CR - Chapter One - A Hard Day’s Work

Since I STILL havent decided which two new stories to release at the start of next year, I wrote travelling tea house chapter 1, and updated the first two chapters of both Witch and Convergent. It gives me more time to figure out which I feel most confident about/enjoy writing the most. Feel free to give them all a read and let me know your thoughts, I'll make a decision early next week.

“How did I let you talk me into this, Keira?” Maria grumbled. I looked up from my book, just long enough to give her a hard look. Despite her grumpy attitude, the woman looked relaxed. She was nearly fully reclined in his chair, coffee in one hand and designer sunglasses covering his eyes. 

“What? Going for coffee?” The two of us were currently camped out on a tiny cafe patio in the heart of downtown. Since it was the height of spring, the sidewalks were packed with people heading to nearby restaurants while on their lunch break.

Maria pulled down her glasses, and gave me a hard look. “You know what I mean.”

“You’re the one that told me about this place, and we need the money right now.” I gently closed my book and placed it in the gym bag at my feet. “What’s your problem?”

She scoffed, “I don’t like sitting around, you know that. I feel like people are looking at me.” She sat up and pulled her jacket closer. Despite having a mediterranean heritage, Maria had an almost grey complexion, which was something she was always sensitive about.

“Then finish your drink, we’ll take a look around.” I chugged the remains of my own iced coffee and chucked the cup in a nearby bin. As I headed back to the table, I pushed a lock of hair out of my face in order to put on my own sunglasses. Without looking at Maria, I grabbed my bag, stepped off the patio and onto the nearby sidewalk. 

I could hear the petite woman swearing behind me as she rushed to catch up. It took a few seconds, but she soon fell into step beside me. “You’re sure it’s today, right? There should have been a notification already.” I asked.

She frowned, pulled out her phone and checked it for about the tenth time today. “That’s true. I sent all my  information to the bureau earlier, so the only reason I can think that a bulletin hasn’t gone out is…”

“Someone intervened to make sure there wasn’t one. Wonderful.” I muttered under my breath.

As we walked my eyes kept wandering to the people passing by. They didn’t have a clue what was about to happen, and even though I could warn them, it would be counter productive to our work. That, and it would make us a target if anyone was monitoring the crowd. Quite possible, considering who we were dealing with.

We were about a block away from the cafe when I saw the first signs, elongating shadows crawling up every possible surface. Signs of a Scrape. Without a word I shoved Maria sideways into an alley, out of sight of the street.

She stumbled, nearly falling into a nearby garbage bin before regaining her balance. “Bitch what are you..?” 

“Shhhhh” I put a finger to my lips for a second, then pointed into the street, “It’s starting”

She immediately shut up, stepped further back into the shadows of the alley, and locked her eyes on the street. As signs of the scrape started to manifest, people finally started to notice. Someone screamed, people started running for cover. It was too late though, more than a few would get stuck within its boundaries. “Shadows are grey, so it’s untainted, just like you said. I wonder who got greedy enough to block the bulletins?”

I dropped my bag on the ground, shucked my jacket, then bent down to pull another out. The second jacket was an unadorned, thin leather jacket. I’d spent a lot of time 

sewing armor into strategic places, making it my preferred garb in this sort of situation. Underneath the jacket was my book, a couple bandannas, scarves, a variety of bats, and a vector SMG.

“I still don’t get why you carry around all that shit” Maria whispered, without taking her eyes off the road.

“I like to be prepared. Not everyone can shoot energy out of their hands like you can.” I replied, without looking up.

Maria flinched a little before pulling off her gloves, there was a gentle glow around her fingers. “Touche,” she replied. As we crouched in the alley the Scrape began to fully manifest, becoming a Bleed. The shadows gripped every possible surface, twisting and turning, slowly climbing until they reached the top of the second floor of all the nearby buildings. When they did, all at once, they sank into the surrounding area and solidified. Walls and streets covered by the shadows became twisted, grey caricatures of themselves, taking on a worn and broken down appearance. Everything outside this area became hazy, transparent.

“We have full bleed.” I muttered, carefully inspecting the area. Most people managed to evacuate the area, but there were still a few stuck within the effect, and now there was no way out. At least, for normal people. “Any sign of the other contractors yet?” I asked, running my hands through my hair. Even though I didn’t have the ability to use magic directly, I did have a few fun artifacts, like the ring I was currently using to change the color of my hair. As much as I loved my Magenta hairdo, it was too memorable.

Maria shook her head. “They shouldn’t be too long, they cut off the bulletins, but they need to move fast if they want this all to themselves.”

While we waited for someone to intervene, some of the shadows on the street started coalescing. No longer insubstantial, transparent forms, they rose up and turned into gaunt, gangly, corporeal creatures. The civilians were lucky, figments from Limbo were slow, ungainly creatures, similar to movie zombies. Unfortunately they were just as dangerous as the figments from other realms if they ever managed to get their hands on you.

As soon as the figments started to manifest, the streets erupted into pandemonium. People started screaming, pushing and shoving, trying to get away from the alien creatures. Most of them, anyways. There were two people, an older woman with vivid [faeColor] eyes, and a young auburn haired girl who seemed completely unconcerned with the situation. 

The older woman pulled out a knife from her belt, an Athame, and was instantly surrounded by a [faeColor] aura. Her clothes shifted, changed to an elaborate, outlandish garb. It had an ornate sleeveless vest with a huge collar made of feathers, elbow length lace gloves, a feather skirt, and knee high boots. She smiled, then turned to the girl and said something. I was too far away to hear what was said, but a moment later the girl took out a similar knife and underwent a similar transformation, although her outfit was much less ornate.

As we watched, the girl raised one hand, pointed at one of the figments, and let out a blinding lance of [faeColor] light. “Fae contractors, wonderful. Looks like a training mission, hopefully they’re just going over the basics.” I muttered while digging through my bag. I slung my vector over my shoulder before grabbing one of my bats, and all the clips, marked with [faeColor] tape. “You ready for this?” I whispered over my shoulder at Maria.

“Of course, it’s not my first rodeo,” she replied. As she flexed her fingers the glow started to intensify. Rather than a gentle, all encompassing glow, there was something more substantial there. Like a shadowy-fire dancing across her hand.

While we watched, the girl raised her hands and shot out a fan of beams from her hand that cut through most of the remaining figments, dispersing them. It was enough to partially destabilize the bleed, but before she could finish the job the older woman said something to stop her. The girl looked confused, for a moment, then a little afraid when the woman pointed at a couple hiding in a doorway nearby. “Motherfuck. It looks like they’re trying to groom this kid.” I said, hefting my gun.

“What do we do with the girl?” Maria asked. 

“If she tries to intervene, we engage. Otherwise we just take down the woman. Since they’re training here the girl can’t have much essence anyways.” When she nodded I grabbed a couple of scarves from my bag. I passed one to Maria and wrapped the other around my face. “Alright, bombard her as I step into the street. I’ll take over long enough for you to charge up another blast.” Maria nodded, and the fire on her hand expanded, split into multiple little balls and started orbiting around her. I didn’t hesitate after that.

As I stepped out into the street I could hear the woman yelling obscenities. She was acting like a child, stomping one foot, which caused the girl to shying away. Neither of them were looking in our direction so when Maria sent out her barrage it caught them completely off guard. Flashes of gray and [faeColor] light collided in front of the woman, as her power reflexively shielded her. She screamed, while throwing her arms up to protect her face. “Bastards! How dare you interfere with my work, I’ll make you pay for this.” 

She wasn’t that threatening while cowering, and protecting her face, but she had to be powerful considering her shield didn’t instantly fail.

“I’m out!” Maria’s voice echoed out from behind me, so I dropped to one knee, pulled up my gun and opened up. Conventional ammo wouldn’t do much against a contractor, that’s why I was using cold iron to sap her strength. The extreme weight of fire from my SMG wouldn’t do much damage, but it would keep her from recovering.

I kept the trigger held down until the clip ran dry. As soon as it clicked I yelled, “I’m Out!” back to Maria. Her magic once again shot forward, occupying the older woman, while I sprinted forward. There was no time for me to reload, so this would have to be the last cycle. 

Our attacks didn’t have the strength to break her shield, but it was enough to drain her of power and prevent her from retaliating, at least temporarily. As soon as the woman saw me coming, she dropped her arms and put her Athame out in front of her. Thankfully it didn’t seem like she’d bothered with any actual closed combat training, because as soon as the woman stabbed I simply stepped to the side and brought my bat, covered with cold iron bands, straight down on her fingers.

She screamed, not in rage, but actual pain this time. I could hear her fingers break as the Athame dropped harmlessly to the ground. I didn’t give her a chance to recover and as I stepped past the woman I brought my bat into the back of her knee, knocking her to the ground, before finally slamming the bat into her head. That’s when she finally lay still.

A few feet away from me the girl cowered on the ground. “Did… did you just kill Agatha?” she asked. 

“Fuck no. It takes a lot more than that to take a greedy fuck like her down.” I answered. 

“That’s not nice to say, she’s my teacher.” 

“Yeah, well your teacher trades people’s lives for more power. You should have realized that when she asked you to catch those people.” I glanced at her and she flinched further away. “Do yourself a favor, find a more honest contractor to teach you.” While we were talking Maria left the alley she’d been hiding in, took out an amulet and held it up to the woman’s Athame. A tendril of light left the weapon and was drawn into the amulet. It took about thirty seconds for the energy to drain, at which point she just threw the knife back on the ground and started to walk away.

“If you hate her that much, and what you say is true and she was trafficking in humans, why are you leaving her alive?” The girl asked. She seemed to have pulled herself together a little bit, and was standing a few feet away, just watching me.

“Not worth having the entire Fae faction on my ass,” I replied. “Take care kid, don’t get in trouble.” I waved over my shoulder, while I jogged back towards the alley. Maria was casually dispatching the  few of the remaining figments with her magic, trying to get the bleed to collapse. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I walked by her, and went back to where I left my bag.

Unfortunately, when I arrived, I found a strange creature sitting on my stuff. Cat-like, but its proportions were all wrong, it was elongated, and its body seemed to be radiating a warm [infernalColor] light. It smiled, “Your actions here were impressive, for a human. Would you, perhaps, like to sign a contract? I can give you power beyond…” It didn’t get a chance to finish, as I brought my bat down upon its head, crushing it. The creature screamed an otherworldly scream, writhed in agony, then finally melted into an amorphous blob that evaporated into the air.

“Fuck you, and your contacts too.”

As I bent down to pick up my bag the shadows around me shattered, and normality reasserted itself. That meant the authorities would be showing up to check on the situation. 

It was time to go.