Just A Little Wicked: A Limited Edition Collection of Magical Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Tales

by Lily Luchesi

  He stared at the shovel for some time, clenching and unclenching his jaw in thought. Finally, he shook his head, gently pushing the shovel away. “No. You’re welcome to it. I have no desire to live in the limelight that is guaranteed to come with a find like that.” I watched him clench his jaw again, nod once, and retreat back to the crumbling steps. I couldn’t help but smile a little. That’s how he’d survived. He had a good head on his shoulders.

  I found what I’d been looking for right as the last strands of day vanished. It took some time to pull the chest from the four-foot hole and by the time I’d managed to get it on flat ground, my audience had retreated indoors. I cracked open the chest, took out a handful of gold coins, and left them stacked neatly on the corner of the back steps before I dragged the treasure and my shovel back to my car. I stared at the house briefly, mentally wishing the unlucky homeowner the best of luck. I knew I had left him enough gold to give him a comfortable life if he so chose to take it, but my heart still hurt for him. The circumstances that led to his current living arrangements were unfair to say the least, and I guess I understood him on a personal level.

  I brushed myself off, getting as much of the dirt out of my hair as I could before even thinking about climbing into my beater car. In the six years I’d been treasure hunting, I had earned more than enough to buy whatever I wanted. But a nice car was a materialistic thing, and the beater I had helped me blend in. Nice cars got noticed, especially in the rundown hood I called home. Besides, having a piece of junk that could potentially fall apart at any moment reminded me of my roots in a strange way. Growing up nomadic left me often feeling trapped and yearning for constant change. My car kept me on my toes, scratching that ever-changing itch that flowed in my veins.

  Just as I opened the door and placed one foot inside on the floorboard, I heard a high pitched whistle. It was the kind of whistle that stirred every dog in the neighborhood into a restless whining disorientation, that few humans could hear. I could hear it, louder than probably ol’ Rover over in the house across the street could. Although I didn’t have the same reaction as those poor animals, it made me grit my teeth.

  I dipped into my car, snatching up the small, weathered, leather pouch I kept tucked under the passenger seat. Before pushing back out of the car, I did a quick check of the small series of blades strapped to my calf hidden safely beneath my flared jeans. I didn’t like using weapons much, but those little suckers had saved my skin more times than I’d ever care to admit. There were just some things that witchery simply didn’t cover, and mêlée combat definitely fell into that category.

  The whistling grew louder, similar to nails on a chalkboard, but the nails were dragging on my eardrums. I visibly cringed, taking a cleansing breath as I slammed the car door and ran for the front door of the decrepit house. Turning the knob, I threw the door wide just in time to be slammed by a wall of blood-curdling screams. A million images flashed through my head. Flesh being peeled from bones, invisible blades cutting and slashing without recourse, crimson pools spreading beneath lifeless innocents; all things I had seen in the years I’d spent in the city. Not a single soul deserved being pulled from its hosted body that way, to be thrust into servitude in a space between worlds.

  My lip curled involuntarily and I grit my teeth painfully, following the sounds of torture to the second floor and into a vacant room where the kid who lived there alone dangled in mid-air, suspended by the fist of angry wind. My skin pricked and crawled the minute I stepped through the doorway, joining the enchanted space. I could taste the dark magic on the back of my tongue.

  I gripped the small pouch in my palm and began to chant a simple spell I’d made myself, slowly untying the leather straps and letting the herbal blend within spill from the opening, catching on the wind that whipped throughout that empty room.

  Dark wind, angry wind

  Sent to harm

  Feel peace, swallow peace

  Calm your storm

  I repeated the words over and over again, watching the gentle trail of herbs twist up into a form supported only by the vicious breeze. A makeshift hand gripped the throat of the young man that I never took my eyes from. Slowly, ever so slowly, the wind began to lessen, almost visibly growing weaker. The herbs that swirled inside the wind form began to grow like they’d never been plucked from the Earth and dried for reasons no longer medicinal in nature. What happened next never got old to me. I watched as the wind nearly took a breath, releasing the young man. It danced around the growing plants and when I took another breath, the bitter taste of dark magic became this tangent, blissful joy filled with the aroma of an untouched field on an early summer morning. With a spin, the wind exited out of an open window, taking the newly rejuvenated herbal plants along with it.

  I had to smile lightly. This little pinch of magic had been cast by an amateur or else it could’ve been so much uglier. I shook the flashes of memories from my mind, made sure the kid laying on the floor was still alive, then left as quickly as possible, leaving a bit of my car’s tires on the pavement. Should I have stayed to make sure the kid would be all right? I used to do that, used to stay until morning. Sometimes I’d even have a warm meal ready when they’d finally wake up. But every time, they’d assume I’d attacked them rather than saved them. Every time they’d assume I’d only come to their home or place of business or whatever the case turned out to be, acting the part of treasure hunter, just to get my rocks off by killing them.

  So no, I shouldn’t have stayed.

  It had become a rarity to find treasure and actually leave without an incident like this one. At first, I thought Yurik had found me and sent these amateurs after me to wear me down. Then I met one of the amateurs and worked him over pretty good for information. Turns out my employer had some competition, and they weren’t keen on the idea of making it to treasure locations only to find I’d already claimed the bounty. Also turns out there’s a few spots throughout the city where you could hire a handful of humans dabbling in the black arts to be your hitmen for simple pocket change. I found one once by following a collared shadow into the back of a typical bar in the busiest part of downtown. A hidden door sat at the back of the cooler and that poor shadow led me straight to his keeper. I did the only thing that made sense to me. I uncollared the shadow and let it have its way with the untrained patrons. Luckily, it didn’t seem like anyone knew who I really was, let alone what I was.

  “My dear, sweet Draya Kintyre! I was hoping I’d hear from you this evening. How did it go? Any trouble?” My employer’s voice came through the car speakers, nearly shouting at me from all directions. I giggled quietly, turning the Bluetooth volume down just a little.

  “Hi, Constable. No, nothing out of the ordinary. Pretty decent haul this time. Drop off as usual?” I stopped at a red light, picking at my teeth with a broken fingernail.

  “Actually, I think we’ll change it up a bit. I... want you to meet a colleague of mine.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I woke abruptly, sitting straight up in my bed, flinging one of my twenty pillows across the room in the process. I sat there in pitch blackness, breathing heavily, every inch of my skin slick with sweat. It wasn’t the first time I’d woken up this way. In fact, the more I spoke to the whispered echoes in my head, the more frequent this became. But I didn’t have a need for the knife under my pillow this time around.

  I did, however, have a need for a clean pair of panties.

  After moving to the city and honing my abilities as a witch, as a treasure hunter, as a fighter, and as Inanis Viatorem, I began forming bonds with some of them, the echoing whispers. A relationship of sorts, I suppose you could call it. They were people once, lost to eternal servitude in a space where existence and nothingness collided, a space between this dimension and another one running parallel to it. It sounds like science fiction and I’d probably roll my eyes and cast judgment if anyone else tried to tell me the same thing and I didn’t know any better. But I did know better. I’ve s
een it. I’ve felt the dread and emptiness there. The pure, untainted hopelessness. That’s where I go every night when I drift off to sleep.

  It’s how I met him. The one who whispers the loudest. The one I felt drawn to even before I knew he existed. Before he was ripped from his own flesh and bound to the Homosanguinis. The Blood Man. Yurik Battist.

  My mother tried to tell me that hate had the power to grow like a cancer. She blamed that one emotion for the creation of dark magic and all things evil in the world. Although I agreed with her for the most part, it didn’t stop me from hating Yurik more and more every day. It also did not stop me from practicing black magic from time to time. It had its uses. But white magic, for me at least, didn’t leave me with a sinking feeling in my gut or dark circles under my eyes for days after. White magic just left me with a sense of euphoria.

  I swallowed loudly, trying to calm my rattled nerves. We had grown close, but things just reached a whole new level of closeness. It felt odd getting mentally intimate with the ghost of a man whose name I didn’t know. Every time any of them tried to speak their names, a high-pitched squeal would vibrate along every nerve in and around my head, sending trails of pin pricks down my whole body. Except it didn’t feel like little pricks. More like acupuncture gone wrong with the needle shoved into the bone. I had managed to withstand enough pain to get the first letter. E.

  He really liked it when I called him E. He had just taken the time to show me just how much he liked it. Being with him felt incredibly real even though I knew he didn’t have a corporeal form anymore. It didn’t really matter. I could see him just the same. At least, see him the way he remembered himself. His midnight hair hung close to his shoulders and I gave him so much grief over it. He seemed to enjoy the light hazing even though we both knew he couldn’t change it even if he wanted to. Nonetheless, I often found myself spending what little free time I had in the waking hours trying to come up with new ways to make him smile, just so I could see that little hint of a dimple in his right cheek.

  It had taken me years to find him. I had heard him from day one, whispering so clearly, begging me to hear him, to find him, to free him. Him and all the others. They all begged and pleaded and wept. But E came through clearly, as if he stood right next to me, his hand cupped around my ear. And I’ve always felt drawn to him, almost like we were tethered, and every time his master brutalized him, I felt it in my chest. We were bound. Bound so closely together that I could feel him. I could literally feel him.

  I definitely felt him in my sleep. He had put his hands everywhere on me. Even in places I didn’t realize were touchable. At least not in an intimate sort of way. Yet, somehow it didn’t matter where or how he touched me because everything he did made my skin burn with a feverish fury.

  Slowly I laid back down on a damp pillow, drawing my blanket up to my chin. I moaned loudly, mostly in frustration, and closed my eyes. I wished myself back to him. Back to where I had left him sweating right alongside me, his caramel complexion tinted with the rose glow of arousal. Sadly, no matter how hard I wished, I knew I wouldn’t find him again. My chest felt hollow every time we separated. I hated it.

  I reluctantly crawled out of bed, pursing my lips in a disgruntled sneer as I made my way to the bathroom to get ready for the day. The Constable wanted me to meet his business partner. A business partner I had no knowledge of until the phone call. I had learned these last several years to be leery of all new situations not previously discussed. Things that just suddenly popped up without any kind of heads-up tended to be negative in nature, at least in the world I lived in.

  I dragged my feet, taking more time than necessary to get ready. After a long shower, I stared back at my reflection, seeing the sneer on my face didn’t wash off with the rest of the grime. I huffed out a breath and groaned loudly to myself.

  “Remind me to curse the Constable with a week’s worth of diarrhea,” I mumbled to my reflection right before stuffing a toothbrush in my mouth. I couldn’t tell if I felt uneasy about this situation, because of the potential danger of meeting someone I knew nothing about, or because I simply didn’t want to. Social interactions weren’t really my forte and the Constable knew it. Yet, he still expected it. “Ugh! Let’s get this over with!”

  I barely got my pants pulled up above my hips before a light tap sounded at my door. I assumed it to be my chaperone, but checked the peephole nonetheless. I could never be too careful.

  “Be right out!” I hollered to the driver on the other side of the door, stuffing my feet in my stretched-out shoes. Yes, they looked about as beat up as my car. Yes, I preferred them that way, just like my car. “Hey, Charlie. Let’s get going,” I said to the well-dressed driver. He simply smiled dryly and nodded, letting me lead the way to the sleek black car parked outside my rundown house. I had to shake my head at all the curtains in the neighborhood that swayed from peeping shadows. I’d lived there long enough I had thought perhaps they’d get used to the occasional occurrence of a fancy car. Yet, the neighbors continued to spy through their windows.

  “I’m pretty sure everyone assumes I’m a hooker,” I mumbled to myself, clicking my seatbelt into place.

  “What was that, Miss?” Charlie asked, turning awkwardly to look at me sideways.

  “Oh, sorry. Just talking to myself.” I smiled briefly at his reflection in the rearview mirror until he nodded once. As far as hired drivers went, Charlie seemed all right. Not that I’d had a lot of experience with other drivers. I just had a preconceived idea of what most of them were probably like and Charlie seemed a notch above. Not exactly a friendly guy, but respectful, nonetheless. That’s all I expected from anyone.

  I faced the window, watching houses and commercial buildings fly by, ignoring the bustle of other drivers rushing around like every second of their lives ran behind schedule. I saw myself reflected slightly in the glass, saw the dark circles under my eyes that never seemed to get any lighter, saw my near golden eyes staring right back at me. The further we got from my home, the louder the voices grew and the more unsettled I felt about this meeting. I stared at myself, trying to clear my mind of everything except the reflected eyes in the glass.

  “Don’t go.”

  He came through as clear as day. As if he sat right next to me in the back seat, whispering in my ear just like a lover would. I could nearly feel the warmth of his breath on my neck as he buried his nose in my thick, black hair. I shivered from the thought, brief flashes of my dream screaming through my mind.

  “It’s work. I have to,” I whispered back to him. Not verbally. We never communicated verbally. I never needed to. He heard my directed thoughts. I assumed it came along with being Inanis Viatorem.

  “Go back home. I’ll make it worth your while.” His words made me shiver again, but something in his whispered tone grounded me. An urgency that didn’t quite match the intention of what he said.

  “Why?” I asked simply, sending along with it an image of myself slowly unbuttoning his shirt. I felt myself swallow hard.

  “Because I asked you to?” He asked, obviously hoping that would be enough reason for me to risk my job. In all honesty, I had saved enough money over the years that I could comfortably live without a job for quite some time. But I hadn’t found all of the items I needed, and I couldn’t stand the idea of yearning for E if I’d never have the chance to feel his touch. Even if I found everything I’d been looking for, I didn’t know if I could truly save him. But I wouldn’t give up either.

  “What aren’t you telling me, E?” I asked him bluntly. I enjoyed our moments of foreplay and suggestive talk, but there was a place and time for all of that. Although I knew he wouldn’t actually be able to answer me directly, I had hoped for some type of response. It unnerved me when he answered me with utter silence. I sighed, running my fingers through my hair in frustration. “Am I in danger?” I tried again. I had discovered that yes or no questions were easier to work around.

  “Yes.”

  “Will this indi
vidual know who I am upon meeting?”

  “No.”

  I nodded to myself, licking my dry lips as a thousand different thoughts ran through my head. So at least the partner isn’t Yurik himself. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t hired by Yurik and simply doesn’t know what I look like. Perhaps he’s trying to find me by weeding out the possibles. If that’s the case, that means that Yurik knows I’m in this city. And I was nowhere near ready to face him.

  I had been so consumed by thoughts that I hadn’t noticed the car stop. I didn’t even notice that Charlie had turned off the engine or that he’d gotten out of the driver’s seat. Not until he opened my door and thrust a hand into my direct line of vision to help me out.

  “Draya, my dear girl!” I heard Constable’s voice before I’d even set foot on the ground outside of the car. I tolerated him fairly well most days, but there were moments where his subtle accent and thickly over-exaggerated charisma grated on my nerves. I swallowed dryly, climbing out of the car and meeting Constable’s steely blues with a grimaced smile. Although I’m sure I looked every bit as irritated as I felt, he ignored it, snaking his arm around my back and swiftly escorting me toward the thirty stories of tinted windows he called his headquarters.

  “Thanks, Charlie,” I mumbled to the driver before we got too far out of hearing range. I knew he only tolerated his job because he was compensated nicely, and he probably only tolerated me because he was compensated nicely. But I was never above showing true gratitude, and I know he, at least, appreciated that.

  “Draya, my darling, I can’t wait for you to meet my business partner, Eryx! He’s just flown in from Seattle and has been dying to meet you!” Constable exclaimed in typical colorful fashion, waving his free hand in front of me with a ridiculous amount of drama.