Catastrophe (2 page)

“Are you ready?” the waitress asked.

I nodded. “Whenever you are.”

“And you can start in five…four…three…two…one…eat!” she said enthusiastically into the microphone.

I picked up my knife and fork and tucked in. Obviously I ate the steak first, enjoying each and every delicious, rare bite. Next I ate the baked potato and roll. And finally I started on the salad, glancing at the clock. I still had twenty minutes to spare. I took a big bite and slowly chewed as I looked around the room. Everyone was suddenly really into it, now sure that I was going to win. One thing about humans was they may like the underdogs, but they loved winners.

Though the salad was disgusting, I kept chewing and swallowing until it was gone. I wiped off my mouth with the napkin on the table and sat the fork and knife down. The waitress came over and my plates were inspected.

“We have a winner in record time,” she announced, and a series of bells and whistles went off. “Stand up,” she told me. I stood next to her and the whole room watched us. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Full,” I said cheerfully, and everyone laughed.

I finally spotted Holden and Sy standing in the back of the room. Holden obsessively checked his watch and Sy grinned back at me as I accepted my prizes (a t-shirt and a key chain) and let them take a picture of me. When the hoopla was finally done, I weaved my way through the crowd toward the boys.

“Happy now?” Sy asked.

“Very,” I said.

“Can we get on with this?” Holden asked.

“Sure. Want to get a table?” The room and the line to get in were still packed. It would probably take an hour to get a table. By then, I could probably eat again.

He shook his head. “The Office.”

After we got far enough away from the crowd, Holden vanished into a puff of black smoke and Sy took my hand, transporting us back to Chicago, leaving my car completely abandoned. At least no one would want the hunk of metal. No one but me, that was. About the only value it had was sentimental.

The Office was Sy’s bar and the bounty hunter hub for the central United States. He kept tight control over what sort of business was conducted in his establishment—mostly it was just bounty-hunting matters. He probably didn’t want other people to feel too comfortable about coming in and ruining the seedy aesthetics we learned to love and find comfort in. It was dark and dreary. The lights were never bright, no sunlight ever penetrated the dirty windows, and all the wood was dark with age and use. The room was filled with shadows and people of questionable backgrounds, but the Office was also a safe haven for the loners and rejects of the Abyss. People usually didn’t get into bounty hunting without a pretty good reason, because it was a lonely job. Most other people didn’t like you or trust you. You basically spent your life hunting down people for money. People took it personally.

Sy did make exceptions every now and then, but usually not without a lot of bitching. I had seen him allow Olivia and Holden to have a couple meetings were, as well as his cousin. Usually, though, we were dealing with life-or-death situations, and it wasn’t like they made a habit of coming back. However, this time wasn’t an exception. It sounded to me like they were giving me a bounty—coming directly from the council, though it could have been anything, even an assassination. I wondered briefly if I was prepared to straight up murder someone just on the council’s say-so. Probably not.

We reappeared in Sy’s private quarters behind the bar.

“What in the hell did you do in the hallway that long if you weren’t warning her?” Holden said, flames popping up in his eyes before he blinked them away.

“I did,” Sy snapped. “I told her not to speak unless spoken to and not to agree to anything. I can’t control her. Had I known sooner about the meeting, we could have handled all of this better. Made a plan. You or Olivia could have given her a heads-up. They watch me constantly now.”

“I didn’t know about it sooner. It appears they don’t trust either of us,” Holden growled. “And Olivia would only get involved.” He turned his annoyed gaze to me. “You just had to volunteer information. We could have gotten you out of this, but someone had to open her stupid mouth.”

“Hey,” I said. “First of all, why is it such a bad thing if I take the case? It’s what I do. Second, you need to relax. Whatever it is, I’ll handle it.”

Sy rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s not her fault. She doesn’t know.”

Holden rolled his eyes and sat down on the couch, crossing his legs. “She signed the contract. Did you even read it?”

“Does anyone read those things?” He opened his mouth, but I rushed on. “I don’t need a lecture. I have backed you up on many stupid plans. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken the case without knowing what it was, but…” They both looked at me expectantly. How was I supposed to explain this to them? I had been curious about the council since I’d learned of their existence. Neither Sy nor Holden would tell me anything. Baker had been on it, but now he couldn’t tell me anything, and not knowing was driving me crazy. Also, what better way was there to get out of my bounty-hunting rut than to take a job that was probably significant? “But I didn’t. If anyone should be pissed off, it’s me. I never asked you to protect me, and frankly I find it a little offensive that you are trying. If I want to take a job for the council then I will. I don’t need your permission to do it.” I crossed my arms. “Now tell me something useful, like what exactly is my objective?”

“Werewolves,” Holden said, curling his lip in disgust. “There has been a werewolf outbreak. You might have nine lives, but would you like to spend all of them confined, or would you rather I kill you nine times in a row? One scratch, one bite, and that is your future. They are impossibly fast and strong. You need a team of people to take care of a werewolf problem. That’s how they were eradicated the first time. I don’t know why Leilah is insisting just one hunter can handle this. It’s a suicide mission.”

I waited a moment for him to say he was joking, but he glowered at me instead. Werewolves weren’t possible, mainly because, as he said, they had been eradicated—mostly. A few might have remained in the one place the Abyss had to send their undesirables to. When no race would take responsibility for them and they couldn’t be killed, those beings were sent to Hollowfield. “It isn’t possible. First, I haven’t heard anything about an outbreak, and news like that travels fast, especially in the bounty-hunting circles. Second, there are no werewolves unless there was an escape from Hollowfield, which again I would have heard about, and werewolves are too stupid to escape. They don’t have the ability to plan or the temperament to work together. Whatever the problem is, it isn’t a werewolf problem.”

Hollowfield was next to impossible to escape from. It was a magically made remote island with a single building on it. Its design was a collaboration of all the Abyss races (light and dark) to house the worst, most uncontrollable of their kind. Some beings couldn’t always be killed. Those were taken here to spend the rest of their days confined to a 6x6 cell. That place was probably the closest thing to a hell on earth as the world had ever come. Every defense imaginable was in place because, above all our differences, exposure wasn’t good for any of us. No one wanted to see anyone in there go free.

“Hollowfield hasn’t had any problems,” Sy said. “They were the first place I checked when the news of the outbreak reached the council. Everything is secure there. It doesn’t change the fact that people are being mauled in a very wolflike manner.”

My teeth ground together. “How long have you known?”

“A while,” he said. “I didn’t believe it either. I sent a couple people to look into it, but none of them have come back. Just a second, I have to check on something.” He ducked out of the room, and a faint scent of something sweet and cinnamon-y filled my nostrils. It was a fae of some sort. Must have come from the bar.

“What about you? How long have you known?” I asked Holden. He gave me a bored look, but didn’t answer. Figured. Why hadn’t either of them told me? Hell, why didn’t Holden just go to whatever this was and take care of it himself? It wasn’t like he didn’t have the power to eliminate any threat. “You could have ended this before it began.”

He shook his head. “As hard as it is for you and Olivia to understand, I do not feel the need to insert myself into every problem the world has. Sometimes they just have to be figured out on their own.”

How those two ever got along was mind-blowing to me. He was a jinni who worked with demons most of his existence. She was an angel. There was nothing like opposites attract.

Sy came back in the room. “How many are there?” I asked him.

“As far as our contact can tell, just the one,” Holden said. “The bodies have been too mutilated to regenerate. But the problem can quickly get out of hand if the wolf figures out how to grow his pack.”

I rolled my eyes. “One werewolf is hardly an outbreak—not that it is a wolf. Regardless, it won’t be a problem.” These guys and their overreactions. I’d be fine. “I’ll be home by the end of the week.”

Sy looked at me. “Four bounty hunters have already died. Do not underestimate this creature. If it’s new, who made it? If it is old, then it has stayed off everyone’s radar for the last twenty years or so—which is a feat in itself. Why is it popping up now? Four bodies have appeared in the last week, and those are just from the Abyss. We don’t know if it has targeted humans or not. It has to stop. I told the council I could take a group there and take it out, but Leilah had other ideas.”

“She wanted me?”

Holden looked grim. “You should have read the contract. She not only wants you to do this, she wants you to do it alone.”

Why should she care if I hunt down a fake wolf attack alone or with someone else? “Why?”

He shook his head
. “
I’m not sure. Leilah designed the contract. I didn’t get to see it until after you signed it. The best I can come up with is she wants to see what you are capable of. It clearly states that you have to resolve the crime on your own, with no assistance from anyone on the council or any other Abyss resident. If you fail, the council can punish you. If you succeed…” He gave me a stony look. “For some reason, their attention is focused on you, Femi. I don’t know why. But you should be concerned about that. The council is full of agendas. That’s why Baker got out. I’m only on it because it was the best choice at the time, and groups like this shouldn’t go unmonitored. Neither of us can really tell you what’s in store.”

The corners of my mouth rose before I could stop them. So the dragon was testing me. “Mark my words, it’s not a werewolf. I don’t know what it is, but I will find it and I will bring its head to the council.”

This won the smallest of smiles from Holden. “Be careful, Femi.” With that, he vanished into his usual black mist and probably headed home, since he was a family man now.

Thin stress lines barely creased his eyes. So unusual for an elf. “Holden’s right,” he said. “The council is interested in you for a reason. Can you think of anything that would have caught their attention recently?”

I shook my head. “Maybe Baba Yaga is complaining to them?” I had a case not too long ago where I found a thief for a mean old witch named Baba Yaga. I delivered the thief to her, but I didn’t give her back the stolen item, the hand of glory. The hand could unlock any door. Apparently Baba had been using it to steal children, so I kept the hand.

“Doesn’t seem likely. Baba likes to handle those things on her own.”

I shook my head. “Nothing else comes to mind. The selection of bounties has been lacking recently.”

Sy ran his hand through his short blond hair. “I wish there was more I could do to help you with this one, but…”

“They are watching you,” I said, repeating what he had told Holden. “Why?”

“They are down two members. It has been proposed that I fill one of them, which was approved on a trial basis, but they are still deciding if they want to keep me.”

“If they are as bad as you say, why would you want to stay?”

He sighed. “The world isn’t always going to be like this. When it changes, I want a say in how it changes and how it is designed. The council itself isn’t bad, just disconnected. Most of them are ancient and isolated. They don’t know or care how the world works now. Also, the council is unbalanced. Holden ended up taking his father’s position as the neutral vote. The two positions that are open are both on the light side. The council historically has been made up of three dark, three light, and three neutral to give the best representation to all sides.”

I ran my tongue over my lips, kind of wishing for a snack. “So right now there is only one light vote on the council?” That explained a lot of things. If Holden took his dad’s position, then that meant Baker must have been a light vote. How did he ever get mixed up with Holden to begin with? I smiled a little at the thought of him. Eventually his memories would come back, and when they did, I would ask him. “Why has it taken so long to fill the other two spots?”

“I get the feeling Anessa has only nominated me, so far. As the only light council member, it is up to her to select nominations.”

The Abyss needed Sy in the position. He had one of the best hearts of anyone I had ever met. He was certainly better than me, and he had a way with people. We would all be better off if he were on the council. “Maybe they aren’t testing me as much as they are testing you.”

He shifted closer to me. “I’ve considered that. Especially since Leilah specified that you had to do this alone. She knows that you work for me. She knows that we’re…”

“Friends,” I filled in for him. Because that was what we were. We may have flirted from time to time, we have even gone on the occasional date, but above all else, he was my friend. The first real friend I ever had.

“I think she might have an inkling that my feelings are more than friendly for you,” he said, his hand brushing down my bare arm.

“We should…” My voice ran out of steam as his fingertips reached my neck and trailed down my collarbone. There was a bar full of bounty hunters feet away and I was being sent on what Holden thought was a suicide mission. There was no time for this, whatever this was.

“You’re always running away from me,” he breathed into my ear. “What are you so afraid of?”

My eyes threatened to flutter closed as he brushed his lips against my neck. He was so tempting with his continual offers of more. And what if he was right? What if we were great together? That was the thought I had to constantly keep at bay. Sy’s friendship meant more to me than that, and I didn’t want it to change. I wanted to know he would always be here. I wanted to know that no matter what happened in my life, I could always walk into the Office and there he would be with a smile and food. As soon as love got involved, even the simplest feelings became complicated. I had enough complications with my family.

“We’re not like your family,” he said softly, his lips inching toward mine. “I will always be here for you. I don’t like you doing this without backup.”

He always seemed to know too much. It was another mystery about him that I would probably never solve, but I couldn’t shake the feeling things were changing whether or not I wanted them to. If Sy took the job with the council, who would run the Office? Would I lose him entirely?

“I work alone,” I mumbled, closing the distance between us.

His lips were soft and warm against mine. Warmth spread through me, making me ache for something I didn’t want to think about. Kissing Sy was a mistake, a wonderful, mesmerizing mistake. He took my lower lip between his and caressed it, coaxing me toward what he wanted—possibly what I wanted too. Definitely a mistake. One that I shouldn’t repeat. His lips became more demanding, and I wanted to give in so much I only had one choice: push myself away.

I turned and took a couple steps away. His eyes stayed with me. I could feel them trying to ferret out a reaction of some sort. I didn’t actually believe he could read minds, but he was astute to an, at times, annoying degree. “Where are the attacks?”

The sound of Sy dropping a file onto the coffee table turned me around. “Four bounty hunters have already been killed: Hatchet, McNeil, Falcon, and Mace. This is everything I know about what’s happening. If you don’t want to do this, I will find a way to get you out of it. Just say the word.”

I laughed, picking up the file. “When have I ever run away?”

“If it were just another case, but…”

The council thing was obviously freaking him out. “I promise I’ll do a good job and I won’t compromise you with the council.”

He took the file from my hands, forcing me to look at him. “I don’t care about them.”

I took the file back from him and opened it. They weren’t even bodies anymore. With the first picture it took a moment to register what I was seeing. It was just bits and pieces that were left behind. How could he even identify who they were? I looked closer until I saw it: the knife that Falcon always carried halfway under an empty box. Its curved shape was unique. It more resembled a hook than a knife. I flipped through the rest of the pictures. I knew all of the hunters in passing, but wasn’t close to any of them. That didn’t mean I liked seeing their mutilated bodies on the ground. I closed the folder. “If the council didn’t want to bring other hunters into this, how did they find out?”

“Hatchet caught whiff of it on his own, I think. Werewolves were always his particular hang-up. Then when he didn’t come back, McNeil and Falcon went to look for him.”

“Together?”

Sy nodded. “They were friends. When none of them came back, I sent Mace to scout the area. He wasn’t supposed to engage.” He leaned in close and plucked out a picture of an arm. “This is all that was found of him. That’s when I took the problem to the council. Our source in New Orleans had been telling us that he needed to talk, but Leilah said she would handle it. Apparently she didn’t. However, with my independent confirmation, the problem couldn’t be ignored. Leilah chose you rather than letting the council handle it.”

I crossed my arms, a new sort of fire burning in me. No one just killed bounty hunters like this. We were the law. “You should have sent me to begin with.”

“The witches in Selene’s coven aren’t part of the Abyss,” he said. “At least not all of them. So long as you leave Frost and Selene out of it, if you need help at any point, you could call them–”

“Sy,” I said.

He ignored me. “Jessica is good with research. She makes connections. She can help. The council can’t say anything about involving her. She was banished from the Abyss.”

“Sy,” I tried again.

He finally looked up at me with sad eyes. “I can live with a lot, but not with something happening to you.”