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"I'm not joking, Vanth. It all feels wrong," Cecelia replied, stamping her foot.
"I'll be careful," he promised her. He always was. He was still operating his business after so long because he was cautious to the point of being paranoid.
Vanth drank his coffee as he drove through the rain-drenched streets of Inferno. He lived on the edge of the mage district, and that was about as close as they liked a necromancer like him.
Even in a city full of monsters and magic, necromancy talent was rare. People feared it as they rightly should.
Vanth never had to choose the magic path; he had ghosts following him for as long as he could remember. If the mage guild knew just how powerful hereallywas, they would probably all band together to kill him.
Every few months, some cocky fucker tried to take him on, and Vanth turned them into a ghoul for their audacity. The two he had in the back of his van were mages sent to kill him. Bodies that already had a bit of magic in them tended to reanimate better, so they did him a favor.
Vanth pulled up in front of the address he had been given. It was a two-story house that was generically neat. The kind of house you didn't look twice at.
A sliver of dread shot up his spine as soon as his boots hit the concrete driveway. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he looked around. Perfectly manicured yard, no signs of decay or rot anywhere that was a usual sign of something fucked up going on. It didn't taste like dark magic, at least not of a type he knew. His senses were never off, and every one of them flashed with a bright EVIL light.
"Fuck, I really need to learn to say no," he whispered. He could get back in his car and drive away. Just pretend like he had never felt it.
A ghost girl popped her head out of the hedge beside him. "Hide! He can't see you if you hide."
"Who, sweetheart?" he asked.
"You're late," a voice said, and Vanth looked up at the man standing in the light of a side door. It was the owner of the voice that hired him.
"I was finishing up somewhere else," Vanth lied, his hackles rising.
He let a few of his mental wards drop and instantly smelled the reek coming off him. He looked freshly showered, with no blood under his nails. He seemed as dull as the house, with pale brown hair and forgettable features. That was until he really looked at you. His eyes were dark brown and cold as a crypt despite the welcoming smile.
"I'll just get my bag of tricks, and we can get started," Vanth said, smiling back. He opened the doors to his van and let the ghouls out. He grabbed his kit and made sure his dagger was within easy-grabbing distance.
"Seems like a nice neighborhood. Do you live here?" Vanth asked, stepping inside the house. He could already smell the blood, and so could the ghouls. They bumped against each other restlessly.
"No, I don't live here. Why are you asking personal questions?" the man said, his eyes narrowing.
"I'm asking so I know if there's going to be a nosy neighbor writing down my license plate numbers," Vanth replied, keeping his tone light.
The man in front of him wasn't possessed or one of the human demon hybrids that popped up occasionally. He was just an asshole.
The man smiled. "No one is going to notice. They never do."
"Been in this kind of jam before, huh?"
"I usually take care of it myself, but your name has come up in certain circles as being discreet and reliable."
Vanth hummed. "You have to be in this business. Want to tell me what happened?"
"Let's just say I had a bad day and played a little too hard with my toys." There was a gleam in his eyes that Vanth really didn't like. He opened a pink door he was directed to and looked inside. There were two bodies that were placed on identical twin beds.
Vanth knew he lived in the gray of the world, but there were some lines that he would never cross.
"I see," he said and placed his kit down on the pale wooden floorboards. He crouched down and surveyed the carnage of the butchered bodies.
"What are you doing?" the man asked, amusement in his voice. "Admiring the view?"
"Not exactly." Vanth cleared all the angry bees in his head before knocking three times on the floor. Ghosts suddenly appeared in the room. Small, scared little ghosts of the children that had lived in the room over the years. "Well, that settles it."
The man snorted. "Settles what?"
"What I'm going to feed my ghouls tonight." Vanth moved with all the grace and strength his fae blood had gifted him. He pulled the enchanted black dagger from his bag and drove it into the man's chest before he could raise a hand against him. He sank to the floor, gasping for air and fumbling for the dagger. Vanth smacked his hand away.
