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Nick frowned as the latest assignment from the Circle appeared on his phone screen and took a sip of his coffee. “Suicides? Seriously?” he muttered. What did I do to deserve this?
Zoe slumped into the seat opposite him at their usual table outside the Rose Cafe. “I need to get my memories back fast. I can’t take much more of those stupid tests.” She grabbed his cup of coffee and gulped it down, making a face. “Urgh, how do you drink such strong black coffee?”
Nick didn’t mind her drinking from his cup if the coffee made her feel better, it certainly wouldn’t help his mood but seeing her again did. “We’ll get them back soon.” One way or another, he’d help her find out who she’d been before. “Are you off probation yet?”
She scowled. “No, they still think I’m the one responsible for killing those psychics,” she said. “I’d like to find the entity that possessed Carmel and wring its neck, then banish it straight to hell.”
“We have a new case.” He sent the details over to her phone. “Time for a trip to the morgue.”
Nick cast a glamour over himself as he prepared to enter the morgue, while Zoe fidgeted beside him. A glamour could disguise someone’s true nature, and guardians could create better ones than most fey. He could cast one on her himself, but he wanted her to learn to do it on her own. She hadn’t been able to master them yet, but he knew she had it in her. “Try casting one.”
Zoe bit her lip. “What if it triggers one of my blackouts again?”
“Then you’ll blend in with the rest of the stiffs.” He smirked at his bad joke.
“That’s so not funny, Trevelyan.” She thumped him on the shoulder.
“Focus. Close your eyes.”
Her brown eyes flashed, but she squeezed them shut.
“Okay. Focus on who you want to look like. Picture them in your mind.” Nick leant against the wall and watched her frown.
“How do I know who to pick?” She opened her eyes again, shooting him a questioning look.
Nick tried not to sigh. “It can be anyone except someone you know.” He wished she wouldn’t ask some many questions, and just did as she was told.
“What if I get that person into trouble?”
“Zoe!” He crossed his arms.
She rolled her eyes before closing them again. “Fine, I’m focusing. I see them. Now what?”
“Concentrate. Let the magic work.”
Can’t I just turn invisible? she said. That’s easier, and I won’t be seen then.
Trust me, glamours are easier, and they last a lot longer. Try it. They’re an important part of working as a guardian.
Light flashed over her face. Her hair became darker, her eyes lightened, and her face changed. “Hey, I think it worked!”
“Good, let’s move.” He touched the door, and it creaked open. The smell of death and disinfectant filled the air.
Zoe covered her nose. “Oh god, how do you not gag in here?”
He shrugged. I’m used to it. Silver wants us to check the body first.
Why doesn’t Silver do it?
Silver is not a guardian.
No, but she’s better suited to the job. She’s a healer, she could identify things on the body that we can’t.
His chuckle filled her mind. Not scared of a dead body, are you, princess?
Of course not. She scowled at him, but Nick had spent enough time with her by now to know when she put on a brave front.
“Where is the body then?” Zoe covered her nose again and motioned to the vacant drawers.
The room was sterile and white with stainless steel counter tops. Nick didn’t mind the smell or feel of the place anymore, yet Zoe clearly struggled. “It’s on its way. We need to make sure the humans don’t have a chance to examine her first.”
Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “We’re stealing a body? That’s just wrong!” she said. “Won’t the humans notice?”
“Keeping the existence of Magickind a secret is one of our highest priorities,” he said simply. “It’s one of the reasons why guardians were created in the first place. No, the humans won’t notice. There’s a system in place to take care of things like that.”
“Really? I thought they were created to keep the rest of Magickind in line? Especially the fey?” She glanced around the room and shuddered.
“The body will be here any minute, just try and relax, princess.”
“You really need to stop calling me that!” She scowled at him. “How do you even know when a body is going to be brought in?”
“I have contacts.”
“When are you going to share those contacts with me?” Zoe arched a brow.
Nick hesitated. He’d gotten so used to working alone over the years it still felt strange sharing information with someone else, but despite her annoying tendency to question everything, he liked having Zoe around.
“How long do we have to wait?” She pulled out her phone.
“Not long.” He glanced over her shoulder as she scrolled through different pages from the database he and Raf had spent the last few months building. It contained information about the different kinds of fey and Magickind. She seemed to spend a lot of time reading through it all. “Most of the fey are gone now. The dark fey were banished to the underworld and the rest—well, they’re all gone. No one knows why, so don’t ask.”
She looked up from her phone. “Doesn’t the Circle want to know?”
“It’s not my place to question them.” He glanced at his watch, wondering when the ambulance would arrive. “How is Carmel, by the way?”
Zoe’s shoulders slumped. “Same as before. She still won’t wake up.”
Nick squeezed her shoulder. “I promise we’ll do everything we can to help her.”
The sound of a van pulling up outside made them both straighten. Light flashed around Zoe as she became invisible.
“I said not to do that!” he hissed.
She reappeared a second later. “I can’t help it. It’s an old habit.” She rubbed her arms. It’s something I do when I get nervous.
“Yeah, and a...”
She gave him a shove as footsteps approached.
Nick only shook his head as the doors opened and a trolley rolled in. “Thanks, we’ll take it from here,” Nick told the two paramedics.
Both men wore green uniforms. One had dark hair, the other blonde. Both were human. One of them opened their mouth to speak, but Nick’s eyes flashed, and both men left without saying another word.
“Okay, that’s another thing. How do you compel people like that?” Zoe put her hands on her hips, demanding an answer.
“A lot of training.” Nick unzipped the body bag to reveal the face of a woman with long blonde hair and alabaster skin. “She is a mermaid. I didn’t think they ever came near the English coast anymore. They’re pretty rare.”
“Mermaid? Wow, do...” Zoe shut up when he gave her a look.
“Looks like she drowned, but that’s impossible. Her kind can’t drown.” He pulled out his knife, drew power from it, and ran the blade over her, checking for any traces of energy. Gills appeared on the side of her neck. Her fingers and toes webbed as he broke through the natural glamour that protected her kind from prying human eyes, and even death. “We need to get her to Silver.”
Zoe crossed her arms. “I’d still like to know how you stop humans from finding out about us.”
“I’ll take care of it. You take her to Silver. Go.”
Zoe drew her own athame and did a check, just as he’d taught her. “I don’t sense anything either. Weird.”
“Go.”
She raised her hand and grinned when a glowing vein of white energy appeared on the grey tiled floor. “I did it!” Zoe cringed as she grabbed the dead woman’s arm. “Yuck!” She and the body vanished in a flash of light.
Nick set about erasing the memories of anyone that may have seen the body, including the paramedics, and any evidence of the body ever being there. Using the memory dust made him think of Zoe, and wonder why anyone would have erased her memories. She’d only been a kid, what could she have done to warrant such treatment? Even the Circle wouldn’t have gone to such extreme lengths.
Nick sighed as he took one final look about the now spotless room in the morgue. All in a day’s work, being a guardian.
Once he’d finished at the morgue, Nick blurred to the castle to find Zoe watching Silver examine the body as he entered the lab. Machines in test tubes covered each of the black tiled counter tops and beds lining one side of the room.
Odd, he’d expected her to be repulsed.
“This was a suicide,” Silver announced. True to her name, she had long silvery blonde hair and pale blue eyes. She wore her usual gypsy blouse and frilly skirt underneath her lab coat.
Nick frowned. “Are you sure? Mermaids are psychos. They sure as hell kill others, but they don’t kill themselves.”
“I’m sure,” Silver said. “I can’t find any traces of magic on her. This was self-inflicted, she drowned herself.”
Zoe frowned. “How?” she asked. “Don’t mermaids spend their time singing to crabs?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Mermaids are nothing like that. Sure, they might long for legs, but they also eat people.”
Silver shook her head. “My guess would be she forced herself to stop breathing. It’s just like the other two bodies that have been brought in. I don’t understand it,” she said, “but I don’t sense any energy in her body either. All fey—all Magickind—have energy within them. No matter what species, or how powerful they are.”
“Something must be forcing them to do it,” Nick mused. “A mermaid wouldn’t be suicidal.”
“Maybe they get lonely living in the sea and want to live on land,” Zoe suggested.
“Mermaids are psychopaths—they enjoy killing. They hate humans,” Nick told her. “You really need to stop thinking of mermaids as they are depicted in that stupid Disney film.”
“Hey, that’s one of my favourite films!” Zoe pouted.
He and Silver stood performing the usual tests just to double check for energy traces, but neither of them found anything. Silver ran blood tests and scans in the hope of getting answers, but they showed nothing either.
“Zoe, come here,” Nick ordered.
She scowled. “Again, with the bossing around.”
He sighed, rubbing his temples “Please come here.”
Silver pinched his cheek and grinned. “Wow, you’re finally getting some manners. It’s only taken you thirty years.”
“Hey, I have manners!” He could be nice and polite when required, but mostly he just thought manners, small talk, and politeness were a waste of time.
Zoe snorted. “Yeah right!” She moved closer. “What do you want me to do?”
“Try looking for traces of magic with your hands, not your knife.”
She cringed but said nothing as she placed her hand on the mermaid’s forehead.
What are you doing? Silver asked Nick, frowning at him.
Testing a theory. He leant back against the counter, feeling Zoe cast her senses out with her mind.
We’ve already run the usual tests. No signs of any coercion—magical or otherwise. Silver glanced at her clipboard again.
We didn’t see anything, but she might. We still don’t know the full extent of her abilities. Maybe she’ll sense something I can’t. He suspected Zoe was a lot more powerful than they realised. Whether that power came from her, or the strange curse inside her, he didn’t know.
“Concentrate. See what you can sense,” he told Zoe.
Zoe’s forehead creased. “I don’t sense anything.”
“Keep trying.”
Nick! Silver said. This is—
He ignored her.
Zoe shook her head.
“Nothing.” She bit her lip.
Nick placed his hand on top of hers. He’d heard of guardians joining powers, but never had the chance to test it himself, until he met Zoe he’d thought he was the only one left. His own mother had died before she had the chance to teach him much about being a guardian.
Energy jolted between them. Zoe’s eyes flew open, and she stared at him. Energy hummed between them, almost like they were one being, as their powers merged. Strange, he hadn’t thought it would work given that her curse seemed to shield her from everything.
Relax, he told her as he felt her tense. Concentrate.
This feels weird.
We’re guardians, we can join powers—enhance our own individual abilities. Let’s see what we can sense. He wrapped his free arm around her. He enjoyed the feel of her pressed close, but quickly pushed such thoughts away.
Light pulsed between their joined hands, radiating over the body. Suddenly, a familiar icy feeling washed over his senses – a sign of underworld magic.
I feel it too, she said, biting her lip again. What is it?
Something dark and unnatural. A dark fey did this.
What kind? She glanced up at him.
Nick shook his head and frowned. I still sense a trace of magic in her mind. Maybe we can use it to see what happened to her.
Zoe gaped at him. Since when can you read dead people’s minds?
Usually I can only read people’s surface thoughts, but if her thoughts or memories are strong enough, I might be able to pick up on them, especially with our joint power. He gripped her hand tighter, feeling her unease instantly. Focus your senses on her mind, feel the energy within the body.
Like Silver said, there’s hardly any left.
Concentrate, princess. I know we can do this. Nick closed his eyes and let his senses travel into the mermaid’s body. Within the mermaid’s mind, he felt a sliver of energy left behind, barely a hint of it. It glowed like a tiny silver thread in the black abyss of her mind. Nick tugged at it, willed it to show him more. He felt Zoe’s energy merging with his own.
A figure emerged through the darkness as her final thoughts began to appear in front of their eyes. The mermaid’s heart pounded, fear gnawed at her. Odd. Nick had doubted mermaids ever felt fear of anything given what ruthless killers they were.
“Come here,” a voice hissed. Nick couldn’t make out whether it was male or female, but it sounded cold, almost guttural. “You can’t escape me.”
The mermaid tried to run. If she could just get back to water, she would be safe. She raced across a beach Nick recognised as the beach on Mersey Island. The figure chased her and threw a blast of light that exploded on the ground behind her. The mermaid stumbled, her legs giving out as she tried to crawl back toward the safety of the water.
“Fool, you can’t run from me.” A hand grabbed her ankle as she turned to stare up into a familiar set of dark eyes —Zoe’s eyes. The hand grabbed the mermaid by the throat. The mermaid then turned and jumped into the water, her lungs burning as her gills desperately tried to pump air into her body. Yet she wouldn’t take a breath, she couldn’t. Something compelled her not to.
“Holy crap!” Zoe gasped as she pulled away. “That...”
“Was creepy. Too bad we didn’t see anything,” Nick said and gripped Zoe’s arm tightly. Calm down, we can’t tell Silver what we just saw. She’ll tell the Circle, and I won’t risk them hurting you.
Nick, didn’t you just see that? That looked just like me! She glared at him.
But it wasn’t you. Nick took her hand, squeezing it and sent magic out of his fingertips to try and calm her down.
The door to the lab burst open, and in walked Raf. He had a balding head with a few scraps of dark hair left, and a dark straggly beard. His pale blue eyes held wisdom in them.
“Hey, Raf,” Nick said, forcing his face to adopt an impassive expression. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to check on the body. Two other Magickind, both fey - one a pixie and one a low-level miscreant - have been found dead in the last couple of weeks. Their bodies had no life force left in them and the Circle is concerned it might be the same killer as the one who killed the psychics,” Raf replied, glancing to them. “Have you found anything out from this body?”
“No, nothing. Zoe and I were just checking her body for any signs of anything strange. We glimpsed a bit of her last thoughts and it wasn’t suicide. Something compelled her to take her own life.”
Raf shook his head. “That makes no sense. No fey, witch, or shifter would do that.” He crossed the room and started examining the body himself.
Although Raf had lost his guardian powers a long time ago during the Guardians’ War, he still possessed some magic and knew what to look for.
Nick felt Zoe tremble beside him. Relax. If you give the Circle any reason to suspect you were behind this, they’ll kill you.
But what if I did do this? You know there’s something inside of me I can’t control.
“When was the body found by the way?” Nick asked Silver.
Silver glanced at her clipboard. “This morning over on Mersea Island. By my estimate, she died sometime last night.”
See. It couldn’t have been you. Nick squeezed Zoe’s hand. You were with me in bed all night.
Zoe pulled away and grabbed her jacket, “I have to go.”
He instantly missed the contact between them and scowled. No doubt she was sneaking off to see Sabine again. That bloody witch was more trouble than she was worth. She might be powerful, but he doubted she could help Zoe to recover her memories or undo her curse.
“See you later. Call if you find anything.” With that, she blurred out before he could say a word.
Nick moved over to Raf and sighed. “Did you find anything?” he asked. As much as he wanted to find out why the mermaid had died, he had to protect Zoe at all costs. The Circle was just looking for an excuse to lock her up, and experiment on her to find out why someone had cursed her.
“No, I sense nothing. There’s no energy left in the body, and I see no visible clues on her, magical or otherwise.” Raf sighed. “I’d better get going. I have to open the pub soon.” Raf’s cover in the human world was working as a pub landlord. It gave him the chance to check on any fey, or other Magickind, who came in and out of town.
Nick let out a breath once Raf finally left.
Silver frowned at him. “What just happened? Did you and Zoe see something?” She put her hands on her hips.
“No, we already told you, we didn’t see anything.” He grabbed the leather jacket that he’d left by the door and pulled it on, checking his phone to see if Zoe had sent him any messages. She would be freaking out, yet nothing appeared on his screen.
“Nick, I’ve known you a long time. I know when you’re lying to me.”
“We didn’t see anything substantial, but I know the mermaid’s death wasn’t an accident. Let me know if you find anything else out.”
“She looked scared. What did you see?” Silver repeated, her calm yet insistent tone stopped Nick in his tracks.
“Nothing important, I think it might be connected to the psychic killer somehow. I just need to find more proof of that.”
“Okay, if you don’t want to talk about what you saw, then what just happened with you and Zoe? I swear sparks flew when you were touching each other just now.”
“It’s a guardian thing. You wouldn’t understand.” He walked toward the door.
“I may not be a guardian like you, but you can’t deny there’s an attraction between the two of you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a friend, that’s it.”
“Riiight,” Silver drawled. “Why can’t you just admit you like her?”
“Sure, I like her just fine—when she’s not being a...”
“You’re just not used to women challenging you. Well, except me, but that’s different because we’re like siblings.”
“Yeah, and Zoe is like...” Nick paused, trying to find the right word. “She’s different, but I’m not interested in her romantically. Raf would kill me.” Raf had warned him not to get romantically involved with her, and he hadn’t, though he didn’t know why the former guardian had such reservations about her.
“You’re the last two guardians, and you’re—”
Nick suddenly looked down. “Hey, look. I see something.” A rune had appeared on the woman’s chest. “I don’t recognise it, do you?”
“Nice diversion, and no, I don’t.”
“I’d better get researching then. Talk to you later.”
