Faerie Magic (2 page)

“Nothing,” she said. “No spells at all. Are you sure piskies can’t combine their magic?”

“Pretty sure I’d know by now,” I said. “They swarm, but they can’t so much as conjure up a spark. And the light—it didn’t look like Summer magic.” Piskies came from the Seelie realm of Faerie. The one where people pretended to be nice then stole your money.

“So what was it?”

I shrugged. Angry yells behind us reminded me twenty-odd enraged piskies waited to be escorted back to the clean-up guild at Larsen’s place.

I sighed and stood up. “Well. That could have gone better.”
Should have brought backup,
I imagined Vance Colton saying, to my intense annoyance. His displacing ability would be damned useful to get rid of those piskies. A cynical part of me whispered that I should have known it was too good to be true. We might have worked on a case together, but I’d been riding the high of being alive when I’d quit my job and put my future in his hands. He hadn’t put a spell on me. I was a moron for thinking there had been a thing between us. More than attraction, though that was there. In spades. Too bad my impaired judgement had been stronger than his desire to stick around.

Despite myself, I clicked through to his number on my phone. This was the kind of incident the Mage Lords needed to know about. Whatever history existed between Vance Colton and I was irrelevant. He was head of all the magical practitioners in the entire town—hell, in this area of the country. I couldn’t even get a wayward piskie to leave my flat, let alone convince the necromancers not to take away all my money.

Still, his rejection stung—my bank account more than my pride. Vance’s sort, descended from rich English aristocrats, were a little out of touch with the cut-throat world the rest of us lived in. I’d hoped to change that when I’d started working with him. Apparently not.

My hand hovered over the call button, and my phone buzzed so suddenly I nearly dropped it.

The number calling me wasn’t the Mage Lord’s, but my ex-boss. Larsen.

My hand clenched around the phone and I damn near threw it aside in disgust. The sleazy bastard. No matter how desperate I got, I’d never work for him again. I glared at the phone. Apparently not getting the message, it kept buzzing.

“Why aren’t you answering?” asked Isabel.

“Larsen.” I spat out his name like a curse.

“Why would he be calling?”

“Because he wants to exploit or blame me for something. Maybe he found out I’m the one doing this job and wants a cut of the profits.” I pocketed my phone again. I’d forgotten Erwin the piskie had chewed holes in my pocket, so the phone fell through and clattered on the ground.

“Ivy,” said Larsen’s voice.

Shit. I picked up the phone, checked for damage, and was about to hang up when he said, “Wait. Listen for a minute.”

“Or what?” I glared at the screen, like he could see me through it. “I told you never to speak to me again.”

“I have a client who wishes to hire you.”

I laughed aloud. “Fuck that. Fuck that, and fuck you, Larsen.”

He took my abuse with unusual calmness. “This is urgent,” he said. “There’s been a murder in half-blood district. The Mage Lords are absent, and every half-faerie in town is calling for blood.”

Well, shit.

CHAPTER TWO

Murder in half-blood district. For all their bloodthirsty nature, half-faeries rarely turned on one another, and preferred to settle their disputes without involving humans. They were all, without exception, devoted to their faerie heritage, and had no time for the mortals who shared their blood.

A riot wasn’t a nice thing to walk into. A
half-faerie
riot, though—even if I hadn’t been walking in the direction of the hedges at the border with half-blood territory, the noise would surely have drawn my attention anyway. The shouts, which I’d assumed came from a house party, grew loud enough to spear my eardrums, while bursts of magic lit up the sky like a fireworks display. Which, presumably, was what everyone else thought it was. Most people were too frightened of the half-bloods to complain to the police about public disturbances.

Faeries. Bringing communities together for twenty years and counting.

I reached the gap in the hedge where the gate to the half-blood district lay, closed off. Isabel hurried to catch up, clutching a stitch in her side. “You
can’t
be thinking of walking in there.”

“Someone has to sort them out,” I said. “They’ll blow up the town at this rate.”

On cue, a blast of ice struck against a wall of quivering thorns, just inside the entrance. Bits of plant exploded behind the gate, and the air turned cold then scorching hot. The spells would overstep the boundaries soon. I had my trusty iron blade and a half-dozen daggers, but I didn’t have the means to stop a full-blown riot. I looked at Isabel. “Any spells you can think of? Maybe put them all to sleep.”

“Probably won’t affect them, if it doesn’t even work on piskies.”

“They’re half-human,” I reminded her. “It’s that or let them kill one another.”

“Right.” She rummaged in her shoulder bag. “There’s no way. I only have a handful of spells on me. No sleeping ones. Just explosives, and I don’t think they need any more ammunition.”

“Fair point.” I cursed to myself. Damn Larsen. What the hell did he expect me to do, waltz in and sing them a lullaby?

My former boss had almost got me killed through negligence once already. Worse, he was the acting authority if none of the mages were answering calls, so nobody else would be able to help.

Isabel took her phone out. “I’ll contact the coven,” she said. “Bring backup spells. This isn’t ideal, but I can’t think of anyone aside from the mages who’d help.”

“The necromancers won’t want to know,” I said. “And throwing shifters into a riot is like throwing a dog into the middle of a street cat fight.”

“Tell me about it,” said Isabel.

Dammit. This might have started with a murder, but more half-faeries would doubtlessly be killed in the fighting. The blood alone would attract every dark denizen from Faerie hiding in the town’s shadows. We’d be chasing death faeries out of the streets for a month. Admittedly, my own rule against spilling faerie blood in this realm had gone out the window lately…
Think, Ivy.
Might my magic be able to calm them? Most likely, no. I didn’t dare cross the boundary, not outnumbered like this. I’d only aggravate them further. Or give them a new target.

A blast of cold air slammed into us from behind. Isabel made a startled noise, while I spun around, sword ready, searching out the new threat. Had the half-faeries brought the fight outside?

The front of the hedge disappeared, swept away in another blast of wind. I bit back a yelp, arms wrapping around myself, bracing my feet to avoid being knocked over. A figure moved past us, driving us aside with the force of the power they—
he—
carried. Clouds drove in, sweeping over the nearby houses. My teeth chattered, legs locking in place as leaves stirred up by the wind whipped against me.

The Mage Lord, tall and imposing, strode past me as if I wasn’t there.

“Enough,” Lord Vance Colton said, his voice projected by what I assumed was a spell. “If you don’t stop, you’ll cause irreversible damage to your home and to this realm.”

Shocked faces stared through gaps in the hedge, most mid-fight.

“What the hell?” yelled a half-faerie. “It’s not your business.”

“I am Lord Colton of the West Midlands district Mage Council, and I have authority to have any of you detained for causing a danger to the human and supernatural communities. If you cause any more damage, you’ll find yourself at the mercy of every mage in this district.”

Whoa. Guess he was prepared to take on Faerie, after all. With the power crackling over his head and slicing up the air, I almost believed he’d be able to face down a Sidhe lord.

Almost.

“Is that clear?” he asked of the ringing silence. I’d been so startled by his sudden appearance, I only now realised the rioting had stopped altogether.
Whoa.

“Is that clear?” he repeated, moving close to the bars of the gate. The air stirred into a cutting breeze, tearing leaves from the hedge and forcing me to back away, feet braced on the pavement.

“Yes,” said the nearest half-faerie, tripping over his own feet in an effort to get away.

I watched, open-mouthed, as the riot dissolved. Vance had stopped the fight like a schoolteacher disciplining an unruly hall of kids.

Which left… us. “Vance,” I said. “Is there—”

“Leave them,” he said. “Let them sort out their own battles.”

He turned heel and vanished—literally. In addition to being able to grab objects out of thin air, the Mage Lord had an interesting relationship with the laws of physics. Like the ability to effectively teleport.

What the hell?
Last time I’d spoken to him, he’d promised me a date. Now he’d taken away my job. Again.

“What
was
that?” said Isabel.

I shrugged. The Mage Lord had actually rendered me speechless. Fury surged, and I kicked at the half-faeries’ gate. “No clue.”

“I thought he was…”

“My friend? My freaking
boss?”
I swore and kicked the gate with my other foot. Now my bruised toes matched. Brilliant.

Isabel stared after the Mage Lord. “I’ve seen some scary-ass magic, but… damn. I’d rather face down a shifter.”

“He’s part shifter, technically,” I said.

“That explains the temper.”

“I know, he’s positively cuddly.” Actually, Vance was the only person with shifter blood I’d met who’d demonstrated any kind of restraint. Sometimes, anyway.

Okay, so he’d skewered people with invisible swords and came close to accidentally killing me twice. Maybe it was for the best we’d never got a date.

“Come on,” said Isabel. “Let’s go and fetch those piskies.”

“I’d rather walk in there.” I jerked my thumb at the gate. “Wonder who died?”

“Probably more than one of them by now, the way they were fighting.” Isabel grimaced. “What kind of magic did he use?”

She didn’t need to say his name. I turned my back on the half-faeries’ place and reluctantly led the way to the house where we’d left those piskies.

“Mage Lord mojo. No clue. He’s a displacer, so I suppose he shifted all the air around us to make a dramatic breeze.”

“And vanished into thin air,” added Isabel. “Is he a stage magician in his spare time?”

I snorted. “He defines ‘over-dramatic’, but no. As for where he’s been the last week, no clue.”

“Might have stuck around to help us with this.” She indicated the garden up ahead, and the ruins of the shed. How were we meant to explain to the people who’d hired us that the piskies had blown up half their garden? We’d probably get charged for damages on top of not being paid.

I groaned. Time to explain the rules of magic to sceptical humans, again. I doubted Vance would consider the trouble the fight would draw from the other faeries living in this realm. No, some poor freelancer would have to deal with the mess.

Unfortunately, only one person in town specialised in dealing with faerie cases. Yay me.

***

“Paperwork,” said Isabel in a singsong voice, depositing a stack inside my bedroom door. I rubbed my eyes and groaned. Unlike me, Isabel was wide awake for someone who frequently pulled all-nighters, dressed in an outfit entirely too bright a shade of green for this hour in the morning.

“Thought you’d let me sleep in,” I mumbled, hiding my head under the pillow.

“You need to hand these into clean-up by ten. I would, but I have to be with the coven in an hour.”

I groaned again and rolled out of bed. We’d stayed up half the night filling out paperwork to prove the piskies were responsible for the damage to the garden so we’d actually get paid. No money had materialised yet. I didn’t blame the garden’s owners for being pissed, but it eluded me how a bunch of hyped-up piskies could possibly have blown up a shed.

I wasn’t mentally present at all. Bite marks covered my hands and arms because I’d forgotten to use a healing spell after all the excitement. Worse, us coming back smelling of piskie had sent our own resident piskie, Erwin, into a frenzy. He’d zoomed around breaking things until we’d been forced to trap him in a spell circle.

I shoved on my second-least tattered pair of jeans and a T-shirt that used to be black before the colour washed out, and walked barefoot into the kitchen to scrounge some food. The smell of Isabel’s baking cookies somewhat restored my mood. She’d left a tray out on the side, luckily away from the chalk circles covering every other work surface in the flat.

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, for god’s sake.” I turned heel and went to answer it.
Please not Larsen. Please not Vance.
For once, I wouldn’t have minded it being a freaking door to door salesman, if just to avoid being dragged into any more crap.