Ghost Light

Still holding my knives, wrists cramping, I peered through the shifting mist at the unmoving form.  I shook my head and slid my blades back into their custom sheaths.  It wasn’t Melusine leaning against the brick building, just a large coil of rope beside a stack of wooden barrels.  I rubbed my eyes and straightened, cheeks blossoming heat.  I’d nearly murdered a pile of rope.  What the hell was wrong with me?

Time to retrieve Jinx and get off this damned hill before I got myself arrested.  I didn’t think Officer Hamlin would take too kindly to a second run in with me, not in one day.

Chapter 4

I rubbed my arms as I walked up Joysen Hill, comforted by the blades that hid beneath my leather jacket.  Jenna had been trying to convince me to start weapons training since we met last summer, but I didn’t take her up on the offer until the holidays.  I had worked a job that could have gone south, fast.  Even with Jenna’s expert assistance, the faeries we were hunting had managed to ambush us.  I was lucky to be alive and had the nightmares to prove it.

I still woke to the smell of burning flesh, the awful memory of that night seared into my subconscious.  The memories left me feeling weak and vulnerable.  Facing a horde of bloodthirsty redcaps will do that to a girl.

So I had treated Jinx and myself to a month of battle training with Jenna.  Four months later, we were still attending classes.  Jinx was a perfectionist and an adrenaline junkie and I was determined to gain the skills necessary to protect this city, and my friends.  I don’t make friends easily and wasn’t about to let those precious few I had get hurt because I wasn’t prepared.

I knew basic self defense, ran through a routine of moves to disarm and immobilize an opponent every evening while Jinx cooked dinner, but this was no ordinary self defense class.  Having a skilled Hunter as a teacher was both enlightening and embarrassing.  Jenna had discovered our weaknesses before our butts hit the practice mat.

I learned that my aversion to touch was a dangerous weakness when it came to hand-to-hand combat.  I may know the moves, but when it came to executing those thrusts, flips, and punches, I held back.  In close quarters fighting, a second’s hesitation can get you dead.  Kicks and foot sweeps were less difficult, but I was a total mess when it came to using my hands.  Forget grappling or throws.  If a move involved getting up close and personal, and risking a vision, I froze.  No matter how hard I drilled technique, I didn’t have the chops.

Jinx, on the other hand, was willing to follow through with her moves, but she lacked strength and experience.  She was also the clumsiest person on the planet.  Not that that stopped her.  Jinx doesn’t give up easily.  She still puts up with me, after all.

Thankfully, Jenna could spy our strengths as easily as weaknesses.  That’s when she finally wore me down on my argument against the use of weapons.  She put my physical strength and agility and Jinx’s enthusiasm to good use.

Jinx, surprisingly, had a skill for projectile weapons.  With her steady hand and tenacity, I wouldn’t put it past my partner to master them all by next Christmas, but her current favorite was the crossbow.

Too bad she wasn’t carrying one right now.  I’d be less worried knowing my roommate was armed.  Instead, I pushed my legs to climb the hill faster.  Night was closing in.

I reached the clurichaun’s shop and balked at the closed sign hanging in the window.  Behind the sign, the shop lay dark and unwelcoming.  Had the faerie locked up shop before taking Jinx into his bolt-hole?  If so, I’d have a hard time getting my partner back.  When someone has a secret hiding place they tend to keep it, well, secret.  My only chance of finding Jinx was to enter the shop where I’d last seen the clurichaun.

In my haste to keep my friend safe, I’d put her life in the hands of a notorious drunkard.  That was beginning to seem like a bad decision.  I paced in front of the shop, trying to think.  I needed to get inside.

I stepped forward and focused on the door, the letters on the sign swimming in my vision to reveal it hadn’t been flipped after all.  The sign read “open” and the shop lights became visible, banishing the darkness.  I let out a whoop of breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.  The closed sign and lack of interior lights were an elaborate glamour.  The spell was probably cast by preset wards that were tripped when the clurichaun opened his bolt-hole.  If the shop wasn’t actually closed, then perhaps the door wasn’t locked either.  A girl could hope.

I reached out trembling fingers.  Was the glamour the only defense activated when the clurichaun left the shop?  I was about to find out.  I took a deep breath, the knob turning easily beneath my gloved hand.  So far so good.  I pushed the door inward and flinched as a small bell rang overhead.