War Witch

by Layla Nash

  Instead I planned the hexes to use, where to shield and where to cast. He would have a team outside. More out back. Humans and shifters and witches, all prepared for battle. Maybe using pre-set wards. Sound faded, distorted, and my mouth dried out as I focused on Leif with soda-straw precision. The door, and freedom, was a long, long way away.

  Chapter 3

  But before I could do more than blink the alcohol blur from my vision, Leif smiled. He cut through the crowd like an Arctic icebreaker until he loomed over the booth. "Well, I'll be damned. You're turning twenty-nine for the sixth time."

  "My birthday," Moriah said, half standing to hug him over me. "My rules."

  The room spun as I held my breath and concentrated on the empty glasses in front of me. Leif reversed a chair next to the table and straddled it, disconcertingly close. He spoke to Mick first, a brief "How's business?" before addressing the lower-ranked wolves, all of whom offered him food and drinks. My heart pounded as he handed Mo a small box, shouting over the music, "I heard you needed a new collar," with a grin before he glanced at me.

  His eyebrows drew together a touch, as if trying to place me, but no recognition immediately dawned. Or at least not the kind of recognition that would put me in handcuffs and on a short path to the executioner's stake. He said, "How's it going?" before Mo held up his gift—a beautiful pair of white gold dog tags covered in the angular script I associated with the Old North—and almost knocked me over in her enthusiasm to hug him. "You're a total jackass, but they're beautiful."

  Leif smiled, giving her a one-armed hug as he caught my shoulder and kept me from being shoved to the floor.

  Mo flashed her gift around to the rest of the pack, distracted by the shiny metal and intricate letters, and Leif leaned closer to say, "Sorry, I should have known that would get a reaction."

  I tried to smile, about to tell him it wasn't a problem even as the alcohol and a decade of memories told me to say I loved him instead, when the stretched rubber band of magic in the west thrummed. I had a heartbeat to sit up, staring past his shoulder to the origin, waiting. Saints preserve them.

  Held my breath as it stretched to the limit. Vibrated and held. Saints protect them. Then—

  Snapped.

  Recoiled in a violent surge, spiraling up and out and hungry, out of control, desperate—

  The backlash succeeded where Mo failed, yanking me out of the booth, almost into Leif's lap. He caught my side to steady me, frown deepening, but I could only stare toward the Slough as the magic punched into my chest. Stole my breath. Stole the memory of breath, sucked the air out of the room, dried my eyes and replaced them with fire.

  The other witches in the bar stumbled, collided with others, flailed around to find solid ground as all of that power sought a place to go, tried to rebalance the world. Even some of the shifters, particularly the ones allergic to witch magic, rubbed their ears or sneezed. I sucked in air, hands shaking, and thanked all the saints I'd been seated.

  I gripped the table, trying to center myself as Mo made up excuses about how I couldn't handle my liquor to divert the attention of her curious packmates. I'd almost gotten myself together when a second wave of magic, more subtle than the first, rolled through the city. It carried the backwash from the first spell's breaking, a tidal wave of distorted power, and I shuddered at the greasy, clingy nature of it. The hint of sulfur in its wake. Dark magic. Maybe demon magic. Not unlike the magic I'd encountered earlier, but performed by more powerful, more organized witches. A full coven, not two half-trained bashers.

  My stomach lurched and for a second I feared I would deposit everything I'd drunk on Leif's dark jeans and perfectly fitted sports coat, but I white-knuckled the table and tried to think of anything but magic. It couldn't be the coven. Even Anne Marie wouldn't bring magic that stank of demons into her circle, no matter how desperate she was for power. I'd taught her better than that.

  But if it wasn't them, that meant a very dangerous, very powerful coven had appeared from outside the city and could spark a conflict with Anne Marie, who hated sharing anything. Especially power.

  Leif leaned closer, keeping me upright with a gentle hand on my elbow. "You okay?"

  I fully intended to nod, make a trip to the ladies' room and excuse myself for the night. I studied his face as I fought the disorientation of ugly magic. The years had been kind to him. The newspapers always printed pictures of him, mostly as the scowling man literally at Soren's right hand, but sometimes because of what he did as top cop for the Alliance. The smudged ink never did him justice, and neither did my memory of late-night talks around smoky campfires. And it was the memories that had me shake my head in the negative, staring into his gray eyes and fighting back envy over the long blond lashes. Lucky bastard.

  Half his mouth quirked up and he started to stand, almost shouting so Mo could hear over the pounding music. "Your girl isn't feeling well. We're going out for some air."

  As he helped me up, Mo lurched forward and grabbed his wrist, yanking him off balance and pointing a perfectly-manicured finger in his face. It was an unacceptably aggressive move for a lower-ranked wolf, even while drunk, but her expression was stone sober. Not even a syllable slurred as she said, "She's my friend, Leif. I owe her blood debt. You better behave."

  I blinked, glad Leif looked as surprised as I felt. He carefully freed himself, not seeming to notice Mick's efforts to intervene, and said, "A friend of yours is a friend of mine, Moriah. We'll be right back."

  Her pointing finger didn't waver as she studied him, mouth compressed in a thin, disapproving line. Whatever she saw had her nod and fall back into the booth, snapping at Mick as he growled about insulting Leif's integrity. Thank all the saints the music swallowed Moriah's reply as I concentrated on walking a straight line to the door, rather impressed with how easily I managed it. Maybe I wasn't so drunk after all. Maybe it was just the shitty magic that made me feel off.

  And then Leif caught my waist as I veered toward a post. "Whoa there, ace. Slow it down."

  I concentrated on staying upright as we squeezed past the bouncer and plunged into the cold night air. A few hard-eyed men loitered outside the bar with degrees of unconcern, dispersing as they saw Leif. He made a few quick hand signs, too blurred by darkness and booze for me to decipher, and released my arm once we were on a flat stretch of sidewalk, though he stayed close enough to catch me if I fell. I wondered if it was just an excuse to get me outside, away from the crowd, so he could arrest me quietly. Keep Moriah from intervening, maybe starting a blood feud.

  But when I stayed upright enough to search for the rest of his arrest team, Leif backed up a few steps, watching me with a critical eye as he took a thin cigar from a silver case in his coat pocket. I tilted my face skyward and let the clean air and cold quiet of the night roll over me, broken only by the thrum of bass inside the bar and a soft radio squawk, flavored with the scent of cigar smoke. The rain had stopped, which was too bad—it may have tamped down some of the nauseating magic, though a fierce wind did a fair job of moving the stench along. Except for the cloying sludge that clung to the back of my throat.

  I searched the shadows around the bar, the alleys and streets stretching to nowhere, and wondered where the security team had disappeared. I shivered, more from fear than cold, although the wind cut through me and my jacket was in a dumpster too far away to do any good.

  Leif drew on the cigar, watching me without expression. "Want someone to bring your coat?"

  "It's at home," I said, trying to enunciate so he wouldn't realize I could barely feel my face. I almost expected a lecture—Leif never forgot his coat. He was responsible and sensible and appropriately dressed for the weather. Always. I hugged myself, turning slowly to look back at the door of the bar. Maybe Mo would storm out.

  "Here," he said, and I turned, wobbling as my feet didn't move as fast as the rest of me. He steadied me, still holding out his wool overcoat.

  I didn't take it. "I'll be fine, I don't expect—”r />
  "It's what gentlemen do," he said, tossing the coat around my shoulders.

  I laughed hard enough to slip, though it wasn't a happy sound. With my arms bundled up in the coat, I couldn't recover as my feet refused to cooperate. Leif jumped forward to catch me but we both toppled into a scraggly shrub next to the sidewalk. I frowned up at the stars as the heavens spun. Once upon a time, my dad and I rearranged the stars in the sky with magic, a good game until Mother found out. "All the gentlemen died in the war."

  "No," Leif said, getting to his feet and dusting himself off before leaning to lift me to my feet. "There are a few of us left."

  I was almost certain I heard laughter from the shadows, although it silenced when Leif's frown turned fierce. I picked his coat up from the crusty snow and dead leaves on the sidewalk, my cheeks heating. "Sorry, I'll—”

  "Don't worry about it." He recovered the cigar from where it fell, putting the coat once more over my shoulders after retrieving a lighter from the pocket.

  I tucked my hands in the pockets to enjoy the extra warmth of shifter body heat, like being wrapped up in a furnace, and studied his profile as he replaced the lighter. Blond hair covered his head, though his beard grew in auburn. The first time I met him, he had a full beard and a shaved head, a disconcerting combination when paint obscured the rest of his face. He came from a long line of Vikings, a family known for berserkers—the kind known as ulfhednar, "wolf-shirts." He and his fighters painted the skin around their eyes dark with a paste of oil and wax and soot, until it made their golden wolf eyes glow like the pits of hell. After years of war, he didn't need the paint to look terrifying. They still used it sometimes for ceremonies, though it made the humans nervous.

  He glanced at me after a few heartbeats of awkward silence. "I remember you, you know."

  "Oh?" was the only response I could conjure, the rest of my energy going into staying upright as the sidewalk tilted. Should have eaten more. Definitely.

  "Yes. Lilith. It's been a while."

  "I go by Lily now," I said, trying to keep the memories at bay. I'd been in a very bad place the last time we parted company, angry at the shifters and hating the deal they proposed with the humans. Feeling powerless to change the inevitable after Soren negotiated a deal with the humans that placed all the power in him, left the witches to swear fealty or fend for ourselves. "Five years, I think. Since the Truce."

  He made a face, the visceral reaction to an agreement most Others viewed as necessary but still a bad deal. A first step, a very small step, toward equality with the humans. After a moment to hate the Truce, he shoved his hands into his pockets and faced me. "I wondered what happened to you."

  My heart stuttered, and I cleared my throat to buy time. "Why?"

  He smiled, though he glanced once more at the dark street. A few bums loitered across the street, no doubt waiting to beg money and food from the inebriated shifters as they left the bar at last call. "The witches who survived joined the Alliance or left the country. Except you. You went underground but stayed in the area. We wondered about your loyalties."

  The hope lifting my heart only gave it farther to fall—he'd wondered about a possible traitor, not a friend or anything more. I lifted my hands in an exaggerated shrug meant to show my ringless fingers, moving slowly since I didn't fancy dying in a hail of bullets because his security team thought I got aggressive. "Nonaligned."

  "I know. Mo told us." He studied the coal on the end of his cigar. "War witches who can work with the packs are about as common as unicorns, we've found. There were times we needed you, the last couple of years. But I'm not surprised you stayed nonaligned."

  I caught my breath to ask, wondering at how badly Anne Marie served if Leif wanted my insubordination over her obedience, but a flash of light froze the words in my throat. A dark car with red and blue lights in the grill rolled up. As it parked in front of us, a pair of Leif's security detail manifested out of the shadows right next to me. I resisted the urge to hide behind the burly shifters as two humans got out of the car, flashing badges. I swallowed hard. So this was how it ended.

  I should have burned the jacket.

  My hands balled into fists in the pockets of Leif's coat, and though I didn't reach for magic, it waited in a serene pool of blue destruction at the edge of my awareness—not unlike the alcohol burbling in my stomach as adrenaline and fear spun up. I definitely should have stopped drinking after the margaritas.

  One of the humans, tall and skinny despite a bulky trench coat, stepped close enough to shake Leif's hand, while his partner, shorter and rounder and almost jolly, leaned against the car. The skinny one glanced around as he shook Leif's hand, nodding to the two members of the security detail near me. "The front office said we would find you here. I hope we're not interrupting?"

  Leif nodded to the fat human before shoving his hands into his pockets once more. "No interruption, Stefan, particularly if it's important enough to come to this part of town. What are we looking at?"

  The skinny one studied me for a long moment, glancing at the bulky bracelet on his wrist before handing Leif a manila folder. "An incident about a mile from here. Someone calling themselves Ivan Darkwing phoned it in."

  My palms went slick and my vision, wobbly though it was, focused on the skinny cop's wrist and the glowing alert bracelet. The liquor and bar food curdled in my stomach, along with regret, and I shuffled a little farther behind Leif. If my magic remained passive, they might not pick up on the dark witches' corrupted magic. For the human's bracelet to react, there had to be something stuck to me from Anne Marie's aborted spell or the earlier incident in the alley. Neither one would read well on any of the tests the humans used.

  Leif ushered me behind him with one arm as he studied the contents of the envelope. "Good old Ivan. Seems he was a bit of a phoenix after all."

  Stefan made an unimpressed noise. "Well, he left a hell of a mess this time. Might be dark magic."

  Leif's posture tensed, the grim focus in his voice at odds with the booming music behind us and the cigar forgotten in his hand. "Dark magic. Why do you think that?"

  "Witches strapped a human kid to a table and used her for sacrifice. Blood and magic everywhere."

  "Sounds more like inexperienced healing to me." Leif frowned as he flipped through the contents of the folder. "Looks that way, too."

  "Before she lost consciousness, the victim managed to say she paid for breast augmentation. There were cuts to her stomach, wrists, and thighs. Nothing near the chest."

  The pudgy human watched me with a curious intensity as Leif and Stefan discussed the details of the girl's wounds, and it took every iota of courage in me to remain unmoving. The fastest way out of the city meant stealing a car. The buses all had cameras. Maybe the Externals knew they looked for me, and Stefan only delayed Leif long enough to get the quick reaction arrest teams into place. Maybe Leif played along, got me out of the bar and distracted so I wouldn't see it coming. I swallowed a knot in my throat.

  Leif rubbed his jaw, stubble rasping against his palm. "The victim?"

  "Seventeen. She managed to tell the first responders her name, but not much else. She's in surgery now, they're not sure when she'll wake up. If she'll wake up."

  Indira Modi, I repeated silently to myself as I pictured the girl's face, but stopped before I could decide if her waking or not waking would be better for me. Intent mattered as much as power, with magic. Sometimes it mattered more. Hoping the girl never woke to give my description to the cops meant I might as well have put a knife in her. I said a prayer for myself to the saints instead—they could find me worthy, or wanting.

  Leif shook his head. "This doesn't smell right. Witches tormented this kid damn near in public, in an Alliance neighborhood, and left enough evidence at the scene to actually support an investigation? I don't buy it."

  Stefan shrugged, glancing back at the empty street. Even the bums had disappeared. "Dark witches, right? Nothing they do makes sense."

  "But
sloppy dark witches don't live long enough to do what these pictures show. They've been practicing for a couple of years, at least, and this tracks with the last few unexplained disappearances. Except this time they left evidence." Paper rustled as he fussed with the folder. "I'll check with the covens. One of them may have discovered it and decided to handle things. The witches have their own ... justice."

  "Maybe don't alert the witches just yet," Stefan said, running a hand through his mousy brown hair. "Except the one behind you, of course. We want to run a joint investigation on this one, regardless of whatever extrajudicial efforts the Alliance may pursue."

  The urge to vomit returned as the cop's attention landed on me with an indecipherable smile.

  Leif didn't react, though the two security guards closed ranks until they were close enough to protect me, too. Or arrest me. But the Alliance's Chief Investigator only said, "Did the victim provide descriptions?"

  "We have some details to work with."

  The pudgy one piped up for the first time, straightening from his lean against the car. "But they're tracing where she met the perps, and when she wakes up, she'll give us more detail. Descriptions, timeline. We'll get them."

  Leif grunted, then gestured at a patch of darkness as he held out the manila folder. I jumped as a third shifter materialized and took the folder. Leif glanced at the man and said, "Call Nate, get him over to the scene. Send one of the witches, Andre if you can find him, before any evidence is destroyed."

  The man disappeared so silently I didn't hear him move despite watching him jog off. Leif frowned as he addressed the human cops once more. "The victim's statement won't be any good after the anesthesia wears off. Too much time has already passed. She's not a reliable witness as it is, but the longer it takes for one of my people to interview her, the less credible her testimony. Get the doctors to wake her up."