I was bored. Boredom is the curse of the energetic. I’ve always said so. Well no, I’ve never said that. But it sounds good so I’ll start saying it from now on. Regardless boredom is at the very least the curse of me. I also wasn’t particularly fond of cold weather. Now a rational person would wonder, if I hate the cold so much, why I’m sitting in an abandoned gas station in negative ten degrees with a pair of binoculars watching a bunch of teenagers who for some reason aren’t smart enough to stay home during weather like this, show off and generally try to inform the world at large about how awesome they were.

Of course, a rational person wouldn’t be holding an antique rifle with a wooden stock and waiting for a clear shot at the king dipshit sprawled in the back of his truck with a pretty, drunk co-ed under each arm. I gritted my teeth to keep them from chattering, and exhaled a cloud of frozen air, flexing my fingers tight against the dark wood of the rifle, trying to will blood to circulate through my numb digits before I spoke into the chill. “This is bullshit. Why aren’t we killing this idiot in his bed, in his presumably warm house instead of sitting here freezing our balls off while he plays grab ass with Betty and Veronica.”

My brother Alex burst out laughing from his spot in the back of the gas station near the space heater. The bastard was older than me so he didn’t get the shitty job of camping by the window hoping his skin doesn’t crack from wind chill. His ever present amiable grin widened a touch in good natured mocking “Betty and Veronica? Gee Grandpa, maybe we should’ve waited to catch him parking with his best gal at the sock hop, But dated cultural references aside Ethan, it’s because infernals ward their houses up the ass, even chump casters like him. I’m sure you think bypassing some basic wards wouldn’t be a problem, but don’t underestimate magic users, the family decided ages ago that it just isn’t worth the time to hit them at home.”

The mocking expression looked very at home on my whip-thin, dark haired brother. His bright blue eyes were a mirror image of my own and his skin was the common Sunder shade of alarmingly pale. Alex was tall and so thin it bordered on odd. He had a strange kind of coltish good looks that no one else in the family, even his twin brother, quite matched up with. I would call my brother gangly, but with all the muscle from training I’m not sure it applies. Aside from being oddly thin, my brothers eyes have a kind of brilliant, feverish intensity to them. Most people mistook the feverish shine for humor or mockery, but those of us who know him well can recognize the brilliance in him that so closely courts madness. It’s why dad watches him so closely.

I just sneered at him. Dad had taught us basic ward cracking when we were nine. With all the experienced witch hunters in the family some small fry’s ward scheme would be nothing much. But since some of the larger setups were dangerous, my father decided that “procedure” dictated we take any infernals out outside their home. This would’ve been fine, except we obviously also had to avoid places that were too public or crowded, or anywhere with a relatively quick police response time. We’d been tracking this dipshit Lawson for almost two weeks, and the little bastard just would not go anywhere alone. We finally got permission from dad to cap him at this little bonfire party in the woods, and even that had taken convincing.

I was so damn ready to get the hell out of Podunk Iowa and get my ass home to Seattle. Assuming dad even let us come home and didn’t ship me off on another job directly from here. I quieted down after that. As mind numbingly cold as this place was the shining flecks of silver snow drifting past the window were almost captivating enough to draw my mind away from the brain freezing winter chill. Almost. The teenagers across the street were lucky, between metal barrel full of burning debris and the combination of alcohol and warm bodies, I doubted they could even feel the cold. My nearly numb fingers tightened on the stock of my rifle as I glanced back at the two girls curled up with my target, this infernal asshole so deserved the rune etched bullet I was going to put in his skull.

After about thirty minutes of silent waiting and freezing we still hadn’t been able to get a shot. Lawson had actually made things harder by disappearing under a thick woolen blanket with the two beauties. The son of a bitch. I couldn’t imagine how warm he must be under there…also…y’know, the sex I guess. But seriously, I could feel my eyeballs freezing. Alex stood up and walked over behind me, leaning over to glance out the window, silently accepting the binoculars as I passed them over and immediately breaking into a round of vehement curses directed at Lawson, me, our father, and for some reason the Dali Lama, whose parentage and sexual proclivities he expounded on in great detail, and with disgusting amounts of creativity.

I gave my brother a respectful look. I couldnt help admiring that kind of open malice. I was also smirking at seeing my calm and composed brother finally lose the last ounce of his shit. Alex had been playing devil may care since we showed up in this town as was his usual habit, but I knew that this shitty assignment had to be grating on him. It was gratifying to see my seemingly unflappable brother so thoroughly flapped. I decided to take pity on whatever dead relatives Lawson had that Alex hadn’t already gotten to profaning in his ever expanding litany of vitriol and just cut to the chase

“Ok I know this isn’t really procedure but we absolutely cannot miss this shot, I say we coincidentally show up to join the party. Not a single person over there is sober enough to remember our faces or be suspicious and if we miss this shot at him who knows how long we’ll be stuck in this hellhole. New faces should be enough to draw him and his honey bunnies out of their hidey hole, and if we can entice any of the three of them into taking an interest in the new comers our odds of succeeding skyrocket.” I made sure to barrel over the response I saw him about to make and lay out all my reasoning before he had a chance to respond.

The dismissal I knew was coming died on his lips and his face became pensive. Alex was the least rigid of my brothers, but dad had still raised us pretty strictly. He played the fuck up because it minimized his responsibility and his absurd talent and intelligence permitted him some leeway, but even Alex was wary of actually disobeying dads orders. That said, as much as his who gives a fuck persona was an act, he actually was a lazy hedonistic layabout who hated putting in any effort when he could avoid it, albeit not as big of one as he liked to pretend. In the end I knew that his laziness would win out as long as I gave him some rational reasons to convince himself with and parrot back to dad later. Plus if things went wrong he could always just throw me under the bus.

I could see the indecision warring with the wish to get the hell out of here so I delivered the killing blow. “And look at all the girls over there, that blonde with the short hair is totally your type. You totally have that whole mysterious newcomer thing going on, and if we’re going over there it’d be suspicious if we didn’t have a few drinks and mingle with the locals.” I knew I had him as soon as I saw the grin split his face. My brother may not have been quite as big a fuck-off as he pretended, but he was still a twenty four year old guy.