by Ciara Graves
He wouldn’t say more, so I motioned to Rafael, and we exited the room.
“I’m coming with you,” he said the second we were through the second door and into the main bar.
I glanced around to be sure Rot and a pack of goblins weren’t here for a second round, but there were none inside.
“Did you hear me?’
“Not happening. You heard him. He doesn’t trust you.”
“But he has information I need.”
“And I’ll be sure to relay it to you. Besides, I at least am holding up my end of the deal. What do you know about our mage that I don’t?” I asked, taking a seat at a corner table, back to the wall so I could keep an eye on the door.
Bowen was out there still, and I just knew he sensed me watching him, because he tilted his head, as if to acknowledge me, then went back to his duty.
“You swear on your name as a bounty hunter you’ll tell me exactly what Wesley tells you?”
I held up my right hand and grinned. “Swear it. Now, why are the Feds after my target?”
Rafael rapped his knuckles on the table, scowling at me. “He’s not the one we’re actually after,” he admitted quietly. “At least not entirely.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Feds are after bigger fish than a mage who likes to break the law now and again. Our belief is he’s working under someone else’s orders.”
“Whose exactly?” This was all news to me. I knew even less about Liam than the Fed did. Not that he needed to know how much less. After I spoke with Wesley, I’d have something to leverage. “The Gathered?”
“No. They’re clean as far as we can tell. Our suspicion is it has something to do with the reapers.”
At that moment, I was thrilled I was so good at keeping a straight face.
Bowen mentioned something about the reapers moving through the Underground recently. It was rare for them to venture here, where so many other supes openly hated them. They had no reason to come down here. None at all. Unless of course, they were meeting with a mage, to make a deal. My question was, did it have anything to do with why Liam was apparently no longer simply a mage?
“What do you think he’s involved in?” I asked, wanting to know everything I could before I met with Wesley Sunday night.
“He traffics in dark artifacts amongst other things,” Rafael replied with a casual shrug. “Wanted for questioning involving several murders that appear to have been committed by a mage.”
“And what ties him to them?”
His eyes narrowed just a hint as he said, “That is classified.”
“Meaning you have no freaking clue,” I sighed. “Is that all you have on him? Trafficking artifacts?”
“If you’d come forward with your story, we could add more to it—”
“No, not happening,” I snapped. “Besides, it was too long ago and not here.” That part was true at least, though what happened to me still had nothing to do with Liam Manchester. “If that’s all you’ve got for me, I guess we should call it a night.”
Rafael stood before I did. “I’ll find my own way home. Thanks.”
“What, no more riding on the bike?” I asked with a wicked grin. “I was going to see how green I could make you turn this time around.”
“I’ll pass.”
He might’ve said he was leaving, but he stuck around for a solid minute then finally asked when I would meet up with him again to go over whatever Wesley told me.
“Monday, I guess, if that works for you, but I’m not talking to your partner.”
“Deal.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a card. “Personal line is on the back. Call it if you don’t want to contact me at the Fed building. Monday, Mercy, I’ll be expecting your call.”
I twirled the card between my fingers as I watched him leave. “Yeah, I’m sure you will be.”
I waved at Shep for a drink as I tucked the card away, next to the one Wesley had given me. I’d look at it when I got home. If he was that paranoid, pulling it out here could lead to more trouble I wasn’t in the mood to deal with.
Shep brought me a beer, and I sipped on it slowly, pondering how the next week was going to progress. Whenever I went after a target, I had a backup plan, a way to ensure I could get my ass out of whatever situation might arise. Right now if this plan went to shit, I had nothing, except to cut and run and see how long I could avoid Damian.
“Taking a break,” Bowen called to Shep as he stepped inside then strolled toward my table, sat down, and opened the bottle of blood he picked up on his way over. “Mind?”
“Guess not,” I replied, eyeing him curiously as he drank the dark, thick liquid.
“You look like you could use some company. No one should drink alone.”
“Done it plenty of times before.”
He paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. “True.”
“So what changed, huh? Do I suddenly smell better or something? You decided you like ugly chicks?” I scoffed, picked at the label on the bottle, not looking at him.
“Who says you’re ugly?”
I arched a brow at him. “Really?”
“You do realize half the Underground is intrigued by you. The other half terrified of you. Intimidated by you, I guess is the better word to use. And it’s not just because you could kick most of their asses from here to next year.”
“Then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why are you sitting with me if everyone’s intimidated by me? You can’t really sit there and tell me you find me interesting.”
He sat back, rolling his bottle between his hands.
The weight of his gaze rested on my shoulders. Not uncomfortable, but strange. Different. I liked it. That in itself threw me off, and suddenly I wanted to get out of this place and disappear in my apartment.
Bowen was close to a hundred years old, but when he was turned, he was around my age, maybe a bit older. It was curious to think about what he was like before he was turned. I never asked. Usually I didn’t care, but lately, whenever I talked to him, there was a change. It was different from our typical exchanges of demanding he answer my questions. He warned me to watch my back, and I desperately wanted to know what game he was playing. That had to be it. He wanted something.
“You know what. Never mind,” I muttered, placed a ten on the table, and got up.
“Mercy, wait.” He held my arm, his skin cold against mine. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You’re looking at me like you expect me to turn on you and chomp down on your neck,” he hissed, releasing me. “If you learned to trust some of us more, you might actually have friends.”
“You—what? You want to be my friend?”
“Not like you’re drowning in them, or anything,” he mumbled.
“Wow. Thanks for that,” I snapped.
“Whoever cursed you, I’m sorry for it. I am, but the rest of us aren’t that asshole, so stop carrying a damned chip on your shoulder, and open your eyes.”
I whirled around, eyes wide, but the bar was empty except for the two of us and Shep, who didn’t seem to care what our conversation was about.
“What did you just say to me?” I whispered harshly.
“Cursed. I can smell it.”
“That is none of your business. And if you tell someone, I’ll—”
“Yeah, break my fangs. Got it.” He drained the rest of his bottle of blood and stood, towering over me almost as much as Rafael had. “Just remember what I told you before. You might not believe it, but I’d hate if something happened to you.” His hand reached up and looked as if it was about to cup my cheek, but then he snarled, and in a burst of air, was back to his post at the front door.
I had to get out of here before anything else weird occurred.
Head throbbing with a headache I knew was going to probably keep me up half the night, I rushed out of the bar, thankful Bowen was speaking to someone else,
though I could feel his eyes followed me. There was no need to double check, his eyes were there, watching out for me. Watching my back.
Once I was further down the street, I picked up the pace, then figured I cared very little for what anyone down here thought of me and sprinted out of the Underground to my bike.
A cursory glance up and down the street told me Rafael was gone and I climbed onto my bike, shoved the helmet on my head, and got home as fast as I could without killing myself in traffic.
Once inside my place, I was ready to change and crash into bed when a figure broke away from the back window.
I drew my gun until the chuckle had me lowering it and I flipped on the light switch. “Seriously, asshole?”
Damian’s smile faltered slightly. “I take it you met with your Fed?’
“I did.”
“And? What did you find out?”
“Enough to get me started. I’m meeting with Wes Sunday night.”
“The gryphon?”
I tossed my coat over the couch as I nodded. “Yeah. What about him?”
“Nothing. Just surprised to hear he’s still alive. And the Fed,” Damian said, sounding in a rush to change the topic, “did he give you any more news on your target.”
Mulling over how much I should give Damian, I plopped down on the couch and kicked my feet up on the worn-down coffee table.
“Eh, not much more than I already knew, but we have a deal. He’ll tell me everything after I talk to Wes.” Good job, Mercy, just keep on lying your way through this one.
I should’ve just gone outside right then and started digging myself a grave in preparation for when all these lies came crashing down around me. I could find a nice one under a tree somewhere, give myself a headstone while I was at it.
Here lies Mercy. The idiot who didn’t know when to stop talking.
“Monday morning, then, I expect you to brief me on your progress,” he said, moving toward the door.
“Sure thing, boss man,” I replied, just wanting him to go away.
“And Mercy?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember, whatever this Fed tells you, he is not your friend. I would hate for you to get too close to him and let something slip about yourself.” His eyes narrowed as he backed out of my apartment.
“I really need better locks,” I whispered to myself.
Maybe Gigi could whip me up something that would turn intruders into toads when they broke in.
I could just see the look on Damian’s face now, having him hop around covered in warts and eating flies.
Yeah, I’d get right on that tomorrow.
Chapter 10
Rafael
The bounty hunter might not have given me much information from our venture into the Underground, but now I had one very important bit of intel she hadn’t even realized was spoken.
Her name.
Mercy Temple.
I had her full name, which meant I would be able to track her down.
I had until Sunday evening to find her place and ensure I was able to follow her when she left. I was not about to let her meet with the gryphon alone, not if what he told her would change everything we assumed about Liam Manchester.
I told myself that was the only reason. Not that it was because we’d been attacked outright by a pack of goblins, due to her job. All night long, I paced around my apartment, confused by how the night had gone. Not confused by her tactics for getting information. It was everything else.
The way my arms held her close to my chest when we rode her bike through the city. How she looked happily surprised before tucking the expression away when I helped her with the goblins jumping her. Then when we reached the Wailing Siren and that vampire… he’d gotten so close to her.
My hand rubbed at the weird pang in my chest.
The strangest urge to shove the vampire away from her had nearly frozen me to the spot to ensure I didn’t overreact. Even when I dated Iris, the need to be protective of her never came up.
Jealous. I was jealous of the vampire, but from the way Mercy reacted to my question about them being close… No, there was nothing going on between them. Not yet at least.
Not that it was any of my business. She was a bounty hunter I couldn’t trust, and our relationship would be nothing more than her getting me the intel I needed to bring Liam in. Magic was in her one way or another.
That alone told me she was bad news. All magic users were.
Witches, I tolerated.
Mages, I despised.
Until I knew what she was, I had to be cautious and keep my distance.
After I installed three new locks Saturday morning, I left my apartment to head into the office. My work computer would give me better access to the supes in the system and hopefully show me information on where to find the bounty hunter with the cold eyes and the scar on her face.
The office was empty on a Saturday. I continued to ignore the texts from Iris asking if we could meet up and discuss the case. I planned on not dealing with her again until Monday when I had more to share. Coming up with where I got the information without giving Mercy away was a different story, but I’d think of something by then.
At my desk, I booted up my computer, logged in, and brought up the database for all supes.
Technically speaking all of us had to register, but quite a few slipped through the cracks, most of them residing in Sector 13.
I typed in Mercy’s full name and hit the search, then waited for the results to come up, swiveling my chair back and forth. Briefly, I wondered what Nor would do when he found out the mystery woman was the bounty hunter who’d been beating us to targets for the last few months. And that I was currently working with her.
I smirked, knowing the typically calm demon would probably lose his temper. A rarity for him.
A ding told me the search was done and I turned back to the monitor.
“Well, look at that,” I whispered, scrolling down the page.
Her license popped up and on it was an address. Perfect. I memorized it then quickly read the rest of the information on her. There wasn’t much. Her occupation was listed, as well as her special ID granting her passage to the human sectors. She had no arrest history. No run-ins with the Feds. Her parents were dead, killed when she was a child, but there was no information regarding by whom or how. Not even a location.
Her scar—magic caused it.
I caught myself reaching up to my shoulder without even realizing it. Shaking my head to stop the memories, I went back to her file. The line where her race should have been listed was blocked out. I’d only ever seen that happen on our files for undercover agents. Never on a bounty hunter. Mercy just kept getting more interesting by the second. Not finding out anything else on her, I cleared out the search and ran another one on Wesley, the gryphon I met last night.
“Huh, interesting,” I mumbled when nothing came up for him.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Gryphons were rare to encounter, and with how he was tucked away in the back of that bar, searching for information on the old man would prove futile at best.
With Mercy’s address, I had nothing else to do, but go find her place. She was in the same sector at least, but on the far west end. It would take a while to walk there, and I planned on doing just that, so I had time to figure out my best move.
I had no way to make a charm as she did.
Witch, she had to be part one to have charms strong enough to hide her appearance.
I grimaced, remembering how much she’d reeked of magic, competing with the apple scent constantly taunting me when she was near.
Getting to her apartment took two hours. I stayed across the street, glancing up to the top floor and a set of arched windows. I had no way of knowing which way her place would face, when it looked like luck was on my side. Mercy walked right in front of the windows.
I ducked deeper into the alleyway as she stood right in the center, appearing to be talking, though no phone was in
her hand.
Another figure appeared a few seconds later, a woman wearing vibrant pink clothes. That had me lifting my lip in disgust. That was just too much pink.
Tomorrow night, I’d come back and wait for her to leave. The temptation to go knock on her door, or better yet break into her place and freak her out was strong, but I talked myself out of it and headed home to while away the hours until I would head out again.
I attempted and failed to keep busy, researching the files on Liam and seeing if there was any way to figure out who he worked with, anything that would get me out of having to deal with Mercy. I hardly retained anything I read and ended up staring out the window as the sun set over the city.
One way or another, I’d figure out who she was and what she was hiding. Those eyes of hers held secrets. I knew because it was the same look I wore almost every damned day.
Chapter 11
Rafael
The door was halfway open when Iris barged her way inside my apartment. “You ever going to call me back or what?”
“I didn’t plan on working this weekend,” I lied, glancing past her to the clock on the wall.
In a few hours, I had to book it across town and wait for Mercy to leave her building. The only way to reach this secret meeting was to follow her.
Yesterday had finally ended, and this morning when I awoke, I was more anxious than before for answers on Liam and Mercy.
“Do you mind?” I waved toward the door, but she plopped down on the couch with a smug smile I didn’t understand.
“Maybe you should change your plans.”
“Or you could leave, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Rafael,” she sighed and patted the cushion beside her, “I’m just trying to catch up. Can’t we do that? Catch up, talk, as friends?”
“No,” I said plainly. “Please, leave.”
“What if I told you Nor sent me over here?” she asked quietly, and her smile vanished, replaced by a concerned frown. “He’s worried about you, you know. We both are. He told me how antisocial you are. Even more than before.”
