Cursed: Out of Ash and Flame by E.C. Farrell (epub e ink reader .txt) 📕

This phraseology interrupts my thought train. He didn’t ask my name, but what I’m called, almost as if he knows, somehow understands. I crack every knuckle on both hands, take an extended, burning swig of tequila, then shake my head. “Fee. You can call me Fee.”

“I’m sorry about your curse, Fee,” he says. “I mean sure, respawning is great, but at what cost?”

A harsh response snarls at the back of my throat but dies before it can get out into the open. I douse the angry fire with another mouthful of alcohol, then grace him with a grin of my own. “No need to be sorry. What better fate for a bounty hunter than one where dying isn’t permanent?”

Swirling my bottle, I turn on a heel, and march to the bedroom at the far end of the safe house, shutting him out before he can say anything else to stoke my cinders.

HIGH PITCHED LAUGHTER reverberates in my ears. Cruel words slither through my mind as a dark spell seeps into my body, thick and slow moving like black ichor. It coils around me, burning my skin, my veins, my bones, wrenching me from sleep as flame bursts from my chest. I emerge from the ashes of my bed a few moments later, staring in shock as fire blazes across the bedroom of my parents’ home ...   

I sit bolt upright as the world tilts from night to morning, gasping and drenched in sweat. Gasping, I hug my knees, fully disoriented. Each breath merely scrapes the top of my panic-stricken lungs. I curl further into a ball to stop myself from swaying. As the fog from sleep thins out, I slowly take in my surroundings and remember where I am.

With a gulp, I concentrate on relaxing my muscles. The dream — a memory of the night that witch cursed me — rolls around in my head. Bit by bit they unwind. Bit by bit my mind settles, focuses. No matter how I try, I can never remember the specific words, only the cold dread as she spoke the spell into existence and cemented my strange fate.

I mumble curses against her, against my father whose faithlessness I’m paying for.

Body humming, I jump off the silk-sheeted bed to pace, snapping my fingers and sending out small sparks of phoenix flame. They flutter downward, dying out before they burn the thick, brown carpet. Something about this helps release the nervous energy.

Out of habit, I snag my phone off the nightstand next to the half-empty bottle of tequila, spinning it on its pop socket. The screen lights up with a message from Hank. Relief soothes the cramped muscles along my neck as I punch in my security code. If Hank’s texting, he’s probably safe. Not that I really thought the Amazons could do much to a gargoyle, but with his moral conflictions, I worried he might not do much fighting back.

Hank: Make it to the safehouse?

I rest my hip against the windowsill with a small smile. From buying me replacement shirts to checking up on me, the big sap acts more like family than my blood relatives ever did. Since I left the fae realm, none of them have reached out, probably happy to be rid of their black lamb. Or whatever people in this world call an outcast family member.

Me: Without any trouble. Did Guidry’s survive the attack?

While I wait as the little dots bounce, I nudge a thick wood blind up a half inch to look outside. Condensation spreads across the glass panes. Beyond them, I can just make out the fence surrounding the safehouse. No shadows shift. No sounds disrupt the quiet until my cell buzzes.

Hank: All in one piece. Amazons followed Yaritza somewhere. Haven’t seen them since. The Guild witch wiped memories easy enough.

Me: Good. Stay safe.

Hank: U 2

Chewing a corner of my mouth, I pace the room again. That one Amazon who saw me on the roof might still be on our trail. Though we weren’t there long, even a few seconds can leave enough for them to scry on us, which might make this trip much more of a headache than I bargained for.

Unlocking my phone, I tap the Paranormal News (PNN) app, and scroll through headlines about unusual monster attacks across the country, debates in the Tribunal about revealing ourselves to the humans, and the upcoming trial of crime lord Aiden Masera. Typical gloom and doom stuff. With a yawn, I scan the list of new bounties next. Max Avila is at the very top. Priority number one.

Two things stand out. One, the contact name is clearly not a real name, but a username complete with numbers and symbols. Usually, our Guild would rarely consider taking a job without knowing the identity of who put out the bounty up front. It tends to cut down on scammers and grifters.

And two, there’s an asterisk at the very end of Max’s name.

Picking at the plastic on my cell case, I tap that little star. A new web page glides up. This, however, is as far as I get. A box asking for a passcode pushes to the front, blocking me from getting any further. I blow a raspberry. Yaritza probably has it. I could ask her for access, but she might consider that overstepping.

Curiosity niggles the back of my neck. With a huff, I turn off my cell and pull open the door to glance into the living room. The lamp still emits a warm glow from the side table, on which also sits nearly ten empty water bottles. No sign of the mark. When I peek into the bedroom next to mine, however, I find the bed empty as well.

My pulse picks up a little. Rationally, I know worry is ridiculous. With the cuff magically attached, he can’t go anywhere. I spelled it myself. If he even tried to leave, he would hit the end of an invisible tether, trapped within a very small radius.