“Again.”
She restarted the chant, heart speeding, back muscles tightening from the increased energy.
The lights went out, leaving only the red emergency exit sign run by distant generators. A rolling chair in the corner scooted in retreat. The windows shook in their frames. In the center of the room, a glow appeared outlining Kate’s form. Her spectral feet hovered over the floor. The hem of her dress swished and swirled in shadows. She raised her hands, her calloused fingers curled like claws.
Red tried not to look into the transparent hazel eyes. The witch had been kind to her. Forced into it or not, she couldn’t forget poor Basil.
Lucas popped up in front of Kate, swinging an iron fire poker. The Bell Witch vanished. A framed private investigator license soared off the wall, hitting him in the head. The ceiling fan spun rapidly, sending sparks down. He rolled away and rose in a crouch.
The ghost reappeared behind Vic. Quinn slashed an iron dagger over the human’s head, slashing the intruder.
Kate shuddered and turned around. Her screech sounded more like a velociraptor in a primeval forest than a woman. She flung her hand in a sweeping arch. Quinn flew back, striking the empty coffee stand. The cheap particle board shattered under his bulk.
Wincing at his impact, Red did her best to ignore the fighting to keep her voice steady. It wavered at the creak across the room.
The coffee table slid, hitting Lucas behind the knee. He stumbled, black hair tumbled into his amber-flecked eyes. Fangs elongated over his canines, he hissed up at the specter in the center of the room.
Kate disappeared.
Vic chanted louder, covering for Red’s faltering.
The temperature dropped.
Lungs skipping a breath, Red wheezed at the touch on her shoulder. The hand felt solid. She knew it was the touch of death. A scream bubbled up in her throat. She swallowed it down to keep reciting the chant.
Lucas sprinted to stab over her shoulder with the iron poker.
Kate cried out again.
Sweat dripped down Red’s face. Energy boomeranged back into her. She nodded to Vic, her mystical senses telling her that the other objects had their cords cut, leaving only the doorknob connected to the Bell Witch.
Vic’s eyes screwed up in concentration for stage two of the operation. Together, they dipped their hands down to sweep the salt aside and broke the circle. He chanted as he raised his head. His eyes widened. “Red!”
Deathly cold claws dug into her neck. Red gasped, chest tightening, yet kept up the Latin chant. Somehow, she knew Lucas would get there in time.
The whoosh of an iron poker cut through the air behind her back, dispelling the icy touch.
Shouting the last words, Red focused on severing the psychic glowing cords attaching themselves to the doorknob. She forced every ounce of concentration into visualizing cutting it. The thread trembled. It snapped like piano wire pulled too tight, pitched note vibrating in her head.
In the center of the room, Kate roared and evaporated in a flash of green lightning. Bolts of vivid green hit the ground like torpedoes. The brilliance rose like a mushroom cloud.
Red dropped onto the desk, blinded. Her head swam as her sweaty forehead pressed against the cool wood, heart pounding in her chest. The iron ores blazed hot like coals against her hand. She panted as if crossing a finish line, knees buckling.
Vic fell beside her, half out of his wheelchair.
Lucas gently pulled her up and took her into his arms. “Your eyes…?”
Red leaned her head against his chest, blinking out the shock of the bright light of Kate’s exit. The daze from doing such complicated magic covered her like a San Francisco fog. She wavered on her feet. “I’m a little out of it. Save the questions.”
Quinn furrowed his brow, glancing at them as he put a hand on Vic’s back.
“How about an observation?” Lucas brushed his thumbs across the apples of her cheeks. “You’re cold, Red. That took a bit out of you.”
“I’m fine, Greg, thanks for asking.” Vic sat himself upright in his wheelchair with the groaning effort of an old man.
“I think we did it, guys.” Closing her real eyes, she looked at the desk with her third eye, trying to sense the spell. Even the doorknob on the desk just looked like a doorknob without the hovering toxic aura it’d had before. she smiled, leaning into Lucas’s touch. Only the usual energic bric-a-brac floated in the ether of the office.
A stab of guilt tightened her lungs. Kate had taught her that. Vic was right—Red did have sympathy for every devil.
Her smile faded as she opened her eyes and pulled back. “The objects should be disconnected from the Bell Witch.”
Lucas kissed her with the urgency of a drowning man swimming for shore.
Surprised, her hands fluttered on his shoulders before snaking around his neck. Sinking into his passion, she let herself find oblivion in it. Enough thinking and worrying tonight. She was ready for the post-vanquishing banter and kisses.
He grinned against her lips. “You had a man worried when that ghostie had her paw around your neck.” He stroked her hair, nuzzling her neck, reminding her there was another way a witch could balance energies after a spell. “Thought that I…” His voice was muffled, kissing her skin.
Red caught the Sphinx-like look exchanged between Vic and Quinn, but she was too tired to do anything but close her eyes. She wanted to soak up the security in Lucas’s arms. The spell didn’t require as much energy as harnessing one of the elements, but it still took a lot out of her. She felt that lightheaded fatigue of a flu coming on.
“Can you two pick up the place?” Vic pushed tip his hat down to shield his eyes from their display. “Because I don’t have it in me to write up the report.”
“Yeah, you two go rest. Did you want to crash here?” Quinn asked.
She smiled, happy for a change of scenery. A sleepover suited her fine. She’d had enough nightmares and freaky dreams in her own bed.
“No, I think that it’s past our bedtime.” Vic shook his head. His features took on a hard, determined cast. “We need to be fresh tomorrow. We might have a pissed off spirit caster looking for us.”
Red knew enough not to argue with him when he was like this. He wasn’t wrong. It was weird because he usually relished the chance to luxuriate in the sublime water pressure of Quinn’s massive shower. Vic had joked that it was worth a drive from Reno. Then she belatedly remembered that he couldn’t crash on Quinn’s couch like before. The basement apartment under the office wasn’t handicapped accessible. She could stay, since the van was modified for him to drive home, but she didn’t like leaving him by himself. “Sure, but after that magic, I need some food before I pass out, Vic.”
“I got a banana in the Falcon. Nosh on the way home.” He waved her on.
She turned to Lucas and gave him a peck on the lips. “We defeated the Bell Witch.”
He smirked, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “Bully for us.”
“Ugh, but we also saved an unnecessary Hollywood reboot.” Vic powered his wheelchair toward the door. “They should have stopped after Scrooged.”
“Stop bah-humbugging.” Red laughed and grabbed her purse, then waved to Quinn and Lucas. She shut the office door but still heard Lucas’s voice through it.
“Don’t start, old man. Just grab a broom.”
“They’re already squabbling over the mess.” She stretched, trying to loosen up fear-tensed muscles before tapping the unlock button on the van remote. The wheelchair lift undocking could be heard even before they walked out into the parking lot.
“Yeah, they’re a real odd couple.” Vic rolled ahead to the lift. “Lots of wacky vampire sitcom shenanigans, bickering on Sundays over who drank the last blood bag.”
Quipping absently about chicken blood on the newspaper, she felt miles away from the conversation as she stepped up into the driver’s side of the van.
The Bell Witch was gone. The others wouldn’t have mourn
ed Kate Batts, but Red would mourn the potential for good. Maybe things could have been different if Kate’d had an easier life, a life free from burn scars and poltergeists. She sent out a hope into the universe that the spirit would find peace.
Still, Red was happy that she would get some sleep tonight without a drive-by cameo. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
8
December 18th, 3:33AM, California Sunrise Apartments, Culver City, Los Angeles
Red rolled over and opened her eyes to see the unearthly bright moonlight shining through her window. She was dreaming, but not the absurdist ‘ride the bus in your underwear sitting next to Napoleon’ kind of dream. It was the ‘dead witches whispering magic’ kind of dream.
Shit.
Kate Batts sat at the desk, features arranged in a resigned ‘I’m not angry, I’m disappointed’ manner. “Sister Witch, we parted most grievously. You gave a mighty fine try, but your craft wasn’t enough to release me.”
Wincing as she tilted her head back, Red pinched the bridge of her nose. What went wrong? How had the witch survived? The spell had gone exactly as planned. “But you have nothing connecting you to this plane.”
“I am being held, and she is not letting go. I am not as expendable as Dean. My master has unfinished business.” Kate sighed, rubbing her hands, gaze growing distant. “I yearn for the simple life again, when I had a cow in my field, a child playing at my feet, and a sweetheart in my bed.”
“What kind of spirit are you?”
“A mage spirit like yours will be—come some hopefully-not-soon day. There are others who can travel in the Dreamland besides our kind.” Kate rolled up her sleeves, revealing the hideous burn scars that covered her arms to the elbow. “I do not delight in what I will do next.”
Red woke with a question on her lips and the sun on her face. Panting, she rolled away from the sweat soaked sheets. What unfinished business? Who would suffer next to ensure that it was done?
She shifted off the phone digging into her side and pulled it out. A notification of a text message from Sheila Jones, her agent at Smith and Reaper, blinked at her. Basil had fallen into a mystical coma. Pushing the phone away, she put her head in her hands. She unfolded herself, taking deep meditative breaths, staring up at the ceiling. Her internal dialogue veered between pep talk and bargaining to get up. She couldn’t afford a guilt-fueled panic attack.
Climbing out of bed, she went into the living room and paused as the TV caught her eye. She recognized the split-screen footage of a quiet urban canal through a shopping district.
The TV anchor’s eagle gaze and nonregional accent grew somber. “It has been six months since the tragic domestic terrorist attack in Oklahoma City which was been marked by a candlelight vigil in Bricktown.”
Red shook her head. She had been there, and it might have been terrorists, but they weren’t human. It was a showdown between one desperate werewolf and a gang of vampires.
“The Dark Veil PR machine rolls on,” Vic shook his head. “I bet they were the ones who did the mysterious donation to the victims.”
The TV anchor shuffled his papers before continuing. “In entertainment news, the nightmare on the set of A Christmas Carol hasn’t stopped production even as Hollywood mourns late director Ari Goldstein.” A montage of police cars outside the mansion on the hill faded into a cascade of written statements from the film’s stars. A paparazzi still shot of Nevaeh Morgan and her husband, DJ Shake, flashed on the screen. “In a statement from Nevaeh Morgan, starring as Martha Cratchit, she offers condolences about the director known for such films as…”
Red grabbed the remote and turned the TV down. “Basil is in a coma.”
Vic coughed, wiping coffee off his chin. “Ah, fuck.”
“I also had another cameo from Kate Batts in my dream.”
“Double fuck.”
“What the hell? We’ve done that spell before. It works. I felt it work.” She bit at her thumb nail, other arm wrapped around her middle. All that confidence from mastering her third eye disappeared. She had freestyled on some of the ingredients, but the energy was correct. At least she thought it was. “Kate said she has unfinished business. I mean, her master does.”
A buzz hit the air. Lifting a vibrating phone, he hit the speaker phone button on the screen and set it on armrest. “Vic Park Constantine, the hunter so nice they named him trice. Talk to me.”
Quinn’s voice filled the room. “Just got off the horn with Detective Callaway. She says that a casting director was killed last night in a ‘fucked up ghoul way’ in her words.”
Dread sinking into her stomach, Red asked over Vic’s shoulder. “Was this casting director named Shelby McGee?”
“Am I on speaker phone?” Quinn’s tone turned befuddled, but he continued. “Yes, how did you know?”
“I met her at Ari Goldstein’s last party. She did the casting for A Christmas Carol.” She pursed her lips. The answer had been right in front of them. “She said something about nearly losing her job after the ‘Martha Cratchit debacle.’”
Vic tossed a side eye at her, stroking his chin. “Nevaeh Morgan is playing Martha again.”
“The role she’d kill to keep, apparently,” Red said.
She hadn’t considered Nevaeh, because why would Bell Witch’s puppet master have invited them over for an exorcism, but it was her husband who had actually called Quinn Investigations. The ghost, Dean, hadn’t found peace through connecting with DJ Shake in a feel-good Hallmark moment. He had left after Nevaeh told him to. It had all happened when Red and Vic had finished the chant, so she had thought it was from their efforts.
“I am not following.” Quinn’s voice bobbed as if he was pulling the phone away and then closer. “How do I sound? Can you hear me?”
“Ari fired Nevaeh before he died.” Vic pointed out, leaning toward the phone on his armrest. “And you just talk into it, Q. Stop waving the phone around.”
“Her husband is a rapper.” Red did a quick search on her phone for DJ Shake and Mr. Hyde [Yo Wife] and found only results about their feud. Too focused on chasing down leads for Basil, she hadn’t paid as much attention to the musician victims. LA was a big town, lots of opportunities for unrelated hauntings especially around the winter solstice. She hadn’t connected the dots until then. “Why else would the Bell Witch target him?”
Vic drummed his fingers on his coffee mug. “I’ll bet all the other haunted rappers had problems with DJ Shake too. Then we have all the ghost attacks on her co-stars and director. She must have summoned the Bell Witch.”
“So, you’re saying Nevaeh has been using a dead witch’s ghost to kill so she could stay in a movie?” Quinn’s dry question crackled out of the speaker. “Why am I asking? This town...”
“Basil said something weird had been going on with all of those Hollywood types that he had been working with. They were all producers, directors, and casting agents.” Red counted on her fingers. The web of manipulation spread over the city. “Nevaeh isn’t just pulling the Bell Witch’s strings.”
“Compulsion?” Vic sipped his coffee, then cocked his head. “No wonder she tried to take out the shaman. He’s the one who was breaking through the mind control.”
“How don’t we know that she didn’t earn her parts?” Quinn questioned from the other end of the phone line.
“Let me field this one.” Red stepped around Vic to speak to the phone. “Did you see the remake of Emma?”
“Yes.” Quinn’s tone was short and confused.
“Who was the worst part of the movie?”
Vic rolled his eyes. She had forced him to watch it with her and then she spent the rest of the night complaining about Nevaeh.
“The blond who couldn’t keep up the English accent,” Quinn said. “It was like they found her in some community theater.”
“That’s Nevaeh. See, Vic, he agrees!” Red pumped her fist in victory before turning more serious. “What do you think? Probably has an altar to maintain the s
pells? It would take a lot of concentration to hold that many under control. She’d need to have something set up to maintain the compulsion.”
“I taught you well, Padawan.” Vic wagged his finger as the visible thrill of a new lead jolted through him. “We’ll need to come in force if we’re going to take down a five-time Razzie winner.”
“The altar has to be in her house,” Quinn said. “She needs to be near it often to keep it energized.”
“We can destroy her power center and neutralize her. How can we get her out of the house?” She asked. “If she’s that powerful, an open fight will be tricky. I don’t have much energy in general, and I used most of it up last night.”
“She got her big role back. Her enemies are out of the way. It’s time to party. We just have to give her a place to go.” Vic’s lips curled up in the trill of an idea.
Narrowing her eyes, suspicion slowed her words. His expression was one Red had seen too many times. Those times usually ended with her running for her life. “What are you scheming over there?”
“What’s an invite she can’t refuse?” Vic lifted his eyebrows and rolled his fingers to spur a guess. “A place where even socialites wait in line?”
“Oh, balls…” Red cringed as realization slapped her. She rubbed her neck before jerking her hand away from the fang scars on her neck. Kristoff’s bite… She tried to be clinical about it.
The human to vampire transformation modified the salivary glands in addition to reforming the teeth and adding a lot more veins. When a vampire bit a human, their venom put the victim in a thrall. Like a snake, they all had rough control over the amount of venom to inflict. There were reports of regional bloodline differences like a clan of vampires in Siberia whose venom felt like ice. But outside chemical quirks, that was it. It didn’t connect vampire and victim mystically, just put the human in a daze to make feeding easier.
Not Kristoff Novak.
When he bit you, you didn’t want him to stop. And she would rather cut out her own tongue than admit that to anyone.
Long Witch Night: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 2) Page 8
