“Are you tipsy?”
“No, unfortunately not. Too many carbs. Speaking of…” Red took a bite of a pink doughnut, then gestured with it. “I’ll level with you. I’m not going to try too hard this time loop. The full Groundhog Day story should wait for the others.”
“Did you go to a weed dispensary?”
“I might be as unstable as the timeline by now, but I’m not wrong on this point.”
“Prove—”
“And the freaky thing that makes you believe me is that I know you won nearly fifteen hundred dollars last night. Around the tenth rerun, I also learned too much about your sexy texting to Maudette. I am determined to forget how much.”
“The tenth loop? How many have you done?”
Red looked at the suite entrance. “Hannah and Basil will be walking in…now.”
On time as always, the teen witch and soulmancer arrived with hellos. Basil asked, propping a hand on his hip, “Aren’t you supposed to get dressed, Red?”
“Holy shit,” Vic said.
“Yeah, I know.” Red sipped her mimosa and stood. “Grab the box and we’ll take this to the sofa.”
Basil asked, “Was this supposed to be breakfast?”
“I got enough to share,” she offered. “Take a bite.”
Basil and Hannah joined her on the couch while Vic set the doughnuts on the coffee table and took a recliner. The hunter grabbed an éclair and nodded to her. “Explain the purgatory you’re locked in, Red.”
“Honestly, if I knew it would be this much of a hassle getting crap from the old apartment, I wouldn’t have bothered.” She’d developed an elevator pitch for the situation and rattled it off along with what she’d already found out. “If I could just leave, I know what we need to do in Charm from the sigils to the heavy machinery. I’ve run through this simulation so many freakin’ times now, trying everything to escape Vegas. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.”
“You’re not getting home like this,” Basil said. “You’ve been at this for how long again?”
“At least eighty-four go-rounds, buckaroo.” Red popped her lips then slurped at her mimosa. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it?”
Hannah asked, “And you really haven’t rested, have you?”
“Catnaps when I can. I have a whole checklist that I run through. It takes up more time than you think. You kind of have to inform people in a sequence so no one gets too distracted, then hope that a car accident or something doesn’t take you out mid-call.”
“That explains the wear and tear on your soul, Red.” The soulmancer sighed. “Have you thought about not doing anything?”
“I was thinking of watching puppy videos on my phone in between text messages on the way to Charm.”
“Don’t go,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Stay here. Let’s have a spa day. Get back to the grind in the next round.”
Vic rolled his eyes. “A massage isn’t going to make this better.”
Basil glared. “She needs a break before she breaks.”
“He’s right,” Hannah said. “Red, you haven’t done anything wacky like in the movies.”
“I already tried a party loop, and it had a bummer ending. I think I’d settle for sleeping in.”
“Isn’t there something you always wanted to do in Vegas?” the teen asked, sad and gentle like the other witch was an old dog about to be put down.
Red put her head in her hands. “We can’t. Gary O’Sullivan is making a move against the academy tonight. They’re going to start nabbing mages off the streets. The Gendarme already know something is up or will soon. This academy will be under lockdown by the afternoon.”
“Don’t think about the future,” the teen said. “What do you want to do now?”
“I’ve been racing the clock, literally. I want to slow down and get a real breakfast with you guys without a time crunch and do whatever I want afterward. A massage actually sounds fabulous.”
Basil shot a victorious look at Vic.
Red stood from the sofa and pointed at Hannah. “We need to finally talk about whatever happened with Jeremy too. I’m sick of you dodging the subject. Let’s go before the Gendarme pull Basil in for a favor.”
The soulmancer groaned. “What kind?”
“I assume it has to do with the political climate.” Red shrugged. “You go off. That’s all I know. I haven’t stuck around long enough for when you come back. No worries, you survive. In the original timeline, you text me tomorrow, annoyed because I forgot to let you know when we arrived in Charm.”
Vic asked, “Can we talk over breakfast? I need more than a doughnut.”
He hustled them out of the suite after Red dressed and belted on her hunter’s kit. She was grateful for the lack of clocks on the casino floors. They could be late or early for all she cared.
In the Pyramid Hall, the breakfast buffet was the same, but she tried something new as she always did. She had started with what she liked, but the alchemists were an international crowd and demanded far more than American basics, so she branched out, getting random things like toast with sprinkles or menudo.
Today she sampled pickled herring, listening to Hannah describe her whirlwind teenage romance while Basil peppered in his own insights. Vic zoned out. The herring was gross, but the new conversation almost made Red forget her situation. She might have been able to try different food, but her encounters were mostly the same.
Ian and Ortega weaved through the tables in the half-empty dining area to them. He said, “You were supposed to be here an hour ago!”
Pushing aside her bare plate, Red answered, “I know you’re in a hurry. Alchemists are missing, and O’Sullivan sent scouts into the casino last night. You need Basil on standby.” A sudden whim made her say, “Take me too.”
The two Gendarme exchanged startled glances. Ian’s expression curdled when he spotted Vic’s amusement.
“Trust me, you’ll want me there now,” Red said solemnly. Basil had suggested a spa day, but a successful hunt might be more cathartic. “It’ll come in handy later.” She bit her tongue to avoid adding, Maybe not in this loop.
Ian asked, “Did you hear something from your underworld contacts?”
“Hunters,” Red said, stretching the truth. “They’re talking about this in LA for sure. Get Cora Moon on your side, and you might end up with a souled pussycat as Supreme.”
Ian cracked a cryptic smile before scowling again. “You have a portal to take.”
“We don’t have time.” Ortega said, “Let’s take Red; she’s a vampire hunter.” She said more quietly to her partner, “We might need another hand-to-hand fighter if the rumors are true.”
“What rumors?” Hannah asked. “Can I come?”
“No, I’ve got room for two, and that’s it,” Ian said. “I still remember the last time Constantine tried to do my job. He can babysit you.”
Both Vic and Hannah said, “Hey!”
“We’ll be back,” Red promised as the Gendarme led her and Basil away.
The crowd in the giant concourse dispersed as if an invisible alarm sounded. A mystical breeze ruffled the branches of the grand banyan, making the leaves whisper as if telling secrets. Without commuters traveling between the academy and its casino, the wooden platform looked naked. It all felt too still.
Basil whispered to her, “What happens now?”
“Your guess is better than mine,” Red said. “Most loops, I try to stay in my lane. I have my own fight, remember?”
“That’s helpful,” he groused and slouched after Ian into an archway. Purple sparks marked his passage.
“I’m mostly here for kicks,” she said, continuing on the other side of the portal door. “It’s been a little boring lately.” She lifted her eyebrows at the large concrete space the size of a football field. It swarmed with bowler hats who rushed about a golf cart fleet and equipment crates like the platoon was shipping out. “This looks intriguing.”
“Underground again,” Basil muttered. “Why
is it always tunnels? I’m a sun baby.”
Ortega trotted to join a huddle of Gendarme in the center. Others rushed around with glowing rifles. More guards patrolled a steel gate big enough for five golf carts side by side. Sigils and protection charms were etched at the top. It was magic’s answer to barbed wire. The gate slowly opened to darkness.
Red mentally inventoried her hunter’s kit: a cross, holy water, and a revolver with vamp-killing bullets. She was underdressed, considering the heat everyone else was packing.
“No time to debrief you two,” Ian said. “The dead are coming. Basil, you’ll be protected by more than Red when we go in. On signal, be ready to curse O’Sullivan.”
The soulmancer coughed, seeming to choke on air, and sputtered, “That’s forbidden. What if someone finds out?”
“He’s right.” Red added, “Treaty between the Blood Alliance and the Global Covens. I had to learn it for a test.”
Ian scowled. “The academy decides what’s legal in Vegas. Lawyers can find the diplomatic loopholes after we save the city.”
Darius Jefferson, telltale dreadlocks peeping from his cowled robe, and two hooded Synod members moved in the corner of Red’s vision to a four-passenger golf cart. The driver zipped them through the gate. Lights switched on in the tunnel, marking their passage to some unknown point under the city.
It wasn’t a comforting sight. The Synod usually had the Gendarme fight their battles.
She swallowed thickly. Was this a raiding party or a last stand?
Hatless and in sunglasses, Ortega drove up in another golf cart with black earmuffs around her neck. Two pairs of muffs and glasses were in the seat beside her. “Get in and take the sensory protection.”
Basil gingerly settled in the front and passed Red a set of earmuffs, then the sunglasses as she hopped into the open back bench. He asked, “Any selenite crystals?”
Ortega tapped the glove box. “In there.”
“When does the guest of honor show up?” Red asked, tucking the stem of the sunglasses into her shirt.
Ortega ignored her to watch the golf carts zoom ahead of them. Purple vapor spewed from the exhaust pipes. They hauled ass forward, joined by two more carts on either side.
Red bounced on the bench cushion, holding onto the seat back and the roof support. Why weren’t there seat belts in this thing?
More vehicles took the rear, and they whizzed along with surprising horsepower. The walls became cruder and more unfinished yet more clustered with sigils. The cart sped by too quickly for Red to decipher the symbols. They reached a rough opening like the mouth of a cave. It was cut into a tunnel that ran perpendicular.
How long had the alchemists dug to intercept this passageway?
Half of the convoy entered single file to turn right, leaving the rest on standby. A hush fell over the continuing Gendarme. They were in enemy territory. The corridor was older, concrete stained from ages of darkness and dust. It smelled like a tomb.
Red guessed they’d left the Strip even if the direction eluded her confused phone compass. “We’re under Fremont Street, aren’t we?”
Ortega didn’t answer. The tunnel widened to reveal a growing light ahead.
Basil asked, “Couldn’t we stay in the rear?”
Ortega smiled. “And miss all the fun in the octagon?”
They rolled to an overly bright chamber, name obvious from its many sides, and stopped at the entrance. Curiously, a man plugged festival-sized speakers into a sound system nearby. Lighting rigs, bolted to the walls, beamed down like they were roasting in a tanning bed. The setup was new, judging from the fresh scars on the masonry.
A semitransparent energy field split the room, blocking the light from escaping the alchemist side and alerting their prey. Red bet it was invisible and soundproof, too, conjured in the octagon this morning. On the other side, a dark, curved archway was crowned with anti-magic warding symbols.
It must have been Gary O’Sullivan’s back door.
Ian at the front, the Gendarme lined up for the daytime strike. Behind them, all twenty hooded Synod members stood in a circle led by Darius Jefferson. The magical energy felt nearly as powerful as the Chronos statue.
Ortega twisted in the driver’s seat to face her passengers. “The first wave will enter the catacombs, then we’ll come behind. They’re asleep in their coffins. The Supreme recalled all his vassal masters from around the state. Don’t get distracted by the numbers, Basil; you’re here for the leader.”
Red put a steadying hand on his arm. Today might end the war with Gary, but it would start one with the Blood Alliance too. She asked, “You’re taking them all out?”
“What do you think they plan to do with us? Tomorrow, in fact. The Mad Supreme started this.” Ortega dismissed Red with a head shake. “Under your seat, soulmancer, is a box with O’Sullivan’s wristwatch. Use that to get a bead on him. Start your spell after the shooting begins.”
“Dear God,” he muttered.
Ortega shot him a stern glance. “You’ll be back at the buffet by lunch. We have this all under control.”
Rapid marching echoed from the archway like blasts from a machine gun. It was a deliberate warning, the rattlesnake shaking its tail. A bat flew out, zooming toward the barrier, and slammed into it with a flash like a mosquito in a bug zapper. The creature flopped to the ground, shifting back into a motionless, pale vampiress.
“Was that supposed to happen?” Basil asked. “I’m not a slayer, but I assumed we’d go to them.”
“We are at stage two then.” Ortega grimly put on her earmuffs. Suddenly, the chamber boomed with the song “Let’s Get Loud.” Cheering up, she pointed at the speaker, voice nearly lost. “That was my idea!”
Red and Basil scrambled to put on their muffs. The volume increased to vibrate the ground, turning superior hearing into a liability. Basil leaned forward, retrieving the watch box, hands fumbling as he opened it. Blocking the music completely, the muffs must have been enchanted because she could hear his muttered complaints as his accent dipped from British to American and back again.
Vampires darted out of the catacombs, almost lost in the shadows beyond the magical fence.
At the head of the Gendarme, Ian lifted his hand. “Turn up the lights!”
Red put on her sunglasses, studying the big spherical bulbs on the lighting rigs as they brightened. They weren’t plugged into a generator or anything at all.
The energy field rippled with yellow sparks, dispelling all the shadows on the vampire side, illuminating four tall, muscled males in black. Each had a pained expression on his face, eyes screwed up against the light. One covered his ears, in a sensory hell.
She loosened the suction on her earmuffs. Terrible chaotic metallic squeals, like someone playing an electric guitar with a razor, made her wince.
The DJ had moved on from Gloria Estefan.
Agony intensified on the vampires’ faces as their exposed skin reddened and cracked. The screams were blocked by her enchanted earmuffs. They turned to flee as flames ignited on their limbs. The biggest collapsed into a burning shell, hands still on his ears. Only one reached the archway before disintegrating.
Unnerved, Red didn’t test how bright the room truly was; she’d seen enough to keep her sunglasses on. Those vampires had died as if they’d been tossed onto the street at high noon. She’d discovered a single experimental sphere of bottled sunlight when breaking into a laboratory last spring. The alchemists had refined the concept beyond her imagination.
“I told you we had this under control,” Ortega said proudly to Basil. “Start the spell.”
The lights flickered. Red peered over her tinted lenses at the captured sunshine. Whispers broke out among the Gendarme.
A dozen vampires surged into the octagon, some crawling on the walls out of the passage.
“Now, Basil!” Ortega said as the bulbs went out one by one, leaving the headlights of the golf carts as the only illumination. She left the steering wheel, racing t
o shield him, aiming at the darkness.
In the center of the Synod, Darius Jefferson lifted his arms, deep voice calm despite the panic in his dark eyes. “They’re not alone. Strike now! As many as you can.”
The Gendarme raised their rifles in unison and fired at the undead. Glowing bullets zigged through the air, finding perfect heart shots. Two vampires scurried from the catacombs to replace each one lost.
The Synod launched a shimmering orb the size of a beachball. It shattered into a brilliant flash, scorching all the vampires in the octagon. More rocketed out, exploding like fireworks. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Red didn’t hear it. She felt it.
Basil flinched at every boom, sweat dripping on his forehead as he clutched Gary’s watch. Face scrunching in concentration, his hands shone white with soulmancy. “I almost have him…”
Smoky darkness wafted off the top of the energy field. Iridescent cracks splintered down, holes appearing in the only wall between them and the dead. With her third eye, she watched, horrified as magic was sucked into the shadowy tunnel. The enchantment on Red’s earmuffs faded.
The glow withered from the alchemists’ weapons. Their aim worsened.
Stomping boots echoed like a drumline from the catacombs.
Darius Jefferson called out, “Stand your ground!”
Ian kept his people in formation, shooting at the charging vampires. Their bullets might not be magical anymore, but they were vamp killers still. He yelled to his people. “Get the twenty to safety!”
A pair of agents hustled the First Alchemist into a golf cart. Darius ordered, “Call for a prison box. It’s the Skull of St. Benedict. I must stay here!”
His guards ignored him to speed away.
Shots rang out from the catacombs.
Ortega collapsed on the golf cart with a bullet between the eyes. Her blood splashed on Basil’s face.
He gasped, dropping the wristwatch.
Witch in Time: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 6) Page 11