I doubt reports that a single witch is responsible for their demise. Sounds like made-up bullshit to me.
Conclusion — crossing the Redbacks off the list.
Kit thought he’d never set foot in the Redback headquarters again. After all, he’d killed their leaders, freed their less than willing initiates, and all the other members had scattered to whichever covens were willing to take them in. The Redback coven was as good as gone, their assets liquidated by those fleeing members to cover Skadra’s pricey taxes.
That was, except for their damn headquarters.
At the edge of Skadra’s industrial potion factories, the Redback headquarters was a three-story, red and tan block industrial building. Kit knew the place from its crumbly, shitty foundation to its rooftop. He’d spent a month surveying it, learning everything about the coven who’d stolen so much from him and the Jumpers. Even for Skadra, the coven had been low. Concocting illnesses for babies so mothers would pay for the cure, kidnapping high-profile magic-less humans for ransoms, and worst of all, killing homeless witches for their body parts.
Kit’s kill list grew the day he saw an entire family never return from the headquarters, their youngest being an infant cuddled in its starving mother’s arms.
Why do the Weavers want to meet here?Kit thought, scowling as he walked towards the front entrance with a stomach full of lead. He didn’t bother to try to sneak in, to hide his presence. He was good, but he wasn’t Weaver good. Besides, he couldn’t murder for them if he was dead.
It was an assumption he’d have to rely upon because Visha had set the meeting the following afternoon after she’d dropped her bullshit on him; he wasn’t even twenty-four hours into his vent. After a good night’s sleep, the thirty-minute broom ride from the Jumper camp to the Redback headquarters hadn’t pushed his limits, but he still needed another full day to recover completely.
Painfully aware of his limits, Kit entered the front reception area, which was bare of chairs, computers, or anything of value; the lights were on, and it smelled like coffee. A teenager, probably only about three years Kit’s junior, stood at a coffee maker as it chugged in the kitchenette, her arms crossed as if she were cold.
“She’ll see you in Conference Room A,” she said, meeting Kit’s eyes with a proud tilt to her chin which startled him. A pretty, short girl of Asian descent, one of her upturned eyes was swollenshut from a black eye. Flecks of blood decorated the collar of her blue button-up shirt.
Summertime. The Weavers are taking in initiates.Kit’s brain filled in the blanks as he murmured his thanks and walked to the conference room. Witch coven recruitment tended towards the brutal. Even the Jumpers put young, desperate witches through their paces because they couldn’t afford any dead weight.
He paused at the conference room door, trying to peek through the glass to figure out just who waited for him inside that room. No luck. The window reflected an unnatural gray mist. A privacy spell. Heart racing with nerves, Kit bit the bullet and opened the door.
A tall, pale woman lounged at the conference table, her long legs kicked up on the long mahogany table. She tinkered with a detached braid of blonde hair which contrasted against her own long black oily locks. The spider tattoo on her neck, a black mass with a red seeing eye on its abdomen, made her identity undeniable. Every Weaver chose where they received their mark, and only one witch had chosen for a spider leg to stretch up to the base of her throat to her chin. It gave her a fragmented, fierce appearance. He knew who she was, even if this was the first time he was seeing her up close.
“Clea,” Kit greeted, his throat tight. Clea the Debt Collector. He should’ve known from Visha’s deal that the one witch in charge of tracking down those delinquent on their debts would be the one who wanted his services. It destroyed his hope that Luke, the level-headed Weaver in charge of taxes for Skadra, would be the one. What terrible, terrible luck. Everyone in Skadra knew the mad witch was unpredictable in everything except her cruelty.
“Shush,” Clea said as she kept tinkering with the braid, “almost done.”
Kit waited by the door, his muscles tense. The Weaver sat in the one available chair in the conference room, the lack of seating likely on purpose. He watched the madwoman mutter to the braid, and flexed his palms. Even from that distance, he could feel the magic of a finding spell, violent and reckless, hitting his palms. His body protested as it sunk into his skin because he still hadn’t recovered from magical poisoning yet. Just his luck.
The female Weaver set the braid down with a sigh after another two minutes. “Finding people is such a pain in the ass,” she griped, “this little bitch agrees to pay four grand for the most potent love trap I’ve ever seen, and she disappears right when she figures out the guy blows his load too fast. I have her hair! People just don’t think, do they?”
“Uh,” Kit said, “no they don’t.”
Clea at last looked at him, her dark eyes glittering underneath the office lights. “Huh,” she said, “you’re not exactly what I was picturing. The streets were buzzing about you. Young guy from a shitty coven who erases the Redbacks from the earth. I expected you not to look so”—she wrinkled her nose—“rural.”
He looked down at his muddied cowboy boots. “They were disappointed too, I suppose.” He hadn’t thought about how odd it must’ve been for Marcus and the others. To be wiped out by a hilltuck like him.
“Heard you found a way to confront each one, one on one. Impressive. A fast draw when it comes to dueling. More of a gunslinger than the assassin they call you, in my opinion. A straightforward kinda fella. Which is why you’re here today.” Clea grinned as she pulled out a small wooden box from her jacket. She flipped it open and dumped the blonde braid back in there, before pulling out another. A blue-black braid which curled at the end.
Kit’s stomach dropped. Visha’s hair. The crazy witch had Visha’s hair.
“Your girlfriend’s,” the woman confirmed slyly, “power hungry, that girl of yours is. She’s written some checks she can’t pay off herself, it seems. Says that you’ll do me a solid to right things. Rather selfish of her, isn’t it? Using you again to make that pathetic coven of hers shine? Tell you what, Kit, I’ll do you a favor. Free of charge. I can pay her a little visit.” She twirled the braid between her fingers. “This makes that easy enough.”
A knock on the door stopped Kit from dropping to his knees and begging Clea to do anything but that. The girl from the kitchenette entered with a steaming cup of coffee. Clea pointed at the desk and her initiate placed the cup down. To Kit’s surprise, the girl then retreated to the door. She crossed her arms and waited expectantly.
“Leave,” Clea said as she waved her palm over the cup. “You might be hot shit, Georgia, but you’re not blooded.”
Georgia left the room.
Kit blinked. He didn’t want to hear another word if a talented Weaver initiate wasn’t privy to it. The Weavers were known for silencing those ‘not blooded’. Hell, they ran the city on murder, fear, and rumors. The rumors on the streets were misinformation, more often than not. But then again… He made a gamble. “You don’t want the others to know what you’re up to.”
She laughed and spun a finger about her temple. “Whoop-dee-doo. You’ve discovered my little side project. If you die or fuck up, won’t make much of a difference to me. If you pull it off, me and mine will pull out a thorn out of my boss’s paw. Either way, I still rock. Plus—” She tapped a long fingernail at Visha’s hair, which sat next to the cup of coffee.
Point taken.Secret or not, it didn’t change his situation that, no matter how much they fought, Kit didn’t want his ex dead. “What do you want?”
“Pretty simple job. Those rich prick Nethertons snuck their poster boy Drayer into the mayoral election, and you need to kill him.”
