It always amazed Shay just how dark a stormy night could be. Especially in her little corner of the world. She lived on the furthest outskirts of Ocean City. A strange name for a city high on a plateau surrounded by forest. The nearest ocean was a day’s drive. Shay figured she was one of the only beings left who remembered when most of this area was underwater and Ocean City was the capital city of a great island nation. Where people and creatures of all kinds were welcome. Now there were only a few remnants of that time left. The ruins of the Sea Temple. The tiny seashells and fossils that littered the floor of the forest surrounding them. And Shay.
Out this far from the city, they were mostly forgotten by the rest of the residents. There were no streetlights here, nor any street signs. Nothing but unpaved roads that branched off a rough, but paved, highway and disappeared into the tall, dense tree line. Each one led off to large plots of land that used to house ranchers and their animals. Now it was mostly one or the other. Ranchers who’d long since lost their livestock, or wild animals with no rancher to herd them.
Shay was out here for a few reasons, none of which involved ranching. Mostly she was hiding. She needed to live out where the prying eyes weren’t watching all the time. She worked a mundane job to stay under the radar of the City Watch. They were more suspicious if they didn’t know anything about someone than if that someone worked in a miserable, dead end job. If they knew what she really was, she’d have been locked in a cell deep under Gowan’s Tower long ago. That’s where they put the ones like her.
Her headlights barely seemed to penetrate the darkness tonight. She very nearly missed her turn. She rattled her way up the drive and muddy water splashed up as high as her windows when she hit the first puddle. Her car was going to be a mess tomorrow. Halfway up the dirt road was the wire fence and a locked gate that barred her property from the rest of the world. With a groan she threw the car into park and sat there glaring at the gate through the water sloshing down on the windshield.
Once upon a time she had spells set up to open and close the gate on her arrival. No one was the wiser. Then the war happened. Suddenly people like her were the world’s most feared criminals. To stay out of the tower and off the farms, she had to install a conventional padlock on the gate. There were still spells around her property, of course. She couldn’t leave herself completely unguarded. But they were more subtle now. Not as flashy or even visible. She had found the City Watch’s scanners couldn’t pick up her innate magic. She didn’t know why. She’d found a few other holes in their defenses, but not enough to pick out a pattern. Not enough to make her feel safe. But in the decade since the war ended and the majority of the magical folk were rounded up, only a half a dozen Watchmen ever came out this far anyway. Still, she couldn’t be too careful.
She cursed the god of storms as she pushed open the door and raced over to unlock the gate. She felt the slight hum of her detection spell as she pushed the gate open. When she got back into the car, her sneakers were squishing with each step and her jeans were soaked and muddy right up to the knee. She drove the car forward and climbed back out to reverse the process. When the gate was locked again, she continued on up the drive.
She pulled up under the car port and climbed out of her car. She looked over the hatchback sedan in the yellow porch light and wondered if it was worth spraying it off tonight or even spelling it clean. Probably not, she supposed. The mud was going to be just as bad tomorrow. It would just get covered again on the way into town. She gathered her groceries out of the back and slammed the back door down with a satisfying thud.
As soon as she opened up the door, a scruffy little brown cat was rubbing up against her legs. “Yes, yes. I got you food,” she muttered to him.
She hurried into the kitchen and all but threw the groceries onto the counter. The jug of orange juice slipped from her fingers and hit the ground with a thud. Her back protested as she bent down to pick it up and throw it in the fridge. She never used to have aches and pains. Even she wasn’t immune to them after a double shift at the diner. Before she started putting things away, she opened up a can of foul smelling pink goop and plopped it onto a paper plate. Once she placed it on the beige tile floor, she no longer existed to Cat. He tucked into the food and ignored her. At least he wouldn’t be tripping her up while she put things away.
Cat showed up on her property about a month ago. He was crumpled in a little heap on her porch when she came home from work one day. He had clearly been in a fight and obviously came out on the poorer side of it. She had planned on simply giving him a burial in the back, along the edge of the property. Cats, even dead cats, could make good guardians. Then he’d opened one green eye and mewled up at her. Against her best judgment, Shay healed the sad little creature. She gave him food and expected him to be gone the next day, but the little stray was curled up on the scratchy mat outside her door in the morning. Now she feared she was actually starting to get attached.
Her house was small, especially compared to the plot of land that it sat on. The kitchen was small with limited counter and cabinet space, a gas stove and a blue refrigerator. The counters were cluttered with dishes she needed to wash. Cluttered described the house in general, really. Shelves lined two walls of the living room, overflowing with books, figurines and odds and ends from a mortal life. The books in there were innocuous. They had to be. Anyone who wandered in here unannounced would never know anyone or anything other than a young, human woman lived here. One with a taste for ancient history, a wide variety of fiction and elephant figures. She wasn’t sure how that started. The elephant figures. She realized one day that she had bought or been given more than a dozen of them. Of course nearly all the people who gave her such things were gone. Not all dead, but certainly all gone.
She grimaced as she pulled off her squelchy shoes. She left them sitting on a mat by the door and shuffled back over to put away her groceries. She planned on making pasta when she got home, but by the time she put away the groceries she found herself pouring cereal in a bowl. She flipped on some music and started a small fire in the hearth. Soon she was curled up on the couch, relaxing to the sounds of a soft classical piano and watching flames consume the dry log they’d been fed.
She would never say that anything good had come from the war. But there was something to be said for a relaxing night like this. It wasn’t something she’d been able to do before the war. On a night like tonight, when her legs ached so deeply, she was almost grateful for it. Almost. Every other night, though, it was mind numbing boredom. She missed the comfort of the magical community in the city. Close knit and safe, bar a few snags. Like the one that started the war.
Thunder had been rolling all night, but it was coming more and more often. Each one louder than the last. By the time she finished her dinner, there was barely a breath between the flash of light outside and the thunderclap that followed it. When the dull ache in her legs finally eased, she knew she should get up. Go clean the kitchen. Be productive. She stretched her arms out and above her, then leaned back and tucked her hands under her head.
She listened to the rain on the roof drowning out the piano playing from the speakers in the living room. Out the window she watched a bolt of lightning cut the sky, silhouetting the trees against blazing white. The crack of thunder came immediately after, rattling the windows. She loved storms like this. Nature seemed to reassert its dominance over its creatures. There was something primal in it.
She was drifting off when the next rattling boom of thunder came. It brought her straight up on the couch in time to see the lights flicker. The soft piano concerto playing through the speakers cut out entirely even as the lights came back on. The house was eerily silent now, aside from the rain pounding on the roof. It was in that silence that she heard the jingling of bells. She frowned and tilted her head toward the front door. A string of silver bells, carefully engraved with twisting ivy hung by the door. It was swinging wildly, the bells ringing in the quiet house.
Shay frowned. That was her first warning spell. Someone had turned onto her drive. She didn’t panic, no reason to at this point. It happened a few times a week, lost drivers pulling off the road to check a map or turn around the way the came. Tonight it was probably some frightened motorist pulling over until the storm passed and visibility improved. The bells didn’t usually react this violently. It was spelled to just be a soft tinkling, something that could be explained away in the presence of a human.
She pushed herself up to her feet, paced over to the string of bells, and gently placed her hand on one. At her touch, the bells ceased their movement and fell silent. She bent to grab her cereal bowl off the coffee table. She was up now, may as well get something done. She barely took two steps toward the kitchen when the small, cozy fire suddenly roared high. The flames were licking at the edges of the fireplace, trying to climb up the brickwork of the hearth.
That was more worrisome. That was her second warning spell. Whoever had turned onto the drive was not only at her gate, but touching it. And, like the bells, the reaction of the flame was much larger than it should be. She rushed over and knelt in front of the fire before it could catch something else aflame. She held her hands out, reaching her magic out, coaxing the flame itself down and pulling back the oxygen supply, until the fire was forced to settle.
When the fire was down to small flames, she pulled away and moved back into the kitchen and over to the side door. She cringed as she slid her feet back into her shoes and they squished under her soles. She didn’t realize how tense she was until another crack of thunder made her jump. The streak of light was nearly blinding. She shut her eyes and still saw the bolt burned onto her lids. By the time she opened them again, the electricity had cut out entirely. The lights in the house were dark. Only the glow from the hearth remained now.
When the alarm started blaring from the speakers, she wrenched open the door. That was her last warning spell. Whoever was out there had gotten the gate open and was continuing up the drive. Shay could see their headlights blinking through the trees as she stepped outside. She stayed under the carport, mostly shielded from the rain, and watched. Then a roar echoed around her property. It wasn’t so unlike the thunder. It was an illusion spell, only triggered by someone with nonhuman blood. Little more than a recording played back, a projection, but it was convincing. She couldn’t see the whole thing from here, just the tall hindquarters, the cloven hooves and the cruel scorpion tail arching up over the beast. The image of the chimera was usually enough to make them throw their car in reverse and tear out of here. Even the bravest intruders. She heard the brakes screech and the car stopped bumping forward and thought it had worked to scare them off.
But this intruder was either too stupid to be scared, or able to see through the illusion spell. The headlights began cruising forward again. The roar ceased as the illusion dissipated as the intruder drove through it. It was only meant as a scare tactic. The car came into view as it passed the tree line. It was a sleek light colored sports car. She couldn’t quite make out the color in the dark. But she didn’t need to. She knew that car and its driver. Tension left her body, replaced by equal amounts relief and irritation. She waited patiently until the last line of defense against magical intruders kicked in.
The solid ground came to life underneath the sports car. It reached up and swallowed all four tires, pulling it straight down. The engine revved and the tires spun uselessly, sending mud flying, but never catching enough traction to move forward out of the trap. The driver threw open their door and climbed out. Malora O’Cuinn. A curvy woman in a dress that looked like it might wash right off. Her pale hair was quickly plastered to her forehead by the rain.
“Really, Shay?” she called as she stepped onto the ground. She started to say something else, but cut herself off with a shriek as the ground opened up and dragged her down, pulling her down into the earth deeper and deeper until she was in down to her thighs. Then the ground hardened again, holding her captive.
Shay stepped out from under the awning, her mood only darkening as she got pelted again. As much as she enjoyed watching nature’s dominance, she couldn’t say she enjoyed being dominated herself. She slogged over and stood over Malora, her arms folded. “What do you expect when you show up at my house unannounced?”
“My phone is dead, give me break,” Malora snapped up at her. “Will you let me go?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’ve got a mortal in the passenger seat and he needs help,” Malora replied, her voice sharp and a little desperate.
“A mortal? What are you doing with a mortal?” Shay asked as she moved closer. She leaned over, tilting her head down to look into the car. There was indeed an unconscious, dark skinned man sprawled haphazardly in the passenger seat. He was dressed more sensibly than Malora. A bulky coat and jeans, gloves over his hands and a beanie over his head and ears.
“What happened to him?” she asked, standing up straight again, placing her hands on her hips.
“Y’know, I don’t think I feel much like explaining while your driveway is trying to eat me.”
Shay glanced back at her, wanting nothing more than to tell her to fuck off and clean up her own mess. Instead she knelt down and touched her fingers to the ground. She reached into the energy of the earth and carefully unraveled the spell she placed on it. The mud worked its way off the tires and off Malora’s legs, lifting them both back up to ground level before solidifying beneath them again.
“Better?” she asked.
“Can you do something about the rain, too?” Malora grumbled.
“Only if you want a much worse storm tomorrow or the next day. Weather does not like to be controlled,” Shay replied.
“Can it get worse than this?”
“Oh, much, much worse,” she promised as Malora sat back in the driver’s seat. “Pull up under the car port and get him inside. Take him to the library.”
“Thanks, Shay. Knew I could count on you.”
So much for a nice, quiet night. Shay waved dismissively over her shoulder at Malora and headed out behind the house. Years ago she would never have hesitated to use her magic to pull the electric current out of the air and channel it back into the lights in the house. Now she found herself in the shed in the backyard. She dug through a box of Dev’s old camping gear. The two of them used to spend weekends camping like humans. Tents, campfires, roasting marshmallows. He loved it. She couldn’t say that she loved it quite as much, she’d spent too long living in the wild to enjoy making pretend at it. She never found any use for this kind of thing anymore.
She found an old camping lantern, changed its batteries, and trudged back into the house. Once she slipped inside the dark building, she turned on the tabletop lantern and its light illuminated her way. A muddy trail led from the front door down the hall to the other rooms. Malora had left the front door wide open. She shook her head lightly and closed the door, locking it tight. She checked other doors and windows, making sure they were all closed and locked.
“You’re being a little paranoid,” Malora said, standing at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall. “How many locks do you have on that door? Physical and magical?”
Shay didn’t answer the question. She knew she was paranoid, she didn’t need Malora telling her that. “Have you heard from Sylvie?” she asked, passing the lantern to her.
“No,” she admitted in a small voice. “Rumor is that The Watch figured out she was a brownie, or at least magical. She’s probably in the tower.”
Shay nodded. “Or serving Gowan directly. They say he turns the ‘useful’ ones into personal slaves.”
“Shudder to think what he considers useful,” Malora said, her voice bitter.
“So what are you doing dragging around unconscious mortals?” Shay asked, getting back on topic.
“Okay, don’t get mad.”
“Horrible words to start a conversation with,” Shay pointed out.
“I kinda did the knocking out myself. Sang him off to sleep,” Malora admitted.
“You sang to him?” she snapped, her eyes going wide. “He’s probably gone completely mad. Or you’ve gone completely mad, or more mad. Or all of the above.” She stalked off down the hall. Every second was going to count if she had any chance of reversing this. Siren song drove mortals to madness. Ships crashing into rocks were not just stories. “You can’t sing to mortals. You know that.”
The hallway had a guest bedroom and a bathroom splintering off to each side. It ended in a staircase that someone could only see if they already knew it was there. Shay had to show it to people for them to see it. Upstairs was her bedroom and bathroom and the library. All the books she couldn’t leave out in the open, all the relics and amulets and artifacts. Everything she would need to try and fix Malora’s mistake. Doubtful there was anything she could do to instill some common sense in her, though.
“That’s the other thing you can’t get mad about.” Malora was right on her heels as Shay climbed the stairs.
“What?”
“He’s not strictly mortal.”
Shay pushed open the door to the library. She loved the library. It was the one thing the never gave up after the war. Vaulted ceilings and wood paneled walls, plush red carpet. Floor to ceiling shelves built right into the wall, full of books, as ancient and powerful as every magical object in the room. The dimensional spell on it was the most powerful spell in or surrounding her home. It encompassed the whole second floor, actually. From the outside of the home, the second floor didn’t exist at all. Shay had been lucky. When she chose to leave it intact she didn’t know the City Watch couldn’t detect her magic.
“What does that even mean?” Shay asked, as she glanced in at the man. He was splayed out on a plush cream colored couch. “Not strictly mortal.”
“Elf.”
Shay’s body went cold and still. “You brought a pointy-eared troll fucker into my home?” She hissed. “What are you thinking?” Before Malora could even respond, Shay stormed across the room. She had to see this for herself.
She jerked the cap off his head. Long black locks fell free, and tall, delicately pointed ears were exposed. She lifted his arm up and unceremoniously ripped his gloves off his hands. Silver tattoos climbed up his palm and disappeared under his jacket sleeve. Leafy cords of ivy drawn in an intricate tangle. Wood elf. Pompous bow wielding idiots. She pulled the neck of his shirt and jacket down to check for his caste amulet. She found the leather cord and pulled it out. The silver plate with three entwined circles shown in the light from the lantern Malora held. Council of Clans.
“Don’t be mad,” Malora repeated when Shay stepped back from the elf.
“You brought an Elven Councilmember into my house,” Shay said, enunciating her words quietly and carefully. She turned back to her and advanced on her slowly. “Do you want me dead, Mal? Have I wronged you in some way?”
“Of course not,” Malora said with a frown. She held out a folded piece of parchment. They didn’t have parchment like that on this side of the veil. Or parchment at all, really. Only paper, pristine and impersonal. “He had this.”
Shay took it from her and unfolded it. A perfectly accurate charcoal sketch of her own face stared back up at her. Her almond shaped eyes and curly hair. Right down to the dimpled smile.
“He was passing it around O’Cuinn’s. Asking where he could find the free djinn who answers to Shay Moran.”