Bounty Hunter Inc_An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure

by Martha Carr

  The camera light went off, and the woman gawked at Blake. “That was crazy. I am a serious football fan, but I have to say, that beats it by a longshot. I couldn’t even imagine the energy of that crowd.”

  “Yeah.” Blake chuckled, taking off his mic. “It was seriously cool. I want to know how they did it. How they play that game. I mean, I don’t think we could replicate it, but hell, if it were here on this planet, I’d buy season tickets.”

  “Me too.”

  “Apparently, so would a lot of other people.” The newsroom lead walked down the steps with a paper in his hand. “The damn video went viral before you even finished the segment. We are logging views from Hong Kong, Paris, parts of the Middle East, and hell, somewhere in the Arctic circle. That was some seriously good reporting, Blake. I’m impressed. We might just have to send you out on some better field assignments.”

  “As long as I keep my cameraman of gold, I am down.”

  The newsroom lead was right. The video had exploded, being viewed by millions of people as the day wore on. Other stations picked up the story, replaying the footage from small-town America to the Megatron in New York City’s Times Square. Anywhere it was aired, people stopped to watch. Even those uninterested in sports found it fascinating.

  Chat rooms popped up all over the place. The discussions ranged from how the game was really played to who the ogres and elves were, and how they could get in on a piece of the action. It turned into an overnight sensation, and no one in the magical community minded. For once some of the stress lifted and some of the looming feelings of hate drifted off their shoulders.

  Those living on Earth, glamoured to fit in with the rest, couldn’t help but get a kick out of the craziness that ensued over a game they had watched their whole lives. Berserk was as familiar to them as football or soccer was on Earth. T-shirts hit the market within hours of the newscast, and sports channels planned special broadcasts, as they tried to find anyone magical who would come on television and explain the game to them.

  Although much of the world was captivated by a positive in the midst of the all the turmoil, the Harriken, the dark families, and those in Humans First were not as enthused. The video provided a look into the magical world. A reason for people to lower their guard and regard magical beings like everyone else. Humans First found the whole thing even more dangerous than they had thought in the beginning. Though their numbers were still high, they saw a steady decrease as more of these magical creatures made their public debuts. They couldn’t control the phenomenon, and they knew that it couldn’t stay that way. Trouble was brewing.

  15

  The governments started the recruitment drive for bounty hunters almost immediately. They were from many countries across the globe: members of fighting forces, special operations, military, police and everything in between. The tryouts were open, and because they felt they needed the numbers, if they managed to pass the boot-camp-style interview they were accepted. The new bounty hunters would work just like Leira. They’d receive a job from their local contact, complete the job, and collect their pay. An entire sector of government formed just to watch their movements. They assumed that with so many coming forward, they would eventually run into a bad seed.

  After the hunters were given the basics of the for-hire position and signed contracts, they were sent home to await their mission orders. It wasn’t long before they started to send them out, either. With the video circulation of the magical world’s Berserk, and the number of broadcast interviews featuring magical people, things were getting wild out there. There were still a large number of people against the magical beings, causing problems and rallying in the streets.

  Artifacts gained popularity as well. Some magical folks just wanted protection, not knowing which way the wind would blow from day to day. Others like the Harriken and the dark families wanted to stay on top. It was the perfect time to bring on extra help since there was no way Leira could have taken all the calls received.

  In Alexandria, Virginia, in the nondescript office building where intel and records were held, and droves of employees of a magical nature worked, Lois and Patsy scanned their screens for any sign of trouble. Patsy leaned back in her chair and swished her wand through the air. Out in the hall the vending machine rattled, and Lois looked up as a bag of generic corn chips flew toward her head.

  She caught them and put them down on the desk, typing feverishly as she tried to get all the information down and sent over to the general. Patsy chuckled and put up one hand, the bag of Peanut M&Ms hitting her right in the palm.

  “I think I got it down.”

  “Oh, good,” Lois replied. “You are the apple of the magical world’s eye.”

  Patsy laughed and opened the bag, popping one in her mouth. She watched the screen as one of the new recruits went out on his first assignment. The symbols told her he was after a member of a dark family and the target artifact could shift the Earth, causing earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. It needed to be retrieved and dropped to the bottom of the ocean. She popped another candy in her mouth and shook her head.

  “This one’s got it. He just threw out a fireball the size of a Ford F-150. Nailed the wizard right in the chest. Didn’t kill him, though. It seems he’s trying to get the artifact back.”

  “Did he?”

  “Uhhh...hold on, the symbols are flipping really fast.” Patsy leaned forward, squinting to read the screen. “Nope, he got away. He’s headed to his field office as we speak.”

  “Good,” Lois replied, leaning back and opening the bag of chips. “This is crazy. I mean, I know we will eventually have a system for this, but I was not prepared when I came in this morning.”

  “Me neither,” Patsy replied, chewing. “It’s exhausting work. I mean, none of these guys add up to Leira, but we can’t expect them too.”

  Lois laughed. “How is it exhausting? You’ve been just sitting there reading the whole time.”

  “I figure, what’s the use in killing myself recording it? The machine is doing that with the symbols. A little magic and they are all translated for the general.”

  “That, Patsy, is the best idea you’ve had since I met you.”

  “I’m not sure whether to thank you or give you the finger.” Patsy giggled.

  “Either one is just a day like any other in our life.” Lois smiled, pushing away from the desk. “If we aren’t recording manually, I might as well get the popcorn going and we can watch the different fights.”

  Lois waved her wand toward the counter by the sink, and a magical popcorn machine appeared. Immediately the metal canister at the top began to overflow, kernels popping wildly. Lois walked over and grabbed a bucket that appeared with it, filling it to the brim and waving some butter on it with her wand. She snatched one of the other chairs and rolled in it next to her officemate. She offered some to Patsy, who looked at her with concern.

  “Are you sure? I remember the last time I ate your magical food. I had onions growing from me for three weeks. It wouldn’t have been that bad, except I walked around crying the whole time.”

  Lois laughed loudly. “I fixed the problem. This is safe.”

  “Okay, but if I start popping kernels, you better do something.”

  “You’re right. I’ll grab the butter,” Lois teased.

  “Here we go. Here we go. This looks like a good one. He’s a Light Elf, and moderately powerful from what it looks like. He is facing a dark wizard with an artifact. Wait, what the hell does that symbol mean?”

  “Fire. That’s the fire artifact symbol.”

  “Oh boy.” Patsy chuckled. “This is going to be sweet to watch. There he goes, okay, casting three fireballs at him.”

  Both the women flinched, grimacing at the symbols. “Wow, those fireballs just hit the wizard with the fire artifact. I’m not sure the world has seen a flame shoot that high into the air.”

  Patsy rubbed her hands together. “Our guy is still alive, though, and it looks like he isn�
��t injured too badly. Maybe some singed eyebrows.”

  “That would be comical to see in person. Mmmm.” Lois pointed her finger at the screen, her mouth full of popcorn. “He just did a Leira and busted that guy right off his feet with an energy wave. Nice!”

  “He’s wrapping that shit up, too. Wand across the room, wizard wrapped up in magic, annddd...artifact secured. Yes! Good job, rookie.”

  “I could watch this all day,” Lois cooed, leaning back and popping some candy in her mouth. “It’s like a day at the cinema.”

  “It’s only going to get more interesting as time goes on.”

  Correk walked into the kitchen, his stomach rumbling. He opened the pantry and pulled down the bag of Cheetos with his name written across the front. He lifted an eyebrow at the opened bag, knowing he hadn’t opened it. Even a normal set of eyes could see the tiny cheesy handprints on the outside. At first, he figured it was no big deal, but then visions of Yumfuck licking every Cheeto in the bag went through his mind, so he tossed the bag onto Yumfuck’s shelf.

  He sighed and went to the fridge, opening it and standing there staring at the contents. He grabbed the shaved ham and the package of square orange slices that Leira swore wasn’t real cheese and set them on the counter. As he made his sandwich he thought about the latest happenings—all the new bounty hunters out on the town looking for bad guys, fighting, and some even to the death already. He still wasn’t sure how smart it was to let untrained people loose like that, but something had to be done, and he was positive he and Leira couldn’t handle it all.

  When the sandwich was ready, he sat down at the table and cracked open a Mountain Dew, taking a sip. He’d just picked up the sandwich to take a bite when the feeling washed over him. It was like a burst of warm energy coursing through his veins, pulling at him to focus. His eyes shut automatically, and he concentrated on the call. It was a man’s voice, with the sound of explosions in the background. Slowly the call became clearer, and Correk realized what he was listening to. It was a bounty hunter elf—in trouble.

  Correk stood and opened a portal. There was no time to lose. He stepped through and found himself outside an abandoned building in a complex of others just like it. He looked to his right, and in the distance was the Hollywood sign high on the hill. He was in Los Angeles.

  Suddenly there was a loud crash, and two men leaped from one building to the next. The one in front was a Harriken, identifiable by the symbol on his cloak. The one behind him throwing fireballs was a bounty hunter, young and not fully in control of his magic. From the looks of his torn clothes and dirty face, they had been battling for quite a while. The crumbling buildings showed evidence of numerous misfires.

  Correk took off at a run, pulling energy, his eyes glowing brightly. He reached the side of the building, and ran up the wall and over the ledge onto the roof. He saw the Harriken wave his wand, a long dark tail of energy swirling around him. Correk leaped forward, tackling the bounty hunter and rolled him behind an elevator hatch. The dark magic barely missed them, hitting the edge of the hatch and raining crumbling cement over them.

  “What is going on?” Correk asked.

  “I’m supposed to take down this wizard. He is apparently part of the Harriken. Wait, you’re the Fixer.”

  “We can have a meet-and-greet later. Right now we need to figure out how to get out of this without someone losing a limb.”

  Correk peeked around the corner but drew his head back quickly as a bolt of dark magic skimmed past. The wizard was powerful and trained, but not an original Harriken.

  “Whoever this guy is, he must have been recruited by the Harriken. He’s not a former Yakuza, I can tell by his lack of calm. The Yakuza, now Harriken, are born and raised to not show panic or emotion. Still, he has been trained by them, which means he is powerful and dangerous. How long have you been doing this?”

  “It’s my first assignment,” the hunter answered, bewildered.

  Correk glanced back around the corner at the quickly-healing dark wizard. There was no getting out of it without a fight, that was for sure. He couldn’t open a portal right there; it was too dangerous. And the last thing he wanted was to accidentally bring a Harriken back to the Silver Griffins or the government.

  “We are going to have to fight,” Correk decided, already pulling energy. “We have no choice. We need to kill him or injure him enough to get away. We can’t take the chance of accidentally bringing him back with us. You said this is your first time?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, breathing heavily.

  “Explains why he only has minor cuts and bruises. The Harriken are highly trained, and even the most powerful elves and wizards struggle to take them down. It baffles me that the government thought you would be able to.”

  “They don’t want me to kill him.”

  “What?” Correk looked at him bewildered. “Sooo, what? Tea time?”

  “I was told that this wizard has information pertinent to finding the culprits behind all the recent attacks. They said to bind him and bring him back to the main building in DC. They didn’t tell me anything about him being Harriken, just that he was a tricky wizard.”

  “So they sent you in blind.” Correk sighed.

  “I jumped at the chance for my first assignment. We need money. My wife is going to night school. We just got married, and I thought if I was going to do it, why not jump in head first? I had no idea what I was getting into.”

  “Of course, you didn’t. They told you enough to give you confidence, but not enough to make an informed decision. No offense, but you aren’t quite skilled enough to take on the Harriken and their magical hired help.”

  “I see that now.”

  “I’ve faced Harriken with three other powerful elves and a troll, and we still only managed to chase them off, not kill them. They are a Japanese crime mob and have been around for a very long time. They recently brought in groups of wizards—dark ones that aren’t even welcome in the dark families. They are training them and setting them loose in the field. It seems you found one of them, or the government did.”

  “I’ve been holding back. I didn’t want to kill him and lose my payday, so I have been aiming at his knees. His appendages, really. I was hoping to push him down long enough to restrain him, but he’s fast.”

  “He is fast. Very fast.”

  Correk tapped his head against the wall, trying to figure out what to do next. It was obvious that the kid was in over his head, and Correk wasn’t sure how much help he’d be. A tingle of magic shivered up his arms to his head. It was a familiar feeling, the one he got when Turner Underwood sensed his hesitation and wanted to give him a gentle push. It was a reminder that he was a Fixer, not just Correk the Light Elf anymore. Between his training and the powers he had been given as a Fixer, he was more than capable of taking down a wizard.

  “Are there any more of them?” Correk asked.

  “No, not that I saw. It’s been him and me battling it out for about thirty minutes. I guess being tired and struggling like I was, I inadvertently called you.”

  “It’s probably good that you did. He is much stronger than you. What have you done that has worked?”

  “Blows to the legs don’t seem to faze him. Gentle blows to the head catch him off-guard. I think he caught on that I was supposed to take him in alive. He either knows I am holding back, or he doesn’t think I am brave enough or good enough to face him head-on. We just need to get him down long enough to rope him.”

  Correk raised an eyebrow. “I’m not a hunter, I’m a Fixer. You are going to have to sacrifice this payday. We are focusing on getting the hell out of here. It’s that or your life.”

  At first, the kid looked disappointed, but he nodded in understanding. In reality, he was exhausted, and his energy was waning. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could have kept this up if the Fixer hadn’t arrived.

  “What is our plan?”

  “We fight,” Correk responded. “We push him back. If we can get in a k
ill shot, fine. If not, we send him running. Then when we have a moment, we open a portal and jump through. We do not try to apprehend him, do you understand? I am in charge now.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Now, I am going to focus his attention on me, using my shield and powers. I want you to wait until we are engaged and then move to that side of the building, sneaking out to his other side. When I nod, you start throwing fireballs at him, but don’t shy away. I want you to shoot to disable or even to kill.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you have enough in you to do this? I need you to tell me now. I don’t want to be caught out there with our pants down, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I can do this. I am a hunter now, and if I can’t distract one wizard with the help of the Fixer, then I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

  Correk looked at his face, unsure if he believed him, but with the dark magic flying past them, he really didn’t have much choice. He nodded and drew the energy into his chest. Symbols flashed up his arms and across his chest, and his eyes glowed brightly. The hunter did the same, his symbols moving slower as his magic started to drain. Correk pulled the energy into his palms, rolling it around until he held a large shimmering fireball. He took a deep breath and leaned in, whispering an enchantment. “Find your target.”

  “Here we go. Get ready.”

  Correk put one hand on the edge of the hutch and leaned out, throwing the fireball as hard as he could toward the wizard. It flipped as it flew wildly through the air, swirled around the wizard, and slammed into his stomach. The wizard landed on his ass, his wand skidding out of his hand. Correk made a run for it, streaming energy from his hands as he tried to get to the wand first. The wizard lunged, grabbing it right before the light reached it. He swished his wand, and a dark cloud coalesced into an ax. The wizard slammed down on the stream of white light, sending vibrations of magic up Correk’s arm.