I understand your concerns, but please do not worry. You hired the best, and I don’t fail. I need one more week to fulfill the contract.
Sincerely,
Falcon
I hit send while also letting out a whoosh of air I didn’t realize I was holding. Failing this job would pretty much end my black-market career. Because everyone else my buyer hired so far was unable to find the item he sought, I had finally accepted his contract after the third request. A little bit of ego played a role in my decision—I never thought I would fail, especially not with Kit doing the research. She had found the damn box, after all.
But if the fate of the others after their botched jobs in our line of work were any indication, then future buyers would take this one failed contract as too big a weakness. It was a harsh, unforgiving business. And the most annoying part was that I didn’t need the money; I just wanted the fame of obtaining something everyone else couldn’t. If I didn’t find that jewelry box fast, I was screwed.
And not in a good way.
I pulled up a message window and pinged Kit, “You on?”
“Always,” came the swift reply.
“Can you pull up the mansion’s camera feeds and check someone out for me?”
“Deets.”
“A man and a woman,” I typed. “Man is hotter than hell, woman is petite with short hair and wearing a tiger’s mask. It’s the woman, Sophia, I’m questioning. Did she go off-camera at all?”
“Gimme an hour.” Her status went inactive. Kit preferred to work with zero distractions.
Sophia Clark wasn’t a bad person, but boy did she and I get off to a rocky start a year ago. She was one of the few people who knew more than most about who I was, that the barista and the thief were one and the same. I still preferred to call it acquiring goods out of the wrong hands.
Regardless, we had both caught each other in acts we technically shouldn’t have been involved in, and we had a mutual agreement to never speak of it again.
But it was rather odd that not one, but two reapers had shown up at the same party as me with no souls to collect. I hadn’t known her to be my competition in the world of acquisitions; she was more into the buying side of things, rather than getting her hands dirty herself.
Then again, it had been a year since we’d crossed paths, and I already knew her moral standards weren’t quite up to a promotion to the angelic choir yet. Her involvement wouldn’t be a complete surprise.
Another message notification popped up, and I nearly groaned out loud as I read it.
Dear Falcon,
I look forward to the outcome either way. It would be such a pleasure to meet you, little bird.
See you soon,
X
My blood turned to ice, making my hands shake over the keyboard. The buyer known only as X was famous for his sadistic nature when his expectations weren’t met, which was the main reason I stayed away from his contracts. I suddenly did not doubt he would hunt me down to the ends of the earth to teach me a lesson if I failed.
I may have made a huge mistake.
3
Saturday Morning
I was just about to log off the computer when a bulletin on the Community forum home page caught my attention. It was a Most Wanted notice with…
What the actual fuck?
My picture stared back at me from the screen. Not like a headshot or an embarrassing old school photo, but a screen capture from a security camera. A close-up image of my phoenix masquerade mask from the night before.
They must have taken the photo before Kit killed the feed. With my mouth hanging open, I scanned the rest of the text. My pulse pounded in my ears. The DEA had declared the Falcon a suspect in a murder at Dr. Renauldo’s party.
Wait, murder? Who the hell was murdered?
I sat back and covered my mouth with a hand, biting on my pointer finger to keep from screaming my frustration. I might be many things, but I was most certainly not a murderer. I had standards, damn it.
The reward from the DEA for finding and turning me in was…astronomical. I was being framed and in the worst possible way. But why? And by whom? I didn’t even know who died. Maybe Sophia had recognized me beneath my mask after all. I wouldn’t have marked her for a murderer, but I had been wrong before. Was she afraid I was going to spill the beans about her little side hustle? If so, she was going to regret her involvement, because I sure as shit wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Things had gone from bad to really fucking bad in a matter of minutes. I pressed my fingers to my temples, pushing against the throbbing pain creeping in. Headaches, sometimes even migraines, were an unfortunate downside to using too much magic too quickly, but stress had become another equal opportunity annoyer. I was sure there weren’t too many more stressful situations in life than being wrongly accused of murder.
Sweet Mokosh, what am I going to do? I groaned internally, not wanting to draw attention from the other patrons. Unfortunately, the mother goddess of the phoenixes didn’t answer, not as if I really expected her to.
Kit would be offline for the next hour, so I had nothing to do but go to work. I could think during the walk, and the fresh air might help my headache.
MY DAY JOB SAW me at The Morning Grind, where I worked as a barista. The truth was, I’d probably keep the job even if I didn’t need the cover. I was what I liked to call a coffee connoisseur, though some might use the term snob. Either way, perfecting images atop the light foam of a café latte was my form of heaven, and the dark brew beneath the foam was the nectar of the gods.
The coffee shop wasn’t too far from the market, maybe a mile or so as the crow flies (or me in falcon form). Walking through downtown Miami would help me think through whatever the hell was going on. I let my gaze wander across unfamiliar faces, high-rises, and, because I always took Brickell Bay Drive, a glimpse of the water now and then.
Water of any kind always drew me in like a Siren’s song, mostly because of the open air and salty sea spray. Above the ocean—hell, even just above lakes, rivers, and the everglades—meant soaring without worry. No buildings or trees to keep an eye out for, no people and their infuriating bird-deterring spikes to avoid when I landed on an island or a ship’s mast. The ocean air currents down here in south Florida were some of my favorites to glide through, and one of the reasons I never left.
Unfortunately, the bulletin had me paranoid, making it far from my usual peaceful walk. A creepy-crawly sensation making its way down my back had me glancing over my shoulder every few feet. Nothing out of the ordinary caught my eye, but I would have sworn that shadows existed where they shouldn’t. A crash behind me had me turning with fists raised in front of my face in half a second.
A man had simply dropped a box off a truck he was unloading, his curses filling the air. I gave a shrug and smile to another man giving me an odd look as I lowered my hands. Turning back around, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a beast loomed toward me. I stopped myself from kicking out at the last second when the sweet face of a German Shepherd panted up at me.
I was losing it.
The woman walking the dog pulled him away before I could pet him, glaring at me as she did. I couldn’t blame her, though; I had almost kicked her dog.
Ugh. Today was not going well.