changeling chronicles 03 - faerie realm (8 page)

I went stock still, keeping my eyes on the crowd rather than on the broken body.
Holy crap.
I’d known not everyone liked the mages—hell,
I
hadn’t until recently—but I’d had no idea the shifters held that much of a grudge. No wonder Henry hated Vance.

Sue me for prying, but I wanted to know more. Even if I’d been visible, nobody was looking in my direction anyway. I moved closer.

“I don’t disagree, but we don’t know exactly how she died. It might not have been one of them.”

“They’re sadistic animals,” said a female voice—Susie. “Of course they did it.”

Whoa. Crap. None of them could see the magic, even as it lit the whole alleyway in green light. Green meant Summer. A Summer faerie had committed the murder.

But there’s hardly any magic in half-faerie territory.

Where could someone get a magical boost, other than a store of faerie magic? Had the person who’d stolen the talisman brought it
here,
last night, and used it to kill a shifter?

Dammit. I couldn’t stalk around the boundary all night in case anything else happened. It was highly unlikely the killer would strike in the same place, anyway. The shifters were a couple of hours from turning into their animal forms and showed no signs of moving from the murder site.

Not for the first time, I reflected that things would be a hell of a lot simpler in this city if the supernatural groups didn’t all hate one another. I slipped a hand into my pocket and pulled out one of Isabel’s explosives. Aiming carefully, I threw it at a bin on the pavement.

The resulting explosion went off like a thunderclap, startling all the shifters—and me, admittedly. I ducked as bits of broken spell mixed with garbage shot into the air. The shifters peeled away to look for the source of the noise. I saw my chance and ran, my eardrums burning, the smell of burned rubbish following me into the alley.

Even in the shadows, the two remaining shifters frowned in my general direction. They had super-strong senses and probably smelled me.

I moved fast, whipping a spare glass container from my pocket and taking a blood sample from the mess on the alley wall. Then I darted back around the corner, nearly colliding with another shifter returning from investigating the pulverised rubbish now littering the pavement. He frowned at me, too, and I thanked my own quick thinking that the whole area stank of whatever had been in the garbage I’d blown up. I didn’t want to take any more chances, so I turned tail and ran like hell.

Once I’d put enough distance between myself and them, I found another empty alley and took out one of Isabel’s tracking spells. I kept the shadow spell over myself as I tossed the blood into the middle of the circle. My hands met the light flaring up at the circle’s edge, and I prepared to relive the shifter woman’s unpleasant death.

Green light trailed up my arms, forming unreadable glyphs. My vision clouded over, darkening rapidly. I hoped it hadn’t been too long since her death to see who’d killed her.

Shadows stretched along the road, and the light of the full moon spread across the pavement in front of me. Of course, I couldn’t hear anything, but from the movement in the shadows, someone approached me. My—her—body moved, and she looked down at her hands. Or rather, claws. Yikes. She’d been in shifted form when she left her territory. But why come to the boundary?

A figure approached, wreathed in green light. That, coupled with the moonlight, made it impossible to make out their features. I, or the shifter woman, moved forward, giving me a glimpse of furred, clawed feet underneath me. No wonder the floor seemed so close. The woman walked on all fours, making the figure approaching appear tall enough to blot out the full moon.

The green light grew brighter. Then a torrent rushed towards me like a bullet, and everything went black.

I blinked back into my own body.
Well. That was instructive.
I hadn’t got a close look at the killer, but of course it was someone with faerie magic.

First, I cleaned up the spell circle’s remains, leaving no traces. Using a person’s blood in this way was technically a form of necromancy, but the necromancers themselves never dabbled in crime investigation. They preferred to have long uninteresting chats with their ancient masters over the veil, and avoid any real-world responsibilities at all…
wait a minute.

Crap. Of all the times to get myself excluded by the necromancer guild. They might have actually been able to call up the shifter’s ghost to ask her who the killer was. Here, away from the Ley Line, the level of spiritual interference was low enough that ghosts could be called back from Death without triggering the apocalypse.

I sure as hell wouldn’t try a summoning circle myself. I didn’t have the right equipment, for a start, and I’d had enough close calls with death already. Maybe Vance or one of the other mages would be able to make Lord Evander listen to reason.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Oh, crap. I’d misjudged the time. My date with Vance was in less than two hours.

His deep voice sounded in my ear. “What’ve you done now?”

“Nothing,” I said guiltily, deciding to play it safe and not mention my little excursion. “I heard from Henry—you know, my neighbour—that someone left the shifters’ gate unlocked last night. You might want to send someone to patrol around the area.”

“Did they find the missing shifter?”

Damn. He knew? “Yes. She’s dead, horribly. A half-faerie did it, but nobody knows who.”

Guilt choked me, urged me to explain what I’d found. But if he came over here, the shifters would turn on both of us and it’d be doubly hard to find out who’d done it. Confronting them wouldn’t help, especially now they were enraged. We’d come back and question the shifters when they were in a more peaceable mood.

“I’ll ask one of my mages to have a look. Don’t go there alone.”

I chewed on my lip. I’d sworn to stop lying to him, if just because it wasn’t a healthy way to start our relationship. “Already went there. I’m on the way home. Nobody saw me.”

“Ivy.” He spoke my name like a command, somehow conveying both concern and exasperation.

“I’m not the one who’s lying dead by shifter territory, Vance. I’m fine.” I checked behind me just in case, but to most people,
I
was the scary person lurking in the alley with a sword. “I’ll tell you everything when I’m home.”

“I want you to be safe. That’s all.”

I melted a little. “Yeah, I got it. Just you know. Independent by necessity here. I pay my bills by poking around.”

“You don’t need to do that anymore.”

“Maybe I do,” I muttered. “Can the necromancers come and call up the shifter’s spirit? It’d be the easiest way to find out who the killer was.”

“They can, but they won’t. The shifters will never allow it.”

I growled in frustration. “For crying out loud.” I pulled the phone away from my ear. Someone rounded the corner, heading right for me. Susie.

“Call you back,” I whispered quickly, and ducked out of sight.

Susie passed by the alley, stopping beside where I stood. She wore the expression she did when she was sniffing out for someone, but a second later, she resumed walking again. I breathed out, waited thirty seconds, then returned to the street, putting enough space between us so she wouldn’t smell me. I’d need to take off my disguise first, but this was my chance to reason with her, and Henry. Once we were back at the flat, at least.

I kept my distance, watching her heels beat against the pavement. In an hour she’d be chained upstairs in beast form, and Isabel would watch over George. As for me…

Hands reached out and grabbed my arms. I yelped, my feet leaving the ground, as someone far stronger than I was lifted me into the air. Struggling, I twisted to face my attacker. A hulking man I didn’t recognise loomed over me. From his size and his long, matted hair, he must be a shifter.

“I knew I smelled a rat.”

“What gives?” I gasped, fighting against his iron grip.
Oh, shit.
Shifters on the verge of transforming were far stronger than regular humans. I was in trouble.

He let me down, holding my hands behind my back so I couldn’t reach for my weapons. His hands searched my pockets, pulling two daggers and the witch spells I’d been carrying. Shock gave way to fury as I struggled, trying to focus and find the magic lurking somewhere under the surface.
Come on.
Sure, I was far from the Ley Line, but the way it had been exploding out of me lately, I had to be able to—

Blue light burst from my palms, knocking into one of the explosives he’d pulled from my pocket. The spell began to spark, and the shifter hissed in anger, tossing the explosive away. I wriggled free, using my faerie-enhanced speed to propel myself over the road, and ran smack into another hulking figure. Wait, the same one. How the hell had he moved so fast?

Damned shifters.

“Who even are you?” I shot magic at him, but he dodged smoothly, lifting me one-handed. I squirmed, trying to get my foot at the right angle to kick at his kneecaps.

“You’re meddling in something that doesn’t concern you, Ivy Lane. I think you deserve to be taught a lesson.”

“Brilliant. Here’s a better idea. You let me go, and I’ll help you solve this murder.”

Crash.
Stars winked before my eyes, and the world dissolved into blackness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Ivy.” A hand waved in front of my face. A transparent hand.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” I said. “Don’t tell me the dickwit killed me.”

“He tried,” said Frank the necromancer. “Very luckily, your healing spell worked. You’ll wake up in a minute.”

“Healing spell? I didn’t use a healing spell?” What the hell was going on? Like my other disembodied experiences, the surroundings were little more than hazy smoke, with Frank’s indistinct face peering at me. How could my head hurt so much if I was a ghost?

“Someone needs to tell those idiots that hitting someone over the head with a hard object is more likely to kill them than knock them unconscious.”

“I’ll do that, when I’m
alive,”
I said pointedly. Some details came back to me. “Wait. Is there a shifter here?”

“Right here? No. There’s an angry one beside your battered body in the waking world.”

“Were you always this annoying?” I rubbed the back of my head. My hand passed right through it. Ack. “I was investigating a dead shifter. Figured it’d be pushing it to ask the necromancers for help, but I didn’t know how to reach you from the living world.”

“Well, now you do,” he said dryly. “I think you’d prefer to stay alive, though.”

“Seriously. I need to know. There’s something bad going on, and it’d be useful to have a spy on the other side of the veil.”

“That’s not how it works,” said Frank. “If you wanted to talk to me again, though… is that blue light your magic?”

I looked down, confused. Sure, my body was there, albeit transparent… and shrouded in blue light. “I guess it is. Why can you see it? I thought you needed the Sight.”

“Maybe that rule doesn’t apply to the dead. Every time I’ve seen you in Death, Ivy, you’ve been covered in blue light.”

“My magic lets me pass through Death,” I said half to myself. “Shit. Of course.” That was how I’d crossed to the Grey Vale, after all. “But why’s it happening now? The veil’s okay—not acting up. Right?”

“The veil is fine,” said Frank. “No more disturbed than usual. I think your magic binds you to the veil, somehow. If you can pass through Death, it would make you a valuable asset to the Necromancy Guild.”

“They’ve refused to have anything more to do with me,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to anyway. It’s bad enough that I’m supposed to handle the half-faeries. I don’t suppose you’ve seen anyone carrying a powerful source of faerie magic around, have you?”

“In Death or otherwise? No.”

“Or a shifter? This woman who got killed… it was bad. A half-faerie did it, or a pure-blooded one. I need to know what happened so I can catch the killer.”

Frank’s forehead creased, his mouth twisting in a way that suggested he was struggling with a decision. Finally, he said, “I will tell you how to cross over the veil, but you’ll have to accept the risk. With apprentice necromancers, even under controlled conditions, there’s always the chance that they might not wake up. The veil might overwhelm you.”

My heart sank, fear flooding me. Weird how I got the physical symptoms of having a body when mine wasn’t here. “To be honest, I’m
not
okay with that, but tell me anyway. Never know when you might need to cross into Death.”

Frank sighed. “Normally necromancers use a summoning circle to tether them to the real world. With magic like yours, though, I’d wager you don’t need one. You didn’t last time you passed into Death, though the veil was thin.”

“And when the drug was controlling me?”

“Your magic brought you here.”

“Damn.” Not only was the magic a pain in my ass in the waking world, it followed me into Death, too. Worse, I couldn’t ask necromancer dude for more details, because he didn’t have magic, much less of the faerie variety. “Tell me how to cross.”

“Feel your way through. It’s hard to demonstrate when you’re already in Death, but I can show it to you in reverse.”

“All right. Hit me.”

Frank leaned forward, grabbed my shoulders and shoved me. I yelped, falling back—and kept falling, magic rising around me like a cloak. My body shuddered, real sensations returning, and I fell to Earth with a crash.

My eyes flew open. “Jesus, Frank, I didn’t mean literally hit me.”

“What?” snapped a voice. Definitely not Frank.

Shit. The big dude from earlier stood over me, and he’d brought a buddy. Great.