Spandex, Spells and Shadows Read online

He was right. But before I could even say so, he abruptly stepped away from me, shifting to the far side of the room and putting as much distance between he and I as was possible. For a moment, I panicked, thinking I’d somehow done something wrong.

  “Hunter, what is it?” I demanded.

  He wasn’t really listening to me, though. He’d shoved his fist against his mouth and was taking in hard, deep breaths as he stood there. His gray eyes were focused on the soft carpeting at his feet, and he just shook my head in answer to my question.

  “Hunter?” I asked again, allowing the worry to creep into my tone. I started across the room toward him, but one of his hands shot out. I wasn’t even sure how he’d known I was moving, but I froze anyhow.

  “Don’t come toward me,” he ordered breathlessly. “I can’t see you. I don’t want to know where you are. You need to leave, Shannon.”

  “What?” I snapped. “Hunter, if I said or did—”

  “It wasn’t you!” He hollered suddenly. “It’s the Bond. I want to… Shannon, would you just leave?”

  “No,” I snapped back, allowing my temper to get the better of me. “I’m not leaving you, Hunter. I came here to talk.”

  “GET OUT!” The roar was so deep and primal it made the very air shake. It was so unexpected that I actually jumped, terrified of Hunter for the first time ever.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  He really did look like a killer in that moment. Hunter was huge and hulking, heaving in the far corner of the room, and trying to stay as far away from me as possible. But for the first time since he’d told me about the bond and his orders, I actually believed he was capable of it.

  If I didn’t find the spell to break the bond, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Hunter would kill me.

  4

  The poor valet was beyond flustered when I fled back downstairs to grab my car from him. I probably looked like quite a sight. I was crying, my hair was messed up thanks to a rather staticky elevator mirror, and I felt like I could actually kill someone myself.

  That someone was the council. If I’d come across any of them in that moment, I knew I would have destroyed them with my bare hands.

  Hunter’s face haunted me as I drove home, even though I was trying to focus on the little tidbits I’d learned from him. But I couldn’t really think about how the necklace was elven made, or how to track a fae through their magic, or any of the other things that were probably truly useful to me, because I couldn’t get the image of Hunter in those last few seconds out of my head.

  I’d only seen him like that once before, back in the cabin in the woods. I’d also thought he might be capable of killing me then, but in my mind, I’d twisted that image around and given him a sort of pass.

  He hadn’t known who I was then. He’d been convinced I was a fae killer, so it was justifiable for him to react like that, right?

  But now, he knew exactly who I was. I was no killer.

  Conversely, I also knew precisely who Hunter was. Unfortunately for me, he was a killer. I had a feeling that if I’d stayed that much longer in his hotel room, I would have discovered just how good he was at his job, cloaking spell or not.

  It was three a.m. by the time I pulled back into the driveway. The house was still pitch black and everyone was asleep, so I traipsed up the stairs and into my bedroom, where it was just me and my thoughts. I almost wanted to wake Mom up just so I’d have someone to talk to about the whole night. But then I figured I’d be no better than she was to Grams, so I let her sleep.

  I fell into my bed, fully clothed, and prayed I could just will myself to fall unconscious until after the sun had risen. Maybe then, I’d have a better handle on the situation.

  That didn’t happen, though. Instead, I tossed and turned for about ten minutes before I finally realized that the only way I could sleep would be to think this whole thing through.

  “Okay, fine, Shannon, think.” I sat straight up in bed, hissing into the dark the way Herman hissed at the mice that populated our walls. “What do we know? Well, not very much. I’m sure there were other things Hunter wanted to say, or could have said, but he didn’t. Or couldn’t. Maybe I should have stayed. Well, no, because then he probably would have killed me. I’m saying ‘well’ way too much. I should work on that. English is not the point here, Shannon, concentrate!”

  I sprang up and dashed over to my purse, where the elven made necklace was tangled up in one of its pockets. I’d knotted it up completely in my despair after I’d left Hunter’s hotel room, and now it would probably be impossible to undo.

  “Shit.” I tugged at the necklace, fully prepared for it to tighten up, but to my utter surprise, the knot unraveled itself, almost like magic. “It is magic, Shannon! Or are you forgetting?”

  It was completely possible that my habit of speaking aloud to myself like I had a duel personality was a sign of insanity, but I chose to ignore it for the moment. I had plenty of reasons to think I was insane already, and I sure as heck didn’t need to add another one into the mix.

  I gripped the now untangled necklace in my hands and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping beyond hope that I could find some way to bring on a vision. It hadn’t ever worked before, but maybe the gods of magic would see the mental breakdown I was currently in the throes of and grant me a little bit of help.

  I hung on tight like that for probably around five minutes, but all I could see behind my eyelids was pitch blackness. The room wasn’t disappearing, and a new one wasn’t popping up around me.

  “Fine,” I whispered, tossing the necklace back on my nightstand and falling across my bed so I could stare up at the white popcorn ceiling. “Let’s treat this like a missing persons case. You had plenty of detective friends in Boston. What would they do?”

  It was then that I realized I was about to carry on an entire conversation with myself, and that probably would make me seem like a completely insane person. So, I snapped my mouth shut and thought quietly.

  What did I know?

  The halfling was a woman. She’d been inside Magic for Real at some point within the last few months, which meant she was probably a Portland local, seeing as we weren’t so popular with the tourists.

  Now, what could I assume?

  She’d lost the necklace in a magic shop. It was from a different world, which meant that it was probably precious to her. Even if she didn’t know if was elvish, it was likely an heirloom or a piece of jewelry she’d had since birth.

  I had something like that. A ring my mom had given me on my tenth birthday. If I ever lost that, I’d probably go to hell and back trying to find it. Of course, now that I was a witch, I’d just use a simple tracking spell, and—

  “That’s it!” I gasped, sitting up so fast my head spun. “She doesn’t know what she is. She doesn’t know about magic!”

  Clue number one. I was looking for someone who thought they were human.

  Admittedly, I was pretty proud of my detective skills the rest of the next day. Even as I was in the kitchen, washing out yet another nasty pot, a product of Grams’ experimental cooking, I couldn’t help but do a little dance.

  Someone else was out there, and she was just like me.

  “You seem pretty happy,” Marcella announced as she swaggered into the kitchen, flipping her wavy hair over her shoulder and popping a hip to lean against the counter.

  “Life’s good,” I grinned at her, scrubbing away.

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a little visit to a certain off limits hunter the other night, now would it?” She asked me.

  My head snapped up in alarm, but Marcella was the picture of calm, save for the little smirk on her face and the sparkle in her brown eyes.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hedged, trying to come up with some way out of what could be a complete mess.

  “Uh-huh,” she winked. “So, just tell me one thing: is he good? Cause he looks like he would be gooooddd.”

  She drew out the last word as
she picked up a strawberry from a bowl on the counter, biting straight through it with straight white teeth, and staring at me innocently.

  I, on the other hand, felt myself instantly turn beet red. Obviously I hadn’t slept with Hunter. But the very idea of it…

  There was a lot to unpack there.

  “Oh, wait!” Marcella gasped, before I could even say another word. “You didn’t get the chance, did you? Oh, dear, come tell Auntie Marcella all about it.”

  Marcella hopped up on the counter and patted the space next to her. All it took was a single eyebrow raise from me to let her know that there was no way I was getting up there with her. Still, she shrugged and stared at me insistently.

  I knew I didn’t have to spill my guts to her. But I needed someone to talk to.

  “He kicked me out,” I finally sighed.

  “Good old rejection.” She nodded sympathetically. “Some guys are just never satisfied.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” I insisted quickly. “I went there because I had some magic related questions for him. And then it became… nice. Like we had a moment, as juvenile as that sounds. I felt the way I used to with Kenneth, before things went the wrong way. But then that stupid bond just came over him. I watched it happen. One minute he’s perfectly fine, and then the next, I can see murder in his eyes. He told me to leave before he…”

  I shook my head, willing back the tears that threatened at the edges of my eyes, and played with the damp dishtowel on the counter.

  “That damn bond,” Marcella hissed, smacking a flat palm on the cabinetry below her. “What is it going to take to break it?”

  “You guys haven’t found anything,” I guessed from the tone of her voice.

  “I promise you, kiddo, you’d be the first to know if we did,” she replied, bending her head to look me straight in the eyes. “But we’re going to keep looking, alright? Especially if that bond is the only thing standing between you and that hot piece of ass.”

  “I don’t know about the only thing,” I laughed through the tears.

  “It’s the only thing.” Marcella was so serious right then, I had no choice but to believe her.

  Once that bond was broken, Hunter and I could actually try. No fae serial killers, no Hunter’s Council, and no magic entanglements.

  Just us.

  5

  Days turned into weeks, and I still had no answers. About any of it. We hadn’t found a spell to break Hunter’s bond, I had no idea how to find the halfling, and I still hadn’t managed to get a second vision off of that necklace. I was starting to wonder if I was some sort of one hit only psychic- once I got a vision from an object, I couldn’t get a second one.

  In better news, my magic was starting to become easier and easier to control. I could actually use it now, as opposed to hoping something would happen and getting absolutely nowhere.

  As a matter of fact, I’d already blown through the first four magic lessons, and was already on number five, which was shaping up to be my favorite.

  Grams had dubbed it: “The One Where We Light Things on Fire.”

  I was in the garden shed with Mom and a pile of wood that was meant to be a campfire, practicing doing the little snap and lighting it, just as I’d seen Mom do when I’d first found out I was a witch. Maybe it was some sort of strange attachment to the events of that night, or maybe I just found fire to be cool, but I’d hardly been able to wait for this lesson.

  “Okay, Shannon, this time, try and aim it,” Mom told me breathlessly.

  It was possible that she was out of breath because I’d nearly just lit the entire house on fire. In fact, I could still see some smudges of ash on her cheeks. That was when she’d moved us out to the shed, where things were less flammable, and put a charm on the place so it wasn’t quite so susceptible to flames.

  “I was trying to aim it last time,” I pointed out. “But you know I’ve never been very good at sports and throwing things.”

  “Neither of us are, babe.” She chuckled and patted my shoulder. “Just point your fingers right here, at the bottom of the pile.”

  “Okay.” I rubbed my hands together and bent my knees like an all star pitcher trying to warm herself up for a big game. “You can do this, Shannon.”

  The friction I felt in my palms wasn’t just from rubbing them together. It was my magic. I was able to sense it now, could tell when it was rising up toward the surface, and could sometimes even call it up myself. This time, I’d purposely called on it, and it was coming, but I didn’t let myself get too excited.

  Bringing up my magic had stopped being the issue awhile ago. Now, it was all about control, which was something I prided myself on being very good at.

  I bent down next to the woodpile so I could see just under it, where the tiny mound of kindling lay. I let my magic sizzle beneath the surface of my palms for a few seconds, waiting until the warm, bubbly sensation started to spread into my wrists. Then, I whispered the spell.

  “Incindesimo.”

  It was meant to be the spell for a small flame. Mom had switched me over to that one after the near disaster a few minutes before.

  But even this small spell created massive success.

  The word had barely left my lips before hot, writhing fire shot forth from both of my hands, incinerating the wood in front of me in seconds and raging against the far wall of the garden shed with a burning hot force. I was surprised it didn’t burn straight through the wall, but thankfully, Mom’s protection charm worked.

  “Put it out!” She screeched, turning away from the wave of heat that rolled off of me.

  “I’m trying!” I shouted back.

  And I was. I just had no idea how. Before, I’d had a problem with calling up my magic. Now, I had a problem with pushing it back. I was like a pendulum, only I never seemed to be able to stop in the middle. I’d swung from one side to the other, full force, breaking the string that kept me grounded and flying off.

  “Here!” Mom grabbed a bucket and murmured a spell to herself. Instantly, water rose up and filled the thing entirely.

  She swung the bucket into the air, turned, and tossed all of the water on me.

  Cold drenched me, soaking straight through my clothes and chilling me to the bone, but it worked. The flames leaping from my hands were put out immediately, and I was left standing there, staring at a pile of ash and sniffing at the singed air.

  I didn’t even know air could be singed. But apparently, where magical fire was concerned, that was absolutely a thing.

  “Okay.” Mom flipped her curls over her shoulder and planted her hands on her hips. “Progress.”

  “Progress?” I asked. “If I try that spell anywhere, I’ll light the whole freaking forest on fire!”

  “True,” she acknowledged. “But, on the upside, you didn’t light the actual house on fire this time. So I call that progress.”

  “You have strange ideas,” I sighed.

  I glanced down at my hands, hoping they might give me some sort of answers. I wasn’t sure which was worse- being unable to use my magic, or being unable to control it at all.

  “Has anyone ever told you you’ve got control issues, babe?” Marcella demanded, appearing in the doorway as silently as a ghost.

  “Every day of her life,” Mom snarked. “Trust me.”

  “Not helpful, Elle,” Marcella snapped, once again solidifying the reason I liked her so much. She turned to me and lifted an eyebrow, indicating that she was ready for my answer now.

  “A couple of people have maybe told me that I might need some therapy for what they called ‘perfectionist’ behavior,” I hedged, unsure just what Marcella was getting at.

  The witch just narrowed her eyes, and I knew there was no fooling her. She might look like a sixty-year-old, but she was more than a century old. The woman had a nose for bullcrap like a pig has a nose for truffles.

  “So that would be a yes,” Marcella replied.

  “Correct.” There was no fooling her. I might as
well be honest.

  Marcella glanced back at my little pile of incinerated wood, and then at the far wall, where I could now see a burn mark about the size of the tennis ball. Mom had probably had a tiny little hole in her spell.

  “Magic’s about feeling,” Marcella said, stepping closer to grab my hands in hers. She turned them over so the palms faced up, and traced my life line with one smooth, manicured nail.

  For the first time ever, I realized my life line was unbroken, and so long that it disappeared around the back of my hand, turning into smooth skin once more.

  “You don’t feel much.” It was a statement and not a question. She looked right back up at me, meeting my eyes for a long moment in silence. The kind that was starting to make me uncomfortable. This old witch knew so much, and could teach me so much, but there was a clear price. I could see it in her eyes.

  They were heavy with pain. From loss, from grief, from seeing too much. I’d seen the same look in the eyes of public defenders and cops who had spent decades on the job, watching terrible things happen to good people over and over again.

  That was exactly what I saw in Marcella’s eyes. I had a feeling that in a hundred years, my eyes would match her own.

  “I try not too.” It was the most vulnerable thing I’d said in years. I didn’t like vulnerability. It felt… too human.

  “Mmmm, I used to be that way.” She nodded, dropping my hands back to my side. “You can’t do that, Shannon. Magic is about feelings. If you don’t have any, or if you have too many and you’re not letting them out, you won’t get far, kiddo.”

  And with that, she was gone. I’d noticed that was Marcella’s M.O. She’d drop a nugget of wisdom on our heads and then just whisk off to go make a cup of tea or untie humans’ shoelaces while they were crossing the street.

  Mom and I stood there for a moment. I was hyperaware of her presence, suddenly, but I was also far too aware of what was going on inside of me. Feelings had bubbled up, driven by Marcella’s words. Feelings that I wasn’t sure I had the capacity to deal with just yet.