A Witch Called Red: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 1)

by Sami Valentine

  “We keep talking about the Blood Summit, but you’re not getting it, kitten. This isn’t just a fucking conference. This is the Blood Alliance putting on a show.” The lean dark-haired vampire glowered protectively, arms folded over his leather jacket. “Every city in North America has sent at least one master vampire. New York sent over a dozen. Souled and unsouled, squabbling over bullshit and serving up cold intrigues to each other. You took on a few long-dead farmers and pig fuckers in Oklahoma City. This is LA, Red!” Lucas looked away. “Don’t be bullheaded.”

  Red crossed her arms and lowered her lashes. She opened her mouth, ready to rip him a new one for his condescension, but gritted her teeth and shook her head instead. She wasn’t stupid. They had a mystery killer, a rogue master making minions, and now a pissed off Supreme Master of the City. Kristoff was dangerous, but who wasn’t in this town?

  All four of them had managed to attract attention. She was far from the only one in danger. Vic had a broken arm, so putting her in hiding would bench half the team.

  Vic looked between Red and Lucas. “Come on. We still have options. Cora is pissed at the situation, but she’ll do some yoga and get over it. She needs someone looking into this. We might even get a double bounty when we catch this bastard—from her and the Brotherhood.”

  Lucas said, “You’re already down a working arm. Want to add an intern to the list?”

  “Bounties aren’t worth it if your partner ends up turned.” Quinn shook his head.

  Vic shared a long look with Quinn before he nodded. “Fine. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “This case has legs. It won’t stop just because we do.” Red let her frustration sharpen her tone. She didn’t care what macho silent agreement had just occurred. This case wasn’t over.

  The Blood Summit would wrap up the night after the Halloween Ball, and there were voting, committees, and speeches in between. The big finale would be Cora debuting the results of her Catch and Release policy on the last day. There were two—possibly three—victims, and with days to go until the Summit was officially over, there was plenty of time for more to join the death count.

  Red gritted her teeth. Arguing only ate up time. She wasn’t an intern for Quinn Investigations. She was Vic’s intern, so she saved her arguments for him. “Let’s pack it up then.”

  Red didn’t say anything to Lucas as she helped Vic pack away the Chinese food and the laptop before going out to the van.

  “Hey, I’m sorry for calling you bullheaded,” Lucas said, touching her wrist as she reached for the van passenger door.

  Red shook her head. “You meant what you said. Be honest. I’d rather hear the truth, the whole truth.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You were going to turn Juniper St. James, but you were stopped by the soulmancer just in time.” Red opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat. “If you’re so worried about me, be honest with me.”

  Vic coughed from the passenger’s seat. “This is awesome for me as a bystander. If you two are done angsting, I have some chilling Chinese food to eat.”

  “Goodbye, Lucas.” Red closed the door.

  Lucas stalked away.

  She resisted crossing her arms and rolling her eyes like a teenager when she heard the rev of Lucas’s motorcycle behind the Falcon as it rumbled back to the Pandora Hotel. Red gripped the steering wheel tighter. She waited through agonizingly long moments of Vic fiddling with the radio before she asked, “What do you think, Vic?”

  “I think this is an official Brotherhood investigation.” Vic leaned back, drumming his fingers on the door. “Delilah, man, she’s always been able to get into Quinn’s head. I don’t think she’s working alone. These are orders from above. Conspiracy, man.”

  “I think there’s something very personal about these crimes. You don’t just carve something into a person for no reason.” Red took their exit toward the Hollywood Hills. “I’m split, Vic. Why was Olivia Greene killed? Is Georgia Erickson even one of our victims? There’s too much going on and too many suspects on the list. Julia managed to get dirt on nearly every vampire who counted in LA, down to the addresses of their lairs. Any of them might have wanted her dead.”

  Vic glowered out the windshield. “She did something real here in LA. Julia wasn’t just studying werewolf periods like they do in London, sniffing their own farts about how clever they are to be Bards. This is serious recon on how to take down a rogue master vampire. Her father would be proud of the research. Walking away… it feels wrong.”

  Red didn’t say anything as she parked the van in their usual underground spot at the Pandora Hotel. She stepped out of the van to face Lucas driving in on his bike.

  “Brassed off at me still?” Lucas asked.

  “Annoyed, but I have more important things to worry about than your old-fashioned protectiveness. It doesn’t go with the punk look, by the way.” Red closed the van door and stepped away.

  She wasn’t stupid. Cora’s laws wouldn’t protect her. In terms of vampire realpolitik, she was an easy trade off. Red didn’t care. If she ran from every big baddie, she never would have become a hunter.

  “You need to lay low, even if you’re mad at me about it,” Lucas said. “Let me protect you.”

  “You’re not my bodyguard. Even if you were, you still wouldn’t be able to tell me what to do,” Red said over her shoulder. “Good night, Lucas.”

  Vic looked down and awkwardly rubbed his neck as he waited for her in the elevator.

  “Not a word, Vic,” Red said. “Let’s just check and see if the hotel recovered the hallway footage and then eat.”

  The elevator opened, and they stepped into the lobby. The front desk clerk smiled and placed a green envelope on the desk along with a rose and old book of folklore. “Aren’t you lucky? What a thoughtful gift.”

  “Yeah, thoughtful.” Red took the flower and put the book under her arm before snagging the envelope. “Thanks.”

  She already knew who sent the letter before she opened it in the elevator.

  Dear Red,

  The book and the rose are an apology for our first meeting. I hope you accept these tokens as the well-intended symbols they are. If you do, I’d like to discuss the book with you at the Halloween Ball as my guest.

  Allow me to show you another side of myself. I am not asking for your secrets, only giving you an invitation to learn some of mine.

  Kristoff Novak

  “You could be our honey trap.” Vic stroked his chin after they left the elevator and entered the hotel suite. “He’s a suspect with both the access and a thing for models. I read about him. He was accepted into the Alaric Order, but he left them back in the day during the August Harvest.”

  “You want me to parade in front of all the vampires at their own party?”

  “Not when you put it like that.” Vic shook his head and set their cold takeout on the coffee table. He sat down and started slurping his noodles.

  Red dug into her own and had more to chew on than lo mein. Telling Vic about Delilah had helped her process, but she still couldn’t shake off the weird glimpse into the Byrnes family dynamics. It was tense, but the three interacted with the fluid comfort of age. If Quinn and Lucas listened to Delilah and did leave the case, they needed a new vampire insider. Kristoff wouldn’t be her first idea for an ally.

  “Sending me into the belly of the beast just makes me easier to eat.”

  “I’m just saying if he wants to play gentleman vampire, we could use it. I’m not saying how.” Vic pulled out his phone and put it on speaker. “Let’s get the big man on the line.”

  Quinn listened to their story without interruption, but Lucas made dry commentary in the background.

  Vic held the phone to his mouth, glancing at Red. “The word’s already out that Kristoff claimed a human. Might as well let them get a look so they can avoid you.”

  “Even if I trusted Kristoff, I could get pulled into some other kind of drama.” Red rub
bed her neck, avoiding the scabbed-over fang marks.

  Kristoff had bitten her. Then he had protected her in the parking garage. He had even helped Quinn escape the vampires on motorcycles. Kristoff had made big claims when they last spoke, saying she would beg for his next bite. She might be able to trust he’d be content with courting her until he grew bored with being a gentleman, but the field was thick with plots at the Blood Summit.

  “This is a conspiracy that’s going to the top. I bet someone was trying to silence a mole when they killed Julia.” Vic snapped his fingers. “The other girls were pretty and blond. They were probably killed on accident. Mistaken identity, maybe? This isn’t a simple murder case. This is politics, and so is that Halloween Ball. All the vampires will be there that night.”

  “Dead men love to tell tales. Bloody gossips, the lot of them.” Lucas’s voice boomed through the cellphone speakers. “They’ll want to see the girl that I kicked Kristoff’s ass for, and some will want to use Red against us.”

  Red looked at Vic, furrowing her brow at his smile. “He’s hoping for it, aren’t you?”

  “Your idea is solid. The Brotherhood has gotten back with a 3D scan of the victims’ bite prints. If I can crack into Cora’s registry, I can try to match fangs with the molds she has on file.” Vic grinned into the cell phone as he leaned his mouth closer. “If everyone’s watching you three at the Ball, then they aren’t watching me. Or their computers.”

  “It would clear through our suspect list,” Quinn said thoughtfully.

  “Red, I will swear to a judge that you’re a badass, but you don’t have to prove it,” Lucas said. “And Vic, ditch the hacker fantasy, we can just send Cora a bloody copy.”

  “What?” Vic slumped back on the couch, deflated.

  “She has enough geeks on the payroll to do the leg work,” Lucas said. “Send Quinn the files tonight, and he can pass them on.”

  “I’m going to ignore that dig on my hacker realities, Greg.” Vic scoffed, but then grew serious. “Can we trust Cora to act on the intel?”

  Quinn’s voice crackled from the phone. “She wants the murders to stop as much as us.”

  “Good. Now, you don’t need to bore yourself at the Halloween Ball,” Lucas said.

  “Only the new vampires are in this registry. We might not get a hit on these marks. Everyone who's anyone will be at the Halloween Ball,” Vic argued. “This is our last chance to scope out the suspects before everyone goes home with their souvenir T-shirts for the baby fangers.”

  Red looked at Vic. “It’s been a long day. Before I fill my dance card for that evening, I’m going to sleep on it.”

  “Good. You’ll wake up knowing Vic’s idea is bonkers,” Lucas said.

  “I’m ignoring you, Greg. Whatever, she’s right. This arm is killing me, anyway. Q, you’re in the loop. Let me know when Delilah shows up again.” Vic ended the call, then reached into his pocket and popped a pill. He pulled out his laptop and tapped idly at it between bites of food. He looked over at her, nibbling on the last of his noodles. “It's not a hacker fantasy. I could hack their system, if I wanted too.”

  “Totally, bro.” Red mumbled before gulping down her last bite. “Sent the files off?”

  Vic nodded and raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re not going to sleep.”

  “No, I’m going to do some research before I agree to become Kristoff Novak’s plus one,” Red said. She complained about being pulled into drama, but she was already in it. She didn’t know where the minefields were until she stepped on them. “Lucas isn’t wrong. I don’t like the idea of walking into a ballroom full of vampires with just a purse for protection either.”

  “It’s like vampire prom. There will be chaperones.”

  “I think there are ways to get intel on Kristoff without me going to a dance with him.”

  “It’s new millennium. Women can choose their own dates.” Vic stumbled to his feet. “I already have the research on Kristoff open on my computer. Don’t turn it off when you’re done. Quinn’s file is still uploading.”

  Red watched him go to his room before looking at his laptop. She had already read the short summary of the vampire entrepreneur with a flair with photography. That didn’t tell her anything beyond the fact that he was wealthy, well-connected, and rising in the vampire world.

  She could already tell that by looking at him. He had been the essence of a cocky vampire, lording over his nightclub with a supermodel on his arm. She knew he wanted more than her blood. Kristoff had extended the olive branch by saving Quinn the night before. That didn’t change the fact that he was a person of interest that she hadn’t finished questioning.

  She opened the book that Kristoff gave her to see engravings of fantastical creatures. A note fell out of the book with a single phone number.

  Walking out onto the balcony, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and called the number. Red didn’t need to go to vampire prom to question some vaguely European vampire. She brought the phone to her ear. Waiting for an aloof hello of a bored bartender or receptionist, she practiced what she would say in her head. Hi, I’m Red. I need to talk to Kristoff Novak. Yeah, I’ll wait but he’ll want to take this one.

  The dubstep ringback tone gave her long enough to question her sanity for calling him. The phone picked up and she blurted out. “Hi, it’s Red.” She forgot the rest she had planned.

  “Red.” Kristoff rolled the R gently. “How did you like your gift?”

  Red swallowed, not expecting him to answer her directly. Vampires were as secretive about their phone numbers as they were about their lairs. Then again, Kristoff’s lair had an Instagram account. “Hi. Um, yes, that is why I called.” She blanked.

  Silence rang on the other end. “And, what is going on in that clever mind?”

  Red blushed, then launched into her questions. “I want to know what the deal is. Are you trying to lure me out of the hotel so you can grab me? Is this going to be like vampire prom? You’ve shown that you’re more interested in chatting than torturing me, but what do you want? I really have no idea. That’s what is going on in my clever mind.”

  “The deal is, I want you to get to know me. Maybe then you’ll want me to get to know you.” His smirk was practically audible. “You can still investigate me at the Ball.”

  Red scoffed. “I don’t have to go on a date with you to question you.”

  He chuckled. “Have you ever seen a real dark room? Or developed a picture on your own?”

  “What?” Red pouted as she scrambled to keep up with the topic change. “No. I’ve used Polaroids though.”

  “Come to the club. My gallery is in the same building. You have questions about my motives. I fully accept that I’m a person of interest and I’m happy to give you full access.”

  “Happy, I bet.” Red rolled her eyes.

  “I have a new exhibit about muses through history. You’ll want to see one of the portraits. You’ll see what we all keep going on about.”

  “So, you can capture me and keep me in your dungeon?” Nonetheless, Red wondered exactly what he would show her. Her heart already knew. Her stomach twisted in knots.

  “Bring stakes, crosses, and wrap yourself in silver. Tell everyone on Instagram that you’re coming. Actually, please do, and use the Club Vltava LA hashtag. We’re trying to make it go viral.” He paused. “I want you to see that I’m not someone you should fear.”

  “Even if you hadn’t bitten me, vampires always have more than one angle.” She bit her lip, the words “genetic coincidence” looping in her mind.

  “I do have a proposal, but it is business. I promise to shoot straight with you.”

  Red fell silent before she nodded her head. “This is a bad idea, but I’m on my way. If I’m not back in an hour, you’ll have hunters at your door.”

  “I expect nothing less.”

  “Text me alibis for the nights of the 24th and 25th. I want to check them out. Your brother doesn’t count as an alibi.” She hung up the p
hone.

  Lifting a hand to her mouth, Red closed her eyes. She was running headlong into the lair of the unsouled vampire who had claimed her. Kristoff was at the top of their list of vampires with access to all the victims before their deaths. Person of interest… That was an understatement. Second to Lucas, she hadn’t thought of any vampire more.

  Her phone vibrated. She saw his prompt text message with times and dates of people and places to vouch for him.