Short story

Preternatural Affairs, Books 1-3: Witch Hunt, Silver Bullet, and Hotter Than Helltown — a book by SM Reine

I told myself, Count your blessings, Cèsar, because the day is going to get worse before it gets better.

Sometimes it sucked to be right.

Yesterday had been so much better.

I’d just wrapped up a four-month-long manhunt for a witch named Black Jack who had a quick hand for tarot and a quicker hand for curses. Most of those curses were dumb pranks—might mess with someone’s head, but nothing deadly. The numbers in the OPA’s budget were redder than blood, so he’d been on the observation list for years without anyone managing to justify the cost of hunting him down.

Until he cursed some car keys and his ex-girlfriend drove into oncoming traffic.

That had bumped his priority up real fast.

The New Mexico office sent the file to us and Black Jack landed on my desk. Long story short, I bagged him just like I’d bagged a half a dozen other witches this year. Picked him up in a gas station. Slipped a mix of a sleeping and paralysis potion in his energy drink, knocked him out cold.

That was the result of four months of hunting on my part and years of monitoring by other agents. Taking Black Jack off the streets meant that we’d be saving a lot of money on cleaning up his bullshit. It meant we might actually get merit increases on our paychecks next summer.

Yeah, the big boss had been happy with me, and so was everyone else.

That was why I had been at The Olive Pit last night even though I don’t drink. We were riding high on the knowledge that Black Jack was going to Italy for trial, never to be our problem again. Everyone had been there: Fritz Friederling, the director who had given me the job with the OPA; some hunters with the Union; all the other investigators in the Magical Violations Department; even the administrative assistants.

Suzy had been there, too. The amount of alcohol that woman could put away was incredible considering she was five feet tall in heels. She had been exchanging crass jokes with Joey and Eduardo, the kind of stuff that I would never say in front of a lady, and playing drinking games that started with setting shots on fire and ended up with us all getting completely trashed.

I hadn’t paid for a single drink. All the guys had been buying for me—the man who nailed Black Jack.

They had given me shit over the way tequila made me cough and choke. Suzy had been pounding her tiny, delicately boned fist on my back and it had felt kind of like a jackhammer.

Bad alcohol, great company. So I had been feeling good. Real good.

Then Erin had arrived for her shift. She’d had a nasty black eye covered up with makeup. Big bruise. It covered half of her face. I remembered when my sister, Ofelia, was trying to cover up the evidence of her abuse, so I’d known immediately what was going on.

I had cornered Erin by the kitchen. I’d said something like, “Tell me who’s messing with you, and I’ll take care of it.” Big words coming from a drunk guy, but I’d meant it.

“Nobody’s messing with me,” she had said. She’d batted her eyelashes at me. Shot me a sweet smile. “I’m okay.”

“Let me help you,” I’d insisted. And then I’d told her who I was, whom I worked for, how I could nail the guy that was hurting her. I shouldn’t have told her the truth, but I did.

Then there was a haunted, hungry look in her eyes. Just for a second. Nothing more than a flash of it.

“I’ll think about it,” she’d said.

Suzy had found me, dragged me back to drinking. We’d played a few more games. I noticed at some point that Fritz had left and thought that was probably my cue to leave, too. Whenever the director thinks it’s time to get home and sleep, it’s time to sleep. But Suzy had talked me into staying.

Erin brought me a drink toward the end of the night. When she’d dropped it off, she kissed me on the cheek, slipped me a note. “I’ll tell you after my shift. Maybe you can help. But not here. Your place.”

When she’d left, I checked what she had given me.

Her phone number.

Then I’d tossed back the fireball she’d given me. I’d felt hot and excited at the thought of having Erin in my apartment. Suzy had been talking to me but I’d barely even seen her lips moving, much less understood what she was saying. My head was filled with liquored haze and the buzz of knowing I’d be taking a beautiful woman home.

After that…well, I guess Erin had come home with me, and I think we might have had sex.

I knew I hadn’t helped her.

I couldn’t remember that part.

You always thought if you got in trouble working for the OPA, it was going to be when you crossed someone like Black Jack.

• https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/preternatural-affairs-books-1-3-witch-hunt-silver-bullet-and-hotter-than-helltown?utm_source=walmarthybrid&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Tell+me+a+Story&utm_term=&ranMID=37217&ranEAID=HpcFMFG7cB8&ranSiteID=HpcFMFG7cB8-z5Jx7zmA3SM1RtRUN3ouIA&siteID=HpcFMFG7cB8-z5Jx7zmA3SM1RtRUN3ouIA

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About the book:

This urban fantasy boxed set contains the first three books of the Preternatural Affairs series: Witch Hunt, Silver Bullet, and Hotter Than Helltown. My name's Cèsar Hawke. I’m a witch working for a division of the government you’ve never heard about. The world’s not what everyone thinks it is—unless you think that our world’s a pawn in a game of chess between Heaven and Hell, and riddled with as much magic and wonder as it is with evil. In that case, the world is exactly what you think. My place of employment—the Office of Preternatural Affairs—takes a modern approach to an ages-old problem. It used to be that inquisitors would burn demons and the people in league with them. Now we get warrants, perform arrests, put the suspects on trial, and send guilty parties back to the Hell from whence they came with the travel forms filled out in triplicate. This stuff I do with the OPA, it saves lives on most days. Most days, I said. About Witch Hunt There are scratches on Cèsar Hawke’s arms, a discharged Glock on his coffee table, and a dead woman in his bathtub. Yeah, maybe he brought the waitress home for some fun—he was too drunk to remember it—but he knows for a fact that he didn’t kill her. He’s an agent with the Office of Preternatural Affairs. He doesn’t hurt people. He saves them. The cops disagree. Now Cèsar is running. Isobel Stonecrow speaks with the dead. She brings closure to the bereaved and heals broken hearts. But when she talks to the wrong spirit, the OPA puts a bounty on her head. Tracking down Isobel is the last case assigned to Cèsar before he bolts. If he finds her, he can prove that he didn’t kill that waitress. He can clear his name, get his job back, and bring justice to all those wronged families. She’s just one witch. He’s bagged a dozen witches before. How hard can one more be? About Silver Bullet Former private investigator Cèsar Hawke has one rule: He doesn’t deal with dead bodies. That’s why he enlisted with the Magical Violations Department in the Office of Preternatural Affairs. He’s happy tracking down witches that commit petty crimes, but he leaves the homicides to other agents. Except that he’s been assigned to a new team—a team that handles special investigations—and the job has suddenly changed. Now Cèsar has to deal with dead bodies. He also has to deal with necromancers, murderous cults, and demons that can stop a man’s heart with fear. This isn’t the job he signed up for, but it’s the job he needs to do. If he survives the first week. About Hotter Than Helltown A killer is mutilating bodies in Los Angeles. Agent Cèsar Hawke is on the case, but the murderer is ahead of him—way ahead of him. Wiping the memories of the dead so that the team’s necrocognitive can’t talk to them? Done. Preventing magical reconstruction of the crime scenes? Oh yeah. And the murders keep getting more brutal while Cèsar struggles to catch up. The best way to heat up a cold case is to go to Helltown, where Los Angeles’s most powerful evil hides out, but even those demons are afraid of the murderer. Their fear adds one more question to the growing pile of unknowns: What kind of bad guy is too hot for Helltown?

Genres: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Thriller, Horror