The Chairman hissed. In less than a second, she took in the small cavern that opened up from where they stood. A tall but spindly red demon crouched along one wall, some kind of body part—she didn’t want to dwell on which—gripped in its claws. Red splattered the walls and more unidentifiable pieces of gore littered the floor.
The Chairman’s revulsion, combined with her own, made her gag.
Disappointed, she pumped more power into the fireball and flung it at the demon. It shrieked. She flinched.
The Chairman turned to smoke, becoming incorporeal so that the noise and other earthly threats couldn’t hurt him.
Bile rose in her throat as she watched the demon burn. She made herself watch so she could be certain that she’d accomplished the job, even though she wanted to turn away to save her appetite.
When the demon was nothing but ash, she waved her hand and forced a cleansing wind through the dark space. It was the wind of time, which she used rarely, and never in the presence of another except her familiar.
Time accelerated within the wind — in this case, enough to disintegrate the gore into dust, as though a hundred years had passed.
She felt grief for the mortal families who would never know what had happened to their loved ones, but she couldn’t leave the bodies down here to be discovered by mortal police. They were unlikely to find the place since they didn’t know it existed, but she couldn’t take the chance.
Remaining secret from mortals was a Mythean’s number-one priority and one of the main goals of the Immortal University, her employer. To ignore the importance of secrecy made one a rogue. A lesser criminal than the one she had just slain, but a rogue nonetheless. If one alerted the mortals to the existence of Mytheans—creatures from myth made real by mortal belief—then one would be targeted for imprisonment or death.
In which case, Esha was sent to deal with the lawbreaker.
“Come on, let’s get a drink,” she said to the cat and turned to make her way out of the underground. After that, she sure as hell needed one. She’d been in a pissy mood lately, and this rogue hunt had been an opportunity to get some aggression out.
It was one reason she liked her job as a mercenary for the university. Esha was a soulceress, the only one in Britain, and she was perfectly suited to her field, given her ability to see the shadows of evil that lingered around a person. Without a doubt, she could determine if the one she’d been sent to kill was deserving of death.
Since they were no longer worried about running into a rogue, it didn’t take long for Esha and the Chairman to get out of the underground. They exited through an opening in the cliff beneath Edinburgh Castle, close to the Grassmarket and some of Edinburgh’s older pubs.
A quick sprint through the rain and soon she strolled into an ancient little pub, looking for a man to take her mind off things. Stormy winds slammed the heavy wooden door behind her as she shook the raindrops off her short, honey-brown leather jacket.
“Who do you think we’ll find tonight?” she whispered to the Chairman, who had turned to smoke again when they’d entered the mortal-run establishment.
He glided along next to her, invisible to all eyes but hers. He couldn’t answer her, but no matter. She knew what she’d find at The White Stag. A willing man to make her forget him. She didn’t go for one-night stands often, but since a real relationship was out of the question for her kind because soulceresses were reviled, she’d gotten used to making do.
“A pint of Tennent’s,” she told the bartender.
As he pulled her pint, she turned and leaned back against the worn oak bar and scanned the wooden-walled room that was crowded with little tables and small leather-backed chairs, searching for a guy who
looked dangerous enough to be intriguing but shallow enough not to mind a one-night stand. And definitely mortal. He had to be mortal.
Her brows shot up when she caught sight of a table of giggling witches in the corner of the pub. Their familiars had turned to smoke as well.
“Damn,” she muttered, and turned around to lean on her elbows on the bar. What were they doing here?
Mytheans didn’t normally come to mortal pubs. She hadn’t expected them to be here since they generally liked to keep to their own kind, especially when drinking. It was one of the reasons she liked to hang out in mortal pubs; she didn’t have to be reminded why she was alone. Like a high-schooler who didn’t have a lunch table full of friends, she found it easier to go to the library when the lunch bell rang. Or a mortal bar, where she didn’t expect there to be other Mytheans cringing when she walked by.
“Bunch of losers and half-rate spell chanters,” she muttered to the Chairman.
When his warmth pressed up against her leg, she looked down to see that he’d gone corporeal for a moment to comfort her. Then back to smoke. A small smile pulled at her lips, but it faded as soon as she peeked over her shoulder at the other witches. Still laughing, like girls in movies always did when they were out in a group.
She spun to face the door and head out, then stopped. She didn’t give a damn what they thought. The bartender finally handed over her beer, and she figured she might as well get half of what she’d come for.
Anyway, she wouldn’t have to worry about steering clear of the other witches because there was no doubt that they’d steer clear of her. Smart. She’d suck the power right out of them and enjoy every second. Oh, they’d regenerate it eventually, but no immortal liked giving up their energy to a soulceress.
It wasn’t like she could help how she collected power, but no one cared about the details when they felt the extra power that made them immortal slipping from their souls. They didn’t actually become mortal, just weaker for a little while as they temporarily lost whatever special ability their species possessed.
She sidled down the bar toward a towering man at the end. “Hey, handsome,” she said, giving him a bold once-over. Not bad, for a mortal.
He returned the gesture, apparently liking what he saw, if his grin was any indication. “Hello, lassie. American, are you? On a bit of vacation?”
She smiled when she heard his rough brogue; he was a local. And a damn fine one, at that. Not that she’d keep him around past tonight. Relationships between mortals and Mytheans always ended in disaster. The life-span differential was a bitch. But he’d do fine for her purposes.