Page 53 of Howling
Static fills the car as I glare at him, but the stubborn asshole is unrepentant.
“Frankie? Thank the goddess. I’ve been trying to reach you for the last hour. Shit is hitting the fan,” a squeaky male voice says, the sound of furious typing filling the background. “You asked me to keep an eye out for anything unusual. Well, I found something—two things, actually.”
The excited voice pauses to take a deep breath, speaking so fast that the words are almost indistinguishable. I would say that he’s had too much caffeine, but excitable is his default setting. The gurgling sound of a straw sucking a cup dry fills the line, then a deep breath and a heavy sigh. When his voice comes back through the phone, it’s much calmer. “What do you want to hear first? Bad news or worst news?”
I hesitate a moment, glancing around at my audience. Their implacable expressions say that even if I manage to wrestle my phone away, they’re not going to let this go. It seems fate isworking against me, and I barely resist the urge to bash my head repeatedly against the steering wheel.
“Dealer’s choice,” I mutter, flopping back against my seat as I accept the inevitable.
“Okey dokey, then,” Connor mutters under his breath, dragging the words out, clearly disappointed at my lack of enthusiasm. “It looks like a whole coven has disappeared in Scottsville. They left their friends and families behind, and no one knows where they went. The authorities refuse to mark them as missing persons, because thirteen people just don’t go missing at one time, right?
“The witch’s council sent a few warlocks to investigate, but it’s a small coven of witches.” He snorts, barely pausing at the stream of information, and I’m surprised he’s even taken a breath between stating facts. “So as you can imagine, it’s not a top priority.”
“Scottsville…” I close my eyes and bring up a mental map of the region. I’m unsurprised to find that I’m only a few hours away. “I’m close to the area. Tell me the details of the job.”
“The families are only offering a small reward, but everything checks out.” More typing comes across the line. “I can’t find anything hinky, but my spidey senses are tingling. Something is off.”
“A trap?” Tension bleeds into my muscles, and I straighten, glancing back at the phone, as if I can read the answers on the screen.
Silence fills the vehicle for a few seconds, then his voice comes across low and concerned. “I don’t know.”
Connor hates it when he fails to supply me with a full dossier. He is a master at computers and digging up information. That he can’t find anything isn’t good.
I hate going into a job blind. While I could ignore the listing, leaving the coven to their fate, my intuition refuses tobe quieted. Something about the job is pulling me toward it. It’s the same with all my assignments. Maybe Connor is tracking me somehow, finding me work in my vicinity, but I dump my phone and vehicles frequently, switching every few states.
My natural ability to repel magic should protect me, but that doesn’t mean all my possessions don’t need to be checked regularly for tracking spells.
“Which leads me to the worst news…” Connor trails off, and I can practically picture him hunched over his keyboard, squinting at the monitor, as if he can demand answers by will alone. Knowing his talents, maybe he can. He’s not a strong witch, his magic barely a blip, which leads others to overlook him as inferior. They labeled him as undesirable, which is bullshit if you ask me.
Witches are the pinnacle of stuck up society, judging each other on their abilities instead of being decent people. It has left Connor on the fringes, forcing him to make his own way in the world.
It’s actually how we became partners. He’s the first person I rescued—twice, actually—and how I ended up in the reward business. I accidentally saved his life when his coven sold him. He was barely a witch anyway, so it didn’t matter, right?
A warlock decided he could just take what he wanted—his magic, his body, his life.
He paid for it, after all.
Suffice it to say, the bastard is no longer living.
Connor stole any money he could from the bastard, then he disappeared. As far as his coven is aware, he died in a fiery wreck with the douchebag.
Thus, our friendship was born.
Almost a week later, he hacked my phone and contacted me, asking if I was interested in helping others. His story was not anisolated incident. Witch or shifter—it didn’t matter. People were assholes everywhere.
He offered me a partnership.
He would research the legit jobs, send me the information, and I would do the actual rescuing. As word of mouth spread, more and more requests flooded the dark web. I won’t say that I trust him with my life, my secrets are just too dangerous, but I trust him more than anyone else I’ve met in this new world…which means if he found something concerning, I’m not going to like it. “Just tell me what has you worried.”
“I wrote a program that scrubs the web regarding any mention of you. Any pictures or whispers of your name are removed almost instantly. Unfortunately, someone noticed. they keep placing a post on one of the boards I frequent, demanding a meeting or they will expose you.”
Frustration thickens his voice, and I reach back for the phone, already shaking my head. “Hey, I’m not upset. I expected it a lot sooner. This isn’t your fault. My job is dangerous. Obviously, people are going to notice. You kept me hidden for months. That’s more than what I expected. Just do two things for me?”
“Anything,” he assures me, his voice hardening with promise. No doubt his fingers are resting on his keyboard, waiting for my command.
“I want you to send me the information, then I want you to lie low for a while. Don’t touch my name or look for any jobs.”
“But—”
