Anna's Hope Episode One (3 page)

“Yeah, I suppose I am.” Anna rested one of
her arms on the bar, propped her head with the other, and stared at
her empty glass.

“You look like you need another,” the bar
woman said as she walked up and slapped her hand on the
bench.

Anna
blinked back her surprise.

The bar woman was everything Anna wasn't:
statuesque, slim, confident, and with looks that could melt a
mirror.

“Ah, thanks, but I better leave it at
that. I only have enough for one drink.”

“It's on the house.” The woman flourished
a liquor bottle from somewhere, and poured Anna a drink before she
could protest.

“Ah, I, oh, I couldn't.”

“Just drink it, sweetie. Now I couldn't
help but overhear your conversation with your demon cat.” The bar
woman smiled, her crimson-red lips curling with the languid ease of
a snake slipping through grass.

“Oh, no - she's not illegal,” Anna jumped
to her defense immediately, “she hasn't committed a crime since she
died. She's an heirloom contract.”

“Relax,” the woman shook a
slender finger at Anna, “I don't care about that, sugar. Now let me
introduce myself.
Meredith.”
 She leaned over the bar, grabbed Anna's hand, and
shook it.

Her handshake was strong, and suspiciously
crackly. Either Meredith was packing a Tesla ball somewhere in her
slim-fit black leather jeans, or she was magical. Really
magical.

Anna
pried her hand back and squeaked
“Anna Hope Summersville.”

“Pretty name. Now, what do you do Anna? I
can sense you're a witch.”

“Oh, I'm a police witch. At least I was. I
just lost my job actually. Well, I lost it before I had it, I
guess,” she babbled.

Meredith raised a sculpted eyebrow.
“Sorry, I missed that - did you say police witch?”

“Ah, yeah. I used to work in
Vale.”

Silence catapulted through the bar. Though
silence usually wasn't a projectile, the way it slammed its way
around each patron was so fast and violent, you'd be forgiven for
thinking it hadn't been shot from a gun.

Anna
swallowed. Audibly. Visibly.
Loudly.

Meredith leaned in, crumpling
her long arms in front of her as she brought her face as close to
Anna as the wide bench would allow. “Vale?” she pushed her
glistening teeth into her lip with relish. “You were a police witch
in
Vale?”

“Yes,” Anna squeaked. She sounded exactly
like a mouse.

“And you're out of work?” Meredith's eyes
glittered with a particularly unsettling combination of magic and
shrewd calculation.

“... Yeah?”

“Well, Anna Hope Summersville, you've
walked into the right bar. I've got a job for you. Great pay, free
drinks, and fantastic future prospects.”

“S-sorry?”

“I'm offering you a job, kid.” Meredith
grabbed a piece of yellow-gold parchment from somewhere under the
bar and slid it towards Anna with the practiced ease of a croupier
revealing an ace. “Sign on the dotted line.” She tapped the right
spot with one of her carefully manicured nails, the
click-click-click somehow louder than the rowdy patrons.

“B-but ... I just met you.” Anna shrunk
away from the bar. She wasn't scared of Meredith. Though the woman
cut a striking figure in her tight patent leather and knife-thin
heels, she was imposing, not evil. No, Anna's reluctance came from
simple confusion. This kind of stuff didn't happen to a girl like
her. She was slow, patient, and, well, boring. And boring never got
offered jobs in seedy bounty-hunter bars.

“Don't matter. You need a job, honey. And
I've got one for you. With your extensive experience, it'll be a
breeze.”

“Extensive experience. Wait no, I only
worked a couple of months for Vale Police Department. And anyhow,
how would that help me be a bar mistress?”

“Sweetie, I'm not offering you
a bar mistress job,” Meredith chuckled melodiously, “I want you as
a
bounty
hunter.
With
your experience, you'd be able to pile up the bounties quicker than
one of Arana's boys. And god knows I could do with a proficient
hunter.”

“Ah ... you hire bounty
hunters?”

Meredith arched her back and patted a hand
to her chest. “I'm a licenser, hon. You clearly don't know how this
town works,” she flicked her gaze over Anna's ankle-length skirt
and patchwork bag, “so I'll give you a crash course. We don't have
a police force. Magical crime enforcement gets foisted onto any
magical creature who can hold it together long enough to pass a
character check. But even if you can prove you’re not the Devil
herself, you still have to have a licenser. That’s where people
like me come in. You could call us sub-contractors, I guess. We own
the bounty hunting licenses, and we can astutely pick employees to
carry out our bounties.”

“Why doesn’t the Magical Enforcement
Council just hire bounty hunters? Why do they need you
guys?”

“Because we do the paper work and … mop up
after things,” she smiled through her words. “We make the process
run smoother. Plus, the Council is way too busy to deal with your
average bum bounty hunter. No insult intended, boys,” she waved a
hand at the assembled bar before continuing, “they need licensors
like us to deal with the day-to-day work. We’re the ones ultimately
reportable to them. Bounty hunters like you only have to deal with
people like me.”

Bounty hunters like you?
Meredith was
already acting as if Anna had accepted.

“All you have to do is sign there,” she
tapped the contract again, “and then start bringing in the
bounties. Easy as,” she purred.

Anna
opened her mouth to say
no.

She could never be a bounty hunter. She’d
barely managed to scrape by as a police witch in Vale, and only
with the welcome help of Benjamin Tate.

She wouldn’t have a Benjamin in Marchtown.
There’d be no police back up. She’d be on her own.

“Just think about it, kid,” Meredith
winked, “you need money, and you can clearly do the work. I promise
you, knowing what you put up with in Vale, police work in this old
hole of a town will be a walk in the park.”

Considering the evil that had
lurked in Vale City Park, that wasn’t as reassuring as it should
have been.
“Ah … look, thanks, but—”

“She accepts,” Luminaria spat as she
jammed her head out of the bag like an aggressive
meerkat.

Meredith tilted her head and laughed.
“Well that’s a deal then. I’m glad to have a witch like you on the
team.” She offered her bony, elegant hand to Anna.

“Hold on, I—”

“I make the decisions around here,”
Luminaria cut in, “and I accept this offer.”

“But—” Anna stuttered.

“This witch,” Luminaria gestured to Anna
with a clawed paw, “is under my heirloom contract. She is indebted
to me. She is magically bound to care for my every need. And she is
currently out of work,” she spat, her long whiskers bristling. “So
she accepts this job. Because if she doesn’t, I’ll break her
leg.”

Anna
winced. She got the threat. While she
wouldn’t put it past Luminaria to attack her, that’s not what the
cursed cat meant. Oh no, she was referring to the contract. It
really would crush a bone or two if Anna didn’t keep up her end of
the bargain.

Meredith chuckled. “I can’t say I usually
like demon cats – but maybe I’ll make an exception for
you.”

“I am not a demon cat, madam.” Luminaria
pulled herself up to her full height. Though she was as tall as a
garden gnome, she held herself like Mount Everest incarnate. “I am
possessed.”

“Yeah, there’s no difference. You still
claw the couch and drag in the occasional angel through the cat
flap. But what I’m really interested in, is getting a signature.”
Meredith shoved the contract under Anna’s nose again. “Dotted line,
sweetie. Come on now, I’ve got a whole bar to keep happy
here.”

Anna
wanted to protest. She wanted to
point out she couldn’t be a bounty hunter.

Yet she couldn’t afford not to be. She
needed the money, and she very much needed to appease the contract
before it started breaking her legs.

Driving her teeth into her lip until the
pain cut out her nerves, she cautiously pulled the contract towards
her.

She took a calming breath, then jammed her
thumb onto the bottom of the contract. A few sparks of magic jumped
over her flesh, flashing along her nail and sinking into the
parchment.

Immediately, she sneezed.

“Bless you, if you’re into blessings, of
course,” Meredith mumbled as she snatched up the signed contract
and stuffed it under the counter. “Right,” she clasped her hands
together and leaned in, “pleased to have you on board, Ms
Summersville. You begin tonight, right after I knock off work at 3
AM. Bring your hexes, your weapons, your blessings, and your balls.
We’re taking down a kingpin.”

“S-sorry a kingpin?”

Meredith shrugged, the silver rings
embellishing her fingers clinking together as she ran her pinkie
over her teeth. “Runs a dark establishment in Course Street. Up to
all sorts of no good. I don’t have all the specifics – the MEC
don’t always share their reasons with us. From my own experience,
though, I know this guy’s a real low life. All we have to do is
force our way in the front door, deal with his hired muscle, and
drag him back to MEC HQ. Simple and quick. Trust me.”

“Ah, how much hired muscle? And what is
this guy? A wizard, a magician, a troll? And do we have
backup?”

“Questions, questions, questions. They can
wait. Now I have to deal with my customers. See you, sweetie.”
Meredith waved and sashayed off.

“…
Oh my god, what
have I just done?” Anna put her hand up to her head, suddenly
feeling faint.

“You did what I told you to do, fool. Now
take me home. I wish to be comfortably in bed before you go out and
get yourself killed tonight.”

Anna
crumpled her hand over her mouth and
tried to breathe. “B-but you told me to accept the job.”

“Of course I did – we need the money.
Other than that, though, it’s a goddamn terrible idea. You are the
worst witch in the world, and you have severe magical allergies.”
Luminaria tipped her small furry head back and cackled like only a
possessed cat could. “You are most definitely going to get yourself
killed. I suppose I shall be handed back to your mother for
safekeeping. Which will be infinitely better than you – your mother
can cook.”

Anna
closed her hands over her eyes and
slumped against the bar.

Things couldn’t get any worse.

Oh, wait, they could.

And tonight, they would.

“
Ah, is this such a good idea?”
She turned over her shoulder and shot Meredith a pointed
look.

Meredith shrugged, reached into her
pocket, pulled out a stick of fluoro pink gum, and proceeded to
chew it in a thoroughly non-caring way. “Who cares? We’ve got you –
an ex-police witch. You can always chuck a fireball or two if
things get hairy.”

Anna
took a calming breath. At least she
tried to. There was nothing short of valium that would settle her
nerves right now. “Ah, I really wasn’t a very good police witch,”
she tried to explain for the thousandth time.

Meredith looked bored. She even stretched
her long, swan-like neck back and yawned. “If you were good enough
for Vale, you’re more than good enough for this piece-of-crap
town.”

Anna
swallowed uncomfortably and shook her
head.

“Buck up, kid,” Meredith swooped an arm
around her shoulders and winked, “like I said before – this will be
a real simple case. All we have to do is go in there, get the
kingpin, and go.”

Anna
offered a meek smile. “…
Okay.”

“That’s the way. Now once we’re done,
we’re really going to have to get you out of those frumpy damn
clothes, and into something more suited to Hellhole.” Hellhole was
what the locals – at least the dissatisfied ones – called
Marchtown.

As far as names went, it wasn’t too far
off the mark. While there weren’t demons and the damned spilling
onto the streets, Anna was starting to learn this place certainly
wasn’t heaven.

There was an odd feel about it.
Most cities usually felt alive, bustling with people as the hectic
pace of a metropolis drove them like
cattle dogs.

Despite its size and population, large parts
of Marchtown felt dead. You could go into a crowded shop and feel
like you were walking through empty ruins.

It had a distinctly odd vibe. The
architecture didn’t help. It was a thoroughly ugly mix of old with
unappealing modern. Ornate, grand 1920s Art Deco frontages sat
alongside brick monstrosities from the ‘70s. Here and there new
glass and steel structures broke up the horizon, but they only
served to highlight how much of a mishmash this town
was.