by K. F. Breene
Just what I needed to take the edge off.
I shifted, trying to get comfortable. The stool clunked to the right, uneven.
“Do you live around here?”
I glanced over to find a twenty-something guy slumped in the stool next to mine. Glazed-over eyes and a strange lean said he didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into with the hurricanes.
“Yeah,” I answered. “You?”
He shrugged and visibly tried to play it cool. The result was a dangerous sway in the other direction. “I’m in town for a few days. Just taking it in, you know?” He leaned over the bar. His tongue wandered out of his mouth until it bumped off the straw in his drink. He corralled the straw between his open lips before taking a sip like a giraffe eats leaves, grossly floppy.
“Is that tasty?” I asked sarcastically, nodding toward the drink.
He released the straw and licked his lips. A cock-eyed, drunken smile slid up half his face. The other half was probably numb from the alcohol. “Yeah. Killer.”
I figured there was about a ninety percent chance he’d end up half-naked and facedown in the gutter with beads littering his back. Grimacing, I pulled out the file. My drink arrived as I was perusing the magical misdeeds of my new mark, which all seemed like high-powered hexes gone slightly wrong.
“Power-drunk mage,” I muttered to myself, looking at his handiwork.
“Mage. Is that, like, Warcraft or…” The man swiveled in his chair until his knees bumped off mine, clearly attempting to face me.
I pushed his leg, turning his body back toward the bar. “There you go. That’s better. Just ride that stool, cowboy. Keep straight and hold on. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“Ha ha ha!” He wiped his mouth. “But, like, a mage. That’s cool, right?” He might have attempted a thumbs-up, but only succeeded in pointing at himself with his thumb.
I sucked down a quarter of my drink.
“Whoa. Careful. I don’t know if anyone told you”—his burp turned into a small groan—“but these drinks are strong.” A finger wobbled into my peripheral vision.
I batted his hand away. “I’m a local. I know how this shit works.”
“I know. How this shit. Works.” He nodded dramatically and slumped toward the bar. “Ha!”
I looked for the bartender, who was perched in the corner looking out at the bright day through the distant door. A little wave brought his eyes toward me.
I threw a thumb at the man next to me before putting that digit to my head, indicating his intoxication level.
The bartender shrugged. “Let’s see how he does.”
A little sport on a slow day. Fair enough.
I pored over the contents of the file, preparing myself. A touch skimmed my back and a face closed in for my throat.
A shock of fear washed over me. The next instant, my fist smashed into the guy’s nose, throwing his head back. I’d already grabbed the hand on my back, and now I twisted it, bending his body toward the ground. He rolled off the barstool and crashed to the floor like a clump of wet paper towels.
“Oh shoot.” I dramatically grimaced. “Sorry about that, guy. But really, you shouldn’t try to invade a girl’s space without approval. That’s a dick move, right there. Stuff like that gets you hurt. Obviously.”
Face toward the floor, he threaded his hands behind his head like the ceiling was falling down. “Please don’t hurt me.”
The bartender hurried closer, looking over the bar with a smile plastered on his face. “Hey, bud. You okay?”
“I definitely tweaked his wrist,” I murmured. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Serves him right.” The bartender leaned on the bar for a better look. “Good reactions, though. Fast.”
The drunk guy’s hands relaxed to the floor. His breath evened out into a slow, deep rhythm.
“Did he pass out?” a woman down the bar asked, leaning backward to see around me.
“He passed out!” the bartender said with glee.
The woman turned to her friend. “I told you these drinks were intense. Didn’t I tell you?”
Somehow she seemed to have missed the fist he’d taken to the face.
I gingerly sat down and vaguely gestured at the body on the ground. “Should someone pick him up, or…?”
The bartender shrugged. “Probably.”
No one moved to lift him.
Like everyone else, I decided it wasn’t my problem.
Back to my notes—I went over a few more particulars before closing up the file and finishing my drink. I grabbed my duffel, which held my sword, a pack of throwing knives, and a nine millimeter I called Daisy. Wearing the full arsenal at night was one thing—I’d saved a cop’s life from a drugged-out tourist a few years ago, and he’d spread the word that I was good people. The police feigned blindness under the cover of darkness. But in the daytime, when it was easier to see what was strapped to my body, I dinged all kinds of danger bells with the visiting folk. For that reason, I only kitted myself out in daylight in dire emergencies.
“Wish me luck,” I said to the bartender as I headed for the door.
“Thanks for the tip.” He collected the five off the counter.
He wasn’t great at listening to direction.
The glare of the sunshine made me squint as I stepped out of the bar. I threw up a hand to block the rays and struggled to get my phone out of the small leather pouch around my waist.
There was a Lyft car nearby, so I ordered it and waited until it worked around the block. I slipped into the back and froze as the clanking of my weapons gave away what was in the duffel.
“Where ya headed?” The bearded driver showed me a pleasant smile in the rearview mirror.
I pointed at my phone. “I put the coordinates into the app…”
He leaned toward the dash where his phone was stationed. “There it is. Okay, then.” He pulled away from the curb, almost hit a pedestrian, swore under his breath, and away we went.
“Good day so far?” he asked.
I mumbled something to the tune of “fine.” My thoughts had strayed back to the vampire’s note. Short and sweet, penned in an elegant hand, it had read: I require a bounty hunter. Reagan Somerset. Send her to me. I’ll make it worth her while.
It hadn’t said anything about a partner. Maybe they’d try to stick me with a new vamp that would lose its head and try to latch on to my neck. I’d then be forced to kill it, which might stress my relationship with the poster of the bounty, somewhat.
The real question was: was this a trick to get me into the Dungeon, a name everyone but them used for the vampire’s lair, so they could check me out?
“This is it, right?” The driver turned in his seat to look back at me, and that was when I realized we were stopped in front of a dilapidated house overrun with weeds.
“Yes. Thanks.” My bag clinked as I climbed out of the car.
Small houses fairly close together stretched down the street. All but one had perfectly manicured, brownish-green lawns—all the weeds trimmed, if not pulled—straight welcome mats in front of the doors, and pruned bushes. No beads hung from the power lines. In their desire to fit in with the humans, they completely stuck out.
I eyed the sore thumb, the kind of house I might expect in this area. The breeze rattled leaves across the ground. Weeds grew like a disease, choking the sides of the cracked or crumbling walkway leading to a weathered door with peeling paint. I noticed a blackened area charring the dirt in the front yard—any hint of grass was long gone. Beside it were shells, a bone, and some feathers sticking to a clump of something no longer living.
Sacrifice, probably, intended to boost the power level of a spell. I hoped it wasn’t one I would soon be running into.
Dare to dream.
With my eyes on the house, I bent to my bag and pulled back the zipper. My sword greeted me. I strapped it on, followed by my knives and gun. Once done, I walked the sidewalk in front of the house, feeling the vibr
ation of magic. Somewhat powerful but straightforward. No flair, and no complexity.
Next door, curtains ruffled in a window. I was being watched.
Busybody.
I thought back to the file again. Had it said anything about the magical nature of the people in the neighborhood? I couldn’t remember, but if they were mages, or even witches, they’d expect me to coat my blade with a spell. Few, if any, mages could pump raw power into a weapon and then use it to unravel a spell. Which meant I needed to put on a show to hide my abilities. So annoying.
I dug into the leather pouch and extracted an empty casing. Pinching it together so no one would know it had already been used, I held the ball near my sword. It was an effort to keep myself from looking around guiltily as I muttered a few curse words. That would pass for spell casting, I hoped.
Once done, I dropped the casing and surged fresh power into the sword. My blade passed through the spell, steaming. Nothing to it.
Before I could charge forward, the front door burst open. A spell gushed out, sizzling the air.
I dove to the side and rolled onto the mage’s dirt yard. Hopping up quickly, I ran at him, sword held in front of me.
“Melt!” he bellowed—or something similar, anyway. I wasn’t paying much attention to the words.
A stream of crystalized blue rushed toward my face.
Holy balls!
I pushed more of my magic into the blade and sliced through the middle of the stream. The hex crackled as the magic fell away and slithered along the ground. Snakes boiled up, hissing. One struck at me and hit my leather boot. Fangs didn’t puncture my skin, thank god.
“What the hell kind of magic are you practicing in there?” I stomped through the vipers, keeping my blade juiced up. Another stream of magic came at me, frosty blue this time. He was losing power. That was good news for me.
I dug my hand into my leather pouch and pulled out another rubber casing, this time with a spell inside. I didn’t have many of these, since they were expensive, but the ones I did have were powerful.
I cracked it open and threw it at him. Nothing happened at first, then a starburst of pure white light exploded against his chest. The spell burned through his clothes and met his skin with a sizzle. I bet that hurt.
He screamed and dodged into his house, most likely heading for more magic.
Chapter Three
I ran after him. “Don’t do anything stupid…guy!” I probably should’ve paid more attention to his name.
Black rings stained the brown carpet throughout the dingy interior. Yellowed wallpaper peeled away from the walls. Bedsheets with tears and holes hung over the windows, streaming weak light in odd patterns through the dusty air.
“This place looks like a meth lab,” I mumbled as I paused in the entryway.
“They’ve come before.” His voice bounced off the walls and crawled along the floor. “In twos and threes, they’ve tried to take me alive. They’ve tried to take me dead. But I am Chartross the Almighty. No one will stand in my way!”
I stuck a finger in my ear and wiggled while extending my jaw. My ears popped, breaking the spell that had amplified his voice. That’s better.
“That was a very showy spell, Chartross the Almighty. Let’s have a look behind the curtain, shall we? I bet I’ll find a little man with a plastic ring from a cereal box. Is that what you are, Big C? Seen one case, seen ’em all.”
Something crunched under my boot. A piece of chalk lay crumbled in the middle of an unfinished pentagram. The carpet had been ripped away, revealing the discolored hardwood underneath. Unfamiliar characters had been scrawled near each point, along with stick figures contorted in extremely uncomfortable looking positions.
“I think you’ve got the wrong idea about how to make a circle, buddy.” The house rumbled. Miniature statues, all naked, rocked on the small table next to me. The smallest two fell over and spun across the tabletop until they finally clattered onto the floor.
A gun in one hand and my sword in the other, I peered into the nearest doorway. Small piles of garbage littered the corners. A funky smell tickled my nose. More patches of carpet had been peeled away, and shapes were drawn in paint or blood in each open patch. A hole had been blasted through one of the walls. Movement caught my eye. I could just make out the side of a face through the gap, and from the angle, it was clear his body was facing the door of the room he was in.
Criminals were rarely very bright.
A voice echoed through the house, the words sounding like gibberish. The walls shook and the floor rolled as waves of magic washed through the house. The power level was mediocre, but the spell itself seemed intricate and advanced. I’d never run into that dichotomy.
I leaned away from the door and looked down the hall, ignoring the arch of the living room behind me. At the back of the house, I glimpsed the kitchen. Before that, sharing the wall to my right, there was another door, this one shut. I knew what lay behind Door Number Two, and only a fool would traipse in willy-nilly.
I was only a fool when there were no other options.
Thanks for the hole in the wall, Big C. Now that I know where you are, it’ll be easy to extract you.
To throw him off my scent, I walked toward his door with heavy footsteps, stopping five feet away. “This is not the way to make friends, Big C. Come on out and we’ll talk it through. There’s no reason why we can’t compromise.”
There was eight hundred dollars’ worth of reasons why we couldn’t, actually, but who needed details?
“You insignificant human!” His spell-encased voice boomed through the house and wrapped around my head, stealing my breath. My lungs started to burn, lacking oxygen.
I didn’t bother cutting through the spell. I let him pour his power and focus into it, sapping his energy even more. It would be a painful few minutes for me, but since I didn’t need oxygen to live, it would be worth it.
I quickly backtracked and ran into the first room. My feet thundered across a spot of hollow wood.
Mental note: see if there is anything cool hidden in the floor.
I kicked away a small black pot. Liquid sloshed out. Smoke rose into the air and one of the few remaining patches of clean carpet started to burn away. I sheathed my weapons and bent to look through the hole in the wall. My mark stood in front of a large cauldron. Purple steam curled above the metal lip and wound around his body. The look and feel of the spell said it was his try at body armor. The casting was all wrong, though. Both the color and the way the spell moved said it wouldn’t fully solidify.
The character of this mage was starting to come into focus. He worked magic he didn’t fully understand, with power he couldn’t totally harness. Self-taught, probably, and not very intelligent. No wonder he harassed his neighbors—he couldn’t keep his creations under control. Doofus.
I braced one hand against the wall and punched through with the other. His head snapped up and he flinched toward me. I curled my fingers around his shirt and dragged him closer to the wall. His body hit wood and he grunted.
“Wrong entry point, Big C,” I wheezed. I might not need air to live, but it turned out I did need it to talk. The things you learned.
Annoyed, I ripped out my sword and cleared away the sticky suffocating spell before yanking him toward the wall again. His head banged off the hard surface. That would hurt.
“Let’s work together, Big C, and this’ll go a lot smoother. I will be taking you out of here, and I’d like to do that with you still alive. It’s your call.”
I ripped chunks of wood out of the wall, making the hole bigger. He seemed relaxed.
When did marks ever relax when I had a hold of them?
“Don’t do whatever it is that you are planning to do, buddy,” I said. “It won’t work out well for you. Trust me on that one.”
“Telco matzo burn!” he shouted.
A blast of heat surged through the hole and raked across my face.
There went my eyebrows.
Like a live thing, the blistering fire crawled across my skin and ate away a strap of my tank top. I should’ve worn leather on my torso. Trying to get home half-naked wouldn’t be awesome.
The house rumbled. The floor splintered with the pressure, and bits of the ceiling rained down.
I kicked a larger hole in the wall as the heat of my magic surged through me. I grabbed him with both hands, easily ignoring the dying blast of fire. He didn’t have the power to sustain it.
I wrangled him through the hole, finishing the job with a fast jerk. The fire sputtered out and the house sagged onto its frame, creaking and squealing as it settled.
Uh oh. That wasn’t a good sign.
“You okay, Big C?” I let go of him, and he crumpled to the floor.
Definitely not a good sign.
Hoping he was just knocked out, I put two fingers to his neck. No pulse.
“Dang it.” I straightened up, my hands on my hips. I hated when I accidentally killed the mark.
I kicked the wall in a temper. My foot went through to the other side and hooked on a jagged piece, stuck.
“Flippity-shit, double damn it!”
Would nothing go right?
Forcing myself to calm down, I twisted my foot and delicately brought it back through the wall. Breathing heavily, I stared down at the lifeless body. “How’d you work up that kind of fire, huh, Big C? That’s a rare spell. Not many mages know how to do it. Or so I was told.”
Silence met my question.
Of course it did…I had bloody killed him. A human’s body was so fragile. I dealt with non-human types so often that I sometimes forgot to be careful.
I blew out a breath into the silence. Cracks and breaks in the wood made for a very uneven floor surface. How he had planned to live in this house after his weapon-spell went off? But then, the criminally insane rarely thought ahead.
Remembering that hollow area I’d heard earlier, I tapped the spot in front of me with my boot. It sounded solid. I kept trying until I found the location, then bent to run my hand just above the floor.