Page 2 of Booked for Murder

My new doctor had faith in me and my mangled foot. Even on the days I faltered, she believed. With enough hard work and a few more surgeries, I might even manage without a limp.

I even understood that after successfully rehabbing my foot, I wouldn’t return to my once upon a time. Those days were gone, and for the most part, I didn’t miss them.

Okay, I missed them. I missed having a hotter than hell boss with a sense of humor, I missed driving luxury sports cars better than anyone else, and I longed to take the latest and greatest to the race track so I could play with them, as they were banned from the road for being too fast and glorious to be street legal.

Bradley Hampton liked rewarding his minions for good behavior, and he’d figured out how I’d ticked within months of hiring me to be his for life bodyguard.

I fucking loved cars.

Instead of stomping my foot at the unfairness of some incompetent driving a car I could handle better, I limped to the corner, pressed the button to cross the street, and muttered curses over my lot in life.

I loved working at the library and getting lost in a good book, but I remembered.

Nothing good came from old memories, lost dreams, and unobtainable ambitions. I’d earned a nice, quiet life, and I meant to enjoy it. Forgetting the past would just take a little more time.

A line of cop cars at the library gave me the only clue I needed to decide something had gone terribly wrong. It hadn’t been long enough for the Bugatti’s driver to have crashed and emergency responders to show up. Then, much to my disgust, I spotted the car, which had joined the lineup of rubberneckers trying to figure out what was going on.

The last thing I needed was the police giving my identification card more than a cursory glance. I’d gotten the license number legalized, which had involved sneaking around places I shouldn’t, accessing a computer I had no business touching, and putting some of my odder skills to work.

Then I had lied, lied, lied, claiming amnesia. Thanks to pure luck and evidence of head trauma in the form of somewhat recent scars, I’d gotten away with it.

If my ex-boss learned I could do more with a computer than check my email, he would kill me himself. I’d picked up my skills before he’d hired me, and I’d learned to help a childhood friend escape punishment for a crime he hadn’t committed. I’d witnessed the truth, and I’d learned that day the rich and powerful couldn’t be trusted.

I limped closer to the library, and the stench of blood and gore promised the worst sort of trouble had come to my work.

I remembered that smell well enough.

When I brought out my magic at its dangerous 97.6% potency, I could reduce my victim to a puddle on the sidewalk from instantaneous mass hemorrhaging. I could, if I had it out for my target, burst organs from shunting all of the body’s blood into them at one time. When in a mood, I could crystalize the blood within the body, transforming it to piercing blades capable of shredding most bones.

Only the skull vexed me.

The stench reminded me of why I hated my brand of magic, something most considered so abhorrent they refused to name it at all. Even necromancers had a better reputation, for all they did was manipulate corpses or read the truth on lifeless entrails.

The evidence of someone having used magic a lot like mine dripped from the library’s stone veneer a story and a half overhead. My brows shot up at the spatter distance, which implied whomever had killed the poor bastard had packed a lot of power behind the killing.

How wasteful.

I could’ve done a better, cleaner job without turning my victim’s blood into graffiti.

“Janette!”

I grimaced at my co-worker’s squealing call of my name. On a good day, Meridian could shatter glass. On a bad one, I worried she’d take out an entire skyscraper with her shrieking.

Today was not a good day.

Rather than snap at her for acting like I was three streets down rather than ten feet away, I limped over, pretending the library wasn’t covered in some poor bastard’s blood. “What’s going on?”

“Somebody exsanguinated Senator Godrin on the front steps.”

I lifted my hand, closed my eyes, and rubbed my temple, wishing I’d gone with the saner 30.5% magical aptitude rating, as I would’ve had access to sufficient painkillers to deal with my developing headache and the current situation, which would shoot me straight to the top of the suspect list should anyone realize my true identity.

Exsanguination, at least the kind capable of spattering blood two stories up, required a rare form of magic. Not only was it rare, only a handful of people around the world had it in the strength required to spray blood such a distance.

I was one of those people. I could spray blood up six stories if someone caught me flat-footed and I needed to eliminate a target. When I eliminated a target in the field when adrenaline flowed, I tended to shoot blood out from any available soft-tissue surface, favoring tear ducts, the ears, nose, and mouth. The smaller the opening, the stronger the spray, and when backed with sufficient magic, the faster it happened.

My poor co-workers would get a taste of what it meant to be among the magically inclined, and none of them would like it. I, in particular, would hate it, especially if someone did a proper evaluation of my aptitude rating. Assuming, of course, that I survived the evaluation and subsequent interrogation should my abilities be discovered by authorities.

Was masking my true rating under such scrutiny even possible?