His first name was Felix (Ella wouldn’t bother learning the rest of his name), and he was in a bit of a hurry. Just about a quarter of an hour ago he had been enjoying himself and his money with his business partners, when he received an odd message from one of their ventures. The icy manager of the Dead End’s pub had never failed him, nor had she ever requested his presence, so when the message came “funds are gone, the big girl has come”, this was cause for some alarm. But he wouldn’t alert his partners, no, this was something that he had to handle on his own, or else how would they have trust in him?

  A little help from the police wouldn’t hurt, however, so on the ride there he dialed the local department. They were understaffed, so a patrol would get there about twenty minutes after him. That was enough time to clean up whatever they didn’t need to see. He only needed them there to absolve himself of any wrongdoing in case his insurance demanded proof of any involvement on his part, after all. And if, god forbid, things got really out of hand, then they could manage the pacification.

  The Dead End’s Pub was in a relatively remote town, truly he had only set that place up so that he could enjoy some tax deductions, and the occasional laundering of some funds, whenever that was needed. It employed a grand total of three people. “The Manager”, whom he had met working on some shady stuff, was an overqualified henchwoman looking for a relatively clean way out of her former life of crime. Randy, an unremarkable part-timer, and Ella.

  ‘Oh Ella, sweet Ella. I wonder if whoever set this up had to slit your throat so you wouldn’t be a liability’ he thought. Truth be told, Ella wasn’t special either. As a worker she added no value to his venture, as a workmate she was gloomy and boring, and her looks? Well she wasn't ugly, it was more like she was unremarkably passable. Her face wasn’t anything special and she was out of shape to the point of being a bit chubby. ‘But if she worked out a bit and did her make-up, she would be a decent call girl’ he had thought about her when she first came to the place looking for work. He further thought, ‘I’ll make her one of my lovers, enjoy her body with the lights off until I get tired of her, and then when I have her hooked on something, I’ll spring the trap, I’ll tell her about how we can’t keep affording a life of luxury unless she helps me woo some potential business partners’. Yeah, it wasn’t a bad plan, it had worked before in fact. Why wouldn’t a worthless girl like her jump at the opportunity to have sex with such a handsome man, and live way above her means?

  In any case, ‘oh, so you are too cheap to buy off a whore? Fuck off, man, or I’ll report you for sexual harasment,’ is what she answered to the indecent proposition.

  It puzzled him, most women he met on mixers told him he was an eight out of ten, at minimum. So even though he was risking it, he couldn’t help but ask ‘why not? I’m way above your league…’

  ‘Why? Because I hate rich losers like you. No offense.’

  She told him then and went on about her workday. He had never got that before, and as if the universe had synchronized with this girl who didn’t know any better, he started to get that more and more afterwards. Ella was unremarkable, but she had left a deep scar on Felix’s ego. So he decided to make her life hell then, the rest was history.

  And oh, how he hoped she was dead this time around. But that’s enough fantasising, he thought. Let’s assess the damage. He arrived at Dead End’s, the sign on the door read closed, but what called his attention the most, was the cameras which were at the sides of the local, above the reach of anyone who didn’t have a step ladder with them, and normally, the moved around in a pattern, not allowing anyone to get inside or go outside the pub without being captured in video.

  ‘Well, these guys can do the bare minimum’ he thought to himself and wandered into the Dead End’s as if he were a hunter delving into the den of a lion.

  “So can you do something else, aside from moving things with your mind?” asked Selim.

  “It feels like I could do more things, but I can’t at the moment.” Ella answered.

  “Ok, that should be useful enough. Now we need a blueprint of the place.”

  The pair nodded. The rest of the afternoon they circled around the Dead End’s Pub, made a note of all of the cameras and made sure no one else had been hired to replace Ella yet. They had to move quickly, the next day they would clean up the place of any value.

  “You can fuck up those cameras, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that.”

  “Good. Now onto the money. By now I’m sure you’ve realized we can’t just walk out of the place with money loaded bags.”

  “Right, and we aren’t going out from the front door, there's a door behind the building, there’s a second camera overlooking it, but it won't be any problem. We’ll make our getaway there.”

  “That’s good info, and a good plan, but that’s not what I meant. This place isn’t going to be overflowing with cash.”

  “How’s it staying up in business then, smartass?”

  “For starters, most places nowadays use digital currency to avoid exactly shit like this. And besides, where this is located and all, it wouldn’t surprise me if investors weren’t keeping this place up and running at a loss for different purposes than making money the old fashioned way.”

  “And what does that even mean?”

  “Ever heard of a little crime known as money laundering?”

  “Shit… Did they tell you all about that when you become an accountant?”

  “Yes. In any case, I know how we are going to profit off of this venture, listen up…”

  When Felix opened the door to the Dead End’s, the scene he came across was perhaps a bit more dire than he was expecting. The Manager was tied up above the counter and in the middle of the dining room was a chubby woman with an eerie cat mask sitting in a lonely chair. He knew exactly who she was, but before he could think, ‘I gotta wait for the cops’, a force pushed him inside and then the door closed and got locked behind him.

  ‘How did they manage to knock out the Manager? Perhaps a sneak attack?’ He was planning to try to enlist the person behind the heist to his outfit, but this was Ella he was dealing with, she would spit a good deal in the face if it came from his mouth. If nothing else, the woman was pigheaded.

  “What do you expect to gain from this? Surely you already emptied our digital wallet and found out there’s very little reason to go through all this effort…” He said, and ‘slut! SLUT! I’ll gut you for this, you are gonna rot in a pen for this, just you wait!!!’ is what he thought.

  “True, luckily I’m working with someone that knows how to make money. I took the pubs savings for pocket change, but the real money making starts with you coming through that door. Now take out your phone.” She was speaking with a calmness that he hadn’t heard from her in months, before breaking her with the harsh reality of working a nine to five in which your bosses hated you. Or maybe he was misremembering, there’s something else about her… Something off.

  “What the fuck are you thinkin, you little shit?! I-”

  Before he could finish, a knife flew across the room and stopped right before his throat. It all made sense now. How he just went inside the shop, how they fucked up the cameras and the uneasyness he got from hearing her.

  “You are a spell caster, aren’t you?”

  “Your phone, don’t waste my time.”

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  He felt the knife press slightly against his neck.

  “I figured I didn’t have to explain myself to you, but here goes. That little knife is new, it doesn’t have my digital marks on it. The marks it does have are the manager’s. Play me now, and I’ll kill you like a chicken and the police will take employee of the month over here to jail so that they can judge her for taking a knife to her boss’ neck and decapitating him. Dead end jobs like these are so stressful, you know? I’m sure people will buy it.”

  He swallowed hard, which pushed the skin of his neck against the knife and cut him a bit. He had to think of something, but first he needed to buy himself some time. He took out his work phone.

  “Nuh uh, you think I haven’t seen you use that? Expensive phones are all I pay attention to these days, and yours is the gaudiest one. Throw that shit on the ground. I want the one you do the dirty business with.

  ‘This piece of shit…!’ he thought, but he dared not speak. This wasn’t the same woman he had dealt with before. There was something off about her. He took out his other phone, it was a cheap smartphone he didn’t allow people to see.

  “Nice. Throw it towards me” she said with an off puttingly calm tone.

  He did as she told him, and she grabbed the phone off the ground.

  “You know what they do to sub human scum like you? You think I’m not gonna report you?”

  “After I empty all of your offshore accounts and get close to your wealthy contacts, I don’t particularly care about what you do. And about what they do to people like me? I don’t plan on finding out. Thanks for looking out, though, you are such a thoughtful boss” she said as she looked at his phone, and when she finished, she turned to the back of the shop.

  Everything seemed lost for our favourite venture capitalist, when a person no one was expecting cut off Ella’s path.

  “...Randy?” Ella said.

  And Felix smiled, ‘right, this was bound to happen…’

  “Randy is a part timer, I have nothing in particular against him, so I would prefer if our only target was the Manager. We will strike as soon as his shift is over.” She declared to Selim.

  “Alright, I see no problem with that plan. So as soon as we see him go out of the Dead End’s…”

  “Then we strike…”

  Randy had a stick with him, and he was pointing it to Ella, who was frozen in place.

  ‘This wasn’t part of the plan,’ she thought. “You… Your shift’s supposed to be over though?”

  “I’m working full time off the record now, it shows up as extra hours on the books.”

  “But… But that’s illegal!”

  Felix started laughing, “you came all this way and you didn’t expect a little bit of payment under the table, you naive little shit-”

  Before Felix could finish that, Ella flicked her fingers and the knife went away from his neck and went on to hit him clean on the temple at full speed. He was knocked out instantly.

  Randy immediately attacked her. He swung his stick downwards at her, hitting her shoulder. Even though he felt he had struck her cleanly, and he had experience getting into fights back in highschool, the hit seemed regardless to have done no damage.

  At that moment she thought, ‘I’m sorry for this Randy, but I gotta make sure Selim’s alright…’

  Ella and Selim sneaked around the Dead End’s and into the back alley. They peeked around the corner and spotted the single camera that captured people going in and out of the shop through the back door. Ella pointed her hand at it and did a weird gesture, the camera then turned upwards, where it could capture nothing but birds.

  “This is so weird…” Selim said, arching an eyebrow.

  “You are getting second thoughts now?”

  “No it’s just… A part of me still thought that the massacre at Zlin was a hoax, and spell casters were just some government conspiracy, and even in the days I wanted to believe, I figured meeting one would be as likely as winning the lottery. There’s supposed to be like a zero, point zero five percent of awakening as one…”

  “Can this wait?” she said slightly annoyed.

  “Yeah, yeah…”

  After a bit of messing with the backdoor’s lock, they finally managed to open it and went inside.

  “So this manager… You think she will give us any trouble?” He asked, trying to break up the tension.

  “Here’s to hoping she gives up as soon as she sees me moving things with my mind.”

  “If you need me to-”

  “You know what I need from you, I don’t know how bank accounts work, let alone clandestine, offshore ones.”

  “Yeah but-”

  “‘But’ nothing, remember how quickly you gave up when I forced you to try Brazilian jiu jitsu?”

  “Aw, c’mon, you haven’t done BJJ in years!” he said, almost yelling.

  “Chst!” she silenced him, “you work at knowing how a calculator works and enduring sitting on your ass all day, I have super powers. End of the discussion.”

  “Yeah, but-” before he could continue, Ella stopped him with her arm. He looked ahead and he understood why. The door next to them that took to the counter had just opened up, and behind that door coming in was a hulking woman. He understood immediately that she wasn’t someone to trifle with. “I assume this is the manager?”

  “Yeah, that's who that is…” She said with a determined look in her eyes.

  “Now why do you two have plastic gloves on?” The manager said as she slowly reached for a butcher’s knife.

  “So that the police can’t tell it’s my hands you got on your face” Ella said.

  The manager squinted, “so it is you, trash, didn’t peg you for the vindictive kind.” And before Ella could retort, the Manager swung a huge right to her head.

  Even though Ella blocked, the impact still sent her a couple of meters away, opportunity that the Manager took to grab that knife.

  “Put some distance between her and you, partner!” Ella said to Selim. He was very concerned about how this was going, but even more so that Ella didn’t seem to fear for her life by the sound of her voice.

  Ella closed in on the Manager, and the Manager swung the knife at her, but Ella ducked beneath it with ease. ‘What’s going on, that should have gone clear through her face?’ Manager thought. She took another swing and her target stopped the attack by her wrist. ‘It’s not that she was strong or fast’ she thought as she struggled to push the blade past her opponent’s resistance, ‘it’s the knife, the knife is resisting!’

  But before she could realize what was going on, her opponent jumped off the ground and put the arm that was holding the knife in a bar. ‘Gloomy Ella does MMA?!’ What's more, she was way stronger than she looked. She tried to break the armbar but couldn’t, it’s like there was another force sapping her efforts.

  ‘I know what you are thinking’, Ella thought, as she held the Manager’s arm tightly, ‘truth be told, I wouldn’t be doing so well if my mind wasn’t so clear and applying my telekinesis to a fist fight wasn’t so easy,’ she smiled. ‘Now I’m going to break your arm, and forget I’ve ever feared you.’

  But just as she was about to attempt the coup de grace, she noticed the Manager’s arm wouldn’t bend any further. Instead, the manager started to lift her entire body with only her arm.

  “God’s you are heavy,” the Manager said looking at her with a creepy smile, “Guess I’ll have to put more of my back into it.”

  For a second, Ella’s power trip threatened to end right then and there, but before she could think, she heard Selim scream.

  “Super powers! Hit her with whatever!”

  ‘Right, I am a spell caster,’ she thought, and immediately shit from all around the kitchen started lifting off and heading straight at the Manager’s head. She took five or six utensils before stumbling, and before realizing a whole other set was coming, she let off a shout:

  “You piece of shit…!”

  When the biggest pot in the kitchen hit the Manager’s head and she finally went down, Selim sighed a sigh of relief. But before he could relax, she heard Ella speak, “now help me tie her up.”

  “Right,” he said, “you remember how to unlock her phone?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why DO you know that anyway, you creepy bastard…?”

  Randy was swinging wildly, but the stick felt heavier than before, and so the masked woman was weaving through them without even being nicked.

  “What’s with you?!” He yelled.

  At that moment he swung the stick and she ducked beneath it and proceeded to hit him three times on the ribs.

  ‘Fuck, she hits so fucking hard,’ in that momment, his and everyone’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden knock at the door of the bar.

  “Police, open up!” could be heard from outside alongside sirens and further knocking at the door that were getting more and more forceful.

  ‘Wh-what, what’s going on?’ thought Felix, who was alerted by the noise and was slowly recovering his consciousness.

  At that moment, Ella thought of an idea. She hit Randy in the head as hard as she could while pushing it towards her fist with her powers, and as soon as Randy hit the floor she leapt over him and ran to the back of the shop.

  Back there she found Selim, who had seemingly been struck on the head and was barely conscious.

  “Wake up, sleeping beauty, I need my getaway driver.”

  Selim felt light slaps on his face for a bit, seeming to align with the unceasing banging that could be heard from outside until suddenly he got a second wind, “shit! That fuckhead hit me in the face with a stick!”

  “Yeah, figured that had happened. Get up, we are leaving. You think you can drive the scooter?”

  “Barely.”

  “Barely will have to make do, come on get up.”

  The duo scurried up to a scooter they had parked close to the alley and got on it, Selim at the handle.

  “Drive next to the Bar.”

  “Why? Didn’t the police show up?”

  “There’s no time to explain, get us as close as you can to the cops as you can.”

  He did as she told him, and when they were next to the patrol car, he noticed her extend her hand in the direction of the bar. Shortly after, one of the two cops that were on the scene busted the door open, and from inside came Felix walking with Randy on hold and a knife pointing at his head.

  Both cops took out their tasers and pointed them at Felix.

  “Drop your shield!” Screamed the cop who busted the door open, and at that moment, Ella lowered her hand and suddenly Felix let go of Randy.

  Before anyone else could react, the second police officer, who had been quiet up to that point, ran up to Felix and Randy, put herself between them and grabbed Felix by the arm he was holding the knife with, disarming him and throwing him on the ground in one move.

  Ella couldn’t help being impressed by that move, so she looked at the officer without knowing why. She was a woman with jet black hair, a distinctive nose that reminded her of greek statues, and serious grey eyes.

  The officer didn’t took her eyes off Felix until he was cuffed, and only then looked up to see her admirer.

  They both locked eyes when Selim’s voice suddenly cut off Ella’s concentration.

  “I assume we are done here!” He said as he speeded him away from the scene. “You got the phone?”

  “...Yeah, hopefully he remains in custody long enough for us to make use of it.”

  “We will, Ella, and what was that?”

  “It was just a trick…”

  “Not that, you froze up when that officer looked at you, you had the hots for her?”

  Ella looked over her shoulder and wondered what exactly was it that she felt, and with a serious look on her face, she finally answered:

  “...Maybe.”