She still had the bearing of a queen. There was no trace of defeat on her proud face. Despite the white caftan dress and crystal necklaces, she looked less like a hippie with a scowl worthy of Churchill in the war room on her face. Just like Chang, she obviously hadn’t gone to bed after the Halloween Ball.
Eyebrow arched, she noticed Red immediately and hung up the phone. “Little hunter chick, shouldn’t you have run off with Novak, or did he send you to plead for Delilah too?”
Red furrowed her brow. “Um, what? I spent the night in a cell. I came to—” She looked around at the bodyguards, realizing that each one of the five had tensed at the sight of her. “See if you were ok.” She finished lamely, trying to find the right words. Red shook her head, realizing that being subtle wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “Michel didn’t tell you that he had held me along with Delilah and Quinn? He had some biker dudes take them away.”
“Is it fuck-with-me day?” Cora looked around and her fangs jutted out. “Bring Michel, since he won’t pick up his phone.”
Her bodyguards reached into their pockets, their hands gloved, and pulled out chains of blessed silver. Their stoic expressions didn’t change, even though their loyalties had.
“Fuck it. I’ll get him myself.” Cora leapt straight up over their heads. Hands and knees on the high ceiling of the hallway, she hissed and ripped out the chandelier, dropping it on her traitorous guards.
They staggered as the golden chandelier hit but managed to avoid the direct impact.
Cora dropped down on the first guard. Her hands burned as she grabbed at the blessed silver he held. Using both hands, she pulled it up and yanked it through his neck, sending his head tumbling back.
A bare skull joined his bones on the floor.
Red pulled out her stake, slabbing it into the gut of a second guard and angling it up to pierce his heart. He fell back and decayed into a skeleton.
Another bodyguard pulled her into his arms and put a gun to her head. “Cora! I’ll spray her brains all over the wall.”
The other two bodyguards circled Cora. “Michel says you can leave LA with your life if you don’t fight.”
“He also lied to me so I would have my best friend tortured. His word is worth as much as his depth perception.” Cora jumped up and bounced off the wall, her skirt flaring around her legs as she drop-kicked the vampire who held Red. Her foot whooshed by Red’s ear as Cora knocked his head back at an awkward angle.
Red pushed away from the twitching vampire and pressed herself against the wall behind Cora.
The elevator door opened. Lucas and Kristoff burst out of it and charged the other two bodyguards.
Red grinned at them. “You’re late.”
Lucas punched his opponent before jamming a stake into the center of his chest.
Kristoff punched his hand clean through the other vampire’s chest and pulled out a heart that crumbled to dust in his hand. He looked at Cora and bowed. “My lady, forgive the intrusion.”
Lucas rushed to Red and cupped her chin. “Kitten, we have to get you out of here.”
Kristoff glared out of the corner of his eye at Lucas, turning to face him.
Red nodded to Lucas trying to ignore Kristoff’s glower.
Cora held up the last surviving guard, his legs dangling uselessly as he gaped at her. “You have some explaining to do.” She gritted her teeth. “What, can’t talk? Then you’re more than a traitor. You’re useless to me.”
Lucas tossed a stake to Cora.
Cora staked the vampire and kicked at the bones that remained. “The cavalry isn’t much, but it’ll do.”
“Chang’s out there trying to round up the souled vampires,” Red said.
Cora nodded. “Good. My childe will hold it down.”
Lucas gritted his teeth, the amber reflection of a predator in his eyes as he looked around. “What dungeon are you keeping Quinn and Delilah in?”
Red frowned. “Michel had some bikers take them.”
Lucas closed his eyes. “They can’t be far. I can still sense them.”
“You have a helipad on the roof, right?” Kristoff asked as he wiped blood off his hand with a handkerchief. “I can call a helicopter and get us to safer ground.”
Cora nodded before lifting her phone to make a call. “Chang, there’s still some life in the mission. Michel isn’t taking my city. The lower floors have been taken over. Bring who you can find- souls only. I’ll be leaving from the roof to rally the rest in a second wave. We have a fight to finish.” She led the group to the elevator.
Red stood between Lucas and Kristoff and looked them over. She hadn’t ever been so happy to see vampires in her life. She grinned, hand on her hip. “Took you two long enough.”
“I wouldn’t leave you.” They said at the same time.
Lucas glared at Kristoff.
The sire and childe sized each other up.
Cora sighed. “Stop the competition vibes. I know Kristoff is the only reason you got out of Club Vltava, Lucas. There is still some love, my dudes.”
Lucas looked away at Red’s curious glance.
Kristoff licked his lips. “Let’s not sing kumbaya yet.”
Cora snapped her fingers and pointed at Kristoff. "No. I need you two to kill some rogue minions, then we can have the drum circle.”
Red smirked as Kristoff and Lucas stepped in front of her to shield her when the elevator door opened but only managed to jostle each other.
Then everything happened too fast for her to even scream.
Red heard the ping of a silencer, but she didn’t see who it hit until it was too late.
Cora dropped to the floor.
Lucas and Kristoff fell after her.
Thick metal tranquilizer darts dotted their chests. Cora had three sticking out of her torso, while the male vampires had only one each.
Red looked up. “Sh—”
“Thank you, Little Amazon. I knew you would prove essential in bringing both Crawford and Novak out of hiding.” Michel smiled, hands behind his back, standing under a vine-covered trellis between two raised flower beds. His black hair blew loose in the Santa Ana winds over his suit-jacket-clad shoulders. His white eyepatch seemed stained orange by the smog-filtered lights of the city. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
A dozen vampires dressed in black SWAT gear stepped out from behind him, looking like demons invading a rooftop Garden of Eden.
Beyond Michel’s smug face, Quinn and Delilah, gagged and bound, struggled against silver chaining them to the cement floor beside a gazebo. Two pairs of chains lay empty across from them.
Michel spared a glance at Cora with his good eye. “Pity she decided to resist. It would have been smarter to flee and fight again another day like I did. Chain the men and get her secure for the next step. She’s already so helpfully evacuated the building.”
Red backed up in the elevator, but there was nowhere to go. She could only watch.
Two of the vampires in tactical gear wrapped Cora up in a blessed silver net and lifted her up. Lucas and Kristoff were dragged out next to be chained on the opposite side of the gazebo from Quinn and Delilah.
Her fists curled up. Red knew she was next, but she swore she’d fight even without a stake.
“I have a modest proposal for you. I think you’ll be most interested, since I know you want this most of all.”
“What is that?” Red lifted her chin, knowing that if she could summon her magic she would have set the undead Frenchman on fire.
“To know where you came from.” Michel stepped up to the elevator and held his hand out to Red.
Without conscious thought, Red put her hand in his.
He was right.
Chapter Twenty-Five
November 1st, Night, Moon Enterprises, Inglewood near UCLA
Michel took Red’s hand and tucked it in the crook of his elbow before leading her from the elevator onto the rooftop.
The top of Moon Enterprises was an urban oasis i
n the center of Inglewood. Leafy green grape vines curled around the trellis-covered path lined with raised beds of flowers, tomatoes, and leafy greens. Potted palms, hoes, and a bucket of trowels lay nearby. A wooden crate of yoga mats cast a shadow on the concrete from the lights of the city. Beyond the garden, a helipad lay empty on the other side of the rooftop.
Quinn struggled against the chains that held him as they passed.
Delilah stood stock still to stare at Michel, blue eyes narrowed, before she turned away to hide the hurt in her gaze. Wisps of smoke wafted off the blessed silver chaining her hands and feet.
A small glimmer of gold on the shoulder of Delilah’s ruined dress caught Red's eye. Was it the hidden mic? The recording might still be beaming into the cloud database that Vic had shared with Fat Crispin and the Bards.
Red hoped so.
The vampires in tactical gear chained the unconscious Lucas and Kristoff. One of the guards handed Michel the key.
“It looks unseemly, but if you knew the full story, you would be begging me for their blood. This treatment is too good for the likes of them.” Michel gestured to a wicker chair at the table and released his grip on Red’s hand. “Little Amazon, you’ve lost some of your edge through ignorance. I imagine that this has been quite startling for you. I’m here to bring clarity to your confusion.”
Red gulped, looking at the Byrneses, then her stomach dropped as she stared at Lucas’s slack pale face. “How are you planning on killing them?”
“That depends on you,” Michel said.
“Why? I don’t get it. You used me to get Lucas and Kristoff here. You have everything you want. The city is yours. Vengeance is yours. I’m surprised I’m even alive, unless you’re trying to keep the Bards off your back.”
“I have a longer history with the Bards than you realize. I’m the only reason Cora was able to make her truce. I hold them in no ill will, even if few had the vision that my old friend Jack Constantine had.”
“Are you taking about Vic’s adopted father? His name was Henry.”
“Iron Jack is an older apple from that tree.” Michel sighed. “Alas, all truces must end. The natural order will be restored, but they’ll be given a boon. I have exactly what the Crispin Clan wants: blood for poor Julia.”
“That was you, wasn’t it?”
Michel waved his hand. “Semantics. Jake Crispin will be more than satisfied with taking Delilah’s head. I’ll throw in Quinn for revenge for that old massacre of Bards in Scotland. They’ll see it as the bargain it is.”
“You killed those women—Georgina, Olivia, Julia, Carrie—and planted them to cast blame on the Byrneses and Kristoff.”
“Not Georgina. But Delilah didn’t kill her either. She was just happy to see the ungrateful wench gone after leaving the agency.” Michel mock yawned before smirking at Delilah. “I had to listen to her harping about it for ages.”
Red nodded, knowing that she had to keep him talking. “That was quite the plan, to turn the Bards and the Blood Alliance against Cora while setting Delilah up for the fall. You must’ve been planning this for a while.”
“Over a hundred years, but who's counting?”
“Still, I don’t see why you’re waiting. You have everything.”
“What do you give the man who has everything? The thing that is impossible to give.” Sadness infused Michel’s expression. “I thought I did have everything, you see, but then you made me realize what could be.”
“I’m just a hunter.”
“Oh, my Little Amazon, you are far more. It's written on your pretty face.”
“My face might be a rerun, but beyond being a creepy reminder of Lucas’ ex-girlfriend, I really have nothing else to offer. You already have them.”
“No. I don’t have her—Penelope.” Michel pulled out a broken golden locket from his pocket and looked down as his thumb ran over the picture. “I had to break into your hotel room again to find it, but my gift has always been to enter uninvited.”
Red looked down. “Quinn told me what Lucas did.”
“Then you know they’re monsters among monsters. Don’t let the souls fool you.” Michel glared at Kristoff and Lucas’s prone bodies. “But you can right that wrong.”
“How? I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
“You have everything to do with it, Red. I need to know how you did it!”
“Did what?”
“How you managed to come back!” Michel stood in a bolt of frantic energy, his hands lifting. “Tell me how the witch Juniper St. James managed to be reborn into the modern age, and I will tell you where you come from. That is the deal. Not only that, I’ll tell you exactly where you can find Juniper’s greatest enemy—the warlock Maxwell Baldacci.”
“Whoa, whoa, I have no idea who this Matthew Bald-whatever is. I certainly didn’t know who Juniper St. James was before I came here.”
“Don’t play coy, little Amazon.” Michel raised an eyebrow before his snarling mouth softened into thoughtfulness. “Ah, perhaps this is a part of the spell. What do you know about the witch who shared your face?”
“She was Lucas’s kept woman at the turn of the last century.”
“Is that what they want you to believe? She was a mere lady of leisure?” Michel scoffed. “Juniper St. James was one of the most powerful dark witches of her age, until the warlock brought her low. Even regaining only a fraction of her magic, she was able to rip a swath through London. She infiltrated the Brotherhood of Bards and Heroes. She destroyed the most dangerous vampires in the White Lady’s cadre. I saw the shell of a burnt mansion in Essex where she massacred dozens with a zombie horde, turning them against their master. She was no kept woman!”
The sounds of the city seemed to slow as the breeze shifted through the grape vines.
Red tried to fixate on the little details to calm the heart beating loudly in her ears. Murder, necromancy, and betraying the Brotherhood—both Kristoff and Lucas had left out those points when they had waxed poetically about Juniper St. James. Was that why the Brotherhood had sealed up their records of what had happened at the Stonetree Monastery? Lucas had said that Juniper was killed by hunters. Now, Red knew why.
“She was evil,” Red said.
“Vengeful, to be precise. No more than would be expected after dealing with these brutish Byrneses.” Michel smiled and sat down to pat her hand in a quick burst of stiff comfort. “I saw you, and I knew she’d brought herself back to find her magic. I need to know how she did it!”
“I don’t know.” Red shook her head. “I can barely float a stake. I’m not the witch you think I am. Maybe a creepy doppelgänger, but…” Red gulped.
She wore the face of a dark witch. Red put her hand on her face, wanting to pull it off. She had spent the last year fighting dark beings. It made her skin crawl to look like one. They had said that Juniper was a survivor. They never said what she had done to survive.
Red gritted her teeth. She wasn’t more than a doppelgänger; she couldn’t be the second coming of the wicked witch of the west. “If I was a badass dark witch, I would’ve figured it out by now.”
“You sought the truth in Nevada and Oklahoma, didn’t you? You unseated the most powerful master supreme in the Midwest to find it.” Michel chuckled at her surprise. “My tentacles stretch farther than LA county, dear witch.”
“There are gaps in my memory, but I know who I am.”
“Oh, Red, you don’t lie as well as she did.”
Red didn’t answer.
Michel broke the silence first. “I can help you! You don’t know where you came from, but I know. You can regain what’s yours, destroy your old enemy, and restore your magic, but I need your word that you’ll help me get my Penelope back.”
Red bit her lip and pushed away an existential crisis again caused by Juniper St. James. She tilted her head, trying to keep him talking. “You still love her so much.”
Michel laughed. “Why the shock?”
“I just didn�
�t think that an unsouled vampire would care so much.” Red leaned forward over the patio table between them. “She was more than just progeny to you.”
“Penelope was my everything.”
“Even without a soul, you could love her?”
A Witch Called Red: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 1) Page 28
