Sigils & Sushi – Ebook

Look Inside (Chapter 1):

I’m the weirdo who makes friends with crows and collects little demons who just want to retire in peace, damn it.

I’m the crazy girl who pored over medieval-sword-replica catalogs until I was old enough to afford one—best use of a lemonade stand ever.

I’m the witch who never could quite get a grasp on how to work magic properly, but uses it anyway.

Enter my current problem, stage right.

My job is checking in rental cars—sounds pretty boring, I know. But when your town is the headquarters for the Harmonic Council, all sorts of interesting supernatural customers fly in and need a set of fancy wheels.

And the stuff they leave behind in their cars at 6 a.m. on a Monday morning?

That’s worth getting out of bed before the crack of dawn for.

The cars come to me first. The clients toss me their keys, I enter their mileage and gas level into my gizmo, and check for any damage. The shop guys are supposed to be the ones who clean the cars, but I always do a courtesy clean before they waltz up. Not like a deep-clean or anything, just grabbing any obvious trash or larger items—empty cups, fast-food bags, Beats headphones, a dragonfly pin that commands the loyalty of a pixie.

Super nice of me, I know.

It’s not like it’s stealing—people buy this junk knowing they’re going to leave it behind. Mostly. At least three customers a day hand me a camping chair, a bottle of booze, or a wrapped muffin from their hotel, because they don’t want to deal with it. It doesn’t fit in their carry-on, so they don’t want it.

Ah, to be rich. Or at least not edging the poverty line like I am.

So, there I was, popping the trunk of this black BMW, when some bitty beastie jumped out at me, fangs first. I try not to use magic aside from my sigils—which are foolproof, thank Finéa—but when some fiend with more teeth than skin wants to stake a claim on your nose, you don’t worry so much about misfires.

I swatted a hand down, sparking with magenta magic like a downed power line at a rave, and Fangy crashed to the asphalt … as did the bumper of the BMW.

Crud on crackers.

After a frantic glance around to make sure no one had witnessed me beating up a poor innocent $60,000 car, I raised my voice to carry down the lot. “What the hell? I think this guy got rear-ended and just hoped we wouldn’t notice!”

It wasn’t like it’d do him any harm—my scanner gizmo said that Mr. Sutula had rental insurance, which I highly advise getting if you ever rent a car. You never know when a deer or a golem is going to end up on the hood of your Mercedes.

You also never know when you’ll end up within three blocks of me. Better to play it safe.

A newly cleaned Lexus zipped into the nearest open space, and Bert hopped out, heading my way. “This the one you’re yelling about, Immy?” He jerked his chin at the BMW, inscrutable behind his dark sporty sunglasses.

But I’m Bert’s favorite—he’s the one I give all the customers’ extra booze to, so even if he knows my story is a total crock, he’ll let it be.

“That’s it, yeah. See the bumper?” I pointed, like it wasn’t completely obvious.

“Here, grab that end.”

I crouched down and hefted one end while he lifted the other, holding it in place against the car. “A little higher … there.” Something sizzled along the edge of the plastic, and after a moment Bert let go. I backed up cautiously, and the bumper held. Bert’s a quarter svartalf or something—I don’t ask questions. He gets the job done. “That’ll hold till I can work on it later.”

“Thanks.” I ran a hand through my curly pixie cut.

“This one ready to go back?”

“Yeah, just watch out for toothy little monsters. One jumped out at me. Hopefully it doesn’t have any friends.”

“Got it.” He jogged over to my booth and pulled a modified ping-pong paddle off the wall.

“Hey, that’s—”

Bert climbed in the car, and it purred to life, and in a flash he was gone, cruising down the lot.

“—mine.”

I pulled the next couple cars up to fill the gap, then got to scanning barcodes and checking mileage again.

I was on hands and knees, inspecting a scratch above a wheel well on a bright yellow Camaro, when stinging pain lanced through my ankle and I jerked forward, banging my head on the car door. I growled, scrambled around, and kicked my leg viciously, trying to dislodge the new toothy bane of my existence.

What the hell was this thing?

One last fierce kick, and a little blue streak flew over the next row of cars, followed by a metallic clang.

I held my breath, listening. Sirens and songbirds, had I at least managed to knock it out?

The lot was silent, with only the faint splash-and-clunk of the car wash in the distance.

I got to my feet cautiously, and snuck around the neighboring car to take a good look at my quarry.

Nothing. The asphalt was bare of fanged disasters, unconscious or otherwise.

I glanced around warily, hands held out in a lame karate-chop stance. If Bert was going to make a habit of stealing my anti-monster tools, I really needed to start bringing my sword to work.

A shadow twitched under the nearest car, followed by the most sinister chittering I’ve ever heard. I know, ‘chittering’ and ‘sinister’ don’t usually go together—just take my word for it.

I froze. Maybe it had a terrible sense of smell and sight … and hearing, and only attacked based on movement?

Yeah, right.

Well, I had an extra layer of protection that no one else knew about—if I could activate it soon enough to make a difference. I slowly raised my right arm and focused on the tattoo on my wrist—a rib cage intertwined with poppies.

The ink began flowing under my skin.