One would think being a cursed witch who hunted magical monsters for a living meant a stretch of boredom would be a relief.
In my ten-plus years working for the Wardens, I’d chased down rogue vampires, wrangled runaway manticores, and even come face-to-face with a demonically possessed tree. Frankly, I was long overdue some extended rest and relaxation, but being confined to a castle lost its novelty when winter was rapidly approaching and the power was out for the fifth consecutive day. I could tolerate only so many rounds of Scrabble by candlelight before I began to hope a horrible monster would knock on the door just for a change of pace.
Instead, the only thing knocking on the door was a raging thunderstorm. Rain sheeted against the windows, and the howling wind was a constant backdrop. At a particularly loud thunderclap followed by an ominous cracking sound, Farley jumped out of her seat, knocking over the Scrabble board.
“Sorry.” She sank back down. “I think lightning struck a tree or something.”
“At least it wasn’t the tower.” Callum fixed the Scrabble board while Farley leaned over the edge of the sofa to retrieve some of the missing pieces, her legs draped over the pile of blankets she’d taken to carting around. We did have an old-fashioned log fire here in the living room, but the rest of the small building was freezing. Castles—even ones adapted to modern standards—had both pros and cons.
I’d be the first to admit that living in a castle was cool enough to make up for the downsides, most of the time. Even picking up scattered Scrabble pieces off the floor in the dark was a marked improvement on, say, spending my leisure hours in a shabby hostel dorm full of snoring werewolves. That had been one of my least favourite placements, but not an atypical one.
This place was practically luxury compared to some of the hovels I’d lived in previously, and the company didn’t hurt either. Our team leader, Tam, had taken charge of lighting candles while the rest of us entertained ourselves the best we could without lights or a working TV.
“I think you won this round,” I told Farley, groping around under my armchair to retrieve the last of the missing pieces. “Callum, ‘disastrophe’ is not a word.”
“It should be,” said the werewolf.
“Nice try.” Farley grinned.
She’d come to relax a lot more in my company over the past few weeks. As an empath who was tuned in to the emotions of everyone in her vicinity, she’d had the hardest time adjusting to a new team member. Except possibly Maurice, our most volatile member and resident vampire, who spent most of his time either sleeping or otherwise avoiding the rest of us.
With the pieces retrieved, I returned to my seat and my own pile of blankets. “Wish they’d send us on a mission somewhere south. I realise it wouldn’t be much warmer than here, but at least we might see the sun for a minute.”
“Are they stalling out on giving us a new mission?” Callum rose to his feet and stretched. Stereotypes would suggest the werewolf ought to object to the confinement more than the rest of us, but his manner was typically so laid-back that it was easy to forget he could shift into a giant wolf at will. “You’ve heard nothing, Tam?”
“No.” Our team leader moved to light another candle, pushing his long hair over his shoulder to avoid catching the flame. “They didn’t outright say we’re in disgrace after the incident with the Inquisitor, but it was implied.”
“Oh, come on, none of that was our fault,” I said. “It was also months ago. They can’t still be using that as an excuse.”
“Yes, but there was that situation the other week when we got involved in Head Witch business,” he said. “Turns out that creates a lot of paperwork.”
“Figures.” I watched him cross the room, the candlelight flickering over his pale face, and felt a fluttering sensation in my chest. Really, the predominant reason I needed to get out of here was because the longer I spent in his company, the harder it became to hide either of the two secrets I’d been nursing for the past few weeks.
One, I knew what kind of paranormal Tam really was. Two, I had a hell of a crush on him. And I couldn’t speak a word of either to the others, the first one at Tam’s request and the second… well, I was glad he wasn’t the mind-reader among our group.
It didn’t help that Tam was startlingly attractive even by human standards. Elegant features, smooth shoulder-length dark hair, tall, athletic. As a half-fairy, his true face was partially hidden beneath glamour, but I’d seen it for myself, and the only marked difference was that his unglamoured self had faintly glowing skin and a pointed tilt to his ears.
“Our missions have all gone smoothly,” said Farley. “Okay, maybe not smoothly, but we’ve solved every case. What’s the issue?”
“Maybe all the local monsters have gone on strike.” I wouldn’t have used the word “smoothly” to describe any of our recent missions, either, but since our job was to catch magical monsters, it was kind of in the job description that things tended to get a little hairy, and I wasn’t just talking about the werewolf on our team.
As Tam moved out of my range of vision, the candlelight shifted, passing over a small skittering shape on the floor with entirely too many legs.
I went still. “Erm. Guys.”
“What is it?” Farley tensed, having picked up on my reaction immediately. “Oh, another spider?”
“Yep.” I ducked my head, heat rushing to my face.
“I’ll get it.” Callum grabbed a tissue from a box on the nearby table and scooped up the spider before carrying it across the room.
Farley bounded over and opened one of the narrow windows, holding the edge to keep the storm from ripping the glass out of its frame while Callum evicted the unwanted guest. It might have been funny watching the burly red-haired Scottish werewolf gently tip a spider out the window if not for, you know, the spider part.
“Thanks,” I said sheepishly. “Guess that was our monster hunt for the day. Or week.”
Farley closed the window firmly and returned to her seat. Tam came to relight one of the candles the wind had blown out, while I did my level best to pretend I hadn’t been panicking over a creature smaller than my fingernail. The others had never made fun of my ongoing war with the castle’s spiders, but that didn’t mean I needed yet another reason to be humiliated in the presence of my team leader.
“Technically, we can find our own cases,” Tam said, “but that would create a mire of paperwork all on its own.”
“It’s that or a holiday,” said Farley.
We didn’t really have a designated holiday period due to the unpredictable schedule of our missions, but I was sure some of the more well-off Wardens did take advantage of long gaps between assignments to go gallivanting abroad.
“How much are last-minute flights?” I picked up my phone then put it down again. “Oh, right. No internet connection.”
“It’ll be back,” said Tam with his usual pragmatism. “I’ll call the office as soon as it is. See what I can get us.”
“A flight to the south of France, I hope,” Farley said with enthusiasm.
“Are there any paranormal-friendly holiday destinations?” I asked curiously. “I know we paranormals generally tend to recognise one another anyway, though.”
I’d never left the country. I’d been too busy bouncing between different branches of Wardens, trying to find somewhere to settle—or at least a living situation my bad-luck curse couldn’t blow up in my face. Now I seemed to have found the stability I’d craved. I wasn’t exactly rolling in cash, but we’d had a decent streak of jobs, and there wasn’t much to spend money on out here when the Wardens took care of basic necessities.
Hey, it was nice to dream, and of something other than inappropriate scenarios concerning my team leader.
“Maybe that’s where Maurice has gone,” said Callum.
“Nah, vampires don’t like the sun.” They didn’t catch on fire as the human legends would have it but labelled themselves firmly as creatures of the night. Which would explain why Maurice didn’t seem to mind going out in the rain, but then again, vampire speed meant he could run halfway across the country to find a cloudless spot without breaking a sweat. The rest of us were less outdoorsy, except possibly Tam. There was plenty I still didn’t know about our team leader, after all.
Tam would have intrigued me even if I hadn’t been attracted to him, as I hadn’t met many fairies, even half-human ones. The Wardens’ files contained very little information on the subject. Made sense given that the fairies literally lived a world away from the rest of us. He hadn’t wanted any of us to learn the truth about him, but when a mission over the summer had literally unmasked him, I’d become an unexpected confidant to his deepest secret.
I wouldn’t lie, I wanted to know more, but I also wanted to respect his privacy. He’d said he didn’t want the others to know yet, but it was difficult to keep a nosy vampire from poking around in my thoughts at the best of times, and I knew the others could tell the dynamic between us had shifted since summer.
Being confined to the same space didn’t help either. The castle was barely definable as such, more resembling a squat tower with few places to avoid one another. The ground floor was occupied by a planning room that doubled as a gym, while the main floor contained the living room and kitchen. There was also an attic, but I’d ceded that place to the spiders and instead spent most of my non-socialising time in the gym. The trouble was, Tam was often in there, too, and it was hard to focus on the punching bag while trying to keep myself from ogling.
I was setting up the board to start another game of Scrabble when there came the distinct sound of someone knocking on the front door.
“I think the Wardens heard our plea.” Callum rose from his seat eagerly.
Farley and I did likewise, and Tam took the lead and headed downstairs. The rest of us crammed into the small entryway behind him, craning our necks to see who was outside.
“Hey, Tam,” said a familiar voice.
Oh, it’s Karl. Some of my enthusiasm dimmed. Karl was a local oddity whose favourite hobby was dressing in cardboard armour and traipsing through the creepy local forest at odd hours. Luckily, given the weather, he wasn’t currently doing either of those things.
“I’m going to a festival this weekend,” he announced. “I wondered if any of you wanted to come with me?”
We all kind of stared at him a bit.
“I noticed you haven’t been out of the tower for a bit because of the weather,” he added, undeterred by our silence. “Also, I overheard some of you talking when you came over to the village the other day.”
Ah. That would have been Maurice, who’d been obnoxiously loud about how much he wished a monster would show up and give us something useful to do. Luckily, this was a paranormal community who knew of the Wardens, even if they weren’t all clear on our actual job description.
As for Karl, the guy was nice enough, but he wasn’t all there. The fact that he was roaming around outside in a thunderstorm was proof enough.
“Is this festival indoors?” I asked him.
“Mostly,” he said. “The weather’s meant to clear up tomorrow afternoon, though, according to the forecast.”
“Meaning nobody knows, and it’ll probably rain.”
That was Britain for you. Still, if part of the event was indoors, we’d at least get the chance to escape the castle and interact with humans other than the notoriously exclusionary villagers who remained suspicious of me even though I’d been living here for over two months. Possibly because I’d got myself tied up in a local murder investigation right after moved in. At least I got on with my housemates in the castle, for the most part.
“What kind of event is it?” asked Callum. “It doesn’t involve dressing up in armour, does it?”
“Some people will dress up, sure,” Karl said. “It’s a fantasy-themed event at a castle. There’ll be workshops on sword fighting, stalls selling homemade costumes, that kind of thing.”
I wanted to get out of this castle enough that his mention of sword fighting instantly got my attention, even though swinging a cardboard weapon around in the rain wasn’t my idea of a good time. I always preferred the real kind of weapons. Running into actual monsters on a regular basis since childhood meant that in my world, make-believe and reality were one and the same.
“We should consult,” said Callum. “Put it to a vote.”
“When Maurice gets back,” I agreed. I turned to Karl. “We’ll let you know tomorrow.”
“That’s fine.” Karl smiled and ambled off, seemingly oblivious to the sheeting rain.
“It’s good he isn’t wearing his costume,” I said quietly. “I don’t suppose Maurice is coming back anytime soon?”
“Knowing him, he’ll have followed Karl back to the tower,” said Tam.
Sure enough, when we climbed back upstairs, we found our resident vampire seated at the long medieval-style bench in the kitchen. A pair of sodden rats lay on the wooden table in front of him.
“Lovely,” I said. “I take it you heard all that?”
“Are you seriously desperate enough to accept an invitation from Karl?” Maurice said sourly in his Yorkshire accent.
“I don’t know, it sounds like it might be fun,” said Callum. “We do need to get out of the castle, and it might be a fun way to occupy ourselves before we’re sent on another assignment. That, or the next mission shows up while we’re there.”
“Given our track record, that’s not unlikely,” Farley added. “Didn’t our last mission come about when we were on our way back from a dead-end job?”
“Since some of us have a penchant for attracting trouble,” Maurice added.
“Oi.” Yes, I was cursed, and sometimes my luck rebounded onto other people, but I didn’t think that was the source of our current problems. The Wardens would give us a new mission soon enough, I was sure.
“I think it’s worth checking out,” Tam said. “You’ve been wanting a change of scenery. All of you.”
“Our team leader says yes?” Callum said. “That’s two votes in favour. Farley?”
“Sure, why not.”
There were worse ways to spend the weekend. “I’m in.”
All eyes turned to Maurice.
He shrugged. “Guess I’m outvoted.”
And that was that.
* * *
I woke early the following morning to find the rain hadn’t slowed an inch. Hoping Karl was right about the weather clearing up later, I went for a workout in the training room instead of a morning run and indulged in my usual routine of stealing the occasional glance at Tam in his skin-tight workout gear when he came to join me.
Once we’d all finished breakfast, Tam went to wake up the vampire.
“He’s already left,” he said when he returned to the kitchen. “Or gone somewhere alone.”
“Most likely the latter,” I said. “Ah, well.”
“He might show up later,” said Callum. “You know how he feels about transportation spells.”
Honestly. Yes, my transportation spells had occasionally dropped us into puddles or hedges, but I was more inclined to think Maurice wanted to avoid any event Karl invited us to. Of course, he could also move fast enough to easily catch up to us, even if he got lost along the way. Little could get in the way of a vampire’s super-speed. Except fairy-enchanted forests, but they weren’t an entity we ran into frequently.
As for our neighbour, he met us outside with a cheery grin and a broomstick in hand. “I prefer to fly rather than using a spell.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, it’s more scenic. Excellent views of the sea.”
I’d be concerned about being blown off the east coast of England and taking an impromptu swim in said ocean, but I’d learned not to question Karl’s eccentricities. “All right.”
During one of our brief spells of internet connection the previous day, I’d pulled up a photo of the event location, which was all I needed to cast a transportation spell. Holding the image in my mind, I waved my wand, and we all vanished.
A large field replaced the tower, occupied by a full-sized castle—the proper sort with towering parapets and a drawbridge in front. The moat was more of an empty trench, as we found out when we crossed the bridge, but the towering doors were impressive.
The room on the other side was packed with stalls and small tents. People roamed among them, most dressed as characters from various fantasy or sci-fi franchises. Some were seriously committed. I raised a brow at a passing woman dressed in a skimpy Wonder Woman costume that was entirely inappropriate for the weather.
Callum frowned at a man dressed in a stereotypical vampire costume—cape, plastic fangs, and all. “Hey, is it just me, or is this place full of normals?”
Damn. He was right. When I looked more closely at the attendees, I saw no genuine wands hidden among the props, no non-humans like shifters or goblins who would fit right in here.
This wasn’t a paranormal event at all. Not a single person here was remotely magical… except us.
Oh, boy.
