by Melody Raven
Gabriella scanned the street once more. “That’s the problem. I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”
And then she quickened her steps and headed back in the direction I came from. I kept my distance as I followed her. I couldn’t see how I could keep telling her to let me help her without coming off as a total creeper.
I stopped when I got back to the corner. I could see the surveillance van and Gabriella as she made her way back into the bank. Poor thing. So convinced that something terrible was going to happen today and no one she could tell.
I would’ve felt bad for her if the cavalry weren’t here already. I started to head for the surveillance van to let the others know about my little meeting, but then I saw them. Two men heading into the bank. One tall, one short. One blond, one bald. Crap. It’s go time.
I jogged over to the bank and managed to slip in right behind the two. It was only when I stepped inside that I remembered that I probably should’ve told the rest of my team about the arrival.
Oops. I started to go back outside but stopped when I reached the door. It wasn’t just clear glass any longer. Now it was iced over. And not a delicate frost. Thick globs of the stuff.
I held my hand up to the cold substance as though trying to make sure my eyes weren’t fooling me.
“Everyone get down!” called one of the guys.
I turned to see it was Baldy.
Damn it. No weapons, and my magic was off-limits. How was I supposed to stop them, keep everyone from getting hurt, and recruit Gabriella? There were limits to even my awesomeness.
For now, I was going to play it safe. I knelt like the rest of the customers. I didn’t see Gabriella anywhere. She’d just come back from break. Maybe she was clocking in somewhere?
“If everyone does exactly what we say, no one will get hurt. Now, everyone move to the north side.” He saved me the trouble of doing mental calculations by pointing in a certain direction.
“Now throw out all your wallets and valuables. And don’t hold anything back or we’ll know,” said Baldy.
God bless a cashless society. I dug my wallet out of my back pocket and threw it over. I could cancel my card well before Uncle Fester over here would ever have a chance to use it.
He greedily started to go through all the wallets, and I rolled my eyes. They couldn’t even keep it in their pants until they got home? Besides, the vault was the real reason they were here, right?
When he picked mine up, he quickly paled and called his friend over. “Davis, check this out.”
Busted.
The blond Davis came over and looked at my wallet and then back up, his gaze quickly zeroing in on me. I knew exactly what they were seeing. The brand spankin’ new Homeland Security badge I’d gotten that morning, complete with my picture and name. Of course, it didn’t say Dangerous Magic Division. It just said DMD, and Fester and Davis wouldn’t know what that meant.
Davis jutted a chin toward me. “Get over here, Sonia.”
It really irked me to hear my name come out of his mouth. I was going to make him pay for that.
I stood as ordered and took about three steps closer. I didn’t want whoever had the ice hands anywhere close to me. I didn’t do well with cold….
Uncle Fester looked me up and down. “You don’t look like any Homeland Security spook I’ve seen.”
Lord save me. “How many Homeland Security agents have you seen?”
Davis and Fester exchanged a look. “None,” he said finally.
“I’m off duty,” I offered weakly. It was a lie but so much more believable than the truth. “I want to keep you happy and make sure everyone here leaves in the same condition as when they entered. I’m no trouble.”
Davis let out a bark of laughter. “Trouble? You’re the perfect hostage.” He put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me in front of them.
I suppressed a shudder at the touch and tripped over my feet as I got used to him pushing me around.
Even worse than the smell was the actual touch. It wasn’t simply gross because he was touching me without consent. But his fingers oozed cold. Gooseflesh broke out over my whole body as though warning me I was in danger. As if I didn’t already know that.
He pushed me past the teller line and into the safe-deposit room.
And that’s where Gabriella was hiding.
Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw me, and I gave her a half smile. My little way of saying, “Shit happens, but it will all be okay.”
Not that she’d be able to pick up any of that connotation.
“I’ll let you into the vault.” She held up a key. “Just don’t hurt anyone, please.”
Aww, she was putting herself in danger to save others. That was adorable.
Though, as Blondie tightened his grip on me, I realized I was doing the same thing. Ugh. How far I’d fallen.
Though Gabriella’s hands shook, she brought the key up to the gate and turned it.
This was ridiculous. If I could trust myself to use just a fraction of my magic I could stop this right now….
The old metal gate creaked as Gabriella pulled it open. I couldn’t help but notice that inside the gate was a safe. And because I knew Gabriella was just a teller, I highly doubted that she was able to enter that safe alone without some sort of check and balance system. Banks tended to be protective of their money….
Though a bank this size wasn’t likely to have a lot of cash on hand. From my estimate, based on the area, bank size, and number of stations, I’d say there would be maybe fifty thousand dollars. Not a bad haul by any means, but considering they weren’t doing a thing to hide their faces or be sneaky in any way, it didn’t seem worth the risk.
But from what I could tell, Fester and Blondie didn’t exactly seem like criminal geniuses.
“Now open the safe,” ordered Davis.
I could see Gabriella go pale. Which was saying a lot considering her naturally darker skin. Girl really needed to work on her poker face if she was going to join our team.
“I… I can’t open it. I thought you could….” She trailed off as she probably realized she was saying too much.
She thought he’d get in the vault because she’d seen it in her vision. Probably best not to say that out loud.
I was going to have to do something. I held my hands up, making myself look as defenseless as possible. “Hey, we just want to get you your money and get you out of here. No one has to get hurt. I bet that our friend here needs someone else to help her open the vault, right? Do you just need a manager?”
Gabriella’s eyes bounced back and forth between me and Davis, obviously not seeing any of this in her vision. “Ummm, yes. I don’t want to have to get—”
“What you want doesn’t really matter,” I said gently, willing her to just go with the flow.
Davis pulled me back until we were both by the entrance to the safe-deposit room. “Charlie!” he called. “We need a manager!”
What a stupid way to rob a bank. They should’ve sent all the non-essential customers and employees out the door and just kept the ones needed to open the vault. That way they could both be in here. Davis was already outnumbered, and he was about to be three to one. Though, considering his apparent supernatural abilities, I wasn’t about to bum-rush him.
Though, if I were going to take this bank down, I’d do it alone. Convince the manager I was working on a secret audit and get them to hand the cash over. It would take a lot of pre-work, but it would be worth it to save all this hassle.
Amateurs were the worst. Amateurs holding their freezing-cold supernatural hands on my neck were officially on my nasty list.
A moment later, a skinny guy in a cheap department store suit appeared at the door and Davis let him in.
And the second he set foot inside, I knew there was going to be trouble. Something about his shifty eyes and the way his hands shook. He was thinking way too much for how scared he was. He was going to get us in trouble.
Davis, why co
uldn’t you at least have a fake gun? The normals didn’t know about the ice blasters he had in his hands.
“Open the vault,” he ordered the manager.
“If you leave right now, I won’t call the police,” said the manager, lying very badly.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s all insured,” I blurted. “Give the man what he wants so no one gets hurt.”
“I….” He looked at Davis, and I could see his eyes fall on where Davis was still holding my neck.
He was going to do something stupid. I could see the stupid wheels turning in his stupid head. For the love of—
He ran right toward Davis, and I immediately ducked out of the way, the corner of my shoulder getting an icy-cold blast as I just cleared the bolt.
I hit the ground hard, but at least I wasn’t an icicle.
The manager slammed Davis against the wall, and I pushed away from them, putting myself between the scuffle and Gabriella. The skinny manager did manage to get a solid punch in and then slammed Davis against a wall. But before I could be proud of him, Davis elbowed him in the gut and grabbed him by the throat.
And from there, he didn’t stand a chance. Before I could tell what was happening, I saw the fear in his eyes.
And that’s when I saw the frost protruding from Davis’s grip around his throat. Shit. He should’ve just handed the money over.
Fester showed up at the door just as a sickening crunch filled the silence of the vault. “What’s wrong?” he asked right as the manager fell to the floor.
Gabriella let out a terrified gasp from behind me, and I couldn’t really blame her. Even if the manager had been stupid, he’d been stupid in a heroic way. I couldn’t be happy about his death. And Gabriella had known him.
“Shit,” said Fester as he came in. “This wasn’t supposed to go down like this.”
King of stating the obvious. And when both of the men turned their attention to me and Gabriella, I knew it was about to go down. We hadn’t just seen a robbery. We’d seen a murder. Even though every single customer could place them at the scene of the crime, the adrenaline wasn’t going to let them think logically. We were witnesses. We needed to go.
“Hold on.” I held up my hands. “We were helping you,” I reminded them. Really, if they wanted to get away with robbing banks, I was someone they wanted to know, but I didn’t think they’d believe me if I said that.
“We tried to do it your way,” muttered Fester to his partner. “We don’t need a key to get into the vault. We’ll get rid of everyone and get the cash. Let’s go.”
No magic. The words rang in my ears. No magic, no magic, no magic….
But when Davis held a hand toward Gabriella and me and I saw that icy blast heading straight for my face, what choice did I have? I didn’t consciously decide to use my magic. It all exploded out from me in one giant burst, as if there were an atomic bomb in my chest. One moment I was harmless, and the next I was freakin’ Hiroshima.
My eyes had instinctively squeezed shut in the moment, and when I opened them, all hell had broken loose.
Wind whipped through the small room, with bits of ice and debris whirling around me. I pressed myself tightly against Gabriella, trying to protect her even as I was grateful I couldn’t see her face to know how terrified she must be.
And Fester and Davis sure as hell looked terrified. They were pancaked against the wall of the vault, trying to make themselves as small as possible. But the wind just kept whipping and picking up speed; even I had to close my eyes as they started to scream.
Melanie had been right. Magic really should be off-limits to me.
3
Well, if Carter didn’t like me before, he definitely didn’t like me now. Captain America picked up the torn wreckage of a safe-deposit box and looked at it with a snarl before dropping it to the ground in the wreckage of Capital Ten Bank.
The safe-deposit room was totally destroyed. The vault was lying open, with stacks of money splayed for everyone to see. Luckily, the tornado had managed to tear a hole in the wall that allowed all the customers to get free before they got hurt, so the only casualties were Fester and Davis. So there was that at least.
Flora looked as though she were about to hurl as she looked over all the destruction, and Nico at least looked impressed.
They’d managed to hold off the police as we waited for a clean-up crew to arrive. Gabriella had been sitting in stunned silence, and I’d taken that as my chance to get closer to her. I wasn’t completely heartless. What had just happened was a lot for me to take in, and I was used to this crazy world.
I held her hand and rubbed her back, trying to keep some sort of contact to remind her she wasn’t alone. But when Carter’s dark eyes met mine, I knew it was time to pay the piper.
“I’m going to be right back,” I said softly as I stood.
Gabriella gave a little nod, but I could tell her mind was a million miles away.
Carter was already walking toward a deserted corner. It was the most privacy we were going to get because, thanks to me, there weren’t really any walls left.
He was quiet for a moment, and I couldn’t help but feel as if I were about to be put in a timeout or something. I knew I was going to have to explain myself, but I didn’t know how I was supposed to spill any of my deep, dark secrets to a Boy Scout who’d rather put me in jail than work with me.
But he finally broke the silence. “I’m calm.”
Gee, the fact that he started the conversation with that really had me thinking it was a lie.
“I’m really trying here. But I need you to explain what happened.”
I ran my thumb along the inside of my palm and figured I didn’t have much of a choice. Carter needed to know what he was dealing with. I couldn’t delay the inevitable. “I, umm, something happened to me last month. Something big.”
“Spit it out, Sonia.”
Good grief, give a girl a minute. “Some really bad sorcerer type dudes were in the middle of a crazy ritual to increase their own power and they tried to sacrifice me. I got away, killed them, and then I got this influx of energy unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. So now I’m supersonic, except I have absolutely no control over my power. Melanie had me under strict orders not to use any of my magic, but it was either use it or die, and I—”
Carter held up a hand. At least he didn’t seem mad. He didn’t seem happy, but he seemed to be slowly digesting the situation. “That’s why you’re working here now? Because you don’t have access to any of your powers?”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t mad, but I was about to punch a bitch. “I’m here because you need me. As far as I know, I’m the most powerful witch who’s ever existed, anywhere or any time. Stealing isn’t going to be fun like that. Besides, between the Vopura and the people who did this to me, the normals need all the help they can get. Why don’t you just accept my help and stop looking for my nefarious motives. Believe me or not, but I didn’t want this. I was perfectly happy to live my life just the way I had been, without having to worry about what was right or wrong or good and bad. But now I’m here and I’m apparently working with you. And, shockingly, I’m not your biggest fan either. But this is the way it is, and right now our priority needs to be easing Gabriella into this.”
Carter’s eyes bounced over my shoulder to look at the shell-shocked girl. “Why do you think Melanie’s so interested in this kid?”
I raised a brow. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“Not all of us can be as smart as you,” he droned. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“You heard Melanie bitching about how hard it was to even get the funding for us. I’m willing to bet she went out on a limb and promised them that she had a psychic on the squad.”
He frowned in distaste, clearly not a fan of that theory. “Why would she do that? Visions are notoriously undependable.”
“We’re talking about a bunch of good ol’ white boys who don’t know the difference between a Star of David and p
entagram. They hear witch or nymph, they’re not going to know jack shit. But they hear psychic and they’ll start throwing money at it. Stopping crimes before they happen. Saving themselves any embarrassment.”
“Melanie’s setting herself up for failure.”
“I told her that the second she paired us up.” I gave him a playful pat on the bicep. His eyes narrowed, clearly unamused.
Okay, no touching the Boy Scout. Noted.
“You should take point on the girl.” Carter looked past me once more.
I blinked in surprise. I agreed with him, but I still couldn’t believe he was giving me any sort of responsibility. “You think?”
“You have more of a connection with her than any of us do. Give her the rundown on the Vopura and what our jobs are. I’m having her job offer packet sent to your DMD email and you can send it to her whenever she’s ready.”
Paperwork. One of the many reasons I’d never held down a steady job. Freakin’ bureaucracy.
I’m good now. That means I might have to deal with paperwork. Speaking of…. “So all this damage… DMD is going to clean this up for us, right?”
“That’s part of the gig,” he grumbled, though his eyes seemed to scream that I should be the one cleaning up my own mess. “You just have to make sure you fill out form WMD101456. Get used to it. I have a feeling you’re going to need it a lot.” He smiled at me as he started to walk away, and I gave him a snark back.
But I really shouldn’t be that annoyed. It wasn’t his fault he was right.
4
“You knew? The whole time you were pretending you were a stranger, but you knew about my vision and those men?”
The downside of lying was when people found out about it. Usually, I preferred to be on a different continent, or at least country, by then.
But good people didn’t flee the country on a regular basis. Good people had to stop and face the music. Or in this case, psychic.
“To be fair, if I had told you who I was immediately, that would’ve scared you even more than you already were. And I know you were freaked out. I don’t need to be a witch to see that.”
