Shadowlands: a New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spire Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  Shadowlands

  The Spire Chronicles Book 4

  Ashley Meira

  Contents

  Story Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Lucas

  Lucas

  Author’s Note

  Also by Ashley Meira

  Copyright © 2016 by Ashley Meira

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously or are entirely fictional.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected].

  Editing is an imperfect process; mistakes always find a way to slip through. If you notice any typos or mistakes, please send a message pointing them out to [email protected]!

  Cover design by Ravven (www.ravven.com)

  If you want to be notified when Ashley Meira’s next novel is released and get a chance to win free books and occasional other goodies, please sign up for her mailing list by clicking here.

  Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  Created with Vellum

  To Angela and Anna, who never gave up on me even when I gave up on myself. You two made this book possible, and I will forever be grateful!

  Story Summary

  It's been less than a month since monster hunter Morgan's last big case, and trouble is already rearing its ugly head. When Morgan's boyfriend makes a startling discovery about the bodies piling up around New York City, the two of them will have to venture deep into the land of the dead to find answers.

  But they aren't alone. Old flames and not-so-old friends have come to play, and not all of them have the purest of intentions. Morgan's magic can blast through the undead, but will it be able to help the witch hold on to the last bit of family she has left?

  Chapter One

  The world spun around as more and more blood oozed from my wrist. How much had I lost? It felt like everything was gone and my body was just going through the motions, making me see the crimson liquid where none was left. Why did I think this was a good idea? Would this really help me find my mother? Would this accomplish anything more than suffering through endless cycles of pain and bloodletting?

  I didn't know. And with all the blood loss, I doubt I'd be able to figure it out right now. I sighed, looking sluggishly through the darkness clouding my vision. The fireplace to my left looked like little more than an ember to my blood-starved eyes, its dim light making my blood look black. The knife cutting into me was of demonic origins, the dark magic imbued within it rendering my regenerative abilities useless.

  Or at least it should have. Yet my gift healed the injuries as it usually did, sealing up the grave, life-threatening ones before working on the shallow remnants. If there was a trick to turning this ability off at will so it didn't automatically drain my energy at the worst of times, I had yet to find it.

  The healing didn't stop Elise. She was more than happy to continue cutting into me again and again and again to keep the blood flowing. I’d asked her to stop halfway through, saying I changed my mind, that I no longer wanted to learn thaumaturgy. She only had one thing to say.

  “Stop being a child.”

  “I'm not being a child,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes childishly. “I am being a perfectly normal person that is sick of being gutted just to practice blood magic."

  She gave me her patented unimpressed look and picked up the knife once more.

  "You know," I cut in before she could, well, cut in, "owning demonic artifacts is taboo for vampires. One call to Marcus and you could be executed."

  She wouldn't be and we both knew it. Elise was King Marcus' — the leader of the vampires in New York — magical advisor. It wouldn't take much effort on her part to brush the knife off as research material. I was just taking her accusation to heart and being childish. You'd be surprised how easy it was to regress when someone was slicing your wrists open.

  "Thank you for telling me about the fears and prejudices of my own species," she said dryly, placing the knife on the table between us. "As you might have guessed from the name, blood magic requires the use of blood. You asked to be taught the finer points of thaumaturgy. The first thing all students of the craft must learn is how to use blood as fuel for their magic in place of the innate energy within them. There is a bit of a learning curve, yes, but someone of your skill should be able to make the adjustment rather smoothly. If only you would stop healing your—"

  "I'm not healing them,” I said, slumping against the couch.

  As my wounds closed up, the fire came back, vibrant as ever. Despite all her complaining, I'd managed to bleed enough for the world to dim. Maybe she was just cutting me as payback for all my dumb, yet awesome, jokes. Her lack of appreciation for puns made me sad. "They're healing on their own — as usual. If you want to blame something, blame the knife. It's supposed to limit my healing. Are you sure it's demonic?"

  "Quite," she said. "Besides, weren't you the one who just threatened to 'out' me for owning a demonic weapon?"

  "I just want to be sure it's the real deal."

  "It is."

  "Well, it's not doing its job."

  Dorian stuck his head into the living room. He looked absolutely precious, his big grey eyes peering between me and the statuesque thaumaturge. Without a word, he came over and sat next to me, nuzzling his young, pale face against my arm.

  "Don't distract her," Elise chastised.

  "I don't mind," I said, happy to postpone my mutilation.

  The first time I met Dorian, I thought he was creepier than those twins in The Shining. Hell, he was creepy, but he was also such a cute little thing that I couldn't help cooing over him. Yes, I really am that shallow.

  "I know you don't," she said with an unimpressed lilt. "However, we are never going to get anything done if you slack off. You came to me for help. This is what needs to be done.”

  Before I could reply, a yawn ripped itself from my mouth. We'd been at this all night and it had been incredibly draining. Being the lazy slug that I was, I wanted to go home and lay around with Alex a bit before bed.

  But I knew I had to practice, to learn thaumaturgy so I could trace my bloodline. It would let me learn more about where I came from and who my mother was, maybe even where she was.

  After meeting Lucas, patching things up with my father, discovering I had a werewolf half-brother, and running into Noah — who was a mystery wrapped in an enigma stuffed into a taco shell all on his own — my desire to know my family, to connect all those dots, had grown beyon
d what it already was.

  But I’d found nothing.

  Noah wasn't answering the damn mirror he'd given me. Lucas... Well, there hadn't been any reports of mass murders, mutilations, shifter poaching, or anything else that would stand out in that big, morbid way the vampiric infernalist seemed to prefer. All I could do was hope he'd dropped dead somewhere. I'm an optimist.

  I wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with me. I was young, accomplished, in a committed relationship with a wonderful man, and I had a career that allowed me to set people on fire. I should be happy and content. Instead, I was here, putting myself through unnecessary pain and trouble searching for a woman who, for all intents and purposes, didn’t want to be found.

  "I suppose we can end the session here," Elise said finally. I knew she was mostly saying it to spare herself the torture of hearing me complain, but I wasn't going to insist we start popping open my veins again.

  "I want to learn," I told her in a serious voice. "It's just hard to focus on using blood to cast a spell when my attention keeps going back to the repeated cuts being made on my arm. Could we practice with someone else's blood first? Or, I don't know, shove your fist through my torso — that'll get tons of blood."

  She raised a thin brow. "Do you really want me to do that?"

  "If it means you don't keep sawing into my arm... No. I'm not actually crazy."

  "You were in a building full of hellfire less than a month ago."

  "I didn't run into the building while it was on fire."

  "One's own blood is the best medium of practice for beginners," she said with a heavy sigh, bringing a hand up to rub the bridge of her nose. "Like the energy your magic feeds on now, it is a part of you. A stranger's blood is foreign. Manipulating an unfamiliar element requires experience. If I placed a bowlful of a stranger’s blood before you now, you wouldn't be able to do anything with it because you don't know how to control any blood at all."

  She paused, letting out a thoughtful hum. "You are, admittedly, at a disadvantage. Your... abilities prevent you from bleeding very much from non-lethal cuts, thus making it difficult to gather a pool of resources. Though I wouldn't consider such a talent problematic in general, it certainly hinders your learning of thaumaturgy."

  "If I could turn it off, I would.”

  “Which is an anomaly in and of itself. All supernatural creatures are capable of controlling their regenerative abilities — to a certain degree, at least. I suppose the same rules may not apply to humans, though I fail to see why they would be the exception. It's hard to make any concrete assumptions since you are the first human I've met with such powers,” she finished, not bothering to hide the suspicion in her tone or gaze.

  A few weeks ago, she would have implied the question with a bit more subtlety. I took her ease in speaking more freely as a sign that I'd grown on her since our first meeting. Considering the usual reclusive nature of vampires, I decided to see it as a huge compliment — especially from someone as frigid as Elise.

  I shrugged. “I'm a witch.”

  “Witches are human. Magical ability does not distinguish species.”

  I could have lied and said my powers came from the Rite, but I wasn't a big fan of lying unless it served a bigger purpose. It was too much work and would probably end up biting me in the ass later. Plus, we were friends. Well, as friendly as we could be in our lines of work.

  The Rite was the final test all hunters took before they were allowed to graduate from the Academy and take posts in the real world. It didn't take place until you were sixteen, though, and I'd had these powers since I was a little kid. My dad never commented on it, but I couldn't recall if I'd ever prominently displayed the ability in front of him. No one else in the family had ever brought it up, either. Even Rowan remained silent the first time she saw a bullet wound in my side close up, shoving the bullet out as it did so. Maybe she was just being polite.

  Rowan was my surrogate mother/cat/current head of the Maxwell family/retired super hunter. Sounds confusing, but when you got to be as old as she was, you were guaranteed to have picked up some baggage. From what I'd gathered, she was no less than five hundred, but since she refused to tell me her exact age, I couldn’t be sure. It was complicated, like my current relationship with her.

  We used to be inseparable, but now I hadn't seen her in months — not since she took the spot I was supposed to fill as head of our family. Not that I was bitter... toward her personally. The Council — the Order of Hunters’ governing body — made these decisions, and I'm sure they had their reasons. Logic was rarely a balm for hurt feelings, however.

  “You're quite certain there are no supernaturals in your family?”

  “I have a werewolf half-brother.”

  “Same mother?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then it doesn't count.”

  “Well,” I said flatly, “my mother was a vampire.”

  Elise gave me a single, dry “ha.”

  “Look, all I know is my father and the rest of his ancestors are human while my mother was a witch. A human witch. Beyond that, everything is a mystery. Cthulu could be my great-grandfather for all I know. That'd be cool, by the way.” I pat Dorian on the head, watching his noodle-y legs dangle off the couch. He snuggled up to me. Too cute. “Can I keep him? I promise not to feed him after midnight.”

  “He doesn't need to be fed at all. But no — I still have uses for him.”

  “That sounds ominous. And possibly illegal.” I met the little boy's eyes. “Should I call the police or child services?”

  She sighed. “Dorian is not a child. Also, if you called anyone, Marcus would catch wind of it and you'd have to deal with him.”

  “I just threatened to tell him about your evil, magic knife. Do you really think I have a problem dealing—“

  “You threatened. We both know you aren't going to follow through. You've been avoiding him like the plague since the warehouse incident.”

  “Why is it when people refer to something as an ‘incident,’ it neuters the actual fiery, blood-filled catastrophe it was into something minor and cutesy?” I said, still looking at Dorian.

  He shrugged, the picture of innocence. I plucked at his hair, trying to add some substance to the flat dreg he called a hair-do. Well, he didn't call it anything. In the entire time I'd known him, Dorian had never uttered a word. The only sound I'd ever heard escape his lips was a muted sigh. No matter what I tried, he wouldn't speak. His hair wouldn't budge, either. Elise probably smothered two full boxes of hair gel on it a day. Night. Whatever.

  “You're avoiding the issue.”

  “If you don't dodge, you get stabbed,” I said. “At least in my line of work.”

  “You're doing it again.”

  “If making conversation with you is wrong, I don't want—”

  “Why are you avoiding King Marcus?”

  “Why do you call him Mister Castinus, but King Marcus? Why not use his first, or last, name in both instances?”

  She raised a brow and shot me a pointed look. “You're proving my point.”

  “I've been busy,” I finally groaned out when I couldn't think of another deflection. “Believe it or not, a lot of freaky shit happens in New York. Admittedly, most of that freaky shit is just humans being weird — seriously, I think this city is the nutjob capital of the world — but it's still my duty to investigate. At least around Manhattan.”

  “I highly doubt you're so busy that you can't spare a few minutes to speak with one of the city's most important figures. Especially since he leads a species so closely related to your 'duty.'” She paused a moment, tapping a bony finger against her knee, before adding, “You're ducking his calls, too.”

  “When did you become his secretary?”

  She glared. If she wasn't a vampire, I'd have compared its intensity to the sun. But then I'd have to comment on that, and she'd set me on fire.

  “Please don't kill me.” I pulled Dorian closer. “Can I use you as a
shield?”

  He gazed off into the distance, still unblinking. Yeah, that was never not going to be creepy.

  “Why are you avoiding the King?” she asked again, her voice brooking no argument.

  “I'm not avoiding anyone,” I lied. “I've been busy.”

  “If I performed that truth ritual Noah used on you, all the blood in this bowl would turn to sludge.” She waved to the clay bowl on the table between us. I called it the “Basin of Evil” because of all the time Elise spent making me bleed into it.

  “Don't perform it, then,” I said with a fake smile. “I have a personal life, too, you know. When I'm not out on the hunt — which is almost never — I have Alex to spend time with and magic to practice and—”

  “Your personal life comes second to your work as a hunter—”

  “Hunting—”

  “And didn't you just say humans were behind most of the shenanigans around here? Their actions aren't under your purview.”

  I paused, taking in the fact that someone just used the word ’shenanigans' with a straight face. “...Yes, but to find out humans are behind something as opposed to say, soul-sucking banshees, I need to investigate. Leg work sucks, but it's necessary. It's also why I have great legs.”

  “Your boyfriend—”

  “Could get called back to California at any time,” I said weakly. God, the woman was like a bloodhound. Oh, I should tell her that. Wait, no, never mind. I'd already used that joke on her. She hadn't been impressed.

  The truth was, I had been avoiding Marcus. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn't shake off what Flavius said about Marcus' possible betrayal. I scratched at the scar on my shoulder. Unlike Elise's knife, that particular demonic weapon had no problem leaving a permanent mark.

  Deep down, I knew it was almost certainly a ploy hatched by Flavius to turn me against Marcus. But the key word there was “almost.” If I asked Marcus, he'd deny it regardless of the truth. What was I supposed to expect? For him to admit he'd sent me to my death before shooting me in the head himself? I'd spent the last few weeks avoiding him but hadn't gotten any closer to sorting my feelings out.