Chaos Conspiracy Read online

  A man in a beautiful navy-blue suit came out of nowhere and punched the part-bred in the face before he put himself between me and the part-bred. I tried to move around him, but he stepped to block me and punched the part-bred again, causing him to slump to the ground. The part-bred began to bubble and smoke as his body returned to the fae land, or whatever it was that caused supernals to turn into black goo when they died. Fae weren’t easy to kill, and he’d done it in just two punches. I had no idea what he was, but I didn’t want to get into a fight against him.

  The man turned to face me, his expression matching that of a cat that just got the cream. He put his hands in the pockets of his pants and puffed his chest out a little bit as he looked down at me expectantly.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.

  His expectant expression turned to one of confusion.

  “I saved you,” he said slowly with a cultured accent I couldn’t quite place.

  “I can look after myself.”

  He looked me up and down slowly. He must have been almost literally twice as big as me. His broad shoulders were well defined, and his suit made no attempt to hide his strong toned body. Ice-blue eyes shone from a face that made models look plain, and it was topped off with thick pitch-black hair that was just the right length to run your fingers through or grab onto. In short, he made Adonis look a pimply schoolboy.

  “I believe the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you,’” he said with a smirk.

  I ignored him and was going to walk away when the song of his blood hit me. It was rich and sumptuous, a symphony so divine that I needed to taste it. Not that I was a vampire, but there was something about him and his blood that meant I needed it. I snapped myself out of the spell to find my hand over his heart. His eyes were dancing with amusement.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “I’m going home,” I said before I turned on my heel.

  “You live in the park?” he asked sweetly.

  Fuck. I’d started heading in the wrong direction. Turning back towards him, I marched past him back towards the city. Well, that could have gone better.

  FOUR

  The sun broke through the clouds overhead and bathed the square in front of the Starbucks in soft sunlight. It was still spring. The sun didn’t have too much heat to it yet. I checked my phone, hoping to find a text or something there. Nothing. Well, that wasn’t true, the date sat in the upper corner, accusing me of forgetting. I squeezed my eyes closed as the memories hit me. Nine years ago, I had woken up in Inverness. I was sixteen years and three months old. Something about the house had felt wrong, a stillness, an eerie quiet. A tear threatened to spill down my cheek as I recalled the feeling when I’d walked around the house calling my parents’ names. They hadn’t said they were going anywhere.

  They never did come back. I spent two years hunting down every lead I could dig up, but they were gone without a trace. Their bedroom had been entirely untouched. Nothing was taken. It was as though they had simply vanished. The familiar dinging of the tram pulled me from the memory, and I made my way around the grumpy old lady and into a seat. The man that had saved me stood on the pavement watching me as the tram pulled away. He had a predatory smile on his lips. A shiver ran down my spine. What if that had been a set-up? What if the Council had discovered what I was, and he had been sent to bring me in?

  I tore my eyes away from him and pushed down the panic. I was being foolish and melodramatic. The Council wasn’t the type to be subtle. If they’d found out my secret, they’d have sent a pack of enforcers to drag me from my bed. I’d been careful. No one knew what I was, and they would never find out.

  Taking a deep breath, I grounded myself in my surroundings. The feeling of the hard plastic seat beneath me with the sides that raised a little too high so I couldn’t throw my leg over the side like I preferred to do. The top half of the windows had been pushed open to let in the scent of the cherry blossoms; for such a large city, it rarely smelled bad. My life was safe, and if it came down to it, I’d jump on a tram similar to the one I was riding and slip away into the night.

  After a shower and an episode of the detective show I loved, I headed back into the city. I couldn’t bear to be cooped up for too long. The man who had stepped in with the part-bred fae kept flitting into my mind, his cocky smirk making me smile despite myself. His blood had been full of power, and it was completely unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I ordered a coffee to go from a small coffee shop tucked in an old building on one of the narrow streets around the castle. I didn’t want to be alone; being amongst the crowds of tourists was somehow soothing. I followed along behind a tour and half-listened to the history I’d heard hundreds of times before as my mind wandered.

  No one had taught me about my blood magic. I had no real idea what I could and couldn’t do. My mom had known what I was. I still remember the pain that came with the look in her eyes when she realised. I was only twelve, and I’d asked her why people had songs within them. She was a beautiful woman with a soft gold colour to her hazel eyes. I’d thought that maybe she had some nymph blood somewhere and that I was coming into that. Her face had gone so pale and her hand shook as she took mine.

  “Tell me, little Wren, how do you feel about blood?” she had asked so gently.

  I had frowned. Blood had fascinated me for a year or more, but I’d assumed it was a natural part of the killing supernals that I had done for most of my life.

  When I told her, she squeezed her eyes closed and swallowed hard.

  “Does the blood call to you?” she’d said in barely a whisper.

  That was the first time that I’d realised it did.

  A single tear rolled down her cheek. “You’re a blood witch, my child.”

  I froze. Blood witches were forbidden. They were dangerous monsters to be executed on sight.

  “Never let anyone know what you are, do you hear me?”

  I’d nodded numbly and never spoken of it again. In the dark moment, my heart still squeezed tight as I wondered if that was why my parents had vanished.

  The tour had moved on without me while I’d been lost in my thoughts. I pushed off the short wall overlooking the city and meandered down the narrow cobblestone road with short buildings on either side. It was one of the oldest streets in the city with its splashes of peach and yellow rather than the more traditional pale creams and whites. The tourists didn’t tend to find that particular street, so I was free to wander and enjoy the gentle sunlight as I tried to keep my head away from the old memories.

  A man walked up the hill towards me. He kept his head down and his hands in the pockets of his well-worn jeans. His longer blond hair was messy, and not in the sexy bedhead way. Something about him bothered me, and the way he was glancing in the shop windows to keep an eye on his surroundings certainly wasn’t the behaviour of a normal tourist. He turned the corner and walked a short way down one of the narrow alleys with shallow steps leading to the next street. I picked up my pace and looked down the alleyway to see if my suspicions of his being up to something illegal were confirmed. He met a shady-looking guy wearing a black hoodie and a pair of thin expensive sunglasses. The shady guy handed the original guy a small vial of garnet-coloured blood. There was a slim chance that it was a potion or some such instead of blood, but my instincts said it wasn’t a simple potion. The glass must have come from an alchemist, as it blocked the song. I couldn’t feel what type of blood it was, but I was something of an expert, and I knew what I’d just seen.

  As a mercenary, no one had taken the time to teach me about the magic side of things. I’d managed to glean things here and there, so I knew that alchemists and witches used various types of blood in their workings. I also knew that the Council had laws in place to make sure certain dangerous bloods weren’t used, and the beings that the more popular ones came from were protected so they didn’t become extinct. Given that the man had handed over a large sum of money for a single vial, it h
ad to be something very illegal.

  The question was, did I care enough to follow him and find out more? I chewed on my bottom lip as I watched them both head around a corner and out of sight. I wouldn’t be paid to take him down if it was illegal, but it wasn’t as though I had anything better to do… still, I didn’t want to waste energy running them down. I pulled out my phone and called Kane, one of the few friends I had. There was no harm in doing a little digging, right?

  FIVE

  I’d met Kane in Scotland when I was thirteen. His family was a small, very old coven of witches that kept themselves out of the usual witch politics. His parents had been friends with my parents, and they’d helped us with our hunting quite often. Kane had been there for me after my parents vanished. He’d become something between a brother and my best friend. There had been a brief time when I was in my late teens that I wanted to be something more than friends, but I’d never acted on it for fear of losing him. The feeling had passed, but we remained really close.

  I leaned back against the wall of the pale-yellow building behind me and waited for Kane to pick up the phone. He was likely working out and couldn’t hear his phone over the loud dance music. He finally picked up on the fifth ring. The heavy beat of music could be heard in the background.

  “Wren, how’s it going? I’m going to be in Prague next week, you’re ok with me crashing with you, right?”

  The image of my scruffy little flat popped into my head. I didn’t have a sofa for him to crash on.

  “Er, sure… I don’t have a couch, we’d have to share the bed.”

  “Awesome, so to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

  “I just saw someone buy a vial of blood, there was a lot of cash involved.”

  I could see him shrugging in my mind’s eye.

  “Blood’s a common magical ingredient. You know that.”

  “Is it common to sneak down alleyways and hand over big wedges of cash for it?”

  The music stopped in the background.

  “No, but I can’t really tell you anything without getting my hands on the blood. There are many things it could be; hell, it could have been some potion that just looked like blood. Despite what the Council would have you believe, the black market is vast and very much thriving.”

  I wrinkled my nose. I’d suspected he’d say as much.

  “Work not going well?”

  “I have enough money to keep me in food for a couple of weeks,” I said cheerfully.

  “Why don’t you look into other work? I could train you to be a hedgewitch or alchemist’s assistant, you have a knack for it.”

  I groaned. That sounded unbearable. I liked working with him, but he was Kane, we always had fun when we hung out.

  He laughed. “It’s not so bad.”

  “Being cooped up inside chopping up herbs and stirring potions is hardly the life of excitement I’d like to be living.”

  “Because hunting redcaps and eating cheap ramen is making you so happy,” he said.

  “I’m helping people,” I said softly.

  “I know, I’m sorry. The politics around here have been exhausting recently. The sun priest is up in arms over something, and the Shadow Blade Coven has been threatening a full-blown war with the Snow Rose Coven, so they’ve been pushing for us to pick a side. Of course, we’re not getting involved, but that doesn’t stop them from pressuring us. Annalese tried to convince our supplier to cut us off, they refused, and so things are starting to escalate. That’s why I’m taking a break and coming to hang out with you for a bit. You’re ok with that, right?”

  “Of course I am, you’re always welcome,” I said without thinking.

  The idea of turning him down didn’t cross my mind. He was my confidante, my favourite person in the world.

  “I don’t know how you stand all that political bullshit,” I said.

  “It’s not so bad. We’re left out of it mostly. We’re too small for anyone to remember we exist. Anyway, I gotta run, catch you soon?”

  “When do you land?”

  “Er… Monday at 7pm.”

  “Great, do you want me to pick you up?”

  “No, I’m good. I’ll pick us up some food. See you soon, Wren.”

  “Take care, Kane.”

  I felt much better for having spoken to him, even though the vial of blood discussion went about how I expected. Hearing his voice brought a smile to my face. It’d be good to have him around again.

  SIX

  I was settling down with a peanut butter sandwich made with discount bread and an episode of my detective show when my phone rang. I almost jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t been expecting to hear from anyone. A number I didn’t recognise showed; a small thread of hope formed.

  “Wren Kincaid?” a sharp female voice asked.

  “Yes…”

  “I am the head of the Prague branch of enforcers. We’re calling you in for a job.” She sounded as though she were talking through gritted teeth. “You have fifteen minutes to get to our headquarters.”

  I didn’t get a chance to respond. She’d already hung up. I skidded across the floor, my socks not getting enough purchase. I came to a halt when I almost crashed into the door frame and scrambled to pull on my boots. I’d only worked with enforcers once before, but I knew they paid well. I might be able to pay rent on time for a change!

  The headquarters were down near the river. If I ran to the tram stop, then I might be able to get there in time. I shot out of the door and ran down the stairs, not daring risk waiting for the slow lift to get there in time. The tram did its warning ring that the doors were about to close as I burst out the front door. I ran across the road without looking and leapt onto the tram as the doors closed. The people on the tram looked at me with quiet disdain before they went back to expressions of miserable boredom. It didn’t matter, I had a job that was going to pay reasonable money. If this went well, I might be able to secure a longer-term deal. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself, and it wasn’t the best plan what with my hiding my blood magic from the enforcers, but the idea of good steady money was too appealing to rein my daydreams in.

  The enforcers used to be called hunters, back before I was born. Their role was to keep the supernal community in line. A huge ritual had occurred four or five years before I was born that changed everything. I didn’t know all of the details, but I knew it involved a very powerful witch cutting a deal with a high-level demon. There are rumours that they also did a deal with the shadow god, but no one knows for sure. The ritual was completed during a huge battle in the middle of Prague. One of the moon priestesses killed the coven leader. At the time, they thought that meant it was all over, but it turned out that killing her was the final act in the ritual. That’s when everything changed.

  That ritual allowed covens everywhere to do what are called ‘Making’ rituals. They supposedly bring out the supernal essence buried within non-magical people, but I wasn’t convinced. Those who survived the awful blood ritual came out different; they were called ‘made’. The made were somewhere between non-magical people and supernals. They took on some aspects of a supernal. There were made shifters, and they could often shift into their animal form, but they didn’t have the healing of full shifters. Made fae were even more vicious than the born ones. They were dangerous. Not that born fae weren’t.

  I looked out the window and realised that I’d been lost in my head and almost missed my stop. I pushed past a grumpy old man and dove out the doors just before they closed. I shot across the road and ran down past the National Theatre in all its grandeur to the enforcer headquarters. They were bland compared to the Theatre, with all of its gold finery and detailing, but it still struck me as extravagant and overdone, given they were meant to appear a simple office building.

  I walked in through the heavy wooden doors and stepped into a large double-height room with dark wooden floors and plain white walls. It was a simple plain holding room, and while it was tall, it was narrow and shallow
, giving it a feeling of closing in around me. Magic filled the air between me and the main room. My bet was that it had two purposes. One, to make sure anyone who walked through it didn’t plan any harm to the enforcers. Two, to see what magic those who passed through it had. In short, I was fucked.

  The receptionist sat at a plain black desk that almost came up to my collarbone. She sat watching me as I tried to look calm and confident. Running away would only make me look more suspicious. She was already narrowing her eyes at me. I couldn’t afford to draw any more negative attention. I put my shoulders back, smiled, pushed my magic deep inside me, and walked over to her. The wall of magic had stung like hundreds of tiny bees, but I hadn’t imploded and there weren’t any alarms going off, so I hoped I was ok.

  “Name and business,” the receptionist said in tired clipped tones.

  “Wren Kincaid, the enforcers rang me.”

  The receptionist looked me up and down slowly. My jeans were still splattered with some of the black gunk, my knee-high boots had seen better days, but my black t-shirt was clean.

  She pursed her lips and looked at me as though I were contagious before she picked up the phone and spoke in rapid-fire Czech. Once she put the phone down, she turned her attention to her computer screen and ignored me entirely. It was in times like those that I missed the overly chatty nature of the Scots.

  After a few minutes, a woman in a knee-length black pencil skirt and very high stiletto heels strutted over to me. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing in the enforcer headquarters. She wouldn’t be able to fight a drunk pixie in that outfit, let alone anything worth bringing in enforcers for.