“That was impressive.”
Sera looked at Kai, who was leaning casually against the wall. His body was relaxed, his eyes amused. Just as he’d been for the entire fight. He had all that magic, and he hadn’t even lifted a finger to help. Sure, the vampires hadn’t been the brightest bunch, their brains overcooked with blood lust. But they were strong enough that she couldn’t risk taking a hit from one of them. Not if she wanted to stand up again. She could have died, and he was acting like it was all some big joke. Maybe he’d even sent the vampires. That was just the sort of thing a first tier mage would do for amusement.
She wanted to scream at him, to demand what the hell was the matter with him. She shrugged instead.
“If you thought that was impressive, you should have seen me chop monstrous caterpillars to bits earlier today.”
That’s right. I’m just a dumb brute with a sword and a lot of knives. I hack and I chop. There’s not a shred of magic in that.
Kai’s lip twitched. “I’m sorry I missed it.” His eyes panned down her legs, the look in them almost indecent. “I was wondering what that stinky goo all over your boots was.”
Or he just thought she stank. But she didn’t care what he thought. Not even a little.
“Well, now I have vampire blood all over my clothes to go with the stinky goo.”
And why did she just say that?
Oh, right. Because I’m a moron. That’s why.
“Indeed.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his buzzing phone. His blue eyes scanned the screen quickly, then he tucked the phone back into his pocket and looked at her. “There’s an emergency at the office. I have to go.”
“Kitten with a sprained ankle?”
He gave her a grin—a smug, sexy, satisfied grin. “Goodbye, Sera.” He turned and walked toward the door, pausing in front of the kitchen on the way out. “Talk to you later, Riley.”
Riley stepped into the hall. “You going to the run at the park tomorrow?”
“No, I have something big going on at work this weekend. I’ll try to come next week.”
Then he put on his shoes and left.
“Am I allowed to come over there now, or will you chew me out again?” Riley asked when they were alone again.
“I didn’t chew you out.” Sera grabbed one of the vampire corpses by the shoulders and dragged him toward the front door. “I was trying to protect you.” She waved for Riley to follow her back to the living room. “And I can’t protect you if you’re standing in the middle of the battlefield.”
“Maybe you don’t need to protect me at all. I’m not completely helpless, you know. I have skills.”
“You’re studying Magical Sciences. You mix together magic substances in a laboratory.”
“Some of them are poisonous. Or explode. Or… Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was just rethinking your entire education.” She pulled her knife out of vampire number two, then swung him over her shoulder. “I’m not sure I want you handling explosives, magical or otherwise.”
“Haha.”
He lifted the last vampire and carried him down the hall after Sera. Not bad. The brutes were pure muscle and weighed a ton. Riley must have upped his gym hours. Maybe there was a girl he wanted to impress.
Sera nearly laughed. Their life was never that simple. More likely, he’d gotten it into his head to start fighting supernaturals.
“Well, I’m only a few weeks away from graduation,” he said. “So it’s too late to switch to knitting now.”
“Does your school even offer a degree in that?”
“Sure. It’s one of the focus points under Physical Manipulation.”
“Telekinesis?”
“Yes.”
As far as Sera knew, Riley didn’t have that sort of magic. He was the best potion maker she’d ever met, but he couldn’t summon lightning or hurl fire balls. Or do any magic that would protect him in a fight. And that made him vulnerable.
“On second thought, just stick with the Magical Sciences folks. Those telekinetics are all sort of nuts,” she said.
“I’ve noticed.”
They dumped the two vampires next to their buddy. As they walked back to the living room, Sera shot Mayhem’s disposal department a text message to come pick up the corpses. That was one of the perks of working for them. When you killed a monster, they sent a disposal team within thirty minutes. That didn’t save her the hassle of filing the report, but at least she didn’t have to start digging ditches in the middle of the night. As any regular viewer of horror flicks knew, digging ditches in the dark never ended well.
“We need to talk about your friend Kai,” Sera said as she sat down beside Riley on the sofa.
She picked up the bag he’d brought her and reached inside. Damn. The chicken sandwich had gone cold. She took a bite anyway. Double damn. Cold or not, it was delicious. No, it wasn’t just delicious. It was the best sandwich she’d ever had. Admitting that to herself hurt her brain. She did
not
want to enjoy anything that had been Kai the dragon’s idea.
“I’m not going to stop hanging out with him just because you think his magic is too strong,” Riley told her.
“Not just the magic. The eyes. Remember the murderous eyes!”
“Right. So, I’m not seeing that. He’s just a normal guy. Or as normal as any of us can hope to be in this messed up world.”
Sera gobbled down the last of her sandwich and licked her fingers clean. Then she looked around for more. There wasn’t a crumb to be found. She’d already assaulted every last one of them.
“Riley, there’s a reason we stay away from magic users.”
“You work for a mercenary guild that cleans up supernatural messes. I’d hardly call that ‘staying away’.”
“I kill monsters. I don’t go barhopping with a fraternity of mage brothers. And Mayhem thinks I’m human, remember? I’ve gone to great lengths to keep it that way. Even though that puts me at the bottom of the barrel on the pay scale. It’s still more than I’d make waiting tables. Which I’d be absolutely horrible at, by the way.”
“Yeah, you’re much better at beheading things.”
“Precisely.” She grinned at him. “We all have to make do with the skills we have. Dad trained Alex and me to fight from the day we could walk. He knew that training was our best chance for survival. And he died to ensure that survival. Alex and I are what he made us to be: vicious killers. It’s all we know how to do. It’s probably all that we’ll ever do. But not you. You can be something else. We sent you to school so you could be more.”
So far, the three of them had scraped by all right. Her and Alex’s pay was enough to live on and to pay for Riley’s tuition. Riley was so smart that he could have gotten a scholarship, but they couldn’t risk exposure. All scholarships to magical universities went past the Magic Council. They were always on the lookout for magical talent they could later recruit.
In Riley’s case, they would have found a non-combative mage with a sharp mind and exceptional potion-making skills, just the sort of talent Magic Council members liked to hire into their own private research laboratories. As soon as they dug a bit deeper, though, they’d have found a family history rife with magical secrets. And the one thing the Magic Council would not stand for was a magical secret. They had to know everything. And they had ways of getting to the truth.
“I know. And I do appreciate what you and Alex have done for me,” he said. “By the way, have you heard from her lately?”
Mayhem had sent Alex to Europe on special assignment for some VIP client. She’d been gone for weeks, hunting supernatural baddies. Sera was happy for her—but also sort of jealous. Mayhem had never sent
her
anywhere on special assignment, and she’d never met any VIPs.
“No. I was planning on calling her this weekend,” she told Riley. “I don’t have to work on Sunday, so I’ll probably do it then.”
“I hope she’s all right.”
“Of course she is. She fights even meaner than I do.”
He chuckled. “She says you’re the mean one.”
“Yeah, well, we never could agree on that one.” Sera eyed the paper bag on the coffee table, the one with Kai’s sandwich inside. “But what we could always agree on was the need to keep you safe. And that’s why we need to be very, very careful about the people we associate with. The last time someone found out about Alex and me, Dad died. I don’t want you to be next.”
“Kai is not an assassin.”
No, he’s just a mage-eating dragon. But his sandwich sure looked inviting. “I didn’t say that he is. I only said that he’s dangerous. Which is true. Just look at what happened here tonight. Five minutes after he arrived, vampires attacked us. When was the last time that happened?”
“Sera—”
“Oh, right.
Never
. Because I keep a low profile and don’t invite random strangers into our home.”
“Kai is not a random stranger.”
“Ok, then. What’s his last name?”
Riley stared at her for a moment, then blinked. “It never came up.”
“I’m not trying to get on your case. I’m just reminding you to be careful. I know it’s easy to forget. This is the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place. After awhile, you stop remembering to always look over your shoulder. You forget that the threat is still out there, just waiting for us to screw up.”
“This is no way to live.”
“It’s the
only
way to live. The other way means death.”
Sera grabbed the sandwich bag. It wasn’t like Kai was going to come back for it. And if he did, she’d defend her property. Finders keepers.
“For someone who was pretty pissed off about the pizza just a few minutes ago, you sure are devouring those sandwiches fast,” Riley commented, watching her chow down on Kai’s sandwich.
It was charbroiled beef, which was exactly what she’d have expected from the dragon. “Killing monsters makes me hungry. I’ve killed a lot of monsters today.” She took another bite. “I’m still pissed about the pizza.”
“If I promise to bring back pizza next Friday, will you be nice to Kai?”
She swallowed down the last of the sandwich, then frowned at him. “You haven’t been listening.”
“I have. I just refuse to accept the isolated, paranoid, crazy life you describe for us. How long do you expect us to live like this, hiding from the world?”
“For as long as my and Alex’s ‘abominable’ magic comes with a death sentence for us and anyone around us. Or the Magic Council is toppled. Whichever comes first.”
“The Magic Council has been around for centuries. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” Riley said.
“No, it’s not. Which brings me back to the need for discretion.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Yes, I am. Very.” She grinned. “And you be sure to remember that the next time you decide to change the menu on pizza night.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Mayhem
SAN FRANCISCO WAS one of the world’s biggest supernatural hot spots. And within San Francisco, it was the Presidio where you could find the most magic. Twenty years ago, the United States government had delegated management of the park to the Presidio Magic Trust, an organization made up of people hand-picked by the Magic Council. Today, the Presidio had the densest magical population in the entire city. Mages and fairies and vampires lived in fancy new mansions on secluded plots. The Otherworldly—ghosts, spirits, and phantoms—lingered in the old buildings and batteries, tied down to memories forgotten by all but them. There were company buildings owned by the magical dynasties.
There was also a magic school, the one where Riley studied: the San Francisco University of Magical Arts and Sciences. Its campus sat at the southern end of the Presidio.
And not far from there was Mayhem’s headquarters. A three-story house with beige and white brick walls, a shingled roof, and bay windows—from the outside Sera’s workplace looked more like an upscale villa than a mercenary guild’s office building. Grassy green lawns spread out from the house like velvet carpet, ending at a high metal fence interwoven with thorns and roses. It looked posh and proper, just the sort of thing that made Mayhem’s posh and proper clients feel right at home.
The fences and thorns also happened to be super useful for defending against supernatural swarms. Even the roses had a purpose beyond pure esthetics. Their pollen was a sedative. So even if invading hordes tried to scale the fence, they’d pass out before reaching the top.
Inside the house, the reception area was awash with marble, glass, and pretentious potted plants. In one corner sat Fiona, the receptionist, dressed in silk, cashmere, and pearls; after all, nothing said ‘old money’ like pearls. In the other corner, was a coffee and snack bar stocked with cheesecake, muffins, fresh fruit, and a dozen different sorts of granola. There was also an enormous—and undoubtably expensive—coffee machine with its own operator. His name was Fred, and he was cool.
“Hey, Sera. I heard about the vampires,” Fred said as she passed in front of the bar. “Tough break. Do you think some magical meanie you thwarted sicced them on you?”
Like everyone else at Mayhem, Fred thought she was human. That’s one reason he talked to her—and snuck her tasty snacks that were meant for the clientele.
“Nah, they were probably just smitten with the caterpillar perfume I was wearing.” She took the muffin-shaped napkin bundle he’d handed her with a grin, then tucked it into her jacket.
“Dragon-summoning mages, overgrown caterpillars, warring centaurs, crazy vampires. You just can’t catch a break, can you?”
“It’s not so bad. It’s already—” She peeked at the clock on the wall. “—nine o’clock, and I haven’t gotten into a fight yet today.”
“Don’t speak too soon,” he warned.
“That sounds ominous.”
“Cutler is in today.”
Cutler was one of the most powerful mages on Mayhem’s payroll. Though he was a few years older than Sera, he had the maturity level of the average high schooler. The youngest son of one of the city’s oldest and wealthiest magic dynasties, he didn’t actually need to work. He did it for kicks. Killing monsters amused him. He was cocky and careless, and if you ended up on a job with him as your partner, you knew you were in for a triple helping of hell. If you managed to survive his recklessness, you’d better hope he did too. Because if he didn’t, his family would come for you.