NightWitch: The Red Year

Mara had never made a habit of standing near the windows at night. They were double-paned and frosted, but every pane set her nerves on edge. The city lights smeared into bruised ribbons on the glass, reminding her just how far from home she’d wandered these past seven years.

She’d come to this city fresh from law school, all starched collars and sharpened idealism. She hadn’t known then what kind of firm she’d signed with. They never said it out loud, not in writing, not in welcome packets or performance reviews. But contracts didn’t lie—and somewhere between the first redacted file and the third memo marked PRIVATE, Mara had stopped pretending she didn’t understand what she was part of.

Now she understood too well. The people she worked for didn’t just skirt the law; they broke it. They rewrote it in terms that felt like blood and favor. Her job stopped feeling like justice years ago and started reeking of containment. And she was good at it. Uncomfortably good and uncomfortably comfortable about it.

Which was why even now, after the cleaning crew had retreated to their carts and the rustle of the day shift had died, she worked with her back to the view and her focus on the low glow of her monitors, hands sharp and certain over keyboard and page.

Tonight, the contract she’d certified lay at her elbow, the kind of document she understood instinctively: thick, tangled, power without pretense. It reeked of the old-money criminal class that paid her wages, except whoever drafted this one had pricked through the usual decorum, scrawling bloodline and biological claim terms like a dare. She’d initialed each blank space, hand steady, mind already calculating how easily those terms could be buried in fine print no one read closely.

She stacked the file, shut down her programs, and rose, smoothing the crease of her pencil skirt with the flat of her palm. The ritual comforted her. It was the one moment in a day curated not to allow slip or falter. Even the tap on the glass of her office door, no more than a threaded, polite sound, almost lost in the hush of after-hours HVAC, did not startle her.

She opened the door to find Brittney a bundle of nervous energy and brightness despite the hour. Mara fought the urge to roll her eyes. She didn’t hate the redhead; she just found her annoyingly persistent.

Her hazel eyes flicked up and down Mara’s frame—always the same: black pencil skirt, silk blouse buttoned high, hair twisted into a severe knot. Pale blonde, almost silver. Skin like polished porcelain. Eyes like glacial glass.

Untouchable.

“Hey, Mara. Sorry. Didn’t mean to bother you. Just thought you should know the last of the office is practically dead out there. Jack is supposed to be stopping in tonight. Janel may be hiding in the janitor’s closet. Poor thing has some things to finish up, and that man gives her the creeps.”

Mara didn’t share the fearful sentiment. Jack was just a man, and like almost all other men, was predictable to a fault. She could deal with his advances just fine, though she understood how some women may not have the courage or temperament to stand up for themselves.

No, the only thing that bothered Mara about their boss, Jack, was how unaturally cold his presence was. Not his demeanor. He was a warm and relatively friendly fellow, albeit a bit of a sleeze, but the man was literally cool to the touch. That cold always extended and seemed to seep off of him, infecting whatever room he resides in.

Brittney leaned in close, brushing a loose wave of Mara’s hair back behind her ear, “Anything I could maybe help you with before you leave?”

Mara eyed the file stacked neatly on her desk, then at the clock before her icy blue gaze fell back on Brittney. Of course, Jack would be coming. She half expected him to. Mr. Alvarez always seemed to stop in when things like this made it to her desk. She’d tried not to notice and instinctively kept her head down about it.

The bold redhead regained her attention by placing a gentle hand on her waist and closing the distance between them. “Maybe we could—”

She swatted her hand away, to which Brittney scowled and turned to leave. Before she could make it through the threshold, Mara’s hand reached out from behind her and closed the door, softly turning the lock over.

“Actually, I do,” Mara said, a seductive smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. She threaded her hand through Brittney’s hair, almost lovingly at first, before she had it in a firm grip, tilting her head back, causing the woman to gasp and drop her bag. Mara leaned in, her breath hot on the redhead’s ear, “You always come back for more. I don’t date or do relationships, Brittney. I’m no good for you. You know this. Still, you come back.”

“I don’t care.”

Brittney gasped as Mara took her earlobe into her mouth and gently sucked, then nipped it hard enough to make her jolt. The redhead’s breath hitched, half in shock, half anticipation.

“On your knees then, pretty girl. Make it quick. I’m not giving Alvarez a free show,” Mara murmured, her voice dark silk coiled around iron. Her grip tightened in Brittney’s hair, not painful, but commanding.

“Yes,” Brittney whispered, dazed.

A smile curved against her skin. It was slow, predatory, indulgent. “Good girl.”

Mara backed her into the desk without another word, lowering herself into her chair as she hiked up her skirt, then proceeded to rest her legs on her desk, bracketing in the redhead. Brittney swallowed, unconsciously licking her lips as she sank slowly to her knees between her now completely naked thighs.

“Mmmm,” Mara hummed, threading her fingers in velvet red coils. “Very good girl.”

Lucien exhaled smoke through his nose, watching the embers from his cigarette flicker against the wind. Below him, the city pulsed like a heart about to arrest—neon veins snaking between glass towers, sirens echoing like whispers of judgment. Down three stories and across the intersection was his target.

It was in there somewhere.

Not just the crazy wild burst of scent that rolled over him like a wave. The file...

Evidence that a file with five black seals had hit his boss’s desk and was due to have a final sign-off by one named Mara Averill.

Whoever she was, Lucien wasn’t envious. A neutral human legal aid, supposedly, scheduled to sign off on the kind of claim contract that never should’ve reached human hands—let alone been certified by them.

Lucien knew that whoever Jack Alvarez was working for, they’d pushed that document through a restricted channel. This was intended to be a quiet bypass. A silent breach in unsuspecting neutral territory. It could be anywhere from concealment of property, blood rites, marriage transactions, or asset trades, none of which were to ever take place without Sovereign Council approval prior.

He knew it for what it was: an attempted power move. Vampires are nothing if not greedy.

And she was the sad sap they were putting on the line to stamp it. Not the first time human hands have been used to do such dirty work. Hell, the worst of them used the humans as meat shields when they could.

Lucien wasn’t sent to hunt her. Not yet. His orders were clinical: extract the contract, secure the woman, and clean the trail. Plus the usual: no feeding, no turning, and no noise.

But whatever that scent was that was bleeding through the cracks of this city seemed to seep into his pores, straight to his hunger.

He crushed the cigarette under his boot and turned toward the stairwell, leather creaking as he adjusted his gloves.

Orders were one thing.

Instinct was louder, and Lucien knew that something wasn’t right here.

That and he desperately needed to feed.

Brittney was gone for a long time, and Mara sat waiting impatiently for their boss, Jack, to get there. It seems he waited just enough time for Mara to stew in a slight bout of self-reflection.

She wasn’t Brittney’s direct boss. Mara didn’t sign her paychecks, so she wasn’t taking advantage of the redhead. Plenty of people in their office dated, and the two of them weren’t even dating, so she reasoned with herself. So what if she had her own office and a plaque with her name on it? Brittney didn’t work directly underneath her.

Though she does great work from beneath my desk...

A firm knock on the doorframe pulled Mara from her thoughts to find Mr. Alvarez in his expensive suit walking through the door. She stood to shake his hand.

“Mr. Alvarez. A pleasure as always.”

“A sight for sore eyes as usual. I admit I didn’t expect to see anyone here this late,” Jack’s answering grin was all charm and teeth. “Only the best and brightest end up with after-hours duty, hmm?” He took her slim hand in both of his, the coolness of his skin startling as always, a stark contrast to the heat and artificial light of her office.

His gaze dropped, lingering just a shade too long on the pale slope of her collar and the dip of her chest. “You always go above and beyond, Mara. I hope you know it doesn’t go unnoticed.”

She withdrew her hand with practiced efficiency, letting the small talk die on the conference table between them. He was fishing, and she could feel it. For what? For gratitude, for admiration? She never gave him either.

“Your file, as requested. Signed and ready.” She slid the document across the desk with two fingers, not quite letting him touch her skin again. For a moment, their eyes caught and held. His were dark, unreadable, and the faintest smile tugged at his mouth, like he had expected more resistance.

Jack flicked his gaze to the contract, scanning the top sheet, fingers drumming lightly on the table. There was tension there, she noted. It was the kind that other people mistook for perpetual urgency, but Mara knew the flavor. It was the awareness of danger, of shifting lines. He set the pages down, folding his arms as he rested them on the edge of the desk.

For a heartbeat, it was only the hum of fluorescent bulbs and the distant, cleaning-crew shudder of a vacuum. Jack Alvarez’s presence filled the room like subzero air conditioning: more chill than pressure, aggressively amiable on the surface, and beneath that, something with teeth.

“You flagged them for me,” he said, tone sliding easily from cordial to clinical. “You always do.” He thumbed to the margin notes, brows creasing in what passed for real scrutiny. Circus act, that. Mara watched him, arms crossed, not blinking. She didn’t let herself be baited by the little pauses he left in conversation; Jack liked to see which way you’d fill the silence.

She waited until finally he glanced up.

“You ever wonder what’s actually in these contracts? What lies just between each line?” he asked, gaze searching, too direct.

Mara allowed herself the smallest, dry smile. “I get paid not to. No one wants a paper pusher with opinions, sir.”

He grinned, sharp and delighted as if she’d walked into his trap. “You’re not just a paper pusher, Mara. Some of these files, you catch legal landmines before I do. I always look forward to your work.” He eyed her, head tipping, almost predatory but with a lazy polish. “You ever think about moving up? Or are you perfectly content here, burning the midnight oil forever?”

She filed the implication away. He was testing, as always, for loyalty or ambition. “I like a closed door, a quiet room, and people who leave me alone to do what I do best.”

Jack laughed, “That’s why I like you so much, Averill. You speak your mind, but you’re a smart girl. You’re not greedy and you know how to keep your head down.”

The scar on Mara’s palm burned again, but her expression didn’t shift. Her eyes tracked Jack from under pale lashes, unreadable, brittle as blue glass. “I like to keep it simple,” she clenched her hand into a tight fist.

“Is that a new perfume? What is that heavenly scent?” Jack’s smile went crooked, mouth thinning around unspoken curiosities. He tapped two fingers atop the file, seemingly no longer interested in his previous query. “I’ll process this tonight. You’ll have clean sheets by morning. If anyone in Records pesters you about it, as always, send them to me.”

Mara’s brow furrowed slightly. “Of course.” She let her gaze slide beyond him, already dismissing the exchange.

But Jack lingered, an unsettling patience radiating in the prickle down her neck. “We’ll need another set tomorrow. I trust it is you who will be staying late?”

“I’ll be here,” Mara said, measured, and didn’t look back up until she finally heard his shoes scuff the cheap carpet, and felt the autumnal cold he left behind start to subside. She watched the door swing shut, the catch never quite closing cleanly, then listened for the hush of the elevator. Only when she was certain she was alone did she allow her façade to slacken.

The contract sat where he’d left it, condensed and notarized in ballpoint blue. The only part that bothered her was the sudden burning in her palm and heaviness in her skull, as if she’d spent too long in a room with bad lighting and worse air, like the contract itself bled some metallic residue that lingered longer than it should.

She told herself it was exhaustion; she had no time for anything else.

Out in the corridor, the fluorescent bulbs flickered. She gathered her things, straightened her skirt, and took the file for the night drop.

The entire floor between her office and the records annex felt airless, the hall lit by failures in the building’s electrical system: every third bulb blinking, some gone entirely, so that shadows came and went in pulses. Her heels made even, subtle clicks as she walked, and in the brief blue flickers from the city below, the metal edging of the night drop box shimmered like an ice floe.

She fed the file through the slot. There: the tension in her palm loosened. Across the annex lobby, the double glass doors showed her own reflection, pale and featureless, a mannequin version of herself haunted by overwork and sleeplessness. Mara’s gaze lingered on the watery double, and for just a moment, she thought she caught the shape of someone standing several feet behind her, too tall and too still for any of the day crew.

But when she turned, the corridor was empty.

No sense in lingering. She locked the annex and made back for her coat, aware of the chill blooming down her spine and the faint, uncanny itch around the edges of her scar. It was long since healed, but now it throbbed dully, as if something tonight had set off a chain inside her body.

After a last sweep, Mara gathered her briefcase and passed the threshold into the night.