The Roving Death (The Freelancers Book 2)

by Lee Isserow

  “It's gonna be closer to two-five if we go through that bottle. . .”

  “Oh hush, We get paid too much for what we do.”

  “I think we get paid just the right amount, given that we put our lives on the line on every single job. . .”

  “Tell that to the emergency services.”

  “I would, but they stopped taking my calls the sixteenth time my house set itself on fire.”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “Took me a little while to learn not to keep a painting haunted by a pyromaniac in my back room.”

  “It took you sixteen fires to work that out?”

  “My mind was on other things,” he said, with a shrug.

  Ana scoffed and rolled her eyes. “So go on, what are you gonna buy?”

  “I don't really buy things. . . I pay rent, utilities, stock up on food―”

  “When do you stock up on food?” she cackled, the words almost getting lost as she laughed right in his face, every guffaw intended to be at his expense. “All you have in your place is tins, stale bread, and paintings that set your house on fire!”

  “I cook.“

  “Never seen you cook.”

  “You want me to cook? I'll cook.”

  “Go on then,” she said, knocking back the whisky and conjuring a door over the top of the exit to the bar. “Better not give me food poisoning. . .”

  Rafe followed her to the door, stepping ahead to hold it open, and the two of them walked through into a supermarket.

  Looking around, Rafe caught sight of a single, lonely basket sitting by the door. He became instantly aware that it wasn't just him that had an eye on it. There was an elderly woman to his right that was heading towards it, and a young, overly muscular man in a suit coming from the right.

  He picked up pace across the aisle, feet slipping on the smooth floor, sending him skidding right past the basket. His hand shot out, grabbing hold of it at the very last minute, snatching it from the grasp of the gym-fanatic.

  As he continued to skid on the floor, Rafe put the basket between him and the wall, using it―rather than his nose―as a buffer when he slammed into it.

  Turning on his heel, The tiny muscular man was right behind him, glaring and flexing every muscle at his disposal to impart his discontentment.

  Rafe tried as hard as he could to not burst into laughter in the little man's face, and circled around him, handing the basket to the elderly lady.

  “Oh! That's so sweet!” she said. Rafe shot her a polite smile and returned to Ana.

  “Way to save the cat, I'm really gonna root for you now. . .”

  He rolled his eyes theatrically as he started grabbing foodstuffs from shelves that seemingly bore no correlation to one another. “I really miss working alone,”

  Ana caught his wry smile, and found herself adopting one of her own. “You miss malnutrition and chronic loneliness?”

  “It's not so much that I miss it, it's more that I think back fondly to those times.”

  “Halcyon days?”

  “Exactly. A golden time, when bickering wasn't part of my daily routine.”

  “You think this is bickering?”

  “Don't say it.”

  “I'll show you bickering. . .”

  They went through the automatic checkout, the machine getting confused by six pounds worth of items being paid for with a fifty pound note. Whilst Rafe tried to get the attention of a clerk, Ana conjured a door in the corner, out of sight of the security cameras. As soon as the issue with the checkout was dealt with, Rafe jogged over to her, and tugged the door open before she could reach for it.

  “Always got to try and be a gentleman, don't you?”

  “It's not so much try. . . it just happens.“

  Walking through into Rafe's apartment, he placed the shopping on the counter and began chopping red onions.

  “It doesn't win you any points,” Ana said, raising an eyebrow as she observed him began to throw his mangled carvings into a pot with a splash of oil that sizzled instantly. She was all too aware that the gas wasn't on, and the pot had no external heat source.

  “There are points? When did we start a points system?”`

  “There's always been a points system.”

  “How am I doing?”

  “Five hundred and seventy six points behind.”

  “How many points do I have?”

  “One.”

  “One?” he squealed, almost chopping a finger off whilst looking up in her direction.

  “Technically you kinda saved my life that one time.”

  “That's only worth one point?”

  “Well, you did let my grandmother die, and as a result I found out she was my mother and my mother was my sister, so that cost you.”

  “I don't like this scoring system,” he grumbled, throwing the last of the vegetables in the pot, followed by a tin of chopped tomatoes.

  “Tough nuts.”

  “Nuts aren't tough,” he corrected. “If anything they're crunchy.” Rafe raised his fingers over the pot and cast a sigil over the contents. Boiling water manifested in and around the vegetables, and as it came to the right level, he walked over to the fridge and grabbed cheese.

  “Do you want me to dock the single, lonely point you have left?”

  His lips parted as if to retort, but he thought better of it. Grabbing a spoon as the cheese grated itself, he stirred the mixture and tasted it. “Dinner's ready!” he said, trying desperately to change the subject, refusing to meet her eyeline as he began relocating his creation to plates.

  “it's not 'cooking' if you use magick.”

  “I've seen you use magick to dry your hair, and you criticize me for using it to cook?”

  “Totally different things.”

  “Right.”

  “When did you add the couscous?”

  “I didn't. That's my self-cooking couscous pot.”

  Ana rolled her eyes and took another bite. “Tasty, despite the cheating.“

  “Told you I could cook.“

  “Aww, you just had to say that, didn't you? Now you lost the point you gained from cooking.”

  “Why?”

  “Hubris.”

  “Don't like this system at all. . .” he mumbled, as he took another bite.

  His eyes met hers, jade meeting emeralds, contact held in silence with equally wide smiles on their lips. Unspoken mutual enjoyment of each another's company. Mutual enjoyment of each another.

  It hadn't been physical, not since the incident with the haunted condom that possessed them both. . . She cherished her time with him, but didn't know how to express that, because any time they seemed to be getting any closer, he would do whatever it took to put space between them, shying away, citing his family's curse.

  He feared intimacy with her, feared the mark on his legacy would result in any connection they might share being ripped apart by her untimely death.

  In the months they had worked together they had barely even touched, apart from in training sessions, or pushing each other out of the way of peril. And yet their unspoken adoration for each another was growing exponentially, despite―or perhaps aided by― the quippy, faux-argumentative routine they often found themselves in.

  But of course, that kind of serene status quo could only last so long.

  Chapter 5

  Far and wide

  As the moon hung high amidst the inky black of a clear night, the four members of the Miller family walked through four streets, knocking on four doors of four houses.

  Each of them were answered eventually, and the auras of the Millers overpowered the minds of those that opened the door, and in turn, the minds of the families inside. They had intentionally chosen the houses of families, specifically those with four members, well aware that their sphere of influence was still shallow, and they could likely only spread their aura to contaminate two adults and two children. The next generation would be stronger. The generation after that stronger still. They were
nothing but footsoldiers in a larger battle, cannon fodder for the thing that lived inside them, serving it as it bided its time, gained strength and numbers.

  All four of the Millers were welcomed in, all sat at a table with the members of the families, all served dinner. And when they were full, all four of them took deep breaths and expressed a sulphurous cloud from their lips that spread across the room, causing their hosts to pass out in their plates.

  Each of the Millers had a moment, albeit brief, in which they suddenly became aware of their new surroundings. The shortest of moments of realisation that they were in a different house from the one they knew, flanked by the bodies of four strangers, only to find the breath taken from the organ that used to be their lungs, just before they died at the table.

  Night turned into day, which turned back into night, and the four occupants in each of the four houses pulled their heads from their plates, walked to their doors, and parted ways.

  Once again, there was only one solitary desire any of them had; to spread far and wide.

  Chapter 6

  Everyone was screaming

  A guttural, piercing scream filled the air amidst a flurry of activity. Pain unlike any other coursed through the woman's system. A parasite that had been living off her for the best part of a year was being born unto the world―and she really regretted opting for a natural birth.

  The obstetrician was peering between her legs, making a face that looked as if he were thoroughly concerned. However, that was the expression he always seemed to wear, so it was hard to tell whether he was worried about anything at all.

  Her husband was by her side, holding her hand―although more accurately, she was crushing his hand. As much as he wanted to, he thought it impolite to yelp, as she was certainly experiencing a hell of a lot more discomfort than he was.

  Whilst the pain she was inflicting upon him was something he could live with, he was increasingly aware that her breath was laboured. With his free hand, the husband waved over to a nurse.

  “Can you check her breathing, please?” he asked “It sounds like she's straining to get breath out. . .”

  “I'm sure it's nothing,” the nurse said, more concerned with the impending baby.

  He thanked her, but it didn't put his mind at ease.

  “Nurse?” the obstetrician muttered, with barely a glance up from between the mother-to-be's legs. “Does the patient's breathing seem odd to you? Sounds obstructed to me. . .”

  The nurse darted over to her patient's head, producing a small flashlight from her pocket. The bulb burst to life, and she looked down the woman's throat.

  “Oh my!” she said. “There does appear to be an obstruction!”

  “Could you please deal with it,” he sighed. “Sooner rather than later, I am rather busy on this end.”

  The nurse shrugged off his gruff demeanour, more than used to his surly manner, and went over to a cupboard, she grabbed a tongue depressor and returned to the patient, swiftly inserting it into her mouth to get a better look at the obstruction.

  The husband watched with concern as the nurse's eyes narrowed, trying to make out what the impediment to the woman's breathing might be. She reached a gloved finger into his wife's mouth, prodding at something in the back of her throat. It did not seem to dislodge, and she pulled the finger out, replacing it with two fingers.

  “Almost got it. . .” she muttered to herself. “Almost. . .”

  An audible snap shot out. The nurse's eyes went wide, her jaw dropped, and a second shrill scream joined that of the woman giving birth. The nurse pulled her hand from the woman's mouth, two fingers torn off at the first phalanx, blood spurting across the room as she continued to wail.

  “Nurse! That is quite enough!” the doctor shouted, without looking in her direction, unaware of the sanguine mess the nurse was making to the formerly sterile operating theatre.

  The pregnant woman began coughing, deep and heavy hacks and wheezes that sounded particularly unhealthy. Her husband reached over and put a hand on her forehead.

  “That's it darling, cough it up.”

  She glared at him as the coughing continued, and he pulled his hand away sheepishly. The scowl fled instantly, when a rather heavy cough threw a handful of wet, matted feathers into the air. Her eyes went wide. Her husband's eyes went wider. The doctor was still too involved with the forthcoming baby to notice much of anything at all.

  The heavy coughing continued, and the husband timidly leaned over to look down the throat of the feather-hoarding woman he loved―only to see a pair of bright yellow eyes staring back at him.

  He pulled back as her jaw popped out of place, the creature launching itself from her gullet, spreading ragged wings that were slick and saturated with blood and saliva. The beast flapped manically as it hovered in the air above the pregnant woman, screeching an unholy wail from a long beak stained with blood.

  “Keep it down!” the obstetrician barked. “Some of us are trying to work here!”

  The creature, that looked somewhat like an owl, rewarded his abrasive attitude by regurgitating two fingers at him, that once belonged to the nurse. It screeched once again, a long spindly tail unfurling behind it, thrashing back and forth wildly.

  Its cry, and the cry of the nurse, and the cry of the mother-to-be were joined by the high-pitched cry of a baby. The doctor pulled it from between her legs and raised it up, proud of himself, as if producing it had been entirely his own endeavour.

  The formerly pregnant woman craned her neck to look down at the baby. Despite the insanity around her, an exhausted smile came to her lips.

  It was not to last long, as the demonic owl lashed its tail around her throat, choking the life from her. The husband grabbed hold of the appendage, trying to uncurl it from the neck of the woman he loved, the mother of his child, and discovered that the tail was not just spindly, but spiny. He pulled his hands away to discover hundreds of minuscule needles sticking out of his palms and fingers

  It was at this point that the doctor finally became aware of the chaos ensuing around him. Were he not wearing a mask, the others present in the room would see that his jaw was in the same state as theirs―that is to say, firmly dropped.

  At the sight of the newborn child, the owl screeched yet again. However this time, it was not just innocuous birdsong. The creature's chest burst wide open, its ribcage fanning out like the arms of a preacher praising the lord―but this this was no prayer. A mass of thin, spindly tentacles hurtled out, wrapping themselves around the child. The winged fiend whipped back and forth through the air, tightening its grip on the mother's neck with its tail, whilst attempting to also tug the baby from the arms of the doctor with its tendrils. Everyone in the room was screaming, freaking the hell out―which is why it was no problem for Ana and Rafe to work out which operating room to barge into.

  As the doors burst open, he already had a vial in hand and hurled it at the flying beast. The glass shattered against its skin, green flames erupting around it, filling the air with smoke.

  Unfortunately for Rafe, the fiend was still slick and wet with the juices of the woman that had been unknowingly harbouring it, leaving it mostly unharmed by the flames. What his attack did accomplish, was to piss it the hell off.

  The demonic bird let go of the woman's neck and flew straight for his face, lunging at him with long, sharp talons. He managed to get a hand in front of his eyes moments before the claws were digging into his soft flesh, only ripping out chunks of his palm and cheek, rather than taking his sight.

  Ana rolled her eyes and huffed, throwing her fingers up in the air and smashing through to the Mirror Realm, making a crack in reality right where the creature was hovering in the air. The vile creature fell to the floor, cleft in twain. Its innards splattered into a pile between the two halves.

  Rafe took his hand from his eyes, taking a moment to realise that he still had sight, then registering that the thing was dead. He etched healing glyphs on to his tattered flesh, which began to sl
owly pull itself back together.

  “I could have done that. . .” he mumbled under his breath.

  “Sure you could,” Ana scoffed. “Real great strategic advantage you had, bleeding on the thing. Come on, pick it up and let's get going!”

  “When did I start being your assistant?” he muttered, carefully uncurling the creature's tail from the woman's neck and tentacles from the baby, before getting on his hands and knees and scooping the rest of the pieces up.

  “Less talk, more owl-picking,” she grunted, as she went from the mother to the nurse, applying healing glyphs to them both before conjuring a door. The two of them left the operating theatre before any of those present could even begin to consider forming any questions.

  The door took them to an alley opposite another door. Rafe made to knock on it, then realised he had both hands full of owl. He motioned to Ana to take the lead, and she knocked.

  After a moment, the lock clicked, and the door slowly swung open of its own accord. They stepped over the threshold into a dimly lit open plan apartment, covered wall to wall in wooden cabinets filled with ornate tea cups on equally ornate saucers.

  At the centre of the room was a wide wooden coffee table, with four couches around it intentionally equidistant from the centre of the table they surrounded. To the far left was a kitchen, in which Reva Lang stood by the stove.

  “Wipe your feet!” she instructed, turning as they entered. She looked to be in her late seventies, not that it was that easy to tell a magickian's age by how they looked. Rafe had only ever seen Reva in the one set of clothing: a black skirt, and white tunic. She always wore lipstick of the brightest red, and had a mountain of uniformly grey hair immaculately piled atop her head, in a manner that Ana thought looked like a chef's hat.

  “Where do you want this?” Rafe asked, showing her the mess of owl parts that he held in his hands.

  Reva arched an eyebrow, unimpressed that it was in quite so many pieces. “Do you know how long I've been waiting for an owl to surface. . .”

  “If you don't want it, I'm sure we can take it elsewhere,” Ana offered.