Motherducking Magic (Bad Magic Bounty Hunter Book 1) Read online

  Oops.

  I didn't want to kill her, because then she wouldn't wake up and feel the humiliation of my handcuffs.

  Hand delivering karma was the true payday for this gig. I'd hate to miss it.

  Fortunately, she didn't roll off the pallet, but rather landed with the heavy inertia of the unconscious. The tow motor shuddered at the added load, but it held. I climbed back down, lowered the pallet, pulled her off the top, propped her up against the shelving and slapped my cuffs on her.

  I checked my phone. Ten minutes to spare. I did a little jig of victory for about two seconds before the heat got to me. Not only was it summer, the warehouse wasn't air conditioned. I had my own soggy weather system going down my pants, and soon my jeans were going to drip sweat like rain.

  I went back to the break room I'd passed on my way in and snagged some cold water from the fridge. There was a massive display of different sex charms against the wall. I perused the options and pocketed a few 'Monster O' charms that were safely contained inside commercial packaging.

  Maybe they'd come in handy later. Maybe they'd just collect dust on a shelf. Maybe, and this last one was more likely, Blart, my fur-for-brains familiar, would eat them and have all the fun. Time would tell.

  Although even the First Witch would've put her money on Blart.

  ***

  Lydia woke up at the twenty-minute mark right on the dot, and I hoisted her to her feet. "If you give me your lawyer's number, I'll call and have them meet you at the police station."

  She glared at me and started up on the curse again. "I call on the Dark Dominion..."

  "Lydia, stop. I can have you muted." It would take a mountain of paperwork, but the Triad backed up my official capacity with some hefty punishments. Case in point, I could strip a witch of magic for a month if they didn't obey the law.

  She kept going. "Dark demons hear my plea. By bone and blood, bring death and destruction..."

  Power pulsated against my skin, throbbing like a deep bass. I shook it off. "Seriously? You're trying to kill me now? Fine. I'll shut you up another way." The charm on my cuffs wouldn't hold her long if she could raise that much bad ju-ju with just a few words. Time for plan B. I liked Plan B. It was fun.

  I pinched the sneeze charm on my bracelet, rendering it to dust and blew it in her face. Being a prank, it didn't take an incantation, just some air to move it in the right direction.

  She started sneezing too much to keep up with the curse and whatever power she'd raised went poof.

  "I," sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, "won't" sneeze, sneeze, sneeze, "forget this." She evil-eye glared at me as snot streamed from her nose along with tears. I grabbed her phone, which had landed on the pallets too, and checked to see if it was still live streaming. It was. I held it up. "Say hello to all your friends, Lydia."

  She shrieked and sneezed at the same time, then tried to head butt me. I dodged her snot covered face and dropped her phone in the process. I stepped on it, too. Mostly by accident. Mostly. The screen crunched.

  "Whoops. Sorry about that. Didn't anyone tell you? A life of crime is hell on phones." Okay, that was a little bitchy, even for me. I'd make amends to the goddess later. For now, I grabbed her by the elbow. "Let's find out if they have tissues in jail, shall we?"

  ***

  Things went smoothly after that. The fight seemed to go out of Lydia. Or perhaps she was just too busy sneezing. I loved those sneeze charms. They kept my skip traces off balance and made my job easy.

  I shoved her into my old-school hearse—don't judge, coffin wheels were cheap and I was on a budget. Lydia gave my hearse a scorching look of disapproval between sneezes. I'd had covered the fading upholstery with poop emoji seat covers (be nice, it was on sale). The organizer on the hump between seats overflowed with all my bounty hunting tricks of the trade; zip ties, duct tape, first aid, you named it, I probably had it...somewhere.

  I shoved Lydia into the passenger seat and she cringed when her fancy designer stilettos made contact with the overflowing garbage can I kept on the passenger side floor.

  "Hey, we can't all be criminals making millions. If you want a limo, try getting arrested in California or Vegas." Old limos were cheaper than hearses out west. Although most bounty hunters preferred SUVs. However, per our industry newsletter, three percent of bounty hunters had limos. Ten percent had hearses because it made it easier to transport vamps. The rest had the money for nicer wheels and just rented trucks to transport vamps. Maybe in a few years, I'd make enough for nice wheels and truck rentals, too.

  Lydia rolled her eyes and managed a snort between sneezes.

  I fastened the seat belt over Lydia, careful to avoid the spray from her sinuses. Then I settled into the driver's seat. Before I put the hearse in drive, I covered Lydia's mouth with duct tape just in case the sneeze charm wore off.

  Mission accomplished.

  But my day wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

  Bounty hunting was always either really busy or deader than the people who'd previously traveled in my hearse. There was no in-between. If my day started out busy, it stayed busy and today was no different.

  ***

  On my way out of the police station after dropping off Lydia, I ran into Detective St. John, the liaison assigned to me by the mayor of Cleveland.

  "Hey, Orion. You got a minute?" He waved at me with a large hand. St. John ran tall and wide, but not fat. No, he was all muscle. He was also fairly nice to me, and sometimes even helpful. Humans could be prickly around supernaturals. Cops, in particular, seemed to not like supes much, but St. John struck me as too pragmatic for hate.

  "Yeah, sure. What's up?" We stepped to the side, away from the stream of traffic coming and in and out of the station.

  "I've got a tip for you."

  "Yeah?"

  "Sheridon Thorne didn't show for court today."

  I groaned and rolled my eyes. I knew that werewolf would be trouble. He'd fought me hard. I'd had to use my taser on him and finally elephant tranq'ed him when he wouldn't calm down. That was just to complete the bond that released him from jail. I didn't want to think about what he would do when I tried to take him back. "Are you serious?"

  St. John nodded. "I went to the hearing to monitor the case, and he never showed. I figured you'd want to know right away. His bond was pretty big."

  "Yeah. It was. Fifty Gs." I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. Thorne had robbed several antique stores and assaulted quite a few cops during his subsequent arrest. The courts didn't like supes who hit back. Shifters in particular were strong enough to kill with just one punch. The cops had tacked on every charge they could find. That's what happened when you put Cleveland's finest in the hospital.

  Luckily no one had died, although I doubted Thorne saw it that way.

  St. John cleared his throat. "Let me know if you need anything."

  I gave a friendly smile. I wanted St. John to like me. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

  Someone called St. John's name, and he turned away. "I've gotta go. Got a meeting with the chief."

  My third eye sent out a tingle that crawled up my spine and flicked the back of my skull. I wasn't one to have premonitions, but every now and again I got an inkling. "Everything okay?"

  "It's just those fuc—"

  My hand shot out before I'd even registered that I'd moved, and I pressed my fingers against his lips. "Don't say that word."

  His eyes went wide. "You mean fuc—"

  I pressed harder. "Yes, that one."

  He raised his hands in surrender, and I removed my fingers from his lips. "Okay. I won't say it, but why?"

  "It originates with the Goddess Freya. You're invoking bounty and fertility."

  His eyebrows went up. "Fertility?"

  "It multiplies things, and the way you were using it, you were multiplying your troubles."

  He pursed his lips and gave a slow nod."Freya, huh? Never heard of her. I thought it was all First Witch with you guys."

  "Freya, frig
, freaking and...you know, the F word." I reduced centuries of magical language development to a few words. "And First Witch is...history. Freya's more of a spiritual thing." I tried to keep it simple. Yes, the First Witch was a big deal for all of Witchdom. She'd brought magic to the world and made the First Vampire and First Shifter. The goddess stuff was about feeling and focusing magic and tapping into whatever mysterious magic made the universe twinkle.

  "Well, I don't believe in your spiritual thing." He made air quotes with his fingers. "And I'm not a supe so fuc—"

  I pinched his lips shut and glared at him in warning. "You're in the presence of a witch. Be careful what you invoke." I let a touch of magic buzz from my fingers to his mouth. I couldn't bring the big guns, but I could zip and zap here and there.

  He held up his arms again and I backed off. "Sorry. I didn't realize how serious it was."

  "No problem." Now I held up my hands. "No harm, no foul."

  He nodded and gave me a 'we're good' smile. "So if you can't say that, what do you say then?"

  "Duck. Duck this, duck that. Motherducking," I waved a hand, "whatever."

  "Like autocorrect?" He chuckled.

  I just shrugged. "Yeah, that's why autocorrect does that."

  His eyes widened as understanding dawned. "Oh. For real?"

  "For real. So what were you about to say?" I held up a finger. "But without the F word this time."

  "There's a weird string of murders. They want me to look at it, help decide if it needs to go to the Triad."

  "Are supes involved?"

  He shook his head. "We don't have any evidence pointing to supes. Just weird shadows with red spots on surveillance footage. Like they're wearing hats."

  Another tingle skittered up my spine. I rolled my shoulders to counteract it. "I'd give it to the Triad." That seemed to make the tingle happy because it faded.

  His gaze searched my face, suddenly calculating. "Why do you say that? Do you know something?"

  "St. John!" A harsh voice barked the detective's name. "Get your ass in here!"

  "Hold that thought. I'll catch up with you later." He pointed a finger at me. "I do want an answer to that question."

  "Yeah, sure. Call me." I waved as he hurried off. I had hurrying of my own to do.

  There was no telling how much of a head start Thorne had on me. Sometimes people planned meticulous escapes, other times it was a last-minute attempt to dodge reality. I'd have to activate his tracking charm and see how far he'd gone.

  To date, no one had gone farther south than Georgia or farther west than Illinois, but I kept hoping someday I'd get a skip trace who made it to Paris. Then I could expense the whole trip.

  Maybe I'd take some of those motherducking monster Os along for fun. Paris was the city of love, right? Some sex magick atop the Eiffel Tower sounded like a plan to me.

  Oh, I could send Lydia a post card. I'd heard mail was a morale boost for prisoners.

  For now, it was time to hunt. No way would I let Sheridon Thorne get away.

  Chapter Two

  Damn werewolves. They always think they can run.

  I'd gone home, grabbed the enchanted compass that connected to my tracking charms and the GPS on my phone. I spent the rest of the day driving all over Cleveland, meticulously visiting every place Thorne had been over the last twenty-four hours. He hadn't gone far, but he'd gone on a grand tour of Cleveland. Or at least it seemed that way.

  I showed people his picture and walked every site hoping for a lead, but he'd left no trace. Except for my tracking charm, he was a ghost.

  As night fell, the tracker led me to an empty warehouse on the bank of the Cuyahoga river where my GPS died without warning. I tapped the side of my phone and nothing. The compass had gone dark, too. The gadget was top-of-the-line bounty hunter gear that had cost me a small fortune. It wasn't supposed to stop like that, but no matter how I shook or tapped the thing, the screen remained dark.

  I tossed the compass back into the organizer I kept on the hump between the driver and passenger side of the hearse. Might as well check out the warehouse. Maybe Thorne was still there. Maybe that's why the GPS had glitched.

  I grabbed a flashlight, and double checked my weapons. Sometimes I took them off and forgot to put them back on again. The Glock was in a shoulder holster under my jean jacket, which was like wearing hell in the summer heat, but flashing a gun everywhere I went wasn't helpful. My knife was in a sheath tucked into my pants and the taser dangled from its carrying loop off my belt. The handcuffs went into my back pocket.

  Sweating like a rising creek in the night's humidity, I edged into the warehouse. The chain locking the door was broken and the door itself hung at an odd angle off its hinges. Someone had broken in and I'd bet money it was Thorne, my thief on the lam.

  The first thing I found was the tracking charm I'd slapped on Thorne, but he was no longer attached to it. The silver bracelet laid on the dirty warehouse floor, mocking me with a metallic glint.

  I kicked at the tracking charm, and growled like an alpha on steroids. I wasn't a shifter, but I'd pissed off enough alphas to know what an 'I'm going to stuff your tail down your throat and pull it out your ass' growl sounded like.

  Growls were like cuss words for shifters and I heard them a lot. It was a professional hazard. Bounty hunters pissed off everyone. My clientele—the shifters, witches and vampires of Cleveland—had given me a master class in FU. Oh, excuse me, I meant Duck U. I didn't need Freya blessing me with a bounty of shitty ducks.

  But with that charm at my feet, I wanted to scream duck to the moon and back. Ducking werewolves.

  If I didn’t find him soon, I would be out fifty grand. Fifty grand that I didn't have. The Triad fronted the money for the bonds, but I bore the loss. Because the Triad wasn't exactly about life being fair. They called it an incentive and I'd had no choice but hope I didn't get screwed.

  So much for hope. On to active screwing.

  “Crap on a dipshit wand.” My voice echoed in the dark void around me. Most of the warehouses in this area of Cleveland were empty. A slow economy meant few businesses wanted to hire out extra storage.

  I went to kick the charm again, but stopped myself at the last second, and bent down to scoop it up instead. Silver was expensive these days. When I got home, I'd figure out some magic that would tell me how he broke the damn binding. Nothing like reverse engineering failure.

  I sighed and shook my head. I would find Thorne. He had to know that. Every supe I bailed out had to give me hair and fingernail clippings in addition to submitting to a binding. In a few hours, I could magic his current location out of his DNA.

  Of course, there was nothing I hated more than being cooped up in my kitchen cooking up magic. I was the witch who could spend hours making no magic at all—with all the right ingredients, no less. Hence the sinkhole known as my bounty hunter gig.

  The raw truth? I didn’t have enough magic for anything else, but my blood line was too powerful to be snubbed either. My mother had served on the Witch Council most of her life. I was supposed to take her place—the office was inherited—but I couldn’t even if I tried. The magic didn’t run strong in me, no matter how pure my bloodline.

  Much to my mother’s frustration.

  So the Triad funded the bonds, I managed them, and everyone pretended I wasn't a total disappointment to all of Witchdom. Easy peasy, makes me pukey.

  Once I caught up with Thorne, though, I wouldn't need magic. I curled my fingers into a fist. “Goddess help you, wolf.” He would pay for putting me through the hell of a conjuring.

  A shadow moved in my peripheral vision and I whirled around. “Who’s there?”

  The warehouse was still and dark. I blinked and tried again. Still nothing, but I caught another flitting movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned, trying to keep up with it.

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled, sensing something my eyes couldn’t see. I shoved the charm in my pocket and pulled my gun from my should
er holster. I kept it full of blessed and charmed silver bullets.

  This witch didn't play.

  “Put your gun away,” came a deep, male voice from the shadows. He had an accent from someplace I couldn’t identify and he sounded amused, which irritated me. If I had a nickel for every supe who underestimated me, I would be rich. Being lousy at magic was not the same as being weak.

  Funny how so many supes thought differently.

  I tracked the voice and aimed toward it. “Says the guy playing hide-and-seek. Show yourself.”

  “And be an easy target? I do not think so.”

  I snorted. “I’m a witch. These bullets will find you even in the dark.” In my line of work, it paid to cover all the bases, even if I had to outsource some of the spell casting. If I pulled the trigger, there would be no hiding. Supes were fast, but not quick enough to avoid witch magic.

  There was a moment of silence while he considered that. Then he stepped forward into the dim light. It was past sunset and the only illumination came from the streetlights outside. Their glare shone through the windows, forming staggered pools of light that ran the length of one wall. The effect was one of weak spotlights gleaming at regular intervals.

  I’d counted on the dark to hide me from Thorne. Werewolves smell better than they see, and I’d wanted to press the advantage. Now I wished I’d brought my flashlight so I could shine it in this guy’s eyes and keep him disoriented.

  The stranger stepped into one of the spots with more light than the others, and I finally saw him. He was tall with dark hair and a square, angular face. I couldn’t tell eye color from where I stood, but I marked him as vampire by the pallor of his skin. He looked gray, which meant he hadn’t fed. Well-nourished vamps ran white, almost glowing like the full moon.

  He wore a pair of black dress pants and a fitted white dress shirt that skimmed a truly impressive musculature. In comparison, I felt gauche in my jeans and t-shirt, but I'd dressed for rolling in the mud with a furball. I doubted we were in the same line of work.