Chapter Nineteen
I couldn’t relax asingle second until I stood on The Chief’s porch the next day and waited for someone to answer. Once it opened, The Chief stood there but he looked nothing like himself. The captivity, and then subsequent magic bomb, had aged him drastically. He still stood tall, his spine rigid, but his eyes looked older, pain filled in a way that hurt me to look at.
Fin argued about his coming along, and in the end I didn’t fight hard because some part of me knew I might need his support in this. The Chief led us inside and I helped him sit before perching on the coffee table directly opposite him.
“Tell me, Chief, do we need to take you to the hospital? I’m sure Hawk has checked in on you and asked the same questions, but unlike him, I’m not afraid to beat you into submission and drag you there.”
He gave my hand a fond pat. “No. I’ll be fine, just finally coming to grips with my mortality.”
“What about the magic? Did you try to use it to heal you? I haven’t tested mine yet, but I can, to see if it’ll help ease whatever is bothering you.”
With a long sigh, he sank back into the couch. “I don’t need healed, Zoey. I’m just too old, and too human, to house this much magic in my body.”
I started to protest, but Fin placed a hand on my shoulder. “Do you want us to try and get it out of you? Melinda said powers probably shouldn’t be transferred, but if we just remove it then you’ll likely be fine.”
“Likely?” I said, giving him a glare. “How is Hawk doing with it? He’s human too so is he also reacting the same way?”
The Chief shook his head and even that small movement looked like it took effort. “He appears as he always does. I don’t think anything short of a tank could take him down.”
He wasn’t wrong on that assessment. It also made me curious what Hawk himself thought about his new gifts. Or maybe he thought of them as curses.
“Let us get Melinda out here, she’ll do what she can to help, I’m sure.”
Fin went outside to make the call and I stayed in with The Chief. “Sorry we made a mess of the place. I can clean up while you lay down and rest.”
He waved me away and I started moving through the small living area tidying where things were out of place. The kitchen was mostly clean, but I took the time to check and see what food he had so I could restock him. Hawk and I had dwindled his supplies while we stayed there. Mostly Hawk.
I took a turn through The Chief’s bedroom too. His bed was made perfectly, hospital corners in place, nothing looked amiss. Or maybe he hadn’t even slept in there last night.
I also checked my old room and quickly tidied up in there. Growing up I’d never managed the quarter-bouncing tightness The Chief wanted in the bedspread, but as an adult I got pretty close. Not that I ever did it at home, of course. My bed got made once a week if I remembered to do it, and that was when I stripped and washed the bedding.
When I finished in there, I checked on The Chief who snored softly on the couch. I grabbed the folded blanket off the back and lay it over him feet to neck. He looked thinner, less muscular, like he might break if he took a punch now.
Fin returned while I studied The Chief. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”
He hugged me into his chest. “He has all of us. He’ll be fine. Melinda is on her way. After the magic drop she figured someone would want to remove their powers. She teamed up with Ash to finagle something. She said it’s crude but it should work.”
I eyed The Chief’s fragile form under the blanket. “As long as it won’t hurt him more then I guess let’s do it.”
We both worked together to finish cleaning up The Chief’s cabin while we waited for Melinda. She showed up with Helix right on her heels. I wondered how their relationship has changed with these new magical additions.
I let them inside and hovered while she took the seat I’d previously had on the coffee table. But I relaxed when she gently woke up and helped him sit up. “This won’t hurt you at all Chief, I promise.”
He gave her a gruff nod, no doubt trying to hold on to his dignity in the face of all of us lingering about watching him.
“Fin? Can you and Helix go outside and make sure everything looks fine out there.”
Helix looked like he wanted to protest but Fin clapped him on the back and led him out before he could get the words out.
Once they were gone, The Chief notably relaxed. What if he was more sensitive to magic now and so many of us in one room affected him badly. I kept my eyes on him while Melinda grasped the crude piece of metal in her hand and the Chief’s hand in the other.
It didn’t take long until he sat back on the couch with a sigh and she shoved her metal thing into the bag she’d brought. “How are you feeling now?”
“Better,” he said, breathing heavily. “Much better.”
I smiled, relief threatening to overwhelm me. The Chief and Fin were all I had left, I couldn’t lose either of them, not now when we’d finally been given our chance at a normal relationship. I wanted all the holiday dinners and arguments over sport I’d already missed over the years.
“Do you need anything else?” Melinda asked, glancing between us.
“No, thank you. I’ll text you later to let you know how he is.”
She left and I caught the sound of the car pulled out a few minutes later.
Fin entered after that. “Everything okay?”
The Chief I both nodded but I wrapped the blanket around him for good measure.
“There’s one more thing,” he said, grabbing my hand in his again.
I crouched this time, so he could stare down at me instead of having to lift his neck. “What is it?”
“I want you to take over The Office.”
His words could have been gibberish for all I understood of them. “Excuse me?”
“I want you to take over the office. Find new hunters, train them, turn it into the institution it used to be.”
I frowned at that one. Used to be? The Office had always been an institution to me. My first battleground. My first everything. “I think you’ll change your mind once you’re feeling more like yourself. Give it a few days of rest and then we can discuss how to proceed with The Office.”
He lumbered off the couch and snatched a stack of papers off the mantle. “It’s too late. I’ve already transferred everything legally.”
“When did you...Hawk helped you? Why? It should go to him to run; he’s been there so long and learned from you.”
He shook his head and clutched my fingers around the paperwork. “And he knew from the moment you came home with me that The Office would one day belong to you. This wasn’t a surprise for him. Maybe it happened sooner than he expected, but he’s not upset, and he’s ready to help you anyway he can.”
“Fuck.” The curse came out before I could snatch it back. I spun to face the fireplace and read the paperwork. He’d left me the entire compound as well as a list of applicants they’d turned away in the past because they had magic.
“Wh9o are these people?”
“Others who wanted to become bounty hunters over the years. We’d turned them away because I didn’t want any magic in your life reminding you of what happened to your parents.”
Tears burned in my eyes, and I stared up at the ceiling to try and quell them. “Are you sure about this? I’m going to change things and I’m an asshole on my best days.”
The Chief laughed and it turned into a cough. “That’s what I love about you, Zoey. You can kick anyone’s ass, no matter their size, and that’s the kind of backbone needed to be in charge of The Office. Hawk is capable, but he’s not you.”
I looked to Fin for support this time. Hoping, for once, he’d try to do something dumb like order me not to do it. As usual, he remained rigidly supportive. “Whatever you need, Zoey. I can help you in getting things going if necessary.”
I threw my hands up in disgust. “This is such a bad idea.” And yet I couldn’t deny the fact I wanted it. I burned with the desire to go to The Office right now, take over his office, the floor, all of it, and claim it as mine.
It didn’t feel right to that though, not with him still alive. In the end, The Chief wouldn’t hear any arguments about it. I tried repeatedly, and even roped Fin into arguing, but nothing fazed him.
I left The Chief after a promise that he would call. Fin didn’t say a word as we drove away from the cabin. But somehow, he knew what I needed and took us straight to The Office. When we arrived, I let myself in. The place sat empty since everyone had left, I wasn’t even sure if Hawk had returned to do anything.
I found the ruin of The Chief’s office again. It would be the first thing I cleaned up because staring at it made me want to kill Esteban in new and ghastly ways.
Pieces of The Chief’s life lay in broken fragments and I tried to place things that belonged together near each other in case anything could be repaired.
“Do you think he’ll want us to pack up any of his stuff and take it out to him?” Fin asked, riffling together some paperwork on the floor.
I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “I don’t know. Would you want it after your blood got splattered all over it by an evil mage?”
“When you put it that way, probably not.” He stood and placed the papers on the desk, amidst more papers. How much paperwork was in here?
I continued hunting for little mementos. Things I remembered being fascinated by while growing up. Things, more often than not, The Chief grumbled at me for touching. “This still doesn’t feel right to me. I don’t want to take over this place, or work here without The Chief.”
“If you don’t take over what do you think would happen?”
With The Chief being as hard headed as me. “He’d likely lock the place down and leave it to crumble to dust. It’s always been his way or no way.”
“That doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
I threw a piece of foam from the chair at him. It floated to the floor amidst the mess. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing I can do until I make a plan. And I don’t want to make a plan without at least including Hawk. He deserves to run this place with me. What do you think?”
He headed toward the door. “About?”
“Me resuming my job as a bounty hunter? Obviously, it might mean different jobs considering my magic now, but I have missed the work, and the world.”
He spun and walked backward in front of me. “Are you going to have enough time for it if you have to manage caseload all those things in here?”
Shit. Something else to consider. The Chief never really did go on mission anymore. It was all about the paperwork and ensuring everyone had paying gigs. “Maybe I need to hire a secretary. You interested?”
He snorted and opened the door for me to precede him. “You having a fantasy about seducing me in your new office? Because you don’t have to give me a job to make that happen.”
I laughed and let him open the back door to the car. The driver’s name eluded me, but I decided I’d feel guilty enough to learn them all tomorrow. We headed back into town toward the new penthouse we’d taken as our home base. It did indeed have a jacuzzi tub that Fin and I planned to get well acquainted with.
I’d already started envisioning Fin naked surrounded by soap bubbles when he got a phone call. Since no one ever called him except me, we both froze.
Then he looked at the screen for a second and then answered. “Hello?”
I couldn’t make out the voice on the line, only the frantic tenor as someone fairy shouted into the receiver. Fin frowned as he listened and then glanced at me.
“What? Who is it?”
“Uh...that will be up to Zoey.”
Oh, I loved a man who said pretty things like that. “What?” I whispered, louder this time.
“That was Helix. He says Melinda wants a meeting with you at The Office on Friday.”
Why in the hell would she want to meet me there. “Why? Did he say anything else?”
Fin shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Only something about hard-headed females. Then he hung up. He also mentioned she’d been talking to Hawk. He didn’t sound too excited by that prospect.”
“Maybe he wants his magic taken out too. She did just help The Chief, and Hawk wouldn’t trust anyone around The Chief right now if he didn’t like them.”
We lapsed into silence as we headed home and I wracked my brain trying to figure out what the hell she wanted from me.