The wind whipped through the alleyway the second I made it outside. My blonde hair tangled, strands slipping from the braid to cut across my eyes, and they got stuck on my mouth.
“Ugh,” I groaned, swiping it back in place once more as I dragged Trenton down the alley with me, thankful for the extra hours I’d been working out. Dark clouds blotted out most of the sky, but an almost full moon peaked through every now and then as the wind blew them south.
Most of the buildings appeared uninhabited, but they would any time after dark, regardless of whether people were in them or not. Not a lot of cars ran in the city nowadays, apart from taxis. They were still heinously expensive, though, and other methods had popped up for getting around, both more and less effective—all relying on magic. I preferred my own two feet because I was the only thing I could trust in this whole goddamned city.
We passed through the worst of town with nothing more than some interested looks from beggars and lowlifes. One flash of my gun and they would turn the other way.
Magic may be flashy and get you far in this world, but a gun still did the trick—less impressive as it may be.
My fingers were stiff, and my cheeks flushed when I finally came to stand beneath the flashing yellow sign that read: The Underworld.
It was a casino, a hotel, a place to buy and sell almost anything—but most importantly, it was where I worked. I walked around the side. The alley was seedy. The pipes leaked. The concrete cracked or was crushed in places. A chain-link fence blocked off the other side, but lucky for me, I only needed the heavy metal door on my right.
I wrenched it open, pushing Trenton through it first, and then following after.
The door slammed shut at my back as lights flickered on in the hallway. At the very end of it, a door that led out into the main casino opened and closed, music played, and lights pulsed with every movement as servers and armed guards walked in and out. I ignored that one for the moment and instead dragged my ass to the door on the right and pounded my fist twice.
Metal creaked. The door opened. Smoke poured out, and the scent of a cigar made my nose wrinkle. I waved a hand in front of my face.
“How’s it shaking, Pip?” Ronny said, the cigar hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “This the one?”
“Yup,” I answered, giving the unconscious warlock a shove through the door. Ronny was mostly human, and like most low-level supes, he’d always just thought he was blessed with more strength and speed than most people. Then magic became known to the world, and scientists found a way to test if people had any. It was one hell of a shock to find out about half the population was some sort of supe, whether full blood or watered down. In Ronny’s case, his grandma tangled with a werewolf, and while he hadn’t shifted, he had distinct advancements that weren’t human qualities. Like the ability to grab Trenton by the back of the neck and pick him up with one hand.
“Uh—what’s going—”
Ronny punched him in the middle, and the wind left his lungs. Trenton groaned loudly, and I rolled my eyes.
“I got it from here,” the glorified brute said with a grin.
“Knock yourself out,” I muttered, turning from the door as it slammed shut behind me. I walked to the end of the hall and took the door into the casino.
Blue and yellow lights from slot machines went off. I strolled right past them and through the card tables without a second glance. On the far back wall, the bar was up and running. A fairy dressed like she’d just walked out of a porno staged for the 1920s sang a jazzy tune that made my ears want to bleed. Her iridescent wings fluttered, and speckles of gold dust dropped onto the patrons. A subtle abuse of magic if there was one. Her singing sucked ass, but the effects of faerie dust, even in limited quantities, were such a potent aphrodisiac they basically handed her their wallets as she sauntered on by.
I took a seat at the two-person table furthest away from the horrid fairy.
The guy across from me looked up and lifted both eyebrows. His brown eyes widened.
“You already caught him?” he asked, closing the file in front of him. I nodded once, and he picked up his phone. One press of the button and a picture of Trenton filled the screen. He was being dangled upside down by his feet and beaten to a pulp.
Not an ounce of remorse touched me as I looked from the picture to Anders’ face.
He let out a low whistle. “You’re a cold-hearted woman, Pip.” Then he grinned and winked. “Just the way I like ya.”
If Anders wasn’t forty with thinning hair and watery blue eyes, I might have found it creepy. As it was, he was human—just like me—and one of the closest things I had to a friend—or he would be, if not for my trust issues.
I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and dropped it on the table. The metal piece hit with a clang that was drowned out by the rest of the casino. “I expect to see the full amount on that screen before I walk out the door,” I said, tapping the tiny plastic display, whose row of numbers were awfully close to zero. Wallets in the modern day were all electronic because the potential for magical abuse was too great. It all came in and out of the same bank, and any magic user or hacker dumb enough to attempt to break into it found themselves cursed six ways to Sunday.
“Yeah, yeah,” Anders sighed, pulling out his own wallet. He typed in the amount and the end of his turned red. I picked up mine and we touched the ends together, pressing the thumb sensor at the same time. Both ends flashed green, signaling the transfer went through. I pulled it back and glanced at the number before shoving it back in my pocket.
While my paycheck was no small sum, living in New Chicago wasn’t cheap. Not if you wanted electricity, running water that wouldn’t give you lead poisoning, and food that didn’t come from a factory that stopped producing fifteen years ago when the Magic Wars really dialed up. Even shitty processed food was astronomically priced these days. And fresh stuff? Forget it. If you weren’t rich—which humans never were—it was impossible to come by.
“Do you have any other jobs?” I asked.
Anders sighed. “Not witches or warlocks.”
My lips pressed together. While I preferred to hunt those that might be of use, I couldn’t always afford to be picky. Literally. “What’s the most expensive one you have?”
He reopened the file he’d been looking at and scanned it over.
“Human. Pair of them. They decided to pull a little Bonnie and Clyde act stealing from one of the boss’s warehouses. Two grand if they’re brought in hot. Fifteen hundred cold.”
I cursed under my breath. “Two grand?” I repeated. “These days that’s barely enough to keep my lights on for a week, Anders.”
“I don’t make the jobs or decide their worth, Pip. I’m just the middleman. You know that,” he said, pulling a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He snapped his fingers once, and the tip of his thumb caught fire for a brief second, just long enough to light the end.
I rolled my eyes.
“How much did that parlor trick cost you?”
Anders inhaled deeply before exhaling in one smooth stream of smoke. He grinned. “Three days off my life.”
I stared at him, shaking my head. “Doesn’t that shit kill you fast enough as it is?”
Anders snorted. “Coming from the bounty hunter with the highest kill rate on the job. What is it that you do so differently that you leave a trail of bodies a mile long in your wake?” He pulled over the crystalline tray from the side of the table and flicked the end of the cigarette. Ash dropped into it, disappearing instantly because freakin’ magic. “Isn’t the job dangerous enough? One might think you’re looking to get hurt,” he mused.