Death's Ethereal Enemy

by Ruby Loren

Something was wrong with Gregory.

  She bit her lip and started knocking together the mix for her locally-famous chocolate cake. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about!

  Gregory was one of her friends. She knew she would do whatever she could to get to the bottom of his mystery.

  There was something nice about settling down into bed after a relaxing evening watching The Hobbit films. She’d finished baking cakes early in the evening and had been delighted to find she had free time.

  Of course, she should have been out doing some research, but Leah had promised that she’d be free for the week, and January had just fancied a night in. Tomorrow night, she’d visit the fae place, but for now, she was content with an evening of films and an early night.

  Which made it all the more strange when she woke up at three in the morning.

  She didn’t move at first, but opened her eyes, surprised by the way everything was immediately clear. Usually, she suffered from morning misty eyes.

  She held her breath, but nothing moved or breathed. Her wakefulness wasn’t because she’d sensed something amiss in the house, then.

  But something had woken her.

  Making a decision, she sat up, staring down at the end of the bed, straight into the eyes of Emerson. “How often do you watch people while they sleep?” she asked, disgusted.

  Emerson looked down and toyed with the edge of her duvet, his fingers going straight through. “I thought it would be the only time I could check up on you without being observed.”

  January folded her arms, glad she’d worn pyjamas, despite the surprisingly warm night. “You’re trying to tell me that you’ve never creepily hung out in my room and watched me sleep before now?”

  He looked at her with his cool blue eyes, but didn’t answer.

  January shook her head and looked away. “You’ve been alive for longer than anyone else on the planet, and yet, this is how you choose to spend your time?”

  “You’re more interesting than most of the people I watch. Better to look at, too,” he said, the characteristic know-it-all smile creeping back.

  “Even when I’m asleep. How nice to know,” January said, furious at the invasion of privacy that had taken place without her even being aware. She just knew he’d taken every liberty he could. Who knew how long he’d been watching her, and how much of her life he’d witnessed?

  It had to have been for a long time. Why else would the writing on the wall of that bathroom in the club - which had called out to her - have been in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time? She’d spent enough time around old vampires to know it certainly hadn’t been left to chance.

  Even now - no matter what he said - Emerson would be certain he had her under control.

  Otherwise, she’d be dead.

  “How long have you been watching me for?” she asked, not expecting him to answer.

  He kept looking at her without moving a muscle but then he spoke. “Since you changed for the first time. We knew something special had entered the world.”

  “How did you…” She’d been about to ask how he knew what she was the moment she’d changed, but the sardonic grin on his face let her know he wasn’t going to share that much.

  She tried again. “Did you know then that I was an enchanter?”

  “Of course not. We just knew that you were different and would be suited for the task we needed doing. We can divine certain qualities,” he said, and then clammed up.

  January slowly nodded. Was it her imagination, or had Emerson looked uncomfortable for a fraction of a second when she’d asked her question?

  They sat in silence for a few seconds, each one watching the other.

  “This is the part where you go away and let me sleep,” she said, instinctively knowing that the spell she’d worked not only allowed her to see the unseen, it also alerted her to when there was something to see. It was an interesting additional element she hadn’t expected. When she was round Tor’s house again, she’d have to look back through the book and figure out the part that had made it happen. It was exciting learning about the bare bones of spell-work and seeing how she could manipulate magic to achieve almost anything.

  She thought she was finally beginning to understand how an enchanter could be so powerful. She could use conventional magic, but she could also make dramatic changes, in ways no one else could understand. All she had to do was put her mind to it. She narrowed her eyes as the possibilities danced through her head.

  “Your expressions are pretty easy to follow, you know,” Emerson said, flicking an imagined piece of dust off a fingernail. “Plotting my downfall will only result in yours.”

  “Gosh, I hadn’t considered that! I’d better halt all of my devious plans to depose you and seize power for myself, right away.”

  Emerson sighed, but he was still smiling. “I do admire someone with ambition, but you cannot be serious. You’re not really going to try, are you?” He looked at her like she was a puppy, who’d just seized his trouser leg, believing they were savaging a giant monster.

  “What do you think?” January asked, curious what he thought she was planning.

  Emerson kept looking at her. “I know you. Better than anyone, actually.”

  “…creepy,” January interjected.

  Emerson ignored her. “I know that you aren’t planning to work as an envoy and a ceremonial bounty hunter for the rest of your life. It’s not in your nature. You’re going to try to do something about it.” He almost looked sad for a moment. “It won’t work. You don’t even know what you’re up against. But, I can’t discourage you. You’ve always been a wild one.” His eyes held a surprising amount of affection.

  She ignored it.

  “I know you’re never going to play along, but I hope you wait long enough so that it’s at least a challenge when you do try something. Even in a hundred years’ time, you’ll still be the equivalent of a mosquito buzzing around an elephant to us, but perhaps it will be entertaining. There’ll be no more special treatment. You’ll be locked up forever.” His eyes flashed blue. “Then you’ll be begging me to come and visit you.” He gave her one last smile, before dissolving into particles of light, the same way he had at Tor’s house.

  January sat and watched the darkness for a while after he’d gone. Finally, she gave up any hope of going back to sleep and got up, throwing on some clothes.

  The sky was already starting to show some signs of light. An early morning walk was exactly what she needed to think about what had just happened.

  Old leaves, remnants from the autumn half a year ago, fluttered beneath her feet, as she walked the trail through the woods.

  So, Emerson knew she was planning to take The Clan down.

  It was hardly surprising.

  If the roles had been reversed and she’d been the one forcing people to work against their will, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to believe that they wouldn't try to kill her at the first opportunity. The only people who could be relied upon to stay under control, would be those who were motivated by money - the way she’d once been - or those who were too weak to act.

  She knew that none of her friends fitted that last description. Leah wanted to meet with her - presumably to discuss exactly the kind of plan Emerson was expecting to be discussed. Simon was already selling off The Clan’s prized information - which was his own way of rebelling.

  The only friends she wasn’t as sure about were Bella, Ryan, and Gregory.

  She suddenly realised it had been a while since she’d spoken to her old pack second and his fiancée. A few texted words later and that was rectified. Hopefully, she’d be able to tell how they were finding their own forced roles, by the way they worded their reply.

  She shrugged her shoulders and put her phone back in her pocket. Who knew? Perhaps they were enjoying themselves. Rebelling against The Clan wasn’t their problem now that they weren’t members of the Witchwood and Hailfield shifter pack. With their shared tough backgrounds, bounty
hunting could be the perfect occupation for the couple - especially as they had each others’ backs. January considered it and reflected that without magic, she certainly wouldn’t want to go up against the pair of were-jaguars.

  The point was, she couldn’t rely on other people to do what she needed to do. Gregory was a stark reminder of that. There was no hint of rebellion about him, just depression. She snorted. Self-reliance was definitely needed.

  Did it really matter that Emerson knew her mind? If he thought he could predict what she was going to do, then perhaps it was even beneficial that he knew. Knowing who wanted to kill you, could almost lull you into a false sense of security, easily shattered by the would-be killer doing something you’d never expect.

  For example, a pit dug in the forest floor in the middle of the track and then covered up with a few perfunctory branches would sound obvious if you knew someone was planning it. It was an entirely different matter when you were walking through the woods at the dead of night with your mind on something else and weren’t looking down at the ground. It meant that you never saw the exceedingly obvious trap and fell straight into the pit.

  Which is exactly what she did.

  January fell through the flimsy covering of branches. Her eyes widened a microsecond before they were due to be impaled on the sharpened bamboo rods that had been imbedded in the pit. Instinctively, she reached for her magic and wrapped herself in what felt like invisible marshmallow. Any self-respecting magician would probably have laughed themselves silly, but marshmallow was the first thing that came into January’s food focused head.

  With hindsight, rubber would have been a better choice.

  Instead of bouncing, she sort of stuck on top of the spikes - much like a marshmallow ready to be toasted. If someone were to jump on her, she had no doubt she’d slide down and there’d be some painful consequences.

  Well… there would be if she decided to hang around.

  Now she had more time to focus, she stared at the bamboo rods, feeling them out, before pulling their atoms apart, so they disappeared into dust.

  She fell to the pit floor and landed with a squishy thump. Yet again, she reflected that coating herself in magic rubber would have been a far better choice, especially now she didn’t seem to be able to get the invisible marshmallow off. And it was sticking to things. Leaves and dirt hovered a few inches in front of her face, glued to the outside of her poorly thought out shield.

  “Gross,” she muttered.

  In the end, she did the only logical thing. She imagined herself growing hot on the outside and managed to melt the weird marshmallow away to nothing.

  Then she waited in the bottom of the pit.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was baffled.

  Had she been wrong to think that this was another attempt to kill her? Had someone simply dug a pit in the woods and filled it with deadly spikes as a practical joke? She’d expected someone to come and check to see if she was dead, but the forest around her was quiet. She did her best to catch a scent, but now she thought about it, there was nothing fresh.

  “It could be a remnant from when everyone went on that wolf hunt,” she said aloud, thinking of the two dead wolves, who’d been left in the forest when she’d first moved back to Hailfield. Every wannabe hunter had taken to the woods to go on the hunt. About three of them had brought guns with them. The rest had just wandered around, carrying an odd assortment of weapons - including cleavers and axes. It was like Little Red Riding Hood gone wrong. January had been glad that there weren't any wolves in the forest for them to find.

  Even so, perhaps some of the searchers had been more dedicated to claiming the bounty than they’d seemed. This trap could be evidence of that. It was in a part of the woods, where few people ventured, off the normal beaten track. It could have stayed here for all this time.

  January felt the earth beneath her fingers and noted that it was damp and didn't crumble.

  Oh well… it had been a nice theory. This pit had been dug very recently indeed, she judged.

  It just made it even more confusing. Where was the person who’d dug it? Who had they meant for it to catch?

  In the end, she climbed out of the pit and continued on her walk. There were more pressing mysteries to solve.

  She looked up at the dawn streaked sky, half an hour later, and deduced it was time to go back home. She had a busy day in the bakery ahead of her, and she definitely wanted her coffee before she went over to the shop in Hobbling. She may have felt wide awake when she’d first opened her eyes to find Emerson in her room, but she knew from experience that she’d feel the effects of lost sleep later in the day. It was a wonder she got any sleep at all, after the disruptive functions that always seemed to last the entire night, and sometimes part of the day, too. On top of that, the full moon meet was a once a month all-nighter she couldn’t miss.

  She frowned, immediately brought back to the problems of the pack. She wondered if even now, Morgan was spreading discord among the ranks, stirring up a rebellion.

  She wondered if he owned a throwing axe, or had dirt on his hands right now.

  January raised her eyes to the canopy above her and she stopped walking, looking up at the sky, seeking a moment of peace in amongst her busy thoughts. What matters the most? What do I need to do? She silently asked, wishing that there was someone who could answer her.

  Someone laughed.

  January’s attention snapped back to ground level. She held her breath and stayed still, her super-sensitive hearing straining. There was definitely something just a little way through the trees. It sounded like fabric moving. Was there someone there?

  She frowned. She couldn’t smell anything. It was unnatural for something to be so close and to not leave a trace.

  It was almost as if there was nothing there at all.

  Throwing caution to the wind, she stepped through the trees, in search of the owner of the laughter.

  Something strange was going on in the clearing she entered. It was as if there were two images superimposed, one on top of the other. She could clearly see a couple of men and two women sitting on the rocks that were in the clearing, but then she could also see a sapling seeming to jut out from the torso of one of the men. It didn’t seem to be bothering him at all, and the harder January looked, the more she realised it was almost in the background. Like it existed in one place, but not the other.

  January felt her breath catch in her throat. The spell certainly had worked. She was seeing what she’d hoped to see at that hidden bar. She had found the fae.

  “Hello,” she called, cautiously stepping out into the clearing. The people sat on rocks looked up in alarm. She saw their heads turn. Their eyes seemed to rake around the clearing without seeing her, before, as one, they stood up and scattered, disappearing from January’s view into their world.

  January realised she’d learned quite a lot from what she’d witnessed. It would appear as though her world and theirs existed simultaneously on top of one another. To anyone in either world, the other world would always remain unseen. Although not unheard - as she’d discovered both outside the place Gregory had claimed was a bar, and here in the clearing.

  She walked closer to where she could still see the strange, superimposed images, hovering over one another. January reached a hand out and tried to touch the rock - both in this world and theirs. Strangely, she found she could feel both at the same time.

  She shook her head and pulled her hand back before trying to focus on exactly where the other world was within the space that was simultaneously occupied. She was pretty sure that all she was achieving was giving herself a headache.

  All this took some thinking about. She was sure there was a far more technical way to describe what this was, but what it appeared to her to be was a ‘thin place’. The two worlds overlapped in a particular way that meant they were sometimes almost existing together. That was why, occasionally, sound travelled across and now, because of her spell, images did too. Did t
hat mean she could travel across in the same way?

  “Okay, let’s give it a go,” she said, taking a deep breath and preparing to step through into another world.

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

  January froze with her foot still raised.

  She placed it firmly back in this world and turned around.

  The amber-eyed girl stood at the edge of the trees.

  “Why not?” she asked, hoping that by asking a simple question, the girl would stay. She had to find out who she really was. Was she looking at another enchanter?

  “You’d find it hard to get back, and you’re impossible enough as it is,” the teenager said.

  “What do you mean?” January asked, feeling ready to burst with excitement. Was she about to discover the truth of her existence?

  “It’s complicated,” the teenager said, with a smile that told January she knew exactly what she’d hoped to hear. The slim girl walked closer until she was next to January, looking at the thin place between the overlapping worlds.

  “Sometimes things slip between the worlds in ways that no one can predict or explain.” She turned to look at January. “There are no answers to what we are. There are only questions that can be dwelt upon for millennia. It is the other side of the coin that is our gift. With great power, comes a great many questions.”

  January kept her eyes on the strange teenager, feeling a rush of so many different emotions, she didn’t even know how to react. “Are you an enchanter?” she asked, voicing what she’d known in her heart, ever since she’d felt the familiar trace of dark magic left behind on those shattered hazel wands. “I’m not the only one, am I?” she pressed.

  The teenager turned her unfathomable amber eyes on her and smiled, equally mysteriously, before dissolving into particles of light - just as Emerson did - leaving her with more questions than answers.

  8

  The Unicorn Inn in Blackbridge looked like an average rural pub. It sat, isolated by the side of a country road. Fields surrounded it on all sides and January couldn’t help but wonder if that was the reason why Leah had chosen it as a meeting place.