More of a white lie this time, but I’d rather not get his hopes up any more than I had to. Swanson nodded, mumbling thanks, as I unlocked the door and let him outside.
I took some calming breaths and considered the facts. No Sidhe had entered our realm in over twenty years. No human had crossed between the realms in ten, as far as I knew. The other faeries left behind after the invasion, based on my shaky knowledge, had no way back.
Which meant there was a chance the person who’d taken Swanson’s child was still here, somewhere, in this realm. I’d need to see the fake ‘child’ to get to the bottom of how they’d created one in the first place.
I hadn’t seen a changeling in thirteen years. Tomorrow was not going to be fun.
I was lugging my ruined clothes from the bathtub when Isabel came in, the door clicking shut behind her. She waved at me, wearing one of her usual long flowery dresses and more shiny bangles on her slim brown arms than the inside of the troll’s nest. Despite her innocent appearance and general mild-mannered nature, she could hold her own in a fight. I’d once seen her kick a half-ogre through a window. And she was five feet tall and probably weighed a hundred pounds, if that.
“Wow,” she said. “I take it the case didn’t go well?”
“It went.” I examined my jeans, wondering how many times I could stitch them back together before they came apart at the seams. Probably one less time than I’d done it. Looked like I was due for another shopping trip, with the money I didn’t have.
Yet.
Isabel moved to clear a bunch of odd spells off the living room sofa. To a non-magic user, the place looked like it belonged to a stationary fanatic. Most of her spells took the form of rubber bands, while her handmade point-and-shoot explosives looked like fancy pencils. Most witches were encouraged to make their spells look like household objects because it reassured clients the arcane forces witches used were relatively harmless. Or something. I didn’t blame Swanson for his alarmed reaction, considering the number of symbols drawn onto the ceiling in sharpie and the burn stains on the carpet from over-enthusiastic sessions testing her latest explosive spells. As a prominent member of one of the local witch covens, Isabel’s the best at both offensive and defensive witch magic. She also happens to be my closest friend.
“Someone was here,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “A client?”
“New one, yeah.” I sank into an armchair. I had to sink, because the second-hand furniture had a tendency to collapse without warning.
“I wouldn’t tell the landlord,” said Isabel. “You know what he’s like about letting ‘weirdos’ into the flat.”
I snorted. “Has he ever met us?”
She grinned and shook her head. “Weirdos who don’t pay rent. Whichever.”
“We don’t always,” I reminded her. Witches earned a pittance, while my own payments depended on whether Larsen was feeling particularly generous. Jobs had been few and far between lately, and he only suffered to let me keep coming into the guild because I kept all the nasty faeries away. Like keeping a bad-tempered cat to get rid of a mouse infestation.
“This new case.” Isabel smiled at me. “You never go for the easy options, do you? What’s the catch?”
“It’s a tricky one,” I admitted, not wanting to go into specifics. There was still a chance Swanson had imagined the changeling part. Funny how those legends stuck around, when the last changeling case was so many years ago. I’d told Isabel the bare bones of what had happened—just enough that she didn’t question my eccentricities. Though she’d been a kid when her kind came out of hiding in the aftermath of the Sidhes’ arrival, she’d never seen one of them. They hid themselves well. Unless they wanted you to see them. Creepy fuckers.
“Tricky how?”
“Missing kid, suspected faerie involvement,” I said. “The mages refused to help, so I couldn’t say no.”
“Missing kid?” She studied me in the way she always did when I brought up the missing child cases I’d been involved in. I tried not to give too much away, but there were only so many conclusions she could draw from my interest in those particular cases. She knew I was an orphan, but not the details. When it comes to my past, ‘complicated’ is an understatement.
“Yeah. We’ll need a detection charm, I think. But there might be complications. I need to visit the Swansons’ house first. Just in case he’s mistaken his own kid for an evil faerie. It can happen.”
Isabel gave me one of her you’re bullshitting me looks, but went over to the coffee table. “You gave him an iron spell?”
“Had to, really. He doesn’t know about faerie wards. The mages left him in the dark.” Or one guy in particular. I shoved away the image of the lethal blade appearing from nowhere. Whatever the Mage Lord had been doing in this part of town, I’d probably never see him again.
“I’ll prepare the base for the spell.” Isabel cleared a space on the coffee table. “I’ve always wanted to try this one again.”
“You’re the best, you know that?” She didn’t charge me for spells, even the complicated ones. I’d have hired her as my assistant if she’d wanted the job, but after seven years being flatmates, I’d given up trying to offer her money. Her argument was that she enjoyed what she did.
I wouldn’t say I enjoyed my job most of the time, but my skill set doesn’t leave many options open. Since I came back home, mundane jobs have felt as out of reach as the world before the faeries came. My CV consists of survival and stabbing things. I didn’t play nicely in a team, and had got fired from the one bar job I’d had after an argument with a half-faerie got out of hand.
It was a wonder I’d even found a flatmate. I put in my ad, “Requirements: a high tolerance for weirdness. No music, loud or otherwise. Faerie-proof charms required. Again, ABSOLUTELY NO MUSIC OF ANY KIND.” And it worked. Witches needed dead silence to practise their spells, and Isabel accepted my low tolerance for noise as a given. As for the ‘high tolerance for weirdness part’, I’d lucked out. Isabel knew some of my demons, but not all of them.
I walked into the bathroom to retrieve my clothes, removing the cleansing spell—another rubber-band-shaped device, this one blue—and washing the crumbling remnants down the drain. For a brief moment, the imprint of a swirling vortex of lines hovered above it, a remnant of the potent magic present in faerie blood.
I’ve learned not to trust my own senses when it comes to the faeries. Leaving the room, I decided to double up on the wards around my room tonight, even if it meant making that piskie hate me for the next week. I prefer to keep my demons caged.
Chapter 3
The following morning started with a blissful five minutes imagining I’d actually get to lie in on a Sunday, before a shrill noise brought me crashing back to reality. Groaning, I rolled over and picked up my phone. It was an old touchscreen model I’d bought second hand and had a jagged cut down the screen, but it worked well enough. “Hello?”
“Ivy Lane? This is Mr Swanson.”
Oh crap. God help me, I’d said yes. I swung my legs over the bed and did my absolute best to sound like a professional. “Hi. Did you manage to get the iron ward set up?”
“We did, but the changeling escaped.”
Dammit. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I hung up without mentioning Isabel. Good job I’d showered extensively the day before to wash every taint of faerie blood from my skin. I hurriedly dressed and grabbed my backpack, plus knives, which I shoved into their holsters. I kept them by my bed for easy access, along with jars of salt, iron filings, and herbs that repelled various other supernatural menaces.
Isabel raised an eyebrow as I ran past, grabbing the spells she’d prepared from the table and shoving them into my backpack. “I take it you don’t have time for cookies.”
Dammit. Isabel’s baking is possibly the best in existence. The world really hates me sometimes.
“Save me some for later,” I said. “I’ve got to talk to this guy first.”
�
�Okay. I’ll probably be at the Cavanaughs’ upstairs. Their ceiling’s leaking and I said I’d help with a spell.”
“Cool.” I pulled out my phone again to check on Swanson’s address, groaning as I realised I’d have to ride the bus. I didn’t used to mind public transport, but most bus drivers hated me by this point because of all the times I’d collapsed onto their buses covered in blood from jobs at the far end of town. I sucked it up and walked to the bus stop. The day was crisp and clear for early autumn, ragged leaves blowing through the streets. The picture of mundaneness, at least on the outside.
Because it was clearly going to be one of Those Days, a half-faerie got onto the bus one stop after me and proceeded to loudly complain to the driver about my not-concealed iron weapons. I jumped off two stops early and ran the rest of the way.
The houses turned from broken-down old blocks of flats to rows of nice suburban houses like a picture of the old world. The roads had no potholes, the parks were well maintained, and everything seemed to shine like someone had flung a dirt-proof ward over the entire area. Probably true, considering I stood on the brink of mage territory. Some people even had working televisions. I stared through the window of a particularly nice house for a moment, watching two kids run around. Was this how my own childhood had been, minus the magic? This part of town didn’t look like a war had hit it. There was nothing left of the place I’d grown up in.
Idiot. Quit gazing into history and get on with the job.
I turned into the right street and approached the house the Swanson family lived in. Nothing seemed out of place, though the slight shimmering around the door showed Swanson had managed to get the iron ward I’d given him set up. Was the changeling hiding inside the house, or had it ran outside?
One way to find out. I rang the doorbell, shifting my backpack on my shoulder.
Swanson answered, looking like he hadn’t slept. His greying hair stood up all over. Several scratch marks on his arms showed the changeling had revealed its true colours, unless he’d been attacked by something else.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m set. Where’s… the changeling?” I’d almost said ‘your son’, but that was more a desperate attempt at optimism talking. If it turned out his son was into dark magic, it could be dealt with. Faeries, though…
“The changeling’s hiding,” he said. “It saw the iron and ran.”
Great. Luckily, I’d come prepared. Each kind of faerie needed slightly different bait, so I’d stashed a variety in my backpack. Changelings were an oddity, though, and not one I knew enough about to make an educated guess on how to catch it.
“What are you doing?” asked Swanson as I crouched in the hallway and began sifting through the contents of my bag. Isabel colour-coded her spells and trackers took the form of green rubber bands. I took one in my hand.
“Tracking the changeling.” I held the spell for him to see. “This is witch-made. I normally use them on humans, but it ought to work on faeries, too.”
Swanson didn’t move. “I thought you were going to find my son.”
“I’ll need to find out whereabouts the changeling came from before I can track your son down.” Though tracking humans was easier. “Hmm. Unless… do you have anything of your son’s I can use? Hair works best.”
Swanson retreated into the hallway. Every nerve in my body told me this was a bad idea. If his son had been taken out of this realm, I didn’t like to think what effect that would have on the spell. If it brought the faeries right here…
Calm down. This place is warded. Yet that didn’t reassure me. I hovered in the hallway while Swanson went upstairs, and came back with a few golden curls of hair.
“I’ll have to do the spell inside the house,” I said. “It’s warded, so if anything happens, you’ll be protected from damage.” I hoped.
Swanson looked alarmed. “Damage?”
“It’ll be fine.” I couldn’t cover the lie in my voice this time.
Swanson led the way into the living room, where a pale, dark-haired woman sat with her head in her hands. Bloodshot eyes met mine.
“Are you here to help find our son?”
“I’m going to use a tracking spell, if that’s okay.” I held up the band. “I can track your son, but only if he’s still in this realm.”
Those words had the exact effect I’d dreaded. Two sets of horrified eyes stared at me. “In this realm?”
“If he was taken to Faerie—like I said, I can’t follow. I don’t know what effect it’ll have on the spell. I’m telling you this as a warning. Do you still want me to try?”
“Yes, of course.” Swanson nodded, eyes following as I set the spell down on the carpeted floor, where it expanded into a circular shape. My heart was already hammering. I didn’t feel like the expert here, but I knew I looked and sounded calmer than I actually was.
I subtly shifted the sword at my waist, ready to grab it if things turned bad. Then I threw the golden hairs into the centre of the spell’s base. Green light flared up around the edges, and I leaned forward. To them, it’d look like a meaningless blur of lights. To anyone who could sense magic, it would show me the location of the person I tracked.
Or, it should. The lights swirled, becoming patterns that almost made me too dizzy to watch. I held my breath.
The spell winked out, the lines of the circle turning grey. Lifeless.
An icy chill ran down my spine. For the spell not to work meant one of two things: the faerie had put a spell-resistant charm on its captive… or it had left this realm behind.
I looked up at two stricken faces. “Didn’t it work?” asked the woman.
So they’d seen something. “Are either of you magically sensitive?”
A pause, then she shook her head. “Why?”
“I can’t think of a motive for why your son was taken. The spell didn’t work, but I can track the changeling instead.”
“Why didn’t it work?” croaked Swanson. “Is he—gone? You mentioned the Faerie realms yesterday… you said most faeries can’t cross over. How can they have taken him?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Faerie magic works on a different level to what we understand.”
“You’re a witch, right?”
“Yes. Tracking’s my specialty. But not outside this realm. As for the rules of Faerie, nobody knows them.”
And technically, faerie lords could cross over, under special circumstances like the invasion. Nobody knew how they did it. One day, the world was on the brink of WWIII. The next, magic had exploded across the country and brought a flock of dangerous faerie warriors along with it who cared nothing for collateral damage as they razed half our city to the ground.
“No one?” Swanson echoed. “But… but the faeries. Can’t you talk to them?”
I would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Talk to them. Faeries either wanted to eat me or steal from me. Or both. Only the piskie living in my flat had ever made conversation with me, but it had the IQ of a goldfish and couldn’t remember where it had come from. Probably born here.
“Not really,” I said. “Most faeries around these days were born in this realm after the invasion, or fled when the realms opened. They don’t belong to Summer or Winter. And I doubt they know how magic works. Most faeries on this side don’t have any.”
Once the war stopped and life had ground to a standstill, the Sidhe lords left, the doors closed, and everything magical stopped going haywire. At least, that’s what I’d heard from Isabel, because I’d been absent at the time. From what people knew of the two main Courts, Summer and Winter were under strict governance and their inhabitants were usually forbidden to come to Earth unless under special circumstances. But in between Summer and Winter existed a kind of neutral zone where the rules didn’t apply. It made sense the faerie came from there.
I really, really hoped it didn’t.
Swanson seemed to consider this. “Okay. Can you track the changeling, then?”
“I can try.
” I doubted a simple changeling would have the power to cross over between realms, so at least it’d still be in the mortal world. I put away the dead spell and pulled a fresh one from my backpack, setting it up in the middle of the floor. Scorch marks remained from the first one, but they’d fade.
“Do you have anything the changeling left behind?” I ought to have thought of that first. This whole situation had rattled me, made me forget the basics of my job.
Swanson nodded, and walked into the hallway. “We cleared away everything he set up, but his room’s… a mess.”
Oh boy, I thought, remembering what he’d said yesterday. Gritting my teeth, I followed him into the hallway and up the carpeted stairs. Through the door on the right lay what looked like the inside of some twisted mad scientist’s lab. Or a witch whose power had gone bad. Symbols were etched all over the walls, unfamiliar glyphs that made the hairs rise on my arms. Blood soaked into the carpet, and several small furry bodies lay in the centre of a circle. Rats. I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying to calm my breathing.
“This… it’s black magic.” Most witches didn’t label magic as ‘good’ or ‘evil’, but any spells that involved killing were strictly forbidden by the Mage Lords. Why the hell would a faerie changeling be messing with these props?
Swanson hesitated by the door, his expression telling me he was as reluctant to go into the room as I was. But one of us had to. I quickly stepped over the threshold, gaze averted from the blood, searching out any object that didn’t have magical properties. Throwing anything related to dark magic into the middle of a tracking spell would have consequences I couldn’t begin to imagine. Everything—claw cuttings, knives, burned-black spell triangles—had do not touch written all over them.
Behind were the sports posters, books and video game collection of an ordinary teenage boy. I concentrated on that image. I was doing this to save an innocent person from the faeries. An innocent person who didn’t have magic.
Just like I hadn’t.
I crouched down, searching the carpet. Several fine hairs lay there, but at first glance, I couldn’t tell if they belonged to the human or the changeling. I held them up to the light. Silver. Most faeries had silvery hair, or jet black.
Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 3