Of Magic and Lies Page 2
These bastards deserved no mercy, and they’d get none from me.
“These children have been rightfully claimed by order of Zion,” one of the kidnappers said.
“You can’t own people, you twisted bastards.”
That’s when the Zion mercenaries pulled out guns. Like that was going to stop me.
Building up my power, I spun threads of air into a mass of force in front of me. As my power and energy of the earth and wind circled, light grew from my hands, making everybody around us look like they were glowing.
And the Zions about to shit their pants.
“The girls will be leaving now.” I tilted my head to signal A.J.’s men, then they inched forward as to not scare the girls. “It’s all right, lovelies. We’re the good guys. You’re safe now.” Along with my power, I also sent out a healing vibe at the same time, letting the girls know they could trust me. “Hurry up, take them.”
A.J.’s men grabbed the girls and led them out of the alley as the Zions in front of me raised their guns, ready to shoot but honestly too afraid to even move.
As they should be.
With quick movement, I engaged all the energy I’d built up and focused it on my targets. Humans had no idea air could be so deadly. I aimed at target number one, effectively blowing a clean hole right through his chest. The other guy watched in horror as his fellow Zion crumpled to the ground. Now staring at target number two, I really couldn’t stop smiling.
I kind of loved this part.
“Shame on you,” I said as I powered up for another blast. “May your god have mercy on your soul.” I pursed my lips. “Or not.”
With all my energy, I focused it on his chest like I did the last guy, but he had the audacity to try and run. Stupid Human. My aim was off target now, and I missed his heart. It would stop pumping blood, keeping me from making a big mess. Instead, I hit him in his neck.
One swift movement, and his head was torn from his body; pints of blood splattered across the buildings between me.
“Oops.”
Powering down, I took in the gruesome scene, feeling slightly guilty about the mess I’d left for A.J.’s clean-up crew. With a shrug, I turned, and smiled anyway as I sauntered back to my car. The sky began to drizzle over my head then. Hopefully the rain would wash away the blood I just left behind.
“That’s why I can’t leave, sis. Humans need me.”
After a short, brisk walk, I reached my car and pulled out my keys. Once inside, I inhaled slowly, still reveling in the whirr of power that coursed through my veins. My body still hummed as I turned the key and my Shelby purred to life.
Fate could suck it.
“You can’t run from this. Fate will find always you.”
Still grinning, I basked in the magical high pulsing through my veins. With my Shelby in gear and my hands clenching the wheel, I peeled out onto the streets of the city I had come to love, with no intention of leaving.
“Watch me.”
~EITAN~
The streets of New Orleans were disgustingly humid, like always. It didn't matter if the weather had shifted and there was now frost on the leaves in the morning. As I stepped into the fading sunlight, the air felt like I was walking into a hurricane without the rain.
The button-down shirt I put on this morning, pressed perfectly and rolled to my elbows, was starting to stick to my back. My pants, the same style black slacks I wore every single day, were becoming uncomfortable. It’s the worst part about this place. The heat. Normally, I could avoid wandering the streets like this. Not now, however. Tonight, I had problems.
“Boss, we’ve got trouble.” Huffing came from behind me, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to slow down.
“I know that, Clink.” I brushed off the gnat, hoping he’d vanish back into the swamp he came from.
“But, sir. If you don’t do something, she’s going to use the forbidden spell.”
“I know that, Clink.” I hated repeating myself, and the fae now hurrying behind me knew that. He had known that for the last fifty years, serving as my eyes and ears on the streets of NOLA.
“I’m sorry, sir. I just wanted to follow your orders to the letter.”
He was shaking now. I felt it even without stopping. Good. He should remember his place. There’s a reason he’s just a mindless drone, and I’m the king that I am. Or rather, the king I should be. If I’d ever take my goddamn place on the throne. Thankfully, the thing in front of me took my silence as his cue to leave before I got angry and slit his throat. Again.
“You know you can’t keep scaring off the help.”
I honestly couldn’t even walk through my own streets without running into at least three people that knew me. That wanted to talk regardless of the fact that I hated everyone in this godforsaken place.
“What do you want, Marcus?”
The leader of the vampire clan in NOLA smiled as I stopped to talk to him. He knew I’d never disrespect him like I’d done with Clink. There was a certain modicum of respect I had to pay him, due because of his station. Marcus’s white teeth shone against his black skin, and his eyes practically glowed in the darkness surrounding us. Even I had to admit that most humans found him irresistible. He was wearing a suit, and for a second, I was jealous. Vampires didn’t feel the heat. They didn’t sweat. They didn’t suffer the way the Neimhe did.
Instead of answering my question, he turned down the street in the direction I’d been heading, and I took that as my cue to follow. If he was going to be insufferable, we could at least reach my destination while he rambled. We’d just passed a group of drunken students when Marcus couldn’t keep quiet anymore.
“Have you even spoken to the girl since she left you?”
“She didn’t leave me,” I muttered. “Gods, you’re annoying.”
“Eitan.” Marcus shifted his stance and looked out at the humans obliviously walking past us. “I’m not stupid. There’s only one reason you would venture this far into their territory, unannounced and without an escort. The younger one, she’s going to cast the spell. It’s all over the network. Please, please my friend. Tell me you’re going to stop her. The hell it will unleash … NOLA might not survive it.”
“I’m not going to stop her. And you haven’t been my friend since the day I had to say goodbye to Adrien.” I growled at the reminder of the fact that he’d played even a minor role in the misery that I currently found myself in. “What do you want? I’ll not ask you again.”
“You’re making a mistake, friend.” He stepped around a bag of garbage on the pavement. “When are mortals going to learn about sanitation?” Marcus sneered. “So disgusting.”
I didn’t answer his query because I agreed with him. These hybrids didn’t know the blessings they had. I grew up in this world during a time when it was beautiful and pure. Now the air was full of shit, and garbage lined the streets.
“When she finds out, she’s going to blame you. There’s no chance she’ll forgive your refusal to protect her sister.”
Refusing to acknowledge him, I walked away while he was still speaking. Marcus’s words, although true, didn’t paint the entire picture.
“I don’t owe her anything,” I said. I felt it, though. The weight of Adrien’s abandonment. The way she left me to pick up the pieces while she ran off to live a life free of the chaos she’d left in her wake. In my entire existence, I’d let very few people close enough to hurt me. Adrien Falcão had done more than that. She walked away from any future we could’ve had together, leaving all of NOLA in my hands. “Adrien’s sister is not my concern.”
Marcus snorted. “Yeah, that’s why you’re walking into a hornet’s nest in the middle of the night. If you’re not going to stop Nia, then why are you here?” He stared pointedly at the abandoned building we now stood in front of.
It was a large, crumbling structure. Once upon a time, it housed a hospital. Then it was a school. I think at one point, it was even a jail used during a time when there was racial discrimination in NOLA. Now, it was a poor representation of the majesty that it used to possess.
Why they chose this place was beyond me. Especially since she’d been staying in some posh Fae encampment the past few months. This was witch territory, the poor ones. No idea why they’d chose this location for the ritual.
“She’s casting the spell. There’s nothing that we can do to stop it now,” Marcus said. “Can’t you feel the shift in the air? The Candomblé power runs strong through her veins. Like it does through her sister’s.” He shifted his face, his nose in the air, and I watched as he shivered from the presence of the powerful spell all around us.
The spirits of the dead in the surrounding cemeteries shifted. Their attention focused on this building, on the darkness within. Tendrils of pure darkness suddenly arced into the area from the mausoleums that dotted the city.
“I’ve got to see for myself,” I mumbled. “If I’m going to summon her home. If I’m going to ruin her perfectly laid plans, I’ve got to know that when she invades my mind for the image of her sister falling, she sees it in all of its horror.”
It was terrible, too. The spell that Nia was using, the one that had the darkest creatures of NOLA emerging from their holes even as we stood there, was one that was forbidden for a reason.
Witches. They never listened to reason.
“Standing out here isn’t going to do you any good if your goal is to see that Nia is the one casting the spell.” Marcus glanced over at the doors to the abandoned building like he would rather do anything than go inside.
“You don’t have to
go with me.” I smiled. “I wasn’t looking for company on this expedition in the first place.”
“Good luck,” Marcus said quietly. “I genuinely hope you know what you’re doing. The last thing NOLA needs, or the world for that matter, is the hell that will rain down on us if the Olc Fae return in force.”
I watched Marcus turn and walk off into the darkness. What I was doing was dangerous. I knew that, but I didn’t have a choice. There was no stopping Nia, not when she’d started down this path. And the only reason she’d taken this path in the first place was because of Adrien’s abandonment.
Welcoming the shadows growing around me, I let them vanish me into the night with nothing more than a snap of my fingers. I couldn't infiltrate the witch’s building without using a little magic myself due to the protective barrier Nia cast. That’s how celestial magic worked. Feeding from my wants, desires, and emotions, celestial magic could do anything I wanted … but it always came with a price.
The building was dank and filthy, but I knew exactly where I was going. After all, Nia’s power was like a beacon, calling out and demanding that the creatures of the night respond.
In moments, I stood in a crumbling doorway behind Nia’s makeshift concrete temple. I watched with wide eyes as the tendrils of her spell wound airy spokes across the room, slid and vanished up the walls; dark smoke began to disperse before dissipating into the air.
Like a piece of string floating through a body of water, Nia called to the darkness, demanding its obedience.
Nia was a younger version of the woman I’d loved so fiercely; a woman I’d fight a war that I didn’t belong in, just for her. Nia’s body went from kneeling to writhing on the cracked concrete beneath her as vines of her evil spell wrapped around her like the protective shield they were meant to be.
Even I had to admit, the power coursing through the building was impressive as I watched the spell wind its way up from her hands, onto her arms, then wrap around her throat. Whispers of the dead echoed in my mind, calling from beyond the veil.
Her gasps, the way her body twisted beneath the dim light spoke volumes. The way her body moved wasn’t panicked or trying to get away, but filled with pleasure.
Nia Falcão had embraced the dark magic of the Olc.
“I’m coming for you, love.” My words echoed in the surrounding darkness, muffled by the cloaking spell I had cast so Nia couldn’t hear or see me. And while I was intensely interested in watching the rest of the ritual, to make sure it was successful, there wasn’t time to waste.
Turning from the girl on the filthy floor of the abandoned building, I let the shadows engulf me once again. I had no choice. My queen had run from the impending war long enough … it was time to bring NOLA’s High Priestess home.
Adrien Falcão had a throne to claim, and so did I.
Chapter Two
~PIERCE~
Steam rose from my mug, evaporating into the crisp air. I’d spent the morning researching case files, but my concentration kept vanishing, too.
My desk was stacked with piles of files. Each pile, a series of cases. This morning, I was drawn to a particularly ironic pile, so I started leafing through the grisly pictures of victims.
Grumbling from my stomach broke my concentration. Only 7:55 a.m., I’d had a bacon and egg bagel on the way in, about an hour earlier.
“Cole, in my office.” Chief’s voice was low and serious, which could only mean bad news.
“On my way.” I let out a sigh as I stood, not eager to learn what ruthlessness humanity was capable of now. I’d seen far too much already and had no doubt it wouldn’t stop any time soon.
I rapped on the Chief’s door.
He looked up and nodded. “Come in, close the door.”
I latched the door and pulled up a seat in front of his large, oak desk. As I sat, the Chief handed me a new file.
“Somebody had a bit of a rough night. Take a look.”
Curiously flipping open the folder to the main picture of the crime scene, the first thing I noticed was how much blood covered … everything. Then I noticed a pattern in the blood spray on one wall.
A perfect circle.
“Holy fuck.”
“Language, Pierce.” The Chief’s snapped response drew me back to the present.
“Sorry, sir. I just… I don’t know what to say.”
“Your penance is figuring out what could make that mess.”
I managed to drag my gaze from the picture. “On it, Chief. Thanks. I think.”
“Don’t mention it. Except to Falcão. She in yet?”
“Haven’t seen her, sir. She doesn’t come in this early.”
He gave a gruff smile of approval. “Falcão’s a night owl. She’s here when I leave, still running over those files you two haven’t gotten rid of. And as my wife is fond of pointing out, I spend way too long here some nights myself.”
I knew how his wife felt, since most nights, I was usually waiting for Adrien. I didn’t like eating dinner alone, and she was my girlfriend, after all. Not that I’d ever let the Chief or anyone else at the Division know that.
“She does good work though, you gotta admit. I’m a lucky partner.” Dual meaning, but he only heard the obvious.
“Get busy, see if this ties into that other trafficking case. I think there’s a vigilante out there.”
Trafficking? I’d been so caught up in the mess that I hadn’t even looked at the rest of the file. I gave the Chief a quick ‘yes sir’ then returned to my office.
I flipped open an older file with a picture of an unsolved murder scene. There was blood splattered on a brick wall in a circle. Someone tried to remove it, but the evidence remained.
This wasn’t the first time a kidnapper had been executed by something plowing through its body. There was an unmistakable connection between these two executions … no, murders. These were still people, and their deaths must be investigated, no matter what I thought about slaverunners for a nation of religious hypocrites.
Leafing through the grisly pictures of the other crime scenes, I started to see similarities. The circle, obviously. But also the fact that the only eyewitnesses were the women and children saved from a life of slavery in each case. None of them could say who or what had killed the traffickers, but most were eager to be of assistance out of sheer gratitude.
My phone rang, startling me. “Cole.”
“I’m sending you surveillance footage from the alley of that attack last night,” one of the techs from Data Investigation said. “I marked a couple of times on the video that seem suspicious. Check it out.”
“Okay, hang on.” I spun my chair around to face my computer, then logged into my email, and pulled up the video. “What time?”
“9:22 p.m.,” he said. “And at 9:50, take a look at the end of the alley, just past the buildings.”
“Got it.” I clicked play and watched the video footage run in quick time. Nothing unusual until a strange blur that was clearly altered with a time-lapse through a twenty-minute period.
“I have another call. I’ll check back with you later.”
“Alright, thanks.” I hung up.
Picking up my mug, the rim touched my lips; I’d managed to drink the entire cup without even realizing. Just as I was getting up for a refill, my gaze fell on the screen of my computer. There in the background of the alley was the rear fender of Adrien’s Cobra. Barely visible, but unmistakable, nonetheless.
Fuck.
Adrien had a hobby, for lack of a better word, of stalking the traffickers. Trying to find out more info because she wanted to stop them, obviously.
We’d argued about it several times already. I believed firmly that we had to obey the law, especially since it was our job to enforce it. She countered that these men were breaking our laws, and somebody needed to stop them. And then ever so subtly, she’d tell me to ‘fuck off.’
I loved her, but she sure could flay me with her tongue if I pissed her off enough.
Squinting at the screen I hoped against hope that I was wrong, and that this was some other metallic blue car.
“What have we got?”
Adrien’s voice made me jump as she stepped into our office. I’d been so engrossed in the image that I didn’t even notice my girlfriend and partner had arrived.