1
Danica
My boxes were breeding.
Their box babies had also bred. And now I would forever be surrounded by the reminder that I was clearly the most disorganized person in this realm.
And it wasn’t just boxes. Bags of files jostled with a few lone weapons, which competed for space with old spell stones, stationary, and various other crap.
Who knew I had so muchstuff?And where had I been keeping it all?
I gazed around my new office and, despite the mess, I grinned. Mine. It was all mine.
Thanks to Keigan’s generosity, I was going independent. My years working for the Mage Council had taught me everything I knew about investigating, and since they’d fired me, I would now put those skills to good use running my own investigative firm.
Okay, okay. calling it a firm was an exaggeration. I was a one-man-band who only had experience working as a contractor. So I planned to take relatively easy jobs to start with, slowly building up my reputation. The small space was located in a strip mall off East Main Street, just a few minutes from my apartment. My office was wedged between a ballet school on the right, and an insurance firm on the left.
I needed to reinforce the wards on my office, buy a desk, unpack, and get organized. I also needed to start advertising my services. I scowled. The Mage Council had been quick to distance themselves from me after firing me for saving Samael’s life, spreading the word of my ‘betrayal’ far and wide.
Luckily, I had some money up my sleeve. Mariam, the light fae representative, had paid me a hundred thousand dollars for finding some missing fae artifacts and saving her ass.
After I’d paid for the invisibility spell for the rowan arrow hanging around my neck, I’d had enough to set up my business and pay Keigan rent for my office for the next few months.
Then I was on my own.
Hence why I was unpacking and organizing at 9:30pm. The sooner I got this stuff unpacked, the sooner I could advertise my services and take meetings in here.
“Uh, hello?”
I’d left the door open to get some fresh air circulating in the office. Now, two women stood in the doorway, both of them gazing at the cramped, cluttered space.
From the matching orange-red of their hair and freckles, it was clear they were related.
Not sisters. Mother and daughter. The woman on the left had her arm wrapped around the older woman’s shoulders, and both of them looked exhausted. The older woman’s face was ravaged with grief, while her daughter’s jaw was set in a way that told me she was barely holding it together..
“Can I help you?”
“You’re Danica Amana,” the older woman said almost dreamily, as if she was speaking from far away. Someone had given her a sedative.
I smiled. “It’s ‘Ah-muh-nuh.’”
“I’m sorry. We’re looking for your help. You helped the light fae find those artifacts. And you found out who was killing Samael’s demons.”
“Yes.”
“I should probably introduce myself.” She gave a long, slow blink. “My name is Maeve Walsh, and this is my daughter Siobhan.”
I glanced around. I didn’t even have a chair to offer her, but my office had a small, attached kitchen. “Can I get you some water?”
“No thank you, I’m fine.”
Siobhan squeezed her mom’s shoulders and leveled a frank stare at me. “My sister has gone missing and we need your help.”
A solitary tear tracked down Maeve’s cheek. With nothing else to offer, I pushed a couple of boxes out of the way and sat on the floor, gesturing for them to do the same. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
They both sat down, and Siobhan crossed her legs in front of her, studying my face intently. “We’re members of the Allen coven.”
I frowned trying to place the name, but it must be a small enough coven that I hadn’t heard of it before.
