Playing With Fire

Chapter One

"Alright, Jagger. Let's get this over with."

Jagger began to close the distance between us when the Guild door swung open and a fourth person walked in. Boris had to stoop slightly so that his seven foot two inch frame could clear the doorway, but when he straightened back up he quickly took in the scene in front of him.

"Jagger, Delany, where is Lawrence, what is going on here?" Boris asked, but with his thick Scandinavian accent it was more like 'Yaggerrr, Delaany, vherre is Lawrrence, vhatt is going on herre?' Boris was a bear shifter, intimidating enough to make even Jagger think twice about his answer. I'm sure he could smell the tension thick in the air.

"Delany and I were just having a quick chat, right boys?" Bruiser one and two nodded their agreement, but Boris was not stupid.

"Delany, I see you took the Terra Wyrm contract, why don't you head on home and clean up, I'll make sure Lawrence catalogs you in the record book," I tipped my head at Boris and slid by Jagger, close enough to hear his mumbled until next time, leaving the severed head for someone else to deal with.

I was thankful that Jagger wasn't Male or aggressive enough to truly ignite my temper. I took all my jobs solo. Sure, I kept surviving things that should have required a group of mercs to take down, but for now everyone was chalking that up to dumb luck. No one had seen me fight and if I wanted to keep a low profile it needed to stay that way. Boris, for reasons of his own, seemed to think that I couldn't handle myself around the other mercs and tended to step in when there were altercations. As much as it rubbed me the wrong way to allow him to intervene I knew he was doing me a favor, even if it wasn't the favor he thought. As long as no one considered me a threat they would dismiss me and I could do my jobs and keep my head down. I just had to remember to breath and shove my hot temper way down deep and bury it under sheer willpower.

I shouldered through the heavy iron door and stalked out into the dusky evening. My beat up motorcycle was untouched where I left it, in no small part due to the enchantments I had placed on it. I stuffed my head into my black helmet and stomped down on the kickstart. The bike roared to life and I tore down the service road away from the warehouse that housed the Guild.

I wound through the serpentine outer streets of the Abyss and headed toward home. The Guild was located on the outskirts of the Abyss, the farther you traveled in the blacker the market. The Stygian Queen kept her court at the very center of the Abyss, and ruled the market. You could find anything you needed in the Abyss from drugs to organs to assassins and anything in between if you were willing and able to pay the right price. The Guild was technically a part of the Abyss and The Stygian Queen took a piece of our profits, but we benefited from her protection. Some jobs went smoothly, but some resulted in destruction and casualties. The Stygian Queen made sure that Guild employees weren't held accountable.

The police force were all too happy to accept a donation in exchange for their discretion, but they were even happier to let us take care of the creatures they could not. When supernaturals came out to the public, after a lot of nasty back and forth with the humans, it was finally decided that the police did not have jurisdiction over each supernatural sect, and they had to police themselves. Most sects had been doing this for centuries and humans had no idea, so things mostly went smoothly. The problems arose when things began waking up that did not belong to any sects, but also were supernatural and therefore did not fall under police jurisdiction, things like the Terra Wyrm.

What happened was the human police were legally and physically unable to handle these issues. When faced with a supernatural creature that was endangering human lives their only recourse was to contain it until the creature's sect could come and claim it, but when it comes down to it some things just needed killing and so the Guild was born.