Mist, Murder & Magic

by Dionnara Dawson

  Tessa knew she shouldn’t be sneaking out, not now, when it was dangerous, and Hunter would have a fit. She might even magically bind her to her room, but it was a risk she had to take. She would be careful, she told herself. Clever and watchful.

  It was dark now, but she convinced herself that that didn’t matter. It was a hard thing to shake, that fear of the dark and unknown, the shadows lurking which could coalesce themselves into a demon with shining evil eyes. Demons had never particularly cared for killing Cambions, but they weren’t off the menu, either. It was much better to stay as far away from demons as possible. Tessa pulled on her coat and lifted the hood to cover her face, her blonde hair tucked back in her braids. Just for a little while, she thought, thinking of the park. Just some fresh air. No one needs to worry.

  She walked through the poorly-lit street and found herself counting the stars that winked down at her. Her thoughts drifted to Heaven, and she wondered if Nerretti would mind her asking questions about what it was like to live up in the sky. Surely it would be magical. Could you jump from cloud to cloud? Did you train up there, like warlocks do down here? Can you see the stars from up there, can you touch them? Do you still have angel blood?

  Tessa’s telepathy was off-kilter sometimes, she was still getting used to it, but she could occasionally hear Net’s thoughts: just a sentence here or there, though she tried not to eavesdrop. It wasn’t right, Hunter told her. Net must still have some angel-blood, she thought. As she walked, her mind wandered, and her feet took her past the park, and she followed an unfamiliar path. The fresh air was invigorating, and she felt more alert and awake than she had in days. The path led her down a gently sloping hill and approached an underpass.

  Nerretti, why did you help us in the end? Do you love Cambions and humans, or did you just hate your family? There were a lot of things Tessa wanted to ask Net. There were a lot of things she wanted to ask a lot of people, but adults rarely answered things honestly—if at all. It made Tessa want to be cheeky and use her telepathy on them—if they had angel blood.

  Would you make more Deme blades? That one chilled her. It was one thing to have their Marks taken for trophies or sport, it was another thing when it could provide a solution to a problem. If someone needed Cambion Marks, faeries and warlocks would be hunted. Again. As she followed her feet absently down to the underpass, she found the streetlamps above her did nothing to illuminate her way now. She walked in near-total darkness and a shiver crept up her spine. She was about to turn around, back to the safety of her House, when something caught her eye. It was a flickering red flame. Tessa moved toward it and realised it was burning from a large metal bin, and someone was standing over it, keeping warm in the brisk night air.

  Tessa’s curiosity of where the tunnel-like underpass led tugged her forward. It was just a human, after all. She intended to walk by, avoiding their gaze and minding her own business, but the person, an old woman, called to her.

  ‘Hey there, missy, what are you doing out here alone at night?’

  Tessa wasn’t stupid. She had been told from a very young age not to talk to strangers, don’t even engage with them. She kept her head down and made to walk by, but the woman moved and blocked her path. It was hard to see any detail of her in the darkness: flickering flames illuminated long, shaggy white hair and what appeared to be a very old brown dress that draped over her stout body. She wore a shawl over it, and a hood up over her head.

  ‘Missy, I’m talking to you. Where are your parents?’

  ‘I’m fine thanks,’ Tessa said, moving to skirt the woman. She may have had good intentions, but Tessa wanted to get by her.

  The woman put her hands on her bulky hips. ‘You shouldn’t be out here in the cold, missy. Why don’t you come warm yourself by the fire?’

  ‘No, really,’ Tessa insisted, trying to get around her. ‘I’m fine. Please let me pass.’

  The woman clamped her hands down hard on Tessa’s slim shoulders and then her eyes shone mirror-black and the little faerie screamed.

  ‘Demon!’ Tessa tried to squirm away as her wings flapped out nervously at her back.

  ‘The paths ahead are not for you to follow, little faerie. Turn away now or be my dinner.’ The old woman opened her mouth to reveal jagged, pointed black teeth. She snarled, spittle flying.

  Tessa scrambled away, falling to the ground, her feet kicking up little stones as she scuttled away. Her first instinct was to run away screaming and never leave Faerie House again. Her second instinct, however, made her pause. She looked up at the demon and frowned. ‘Since when are demons trolls?’

  ‘Why, that’s very rude,’ the demon said, arching her stiffened old back.

  ‘No, I mean, you’re guarding a tunnel?’ Tessa said, getting to her feet. ‘Why?’

  The demon growled and Tessa cowed back, wishing she hadn’t asked. ‘That’s not for you to know, little creature. You’re lucky I don’t wet my lips with your magical blood.’

  Tessa’s nose scrunched up. She took several steps back, then paused again, eying the demon, who had not dared touch or scratch her. ‘What’s stopping you?’ She didn’t know exactly why she was goading a demon—she was not a stupid girl, in her own opinion—but there was something very strange about this.

  The demon hissed. ‘Shut up, little purple child.’ It flapped its arms in mockery of her wings. ‘Flap flap away now.’ It licked its lips. ‘Or I shall bite off your pretty wings. Hmm, are they crunchy?’

  Tessa frowned. ‘Ew. And I don’t think you will. You know, come to think of it, I have never specifically heard of a demon attacking a faerie.’ She took the athame Lola had given her out of her belt. The girls had both insisted she start carrying one, even if it wouldn’t do anything against a demon. It was more psychological than practical. She used the blade to slice open a gash on her arm and watched her indigo blood spring to the surface and trail down to her hand. The demon growled, like a dog kicked, and Tessa thought her hunch might be right.

  Demons are killed by angels.

  Angels have power in their blood.

  Faeries, like herself, have angel blood.

  Tessa watched as the demon curled into a ball on the ground, baring its teeth. ‘Little creature of Heaven, back away. This is my path and you shall not have it. I will summon the forces of darkness upon your House and they will eat everyone you love and bathe in their blood and I will lick—’

  ‘Okay, shut up,’ Tessa said, her shoulders shivering. ‘That’s disgusting. Why are you so keen on keeping me out of here, hmm?’ Tessa moved forward, pressing her advantage. Just because the demon wouldn’t want to eat her didn’t mean it wouldn’t kill her. She moved forward, slowly and intentionally, watching the demon sneer and growl, keeping a safe distance from her.

  Tessa wondered if it was repulsed by her ancestry, her angel-blood, or if it simply knew that eating her wouldn’t agree with its stomach. She doubted it would do the demon any harm if, say, she were to fling her bleeding arm at it, but she was curious anyway. Tessa tried to pass over the line that the demon held but it growled, stubborn and determined in its mission.

  ‘You won’t get past me, little flying creature,’ she snarled.

  ‘We can’t actually fly, you know,’ Tessa said. It was a common misconception. Tessa smirked. If she couldn’t get past it, maybe she could at least get some information. ‘Why did you attack London?’

  ‘So many humans there.’ It drooled. ‘Delicious.’

  ‘Right, but why not here, or some other place?’ Tessa said, repressing a shudder.

  The demon eyed her bleeding arm. ‘Shan’t tell you of our plans, Heavenly bleeder.’ It scrunched up its nose at that, as if her blood were tainted with poison.

  ‘Okay, then,’ Tessa said, feeling brave. ‘Maybe you’ll tell me this. I’m a faerie of the House Anima Mea, and I am connected to the promised witch. What do you think might happen if my blood touched you? Not just Heavenly blood, but promised witchy bl
ood, too?’

  The demon looked at her with a straight face for a moment, then its eyes bulged and it ran past her with a shriek—oh, the stars, a demon shrieking!—and completely abandoned the post it had so stubbornly protected a moment ago. It ran past the fire-barrel and into the night without a backward glance and Tessa was left alone, her arm trickling blood onto the ground.

  ‘Oh, my stars,’ she said with an incredulous laugh. Either that was one particularly stupid, gullible or superstitious demon or Tessa had just struck gold. Demons are afraid of faerie blood. Especially my blood.

  Tessa was torn. She really wanted to explore the tunnel the demon had been protecting, but she should run back home and share the information she had learned. Hesitantly, she took a few steps into the gloom.

  Then swiftly turned around, her better judgement kicking in—where it had been earlier when she had been blindly provoking a demon, she didn’t know, but it was here now. She was out of breath when she burst into Hunter and Lola’s room (with a quick knock—she had learned to always knock; seeing your sister making out with someone was gross, even if it was just Lola).

  Tessa stumbled into the room and began recounting her adventurous night-time walk—at several points, both Tessa and Lola had to calm Hunter down to allow her to continue—and by the end, Tessa was pretty sure she would never again be allowed to leave the House unsupervised. Hunter towered over her, wearing that expression that Tessa knew was part sisterly love and protection, part fury—the former making the latter that much stronger. Lola had her arms wrapped around Hunter’s waist, but Tessa knew even she could do nothing to hold back the tide of what was to come.

  ‘But don’t you see what this means?’ Tessa finished in a rush, before Hunter could explode.

  Lola took Tessa aside, sat her down on the bed and started cleaning the cut she had made on her arm. ‘We do, Tessa. It means that demons are unlikely to attack Faeries, at least.’ Her gentle fingers wrapped a white bandage around her arm. ‘But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t kill us for the fun of it. It doesn’t mean we’re safe from them.’ She tapped Tessa’s arm, finished with the bandaging.

  ‘Why was it guarding a tunnel?’ Lola asked.

  ‘You shouldn’t have left, and you damn well shouldn’t have goaded that demon!’ Hunter yelled, finally losing it, ignoring Lola’s question. Tessa knew she was mad because Hunter loved her and wanted her to be safe, but it was getting in the way.

  ‘No, it’s not just that,’ Tessa said. ‘It wasn’t just my blood. It knew I was a faerie. It’s when I added that I was connected to Hella, the promised witch, that it literally ran away screaming. They’re afraid of Hella!’

  The two women paused. ‘Remy did tell me that Azazel tried to recruit her, right after her powers were activated,’ Hunter said quietly, letting the information turn over in her mind. ‘Would they really be afraid of her, though? I mean, what can she do to them?’

  ‘I think that’s something we need to find out,’ Lola said. ‘Tomorrow. You, in bed,’ she said to Tessa and leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. Hunter nodded sharply. The tips of her ears were flushed red, Tessa saw.

  ‘Fine.’ Tessa padded off to her room.

  Lola caught her as she left in the hallway. ‘Please don’t do anything like that again, Tessie. You’ll give Hunter a heart attack.’

  Hunter and Lola had been together for a long time now, Tessa thought. About three years. Lola was the softer, gentler one, and Hunter tended to be stricter and foreboding when angered. Tessa thought of them both like parents, she had for a while. They were two sides of the same coin: they both had strong hearts, were powerful women, and loved each other—and Tessa—deeply. The pleading in Lola’s eyes melted her. ‘I won’t,’ she promised. Tessa thought of Lola as the softer one, but when it came to Hunter she was as fierce as they came. And that extended to Tessa, too.

  ‘Off to bed,’ Lola said. ‘Sleep well, Tess.’

  ‘You too,’ Tessa said, then paused. ‘Please tell Hunter I didn’t mean to scare her. I had a hunch, and I was right.’ She brightened a little at that, but knew that it would have scared them anyway.

  Lola nodded. ‘I will tell her. Goodnight, honey.’ She closed the door between them.

  Tessa went to her room, flopping down on her bed. It was late, and she had missed dinner, but she wasn’t hungry. Tessa thought about reading for a while, but the mood didn’t strike her. She couldn’t help but feel that Hunter and Lola hadn’t grasped the situation. This was huge. Now they really didn’t need those horrifying Deme blades. She wondered how those had originally been made. Did someone accidently melt down a Mark and then just happen to slice open a demon with it? How strange.

  Tessa rolled onto her side and looked out the window. She stared up at the stars, her thoughts about Nerretti returning to her. The angels had been bad, she knew, terrible, but if they had all been like Net, who was like a fun book-loving uncle to Hella now, then wouldn’t it be good? They could protect them all. She was only eleven and a half, but Tessa wondered at the enormity of how different the world would have been if the angels were the good guys who protected humans, witches and Cambions from demons. What a weird thought. Wasn’t that the plan, though? Where had they all gotten it so terribly wrong? And why hadn’t someone fixed it?

  Tessa had a lot to ask Net, like why his entire species were such useless jerks. But it would be okay, she tried to reassure herself. If she concentrated, she could feel Hella: she was happy, whatever she was doing, and Tessa could taste the flare of her magic. In fact, she could feel Hella getting closer. She was coming here. Tessa sat upright in bed. Why would Hella be coming here?

  Maybe something was wrong. Maybe she had been attacked, or someone else had. Tessa thought of poor Harrow and the look on Hella’s face when he was sentenced with the Imperium Ceremony. She’d looked murderous, and Tessa couldn’t blame her. It was a horrid law. Perhaps she’d come here to deal out some blame—but no, she didn’t feel angry. Stressed, maybe, but not like she was on a mission to do some harm. Tessa hoped Harrow was okay.

  There was a resounding knock on the Faerie House’s front door. Tessa scrambled out of bed and ran downstairs. Even if Hunter and Lola didn’t realise how big her discovery was, Hella would. Tessa’s heart beat double-time as she skidded to the door and pulled it open.

  Hella and Harrow stood on the threshold and they both blinked in surprise to see her.

  ‘Hi, Tessa.’ Hella smiled warmly. ‘I came to—’

  ‘Never mind that now.’ Tessa tugged Hella inside by her hand. ‘You’ll never guess what just happened.’

  Harrow let himself in, hands in his hoodie pockets. There was a flare of something between him and Hella, a spark of some kind. Tessa noticed sadly that he was covered in bandages. ‘Oh. Harrow. Was the ceremony awful?’

  It was a dumb thing to ask, but she couldn’t take it back now.

  Harrow nodded. ‘Yeah. But I’ll be okay.’ He lowered himself down to her height. ‘One day, when you’re a bit older, I want you to understand that laws like that are wrong, Tessa. It’s not the way the council should work.’

  Temporarily distracted from her exciting news, Tessa reached out and grabbed his hand, around a bandage. ‘I already know that.’

  ‘Not that I don’t deserve to be punished for what I did—’

  She squeezed his hand. ‘Not like that,’ Tessa said firmly.

  Hella nodded, taking Harrow’s other hand as Tessa let go. ‘Now, what were you saying?’

  Tessa closed the doors behind them. ‘I was just attacked by a demon.’ She watched both of their faces contort into ones of horror. ‘But I wasn’t! I mean, it didn’t attack me exactly.’ She was speaking fast. ‘Hella, once I told it I was a faerie and was connected to you, it ran away screaming!’

  ‘It ran away?’ Harrow asked, a fishhook in his dark eyebrow.

  ‘Yes,’ Tessa said. ‘Hella, you’re the key. They don’t like faeries for o
ur angel blood, but it’s you. They’re afraid of you. Azazel tried to recruit you because he wants you on his side.’

  They had been the only ones in the foyer. The House felt almost empty now that the warlocks had all left. Almost all.

  ‘That all sounds pretty incredible,’ Tahlia Terra said. Her nephew, Tommy, stood behind her. They had obviously stayed behind on some council business, or to ensure that everything was sorted with the departing warlocks.

  ‘It’s true,’ Tessa said. ‘You have to believe me. It could have eaten me or killed me, but it wouldn’t even touch me. It cowered from my blood.’ She held out her arm to show the bandage.

  Tahlia sighed. She looked very tired. ‘Well, witch, I guess it’s all down to you again.’

  Hella seemed to shrink a little, as if someone had loaded something heavy onto her shoulders.

  ‘Well, what’s it going to be this time?’ Tahlia pressed. ‘How are you going to save the world again? A spell, one of those athames?’ Her tone wasn’t mocking, but it was a little patronising.

  ‘We’re still working on that,’ Harrow answered for her.

  ‘You better work fast, because our Cambions are getting restless knowing that there’s someone out there hunting them again. This Deme blade thing is heinous. Whatever you need from us, we’ll give you,’ Tahlia added, making up for her previous comment.

  ‘Like you helped her when she was locked up at The Force?’ Tessa said. It was something that had bothered her for a while, and now seemed the time to voice it.

  Tahlia flinched, and Tommy’s mouth twitched. ‘We will help,’ Tommy said firmly.

  Hella squeezed Harrow’s hand, then let it go. She squared her shoulders. ‘I need my mother,’ she said, strangely. Harrow blinked at her in surprise.

  ‘We have some tests to do,’ Hella said. ‘I don’t know about demons being afraid of me, but I’ll take it. We have to come up with something we can do if they attack us, or one of the Houses. I don’t know what it will be, but I will need help. Maybe a spell, or a trip-wire, or a blast of magic. But someone else needs to go out and stop Immego from hunting Cambions.’