Small Town Witch: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 5)

by Sami Valentine

  Flipping to the coroner’s report on Brooke Peters, she forced herself to face it. Her hands trembled when she reached the pictures, but she didn’t stop from analyzing them closely. The image of her mother’s body, incinerated to bones, was beyond words as it burrowed into the darkest recesses of her brain. Once she had reached the end of that tightly typed section, she calmly stood up and walked to the bathroom in the hall and threw up.

  The next pages were easier, less gruesome and more personal than the part on the house fire, yet they still raised unsettling questions.

  Gina recounted moving with Stace to Charm, striking up a friendship with the family next door, a whip-sharp academic and her shy daughter, brought together because they were raising girls alone. Their relationship grew rocky when Emma started sneaking out with Stace on supernatural patrols. Gina described their lively debates held away from the children as Brooke slowly conceded that a Bard’s mentorship could help her daughter survive in the dangerous town. The entry filled in some of the blanks surrounding Brooke, crafting a study of contrasts. Then the Bard’s observant eye turned to describing her.

  Emma Peters was the sort of child that could be ordered to a corner with a book and would remain there for hours, happy in the pages. Independent, she seemed like a little adult long used to taking care of herself on her mother’s work trips. It wasn’t until Lourdes Sanchez pointed out how lonely Emma was that I saw it. Much like my own Stacey, she was a little girl who walked with a big burden on her shoulders. She held her secrets better. Supposedly moving from Upstate New York to Oregon, I never found record of an Emma Peters in the Utica school system. I never found a record of her anywhere but Charm.

  Her phone chimed, announcing a confirmation email about her Etruscan translation from the ironically nicknamed Fat Crispin, the only one in the Brotherhood headquarters who knew she lived. If he was chubby in his youth, old Jacob was rail thin and ailing now. His work ethic couldn’t be denied. He had verified the language and recognized the name of an underworld demoness—Culsu. She seemed to have served all the Etruscan bad boys like Orcus and Janus as a guardian of doorways.

  Reading the email on her phone, she tapped on his link to the Bard Net entry on the demon and realized she needed to enter Vic’s long password again. Deciding to switch to her laptop in the study, she walked into the kitchen. She made a detour for a cup of coffee, setting the binder on the table, overcome by the abrupt allure of an afternoon nap.

  Stace walked in, wearing a smile and a blue Lili’s Diner shirt. “Hey, I came back on my lunch break to see how the boys are getting on.”

  “Better now.” Red said brightly, avoiding the snafu of the morning. She didn’t want to worry her or reemphasize Vic’s first impression.

  “Heavy reading huh?” She nodded to the binder on the table.

  “I figured I might as well while I waited for verification that the ritual victim had been killed in an Etruscan ceremony. It just came back. The ritual isn’t in the Brotherhood databases, so it could be a family recipe. If you have any more leads on those practicing the old stuff, we can start there. Callaway can help.”

  “It’ll be better if we handle that by ourselves. I already have a plan for scoping out witches at the reunion tonight. Olivia is at the top of the list.”

  “The sheriff can us save time. There were only a few days between the last victims. The killer could be trying again tonight.”

  “I can tell she cares, but she’s safer chasing human criminals. I’ll keep her in the loop if we find that the killer is something in her jurisdiction. I’ve heard about who she worked for in LA. I don’t want her to pass it on.” Stace added quickly, “accidentally, of course.”

  “She’s definitely not working for demons. Had her fill.” Red made a note to tell Aisha anyway. Stace was gun-shy to trust since the last sheriff would get on the pay of whatever supernatural warlord passed through town. Aisha Callaway wasn’t like that. She hadn’t worked with Cora Moon for the money, but to shield people from the monsters.

  She changed the subject to what had been bothering her. It wasn’t her mother’s death this time. It was her life. “Can I ask you something before you go? What was my mom really like? You’ve told me about the archeology career, the highlights, but it was more complicated between us, wasn’t it? More complicated than you’d tell your Aunt Gina for her report?”

  Stace sat at the kitchen table with her. “You were a teenager. You two didn’t always get along. When she was out of town, you were a latchkey kid, then she’d come back, and she was…”

  “Strict?” Red asked, reflecting on Gina’s note about the emphasis on education both academic and magical in the Peters household. Brooke had been training her before the Bard had moved to town, mostly on control and concealment of her talent. Emma had been advanced for her age by all accounts. All that mystical knowledge would have been great to keep instead of a wealth of song lyrics and movie trivia.

  “Scared,” Stace said after a long pause. “Your mother could be so much fun. We’d have poker tournaments and squirt gun fights in the house. Then it was like she remembered that she had to look over her shoulder.”

  “Did she say anything about leaving a coven? I got intel from the other side about it. Ghost rumor has it my grandma wasn’t pleased.”

  “No, but the thought did cross my mind when she died. She didn’t use her magic much, even if she taught you about yours.”

  “Are you sure?” Red asked. Covens ranged along the evil-good scale, but a few practiced the old tradition of killing those who tried to leave, some stitching the mouths of the dead to prevent them sharing secrets even in the afterlife. Charm was an ideal place to hide. The energies from the dimensional fault line could camouflage any accidental magic traces from a young witch.

  “She was more afraid for you than for herself. She pushed you to get good grades and take self-defense classes, but she wouldn’t let you go to the spelling bee championship because you’d have to fly to Philadelphia alone. You once joked that she had forbidden you to try out for a play because then people would see you. I think she was simply scared to lose you.”

  Red sipped her coffee, thinking it through. “Aunt Gina did wonder what my mother was hiding in her past.”

  “I think its simpler than a vengeful coven. Brooke could be dramatic. Somehow your mother was both the person who kept a detailed agenda and would still decide to join a dig in Morocco on a whim. I think she was heartbroken over your dad and wanted a fresh start.”

  That was an angle that Red had never considered. Her father was as much of a mystery as he had even been. “Did I talk about him? Not even your Aunt Gina could find anything on him.”

  “You and Zach bonded more over that, but I know he wasn’t a mage like your mom. Just a normal Jewish guy from New York, you said.”

  “I’m half-Jewish?” She asked. “Huh.”

  “Didn’t really practice it here but you had a bat mitzvah. You lost him soon after that, I think. It’s not like you were over it in high school, even with your mom forcing you to therapy. You didn’t really talk about him and your life before Charm. I was hurt by that, you know, because I told you everything. But after Aunt Gina, I get it now. You were hurting too. To lose someone so young… I think it was natural causes, though.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t get the full story because you were sobbing drunk at a party on the Ghost Beach. It was like the first time you drank, and then you started puking by the bottomless pit, so you know, I was busy.” Stace frowned, eyes crinkling as she strained to remember. “It was hereditary or something, but your mother blamed herself and your grandma for not stopping it. Sounded like the two were estranged even then. I always figured that she wanted to cure him, but there’s only so much you can do with magical medicine. So, when he died, she left the coven with you.”

  Red bowed her head, holding back the sniffles, as her friend squeezed her hand and gave her a tissue to wipe her eyes.

  “
I couldn’t sleep last night, so I puttered around in the study. I found something for you.” Stace motioned for Red to stay and left the kitchen. She came back holding a ring. “This was your mom’s. We found it in the ashes before the police could. Brooke did elemental magic like you.”

  Red took the ring, an oval blue sapphire, Celtic symbols etched in the gold band. Power tickled her fingertips. It had been imbued with enchantment. Most witch families had heirlooms like this sealed with the best spell in the grimoire. It certainly was an antique. She slipped it on, and it felt like a hug to her magic as if her mother were with her again. What did it do?

  “I saw her hosing a back patio with that once. She’d want you to have it.” Stace smiled and headed out the door. “I’m back to the day job. Have fun taking that ring for a test drive.”

  Red smoothed a thumb over the metal. So, her mother favored water spells? Elemental witches had an affinity for the raw building blocks of magic themselves—earth, air, water, and fire. She’d never had any luck with water or earth. Only once had fire come to her call, and she still had no idea how she had summoned it. Air was the friendliest.

  She drew on her power and tapped it gently on the ring, half expecting water to shoot from it. Instead, the ring honed her focus on the air, coaxing it to her will. It wasn’t charmed for a specific spell but increased mastery over the elements. Her magic wound out like on a well-oiled pulley like her mother had made it for her. It didn’t fight her as she levitated a hamster-shaped mug.

  Laughing with delight, she made it dance, then plucked the cup out of the air to savor the coffee within and set it down. She tried controlling water next, sweating as the coffee resisted her. Even with the ring, her energy lagged. She returned to a friendlier element, wanting to play around more with her control over the bespelled heirloom.

  Manipulating the air molecules, she pushed the binder open, wanting to know what Aunt Gina had observed about Brooke’s magic. The lag between her will and the ring decreased as she flipped the papers with the ring. It felt like game, yet it wasn’t easy, honing her will so precisely, but it was as if her mother was with her. She teared up at the idea.

  Then she landed on the pictures in the coroner’s report.

  A gust blew through the kitchen. Pages flapped, curtains ruffled. Her emotions broke her control over the magic. She ripped the ring off, slapping it on the table. The chaos died down. Jumping up, she righted the toppled knickknacks on the windowsill and snapped the fridge magnets back on the fallen pictures.

  Red checked to make sure the binder was okay. Many pages were laminated but not the handwritten reflections from Gina’s private journals. They were fragile. She smoothed a page. It was the middle of a section on Alaric’s aborted apocalypse. Intrigued, she flipped back. Claudia Benston had mentioned that the recent riftquake was like something she had felt ten years ago. Red had been tempted to call Lucas to ask him before, but he had a worse memory than her. His soul could make him broody, yet his instinct was to live in the moment and forget the details.

  She scanned through the section, knowing she could pick it clean for her journal later in a second read through. She smiled, seeing a note on Kristoff leading the Portland vampires against Alaric. She’d have to rub it in his face later that they had already met. Her smile turned thoughtful as she read Gina’s observations on Quinn Byrnes, his soul stolen to force him to rejoin the order. It had grieved Gina who saw him as a stalwart ally. She flipped ahead to read about Emma’s showdown with the head vampire.

  She stopped at an academic passage about dimensions and gods when a name jumped out at her—Culsu. Gina was describing Alaric’s ritual. Multi-talented, he could mesmerize but he also studied blood magic. All vampires drew on the blood as fuel, weakening without it, but a few could harness that energy for magic.

  Leading his minions to a secluded summer camp, Alaric tried to summon the original vampires from their hell prison. The cabins full of high school students were to be their first meal in our realm. He gorged himself as well to power his magic. He held the witches of the town, including the Peterses and the Benstons, hostage on a short vista overlooking the camp. In a ring of plain stones alternating with selenite, Alaric slit the throat of Barbara Benston as Venus retrograded in the sky above. He carved his prayer to Orcus’s servant, the Etruscan underworld goddess of doorways, on his sacrifice. The conjured portal sparked a wildfire that ripped through forest.

  It was eerily familiar. Not the same but close enough for her heart to jump in her chest.

  “Fuck.” Red trotted back to the living room for her phone to text her findings. Instinct made her text Vic first, then she forwarded it on to Stace. A fresh cup of coffee later, with Cocoa Puff rolling around her feet in a plastic ball, Red dove back into the binder.

  Who was trying to recreate Alaric’s ritual to open the door to Blood Realm?

  The curse carved on the victims, both past and present, was the same. A coincidence was impossible. It appeared to be a detailed homage—perhaps modified for a human to do a vampiric ritual. Were they trying to summon something specific from the Blood Realm, or was it an open invitation? The gods might not have been appeased, but it had triggered a riftquake anyway, releasing a manananggal and stirring up the ghouls.

  How long did they have before the killer found the right sacrifice?

  11

  Chilled despite pacing in a sunbeam on the front porch, Red thumbed her way through her contacts list.

  It wasn’t exactly comfortable to phone her ex even if they parted on good terms—the burden of being the dumped. Calling about a murder made it weirdly easier. It was early for a vampire, but the apocalypse with Alaric was Lucas’s family’s business. Hopefully he had insight for her. She tapped his name, waiting for him to pick up.

  “Red?” Lucas asked blearily, British accent softened from sleep.

  “Sorry about the wake-up call.” Red smiled despite her awkwardness, imagining him wrapped around pillows and blankets, his hair wild and sticking up. He wasn’t the suave Dracula rising majestically from a coffin at sunset.

  “It’s always good to hear your voice. What’s the latest in Vegas? That kid in trouble again?”

  “No, I’m in Charm, and I found a case I wasn’t expecting. Someone’s trying to recreate Alaric’s last stand or at least a ritual that he did.”

  “Bloody hell.” The swish of shifting fabric muffled the line as if he jumped out of bed. “I’m supposed to be guarding a sodding Oracle tonight, but I can be there in two days, kitten. Three, tops.”

  “You don’t need to put on pants. I know LA needs you. Just asking for information—who could have known his ritual enough to repeat it ten years later?”

  “Not me. It wasn’t a happy family reunion. Alaric wanted the Bloody Byrneses back together, but he didn’t trust us. Or anyone, by the end. The Blood Alliance hunted the rest of his vampire followers when the fairy girl killed him. Selene’s vision was off for once.”

  “You didn’t see him die?” Red asked, surprised that the fib about the old vampire’s death had been given to even their allies. It was doubly weird that Selene had been the seer, but somehow that didn’t surprise her. Her past life had been entwined with the Bloody Byrneses, and the echoes still played out in this one.

  “I wish. We were in the forest protecting screaming teens, wildfire and minions on all sides. There were mages helping the good fight that night, some on the other side too. I was in the thick of it.” He rattled off a few more details like Delilah double-crossing her sire before he asked tentatively, “Are you still there? You’re not peppering me with questions.”

  “I was at the summer camp that night,” she finally said. “You said you didn’t know the name Emma Peters, but do you remember Stace and Zach hanging out with an Asian girl with acne?”

  “I saved her a few times. Selene fumbled the prediction about that one.”

  “Oh.” It was stupid, but a part of her was hurt he hadn’t recognized her. They’d felt
connected on a soul level when she came to Los Angeles. She had seen him in dreams before they met. Now, she knew why. It was a buried memory. “That was me. My mom put me under a glamour.”

  Lucas was quiet long enough for Red to worry that the call had cut out. His voice came out unsteady. “That was wise of her. If soulless Quinn had found you… Alaric might have recognized you too.”

  “Who’d want to carry on his work?”

  “There aren’t many of us left, besides the ones smart enough to defect early. Even before Alaric’s defeat, that pillock Michel had been hunting the Order for years. The ritual would have been stamped out by the Blood Alliance on our side. They didn’t waste time with tribunals for the rebels. They chopped them down on the battlefield to the last one. Out of all of Alaric’s childer, only Delilah is left.”

  “We have a lead on the witches that were there, but could you do me a favor and ask around about who might still be alive and shifty in your old club? It sounds like the inner circle was decimated, but I want to be sure.”

  “I could come up to help.”

  “I know, but don’t pack your bag yet. I’m working with Stace Bonner and Zach Sanchez. There’s a few wolves in the mix and Vic too. We got a dream team here. The City of Angels needs you more.”

  “After all of this Oracle business here, I’ll make some calls, smash some heads, and tell you what I find.” He muffled a yawn.

  “You can go back to sleep.” Smiling, she thanked him and hung up.

  Her heart panged, but less than when he had broken up with her and ripped it out. She had thought they could be fated, once upon a time. It was a bittersweet comfort, knowing that he hadn’t recognized her on a mystical level when they first met. She hadn’t been dumped by her soulmate after all. It was better this way. In this life, whether as Emma or Red, she wasn’t repeating Juniper’s path.

  Putting her phone away, an old text message notification from Kristoff caught her eye—When can I see you next?