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

by Margo Bond Collins

  “Mona was a good queen, if disconnected from the tribe. She had a strong background in magic and a creativity with crystal magic that was inspiring. She was dedicated to the work, and the tribe did good things while she led it. She and Aaron got along well, and the she brought in a new little sister very quickly, because the one who had come out of retirement for Elenore was ready to retire once again. This new little sister was a devoted healer, and she and Mona were not very close because of their disparate interests. A good tribe does not require warm friendships, though, and this would have been a time of happiness within the tribe, except that they spent their days on a deathwatch.

  “Regardless of how many times Mona told them that she was not in danger, they had been through too much to believe her, and many of them struggled with the idea that they should continue working, continue hunting until they understood why the previous queens had died. As Mona observed, though, the previous queens hadn’t been killed by the hunt so much as on it, which meant that she was no more likely to die out there as in her own trailer of falling asleep in her soup, and so they continued.

  “They did good work, though they lacked passion because of fear. Many times Mona reminded them that fear is not the Makkai way, but even a Makkai can break under so much loss and instability.

  “It did not take long for that fear to be justified. Within three weeks, Mona broke her arm. She spent many hours with the healer, setting the bones and putting everything right, and while it was slow to heal, the bone did eventually knit. Just in time for her to break it again. Once again, her little sister set the bone and put it on a path to healing, and his time it took four months before the bone was solid again. Within two weeks, she broke it again in nearly the same spot.

  “The little sister was beside herself. She questioned her powers of healing, she questioned her power of perception. The tribe, though, believed it to be a part of the curse. Over the next six months, Mona wore her arm in a sling and told the weather by the ache in her bones, but they continued to work. Finally, the bone was solid again, and she ventured out into the world without a cast or sling, and it was only a day before she fell off the bed of a truck and broke it again.

  “This time, the bone broke through the skin and her little sister spent as much time tending to the gash as the bone. Infection followed, with fever and delirium. The bone never even attempted to set, and the gash in Mona’s arm turned red and then purple and then black. More little sisters came, and they tried powerful magics to bring healing to Mona’s arm, but nothing would reverse the course of the injury.

  “Her fever broke for a time, and she sent her tribe out to investigate a coven of witches that were casting curses on a small town out of petty spites. Aaron stayed with her night and day, keeping watch over her and casting defensive magics as the little sisters kept working. Mona died of a stray hunter’s bullet that punctured the side wall of her trailer as she sat under the watch of Aaron and three little sisters. She led the tribe for nearly three years.

  “After this, opinions were loud among the Makkai that the tribe needed to be scuttled. Even members of the tribe began to speculate that this was the right thing to do. Fatigue at the constant losses was intense, and they were ready to be done with it. As qualified and capable as the group was, and as firm a bond as they had forged through the years of difficulty and loss, they were ready to walk away.

  “This is when a young woman named Bella stepped up, in front of the group, and quite literally named herself queen. There was no period of mourning, no discussion among the tribes, no consideration of other women. They didn’t expect anyone else would want to lead the tribe, and a woman who had seen the last two queens die understood the risks. There was some anger that she had volunteered for this tribe, because her value was unequaled among women who would one day become queens. Bella’s history, pedigree as a queen was uncontested, but at that point in history, everyone simply assumed she was signing up to die. And yet, no one could dissuade her.

  “And so it was.”

  Becca looked over at Dawn, who shook her head. No. She hadn’t known this story. Jackson looked from one to another of them then gave them a small, firm nod and stood, clapping a hand on Becca’s shoulder as he walked past. And that was all.

  She stared into the fire for a long time after, finding Dawn gone after a while. She was cold.

  It was one thing to tell the story in highlights, another thing to actually think about living through it.

  Aaron had stuck through it. Grant’s dad. Of all the Makkai in a tribe, off hunting and doing what they did, she guessed that Aaron had spent a lot more time away from his family, trying to keep his queens alive. She wondered just how much of the story Grant knew. If Aaron had ever feared that he and his family would be targeted next.

  She rubbed her face with cool hands then stood, finding her way through the darkness back to her trailer. To sleep. To get up the next morning and get on a plane and go to New York.

  To do her part to help keep Bella alive.

  She sat on the plane next to Gramma Bella, listening to the life of the machine around her, the voices of men and women on their way to the next place where their life would happen, the air and the whispers of the clouds around her, soft to the point of being silent.

  “There are some things you need to know,” Gramma Bella said as the intensity of takeoff faded and Becca found she was able to breathe again.

  “Jackson told us last night,” Becca said. Gramma Bella shook her head.

  “About New York and the people you’re about to meet,” she said. She leaned down to take a small leather satchel out of her traveling bag, spilling stones onto a tray table and beginning to sort them with her fingertips. Becca waited, expecting some significance to come of it, but it appeared to be a nervous fidget, going through them.

  “They’re dark people,” Gramma Bella finally said. “Not bad people, some of them, but dark. They don’t have the light of Makkai guiding them, so they do what they do out of a sort of fatalistic sense of inevitability.” She nodded, working her lips. “Dark people.”

  “Okay,” Becca said. Gramma Bella nodded, and began telling her story after story after story.

  Lange met her at the airport. She knew she looked naive and out of place with everyone rushing around her, and she felt for the first time in a while like a child. He waved at her, grinning and flipping his hair back over his ear. She turned to say her farewells to Gramma Bella, but the old woman was gone. She scrambled through the crowd to get to Lange.

  “Welcome to New York,” he said. “You ever been here before?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She’d eaten a little in the car on the way to the airport, and there had been a little food on the plane, but her stomach was only just beginning to settle from the idea of being up in the air like that, and she didn’t remember what it was that she had actually eaten, when someone had handed it to her. What she did remember was Gramma Bella’s raspy voice telling her that she could not trust this man. That he was selfish and self-motivated, and that he would only help her if he saw clear benefit to him or had a specific requirement over his head that forced him to do it.

  “There was a woman who lived with Carter until recently who was remaking them, remaking the man himself,” Gramma Bella had told her on the plane, “but something went wrong and she left him. We don’t know why, or where she went. If we could make her come back, we would. He is a terrible man, Carter. They are all terrible, but he may be the worst of them.”

  “What do you like?” Lange asked, getting the door for her.

  “They will try to steal your secrets,” Gramma Bella had warned her. “Ask clever questions, innocent questions, and try to guess at the things that only the Makkai know. They have secrets, too, and they will kill you to protect them.”

  “Anything,” Becca said. “Just not sushi.”

  He laughed.

  “
Not sushi it is,” he said. “Come on. I brought my car. Do you have a bag?”

  She held up the small case she was carrying, enough changes of underwear to last her a week and the rest magic components. She’d wash in a sink if she needed to, and her overskirts were made for heavy travel.

  “You travel light,” he said, pushing a door open for her. “I was glad you called.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because between the two of us, this city is boring without someone fun to do stuff with.”

  “Don’t you have a job to do?” Becca asked.

  “Sure,” Lange said. “I keep an eye on Carter so Argo knows what’s going on, and I help Carter out when he needs an extra hand. But mostly I’ve just got a nice apartment and more money than I know what to do with.”

  She tipped her head to look at him.

  “I’ve never known anyone who couldn’t find more work to do if they were willing to look.”

  He laughed, right on the edge of too loud, where people were glancing at him, but finding him to be confident and attractive rather than bothersome.

  “You know, you’re probably right. But why look for work when you can play all day?”

  “I shudder to think what you consider play to look like,” Becca said and he grinned, then winked.

  “And I’m going to be sure to show you.”

  She shook her head, letting him whisk her across the airport property, underground, above ground, everywhere smelling of auto exhaust and people, then into a car and speeding away.

  “You’re supposed to be impressed, by the way,” he told her after they were driving.

  “By your stylish black clothes and devil-may-care attitude?” she asked. “Sorry.”

  “No,” he said with a grin. “That I have a car.”

  “Are you making fun of me?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, mock-exasperated. “No one in New York has a car. They’re too complicated and too expensive.”

  “So I’m supposed to be impressed that you’re stupid?” she asked.

  He laughed, changing gears through a yellow-and-now-red light.

  “They don’t make them like you, do they?” he asked. “No one’s going to know what to do with you.”

  “Are you going to use me to make your date feisty some more?” she asked. “Because I really do have important things I need to talk to Carter about.”

  “I’m not seeing her any more,” Lange said, his face falling a bit quiet for a moment. “And I know all about how important it is to talk to Carter. That’s what everyone says. That’s why I’m taking you to lunch, now, and then we’re going to go shopping and maybe to Central Park, and then dinner, and then probably out dancing before I take you to see him.”

  “Because you want to waste my time,” Becca said.

  “Because I want you to be ready,” Lange said, dead serious now. “Whatever you need to tell him, you need to tell me, first, so we can work through how to approach him.”

  “So you can take all of my secrets and every detail of my conversation with Carter and feed it back to Argo, and then interfere in what I manage to do, talking to Carter at the same time,” she said.

  “So you’ve played this game,” Lange said. “Yes, I could do that. I really could. But I left Argo because the man’s an intolerable bastard, and I only tell him things I feel like telling him. He may have marked me, but at this distance, I’m not his puppet any more. I don’t have any place to go but here. When Sam was here, it wasn’t so bad, but where else am I going to go, now she’s gone?”

  “Is that Carter’s girlfriend?” Becca asked. Lange suddenly grinned, boyish and playful again.

  “See, that’s exactly why we’re going to lunch first,” he said. “You have got to call her that in front of him, and I have got to be there when you do it.”

  “What does that mean?” Becca asked.

  He grinned at the road.

  “It means I’m finally going to get some entertainment for once.”

  “Okay,” he said about an hour later over a table full of Mexican side dishes. She wasn’t sure what she’d ordered - it was in Spanish and she had picked at random in hopes of not making a mistake. He’d ordered almost everything and lumped it all onto a single plate, inhaling food for about ten minutes before he’d put his fork down and looked at her, folding his hands.

  “Okay,” he said again. “So tell me why you’re here.”

  “I’m here to talk to Carter,” she said. “I need you to help me get in to see him.”

  “Yeah you started with that,” he said. “And for sure I can get you in to talk to him, but you’re not going to get anything you want if you go in without a plan. Tell me why you’re here.”

  “No,” she said. “They told me that you would try to trick me. That you would try to get me to tell you secrets, and I just don’t want to mess with it. Someone else should be here doing this, but you wouldn’t help someone else, so it’s me.”

  He sat back in his chair.

  “You’re going to have to trust someone, pet,” he said. “I see where you’re coming from, and yeah, it’s a big bad city full of big bad things. I’m not going to tell you that it isn’t. I’m planning to take you to a demon club tonight just for kicks, because they’re going to hate it, but no one is going to be willing to say or do anything about it, because you’re with me and I’m with Carter. Well, I’m not really, but I’m with him as much as anyone is, these days. So they’re going to put up with it, and it’s going to be awesome. So, yeah, I’m kind of not the best guy in the world, and you’re sharp. You know that. But…” he frowned. “I meant it. If you go in and talk to Carter, he’s going to laugh you out of the room. He hates gypsies. Like, really hates them. It’s a demon thing.”

  “What demon thing?” Becca asked.

  “Demons hate you,” Lange said. “It’s like chemical. Hate you. That’s why you’re going to be so much fun. Carter and demons…” He winced his face to the side. “That’s complicated. It’s hard to prove whether or not he is one.”

  “Is he possessed?” Becca asked. Lange laughed.

  “Yes.”

  Becca shook her head, pushing her food away.

  “Why doesn’t someone save him?”

  “Because he possessed himself.”

  She felt herself blink stupidly. Clearly that meant something to him, but she was at a loss to figure out what it might be. He shook his head.

  “Never mind. It isn’t a big deal. He’ll put up with you because he has to. Except that he doesn’t. He doesn’t have to put up with anyone, and with Sam gone, he’s super touchy right now. So, again, if you go in there and you don’t know exactly what you’re going to say to make him do whatever it is you want him to do, you’ve got no chance.”

  “But he has to,” Becca said.

  “Good,” Lange said. “Let’s start there. Why does he have to?”

  Because if he didn’t, Bella was going to die, Becca thought. She bit her lip.

  “Look, you’ve got to trust someone,” Lange said. “You want my opinion, as worthless as it is to you, you’re better off trusting me than Carter. I like it when you smile.”

  She shook her head.

  “You’re trying to trick me,” she said.

  “Is manipulation always a trick?” he asked.

  She blinked.

  “Yes.”

  “Guilty,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s what we all do. Even Sam.”

  “Who is Sam?” Becca asked.

  “Carter’s girlfriend,” Lange said. “Go with that.”

  She shook her head, standing.

  “You’re wasting my time.”

  “I’m not,” Lange said. “I’m preparing you for what it’s going to be like, talking to Carter.”

  “Maddening?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said emphatically. “And that’s if you’re lucky. If you aren’t, he just won’t speak. I’ve seen that, too.”

  Becca threw herself i
nto her chair again.

  “Why does it have to be so hard? I’m here to ask for help. Someone talks to me, figures out what I need, and then tells me what they’re going to do.”

  He spread his hands and she looked at him with exasperation. He grinned.

  “Nothing is ever easy, here. Look. We call you squash hunters. Because you squash so easy. Boggies. Undermoss. Rodent slayers.” He looked to the side. “From there it gets more colorful than I’d like to admit in front of a proper lady.”

  “You know a lot of improper ladies?” Becca asked.

  “Tons,” he said. “You’re in a new league, up here. It’s kind of like your pet cocker spaniel turning up at your knee one day and saying that he needs you to come help him solve a jigsaw puzzle. Or if a hampster showed up on your breakfast table wearing a cape and said that he knew where there was a damsel in distress.” He grinned. “Yeah, I like that one.”

  “This is supposed to be helping me trust you?” she asked. He spread his hands again.

  “Would I tell it to you like that if I had another agenda?”

  “Maybe,” she said, and he laughed.

  “You actually are really good at this game. You just don’t like it, and you don’t know how to get started.”

  “Why are you helping me?” Becca asked.

  “Because you’re pretty and I don’t have anything better to do,” he said, returning to his meal.

  “You’re old,” she said. He snorted, wiping rice off his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “If you think I’m thinking about screwing you, just no. You think I’d ever do a Gypsy chick? One in a tribe with a queen like Bella? I like my scrotum, thank you.”

  Becca felt herself blush. Hated herself for it. Blushed harder.

  He grinned.

  “But that was worth it. Come on. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

  She told him as little as she could. Left the history out, feeling like Jackson’s warning that it was personal had been specific to her, especially for her, given that she was coming here to do this. She just told him that they thought that Bella was in danger, that she was being stalked by a mage, and the summary details of the magic they thought was involved. Nothing about the test that the Bellas had done or how they’d gotten the information. That was crystal magic, and she hadn’t needed a warning from anyone that that was a secret she was to keep.