Magic for Hire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Found Magic Book 3)

by J. A. Cipriano

  I spoke too soon. A huge bus came barreling up the road and plowed straight into the ATV, ripping it off me and flinging it down the lane in a flurry of sparks and rubber. The giant vehicle slammed on its brakes, skidding by only inches from me. I took the moment to push myself backward onto the hood of the taxi. It was way harder than it should have been.

  I dropped down on the other side, running toward the back of the still skidding bus and looked around for Flash and Bang. They were nowhere to be found.

  “Where are they?” I snarled as an older man came walking toward me. I didn’t even register his face as the dot popped on my screen. It looked like Bang was inside the building across the way. I took a step toward it as the older man reached out and grabbed my shoulder.

  I glanced at him, taking in his scruffy gray beard and bald head. “Miss,” he said, “Are you okay? Do you need to rest?”

  “I’m fine,” I snapped, and as I tried to shake him off, he jabbed me in the ribs with something small and black.

  “Well, I think you should take a rest.” As he finished the words, a bazillion volts of electricity ripped through me.

  I staggered backward, my HUD turning into a mishmash of colors and fragmented images. The man advanced on me, the object still in his hands. I wasn’t sure what it was, but the spot where he’d struck me burnt like I’d had a live wire pressed to my flesh. Even through my suit.

  So I punched him in the face.

  He fell backward to the ground like his bones had turned to jelly, and I barely resisted the urge to kick him really hard. I didn’t because I’m a nice person and nice people didn’t kick unconscious old men. Instead, I scooped up his electrical doom device and sprinted across the intersection. Surprisingly, it sort of looked like a remote control with a big red button in the center along with a big chrome arrow pointing toward the end I assumed was the hurty end.

  I was almost through the door when the cops drove up clad in full-on riot gear and packing those clear shields and stuff. I glanced at them, decided to ignore their shouts of “Stop!” “Halt!” “And for the love of Ares, look at all the damage!” and stepped inside.

  It was some kind of clothing store and every rack in front of me was filled with underwear and bras. I looked around, trying to decide whether I thought Flash and Bang had gone upstairs or downstairs when a timid looking blonde girl poked her head up from behind a solid white counter and began speaking gibberish in my general direction.

  “Where did they go?” I asked, brandishing my television remote at her.

  She stared at me, wide brown eyes full of uncertainty before pointing down the stairs. I nodded once and made my way past a cute panty and bra set I could never have afforded and glanced up and down the stairs just to be sure no one popped me in the head with a bullet.

  When no lead-based death came, I flung myself down the stairwell as quickly as I could. It opened onto another floor filled with shorts in every shade of neon one could imagine. A few customers milled around, evidently undisturbed by the explosions outside. Apparently, the Greeks were an imperturbable people.

  My heart sank as I stared past a girl eyeing a pair of hot pink short shorts. Just beyond her, a door stood open. It wasn’t exactly dark beyond, but since there were no other obvious exits, something told me Flash and Bang had gone that way. I tightened my grip on my shocker stick-thing and raced through the doorway after them.

  I tripped over something and the world spun. I hit hard, landing on the cement as what felt like a billion metal bearings struck me, thankfully pinging off my armor even though I was really sure my body had been reduced to one giant bruise. I couldn’t hear anything as I slowly crawled to my feet and tried to peer through the smoke and debris.

  How had they managed to set up a trap in so little time, and what was worse? How had I been stupid enough to trip over it? I cursed Flash and Bang as I stumbled forward only to be blinded a high-intensity beam of light.

  My hands went up instinctively as an aluminum baseball bat slammed into my ribs with enough force to knock me off my feet. I crashed to the ground as Raul stepped through the smoke, leaning the bat against his shoulder. He smirked and waved at me with his free hand.

  “I thought you said she was tough?” he called over his shoulder. Then he smashed the bat into my skull and the world went dim and hazy. “It’s not nice to ditch me by the way. I might hold a grudge over such things.”

  “Sorry,” I tried to mutter, but instead of letting me get the words out, he smashed me in the face. A couple times.

  “See, here’s the thing. Plans have changed.” He hit me again, and I was starting to wonder if hitting girls with baseball bats was his thing. “My brother needs to talk to you. Calmly.” He punctuated the sentence with another blow that banged off my upraised arm and rang down my body. “Capiche?”

  He smirked like he’d won, but you know what the problem with that was? I was wearing high-tech body armor and he, well, wasn’t. I jammed the electrical doom stick into his ribs and smirked with smug satisfaction as lightning zipped through his body.

  “Capiche,” I huffed as his body flopped to the ground like a seizing fish.

  16

  The booming sound of jet engines filled my ears as I sprinted down the dark hallway, leaving Raul and his stupid bat behind in the darkness. I had been about to interrogate him, but something told me I should catch those engines before they escaped.

  I shouldered through a red steel door, surprised when it opened easily and without so much as a squeak of protest too. Oh, lucky day.

  A sort of parking garage filled with various vehicles spread out in front of me. A quick glance around the room revealed a host of motorcycles and an ATV that was strikingly similar to the one Flash used earlier.

  A scowl crossed my face as I watched a small Cessna-sized plane begin to roll forward, moving down a wide ramp I assumed led to some kind of runway. Admittedly, I wasn’t quite sure where I was or who was on that plane but I had a couple guesses. Flash and Bang’s secret hideout for $100, Alex?

  I charged into the parking lot but realized immediately there was no way I was going to catch a plane on foot as it turned and disappeared from view. Instead, I made my way to the edge and saw t it was going to pass right under me on its way toward an exit to the left, where a door was slowly lifting. Unfortunately, the gap was way too far for me to land on the plane if I jumped. Besides, the idea of falling a couple stories to the ground if I missed, even with my suit, wasn’t exactly appealing.

  Still. This was my chance. I had to try, right? After all, what was I going to tell Roberto when he died because I failed? “Sorry I didn’t want to jump off a cliff onto a plane for you, Dad.” I’m sure it’d be real comforting to him in Heaven. Assuming he went there. I guess he was probably going elsewhere, though.

  I shook off my theological thoughts around where my supervillain dad was going to go when he died and decided to focus on keeping that from happening. I gritted my teeth, and even though I knew it was one of my worst ideas ever, I hopped on the back of one of the motorcycles. The keys were still in the ignition, and it started with one kick. See, who says I’m not lucky? Well, pretty much everyone ever, but still.

  I made my way back toward the far end of the garage and waited the half a second I thought it would take before gunning the bike as hard as it would go. It exploded forward in a squeal of rubber toward the edge. Part of me was glad it wasn’t a steel embankment or anything and was instead a glass wall lining the edge. If it had been something else, I wasn’t sure my plan would have worked.

  The bike surged forward as I raised my hand and flung a ball of concentrated flame at the window in front of me. It shattered into a million superheated shards just as I crashed through it on my motorcycle, spraying molten glass and debris out across the runway. As I tumbled downward, I adjusted my feet and sprang from the motorcycle just as the plane passed beneath me. I smacked into the top of the vehicle with a bone jarring thud that knocked the wind from m
y lungs and left me dazed as I started to slide down the side of the plane’s white steel shell.

  The motorcycle hit the ground a few feet away with a shriek of tortured metal as I forced myself into action. Wind smashed into me as I called upon my magic.

  My fingers began to glow with soft blue light, causing me to stick to the metal. My face began to sweat and strain caused my vision to darken around the edges, and I instantly knew if I didn’t find a handhold, my magic wasn’t going to keep me from flying off the thing for much longer.

  The propeller was loud enough to drown out everything, and while I wasn’t sure how the occupants hadn’t heard me smack into the top of the vehicle or the ensuing motorcycle crash, I was sure they’d notice me crawling about the moment they started to leave the ground.

  “Okay, Abby, what’s the plan here?” I asked myself as the entrance to the outside world loomed ahead of me. Once we were in the air, I wasn’t sure what I could do. Even if I could hang on the entire time, I had no idea how long they’d be flying and well, crashing a plane I was on didn’t seem smart.

  My knife slipped into my hand as I clambered over to where the door was. I drove it through the spot between the top of the door and the frame as hard as my magic-fueled muscles could manage and was somewhat surprised when the blade slipped through. My heart hammered in my chest as I angled myself so I could pull open the door even though the ground below was speeding by so fast, I knew I’d be dead if I fell.

  Just as I was about to make my move, the door opened and my knife slipped out of the crack. I fell, losing my balance and tumbling toward the earth. My hands lashed out, grabbing onto the bottom of the plane’s door. My shoulders jerked in their sockets as my fall was arrested with my feet dangling just above the ground.

  Bang stood there, a strange look on his face. He had the blunderbuss in one hand, but so far he wasn’t pointing it at me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, dumbfounded as he stared down at me. Which was a little weird because shouldn’t he have just shot me in the face? It’s what I’d have done if our situations were reversed.

  Instead of replying, I swung my body around in a feat of strength I didn’t even know I could do and threw myself into the vehicle. I crashed into Bang like a bag of wet cement, and we slid across the small plane before smacking into the other side with enough force to leave me dazed and confused.

  Things inside the cabin whipped around, being sucked outside the door as the vehicle started to slow. A fist caught me square in the jaw while I was looking at the open door, and I toppled backward toward it. My hands lashed out, catching hold of a seat and stopping me from tumbling outside as Bang leveled his gun at me and sighed.

  “Abby, you need to stop this,” he said, glaring at me hard enough to make me shiver despite my superspy skills and crazy suit.

  “Okay,” I said before he shot me in the face. Even though my suit protected me, the bullet whipped my head back with so much force, I must have blacked out for a second because the next thing I knew, I was laying on my back and the cabin door was closed.

  My temples throbbed painfully as Bang stared down at me with the gun pressed between my eyes. “We’re going to have a chat, and if you like, at the end, you can try and fight me. Just give me thirty seconds, alright?” he asked although he wasn’t really asking.

  “What choice do I have?” I replied as I planned on the best way to beat him into a smear and take his gun.

  He smirked and stepped back out of my reach. “I can see you planning on how to take my gun away even now.” He shook his head. “Let me lay this out for you. I know you want the director’s codes. I’ll give them to you. All you have to do is help me.” His grin widened, showing his teeth. “Doesn’t that sound better than me flinging you out of a plane a thousand feet above the ground?”

  I watched him, not sure if he was lying or not. Either way, he had a point. I did not want to get flung out of an airplane in midflight.

  “Fair enough,” I murmured. “Speak.”

  “Look, okay. See the director’s been kidnapped from us by the Israelis. They somehow learned you wanted him. It’s why I told Raul to bring you to me. They have him in one of their remote facilities. If you want him, you’ll have to break in and take him from them.”

  “How did you lose him?” I replied, narrowing my eyes at him. “It seems awfully convenient that you suddenly wouldn’t have him.”

  “We got ambushed right after you landed in Greece and contacted Morris. I know because the agency told me. We got hit with some RPGs. That’s why we tapped Raul to get you to help us, but somehow Morris missed the memo and is still operating under the original mission parameters.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, suddenly very confused. “You’re talking like everyone is on the same team.”

  “Abby, we are all on the same team.” He tapped his chest with his thumb. “I work for the agency. This was supposed to be a training operation for you before your big mission.”

  I stared at him for a long time, barely able to speak. If I understood him correctly, he was telling me this had all been a setup. That the director had never really been captured and was instead playing a game. A game that had gotten Chuck shot, people killed, and left my ailing father on death’s door. Or maybe…

  “So everything is a lie?” I asked, suddenly so angry I wanted to leap to my feet and tear off his stupid head.

  “Yes and no. But I’m not going to tell you how much. However, I will say this. Your father will die if the director doesn’t give the order back home to keep him alive. He cannot do that if he is locked in an Israeli prison. Capiche?” He let out an explosive exhalation of breath and held out his hand. “So how about we team up and go get him. What do you say? Partners?”

  Was he being serious now? After everything I’d done to try and find him, he had the nerve to tell me that not only was everything he’d done rigged, but now, he’d lost the damn director? Seriously?

  I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm down as I stared at his hand like it was a live snake. Was I really going to help him get the director back from the Israelis? What if this was another lie? I guess in the end it didn’t matter. I needed the director to save my father, and if Flash and Bang were willing to help me, I should probably let them.

  Against my better judgment, I reached out and shook Bang’s hand. “Okay.”

  17

  Flash gave me an angry glare, which wasn’t that odd because in the few minutes I’d known her it was the only facial expression I’d seen her make. Her eyes swept over me, taking me in as she adjusted the harness on her parachute as we circled back toward some kind of jungle compound. I wasn’t quite sure where we were exactly, but I was reasonably sure we were still in Greece though I’d never have guessed there was jungle here.

  “Ready, weak girl?” she asked in her clipped Russian accent, which again was a little weird for me. Call me strange, but I hadn’t expected a muscular black woman with buzzed blonde hair to speak to me with a Russian accent. It was like she was a caricature of a female Bond villain.

  “Why do you keep calling me weak?” I asked, checking the straps on my own parachute because of course we were going to be leaping from a perfectly good plane and dropping into the camp. Never mind the fact that would give our enemies the chance to fill us full of bullets before we even reached the ground or how this would be my second parajump in as many days.

  “Because you are stupid weak girl,” she growled, reaching back to check her rifle. It was secured against her side, but I wondered if she did it because she was making a crack at me.

  “I beat you up pretty good,” I said, smiling sweetly at her.

  “You have skills in your head you didn’t earn.” She gestured at my body. “Special body armor. Anyone would do better than you, given same circumstances.” Before I could respond, she whipped the door to the plane open, filling the cabin with the sound of raging wind.

  I took a step t
oward her, not sure what I was going to do when I reached her because I was suddenly worried she was right. Virtually everything special about me had come from a ritual that had downloaded all my mom’s centuries of training into my brain. It was the same point Chuck had spent a long time drilling into me. I may be special, but I wasn’t experienced. I had a lot to learn.

  Hell, in almost all the training exercises, I’d been taken out pretty quickly by trained agents. The only time I really succeeded was during head-on confrontations that didn’t require too much thinking. Even when I’d infiltrated the Agency before, it had been mostly luck and circumstance that’d kept me from being killed.

  Here I was, standing in a plane with a trained mercenary who thought I was garbage even though I’d totally beaten her down. It was weird because knowing I could take her in a fight should have made me feel better, but it didn’t, not really.

  I bit my lip as Flash leapt from the plane and into the abyss below. I took a couple steps forward and watched her falling into the distance as my heart raced. I wasn’t worried about this part. I knew how to do this and so many other things correctly. I was more worried she was right. Because, sadly, what I think I really wanted was for Flash to see me as someone who was worth a damn. No, that wasn’t quite true.

  What I wanted. What I really wanted was for Chuck to see me as a valuable member of the team, even if he was part of team evil. It was a little weird.

  “Don’t mind her. She’s a little testy,” Bang called from the pilot’s seat. Originally, he was going to be the one to jump down, but my practically destroying his knee had put a stop to that. Now he was piloting. “We’re about to loop around for your jump. Just remember, Abby. You can do this.” He grinned at me.

  “Why do you think that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.