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

by Sami Valentine

  “You’re no godkiller. I’ll make sure of that.”

  Lucas rushed in, bumping past the medium. “She’s dying!”

  She pivoted to scowl. This wasn’t the plan. Vampires only riled up ghosts. The snare was empty on their side of reality, but it was very much full on hers.

  Sprinting to her bedside, Lucas moved too quickly to see but his impact wasn’t. Speed was relative in the Dreamland, and even the smallest act could change everything. The pebble bouncing out of his boot sole moved slowly, as if drifting through molasses, rolling across the floor to bump against a single grain of salt in Maxwell’s trap.

  It felt like sledgehammer to the chest. Red fell back against the wall in a shockwave. Breath sputtering, she pulled herself upright.

  The spectral aura around the ring of salt and iron vanished.

  “I would have gotten out eventually, but that was convenient.” Maxwell pushed his arms out and dissolved into a whirling violet cyclone. His shadow poured out of the single crack in the ghost trap. He reformed outside of it, stretching his neck and sighing. “Finally proving to be of some use, Crawford.”

  Stumbling to her feet, Red pushed more magic into the blinking neon aura of the witch trap. The power of the traps came from working together between worlds. Individually they were useless. Her energy felt tapped, and all she’d done was piss the warlock off.

  Punching his fist through the blinking cracks of the witch trap, Maxwell pulled Nevaeh out. “You can kill that soulmancer now.”

  Shaking her hand, Red tried to summon an orb but failed, magic sputtering like a spent lighter. The illusion ripped off the private hospital room like a mask. She shivered as lightheadedness overcame her. Life force energy rebounded back into her when he broke through the trap, but she felt drained.

  Maxwell stomped over to the medium and shot a fist through Terry’s head. Spectral hand passing through to the elbow, he pulled back to squeeze at the brain. Veins pulsed in his forehead.

  “No, Terry!” Primal horror driving her, Red teleported behind Maxwell to tug his arm.

  Maxwell elbowed her in the face.

  Falling back on the bed, she landed on her twitching body as it struggled for breath. “You don’t have to do this!”

  “This is on your head!” Shoulders tensed, he didn’t look back at her. Blood tears fell out of Terry’s brown eyes. The eerie moonlight of the Dreamland reflected in their depths. Maxwell twisted his wrist.

  Terry dropped to the floor. A mist of light hovered above his body before it whooshed upwards through the ceiling.

  Nevaeh tried to do the same to Basil, but her fist just flailed around his head. “It’s not working for me.”

  “That’s because you’re not me.” Maxwell smugly commented and pushed Nevaeh back. “Ignore him for now. We need to get you into the body.”

  Red tried to shield her physical form. Kicked in the chest by an unseen force, her spirit flew back to land on the floor.

  Nevaeh took a running leap and dove onto the bed, sinking into the body. Green shockwaves rippled as an alien aura spread from the bare feet to the sweaty ginger hair pulled into a top knot.

  “Finish the exorcism!” Red yelled jumbled words, curses smushing together in her panic, as she popped up to her feet and reached for her body to pull Nevaeh out. Her fingers only gripped blank space, passing through her occupied flesh. She couldn’t even touch her own body now. Fear rippled down her spine like falling dominoes made of ice.

  Basil held up his hand, sweat pouring from his brow, muffled speech straining behind his jaw wires. His aura pulsed with white orbs as he drew on his soulmancy. He ran towards Maxwell. Power radiated from his palm in the kaleidoscope vision of the Dreamland.

  “Balderdash. I knew I should have killed you. I am always too nice.” The warlock disappeared in a flash of embers.

  Basil slumped over on the foot of the bed, legs giving out, the light dimming on his hand.

  Red knelt by him. “Come on, get up. Did you tell them? You need to tell them she’s in my body!”

  Her body sat up, but it was Nevaeh at the wheel. Crimson and black spectral stitches glimmered on the dark spirit as if connecting it to the body. She pulled the bandage off Red’s face.

  Red met her own eyes to see someone else stare out. Again. Why did her life have to be a series of doppelgänger hijinks?

  Dazed, Nevaeh put a stolen hand to her head. She blinked as if straining to remember a line. Her voice peeped out quiet and weak. “What happened?”

  “You overacting—” Red leaned over the bed, but despite cursing loudly, they couldn’t hear her. Even in Plan B, the exorcism was supposed to have been farther along before Maxwell managed to escape and toss Nevaeh into her body. If they knew, they would have been able to send the starlet to the afterlife. Instead, Red had just handed over her body to an evil witch to do an even eviler warlock’s bidding.

  Nevaeh won. She had escaped the Dreamland and got a brand-new people suit as a door prize.

  Amazement in his voice, Quinn said from the hallway, “Basil must have banished the spirits.”

  “No, he didn’t! The job is half done!” Red called out before raising her hands in a choking motion at Nevaeh. She processed nearly dying just fine but seeing this bitch in her body was driving her crazier than the asylum. The plan hinged on the team doing an exorcism without messing with the trap. She bet on the wrong horse. “It’s so frustrating how you guys can’t hear me.”

  Kristoff raced to the impostor’s side.

  Sitting beside Nevaeh, Lucas had a wonderstruck expression of relief.

  “Maxwell, he put me in this coma then tortured me in an asylum.” Shaking, the actress fell back on the pillows. She hammed it up in her new role. Blinking away crocodile tears, she turned from the vampires to the hunter speeding in his chair into the room. “I pushed him into a swirling green vortex. Was that you guys?”

  “Call the nurses, Quinn.” Vic ordered, checking Basil’s neck pulse. “The shaman is still alive.”

  “He’s what?” Nevaeh asked, her voice pitched too high in restrained dismay. She coughed and pushed up on her palms to study his prone body at the foot of the bed. “Good. I should thank him.”

  Clapping ghostly hands, Red sneered. “Great save. You’re really deserved that Razzie. Okay, fellas, time to evict her. She’s a walking, talking pod person. Her bad acting is the only red flag you need.”

  “You should lay down, kitten.” Lucas put his arm around the body thief’s shoulders. He brushed his thumb against her cheek, his soft soulful gaze caressing hers.

  “I’m not in there!” Shoulders seizing up, Red glared at the two. “I’m over here!”

  “I don’t want to stay here. Too many ghosts.” Nevaeh leaned against him, eyelashes fluttering. “Hold me, handsome.”

  Lucas pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head.

  Red stomped around the room. “I can’t believe you’re falling for this! I don’t flutter my eyelashes like a moron! Vic, do something!”

  Her mentor rolled over to Nevaeh. His sweaty face lifted into a relieved grin. “I’m glad to have you back, intern.”

  “She helped kill Terry!” Red shook her hands. Invisible in the Dreamland, she could have done cartwheels for all the good it did. She was superimposed on their world. Pacing, she could only watch as a monster possessed her body. “Exorcise her! You chewed me out for not telling you one dream, Vic, and now you aren’t even going to run any extra cleansings?”

  The room grew quiet as the orderlies came with stretchers for the medium and Basil.

  Quinn murmured to the mage doctor in the hallway. Vic waved over a nurse to attend to Nevaeh before going out to join his boss.

  “No, that’s fine, just make the psychopath who stole my body more comfortable.” Red crossed her arms. It was weird seeing her body lying on the bed, seeing it move without her in it and her friends just accepting the pod person? That was the ultimate creep out. She glared at Nevaeh playing the weak da
msel.

  Kristoff leaned by the headboard, leonine eyes softening back to blue in relief, fists finally unclenching. “Red, you’re back with us.”

  “Um, yeah, thanks...” Nevaeh ducked her head and wrapped tighter around Lucas, the wheels of failed remembrance rolling in her gaze.

  Red stomped away and walked through the wall in a snit.

  “We should keep her in the hospital overnight,” Quinn said.

  Vic glanced back at the hospital room, as if wanting one more look at the unholy miracle. His red-rimmed eyes crinkled from his smile. “She wants to leave. Figures, she spent the whole night in a psychic attack here.”

  If Red had a stomach, bile would have been inching up her throat. He had no idea that his roommate had been replaced. What would happen when they checked Nevaeh out of the hospital? The dark witch could empty her accounts at Smith and Reaper then jet off anywhere to set up a new life in Red’s body.

  “I have a connection to a healer that might be able to help Basil.” Quinn turned to walk away.

  Vic put a hand on the other man’s arm. “You kept me steady in there, Q. What I said…that was…I didn’t mean it, old man. Not like that. That was the warlock’s doing. I’m sorry anyway.”

  “I know. We’ll get a burger after this is over.” Reserved expression thawing to reveal a small smile, he nodded and left with vampire speed.

  Kristoff entered the hallway, his hands clasped behind his back. Green and yellow bruises wreathed his face in the brighter lights of the hall. “Are you sure about that exorcism and the witch traps? Are there any side effects?”

  “Thank you!” Red shook her head, trying not to think about what it meant that none of her friends were suspicious of Nevaeh—only the unsouled vampire who barely knew her.

  “Who knows what happened to her. It’s enough to make anyone emotional.” Vic frowned, his face sagging from guilt. “They aren’t going to stop hovering over each other until I break it up. If the warlock got away, either I or Lucas will be around if he attacks. Thanks for tonight. We can take it from here.”

  “I’ll be at my club. Call me if something changes,” Kristoff said with one last look at Lucas kissing Nevaeh without jealousy. Only a quiet contemplation.

  Red cringed and turned away. “Ugh, now I know why Vic says we’re gross.”

  “I want to say thank you to Basil before I go. Alone.” Nevaeh walked out; shadowy aura smudging the air as she passed. She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “You leave him be, Nevaeh! Isn’t making out with Lucas enough?” Red followed down the hall to Basil’s hospital room. She jumped through the door, grateful for the unsuspecting nurse within.

  Nevaeh slipped into the room. “Could I have a moment?”

  The nurse didn’t look up from her patient record. It was the one who said she wasn’t paid enough for this job. Red agreed with her. “Visiting hours are over.”

  “Now, for fuck’s sake.” Sparks shot from Nevaeh’s fingertips.

  The nurse gaped at the magical display, clutching a clipboard to her chest, and darted away.

  “Sleep tight, sweet prince, because I’m coming for you.” Closing the door, a fiendish grin grew on Nevaeh’s stolen face as she walked forward. “Red, I know you’re here. Kiss this ass goodbye because it’s mine now.”

  “I will get back into my body and drag you to hell!”

  Eyes crinkling at the corners, Nevaeh licked her lips. “I might even take that vampire of yours for a spin to keep up the act. Heard they’re real firecrackers in the sack. Maybe I’ll wait to stake him until the afterglow.”

  “You won’t get that far.” Frustration burned in Red’s throat. It felt impossible to keep the vow even as she said it.

  “You don’t need that anymore.” Nevaeh picked up the cellphone on the nightstand and chucked it out the open window. She waved her hand over Basil’s right hand. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  His fingers twisted and the bones snapped.

  Red cried out, swinging a fist into Nevaeh’s face without even mussing her hair.

  A holler drifted in from the hallway. “Red, let’s roll.”

  “Coming, Vic.” Nevaeh sashayed to the door before forcing her walk of triumph into a somber pace. Disappearing into the hallway, she left a broken body and a stranded spirit behind.

  26

  December 23rd, 3:03AM, Dreamland, St. Brigid’s Hospital, Los Angeles

  Stomping over neon sigils on the parking garage’s floor, Red ground her spectral teeth, following her stolen body. A silent watcher behind funhouse glass, she was outside the real world. Nevaeh had made it out of the Dreamland after hot-wiring her body and taking it out on a joyride.

  Red was stuck on the bus.

  She shook her hands, trying to ignite even a spark of magic. She could create illusions out of intention—make a sloth appear, create a deformed cat—and teleport to Oregon for French fries afterward. There wasn’t any real power to back it up after the aborted exorcism. Had some stayed in her flesh? They were only mirages and parlor acts. She didn’t have a trick that could make a dent. Basil might have banished Maxwell, but the damage had been done. Nevaeh had her body and all the perks that went with it, hopefully that didn’t include Lucas.

  Wearing Lucas’s jacket over a ripped T-shirt and cutoff jeans, Neveah held his hand. Smoky ether hovered over her skin in the Dreamland. Her icy gaze turned calculating as she addressed Vic. “Where’d the others go?”

  “Quinn is doing his defender of the night thing, and Kristoff went to the club.” Vic spun the keys to the Millennium Falcon around his fingers and rolled to the van’s waiting chair lift. “Let’s get you home. The hospital says you can leave as long as you come back for a checkup tomorrow.”

  Crossing her arms and tapping her foot, Red glowered.

  Returning the jacket, Nevaeh kissed Lucas goodbye with an unnecessary amount of tongue.

  “I’m blushing and wasting gas here.” Vic hollered from the driver’s seat.

  “Visit me tomorrow, handsome.” Nevaeh squeezed the vampire’s hand before scanning the van’s interior and getting into the passenger’s side.

  “I still have one thing over you, Nevaeh. I don’t need door handles!” Red jumped through the van’s side door and settled herself in Vic’s strapped-down wheelchair. She leaned her elbows on the two front seat backs and flicked at Vic’s ear. “You’d better figure this out, Yoda.”

  Nevaeh twirled a lock of hair around her finger, scrolling through text messages on Red’s phone. She opened a picture message of a cabin.

  “Don’t look at that!” Red squeaked. Somehow her cheeks felt hot. That was from Kristoff.

  Nevaeh asked, “So, things are getting heavy with me and the punky vampire?”

  “Yeah, I don’t need to see how heavy. I assume he’ll climb through your window for some angst later. I guess it’s a sign that you’re feeling better.” Vic shook his head, driving out of the parking garage and onto the street. He turned on the radio and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers poured out.

  “Can we change this?”

  Arching his eyebrow, he tightened his grip on the wheel.

  “I mean, just turn it down, handsome.” Nevaeh waved her hand like a fan around her head. “This head of mine is still kind of foggy.”

  He turned the knob down and looked away, nose wrinkling. “Psychic hangover. Sounds like a bitch.”

  “Vic,” Red snapped. Did the other witch have to start twirling a bad guy mustache and evil laughing to raise their suspicions? “You know something is up. This is one of my road trip sing-along faves.”

  Nevaeh was bad with a script, and she was worse without one. Wisely, she made the creative decision to keep silent, face composed in a stoic yet pained expression. She gazed out the window at the city of angels. Breaking character, a restrained grin peeked through her twitching lips.

  The van made good time toward their apartment through the quiet streets of Culver City.
Green lights the whole way. For once, Red wished for traffic.

  “What happened in there?” Vic broke the silence only a block away from home, scrutinizing his passenger in the rearview mirror.

  “It was awful. That terrible warlock tormented me in an asylum. I thought I was going to die.” Voice trembling on last word, Nevaeh rubbed her hands, head bowed.

  “Boo!” Red called from the back, sitting in the wheelchair with her feet up. She willed up a transparent illusion of popcorn to fling. Her only consolation of being in the Dreamland.

  “What about that skanky actress?”

  “Skanky?” Nevaeh’s act slipped, voice pitched up. Scarlet light glimmered on balled fists in her lap. She crossed her arms quickly to hide it. “The plan worked even with those vampires messing things up. She got what she deserved in the end.”

  Releasing a whistle, Vic leaned his head back. “I was worried back there. It’s the only reason I didn’t kick Kristoff to the curb. Felt like we needed more muscle. I know you have some mixed feelings about him.”

  “Do I now…” Nevaeh murmured, considering the sign of the California Sunrise apartment building as the van turned into the parking area by the courtyard. In the Dreamland, protection sigils and other wards glimmered around the apartment complex for supernaturals. “The one from Portland. Has a cabin, right?”

  “He came through in a pinch in luring that chick to the cops,” Vic said. “I don’t trust him, but I can’t deny what he’s done.”

  “He did get Nevaeh to the club, didn’t he?” Nevaeh’s eyes narrowed in the reflection in the rearview mirror. “What a dead guy. I mean, what a guy.”

  Red hoped the other witch would give herself away by going to the wrong apartment, but Nevaeh hung back and let Vic guide her straight into their home. The supernatural landlord had provided some mystical protection, but none of the defenses went into the specifics of possession. Nevaeh’s spirit might have been malevolent, but she was wrapped up in an innocent body.

  He flipped the lights on as he closed the door and rolled to the center of the living room past their furniture and frames of stock photography. If he didn’t run now, would he ever have the chance to put their real pictures up?