Villains Never Die

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

The loose finger bones inside my pocket rattled with each step; a whole index finger’s worth.

I wasn’t in the habit of transporting items myself, but these bones were a historical piece worth quite a lot of money, and the seller had insisted I be the one to move them.

I could sacrifice a few hours of my evening for ten thousand dollars, especially when I already had a buyer in mind.

Something shuffled to my right, and I shifted the alley’s shadows to cover me in their darkness. A raggedy-looking feline slunk from between two metal bins and growled low.

“Piss off,” I told it, and it prowled away.

This entire Friday had soured my mood, and I worked weekends, so it wasn’t like I’d get a break the next day.

I’d caught one of my employees lying to me.

Another had nearly gotten caught with drugs and dumped them while evading the police.

I would spend my weekend cleaning up their messes and doling out punishment, and now I was walking around in the middle of the night with contraband in my pocket. Lovely.

…bad mood today.

Tomorrow could be worse, you know.

Looks like you need a stiff drink.

The voices all chimed in their opinions. I wasn’t schizophrenic, but sometimes I wondered if it was worse that the voices I heard were real.

No one knows what happens after death, not even magicians, with all our power. But spirits, ghosts, restless souls—whatever people called them—were real. That I knew. The dead whispered to me, and they never shut the fuck up.

As if my day hadn’t been bad enough, there was that other problem. The one that had been eating at me for weeks.

Rook.

The new player in town had caused quite a stir, and rumor had it he was gaining a lot of followers.

Making deals. Taking control of illegal betting and fighting and a chunk of drugs that I wasn’t willing to share.

Except I couldn’t pin the bastard down. I knew he had a base somewhere.

Deals and fights and this attention he was getting were happening somewhere.

But no one knew—or no one would tell me—not even the dead.

At twenty-five, I was young to have amassed the kind of power I held over the city of Ashbruck, but youth was the perfect ladder to climb to the top. When you’re young, they underestimate you. When they underestimate you, they never see you coming.

They said he was young, too, and I’d worked too hard to drive the old players out of town. I’d earned it, and I wouldn’t give it up to some nobody trying to make a name for himself.

My cell phone slid around in my pocket opposite the bones, the ringer turned off.

It vibrated every so often. Someone was usually trying to reach me, but I let it go.

Dad had texted me several times earlier in the day.

Mum’s birthday was coming up and he wanted me to fly back to London.

I’d said no for five years. Maybe this would be the year he finally gave up.

I didn’t want to go home and reminisce about the good times, or watch him get drunk and cry about the one dead person who didn’t talk to me. It had been over a decade.

What were we celebrating?

I used to think the fact that she didn’t talk to me meant she’d moved on to some better place. She wasn’t here, restless and crying out to someone who would listen. Now, I tried not to think about it at all.

Pouting.

What’s he look so pissed off about?

…looks like he needs a good night’s sleep.

“Oh, shut up,” I muttered.

If the dead weren’t so eager to share the living’s secrets, I might have shut them out, except I didn’t know how. For fifteen years their voices had followed me everywhere, and there didn’t seem to be an off button for their chatter.

I turned a corner and slowed, trying to keep my pace even so I didn’t scratch the macabre trinket in my pocket.

The bones should have been encased in something more protective, but I couldn’t risk being seen carrying something noticeable in the middle of the night.

The police were easy enough to brush off.

Humans were under the illusion they had far more power than they did.

But magicians? I didn’t need The Council keeping tabs on me. Bribery only went so far with them, and God help me if I had to deal with any of the fae.

My job was always a balance of getting the right attention and avoiding notice of the wrong kind. It wouldn’t always be that way. Someday no one would cross me, and I was very, very close. I’d make sure no one stood in my way. Not even bloody Rook.

I was two blocks from home, and if I’d had to walk too far, I would have taken the car.

The early autumn was already cold at night.

My breath puffed in the air, and I rubbed my hands together as I neared the building.

I’d take the lift to my penthouse, stash the bones in my safe, and steal two hours of sleep before I went back to work.

Sleep is for the old and the dead.

And people who didn’t have enough power to merit a persistent target on their back.

He should take a vacation.

Needs to take better care of himself.

“I might rest more if you were quiet,” I said.

Behind you!

I whirled around and scanned the dimly lit street. A man stood a few paces behind me, the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled up and a few strands of blonde hair loose over his forehead. He grinned at me, assessing me with eyes that were distinctly blue in the streetlights, even from a distance.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” he said as he raised a gun. “I’m Rook.”

A shot rang out.

My heart stopped.

***

Blackness.

I always floated in darkness for a few minutes before I came back, like drifting on a calm sea.

I opened my eyes and gasped, but I’d done this before, and the shock of it wore off quickly as I pushed myself up and looked around for Rook. When I found him…

He was still there, and he didn’t look happy to see me standing after a bullet to the chest. He backed away a few steps and stammered, “How did you—”

“You unbelievable piece of shit!” I screamed at him. I pressed my hand to my chest and used magic to pull the bullet from inside. It scraped my insides and fell on the street with a metallic clink. “You have no idea what you’ve done!”

Rook was still backing away, and despite his shock, he dodged the flames I threw at him. Twice. Fast, but scared too.

He ran, disappearing into the shadows. Bloody coward. I considered going after him, but I was too tired for it. I checked to make sure no other surprises lurked in the dark, and then I went home.

***

I sat behind my desk, scrolling through human news on my computer.

It paid to keep up with what they reported in their news; they didn’t know how often the supernatural was involved.

It was all the usual: politics, a couple of murders, local slice-of-life stories.

None of it was enough to keep me distracted from thoughts of Rook.

This wouldn’t stand. I couldn’t let it. If I’d planned to drive him out of town before, that had quickly turned over to a more gruesome plan. He was a dead man.

I would have needed that life he took, just as surely as I needed the first three I’d sacrificed.

The side door to my office opened and Gray strode in, his head nearly brushing the doorframe. The black military fatigues he wore looked almost too small for his muscular frame.

“Hey, boss,” he said, tossing the mail onto my desk. I glared up at him, but he only smirked about the haphazard pile of junk he’d just put in front of me.

I swept a hand over the pile. “Isn’t this what I have an assistant for?”

“And I do the important things,” he said. “If you want someone to sort your mail, hire a secretary.”

I rubbed my eyes and sighed. I’d been up all night stewing about being shot and had barely caught two hours of sleep before I had to be here to meet the buyer for the bones. The transaction had been quick, but once I was awake, there was always an endless tide of work.

“What else have you got for me?” I asked Gray.

“That Calvin creep broke your deal.”

I separated junk mail from anything interesting, listening to him as I thumbed through envelopes. “The one I got out of the solicitation charge?”

“He was arrested again last night.”

“Idiot.” I considered my options and decided I was too tired to deal with people’s petty bullshit too. “Police or The Council?”

“Police.”

I looked up and nodded. “Take care of it. Make it look like an accident. If it gets messy and the police start sniffing around, write a check to Captain Franklin with however many zeros it takes to make it go away.”

Franklin was one of the few people I had ties to in the human world, and he loved a good bribe.

“Anything else?” Gray asked.

“That shipment of fae artifacts is coming in at midnight. They should all be documented and labeled already. Make sure they’re ready for the auction on Saturday and be careful.

You know how unpredictable they are.” I tapped my fingers on the desk, Rook’s attack refusing to stay in the back of my head while I needed my attention on work.

I’d let him sneak up on me. It was sloppy. That’s what happened when I did menial bullshit myself instead of sending someone else. I should have been hunting him down and sent Gray for the bones.

“Find Rook’s club,” I said. “There are enough lowlifes frequenting the place that someone knows where the fuck it is. Don’t send any of our people. Just text me the address.”

Gray’s black eyebrows shot up. “You taking care of this one yourself?”

I rubbed a hand over my chest, where the wound had healed. I may have cheated death, but that bullet left a permanent scar. “This one is personal.”