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

by Kal Aaron

  A blinding white fireball burst from Aisha’s hand and blew the lock and handle apart. Burning wood and red-hot metal shrapnel blasted in all directions. Lyssa didn’t wait before kicking in the damaged door.

  “Bounty hunters, everyone on their knees with their hands behind their head!” she shouted and charged into the kitchen.

  Open chip and pretzel bags covered the table. Empty beer bottles filled the trashcan in front. Although the living room was blocked by a wall, the dining room was visible from the kitchen, as was a man on the phone. He dropped the phone and reached to a table that Lyssa couldn’t see, bringing up a gun.

  Aisha launched a marble-sized fireball over Lyssa’s shoulder. The spell missed Lyssa by inches but was close enough that she could feel the heat before it traveled through the kitchen and struck the man’s arm. It burned through his sleeve and scorched the flesh underneath. He screamed and dropped his gun.

  Another man ran around the corner from the living room, gun in hand. He raised it but hesitated, his eyes widening in panicked recognition. “They aren’t boun—”

  Lyssa cracked him across the head. He smacked into the wall and fell to the floor. Two other men rushed around the corner, also armed. She was already near the end of the hallway when they made their appearance.

  Her sweeping strikes knocked their guns out of their hands. A follow-up kick sent one man flying before her batons propelled his friend through the drywall in the hall.

  “What the hell is going on?” shouted someone from the living room. “Waste those assholes!”

  Heavy footfalls sounded from the opposite end of the house. Sellers wasn’t among the men she’d taken down. That might be a problem.

  Glass crashed. More footfalls followed

  “Runners,” Lyssa shouted. “It might be him.”

  “You’ve got this,” Aisha called. “I’ll handle the cowards.”

  “Works for me.” Lyssa waited near the front of the hall.

  A turn to the left would take her into the living room, and a turn to the right would send her to the other side of the house and the bedrooms. She didn’t have time to consider her choices when more men boiled around the corner, not having learned the lessons of their silent friends.

  She jabbed a man in the throat with a baton before knocking him back with a kick. He crashed into another man, and they both tumbled to the floor. There weren’t many left, given those she’d counted earlier through the window.

  Lyssa crouched and took a couple of steps back. She tossed a baton into the air and pointed her hand at the main hallway light above her while imagining crashing inky waves. Shadows spread out like a time-lapse image of fast-growing slime, coating the light and darkening the hallway. She caught the baton.

  Low whispers came from the living room, then gunshots shattered the quiet. Bullets ripped through the wall but missed her.

  Lyssa continued backing away before tossing her baton into the air again and smothering another light with darkness. Light from the kitchen and living room spilled in from either end and from the holes in the wall, producing an unnaturally gloomy tunnel in the middle of the house. The remaining survivors continued firing and blasting new holes.

  “So much for cowing them with force,” she muttered.

  “Excessive beatings were also mentioned,” Jofi replied.

  “True.”

  Lyssa tucked her batons into her pockets, their extended forms protruding, before coating her hands with an impenetrable dark cloud. She jumped onto the far wall and scuttled along like an angry, vengeful ghost from a Japanese horror movie. At the corner, she jumped off the wall toward another wall in the living room and pulled out her batons mid-flight.

  Three men remained in the living room, including Chad Sellers, all cowering on their knees behind an overturned card table. They shot at the leaping Night Goddess, but they didn’t land a hit. She kicked off another wall to hurl herself over and past the table, her batons crossed in front of her.

  Two powerful backswings knocked out the two men flanking Sellers. He shouted and fired another shot, and the bullet whizzed past her head.

  Lyssa crushed his gun hand with a solid blow. Sellers yelped. She kicked the gun toward the wall before it hit the floor. The man winced and clutched his bent fingers.

  “Chad Sellers,” Lyssa rumbled. “Do you know who I am?”

  He nodded quickly. “Hecate. B-but why are you here? Phoenix is damned far away from Midland.”

  Lyssa pointed a baton at this head. “Too bad your stench reached Arizona. I’ve got some questions for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A groaning man crashed through the remains of the front door, his upper chest scorched. Aisha strolled in behind him like she was fashionably late for a dinner party. It was over the top, but Lyssa couldn’t complain after her horror movie performance earlier.

  “Hecate and Flame Deva?” Sellers slumped forward. “I’ve got crap luck. Y’all both came here?”

  “When one causes enough trouble,” Aisha replied with a sneer, “one attracts appropriate levels of punishment. And you’re a big troublemaker, friend.”

  “How would you like to die, Sellers?” Lyssa asked. “In the dark or in fire? In both? We can accommodate your last wish.”

  Remaining slumped over and staring at the floor, he shook his head. “This isn’t fair, and y’all are blaming the wrong man. I’m not a criminal. I don’t deserve to be treated like this in my own home.”

  “You could have fooled me.” Lyssa pointed a baton at an unconscious man. “You have a lot of men with guns here.”

  “This is Texas.” Sellers shrugged. “We have a right to those guns. Y’all have your magic powers. We have guns. Fair is fair.”

  Aisha scoffed, “smuggling is a crime, even in Texas.”

  “This is America, and I’m a businessman,” Sellers argued, “I move products people want, nothing more. Does that make me a bad guy?”

  “Moving products?” Lyssa grew waving tentacles around her head for effect. “Like people?”

  “People?” Sellers shook his head. “Go ask the FBI. We don’t do that.”

  Aisha scoffed. “Because you’re such honorable men with limits?”

  “Because it’s more trouble than it’s worth.” Sellers sat up. “But moving drugs, guns, and that kind of thing? Small, easy, good profits. We help get products to customers. What’s so bad about that? If people want them, who am I hurting? Some of the Founding Fathers were smugglers. John Hancock was a smuggler. John Hancock!”

  “And you’re John Hancock in this situation?” Lyssa snickered. “I think I liked Alvarez’s straightforward arrogance better than this self-serving garbage.”

  Sellers’ gaze shifted between Aisha and Lyssa. The panic in his eyes seemed genuine. “We ship products people want. That’s all. We haven’t stolen from anyone. We’re not even making the stuff.”

  “Well, now, that’s an interesting choice of words.” Lyssa crouched next to him. She collapsed her batons and tucked them away before reaching out to squeeze his cheeks with her cold, gloved hand. “That means you think we’re here because we believe you stole something?”

  Seller swallowed. “I can pay you. Whatever you want. I have a lot of money.”

  A flaming knife burst into existence in Aisha’s hand. “Killing you would make the world a better place.”

  Lyssa squeezed Seller’s jaw and pitched her voice lower than the demon bronchitis imitation delivered by her regalia. Interrogations were a lot like negotiations. She needed to give the man a win by letting him think he was improving his situation with each answer. She already knew the most likely answers to her questions, but she wanted him to confirm them by stumbling into them himself.

  “You killed a Sorcerer, didn’t you?” Lyssa let out a sinister chuckle to cover her doubt. “You got lucky somehow, killed him, and found a bag full of shards. That’s not technically stealing. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  Sellers laughed hys
terically and yanked out of her grip. “If I could take one of y’all out so easily, why am I the one on the floor with a bunch of knocked-out guys?” He grimaced and nodded at the unconscious man at the front door. “Is he still alive?”

  Aisha pointed the knife at the man. “For now. We’ll see what happens over the next few minutes, smuggler.”

  Lyssa pulled Sellers’s head back roughly. “What then? Oh, did you find the Sorcerer dead already? That’s it, isn’t it? Found a dead Sorc and figured you’d take his things? You figured, what’s the harm? Give some Shadows an edge the next time a Torch shows up? Huh? Is that it?”

  “I don’t ask people what they’re going to do with the products.” Sellers trembled. “It’s not our job to ask. We move product, and we’re paid for that. People can do bad things with anything. I read about a guy who stabbed another guy through the eye with a pencil. Y’all going to raid a pencil factory now?”

  Lyssa let go, and he fell forward. “Just a middleman, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  Sellers swallowed. “Meaning what?”

  Lyssa half-closed her eyes and murmured in Phrygian. Sometimes the show could sell the illusion. Shadowy lines crawled up her arm, growing in number over several seconds before covering the whole thing. Oversized dark fingers twitched and contorted at the end, their unnatural angles changing with each passing second. Sellers’ eyes became saucers.

  Stripped of everything else, fear was about the unknown. A violent criminal who associated with other violent criminals lived a life steeped in death. The loss of life wasn’t an unknown, and most in his line of work had inflicted or witnessed it. That experience made it a familiar thing, regrettable but expected on some level.

  To terrify such a man, Lyssa needed to expose him to something he didn’t know and had no experience with. Chad Sellers might have believed he would die at the end of a gun or knife someday or even imagined he’d die specifically at the end of Hecate’s gun, but she doubted he’d ever imagined facing long, contorted shadow fingers that looked like something from a nightmare.

  Lyssa moved next to his ear to whisper, “I’ll be honest. We don’t care about you. We care about the shards, and we know you’ve been selling them. The word is you’re a supplier, not a middleman, but we both know you aren’t making them, and I’m willing to bet you didn’t find them. You know what I want, Chaddie Boy? What will keep you from getting eaten?”

  “What?” he whimpered.

  “I need to know where they’re coming from. The FBI and EAA may come for you, but you can live through the night with your soul intact. You’re not that important to us.”

  She tried not to laugh. She deserved an Oscar for her performance. She wasn’t going to execute a helpless, defeated enemy, but he didn’t need to know that.

  Aisha watched impassively. The flames of her dagger licked the air.

  “W-what happens if I tell you?” Sellers asked. “If I give up my source to y’all, I’m dead anyway.”

  “How can your source hurt you if we stop them first?” Lyssa stood and tilted her head, the depth of shadow making the angle look more severe. “Tell us the truth and maybe die later, or die now in an awful way. Your choice, but if it were me, I’d choose later.”

  “I-I don’t know where he’s getting them.” Sellers licked his lips. “He approached me last month, showed me some things, made me an offer. Said he had a good source. I don’t know if he’s one of you Sorcs. He had a mask on, but he didn’t do any magic. I didn’t care when I saw what he could get me, but it wasn’t a fancy mask like yours. It was just a ski mask.”

  Aisha lifted the flaming dagger in front of her face. “Interesting story. I almost want to believe you. Almost.”

  “I’m telling the truth. You have to believe me.”

  Lyssa frowned. The mask screamed Illuminated, and not every Shadow appreciated how easily they could be disguised. It was time to press harder.

  “Where is he?” Lyssa shouted. “Tell us where he is if you want to live.”

  “I don’t know that!” Sellers doubled over again, shaking, cradling his mangled hand, which was starting to turn purple and black. “B-but I know where he’s going to be. There’s a cargo transfer in Houston tomorrow morning.” He glanced at the clock. “I mean this morning. The shards are going to be in a shipping container that’s getting offloaded there. I have guys down there to drive a truck and pick it up, but Nelson’s guys are the ones who are going to make the transfer.”

  “Nelson’s the masked man?” Lyssa asked.

  Sellers gave a shallow nod. “I can give you the exact time of the drop-off. Nelson supervises them all. He’s always there, and we’ve already done a half-dozen drops. He’ll be there.”

  “How do we know you won’t call Nelson the second we leave?” Lyssa asked.

  “Because you’ll kill me.”

  “True.” Lyssa shrugged. “I’m glad you understand your situation.”

  Admitting she wouldn’t do that in cold blood wouldn’t help the interrogation, so she let the implication hang in the air. But another idea came that would ensure surprise against the mysterious Nelson.

  Lyssa returned her hands to normal and removed the more intimidating aspects of her current appearance. “When is this handoff?”

  “It’s at 7:00,” Sellers said. “And I’ve got the terminal and cargo container ID.” He rattled off the info. “I don’t know if he’s pulling strings, but there’s never a lot of other people there during the handoffs.”

  Lyssa chuckled and pulled out her phone to tap in the ID. Not exactly the stuff nightmares were made of. “You memorized a container ID?”

  Sellers shrugged. “Yeah, so people like you couldn’t find it if they were sniffing around. Phones weren’t secure even before you Sorcs showed up. And now I’m going to have to sit here and think I’m going to be dead soon.”

  “Don’t worry about any of this.” Lyssa reached toward him with her hand outstretched. “By the time you wake up, this will all be over.”

  Ten minutes later, Lyssa and Aisha stood next to a smoldering pile of phones. Deep-sleep spells had been cast on all the men and their phones incinerated.

  The finishing touch was far less impressive, a handwritten sign saying, DO NOT DISTURB UNDER ORDERS OF MR. SELLERS. It was embarrassing.

  Lyssa had her doubts it would work, but she wanted to fend off any potential housekeepers who might show up. Random smugglers who had all-night parties must have all sorts of odd quirks their staff was used to. She hoped so, anyway.

  “You sure we shouldn’t burn down the house?” Aisha cocked her head.

  “And guarantee the fire department comes? Not to mention, these guys might be scum, but we didn’t identify ourselves as Torches when we came in, nor do we have an extermination contract for them. Killing them would make things complicated not just for the EAA but for the Society.” Lyssa shrugged.

  “We could move them all somewhere else and then burn down the house.” Aisha smiled. “It would be a nice punishment for this scum.”

  “Not everything needs to be solved with fire.” Lyssa snorted. “Sometimes you have all the subtlety of a nuclear weapon.”

  “And you walk around in a skull mask, friend.” Aisha shook her head. “We only have four hours until the handoff.”

  “We can both get places fast when we need to, but I can do it without letting every Shadow in five states know. I don’t think you can maintain your speed as long as I can on my bike.” Lyssa groaned. She didn’t like what needed to come next. “You said your car was registered under a fake identity, right?”

  “Of course. I don’t leave easy trails.”

  “You leave trails of destruction,” Lyssa replied. “The point is, you can leave it here, and it’ll eventually end up back where it needs to be. You can’t push that whole car with your sorcery for that long.”

  “But we have some time before the handoff.” Aisha’s face twisted into a
frown.

  Lyssa shook her head. “It’s better to get there with time to spare so we can get set up.”

  “We’re going to use your non-elegant toy?” Aisha wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  Lyssa reached into her pocket to fish out more healing herbs and some stimulant herbs to offset her building fatigue. She would have preferred more time for their regalia and bodies to repair themselves, but it looked as though they were getting a perfect opportunity to end everything.

  “Yeah.” Lyssa nodded. “We’re taking my bike. Get ready to hold on tight.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lyssa maintained wraith form as she put down her kickstand. She and Aisha had parked in a pitch-black empty parking lot near a long-closed department store, judging by the sorry state of the sign and the extensive graffiti. Adding Aisha to the ritual hadn’t strained Lyssa as much as she’d expected, which made sense upon reflection. The bike weighed a lot more than the lithe flame Sorceress, and it wasn’t a thinning spell. The port was twenty minutes away at a reasonable non-enhanced speed.

  “Why are we stopping here?” Aisha asked. “Why not go all the way?”

  “Because we need to make sure we’re both on the same page,” Lyssa replied. “And I want to do that before either of us needs to blast or shoot anyone. There’s no way this doesn’t end in someone getting hurt, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set some limits.”

  “I’m working with you and I rode your motorcycle, even though you’re from a family of thieves.” Aisha snorted. “Isn’t that enough to establish that we’re on the same page, friend?”

  “We have time left,” Lyssa said. “And it doesn’t hurt to dial it down. Plus, it gives our regalia and the herbs that many more minutes to put us back together. Because of our previous little mistake, neither of us is at our best.”

  Between Serafina’s construct and confronting Aisha, it’d been a painful couple of days. Most of Lyssa’s pain was gone, and some of her smaller cuts and burns had healed, but she was far from recovered. The same could be said of Aisha.