Chapter 3
I awoke on the couch in the lounge room. There was a thick crochet blanket on me, and as I swiveled my sleepy gaze to the side, I saw a roaring fire crackling in the hearth.
I heard footsteps from the other room.
My memories came back to me with a crash and a bang.
The knife. The man. The gaffer tape. The book in the attic.
I jerked up, the blanket tumbling off my prone body and crumpling into a pile on the floor. My pillow sailed out from underneath me, and I tripped on it as I jumped off the couch.
I straightened, locked a hand on the armrest of the sofa, and used it for stability as I propelled myself towards the door that led into the hallway.
I had to get to my car. Had to get to the police.
“You’re up, then?” the guy said as he crossed his arms and leaned against the door.
As my eyes pulsed wide, I lurched back, scanning the room for escape.
The guy simply continued to lean against the wall, looking as casual as it was possible to be. “The front door is locked, so is the back. You could try one of the upstairs windows.” His gaze flicked down my body, his expression totally unmoved. “Somehow I doubt you’d be limber enough to open a window, let alone climb out without killing yourself. Why don’t you just sit back down and rest on the couch, love?”
Though there was something electric about the way he said love, I couldn’t exactly ignore the disdainful look in his eyes.
Still facing him, I began to back away. I couldn’t even begin to describe how hard my heart hammered in my chest. My whole body shuddered from it.
He never shifted his gaze off me, his cheeks smooth and relaxed, his lips thin.
I kept backing off.
“Keep doing that,” he began.
I struck something.
“And you’ll trip over,” he finished.
I tumbled over, collecting the edge of a coffee table. I fell against the usually soft, plush carpet, my back cracking. “Ah!” I screamed.
I heard him let out a disdainful sigh. Then he shifted. The sound of his muscles creaking, of his jeans and shirt rumpling – it was like a gun cocking by my head.
I screamed, this time putting my whole throat into it. I swore my lungs rattled as I gasped for air.
Though I’d collected the coffee table and it had tumbled over beside me, I now crawled over it in my haste to get the hell away. The legs of the table dug into my ribs and thighs, but I didn’t care.
God, I had to get away.
I finally freed myself from the table and punched to my feet. Fortunately, this lounge room had another entry, a door which led to the kitchen. I threw myself towards it with every ounce of energy I had.
Just when I locked the open doorway in my sights, he appeared. Don’t ask me how, but he took one slow step in front of me, blocking the doorway. He’d been behind me half a second ago – several meters behind me. Yet in the blink of an eye, he was right there.
I didn’t have time to stop. He, however, had time to cross his arms.
I slammed into his hard, unyielding chest. He had time to catch me, but instead he snorted as I bounced right off that rock-solid chest and slammed into the floor. Again.
“There’s nowhere to run, love. So why don’t you sit back down before you fall down?”
“Get the hell away from me!” I spat, turning on my foot and running for the other door.
Again, I didn’t make it. Because again he suddenly appeared right in front of me.
I took a staggering step back, eyes bulging wide. I hadn’t heard him sprint up behind me, nor had I felt him brush past. Nope. He’d simply gone from being behind me to blocking my path in the blink of an eye.
“H-how are you doing that?”
He leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms again. He’d looked disdainful before, but now he appeared to be putting more effort into the move. “I still can’t believe you’re Joan’s granddaughter,” he said offhand. “I can’t believe her powers have transferred to you.”
“Just let me leave, please.”
“That would be a very bad idea. Trust me, love, you’re better off in here with me than out there on your own. Especially considering your predilection for lying.”
I blinked, kind of like I’d just been slapped. Was that just an offhand comment, or had this Scottish home invader been talking to my grandmother? My dead grandmother.
Suddenly, I remembered the book in the attic.
I felt pale, so pale it was a surprise my face didn’t drop off from blood loss. “Wh-what happened back there?”
He tilted his head to the side, his arms still crossed. “You mean up there?” He extended a finger and pointed to the ceiling. “In the attic? When you picked up your family’s contract?”
“Family’s contract?”
“Aye. A sanctified magical document documenting the details of your curse.” His brogue became thick and hard on the word curse.
I blinked. It wasn’t a normal move; it was more like my eyelids were shuddering. “Sorry? Ma-ma-magical contract?” I couldn’t say the word magical. It became stuck in my throat every time I tried.
He nodded. “Aye, love – magical contract. The hard copy of the McLane curse that has existed for the past, oh, 500 odd years.”
My head felt as if it were full of fog. No, scratch that. It felt like it was full of wool, crammed right in there until every thought ground to a stop.
Somehow, I still managed to shake my head.
So what did he do? He nodded his head slowly. Really slowly. The kind of slow move that showed off his strong neck and chest.
“Curse. I guess your grandma never told you about it. I guess you don’t know that 500 odd years ago Mary McLane, your forbear, lied and turned from her powers,” his tone changed on that word. It became punchy, like a burst of air or a slice of a sword.
I shuddered back.
“Mary McLane refused to use her powers to read the future and lied, that she did. And in doing so, hundreds of people lost their lives. For that, she was cursed. And that curse,” he unlocked his arms then stretched a hand, index finger jutting towards me, “has now transferred to you.”
I shook my head again. It was all I could do.
He just nodded. “Aye. Now Joan has succumbed to it, you, Chi McLane, will shoulder the burden.”
“This is mad. Stupid,” I spat, “totally frigging impossible. Now get the hell out—”
He snorted softly, reached up a hand, and scratched behind his ear. He looked thoughtfully around the room before crossing his arms again.
“… What are you doing?” I asked after he descended into protracted silence.
“I’m looking for something to convince you that this ain’t mad and this ain’t stupid.”
I didn’t have a chance to tell the creep not to bother.
Oh no.
Because a second later he shrugged, unhooked an arm, brought it up, spread his hand, and then….
I jerked back as light spread over his fingers, down his wrist, and along his arm. It looked like those luminous blue flames you get with a blow torch. The only problem was, this guy’s fingers weren’t superheated jets of flame.
“Oh god. Oh god!” I gasped as I jerked all the way back. My knees banged against the couch, and I unceremoniously fell on top of it.
The guy stood there for several seconds, inspecting the flame like you might a nifty drawing you’d just done.
When he shot his piercing gaze back to me and appeared satisfied with my reaction, he smiled, clicked his fingers, and shrugged. “That’s magic, love,” he pointed out as he scratched at the ray of stubble covering his jaw.
I shook my head. Boy did I shake it. It felt like it would fall off and tumble into my lap. “No, no, no. This isn’t possible. It isn’t possible!”
The guy just rolled his eyes at my hysterics. “Calm down, Chi. If you act like this at finding out magic’s real, I hate to imagine what you’ll do when y
ou find out what the curse is. And,” he took a rather ominous step forward, his large, broad back somehow blocking most of the light streaming in from the equally large and broad bay window, “more importantly,” he continued, voice dropping even lower, “what the curse will do to you if you break the contract.”
I was frozen to the spot. Absolutely 150% frozen. I simply couldn’t move a muscle, let alone call the police and try to defend myself from this madman.
… A madman who could produce blue flame and make it dance over his arm as if it were nothing more than playful light.
I swallowed. Or at least I tried to. My throat simply wouldn’t comply – it was too dry, too contracted.
The guy must have taken my silence as interest, because he cleared his throat. “You come from a long line of seers, Chi. Your grandmother Joan was one, as was her grandmother, and her grandmother before that. Only the female line of the McLanes possess true second sight. And only they have a history of abusing it,” his voice bottomed out so low it could have punched through the floor, shattered the house’s foundations, and buried me alive.
Seriously incapable of doing anything else, I just sat there and shook my head. It was almost as if my addled mind thought I was in a dream, and if I only shook my head hard enough, I’d wake up to reality. Trouble was, this reality took another ominous step towards me as the guy now loomed a few steps before the couch. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Now you are the McLane seer, you need to understand this.”
“S-seer?”
“Aye, when your grandmother was killed, her powers as a seer transferred to you. Now you’ll be able to see the future and travel into people’s minds.”
I was way beyond shaking my head now. The only thing I could do was sit there, staring at him agape.
Then something struck me. My previously smooth and sweaty brow crinkled with a snap. “Killed? My grandmother wasn’t killed. She died of a heart attack.”
He tilted his head to the other side, a flash of confusion crumpling his brow, but he did not answer.
“None of this makes sense. M-magic and curses! T-th—”
“Is happening, love. And the sooner you accept that and move on, the easier my life will be.”
If there was something – anything at all – that could pull my mind off the stupid unreality of this situation, it was this guy’s overbearing personality. He was beyond irritating. From his disdain to the fact he kept calling me love – all I wanted to do was reach up and hit him.
But then the situation hit me again. From the magic, to the book, I sat back, head reeling. “I don’t understand any of this.” I brought a hand up and locked it over my forehead.
“Really? Have you not been paying any attention whatsoever, lass? Fine, I’ll recap. Your forbearer Mary McLane misused her abilities as a seer, and in doing so, cost hundreds of people their lives. For her crimes, her family was cursed. Every subsequent female seer was fated to carry that curse. The curse prevents them from turning from their powers. For, if they do, if they lie about the future – they will die.”
Bam. The fog had started to drift back into my mind, but suddenly and violently it was swept away with that promise.
I’d die.
I’d die if I told a lie….
Hold on, I lied all the time. My whole job was lying—
I didn’t get the opportunity to finish that thought, because the guy snorted. “I know what you’re thinking – it’s plastered over your face. You’re thinking – why, I lie all the time. Aye, you do,” his voice dropped low in an ominous warning, and that disdainful look returned to his gaze, “but it’s going to be different now, Chi.”
“Different?” I could barely push the word out.
He nodded low. “Aye. For now, the curse has switched to you. And so has the ability.” His tone did a funny thing on the word ability – somehow, it lengthened, as if it weren’t so much sound but more a chain that stretched towards me and wrapped around my throat.
I found myself shivering, violently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tried valiantly.
He snorted, clearly amused. “Yes, you do. You used the ability when you escaped from me this morning.”
Suddenly, I kind of remembered the fact this guy had tied me to a chair. And then… I remembered that I’d escaped him by seeing a version of reality superimposed over my sight.
I was still seated on the couch, and I jerked back, shoulders hitting the backrest, dislodging several cushions and sending them tumbling to the floor.
He watched me, intently. In fact, he tilted his head down and let his eyebrows flatten in that way dogs do when they spot prey smaller than them.
“I don’t have any ability,” I tried. “None of this makes any sense!”
“It makes perfect sense,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “And if you’d stop being hysterical for a second, you’d see that.”
“Oh, it makes perfect sense, does it? Who the hell are you, anyway? And how… how can… how can you do that thing with your hand?”
He smiled. It was a stupidly electrifying move. It was stupid, because this guy was a home invader, and we very much were not out on a date.
“I’m going to do you the dignity of assuming you’re talking about my magic,” he said through half a cheeky grin.
Why, what else could he do with his hands? I thought. Fortunately, however, I didn’t say it out loud.
Again he brought his hand up, spread his fingers wide, and sent licking flecks of blue flame dancing all up and down his palm and wrist.
It was a stunning sight, mesmerizing, even. Almost impossible, in fact. No, scratch that – it was impossible. This couldn’t be magic. It had to be some kind of trick. Maybe it was some kind of new technology… an amazing technology that could produce cold flame without the assistance of any visible devices at all….
I reached up a shaking hand and locked it over my mouth.
Finally, my doubt gave way. In its place, I simply froze again.
Though a moment ago, he’d been smiling in victory, suddenly his brow crumpled with confusion again. His eyes darted to the side. “Now where was I again?” he trailed off, confusion obvious as if he’d somehow genuinely forgotten that he was standing here, haranguing me and showing off his magic.
I had to wait almost half a minute until he appeared to remember what he was doing. He shook his head and finally continued, “Anyhow, love, I can do magic, because I’m a fairy. I’ve been contracted to the McLanes… for some time,” he added after a significant pause, one where I couldn’t tell if he was deciding what to tell me, or whether he’d genuinely forgotten when he’d started working for my family.
He shook his head again. As he did, I swear I saw something. A shadow. A big one. It was right over his shoulder, so defined, it almost looked like a perfect version of the man rather than the result of his body blocking out the light.
The man cleared his throat. “I protected Joan from most of the curse. I couldn’t, however, protect her from it in the end. She made a fatal error – turned away from her powers, chose not to see the future, and lied for her own benefit. And in doing so, the curse managed to access its magic in full.” He seemed saddened, truly saddened. It wasn’t just the way his eyebrows flattened, wasn’t just the way his jaw loosened. It was the look in his eyes, the fact his usually strong stance became weak.
“My… grandmother was killed? No, but… she died of a heart attack,” I tried valiantly, although my voice became progressively weaker as my reason gave way to doubt.
He shook his head, that somber look still drooping his eyes. “She was killed. She made a fatal mistake – made a big lie. In doing so, she released the full power of the curse, and it killed her.”
“But – but how are you telling me this? A few hours ago I opened the door to you, and you had no idea that she was dead—”
Before I could accuse the guy of lying, his shoulders deflated. A truly weary look passed through his deep, so
ulful eyes. “Aye,” he answered slowly, “that’s because I… forgot.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “You what? None of this makes any sense!”
He put up a hand before I could launch into hysteria. “It does when you realize use of my powers leads to memory loss,” he answered quietly.
Though a new wave of adrenaline was pumping through my body, suddenly it stopped.
I stared at him.
Anyone would be able to see the genuine sorrow and shame crumpling his features.
My brows clicked together. “What? Your – your powers make you lose your memory?”
He nodded morosely, incapable of making eye contact. “Aye. The first thing you’ll learn in this magical world is that magic costs. It don’t come for free. Nothing comes for free. For me, strong displays of magic cost me my memories. That’s why…” he closed his eyes briefly, “why I forgot Joan’s death. I must have fought to save her, but used too much magic and forgot everything.” He shook his head and paused until finally continuing. “Magic costs all practitioners something. For some, it costs them injuries, for others, it demands more and more of their blood. For you,” he ticked his gaze up and locked it on me, “technically, your magic comes for free,” he said.
Or, at least his lips moved.
For some reason, it didn’t quite sound as if he was speaking. No, as impossible as it seemed, my crazy mind told me his voice issued from the shadow behind his shoulder and not his own stiff lips.
“Everyone else’s comes at a price. Well,” he tipped his head down and stared at me with eyes that seemed to blaze like pits of fire, “thanks to the curse, yours comes at a price, too. Seeing the future and accessing people’s minds won't cost you your memory, it won’t take your blood. But not using your power – turning from it, lying, it’ll cost you your life. For if you act against the curse, you will be claimed, Chi McLane.” Again, it didn’t sound like it was him speaking, but his shadow. Heck, I swore it even grew sharper, almost as if—
Suddenly what he was saying struck me. The magic, the curse, the cost.
I sat there, blinking. Except this time my eyes weren’t shuddering from the sheer break-neck impossibility of this situation. No. Instead, they were filling with tears.
I shook my head. No. No. No! This was still impossible—
“Now, where was I? Oh, aye. If I were you, Chi McLane, I’d stop lying. Today. And do exactly as I tell you.”
I looked at him, incapable of saying anything.
“This is where you ask why.”
“S-sorry?”
“Ask what will happen if you use your abilities to lie?”
“I… what?”
“Ask the question,” he insisted in a gruff tone.
I jumped. “What will happen?”
“If you use your abilities as a seer to lie or you turn from them and fail to tell the future, you too will die.”
I blinked. “You mean… if I use that power I used this morning?”
He nodded gravely.
“And what if I don’t? You know… if I just lie…?” I trailed off. I trailed off because his expression became deadly.
He dropped his head in that move that reminded me of a wolf leaning down to stare the lil’ rabbit in the eye before gobbling it up. “This is where you change, Chi McLane. Right here, today,” he stabbed a finger at the floor, “is where you turn a new leaf.”
He hadn’t answered me. Which told me the answer was no – the curse wouldn’t affect me if I told ordinary lies.
Maybe he could see that I was calculating that, because he took another dramatic step forward. Any more of those, and he’d walk all over me.
I shifted back even further.
“You turn over a new leaf, here, now, today. You got that?”
I forced myself to nod.
“My life’s hard enough as it is without the added pressure of cleaning up after your dumb lies,” he added, sounding as browbeaten as an overworked housewife.
I frowned. Suddenly, I realized what he was saying. It was my turn to tilt my head to the side. “Hold on, what do you mean? You… you’re not planning on sticking around, are you? You’ve told me about,” I swallowed, “magic,” I stuttered, “and the curse. So… so you can leave now,” I made my voice more forceful.
He snorted. It was a slow move and rattled his nostrils entirely too much. “I’m not going anywhere, princess. From now until the day you inevitably break the contract and die horribly, I’ll be by your side, protecting you from… shall we say, the unsavory side effects of being a seer.”
I had exactly zero idea what the “unsavory side effects of being a seer” entailed. I concentrated on one fact – one super important fact: this Scottish brute was here to stay.
I paled. “No – you can’t stay! I don’t even know who you are!” I protested as if the fact I hadn’t been formally introduced was the most pertinent fact here.
He snorted again. Somehow, he managed to make the move charming, not vile. “Max.”
I blinked. “That’s your name?”
“Aye. Max. I’m contracted to protect you from the magical world while you use your abilities as a seer to protect people. You see, if you don’t satisfy the terms of the curse and use your powers for good, monsters will come after you, lass. Horrible ones. But me? I can keep most of ‘em back, because I’m a fairy,” he added proudly as he patted a large hand to his large chest.
I cleared my throat. I blinked. I frowned.
My every interaction with this massive Scottish magician up until now had filled me with equal parts awe and fear. Now? Now I kind of got stuck on the fact this brute was a fairy.
“Ah, hold on,” I could barely push my words out; they felt lodged in my throat as if I’d tried to swallow a stone, “you're a fairy?”
He shot me a look. A very specific kind of look. The kind of look that told me I was an idiot for taking that fact alone out of what he’d just revealed to me.
Then he went and crossed his arms again. His incredibly impressive, boulder-like arms with biceps that looked as if they'd been carved out of marble.
“Yeah, I'm a fairy. But I think maybe you should go back to the part where you’re cursed and if you don't satisfy the terms of that contract,” his voice bottomed out low and shook with that unmistakable brogue, “you will be killed. Violently. By monsters.”
I’d been doing a seriously good job of ignoring that fact until now. But there was something about the combination of his crossed arms and that very specific, kind of hateful, judgmental look in his eye that made it impossible for me to turn away now.
I actually yelped, cramming a hand over my chest and pressing my fingers hard against my sternum. “This is insane. This can't be happening.”
He uncrossed his arms and flicked a hand towards me. “Getting upset isn't going to change anything.”
“Upset?” My voice shook with indignation. Which was kind of nice, because at least it wasn't belly-shaking fear.
Still, indignation didn't last. It gave way rather sharply and violently to a sinking feeling that felt as if it would take my stomach through the very center of the Earth.
I sat there, right on the edge of the couch, one hand locked over my stomach as if I were afraid it would split open and spill my nerves all over the ground.
Max continued to look at me as if I were the worst example of humanity he'd ever come across. “Well, at least you're taking this seriously now,” he commented under his breath.
Again, I felt a flare of indignation at his cold, cold words. What an absolute prick. He had the bedside manner of a brick to the head.
I plucked a hand off my stomach, and now it was my turn to cross my arms. Slowly. Angrily. “Just who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”
He snorted. I thought I'd plumbed the depths of his derisive moves, but clearly I hadn't. This one honestly made his nostrils rattle. Which shouldn't have been an attractive move, but somehow on the great big lug, with his half charm
ing smile, he could pull even that off. Which made me even more pissed off.
My shock was passing. And the only reason it could was my natural fight. I was my mother’s daughter, after all, and Mayli never ever backed down from confrontation. If she’d suddenly found out that she was the heir to a magical curse and she’d inherited the true powers of a seer, she would have just sat on the couch, crossed her arms, pressed her bottom lip in, and snapped at this Max to get her some tea.
Okay, so my world had literally been pulled out from under my feet only to be replaced with magic, fairies, and the lying mistakes of my forbearers – but I had to stop letting this situation control me. No, scratch that – I had to stop letting this Max control the conversation.
For the first time since this harrowing conversation had begun, I pushed to my feet. “Well I don't care who you are and what you say – I'm not scared. I don't believe in this curse—”
I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence, because he was upon me.
He’d drifted back towards the fire, but suddenly that didn’t matter. Don't ask me how he crossed the space in between. But somehow, in the blink of a freaking eye, he went from standing across the other side of the room, to standing right in front of the couch. I fell back against it, breath rattling in my chest as I sucked in a wheeze. “What… what are you going to do?” I went straight back into fear mode, forgetting everything my mother had ever taught me. Because, hello, I couldn’t forget that this guy had chased me around my house with a knife!
For a fraction of a second, his hardened expression softened. But not by much. Enough to tell my brain he wasn't about to reach for the fire poker and skewer me. But not enough to promise that he'd drop this.
He seemed to take several seconds to figure out how he should reply. That, or he was enjoying every single moment of my fear. It was probably the latter, considering how much of a right royal prick this fellow was.
Still, while I could insult him in my head, that was the furthest thing from what I could do in real life. I was suddenly struck by the fact that until last night, I'd never experienced true fear. Now it goaded at my heart, plucked at my spine, and threatened to make me black out.
I held on, though.
Just enough for him to slowly, oh so slowly unwrap his arms. He got down on one knee, right in front of me. No, I didn't think he was about to propose. The exact tension crumpling his brow and digging hard into his jaw could not be associated with anything other than blazing indignation. “Your grandmother would have wanted me to protect you. She… tried to save me,” he said, an odd, hesitant pause between his words.
Despite the fact he was still right there in front of me, and despite the fact my mind was still battling the full effects of fear, I had just enough reason left over to appreciate that hesitant pause meant something. Maybe the Scottish fairy had a heart in there, after all. A heart he quickly hid away as he reached forward and locked a hand on the armrest beside me.
He was right there – I mean right there. It wasn’t just that he was close enough to touch (or kiss, if you believed my suddenly tingling lips). Nope. It was that for the first time I was treated to an up-close look of his face. The lines, the scars, the flecks in his otherwise perfect eyes.
It distracted me as I opened my mouth.
He got there first. “I’ve explained everything now,” he controlled his tone, leaned back, smoothed an unaffected look over his face, and cleared his throat. “So now it’s time to get to work.”
It took me a long time to lock on to what he’d said – my mind was far too distracted by the scars along his jaw, down his neck, flecked across his thick eyebrows.
Then something clicked. “Ah, work?”
He nodded, returning to his default position of crossing his arms over his chest. “Work.”
“Ah, I just moved here, I don’t have a job,” I stumbled over my words as I gestured ineffectively.
“Yes, you do. You got one this morning.” Without another word and without any attempt to explain that opaque statement, he turned hard on his boot, retreated from the room, and promptly returned.
He was back way before my mind could tell me to run.
He held a crumpled up piece of thin cardboard in his hand. Standing over me and looming like a pissed off storm cloud he held his hand out, the card still crumpled in it.
I looked from his outstretched hand to his face. It was obvious he wanted me to reach forward and accept the card. I just stared at him.
So he, demonstrating just how rude he could be, leaned forward, plucked up my hand, and pushed something into it.
I jerked my hand back from his large grip, and he made no attempt to stop me.
Then I saw what the crumpled up paper was. A card – Detective Dave Coulson’s card, to be exact.
I blanched.
Max just looked on with a steady expression. “Detective Coulson needs your help to solve a heinous crime. And you’re going to give him your help.”
I shook my head, violently. “No. No, there’s no way.”
He simply nodded slowly. “Oh, there’s every way. Now get your coat.”
“Wait, what? You want to do this now?”
“No, love, we’re going to go tomorrow morning – you need some time to adjust so you don’t scream at passing police officers. I just thought you should get your coat because you look cold.”
I blinked, confused. “I….”
“Also, you should probably start reading through your grandma’s journals. It’ll help you get on your feet. And considering you can barely stand,” he shot me a judgmental look, “I think that’s in order.”
I rested back into the couch. No, it was kind of more like I was a once-soufflé that was suddenly sagging.
All my fight left me in a great big sigh.
Max watched me, and I was struck by the fact that I had absolutely no idea what he was thinking. Which was strange, as I was usually pretty good at reading people. Then again, Max wasn’t a person, was he? Oh no, he was a fairy.
You know when you think you’ve processed something, when you think you’re over some great shock? Yeah, well that was me up until now. Because suddenly it hit me again, right between the eyes.
Magic existed, and I was in a whole world of trouble.
But there was something even worse, way worse. Since a kid, I’d always lied my way out of trouble. But now, if I believed Max, that would kill me….