Bad Company (Seven Deadly Sins #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Twenty-Six: A Necessary Evil

Celeste hated driving. Her car was a classic, but that meant diddly squat to her. She absolutely hated leaving Blackwater. She hated anything that took her away from the security of her shop and even her 1951 Buick Roadmaster qualified. The only thing she hated more than leaving her shop was wasting her time – and this day had been nothing but a huge waste of her precious time. Driving back home, she gripped the wheel tighter and pressed down on the accelerator.  

The Gift Emporium was more than just her place of business or where she hung her hat. The bricks and mortar of the place were everything to her. They held her very essence: her blood, sweat, and tears. Literally of course, the spell she cast on the plot and accompanying building called for all three. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the casting was a growing attachment to the edifice itself with each passing year. It had gotten so bad recently that every time she left a rising panic would crawl inside her chest and take up residence like a tumor. It was as if the very property anchored her – everything from her emotions to her very sanity it seemed. It was idiotic and made no sense, but that didn’t make it any less true.

And now she was going to have to leave it behind – for good.

She’d spent the better part of a century in Blackwater, eighty-five years to be precise. It was the longest she’d lived anywhere. Now it was time to move on and find a new town to set up shop, not because she wanted to but because her magic was fading. She’d woken in the middle of the night feeling the drain, as if it took more out of her to keep her casting in place.

She’d risen before the dawn and headed to the old well, where the town windmill stood on the very spot she’d first cast her sanctuary spell. A spell she’d learned from Asher that not only protected her, but also her under-the-table business dealings.  It was the main reason people didn’t bother her or Dante as the years passed by. It was also the reason people didn’t question much of anything that happened around town.  

But creating a general haze of confusion and protection was only half the purpose of the sanctuary spell. It also claimed the land as Celeste’s working territory, so none of Asher’s other collectors poached in on her clientele. Most of them she only knew by name or reputation, but she’d made sure any of them would be sorry if they ever crossed into her land. In a game played by savages and demons, humans had to play down and dirty and she had no problems with that. Unfortunately, neither did any of Asher’s other collectors.  

It was for this reason her casting required an annual recharge and like anything, there were a finite number of charges allowed. Blackwater, for all intents and purposes, was a half-dead battery that barely held a charge anymore. So there she’d been, driving around kingdom come, trying to find a new place to set up again. It was a necessary evil she detested with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. The packing, moving, hauling was bad enough, but what really chapped her butt was trying to find just the right location yet again.  

She needed to find a town that was small, easily controllable but with the potential for a solid clientele base. It had to be traditional with a slow pace, and people who craved more. On top of that it also had to be free of any other collectors. Finding the right combination was about as easy as finding a virgin after prom night – still possible but generally a big pain in the ass.

Celeste thought she’d had a good lead in Huntsville, Missouri. It had the right population size, access to bigger towns, and was still traditional and slow enough that her special brand of wares would do well. Unfortunately, that wretched Bloody Bill Anderson had already set-up shop there. He wasn’t a collector but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. He’d met her right at the town line with a shotgun in hand. As she drove past him, he’d raised the gun and aimed it right at her head.  

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have blinked at such a trifling weapon, but that wasn’t some ordinary shotgun. She knew those shells were infused with hellfire itself. She felt their power from inside her vehicle and true fear gripped her. Hellfire was one of the few things that could actually kill her and send her right into Asher’s waiting tomb of torture.

She’d focused straight ahead and kept on driving, feeling Bloody Bill’s eyes on her the entire time until she’d made it through the town. Huntsville was officially off the list. She’d driven around and looked at other places, but nothing was quite right.

The day had been a big waste and she was spitting mad. The Lord help anyone who got in her way today.    

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A/N: picture is of the site of Celeste's sanctuary casting in Blackwater, MO. For those of you who are wondering, Blackwater is a real town in Missouri and this windmill/well really stands there!