Marked For Death: A Dark Urban Fantasy Novel

by Becca Blake

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I was fine out there.”

  “How’s your shoulder, by the way?” I asked pointedly. “That could have been a lot worse, you know.”

  He raised his fingertips to the wound as though he’d forgotten about it. The grey t-shirt he wore had been shredded as easily as the skin beneath. Fresh blood continued to ooze out of the wound, caking onto the fraying edges of his shirt.

  “You need to go get that looked at.” I softened my tone and dug through the pouch on my thigh for gauze. “I’d offer you some healing herbs, but they do nothing to help infernal wounds. You need to head down to the clinic to get it treated.”

  Jacob pushed my hand away, knocking the gauze to the floor. “I don’t need anything from you.”

  “Clearly,” I said, looking again at the blood oozing from his shoulder. I shoulder-checked Jacob on my way past him as I stormed out of the training center, leaving my package of gauze behind.

  Knowing this asshole was going to be my new partner made me miss Ayla even more.

  It was two o’clock, and it was time to head to the Rusted Blade for a drink.

  ***

  I adjusted the final buckle on my harness, making sure all of my weapons were firmly in place and all of my supplies were where they belonged. My sword and dagger were on opposite hips, and I concealed the handgun I rarely used beneath my leather jacket. I could shoot just fine, but the enchanted bullets weren’t cheap. It was only for emergencies. The pouches on my thighs held first aid supplies, spare bullets, and my cell phone in its industrial strength case.

  I still wasn’t thrilled about the Council forcing me to work with Jacob, but after a month off, I was just excited to get back to work.

  Orion had been far too busy the last week preparing for the new recruits to arrive, so I hadn’t checked in with him. Which was just as well—I was sure he was still fuming about how I embarrassed him.

  “Looks like you’re all set.” My father sat at the top of the staircase, smiling.

  “I didn’t realize you were watching me get ready.”

  “Don’t worry. I wasn’t here long.” He got up and started down the stairs. “Orion says they’re sending you and Jacob right out in the field, so I wanted to see you off before you go.”

  “He just graduated the training program, and I just had a partner die in the field. They’re not going to send us out to do anything dangerous,” I said.

  “What we do is always dangerous.” He leaned against the wall and hesitated for a moment before continuing. “I’m heading out today, too.”

  “How long will you be gone this time?”

  “It could be awhile.” Dad opened the weapons cabinet by the front door and pulled out a sheathed sword, which he handed to me. “I wanted to give you this before I go.”

  I pulled out the blade to admire the craftsmanship. The symbol of the Arbiters of Shadow, two crescent moons connected by a vertical line, was embossed on the blade with gold and silver detailing surrounding it. It was just the right size for me, and the balance was perfect.

  “It’s beautiful. What’s this for?”

  “A gift for your birthday. It will still need to be enchanted, so you’ll have to drop it off at the alchemy lab before you leave Haygrove.”

  “My birthday is still a few months away,” I said. “You won’t be gone that long, will you?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not sure.”

  I set the sword down, then wrapped my arms around my father. “I love it. Thank you.”

  He kissed my hair as he returned the hug. “I just want you to know how proud I am of you. And your mother would have been proud of you, too. Whatever happens, don’t forget that.”

  “I won’t.” I tried to pull away, but he held me tighter. “You’re acting weird, you know.”

  “I’m just worried about you,” he said.

  Of course he was worried. It could have just as easily been my death instead of Ayla’s.

  “I’ll be fine, Dad,” I said, looking up at him with a smile I hoped was reassuring.

  “You’re right. You’d better get out of here. I don’t want Orion to chew me out if you get there late on your first day back. Just… be careful.” He returned my smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  I took the sword and said goodbye to my dad, then rushed out of the house. My walk turned into a jog as I hurried to the Courtyard. I pushed through the morning Market Street foot traffic, navigating the path of least resistance through the crowd. At this time of day, just about everyone was on their way to one of the three buildings at the center of town: the training center, the town hall, or headquarters, which was my destination.

  Standing at six stories, the HQ was the largest building in Haygrove. I had never been to any of the upper floors, which were all filled with cubicles for administrative jobs that would have bored me to death. Demon hunting was a thankless job, and often not a profitable one, so the Arbiters maintained a handful of mundane corporate ventures to help fund operations. The people who stayed in Haygrove to make sure things ran smoothly were an important part of the Arbiters of Shadow, and I was grateful for everything they did. But desk work wasn’t for me, and I was glad I wasn’t stuck in there with them.

  I arrived in time to catch the next elevator heading down to the basement and leaned against the railing in the back corner. Orion stepped in next to me while the elevator filled around us.

  “Hey, kid. Ready to get back to work?” He handed me one of the two coffees he’d brought with him.

  He didn’t seem mad, at least. That was a good sign.

  I snatched the drink from his hands a bit more quickly than would be considered polite. “I’ve been ready for the last month.”

  I was thankful that Orion didn’t push the point that I hadn’t been ready… or that I still might not be.

  “So did you ever find out—”

  “Later,” he said.

  His narrowed eyes and sharp tone shut me up for the rest of the ride, even though I was dying to ask him for more details. I could wait until we weren’t on a crowded elevator.

  The elevator lurched to a stop after its slow descent and opened up into the Arbiters’ underground base of operations. The space felt like a huge aircraft hanger, wide and open enough that it was sometimes easy to forget that we were underground. Screens with information and public notices about the organization’s current objectives lined the walls, with all the usual types of headlines.

  Incubus running a sex ring out of Vegas.

  Doppelganger demons allegedly impersonating US senators.

  Ongoing and increasing demonic presence in Omaha.

  Omaha. That was where I’d been with Ayla.

  I shook that thought away as I followed Orion back to the rooms for his unit. He led me back into his private office, which was strangely clean. Most of the time, he had paperwork and file folders scattered all over his desk, but he seemed to have made an attempt at organizing. Instead of being strewn about haphazardly, the papers were stacked into distinct, if sloppy, piles. Orion had never been one to waste time on tidying up, so someone more important than the hunters on his team must have stopped by for a meeting.

  The only decoration in the plain room was a framed drawing made with crayons. The picture of Orion and a young, red-haired girl was signed RILEY with a backward E. I smiled at the memory. Not at the memory of creating the drawing for him—I’d probably made hundreds just like it when I was a kid, and I didn’t remember this one in particular. No, what tugged at my lips was the memory of the way I’d felt about him as a child, the way I’d looked up to him.

  The way I still looked up to him, all these years later.

  My smile didn’t last long. If he cared about me enough to hang my stupid childhood drawing in his office, he could at least give me some answers to the questions that h
ad been eating away at me since the evaluation incident a week ago.

  “What ended up happening with the rest of the evaluations? Were there more hellhounds, or was that the only one? Why—”

  Orion closed the door behind us and leaned against it. “It was bad.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, I pressed again. “So there were more. Did people die?”

  He nodded.

  “How many?”

  “Too many. Their parents are all pretty unhappy with the Council right now.”

  “Why in the infernal hells would the Council use such a dangerous trial? What was the point of it? Most experienced veterans couldn’t even take on a hellhound alone. Did they want these guys to die?”

  “I don’t know. The Council didn’t exactly open the topic for discussion.”

  “I thought they trusted you with things like this.” I eyed him warily, looking for any hints that he was hiding something.

  “Not this time. Believe me—I tried. It seems like it was an experiment that went poorly, from what I can tell.”

  I scoffed. “Marcus Thorne decided to experiment with the life of his own son?”

  “I can’t explain why Marcus does anything. But speaking of his son,” Orion said, changing the subject abruptly, “he should get here soon. You two are going to head out today after we go over your assignment.”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  Orion shrugged. “He reported here yesterday for a chat. Seemed nice enough to me.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t do him the disservice of saving his life. If you have the opportunity to do so in the future, I’d suggest doing literally anything else instead.”

  “Play nice, Riley. You’re lucky you got out of that with nothing but a warning and a new partner.”

  I crossed my arms and met him with a level stare. Even if he was right, the condescending tone when he used my full name like that, like I was still a kid, pissed me off.

  “All I’m saying is, it’s your own fault you’re stuck with him. I know you’re upset about Ayla, and I don’t blame you for that. But you can’t do things like that in front of the Council, and especially not in front of Marcus.” Orion sipped at his coffee, then set it down on his desk. He pointed at the sword I carried. “I see your dad gave you your birthday present early.”

  “He said it was because he thought he’d be gone awhile this time, but I think he was just trying to cheer me up.”

  “That does sound like Owen,” Orion said.

  “It hasn’t even been enchanted yet, so I can’t take it with me today, anyway.”

  “Leave it with me. I can drop it off at the alchemy lab for you while you’re gone.”

  “Thanks.” I set the sword on his desk, careful to avoid the stacks of paperwork. “So, where am I headed?”

  Orion checked his watch. “Jacob is probably out in the briefing room now, and we shouldn’t keep him waiting. Let’s head out there so I don’t have to repeat myself.”

  Let him wait.

  Orion had already scolded me for a snide remark, so I knew better than to say it aloud. Still, I probably needed to make more of an effort to not think nasty things about him. Whether we liked it or not, Jacob Thorne and I were partners now, and our lives would depend on our ability to work together.

  We found Jacob waiting in the conference room with his feet kicked up on the table. He was decked out in gear that looked like it must have cost at least three times as much as mine. Perks of being the son of a Council member, I supposed.

  “Hey, partner!” I offered Jacob a fake smile I hoped came across as friendly as I took the seat across from him.

  All I got in return was a glare.

  Orion tossed a manila file folder on the table between us.

  I leaned forward and started digging through the folder’s contents. “What have we got, Commander?”

  “We’ve been monitoring an unusual amount of demonic activity in Omaha, Nebraska. Particularly notable because the city is only a couple hours away from us. It’s mostly been small things—petty crimes, a few violent ones here and there—but it’s the number of different incidents that has us concerned here.”

  “Omaha?” I asked. Of all the places to go for my first day back in the field, I wouldn’t have guessed they’d send me back there.

  He nodded. “Don’t worry—the demon you were hunting there is long gone. We’ve got another team tracking him.”

  That didn’t make me feel much better. I wasn't afraid; I wanted to hunt him down myself.

  “Are we going in as part of a bigger team for this mission?” I asked. That happened occasionally, when the job was too big for a pair of hunters to handle, but it was rare.

  “Not for this. Not yet, anyway. We’re thinking this one might be a false alarm. Some kid wrote up a blog post about something he and some buddies experienced a few days ago while they were skipping school. One of them died.”

  “And we think it was a demon?” I asked.

  “The kid blamed it on a woman with electric fingertips. Civilian cops found no evidence of that, of course, but they did find evidence of the teens’ drug stash. Could be demons, could be a human coven or cultists, could be the kids were high out of their minds. We figure it’s the latter, but with everything else going on in the area, it’s better to be safe.”

  I flipped through the papers inside the folder and skimmed the printout of the blog post. Some real crazy Star Wars shit, as the author elegantly described it.

  “This is just a standard recon mission,” Orion continued. “Go in, investigate, and come back to report. If there is something going on, don’t interfere unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “So if there’s nothing magical about this, it’ll be a big waste of time?” Jacob asked, speaking up for the first time since Orion began briefing us.

  “If it really is nothing…” Orion shrugged. “I don’t know. Grab some dinner while you’re out of town and get to know each other, or something.”

  I had to agree that the mission sounded like a waste of time, and Orion seemed to think so as well… Which I guessed was why he chose it for our first assignment together.

  “Any other questions?” he asked.

  “No, sir.” I put all the paperwork back in the folder and slid it across the table to Jacob.

  “When are we going to get a real mission?” my new partner asked.

  “When I decide you’re ready for one,” Orion said. “Have fun out there.”

  Chapter Four

  I leaned over to the passenger seat of my beat up Chevy Cavalier and tossed a pile of junk into the back seat. “Sorry. Haven’t cleaned her out in a while.”

  Jacob looked in through the window. “Why don’t we take my car instead?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not even convinced this thing runs,” he said. “I don’t want to get stranded on the side of the road.”

  “It runs fine,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. The Cavalier was an old piece of trash, but it was my piece of trash. And Ayla had never complained about it. “Get in.”

  “I could just take my car and meet you there.”

  I sighed. “Look, I’m not here to be your friend, but I need to know that I can at least trust you as my partner. That starts with us not arguing over every stupid thing. Just get in the car so we can leave. We have a job to do.”

  So much for making more of an effort to get along.

  I sat in the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition, and the engine hummed to life.

  It wasn’t surprising that he didn’t want to get in my trashy Cavalier. He was the son of a wealthy and prominent Councilman, with great gear and a nice car. I doubted he’d ever had to compromise with anyone before.

  Jacob begrudgingly plopped down i
n the passenger seat and slammed the door shut behind him. After I heard the click of his seatbelt, I pulled out of the community lot and started out of town.

  He kicked his feet up on the dashboard and leaned back in the chair. “I’ll try to keep my mouth shut and get along until my appeal goes through.”

  “What, you’re appealing the Council’s decision to make me your partner?” I scoffed. “Good luck with that. It’s not like they paired us up at random.”

  “No. They paired us up because you decided to jump in and ruin my evaluation. I never asked for this.”

  I still couldn’t figure out why he was more upset by me helping him than nearly dying. It made no sense.

  Unless he wanted to fail.

  “Were you trying to fail your evaluation so you could get a desk job instead of a hunting job?”

  “No. I wanted a seat on the Council.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “It’s not royalty. You have to work your way up the ranks. No one makes it onto the Council without years of hunting behind them. Not even a Councilman’s son. Besides, there are no openings right now. All ten seats are full.”

  “I know that. Do you really think I’ll be considered for the Council in the future when I couldn’t even pass my own evaluation without help? They’ll never consider me for a seat now, no matter how hard I work.”

  “It’s not your fault things went the way they did. I don’t know why they made you fight a hellhound, but that’s not normal,” I said. “They’re only supposed to test your ability to use magic under pressure and make sure you’re a competent fighter so you don’t get yourself killed out there.”

  “They told us it wouldn’t be dangerous, so I wasn’t prepared for a hellhound,” he admitted. “What did you have to do for yours?”

  “It was a maze. We had to get through a few challenges and find a hidden key to get out. The year after mine, they set up a weird test with enchanted lights that swarmed the recruits. Never anything dangerous.”

  I adjusted the knob for the air conditioning, but nothing happened. As I rolled down the window, I tried to ignore the unhelpful thought that the AC probably worked fine in Jacob’s car.