Red started wrapping her kebab. “I guess dinner is over.”
“Finish your food,” Quinn said. “We’ll need to wait thirty minutes, or it’ll take an hour longer to get there.”
Vic wheeled himself over to the table with his takeover curry. “Good old LA traffic, it’s as predictable as the weather.”
Later in the front seat of the Millennium Falcon, dressed in a uniform that looked stolen from the LAPD, Red thought about his comment with wry amusement. Dark storm clouds rolled in from the Pacific as they took an offramp near the San Bernardino Airport to check out the warehouse. She figured the weatherman felt validated now, but she wouldn’t believe it until she felt a drop. It had rained more in Arizona.
Quinn drove the black van into a dark warehouse district. His vampiric gaze picked up the block numbers and building details better than she did. Nighttime in Los Angeles was diffused from the city lights reflecting on the smog, leaving an orange haze over the valley. The castoff light helped Red’s poor human vision.
Vic perched in her wheelchair in the back, typing on his laptop, doing a hacker thing that she didn’t quite understand despite his metaphors about digging a tunnel. The warehouse was one of those smart buildings that might as well be controlled by an app. He was picking up where Cora’s people had left off to ensure that the door would be unlocked and security off on arrival. The glow of his screen left a glare on windshield.
Quinn parked on the curb across the street from the mysterious Bethesda Group’s property.
It was a beige building with windows on the second floor and a small front parking lot. Two teens, white boys in sagging pants and hoodies, were happily vandalizing it. The punks tossed rocks at a small awning light above the dark paned glass door, breaking it with hoots and fist bumps as darkness descended on them. They bolted when they noticed Red putting on a cop hat in the van.
“Shit. shit shit,” Vic chanted as he typed and clicked on his laptop’s touchpad. “Oh, never mind, I’m brilliant. I just suppressed the security alarm.”
Red trusted his skills even if he never finished the computer science program at UCLA, but she still froze, waiting for police sirens or guards.
They were promised the place was empty. The passenger side was closer to it, but with a broken light, she could only make out that it was slick and modern. It looked like a fresh construction compared to the other dingy warehouses covered with graffiti. The email from Cora said it was registered as a mixed-use building of offices and storage but only cargo had been unloaded it in so far. Red hoped the intel was right and they wouldn’t wander across a person working late.
Quinn leaned over the wooden hunter’s kit between the front seats to point over her at the second level. “Did you see that in the window? I think I saw a flashlight.”
Red hadn’t but she scanned the area. “Did one of those kids get in?”
The Pacific winds picked up, breaking against the stout warehouses, blowing litter around. A nearby trash can toppled over, releasing a funky smell that somehow penetrated the closed van. Nothing else moved on the block. It was nearly nine at night on the day before New Year’s Eve. The industrial area might as well be a ghost town. Hopefully, it wasn’t ghosts. She had seen enough lately.
Nose wrinkling from the smell, Quinn started to say. “I don’t th—”
“The front is unlocked…” Vic drew out the syllables as he tapped dramatically on his keyboard. “Now!”
The double glass doors automatically separated to reveal a shadowy interior.
“Vic, you’re a gentleman and scholar,” Red said as she reached for the car handle. Intuition, deep in her gut, told her to wait. A security alarm wailed from the Bethesda Group building, echoing off the others, breaking the quiet. Heart leaping in her chest from shock, she glared at him.
“That wasn’t me, I swear!”
Quinn shushed them, gaze locked on the front entrance.
A cop bolted out of the building, taking a right and running around the back, darkness hiding their face.
Quinn texted on his phone, annoyance breaking through his usual stoic expression. “Cora said no cops.”
“Probably sent another team,” Vic grumbled to himself.
Red kept her eyes on the property as the wind howled and the men debated among themselves. Sudden rain pelted the van like a meteorologist’s revenge. The ambient lights of the City of Angels darkened in the downpour. “We got two now.”
A taller cop, different from the one before, appeared from a small alley on the left exterior side. He stared at up the building, walking slowly without a care to the storm.
Then the original officer reemerged from the right side, hat brim low against the rain. Probably female but maybe a small man, the cop was in the same state of confusion, trotting to her partner with glances up at the second floor.
There was something familiar about them.
Red had met a few other cops on Cora’s take like Joe Chang or Aisha Callaway. She’d certainly been at enough crime scenes to start recognizing the ones with the bad luck to be assigned to the spooky cases. Where did she know them from?
The smaller officer darted to the small awning over the front entrance for shelter. She slipped on the slick step, stumbling against the other officer’s board shoulder. He helped her up. The two officers look at each other and at the van, faces in rainy shadows. They darted forward through the small parking lot.
“They’re coming over,” Red said to the guys, opening the passenger door without glancing at it. Bracing herself to pretend to be a cop for real ones, she hoped Quinn would do the talking. At least the rain had slowed to a drizzle.
The officers were gone when she looked back. The block was empty.
There wasn’t a stray cat or another parked car in sight. Even the rain had stopped. The Bethesda building was still closed and silent. Had the cops ducked into an alley or another warehouse? Did they double back?
“Holy shit, where did they go?” Red stuck her head out the door. “You saw that right?”
Quinn nodded. “I looked away when Cora texted back, but I saw them running here.”
“I can’t see shit back here.” Vic crossed his arms.
“You’re the techie,” Red said. “Just do the computer stuff. Do you have access to their security cameras?”
Vic frowned. “Weirdly enough, that’s the only thing offline.”
“Did Cora send cops?” Red asked.
Quinn shook his head.
“Maybe we have some phantom po-po. I have my cross-o-matic packed around here somewhere for an exorcism,” Vic offered. In spite his handicap, or maybe because of it, he relished going into the field. He would have been the best for an exorcism since spirits hated vampires and Red wasn’t much of a believer.
She wasn’t convinced it was ghosts. Those usually gave her a distinct eerie feeling. The cops looked corporeal. They were probably chasing after those teenagers.
“We’re just here to take pictures,” Quinn said. “Do you see anything unusual? Or any sigils with your third eye, Red?”
She wanted to say that she just saw something unusual. Instead, she opened her spirit gaze, it was her most useful witch trick. Protection sigils were written in spiky calligraphy like neon graffiti on the glass doors of the Bethesda Group building, invisible to regular humans. She recognized one that she had seen before on mystical safes for magical objects. It was to keep the energy inside the box.
“They scribbled some protections on it, but it seems like a passive spell. I can’t feel anything from here.” Red frowned at the realization. She couldn’t help but feel paranormal energies due to her mage blood. It would have been noticeable before they parked. “We’ll want to bring some cold iron to see if they’re cloaking the magic inside the place. Do you smell people in there, Quinn?”
“No. I just smell trash. Its empty. I don’t hear any heart beats.” The boss squinted at the warehouse, his voice unusually hesitant. “We might as well go inside.”<
br />
Red sighed, patting the borrowed police utility belt on her waist. It wasn’t her hunter’s kit, but she had packed it with salt and powered cold iron anyway. “I have something for the sigils.” She stepped out of the van.
The earlier wind had completely died, leaving the chilly air feeling heavy and still. She wished she could stay in the van, but Quinn couldn’t be trusted with camera phones even if he was a talented sketch artist. The vampire was all thumbs. Not like Kristoff Novak. She had debated internally on texting him about the mysterious Bethesda Group since the unsouled vampire dealt heavily with real estate. Now, she wished she had.
“Watch the security system, call if we need to run,” Quinn said to Vic before leaving to join Red.
She squared her shoulders and they walked to the entrance. Blowing powdered cold iron on the sigils scribbled in the ether, she felt them wane but not disappear. Hardy buggers. She felt a tingle of energy seep out from behind the door. Neutral, it didn’t make her skin crawl like a demon. Yet she didn’t like how it brushed over her like a texture she couldn’t describe. No auras glowed inside the glass doors to indicate a human or supe. “Something is emitting serious vibes in there. I don’t think it will rip our faces off but don’t hold me to that.”
Quinn tried the door, but it had locked itself again. Red took care with the slippery front step to avoid the female cop’s fate.
After a call to Vic, they were inside the narrow front room. Blank white walls stretched to an open stairwell. A small built-in reception area partially broke up the space. The thick presence of the strange force distracted her from wondering where the officers went. It made the nearly empty room feel full.
Red inspected the curved front desk, but the drawers and top were bare except for dust. There wasn’t even a chair. A haze of ether and energy lingered like fog in the corners. She took a quick picture of the lobby with her phone, blinded by the flash for the moment.
Quinn waved her over to the only interior door. “It’s open.”
He went inside first, shielding her smaller form in case of a surprise jump attack. The wind howled outside but a hush lay over the dark window less storage space.
Documenting their patrol, she used her phone’s camera light as a lantern. Containment sigils on the walls and doors cast a strange glow to her third eye. She shivered. Why so many spells to keep things in? Was this a warehouse or a prison?
Less than a third full, the large room had wide spaces between the makeshift aisles. Cargo bins, boxes, and crates lined the walls and occupied the center. Some were opened to reveal foreign handicrafts— woven baskets, pottery, and other knickknacks. They weren’t new productions. These seemed fragile and old, packed with plenty of cushioning. A stone Olmec head, face carved into the rock, stared out from a crate bigger than her.
Red walked quickly to keep up with Quinn’s long legs, recording a video as they looped around the storeroom. She told herself that video was better than still pictures, but she really just wanted to get out of there quicker. She didn’t know why. Usually, she’d be curious about a mysterious warehouse of historical goodies. The artifacts were spectacular even in the wan light of her phone. Were these high value cultural items smuggled from their homelands?
Nothing was out of ordinary for what seemed to be storage for international upscale imports. Yet weirdly enough, she agreed with the dead asshole, Michel de Grammont—someone should be keeping an eye on the place.
The strange energy didn’t grow as they explored. There were no temperature shifts like a spirit manifesting, and nothing had leapt out with claws.
Yet.
They returned to the lobby after inspecting the empty loading bay. Starting up the stairwell to the second level, Quinn seemed slower than usual, his scrutinizing gaze lingering on every shadow.
It wasn’t the shadows she was worried about.
Power radiated from behind a closed door at the top of the stairs. It was stronger with every step. Spectral flotsam passed her third eye, bobbing like driftwood on invisible currents that were as fluid as rain, persistent as a hurricane, and limitless as the ocean. It wasn’t an aura of a mage, or activity from a spell. She’d never felt anything like it, yet paradoxically it was familiar as if she were experiencing this phenomenon in a different quantity than usual. The difference between having a smear of jam on your toast and being dumped into a vat of it.
Quinn’s hand hovered over the doorknob as if he weren’t sure if he should open it. He pushed it open, locking eyes with her. An unnecessary breath moved his chest. It was never comforting when the dead were nervous.
Nothing jumped out behind him.
Open completely, there were no boxes to break up the empty top floor. Sigils covered the unfinished walls. Faded, they didn’t glow like the one’s downstairs, eroded by the force they imprisoned. Outside streetlamps streamed in from the windows, breaking up the shadows between the support pillars. Her phone was good as a flashlight as she aimed the camera lens to show on the record that there wasn’t a single cubicle in sight. Whatever the city thought, this wasn’t an office.
The light on her device drifted over a marble-white face.
Red nearly dropped her phone, assuming it was a vampire until she realized it was stone. The statue, a bearded man in a cloak and Grecian tunic, was slightly larger than life size. It peeked at her from behind a pillar, only yards from the stairwell as if the movers didn’t want to move it any further. Or couldn’t bare too.
Energy pulsed from it.
She gave the statue space as she circled it a few times to record it from different angles and zoomed in on the details. There weren’t any curses carved into it or painted sigils. To all three eyes, it looked like any other Greek statue. How did it radiate a force that she couldn’t see?
The alarm blared suddenly again, jamming at her eardrums, far shriller inside of the building.
Red jumped and twirled around. She hit stop on the video recording.
“Downstairs,” Quinn ordered, rushing into the stairwell.
She followed, jamming her phone back into her utility belt, every step felt oddly sluggish and evitable. Her gut told her the lobby would be empty before it came into view. The glass doors of the front were open again, but the sirens died.
Who was here? Did those cops or the teens come back? Hopefully, it wasn’t the Bethesda Group. Somehow, she doubted that they just found that statue laying around somewhere.
“Meet me behind the loading bay.” Directing her outside, Quinn rushed into the storeroom. Had he seen something?
Lowering her hat brim, Red ran out, automatic doors closing behind her. There were no cars in the front parking lot, only the black van across the street. She took a right and ran around the side of the building closest to the loading dock. Her ears were too muffled from the alarms to fully hear the wailing wind whipping her cheeks.
Quinn opened a side door by the dock before shrugging in confusion. The back fence of the warehouse was flush against another building. There was no hopping over it unless you climbed over three stories. He sprinted to the left side of the building towards the front.
She sighed. If he had seen something, it was faster than them. She was used to monsters out running her, but Quinn was another story. Rain soaked her suddenly as if the clouds were wringing themselves out. She groaned. Twice in one night? That had to be an LA record. The weatherman would crow about it tomorrow.
Red jogged back to the front entrance, glancing up at the second floor, trying not to think too hard about what was up there. She had the unsettling sensation that it might think back at her.
She met Quinn by the front door, whispering before she reached him. His supernatural hearing would pick it up as good as a yell. “Did you find someone?”
“I heard a car park. Over the alarm, I couldn’t tell if it was in front or back. There was only Vic out there so I figured it must be in the loading bay.”
Mouth open and gaping like an idiot at the top level, she shoo
k herself. Get a grip, it’s raining! Running to the small awning for shelter, she slipped on the wet step and bumped into his big shoulder. “Shit!”
Quinn grabbed her by the waist and steadied her.
“Damn, that slippery,” she muttered. She forgot that the real cop had fell here. In the face of such contained power, she had almost forgotten about them both. The hair stood up on the back of her neck. Where did they go?
Quinn stared down at her, an unsettled realization skittered over his face.
They gawked at Millennium Falcon across the street. It wasn’t the wet uniform that made her shiver. Her own face stared back at them! It was her and Quinn, talking behind the windshield, illuminated by the dash lights and Vic’s laptop. The van door opened.
Red and Quinn raced to the vehicle.
Suddenly their doubles were gone, leaving only the open door behind.
Hauling ass at vampire top speed, he reached the van first.
“How’d the door open?” Vic asked, looking up from his computer.
“We’re leaving,” Quinn said, nearly pushing Red into the passenger seat. Leaping over the hood, he hustled to the driver’s side door almost too fast to see. The engine was on before she had fully closed the door.
She grabbed a bundle of sage from the hunter’s kit between the seats. Lighting it with trembling hands, she waved it around her and Quinn.
The vampire leaned into the smoke, shaking his head like a wet dog, as he broke the speed limit out of the warehouse district.
Growing louder with each word, Vic peppered them with questions. “What happened? Are you okay? Did you see something? Were the cops in there?”
Red ignored him to climb into the back. She striped off the top of her wet uniform down to her undershirt and rummaged through her get-go bag. The statue’s energy lingered on her like secondhand smoke. She pulled on a sweater and discretely changed into jeans out of his view. Taking a blanket with her to the front seat, she wrapped herself in it, still shivering.
“You guys are weirding me out now,” Vic said.
Long Witch Night: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 2) Page 29
