The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5)
Read The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5) Online
Authors: Katherine Sparrow
10 Seven Leagues and Seven Leagues
The Hunter’s Prey
The Fay Morgan Chronicles: Book Five
Katherine Sparrow
Copyright 2015, Katherine Sparrow
All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously or are entirely fictional.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed to [email protected].
Editing by Erica Satifka.
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1
Closed Doors
Morgan’s Ephemera stank of brimstone, sulfur, and the animal funk of our unwashed bodies. We’d been focused on making a spell for two days straight. The spell was almost finished, and it was time to bring the trickiest parts of it together to create an amulet that would make the wearer invisible on seven different demonic and human planes. It would be very useful when we went to Hell to rescue Lila. I glanced at the clock on the wall. For every minute that passed, she was there, being trapped. Being used.
“Steady now,” Merlin murmured as I walked toward him with magic-infused mercury in a glass vial.
I inspected the mercury from different angles, looking for imperfections. Once I poured it over the silvered necklace, there would be no going back. Merlin stood holding the amulet with metal tongs, muttering and feeding it bits of mirror magic.
Holding my breath, I slowly poured the mercury over it all the while keeping together the knotted strands of fear and courage magic held within.
The mercury covered the amulet perfectly, liquid and solid, neither here nor there, and I had almost all of it coated. But then, on one edge of the filigreed pendant, a tiny hairline crack appeared. If it was merely in the vessel, I could have fixed it instantly, but the crack was the physical manifestation of the quiet and calm pieces of magic fraying apart. They had not been woven together quite tight enough.
“
Drewgi siffilitig
,” Merlin said, swearing in Welsh as he carefully raised the amulet up to his face and began uttering words to tie the magic back together. I took a step away from him, itching to offer advice, but knowing any words of mine would only be a distraction. He could mend it as good as I, and I had to trust him. I forced myself to hold still, though I longed to pace and stomp around my store.
Minutes ticked by. I wasn’t close enough to see if the crack was fading or growing.
“Almost done now,” Merlin murmured. “Almost fine.”
I let out a long breath and my shoulders sagged downward. It would be fixed. It would—
The door to my shop slammed open and someone stumbled in past the closed sign.
A shattering sound, like a hundred windows breaking, filled the room.
Merlin made a guttural animal sound as he threw the broken amulet at the wall and turned to the man standing in my doorway. “You were told to stay away,” Merlin said.
My hands clenched and I felt a white hot rage magic gather in them. “We told you not to bother us,” I said, my words icebergs hinting at the sea of anger beneath.
Adam flinched at my words. The werewolf was Merlin’s young friend who had been dating Lila. Who was just as distraught as any of us that she was gone.
“I need to talk to you.” His words slurred together. “I just needed to tell you, Merlin, that I’m going. I’m leaving. You can’t talk me out of it this time.”
My eyes rest on the broken amulet that lay on the concrete floor. All the dozens of strands of magic we’d fed into it seeped into the ground in swirls of colored magic and with each one, the rage magic in my hands grew brighter and hotter. “You have no idea what you’ve just done,” I said to Adam. “It’s not just the days of making the spell, but much of that magic was hard-found. Irreplaceable. It will be much harder for us to get Lila back now. And why? Because you are in your cups and acting like a child.”
Adam shook his shaggy head and brought a bottle of tequila up to his lips and drank. “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving,” I snarled, and raised my rage-filled hands up. “That sounds about right.”
“Easy, witch,” Merlin said, stepping between us and giving me a piercing look. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
I sighed and let the rage magic flow back into me. We were all suffering. We were none of us doing well right now.
“And you, lad,” Merlin said, turning to Adam. “You are going nowhere. You are doing nothing. We have discussed all this, and the only option for getting Lila back is Morgan and I stealing her from Hell.”
“Lila.” Adam spoke her name like it choked him. Like it was killing him. “She’s been gone so long.”
“Yes, and it will be longer still, perhaps permanent, if you keep breaking our damn spells.”
“Give the lad a break, Morgan,” Merlin said and went to Adam’s side. “You need to go home to the penthouse, Adam. Take a shower. Order up some food. Sleep.”
“Sleep?” Adam laughed bitterly. He rubbed his face, and what I thought was dirt was a black eye on closer inspection. I noticed cuts across his knuckles as well. “The love of my life is enslaved and has turned into some kind of weird creature.”
“She’s a Marid,” I said. “The most powerful of djinn folk. Serving the Queen and King of Hell. You understand how useful she is to any who can use her? You understand how unwilling they will be to set her free?”
He took another swig of tequila. “Has the Hell door even opened yet? Or are you both still locked out?” Adam’s words slurred as he leaned into Merlin. The wizard led the werewolf to one of the mahogany chairs near the back of my store. Adam slumped into it.
“Still closed,” Merlin said. “We have a spell set so that we’ll know the second the door to Hell appears on Earth and opens, I promise you that.”
“We’ll go through it, the moment it does,” I vowed. We would take whatever spells we’d managed to make and go. “I want her back just as much as you do. In the mean time, we are making damn sure to bring as many spells with us as possible.”
He studied me with watery and bloodshot eyes. “Are you sure it’s not here? I thought the Hell door was always supposed to be somewhere on Earth.”
“It’s not,” I said. It was a bit of a mystery why not. The Hell door was the sole portal we could use to enter the damned realm, but it had not reappeared since Lila had been taken through it. The demons of Hell were always hungry and searching Earth for souls, and the only way to collect them was through that door. The door staying closed spoke, perhaps, of how important Lila was to the King and Queen—how much those rulers did not want us to come through and try to find her. Or perhaps Lila was keeping it closed for her own reason. In any case, it was closed and closed and always closed, but at least it gave us time to build our spell arsenal, for as soon as it opened? Ready or not, I would rush in. It couldn’t stay closed permanently. It had to open someday soon. Until it did, there was nothing Merlin, Adam, nor I could do.
“Hold fast, for just a bit longer,” Merlin said. He walked to Adam and put a hand around his shoulders. “We’ll get her back, and when we do, she’ll need you hale and hearty and not off doing anything stupid.”
Adam took another swig of tequila and Merlin watched him, helpless and filled with an obvious misery. Merlin had done everything he could to keep Adam from the drink, but even a powerful wizard cannot keep a man from the fate he chooses.
I hated the drinking and the gradual dissolution of a man I had once been quite fond of, perhaps because I understood full well the logic and desperation of addiction.
“I thought the two of you were supposed to be the best magicians on Earth,” Adam said. His head slumped forward.
Merlin went to the hot pot where he kept a kettle always warm. He made a cup of tea for Adam in a store mug that read:
Something Wiccan This Way Comes
.
Lila had ordered all kinds of cutesy merchandise a while back. I had told her it was trite and useless, but she had argued it would be good for community building among the witches of Seattle. And besides, it would sell well, she had told me. She’d been right. I closed my eyes and saw her grinning and standing behind my register, chatting with a couple of black-clad teenagers as they bought t-shirts that read,
Fuck you! I’m a Witch
. I saw the way that she made them laugh and put them at ease, and how much those two misfit teens had needed her kindness.
Oh, my Lila. The searing wound of her absence only deepened with every passing day. The only good thing about our marathon spell-making was that it gave me no time to worry about her.
Merlin handed Adam the steaming teacup and sat down beside him. “Your wrecking yourself will do nothing to bring her back. Believe me on that score.” He touched a cut above Adam’s eye. “You shouldn’t fight normal humans, Adam. It isn’t a fair fight.”
Adam snarled and jerked away from the touch. “A gang of skinhead mothmen jumped me.”
Merlin gave him a wry smile. “I assume they regretted it?”
Adam nodded and smiled back for a brief moment, but then stood and stumbled to the door. “I can’t just be here, talking and stuff, while she’s gone. I can’t do nothing, Merlin. I can’t—”
“The darkest hour brings the dawn,” Merlin said. “Wait. Just a bit longer.”
“And what if you and Morgan aren’t enough?” Adam said.
A long look passed between them.
“A sharp sword cuts everyone,” Merlin said cryptically. “Don’t do anything. Promise. For me.”
Adam clenched his jaw, shook his head. “For you. For now.” He left.
Merlin stared at the emptiness where Adam had been. “We need to get Lila back. Do you have any idea how it hurts me to see Adam like that?”
“I do,” I said. I came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I truly do. And what was all that talk of doing something and swords?”
Merlin turned to me and raised both his hands out, palms up, and I knew by the utterly guileless expression on his face that he was hiding something.
“Does this have something to do with that trip you took with Adam right before Lila changed?” I asked. He’d told me nothing of their journey, though I’d asked him about it.
“Yes,” Merlin said. “It does. But now is not the time and place for discussing it. We have more than enough trouble to contend with. And besides, right now I’m weary to the bone and beyond. I promise I will tell you all about it someday. I will not keep the truth from you.”
I did not know if he meant for barbs to be buried in his words, but I felt them, one for every one of the vast pieces of truth I’d kept from him. It was effective at turning me quiet. I thought, for a moment, about how I could be effective, too. About how I could speak with a hint of love and lust in my voice, and how I could use that to make him do whatever I wanted. But I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t. Merlin and I weren’t together. Not like we’d once been. Not ever again. What had once been between us was forever broken. Even if I felt that love sometimes, it was merely ghosts and echoes.
Merlin grabbed his black bag and walked toward the door.
Where are you going?” I asked.
“Food. Sunshine. Wash some of the salt and crust from my soul,” Merlin called back to me. “A wizard can’t live on tea and sex magic, no matter how excellent.”