Wicked Misery (Miss Misery)

by Martin, Tracey

  “Did you see that?” Steph asked.

  “See what?”

  “Thought I saw a shadow move.”

  I scanned the vicinity, closing my eyes and stretching out with my gift. Theoretically, it was possible that if anyone was watching, they wouldn’t be miserable or frightened or nervous or angry or feeling any other negative emotion. And if that was the case, I’d miss them completely. It was damned unlikely though. Everyone was unhappy about something.

  But all I picked up on was some marital discord across the street. “I’ve got nothing.”

  Steph frowned. “A van pulled up a couple minutes ago. I don’t like this.”

  “Well, we’re done. Let’s get out of here.”

  We started down the street, and Steph grabbed my wrist. This time I’d caught it too. A flicker of black to my left. The shuffle of feet cutting through un-mowed grass. Steph’s breath rattled in my ear as I reached under my jacket for my knife.

  “Stay here.”

  With a dry mouth, I took a couple steps in the shadow’s direction. Yet still my gift registered no signs of life. Disturbing. Maybe whoever we saw wasn’t human? Even more disturbing. My knife would be useless, and I didn’t have a protective charm on me.

  “Jess!” Steph’s harsh whisper made me jump. She beckoned me back.

  I squinted into the hazy darkness and decided she had a point.

  Steph relaxed once the subway’s glow encompassed us again, but I kept checking over my shoulder. That van had parked close to the addict’s house, so why hadn’t I sensed the driver? Why hadn’t I sensed anything in the bushes? I swore I felt that absence of emotion standing behind me the whole way home, but all I saw were humans.

  Paranoia. If this business of mine didn’t kill me, it would drive me insane. One of these days, I’d take up a normal hobby. Something just as useful. Maybe knitting.

  Chapter Two

  On Monday, I didn’t get home from my craptastic job at the Tallyho Diner until nine. After work, I’d gone straight to the gym, which meant I’d been on my feet running around for about twelve hours.

  And I still had to meet J.G. at midnight.

  I tucked my dinner under my arm, fished for my keys and groaned. Geoff’s and Valerie’s voices were audible through the apartment door. My two roommates usually got along, so this had to be bad. As much as I could use the energy rush from their anger, I did not want to get roped into roommate arguments. Last time, Geoff and I had gotten stiffed with an extra share of the electric and cable bills when our former roommate ditched us.

  I shut the door and inhaled deeply. An unexpected current ran beneath the anger. Tangy. Fear. I rolled it around in my mouth. Well, this was interesting.

  “There you are!” Valerie rounded on me as I entered the kitchen.

  I made a show of yawning, though the closer I stood to them, the more their agitation woke me up. “’Lo. Excuse me.”

  Geoff rubbed his eyes. “You need to check your room. We were robbed.”

  “What?” I clutched my sandwich tighter. Okay, now I was definitely wide awake. “When? What did they take?”

  “Nothing,” Valerie said, oddly sullen. “A couple beers from the fridge seems to be all. But that’s no reason to think this isn’t a big deal.”

  The last sentence was clearly aimed at Geoff. She narrowed her eyes at him, and their spat droned on. I snatched a paper towel and hurried to my bedroom, hearing just enough to learn their argument had to do with our landlord, rent increases and a security system.

  I threw open my door, flipped on the light and gasped. A tornado had torn apart my bedroom. Every drawer was open. My underwear and bras were scattered across the floor, not to mention every T-shirt, sweater and pair of socks.

  My laptop’s case had been turned inside out, and books strewn like flotsam. My jewelry box dripped entrails of silver and gold all over my bureau. Miscellaneous earrings studded the piles of clothes at the bureau’s feet. Nothing appeared missing, though, not even my grandmother’s opal necklace.

  Weird. Had this break-in really been nothing but bored kids out to score free beer?

  My heartbeat started to return to normal, but then my gaze darted toward the closet. Its door was open. Oh shit. The mini fridge.

  In my closet, unbeknownst to my roommates, I kept a small refrigerator in which I stored my blood donations. At the moment, there were only two vials in it—one I’d obtained on Friday and which was already marked for a client, and Scumbag Pete’s, which I figured I’d use for J.G.

  I set my gym bag on the floor and the sandwich on my desk. “Have you called the cops?”

  “Of course!” Valerie yelled back. “They were here a couple hours ago when we got home from work. You were the only one not here.”

  “They said you should give them a call if you found anything missing,” Geoff said. “I’ve got the guy’s card if you need it.”

  I swallowed, wishing I could expel my own fear as easily as I drank in other people’s. So the cops must not have searched my stuff. That was one disaster avoided. Gingerly, I shut my door and stepped over a pile of Agatha Christie novels.

  Shoving clothes and shoes out of the way, I unburied the normal mess—the one I used to disguise the fridge’s existence. It’ll be fine, I told myself. Thieves wouldn’t bother with it. Except when I yanked open the door, only one vial of blood greeted me. Scumbag Pete’s sample was gone.

  No, not possible. Absurd. I shut my eyes, feeling trapped in some nightmare. Whoever broke in couldn’t have done so to steal the blood. That made no sense. So the blood should be there when I looked again.

  Naturally, it wasn’t.

  In disbelief, I opened the tiny freezer compartment, as if hoping I’d been so tired Saturday night I’d stuck the blood in there by accident. My hands shook and I scraped my knuckles against the ice. Empty. No surprise.

  Swearing silently, I shut the fridge and noticed a piece of masking tape stuck to the door. I peeled it up, already certain of what was written on it—Pete’s name and the date I’d taken the sample.

  Dragon shit on toast. However I looked at it, there was no way to lie to myself. The bottle hadn’t gotten lost in some thief’s rampage through our apartment. Whoever it was had taken the time to remove the label and leave it here. Why? To make sure I’d known what they did?

  Frantic, I pulled out the leather case I hid under a loose floorboard next to the fridge, but Pete’s ID was there on top, along with all the other IDs I’d collected over the years.

  Nausea bubbled up inside me. Desperate to confirm the inevitable, I lumbered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Someone had strewn the contents every which way, and there was no need for that if our intruder was only interested in taking a couple beers from the door. Whoever had stolen my blood sample had probably searched this fridge for it first. Better and better. Between my nerves and Valerie’s, I was a couple breaths from an all-out anxiety attack. At least I wasn’t going to have trouble staying awake for my meeting with J.G.

  “Are you sure they only took a couple beers?”

  “Yeah.” Geoff sighed and stretched his hairy arms over his head. “’Cause the bastards took my beers.”

  “So they’re thieves with bad taste? In that case, have you checked your DVD collection?”

  Valerie snorted. “We should be so lucky. By the way, you have mail on the table. Stupid thieves didn’t steal any of our bills.”

  I grabbed the envelopes with my name on them—a credit card bill and something from the New England Academy for the Magically Gifted. What did the Gryphons want from me? I opened the fridge again, took a can of diet soda and headed for my room.

  “Hey, Jess! What do you think about asking Juan for some updated security?” Valerie asked. “With some psycho killer going around murdering women, the fact that someone could break in so easily is really freaky.”

  I rested my forehead against the doorframe. Valerie’s fear was almost overpowering. “How did these guys get in?” />
  “Jimmied open the bathroom window,” Geoff said. “Must have gotten up the fire escape. Cops said it didn’t look too hard.”

  “Great. I don’t know, Val. Let me think about it.” I shut the door and threw the mail on the bed. Must not panic. Someone knew I had the blood. How? And did that someone know what I did with the blood?

  I punched my pillow. How could this have happened? I was so cautious. Well, okay, when it came to hiding what I did from humans, I was cautious. I’d never counted on it mattering where preds were concerned. Maybe that was stupid, but preds wouldn’t care how I got the blood so long as I made them a fair trade.

  Besides, there was no point beating myself up about that. For all I knew, it was a human who’d broken in and stolen Scumbag Pete’s blood. Not that such a thing made this situation any better. It might just make it worse. My head was spinning. I hadn’t a clue.

  Heedless to all my more pressing concerns, my stomach growled. I stretched across the bed for the sub and took a bite. The mozzarella had hardened. Mealy meat and sweet sauce stuck to my mouth. Gross.

  I tossed the bill on my desk to pay later and tore open the envelope from the Academy with more violence than necessary. It wasn’t the Gryphons’ fault that a pred had cursed me, and logically I couldn’t blame them for booting me because of it, but none of that mattered. My resentment and humiliation ran deep.

  But this letter was better entertainment than I could have hoped for. This was hysterical.

  Dear Jessica,

  We at the Academy are so proud to have you as a former student. Maybe you remember taking a course in your fourth year called “Thinking About the Future”? This is one of our core courses for students as they explore the options that await them when they are either chosen to join the Angelic Order of the Gryphon or leave our grounds to pursue other education or employment.

  Translation—when they either get to join the talented few, or flunk out because their gift doesn’t develop.

  We are introducing a new segment in this course to better explain what paths students might choose if they do not join the Gryphons, and we want to hear from you. Bridget Nelson recommended you as a former alumni in the area who might be willing to come to class and share your experiences.

  I snorted, and Diet Pepsi shot out my nose.

  What was Bridget thinking? She was my only friend left from my days at the Academy, which meant she’d known me for sixteen years now. True, I had to hide my deepest secrets from her, but still. Sixteen years was a long time. She really ought to know better.

  Come talk to the potential flunkies? Yeah, I’d be a great role model. By day I dressed in a wench’s costume at a diner and asked people whether they’d like soup or salad, and by night I used my cursed—aka improperly developed—gift to run a quasi-illegal side business tracking down scum and trading their souls away. That had to be the career path called Loser.

  I crumpled the Academy’s letter and tossed it at the trash can. My face clenched. Damn it, Bridget.

  I’d had the most powerful gift of anyone in my class at the Academy. Every year the Gryphons had run my blood, along with everyone else’s, through their magical scanners. And every year my blood had shown massive amounts of dormant power. When I was fourteen, I’d even been invited to a special summer academy the Gryphons ran at their training center in Philadelphia. I was one of only three in my class at the Academy invited. One of only twenty-five in the whole country who got to take part. Naturally, I’d assumed my gift would develop. My dad had been a Gryphon. Magic was, in all manners of speaking, in my blood.

  So if my gift didn’t mature at fourteen, it would at fifteen. Then sixteen. Seventeen definitely, because gifts that didn’t develop by age eighteen never did. The Gryphons at the Academy were in such disbelief they even tested my blood the day of my eighteenth birthday.

  Then they’d kicked me out. My only consolation was that the Gryphons had simply thought my gift was dying. They never suspected the truth, and therefore had no reason to test my blood for pred magic.

  Of course, the truth was that I really didn’t know what the truth was. All I knew was that I’d been cursed, and that I’d never met another person with my abilities. If the Gryphons had heard of such a thing, or if they even knew enough about the magic that they could test for it, they kept those secrets to themselves.

  Taking a deep breath, I waited for the wave of resentment to pass. In the kitchen, Geoff and Valerie’s argument simmered to a lemony custard, and I tried to focus on that.

  I kicked off my shoes and dug out my leather pants from the mess on the floor. They were getting worn, which was no surprise since I’d bought them as a joke on that disastrous eighteenth birthday. Steph had told me that if I was turning evil, I ought to look like a badass.

  That was the same night I’d made my first soul trade. I’d saved one girl and helped Steph get revenge on the assholes who’d beaten her up. And here I was, almost ten years to the date since I’d appointed myself the Soul Swapper of Boston. I wasn’t quitting now. I liked what I did. It made me feel good to put an evil magic to a higher purpose.

  So to hell with this asshole who’d stolen my blood sample. It had only been a matter of time before someone found me out, seeing as I hadn’t exactly gone to Batman-like lengths to hide my identity.

  I’d go to my appointment tonight well armed. If my thief showed up, I’d be ready.

  In the meantime, I had a huge mess to clean up.

  Alas, no mysterious blood thief waited for me in the trees by the Hatch Shell amphitheater, but that turned out to be just as well because my charms were seriously weak. Josephine Gomes had a heartbreaking story—a four-year-old daughter with some blood disease for which she couldn’t afford the treatment. Their best hope was getting her accepted into an experimental trial, and so she’d paid the exorbitant price of her soul for a goblin to magically sway an acceptance in her daughter’s favor. Even if Josephine hadn’t offered me one hundred dollars to sort this mess out, I’d have taken the job for free.

  Hey, I wasn’t a complete mercenary. I made deals with plenty of people who couldn’t pay, but I had to be utterly convinced they deserved it. If cash was in play, the person only had to deserve their fate less than someone else. And the sad truth was, there was almost always someone who was a bigger jerk than the guy coming to me for help. The world coughed up no shortage of murderers, rapists, kiddie pornographers and other people so vile that my conscience didn’t twitch when I traded their souls away.

  Josephine’s anguish was deliciously genuine, and my heart ached for her. Still, thank goodness doing the job for free wasn’t necessary. New charms would easily set me back close to the amount she offered, and then there was a little problem of my twin stepbrothers’ birthdays coming up. I had no clue what twelve-year-old boys liked for gifts, but I suspected whatever it was cost money.

  In short, I had a new problem—getting blood to replace what had been stolen.

  That was why, despite being exhausted, I was spending my Tuesday night at Kilpatrick’s. So far I’d found nothing more than garden-variety scumminess—probably cheating spouses, shady lawyers and the justified anger of jilted exes. They gave my energy levels a boost, but did nothing for accomplishing my goals. No, I waited on the true asshole, the one whose soul could only be improved upon by a pred’s abuse.

  I tapped my fingers against the sticky table. The group huddled around the bar’s television let out a collective groan as the Red Sox’s third baseman struck out.

  Across the table from me, Jim swore and stood. “And they signed a new contract with this loser for how much?”

  I watched Jim weave his way toward the restrooms, tracing my finger through the condensation dripping down my glass.

  “So have you found a soul donor yet?” Steph asked once Jim was out of earshot.

  “No, and it’s starting to bug me.” I popped a nacho in my mouth, then filled Steph in on my other news.

  Her first question was als
o mine. “But how would anyone find out about you?”

  “No idea, and it’s freaking me out.” That was an understatement. I clenched my hand so hard I crushed the chip I was holding.

  Steph started to say something, then changed her mind. “Jim’s back.”

  While she and Jim staked out a pool table, I finished my beer and wandered past them to the restrooms. Out of habit, I chose the one on the right.

  My first move upon getting to Kilpatrick’s had been to check my box for messages, but none had been waiting. I wasn’t expecting any now, only an hour later, so my jaw dropped when I saw the ceiling tile askew. Idiot, was my first thought. Someone was going to get me caught because they’re an idiot.

  Shaking my head, I climbed on the toilet and brought the container down. Yup, someone had left me a message in the past hour.

  I know what you are. We need to meet. Find me at the Gryphon Tribute Thursday at midnight.

  My heart skipped a beat. I clutched the sink to keep from falling over, then wiped my hand on my pants and stared at the note some more. I know what you are?

  What. Not who? The who would be frightening enough, but that would almost be a relief. Yeah, someone knew who I was. The burglary suggested as much. But what I was? Was this note-writer referring to my cursed gift? Who could know about that?

  With shaking hands, I tore off the piece of paper, shoved the notepad in the container and stuck the whole mess back in the ceiling.

  The ceiling. Whoever—whatever?—this was didn’t just know what. They knew who. They had to. That was why the ceiling tile was askew. They knew I was here, and they left the tile whacky so I would check the box again.

  That left one question—was the person who left the note the same person who broke into my apartment? One threat or two?