by Kal Aaron
Southwest Truths
Semiautomatic Sorceress™ Book 3
Kal Aaron
Michael Anderle
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2021 LMBPN Publishing
Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design
http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected]
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
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Las Vegas, NV 89109
First edition, April 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-1-64971-664-4
Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-665-1
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Author Notes - Kal Arron
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Connect with The Authors
About Kal Aaron
Books By Kal Aaron
Books By Michael Anderle
The Southwest Truths Team
Thanks to our Beta Team:
John Ashmore, Larry Omans, Kelly O’Donnell
JIT Readers
Dave Hicks
Wendy L Bonell
Diane L. Smith
Jeff Goode
Deb Mader
Zacc Pelter
Angel LaVey
Paul Westman
Editor
Skyhunter Editing Team
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all my past English teachers. Thank you for cultivating my love of creative writing.
— Kal
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
to Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
to Live the Life We Are
Called.
— Michael
Chapter One
The round clamped in the rune-covered vise vaporized in a bright flash in front of Lyssa, leaving a dense cloud of acrid smoke. Her eyes watered and she coughed, then backed away from the workbench, trying to wave the unpleasantness out of her face.
Her regalia mask wasn’t helping. It was annoying to be required to wear it for maximum power during the enchantment ritual, but she needed something more mundane and industrial-strength for the situation. After all these years, she kept convincing herself that sort of mistake wouldn’t happen during a ritual.
Serafina giggled and clapped behind Lyssa. There was something absurd about the woman doing it in her Imperfect Smith regalia with its dark heavy apron, thick gloves, and mask that was the twisted child of a welding visor and something used to imprison kings in medieval dungeons.
“I told you to be careful,” she said. “You didn’t have it under control. You said you had it under control, but it had you under control. Totally. Completely. Of all the things that have had—”
“I get it,” Lyssa interrupted, waving her hand. “We don’t need to spend the next ten years discussing this, and I was careful. That wasn’t my fault.”
The bullet was mocking her. That had to be it. A spirit possessed the round and was determined to humiliate her as a sick form of entertainment. Spirits probably did that sort of thing all the time and no one knew about it, not even Sorcerers and Sorceresses.
Or she’d not been careful enough because she was in a hurry. But that was too straightforward an answer, and it had the annoying side effect of placing all the blame on her.
Lyssa glanced at the rack. It contained three more sigil-etched rounds. Dark, intricate whorls covered the shells’ casings, each the product of hours of painstaking sorcery-infused ritual etching by both Sorceresses. The loss of the round caused most of their day to be wasted, yet Serafina acted like it was a big joke.
After taking a deep breath, Lyssa pulled another round from the rack and stared at it. Unlike her other enchanted rounds, which sat in boxes in a vault at home waiting to be loaded into magazines, she never had more than a handful of showstoppers, typically not more than six, and generally not more than three on her person.
The expense in time, materials, and effort made stockpiling the rounds less than practical, though some of the limitations were self-imposed. The fewer she had, the less she was tempted to use them for common problems.
Lyssa typically didn’t see the enchanted rounds after loading her magazine. That meant each new preparation session made the sigils feel fresh.
Lyssa secured the new round in the vise and cupped her hands around it. She began chanting in Phrygian and visualizing complex sigils. Shadowy strands appeared, passing through and around the object, and the sigils glowed a dark purple. It was a promising beginning.
“It’s good to have more options,” Jofi said. He was secure in his guns, which were both in their holsters. She ignored him and continued her spell. “I was concerned you wouldn’t replenish the ones you expended fighting the monster near the mine. It’s been some time.”
Lyssa knew exactly how long it had been. Jofi had mentioned it several times since the Cochise County incident. She’d kept putting him off about getting new showstoppers and chose to ignore him that time as well. She needed to concentrate on the spell.
The seconds fed into long minutes. Her melodic chanting strained her voice. Sweat covered her forehead. The purple glow grew into an impenetrable opaque cloud surrounding the round and she stepped away, wiping her forehead with her sleeve, her breathing ragged.
Serafina pumped her fist. “There you go! We’ll let that one cool off. Just a few more, then we can let them stabilize, and I’ll begin my end tomorrow.” She motioned at a magazine on the other end of the table. “That’ll take care of what you recently used until I get the others finished. First, though, bad idea to let too much charged material sit around.” She put her fingers in her mouth and let out a sharp whistle. “Cleanup on aisle one.”
A tiny construct in the form of an eyeless silver doll shinnied up the leg of the worktable with a tiny broom and dustpan hanging from its neck by a string. The doll hopped onto the table, hurried over to the vise, and began sweeping up the dark residue from Lyssa’s earlier failure.
“I still don’t like those things,” the Torch said, eying the doll. “They cre
ep me out.”
“Oh.” Serafina laughed and flicked her wrist at Lyssa. “Just because one giant doll tried to bash your face in isn’t any reason to get all uptight about the others.”
“That big doll tried to kill you, too,” Lyssa muttered.
“But I didn’t die. Why complain about not dying? That’s the best thing that can happen to someone after someone or something tries to kill them.” Serafina clapped her gloved hands with a grin. “But seriously! I love you like a sister, Lys, and I want to help you kill bad guys, but the showstoppers take so much out of both of us. You’ve gone through a lot lately, and now you’re wanting more than you normally keep around.”
Lyssa didn’t expect Jofi to interject a comment, despite Serafina not being able to hear him. Whatever interest he had in praising the destructive round was outweighed by his worry that Serafina would get her hands on him to experiment.
Lyssa shrugged. “It’s not like I’m trying to go through them. I never thought I’d have to fight a rogue with a stupid shard shield, and I didn’t anticipate having to take down a huge-ass sorcery-created terror monster not long after. It’s like it’s been raining trouble on me.”
“You’re a Torch,” Serafina replied. “Trouble is what you do.”
“Yeah, random terrorists or out-of-control gangsters are one thing,” Lyssa said, “but I’ve faced some of the top challenges in my career back to back since moving to Arizona. It makes a girl paranoid.”
Serafina cocked her head to the side and put her finger on her cheek. “You say that, but sometimes I think, ‘Oh, if I was Lys, it’d be so weird because people would always be trying to kill me, and then it’d be boom, boom, boom, take that. But I’d get surprised because some rogue with a butter essence would show up and drown me in a pool of butter like I’m a lobster.’ But then I wonder what kind of spells I could pull off if I was Torch with a butter—”
Lyssa threw up her hand. “Serafina, let’s stay on this planet with normal Sorceresses and no butter essences. There’s been no butter essence in the history of the Illuminated Society.”
“Are you sure?” Jofi asked.
“Quiet, you,” Lyssa whispered.
Serafina stared at Lyssa with a serious expression. “How do you know there hasn’t been one? Maybe it was common back in Lemuria. Seasoning essence. Condiment essence. Spice essence.”
Just what she needed—Serafina and Jofi agreeing on something ridiculous.
“Okay.” Lyssa shrugged. “You got me. No one has had a butter essence since the fall of Lemuria, then. Back then, it was all butter and spice essences, just like you said. That’s probably what caused the fall. Someone mixed the wrong spice spells with a butter spell, and the entire place sank after an explosion of thyme.”
“I’m just saying, a butter essence could be dangerous and useful, and not just when eating lobster.” Serafina headed over to the table and squatted until she was at eye level with the clamped round. “But not as dangerous as this, and you can’t use this when eating lobster. Disappointing.”
Lyssa grabbed a water bottle from a cart and gulped down some refreshment. “I’d almost rather fight someone than do these spells, but I need more showstoppers. With my luck, being without them isn’t a risk I can take. If I hadn’t used three in a row on that monster, it could have wrecked a town. There’s no way the National Guard would have gotten there in time to stop it.”
“I’ve been trying to think of ways to minimize the strain for years,” Serafina said, straightening back up to her full height, which still put her a good head below Lyssa. “But there’s only so much I can do. They rely so heavily on your essence.” Her gaze went to Lyssa’s holsters, and a grin built on her face. “And your link to Jofi.”
“Change the subject,” Jofi said. “Don’t give her any ideas.”
Serafina scurried toward Lyssa so quickly the Torch jumped back. She almost went for her gun before reminding herself where she was. She dropped her hand as her friend stared at the pistols.
“You know this is kind of messed up,” Serafina said with a mischievous grin.
“Messed up how?” Lyssa asked.
Serafina gestured at the guns. “This only works because of him. We were never able to get it to work when you first thought up the idea, before Jofi. I don’t have that problem with any of the other rounds. They’ll work for any Illuminated. All they need is a tiny bit of sorcery to prime the enchantment. I could probably rig something to make them true shards without much trouble.”
Lyssa nodded. “No one’s going to deny there are advantages to having a gun spirit helping you out. What can I say? I’m not a spirit expert.”
Serafina lifted her mask and stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, eyes narrowed in curiosity. “That’s the thing,” she murmured. “It’s always kind of bothered me. I don’t get how a gun spirit helps a darkness spell work so well. There’s something I’m missing. I’m trying to understand so I can do more and help more, but I just don’t get it.”
Lyssa’s heart rate kicked up. She’d gone for years without Serafina getting close to the truth about Jofi. While he hadn’t demonstrated more strange behavior after the showdown outside the mine, she couldn’t ignore the possibility that the seal was weakening. Chatting about it in Serafina’s workshop wasn’t going to help.
“The showstoppers work, and that’s all I care about.” Lyssa shrugged. “I’m sure the true secret was lost along with butter essences after the Great Thyme War, but as long as I can take down people and monsters with them, that’s enough for me. It’d be great if we didn’t have to go through this agonizing, lengthy process to make them.”
“Agreed,” Serafina replied in a singsong voice. “I’ve thought a lot about sorcerous energy and how it’s passed through my dolls. I was thinking it might give me some insight into how we can prepare things more efficiently.”
“Did you come up with anything?”
“Oh. Well. Yes. It’d work, but with a few side effects.” Serafina furrowed her brow and nodded at the cleaning doll. “Like, it’d probably shred your soul. Probably?” She laughed. “Of course, it’s far more likely that it’d just kill you, but at least your soul wouldn’t be toast. Maybe.”
The cleaning doll finished its sweeping. It hung its tiny broom around its neck before charging off the table and jumping to the floor with a soft plink.
Lyssa scrubbed a hand down her face. “I’d rather not die in the process of making my ammo. It kind of defeats the whole purpose.”
“Exactly.” Serafina shook a finger. “That’s what I was thinking, too. So, work in progress. I’m trying, Lys. I’m trying, I am.”
Lyssa sighed. “It’s fine, Serafina. If I keep getting into these kinds of situations, I’ll just have to figure something out. It’d be nice to have an ultimate attack that doesn’t drain the hell out of me and doesn’t risk my life when I use it, but life’s not always fair. If it were, I wouldn’t have a job, and the Shadows wouldn’t have cops or soldiers.”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “I should have come here and done this a while back, but I’ve been so busy with minor jobs on and off lately. November flew by in no time, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t leaving a mess behind when Samuel finishes convincing them to let me go to Last Remnant.”
Serafina shivered. “That place gives me the creeps. I’ve only been there when I bonded the Imperfect Smith. I think the Illuminated are better off away from it.”
“Probably,” Lyssa replied. “It’s too detached from the rest of the world. After a while, they’re going to end up forgetting Earth doesn’t revolve around Last Remnant, if they haven’t already. Honestly, I’d rather not go there, but I need to check on my brother’s regalia.”
She had shared her evidence about Chris surviving past his reported death with Serafina, along with her suspicions about the timing of the message informing her of the return of his regalia to the Vault of Dreams. Serafina had been polite about it and didn’t deny somethi
ng strange might have happened, but she also didn’t seem to believe Chris was alive any more than Tricia and Samuel did.
Serafina’s gaze dipped, and she sighed. “Lys, what are you going to do if you find the regalia there?”
“I don’t know, but I’m trying to be open-minded about it.” Lyssa shrugged. “If I accept it, at least then I’ll know. I’ve been telling myself it’s all a conspiracy. Maybe it is. I honestly can’t be sure after some of these recent jobs. Maybe he was alive all these years, only to die recently. I think, though, the only way I’m going to get any closure is by going to Last Remnant.”
“What’ll you do if you were wrong the entire time?” Serafina asked.
“I don’t know that either.” Lyssa frowned. “But if I accept his death as being recent, that means someone killed him for some reason that’s also recent. I need to figure out what the hell happened and get some revenge.”
Serafina sighed. “That doesn’t sound like closure to me, Lys. It sounds like more of the same. You can’t spend your whole life chasing ghosts.”
“It’s a start to finding closure.” Lyssa’s pocket vibrated, but it wasn’t the one with her phone. She reached into the offending enclosure, pulled out her shard compact, and opened it. Rattling off the activation incantation, she steeled herself for her latest job.
