I swear I am not abandoning The Sparrow Takes Flight! My brain is tired, and this idea decided to bubble into life so that I could do something before I went to sleep. I know that makes little sense, but please trust me. I can juggle both stories.

Reid and the Witch

Capital Plaza Apartments was old, but not old enough to have any ghosts. People had died here, but their spirits had moved on. When Ruby Simms toured the place, she felt a few clouds of darkness, mainly from stress as these renters were mostly white-collar workers. No hints of any demons she could detect. The land wasn't originally a burial ground for anything. After scrying and consulting rune stones, Simms felt fairly confident in signing her name to the lease agreement.

The apartment was larger than anything she had ever lived in. She and her mother lived from studio apartment to studio apartment with promises of big mansions one day when her mother would foresee the future of someone who would become rich. Her luck was terrible with the dorms at the University of Southern California. The apartments she shared with members of her coven in Los Angeles weren't much better. Nick's apartment was the biggest place she had ever lived in and she would have been content there, if she hadn't found him in bed with her competition for an exorcism. But her new place was extremely nice and maybe she'd find a life here.

DC wasn't her first choice. She had booked a plane for New York when the flight number turned out to be her mother's birth year backwards. Simms was a practical witch, but she found whenever that sequence of numbers turned up in her life, bad things happened. She consulted the number again and found a more favorable sequence for DC. There were probably plenty of people in need of a witch in the District of Columbia. It would just take some extra effort and a little more planning.

Simms arranged her boxes in a circle and marked them with rune symbols. She closed here eyes, pictured how she wanted her apartment set up, and blew on her hands. When she opened them, the boxes were still arranged in the same order.

The thing most people don't get about magic is, it doesn't always work. To those interested, she would compare it electricity in the late eighteen hundreds: Pretty to look at with lots potential, but horribly unreliable. There was still no proper network to fully harness the energy so witches like Simms made due with what she could tap into. Her skill level was slightly above average, but that didn't mean she could summon the power to unpack her belongings, even when she wanted to.

After setting up her things, she rewarded herself with Chinese from the place with the best energy according her meal sensing crystal she kept on a chain. The service was good and there was a knock on her door soon afterwards. She opened it and smelled spicy chicken and dumplings.

As she paid the delivery man, she noticed another man climbing the stairs with a messenger bag slung around his right shoulder.

"Thanks," she said, and the man left with his tip. The other man approached her.

"Hi," he said. "So, you're the new apartment owner?"

"Yes," she said and arranged her food, so she could offer a hand. "I'm Ruby."

"I'm Spencer," he waved. "I have a thing with germs."

"I get it," she said. "Contact is a very intimate thing even in the smallest amounts."

He stared at her. She blushed.

"I'm sorry. I am always saying strange things. I'm- I just, my job forces me to look at things differently."

"No," he said quickly. "I actually thought what you said was quite profound. I really like it."

"Thanks," she said.

"So, what do you do for a living?" he asked.

"I edit fantasy novels," she said because people are usually freaked out by the truth. "It isn't much of a living, but it does manage to pay the bills."

"That is really interesting," he said. "Your dinner is probably getting cold. I'll let you enjoy your meal."

"Thanks," she said. "I'll see you around Spencer."

"It was nice meeting you, Ruby," he said and unlocked his door as she re-entered her apartment.

Simms sighed as she put her meal on the table. Her marriage to Nick Brinker officially ended thirty-five days ago. It still hurt even as the thought of him made her furious. The truth was, she wasn't ready for another relationship, even if a good one was staring her in the face. Spencer also didn't deserve to be in someone's rebound person either.

She went to sleep a few hours later. Simms was exhausted but excited about the potential of what a new city of magic had in store for her.

…

He was rocking on the chair he was tied to. His foot hurt horribly even as the drugs dulled his senses. The terror also had a firm grip on his heart.

"BOY!" Hankel's voice thundered. "Are you ready to confess your sins?"

"Please," he begged. "I'm innocent."

"Liar," he said and pushed his chair back.

He began to convulse.

The images changed and a bald man with horrible teeth smiled menacingly. He could barely breath through the towel that covered his mouth and partially his nose. They began to beat him.

The images changed again, and he was in an ambulance throwing up blood. He hoped his mother would understand the message.

…

Simms woke up gasping for breath. Once she calmed down, she swore. Whatever her neighbor did for a living, it produced horrible energy. The kind of energy that had attracted at least one dangerous demon. The worst part was, he probably didn't even know they existed and were feeding on his life.