Wicked Misery (Miss Misery) (3 page)

“Hey, Jess! What do you think about asking Juan for some updated security?” Valerie asked. “With some psycho killer going around murdering women, the fact that someone could break in so easily is really freaky.”

I rested my forehead against the doorframe. Valerie’s fear was almost overpowering. “How did these guys get in?”

“Jimmied open the bathroom window,” Geoff said. “Must have gotten up the fire escape. Cops said it didn’t look too hard.”

“Great. I don’t know, Val. Let me think about it.” I shut the door and threw the mail on the bed. Must not panic. Someone knew I had the blood. How? And did that someone know what I did with the blood?

I punched my pillow. How could this have happened? I was so cautious. Well, okay, when it came to hiding what I did from humans, I was cautious. I’d never counted on it mattering where preds were concerned. Maybe that was stupid, but preds wouldn’t care how I got the blood so long as I made them a fair trade.

Besides, there was no point beating myself up about that. For all I knew, it was a human who’d broken in and stolen Scumbag Pete’s blood. Not that such a thing made this situation any better. It might just make it worse. My head was spinning. I hadn’t a clue.

Heedless to all my more pressing concerns, my stomach growled. I stretched across the bed for the sub and took a bite. The mozzarella had hardened. Mealy meat and sweet sauce stuck to my mouth. Gross.

I tossed the bill on my desk to pay later and tore open the envelope from the Academy with more violence than necessary. It wasn’t the Gryphons’ fault that a pred had cursed me, and logically I couldn’t blame them for booting me because of it, but none of that mattered. My resentment and humiliation ran deep.

But this letter was better entertainment than I could have hoped for. This was hysterical.

Dear Jessica,

We at the Academy are so proud to have you as a former student. Maybe you remember taking a course in your fourth year called “Thinking About the Future”? This is one of our core courses for students as they explore the options that await them when they are either chosen to join the Angelic Order of the Gryphon or leave our grounds to pursue other education or employment.

Translation—when they either get to join the talented few, or flunk out because their gift doesn’t develop.

We are introducing a new segment in this course to better explain what paths students might choose if they do not join the Gryphons, and we want to hear from you. Bridget Nelson recommended you as a former alumni in the area who might be willing to come to class and share your experiences.

I snorted, and Diet Pepsi shot out my nose.

What was Bridget thinking? She was my only friend left from my days at the Academy, which meant she’d known me for sixteen years now. True, I had to hide my deepest secrets from her, but still. Sixteen years was a long time. She really ought to know better.

Come talk to the potential flunkies? Yeah, I’d be a great role model. By day I dressed in a wench’s costume at a diner and asked people whether they’d like soup or salad, and by night I used my cursed—aka improperly developed—gift to run a quasi-illegal side business tracking down scum and trading their souls away. That had to be the career path called Loser.

I crumpled the Academy’s letter and tossed it at the trash can. My face clenched. Damn it, Bridget.

I’d had the most powerful gift of anyone in my class at the Academy. Every year the Gryphons had run my blood, along with everyone else’s, through their magical scanners. And every year my blood had shown massive amounts of dormant power. When I was fourteen, I’d even been invited to a special summer academy the Gryphons ran at their training center in Philadelphia. I was one of only three in my class at the Academy invited. One of only twenty-five in the whole country who got to take part. Naturally, I’d assumed my gift would develop. My dad had been a Gryphon. Magic was, in all manners of speaking, in my blood.

So if my gift didn’t mature at fourteen, it would at fifteen. Then sixteen. Seventeen definitely, because gifts that didn’t develop by age eighteen never did. The Gryphons at the Academy were in such disbelief they even tested my blood the day of my eighteenth birthday.

Then they’d kicked me out. My only consolation was that the Gryphons had simply thought my gift was dying. They never suspected the truth, and therefore had no reason to test my blood for pred magic.

Of course, the truth was that I really didn’t know what the truth was. All I knew was that I’d been cursed, and that I’d never met another person with my abilities. If the Gryphons had heard of such a thing, or if they even knew enough about the magic that they could test for it, they kept those secrets to themselves.

Taking a deep breath, I waited for the wave of resentment to pass. In the kitchen, Geoff and Valerie’s argument simmered to a lemony custard, and I tried to focus on that.

I kicked off my shoes and dug out my leather pants from the mess on the floor. They were getting worn, which was no surprise since I’d bought them as a joke on that disastrous eighteenth birthday. Steph had told me that if I was turning evil, I ought to look like a badass.

That was the same night I’d made my first soul trade. I’d saved one girl and helped Steph get revenge on the assholes who’d beaten her up. And here I was, almost ten years to the date since I’d appointed myself the Soul Swapper of Boston. I wasn’t quitting now. I liked what I did. It made me feel good to put an evil magic to a higher purpose.

So to hell with this asshole who’d stolen my blood sample. It had only been a matter of time before someone found me out, seeing as I hadn’t exactly gone to Batman-like lengths to hide my identity.

I’d go to my appointment tonight well armed. If my thief showed up, I’d be ready.

In the meantime, I had a huge mess to clean up.

Alas, no mysterious blood thief waited for me in the trees by the Hatch Shell amphitheater, but that turned out to be just as well because my charms were seriously weak. Josephine Gomes had a heartbreaking story—a four-year-old daughter with some blood disease for which she couldn’t afford the treatment. Their best hope was getting her accepted into an experimental trial, and so she’d paid the exorbitant price of her soul for a goblin to magically sway an acceptance in her daughter’s favor. Even if Josephine hadn’t offered me one hundred dollars to sort this mess out, I’d have taken the job for free.

Hey, I wasn’t a complete mercenary. I made deals with plenty of people who couldn’t pay, but I had to be utterly convinced they deserved it. If cash was in play, the person only had to deserve their fate less than someone else. And the sad truth was, there was almost always someone who was a bigger jerk than the guy coming to me for help. The world coughed up no shortage of murderers, rapists, kiddie pornographers and other people so vile that my conscience didn’t twitch when I traded their souls away.

Josephine’s anguish was deliciously genuine, and my heart ached for her. Still, thank goodness doing the job for free wasn’t necessary. New charms would easily set me back close to the amount she offered, and then there was a little problem of my twin stepbrothers’ birthdays coming up. I had no clue what twelve-year-old boys liked for gifts, but I suspected whatever it was cost money.

In short, I had a new problem—getting blood to replace what had been stolen.

That was why, despite being exhausted, I was spending my Tuesday night at Kilpatrick’s. So far I’d found nothing more than garden-variety scumminess—probably cheating spouses, shady lawyers and the justified anger of jilted exes. They gave my energy levels a boost, but did nothing for accomplishing my goals. No, I waited on the true asshole, the one whose soul could only be improved upon by a pred’s abuse.

I tapped my fingers against the sticky table. The group huddled around the bar’s television let out a collective groan as the Red Sox’s third baseman struck out.

Across the table from me, Jim swore and stood. “And they signed a new contract with this loser for how much?”

I watched Jim weave his way toward the restrooms, tracing my finger through the condensation dripping down my glass.

“So have you found a soul donor yet?” Steph asked once Jim was out of earshot.

“No, and it’s starting to bug me.” I popped a nacho in my mouth, then filled Steph in on my other news.

Her first question was also mine. “But how would anyone find out about you?”

“No idea, and it’s freaking me out.” That was an understatement. I clenched my hand so hard I crushed the chip I was holding.

Steph started to say something, then changed her mind. “Jim’s back.”

While she and Jim staked out a pool table, I finished my beer and wandered past them to the restrooms. Out of habit, I chose the one on the right.

My first move upon getting to Kilpatrick’s had been to check my box for messages, but none had been waiting. I wasn’t expecting any now, only an hour later, so my jaw dropped when I saw the ceiling tile askew. Idiot, was my first thought. Someone was going to get me caught because they’re an idiot.

Shaking my head, I climbed on the toilet and brought the container down. Yup, someone had left me a message in the past hour.

I know what you are. We need to meet. Find me at the Gryphon Tribute Thursday at midnight.

My heart skipped a beat. I clutched the sink to keep from falling over, then wiped my hand on my pants and stared at the note some more. I know
what
you are?

What. Not who? The who would be frightening enough, but that would almost be a relief. Yeah, someone knew who I was. The burglary suggested as much. But
what
I was? Was this note-writer referring to my cursed gift? Who could know about that?

With shaking hands, I tore off the piece of paper, shoved the notepad in the container and stuck the whole mess back in the ceiling.

The ceiling. Whoever—whatever?—this was didn’t just know what. They knew who. They had to. That was why the ceiling tile was askew. They knew I was here, and they left the tile whacky so I would check the box again.

That left one question—was the person who left the note the same person who broke into my apartment? One threat or two?

Finally, after gods only knew how many minutes of pondering scenarios, my bladder reminded me why I’d gone to the restroom in the first place.

“You fall in?” Jim asked as I shuffled to the pool table.

I threw him a distracted smile, my attention focused on the bar’s other patrons.

Steph moseyed up to me while Jim contemplated his shot. “Got an interesting note?”

“You could say that. Someone claims to know what I am. Hell,
I
don’t know what I am.”

When Steph went to shoot, I wandered to the bar. Maybe if I was alone, my note-writer would approach. If nothing else, I’d be in a better position to assess the emotions of everyone in this place. One by one, I probed the crowd for signs of unusual interest in me, but although that was enlightening in an icky kind of way, I didn’t discover anything suspicious.

Hardly surprising. My note-writer, if he or she were here, might be feeling very satisfied with themselves about now. In that case, I turned my attention to anyone who looked my way a lot, but all that accidental eye contact merely resulted in guys hitting on me.

Confused, donor-less and increasingly nervous, I left the bar around eleven. Jim and Steph dropped me off, and as I watched Jim’s car speed away, I wondered if sleep would be wise.

Chapter Three

Usually, I kept a stock of three to four vials of blood on hand, but lately business had been good. Excellent more like. I blamed it on the bad economy. In the midst of a recession, it seemed more important than ever that you landed that job, that your kid got into the right college or that Mister or Miss Perfectly Rich proposed. Then, once all those poor people got what they Had To Have, it dawned on them what they’d done to get it—traded their souls to a pred. Agreed at some indefinable point in their future to become an addict for the sake of money, ego or the hint of security. It had to suck. If they were lucky, they heard about me next and came crawling with cash or a sob story, hoping to get their souls back.

I was like the auctioneer selling off foreclosures. While the rest of the world went to hell and the poorhouse, I made a killing. That was capitalism for you.

I adjusted the protective charm attached to my anklet, and stared out the window. Like any sensible human, I tried to make as few trips into Shadowtown as necessary. Unfortunately, Monday’s burglary had ruined my plan to swap for two souls at one pass and made me eager to get rid of the lone blood vial I had left. I’d have to return when I had a replacement soul for J.G.

The very air dimmed as the train rolled into the Shadowtown station, and it wasn’t because of the setting sun. The humans on board unconsciously huddled closer, pressed their noses into their books or e-readers or fiddled with their music players. A mother tightened her grip around her infant.

Only a young magus with a crown of black feathers around her head didn’t react. At least not outwardly. Magi and preds hated each other, but if she were silently cursing Shadowtown, I had no way of knowing. I couldn’t sense emotions from any of the magical races, pred or magi. The humans, though, blasted me with their tangy fear as they tried to make themselves invisible and prayed for the train to move again.