by Daley, Lysa
“I know,” I agreed. “He’s going to get himself killed if he’s not careful.”
“And what about this Strutter guy?”
“Stryker,” I corrected her. “I may have to take him up on his offer. At the moment, I don’t exactly have any other viable options.”
“What exactly does he want you to assist him with?”
I hesitated, swallowed hard. “He’s trying to locate a missing… vampire.”
“Vampire?” Her eyes went big. “Isn’t that the coven’s job?”
“Under normal circumstances, yes.”
“Let me guess, these aren’t normal circumstances?”
“This particular vampire may have gone a tiny bit rogue.”
Stryker informed me that the job he wanted me to assist on was apprehending a vampire with a price on his head. Nothing could’ve been more dangerous. Especially because this vampire had been blackballed from his coven or “family” group. A covenless vampire was a rogue.
Ellie laughed. “I don’t know if that’s the craziest or stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I silently nodded. She wasn’t wrong.
“Why is this vampire a rogue?” Ellie asked. “What crime did he commit that was so terrible his own family threw him out?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
“Because you told Stryker no?”
“I told him I’d think about it.”
“You should tell him no.”
I smiled. “You’re right.”
“Good. Well, you can stay on my couch if you need it,” she said.
“Thanks.” I nodded. Ellie was a true friend. Nonetheless, I wasn’t sure her two roommates would be keen on me sleeping on their couch for more than a night or two. “I appreciate that.”
After breakfast, I poked my head in the bookstore to see if Mr. R was around. He wasn’t. I waited around for ten minutes, pretending to browse the travel section, but he didn’t return.
I was hoping he might have some old books on supernatural currency. I was also hoping Mrs. R had mentioned I was looking for a job.
Finally, I felt silly loitering and decided to leave. As I walked out the front door, I passed a little cart with a sign that read “free books.”
I hadn’t immediately noticed it because someone had shrouded the cart in a mild enchantment. It wasn’t exactly invisible, but you wouldn’t see it if you were a non-supernatural or even a supernatural not paying attention.
It held nothing more than a mishmash of dusty old books on potions and biographies of minor witches and wizards throughout history. I almost kept walking, but one book caught my eye as I passed it by.
It was entitled: The Proper Care and Feeding of Faeries: Animagi Beware.
I stopped and turned. What? I picked up the book and reread the title. This time it said: The Proper Care and Feeding of Faeries: Annual Report.
Had I read it wrong?
I flipped through the yellowing pages and this encyclopedia of the creatures of faerieland, newly updated. If by “newly” you meant 1931.
It crackled with magical residue, as if someone powerful had just held it. I turned toward the front desk. “Okay, if I take this?”
The bored clerk behind the counter looked up from his crossword puzzle and frowned. “Says free, doesn’t it?”
“Okay. Thanks a lot.” I slipped it in my bag and left.
It was already late morning, and I took my time walking back to my apartment. Normally at this time of day, I would have been busy in class or in the library doing research.
Not today.
Today I had nothing to do.
As I climbed the apartment stairs up to the second story, voices echoed from down the walkway. Lost in my thoughts, I was nearly to my front door before I noticed that it was wide open.
I froze.
I was sure that I’d locked it before I left for breakfast. Pulling out my cell phone, I prepared to dial 911. My only other choice would’ve been to use magic on whomever had broken into my apartment. But I was so startled, I couldn’t even think what spell I would use.
Slowly, I inched forward, finally recognizing the slow gravelly voice of my landlord, Mr. Gulch. The second voice belonged to some girl I didn’t know.
I entered to find them standing in my kitchen. Mr. Gulch was in the middle of giving her a tour. “Like I said, it comes with the appliances, but you need to get your own microwave and stuff.”
“Mr. Gluch,” I began. “What are you doing?”
“I told you, Miss McCray,” he said without any formalities. “I have a list of people who want to move in here. This is Candy. She’s a practical magic major who’s transferring from Stanford.”
The girl, probably clueless to the fact that I was being evicted, smiled brightly. “Hi! I love your place.”
“Thanks,” I replied.
“Give us a minute, and we’ll be out of your way,” Gulch said.
With no other choice, I nodded and stepped back outside. “Okay.”
He continued, “Anyway, assuming things don’t change, this place should be available by the first of the month.”
“Great!” she practically squealed. “I love it. Do you think she’d sell me some of her furniture? It’s so cute.”
“I have a feeling she would,” he said.
No. I wouldn’t. It was my furniture, and I was staying. I’d find a way to make that money and stay in my own apartment, no matter what.
911 still blinked on my cell. I cancelled it and made another call.
“I knew you’d see it my way,” Stryker gloated, sipping milky white coffee. “This is going to be fabulous.”
I hadn’t wanted him to come back to my apartment, so we agreed to meet outside the main student union on campus. This guy made me nervous, and I felt better having a few hundred of my fellow students passing to and fro.
“So tell me more about this vampire we’re looking for?” I asked, wanting to get right down to business.
“Name’s Bernardo. He’s a rogue vampire who just happened to skip his court date with the magistrate, thus breaking his bond with the court. The magistrate is very eager that we collect him and bring him to court.”
“So you’re collecting a bond for the court? Doesn’t that make you an actual bounty hunter?” I asked.
“In this case, yes. Most bounty hunters go after criminals who have failed to make their court date or skipped out on their bail. This upsets the magistrate.”
In the magical world, the magistrate acted as a sort of judge, jury, and executioner to unlawfully behaving supernaturals. Magistrates operated above and beyond the human judicial system.
Because the crimes over which they had jurisdiction were more severe than the crimes a human judge would preside over, the punishments were almost always much more severe.
A human judge could only sentence you to life in prison, possibly the electric chair. But a magistrate could sentence your soul to several life sentences. When you died and were reborn as that innocent baby, your ass got thrown right back in jail.
It was a pretty badass incentive not break the magistrates’ laws.
“Our job is a little easier because this punk is wanted dead or alive,” he said, slicking back his hair.
“Whoa! Hang on.” I put up my hands in protest. “I’m not killing anyone.”
“It’s not anyone.” He furrowed his brow. “It’s a dirty rogue vampire. The literal scum of the Earth.”
“I don’t care. I’m not doing it.” Personally, I didn’t believe in killing, no matter who it was.
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You don’t have to kill him. I’ll be more than happy to do the deed. I’d consider it a community service.”
I nodded but still wasn’t convinced. “What exactly do you mean by rogue vampire?” I asked. Most vampires were bonded to a tight-knit coven that served as both their family and their protection.
“He’s alone. Which means he’s been shunned by his coven and t
heir protection. Probably for one of the unforgivable crimes. And you, of course, know that covenless vampires are the most dangerous form of an already dangerous creature.”
“What’s an unforgivable crime to the coven?”
He didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t tell if he was hiding something, or he simply didn’t have an answer. Finally, he said, “Could be a lot of pretty ugly things. Killing another vamp, killing a human, dabbling in dark magic.”
“And you want my help?”
“Yep.”
“Seems like it might be smarter to find someone with a little more experience,” I suggested, watching his reaction.
“No, I think you’re the girl for me.” He nodded with complete confidence. “And I’ll split the bounty with you 70/30. That’s 10% more than I ever gave Clive.”
I cringed. “70/30?” “No can do.”
“So you want to utilize my…special animagi skills…but don’t want to compensate me for them?”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a half smirk. “What do you think is fair?”
I didn’t hesitate. “50/50.”
He barked out a laugh. “Right. No deal.”
“Okay,” I said, standing up. “See you around.”
His face changed when he realized I was serious. “Fine. 60/40. And that’s my final deal. By the way, did I mention that 40% would be enough money for you to pay your tuition, your rent, and still have enough left over to go buy yourself something pretty.”
Man, this guy was a piece of work.
“Mr. Stryker,” I said, walking to a garbage can to toss my empty coffee cup. “Sounds to me like being your assistant is a dangerous job. I’m not really interested in being another statistic. If you want my help, then it’s 50/50 or nothing.”
He sat silently scowling at me.
I shrugged and turned away. “Otherwise… have a great day.”
“Fine,” he conceded. “50/50. But… you need to prove your value to me before we go after the bounty.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And how exactly do I prove myself?”
Chapter Sixteen
Instead of answering right away, he stood and started walking away. “Come with me. I’ll explain. And I can drive you home.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I can walk.”
He spun around. “Okay, enough with the tough, independent chick thing. It’s just a ride home. Not an abdication of your membership in the feminist club.”
Whatever that meant.
I said nothing and walked behind him. We got to his big black Range Rover.
As I slid into the passenger seat, he leaned over from the driver’s side and pointed to the glove box. “Hand me the notebook in there.”
I opened it to find all varieties of magic paraphernalia, much of it being totally illegal, including several carved wooden pentacles used for fighting demons, a jar of freeze-dried newts, and a white handled boline knife with what looked like green blood dried on it.
Beneath it all sat a black leather notebook.
I handed it to him, and he quickly scribbled a list. “While you ponder the pros and cons of the moral appropriateness of killing a rogue vampire or assisting in its capture, I’d like you to get me these items.”
He ripped out the page and handed me what looked like a warlord wizard’s shopping list. It included wooden bullets, enchanted daggers, holy water, a pair of miniature flamethrowers, to name a few things at the top of the list. There was an address written on the back.
“You can get everything at Seven Suns. And I need all this by tonight.” He pulled a thick wad of cash out of his jacket pocket and counted out several bills, along with some random coins, and handed them to me.
“Where do you want me to bring all this stuff?” I asked.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said vaguely. I’m sure in order to keep up his international man of mystery vibe.
I googled the address. It was a place in Hollywood called the Seven Suns Magical Supplies—one of those places that if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never find it.
It sat on the east end of Hollywood Blvd, away from the touristy area called Little Armenia. It had been there for almost 100 years. Since 1919, to be exact. As I drove east down Hollywood Blvd, I crossed the intersection at Gower and looked left to see the famous Hollywood sign perched high up on a hill in the distance.
I parked on a side street and walked.
I looked from my piece of paper with the scrawled address to the numbers above the shop doors. After half a block, I realized I must have walked past the correct door. I stopped and spun around, confused.
A voice called from a darkened doorway, “Looking for Mackelmores?”
I squinted into the dim light of the abandoned shop’s doorway to find a homeless woman.
“Yes,” I replied, saying no more. Was that the same homeless woman who had spoken to me outside the Ironwood Building? She even had the same tattered slushie cup.
“You went too far.” She gestured in the direction I’d come from, then turned her back on me and returned to sleep.
“Thank you,” I said meekly. I tried not to stare at her for too long, but I was almost certain it was the same homeless woman. Except, she was ten miles away from the spot I’d last seen her. What were the odds of that?
I turned around and back-tracked down the sidewalk, finally finding the nearly faded address I’d been looking for. The shop sat between a Thai restaurant and a liquor store. This neighborhood probably wasn’t what it had once been.
The reason I missed it quickly became apparent. The storefront had no sign. No hours of operation notice. No display window. There was nothing that would indicate it was even a place of business. The old wood and glass door was shrouded by a dusty red velvet curtain so you couldn’t see inside.
I pushed the heavy door open, stepping into the shop and under the ceiling lamps with their old Edison light bulbs flickering. The dark wood floors matched the intricately carved wooden shelves filled with clocks that covered nearly all the walls. Oriental rugs spread out across the floors. A few oil paintings of famous witches and wizards hung in ornate frames here and there.
But the most distinctive thing in the shop was the ticking of the hundreds of clocks. Tick, tick, tick they all hummed in perfect unison. To the regulars, this was just a dusty old clock shop.
The one thing I didn’t see was any magical supplies. Only clocks.
“Good afternoon, young lady,” said the smiling man behind the counter. “Can I help you?”
“Oh, hi, uh…” I was pretty sure I was in the wrong place. “I’m looking for Seven Suns?”
“You found it.” He smiled, sipping coffee from a mug. “I’m John J. Macklemore.”
I knew the owner of the Seven Suns Magical Supply Shop was a wizard named John J. Macklemore. According to the portraits on the wall, he was the fourth generation of Mackelmore to run the shop, and the first wizard. The three previous managers had been a formable group of witches, each with the same distinctive flame red hair.
While John J. Mackelmore still had a smattering of red hair on his balding head, it didn’t quite have the dramatic impact as the wild wavy hair of his mother and grandmothers.
“Here with your list of items for school?” He walked around the counter. I guess he assumed I was a student because I was holding a piece of paper. “I hope we still have everything you need. Most of your fellow students have already been here to stock up. Are you in advanced potions or herbalogical incantation?”
“I’m not here for class,” I said, feeling a twinge of sadness at the reminder that I was missing school. “But I do need a few things.”
I gave him the list and watched his bright smile fade when he saw what I’d come for. He looked up at me then back at the list.
“I see,” was all he said.
For a moment, I thought he might throw me out. Finally, he folded the paper in half and turned toward the back of the shop. “Is this all for you?
”
“My boss.”
“Stryker?”
“Yes, sir.”
He frowned. “I see he’s going in a new direction with assistants.” He silently evaluated me from head to toe. “Probably a smart idea. Follow me.”
I trailed behind him to a small hallway at the rear of the shop. Shadows danced on the walls of the dimly lit passage, making me think someone else was lurking in the dark.
But as we turned the corner, the shadows vanished.
This short hall with a low ceiling and wide walls led to an impressive metal door, similar to that of a bank vault.
Mr. Macklemore chanted an unbinding incantation under his breath as we approached. The metal door had been sealed with a spell. A few steps before we got to it, a trio of locks clicked themselves open from the top down to the bottom. He reached out and pulled the heavy handle. The rods and pins of the protective door disengaged, and it opened.
“Whoa!” I gasped.
The contrast to the rest of the shop was stark. All glass and chrome, we stepped into a clean modern room filled with sleek, neatly organized display cases. I scanned the large glass cases from left to right, taking in more weapons that I ever knew existed.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“People think I like clocks,” he said, gesturing back to the main part of the store. “But the clocks belonged to my great grandmother Minerva. I like guns. And knives and crossbows. Weapons are really my field of expertise.”
“Everything looks so…”
“Deadly?” He finished my thought.
“No, expensive.”
He made a face like yes and no. “I pride myself on carrying something for every budget. Now then.” He eagerly clapped his hands. “Let’s see what you need, shall we?”
Fifteen minutes later, everything on my list sat neatly on a stainless steel table in the center of the room, along with a few things that weren’t on my list.
Mr. Mackelmore looked at the pile then shook his head. “I can’t believe he didn’t ask for a couple of nice reliable crossbows. So very effective with wooden arrows when hunting particularly dangerous vampires. Are you sure that’s not on the list?”