A Witch Called Red: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 1)

by Sami Valentine

  Red didn’t. They had tried to find her identity before, running searches on missing redheads in 2010, showing her picture to hunters around Eugene, even visiting an overpriced shaman in Nevada. Nothing had shaken out. This trust fund had been the closest connection that Red had to anything in this world that wasn’t a creepy Victorian love triangle.

  In the meantime, she was happy to take advantage of the money. Vic had already sent out feelers to his sources to get some more intel. If it turned out it was from Nazi gold, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

  Her accommodations might have upgraded, but Red still had the same old military surplus duffle bag. Olive green and dingy, it rested on the all-white bed. She unzipped it to see copies of the same outfit. Black shirt and jeans. There were scattered peeks of color from her pajamas, random shirts, and scarves, but constant travel in a van, demon-related mishaps, and being broke between bounties or credit card scams didn’t lend itself to a diverse wardrobe.

  Red looked at herself in the mirror. The fifties-style blue dress had a matching lace panel that covered her from the neck to the short sleeves. It almost hid the bandage. She had worn it to the bank to look like a respectable citizen. Since she’d had to toss the green cocktail dress, she didn’t have much in the way of cute things.

  Going to the attached bathroom, she freshened up and released her hair from the French twist, letting it fall down her shoulders. Red shook out the gentle waves. She cleaned up her eye makeup but didn’t apply any more. She put on a hint of red lipstick to brighten up her face. Kristoff hadn’t taken all that much blood, and the wound was healing quickly, but she still felt paler than usual.

  Red looked herself over in the mirror. She didn’t look bad, but she did look like she could use a drink.

  Habit led her to hide her laptop bag and stash of IDs under the low bronze varnished dresser. She pushed them flush against the wall.

  Grabbing her purse, she checked Julia’s laptop and noticed the transfer had stopped because the thumb drive was full. Red frowned, wondering what in the hell Julia had in those folders that was bigger than 16 GB. She found another empty drive at the bottom of her backpack by the couch and traded swapped them out to resume the transfer.

  Curiosity tugged at her, but Vic was right. They had arrived in LA two days ago, and it had been one damn thing after another. She could take a break for a glass of wine and process how she’d once been a hunter without a past. Now she was caught up in a supernatural soap opera of doppelgängers and secret heiresses.

  Palming the full thumb drive, she felt too lazy to hide it with the rest of her hidden stash. Instead, she scooped up the suite’s card key and dropped both in her small purse before heading out of the room, double checking the door was locked on the way to the elevator.

  The vague tickle of magic made her nose twitch. Maybe if she’d had a magical mentor, she could hone in on it, but she only knew what she had picked up along the way about her magic. She had a third eye that needed contacts, but she could sense the energy in the old hotel off Sunset Strip. Smudgy vague auras and whisper thin mists hung over the doorways and drifted to the ceiling. Every city had a neutral zone where supernatural beings, humans, and even hunters obeyed the peace. The Pandora Hotel was the only sanctuary with a five-star lounge.

  Red stepped out of the elevator into the high-ceilinged lobby, designed in a 1930s Old Hollywood style with golden wallpaper and cream-colored circular couches in front of the wide angular front desk. The vintage illusion was broken by the pop music drifting from an open hall. She flashed her card key to the pale bouncer by the door to the lounge.

  The retro theme continued in the lounge. Filled white booths and tables faced the bandstand, empty but for a DJ, his white suit bright against the red velvet curtain of the stage. Humans and vampires mixed with even more exotic beings. A hooded creature holding a brandy glass in his red reptilian claws chatted with a blue skinned dwarf taking tequila shots at the circular, bronze-plated bar.

  A few stools down from the dwarf, Red spotted Vic examining an offered box of cigars and walked toward him. She looked around. “This is pretty nice.”

  “It beats the hell out of a no-tell motel.” Vic pointed at a cigar in the middle of the box. “That one, my good man, and a glass of pinot grigio for the lady. The one you recommended earlier.”

  The bartender complied with that polished ease found only in upscale establishments where customer service was elevated to client relations. The wine glass appeared before her with a sip poured in for her to taste.

  “Oh, wonderful.” Red nodded and gave back the glass to be filled. “Thank you.”

  “Feeling rich is amazing. It’s like I have contact wealth,” Vic said. “I’m already used to this. I refuse to go back to peasant life. I’m taking the blue pill.”

  Red laughed. “Let’s not start lighting our cigars with Benjamins just yet. We’ll only be here until we figure out the Novak stich, but I gotta say, my bathroom is like the same size as our last hotel room.”

  Vic raised his beer and tapped his pint against her glass. “The water pressure is out of this world. I also suspect that this cigar will be as well…” Vic grinned and downed the last of his beer before setting it on the bar. “...which I billed to the room.”

  “I’m happy to play sugar mama. Enjoy your sin stick.” Red chuckled at Vic as he left with his cigar. She spun in the stool to see him strutting toward the bar door. Her breath caught as Lucas came in.

  In his leather jacket and torn jeans, he stepped into the lounge with the grace of a panther, lazy movements hiding the watchfulness. His gray eyes found hers. His strong jaw tensed even as his gaze softened. That thread of doubt crept onto his face, as if he couldn’t decide if he should step back or come closer.

  Vic slapped Lucas on the shoulder. “Hey, Greg, great to see you. Watch my intern.”

  Lucas shook his head and strode to the bar.

  Red grinned, snorting into her wine glass. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.”

  “You’ve managed to get Vic out of his Canadian tuxedo twice in one week.” Lucas smiled, then looked down, a broody cast to his face chasing the smile away.

  “It’s all him. He’s just excited. He chooses to wear a blazer.” Red shrugged. She wasn’t ready to tell all and sundry about her windfall, so she kept it brief. “We’re usually in a van, not a swanky hotel.”

  “I’m surprised you told Quinn where you were.”

  “He was honest with me last night. Besides, keeping case secrets didn’t exactly help the investigation.” Red gestured to her neck. “Even safe behind wards, it’s good to have someone else watching our backs.”

  Lucas looked toward the lounge door that Vic left through. “Package set, eh?”

  Red raised her eyebrows, swallowing the urge to laugh at the vampire’s not-so subtle question. “We’re not dating, if that’s what you mean. He’s like my brother. We’ve been through a lot.”

  “How’d you meet?”

  “He saved me. Gave me a spot in his van.” Red shrugged. She wasn’t ready to talk about being amnesia girl either. That led to awkward questions even with people that she didn’t have unexpected baggage with. She had learned to stay vague. “Taught me how to be a hunter.”

  “It’s a hard life. What brings you to it?”

  “Like most hunters, the life found me. What about you? Vic makes it sound like you’re on the road as much as we are.”

  “Something to do. Its simpler on my bike, running jobs for Quinn.”

  Red smiled. “You’re like a lone ranger, except instead of Tonto you have a sense of empathy?”

  “Something like that.” Lucas looked down, his face growing reserved, before he looked at the bartender and ordered a draft beer.

  “You don’t have to shut down,” Red said once the drink was in front of him, then shook her head. “Sorry, it’s just, I know I’m a freaky genetic coincidence, as Quinn put it, but you do
n’t need to act weird around me. I mean—never mind, it’s a free country.” Red frowned and looked down, wishing the ground would swallow her up after her ditzy ramble. Of course he was going to be weird around her. She looked like a dead woman. “That probably sounded stupid.”

  “You’re trying to be nice. I get it.” Lucas shrugged and drank his beer. “You don’t need to be.”

  Red heard the hint of self-loathing and resignation underneath the lazy clip of his English accent. He didn’t walk with the visible burden of guilt that Quinn did, but she saw it through his punk outfit and sarcasm when she had first met him. “It’s hard, huh? Quinn said it was for him.”

  “You and Quinn had a heart to heart over tea?” Lucas lifted his eyebrows.

  “Yes, actually.” Red sipped her wine. “Chamomile.”

  “And what did you learn from my brooding grandsire?”

  “That chicken blood isn’t tasty—I assume because of the hormones, but we didn’t get that far.” Red smiled. “He didn’t spill any of your secrets. I already figured that it was complicated. I can’t imagine a vampire-human relationship that wouldn’t be. Then enter me, oblivious, thinking that I was unique like a snowflake when I’m more of a carbon copy.”

  “You have your own flair.” Lucas dipped his head, looking at her with a small boyish smile.

  Red brushed her hair off her shoulder and mock fluttered her eyes before rolling them. “Thank you.”

  The boyishness in his expression faded, replaced by a hardened glint in his gaze. Lucas’s eyes narrowed on her neck. “Where’d you get those old bite marks?”

  “See those, huh? This dress hides less than I thought. I tried to get them lasered off after a vampire got ahold of me in the Midwest.” Red rubbed her neck through the lace. The new ones had faded after one treatment. A few of the old were too stubborn to go away. “I was the one who walked away from that fight, so put the worried look away.”

  His shrug was casual, but his gray eyes were earnest. “You’re special, Red, even if you didn’t look like her.”

  Red felt the heat rise in her cheeks, cursing her pale skin for betraying her. She got a lot of pickup lines dropped on her in highway honkytonks, but even the smoothest barely earned more than an eye roll from her.

  This was different. He meant it.

  She turned more serious. “You know it doesn’t need to be you watching over me. I can understand that, if having contact with me is too much.” She said the words calmly, but something panged at the thought. Call it a weakness, but she always felt protective over the rough loner types with good hearts. She’d labeled him a cryptic vampire jerk when they first met, but he was warming on her. And not just because he was gorgeous. He felt… familiar was the only way to put it. She couldn’t imagine how she felt for him.

  “No, it doesn’t hurt. It just brings up the what ifs. That isn’t your problem.” He sipped his beer before clenching his jaw as his eyes looked past her, calculating his next words. “I know you’re a doppelgänger. You’re not the first one that I’ve encountered, but it’s different seeing an old girlfriend instead of a Latin teacher.”

  “You had a Latin teacher?” Red tilted her head. “How old are you?”

  Lucas put his hand to his chest in mock outrage. “Oi, a lady never tells.”

  “So coy.” Red laughed. “Fine. How about we actually just meet each other?” She held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Red. I’ve been to every state on the West coast. My favorite color is purple. I’m a terrible singer, but I can’t help but sing along to the radio if Tom Petty comes on.”

  Lucas shook her hand. His touch might have been cold, but it radiated through her skin. “I’m Lucas. My favorite color is black. I was born in 1853.”

  “What? I don’t get another fun fact?”

  Lucas grinned and leaned forward on his stool, elbow on the bar. “Er, I don’t have a Facebook profile.”

  “Obviously. You’ve had a centennial.” Red tipped her head forward and bit her lip to stop her smile. “Do you even have a computer?”

  “Hey, I wasn’t born in the middle ages. I’m not that old.”

  “You don’t look a day over a hundred.” Red smirked before taking the last sip of her wine.

  Lucas cocked his head. “What’s your real name?”

  “Red is real enough.” She frowned, not at the question, but at the large analog clock on the wall. The black hands of the clock ticked at the top of the hour.

  “What is it?”

  “Vic’s been gone too long.” Red put her glass on the counter. It wasn’t just danger from their case making her wary. Vic could make more than enough trouble being drunk and cocky, waving a cigar around, acting like a big shot. “He should’ve come back by now. I’m going to go look for him.” She strode for the lounge door.

  “I’ll come with you.” Lucas fell easily into stride with her.

  Red passed through the lobby and out to the front of the hotel. She scanned the sidewalk of the small drive up to the Pandora. To the left, she spotted the empty benches of the smoking area under three palm trees just before the entrance to the underground hotel parking garage.

  A yelled curse echoed on the wind.

  She pulled the stake from her purse. “Do you hear that?”

  Red looked over at Lucas in time to see him sprint into the mouth of the garage. She jogged after him, feeling impossibly sluggish compared to his speed, but slowed on the garage ramp, pulling the blessed silver cross out of her purse.

  The back doors of the Falcon lay open. A bean bag chair and a half-smoked cigar laid beside the van.

  Lucas stopped his blurring speed in front of the shadow of a concrete stairwell. “What’s so confusing to you wankers about neutral ground?”

  A black vampire rubbed his bald head as he stepped out of the gloom. Blood splatters darkened the white pinstripes on his suit lapels. It was the same vampire that had broken into Quinn’s office. “Mind your own business.”

  The skinny white vampire, glasses dipping low on his nose and wearing a Star Trek T-shirt, pulled Vic forward. He glanced between his partner and Lucas. “He’s older than us, TJ.”

  “No names,” TJ said through gritted teeth.

  Red trotted forward along the ramp wall, stopping to pick the van’s keys up off the ground. All the while, she kept her eyes on Vic, struggling in the vampire’s grip, his nose bleeding and an arm hanging limp at his side.

  “I don’t recognize you, mate, Or him. Looks like we have some rogue minions.” Lucas put his hands in his pockets and grinned. “Killing you two will be fun.”

  The pasty vampire widened his eyes and pushed Vic away before hiding behind his partner. “Let’s go!”

  “No, stay,” Lucas said. “After I stake your big friend here, we can have a little chat.”

  Vic hobbled over to Red. She handed him the cross, then stepped over to block him from the view of the two vampires.

  TJ glanced at her, his clever brown eyes filing her appearance away like a banker putting a stack of bills in a safe.

  Lucas stepped forward. “Let’s start with who turned you two twats and then move on to why the fuck you were breaking into Quinn Investigations.”

  Shaking his head, TJ chuckled. “That’d be scary if I didn’t see that weak ass soul in your eyes.” TJ elbowed his cowering partner. “Take out the hunters.”

  Red side-stepped over to the van while Lucas distracted the vampires. She tried to spot their demon hunting kits. Vic kept the collection of salt, sulfur, blessed silver, cold iron, and stakes in a tackle box. The back of the van looked like it had been set on a spin circle in the wash. She dove for the crossbow half hidden under an overturned plastic milk crate. Red spun around with the crossbow in her hands.

  The smaller vampire ran to Vic, but stopped and cringed before the blessed silver cross. Crosses didn’t always work for her unless they were blessed silver, but Vic had the power of a true believer behind him.

  Red fired the crossbow. The arrow hi
t the nerdy vampire in the side, impaling the Star Trek character printed on the side of his shirt. He fell back.

  “Right in the Spock!” Red quipped before rushing over to Vic.

  Growling, TJ charged Lucas.

  Lucas caught him with a punch to the gut, then a right hook to the face. His arms were a blur.

  TJ jumped back, shaking his head before he readjusted his broken nose. The crunch echoed off the concrete walls.

  “How’s that for my weak ass?” Lucas spun and back-kicked TJ in the chest, sending the vampire in the business suit flying back.

  Smiling, Red lifted the crossbow with the remaining arrow in it at the undead Trekkie. “Alright, Comic Con, you might want to start answering my friend’s questions now.”