Page 4

Neith

“I ’ve got it!” I exclaim suddenly, and if they weren’t inanimate objects, they definitely would have jumped. They are inanimate objects though so I just carry on talking, like a perfectly sane person. “Asael.”

Magic that I now recognize as his hums in the air. It doesn’t seem mad, and I don’t find myself on the pointy end of a sword, so I am going to assume that he likes his new name. I definitely feel like it fits him.

I grin, and then push myself up to my feet, “Great, Asael and Betty, you guys stay here. I have now got to have the quickest shower of my life and get ready to go and play poker with Sully, Ernie and the others. I’m feeling lucky.”

By the time that I am showered and dressed I am almost certain that I’m late but when I get downstairs I find that I am only the second one to the door.

“I thought I was going to be late. I named my sword and that took some time,” I say to Evander.

“You’re not late,” Van says, “but everyone is waiting in the van.”

“So I am late,” I joke as we head out of the door and over to where the van is parked.

He chuckles, “Nah, we are just all early. I think we need that drink and actually, more to the point, some time to relax.”

“Fair enough,” I say as I climb in the back with the others, Reed sitting up front with Van.

“Ready?” Doc asks, and everyone nods.

While he does his thing, Van asks, “So, what did you name your sword?”

“You finally named him?” River asks, a smile on his face, since I only mentioned in the kitchen earlier that I wanted to name him.

“Yeah, he’s called Asael,” I reply with a grin.

“That’s an interesting name,” Raiden replies. “How did you come up with it?”

I shrug, “Pretty much the same way that I come up with names for everything. I cycle through a couple of seemingly random ones until one seems to fit.”

“You know that actually makes sense,” Griff says.

“You sound surprised,” I tease.

Griff smirks and shakes his head and pulls a phone out of his pocket, handing it to me. When I just look at him questioningly he explains.

“I found one of our old phones and had them change the number on the sim card to your new number. It’s an older model, but it does everything that you need it to, and more importantly, it wasn’t drowned by you,” Griff explains.

I grin and take it, “Thank you, my big growly friend.”

“No worries,” he replies, turning away, but not before I see his pleased expression.

“We’re here,” Doc announces, although we actually arrived in the last part of our conversation.

“What do you think the chances are that Sully lets us play?” River asks.

I wince, “Honestly not that great. As I have mentioned before, it’s not just Sully and Ernie in the game, there are other high profile supes that play as well, and they won’t be keen on allowing outsiders in.”

River shrugs, “Yeah, I kind of get that actually.”

We make our way inside, bypassing the line and saying hello to the bouncers, who don’t pretend they don’t know me this time.

“Hey Neith,” Joey grins, “come to cause trouble?”

I smirk, “Would I do that?”

“Would I ask if you didn’t?” he fires back.

I chuckle as we move past him, “Touché, dude, touché.”

“Come and get me if shit hits the fan, I don’t want to miss out,” he adds.

“You got it,” I reply, as I wave and we walk further into the pub. The familiar smell that is very distinctly Sully’s place makes me smile.

“Do you really cause that much trouble here?” Reed asks with a frown.

I shrug and try not to smile, “There always tends to be something that happens here at some point, whether I’m here or not. I’m just always involved if I’m here. It’s fun.”

“You have a different version of fun than most people,” Raiden points out, a slight smile on his face.

I get the feeling that he probably has the same version of fun as I do. Honestly, I think that they all do. They aren’t exactly the kind of men who will sit quietly in the corner or leave if there’s a bar fight. The only reason why they didn’t get involved the last time there was a bar fight here is because Sully made sure that they couldn’t intervene. I’m not entirely sure why he did that, but I’ve got a couple of questions that I want to ask him anyway, so if I remember, then I can ask that, too.

Obviously, I want to ask him about the kelpies. If anyone is going to know why they aren’t eating us, are allowing us to ride them, and have given us their names, it’s going to be Sully. While I was in the shower, I obviously had some time to think, okay, freak out, about the fact that I clearly have magic. It just doesn’t want to make itself fully known yet. It got me thinking, and I want to ask Sully whether he thinks that I could take the supernatural test, the real one that the supes use for the Magical Academy and not the one that they gave to the humans.

The test is not only designed to see whether someone is a supe but also what kind of supe they are. For most, that’s not necessary, they have grown up with their parents and older siblings, and know exactly what they are. There is never a variation as supes tend to stick to their own kinds to have children. If your parents are sirens, you will be a siren, and so on. There are instances though where someone doesn’t know their heritage, for example, if they were orphaned or thought they were human, and then something happened that said, ‘nope, definitely not human’. It happens, not very often, but it does happen, and in those cases, they obviously need to be told what kind of supernatural they are.

Of course, there are also the occasional cases of parents being two different species, and for whatever reason, they don’t yet know which parent the child takes after. It is always one parent or the other, never both. Hybrids are not naturally occurring, and there has never been one. If two parents of different species have a child together, then that child takes after one of the parents, whichever parent has the stronger genes, although there are exceptions, and sometimes the child takes after the weaker parent.

The supernatural test to see what kind of supe someone is only the first test that they have to go through in order to get into the academy. They also have to do a more physical test. Obviously, I didn’t do it, so I don’t know what the test is, but I do know that they don’t make it fucking easy, and everyone is very cagey about it.

My point, which I lost somewhere in my ramblings, as per usual, is that surely this test would be able to tell me what kind of supe I am. At least then, we can stop guessing and maybe even prepare for it.

“Neith!” Sully booms as he barrels his way through the quickly parting crowd and picks me up in one of his giant hugs.

“Hey, Sully,” I grin into his shoulder. “Alright, put me down, you big oaf.”

“Troll,” Sully rumbles as he puts me down, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“Neith, darling,” Ernie's familiar voice calls, and I grin as he wraps me in a big hug.

Most people picture an old frail dude when you say head of the vamps and that his name is Ernie, however that’s definitely not the case. In fact, Ernie is the opposite, piercing blue eyes, sharp cheekbones and very well built. I will admit that I had a crush on him for a very brief point in time, when we first met.

He’s hot.

However, I quickly realized that he is very definitely only friend material, his husband agrees, and is probably the closest thing I have to a best friend if you can call someone a best friend when you only see them a few times a year and exchange sporadic calls and text messages, sometimes months apart.

“I thought you were going to stand me up again,” he pouts dramatically, and I laugh.

“I would never,” I reply. I look over my shoulder at the guys who are trying and failing to hide their shocked expressions, “These are my new team: Van, Ransom, Reed, Raiden, Griff, Doc, and River.”

His eyes become sharp as he looks over at the men behind me, “Well, well, Neith darling, haven’t you got yourself a delicious smorgasbord.”

I smack him on his chest, earning gasps from everyone in the room, “Behave.”

His eyes suddenly lighten as he drops the pretend serious act and smiles at the guys, showing a little more fang than is truly necessary. The reason why becomes apparent when he says, “We’re all very fond of Neith. I trust that you wouldn’t dream of doing anything to harm her.”

“No, sir,” Evander replies.

“Great.”

“Well, that was interesting,” Sully says with an amused smirk.

I roll my eyes, but I love that they are both protective over me, even though they know that I can easily handle myself. It gives me the warm-fuzzies.

“They were wondering if they could sit in on the game?” I ask, even though I already know the answer that Sully is going to give me.

Sully grins, and shakes his head, “Not this time boys.” He looks down at me, “The others are already here and waiting to get started.”

“Alright,” I reply, and turn back to the guys, “I will be back in a bit. Have fun.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Griff asks, a worried note in his voice. It’s understandable, I’m about to go into a private room with some very powerful supernaturals and not just powerful in magic level but also in status. They are all leaders.

I smile reassuringly even though a glance at Sully and Ernie shows that they both have amused smiles on their faces. “I am perfectly safe. I have been going toe-to-toe with these supes for years, and more than that, I consider them all friends, some family, or the closest thing I’ve got to it. I’m most likely safer in there than I am out here. Have a drink, have fun, don’t get into trouble.”

He chuckles, “I feel like I probably need to say that to you more than you need to say it to us.”

I shrug, “Probably.”

“Well, they certainly are protective over you, aren’t they?” Ernie says from behind me.

“Told ya,” Sully replies.

I roll my eyes. “See you in a bit, guys.”

“Wait,” Raiden says, and I look at him questioningly, “Erm, this is a, er, difficult question?”

I raise my eyebrows, now really curious, “Yeah?”

“You’ve mentioned how HID paid you pretty poorly, and I don’t imagine that your job at Bobby’s paid that great,” he pauses, clearly struggling to phrase the question that he wants to ask.

I decide to help him out, “We don’t play for money. They have more than they could ever possibly need, and I have none. Had none. We play for favors, which, as you can imagine with this lot, are extremely valuable, and they sometimes need my unique skill set. Sometimes we play for interesting objects, but it’s for fun mostly. Although, I do have a nice stack of favors courtesy of the people I play with.”

“That’s incredibly smart,” Reed replies, looking suitably impressed.

I smirk, “I know, I have yet to use any of mine. I think they have maybe used a couple earned from me. I rarely lose though.”

“Come on, Neith. We have made them wait long enough, they will be three sheets to the wind, and utterly useless if we don’t get in there soon,” Sully says, using one of his favorite sayings.

I wave at the guys and then follow Sully and Ernie, who I’m surprised stuck around, behind the bar and back to Sully’s office. As usual when I come into Sully’s office, it looks completely different to how it looked the last time I was in here. This time, it’s set up so that we can play poker.

“Hey guys!” I greet the others happily.

“Neith, it’s been a few weeks,” Draith greets me. He is the clan leader of the northern hemisphere dragons. I do mean the entire northern hemisphere, he is insanely powerful, and in control of thousands of dragons.

“Sorry, Drai. HID had me chasing my tail, and then shit hit the fan. You know how it is,” I shrug as I take my usual seat and pick up the drink already waiting for me.

“I do wish that you would let us take care of your HID problem for you, dear,” Murray offers again.

She is the extremely powerful, but unassuming leader of the Mages and everything that is a subclass of that, like witches’ warlocks, necromancers, anything that uses magic in that way. She runs this territory like a well-oiled machine. She is ruthless when she needs to be but has the kindest soul I think I have seen in a leader for a long time. She’s beautiful in an understated way.

“She’s right,” Ahren agrees.

Alpha of this territory’s shifters, he is a wolf, but he is alpha for all of the shifters in this part of the world, whether that’s a wolf, bunny, or the more mystical shifter like a griffin or a kitsune. It doesn’t include shifters like Griff, who is a gargoyle and technically shifts. He is alpha over animal shifters only. Except for dragons, they patrol themselves and have a different hierarchy and system than the shifters and a different power level. It takes a dragon alpha to be able to make other dragons fall in line.

Ahren continues, “I could send a few of my shifters over to them and it would be dealt with quicker than you can say thank you, bestest big brother.”

I chuckle, he pretty much adopted me as a little sister on the first day that we met.

“You know that if you did that, you could potentially start a war with the humans and the supes. HID are literally chomping at the bit for an excuse to start a war,” I point out, and their faces become serious as they all remember why I’ve said no to their offers of help before. I then look at Sully, “You didn’t tell them?”

He shakes his head with a smile, “No, I thought you would like to. Well, I told Ernie.”

“You tell Ernie everything. You two are like gossiping old women,” I tell him with a raised eyebrow and a smile when neither of them denies it.

“Tell us what?” Draith asks.

“I am not working for HID anymore, they tried to have me killed and I discovered that they are incredibly corrupt. Although no one will be surprised to hear that. SID now has a team working on it, and I am now officially working for them with a team,” I explain.

Their smiles are massive, and I have to stand up as they all surround me with big hugs.

“Ah, I’m so pleased for you,” Murray says proudly.

“Thanks, guys,” I reply, as everyone lets go and takes their seats again. “Let’s play.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Ahren grins, “I could use a favor from a SID agent.”

I roll my eyes, “You know that’s not how that works.”

“I know,” he chuckles.

“Oh, before I forget. I have a new number,” I quickly reel it off and then turn to Sully, “Can you make sure that all the people that need it get it.”

He nods, “Sure.”

He knows what I mean, there are people who have my number just in case an issue arises that only I can deal with. Sully knows who these people are, and he will make sure that they all get my new number.

Evander

I watch her disappear, an uneasy feeling in my gut. I know that she is safe. The master vampire threatened us because he cares about her, and Sully is a force to be reckoned with in his own right. The problem is that they aren’t my people, and at the moment, considering I only just found her, or rather she only just found me, and she’s been attacked multiple times recently, and I have watched her die, yeah, I think all of that is going to make me feel uneasy.

“I need a drink,” Doc says as he heads to the bar, and we all follow him.

“She’s going to be okay, right?” River asks.

I frown, “She said she would be, and we have seen her in action. Plus, we are right here. If she needs us, then she can yell, and we should hear her.”

“In theory, Sully probably has an enchantment on his office to stop sound coming out,” Raiden adds.

“One second,” Ransom replies, and then adds only a few moments later, “Yeah, he does.”

“Neith said that she was safe, so she is safe,” Griff says firmly. “We’re all just a little bit on edge, for obvious reasons.”

“True,” I reply. I push away my uneasy feelings. “Alright, let’s try to relax and get something to eat, too. The food here is supposed to be amazing.”

∞∞∞

We have been hanging out for a while, just chatting and enjoying some time where we aren’t having to worry about cases, or anything like that. Even before Neith came along, it had been a while since we actually took some time off to hang out with each other as friends rather than as a team, on constant jobs. It sounds strange, considering what the last few days have been like, but I think that we have spent more time together and are not focusing solely on cases in the last few days than we have been for a while.

Neith has made us actually spend time together, have meals together and all sorts of stuff, and she doesn’t even realize.

“You boys having fun?” Sully asks, as he suddenly appears by the table.

I honestly have no idea how someone so big can move so quietly, it’s a direct contradiction to what he looks like, and I know that he chooses to walk loudly most of the time to announce his presence and add to his whole don’t fuck with me persona. In my opinion, his being able to move so silently is far more intimidating than being overly loud and announcing his presence.

“Yeah,” I reply, looking behind him for Neith. “Where’s Neith? Is she okay?”

My question has the others all sitting up straighter in their seats.

Sully smirks and shakes his head, “You boys sure have it bad. Neith is fine. The others all want to meet you. Come on.”