I groaned. “Piss off. I get the hint.”
He winked in good nature, not at all bothered by my words.
“We live in a world where magic exists. Some of us like it for the ease. Some like the novelty. Others like the power . . .” He trailed off. “But not you.” He tilted his head, as if thinking about that. “Why is that?”
I leaned back, my gaze sweeping over the casino floor and falling on the jazzy fairy once more. “All magic has a price,” I found myself saying softly. “Some of us don’t want to pay it.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment as he took another huff of smoke.
“Fair enough,” he said on his exhale. “The reason you don’t want to pay it have anything to do with the witches and warlocks you interrogate before Ronny gets ahold of them?”
I kept my face neutral, not giving a thing away as I replied, “The reason you spend your Friday nights here have anything to do with the picture in your left back pocket? You haven’t changed it in the three years I’ve been working with you. You don’t talk about him.”
The ‘him’ in question was the face of a little boy, no older than seven or eight. While grainy, he had the same eyes and weak chin as the man sitting before me. The picture never changed. Never updated. I could be wrong, but I had a feeling I wasn’t.
Anders’ face lost all of its amusement for a moment as surprise overcame him. He hid it quickly, but I still saw. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“When you got a kill rate as high as mine, you can’t afford to,” I replied with a tight smile. Anders let out a laugh, taking a swig from his glass of water.
“No, you damn well can’t.” He took another drag of his cigarette and I moved to stand.
“It’s a pleasure doing business with you—” I started, getting ready to head out.
“Wait,” he said, letting out a sigh. “I don’t have a bounty per se, but there is something that might be of interest to you.”
I settled back in my seat and lifted an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“We got word recently of a coven planning to attempt a demon summoning,” Anders said, lowering his voice to a hush. A chill ran through me. “I don’t think I have to tell you how exponentially stupid that is.”
“Do they have enough power to succeed?” I asked, running the tip of my finger along the edge of one of the folders.
“To summon it? Yes. To control it? Absolutely not.” He looked away and shook his head.
Demon summonings were rare. It took a strong coven to call it, and a near-invincible one to control it. Or so the theory went. No summoning had ever been successful. Every single one documented had ended with the members of the coven slaughtered, and that was the best-case scenario.
Worst-case, they accidentally set it loose on our world.
“What exactly is this job?” I asked Anders.
He leaned back, clearly uncomfortable with what he was going to say. Little did he know, I already had a strong suspicion and was willing to do it.
“The boss has decided it’s in everyone’s best interest that the summoning isn’t completed. He’d like a message sent to the public about attempting this in his city.”
I smiled without happiness. “He wants an execution.”
Anders nodded.
“This isn’t like your usual jobs. The coven is strong, and from what our sources say, they’re expecting it—”
“How much?”
He blinked, taken aback. “What?”
“How much are you paying?”
I’d known him a long time. Longer than most, given I wasn’t big on making friends when everyone was just looking to climb over you to help themselves. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. What he did piece together, he used discretion about. He didn’t scare easily. The slight flicker of fear I saw in his eyes in that moment—that was new.
“Five hundred thousand,” he said eventually. The look of regret was fleeting, but it was there. I could see why he hesitated.
He could have asked me to kill the demon itself. I was just desperate enough I might have taken it. But an entire coven?
“Consider it done.”
3
I stood outside the cathedral as the sun went down, painting the sky in red and violet. The wind howled like a ghoul on the hunt. I lifted the collar of my trench coat and stuffed my hands in my pockets. The cheap material did little for my numb fingers, but it was better than nothing. The damned really did have a sick sense of humor, summoning a demon in this kind of place. I shook my head and started down the street, taking the long way around.
In an hour or two, the cathedral would close, and when it did, anyone that was here to pray to whatever god they worshipped would be turned out on the streets. The front doors would lock, and the keys would be handed off to the Antares Coven.
I turned the corner at the end of the street, going down the next block, and coming behind to the back of the cathedral. They would check the pews, probably every room, maybe even the bathrooms, before starting.
Odds were, they wouldn’t check the closet holding the extra vestments.
That’s exactly where I would be.
I turned down the narrow alley right behind it and followed the pavement to the back. Up three concrete steps was the door I needed. There was only one problem.
It was locked.
Twenty years ago, they might not have locked the door at all. But the world was a different place now, one where it was stupid to walk around unarmed, or in this case, leave anywhere you gave a shit about unlocked. It wouldn’t stop supernaturals, but the desperate humans—and there were plenty of them—would have an extra hurdle if they wanted to break in.
Fortunately for me, they were holding it in a church, not a bank. I came prepared.
I pulled out my lock picking kit. Fifteen seconds was all it took to pop.
I stowed the tools back in my jacket and tied the band around my waist once more, holding it closed.
My cold fingers grabbed the colder metal handle. Dried and peeling paint flaked against my fingers as I pulled it open. A warm burst of air hit me, and I quickly stepped inside, closing the door softly behind me. I made a quick beeline down the hall, toward the stairs. Music chased me, the sound of haunting hymns like a hound on my heels, reminding me of another time as I quickly found the closet I needed and pulled the door open.
“Shit,” I muttered.
The floor plan for this place hadn’t been easy to find, but so far it had been accurate. What it conveniently left off was the dimensions. The closet couldn’t have been more than two feet deep and two feet wide. If anyone opened the door, I’d be discovered early and that wouldn’t do.
I bit the inside of my cheek, looking down the hall one way, then the other.
Chancing my luck of finding someone, I took the stairs, opting to go up instead of back where I came from.
Maybe . . . a thought came to me, sudden and unbidden.
I followed the stairs up and quickly crossed the ten-foot platform before a second set of stairs. Off to one side, mass was going on, but I stuck to the shadows so they couldn’t see me. This second level went around the chapel, branching off into different hallways. I looked down each, periodically peering back over the railing to the congregation below.