by Mina Carter
He was fishing. Hunters and magic didn’t mix. Not often. Actually, never. Magic users were too close to the monsters the average hunter tracked down and killed in a variety of bloody ways. During a cast, it was easy to go that one step too far and let something else in. Then it was out of the Homo sapiens territory and right into something else. Something that made men prey.
I debated my answer for a second and shrugged. Better he think I was just a well-informed hunter than know the truth.
“I read a lot. Sue me. I’m looking for a wolf’s tooth. Know where I might find anything like that?”
He blinked. I’d said something out of the ordinary. Which made me wonder if crazy-ass hunters threatening him in his own bar was a normal occurrence. Possibly. Sometimes the only way to trap a monster was with something special or unusual. The finger bone of a saint, the tears of a widow…the snot rag of St. Michael…yada yada.
Normally average stuff, but those kinds of things made great spell components too, and the best way for a hunter to get ahold of them was through the magical community. They were used to it, if not the violence that accompanied it.
A wolf’s tooth, though, that was something else entirely. He didn’t do me the discourtesy of thinking I was talking about a normal wolf’s tooth, thereby directing me to the nearest nature reserve. Good for him. The mood I was in, Mr. Brown, Mr. Sig, and I would have hightailed into the back for a bit of a chat. Probably to be joined in short order by Mr. Knuckleduster in my pocket.
No, the wolf’s tooth I needed was that of a werewolf, and therein lay the problem. Most tended to be a pain in the ass and insist on reverting to human form when dead. Removing a tooth then? Yeah, gross. However, the other option was pulling it when the thing was still alive, which required a hunter with balls of steel and a shitload of weaponry…
Or magic.
“What does a pretty girl like you need a wolf’s tooth for? That kind of thing doesn’t come cheap, you know.”
Bingo. Despite his first sentence, and the look of disbelief he raked over me, I had my answer. Mr. Brown here either had a wolf’s tooth, or he knew where to get one.
“I’m gonna make it into a necklace to match this gorgeous gypsy top I have…” I started in a girly voice, then stopped and glared at him. “What do you fucking think? I’m going to ram it up a werewolf’s ass and make him sorry he’s not a vegetarian.”
He didn’t flinch, just assessed me with a wary eye. Then he smiled. It wasn’t a nice one, but if he had the tooth, he could have been the devil himself and I wouldn’t have cared. Hell, if I thought it would help Jasen, I’d call a demon myself and make a deal.
It wouldn’t work. Any denizen of Hell stupid enough to heed my call would be so minor they’d be barely more than human, and run for the hills as soon as they got a good look at me. Chasing them down could be fun, but wouldn’t help me in my current situation.
“So? You got one, or do I need to find another seller? I hear there’s a big shot over in Birch Springs…”
I let that one dangle and took a sip of my drink. It burned all the way down to my stomach. Cheap vodka in a worn glass. Story of my life.
“Yeah…I got one. Cost you, though,” he finally said, flicking a glance at the Sig. I put it away. Now that we were talking deal, I didn’t want him to think I was trying to rob him. I was already chasing an alpha werewolf. The last thing I wanted was a back-town warlock on my tail at the same time.
“How much?”
I kept my gaze direct and words blunt. No shying away—now that we were talking price. He didn’t ask what I wanted the tooth for again, which was a good thing. Probably thought I had some harebrained hunter idea of using it as a defensive amulet against werebites.
The idea was laughable. The only defense against a werebite was staying the fuck out of the way. Failing that, ammunition. Shitloads of it. Weres could take enough lead to drop a rhino and still chow down on your guts as a light snack.
Mr. Brown shrugged, his look cagey and coy now that he thought he had me. He did, the bastard. But I wasn’t about to let him know that. Perhaps I should put a bullet through his knee? Always a nasty one, that. A shattered joint took time and complex surgery to fix if one hit it just right. And I’d had a lot of practice at hitting them right.
He leaned forward, took a drag from the rollup. The end glowed red and ate up the paper almost to his fingers. Holding the smoke in his lungs, he dropped the remainder in the ashtray and crushed all life from it between his fingers.
“Depends what you got. And I ain’t talking cash.”
I gave him my innocent face to look at. I was good at it. Along with ditzy blonde, it earned me a lot of money when I was running a con.
“Don’t insult me.”
Reaching into my inside pocket I pulled out a small pendant and placed it on the table. It was old. The sort of thing you’d expect to find in an antique shop. Made of glass with a rose gold edge and chain, the design screamed its age. The aged metal told the tale of years of wear. Someone, somewhere, had treasured this.
But neither the age nor the gold were the interesting thing about it. Nestled between the tiny plates of glass was a small lock of blonde hair. Baby’s hair—by the soft appearance and hint of curl. Baby’s hair that screamed with so much power it set my teeth on edge.
“Valkyrie hair, I think you will find. Had it tested by a witchdoctor, back East.”
I hadn’t. The day I needed a quack witchdoctor to recognize Valkyrie hair was the day I packed this life in for good. But the lies tripped off my tongue easily. They should, I’d had years of practice. And I had to maintain the illusion I was nothing more than a hunter, one who had no idea what was good for her.
Anything else…if certain people found out where I was, let alone I still lived and breathed…and all hell would break loose.
Awe plastered over his face, Mr. Brown leaned forward. He reached out to touch the pendant, and I knew he felt the siren call of the hair. Any magic user would, as soon as they were within a foot of the thing. Snatching it back, I wrapped the chain around my fingers and dangled it at eye level.
“Oh no, no touchy. Give me the tooth and it’s all yours.”
His gaze didn’t leave the pendant, terrible lust for power written all over his scrawny features. That was what magic could do to someone. Made a person crave the power, the high of using it, until they’d do anything, sell anything, to gain more of it. Why do you think I stayed the hell away from it?
Shoving his hand under the open neck of his shirt, he pulled something free. A small bag on a cord. I recognized it, of course. A sorcerer’s amulet. A collection of objects that powered the sorcerer’s abilities if he or she wasn’t “to the manor born,” so to speak. I’d never used one.
Looping the cord over his head, he dumped the bag on the table and opened it. As soon as he did, the stench of old blood and rich earth rose. I swallowed, doing my best not to gag. The objects tumbled out of the leather. Among them were the wolf’s tooth and a tiny bone tied with a pink ribbon.
A child’s finger bone.
I didn’t bother to hide the disgust on my face. The stench made sense now. Mr. Brown had killed the owner to attain his power. The wolf’s tooth, while an impressive bit of magic, was little more than window dressing in comparison.
I looked up, memorizing every detail of his face and made a vow. When this thing with the were was done, I would come back and visit the same fate on Mr. Brown as he had on that little girl. Probably worse. After years on the road, I’d become very creative with ways to kill someone.
“A wolf’s tooth.”
He held the ivory fang out to me, his gaze doing the two-step from my face to the pendant. He wanted it so bad I felt the lust rolling off him in waves. It was so thick my skin crawled. I needed a weeklong bath, with bleach, just to get clean again.
It wasn’t surprising. Handing a sorcerer Valkyrie hair was like putting a feast in front of a starving man. One that never ran out, always
replenishing itself. The wolf’s tooth didn’t have anything near that amount of power. The deal, from his point of view, was stacked in his favor. An honest man would have admitted to the dumb hunter that she traded an object of real power for something that, to most, was little more than a trinket.
In my experience, magic users were rarely honest. I hid my smile, proven right as he dropped the tooth into my outstretched hand as he grabbed the pendant.
“Done. Now get the fuck out of my bar.”
Chapter Three
Sliding the tooth into my pocket, I was about to come back with a pithy, yet sarcastic rejoinder when the door opened again. A gust of wind howled through the opening, wrapping around the three women who entered like yellow spandex on a movie superhero.
Banshees. Great, just what I needed to round off my evening.
I lifted an eyebrow and looked back at Mr. Brown. The fucker was gone, sliding off the seat as if his ass were greased, and disappearing through a backdoor without so much as a backward glance. Anger swelled to join the disgust I already felt. Well, no use looking for help from that quarter.
Shaking my head, I slipped from the booth and walked toward the newcomers. My heels rang out on the flooring again. I needed to get quieter ones. Circumspectly, I checked out the clientele. I’d first suspected Mr. Brown was the only magic user. But having seen his amulet, I’d very much doubted he had been the creator of the ward at the door.
“Ladies.”
I greeted the trio with a smile. Never show fear to a banshee. They were vicious bitches at the best of times, but exhibiting fear was like dropping blood into water infested with a bunch of piranhas. Fatal.
“Bit out of the way for you, isn’t it?”
As I spoke, I wondered what the fuck was going on. Seeing banshees in public was like seeing Santa on the beach in a mankini. In other words, fucking wrong.
Banshees didn’t do girly nights out, or bars, or cherry red lipstick the one in the middle sported. It must have been a certain well known brand, because she sure as hell hadn’t been born with it.
All three looked me up and down. Blondie on the left took a half step forward. Yeah? Come on, bitch. I’ve got a Sig loaded with silver, and a blessed knife with your name on it.
There had been a good reason why I hadn’t taken off my jacket in the bar, despite the relative warmth of the night. One, it was good leather and I didn’t want it half-inched, and two, I wore a commando knife in a bottom-release spine sheath. Since the thing reached from mid-shoulder to the small of my back I had to carry concealed, or the local police—hell, any police—would totally wig out and try to arrest me. Since I was wanted for questioning—in god knows how many states—that was something I actively tried to avoid.
Cherry, obviously the leader, shook her head, and Blondie dropped back to pout in disappointment. Power swelled in the air, washing over me. Given half a chance, those talon-like nails could morph into real ones. Destination: my throat.
“We decided to pop out for a drink and a bite to eat.”
My face held the smile well, but I felt the warmth leeching out of my eyes. Jasen called it my “evil bitch from hell” look. I might be the heartless bitch who banged a proto-were, but I was a hunter. There was no way in hell I was letting the three stooges chow down on my watch.
“Friendly warning. Buffet’s closed, ladies. I suggest you take it elsewhere.”
The fight, when it came, was bloody and brutal. Just as I expected. Blondie obviously had a problem with the word “no,” and launched herself at me with the trademark shriek of her kind. She was fast.
I’m faster.
The Sig was in my hand in the blink of an eye. A heartbeat later, Blondie had some extra ventilation for the single brain cell occupying her cranium. Before the sound of the double-tap faded away, the other two were on me. A hard hit took the Sig out of my hand. It sailed over the bar and shattered the mirror behind it, taking out a glass of shelves on the way.
I swore, blocking strikes from razor-sharp talons as I twisted and turned, giving as good as I got. I didn’t have claws, but I had a right hook that would fell a pit pony. Luckily for me, I’d always been light on my feet. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee? I sting like a wasp with a bad case of PMS and anger management problems.
Even so, I faced down two banshees who were pissed I’d nailed their sister, and not in a good way. Any sensible hunter, a.k.a. one who wasn’t me, would have looked at the odds and hightailed it out of Dodge. Not me, I had to be the one to prove a point, didn’t I?
“You’ll pay for that,” Cherry snarled and lashed out.
I managed to block her strike, claws shredding the leather of my jacket instead of my skin, but the move left me open to another attack. Pain raked white-hot along my other side as the second one got a hit in.
Great. I wasn’t going to be able to keep this up for long.
“Yeah? You take Amex?” I threw back and vaulted over the table behind me. Cheap ass piece of shit buckled under my weight, so I rolled off it and kicked it right into Cherry’s stomach.
Her partner in crime was on me in a hot second. I didn’t even have time to roll to my feet before I was fighting from the floor. And believe me I hate fighting from the floor.
Screaming all the time, she lashed out at me in a fury, her skinny-ass banshee body straddling my hips to pin me to the ground. Claws were everywhere, slicing up the leather of my jacket as she tried to get to my face, my neck, my belly…anything. If she did, I was as good as dead. Yeah, I had magic, but I was also human. It didn’t do jack shit to help with disembowelment.
I started to flag, the small cuts the bitch had inflicted burning like someone had poured salt into them. Any minute now she was going to get through my defenses. Suddenly, the banshee was yanked off me, sailing through the air, slamming into the wall beyond. My rescuer, Jasen, snarled in rage as he stood over me. His hands balled into fists and relaxed by turns. Even without the feral snarl, I knew he fought the beast. The set of his shoulders was too tight, too controlled, for him to be doing anything else.
“Through the back,” I yelled as the two banshees went for him at the same time. I was already moving, ignoring the myriad of cuts the bitch had inflicted. I rolled over the bar to find Johnson crouched behind it, cowering in fear.
I grabbed my Sig, dusted the powdered glass from it and checked it with swift, efficient movements.
“Close early. Lock the doors,” I ordered, on my feet again and moving. I hurt like hell, but that was the thing about being a hunter. If I slowed down, or went down, I was as good as dead. I had to remain on my feet, keep firing or hitting as long as I could, and maybe…just maybe…I’d survive the fight.
I reached the end of the bar. Jasen streaked past me, big hand wrapped around a banshee’s throat as he propelled her out of the door, and the other trailing him like a shitty ice stream trailing a comet.
I barreled through it a half a second after the trio, and into the darkness of the alley. The only human in the fight, I had to take a moment for my night sight to adjust. The muzzle of the Sig wavered in the air as I waited for a target to resolve.
“Screw it.”
There was a screech and a thud. Hoping like hell that was one of the banshees, I fired at the sound. Though Banshees were paranormal, they were also as susceptible to lead as most living things.
The screeching died down, but the fight went on. My night sight kicked in. Jasen had the last banshee pinned under him, his hands around her slender throat as he choked the life out of her. Her vicious claws dug deep into his flesh, tearing through the light t-shirt, and skin alike. He barely seemed to notice. Lip curled back, the same feral snarl rumbled from the bottom of his chest as he shook her like a rag doll.
The back of her skull made contact with the concrete in a sickening thud. A crunchy, then a smooshy sound. The sort that said broken eggs, or worse. Her hands dropped, lifeless, to her sides and the light died from her eyes. She was dead.
&nb
sp; Jasen wasn’t done, though. Still snarling, he carried on shaking the body, and as I watched, his hands started to change. I’d seen all the horror movies, every film about werewolves out there that I’d been able to find. It was surprising how often the really cheesy ones got it right. Effects were crap, but even so, they were quite accurate. Chuck a shitload more money at them, and some advances in animatronics, and they would be something close to the real deal.
Chapter Four
“Jasen?” I asked softly, edging into view with my hands held out. The Sig was out of sight, tucked into the back of my jeans. “Jasen, you can put her down now. She’s dead.”
His head snapped up. Bright amber eyes narrowed as they focused on me, nothing human in their gaze. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, and just for a change, shit. He was almost on the edge, teetering on the change. Power built up in the alleyway as he dropped the banshee and stood.
The sound of ripping fabric filled the darkness. His shoulders were broader than before, and…was he taller? My heart pounding against my ribcage like a terrified bird trying to escape, I looked at him levelly and stood my ground. Never run from a werewolf. They were predators who liked to chase, and I didn’t want to be the thing being chased, for it rarely turned out well.
“Jasen. How did you get here? Sure must have been a long walk without the car.” I kept talking, hoping beyond hope to get through to his human side. The change was slow, rather than the snapshot shifts I’d seen some weres accomplish. He was still humanoid, although with muscles on his muscles and a set of shoulders that would put a linebacker to shame.
“You’re bleeding, sweetheart. Let me have a look at those.”
My instincts of self-preservation not only cried but gave it up as I not only didn’t run from the predator that stood in front of me, but actually walked toward him. The human race as a whole had achieved its lofty position at the top of the food chain by learning to survive, and being smart. I’d obviously regressed to somewhere beneath Neanderthal.
