Page 20 of Outlaw Witch

6

I’d say I trust Zephand Roscoe about as far as I can throw them at this point.

And considering telekinesis isn’t one of the strings to my bow, and they’re both pretty bulky dudes, that isn’t too far at all. However, when no one comes knocking on our door after the debacle by the riverside, I decide to trust them at their word that they’ve taken care of things.

A couple of days later, I’m having a crappy morning. It started when I came downstairs from my room in the warehouse, my foot went straight through one of the old wooden stairs. Not only did it hurt like hell, Rook had to come and pull me out. While he was as gentle as he could be, I still wound up bruised and with a swollen ankle. It was also the opposite ankle to the one that’s still sensitive after I sprained it, so I’m now the owner of two dodgy ankles.

Fantastic.

It also shows how rotted and ancient the stairs are. We’re going to need to be careful with them if we don’t want any further injuries or anyone getting stuck on the second level where my bedroom is located along with Luna and Hanna’s.

We don’t have the spare cash to replace the whole staircase, so we’re going to have to settle for a repair job. None of us are all that keen on having to risk our necks every time we come downstairs, though. So we all had to relocate to the main level. While the warehouse is pretty big, that space gets eaten up quickly when there are ten of you and we’ll all have to get used to rubbing shoulders a little more than we’re used to.

After I’d got to the kitchen, I then sat down to breakfast, propping my injured ankle up, glad for the rest. That was when Rook told me about the issues with our neighbors in one of the other warehouses across the lot. We haven’t seen or heard much from them since they moved in a few months back, but apparently there’s word out that they’re involved in a highly dodgy drug smuggling operation.

Which is all we need.

It’s not Purple Haze this time. Instead, it’s a new magic-infused drug called Rapture, which has a lot of people fucked up. Plenty of the recent migrants into The Buried Citadel are there thanks to it.

But if they’re running an operation from here, it’s only a matter of time before they’re caught.

And that’s going to draw attention to us.

All that means I’m stressed as hell when I get a call about a new job. It’s with a guy I’ve never worked with before, but that’s pretty standard. There’s not a lot of longevity in our circles, since people move around a lot. I don’t know where he got my cell number from, but I can’t say that’s all that unusual either.

Since I’m not in any state to turn down jobs, I limp my way over to his office, which is in the backroom beside a restaurant about a twenty-minute walk from the Salvage Yards. The smell of greasy food is thick in the air and I can hear the kitchen workers yelling at each other almost as if there’s no wall separating us.

Which is distracting as hell.

The guy also keeps me waiting for ages, disappearing into another room for a little while, where I can hear him on the phone. He then works his way through some paperwork before deigning to give me his attention.

I roll my eyes at the whole thing.I get it, buddy. You want me to know I’m nothing special.

After about twenty minutes of sitting staring at the various stains on his ceiling, he gets another phone call and then that seems to snap him into business mode. He takes a seat behind his desk and straightens his tie.

“Silver. May I call you Silver?”

That time I actually do roll my eyes. “That’s my name, so I guess it’s better than just calling me ‘you there’.”

He nods and pushes a file across the desktop toward me. “I have a surveillance job for you. Should be fairly straightforward. You’ll be positioned in a building across from the location we’d like you to surveil, and the client wants you to note any comings and goings.”

I take the file and quickly skim through the details, mentally taking notes. The job is for the next three weeks and it’s over on the far side of town, which means I’m going to have to get a bus, especially if they want me to start today with my dodgy ankle.

It all sounds pretty standard stuff. I’ll be given a number to contact, which I should do immediately if there’s any movement. Sounds easy enough.

Then I get to the pay details and just manage to stop myself before I let out a whistle. It’s more than I earned on my last two jobs and should tide us over for a little while longer. It’d give us a little security in case we have to move out of the warehouse in a hurry. Or at least it should give us enough cash to sort out the shitty stairs if we think they’re worth fixing.

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