Long Witch Night: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 2)

by Sami Valentine

  Vic stared at her expectantly. “You in?”

  The idea made sense even if she hated it. “Do we have too?”

  “Oi, what are you going on about over there, Quinn?” Lucas’s sleepy voice rang out in the distance from the speaker phone as if he had just woken up and stumbled into the living room to find his roommate.

  Steam rising over a determined expression, Vic held the mug in both hands, head bowed like a mafia don calling out a hit. “Make the call, Red. You know he’ll do it for you.”

  Lucas’s question boomed through the speaker. “What favor is that?“

  “You’re breaking up, Greg.” Vic made static sounds with his mouth and hung up the phone then put it on the table with his mug. Hands up, he arranged his expression with the calm composure of a diplomat. They had been tiptoeing around each other since their last blow out. There wasn’t any fight in his strong shoulders. He presented his argument in a soft voice. “Club Vltava is the best place we could lure her.”

  “Fine, but you’re the one who really owes me for this.” Red nibbled on her lip, trying to think about what she would write Kristoff. If she wanted him to stop sending her messages, texting him was a mixed signal. He was probably asleep in some penthouse in Portland on sheets with a thread count that she couldn’t imagine. Heart fluttering, she coughed. “For all your gripes about Lucas, you seem fine throwing me at Kristoff.”

  “When it’s for a case! He’s obviously not going to bite you again. Probably.” Vic winced, rubbing his neck. “He’s the only one we know who has a club that celebrities are dying to get into.”

  “Khloe Kardashian was his alibi.” She sighed, then pulled out her phone and angled it away from Vic so he couldn’t see the screen. Chest tightening, she dialed and waited for the rings to turn to voicemail.

  “Hey, Kristoff, could you help—" Red bit her lip and cringed. She could already imagine that aloof mouth easing into a smirk when he listened to the voicemail. She tried to inject professionalism into her voice. She told herself it was just a job. “I know it’s last minute, Mr. Novak, but could you get a VIP invite to Nevaeh Morgan for Club Vltava tonight? Yeah, that Nevaeh Morgan. It’s urgent business for Cora Moon. I need her to get out of the house. I don’t know what you do to lure the beautiful people out, but I’d really appreciate it if you could. Um, don’t hurt her or anything. Just get her some free drinks or something. Thanks. It’s Red, by the way.”

  “And this time, you didn’t even have to go on a date with him,” Vic said cheerfully.

  “No, I just owe him a favor instead!” Red froze, her face heating up like a stove coil. She hadn’t hung up yet. The phone slipped from her chilled fingers. She fumbled to hang up the call, cursing. “That’s on the voicemail! This plan is already getting me into trouble.”

  “Eh, you can get yourself into trouble just fine. I helped our case. I’ll power up the research machine.” Vic grinned widely, head bobbing. “Can you make eggs? The special kind. You know you make them the best.”

  “You’re lucky that you’re my best friend, because you’re pushing it today, mister.” She could have smacked the back of his head; instead she went into the kitchen and pulled the egg carton out of the fridge. Vic did not deserve eggs, but her tummy had already started rumbling. This day was already turning out to be a doozy. She felt her phone buzz, knowing who it would be, and put it in the crook of her neck. “Hey Lucas.”

  “Hell of a way to wake up.” He shook off the suppressed emotion in his tone, sighing before his voice became neutral. “Make the call?”

  “I left a voicemail. Here’s hoping that he does it.” She scowled at Vic who only turned up the TV in reply.

  “He will. That tosser—” Lucas sighed again. “Red, I trust you. I just blow hot. Too much old bad blood for me not to worry.”

  “I know. We just need to get Nevaeh out of her house. Then the case is over, and the good people of Hollywood can rest easy.” She leaned down and pulled a pan out of the cupboard. “Do you think you can check out the blueprints that Vic found on Nevaeh’s house? I know you two can’t get in without an invite, but it’ll be good to have you there, watching my back. Pushing me up a fence if I get stuck.”

  “I’ll get you through the gate. You’ll take it from there.” His voice warmed with pride.

  Chewing on her cheek to hide her grin, Red made her goodbyes and began to hum and chop up a bell pepper.

  Vic made a barfing sound behind her.

  “Do you want shells in your omelet?” She asked with poisoned sweetness. “Then get to the computer, nerd.”

  Hours of research flew by, and the sun was setting when their Chinese food arrived for dinner. The last rays disappeared as they finished, the takeout boxes piled up around them on the kitchen table. Red looked up from the PDF of an old grimoire on her laptop when her phone vibrated. She picked up the phone to see a message from Kristoff.

  Favor done. She’ll be there by 11 to be fake surprised by the paparazzi. Repay me with dinner. Portland has the best ramen on the west coast by the way.

  “Novak pulled through.” Red gritted her teeth as she read the message again, somehow knowing it would be dinner. Ramen. He knew one of her weaknesses.

  Kristoff probably saw the night she’d interrogated him in his gallery’s dark room as a date. Then there was the Halloween Ball where she literally went as his date. Undercover or not. She resisted the urge to sigh. Maybe she could convince him to accept her return the favor by banishing gnomes from his gallery in LA. She didn’t know if he had gnomes, but she could plant some and wait for the call about an infestation.

  She got up, texting as she tossed the takeout box in the trash. Thanks for setting the bait. Portland is a long way for ramen. How’s about you tell me when you have a monster to fight in LA, instead?

  The reply from Kristoff arrived immediately. She read it four times.

  If you want to wrestle a demon, you know who to ask.

  Face flushing, Red wet her lips as the memory of the terror, then the strange pleasure of his bite blindsiding her. She swiped out of the text conversation, setting the phone on the table, and blew out a sharp breath. There was no good in replying.

  “Who should we be? Cable company or florists?” Vic asked.

  She snapped her head up, mind still on demon wrestling, and squeaked out, “Cable.”

  “I look good in that uniform. I’ll be the wheelman.” Vic frowned at the slip of the tongue and looked at his electric wheelchair. Phone ringing to break the awkward silence, he put it on speaker and set it on his armrest.

  “You won’t believe who really owns Nevaeh’s place,” Quinn said. “Ari Goldstein.”

  She grinned. Vampires only needed an invitation to go into houses claimed by the living.

  “You have backup who can come inside, Red.” Vic crowed, leaning back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. “Be ready by ten. I’m driving.”

  ---

  In the front seat, Red gave directions to Vic as they slowly navigated the long private street to the large bungalow hidden in the Hollywood Hills. A magnetic sign disguised the Millennium Falcon with a company logo. Mud covered the license plate to fool any lurking cameras. They might have a few friends on the force but breaking and entering was still a crime.

  He looked more at ease than he had in weeks, behind the wheel with a monster hunt on the horizon. The van had been modified so he didn’t need to use his feet to drive. Dark eyes watchful under the dark blue cap imprinted with a cable company logo, a small smile teased at his lips.

  The high wall of the estate glowed in the van’s high beams.

  Vic looked to the back of the van. “Vampire time. Take out the cameras, boys, and get us through that gate.”

  Lucas and Quinn hopped out the back door. The younger vampire picked up a handful of gravel and tossed it with the surety of a boy skipping stones. The security cameras at the gate spun to the side, lenses cracking, as the stones hit.

  Red tried
to watch the pair, but they were impossibly fast going over the wall in a blur. The gate glided soon open on its track.

  Vic drove through and stopped at the front door before turning around to make the van ready for a quick getaway. “You’re on deck.”

  “Keep the car warm for us.” Red lifted the boxy leather case at her feet and put the strap over her shoulder. She trotted to the house and tried not to jostle the contents of her case.

  Tossing his errant hair back, Lucas stood by the front door. “Quinn is taking out the electrical box and generator to kill any alarms. We have to make this quick.”

  Quinn appeared and broke the doorknob off. He took a tentative step inside. “I’d say ladies first, but considering…”

  “Don’t worry. She doesn’t have a ward set up. Just an overpriced security system.” Turning on a flashlight, Red guided the two through the bungalow. She had spent too long watching Nevaeh’s YouTube channel for research. There was one room in the house she never showed when she was giving tours or doing live streams: her closet. A curious absence in Hollywood when everyone wanted to know what their favorite stars wore.

  Red stepped into the bedroom, walls lined with portraits of the celebrity couple, and went straight for the walk-in closet. She focused her third eye to check for wards or sigils. Only one glowed in her spirit gaze—it was to repel fires. A sensible precaution in the wildfire-prone area. It also proved that a witch had made her mark here. She pushed beyond the designer duds to the door just barely in view. “I need some help here.”

  Lucas slammed against the door and it fell open with a crack.

  Papered with hand-drawn sigils and photos, the secret room lay shrouded in toxic auras. Black and red strings connected sigils to pictures illuminated by salt lamps. Headshots of rival actresses mingled with candid photos of busy-looking executives on their phones. Crimson marker had been scribbled over Ari Goldstein, Basil Bansko, and Shelby McGee’s faces. More anti-fire sigils radiated neon on the ceiling and walls of the small room.

  “Guess we know what happened to their careers.” Red wanted to make another quip, but the gap in her memory included a lot of pop culture trivia from the last decade. She barely recognized half of the actresses. Was it the amnesia or Nevaeh messing with their careers?

  Quinn stepped inside to study the complex altar. “What’s the best way to destroy it?”

  “We can’t burn it out. She’s already thought of that.” Red flipped open her case and grabbed a big bottle of holy water and shook the ground up cold iron inside. It wasn’t fire, but it would neutralize the altar long enough to desecrate it. The room gave her the creeps. It wasn’t just the cat bones, but the twisted intention that oozed from the very walls.

  Clay pink hearts decorated a grim shrine that reminded her of a roadside memorial except there was a wedding photo in the middle. The sacrifice was DJ Shake’s freewill. It was dwarfed by a shelf altar of crystals and relics on the back wall. Gems and relics glinted from the open. Nearly lost in the serial killer grandeur, a small corn husk doll sat atop along with a selenite crystal and a pyramid of layered Oregonite in a sacred circle of bones.

  Red handed Lucas the flashlight. She poured some of the supercharged holy water over a ring of bones on the altar. It hissed and bubbled like peroxide on a wound. She passed the bottle to Quinn, then picked up the still-dry corn husk doll. Kate’s essence radiated from it. “Got a light?”

  An unnerving green flickering light glimmered on the shiny photos pinned to the wall.

  She spun around.

  Kate stood behind the vampires, hands clasped at the waist. Her downcast eyes pleaded through ghostly eyelashes.

  Lucas stepped forward, reaching for the iron dagger poking out of his inner jacket pocket.

  Kate hissed.

  “Easy. No daggers, a lighter!” Red held her arm out and shook her head.

  Lucas obeyed, but he kept the dagger in reach.

  Quinn inched closer to the specter.

  “Kate, I don’t know what kind of witch you are, and I don’t know why you spared Basil but not Ari. But I think I can see what kind of witch you could have been.” Mouth twisting, Red sniffed back the lump in her throat and grabbed the aged corn husk doll to light it on fire. The flames caught on the fibrous husk. “We’re here to set you free.”

  Glowing tears ran down Kate’s face. “You’re a good one.”

  Red smiled wanly, breath skipping in her chest. Even after it all, she still wanted the Bell Witch to find her peace. It was long overdue. “I release you, Kate Batts, I release you. I release you from your bondage.”

  Kate cried out. “Don’t neglect the power center. It must be destroyed!”

  Lucas smashed the Oregonite pyramid with his fist. Pent-up energy seeped from the room like air out of a beach ball.

  Hair blowing in the unearthly breeze, Red blinked back the tears building up in her eyes. “I hope you find peace.”

  “I hope it finds you.” Voice receding, Kate turned, and faded into the shadows. Her green glow blinked bright before disappearing.

  Gulping back a dry sob, Red let the doll drop before the flames reached her fingertips. It landed on the altar in a whisper of ash. Kate Batts was gone. Now it was her master’s turn. She sniffed and swiped the tear of her cheek. “Destroy all the crystals and relics. Everything creepy.”

  The vamps crushed the crystals in the small room, picking each up with their bare hands and squeezing. Powder fell from their palms.

  Red felt energy implode in swift bursts as each crystal crumbled. Years of charged magic escaped from the shrine. Witches could hold power in themselves, rechargeable but limited to their natural abilities. They could also put energy in objects for later storage or to power a spell. The smash job would destroy the integrity of the sacred space. It would take Nevaeh years to store this much up again.

  She furiously splashed the blessed iron water over the ritual space, making sure to dump water on the pictures of DJ Shake scribbled with hearts. What happened first, the marriage or the love spell? If not for worry about burning down the Hollywood Hills, she would have torched the place. Every picture staring back at her had been violated. Their wills had been stolen, even if they’d escaped with their lives.

  “Vic says we have to go.” Quinn looked down at his phone, the glow illuminating his ruggedly handsome face.

  Lucas slammed a crystal against the wall. The dust glimmered as it fell. “We’ve done this scene.”

  “Make sure Cora knows who was haunting her people.” Red retreated from the room, the vampires behind her. The icy reality of her words hit her after she said them. If Nevaeh walked into Moon Enterprises, supernaturally warded and renovated to withstand a tank, she wouldn’t ever leave. Nevaeh was still a human, no matter how gross. “I know the supreme will want to send Joe Chang, but could we have Detective Callaway track Nevaeh down instead? Give the LAPD a chance before the Fang PD? She might cut a deal just to avoid breaking the Dark Veil.”

  Quinn lit the path out of the darkened home with his phone. “I warned Callaway first. They should both be looking for her.”

  Jogging to the van and hopping into the passenger side, she watched the back door open in the rearview mirror. It didn’t reveal the two vampires hunkering down behind the tied-down wheelchair.

  “Tick tock, motherfuckers.” Vic put the van into drive and sped out of the open gate down the road. He slowed as a cop car passed by.

  Tension uncoiled in her shoulders when she recognized the vampire behind the wheel. He was going in the wrong direction. She breathed out in relief. Detective Callaway should have the lead on arresting Nevaeh at Kristoff’s club. She leaned her arm on the empty window and saluted with the other.

  Officer Joe Chang tipped his hat from the open car window. House music poured out in a techno blitz. He sped away into the night.

  Her stomach rumbled. She had done more magic in the last few days than she had in two months. She couldn’t figure out if she were hungry or slee
py more. “Who else is hungry?”

  “In-N-Out Burger?” Vic asked.

  Red shrugged with the boneless relief of another job survived. She already craved a burger at his suggestion. “Driver calls the shots.”

  “Don’t you forget it.” He laughed, flipping on the stereo. Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” boomed as they cruised out of the Hollywood Hills.

  “We dropped a house on Nevaeh tonight.” She tried to make a Wizard of Oz joke, but it came out too serious. Feeling awkward, she looked up at the sky with her third eye to see the echoed twinkle of stars beyond the smog. Could Nevaeh see the same spirit stars on the rooftop of Club Vltava?

  The starlet obviously had more than a few dream witchcraft trainings under her belt. Her ritual space was complex, blending traditional and personal elements. Mediocre at stagecraft, her witchcraft couldn’t be denied. All that power and Nevaeh used it to be popular. Even worse—to kill.

  Red knew how a dark witch could be stopped, but she didn’t know how they started. Nevaeh Morgan hadn’t been born with a stalker wall of compulsion magic. There was a choice, a first step, along the way. What was it?

  ---

  Red leaned her knee against Lucas’s, heavy eyelids lowered as they sat in the booth at the burger joint. She had already finished her burger, but she felt a perverse curiosity watching Vic dig into his third. Was it from his treatments? He had been undergoing special magic medical procedures to heal his spine, but mostly he just seemed to be eating more. The mystical couldn’t solve everything even if his recovery looked miraculous by muggle standards.

  Quinn looked down at his phone. “Detective Callaway has picked up Nevaeh for questioning. The LAPD already had her on their radar due to the Goldstein family’s suspicions of financial exploitation.”

  Nodding, she released a deep breath in relief. Nevaeh would have the chance to face human justice and if she behaved, the vampires wouldn’t step in. Prison wasn’t the Pandora Hotel, but she’d survive longer. “I guess the movie needs a new Martha Cratchit.”

  Lucas smiled and kissed Red’s cheek. “You have saved Helen Mirren from that stain on her filmography.”