~*~

“What?” barked a young woman behind a wooden door basked in eerie yellow and orange.

Sayre cocked his head to the side with an amused and vicious smirk. “Delivery.”

It was a month later, and Sayre had delivered two other bodies to the witches. After Roger Carroway, there was Nia Brommel, who he dropped on the giant slice of tree counter and made the cat screech and break a jar of livers of various sizes; then there was Kieren Kane, who Sayre had the better notion of leaving on the stoop next to the dead bird the cat had also brought. He had found it amusing, the witch before him did not. The body currently in his arms, weighing him down was Sullivan White—a bulbous, rotund man, with black hair, glorious side-burns, and an overall stench of tobacco and haughty pride.

Killing him might have been something he was being paid to do, but after five minutes of speaking with the man to lure him somewhere quiet, Sayre would have paid for the privilege of killing him. 

Sayre shifted him on his shoulder, but even his enhanced strength was starting to wane. He didn’t let it show.

“I see you’ve learned better than to leave him next to Thistle’s offerings,” the young woman sneered. A cat in the alley meowed.

“I missed your vicious glare, Hazel.” he said flatly. “Warms me to the depths of my cold, dead heart.”

She groaned in disgust as footfalls moved behind her and down the hall. “If only it kept you away.”

“That’s not your call,” he stabbed back.

Hazel opened to say more, but “Let him in, Hazel,” came behind the door, then the familiar face of the Witch. Unlike Hazel, her hair was darker. Her face was carved with sharper curves. But, there was no mistake, magic wasn’t the only thing they shared. It was also their noses, and the squint of their eyes that wrinkled the same way across their brows.

Sisters, if he had ever seen them.

The Witch dropped hands on her hips as Hazel stepped away, and Sayre hurled the body through their side-door, then down the staircase to the macabre operation. The two witches followed him, though Hazel shot a worried glance down the street before she locked the door, and warded it.

Sayre hauled the body to the basement operating table with a grunt. Then he tucked his hat beneath an arm to wipe his hands with a kerchief he pulled out of a pocket. The air had warmed since the last he had seen her, and his red scarf lined his chest, instead of wrapping around his neck. His coat was open, showing his favored dark gray suit.

His sapphire eyes followed the Witch as she approached the body and pulled on parts of the limbs and tilted the head. She inspected the neck with bare fingers, clearly nonplussed by it all. Why would she be, she’d be the one breaking the body down for parts soon.

Her head jerked in confusion with a little hum, then she danced her hands down to the wrists, where she pulled back the sleeves of the suit. “There’s…no…” She flicked her eyes into Sayre’s. “You didn’t bite him?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Wasn’t hungry.” He shrugged his shoulders, and dropped his hands so one held the hat, and the other dove into his pocket. When she continued staring at him, he added, “I don’t need my fangs to kill something. I have other ways.”

Still, her gaze narrowed in confusion—in curiosity. “Such…as…”

The hand from his pocket lifted; he wiggled it. “Other ways,” he said cryptically.

“Of course.” The Witch snorted with rolled eyes and turned back to the body. “I thought we agreed that I didn’t want the blood.”

“We did.”

“And, yet you bring me it anyway,” she gruffed with growing agitation. 

“I’ve had a thought…” He pulled his eyes off her for the first time and looked around the room. He had seen it a few times before, but it always took him a little by surprise. “I’m not the only one here.”

It took her a moment to understand what he meant. “Only vampire, you mean?”

“Correct.” He moved towards the desk, and its pile of books. One’s spine caught his attention. “I was thinking…you could owe me more, to deal with the blood.”

The Witch stopped, her hands froze over the body she was pilfering through. “Could I?” she squeaked. Her head turned first, then her body twisted.

“There’s something to be said for blood that’s readily available. A…safety in it.” He trailed fingers over the spine of the books affectionately.

Peeved, but intrigued, the Witch let out a, “Go on…”

“Your payments are satisfactory. In truth, I’m not afraid to admit that it’s some of the best I’ve had in a long, long time…” He dropped his hat to the table to pull the book from the depths of the stack.

“…And?” the Witch pressed when Sayre remained silent for a long moment. Her arms crossed over her blouse with an irritation equal to her glare.

“Nathaniel Hawthorne,” said Sayre to the book. His fingers pried it open and flipped through the pages.

“Yes, what does my library have to do with anything?” The Witch stormed over and made her presence known.

“I’ll handle the blood. I know how to drain it without making a mess.” Sayre flipped more pages with gentle fingers. “Then…you sell it.”

“To…vampires?” Her brows furrowed, before she kicked out a laugh and shook her head. “Are you daft? Do you know how many laws we are breaking now?”

“I’m not worried about humans.”

“Neither am I. I am talking about dens, about covens. This” —she flung an irritated hand between them— “is already unheard of. Illegal.”

Sayre flipped more pages with a drag of his finger. “It was your idea,” he said softly, teasingly.

“That’s not the point!” She waited for his attention to deviate, but it didn’t. So she forced herself closer. A finger dared to enter his space and point about him. Even her nails were dark. “I am curious why a vampire is so willing to go against the laws of his den, and not only refuse to take blood, but would rather sell it. What’s—”

Sayre dropped his eyes into hers; the intense, stormy sapphire rendered her inert. It was a thing that happened even when he was human. Apparently, he had always just had that sort of stare. Shifting his head, or adding a smirk, also yielded him interesting results, ranging from people collecting their things and leaving the table, to clothes flung to the floor. The Witch’s and Sayre’s eyes held for a long moment, before he said, “…Not my den.”

It took another moment before the Witch pushed out, “Are you banished?”

“No.”

Her head tilted. “How are you without a den? Isn’t that…unorthodox?” He swore she moved in a little closer just to tease and stab the word.

With his hand still in the book, Sayre let a scheming smile slip. His brow flicked. “As is a witch selling…poultices,” he drew out the word.

The Witch’s crossed arms unraveled to hands on her hips, which drummed fingers as she thought, and stared, and studied him.  Her studious glare narrowed. “You…are troublesome.”

“Thank you.”

“Not a compliment,” she blustered.

He would take it as one anyway. Even if it was just that he could rile her. “So? …What do you think?” He returned his attention to the book and flipped a couple more pages. 

“I think a lot of things. You’ll have to be more specific.” Her tone might have been flat, but her eyes sliced at him.

Sayre used the tip of his finger to drag another page over. “My addendum. Though,” he paused and let out a fanged, devilish curl of his lips, “I am now infinitely curious about your other thoughts.”

“They lean murderous,” the Witch directed at him, and he knew it.

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Aside from the murderous intentions, and what I assume is…general magic,” he waved a hand in the air both to encapsulate the whole of being a witch, and to diminish it, “what are your thoughts on my proposition? Far more money to be made.”

The Witch didn’t fall for the trap of his insult. She ignored it. “I don’t care about money.”

“Clearly,” Sayre said with eyes that dropped up and down her.

 It wasn’t that she didn’t look well-maintained and pampered, it was that he expected more extravagance. If witches were anything like vampires, they preferred spacious buildings, gardens, massive closets for their wardrobes, and dungeons. This witch and her coven occupied a normal rowhome. A single door on a street of many doors. The shop itself was quaint and small, fitting at most twenty people. He imagined a coven was far larger than that. Then again, he had only seen the subterranean floors. Maybe the upper levels were spacious.

The Witch sharpened her glare. The hands on her hips crossed over her chest again, as if holding her back from clawing at him. “I haven’t decided.”

“You don’t have to sell it in the shop here. Hell, give it to a blood-lounge, have the humans there—” Sayre halted at the sight of her hand hovering over his, something magical about them. “What’re you—?”

When he glanced up, her eyes had brightened to a glistening, shining gold, as if the sun shone and burned behind them. Magic illuminated her. Magic…studied him.

Sayre tried to move out of it, tried to speak, but once more his jaw was locked. He felt a warmth move across his skin, down his spine, a heat like boiling water through his brain. His body tensed and shook in place. His bones vibrated.

“Stop,” he strained to say, but she didn’t. The sensation only grew stronger. He dug deeper, to the Old. “Stop!” He managed to bark, and the echoing, layered power of his voice filled the room. A heavy presence. Shadows that grew thicker, darker. Still, the Witch beamed like sunlight.

“What’s—” Hazel peeked her head in, then rushed over. “Stop! Sister, you must stop!” She shook the Witch’s shoulders. And, when she didn’t respond, she shook harder. “Please.”

Hazel turned to Sayre as he strained. Something crawled up his chest, and moved from his mouth. Glowing softly blue.

Hel felt...drained.