Page 1 of Handcuffs and Hexes

Chapter 1

Hazel

Istaredintotheswirling vortex of the giant magical sinkhole and rubbed my temples. “Of course they’d send us."

“Of course,” Mike agreed. “They always send us. At least this time it’s not in the middle of the night.”

He was right. As part of a special unit created to deal with monsters and magic, Mike and I got sent out to any calls that sounded even remotely magical in nature. Here in the town ofDarlington, a monster and shifter town that had opened itself to the rest of the world after the fall of The Wall, our job kept us on our toes.

Whatever the fuckthisthing was, it fit the bill.

I eyed the spot that just hours ago had been a busy midtown intersection. It was now an Olympic pool-sized hole leading to the abyss, except instead of rock bottom, all I could see were endless swirling nebulas. The initial hole had opened up in the blink of an eye, swallowing any pedestrian or vehicle that had the misfortune of being in it. But it didn’t stop there; thethinghad been growing ever since.

To make matters even worse, Mike and I’d had to stop some crazy idiot from jumping in when we were setting up the perimeter. The guy had looked normal enough: dressed business casual, clean-cut, well-groomed, fully human from what I could tell. But the words coming out of his mouth were crazy talk.

He kept saying that it was his calling to get to “the other side,” that he’d waited his whole life for this, and that he’d stop at nothing to fulfill his destiny. He’d put up a fight too, and the only reason we managed to stop him from flinging himself off the edge was the new, magical binding spell that had recently been added to every Darlington officer’s arsenal.

“What do you think we’re looking at?” I asked.

“Portal to another dimension? The guy seems to think there’s another side. Who the fuck knows?”

The sound of a car behind me had me turning, but I relaxed when I saw Eugene and Tommy’s cruiser. Officers Eugene Koo and Tommy Newman were another duo often sent out to deal with magical crimes and mishaps. With Darlington growing the way it had been in the last few years and the police now working with the (Not So Secret) Enforcement Agency, there was now a whole special unit of us. But Mike, Eugene, Tommy, and I were the OGs.

The thing was, there’d always been plenty of magic-related crimes and calls in the town, but before the fall of The Wall, many of them were hidden. The Wall had hidden monsters and magic from everyone, even each other.

The magical hole, portal, rift, breach, or whatever in front of me was as magical as they came. At first, they thought it was a simple sinkhole and had sent someone else, but they took one look at the gaping maw and noped out of there faster than you could say boo.

“Guy’s still acting like a lunatic. They’re keeping him under surveillance.” Officer Eugene Koo meant the guy we stopped from throwing himself into the void. The two had taken him in while Mike and I held down the fort. “Any new developments?”

When we arrived on the scene, the hole grew a little every five or ten minutes or so. It wasn’t much, just a sliver here and there, growing a foot or two now and again, but it was enough to force us to move our line of yellow and black tape a little farther back several times. But the last twenty minutes or so they’d been gone had been uneventful.

“Nothing since you two left,” I said.

“Maybe The Breach has finally settled,” Eugene suggested.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Mike walked to the edge and peered over. “It does kind of look like a portal to some other dimension. A breach in the fabric of reality.” He shuddered and stepped back.

“That’s what Chief’s calling it,” Tommy said.

“That’s good enough for me.” I eyed The Breach. “I’m just glad nothing’s coming out of it.”

“Yet. Nothing’s coming out of ityet.”

“If that really is a portal of some kind, a rift between worlds, and some megalomaniac warlord from another dimension plans on marching an army through it, wouldn’t they have done so by now? And they’d have to march straight up to get out of that hole.”

“Maybe they can fly?”

Oh, hell no!I narrowed my eyes at Eugene.

“Well, I’m just glad it isn’t growing anymore.”

Then, as if to mock me, a loud cracking sound had me stumbling back away from the crumbling edge, even as the ground shook. A crack appeared in the concrete directly in front of me. Shit! This thing was making up for lost time and taking a big chunk now.

As the far piece crumbled and was swallowed by the hungry hole, taking along several traffic cones we’d used to mark where we’dwrongfully thought the next break would be, we scrambled out of its way. Or at least, I tried to. The ground was slanted, and I struggled not to fall over. I windmilled my arms as I fought to get to safety, and it felt as if the ground was opening up to swallow me, and specifically me, whole.

I was suddenly pulled back from the edge by strong arms. Phew! That was close.

I turned to say thank you to Mike, only to see that it wasn’t him who’d caught me. Piercing blue-gray eyes met mine.

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