Bounty

by K. N. Banet

  I stopped as I stumbled on a report written by Mygi about possible aliases Raphael kept. Taking a quick photo of it, I decided to give it a read through.

  “‘He’s been known to live in towns for a very short time, posing as an illegal alien from a South American country, and gets paid under the table,’” I recited from the printout, raising an eyebrow. “He’s smart and knows Mygi is looking for him…”

  It continued on with how they had been trying to capture him for five years, but he was slippery. The moment he caught wind someone was looking into him or acting strange near him, he vanished. He was also very good at escaping from brute force measures and disappearing again for up to ten months. I remembered Paden’s intel on how Raphael had been about to join the military and wondered if he had already received some training or if this was something he picked up, trying to outrun Mygi.

  One thing was becoming apparent, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

  This guy was a victim of something. Of what, I had no idea, but he obviously thought he was running for his life. He murdered a bunch of his friends, then a supernatural pharmaceutical company took an interest in him? He escaped five years ago? He wasn’t running from human law since humans had no idea where he had been for the last ten years.

  The good people at Mygi had him for five of those years. Holy shit, Paden, you had good instincts on this one. This guy is probably a gold mine of information and blackmail you can make millions off of.

  I took more pictures, knowing I was in for some interesting reading once I was out of there. Then my phone buzzed in my hand, and I saw Carter’s name.

  Carter: They just left, probably headed home. I know I am since dawn is only a few short hours away. Whatever you’re doing, don’t get killed, please.

  I quickly took pictures of the last stack, thanking my lucky stars Carter knew I was going to need the heads up. Shoving my phone in my pocket, I made my way back to the attic and closed it up. Once I was shifted into my snake form, I took the same route out, carefully climbing down the building. I had to move fast. I forgot to check the time before shifting, but if dawn was coming, people were going to be waking up. My car wasn’t in a good spot, and I couldn’t get caught shifting back into my human form where people could see me.

  I found a quiet place between two houses and shifted, then jogged to my car. Sinclair and his friends didn’t have a long drive to get home, and I needed to get out of the neighborhood before they had a chance to see me. One of them being fae was inconvenient. He would be immune to the Look Away charm.

  I was able to make it out of the neighborhood without seeing any of them and breathed a sigh of relief as I jumped onto the 101 and headed toward home.

  “If I play my cards right, I can find Raphael before they’re active tonight. Sinclair’s little minions won’t move on the human until he’s ready, and he can’t do anything until after the sun goes down.”

  My phone started to ring, and I picked it up, not paying attention to the caller ID.

  “You never came back last night after you ran into Sinclair. Am I going to assume you aren’t going to drop this?” Paden sounded tired and annoyed. “I know I gave it to you, but I don’t want you out there doing something stupid.”

  “I actually just got a load of good intel you’re probably going to be interested in, Paden.” I grinned. “He was running from Mygi. They had him for five years after he killed all his buddies that night, and he escaped. Been running ever since.”

  “Wait, so they made him not exist? They’re the reason he disappeared completely?” Paden seemed as intrigued as I thought he would be. “Well, that is interesting.”

  “Oh yeah. I highly doubt this is a case of a human employee gone rogue. This feels more sinister, without a doubt.” I was amped up. This was the kind of thing I lived for. Not so much the saving the human thing, but the dirt. I loved sticking my nose in the business of the dirtiest, most underhanded pieces of shit in the supernatural world. It gave me a rush and kept me going, day in and day out.

  “I might need to bring Cassius in or some other Investigator, but I’m going to wait until I have Raphael in hand. I have to find and get him today because, apparently, Sinclair has plans to grab him after he sleeps.”

  “Well, your new information makes mine seem light and stupid,” Paden mumbled. “You’re moving a lot faster with this than I thought you would.”

  “I’m moving a lot faster than I thought I would. Tell me what you got.”

  “It’s nothing. Stupid personal shit.”

  “Paden, that’s the best stuff. If you give me a way to make him emotionally vulnerable, I might get him to hand over information willingly.”

  He chuckled in my ear. I felt bad for his wife—Paden’s chuckle was like something out of a porno, meant to get women worked up. His wife probably had to beat those women off with a stick. I had only met her a handful of times, but once she realized I didn’t see Paden like that, she was an easy acquaintance to have.

  “His parents called him Raphael. His siblings and friends called him Raph. His girlfriends all called him Dom,” Paden informed me, and I could hear the smirk.

  “Kinky.” I laughed. “I’ll have to figure out which one I can use without pissing him off. Raphael is too cold. Raph might be too friendly. Dom is definitely too friendly.”

  “I don’t know, looking the way you do, you might be able to get away with Dom.”

  “Paden!” I was laughing harder, trying to keep my eyes on the road. “I have white hair.”

  “You don’t look a day over thirty, and you know it. You don’t even have the beginning of a wrinkle on that face.”

  “I’m one hundred and seventeen. He’s, what, thirty-two now? I think I might be a little old for him.” Snorting, I shook my head as I drove. “I haven’t done the whole ‘act sexy and gain their trust’ schtick since I was a kid, like ninety years ago,” I reminded him. “I’m not sure I could pull off the act now.”

  “You know you could. This is absolutely going to sound old-fashioned, but you have that exotic look, and the white hair only adds to it, not detracts. My wife is oftentimes jealous of you.” Paden snorted. “Ever since those silver-grey looks came into human fashion, she’s been bouncing back and forth with the idea of changing her hair color for her human form. She wouldn’t stand out with it nowadays.”

  “Yes,” I said with some acid. “Exotic is an incredibly old-fashioned way of putting it. I’m Indian. Let’s just call it like it is. I’m Indian, and not the type that Columbus misidentified. Just like every naga.”

  “I’m not trying to be…insensitive, but this is a thirty-two-year-old man who probably hasn’t had companionship in a decade or more…”

  “I get what you’re saying,” I snapped. “Change the topic. It’s not going to happen.” There was a reason I didn’t play that act anymore. There was a dark, terrifying, nightmare-inducing reason.

  The last time I did, it went way too far.

  “Fine. Tell me your intel.” His tone went back to professional, the friendly teasing and compliments evaporating. We knew each other well enough to know when a button was pushed.

  “I haven’t read through all of it. I’m driving home from breaking into Sinclair’s place and taking photos of everything I could find there. He’s got a couple minions with him, and one of them rented a house in Scottsdale.”

  “You…KALIYA!” Paden roared into the phone.

  Since it was coming through my car’s speakers, the audio distorted, and I reached out to turn it down before he continued. I barely made it in time before my ears started ringing.

  “ARE YOU MAD?”

  “He taunted me. He explicitly told me why he was here. Did you really think I wasn’t going to make this personal?” I demanded, huffing in annoyance. “And it’s interesting. There’s something fishy going on here, and I might have a connection to The Board. If Raphael knows a bunch of good shit about Mygi, maybe it could be the break I need.”


  “Yeah, yeah,” Paden growled. “Fine, but don’t go dying on me, damn it. Without you, Sinclair would take over Phoenix within a week, and there would be no one able to stand up to him. You do realize, by living in this city, you’ve held him back from properly expanding his criminal enterprise, right?”

  “Yeah, I know, which is why I have to win this now. If he comes into my city to do illegal business, what good am I as an Executioner if I can’t even begin a proper investigation into what he’s doing?”

  “I don’t know how many reminders you need, but Investigators investigate, Kaliya.”

  “You heard him. He knows I’m good at both. I know when I need to hand this off to Cassius, don’t worry.”

  “Do you think he might have been baiting you?” Paden asked, and I had to admit it was a good question. I was under explicit orders not to toy around with Sinclair anymore, not after the run-ins we had in our past, which turned dangerous and destructive.

  “Possibly, but it doesn’t matter. I would have jumped into this the moment I found out he was in the city, Paden. I don’t need him to bait me.”

  “I know, and that’s terrifying,” he replied. “If it comes to the human or you, Kaliya, pick you. I don’t care what sort of gold mine this guy might have when it comes to intel or your fucking board of paranoia; you aren’t going to get yourself killed for it.”

  “Sure thing, but a quick question.” My answer was a half-hearted lie.

  “Shoot.”

  “When are you going to remember you are neither my boss nor my father?” I asked before tapping the hang-up button on my car’s touch screen.

  I drove in silence after that. Paden was rightfully worried, but I was a dog with a bone. There was nothing, including the idea of dying, that was going to pull me off this now. He knew it just as well as I did. I didn’t much care for a friend I’d had for a few decades telling me to let go of something that happened long before I ever knew him. In the end, the choice would never be answers or my life because I put too much time and effort into my own survival. It would always be what else was I willing to lose for those answers, and that was an easy choice for me. It always had been and always would be.

  Everything.

  6

  Chapter Six

  Getting home, I moved fast, reading through what I had copied from Sinclair’s. I had to go quickly, or I could miss my only window. I ran through his aliases again and punched them into separate searches through local government databases. Mygi had reason to believe Raphael was in Phoenix, but they were wary of getting close due to his skittish nature. They nearly had him once in San Diego and once in Los Angeles. He once went home to New Mexico, but they had completely missed him there, only to find out about it afterwards. From there, he went to Houston and spent a stint in San Antonio as well. Now, he was in Phoenix, and they were damn near sure of it, which was why the bounty had originated in the area and brought everyone to my city.

  Great. But now I need to figure out where he actually is in Phoenix. Can’t they have something good on this?

  I kept looking through the pictures, reading the small print. I narrowed the searches to southern Phoenix, near and in Tempe and Mesa, based on another report one of their agents had written. They found reasonable evidence in some security tapes that he was hiding in that region. They even had a few guesses on which alias he was using and a possible second, so I cut the rest of the searches off except those two.

  Essentially, Mygi had enough information to find Raphael again, but they were afraid of scaring him off. They went to the bounty hunters, but they didn’t feel comfortable giving out too much information. I wouldn’t want most of the information out either if I were them. They talked about him as if he was an asset, but a dangerous one. It looked bad for one human to give a wealthy, highly trained team of supernaturals the slip, not just once but several times. They would have turned into laughing stocks, and that would kill their reputation.

  I stopped on another letter and a cursory glance told me there wasn’t anything important in it except for the fact that it shined a light on some internal politics at Mygi.

  It was a board member, personally in contact with Sinclair. He was frustrated the board elected to go with the bounty hunter route, instead of just hiring Sinclair straight up. He was paying Sinclair ten million out-of-pocket to get started, and the vampire would be able to claim the bounty when it was over.

  Yup, I was right on the money. Double. I knew they were paying him big money, and that explains why Sinclair has all this, and no one else does. He shouldn’t have bragged about it, that overconfident piece of shit.

  I scrolled past it, knowing Paden would like that kind of information. A board member going against the rest of them? That was easily good money on the blackmail market. I should have felt guilty, but there were shades of crimes for supernaturals. Blackmail wasn’t even against the law, and really, most human laws weren’t covered in supernatural law. Supernaturals were old and cunning, so to avoid major fights, sometimes blackmail had its purpose. People like Paden had to make money. Unsanctioned murder was against the law, but species dealt with that internally unless it was murder of another type of supernatural. Then things got ugly. Most of the laws, though? They covered ancient treaties to preserve a precarious peace between different species, or to help keep the supernatural secret from the world at large. While werewolves were very out and fae were kind of out, it was incredibly illegal for anyone to go public with a species that wasn’t out unless it was decided by the leaders of that species.

  Meaning, if I wanted to out the nagas to the human world, I could.

  I wasn’t enough of an idiot to do that.

  Being the last nagini had its perks, as sour as they tasted when I had to use them. I was considered a leader of my species.

  Easy to be when there’s only one female and eight males left. Not many nagas to rule and no one else to rule.

  I sighed, looking at The Board. While the searches ran, I needed to find something to do. I printed several of the photos, then recopied some of the most important information onto a small card and pinned it with Raphael’s bounty. With a string, I connected Raphael to the brother of that one woman. Since that was all I could do, I fell back into my office chair and groaned.

  “These can hurry up,” I mumbled, moving my mouse around the screen. I had no one to call, no one to kill time with. Paden would be sleeping by now, and Carter was definitely locked away from the sun to get his own sleep. Cassius wouldn’t take my call unless I promised it was work only, and I wasn’t prepared to give this to him yet—should, but didn’t want to—not while Raphael’s face was on The Board, and I had no idea if it meant anything.

  I used to have more friends—used to. None of them lasted very long. I was pretty sure Paden was the longest friend I had in my life, even though I’d known Cassius the longest. Cassius was a complicated mess. He was never my friend, nor was he ever really an ally. He was a colleague and a fuck buddy—the second part of that was thoroughly scratched out now.

  I should have never slept with him to begin with. Tequila does bad things to people.

  I need more friends.

  I snorted. There was a time when everyone wanted to be my friend. Thank the gods, that time was long ago.

  Checking the clock, I decided I would try to get some sleep. It was seven in the morning, and watching searches try to find anything in situations like this was like watching paint dry. They would be done by the time I woke up.

  I locked up my office and went to my bedroom, decorated in rich browns and reds, the way I liked it. There were flares of splash colors, and it reminded me of home. It was the only room where I let myself get sentimental and decorate it like any normal person would. Before getting into the bed, I went to my bathroom and brushed my teeth, letting my fangs drop to brush them as well. They were hidden behind my human canines, and they signaled I was just as venomous in human form as I was in snake form. Once I was satisfied with that, I wa
shed my face, wondering if I always looked so damn tired.

  Probably.

  I opened the medicine cabinet and hit a button hidden in the back of the bottom shelf. A small hole opened up behind me and revealed my second safe room. I rarely forgot to check it before bed, and when I did, it was because I was exhausted. Tonight, after messing around with Sinclair and breaking into his place, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I knew it was ready for me. None of the food inside was expired, and the guns were properly loaded. Three vials of my venom waited to coat any weapon I could need, hanging from the walls inside.

  Glad I checked, I hit the button again, and it closed. The button read my fingerprint, which was the best security I could have for it. If I had decked it out with a retinal scan like my office, I would have gotten killed a long time ago. This was the safe room I had to get to the moment I woke up, and I couldn’t fight with finicky technology in those situations.

  I fell into my bed and controlled my breathing. My room was fifteen degrees cooler than the rest of my house, and it wasn’t because I hated the heat. It forced me to get tired, and eventually, sleep claimed me.

  I was up at two in the afternoon with plenty of time before sunset. Jumping out of bed as the AC stopped in the room and let it heat up, I felt energized. Before going to the office, I made a pot of coffee and took a mug out to my back porch, standing in the sun with the hot drink. It had to be over a hundred and ten, and I loved it, soaking it in. I wasn’t technically cold-blooded, but like my snake form, my human form enjoyed the heat much more than the cold. When I settled in Phoenix, that had been the only thing on my mind. Living somewhere it was hot most of the year.

  “Mother would have loved it here,” I said softly, sipping my coffee. Longing was a sharp pain I tried to avoid, but at that moment, I let it happen. Whatever the reason, my mind turned to thoughts of my family. Father would have been fine in Phoenix, but he liked humidity, a lot of it. So had my brothers. My mother and I loved dry heat. She and I were the only ones. Most nagas preferred places with a bit of humidity.