Wicked Magic Read online

  “This is Nathan Delacroix,” Nathan replied. “I lent your daughter my phone. She seemed to be in some trouble.”

  “I—I—” the woman gasped. She paused and Nathan heard her breathing loudly. Then she collected herself. “So sorry,” she said. “We’ve been terribly worried. I don’t suppose you could tell me where you are?”

  “On St. Aldates. Oxford,” Nathan replied, in case they weren’t locals. “Do you want me to bring your daughter anywhere?”

  “No, stay there,” the woman said. “I’m on WhatsApp. Can you send me a pin with your location? I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  Nathan had to end the call to do that, which made Emma cry harder.

  “Just let me send our location to your mum,” he grumbled. “Then you can call her again.”

  Around twenty minutes later, a grey Renault estate pulled up beside them and double parked. Before the engines had cut, a girl jumped out of the passenger side and ran to Emma. Nathan watched with interest as the two girls embraced. Two black swans. Colour him unsurprised.

  The mother joined them a moment later and, dang, she was a different animal—a dog, maybe? She hugged both of her daughters in one go, and there was a whole lot of crying. Nathan was beginning to put a picture together in his head of what had gone on here, and it wasn’t pretty. Who was kidnapping bird girls in Oxford? How long had Emma been held in captivity? Did he need to report this to the Council?

  The group hug separated, and the older girl turned to Nathan.

  “Thank you so—Nathan?”

  It was Cynthia.

  “Hey,” Nathan said tiredly. “So, long story short, I think I just saved your sister.”

  Cynthia hurled herself at him, hugging him and kissing his cheek, and it was literally the most awkward thing ever. He was going to have dreams about this forever, because for someone who seemed so awesome at sports, her body was soft in all sorts of places that he hadn’t expected, and her lips were warm, and her hair sort of tickled against his cheeks where it brushed him, and—

  Cynthia Rymes was kissing him.

  Oh, wow.

  She pulled away, still clinging to his arm, and flushing as red as a tomato.

  “Thank you so much!”

  “You know him?” her mother asked. Now that she’d calmed down, she was eyeing Nathan suspiciously.

  “Oh yeah, Mum, Nathan goes to MCS. He’s one of Poppy’s friends—you know Poppy Wiggen, she’s in upper sixth—and I met him at our last lacrosse game.”

  Okay, Nathan wished she had left that last one off, because it probably made him sound like a pervert.

  “Um, hi,” he said, thoroughly embarrassed. “I’m Nathan Delacroix.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs Rymes. She pursed her lips. “Will you let me drive you home?”

  “Oh no, I have my bike—”

  “You should come with us, we can explain what happened,” Cynthia said.

  “Cynthia, no,” her mother said.

  “But Mum—”

  Mrs Rymes shook her head and Cynthia sighed. “Sorry,” she said to Nathan.

  “It’s okay.” Nathan was no stranger to keeping secrets. Anyway, he had the information to figure this one out tucked in his pocket. “You should take Emma home. I think she’s been through an ordeal.”

  “Are you sure we can’t drop you?” Mrs Rymes insisted.

  “No, no, it’s fine,” Nathan replied.

  “Mum,” Emma said, “He said he knocked out the bad men.”

  Nathan covered his face with his hands. Between his fingers, he saw that Cynthia looked vaguely impressed. Her mother looked horrified.

  “Excuse me?” she demanded.

  “Your daughter was being followed by a bunch of guys,” Nathan said, dropping his hands again.

  “How?” Cynthia asked.

  “I do MMA,” Nathan muttered.

  “Wow,” Cynthia said.

  “And you just happened to be there at the right time?” Mrs Rymes asked. “That’s lucky.”

  “I walked my friend back to Oriel College. We were at the cinema.” Nathan’s phone buzzed in his hands. He shoved it in his pocket; whoever it was could wait.

  Mrs Rymes studied him for a moment, frowning.

  “I really think we should drop you home,” she said. “You’re not injured, are you?”

  “Nope, not a scratch,” Nathan said. He sighed. “I really don’t want to leave my bike in town overnight. I’ve already had two stolen round here.”

  “We can put it in the back of the car.”

  And so Mrs Rymes brought the car around whilst Cynthia and Nathan went to grab his bike.

  “MMA’s pretty rough, isn’t it?” Cynthia asked as they walked.

  “I guess,” Nathan said hesitantly. Was that cool or not? “I like martial arts.”

  “That’s kind of epic,” Cynthia told him.

  “I suppose,” Nathan said. “The bruises are certainly epic.”

  “Ever broken any bones?” she asked.

  “My left arm and my right ankle,” Nathan said.

  “Wow,” said Cynthia. “Never would have thought it, seeing you hanging out with your friend in the park.”

  “Do I look that incapable?” Nathan asked, wondering whether to be offended or not.

  “No! I meant, uh, oh.” Cynthia hesitated. “I meant, you just looked, uh, like a normal guy. And I guess you have hidden depths, or whatever.”

  “Or whatever,” Nathan repeated dubiously, but he was grinning. Cynthia thought he had hidden depths! Matt was going to die when Nathan told him about this. If Nathan told him about this. It might be better to keep quiet about it. The last thing Nathan wanted was to involve Matt in something dangerous.

  “Where are we going?” Mrs Rymes asked once they’d loaded his bike into the car.

  “Straight down the Abingdon Road, I’ll show you where to turn off.”

  By car, the trip was only five minutes. Soon they had found Aunt Anna’s four bedroom redbrick. It was quite a plain house, but Nathan was kind of glad for that right now, because at least it didn’t scream vampire hunter. Mrs Rymes already seemed suspicious of him.

  Aunt Anna came hurtling out the door the moment the car stopped. She stared at them, frowning. Nathan sighed and opened his door.

  “Hey, Aunt Anna. My friend gave me a lift home.”

  “Nathan, do you have any idea what time it is? You were supposed to be home by eleven-thirty!”

  “Oops…”

  “Damn, did we get you in trouble?” Cynthia whispered behind him.

  “Nah,” Nathan said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Get in the house!” Aunt Anna said.

  “Alright, but can I get my bike?”

  Cynthia climbed out to help him, except that she didn’t do much helping. Once he had his bike on the ground she touched his arm. Nathan looked at her in surprise.

  “Um, thanks,” she whispered. “I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t been there.”

  “You’re welcome,” Nathan said. “See you soon?”

  “We should meet up some time,” Cynthia replied.

  “I’d like that.” Nathan smiled at her, though she probably couldn’t see because their streetlight was out. “Thanks for the lift, Mrs Rymes,” he called into the car, then he gave Cynthia a little wave and headed to put his bike in the garden.

  Aunt Anna met him in the kitchen.

  “You should have called. I texted you twice. I was worried.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Anna,” Nathan said. “It honestly didn’t occur to me. I, uh, ran into Cynthia after Matt and I split, and we got chatting.”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” she warned. “Or I’ll tell your parents.”

  That threat carried weight. Dad valued discipline above all else. He’d be furious if he found out Nathan was violating curfew and hanging out with girls.

  “I’m really sorry,” Nathan said, trying to look as contrite as possible.

  “J
ust go to bed.” Aunt Anna sighed.

  That night, Nathan fell asleep with a smile on his face.

  Cynthia thought he was cool. Hell yeah!

  CHAPTER THREE

  MONICA: BORED!

  Monica: Entertain me

  Monica: Lily said your amulet works

  Monica: You scumbag, when did you learn magic?

  Monica: You hunters have so many tricks

  Monica: Stop ignoring me!

  Monica: NAAAAAAAAAATEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  The knife Nathan had picked up was definitely magical, so it called for a witch to identify it. Fortunately, Nathan knew one who was never more than a snarky text message away.

  Nathan: Good timing, can I send you a pic and you see if you recognise it?

  Monica: You bitch, my mentor could have cooked me in a cauldron in the time you took to reply

  Monica: And now you’re just using me for info

  Monica: What am I, your witchy booty call?

  Monica: Go on tho, I’m curious

  In the light of day, the knife looked even more evil than it had last night. It felt wicked in Nathan’s hands, like it wanted to bleed someone dry, so he’d wrapped it in a hoodie last night and hidden it in his cupboard. Now, he laid it carefully on his bed.

  The symbols were not runes he’d ever worked with before—hunter runes were mostly Germanic in origin, but these were unfamiliar. The knife had a strange, curved blade and a serrated edge. It was weird. Nathan had never seen anything like it before.

  He snapped a picture and sent it to Monica, then hid the knife again and went downstairs for breakfast. She took the better part of fifteen minutes to reply.

  Monica: Where TF did you get that????

  Monica: That’s serious black magic!!!!

  Nathan: What is it tho?

  Monica: Old folk tale in Middle East about Sahir. Dark magic practitioners. I’m not an expert but Noura is freaking out

  Noura was Monica’s witch mentor. Nathan had only a vague idea of what she was teaching Monica, but it involved an alarming amount of animal sacrifice, which put it solidly in the moral grey area that all hunters hated.

  Nathan: She recognises it?

  Monica: She says don’t cut yourself, it’ll drain the life out of you!

  Well, shit. That officially put a dampener on Nathan’s mood.

  Nathan: Should I report this to someone?

  Monica: I dunno? Tell Adrian? Your call

  Nathan sighed into his cereal. Jess, sitting opposite him and doing homework, gave him a weird look.

  “What’s up with you?”

  “None of your beeswax,” Nathan replied automatically. Except, he had to call his uncle. His vampire uncle. The person he was supposed to have absolutely nothing to do with, ever, unless he shoved a stake between Adrian’s ribs and shuffled his (im)mortal coil.

  He put his cereal bowl in the sink and told Aunt Anna, “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Don’t be long, I know you haven’t done your homework yet!”

  Damn, and he had a tonne of work for geography.

  Still, he pulled on his shoes and headed out, eventually settling on the swings in the park. From there, he called Adrian.

  “Nate? What a shocker.”

  “Hi, Adrian,” Nathan said. “You free to talk?”

  “I’m guessing this isn’t a social call. Just let me evict the pretty blond from my bed.”

  “Ha-ha, and here I thought you liked brunettes.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “Need to ask you something. Have you ever heard of people who have, like, a bird in their aura?”

  “A what?”

  “Like a black swan!” Adrian was sniggering. “Adrian, I’m serious! Alright, I saved this little kid from being kidnapped in town last night, and she had a bird in her aura, and the guys who were chasing her were seriously soaked in black magic. The one guy dropped this knife—I got Monica to ID it and she said it belongs to a group called the Sahir.”

  Adrian was silent for a second. Finally, in a significantly more serious tone, he said, “Start from the beginning.”

  Nathan narrated the events of the previous night to his uncle, starting from after he’d split from Lily and Damien. No need to mention he’d been anywhere near Lily last night. He finished with, “The strangest part is their mother was kind of suspicious of me. I mean, I’m not that dodgy, am I? I’m seventeen.”

  “I’d be more suspicious that you were going to steal someone’s TV than kidnap their kid,” Adrian said.

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Come on, it’s fair.”

  Nathan rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Monica said I should give you a heads up.”

  “You want me to come down to Oxford?” Adrian asked. “I could probably swing it.”

  “Only if you have to.” It would be nice to have backup, but the thought made Nathan uncomfortable. If Adrian came here, there was a risk of him being found out. Or rather, there was a risk of their family finding out that he and Nathan were hanging out together.

  “I’ll see what I can find out about bird people from here, then,” Adrian said. “But the supernatural library in Oxford is better. And, of course, Damien might know.”

  “I’d really prefer not to involve Damien,” Nathan said. “Adrian, whatever else this is, Cynthia and Emma are just ordinary schoolgirls. Don’t put them on the Council’s radar.”

  “Alright, well update me if you find out anything.”

  “Will do.” Nathan began to say his goodbyes, but Adrian interrupted him.

  “Before you go, have you thought about what’s going to happen next month?”

  A cold feeling crept into Nathan’s stomach, despite the fact that it was still quite warm for September.

  “Not really,” he said with forced calm.

  “Don’t let them push you if you’re not ready,” Adrian said. “Eighteen is young.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Nathan replied. “Listen, I gotta go. I have a tonne of homework.”

  “Sure, see you around.” Adrian hung up. Nathan pocketed his phone, but he didn’t immediately get up, even though a mother was glaring at him for blocking one of the swings.

  Next month was his birthday. He’d be eighteen. At eighteen, he could become a fully qualified hunter.

  Was he ready?

  He didn’t feel ready.

  Sighing, Nathan got up and headed home. He didn’t have to figure this out for a few weeks, yet. It could wait.

  Homework, however, could not.

  Over the course of the next few days, Monica sent Nathan a steady stream of information about the Sahir. It was information which Nathan could have better done without.

  Objectively, he knew that there were plenty of dark magic practitioners in the world. In the UK, and most of western Europe, the Council kept an eye on that sort of thing. It was pretty illegal to do anything involving death, for example, be it using magic to take life or to bring someone back to life—although it was debateable whether true necromancy was actually possible. Other parts of the world tended to hold different views on that sort of thing. And then there were a huge number of moral grey areas, such as the slaughtering of animals for magic, which was necessary in a large number of spells—according to Monica, at least—but considered illegal in many countries.

  ‘Sihr’, or black magic, was forbidden in Islam. What it boiled down to was taking the life of others to make yourself stronger. The knife was the tool of the trade, so to speak.

  That meant Nathan was very definitely in possession of a highly illegal artefact, which he should hand over to the Council, ASAP. In fact, he should let the Council handle this whole thing.

  The Council—made up of three witches, three vampires, and three hunters—was the supernatural authority for the whole of Europe. This was definitely under their remit. It was not the responsibility of Nathan Delacroix, seventeen-year-old trainee hunter who was failing two subjects at school.

  And he would have gladly left it on the Council’s doorstep
, possibly bound up with a pretty ribbon and a card saying, ‘you’re welcome’, if it weren’t for one thing: Cynthia and her sister.

  How could a person be a bird and a human at the same time?

  Nathan had done a bit of digging. There were, of course, the weres. The most common was a werewolf, though weres could technically be any predator. The hunter database had records of lions, tigers, and leopards, as well as coyotes and a bunch of others. Even weredogs were possible, although the last sighting had been about fifty years ago. Most importantly, though, weres tended to like the natural habitat of their animal: jungles or savannahs. Okay, you might get a werefox in an urban area, but it was unlikely. In any case, wereswans did not exist. There were no records whatsoever of the phenomenon.

  The other mystery was the aura. Weres had auras, but they looked like a sort of buzzing energy around them. You could tell they were supernatural, but not what kind of animal they turned into.

  What he really wanted to do was talk to Cynthia about it. He just didn’t know how.

  Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, can you secretly turn into a bird?

  Yeah, it just didn’t have the kind of vibe he was going for.

  On Thursday, Nathan cycled to Uni Parks again, determined that he’d at least speak to Cynthia. He laid on the grass with his head cushioned on his school blazer and watched the Headington Girls lacrosse team get slaughtered. Matt hadn’t been able to make it—he was still making nice with Poppy, who had apparently got it into her head that Matt had a thing for Lily, or something.

  Girls were confusing.

  Between the mass of people on the field, it took him several moments to notice something was different.

  Cynthia’s aura had changed.

  Nathan squinted at her. No swan, but there was a different animal. Was that… a cat? Not a big, predatorial cat. It looked like a silver tabby, like someone’s pet. It was hard to see, though, because it didn’t stand out well against the cloudy sky and the grass.

  A short while later, Headington Girls trudged to a miserable defeat. They shook hands with the Didcot team and wandered off the field, looking thoroughly disheartened. Nathan watched them and hoped that Cynthia would notice him, but it was one of her friends who finally pointed in Nathan’s direction. Cynthia turned and caught sight of him.