Witches for Hire (Odd Jobs #1)(92)
Edarra sprang from her hiding place and wrapped a leather bag over the feasting wyrm.
She jumped to Edarra’s side, and despite the Amazon’s hold, it started to escape her grasp.
Clive pointed his staff at the creature, but it was immune to most magic. Nothing happened. “What’s going on?”
“It’s not a salamander. It’s a fucking wyrm!” Simone snatched part of the bag to keep Edarra from flying off and dragged her weight down. How the fuck did someone get this past Customs?
Clive rushed to them and placed his hands on the bag. The leather hardened into black rock under their hands, forcing Simone to drop it from its heavy weight.
Edarra stood without budging an inch, still holding a friggin’ boulder. “Much better.”
Simone shook her head. “That thing is probably three hundred pounds.” She turned to Clive. “What did you do?”
“I coated it in lava rock with actual lava inside. Wyrms aren’t fond of cold weather, so that should make it cozy.”
“Good thinking.” Simone put her hand on her hips. “While that was fun, we just earned a shit ton of paperwork with the Council, who’ve already paid us a visit today. I don’t know what the client was thinking. Even we have to report a creature like this.”
“It would make an amazing pet,” Edarra said with wide pleading eyes. She tilted her head at Clive and batted her lashes.
The knight laughed. “I’m tempted too, but none of us are keeping one.”
Edarra’s shoulders slumped.
Simone put her arm around the Amazon. “I’ll make it up to you with dinner since we’ll be signing shit until midnight.”
JEREMY WALKED to his car after closing up the office. He couldn’t believe none of his uptight coworkers had thought to take pictures. He’d never seen a wyrm before. Otherworlder books claimed their venom was among the fastest and deadliest among most magical creatures. Simone gave him chips, so he only had the right to air his complaints at Clive. I swear, I work with the dullest people. Jeremy unlocked his car door.
“Mr. Ragsdale, a moment of your time, please,” Salvatore said as he stepped out of the shadows.
Jeremy pointed at the man. “Lurking is how people get cursed. If this is about the wyrm, I wasn’t there, so there’s no reason why I have to fill out paperwork.”
“That’s not why I’m here.” Salvatore stopped a few feet away.
Jeremy looked at the Council member in his long coat and hat sitting low on his head. For once, the man’s cigar was gone, and they weren’t inside a building. “Quitting the habit?”
“No. I don’t smoke when I’m on duty.”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” He’s probably disabled my car. If I open all the magic channels in my body at once, I might stand a chance against him.
“A long time ago, I interviewed a man who had spoken with Desmond when he was on a bender.” Salvatore took a step closer. “It was when he first arrived in America, and Desmond complained about following a lover who’d abandoned him in London.”
All his bloody secrecy, and he blabbed our life story in the first pub he got sloshed in?
“Travel records weren’t as well-kept back then,” Salvatore continued. “But after some years we finally tracked down the employees working the phone desks for months ahead of the time Desmond arrived.”
“Where are you going with this?”
Salvatore ignored Jeremy’s question and kept talking. “In order not to disrupt their lives and still achieve the answers we wanted, we had to perform a delicate memory spell that lasted for several years. Every weekend, these workers write a letter to us with names from manifests. It has been slow going, but I had a funny feeling about you, and the way Desmond acts when other men approach you. And the accents, of course. You do have a more refined voice, but underneath when you’re upset, it’s the same as Desmond’s.”
Jeremy thrust his jaw out. “Prove it.”
Salvatore smiled. “That’s what I’m explaining. We did. I ran your name through the spell, and a woman sent back your full name and itinerary connected to your ticket.”
Jeremy braced himself, unlocking as many of the controls on his body as he could, but darkness surrounded him. Not sucking away his power like an energy vamp, but compressing against him with so much magic that it suffocated him.
“I’m sorry to be so forward, but we want you to come along quietly,” Faradin said as he materialized with his arms around Jeremy.
Everything was too fuzzy for Jeremy to break away. The darkness comforted him, and he sank against Faradin without fighting.
Salvatore stood over Faradin’s shoulder in the dark fog, growing smaller and smaller. “I’m jealous that you get to hold him,” he said before dwindling to nothing.
A HARD banging sounded at the door, each thump louder than the last. Jeremy sighed. He could ask for entry, but he’s too pissed to care. Salvatore smirked at him, and Jeremy shifted uncomfortably. It is kind of embarrassing that kidnapping me makes him this angry. He tried to see if there was any give in his restraints, but they wouldn’t budge. Jeremy glanced at the four depressingly powerful Council members he had woken up to find seated at a long table across from his much shorter one where his arms were stretched along the surface. The torches of gray flames that shone a washed-out cast over the room reminded Jeremy more of a tinted Instagram photo than it gave the presence of being treated to an audience of near omnipotent beings. Perhaps if he hadn’t peeked inside that hell dimension when he first took on for-hire jobs, he would have been intimidated.