Wolf Witch (Victoria Brigham Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  “No, you’re not,” Amara mumbled.

  “Yes, I am! I might be a different werewolf, but I still shift into a wolf. You’ve both seen me. Nobody can deny it.”

  “But there’s one way to prove it,” Red said. “You use this, and you see if it works.”

  “Jesus Christ, are you kidding me?” I threw the disk into the glove compartment and closed it. “No!”

  “Yes. You can try it on Amara.”

  Amara stuck her head between the front seats. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re a witch,” said Red with a shrug, as if it was obvious.

  “And you’re a vampire. That thing has silver in it. Why don’t you try it?” Amara spit.

  “The silver is not the point. We can see it and smell it. The reaping magic part is what we can’t see and won’t know for sure unless we try it,” Red argued.

  “Hell, no! I won’t let anybody try to reap my magic! Are you crazy?”

  “Guys, I’m not going to try to play with the yoyo, okay? I’m not. Can we move on now?” I said, reminding them that I was there, too.

  “It’s not a yoyo, for fuck’s sake,” Amara said, leaning back. “It’s probably the real deal, but you can’t try it out on me!”

  “Even if it is the real deal, it won’t work for me because I’m a werewolf!” Then I turned to her. “Why don’t you try it? You’re a witch.” She was a Blood witch, through and through.

  “Because its former master gave the Reaper to you. Nobody else can use it. My friend was very clear on it,” Red said, tapping the steering wheel furiously.

  “Well, then he must have been wrong. Haworth wanted this and he didn’t intend to spare the guy who had it before. He didn’t care about anybody’s blessing. He was going to take this thing and use it for whatever all by himself,” I reminded him. Those wolves at the apartment complex weren’t there to show mercy. They’d ripped that witch’s chest open.

  “Maybe Haworth wanted to use it for something else, or in a different way,” Red said in wonder. “But we won’t know anything until you try it.”

  “I can try it,” said Amara, raising her hand as if she was in class. “I wouldn’t mind having that weapon all to myself.”

  “You can’t!” said Red, shaking his head. “It has to be Victoria.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then we’ll know,” he said.

  “Can I try it after Victoria?”

  Red slammed his forehead to the steering wheel. “Yes, Amara. You can try it after Victoria.”

  “Okay,” I said, clapping my hands together. Now that we got that out of the way. “Get us to Jersey City, a couple blocks from the Moon Howl.”

  “What’s there?” Red asked.

  “The Moon Howl is owned by one of Haworth’s guys,” said Amara, and I nodded.

  “That’s where I last saw Haworth’s men, and that’s where my father is bringing the wolf.”

  Only when I said the words did I realize what I’d done.

  Red stood perfectly still for a long second. “Your father?”

  I swallowed hard. “He’s the only one who could do it quickly and without getting noticed. We’ll be fine.”

  “You mean, that same father who ratted you out to the ECU?”

  I flinched. “He didn’t rat me out. He just…told them about me.” Fuck, this sucked.

  “Victoria, are you sure about this?”

  “I am,” I said without hesitation. I was sure that Oscar would do as I asked because Izzy was involved. If it had been only for me, I’d have never called him. But for Izzy, he’d do anything at all. Yes, Oscar Hogan was going to show up with a wolf, and he was going to keep his mouth shut until I brought his daughter back.

  “Then you two better start praying because this night has a lot of potential to end up bloody,” Red said.

  At the time, I didn’t agree with him. I was wrong.

  I texted my father the address from Amara’s phone. It was still early so I didn’t want to call Mandy yet. I decided to do that once my father came with the wolf.

  “I can make a couple calls, leave a couple of hints as to where to find the wolf. What I don’t know is how to keep it from looking suspicious,” Amara said.

  I’d lie if I said I wasn’t excited. Having Red and Amara back really did a number on my self-esteem. Maybe everything wouldn’t suck as much after all because we all were going to fight. We all had something to lose if we let Haworth win. That had to count for something.

  “Yeah, a pack wolf walking in the middle of the city is definitely going to look suspicious,” Red said.

  “We’ll take him to a forest somewhere. You can tell them you heard that a Brigham wolf had run off and that you had reason to believe it was in the location we take him to.”

  The others thought about it for a second.

  “Yeah, that could work,” Amara said.

  “How often do pack wolves run off?” Red asked.

  “The last one ran off about fifteen years ago, I think,” I said. I didn’t remember the details because I was a kid, but I remember mother bringing the wolf up sometimes. He’d run off and nobody had been able to find him again. That was to be expected. When a wolf didn’t want to be found and was out there in the open, you would never be able to find him.

  “So it happens,” he said in wonder.

  “I guess so.”

  “How long is he going to be?” asked Amara. Red had parked his car in an alley in a very quiet street, just south of the tavern. As soon as we met my father and Amara sent the news, we were going to get the wolf to the nearest forest and then wait for Haworth’s men to show up.

  “I’m not sure. Not long, I hope.” Oscar was very effective when he wanted to be. Unless he ran into trouble, he was going to be there in half an hour.

  “Okay, let’s go.” Red opened the glove compartment. “Get the Reaper.”

  “What? Are you crazy?”

  “We have more than enough time to test this. Right here’s just fine. Nobody’s around and nobody can see us,” he said.

  “You want to do it now?” I thought we’d have at least until tomorrow.

  “Yes, now. Why wait? We’re not doing anything,” he argued.

  “I’m going second,” Amara said and hopped out of the car, excited. Maybe the idea of having a weapon like the Reaper String meant something more to her than it did to me because I was not excited to get out in the cold and wait for something that wasn’t going to happen. I was going to look like a fool, damn it, but neither left me a choice. I grabbed the steel plate and stepped out of the car reluctantly.

  We hid deeper in the alleyway just to make sure nobody would see us from the main street. Behind us was a brick wall and no windows on the buildings to the sides. Red was right, nobody was going to see anything—which was probably why he’d chosen that alley to begin with. Bastard.

  “Right, so, how do we do this?” asked Amara, hopping in place.

  “Victoria is going to open the Reaper, and you’re going to try to spell her. Then she’s going to throw the string at you and see what happens,” said Red, as excited as a little boy. It made him look more…human. Like, if you looked into his sparkling eyes right now, you’d have never been able to tell he was a vampire. He looked just like any other guy, except he was handsome as the devil.

  I pressed the rhinestone on the side of the plate, and it slid open just like it had before, revealing a hole big enough to fit my middle finger. I pushed the plate, and like your usual yoyo, it slid up and down until I stopped it. Red was dead wrong. This thing was not a Reaper String.

  “I’ll go easy with a simple confusion spell on you,” said Amara. “Nothing too heavy. You’ll be out of it in no time.”

  “Just no pain, okay? It can’t hurt,” I warned her.

  “Not at all,” she promised, and stepping in front of me, raised her hands.

  “No, wait! Step back a little. I need to be able to throw this. How about your arm
? Is that okay?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, my arm is fine. Just throw it wherever you can,” she said. “Ready?”

  I so wasn’t. I looked at Red who’d stepped back against the wall and was watching me like a kid waiting for his favorite movie to start, and I flipped him off. It only made him grin.

  It all happened so fast. Amara began to chant, and I was going to throw the yoyo at her, try to touch her or wrap it around her arm but then…

  What’s my name again? I wasn’t sure. I was just about to….what? No idea. The night was cold, my skin was covered in goose bumps because I had no jacket. Why didn’t I have a jacket? Where was I?

  It was all too funny. I had to laugh, but when I did, I forgot why I was laughing.

  But when something grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me hard, I didn’t laugh. White noise turned on in my head. Something sticky was all over my skin, and I couldn’t get rid of it.

  Somebody was calling my name Victoria. Yes! My name is Victoria. And the guy who was calling me was Red. A very handsome vampire who thought he could break me easily. Too bad I wanted to see him try.

  It took me a few more minutes to completely regain my memories. Amara grinned like a little devil, proud of what she’d done to me with her confusion spell.

  “A simple spell? You call that simple? I couldn’t remember my name!” I cried. She’d tricked me, the witch.

  “It was a simple spell, I swear. What the hell happened? Why didn’t you throw the Reaper?” she asked, half trying to stifle a laugh.

  I rolled my eyes. “Could you maybe go slower next time? I’m not Red. I don’t know how to work this fast,” I said, looking at the damned yoyo in my hand. It was all Red’s fault.

  “Okay, okay, it’s fine. Let’s try again,” he said. “Amara, take it easier this time.”

  “Sure thing,” the witch said, and again she raised her hands toward me.

  That had been the first time in my life that I’d been spelled, if you didn’t count the ritual where Yumi and his friends brought out my wolf by force. All I knew is that I didn’t want to experience it again. It was a perfect state of bliss to be as confused as I was, but it wasn’t for me. I had no time to be confused right now.

  So this time, when she began to chant, I didn’t hesitate. I threw the yoyo at her and pulled my hand back at just the right second, and the string with the plate wrapped four times around her left arm, fast. Amara continued to chant. She didn’t stop until the last of the words of her spell flew out of her lips and crashed onto me.

  Oh, shit. This time, I expected it. I expected to lose sight of where I was and who I was. I expected the nothingness and the need to laugh for no reason.

  But it never came.

  The words of Amara’s spell came to me. I could smell them in the air because before they reached my skin, before they could set on my pores and do their thing, they stopped. They lingered in air for a long second, before they charged me again, but this time, it was different. I didn’t feel the magic taking over me. I felt it gathering in me, starting a wildfire in my chest.

  “Victoria?” Amara called, but I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even breathe, but I could see the energy flowing on the string of the plate like a ball of air, and it was coming from Amara’s arm toward my hand. My instincts wanted me to drop the plate, remove the ring and throw it as far away as I could before the ball of air reached me, but I was frozen.

  “Victoria, what’s wrong?” said Red, coming to my side. I moved my eyes to his, silently begging him to move me, but the ball of air was already there. It melted onto my skin, burning my fingers like invisible fire.

  A scream bubbled in my throat, but I couldn’t let it out. The pain settled in my bones, and blood dripped down my nose. Amara removed the string from around her arm, and the steel plate rushed to my hand fast. For a single second before it touched me, I found I could move. So I threw it. I threw the thing to the side with all my strength. I did not want it to touch me, not for any reason.

  But the ring didn’t let go of me. It was stuck around my finger and instead of throwing the whole thing away, I simply directed the plate and the string elsewhere.

  No, not elsewhere. Toward Red, who was now standing right next to me.

  The string wrapped around his shoulders. I finally was able to scream. The pain and the paralysis let go of me all at once. My legs couldn’t hold me so I collapsed. The last thing I remember thinking before I passed out was: damn it, this thing is definitely not a yoyo.

  I sat on the trunk of Red’s car, looking down at my shaking hands. I was okay now, felt perfectly fine, but my body was still in shock. The worst part was that this wasn’t the first time I felt like my soul was being ripped away from my body. I’d felt exactly the same at the apartment complex with the witch who gave me the steel disk, right after he chanted his spell. I’d passed out then, too.

  Could it be that they were right?

  “You okay?” Red asked me. I didn’t meet his eyes, only nodded. But I wasn’t okay. That thing had absorbed the spell from Amara, and then when I’d tried to throw it off me and touched Red with it, it had transferred that same spell to him. It’s what they told me, anyway. I woke up only after he came to his senses from the confusion.

  “Does this mean I don’t get to try it?” said Amara as she looked at the yoyo in her hands. At the Reaper String.

  “It won’t work,” Red said. “It’s Victoria’s.”

  “I don’t want it,” I spit. “This is just a stupid mistake. An accident or something.”

  “It’s all pretty clear from where I’m standing,” said Amara with a grin.

  “I’m not a witch!” I shouted for probably the tenth time.

  “The Reaper only works with witches,” Red repeated.

  “Well, then your friend got it wrong.” That was the only thing that made sense. If this thing really did what I just saw it do, and if that witch really gave it to me, then it worked on werewolves, too. It had to. It was enough that I wasn’t even a normal werewolf. I couldn’t be a witch, too.

  “Does she smell like magic?” Amara asked Red.

  “Not at all,” he said, so focused on my face, you’d think he was trying to see into my head. “She smells of wolf only.”

  I’d had enough. Whatever was going on here, whatever sick joke the universe was so intent on playing on me, I wasn’t having it. My only concern was my sister. As soon as I got Izzy out of Haworth’s claws, I was going to take us both somewhere far away from here, far away from that ordinary looking steel plate, and I was never going to look back.

  I jumped to my feet with a strengthened resolve. My hands weren’t even shaking anymore. The important thing was to not lose sight of my goal. Everything else could take a step back.

  “Can I borrow your phone?” I asked Amara. Calling my father wasn’t something I wanted to do, but I needed to know if he was on his way.

  Amara handed me her phone and continued to analyze the Reaper. I dialed my father’s number and let it ring until the call went to voice mail. He wasn’t picking up. Afraid to even think about what that could mean, I dialed Mandy’s number and focused on her voice instead.

  “Vicky?” she said when she answered. I wondered how she’d know Amara’s number, but then again, who’d call her at this time of the night except me?

  “Hey, Mandy,” I said reluctantly, walking deeper into the alleyway, though I knew that Red could still hear me.

  “Thank God!” she shouted, making my ear whistle. “You’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. I told you I’d be fine.” It was easier to lie through the phone. Much easier.

  “I’m glad you called because I got something on the Haworth guy.”

  Holy crap. “You do?” Not that I’d doubted her, but I just never really thought she’d be able to hack into Finn’s database. He had to have that place protected better than his own home, right?

  “Of course,” Mandy said, her voice high pitched as if
she was insulted. “The guy who emailed me didn’t have much in his program, but I ran Haworth’s name through every database I have access to.”

  I swallowed hard. “And?”

  “He’s a very private guy, never uses his credit cards, never pays taxes, but he is a shareholder in half a dozen companies—all of them in the import and export business. He has no registered address, but I got a list of properties that these companies own. Haworth isn’t listed as an owner in only one of them. At least not Hector Haworth. Instead, a Nadia Haworth is, and I ran her, too. Turns out, she’s the one doing all the transactions for Haworth and is authorized to use all his accounts. Her signature is on every document from the companies he owns, too!”

  “Mandy, how many coffees have you had?” I asked when she said all that without stopping to take a breath.

  “I’m not sure, why?” she said, but she wasn’t waiting for an answer. “Anyway, that’s all I got, but I’m still running their names all over to see what else comes up.”

  “No, Mandy, that’s enough. Thank you so much, but that’s enough. Go to sleep. It’s late and you’re tired.”

  “Sleep?” she said with a short laugh. “No, I can’t sleep. I’ve got so many things to search for. Werewolves, witches—even fairies. And be honest with me, do vampires sparkle when in the sun?”

  “Oh, God,” I said with a sigh. “No, they don’t. They die when in the sun. Mandy, please just turn off your computer and go to bed. Try to get some rest, okay?”

  “Damn it,” she said with a disappointed sigh. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll try to rest. But you’re coming over tomorrow, right?”

  “I don’t think I’ll make it tomorrow, but I will soon. As soon as I can,” I said reluctantly. There was no way to tell her that I might not make it to the next day at all, so I was just going to have to go with wishful thinking. I really hoped I’d get to see her again. “Thanks again, Mandy. Really, you’re a lifesaver. I owe you big time.”

  “It’s what friends are for, Vicky,” she said, and now that she’d actually stopped talking to fast, she must have realized how tired she was because she already sounded half asleep. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, okay?”