Cage of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 1) Read online

  “Screw that,” she said. “If we don’t go back, that shithead Striker will repossess everything we own.”

  She had a point there. “All right, but we’re not sticking around. We’ll pick up our stuff and go.”

  This would be the fifth hideout we’d have to abandon in as many years. One of the dubious perks of living in a city ravaged by a magical war was the number of empty houses vacated by ordinary folk fleeing the carnage, most of whom had never come back to the city or even into the Parallel at all. The previous three decades had brought little improvement, which left almost all of us worse off than the people in the world on the other side.

  For some of us, though, living in the ordinary world wasn’t even an option.

  I walked home with Tay, trailed by guilt. Not only had we lost a major payment, I’d potentially put us on the Order’s wanted list, too, though it was highly unlikely they’d ever catch either of us. In the Parallel, the regular forms of identification were non-existent, and all semblance of infrastructure had pretty much crumbled after the war.

  By necessity, that also meant most of us were out for ourselves alone. Yet Tay and I had found our way to one another anyway, and we weren’t about to let a shitty boss and a weird ghost cost us our friendship on top of our jobs. At least the ghost seemed to have quit tailing us, though he likely wouldn’t have risked following us through the node to Earth. Without the Parallel’s magic to sustain them, spirits simply disappeared. Pity I couldn’t say the same for the vampire chickens.

  When we rounded the corner into our street, the stranger waited for us. Silent, transparent, and hovering above the ground not five metres from our house. A faint glow surrounded his form which hadn’t been obvious before. Of course. Now I understood. Assuming he wasn’t a lich—and given the absence of a creepy dark cloak and mask, I’d guess he wasn’t—he could only be a spirit mage. It’d been the spirit mages who’d started the war which had led to the Parallel’s collapse. No wonder he hadn’t followed us through the node. The Order would have arrested him on the spot.

  Wouldn’t that be a pity.

  I halted. “Tay, go ahead.”

  “Why?” Her gaze found the transparent guy, and her eyes widened. “That’s him?”

  The stranger tilted his head at me, then gave a little wave. Anger surged within me. All right. I’ll handle this. “Yeah. Stick with the plan. You go into the house and grab our stuff, and I’ll deal with him.”

  “You can’t confront him alone. He’s a spirit mage.”

  “He’s not here in person,” I reminded her. “He’s astral projecting. I’ll send him on his way.”

  “All right, but you’d better not take long.” She went to the house, while I kept one eye on the stranger and beckoned him to follow me. We might be on the brink of abandoning our hideout, but that didn’t mean we needed to advertise it to a stranger.

  A stranger… and a spirit mage. Who even was he? I’d left no traces of my former life behind when I’d arrived here in Elysium, and I hadn’t known my family had had any links with the spirit mages. It made little sense for him to astral project rather than coming here in person, unless he wanted to make sure I didn’t punch him in the nose or set him on fire. Which I might have done, had he been solid. I’d just have to use my words instead.

  I came to a halt when we hit a dead end. “What will it take to make you go away? You cost me my job and my home, arsehole, and I have no idea who you even are.”

  “Vampire chickens?” he said. “You know they’re highly illegal, right?”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “What, did you work for the authorities when you were still alive?”

  “I am alive.” He sounded insulted. “The name’s Miles.”

  I stepped around him. “Goodbye, Miles. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  “I want to talk to you,” Miles said. “I have a job for you, Bria.”

  He has a what for me?

  “How do you know my name?” I said. “If you spoke to my boss, you’d better be ready to tell him it was your fault those damn chickens escaped.”

  “I assume you mean that low-life calling himself Striker,” he said. “Forget him. I have something better on offer. Have you ever heard of the Spirit Agents?”

  “Spirit Agents?” The name rang a bell, but it made no sense for a spirit mage to offer me employment. “I’m not a spirit mage. Besides, I have a job.”

  Or I had, before it’d gone up in a cloud of vampire chicken feathers.

  “I know,” he said. “You’re a fire mage. A very good one, I’m told, though you’re wasting your talents running around carrying illegally bred hybrid monsters.”

  I gave a shrug. “Thanks for the unwanted critique, dickhead. Now, if you don’t mind—”

  Footsteps sounded nearby, followed by squawking. Oh, hell. The authorities, it seemed, had found some of the runaway chickens… and if they came here, Miles could easily vanish and leave me to take the fall. I wouldn’t be so lucky.

  I backed out of the street and broke into a jog, hoping he’d get the hint this time around. Unfortunately, he floated alongside me as I ran. “Don’t you dare laugh at me. It’s your damn fault.”

  “I’m not laughing,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to have something as illegal as vampire chickens in that crate.”

  “Do you think insulting me is going to convince me to take you up on your offer?” I put on a burst of speed, knowing I was moving faster than most regular people and that it wasn’t wise to do so in front of him. I didn’t know how much he knew of my history. Maybe nothing at all. But I would not end the night in a prison cell.

  I couldn’t run forever. Once I was sure I’d shaken off any possible tails, I backtracked and went on a winding route home. By the time I returned to the ramshackle hideout where Tay and I had made our home, I was breathless and in dire need of a nap. Instead, though, I’d have to spend the rest of the day finding a new hideout while shaking off a spirit mage who didn’t know when to quit.

  “Hey, Tay,” I said, opening the door. “Ready to leave?”

  The house was deserted. No sign of Tay, nor anyone else.

  “Tay?” I left the door partially open and advanced through the hallway. “You okay?”

  Cold hands brushed my neck from behind. “Hello, sweetheart. I heard you fucked up the job.”

  Hell. It was one of Striker’s notorious vampire bodyguards. Tall and slender, he bore the pointed fangs and chilled skin of the reanimated dead.

  “Striker is a lying bastard.” I jerked away from his icy hands, my heart thundering against my ribcage. “He fucked up as much as I did by giving us a broken cage and then leaving us to take the heat.”

  “Speaking of heat,” he purred, “I wonder if the House of Fire’s jail still has a place for you?”

  Flames sparked from my hands, causing him to step out of the way. Vampires were highly flammable, as we both knew well.

  “Don’t threaten me,” I warned. “Where is Tay?”

  I wanted to ask how he knew I’d once been an inmate of the House of Fire, but I could guess. That bastard of a spirit mage had ratted me out so that I’d have no choice but to take whatever job he wanted me to do. Unless it was Striker who’d wagged his tongue to the wrong person. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had.

  The vampire hissed in fury, his pale skin reflecting the flames dancing in each palm of my hand. “Put those away and I won’t throw you back in the dirt like the gutter rat you are.”

  “You can try to hand me over to the House if you like.” Flames swirled, higher, forming a barrier between me and him. “I wonder what they’ll do when they find out about Striker’s trade in illegally bred magical creatures?”

  The vampire’s eyes were flinty. “Go on. Run, and hope they don’t find you.”

  I didn’t move. “Tell me where Tay is. I’m not leaving without her.”

  He laughed. “That friend of yours already ran.”

&n
bsp; A likely story. My hands clenched, the fire raging higher, threatening to break from my control. “Where. Is. She?”

  From behind, another cold hand reached for me, and I recoiled instinctively, my flames lurching in that direction. The second vampire dropped his hand, but the damage was done. Flames licked up his arm, and he screamed as they ate through skin and bone.

  The first vamp lunged at me with inhuman speed, but my fire burned brighter than ever, catching him in its orbit, too. In seconds, the flames devoured the pair of them until nothing remained but ashes.

  Oh, damn. My cover was blown, Tay was gone… and I’d just turned two of Striker’s prized vampire bodyguards to ashes.

  Yet Tay wouldn’t have taken off on me with no warning. They took her. Someone took her.

  “Word of advice?” Miles appeared in the doorway as though he’d been watching the whole performance from a safe distance. “Get out of here before reinforcements show up.”

  “You’re still here?” I whirled on him. “I told you, I’m not interested in working for you. Especially if you’re the one who handed Tay into the authorities.”

  “Who, your friend?” he said. “I was next to you while you were running away, remember? I couldn’t have told tales. But if I had to guess, it was one of the people connected to the vampires you just turned to ashes.”

  My gaze skimmed the hallway. Tay’s bag lay discarded on the floor, as though she’d been ready to run when someone had come in here and taken her. No blood, no signs of a struggle.

  Who took her? Not Striker, surely. No, he’d sent the vampires to get the both of us and bring us back so he could read us the riot act, unless he’d already had someone hand her in to the authorities.

  In other words, the House of Fire.

  Unfortunately, Miles was right. I needed a hiding place, desperately, or I wouldn’t last out the week. And I needed allies. Because if Tay was where I thought she was, I’d never get her out of there alone.

  2

  I started out by grabbing what I needed from the house. There wasn’t much left, but I still filled a backpack with the essentials, like spare clothes and weapons.

  Rule One for living in the Parallel: always be ready to run. It wouldn’t be safe to remain outside for long, but Miles tailed me down the road as I left the hideout behind. “You haven’t asked me about my job offer.”

  “I declined when you cost me the job I already had.” The guy just couldn’t take a hint. “And I put you on my ‘never work with’ list when you tipped off my boss and got my best friend kidnapped.”

  “I wasn’t responsible for that, but it sounds like you’re in need of a place to lie low,” he said. “Come and hear me out, and we’ll figure out how to get to your friend.”

  “No, thanks.”

  My words went unheard, because he vanished into thin air.

  “Good riddance.” I kept walking, more disconcerted than relieved. Without my job and with Tay missing, I was short on allies, to say the least. The spirit mage might claim not to be responsible for her disappearance, but his sudden intrusion in my life couldn’t be coincidental.

  The sound of hammering footsteps sounded, then shouts rang through the streets followed by a loud series of squawks. A small feathered creature ran around the corner ahead of me, and the footsteps grew louder. Oh, hell.

  I veered sideways into an alley, gripping my rucksack tight. The squawks grew quieter, and the footsteps passed me by, vanishing into another side street.

  I came to a halt at the end of the street, my heart swooping downward. Three individuals waited for me, and one of them was Miles. No longer transparent, he had ashy blond hair and brown eyes, and would have been decently good-looking if he hadn’t caused me so much trouble that I never wanted to set eyes on him again. His companions were a dark-haired white guy of around the same age, and a black woman with a streak of pink in her curly hair.

  I turned to Miles first. “You left your body standing around in the middle of the city while you were stalking me?”

  “Hardly stalking,” he said. “You’re welcome, by the way. I just distracted that runaway chicken so the authorities didn’t catch up to you.”

  “You did that?” Astral projection must be a hell of a useful power. Too bad his persistence had been the reason for their escape in the first place. “Look, who even are you?”

  “I thought you’d take more convincing, so I brought some friends to wait for you,” he responded. “This is Shawn, and this is Shelley. It’s nice to meet you. For real, this time.”

  “The feeling isn’t mutual,” I responded. “Fuck off.”

  “What did you do to deserve that?” asked Shawn.

  “There was a mishap with a crate full of vampire chickens,” Miles told him.

  “Aren’t vampire chickens illegal?” asked his other companion, who must be Shelley.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” I said. “What’s with you people? As if you don’t belong to the group of mages who started the last elemental war.”

  “Okay, that’s unfair,” Miles said. “I wasn’t even born when the war started. Also, I’m not the one who was stupid enough to stick those vampire chickens in a cage.”

  “But it is your fault they escaped,” I said. “Tay said someone knocked the cage open using magic.”

  His brows rose. “Magic? Not me. If anything, I reckon the person who put them in there was counting on them escaping so he wouldn’t have to pay you.”

  He might have a point, given what I knew about Striker, but that didn’t absolve him of his responsibility in this. “You still haven’t apologised for getting my best friend kidnapped.”

  “Who got kidnapped?” asked Shelley.

  “My best friend is missing.” I gave Miles a glare. “She left her bag behind. She wouldn’t have done that if she’d run away of her own free will. I swear, if any of you knows where she is—”

  “We don’t,” said Miles. “I was hoping to speak to you alone. I didn’t expect to find you with company.”

  “Including the vampire chickens.” Shawn gave a smile that wilted when I shot him a warning look.

  “You haven’t even told me who you work for,” I said to them. “Even if I took your word for it that you didn’t cause Tay’s disappearance—which I’m not inclined to—I don’t have anything you’re looking for.”

  “I beg to differ,” said Miles. “As for who I work for, I’m the leader of the local Spirit Agents, and trust me, we had nothing to do with your friend’s disappearance.”

  A likely story. Yet the three of them had me surrounded, and while I was reasonably sure I could fight my way out, what if one of them knew who’d taken Tay? If it was someone from my past who was responsible, the odds of these Spirit Agents being involved were slim.

  “Am I supposed to know who the Spirit Agents are?” The name rang a bell somewhere in the recesses of my mind. There was no official House of Spirit like there was for the other four Elements, so they must be vigilantes, living off the grid—like me. Except that didn’t explain why they could possibly want to hire me.

  “Probably not,” said Miles. “I’ll explain later, but this job we’re offering… it’s kinda time-sensitive. And risky. Fair warning.”

  “You got me into a lot of trouble already,” I told him. “I’m not here for you to throw into whatever illegal shit you’re doing.”

  “You were already into illegal and dangerous shit, by my observation,” he remarked.

  “Vampire chickens usually don’t kill people.”

  He looked insulted. “I don’t kill people. I’m not one of the spirit mages who started the war. On account of the fact that they’re all dead. Anyway, it’s a fire mage whose help we need.”

  “And why is that?” I might be better than the average mage at wielding fire magic, but spirit mages could run circles around the rest of us and they knew it. No other type of magic compared to the ability to wield power over life and death. All I could do was set things ablaze. And
people, if necessary.

  “The King of the Dead is having a contest,” said Shawn. “To hire a new Fire Element. We need someone to infiltrate the contest on our behalf and spy on the Court of the Dead.”

  My mouth parted. The Death King was hiring, was he? It was well known across the Parallel that he employed one mage from each elemental class of water, fire, air and earth, and he was rumoured to reward them handsomely for the dangerous job of guarding his extensive territory.

  On the other hand, the espionage angle was not my thing. “Why do you need a spy inside the Court of the Dead?”

  “The contest is one of the few times where the Court of the Dead is open to outsiders,” said Miles. “The Death King himself believes an outside threat will come from among the contenders, and while he has his own security in place, there needs to be someone on the lookout for trouble who can blend in among the others.”

  “I’m sorry, who am I spying for?” I looked between them. “Do you work for the Death King or not?”

  “We’ve helped him in the past,” responded Miles. “And vice versa. That said, there are rumours of some kind of coup brewing in the Court of the Dead. We have reason to believe they’re going to use the trials to attack the Death King—which would spell bad news for all of us.”

  Huh. Now I thought about it, the Court of the Dead was rumoured to be nigh impossible to break into, and it was beyond me to figure out why anyone would want to. It was nice to imagine living in a castle, but not one that sat in the middle of a stretch of swampy wasteland inhabited only by the dead. On the other hand, the Death King was also rumoured to keep more secrets inside his castle than an earth mage’s treasure trove.

  “We need to ensure we can back the Death King up if things get ugly in there,” added Shawn. “Whether you win the trials or not, the contest only lasts for a week, and that’s more than enough time for you to shake off anyone who might be chasing you. The Court of the Dead is probably the best hiding place there is.”

  He had a point. In the Court of the Dead, I’d officially be out of the House of Fire’s reach. Nobody would be able to touch me—or Tay, once I found her. But waiting a week might be leaving it too late. I might be in desperate need of a place to stay, but she was in a worse situation than I was.