Black Cat Security

by Katerina Ross

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2018 Katerina Ross

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-591-3

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BLACK CAT SECURITY

  Katerina Ross

  Copyright © 2018

  “There’s a curse on you.”

  Her voice startled Dragomir out of his grim reverie. At this very moment, he’d been deciding between getting hopelessly drunk or moderately drunk. He liked the first option better, but his finances weren’t exactly blooming.

  “Yeah, thanks, I know,” he muttered in Czech, suppressing a vicious desire to snap and say something rude. Of course he fucking knew.

  The girl lingered beside him by the bar counter. A petite brunette with a gaze surprisingly sharp for such a nice face. High heels, but no make-up. Casually dressed, certainly not for picking up strangers in a bar, more like for relaxing with friends on a Friday evening. Normally, she would be a type to interest him, but he was far from normal now. He wished she would go away already, turned off by his surly, indifferent countenance.

  “Is it easier for you to speak Latin?” she asked instead, tilting her head curiously.

  Yes, his Czech wasn’t ideal, and it became clear just from a single short phrase. Those who said all Slavic languages sounded the same should have tried learning them instead of simply listening. But nothing indicated he knew Latin at all. It was international, but mostly for scholars and well-educated people. He didn’t look like one of them, and he knew it perfectly well. Nor did anything in his appearance betray his former occupation. He seemed more of a rough and rowdy biker type, clad in an old leather jacket, jeans, and heavy, thick-soled boots.

  “How do you know?” he asked, curious, though he hadn’t been in the mood for a nice friendly chat. He rarely was nowadays.

  “It’s a complex curse, very intricate, very skillfully done,” she said, like she marveled at it. “You must have been an important person for someone to put this spell on you. Also, I see there have been attempts to remove it. Unsuccessful but insistent. Only very strong mages would even try to do it, and only in a joint effort. Why would they care? My guess is you were one of them.”

  “Not anymore.”

  He emptied the contents of his glass in one large gulp. Uh. Nasty stuff.

  “Are you a witch or a mage?” he asked and waved to the bartender to get a refill.

  He wondered how other magicians saw his curse, invisible for common people. As a sigil burnt into the flesh of his shoulder where the wicked hand had touched him? Was it all the more ugly, scarred and disfigured, because of the messy endeavors to get rid of it? He decided he didn’t really want to know.

  “Just a witch, nothing high class,” the girl said with a small smile as she watched the bartender pouring more slivovice into Dragomir’s glass. “A bit of fortunetelling, a bit of herbal potion-making, a bit of coaching. I keep a small family business. Want to see my license?” she suggested almost playfully.

  “Nope,” Dragomir said briskly and took another sip from his glass.

  Unlike her, he’d been a magician, having finished the famous Scholomance school in the Carpathians. Also unlike her, he had no license at the moment and didn’t intend to apply for one.

  “Does alcohol reduce the effect of the curse to some degree?” she asked, not flirtingly this time, but with what seemed like genuine sympathy.

  “Nope.”

  More importantly, alcohol reduced him to nothingness. Numbed him. But not enough. Not yet.

  He already regretted starting a conversation, annoyance building up slowly but steadily. Why would she ask? Why would she care?

  “I’m Ida, by the way,” the witch said, as if she hadn’t noticed his obvious displeasure. Or maybe she didn’t want to notice. Stupid, stupid girl.

  Mild irritation was starting to evolve into anger, both at her for being so amiably intrusive and at himself for wishing it could lead to something. He willed himself not to look at her, not to answer. It would only be worse. It would end up badly, just like it had the last time.

  He hadn’t been with a woman for quite a while, and it took him all his resolve to feign indifference.

  “Nobody will be able to take off your curse, except for the one who made it,” she said as if he wasn’t well aware of it. But then she added, “Maybe I could be of some help though.”

  Sure. A witch from a seedy bar for tourists and local drunkards would do more than a bunch of highly skilled magicians from the Scholomance school. He would laugh her in the face if he felt like facing her now.

  “When you’ll be in the mood, call me,” she said and slipped a business card along the counter, towards him, until it stopped at his glass. A simple white rectangle with her name and address. And a small silhouette of a black cat on top.

  After that, thank God for small mercies, she left. He didn’t watch her go, but in a few moments, he heard the squeaky front door opening and closing.

  He crumpled her business card in his fist, crushed it like a fucked-up origami, and tossed it to the floor.

  Having emptied his glass, he caught his grumpy reflection in the large mirror behind the liquor bottles and automatically reached to smooth his hair. He trimmed it short, out of an old habit, but when it grew just a little, it always stood up in wild spikes and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like almost anything of late.

  Behind his back, three men marched to the door. He wouldn’t have paid attention to them if he hadn’t caught a glimpse of a familiar tattoo in the mirror. One of the guys had a studded mallet smashing through a pentagram tattooed on his forearm. Malleus Maleficarum. The hammer of witches. Uh-huh. It didn’t look good, not for the girl who had just left.

  Witchbashers, that was who they were.

  It had been long since women were allowed to practice magic freely and enter magic schools along with men. It had been even longer since magicians of whatever gender had acquired any problems with state or church authorities for what they did, having settled a mutually satisfying deal centuries ago. But there were always some douchebags who had their own thoughts on the matter, always eager to see evil outside of themselves.

  For a moment, Dragomir wavered. Maybe they weren’t after her. Maybe she was long gone.

  But then he bounced off his barstool and took after them. He’d had a shitty day. He’d had a shitty week and an equally shitty month. He could temporarily forget about it by getting drunk again … or he could do something else, just as foolish. For a change.

  ****

  It was springtime. Wherever there was a public garden, Prague smelled heavily of bird cherries and apple blossoms. A perfect time to walk under the streetlights with a beloved, hand in hand, and to whisper someone else’s poetry into the pungent air. If you were romantic of course.

  Dragomir certainly wasn’t.

  He almost missed the three men disappearing into a small side street and walked faster to catch up.

  “Don’t be shy, little witch,” he heard as he turned around the corner. “Why not have some fun with us?”

  A blank wall to one side, dirty yellow in the light of a distant lantern. Dark windows of some historical building to the other. The narrow alley was an id
eal place for an assault. Classic, almost. The girl and the three men blocking her way looked like figures in a picture illustrating the dangers of walking alone at night.

  “Hey, guys,” Dragomir said most pleasantly. “I think your attentions are unwanted.”

  It was reckless to announce his presence right away, but he didn’t care. It was better than entering a boxing ring to spar, for no rules would apply here and it was fine. Energy rose within him, ready to boil over the top. An eagerness to hurt, to draw blood, to crush bones. He could let it loose without any remorse, finally. An indulgence. A treat.

  Predictably, he received an inelegant string of cussing in response. His Czech really wasn’t good, but the general idea was clear enough. He was offered to fuck off and go his own way.

  No, I don’t think so, he thought.

  Two men moved towards him, intimidating but uncoordinated, while the third one still blocked Ida’s way. Dragomir didn’t wait for the witchbashers to decide what they wanted to do about him. He wasn’t here to avoid trouble or talk them out of it. The first rule of a dirty street brawl—if you are going to fight at all, hit first, and hit hard.

  He launched forward and landed a brutal punch to the closest target’s throat, making him gag for breath. A start back, in a deceptive retreat, and then his heavy boot crushed the second’s man kneecap. A howl. This one was out, down on the ground. The advantage of surprise was lost on the third guy, and Dragomir missed a few blows but didn’t even register the pain as he pummeled his adversary, making him stagger back and go into defensive mode.

  “Behind you!”

  Ida’s cry was a bit too late. The first fighter had recovered surprisingly fast and tried to grab him by the elbows. Dragomir stomped on his foot, viciously, and headbutted him backwards. Something crunched, and it got him free, but he failed to block a nasty jab to his solar plexus from the man in front of him. Pain exploded there. He missed one more punch, struggling to breathe, and it made him do what he didn’t intend to, what he’d sworn not to. Out of pure survival instinct, he put all the rage that wanted to be unbound into a single hit, and it knocked his enemy off like a blast, literally, and sent him flying against the nearest wall. He crashed hard against it and slumped to the ground like a broken doll.

  It was over fast, like a car wreck. All three men were down now. Dealt with.

  The uncontrolled surge of energy concussed Dragomir as well, but not too badly. Staggering on his feet, drained, emptied, he told himself it had been a dirty fight anyway. How much dirty was too much?

  He turned to Ida, wiping blood from a split eyebrow. The girl just stood there all the time, watching them!

  “Why the fuck didn’t you run?” he growled at her, his voice menacingly glottal. He knew he looked terrible. He knew he sounded even worse.

  “It was interesting to watch you,” she said, surprisingly calm. “Besides, I wanted to thank you afterwards. By the way, Prague isn’t usually dangerous. Don’t get the wrong impression. These are random scum.”

  She waved dismissively at the three beaten up thugs. One of them was unconscious, and the other two were writhing on the cobblestones in different stages of agony, temporarily rendered unfit for combat. They had been lucky Dragomir didn’t have a switchblade on him, but not too lucky.

  He could kick them now as long as he liked, break more bones, make them cry and beg. He wanted to.

  “I wonder why you didn’t used a spell or two right from the start,” Ida continued, snapping him back from a bloodthirsty dream. “You obviously could, but chose not to until it was unavoidable. I’m intrigued.”

  She talked to him like he wasn’t a danger himself. Like they could continue chatting. And maybe walk away together, her arm slung around his.

  She was so close. She smelled of roses and leather.

  “Don’t go near me,” he said huskily.

  He felt like a cannon that had just fired, all grimy and burnt-out inside, but ready for another shot, for someone else to destroy.

  He took a step back, then another, and then he turned and walked away fast like a coward he was.

  But being a coward sometimes wasn’t the worst option.

  ****

  That night, he lay awake on his rickety cot, dismally sober. The window was open, and a draught crept into the small attic room. A dog tag pendant with an amulet of St. Cyprian, the patron of sorcerers, felt cool on Dragomir’s skin. Wearing it now, a bitter reminder of what he had been once, was utterly ridiculous, but he wore it still.

  Naked over the crumpled, slightly stale sheets, he touched himself, slid a hand down the trail of hair on his chest and abdomen. He needed a distraction. What distraction could he have if not alcohol?

  He palmed his cock, coaxing it to stiffness. Maybe the little witch wouldn’t have been against it if he’d taken her right there and then, as his victory prize. She had flirted with him. She had continued to flirt after she had watched him beating the three men in front of her. She had seen him sinking into the frenzy of fighting and liked it.

  So. If he stayed…

  …he would cross the distance between them in one rapid lurch and pin her against a wall, roughly. She would gasp, half in surprise, half in terror.

  His cock twitched and hardened, and he stroked himself, his eyes closed.

  Oh yes, she would be frightened now, like she should have been. He would grind his hips against her, so she would feel his erection, a bulge still trapped in his jeans. She would tremble, pressed to the wall, unable to break free, knowing he’d take her and nothing could stop him—certainly not her hitching whisper, “D-don’t. Please.”

  His grin would certainly scare her even more. He wouldn’t be in the mood for talking. Or for gentleness either.

  His pace picked up. Each time his hand ran up the length of his cock, he thumbed the head before sliding back down, smearing pre-cum generously along the shaft.

  He would squeeze her ass with a feral groan, eager to get into her jeans…

  Oh wait. It was a fantasy, so she could wear anything he wanted.

  A skirt then. He would rummage his way under it and yank her panties down.

  “Please stop it,” she would beg. Like hell he would. She had been teasing him, luring him.

  His hand over her mouth. “Shut up, witch.”

  A stifled scream into his palm as he…

  No.

  No, no, no.

  He didn’t want it like this.

  He didn’t. He couldn’t.

  Oh hell.

  Dragomir slammed his fist into the wall, hard, and did it three times more, and breathed through the pain and anger and self-loathing that filled him.

  Muffled shouting came from the apartment next to his, an elaborate framework of curses around a justified question why the heck someone would bang nails into a wall this late.

  Dragomir pressed his bloodied knuckles to his mouth and laughed unhappily. Why indeed. His erection had wilted, and a damp sheen on his body felt unpleasantly cold.

  How could have he turned into a man who’d want such a thing, nothing better than the witchbashers he’d fought tonight?

  It was unfair. All of this was so much unfair.

  He never had nightmares about what had happened to him, but he often played it all out in his head when he was awake. The same scene, the same words, over and over, on repeat.

  …His body was a mess, all broken and battered, but he was still conscious, and it was the worst. He knew he’d been betrayed. He knew he would most likely die, and soon.

  He tried to prop himself up, desperate to know what had happened to his teammates and wishing to see one of them dead—for some reason it still seemed to be important—but the movement sent a bolt of pain through him, lances of fire shooting in all directions, and he sank back with a stifled cry. A moment to recover—and he made another attempt, but with the same results.

  A young man crouched beside him as he lay there, helpless and pathetically weak.

  “Oh,
you’re a stubborn type,” he said with a gleam of approval in his eyes. “That’s exactly what I need. Go back to Scholomance. Go and tell your masters I don’t work for them anymore. Tell it with all the anger I feel for them. For you to deliver my message properly, I think I’ll give you this.”

  He touched Dragomir’s shoulder, pressed a palm onto it, and something happened. It felt as if tendrils of lava burrowed into Dragomir’s skin, forming an ornament underneath it. It hurt, it hurt, even worse than before, and the young man was smiling like he was pleased with his work. He was fucking smiling!

  Dragomir wanted to snarl at him, desperately, hate welling up like scorching hot, boiling water, but only a barely audible growl escaped his lips.

  It earned him a laugh. “That’s a good boy. It’s exactly what you need to be for me, an angel of wrath. Did you know the word angel actually means a messenger?”

  ****

  The fight he’d had the other night had left him with unpleasant consequences. His ribs were still sore, and other small aches were evenly spread here and there, slight sprains and bruises. Nothing major, nothing life-threatening, but it was obnoxious nevertheless.

  Also, punching the wall out of sheer frustration hadn’t been his brightest idea.

  Especially because he was to participate in one more fight tonight, and this time he was paid for it. He had to make a living somehow, and as it had turned out, he wasn’t good around people in his current state of mind. Mingling with them was torturous, even for the sake of money. Hurting them was another matter altogether. That he could do, and all the better if they wanted to reciprocate. It was only fair.

  The match was set up in a building that looked like an abandoned brick storehouse littered with amateurish graffiti. Inside, it wasn’t much better, but it was more like a gym, with locker rooms, a poor selection of fitness equipment, and a boxing ring. During daytime, local jocks came here to train and spar. In the evenings, the public was more varied, and the interior underwent some changes. Tables were put around the ring where refined guests could sit and dine while watching bare-knuckle boxers beating each other to a pulp. There was buzz that the events were hosted by one of Prague’s hottest restaurant groups. Sometimes Dragomir felt like the fighters, him included, were the main course, steaks to be pounded properly for the guests’ enjoyment.