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

  “Who, the vampire?” asked Lloyd. “He’s the assassin?”

  “Possibly,” I said. “We destroyed the vampire’s spare body, right, Isabel?”

  She nodded. “Yep. He was already dead, so once I knocked him out, it must have broken the connection. I’m not a necromancer, so I’m not the expert here.”

  “His connection to that body was way stronger than the average necromancer’s control over an undead,” I said. “Otherwise, necromancy doesn’t tend to do well in combat. All you can really do is thwack people with kinetic energy, and usually the ghosts have more of that than the living do.”

  “And faerie magic,” Lloyd put in. “This vampire wasn’t a faerie, right?”

  “Nope,” I said. “More like an undead, but under one person’s control, so deeply that it’s like he became him. You know undead, they’re usually as uncoordinated as baby kittens.”

  “Minus the cute,” added Lloyd. “Yeah. So aside from the ability to control undead on a high necromancy level… what was the deal with the life energy thing?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like he sucked the spirit out of me, or tried to. I know it’s creepy and horrible, but I can think of scenarios where that might come in handy.”

  Lloyd’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Don’t you have a second soul you want rid of?”

  “We’ll get to that later,” I said, in a low voice. “For now, Isabel… I should probably fill you in on the latest.”

  I quickly explained how the poisoning had happened, giving a rundown of my role at the guild for good measure. Lady Montgomery had let me get away without an interrogation for now, but her leniency wouldn’t last, and I didn’t know how to explain what the witches had done when I was still supposed to be under a confidentiality agreement. To say nothing of the fact that binding a spirit to mine had violated supernatural laws.

  “When did you first meet the Hemlocks?” asked Isabel, after she’d gone into the café to order some food. “Did they teach you magic?”

  “Lady Harper tried.” I tossed a handful of fries into my mouth. “I lived in a witch orphanage for the first few years of my life, until Lady Harper found me and took me in. I don’t know if she knew I was the Hemlocks’ heir beforehand, or found out later. What about you?”

  “My parents were killed in the invasion,” said Isabel. “Afterwards, I went to live in one of the witch orphanages, too. Then I applied to join the Laurel Coven as soon as I was old enough.”

  “And met Ivy.”

  “That was a couple of years later,” she said. “I’d been custom-making spells for a while then, and Ivy was always injuring herself on mercenary missions. I made it my life’s goal to stop her doing that, but I’m not sure I was very successful at it.”

  I grinned. “Lucky you won’t have to do that for me. I have a second soul who can take the damage for me. It’s how I survived the poisoning.”

  She lifted a brow. “Seriously? Wow. I’ve never heard of that before. I mean, I got the protective spells when the leadership of the Laurel Coven passed onto me, but even that can’t protect me against everything.”

  “I have no protective spells,” I admitted. “I’m not coven leader, but whatever Lady Harper told you to do, you really don’t have to.”

  “Oh, she didn’t,” said Isabel. “I mean, she did ask me to train you, but I accepted out of curiosity. I’ve never met a living Hemlock witch, and it sounded like she forced you into the role. You said something about… a spirit? Who is it?”

  “Evelyn Hemlock,” I said quietly. “She was bound to me when I was a baby, but obviously, I don’t remember.”

  “That is messed up,” Lloyd pronounced. “Am I the only person who thinks forcing someone to live in another person’s body should be illegal?”

  “The supernatural laws agree,” I said. “Keep it down. God only knows how the Hemlocks got away with it, considering they used to be involved with the supernatural council before the invasion, but they’ve been stuck in that forest long enough to have lost what’s left of their marbles.”

  “Well, the other covens definitely aren’t in on the secret,” said Isabel. “But I do know people on the council. It’s sort of complicated with the witches at the moment, because the covens are so insular and geographically separate, compared to the mages. But if you need the council’s input, I can probably help.”

  I winced inwardly at the idea of the most powerful supernaturals in the UK having an inkling that my coven had broken the law by binding another person’s spirit to mine. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but the Hemlocks’ confidentiality agreement will probably stop me from telling anyone anything useful. I don’t know why they let me tell you, Lloyd.”

  “Maybe because I’m magical and important.” He grinned, then shook his head. “Actually, it’s probably because I’ve seen it. Her.”

  “Wait, you have?” I frowned.

  “In the spirit world, I’ve often felt like you weren’t quite… you, if you know what I mean. Since I sort of already knew it, maybe that’s why you told me. I overheard the Lynns talking about faerie vows once, and they work in kind of the same way. It’s why we know Ilsa is Gatekeeper. She didn’t used to be able to tell anyone about her magic until we saw her use it.”

  That sounded familiar. Ilsa Lynn had offered to help me if I needed it, but that was before I knew I was possessed by a spirit. She might be Gatekeeper of Death, but like any necromancer, I doubted either she or her psychic brother could pull the evil spirit out of my head.

  No… my best bet was to go directly to the vampire who’d been the first to notice, and find out why he was dead set on meeting my coven. Oh, and get him back for trying to suck out my soul.

  “Vow or none, the magic is yours,” said Isabel. “I can’t imagine Lady Harper was a nice mentor, but I can teach you a few tricks. Have you ever used your witch power? At all?”

  “I tapped into it when I met the vampire,” I said, crumpling a napkin in my hand. “That’s how he knew what I was. But I’ve never managed to brew up a potion in my life.”

  “Let’s give it a go,” said Isabel. “Not here. Do you have a place we can safely train?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I live right above the guild. I can’t take any sneaky trips over the veil without being caught, but as long as we don’t run into Lady Montgomery, we’re probably safe.”

  As it turned out, Lady Montgomery wasn’t the one I needed to worry about.

  The necromancers’ accommodations were self-contained flats spread across two floors above the guild’s headquarters. Most necromancers who lived here would be hanging around the cafeteria at this time, so the place was deserted when Isabel and I made our way to the private staircase leading to the guild’s upper levels.

  What I hadn’t counted on was the one person who was never where he was supposed to be at any given time: Morgan Lynn. Tall and skinny with a mop of dark brown hair, he wore the vacant expression of a necromancer immersed in the spirit realm and stood in the middle of the corridor like it hadn’t occurred to him that other people might live here as well. Luckily, Morgan’s level of observance ranged from ‘slightly off’ to ‘you could waltz in with a full-grown elephant and he wouldn’t notice’. We were halfway down the corridor when he blinked at us as though we’d popped out of thin air.

  “Hey, Morgan,” said Lloyd, casually standing in front of Isabel to hide her from view.

  He frowned. “Isn’t one of you supposed to be dead?”

  “Me,” I said. “I survived. No harm done.”

  Morgan squinted at me. “Are you sure? There’s something about you that seems… off.”

  “She’s been dealing with zombies,” Lloyd said. “Say, have you ever heard of a zombie possessed by a person?”

  “Nope,” said Morgan, so quickly that it was like he’d been expecting the question. “Absolutely not. Bye.”

  He sidestepped Lloyd and walked on down the corridor with the slightly unsteady movement of someone ei
ther drunk or walking off the aftermath of spending hours in the spirit realm. From what I knew of Morgan, probably both. When Ilsa had brought her older brother to the guild a couple of months ago claiming that he was being haunted, none of us had expected him to turn out to be a genuine psychic sensitive. Psychics were almost as unheard of as vampires.

  “He wasn’t dealing with vampires, too, was he?” I muttered to Lloyd.

  “One way to find out. You and Isabel go ahead.” He followed Morgan down the corridor, while I walked the rest of the way to my flat door. The flats weren’t that well spread out and the walls were paper-thin, so we’d have to keep our voices down, but at least I was reasonably confident no vampires would get into my room.

  I unlocked my door, letting Isabel in. “Morgan probably wouldn’t rat you out to Lady Montgomery. He’s broken enough rules himself.”

  “This is your place?” asked Isabel. “It’s… cosy.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. I didn’t pack much when I left.”

  I favoured a minimalist style—to be honest, in case I had to pack up and run again. All the necromancers’ flats were built along similar lines. One main room which served as bedroom, study and zombie movie theatre depending on the occasion, with an en-suite bathroom to the side. I’d papered the walls in paintings and sketches in an attempt to make it look like someone actually lived here, but aside from the necromancer gear tossed onto the bed, the handful of clothes on the floor and the small stack of textbooks and Stephen King titles on the bookshelf, I didn’t own that much in the way of material possessions. I’d grown up with nothing, after all, and even spending my teenage years with the mages hadn’t erased that.

  I moved my discarded clothes to the laundry basket and cleared the desk chair so Isabel could sit on it. “If you want to stay here, I can borrow a sleeping bag from Lloyd.”

  “No need. I did come prepared.” She smiled. “There’s a local coven who owns a hotel, and they owe me a favour. I didn’t expect to be back so soon, but you have somewhere else to practise magic if you like.”

  “I won’t be using necromancy, so we should be fine here,” I said. “That is… I don’t know what this Evelyn Hemlock is actually capable of, but I’m assuming Lady Harper told you more than she told me.”

  Isabel nodded. “Let’s start with basic witchcraft and go from there.” She emptied her pockets. Bands, pencils, pieces of chalk and herbs scattered onto the space I’d cleared on the floor. “You can at least use witch spells someone else has created, right?”

  “Yes, but so can anyone with magic.” They were designed that way, for at-home use. Making the spells required a finesse that even some witches struggled with. Brewing solutions in cauldrons, sketching out chalk circles and symbols… witchery in its modern form could be practised in a thousand ways. Some witches swore by one method or another, others embraced them all. Most witches picked a specialist area, but I’d never met one quite as creative as Isabel. No wonder she’d made coven leader at a fairly young age. Though I hoped Isabel would keep her penchant for magical explosions under wraps, for the sake of everyone else living in this corridor. “You can draw on the carpet with chalk. I have a few cleansing spells and a couple of repair ones, but not enough to fix broken furniture.”

  She grinned. “Don’t worry. You’re the one who’ll be using magic, not me.” She indicated the props she’d laid out on the floor. “Try making a ward.”

  Wards. Right. “Got a textbook? I’m a little rusty.”

  “Burdock, tansy, nettles.” She pointed out each ingredient. “Use a spell circle for protection. It’s the least volatile magic type there is, though, since it’s intended to be used for warding off foes.”

  “Not really necessary here,” I said. “The whole building’s one of the most secure places in the city. Evil can’t get in, through the physical or spirit worlds, and there’s enough iron to put off most faeries, too.” I picked up the small cauldron I kept next to the kettle for brewing up healing salves in an emergency, and picked out the selected ingredients.

  Isabel watched as I sketched out a chalk circle on the carpet, hoping that I wasn’t about to blow my chance of getting my security deposit back. Then I mashed the ingredients together in the cauldron and tossed them into the circle, sprinkling salt on top for good measure. Some witches used incantations, but Lady Harper had told me that they were like the words necromancers used for summoning or banishing ghosts. The actual words didn’t matter so much as the intent.

  If my coven’s magic was really so special, I shouldn’t need props at all. But as seconds passed and no magic answered my call, I began to doubt Evelyn Hemlock had any intention of making an appearance. The ingredients alone weren’t enough, and neither were the chalk symbols. What I needed was a dose of witchy magic, something I lacked at the best of times. Isabel had it in spades. I waved both hands over the circle, but the spirit’s magic remained noticeably absent.

  I sat back on my heels. “I think I’d have to let her totally take over to let her use magic, and I’m not sure I can. I’m the one who’s been in the driving seat my whole life. And I like my body the way it is.”

  “Maybe if I give her some encouragement?” Isabel moved to my side and reached out her hands. Holding her left palm over the circle, she took my hand with her right one and whispered something under her breath.

  Power hummed in my own skin, too, so sudden and startling that I yanked my hand away from hers, breaking the connection. “Whoa.”

  Isabel looked up at me, picking up the ingredients, which had fused into a single spell, shaped like a band.

  “Which of us did that?” I asked.

  “Both of us.” She gave me a smile. “Lady Harper said it might take a while for her powers to properly wake up, since they’ve been dormant for so long. But they’re definitely there. I felt them.”

  “That makes one of us. I thought it was your magic I felt.” Not the raw power that had flooded me in the spirit realm, and made my mouth move with a voice that wasn’t mine. “Necromancy came easily to me by comparison. Perhaps that’s all I have.”

  “Nah, you’ve had years of practise with the spirit sight, I’ll bet,” she said. ‘Let’s try again.”

  8

  The spirit realm surrounded me, grey fog stretching in every direction. I hovered on the spot, looking around at the pale shapes of the dead drifting towards the faint shape of the gates on the horizon.

  The answers are in here. I turned to the left, seeing a familiar shadowy shape. The outline of a person who was half here, half not.

  “You again,” the vampire said. His voice rumbled with anger.

  Oh, boy. I’d really ticked him off when I’d destroyed his pet. Not that I could see his face, or the rest of him for that matter.

  “Me,” I said to him. “Sorry I broke your vampire.”

  “The word is vessel, and I can always choose another. You, on the other hand, have only the one.”

  His hand reached out, and icy energy sprang to my fingertips, coursing through me like wildfire.

  “Tell me who you are,” I demanded. “Or so help me.”

  “JAS!”

  A tremendous crash drove me back into my mortal body with a jolt. My back hit the floor as I rolled over the edge of the bed. Another crash, and the door swung inward. Lloyd stood there, gaping at me.

  “Ow.” My head felt like it might split in two. I kicked the bedcovers off me and got to my feet. “Lloyd, shut the door. I’d like some privacy, thanks.”

  “So would the dozen necromancers you just woke up with whatever you did in the spirit realm.”

  “Shit.” I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know how it happened. I’ve never gone into the spirit realm by accident before, much less while I was sleeping.”

  “No shit. That’s a great way to test our security measures.”

  My throat went dry. No… the vampire hadn’t known where I was. Thank goodness for small mercies. But if he couldn’t find me, maybe I coul
dn’t find him, either.

  Lloyd folded his arms across his chest. “What did you do to cause that much of a disturbance, Jas?”

  I rubbed my forehead. “The vampire tried to attack me while I was sleeping.”

  “Seriously?” Lloyd swore. “You’re lucky the senior necromancers live on a different floor. Better hope they aren’t light sleepers, especially Lady Montgomery. As it is, I think you gave Morgan Lynn a hell of a headache. I heard him yelling.”

  I screwed up my face. “What did he have to say about zombies yesterday, anyway?”

  “Not much,” said Lloyd. “I think he knows there’s something up with you, though. Want to let him in on this?”

  “Too many people are already in on it,” I said. “I’m not sure even the Lynns know about vampires. I need to track the bastard and deal with him in person.” I gathered my bedcovers and threw them back onto the bed.

  “So the guy can possess any dead body in the city?” He eyed the remnants of the chalk circle on my floor. “You know, I doubt it’ll be that tricky to find him. The two of us attract the dead like a corpse attracts flies. All we have to do is walk out the doors and a horde of zombies will appear to attack us. When they do…”

  “I shift into the spirit world and find him? Might work. If I can trick him into letting his location slip. But if we get caught, we’ll end up with worse than being put on cleaning duty.”

  And someone might get hurt. The last thing I wanted was to put Lloyd in harm’s way, but the longer I let that vampire roam free, the more people he could tell I was a Hemlock. And what if he wasn’t the only vampire around?

  “Fair point,” Lloyd said. “Okay, I’ll steal the candles, and you—”

  “You know we’re both technically on the rota, right?” I said. “There’s nobody stopping us from taking on a voluntary extra mission.”