Those soft words might as well have been a punch to the gut. Red covered her wet eyes, rubbing her brow to collect herself. “I was hoping to talk to them. What happened?”
Esther crossed herself. “Murder. I wish it were the first on this street. Didn’t use to be like this.”
“Did you know their son?”
“Russ? He was a sweet, quiet man.” She leaned in confidentially. “Even if he took forever to give his mama a grandbaby. That ginger kid’s picture was all over the place next door. Only child of an only child,” she said as if it explained everything. “I saw the young family a few times, around the holidays, when the girl was a tot.”
“Really?” Red asked. Kristoff hadn’t been able to verify if Russell had children. Her mother had fled with her to Charm under fake names. Was it for fear that they’d share the same fate as her in-laws? She folded her arms, pinching herself to stay on topic. “Was he there when the Goldbergs were killed?”
Esther shook her head sagely, as if one of the detectives on the case. “He passed before his parents. It was a tragedy. Imagine, the whole family gone within a year. So sad.”
“Do you remember his wife?”
“More like forever fiancée, considering Jean’s gripes about her. Cold feet, I suppose. Name escapes me, but she was where the ginger genes came from. Some uptown girl from Philly. Old money.” Esther sipped her coffee. “What were you going to tell them? Seems important.”
“Thought maybe we were related. I didn’t grow up with a Dad, and my mom—never mind.” Red turned away before she said too much. It was enough detail to intrigue the neighborhood rumor mill. If she weren’t stuck on a time slog, she’d care more about leaving a trail.
“I hope you find your people, honey.”
“Me too.” Hands in her pockets, Red thanked the woman for her help and went back into the taxi. The gray drizzle suited her mood. She asked the cabbie, “Take me back to the airport, please.”
Looking through the rear-view mirror, the driver said, “I’m sorry you didn’t find what you’re looking for.”
“I think I did. Just not the way I hoped.” She slumped against the seat, pulling out her phone to confirm the terrible fate of the Goldbergs.
Esther had shared enough intel for Red’s heart to have glommed onto the lead. It hurt to read the news articles on the murder of Jean and Morty Goldberg. By all accounts, they had been decent, loving people who kept active by volunteering with youth sports in their retirement. The detective couldn’t figure out how an assailant could have entered a locked house to strangle two healthy people without a struggle. No suspects had ever emerged. It had been declared a cold case years ago.
If the cops had known about the supernatural, they wouldn’t have looked for a human.
---
Ignoring the drizzle, Red waited on a bench outside the airline terminal.
Harried parents ferried their children from taxis alongside seasoned business travelers. Each was caught up in their own loop, their own adventure as vivid and complex as her own. Red lost herself in the sounds of the airport.
The rush of being off her well-beaten track had faded. Indecision kept her on the bench even with the fresh ticket to Portland in her pocket. She should return to the West Coast, finish taking down the statue. Instead, she kept checking the routes to Philly.
Timeless or not, she couldn’t wait in the rain forever. She stood, slinging her bag on her shoulder, and braved the TSA line. The closed New York City airports funneled more people than she expected to Newark. Shuffling like cattle with the herd, she grabbed a coffee on the way to her gate.
“I should have realized that you wouldn’t make this easy.” A black-haired woman stepped into sync beside Red. In two days, they’d meet in the bathroom at Lili’s Diner. Her complexion was preternaturally dewy compared to the sleep-deprived human’s, but her expression was as surly. Glaring under her shaggy bangs, she wore the same white sweater and round silver glasses. “This could be over by now, you know.”
Shimmering energy surged around her fingertips.
Red tossed the coffee cup into the woman’s face before she could finish her spell. Ignoring the startled cry behind her, she slipped through a messy line of boarding passengers and escaped down the concourse.
How the hell had she been found? A more unsettling question soured her stomach. How long had the woman been looking?
“Running is futile, Red! We will speak.” She popped up in the back of the crowd, slowly advancing, as if nervous about elbowing through. “Pardon me,” she repeated, dodging through the queue. “Pardon.”
“Shit,” Red muttered to herself, beginning to think the other woman was right. She hit a traffic jam due to a beeping cart with baggage loaded in the back. It clogged the corridor as the driver helped an elderly man into a seat at a gate. She asked over her shoulder, “What do you want?”
Her pursuer sped up, magic building up around her like fog. “What was lost. You’ll help me find it.”
Red scurried around the cart, passing some uniformed soldiers coming out of a men’s room. How could she shake her tracker?
An outright fight might lead to more deaths than just hers. It’d break the Dark Veil too. How much did that rule mean to the other woman? Time to test the theory. She lifted her mother’s ring, consciousness sinking into the elements around her.
The supe hissed, “Stop! What are you doing?” She composed her frazzled tone. “I’m not a human to be dazzled by parlor tricks.”
Red smirked. “It’s not for you.”
Flames billowed from the baggage in the parked cart. The driver yelled, “It’s a bomb!”
Red released the fire to burn on its own, then shifted from one element to another quicker than she’d ever tried before. A small shock wave rippled from her. The hardened air slammed her to the floor—and everyone in a twenty-foot radius.
Her attacker tumbled into a row of chairs.
Breath knocked out, Red staggered to her feet. A bulky man nearly trampled her as post-9/11 pandemonium erupted in the concourse.
Screaming people fled in every direction, leaving their carry-ons and magazines. Others hunkered behind souvenir kiosks.
The traveling soldiers took command of the situation, ordering people away from the fire. One helped the supernatural female, drawing her away from the blast zone.
Evacuation warnings blared over the speakers.
Red fled deeper into the terminal. Even after all her strength training, that magic made her sweat. Fatigue sapped her pace. Another arriving plane released more people for her to hide behind. She scooted into a hallway leading to the baggage claim and tried to blend in with some backpackers walking to the public transit hub.
An advertisement for Amtrak with the cracked Liberty Bell made her stop. It promised exactly what she wanted. One hour to the heart of Philadelphia.
11
Time Loop #92 – July 3, Late Morning, Newark, New Jersey
At the train platform, Red kept her hood up and her head down. A young mother with a stroller was holding up the small queue to her assigned train car as the overhead speakers blared a nearly unintelligible warning about the nearing departure time.
Each sound made her look toward the exits.
Red strode over to the next car. Her witchy senses tensed as a supernatural neared. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know the other woman was there.
“I know what you found!” An arriving train drowned out the brunette’s next words. Power shimmered around her.
Red sprinted onto the train as the doors were closing. Heart racing, she peered through the smudged window as they pulled out of the station.
The supe was gone.
---
Adrenaline kept Red perched on the edge of her seat until she crossed the state line into Pennsylvania. Every mile got her closer to the secret of Russell Goldberg and his uptown girl. She turned on her phone to plot her next move.
A barrage of notification
s from Vic vibrated the device. Wincing from guilt, she called him.
“Dammit, Red, what the hell is going on? Are you okay? The news is saying there was a bomb at the Newark Airport. Was that you?”
She winced. “No one was hurt, merely startled and inconvenienced.”
“Are you possessed again? I won enough at blackjack to head to the Vegas airport right now and exorcise your ass.”
“I think I found my dad and maybe why my mom ran away to Charm.” She shivered as mystical energy thickened around her.
Materializing in the next seat, the raven-haired woman crossed her arms over her coffee-stained sweater. “Get off the phone.”
“Who is that?” Vic squawked in Red’s ear.
“It’s her—” Red didn’t get a chance to say another word before she disappeared. Unlike a portal door, she didn’t feel her body change. She simply was on a train one moment and falling on her ass on a sidewalk the next, still in a sitting position.
The Las Vegas Strip glittered around her in the hot afternoon sun.
She gaped at her right hand, where her phone should have been. Across the street, the fountains of the Bellagio gushed to the applause of passersby.
Her kidnapper stood over her. “I’m Elianna, and we have unfinished business.”
Red brushed her hoodie off as she stood. Lifting her chin, she said, “We sure do.”
Feinting, Red bolted into the road instead, swerving between the traffic paused from a red light. The Circe Casino was a long block away. Once she was in the parking lot under their security wards, the Gendarme would sense the arrival of a teleporting supernatural.
She yearned for a bigger throng to hide in. If only she had her backpack. It was still on the train, along with all the hunting supplies that she could get past the TSA.
A strong grip jerked her ponytail, exasperation fraying Elianna’s voice. “Gods damn you. Can you cease your struggle? That coffee hurt, you know!”
Red punched her in the nose. “Fuck off.”
Elianna tackled Red around the waist, slamming her against a light post.
“Oof,” Red gasped on impact. The willowy supe hit like a brick house. She fought like a middle schooler in a catfight, but she was strong—physically and mystically. What the hell was she?
“You’re not making this easier.”
“Good!” Red kneed her in the stomach, then pushed her away, tripping Elianna on the way down. She ran between the sparse pedestrians, hopping over the curb into an intersection, ignoring the signs to use an elevated path instead.
A taxi nearly hit her as she bolted across on a green light.
Gaining on her, Elianna wasn’t as fast as a fae or a vamp, but speedy enough to make even the tipsy vacationers gasp.
Red cringed at the flash of a cell phone. How viral would that photo go online?
Elianna pulled her into a headlock. “Stop and listen to me for once!”
Stuck under a strong arm, Red materialized in a Hawaiian-themed food court. The clatter of slot machines rang in her ear like a machine gun. This was the Turquoise Mine casino on Fremont Street. She kicked her captor hard in the shin, shoving herself away. “You’re working with Gary?”
“Who?” Power gleamed on the other woman as she tugged Red’s sleeve.
“Don’t do a—” Red tried to warn.
Sigils flashed on the walls like alarms. A massive cook, blond crewcut in a hairnet, stepped from a fried chicken stand. Holding a knife, he sniffed the air and squinted at them.
Elianna pressed her hands to her ears as if pained by a silent frequency. “What is that sound?”
“You triggered a landmine.” Red tugged her hood up and pivoted to go. Elianna was the least of her worries now.
“You can’t—”
“This is your mistake,” Red said and stalked out of the food court onto the casino floor. The air conditioning kept it cold as a morgue.
If she kept to the center of the human crowds, she might make it to daylight. A pale blackjack dealer studied her, pausing as he doled out cards. Two cocktail waitresses in blue minidresses stared her down as they passed. At a slot machine, an elderly woman in a green visor flashed sharp fangs. Undead eyes followed Red to the automatic doors.
Red escaped into the Fremont Street Experience. Billed as a rival to the Strip, it was a dingy neon row of old casinos covered with a splashy video screen ceiling that shielded the few milling tourists from the harsh desert sun. The vampires too.
She weaved through street dancers and clapping spectators, west toward the Main Street exit and direct sunlight.
Elianna jogged after her.
Too busy looking back, Red stumbled into a slight reedy man in a Hawaiian shirt. “Sorry,” she muttered, dipping her head to hide her face. A blistered sunburn covered his hairy forearms. She noticed his fanged smile too late.
He lunged to cover her mouth. Yanking her behind a rack of T-shirts into a souvenir shop, he shrugged off her stomps to his feet. He called out, “Chip!”
The call summoned a pale vampire in a camo shirt who popped out of a back door to grab her kicking legs. The two carried her like a rolled carpet into a dark room and an even darker basement.
Neck jerked at a terrifying angle, Red could barely breathe with the cold hand over her mouth. Wards smothered her magic before her third eye detected the sigils on the walls.
They descended quickly into a subterranean tunnel, but shadows covered her captors. Discordant echoes thundered in the distance. The sudden sound stole her breath. It must have been the alchemists fighting in the catacombs. They were off schedule.
What else had she changed in this timeline?
Holding her tight to his chest, the thin vampire crowed, “I knew we needed to stay the extra day. O’Sullivan is paying good gold for academy bitches. We couldn’t leave without bagging at least one.”
“We’re getting our cut, and then it’s back Reno, Tim.”
The one at her feet grumbled, “I didn’t sign up for a battle.”
“We’ll hurry then,” Tim replied and broke into a sprint, stretching Red painfully until Chip realized they were moving.
The rapid, bumpy pace made her nauseous as she tried to count the turns and doors in their path. Her magic weakened with each step. It wasn’t only the wards. St. Benedict’s relic was nearby. She gathered her energy, trying to hold onto enough to make a difference. If she hadn’t faked a bomb, she might have had the strength to resist.
Too soon, a dim light illuminated how fucked she was.
The tunnel widened into a large circular chamber. Hundreds of human skulls stared down from the concrete walls. Six darkened archways dominated the far side. Screams escaped the middle one to reverberate on stone and bone.
The place was bare except for a caged booth in the center, like a reception counter to the catacombs. A solitary Black vampiress in a velvet corset smoked a cigarette outside it. She hissed when she spotted them, stubbing out her cig. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“We got a bounty here,” Tim called out. “That’s five large, yeah?”
The vampiress planted her hands on her denim-clad hips. “Dopey-ass hicks. We want ’em dead.”
Tim gulped, loosening his grip on Red. “It was Chip’s idea.”
Red elbowed him in the crotch, ducking under his arms. Channeling the air with her waning strength, she shoved Tim at the others and fled in the opposite direction into the middle archway. Echoed screams beckoned her.
“Go get her, Chip!”
“Let her go.” The vampiress laughed. “There’s only death that way, dumbass!”
Red already knew that. The only question was who would die. A vision of Basil, cowering and defenseless beside Ortega’s corpse, drove her on.
No auras lurked in the growing darkness. She expected waiting foot soldiers in the corridor, but she only found empty barricades graffitied with anti-alchemy symbols. The sigils cast a soft glow to her third eye. It was the only illumination.
Empty blood bags and forgotten gear littered the ground.
Crouching at a barrier, she strained to summon her magic. She ignited a tiny flame above her ring. Sputtering like a spent Zippo, it reflected on a dropped cold iron dagger. She tucked it into her belt.
After the third abandoned row of blockages, she was certain the guards must have joined the front. Was it because the academy was winning, and every dead man was needed, or because they wanted in on the slaughter?
Protecting her ears from the crackle of gunfire, she crept along the wall. An ominous purple light sliced into the gloom. Spectral flashes outlined columns of shadowy figures ahead. Marching feet shook the ground. The vampires charged out.
Gary O’Sullivan’s manic laughter drifted above the cacophony.
Red inched forward, dagger in hand, and huddled behind a forgotten barricade. She studied a sniper left behind.
A dozen yards away, he leaned out of the mouth of the tunnel, popping off bullets. Was he the one who’d shot Ortega? Anger steeled her spine. His bright orange earplugs were like an invitation to sneak up on him.
Footsteps lumbered behind her.
She whirled around at a lunging vampire, stabbing him in the eye.
A stake poked through his chest. He crumpled to bones, revealing Elianna with her glasses askew. “Come with me,” she said, lifting her hand. She frowned at her fingers, shaking them. “Why can’t I travel?”
“The skull.” Red nodded toward the battle. “I need to help my friends.”
Elianna tugged her down as machine-gun spray cracked over their heads. Bullets riddled the sniper, and he fell into a heap.
Red pressed herself against the barricade. “You saved me!”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to do the whole time!”
“Huh?” Red blinked at her before waving an agitated hand. “We’ll dig into that when we’re not in the trenches—” She stopped herself. “Shit.”
Hannah Proctor’s floating head emerged from the shadows. The rest of the teen appeared slowly, tiptoeing down the corridor, clutching an ornate iron and glass reliquary half hidden under her jacket. Grim resolution graced her bruised face as she passed them.
Witch in Time: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 6) Page 17