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

by J. A. Cipriano

  I climbed into the helicopter and decided I didn’t want to fly the thing. I’d thought about doing it to take my mind off things, but I was still so angry at Stephen, I was worried I’d accidentally crash us into a mountain or something. Besides, I didn’t know where we were going. So what did I do? I made my way to the back of the cockpit and sat in the only passenger seat. It was a weird because I don’t think I’d ever ridden in the back of a helicopter before.

  Still, it was annoying because there was no way to get away from them. A fact made totally obvious when they climbed into the vehicle. Flash took the pilot’s seat naturally, leaving Stephen to sit right in front of me. As he buckled himself in, I leaned forward and pressed my pistol against the back of his head. He stiffened, stopping mid-movement.

  “If you do anything at all, I am going to shoot you,” I whispered, my breath close enough to his ear to ruffle his hair. Before he could respond, I sat back in my seat and buckled myself in. He didn’t even look back at me, but I knew he wanted to.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked as the rotors overhead spun to life and we left the ground. “We walk up to the gate and say we’ll put a bullet in pretty boy’s face if they don’t trade?”

  “Yes,” Flash said. “When they bring out director, you and Bang shoot people. Stephen and I will rescue director. Everyone wins. We have vodka.” She glanced back at me and smiled at me like we were all on the same team. It made me sort of happy until I realized Stephen was on our team too.

  “So you’re going to walk up with him?” I asked, glancing from her to Stephen and back again.

  “Yes. You cannot,” Flash replied.

  “Why not? I’m the better one to walk up with him. I can take out a platoon of soldiers with chewing gum. Can you?” I folded my arms over my chest.

  “Because if Graham sees you, all bets are off,” Stephen said, his voice calm, too calm for it to be good.

  “Why are all bets off if Graham sees me?” I asked, suddenly curious. I didn’t know anyone named Graham, but that meant little.

  “Graham thinks you killed me. It’s probably why he is directing his considerable assets to track you down, and why they interrupted your operation.” Stephen shrugged as if to say he didn’t know anymore, but I somehow doubted it. He probably knew a lot more than he was telling me.

  “You mean, I’m being targeted as revenge? For you?” I asked, my mouth gaping open. “That’s nuts.”

  Stephen shrugged. “I’m not going to bother explaining it to you. You’ll just get angrier.”

  “I have an incredible tolerance for rage in your general direction,” I growled, barely resisting the urge to reach up and throttle him. This Graham guy clearly cared a great deal for Stephen, but it didn’t seem like Stephen gave a flying flip for him. Is that how he felt about me too? Was I just some job? Over and done with? Was any of it real? As soon as that thought entered my brain, I wanted to cry.

  Of course, none of it was real, and I was stupid for thinking even the vaguest glimmer of it could have been. Still. Still, part of me wanted Stephen to turn around and tell me lies. To sweep me off my feet with his siren’s song and tell me we’d be together forever. I should have shot him when I had the chance.

  “Anyway, I’ll make sure Graham does the trade. What happens after that? Well, who knows?” Stephen said, turning around and looking at me, his perfect sapphire eyes cold and unfeeling. “And just in case you’re wondering, Mariela will have already moved Julie by the time we’re at the location. She won’t be there if you’re thinking about dropping in for a little payback.”

  “It saddens me to think you’d think I’d hurt a little girl,” I said, scowling at him.

  “Yeah…” he muttered and turned back around.

  It got eerily quiet inside the helicopter after that. I tried to stare out the window, but I didn’t have a good view of anything from where I was. Part of me was surprised Stephen would think I’d hurt his wife and daughter, but maybe there were people who would?

  That made me shiver. Still, he was probably right. While I wasn’t going to do anything, someone, somewhere probably would. Even if Stephen was a jackass, well, his kid was innocent. It was his job to keep her safe after all, even from me. Speaking of which… how did vampires even have kids?

  23

  The sniper rifle was heavy in my hands as I watched Stephen and Flash approach the compound through my scope. It was massive, looking more like some kind of medieval structure than something sleek and modern. Even the towers had a distinctly castle-like feel to them, though that didn’t make the snipers atop them seem any less deadly.

  Flash and Stephen stood in the middle of a sandy clearing, just in front of a stone barricade high enough to reach to about their chests. Just behind it, I could make out what looked like those metal spikes people used in parking garages to keep people from driving the wrong way. Even the gate itself looked like it was solid steel. I was pretty sure ramming a hummer into this gate wouldn’t work. It made me wonder what was inside, something valuable no doubt.

  Supposedly, Bang was out here in the jungle as well, but so far I hadn’t seen him. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. It would be nice to know he was there, but at the same time, if I hadn’t spotted him, I was pretty sure the enemy hadn’t either. Then again, it was always possible he’d sneak up on me and try to slit my throat. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. I didn’t know why, but I’d sort of feel bad if I had to kill him over it. I wasn’t quite sure what the pair’s relationship actually was, but something told me they were exceedingly close. The last thing I wanted to do was take away someone she clearly cared about. Besides, I was sure her vengeance would be a swift and terrible thing.

  “I have asset. Come out,” Flash announced, her voice crackling to life inside my earbud. I’d been a little sad when we’d found no way for her to patch her communication system into my suit, but it was what it was. I could hear them with this thing, even if it was the most uncomfortable earpiece I’d ever stuck in my ear. Oh, the sacrifices I make.

  The gate opened, splitting down the center and sliding away within the walls. It barely even made a sound. Soldiers dressed in the same black uniforms I’d seen in the prison marched out, toting various kinds of weapons. A man with short brown hair and a scar running along his face stepped out from behind one of the soldiers and froze practically in mid-step as he made eye contact with Stephen.

  He broke rank, sprinting toward Stephen so quickly, his red beret fell off his head and hit the sand, though he didn’t give it even so much as a backward glance. I debated pulling the trigger and dropping him as I targeted the center of his red t-shirt, but didn’t shoot him. If I did, I was pretty sure both Stephen and Flash would die, and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to storming another enemy base to get the director out if I could help it.

  Flash stood back, her weapon drawn but not pointed as the man clasped Stephen in a hug, tears spilling from his eyes. He babbled something I couldn’t quite make out through my earpiece though it may have been another language for all I knew. Then they were kissing. Not like ‘Hi, here’s a kiss on the cheeks’ kissing but like ‘you’re my long lost lover’ kissing. Some very uncomfortable thoughts swam through my brain as I watched.

  A horrible thought struck me. I knew everything Stephen had told me about himself had been a lie, but Stephen had told me he had fallen in love with another asset he was supposed to protect. Could that asset have been Graham? If it was, that might explain why Graham was suddenly trying to kill me over Stephen’s death. He’ll, I’d stormed an agency compound when I thought Stephen had been killed.

  The thought made me shudder, and well, feel sort of sorry for the mysterious Graham. Whatever he was doing, if he was doing it because he loved Stephen, well, he shouldn’t have bothered. He was going to find that out the hard way. I gritted my teeth. Or maybe he wouldn’t. What did I know?

  Graham broke the kiss and smiled at Flash, waving one hand over his head in a stran
ge circular gesture. There was movement inside the compound, which I hoped meant they were bringing the director out. It was about time. Much longer and I was going to start getting antsy.

  “I’m surprised you were able to get him,” Graham told Flash, voice tight with emotion as he turned back to Stephen again and intertwined their fingers together. “I thought you were dead, but I should have known better.”

  Stephen smirked. “It takes a lot more than a few bullets to kill me.” I resisted the urge to shoot him in the face to see if he was right.

  “Bring the director or my sniper will see if that is true,” Flash called, a strange look on her face. It sort of made me think she wanted me to shoot him. See, murdering Stephen was a feeling held by all women who had met him.

  “Ja, ja,” Graham said, moving forward to bring Stephen toward the soldiers. “He’ll be right out.”

  Something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what. I scanned the surroundings, looking for what felt off when a gunshot rang out. Flash pitched backward in a wash of crimson. She hit the dirt in a wet splat as the soldiers advanced in a single fluid mass, swarming over Stephen and Graham and hiding them beneath their bulk.

  I fired into them, and while I was sure I got a couple, it didn’t seem to matter. It was like shooting into an anthill with a BB gun. There were just too many. The soldiers surged back into the compound as Flash lay helplessly on the ground, trying desperately to crawl away. So she was still alive, but why? Gunfire tore up the forest around me, bullets spitting through the trees and showering me with debris as I buried my face in the dirt.

  “Dammit,” I growled, trying to figure out how I was going to rescue the mercenary when one of the towers exploded into rubble. Flame leapt out across the compound, scorching the air and singing the sky as the structure toppled to earth in a wash of black smoke.

  “Don’t go get her, Abby. It’s a trap.” Bang’s voice growled in my ear. “That’s what they do. They left her alive so we will try and save her. Then they will mow us down as we try.” It was weird because I could hear him, but the boom had been so loud there was a high-pitched ringing overshadowing everything he said.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked, dropping a soldier in the other tower with one well-laced shot as the gunner lined up on something far away from me. Thanks to Bang’s attack, the gunfire wasn’t focused on me anymore. I wasn’t sure how long it would last, but I was going to take advantage of it.

  “Kill them all first. Then we go get her,” Bang replied just as another rocket slammed into the other guard tower, turning it into a smoking pile of debris.

  For some reason, his plan appealed to me even though it involved killing a whole bunch of people. I wasn’t quite sure what that said about me, but it probably wasn’t good. I pushed the thought out of my brain as I lined up another shot and exhaled. My bullet made the soldier’s head evaporate in a fine red mist, but I didn’t watch him fall. I’d already moved onto my second target.

  The man turning the Gatling gun toward me never saw it coming. One moment, he was about to fill the forest I occupied with lead, the next? The next moment the entire section of wall he stood atop was reduced to smoking rubble as a trio of rockets slammed into the structure.

  The castle’s perimeter buckled inward under the stress as steel beams bent awkwardly under the weight of the concrete walls. That was when I realized what Bang was doing. Sure, he’d knocked out the two closest guard towers, but now he was systematically targeting what looked like the supports of the wall. Between the damaged towers and blown out supports, the wall was starting to give under its own weight.

  “Abby, head in and get Flash. I’ll cover you,” Bang said as another trio of rockets hit the wall on the other side of the gate. I was on my feet as the blast ripped out across the battlefield. A horrible screech shattered the silence following the explosion as the gate twisted itself in half, part of it staying upright and the other half crashing to the ground in a squeal of ruptured metal.

  “Please tell me you aren’t going to cover me with rockets,” I murmured as I slid down the hill as quickly as I could while trying to avoid tripping and braining myself on a branch.

  “I said I’d cover you,” Bang growled as machinegun fire erupted from the forest, tearing into the entire front part of the structure and forcing the remaining soldiers to duck for cover. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  It probably wouldn’t be long before more came. Then again, Bang had hit them with over ten rockets. Maybe they were mustering something even better? I didn’t have time to contemplate it as I broke from the jungle and sprinted toward Flash.

  Thankfully, no one shot me. I was only partially worried about it since my suit seemed to be able to ward off most gunshots, but the last few times red lights had lit up inside my HUD. It made me wonder if my suit was reaching its limits.

  Flash lay sprawled on the ground in front of me, hands gripping her thigh as blood oozed between her fingers. Her face was tight and drawn with pain as I stopped beside her.

  “Happy to see me?” I asked, grabbing her under the armpits and hoisting her up. She screamed in pain as I hobbled backward, carrying her so her feet were dragging on the sandy earth.

  “Been better,” she snapped. “Now give me a weapon.”

  I hesitated before deciding Flash could probably keep us from getting shot. I might be bulletproof, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t so lucky. The wound in her leg was a testament to that. I don’t know how I managed to unsling my sniper rifle while continuing to haul her backward, but it was done before I realized I was doing it.

  The gun barked in her hands as we met the tree line though I wasn’t quite sure how she would have managed to hit anything while being dragged across the bumpy ground. I wasn’t even sure I could make a shot like that, and I had expert sniper skills downloaded into my brain.

  I set her down, and she shot me a look I didn’t understand. I ignored it and tore a bandage from the first aid kit in my suit, using it to apply a quick tourniquet to the wound. “Good luck,” I murmured and she nodded at me as I dropped my remaining sniper rounds into her open palm.

  “Go get them,” she said as I stared at the gates. They were only a few hundred feet away but it looked much farther.

  “Roger,” I said and sprinted back into the killing zone.

  24

  I hit the gate of the Israeli compound less like a thief in the night and more like a jackhammer to the face. My muscles pounded as I leapt over rubble-strewn entryway, weaving between superheated steel and flames as I let loose a burst of machinegun fire. I wasn’t trying to hit anything, but I wasn’t trying to miss either.

  Soldiers dove for cover as I crossed the final barrier and flung a grenade to either side. I didn’t even stop my forward motion as they detonated. The echo of it within the walls was loud enough to wake the dead. Ahead of me, a silver dome stood shiny and gleaming. I smirked. I’d fix that.

  I unslung my rocket launcher and let a projectile fly just as a throng of soldiers came rushing toward me. I flung the spent weapon at them as the dome’s front face exploded inward like a broken tea kettle.

  The soldiers slid to a stop, firing their weapons as I sprayed them with my machinegun while screaming incoherently. When the slide on my weapon came back empty, I flung it at them because they weren’t Supermen. It tagged one in the face, and he slumped backward to the dirt as his comrades continued firing.

  My suit elicited a shrill scream of angry beeping, my HUD flashing like a crimson death ray in front of my eyes as I plowed into them. I grabbed a weapon from one while stepping inward and twisting my body to tear it from his grasp and simultaneously use him as a shield. Slugs slammed into him as I spun in a tight arc, firing the stolen weapon.

  I dropped the empty weapon and scooped up another. Soldiers were lying in a bleeding ring around me as I looked for more. Not seeing any, I ran for the blown out dome because it was the only structure within the walls visible from the surface. Something about it
made me think subterranean base, but I didn’t care. I was going to kill everyone in there if I had to. Why? Because I wanted to save my father, and by extension, the director, but also because those bastards had shot Flash. She hadn’t even done anything except stand there and deliver Stephen like a goddamned present.

  Gunfire lit up the earth around me, and I threw myself to the side, rolling in a sort of broken mannequin way that made my joints cry out in pain. I came up on my feet and sprinted forward in a zig zag pattern to avoid the bullets raining down on me from the wall.

  Then a rocket slammed into the spot and the shooting stopped. Thank God for backup. It made everything easier.

  My knife slid into my hand as I called on my power to leap through the hole I’d torn in the metal dome with a rocket. I landed on the steel floor inside and crouched, weapon ready to slice and dice the first guy I saw. It was dark inside and emergency lights flickered overhead, barely illuminating a path off in another direction. Toward the emergency exit maybe?

  I decided to follow them in the opposite direction, hoping it would take me toward someone. I was not wrong. I happened upon a room full of soldiers who looked surprised to see me there.

  “Boo!” I screamed at the top of my lungs like a crazy person. I leapt and hit the leader in the chest with my knees, driving him to the ground beneath the force of my weight. I dropped down, putting my blade to his throat as pain flashed across his young features. His brown eyes opened wide as he stared at me in disbelief, his comrades backing away with guns pointed at me.

  “Drop your weapons or I gut him like a fish!” I snarled, hoping it sounded scarier to them than it did to me because, to me, it sounded panicked.

  “This is insane, she’s just a girl,” one of them said. The comment kind of pissed me off. What did it matter that I was just a girl? I literally had a knife to a guy’s throat.