Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1)

Dead of Night

Ghosts & Magic #1

By M.R. Forbes

Copyright 2014 M.R. Forbes

Published by Quirky Algorithms

Cover art by Mario Sanchez Nevado

All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

About that job...

I approached the door on my elbows, dragging myself like some kind of mutant lizard along the stained brown carpet that lined the eighth floor hallway of the Hotel Paramour. It had taken me almost ten minutes of left arm, right arm, rinse, and repeat to get from the first door, now thirty feet or so behind me, to this one, and at that point I was just about ready to stand up and walk the final few steps, if only to give my lungs a chance to expand again.

It only took a few repetitions of my favorite mantra,'I don't want to die', to convince myself to stay prone and keep snaking.
 

Left arm, right arm, left arm, right arm.
 

I finally got my eyeball to the bottom of the door, fortunate that it had been hung with as little care as anything else in this dump.

"Now that we have the details out of the way... Did you bring it?"

Peeking in under the frame, I couldn't see who was speaking, or even tell where the voice was coming from. What I could see were three pairs of feet, two on one side of a desk, and one on the other. They were all angled somewhat cockeyed, which told me that the targets inside were sitting. The closer feet, they were packaged up in standard-issue brown boots. The other guy was wearing some nice shiny loafers, probably a Gucci or a Prada.
 

"Yeah, we've got it."
 

There was a rustle. Someone pulling something from a plastic bag. The thunk when it landed on the desk said it was heavy. At least I was in the right place.

"Mr. Black will be pleased with your success," Gucci said. "We've been having a lot of trouble getting the drops picked up lately."

"We heard. If you had put the money up sooner, you wouldn't have had to lose so many packages."

I slid forward a few more inches, lifting my eyes to the rusted doorknob above my head. I really wanted to open the door, and I didn't want to be seen or heard doing it. What would be the odds of that?
 

"Since we're on the topic, Mr. Black has another job if you're interested."

Laughter. "If the money's right, we're interested."

A soft chuckle. "Of course. The money, my friends, is sure to be to your liking."

I reached up, my hand moving ever so slowly towards the knob, boney fingers finally falling onto it with the softness of a feather. Even so, just touching the surface caused the door to emit a slight snap.

"You hear that?" one of the booted men asked.

"It's an old building, Rodge. Shit probably creaks and groans all night."

"Like your mother?"

"Shut up."

I started to turn the knob, a fraction of a millimeter at a time. It was a movement so precise I doubted many people could have repeated it. It was that control, that attention to the art that had made me everything I was today. It didn't seem like much, crawling around on the floor of a shitty hotel like a worm, but from time to time it paid at least one or two of my bills.

"So what's the job?" Rodge asked.
 

I ran my mind through the profile I'd been given of the targets. Roger Excelon, and his brother Tim. They were a pair of accomplished ghosts, experienced heavies who were making their move up into the big-time. Their normal work orders consisted more of guard duty than active carrying, but defense never made the same kind of coin as offense, and to be honest, their backgrounds did make them more suitable for pickup and retrieval.
 

The third guy was a fixer, an associate of Mr. Black's whose role was to arrange the resources for the given job. There had been no way to know who he would be, which made him a wild card that I was only slightly nervous about. I had planned this thing right, and allowed for the unknown variable.

"Another pickup. A little more sophisticated this time. Mr. Black has a rival, and that rival has something that Mr. Black wants. Need I go on?"

"Nah, I get it."
 

Rodge's laughter was the perfect cover as I finished twisting the knob and carefully eased the door open about six inches. It wasn't enough for me to get into the room, but I didn't want to get into the room. Yet.

"It sounds like there might be some violence involved," Tim said. "Violence costs extra."

"Yes, of course it does. I imagine there may be some violence. Dragons very rarely wish to part with even the smallest trinket from their hoards, if you know what I mean."

"I'm not much for metaphors, but yeah, I think I know what you mean. How much?"

I heard the sound of wood scraping wood; a drawer being slid open. Then I heard the sound of something plastic bouncing on the desk.

"Two million," Gucci said. "Payable in advance. The only way you lose it is if you die."

"Up front? You trust us to do the job when we've already been paid?"

It was Gucci's turn to laugh. "I trust you not to be stupid enough to double-cross Mr. Black. Besides, you two came highly recommended. You don't build a reputation on lies, and guards don't build a reputation on theft."

Right arm, left arm. I pushed myself back from the crack in the door so I could think. Two million was a good haul, a lot more than any of the other jobs I had ever been offered. I could cover meds for a year with that kind of take. Of course, Mrs. Grey wouldn't be very happy. The question was, how not very happy? I'd been ghosting both for and against her for the last three years, and she seemed like a reasonable sort. Then again, I'd never actually crossed her.
 

I felt an itch in my throat and a constriction in my stomach. It was a reminder of the decision I was trying to make. The bottom line was that I was only getting a hundred thousand for this little dance, and for the price it didn't seem that important if one of Mr. Black's fixers got through it alive. I'd still take out the Wonder Twins, which had been Grey's goal from the start. How mad could she be for that?

Decision made, I squirmed back into position.
 

A beep told me they had run the card and confirmed the funding. Two million in bitcoin, digital currency, available to whoever brought the card in for transfer, minus a fee, of course. It crossed my mind to just finish the job and steal it, but I knew Black would send a goon squad over to sweep the scene once I was gone, and if the card was missing and the job ignored, they'd be all the more focused on finding out who had pulled the hit. There was no part of me that wanted to cross any of the Houses' kill teams.

I felt another urge to cough, and I tightened my throat and fought against it, my eyes drawing tears for the effort. Not yet. It was too soon. I glanced down at my watch. One more minute.

"Looks like the money's good," Rodge said. "We have a deal."

"Excellent."
 

I heard Gucci's chair squeak, and the sound of another drawer being pulled open. His voice was deeper and more firm when he spoke. "Take this. It has the address, an image of the target, and a shitload of reconnaissance data. Call the number when the job is done, and then wait for confirmation. You have forty-eight hours to check-in before we send a team looking for you. Understand?"

"Not a problem. This isn't our first tango."

"That's why Mr. Black wanted you."

I checked my watch again. Twenty seconds. I reached down to the inside pocket of the black nylon trench I was wearing and brought out a pair of small cubes made of carved human bone. I held them tight in my fist, whispered softly, and prepared to toss them into the room.

"That's all I've got for you two right now," Gucci said. I heard the chair move again, and the sound of springs. Whoever Gucci was, he was a fat-ass.

The other two chairs shifted. Rodge and his brother also stood.
 

That was when the window shattered.

Ten seconds early.
 

"Shit."

I forgot about my sneak attack, gathering my feet under me and standing up. I could hear the commotion in the room, shouting and gunfire, and the unmistakable thump of bullets finding flesh.

I threw the dice in at the same time I slammed the door open, grabbing the sawed-off shotgun from the makeshift holster under my coat and leveling it at the dynamic duo. It was the first time I had seen this pair, a couple of ogres with massive builds, coated in tattoos and looking plenty mean. Heavies for sure. They had been pumping bullets into my companion in the window with custom made firearms, but now they turned to watch the dramatic entrance, their eyes following the bone dice.

My first round sent heavy buckshot scattering everywhere, digging into their skin and ripping through, sending blood splattering against the paisley wallpaper behind them. I tracked my eyes to Gucci, finding him standing in the corner, looking exceptionally calm.

 
"You're early, dammit," I shouted at Caroline. She had never been pretty, but the gunshots had ripped off half her jaw and an ear, and torn a nice chunk out of her thigh.

The dice rolled to a stop.
 

My eyes returned to the ogres, who were bouncing back from the first hit. They were bloody, but it looked like all it had done was piss them off.
 

"That fucking hurt," Rodge said. I could see his muscles clenching and rippling, tensing to pounce on me. His partner was swinging his huge semi-automatic my way. One shot from that thing, and my head would be painting the hallway.

I looked down at my dice. Lightning. Doubles.
 

"This is going to hurt more."

A wail sounded from all around us, a high pitched shriek followed by a hint of
something
from the dice. I felt the beating of my heart hang and stop. I felt the pain of a dying man. In front of me, the leathers dropped their weapons, screaming and spasming. Right now, they would be feeling like their entire bodies were burning in intense flashes of pain, nerves overwhelmed and minds unable to process the explosion of sensation. Their size wasn't a benefit against Lightning.

"Caroline!"
 

She had finally gotten into the window and raised the gun I had given her. Fingers broken, her aim sucked, but she managed to get two of the sixteen armor-piercing rounds into each of the ogres' foreheads. They weren't able to do much to stop it, and they both toppled over, dead. I watched the black shadow of their souls being pulled into the dice laying on the floor, and then turned my attention to Gucci.

He was still standing in the corner, unfazed by the death of his hired help. His eyes travelled from me to Caroline and back. "A necro?"
 

I re-holstered the shotgun.
 

"I didn't think there were any more necros."

"We're a dying breed." The dry humor made him laugh.
 

It made me cough.

"Did you come to off me, or just those two?"

The instructions had said no survivors. I hadn't made up my mind about that. "I heard you talking to them about a job. Two million."

He smiled. "Who are you working for? If I had known there was a necromancer floating around, I might have given you a call first."

Except I didn't advertise my specialty. Even Mrs. Grey didn't know what I was about. She had hired an assassin and a thief, not a necro. That was why I wasn't sure about leaving him alive. It might be better for business in the short-term to let the secret out, but it wasn't a good long-term plan.

"Don't let the stories fool you. I'm not half as cool as they would make it seem."
 

In the stories, necromancers could control legions of the dead, kill with a touch, that sort of thing. I had no such luck. My animation efforts were limited to one corpse at a time, and my control of them was a little bit shaky. I couldn't kill with a touch either, and the death magic... it was all wrapped up in the pair of dice, a game of chance, and it always required a payment in souls after use, one way or another. I was still around because I made the most out of what I had, not because I could work some hocus-pocus.

"Tell that to those two brutes," Gucci said. He held out his hand. "My name is Wilson."

I didn't take his hand, or offer my own. He pulled it back.

"Fine. You want the job? It's yours. Take the card and the specs, they're both buried somewhere under those empty mounds of muscle. Give a call when it's done." He stepped forward, to go between Caroline and me and out the door. Caroline grabbed his arm.

"Hold on." In my mind, I was running the probabilities, considering the odds. He knew what I was, and I was supposed to have killed him in the first place. I could finish this job, and take on the new one. Mrs. Grey would be happy and Mr. Black likely wouldn't give a crap about some random underling.

His eyes flashed a bright blue. "I know what you're thinking, necro. I urge you to reconsider."

Real power, or a scare tactic? Looking at him, he seemed like the type who would blab, and I wasn't ready for my predicament to become known to the Houses.