Karen Mahoney - [Iron Witch 00.5] Read online

  Her lips were almost touching my ear, and I felt autumn leaves whispering behind her words as her breath made me shiver. “You, silly,” she said, as though it was the most simple thing in the world. “I found you. The changeling they replaced you with! Jonathan Kane is alive and living in Connecticut. He’s a musician; the guitarist with a band called The Dead Pirates. They’re playing a gig right here in Ironbridge tomorrow night! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Yeah, I thought. And it sure is convenient.

  All this time I’d lived my own screwed up life in Massachusetts, whether in Boston or Ironbridge, and now I found out that my ‘double’ was practically next door?

  My sight narrowed until it seemed as though I was staring at Ivy through the wrong end of a telescope. Darkness crowded the edges of my vision and my knees turned to water. I stumbled, only staying upright because Ivy grabbed my elbow and stopped me from crumpling in a pathetic heap right there on the edge of the dance floor.

  Jonathan Kane? How was that even possible? He was the creature put into my crib in Ironbridge General’s maternity unit, after I was born to a human woman named Kristin Kane.

  “Alexander?” Ivy’s concerned tone got through to me as I swayed in my own personal bubble of isolated hell, completely oblivious to the teenagers grinding beneath the multicolored lights all around us.

  My gut twisted.

  “I have to get out of here,” I said.

  Pushing through a sea of wildly thrashing bodies, I raced for the nearest exit before I threw up. The last thing I saw was Nico’s comically alarmed expression as I hit the doors running.

  *

  The cab stank of old booze and body odor, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of there and think—away from the noise and the light and the sickening sight of humans dancing with fey, not even realizing they were being glamoured to within an inch of their stupid lives.

  Ivy was slumped against the opposite door, her cheeks taking on their natural green tint. She looked as sick as I felt. She must be having trouble in here, what with being surrounded by so much metal. I’d still gotten into the cab, though, despite how painful I knew she’d find it.

  What does that say about me?

  “You doing okay?” I asked, trying my best to care as I reached out to touch her bare wrist. At least her skin was changing color again—a little too pale, too paper-thin and Goth-white—but it didn’t really matter anyway here in the shadowy cab as we raced through the town and back to my adoptive parents’ house. I lived there alone, since Dad was on a three-month business trip abroad and Mom was in England again—she’d moved home after the divorce.

  Ivy nodded, dislodging a single leaf from her sludgy hair. “I am… well.”

  Yeah, not so much. I sighed, knowing what was coming next—but I knew I’d do it to help her. The same way Ivy helped me.

  I closed my hand around the narrow bones of her wrist. I could give her some of my strength to help her maintain the weak glamour she was trying to hold; we’d shared power before, even though I didn’t like the way it made me feel afterwards.

  But the rush of compassion I felt was real as I took in the lines of strain on her face. Being enclosed in this much iron might seriously damage her if she was exposed to it for too long, especially if she wasn’t taking care of herself again.

  “Here,” I whispered, sending power down through my arm and into my fingers—the fingers that were wrapped around her cool flesh. “Take it, it’s yours.”

  Ivy shuddered and moaned, her eyes slipping shut as I used my own energy to protect her from the iron. She still wasn’t very good at working the magic that hid her fey appearance, despite living her entire life in the human world.

  But then, she wasn’t even supposed to be alive. As a changeling, she was only meant to live to very early childhood—maybe three or four years old if she was lucky— and then she should die like the majority of changelings. Their purpose was to provide the cover for elves and faeries who stole human babies. Some even died in their cribs days after the true child was snatched.

  Ivy, for reasons she claimed not to know, had survived childhood and grown into a skinny teenage girl whose true form would probably send most people running for the hills. Was ‘Jonathan Kane’ like her?

  I let her siphon off more of my life-force as I stared at the streets slipping by the smeared window. My heart beat faster as I relaxed into the connection. It’s not as radical as it sounds—it isn’t like I’m losing years off my life, or anything crazy like that. I’m just giving a little of myself to her; sort of like giving blood, because you know you can manage on less than you have and your body replenishes quickly enough. She can use me as a battery, if I let her; providing her glamour with a signal boost when she’s underduress in a particularly iron-filled environment. Like now, in a cab driving through the urban heart of Ironbridge. And it feels pretty good, if I’m honest about it, but that’s the part that makes me uncomfortable—like the after-sex glow you might experience after a particularly intense night. I didn’t have that kind of relationship with Ivy, but these little energy-sharing ‘sessions’ enhanced our connection.

  Her hair rustled as she turned her head against the torn plastic seat and gazed at me. I could feel her looking; I didn’t need to see the expression of bliss I knew would be on her face.

  Her wrist was warm in my hand and I slowly released her.

  “Better?” I asked, still watching the shadow-strewn streets pass by as we neared my house.

  “Much.” Her voice was languid, and more human than it had sounded all night.

  She crawled across the seat and wrapped herself around me, resting her head on my shoulder. She smelled of earth and the sun.

  I wanted to push her away, but I knew how much that would hurt her. Ivy might not even be half human, like me, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sensitive.

  “Alexander,” she practically purred. “Do you want me tonight?”

  “Ivy, don’t.” I tried to keep my tone gentle, but I couldn’t help the bright edge of anger that slipped in. I tried to soften the rejection. “You know I won’t take advantage of you when you’ve just… fed from me.”

  I still didn’t really know what to call it, but it was a kind of ‘feeding,’ even though Ivy hated it when I used that word for what she did with me. Once, she told me that sharing my energy made her feel like a vampire—a parasite. Her voice had been filled with shame and self-hatred.

  But gazing at her now as she smiled blearily and ran her fingers through my hair, I couldn’t see any signs of remorse. One of her hands slid up the back of my shirt and when I felt her trace the edge of my scars I pulled away, grabbing her arms and stopping her from exploring any further.

  I hated anyone to see the thick rope-like scar tissue left behind after the wood elves tore my half-grown child’s wings from my back. Having the bumpy skin touched was even worse. It didn’t hurt, not after all these years; but a sort of muscle-memory spasmed under Ivy’s fluttering fingers and my shoulders clenched. Wings I would never have again tried to stretch, like ghost limbs after amputation.

  She kissed me clumsily, missing my mouth by miles and hitting my chin. I wanted to say something cruel to her, to punish her for touching me, but it wasn’t like she was fully in control of herself. I gritted my teeth and tried to stop her unbuttoning my jeans.

  Ivy giggled and stuck out her tongue. Her suddenly very green tongue.

  I grimaced as she blew in my ear. Great. This was just what I needed right now, but I only had myself to blame for giving her too much of a hit. I ran a hand through my sweat-dampened hair and wondered if I’d get lucky enough to have her pass out.

  Yeah, that was the only kind of ‘lucky’ I was hoping to get tonight. I am a bad example for all red-blooded heterosexual males. Sue me.

  Putting Ivy to bed was going to be a nightmare of epic proportions.

  *

  “Xan…” she slurred, later that night.

  Ivy never call
ed me Xan; it was always Alexander.

  “Go to sleep, Ivy.”

  “But—”

  “I said, shut up. I told you already, you can only sleep in here with me if you’re quiet.”

  “But you smell so good,” she said, putting way too many syllables into the word ‘good.’

  I rolled over in the huge bed. “Seriously, if you don’t put a sock in it I’m going to tape your mouth shut. You’re drunk.”

  “Your fault,” Ivy muttered. “All your fault…”

  I ignored that. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow night we’re going to see ‘The Dead Pirates’ play and you’re coming with me.”

  She eventually began to snore and I rolled my eyes in the dark, wondering if I was making a mistake by involving her in my life so much. But I needed her at least vaguely capable of backing me up; it wasn’t like I could ask anyone else.

  Ivy was all I had.

  I curled my body around hers and held her until she quietened, then I flopped back onto my side of the bed. Folding the pillow and tucking one arm behind my head, I waited for sleep to claim me.

  *

  It was gone nine the next night by the time we finally arrived at The Jazz Café, and I did my best not to implode every time Ivy smiled and waved at the bemused crowd of gig-attendees waiting patiently in line.

  “You don’t know any of these people,” I hissed at her.

  She gazed up at me with a genuinely shocked expression. “What does that matter? We’re all here to share the same experience—listening to music brings people closer together.”

  She beamed at a girl who would have been pretty if it wasn’t for her face being half-obscured by piercings.

  I shook my head. “Are you tripping? We’re just here to see this Jonathan Kane dude. Nothing more than that. If he’s living my life, I want to know about it; I don’t give a damn about these losers.”

  “You’re angry.” Her voice was flat and she looked away.

  Way to state the obvious. But I swallowed my smart-ass retort and tried not to take out my frustration on her. Ivy was… well, she was just Ivy. There was really no comparison and, even by fey standards she was unique. For some reason she’d taken a shine to me and, despite how irritating she could be, the girl was fiercely loyal. I couldn’t fault her on that.

  And if anybody could help me expose the changeling who was living my true life—the life I should have lived—then it was Ivy. Her Seeker contacts in the faery underworld were rarely wrong.

  Ivy took a deep breath and marched past the bored guy on the door, trying to stop her glamour from unravelling before she got inside the venue. She was still having trouble holding her favorite disguise of emo-teen crossed with Lady Gaga. At least inside it would be blessedly dark and she could finally relax her control.

  Bored Guy looked up and I cringed as he took in her appearance. “Cool hair.”

  “Thanks,” she replied automatically, clearly not thinking about what he meant until she caught sight of her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror at the top of the stairs.

  I stood behind her and our eyes met in the dirty glass.

  Her hair was bright purple with acid-green streaks. “Oops,” she whispered.

  The girl drove me nuts.

  *

  It felt like we’d been waiting hours for the headline act to come out and do their thing, but it really hadn’t been that long. Still, I wondered if it might be worth poking around—see if I could find anyone from The Dead Pirates backstage.

  I glanced over to the bar where I’d last seen Ivy, wondering if I should tell her I was moving from our spot by the side of the stage. I couldn’t see much over the heads of the thickening crowd, as they pushed to the front having suffered through a lame support act.

  Shrugging, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek backstage. I’d be rightback before Ivy managed to find her way through the mob. And anyway, she was the one who’d insisted that we needed lemonade ice-cream floats to get through the evening.

  I’d only gotten as far as stepping behind the first heavy black curtain when I was suddenly shoved in the shoulder. Hard. I stumbled back into the auditorium and broke my momentum against one of the pillars that surrounded the main floor.

  “What the—?”

  But I didn’t get any further than that as I tried to turn, only to be grabbed frombehind, my face shoved against cold stone. The faint grain of the pillar scratched my cheek, and I swore I could almost feel the thrum of a bass guitar being sound-checked.

  “Who are you?” The low voice was male, and from his proximity I could tell he was about the same height and build as me.

  My blade was back at home; the Jazz Café wasn’t a known fey hangout, and there was no way I’d get it past the door of a regular venue like this. Still, it wasn’t as though I was without other strengths.

  I shoved backwards, figuring I must’ve been scoped by security, and pushed my mystery attacker away as I used my inhuman speed to spin and face…

  Myself.

  I stood face-to-face with a mirror image, almost as though I was still gazing at my reflection over Ivy’s shoulder back upstairs in the lobby. Another Alexander Grayson who looked just like me.

  No, not Alexander Grayson; that name belonged to the adopted son of thewealthy Graysons of Ironbridge.

  This was Jonathan Kane. Or, at least, the changeling who had taken over my life—as Ivy’s presence proved, not all of them die in childhood.

  Some lived to be nineteen-year-old musicians.

  The other me glared with glittering green eyes. My eyes. He was tall and lightly muscled, with caramel-colored hair and golden skin.

  My height, my skin.

  His hair was shorter than mine, but other than that it was the same. All of it. I felt sick, but I had to say something. Anything. “What the hell did you grab me for?”

  “I’m asking the questions! Who the fuck are you? Why do you look like me?”

  I wiped my palm across my mouth, noticed that I was trembling and quickly put my hand back down again. “You’ve got that wrong,” I replied. “It’s you who looks like me.”

  Confusion crossed his face, but only for a moment. “Whatever, dude. I don’t give a shit about the semantics.”

  We stared at each other for a moment that seemed like something old and timeless. I was vaguely aware of the restless movement of people in the audience to one side of me, as they waited for the band to start playing. But they’d be waiting for a while longer—the lead guitarist of The Dead Pirates was down here with me, trying to figure out why he had a double, and whether it really was true that we all had a twin somewhere in this world.

  I licked my lips, realizing how dry they were and that my throat hurt as though I’d been screaming. “Do you know what you are?”

  The changeling now called Jonathan Kane took a step back as though I’d hit him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Don’t play games with me,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “This is my life we’re talking about.”

  “You’re crazy, man.”

  “Life-stealer!” The cry left me before I could take it back; the words hanging between us like a dark charm filled with nineteen years of bitterness.

  Jonathan began to look around, probably searching for help—no longer able to deal with the threat to his big night in front of his adoring young audience.

  Strange, the way life can just flip and leave you gasping as though hanging suspended from a broken rollercoaster. Just like that, our roles were reversed and I saw myself through his eyes: a deranged lookalike, claiming his life has been stolen; maybe even jealous of the success he was beginning to build.

  But I wasn’t the imposter—he was. I had been born to Kristin Kane, not this doppelgänger standing in front of me.

  Ivy appeared at my side, silent as a ghost as she took in the sight of both sides of the same coin.

  “That is so rad,” she said, eyes Manga-huge in her pale, heart-shaped
face. At least she had her appearance under control again. Her hair was almost brown this time, although it was hard to be entirely certain in the shadows. There was a spot of ice-cream on her chin.

  I fixed my gaze back on him. “Why did you attack me?”

  He looked vaguely embarrassed. “I hardly attacked you. I was… restraining you. I just saw a guy trying to get through the stage curtain; I’ve had trouble with stalkers, lately. People watching me.”

  I couldn’t help but be interested in that. Maybe Ivy’s friends had been keeping tabs on him. “I was just looking for a bathroom,” was all I said.

  Jonathan raised his brows. “Riiight. Sure you were.”

  “If you were so worried about what I was doing back here, why didn’t you just call security?” I cocked an eyebrow in return.

  “Because—” He gestured helplessly. “Look at you. Look at us. This doesn’t make any sense. I had to know if I was… you know… going insane.”

  A tall black guy with an impressive afro stuck his head around the moth-eaten velvet curtains. He gestured to the Strat he was trying to hand over. “Jon, what are you doing, man? Signing autographs? They’re waiting for you out there.”

  Jonathan ran his fingers through his hair in a familiar gesture. I shivered.

  He nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

  “But—”

  “One minute, Darryl. Please?”

  Ivy winked at Darryl. He gave her a confused grin and nodded back at us. He looked like he wanted to say something else (probably something along the lines of: “I didn’t know you had a brother”) but he restrained himself and headed backstage, carrying Jonathan’s guitar and muttering something under his breath about damn musicians.

  Ivy rested her hand on my arm and nodded at Jonathan, then fixed me with the most serious expression I think I’ve ever seen on her face. “He doesn’t know,” she said.

  It was the truth, and once again she was stating the obvious, only this time it needed saying. This time I was grateful to her for speaking the hardest truth of all—the one staring me, quite literally, in the face.

  He didn’t know. He thought he was human; he really, really did. This promising musician, who’d been through the care system after his mom (my birth mother) had died following medical complications, had survived childhood to find his place in the world of music. Somehow he was able to hold this physical form and live a normal life. How was that possible?