Chapter 5 On the Edge
Koa
I packed the anti-magic grenades, my own design, with methodical precision.
Each one could incapacitate a mid-level Dark witch for approximately forty-seven seconds.
Just enough time to close distance and finish the job.
Casimir’s voice droned in the background, talking contingencies and protocols, but my mind was elsewhere.
“What kind of woman,” I asked myself more than my brothers, “gets bartered away in a marriage with three dhampirs?”
“The expendable kind.” Zane snorted from his position on the couch. “Just like Lucian said.”
“Or the dangerous kind,” Casimir countered. “Z, back to packing. We’re leaving in less than an hour.”
As they bickered, I thought about Arabesque Harrow.
Dark witches didn’t operate on human morality.
Their calculations were alien, their magic fueled by suffering and diabolical connections.
If Arabesque was using our ‘bride’ as a game piece, the girl’s fate was likely sealed regardless of our intervention.
That thought bothered me more than it should have.
I’d killed before, we all had, but something about the potential execution of an unknown woman left a bitter taste. Not that I’d hesitate if she proved dangerous. ‘Ohana came first. Always.
“What if she’s innocent in all this?” I asked finally, voicing the question that had been gnawing at me. “What if she’s just another victim of Arabesque’s machinations? She could be an ally. At minimum, an asset.”
Cas considered this, his expression calculating.
“Possible, but unlikely. Arabesque wouldn’t sacrifice any piece without a purpose.”
“Unless the sacrifice is the purpose,” I countered. “What better way to dissolve a treaty than to force our hand? Send someone innocent, wait for us to eliminate a perceived threat, then cry foul when she ends up dead.”
Silence fell over the room as they processed this possibility. It wasn’t an angle Casimir had considered; I could tell by the slight narrowing of his eyes, the way his fingers stilled on the gun he was cleaning.
“That,” Z said slowly, “is deliciously fucked up. Even for a Dark witch.”
“Which makes it entirely plausible,” I replied. “We need to be careful. Not just for our sake, but potentially for hers as well.”
“Your concern is noted, but it doesn’t change our approach,” Cas said.
I nodded, accepting his leadership without argument. Cas had kept us alive through situations that should have killed us ten times over. His caution wasn’t misplaced, even if his emotional detachment sometimes struck me as excessive.
I moved to the window, scanning the street below with practiced vigilance.
The world outside continued its mundane rhythm, oblivious to the predators in their midst. Humans living their lives, unaware of the supernatural forces that shaped their reality from the shadows.
Sometimes I envied them their ignorance.
“You’re unusually contemplative,” Cas observed, coming to stand beside me. “Something else on your mind?”
I hesitated, then decided honesty was the wisest course.
“I’m thinking about what this means for us. Not just the immediate situation, but the long game. Freedom from Lucian’s influence. Our own territory. No more taking orders from a king who views us as weapons rather than sons. What will that even look like?”
“One challenge at a time, baby brother. Let’s survive the marriage before we plan the divorce party.”
“Fair enough.” I cracked a smile at his rare humor.
“Are we done with the brooding portion of the day?” Zane appeared between us, draping his arms over our shoulders with characteristic disregard for personal space. “Because I, for one, am excited to see what kind of hellcat Arabesque is sending our way. Ooo! Do you think she bites?”
“Worry less about that and more about packing!” Cas fussed at him. “You’re only eighty-six percent completed with your list!”
“Hey, I’ve packed all the important stuff!” Z shot back. “Armor, weapons, and ammo!”
“Does that mean you’re leaving behind your travesty of a wardrobe? Because I, for one, wouldn’t object to bidding that horrid collection goodbye.”
I glanced at Zane’s t-shirt of the day: “Keep staring. I might do a trick.”
“Leave my clothes?” he shrieked. “Never!”
“Then get your ass up and back to packing!”
Shaking my head at them, I made sure my combat shotgun was safe in its case, then began counting the special ammo I’d created for it. Every shell whispered, “She’s just another mission,” but my gut remembered how missions bled.
My fingers hesitated on the last cartridge.
Bright yellow and filled with ocean salt, cold iron filings, silver flecks, and a crushed scale shed by a honu.
Zane called it paranoia. I called it heeding the ?aumākua.
Holding it up to my ear, I listened to the ocean’s roar for a second before slotting it in its foam sleeve.
I’d save that one for her face. The bride’s or Arabesque’s, whichever one earned it first.
What was she feeling now, this woman who would soon be bound to three strangers?
Excitement? Fear? Resignation? Glee? Determination?
Would she hate us on sight? Try to manipulate us?
Plot our destruction while smiling across the breakfast table?
Or would she be as trapped as we were, making the best of an impossible situation?
The contract specified she had to be willing. Even though ‘willing’ could be coerced, what would make a woman willingly enter such an arrangement? What did she hope to gain? Or escape?
Well, whatever her motives, whatever traps Arabesque had laid, whether she ended up being an enemy, victim, ally, we would be ready.
We always were.
#
Casimir
Four handguns field-stripped across the table, their nickel-plated slides catching the sun through bulletproof film windows.
I rotated pistol barrel number three toward the light.
Carbon buildup at eleven o’clock position, needed brush work.
Zane’s shadow fell across my cleaning mat as he set down another box of silver-jacket rounds.
“You’re double-counting the C4,” he snickered, pointing to the tally in my notebook.
Damnation. He’s right.
“Adjusting inventory sheet,” I muttered, scratching out numbers.
Koa’s chuckle rumbled from the kitchenette where he was sharpening my sword.
The rhythmic shhhhk-shhhhk of steel on whetstone synced with the click-click of magazine springs as I finished up with the handguns.
The vampire half of our heritage didn’t eliminate the need for mundane weapons; it just made us more efficient with them.
Our apartment, if one could dignify this roach-infested hellhole with such a term, had served its immediate purpose: Shelter, anonymity, and proximity to our last three assignments.
It smelled like mildew and cheap take-out, with water stains painting abstract patterns across the ceiling.
Four hundred and twenty-eight square feet of tactical disadvantage, with poor sightlines and exactly one exit point.
Unacceptable for anything beyond temporary use.
The first thing we would do at our new estate was establish our armory, I decided.
I required proper infrastructure, a base of operations that made strategic sense.
Father hadn’t so much as sent blueprints of the place, and I had drafted thirty-three scenarios for remodeling and restructuring the interior to incorporate what we needed.
Armory was first priority, security room second, lab/workshop for Ko and his inventions third.
“Holy water flasks?” Zane yelled from the bathroom.
“Third shelf down, left side,” I replied, not bothering to look up.
Koa moved silently through the living room, a mountain of contained energy gathering weapons with the reverence of a priest handling relics. Unlike Zane and his theatrical sighs, Ko understood the value of preparation.
“You’re making that face again,” he commented, not looking directly at me as he crammed clothes in a duffle.
“What face?”
“The ‘I’m counting exits and calculating odds’ face.” He finally glanced up. “You’ve run the numbers a dozen times. This deal is our best option.”
I tucked a set of throwing knives into the specially designed pockets of my black leather jacket.
“Our best option is a forced marriage to a potential enemy asset? That’s a damning assessment of our circumstances.”
“Our circumstances involve living in this shithole, taking contracts from people we despise, and following Lucian’s orders whenever he snaps his fingers.
” Ko’s voice remained even, but I detected the underlying current of resentment.
“A year of playing house in exchange for freedom? Even if we do need to kill the ‘bride,’ I can live with those terms.”
I nodded. He wasn’t wrong. We could survive marriage for one year.
Marriage.
I resisted the urge to sneer. A pointless sentiment.
Marriage implied commitment, permanence.
This arrangement was neither. It was an assignment.
A calculated move to gather intelligence, to monitor Arabesque’s ambitions.
And if the girl, our intended wife, proved to be part of that ambition, then she would be handled accordingly.
It wouldn’t take much. A staged accident. A disappearance. If necessary, something more direct.
Still, there were variables. Unknowns. I didn’t like unknowns.
So messy.
Like emotions.
I suppressed a shudder.
We had no records on the woman we were to wed. We didn’t even know her name, let alone how she was related to Arabesque. If she had value to the Dark witch, I would find out why. And if she was a threat, I would neutralize her.
Simple.
“It’s a marriage contract, bro, not a suicide mission,” Zane announced, emerging from the bathroom juggling five silver flasks.
Ignoring that, I checked my watch.
“Twenty minutes until departure. Final gear check.”