Page 1 of April's Fool (Northarbor Coven Book 2)

No Good Contract

Damon

Parker was so fired for this shit. I was getting another handler.

I stood outside the well maintained but rundown apartment building that my next mark lived in. He’d bought the place a few years ago, done some work to it in order to bring it up to date. So far, everything looked done to code, no upset contractors.

The guy was a little younger than me. No known family in the area aside from a cousin. No social media presence. Very few friends. A witch with little to no magic, to the point where he could barely perform the most basic of spells.

That would make my task of getting into his apartment so much easier, at least. Witches usually had wards in place that were a pain in the butt, not to mention costly, to get around.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Since only one person had this number, I answered. “Parker, I’m in a bad mood. Make it better or you’re fired,” I muttered, careful to keep my words from being overheard .

“Promises, promises. You’d be lost without me,” Parker sing-songed.

“I’d be twenty percent richer without you. Saner, too. How much research did you do on this guy?”

“The usual deep dive. Bank records, employment, family, criminal record too. All squeaky clean. A little too clean. Something about this job is pinging my bullshit radar.”

Right, so Parker had the same feeling. Good.

As a hitman for hire, it was difficult to know who to trust. I’d worked with Parker for years. We’d trained together, my mentor picking the hacker out for me so that we could bond and learn to trust the other. Occasionally, when I needed backup, Parker came into the field with me. I trusted him daily with my life. Basically, since Magnus had died, he was my only family.

“Parks, this feels off to me too. The guy is nice. Sweet even. There’s no way that he should have gotten on our books.”

“Maybe The Luna put him there.”

I scoffed. While I loved Parker like the brother I never asked for, I found some of his belief in a mythical goddess to be a bit much. Shifters like him all sang from the same hymn sheet. The Luna this, The Luna that. Everything was her pulling strings.

To me, there was no proof, so therefore, no belief.

“Ah, you might scoff, Dameonus, but my hawk thinks something is about to happen, and when is he wrong?”

Fucking Sparrowhawk was a know-it-all dick of an alter. As a beta shifter, Parker was strong, but didn’t have that bullshit alphahole thing going on. He refused to be a part of the aviary when we moved to Northarbor a couple of months ago, and they kept begging Parker to join them. Parker’s Sparrowhawk was determined to keep away from them, so that’s what we did. Then we found out some of their thoughts on mixed pairings and he would not stop being smug about it.

“Fine, I’m going in. I’ll do some digging. I think I might have to speak to this guy, though.”

“Really?” Parker sounded incredibly skeptical suddenly.

“What?” I asked innocently.

“That’s the excuse you are going with. You need to speak to him?”

“I do!” I insisted.

“Dameonus—“

“Fucking stop with that name!”

Parker coughed to hide a laugh. “Damon, I’ve seen the pictures of this Cody guy. He’s cute. Just your type. So tell me again why you need to speak to your target?”

“I just want to ask him why someone would want to kill him!” I protested. “This contract is all messed up. We don’t take these jobs. Only people that deserve it. If there’s a reason, I’ll make it quick.”

“You don’t think there’s a reason, do you?”

“Do you?” I fired back.

“No. Which is why I’m telling you, The Luna put us on this path.”

“There’s no talking to you sometimes.” I hung up the call to Parker’s barking laugh. He honestly sounded like a fucking hyena, not a bird shifter.

He was good at his job, though, and had my back, so I didn’t completely dismiss his idea of higher assistance for this job. Maybe his goddess was throwing me a bone so I could get laid. It had been a while.

Getting into Cody’s apartment was too easy. Far too easy. Anyone, even those without a jot of skill, could pick his locks. It didn’t match the home of someone with something to hide.

Inside, the place was spotlessly clean. Everything, or what little he owned, had a place. Parker’s deep dive into Cody’s life revealed that Cody had a trust fund, but he had made a promise to donate it to charities after his death. Cody would gift his apartment to his coven if he died without a mate or partner. So a financial motive for his death was unlikely. I checked if there was a way to see if anyone close to Cody had taken out a life insurance on him .

Looking in every conceivable place I could check, I worked my way through the small apartment and found nothing worth notice. His sex toy drawer was probably the most interesting thing about the place. Clearly, Cody had been single for a while.

His wardrobe was where the real travesty laid. His suits were just... blah. I’d seen him. He was cute, had a great body, but these were just poorly fitting monstrosities. The fabric alone gave me hives.

If I had to kill him, then I’d ensure that he had a decent suit to be buried or cremated in. He couldn’t go into the afterlife in one of these. It was the least I could do.

I left the apartment exactly as I found it. Luckily, I’d learned to have a fantastic memory for detail, otherwise I would have neglected to notice that the wardrobe had been thirty degrees ajar and not fifty. Just that small amount would spark awareness of something being off in most people.

Thumbing through my phone to have an excuse to keep my head down around the security cameras, I noted blind spots for my return visit.

Once clear of the building, I called Parker again. A video call this time. “Yeah?” he answered around a mouthful of food.

“Charming. Look, there’s nothing in that place,” I said, running a hand through my hair, careful not to dislodge the wig. Normal gestures like that were necessary for making it look natural. Everything about me was designed to blend in from my hair color, the clothes I wore, even my average height. Standing at five-nine, I got lost in a crowd. “This contract is a dud. Any sign of who made it?”

On the other side of the screen, Parker choked. I watched him, alarmed, as he tried to speak, then tried to type it. He went through the motions of trying to mouth the words.

“Fuck!” My curse drew some attention, so I moved further down the block. “Give it a rest, Parker. Don’t hurt yourself! You’ve been put under a geas.” A restriction spell.

Parker frowned, but also relaxed. “Fucking witches,” he rasped finally.

“Yeah, so that makes me more suspicious about the coven.”

“Might not be them. Could be a lone witch,” Parker pointed out.

“Also true. The only way to figure this out is to speak to Cody.” Parker rolled his eyes. I ignored him. “I’ll get a truth spell.”

“Really? More witches?”

“It’s not like I can make one myself and I’m not bringing you in on this any more than I need to. ”

“Fair point.” He paused. “Both of us are getting a weird feeling about this. Not being able to tell you who—“ his words cut off. “Fuck my life!” Parker tried again. “There was a proxy!” he practically yelled.

I processed his words while Parker sucked in some air. The geas that prevented him from speaking had punished him briefly by cutting that off.

Someone had made the contract on Cody, someone who, despite our digging, we had nothing on. They’d been smart enough to use someone else to do the contract. Either both had magic, or there was just one witch. Even so, this was a reason for caution.

“Parks, I’m getting that spell and speaking to Cody. Tonight. If he’s as innocent as I think he is, then we need to end the contract, and get the maker blacklisted so no one else comes for him.”

“You know, most of them don’t care about principles. Just as long as they get paid.”

“I know. Maybe you’re rubbing off on me, but this has me on guard.”