DOUBLE-SIDED MAGIC
(LEGACY SERIES BOOK 1)
MCKENZIE HUNTER
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
MESSAGE TO THE READER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
McKenzie Hunter
Double-Sided Magic
© 2016, McKenzie Hunter
[email protected]
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-9903441-8-6
Cover Artist: Orina Kafe Artworks
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ISBN: 978-0-9903441-8-6
CHAPTER 1
I thought he hadn’t seen me, but when his pace quickened behind me, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. He had been following me for two days. Tracker. I cursed under my breath and picked up the pace, jogging past other runners on the trail, moving in the opposite direction. Damn Tracker. My jog soon became a slow run, fast enough to get away from the crowd but slow enough not to alarm anyone hopped up on an endorphin high. I veered off the trail into the uneven thick forest. The smell of oak and flowering dogwood coated the area, and dirt that kicked up into a small dust wouldn’t help mask my scent. Shifters—the best hunters. I kept going deeper on the trail, running around the trees, never in a straight line in case he decided to use a gun. My heart raced, I kept my pace. Added to my typical five miles were the ten more I needed to get to the spot. He wouldn’t tire—which was good. I wanted him to continue—I was going to end it.
His pace quickened behind me, closing the distance I had. Skilled lithe steps followed me as I led him deeper into the bosk away from witnesses staying on the trail. And he was more than happy to oblige and confront me without witnesses. We both needed to be away from prying eyes. He needed it to fulfill his job and murder me, I needed to make sure he failed.
If he attacked in public, he would be considered a rogue shapeshifter who attacked a helpless human in the park while she was jogging. And that is exactly what I was to the rest of the world, an average human woman running in the park. I played my role well. That’s the way it had to be if I planned to stay alive.
The rest of the world considered us extinct, destroyed—nothing more than a tale of powerful magic gone bad. People who deserved to die, given their justice for what they did, and I can’t say they were wrong. There was no redemption, and we didn’t deserve mercy. I got it. All the blood shed couldn’t erase what my kind had done. We were the embellished stories of how strong power made people hunger for more. Our story became a cautionary tale. We were the boogeyman; a historical account of how magic can destroy. How the allure of it can corrupt, and there was such a thing as too much magic. I was too much magic. Raw magic, strong magic—deadly magic. Being all that, it seemed as though I should be the hunter, not the hunted.
Magic wasn’t all bad; faes, shifters, mages, and witches weren’t problems, they were the safe zone. Me and my kind—we were “kill on sight.” And that’s exactly what they did to my parents. There was a different ache in my heart, unlike the usual one I felt when I ran this long and hard. Tears welled; I blinked them back. I inhaled the crisp refreshing air, potent with oak and poplar, and I pushed harder, only a few miles to go.
I left the trail and kept running into the thicket, fully aware he would follow me no matter where I went. The tenacity of Trackers. They were the conspiracy theorists of the world, made up of a small group of mages, shifters, faes, and humans. Everyone else believed we were extinct, and they needed to—because if not, they’d live in fear. Trackers didn’t, and they were prepared to remedy that. I wasn’t sure how they found us or even knew we still existed. I suspected they were always there in the shadows, cynical about my kind, just waiting for us to screw up and show that we were too dangerous to live so they could justify eliminating us. We’d certainly proven them right in the past—in a big way.
I didn’t know how they kept track of us now. I once imagined a complicated system I’d come to believe it was more like a group of misfits meeting in basements to share binders of papers that traced our bloodlines, scrolls about our lineage, and Post-it notes about possible sightings. They were probably the guys who told tall tales of spotting Big Foot. The world considered them crazy and innocuous. We considered them dangerous—and they were.
It had been a year since one had come after me. He’d been a mage, easier to trap, harder to fight. This one was a shifter—he would be harder to fight but easier to stop, an innate skilled hunter—and based on the way he moved, a wolf.
I got enough distance, getting a glimpse of the patch of missing grass that indicated a small pit cave that was made by someone and thankfully forgotten. It had become my refuge since I’d stumbled upon it a little over two years ago. I sprinted toward it, opened the cover of my clandestine hideaway, and lowered myself into it, aware that he would follow.
The smell of dirt, stone, and wood from the retention wall surrounded me, and I squinted trying to adjust to the darkness. The hint of magic, like the dirt, kicked up in the air and reminded me that I had to hide mine and this was my only safe place where I could use it. I’d placed a ward on it, the magic often masked by other magic that inundated the area. I’d used it for years without problems, so I assumed it was safe—or as safe as it could be. The benefit of us being considered extinct was that most people couldn’t identify our magic, because they hadn’t been exposed to it enough. It they felt it, they would assume it was an area where witches, faes, and mages had used magic.
I stepped farther back; light streamed from above, where I’d left the cover open. As a predator he had the advantage of heightened scent and vision. This was the first time I’d had a shifter after me. Taking several controlled breaths I waited for him, pressed against the reinforced wall, the hardened dirt biting into my skin. Fear was a lingering fragrance in the air. It was taking too long. I know he knew where I was. Maybe he wouldn’t follow. I waited. Crouching in the corner, I waited for him to drop down. For moments there wasn’t anything but silence and then he leapt down.
I was without my weapons but here I could use magic undetected. Using it in front of humans wasn’t the issue. As far as they were concerned, I was just one of the many magical beings that populate the city. It was the supernaturals that I worried about, because they could sense the “different” magic. If they were skilled enough they would know the difference or at least know that my magic wasn’t fae, witch, or mage. All it would take is one spell. They’d feel it against their skin, the roil of it over the body, the potency of power, and there would be no denying that I w
asn’t just one of the typical magical beings. They could sense it in the air, but if magic had been performed or another supernatural was in the vicinity, it could distort it. Shifters were a different story. It was rumored they could smell magic, and that made things different. I wasn’t sure just how they perceived magic, which is why I kept my distance from them.
“Only the guilty run,” said his deep voice as he dropped down into the pit. A small halo of light formed around him as he looked around the dark cavity. His pale features dimmed, but his effervescent green eyes were bright enough to see in the dusky surroundings. His nose flared as he took in my scent, and his narrowed eyes scanned the area. The list of things that was easier than fighting a shifter was pretty long and included climbing Mount Everest. I would need magic. His hands were placed on the hilt of his knife as he approached me.
“Anya.” He said my name with the familiarity of a friend. But if he was as thorough and psychotic as Trackers were known to be, he probably knew me as well as his friends. And he also knew that I didn’t go by Anya. To my parents I was Anya, to the world who knew me as the human who collected old things in the quaint little antique shop in Manor Square I was Olivia Michaels, Levy.
The strike that sent me into the wall of the pit was enough to startle me into defense mode. To most supernaturals, fighting a shifter, if you weren’t skilled in some form, was a death sentence, because they’re immune to all magic. Which is why they really hated us—they weren’t immune to ours. His hand shot out again; I blocked it. I wasn’t going to get him on speed and strength. He had me on that. I dropped down and swiped his leg. The moment he hit the ground my elbow slammed into his windpipe. He choked in a sharp breath and blocked me from doing it again. He recovered, a little faster than I expected. I came to my feet, a side kick landing a hard jolt to his nose. It should have stopped the bastard. Wolves. I never understood why they of all shifters were drawn to living in packs. They were resilient and obstinate enough to fight until they were the last man standing.
Eyes glassy with unshed tears, I moved just in time to miss his foot as it kicked out. It didn’t catch me square on the shoulder, but clipped it, and it hurt like hell. “You will not leave here alive,” he said. Before the second kick sent me careening into the wall again, my head snapped back into his. A spiral of colors flashed before my eyes; the pain unfolded and built into something that was barely tolerable. It was hard to shake it off. But I had to because he charged at me. I moved in time, my palm thrusting into the side of his temple, dazing him.
“If you’re after me, then you know who I am. The bigger concern is whether or not you will get out of here alive.” Magic that I forced to stay dormant rose slowly in me, wrapping around me like a heavy blanket but offering me no comfort. Used so infrequently for fear of being discovered, it felt foreign to me. But I needed it more than just for defense, so I took a few minutes to become familiar with it again. To own it the way my parents had taught me. To become one with it until the vibrant glow of amber, blue, and white was just an extension of me like my limbs. It shot out, fastening him against the wall. His arms and legs pressed firmly against it. I started to remove his weapons. His body might not have been able to move but the clenched jaw and ire in his eyes as he glared at me were enough to scare someone who hadn’t seen the things that I had. When I was finished, I looked at the small pile of blades, guns, vial of salt, and iridium cuff. We didn’t have many weaknesses, but like any magical being, we had one. Shifters had silver. Faes, witches, and mages were allergic to iron. It took iridium to disable us, reduce our magic to something that could be bested by the weakest of witches. I glanced at the cuff: it wasn’t thick enough. It wasn’t enough to stop me.
“I will find you again, you can bet on that.”
And I knew if he had a chance he would. This was the second time one had found me in two years. Was it time to move again? I’d been here for so long. This was my home. I liked my job, my employer, my roommate. How long would I have to keep paying for the sins of people I didn’t know? Whose beliefs I didn’t share and whose thirst for power I didn’t possess. I was bound to them for one reason only—my magical ability. The anger started to rise in me, along with the same frustration that surfaced each time I thought about it. I didn’t need anger. This needed to be handled with a steady hand and level head.
“You are either really arrogant or really stupid. Here I am with a stack of blades, your blades, and only one person to test out their sharpness on, and you’re talking BS.” The glare didn’t ease, his sharp features rigid. He pulled his mouth back as though he would expose fangs. It was easy to suspect that he was one who was more comfortable in his animal form.
I picked up a knife and examined the blade, my finger running across it as I stared at him. The anger started boiling to the surface again, ready to spread to a forest fire. It was people like him that left me alone—orphaned—by the age of fifteen because my parents were killed. I gripped the handle harder. The anger was roaring. I was having a hard time trying to control it. I needed to be under control more than ever. I didn’t kill. I was better than that. I don’t kill, I’m better than that. I repeated that mantra over and over until I accepted it. If I killed, I wouldn’t be better than the people who forced me into this life where I had to lie and hide to survive.
The brush of sympathy reasserted itself. He had every right to want me dead and ensure that I didn’t exist. My kind had given people enough of a reason to hate us and want to destroy us on sight. The acts of a few warranted a full-out effort to destroy us so that we could never cause the level of devastation that we had in the past. I understood, but I couldn’t change who and what I was.
I whispered the incantation. The words gently flowing from me as though I was in the warded cave with my mother, practicing our forbidden magic so that I wouldn’t be defenseless in a world that wanted me dead. The magic cloaked me, twirling around my arm, and danced across my finger.
“Don’t you touch me,” he barked. The magic would hurt his pride more than anything. Immune to magic, shifters possessed a certain level of arrogance about it.
“It’ll only hurt for a moment.”
He growled, attempted to thrash against the hold. He was strong—each time he railed against the hold, it felt like something slammed into me. I stepped closer. He gritted his teeth and bared them in silence when I slashed the knife across his arm. I waved my hand over the pool of blood that welled from the cut. He finally relaxed back with quiet resolve as the magic mixed with his blood, the tranquil allure of it slowly taking over and my magic traipsing through it, grabbing pieces of his memory and replacing them with false ones. He wouldn’t look for me again. I closed my eyes, concentrating, pulling the ones I needed and replacing them with others. Giving a nice neat timeline where he tracked me into the cave, lively banter, before he used his dagger to stab me. He would remember watching me struggle for breath, grapple with that idea that I was going to die. And then the comfort of knowing he watched me struggle and succumb to death. He would feel the very real satisfaction of watching a Legacy die.
I slumped against the wall across from him, exhausted. It was easier to use my magic and implant memories in a shifter, who didn’t possess magic, than use it on those who did. Humans were absolutely easy, but they weren’t used in the field, only for reconnaissance and research. Waiting for the exhaustion to pass, I reveled in small favors. I couldn’t get this far with the mage who had come after me—his magic was too strong to lift more than part of his memory, which was probably why someone was after me again.
The area was still deserted, but I would have to move quickly. It wasn’t on the trail, but every once in a while someone would wander along it.
I am going to feel this tomorrow, I thought. I carried the shifter up the small stairs leading out of the pit cave. He felt like solid, dense muscle. I was too exhausted to use magic to lift him. This wasn’t the best trade-off for being able to use magic against him. Even using a fireman’s c
arry was difficult. Implanting false memories took a lot out of me, but I didn’t want to risk keeping him in the cave and moving him later. I ignored the pulse of pain that shot through my shoulder and positioned him against a tree and replaced his weapons on him.
Maybe this was the last time they would come for me.
I was glad I had just missed my roommate. Exhausted, I barely made it back to the apartment; I didn’t have it in me to come up with a believable lie to explain the bruising and torn and dirty clothing. Instead of a shower, I stood in the middle of the steam-filled bathroom trying to think of what to do next. Two Trackers in a year. In the past ten years, I’d only had three come after me. That was a lot. I didn’t want to move again and change things. I liked my home—my life.
CHAPTER 2
Kalen’s smile mirrored my scowl as the magic wrapped around the tip of his fingers. I waited for him to make a move. He dismissed my glare, and when my hand balled at my side, he laughed. My boss was often amused by my irritation.
I stood in the middle of the room he’d converted to our working office in his Georgian Colonial home, my eyes fastened to his hand, as magic spiraled around it. The seconds of silence stretched, as his gaze stayed on me. His lip lifted into a smirk.
Kalen sighed. “I don’t understand why you are so upset, you look beautiful. Last week you were complaining about having to deal with an irritable fae, five days ago you were complaining about wading through a sewer to find a Hearth Stone, and now you have on this stunning outfit and you’re complaining. Levy, I just don’t know how to please you,” he teased as his eyes flickered with amusement. “Did you really think I was going to let you go to the auction dressed like a deranged hipster?”
Double-Sided Magic (Legacy Series Book 1) Page 1