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She nuzzled into the crook of my neck. “Love you too, Pigeon.”
When we broke apart, she mussed my hair and hauled me to my feet. “Alright. I’ll make sure that dude doesn’t step foot into this cafe, and you watch your back when you go out on jobs. If you’re expecting him to follow you, don’t go anywhere isolated. Stay in public view. Keep to the crowds.”
“Deal.”
To our relief, the stalker wasn’t there when we emerged from the back office. That relief didn’t last long, though, when I imagined he could be around any corner. Waiting in any alley or shop on the street.
Letting my guard down wasn’t an option.
“Where are you, asshole?” I muttered. My intuition magic wasn’t easy to command, and if I wanted to track the stalker, I’d need something of his.
For all I knew, he could be right next door, buck naked and swinging from the balcony. Or, he could be two whole blocks down, walking away from me forever.
Risks weren’t my thing; safety was. Sometimes, you had to take a chance for the sake of caution. It didn’t really make a ton of sense, but it made me feel better about my next choice.
I ran across the street to the stalker’s table and snatched a coin from the cash he’d left for the tip and tab. Just a single quarter would be enough, as long as it had been in his possession for a few hours.
But when I walked back into the cafe, there was no time for me to test it out. My next appointment came early.
A woman with sky-blue skin and black eyes waited at my table, a white poodle sitting behind her on its leash. She needed my help tracking down her wayward sister, who’d run away from home a week ago.
She offered me an unwashed tank top, which I sniffed.
This was the only scam I pulled. All my clients thought that I was some shifter with an excellent nose.
The lie was as easy as it was necessary. Divine magic was strictly physical. Divine-blooded people could manipulate fire and water. Change the weather. Create illusions. Shift their bodies into animals.
They could not track using raw magic.
Outing how my power worked would reveal my tainted bloodline immediately.
I took another deep sniff, making a good show of it. All I could sense was faded perfume and a little dust, but the woman watched me with hopeful eyes.
Some people might feel guilty about this kind of thing. Not me, though. It didn’t matter how I found stuff. Clients only cared about results, not the means.
Lying only mattered if it caused harm.
I handed the garment back. The client didn’t notice magic pulsing from my body and wrapping around the shirt. As I drank in the essence of her sister, I gave only one command:
Find the owner.
Magic curled around the order and linked it to the shirt. Like thread woven in my skin, muscles, and bones, the answer began to tug on me. “Alright. I’ve got her scent. Let’s go.”
She was pissed we couldn’t take the subway, but with my magic, it was best to walk. Maybe someday I’d offer complimentary bicycles so we wouldn’t have to hike the whole city on foot. Her little poodle clacked his claws behind us while we hiked the streets, following the gleaming pink thread of magic.
Thankfully, our search stopped at the Bronx border.
A smaller woman with the same blue skin sat on a molded-over bench. Her dark eyes revealed the hollowness of fear. Her pants were stained and ripped: her feet, bare.
She sat in the sun, and still she shivered.
Fury surged in me. Whatever that woman had been through, it had been hell.
“Here,” my client said with a warble in her voice. She offered a hundred-dollar bill. “Please don’t tell anyone—”
“I never do.” I spat the words out like they were poison. My throat stung as I fumed. I wasn’t a people-person. No one would categorize me as empathetic or warm. But nothing brought out the anger in me like seeing someone suffering.
The bill trembled in her fingers. Her lips pressed firm, like she was trying not to let them shake too.
