War Witch

by Layla Nash

  Chapter 8

  Shit and double shit.

  Rosa remained unflappable, though Joanne had guilt written all over her face. Guilt over what, I didn’t know. But Rosa, having spent her first twenty years surviving vicious gang wars, didn’t even blink. Looking as serene as a tiger, surveying her domain, she arched an imperious eyebrow. “Must attend to witch business. Chief Investigator, dare I ask what you’re doing here?”

  “Investigating.”

  “Have you found Cara and Danielle yet?” This from Tracy, leaning forward into the light until her foot scuffled my welcome mat.

  His lips thinned. “No one can track them. Has their coven found anything?”

  “They scried,” Joanne said, glancing down as her phone chimed. “But couldn’t see anything. Which means the witches are dead or shielded by something pretty fucking powerful.”

  Or in another realm, I added silently. A demon realm. But still dead, so she covered it well enough.

  “We’re still looking.” He tapped a small notebook against his palm, his attention drifting to me. “You did not answer your phone.”

  I opened my mouth, about to spew excuses for missing whatever interview he’d planned, but Leif went still. A scream, quickly cut off, reached us. He raised a hand to stop whatever I or Tracy had been about to say, then did an about-face. His fist made a dent in the metal door across the hall when he knocked. Immediate, total silence rocked the hall. Even the crickets stopped chirping.

  An eternity passed, as I held my breath. Chompers did not appear. Leif spoke in a remarkably even tone, despite the way his hands clenched and unclenched. “Open the door or I will open it for you.”

  “Is there a problem?” Chompers started, all smiles and teeth as the door cracked an inch.

  My skin crawled.

  “Yeah.” The Chief Investigator reached into the apartment and caught the front of his shirt, yanking Chompers into the hall. “Shitbags who beat women.”

  “Fine talk from an animal,” the witch snapped, fighting against Leif’s iron grip. “And I didn’t do anything. She’s clumsy; she fell.”

  Rosa glanced at Tracy and Joanne, unspoken orders passing between them, and the younger women moved around Leif to enter the apartment. Rosa seemed to grow a foot as her magic buoyed her up, reinforcing her already tough shell. Chompers tried to meet her in kind, tried to summon his own magic to fight her and Leif off, but he was no match for a war witch. Especially one as vengeful as Rosa. She smiled sweetly as she hexed him, though, and froze the other witch against the wall. “Chief Investigator, release him. This is witch business.”

  “Rosa—”

  “Release him. We will handle this.”

  Joanne and Tracy emerged, half-carrying Amber, who still protested that nothing was wrong, she’d fallen, it was her fault. Her arm hung at a strange angle, and old and new bruises covered her arms and throat. Leif’s expression hardened when he saw her, and he threw Chompers head-first into the door before propping the witch up in front of Rosa. “See that you do.”

  Tracy paused long enough to say to me, “I’ll call you later. We’ll take care of her,” before she and Joanne helped Amber down the stairs. Leif started to say something about the Alliance hospital, but Tracy held up a hand. “Witch business,” she said, and didn’t turn.

  The Chief Investigator looked about ready to strangle the next person to tell him something wasn’t his business, which was tempting as his attention landed on me. Rosa still took up most of landing, though, and her blue-green magic tangled around Chompers and cut him off from just about everything—magic, light, sound, maybe air by the way he started turning purple. Her eyes narrowed and a muscle jumped in her jaw. Chompers contorted, flailing.

  “Hermana,” I said quietly, not daring to reach through my door ward to touch her. Her magic could react, or mine would, and all hell would break loose. “Don’t kill him in the hallway.”

  “Why not?”

  I sighed. “I’ll have to get another welcome mat. This is already the third one this year. And then the cops will be around a lot, and there’ll be a mess, and reporters. Saints help us if he leaves a ghost. Can’t you take him somewhere else?”

  She unleashed a string of the foulest Spanish I’d never been able to translate, but she eased the magical grip until Chompers sucked in air. Rosa gave me a dark look over her shoulder. “I will take care of this... pendejo now, but we will talk soon. Claro?”

  “Yeah. Claro.”

  She frog-marched Chompers to the stairs, and damned if he didn’t trip himself and fall all the way down.

  Leif waited until she’d gotten Chompers out of sight, though her lightning-fast assessment of the witch’s character and family tree remained audible for some time, then looked at me. “What will they do to him?”

  “Well...” I chewed my lower lip as I leaned to see where their cars started, down on the street. Sometimes witch business was tough to predict. “I don’t think she’ll kill him.”

  “Wonderful,” he said under his breath, then frowned at me as he held his phone to his ear. He spoke quickly to someone, telling them to send an investigator to “assist” Rosa with processing the perpetrator. When he’d finished, he shut the door to Chompers’ apartment and gestured at mine. “We should talk inside.”

  I took a deep breath and a step back, for half a second wanting to shut the door in his face. He couldn’t defeat my wards, would know better than to even try, and—I banished the thought and reached for the touchstone on the wall to amp down the wards. “Okay, but could we make it quick?”

  My fingers were still a foot away as he stepped into the wards, attention on his notebook, “There’s a warrant—”

  “Wait,” I said, lurching forward as he hit the invisible divide and blue sparked out in a lightning spiderweb from where he made contact. Shit and double shit. I grabbed at the ward, dragging as much magic out of the defense as I could and redirecting what remained into a childish hex as thunder boomed from the broken ward. He launched backward, leaving a slight indent in the already-chipped plaster across the hall. Purple gooey glitter covered him from head to toe. The excess magic whirled through me, squeezing my heart.

  Silence rocked the small landing, and as I stared at the unconscious Chief Investigator, collapsed and disjointed as an abandoned marionette against the wall, the door at the very end of the building opened a hairsbreadth. Another witch peeked into the hall, caught sight of who I’d just zapped, and said, “I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything,” before locking and chaining her door.

  I steadied myself on the doorjamb, nauseated from the surge of magic spinning through me, disoriented and blinking through the double vision of that much power. The floor seemed the best option, though I didn’t have much choice as my knees wobbled and gave out. I concentrated on breathing through the pain, ears ringing, but kept my attention on Leif. Watching his chest rise and fall so I could time my breath to the same steady rhythm. He still breathed, at least. I hadn’t killed him.

  My head hit the wall with a thud. Cold sweat broke out all over me, my hands shook as I wiped them on my jeans, and my vision darkened around the edges. Couldn’t pass out. Couldn’t. Bitterness coated my tongue and I tried to swallow as everything flashed hot and cold.

  He came awake in a rush, eyes snapping open as he lurched halfway to his feet, and his gold gaze pinned me to the wall more effectively than my own magic as the wolf roared to the surface. Saints preserve me.

  Chapter 9

  He breathed through his mouth, wild-eyed and searching for the threat, and maintained a defensive crouch even as nothing else moved. I swallowed around the cotton in my mouth so I could explain to the beast that he hadn’t been attacked, to maybe get him to think twice before he ran through the wards again and killed us both. “You hit the wards.”

  It still took a good thirty seconds for the gold to fade from his eyes and his breathing to steady. He straightened, grimacing as he moved his shoulders and adjus
ted his jaw, then looked at his hands. Looked down at himself. “What the f—” He cut off, eyes narrowing as he looked at me. “What is on me?”

  He never swore in front of women. Ever. That he’d almost slipped was a bad sign. I took shallow breaths, not quite panting, wondering when the burn of misused magic would fade. It had to end eventually. I remembered that much. The wards still sparked and shivered, rebuilding after the impact. “Only way to keep it from killing you. Different hex.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Took as much out of it as I could,” I said, attempting a smile. Even that hurt. There wasn’t enough ibuprofen in the city to dent the pain. “Magic had to go somewhere.”

  “So you just sucked up most of a Class III ward?”

  “Class IV,” I said, closing my eyes. “You’re welcome.”

  He snorted, then winced again as he moved his shoulders, glancing up and down the hall. He turned to study the purple glitter dent he’d left on the wall. He shook his head, then gestured at my door. “Let me in, then. You don’t want me standing out here like this.”

  That was for damned sure. My vision grew splotchy, though, and my hands shook as I tried to push myself up and everything went clammy again. I sank back, the hall spinning around me, and my stomach rebelled. “Just need a second.”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. His voice, even and calm, provided simple instructions through the static in my brain. “Arms over your head. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. The touchstone is on your right, two feet up. Your other right, Lil.”

  I would have blushed, but let my left arm fall to my lap, too miserable even for embarrassment. Tried again with my right, fingers searching for the magical spot.

  “Up another two inches. Reach for it. Straight up.”

  I took a breath and shoved myself up enough to reach the touchstone and disable the wards. The blue lightning disappeared from the doorway, but he didn’t move. Leif raised his eyebrows. “May I come in?”

  A breathy laugh escaped as I leaned my head back against the wall, though I flopped my left arm out toward the apartment interior. “Be welcome, be at ease, find rest within.”

  “Right.” He edged through the doorway sideways, frowning at the threshold, then stood over me with his hands on his hips after closing the door. “Okay, superstar. What’s next?”

  Leaving the hex on him seemed like fitting punishment for such a smart-ass. I braced my hands on the floor, dreading the effort it would take to stand. “Well—”

  He caught my arm and hoisted me upright, steadying me as I swayed with the rush of blood from my head. I looked at his chin from only an inch or so away, trying to breathe normally. I cleared my throat, but words didn’t seem forthcoming as I stood there and resisted the urge to lean against his chest despite the purple glitter. The Chief Investigator half-carried me down the entry hall to the living room, shaking his head, and dropped me onto the faux-leather loveseat next to the television that hadn’t worked in months. “At least you’re not going to run off this time. Do you need water or food or something?”

  “No,” I said, too embarrassed to even suggest he go into my kitchen. No doubt his superior sense of smell and the dirty dishes in the sink had already revealed I’d eaten pizza and cereal for the last two weeks. My cheeks were almost as purple as his as Leif surveyed the apartment, silent perusal slow and measured. I cleared my throat again, struggling for words. “I just need a minute.”

  He said nothing as he stood near the overflowing bookshelf, hands laced behind his back. Measuring, evaluating, taking note of the peeling paint and shabby hand-me-downs and the burns in the worn carpet. Judging the titles I kept and the ones hidden in the back. He glanced at the purple slime coating his hands. “How do I get this off?”

  “Soap and water. A little elbow grease.” A small lie. Infinitesimal. A sliver of payback for calling me “superstar.” My vision stabilized, the tremor leaving my hands. I glanced at the glitter coating the arm of my sweater from where he’d touched me, and frowned.

  “Right.” From the look on his face, he didn’t believe me.

  “It’s okay. You look good in purple.”

  A Cheshire cat grin spread across his face, made more ridiculous by the glint of white teeth in a purple beard. “Do I.”

  I flushed, waving the implications away. “Just an observation. Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

  “A couple of things, actually,” he said, but the smile remained. After a moment of letting me suffer, he tilted his head toward the door. “What did the witches want?”

  “Witch business,” I said automatically, then bit my lip.

  “Nice try.” He studied me, arms folded over his chest. “They led us to believe you didn’t keep in contact. That there wasn’t a relationship anymore.”

  “We don’t. There isn’t.” It hurt to admit. My failing, my fault. My coven, moved on without me.

  “Then why were they on your doorstep?”

  I took a deep breath, managing to sit upright as I searched for a socially acceptable lie that didn’t out the coven for doing questionable magic. “They asked about the missing witches. If I’d heard anything.”

  “Why would they think you know anything about it?”

  “Nonaligned,” I said with a shrug. “Rosa thought I might have heard something that no one would tell Alliance covens.”

  “And have you?”

  “No. Nothing.” I stared unseeing at the floor near his feet, wishing there were a much easier explanation. And wishing as well that I didn’t have to work the next morning.

  “If you hear anything, call me. Not them. Got it?”

  I glanced up, a little surprised that he would expect me to go outside the covens. “Why?”

  “I have my reasons.” He studied me a moment longer after I nodded, then went on. “We received the External request to identify all the witches in the Pug last night, with a special request to identify you by name, rank, and location. We’re slow-rolling them as much as we can, but there are a couple of other issues brewing. If push comes to shove, the Judge will side with them and I’ll have to bring you in for an interview.”

  I nodded. “I understand.” Even though he knew it wouldn’t be easy and I wouldn’t go willingly.

  “You’ll have a day’s warning,” he added, and I looked up, startled. That sounded dangerously close to a head start. Leif smiled with only half his mouth. “Professional courtesy for a Hero of the Second Revolution.”

  I made a face. I refused to dignify the teasing with a response.

  “Where were you yesterday, before the Pug?”

  “Work,” I said. “Then a memorial at the Skein for the anniversary.”

  “What time?”

  I frowned, drumming my fingers on the arm of the chair. “I think we started at nine.”

  “Anyone else can verify that?”

  “Tracy, Rosa, Joanne, and Andre.” I took a deep breath. “Anne Marie and Jacques showed up after we finished, had a few others with them that I didn’t recognize.”

  “The First Coven gathered last night?” His eyebrows rose and he made a thoughtful noise. “What were they up to?”

  “I didn’t ask, and they didn’t say.” I didn’t quite meet his gaze. It felt too exposed, too vulnerable, to have him in my apartment. “I left for Mo’s party.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped as he studied me, measuring my response. I willed myself to calm. The wolves couldn’t smell lies, of course—that was ridiculous. But they could hear an elevated heart rate, could see dilated pupils, could smell perspiration. Deception was a messy business.

  He glanced at his notebook, leaving purple smudges on the cover. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen on your way to the Pug?”

  My heart jumped, but I refused to move. “The bus broke down. I had to walk. That was it.”

  “Did you hear or see anything strange?”

  Like dark witches performing a sacrifice in an alley? I
shrugged again. “The bus driver was a bigot, but I didn’t stick around to ask him why. It was cold, and I ran most of the way to the bar.”

  Leif waited, letting the silence stretch. He didn’t move as his phone rang, gaze still on me, but eventually he pulled it out of his pocket and held it gingerly. “Yeah.”

  The conversation went on but his attention didn’t waver from me, and after a few minutes I started to squirm. He hung up, tucking the phone away. “Anything else you need to tell me, Lily?”

  And once again I was tempted. It would be easy to tell him everything. He could fix most of it. At least then everything was out of my hands. But I only shook my head. “Nothing I can think of.”

  His lips thinned as he frowned, studying me for another long moment before he tilted his head at the door. “I have to go interview someone at the hospital, but there are a few more things we need to clear up. If you’re not staying with Mo, be careful. We don’t know what happened to the other two witches. It’s still possible the Externals have something to do with it. It would be a shame for you to be the next one to disappear.”

  “Yeah,” I said, levering to my feet so I could walk him out and reset my wards. “A damn shame.”

  He snorted, waiting to make sure I stayed upright before heading for the door. “Seriously. Be careful.”

  “That guy—Stefan? The tall one, right? What about the pudgy one?”

  “Eric? What about him?”

  I shook my head, frowning at the floor as he opened the door. “He looked weird, didn’t say much. Usually the quiet ones are the dangerous ones.”

  “Not in this case. Eric is ... odd, definitely, but he’s slow. Thinks things through, then acts. Stefan is the short fuse.” His head tilted as he studied me. “Did Eric say something to you? Has he tried to contact you?”

  “No, of course not.” I bit my lip, trying to banish the memory of the External with the glamour. “And…hold on a sec.”

  He was halfway out the door when I reached out and touched his bicep, tugging the hex free until it recoiled and the purple glitter disappeared. He looked down at his clean clothes, then up at me. The smile returned. “Thought I looked good in purple?”