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Hazel

I stared into the swirling vortex of the giant magical sinkhole and rubbed my temples. “Of course they’d send us."

“Of course,” Mike agreed. “They always send us. At least this time it’s not in the middle of the night.”

He was right. As part of a special unit created to deal with monsters and magic, Mike and I got sent out to any calls that sounded even remotely magical in nature.

Here in the town of Darlington, a monster and shifter town that had opened itself to the rest of the world after the fall of The Wall, our job kept us on our toes.

Whatever the fuck this thing was, it fit the bill.

I eyed the spot that just hours ago had been a busy midtown intersection.

It was now an Olympic pool-sized hole leading to the abyss, except instead of rock bottom, all I could see were endless swirling nebulas.

The initial hole had opened up in the blink of an eye, swallowing any pedestrian or vehicle that had the misfortune of being in it.

But it didn’t stop there; the thing had been growing ever since.

To make matters even worse, Mike and I’d had to stop some crazy idiot from jumping in when we were setting up the perimeter. The guy had looked normal enough: dressed business casual, clean-cut, well-groomed, fully human from what I could tell. But the words coming out of his mouth were crazy talk.

He kept saying that it was his calling to get to “the other side,” that he’d waited his whole life for this, and that he’d stop at nothing to fulfill his destiny.

He’d put up a fight too, and the only reason we managed to stop him from flinging himself off the edge was the new, magical binding spell that had recently been added to every Darlington officer’s arsenal.

“What do you think we’re looking at?” I asked.

“Portal to another dimension? The guy seems to think there’s another side. Who the fuck knows?”

The sound of a car behind me had me turning, but I relaxed when I saw Eugene and Tommy’s cruiser.

Officers Eugene Koo and Tommy Newman were another duo often sent out to deal with magical crimes and mishaps.

With Darlington growing the way it had been in the last few years and the police now working with the (Not So Secret) Enforcement Agency, there was now a whole special unit of us.

But Mike, Eugene, Tommy, and I were the OGs.

The thing was, there’d always been plenty of magic-related crimes and calls in the town, but before the fall of The Wall, many of them were hidden. The Wall had hidden monsters and magic from everyone, even each other.

The magical hole, portal, rift, breach, or whatever in front of me was as magical as they came. At first, they thought it was a simple sinkhole and had sent someone else, but they took one look at the gaping maw and noped out of there faster than you could say boo.

“Guy’s still acting like a lunatic. They’re keeping him under surveillance.” Officer Eugene Koo meant the guy we stopped from throwing himself into the void. The two had taken him in while Mike and I held down the fort. “Any new developments?”

When we arrived on the scene, the hole grew a little every five or ten minutes or so.

It wasn’t much, just a sliver here and there, growing a foot or two now and again, but it was enough to force us to move our line of yellow and black tape a little farther back several times.

But the last twenty minutes or so they’d been gone had been uneventful.

“Nothing since you two left,” I said.

“Maybe The Breach has finally settled,” Eugene suggested.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Mike walked to the edge and peered over. “It does kind of look like a portal to some other dimension. A breach in the fabric of reality.” He shuddered and stepped back.

“That’s what Chief’s calling it,” Tommy said.

“That’s good enough for me.” I eyed The Breach. “I’m just glad nothing’s coming out of it.”

“Yet. Nothing’s coming out of it yet .”

“If that really is a portal of some kind, a rift between worlds, and some megalomaniac warlord from another dimension plans on marching an army through it, wouldn’t they have done so by now? And they’d have to march straight up to get out of that hole.”

“Maybe they can fly?”

Oh, hell no! I narrowed my eyes at Eugene.

“Well, I’m just glad it isn’t growing anymore.”

Then, as if to mock me, a loud cracking sound had me stumbling back away from the crumbling edge, even as the ground shook. A crack appeared in the concrete directly in front of me. Shit! This thing was making up for lost time and taking a big chunk now.

As the far piece crumbled and was swallowed by the hungry hole, taking along several traffic cones we’d used to mark where we’d wrongfully thought the next break would be, we scrambled out of its way.

Or at least, I tried to. The ground was slanted, and I struggled not to fall over.

I windmilled my arms as I fought to get to safety, and it felt as if the ground was opening up to swallow me, and specifically me, whole.

I was suddenly pulled back from the edge by strong arms. Phew! That was close.

I turned to say thank you to Mike, only to see that it wasn’t him who’d caught me. Piercing blue-gray eyes met mine.

“I got you,” said a familiar, masculine, and sultry voice.

Seth! Of all the EA enforcers they’d send, why did they have to send him? For someone who only worked part-time for the agency, it was becoming awfully suspicious that we kept being sent to the same calls.

He’d left his usually unique clothing at home in favor of a proper EA uniform that made his shoulders look extra broad.

He hadn’t taken out his piercings though, and his platinum-blond hair was still spiked up.

That was one difference between the police and the EA: with all the unique people working there, they had a tendency to accept and embrace a range of cultures and other visible differences.

I was pressed to him, so close I could smell him. Leather and cologne. Ugh! Why did I like that when I absolutely despised the guy?

He grinned, showing a set of pearly whites that had just a little too much point to the canines. He wasn’t a vampire or a shifter or anything like that though. He was a human. A wizard.

It was hard to believe that this Spike from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer lookalike had once been a wizard on the WEC, the Wizard Elder Council. Most of those old geezers would faint at the sight of him.

He was still grinning when he placed me carefully onto the solid ground next to Mike.

“Thanks,” I said, my feet still wobbly. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d come so close to falling in or if it was from his nearness.

Seth grinned at the other officers present. “Officers.”

“Seth. We meet again. Are you sure you’re not stalking us?” Mike asked lightheartedly, completely oblivious to the way my heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Nah. I’m just here to keep you guys out of trouble.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. I suspected the mouthy wizard rubbed the older cop the wrong way too.

Mike didn’t mind him, but I was still pissed that he’d stolen our cruiser to help solve another crime.

I still couldn’t believe he’d gotten away with it.

Well, at least the EA had paid for a brand-new vehicle, one with all the modern luxuries, like a working AC. But still!

It was hard enough working with the EA, which had such different rules and regulations. This guy made it a nightmare with the amount of paperwork we had to fill out after. He was the type to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.

And then there was the fact that he was a shameless flirt. And not just with women either. The guy had many types. The worst part of it was that he was totally my type. I mean, I’d never dated anyone like him before, but damn, did I dig his style! Even though I’d never admit it.

“Ah, come on, Tommy. I know you miss me.”

“Like I miss a kidney stone.”

“He’s about as annoying,” I agreed under my breath.

Eugene cleared his throat. “Does that mean we can go? We were supposed to stay until the EA arrives.”

“Nope. They are assembling a proper team to check this thing out. I’m just here to monitor it until they get here.”

“Any clue what this is?” I asked, doing my best to pretend that he wasn’t affecting me.

“Tastes like a portal to me. If I had to guess, one-way.”

Taste? The guy was weird. And one-way? I guess I should be a little more grateful he’d stopped me from falling in.

“Thanks for pulling me back.”

“Anytime, Sweetcheeks.” He winked, and I was back to wanting to simultaneously punch him in the face and climb him like a tree.

This wasn’t healthy.

The sudden arrival of an SUV, something that shouldn’t be happening because we’d blocked the roads the next intersection back to prevent anyone from turning in, had all of our attention. This was not a police or EA vehicle.

“Sir,” Mike called as a passenger stepped out. “The road is clo—”

He didn’t finish his sentence because it was clear that this guy hadn’t come here by accident. He had that same look to him as that first dude Tommy and Eugene had just brought back to the station. The driver stepped out, and he was no better.

“Shit,” Tommy muttered, echoing my own thoughts.

“Magic users,” Seth said, eyeing the men. “Garden variety. Nothing I can’t handle.”

When the first guy continued to ignore us, ducking under the tape, and Tommy stepped up to stop him, the guy made a gesture and Tommy went flying back.

Seth muttered a few soft words, then moved his hand, and suddenly a ghostly-looking, see-through cushion appeared out of thin air to soften Tommy’s fall.

Then it disappeared, dropping him safely on his ass from a few inches off the ground. Seth had the audacity to smirk openly.

But two more vehicles were arriving, and from them came more entranced people, all of them men.