Mob sorcery, p.1
Mob Sorcery, page 1
Mob Sorcery
K.D. Robertson
Copyright © 2023 by K.D. Robertson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the product of imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Thanks for reading!
Also by K.D. Robertson
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Chapter 1
Vince’s finger snapped back and forth along his phone, playing some mindless mobile game while he sat inside a warehouse full of corpses. Dozens of unlabeled crates towered over him on countless pallets. They were unlabeled and unmarked, save for the recent bloodstains and scorch marks.
Nothing else moved in the warehouse. Old halogen lights bathed the place in the warm glow of electricity and, given the 24/7 nature of the operation, a steep electricity bill. As much of a shithole as this place was, Vince idly wondered why the landlord hadn’t switched over to more cost-effective lighting.
He finished a game on his phone and looked around. Other than a few stains on his old tan parka and cargo pants, Vince seemed unruffled by the scene around him. At least ten men and women lay dead. Some brutally slain, with dismembered limbs, scorched faces and chests, or holes blown in their torsos. He sat some distance from the carnage, distancing himself from it.
Notably, several of the corpses appeared non-human. One lay almost twice Vince’s height, with curly goat horns as long as his arms and biceps corded with furry muscles strong enough to bend steel.
Not that raw strength mattered in the city of Aulfair. Built by magic almost a century ago on the US’s west coast, it remained the largest bastion of demihumans, immortals, and magic-users in the States today.
A series of clunks and clacks alerted Vince. He slipped his phone into his pocket and stood, eyes scanning the open walkways between the pallets of crates. One of the long sliding doors shuddered and slid free.
His mouth moved silently, and a red shimmer appeared around his body. A magic barrier capable of deflecting physical and magical intrusion, cast using a silent incantation. Standard fare for a magic-user of his skill.
Vince doubted he’d need the defensive spell, but he would have been one of those corpses if he was the sort to take chances. Humans like him needed every advantage they could get in a fight against the non-human.
A pair of suited men stepped through the open door. No, not men. Or at least, not human men. Both possessed pale red skin that could almost pass as a strong tan, but the ring of stubby black horns around their heads gave away their true nature.
Demons, just like the massive corpse on the ground.
Small red badges, roughly the size of a thumbnail, flashed in the light of the warehouse from their lapels. The moment Vince spotted them and recognized the faces of the demons, he relaxed. The red glow vanished from his body.
At the same moment, the demons froze. They saw the corpses and the bloodbath.
“What the fuck happened here, V?” one snapped.
The other ignored him and let out a guttural roar back out the door, shouting in a language Vince didn’t understand. Fortunately, a tiny magical earpiece in his ear came to his rescue.
“Boss, something’s fucked. Everyone’s dead!” the other demonic enforcer shouted in a demonic language.
Vince raised his hands, palms open. “Hey, do I look dead?”
The demons gave him a flat look. Neither appeared armed, but Vince knew better. Immortal beings like them didn’t even need silent incantations to use magic. Spells could shoot forth from their bodies with mere thought.
Hence why Vince had prepared his barrier in advance, just in case the intruders had been less than friendly.
One demon rolled his eyes, but cautiously approached. “By now, I don’t even know. You should be dead. Humans don’t tango with demons and walk away unscathed in my experience.”
“Tell the cops that. Pretty sure they have plenty of humans in their ranks. You wouldn’t be using this shitty warehouse to move all this ‘merchandise’ if you were untouchable.”
“No human, by themselves, unaided,” the demon corrected.
Vince snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
Several more figures emerged through the doorway, all wearing similar dark suits to the first two demons. Each bore the same inhuman appearance and horns. One stood as tall as the corpse on the ground, and his suit appeared comical on his immense frame. The same red badges glittered on their chests.
Yet that was the dress code of Immanuel’s enforcers. They weren’t common thugs, hired to sit around and guard crates like Vince, but the elite thugs. Everyone needed to understand the difference, even as they were beaten into a bloody stain on the ground.
Immanuel being one of the largest corporate conglomerates in the city, that is. Run and staffed almost entirely by demons, its claws stabbed deep into the financial veins of much of the USA. Fitting for the spawn of Hell.
Although Vince wasn’t dealing with the corporate side of Immanuel here. Bankers didn’t get their hands dirty in warehouses full of magical contraband, even if they were demons.
Behind the guards came another demon, but one in a classier suit, no badge, and a long black coat. He walked with the aid of a cane, and one of his legs glowed with arcane runes with every limping step he took. Silvered hair cascaded down his back in a loose ponytail, but it was the deep embers in his eye sockets that captured Vince’s attention.
A deep sense of fear rushed through his body, causing his muscles to tense and goosebumps to ripple across his skin. Vince met his employer’s gaze for the first time in months.
“Quintus,” he said, barely able to speak.
The barest hint of a smirk rose to the ancient demon’s face, and Quintus twitched a finger on his cane. That sense of utter dread left Vince. Whatever magic had gripped him fled at the demon’s direction.
Quintus Hierum usually needed no introduction. As one of Immanuel’s senior executives, he ran much of their less savory operations in the city. His name suggested he had seen literal empires rise and fall. The fact he had come here in person indicated that he’d known something would go awry with the job.
“It’s been some time since we’ve spoken, Vincent. I do hope you’ve been well. Tell me, in your own words, what happened tonight?” Quintus asked softly.
Vince rolled his shoulders in an attempt to usher feeling back into his body, then gestured at the huge demonic corpse nearby. “Big Bob found out what you’re moving in the crates. Had the bright idea to sell them to somebody else, fake a battle to make it look like we’d been attacked, and we’d split everything. There was a disagreement.”
“And you lived?” one of the other demons interrupted.
Silence fell, so deep and powerful that Vince felt pressure against his eardrums. Quintus turned his head just far enough to glare at that demon with one baleful eye before returning his gaze to Vince.
“Continue,” Quintus said.
“That’s basically it. We disagreed. I won the argument,” Vince said.
“Ah. The oldest form of debate, I see.” Quintus glanced around with a long, discerning look. “As talented as you are at magic, this seems like a poor decision by you. Surely you would have gained more by agreeing? If the battle ended like this, almost every enforcer I hired agreed with Roberth.”
It took Vince a moment to realize Quintus was referring to Big Bob, the massive demon who had led the attempted rebellion.
“The moment I spent a dime, I’d be dead,” Vince said. “Assuming you didn’t kill us all on the spot. You’re here, Quintus. One of Bob’s ‘allies’ ratted. It was a shit plan, born out of desperation by greedy morons.”
“And you aren’t desperate?”
“I’m desperate to live. Can’t pay bills if I’m a corpse.”
Quintus grinned and two rows of razor-sharp teeth gleamed. “This is why you’ve come far, boy. To be driven by one’s base desires is to be little more than an animal, and to die like one. But you think at least one step ahead of your kin. And to think, is to be.” The demon turned his back and waved a hand in the air. “Give him the agreed bonus. Clear out the warehouse. We’re done here.”
Then he stalked o
One reached into his pocket, pulled out a metal band full of $100 bills, and began counting them out. A lot of them, it turned out.
Vince remained silent.
“What, no reaction? No jibes? No smartass remarks?” the other demon asked with crossed arms.
“I’m used to tests. I’ve been doing jobs for Quintus since my balls dropped. This might be shitty drudgework, but Immanuel won’t let anyone dumb enough to even think of crossing them live,” Vince said.
“It’s a shame you were born a human. Quintus would surely have you doing way more than drudgework otherwise. Even a tail would be better than nothing. Have you considered any of those body transformation elixirs?”
Dignifying that with a response would be demeaning, so Vince merely waited to receive his pay. He flicked through it once he got it. A little over double what he’d expected, and he’d expected a lot for tonight given the risk of the warehouse being hit by a rival or the cops.
“This is massive,” he said, genuinely shocked.
“Yeah, well, it’ll be your last for a while,” a demon said.
“What? Why?”
Raised hands. “Hey, it’s nothing personal. There’s a big conference coming to town next week and the mayor is hyped for it. Cops are cracking down hard, as they don’t want anyone to fuck things up and make us look bad in front of all these asshole sorcerers from around the world. So it’ll be a few weeks before things return to normal while we lay low.”
That explained why Immanuel had risked moving so much stuff at once, and probably why Bob had gotten such a huge offer to betray them. Half the underworld ran on illegal imports of magical catalysts, and even legitimate businesses needed the stuff. Once the catalyst supply dried up for the next few weeks, prices would skyrocket.
Which meant Vince would be in high demand after a dry spell. The whole city would be feeling withdrawal symptoms by the time this conference ended, and maybe even the entire country.
The hard part was making this cash last.
“Well, you have my number,” he said.
“So long as you’re alive. My money’s on you pissing off the cops during the crackdown and getting your teeth kicked in.” The demon grinned, then waved at the door.
Vince grumbled under his breath but got a move on. Hanging around here any longer bored him to tears.
Rundown streets and buildings greeted him outside. Not a single car or person was in sight, and the silence creeped him out. He crossed the empty car park while pulling out his phone.
An unanswered message on his phone reminded him that he’d been invited to drinks by a friend. Given it wasn’t yet midnight on a Thursday, he wasn’t about to pass up the chance. Every day was a weekend for an enforcer like him, given the hours they worked.
Then he flicked across to another app, called “Wings.” A map of the nearby streets appeared on his phone, along with several cartoon pairs of bird wings flying all around him, and a request for his destination. It had been prefilled with his home.
Vince glanced up at the sky. It looked pitch black. But more importantly, it appeared empty. The app suggested there should be a veritable storm of avian demihumans fluttering above him, waiting to ferry him to his destination at the tap of a screen. Like every overhyped, overpriced gig economy app, it lied.
But getting a taxi to come out to one of the seediest parts of the city, at this time of night, seemed like a difficult proposition. Walking to a slightly less shitty area would take an hour, assuming nobody tried to mug him. Sure, he wasn’t in danger, but beating up dumb muggers took time and might attract police attention he didn’t want.
The industrial district used by Immanuel and plenty of other unsavory operations sat well south of the city proper. Although it technically rubbed up against the harbor that split Aulfair in two, that was only because a port stood there.
If Vince wanted to get anywhere, he needed to take a jaunt northwest. The real action in Aulfair centered on either side of its harbor. Either on the northern, more business-focused side, or the southern side with its entertainment districts closer to the city center and the tourist-friendly waterfront.
So, begrudgingly, he input the address of the bar he wanted to visit on that waterfront. After a moment, he also added a middle visit to a fast-food place on the way. He was hungry, so shoot him.
Then, after a tap, all those “nearby” pairs of wings vanished and the long wait began. The timer that promised to connect him to a flier ran out. Twice. Three times, a flier accepted, then immediately canceled.
Finally, after over five minutes of waiting, a new face popped up and didn’t immediately bail on him. Nicki, a harpy, with a 4.7 star rating.
The rating alone explained why she was picking him up, as she must be desperate. He’d never seen a flier with a 4.6 rating and had heard falling that low got one booted off the app. Vince wondered if he was going to be dropped from a thousand feet in the air if he refused to tip.
After a few minutes, an attractive, if lanky, figure with massive black wings descended from the air in a rush of wind. She circled him for a moment, then cautiously landed directly in front of him. Her massive black eagle wings folded neatly behind her back, while a second pair of smaller wings attached to her hips fluttered about, as if trying to maintain her balance.
Nicki stood nearly as tall as Vince and looked roughly his age, with a shock of bright red hair and white highlights along her long bangs. Skintight gray lycra covered her body from head to toe, leaving only her face uncovered and little to the imagination about her lithe, toned body. Bird-like bony legs and talons protruded from beneath her knees, as unlike other species of birdfolk, harpies appeared far more beastlike. Large padded cushions surrounded her talons.
She folded her arms and looked him up and down, then glanced at their surroundings. “I’m not going to get shot standing here, right?”
“Not shot, no.”
She sighed. “First job of the night, and it’s in a shithole with a jackass who thinks he’s funny. You are going to tip, right?”
Damn, she really had gone straight to the tipping right of the bat. Then again, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Vince needed a ride.
“Yes, so long as you don’t give me a terminal ride to the pavement,” he said.
“Deal. Carry or hang?” she asked.
“Hang.” He eyed her talons. “That padding isn’t just for show, right?”
“I’d be worse than fired if I put my claws through your heart, honey. Just don’t move too much. You can hold on to my legs if you like.”
Then, without another word, she leaped into the air and shot above him. After circling, Nicki carefully hovered over Vince and lowered herself so that her massive talons sat squarely over his shoulders. They snapped shut over his body, fast enough that he didn’t see them move.
Runes glowed in the padding around her talons. Presumably, the magic inside them kept Nicki’s inhuman strength at bay and prevented her talons from carving Vince apart like the prey humans had historically been to harpies. He gripped her bony legs and they flew off.
The city glowed beneath him, but he didn’t particularly care to look at it. Years ago, when he’d taken his first ride with a birdgirl, he’d marveled at the jaw-dropping sight of Aulfair stretched out below him. Time and familiarity withered his excitement. He instead thought about how he’d stretch his paycheck out for the next three weeks.
Once they left the airspace above the seedy part of town and approached the city center, hundreds of avian demihumans emerged from the surrounding darkness. From other Wings transporters carrying people, to couriers with crates and parcels, and just various people out for a flight at night.
