The Problem With Witches: An Arcane Shot Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  Ruby seemed to be containing some more water Bonnie had churned up, while Ramona was keeping a half dozen winged demon things off of them. At least Marcie thought that was what she was doing.

  The chaos witch turned her back on the creatures and lobbed a ball of crackling energy in the opposite direction, almost as if she was encouraging them to chase it like a pack of dogs. The sparks sizzling off it were what had caught Elagra’s attention. The projectile arced up, then came down. Looped around, bounced off two building surfaces, came back, all in half-a-blink of time. The creatures were almost upon Ruby when Ramona’s weapon hit them. It shot through their sides, leaving fire-blasted, fist-sized holes. All of them dropped into the water on the dock like bricks.

  Marcie was becoming a real fan of the kind of chaos that could turn stuffed bunnies into real ones, and take out bad guys using the same approach as a pinball machine. The demonic things hadn’t anticipated the lethal blow, or the direction from which it had come.

  Something Elagra was about to experience.

  If Elagra saw her a split second before Marcie reached her, things might get really ugly. But Marcie didn’t give her that chance. She didn’t stop at the roof edge, didn’t consciously calculate anything. She threw herself out into the air. When she landed, she took Elagra down with a bone-jarring thud and metallic vibration, onto the unforgiving tin roof.

  Raina was not telling Ben O’Callahan his wife had died at the hands of the witch he hadn’t killed years ago, the way he so adamantly felt he should have. It would break him. She knew men enough to know that. She also knew about the kind of love that was so strong its loss could break a soul.

  She used a solidifying spell to jump down on top of the water, race across it like a brick path, toward the warehouse roof. Marcie bounced back on the balls of her feet, shot a sharp kick at Elagra’s knee that almost took it out, if Elagra hadn’t twisted away at the last moment.

  Raina sent a concentrated stream of fire into that opening, whipping Elagra around, distracting her, but it wasn’t powerful enough to take her down. Marcie closed in again.

  Goddess, the young woman was a good fighter, a natural. Mikhael himself had said she was going to be a formidable warrior, already well on her way to it. But that was about to end unless Raina did something that might not be advisable, but was likely Marcie’s only chance to survive this.

  What she sent this time had to be strong enough to ensure Elagra didn’t get back up.

  And the time was now. Raina had reached the roof, but Elagra had broken free once more, was throwing a taunt Marcie’s way. It was a distraction, something to give the girl pause, line her up for Elagra like a target. But it made Elagra a target as well.

  Raina launched the spell she knew she needed to use, hoping it had the momentum it needed to get there, even though it wouldn’t have the finesse she desired. She projected her voice, sending the command booming across the expanse between them.

  “Marcie. Get clear.”

  Marcie glanced toward her, but Raina’s magic traveled faster than her words. As energy crackled from Elagra, exploding toward Marcie, Raina’s spell struck the dark witch.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ben knew the power of water. He lived in a river town, after all, not far from an ocean. He’d stood in the surf like any other kid and nearly had his feet knocked out from beneath him by water no higher than his knees. Storm surge was the one force in the world not to be fucked with.

  As that wall of water advanced, now a good ten feet higher than the building, he realized if he tried to hold onto the utility pipe, his arms would be ripped out of their sockets. He’d lost sight of Derek and Mikhael.

  Letting go of the pipe, he ran toward the water. He had a plan, based on wild luck and his estimate of the angle of that water, all being made in near darkness. And he’d gotten the idea from a freaking kid’s book.

  He put it in verse, shouting it out in case the spell was still active, and Bonnie was listening. And to give him something to occupy his mind, other than being dead in the next second with the possibility of never seeing Marcie again.

  “How much can I love you? As high as I can jump,” he bellowed.

  As the water began to crest, he was twenty feet from the edge of the building. With a burst of energy, he closed that distance, leaped onto the lip of the building and flung himself as high as he could.

  The velocity of the water caught him in midair, swallowed him up. He heard the shriek of the building as the water hit it, but then that was cut off abruptly. He wasn’t knocked brainless by the battering ram of the crest, fortunately, but there was no controlling anything once the water had him. The likelihood he’d be dashed up against something that harpooned him like a hapless fish or took off a full layer of skin to the bone was pretty high. But he kept his arms wrapped around his head, tried to pull up his knees and roll in the water like a ball, the way he’d learned to fall early on in his street life.

  He let out an oath and swallowed sea water as he crashed into a solid surface with a thud. His teeth snapped together on the curse, the impact jarring every bone he had. He rolled, things jabbing and scraping him, tearing at his shirt and jeans. He knew what being stabbed felt like, and his lower belly clutched as he felt that familiar slice and burn in his side, his back, his shoulder.

  Then the water was washing past. Fucking Christ, bless the holy Virgin and amen. He’d landed where he’d intended.

  He wasn’t one to thank the gods, but he’d have to give them their due, because no way that should have worked out the way he’d hoped. As the water poured off the building in every direction, he was skidding along the slanted surface of the circular glass roof of the Aquarium. And sending an additional thank you Jesus to the architects who’d come up with that useful design, that had acted like a catcher’s mitt.

  The weight of the water had broken through a dozen places, pouring into the building like water through a sieve. It created the danger of jagged glass, but also provided a useful network of crossed beams. As the water spun him around, he risked grabbing onto one of them. It cut the shit out of his hands, but he held on.

  He had to fight the pull of the water, snarling to give himself extra strength. But then, between one breath and the next, the worst had passed. He could shift until he was sitting on the support, his feet braced against a cross piece as he took his bearings.

  He looked for Marcie first, but all the magical light the Guardians had generated was gone. He couldn’t see shit along the waterfront. The only living soul he found right away filled up his vision and made him start, because Bonnie was a rock’s throw from him. She’d moved onto the docks, was probably sitting in twenty feet of water, which for her would be a shallow pond. He’d been right about her back legs. She was like a T-Rex at rest, though her upper arms were far more powerful and wide-reaching. Her shoulders and the length of her torso said she could go to all fours and run down anything.

  Yet right now she was touching her face with a clawed hand, tentative. As she found the head wound, the punctured eye, she made a whimpering crooning noise that startled him, the way it twisted his heart. It was the sound a child made when she was hurt. Not understanding what had hurt her.

  A familiar feeling filled him, one he’d felt way too often around Elagra. Helpless rage when she harmed something or someone he cared about, just to make him more isolated. Or just because she didn’t give a shit and wanted to hurt someone.

  It didn’t take much to put together what had happened. He’d been making progress in the way they desired, and in the way Elagra definitely didn’t. She’d struck out at her creation to summon the destructive chaos and rage she wanted.

  Damn it, where was Marcie? Where were the others? His heart hammered against the inside of his chest as if it was going to explode. Had he been the only one to make it? He couldn’t see much, but from Bonnie’s position, he knew the whole waterfront had to be covered in water.

  Where was she? He scanned every rooftop,
hoping to see a human silhouette, some kind of movement, despite the blackness everywhere. There was no fire in the sky, no lightning. Where were Derek and Mikhael? Had the storm surge driven back the army, even if temporarily?

  A thunderous voice yelled out something in a language he didn’t know. Light flooded the area, like a lighthouse with a rotating beam.

  Derek was above him, on the top crest of the Aquarium roof. His hat was gone, his shirt was torn and bloody, much like Ben’s. He’d set his staff along that upper frame and anchored it. The top part of the staff was emitting the light, angled down to sweep the area several buildings out on either side.

  Mikhael was flying fast, left, right. He appeared to be doing what he could to reinforce the building so it didn’t topple off its foundations. Right before he shot back up into the sky, because that army had regrouped and were swooping down once more, a nightmarish flock of darkness and death.

  Ben couldn’t help with that, which pissed him off. But what pissed him off more was not seeing Marcie. That feeling tripled when he saw the one he least cared about seeing. Elagra. She was on the roof of a warehouse nearby. Had she hurt his brat? If she had, he was going to kill her slow.

  “Ben.” Derek was calling to him. “We have to finish it.”

  He snapped his gaze up to the Light Guardian’s grim face. Marcie might be hurt, or worse. He had to deal with that, find her, fuck anybody else’s priority. But then Bonnie made that pained whimper, and her multi-colored eyes rotated, as if looking for someone to make sense of things for her. She’d just been born, for Christ’s sake.

  Hurting him was one thing. Hurting an innocent, or his family? That required one simple response, no need to analyze or question it. Then there was the other side of it. If she flipped out again, they’d lose the waterfront and most of New Orleans. Or Derek and Mikhael would be forced to kill her to prevent that.

  Over his dead body.

  He didn’t have to analyze the unexpected strength of that conviction, because his heart leapt out of his feet and straight up into his throat. He saw Marcie.

  She was swiftly closing ground on the same warehouse rooftop Elagra was on, but with the sound of the water, and the wind still a rushing roar, the witch likely hadn’t heard her yet. She had a calculated look on her face. She was twisting her hands together, and Ben could see her lips moving. Ben would lay money she was going to hurt Bonnie again, to get her even more riled up.

  Marcie was wet to the skin, and she was bleeding. He saw the stain on her jeans and shirt, which gave him a what-the-fuck moment, but she was moving fast. Even fueled by adrenaline, she wouldn’t move that fast if she was truly hurt. That’s what he told himself.

  Elagra never heard her. Marcie landed on her like a ton of bricks, no fear of falling. And somehow Raina was in that mix, too, because when the two broke apart, Elagra was momentarily thrown back by a projectile of swirling color and sparks. When it hit, it was like Elagra was seized by invisible hands, lifted up and slammed down against the rooftop A/C unit so hard her already disheveled up-do came falling all the way down.

  He bit back another curse as he saw Marcie take advantage of the moment, duck under Raina’s fire and be there to meet Elagra when she scrambled up, staggering. His brat hit her mid-body with a length of timber that had probably been thrown on the concrete landing by the monster’s thrashing tail.

  He couldn’t deny it. He was freaking proud of her. And he realized Derek was right. He had to get back to his job. Elagra was theirs. They were going to take care of it, the succubus witch and his wife.

  “That’s my brat,” he murmured. “Put that bitch down.”

  “Ben.” Derek wasn’t messing around. He injected triple urgency in the one syllable, and he didn’t take further time to expand on it. At the same moment, he disappeared from the top edge of the circular slanted roof and rematerialized on the flat roof where they’d started, only now he stood in calf-deep water in those dragonskin boots of his. Mikhael landed back at his side.

  Derek had left his staff where it was, lighting up the area to give Ben visibility, but he obviously didn’t need it. As he landed, an explosion of fire as wide as the building rooftop launched from the impact, meeting the next line of attackers. Mikhael charged in behind it, cutting through the flames, his sword flashing.

  Ben’s attention was yanked away from them as Bonnie reached down, plucked up the giant whale statue in front of the Aquarium. It was sitting in the water, gently rocking like a rubber duck in a kid’s bath. With a snarl, she flung it down the docks, the thing bouncing across the water like a skipped rock. It hit one of the warehouses with a resounding boom of metal and crashed through.

  Bonnie had decided, as babies did, that if something had hurt her, the best reaction was to get pissed. Her talons curled into fists and she slammed them into the side of the bulkhead. Through it, under. She cracked the concrete like she was taking the top off an Oreo and had gotten too enthusiastic, breaking it in half. As the Aquarium shuddered once again, Ben hoped Mikhael had added some pretty hefty magical super glue to keep it standing.

  She was writhing, thrashing as she howled and beat at the docks. Another wave of water was rising.

  That was when Ben was grabbed.

  At first, he thought Elagra was doing some weird shit to him, but Ben was leaving the rooftop of broken glass, carried seemingly on a platform of air. Then he realized Ruby and Ramona had reappeared on the shopping center roof.

  They must have dodged into the building right before the wave hit, because they were still mostly dry. Ruby had her hand lifted, pointed in Ben’s direction. Her other hand was up and extended, fingers spread, palm flat as she made a spiraling motion with it that matched the rhythm of what he felt beneath him. Energy, coiling around him, below him, taking him up and up. Ben could see nothing but open air under his shoes. He wouldn’t be looking down again.

  Ruby’s eyes were flat steel, jaw hard as granite in concentration. The wave of water coming this time was somewhat smaller, but still deadly. The difference between having a three-story building fall on top of you and a one-story one.

  Ramona stepped forward. She began to turn like a pinwheel, her arms straight out from her body. As she did, the water began to turn on itself, like it was becoming a giant waterspout, going up and up. She called out something to Ruby, and Ruby jerked her head, a bare nod of acknowledgement. The hand she had spiraling lifted, like a traffic cop bringing everything to a halt. The water shimmered, one side of the spiral flattening as gravity tried to move it forward and couldn’t. At the flat part it looked like smooth glass, the water dark blue and churning in the night, glittering from Derek’s light.

  Ruby was weaving another spell. He could see the laser intensity of her gaze, the sparks of power coming off her skin, her body like a lean cord drawn taut. The air around her was blurred, as if she was calling in every element above, below and around her to her aid. Now he understood why Derek and Raina had scoffed at her understated reference to her magical skills.

  The building wasn’t going to hold through a second impact, because otherwise Ruby and Ramona wouldn’t seem so hell-bent to keep that water from breaking over the docks this time. But doing their damnedest to get him closer to Bonnie while at the same time holding the water back was coming at a cost. Blood had started to seep from Ruby’s nose, dripping onto her shirt. Ramona had planted her feet, arms still raised, but her body was twitching in its rigorous stance. As Ben watched, she fell to one knee, looking as if a weight was coming down on her, trying to crush her beneath it on the rooftop.

  He didn’t tolerate a woman suffering on his account. He had lost the book and Bonnie was still fussy and pissed, her eyes on everything but him, but it didn’t matter. He would bring her gaze back to him, even if it was like drawing the attention of a bird way up in the sky. He gave himself a moment to think, closed his eyes again as Ramona had showed him. Though it should have seemed impossible with all the pandemonium going on, he was going to do this
, damn it.

  He recalled Ruby’s words in the hotel room. Magical ability at some level is within most people’s grasp, if they’re willing to open themselves to what lies deep inside all of us.

  He thought about the feeling, the connection he’d felt at the beginning. When he reached for that inside him, he found it, waiting, like a rope tied to his objective, guiding him to it. He remembered the simple, strong words of the book, the things Ramona had told him, the way she’d gripped his hand. She’d acted as if doing this, knowing it in his heart, was the easiest thing in the world—once he got out of his own way.

  Well, that applied to a lot of things in life.

  “How much can I love you? I can love you this much.” Ben bellowed it out. If he hadn’t been as focused as he was, the thunderous sound of his own voice would have startled him. He flung his arms out wide, a swift, exaggerated movement.

  Two eyes swiveled his way, one green, one purple.

  "‘How much can I love you? More than the whole world and the universe and everything.”

  Everything in the whole universe, the vastness of it, narrowed down to one thing, one important thing. Now he understood what it meant, a million angels dancing on the head of a pin. That was what love was. So much in such a small space, one heart, reaching out to another, connecting.

  Water churned around Bonnie’s haunches as she shifted, six more eyes looking toward him.

  “I can love you all the way to the farthest meadow. To the last moment in time.”

  He’d said he was no poet, but now the words came just like the energy, a rush of fire through his lungs, his arms, his head. And he knew the source of that magic.

  Marcella Ann Moira. Had he not had Marcie in his life, he wouldn’t have found those words now, because he wouldn’t know. They were her. Everything he felt for her, everything he was willing to do for her.