The Problem With Witches: An Arcane Shot Series Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  Marcie raised a brow. “I can beat this bitch’s ass with girl power? Why didn’t you say so? We can send the boys home and get this done.”

  Raina smiled. She liked this one. The comment made Peter and Jon chuckle, even Matt’s serious face creasing in a wry smile. Ben’s jaw eased a fraction, though his green eyes still had sparks of temper in them. Marcie’s gaze possessed the same, but when she reached out, closed her hand firmly on his, he didn’t draw away from her. Though he did squeeze her fingers a little hard.

  Matt’s gaze moved from Ben, back to Mikhael and Derek. “I trust you’ll keep my people safe while they help you,” he said. “And advise us on what else you might need, once you find out what the full situation is. We have contacts throughout New Orleans and the state. We can mobilize them for action if you think it’s warranted, to protect the inhabitants.”

  Derek inclined his head. “We intend this to be an exchange of information, not a fight. Though we are always prepared for it.” He looked toward Ben. “How long will it take us to get to her?”

  Ben frowned, and seemed to be searching for something in his own head. Raina knew it wasn’t instructions, but she doubted anyone else at the table knew what he was doing the way she did. When his gaze met hers once more, the naked discomfort flashed there, then was gone behind a smooth expression. A lawyer’s face, giving away nothing.

  “An hour at most. But to get to her, we’ll need the cover of darkness. The later the better.”

  Derek frowned. “It would be better to seek her out at the height of the day, when her powers are at lowest ebb.”

  “The best way to slip into her lair isn’t a place you can enter when the whole world is watching. It’s a tourist hot spot, the old St. Louis cemetery.”

  “They built out the tunnels that far from Harrah’s?” Peter asked. “Under a cemetery filled with vaults because we can’t dig graves without hitting water?”

  Ben nodded, an ironic twist to his lips. “There were a couple attempts to start other tunnels, farther out from Harrah’s. Elagra took a couple of those half-finished places and expanded them, over time, with her abilities. There are things she knows how to do that I can’t explain.”

  “It’s complicated spell craft, requiring patience and focus,” Raina agreed. “Plus, a certain level of skill, to lock it in place in a way that isn’t a constant drain on one’s strength to maintain it.”

  She tapped her fingertips on the table, lips pursing. This was no kitchen witch. Raina had already deduced that from Ben’s lasting memories of her. Unfortunately, over time, a practicing witch’s skills only increased, and a couple of decades had passed since he’d seen her last. It increased the likelihood that the witch was more than a source of information. She could be involved with the impending disruption. And nothing Ben had told them thus far suggested Elagra would be an ally.

  “That confirms it’s best to wait until the height of the day to confront her,” Derek said. “Particularly on her home ground.”

  “Can we afford to wait that long?” Lucas asked. “Especially if you anticipate this happening in as little as two days?”

  “As you no doubt know from business dealings, the right information can cut response time considerably,” Mikhael said. “Whereas the lack of it can lead to utter failure. Derek is correct. Daylight is far preferable when dealing with a dark witch whose intentions are uncertain.”

  “I can talk to the Archdiocese,” Matt said. “Maybe give you a half hour window at noon, Ben, when they could close the cemetery. I couldn’t guarantee they’d clear out the caretakers, but at least the tour groups wouldn’t be in your way.”

  Ben glanced at Mikhael. “Can you do what you did with our security cameras to a scattering of people? For about thirty minutes, make them see nothing but an empty cemetery, even if we’re in the middle of it?”

  Mikhael inclined his head. “I can.”

  Lucas’s expression became dubious, but Ben shot him a look. “Check the security cam footage for the thirty minutes before I called you. You’re going to see an empty parking garage, or me getting in my car and driving off. None of which was what happened. A picture saves us all a lot of pain in the ass explanation.”

  He turned his attention back to all of them. “We have a plan,” Ben said. “I get them to Elagra, figure out what the hell is going on, we report back.”

  Another noncommittal noise came from Matt, but it didn’t indicate disagreement. His endorsement held the necessary weight to conclude their business here. But then his raptor eyes turned to Raina, Mikhael and Derek.

  “I was not speaking casually,” Matt said. “I will have your word that you will protect my people, keep them safe.”

  “Keeping you and your city safe is why we are here,” Raina said with simple sincerity. “They will do everything they are capable of doing to accomplish that. And they are very accomplished at what they do.”

  Her attention moved to Peter, who she knew was still unconvinced that Ben and Marcie didn’t need another person along as backup. “Ben and Marcie’s safety will be a top priority.”

  “We have a suite at the Monteleone,” Mikhael interjected. He looked at Ben. “Rendezvous with us there by mid-morning.”

  “It’s best for you to be with us somewhat early,” Raina said, before Ben could open his mouth to object and suggest meeting them at the cemetery. “Mikhael and Derek will be in touch with the energies that tell us the most fortuitous time to embark, and that time can shift with circumstances. When they know it’s time to go, it will be best that we are already together.”

  “Fine,” Ben said. He shot Mikhael and Derek a narrow look. “Monteleone has a good chef. You two are picking up the tab for brunch.”

  “A wise decision.” Raina chuckled. “Guardians have terrifying appetites.”

  Chapter Four

  Raina stood on the balcony of their suite at the Hotel Monteleone. As she gazed out at the city, she ran her manicure over the railing. Back and forth, back and forth.

  She’d told Marcie and Ben they were welcome to stay at the hotel tonight, in case things changed unexpectedly. She’d given them a key card in case they wanted to do that. While she doubted they would, it would take them some vital time to decide.

  She needed that time.

  Derek had not come back with them. In the lobby of the office building, before they’d parted ways, Mikhael had given him a significant glance. Derek had returned the look, understanding in the steady flint-blue eyes. He swept that gaze over Raina, offered her a nod, and then he had portaled back home. He and Ruby would join them after she and Mikhael visited Elagra. For the purposes of interrogation, the two men had decided it was best to let the Dark Guardian take point.

  Raina’s body swayed as she inhaled, all her senses reaching out, seeking the way a predator’s did, when hunger was stirring and couldn’t be denied. She could walk these halls, feet hushed in the soft carpet. Stop at any door, tap, and the inhabitant would open to her. That energy, the nourishment of it, was there, so close…

  She changed her focus with vicious will. She registered the lightly pitted texture of the metal under her hands. It came from the passage of years and exposure to the salt-laden, humid airs of a coastal town. She inhaled again, only this time slow and deep, measured. Closed her eyes. An appetizer would take the edge off.

  As a witch, she was always attuned to energy currents. Being half-succubus, there was another, equally absorbing layer of feedback accessible to her, particularly in the heart of decadent New Orleans, in the late hours of night.

  On the floor just below theirs, a couple had had a volatile argument followed by a vigorous round of makeup sex. They lay tangled with one another and a snowy expanse of twisted sheets, their balcony doors open to the night. She could tune into their heartbeats, his still a little rapid under the woman’s palm. Her lips were swollen from the violent heat of his kisses. Her mouth and the petals of her sex, where he’d had his lips and then his cock buried only a sho
rt time ago.

  Maybe makeup sex was the wrong term, implying they’d resolved the argument and then had sex. The argument had been resolved with sex, a sensual physical battle where both combatants had eventually succumbed to one another, to what the depth of their anger meant. How much they cared about one another. At least that specific couple.

  “Cawrawr.”

  She jumped, then cursed her nerves as a large raven came in for a solid, vibrating landing on the railing. He flapped his wings, spread wide for balance. Tucking them fastidiously around him, he sidled over to her and dropped a long string of glittering green beads over her hand.

  She sighed, a smile tugging at her lips, easing her tension if not the cause of it. “What mischief won you those, Cathair?” she asked. “I can smell the beignets on your breath, and you didn’t even have the decency to bring me one.”

  The bird bobbed at her and then launched himself, a shooting low glide through the open double doors behind her. He’d end up napping on the perch stand they’d brought for him, set in the corner of their bedroom.

  “The pet policy here is strict.”

  Relief gripped her, strongly enough it annoyed her. But she usually didn’t give Mikhael the razor-sharp edge of her tongue. Unless she craved the pleasure of the punishments he would use to answer it.

  “They say nothing about a witch’s familiar,” she said. “He’s very different from a pet.”

  “Yet he’s pampered like one.”

  She turned to look at him. Cathair had chosen an interim landing on Mikhael’s shoulder. When the bird rubbed his head against the side of Mikhael’s, he received a stroke of his feathers from those clever large fingers, before her mate sent the bird onward to his perch.

  Mikhael considered her with an implacable expression, those fathomless dark eyes with the fall of hair over his broad brow. He had a face that could eclipse every woman’s bad boy fantasy, because there was nothing boyish about him. When he shrugged out of his jacket and turned to drape it over the chair in their bedroom, the dress shirt he wore creased in a distracting way over the flex of his shoulders and back.

  “I’ve been neglectful,” he said. “I’m sorry. I had to attend to a couple things.”

  “I’m a grown woman. Fully capable of entertaining myself. On my very first vacation in…”

  Ever. It was the first vacation she’d ever taken, in a mortal realm, at least. And she found herself standing by this railing, holding onto it as if she’d manacled herself there. As if she’d wished he had.

  Until he’d come into her life, travel was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Going into town for groceries was something she’d had to delegate to her other staff members. The energy it took to mute her impact on human senses was too much of a drain, especially when she had the first priority of keeping her sex demons buffered so they didn’t kill their clients. For a long time, her world had been limited to the grounds of her bordello. It was a lovely place, the haven she’d built there for all of them, so she had no complaints.

  But Mikhael had given her the freedom to spread her wings like Cathair, go where she hadn’t gone before. However, being away from home for the first time like this meant her nerves had been consuming her energy in greedy gulps. Add to that the focus required to interact with the mortals in that board room. She’d thrown herself into what needed to be done, wanting to give Mikhael back something for giving her so much.

  “You asked too much of yourself tonight,” Mikhael said. “If you think joining me on a task like this is a vacation, I need to take you on a real one.”

  She turned back to look over the city, not sure she could say anything more. She heard him step over the threshold and come to stand behind her, his body only inches away while the heat of him already enclosed her. When he laid his hands on her upper arms, she quivered.

  The mild reproof in his tone was a reminder he hadn’t asked her to give what she’d given tonight. She knew that. But he was here, it was all right. After having not been free to travel like this in such a long time, she was just unnerved and being foolish about it. Or perhaps her subconscious was cataloging how many hotel rooms she’d stayed in years ago, when her purpose had been so different.

  “This is a vacation for me. Don’t bother to deny it. Cathair’s not the only one being pampered.” She put effort into keeping her tone light. “It’s why you booked this hotel.”

  “They have good room service,” he said neutrally. “The bed is soft.”

  “You prefer hanging from a tree like a bat, in a deep, old growth forest.”

  The Monteleone had been built in the 1880s and was infused with the power of age, compared to the newer hotels. That grounding would make it appealing to the two Guardians. But when he and Derek couldn’t be home because of their work, they more often stayed in places like the forest she described, or gateway places between portals. While both of them far preferred actual food, they could draw on the magical energy in those interdimensional locations for sustenance, while studying the arcane libraries available to them.

  So Mikhael was staying here for her. And she was having trouble keeping it together enough to enjoy it the way she so desperately wanted to.

  His arms closed around her, one over her breasts, the other under them, slow coils that tightened, letting her feel the power in his arms. He could crush an enemy in his grasp, but his embrace was always a shelter for her.

  When she inhaled, she took in his scent. Soap and aftershave, but beneath that, always, there was the hint of fire and smoke. The good kind. A musky incense burned in a woman’s bedroom. Vanilla-scented candlelight. The heat of the sun, the symbol of the Lord of the Underworld he served.

  Mikhael shifted one arm to curl a hand around her loose hair. “Do you love me, witch?”

  She made an indifferent noise, with effort, but her hand curled over his forearm, the stuff of his shirt, her fingers holding even tighter to him than she had the rail. “You didn’t always use the term witch as an endearment.”

  “Yes, I did. You just couldn’t hear it. Why? Do you prefer something different? Should I choose one you like better than koldunya?”

  “Koldunya?”

  “The more flattering word for witch in Russian. Enchantress, wise woman. Though for you, I think vedma. Hellcat, one of the translations.

  “How can you be centuries old and still revert back to that language? Even the accent.” She had no complaints about it. She could listen to him talk Russian all day without understanding a single word.

  “We never forget home. Even when we meet it for the first time. And Russia was my kind of darkness. Cold and endless. The angel who visited my grandmother and conceived my father, must have felt the same. She said his wings were like mine.”

  “Not white and fluffy, like a swan’s?” She smiled, because there was definitely nothing fluffy about Mikhael.”

  “There are black swans.”

  “Hmm.” She let out a shaky breath as he drew her hair to the side to bare her neck. “You tell me you like me to leave it down, and yet you’re always having to pull it out of your way.”

  “Because I can do this.” He put just enough pull in the hold to send a low thrum of sensation pooling in her lower belly. “And because I like the way my hands feel in it, my fingertips grazing your neck, so I feel your fragile pulse. I like the way you draw in an unsteady breath when I set my teeth…here.”

  She drew in that erratic breath as he gave her the sharp scrape. Her body was all liquid, wanting to rush and churn against his.

  “Mikhael.”

  “I have you, vedma.”

  She closed her eyes as his mouth worked its way down the column of her throat, along the curve that led to her shoulder. His fingers preceded his mouth, lightly, so lightly sliding along her skin. Every woman’s skin was sensitive. Once a man learned and realized that, the smart ones, they could turn a fascination with a woman’s response into a lifelong obsession. Become immersed in it and slow down time like, well…thi
s.

  The benefit of being with a male who’d had centuries to figure out so much.

  Energy was already spilling off her. It had started the second he touched her. The slash and swirl of bright color was like a twisting broad ribbon around them. It would have killed any man it touched, but Mikhael knew how to grasp it, wind it around himself, draw her attention to the sustenance he could provide.

  She’d tried to grab it, pull it back, but it was as if her very soul knew the truth he spoke in her ear. “You worry needlessly. You are not losing your infamous self-control, Raina. No matter how long I took to get here, you would have contained it. Because you trust me to be here to nourish you before it is too late.” He lifted his head, cupped her face in a firm hand so she was looking up into his serious, uncompromising face. “When I am here with you, you do not have to control anything.”

  As a succubus, draining sexual energy from another was how she fed. To her prey, her willing capitulation to their sexual demands could easily be misinterpreted as surrender, trust. Yet all she was giving them in exchange for her dinner was her body.

  In contrast, when Mikhael had her like this, she was a bird landing in his cupped palms, her wings spread out and draping his fingers, her head resting on the heel of his hand so he could rub his thumb over it, slow, circular caresses.

  “Raina. You will tell me you love me.”

  “I did. I do. With every word I speak.”

  The shields came all the way down and the urgency behind it surged forth. Along with everything that came with it.

  She’d starved for years, kept that way by her Master so when he wanted her to kill, she wouldn’t hesitate to do so. Sometimes he wouldn’t let her distract the quarry with the drug of sexual pleasure. He wanted his enemy terrified. Riding their loins, she’d watched their fear grow, even as their hands gripped her and they begged for more, to be taken higher. She’d gulped down their fear and desire and felt sick and sated at once.