“Please,” I said, trying to sound as unthreatening as possible. “I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ll do whatever you want, just let me out of here.”
“Sorry, kid, that’s not going to happen. We’ve got a message to deliver to your father, and this is the only way to get it across.”
My mind stalled for a second, surprised. Kid I could explain away. I'd be twenty-five on my next birthday. I hadn’t been a kid in years, but who knew how old this guy was. Or maybe he was just a condescending prick.
It was the father part I couldn’t get past. That didn’t make any sense.
As far as I knew, the man who raised me was back home on the farm in County Meath, asleep in bed beside my mother. My adopted parents were the most boring people in the world, and I loved them for it. And thanks to the gifts that my folks didn’t even know I had, I could say more confidently than most that the shiftiest thing my dad had ever done was overcharging some of his buddies for some ewes to help pay my college tuition.
So having me kidnapped would probably be major overkill from Daniel O’Shay, who had also been my parent’s neighbor for twenty years.
Apparently, my brain goes to some particularly stupid places when I'm on the verge of panic. But somehow, the idea of my entirely lovely neighbor from back home plotting something this extreme was a silly enough thought to help keep me grounded inside my own head.
“There’s been a mistake,” I pleaded. “I don’t know who you think I am, but my dad ...” is no one? Is boring? He was everything to me, but I couldn’t find the words to tell them just how wrong they’d gotten things tonight. “You’ve got this all wrong.”
Unless it was my biological father they were talking about.
“Wow,” another man’s voice came from somewhere beside me, drawing out the word in a distinctly London tone. “Is it possible that Ethan Murphy has managed to hide his true nature from his own kid? Harsh. He was practically begging for something like this to happen to her.”
Ethan. Murphy. The wolf. Wait, they thought I was his daughter?
Katie.
They thought I was Katie.
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. I was still bound and blindfolded in the back of a van, held hostage by a bunch of maniacs.
But at least I still had a chance of talking my way out of this, because the other option was going to be a lot messier.
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you guys fucked this one up real nicely. Ethan’s not my dad. You’ve got the wrong girl.”
Someone scoffed nearby.
“Nice try,” the French woman hissed. “What other human girl would be sneaking out of that house at two in the morning. Sneaking out to meet a boy, were we? Well, it doesn’t matter now. We’ve waited long enough. It’s time to go. Your daddy’s going to be sorry he didn’t keep better tabs on you.”
The van roared to life, rumbling underneath me. I’d already planted my hands as firmly to the floor as I could, not to keep my balance, but to be ready for this very moment.
My powers were far more tuned into electrical devices—computers were my specialty. But in a pinch, I could at least make an impact on the more mechanically inclined devices of the world.
And I would definitely have said I was in a pinch.
I just had to wait for my moment.
The van pulled forward, and I focused on learning as much as possible about the vehicle where I was imprisoned. The engine, the circuitry, even the radio. I’d take whatever I could get. But for my ability to work, I needed raw, electric power.
“What if she’s telling the truth?” It was the British guy who spoke up first, surprising me as the van moved into a turn.
“I am,” I insisted, trying to keep my breathing steady. The air inside my hood was getting warm and damp. “I was just there to fix the Wi-Fi. Whatever’s going on, I’ve got nothing to do with it. Just let me go, and we can forget this ever happened. Take off my hood, you’ll see I’m not who you think I am.”
“No,” the man up front barked. “We’ve come this far. Pretty words won’t change anything. And we don’t even know what the girl looks like, not for sure.”
My words weren’t pretty, but they were the truth. But the knot at my throat had already started to loosen. A moment later, fresh air rushed into my lungs as my eyes struggled to adjust to my hood being removed.
A man’s face was only inches from my own, blue eyes etched with concern.
As the three people in the back of the van with me studied my face, I continued to follow each turn we made, using my own knowledge of the city to help me find my moment. Like my attackers, finding a quiet spot was very much going to be my best chance of success.
“She doesn’t look like the picture we have,” the French woman said. She was black and looked to be about forty, with curly hair pulled into a tight braid and a few faint lines around her eyes.
The haze of magick only I could see filled the van, too close together to make out what belonged to who, but there was no denying these people were supernatural.
“The picture we have is old,” the British guy pointed out. Neither of the men in the back of the car looked to be much older than I was. Clearly, they were way ahead of the curve when it came to being criminals and scumbags. “She could have dyed her hair.”
A few more turns, and we were out of the city center, heading for the water. I didn’t intend to stick around long enough to find out why. “Do I look like a teenager?” I demanded. The only answer I received was the hardening of every person’s expression.
They didn’t believe me. It was too late to get out of this without exposing what I could do.
Closing my eyes, my consciousness crept into the van, weaving the spell that would let me take control.
It only half worked. We surged forward, picking up to top speed in seconds as the driver began to shout. It drew everyone else’s attention away from me for just long enough.
I managed to shift the van’s direction toward the nearest, hopefully empty, building in the same moment as I propelled my own body forward, shifting through the air with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. But it was enough to put the French woman’s body between my own and the van’s door at the same moment as we crashed into brick.
Even with the extra cushioning of another body, the impact shook my entire body from my feet to my teeth. I tumbled forward as others tumbled backward or sideways. Bodies were everywhere, none of them right side up. The moment's warning I’d been able to give myself before we hit was barely enough to let me keep my wits until the van stopped completely.
I didn’t wait to see if anyone had been hurt, or if someone would be able to follow me as soon as I ran. I threw my weight against the door, praying the van had been damaged enough to kill any semblance of structural integrity.
In the first bit of luck I’d had all night, the door popped open. I had to force my body through the narrow gap before it widened enough to pass through, but it was enough.
I was almost free when hands gripped my foot, but whoever had me, their hold on me wasn’t strong enough. I shook them off with a shuddering breath.
If I’d gotten bruises before, those bruises would have bruises now.
But there was no time to stop and think about how much I was hurting.
I forced my legs to keep moving. My eyes stayed focused on the road ahead, taking the first turn I could find to get out of sight.
After a few minutes of blind, panicked turns, I had to stop. Breathe. I knew where I needed to go.
Hands still bound behind my back, I ran for home, my feet moving as quickly as they could as the stars shone bright overhead, illuminating Galway Bay.
Chapter 4
Once I got back to the city it got a hell of a lot harder not to draw too much attention to myself. I felt like I’d broken a rib or two, and maybe even dislocated my shoulder, and I had no idea what new damage I’d find by looking in a mirror. Whatever it was, it made anyone who passed me look
twice, and that was with me trying to walk like I had my hands shoved in my back pockets, and not zip-tied behind my back.
Most of the people who were up this late at night, or early in the morning now, were the kinds who kept their mouths shut, but there was only so much I could get away with.
The closer I got to the center of the city, to home, the more I worked to keep my head down and look as normal as possible, but by the time I was within a block of my flat, I was practically running, desperate to get inside to where I knew no one was watching me.
Whoever those people were, they had obviously followed me from Ethan’s house somehow. And they did it without a car, without my having any idea they were there. Could I be sure they weren't waiting to make a second attempt? No.
But I had to get home all the same. There was nowhere else to go.
By the time I got back to my block, there wasn’t another soul in sight. There was also no sign of my toolbox where I’d left it after I'd been grabbed, not far from home. If someone had found it, they were in for a surprise. They probably wouldn’t appreciate the collection of supplies I’d put together over the past half-decade, but they’d get some money for my phone. And my gun.
They’d get a hell of a lot more for the blade, but only if they could figure out what it was and who to sell it to. As for me, I’d never be able to replace what I’d lost. Even if I found the exact same selection, they'd always feel different. But there would be time to mourn those things later. For now, the real problem was my missing keycard, my only way into the building and my flat.
Taya was probably up there right now, fast asleep, maybe with her guest snuggled up beside her.
I could ring the bell, but then I’d have more than a few questions to answer.
Or, I could work my magick.
Without my hands.
Yeah, it wasn’t an ideal situation by any stretch, but any hopes for an ideal evening had long since disappeared.
Craning my sore neck, I did one last check of our alleyway, making sure there was absolutely no way I could be seen. Not that a random passerby would be able to make any sense of what was about to happen, but it would be one more red flag that would potentially have the garda knocking on my door.
I leaned my head against the keypad, having to stoop down a little in order to get a solid connection between my bare skin and the electronic device guarding our home. I’d rarely ever had to do this without my hands, but it never really mattered how I made the connection to make my particular brand of witchcraft work.
I could feel each number button digging into my cheek as I ordered the unit to unlock the door. Maybe it was exhaustion, or my body had just taken too much of a hit, but it took me three tries before I heard the familiar click of the lock, leaving me to only push a little to get inside.
I was in. I swallowed down a sob. There wasn’t time for that yet. Soon.
My own doorway came a little more easily, though getting through that one with my hands still behind my back was more of a trick.
And then I was in, and everything I’d been through that night came rushing up to greet me in a wave.
I barely managed to get the door shut again before I collapsed in an undignified heap in our front hall, trying to catch my breath as tears ran down my face.
I’m not sure how long I sat there before my body physically could not cry any longer. It felt like a lifetime.
And I still didn’t have an answer for how to get myself unbound so I could start putting the pieces back together. I was completely stuck, with no one to ask for help. Taya was probably home, but I had no way to explain the predicament I'd gotten myself into.
But fortunately for me, I wasn’t out of options.
In the world of the supernatural, there are four main classes of ability, each belonging to one of the greater magicks—werewolves, witches, vampires, and fae. There is a more eclectic set of abilities belonging to the lesser magicks, people born with powers but no faction to protect them. People like me.
I’d gotten my ability to see the powers of others from my birth mother.
But somehow, through nothing but bad luck, I’d also somehow been born with hints of the powers that were classified as greater magicks. Powers that should never have coexisted in the same person.
Which isn’t to say I had all the abilities of the wolves, the witches or anyone else. Instead, I had an offset of each of their powers. Something pretty useless on its own, that never quite matched up with what I’d learned about the greater magicks.
My ability to shift the magick of the witches toward modern technology was easily my favorite power, and the only one that was remotely useful to me.
From the fae, I could use glamour, but only on someone other than myself. I’d learned this one slowly, practicing on my parents, giving them extra freckles or scars, things I could measure but that would likely never be caught by anyone else. The farthest I’d ever gone was to change my dad’s eye color, but I hadn’t even been brave enough to wait for him to wake up to see if it could work.
My ability from the wolves was the most boring, it was also the one that had helped keep me alive. It might have also been the weirdest. For as long as I could remember, I'd been able to change how I smelled to other people, supernatural or otherwise. On dates, I could smell like roses. After the gym I could smell like nothing at all. And most importantly, I always smelled perfectly human.
It was the power I’d gotten from the vampires that I’d always hated the most. It was also the one I was pretty sure I was about to have to use for the first time in a decade.
Blood from a human could heal a vampire, blood from a vampire could heal a human. Only my own blood could heal me, something you’d think would be counterintuitive. The entire idea of it was grotesque.
When I’d fallen out of the second story window at my parents’ house and broken my arm, I’d at least had a functional right hand to wield a carving knife to slice deep enough into my thigh to make myself bleed so I could drink the blood in that way, fixing the damage before my parents got back from church.
Now, my options were far more limited. I could get to my legs easily enough, but didn’t trust my teeth to rip through my jeans to get to skin. I could bite the inside of my mouth somehow, but everything about that idea horrified me. Which left my shoulders, bare because of the top I’d picked to go out in earlier, and easy enough to get to.
I turned without letting myself think too much about what I was about to do, and bit down into my left shoulder with just enough force to break the skin. Not a nice feeling. And not enough damage to get me what I needed. I bit down harder, crying out without meaning to, just until the blood began to flow into my mouth and down my throat.
I barely had time to appreciate just how much I hated the taste of blood, and how fantastic the sensation of healing was, before the lamp on the other side of the room flipped on.
I pulled my head back just in time to see Taya staring at me in complete horror.
“God, Melanie, what happened to you?”
No, no, no! Everything about this was wrong. Taya was walking toward me, hands outstretched, but in a matter of seconds she was about to see the very thing I’d been hiding from her from the moment I met her. The thing I’d been hiding from everyone.
“You never texted me. And then you weren’t answering your phone ...” her voice trailed off, but I didn’t need any explanation about what it was she was seeing. I could feel it in my face, in my bones. In my blood. Vampire magick, undoing whatever damage I’d endured at the hands of my kidnappers. And that one self-induced car wreck.
Taya stepped back, eyes wide.
There was no way to stop the process that had already begun. Instead, I let it wash over me, not fighting, just accepting. Somewhere inside me a rib snapped back into place, bruises melted back into my skin, cuts and scrapes healed in moments. It was wonderful. Addictive.
In under a minute, I felt like myself again. Better. Unlike when I’d gone out
earlier, I now felt as well-rested as if I’d spent the night at a spa rather than tied up in the back of a van.
“What the hell is this, Mel.”
“Taya, I ...” I struggled to stand, using my weight against our front door to slide upward. It got me upright, it also tipped off my roommate that I was still seriously incapacitated.
Taya sprinted across the living room toward where our small kitchen table sat in the corner where my toolbox sat, looking exactly like it always did.
I turned to run as soon as I saw the gun in her hands, but I was too slow.
“Don’t move, Melanie! I don’t want to shoot you, but you aren’t going anywhere. Not now.”
Since I hadn’t even been able to open the front door fast enough to run, I couldn’t exactly argue. At least she hadn’t been looking to shoot first and ask questions later.
Not that it mattered. I was still completely screwed.
“Charlie and I came back here half an hour ago. When I found your toolkit in the alley, I sent him home. I had no idea what to think. You weren’t answering your phone. But then I found it in the back pocket. I thought maybe you were in trouble. And then I found the gun. I’d gotten to the point where I was starting to figure out that you were the one that was trouble, when I felt someone using magick, just outside our building.”
Taya barely took a breath before continuing, practically spelling out all the places I’d gone wrong tonight. “There was something off about what I was feeling, so I hid. If you’d been sent here to ...” Taya didn’t finish her sentence, and my heart was racing far too quickly to let me try and work out what she was saying. “Well, I didn’t stand a chance.”
“You came in, and then before I could do anything, you were crying. At least I knew you were alive. And you thought you were alone. But then when you sounded like you were hurt, I couldn’t just sit back anymore.”
“I was hurt,” I started.
Taya shook her head. “Well, you fixed that without any trouble at all, didn’t you? Which brings me to my first and only question. Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in this city?”
Magic in my Bones (Lesser Magicks Book 1) Page 3