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

by Kal Aaron

  “We could hit the range more.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Lyssa yawned and pulled out her phone. Wearing a watch while she was in her regalia presented complications. “It’s been forty-five minutes since we saw any movement in the back, and those guys were leaving. The first security guard and the guy who relieved him haven’t been near the back that I can see, either. I doubt they’re going to do another shift change after only an hour.”

  “We can’t see everything,” Jofi said. “There could be hostiles inside who haven’t passed a window. Or they could be invisible.”

  “That’s true, but I’m thinking this is as good a time as any to check out the back.” Lyssa shifted to her knees and twisted her body in a stretch. That was enough recon yoga. “What it comes down to is that we haven’t seen anyone other than the guy in the front in a while. I’m a little surprised. Reed might be wrong about this, but it won’t hurt to check it out.”

  “And if it doesn’t belong to the Lone Five Stars?” Jofi asked.

  “We poke around for a while and then leave.” Lyssa shrugged.

  “If it is them, they could be prepared for inspection by hostile Torches.”

  “I’m sure they can get reinforcements there quickly, but it’s not like they’re going to call the cops if something’s off at their gangland warehouse. That guard in the front looks an awful lot like a gangster to me, down to the resting bitch face with a messed-up nose, ill-fitting suit, and the not-so-hidden gun. I think if this were a legit place, there would be a rent-a-cop there in an obvious uniform, not a reject from a Martin Scorsese flick.”

  “Do you intend to clear the warehouse out if you confirm it belongs to the criminals?”

  Lyssa stood and dusted off her knees. Her long coat fluttered in the wind. “No. We could burn down that entire place, but we’d risk this ending up like it did in Japan. If we cut off the middlemen, we’ll never find the source. This is going to require more finesse. We look first, then we shoot.”

  “You don’t enjoy finesse.”

  Lyssa chuckled. “I enjoy solving problems in a straightforward way, but that’s not always possible. I prefer to win efficiently. Sometimes that means going in guns blazing, and sometimes that means convincing a guy not to fight. That’s a type of finesse.”

  She walked over to the edge of the building, folding the binoculars and tucking them into a pocket. Stepping off, she filled her mind with interlocking glyphs and pictures of flowing smoke. She gently floated down to the ground, where she released the spell and jogged toward the back of the warehouse.

  A six-foot chain-link fence protected it from would-be robbers. She didn’t need sorcery to vault over it. After landing in a crouch on the other side, she scanned for trouble. She spotted cameras, but any review of the footage would have a hard time proving she was there. That was one advantage her abilities presented over the mind sorcery of someone like Lee.

  The ample rear parking lot could easily accommodate a semi, but there was only a handful of nondescript vans. That supported Lyssa’s suspicion that the place belonged to criminals. Companies liked to advertise. Criminals didn’t.

  Lyssa took careful steps as she worked her way toward a window. She made a point of staying away from doors, especially the loading door. She approached a barred window and peeked inside.

  She saw a darkened warehouse loading floor with a single parked forklift and empty pallets piled up and stored along the wall. There were crates scattered around the room, and open crates circled a concrete support column in the center.

  There was no truck inside, nor any men. It didn’t impress her as a major distribution hub. There was no busy hive of men packing drugs and weapons.

  Reed might have given her bad intel. She needed to make sure it wasn’t on purpose before she dished out too many threats.

  Her chest tightened. Sorcery. She ducked reflexively and held her breath. Could they feel her?

  Lyssa slowly lifted her head. She might have jumped to conclusions. It was time to go back to basics. She’d hoped to find shards there, and sensing their power could feel like normal sorcery. That didn’t mean there was a full-fledged rogue here, and even if there was, knowing her general direction wasn’t the same thing as being able to blow her away from a distance with a surprise attack.

  The sorcery pressure remained constant. What that implied about potential shards couldn’t be discovered without more information, but it did mean she could track the source with the help of triangulation.

  Lyssa crept sideways, moving yards away from the window and paying close attention to the feeling in her chest. A return trip sent her past the original window and into the back. She now had a decent bearing on her target.

  Whatever the power source, it lay inside the warehouse, most likely in one of the crates or behind the column. Her viewing angle from the windows produced a blind spot.

  Someone could be waiting there, or it could be big, powerful stuff waiting to be sold. There was only one way to find out.

  The chances of the location being an innocent warehouse had dropped nearly to zero in her mind. Owning a shard wasn’t technically illegal, but there was no way a random warehouse in Midland would have one sitting in a crate when said building had come up in a conversation discussing an organized crime group specializing in smuggling. The universe didn’t have that sick a sense of humor.

  Lyssa spread her arms and took a breath as she tried to decide her next move. Bashing through a door would be easy, but it was guaranteed to trip an alarm. Slicing the bars and going through the windows was another possibility, but that also could signal a nearby Sorcerer. She remained unconvinced she was only sensing shards, but the steady level of power pointed to that possibility.

  A moment of consideration turned into a plan and a chant. Thinning would scream power to anyone who could sense it, but she was willing to gamble that this was another Alvarez situation. There might be a rogue Sorcerer, but he wasn’t hiding behind a column in this Midland warehouse.

  Lyssa flowed through the window and released the spell, then took a moment to catch her breath. Passing through tight passages always strained her. Her spells and the deep shadows of the unlit warehouse floor guaranteed her invisibility.

  She reached into a pocket and pulled out her batons. The wraith form swallowed the click when she expanded them. She didn’t enchant them with her strength or knockout spells, figuring kneecapping a gangster would be enough to take him out. It was a mostly empty building, not a house filled with men who were ready to fight.

  The soft overlapping ticks of large clocks echoed through the room. She continued forward, paying close attention to the increasing pressure she felt. The source was close.

  About a quarter of the way into the room, Lyssa stopped, her heart pounding. She walked to the left and then to the right. Something didn’t feel right. She craned her neck upward, hoping to find a shard hanging above her.

  “This was easier than I thought, friend.” The mocking voice came from above her. “And here I believed this was going to be a wasted night.”

  Lyssa sucked in a breath. The voice was sultry, young, female, and spoke elegant English with a touch of a Hindi accent. It wasn’t an innate talent for linguistics that let her pick out the detail, just simple recognition.

  Perfect. Just damned perfect. Of all the people she could have run into that night, why did it have to be that woman?

  Blinding balls of white-hot fire shot out from behind the column and spread throughout the room. They hovered a yard off the floor, bathing the room in an eerie, flickering light.

  “You can hide,” the woman shouted. “But I know you’re here. I’ll burn you out if necessary.” A sinister laugh followed. “And thank you. You’ve saved me the trouble of having to track you down before I kill you, Hecate.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After the ball lanterns flew out, the pressure intensified again. Lyssa jumped backward instinctively. A flash preceded two f
ireballs blasting from near the roof behind the column. The fireballs curved mid-flight to head straight toward her. A leap to the side saved her from a direct hit, and the spells exploded in bright flashes. The shockwave knocked her off her feet and disrupted her wraith form. She jumped up, growling.

  Whatever doubts she’d had about her conversation partner being a rogue vanished. Honest Torches didn’t attempt to murder other Torches with surprise attacks.

  Flickering light spilled from the top of the column. The Sorceress responsible for the attack floated away from the back of the column and revealed herself. A bright aura surrounded her.

  Four flaming wings extended from her back, and white-hot jets of fire flowed down from the tips, supporting her in the air. Her regalia consisted of a loose high-slit dress dominated by red with patches of saffron and yellow throughout, marking out glyphs. A golden mask covered the top of her face, leaving patches of her smooth brown skin exposed. Her glowing yellow- and red-streaked hair fluttered as if it were in a wind, resembling the flames behind her. Gold bangles adorned her ankles, and gold bracelets ran up half her arms.

  There was no mistaking her. It was Aisha Khatri the Fire Deva, bearer of the Flame Goddess regalia. Of all the people Lyssa had expected to run into when hunting a rogue, Aisha was at the absolute bottom of the list.

  This couldn’t be happening. Even Lyssa’s luck couldn’t be that bad. She’d had issues with Aisha in the past, but she couldn’t believe the woman had turned a family feud into a betrayal of the Society.

  She didn’t want to believe it, but Aisha had tossed fireballs at her. The evidence was in.

  Aisha’s earlier spells had killed most of the ground-floor darkness in the warehouse. Wraith form or thinning would be risky anyway because of her guided fireballs and the concentration required. The woman knew Lyssa’s capabilities far too well. This would be a hard fight.

  “I recommend maximum force,” Jofi said. “Miss Khatri has already demonstrated an extreme willingness to kill you. Given your previous encounters, you should take her threat seriously.”

  “Yeah. Not planning to blow her off.” Lyssa threw her batons to the ground and drew her guns, then backed up slowly, keeping them trained on the Sorceress hovering above her. “We don’t have to do this, Fire Deva,” she called. “You haven’t done anything you can’t take back. Don’t be an idiot.”

  Avoiding real names might encourage Aisha to do the same. Lyssa didn’t know who was listening. This could end with her convincing Aisha to see the folly of her actions or a brutal fight, but thinking ahead wouldn’t hurt.

  “Do you know what it is like to be lucky, Hecate?” Aisha laughed. “To find you of all people, you daughter of thieving cats, here. I’m truly blessed. It’s like you’ve been delivered to me, complete with an excuse to kill you.”

  “Don’t you think tossing fireballs and lanterns around is going to attract interest from the Shadow cops? Whatever twisted excuses you have, you start hurting them, and you’re going to get an Eclipse on your ass.”

  Aisha shook her head. “There’s a sound-swallowing shard outside this room. It’s on the back of the column. How could you of all people not know? Pathetic.”

  Lyssa frowned. She hadn’t noticed it, but she hadn’t tested for sound and hadn’t been alert for a different type of shard. She also wasn’t the rogue helping the scum. Why would Aisha expect her to know about that?

  Damn it. Aisha had set things up too well. Lyssa wasn’t surprised. The woman might have a temper, and she was letting revenge guide her down a dangerous path, but she wasn’t an idiot.

  “We all have things that slip by us.” Lyssa chuckled. “But I don’t like the part where you tried to kill me. This doesn’t have to happen. I don’t want to kill a Sorceress, but you’re really pushing my buttons.”

  Aisha rapidly chanted something in Sanskrit. Her wings vanished and she dropped to the ground, smoke rising from the concrete floor beneath her feet. A pulse of sorcery preceded the appearance of a hazy, wavering field around her, flecked with bright sparks of red and white. A ball of flame hovered in her palm.

  “I see you’re still using guns.” Aisha scoffed. Her voice dripped contempt. “Are you Illuminated, or are you a Shadow who has to rely on such tools?” She chuckled, but there was no mirth in the sound. “It fits your essence perfectly.”

  “Yeah, nothing says Shadow like enchanted guns with a bound spirit. You got me. I’m so sorry, O So Great Flame Deva.”

  “Excuses.” Aisha scoffed. “Typical for someone like you. Typical for a Corti.”

  Lyssa kept her distance, slowly walking in a circle while Aisha did the same. This wasn’t some idiot gangster playing with her first shard. Aisha was a trained Torch with an essence that lent itself to combat.

  But she’d also given up Lyssa’s family name. Time to return the favor.

  “There have been darkness essences in the Khatri family, too,” Lyssa said.

  “Not like you,” Aisha shouted. “Your soul is as dark as your essence. You have no standards. No true pride.”

  “By the way, you’re not the only one surprised to see someone,” Lyssa said. “I suspected I’d run into someone eventually, but you? Whoa, boy. I didn’t see that one coming.”

  Aisha tossed her fireball from one hand to the other. “A thief from a family of thieves. Of course you’d end up here. In that sense, this was inevitable.”

  “Screw you,” Lyssa growled. “You can call me what you want, but you don’t disrespect my family. I don’t talk trash about the Khatris, even though you’ve ridden my ass for years.”

  “Your thieving mother took the Night Goddess!” Aisha shouted. “When it had been in my family for generations!”

  “Really? We’re going to do this now?” Lyssa scoffed. “This is what you want to talk about, with everything else that’s going on?”

  “Why shouldn’t we discuss it?” Aisha asked. “Don’t you understand what this is? What’s going on?”

  “I see someone who can’t let go of an unfounded decades-old grudge, who I’m trying to stop from making an even worse mistake.”

  “No.” Aisha shook her head. “It’s fate guiding us together. Fate granting me a gift. I can’t punish your dead mother for my family, but I can punish her daughter with the knowledge of my virtue.”

  Virtue? How could she talk about virtue when she was helping shard-smugglers? Lyssa was done with the self-indulgence, especially since Aisha had insulted her mother.

  Her jaw tightened, and her heart thundered in her chest. She wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer, Sorceress or not.

  “She didn’t steal crap!” she yelled. “The Night Goddess didn’t reject her. It didn’t reject me. Your family doesn’t own this regalia. No one gets to declare dibs on a regalia. Stop being an idiot.”

  Aisha sneered. One advantage of her half-mask was that she could get her facial expressions across a lot easier than Lyssa.

  “Is that your excuse for how far you’ve fallen?” Aisha asked. “It won’t matter. Once I kill you here, my family will reclaim it in the next generation.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to be so easy to kill?” Lyssa closed on the crates and the column. Cover could make a big difference in combat. “Don’t get cocky, bitch. You’re not the only Torch in this room.”

  “A Sorceress who has to use the tools of the non-Illuminated is one who is not confident about her abilities,” Aisha replied. “I will destroy you.”

  Lyssa hoped to talk Aisha into surrendering by appealing to her pride and honor. At the least, she hoped she could get the woman to leave.

  A Khatri, let alone Aisha, being a rogue didn’t make sense. They were a proud line that had produced great Sorcerers and Sorceresses for centuries. Working with criminal scum to smuggle shards when she already had wealth, status, and influence was insane. Aisha had always been competitive, but it was hard to believe it would come to this.

  “Don’t diss the guns.” Lyssa waved one. “Th
e best Sorceresses work smarter, not harder. This is your last chance not to do something stupid. You didn’t hit me, so I’ll let it go. I can’t speak for anyone else.” She stopped behind an empty crate near the column. “But that’s the limit of my tolerance.”

  “Others? You dare speak of others? They won’t matter if you’re dead.” Aisha brought her arm back, the fireball floating above it. “You honestly think you can beat me?”

  “I’ve got more experience, and I’ve beat you before.”

  “In sparring, not a real battle.”

  “Your current ammo load is insufficient to defeat her,” Jofi said. “I recommend higher-powered rounds.”

  “I’m trying to convince her to give this up, not put her more on edge,” Lyssa whispered. “She can still plead for mercy. I don’t know why she’d involve herself in this, but she is a Khatri. Samuel might think I don’t give a crap, but I do understand a little bit about Society politics.”

  Aisha snorted. “Appealing to your spirit for help won’t save you, Hecate. Time to burn the trash.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  With a shout, Aisha threw the fireball. The dangerous spell screamed toward Lyssa, but she spun behind the column, avoiding the attack. The fireball crashed to the floor, scorching the concrete and producing a fountain of fiery sparks.

  It was a beautiful sight, like a firework. Too bad Aisha was trying to kill Lyssa.

  Aisha threw up her hands and chanted rapidly under her breath. Burning blasts ripped from her hands in streams, pelting and blackening the column. “I’ve always thought you were a degenerate, but I held out some hope for you. Killing you is a mercy. You should thank me.”

  “And I always thought you were a crazy bitch,” Lyssa replied. “You’re only proving me right.”

  Aisha couldn’t maintain the stream for long. Lyssa just needed to wait for her chance.

  When the stream of fiery death stopped, Lyssa burst from behind the column and opened fire with both pistols. The bullets struck the shield surrounding Aisha, vaporizing in a sizzling, sputtering mass that left molten lead burning the floor. Not unexpected, but still annoying.