by Alexis Hall
I like my women like I like my whiskey: embroiled in a magical war
Ten years ago I fought for the Witch Queen of London in a mystical showdown against a King Arthur wannabe with a shaved head and a shotgun. Back then, the law did for him before he could do for us.
I don’t think we’ll get that lucky again.
As if the mother of all wizard battles wasn’t bad enough, fate or destiny or a god with a really messed-up sense of humor has dropped a weapon that could rewrite the universe right into the middle of London, and anybody with half a sniff of arcane power has rocked up to stake their claim on it. Last time this happened, the city went to pieces. This time, it might just go to Hell.
Also, still dating a vampire. Still got an alpha werewolf trying to get in my pants. Still sharing a flat with a woman made of animated marble—only now apparently there are two of her. But you know what they say: the more things change, the more they stay the same crap that’s been trying to kill you your entire life.
This book is approximately 96,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!
Also available from Alexis Hall
and Carina Press
Iron & Velvet
Shadows & Dreams
Also available from Alexis Hall
The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
Prosperity
Liberty & Other Stories
There Will Be Phlogiston
Glitterland
Waiting for the Flood
For Real
Pansies
Looking for Group
How to Bang a Billionaire
How to Blow It with a Billionaire
How to Belong with a Billionaire
Content Note
Fire & Water contains some violence.
Fire & Water
Alexis Hall
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Prologue
My name’s Kate Kane. I’m a private investigator operating out of a dingy office just off Bow Street. I’m technically half-faery, but I don’t like to bring it up on account of how I don’t really get on with my mother. It’s one of those classic generational things. She’s a blood-drenched embodiment of primal hunger who keeps taking over my body and I’ve got a body I don’t want taken over. I suppose that’s what you call an impasse.
Fifteen years ago, I was kidnapped by a cult of vampire wizards and rescued by my dickhead then-boyfriend, now dickhead ex-boyfriend. Six months ago, the dickhead’s new girlfriend, Sofia, was kidnapped by the same cult of vampire wizards, and we rescued her together. Which is progress, I guess. She turned out to be some kind of weird sun prophet thing, but none of us have any idea what that means. And right now, she’s got A-levels to think about.
Around the same time, I was also fighting like hell with my girlfriend, who was all upset because I’d killed one of her best friends, lied about it, and then got her dragged up in front of the secret vampire council that, like, runs Europe or something. Looking back, I guess she had a point. They do say honesty is important in relationships, so when you’ve killed someone’s friends you should really consider telling them about it.
Oh, and there was a thing where some terrifying vampire queen from before the dawn of recorded history woke up and started killing pretty much everything in an effort to find this smashed up burial urn. It turned out she’d been let loose by the same cult who’d tried to sacrifice me when I was seventeen. Small world, huh? Anyway, the deal was that they wanted to keep everyone distracted while they did whatever big ritual they were doing because...well, everything was on fire and trying to kill me so I’m still a bit shaky on the details. As far as we figured out, it was something about usurping the throne of Apollo and, honestly, I didn’t even realise he still had a throne because, y’know, ancient Greeks. Key word there being “ancient”.
Long story short, the bad guys managed to pull off part one of a two-part solstice ritual, but I dropped a burning building on their heads straight after so probably everything’s fine and probably a megalomaniac vampire isn’t about to become king of the universe.
Probably.
Chapter One
Weddings & Fairytales
I woke to the taste of wine and rose leaves, propped myself up on my elbows and winched my eyes open. Julian was perched on the end of my bed. She wasn’t one for staying the night—midnight to six is kind of peak time for vampires—which meant that she’d broken in again. We really needed to talk about that.
She grinned, all blue eyes and bright teeth. “Good morning, sweeting.”
“Should I just give you a key?”
She pounced onto the mattress and stretched out alongside me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you weren’t pleased to see me.”
“It’s—” I checked my watch. Then I checked it again because I was pretty sure it was taking the piss. “It’s twenty-five to six. I’d have trouble being pleased to see anybody.”
“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?”
I rubbed my temples. I’d almost certainly forgotten. At that time in the morning I forgot most things. Then I unforgot. “Fuck. Wedding.”
“Wedding.”
That would explain why she was in black tie. Not that she normally needed an excuse. In fact, by her regular standards a tuxedo was understated. Most of her daywear had epaulettes.
“Give me a minute.” I hauled myself out of bed. I really should have got my outfit sorted the night before, but Julian had been visiting, which had left me kind of distracted. Truth be told, I was a bit short on appropriate kit. I could do funerals—and it might have said something about my social life that for a decade at least my friends and acquaintances had been dropping dead faster than they’d been pairing off—but weddings fell right through the gap in my wardrobe.
I turned to Julian. “Is this a frock thing or a suit thing?”
“Do you even own a frock?”
“I have dresses. I have”—I took a mental inventory—“at least three dresses.”
Julian sat up, tucking her knees under her chin. “I apologise. Never again will I question your sartorial diversity or your essential femininity. But, honestly, nobody is going to be looking at you.”
I sighed. “Yeah, yeah, everybody’ll be looking at the bride. Brides.”
“Wretched, isn’t it?” Julian looked genuinely insulted. “What is the point of being a creature of unthinkable fiendish power and dangerous beauty if you can’t be the centre of attention?”
/> “You get to bang hot PIs. Well, relatively hot PIs. Well, me.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, sweeting. Of the forty-seven professional investigators I’ve had sex with since 1874, you certainly make the top ten.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “Y’know what? I’ll take it.”
Having thrown every item of clothing I owned onto the bed, the floor, or Julian’s head, I went suit. It was more my style and, besides, the last time I’d worn a dress to an event it had wound up getting ruined in a high-speed unicorn chase. To my surprise, Julian actually let me get ready without trying to lure me into an impromptu undead shagathon. I was beginning to think she was genuinely concerned about being late, which was new territory for me since being late was her standing operating procedure. It came with the whole package of being an immortal flibbertigibbet.
We emerged from the bedroom to find Elise waiting for us. Like always, she was up, dressed and looking immaculate while I was still debating whether I could get away with substituting coffee for mouthwash. There was nothing that quite beat living with somebody who didn’t eat, sleep, or sweat, and had been purpose-built by a skeevy wizard to conform to unobtainable beauty norms, to make you feel extra specially shitty in the morning. She’d left a French press on the dining table for me. That and a banana. We needed to talk about the bananas.
“Good morning, Miss Kane,” she said, “and Miss Saint-Germain. I hope that you will have a lovely time today.”
I groaned. “Too early, Elise. But thanks.”
“I did not hear you enter.” Elise inclined her head slightly towards Julian. “Did you discorporate into smoke and drift through the window again?”
Julian got the kind of pouty that needs eight centuries of practice. “You make it sound so prosaic. I’ll have you know that I’ve seduced more maidens with the mist and shadows bit than you’ve met in your entire life.”
“Since I was only animated a year and a half ago and have spent much of the intervening time either in the care of a gestalt rat consciousness or standing in Miss Kane’s spare room, that is, indeed, likely.”
“Wow”—Julian blinked—“you really need to get out more.”
Elise perked up visibly. “Oh, yes, Miss Saint-Germain. Getting out is one of my favourite activities. Why, only yesterday I went to the shops to purchase groceries for Miss Kane and saw many fascinating things. In particular, I met a staircase that moved. It sat next to a staircase that did not move, but I believe there was no jealousy between them.”
I drank my coffee. I quietly ignored the banana. “You going to be okay at the office today?” I asked. It wasn’t going to win the Nobel Prize for chitchat but Julian was getting that I’m bored and want to say something insulting look.
Elise hadn’t quite got the hang of talking to multiple people at once. If I hadn’t been used to it, the way her head snapped round would have weirded me out. “I have been working with you for some while now. I believe my skills will be adequate to the task. I will file.”
“Better you than me.”
“Yes, Miss Kane. You are very bad at it.”
Julian, Elise and I left the flat at about the same time. Elise took off in my car. These days it was more our car, or possibly even her car, since it had been completely wrecked in a supernatural duel last year and she’d refused to let me junk it. As for Julian and me, we’d be going by limo, one of the many perks of dating the vampire prince of pleasure. Although honestly I was surprised that it had sat outside my flat this whole time without getting keyed.
“You know,” I said, “showing up like this could seriously upstage the happy couple.”
“We’ll park around the corner and walk in. I’m not a complete narcissist.” That wasn’t even a little bit true, but I let it slide.
I lay back against the absurdly expensive upholstery. I’d developed something of a taste for sleeping in cars during the narrow window between Elise taking over the driving and Elise discovering hardcore German thrash metal. “Whose wedding is this exactly?”
“Violet. She’s an ex.” Julian nestled against me. “She’s marrying the evil witch she dumped me for. But I’ll be on my best behaviour, and refrain from ripping anyone’s throat out.”
I wrapped an arm around her. “Aww, somebody’s jealous.” Which, now I thought about it, wasn’t really the way I wanted my girlfriend to be feeling about a woman she’d broken up with half a century ago.
“I was,” she conceded. “But I’m mostly over it. And anyway”—she arched up and kissed me gently on the cheek—“I moved on.”
That was mostly reassuring. But something was still bugging me. “Hang on, when you say ‘witch’...”
“Metaphorically. Sort of. She set me on fire with her mind once.”
“That sounds pretty witchy to me.”
“I believe she’s technically a pyrokinetic. They did all sorts of research on that kind of thing back in the fifties.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who’s they?”
“Oh, you know, the usual people. And you do realise”—she gave me her brightest, most impenetrable smile—“that this is technically a date, darling. Not an interrogation.”
The limo whisked us through London and out towards the leafy groves of Hertfordshire. The wedding was in one of those hotels that used to be some posh house back in the day. Back when your average rich person lived in a place big enough that you could cast six seasons of an ITV drama just from their servants. At Julian’s instructions, we parked a couple of streets away and walked together up the long, gravel drive towards the wedding party.
When we got close enough to see the other guests, it became awkwardly obvious that I was going to be the youngest person there by a good few decades. That still meant everybody else was closer to my age than my girlfriend was, which...was kind of a headfuck if I thought about it. I tried not to think about it.
Julian unlinked her arm from mine. “Save me a seat, sweeting.”
“Woah, woah, woah—you’re leaving me?”
“I’m walking Violet down the aisle. Didn’t I explain?”
She had not explained. “Isn’t that kind of weird?”
“Well, her father died in the early eighties, so it would be even weirder if he did it.” She paused. “Although I suppose, technically, he’s no deader than I am.”
I ignored her transparent attempt to get around me by being cute. “And I’m supposed to—what—make polite conversation with a bunch of nonagenarians?”
Julian shrugged. “It’s a wedding, darling. Say how wonderful everybody looks and ask people how they know the brides.”
Before I could make it clear that I was not letting her ditch me at her ex-girlfriend’s wedding, she kissed me goodbye and danced away into the crowd, leaving me alone and surrounded by pensioners.
Welp. Fuck. I was bad at social functions at the best of times. My usual strategy was to find something to eat or drink, and try to look as comfortable as possible with the fact that nobody was talking to me. Unfortunately there wasn’t a wineglass or a canapé in sight: just a bunch of total strangers who I had nothing in common with except a tenuous connection to London’s exciting smorgasbord of paranormal bullshit.
Eventually some doors opened, and the crowd began filing in for the ceremony. I went with the flow and ended up in a long oak-panelled hall. From there I was directed to a chair beside a slight woman with short grey hair. I stuck my hat on the seat next to me and took the opportunity to practise my basic social interaction.
“So,” I said in my best I-am-relaxed-in-formal-environments voice. “How do you know the brides?”
“I used to work with them.”
“What’d you do?”
She smiled and tapped the side of her nose. “All very hush-hush.”
Of course it was. Sometimes I thought you couldn’t throw a brick in this
town without a sinister occult conspiracy watching from the shadows and making a careful note about where it landed.
I glanced around the room. I’m not sure what I’d expected the guest list at the wedding of a pair of ninety-year-old lesbians to look like, but once you adjusted for the fact that almost everybody was over seventy it was a really mixed bunch. The group I was sitting with were mostly hard-edged types, the sort of people who wore suits even if they didn’t have to. Some of the guests on the other side of the hall looked like the Rolling Stones circa two thousand and ten and others looked like they’d walked straight out of the day centre my granddad used to go to. Now that I thought about it, it made sense that the sort of person who’d date the vampire prince of pleasure would run with an eclectic crowd.
I mean, if I was getting married the guests would include a celibate incubus, an undead drag queen, a living statue, my dad, who’s had his eyes stolen by faeries, the woman who stole him back from faeries, a teenage oracle who’d insist on bringing my arsehole ex, a pack of werewolves, assuming it wasn’t too working class for them, possibly the entire Witch Court of London—and that was way more people than I was comfortable caring about. If I’d made the same list eighteen months ago, it would’ve been dad, Jenny and a bottle of cheap Scotch. Mind you, in either case I’d have to be marrying somebody and that would involve some fairly radical changes to my lifestyle. Because, let’s face it, my longest adult relationship has been with my hat.
The ceremony was pretty—well—pretty much like a wedding ceremony. Violet came down the aisle first, with Julian. She was wearing the traditional white wedding dress, and she reminded me a lot of my gran, tall and confident with thick, curly hair. Her wife-to-be, the one who’d set Julian on fire sometime in the middle of the last century, came next. She was smaller, frailer, and walked with the help of a frame, a bald, tattooed man at her side. Her hair was stark white and waist length. She shuffled up the aisle slowly but defiantly.
They made a cute couple in a grandparenty sort of way. I wasn’t one for big public rituals, and weddings, in particular, tended to make my teeth itch—maybe it had something to do with the cheating spouses who had been paying my bills for the best part of a decade. In a lot of ways it made more sense this way around—any pair of twentysomething idiots can decide to get married, but these two had actually stuck together for sixty-odd years and in my book that was a way better excuse for a party than just being young and impulsive. They did the vows thing and the kissing thing, and then the whole wedding party tromped out for the reception.