A Grave Magic: The Shadow Sorceress Book One Read online

  “The girl, the girl we’re looking for, the one from the pictures. She was right there, in your arms, but….” He trailed off and stared down at the floor.

  I knew what he was thinking; emotions swirled across his face, generally a blend of disbelief and shock, and I couldn’t blame him for that. If I’d been in his shoes, I’d have felt exactly the same way. But I wasn’t; I was the one who was supposed to understand the laws of magic and how it worked.

  But in this instance, I was pretty much lost.

  Whatever we’d done had been so far outside my remit, I wasn’t even sure where to begin with it all.

  “How did you do that?” he asked, staring back at me, the disbelief and shock mingling together to create fear.

  “I don’t know, I don’t think I was really in control of it, I mean, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t….” Doubt crept into my voice.

  “Then how was it even possible? You’re the only witch here, Morgan, you’re the only one capable of doing something like that.”

  “I don’t know!” I repeated with frustration.

  All I ever seemed to feel was angry and frustrated; nothing I wanted went in the way I imagined it would and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to stop it.

  “This isn’t an exact science and this is all still pretty new to me. The best I was hoping for out of that spell was a sign. Instead, what I got, well, to be honest, I’m not sure what I got….”

  “She was here. It looked like her but she was dead. Does that mean…?”

  I turned for the door and paused dead in my tracks, Christina stood in the doorway, or at least an echo of her. She scanned the room, her expression terrified before something took her hand and spun her around.

  She disappeared down the hall and I followed her, moving quickly and silently to the bedroom door. I watched her pause at the top of the steps, tears streamed down her cheeks.

  I went after her as she reached back to me, her hand outstretched as though I could grab her and pull her back to safety. But none of this was real; at least, now it wasn’t. It had already happened and Christina was long gone.

  Racing down the stairs, I watched as she disappeared in through the living room door, her small feet making no sound against the tile floor. Reaching the doorway, I spotted the double patio doors at the back of the house stood wide open and, without knowing why, I knew that was where she had escaped to with her brother.

  A scream pierced the air, one that chilled me to my very core, and I ran, covering the ground between me and the door in a few short bounds.

  “Morgan, wait!” Graham called after me, but I couldn’t wait. I needed know what had happened, I needed to see who had taken her; it was our only hope of finding a clue to follow.

  Pausing in the garden, I watched as something dark and shadowed held Christina back. She struggled against the hold it had on her and I followed her line of sight.

  Joshua, or Joshy, as his mother had called him, stood near the edge of the shrubbery, directly in front of the place where I knew his body had been hidden….

  The vampire that had murdered his mother advanced on him, slowly, toying with him.

  Christina bit down on the hand of the woman who held her and, breaking free of her hold, she bounded across the space between her and her brother.

  The vampire lashed out, his hand connecting with Christina’s face, sending her tiny fragile body crashing backwards onto the ground. Josh’s face was screwed up, tears trickled down his cheeks, but I could see the anger that filled his gaze.

  He went to move towards his sister, his attention momentarily distracted from the vampire that circled him.

  “No!” I screamed, the sound ripping from my throat as the vampire grabbed Josh. The sound of his neck snapping filled the air like a gunshot and I dropped to the ground.

  The female vampire watched me, her gaze odd as she seemed to focus on where I kneeled on the ground. It wasn’t possible; this was nothing but an echo, a memory of what had occurred, and yet I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the vampire had seen me.

  She scooped Christina up in her arms, cradling her unconscious body in against her chest as she continued to watch me. Her eyes didn’t really fit her face; something about them told me that whatever was going on, it wasn’t the vampire who was truly watching me.

  Madeline had mentioned someone else, someone they were working for.

  “Morgan! Morgan!” Graham’s voice filtered through the darkness in my head and I tried to blink it away.

  He crouched over me, his hands gripping my shoulders as he shook me.

  The grass was wet beneath my head and I struggled to my knees. Why was I lying on the ground? I could remember dropping to my knees when they’d killed Joshua, but….

  The rest was a blur. Something had watched me, something old and inhuman from the vampire’s eyes.

  Were they the reason my spell had worked so well? Was it their magic I was riding the coattails of? It was entirely possible, but I’d never done it before.

  “What happened? One minute you’re running out here like your life depended on it, and the next….”

  “What did I do, Graham?”

  “You dropped to the ground. It was like someone had shot you; I’ve only ever seen it happen in people who died. You dropped like someone had cut your strings.”

  The headache I’d had earlier was beginning to return, and I winced as I gingerly held my head in my hands before climbing slowly to my feet.

  “The coroner can relax; it was the vamp that snapped Joshua’s neck before dumping him into the well.”

  “And the girl?”

  “They took her with them; they need her.”

  Graham’s expression shifted his horror growing as my words sank in.

  “What would they need with a little girl?”

  I shook my head, “I don’t honestly know, but I have a feeling they’re not the ones calling the shots. They’re working for someone else.”

  “And they need the girl?”

  I shrugged, but the movement was enough to send my head spinning once more.

  “I really don’t know, I presume so.”

  “You sure you’re all right?” Graham asked, grabbing my arm and holding me steady.

  “Yeah, I just need something to eat and some sleep….”

  It was his turn to nod, and he kept a tight grip on my arm as he led me back through the house and out the front door.

  “How are we going to explain the hole in the carpet upstairs?”

  “We don’t. We’ll tell them it was like that when we got there…. The Elite don’t particularly understand magic; they’re not going to know what caused it. They’ll believe whatever we tell them.”

  Graham grinned as he locked the front door behind him once more.

  “You know, I never had you pegged for being such a rebel. If I’d known sooner, I’ve partnered with you before now.”

  Turning away from him, I hid my smile. All I’d wanted since I’d started working for the Elite was a way to help people, to figure out what had killed my father, and get my revenge.

  And now I had a way to do both, and it was because of Graham. I was grateful to him, but it didn’t change the face that he was afraid of me. Probably always would be, no matter how many times I proved myself to be on his side.

  The fear was embedded too deep, and no amount of protesting on my behalf would change that.

  Chapter 22

  Graham pulled his car to a halt outside my apartment building and I slowly opened my eyes once more. My head was really starting to pound, and all I wanted to do was crawl underneath the duvet and bury my head.

  Hiding from the world was the only solution.

  “Thanks for everything,” I said before I climbed from the car.

  He called after me, but I ignored him; I needed time to try and put the pieces of my head back together. What I’d seen tonight had been too much.

  I was new to all of it. Most cops, most Elite o
fficers, had time to grow a thicker skin to the cases they worked on. I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d been dumped in the deep end and I was drowning.

  I couldn’t walk away from it, and I wouldn’t, but in the meantime, I needed to make sure that when it was all over and done with I was going to have enough sanity to walk back to my own life and my own vendetta.

  Reaching the apartment door, I slid my key into the lock and pushed the door open. The apartment was dark and I moved confidently towards the bedroom, sliding out of my leather jacket before I even reached the door.

  The weapons holster was the next thing to go, and I unclipped it carefully before removing the gun and placing it in the drawer next to the bed.

  Pausing, I stared down at the gun sitting in the bottom of the drawer. I could always sleep with it under my pillow; feeling the solid piece beneath my fingers would certainly bring me a sense of peace.

  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a bad idea. It would only invite disaster. I was prone to nightmares and putting a fully loaded weapon in my hands during one of them….

  Well, it just wasn’t a good idea.

  Slamming the drawer shut, I tugged off my jeans and slid beneath the covers. I hadn’t even bothered to put the lights on; knowing the apartment like the back of my own hand made it easy to do things in the dark.

  Closing my eyes, I let the tiredness wash over me. If I could just get even a little sleep before the nightmares started….

  * * *

  A faint noise in the darkness woke me; my body was drenched in sweat and was stuck to the sheets like a day old piece of chewing gum.

  Untangling myself, I lay back in the dark and let the cool air circulate around my waist and legs.

  Why was I awake?

  Glancing over at the blinking red light of the alarm clock, the small screen glared back at me, the angry red digits reading three ten.

  The nightmares had been there again, just like they always were. Could I really call them nightmares anymore, when they were so familiar to me?

  Nightmares were supposed to scare and terrify, mine, whilst forcing me to relive the most horrific night of my life, were now like old friends. They always started the same way: the smile my father had given me, the look of pride on his face as he’d watched me receive my scholarly achievement award.

  The warm hug he’d given me after I had climbed down from the stage. Even now, when I closed my eyes, I could still remember the distinctive smell of his cologne as he’d wrapped his strong arms around me and dragged me in close for a bear hug.

  And while every night I was happy to see him, I knew what was coming next. I knew his screaming intimately, the look of terror that filled his eyes as he fought against the demon.

  I’d swung my backpack at its solid back but it hadn’t deterred it from its savagery.

  The wet sounds as it feasted on him.

  Bile crept up the back of my throat and I struggled to blink back my tears.

  If I’d been the witch I was supposed to be, if I had the power my mother did, that our ancestors did, then he wouldn’t be dead. Instead, I’d stood by and watched it rip him apart, and when it had turned on me….

  That part of my memory was still hazy, but my mother had told me the story often enough to fill in the blanks.

  She’d stepped in and saved me, sent the demon back to Hell where it belonged.

  Swallowing back the pain, I rolled onto my side and paused. There was that noise again, like something scratching in the dark.

  Reaching noiselessly for the locker beside my bed, I slid open the drawer and felt around for the gun I’d placed in there before bed. My fingers scrabbled across the smooth timber, but there was no gun.

  Adrenaline flowed through me, kicking my body into gear as I peered into the darkness. There was something in the room with me; something had taken the gun.

  “You know I’m here, don’t you?” His voice sent a trickle of icy fear trailing down my spine.

  I knew his voice, recognised it from the visions I’d had of him murdering Joanna.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, fighting to keep my voice as steady as I could. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking he could frighten me.

  “You know what I’ve done, you know what I can do to you, and yet still you’re sitting there trying to think up some way to escape.”

  Something rustled in the darkness and then I felt the end of the bed shift beneath his weight. I tensed, but he didn’t come any closer.

  I was trained for this, trained to fight, but he had the upper hand. He was stronger, faster, and he could see in the dark. He was the perfect predator.

  “You should give yourself to me. I’ll turn you if you ask me nicely enough,” he said, his voice closer this time.

  “I’d rather send you to Hell.” I spat the words into the dark.

  His laughter raised goosebumps across my arms and down my neck, and the bed shifted again.

  “The only one going to Hell tonight, bitch, is you.”

  The sound of the springs groaning was the only warning I had that he was on the move. He didn’t make a sound, but I instinctively knew what he’d done.

  I rolled to the side, sliding out the opposite side of the bed, taking the other locker drawer with me. I smashed it against the floor, but he was already on top of me, his weight pressing me down onto the slippery wood floor.

  He had no breath, but his grunt gave me a gauge as to how close his face was to me. I jerked my arm up into his face as my other free hand searched through the broken pieces of the drawer.

  He bit down on my arm and I screamed, anger and pain mingling together, making me sound more like a banshee than anything human. Power boiled in my veins and my hand closed around a large piece of wood.

  Lashing out, I sliced at his face, stabbing him with the wood where I thought his eye might be.

  It was his turn to howl, the sound reverberating through the apartment.

  “You whore!” he screamed, wrapping his hands around my throat as I tried to buck him off.

  But even though I’d wounded him, he was still stronger, and trying to shift his weight from on top of my body was like trying to dead-lift a car.

  He pinned me down, his grip tightening to the point where I knew my windpipe would crush beneath his savage grip.

  You’re not going to die like this, you have far too much to do. Save Christina! The voice in the back of my head piped up and, without thinking, I planted both hands against his chest.

  Raw power unlike anything I’d ever felt before flowed through me. Flames erupted across the vampire’s chest, momentarily blinding me and startling him enough to release me.

  Rolling away from him, I scrambled in the dark for my weapons belt, my fingers closing around my father’s athame. The vampire stood in the centre of the room, beating at his body as he attempted to extinguish the flames that covered him.

  Pushing up onto my feet, I crossed the space between us and drew back my leg to kick him. The blow sent him reeling backwards across the bed, the flames that covered him catching the duvet, causing the room to light with an odd orange glow.

  He growled and launched himself back towards me, sending us both careening onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. I stabbed him with the blade, catching him square in the chest, but as the blade sank home, he twisted to the side, his fist crashing down into my face sending the world spiralling into darkness.

  Chapter 23

  “Sweetheart, wake up, you need to wake up….”

  My father called out to me, his voice dragging a pained sob from my lips. It had been so long since I’d heard him; I’d forgotten what he sounded like, and even in my dreams, I couldn’t recreate the tone of his voice.

  It had been lost to me….

  Until now.

  “Amber, wake up!”

  There was an urgency to his voice and I struggled to open my eyes, but my body felt tired. My lungs were on fire and each breat
h I took didn’t bring me the relief drinking in a large mouthful of oxygen normally did.

  My eyes fluttered open and I stared around at my surroundings; nighttime shouldn’t have been so bright but everywhere I looked, the room was cast in a weird orange glow.

  The vampire, the fire. Everything came flooding back to me and I jerked awake.

  The room was on fire. The flames had spread from the bed and were making steady progress across the floor to where I lay.

  Dragging myself onto my hands and knees, I started to crawl for the door. Keeping low to the floor, I fought my way forward across the hot floorboards.

  I had to get out.

  Moving only made it harder to breathe and each little bit of progress I made only made the tiredness close in around me faster.

  “Amber,” a voice called out, and I gripped the athame tighter.

  A figure appeared in the doorway; the cloth he held over his mouth obscured most of his face but I still recognised him. The Hunter from earlier. Tt seemed he just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  He stepped into the room and I tried to crawl past him, but he scooped me up into his arms, crushing my body to his as he carried me out into the smoke filled hall.

  He staggered down the hall and I clung to him. It was a sign of weakness, but in that moment I didn’t care. I wanted out of the fiery death trap that my apartment had become and there was no way I was going to find my way out through the hall on my own.

  Bursting out into the hall, he collapsed up against the wall and drew in a long shuddering breath. Pressed so close to his chest, I could feel his heart as it hammered against his ribcage, and it was soothing.

  “We need to get out onto the street,” he said, starting down the hall and away from the apartment door.

  “How did you know?” I asked, my voice hoarse and utterly alien to my own ears.

  He ducked his head and his face from view, colour spreading across his face and up into his hairline.

  “Nic, how did you know?” I said again, this time my voice was a little stronger.