by K. F. Breene
“Mother, would you stop?” I tugged at Emery’s arm in embarrassment. Without him, we would’ve been in deep water. He didn’t need constant berating about something that surely wouldn’t be an issue. I had power, sure, but I didn’t have any know-how. Merging with me would just weigh him down.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, his expression solemn.
I rolled my eyes. “If we’re going to go, we should go.” I tugged at him again. The man was a stack of bricks. He didn’t move.
“Wait right there. I’ll talk Merna out of her commuter car. That’ll give you twenty-four hours.”
“Why twenty-four hours?” I asked.
My mother looked at me like I was thick in the head. “We can’t wait any longer than that to call it in as stolen or the cops will get suspicious.”
Emery nodded like that made sense.
Even with this crew, I was the odd one out, and for once, I was okay with that. Sanity was a good thing.
Chapter Twenty
Emery turned off the beat-up old Honda and sat for a moment, staring out at the darkening evening. Parked cars lined the busy Seattle street. People ambled by in light jackets and pulled-up hoods.
I clasped my hands in my lap, giving him a moment to collect his thoughts. His ego had taken a pretty solid beating after a day with my mother. She could bowl over the strongest of people.
“What do you know about the magical world?” he finally asked.
“I know that there are shifters, vampires, witches, mages, and a guy named Vlad. Also that there are two sets of rules: one set for humans, which I know really well, and another set for magical people, which I don’t know at all, but it definitely seems killing people doesn’t hold the same weight.”
“You forgot zombies on your list,” he said, his lips curling upward. He wiped his hand over his mouth, as though he hadn’t wanted to smile.
“Right. Yes. That probably should’ve been first on my list.”
His expression returned to stoic and he looked at me, his gaze deep and probing. “In a nutshell, there are a few worlds. The human world, which you know, the underworld, which you’ll probably never visit—”
“Even if I die?”
“The underworld isn’t hell. Hell is where a person lives when they lose everything. I’m going to make sure you never spend time there. The underworld is full of demons, gargoyles, and trolls, and Lucifer rules them.”
“Ah.” I nodded like I heard things like that every day.
“Mages primarily live in this world, which magical people call the Brink. I suspect that is because they are humans with magic, instead of magical creatures. They feel the most at home here.”
“You live in the Brink, then?”
A troubled look crossed his face. “I have no home. The Brink isn’t safe for me for too long, and I’m supposed to be banned from the Realm, which is the magical world that you will probably visit someday. It’s run by the elves without a sense of humor, hence my banishment out of a harmless practical joke, and populated with all manner of magical folk, many of which can’t live in the Brink because they’d stand out. I’m a gypsy, for the most part, moving from one place to the next.”
The loud buzzing in my head from all this new information dimmed and sadness for his situation took root inside of me. Losing his brother must’ve turned his life upside down. It reminded me of how it had felt to lose my dad. Except my mother, who was as tough and steadfast as a rock, had been there to shield me from the storm. And after the last twenty-four hours, I knew just how dangerous and wild that storm really was. That he had been plunged into it alone broke my heart.
Knowing that he was a hand holder, I reached out, feeling a surge through my middle when he curled his fingers around mine. A thankful smile ghosted his lips.
“Anyway, long story short”—his seriousness came back too quickly—“here’s what you need to know. An organized pack of shifters police the Brink on behalf of the Realm. They ensure magical people follow the rules, which are in place so that the humans don’t know we exist.”
“Because humans are crazy when it comes to anything different than themselves?”
“Yes. Right now, they have each other to bomb. Magical people don’t want to help them band together and focus on us.”
Something occurred to me. “Didn’t you break the rules running out of my house?”
“Yes. I’ve broken lots of rules lately.”
“Are the shifters after you?”
Wariness crossed his face. “The Mages’ Guild breaks the rules often, but it’s too powerful for the shifters to take down. The shifters don’t have much of a choice but to steer clear. There’s no lost love there, so they might just ignore me. On the flip side, since the guild is against me, the shifters might take that as a green light to come after me. And you.”
The buzzing had taken over again. “Uh-huh,” I said, as though I was following along just fine. It would be quicker in the long run.
“Shifters are prevalent in this world. So are their nemeses, vampires.”
“Wait.” I held up a finger. It didn’t help focus my thoughts. “I thought the guild was the shifters’ nemesis.”
“No. The guild is an entity that has gotten out of hand in this part of the world, and the shifters can’t scale it back. That’s professional aggravation. When it comes to the vampires, for some reason, it’s personal.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea,” he said, which was not at all helpful. “It might be because vampires turn humans into the undead, thereby increasing their numbers. The shifters have to breed more shifters. That’s just a guess. I’ve never asked—I have my own problems; I don’t want to dabble in theirs.”
“But…you can magically make shifters. At that retreat—”
“When you turned witches into zombies,” he said in a teasing tone.
“Right.” I drew the word out. He was getting too much enjoyment out of that. “At that retreat, they also made a werewolf. The mage said the werewolf was out terrorizing a nearby city and it wasn’t his problem.”
Chuckles shook Emery’s body. “That sounds like my kind of mage. But magically made werewolves are not the same as shifters.”
I knew I was making a funny face while I tried to process that, but I couldn’t help it. Those words made no sense to me. “Uh-huh.”
“So it’s best not to talk to vampires about shifters, and vice versa,” he said, and I hoped that was him finishing his hole-ridden lecture.
“Okay. No problem.”
“And don’t talk about the Mages’ Guild to anyone.”
“Got it.” I nodded dutifully.
“Oh, and a group of magical people, secretly affiliated with the human authorities, also police the Brink. They tend to take magical crimes the human police stumble upon. But since they’re also wary of the guild, I don’t suspect we’ll need to worry about them.”
“But…” I struggled through a sudden bout of information-induced dizziness. “I thought the shifters policed the Earth—I mean, the Brink.”
“They do. But they tend to spend their time chasing vampires, and the Magical Law Enforcement Office mostly ignores the vampires and focuses more on human laws broken by magical people. So even though it seems like there is double policing, there’s more than enough wrongdoing for both factions.”
I stared at him with a frozen smile. My brain had shut off at this point. Learning that the creatures of myth were real and wandering around my world was one thing. Learning there were a couple of entirely different worlds somehow attached to my own was another thing. But then adding bureaucracy and interspecies drama on top of all that?
No.
Just no.
I didn’t have the brain capacity for that much what in the freaking hell? Not all at once.
“Don’t worry,” he said softly, his gaze roaming my face. He squeezed my hand. “Since the guild is so heavily involved, no one’s likely to touch us with a ten-foot pole. Most likely,
we only have one enemy, not three.”
I nodded, but the words “most likely” stuck with me.
“Okay.” He winked at me, which was incredibly sexy for some reason, before taking back his hand and getting out of the car.
“Okay, pep talk done—on with more scary stuff. Got it,” I mumbled as I followed suit. He met me on the sidewalk next to the passenger door. “What’s the plan?”
He jerked his head to the right and starting walking. I fell in beside him and startled when he took my hand again.
“You’re kind of a touchy-feely guy, huh?” I said quietly, spying a couple ambling toward us down the sidewalk. They were chatting amicably, their focus on each other.
“I’ve come to realize that your reactions can’t be anticipated. If something jumps out at us, I want to keep you by my side. I also want one hand captured so you can’t blast me with your survival magic.”
I’d misread the touching. That made me feel a little awkward about grabbing his hand in the car. “The white stuff is survival magic? My survival magic?”
He choked out a laugh. “I wouldn’t go around talking about ‘white stuff,’ but yes.”
“Oh right, because of the rule on not talking about magic.” I glanced around to make sure no one had overheard.
He gave me a funny look, then shook his head and looked away.
“I visited the office in Duval where Nicholas once worked before he was promoted,” he said, studying the faces of the couple passing us.
“Who is Nicolas?”
“The man who killed my brother.”
I swallowed, not knowing what to say.
“I went through the files there. I didn’t find much of note, except for one correspondence from the Baron’s office to a known assassin.” The significance was somewhat lost on me, which he must have noticed, because he added, “There are three Barons, directly under the High Chancellor. The guild operates by the chain of command, so a Baron would give his directives to the Regional, who would give them to the Sheriff to put into place. That a Baron would communicate directly with someone below even the Sheriff’s position speaks volumes.”
“What did the letter say?”
We slowed as we neared a bar with its door standing open. Noise and music tumbled out and into the street. Laughter preceded a woman exiting, tugging out a man after her. They turned the opposite way, chattering loudly between them.
“I don’t know. I don’t speak Italian. I need to find someone who does.” He glanced behind us before switching the hand holding mine. He dropped the newly freed hand to the swell of my hip, coaxing me forward. “After you.”
I wasn’t that unpredictable.
But then I remembered what he knew of me, which included my shotgun-wielding mother. I immediately rethought my indignation.
The dimly lit bar looked bare as I walked in. Tables hugged the wall on my right, and there was a small throughway between those and the square bar lined with stools. At the end of the bar, a larger area opened up to the left.
Loud talking and laughter rolled over the counter, and I realized the crowd was in that space near the back, mostly obscured by the bar itself and sheltered from the doorway. My feet stuck to the floor and a pungent aroma of sick wafted toward me.
I wrinkled my nose. “Your Italian-speaking friend hangs out in here?” I asked.
“No.” He let go of my hand but not my hip and steered me down the bar, not crossing over to where the crowd roared and gabbed, clearly stuffed full to bursting with alcohol.
A stocky man made of muscle came around the corner. An expression of shock and delight crossed his face before he looked back over his shoulder. He knew Emery, and that over-the-shoulder glance indicated he also knew about his precarious situation. That spoke of friendship.
When the man’s gaze drifted to me, his expression turned troubled.
“Joe,” Emery said, his eyes sparkling a little, but the sentiment not enough to bring out a smile. “How goes it?”
“Hey, brother. Long time.” Joe reached a hand over the bar and Emery took it, the two men making large hands look totally normal. “What brings you?”
The sparkle left Emery’s eyes. “I’m here for a favor. I was wondering if that room over the bar is still free?”
“The stockroom, yeah.” Joe glanced at me. “It’s the same as it was, except for a few more boxes. There isn’t much space.”
Emery leaned against the bar and brought me in closer, blocking off my view of the door. “It’ll only be for one day, two tops. We need to lie low, and she…” His words faltered and he looked down at me, a mixture of emotion soaking his gaze: pain, embarrassment, and something else I couldn’t identify warred with loss.
“And she’s not accustomed to sleeping in the park, huh?” A grin spread across Joe’s wide face.
Emery looked away. “We’ll set it up like last time.”
Joe waved the sentiment away, whatever it was. “It’s fine. I didn’t fix the door after last time. It’s still busted. Everyone knows not to mess with my bar.” His voice had turned deep and rumbly, almost like an animal growl. Despite my confusion over what they were talking about, my small hairs stood on end and a strange surge of electricity and adrenaline rushed through my body.
Emery’s gaze snapped down toward me and he moved his hand from my hip to my wrist. The low hum of electricity vibrated between us.
“Keep the animal at bay around her, bro,” Emery said through gritted teeth, his grip tight around my wrist. “Deep breaths, Pe—Little Killer. Try to calm down. Don’t think of defending yourself. Think of…unicorns or something.”
I spat out a laugh, then wiped my hand across the bar in embarrassment. A sheen of white followed my palm, cracking the wood and infusing me with a lovely, earthy feeling that sang in my bones.
The electricity sizzled between Emery and me before some of it spread across my skin. Small prickles of pain brought a strange awareness. I fluttered my eyes as other feelings bumped against me. The chemicals in the lacquer covering the bar. The leather of the stools. The cotton of my shirt. Most importantly, the thick, heavy feeling of the energy all around us, providing the fuel for me to curl some of those ingredients into a marvelous concoction.
But what would I make?
“Just let it simmer,” Emery whispered urgently, his breath against my cheek. “Let that feeling simmer. We’re almost out of here, and then we’ll deal with it. Can you wait?”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Probably,” I said. “Unless someone comes to rob the bar or something, in which case…there’s really no telling what’ll happen.”
Joe was staring at me with a stone face and hard eyes.
“Sorry about the—” I gestured at the bar. Emery snatched my hand out of the air and pulled it toward the other, which he still held. Magic pulled at my center, the string on my ribs taut and painful. Sparks of colors bloomed where our hands touched.
I stared down at it, transfixed, feeling the surge of my heart. The surge of his. All in tune with the natural elements pulsing around us.
“Like I said, we need to lie low,” Emery said in a tight voice. “I can’t have anyone knowing I’m here. We’re here.”
Joe shifted and leaned heavily on the bar, facing the doorway. “The guild knows you’re in town. Which means everyone else knows you’re in town. They know we’re friends from the old days. A few of your old gir—” He cut off and glanced at me. “A few of your old friends told me to tell you to call them if I saw you. I suspect”—I got another glance—“you won’t be wanting to.”
“That’s got nothing to do with me,” I said, trying to throw up my hands. How quickly I’d forgotten the reason they were being held in the first place.
Emery tightened his grip as colors, light, patterns, and texture flowered over our touch and drifted up our arms. It was unlike any of the magic I’d seen before. More nuanced even than Emery’s. More beautiful.
I watched in fascination, tickled
where the wisps and strands touched me. A smile spread over my lips, and this time, when I looked up to Emery, he was staring back at me, a dark shadow across his beautiful blue eyes.
“Talk about buzzkill,” I muttered, returning my gaze to the dancing and curling magic.
“I can feel that,” Joe said. “You had better do something to hide it, or just walking down the street will get you found out.”
“I know,” Emery said. “What did you hear?” One by one, the muscles along his sizable frame flexed. In contrast, I was as loose as I’d ever felt, relaxed and open to my surroundings, feeling a strange but delightful magical tune whisper to me, soft and sweet.
“You mean, aside from guild members torturing someone who tried to get out? They’re getting bad, man.” Joe shook his head and shifted uncomfortably. “But as it pertains to you, that you took out three middle-tier mages that were working together,” Joe said. He took a step back and a sheen of moisture covered his eyes, like he was about to start crying. “That your magic is ten times mightier than when you lived in town, which seems about right, judging by the really harsh sting I’m feeling right now. And that something went down at a remote guild office somewhere in the burbs, but the guild is being quiet about it.”
“I found the office and broke in. I didn’t kill anyone. You know me. I don’t want to take down any innocents.”
Joe snickered, but there was no humor in it. “Innocence in the Mages’ Guild—yeah, sure.”
“Are Roger’s people looking for me?” Emery asked.
“No. You’re clear there.” Joe paused, catching the sound of a scuffed shoe near the doorway. I tried to lean back and see, but Emery shifted and blocked my view. A moment later, a burly guy with long arms held a little away from his muscular body, perhaps out of necessity, crossed to the other side of the bar. His gaze was on Joe, his pompous strut ridiculous.
“It’s like a muscle convention,” I said. “And he thinks he’s the big-ticket item.”
“Bear shifters.” Joe crossed his arms. “They cause the most bar fights out of anyone.”