by Jack Knight
Magnus walked over to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. He smiled and gestured to one next to him and I took my seat, waiting patiently with my left hand on the handle of my knife.
I needed that book, but I’d fight my way out if I had to. It was creepy how nice this guy was being. People being nice usually meant they were hiding something or trying to manipulate you.
“So, as I said, we are the Shadow Reapers,” Magnus began. “We are rather new, only started about a year ago, and we aim to be what the Hunters were meant to be.”
“What exactly does that mean?” I demanded.
Magnus leaned back in his chair and answered, “We do not take contracts. We do not receive pay for our work. We do not kill those that are of supernatural origin just because of who they are. We act like the police of the magical world, because it’s not being done elsewhere.”
“Sounds good, but how do you afford to do things like, I don’t know, eat?”
Magnus chuckled. “Several of our original members came into the group with every intention of giving every penny they had to the cause, myself included. Family money goes a long way when you don’t have to pay for much other than food and electricity.”
I nodded. “Great, now, why exactly are the Hunters after you? If you’re so good and generous.”
Magnus’ smile disappeared in a flash. He sat up straighter and looked around the dusty books for a moment, then answered without looking at me.
“You know, don’t you, that the Hunters are not always the most upstanding of people?”
Yeah, they tried to fucking kill me.
“One of them was after a member of our group, because he happened to be a vampire. And, he happened to be nearby when the Hunter was feeling... particularly violent.”
I knew exactly how that went. Hunters didn’t have anyone to answer to but themselves. If a supe was “looking suspicious” that was enough of a reason to kill. Anything to get those stars up your arm. A hunter got a pentacle tattoo under their Hunter’s Mark for every supe they killed, it didn’t matter if it was for a contract or for fun.
Magnus looked at me again before he continued, the lines on his face grew more pronounced, like talking about this made him age twenty years.
“I had no choice, he was intent on murder for no reason. He would not listen, and he would not stop. So, I killed him. Since then, Hunters have been flocking to the city.”
Great, it was this guy’s fault I had been on edge for days. I couldn’t be mad though, I had hated people that killed for fun while I was in the Hunters. I was just glad I wasn’t the only person who thought something should be done about it.
Magnus’ face shifted, the lines disappeared, his smile returned, and he clapped his hands on his legs. “Now, onto brighter topics. We would like for you to join us. With your abilities, and of course, your natural gifts, you would be a welcome and exemplary addition.”
“My ‘natural gifts’? What are you talking about?”
He meant the magic. He seemed to know more about it than I did, which was disconcerting. I was hoping he would tell me something, help me understand what I had been trying to figure out.
Instead, the bastard stood up and walked over to the nearest bookshelf. He scanned a few books, walked along the shelf for a minute, and then pulled one of the dusty volumes free.
He gave me a wide smile as he walked back over and held the book out for me. “This will suffice, I think. It is yours to keep, even if you decide not to join us.”
I carefully took the book and held it for a second, trying to decipher the elegant script on the old, brown, leather binding of the dusty tome. It took me a few seconds, because the leather was so worn, but I eventually figured it out.
It said “Librum de Potestas.” I had spent enough time with Google Translate to know that the first word was “book”, and that was enough of a hint. This guy had just handed me a grimoire.
“You serious?” I asked skeptically.
This book was old, which made it ten times more valuable than anything written in the last century. Who would give up something like this?
“As a token of good faith,” Magnus assured me.
I clutched the book to my chest, still not sure whether to believe this was really happening. All that money that I had saved up, I could keep it, use it for whatever I wanted. I could just leave San Francisco that day.
There was always the chance that if I could stick around for a little while, I could get someone to teach me some magic before I ran away. It would be a lot easier than learning it on my own. I just needed the basics. A week or so, max. Besides, if these guys really were what Magnus said they were, they were exactly what I had always wanted the Hunters to be. Maybe sticking around wouldn’t be so bad.
Magnus walked across the room toward the door, and I didn’t even bother to watch him. I had flipped open the book and was trying to decipher what was written inside. Obviously, I was going to need someone to teach me Latin, because I doubted Google Translate would be much help with something like this. It basically just looked like scribbles. There were symbols drawn on the paper, but that was not a lot of help when I couldn’t read any of the words.
Also, something about the paper was off. It was old as hell, and felt like leather instead of thin and worn paper. The book should have been falling apart, as old as it was, but it was perfectly intact. What kind of paper did people use for spell books?
“If that’s not enough to convince you, I think our leader might be able to sway you,” Magnus called from the door.
“Yeah, uh huh.”
I was convinced. There was no need to meet this leader, whoever it was. At least until I learned Latin, I would hang out at the church.
The door shut and I still didn’t look up. Not until I heard a voice I was sure I would never hear again.
“Hello, Maddison, good to see you.”
My heart skipped a beat and I jumped so badly I nearly dropped the grimoire to the ground. When I looked up, I froze in complete shock.
Magnus had left the room, standing in front of the door was a man wearing a fancy, black suit. His shoulder length, black hair and bright blue eyes were exactly as I remembered them. And, if I never saw them again, it would be way too soon.
It didn’t make any sense, though, how could he be here? He was a Hunter. Had he started this group just to find me? Or, was this all some kind of trick?
I stood up, keeping the grimoire tucked tightly against my side and put my hand on my knife.
It took a deep breath before I finally brought myself back from the shock enough to speak.
“Hey, what’s up, Dad?”
Chapter 8
MY FATHER, EZRA, TOOK a step closer to me and held his arms out.
“I’ve been looking for you for a quite a while, you know,” he said pleasantly, a hint of a smile on his face.
As quickly as I could, I ran through my memory of my surroundings. There was no other door, just the one Ezra was standing in front of, that was my only way out.
I had the grimoire, I needed to take that with me when I escaped. I could throw my knife, but if that didn’t work, I would be unarmed. Also, I really liked my knife, not worth losing it just to live a little longer.
There were, however, lots of laptops right behind me.
“I’ll bet you have,” I said, replying with the most sarcastic smile I could muster while my heart was beating out of my chest with fear.
I spun around, hoping to catch Ezra off guard, and grabbed a laptop with my free hand. As hard as I could, using the momentum of my spin, I launched the computer at Ezra’s face and bolted toward him.
His hands flew up to grab the laptop out of the air, I had almost forgotten what it was like to fight Hunters. I had gotten so used to supes that it actually surprised me that the computer hadn’t slammed into his face, but it didn’t matter. The room was small enough that the moment of distraction was enough.
I reached the door, yanked it
open, and was about to dart through it when the doorknob was wrenched out of my hand and the door slammed shut again.
I reacted on instinct, turning around and drawing my knife as soon as the door closed, but something was bothering me. Nobody had been on the other side of the door. This building was too old to have machinery inside it to close the door automatically. What the fuck just happened?
Ezra walked over to the table I had just been sitting at and set the laptop back in its place. Then, he turned around, leaned against the table, and crossed his arms over his chest. His playful smile was taunting me now, like this was some sort of game that I had played right into.
“No need for that, Maddison. We should talk.”
The door pressed against my back as I tried to put more distance between Ezra and myself. I was locked in, there was no escape. I couldn’t exactly bust the door down before he could stop me. This would be a really good time to know how to use magic, or at least for it to burst out of me, like it occasionally did.
“Please,” Ezra said, chuckling, “come sit down.”
“Nah, I’ll stay right here, fuck you very much,” I replied in a tone that perfectly matched his.
Ezra nodded and his smile widened, like he was having fun.
“You missed quite a lot when you ran away from the Hunters. If you had stayed another day or two, I’m sure you wouldn’t be so distrustful now.”
He always tried to pull that card with me. “I’m your father, I know better. I’m your father, I’m older and smarter than you.” I hated it.
“Why don’t you go ahead and enlighten me, then,” I suggested, still mocking his tone.
Ezra took a deep breath. “I’m going to guess that your mother tried to kill you the day you left, right?”
My fear disappeared in an instant, immediately replaced by a white hot rage that filled my chest and made me want to throw my knife right into his smug, cocky face.
“You knew?” I demanded. “You knew Valeria tried to kill me?”
Ezra’s smile disappeared. “You shouldn’t call your mother by her first name.”
“If I had a mother, I’d take that into account,” I replied. “Unfortunately, I have a bitch who tried to kill me, and an asshole who stood by and let it happen.”
Ezra shook his head and uncrossed his arms, placing them on the table to support himself. “Actually, I was already gone. I assumed she tried to kill you as soon as she was done trying to kill me.”
Alright, I wasn’t expecting that.
“What are you talking about?”
Ezra looked down at the table of laptops and held his left hand over one of the computers. “Sursum.”
No way.
Slowly, the laptop directly under Ezra’s hand floated into the air. Ezra lifted his hand a little, and the laptop followed, like it was attached to an invisible string. Then, as if by an unspoken command, the laptop fell back to the table and set itself down gently.
Ezra looked back at me and said, “She discovered that I was a sorcerer. As I’m sure you’re aware, supernatural creatures infiltrating the Hunters is the organization’s highest crime. No trial, just death.”
I nodded. I thought about that for weeks before I left, because I had accidentally done magic. It seemed obvious that my mother had somehow discovered what I had, that was why she tried to kill me.
It made a lot more sense that she figured out Ezra was a sorcerer, though. Sorcerers always passed on the gift to their children. If he had the ability, that meant that I did, too. It explained everything, except one small detail.
“Sorcerers always develop their magical ability at a young age. The fact that I almost made it to eighteen before I did magic is almost unheard of. How did you hide it for so long?”
Ezra shrugged. “I didn’t have to hide it. I guess I suppressed it. It came out on accident, for the first time, in the presence of your mother. She attacked immediately, and I fled. It wasn’t until later that I realized what that meant for you. I tried to go back, and found out that you had already run away.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. Ezra had barely paid attention to me my entire life. I was raised by the Hunters, not my parents. It surprised me he even remembered my name after not seeing me for a year.
“Alright, you left the Hunters, then what’s this place for, then? You missed it so much you had to make your own?”
Ezra chuckled again. That was starting to piss me off.
“I grew up in the Hunters. I had their mission ingrained in me just as much as you did. Just like you, I had problems with the idea and the reality not meshing together.”
“I never told you that,” I interrupted.
Ezra smirked. “You didn’t have to. I know what you’ve been up to since you left. You’ve been making money being a freelance assassin. That makes sense, for someone who ran from the Hunters, you have the skillset. What’s interesting though, is what I hear about you turning down Marks. You don’t take every one that’s handed to you, you only take the ones you believe deserve it.”
I didn’t reply. The fact that he kept tabs on me enough to notice a pattern I had literally never spoken about was unsettling. How long had he been tracking me? If he knew about me the entire time, why was he just coming to me now?
“That is why I formed the Shadow Reapers,” Ezra continued. “We are what the Hunters were supposed to be. Supernatural creatures have so much power over normal humans, they can rampage for centuries if not kept in line. When they go too far, we take care of them.
“Unlike the Hunters, though, we’re new. We do not take bribes, no payments, nothing. We take out those that are going too far, and we leave the rest alone. Also unlike the Hunters, we only take in the supernatural. We do our best to keep ourselves completely secret, and we even wipe the memories of humans, so they don’t have to think they’re crazy for the rest of their lives after they witness a vampire killing someone.”
I had to admit, that did sound a lot better than the Hunters, who killed or ignored human witnesses. Still, my father? This all seemed like a little too much. If I hadn’t seen him, I would have agreed to sign up for this little group. The addition of someone from the life I was doing my best to run from made it a little more difficult to get on board.
“Enough about that, you’ll learn as you see!”
Ezra pushed himself off the table, waved a hand, and the door behind me flew open so fast I almost fell over backwards.
“Come,” Ezra said as he walked past me.
I turned around to see that almost everyone had left the room with all the tables. The only person left was the guy that had winked at me. I slowly followed Ezra, not sure what exactly he was expecting of me.
He walked right up to the guy that was still in the room, I stopped a few steps away.
“Asher, this is Maddison,” Ezra introduced.
“Maddi,” I snapped quickly. I was never going to stay in a place where everyone used my full name.
“Nice hair, Maddi,” Asher said with a nod in my direction.
“Thanks,” I replied awkwardly. It wasn’t exactly like I could say “You too.”
“Asher is a very gifted sorcerer,” Ezra told me. “He’ll be teaching you magic.”
“Whoa, hold up,” I said. “I never agreed to stay.”
Ezra smiled, like that didn’t matter at all. “How about a trial period? Two weeks,” he suggested. “If you don’t like it, you can just not come back. We won’t even be able to erase the memories of what you learn with Asher.”
A grimoire. A teacher. A group that doesn’t kill for money and instead takes bad supes off the streets. It all seemed too good to be true.
It wasn’t like I had a whole lot of other options, though. The grimoire was pretty much useless to me, until I figured out a way to learn Latin. A teacher would help a lot with that.
“Alright, fine,” I begrudgingly agreed. “Two weeks.”
Chapter 9
“ASHER IS A DICK!”
> I was back in my apartment, sitting on my couch, leaning over my coffee table. My knife was laying completely flat on the table, I had been holding my hand a few inches above it and saying the word over and over for at least ten minutes and nothing had happened.
Asher had given me a quick rundown of how magic was supposed to work, and I knew what the next step was supposed to be, but I was actively avoiding it.
“Magic takes a sacrifice,” I said in a mocking tone.
Asher had told me that the easiest way to start learning simple spells was to pay the sacrifice, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. I hadn’t paid any sacrifice when I made the shifter crash into the ground. Ezra hadn’t had to do anything to make the laptop float into the air, I should be able to do this.
I held my hand a little closer to the knife, so close I was almost touching it, and took a few deep breaths.
“Sursum!” I shouted at the blade.
Part of me was kind of hoping that yelling would make the spell work. Slowly, I raised my hand into the air. The knife didn’t follow.
I cursed and stood up, walking around my tiny apartment in frustration.
The mess that filled the room I was in made it a little difficult to walk around, but I just stepped over most things. The clothes that laid all over the floor where I dropped them, the dirty dishes I had set on the ground so that table would be clear, I pretended I didn’t see any of it.
The rest of the room was fairly bare. There was a faded blue couch, a small TV on top of an entertainment center that held my Xbox one and Playstation 4, and my coffee table. That was it, I didn’t spend much money on things like furniture.
I also didn’t spend much on kitchen supplies. It was the only reason the kitchen, which was only divided from the living room by a counter that my entertainment center and TV were pressed up against, was so clean. I had five plates, five bowls, a handful of silverware, and a few pots and pans. That was about it.
