Raines of Fire: The Alexa Raines Chronicles

by Masters, J. L.

  “I used to be,” Felicia said. “Then Edgar took over. He—I don’t know, for most of us Wicca was mostly a social thing. We liked to have these gatherings, drink a bit of mead, relax and feel like we were one with the universe and all. But Edgar changed it—he took it way too seriously, started questioning our loyalty and the strengths of our convictions, demanded that the rituals involve animal blood and ‘real’ spells—it was too much for a lot of people.”

  “You stayed?” Alexa asked while swirling her finger around the glass, all the while gazing at Felicia with so many memories of lost love.

  Felicia grimaced. “My girlfriend was really into it.”

  “Was she—“

  Felicia nodded. The first victim, Marsha Bell, had been found in pieces—an arm here, a leg there. They still haven’t found her head. “I’m sorry,” Alexa said, and she was. Felicia deserved some happiness after the way she’d had to leave.

  Felicia shook her head. “She’d only moved here from New York six months ago. We only really knew each other for a few weeks.”

  “Still,” Alexa said. “You knew her, you liked her, and now she’s gone.”

  Felicia nodded, and took a large gulp of her rum-and-Coke. “I liked her,” she said. “I like a lot of people. I only ever loved you.”

  “Maybe we can have a little time to get to know each other again once this business is over,” Alexa purred, letting her fingers graze the back of Felicia’s hand for a moment. Felicia raised her eyebrows, and managed a wry grin. At the same time, Alexa’s high-heeled shoe reached across the expanse between them, until it finally came to rest on Felicia’s leg. Felicia raised her eyebrows, and managed a wry grin, not exactly able to concentrate with Alexa’s foot caressing her. “All right, so Edgar called me to hunt down whoever’s killing the members of this—coven, I think?”

  Felicia nodded wearily. “Janet Madigan—the girl from this morning—was the third. Louise Bartoli was the second.”

  “Yeah,” Alexa said. She’d gotten that much from the file. Janet was a longstanding member, Louise had only been around for a year. “What were they like?” she asked Felicia. “True-believer types, or more like CEO Catholics?” Felicia could still feel Alexa's foot against her, but now she had dropped the premise of an accidental graze of her leg altogether, relieving herself of her shoe and pressing her nylon covered toes against her.

  “CEO Catholics? Oh—Christmas and Easter only, ha-ha,” Felicia deadpanned. “No, they were pretty committed to the group. I don’t know that they believed, per se. I think even Edgar has to know that there’s no such thing as fairies and magic.”

  “Oh my god, would you please stop that.” She playfully tried to push Alexa’s foot away, but she wasn't really trying all that hard. It had been too long since they had been together, and there was this magnetism that was drawing them towards each other, which neither of them were going to be able to deny to themselves for much longer.

  “You’d be surprised at what people can believe,” Alexa said, while gently running her fingers over the back of Felicia’s hand.

  They sat for a while in silence, getting used to the feeling of having each other close again. Felicia wound her fingers between Alexa’s. Alexa could almost imagine that they were back in Texas, still living in that dingy house, waking up in the night to find her hands between Felicia’s legs, and Felicia already wet. She realized, now, that the main reason it had been so easy to leave her past lovers behind was simply that none of them lived very long compared to her.

  “So it seems that whoever it is targets those who are committed to the coven. Are you safe?” Alexa asked.

  Felicia shook her head. “I—I run some of the fundraisers, and I host a lot of the meetings in my home,” she said. “I don’t know that I believe as much as some of the others do, but I’m fairly involved.”

  “Shit,” Alexa said. “Let me get you a bodyguard then.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard,” Felicia said, grabbing Alexa’s hand before she could pull out her phone. “I don’t want to be in your life again. I refuse to be hurt again!”

  “You’re not in my life again and I will certainly not hurt you. This is strictly professional,” Alexa said, even though it was a blatant and painful lie. They could both feel the sexual chemistry running back and forth between them. “Beside if there’s another victim Edgar will probably fire me from the job.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard,” Felicia said again, with a finality that stopped Alexa from protesting further. I don’t need anything from you—that was what Alexa heard, and to her surprise, it hurt her.

  “Do you know where the—Janet Madigan lived?” Alexa asked, swallowing the hurt. She could deal with it later. Or not at all.

  “Yeah,” Felicia said. “You want to go there?”

  Alexa nodded. “There might be a clue in her place that could help us,” she said.

  Felicia stood up. “Well, come on, let’s go. Sitting around here isn’t going to help you nail the bastard.” Breaking the physical contact between them was the only way that Felicia knew how to distance herself from Alexa. Any more of this teasing and there was no doubt in her mind that they would throw caution to the wind and fling themselves into the same physical relationship from where they left off. She could already feel that Alexa wanted her, and she was damned if she would feel the same thing, as if they hadn't been apart at all.

  Alexa stood up and paid for their drinks. She was still reeling a bit from so much desire. It screwed with her head and made for bad decisions. She couldn’t afford to be off her game. But damned if she’d give up Felicia again.

  Chapter Nine

  In Janet’s small house, there was nothing to suggest that she was anything other than an ordinary, young woman. Her rosary beads lay in her jewelry box, on top of a well-worn Bible that was full of pencil markings and little tabs of paper that marked her favorite passages. Her closet had nice clothes, the bathroom was scented with a little bag of potpourri that dangled from the towel rack. Today’s mail—a pay stub from her employer the electric company—and the neat spreadsheet that detailed her budget indicated nothing that so much as suggested a Wicca devotee. She ate bran cereal for breakfast in the mornings, pre-packaged diet meals at night and apparently she had a fixation for microwave popcorn.

  It wasn’t until they looked under the bed that they found the clothes she wore to all of their Wicca gatherings—the long black dress and button-up, antique boots. Her pentagram, her makeup, the sage and patchouli that Felicia associated with Janet were all contained in a box under the bed. “It’s so weird,” Felicia said. “It’s like she was two different people.”

  “You think maybe Louise was the same way?” Alexa asked. She picked up the dress, and held it against her body. It was layers and layers of black lace, very ornate, and something that Alexa remembered wearing when she was in Crimea back around 1921.

  “I knew Louise a bit better,” Felicia said. “She kept it apart, but only because she shared custody of her kids and she didn’t want to do anything that would give the judge reason to side with her ex.”

  “And what about your girlfriend, Marsha Bell?”

  Felicia looked at Alexa, her eyes getting larger. “What’re you saying?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  “That whoever’s doing this picks people who are dedicated Wiccans, but don’t appear that way. Maybe he’s upset at their hypocrisy or something—“

  “It can’t be Edgar!”

  “In my line of work, when someone says it can’t be, that’s usually a sure sign that it is.”

  But Felicia shook her head in refusal. “He brought you in—“

  “Sometimes they do,” Alexa said. “They think nobody will ever suspect them.”

  “Do you have proof?” Felicia demanded.

  “Not yet,” Alexa admitted. “Here, why don’t you ask the neighbors if they saw someone hanging around here? I’ll finish up here and be out in a jiff.”

  In reality, A
lexa wanted some privacy for a little magical investigating. She took off her boots—all she needed was a speck of the victim’s blood—and scraped some of the dried blood off of her boots. Then she touched the blood to Janet’s bathroom mirror, and formed the words she only half-remembered, drawing in all of the memories of Janet that the house contained. It wasn’t very often she resorted to magic—more often than not it was a process fraught with failed spells and terrible consequences—but scrying was simple enough, and if she needed an answer quickly, there was nothing that could beat it. The limitations, though—a drop of the person’s blood, the use of their own mirror, the memories that surrounded them—normally made it impractical.

  But this time, it worked—Alexa saw, from Janet’s point of view, a vision of a dark chamber, a single, small window letting in bright sun. On the floor, a butcher’s knife. In front of her—the victim’s face, being held by a bloody hand. Alexa forced herself to maintain her focus, to try and see if there were any clues as to where Janet had been a captive. She was tied down, spread-eagle, stark naked, and now the man—the face was hidden under a deep hood—picked up the knife and sliced off a sliver of her abdominal skin. Alexa forced her eyes away from the knife as it moved to cut deeper into the woman’s flesh—the floor was dirt, the walls were brick—the man was cutting deeper now, and brought it closer—

  “Oh my God!”

  Felicia had come back much sooner than expected, and the look of horror in her eyes told Alexa that she’d seen everything.

  “What the hell are you?” Felicia demanded. Alexa fumbled for an answer, but there was nothing she could say that would make sense to Felicia. Not that it mattered. Felicia ran from the house. Alexa followed, if only to keep her safe.

  Chapter Ten

  In retrospect, the text she received from Andie—“No sign of Edgar”—should have aroused Alexa’s suspicions. But in following Felicia—at a distance, of course, no use to aggravate her into trying to lose her—Alexa’s renowned focus was distracted so she only sent Andie another message, “BG check, standard.” Meaning to do the standard background check, basically break into Edgar’s office, go through his trash, snoop around his house, see what there was to this guy—Andie’s specialty was breaking and entering, burglary, and world class disguises. Andie could quite literally become invisible if she wanted to, and there was nobody she couldn’t find.

  But Felicia’s life was on the line here—and, Alexa had to admit to herself, her hopes for reconciliation with her long-lost lover. She followed Felicia home, trying to figure out what to say to her that wouldn’t sound corny or stupid. It was a new sensation for her—she’d always been the one in control, the one who didn’t give a crap about whether the other person was in love with her or not. There might have been a lover or two in her distant past whom she had felt like this about, but they were rare enough that Alexa couldn’t remember what she had done, or what she should have done, with them.

  Felicia lived in a small apartment, in a spreading development of some twenty-odd stout, two-story buildings that all looked alike. Alexa managed to jimmy the lock on the outer door. Inside, there was only one life signature that stuck out—it helped that there was nobody else in the near vicinity, except for a few cats in the other apartments. Alexa took a deep breath, and knocked on the interior entrance door.

  And waited. And waited some more.

  “Look, Felicia, I’m sorry you had to see that,” Alexa said, finally. “I’m sorry that I never told you about my unique gifts. I just wanted to protect you. There’s a lot of shit I’ve done that I’m not proud of and never told you about because I didn’t think you wanted to know. It was always my intention to protect you. But if you want to know—if you really want to know, I’ll tell you everything. That I remember, anyway.”

  There was no answer. But after a moment, she heard the lock click, and Felicia opened the door. She had not, much to Alexa’s relief, been crying. “Come in,” she said, her face a wooden, unreadable mask. Her emotions, though, were a roiling mess—anger, confusion, hate, love.

  “Can I offer you anything?” Felicia asked.

  “Are you really going to get me anything?” Alexa said.

  “That depends. What did I see back there?”

  Alexa sighed. “It’s something called ‘scrying’. You see what the victim sees, if they’re still alive. You see what the victim saw, if they’re dead.”

  Felicia turned pale, and looked queasy. “Oh God,” she murmured. It was clear that she was remembering Janet’s body, turning the ground around it into mud soup.

  Alexa nodded. “Anything else you want to know?”

  Felicia shook her head. She went to the kitchen, and came back with a glass of water. Alexa took it and downed it in one long gulp. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Did she really—was that—I mean, what happened to her—“

  Alexa nodded again. “I sent you away because I didn’t want you to see. There’re a lot of sick fuckers out there, Felicia. You really should let me get Andie to protect you.”

  “Who’s Andie?”

  The jealousy in Felicia’s voice was unmistakable. Alexa stifled a groan as she realized that she’d just made things a lot more complicated. “She’s my cat burglar,” she said, watching the micro-emotions twitch across Felicia’s face as she said so. At the words “she’s my cat burglar” Felicia scowled, and then anger crossed her face. Alexa found herself at odds again, trying to explain her business setup, and only making things worse. “I hire these women to do things for me,” she said, “but not like that—“

  “Lexie. Please. You’ve moved on. Let me do the same.”

  It wasn't that easy to do, and neither of them could take their eyes off of each other. Alexa felt like she was back home, and Felicia felt like she had finally found that missing piece of the puzzle that made up her life. Made her whole. Ever since Alexa ‘died’, a huge part of Felicia had died with her, and now that her long lost lover was amongst the living again, that part that died was coming back to life and her heart was beginning to beat once again.

  Resolve. She wanted to mean it. “You wouldn’t call me my pet name of ‘Lexie’ if you really meant that,” Alexa said. “Look, if you won’t believe that I care for you—“

  “I do, Lexie. I do believe you care for me. I’m just not sure that I can care about you anymore. And I can’t accept--“

  “Me saving your life?” Alexa said. She snorted. “I get that you’re mad at me. But for fuck’s sake, don’t be an idiot.”

  “All right. Please leave then...”

  Alexa crossed the distance separating them and cut Felicia off in mid-sentence by sealing their lips together, pulling Felicia’s body into a warm embrace, feeling both of their nipples poke against the others through the fabric of their clothing. In a mad frenzy of desire, they began to tear each other's clothes off without even caring if they tore the fabric. Nothing mattered, except this burning desire that had built between them from the moment that they first laid eyes on each other again.

  “It’s been so long, and I have missed you dearly.” Alexa felt this raw emotion, and was now peeling off each individual piece of clothing, until finally they were both standing in front of each other as naked as the day they were born. Alexa grazed her fingertips down over Felicia’s body, coming to a stop between her legs, where the most heat was emanating from. Her hand touched the spot that she hadn't had the pleasure of feeling in years, and it was so natural that it didn't take all that much for her to want even more.

  “Felicia, let me make love to you like those days before all this happened, and I’ll show you that my feelings haven’t changed for you in all this time.” She didn't want to force anything on the love of her life, but the hunger was overtaking her, and all of the feelings were coming together for an explosive finale.

  “Your skin is like velvet.” She said with a forcefulness that made Felicia’s legs tremble with anticipation.

  “I just don't want to be hurt
again, and if we do this, you have to promise that you won't leave me like that again.” Alexa wasn't sure how she was going to promise such a thing, especially considering the type of person that she was, and the very real possibility that those around her had a tendency to get hurt.

  “I promise that you will never feel pain from anything that I do again.” Even though Felicia wasn't sure if she could believe her, it didn't stop her from putting pressure on Alexa's shoulders, watching as she moved down until finally her lips were so near where she wanted them.

  Lifting her easily into the air, Alexa stood on her feet, standing with Felicia’s legs draped over her shoulders. It was an odd sensation to say the least, and Felicia had to reach out for the wall behind her, to keep from tumbling onto the floor. This was a new side of Alexa, and Felicia was finding that even though Alexa had more tricks up your sleeve sexually, it only meant that she was now putty in her hands. “Ohhhh, my god.” Those words escaped Felicia’s lips, causing her entire body to shake, as Alexa was now moving her tongue back and forth, pushing her tongue deep inside her, making those same legs over her shoulder wrap around until Felicia's ankles locked together.

  Alexa could easily stay in that position forever, but she suddenly reached around and grabbed Felicia's ass, pulling her over her shoulder and leading her into the bedroom. Lying her down on the cool crisp sheets, she came after her with her eyes indicating what she was going to do. The wild animal inside her had taken over, and Felicia was now her prey and ready to be devoured. Felicia had seen that look in her eye before, and knew from personal experience that when Alexa got this way, it was best just to lay back and enjoy the ride.

  “I am going to eat you, and you are going to spray your juices all over my face like you have done every other time. Your body is mine for the taking. She said it with an intensity in her eyes that burned a hole into Felicia's very soul. Felicia couldn't stop her now even if she wanted to, and Alexa was reveling in opening her up, seeing an old friend that she needed to get reacquainted with. “God, I’d almost forgotten just how delicious you are, and just how addictive your sexual energy is to me.” Alexa was eyeing her, drinking in every single curve, committed to bringing an old lover to the pinnacle of ecstasy.