Magic for Hire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Found Magic Book 3)

by J. A. Cipriano

“Okay…” I said as he turned away. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of his story, and for all I knew, it wasn’t even true. Still, something about it had the slightest ring of truth to it. Then again, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The agency had loads of people who could go from cracking jokes and being the life of the party to snapping necks and gutting kittens in a heartbeat. Why should the brother of a mercenary who also ran his own drug cartel be different?

  “Besides,” he added, moving toward the hallway and motioning for me to follow him. It was a little crazy, though. Was he really going to walk out there toting a gun? Seriously? “I was partially playing stupid to see how you’d react. From the look of things, my brother will have a tough time.” He shrugged. “And before you ask why I haven’t just shot you in the head, it’s because you acted to save my life even knowing I’d likely kill you. That’s worth a lot to me. Good job, you found my weakness. I’m just a big old softy.” He flashed me a smile that almost reached his eyes but fell short beneath the coldness of his stare.

  I wasn’t buying it, but I wasn’t sure what good arguing with him about it now would be. I’d wait until we weren’t in the middle of a battle. Then, when I had him all to myself, I’d make him tell me the truth.

  When I didn’t respond, he turned back around and pushed open the large painted yellow metal door to his left. “Now then, let’s go find us some Israelis to murder.” Even though I didn’t know why the Israelis were after me, somehow it wasn’t that surprising with everything else that had happened. Israeli soldiers? Sure, why not.

  I nodded and took a step forward. My foot had barely touched the floor when the wall to my right exploded, sending rock and fire in every direction and tossing me across the room like a ragdoll. I struck the corner of a granite countertop and pain lanced through me as I toppled over the thing and crashed onto my shoulders.

  As something within the room detonated, covering the ceiling in a wash of flames, I lay there too stunned to even move. The music died abruptly, and the sudden silence of it was unnerving for the split second it took for people to start screaming.

  Careful not to expose myself, I crawled to my hands and knees. I wasn’t sure what good the private bar I was hiding behind was going to do to stop people with explosives, but it made me feel better anyway. My heart hammered in my chest as I slowly raised myself up, peering up over the top toward the direction of the explosions like a scared meerkat.

  Unfortunately, the only thing I saw was flame and rubble. Even with my suit, I couldn’t make out anything beyond the darkness of the hole because the fire was playing havoc with my night vision.

  I tossed a look toward where Raul had been but saw nothing beyond the scorched metal door. There were spots along the wall where the sheetrock had been blown away to reveal thick concrete beneath. Judging from the look of things, it had to have been a couple feet thick. So Raul was probably safe if he’d gotten through the door. Somehow the thought didn’t exactly make me feel better.

  Not sure where I was going to head exactly but knowing I needed a better hiding place, I took a deep breath and leapt over the bar. The moment I was in the open, a couple grenades came flying through the hole along with a hail of gunfire. I dropped onto my tummy as the bullets impacted the wall and bar behind me. I stared at the grenade only three inches from my face and knew I was screwed.

  So what did I do?

  I jumped to my feet, ignoring the bullets pelting me even though every shot I took radiated agony like someone had struck me with a hammer. I threw myself through the hole in the wall. I was still in midair when the grenades detonated. The resulting explosion flung me head over heels. I wound up crashing upside down into the windshield of a black as pitch van.

  My body slumped, toppling to the ground as what seemed like a dozen Israeli Special Forces soldiers closed in on me. Though maybe it was only half that because I wouldn’t be surprised to have been seeing double.

  “Abigail de la Mancha,” one of them said in a voice modulated into an untraceable robotic drawl. “You’re coming with us. Don’t fight. If you do, well, let’s just say we have orders you won’t like.” He gestured behind him toward what looked like a tank with its big front gun pointed right at me.

  “Okay,” I wheezed, not sure if I wanted to try taking out a tank with my bare hands. I mean even if I avoided it blowing me to smithereens, I wasn’t quite sure the people being herded into a group off to the left would be so lucky.

  “Good,” the man said, reaching out to jab me in the neck with something. Time seemed to stop as I watched his hand coming closer. Then I felt something. Rage. I was done letting people capture me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let this guy drug me.

  I grabbed the guy by his stupid armored chest plate with one hand and jerked him forward into my other fist. I smashed his mask into a cloud of shards as he toppled backward. Before he’d even slumped onto his knees, I was on my feet. I dove over the other guards, tucking my body into a roll that brought me too close to the tank for it to use its big gun as the members of the team that had been surrounding me turned around.

  They fired at me as I scrambled on top of the tank. Bullets pinged off the tank’s armor, ricocheting all around me, and while I was sure I had totally been hit, I didn’t feel it. I hit the ground on the other side of the tank and drew my knife as the big gun on top of the tank started to swivel toward me.

  “Yeah, that’s right!” I cried, standing there with an angry snarl on my face. “I did bring a knife to a tank fight!”

  My last grenade slipped into my other hand just as the tank completed its turn, and I flung it straight down the tube before turning and sprinting away down the street. The sound of helicopters above me filled the night sky, but strangely, I didn’t hear any sirens though I wasn’t sure how the local authorities hadn’t heard the gunfire and explosions

  I turned down an alley just as gunfire erupted from the closest helicopter, tearing up the asphalt beneath my feet and perforating the buildings on either side of me. I threw myself sideways through the first window I saw, crashing to the marble floor inside in a rain of glass and debris. I got to my feet as an explosion rocked the ground beneath my feet. Men surged through the front door, spraying bullets like they were going out of style. Well, if they wanted a fight, I was going to give it to them. I was done getting shot at by unnamed assailants, especially when I had a bulletproof version of venom’s symbiot.

  So what did I do? I ran at them screaming incoherently, my knife flashing through the space between us as I crashed into the first soldier.

  11

  The building shook with the force of another explosion. I stumbled, crashing into the first soldier as he lost his balance and collapsed beneath me. I rolled, trying to get to my feet as a flaming helicopter burst through the front door, slamming into the marble floor and tumbling toward me like an angry metal meteor.

  I dove out of the way, barely dodging its tumbling form and was thankful my suit somehow kept me from being turned into toast. It slammed into the wall behind me, cracking the marble in several places and flinging debris in every direction. Liquor bottles exploded behind me as I wobbled to my feet and lurched forward, ignoring the gunshot that zinged by my ear.

  Several of the soldiers were down, but not all of them evidently, and the ones who weren’t, were recovering faster than me. I gripped my knife as hard as I could and staggered toward the burned out husk of the front door, trying to keep the debris between them and me as flames leapt across the ground and up the walls. Each breath scalded my throat as I looked around, trying to ignore the fact someone had tried to crash a helicopter into me. Still, something told me it hadn’t been on purpose. So who had done it?

  I’d barely reached the threshold when Raul stepped in front, a host of thugged out Greeks with shotguns behind him. He took in the scene, a queer smirk on his face as he nodded to me. “Abby, glad to see you’re keeping things low key,” and with those words, he made a twirling gesture with o
ne hand.

  The men behind him surged forward, pumping shotgun blasts into the Israeli soldiers regardless of whether they were moving or not. I stared, not sure how I felt about that as Raul grabbed my hand and pulled me outside into the night. It looked like a warzone, and I wasn’t quite sure how anyone was going to be able to cover it up. An entire city block looked like it’d been leveled. It was then I noticed the guy with the rocket launcher. Was he the one who had taken down the helicopter? If so, I wasn’t sure if I owed him a ‘thank you’ or a punch in the face. Probably both.

  “So tell me the truth,” Raul said, breaking my train of thought as he ushered me into a black Jeep. I climbed woodenly into the passenger seat as he moved around and slipped into the driver’s side. “Were you really going to take on an entire Special Forces unit with a knife?” He gestured at the blade still locked in my grip.

  I looked down at the weapon and felt my cheeks burst into flames as I nodded. “I was out of bullets.”

  He laughed, and the sound somehow lifted my spirits as he threw his vehicle into gear and began taking me out of the warzone, driving more over things than around them. His people were already clearing out, and I had no doubt that by the time the authorities showed up, there would be no trace of Achilles.

  Still, it seemed a little crazy to think no one had shown up yet. I mean we were in downtown Athens after all. Surely, there’d be some kind of response even if it was pretty late at night. While I knew the agency could pull strings to get the local law enforcement to back off and had no doubt the Israelis could do similar, it still seemed nuts to me.

  “I didn’t realize you were Gabriella de la Mancha’s daughter,” Raul said, eyes fixed on the road in front of him, lips quirked into an unreadable smile. He didn’t even so much as glance at me as he turned onto an empty road and drove us off into the night and away from the carnage of the battle.

  “It isn’t something I like to advertise. It’s not like she was the world’s best mom or anything.” I shrugged, watching him to see if he had any sort of reaction even though I should have been formulating a plan of escape. Sure, he might have helped me, but he was still the leader of a drug gang who had tried to put a bullet in my face for no reason. Everything about him told me I should escape, but if he was Bang’s brother, surely he could lead me to the man. Without Morris, he was the only lead I had.

  “No doubt. If my dealings with her were any indication, I’d imagine her as a parent was less than fun,” he said, glancing into his mirror before flipping on a turn signal and blowing by a stoplight, presumably because there was no traffic. Still, the turn signal was a little weird since there was no one around. Habit, maybe?

  “How did you know she’s my mom?” I asked, settling into the seat as I looked around the empty streets. “That’s not common knowledge.”

  “One of the Israelis told me before I killed him,” Raul said the words so calmly, it took me a minute to process what he’d said. He’d just admitted to murdering someone, but he’d said it like I would have said, “I ate a cheese sandwich.” It made me shiver. People who could do that always scared me.

  “Oh,” I said because I wasn’t sure what else to say. “Anything else interesting?”

  “Evidently, they’re mad at you for helping nuke Jerusalem.” He smirked. It was the first trace of emotion I’d seen from him in a while. “I’d wondered who did that. Thought it a bit odd for someone to nuke both Jerusalem and Rome within the span of a few minutes, but I admired the moxie of it.”

  “Want an autograph?” I asked, annoyance filling my voice as I stared out at the night and tried to ignore the sinking feeling swelling within my gut. Every single time I thought about how many millions of people Gabriella had killed just to prove she was a badass, it made me sick inside. I knew intellectually there wasn’t anything I could have done to stop her, at least not then anyway, but I still felt guilty, like maybe she wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been there.

  “Sort of,” he said, “but that would just attract people who want to find you to me, and I’m sort of over that.” He gestured over his shoulder, leaving the words “see what you did to my club” unsaid.

  “So the Israelis want revenge on me. Your brother wanted you to kill me.” I sighed and rubbed my face with my hands. “Are you driving me to some place to shoot me?” I asked, looking at him through my splayed fingers.

  “Would it work?” he asked, looking at me even though he should have been watching the road.

  “No. I could kill you before you even shifted if I wanted to do it.” I stared at him, dropping my hands onto my lap with an empty thud. “These hands have killed a lot of people.” I shrugged, trying to act cool even though it made me feel like the worst person in the world. “One more won’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”

  He laughed, and it was so genuine sounding, I realized I hadn’t heard a real laugh in a very long time. “You’re much too dark, Abby. No, I spoke to my brother. He told me he wants to meet with you.” He pointed out the window at a huge boat. “He asked me to take you and your comrade to Crete. I guess he’ll meet you there?” Raul looked at me and shrugged again. “He doesn’t really keep me informed of what he wants much. He’s kind of a jerk that way.”

  “What do you mean, my comrade?” I asked, staring at him like he was a crazy person. I knew I should have asked him why Bang wanted to meet up with me on Crete, but honestly, a nice calm ferry ride sounded kind of nice. Besides, if Raul had gotten the tickets, I was reasonably sure I wasn’t going to be ambushed by Israelis angry I’d blown up their home. That was a plus.

  “Morris,” Raul said, jerking a thumb toward the back of the vehicle. “He’s in the trunk.”

  “I didn’t know jeeps had trunks,” I replied, staring at the tiny back seat and wondering where the trunk could possibly be.

  “It’s really not very comfortable,” Raul replied as he slowed in front of a chain link fence and waved at a guard. The guy glanced up from his newspaper and did a weird sort of double take. He bolted from his seat and pressed a button to bring up the security barrier in front of the jeep.

  “I’m surprised this place is open now. It’s what, three or four in the morning?” I asked as the guard hastily let us through.

  “It isn’t open. But I own this dock.” Raul smiled at me, his brilliant teeth flashing in the low light so he looked wolfish. “Also it won’t be a real ferry.” He pulled up in front of a black boat the size of a couple busses that had hidden behind the immense ferry. Poseidon’s Luck was written on the side in dripping crimson letters. “It will be my boat. I’d like to have a word with my brother about expenses once the two of you finish your meeting.”

  I stared at him for a long time because something about his answer didn’t seem, I don’t know, correct? It felt like he was trying to butt himself into the situation. Why would he do that?

  “Are you supposed to be coming?” I asked as Raul got out of the vehicle and moved toward the back.

  “No,” he replied, depressing a button I hadn’t noticed on the back of the Jeep. There was a horrible grinding sound beneath my feet followed by a thud as metal smacked against concrete. I jumped out of the vehicle in time to see Raul dragging Morris out from beneath the jeep by one ankle. “But I’ve never let a little thing like not being invited stop me before.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” I said as Morris got slowly to his feet, rubbing his neck with one hand.

  “Because this guy is a putz.” Raul grinned at me in a way that made butterflies flutter in my stomach though I didn’t quite know why since he was gay. “I can’t possibly leave you alone with him.”

  “I am not a putz,” Morris replied, turning to glare at Raul. The two exchanged a look that would have chilled ice. There was definitely something going on between them. “You’re not supposed to be here, Raul.” The name spilled out of Morris’s mouth like a curse.

  “I get told that a lot,” Raul said as he walked casuall
y past Morris and took one of my arms in his own. “Now let’s get on board. It’s a long ride, and I don’t feel like getting shot by the Israelis. If you have a problem with that, by all means, stay and wait for them here. I hear their torture chambers are particularly nice this time of year.”

  Morris shook his head angrily as Raul led me past a white-gloved guard in a crisp white uniform and helped me onto the boat. Even from the ramp, the ship was all sleek wood and chrome, reminding me of movies where billionaires sat sipping champagne and watching scantily clad women dance. Or, you know, the ones owned by drug dealers.

  12

  “You’re not coming,” Morris growled, poking Raul in the chest with one finger.

  “Bang is my brother, so I am coming,” Raul said before actually sticking his tongue out at Morris. “So there.”

  Morris looked at me for help, but I said nothing. The two had argued the entire two and a half hour trip from Athens to Crete, which meant I hated both of them. I was exhausted and had barely managed to snatch a cat nap because every time I drifted off to sleep, the two of them would start shouting at the top of their stupid lungs.

  “I don’t care what the two of you do,” I growled, stepping between them and grabbing both of their hands. “But if you don’t shut up this instant, I’m going to throw you off of the top of that wall,” I said, pointing at a huge stone wall encircling the downtown area with both of their hands. It looked like something that had been built centuries ago, which was sort of funny because the locals had just built their shops and what not right around it. “Are we clear?”

  They both looked at me, and Raul smiled so widely it made me think he was trying to piss off Morris who looked away annoyed. “You know that wall is a national treasure, right?” Raul said, still smirking.

  “And what kind of name is Raul for a Greek drug dealer anyway.” Morris harrumphed, pulling his hand from my grip and striding ahead.