by Jack Knight
The only interesting thing about my apartment were the symbols I had drawn on the walls in my own blood. One on either side of the door and every window in the apartment. The symbols made it so that nobody could use magic to find me, or use magic on the apartment itself from the outside. I wasn’t even sure what they meant, I just remembered how to draw them from my time in the Hunters.
After a few minutes pacing around the cluttered room, I returned to the couch in resignation.
“Fine, you jackass,” I snapped as I picked up the knife.
Slowly, doing my best to ignore the pain, I made a small cut across my right palm. It hurt a lot more than I was expecting, but not enough to elicit any noise, which I was a little proud of.
I set the knife back down and held my now bleeding palm over it. If this didn’t work, I was going to be really mad. Asher had insisted this spell was so easy that after a little practice the sacrifice would be unnecessary.
“Sursum!” I screamed at the knife.
I silently willed the knife to rise with my hand, but it stayed firmly on the table. Now, I was starting to get really pissed off.
My anger pushed me to recklessness. I snatched the knife off the table again, pressed the blade against my hand, a little awkwardly as I was holding it with my left, and drew it across my skin in a quick swipe.
This time, I gasped. Getting slammed into a wall by a supernaturally strong creature trying to kill me, super easy to ignore. Cutting my hand, agonizing.
The knife made a clattering sound as I dropped it back onto the coffee table. When I held my hand over it, several drops of blood hit the faded wood around the weapon before I could scream at the top of my lungs.
“SURSUM!”
I thrust my hand upward, daring the knife to stay where it was again, but it didn’t. As I lifted my hand, the knife flew into the air, staying exactly as far away from my bleeding palm as it had been on the table. I raised and lowered my hand a few times, the knife bobbed up and down in the air as if it was attached by a string.
Laughter forced its way out of me as I snatched the floating knife out of the air with my left hand and set it on the table. I cradled my wounded hand in my lap and let my head fall back and my eyes close.
“Alright, that was cool,” I mumbled to myself.
Well, that meant my homework was done. Asher hadn’t actually told me much about magic, he just told me how to practice that one spell and told me to work on it by myself. I would have preferred some instruction in Latin, so that I could learn from the grimoire I had stashed under my bed, but it was only day one.
As I sat there, holding my bleeding hand palm up so I wouldn’t get blood all over my pants, I wondered if I would be able to practice that spell while I was at work. Cutting myself in front of customers probably wouldn’t make Mr. O’Grady very happy.
Then, my phone started vibrating in my pocket. My right pants pocket. This was going to suck.
As gingerly as I could, I slowly edged my fingers into my jeans, feeling the sting of pain as it cut across my palm, like the ghost of the knife was still trying to cause me pain.
Several agonizing seconds later, I had extracted the phone, and I saw that Asher was calling me. I had just given him my number a couple of hours ago, this seemed a little premature.
I hit the button to answer the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Calling someone is literally the worst thing you can do to them,” I said quickly.
“Duly noted,” Asher answered immediately. Something about his serious tone worried me.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“All hands on deck situation, we need you back at the church,” Asher answered, speaking quickly.
“Dude, I’m not actually one of you,” I protested as I rolled my eyes.
“Get here as quickly as you can,” Asher insisted, and then I heard the beep indicating he had hung up.
I groaned to myself and stood up. It sounded important, but I honestly didn’t care. Whatever problem the Reapers had, they could handle it themselves, I didn’t plan on sticking around Ezra’s little group any longer than necessary. If I didn’t need Asher to keep teaching me, I wouldn’t have cared about his phone call at all.
As it was, I needed a teacher, and I needed that teacher to like me. So, I washed my hand, slapped a bandage over it from my first aid kit that I kept under the sink, and hurried to leave.
When I opened my front door, William was standing inches from me, his hand raised like he was about to knock.
“Well, hello there,” he said awkwardly as he slowly lowered his hand.
“William, I’m kind of in a hurry, I need you to move.”
William glanced down at my waist, likely at the belt that I kept my knife in at all times. Hurry or not, I wasn’t going to leave it behind. Seeing my magic weapon was apparently enough to make William stand back.
I closed the door behind me, locked it and tried to hurry away, but William was following me.
The sun had gone down since the last time I had been outside, so William didn’t have to hide in the shadows. After practically sprinting down the stairs and heading out at a brisk walk, I realized William had been walking beside me the entire time. Vampires were always so quiet I hadn’t even noticed.
“What do you want?” I asked without looking at him.
“Something weird is going on,” he answered immediately. It seemed like he had been intent on waiting until I asked and then launching into whatever he wanted to say before I could stop him.
I held up a hand, he hesitated, like he was considering talking anyway, but I saw his eyes dart toward my knife again.
“Listen, I’m sure whatever it is, you can manage for the next few hours on your own. Get your ghoul to help you,” I said with mock excitement.
William’s eyes went wide. “I’m not going to—”
I stopped, drew my knife, and pointed it at William’s chest. He stopped walking and talking immediately, which sent a bit of a sadistic thrill through me.
“Listen closely, I’m in a hurry. I’ll talk to you later. If you keep trying to follow me, you’ll be saying goodbye to your favorite head, ‘kay?”
Without waiting for a response, I turned and started jogging. A few minutes later I glanced back, just in case the threat hadn’t been enough. William was nowhere in sight. I was sure whatever he wanted to talk about could wait until I sorted out whatever was happening with the Reapers.
The church wasn’t too far from my apartment, it only took me about ten minutes to reach by jogging the entire way. When I ran in, I saw that all the Reapers were sitting in the main room around the tables, except for Ezra, who was standing at the other end of the room, facing them all with a serious look on his face.
“Maddison, please sit,” Ezra instructed when I slowed to a walk upon entering the room.
“Maddi,” I snapped as I took a seat at the nearest table, far enough away from all the others I wouldn’t have to risk speaking to any of them.
There was silence for a few seconds, and then Ezra put his hands behind his back and announced, “I’ve just gotten word that the Hunters are closing in.”
My heart skipped a beat and I sat up a little straighter. If the Hunters found the Reapers, I might be in a lot more trouble than before. Now, not only had I run away, I was in the company of a rival organization.
Maybe learning magic wasn’t worth it. I had the grimoire, I could figure out the rest on my own. How hard could it possibly be to learn Latin?
“I’m doing my best to hide us, Magnus and I have just finished setting up for a spell that will hide this church from anyone who doesn’t have The Mark of the Reaper,” Ezra continued.
I had to assumed “The Mark of the Reaper” was the tattoo that almost matched the Hunter’s Mark. Did that mean I was going to have to get another tattoo? I didn’t know if I was ready for that.
“I’m also setting up a recon mission, four people will track the Hunters and, hopefully, find o
ut where their base is. This won’t become a war, I know we don’t have the numbers they do, but we need to know as much as possible. Everyone must prepare for the possibility that we might have to leave town.”
There was a gasp from a blonde girl on the other side of the room, but everyone else stayed silent.
“For the recon team, I’m sending Asher, Magnus, Torn, and...”
Oh god, fuck no. I was not going anywhere near the Hunters if I could avoid it. They were still looking for me, following them around town was about the most stupid thing I could possibly do.
“Maddison,” Ezra said with finality as he fixed me with his gaze.
I glared back at him, but I knew arguing was pointless. I had agreed to two weeks, I was kind of trapped.
Here’s to hoping the Hunters don’t see me. I really didn’t feel like dying.
Chapter 10
“COME ON, I’LL SHOW you to your new room.”
Everyone else had already scattered. I had stayed seated, trying to figure out if my best move would be to run and hide, or if going along with Ezra’s plan was the best thing for me. Asher had walked up, a big smile on his face.
“I’m not one of you,” I told him as I stood up, “I don’t need a room.”
Asher shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, his smile not diminished in the slightest. “No big deal, you don’t have to stay there, but it’s been set up for you. And, Torn is getting the tattoo gun ready.”
I sighed in resignation. If I was going to be coming back to the church, I guessed I was going to need it. Being forced into things wasn’t something I usually tolerated, but I couldn’t figure out a better way to handle it just yet.
“Fine, lead the way.”
Asher turned around on his heel and marched off toward the door opposite the library. I followed begrudgingly.
“So,” Asher said as he started leading me down a long hallway lined with more doors, “I heard you’re quite the assassin.”
“Yeah, so you keep winking at me and I’ll give you a demonstration,” I replied in a sickly-sweet voice.
Asher chuckled, clearly not taking my threat as seriously as I had meant it. “Gotcha, won’t happen again.”
I rubbed my arm, right where my Hunter’s Mark was, and something occurred to me.
“You guys all have the Reaper tattoo, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How many of you were Hunters before?”
Asher glanced back at me right before he turned and pushed open one of the doors. “Touchy subject, wouldn’t ask about that.”
He stood back and gestured into the room. I didn’t take another step.
“Is getting the Reaper tattoo going to undo the protections the Hunter’s Mark has?”
Asher smiled. “No, you’ll still have resistance to vampire blood, your body will be more resilient than the average human. In fact, we even put something into it for all the sorcerers and wizards so their magic will be enhanced a little, kind of like our own Empowerment Sigil. No damage done.”
The only magic that Hunters were okay with was the magic in their tattoos and in their weapons. I had appreciated the faster healing, harder to damage skin, and enhanced reflexes. The protections against vampire blood had never been an issue, I had no intention of becoming a ghoul. Still it was nice to know getting the tattoo altered wouldn’t take those things away from me.
“Would you like to see your room?” Asher asked pointedly as he waved his hand at the open door again.
Not really, but whatever.
I stepped into the room and was actually surprised. It was about the size of the bedroom in my apartment, so pretty small, but it used the space well.
There was a bed on one side of the room, a small desk with a rolling chair on the other, and the walls were decorated with weapons. Some of them useful, like a couple of swords mounted together in an X shape. Some of them were cool to look at, but not practical for an actual fight, like the crossbow that was hanging on hooks above the bed.
Sitting in the desk chair was one of the Reapers I had seen in the main room but never paid much attention to. He was thinner than average, with greasy, brown hair, and a few more pimples than most people over the age of fourteen had. There were multiple bottles of ink on the desk and the guy was holding what I assumed was a handheld tattoo gun, which I didn’t know was a thing.
“This is Torn,” Asher introduced as he followed me into the room.
“Yes,” Torn said with a strangely blank expression, “I created this myself.” He held up the handheld tattoo gun, like he thought he was reading my mind. He wasn’t.
“Torn likes to create things, best wizard we have. Just don’t tell Gen I said that,” Asher said as he sat down on the bed.
“Come, you can stay standing, show me your old tattoo,” Torn instructed.
Clearly, arguing was pointless, so I walked across the room, removed my jacket, hung it on one of the brackets keeping a sword on the wall, and pulled back my sleeve.
Torn worked on adding to the tattoo I already had, and I did my best to not think about the pain. Asher laid down on the bed and watched, smiling the entire time.
“So, excited to join the Reapers?” he asked after a few minutes of Torn working on my arm.
“I get to kill bad supes, learn magic, and avoid the Hunters. What’s not exciting?” I answered with a fake smile plastered on my face.
Asher laughed, but clearly got the hint. He didn’t try to talk to me again until Torn had finished the tattoo. Torn tried explaining caring for a tattoo, but I remembered everything I had been told when I got the original one done, and he left quickly.
“You’re going to need to move a dresser in here,” Asher told me, as he and I followed Torn from the room.
“I like my apartment,” I insisted.
Torn turned left, heading deeper into the church, Asher and I turned right when we left the room, headed back toward the entrance of the building.
Asher pushed open the door to the entrance room and stood back so I could walk through it.
“Meet back here at noon and we’ll all head out,” he told me as I passed him.
“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled as I headed out and left the church behind me.
The walk back to my apartment was stressful. I wanted to avoid the Hunters, and here I was, agreeing to go and stalk them so that dear old dad could get some info I didn’t even care about. If the Reapers didn’t want Hunters looking for them, maybe they shouldn’t have killed a Hunter.
When I finally mounted all the stairs to get back to my place, I saw William leaning against the door, smiling at me as he came into view.
I put my hand on my knife as I walked up, resigned to listen to whatever he had to say, because it was clearly the only way I was getting into my apartment.
“What do you want?” I asked as I stopped a few feet from my own blocked door.
William pushed himself away from my apartment and his smile faded away. “I just needed to tell you that something weird is going on.”
“Great, can I go inside my own apartment now?” I asked.
William crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “Look, there’s a vamp going around killing people, that’s your thing, right?”
“There are Hunters in town,” I told him angrily, “let them sort it out.”
“This is weird, though,” William pressed. “Someone said they saw the vamp slam someone up against a wall using shadows.”
That actually caught me off guard. That sounded like magic, not a vampire. Vampire’s couldn’t use magic, it was one of the only good things about them, no surprises.
“Alright,” I reasoned with a shrug, “he was working with a mage, no big deal.”
“That kind of is a big deal,” William insisted.
He kind of had a point. Most supes stuck to their own kind. It was weird enough to pique my interest, and if someone was going around killing people, it sounded like something the Reapers should know about.
William let his hands fall down to his sides and he sighed. “Yeah, okay, thanks.”
I was all out of politeness for the night. I stepped forward, shoved William away from my door, unlocked it, and slipped inside before he could retaliate.
I pushed off my shoes without untying them, removed my shirt and pants while on my way to my room, and collapsed on my bed without even trying to get into pajamas. I was too tired to care, but the strange vamp thing was still bothering me.
Trusting the Reapers wasn’t going to happen any time soon, but according to what they had repeatedly told me, this sounded like their type of thing, and I should definitely let them know. Still, with Hunters in the city, it would be smart to stay away from it.
People were dying, though. I would have to at least tell Ezra about it.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but when the sun started shining through the space between the blinds over my bedroom window, they woke me by hitting me right in the face.
Groggily, my mind took in my bedroom, completely bare except for the bed, which was lying against the floor because bedframes seemed pointless, and a plastic dresser. The weapons on the walls at the church actually made that bedroom kind of cool, but I wasn’t going to move into a place just because of the decorations.
With tremendous effort, I forced myself to get out of bed. I half stumbled into the kitchen, got some coffee brewing, and walked over to the pants I had left on the floor the night before. I picked them up, dug through the pocket until I could extract my phone. I was glad that I healed so quickly, the cut on my palm barely caused me any pain.
When I let myself fall onto my couch and looked at my phone, I saw that I had two messages. Nobody ever texted me, that was weird.
The first was from Mr. O’Grady. He said that some Hunters were in the shop and that I should just take the day off. That was great news, because I had completely forgotten I was supposed to work. Dodged a bullet there.
The second message was just as terrifying as learning that Hunters were snooping around the place that I worked. It was from Asher, asking if I was going to show up on time.