To catch a witch assassi.., p.3
To Catch a Witch Assassin, page 3
“I thought you were leaving,” she said sullenly, “and I’m trying to see how we’ll make ends meet with you jumping ship. We were barely making ends meet as is.”
Still weak on his feet, Kit leaned against the kitchen entrance’s frame for support and closed his eyes. Here we go again. They were already falling back into old patterns. “There’s never enough money for you. We could be swimming in it and you’d still say we need more. Samar said the numbers were looking up last month, last he checked.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Visha slapped her palms on the table and stood up, her dark eyes bright. “Oh, so you know the state of the coven, do you? Last week we lost an entire shipment of illusion bombs. I budgeted them in, some investments didn’t pan out, and now we’ll be lucky to make tithe this month. We’ll be kicked out of the camp. Just more humiliation for this coven after years of taking shit and scrounging to make up for what was stolen from us. Not that you care. My father died for you and now you’re skipping town like what we had was nothing.”
Kit flinched as an old wave of pain washed over him. She was right; the Jumpers had taken him in after he’d fallen out with his siblings. Back then, the Jumpers had lived in the city as a mid-sized, relatively successful coven. He’d fallen in love with Visha thoroughly, and had enjoyed a good relationship with her father, Raja. He’d been fascinated with the pair’s biological relationship — it wasn’t often that a witch’s child was also a witch. They’d seemed so close, so harmonious compared to his tumultuous relationship within the witch orphanage he’d grown up in. Their love didn’t stop as soon as one turned a certain age. Raja had never abandoned Visha.
He hadn’t abandoned Kit either, not when the Redbacks had attacked. The old witch had fought back to back with Kit for several days. Their hideout had been under siege for a week.
But then the tough old man had taken a curse straight to the chest which had been meant for Kit.
“You know I never stop thinking about your father,” he rasped, unable to keep his voice steady. “I fought for years to avenge him. Now there isn’t a single Redback left alive for what they did to him.”
Visha’s beautiful face softened. “You did what you thought was best, Kit. But now it’s time for us to fill in the hole left by the Redbacks in the city. There’s room for us to return now. We are so close.”
“I thought we were close to not making tithe? It’s even more expensive in the city,” he said, frowning, his guard going up at the open hope on her face. This was why he’d been avoiding her the last week. She had a way of slicing open his old wounds with her poisonous whispers, encouraging him to crawl through a path of glass and stone for a cure that never existed.
Kit wanted to let his scars fester at this point. Go nomad. Perhaps in a few years he could reach out to his adopted brothers and sisters from the orphanage, see if they’d talk to him after years of silence.
“I made a deal before you returned from your last trip. It has enough money in it to either make or break us, Kit. We need you to pull it off.” The curly-headed witch walked to him and held his hands with her smaller ones.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up when he saw the excitement on Visha’s face. She wasn’t the type of woman to be impressed with a small amount of cash. It had to be a fearsome amount of money, the kind a nun would burn her church down to get her hands on. “Vish,” he said slowly, “who did you make the deal with? Which group?”
She smiled brilliantly at him before pointing at the kitchen window which showcased a beautiful view of Skadra. An undeniable answer to his question. The Weavers. It sent a thrill through his magic-less, weak body. If the Weavers made a deal, it wasn’t for loose change. No matter Visha’s budgeting, there would be no paying them out of a deal like she thought they could.
The Weavers wouldn’t let their puny coven walk away from an already agreed upon deal. No, the powerful coven that ran Skadra through blood would raze their camp, destroy all life. It’d only take a fleet of about three of their blooded members. They were that powerful.
Kit knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was no match for a single Weaver, and he far outmatched any other Jumper in terms of combat ability.
“Who do I have to kill?” Because he knew the price had to be blood, and the Jumpers were his family. So was Visha, in a fucked-up way. He couldn’t let her die, no matter her manipulations and poisonous nature.
Visha’s smile dimmed but didn’t disappear when she saw his expression. “I’m not sure. It didn’t sound terribly difficult. Some magic-less person who pissed the Weavers off, is what I gathered. Kit, this is really for the best. If we do the job, then we could purchase an entire shipping container of raw potion ingredients from that witch doctor in Tunsa. Rare stuff. I tripled our revenue this year when they gave us a taste of it last year. Imagine what I can do with more of it. ”
A timer went off with a ding. The potion on the stove then made a low, guttural hissing sound. Kissing his cheek, she released his hands and raced over to sprinkle thorns of rotten cactus over the golden broth. The scent changed to a fragrant vanilla, more like cupcakes rather than the poison it was.
Dazed, Kit sat down at the kitchen table filled with Visha’s plans. He put his head in his hands, which cooled his burning forehead from being magic-less. God, but he was tired of killing and that was for the folks who’d deserved it.
He desperately hoped his next target deserved what was coming next.
three
Gentry
Gentry gasped aloud when she saw the absurd number of zeros displayed on her laptop. When she’d put up the ad on the dark web promising to leak her location, she’d expected the various covens to bid a good amount of money — after all, her location equaled Drayer Netherton’s death, and the covens despised the Nethertons for their sway in Skadra.
The money really only had to cover the tickets to the exclusive, high-security cruise her mother and sister had ‘won’ in a sweepstakes Gentry had set up for their protection.
But this fat stack of cash? She could get a butler. Or a maid. Provided her rather ambitious plan didn’t backfire. Which it could. It really, really could.
“What’re you looking at?” Mykel asked from her school desk with her feet kicked up. Rather than studying the anatomy textbooks for the biology degree she was half-heartedly pursuing, she was reading a comic book with a well-endowed superhero on the front. Funny, now that the druggie had proven trustworthy, Gentry almost considered the shaggy-haired girl a friend. A friend who took a lot of drugs and giggled at comics at three in the morning.
It made Gentry regret not befriending her earlier. How many years had she wasted by brooding and never talking to anyone?
A friend she’d lose soon. Mykel never talked about the outside world, and had refused all invitations to join in the escape. But that hadn’t stopped her from helping with whatever tasks asked of her. Gentry knew she’d never be that selfless for another human being.
Gentry stood up from her bed, her back aching from hours of prepping material, and handed the laptop over.
Mykel’s green eyes bugged as she read over the offer. “Seriously?”
“It’s only half of it. The other half is when I send our location.” Her hands clammed up as she spoke.
“You’re insane. Like actually insane. You do realize that they will send a skilled witch to kill you, right?”
“Besides the whole dying part — that’s the plan. We need someone strong enough to bust me out of here. You’ve seen the plan. It has to work.” She bolstered all the confidence she could in that sentence, hoping somehow to convince both herself and Mykel.
It didn’t work. The brunette crossed her arms and gave her a knowing, sad look. “You know, you might be both the smartest and dumbest person I know. You’re magic-less. We both are. No matter how many plans you have in that big brain of yours, there’s a limit to what you can do”—Mykel held a hand up as Gentry opened her mouth—“I know you need to do this. I can feel how crazy this place has made you and understand why you need to leave. I’ll help you. Shoot, your plan might even work. But you need to be prepared for what will happen if it doesn’t work.”
Mykel then returned the laptop and looked back down at her textbook as if she hadn’t just broken Gentry’s brain. Numbly, Gentry sat back down, the screen with the ridiculous cryptocurrency offer swimming in front of her vision. She jumped when the air conditioner kicked in and broke the silence. Mykel was right. She could get them both killed if even one element failed.
Her luck with witches and magic sucked at best. Was her life here really so horrible?
Memories of the ‘before time’, the time before she’d chosen to live as a conwoman with her father came rushing back. Movie nights. Her little sister, Beck, giggling at bedtime stories Gentry made up. Going to school and singing in the musicals. Bathing in the sunshine during summertime for as long as she wanted, not just the allotted yard time if the Curse Ward’s scientists felt like she was close to breaking from all the preventive medicine and magic they shoved down her throat.
Then there was the fact that it’d been too long since she’d kissed a man, or touched one. She’d only been eighteen when she’d been locked up, but seducing men had never been an issue for her. But still, she’d only ever had flings — her transient lifestyle as a con artist not allowing a long-term boyfriend. Now that she’d sworn to never run a con again, Gentry wanted to see what all the fuss about cuddling was about.
How pathetic. A twenty-three-year-old woman dreaming of being held.
Yes, she needed to get the hell out of this place and break this fucking curse. For as long as she was tied to Drayer Netherton, she’d be on borrowed time. Maybe, just maybe if she freed herself and disappeared, she could have a life.
Her fingers trembled on the trackpad from nerves. Regardless, Gentry moved the information packet — containing their location and all the prep work she’d put in — into the dropbox. She hovered the cursor on the send button and hesitated.
There’d be no going back after this. Whoever paid her a fortune would be sending an assassin to kill her. Maybe even multiple. But she had a plan.
Bring it on, you asshole witches, she thought. Then she hit send.
four
Kit
Excerpt from Gentry’s research notes:
4th notebook — page 230
Coven 73 — The Redbacks (eliminated from suspect pool)
It is unlikely the Redbacks were the coven who cursed me. While I’ve been monitoring them for their many suspicious dealings — kidnappings, dark potion foundry, and ties to chimera experiments — they do not show signs of accumulated wealth to the point where the Nethertons would be their benefactors. I’vee also seen no history of contact with the Nethertons as I have with twenty other more promising covens.
An interesting note — the Redbacks seem to have pissed off a rather powerful witch or witches. Their number has dwindled with mysterious deaths, to the point where the online forums whisper that other covens have cut off trade.
It seems as though the Redbacks aren’t long for this world.
I doubt reports that a single witch is responsible for their demise. Sounds like made-up bullshit to me.
Conclusion — crossing the Redbacks off the list.
Kit thought he’d never set foot in the Redback headquarters again. After all, he’d killed their leaders, freed their less than willing initiates, and all the other members had scattered to whichever covens were willing to take them in. The Redback coven was as good as gone, their assets liquidated by those fleeing members to cover Skadra’s pricey taxes.
That was, except for their damn headquarters.
At the edge of Skadra’s industrial potion factories, the Redback headquarters was a three-story, red and tan block industrial building. Kit knew the place from its crumbly, shitty foundation to its rooftop. He’d spent a month surveying it, learning everything about the coven who’d stolen so much from him and the Jumpers. Even for Skadra, the coven had been low. Concocting illnesses for babies so mothers would pay for the cure, kidnapping high-profile magic-less humans for ransoms, and worst of all, killing homeless witches for their body parts.
Kit’s kill list grew the day he saw an entire family never return from the headquarters, their youngest being an infant cuddled in its starving mother’s arms.
Why do the Weavers want to meet here? Kit thought, scowling as he walked towards the front entrance with a stomach full of lead. He didn’t bother to try to sneak in, to hide his presence. He was good, but he wasn’t Weaver good. Besides, he couldn’t murder for them if he was dead.
It was an assumption he’d have to rely upon because Visha had set the meeting the following afternoon after she’d dropped her bullshit on him; he wasn’t even twenty-four hours into his vent. After a good night’s sleep, the thirty-minute broom ride from the Jumper camp to the Redback headquarters hadn’t pushed his limits, but he still needed another full day to recover completely.
Painfully aware of his limits, Kit entered the front reception area, which was bare of chairs, computers, or anything of value; the lights were on, and it smelled like coffee. A teenager, probably only about three years Kit’s junior, stood at a coffee maker as it chugged in the kitchenette, her arms crossed as if she were cold.
“She’ll see you in Conference Room A,” she said, meeting Kit’s eyes with a proud tilt to her chin which startled him. A pretty, short girl of Asian descent, one of her upturned eyes was swollen shut from a black eye. Flecks of blood decorated the collar of her blue button-up shirt.
Summertime. The Weavers are taking in initiates. Kit’s brain filled in the blanks as he murmured his thanks and walked to the conference room. Witch coven recruitment tended towards the brutal. Even the Jumpers put young, desperate witches through their paces because they couldn’t afford any dead weight.
He paused at the conference room door, trying to peek through the glass to figure out just who waited for him inside that room. No luck. The window reflected an unnatural gray mist. A privacy spell. Heart racing with nerves, Kit bit the bullet and opened the door.
A tall, pale woman lounged at the conference table, her long legs kicked up on the long mahogany table. She tinkered with a detached braid of blonde hair which contrasted against her own long black oily locks. The spider tattoo on her neck, a black mass with a red seeing eye on its abdomen, made her identity undeniable. Every Weaver chose where they received their mark, and only one witch had chosen for a spider leg to stretch up to the base of her throat to her chin. It gave her a fragmented, fierce appearance. He knew who she was, even if this was the first time he was seeing her up close.
“Clea,” Kit greeted, his throat tight. Clea the Debt Collector. He should’ve known from Visha’s deal that the one witch in charge of tracking down those delinquent on their debts would be the one who wanted his services. It destroyed his hope that Luke, the level-headed Weaver in charge of taxes for Skadra, would be the one. What terrible, terrible luck. Everyone in Skadra knew the mad witch was unpredictable in everything except her cruelty.
“Shush,” Clea said as she kept tinkering with the braid, “almost done.”
Kit waited by the door, his muscles tense. The Weaver sat in the one available chair in the conference room, the lack of seating likely on purpose. He watched the madwoman mutter to the braid, and flexed his palms. Even from that distance, he could feel the magic of a finding spell, violent and reckless, hitting his palms. His body protested as it sunk into his skin because he still hadn’t recovered from magical poisoning yet. Just his luck.
The female Weaver set the braid down with a sigh after another two minutes. “Finding people is such a pain in the ass,” she griped, “this little bitch agrees to pay four grand for the most potent love trap I’ve ever seen, and she disappears right when she figures out the guy blows his load too fast. I have her hair! People just don’t think, do they?”
“Uh,” Kit said, “no they don’t.”
Clea at last looked at him, her dark eyes glittering underneath the office lights. “Huh,” she said, “you’re not exactly what I was picturing. The streets were buzzing about you. Young guy from a shitty coven who erases the Redbacks from the earth. I expected you not to look so”—she wrinkled her nose—“rural.”
He looked down at his muddied cowboy boots. “They were disappointed too, I suppose.” He hadn’t thought about how odd it must’ve been for Marcus and the others. To be wiped out by a hilltuck like him.
“Heard you found a way to confront each one, one on one. Impressive. A fast draw when it comes to dueling. More of a gunslinger than the assassin they call you, in my opinion. A straightforward kinda fella. Which is why you’re here today.” Clea grinned as she pulled out a small wooden box from her jacket. She flipped it open and dumped the blonde braid back in there, before pulling out another. A blue-black braid which curled at the end.
Kit’s stomach dropped. Visha’s hair. The crazy witch had Visha’s hair.
“Your girlfriend’s,” the woman confirmed slyly, “power hungry, that girl of yours is. She’s written some checks she can’t pay off herself, it seems. Says that you’ll do me a solid to right things. Rather selfish of her, isn’t it? Using you again to make that pathetic coven of hers shine? Tell you what, Kit, I’ll do you a favor. Free of charge. I can pay her a little visit.” She twirled the braid between her fingers. “This makes that easy enough.”
A knock on the door stopped Kit from dropping to his knees and begging Clea to do anything but that. The girl from the kitchenette entered with a steaming cup of coffee. Clea pointed at the desk and her initiate placed the cup down. To Kit’s surprise, the girl then retreated to the door. She crossed her arms and waited expectantly.
