Witch's Shadow (The Hemlock Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  I did have a way to swiftly end this… but playing my best card was risky.

  I never knew what might happen when my other magic came out to play.

  A rush of power welled inside me, from somewhere deep within, a bottomless pit I’d never looked too closely at. My hands tingled, my body reverberating with a humming sensation that seemed to come from deep below the earth—but we weren’t on earth. Not even close.

  The ghost screamed.

  “Go,” whispered a voice that wasn’t mine, though it came from my mouth.

  The ghost bolted. His transparent form floated away, towards the gates of death. They appeared—long, endless gates stretching across the horizon as far as the eye could see—but while ghosts became more transparent the closer they got to the gates, my body glowed with magic. Power rolled beneath my skin like a tidal wave.

  A shadow in the corner of my eye warned me of another ghost within my personal space.

  I whipped my head to the side, and a voice whispered in my ear, “Hemlock.”

  I recoiled, and abruptly, my senses came back. I sucked in a breath as my body returned to consciousness, and shook my numb fingers to get some sensation back into them.

  “You in there, Jas?” Lloyd peered into my eyes.

  I stepped backwards, my legs trembling slightly. “Yeah. The ghost’s gone. I told him to screw off and I guess I scared him more than I thought.”

  He laughed. “Go, you. The bastard shut me straight out of the afterlife.”

  “I saw. What gave him that power?” I didn’t expect an answer. Nor did I like deceiving my closest friend, but it was safer for nobody to know that sometimes, when I fought against the dead, I wasn’t me at all.

  “Haven’t a clue.” He handed me my torch, which I switched back on. “Your voice goes all posh when you’re scared. It’s hilarious.”

  “I’m glad I entertain you,” I said, feeling my face heat up. I couldn’t hide all the signs that I’d spent my teenage years living with a branch of high society English mages, but I did my best. I barely classed as a mage by adoption, and the fact that half my family were a mix of witches, mages and necromancers didn’t help. I got by just fine using my necromancer talent, the only type of magic I’d ever have. And as long as it stayed that way, the word ‘hemlock’ would remain buried deeper than the dead.

  I crouched down to retrieve the candles while he put the iron spell away. “That cute ghost was haunting me again last night,” he said. “Reckon she’ll be impressed with our iron strategy.”

  “You’re not going to tell her it was your idea?” I pulled a face. “You should just ask why she’s hanging around.”

  “Because she’s lonely and wants someone to talk to?”

  I slipped two candles into my cloak’s fathomless pocket. “She can have all that and more in the afterlife, free of charge. Come on, you know I’m not supposed to enable this shit.”

  “You’re not my boss,” he said, which was technically true.

  “I’m boss enough to tell you to stop making out with ghosts and get on with the job.”

  “Yes, O wise one.”

  I rolled my eyes and reached for more candles. Lloyd was bi with a slight preference for dudes. I was straight with a significant preference for dudes who had a heartbeat. You wouldn’t think the latter part would need stating, and yet. Necromancers got creative. Especially when, given enough practise, the spirit realm started to feel as real as the everyday one.

  Candles retrieved, I cast one last look at the remains of the witch’s circle. By now, I was sure that’s what it was. It sure as hell wasn’t necromancy. But while I might have the dubious honour of calling myself a Hemlock witch, I had zero talent to back it up, and no formal training to speak of. With the perpetrators gone, a scuffed chalk symbol and a weird stain wouldn't qualify as reliable evidence. Not to mention, I'd have to answer questions about how I'd come by that knowledge to begin with—which would make a creepy whispering ghost the least of my concerns.

  Hemlock.

  There was little of my birth coven left. I had no real ties to them, since I didn't have any witchy talent to speak of, but that didn’t make it any less weird that the ghost had spoken the name.

  “Jas? You’re spacing out. You okay?”

  I took in a long, slow breath. The poltergeist was gone and wouldn't bother us anymore. That's all that mattered. Why I’d heard that voice say hemlock… I must have imagined it. There was no reason for a disembodied spirit to know that name. The Hemlocks had erased themselves from all public record. For all intents and purposes, they had never existed.

  “Yeah.” I hitched on a smile. “Let’s go and report in.”

  2

  Lady Montgomery regarded me across her desk with her steely gaze. “You didn't interrogate the ghost about the props?”

  “He wasn't in the mood for conversation,” I responded. “Also, he was a faerie. They can't use witch magic, and certainly not when dead.”

  “Tell me what you saw again.” She didn't ask, she ordered. That's what happened when a woman who'd gone into battle with the Sidhe in the faerie invasion took charge. Shit got done. A stern-faced woman with her greying hair pulled into a bun and her necromancer robes adorned with medals of honour from her accomplishments in battle, she was every inch as formidable as she’d been during the war between the faeries and the other supernaturals twenty-something years earlier.

  Unfortunately, she wasn't the expert in this case. Not as far as faerie magic and witch rituals were concerned, anyway. I'd described the scene six times already and that wasn't including the written report, which I had to hand in before the necromancer summit tonight.

  “Are you absolutely positive you don’t know what the witch’s symbol meant?” She drummed her fingers on the desk, which she always kept impeccably tidy, every book and paper neatly tucked away. The only human touches to the spartan decor were a few photographs of her son, River, on a shelf above the desk. The cute pictures of the blond half-faerie went a long way towards making her look less scary, though nobody said so to her face.

  “I honestly don't know,” I said. “Rituals and spells are not my area of expertise. It's not like I know the local covens, either.”

  Introducing myself would have been too risky even if I’d possessed the barest hint of talent. Eventually, someone would have asked the wrong question about my background, and then they’d be next on the hit list of the Hemlock Coven’s enemies.

  “The stain might have been blood,” I admitted. “As for the symbol, I don't remember what it looked like, but any coven would kick you out if you walked up to them waving a symbol of potential dark magic.”

  “I planned on a subtler approach, Jas.” She gave me an expectant look.

  “Does it involve me knocking on coven doors and asking awkward questions? Because I’d have to at least claim to be a witch to get in.”

  I was not a spectacular liar. Lady Montgomery had seen through my deception the instant I’d walked through the doors seven years ago, as a frightened teenager who’d fled across half a country to escape her own coven. But she’d let me take on an apprenticeship with her all the same. I had the perfect cover, and I wasn’t about to let an amateur occultist ruin it.

  “I’m aware of your dilemma,” she said, “but you’re one of us. If there’s a danger to the guild, we need to do everything we can to stop it.”

  “I have no idea what that spell was, if it was one,” I said honestly. “I’d tell you if I did.”

  She paused for a long moment before saying, “If you have anything more to add, do come and speak to me, Jas. And don’t forget the summit tonight.”

  “Haven’t forgotten,” I said, in an attempt at a cheery voice. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Translation: please let me go and change out of my cloak. Whatever had been on that warehouse floor when I’d tackled Lloyd to the ground wasn’t sanitary in the slightest.

  She gave me a nod of dismissal, and I
left her office with relief. Lloyd himself stood with his hands in his pockets, wearing jeans and a fresh T-shirt. Arse. He’d had time to shower and change while I’d been answering Lady Montgomery’s million and a half questions. Lloyd didn’t really understand why I willingly spent so much time around the boss, but he didn’t probe too far into the reasons why I’d seek out an apprenticeship that put me in a position usually reserved for senior necromancers. If people thought I was more talented than I actually was, I’d be less likely to invite questioning about my… other heritage.

  Lloyd himself, born into a human family who’d discovered the spirit sight independently by accident, could at least relate to my outsider status. But while it was more common than it used to be for otherwise ordinary humans to discover an affinity for witchcraft or necromancy, other types of skill were less common even in supernaturals.

  “Didn’t keep you long, did she?” He made a point of stepping out of the way of my dirt-covered, trailing cloak.

  “I’m not off the hook for tonight’s summit, either. Guess near-death experiences aren’t an excuse when we’re near death every waking moment.”

  He pulled a face. “I forgot they’re making you take notes at the summit. Hopefully this one won’t be interrupted by a zombie plague.”

  “Got to have realistic expectations.” I made my way down the corridor leading into the locker room and showers next to the necromancers’ gymnasium. “I’m going to change. Don’t start the movie without me.”

  After each mission, Lloyd and I had a well-rehearsed routine: we’d watch a terrible zombie movie and order takeout. It gave us the illusion of stability in an unstable job, and we’d established the tradition from when we’d first joined the guild. Lloyd’s dedication to seeking out obscure monster movies from the world before the faerie invasion was admirable, if nothing else, but watching zombified actors in makeup staggering around had the added bonus of making our real missions seem less scary.

  Seven years. I hadn’t expected to stay this long, but the guild was a safe haven for outsiders and I’d taken to necromancy better than I’d expected. The spirit sight was easy enough to develop, even for someone who had the barest hint of the gift, and more to the point, humans tended to favour one kind of magic over the others if they had ancestry from two or more types of supernatural. Nobody would have reason to question why I only used necromancy even if they somehow found out I had mage and witch ancestry, too.

  I shoved all thoughts of witchcraft aside and headed for the shower. I had a zombie movie marathon to prepare for, followed by a stint in the cemetery taking notes for Lady Montgomery. No rest for the wicked—or the dead.

  Necromancer summits were about as cheerful as you’d expect from a gathering of the dead and the living. I’d lost all sensation in my feet by the end of the first hour of sitting on a cold stone wall in one of Edinburgh’s many cemeteries, while the senior necromancers spoke to their ancestors.

  By the second hour, I was blowing on my hands to warm them up in between taking notes. The frigid November air didn’t help my concentration levels, but Lady Montgomery kept coming to check up on my note-taking so I couldn’t sneak away somewhere warm for a bit. I was the only non-senior member allowed in, which would have been an honour if it didn’t involve catching my not-literal death of cold.

  “Boo,” said a soft voice, and I jolted upright, my head smacking into Lloyd’s chin. “Ow.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here.” I turned around, squinting at his lanky figure behind the wall. “If the boss spots you—”

  “Relax.” He rubbed his chin, a paper cup in his other hand. “She’s too interested in what that boring old ghost has to say. I brought you hot chocolate. Thought you’d appreciate the warmth.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered, taking the cup from him. “You really shouldn’t be on senior necromancer territory, not with…”

  Faerie ghosts working with someone who used witchcraft? Spirits who knew my coven’s name?

  “With what?” He cocked a brow.

  “Weirdness in the spirit realm.”

  “There hasn’t been a single day since I signed up at the guild where there hasn’t been weirdness in the spirit realm, Jas.”

  He had a point. Since the faerie invasion, the barriers between life and death had been fragile to say the least. All sorts of weird crap rose from beyond the grave. What’d happened today wasn’t so unusual at all.

  “Also,” he added, “were you drawing faeries?”

  I shushed him and pulled down the page of my notepad. “Not according to Lady Montgomery.”

  Drawing calmed my nerves and kept me from seeing shadowy figures where they didn’t exist, so I’d been sketching a picture of the faerie ghost we’d seen, and resisting the impulse to draw the chalk symbol to see if it jogged my memory. Even without any witchy talent, copying occult symbols was a great way to invite trouble.

  “Watch she doesn’t delegate you to cleaning duty again,” said Lloyd.

  “She can’t criticise me for entertaining myself while she’s over there chatting with ghosts. Besides, she said I’m the best assistant she’s had since her son.”

  River Montgomery, who only vaguely resembled the blond kid in the photos in his mother’s office, currently occupied the predominant position in the meeting, along with his girlfriend Ilsa. Lloyd and I had accidentally arrested her as a potential rogue when she’d first shown up in the city with off-the-grid necromancy skills a couple of months ago, but she didn’t hold it against us. Since she and River had helped save the city from a swarm of wraiths, they’d been elevated to the highest level.

  “They’re really into it tonight.” Lloyd jerked his head in the direction of the senior necromancers. “Must be something big happening.”

  “Nah, the ancient ghosts like to gossip. Nobody else will stand there for three hours and listen to them.”

  Generally, I thought necromancy was actually a pretty cool type of magic to have, but I had no ambitions to join the upper echelons if it meant spending endless hours listening to the woes of the former necromancers. The dreary night made me want to curl up and go to sleep, not converse with ghosts. I blew on the hot chocolate to cool it down, and took a sip. It had a weird aftertaste.

  “And they say the dead have a quiet existence.” Lloyd shuffled backwards. “Don’t tell her where you got that.”

  I took another sip of hot chocolate. “Where did you get it?”

  “Market stall. I should head off before they toss me out for ruining their séance.”

  “Yeah. Watch your back walking home, okay?” The weird taste persisted. I gagged. Hemlock.

  The cup slipped from my hands, spilling all over my notes. My vision blurred, and I slipped off the wall onto my knees.

  Lloyd’s stricken face swam above me. Voices shouted.

  Hemlock…

  I was dying. At a necromancer summit. Almost as ironic as being poisoned by the symbol of my own coven.

  Blackness descended.

  Death brought me directly into the spirit realm. I imagined it’d come as a shock to non-necromancers to see what awaited after death, but I barely blinked at the sight of thousands of transparent figures floating in an endless grey fog. “Hey,” I said, to several ghosts I passed. “Nice to join you. Please proceed directly to the gates.”

  What a way to go. There was no point in kicking up a fuss, though—my time had come, as per the necromancer rulebook. If I threw a tantrum and played poltergeist, it was my former colleagues who’d have to deal with the fallout. I had to maintain some level of professionalism.

  And the real kick in the face was that I hadn’t reached a high enough level to train as a necromancer Guardian afterwards. Not that I particularly wanted to spend an eternity guarding Death’s gates, but it’d have been nice to hang on for long enough to say goodbye to my friends. And my family.

  A pang hit my heart. Lloyd’s face floated before me. He didn’t know… someone tried to kill me.


  Warn him.

  I halted, sensing another ghost behind me.

  “You shouldn’t be here.” The voice was male and flat, with a hint of violence. I jerked backwards—or rather, floated—and turned to face the speaker.

  The outline of a person faced me. I stared into the empty space, confused. Usually spirits looked like a more transparent version of their living self. This guy—if he hadn’t spoken aloud, I wouldn’t have thought him a ghost at all. More like a shadow shaped like a person.

  “Yes, I should be here,” I said. “I’m Jas Lyons, a necromancer. I’m also dead. What are you?”

  He raised a hand. “Begone, shade.”

  “What the…?”

  With an abrupt jolt, I fell backwards. The ground gave way beneath me, except it couldn’t have done, because there was no ground in the spirit realm—

  And then my lungs drew breath.

  3

  I coughed, my body shuddering. Trees crowded overhead, their interlocking branches blocking out the ceiling of the… cave.

  Why am I in a cave?

  Soft moss cushioned my back. I still wore my necromancer cloak, and the soil beneath my hands felt real enough. Trees curved around the walls, blocking out all the natural light aside from the luminescent glow from the web-like glyphs sprawled on the walls. Symbols of an ancient magic, keeping the cave hidden. Tree roots criss-crossed the floor, while their trunks had grown into the stalactites and stalagmites connecting floor and ceiling. A huge stone sculpture formed a mass in the cave’s centre, vaguely human in shape.

  My heart jumped into my throat.

  I was dreaming. This couldn’t be real. I hadn’t been in a cave within a forest in years. Not since—

  The rock sculpture moved, and a face peered at me, a face with pits for eyes and lines of years beyond reckoning carved into the stone.

  “Cordelia,” I whispered.

  Cordelia Hemlock blinked, her face meshed with the bark, her body fused into the tree. She’d been that way since before I was born, and so had her fellow Hemlock witches. Their bodies and minds were locked into rock and tree and stone, deep within a forest which didn’t entirely belong in this world. Other faces appeared in the walls, and their eyes stared at me with judgemental intensity.