As a necromancer, I spent my days surrounded by death and yet it never ceased to startle me how very final it was. One second someone was alive, the next they were dead, and the world went on, leaving the survivors scrambling to pick up the pieces.
The shifter turned on the spot, and mages immediately moved to surround him. As he broke into a run, Vance raised a hand. The air rippled and the shifter was thrown backwards into the path of the oncoming mages. Vance’s ability to displace things extended to being able to move individual air particles around to create a shield or even lift a person into the air. The shifter struggled briefly as his feet left the ground, his gaze darting around in panic.
“Who are you?” Vance demanded.
“Kill him!” shouted one of the other mages.
Vance whirled to face the council, still holding the shifter off the ground. “The barriers on this building cannot be breached by an outsider. I believe that’s the responsibility of Lord Clarke. How did this man get inside?”
I was very glad not to be Lord Clarke at the moment. If looks could kill, Vance would have skewered half the room. I could only assume Ivy had some degree of immunity, or she was used to it, being his fiancé. She moved to his side, her sword in her hand, and everyone snapped into action. Several mages ran out of the room, presumably to check on the wards, while Vance procured a pair of handcuffs and snapped them onto the shifter.
As for me, I watched, my heart hammering. The mages and the shifters had a long-standing animosity due to the laws which had meant that until recently, the mages had effectively controlled where the shifters were allowed to live. I couldn’t call myself an expert, but I did know it’d been hard to convince the shifters to sign up for the Council of Twelve at all. And now… one of them had committed murder in full view of the council.
“He can’t have broken through the wards,” said a tremulous voice from among the mages, presumably belonging to Lord Clarke. “Not alone.”
Oh, boy. Since nobody was looking at me, I tapped into the spirit realm. Greyness immediately surrounded me, covering the world in a fog-like filter. The pulsing brightness of the council members’ spirits filled the room. I extended my consciousness outwards, into the lobby. Only necromancers stood out as particularly bright, and there weren’t any outside this room.
Whatever my Hemlock magic had reacted to was in the physical world, and now it was as still and silent as the mage’s inert body lying on the meeting room floor.
I let the spirit realm fade out, unable to quell the suspicion that if someone wanted to destabilise the cross-supernatural council, they might just have succeeded.
2
The meeting broke up as the mages dragged the shifter out of the room. The rest of the council left, talking in hushed voices, and I took Lady Montgomery’s departure as an invitation to leave, too.
“Did you see something, Jas?” Isabel whispered from my right-hand side. She was a little taller than me at five feet, with warm brown skin and dark curly hair tied back out of the way for the meeting, her hands clean of their usual chalk stains. Like me, she wore spells in the form of wristbands concealed out of sight. Not that being armed had prepared any of us for the sudden attack.
I shook my head. “I thought the wards were up.”
“They were,” she whispered. “I put them there myself.”
“You did?” Not just anyone could undo witch wards, let alone Isabel’s. “How can a shifter have removed them?”
“With the help of another witch.”
My heart sank. “Maybe they’re still in the building, or close by.” I looked through the dispersing crowd for my boss. Lady Montgomery’s brows rose questioningly as I approached her. While she might not disguise her greying hair or wrinkles using spells like Lord Sutherland did, her scars and obvious experience in battle made her look much more formidable.
“Lady Montgomery,” I said. “Can you sense anyone in the building who shouldn’t be? Someone broke the wards on the gate.”
“The intruder did,” she said. “Nobody else is inside this building who shouldn’t be. That does not, however, mean the shifter worked alone.”
He couldn’t have. “Did you see anything in the spirit realm?”
“I did not,” she said. “Jas, I’d advise you not to involve yourself in this investigation. You’re here for the guild, not the council.”
“Might we summon the dead mage’s ghost?” I asked. “That’s the quickest way to figure out what really went on.”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “I will see if the mages will allow that.”
With long-legged strides, she approached the mages. Some of them had already taken the shifter into another room, probably to interrogate him before they locked him up. I didn’t know what the mages’ jail looked like, but he wouldn’t spend long there. The penalty for killing a mage was death. The rules were pretty damned clear on that one.
Ilsa Lynn approached us, worry creasing her brow. She was a fair bit taller than Isabel and me, with a curvaceous figure and long dark brown hair grown past her shoulders.
“My mum and sister had to leave,” she said. “Did you see anything in the spirit realm, Jas?”
“No. Did you? Lady Montgomery’s gone to ask the mages if we can summon Lord Forrest’s ghost.”
“Good idea,” said Ilsa. “You’d think the ghosts would have spotted the intruder coming, but Frank said he wasn’t paying attention.”
“Who’s Frank?” I asked.
“Former necromancer head in Ivy’s region,” she said.
“Oh, him,” said Isabel. “I keep forgetting he’s on the council, being a ghost. I don’t know about the spirit realm, but that shifter broke through wards I spent hours setting up. And the building was already well protected.”
“It’s not on a spirit line,” I said, frowning. That at least meant it was unlikely for a poltergeist to take up residence here, but we should still be able to reach the mage’s ghost. Not that I’d been spending as much time in the spirit realm as I used to, with no magic keeping Evelyn contained.
I rubbed my arms, which prickled with goosebumps. Shifters didn’t typically lose control of themselves when it wasn’t the full moon. When it was, they found themselves confined to their animal forms at dusk, stripped of human reason or sense. In waking hours, though, that sort of thing didn’t happen.
River Montgomery walked over to us. Ilsa’s boyfriend looked nothing like his mother, having inherited his startling looks from his faerie side of the family. Curly blond hair almost covered his pointed ears, and even in his necromancer coat, he moved with an elegant grace that stood out among the crowd of humans. At the moment, he was the council’s only half-faerie representative.
“Lady Montgomery has requested that I summon the spirit of Lord Forrest, in full view of the mage council,” he said.
“You mean you’re supposed to supervise, right?” said Ilsa, giving him a smile. “I guess it doesn’t matter who summons him as long as the mages are witnesses.”
For all their power, the mages didn’t possess the spirit sight. That type of magic, at least, I didn’t have to keep hidden behind a geas.
“We can roll a die to see who gets to do the summoning,” I said. “The longer we wait, the more likely it is that the guy disappears for good.”
River nodded to his mother’s approaching figure. “The mages won’t make us wait that long, don’t worry. They know how serious it is.”
Maybe. Though while the mages could turn everything into an hours-long ceremony, one of their own people had been murdered in plain sight, an even rarer occurrence than a shifter flipping out and attacking someone in public. Now they’d be ready for action. And vengeance. Lord Sutherland’s beautified face was tight with anger as he intercepted Lady Montgomery. “Am I to understand you’re prepared to summon Lord Forrest’s spirit?”
“Several of my necromancers are, yes,” she said, in tones that implied she intended Ilsa and me to come along despite the mage’s obvi
ous reluctance.
He made a low, displeased noise and selected a free room to host the summoning. When our small group of necromancers was inside, he abruptly shut the door on Isabel and the others. “Go on, then.”
Someone had already laid out candles in the room’s centre—twelve, evenly spaced out. They didn’t have to be, but like the mages, the necromancers were often sticklers for rules and ceremony. Lady Montgomery snapped her fingers and the candles lit up, while someone turned off the ceiling lights to make it easier to see the spirit realm. Grey smoke filled the circle of candles, swirling lightly.
“I summon Lord Forrest,” Lady Montgomery said in clear tones.
For a moment, the space inside the circle remained grey and blurred. Then a faint flickering in the smoke announced a spiritual presence. Normally only necromancers could see into the spirit realm, but the candles made the dead visible to mundane eyes. The image of the murdered mage appeared, transparent and staring. His pallid face was even paler in death.
“What am I doing here?” he gasped. “Who are you?”
“What did you do?” demanded Lord Sutherland, turning on the necromancers with an accusing stare.
“Ghosts are often confused and disorientated after crossing the veil,” Lady Montgomery said to him. “They may not even remember their former lives.”
“I’m dead?” exclaimed the ghost.
“Yes, you are,” said Ilsa, moving closer to the circle. “Can you tell us what you remember about when you died?”
“We know how he died,” snapped Lord Sutherland. “If he doesn’t remember, this is a waste of our time. Were you or were you not attacked by a shifter?” Lord Sutherland spoke slowly and carefully.
The dead man looked into the distance. “I… I was attacked. Someone stabbed me with his claws.”
“Do you remember anything else?” I asked him. “Anything, uh, magical?” Maybe we should have gone to question the shifter instead, but there was absolutely no way I’d be allowed to sit in on his interrogation after narrowly escaping my own.
“No,” he said, his voice fading. “Am… am I never going to come back? I’m dead?”
“Yep,” I said. “If it’s any consolation, it’s painless. Just pass through the gates.”
“Enough,” said Lord Sutherland. “Turn the circle off. I don’t want ghosts in our headquarters.”
The spirit popped out of existence as the candles went out at Lady Montgomery’s command. “You did ask us to summon him, Lord Sutherland.”
“Everyone saw what that shifter scumbag did,” the Mage Lord snapped. “Is that ghost going to stay behind?”
“Only if he has unfinished business,” I answered. “Most dead people don’t turn into ghosts for that reason.” Frankly, I don’t think he’ll be going within a mile of you again, if he has any sense.
“Fascinating,” he snarled, twisting the beautifying spells on his wrists in agitation, making his features distort. “We’re done here.”
Lord Forrest hadn’t seen what’d prompted the shifter to attack. Shifters didn’t turn for no reason… but the only way to know for sure was to get the killer’s account of the story. Before the mages executed him.
Against my better judgement, I tailed Lord Sutherland out of the room. “Has the shifter been questioned yet?”
“What?” he snapped. “He’s unconscious, but when he wakes, we will interrogate him. He’ll die once he pleads guilty.”
Mages were many things. Lenient was not one of them. “Who does the questioning?”
“The mage council, of course.”
He swept away across the lobby. Damn. I had no business interrogating killers, but why had my Hemlock magic reacted when the shifter had broken into the headquarters? It’d never responded to a shifter before. As far as I could recall, the only magic it’d ever reacted to was witch magic.
I found Isabel waiting outside the door. “Any luck?” she asked.
“Inconclusive,” I said. “The mage didn’t remember anything we didn’t already see. But the shifter’s going to die the instant he tells the mages he’s the murderer, and it’s just plain weird that he managed to break the wards. Have the mages found out how he did it?”
“No, nor why he shifted during the day,” Isabel said. “It’s not common.”
“Shifters can lose control at any moment, given an incentive,” said a voice from behind me. I whirled on the spot, finding myself face to face with Vance Colton. Ah, crap. How long had he been listening in?
“They can?” I asked, resisting the urge to back up a step or two. Vance’s light grey eyes weren’t quite as intense as they’d been when he’d confronted the shifters, but he was over a foot taller than me and powerfully built. More than that, though, he had a reputation as one of the most powerful mages in a generation, and of all the people who knew anything of my Hemlock witch family, he was most likely to guess the truth.
“Yes,” Vance said. “Anger, frustration… most shifters turn in an instant if they’re attacked. It’s not so unusual for him to have shifted, if he had a grudge against the mage in question and wanted to cause violence.”
“And did he?”
I wondered how in the world Vance knew. It wasn’t like mages and shifters traditionally got along well.
“I didn’t know him, but I expect it’ll come out in the questioning,” he said. “You won’t be allowed in, however.”
That figured. Not that I particularly wanted to go anywhere near the mages’ interrogation chambers, but Lord Forrest had died in full view of the entire Council of Twelve with zero doubt that the shifter was guilty. Either the killer didn’t care about his own fate, or someone had put him up to it. Shifters generally knew when to pick their battles, and despite their brutal reputation, they didn’t go around attacking other supernaturals with more magic than they had. They were big on self-preservation, though in more of a pack-oriented way than vampires were. That’s why it was unusual to run into a lone shifter. They didn’t survive without allies for long.
Vance left to join the mages, at which point, I turned to Isabel. “Obviously I’m going to do it anyway.”
“What a surprise,” said Ilsa, walking to my side. “Let me guess… you’re going in through the spirit realm?”
“You’ve got it. You won’t tell on me to the boss?”
She shook her head. “Nah. I’m not a snitch. I know this isn’t the same as… you know, a few weeks ago. But it’s still suspicious that he was able to get past those wards.”
“Exactly,” said Isabel.
“Worth a try,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know of an empty room nobody will burst in on?”
“The library, maybe,” Ilsa suggested. “But we’ll have to seal the door.”
The library was across the hall from the meeting room, which was too close to the mages for my liking, but none of them gave us a second glance. They were too occupied by the murder and their prisoner.
“Wasn’t this place destroyed a few months ago?” I asked, remembering the attack on the mage guild when a bunch of wraiths had appeared above the city.
“The mages fixed it,” Ilsa said. “Got any candles? I’m not sure I have enough for a full circle.”
“I have a few.” I closed the door behind us. “Is one spell enough, Isabel?”
“It should be,” she said, and there was a flash as she activated a sealing spell over the door. “This will only hold for about twenty minutes—any more than that and the mages might get suspicious.”
Not to mention my boss might question where we’d disappeared to.
“Is River okay with you being here?” I asked Ilsa, setting down my candles.
“He won’t be thrilled at hiding things from Lady Montgomery, but it’s for a good cause.” She laid down the last candle, forming a circle of twelve.
“I’ve never done this before,” I admitted. “But I know how it works.”
It wasn’t as easy to question the living through the spirit realm as it was
the dead, but we were in the same building as the shifter, and two of us had the ability to travel much further in the spirit realm than was believed possible. Perks of having two souls. And being a shade.
Ilsa and I stepped into the candle circle, and the grey fog of spirit realm filled the space. Stepping out of my body was easy—a sudden rush of weightlessness, between one blink and the next, and sensation became floaty nothingness. Nowhere near as disorientating as crossing between realms in my physical body, like when I entered the Hemlocks’ forest. Part of me expected to see Evelyn Hemlock beside me, but instead Ilsa floated at my side. Her body glowed brighter than mine, enhanced by her Gatekeeper’s magic. Like me, she hadn’t been born a necromancer, but had developed her powers as a side effect. In her case, it was because she was Gatekeeper between the mortal and spirit worlds, not bound to an evil spirit, but we shared a similar outsider status. The glowing symbol on her forehead which marked her as Gatekeeper proved that, if nothing else.
“Better hope Lady Montgomery’s not watching too closely,” I said, floating out of the circle. Ilsa did likewise. I reached out with my senses—not the physical sort, but the sixth sense that enabled me to recognise anyone in the spirit realm within reach. I knew what the shifter looked like, but it wasn’t as easy to track a stranger as it was a friend.
Ilsa and I passed through the wall as though it wasn’t there, then another. If the interrogation had started, the mages wouldn’t see us snooping, so it was worth checking either way. Peering into each room took no time at all, and we tracked the shifter to a guarded cell-like room the size of a cupboard. He sat on the floor with his back to the wall. No furniture in the room, but he wouldn’t live long enough to need it.
Ilsa tapped the shifter’s shoulder—not his physical form, but his presence in the spirit realm. He jumped upright with a stifled cry of alarm. “Holy shit, you’re ghosts.”
“Not exactly,” I said, with a glance at Ilsa. “They’re going to question you soon. The mages. All they want to hear is that you’re guilty, but if you have anything else to say, tell us. Why did you attack that mage?”
Witch's Spirit (The Hemlock Chronicles Book 3) Page 2