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

by Margo Bond Collins

  She took the paper from him and examined it. Ted had left her a specific address, thankfully, though this time she intended to stake the place out before barreling down the doors.

  “Thanks, Harmon.”

  He didn’t look up or respond.

  She turned, sighing. “You know, a little pleasantry would go a long way to getting some customers around here.”

  “There’s plenty of pleasantry for the right customers,” he replied, still not looking up. “Goodbye.”

  She couldn’t help but smile a little as she left the shop. Whatever Harmon felt for her, he couldn’t pretend he hated her guts. She sensed that he quite enjoyed her little visits more than he cared to admit.

  She transported toward the address on the paper, but something was off. When she arrived, she was standing at a public park in Queens, no residence in sight.

  She spent the entire morning sitting discreetly on benches, watching joggers, walkers, and bikers pass through. She searched for something that would make sense with the information she was given, but couldn’t think of anything.

  Ted had written down a specific address with numbers and a street name, as if it were a residence of the person she was seeking. But the park had no nearby residences.

  She bought some tacos at a food truck and kept watching, waiting for something specific to happen. And then she had an idea.

  She finished off her tacos and found a grouping of trees that would give her sufficient coverage from earthlies. She transported up one dimension and looked around, then transported up another and another, each time looking for something different about the park, a clue as to how to access the address.

  Finally, five dimensions up, she saw it—a small garden with a decorative, white fence sitting right in the middle of a field of grass.

  The entire garden could only have been two meters by two meters, a small square patch surrounded by nothing. She had almost missed it. She made her way to it, stepping through the silly, short fence to an entrance that descended down into the ground.

  She wondered if she should wait and watch a little longer to see if anyone came out. Then again, it was a bunker with a steel door, five dimensions up. Whomever lived there was no stranger to disguise.

  He’s a Hallow and Milena’s ally, she reminded herself. She took a deep breath, accepting the guns blazing option she’d been trying to avoid.

  She raised her fist and, doing the most earthlie thing she had done in a while, knocked on the door.

  No one answered.

  She knocked again, this time much harder.

  No answer.

  She took both fists and pounded on the door like a gorilla, before losing patience and grabbing the door knob. She jostled it back and forth, wondering if she could transport through it.

  Probably not. She couldn’t imagine someone going to this length to hide himself, then leaving his door unsecured.

  She was just about the leave, when the door creaked open.

  “Sirena,” a familiar voice said. “Don’t panic, okay?”

  Feeling less than assured, she turned to the side, organically falling into a fighting stance.

  The door opened wider, revealing the source of the voice.

  “Zane,” she said, her brain barely registering his face. She dropped her hands, relaxing her stance.

  “Now before you lose it, Ri, you need to know…”

  She didn’t hear anything he said. It was Zane. Zane. Her ex-boyfriend, Zane.

  “You son of a bitch.” Without thinking, she grabbed him by the throat. “What are you doing working with my sister?”

  He shook his head frantically, gripping her hands, pulling down on her fingers.

  She kept squeezing, blinded by her rage at him.

  He loosened her grip on his neck and pulled her inside the bunker. He swung her around and she cried out. He held her arms firmly crossed over her chest, her back to him.

  She struggled against him, her emotions on overdrive, but he gripped her even more tightly until she finally surrendered.

  She heaved her chest, tears streaming down her face. “What are you doing here?” she cried. “What do you have to do with my sister?”

  Everything flooded back to her suddenly—why the back of his head looked familiar at the funeral, why the handwriting at Ted’s Whizzies looked so familiar too. She already knew the man Milena was working with too well, and he wasn’t someone she nor her sister should have ever trusted.

  “I was—” he sputtered “—helping—” he coughed “—Milena.” He shakily stepped toward his kitchen, stumbling back with a large glass of water.

  “With what?” Sirena spat, her voice hoarse. She couldn’t believe that he had been there the whole time, helping her sister. She hadn’t seen him in over fifty years, not since she was young—forty-two years old.

  They had fallen in love, but it turned out he was a spy for Mateo Vega, the man who led the mass murder of the daughters of Michael. Zane hadn’t specifically been looking for the daughters at that time—Vega was too cocky to believe they could have survived—but when he figured out who she really was, he spent considerable time debating whether to turn her in or not.

  He didn’t in the end, but that damage had already been done by the time he revealed the entire truth.

  She had considered killing him. She didn’t in the end, but that damage only added to their strained relationship.

  And from that point on, she didn’t even consider the idea of ever falling in love with or being close to another Hallow again. She couldn’t. Because the one time she had let her guard down, she’d almost been discovered and taken to the New Order in chains.

  That was unacceptable and disrespectful to all the men and women who had helped her survive in the first place, in hopes that Milena and she would rise again and restore their family.

  After the breakup, she cut off ties with all of the Archworld, save a few people. She still kept in regular touch with Margarita, her best friend from childhood who served as her eyes and ears in the New Order. She also used to speak to Thessa, until she realized that Thessa had hidden Milena from her to better protect them both. And then when Milena decided to marry James, she cut off all ties with her, too.

  “You were helping her with what?” she repeated through gritted teeth as Zane gagged and coughed. He gulped a huge drink of water, drizzling down his shirt, narrowly missing her boot. She didn’t care; she needed his answers, before her hand found his throat again. She didn’t know if she could control herself long enough to trust him.

  He cleared his throat, then took another several gulps. “She was looking... for something… and I gave her… intelligence.” He breathed deeply between each phrase, clearly still trying to breathe through his damage throat.

  She didn’t care. His throat would heal soon enough; what happened to Milena would never heal.

  “Intelligence from who?” she spat.

  “Vega’s administration,” Zane coughed, finishing the glass of water. “She wanted specific dates, times, locations of where he went.”

  “Why?” Sirena demanded.

  “Not a clue,” Zane said. He refilled his glass with water, then collapsed onto his couch. He looked up at her. “Wanna sit?”

  She shook her head. “I want an answer.”

  He sighed, standing up again. “You know Milena. Everything was need-to-know with her. She controlled the flow of information until the perfect moment.”

  Sirena had to hold herself back from choking him again. He had probably spent more time getting to know her sister than she had, and it was all her fault. Hers, for cutting off her sister out of stupidity, and his, for teaching her so long ago to trust no one.

  “How do you know her?” she asked. “And how dare you know her. I told you to stay out of my life. You didn’t think that included my family?”

  “Relax. I saw her in the media and thought she was you,” Zane said. “I came to her and tried to—”

  “Why would y
ou do that?” Sirena snapped.

  He coiled back, a mixture of anger and hurt in his eyes. “Because I’m still in love with you,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  She skipped right past his declaration of love, to more practical matters. “I told you to stay away from me.”

  “And I thought enough time had passed for you to forgive me.”

  She stopped and looked at him, really looked at him. He hadn’t aged a day, and yet his eyes had aged a millennia. This weary man wasn’t the bright-eyed intelligence officer she knew from so long ago.

  She felt bad that he still loved her, even after all this time. They were each other’s first loves, and she knew how that could mess with a person’s mind.

  And at the same time, she would never love him again—she couldn’t. She would probably never love anyone again, at least not until it was safe for her to do so. In her mind, it would only be safe when she had her throne and could restore the Natural Crown as the primary Hallow government. Until then… no. Never. Never Zane again.

  “Damn, Sirena,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t think it would be both this good and this horrible to see you again.”

  “Let me guess,” she said quietly, still watching him. “You want me to believe that you were helping Milena because, if you were lying and you were really helping Mateo Vega, Milena’s children would be dead.”

  “Yeah,” he said, surprise lighting up his eyes. “That’s exactly why you should believe me.” He sat on the armrest of his couch, balancing his legs on the ground. “Also because I would never lie to you again, not after what happened last time. And yeah, I made myself useful to Milena in the meantime, in hopes that I could win back your trust. I’ve passed information onto your sister at a great expense to my personal well-being and my career in the New Order. If anyone finds out, they’ll kill me.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that,” she said. She wouldn’t let him make her feel guilty, not when she was already flooded with guilt over Milena’s death.

  “You didn’t have to.” He sighed. “Sirena, my life without you isn’t a life. It took me a long time to realize that, I know. I tried to forget you for at least a decade or two after you disappeared. I thought I could move on and put the whole thing behind me, but I couldn’t. I came back for you. I tried to do something that you could be proud of. I helped your sister. And I’ll help you too, whatever you need. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn back your trust.”

  Sirena nodded. It was a nice speech, but the words didn’t matter to her in the end. She knew she could never trust Zane enough to work with him again, much less be in a relationship with him. And she wished she had warned Milena too.

  “Whatever your intentions, what if they backfired?” she asked. “What if Vega caught on to you? What if you passed along faulty information that got my sister killed?”

  He shook his head profusely. “No. That’s not possible. My information was good. I double and triple checked it through multiple sources, as did Milena. She was moving slowly on purpose, making sure she didn’t make mistakes.”

  “Then how exactly did she die?” Sirena asked.

  Zane shook his head. “I knew you were going to ask that.” He rubbed his forehead in distress. “I’m sorry, Ri. I don’t know who killed her or how she really died.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said. “Because that’s all the information I’m after, and you’re the end of my trail.”

  “Let me help then,” Zane said. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  She didn’t trust him in the slightest, but he was her only option at the moment.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Go ahead…”

  Brie

  “It’s not a big deal,” Brie told her brother as she put on her makeup in their shared bathroom. “Dad already said I could go.”

  “Oh, so now he’s ‘Dad’ to you?” Pilot asked. He stood behind her, arms folded over his chest. “That’s convenient.”

  “Stop.” She added some mascara to the bottoms of her eyes, then capped the tube and flipped around. “We don’t need to fight about this. You’re totally overreacting.”

  Pilot frowned at her. “And there will be no guys there?”

  “No, of course there will be no guys there. Just Adele and Jackie.”

  “So the mascara and the party outfit and the heels are just for Adele and Jackie?” he asked sarcastically.

  She groaned loudly. “Can you just go, please? You’re distracting me. I’m going to be late.”

  “Brie,” he said, stepping closer to her. “You’re obviously going out with your friends. Given what happened at the funeral, and the news about the move, and the insane media circus that seems to only be getting worse… Are you sure you can handle this?”

  “I’m fine,” Brie said. “I’m fine. It’s just a chill, quiet night with some of my best friends before I move, like, a million miles away from them.”

  Pilot opened his mouth to speak.

  “And no,” Brie continued before he could. “We are not going anywhere.” She shrugged, turning back to the mirror. “I just want to look cute for the selfies, okay? Stop being a freak about this.”

  “Would you consider inviting them over here instead?” he asked, a little desperately in her opinion. “I’m sure Adele would understand.”

  “I need to get out of this house.” Brie knew her brother was just concerned about her, but she felt claustrophobic under all these questions and pressure and the fact that he would not leave her alone in any room in their house since she disappeared at the funeral.

  Pilot stared at her skeptically. “What’s wrong with this house?”

  “She’s everywhere here,” Brie said quietly. “I can’t… breathe in this house right now.”

  His expression turned to understanding, surprisingly. “Okay,” he said, heaving a huge sigh. “Can you at least call me when you get there?”

  “How about a text,” she negotiated.

  “How about a text reply every time I text you?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth to argue—

  “Come on,” he said quietly. “You’re not the only one who lost Mom. I need to know where my sister is and that she’s okay. You’re all I really have left.”

  Rykken wandered into the doorway where Pilot had been standing. He must have heard them from Pilot’s room. “Everything okay?”

  Pilot nodded, keeping his focus on her. “Please?”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. Of course.” She didn’t want her brother to feel abandoned, and he was right—she had ditched him earlier and that was not okay for her to do, no matter what she needed or was going through.

  They had both lost a mom…

  And for some reason, everyone seemed to be handling it more maturely than her.

  “Thank you,” Pilot said, visible relief in his face.

  “A little privacy please, you two?” she requested.

  Rykken ducked away immediately, but Pilot stayed, watching her brush her hair out for styling.

  “You’re sure you’re good, Brie?” he asked.

  “I’m honestly not sure how many times I can say this: I’m fine.” She widened her eyes at him, exhaling her frustration so she didn’t really blow up at him. She knew he didn’t deserve that; she knew he felt insecure without his mom, and she knew he was legitimately worried about his sister outside at night in New York City with the paparazzi stalking her.

  She hoped that his clinginess would pass in time, though she wasn’t exactly helping him get past it with her actions.

  When she had finished getting ready, she headed downstairs, where James was waiting for her on the B&B Italia couch.

  “Ready, sweetheart?” he asked.

  “Ready.”

  He kissed her on the forehead, ruffling her hair a bit. She smoothed it back into place.

  Pilot and Rykken came into the living room from the kitchen, where they had been inhaling a feas
t of Vietnamese food.

  “You’ll text me when you get there?” Pilot asked her.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she replied, giving her brother a hug. “I’ll see you later tonight. Try to stop stressing in the meantime.”

  She looked at James. “I’m headed out the back.”

  “I’m headed out the front,” he said, grinning. He opened the front door, and she watched by the window, waiting until the paparazzi condensed around the entrance to their building.

  It was funny how quickly the word spread between the cameras below her. James couldn’t possibly be in the lobby yet, but the paparazzi were scrambling into place. How did they know? She was baffled at the speed at which they moved.

  She took that as her cue to head out the back. The paparazzi had no idea their was a back entrance to their building, nor did they know that Adele only lived a few city blocks north of her, if she went down side streets.

  She pulled a scarf over her head and stepped out into the city, walking quickly toward her friend’s house. Exactly nine minutes later, she was greeting the doorman at Adele’s building.

  She tipped him for his discretion and made her way upstairs via the elevator bank.

  “Brie!” Adele squealed when she opened the door. “I can’t wait to show you what we’re doing tonight. Come on.” She grabbed her hand and tugged her into the living room. Adele was an only child and her parents had a very traditional, formal aesthetic in their home, which contrasted to Brie’s mom’s creative, modern, funky vibe.

  They stepped through the living room and into the dining room, where Jackie was munching on some chips… and where Andy and his two friends Tony and Ben were fighting over pizza slices.

  “Hey, Brie,” Andy said. “How are you doing?”

  She tilted her head, wondering if she should answer honestly. “I’m okay,” she said instead. “Fine. Looking to be distracted from certain recent life events at the moment.”

  “We can probably manage that,” he said, somewhat genuinely. She had never been particularly close to Andy, but she felt surprisingly grateful for him. So many of the guys at Braxton were insensitive dicks, but so far Andy had been kind and respectful to her about her mom.