Chapter 1 #2
The front parlour reeks of rotten spells. William appears; John nods curtly and withdraws—no doubt heading straight home. No one wishes to be caught out after dark. Night is when the vampires hunt, and no one wants to be their next meal.
I offer William a small smile. His lower lip trembles. He is pale and sweating, with a dark ring staining his collar. His thinning, mousy brown hair sticks up in odd directions, as though he has dragged his hands through it one too many times.
“William, are you well?” I ask softly, unwilling to alert our unsavoury hosts to his distress. The dread coiling in my gut tightens. I want to leave.
We are surrounded.
Without conscious thought, I draw power. I am tired, but my magic comes willingly. The well of power inside is abundant, more so with fear and determination riding me. It coils in my chest like a filament of fire pulled from the very air, hot and bright.
There is paper in my bag. There is paper in this house. Documents, maps, and architectural plans. I summon them, readying them, just in case. In my mind’s eye, words quiver on distant pages, waiting.
“So, you’re the paper mage,” a man says, stepping from the shadows.
He is a ritual mage—I sense it at once, the prickle of foreign power brushing against mine. Dark hair, pale skin, and a villainous moustache veil his thin upper lip. I detest such facial hair. Father always said a gentleman ought to be clean-shaven.
“I always wondered which of your family wielded the magic,” he continues. “Didn’t expect it to be you. A woman.”
He seems to be the leader, but he is not bright; the simplest enquiry would have exposed the truth, so he must be from elsewhere. The secret of my magic is poorly kept. Most people know full well who I am.
“An old woman.” His laugh is harsh, mirthless.
I resist wrinkling my nose in disgust. Old? Who is he calling old? He is no spring chicken. I am a respectable forty-three, barely halfway through life.
Pure magic users who survive childhood often reach their eighties, while shifters—on paper—can live for centuries, provided they are not too busy murdering one another. Vampires can live for millennia.
Some call us ‘derivatives,’ humans with something extra. True humans still outnumber us. We are hardly poised to conquer the world, though the vampires have lately been doing a bloody good job—one poor neck at a time.
The mage sniffs, awaiting my reply, but I remain silent. William parts his lips; one glare from me shuts him up. Sweat beads on his brow, a droplet slides from his temple, catches in his sideburn, then slips beneath his collar.
“I’ve work for you,” the mage says at last, drawing something from his coat.
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“No, thank you. I do not like you,” I say quietly. “I only work with people I like. You are rude, and I shall do no work for you.”
The shifters who surround us laugh, low and cruel.
William lets out a squeak of protest, trembling behind me. “Hestia, I beg you—be sensible. Do as they command,” he whispers, voice quivering. “Please... they shall kill me as well.”
“Oh, hush, William, you are not going to die,” I say, my voice steely. Not while I have breath in my body. “We do not work for disrespectful thugs.”
My magic flares, and the paper hones itself.
“You’ll step into that circle,” the mage says, gripping his wand. He levels it at me; its tip glows red with a primed spell. The light pulses, eager.
“Circle?”
The shifters step aside, revealing a ritual circle on the floor, with candles flickering in the breeze drifting through the empty window frames. Chalk lines, symbols, and sigils knot together in intricate patterns.
Beautiful, precise, and vile.
The sight of it makes bile rise in my throat.
It is then that I understand.
“Please... they shall kill me as well,” William had said.
His words strike like a runaway carriage. I look from the circle to the menacing shifters, to the mage with his primed wand, then back to my whimpering husband.
This is a trap.
My husband has brought me here to shield himself. They had assumed William was the paper mage. Once they learnt the truth, he handed me over.
I accepted him and our marriage because he was easy to manage. I never considered that others might manage him too, or that he would prove a coward.
What kind of man hands over his wife? I shake my head. I will deal with him later.
If these men want a fight, they shall bloody well have one.
“Did you know paper cuts hurt more than you expect? Paper is thin yet sharp—it slices the skin without going deep, catching more nerve endings. That is why something so small hurts so badly. Have you ever had a paper cut?” My voice sinks to a sinister murmur as chaos erupts.
Loose strands of hair whip against my face as paper hurtles from my bag, in through windows and under doors—scraps, sheets, maps, and blueprints—each one summoned to me, each sharp as a razor.
They whirl about me in a slicing cyclone, cutting like a hundred knives. I laugh as the shifters scream, ducking and cursing as they dodge the flying blades to shield the moustached mage.
Behind me, almost cowering in my skirts, is my good-for-nothing husband. We must get out of here. My distraction has worked; the shifters are too busy evading the paper storm to notice us.
“We can walk to the door,” I whisper. “I will shield us.”
He sobs and, with shaking hands, picks up the hammer propped in the corner.
I hum with quiet satisfaction. He needs no weapon—I have already shielded us—but it is good that he takes this seriously. I ready myself to move, magic thrumming at my fingertips.
William strikes the back of my head.
White pain explodes. The world blinks out.