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

by Sami Valentine

  “Eventually I find the right one.” Red caught up with her quick stride and tilted her head to make eye contact with Delilah.

  “Right for whom?” Delilah sneered, but then grew serious. “Because it won’t be you. I’m not the one for this girl-on-girl empowerment yoni egg bullshit, but here’s a hot tip from a bitch who’s been around: you’re in the deep end, honey, and there’s no lifeguard on duty.”

  Red looked away. She already felt the water up to her neck, and she didn’t have a smart retort for that. When they reached Kristoff, he was alone. Arno had already gone.

  “You were supposed to stay with me.” Kristoff licked his lips, hands behind his back, as he looked first to Red then Delilah. His expression was as composed as his carefully parted and slicked-back blond hair. Only his blue eyes revealed his worry.

  “You were technically the one who stepped away.” Red smiled tightly before looking away with a wince. “I was left to mingle with Michel and Delilah.”

  Kristoff’s jaw tensed, but he said nothing.

  “I thought she was stupid, but you take the prize tonight, Kristoff.” Delilah put her hands on her hips.

  Kristoff smirked. “Are you the only one who’s allowed to move on?”

  “Like this is moving on.” Delilah waved them on, eyes rolling up in disdain. “I can’t yell at you like I want here.”

  Kristoff stepped in front of Red. He looked to her as if waiting for her.

  She covered her surprise at a vampire looking to a human for consent. Hidden by his bulk, Red pulled the mic out of her cleavage before she stepped forward and put her hand on Delilah’s shoulder to place the mic among the golden studs. “What’s on your mind, girlfriend?” She smiled cheekily.

  Delilah rolled her shoulders. “I might not want you dead, but that doesn’t make us girlfriends.” She looked at Kristoff. “You have your office swept for bugs?”

  “Tonight? Every thirty minutes,” Kristoff said.

  Delilah led them to a door marked private next to the bar and opened it to reveal a grey hallway of bronze sconces and artful mood lighting. She went to the third door on the left, twisting the knob off and dropping it before she jerked her thumb inside.

  Red lifted her eyebrows at Kristoff. Delilah certainly knew her way around Club Vltava.

  Shrugging in reply, Kristoff walked into his office.

  Red followed. She glanced at the bookshelf on the wall, expecting to see business books but instead noted Sun Tzu and Karl Marx alongside a copy of Emma by Jane Austen. The low lighting continued in the office; a bronze plated desk anchored a corner of the office with a small sitting area of plump leather chairs opposite it.

  Delilah perched on the desk and crossed her legs. “What the fuck, Kristoff? You don’t have a soul making you act stupid. Your master sent you here to support Cora. You’re a liability right now if any Bloodliner decides to use Little Miss Déjà Vu as leverage against you. You need to get her out of here. Out of the city. Send her up to Portland and act out Fifty Shades of Grey for all I care. She seems silly enough to be won over by a fancy condo and helicopter ride.”

  “Haven’t left.” Red pointed to herself.

  “And that’s the issue. Keep up, sweetie,” Delilah said. “This is actually me being nice, so appreciate it.”

  “This is her being nice.” Kristoff looked at Red and shrugged. He turned to Delilah. “She’s safer if they know she’s mine.”

  “She’s safer if no one ever saw her, but that ship has sailed. So, get her on a ship, and set sail.” Delilah stepped up to Kristoff and put a hand on his chest, her snark fading into concern. She straightened his already immaculate lapels. “You can love, and you always could. Death never took that away. But you also kept your sense. Use it. You know you have enemies.”

  “Keep this up, and I’ll mistake you for a woman who cares.” Kristoff leaned his head, his even tone coming out a near whisper.

  “Don’t tell anyone.” Delilah rolled her eyes, then sighed and put her hand on his cheek. “From the beginning, I saw what you could be- so much promise to fulfill. You’re barely past a hundred. Much is ahead for you. Don’t waste it.”

  Kristoff nodded as he laid his hand on hers. Eyes widening, his cool composure slipped, a small genuine smile appeared in the cracks.

  Red watched them, rubbing her neck, lips pressed, feeling like an accidental voyeur.

  The vibrating in Kristoff’s coat pocket broke the moment. He pulled away from Delilah and stepped back toward Red as he pulled his phone out.

  Red looked over his shoulder and saw the first part of the text message from Arno: Cora’s coming to arrest Delilah.

  Delilah pulled her phone from her chain purse and put it to her ear, turning away. “Hello darling.”

  Kristoff looked at Red. “We have to go. All of us.”

  “We don’t want to be there when it happens.” Red only heard whispers from Delilah’s phone conversation as the vampiress retreated farther into the corner of the office, but she knew Delilah could still hear everything they said clearly. Vampire hearing was a bitch. “I can continue the investigation and maybe get some answers afterward.”

  “There’s no trial. You can’t get answers if she’s…” Kristoff looked over and straightened. That honed cool melted as he gazed upon Delilah. His brow furrowed. Lucas might have turned Kristoff, but Delilah’s blood ran through them both.

  Red knew he wasn’t going to give her up to Cora without trying to help the vampiress. She studied Delilah’s face as the blonde put away the phone.

  Delilah raised her fingers to her lips and wrapped her other arm around her waist. Suspicion drew her brows together, even as her blue eyes grew distant.

  Red gritted her teeth as Lucas came into her mind. Delilah was the matriarch of his undead family. Vic’s Plan B was better than whatever Cora had waiting for her. She opened her purse to paw for her phone. “Fine. I have a driver waiting. You’d better be able to get something from her.”

  “What do you think you’ll get from me?” Delilah asked, coy with a hint of poison in her tone.

  “An honest answer.” Red looked up from her text to Vic, warning him that they were coming in hot. “Why does Cora want to arrest you?”

  Jaw dropping, Delilah blinked once before her cool composure returned, brittle as new ice. “She wouldn’t, but…”

  “Tell us on the way to the parking lot.” Kristoff shook his head and gestured at the door. “Let’s get you out. Maybe you can find a ship.”

  Red nodded before walking out of the office, avoiding his gaze. Kristoff might have thought he was saving Delilah from the Blood Alliance and Cora, but he was only leading her to Vic, waiting in the van with a chain sheet of blessed silver.

  Chapter Nineteen

  October 31st, Halloween Ball at Night, Club Vltava, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, California

  Jogging to keep up with the vampires down the employee hallway of Club Vltava, Red hiked up her skirt. The night was going to shit, but at least she’d worn flats. Kristoff had guessed correctly when he had sent the stylist.

  She’d hoped for minimal small talk and some recon to keep Vic from rushing in to slay Delilah. Now, she was fleeing with Kristoff and Delilah down to the parking garage to give Delilah a head start from Cora’s justice.

  Red was bringing the vampiress to Vic down in the parking garage and asking him to what, help Delilah? Stake her? Hand her over to Cora?

  Delilah probably killed those women. She deserved what was coming to her and then some. But it still wasn’t adding up. Why leave the bodies so conspicuously? Why the ouroboros? Was it just to fit in with the Bloodliners? Or was it a bigger conspiracy like Vic suspected? The case should have been open and shut, yet she could hear the rusty hinges creaking.

  Red didn’t even know what she should do, but Kristoff was right. If Delilah went into Cora’s custody, she wasn’t coming out. Any answers died with her.

  Kristoff raced ahead to an unmarked door and tapped a code int
o a keypad above the knob. “Ladies.” He pulled open the door. “Let’s get Delilah into something sporty.”

  Red shook her head, ready to argue that Delilah would be going with her before she saw Lucas out of the corner of her eye.

  Lucas stopped short from a blurred sprint, leather trench coat flaring around him. He nodded to Red with a tense smile. “Now, where’s the afterparty kids?”

  “Lucas, you have the worst timing as always,” Delilah drawled.

  “We don’t have time for this.” Red crossed her arms and blew a stray curl out of her face.

  “Oi, tell me.” Lucas put his hand on her arm and tilted her chin up.

  “Cora is coming to arrest Delilah,” Red said, relaxing into his touch.

  “Bloody hell.” Lucas glanced over at Kristoff. “Is that why that brother of yours is looking for you? All the Portland vamps are in a tizzy.”

  “Fuck.” Kristoff pulled his phone from his jacket. “The Prince has already called twice.” He gave Red a sideways glance and nodded to the door he held. “Just get her out of here. I’ll stall as much as I can.”

  “Already gone.” Red turned around, pulling away from Lucas to take the door to hold for Delilah. Head tipping up, she tried not to react at how close Kristoff was and how much he was not moving. Her heartbeat picked up.

  “You can’t, Red.” Lucas said the words to her, but his eyes were on his progeny.

  “Tell me where you take Delilah.” Kristoff leaned in, ghosting his hand over her styled hair to linger over his claim mark before dropping to the side. A wistful smile lit up his blue eyes. “You looked beautiful tonight, Red.”

  He didn’t touch her skin, yet she felt the goosebumps raise where his fingertips hovered. Red opened her lips, but she had no idea what to say.

  “She’s putting my ass in an Uber to LAX.” Delilah walked between them, glowering at Kristoff.

  “Yup!” Jerking her head in a nod, Red stepped back through the doorway, ignoring the dryness in her mouth, decidedly not looking at Kristoff. “I’m not playing hero.”

  “Good.” The two vampires said at the same time before glaring at the other.

  Her eyes darted between Lucas and Kristoff before she turned to Lucas. She swallowed, preparing herself to lie to him. Before Cora got her answers from Delilah, Vic and Red would try to get theirs. “I’m getting out of this city. So, should you. If they’re going after Delilah, you two are probably next.”

  “I’ll stall as long as I can,” Kristoff said.

  “And I’ll actually do something.” Lucas rolled his eyes.

  “Do what you can do.” There was never time for goodbyes on a job. Red had more to say, mostly orders not to kill each other, but she only nodded and closed the door.

  Once they were out of sight, Red ceased to think of the two vampires she had left. There was only one vampire in her line of sight. This one more dangerous than either. She followed Delilah down the steps to the small parking garage under Club Vltava. “They care about you. Didn’t even ask why the Supreme Master of Los Angeles would want you. I’m certainly curious.”

  Red reached the landing of the metal industrial stairs to see the stretch of shiny Mercedes Benzes and Ferraris lined up in the parking garage. The Millennium Falcon, the rusty black van she called home, stuck out like a goth at a Texas beauty pageant at the mouth of the garage. Vic and a mess of blessed silver hid inside. “Aren’t you and Cora supposed to be besties?”

  “So, you know about me. Big deal.” Delilah looked at her, red lips pressed together. "None of my boys will tell me anything about you.”

  “I’m just a hunter.”

  Delilah crossed her arms. “What I can gather from them is you're working with Quinn. I’m not a fool, gaping at the freak of DNA with a nostalgia boner. You're working with Cora and the Brotherhood. Playing each side from the beginning. Is that how you ended up with that corner suite at the Pandora instead the usual fleabag motels that hunters drift through? Must have been a damn good bounty.”

  Red stepped aside, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.

  Delilah’s red lips twisted into a snarl. “Hand over your keys, and be grateful I’m only taking your car."

  "It's a stick shift."

  "Honey, I fucked Henry Ford in the first Model T. Give over the keys."

  "Don't have them." Red opened her purse. “Like I said, I have a driver.”

  Delilah cocked her head. "How many hunters did you invite to the party?"

  "Enough." Instinct rolled through her. Red turned and ran for the Falcon. “Vic!”

  Delilah narrowed her eyes. "Maybe there’s a bit of Juniper in you after all." She rushed Red, her nails feeling like claws as they dug into Red’s soft vulnerable neck, blood already pooling under her fingertips.

  Red squeaked, trying to summon some energy, channel any element, but she only managed to blow a lock free from Delilah's French twist. So much for her theory that her magic responded to mortal danger. Red tried another angle. "You have a soul!"

  "This is a mercy, darling. You won’t feel a thing." Delilah reared back, fangs out to strike. A red dot appeared on her forehead before two more targeted her chest. Delilah looked down at the laser lights dotting her like chicken pox.

  Cora sprinted up in a blur. Heart-shaped white sunglasses perched above her quartz headband and forehead like a crown. She put her hands on her white kaftan-covered hips. “And this is a warning to drop that girl, Delilah.” She snapped her fingers before barking an order in a French creole patois.

  Five vampire security guards in suits stepped out from between the cars in the parking garage

  Delilah pushed Red away and flicked the blood on her fingers off onto the cement. “I was going to release her after I caught her.”

  “My intuition says bullshit.” Cora lifted a finger. “We ain’t getting into the fact that she’s a claimed human and a fucking hunter in the Brotherhood of Bards and Heroes, Delilah. The very ones I so painstakingly negotiated a very groovy truce with to get them to stop killing our kind. No, that would be bad vibes for any day.” Cora balled her fists and slammed her hands on her hips. The spaced-out hippie vibe curdled. “You betrayed me. How long do we go back? You helped me get on this throne. How long have you been trying to push me off it?”

  “What?” Delilah lifted her eyes as the red sniper dots traveled up her face to cluster on her forehead. “I don’t understand. When did I get on the hit list? I hosted your census rally not two nights ago!”

  “And I thought I had a friend until two nights ago. It wasn’t until Michel brought the molds out on stage... You helped me set up the registry and never gave one. In twenty fucking years!” Cora cocked her head. “That's enough time to raise a crop of minions, isn’t it? I was impressed with you before. Badass, centuries old, and running the best modeling agency in LA, all while balancing a soul. Now, I know you did all that while raising dozens as a single mother too.”

  “Wait a minute. I haven’t been turning anyone. I have enough progeny problems to deal with without adding some shitty millennials.”

  “Girl, you must be operating under the mistaken assumption that I’m stupid.” Cora shook her head. “I have the LAPD around my fucking finger. If fangs are involved, I have a man on the inside giving me the skinny in 3D of every corpse in town. We ran your bite mold after the rally.”

  Delilah crossed her arms. “That’s bullshit. Check them again.”

  “You can’t pull that ‘I want to talk to your manager’ act with me. I’m the manager!” Cora’s lips jutted out as if caught in mid-fury before she shook her head, flaring her nostrils. She looked to her guards as if she couldn’t stand to look at Delilah anymore. “Take her, and make sure she talks. I want to know where all her little bastards are.”

  Michel sped up to the scene. He held his hands out. “Mademoiselles. Let’s speak like civilized vampires. Whatever Delilah may be accused of—”

  “Pick a side, Michel,” Cora said. “I’ve been betrayed and
you’re already looking like an accomplice to a rogue master.” She said something more in French, too quick for Red to follow.

  “Mon dieu.”

  Red, backed up against a pillar and scanned the garage, searching for the most expedient and discreet route to the van. She could duck behind the cars while the vampires were distracted, but to where? Her train of thought was derailed when Quinn appeared beside her, stepping from behind an SUV.

  He shook his head and handed her a piece of plastic.

  Red looked down to see a grey top set of realistic teeth and fangs.