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

by Sami Valentine

  “A copy of the real ones.” Quinn stepped forward, pulling a small rounded tray the size of a hockey puck out of his jacket. “Take care of Vic. Tell him…” He shook his head. “Just get him out.”

  Red put the plastic fangs in her purse.

  Quinn stepped out from between the cars. “Cora, I have evidence of Delilah’s marks that will exonerate her. She’s innocent.”

  Cora huffed a laugh. “Innocent? None of us are. I know you wouldn’t help her kill so many people. Don’t fall for that big-eyed blonde act.” Cora leveled her gaze on him, all traces of humor vanishing. “Lock him up until he sees sense.”

  A vampire bodyguard slipped a noose of thickly braided silver around Delilah’s neck.

  Delilah hissed, eyes rolling up in pain, and balled her fists. “I didn’t betray you, Cora!”

  Quinn glared at but didn’t fight the guard who dropped a silver noose over his head. The sizzle of the silver hitting his flesh was audible. He stepped out on a silver leash, following the guard to wait beside Delilah.

  Cora raised her hands and rubbed her forehead. “I need to find my center. Just take them upstairs.” She glanced to Michel, her doe eyes turning feral. “Have something to say?”

  Red’s eyes darted between the supreme master and her number two as she backed away.

  “I await your orders.” Michel bowed without a look to Delilah.

  “Get the hunter in her car safely, then report back. You have work to do.” Cora turned on her heel.

  “Reminds me of Prague,” Quinn commented as the vampires led him away.

  Delilah rolled her eyes, chuckling darkly. “You hated Prague.”

  “I don’t think I’ll like this either.”

  Michel held out his arm to Red.

  Red put her hand on his arm, watching Delilah and Quinn with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She should have been happy that the killer was caught, and that Quinn would get out of this alive. Hadn’t the case been solved?

  Chapter Twenty

  November 1st, After Midnight, Club Vltava, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, California

  Red shook her head, trying to clear out the fog, until Michel’s words made sense to her. She pointed out the van at the mouth of the parking garage. Her mind was still on Delilah and Quinn being led away by Cora’s security force. She wanted to text Vic, but she didn’t dare pull out her phone. The underground parking garage was small, but the walk felt long with silent Michel by her side.

  She waited until they were in hearing distance of the Falcon before she said loudly, “Michel, this is mine. I’ll just be going now.”

  “There’s a human in that van.” Michel frowned. “Something’s wrong. The heartbeat is too slow. There’s blood.”

  Red’s heart skipped as her feet staggered. She sped up even as time seemed to slow down. “Vic!”

  Michel rushed forward, getting there first, and threw open van’s back doors.

  Vic lay sprawled out amongst the bean bags. The colorful fabric framed the mottled bruises on his face. His back twisted in the unnatural rest as his blackened eyes lay closed. Fang marks bled on his neck.

  The gasp caught in her ribs as Red ran forward, cursing her human slowness. Her mentor only looked worse with each step.

  Michel backed up. Before Red could fully comprehend what she was seeing, he was barking into his phone. “We need an ambulance at Club Vltava. Parking garage.”

  Red climbed into the van and grabbed a blanket to press against Vic’s neck.

  He had his holster on under his hoodie but hadn’t even gotten a chance to pull out his gun. Blood gushed from the messy fang marks marring his too-pale throat. His arm sling was askew, and blood slicked his mullet up at his temple.

  “Vic, hold on!”

  Vic coughed, his eyelids fluttering.

  “That’s it. Clear those smoker’s lungs.” Red said roughly, visually examining his wounds, being careful to not move his head or back as she tried to slow the bleeding. They had been in rough spots, but it was usually Vic who pulled them out. She was the one that ended up with their ass kicked during a fight. She didn’t know what to do when the tables turned.

  “Sir?” A security guard dressed in sniper gear sprinted out of the gloom.

  “Tell Cora that she might have problems with the Brotherhood. This had to have been Delilah.” Michel waved the guard off.

  Red jerked her gaze from Vic’s bloody face, staring at Michel with wide eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “She told me she’d been bugged at the Ball before she left me to my own devices after my speech.” Michel gestured to Vic’s spare laptop showing footage of Club Vltava inside the van. “I suppose she found the source.”

  Red looked down at Vic. She had left him wide open by leaving the mic so carelessly on Delilah’s shawl. Tears slid down her face. She pressed the blood-soaked blanket tighter against his wound. “Vic!”

  Sirens echoed in the distance.

  “Little Amazon, until we meet again.” Michel stepped aside as an ambulance turned into the parking garage, its flashing strobing against the concrete.

  Red moved aside as three EMTs jumped out of the ambulance. One ran over to the Falcon while the others pulled a stretcher out of the back.

  She looked down at her bloody hands and pristine gown, holding them up. The ridiculous image of a corsage on her bloody wrist popped into her mind. Vampire prom had ended the only way a vampire prom could—in blood and mayhem.

  Pulling herself out of the daze, she hiked up her skirts and hopped into the ambulance. She barely noticed the EMT pulling the back door closed as she focused on the one bandaging Vic’s neck before slipping a neck brace on him.

  One of the EMTs went up front to sit beside the driver while the other turned his back to pull out an IV bag.

  Leaning back, she opened her purse to pull out her phone. She sent a quick text to Lucas, hoping he hadn't been caught. Then she noticed the plastic fangs in her purse.

  Red leaned forward to hold Vic’s hand, but as she turned it over, she noticed a bite mark on his wrist. It was clearer than the messy one on his neck. The fangs were widespread. She glanced into her open purse again. The marks on Vic’s wrist were far larger than the daintier plastic copy of Delilah’s fangs. She looked into the rearview mirror of the ambulance.

  The driver’s nervous profile focused on the road. She knew the pimpled nerd even if she couldn’t see him in the rearview mirror.

  She looked away, eyes roving, and spotted a backpack with pins covering it, including a fleur-de-lys. Red studied the EMT in the back with her, finally noticing his pallor, and pulled Vic’s gun from his holster.

  At such close range, it was hard to miss. Blood and brain matter splattered against the side of the ambulance. Her hand didn’t pause between rounds. Ears ringing, she aimed and pulled the trigger on the vampire already spinning around to leap from the passenger seat.

  His chest exploded in a wave of red before his bones dropped.

  The ambulance swerved, and Red threw out a hand to stabilize Vic. Her eardrums throbbed from the reverberation of the gun fired in an enclosed space. She groped her way forward and pressed the barrel of the gun against the side of the ambulance driver’s head. “I keep running into you. I should know your name.”

  “Oh shit, oh shit!”

  “Name.”

  “Francis! Please don’t kill me.”

  “Were you going to kill me?”

  “I hadn’t gotten that part of the plan yet,” Francis said, his voice a reedy whine.

  “What about my friend?”

  “Oh, him? Yeah. We weren’t going to take you to a hospital, so I guess he was probably toast.” Francis gulped.

  “You’re taking me to the nearest hospital. Now.” Red cocked the gun. “Drive safely.”

  “Seriously though, please don’t kill me.”

  “You’ll be lucky if I do it and not your sire. You failed big time, Francis. What’s this like the third time? You’r
e like the kiss of death to diabolical plans.”

  “Hey, he knows I did my job. And you’re right, you’re a lot less scary.” Francis tried to sound tough, but his eyes darted around like a cornered rabbit’s.

  He? Red pressed the gun harder against his temple. “So, Delilah’s a patsy. Fabulous. But he can’t keep it up. He’s gotten sloppy.” Red went through the list of important male vampires in her head as she tried to stay in control of this shitstorm in an ambulance hurtling down the nighttime streets of LA.

  “They have the video and the bite marks.”

  “The break in- you were dropping something off, not stealing it. What about the bite molds? You tampered with them?” Red pressed the barrel to his head. “Well, now, they don’t need them once they pull her actual fangs out and check.”

  “Too late. Michel already has everything he needs to take over the city. You’ll want to be on his good side!”

  “Michel?” Catching herself pulling back, Red leaned closer to Francis. The name pounded in her ears. He already had the media under his thumb, now with the Blood Summit, he must have been able to play politics to find Bloodliners eager to take a souled vampire master off her throne. Michel had lost a city, now he was taking one. “You know that Cora will stop him. If you flip now, she might use that soul of her and take pity on you.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Turn right,” Red said when she saw a sign for a hospital. “You say you only know what he tells you, that you don’t know the next step of the plan?”

  “I swear. He turned me, but it's not like he tells me stuff. I swear!” He stopped in front of the hospital and put the ambulance in park.

  “I believe you.” Red flicked the safety on and de-cocked the gun.

  “You do?”

  Red slammed the butt of her gun against his temple, feeling the bones crush.

  Francis slumped forward over the wheel, dazed.

  Red pulled the stake from the band around her thigh and staked him. She wiped her hands on his shirt before climbing into the back again. Gazing down at Vic, she knew she had to get out of there. Three skeletons and one unconscious man with a woman in bloody formal wear? That raised the wrong kind of questions. She grabbed her purse and settled its strap on her shoulder.

  The back doors swung open.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  November 1st, After Midnight, Southern California Hospital at Hollywood

  Two women dressed in climbed into the back of the ambulance and immediately began barking questions.

  “Where are the EMTs?”

  “Why wasn’t this phoned in?”

  “Honey, breathe deep. What’s your name?”

  Red trembled as she stared at Vic. She had just killed three vampires, but if Michel won, she’d have a wave of the undead coming for them. They would have been uber fucked even if Vic had two working arms and consciousness. The Millennium Falcon and all their weapons were out of reach. The Pandora Hotel would be watched once Michel’s minions didn’t report in, if it hadn’t been already. The only vampires in her corner were either captured or probably fighting for their lives.

  One of the medics, a tall pock-marked black woman tiptoed around the broken skeleton on the other side of the stretcher. “What on God’s green earth?”

  Red looked up. “It wasn’t God.” She didn’t have it in her to think up a lie. “They had fangs, and their eyes turned amber when they attacked us.” Red shook her head, trying to clear it. She had to focus, but the ringing in her ears overshadowed their voices. They were fucked. She tried to tell herself that they’d been in tight spots before. But they’d had each other then. Now, Red was on her own. She squinted as she tried to think through the fog of panic. “Get Detective Callaway. She’ll know what to do.”

  “We know her.” The older, bleached-blonde medic glanced knowingly at her coworker, then put a hand on Red’s shoulder. “Come on, honey. Let’s get you out of here. We need room to maneuver.”

  She led Red to a waiting orderly who wore a freaked-out expression. “Juan, get her inside, call security, and come back. We have three skeletons and an unconscious man with severe neck trauma. Bites.”

  “Another one?” Juan crossed himself before holding out a hand to Red.

  Curiosity broke through the swirling fog of panic. Furrowing her brow, Red hopped down with Juan’s help. Her blood-streaked green gown fluttered around her legs. She matched Juan’s quick pace, walking with him into the hospital. “How many others?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t take home enough.” Juan took her to the front desk and called for security. “It didn’t used to be like this.” He stepped away.

  Moments later, the medics came charging through with Vic. The older blonde stopped to whisper to the blue-uniformed security guard before she went back to the stretcher.

  Red followed, eyes on Vic, hands clutching her skirt.

  The security guard stepped forward. His name tag, reading Earl, was at eye level.

  She looked up to see a plain olive-skinned face, craggy from the sun and age. Leaning over, she peered around the unusually tall man in time to see Vic disappear behind double doors leading deeper into the hospital. “That’s my friend. I need to make sure he’s alright.”

  “I understand, ma’am, but we need to get you checked out and ready for when the police come.”

  “What? I’m fine.” Red rubbed at her ears which were still ringing from the gunshot blast.

  “You need your neck bandaged.” Earl put his hand on her shoulder.

  Red put her hand to her neck. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her necklace and golden hair comb. Dried blood caked her skin from the wounds caused by Delilah’s sharp nails. Her skin was tender to the touch, and she could imagine the bruising.

  He led her to an examination room down a different hallway, to the left of the front desk, and left her alone.

  Sitting on the examination table she let her head hang down and fished her phone out of her purse to call Lucas. The phone rang once, then went to a full voicemail message. She tried Kristoff’s and found it disconnected. “Fuck.”

  She sent off a quick text message to Lucas to beware of Michel. Then she scrolled through her phone contacts, but she didn’t have Fat Crispin’s direct line. The icing on the cake? Her data had run out again.

  In the whole rush of investigating dead models and rogue vampire building a minion army, she hadn’t hit up the store to upgrade from her rinky-dink burner phone. She couldn’t even email the one human who might be able to get the Brotherhood to warn Cora and let out Delilah or Quinn. She scrolled through her phone some more, finding the numbers of hunters who might float her message through the grapevine, but it wouldn’t reach England until it was old news. She tried to connect to the hospital’s Wi-Fi only to find it on the fritz.

  “Fucking hell.”

  She shivered in bloody formal wear under the fluorescent lights in the cold sterile room. Her brain bounced between plans and freak-outs. When a nurse came in to bandage her up and bring her a change of clothes—leopard print leggings and a knock off pink Nike jersey with three swooshes on the front—she didn’t speak beyond saying she didn’t need a hospital bed. She changed her clothes, plotting as she did. Each fantasy of grabbing Vic and escaping LA seemed crazier than the last.

  When the security guard took her purse, Red roused herself. “Come on, Earl. I need my phone.”

  “I have orders from above.” Earl frowned. “It’s not what I want to do.”

  Red looked away as he left the room and bit her tongue. Where was that order coming from? News traveled fast in this town… straight to Michel.

  The night was still young for vampires. Michel had thought of everything from file tampering to fake ambulances. Red glanced around the hospital room, feeling the walls close in, wondering if his tentacles were wrapping tighter as she waited in borrowed pants.

  Red leaned forward, putting her head between her knees as she struggled for breath. Her vision
blurred, and she put her hand over her heart, trying to calm herself. The panic rose up. Her chest felt like it was seizing. She sucked in a harsh breath. Her thoughts spiraled in a loop—Vic could be dying. What would she do without him? She tried to pull herself together, tell herself that she couldn’t freak out now, but all she could do was rock back and forth.

  The door swung open.

  Red looked up, wiping her eyes, and swallowed to try and clear the lump in her throat. "Detective Callaway."

  The detective strode inside in a dark pantsuit with a holster on her hip and a bump under her suit jacket. Her dark eyes were wary as she glanced behind her and closed the door. Circles from lack of sleep lingered under her brown eyes. Her black hair was swept back in a careless ponytail. "You're the one that asked for me? Didn't I see you with Quinn? Where is he? I’ve called both his cell and office phone."