“Aye, let’s fuck this dude up.”
The others don’t waste any time surrounding me in an attempt to further my beating. I can pull out my Berretta; in fact, it was the first thing my mind went to once I hit the ground but pulling a gun would mean that they’d pull theirs…and that’s a lot of guns, especially considering that I have no intention to use mine.
“Not so slick, now, eh, pretty boy?”
The white guy goes for a kick to my face, but I catch his foot and press into his shin as I force his body to the ground. From there, I draw my knife, stab him in the tendon of his ankle, and use him as a shield as I stand to my feet and force him up with me. “So, this is how you treat tourists? I say, my knife pressed to his throat. A car passes by us and I watch it through my peripherals. Damn it. Cops will be here soon. “Was it something I said?” His crew tries to come at me at an angle, but I back into the street, putting more distance between us. “Any of you follow me, I’ll do more than just give him a limp.” I continue to drag the thug, wary of oncoming traffic. It’s a green light, but there’s a couple more seconds until there’s cars coming from either side.
My getaway.
I make it to the other end and shove my weight against him, causing him to fall forward back into the street once the cars are at a reasonable distance. From there, I burst into a sprint down a nearby alley and make the block, desperate to lose the band of thugs. I cross over another set of streets and make my way to a bar, careful to ease my pace to fast walk.
Running around in the middle of the night with bruises wouldn’t look right and I don’t need to give anyone any more ammo to peg me as a scary black man terrorizing the city just by existing.
The weapons I have on me wouldn’t do me any favors, either. I consider going into another bar but being ID’d at the door would just bring attention to my face. The murder of the witch will make news within the next twenty-four hours. Less, if I’m unlucky. I’d rather be labeled as a crazy person in an altercation than a murder suspect. I could say that I was mugged, which is kinda-sorta-in-a-way-almost-true, but that’ll leave a trail.
Huffing it back to the motel it is.
I make my way back in the most obscure way possible, making sure I lost the group chasing me, but also aware of the possibility that they could have taken a car at some point to hunt me down. I peep across the street a little past four in the morning and I see the bastards to the side of the motel, ducked off in the blind spot provided by an actual wall instead of see-through glass. The guy from before that I stabbed is probably in the hospital, which would account for the fewer numbers and the others are probably at another location, but still, I don’t like my odds. I’d win, but a now fully sober me isn’t too keen on the complications and added exposure. Also, buzzed me is a jackass. I gave them enough information to pull from a potential list of spots in the area. An educated guess from a group of the not so educated and dejected.
I go back into cover and backtrack to a nearby alley. The sun will be up soon and my side is killing me. I press my back against the wall and cuddle up for the night, my hand resting around the grip of my gun. I guess it’s a fair tradeoff considering I decimated that drug dealer’s achilles.
Yup… Just another night in the life.
Sleeping next to a dumpster for cover is something new though. I didn’t have that in mind when I stepped out. I hope the smell doesn’t stick with me. My luck’s been garbage enough as it is.
Chapter 3: Unfinished Business
I awake to early morning traffic. Not in the sense of being gridlocked in LA, but of the variety of grouchy drivers who don’t quite understand the laws of physics. It doesn’t take me much to get going. It was a light sleep. More of a rest, than anything. I check the time on my phone and see that it’s barely past six.
Hell, now’s as good a time as ever to make the call.
“Hey, you’re still good?” I ask, shifting my gaze while I get reacquainted with my surroundings. “Not feeling cursed or anything?”
“No, I don’t think so. Same as last time you called.”
“Okay, so the same as ever,” I snarl. “Guess we won’t know for sure until it’s time to collect.”
“Blaze, where are you? I’m scared. I thought you took out the witch or whatever, last night.”
“Sit tight. You should be good. I just got caught up with other things. How’s lover boy? He still in one piece?” She pauses for a moment after my words. Lover boy wasn’t quite the term to accurately describe their relationship. The idiot’s a jealous scumbag. Said he found pictures online of Victoria, the lady I’m on the phone with, with another guy. Casual stuff. He didn’t take a liking to it, which is odd because homeboy’s the one engaged and she’s the one who took a sabbatical.
“Yeah, I think so. He’s still locked in the bathroom where you tied him up.”
“Good. I’m assuming still double cuffed.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m not going in there.”
“Good call.” Andrew, Victoria’s estranged creeper-ex, is actually in her home right now cuffed and tied to a chair in her bathroom. Hella awkward and downright traumatizing, all in the same batch. He said he didn’t want her to die, just that he wanted some bad luck to fall her way. Nothing major…because who goes out of their way to sabotage an ex with witchcraft just because they’re in their feelings and the local witch has a special running?
Nevermind.
I gave her a gun for safekeeping. The ammo of which should be effective against anything supernatural via sigils, if I didn’t make it back in time (or died trying to best the witch). If Andrew somehow got free, she knew to pop him twice in the leg and to kill him if he tried to attack her. I made that explicitly clear. If something supernatural came after her, she was to aim for the head. Chest if she found she wasn’t a good shot. I wasn’t sure if it was a demon or something else already set in motion coming after her, so I was sure to ward up her home, too. General stuff to keep out evil. “I’ll be over in a bit. Forty-five minutes, tops. Still wrapping things up with something on my end. From there, we’ll wait out the duration of the spell and see what happens. You should be okay.”
“Okay,” she responds. “Just hurry.”
“Yeah.” She tries to keep me on the phone, but there’s nothing I can do for her from where I am now. I’m not a quick study on the dark arts, nor do I plan to be. I do, on the other hand, have a knack for killing supernatural entities, so if something comes her way, it’ll have to go through me first.
****
“How’s it going? Anything change?” I ask Victoria as I step through the doorway and into her home.
“No. Are you…okay?” she asks, worry tinting the flavor of her words.
I got dragged by a witch, had a pity fest, got jumped, and slept out in the elements, next to a dumpster.
“I’m fine,” I respond flatly. She didn’t need to know all that. The roughed-up clothing didn’t help my case and I couldn’t hide my face and talk to her at the same time without looking like a psycho. “Taking down a witch isn’t the easiest thing to do, but I managed.” I walk down the hall leading to the kitchen and make a turn for the bathroom.
“So…so, what now? What’s in the bag?”
“My backup in case things don’t go as planned.” I feel Victoria’s eyes stare a hole into the back of my head as I reach for the doorknob. “Things to ensure we make it out of this alive—handguns, Holy Water, things like that,” I clarify.
“Got it.”
“You still have the safety off on that thing?” I turn back to face her after answering. She bobs her head rapidly and I take note of how she’s holding the gun. Perfect. Just like how I told her before I left.
“Good. Keep it pointed at him, but don’t shoot unless I tell you to.”
She nods again, but this time it’s a singular, controlled motion.
I open the door to the bathroom and find Andrew right where I left him. Restrained and with a black eye. “Hey, buddy. M
issed me?”
“I’m not going to hurt her man, I swear.”
“Well, I mean…you did try.”
“I didn’t know that—”
“Save it, man. You’re an asshole. A vindictive, self-absorbed asshole. You didn’t know it would kill her, right…fair, but you did sign up knowing that some bad juju was going to be coming her way. Like, what the fuck man? Move on. You’re engaged. I’m surprised she didn’t shoot you herself while I was gone.”
“I-I just want this to be over with,” Victoria mutters from over my shoulder.
“Yeah. Same,” I say, my eyes still fixated on Andrew. “So, here’s what’s going to happen.” I sigh, fully aware that my situation’s catching up to me. “I’m going to untie you but keep you in cuffs. If you try anything stupid, Victoria has more than enough of a reason to shoot you. Same goes for me. We’re going to the living room.” I pause. “We’re going to need space.”
“Space, for what?” Andrew asks nervously. I can virtually see the horror bleeding out of his eyes.
“To fight if something ends up coming for Victoria.”
“Wait, I thought? No. What?”
“Calm down. I said if…and you’ll be fine as long as you stay near me. I have experience with this sort of thing.”
“Psychic witches putting a curse on you?”
“No,” I answer flatly. “The supernatural, in general.” I go behind Andrew and work at his bindings. “How you feeling?”
“Scared as hell.”
“You should be,” I say with a grunt as I work at the rope. “How’s your energy levels? Still feeling off?” The deal drew from his life force; his soul, so naturally, after the ritual, Andrew reported feeling a bit sluggish. I didn’t have the luxury of finding out exactly how the spell worked, but I found out enough. The overarching mechanics. She was using the souls of unsuspecting people as an energy source to carry out her plans with something that didn’t mind killing for its share of the spoils. I’m sure that both parties had a contract of their own. There was the possibility that the witch was strong enough to do what she did as a solo act, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. As far as I know, she didn’t have to be in the same room as the victim. They were all remote killings; easier to cover her tracks. It could have been her magic or something else pulling the strings. If we were unlucky, we’d soon find out. Roc’s advice was the same as my gut instinct—play it safe. Assume the worst and prepare for it.
From that, I derived three scenarios; that the deal is already sealed and Victoria will die no matter what I do, a demon or something will possess Andrew and try to kill her, or we’d have to go toe-to-toe with whatever the witch that set this all up used to place all of this in order, assuming she had a partner.
I came prepared to for each of them, and more, but deep down I hoped the spell fizzled out when the witch was no longer acting as a conduit aka, when I killed her.
“I’m not exactly sure how the witch set this up. The spell was set to hit by ten in the morning, right?”
“Yeah. Well, two minutes after. Twenty-four hours.”
“Okay, so we have time. Roughly three hours. More than enough.”
“To do what?” Andrew asks, shiftily.
“Prepare.”
****
In the time that elapsed, I read up on a notebook I found from the witch at her shop. Nothing was there regarding her spells, but other information that I can use to my benefit. I double checked Victoria for anything paranormal. I didn’t tell him, but the markings on Andrew’s cuffs inhibited supernatural activity, demonic, to be particular, which was my original main guess. I checked him prior to cuffing him and nothing registered by giving him a shallow cut with one of my knives on the top of his forearm. There were other ways to get it done, but I wasn’t in the best of moods. Dude lost a lot of respect off the bat for siccing a witch on her. I’d asked Victoria in private what she did to him to make him go after her like that. Not to my surprise, it was nothing. She simply wanted better for herself…and Andrew was (is) kind of a jerk, for lack of better terms.
Sometimes people just grow apart, yeah?
“Okay, five minutes, until go-time,” I say as I check my phone from the wooden chair I found as a place to usher in the countdown. In the three hours that elapsed, I asked Victoria to follow me while I de-warded her house. I also disarmed her and removed the cuffs from Andrew after I re-tied him. Why? Because I needed to know if the magic would complete what it was set out to do. Depending on the parameters of my wards, the magic could have only been staved off until she walked outside. To know if the spell was done for, I needed the playing field to be neutral.
I gave Roc a call, too. He said he’d do some digging on anything he could find related to pact magic that dealt with blood once I made headway into the case. I tried to find the witch’s grimoire before I left her shop, but that didn’t pan out. She was good. Experienced. I’m sure she memorized her spells to be at the level she was at. Pulling a B and E at her place would have required finding out her actual name and then her address. Madam Woodrow in any way, shape, or form wasn’t anything close to her actual name.
It was all for show, which is kind of necessary if you’re sucking the souls from people in order to exact revenge and still be able to catch a matinée in your downtime.
“Two minutes,” I say again, glancing at my phone.
The victims died in a variety of ways. One guy burned. Another got hit by a car. One of the more recent ones jumped to her death. The way the magic worked…it was elusive, but also worked in a way that made it seem plausible. The burning could have been magic-related. Nothing else was burned except the person. A spirit could have possessed someone to crash into the second victim, or she could have been possessed or blinded by magic, herself, and walked into the car. The suicide could have been done through a variety of methods. Too many to factor in.
I have doubts about Andrew, but Victoria may very well be the one to try to do herself in. Of course, she doesn’t know this.
“How much longer, now?” Andrew asks from his chair.
“Twenty-five seconds,” I spit back. “Twenty…fifteen…ten…five…showtime.” I look at Victoria and then Andrew. Victoria to my right and Andrew in front of us at a reasonable distance.
“You see that? Nothing’s happening! It’s gone. The curse is gone. Can I go now?” Andrew asks as if he’s not in hot shit with everyone else in the room. Dude was willing to ruin someone’s life for next to no reason at all. What an entitled asshole. I don’t say anything, but let my expression do the talking. It’s enough to shut him up for a moment, but he begins again. “Victoria?” I twist my neck to face her and see her body rigid, slightly tremoring, like she’s suppressing something inside of her that’s struggling to break free. A bit of blood drips to the floor from her clenched hand furthest from my body. I glance at the other one and see her fingers begin to twitch.
Damn it.
“Victoria?” I grab at her hand and she looks at me, horror in her eyes. “Victoria!” I stand to my feet and she reaches for her throat with her other hand. I stop her, and force her body against a neighboring wall. She yelps, but continues to resist me, her fingers still coiled like she plans to rip out her throat. “Victoria, you have to fight it! Listen to me, Victoria.” I shove my weight against her and thrust my forearm against her neck and chin. I use my strength to my advantage and position her head to the side and isolate one of her arms, locking her down and freeing one of mine. “You’ve got to fight it, Victoria!”
“I-I can’t. I…have to. I deserve it.”
“What’s she doing?” Andrew asks.
“It’s the curse,” I say between grunts as I manage to punch in Roc’s number on speed dial and switch it to speaker. “It’s trying to make her kill herself.”
Damn it, Roc. Pick up!
Victoria’s free hand flies in a flurry of assaults, continually switching its priority from attacking me to making grabs at herself. I jut my s
houlder into her bicep, further limiting her movements.
“I have to, I have to, I have to, I can’t stop! It hurts!” she sobs manically. “It hurts so bad!”
“What are we dealing with?” Roc answers the phone, already prepped and ready to do business. Before this all went down, I told him that he might be needed, depending how the situation unfolded.
“It’s the girl. The curse is on her. She’s trying to kill herself…she says she’s in pain. Hallucinating.”
“Ah, shit…okay…okay…”
“Roc? Come on, man.” I continue to hold Victoria, but her mannerisms become more frantic, like she’s losing what little control she has left over herself. “Roc!”
“Got it!” Roc begins to chant and it bleeds from my phone’s speaker into the room. Victoria’s body jerks and I feel her body jolt under my weight. Rocco’s voice amplifies and Victoria screams at the top of her lungs as she continues to writhe.
Eventually Roc stops and her body goes lax. I ease off of Victoria but still hold her against the wall for support.
“Did you save her?” Andrew asks in the midst of the mutual silence.
I lower Victoria to the floor where she then sits, her eyes wide with shock. Silent with the shakes and fleeting breath.
“Yeah,” I respond soberly. “We did. Thanks Roc. I’ve got it from here.” I end the call and twist back at Andrew, still tied to the chair. “And as I’m sure you know by now, you’re an asshole.”
Chapter 4: Grudge
“And I don’t want you coming around her for any reason. You hear me?” I say to Andrew. He’s a bit in front of me, further down from the steps of Victoria’s place. “Write her a check for a couple grand and forget about her.”
“A couple grand?” he asks.
“Yeah…should be more. You do realize you almost made her kill herself, right? You know what kind of baggage comes along with that?”
“I-I just want him out, gone,” Victoria announces, her body still fighting through the waves of shock. I’m happy that Roc dealt with it the way that he did. If I didn’t have him, I would have had to go another route…one that would have left her in much worse shape than she’s in, right now.
Blaze Monroe and the Shattered Heart: A Supernatural Thriller (The Hunter Who Lost His Way Book 2) Page 2