Maya turned her head to look up at the stars, feeling a link sever within her.

“Madam Witch?” The woman next to her called to her.

She didn’t like it. Something had happened to Dalton. Enough for one of her rings to be destroyed. An image of Ingrid ran through her head, but Maya knew it couldn’t be her. She was sealed, and her connection to the seal had not been severed.

There were few who could destroy the ring, which made the list of suspects quite small. If she had to guess, it was probably another Star Witch like herself.

“Madam Witch?” The woman once again called for her.

“Looks like I’ll need to do this quickly.” She turned to the task at hand. “Point to the house where this ghost is.”

#

Malcolm leaned against the wall and waited outside Nikolai’s office, tapping his finger, feeling increasingly more irritated at each passing second.

A woman poked her head out of the door.

“Just five more minutes.”

Then closed again.

That had been the third time she had done that. He was supposed to meet him thirty minutes ago. Malcolm knew what he was doing. He was just fucking with him. So, Malcolm reached in his holster for Sebastian.

Then he kicked open the door, waving his gun.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Malcolm screamed.

Nikolai was sitting at his desk, while the woman was attaching a metal arm to the missing one.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Nikolai stood and yelled. “Didn’t this bitch tell you five minutes!”

“I’ve been waiting out there for three ‘five’ minutes! It’s been almost forty! Why are you getting rid of the golden arm?!”

“Sir.” The woman tried to say, but Nikolai kept on yelling.

“Can’t you see that she’s trying to attach the nerves to my new ar-” He stopped midsentence. His face paled as it twisted in invisible pain. He bent down and threw up.

“That’s what I was trying to say,” the woman said. “Anger is going to make it worse.”

“You couldn’t have warned me before.” Nikolai was breathing hard. “Is it done?”

“Yes, but you’ll need to take some pain killers.” She put a bottle of medication on his desk. “And you will need to take a break from your high stress job. I would recommend that you take a vacation.”

“Noted. Now please fucking leave, so I can deal with this fat asshole.”

The woman shook her head. While she passed Malcolm, he heard her murmur.

“-oney wasn’t so good, I would have nev-”

Then she left.

“So.” Nikolai uncorked some whiskey and popped the pill in his mouth. “To what do I owe the pleasure of you being here, Malcolm?”

“Oh, you know why.” Malcolm growled. “You promised us better candidates again. We killed your Goblin King and wiped out he nest.”

Nikolai downed the whiskey. His face a little red, and his lips twisted into a nasty grin. “Good job, but I lied. I was hoping that the Goblin King would make you sex slave. You’re going to continue to get the worst people we can drum up.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He pointed Sebastian at Nikolai. “I’ve got a full round of cursed bullets in here?”

“Do you?” Nikolai rose a brow. “Why, I guess now, I have to bend myself over the desk, and let you have your way with me.” He rose his new metallic silver arm, and the hand came off, showing a cannon. “This little baby, cost me a pretty penny. It will shoot a gravity beam that will make you implode! So, why don’t you but that little bitchshooter aside, and run off and be glad that I still even give you some clients!”

“A gravity beam?” Malcolm rolled his eyes. “Come on Nikolai, both of us know that you couldn’t afford a gravity bea-”

A purple beam almost brushed his cheeks and hit a jar behind him. It crumbled inwards into a small black hole, before dissipating.

“You were saying bitch? Now, get the fuck out of my office, before I make your mouth meet your asshole!”

#

When he got back Malcolm told Eira what happened. She looked perturbed.

“Oh, he said all of that.” She pulled out that creepy book of hers and went out.

For an hour he waited for her to return to wherever she went. While waiting, Ozul came in showing off the amount of points he got from a detective he threw in another world.

“Check it out. I threw a detective in another world, and he gave me all rights to his points. He’s actually making my world better, and I’m able to spend all these points on stuff,” Ozul explained.

“So, you’re stole from an inebriated man by making him sign off his rights on points and granting them to you, and you’ve been using all those points to buy gift cards?”

“Yes.”

Malcolm slapped his desk. “Dammit. Why doesn’t this happen to me?”

“Because you still have one client that you won’t send to your hell world.” Ozul pointed to Satoshi who was in the corner muttering under his breath, and mixing liquids. “Can you get rid of the homeless guy yet?”

“No!” Malcolm took out Sebastian and pointed it at Ozul. “Next time you even suggest that, I will shoot you in the head.”

“Look, I just don’t get it. The guy is useless. He’s in the corner trying to concoct potions. I’m surprised someone hasn’t come down and arrested him.”

“He’s just sad because his favorite clinic is gone,” Malcolm said. “He just…needs some space to process that.”

“I’m glad it’s gone. One time he strapped me to a table and stole both of my kidneys.”

“You healed though.”

Ozul narrowed his eyes. “It took months. I had to live off an iron kidney.”

“Shit!”

The two looked over to Satoshi, who was holding a fuming bottle of liquid in his hand. “It’s going to explode.”

He threw it at Eira’s desk, and it exploded.

When the dust settled, Eira’s desk were bits of plastic and metal shards. Eira stood in the open door.

“My desk.” Her face frozen, she turned to Malcolm and Ozul. “Who did this?”

Malcolm pointed to Ozul. Ozul pointed to Satoshi. Satoshi pointed to Ozul.

Eira turned to Satoshi. “So it’s you.”

It was immediate, he jumped into the vent grate and crawled away. Not before Eira used her creepy book to summon a bunch of tentacles to go after him. A moment later, the vent exploded. Eira clicked her tongue.

“He escaped.”

“Hey, what’s that in your hand?” Malcolm pointed at her hand, trying his best to change the subject.

“Yes. I spoke with Nikolai. He has…apologized for breaking his word. We will get a roster of better candidates.” She walked towards Ozul and dropped off Nikolai’s metal arm on Malcolm’s desk. “I will be taking Ozul. I have something to discuss with him. Is Dalton still in the hospital?”

“Last time I checked, yeah. He’s going to be discharged tomorrow.”

“Wonderful. I shall be visiting him.” She pulled Ozul by the collar and stopped once more at his desk. “You may have that arm.”

Then she left.

Malcolm took a moment to admire the arm, deciding that he was going to use it to build a new gun.

#

Dalton had been sleeping when he was woken up by something being thrown on his chest. It was a man with half of his face blasted off. It made Dalton scream at the top of his lungs.

The lights turned on, and Eira leaned against the wall with the grimoire of skulls in her hands.

“Good. You are awake. How have you been?”

“Umm.” Dalton blinked, he wasn’t sure what to say. After all, a dead man was laying on top of him. “Not great. You just threw a dead man on me.”

“He’s not dead. Ozul has regenerative powers. His face will be healed in a few hours.”

“…Did you do this?” Dalton turned to her.

“No.”

He didn’t believe her.

“Enough small talk. I have decided the price for getting rid of the CEO.” She took a step forward, pointing at them. “You and him, will kill Satoshi.”