Magic thief, p.1
Magic Thief, page 1
Magic Thief
THE NEW YORK SHADE
BOOK ONE
D.N. HOXA
Contents
Also by D.N. Hoxa
Sign up to D.N. Hoxa’s mailing list
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
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
More by D.N. Hoxa: The Reign of Dragons Series
The Hidden Realm Series
Pixie Pink Series
The New York Shade Series
The New Orleans Shade Series
The Dark Shade Series
Smoke & Ashes Series
Also by D.N. Hoxa
Copyright © 2023 by D.N. Hoxa
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Also by D.N. Hoxa
Reign of Dragons Series (Completed)
King of Air
Guardian of Earth
Warden of Water
Queen of Fire
* * *
The Hidden Realm Series (Completed)
Savage Ax
Damsel in Distress
Deadly Match
* * *
Pixie Pink Series (Completed)
Werewolves Like Pink Too
Pixies Might Like Claws
Silly Sealed Fates
* * *
The New Orleans Shade Series (Completed)
Pain Seeker
Death Spell
Twisted Fate
Battle of Light
* * *
The Dark Shade Series (Completed)
Shadow Born
Broken Magic
Dark Shade
* * *
Smoke & Ashes Series (Completed)
Firestorm
Ghost City
Witchy Business
Wings of Fire
* * *
Winter Wayne Series (Completed)
Bone Witch
Bone Coven
Bone Magic
Bone Spell
Bone Prison
Bone Fairy
* * *
Scarlet Jones Series (Completed)
Storm Witch
Storm Power
Storm Legacy
Storm Secrets
Storm Vengeance
Storm Dragon
* * *
Victoria Brigham Series (Completed)
Wolf Witch
Wolf Uncovered
Wolf Unleashed
Wolf’s Rise
* * *
The Marked Series (Completed)
Blood and Fire
Deadly Secrets
Death Marked
* * *
Starlight Series (Completed)
Assassin
Villain
Sinner
Savior
* * *
Morta Fox Series (Completed)
Heartbeat
Reclaimed
Unchanged
SIGN UP TO D.N.HOXA’S MAILING LIST!
* * *
You will receive new release emails and giveaway alerts. No spamming ever, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
* * *
SIGN UP HERE!
* * *
Or follow me on Facebook
* * *
www.dnhoxa.com
One
Welcome to the New York Shade!
The beer is cold, the food is warm, and death is just another state of being.
* * *
The mural took over the entire wall of the building at the entrance to a part of Manhattan you won’t find on any maps. The wards slid off me, recognizing my blood, and the Shade greeted me. I looked around the wide street lined with trees, searching. There were people out there—a lot of them at this time of night, but I couldn’t see who I was looking for yet, even though glamoured crystals hovered in the air like lampposts that ran on magic instead of electricity, and their green light was enough to illuminate the dark of the night.
I sighed. He was going to be late again, I just knew it.
My magic connected with the Shade, and I sent it a very specific image of the place I was looking for. The Shade could always be persuaded to save you time if you had enough magic and were very focused on your destination. As I walked ahead, pink posters floated in the air even though there was no wind, and one of them wrapped around my left shoulder, demanding to be read.
* * *
Scheduled Maintenance Day
Potential dates: 05/06/20 through 05/09/20
* * *
I crumpled the piece of paper and threw it away. As if anybody could ever guess when the Shade would clean itself.
I turned the street corner and headed east, careful not to move the tote bag in my hand too much. A severed hellbeast head was in it, and it was already stinking. Nobody looked at me twice though my weapons were very obvious, but these were all very normal things in the Shade. The entire neighborhood was locked in wards so tightly even a mosquito with a belly full of human blood wouldn’t be able to cross the invisible barriers that shielded it from the rest of the City. We stood right across the island from Hell’s Kitchen, and the Shade was believed to be roughly half in size. It was just a guesstimate because nobody could measure it properly.
Another corner and I reached Valent Street, the most crowded part of the neighborhood. I sent a mental thank you to the streets for the shortcut, and looked around me once more.
You can find all kinds of supernaturals in the Shade. The usual—like witches and wizards, sorcerers, werewolves, ghouls, the occasional vampire, even a fae if you were lucky. But there were plenty of unusual creatures here, too—and one of them was just a tiny fur ball. He was about seven inches tall if you didn’t count the tail, which was bigger than the rest of his body.
And he was always late.
Where the hell was he? I didn’t want to miss Hester again and her shift ended at midnight. Only about an hour left. He knew he needed to be with me at all times when I was in the Shade, and I was already in front of Hellbeast Affairs.
Just as I was debating how suspicious I’d look if I started shouting his name, something landed on my sneaker and ran up my jeans with incredible speed.
“You’re late,” I muttered as the little red squirrel stopped on my left shoulder and squeaked. His name was Kit and he had no concept of personal space, the little fucker, but I still loved him to death. He was my familiar, after all.
But even before I could get into the building behind me, Kit was already at it. He scratched my cheek and squeaked loudly, which he only did when he wanted my attention on something. Narrowing my brows, I turned to the street again.
“What?” I asked, as if expecting an answer.
I didn’t—but I saw what he meant right away. Impossible not to, especially when I took in the face of the woman across the street, staring right at me.
She was a bit shorter than me, with big eyes made of molten silver. Her white hair made her look like a ghost against the darkness, and it didn’t look like it was made of hair at all. It looked like a thin piece of satin hanging over her head, falling all the way to her hips, interrupted only by her pointy ears peeking out for everyone to see. She was breathtaking.
She was also an elf.
Those were rare. So rare that I’d only ever seen one in my four years in the New York Shade.
And not only was she looking at me, but she and her friend were already coming closer. I held my breath and waited, wary, but also very curious.
“Sinea Montero?” the elf said with a perfect American accent. Her voice was melodic and full of rough edges at the same time. She looked young, but you could never tell age with immortal beings.
Her friend, though, was definitely not elven. He was over six feet tall, with wide shoulders and bulging muscles that he’d tried to hide with a denim jacket over his white shirt. And the way he looked at me…a werewolf, if my instincts were correct.
Kit tightened the grip of his tail around the back of my neck.
“Who’s asking?”
“We’re with the Guild and we need to ask you some questions,” the elf said, almost angry that I’d had the audacity to ask.
If anybody knew who I really was, they’d know that this was a version of my worst nightmare come to life. I had no business with the Sacri Guild other than killing hellbeasts and delivering them to their offices. The Guild didn’t need to ask me questions—unless they knew
So who were these people? Because they did not look like Guild officers. No uniforms, no weapons that I could see, which could only mean one thing—they were hiding them.
“Questions about what?” Kit squeaked, pulling at my earlobe. Though he was small, his little fingers were tipped with razor sharp claws and they hurt like a bitch. “Knock it off,” I told him and leaned my head to the side.
“About Sonny Montero,” the elf said, and she smiled sneakily, as if she knew she already had me.
I raised my brows. “What about Sonny?”
My baby brother was barely eighteen years old. He was a quiet kid and he never really got into any trouble. Which was another reason why I felt like these two were full of shit.
“We’ll be the ones asking the questions,” the elf said. “Please follow us, Ms. Montero.” And she actually stepped back like she really expected me to follow her, just like that.
We were already in front of a Guild building. Hellbeast Affairs was a division of it. The building next door, where she was pointing, was the Guild’s Protection Unit, and they had their hands full all the time. People were always looking for trouble—just not me.
Taking in a deep breath, I said, “No.” The elf froze mid-step and slowly turned her head toward me, a look of disbelief in her silver eyes.
“No?” she asked and smiled again, as if she was expecting me to be joking now. I wasn’t.
“No. Unless you want to tell me who you really are, this conversation is already over.” I turned around to the doors of Hellbeast Affairs, heart in my throat. I wasn’t joking, but I was bluffing. If Sonny was in trouble, I needed to know about it.
A hand with skin so fair I could see green veins underneath it, pressed against the door before I pulled it open. The smile had slipped from the elf’s face. Her silver eyes squinted at me, and I was pretty sure she had some not-so-nice words to say about me in her head. She showed me her teeth, but it definitely wasn’t a smile. Her pointy canines looked sharp enough to cut through my skin, though they weren’t exactly fangs because they weren’t meant to drink someone dry. They were merely meant to tear through flesh. Slowly, I put my free hand over the handle of one of my daggers, safely tucked in its sheath around my hips. Those were made to kill hellbeasts, as the hellbeast head in the bag in my other hand testified, but I was pretty sure they could decapitate elves, too.
But I didn’t get to find out because her friend finally spoke.
“Ms. Montero, my name is Emanuel, and this is Moira. If you could follow us to the Protection Unit, we won’t take up much of your time.”
His voice was softer than I’d imagined, but it felt forced. Like he was trying really hard not to freak me out. Too late.
Emanuel, if that was even his real name, pulled Moira back by the arm. He then raised his hand, and it took all of me not to jump back. Kit squeaked in alarm, but it was only a wallet he was showing us. An army green, leather wallet with a Guild ID showing through the mesh. He’d put his finger over his age, species and magic level, and I could only see his name—Emanuel Onti, but I recognized the grey ID. It was standard issue for Guild officers. I’ll be damned.
Since when did the Sacri Guild work with elves—and vice-versa? Elves liked to stick to their own world, Gaena, fighting a thousand-year-old war with the fae over land. They were warriors, trained to fight since they learned how to walk, and though elves didn’t have magic of their own, they were resistant to it, especially to fae magic. So why would this woman be here in the first place?
Curiosity burned me, but in the end, it didn't matter. Whoever these people were, they hadn’t lied. Which meant my brother had really done something he wasn’t supposed to do.
I released a long breath. “Lead the way.”
The elf gave me a proud smile and turned around without a second thought. She really didn’t feel threatened by me, not in the least. And I liked it that way.
Kit kept scratching at my earlobe, demanding my attention.
“We have no choice,” I said under my breath.
Sacri sorcerers like me were the only supernatural species who had familiars. They were tied to their sorcerers by magic and the bond was unbreakable. They couldn’t stay away from one another farther than a mile, if that, and if one died, so did the other. They also communicated with their thoughts—but not us. We were a special pair, Kit and me. Just as long as nobody knew about it, we were perfectly okay with him squeaking to get his point across and me speaking.
The hellbeast head in my bag was starting to smell really badly. It took them about an hour to decompose and go back to where they came from, and it looked like mine was already in the process. If it disappeared before I got my confirmation slip, I was going to be really pissed off.
But as I followed the elf and the werewolf, I had the feeling that soon, the hellbeast head was about to become the least of my worries.
Two
“I’ll ask you again, where is your brother?” the man said, his brown eyes squinting at me. I’d taken a peak at his essence earlier, and my instincts had been right. He was a werewolf—and a powerful one at that.
I sighed.
Ten minutes ago, they’d brought me through the doors of the Protection Unit into the first office they’d found—a large room with ten computer desks, but only three people had been in it. They’d literally thrown two of them out but left a woman in there with us. “As witness,” the elf had said. The woman now tried her damned best to pretend to be focused on the screen of her computer while her hands shook.
For the past ten minutes, they’d been questioning me, which pretty much entailed them yelling in my face and me telling them that I didn’t know. Kit sat on my lap, listening intently.
“I don’t know!” I pushed the words through gritted teeth. “He was with me almost an hour ago, then he went to meet some human friends. I don’t know where he’s going or where he will be.”
I told them about Sonny going out with friends in hopes to turn them off. Out could be anywhere, and Manhattan was a big city.
I prided myself on being a damn good liar, but these people didn’t seem to believe me—especially the elf. She looked like she was about to murder me any second now. Or at least try.
Instead, with her strange, silver eyes on me, she pulled out a phone and put it to her ear without ever looking at it.
“She’s not talking,” she said, then put the phone in her pocket again in one swift movement.
“You could be out there looking for him right now,” I said to the werewolf, sitting across from me. He seemed the more reasonable of the two. “Better yet, you could tell me why you’re looking for my brother in the first place.”
I’d asked them this four times now. They hadn’t been willing to share so far.
The werewolf growled, pulling his hands into fists. Was he going to attack me? Right here in a Guild building? He wouldn’t dare, would he?
