I’d always been a terrible liar.
Kind of unfortunate when my task of the day was to lie through my teeth to a roomful of people who could kill me in the blink of an eye. Confronting hordes of zombies was nothing compared to the combined forces of Edinburgh’s supernatural community leaders, the local mage council, and the Council of Twelve, all looking directly at me as though they could see straight through the web of lies that I’d been forced to construct. I clenched my hands at my sides, making myself shrink back in my seat as though too terrified for words. Nothing to see here. Just Jas the lowly necromancer, who definitely isn’t hosting a power-hungry spirit who’d like to be sitting in your place on a throne made of the skulls of her enemies.
While Edinburgh’s mages ran the show, there were so many supernatural authority figures here that one table hadn’t been enough, so someone had placed three regular sized tables end to end, filling the hall-sized meeting room. Even then, I couldn’t see everyone’s faces. In the spirit realm, they’d appear as a blur of overlapping figures. That included the two members who were actual ghosts. Being living wasn’t a requirement of being a member of the Council of Twelve, the UK’s only cross-supernatural council. Nor was being present, because my recently deceased mentor Lady Harper had never bothered to show up for meetings.
“Tell us your view of the events a month ago when the Soul Collector attacked the guild,” commanded Lord Sutherland, leader of Edinburgh’s mage council. His hair was far too glossy and black for someone in his sixties or older, and his face was unnaturally smooth. Spells lined his wrinkled wrists—custom-made witch spells for youth and attractiveness. Despite his obvious vanity, he’d apparently survived over fifty assassination attempts. And while they said mages’ magic sometimes faded with age, he’d held onto his position with a steel claw since before the faerie invasion twenty-two years ago.
On my left, my friend and sort-of-mentor Isabel gave me a nudge of encouragement, while on my right, Lady Montgomery, the leader of Edinburgh’s necromancer guild and my boss, sat up straighter. Having allies present didn’t make me feel less like I’d unwittingly walked to the gallows. I wished Lloyd was here, but he wasn’t considered important enough. Neither was I, really, but when you killed an evil god in sort-of-human flesh, people got suspicious.
No pressure, Jas.
“I…” I swallowed, hoping they’d put my reluctance to meet their eyes down to nerves about public speaking. Eye contact made it harder to mask the truth. “The Soul Collector’s goal was to collect human souls. When I tried to stop him, he retaliated by capturing a friend of mine as bait to lure my friends and me into his trap. Thanks to Lady Harper, I managed to defeat him.”
I should have known that Lady Harper’s sacrificing her life to save a lowly necromancer like me would draw suspicion. The death of a Mage Lord, even a former one, had kicked off an inquiry that’d gone on for the better part of a month now. Never mind that they’d all heard the bloody story at least four times before.
“But why would he see you as a worthy target?” Lord Sutherland asked. “Aren’t you only a novice necromancer?”
“I’m also Lady Montgomery’s assistant,” I corrected, annoyance flaring at his dismissive tone. Sure, I wanted him to see me as insignificant, but I’d also almost died to save the people of the city he was supposed to be in charge of. “The Soul Collector targeted me because I was part of a team of necromancers who nearly caught him when we thought we were dealing with a regular human murderer.”
“How did Lady Harper die, precisely?” he asked. “There were no witnesses, which makes this a difficult case to resolve.”
You don’t say.
“Lady Harper died the same as the others,” I said. “He wanted powerful souls, so he targeted her first. But when he used his weapon to tear the spirit line open, it backfired on him and he fell through.”
Thank the gods I could say that aloud, even if it was a lie. A geas stopped me from speaking of my coven, and no witnesses had seen me confront the Soul Collector with the help of my second soul, Evelyn Hemlock.
Nobody had seen that I was the one who’d thrown the Soul Collector into the void, and used my magic to lock him there. Permanently, I hoped.
“And this weapon of his disappeared, you said,” said a blond female mage wearing similar beautifying spells to Lord Sutherland. “And the spirit line… closed? Of its own accord?”
“The spirit lines can’t permanently stay open,” I said. “Like in the faerie invasion, they closed without the need for magical intervention. Once he and the weapon were gone, that was it.”
“Lady Harper’s body was found on Waverley Bridge,” Lord Sutherland said. “You were nowhere in sight, and you didn’t return to the guild until much later. Where were you?”
“I was looking for my friend Keir. The Soul Collector tied him up in the old train station. Nobody dares go in there.”
Lord Sutherland glanced at the blond female mage on his right. Both wore the same expression of polite incredulity, as though they didn’t think someone like me could survive wandering through a nest of zombies. Admittedly, I didn’t exactly look intimidating even to ghosts. I was shorter than average, slight, and had deliberately combed my dyed jet-black hair so it hung in curtains on either side of my face and made me look shy and vulnerable. I’d also removed my lip piercing and gone without make-up in the hope that they’d think I was too sweet and naive to have ever been capable of producing the torrent of power required to yank closed a gaping hole in reality.
In fairness, I was only half responsible. The other half came from the ghost who’d helpfully left me in charge of explaining both our actions as though everything we’d done was totally in line with magical laws and regulations.
Lord Sutherland shuffled the papers in front of him—the written version of my report. “That’s the second time in the last few months that you’ve been involved in an incident in that train station, correct?”
“That would be because it’s on the spirit line that intersects with the necromancer guild,” put in Lady Montgomery from my right-hand side. I sent her a silent thank you, and on her other side, Ilsa Lynn gave me a nod of encouragement. She was one of the few people who looked as uncomfortable as I did, wedged between her boyfriend River—the boss’s son—and her mother and sister, who worked for the faerie courts. As Gatekeeper of Death, Ilsa had dealt with a fair bit of crap from the Mage Lords herself. She also knew as well as I did that the real reason that particular spirit line had come under attack was due to the Hemlocks’ forest being on the other side.
“I’m sure you understand why we need to check the details,” said the Mage Lord.
Yes, because you care about paperwork being accurate more than you care about the lives the Soul Collector took. Even Lady Harper’s.
I was lucky Lady Harper had called my boss and gave her a bogus cover-up story in the event that she didn’t make it, and I’d never be able to thank her for lying for me. Then again, she’d probably grumble that it wasn’t me she’d lied for. If anyone found out the Soul Collector had stolen the weapon he’d used directly from my coven, we’d go extinct for real this time.
Lord Sutherland finally looked away to converse with his fellow mages. While both the local council and the Council of Twelve contained representatives from the shifters, witches, necromancers and half-faeries, it was the mages who led and controlled the discussion, including Lord Vance Colton, founder of the Council of Twelve. I gave him a glare across the table to communicate my annoyance that he hadn’t tried to get me out of the questioning, but his attention was on Lord Sutherland. Instead, Drake caught my eye and winked at me. Like Vance, he was younger than most of the mages on the council, maybe early thirties. His coppery hair was barely combed, and he had a long, thin scar on one side of his face which he’d acquired in the years since I’d left home. In addition to the Council of Twelve, he and Vance also led the West Midlands mage council. Having childhood friends in high places came in handy, but wouldn’t change my fate if the cracks in my story broke open. Thank god the only psychics I knew were also on my side.
On my left, next to Isabel, Ivy Lane stuck out like a sore thumb in her leather and denim getup with her sword propped against the back of her chair. A human with some kind of faerie magic, she’d founded the Council of Twelve alongside Vance. If Ivy could get away with refusing to tell anyone about her magic, you’d think I’d be allowed to do the same, but I was fairly sure Ivy didn’t have an extra soul sharing her body.
Since Lady Harper’s funeral, Evelyn Hemlock and I had remained at a stalemate. She’d given justifiable reasons for why she’d hijacked my body—namely, that she needed my magic to fight against the godlike Ancients. The Soul Collector, she claimed, was only the beginning, and while the mages knew he wasn’t human, they didn’t know he was far from alone in his desire to wreak havoc on earth.
One of the shifters suddenly barked out, “Registers? What do you mean, registers?”
The smooth-faced Mage Lord looked in his direction. “Why, an official register would be a better way to keep track of wayward supernaturals, don’t you agree?”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Vance. “Even if we noted down the name and details of every supernatural, new ones are born every day, and it’s entirely possible for someone to be born into a human family and develop skill at witchcraft or the spirit sight. These things don’t show up until the child is at minimum ten or eleven years old, so unless you’re advocating for frequent testing—”
“I don’t see why not,” said Lord Sutherland. “We do so for mages who take on training as apprentices.”
“There are fewer of us,” said Vance. “It’s not practical to track every supernatural in existence—to say nothing of the chaos this would create with the half-faeries.”
“The Sidhe sure as hell wouldn’t approve of a register,” Ivy said. “Pretty sure they’d turn you into a flowering plant for asking.”
Lord Sutherland shifted in his seat, twisting the spell on his wrist. “This city, like others, has an underworld which is woefully under-policed. There could be anyone hiding among us with any dangerous skill, unknown.”
“Welcome to real life,” Ivy said. “You’re wasting your time. I wasn’t born with magic and I ended up with it anyway. Necromancers can carry on working for the guild when they’re dead. Are you going to require people to sign up to a register from the afterlife?”
Drake snickered. “You tell them.”
I didn’t laugh. I’d never heard the idea seriously suggested before. Registers for supernaturals? Not only was it impractical, it was downright dangerous for people whose safety depended on staying under the radar. Like, uh, me. And Keir.
“I’m sure your city has a supernatural underworld,” Vance said. “As do most cities where supernaturals lived in hiding prior to the invasion. Registers are not the answer, and they’ve been shot down every time anyone has suggested the notion for the last twenty years.”
As they should be. If I had to sign a register… being a guild necromancer was a solid cover for my Hemlock witch status, but not everyone was that lucky. What about the vampires? The Soul Collector had tried to exterminate them and most had been forced to temporarily leave the city. Keeping a written list of their names would be sentencing them to death.
“We’ll revisit the subject later,” said Lord Sutherland. “This meeting has gone on long enough… unless anyone has another topic they wish to address?” He spoke to the mages, for all the world like the other supernaturals weren’t even present.
“The Will of Lady Alice Harper,” Vance said. “Her fortune has already been distributed, but it seems she had some documents she wanted to bequeath to the Council of Twelve. I had them brought to your office. She also left more possessions from her country house to her living relatives—in that case, Wanda—and to Jas Lyons.”
All eyes turned on me again.
“Why would she leave so much for Jas?” enquired Lord Sutherland.
So much for him forgetting about me when the interrogation was done. “She adopted me out of a witch orphanage when I was a kid. Maybe she liked me more than I thought.”
True to his word, Vance had granted me the dubious honour of going through all Lady Harper’s crap over the holidays. Since she’d owned three mansion-sized houses with all manner of secret nooks and crannies, we still hadn’t found everything. Wanda had offered the house she’d inherited to the council to use as a backup meeting place and safe house. Her other two English countryside properties were turned into safe houses, too. After facing Lady Harper’s extended family falling over themselves to avoid taking any of her fortune, it was jarring to see the unconcealed expressions of interest on the faces of the other mages. Lord Sutherland, I realised with a shudder of revulsion, would have taken every penny for himself and probably spent it on beautifying spells.
My former mentor had also left me some money, enough to live independently for a few years should I want to leave the guild. I’d donated the ghastly second-hand furniture she’d left to me to the local witch orphanage along with every other material thing I’d inherited and I still didn’t feel any better. I’d rather have a living mentor who could save me from execution at the hands of the mage council than a pile of cash.
My hands tingled with static as Evelyn’s magic snapped to attention. I quickly buried them in my pockets to hide the glow. What is it?
A guttural snarl came from my right. I spun in my seat as the meeting room door flew open, and a huge furred body leapt through. Council members rose to their feet with exclamations of alarm, chairs falling over, and a flurry of snarls and hisses broke out as the shifters already present assumed their animal forms. Claws slashed, teeth bit, and bursts of magic exploded on both sides of the table.
“ENOUGH,” bellowed Lord Sutherland.
There was a bang, a crackle of lightning, and a huge gust of wind swept through the room. Everyone in the line of fire fell backwards, knocked flat by the force of the blast. One by one, the shifters all turned human, feathers and fur disappearing instantly. Even the intruder, whoever he was. The council members climbed to their feet, their impeccable clothes ruined.
A gap cleared around an inert body at the far side of the table. Blood streaked the grey swirling patterns on the carpet.
“He’s dead,” said Lord Sutherland. “Lord Forrest is dead.”
Silence fell. Everyone stared around, shocked beyond measure at the sudden explosion of violence.
Vance reached the shifters first, and from the way they drew back, he was the one who’d hit them with magic and startled them back into human form.
“Who did this?” he demanded. “Which of you killed him?”
One of the shifters slowly rose to his feet. In human form, he barely resembled the monster he’d been when he’d jumped at the mage, but the traces of blood on his hands gave him away. I looked from him to the mage’s body, tasting bile.
As a necromancer, I spent my days surrounded by death and yet it never ceased to startle me how very final it was. One second someone was alive, the next they were dead, and the world went on, leaving the survivors scrambling to pick up the pieces.
The shifter turned on the spot, and mages immediately moved to surround him. As he broke into a run, Vance raised a hand. The air rippled and the shifter was thrown backwards into the path of the oncoming mages. Vance’s ability to displace things extended to being able to move individual air particles around to create a shield or even lift a person into the air. The shifter struggled briefly as his feet left the ground, his gaze darting around in panic.
“Who are you?” Vance demanded.
“Kill him!” shouted one of the other mages.
Vance whirled to face the council, still holding the shifter off the ground. “The barriers on this building cannot be breached by an outsider. I believe that’s the responsibility of Lord Clarke. How did this man get inside?”
I was very glad not to be Lord Clarke at the moment. If looks could kill, Vance would have skewered half the room. I could only assume Ivy had some degree of immunity, or she was used to it, being his fiancé. She moved to his side, her sword in her hand, and everyone snapped into action. Several mages ran out of the room, presumably to check on the wards, while Vance procured a pair of handcuffs and snapped them onto the shifter.
As for me, I watched, my heart hammering. The mages and the shifters had a long-standing animosity due to the laws which had meant that until recently, the mages had effectively controlled where the shifters were allowed to live. I couldn’t call myself an expert, but I did know it’d been hard to convince the shifters to sign up for the Council of Twelve at all. And now… one of them had committed murder in full view of the council.
“He can’t have broken through the wards,” said a tremulous voice from among the mages, presumably belonging to Lord Clarke. “Not alone.”
Oh, boy. Since nobody was looking at me, I tapped into the spirit realm. Greyness immediately surrounded me, covering the world in a fog-like filter. The pulsing brightness of the council members’ spirits filled the room. I extended my consciousness outwards, into the lobby. Only necromancers stood out as particularly bright, and there weren’t any outside this room.
Whatever my Hemlock magic had reacted to was in the physical world, and now it was as still and silent as the mage’s inert body lying on the meeting room floor.
I let the spirit realm fade out, unable to quell the suspicion that if someone wanted to destabilise the cross-supernatural council, they might just have succeeded.
