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

by Sami Valentine

  “He ranted about her a lot. Trailer trash from Tennessee. Blinded him with her country witch wiles, called him handsome when her husband wasn’t around. Convinced him to buy property. I don’t know. Standard sugar baby stuff even though Ari never touched her.”

  “She had so much power. What does she do with it? Torment her rivals to get an Oscar.” Red sneered, swallowing the bad taste of Nevaeh’s misspent talent.

  “In her defense, there are plenty of actresses in this city who would do the same.”

  “Not many witches, though.” She looked down, pushing away her disgust with Nevaeh’s actions to think about her motives. Had this dark witch been born bad or made that way? The woman had clawed her way to the top of Hollywood like something was on her tail. “You know where she lived in Tennessee? What did you sense from her soul?”

  “I saw some images. A drive-in theater, a beauty pageant, a mobile home park. But she kept her energy on lockdown. It should have been my first clue. This is all my fault. I should have let her keep ruining cinema, not our lives.”

  Red patted his shoulder. She understood the allure of ‘should-ing’ all over herself about her own regrets. “Well, when we wake up, consider the debt between us paid off.”

  “Get us back in our bodies and I’ll think about it.” Basil gave her a cynical side-eye.

  “He expects us to run. They both do.”

  “That’s the smart choice. Let’s run to my place in Tahoe,” he said, brightly. “It’s lovely this time of year. You did a great job with the paint job.”

  She raised her chin. The Dreamland had been nothing but a nightmare. She had been blindsided and on the defensive all night. “We aren’t running.”

  Basil put his head in his hands, groaning through his fingers. “We can’t stay here.”

  “We’re taking control of the fight.” Through the hospital room door, Red inspected the bent and battered curve of the protection spell domed over her body. How long could it hold?

  “Bad idea. We can’t take them both on.”

  “We aren’t.” Red smiled, the plan unfolding in her mind. “Think you can wish us to that trailer park?”

  19

  December 23rd, 12:34AM, Dreamland, Smithson’s Corner, Tennessee

  A large plastic banner hung between two trees in front of a one-floor home. Illuminated by Christmas lights, it’s shadow stretched to the edge of a mobile home park. Crowded block letters read Smithson’s Corner, Tennessee—Home of Nevaeh Morgan. Stop Here for Celebrity Tour and Memorabilia (Autographs, Mugs, & Commemorative Plates. Cold drinks too!)

  “I always wanted a Nevaeh Morgan commemorative plate.” Red smirked at a tire swing on the other side of the yard labeled by an arrow-shaped sign declaring, As seen on Instagram!

  Basil rolled his eyes. “Hardy har har.”

  “We could get matching T-shirts,” She laughed, tugging on the hem of her top. “Maybe even autographed.”

  He walked ahead of her. “Can we just get on with this? Before the evil ghost warlock comes after us?”

  “I thought the Morgans lived in the trailer park?”

  The home wasn’t a mansion, but it looked like a recent build. Moonlight made the new-looking riding lawn mower shine from the open garage next to an orange Camaro. Holiday decorations strobed from the eaves. In the gloom, the mobile homes looked more like shacks behind it.

  “Nevaeh bought it with her parents when she made it big. Starlet and slumlord. Got her into Entrepreneur magazine.” Basil shook his head, walking through the front window. “Poor Ari co-signed on it. I was called when his brother finally found the paperwork.”

  After being a spirit for so long, Red didn’t even blink at passing through a windowpane. She glided into the dim living room where the eerie light of the Dreamland competed with the blaring TV. A velvet rope stretched across the open archway to the hallway.

  Slumped in a plush recliner and staring at the screen, an older man wore a Christmas sweater, but his expression wasn’t merry. He gripped a glass of whiskey with fight-torn knuckles. Five bloody scratches on his forehead reflected the hazy glow of the TV. This must be the Morgan patriarch. She wasn’t surprised that this was how a scuzzy landlord spent his holidays.

  “Is this where the tour begins?” Red quipped, surveying the china knickknacks in a glass cabinet.

  Basil shot a miffed side glance at her. “You’re pretty chipper for a woman who was nearly burned at the stake.”

  “I’ve been getting my dream ass kicked all night. I’m kicking back. That requires swagger. It’s in the hunter handbook. You have what you need off the dad?”

  He wrinkled his nose. “I’m reading his soul loud and clear. Mom’s too, in the kitchen. They aren’t mages, that is for sure.”

  Red walked down a hall lined with pictures and movie posters. It looked like an exhibit. Nevaeh’s toothy smile stared at her from all angles. She glared at the portraits, stepping into the brighter-lit kitchen. Dirty aura smudges stuck to the corners of the room.

  The lady of the house, Urleen Morgan was rail thin and care worn. Her thinning blond curls not fully covering her scalp. She sat at the circular table in the center of the tidy kitchen. A sign by the door read PRIVATE. Painted a cheery pink, the walls brought the woman’s black eye and matching sweat suit into grotesque, sharp relief. She clutched an old picture of her daughter and a cigarette between her long yellow acrylic nails. One was missing. Sobs made her bangs tremble.

  Basil waved his hand around the kitchen. “You don’t need to be a soulmancer to see there’s a lot of wrong in this house.”

  “Yeah, we have the makings of a villain origin story here, alright.” Red put her hands on her hips, trying to project more confidence than she felt. This place was depressing, she could see why someone might do anything to get out of here. “Read the lady. We need you stocked up on terrible visuals.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but a shout from the living room cut him off.

  “Knock it off in there, Urleen. I’m watching my show.”

  “How can you watch that rerun with everything that’s happened, Frank?” Urleen crushed the picture.

  Red’s swagger slipped. She steeled herself to watch a mother’s grief.

  Nevaeh might have been a murderer, but how it ended was a shame. The Black Veil and the Supreme Master of Los Angeles shrouded the case in mystery. All the human world knew was that a beautiful actress had killed herself in a fit of sorrow over her beloved director’s murder.

  That was all the Morgan family would ever know.

  “You bastard!” Urleen tossed her cigarette in the ashtray. “We’re going to lose the damn house and the park to that damn Jew’s family. The insurance company won’t pay out the policy on a suicide. I can’t go on the talk show circuit with my face like this neither, just when public interest is at its peak.” Her holler turned low and sour. “And you’re watching reruns.”

  “Slap on some makeup,” Frank grumbled from the other room and turned the TV volume up.

  “Fucking useless.” Urleen picked up her waiting cigarette. She took a long drag, as if she was trying to get all the nicotine in one go. The cylinder turned to ash. Her lips trembled as she stared at her daughter’s photograph. Eyes narrowing, she released the smoke out her nose like a waking dragon. She put the cigarette out between the printed blue eyes.

  Red always wondered if she was missing out by not knowing who her family was. Five minutes with the Morgans was making her change her mind. She hoped that her family weren’t like this even more than she wished they weren’t a clan of evil witches. She used to imagine they were gentle professors or cheerful dentists. Now her aspirations lowered to evil but loving.

  Rubbing his temple, Basil walked out of the kitchen. “I think I got enough.”

  Going after him, Red followed the arrows and the increasingly large signs that proclaimed Nevaeh’s room was down the hall.

  The room itself was a letdown after the buildup. Painted pink with ruffle
d white curtains, it seemed more like a shrine than a bedroom. Barbies on a bookshelf and a poster of the Spice Girls were labeled with a museum’s seriousness. A red-haired porcelain doll rested on the white-blanketed bed.

  Red waved her hand and wished, visualizing her intention clearly. A tidy ring of iron ore materialized on the pink carpet. She added salt, hematite, and a few other repelling herbs in the spell. Dried petals and stems drifted onto the cold iron circle like a garnish. Her body back in California needed her energy, but she still pushed a trickle of magic into the witch trap. Nevaeh could out-witch her in the Dreamland and needed to be distracted enough to forget.

  “Will this do it?” She touched the doll, her fingers passing through it. “Can you home in on it?”

  He nodded. “Unlike most of this stuff, that was actually hers. Now, focus.”

  Red took his hands, holding them up and out to create an oval with their arms. Nevaeh had missed her cue to go to the great beyond. They were going to remind her. “Should we say her name three times like Bloody Mary?”

  “Concentrate. Lock in on her soul,” Basil snapped.

  “Give me a sign when you’ve gotten enough soul vibes off her.” She braced herself for incoming bad juju.

  Nevaeh formed out of smoky dark mists like a Disney villain invading a Barbie Dream House. Magic fury wafted off her. The black of her smeared mascara matched the inky jet color of her eyeballs. She stomped toward them, shaking her finger. “You have no right to bring me here.”

  He pressed himself against the closet door, half sinking into it.

  Red grinned. “Look down.”

  Nevaeh glanced down at the ring of iron she was trapped in. Her face fell into confusion, then fear, lips curling back. As her eyes flicked from black to blue, the shadows faded around her. “Shit!”

  “This is some room you have here.” Stalling for time, Red pointed at a commemorative plate with the actress’s smiling face and a price tag on it. “You know, I need one of these. It’ll really bring my living room together.”

  “Fuck off. Did you just summon me to rub Urleen’s stupid roadside freakshow in my face?”

  “That’s just a bonus. I was curious to see how little Nevaeh got her start.” Red crossed her arms, mock examining the room. She was being snarky, but the interest was real. Had it been the crappy parents, the shitty upbringing, or the love of the Spice Girls that had turned the other witch evil? “It’s frillier than I expected.”

  “I’ve never even slept here.” Nevaeh glowered at the merchandise on the desk.

  “No, you’re the reason they got out of the trailer park.” Red gestured to the distinctly not mobile room. Beyond casting Nevaeh in his movies, Ari had been her piggy bank for her excessive lifestyle and real estate ventures that her own blockbuster salary couldn’t afford. It wasn’t the magic that brought suspicion on the actress, it was the money trail. Greediness seemed to be genetic. “I’m mulling over the pop psychology behind your mother wanting to buy it instead of move. Maybe to lord it over the peasants that she squirted out a star?”

  Nevaeh put her hands on her hips. “Are you just going to be catty with me? Because I’ve had to do press tours with bigger bitches than you.”

  “Just making conversation. This park was the clue that unraveled it all.”

  Nevaeh widened her eyes.

  “She didn’t know, Basil.” Red scoffed. “Oh jeez, you went on a murder spree without even wondering what card made the house fall? The Goldsteins brought him in because they found out that Ari had invested in this cruddy place.”

  Nevaeh cursed.

  Red chuckled. “You could have killed him, and they would have just sent in auditors. Looking at the investment, I can see why they figured it was witchcraft.” She glanced at the worried soulmancer who chewed on his nails and looked ready to run again. Was he up for the next part of their plan? She shook her head, trying to stay casual. “You could have compelled your way to an Oscar, if it wasn’t for the paper trail. Just cocky or sloppy? I can’t figure it out.”

  “Fucking Urleen… She wanted to buy the place.” Nevaeh gritted her teeth, hands trembling as she stared at the wall as if seeing through it to her mother in the kitchen. Her voice came out choked. “I told myself I wouldn’t be caught dead in this town again.”

  “There’s a joke in that,” Red said, wagging a finger. The quip curdled in her throat as she thought of how kind Kate could be. It was easy to imagine a young Nevaeh triggering the maternal instincts. How long had it taken the actress to pull out the chains to enslave the spirit? “I’m curious to know how the Bell Witch fits into all of this, but I'm guessing a sad little girl with god-awful parents found an abandoned house, then made a ghostly friend.”

  “No, that would be endearing.” Basil wiped his hands on his hospital gown, nose crinkling, as if he’d touched something unexpectedly disgusting. “She doesn’t make friends. She forces them.”

  “Kiss my ass, you fake British pansy!”

  “As if I would lower myself.” He informed Nevaeh with distaste, while signaling to Red with a hidden thumbs up.

  “Not literally, idiot!” Nevaeh huffed and tossed her hair back. “I’m getting the feeling that we’re not each other’s types.”

  “Basil, start the show.” Red shot him a brittle smile, hoping he had recruited enough Christmas ghosts to shake up this scrooge. “Too bad I don’t have any snacks for you, Nevaeh.”

  Deep vertical furrow between his brows, he screwed up his eyes.

  A younger version of Urleen Morgan in a pink skirt suit appeared in the room like a streamed hologram. Shoulders padded and bangs curled high, she leaned over as if talking to a small child. “I don’t care if you’re tired. You will smile, Miss Nevaeh Madison Morgan. You will dance, sing, and then sit on the head judge’s lap just like we practiced.”

  The older Nevaeh Morgan pointed at the illusion. “What the fuck is this bullshit?”

  “Welcome to your life.” Red crossed her arms, watching intently to see what he dug up from the witch’s mind. Where had Nevaeh gone wrong?

  The vision of Urleen stepped closer and pulled a canned energy drink out of her purse. “Drink this quick. You better get the burps out before you go on stage. You’re a little lady, damn it.”

  Clear voice quiet, Basil studied Nevaeh’s face. His blue gaze narrowed as if he were closing in on a slippery truth. “Your mum started you on the pageant circuit when you were three. How many ribbons did you win?”

  “I won them all.” She shot him a tiger’s victory grin. “I already talked about this with my shrink. My shitty mother is old news.”

  The figment of Urleen disappeared.

  Replacing her in the center of the room, a somber-looking black woman in a striped dress held a Bible. She had a face made for smiling so the frown on her lips looked like a forlorn mistake. A cross glittered on her white collar. It must not have protected her in the end. If she was in this twisted montage, then clearly things had not gone well.

  “Did you tell the shrink about her?” Red asked. “Because I’m curious what happened to this lady.”

  Nevaeh grew pale even for a ghost, retreating as the figment stepped forward, shoulders hitting an invisible wall of the witch trap. “Make her go away. This isn’t cool, you sickos!”

  “She was your Sunday school teacher—Mrs. Crenshaw. You liked her,” he said, voice solemn and brows pensively drawn together.

  “I’m not telling you nothing.” Nevaeh put a hand up to block Mrs. Crenshaw’s face from sight. “It was an accident.”

  “You don’t need too. I already know,” Basil said, shrugging with resignation. He gestured to the illusion of the Sunday school teacher. “And you know it wasn’t an accident. She had what you wanted. They always seem to, don’t they?”

  A dark-skinned man in a white shirt and blue gym shorts stepped out of the shadows to put an arm around Mrs. Crenshaw. A whistle glinted above the words Smithson’s Corner High School on his chest. His easy steady
smile reminded Red of Nevaeh’s husband, DJ Shake.

  “No, no, no.” Like she was going to toss her astral cookies, Nevaeh shook. “Stop it!”

  “He wouldn’t touch you even after his wife died. Not until you compelled him to. How long after did he kill himself? It was the guilt over what you made him do.” Basil lifted his hand, eyes closing.

  Three small children with the same infectious smile stepped beside their parents. Frowns wilted the joy from their eyes. The room felt crowded as Nevaeh’s victims huddled around the iron ring enclosing her.

  “The Crenshaws made you feel safe, and you destroyed their family,” Basil intoned with the seriousness of a judge.

  “I didn’t know what I was doing then!” Nevaeh clutched herself, arms tightening around her minidress. Smudged mascara framing panicked eyes. “I never meant to hurt them!”

  “You knew what you were doing when you sent the Bell Witch to attack me!” He flung the soul-deep truth at her. “You’ve known what you were doing for a long time.”

  Crafted from illusions and bygone memories, Ari Goldstein joined the Crenshaw family. He grinned, latte in hand and a script tucked under his arm. “I just talked to the producers. You have the part, kid. It’s only a few lines, but you’ll make rent this month.”

  It was fake, but a chill still walked up her spine. Red had watched him die. “Ari helped you before you compelled him. They all did, but it wasn’t enough.”

  Nevaeh covered her ears. “Stop it.”

  The figments disappeared.

  In the silence, a new vision materialized out of shadow—image shuttering between darkness and light—a bunk bed by a wooden cabin wall. A cornhusk doll sat on the pillow. Two snakes slithered across the bed under a black hole of an aura.

  “What happened at Bible camp, Nevaeh?” Basil asked, a shake in his words. He stared at his own conjuring as confused as Red felt. “Something happened here. Something terrible didn’t it?”

  Nevaeh sniffed back an ugly sob, body shuddering, slapping her skull. “Fuck you! Get out of my head!”