by Jack Knight
Stupid shifter, couldn’t have just died like all my other marks?
Still, twenty-five thousand dollars wasn’t enough to pay all my bills for life, so I needed to keep my job.
When I walked in, Mr. O’Grady was still restocking the shelves. I had left an hour early, because I was walking so slowly. Which meant I have overcompensated and arrived thirty minutes before my shift started.
Mr. O’Grady looked up and said, “Hey, there, Maddi. You’re a bit early, ain’tcha?”
“Yeah, I guess I misjudged the time, sorry,” I answered, standing completely still. If he saw me walking with a limp, he’d definitely ask about it.
Mr. O’Grady just smiled and nodded, “Ah, go ‘head and start early, I don’t mind payin’ ya a bit extra.”
He went back to stalking the shelves, and I assumed that was the end of the conversation.
No “why’d you run off?” No “why do you sometimes run out the back door of the shop with no warning?” Not even a “I’m going to have to dock your pay for the part of the shift you didn’t work.”
If I wasn’t planning on leaving this city as soon as I possibly could, I would work for this guy for the rest of my life. He was absolutely amazing.
Careful to walk slowly, so my limp wouldn’t catch my boss’ attention, I made my way through the aisles and around the counter. Sitting down in my usual spot was a huge relief. Now, I wouldn’t have to put any weight on my hurt ankle for the next six hours.
Mr. O’Grady finished stalking the shelves, and the morning started out just as quiet as usual. After a while, Mr. O’Grady said he’d be back later and set out, like he always did. It was looking like it would be a nice and quiet morning. I could really use it, after the night I had.
I figured I would use the time to plan out how to spend my money. I had saved up about seventy-five thousand dollars. Fifty-thousand for a sit down with a sorcerer or a wizard and I could probably negotiate a grimoire down to an even hundred thousand. If William hired me for a few more jobs and I saved a thousand a month, which meant another year of cheap food and no fun after work activities, and I could leave this place in about a year.
It sucked to think that I wouldn’t get to actually start my life until I was nineteen, but that’s what happens when the first seventeen and a half were wasted learning how to do a job you weren’t allowed to do.
My thoughts wandered to things like where I would move, what kind of things I would have to do for money when I left, and, like always, came back to “why the fuck can I do magic?”
Then, my routine morning got turned upside down.
First, one customer rushed in. Normally, people that came into the shop were at ease. They just came in to pick up supplies, they were more often bored than anything else.
This woman, with disheveled hair, bloodshot eyes, and still wearing pajama pants, was clearly scared. She rushed to the far side of the shop, collected at least a dozen bottles, and ran to my counter like she was afraid to be in the apothecary for too long.
She paid for her stuff and left in just as much of a hurry as she had come in. It was strange, enough to make me wonder about her, but not enough to actually ask. I figured she had done something wrong with some spell and needed to fix it quickly.
Then, the rest came in.
It only took a few minutes, but after the first hurried customer ran out, the rest flocked in like they were racing to get whatever they were after before supplies ran out. The most people I had ever seen in the shop in a single day was around twenty, but I saw at least double that in the first two hours, and they all bought the same herbs.
Forcing myself into my customer service persona for so long was exhausting, but I kept up the charade pretty well. I didn’t ask any questions, just kept helping one frightened person after another. Until someone walked in that didn’t quite fit in.
Everyone, every single person that I had ever helped in the apothecary, was a mage. They all needed the natural supplies for magic, no exceptions.
So, when the guy with long, white hair, dressed in a dark blue suit, and wearing shoes without the slightest hint that mud had ever touched them, walked in, he caught my attention. The fact that he was the first person that day who didn’t seem to be in a huge hurry set off alarms in my head, too.
If it had ever been important to keep my mind blank, it was now. And, for the first time in a long time, I just couldn’t. I tried not to look at the guy, but with everyone rushing through the shop, at least ten people at the time, and him taking slow, leisurely strides, I couldn’t help but watch him.
Finally, I figured the best way to keep my mind focused was to distract myself with something I found just as interesting as the strange man. I waited for the next customer to come running up to the counter, a girl not too much older than me, a little cleaner than the average witch, looking even more scared than the others.
I started ringing up her supplies, the same ones as every other person that morning, and asked in the best casual tone I could fake, “So, what’s going on with everyone today?”
The girl looked up at me with surprise. For a second, I thought it might be because she hadn’t realized I was an actual person. Most customers treated me like I was less than human, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if me talking had caught her off guard. This time, that wasn’t it.
“You didn’t hear?” she responded in a trembling whisper.
I shook my head. “Hear what?”
“Hunters are in the city, and someone took one of their targets.”
Oh, fuck.
I couldn’t help but glance up at the dude with white hair. It looked like he was examining a bottle of something, but he was turned away from the shelves, facing toward me. I got the feeling that he had been watching me until I looked up at him.
Gotta act natural.
“Really?” I asked, lowering my voice to a whisper. The girl had blue eyes, but there were flecks of green in them, I was focusing on that, forcing my mind to block out everything else. “How do you know?”
“Everyone knows!” the girl insisted, her voice shaking even worse now. “They’re here in huge numbers, visiting every supe in the city. They’re showing up at people’s doors asking questions.”
Yeah, this was really bad. The one downside to working in a witch shop, there were plenty of people who would know about me. If the Hunters asked the right questions, a finger might be pointed at me eventually.
And the guy with the white hair was still looking at the same bottle.
“So this stuff,” I asked, trying to keep my eyes from wandering again, “all the witches in the city are hiding themselves?”
The girl nodded in a jerky fashion. “Everyone is, not just the witches. The Hunters are pissed. They aren’t saying much, just asking a bunch of questions, but you know Hunters and rumors travel fast.”
Wait... maybe this wasn’t about me. A shifter that attacked someone would probably be a pretty badly kept secret. Sure, it was definitely the type of thing the Hunters would try to take care of, but maybe someone else had fucked with the Hunters.
“That’s scary,” I said, not having to pretend this time.
The girl paid quickly, gathered up her stuff, and said, “I hope they don’t come in here. They aren’t fucking around this time.”
She hurried away, and I did my best not to roll my eyes.
The Hunters never fucked around. I remember the first time I watched someone interrogate a vamp to find out where some murderer was hiding. When you know someone heals supernaturally fast, you don’t worry so much about how badly you hurt them.
It was odd for the Hunters to interrogate an entire city, though. I had covered my tracks well enough, I thought. They had no reason to come looking for me. They would have to assume the shifter I killed was just someone killed in a random fight. This had to be about something else.
Even so, the Hunters were searching all of town. I needed to hide. If they wanted to question me, they might stumble
onto who I am. That wasn’t something I could risk.
Unfortunately, I had about four hours left. Mr. O’Grady wasn’t here this time, I couldn’t just run home. I would have to wait it out.
The man with the white hair seemed to decide he was ready to buy whatever he had been staring at for five minutes and walked to the back of the line of customers trying to pay. The last of the other ten people had disappeared into the store outside by the time he got to the counter.
Being alone in the shop with this guy set me on high alert, I grabbed the handle of my knife as he approached the counter, just to be sure it was still there if I needed it.
“Hi, you find everything okay?” I asked, just like I did with everyone else.
The man’s mouth twitched, like he was fighting a smile. “I believe I did, yes.”
Okay, super creepy response to a normal question. I glanced at his arm, before realizing I wouldn’t be able to see a Hunter’s Mark through his suit.
“I’m not a Hunter,” he said, right as I looked back at his face.
“Of course not,” I said as I lowered my gaze to the item he was trying to buy. “What would a Hunter need with badger fur?”
I scanned the bottle and the guy slid his card into the machine. He didn’t answer my question, but he did keep glancing up at me as he followed the prompts to pay.
There was no way I was letting my mind wander now. I stared directly at the man’s face and tried not to think of anything at all.
He slid his card out of the machine, picked up his bottle of animal hair, and turned to leave.
“By the way,” he said as he slowly strolled out of the shop, “the Hunters aren’t after you. No need to worry.”
The apothecary was left with a ringing silence after the man left, and since I was alone I let my mind spin out of control.
He would have had to read my mind to know what I was worrying about, right? Who would just randomly say that to someone? If my thoughts hadn’t been as focused as I thought, what else had the guy heard?
Whoever that guy was, he was dangerous. And, if he was telling the truth and the Hunters weren’t after me, did that mean that there was another threat in the city? Could it be him?
For the first time since I had left the Hunters, I was legitimately scared.
Chapter 5
NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT mind would ever consider me to be a “people person”. That’s why even I had trouble believing who I was spending time with.
I realized pretty quickly after I left the Hunters that the most obvious thing to do would be to surround myself with supes. I would have advance warning if the Hunters ever came to town, I would have powerful allies who could help protect me or help me run if I needed it, and I would have an in if I ever scraped together enough money for a grimoire.
Because that was the most obvious thing to do, I also made sure I kept in contact with several humans.
My problem was, guys my age all seemed to be incapable of thinking about anything but sex, at least the guys I had met. So, that left me with girls my age, which was almost as bad.
I went for the next best thing: fang-bangers. They were humans, so I could pass myself off as someone who didn’t know anything about the supernatural, but they were obsessed with whatever vampire or shifter they were banging at the time, so I could still get useful information.
The problem was the type of person that becomes a fang-banger. Occasionally, you’d get the dark, loner types who actually drew the interest of those who were separated out of the rest of society. Mostly, though, you got the hot, air-headed types that the supes wanted to fuck within an inch of their lives and then toss aside.
The ones that I had found, no fucking joke, were Brittany, Jessica, and Stacy. It was like their parents had known their destinies when they were born and gave them fitting names.
All of them were stick skinny, gorgeous, and the most moronic people I had ever met.
I plastered on my fakest smile as I walked into the Starbucks to meet up with them. They all waved at me as I passed them to buy myself a coffee, and then again, as if I didn’t notice them the first time, when I walked over to the little stand that had sugar and stirring sticks.
When I finally sat down with them, they all greeted me in their high-pitched, nasally voices that made me want to pull out their bottle blonde hair.
“You never want to meet up, Mads, what’s going on?”
I had to remind myself that normal humans didn’t stab other humans for butchering their name. It was really hard to resist going for my knife.
“Did you guys hear?” I asked, doing my best to match their tone of voice. “Someone stole a Hunter’s target?”
One of them, Jessica, I think, waved her hand dismissively. “That’s yesterday’s news,” she informed me.
Yeah, because a group of highly trained, skilled Hunters terrorizing the entire city’s supes was something that became boring after a day.
“No, no, you don’t know the best part!” a second one argued. I think that one was Brittany.
“Oh, yeah, Gaven was talking about it yesterday,” the third one, whichever name was left, I always forgot, said the name of the vamp she and Brittany, or whomever, were both sleeping with as if it was the most erotic thing she could imagine.
“Yeah, he said that was just a rumor. The reason they’re really here is because someone killed one of them,” Brittany said in a whisper.
It took me a second to figure out what she meant, the idea was so ridiculous it didn’t seem like a possibility.
“Wait,” I had dropped my borderline mocking impersonation of them and whispered in my own voice, “someone killed a Hunter?”
“Yeah, fucking crazy, right?”
That was the downside of getting info from a fang-banger, there was a thirty percent chance that anything they said was some lie made up by the supe they were with. There was no way I believed that someone had killed a Hunter.
For one, Hunters only ever left their compounds in groups. If someone had managed to kill one of them, anyone left alive would know exactly who it was, no need to go around asking questions.
For another, every Hunter went out with plenty of preparation, enough people to kill whoever they were hunting no matter what, and weapons with as much magic as the average mage. I knew from experience, you’d have to be an absolute genius and the most powerful thing on the planet to kill a Hunter. Getting out of the compound without getting caught was a near miracle, I couldn’t believe I had actually done it, and I knew everything about the Hunters.
“Ugh, Mads, are you actually drinking coffee?”
I glanced over at whichever blonde had spoken and slowly lowered the cup I had just taken a sip out of.
“Yeah, why?”
“That’s so gross, you need to drink these. It’s the same amount of caffeine,” another one agreed, holding up a cup that was filled with what looked like chocolate and whipped cream.
I looked at the last one and waited, they always spoke as a group for some reason. At the same time, I made a mental note to come up with a reason to take out my phone. I had their names and pictures in my contacts, it was the only way to remember which one was which, and calling them by each other’s names had happened once. It didn’t go over well.
The last one to speak looked around like she was sitting on a really juicy secret before she took a sip of her liquid chocolate and then said, “I only drink it for the taste. I don’t need to sleep anymore.”
The other two gasped, and I suppressed a groan. Jessica, I was pretty sure that was her name, had just announced that she had been ghouled.
“You bitch!” the other one sleeping with Gaven accused. “He Turned you?”
Once again, I had to suppress a groan. Of course she wasn’t Turned, we were out in the sunlight. She had just been fed enough vampire blood that she was being powered by magic as much as she was food and stuff. Ghouls didn’t need to sleep, they barely needed to eat, they were stronger and faster t
han the average human, and they stopped aging as long as they kept drinking blood.
I remembered that it had sounded cool when I first heard it, then it had been explained what being ghouled was for. Vampires would ghoul humans as personal slaves. The blood made you obsess over whoever had given it to you, basically taking away your ability to act on your own free will.
Sure, you didn’t need to sleep, but if your vampire asked you to spend all your time standing around waiting for him to come home, it would never even occur to you to turn on the TV.
The three girls gabbed about that revelation for what felt like an eternity, so I just sat back and tuned them out. Instead, I thought about the fact that they didn’t seem to care about the Hunters anymore, which really meant the vampires weren’t worried. If that was the case, maybe the Hunters had moved on. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it was something.
I also let myself entertain the obviously absurd notion that someone may have actually killed a Hunter. It was nearly impossible, but I guessed it could have happened. If that were true, it meant I was off the hook. The Hunters would search out whoever had done it, and they wouldn’t even need to care about me. I was completely safe.
“... so the guy went full hybrid and started tearing me apart,” Probably-Jessica was apparently in the middle of a story when I accidentally tuned back in. “When I couldn’t move anymore, he turned back into a human, ripped off all my clothes and just left me there” she looked around, seeming a little uncomfortable.
No. No way.
“A couple of hours later, I finally called Gaven. He rushed right over and started giving me his blood to heal me. So, I kept going back every night, saying I needed more, and I eventually convinced him to give me enough,” she finished with a proud smile and a little happy dance.
I could not believe what I was hearing. First, William was telling fang-bangers his name was Gaven. Second, two people wanted to get with William? Seriously?
That was enough for me, I couldn’t take being around these girls anymore. Especially since I knew that two of them were with William, intentionally.