Semiautomatic Sorceress Boxed Set One: includes: Southwest Nights, Southwest Days, and Southwest Truths

by Kal Aaron

  “I can’t say if it’s chance or fate.” Lyssa shrugged. “But I’m one of the few Sorceresses alive with the same essence as a parent. That might not be true fate, but it locked me into a path. When it was time to go to the Vault of Dreams during my Initiation, I knew I would take the Night Goddess.”

  Sorcery didn’t manifest until puberty. Full membership as an Illuminated in the Society followed three years after that. Until then, all Illuminated raised their children under the assumption that they would come into power. Her parents were unusual in that both their children had done so.

  “But you don’t have to be a Torch.” Tricia rested her hand on her chest and took a deep breath. “You don’t have to risk your life fighting. Things are different than before.”

  “How?” Lyssa gave her a defiant look. “How are things remotely different? There are always dangers out there, and there always will be. Sometimes force needs to be met with force. Violence and cruelty aren’t going away, and I can do my part to remove corruption from the world.”

  “M-Day is what’s different.” Tricia let out a nervous laugh. “We have an opportunity to live as a true part of humanity. We don’t have to convince them to value us as weapons. Think of the parade. I know you and Fred think it’s a silly little game, but it means something. We’ve gone from conspiracy theories and witch hunts to parades. All we had to do was be honest.”

  “A bunch of Shadows partying doesn’t mean we’re accepted by them,” Lyssa snapped. She immediately regretted it after seeing the hurt look on Tricia’s face, and she softened her tone. “I’m just saying, Tricia. We can’t all sit in our flower gardens pretending evil isn’t out there.”

  “Oh, honey. I know all too well there’s evil out there, and I also know this isn’t about that.”

  “What’s it about, then?”

  “I didn’t want to argue about it, but…” Tricia shook her head, the pity in her eyes almost palpable. “You need to stop torturing yourself. I know you loved your brother, but he’s gone, just like your parents. You need to accept that.”

  Lyssa shot out of her chair, rattling the table. The chair smacked the floor hard. She glared at Tricia, her jaw rigid, taking short, ragged breaths. Tricia looked back as softly as before, not concerned by the sudden movement

  The purpose of the trip was to be around people Lyssa loved on a day of pain. Some mention of her brother was inevitable, but she didn’t want it to be like this.

  “You don’t know that.” Lyssa’s voice came out low and hostile. “He’s not dead.”

  “It’s been fifteen years.” Tricia shook her head. “When you were younger, I never wanted to take your hope from you. Now I wonder if I did the right thing by not trying to get you to give up earlier. When you came to us, you were a sad, broken young woman. You’d suffered so much tragedy. I know he was your last real family member, but after all this time, we must face the truth. If he were still alive, he would have tracked you down. If not before, then after M-Day.”

  Lyssa crouched and picked up her chair, her heart thundering. Rage and bitterness swirled in her, but she couldn’t vent them on the woman who had treated her like a daughter for fifteen years.

  “You’re my family, too,” she murmured and sat. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want him back. It’s not like my parents. They’re dead, and they aren’t coming back. He’s missing. He could come back. He will. Or I’ll find him and bring him back.”

  “Tracking sorcery has failed repeatedly, both from the Illuminated we contacted and those you approached.” Tricia kept her voice soft. “You need to let him go. You can’t carry around that kind of baggage and not have it hurt you. The past is the past.”

  Lyssa stood slowly. This time she stepped away from her chair and pushed it in before spreading out her arms. She took a deep breath and pictured her normal regalia in her mind. Her form wavered and shifted, and her light clothing turned into the familiar dark leather. The jacket hanging on the rack in the other room shifted to a long overcoat.

  Tricia watched her but didn’t speak. Lyssa was determined to make her foster mother understand.

  “He can’t be dead for the same reason I can change this.” Lyssa slapped her hand over her chest. “If he were dead, then why isn’t the Northern Trickster regalia back in the Vault of Dreams? I’ve been there. You’ve been there.” She threw up her arms. “I’ve set it up so they’ll contact me if it returns.” She held up a dark-gloved hand. “Tell me, Tricia. Have you ever heard of a regalia not returning to the Vault after the Sorcerer died? Sure, delays happen, but fifteen years? That’d be unprecedented.”

  Tricia stood with a concerned look. “I think you already know the answer to that. I don’t think it matters. We could go all the way to Last Remnant right now, and you could scour that entire island. Even if you found his regalia, I don’t think you’d believe he was dead. And we’re Illuminated. Our lives are steeped in ancient sorcery. Rare things happen all the time. You sharing your mother’s essence is an example of that.” She walked over and embraced Lyssa. “I don’t mind hope. It’s a beautiful thing, but I don’t want hope to become an obsession that destroys you.”

  Lyssa pulled away and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t become a Torch to find him. Not completely, anyway.”

  Tricia gave her a dubious look. “Really?”

  “I would have become one even if he had not disappeared,” Lyssa continued. “I think that was inevitable since I came from a family filled with them.”

  “Maybe.” Tricia patted Lyssa on the shoulder. “It’s okay to start living for yourself. Promise me you’ll at least try.”

  “Hey.” Lyssa forced a smile. “New city, new opportunities, right? I am living for myself.”

  “I hope so.” Tricia headed back to the table. “Please go get Fred and bring him back before the soup gets cold. I don’t want to lose him to his silly cars again.”

  “I will.” Lyssa walked out of the dining room.

  Tricia was right. That was what any logical person would say. For all Lyssa knew, her brother’s regalia had returned to the Vault of Dreams, and no one had bothered to tell her. Like most non-politically-minded Illuminated, she didn’t go out of her way to make a trip to their hidden island in the Indian Ocean. She hadn’t been to Last Remnant in ten years. A smart Sorceress stayed the hell away from the Tribunal and their machinations, and it wasn’t like they let people come and go on a whim anyway.

  The problem was she couldn’t let her brother Chris go so easily. Tricia could be right. Lyssa’s current obsession with trying to link him to the smuggling case supported her foster mother’s theory. Lyssa had no reason to believe he was involved, but she desperately wanted him to be.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She might be there because of the anniversary, but she wouldn’t miss the opportunity to relax with her foster family. With her officially being on the job, she might not have another chance to relax for weeks.

  Her second phone buzzed with a message, and she made a face. That phone ringing meant one thing: the call was from Reed. Working with informants didn’t always mean liking them. She checked the message.

  I should have something for you by tomorrow night.

  Lyssa’s brows went up. The universe was pushing her along quicker than she had anticipated. This called for a resupply trip to Las Vegas before she headed anywhere else. It’d be easy enough to handle the next morning with a detour on the way home.

  There would be no difficult emotional webs to navigate in Las Vegas. There would be nothing to worry about on a simple supply run.

  Lyssa headed back to Tricia. “How about I stay for the night? The job looks like it won’t be happening until tomorrow evening at the earliest.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lyssa found a good spot in a parking garage that put her close enough to walk to her destination, but not so close she couldn’t throw off a potential tail before arrival. She doubted anyone had managed to follow her from h
er foster parents’ house given her layered spells, but now that she’d left the Bennetts’ home, classic Corti paranoia had returned.

  After parking her bike, Lyssa went down the stairs of the garage and emerged on the street. A huge casino stood on one side of her, the signs beckoning visitors inside.

  Shortly after M-Day, Las Vegas casinos started making big offers to Sorcerers. They wanted true supernatural entertainment to offer to their guests. Lyssa knew at least one Sorcerer who performed in Vegas but still maintained his secret identity. No one had taken any offers publicly, and she wasn’t interested in changing careers, whatever temporary ideas came to mind about An Evening with the Night Goddess.

  Across the street, a dull-looking storage facility formed an amusing dichotomy with the casino. The contrast between the prosaic and the glamorous was the case for much of the street, including its shipping offices and other such businesses. Even a glittering heart of tourist consumerism like Las Vegas needed the mundane to survive.

  She continued along the street. When she turned the corner, a busty female mime in a flesh-colored leotard and a bowler hat surprised her. The mime engaged in some hurried climbing of invisible stairs with only a curious old man in an I LOVE VEGAS t-shirt watching her.

  The higher-level weirdness was concentrated farther east on Fremont Street near the canopied pedestrian mall, but that didn’t stop colorful characters like the climbing mime from leaking into the surrounding area. Lyssa wasn’t surprised to see a performer so early in the day. Showing up any later would have almost necessitated sorcery to carve through the thicket of entertainers filling the streets.

  The last time she’d visited the area at night, she’d had to fend off leather-clad dominatrices with whips and two different guys in bear suits offering to twerk for money. The presence of a mild violin or a singing busker seemed strange in comparison, but even Vegas couldn’t be freaky twenty-four/seven.

  No twerking bears ambushed Lyssa this time. She managed to make it down a side street before crossing the road. The freak concentration dropped to near zero, and after a couple of minutes, she closed in on a bronze anvil sign hanging on a building standing next to a bar. Elaborately twined black metal spelled out Serafina’s Gallery.

  Heavy pressure in Lyssa’s chest built as she moved toward the anvil sign. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The sensation didn’t worry her. She was exactly where she needed to be.

  Lyssa pulled out her phone. She had messaged ahead before leaving that morning, and Serafina Dale, the Sorceress owner of the gallery, had sent one not-so-simple message in response.

  Your custom order is ready!!!

  Heart and anvil emojis had followed the message, and for some reason Lyssa couldn’t fathom, a string of squids and Scottish flag emojis came next. Serafina had never mentioned having Scottish ancestry.

  Trying to understand Serafina was harder than understanding Jofi. Sometimes Lyssa thought she might be a spirit of creation in human form.

  Lyssa walked toward the large bronze doors, taking a moment to appreciate the careful scrollwork and the intricate, almost hypnotic patterns. They were different every time she came, but surprisingly, based on what she’d read online, no one had caught on.

  As she pushed into the gallery, a bell overhead tinkled and signaled her arrival. A curved dark hardwood desk stood in the corner with a slender black sales terminal on top, but the rest of the wide space was filled with stands featuring Serafina’s work.

  Exquisitely lifelike figurines and statues of animals made of different metals filled one section. During Lyssa’s last visit, it’d been mostly farm animals, but the current menagerie appeared to be a mix of chimerical beasts combining the traits of deadly predators of the land and sea, including a shark-bear and a squid-tiger. The latter might explain the squid emoji.

  Another section displayed intricate metal models of major cities. Some were easy to identify, with the Space Needle marking Seattle and Big Ben indicating London. Lyssa peered at one model for a half-minute before realizing it was Chicago.

  Twisting lines of metal woven into tapestry-like creations decorated an entire wall. Unlike the chimeras and the cities, these pieces were more abstract, playful riots of color and shape. She didn’t spot anything that resembled sorcery glyphs, at least not in the style Serafina preferred.

  The next section featured objects suspended in the air with no obvious support. She stepped closer but didn’t feel any strong sorcery. Once she was closer to the objects, she understood.

  The trick involved portions of the art being connected by all-but-invisible metal wires that were remarkably strong. They were products of sorcery that only a woman with a metal essence could pull off, but otherwise, they were not subject to active enchantment. That meant they were something that, in theory, Shadows could create with the appropriate technology.

  Serafina always had something new on every visit. She was always testing different techniques, unlike Lyssa.

  Sometimes Lyssa wondered if she’d become overly reliant on the same spells, but combat was different than art. Success wasn’t in the eye of the beholder, and art critics didn’t murder a woman for failure.

  Serafina didn’t publicly identify as a Sorceress, nor did she maintain a true secret identity. She bore the Imperfect Smith regalia and had lived in Las Vegas as a metalworker for years without encountering any trouble.

  Someday, someone might realize her art was a product of sorcery, but her tendency to eschew media attention helped keep her shop available for people to enjoy without many questions, both for lovers of metalwork-based art and people who needed something a little more specialized, such as Lyssa.

  After a few more minutes of looking around, Lyssa glanced at the staff door leading to the back and Serafina’s workshop. Busting in there would be rude, especially if the other woman was working, but she was surprised Serafina hadn’t come out. The pressure from the passive spells all over the gallery remained constant, so she hadn’t reacted using sorcery.

  There were other possibilities. This wouldn’t be the first time Lyssa had had to track Serafina down.

  Lyssa frowned. “She better not have fallen asleep again.”

  “To be fair,” Jofi replied, “that was a visit after her normal business hours.”

  “She told me to come right away, so I did. Then I found her snoring in the back.” Lyssa shrugged. She ran her fingers underneath her jacket. The current transformation of her regalia did not do anything to change the texture of the enchanted mesh.

  That little helpful item was another of Serafina’s creations. It was arguable which had saved Lyssa’s life more often, the armor or the enchanted bullets Serafina supplied her. All Illuminated had their strengths and weaknesses, and Lyssa had done her best to make up for hers by cultivating good contacts.

  “Maybe she didn’t expect me to come right away.” Lyssa chuckled. “Half the time, she barely knows what’s going on around her when she’s working on something.”

  “Might she be playing some sort of joke on you?” Jofi asked.

  Lyssa shook her head. “That’s not how her sense of humor works.”

  She continued her stroll, yawning, her arms behind her head, wandering closer and closer to the staff door. There was a sign that said it was for staff only, but there were no other employees and hadn’t been since Lyssa had first visited. The shop effectively doubled as Serafina’s home, but she maintained a barebones apartment elsewhere.

  Lyssa walked over to the door and knocked. “Serafina, it’s Lyssa.”

  A loud thump sounded from beyond the door. Lyssa frowned and stepped back, unzipping her jacket.

  “Whoever you’re hunting might have followed you here,” Jofi said.

  Lyssa shook her head. “If they know Hecate is Lyssa Corti, I doubt they’d bother going after Serafina. I doubt they’d be that proactive, too.”

  “But you’re preparing to draw. You’re worried about trouble.”

  “Trouble comes
in a lot of forms. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Let’s hope it’s nothing more than a sleepy woman.” Lyssa pounded on the door. “Hey, Serafina, you in there? I don’t have all day. Drink a cup of coffee if you’re so tired.”

  Pressure built in Lyssa’s chest. Active sorcery. The intensity rose and fell in a rhythmic pulse, almost like a slow heartbeat.

  Lyssa hissed and narrowed her eyes. The sensation was far stronger than the passive spells she’d felt since arrival.

  “Serafina?” she shouted. “I’m not playing. If you don’t want something broken, you better answer me.”

  Lyssa gritted her teeth. Life was simpler when people didn’t give her a reason to be suspicious.

  With a deep breath, she pulled her folded-up mask out of her pocket. After slipping it over her face, she willed the regalia to revert to its natural form.

  Lyssa kicked open the door. She’d been in the gallery enough times to know the layout. Another door at the end of the short hallway led to the main workshop. There were storage closets and bathrooms behind the other doors.

  The sensation of sorcery intensified. More loud thumping and crashing noises followed. The workshop wall rattled.

  Lyssa inched forward, lifting her guns as she headed toward the workshop. The door was cracked open a couple of inches. A loud bang rattled it.

  She stopped in front of the door. Holding her breath, she tilted her head and peered inside. Power and hand tools were scattered all over the room, fallen from destroyed metal shelves. A massive anvil had been knocked on its side. One of Serafina’s large worktables was broken in half and had huge holes spread over one side. Buckets filled with metallic slivers and small bars had been knocked off the wall, their contents spilled over the area.

  Something had smashed holes the same size as the tables’ holes high in a wall near an exhaust vent. The damage had left a pile of wood and ceiling tile mixed with metal and insulation in the far corner of the room. The pile reached the ceiling.