Two weeks ago.
“YOU MIGHT WANT TO reconsider lingering around this place.” The voice over the phone crackled with magical interference, the sound mimicking that of a walkie-talkie and not the latest WitchPhone put out on the market. He had an IPhone somewhere from the human world, but he couldn’t be bothered to dig it out of his pocket and switch to that line instead. It had worse service than WitchPhones in some spots. “I swear, these elite witches could flay you from head to toe without laying a perfectly manicured nail on you.”
“I’m guessing you’re talking about that new witch you picked up at the bar?” He squinted at a doberman passing by, held on a swarovski crystal studded leash wrapped around the wrist of a high and mighty Warlock. “I’d drop those elite witches for the commoners. They’re nothing but trouble.”
“Maybe I like their brand of trouble.”
“Yeah, yeah. You always say that, then you end up with cold feet and dump them, and earn every minute of vengeance they wreak on you.”
“... I didn’t ask you!” A huff. “But anyways, Celesto, remind me what you’re doing in the magic realm again? I thought you swore off magic after the whole mommy-being-a-faery shebang.”
Celesto rolled his eyes and stepped inside a cafe. The name had been a blur, but the smell of pastries and coffee was more than making up for its shabby appearance. It wasn’t a Starbucks, but it would suffice as a magic world equivalent. “You know as well as I do that magic folk will pay thousands more than any human ever will for me to lop someone’s head off.”
He flashed a smile at the cashier, who was staring at him with wide eyes as she punched in his order with one finger. He mentally noted the satyr horns curling around her forehead and the shape of her face and bone structure, holding out his credit card and switching his phone to the other ear.
“You know, sometimes I forget you’re a murderer. It slips my mind whenever I kick your ass at COD.”
“What? Are you worried I’ll gut you in your sleep, Flynn?”
“A little bit. Uh, actually, a lot.”
The cashier handed him his receipt and card back with shaky fingers. He tucked it back into the breast pocket of his leather duster and drummed his fingers on the countertop.
“You shouldn’t be. I’d never kill you while you were sleeping. I’d rather have you awake so I can watch you panic as you bleed out.”
“Why does that sound worse than being murdered in my sleep?”
Celesto accepted his coffee, pleasantly surprised by the speed in which he got it, and then noticed the cashier nervously shifting around on her hooves behind the counter. He smiled at her and then moved off to a booth in the back, secluded and hidden by hanging ferns topped with magical snow.
“Because it is.” He sipped his coffee and grimaced at the texture of grounds against his tongue. He’d gotten the bottom of the pot...again. “So, what do you want? I doubt this is a social call.”
“Oh, right!” Flynn shuffled papers around somewhere, likely either at his over-clustered coffee table or equally messy desk. Celesto stirred his drink with his straw while he waited. “So, I have this shipment coming in from Thailand. Military grade sniper rifles from America, smuggled in on a Russian cargo ship. I got a nice price for them if you want to check them out later today.”
Celesto raised an eyebrow at the mention of guns. “I wonder sometimes if you’re a mind reader. I lost my last rifle to some enraged lava giant in Hawaii last month. I could use a new one.”
“Do I… want to know how you even got involved with a lava giant in the first place? In Hawaii? Actually, no, I don’t--I’m just the middleman. Anyway, pop in around lunch and I’ll let you have your pick of the crop.”
“... How sweet.” Celesto deadpanned. He raked a hand through his hair and squinted at the glitter that came away. He was always perpetually covered in glitter--or Fae dust, as his mother said--since he had awakened his Fae lineage. He dusted it off on a napkin, with what little good it did. “I’ll catch up with you then… and Flynn, don’t drink all of the absinthe before I get there this time.”
“Roger!”
Before he could even set his phone down after the dial tone, he had a text come up--but not one from any of his personal contacts. That phone was tucked away in his duffel bag and turned off, which only meant that this was someone contacting him about a job offer or the police leads in the human world. He’d really only welcome one of the two at this point.
‘X: I have a job offer for you, if you’re willing to take it. First come, first serve.’
Intrigued, he set his drink down and typed a reply.
‘Sure. Consider your bait taken.’
‘X: Excellent. I need you to kill someone for me. 120k up front, 250k afterwards. Proof required.’
‘It’s a nice offer. What’s the catch?’
‘X: I’m afraid that’s confidential. Meet me at the beach where the mermaids roam, 3:00, next week. We can talk there.’
‘Link attached.’
Celesto rubbed his chin and leaned back in his chair. On one hand, three-hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a drop in the bucket as far as his prices went. However, in the magic world, people rarely knew or cared how much certain lives cost for him and offered up their own prices. And he never said no; but sometimes, he had to up the prices a bit.
“Interesting.” He clicked on the link and watched as his screen opened up to Witch Maps, taking him directly to a beach with an address and time. He bookmarked it for later and stood up from the booth, tucking it into his pocket. He had to get going if he wanted to meet with Flynn on time. “Wonder who the target is?”
XXX
“OKAY, SO, THIS IS NOT your usual brand.” Flynn’s hair was wild when he opened the door. Celesto raised an eyebrow at the dark pink strands sticking up around his friend’s head like a halo, roughened by either his girlfriend’s fingers or his own. With Flynn, either one was highly likely. “I know, I know, but bear with me, it’s nearly identical to your other one. It just has, uh, a couple of things that make it compatible with magic that you might or might not need.”
He stepped into the apartment with a roll of his eyes. Flynn rapidly put in the security code behind him, his completion awarded with a fast paced beep of the system he had installed not even a month before. “So, what you’re saying is that these shipments were meant for magic users and not the military. Nice.”
“Hey, I didn’t know that when I bought them!”
“Sure you didn’t.” Kicking an empty beer bottle out of his way, Celesto took a seat on one of the barstools by the kitchen island. Even more empty cans of beer, coke, and boba tea littered the countertop, so he pushed them aside with his arm and ignored Flynn’s groan of exasperation when some of the half-full cans spilled onto the floor. “Where’s your witch toy?”
“Gone for the day.” The arms dealer tiptoed around the fallen drinks to retrieve a towel from a drawer and tossed it over the mess. He used his foot to wipe it up, scooping the cans into a trash bag he had pulled out from the pantry. “Something about meeting up with one of those Bone witches.”
“Bone witches are nasty.” Celesto watched Flynn flounder for a grip on the cans before he spilled them. “Is it true they can break your bones without a thought?”
Blue eyes darted up to regard him with disbelief. “Hell yeah they can, and more. But you should probably be more concerned with the Ashfields, the Bones are tree huggers like the Cox family.”
Celesto sighed. He had never been one to keep up with the drama and lives of the witch elite. Not even the High Warlocks could keep his interest anymore. Magic just wasn’t for him, even though he had some seriously royal blood in his veins that attested otherwise. “And the Ashfields can do… what? Turn people to ash?”
“Yeah, but they can make you spontaneously combust just by looking at you.” Flynn looked up and smirked. “Literally and figuratively.”
“Not what I asked.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, dude.” The last of the cans were tossed into the bag and Flynn tied it off and tossed it into the trash can. He then retrieved a fresh bottle of beer and offered it to Celesto, who took it with a small frown. “I sure as hell wouldn’t go targeting any of those families no matter what anyone pays you. I’d leave that to the demon assassins walking around town lately. You know anything about that?”
“No. Why would I?”
Flynn gave him a look that read ‘you know why you should know’. “Just asking since that’s all your part of the show. Either way though, everyone’s in a tizzy because there’s an ascension ball coming up for some witch girl. High powers will be here that night and I don’t think you want to get caught up in that shit.”
“Thanks for the warning.” He needed to hit up the library once or twice while he was here. The words his friend was throwing around weren’t familiar to him at all. “Any idea who?”
“Oh… a lot of people. The High Queen of the Elves; the Emperor and Empress of the Chimerae people; the President of the Dwarven Colonies of Molten Rock… I could go on, but you get the gist, right? They’re all taking a pretty big interest in this whole ascension deal. Hasn’t been one for a while.”
“Of course they are.” The new voice had Celesto reaching for the knife tucked in the back of his pants. “Oh, chill out, pretty murder boy. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
“Medea!” Flynn cooed, wrapping the woman up in his arms. “How was your meeting? Did it go well?”
“I guess--but enough about me.” Medea--who Celesto now recognized as Flynn’s paramour--leaned on the now clean countertop and propped her chin in her hand. “So this is Celesto, huh? He’s pretty. Has those Fae looks.”
“Don’t go hittin’ on my bro now,” Flynn joked.
Medea was not Flynn’s usual type, so Celesto supposed that was a good thing. Where his usual “type” were girls who dressed in loose clothing and baggy hoodies, Medea was the epitome of prim, proper, and elegant, with a severely angled bob that enhanced her otherwise soft features. Hers was a face that Celesto would recall seeing once on a bounty roster.
“And you’re on the books.” Celesto relished in the way her face dropped and the flush in her cheeks drained away. He sipped his beer. “Should I take the bounty and see what you’ve been up to? Fifty grand would be a nice add-on to my bank account.”
“You’re right,” Medea told Flynn, moving from the counter to fish a drink of her own out of the fridge. “He is a jerk. A pretty one, but still a jerk. Why are you friends with him?”
“Because he’ll gut me in my sleep if I reject his plea of friendship?” His friend offered lamely, voice breaking with the high pitch. “Ugh. Anyway, the guns are in the vault if you want to go take a look at them. Just wire the money to me later.”
Celesto took that chance and sauntered off down the hall of the nice apartment, but not before hearing Medea whisper-yell,”Are you serious?! He gets to go in the vault but I can’t?”
He almost laughed at Flynn’s startled reply of,”Well, he’s an assassin! You’re not! He could kill me in my sleep at any time.”
“I could kill you in your sleep if you give me enough time.”
“Point taken.”
Celesto snickered and unlocked the vault with a push of his finger to the scanning pad. He had been the one to install it to begin with, Flynn too suspicious of the delivery guys, so he had pre-coded his DNA into it before his friend could even get his hands on it. He was, after all, his arms dealer, so he needed all of his merchandise intact.
He pushed open the metal door and locked it behind him, eyes taking in all of the lethal goodies littered around the room like a trail of matchsticks just waiting to be lit.
“Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
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