Chapter 7

 

Leira sipped her vodka and orange juice, and tried to pay attention to the conversation that Amy and Bree were having about their respective boyfriends—who had not been invited out with them tonight. Which made a nice change as it meant that the guys hadn’t brought a single friend to be her partner for the evening. She didn’t like being the fifth wheel or being set up.

Some of the guys she’d been introduced had been perfectly delightful and they’d had a few months of fun. Some had not.

Amy was trying to decide the best way to celebrate her one-year anniversary.

“Dinner, then put on a private show.” Bree giggled.

“He could put on the show.” Leira knew that Amy’s boyfriend would never do anything like that. But if a guy couldn’t have a bit of fun in the bedroom, then there was no point. Besides what was more romantic than lying on the bed eating chocolate and sipping champagne while watching a man get slowly undressed?

She tried to imagine Julian doing something like that. She didn’t know him well enough to know if he would… But she could totally picture it. She smiled as she had another drink.

“Do you think I should ask if he wants to move in with me? It doesn’t make sense that he has his own place when he’s fly in/fly out and away half the time.” Amy ordered another drink.

The club was noisy, but not overly full. The music was good, and she should be enjoying herself, yet all Leira wanted to be doing was trying out her magic at home. She wanted to be able to do something new. She wanted progress. For too long she’d been defined by what she couldn’t do.

She was the only living female fire user. She had to nail that shit and get it together.

However tonight she was supposed to be Leira the friend. Human, boring, and the one with the pathetic love life. She really needed to do something drastic to fix up her life. The only thing she was good at was her studies. She forced a smile she didn’t feel. The vision of smoke was haunting her, coming for her. She wanted to cough even though there was no smoke filling her lungs.

“So it’s really your one-year anniversary?” Leira said. That was still six months longer than she’d ever managed. That vision of the Albah man on a train had stifled her dating life because she’d always been waiting for him. Why bother getting too attached to a human when the perfect man was just around the corner?

Except he was here and all that was around the corner was disaster. She’d waited, and for what?

Bree gave her a nudge. “What’s wrong? You’ve been far too quiet all night and you haven’t danced with a single man.”

“I don’t know.” She needed to hide it better. She made her smile brighter and could feel the fakeness radiating off her. She shrugged as though it was nothing.

Amy latched on to Leira’s indecision. “Ohhh, do you have someone?”

“No.” She laughed. Julian was not her someone. She didn’t know what he was. Yet.

That she had spent all her spare time reading his mother’s first diary on magic just meant that she was interested in magic, not him. Just because he was letting her read them didn’t mean anything either.

She didn’t quite believe that, though. When he’d smiled at her, there had been something. Maybe. She couldn’t be sure now. Tomorrow when they met up for a non-date, she would try to get a more personal feel for him. Talk less about magic and more about him. What if they only had magic in common? He was a few years older than she was. He was living his life and she was still studying.

“Don’t believe you.” Bree gave her another nudge.

Her friends’ constant teasing about her love life—either the lack of or the rapid turnover—was pissing her off tonight. She didn’t need it. Maybe she was incapable of having a relationship. And that was the problem.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She was totally going to lie so she could leave.

Iron nails found in Julian’s apartment. Be alert.

She gasped as dread washed through her and left her unable to breathe. The words blurred. She forced herself to exhale. She blinked. Iron had been found; it didn’t say Julian was dead or even hurt.

“Leira? Are you okay?” Bree put her hand on her arm. “You went really white.”

“Are you sick? Pregnant? Is that just orange juice without the vodka?” Amy took the drink out of Leira’s hand and then stole a sip.

Leira shook her head. The screen on her phone went black. The tips of her fingers were white where they pressed against the red and gold cover.

There was a Guardian in Perth.

A Guardian had found Julian.

She needed fresh air. There were too many people in the club and any one of them could be a Guardian. Even though the club wasn’t full, the crowd seemed to press against her. She started sweating and her heartbeat quickened. “I need to go outside.”

Bree walked her out. Amy downed her new drink in a couple of swallows, not wanting to waste it, and followed.

Leira wanted to lean against the cool bricks of the night club wall, but suspected too many men had used the wall as a urinal so she didn’t touch it. Instead she paced on the sidewalk with her arms around her stomach. Outside wasn’t any safer.

“Did someone put something in your drink?”

“It was the text message.”

“Is someone dead?”

“Leira?”

Her friends were buzzing around her like she was about to fall over or black out.

“I’m okay.” She’d never expected her research to collide with her life. Had she found something that had been flagged, drawing them here? No, Julian was the target.

A warning had been left so that he had time to panic and call other Albah, luring more to their death. Traditionally, there would be three warnings. The Guardians liked the Albah to feel afraid and to know they could trust no human around them. At least they couldn’t rally the village into picking up pitchforks. They couldn’t point a finger of accusation and get the local priest involved. Those days had passed into the pages of history, although she knew that in some countries superstitions ran high and people were still killed for being witches.

She’d spent so much time researching the past that she hadn’t looked at the present. She hadn’t thought Guardians still existed. What kind of person believed it was okay to run around killing?

Yet, even at Quinn’s place, everyone had acted as though the Guardians of Adam were very much real. She’d thought they were overreacting.

“Are you sure you aren’t going to faint?” Amy wobbled in her heels as she took hold of Leira’s hand.

“Just some bad news.” She drew in a breath. Think rationally. Calm down. It was hard to do when she already had a few drinks in her and had just learned that there was someone hunting Albah.

If she met Julian tomorrow, was she putting herself in danger? She ran her fingers through her hair and then made sure that her ears were covered. They were. Most people thought them cute and odd with the top folded over.

Most people thought elves had long pointed ears.

They thought fairies had wings.

They thought vampires had fangs.

All wrong. Lies spread to help protect the Albah when they had left their ruined civilization and fled to the mainland, where the humans lived. Humans had proven that they really don’t like strangers. Nothing much had changed in the thousands of years since. The Albah were still persecuted outsiders.

But the Albah were human, just different, just magical. They couldn’t help the magic in their blood any more than Amy could switch off the genes that made her eyes brown.

“I think I might go home.” Leira hadn’t been in the mood for going out. She should’ve listened to her gut and stayed home and played with fire.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Bree was angling to know what was in the text message. There was no way Leira was able to share it. She couldn’t explain it without revealing what she was. The constant hiding and not talking about magic had served no purpose. It didn’t work. The Guardians had come anyway.

Leira nodded. She wasn’t okay. Her nice safe world was unraveling.

Bree and Amy waited with her until she got a cab. But instead of going home to her mother’s place, where she would be alone, she went to her sister’s. Saba was the only one who would understand.

* * * *

Dale answered the door, took one look at Leira’s jeans, and slinky top and makeup and let her in. “News ruined your night out?”

“Didn’t want to go home.” However, she hadn’t expected him to be here either. She wished she’d gone home now as she was clearly crashing couple time. “You work homicide, guess you’ll be first on the scene when Julian gets killed.”

“He’s not going to get killed.” Dale didn’t smile. He looked grim. Saba had obviously clued him on the Guardians’ MO.

Saba came out of the bedroom in pajamas and hugged her tight. Leira returned the embrace. Fighting with her sister was so stupid when the rest of the world hated them.

“I can go,” Dale said.

“No. I’d feel safer if you stayed.” Saba glanced at Dale.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt date night.” Or sleepover or whatever her sister and Dale had been doing. She didn’t want to think about it.

“We’ve all had our nights interrupted.” Dale’s phone rang before he could say any more and he stepped away to answer it.

“When are you going to see Julian again?”

“Tomorrow. I don’t know if I should. What if he’s being watched?” She did want to meet up with him again. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how much she’d been looking forward to it.

Saba pressed her lips together. “I don’t think you should see him. It’s too dangerous.”

“They hunt the men.” Usually. Though that was a relatively modern phenomenon. Before that the Guardians had hunted everyone. She didn’t want her sister telling her what to do. She could make her own decisions. She wasn’t stupid.

“But your vision?” Saba was frowning.

“Changed because I met him at the wrong time. He must live if I was supposed to meet him on a train later.” Yes. That must be right. She’d met him too soon and to meet him later he had to live. It was all going to be fine.

Saba shook her head. “The person hunting him might have changed all that. The paths all intersect. It’s not just what you do. It’s what they do too.” She nodded at Dale, who was now scowling and making some serious-sounding noises into his phone.

“So this Guardian has screwed up my future?” That was totally unfair.

“You’re oversimplifying. You know how complex readings are. Everything is always in flux.” Saba was managing to sound calm. How could she be so cool and rational?

Leira knew what Saba was saying was true. It’s why she had constantly checked on her future because she’d always been worried that it would be snatched away. Well, no hate-filled Guardian was going to take away Julian. Or interfere with her life.

Dale crossed the living room and rejoined them. “Julian’s ex. A twenty-five-year-old woman from Texas doesn’t exist. Fake name, fake passport. We’ll get her prints, though, and see if she is in the system. She might be the Guardian.”

Leira stepped back. “His ex?”

There was a look between Dale and Saba. Dale gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Until earlier this week, he had a ‘casual relationship’ with an Emily Fergus. His words.”

Julian had failed to mention that.

Wrong time indeed. But then she wasn’t actually dating him, was she? So what did it matter who he was seeing, or had been seeing? It wasn’t as though she’d been single while waiting for him to appear.

“Wait, how long were they together?”

“Four months, on and off.” Dale had obviously caught up on the full story in one phone call.

Leira shook her head. “Guardians don’t date what they hunt. We aren’t human to them. They certainly wouldn’t sleep with an Albah.” She’d be asking Julian some very personal questions when she met him next. She did not like the idea that she’d met up with him when he was seeing someone else. However, they’d done nothing wrong. And now he was single.

Had he broken up with Emily before or after meeting her? That wasn’t the point. The point was who was the Guardian if it wasn’t Emily?

“Leira’s right. Emily probably isn’t the Guardian.” Saba bit her lip and stared at Leira.

“Well, Emily is hiding something. Fake passports don’t grow on trees.” Dale’s phone buzzed with another message.

Leira glanced at her sister. She knew that Saba and Dale had gotten off to a rocky start. Dale hadn’t wanted to believe in magic even though Saba had accidentally revealed her ability to him. Things had worked out for them. She needed to believe that she could get her future back to how it was supposed to be. Happy instead of smoky. Maybe once the smoke cleared there would be something amazing waiting.

“I have to go.” Dale kissed Saba. “Not related to the Guardian.”

“Too much death,” Saba said.

“Yeah. It’s always too much. But it’s actually been pretty quiet for the last two weeks.” He smiled. “I’ll call you later.” He touched her hand. A casual lingering gesture as though he wanted to hold on to her instead of leaving.

Leira looked away. At least she wasn’t solely responsible for ruining their evening together. How often did Dale get called away to investigate a death? How did he deal with it?

When the front door closed, Saba turned her attention to Leira. “Have a bath and get changed. I’ll give you some pajamas. Then we are going to do a reading and see where you are heading. Because while the iron was found at Julian’s house I’m sure you’re tangled up in this somehow.”

“I told you I shouldn’t have gone to the meeting. I met him too early.” He had still been with someone.

And that someone was pissed.

* * * *

Julian had spent the last two days trying not to look over his shoulder, but he couldn’t help it. Someone was after him and it was only a matter of time until they caught up with him. He didn’t like thinking that it could be Emily.

Why would she have waited four months before threatening him?

Wouldn’t he have noticed that his girlfriend was a killer?

He hoped he would have.

If she was, then she already knew where he worked as well as where he lived. Given that the cops were treating it as non-serious there was nothing to do but wait. It was comforting to know that he’d get another warning before the Guardian struck the final blow.

He’d called Leira to suggest canceling, but she’d still wanted to get together. Somewhere public this time, just in case, so they’d rescheduled. The lunchtime crowd of Forest Place was perfect. People went by, rushing to get lunch or do their shopping. They didn’t bother him as much as the people who were standing around, watching everyone else, much like he was doing.

This was the fear that the Guardians liked to instill in their victims. The watching and the waiting for it to happen. It was a sick game and he didn’t want to play even as he couldn’t help but wonder if the Guardian was standing only meters away watching him. Leira strolled over. Her hair was out, hiding her ears, and she didn’t look pleased. He could imagine.

Somehow a Guardian had found him. Had he treated them in hospital?

How had his name come up and not Finley’s or his father’s?

Not that he was wishing them ill in his place. If he’d stayed in Sydney, everyone here would’ve been safe. There would have been no danger of putting them in front of the Guardian’s gaze.

“Hey.” Leira handed him the first diary. “I read it. Thank you.”

“You don’t need it to work from?” He was happy for her to keep it for as long as she needed. He’d been hoping to be able to use the diaries as a way to keep seeing her while he worked out if it was just her magic that caught his attention or her. When she was with him there was something, an attraction that when beyond looks, but he couldn’t work out what it was.

“I made a few notes and the rest is here.” She tapped her head.

“I didn’t bring the others.” He should have asked her if she wanted the next one.

“That’s okay. Today isn’t a day for practicing.” She cast her gaze slowly around the area. “You see anyone you recognize?”

“No. Should I?”

Leira shrugged. “I don’t know.”

That wasn’t the whole truth, but he didn’t press. “Shall we get lunch?”

She nodded and they went into a café and ordered. Conversation didn’t flow like it had at the beach. Here they had to watch what they said in case people were listening in.

After she’d poked at her salad for a few minutes Leira spoke up. “How come you didn’t tell me you were seeing someone?”

“Because it wasn’t important. We aren’t dating. I was barely dating her. I’m not anymore.” This was not what he wanted to talk about.

“Do you think it’s her?” Leira held his gaze.

He hesitated.

Leira studied him without flinching. The silver in her blue eyes was unnerving. He’d never dated another Albah. She was just as dangerous as he could be, more so because her magic could be used to attack—when she got control of it of course.

He swallowed and gave in. They were clearly talking about this so he might as well get on with it. “I don’t want to think it’s her.”

“From what I know, it doesn’t fit. You should be dead already.”

“Thanks.” He ate a few bites of his pasta even though his appetite was fading.

“I’ve spent a lot of time studying historical witch hunters and their secret societies. It’s my thesis. I don’t know how much of that translates to modern Guardians.” Her voice was low and she was leaning forward so that the table next to them couldn’t listen in too intently.

The man at the table was working on his laptop. Who brought their laptop to lunch at a busy café? Maybe he was proving how busy and important he was, so busy he couldn’t even stop for lunch. That or he was the Guardian and he was eavesdropping and making notes. Julian doubted it, since the man had been here when they’d walked in.

“Dad said there isn’t much. Mostly because we don’t call the cops because we know they won’t see the threat. Then it’s too late.” He hadn’t wanted to call the police. And he wished he hadn’t after the way they’d looked at him. They didn’t care. Nothing had been stolen, just his ex playing a prank, hahaha.

“Where as in the past it was recorded, often by both sides.” She smiled but it quickly vanished.

Julian gave up on eating and leaned in. “You have Guardian diaries?”

“I don’t have them, but I’ve read them. To find them one has to look up occultist history and be prepared to dig. Most scholars assume they are ramblings or non-scientific imaginations running wild. And there are some of them too, so you have to know what you are looking for. There was also more than one type of Guardian. Like any organization there were factions. Some insisted on duels—to be honorable back in the day when that kind of thing mattered. Those with a religious bent liked to involve the churches.”

Julian shuddered. “Have you seen some of the torture instruments they used?”

Leira nodded. “But they weren’t just for us. They were for anyone who didn’t obey.”

“Not comforting.”

“It kind of is. Humans are assholes, even to other humans. We aren’t that special.” She smiled and this time it stuck. She was talking about something she understood. The uncertainty that had clouded her face on the beach was gone.

And he found himself smiling for the first time since finding the tacks. “Do all those factions still exist?”

“I don’t know. No one knows. The truce was drawn up and then everything went quiet on both sides. But even if Emily took the breakup badly, and we assume she isn’t Guardian because it doesn’t fit, her choice of retaliation is odd.”

“I know. She could have killed me in my sleep.” He’d held her close, shared a bed with her. Trusted her. “She could have…” He didn’t have a car to vandalize. “Smashed up my TV and laptop while she was at my place. Not that she had a key.”

“Why did you break up with her?” That was no casual question. Leira’s gaze had sharpened and the blue of her eyes shimmered.

He took a drink of water to stall. He was being grilled about his ex all over again, but unlike the cops, Leira had more right to know. “Because the hassle had started to outweigh the convenience.”

That was the unvarnished truth. It wasn’t pretty. What he and Emily had had never been pretty, and it didn’t paint him in a good light. He knew that, but what else could he say? It hadn’t been a relationship that he’d expected to go places.

Leira stabbed a tomato, her gaze on him. She ate it slowly making him wait. Just when he was about to elaborate she spoke. “Is that how you think of all your relationships? Like they are there for your convenience?”

Julian glanced away and stared out the window. His heart clenched. Was that Emily in the crowd? But when he tried to find her again, she was gone. He was imagining it. Would it be better if it was her hunting him? Someone he could recognize?

“No.” He looked back at Leira. She was asking questions that weren’t related to magic or the Guardians. He remembered the way she’d looked at him when he’d walked into his father’s lounge room. She had been shocked to see him, as if she knew him. Maybe she did. Maybe she’d made a list of eligible Albah men and his name had been at the top. Or maybe she’d known he was a fire user but had believed him to be still in Sydney. Or maybe she’d seen him in a reading. He wanted to ask but couldn’t.

Maybe he should get a reading to find out what was going to happen next. But he didn’t want to know what his future held. If he knew, he might screw it up. If he saw that he lived through this and then he celebrated too early that might change everything. He’d rather take each day as it came and make the best of it. Given that he may be running out of days, that seemed like a really good idea.

“Not every relationship is going to go somewhere. We’d both gone in knowing it was a short-term thing.” He frowned. “But she’d been getting clingy and wanting to meet my family.”

Leira made a noise in her throat. “Maybe it is her. She wanted to know how many others live here.” Her words became even softer.

“We can’t hunt her.” They didn’t even know for sure it was her. He didn’t even know her real name. He knew that Emily was the most obvious choice, even if she didn’t fit the profile of a Guardian of Adam.

“I know, because then we’d be breaking the law.” Leira didn’t look convinced that not hunting her was a good idea.

Waiting for Emily to attack again—if it was her—didn’t seem like the right thing to do either. He couldn’t imagine Emily being violent. She couldn’t even kill a spider. “Were there female Guardians?”

“Apparently, but they were the most secretive. I guess if they were too obvious they could be accused of being witches themselves by a hysterical public.”

“A hysterical population is easy to control. They’ll report others to keep themselves safe.” History was full of people that had created the fear and then used it to put themselves in positions of power. It was still happening. This time the targets weren’t witches.

Leira nodded and pushed her plate of half-eaten salad aside. “You need to get a reading done.”

“No.” He shook his head. He’d gotten this far through his life without getting one done and he had no plans to change that.

She drew in a breath. “Yes, because ever since I saw you for the first time my life has gone off course and I all I get is smoke and flames.”

He stared at her. Had he brought her death? “Why did you agree to meet me today?”

“Because it’s already there. Having lunch might take it away, although I doubt it. I need to work out a way to change my future, and since you are involved, you will get a reading. Bring something of hers and I’ll do one for her too.” It wasn’t a question. She was giving him an order. There was that push in his gut that he should obey even if he didn’t want to.

“Isn’t that a bit…wrong?” He was pretty sure that in his mother’s diary she had mentioned not scrying for someone else without their permission. He hadn’t paid close attention to that bit as men didn’t have that ability.

“Yes, however in this situation I’m happy to break that rule. It’s more of an ethical guideline anyway.” She didn’t seem the least bit concerned about looking into Emily’s future.

He drew in a breath, realizing why the guideline was there. A female Albah could sneak a peek into so many lives. Something else she’d said snagged in his brain. “What makes you think I am involved in your future?”

Leira pressed her lips together. “Let’s just say you were in a much more pleasant version of my future, but I didn’t know it was you until you walked into the meeting.”