by Ciara Graves
Damn. More goblins were on their feet now, surrounding me. At least, the vampires and werewolves stayed out of it. For once.
I rubbed my forehead as I sighed. “Guess this means no date.”
“Sorry, love, not this time,” Rufus replied. “I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check.”
“Oh no. You’re not getting away from me that easily.”
He lifted his hands. “Look around you! You’re good, Mercy, but are you that good?”
On every rundown, I did my best not to rack up collateral damage. Really, I did. Truly. But sometimes shit happened.
The goblins around me snarled, clicking their pointed teeth and extending their claws.
My foot was still sore from running about five miles at a dead sprint the other day. In the wrong boots no less. And the bruises from my last fight with a nasty witch who had talons instead of fingers had barely healed. A brawl was the last thing I wanted to get into the middle of. Then again what was one more fight?
I cracked my knuckles, then shrugged out of my coat.
“Bowen!” I tossed the coat to him when he turned. “Hold that for me, would you?”
He caught the coat, brow furrowed, but he held it, studying the goblins with a look that said he was sorry for the ass-whooping I was about to get.
Oh, Bowen. He should know me better than that.
After rolling my neck and shaking out my hands, I offered up a wide grin. “Look, I won’t even use my weapons,” I assured them. “Give you all a fighting chance.”
There were seven goblins, including Rufus and the one starting to stir at my feet.
As the goblins shared a slightly confused look, I kicked their downed friend again. And again. Just to be sure he wouldn’t get back up any time soon.
“You’re going to leave this bar with a matching scar on your left side,” Rufus warned as he stalked closer.
“Isn’t that a good thing. Make me even prettier.” I winked.
He opened his mouth to reply, and that was when I moved. Not toward him. I jumped up and kicked out the goblin to my immediate left.
My feet barely hit the ground again when I decked the one to his right, then swung my elbow around into the one charging at me with an open mouth. His teeth clamped around my elbow.
I yelled at the pain.
Blood oozed around his mouth and down my arm.
I swung him around, but his teeth dug in harder as more goblins rushed me.
This was definitely not how I expected the fight to go, but I hadn’t survived this long because I couldn’t get out of tough situations. At the last second, I flattened myself to the floor, and the goblins running toward me slammed into the ones behind me, taking them all out in a heap.
I drew a small knife from my hip and rammed it up under the ribs of the bastard gnawing on my arm. He let go with a shriek, and I kicked him away.
“If you give me rabies, I’m coming back for your head!” I cringed at the sight of my torn shirt and bloodied elbow. “And I just got this shirt!” I kicked him in the face again for good measure then flipped my knife around, so the blade was flat against my forearm. “Alright, Rufus, you coming with me or what?”
His wide eyes took in the goblins on the floor in various stages of disentangling themselves from one another. I waited for him to hold his hands out like a good goblin.
Instead, he leered and threw himself at me.
Why did they always have to make this so hard on themselves? I lifted the knife and bashed him right in the nose with the butt of it, but that did little to deter him. He wrapped his hands around my neck, digging those dirty nails into my skin.
Yep, a visit to the clinic was going to be in order after this venture.
Rufus squeezed, and I grunted, punching him in the ribcage.
He bared his teeth. “You come into my house and expect to take me? Is that it?” he snarled.
“You don’t own this place,” I spat, sucking in as much air as I could while his fingers threatened to crush my windpipe.
“You’re in the Underground! All of this is my house!”
I raised the knife, ready to drive it into his neck as my vision blurred, but he caught my wrist and twisted. It clattered to the floor, so I head-butted him instead. Now, his other hand released me. I tore my wrist free as he pressed his fingers to his bleeding forehead.
My turn.
I grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm behind his back. As the other goblins finally got to their feet, I wrenched Rufus’s arm, and the cracking of bone filled the bar as he screeched.
“Anyone else care to end up with a sling?”
The gobs looked at their companion, now firmly in my grasp, and backed up a few steps.
“Good. Come on, Rufus, time for our date.” I pulled the cuffs from my back and slapped them around his wrists.
He cursed in pain from his broken arm.
I shoved him forward toward the door, pausing long enough for Bowen to hand over my coat, an amused look on his face.
“What?”
“Nothing. He shrugged. “Just never seen you take down a pack of gobs before.”
“Yeah? Tag along with me sometime and you’ll see me do a bunch of shit. It’s like my own little reality show,” I said sarcastically.
“You should have a care for your life.” It almost sounded like he cared.
“Not exactly an option in my line of work.”
“Perhaps it should be.”
His hand brushed against mine for a heartbeat, his cold skin burning me in a strange way, then he was back to his post at the door, and I had to get Rufus across the city before his friends got up the nerve to take him back from me.
“See you later, Bowen,” I said lamely, not even sure why I suddenly cared so much.
“You’ll pay for this, bitch,” Rufus growled.
I jerked him hard by his broken arm, and he shut up instantly.
“That’s better. Keep quiet, or I’ll break your other arm.”
The walk out of the Underground was worse than the walk into it. Several spat at me as I passed, but I ignored them, looking straight ahead. All that mattered was turning this scum over and getting paid, then waiting for the next asshole’s wanted bounty to come across my desk.
This was my life, and it was never going to change.
“Everyone just loves you, don’t they,” Rufus muttered mockingly as we climbed up the ramp leading into the Underground. “Pity.”
“What is?” I asked without thinking.
“Someone with such great potential being all alone.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re going to try and drag me down because I’m alone, woe is me, save it.”
“I smell it on you. Desperation. Loneliness.”
I jerked his arm harder, but he only laughed through the pain.
“You’re lucky it’s the middle of the night, or I’d be leaving you out in the sun for a few hours. Give you a nice roast.”
“Yes, sarcasm, the answer to everything.”
“And what would you know about me, huh? What?” I snapped, the adrenaline from the fight wearing off and pain from my new wounds making me irritable. “You don’t know shit, so do us both a favor and shut up.”
“I know enough about you to know you and I are not too different.”
Yanking him to a halt, I shoved him into the wall of the tunnel leading to the surface and held my knife to his throat without even realizing I’d done it. “You and I are nothing alike. You eat kids, and I am the person who hunts down scum like you to keep others safe.”
He gulped, eyes darting to the knife in my hand. “And how long until someone hunts you down for your crimes?”
“What crimes?”
“You might not have committed any yet, but you will at some point. You’re already nearing your breaking point. How much longer do you really think you can hold out? And so young, too. I wasn’t lying when I said you would need allies before long.”
I glared at him as I dug the
blade into his neck until black blood covered it. “Keep talking. I dare you. No one said you need your tongue.”
He tilted his head back, trying to get away from the blade, but I followed, keeping it pressed into his skin. Seconds ticked by and when he said nothing else, I removed the blade, sheathed it back at my thigh, and shoved him forward again.
It was a long walk to the office, but I was not going to strap this bastard on my bike behind me. So we’d walk. We exited the tunnel and onto the bustling sidewalks of Sector 21 where I lived, where I worked mostly, and where the supernatural beings of Nashville could live without fear of being persecuted by the norms.
Norms. Humans.
They knew of us, had for a few hundred years, but our history was not even close to a pleasant one and these blocked off sectors were the only way we could live in harmony, for the most part. Both sides were always claiming deaths caused by the other, but that wasn’t any of my business unless a name was given to me. There were bounty hunters like me all over the country, but I was the only one in Sector 21, and only one of five in the entire state of Tennessee. Sounded like a lot, but it wasn’t enough. And the Federal Paranormal Unit was a joke at actually keeping criminals off the street. I couldn’t complain too much, picking up their slack was how I got paid.
With Rufus in tow, I made good time as the crowd parted for me without even having to say a word. He hissed and snarled at everyone we passed, but said nothing else to me. When we finally reached the old, red, brick, three-story building, I threw Rufus in through the front door.
The bell chimed cheerily, and I followed in after.
“Honey, I’m home,” I yelled.
Rufus opened his mouth, and I walloped him in the gut with my boot, cutting off whatever smartass comment he was about to make.
“’Bout time,” Damian said as he exited through a black curtain blocking off the back room. “Ah, and I see you’ve brought a gift.”
“He’s a chatty one. Be careful,” I warned.
Damian, my boss, and a bounty hunter when the need arose, walked around the main desk and hauled Rufus up.
The goblin shrieked in pain.
Damien eyed me with a raised brow.
“What? He asked for it.”
He gave me a quick look over then looked at Rufus. “Sure he did.”
“Don’t give me that crap, alright? Rough last few days and this asshole had to go hide out in the Underground,” I snapped, hopping up on the counter. I picked the dirt and gunk out from my nails with my knife. “He’s lucky all I broke was his arm.”
Damian took Rufus to the back where several holding cells were situated. The goblin minister who put the bounty out on him would come and pick him up later. Rufus was no longer my problem. I waited for my boss to come back and pay up, so I could head home, take a shower, and crash for what remained of the night.
Unlike so many in this sector, I was just a mage and not nocturnal by nature.
I spun around as Damian came out and went to the painting of a naked mermaid on the back wall. Pulling it aside, he revealed the black safe set in the wall. He opened it, pulled out a stack of bills, and handed them over.
“You get the rest when I get paid from the minister,” he said.
I reached for the cash, but he yanked it back.
“What? Look, I’m sorry he got roughed up, but I got swarmed by a damned pack of gobs, and the asshole wouldn’t stop talking.”
“Yeah, and? You’ve said that about the last six targets you’ve brought in.”
“You saying you have a problem with how I do my job?”
“I’m saying if you’re not careful, you’re going to rough up the wrong target in the wrong part of town. I care about you, Mercy. Don’t make me regret taking you in.”
I fumed, yanking the bills from his hand. “Right, it was completely out of charity.”
“It was,” he said innocently.
I rolled my eyes.
“I took you in, taught you all I know. But if you start messing up, we’re going to have problems. Don’t make me turn on my best employee.”
“I’m your only employee.”
“You’re going to wind up costing me,” he warned as he came around the counter quickly, and his hand was around my throat. Not choking, but the threat was in his red eyes. Damian was a half-demon, and a bastard, no matter how nice he attempted to come across as. “Cost me too much, and I’ll be putting a bounty on your head. I have plenty cause to do it, too,” he added in a whisper.
I moved in closer, glaring as I snapped, “Then do it, huh? What are you waiting for? Oh, that’s right, I’m the only one here who’s willing to work for you.”
His lip lifted in a snarl and he shoved me backward. “Get out of here. You stink.”
I tucked the cash safely in my coat and turned around to leave.
“Remember, Mercy. You belong to me, so ensure you keep making it worth my while to keep your ass around!”
I flipped him off as I stomped out of the office, trudging through the streets and heading back to the Underground.
I needed my bike and a drink, but there weren’t many welcoming bars in these parts for me.
I’d get my bike and ride my ass home.
The whole ride to my tiny studio apartment on the upper floor, I imagined beating the shit out of Damian.
But if I lifted a hand to him, I’d have to kill him.
Otherwise, my life, everything I had, would disappear in a shot.
Chapter 2
Mercy
I bolted upright drenched in a cold sweat and fought the blanket tangled around my legs. When I finally freed myself, I chucked it aside in a heap, flopped back down, and buried my face in my pillow to block out the too-bright rays of morning. Or afternoon. Whatever.
Without checking my phone, I had no way of knowing what time it was, and I was alright with that. Just as sleep crept back in, my phone rang. And rang. Until it finally cut off. I smirked and settled back in when someone banged on my door instead.
“Get up, Mercy!” Damian yelled. “Know you’re in there.”
“What?” I hollered back. “Can’t a girl get some damned sleep?”
“It’s four in the afternoon! You haven’t answered your phone all day,” he shot back. “And you’ve got a new job so get your ass out of bed and answer your door before I break it down.”
Spewing curses and shoving my messed-up hair from my face, I climbed out of bed and stalked across my small living space to yank open the door. “There. Happy?”
He frowned, but moved past me and inside. “Jesus, don’t you ever clean?”
“Why? Not like I’m ever here long enough,” I muttered through a yawn. “Coffee?”
“I’ll never understand how you sleep so damned much.”
I mocked him as I went to the small kitchenette area and tossed some grounds in the maker then filled up the pot with water. “You do realize how busy I am, right? That most of the time I’m preoccupied with getting my ass kicked?”
“I see your wounds were taken care of.”
“Yep. No thanks to you,” I snapped with a mocking smile, finished filling the pot, and started the maker.
My elbow was burning which was normal after a goblin bite, but I had plans to visit another acquaintance to see if there was anything else she could give me for it. Not that I actually made it to the clinic last night, this morning, whatever. Too damned tired and nursing my wounds in peace was preferable to parading them around the ER.
“You have a new target,” he finally said and tossed a file on the kitchen table that was barely big enough for one person to sit at. “All the info’s inside and your way to get close to him.”
After pouring a half cup of coffee, too impatient to wait for more, I flipped open the folder. The face of a man looked back at me, frost-colored eyes telling me exactly what he was without even having to look at the line that proclaimed his type.
Mage.
I shot Damian a look, but he w
as walking around my place, sniffing the air, and grunting to himself about my lack of care for how I lived. The temptation to chuck my mug at his head was extremely high, but it was the only cup I had, having smashed the other one into the head of a djinn who’d followed me home one night. The fight ended with chucking him down several flights of stairs, and when he tried to come back again, I threw him out my window instead. Sometimes supes were too stubborn for their own good.
I shuffled through the pages more and frowned. “What the hell is this?”
“Invitation, what does it look like?”
“To a ball,” I said. “Damian, do I look like I’m going to fit in at a ball?”
“Our target is a high priority bounty,” he said as he joined me at the table. “You will need to find a way to get inside with whatever weapons you can in order to get him out, in one piece, without being harmed. He’s wanted by the Gathered, and they want him alive and unspoiled as much as possible.”
“What did he do?”
Damian shrugged. “Does it matter?”
I glared at the image of the mage and sensed the dormant magic inside me struggling in vain to break free as my anger grew. Not that it ever did when I needed it. The scar on my face tingled, and flashes of my latest nightmare had me gripping my mug until my knuckles turned white. “Not in the slightest. You sure I can’t rough him up a bit?”
“Yes. Okay now, the ball is tomorrow night, so I suggest you start getting ready.”
“How much they want for him back?”
“Five million.”
I choked on my coffee. “What?”
“As I said, high priority target but there is one slight issue. I doubt we’ll be the only ones after him. And this ball is being held in Sector 13.”
This time, I set my mug down before it slipped from my hands, and shook my head. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“You’re kidding, right? Sector 13? If I walk in there and anyone figures out who I am, they’ll eat me alive. Literally,” I said. “I can’t go in there alone!” Usually, I was game for taking down any mage with a bounty, but my anger would only get me so far in a room filled with other supes who hated me. No, not just hated me, would be more than happy to tear me apart.