Anniversary Shenanigans: Author Visit + Giveaway - T.A. Moore

Author T.A. Moore is here today with a mind-blowing fic. So, without further ado...

PAYING THE PIPER

People think magic is hard. They make up stories of scholomances and dark apprenticeships, of long years of study and old, wise mages who know when not to use a spell.

That’s all bollocks.

You don’t need any of that. All you need is that cold, effervescent moment when you want something—revenge, love, money—so much that you forgot nothing came for free. That got you that first, mercurial spill of power that wrung out your soul like an orgasm wrung out your body.

Of course, what some people wanted wasn’t always...good.

Lachlan cocked his head to the side and peered down at the dead man in the bath. The last sighting of him had been two hours ago, in a bar with a pretty boy who had a sharp smile and a sleeve of intricate tattoos that glowed subtly in the neon lights. From the state of him it should have been a year ago, his body rendered down to congealed fat and thick broth in the stagnant water.

“Jesus,” one of the cops muttered as the smell made them recoil out of the room. “What the hell happened?”

Lachlan snorted and snapped latex gloves on over his hands. The familiar, powdered itch of them against his fingers focused his mind on the job. He was here. That should have been enough to give the local plods a starting point for speculation. What wasn’t the question that needed answered. It was who.

“Francis Graves,” a familiar voice said behind him, the rough scrape of something ruined under the calm delivery. “He was a convicted sex offender, but he had friends in low places. The word is that he did the accounts for half the crooks in the city, and they didn’t want him out of commission for tax season. He got two years, probation. It looks like someone wanted their own justice.”

Old lust itched down Lachlan’s spine—a memory of something he’d wasted—and it should have been easy to ignore. There was a man boiled down to soup in his own tub, if the sight of it wasn’t enough to turn his stomach the odd sweet reek of it should have been. Somehow though, that just made it easier to let his mind wander. It scraped up that one fevered hour and picked it apart to spin it out into something with a bit more staying power.

“You sound like you approve,” Lachlan said.

“Someone got him off the streets,” one of the uniform’s on scene muttered. “We should thank them.”

There was a pause and then Ross cleared his throat with quiet disapproval.

“It’s not justice, and it’s not the law, but I’m not shedding any tears.”

Lach glanced over his shoulder. He kept waiting for Ross to get a stye in his eye or to mouth something hateful. Anything that would make the ridiculously perfect man just a little less...desirable. Nothing yet. Detective Ross McEntire rolled out of bed in the morning ready to serve and protect, and he looked good doing it.

So did Lach, of course, but he cheated.

“Don’t be too ready to give them a medal just yet,” he said dryly. “This wasn’t the work of some wronged victim. Not anymore anyhow.”

He spread his head wide over the bathtub. The sickly heat of it felt like a clammy grip against his palm. A muttered word under his breath made the tattooed lines on his arms splutter to life, a mute glow that stained his white shirt blue and glowed through thin material of the gloves.

After a second the thick stew in the bath gurgled and spat like a pot on the stove. The thick layer of rancid grease congealed around the edges of the tub spluttered to sullen, yellowish light.

“It wasn’t murder,” he said. “It was shopping.”

The tincture that someone had turned Graves into had already been tapped. Most of the magic had been collected, stoppered, taken away—but there was always a little left.

“The kid at the bar?” Ross asked. He should have learned from the case that ruined his throat, but he still sounded sceptical. “He can’t be more than 20.”

“Do you know what I did when I was twenty?” Lach asked.

It was rhetorical. Everyone did. They got the rundown on his record the day before they met him, just to make sure they remembered why not to take his cuffs off. Ross knew better than most. That had been the case that ruined his throat, and why Lach should have been ashamed to imagine him naked.

“So what next?” Ross asked after an awkward pause. “Do we need to put protection details on all the perverts who got off with a slap on the wrist?”

He’d do it too, despite the distaste in his voice. The same way he worked with Lachlan, despite everything. Ross didn’t let his own feelings get in the way of his job.

“That would be too easy,” Lach said as he stepped back from the bath. There was nothing here for him, no passion or spillover of compulsion. The only thing the killer had left behind was a mild, satisfied feeling, like a housewife who’d found the spice mix she needed. “It’s a recipe, Detective. I’ve seen how you cook, but most people add more than one ingredient to their dinner.”

He heard it in his voice, the same way everyone else in the room did. An off-putting hint of professional admiration that got away from him before he could strangle it.

Magic was easy. Magic was cheap. Just like the first hit of crack from your dealer. It was only once you were hooked that the price went up.

So creative, right? We unicorns thank T.A. for helping to make our 5th anniversary special!

Author Bio: 

TA Moore -

TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide. As her grandmother always said, ‘she’d laugh at a bad thing that one’, mind you, that was the pot calling the kettle black. TA Moore studied History, Irish mythology, English at University, mostly because she has always loved a good story. She has worked as a journalist, a finance manager, and in the arts sectors before she finally gave in to a lifelong desire to write.

Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.

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Twitter: @tammy_moore

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