Chapter One
Intruder.
Gigi DeWitt’s eyes shot open, the psychic link instantly snapping into place. Instead of her darkened bedroom ceiling, she found herself watching a shadowy figure materialise in the middle of her ground floor Chocolate and Cookie Emporium. Wearing head to toe black ninja gear, the figure was so good at their chosen career that Gigi was beyond sure her cousin Eli, the family thief, would have turned green with envy at how effortlessly they made breaking into her shop appear.
Hideously expensive top of the line security system be damned.
The intruder stood stock-still for a few seconds. Peering intently into the wide glass front casement, which during the day was stocked full of chocolates, truffles, cookies and decadent treats. Currently, the display cabinets were sparkling clean and decidedly empty. Tension radiated from the shadowy figure’s narrow shoulders.
Serves you right, buddy. Come back during business hours and pay for your sweet-tooth addiction like everyone else.
On feather-soft feet, the black-clad figure rounded the large glass display case, stepping into the service area. Staring intently at even more empty shelves lining the rear wall of the shop.
What in the blazes was this dude after? And why was he staring so intently at what was basically empty shelves? With a thought, Gigi urged her avatar closer. The ninja’s head swinging around abruptly. Crap, they’d seen or sensed the movement.
Stay still. No, too obvious. Twitch your nose. Sniff your butt.
Nothing to see here. Just a cute little baby bunny hopping around their palatial purple castle, decorated with gleaming plastic gems and silly purple and white striped flags. The onlyglaring anomaly: the bunny was bright purple. But anyone could dye a bunny’s fur. Not that this was the case. And the flashy bling necklace it was wearing bearing its name wasn’t that uncommon. Plenty of people draped their pets in jewellery. Though anyone outside of her eccentric family probably would think it weird she’d named her pet bunny - Canary.
Take a big sniff of our visitor, would you?
Human, but with an overlay of magic.
Given the ninja’s face was only two feet away, Gigi was intrigued to note the lack of detail under the all but encompassing mask. This man… figure? Was nothing but an actual shadow. Heavens, even his clothes and mask were made of shadows.
Was this one of the elite shadow agents? A close-knit clan notorious for their white-collar espionage activities? Which in no way shed any light on what this dude was doing here, breaking into her shop at three in the morning on a Tuesday.
Gigi trafficked in sugar, not secrets.
Clearly having satisfied themselves that the bunny was no threat, the intruder turned and strode back towards the rear of the shop, and kept right on going, through the wall. Cripes.
Hurriedly, Gigi sent Canary diving into a nearby clear plastic tube, her pet scurrying into the industrial kitchen area that took up the entire rear ground floor space of the building. Hopping out onto a small platform set high on the wall, Canary tracked the shadow ninja as they roamed the kitchen. Their interest finally zeroing in on one of the upright refrigerators containing premixed fondants, fruit curds and jellies.
What, By The Goddess, could this guy want with anything in there? Gigi had no sooner had that thought when shadow man produced a small stainless-steel syringe. Okay, she’d seen enough. Whatever was in that device, she wanted it nowhere near any of her precious foodstuffs.
The lovely thing about her family was that they had tangled with pretty much every nefarious asshole out there and triumphed, mostly.
Given her line of work, Gigi didn’t usually have much to contribute when the conversation shifted into defenestration, decapitation and tearing asunder territory. Thankfully though, she had many close friends and family who did. And Gigi had a great memory for details. Her cousin and bestie, Riya, had dealt with one of these shadow assholes quite recently, and their one weakness? You had to find a way to make them solid in order to inflict any physical damage.
Riya had used water. Gigi didn’t have that option, Canary had no opposable thumbs and couldn’t work the taps. That was okay, time to improvise.
Attack bunny. Go!
Shadow ninja sensed movement. Their head turning swiftly to the right, freezing in place momentarily, appearing unconcerned to find a bright purple member of the Leporidae family leaping from a high platform, aimed straight for their head.
Gigi was betting they assumed, given their shadow powers, that the bunny would sail straight through them. Perhaps that would have been the case, had not Canary opened his mouth impossibly wide and huffed out a billowing cloud made up of at least three cups of flour.
Damn, that was going to be messy to clean up. Which was so not important right now. As the shadowy figure issued a whispered swear word, rearing back a step at finding themselves suddenly corporeal just a second before a surprisingly heavy baby rabbit landed with a thud against their flour-coated chest. Another puff of flour exploding outwards as they made contact.
“What the frigging fuck?” The shadow ninja reached for a squirming Canary, as the bunny tried and failed to scramble higher. Claws and teeth. Canary had both, but neither woulddo much damage. Luckily, this surprised idiot did exactly what Gigi had been hoping, grabbing Canary by the back of the neck, holding the rabbit up. Come on, just a little higher. Perfect.
Now!
Canary’s mouth dropped open once more, exposing a large seemingly infinite gaping black hole at least a foot across in both directions. A stream of dark pink liquid erupting like a firehose had been plugged into the bunny’s rear end. Gigi so didn’t want to think about what that stuff was going to be like to clean up once it combined with the flour. Concentrate woman, you’re trying to kill a guy here. Except, her intruder was pretty much already dead, he just didn’t know it yet. The pink viscous liquid completely coating his head, face, and most of his upper torso.
Canary sailed through the air, flung hard at the closest refrigerator. Luckily, he managed to tumble mid-air, hitting the glass with padded feet before launching himself off to the side. Scrambling up to the nearest work surface via a series of specially made ramps. By the time Canary made it to the top, the intruder was just discovering they were in dire straits. Frantically, futilely, trying to rip off their shadowy mask, their clothes, their headgear, anything.
Problem was, they were covered in Gigi’s extra-fast drying strawberry liquid taffy, failed version number six, which had dried way too quickly, hardening into immoveable grotesque lumps. Even with Gigi’s powers and reverting it back to liquid form so Canary could dispose of it had still resulted in nasty complications for her pet.
