Faerie Blood: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Changeling Chronicles Book 1) (6 page)

A snarl sounded and several more shapes bolted towards us. The blade flashed out and two dogs fell even though the sword was nowhere near them.
Huh?
I’d have stared, but another dog’s jaws snapped inches from my head. I stabbed it, this time getting the throat. Blood poured from the crimson slash, and it sank, the blue tendrils of magic fading away like wisps of smoke blown away on the breeze.

The mage had made short work of the others, in the time it took me to blink. How had he killed them from way over here? I was definitely going to have to revise the assumption that mages talked a bigger game than they showed, because holy crap.

“Jesus.” I gaped at him, unable to help it. “What the hell kind of power is that?”

The Mage Lord paused to survey the alley. “I’ll put a call through to the clean-up crew.” He spoke like he was doing me a favour. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Okay, maybe he was only ninety-nine percent asshole. “How’d you do that?”

“I take it you’re reconsidering my offer?” He cleaned the blade on a handkerchief I swore he’d conjured up from thin air. From his casual manner, you’d hardly know he’d just flayed a bunch of hellhounds. And could apparently defy the laws of reality.

“No,” I said. “I said I don’t work with mages, and I meant it. Thank you for your assistance.”

He raised an eyebrow, but I turned away. I needed to check on the Swansons and make sure every piece of magical equipment in their son’s room was deactivated. Preferably without the guy behind me getting involved. He’d probably have them arrested for owning that dodgy necromancy gear.

The Swansons hadn’t gone back into the house, but cowered on the doorstep behind the iron ward’s edge.

“Ivy?” Swanson’s face was greyish pale, and his eyes lingered on my bloodstained clothes and hair. I swallowed hard, wanting to gag as the decaying stench of Faerie filtered its way into my nostrils now the buzz from the magic died down.

“I’m fine,” I said. “We need to clear all faerie blood from this place and get rid of everything in your son’s room before we progress further. I wouldn’t put it past that changeling to have set up more traps. The mages are here, too, and there’s no way to prove you weren’t responsible for those illegal spells upstairs.”

The Swansons wordlessly moved aside to let me past. I’d freaked them out, but probably for the best. Most people, when it came down to it, would rather know the truth. I know I would.

I managed to clean the blood from the wall using a cleansing spell and pack the worst of the magical equipment in my pockets without the head of the mages showing up again. Maybe he’d gone back to fetch some of his companions to help clean up. Leaving evidence lying around right near his own territory made a terrible impression. And he didn’t know where the hellhounds came from, of course. I doubted he knew one faerie species from another.

It’s required all magical practitioners come to me for a licence.
Er, no. Most witches didn’t have licences. And I was one, for all he knew.

The doorbell rang as I was on the way downstairs.

“Crap,” I said. “Er… answer it if you want, but do you have a back door?”

Swanson gave me a confused nod. “Yes. Who is it?”

“The head of the mages. He’s been hounding me, and I’d rather he not see me carrying this.” I indicated my backpack, in which I’d stashed all the dodgy spell gear from upstairs. Unfortunately, since I’d used the only cleansing spell I had on the hallway, I still had blood all over me. Catching the bus home was out of the question.

Mrs Swanson showed me to the other door through the dimly lit kitchen. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be back tomorrow, once I’ve done some investigating. It’s better the Mage Lord doesn’t know I’m here.”

I heard voices in the hall. It was him, all right. I apologised to Mrs Swanson for the trouble and quickly left, running through the garden to vault over the fence at the far end. I’d have to take a roundabout route home, but walking in public covered in faerie blood would draw the kind of attention I wanted to avoid. I’d had enough of faeries already.

So somebody had set up a hellhound summoning spell. Someone who knew the Swansons would hire a magical practitioner to help. But what did that have to do with their son? And the changeling? It couldn’t be from Winter, like the hellhounds originally were.

No. It looked like my worst fears were right on the mark.

The grey area between the realms was a lawless place governed by power and fear combined. The lords with power commanded anyone they could persuade to serve them through fear and coercion—but most of them wanted nothing to do with humans. We were helpless apes in comparison to the powerful immortals that lived over on the other side. Only in the invasion, when the doors to Faerie had temporarily opened, had they decided to come out and play.

And they’d taken everything away from me.

CHAPTER FIVE

One restless night later, I woke to the sound of pounding on the door. Not my bedroom door, but the flat’s. Swanson? No. He wouldn’t be angry enough to try to break the door down. Surely. I slid out of bed as another knock shook the house.

“What the hell?” said Isabel sleepily from behind her bedroom door. If she was half asleep, it must be early. I checked the time. Six in the morning.

“What the hell indeed.” I had my suspicions. Okay, three guesses. One: the landlord. Two: Larsen. Three…

I opened the door to find Lord Colton stood outside. As usual, he wore a fitted suit and his ridiculously long coat.

“Do you wear that thing in the summer?” I asked, acutely aware I’d only had the chance to shove a dressing gown over the shorts and T-shirt I wore as pyjamas. He hardly seemed to notice, however—his cool, grey eyes met my gaze.

“Ivy Lane, I’m retracting my offer of an interview and turning it into an order.”

I almost laughed in his face. “I don’t take orders. Freelancer here. I pick and choose my clients.” And my working hours. Six am was as uncivilised as you could get.

“Swanson tells me he came here to speak to you, and then he hired you to help him find his daughter. You then went over to his house yesterday and attempted to use a witch’s tracker. You failed, and instead those faerie creatures appeared.”

“Yes…” Damn, he was thorough. And persistent. Not good. Just what I didn’t need right now.

“I’d like to make you an offer. The mages can be of assistance in this case.”

This time, I did laugh. He couldn’t sound more pretentious if he tried. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I work alone.”

Lord Colton blinked. “You won’t consider a partnership? Look at the resources I have at my disposal. I can command every mage in the district.”

“Yeah, no. Not interested. This isn’t something you can help with.”

Annoyance flashed in his eyes. “That wasn’t a request. You will partner with the mages, and with me, or you’ll lose this case.” His tone took on a steely edge that would have made me step back if I wasn’t pissed off. Who the hell did he think he was?

Only the most powerful human magic user in the city.

I glared. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why would I work with you?” I put every ounce of derision possible into my tone. I didn’t care if he was practically royalty. He couldn’t order me around in my own house.

For a heartbeat, I expected him to wave a hand and make me explode into a heap of bloody entrails the way I’d seen another mage take care of a trespasser a few years ago. Instead, his forehead creased in a frown, like he genuinely couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t kneeling at his feet.

“Why wouldn’t you? You’ll have every—”

“Every mage in the city. I get it. Look, I’m sure you have a grand plan, but it won’t work. I know what I’m doing.”

“Was almost being mauled to death by faerie dogs part of the plan?” he queried.

Oh, he had a sarcastic streak, did he?

“We hit a snag yesterday.”

“Your changeling got away, I’m told.”

“As I said, we hit a snag.” What the hell did I have to do to get rid of this guy? I was kind of tempted to engage one of Isabel’s trespasser spells, but pissing off the head of the mages wasn’t a wise move.

Then again, neither was working with him. I didn’t need every mage in the district to know who I was. No thanks. I got by without anonymity because nobody who knew me before the invasion was still alive. A hell of a depressing way to get a new start in life. However, some of the faeries might still know my name.

The Mage Lord took one step towards me so we were practically face to face. Or rather, face to chest. He looked even taller than usual, mostly thanks to the coat, but also because of the breeze that had kicked up behind him, threatening to make me step back into the hallway. Power pretty much radiated from him. But I’d stared down too many of Faerie’s worst nightmare creatures to flinch away from an arrogant human.

“You’re to come to my office before nightfall for a meeting, or you’ll be formally charged with obstructing an investigation.”

My jaw unhinged. “You what?”

He stepped down the doorstep onto the path. “Think on it, Ivy Lane.”

And just like that, he was gone.

Holy shit. He’d killed any chance I had of going this alone. Never mind my resolution not to piss him off—I’d done so, and then some. I’d never heard of the mages threatening anyone before. No one who didn’t deserve it, anyway. All I’d done was take a job he’d turned down in the first place.

Maybe the mages
could
help, though they had no experience with faeries beyond the superficial everyday stuff. Trolls in the sewers and piskies in the attic—normal. Kidnapping… not so much. Especially as faeries had one place they wanted to get to—their own realm. As for those hellhounds, he might have been fast enough to kill them, but even a mage couldn’t stand up to the most powerful of Faerie’s creatures.

“The fucking cheek,” I muttered, turning my back on the door and staring into the dingy hallway.

“What is it?” Isabel appeared from the flat, her hair sticking up from sleep. She wore a lacy top and a flowery skirt, but not her charms.

“Mages,” I said. “Head mage showed up here and practically bullied me into working with him. He thinks he has the right to this case.”

“What a dick,” she commented. “Wait. You insulted the Mage Lord?”

“He insulted me first,” I said.

Isabel grinned at me, though worry lingered in her expression. “Are you still going over to Swanson’s today?”

“Hell, yes. I’m not about to let His Highness steal my job from under my nose.”

“You told him you were a witch, right?”

“I had to. He saw me use magic against the hellhounds.”

“Shit.”

“I know, right?” I shook my head, walking back into the flat. Of all the people to interfere. The mages didn’t usually pay much attention to anyone outside of their elite circle. As for me, nobody would take me for a magic user if they didn’t see me in action. But he’d seen me do more than fight. He’d seen me turn the faeries’ magic against them. If he poked around and asked another witch if what I’d done was possible, he’d get a ‘hell, no’. And then I’d be in trouble.

Sighing, I went into my room to dress properly and get my head together. I did need to talk to Swanson again. I’d dropped off all the dodgy spell equipment at clean-up last night, earning raised eyebrows from Larsen. I’d told him I’d caught a bunch of teenagers staging an exorcism, but he didn’t buy it.

Larsen could wait. I found the latest tracking spell set up in the living room, beside the bottle containing the changeling’s blood I’d taken from the scene yesterday. I was probably tempting fate by leaving it here, but the container was sealed. Like hell would I hand it over to Larsen. He didn’t have a clue just how dangerous the blood of one of the faeries could be, in the wrong hands.

I’d need to set up the spell somewhere outside, as far away from here as possible. But where…?

“Ivy!” shouted a voice. Erwin the piskie flew past, blowing a raspberry at me. “You stink of hellhound.”

Still? I’d scrubbed myself raw in the shower yesterday.

“Job hazards,” I said. “You haven’t seen a changeling around, have you?”

The piskie flew into the lampshade, shrieking as the heat burned his skin. I rolled my eyes. The creature had the sense of a moth.

“No bad faeries.”

“Good,” I said. The changeling had fled miles from here, but sometimes I felt like I had ‘faerie bait’ tattooed on my forehead. Still, I’d find an isolated area before I attempted to track down the changeling. Preferably without the Mage Lord getting involved.

“I have better news,” said Isabel. “There are cookies left over from yesterday.”

My head snapped up. “Brilliant.” Actually, my mood improved a hundred percent. Isabel’s cookies were delicious, stress-relieving, and calorie free. Now
that
was witchcraft.

Naturally, the doorbell rang before I reached the kitchen.

Isabel went to answer it. I followed, just in case the mage had come back. I didn’t want him threatening my friends.