by D. N. Hoxa
The vampire’s eyes were bloodshot, as he got high on my blood without right. When he moved to the side to turn around and look behind him, I saw James with what looked like a half-broken baseball bat in his hands, looking like he was about to pee himself.
I took my chance. Moving too slow for it to even count as a worthy moment of victory, I sent my beads for his eyes to gain another second, and I freed my hand from the vampire’s grip. I buried my knife in the back of his neck, right through that sweet spot.
Breathing in the stinky smell of the alley, I was surprised when the thought registered in my brain: I was still alive.
“Holy cow,” James whispered as the third vampire fell face first on the ground. He let go of the bat and took a step back. For a second, I was glad I’d saved his life. If he hadn’t hit the vampire with that broken thing, I’d have never gotten my chance. Until I remembered that I’d been almost sucked dry by that vampire because of James. Yeah, I wasn’t thanking him any time soon.
Rising to my feet was harder than it sounds. Blood still dripped from the nasty wound on the side of my neck. That was going to take a couple days to heal. I grabbed the knife that had fallen to the ground, and I put both in their little pockets I’d sewn on the back of my cargo pants. My beads were back around my fingers. It wasn’t long until reality hit me. I’d killed three vampires without even being attacked personally.
“Winter, my God,” James breathed as he looked at me. His eyes were wide in wonder and filled with respect as he took all of me in. I hated that look. It wasn’t worth shit.
“Get the hell out of here,” I said as I made for the street. Whoever was behind the three dead vampires would probably come to check on them soon. They were going to want to know who killed them. I definitely didn’t want to be around when they started to point fingers.
“Thank you so much,” James breathed. “You saved my life.”
He actually sounded surprised. That made two of us.
“Don’t mention it.” I couldn’t have anyone running around telling people I was willing to get killed over strangers I didn’t even like.
“I-I-I…”
James’s voice trailed off as he shook his head. I didn’t stick around to wait for him to finish his thought. My left leg hurt pretty badly. I must’ve gotten a hell of a kick on it during the fight.
“Go home, James.”
“Thank you,” he said again, and my eyes squeezed shut tightly for a second.
Walking out in the street, it was like a whole other world out there. Humans minded their own business, compelled by our very nature to turn away from wherever we were. I didn’t look back as the pain in my body intensified with every step I took. I’d been careless. I’d been foolish. I’d almost died, just because I would have lost a night’s sleep thinking about a vampire I didn’t even know. Those kinds of thoughts could get you killed in my world, as I’d just witnessed firsthand.
And I’d taken three lives to save one. That thought haunted me like it had no business doing all the way home.
Two
“Winter?”
Ugh. Just the sound of that voice brought shivers down my back. I’d made it all the way back to my apartment building and was going to sneak in unnoticed when he called me.
Rolling my eyes, I hurried the few steps it took to get to the entrance. Being a vampire, he moved much faster than I did. Unfortunately for me.
“Winter, wait. What happened to you?”
Dylan McCoy stood right in front of me, handsome as the devil, his eyes filled with concern. Good thing I was way past his bullshit now.
“Get out of my way.”
It didn’t hurt to try and ask nicely, except in my case. Every second I was out there hurt like hell. I got beaten by those vampires much more than I first realized. It looking like the night ahead was going to be very long.
“Winter, please. I said I was sorry. You have to believe me.”
He even had the nerve to pout. God, had I ever fallen for that gorgeous, juicy lip hanging out there, begging to be kissed?
Yes. Yes, I had.
“I don’t care what you said, Dylan. Get the hell out of my way.”
The man had been my boyfriend just two weeks ago. We’d been together for almost a year when he decided he wanted to cheat on me with a pretty little witch. So…did I mention that vampires are assholes?
“At least let me be your friend.”
That ridiculous statement evoked yet another eye roll from me. Lovers turned friends? No, I didn’t believe in that bullshit. Call me old-fashioned, but once you’ve seen all there is to see on a person, there’s no way you can unsee it.
“The only thing you’re going to be is dead if you don’t get the hell out of my way,” I said through gritted teeth. The beads around my fingers vibrated in response to my anger. I was hurting—a lot—and I needed my bottle of vodka to soothe me before I even began to think about what I’d done.
“You look bad,” Dylan said instead. God, how he pissed me off. I couldn’t believe I’d actually loved him at one point. “Let me come up and take care of you.”
That was it. I drew out my gun and pointed it at his head. I didn’t care how much bullets cost. I was going to blow his brains out if he didn’t step away.
Not really, but he didn’t know that. And lucky for the both of us, with his hands raised in surrender, he took a step to the side. He looked in pain, his brows narrowed as he searched my face. It sucked to see him like that because I still wanted to curl up in his arms and just lay there until the pain stopped. But he’d cheated on me. I’d never be able to touch him again without remembering that he’d touched another witch with those hands.
“Good. Now leave and don’t ever come back here.” It hurt to say it, no matter how cold I looked on the outside. I just wouldn’t allow myself to show emotion in front of him. Not anymore. I pulled the door open, and I walked inside the building, gun still in hand. Somebody could have seen me, but I was way past caring about what others thought of me. Running up the stairs to the second floor was extremely painful, but I preferred it over the sound of Dylan’s voice calling me. He just didn’t get it. Once trust was broken, it could never be fully restored again. I’d never forgive betrayal, no matter how much it hurt.
When I finally made it into my tiny apartment, I breathed easy. Not that I was safe in there—no place was really completely safe—but it was home, and I felt hidden from the rest of the world in there.
I took off my leather jacket and made for the bathroom first. I needed a shower, and I needed to tend to my wounds. If I’d been strong enough to fill stones with a healing spell, this would have all been over in minutes. As it was, I needed alcohol to drown the pain away. To drown the thoughts away.
Something fell from the pocket of my jacket and rolled over to the edge of my green sofa. It was the ring James had given me in exchange for my awesome delivery services. The three gold coins were still in my pocket, and now, I couldn’t even enjoy the money they were going to make me. I couldn’t get it out of my head that I’d crossed the line. I had no idea who I’d gone up against, and I hoped to God they’d never find out I’d killed those vampires. I loved the adrenaline rush, loved to feel like I was good at something, but I wanted to live more.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get those four vampires out of my mind for a long time.
Showered, bandaged, and angry as hell, I fell on my sofa and turned the TV on. Sleep was nowhere in sight so Netflix it was. What else was a witch like me supposed to do? I had no friends close by. I had no boyfriend. I had no real job. For now, movies were my only company, but as the hours passed, even they couldn’t get the awful feeling out of my chest that something bad was going to happen to me.
At midnight, someone knocked on the door. It took me forever to drag my feet over and open it. Too tired to interact with any living being, I was glad to find the hallway empty, save for a small box wrapped in brown paper right by my threshold. Had James delivered it
himself?
I doubted it. After the three vampires in the alley, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to get out of wherever he was hiding. I grabbed the package and left it on the table before crashing on the sofa again, the vampire bite on the side of my neck still stinging. There was more than enough time to think about the delivery in the morning.
***
I was dressed and ready to go by ten the next morning. I had to wear a turtleneck because of the vampire bite, and I hated turtlenecks. Not the best start to my day. I figured I’d get to my destination just in time with my piece-of-shit car.
What I didn’t expect was Dylan at the door. Again.
“Good morning, baby.” He flashed me his supermodel grin. Ew.
“Fuck off.” I turned left and walked down the street to where I’d parked my car the last time I drove it. Which was about a month ago. I didn’t even know if I had enough fuel to start it.
“Winter, baby, you’re overreacting. It was nothing. It meant nothing, I swear to you,” Dylan said as he followed me. I didn’t even know why he bothered. He was a vampire, blonde and gorgeous with a million dollar smile that could drop panties anywhere. We’d had a good time, but I guess I always knew we were going to end up like this. His circle of friends and I had nothing in common.
I’d met Dylan at a bar by accident while I was working, and we’d hit it off really fast. I’d doubted the night of drinking and sharing stupid stories would turn into a relationship, but it had. We enjoyed it while it lasted. And now it was over.
“It meant something to me.” It meant everything to me. I wouldn’t let him see it, but his betrayal had hurt me more than I thought it would. I was so used to having him around that the first few days after it was over, I was miserable. Wouldn’t even leave the apartment. But I got used to it. No point in obsessing over things that are done.
“I’ll do anything to make it up to you,” Dylan insisted. He walked close enough to me to make me remember what it was like to hold his hand. I shook my head to get rid of those thoughts. I would never forgive a traitor.
The faded yellow of my car made me wish it was someone else’s. The door that needed to be kicked twice to open almost fell off when I got in. The smell wasn’t nice, but that was the least of my concerns. The torn brown leather of the seats was covered in a fine layer of dust that made me want to flinch and go somewhere to wash my hands.
“Go away, Dylan,” I said as I tried to turn the ignition on. No fuel. Shit. I should have thought about this the night before—and I would have, had the vampire bite not hurt like it was a bite made in hell.
“Just let me try, okay? Let me try and you won’t regret it.” Dylan rested his arms on the roof of my car and looked down at me with a pout. He really was a sight to see. I could understand myself falling for him. Too bad I’d never be able to trust him again.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take him up on his offer. The light bulb that went on above my head brought me the perfect idea.
I grinned widely. There was no reason I couldn’t let Dylan try to make it up to me. He was asking for that very thing, wasn’t he? I was being the good Samaritan here. Full of mischief, I faced him.
“Where’s your car?”
Five minutes later, I was in the driver’s seat of a brand new Chrysler. Grey leather seats, a dashboard so pretty, I wanted to look at it all day long. The radio worked, too. Not a single scratch anywhere. My, oh, my, it was a joy to touch the leather of the wheel.
“You’ll take care of it, right?” said Dylan as he looked at me admiring his car, a terrified expression on his face.
“Oh, yes.” I’d take care of it, just as Dylan took care of me.
“When you get back, will you have a drink with me?” His eyes were hopeful, a smile ready to flash.
“Sure.” Drop dead.
“Okay, then. I’ll be waiting.”
When he stepped back, I didn’t hesitate. I shut the door and turned the ignition on. A second later, I was on my way.
Driving Dylan’s car made me think of my old Jeep. I’d loved that car and it ran perfectly, but after the Agency kicked me out, I could no longer afford it. Selling it was hard, but it was more important to have food on the table and a roof over my head.
Finn’s Agency for Unusual Orders kicked me out a few months back. Yes, that’s the Agency’s real name. It pretty much did what the name indicated: it dealt with unusual orders. The jobs varied. You needed something found? Finn could find it for you. Something unfound? You could count on him. Spying, stealing, hiding—it was all in the Offered Services list.
And all of it Finn did through freelancers. Fancy name for little criminals, I guess. We were all registered as active agents in Finn’s Agency. He called us with jobs, and if we accepted, we got shit done. Simple. Clean. Not a speck of dust on his shiny boots.
But there was another division, if you will, to Finn’s Agency, and that’s where I freelanced.
My magic sucked—no other way to put it. As a Bone witch, one who never even got her powers from her ancestors, I was okay. Compared to the witches of every other coven out there, though, I was nothing. Nada. Zilch. So I couldn’t exactly work in the departments that required magical skills, because the only magical weapon I had was my titanium beads. They were as small as the tip of my index, pure titanium wrapped around small pieces of bone that belonged to my grandmother, her mother and her grandmother before her. It was a family heirloom, the spell designed to be passed on from mother to daughter. When my mother passed away, the beads automatically became mine. It was a pain to get used to them always flying around my fingers. Mother had made having them around look so effortless, but try taking a shower with them, without getting pissed off. Impossible.
In time, though, I’d learned to appreciate them. The best way to command them was through my fingers. Since their magic didn’t come from me, they worked perfectly fine, but I couldn’t exactly forego my weapons to leave my hand free so I could direct them with my fingers. I moved them with my mind instead. That’s why they were so weak and pretty much useless in a fight, but perfect to turn lights off and on, or shut doors.
All I really had to count on was my body. So I worked for the one place that made physical skills a priority.
There was no name to Finn’s division, but we dealt with the heavy stuff. Big heists. Imprisonment. Even killing.
I know what you’re thinking, but I did try to get a job with the humans. It’s impossible to work with people who are compelled to forget about you by your own nature. Whatever it was about our blood—ours and every other non-human being in the world we called a Paranormal—it made humans look the other way. It messed with their brainwaves, and I doubted we even registered in their memories. And with my pathetic magic skills, nobody would hire me for anything, not even vampires. Finn was the only one who took me in.
Now, even he wouldn’t have me, though it wasn’t my fault that werewolf got killed. It was self-defense. I’d rather be jobless than dead, so no, I wasn’t going to apologize about it.
The job had been pretty simple. I was to track down a werewolf and bring him in. We didn’t ask questions, but I heard that he stole something of value from a very wealthy Blood witch. Not exactly sure who she was, but she had influence because all of the jobs for our division came from high up the chain.
It took me two days to track down the werewolf, and I finally found him in the Upper East, playing poker in a fairy’s basement. Nobody with any amount of self-respect hung out with fairies. That should have been a red flag for me, but I went in anyway, as prepared as ever. I was going to knock him out cold, then drag his body all the way to Finn’s offices.
The fairy—tall, skinny, and with his weird looking pointed ears and violet eyes—took off right away. What I didn’t expect was the werewolf’s buddy to step right in and join us. They were both huge as most of their kind is. I underestimated them. They had me pinned against the wall in a matter of minutes, and had I not killed the man, he woul
d have killed me. His friend ran off after that, and he reported me to the ECU—the Executive Control Unit. Not that I was going to keep it a secret—I had to tell Finn about it—but word got out fast, and the next morning, Finn suspended my contract.
I liked the man. He had a good heart, and he didn’t want to discharge me. I saw it in his eyes, but I understood. A job like that going awry was a stain on his shiny reputation. If he kept me in his employ, his clients were going to start doubting his services. The Blood witch who’d hired him to find the werewolf had made it very clear to Finn that his business would suffer if he didn’t get rid of the witch who killed her thief. It was all over in a couple of hours.
Just like that, what was supposed to be a normal tag-and-bag job turned my whole life upside down.
I liked my job. I didn’t love it, but it paid the bills and I got to have an office to go to when I got bored. I got to talk to the other five freelancers from the division when they were around, though they didn’t exactly like a witch with no powers like me. Now, I had nowhere to turn.
I wasn’t going to starve anytime soon. My mother loved jewelry. She loved to buy it because she wanted me to have something to sell and money to live on after she passed away. Bone witches can sometimes predict the future, and I think she knew she was going to leave me young. She hated for me to have anything to do with the paranormal world. It’s one of the reasons she never gave me my powers in the first place.
As a Bone witch, when of age, I was supposed to perform a ritual and ignite the magic in my bones through my mother’s powers. Just as Blood witches were supposed to ignite their magic through their ancestors’ blood. And like Green witches were supposed to be buried alive so that their ancestors could pass their magic through the ground and into them. I had no idea how Hedge witches did it. Nobody had heard of them in years. Word on the street was they were already extinct.
But when I turned eighteen, my mother informed me that we would not be doing the ritual. Like ever. It wasn’t a happy birthday for me. I wanted to come to full power so desperately then. Everyone I knew already had enough magic to conjure basic spells, and I was dying to try myself out. Magic was what I lived for in those days.
