Listen, I didn’t have a daddy to teach me all that macho bravado tool-man stuff, so I know what I know, and I mostly don’t know what I don’t know. My line of work has always been destruction—kill the bad guy, demolish the building, ruin the relationship, destroy the toilet, stuff like that. I know how to tear apart, not build. So, if you want to know how this shop looked, then don’t criticize my layman descriptions. Apart from rotary hammers and circular saws and the common construction equipment, I’m useless. Most of my coworkers spend their free time on side jobs—pouring concrete or framing houses or texturing paint. They know their stuff. Me, well, I’d be better equipped spending a night bumbling around a black-tie cocktail party than piecing together a backyard shed.
I did see a sledgehammer propped against a cabinet. I can say that with confidence.
So, like a said, side wall was a carpenter’s station—hammers and drills and wood and metal. You get the picture. Directly in front of me was a mechanic’s station, if I had to guess. There was one of those things that lifts cars into the air so the greasy dude (or dudette) could do whatever he does. I also noticed an air compressor and a jack—see, I know some things—and one of those cranes that remove the transmission, or engine, or motor. Are they all the same thing? I don’t know. Does it matter? Only to people way smarter than I am.
Off to my right side, and I kid you not, there was a blacksmith’s forge. I’m serious. Think of Skyrim and how you could use the forges to craft eight hundred daggers. Remember that old glitch that skyrocketed you to level one hundred? Good times. Bound to my chair, I saw a smelter a few yards away from an anvil, which was near a grindstone, which was set somewhere beside a well-looking thing that had fire instead of water. So, that Skyrim thing, but in real life, beside a carpenter’s and mechanic’s station.
“Hello,” I called into the empty shop, not expecting anyone to respond but my echo.
“Joseph Hunter,” said a gruff voice behind me—the voice of a bearded, old motorcyclist who had spent a lifetime drinking cheap whiskey and smoking cheap cigars and didn’t really care to be heard or understood.
I flinched a tad at my name, then gulped as recognition dawned on me. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” I said.
“You still haven’t tamed that tongue?”
“Nice set up you got here. Jack of all, master of none, am I right?” I faked a chuckle and silently cursed in my head, wishing I was back with Detective Gross in the interrogation room. At least there, I might have a chance to live—which was my optimal way of going about existence.
Heavy, uneven footsteps cascaded around the shop.
“I got this terrible itch on my nose.” I crinkled my face, wiped it against my shoulder. “I can’t seem to reach it, with my hands occupied and all. You mind helping me out a little? I would owe you a huge favor.”
“You already owe me enough favors,” the voice said.
I bit my lower lip for a second. “If you take these cuffs off, I can shove my fist in my mouth. I think it would be better for both of us if that happened.”
From behind me, a massive man stepped into my field of view. If I had to guesstimate from a sideways glance, I would say he stood about as tall as your roofline and weighed around that of your average semi-truck. He didn’t wear a shirt, and his stomach protruded like a drunk’s—hard and perfectly round, as if he had swallowed a basketball. Tufts of red hair curled over his vast body. His right shoulder was broader and higher than his left. A red beard covered his chest, and long red hair fell from his temples, dangling around his slanted shoulders. He was bald on the top of his head, though. When he walked, he dragged his left leg, which—like his left shoulder—appeared shriveled and shrunken.
Though I had a pact with the Nephil, Hephaestus, I had never actually met him, had never seen him in person. In fact, now that I thought about it, I had never seen any Nephil in the flesh—unless you count Hecate in the parking garage. Apart from occasionally choosing a mortal to imbue with power, Nephil lived a solitary life. They were in the world, but not of it.
“You have finally returned to your magic,” Hephaestus said, turning and facing me with his watermelon mug. He made the bouncer at Snake Head Lounge look pretty. “Do you know the punishment for abandoning your pact?”
I did know it. The military university I had attended made it perfectly clear. If any of the students managed to secure a pact, we would have to honor it for the rest of our lives. If we failed to obey our Nephil’s orders, then we would be subject to a punishment fit for the crime. Usually, losing said powers, being cursed to serve the Nephil for eternity, or death. Getting stripped of powers equated to a stern slap on the wrist—it served as a warning. The more stringent punishments turned the magical blessing into a curse. Some Nephil cursed their unruly Acolytes with eternal life and servitude and no opportunity to ever walk away.
When I had decided to go AWOL and hunt down Callie’s killers, I still upheld some of Hephaestus’ requests, mostly to keep him off my back. But, when I had quit the magic business altogether, well—I had also abandoned him, leaving his assignments for me incomplete.
“I do,” I said in a quiet voice, stiffening in my chair.
“Yet, you left.”
I nodded, biting my lip, thinking of
