by Kaye Draper
Witchromance
Reluctant Necromancer Book 5
By Kaye Draper
Copyright 2019
Dedication
I value every one of my readers and friends who support me in the crazy, wonderful adventure of writing. Thank you to my patrons. A special thank you to Jennifer Sapa for helping me create, and to Frank Boston for the proofreading and constant encouragement. I couldn’t make this dream into a reality without you!
Chapter 1
I stuffed my feet into a pair of old work boots and laced them as fast as I could, grabbing an old Carhartt jacket off the coat rack and shrugging into it while I hauled ass out the door. My familiar and my ex-best friend were right on my heels. Wolves. Jazz said there were wolves.
I scanned the dark, weedy front lawn, searching for my skinwalker. Maybe he could tell me what to do with a strange pack of werewolves.
And to think, a few short months ago, my biggest problem was being the town oddity because I was an anti-social recluse with a trashy family and a mantle full of animal skulls. Boy, was I moving up in the world or what?
I didn't see Awan anywhere. A hand on my shoulder snapped me out of my racing thoughts. Jet's yellow eyes glowed in the dim porch light and a slip of sharp canine peeped at me when he spoke. "I will find your corpsewalker, stupid necromancer."
He gave my shoulder a squeeze, then morphed into a big crow and took off into the night.
"I still need a drink," Jazz muttered. She wasn't taking well to the fact that Jet could take on multiple forms.
"Where were the wolves when you saw them?" I snapped.
She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot in irritation. "Headed right this way! I don't know why they aren't already here by now, honestly."
Awan came around the side of the house. He—she?—had been doing patrols, which I thought was a bit of overkill at first. But now…well, apparently, we needed damned border patrols around my old, crumbling Victorian house.
The skinwalker was still wearing the corpse of the female guard she'd picked up on our last little outing—when we'd been captured by some crazy asshole who collected supernaturals and used their powers for his own. I had only ever seen the skinwalker in a male body, and now I was a bit confused as to whether I should think of Awan as male or female. Maybe it depended on the current corpse? I don’t know why it even mattered to me, but it did somehow. Maybe because I’d just realized how little I understood about Awan, even after all our time together.
Awan trotted up the steps with a big-assed gun in her arms. I blinked at the weapon. "Where the hell did you even get that?"
She winked. "My dear necromancer, living as long as I have has given me a very special understanding of the fact that one should always be prepared." She hugged the long automatic rifle to her matronly chest. "I obtained this lovely little thing when I stole the collector's SUV. It's my good luck charm."
I shook my head. "Jazz says there are strange wolves headed this way."
I was about to ask where Jet was, but I realized I already knew...somehow. He was flying over the woods between my house and the town of Hellsfork, scouting. I shivered at the firm sense of connection. It wasn't like when Awan spoke to me inside my head in his—her?—non-corporeal form. This wasn't a direct conversation. More like a feeling…a sense of what my familiar was experiencing. I wondered if it was just because I'd been using my magic more, or…if it was because I'd gone and fucked the damned cat-bird-thing.
I rubbed a hand over my face and tried to push that weirdness away to focus on the current weirdness at hand. Pulling out my cellphone, I called Drake. My vampire and my medium-turned-spirit-mage were in town packing up their stuff. They'd taken Luna with them, and I was hoping they were still together.
The phone rang so many times I thought I was going to get voicemail. Then Drake's voice purred down the line. "Red," he said, his deep voice affecting, me even over the phone. "What's up? You missed me so much you couldn't wait 'til I got back home?"
I snorted. "There are werewolves heading toward us, apparently. Put Luna on the phone."
He was silent for a beat. "Luna isn't here, Red. We left her at her apartment to box up her stuff while we got our stuff together."
I started pacing back and forth across my rickety front porch. "Powers That Be, what if she's out there? With them?"
"Red," Drake's voice had lost its flirtatious, teasing tone and slipped right into domineering master vampire mode. "Do not leave the house. Go inside. Lock the doors. Keep Awan and Jet close. Do you understand me? If there are wolves out there, they are looking for Luna. Female alphas aren't allowed to roam free. And you are not getting in the middle of a werewolf skirmish."
I swallowed, my heart in my throat. "Yeah, fine. Going inside right now." I hung up the phone and stuffed it into my back pocket. Then I jogged down the stairs and out to the driveway to get my car. Drake didn't know anything. Sure, he knew Luna was rare, and maybe he knew more about werewolf politics than I did. But he didn't know they'd kept her chained up like an animal, powerless and afraid, meant only as breeding stock to make more powerful male wolves.
I stared at my empty driveway. My brain took a minute to catch up. "Fuck." My wonderful old station wagon had been totaled in the sorcerer attack. And Drake and the others had taken my rental car into town to get their stuff. So they could move in here. So we'd all be together and safe.
I clenched my fists against my legs as fury rose up in me. Powers, I was useless.
Awan came up behind me, her boots scuffing on the gravel. "You really lose your head when you're worried about other people," she commented dryly. "Come on. Grab some dead things and let's go. We’ll be better hidden if we keep to the forests and fields, anyway."
I couldn't be more thankful for the way nothing ever really seemed to ruffle the skinwalker. He…she was pragmatic about everything. Even my nasty powers.
I closed my eyes and searched for the dark emptiness of a corpse waiting for me to give it a semblance of life. Way out here, there wasn't much. Deer, some cows from a nearby farm. There was an old cemetery down the road a bit. But we were in a rush, and corpses didn't move very fast. Plus, it wasn't fully dark out yet. I didn't want to have to deal with what might happen if anyone saw an army of decaying bodies marching down the road, unless I really had to.
I called to the deer, a stray dog. And…holy crap, was that a bear? Yep. A bear. Not unheard of around here, but not very common. I hadn't even seen a living bear in my time in Hellsfork, but we did have lots of woods and open farmland, so I guess anything was possible. I rounded up the dark sparks and gave them a bit of my power, called them to me, pulling on the invisible threads that bound them to me via the dark energy inside me.
Opening my eyes, I turned to Awan. "Let's go."
We headed down the dirt road toward town, for a short time before veering off into the woods at Jet’s direction. Awan was right, it wouldn’t have done much good to drive a car anyway, not when we were traveling as the crow flies. Ha, ha. We must have been quite a site, Awan toting her gun, and me barehanded but wreathed in a black shadow that I hoped only I could see. That was new…and a little concerning.
Jet glided down to us, morphing to human shape in a burst of black feathers. He fell in beside us, his black clothes, hair, ears, and tail blending into the night so only his pale face and glowing eyes stood out. "They're headed this way. Between here and town there is an old cottage in a wooded place. They had almost made it there when I circled back. We should meet them between here and there if w
e just keep along the road, provided this is where they are actually headed."
I nodded. That little cabin had been a condemned shack a year or so ago. But someone had been slowly fixing it up and making it livable. "Did you see Luna anywhere?"
He grinned. "Your wolf is clever. She was being chased, but I watched her circle back around. I think she plans to ambush them from behind."
I walked faster. She was going to try to fight them—plural—alone. "How many wolves were there, Jet."
He shrugged, the motion a ripple of darkness. "Seven, that I saw."
I broke into a run. I am not a runner by nature. But Powers That Be, seven fucking wolves and Luna was going to try to fight them on her own?
The others kept pace with me easily, and we were joined by the creatures I called along the way. We must look so bizarre—a gangly, boyish redhead, a guy with cat ears, and a stocky middle-aged soldier woman, trailing a small army of dead animals. I would laugh, if I wasn't so worried about Luna…or so out of breath I was wheezing loud enough to wake the dead. I really needed to start some sort of workout routine if I was going to do this crap on a regular basis.
We had almost made it to the old, leaning mailbox that belonged to the cabin in the woods when an almighty bang echoed through the night. I slowed and glanced at the others. "Was that a gun?"
It didn't sound like a gun. It sounded like a damned cannon or something—a deep roar, but muffled.
Awan shook his head. Jet moved closer to me, but kept walking. "Magical discharge."
We pushed through a cluster of trees and overgrown weeds and stumbled to a halt. Luna was pacing around a large cleared spot, where the weeds and grass had been burned away. Little bits of ash were still raining down, and a few tufts of grass were slowly burning out.
Luna had a bad limp, and a bit of her golden fur looked singed. But she was on her feet. And in front of her, an old woman was bent over a gnarled old walking stick, trying to put out a bit of flame that had sprung up at the hem of her long, ratty housecoat.
"What?" I breathed.
Luna's ears perked and her head whipped toward us as we emerged from the trees. Her green eyes were glowing, and her muzzle was bloody. I took a step toward her, but Jet slipped in front of me, blocking my way.
"Move, cat," I demanded, trying to push him aside. But Awan grabbed the back of my collar, like a mother dog yanking her pup out of trouble.
"Stay back, puppeteer," she ground out, pointing her gun at the old woman.
I rolled my eyes and heaved a massive sigh. Then I sent my creatures around us in a loose circle. The deer had a good-sized rack of sharp antlers. The bear was almost perfectly intact, including claws and teeth. They were joined by a couple good-sized dogs, and some cats. The dark power in me pointed out that there were even more things around here for me to animate. A rather large cluster of animal corpses just a little way from here, near the creepy old cabin.
The old woman managed to put out her dress fire and straightened. Jet did that thing he could do and pulled up blue and black flames around us, casting a weird, bluish glow over the clearing. It let me see the woman's face. And her blind white eyes.
"Death Girl, is that you?" she called. "I can feel you all around me. You're getting stronger. And yet, you're not in his clutches yet, are you?"
I pushed between Jet and Awan. "What did you do to Luna," I asked the old witch. She ran the weird occult store in Hellsfork. And she had been employed by someone—probably the collector—to make a bunch of ghouls and set them loose in town. Now she was out here setting fire to my werewolf?
She cackled. "The wolf here? What I did to her was save her hide. But don't worry. I won't be asking for payment. I just wanted the rabid, flea-bitten pups off my damned property."
I went to Luna and laid a hand on her massive shoulder, sinking my fingers into gold and gray fur that was soft and rough at the same time. "Pups?"
Luna bared her teeth and rumbled a low growl. Jet came to join us, crouching to look into her eyes. "Doggie, are you hurt? We didn't bring any Milk bones. Perhaps you could pretend to be human for a while?"
She snarled even louder, and I rolled my eyes. My familiar was an asshole. Luna refused to shift back to human. She placed herself between me and the witch and kept rumbling. Not loud, just enough to serve as the warning it was.
"Esper!" a silky voice called out and cool magic danced in the air around me, like the caress of ghostly fingers. Just like that, the night was alive with unseen things, ghostly forms that my eyes couldn't quite make out, circling our little group. Watching. Waiting for the word to do…something.
Toma crashed into me, his slender arms wrapping around my waist for a moment before he righted himself and turned to glare at the witch, his bright purple eyes glowing with an eerie inner light, and his back ramrod straight as he went from sweet, worried lover to powerful mage. "Witch," he said, all cold, haughty disdain. "What have you done?"
Drake blurred into sight with vampire speed, standing with one clawed hand mere inches from the witch's throat. "Work one more bit of black magic, hag, and I end you," he growled.
Finally, Luna decided to shift. She shimmered and rippled, then cracked and tore, reforming into a beautiful, curvy woman with hip-length, honey-gold hair and flashing green eyes. "Stand down, vampire," she said firmly. "The witch was helping, not harming."
Drake didn't look at Luna. "I don't follow your orders, alpha."
She huffed and rolled her eyes, then turned to me. "Call off your guard, please, E."
I shook my head. "You are all morons," I muttered. Then I relented. Because frankly, I wanted to go the hell back home if the danger had passed. "Drake. Stop it. You're supposed to be helping old ladies cross the street, not threatening to slit their throats."
He smirked and moved with that inhuman speed again, stopping beside Toma. "If you say so, Red."
I watched the witch. "Thank you for getting rid of the other wolves. I'm sorry my…uh…murder is such a value-sized pack of assholes."
Her sightless eyes stared past me, but one corner of her wrinkled mouth lifted with the hint of a wry smile. "They are doing their job. Otherwise you wouldn't even be here. You'd be locked up in that asshole's basement like the rest." She turned away and disappeared into the shadowy woods.
I shuddered. The black witch still gave me the heebie-jeebies. And I didn't even want to think about why I could sense so many dead animals near her creepy-assed house. I straightened my spine. "Let's get the fuck out of here and go home," I ordered, as if I was in charge of anything. I wish I had that much control over my damned life.
But the idiots did what I said anyway. When we got out to the road, I laughed to find a small moving van and my little rental car parked haphazardly on the side of the road.
"I thought we'd need the space when I got out here and confirmed you and these two idiots hadn't listened to me at all and went rushing off into the woods. Like I knew you would," Drake said with a shrug.
I shoved the vampire in passing. "Shut up."
He reached out to ruffle my tangled orange curls. "Sure, Red."
Then everyone piled into the two vehicles. I turned and sent the animals I'd summoned back to where they'd come from. As we drove away, I released the dark power that had held them. Jet leaned into me, his shoulder against mine as I gave the power that last little shove. It was reluctant to let go, and the sensation caused a spike of anxiety in my chest. Then Jet's own magic twined with mine and I let go of the corpses with ease.
"Thanks," I whispered.
He snaked an arm around my waist and his voice was startlingly kind when he whispered back, "any time, stupid necromancer."
Chapter 2
When we got home, Jazz was still there, sitting on my front steps with a faraway look on her face. She surged to her feet as we headed inside. The others gave her looks ranging from curiosity to outright hostility, but they didn't say anything as they filed inside, leaving me to deal with my confusing ex-bes
tie.
"Everyone's okay, then?" she asked, running a hand through her heavily highlighted hair.
I sighed. "Yeah. For now." I didn't know how to interact with her, what to think. On one hand, she'd lied to me for years and pretended to be my friend with the intention of ratting me out to some stodgy old magic council the minute I did something they'd see as cause for my execution.
On the other hand, she hadn't just washed her hands of me and told the council I was on to their trickery. Then she went and did something like this.
"Thanks," I said slowly.
She swallowed, and I thought I saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. Though, maybe that was just me wishing she felt bad about everything. Wishing she really had been my friend all those years. "I should go," she said awkwardly, backing toward the steps. "I need to figure out what to tell the council. They'll know I came by to check on you. I guess I'll tell them I got here after the fact, or something." Her face was pinched.
I sighed. "What happens to you if they find out you're not telling them everything?"
She closed her eyes in a long blink, opened them, and looked away. "I'm not sure. They were making vague threats against Jarred before, but I broke things off with him so hopefully they'll think I don't care." She shrugged. "They already took my parents away. I guess maybe this time they'll have to resort to threatening me with bodily harm or something."
I stared at her with dawning realization. "You broke up with Jarred because you were scared they'd use him to hurt you?"
She shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but I could see the tension in her. "Nah, you know how I am. Flavor of the week and all."
But now I knew better. Maybe…maybe she never really got close to any one guy for long because she was afraid her employers would be able to use that against her.
"I thought you said your parents weren't your real parents," I said, trying to stop feeling sorry for the little liar. "You said you were in the foster system and they bought you."
