War Witch

by Layla Nash

  My face heated. Always smooth, I was. Not for the first time, I told myself that was the last night I'd ever drink alcohol. I shook my head, yanking on the seatbelt. "I didn't mean—”

  "And kind of hypocritical for someone who received quite a few medals, if I remember correctly."

  "Saints curse this thing," I said under my breath, the belt getting tighter and tighter against my chest the more I pulled on it. Maybe it was a security feature in the car. I struggled to breathe normally, stomach starting to clench as my palms grew slick with sweat. Do not puke in his car became my mantra.

  He reached out and pressed the button, jiggling the belt for a moment before it finally came free. "There," and he looked at me, something in his expression telling me he was amused.

  "I didn't keep them," I blurted out. "The medals. I didn't keep them."

  "That's too bad," he said, still smiling. "More difficult for you witches to sneak up on us, if you jingle as you walk."

  I pulled at the door handle, needing the cold night air to knock some sense into me. "I hardly think I would ever sneak up on you."

  "A man can hope," he said, and levered himself out of the car before I could do more than blink at him.

  He opened the rear passenger door and leaned in to jostle Mo. "Let's go."

  I scrambled out of the car and opened the other rear door so I could gather up all of her stuff, except the chicken wings, though I almost fell into the grass as my balance pitched. Leif straightened to study me over the car's roof. "You need a hand?"

  "Nope," I said, then marred whatever facade of competence I'd mustered with a hiccup. I put my shoulders back, gathering my dignity. "No, thank you, I'm well."

  "Great," he said. The smile lines deepened for a moment as he watched me, then he looked down at where Mo refused to cooperate. He waved at one of the cars when it became clear Mo had no intention of walking by herself, and one of the security team jogged over obediently to help Leif get her on her feet. "Then can you unlock the front door?"

  "Sure." I fished through her purse as I bumped the door shut with my hip, watching them hold Mo up by her arms. "Can't you lift her by yourself?"

  The other man snorted and Leif shot him a dirty look before jerking his chin at the front door. "Yes, I can, but the last time I threw Moriah over my shoulder, she stabbed me in the ass with my own pocketknife. I try not to repeat mistakes like that. The door?"

  I laughed, having to concentrate on walking evenly to her porch and up the two steps, grateful she'd left the lights on. It took me three tries to get the key in the door, but I managed to shove it open just as Leif and his guy brought Mo to the porch. By then, she was wide awake and bright-eyed, but apparently content to be carried. "Lily," she said, reaching out to squeeze my face. "We need pancakes."

  "We need water," I said, looking out at the street where two cars full of Leif's stormtroopers watched.

  Inside, they put Mo on the couch in the living room, the guard nodding to me before excusing himself and disappearing outside. Not wanting to get in the way of his boss's chances with two women, maybe. I flushed at the thought and shrugged out of his coat, watching as Leif crouched to check on Mo. I didn't want to assume he would stay for whatever type of pancakes we managed to make, not with two cars of guys waiting, but inviting him to stay for food carried more obligations than I wanted to shoulder. The wolves had strange rules about food, and I couldn't handle the etiquette minefield that late at night. Besides, if history were any indication, the pancakes would be half raw, half charred, and totally inedible for someone as sober as Leif.

  He made it easy, taking his coat and heading to the door. "Like you said, I'm no fun, and there's work waiting. You'll be okay keeping an eye on her?"

  "That's not exactly what I said." I frowned at Mo. "We'll be fine."

  "Good," he said, but paused at the front door. I followed him, focused on setting the locks, putting Mo to bed, and doing a quick cleansing spell before my alarm went off in five hours. Leif handed me a business card, blank except for a phone number in old-fashioned numbers. "Call if you need anything—or if you remember anything important. Stefan already filed the paperwork to request an interview, so I'll be by tomorrow. You'll be here?"

  "Yeah," I said, even though it wasn't likely.

  "Good. It's a date." But he flicked the business card I held. "In the meantime—call. For anything."

  He nodded at whatever he saw in my expression, and left. I locked and re-locked the door behind him before stumbling back to the living room and collapsing onto the unoccupied love seat. Saints save me from myself, Anne Marie's machinations, and the External's questions. There just wasn't enough time in the day to handle it all myself.

  Chapter 5

  Not even a minute passed before Mo sat up and fixed me with a jaundiced look. "I'm not as drunk as I look."

  I laughed. "Yeah, okay."

  "I was trying to give you an opportunity to work your magic on Leif, witch, but all you talked about was the war. What the hell is wrong with you?"

  "What?"

  "Oh, come on," she said, lurching up and weaving toward the kitchen. "You haven't gotten laid in forever. Call him back, say I got belligerent and you need help, then take him into the guest room and—”

  "Moriah!"

  "I'm just sayin'," she said, bracing herself on the wall next to the pantry. "You could use a little fun. He's serious as fuck most of the time, but he's a good lay." Rattling pots and pans drowned out whatever raunchy details followed.

  I followed her, clipping my shoulder on the doorframe. "You—”

  She handed me a bowl and the pancake mix. "Get to work. And yes, I slept with him. After Marty died, I was sad and in pain and I needed to feel something…not bad. Leif's a good friend, so—” She shrugged, then pointed the spatula at me. "He's too serious for me and probably for you, too, but he'll put a smile on your face."

  "You are unbelievable." The fridge only slightly cooled my burning cheeks as I retrieved the milk, squinting at the measuring cup and trying to get in the ballpark of half a cup. "I'm not going to sleep with him."

  "Oh yes you are," she said. She frowned at the puddle of oil in the cast iron skillet. "In two weeks or less."

  The mixing bowl slipped out of my hands. "I beg your pardon?"

  "There's a bet," she said. "And why the hell isn't this working?"

  "You didn't light the burner." I wiped up the batter that splattered the counter and my sweater, licking my fingers. "What do you mean, a bet?"

  "A wager." Mo crouched to light the burner, almost losing her eyebrows as the gas ignited with a whoosh. She sneezed, rubbing her face. "He doesn't give girls his coat, or walk them outside to get fresh air, or offer to drive them home. He has people to do that—he should have ordered Mick, or his security team, or ... Shit, he could have ordered anyone in that bar and they would have jumped through their own ass to do him a favor." She straightened, focused on the oil sliding around the pan. "Maybe not the cats. They're assholes just to be assholes. Anyway, while you two canoodled in the fresh air, a few of us made a small bet. Mick thinks it'll take at least a month for Leif to take you home. I'm not sure if you should be insulted or not."

  I handed her the bowl. "Oh, I have pretty strong feelings about all of this."

  She smiled toothily, again wielding the spatula like a machete. "There's a run on his personal life, so it's not about you, babe. Still. I'll win four hundred bucks if you two go on a public, romantic date in under two weeks. Double that if you kiss."

  Four hundred dollars, almost two months' rent. I leaned my hip against the counter. "Huh."

  She caught my expression and leaned closer, whispering a conspiracy. "You can keep the money. I just want to see Mick lose."

  "No." I pointed at the stove. "And you're burning breakfast."

  She cursed, fumbling the skillet, and tried to rescue the charred remains. She threw it into the trash and surrendered the spatula. "You do it."

  I elbowed her ou
t of the way. "Go sit down."

  She retrieved bottles of sports drink from the fridge, putting one at my elbow before she sat at the table. "So you're hiding here until the heat dies down? From the Externals?"

  I concentrated on spooning batter evenly into the skillet. "Just tonight. I have to work tomorrow, and a few things to clean up at home afterward."

  "They really said you're a dark witch?"

  "Close enough," I said. "In front of Leif and all his guys."

  "So you hexed the cop? Is that why Leif drove us back?"

  I smiled at the pan, flipping the pancakes one by one. We'd done this many times, Mo and I, exchanging deep truths and gossip over breakfast late at night. "Leif stopped me before I got a chance. So I owe him one."

  "Yeah you do." She waggled her eyebrows at me. "I can suggest some ways to repay him. If I remember correctly, he likes—”

  "Stop or no pancakes for you," I said, turning my own fierce look on her.

  She mimed zipping her lips, but after I delivered a plate along with syrup and forks, Mo spoke around a mouthful of mostly-cooked pancake. "And how was the anniversary thing tonight? Is that what went kaboom? That was the trouble?"

  I double-checked that I'd turned off the burner—a lesson learned the hard way in my first apartment—before occupying the chair across from her. I didn't want to talk about the anniversary remembrance at the witches' memorial in the Slough. "That was something else. And it went okay. Somber, as usual."

  "Did everyone show?"

  "Most of them." I managed to claim a pancake before she finished them off. "And a couple of extras I didn't recognize. Kids, too young to know anything about anything."

  She frowned at the plate, drawing spiraling mazes with the tines of her fork. "Is that a sign maybe you should take a step back? Let someone else carry the torch? It's been five years, babe. I don't think it's healthy for you to keep going back like this. And to them. You don't owe them anything. They didn't even try to help you. They—”

  "It's more complicated than that," I said, glad I'd only eaten a little as nausea simmered low in my stomach. "They were my coven, and—”

  "And they abandoned you when you needed help," she said. Her expression turned rocky, unmovable as granite. "There's no excuse for that. Pack is pack, even when things get tough. Especially when things get tough."

  "Covens are different." I took a deep breath, pushing away regret even as I thanked the saints for Moriah. "They break up all the time. Leaders leave, someone new takes over, people have conflicts over rank or practice or whatever, and everything falls apart. People go their separate ways. We aren't obligated the way packs are."

  "Then why do you keep going back?"

  I took the plate to the sink to buy myself time, gathering the other dishes when it wasn't enough. I hadn't found an answer by the time I returned to the table, so I defaulted to the truth. "It's too late and I'm too drunk to answer that. Later."

  She nodded, guzzling the sports drink as she watched me load the dishwasher. "Maybe you should call out from work."

  I shook my head and immediately regretted it, vertigo making me hang onto the counter. "I need the money. Have to buy a new jacket. Mine was ruined."

  "With someone else's blood?"

  I looked at her sharply. Mo watched me without expression, waiting. When I said nothing, she flattened her hands on the table and studied them, voice careful. "Look, Lil. You are welcome to join my pack officially any time you want, if you align and swear fealty to the Alliance and Soren. I know you have your reasons for staying nonaligned, but... Tonight you ended up covered in blood and accused of being a dark witch. Between the kind of trouble you find on your own and the trouble the Externals will make for you, a pack's protection will come in handy. It might save your life."

  I folded my arms over my chest. "I appreciate the offer, Mo, I do. I just can't. The price is too high."

  "I know." She leaned her chin on her fist. "But things are changing. Open enrollment might not last forever. Just…think through whatever calculus you do and figure out what might make that answer change. Especially if you're mixed up in the kind of stuff that Leif personally investigates. It's better to be on the inside."

  "Maybe." I shook my head. "But I'll think about it."

  "Whatever you say, witch." She jumped to her feet, then braced herself on the table and squeezed her eyes shut. "Whoa. Maybe I am a little drunker than I thought."

  "Uh-huh. No kidding, birthday girl."

  I waited in the doorway to make sure she staggered through the living room without running into anything on the way to her master suite. She waved a hand at me, full concentration on her bed. "You can borrow the gray peacoat in the front closet until you get a new one." She paused in the doorway, blinking at me owlishly. "And you still smell a little like blood and a lot like Leif. You might want to wash it off before you go to the restaurant."

  "Thanks. You smell pretty gross yourself."

  She laughed, "Don't be such a witch," and flopped face-first onto her bed.

  I dragged myself to the guest room upstairs that was unofficially my room after living with Mo on and off for a couple of years. She let me store clothes, shoes, toiletries, and a few keepsakes there, especially since staying at her place bought me an extra hour of sleep before heading to work.

  I scrubbed every inch of my skin in near-scalding water before dragging the mattress away from the wall and walking a circle three times around the bed, weaving a cleansing spell into the circle as I paced. I crawled into bed with wet hair and activated the spell, closing my eyes after a green glow, shot through with pearlescent streaks from the demon magic, expanded into a dome around me. It would run as I slept, thank all the saints. Nine o'clock would come far too soon as it was.

  By the end of the lunch rush, I still couldn't answer Mo's questions about why I kept going back to the coven. Folding cloth napkins into swans gave me time to reconsider, though my pounding head and uneasy stomach wanted me to crawl under a table in the breakroom to nap. Remembering the hoity-toity specials had almost been beyond my capacity for most of the day. A gallon of water and a handful of painkillers didn't even make a dent in the misery, but the relative quiet of the back room provided some respite. I concentrated on my swans, ignoring the shifters who ignored me. No telling if they'd been at the Pug the night before or got in on the bet Moriah mentioned.

  Halfway into my stack of linens, one of the youngest witches at the restaurant crept in, supported by two others. The young one, Cheryl, stared wide-eyed as she sank into an empty chair, face pale and hands trembling. The shifters glanced at her, then at each other, and walked out without a word—witch business was witch business, and nothing they wanted a part of. I debated getting up as well, punching out, figuring out the fastest way to get to my bed. But I stayed, hands still on the napkins. I didn't know the girl well, but she looked how I felt and there had to be a reason.

  She pressed her palms to her face, shaking all over, and her blonde friend brought her a glass of water. "Deep breaths, honey. What happened?"

  "E-Externals."

  "Have you called your coven leader?"

  "Not yet. I thought—” She trailed off and looked up, confused.

  The friend, Mary, pulled out her phone, dialing as she retreated to the hall outside. The other witch, an older woman named Lucy, sat next to the girl and hugged her close. "What did they want?"

  Her hands fell to her lap. "They asked me about last night, about the magic. We had a coven meeting and the Externals thought we worked dark magic. They threatened to c-collar me and take me away."

  I bit my lip. No worse fate for a witch, when an iron collar cut us off from magic. My mother put one on me once before the Breaking, to show me the price of getting caught working magic. The memory alone was enough to make my palms sweat. All color left the world without magic; all smells and tastes and sounds faded to sad watermarks of reality.

  Cheryl sipped her water, shaking her head. "They jus
t w-wouldn't leave."

  Lucy hushed her, patting her back once more as she looked around, perhaps searching for answers. Her gaze landed on me and didn't stray as she went on. "These things go in cycles. We'll file a complaint with the Chief Investigator, and he'll speak to the Judge."

  She and I both knew it wouldn't make a difference. The Externals had a good reason to investigate, partially thanks to me, and dark magic was scary enough to justify almost any measures. The only thing that inspired more fear than dark witches were the loki, unrestrained shapeshifters.

  I studied the sign on the wall admonishing employees to wash their hands, and was about to offer a suggestion when the door opened and Mary returned. The grim tone only added to her normally sour expression. "It might be a while. It looks like the Externals raided across the city without informing the Alliance—any coven that met last night was targeted. The Chief Investigator's office is trying to straighten things out, but for now, they said to stay with your coven."

  Lucy pinched the bridge of her nose as fat tears rolled down the girl's face. The older witch took a deep breath, the words dragged up from her toes. "What would you do, Lily?"

  I blinked as all three of them looked at me, Mary's face puckering still more and Cheryl almost hyperventilating. I concentrated on making precise folds in a fresh swan. "Well, I'm nonaligned, so it's not like—”

  Lucy leveled a schoolteacher stare at me and I trailed off. She knew me better than the other two, since we'd fought in some of the same areas during the war, and she was old enough to remember the world before the Breaking unleashed magic in the open. I held my hands up, fending off questions that never came. "Look. We have rights. They're not respected like they should be, but we do have rights. If it were me, I'd stand behind my wards and not let them close enough to touch me. Call the Styrma to make sure the Externals aren't acting alone, since they're not supposed to. But if they bother to talk to you, they don't have enough evidence to collar you. If they had the evidence, the Styrma would kick in your door first and they wouldn't bother knocking. You're probably fine. Just set stronger door wards."