Whiskey Storm (Whiskey Witches Midnight Rising Book 1)

by F. J. Blooding

  The ground rose and fire shot skyward, hotter than any fire she’d ever felt in her life. It speared straight into the quickly darkening sky.

  Clouds rolled in as an unnaturally fast and massive storm built overhead, the roiling underbelly of the clouds dark and green.

  Super Douche’s eyes widened as he stared skyward.

  Paige could feel the flow of energy running through her, wild and unchecked. This was her.

  Somehow.

  She had a flicker of thought of watching Super Douche dance in lightning but pulled it back.

  The sky lit electricity, the ground ripping with the impact.

  Super Douche pulled a rod from his vest and lightning deflected around him like a human Tesla coil.

  She had him, though. She didn’t know how. She just had him.

  She advanced, calling the lightning, feeling it resonate from the ground and meet in the air. It lanced the entire intersection, catching several of the DoDO agents.

  One of them signaled a retreat. Magick doors of white light flashed open, and they disappeared.

  Paige wanted to get to Super Douche, but she also wanted to let him live to tell the tale.

  A part of her wanted to capture him and get information out of him.

  A bolt of lightning launched from her hand and sizzled the air as it raced toward him.

  He caught it in his hand, his expression dark.

  The ball of lightning coiled around his arm like an adder. It didn’t hurt, didn’t harm him.

  And then she knew why.

  He sent his own magick toward her. Mage energy, mage magick.

  And it was…

  It was like hearing the Lady Mother, speaking to her when she called fire. But louder. With words and feelings and thought.

  She let it fill her, reeling in the deeper connection to Lady Earth. Paige’d always been fearfully respectful of her fire. She’d never truly called fire like everyone else did. She’d always pulled it from the bowels of the earth. It had a different voice, a different feel. It was wilder and tamed at the same time. It was forceful and quiet.

  Super Douche’s eyes widened as he realized his mistake.

  A moment before he burst into flames. The agony roaring from the flames lasted only as long as it took for a single breath to leave Super Douche’s lungs.

  Not enough, and too good a death for him.

  Damn.

  “Mom,” Leah said carefully beside her. “Let’s go home.”

  Paige released her magick, wondering what in the hell had just happened there.

  And wondering if she was going to regret the fact that it had been captured on video—live video. Had she just given the president the ammunition she needed to take this war and make it public?

  Paige took her daughter’s hand and walked through the door.

  She stepped onto a full and bustling Main Street, her ears ringing with the quiet, knowing the street was loud with everyone talking. There simply weren’t the sounds of battle.

  Paige needed to figure out what was going on with her powers. Now. Before things got worse.

  And she got out of control.

  20

  The only problem with Paige learning to control her powers was that she had no idea where to even start. What was going on, and who would know?

  Alma would. She had seemed to know a lot more than she ever said. But Paige didn’t have access to Alma anymore.

  She decided to go to Elder Yad.

  Well, no. She called and asked if he’d come to her because Nick had a meeting with a client and Mark was working on a court case. Just because they were locked down in Troutdale didn’t mean they weren’t working. They couldn’t get paid, but they were still doing their jobs defending people. She’d ask them how, but her plate was filled with too much information, so their answer wasn’t retained in her memory. They were doing well and didn’t need her help. That’s what she remembered, and, at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.

  When she got home, though, she was greeted by a surprise.

  Bobby.

  He had grown nearly a foot since the last time she’d seen him. Like… since that morning. Yes, he’d been complaining about things hurting and stuff, which was kinda normal. Bones hurt when they grew. That was something she’d learned with Leah. She’d always known when that kid was headed toward a growth spurt. She’d eat them out of house and home—or cookies. That was all she was after, really—and then she’d complain that her left leg hurt. And then she’d be an inch taller in one day.

  Not like this though.

  He ran around naked because none of his clothes fit him anymore and he was “done” with diapers because he was a big kid now. He had dumped the trash on the floor to use the trashcan as a stool so he could pee on the floor while aiming at the toilet.

  He was such a big boy!

  No, really. She was quite proud of him for trying, but she was going to have to help him with his aim. If she’d taught a little girl how to wipe her hoohah separate from her butt, she could teach a little boy how to aim his pee-pee.

  On one hand, she was glad that, while the world was falling down around her, she was dealing with pee pees and lost socks.

  But on the other hand…

  What the hell was wrong with her son?

  She called Roxxie, the local angel guardian, but she didn’t pop in like she normally did. Instead, there was the sound of a car door closing and Roxxie walked through the front door, looking a little more fragile than normal.

  Paige really hadn’t talked to her since Roxxie’d helped the angels kidnap her while she’d been pregnant with the twins. She’d felt as though Roxxie had broken her trust. Roxxie had eventually freed her from Heaven, but that trust had never quite been rebuilt. Roxxie’d worked with Dexx since then, and she’d had a place in the battle against Sven, but…

  Paige hadn’t realized just how bad off Roxxie was now that the gate to Heaven was further away. Angels pulled power from Heaven in much the same way Superman pulled energy from the sun. If it was a cloudy day, he had a harder time healing from Kryptonite. Same with the angels, and Roxxie’d had a lot of cloudy days with the Heaven gate moved away.

  Paige had known that but seeing the results and knowing were two different things.

  “Hey,” she said, letting her newly awakened realization hit her tone. Well, she hoped so, anyway. She needed to work on building more bridges. Not destroying them all.

  Roxxie acknowledged it with a half-smile and a sigh as she closed the door behind her. Her blonde hair was pulled into a serviceable braid, which wasn’t normal for her. And the angel wore jeans and a T-shirt. Also not normal. “What’s wrong with Bobby?”

  Paige vaguely remembered when they’d had a slightly different relationship. Roxxie had been a helper in the fight against demons, but Paige was realizing now that she’d used the angel.

  What a wonderful human being she was. “Tea? Coffee?”

  “Coffee.” Roxxie frowned as she followed Paige to the back. “Is there something wrong with Bobby?”

  “Maybe. But I’ve been taking you for granted, and I don’t know how to fix that. So, let me get you coffee and then I’ll hit you with what’s potentially wrong with my son.” Paige revved up the coffee maker and flashed a cup of pre-packaged grounds at Roxxie.

  “That would be excellent, thanks.” The angel leaned against the counter as the coffee maker started dribbling coffee.

  “What are you up to these days?”

  “I have an apartment down by the good grocery store.” She smiled at Paige with good humor. “I have a job too. I don’t know if I’ll keep that, though. Fuel may be an issue soon.”

  Oh, crap. Right. Gas. She hoped Suzanne was on top of that because Paige had no idea what to do if the gas wasn’t flowing.

  How many horses did they have in Troutdale? They might be going back to horse and buggy. Maybe Eldora had been on to something there.

  Paige also discovered that Roxxie liked a
little coffee with her milk and sugar. A lot like Dexx.

  “As much as I appreciate this,” Roxxie said, putting her empty cup on the counter, “what’s the problem?”

  Paige made a mental note to be less of an asshole later and called for Bobby.

  He came screaming down the stairs and hurled himself into Roxxie’s arms.

  She caught him and staggered backward in surprise. She looked over at Paige in shock and then back at Bobby.

  It was more than just the fact that he was taller. His speech was better too. He was talking in full and complete—okay, mostly complete sentences. He was still a full-blooded American taught by a large group of people who spoke in broken sentences. So, his grammar wasn’t that good. But it was better than it should be for his age.

  “Should I be concerned?”

  Roxxie just studied him with color-shifting wide eyes.

  “I’m gonna play now,” Bobby said, pointing at Roxxie and winking with both eyes. That was a total Dexx move. “’Kay?”

  Paige nodded, still not sure what to do. “’Kay. Don’t die.”

  “You too,” he said as he ran out the back door in nothing but Superman underwear.

  Paige took in a deep breath and turned to Roxxie. “Is this related to the gate?”

  The angel looked away finally, her mouth still agape. “Perhaps, but he seems fine.”

  “Okay. Well.” Good. “That was the main concern.” Because she needed one more thing to be worried about.

  That was sarcasm. She really didn’t.

  “I can…” Roxxie cut herself off and shook her head.

  Paige bit her lip, realizing that Roxxie had been about to offer her help. That was just what Roxxie did. It was who she was, and it was high time Paige remembered that. “Only if you want to. ‘Kay?” She said that last word, mocking Bobby.

  Roxxie nodded, with a ghost of a chuckle. “Does this mean you forgive me?”

  “It means I’m finally pulling my head out of my ass.” Because life was forcing her to, and she no longer had the leisure to be mad at allies. “You were doing what you thought was right. You didn’t think I’d be in any real danger. And I need to stop being mad at you for being you. Just you being you is what saved my ass more than a few times.”

  Roxxie raised her chin and blinked quickly, diverting her gaze. Finally, she licked her lips and moved to follow Bobby. “I’ll find him some clothes. What are you doing?”

  “Trying to figure out what’s wrong with my magick.”

  “What do you mean?” Roxxie stopped and frowned at her.

  Paige took in a deep breath and shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. But I’ve got access to more power, power that’s… it’s really big.”

  “More than you already had?” Roxxie asked incredulously.

  Kinda what Paige had been thinking. “It’s like it’s always been there, but… I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m afraid I’m becoming exactly what the president is fighting so hard to protect people from.”

  Roxxie turned away from her but then turned back, studying her with the angel eyes which was the only way Paige could even describe it. “You don’t seem wrong.”

  “That’s something, right?” She hoped so. “But then, I have to meet with a bunch of people to see how bad I fucked up this situation with the president. To see how people are responding to how I handled the situation in Lawrence.”

  “Huh?”

  Paige filled Roxxie in as quickly as she could.

  “Oh. Well.” Roxxie rinsed out her cup and stashed it in the dishwasher. “I’ll see what I can find out about Bobby.”

  “Thank you,” Paige said with real relief.

  The front door opened and Elder Yad walked in, Merry Eastwood hot on his heels.

  Paige had to go through the entire story again, from the elven city to what had happened in Lawrence, Kansas and her concerns that she was getting too powerful. She also wanted to know what the blowback was from the video that had been taken in Lawrence.

  “Well, that,” Merry said with a snarl, “is actually taken care of thanks to the president, I believe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It means that all of our communication has been stopped.”

  “What?” No. That was bad. That was really, really bad.

  Merry nodded. “None of us have access to social media or the internet or the news. Our phones are now dead.”

  Paige pulled out her phone. It said she had no signal.

  Merry closed her lips, clasping her hands in her lap. “Electricity will go next. Water will follow. The blockade was nice while it lasted, but the president is quite serious.”

  “How much of what she did got out? Did anyone see?”

  Merry nodded. “People saw quite a bit of it, but all the videos are being taken down. The posts we’ve all been sharing are being deleted. The news is being erased.”

  That couldn’t happen. If they went that far, then…

  If people weren’t reminded of this, of the atrocities that were happening—

  Would they care? Even with the reminders?

  Some would.

  But would enough of them?

  It was time for Paige to face reality. There wasn’t going to be a peaceful situation that would come from any of this. The president didn’t want one. She was doing everything in her power to lie to the public. She was abducting families and killing them when they tried to flee or defend themselves.

  She wasn’t protecting the American people anymore.

  But, at least, Paige didn’t have to worry about the fallout from people seeing she might be the monster the president claimed they all were.

  She just needed to figure out what kind of monster she was becoming.

  Elder Yad brought out two ancient books.

  Paige groaned. Not more ancient books.

  He tapped one of them. “These might help.”

  Paige was really over books in dead languages that would give her the answers to the universe if she just had a year’s worth of downtime to read them. “Cliff notes?”

  Elder Yad shrugged with a smile. “No one’s been able to read them.”

  So, they were paper weights. “I’m really glad you brought them over, then. This lamp’s been a little low. I can use them to raise it up.”

  Merry gave her a dry look and pulled one of the books toward her, opening it. “There’s a spell.”

  “But he just said that—”

  “It’s a spell that gives a person the ability to read it,” Elder Yad said carefully. “We haven’t had anyone who needed the information who could also use it.”

  “And you believe that’s me?”

  “I do,” Merry said firmly.

  Elder Yad gave her a frumpled look that said he didn’t.

  Merry closed the book on her lap with a loud thump and looked at Paige hard. “There’s a reason we’ve been trying to hone our three bloodlines.”

  Which was the reason Paige had married her step-brother unknowingly, so Leah could be produced, an heir of all three covens. When she’d discovered that, she’d felt a little like Leia Skywalker after kissing Luke even though Paige and Mark-the-Leah-Daddy didn’t share any blood relations.

  But the family trees really did wind around each other a little too close for comfort. “And what reason is that?”

  Merry bowed her head for a moment and looked her in the eye. “Back before the old witch families departed the old world, there were two different types of magick: wild magick of the witches and the war magick of the mages. Wild magick came from the elements. War magick came from earth’s veins, the ley lines.”

  Paige was following so far.

  “But as the families intermarried, those magicks became tainted and blended. Then, a witch was born with the ability to tap into the ley lines. She called her abilities life magick.”

  Had Alma known this? She’d kept a lot to herself. Paige loved the old woman deeply, but damn. She could have shared more.

&
nbsp; “But shortly after she rose to her power,” Merry continued, “she and the other witch families were pushed out of the old world and into the new. That one witch created the divided family we now had: the Whiskeys, Eastwoods, and Blackmans. Life magick, blood magick, and door magick.”

  They all shared the same, singular ancestor? “Fuck me.” Why did she have to be related to Merry Eastwood?

  Merry raised a brow. “You’re the closest we’ve been able to come to having a witch who could tap into the same magick as the mages.” Merry shook her head with a dry expression on her face. “You’re our only real defense against DoDO.”

  Paige just stared at her for a long, withering moment.

  Merry handed her the book. “If you don’t believe me, open the book.” She handed Paige a piece of paper with an incantation and her blood knife. “I want the knife back.”

  Paige muttered the spell Merry gave her, pricking her finger to bleed on the first page.

  Nothing happened at first. Just as relief crept in it, was dashed as the scribbles turned to words.

  A chill swept down Paige’s spine. “No,” she whispered. “This is too much.”

  Elder Yad set his book down on the table beside her, frowning at the book in Paige’s hand. “Be that as it may, it is what it is. And you can either choose to wail about it or stand up to the tide.”

  Paige just stared up at him like he was a crazy person. What the hell did that even mean? Like she would stand around and wail.

  For longer than fifteen minutes. Every once in a while, that’s exactly what the situation called for. Wailing.

  In private.

  In the shower.

  Where no one could hear her or see her cry.

  The front door slammed open and Leah stumbled through. “Mom,” she said, collapsing onto the green couch. “They have the Blackmans.”

  “What do you mean?” They who? How? When?

  Leah took in a deep breath. “DoDO. They came and grabbed the Blackmans.” She swallowed, her blue eyes wide. “They’re gone.”