by Devin Hanson
Twelve hundred dollars was a welcome windfall. I had been staying in random hotel rooms the last five days, paying with cash, and my bank account was beginning to return to its usual anemic state.
“Any word from your client?”
I frowned and picked at my pancakes. They were starting to get soggy with syrup. “No. I… haven’t reached out to him yet.”
Friday nodded. “He leaves today, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah.” If I was being honest with myself, the thought of meeting with David terrified me. He hadn’t asked to meet, and I took that as a sign that he was less than pleased with my services.
“Well, it’s not my place to tell you how to live your life, but you might consider reaching out to him. Communication solves almost all problems.”
Yeah, I didn’t say aloud, except for the problems that were terminal to your health. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
The conversation turned to small talk as we finished eating and Sam offered to pay for our food. We left the Denny’s and stood outside. I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my skin. I felt a trickle of energy and shivered. I still got bursts every now and then, leftovers from the photographs posted almost a week ago. Francois had done his job amazingly well.
“Well,” Friday said with a sigh. “It’s been nice working with you, Alex. Hopefully we won’t have need of your services any time soon, but you never know. Will you contact me when you have a reliable address again?”
I opened my eyes and smiled at him. “Sure. Thanks, Sam. For believing in me.”
He shrugged and grinned back. “Who said I believed any of that stuff? Strictly fairytales, as far as I’m concerned. But sometimes you come to the right answer despite asking all the wrong questions.”
I swatted him on the arm and he laughed.
“I’ll see you around, Alex.” He waved and walked off to his car. I wandered back to my scooter and sat on it, trying to figure out what to do next. I should go and deposit Friday’s check, and withdraw another chunk of cash. I couldn’t bring myself to move, though.
It all seemed pointless. The money from the police would only get me through another week or two. And then what? I couldn’t stay in Los Angeles. It was too expensive to live here, and I couldn’t stay in an apartment. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, though. The only city I knew was LA.
My phone buzzed, startling me, and I dug it out of my jeans. David’s number glared at me and I swallowed. Nervously, I opened the text message.
7pm, LAX, Atlantic Airlines.
I almost didn’t go. In the end, I decided to face David with my head held high. If he wanted to kill me, turn me into a newt, chain me up in his cavern full of gold to replace Zerachiel, or whatever, I wouldn’t be able to hide from him anyway. Paying for hotel rooms in cash might stump human methods of finding me, but I didn’t doubt for a moment that David could locate me if he wanted to.
The Atlantic Airlines terminal was a tiny little lobby off the main turnaround at LAX. I got lost and had to ask directions from two different security guards before finally pulling into a parking spot outside with three minutes to spare.
I locked my helmet to my scooter and went inside, trying to rub some sensation into my numb arms. I hadn’t purchased a new jacket yet, and driving at night was freezing cold. The terminal lobby was ritzy, an echo of his suite at the hotel. I half expected to get turned away by the guard at the door, but he only ducked his head respectfully.
“Mr. Caradoc is waiting for you,” he said, and pointed toward a cluster of couches and armchairs in a corner of the lobby.
I nodded, too surprised to come up with anything suitably sassy. “Thanks.”
David was standing by the window, watching a plane taxi in, and he turned to me when I approached, his face expressionless. “Alexandra. I’m glad you came.”
I tried on a smile, but it slipped away before it reached my eyes. “I almost didn’t.”
He returned to staring out the window and folded his hands behind his back. For a minute or two, he stayed silent, and I tried not to fidget. Why had he called me here? I had expected shouting, quiet fury, or hissed spells in long-forgotten languages. I didn’t know how to react to pensive moodiness.
“I sent Ilyena back to Russia,” he finally said.
I nodded, but my face fell. That explained why she hadn’t tried to reach me. “Is she okay?”
“She will be. I thought I warned you against having sex.”
I looked up at him in surprise. “You said nothing about that! Why shouldn’t I have sex?!”
“I did not?” He frowned at me then gave a minute shrug. “You are lilin, Alexandra, and of Mahlat. You are fortunate Ilyena has a strong mind. A lesser person would have been destroyed by engaging in repeated intercourse with you. As it was, she temporarily lost the use of her gift, and it will be a time before she stops craving your company.”
I gaped at him. “Are you kidding me? I can’t even have sex?”
“Once or twice probably wouldn’t hurt,” he admitted reluctantly. “But I would not make it a regular activity with any one person.”
“Fucking wonderful,” I grumbled. After everything else, not being able to have sex seemed like a final, cruel joke.
“I must say, I did not expect things to go as far as they did,” David said after a long pause. “I had thought Elaida might gain entrance to my hoard, but I had not counted on Raveth.”
“He was trying to clear the way for the vampires,” I said, still irritated about his revelation.
David frowned slightly. “Mammet’s lilin are never the most discreet, but this was a new low for them.”
“Yeah, greed will do that to you.”
He chuckled unwillingly, and threw a sideways glance at me. “From what I hear, you have come into considerable power. The difficulties you encountered were… unexpected. I am impressed that you survived.”
I clenched my jaw against a surge of profanity and counted ten breaths before I opened my mouth. “I am upping my rates after this.”
“You would be wise to,” he agreed. “I have your payment, as promised.”
He took a pair of envelopes out of his jacket and handed me one of them. “The second half of your retainer. I also promised a bonus, if you kept my wealth intact.”
I swallowed against a dry throat and accepted the envelope. “David… I tried. I did everything I could, but… I’m sorry.” Tears burned at my eyes, and I blinked them away furiously. I wouldn’t cry, damn it.
David grunted. “Do you know who the woman was?”
I shook my head.
“I would like you to meet her.” He turned and beckoned to someone behind me.
“What?” I turned and saw the woman from the hoard step up to David and press herself to his side. He circled an arm around her shoulders and smiled down at her. She barely came up to my shoulder. I stared at her in disbelief. She was alive? How?
“Alexandra, this is Ysave. Ysave has been my companion for long ages past.”
“Mae’n fy anrhydedd,” she said. Awake, the regal harshness of her features had softened into pleasantness.
“She says she is honored to meet you.” He smiled at the expression on my face. “You saved her life by breaking the glass.”
“I… was sure she was dead. If I had known, I would have done anything to help her.”
“I know it,” he said quietly. He said something to Ysave and she went to stand by the windows, looking out at the planes with unabashed fascination. “She had fallen ill centuries ago. With the Shroud, I was able to keep her from dying, but it wasn’t until modern medicine that I found a way to reverse her illness. But I couldn’t be sure, and fear of losing her kept me from taking her off life support and seeing if she could recover on her own.”
“Then, when Elaida stole the Shroud and I broke the glass…”
David nodded. “She recovered. By the time I responded to the alarms and made it to her side, she had
regained consciousness.”
I covered my mouth with a hand. “Oh no. Zerachiel.”
He grimaced, but shrugged. “Zerachiel is also known as the Angel of Healing. It was guarding her when I arrived. I regained control of it and no permanent harm was done.” He nodded to himself and tapped the second envelope against his palm. “Which brings me to this. Your bonus.” David gave me the envelope.
“What is it?” Unlike the first envelope, this one was thick, as if it had half a ream of paper folded up inside it.
“A solution to a problem. It is the best I could do on short notice.” He called to Ysave and she smiled prettily at me before joining him.
“You’re leaving, then?” I asked.
He nodded. “My flight is waiting. Farewell, Alexandra.”
“Mae popeth yn ddyledus i chi,” Ysave said to me.
David and Ysave left the lounge and walked out onto the tarmac toward a waiting private jet. I lingered at the window to watch them leave. It was silly, maybe, but I felt like a chapter of my life had come to an end. Meeting David and the chaotic two weeks that had followed had changed me. Not only because I had come of age; my entire outlook on life had undergone a drastic revision.
My days of leading a carefree existence living from paycheck to paycheck and taking on odd jobs were over. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I suspected Los Angeles would be different in the months and years to come. Raveth had killed dozens of people who had actively worked to suppress the darker side of the city. Now that they weren’t taking care of things, someone had to take their place.
That someone was probably going to be me. I didn’t know how, yet. I barely was able to take care of myself at the moment, but I would figure it out.
David’s plane taxied to the head of the runway and turned about in preparation to take off. I waved, even if he couldn’t see me, and tried to ignore the sense of loss. His plane accelerated down the runway and tipped its nose into the air. David was gone, and it was time for me to go as well.
As I turned away from the glass, something caught my peripheral vision. For a split second, David’s plane had looked different. A long, scaly neck, widespread leathery wings pumping the air and a barbed tail trailing behind. I snapped my head around, but the plane was just a plane. I stayed at the glass, staring after it as it banked through the night sky until it faded from view.
I flipped the ignition off on my scooter and felt the rumble of its engine fade away. It was early in the morning, the day after David had left. I got David’s second envelope out of the scooter’s cargo box and double-checked the address on the papers inside. I was in the right place.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered under my breath.
I got off the scooter and walked up to the front door. There didn’t seem to be anyone home. I peered in through the window next to the door and made out a little reception area. I tried the door, but it was locked. There were keys in the envelope, and I dug them out, feeling a little foolish. This had to be a practical joke. The key opened the lock smoothly though, and I pushed the door open.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
My call sounded hollow in my ears and silence was my only response. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. To my left, a door opened into a spacious garage with a ceiling nearly two stories high. All the tools and equipment had been removed, but piles of junk still sat in the corners.
A cat sat in the middle of the garage glaring at me. It was huge, more like a bobcat than a house cat, with the bushy ruff of a Maine Coon.
“Um, hello,” I said.
The cat’s tail flicked. It was solid gray, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw it boasted an impressive collection of scars about its face and ears.
“I guess I’m your new roommate.” The cat blinked at me, but didn’t try to run as I approached. It had a collar and a tag with a name stamped on it. “Grim, huh? It suits you.” I crouched down next to the cat and held out my hand for it to smell.
It leaned forward and sniffed my proffered fingers, then got up and walked away, tail flicking as it went. Or he went. From behind, that was unmistakable.
At least the place wasn’t totally empty. I left Grim to his business and wandered back into the lobby. A second door led back further into the building. There was a living room, or common area, that was bigger than the entirety of my last apartment, with a full kitchen attached. The next room I stuck my head into had a pool table on one side and most of a gym on the other.
Grim came padding up behind me and sat with his tail lashing, glaring up at me with his big yellow eyes.
“What? Do you want food?”
I went back into the kitchen and dug through cabinets until I found a fifty-pound bag of kibble and a bowl. Grim followed me, meowing incessantly. I fed him and set out some water, then went back to exploring. The more I explored, the more comfortable I grew. The place was definitely empty. There were two rooms that had to have been barracks, and a shower room with a half-dozen stalls and lockers against one wall. A few offices, bathrooms, a laundry, and a workshop rounded out the rest of the rooms.
Besides the pool table and gym equipment, all the furniture had been cleared out. Out the back was a walled parking lot with a ratty basketball hoop against the far wall. Oil stains marked where vehicles had been parked. There wasn’t anything to see there, so I went out to the street again.
The front of the building still bore the sun-faded outline of the sign that had been taken down.
“Fire Station 76,” I read aloud, and shook my head.
Leave it to David to gift me with a fire station to live in. A house would have worked just as well, but it certainly solved my problem. The place needed a lot of work before it could be called a home, though. Furniture, to begin with. Maybe a new coat of paint. With vampires and servitors and God only knew what else coming to LA, I needed a threshold to hide behind.
Feeling hopeful about the future for the first time since my birthday, I went back inside.
It was time to get started.
Authors Note
Thank you for reading The Halfblood’s Hoard! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did enjoy the book, please take a few minutes and write a review. You would make this author a very happy man.
My website, http://devinhanson.com will have the latest news and a blog about writing. Sign up for the newsletter there to get free books and access extra content. I promise I won’t spam you.
Until next time,
Devin Hanson
About the Author
Devin Hanson was born in Beaverton, Oregon. After a childhood spent programming computers and playing Dungeons and Dragons, Devin’s career took a random turn to counseling. It was during his years as a counselor that he developed his insight into the human condition and renewed his interest in writing. Currently, Devin works as a web developer, spending his free time creating tales of fantasy and science fiction. For his sins, Devin resides in Los Angeles, California.
You can check out his website here: https://www.devinhanson.com
Also by Devin Hanson
The Dragon Speaker Series
Rune Scale
Rune Song
Rune Master
The Speaker’s Son
The Cleric Scribe
The Speaker’s Son
Immortal Archives
The December Protocol
The Matriarch Manifesto
Halfblood Legacy
The Halfblood’s Hoard
Shadow of the Ghoul
Wylde Fire
Lilin’s Wrath
Fate of the Magi
The Tome of the Magi
The Fractured Tower
Short Stories
The Enceladus Incident
The Last Friday
The Wraiths of Rivia
Other Works from Hudson Indie Ink
Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy
Stephanie Hudson<
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Sloane Murphy
Xen Randell
Sci-fi/Fantasy
Brandon Ellis
Crime/Action
Blake Hudson
Mike Gomes
Contemporary Romance
Gemma Weir
