Anna’s Hope: The Complete Series, page 19
As if in response, a roofing tile sailed off the roof, and came crashing down behind Aaron. He stepped to the side just in time, reaching up and brushing a few specs of dust off his shoulder. “I take it this house doesn’t like being talked about. I can sense it’s seething with dark magic. It must be hell on your allergies. I can find you somewhere else to live.”
Anna opened her mouth to thank him. She was ready to get down on one knee if he could offer her an abode that didn’t have Hell sinkholes in the backyard.
She didn’t get the chance.
At that exact moment the last person – or cat – she wanted to see came trotting up behind Aaron. “Buzz off, bozo. There is no way we’re leaving this delicious house. It is everything a possessed cat could desire. There is dill, and there are enough vermin to keep me entertained. Plus, I find it very exciting to watch the burgeoning evil life marching and seething and slipping its way through the grass and under the carpet.”
Anna shivered. “Eww.”
“Oh, grow a backbone. And tell this pussycat wizard to go away. His goodly vibe is ruining my morning.”
“Good morning to you too, Luminaria,” Aaron said with a patient tone, though the exact look in his eye suggested his patience could wear thin quickly. “Believe it or not, I’m not here to see you.” He turned from Luminaria and offered Anna a smile. “I need to talk to you about what happened last night.”
“As if she knows anything. I,” Luminaria patted her chest as she shifted her neck back, doing a good impression of an imperious sphinx, “know everything. I experienced K’s power personally, and I traveled to his storeroom. I will be invaluable in tracking it down. But trust me, wizard, I won’t be invaluable to you. I have no intention of helping you, ever,” she cackled.
Aaron raised an eyebrow. It was a tense kind of move, and he followed it up with a sharp cough. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“I ate eight rats,” Luminaria declared as she licked a claw. “But I shall follow it up with some tuna.”
“I’m not talking to you. Anna, what are you doing for breakfast?”
Anna opened her mouth. She wanted to speak. The problem was, she couldn’t move her lips. It felt like she had kissed an iceberg.
“Really? Wizard, I can’t say I like you. In fact, I detest you. But here’s a little advice,” Luminaria leaned closer to him as she brought a paw up and cupped it around her mouth as if she were about to whisper to him. “She is not worth it,” she said in a boom that reverberated down the street. “You could do better. Anyone could do better. Dating a slug would be better.”
Anna tried to hide further behind the door as she also tried to hide her disappointment.
“I had hoped not to use this,” Aaron said as he reached into his pocket and pulled something out that had no right fitting in the slim space. It was a small can, and one look at the expensive branding told her it wasn’t baked beans.
Luminaria angled her head towards him and narrowed her eyes. “What have you got there?”
“A distraction. For you. Beluga caviar.” He proffered the small can, holding it high enough that Luminaria wouldn’t be able to jump for it, but low enough that she could see it in its full glory.
“… Caviar?” Luminaria asked.
Aaron responded by opening the can in a smooth move. An awful fishy smell wafted out from it, one that made Anna snuffle but Luminaria light up like a firecracker on Chinese New Year.
“Why don’t you be a good cat, trot inside, eat this, and leave the adults alone, ha?”
Luminaria snarled at his insult, but she didn’t launch herself at his ankles and start hacking away at them like a lumberjack to a sapling. Instead she kept all of her attention locked on the opened can of caviar. “Is it poisoned, wizard?”
“Perhaps. Why don’t you go inside and find out?”
Luminaria tapped a claw on the porch steps. “I underestimated you.”
“Indeed.” He leaned down and placed the open can on the porch.
Luminaria ducked forward, picked the can up in her mouth, and trotted away with it, disappearing down the side of the house at a sprint.
“… Is it poisoned?” Anna tried to neaten her hair while still hiding behind the bulk of the door.
“Unfortunately it isn’t. Now, breakfast?” He placed his hands in his pockets and offered her a smile.
She wanted to ask him if he was serious. Did he want to go out to breakfast with her?
Though this wasn’t breakfast, was it? Aaron wanted to know what happened last night. Asking her would be a whole lot more pleasant and more fruitful than asking his brother.
“I’ll get dressed,” she said. She closed the door, realizing it was ruder to invite him inside to wait than to leave him on the porch. Her house was so evil, it would curl his toes.
She dashed about, trying to find an outfit that was casual enough for breakfast, but smart enough for a meeting. She decided on her usual get up. The same jeans, boots, and top she’d worn the day she’d defeated that dark wizard. They were patched up now, and she’d cleaned out every trace of dark magic. Throwing a jacket and scarf on over the top, she raced back to the porch. She opened the door to see Aaron shooting one of the bushes in the front garden a suspicious look.
“I think there’s an evil garden gnome in there,” he said, nodding forward with a tight move.
“There’s several. I’m pretty sure I overheard them the other day planning an attack on the local nursery to rescue their brothers and sisters.”
Garden gnomes were a little like golems. With the right magic and scroll shoved into their ceramic bodies, they could come alive. That meant that, with enough power, any old garden gnome could be resurrected. From the jolly painted, pointy-hat, white-beard variety, to those cheeky gnomes with their pants down you often saw in eccentric old ladies’ gardens.
Once a garden gnome was resurrected, they tended to band together and form raiding parties to save other gnomes.
Mundane people often blame thieves for gnomes disappearing from their gardens, when the real culprit is other gnomes, continuing their fight of freeing their brothers and sisters from a lifetime of being a moss-covered ornament.
“I will have to mention it to the MEC when I am back in the office,” Aaron assured her. “Is that a new jacket?” He asked.
Anna blushed, receding into her bulky scarf to hide her cheeks. “Yeah. It’s getting kind of cold.”
“Marchtown can have a heatwave during winter and a snowstorm during summer. I would say the weather here throws up more surprises than the city herself, but right now, I’m afraid that’s not true. I heard about your fight with K last night. You alright?”
She closed the door behind her and started walking down the path. She wouldn’t put it past Luminaria to bury that can of Beluga caviar for later, then trot back to Aaron to demand another. They had to leave while the sun still shined, as it were, and the violent storm cloud that was Luminaria didn’t rain down on them.
“I’m fine,” she reached the gate and opened it for him, shooting an evil garden gnome a strict look when it waved its fist at her from behind the dill bush. She would have to take a closer look at that dill bush. It could be a portal right down to hell, or perhaps it was the embodied form of one of Lucifer’s finest generals.
“I heard it was a close call.” Aaron gestured towards his car. It was as fancy as the man himself. She didn’t know auto brands, but it looked European, it also looked like it would cost more than a small house. He walked around to the driver’s side and opened it without unlocking the vehicle. The car would be protected by more hexes than the MEC HQ. Any enterprising criminal dumb enough to try to jack it would wind up in the middle of the Sahara desert, far, far away from the temptation of grand theft auto.
“I wasn’t expecting to fight him, but I didn’t exactly have a choice,” she supplied as she got in the front seat. It was finer, more comfortable, and more luxurious than any car she’d ever sat in. It felt more like a top-of-the-line cruise ship. There was probably a button on the dash that would produce a bottle of champagne and two tumblers out of thin air.
“I’m not blaming you. I understand the contract compelled you to get involved. That being said,” Aaron started the car and pulled away from the curb. He didn’t look in his mirrors to check for traffic. The only other cars on this road were likely demons trying out new clever disguises. She hadn’t seen a mundane person walk along here since she’d moved in.
“You don’t want me going after him again, do you?” She finished his sentence.
Aaron turned and looked at her as he joined the main road. He nodded. “K is incalculably dangerous. He’s been on the Marchtown MEC’s most wanted list forever. He is one of the most heinous criminals in this city, the most prolific too. Others have tried to take him down and failed. I have a dedicated team of my best wizards looking into it, but I won’t let any of them go in solo. He’s too dangerous.” Aaron now shifted his head all the way around to lock her in his gaze.
“I understand,” she said, her voice doing a good impression of a meek mouse squeak.
“I know Scott can be…” Aaron trailed off as he negotiated a roundabout. Or perhaps he was negotiating his thoughts. The exact look of consternation crumpling his handsome face couldn’t be ignored. It seemed every time he thought of his wayward brother, Aaron Hart revisited some old wound. “I know Scott can be forceful. He probably wants you to help him. He’s probably under the deluded impression that he can do something here. He can’t. This is so dangerous. I can’t overemphasize that. I have lost good men to K. The only way to catch him is to act in a coordinated fashion, with backup,” he said through a punctuated breath of air.
Old Anna – the one who had worked for Vale Police Department – appreciated everything Aaron was saying. A wizard as powerful and dangerous as K could only be brought down by a well-planned, well-manned mission. New Anna, however, was having trouble swallowing that fact.
She didn’t want to be pushed back from this. She didn’t want to stand on the sidelines and watch. Though she doubted her abilities when it came to bounty hunting, she didn’t doubt her personal involvement when it came to this specific case.
She wanted to see this through.
She tried to convince herself to remain silent, but she couldn’t. She turned back to him. “I want to help. There must be a way I can help.”
Aaron shook his head. “It’s far too dangerous. You still possess a scrap of that dark wizard’s soul. I don’t think you should be getting involved with this group at all. You should leave it to—”
“The professionals?” She cut in. She wasn’t ever this rude and direct with Aaron. If they had been discussing any other topic, she would have remained her usual timid self.
This subject cut to the bone, because that dark wizard had cut to the bone. She could still feel his grip around her wrist if she dared to conjure the memory.
“No, I wasn’t going to say that. I’ll admit that I underestimated you the first time I saw you in my office,” he said, taking one hand off the wheel to tap his chin, “I’ll admit that you surprised me when you saved my brother and defeated that dark wizard. But there’s one thing I knew about you before you came to Marchtown and before you started surprising me. You know the procedure, Anna. It’s on your file. It’s what your superiors in Vale said about you. You are not rash. You do not jump in. You understand the importance of good planning.”
“… So there’s nothing I can do?”
“No, there is something you can do. If you see my brother, convince him to drop this. And if you know what he’s got planned next,” Aaron swiveled his head and stared at her, even though they were traveling down the highway. He could take his hands off the wheel, and the car would drive itself. It was magical, it belonged to one of the most powerful wizards in the world, and it had style.
“I don’t think Scott is going to listen to me,” she said.
Aaron sighed. It echoed throughout the enclosed space, somehow making the dashboard shake. “He doesn’t listen to anyone. But if all you can do is keep yourself safe, then do that. Trust me, we are looking into this – I’m looking into this personally – and I won’t sleep until it’s solved.”
It would have been easy to ignore Aaron in that moment. It would have been easy to nod and lie that she had no intention of tracking down K. To do that, she would have to ignore how open he was being.
For a man who hid behind a façade, like a boy behind a battlement, right now she fancied she was seeing the real Aaron.
The Aaron who got stressed, overcome, annoyed, and baffled.
“You don’t need to worry about me, and I will keep myself safe. To be honest, I don’t think Scott is going to be able to track K down anyway,” she said as she stared out the window at the other passing cars.
She heard Aaron shift around in his seat, the soft leather creaking with his movement. “Sorry? Why do you think that?”
She didn’t turn to him. She focused her attention on the view, her eyes narrowing in thought. “It’s a hunch. I think K is just the middleman. A delivery boy – albeit a really old, really strong, leather-wearing one. I think somebody gave him that sack, and somebody gave him those candles. I think that same somebody will take them away when they realize he failed last night.”
Aaron paused. “Those are a lot of thoughts. Do you have any evidence to back them up?”
She turned to him. “No.”
Aaron smiled, a strange kind of smile she’d never seen before. He usually had the kind of grin that looked like it was photoshopped onto his face; every crinkle and every line arranged with the eye of a master designer.
Now he pressed his lips together, and his chin dimpled in an awkward move. “With an ordinary person, I’d tell them to ignore their hunches. Hunches without strong reasons are usually nothing more than wishful thinking.”
He didn’t finish his sentence. He turned around and continued to pay attention to the traffic.
What did he mean? She wasn’t an ordinary girl? Her hunches were stronger than the usual run-of-the-mill bounty hunter’s?
She pressed her lips into her teeth.
Was it a hunch? Or was it wishful thinking?
She opened her palms and stared down at them.
She didn’t know where those thoughts had come from; they’d bubbled up from some unconscious well.
They continued to drive in silence. It gave her a long time to sort through her feelings. They kept rebounding to one fact.
That new kind of magic. The black portal that had opened up under K and dragged him away.
That was the key to everything.
Just thinking about it made her back itch, her stomach churn, and her chest tighten.
Aaron pulled up in front of a fancy looking cafe. It had a deep red and black awning, well-placed chairs and tables, and a facade rendered from sandstone and reclaimed brick.
It looked beautiful and far too expensive. With one look at the waiters serving steaming hot cups of coffee in signature bone china, she got nervous at the prospect she would have to pay for her own meal. While Aaron could be a gentleman, without warning, he could revert to being rude and officious. What if he expected her to pay for her own breakfast?
She would have to wait tables and wash dishes for a week to afford even a slice of moldy raisin toast at a place like this.
She was saved the anguish of finding out. As Aaron got out of his car, his phone rang. He answered it and walked several steps away.
Though she hadn’t been provided the opportunity to get to know him as well as his brother, she was also becoming attuned to Aaron Hart. She watched as his shoulders fell, his head and neck stiffened, and a charge of magic built in his clenched hands. It wasn’t enough to dart over his skin and alarm the fancy patrons of the cafe. It was enough to make her sneeze though.
After a tense minute or two of conversation, he hung up, wiped a hand down his mouth, took a sharp breath, and turned to her. “I’m terribly sorry, but something’s come up.”
She placed her hands on her knees and bowed to him. Don’t ask her why – it was a dumb thing to do. Aaron always brought out the dumb in her. “That’s okay,” she stuttered.
“We’ll have to have a rain check. But I have a tab in the cafe, and you’re welcome to go in and order yourself anything you like,” he spoke in a stutter, his usually well-pronounced words rolling out in a jumble of syllables and puffy breaths. Whatever he’d heard on the phone had rattled him.
Concern peaked her eyebrows and tensed her cheeks. “Is everything okay?”
She didn’t expect him to answer; he was the head of the MEC, and she was nothing but a terrible bounty hunter. It was polite to ask, however, considering his pale-faced shock.
“They dragged the body of a wizard out of the river this morning,” he answered.
She pressed her fingers into her lips. “Oh my God, that’s horrible. Do they know who it is?”
“Unidentifiable.”
That word shook through her, convulsing her stomach like an earthquake disturbing every cell and tissue. She placed a hand on her chest. “Oh, no.”
“Sorry about this, Anna. I need to leave. Please, breakfast is on me.” He gestured behind him to the cafe.
Though the heady and fantastic scents wafting towards her were enough to make a stone salivate, she was no longer hungry.
The thought of food turned her stomach. The thought of anything turned her stomach. A wizard had been pulled from the river, and he was unidentifiable.
This was true crime. This was the kind of hard, disgusting brutality that the police existed to stop.
The problem was, there were no police here – only the MEC.
That didn’t stop her from lifting her head and staring at Aaron, her lips crinkling into a flat, compassionate smile. “Is there anything I can do to help?” She already knew what his answer would be: no. An emphatic no. She was going to offer, anyway. Even though the thought of seeing an unidentifiable, waterlogged wizard was enough to put her off food for life, she had to offer.
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