Page 7

Chapter 7

" I s that an alarm system?" I groaned.

When I had checked this place out weeks ago to prepare for this, I had considered the lack of an alarm system a big win. But as I crouched in a bush on the other side of the road, the sight of the glowing crystals embedded in the walls of the target house brought my optimism crashing down. I should have struck this place sooner. My procrastination had set me back yet again. Why did it always do that?

In this quiet little suburb in Slovenia of all places, the homes had touches of Scandinavian and French architecture. Our target home had a pleasant front garden with hedgerows, slate tiles, and French windows, some of which opened out onto little balconies. The entire country seemed unassuming, if beautiful, and yet apparently a recently released murderer of his own child now lived there. I wondered if his neighbours knew.

Perhaps they did know if he had kitted his new abode out with an alarm system in such a low-crime area. Maybe a rock or two had found its way through his windows since he moved in. Regardless of his motivations, the fact he had upped security really threw a spanner into our works.

Supernatural alarm systems didn't detect movement, they detected magic, and considering the standard invisibility power I used for every job would be active the entire time, I was positive I wouldn't get inside unnoticed.

Hecate sneaked ahead a few paces ahead. "Let's see if its bite is as bad as its bark."

She dove into the bushes and emerged the other side to pad across the road to the front gate; complete with metal bars and too high to vault over. Hecate stopped at the gate and looked around sharply as a dog barked somewhere down the street, but a moment later took a second to lick the back of her paw and wash her face.

I smirked. Sometimes she pulled the same stunts around Priya; play the innocent cat act by doing something cute, but not so cute that it'd draw attention. Hopefully, she hadn't seen a camera somewhere that she was acting for.

After a while, Hecate slipped between the bars of the gate, padded up to the front door and leapt onto the nearest windowsill. She got up on her back legs and reached a paw to the nearest glowing crystal as it pulsed its magic into the darkness. But the moment she touched it, the glow zipped out of the crystal and onto her paw, where it fluttered frantically like a moth in the presence of a flame.

Before I could get a good look at it, Hecate stuffed it into her mouth and dashed back toward the gate, her cheeks glowing. I covered my mouth and nose with one hand, snorting into it as she padded back into the bushes. She looked like a Halloween lantern.

But when she emerged on the other side, she ignored me, dug a hole in the ground and spat the ball of magic into it like a fur ball she was glad to be rid of. With quick paws, she covered the wriggling ball of magic with dirt and patted it down.

"What's so funny?" she demanded, whipping her tail back and forth.

"Nothing, I just think you'd make a really cute Yuletide decoration," I said, snorting.

"I can put it back if you like."

"I'm just kidding!" But I snorted again all the same. "Thanks, Hec."

Now it was my turn.

Inhaling a long breath in through my nose, I turned my attention inward to the two powers I had brought with me that night. Like all the powers I stole, they weren't exactly comfortable inside me. If they stayed too long or I absorbed too many powers, I would also feel the discomfort. But I relied heavily on these two powers for jobs like this.

I tapped into the first power: invisibility, and watched my entire body vanish. I widened my stance a bit; too many times I had tripped over my own feet in this state because I couldn't see myself walking.

I leaped over the bushes and jogged to the gate. The sight of the high gate and walls had my biceps flexing. I took to the climbing wall several times a week, and it had made the intrusive urge to climb everything I saw even stronger. But this was business and I couldn't take any chances.

Instead, I exercised the second power I had brought with me that night; the ability to walk through solid objects. Handy, but not undetectable to the likes of a magical burglar alarm.

Stepping through the gate as if it were open, I sneaked up to the house. No lights were on, which suggested he had gone to bed. Either that or he was out, which would have sucked. But my research on this guy made me confident he wanted to keep a low profile. That hopefully meant getting an early night instead of hitting up the town.

I reached down and picked Hecate up, and she also disappeared from view. Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the door and into a shadowy kitchen. What little light from the street lamps squeezed in between the blinds gleamed upon the spotless counters and cupboards. Had he always been so clean or had jail upped his game?

Hecate jumped out of my arms but stayed close to me as I tiptoed toward the stairs. We didn't want to hang around any longer than necessary; this was a quick in-and-out job. With no sign of life down the hall, I climbed the stairs, careful to test for creaks.

The air had a chill about it, as if he hadn't had time to settle in yet. Or maybe he couldn't afford to put the heating on. The job market for felons wasn't exactly open season.

I checked through every door at the top of the stairs until I found one ajar with the gentle sound of snoring drifting through the gap. The guy lay on his front, arms spread-eagle across the pillows and wore zero pyjamas. I tried my best to ignore his butt as I slipped through the door and toward the bed. The splodgy, uneven tattoo of a pigeon had been inked onto his right butt cheek and to say it was distracting was an understatement. I had so many questions.

Hecate waited in the hallway, poking her fluffy head through the gap in the door. If she felt any other presence, she would make it known.

I took the empty crystal out of my pocket and tapped into my own power. With nothing but a small tug, the guy's power released itself from him and shot into the crystal as if it was happy to go on an adventure. I pocketed the crystal and turned back around to see that Hecate had disappeared.

I rolled my eyes and headed back into the hallway. The second she thought she could go hunting for swag, she was off.

By the time it took me to get back down the stairs, Hecate pottered out of the kitchen with a spatula in her mouth.

"Really?" I hissed. "I could buy you one of those from literally anywhere."

Hecate trotted up to me and placed a paw on the skin of my ankle to properly communicate her annoyance. "He doesn't have much stuff and I want something."

"Why don't you just not take something this time then?"

Hecate looked at me as if I had thrown away a perfectly good tin of tuna right in front of her. "Have you lost your mind?"

We didn't have time for this.

"Come on," I muttered. "We've still got two more of these to do."

"Good. I hope the next two places have better stuff."

The next place did in fact have better stuff, given that the owners were infinitely wealthier and in the habit of buying the fanciest possible version of everything both necessary and not. I had never seen a heart-shaped bathtub before in my life and I never hoped to again. Even if I wasn't fairly fresh off a breakup, it gave me the ick.

Our final stop was back in the UK and I parked my motorbike three streets away, as usual, before walking the rest of the way. I carried Hecate and stayed invisible as we arrived on the street of our target. This was one of the richer ends of Cardiff, where curtain-twitching was a hobby even in the wee hours. Insomnia was a thing and I didn't want to risk any tired and aggravated soul watch us skulking around in the dead of night.

The target house had a super sleek and fancy car outside, though in the darkness I couldn't make out the model, tucked safely behind an electronic gate and a high wall. But from the outside, there didn't appear to be any security alarms, magical or otherwise, just like the last time I had checked. Maybe this wealthy couple had more faith in the security of their community than was wise. At least, that was the case tonight.

"If you're going to pick yourself something out, please make sure it isn't jangly like the last one," I muttered into Hecate's ear.

I had had to stuff the bracelet into my back pocket because of all the racket it made when she pottered about with it in her mouth.

While I couldn't see her as we were both invisible, I could feel her glare piercing me even though there was technically nothing to stare at. Apparently, this was just another of her impressive powers.

I prepared to activate the borrowed power to walk through the front door when a hand clamped down on my shoulder and whirled me around. My breath left me in a gasp as Hecate tumbled out of my arms and my back pressed to the wall next to the door. An arm shoved against my collarbone, pinning me to the door as Hecate hissed on the ground, her fur prickling as she poised to strike.

But what she would strike at was still the question. I could see nobody in front of me, yet I grabbed at the arm holding me in place.

My heart bottomed out into my stomach, and all the blood from my face drained away with it, as a black-haired man with a jaw cut from stone and the only pair of eyes that could penetrate my very soul, rippled into view.

Asher.