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

by Sami Valentine

  “Oh, come now. I am giving you vital information here. If you’re not going to listen…” He crossed his arms. “Roll the picture show.”

  The projector crackled to life. A glowing dot grew to cast over the whole screen. Dramatic music soared.

  A female face appeared, pale and lovely, a dirt smudge on her cheek below her green eyes. Dark woods loomed behind her. A second face appeared over the first. The woman wore a golden wire crown hung low on her forehead in front of a rich tapestry. The next woman had an ebony ruff around her neck and a stone wall behind her. The faces morphed into one another, backgrounds shifting, before the montage of faces sped by too fast to capture the details. Black, blond, brown, and red hair framed thin faces, heart shaped ones, and even more configurations of features.

  Red couldn’t look away.

  “It’s not what she did that concerned me, it was the line of witches she came from and what she was destined to do,” Maxwell narrated before pausing, letting the dramatic soundtrack fill in the gaps. “Every man has a mission. Mine was to save the world.”

  She tried to pay attention to catch a glimpse of the mother she couldn’t remember, but the images moved too fast. Finally, it stopped on her face. Her eyes were widened in fear illuminated by candlelight. The vision pulled out to reveal the long white Victorian dress and matching veil in a mahogany-paneled study lit by candelabras.

  Red blinked at the image. It wasn’t her. That wasn’t her time.

  “Juniper St. James on our wedding night. I thought she would be dead by morning so I could enjoy the honeymoon.”

  “She was your wife?” Red turned away from him, mumbling to herself, “No wonder she stabbed you.”

  Nevaeh threw a Milk Dud. “You’re missing it!”

  The display had transformed into the ruins of a small castle. Three broken towers reached for the full moon. Fallen stones huddled at their bases, shining like old bones in the moonlight. A path rose between the rubble of lost walls. Face frozen in a silent groan, a cracked gargoyle pleaded with eroded eyes from the grasses. Flocks of birds fled overhead, racing across the bright stars.

  Maxwell appeared on the small stage in front of the screen, 3D glasses gone. “Is this too passive? You’re seeing the future I gave my own blood, and much more of others, to stop.”

  Red felt the unseen tug around her middle and then she was standing by him before she could blink.

  Nevaeh leaned forward in her seat, tipping her 3D glasses down, chewing Milk Duds.

  “Maybe you need to be closer to the action,” he said.

  Red tumbled into the screen and landed on dry grass. Standing and brushing herself off, she looked behind her. The theater was gone.

  Dark auras swirled around Juniper St. James as she stepped around the aged tower, dramatic gown brushing over the grasses. Two thin panels of sheer black lace came down over her breasts to the empire waist of the dress. Her red hair came over one shoulder in waves, exposing the onyx gems on her throat.

  Gawking, Red jogged toward her doppelgänger. This wasn’t a picture hanging in a gallery. This was life sized and dressed to raise heck at the witching hour.

  Juniper glided through her.

  Red followed up the path, between a crumbled tower and broken stone stairs leading into a hole filled with vines.

  Stalks of lavender and rosemary brushes wilted at Juniper’s feet. Their energy was sucked out, joining the jets of black mists gathering around her skirts. Passing through a weathered archway, she left ashes in her wake.

  Red had never felt dark power like it until a stronger presence rose, leaving her doppelgänger feeling like a candle wavering before a wildfire. Nearing the doorway, her jaw dropped at the long shadow lingering on the stone wall inside. Two massive horns jutted from its head. Shivering, she didn’t want to follow Juniper. Her feet moved anyway. It wasn’t compulsion that drew her; it was morbid curiosity. She walked on, sensing the shadow of a noose hanging over her.

  Time had eaten the roof of the derelict chapel leaving the stars above to bear witness to the unholy scene below. Chipped paint marked spots where crosses once adorned the walls. Stubby candles illuminated small statues of the Virgin Mary in eroded niches. Wax dripped onto the overgrown grass.

  Juniper walked to the stranger on the edge of the fallen wall of the chamber.

  A man stood outlined in the full moon. Under an aged archway perched on a windswept cliff, he surveyed the wild meadows and evergreen oak trees below. Dressed like an undertaker, black hair spilled over his shoulders. Only his shadow revealed the horns. He was shaped like a human, but he wasn’t. He was something other, something more.

  Red slunk along the walls.

  “It’s so beautiful.” The stranger’s deep voice bounced off the stone. Sadness tinged the observation. He turned his head and shadows covered his face, leaving no trace of the features. “I remember when this castle was whole. The chapel priest used to hide a jug of wine in the confession booth.”

  “Did he offer to share?” Juniper smiled at the devil, stepping to the edge.

  Even obscured, the shadowed face twitched in amusement. He stroked her hair. “You know the time has come.”

  She put her hand on the being’s cheek, touching him through the shades around his face. “I was bred for this. I’m ready to die for it too.”

  Red shuddered at how it could have been her own voice.

  Juniper lifted a dagger hidden in the folds of her dress. A breeze whipped through the ruins, blowing her skirts forward. She cut her wrists.

  The blood traveled in the wind, drawn forward with magnet precision, hitting an invisible wall over the meadow beyond the crumbled chapel. Crimson spectral light glowed on impact. Cracks appeared in the air. The moon turned eclipse red.

  Widening, the fissures turned a blinding, brilliant gold.

  The ground rumbled underfoot. Shadows pulled themselves out of the rifts before dropping to the wilderness below the cliff. Emerging from the tree line, they reassembled in hideous forms, tall with horns and twisted legs. Their howls ripped through the quiet of the night. Even the stones trembled from the cacophony. The demons raced through the meadow toward the castle.

  “My brothers will be free.” The strange man lifted Juniper’s hand and kissed her fingers. “And there will be hell for heaven to pay.”

  Red ran to Juniper. Her shoes stopped at the steep drop. “No!”

  He glanced towards her, eyes glowing vermillion through the miasma over his face.

  Red grimaced, jerking back to press against the rough chapel wall. Her throat felt too tight to even breathe. She’d forgotten she didn’t need to.

  Hovering, he became airborne. Shadows flapped around him like bat wings, outlined in the full moon. He hurtled over the far field to land in a crouch at the head of the demon army and rose to guttural cheers.

  “This is the future that I prevented.” Maxwell emerged from the shadows. Grim set to his chin, he nodded to Juniper who stared after the horned stranger like a captain’s wife on a widow’s walk, watching the seas for her love’s return.

  Red couldn’t take her eyes off her doppelgänger’s face. It was worse than she feared.

  “I don’t care if you are her or not. I won’t have you wake the creature with that familiar face,” the warlock vowed, shaking his finger. “I’d kill a thousand witches to ensure he never rises even for a case of mistaken identity.”

  “Who is he?” She gasped out, flinching at a burst of roars echoing through the hills.

  “Do the horns not give it away? Reason, woman, use it! He is one of the fallen!” Maxwell motioned to the hellish army gathered on the meadow below. “Why do you think I would roam the Dreamland looking for you? Tea?”

  “I wouldn’t do this.” The breath shuddered in her chest as the howls of the damned ricocheted on the castle ruins.

  “You don’t need to do anything. He will,” the warlock warned solemnly.

  Juniper glanced over. The moonlight caught on the blac
k gems around her throat. Recognition flashed in her kohl-lined eyes.

  Red screwed up her face, trying to teleport away.

  He sneered as he strutted towards the chapel’s edge. “Now you finally shut up. The gravity of watching hell open up to consume the earth has made an impact.” The collar of his suit peeked up. He rose by the scruff of his neck, tiptoes scratching on the ground, pulled by an unseen hand. His rolling eyes tried to see what held his collar.

  “Dramatic as ever.” Rolling her eyes, Juniper waved a dismissive hand.

  Launched over the side of cliff, Maxwell shook his fist as he tumbled into the air.

  Smiling, Juniper watched him dissolve into a burst of shadows. “For the record, it was a kidnapping, not a courtship, that led to our wedding.”

  As Red side-stepped along the stone arch, phantom bile rose in her throat at the witch who could have been her clone. Maxwell had thought he was the puppet master in the Dreamland, but now one of the puppets had gone rogue. This was supposed to be a vision of a foiled possible future recreated from his own memories…How was Juniper flipping the script?

  “Now that we are alone, whatever should we talk about? I think it’s time for a heart to heart, don’t you?”

  16

  December 23rd, 12:13AM, Dreamland, The Skinner, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

  Juniper snapped her fingers and the castle ruins disappeared as the armies of hell roared. The setting replaced by the complete opposite surroundings—a hunter’s bar called the Skinner in Oklahoma.

  Red trembled, sitting across from the doppelgänger at a rickety table.

  Hunters in flannel and Sooners hats drank beer at the mismatched chairs and tables. Souled Sal, the vampire owner and cook, tapped the bell in the kitchen window to announce an order. A easy smile spread across his dark-skinned face. From the creaking chairs to the framed, signed picture of Tanya Tucker, every detail was the same. Even down to the plate of chicken and waffles in front of her.

  “I want you to be comfortable.” Juniper raised her eyebrow at the meal before her. She made a curious sound in the back of her throat. “Fried chicken on waffles?”

  Adrenaline coursing through shaking limbs, Red leaned forward, elbow on the tabletop. “Comfortable? After watching an army of demons pop out of the ground like daisies. Seriously?”

  “It is difficult to have a conversation with all the howling.” Juniper picked up a fork and cut herself a bite. Unconcerned, as if it were an everyday occurrence for a long-dead Victorian witch in a gothic gown to appear in a Midwest dive bar.

  “You’re Juniper St. James.” Tamping down the surging emotions making her eye twitch, she pushed her plate away. Was she really talking to the woman that all the bad guys seemed to want—and were willing to kill Red to get?

  “Am I?”

  “Great. Dream riddles with my dark doppelgänger.” Red threw her hands up, then tapped the table, leaning forward. “I don’t get it—why you’re here, why we’re talking? None of it. You’re like a funny past life memory, hallucination, whatever. I don’t care because I finally get to say: fuck you very much, lady!”

  Juniper lifted her eyebrows and crossed her arms. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re dead, gone, and yet somehow you can still destroy my life. How many demons did you date back in the day? Lucas, Kristoff, and Satan apparently?”

  “That wasn’t Lucifer.” Juniper snorted, flapping her hand in dismissal.

  “Why am I not surprised you’re on a first name basis with the Prince of Lies? Are you in an evil book club together? What are you reading next—Eat, Pray, Love. Here, I was thinking Maxwell is the bad guy.”

  Brows knitting together, Juniper leaned forward. “He’s very much the bad guy.”

  “How do you know? You’re a monster too, even if you weren’t a figment in the Dreamland. I could also just be talking to myself in my own head.”

  “Hard to know here. The aboriginals in Australia called this—"

  “The Dreamtime. I know. How about you surprise me with something I don’t?”

  Juniper smiled with the confidence of a chess player just before checkmate. “I know who you are.”

  “Hopefully not you.” Red turned her recoil into a dry snicker. She was fed up with the doppelgänger, from her aloof mystery to the fact that the top of her dress was sheer in the bar lights. Was this really the person that everyone thought she was? Up close, she would have sworn the face was hers. She had hoped for a freckle or a birthmark to mark the difference, but they were like twins with a very different moral compass. “I spent the last year trying to discover who I am. Now, I could come from a long line of evil witches bred like pedigree terriers to end the world.”

  “Your mother wasn’t evil.” Juniper emphasized the point with her raised fork. “I wasn’t either. That future never came to be—if it was ever true to begin with. Maxwell likes his games. He always must feel like the cleverest man in the room. Ignore whatever smoke he conjures; I didn’t try to end the world.”

  Red mockingly nodded, folding her arms across her chest. “Because you were put down before you could. I’ve done my own research. The Brotherhood of Bards and Heroes hunted you down and, whatever happened on August 1st, 1900, they sealed the records up. The Stonetree Monastery might as well be Area 51 for how classified it is.”

  “They would redact that from the records.” Juniper rolled her eyes “Maxwell is trying to rattle you.”

  “Mission accomplished.” Being dragging through a ghoulish asylum and then presented with a demon with a capital D would do that to any girl. The Brotherhood classified most predatory supernatural creatures as a type of demon species, but there were even older darker beings rumored to still sleep in the earth waiting for the final apocalypse. Red saw a glimpse of what it looked like when hades opened. “That was a fucking legion of hellspawn that you released!”

  “I didn’t do that!”

  Red raised her eyebrows at the sincere vehemence. Doubt bubbled up. Catching herself, she twisted her lips into a resigned sneer. “What about the rampage through London? Betraying the Brotherhood? The necromancy?”

  “I didn’t raise zombies. I released them from bondage. There’s a difference.” Ducking her head, Juniper poked at her fried chicken. “I had my reasons.”

  “Most people’s reasons don’t end in a zombie attack.” Red sighed and tossed her hands up. “Why am I even arguing with you? I am cracking up and taking a detour to crazy town before the warlock scares me to death.”

  “You’re arguing with me because you’re curious. I understand. It was always my vice.” Juniper took another bite of the chicken and waffles before pushing the plate aside. She stood and walked over to the jukebox. “Now what is popular music nowadays? Have a coin?”

  “I’m fresh out of ghost quarters. Left them in my other ghost pants.”

  “That was a joke. If you don’t want something new, let’s go for something old.” Artificial glow twinkling in her green eyes, she tapped the jukebox. A Hank Williams Jr. song came on. “You remember this one.”

  Red rubbed the spot on her neck where laser scar removal had worked its magic. “I nearly died to this song.”

  “But then you killed that master vampire on his own throne. I am proud of that.”

  “I’m so glad to get brownie points from the Wicked Witch of the West.” She cringed. “I hope there is no part of you in me.”

  “I was a regular girl once.” Juniper looked down at the digital interface of the jukebox, knuckles whitening as she gripped the sides. “Family, friends, I used to walk with heroes.”

  Red frowned. Heroes? Was that just a figure of speech? Either way, it was easier to think of the doppelgänger as a bad seed than corrupted. Life would be tidier if dark witches were born and not made. “Where did it all go wrong?”

  “Maxwell.” Juniper shook her head. “He claims he was trying to stop me. He started this when he kidnapped me. That is what he doesn’t realize. He played a bigger part in this p
roduction than he understands.”

  “Understand this: I’m not enjoying this trip down your freaky memory lane. I’m done with this hallucination. I’m going now. Pleasure to meet and be weirded out by you.” Standing, Red glared before gesturing to her chest. “And think about proper coverage when you wear a half sheer dress. If someone sees you naked, they’ve seen me naked!”

  “Why are you letting Maxwell direct the show?”

  “This is your shit hitting my fan!” Red jabbed her finger towards the other woman. “My hands aren’t just tied, they’re incorporeal. I can’t do anything about either.”

  “His greatest trick is making you believe you are powerless. You’re in the Dreamland, and I know how strong your will is.” Juniper’s lips curved into an enigmatic grin. “Because mine is.”

  “Don’t act like we’re girlfriends in this together, Mona Lisa Smile.” Red shook her head. “All I know is that any second you’ll ghost on me, then he’s gonna drag me back to that creepy asylum and go all horror movie on me.”

  “He would take you there.” Scorn settling onto her features, Juniper scoffed. “It’s the last place where he had control over me.”

  “So that’s because of you? I thought it was just because I hate hospitals.” Red rubbed her arm. The image of the dirty surgical table flashed in her mind.

  “Some of this is from your brain, your memories, repressed as they are, but some of it is from his.”

  “And he’s had longer to play brain games. Great.” Red shook her head and went to the front door of the Skinner. She’d rather be stuck in Oklahoma, hitching a ride back to LA, than keep listening and stepped out onto the moonlight-covered parking.

  “You can fight him if you face that fear.” Juniper appeared beside her and snapped her fingers.

  They appeared in a cramped hallway with damp, smoke-damaged, whitewashed brick walls. Moonlight and stars glittered in the window at the end of the hall. Large bulbs buzzed with electricity on the ceiling. The asylum. It was better lit and cleaner, but it was still Maxwell’s funhouse of psycho pain.