Mob Sorcery / Lowlife Enforcer - Ch2

Chapter 2

Even facing near certain death, Vince’s brain had only one answer to Pola’s threat. “This is a club, right? I’m here to drink, chat, and have a fun time. You know, the sort of thing people do at clubs and bars.”

Pola sneered at him, then she straightened up and grinned wolfishly. As she tugged at her jacket, she looked around at her pack, who watched with bated—and drunken—breath.

“I dunno, girls, do you think we’re having a good time?” she asked.

The pack let out a raucous roar that echoed off the walls of the club. Vince winced. His barrier protected him from physical and magical danger, not aural. Maybe he should fix that. Ronin appeared unfazed, after all.

Stepping over one of the groaning bouncers on the floor, Pola stalked toward Vince and his friend. Both of them reflexively moved away, which caused them to separate.

Pola ignored Ronin, her attention entirely on Vince. Before either of them could correct their mistake, a half-dozen of the gang members lurched free of their drunken haze and rushed Ronin.

“Hey, hey, big boy, let the sottocapo tango with her man,” one of the wolves said while blocking Ronin.

“You’ve got a lot of guts to openly use a mafia title in front of a cop,” Ronin growled, his silver knuckles glowing.

Wrong words at the wrong time. Ronin realized his mistake when the six wolfgirls backed off, only to be joined by another dozen, and soon he found himself surrounded not by six drunken demihumans, but half the pack. None of them moved.

The instant Ronin’s mouth moved to cast a spell, the wolves would jump him. A standoff.

Vince counted his friend effectively out of the fight. The pack wouldn’t hit first if they could help it. Fighting the police was a last resort.

The retribution wouldn’t end at a fine, like Vince had gotten last year. Once somebody hit the blue, they didn’t just hit back, they smashed them with the might of hundreds of magic-wielding enforcers.

“You keep interesting company,” Pola said as she chased Vince around the club.

He kept walking backward, watching out for the bodies of the bouncers and the furniture—broken or otherwise. Pola kept pace. Her eyes still glowed, indicating her body remained pumped full of magic.

“What’s a pet enforcer of a bunch of demons doing hanging out with a police enforcer?” she asked.

“You don’t have the slightest clue who I am, do you?” Vince asked.

“You’re Quintus’s pet human. Covered for a massive catalyst smuggling ring last year when a huge police raid tried to take out Immanuel’s smuggling operation. You shut down half of main street with your fire magic, cost the city countless millions in repairs, and got off with a fine because none of the blackshirts got hurt. So, yeah, I know you.” Pola grinned again.

Blackshirt, huh? Demihumans disliked calling the police “pigs” like humans often did, for obvious reasons. Vince had heard more than a few colorful epithets for cops from the various beastfolk, but this one was new to him.

More to the point, she knew exactly who he was. Damn.

“I’m no pet. If I was, I’d be a lot wealthier,” Vince said drily.

He looked behind him and gulped. The remaining wolfgirls had cut off any further retreat. They shooed him away with broad smirks, although one held their arms out as if gesturing for a hug.

Something told him that hug would end in the last night of his life, even if it might be physically enjoyable for a while. This pack was wild.

“Pets don’t own anything.” Pola stopped a good twenty feet from him and placed a hand on one hip. “That’s why I don’t get you. You’re strong. Why the fuck aren’t you standing and fighting me, you shitheel? I can feel the power roiling off that barrier of yours. Throw a fucking punch and break my jaw, goddammit!”

Vince blinked.

That was her problem now?

“Women don’t usually ask me to break their jaw,” he said.

“Would you like me to break yours?” she growled and took a step closer.

He opened his mouth as if to respond, but knew better than to keep the conversation going. Twenty feet gave him no room to play with in a fight. Especially in a club he couldn’t exactly burn down.

Unfortunately, something gave him away. Maybe the slight shift in his posture or perhaps Pola sensed the magic gathering in his body. Before Vince could even silently mouth more than a single syllable of a spell, she bounded toward him in a blur of black and silver.

Green, glowing claws consumed his vision as her hand rushed toward his face. He snapped his arms up to protect himself while focusing on his spell. Her magic claws met the red aura of his barrier and a blinding flash of light erupted across the entire club.

“Vince!” Ronin snapped, then rushed forward.

The wolfgirls snarled and finally moved to stop him. Shattering sounds reached Vince’s ears as the pack attempted to stop the police enforcer and likely took out a huge section of the club in the attempt.

But Vince didn’t have the luxury of worrying about his friend. He needed to stay alive.

Pola’s claws shattered on impact with his barrier and she danced backward faster than he followed. He couldn’t tell if she used magic to empower her body, or if her inhuman speed was part of her physical nature. Demihumans varied in abilities drastically, unlike humans.

Magic separated humans, demihumans, and immortals. For Vince, he needed to actively cast every spell and his body was entirely natural. A wolfgirl like Pola could look like a twig but be capable of snapping him over her knee due to the magic pumping through her very veins. The one positive was that demihumans still needed to cast spells, unlike immortals such as demons.

Unfortunately, Pola landed closer on the enforcer spectrum to Ronin than Vince. Somewhere in that designer outfit would be magical foci and other fancy tools to help her cast spells. Those claws had appeared instantly. Every spell needed time to cast, but tools could shortcut the process and some spells could be embedded into objects, such as rings, and cast on demand.

In other words, money held power. Wealthier enforcers and sorcerers decked themselves out with fancy and expensive magic tools that made them effectively untouchable to lesser beings such as Vince.

He needed space to cast spells. His barrier might not hold out for a second attack.

“I knew you were strong.” Pola’s grin practically split her face in half while she rubbed the hand she’d summoned her claws in. “It’s been a while since my claws broke. Nothing but weaklings around these parts.”

Vince began circling her as he got out of the corner he’d backed himself into. He ignored the slams nearby of Ronin and the other wolves ruining the lower level of the club. At some point, the remaining patrons had fled. Presumably through an emergency exit.

“Go on, do something,” Pola whined.

“Alright,” he said.

His lips moved rapidly while she simply stood there. After a moment, she realized he wasn’t going to punch her and attempted to rush him, but it was too late.

Vince clicked his fingers and a cage of fire sprung into existence around her. She slammed into it, then screamed. The flames immediately caught onto her jacket and the fabric turned into a white-hot blaze of fury around Pola’s body. Fortunately, the club’s floor remained largely unscathed.

Fire magic always proved risky in the wild. Vince needed to be wary using some spells as he might burn down entire buildings.

No further screams of pain escaped Pola, however. Instead, she ripped off the jacket in a single movement and wrapped the still-burning fabric around one fist. Her mouth moved slowly, as if with great effort.

“You don’t cast spells often, do you?” he said, realizing Pola was attempting to cast a spell.

Which meant he should be ready. He reinforced his barrier, then, as she still hadn’t finished, began preparing another offensive spell. Not that he had too many options. Throwing fireballs inside was a terrible idea; he didn’t have the time for his best spell; and he was far too crappy a spellcaster to know many more spells.

Enforcers were crude fighters, not fancy sorcerers. Vince knew enough spells to win fights, and had taught himself everything he knew. If push came to shove, he might need to risk burning down the club.

Pola finally finished whatever spell she had been casting. The jacket and her entire right arm glowed with an eerie green glow that emanated from her very veins, as if she had transformed her blood into liquid green magic.

With a blood-curdling howl that stopped every wolfgirl in the building dead, Pola slammed her right arm into the cage. The jacket exploded. So did the cage, sending fire in every direction. Flaming fragments of the jacket and Vince’s magic rained down from above. They caught on the lights, the rafters, on top of the bar—basically anywhere they found purchase.

“Oh, shit,” he said, realizing the problem moments before several dozen small fires started.

His focus shifted from the spell he’d been holding to fend off Pola. He needed to put out those flames before the club turned into a blazing inferno.

Big mistake, it turned out. Pola roared and charged him. Her footsteps reverberated in his ears, seeming to reach him after she slammed into his chest in a shoulder charge. His barrier absorbed the worst of the impact and kept his chest from caving in, but they tumbled backward.

Vince’s head slammed into the front of the bar as they rolled into it. Pola wasted no time spinning to her feet and raking his face with her claws. Without much time to cast a complicated spell, he gave up on nuance.

While his barrier struggled to repel a furious wolfgirl intent on ripping off his face, he spoke three silent syllables. Rippling flames coated his hands, deep blue like plasma torches.

He tackled her. His flames disintegrated her clothes upon touch, and she yelped upon contact. The moment he closed around her, his barrier let her enormous strength get the better of him. Vince realized he’d fucked up.

If she bearhugged him now, it’d be a brief battle of attrition. His flames might burn a hole in her back, but she’d squeeze his innards out through his mouth within a second if she tried.

Fortunately, she didn’t. Pola squealed again and panicked. As his flames tore at her back, she scrabbled at him, then grabbed part of his body and hurled him across the entire club like a chair. He felt a moment of vertigo, then crashed into the wall. His barrier saved his spine from shattering and his arm from breaking when he hit the ground.

Not that he’d been saved from all the pain. The blows would bruise and Pola had gripped him hard enough that he still felt it.

Even so, he rose to his feet.

By now, the wolfgirls had stopped fighting Ronin. Mostly to stare at their half-naked boss heaving with deep, panicked breaths, while burn marks marred her sides, arms, and back.

Ronin himself bore a handful of wounds and favored one side while blood oozed down his right arm. Several wolfgirls lay around him on the dance floor. The police would undoubtably be here any minute. Bad news for everyone involved, including Vince.

“I think it’s time to—” Vince tried to say, keen to get the fuck out before fifty police enforcers descended like divine justice.

Pola simply grinned, then laughed. “Time to what? Run away with your tail between your legs, puppy? Fuck no! You don’t get to make me so hot and bothered, then piss off like that. This is the best fun I’ve had for ages. We’re going to the end. Winner takes all.”

Something told Vince that “all” didn’t refer to their lives, despite the incredible danger they were in due to the fight.

The club doors slammed open. Vince closed his eyes, aware that he’d missed his chance to fuck off and avoid another crippling fine. What a fucking disaster.

“What absolute travesty of a mess have you made for me to clean up, Pola?” a bell-like voice rang out, and clearly not that of a gruff police enforcer. “I leave you and the enforcers alone for a minute to relax while I handle some business and you piss all over a neutral establishment.”

“Sis, this demon pet here was—” Pola tried to say.

“Shut up,” the newcomer snapped.

Vince opened his eyes and looked at the club entrance.

Just like Pola, this wolfgirl needed no introduction. Alessia Lionetti, the head of the Lionetti family. Black curls rippled down to her shoulders, and they seemed to catch the light from the fire in a breathtaking way. Her ice-blue eyes bore into Vince as if she wished to capture his very soul. Her black wolf’s ears and wolf’s tail remained unmoving.

A glittering black cocktail dress let one toned thigh slip out through a long slit, and revealed a slim magical focus tucked away in her inner thigh. Her bust matched that of her sister’s, which made sense given their blood relation. Her blue-painted lips shifted upward when she spotted Vince’s wandering gaze.

“Pet… I see,” Alessia said slowly, then looked around at the still-burning club. “Your tantrum makes little difference to the end result, Pola. Get out and take the enforcers with you. I’ll deal with you after I clean up this mess. There’s far too much to handle. The owner of this club, the police, and the independent enforcer you assaulted. We have enough problems without you making more.”

Pola froze, then bowed her head. She began to trot toward the exit.

“And put a top on, you dolt,” Alessia said flatly. “As attractive as your tits might be to your opponent, you’ll embarrass us if you expose yourself to the entire city.”

As if she hadn’t realized her nearly naked state, Pola covered her chest with her arms and growled at Vince. She snatched a jacket off one of her subordinates before they rushed out of the club. The wolves carried their fallen kin.

Which left a bunch of stirring bouncers and a burning building. Vince ignored Alessia and put out the flames with a few quick spells. Removing fire was as simple as creating it.

The mafia don herself vanished through a backdoor of the club. Possibly to find someone in charge. She lacked any bodyguards. Probably because, as wolffolk, she could hold her own in a fight. Vince doubted she was much older than he was, however. Whatever fighting skills she had, they weren’t worth much against an enforcer, as she would have spent most of her life learning how to run a company.

“You alright?” Ronin asked as he wandered over.

His wounds had already healed. Regeneration magic.

Where Vince taught himself magic, and therefore sucked at everything other than fire magic and knew only a handful of spells, Ronin went to the police academy. They taught him properly, meaning he knew more than one school of magic.

Right now, that meant Ronin could heal his own wounds, while Vince needed to live with his bruises or find somebody with healing magic. Ronin technically could heal, but there was a higher priority.

“I’m good. Worry about the bouncers,” Vince said.

His friend nodded, then began checking each of the fallen security.

A few bouncers trickled in now that the show was over, including the door guards that Vince had talked with earlier. One might criticize them for refusing to help their colleagues. Vince knew better. Pola would have just torn them apart.

“How was Pola’s magic? I didn’t catch your fight, other than the part where she nearly burned the place down,” Ronin asked while healing one bouncer.

Vince shrugged. “That was technically on me. I tried to put her in a cage and she blew it up.”

“A cage of fire?” Ronin frowned. “So she… manipulates elements? I don’t follow.”

“I think she uses wind magic. Big glowing claws that cut things apart? Wind blades. The cage exploded because she hit it with a concentrated vortex, and that sent embers everywhere. I think she’s just strong as hell, though. Can probably bench press the building.”

“Ah. So she’s like you. A monoelement caster.”

“Hey. I can learn more schools and elements. I just haven’t,” Vince said defensively. “Every magic-user has an affinity. Mine’s fire, so I’m just sticking with what I’m good at.”

“Sure you are. And that also explains why you use the same five spells over and over.”

Asshole. Ronin knew how to hit Vince where it hurt sometimes.

Learning new spells took a lot of time and practice. Novels and movies still depicted magic as if there was some master book of spells, with standardized incantations, wands, big magic schools, and other nonsense that made everything so easy. The idea made it easy for rich parents to send their kids off to a magic school when they were young and give them a better chance in the world.

But reality sucked. Magic was highly individual. The concepts and theories never changed, but every person needed to tap into the magical weave in their own way. Spell incantations were basically nonsense, and magical foci like silver knuckle dusters and wands needed to be personally bound to an individual at great expense.

Even once Vince learned a new spell, he needed to master it. A fuckup with a fire spell could kill people, burn down buildings, or even backfire and harm himself. Lighting a candle might incinerate a room.

When he’d first learned to cast a barrier as a teenager, he’d messed up and given himself bad enough burns that he’d been hospitalized. To learn magic was to walk with death. Demihumans had a leg up, but as Pola’s inept casting proved, even they struggled at times.

“A damn shame the wolves fucked off when they did. A little longer and…” Ronin scowled.

“I’d be joining them in the slammer?” Vince offered.

Ronin shot him a dark look. “You’d be fine. Enforcers are allowed self-defense.”

“Sure, but I’m not well liked among the department. Burning down main street made me a few enemies.”

“If we messed with every enforcer who annoyed us, we’d be flattened by the corporate enforcers that outnumber us ten-to-one,” Ronin said. “I complained about Quintus earlier, but you’d be safe because of him. Immanuel would flip their shit if we fined you for self-defense here and the mayor hates it when we piss off the conglomerates without good reason.”

Politics. Vince waved Ronin on. He wanted nothing to do with that stuff.

For his part, Ronin simply shrugged.

Alessia appeared from the door she’d vanished through earlier, visibly annoyed. Her expression cleared up and a blatantly fake smile appeared in its place. Even if fake, it was pretty enough to make Vince’s heart skip a beat.

Ronin grinned at his face. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.”

“Oh, fuck off. We’re the same age, and you’re single as well, asshole.” Vince rubbed the back of his neck and avoided Alessia’s gaze. “What did the wolves call Pola earlier? You got angry about it?”

“Sotocappo. It’s a mafia term for—”

“Underboss,” Alessia interrupted. “It’s my sister’s official position within the Lionetti Family, although in Aulfair it’s not a mafia title. Our operations are, more or less, legal here. So we’ve incorporated our operation.”

“A legal mafia,” Ronin said flatly.

Alessia ignored him and merely smiled at Vince. “Mr. Keys, I believe? We haven’t met, but I have heard of you. I wish to personally apologize for the trouble my dear sister has caused you. Allow me to treat you to…” She frowned then twisted her wrist.

Her phone abruptly appeared in her hand with a shimmer of magic. One of her bracelets contained a spell to summon it, and presumably another could banish it. Convenient for a woman who wished to avoid carrying a handbag or purse.

“Lunch tomorrow?” Alessia continued. “I’d offer you a drink right now, but given the time I feel you may wish to get some rest. Especially as I have some business matters to discuss.”

“Business?” Vince narrowed his eyes. “Aren’t things slowing down in our line of work because of…” He nodded his head toward Ronin, indicating the cops and the imminent conference.

“Some of us march to the beat of our own drum.” She twirled her phone in her hand. “Are you interested?”

Ronin’s sharp gaze suggested he thought Vince shouldn’t be, but he said that about Quintus as well.

And Vince needed money to help pay the bills. He still needed to pay his roommate for last month’s rent, on top of this month’s. Who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? Or at least, to refuse to at least hear her out over a free lunch? And sure, she might be pretty enough to give him pause but that had nothing to do with his decision making.

Nope. Not at all.

“Sure,” he said. “Do you want my number, or…?”

“Of course. It’s significantly easier to arrange the venue and time that way, than to send around one of the girls to your apartment.”

That implied she knew where he lived. Whether Alessia intended to intimidate him, the effect murdered the naïve attraction he’d allowed to bloom for her.

Mafia don. One with a brutal reputation despite being in her late twenties. Rumor had it that she’d personally slaughtered the other potential heirs to the Lionetti family when her father had been assassinated a decade ago.

They exchanged contacts, Alessia shot him a bright smile in one final effort to resurrect that feeling in Vince’s crotch he’d foolishly allowed to overcome his brain, before the mafia don strode out of the ruined club.

“You have a knack for choosing dangerous employers,” Ronin told Vince. “Try not to get swallowed up by her.”

“In what way?” Vince asked.

“Any way. The Lionettis are reckless.” Ronin waved a hand at the wreckage around them. “But they’re a shadow of their former selves. A desperate, cornered animal will do crazy things. It’s not an orgy that I’m worried about.”

“But I should be worried about that.”

Ronin put his head in his hands while laughing. “You are hopeless. I don’t know why I try. Don’t get killed you idiot. Now fuck off while I deal with this mess. Get some sleep. Ask Nina for some advice. She might know about the Lionettis.”

“Good call. Thanks for the drink and the backup.” Vince slapped his friend on the shoulder, then fled from the club before any other enforcers showed up to hassle him.

Just in time, really. By the time he reached the edge of the marble overlook outside the bars and clubs, several police enforcers dropped from the sky. Two were eagle birdfolk, and far larger than Nicki, and they’d carried in a pair of human enforcers.

Speaking of Nicki, Vince spotted her approaching him before he even had the chance to message her. She rushed over, wings flapping wildly and eyes wide.

“Holy shit, did you get any of my messages?” she snapped at him, waving her hands at him while her hip wings lashed him. “The club you wandered into was fucking exploding, the bouncers refused to let anyone in, and videos on social media showed the fucking Lionetti sister smashing the place up. Where the fuck have you been?”

“On a date,” Vince said drily. “She was a little rough, though.”

Nicki glared at him, then ran a hand down her face. “And you gave me shit about my Wings rating. Fucking hell. Why did I agree to fly you around?”

“Money?”

“Right, yeah. Money. You leaving?”

“Yup.”

He gave her the address, and she entered it into her smartwatch. After a few seconds, she reeled off a price. Admittedly, Vince didn’t know Wings well enough to know if it was a good one, but it sounded fine.

Plus, he had a lift in front of him. If he refused Nicki for the easy trips, she’d never help him with the hard ones. Such was life.

The hour was late, just past 1am now, and little happened on the flight home. Long, boring, quiet, and slow. Not that he blamed Nicki for that. He lived out in a shitty part of the city, far from the center and on the verge of suburban sprawl that stretched out for miles.

This covered probably ninety percent of Aulfair’s medium-density residential, Vince realized. To be specific, Nicki flew him out to the north-east. Blocks of rundown tenements stretched out below, lining one of the city’s major subway corridors. Further beyond lay the endless greenfields of suburbia and overpriced houses he couldn’t even dream of living in.

Without a word to him, Nicki circled the rundown tenement he lived in, which closely resembled the billion other buildings next to it, then fluttered down to land on his balcony. An effortless landing.

“You’d have a higher Wings rating if you flew like this and never talked, you know?” he said once she dropped him off.

She crouched on his balcony railing and glared at him. This close and in such a position, any glance at her left him with nowhere safe to look. Skintight lycra and legs spread at eye height did not mix well with modesty.

“If I knew why I got shit ratings, I’d do something about it,” she said after looking away. “I’m like this because it doesn’t matter. Hell, things got better after I started acting surlier.”

“Must be all the weirdos.” Although Vince began to form a suspicion that her troubles had less to do with her behavior and more to do with who and what she was.

Harpies didn’t typically carry people on Wings, after all. The big, scary feet bothered people. Not like their fluffier brethren or the massive eagles that simply looked like humans with wings attached.

“Weirdos like you?”

“Bingo.”

He counted out the cash and paid her. She checked it, then slid it into her lycra.

“Not gonna badger me for a tip?” he asked.

She shrugged. “It’s an agreed rate. I’m not a bitch. Won’t complain about free food if you take me somewhere nice, though.”

He’d need the money to go somewhere nice, first.

“I don’t know when my next weird job is,” Vince admitted. “I’m lining up new work tomorrow.”

“As in, searching for…” Nicki fished, narrowing her eyes.

“No, as in meeting a potential new employer for less savory but high paying work.”

“Oh.” She relaxed. “Like I said, anything outside 9 to 5. And, uh, I might be able to help you around lunch hours if it’s around the city center and a short trip.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Have a good night, Nicki.”

“Yeah, you too.”

She leaped backward off the balcony, then reappeared a moment later as she soared off into the night. Her dark figure vanished within seconds, merging with the darkness of the cityscape.

Vince wasted no time thinking about her and the mixed signals he got from her. Instead, he unlocked the balcony door and entered the apartment.

The lights and heating were on, but little else was. The three bedroom apartment he lived in consisted of little more than a combined living and dining room, an enclosed kitchen full of appliances that barely worked, and three bedrooms. Plus a bathroom with about five minutes of working hot water for the shower.

He and his roommate showered at opposite times—he took nights, and she took mornings. Except for the times she stole his hot water at night without telling him.

Tonight was not one of those nights. A massive demihuman with long, bushy blonde hair, tufted lion ears, and a long, thin tail lay on the worn, gray sofa. She wore a suit jacket and pencil skirt, with a plain white business shirt beneath. Her shoes had been kicked off, but she had left her black pantyhose on. Her gentle but rhythmic breathing indicated she was fast asleep.

Vince wasn’t getting any rest just yet, it seemed.

Read Chapter 3