian. “So close. I almost made it.”

  “Very funny. Now tell me what you are up to.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lionel asked.

  “You demanded invitations at the last moment for yourself and the helsing?”

  Lionel looked around. “This place is strangely familiar.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s right, this is my home.”

  “Not lately,” Hadrian said.

  The left-hand side of Hadrian jacket was hanging slightly open, and the reason was that he had a rolled-up leather-bound book stuffed in an inner pocket—Danielle’s spellbook, if I wasn’t mistaken. Hadrian caught me peering inside his jacket and turned his attention on me. “I know why you are here.”