Justice First Book One

By Odette C. Bell

All seek justice. But justice is a fool’s game.
When Melanie finds out she’s magical, she runs. Her powers won’t let her sit still. As they rise, they seek justice. And the city she lives in – Erebus – is home to the worst criminals out there. As her mind unravels, she’s forced to mete out holy punishment.
Nothing can stop her save for one man.
But Tyr isn’t human; he’s the immortal sent to capture her. A practitioner unmatched in all the realms, he seeks one thing – justice. To all those who break the law, he brings punishment. Until he meets Melanie. As he searches for her through the crime-infested streets of this hellhole, they’re drawn together.
What starts as a game of cat-and-mouse changes as old, hidden feelings arise. They might wish to punish one another, but destiny has another plan.
....
Justice First follows a gritty witch and the immortal tasked to hunt her down on a quest to defeat heaven. If you love your contemporary fantasies with fast-paced action, non-stop fights, and a splash of romance, grab Justice First Book One today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Jan 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005681296

Book preview

Chapter 1

Tyr

Tyr leaned over the table, his suit rumpling with the smooth, strong move. It highlighted not just the width of his broad muscles, but the glimmer of skin visible around his wrist. Light chased along it. There were powerful downlights glinting from above. It was the kind of fluorescence you used in an evidence room when you wanted everything to be revealed, however dark and deadly it was.

But pay attention to that glimmer of illumination shimmering over his skin for too long and it might snatch your attention for good – just like the stare that sat behind the black-rimmed glasses as Tyr leaned just a little closer over the table once more.

It was a surprise it could take his weight.

Tyr – who had only one name and would never have another – seemed capable of confronting any creature. Make no mistake, his muscles didn’t bulge out without proportion. Every single line looked as if it had been carved by Pythagoras himself.

His suit sat perfectly, slim-fit and without a single crease. But you wouldn’t be able to buy it in any store, regardless of how large and well-appointed the city boutiques were. That cashmere and cotton came from someplace else entirely.

Once you sign the contract, Commissioner, every single murder will have to come past me. He angled his sharp gaze up, the edge like cold steel.

Commissioner Williams rested back in her chair. Her own uniform wasn’t nearly as nice, and as her wrists peeked out from her rumpled sleeves, her fingers snatching up the pen beside her, you certainly didn’t see any light scattering over her skin. All she had was a determined half snarl, half controlled frown. I’m doing this because the higher-ups told me to. I don’t need to be threatened.

Tyr leaned back. The fabric of his shirt didn’t rumple. Not once did his sleeves bunch up. And neither did the skin around his cheeks as he somehow managed to smile without causing a single wrinkle to mark his apparently perfect face.

She said perfect. She knew what she was staring at, even if the higher-ups hadn’t given her the exact specifics of Tyr.

He was magical. He wasn’t your usual aristocrat vampire or hired, muscle-bound shifter. It wasn’t just the magic that was continually visible trying to peek out from underneath his cufflink-clasped sleeves.

It wasn’t even just the look in his eyes. It was the presence that screamed to some primal part at the back of her head to run.

Why the city had made a deal with someone like him, she didn’t know. She’d been instructed to sign this. It was simply a formality. Still, she gripped the pen, her slightly sweat-slicked fingers sliding over the smooth metal as she made the effort of strengthening her stance. She sat straighter in the plastic seat until the legs scratched across the already marked linoleum beneath her. Make no mistake, even though you will have access to our files, you will not be an arbiter of justice.

Tyr leaned further back. For whatever reason, despite the fact he was much larger than her, his seat didn’t dare protest under his considerable weight. She imagined that nobody dared protest around him.

Opening his hands wide, what could only be classed as a smooth smile spread across his lips. It gave her the impression of an oil slick insidiously moving in over a once clean beach. Maybe it looked pretty from certain angles, and it sure glimmered like a rainbow. Catch yourself in it, however, and you’d never wrench free.

We respect the human race’s capacity to enact their own justice. We are simply… a line of defense against things that you are not well suited to fight.

Williams tapped her pen on the table, not once letting the nib go anywhere near the contract beside her.

As for the contract, it looked as if it was written on real paper. It was the same as Tyr. He might look as if he had a real body, but scratch under the surface, and critically, wrench off his cufflinks to reveal his arms, and you’d see what was actually there.

This contract would never be able to be destroyed. You could attack it with a blowtorch, run over it with a tank, or throw it into the deepest volcano you could find. Nothing would dare mark it. And once it was signed, it would bind the city police department to Tyr and his promise.

Tyr stretched a strong hand toward the contract. He might look unhurried, but Williams got the impression from her long years of dealing with magical creatures that the slight glimmer in his eyes meant he was running out of time. You wouldn’t think someone like him could run out of a single second. It would be pretty hard for an immortal. And yes, she’d just thought that.

He was an actual immortal. Funnily enough, they were all meant to be dead. But somehow the mayor had scrounged one up, and now he was making Williams sign a contract with Tyr – that would bind this city for life.

She looked down at the contract and slipped her gaze up to him. This might be suicide, but she flattened a frown over her lips and didn’t even soften its razor-sharp edge.

Tyr just flicked her a smooth smile. Rest assured, we will not become involved in human matters. All we intend is to be the last line of defense.

She leaned closer. Did she have the same powerful body, the suit that refused to be rumpled, and the same glittering skin? No. But she’d spent an illustrious career dealing with the magical side of the law, in all shapes and sizes. So she told herself this immortal, despite his inherent power, was just another perp. Sorry, just another contractor. What happens if you come across a human with magic?

Rare, he said.

Not my point. You might, her eyes slipped from side to side, looking like a metronome keeping the beat of this dark conversation, be here to protect us from things we apparently can’t face. But what of a magical human? What if some rare soul with natural power runs into your kind? What then?

You have my word that I will work with the police department on every single case. You will still be the commissioner, Commissioner, he said. If we somehow go against the odds and discover a murder committed by a magical human, you will hold all the cards and no decision will be made without you. He’d been leaning back against his chair. But now he pushed in. Did he move fast? Snap like a loaded spring? Pulse like a bullet from a gun? Nope. In fact, he moved so slowly, it was like a snake waking up from hibernation. Make no mistake, that didn’t reduce the deadliness of the move.

If you believed the myths, immortals only fought each other. Their interest in human affairs was slim.

You tell that to the glitter in his eyes. It had only been growing ever since he’d dumped that contract right down in front of her.

Now his gaze slipped toward it one last time then rose toward her as if it was a knife brandished against her neck. The mayor wishes you to sign. This in many ways—

Is just a formality. Commissioner Williams picked up the pen. She didn’t immediately thrust it onto the paper and sign her cursive name. She made sure the immortal knew that while this was just a formality, Williams intended to hold up her side of the bargain. Tyr had promised that when it came to human offenders, regardless of whether they broke the rules and committed forbidden forms of murder, they’d come across her desk first.

She would hold him to that.

Chapter 2

Melanie Rose

Another late night, another dream.

Nightmares had haunted her her whole life, hunting her down every single night like wolves.

This one was particularly bad. She knew she shivered in her bed, her body cloying with sweat, her skin sliding over her drenched sheets. Her pillows had tumbled onto the floor long ago. With another wild thrash, she collected the clock on her bedside table and smashed it against the wall.

She didn’t wake up properly, though.

Even when she partially roused, a little of the dream would still seize her.

Her fingers clutched in and out, in and out, her long nails perforating small holes in her palms. A few little beads of blood slid down her sweat-covered skin.

And finally, the dream got sharper.

It was always in the same place – and always came with a sudden heart-pumping spike of pure adrenaline.

Melanie wasn’t particularly athletic. She’d never taken sports in high school. And now, as she eked out her existence doing boring 9-to-5’s and shift work wherever she could, she didn’t have time to exercise. There was one thing she’d never done, something she’d never even picked up, and yet a fixture of every dream.

A bow and arrow.

Now as the dream became as crystal-clear as a painting somebody had created right in front of her face, she felt her arms move, her muscles contract, and her fingers tighten. She could detect the smooth feel of polished metal in her fingertips. More than that, though – this rush of power, this unstoppable force. The kind of unbridled, undifferentiated strength you could only associate with one kind of energy. Magic.

In her dream, the darkness resolved for a single moment. She saw monsters, with horrendous torn-apart, bulging faces. White fat lips slicked with saliva and red eyes like blasts of trapped fire loomed through the night. They came toward her, their intentions to rip her apart clear.

She gathered her bow, she tightened her fingers, and she fired. It felt like she was pulling her heart out and sticking it on the arrow. All of her traveled with it as it thrust through the dream, driving those monsters back, back, back, and back until finally she woke. It happened fast. She was ripped out of her slumber as easily as somebody tearing flesh from an overcooked bone.

As always happened, it took her several seconds to blink back her confusion. Sweat slid down her brow, collected between her shoulders, and covered every single inch of her as if she’d just been half baked in a desert.

Finally her eyesight sharpened. And that’s when she saw a shadow just by the doorway.

Melanie couldn’t afford to live on the good side of town. She couldn’t afford anything. This shady apartment had two months of rent left on it. She’d had a lot of work a while ago. Now her pay had been cut twice. Soon, she’d lose this place. Where would she go then? No one else cared, and she’d have to figure it out on her own.

But none of that was the point. Shitty apartments like this came with a history, and a history meant one thing. Ghosts.

Make no mistake, Melanie Rose was human. She didn’t come from the other side of creation. She wasn’t some slinky vampire aristocrat, some musclebound werewolf. She wasn’t a witch, wasn’t somebody who had even an inkling of power. But she could see ghosts – and had been doing so her whole life. Now she slipped out of bed, her body still trembling from overwrought adrenaline, and she padded over her stained, torn carpet to the doorway. There, the shadow hung. It was like mist clinging to a gravestone. The window beside her bed was partially open – just a crack that could reveal the metal bars beyond. You needed protection in this apartment block. Crimes were committed every other day. Only precious few perpetrators were brought to justice, though.

Melanie couldn’t tell you the number of ghosts she’d come across squatting in the halls, crying underneath the stairwells, and out in the car park, aimlessly wandering to and fro like chickens with their heads cut off.

Usually they never strayed inside her house. For what it was worth, she’d bought charms down at one of the local markets that were meant to keep spirits at bay.

Either they didn’t work – which was entirely possible considering seeing the dead was a rare gift indeed and the charm maker was unlikely to have that skill – or this ghost had a reason to see Melanie.

Give the undead a desire strong enough, and they can break through any spell brave enough to hold them back.

Melanie should have been scared. Her body still shook, but it was just the remnants of her dream.

The shadow flitted away from the doorway, retreating into her lounge room. Sorry – her combined lounge room and kitchen and the only other space apart from her bathroom.

Junk littered it. She still hadn’t properly moved in. There were several boxes that were full of clothes and others that were overflowing with broken, stained crockery.

Melanie never settled down anywhere long.

She always got the impression… she didn’t belong.

The ghost flitted over to the window behind her kitchen table. It squeezed itself between the cracked wood and the warped windowsill.

It finally started to take on a form. It had the rough size of a woman, maybe in her forties. Melanie swore she could detect a hint of a pale blue floral dress. It was rumpled around the massive injury to the ghost’s side. It looked as if she’d been stabbed repeatedly in the stomach. Even now, Melanie could see the blood pooling down the ghost’s legs, dripping off her white knees, and splashing onto the floor only to disappear because they fundamentally weren’t real.

Jerking a hand up, Melanie clutched the cross she always wore around her neck. It was the only gift she’d ever received from her parents.

One her grandmother had desperately tried to keep from her.

Melanie had lived with her grandmother for 18 years until Nana Iris had died. Abruptly. Violently. In a murder no one had ever even bothered to investigate.

Now she held the cross as tightly as she could, the four corners imprinting into her palm.

I can see you, Melanie hissed. There was neither fear nor revulsion in her voice, just a light mutter designed to get the ghost’s attention.

Ghosts couldn’t necessarily hear in the full register humans could. As they died and started wandering this earth aimlessly, the faculties they’d once required to live slowly drifted away. It was like somebody taking a hammer and chisel to a once great statue and just sloughing off unnecessary parts. They might start with the ears, then the arms, then the hands, then the feet, then finally the heart.

Make no mistake, however, this woman was fresh. And her heart was still trying to convince itself it beat, because blood still oozed out of her injury.

Melanie wasn’t squeamish. You couldn’t be if you saw ghosts. The very first time you went down to the subway or to a place where people had died frequently, you’d run screaming for your life. Most deaths that occurred outside of hospitals and aged care homes weren’t pretty. Out in the real world, people were maimed, decapitated, squashed – you name it. Or stabbed, just like this woman.

The ghost didn’t have a face – yet. As Melanie took another shuddering step up to her, she realized this ghost was fresh. It was in the sound of the blood that still dripped onto the floor. Melanie almost thought it was an echo – a recreation of the real thing. Wherever this woman’s actual corporeal body was, it was still waiting to be found.

Seeing ghosts was one thing. Usually, their bodies had been found long ago, and the crimes that had led to their death had been someone else’s problem.

Now terror gripped Melanie. She got a little closer. That’s when the ghost quickly shoved right through her chipped table and secured a surprisingly strong grip around Melanie’s wrist.

She didn’t jerk back, but her eyes widened with pulsing fear. What—

Finally the face resolved. In a blast of ethereal magic that charged up the ghost’s throat, crackled into her cheeks, and sank into her forehead, recognizable features soon stared back.

Marianne? Melanie’s voice became strangled in her throat.

This was her neighbor.

If only Melanie had been paying more attention, she would’ve realized the exact floral pattern of the dress was memorable. Then again, it was far too splattered with blood.

Dealing with ghosts of strangers was one thing. This….

Melanie yanked her head to the side, her neck muscles straining, her eyes bulging. That’s why she could hear the echo of the blood dripping. Because it was still close to the body – only 20 meters or so through the wall.

She seized up, every muscle constricting until it felt as if she would erupt out of her own skin. What happened to you, Marianne? What happened?

Get out, Melanie. He’ll come for you too.

Who? Marianne—

He’s coming now. I always thought you could see ghosts. You’ve got the gift. Now run. He’ll kill you too.

Marianne— her voice arced up. But that’s when she heard a scratching sound at the door. It was the noise of something sharp being slipped in between the lock and the door jam.

An electric jolt of horror shot through her. It started at the base of her stomach, then drove its way up her spine until it reached her hindbrain and exploded.

Her neck strained all the way around as she stared at the door.

Run. Get out. Marianne drifted back.

Melanie couldn’t get out. There were bars across all of her windows. Back when she’d had the money, she’d picked this specific apartment because it had possessed better security features. Here’s the thing. Bars can ensure no one can climb inside your window at night, but it also means you can’t climb out.

Marianne— Melanie said, her voice shaking with terror.

But the sound at the door went from a knife being jammed into the wood to the wood cracking.

The door was kicked open. It swung inward, only the sound of the hinges audible. They squeaked like far-off bird calls.

Run, Marianne screamed. She jerked backward. She slipped through the wall. Melanie even thought she heard her shrieking. In the first few hours after becoming a ghost, most people forgot they no longer had to interact with matter. They could fall through walls. It wouldn’t kill them. They could walk into speeding cars. They’d be fine. For nothing could kill you when you were already dead.

A shadow-encased figure strode into the room. Sally didn’t mean her eyesight couldn’t resolve, couldn’t pick out the details of the guy’s form. He was wearing a cloak of pure darkness. It looked as if the blackest patch of the moon had picked itself up, condensed down into a strong male form, then walked over to meet her.

He paused there, his head angled to the side. She could tell that. She may not be able to see his features, but his musculature was visible, almost down to every detail. So she noted the twist to his long neck and the way each tendon strained. Then the sharp movement as his head darted to the side, tracking something.

Melanie might be able to see the dead, but that was it. She was human. That’d been confirmed with multiple rounds of blood tests.

She had one skill, and it would be irrelevant now.

She backed off toward the table, her shaking legs striking it. She tumbled against the chipped chair to her side, and it upended, clattering onto the floor. She finally found her voice. Help— she began, but her cry didn’t have a chance to blast out.

With one flick of his wrist, the door closed. Magic sealed it in place. It crackled over the wood, sank into the lock, then spurted out over the dank white plaster of the wall. It looked like lightning charging through dust.

The shadow-encased man took another step forward. Then he stopped. He sniffed. Again, she couldn’t see his eyes, had no clue what he actually looked like, but she could make out the rough details of his anatomy. So she watched as his large nostrils opened then contracted then opened again.

Then a smile – dark, quick, slicing over his face as if someone had just knifed him in the cheeks.

No more waiting. He jolted forward.

Melanie might know there was no point in screaming – she still shrieked at the top of her lungs. It ripped its way out of her stomach, blasted up her throat, and catapulted from her mouth. It was her last attempt to save herself. But screaming never saved anyone.

The guy reached her, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her up. She banged against his chest. Then, as he hooked an arm around her stomach, he placed his nose down alongside her face. He sniffed, just once. She could feel the contractions required – every movement of his cheeks, every expansion of his chest. And the magic – crackling there, slicing up over his shadow-covered flesh.

It was just as brutal as its owner. A few charges leaped across her skin, and they instantly burnt her.

You’ll do. Not as tasty as the last one, but you’ll do.

With a yank on her wrist, he dragged her to the kitchen bench.

Melanie was suddenly aware of the chef knife she’d left there beside the sink. She’d been cutting beetroot for a salad earlier today. The chipped stainless steel was still stained with the juice of it.

It got the guy’s attention, apparently, and he sliced one darting black