The Hailen Reed Narratives

Chapter 5: Mind Sex

2009-04-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

“Where were you?” It was Quinn and he sounded annoyed. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

“I was working.” I smirked.

A pause. “Well? Do you have an answer?”

“If I say no?”

“The Dawn is desperate,” Quinn explained. “We’ll settle for whoever will do the job for us.”

“No one can get in the Darkreed Mansion without spirit guides,” I said, snide. “Or blood from one of the family members. Or, to the least, an invitation.

“True,” said Quinn. “But you’re not the only thief who has the goods.”

“Are you talking about Derek Pimentel?”

Although I was wondering how Derek could have gotten hold of Darkreed blood, I knew Derek was more than capable. He remains my toughest competitor. The competition wasn’t healthy, though. For all the times I weaseled him, Derek would kill me if he had the chance.

“Not Derek,” Quinn said. “Claudia.”

Claudia Sandoval was one of the most promising thieves in the Wiccean world. By my standards, an amateur. I once traded blows with her when we were both stealing a manuscript for our own respective clients. My client wanted the manuscript. Her client wanted to destroy it. Claudia’s witching skills weren’t exceptional, but she knew the most treacherous hexes. I made her eat dirt, though. Back then, she didn’t stand a chance against me. I’m not sure how much she has trained and improved since our little encounter. I listened to rumors about her exploits now and then. It’s part of the job, I guess. I have to know the competition, even if they were insubstantial. You know, just in case we crossed paths again. What Claudia had accomplished through the years was no cause for worry. Although, she did have something that neither Derek nor I did. She has a cunt. And she used it relentlessly.

“She slept with a Darkreed?” I asked Quinn. That’s the only possible way that Claudia could have acquired the blood. I let Quinn believe I had a vial of Darkreed blood in storage. He didn’t know all I needed to do is gash my own palm and I could enter the mansion unchallenged. Quinn was quiet. “My, my. That girl knows the stuff that matters,” I said with real admiration.

“So what’s your answer, Hail?” Quinn’s voice had the edge of impatience in it. Somehow, I thought aggravating him and making him lose his cool was kind of sexy.

“Is The Dawn paying her as much as they intend to pay me?” I knew the answer of course, but I pretended to be flabbergasted nonetheless.

“A little less than half,” admitted Quinn.

“Good, because I’d be insulted otherwise,” I cleared my throat. “Did you, uh, also offer yourself as part of the deal?”

The question made Quinn chuckle. An annoying little boyish laughter that men used, I’d imagine, when someone admired the size of their package.

“What’s so funny?”

“Claudia doesn’t need that prod, Hail,” said Quinn. “No pun intended.”

“Unless,” I bit my lip. I always loved to tease him, “you’re just using this as a reason to get into bed with me. Has it always been women, Quinn? Or have you entertained other thoughts.”

Quinn sighed. “Not that I don’t enjoy this thread of conversation, Hailen, but I really need an answer. Will you take the job or not?”

I considered the odds. On one hand, my grandmother. If she found out what I intended to do with the book, she would probably turn me into an amputee toad. On the other hand, The Dawn. If I failed, I probably have to kill myself before they do it themselves. But rising above these dangers is a true challenge. I would be lying if I said it didn’t tie a knot of perverted pleasure in my soul.

“I’m in, Quinn,” I answered. “But you don’t have to sleep with me.” What do you know? I still have residual morals or whatever you might call it.

“Are you saying that’s not the reason you’re accepting this contract?” It was Quinn’s turn to tease me.

“Don’t take it personally, big boy,” I told him. “If you’re going to sleep with me, I’d prefer if you did so on your own volition.”

Quinn laughed. “What makes you think it isn’t? You said it yourself. Maybe I needed the pretense of an excuse.”

“Sex needs no pretense, Quinn. If this was of your own choice, we’d be trashing my bed right about now,” I said. Ever since the mind-reading fiasco, Quinn has always known that I wanted him. The skill had been potion-induced, so Quinn didn’t have the power anymore. But he has always known. I hide it the best way I could, but his constant flirting was enough proof that my desire was still tangible. I know I said I hate being manipulated. But that really depends on who is doing the manipulating. The next time I spoke, I made it sound professional. “We have a job to do. You said you were going to assist me?”

“With whatever you need,” said Quinn. I could imagine him smiling.

He wasn’t going to make this easy. With how my job has taken over my life, I kind of welcomed it. Flirting is the most sex I was getting.

Chapter 4: Doing The Job

2009-04-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

I remembered that I was holding an athame, a double-edged dagger used by Wicceans to direct energy and make protective circles. The knife is actually never used for cutting flesh. Unless it’s an emergency, of course.

With the little strength left in my arms, I lifted the dagger and buried its blade on the demon’s stomach. That’s no way to kill a demon, but it will hurt them.

The incubus winced. His body scrunched in pain. I took the opportunity to exhale. I kicked his face and ran towards the temple entrance. The mouth of the cave was a couple hundred meters from it. Behind me I could hear the demon scream.

I had forgotten that most demons have three times the speed of humans. Before I could exit the temple, the incubus had materialized in front of me and gave me another strong blow. No, not the pleasant kind of blow.

The demon’s force sent me rolling to the ground. This shithead was really serious about not letting me out with his scepter. Or maybe he was insulted that I didn’t fall into his charms. I pulled myself to my knees and directed my eyes to the incubus. He was moving towards me, eager to make pounce right to the kill. I guess I had to do this the hard way.

Basic hexes can be cast inwardly by a witch of considerable power. These include spells for floating objects, altering shapes, protection, telepathic communication, absorbing energy, dispelling enemies and many others. In the hands of a master, these spells didn’t need incantations. Spells that kill, however, need to be chanted. The impact of the spell depends on the powers of the witch. Sometimes a chant had to be done in a protective circle because it took time for the spell to take effect. In the field, witches used orbs to focus their powers. Suffused, a bright light explodes from the orb. If the recipient of the hex is engulfed, the affliction is bestowed.

I flung my ceramic orb at the demon and began to chant.

“Bend to my darkness, Demon of lust. Flesh to ashes, bone to dust.”

Before the demon could reach me, he froze in mid-haste. Then his entire body contorted into itself and exploded into particles of dust. I shielded my eyes against the spray.

Immediately, though, the columns of the temple started to topple and crash to the floor of the cave. A tremor reverberated inside it. Damn it. I had forgotten that a demon’s life essence is connected to its hiding place. When they are destroyed, their secret dwellings follow soon after.

I scrambled to my feet and started to run for my life. Behind me, the temple was crashing completely. The hollow space that surrounded it was caving in. I left my orb and my athame but held on to the scepter in my hand. Despite all this, I still had to give it to the sorcerer who had hired my thieving services.

The reason my thievery has become so in demand and expensive was that in the event that I failed to deliver (which has never happened), the client has the option of giving me another task. Any task at all, except suicide, mutilation and everything else in that sense.

When I got out of the cave and into the sunlight, I didn’t stop running until the sounds of crumbling earth faded away. When I looked back, thick clouds of dust rose from what was left of the cave. I was catching my breath when my client appeared before me.

“You didn’t tell me the demon was still alive!” I accused.

The sorcerer was of the Hider kind. All of them wear hooded gray cloaks. Nothing can be seen underneath their hoods but the blue gleam of their eyes.

“My apologies,” replied the sorcerer. His voice had the quality of an echo in it, like four voices coming out of his mouth at the same time. “I have doubled the fee for your troubles.”

Weakly, I handed him the scepter. He gave me two pouches of Hider gold.

I could hardly speak. I was steal huffy from the unexpected workout. “You think this is all about money.” I wasn’t asking. “I could have died back there.”

“It’s been a pleasure,” Echo-mouth said. I didn’t even know his name. I wanted to ask him how Hiders propagate. I wondered if they had the same body parts as humans underneath their cloaks. The sorcerer disappeared.

Sorcerers consist three races of half-demons. They have the ability to cast alchemical spells. The Hiders is the race that can teleport at will. I envy them. I tried to teleport once. My nose didn’t stop bleeding for days.

Finding the demon’s temple had been tricky. It was an hour’s hike into the forest of Mount Atreverse on a freaking 70-degree incline. It took me two days to register a probable location. I used a magical map to show me any signs of ectoplasmic activity. That’s the best way to start. The bigger the activity, the bigger the odds than an artifact is hidden there. The cave had been the best candidate and I was right. The people who lived near the area actually called it Kweba Maligno, which is the local dialect for “Cave of Evil Spirits”.

Before trailing my way down the mountain and back to town, I sat on a fallen trunk and tended to my wounds. They are going to bruise, I can tell that much. Spells don’t heal wounds. Herbs do, but mugwort didn’t exactly grow in these parts. Not on this terrain.

The past week had been weird. This was the third time someone had asked me to steal a scepter, their operative expression being ‘to recover an artifact’. Well, I wasn’t recovering any artifacts. I was stealing them and killing their respective owners. If I had known their guardians were still in existence, I would’ve planned a different way of taking the objects. That way, I didn’t have to slay demons.

I ached for a shower.

Actually, my throat burned for rum. Dry.

Chapter 3: Chokehold

2009-04-26T04:01:00.000-07:00

Succubi and incubi have the ability to bind their victims in a sexual trance. Intoxicating, yes. But not totally irresistible. Having had no sex in the past four months, however, can throw every bit of your hard-boiled resistance right out to pasture. It didn’t help matters that the demon in question had taken the appearance of the very object of your lust.

So there I was, drowning deeper and deeper into the incubus’ kiss. I knew it was a demon but all I could see was a naked Quinn. And his cock was prodding through my shirt and pressing hard into my navel. Against my better judgment, I was stroking it. I wanted to wrap my mouth around it. I wanted to give in to my baser instincts, the ones I had been suppressing since the first moment I met Quinn.

The swirling in my head took the form of visions sculpted out of flesh. Every little piece has the essence of Quinn in it. The masculine features of his face, the sounds he makes, the broad muscles of his shoulders, the flat surface of his stomach. I could hear his voice, feel his touch, and smell him in heightened vividness.

I love sex as much as the next gay man. But I didn’t want to die smothered with it. Not this way, anyway. Does fucking a demon equal fucking an animal? No, I didn’t want to find out. I had to collect my wits and beat this shit. I tried to break away from the incubus’ effortless spell.

Demons have stronger powers. Give me another Wiccean casting a seduction spell and I can turn it around him as easily as bending wire. But struggling from an enchantment cast by a demon is like wading through an ocean in heavy boots. I feel a throbbing in my head as I tussled above the incubus’ magic. The seduction lingered in all my pleasure zones. I think I have more heat than a hundred bitches in mating season.

But I must have made a break in the demon’s hypnotic hold, because the incubus had jolted back, retreating a couple of steps. He knew something was up. I hated how he had replicated Quinn down to every pore.

Then a crucial spark of recognition flickered in my head. If there’s anything that peeved me, it’s the thought that someone has manipulated me. I hated to be someone’s puppet more than anything else in the world and this demon was enjoying doing it. I let the anger lurch out of me. It began to shatter the incubus’ hypnotic control.

“Why do you try to resist?” The incubus asked.

One of the gifts I was blessed with was I didn’t have to chant like most witches in order to cast a hex. In fact, there were very few among us who could do that. Most of those who manage to bewitch inwardly were old. The power of Wicceans increased as they aged. However, I’m a different deal. At twenty, I had the power equivalent of a forty-year-old prime-level witch. Otherwise, I may not have been able to accomplish what I did next.

I let an intense surge of energy ripple in my hands. A dispelling hex that I expanded between me and the demon. But the energy hasn’t exploded yet. I was still much too giddy, too weak. But the incubus’ charm has significantly weakened. I wiggled out of it with all the force my mental control could affect.

I released my spell. The energy blasted between me and the incubus. It exploded in a spherical current. The strength of my spell had flung the demon away. He crashed on the altar and lay still in shock and pain. Unfortunately, I wasn’t immune to the force I had unleashed. It dispelled me as well to the opposite side of the cave and slammed me on hard earth. A sharp bolt of pain screamed from my limbs as I thudded to the ground. The cloud of dust that ascended made me cough. This is what they call kissing dirt. This is the second thing I hated most in the world.

I spotted my orb on the ground and the athame not far from it. Quickly, I grabbed the weapons and ran towards the wall where I had seen the Earthwand.

As soon as I had my fingers around the scepter, I felt the demon’s arm smash the side of my face. The fucker was strong. I twisted in the air and smashed hard on a wall. From the ground, I tried to flip myself upright. It didn’t work. I haven’t been working out.

The incubus closed its fist around my throat. He was still in Quinn’s form and his cock was still hard as steel. But there was no promise of sex from him now. He took no delay in crushing my neck under his powerful fingers.

My vision began to twist. I couldn’t breathe. Tears began to trickle down the sides of my cheek. I heard myself make choking sounds as I gasped for air. I always thought choking was an embarrassing way to die. Oddly, I felt no shame. Mostly, it’s just pathetic.

Don’t ever take your fish out of the tank just so you could see its gills dilate as it scuffle for oxygen. Not even when you feel the itching need for animal cruelty. Believe me, it’s no picnic.

As my vision began to darken, a thought of ironic regret snapped in my head.

I should have let this demon fuck me to death instead.

Chapter 2: Succubus

2009-04-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

Spirits were clinging to me like pests. The ground trembled. A hot breeze rolled around the subterranean temple and a demonic murmur echoed in the darkness. I could barely see.

I was clutching an athame in my right hand and a ceramic orb in the other. I shook my right foot, trying to dislodge the spirits that clung to it.

I wasn’t scared of the spirits. They were mostly just an annoying interference. The most harm they could do is pull my hair. This was common for ancient temples that harbored magical artifacts. Spirits were normally cast there to guard from human outsiders. These beings clutter the stories of treasure hunters and looters who always dramatically claim they were attacked by a curse. I’m no ordinary human outsider, however, and it takes more than a horde of ectoplasm to scare me away.

The orb I was holding began to glow as I concentrate on a silent spell. A bright light flashed in the temple and the spirits were dispelled. I could see them. Little mists of white energy, some with discernible human forms. Their eyes were blank and hollow though. I had cast a spell for ectoplasmic stasis. They will be frozen until I decide to release them.

The ground immediately stopped shaking. The wind desisted, and silence filled the underground shrine. Spirits affect elements. When they’re quiet, everything else lay still.

“Very impressive trick,” said a voice that sounded like wine or honey.

I froze in my tracks. I wasn’t expecting someone else to be here. Or something else. The fear of being unprepared started in my toes. I was uttering a silent spell to protect myself.

“What is it that you want from this place, witch,” asked the voice.

The client that sent me on this task was a sorcerer who wanted me to retrieve a scepter from this temple, an artifact called Earthwand. The sorcerer told me it used to belong to a succubus who was worshipped by a secret tribe a long time ago. What he failed to tell me was that the succubus might still be alive.

A mocking laughter exploded in the temple. I held my orb at the ready. Whatever it is I’m dealing with, I had enough firepower to break it into smithereens.

“Show yourself!” I shouted.

The laughter stopped and it was replaced by a thundering voice. From honey it boomed like a mountain crumbling from an earthquake. The cave shook. Particles of dirt began to rain down. “How dare you utter commands in a sacred ground you have no permission to be!” The voice demanded. It made my heart thump. It almost made me wheeze.

A yellow light kindled in the middle of the cave. It illuminated an altar and the columns posted around it. The shadows in the temple began to fade against the sudden illumination. Then torches I hadn’t thought were there burst aflame. The sudden glare blinded me. I blinked several times. When my vision cleared, I released a startled gasp. A beautiful woman was standing in front of me, stark naked.

The succubus stared into my eyes, a little smile in her face. She traced her fingers under my chin and pulled it down until I was staring at her breasts and her taut nipples. I wanted to stab her with the knife I was holding, but my hand wouldn't move.

“Have you come for me, my little witch?”

I turned my head away, and I heard the succubus giggle.

A succubus is a demonic enchantress. They are the earthly embodiment of seduction. They fucked their victims until the poor men forgot their names and their memories, until they are consumed by their own ruinous passion. The human body has a threshold for each emotion. Even pleasure. Too much of it will leave one twittering in a mindless existence.

The sexual appetite of succubi is insatiable, and they become more powerful each time they mate. Through the centuries they repaired in caves, appearing only in men’s dreams and getting sustenance from these predatory acts of psychic sex.

By default (me being gay), I should be immune to the enchantments of succubi, but these little demons have one important trick up their sleeves. They can shapeshift and become incubi – their male forms. That’s how they have ejaculations. As incubi, they release the semen they’ve taken as succubi. A regurgitation of man juice. Um, yuck!

And this succubus knew what I wanted. I could already feel her boring into my head, looking for the epicenter of my freshest sexual fantasy. What a wily bitch.

“It seems my little witch wants me a different way.” The succubus whispered, twirling my hair in her fingers. “What does your appetite hunger for?” The succubus smiled. I knew that she already knew, and I found myself utterly helpless under her spell. Not even when I spied the Earthwand sitting on a lighted hole in the north wall of the temple. It was a few meters within reach. But somehow, I had dropped my orb and athame. I didn’t even hear them when they hit the ground. I was already holding the demon’s naked waist. it felt like solid cream under my touch.

“Look at me,” said the succubus. I couldn’t explain the smell that emanated from her. It was something wild, like wet fur, or the musk of trees, the scent of mud, of incense, and myrrh. It was an otherworldly scent but it didn’t repulse. It seeped into my nose and made me pleasantly dizzy. I wanted to taste it, to consume it.

When I turned my eyes to see the succubus’ face, I saw it blur and ripple. I was to wrapped up in a deepening sexual intoxication that I didn’t feel alarmed at all.

The demon’s female features slowly became masculine. Her forehead broadened. Her eyebrows thickened, and her eyes were set slightly deeper. Her little mouth widened into supple reddish lips, and I found myself staring up at them as the succubus grew taller.

“What about now, little witch?” The newly shapeshifted incubus said. I recognized that voice. I knew that face. “Will you let me devour you?”

I coulnd't breathe. I realized I was staring at the perfect copy of Quinn Tolentino.

Damn!

Chapter 1: A Slimy Proposition

2009-04-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

“You want me to do what?”

Quinn Tolentino sipped his café au lait, savoring the hot drink. His eyes never left mine, even when my jaw dropped at the audacity of his proposal. Quinn sat across the wooden table from me, his expression behind the ceramic coffee cup breaking into a naughty grin.

“Are you saying you can’t do it?” He asked holding his cup elegantly in the fold of his palm. There was a sparkle of challenge in the way he regarded me. He has done this before. Vintage Quinn. He would raise his eyebrow ever so subtly, purse his lips in the surface of a pout, and make sure his smile was deliberately playful. As though sexual innuendo was enough to bend my reservations into agreement.

Why do evil people always come in the most delicious of guises? I guess that’s in a rule book somewhere. A grimoire that demands evil to always come with an attractive packaging. In hindsight, how else can they seduce the good?

Which is not to say I’m one of the good guys. I don’t take sides. I go where the thrill is.

“Of course I can do it,” came my blunt reply. “I just don’t think I want to just yet.”

“Three hundred grand,” Quinn said. A ridiculous amount, yet considering the task, it was reasonable.

“Why do you need the book so badly?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Not enough dark books in your vault?”

Quinn chuckled. His soft laughter sounded mysterious. “You’re popular in our circle as someone who gets the job done.” He shifted in his seat and put his cup down. “Unfortunately, you’re also well-known for your questions and your meddling, which is why The Dawn sent me.”

I had needed Quinn’s assistance a couple of times before he joined The Dawn, a mysterious coven that everyone in the Wiccean community thought was a myth. Until it went active about a year ago. Many supposed the coven was newly formed, a copycat group to take credit for The Dawn’s historical dealings with necromanic magic. Others believed the coven never really went away.

“I don’t go in blind,” I reminded Quinn. Never again. “That’s why I ask questions. And as for the meddling, completely accidental on all accounts, whatever you might have heard.”

“There’s a very intricate ritual that is written in that book,” sighed Quinn, indulging an answer. “The Dawn knows the concept of how it’s done. However, it is highly time-sensitive and the litany is very specific. It has to be done down to the letter. If something goes wrong,” he took another sip, “you know the drill.”

“Like if someone stuttered or sneezed in the middle of it?” I raised my own eyebrow. I didn’t regret making the joke, even when Quinn showed the first signs of annoyance. “I’m guessing you won’t tell me what the ritual is for?”

“That is correct.” Quinn’s brown eyes were like glass. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was stripping away my clothes with his scorching stare.

“And if I say no, will you leave me alone?” I was aware that a smile was breaking from my lips. I don’t know what it was about danger that I found alluring. Or maybe it was the thought that I’d be attempting to cheat death one more time.

“Scout’s honor,” Quinn’s smile widened.

I laughed. I wanted to dance with him a little while longer. It’s Sunday, after all, a day for church. No need for haste. “You’re neither a scout nor a man with any bit of honor left in him, Quinn,” I told him. “Not even in those clothes.”

Quinn shrugged. He had a proclivity for wearing spiffy-looking suits, always the gleaming executive. Next to him I looked like a teenager misplaced in the company of a sage adult. I was wearing a black vest over a black sheer shirt; and for the wild idea of possibly needing to kick someone’s nuts, I wore a heavy pair of ankle-length boots. To an outsider, it would appear that Quinn was a successful businessman lecturing a younger brother against bad decisions and going further astray.

“So what is it, Hail?” Quinn lifted his hands in a mockery of a weighing scale.

“Wait,” I cocked my eyebrow at him. “Why did they send you?”

“I’m supposed to assist you.”

“That’s hardly necessary,” I frowned.

“The book is a very powerful tool,” explained Quinn, “and we understand the...”

I nodded, beginning to understand. “The Dawn won’t take the risk of having me steal the book for myself.”

“Sounds about right,” confirmed Quinn. “The book has keys to magic of great measure.”

“Enough for me to break your coven apart like a twig.”

Quinn laughed. It was a patronizing sound. Like a father amused at something his four-year-old had said. “I wouldn’t be so presumptuous.”

“We’re talking about a lot of money. What’s to prevent The Dawn from killing me before the exchange? Besides, how am I supposed to trust that you won’t bushwhack me as soon as I deliver the book?”

“This is absolutely insulting.” Quinn sighed wearily. “Do you know why The Dawn is one of the most resilient and finest coven to date?”

“Indulge me.”

“We give, in order to get. We reward our sources when they produce what was promised. We don’t make deals we don’t intend to follow through. Those covens who do otherwise never last. You betray someone, they take revenge, and sometimes it is in the most insignificant people that the most crucial blight is generated. But when they are as powerful as you, then case closed. ”

“I’m sorry, Quinn,” I said. “But, no.”

Quinn was quiet for a moment. Then he leaned forward and engaged me in a conspiratorial whisper. “What if I brought something else on the table? Something more stimulating, should I say.”

“And what, pray tell, would that be?” I said in a capriciously defiant tone.

“Me.” Quinn said. Pure business there.

I think I heard myself swallow hard. The first time Quinn and I crossed paths two years ago, he had just swallowed a potion that allowed him to hear thoughts. No point in explaining what sort of thoughts he heard from my head. What can I say? This guy knows a good leverage.

“You whore,” I said with no trace of contempt or irony. The flirting route? I never back down speeding through it.

Quinn sighed. He stood up and left a check by his coffee cup. I’m so good at what I do that they need to pay me just for showing up, regardless of what my answer might be. In any case, I’m putting my life on the line. No amount of money was supposed to quantify that, but this would do. I’m not a cheapskate. Like everyone else who’s running a business, I’m just an opportunist.

“We need a final answer by tomorrow. The ritual must be done in two weeks.”

“And beyond tomorrow?”

Quinn leaned over to me, clutching the arm rests of my seat. I could smell his expensive cologne. Something sexual and captivating. Dolce and Gabbana, I think. The classic black. Quinn was a little over six feet. Naked, that’s a lot of traveling area for a tongue, a lot of ground to explore. I tried to shake the evil thoughts from creeping right into my head. I tried to control the discomfort in the crotch area of my black jeans.

“I wouldn’t think too hard about it, little boy,” Quinn said. His mouth was only a few inches from my face. And the fact that I was using the word ‘inches’ was enough to sent my mind leering to visions of a bed. And chains.

If Quinn was casting a seduction hex, it must come off from his all-natural charm. I didn’t sense anything else. Except the way his eyes stared as perfectly as a lion’s when fixed upon a prey. Except for the way his mouth was shaped like the fine lines of a bow, and how delicious it must be to hear him rasp dirty things in my ears.

“If I fail?” I barely let out the words.

“We have full confidence that you would succeed,” said Quinn. “Once you’re done you’ll be having a full dinner in your table for as long as you can eat it,” came Quinn’s parting line. Quinn straightened up, his eyes still on me. I bit my lower lip to chase away the lewd images that assailed my head full-force. Quinn turned and left.

As soon as the bastard was gone, the impact of his proposition started to take form.

I am living proof that being excellent at your job isn’t always a good thing.

I happened to know the book Quinn wanted me to steal. It was the Darkreed Grimoire. I’ve seen it before. Very nice leather-work, gold filigree vines in the cover, twice thicker than the original manuscript of the Catholic bible. It also has protective spells cast around it that can incinerate human skin in a matter of seconds.

Neither Quinn nor The Dawn knew that I was familiar with the book rather personally. See, my grandmother showed it to me the night I turned sixteen. That was the night my destiny was revealed to me. That was the night I decided to run away from it.

Now I have to go back home and steal the book from the most powerful Wiccean family in all four realms of the Earth. Not to mention that my grandmother can probably wrestle Voldemort into submission in under a minute.

If I took this job and failed, and I probably would, The Dawn would take measures. Powerful as I am, I can’t take down a whole coven alone. Besides, I have heard talk of The Dawn’s leader. A nasty woman called Old Monique. Her most favorite hobby is to flay someone to death. Or watch people who betrayed her flay each other to death.

I adore risks. But this hacks an entire new meaning for the word. And all I get if I emerge unscathed is three hundred grand and the most satisfying sex I might ever get in my life.

I guess either way, I’m fucked.