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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “On a certain day, one of the young men, barely more than a boy, was exploring along a shore. He had met with a young woman that morning, and he was in search of something that he might use to impress her mother and cause her to bless his proposition of marriage. Foolish is the man who gives away treasures for a wife who would not come willingly, but such is the way of men.

  “He came to a cave, no, a small hole in the ground, like one a badger or a bear would use, and the power of the Makkai that was within him called him into that cave. And so he crawled on his belly until his feet were no longer visible from the surface, and he crawled yet more. The cave narrowed and narrowed, until his shoulders would no longer fit through.

  “’Go back,’ something whispered. ‘You are not worthy.’

  “’I am,’ he said, pressing forward. The dirt gave way and he continued on.

  “Again, the cave grew narrow, and again there was a voice:

  “’Go back,’ it whispered in the black. ‘You are not worthy.’

  “’I am,’ he said, more loudly, and he pressed on. The gravel tore his clothes and scratched his skin, but he continued on.

  “Once more, he found he could not go on.

  “’Go back,’ a voice said, loud, commanding. ‘You are not worthy.’

  “’I am,’ he yelled, and he pushed and crushed himself down, forcing himself through. His bones did not break, but he was in great pain as he crawled, pushing with his toes and pulling with his fingers.

  “All at once, the cave grew out in all directions, above him and below, and to each side almost as far as he could see, and it was aglow with crystals. It was like being in a fantastic underwater world, colored with blues and greens and purple, all lit from within.

  “He stood tall, looking at the great crystal formations, and he heard the voice again:

  “’Here is the magic of the earth, down in its bones. You may take what you will.’

  “And he understood. The earth held its magic the way we hold our lives in our blood. All of the crystals everywhere in the world are able to carry it, but magic does not spring from crystal any more than life springs from blood. These, these here in front of him, these were the seeds of magic. He also understood the sacrifice that they called for, for to bring them with him, they would crush him and he would likely die, trying to regain the surface.

  “And, perhaps, for another man, he might have sat down in that cave and died in despair, but this young man was Makkai, and he had a sense of the use of magic. He gathered as many kinds of crystal as he could see, put them in his pockets and his shirt, down in his socks, then he took off his shirt and stuffed it with them, tying the sleeves and making a bag so big it would never fit back out.

  “’If the earth has magic,’ he told the voice in the darkness, ‘then it will answer to its own.’

  “And he closed his hand around the smallest of the crystals and stood before the solid rock wall of the cave and breathed on it.

  “And, there before him, there opened a path back to the surface, one that he could walk without stooping.

  “When he reached the surface again, he closed not just his path behind him, but also the one he had taken in the first place, vowing to bring the secret of the crystals to his own people and no others.

  “And so it is that only the Makkai possess the knowledge of crystal magic.”

  Becca sat sipping her tea, smiling as the campfire cast its wandering shadows around the ring of gypsies. Dawn sat next to her, watching Jackson with intense eyes. This was the story that Jackson told when someone new joined the tribe, Becca recognized now. It was the one he had told on her first night, and tonight was Grant’s first night with the tribe.

  Jackson told lots of stories. Many of them were his own, or ones that another gypsy had told him, but he told these, the important ones, on nights when something important was happening.

  Grant’s arrival was a big deal.

  Becca appreciated seeing it from the perspective of one of the established tribe, nearly a year in now, and remembered clearly the feeling of awe. The things that these people must have seen, the awareness that you were coming into something that you’d been preparing for your entire life.

  The things she’d seen. The things she’d learned.

  He had so much in front of him.

  His eyes flashed over to her and she looked away, not wanting to make him feel spotlighted any more than he already was. Jackson finished his story and sat with his hands on his knees for a moment longer, then stood, walking across the circle to Dawn, who handed up a small leather satchel. Jackson turned it over and poured it out into his hand, giving Dawn her bag back and going to Grant.

  Becca touched the small purple crystal on a leather cord that she wore under her shirt. Jackson let the stone drop out of his hand, catching on the cord and allowing the firelight to pick out the bluegreen highlights in the crystal. Grant dropped his head and Jackson put the pendant around his neck.

  “Welcome,” Jackson said quietly.

  “Calcite,” Bella said, coming to stand close enough to the fire that her skirts should have caught, if the fire had been so bold. “For memory, wit, quickness, and for your father.”

  Grant’s hand closed around the stone and he tucked it away in his shirt with a quick nod.

  “What about his father?” Becca whispered to Dawn. Dawn shook her head.

  “I don’t ask,” she whispered back. “And neither should you.”

  Becca grinned behind her hand so Dawn could see it, then faced forward again.

  “You will travel with Robbie and Quinn,” Bella said. “Your death will be on Robbie’s head.”

  Becca had thought it stark, putting something so morbid and so convicting into words so baldly, but as she remembered the number of times Billy had saved her life in the last year, she realized it was simply pragmatic. Billy did view her as his personal responsibility - someone had to, or else she would have gotten herself killed, without any doubt. Robbie stood and came to hug Grant.

  There were nineteen of them, now. Dawn said that she thought that Bella would let the tribe grow to twenty, but no more. Looking around at the men and women that were her family, now, Becca wondered who would leave, and how. If they retired, what would they do? What did you do, after you’d done this for most of your life, and trained for it, the rest?

  “Tonight, we celebrate,” Bella said. “Tomorrow, we have work to do. We will be on the road at first light, so keep it in mind.”

  There was something in her tone like a scolding parent to naughty children, but none of them paid her any serious attention, instead whooping and swarming in to welcome Grant properly. Within minutes, the instruments were out and someone had retrieved the bottles of wine they’d gotten from a gypsy farm outside of Louisville, the last time they’d been by.

  Becca hugged Grant.

  “Welcome,” she said.

  “Were you the last?” he asked. She nodded.

  “I was.”

  “I have so many questions,” he said. She laughed.

  “Come sit with me and Dawn when your legs get tired. I can sleep in the truck tomorrow.”

  He grinned at her, winking, and let someone press a wooden cup into his hand. Sometimes it felt like there were an awful lot more of them than just nineteen, with the commotion and activity they could generate. There was more howling and whooping as the dancing took on more energy, and someone grabbed Becca’s hands, twirling her through a pattern to the fiddle and the flute.

  Eventually she fell, exhausted, onto a long bench where Dawn was sitting, drinking her wine.

  Grant saw them a few minutes later and came to sit next to her. He was breathless, and Dawn offered him her wine. Becca took it when he was done, then Dawn went to go get more.

  “How long have you been with Bella?” Grant asked.

  “A little under a year,” Becca said. “Where did you train?”

  He told her and she nodded. They were names she recognized, but she d
idn’t know them well enough to learn much more.

  “Is she as tough as everyone says?” Grant asked. Becca shrugged.

  “We work a lot,” she said. “Travel a lot. I don’t know what everyone else does, though, so I don’t really know if she’s being tough on us. Just don’t screw up.”

  He laughed.

  “Thanks.”

  She shrugged with a grin, taking a cup from Dawn as the girl sat back down. Grant took another and Dawn sipped at her own.

  “Can I see your palm?” Dawn asked as she put her cup back down. Grant raised an eyebrow, but let her have his hand. Dawn covered it with her own hands, one under and one over, and then slid her thumb under her fingers. Grant jerked his hand away and looked at his palm.

  “What did you do?” he asked. Becca smiled when he looked at her. Yes, she’d known what was going to happen. She showed him her own palm where, there between the knuckles of her third and fourth fingers, there was a sliver of black, like a scar or a scab.

  “Obsidian,” Dawn said.

  “You’re the little sister,” Grant said, sucking on his hand. It would only bleed for a second, but it hurt for days. Obsidian was sharp.

  “I am,” Dawn said. “And that’s going to help me keep you healthy.”

  “You could have warned me,” he told her.

  “Would it have changed anything?” she asked and he glowered a silent admission that she wasn’t wrong.

  “So what’s happening tomorrow?” Grant asked.

  “Like she would tell us,” Becca said. “Dawn might know, but she never says.”

  “Jackson is the protector, isn’t he?” Grant asked. Becca nodded.

  “I didn’t know they could marry the queen,” he said.

  “I didn’t, either, but I’ve met a few that are,” Becca said. She’d met more tribes that didn’t have a protector, and a few that didn’t have a little sister, but in the case of the little sister, they were always missing her for specific and recent reasons. The protector had been an optional role for centuries. Makkai women were just as tough as the men.

  “You’ve met a lot of tribes?” Grant asked. Becca shrugged again.

  “I don’t know how many there are.” She paused and grinned, looking at Dawn. “Dawn might, but she never says.”

  Dawn gave her an exasperated expression.

  “So you live with them,” Grant said. “Bella and Jackson.”

  Dawn nodded, letting her face disappear behind her cup again.

  “What’s that like?” he asked.

  “What’s it like, living with Robbie and Quinn?” Dawn asked.

  “How would I know?” Grant asked. “I’ve never done it.”

  “Then how could you understand?” Dawn replied. Becca had been a little confused at Dawn’s question, expecting some kind of non sequitor, but it made sense. Becca wasn’t sure how she would describe living with Billy. They were really only in the trailers to sleep, so in practical terms all she could really say about it was that Billy snored like a wounded warthog, but there was this intangible sense that she was learning from him, all the same. The way he got ready for sleep and the things he did when he got up in the morning, the little rituals and the innumerable things that required maintenance and upkeep, she would have never noticed that they were there, but she never would have learned them, if she were sharing a trailer with someone at her own experience level.

  Traveling was when the real learning happened, though. Driving across the country with Dawn in the passenger seat and Billy driving, they talked about everything, and that was when Billy told stories. Jackson’s stories were about things. Billy’s stories were about stuff that happened. Becca knew how to do a clean butcher on a deer, and she knew that selkies couldn’t shift without their pelts. She knew that vampires and werewolves were only attached to each other in romantic ideas of what either one was, and that you should always bury something orange at the threshold to any place you planned on spending more than a lunar cycle. Billy hadn’t said why, on that one.

  “You’ll just have to see,” Becca said. “Robbie’s a good man, and Quinn is funny.”

  “Quinn is tricky,” Dawn said. “You have to watch her.”

  Becca sat up a fraction straighter and looked at Dawn, and Dawn nodded.

  “You have to watch her,” the young woman said again.

  “Is this it?” Grant asked, looking at the rest of the dancing gypsies. “After this, I’m just one of the tribe?”

  Becca nodded.

  “Just one of us.”

  “What do I need to know?” Grant asked.

  “Stay alive,” Dawn said. “After that, someone will teach it to you.”

  There was an odd tone, and Becca looked at Dawn again. There were an awful lot of things she knew but didn’t say, it seemed. Dawn sighed, looking into the bottom of her wine cup.

  “There was a girl before Becca. She was only with us for about six weeks when someone called Bella about a nest of wraiths. We went, you know, and we knew what we were up against, but…” she shook her head. “They weren’t like other wraiths. They were beautiful. And smart. Colin said they were funny and interesting, when he went in to talk to them.”

  “He talked to wraiths?” Grant asked. Dawn nodded.

  “We always make sure, before we all go in,” she said. “Make sure that they are what someone said they are.”

  “But… they’re wraiths,” Grant said. Becca wrinkled her nose, agreeing more with Grant than Dawn. Wraths were dirty and gross and smelled like death. They ate organs from the dead to stay alive, mostly because they were too nasty and dumb to get close enough to living people.

  “He said they looked like normal people,” Becca said. “And they had kids… our age… who were with them. And we couldn’t figure out who was a wraith and who wasn’t, so Bella asked me to come up with a test that we could use to do it. I found a purifying incantation that I could say over citrine that would stick, so we had to stab them with the citrine and if…” she shrugged, “well, if they hissed and boiled, they were a wraith. If they didn’t, then we owed them an apology.”

  Becca twitched the corners of her mouth. She wouldn’t have thought of that. Dawn drew breath.

  “So we went in, all of us, me at the back again, like always, and we went through the entire mortuary and stabbed everyone living, even the kids…” She frowned. “They were all wraiths. Every one of them. But they were strong and fast, too, and once they knew we were there, they fought back. And everyone had put on their warding crystals but Ellie. We didn’t know…”

  Dawn’s eyes were elsewhere, living through something that clearly hurt her.

  “What happened?” Grant asked.

  Dawn shook her head.

  “We killed them all. A bunch of people got hurt, so I spent the whole night setting bones and binding cuts, and then in the morning… she was gone.”

  “She died?” Grant asked. Dawn shook her head.

  “No. She had this little scratch, not even enough for a bandage, and since I was working on everyone else we just laughed it off and said that she did good, considering. If I’d looked at her, I’m sure I would have known.”

  “Dawn,” Becca said. “What happened?”

  Again, Dawn shook her head, like she didn’t want to think of it.

  “Another tribe found her, a while later. She’d snuck into a cadaver room at a university and was eating the corpses. We don’t know what happened to her after she left us, but she was almost gone by the time they found her again. Gypsies killed her, a few months after she left.”

  Becca looked away.

  “She would have known,” Dawn kept on. “She would have known to wear her warding crystals, if she’d been here for any of the other blood-transmitted kills. She would have known that blood is always important, if you aren’t completely protected. But she didn’t. And… she died.”

  “Wow,” Grant said. The shine had kind of come off the evening, and Becca felt cold as she sat on the bench,
watching her friends, her family, dance around a tall fire, singing and whooping and having a wonderful time.

  “Stay alive,” Dawn said again, coming back to them. “That’s how you learn.”

  Grant nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  They sat for a little while longer, then Becca stood up, rubbing her arms.

  “I think I’m going to go to bed,” she said. “Early morning, tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” she heard Grant say behind her.

  Bella was as good as her word, and the next morning, by the time the cloudy sky had turned from black to deep gray, they were in the trucks and rolling. It had been clear that a lot of them had stayed up dancing far into the night, but everyone had the good sense not to complain.

  “Where are we going?” Becca asked Billy.

  “West,” he said. “You know you can spend a week getting across Texas?”

  “Is that true?” Becca asked.

  “Done it enough times,” Billy said. “I’m telling you this now, if we try to cross that state from one side to the other, we will get sidetracked. I’m just saying it.”

  Dawn laughed, looking out the window.

  “The harpies were fun,” she said. “Admit it.”

  “Nothing,” Billy said in good humor. “I admit nothing.”

  “We don’t know where we’re going?” Becca asked. Bella played things close to the vest, but this was unusual, even for her.

  “Nope,” Billy said. “It could mean that we’re going to do something a lot of us aren’t going to be excited about, it could be it’s a surprise for someone, rather than a hunt, or it could be Bella figures we’re just better off not knowing. I prefer not to worry about it.”

  “So we drive,” Becca said to the roof of the truck.

  “Not a bad way to spend a day,” Billy said. “You have your earth magic crystals memorized?”

  Earth, fire, wind, and water. Crystals tended to have an affinity for one of the major elements over the others, and while the correlations between what they could do and what category they were grouped into were often nebulous, it did help to cue memorized lists.