by brett hicks
“I have it on good authority that I can be terrifying when I set my mind to a task. What will it be, witch, the carrot or the stick?”
She could practically feel Bix’s approval of the second option from behind her. The woman looked paused for a second, just long enough to show that she didn’t like her chances with a pissed-off Seraphina in her shop. She cut her gaze to Bix for a moment and she licked her lips while her eyes shown her mind spinning with her options.
“What would I get for this information?”
Besides not into the ground in a coffin?!
Seri thought to herself and she shrugged and she tapped the counter rhythmically.
“Name your price and I will match it. As you are so apt to point out, I am a princess.”
The woman seemed to think for a second and then she quickly pulled out an iPhone. She tapped into the screen quickly before sliding it onto the counter.
Six zeros stood behind the eight on her screen. Seri had not wanted to pay that much for so simple a piece of information when it might turn out to be a false lead, but then again, she was good for the money. She could bleed out worse expenses daily and never run out of money.
“Fine, the money is yours once you tell me what I am wanted to know, in detail.”
The woman cut in sharply, “Half now, or no deal vampire princess.”
Seri grated her teeth in annoyance like her word was not her bond! Seri was always prompt to pay any debt owed!
She pulled out her smart-phone from her back pocket and she taped into the screen and pulled up her e-banking. She looked at the woman’s account info and input the account number and pressed send and watched four-million dollars leave her account. She woman’s smile was wide and serpentine.
“Very well then princess we have a deal. I do not know the names of either party, but I do know such a murderous man was spotted speaking to a new witch in the market-row. This witch is dealing for less than all of us. What makes this particular witch catch eyes, is the company he keeps. He is seen speaking with humans who have managed to enter the market-row. These humans seem to hold no love for magic or your ilk girl.”
Seri’s pulse rose and she felt her stomach flip at the implications. Anti-inhuman elements were stocking on magical items and possibly weapons.
“Where can I find this witch and what does he look like?”
She shrugged and waved off vaguely to the south.
“He was set up at that end of the market-row, but he seems to have gone to ground and now one has seen him in several days now. As for his appearance, he wore a mask and a long black cloak. It reeked of Sandalwood, which is why he springs to mind so vividly.”
Seri nodded and she licked her lips again.
“What can you tell me about the murderer? What does he look like?”
The woman cackled a sinister laugh.
“He was decked out in a mask and cloak too, girl. They are like a pair of shades that reek of Sandalwood. I could smell the copper of his victims on his hands. Blood hold power, memories, and inheritance. His were steeped in the blood of young women, of that I am sure.”
Seri might not like witches but their observation about blood was as good as any master vampire. Seri nodded and she sensed that she was not going to get any more out of the witch. She was going to pay her when she felt several women and men enter into the little shop and form a semicircle around her and Bix.
Seri looked at the woman and she spoke in a harsh tone.
“What is this? Are you so dishonorable as to attack during a deal?!”
Making deals is a sacrosanct thing for immortals and even witches and daemons. While in a deal, the parties were bound by honor to do no harm and to trade fairly, even if both parties were jockeying to get the better end of the deal.
The woman puffed out her lips into an exaggerated pout and spoke in raspy condescension.
“Sorry little princess, but Dean Sylvester has a standing bounty on you. While your money is green, his boon is beyond utterance it is so enormous. I will be keeping your money and I will trade you to him and live a very long life of leisure and unparalleled bliss.”
Seri sighed and her spine froze at the mention of the sadistic Necrovamp. She quickly inputs her remaining due to the woman’s account. She looked down in a stupefied slack-jaw expression as she saw that Seri sent the rest of the promised money to her.
“You must be the stupidest vampire I have ever had the pleasure of swindling. You actually sent me the rest of the money. I hope you don’t think this lets you off the hook. Bind them in a circle and hold them here until I can whip something up strong enough to incapacitate them both.”
Black tendrils of magical energy spun in three overlapping circles and Seri and Bix felt as if their bodies had suddenly become several tons in weight. Seri’s bones creaked under the sudden weight added to her slight frame.
“Wish I would have worn something more practical now…”
Seri muttered to herself. She had on a pair of nice jeans and a green cardigan, not something a girl wears to a witch fight. The other woman cackled again.
“You are an amusing little vampire, but I believe your betrothed has been kept waiting long enough.”
Seri shrugged and she looked to Bix.
“Hey partner, how are you hanging in there?”
Bix grunted under the strain of the magic.
“Not as bad as the time I followed you down into that pit of snake monsters in the 1800’s, but it’s a close second to their constricting force.”
Seri had the good sense to blush at that. She has lead Bix into a few less than pleasant situations over the years. She looked back to the witch and smiled warmly.
“I paid you so that I could end the deal because unlike some, I will not attack a person while I have an open deal with them.”
The woman frowned at this for a moment, until realization flashed to life across her features.
“Quickly…”
The rest was lost to the room as Seri plucked out the daggers and slashed the dragon slayers into the first two rings of pulsing black magic. Flowers, vines and massive thorns shot up around the shop and three witches were wrapped in deadly rosy vines.
Seri slashed through the last layer of spell work holding her and Bix in the center of the room. She was a furious blur of vengeance with two pearly-white flashing fangs. She slammed into the woman and she drove a blade into each of her shoulders pinning her to the wall.
“No, as I said before, I have it on good authority that I am fucking terrifying. You are about to find out why.”
Bix was making short work of the other casters firing off palm-sized balls of fire or throwing potion vials at her. She shot roses like arrows and the witches fell limp from the deadly toxins. Her blood roses bloomed on the corpses of the dead black magic practitioners.
“This is why I hate when we have to deal with witches Seri.”
Bix swore in a tangent and clomped up to stand beside Seri. She didn’t ask for permission, she just lashed out and smashed her knuckles into the soft tissue of the witch’s nose, breaking it. The woman howled in pain.
Seri twisted the dragon slayer in the woman’s left shoulder and she leaned in right in front of her teary eyes.
“The information you gave me, was any of it accurate? Answer me or I swear to draw and quarter you in a manner which you survive the entire process to beg for death and then I shall heal you and repeat the process once more!”
The woman bawled like a child as if just realizing that she had made the worst mistake of her life by trying to betray Seraphina Herrington to Dean Sylvester.
“It’s true, all of it was true! I swear it!”
Bix punched her in the nose again and more blood began to drip from the mush in the center of her face.
“Why should we believe you?!”
She woman whimpered and she looked up pleadingly.
“Because I didn’t have time to concoct a story to keep you put until my coven mates
arrived! I needed you distracted and stationary long enough for everything to fall into place!”
“What else do you know about the witch or his murderous patron?!”
The woman screamed in agony as the dragon slayer turned again.
“By the horned-god, I swear to you that I do not know anything more!”
Seri looked to Bix who seemed satisfied. Witched did not invoke the horned-god willy-nilly. The horned-god was from Dis and was more a greater daemon, than an actual god.
“You remember this next time you are thinking about crossing me. Dean Sylvester himself failed to beat me last year, never forget that!”
The woman’s lips trembled and she nodded vigorously.
“Please, release me and I will owe you my very life!”
She pleaded and Seri leaned into her and she cut her palm against the cold metal of the dragon slayer and she spoke in the ancestral tongue of the vampires. She invoked the shadow binding magic and she pressed her bloody palm to the woman’s forehead.
“You are marked for life creature. I will always know where you are and what your black little heart is scheming. You will let me know everything you learn from now on. I own you!”
Seri put the fear of, well herself, into the middle-aged witch. The woman looked ecstatic not to be joining her friends in hell. No one crosses Seraphina Herrington this woman just received a crash-course on why.
Thirteen:
My kin strolled into the 25th precinct like a runway model. Considering all the looks I was getting, she was not helping my acclimation process!
Seraphina Herrington was lush and other-worldly beautiful. Her red hair practically glowed in the light of the ICD unit’s lighting. She was both angel and fury at the same time, but neither, she was the Earth Princess and vampire.
Skylar had been helping me dive through data on possible suspects, but now he was staring with his mouth wide open.
“You might want to close that before you attract a bunch of flies.”
I sassed at my pseudo-partner. He managed to tare his gaze from my approaching goddess of a kin, long enough to shoot me a bemused look. I snorted and rolled my eyes at him. Skylar was the type of guy who made his whole species of Y chromosome carrying males look just slightly better to women everywhere.
“She’s coming this way!”
He sounded like a school-boy crushing for the first time! I huffed and bit back the jealousy-fueled quip that was bubbling to the surface. Seri locked gazes with me and I felt the world around us fall away as if we were the only two people left in all of reality. I could hear Skylar’s distant voice making some equally obnoxious comments, forgetting that my kin was a vampire who could hear him fully from across this room.
My eyes caught on the jaunt of her steps as she walked. Seri was wearing an emerald-green skirt and a matching cardigan. She looked refined and eloquent nothing overstated, but every thread she wore was the best money could buy and then some. She wore a platinum bracelet and two rings on her right finger; one of them I knew was a family crest. Seri had taken to wearing her inheritance in full display since the Dawning.
She had one shiny buttery-black leather boots that fit her like gloves, except for her feet. Her fiery hair streamed down her back glossy as if she had just brushed it into submission. Her pink lips held a tiny smile, one only for me. My heart clenched at the look of raw hunger that my face seemed to invoke inside Seraphina Herrington.
I bit my lip and I felt my fangs burning in my gums. The vampire inside me wanted out wanted to taste Seri’s blood and her body. No woman should be able to enthrall me so completely. Seri’s hold over my heart and mind scared me to death, but I still loved watching her enter any room I happened to be in. No other redhead that came before her was remembered now, not even the one that caused me to crash into her tidy life of blood and immortal politics.
I shivered as she licked her lips and her bright eyes darkened with lust that even the great Ray Charles could have seen!
“Thea,” Her seductive and lush feminine tone spoke my name as though it were magic. I swallowed the lump in my throat and my belly fluttered.
Dammit, calm the hell down Thea! She’s your kin, sure, but she’s also a damn dangerous being!
My libido seemed ready to incite full bodily rebellion against my self-restraint. I nodded curtly to and gave her what I hoped was an easy smile.
“Hey Seri, what’s shaken?”
My inner girl cringed at my failure to articulate myself!
God that is not how you talk to a powerful vampire princess!
If Seri thought anything of my verbal fumble, her expression did not show it. In fact, she looked giddy, happy, or something akin to one or all of the above. Who the hell knows with vampires?! (Yes I know I sound like a hypocrite, but a girl has to protect her heart. Even us former street-rats have a soft spot.)
“How are you doing? Are you settling into your role with the police well?”
She asked in that mystifyingly seductive tone of hers that was timeless and ageless. I bit my lip and I shrugged and tried to act normal.
“I have no major complaints, other than the amount of paperwork that goes into anything. I probably have to triplicate every time I sharpen a pencil around here!”
Her musical laughter and her bright eyes were like a blow to the walls of my heart. I would do anything just to hear her angle tone, her laugh. Seri was something the rest of us mere-immortals could not broach, she was like a goddess.
I cleared my throat and I waved my hand out inviting her to take a seat.
“I gather you are not here for the coffee, or just to see how I am settling into work? Why don’t you take a seat and we can get to why you’re really here Seri.”
She eyes did that bright laughing sparkle of theirs as she took a few steps closer and I could smell the fresh scent of several spicy and floral scents. Either she was trying out a new magical body-spray, or Seri had been playing with a witch. That was never a good combination, not if you knew Seri well enough to know how much she loathes dealing with witches.
“I found myself in a certain location.”
She started cryptically and she looked past me to Skylar. She wanted me to send him away. I waved her off and hitched my thumb towards Skylar.
“This is Officer Skylar Johnson; he is more of a partner to me than my actual detective training officer. I’m sure he can keep a secret if it helps us get some traction with a certain case.”
I had a very good idea where Seri had been, but I needed to hear it from her. She nodded, taking my word as law and knowing that I would indeed punch Skylar in the balls if he broke my trust. My temper is legendary!
“Well, Bix and I needed to check out the second murder scene, so we slipped in and did our own snooping.”
I nodded and motioned for her to continue.
“And?”
I asked trying really hard not to look desperate for her to hand me a smoking gun. Policing is hard work and I was not above working a lead my kin gave me. Not when I was struggling to get my legs under myself in this new environment.
“We both detected Sandalwood. Bix and I then went to talk to a few witches we know, who are less reputable than I would like. But money and some perceived threats to their persons gave them enough reason to talk to me. They claimed that there is a new witch in the black market of New York. One who seems to be wheeling and dealing below everyone else’s prices? They also claimed that he might be taking on human clients who appeared to be very anti-inhuman.”
My mouth was agape at her and I looked down and I spotted traces of blood dotting her cardigan. Her skirt looked freshly from the dry cleaners in stark contrast. She had changed her pants, clearly having soiled them with blood or other staining substances.
“Are you ok?”
The question slipped out of my lips before I could stop it. My concern for Seri was not exactly surprising, considering our metaphysical bond of vampire sire and vampire novice. Seri smiled warmer still as
if she had just summoned the summer heat into the station.
“I’m unharmed, just a little cleaning and I will be perfectly in order.”
She spoke in her lyrical accent and her primly proper manner. I was biting the inside of my cheek as I looked her over for any injuries. Besides her perfect shapely figure, I found nothing of note.
“I need to get the Inspector on this Seri. Are you willing to repeat everything with him? He is not going to bust you for policing your kingdom.”
Seri seemed to consider this for a long moment and she conceded.
“Fine, but I will not take kindly to any perceived slights or infractions at my meeting out justice.”
My eyes rolled automatically at her queenly disposition.
“Don’t worry; we are all looking to get evil-doers off the streets.”
She nodded in agreement.
“Very well, I also need to speak with him about providing police back-up for a raid of the magic market of Time Square.”
That would be good for our department, to get a lot of black magic users off the streets. It would also cut the source of magic from the inhuman hatters shopping in market-row.
“I agree, Skylar, let us escort the Crown Princess to meet your boss and mine.”
He smiled his boy-next-door smile and bobbed his head in acknowledgment.
We trotted into the Inspector’s office under the quizzical stares of all the cops in my division. Inspector Johnson studied our merry little band of misfits and he took note of Seri’s slight wardrobe blemishes like the keen-eyed cop he was.
“Why do I get a distinct feeling that you three are about to make my day much more interesting?”
His dry tone was edged in humor, not annoyance or anger, but it could head in either direction in the next few minutes.
***
Seri retold her tale over and over for the Inspector. He did not show anything about his personal leanings towards her heavy-handed tactics, or the trail of dead witches left in her wake. He stopped her many times and had her clarify points of certain details, so he could better explain witches and their differences from inhumans.
