Stealing The Crown

Waves crashing against the shore of a pristine, white sand beach. Cocktails in coconuts being served to me by bronzed men in tight white polos and tiny red shorts, as I relax on a lounger overlooking the water. A blue bikini showing off tanned skin, skin that had spent hours in the sun over the last several weeks. It was perfection, it was nirvana. It was-

A vibration in my hand shattered the heavenly illusion, bringing reality back with a crashing blow. The beach I had been staring at was replaced by the crowded skyline of a dying city, the sand turning into the concrete of the roof I was standing on.

I glared at the phone that had ruined my mental vacation, seeing a message with a single letter. Q. It was go time. I quickly made my way down the fire escape at the back of the building, the rusted metal of the handrail scratching against my skin with each step. I was begging, pleading, with whatever deities existed that the beasts in the loading bay wouldn’t hear my footfalls when a sharp pain in my hand stopped me cold.

Shit, not now! I silently cursed as a bead of blood welled up where a jagged edge had caught my palm. Without hesitation I stuck the wound in my mouth, trying to keep the scent of my blood from the air. If the monsters inside caught the scent, they’d be on me in an instant. I was only halfway down the building, and my only hope was to get in and out undetected.

Once the metallic taste had faded from my tongue and I knew the bleeding had stopped, I continued my descent. The entire process was slowed drastically due to the need for silence, but we had planned for this. We had planned almost every detail to the second, with room for error included. It was too high of a pay to go in blind, Q had said.

Reaching the bottom of the fire escape, I found the door I needed exactly where the warehouse blueprints had said it would be. Perfect. The door was locked, but I made short work of picking it open and suddenly I was inside. The bright fluorescent lights were harsh after the darkness outside, but I didn’t have time to let my eyes adjust. It was time to finish this.

The office itself was beautifully decorated, with the desk and bookshelves in matching rich mahogany. A couch along the back wall was a deep red in color, and looked comfier than anything I had back in my apartment. Artifacts lined the shelves, each a memento of the monstrous history of the beasts I was stealing from.

Werewolves were highly sentimental creatures, after all.

A glint from the shelves caught my eye, like a beacon showing me what I was looking for. It was an ornate box, dark wood with golden accents that looked like it cost more than my car. I picked it up, popping the lid open to make sure the needed treasure was inside before sticking the entire thing into my bag. The client only wanted what was inside, but the box itself would fetch a pretty penny at the local pawn shop. A bonus for a job well done.

Back out the door I’d come in, across the concrete lot, and down the alley behind the warehouse. Three blocks down was a small diner where the coffee was strong and the pancakes were heavenly, called Booshie’s. It was a favorite of mine, and the meeting place where I’d give Q the client’s loot. I sat down in a booth towards the bathrooms, shooting Q a text with just my first initial, before the waitress had even noticed I’d entered.

Sneaking and stealing weren’t exactly skills I was proud of, but they were the skills that kept me alive.

The waitress, a middle aged woman with a nametag that read Darlene, came over to take my order. “The usual?” She asked with a smile, and I gave a nod and a smile of my own. “Triple stack of blueberry pancakes and a vanilla shake, coming up.”

By the time Q got to the diner, I had already gotten my food and eaten about half. He slid into the other side of the booth before reaching over to my plate and stealing a strip of bacon, grinning as I stabbed at his hand with my fork. Q looked every part of the boy next door, with blonde hair that was short on the sides but longer on top. His eyes were a light brown, looking almost amber in color. At first glance, you’d think he was a werewolf, but he was actually their mortal enemy. A vamp.

Was it smart to get myself mixed up with either side? No, but again a girl’s gotta eat. Wolves could smell a vamp coming a mile away, same with fae. Typically it was the witches and warlocks who were hired for things like this, but I had made a name for myself in the underground scene.

I am Ashlynn Ladrão, though most people know me as A. It’s easier that way, names were too personal. I was a simple human, raised in the foster system until I ran away at thirteen. Discovered the supernatural underground by accident, and had been unable to really escape since. Q had taken me in, thinking I would come in handy somehow, and ten years later was still the closest thing I had to family. He told me once his original plan had been to sell me to a vampire, thinking I could be a blood pet or something along those lines, but had decided against it. Good thing, too, because the life expectancy of blood pets is not good.

Q was still inspecting the artifact, most likely determining if we were being paid a fair price for retrieving it, so I humored myself with the bustling traffic outside the diner window. Cars and people jostling through life without a thought to the dangers that lurked in the shadows this late at night. How blissful it must be, being that ignorant to the darker side of our world. It had been ten years since I had literally fallen into the lap of the supernatural, ten years of looking over my shoulder for fear I’d be someone’s next meal.

A group of women, drunk and laughing, stumbled their way through the parking lot towards the diner door. Their hair a mess, makeup smeared and smudged, and dresses shorter than most of the shirts I owned. Not a care in the world, and I hated them. I hated them for having what I never would, and I hated them more for not even knowing how lucky they were.

“A, did you hear me?” Q waved a pale hand in front of my face, scaring me half to death. “I’m heading out, I’ll catch you later.”

“Oh, right, later.” I nodded to him, pushing soggy pancake chunks around my plate lazily. Q gave me a look that was somewhere between annoyance and sympathy, but didn’t say anything as he left. I watched him walk across the parking lot and disappear into the night before letting out a sigh.

“Excuuuuse me?” A female voice called from the end of the table. I turned to meet the dazed eyes of one of the drunk women who’d stumbled in a moment ago. “Aaaaaare you The Shadow?”

I tensed at the name. This was a human, no way should she have known that name. Shadow was a bit of a boogeyman in the supernatural underground, someone to blame without knowing who they really were. Q had told me once they told horror stories of the shadow with different colored eyes, a vengeful soul who takes your most prized possession right before your eyes.

It was an easier pill to swallow, thinking they had been bested by some monster they’d never seen or heard coming. Admitting a human had outsmarted them was something that most supernaturals couldn’t stomach. We were nothing more than prey to them, after all.

“Who is asking?” I asked the woman.

“Some really hot guy, I don’t know his name, but he wanted me to give you this.” She dropped a small card on the table in front of me before walking away without another word.

I picked up the card, though it was about as elusive as the “hot guy” who’d sent it my way. In a dark and sharp scrawl, someone had written “Q’s warehouse, 9pm.” No other details were given. Q’s warehouse? Did he know about this? The handwriting wasn’t his, and it didn’t make any sense not to mention this while he was here. Or did he? I was fully in my own world of self-pity, he might have mentioned something.

Either way, it was a problem for later. It was rapidly reaching five in the morning, and I was exhausted. I got up, threw some money on the table for Darlene, and headed out the door. It was only about six blocks from the diner to my front door, but it felt like miles with how tired I was. Fifteen minutes later, I was unlocking the door to my crummy little apartment. My cat, General Crispy Toes, was immediately on the other side of the door screaming his displeasure at my tardiness.

Once The General had been fed and placated, I ripped a quick shower out and collapsed into bed. I was asleep before I even landed.