Pound of Flesh: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Half-Demon Warlock Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  In the few minutes since receiving Fulton’s offer, she had thought this through. This was her best option as far as she was concerned, anyway. That meant she was solvent. I wasn’t going to be able to change her mind. At least, not without kicking her ass first.

  “Put my imp down,” I said

  “This isn’t about him,” Ester said, power crackling around her like mini fireworks.

  “Then maybe you should let him go,” I said letting the implied threat lay heavy on my voice.

  “Yeah! Maybe you should let him go!” Gary yelled, bouncing around in the energy field like gravity had no hold on him.

  “I got this, Buddy,” I said, letting my eyes flick over to him before placing them back on the witch in question. I didn’t hear Renee beside me, which was a blessing. Hopefully, the woman had enough common sense to stay back. She was the key chess piece in this entire game. For whatever reason, Fulton was willing to offer a lot to get her. That made her important, it also made her valuable. Let’s hope it didn’t make her stupid too.

  “It doesn’t feel like you got this!” Gary cried, but I ignored him, focusing on Ester.

  “This isn’t a smart move, Ester,” I said as calmly as I could manage. I needed to keep calm. I needed to be smart. My best friend in the entire world depended on it.

  “Finally remember my name, do you?” she asked, still holding Gary in her bright green grasp. “All it took was turning on you.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong,” I said, still heading toward her. “This isn’t turning. I never trusted you. You were never on my side. I let you stay because I owed you a favor.” I shook my head. “I don’t owe you anymore. Not even mercy. Keep that in mind while you’re deciding what you’re going to do next.”

  Her face tightened. For a moment, I thought she was actually considering what I was saying. It would have been the smart thing to do. But when I saw her thin lips twist into a scowl, I knew that wasn’t the case.

  “You think you’re scarier than him, Detective?” she asked like the idea was the most insane thing she had ever let pass through her brain. “You think you’re scarier than Fulton?”

  “Fulton’s a woman,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “What the fuck ever!” she answered, and now the anger I had been looking for was laid bare across her features. Maybe she was getting tired of this conversation. Maybe she didn’t think she’d have the fire power to beat me. Or maybe it was close enough to midnight, she knew she would have to act fast if she wanted to make good on this opportunity. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t waiting around anymore. “Give me Renee or I’m ripping the green thing in half.”

  “Up and down or straight across?!” Gary asked, panicking as he floated around in the energy.

  “What?” Ester asked, shock filling her voice. Too be fair, surprise wasn’t exactly a bad reaction.

  “Up and down or straight across?!” he repeated. “I wanna know which side I’m going to be left with!”

  “I’m not joking,” Ester answered, her hair dancing around in the air, blonde ringlets swaying around her head. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him right now, and then I’ll kill you. And then I’ll take her, anyway. Either way this goes, it ends with her going to Fulton. So just stand back and let it happen.”

  I looked over at Gary, his wide fangs, his spider eyes, his little, broken green arm. If he could get out of this, he’d rip Ester’s throat out, but getting out was the tricky part. That’s what mattered, nobody was going to push us around. Not anymore. Renee was right. It was time to kick some ass.

  “Do it then,” I said, my heart skipping a beat as I played the only hand I had in front of me and called her bluff. “You’re going to rip him into pieces? You’re going to kill me? You’re going to take Renee? Then do it. Stop flapping your gums and get a move on!” I snapped my fingers. “Chop fucking chop!”

  She looked me up and down, her eyes narrowing, and the joints in her body straightened out.

  “You don’t know me,” she roared. “You don’t know what I’m capable of!”

  I moved forward, my hands balled together tightly. “Then show me.”

  Her already thin lips nearly disappeared entirely as her face tightened even more. “It didn’t have to end like this,” she said. Her hands began to pull apart and, with them, Gary’s body started to lengthen. She was doing it. She was ripping him in half. Up and down, if that still mattered to Gary.

  What she didn’t know was that I had been pooling my energy since the second I saw what she was up to, and I had managed a pretty little spell while she had been talking.

  “It won’t,” I said, rushing toward her, as pissed off a fat kid without supper.

  Throwing my hands forward and twisting my wrists counterclockwise, I enacted a wordless combat spell. A rush of energy slammed into her, knocking Ester on her ass. Her control over her spell faltered, and Gary tore himself free from her grip as the green energy disappeared, leaving Gary to fall to the earth below.

  I swooped in, grabbing him before he hit the ground. He swung up with his good arm, crawling up to his perch on my shoulder.

  “I’m going to murder that bitch!” he snarled, hot and rancid breath coming from his mouth, open in anger.

  “Calm down,” I answered. “We haven’t taken her out ye--”

  As the words left my mouth, I felt a tightening around my throat. It was swift and hard. So hard, the force of it knocked me to my knees.

  Ester was already on her feet again. She was quicker than I’d expected. Her eyes flickered with energy and her hand was stretched out, her palm bent into a choking position like she was Darth fucking Vader.

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, and couldn’t stand back up. The air leapt from my body much too fast for it to be normal. I knew this spell. It was a hollowing incantation. I had used it before myself to drain the water from grapes. But, where my spell ended with a fistful of raisins, Ester’s spell would end with my desiccated corpse on the asphalt.

  “Don’t worry, Roy Boy. Bitch is mine!” Gary yelled, jumping from my shoulder and bolting toward Ester. Without moving anything but her eyes, Ester flung Gary backward again.

  It was no use. This wouldn’t work. She was right. She was going to kill me before taking Renee to that bastard, Fulton.

  My hands clawed fruitlessly at my throat in a vain effort to get some air.

  I hadn’t needed speech for the motion spell, but for the incantation needed to undo the hollowing spell, I would have to speak. Not an easy task without the ability to process oxygen.

  My eyes began to burn and the blood in my head started to pool there, making me feel heavy and ready to pop.

  I turned, hoping to find Renee had run off.

  Instead, I found her in the front seat of my Impala, driving toward Ester at full speed.

  Ester saw this an instant after I did. She had to move her hands to stop this, which replenished my air supply, but it also sent a wave of energy toward the Impala. It smashed my car, knocking it backward as though the damned thing had run right into a brick wall.

  “Renee!” I screamed, my chest tightening into vice of horror as I imagined her broken body behind the steering wheel.

  “Don’t worry,” Ester said. “I won’t let her die before I get what’s mine.”

  The energy tightened around my throat again. I turned, jumping to my feet and lunging toward her. Ester raised her other hand, and I jerked to a stop in midair. Like Gary seconds ago, I was helpless, floating around without gravity to ground me.

  “Not that you’ll live to see it,” Ester finished. She moved her hands away from each other, and my body howled in pain as she started pulling it apart. My bones creaked and my muscles screamed in agony. “I’m sorry, Detective.”

  Just then, a black car smashed into the witch, knocking her up over the hood, causing her body to spin lifelessly and fall to the floor.

  The energy dissipated, and I fell to the ground. Looking up, I saw Isa behind
the steering wheel of the black car. She bit her lip and her eyebrows knitted downward.

  “I don’t suppose you know what gets blood off my paint job, do you?”

  23

  “Don’t look so upset. The Impala was ugly anyway,” Isa said, watching me as I gave my now destroyed Impala puppy dog eyes in the rearview. She had gotten us out of there in a hurry after turning Ester into roadkill, stuffing Renee and Gary into the backseat and positioning me in the rider’s side seat across from her. Having shown up in the nick of time, she legitimately saved all of our lives, and I’d never be able to thank her enough for that.

  Still, that didn’t mean the bitch gets to bad talk my baby.

  “Ugly?” I balked, turning toward her, mostly because I couldn’t stand to watch a piece of art I’d had for better than ten years disappear from my life forever. “That thing is a classic.”

  “Was a classic,” she answered, laying her foot heavily enough on the accelerator for us to pass speeding cars like they were standing still. “Now it’s shit, a giant pile of shit on the side of the road. It’s also next to a dead body. So it’ll more than likely be shit that’s impounded as evidence before too long.” She looked over at me, smiling seductively. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you something pretty before too long. Momma’s gotta take care of her plaything.” Her hand traced my arm before falling onto my lap.

  Instantly, I pulled away. What the hell was going on? Before, Isa hadn’t been able to get past her gag reflex long enough to kiss me on the cheek, and now she was all over me for the second time today. It must be having Renee in the backseat. Was it possible the fairy was jealous of her?

  “Not interested in charity?” she huffed, putting her hand back on the steering wheel. “Fair enough. Buy your own damned car.”

  Okay. So probably not jealous.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt,” Renee said, her voice stiff and uneasy. She leaned forward so her hair fell over her dark eyes. “God knows I don’t want to put myself in the middle of whatever’s going on here.” As she looked between Isa and me, my stomach clenched. Did she really think that Isa and I… Oh God.

  “Nothing,” I said immediately. “There’s absolutely nothing going on here. Imagine the opposite of something. That’s what’s going on. Nothing.” I slumped down into my seat, crossing my arms over my chest like an annoyed toddler.

  “Whatever,” Renee answered, which-for whatever reason, sort of ticked me off. Sure, we had just fought, and we hadn’t exactly had any sort of conversation about anything, but I had risked my life for her on more than one occasion, and she was wearing my mother around her neck. Shouldn’t she care if there was something going on between Isa and me? I mean, even if it was just a little.

  Instead of responding to me, she looked over at Isa. “I’d like to know where we’re headed.” I heard the tension in her voice as she continued. “Because, this Fulton person took my brother. At least, I think she did.”

  Isa’s eyes tightened. “What makes you think Fulton is a woman?”

  “She employed a skinwalker,” I said, glancing over at her. “He spilled the beans about it.”

  “Before Roy Boy ate him,” Gary interjected from the backseat, holding a broken arm with one hand. I would have to throw some healing spells at that injury when I found myself with two seconds to spare. I couldn’t have my little buddy in pain needlessly. Not if I could help it, anyway.

  “What happened to him?” Isa asked, eyeing me up and down. “I hear skinwalkers pack a hell of a punch. I hope you managed to get away okay.”

  “Well,” I said, narrowing my eyes and remembering how badass I had been back there. “Seeing as how I ate him, yeah, I’d say things turned out in my favor.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Isa said, scrunching her nose as if she had just heard what I’d done for the first time. That didn’t surprise me much. Isa had never been a fan of Gary. He was one step above a toad in her mind. The fact she’d basically ignored him didn’t come as a shock to me. “And to answer your question,” she added, looking up at Renee in the rearview. “I have a place in the city where you can stay until tomorrow.”

  “In the city?” I asked, sitting straight up with my hands clenching together. “That’s stupid, Isa. Fulton has every supernatural in the city looking for Renee. She’s safer in a remote location.”

  “She’s safer where she can be protected,” Isa scoffed. “I have a magically secured compound that’s only known to a handful of people in the world. But if you think a Motel 6 in Conyers will do the trick just as well, I suppose I can arrange that.”

  “No!” Renee said sharply from behind me. “The city is fine. I need to be--”

  “Will you stop?!” I commanded, flipping around in my seat. Arguing about this while I was in control was one thing. But I couldn’t have Renee risking her life when I couldn’t do anything to stop it. “You will not let this go, will you? Having you in the city only raises the chances of this lunatic finding you.”

  “And of me finding my brother,” she answered solemnly, her eyes drilling into me accusingly. “Or is that not what you want?”

  “You know what I want,” I said, my voice lowering into a serious and gravelly tone. “If I can save your brother, I will, but I won’t let you throw your life away for someone who is very likely, already dead.” I turned back to Isa. “Now we’re already headed out of town. Don’t turn this car around. I’ve made my decision.”

  Isa snickered loudly. “How wonderfully 1950s of you, darling. Would you like her to put on an apron and serve you coffee next, or are you content to call me Dollface as I rub your feet?” She glared at me.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, looking from Isa back to Renee. “Women can totally be whatever they want.”

  “I don’t care what you think,” Isa continued. “I only pretended to consider your opinion as a courtesy. You’ve jumped from one inept act to the next, each growing more and more dangerous as you’ve ‘dumb-assed’ your way through my city. Now we’re going to do things my way. She’ll be safe in my compound, exactly where she needs to be. So that’s where we’re going.” Isa’s foot pressed the accelerator to the floor. The black car opened up on the highway, tearing down the asphalt. “And if you think I need to turn around to get where I’m going, you’re not thinking nearly creatively enough.”

  A shimmer started off in the distance, just off the shoulder of the interstate. It grew quickly, turning into a bright orange swirl of sparkling energy.

  “A tear,” I said, eyes wide in shock as I stared at the rent in space and time appearing before us.

  “Quickest way to get around if you’re…We’ll, if you’re me,” she said smugly.

  What Isa wasn’t taking into consideration though, was the trump card up my sleeve. I still had a favor or two in queue, and I wasn’t afraid to use them.

  “Don’t go through that tear, Isa,” I said as we speed down the road toward it. “Keep on this road, going in this direction and don’t stop until we get to Augusta. That should be far enough away.”

  “Augusta’s a snooze,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “What are we going to do in Augusta? Walk beside a river? Some of us aren’t old enough to think that’s fun, Roy.”

  “Do what I asked,” I replied, tensing as the tear got closer and closer. It was still growing, and it would continue to grow until we either went through it or passed it by. Either action would close the damn thing. “Do what I asked and consider it a favor.”

  There. I had used the F word. She was powerless to do disobey me now.

  Or at least that’s what I thought.

  Isa sped up even more. Our surroundings were a blur as we bore down on the tear. Then, looking over at me, she used an F word of her own.

  “Fuck your favor,” she growled, and we rushed through the tear.

  The entire thing was over in an instant. Tears are like that, more overture than actual show. One instant we were there, swallowed up by the swirling orange energy, an
d the next we were somewhere else.

  That’s how it worked.

  In this case, the somewhere else was a sprawling office. We skidded to a stop, the car literally halting inside of a building. Because of the magic, we had managed to get into the room without causing any damage to the building or the plate-glass windows that stood in for three of the four building walls.

  As the black car jerked roughly to a stop, I took the room in. It was mammoth, obviously occupying an entire floor of this building. With white carpet that stretched out as far as the eye could see with a fireplace off in the far corner. A wet bar stood like an island unto itself with matching white stool chairs, and a blood red throw rug under it for a splash of color. I could tell this was exactly Isa’s style.

  As my eyes moved to the window walls, I realized we were in a skyscraper, and judging from my view of the giant torch that had sat in Olympic park since the city had hosted it in the mid-nineties, I knew we were on the south side of town, the opposite direction of where I wanted us.

  Anger rushed through me as I leapt out of the car and slammed the door shut behind me.

  “Goddammit, Isa,” I screamed, rage tingeing my words as I spoke. “You were not supposed to do that! Hell, you’re not even supposed to be able to do that! You owe me three favors, for fuck’s sake. How the hell did you turn me down?” My chest heaved up and down angrily. But what could I do? We were where we were, and without a car to get us anywhere, it looked like we were stuck in the near heart of the city. All I could do was hope Isa’s security was as good as she thought.

  Well, that and be really pissed about things.

  “What can I say?” she shrugged, getting out of the car herself. “I’m not the same girl I used to be.”

  She opened the back door and Renee got out. She slammed the door shut as Gary tried to make his exit, but he dodged it and managed to hop through the open window.

  “Bitch,” he muttered although I wasn’t sure who he was referring to.

  Renee looked less shaken than she should have as she got out. She had been through a tear in reality after all. There was no reason for her to seem so put together and steady on her feet. Still, after all she had been through, maybe a tear was child’s play.