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

by Sami Valentine

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  November 1st, Around 2AM, Moon Enterprises, Inglewood near UCLA

  Fall had finally come to Los Angeles. Red felt it through her borrowed leopard print leggings. Or maybe it was just the chill of death whispering in her ear.

  Fuchs yanked her out of the sedan.

  She looked over at the parking lot catty-corner to Moon Enterprises, but it was empty of human life. The tall building loomed over her like a gravestone.

  No one would see her enter. Would anyone see her leave?

  “Park the car. I’ll get her into a cell.” Chang took her arm from his partner.

  Fuchs nodded. A silent compromise had been made between the two vampires.

  Chang led her into the side utility door of the vampire headquarters, past the main entrance where the people of Inglewood could get free vegan breakfast and sunrise yoga.

  Waiting until they were inside the sterile linoleum-floored hallway, she looked up at Chang. The golden tint to his pale skin was clearer in the dimmed fluorescent light, but that hint of worry she thought she saw in the hospital had disappeared. Maybe she had just imagined it. It might have been vain hope that made her think he might have a soul.

  She had one last card to play and she had already played it. Red fought the cringe at her own desperation. Taking herself out of Chang’s hands only put into another’s. “Can you let Kristoff Novak know I’m here? He’ll want to know.”

  “I’d keep quiet until Cora summons you,” Chang said, voice hushed and neutral. “She’ll hand you over to him soon enough.”

  Red's hope deflated, and she felt stupid. Kristoff would’ve packed up his brother and his minions by now. He had certainly already ditched his phone. His claiming mark could be a tool, he’d told her. It wasn’t a very useful one now, not to her anyway. Had he had left her to die just as Lucas said he did to Jupiter? Red had thought the only she had in common with Juniper was their face, but now she was going to share the fate of dying young.

  She tried to concentrate on Chang, pulling at the magic that was supposed to be in her, but she couldn’t even mess his hair up with a breeze, let alone light it on fire.

  Only her steps echoed in the hallway. Chang’s were supernaturally light, and if not for the pressure of his hand on her elbow, she could have sworn she was alone. In the truest sense, she was.

  She hoped, for Vic’s sake, that she wouldn’t see him again. Praying to the God that he believed in, she asked that he get himself out of LA as soon as possible.

  The building seemed more like a maze than a skyscraper as the vampire cop guided her through bare hallways and up stairwells before taking her to a service elevator.

  The doors opened. Chang put his thumb against a scanner.

  Red looked up at the mounted camera in the high corner, wondering what was on the other side. The elevator doors closed.

  Chang pushed an unmarked button, eight buttons up from the bottom, before looking around the elevator as if something was missing. He raised his dark eyebrows under his police cap.

  “What?”

  “There isn’t any music. Cora insists that an elevator isn’t one without a tune.” Chang glared at her as if he’d said too much, and it was her fault.

  Red shivered and wondered who was controlling the playlist now. The elevator rose with the quiet of a funeral. Red tried to look out with her third eye, visually impaired as it was, but she couldn’t see even a misty sign of an aura. It felt more like something was suppressing her senses. Cora had put thought into defending her headquarters from magic use. Red hoped she had a backup plan for a renegade second-in-command.

  Chang took his hand off her arm and stepped out of the elevator first, looking around. Unlike the sparse utility of the previous hallways, this hall was decked out to impress with discrete low lights built into the ceiling, shining down on gray granite lined walls.

  Red waited a moment before she asked, “What’s this hallway supposed to sound like?”

  “Ha,” Chang said dryly and gestured her forward. He brought her to a black door and opened it to reveal a small toilet, the porcelain lid missing from the tank, and a dusty sink with a soap dispenser hanging next to it. “I’m going to uncuff you, and you’d better not make me regret it.”

  “Thank God.” Red turned around to let him free her hands.

  “God isn’t the one letting you take a wiz.” He left the door cracked open, his benevolent deed only going so far.

  She peed quickly and washed her hands and arms up to the elbow, trying to get the funk of the hospital off her. She scrubbed as hard as she could at the traces of Vic’s blood still in her nail beds. When she finished, Red pushed the door open and held her hands out.

  Chang twirled his finger to have her turn around and cuffed her again.

  She followed him through another door. The room would have looked like it was a conference room in a fancy bank if not for the cells. Instead of a long conference table, the silver-plated bars of four empty cells rose up along the opposite wall. Small embedded LED lights along the ceiling reflected off the silver bars and cast thin shadows on the polished dark cement floor.

  He opened the cell in the middle, which had a long metal bench against the wall, and nodded inside. “Get in.”

  Red sat on the bench, trying to imagine how to find a comfortable position with her arms cuffed behind her back. Her left hand had already fallen asleep. She leaned back against the wall and shifted position, looking up at Chang and the closing cell bars.

  He shifted his gaze away and left in a blur, door shutting behind him.

  Closing her eyes, Red tried to quiet her mind and breathe deep. She needed to keep a cool head on the unlikely chance that Cora actually did summon her and on the very likely chance that Michel would. The door opened after what couldn’t have been more than five minutes and Chang came back in.

  A peeved expression on his face, he had an energy drink tucked in the crook of his arm and a banana in his hand. “It’s the best I can do.” He opened the cell door and put the can and fruit on the bench next to her, then put his hands on his hips and stared down. Muttering to himself, he reached for her before saying louder. “I’ll break this arm if you try anything funny.”

  “No funny business from me.” Red twisted around to give him better access to unlock the cuffs.

  “If anyone asks, this was on Cora’s orders.”

  “That's the story and I’m sticking to it.”

  “Ration the liquids.” Chang shook his head. “I can’t promise that Cora will be quick about seeing you.”

  “Thank you, Chang.” She rubbed her right wrist with her left hand. “I’m Red, by the way.”

  “I know who you are.” Chang called over his shoulder as he slammed the cell door. “Pipe down.”

  Red’s stomach rumbled, and she devoured the banana before setting the peel and the can out of view under the bench to hide the slip in Chang’s stern jailor demeanor. Curling up, she closed her eyes and rested her head on her arm.

  The dream of woodsmoke and burning flesh evaporated as soon as she opened her eyes at the turn of the doorknob. She rubbed her eyes, mouth dry, and shook her head to clear the fuzzy fatigue.

  In the windowless room, she couldn’t tell if she had been asleep for hours or minutes. Her neck creaked as she looked over at the opening door. Instinct pleaded for her to hide in the corner, but grim logic told her that vampires could sniff her out even in the shadows of the dark room. Red tilted her knees toward the door and put her hands behind her back, trying to appear as docile a prisoner as possible in case it wasn’t Chang.

  The door slammed open and long shadows appeared across the threshold.

  Red barely recognized Quinn’s bruised and bloody face as Fuchs pushed him into the room. The silver noose on his neck and the silver cuffs on his wrists steamed. His tuxedo jacket was missing, and his shirt was streaked with blood. He stumbled, but his proud bearing still hung on his broad shoulders.

  Fuchs
tugged the silver leash and shoved Quinn into the open cell next to Red’s. “Get in there, Byrnes.”

  Chang followed behind with Delilah thrown over his shoulder. He tossed her against the wall in the cell on the other side of Quinn’s like a sack of potatoes.

  Delilah grunted on impact.

  After locking them in, the two vampires in police uniforms left as suddenly as they came.

  Popping her head up, bloody lip and bruised eyes illuminated by the small ceiling lights, Delilah glanced over at Red. “Christ, can’t get rid of you, can we?”

  “Like a bad penny.” Red stood and put her hands on the bars to look at Quinn. “How’re you holding up?”

  “Just peachy. It’s like we got back from a day spa,” Delilah said waspishly. “The facial was fine, but the seaweed wrap was too tight.” Her head fell forward, and her loose golden hair, streaked with blood, covered her face. The silver chain around her neck reflected the low lights. She moaned.

  “Rest, darling. The sun will be up soon.” Quinn murmured, crouching down to reach through the bars, silver sizzling on him, before he looked over at Red. “How did they catch you? Is Vic here?”

  Red shook her head.

  “Good.” Quinn stood.

  “God, you don’t know.” Red bit her lip, tears coming to her eyes in an instant. “He’s in rough shape, Quinn. He’s in a coma. I don’t know if it was Michel or one of his minions.” Red whispered the story of the ambulance ride from hell and how she had only just managed to get Vic out of the hospital. “I couldn’t get ahold of Lucas, but Callaway knows what’s up—for all the good it does us.”

  Quinn didn’t speak a word during her story. He clenched his fists, knuckles cracking in the still room as he looked away. The fury on his face ignited before he composed his features. The fire still flashed in his eyes.

  In that moment, Red could finally see the demon under the surface that had given rise to all the stories about Bloody Quinn Byrnes, the Black Libertine.

  Noticing her shock, Quinn composed himself. He straightened his ripped formal shirt with his cuffed hands and sat on the bench against the wall.

  Red followed suit, perching on the edge of her own bench. Only the silver bars separated them.

  Quinn leaned his head against the wall. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took an unnecessary breath. “Cora still rules.”

  “Not everyone. Fuchs is one of Michel’s.”

  “Michel should win an Oscar for the performance he gave in pleading for her life.” Quinn looked over at Delilah. Even through the bruises, his concern shone in his brown eyes. “It’s going to break her heart.”

  Following his line of sight, Red could see that Delilah had slipped into unconsciousness. The vampiress had gotten more of the attention from the torturers than Quinn. Blood soaked through her torn, golden tight evening dress. The studs on her shoulders remained. Red frowned, wondering if they had pulled the mic off her. “He’s been planning this a long time.”

  “Since 1899.”

  “That was the year he lost Paris.” Red remembered from Julia Crispin’s notes. “He’s been looking for a city for a while, then. Now that I know, he’s not going to let me walk out of here.”

  “No, it suits his purposes to have Delilah be the villainess.”

  “I’m trying to wrap my head around this. I can see why getting two of Cora’s most powerful allies out of the way helps him. Plant some bodies, fake a mutiny, distract the supreme master, gain a city. It makes sense. But why aren’t you two dead yet?”

  “He asked Cora to spare us until a full investigation could be done. Walking the line between lover and loyal servant.” Quinn chuckled. “A part of me can’t help but be impressed. What a tangled web he’s woven. Back in the day, I would’ve applauded such subtle treachery—if I wasn’t on the wrong end of it.”

  “If he was smart, he’d kill us now. Then the city would be his.”

  “The city isn’t the point.”

  Red took a deep breath and gritted her teeth. She’d had enough with the one sentence answers. “Okay, old, wise, cryptic master, what is the point?”

  “Revenge.”

  Red sighed. “Then he’s having it served up cold like froyo. Still, why not kill you two? It was Alaric that took his city. You two are the next best thing.”

  “Alaric only took it because my family helped him. Revenge wouldn’t be as sweet without me watching her suffer.” Quinn tried to rub his knuckles against his shirt, an old habit prevented by his handcuffs.

  “He hates you that much?”

  “Oh, I’m high up the list, but I don’t flatter myself. Neither of us is the entrée. There is one he hates even more,” Quinn said. “I don’t even know if displacing Cora is the coup de grâce.”

  “How can Los Angeles just be the cherry on top?” Red shook her head, confused.

  “That locket you found. I have a photographic memory for faces, but I had only seen her from afar. Even if I engineered her downfall. I didn’t recognize her when you showed it to me.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Penelope. His childe, his lost love. I should have guessed when I saw the locket.” Quinn’s voice gained a gentle Irish lilt of an accent long suppressed, brought forth in the rhythm of telling a story. “Callaway said her evidence from the Crispin murder scene was stolen. The locker it was in was ransacked. My sources said that Michel himself had taken an interest in the case. He even sent minions to waste management to check the dumpster that had been in the alley. He must have been looking for it. It was probably the last memento that he had of her.” Quinn looked over at her. “Nostalgia is as much of a vice for us as drinking blood.”

  Red tried to remember more from her research on Michel. “She was murdered, wasn’t she?”

  “On her initiation day. Back in the bloodline days, that meant more than it does now.”

  “Fucking hell. So, the Bloody Byrneses killed his lover, and none of you considered that, gee, maybe the mysterious bodies might be from the guy you all screwed over?"

  "I've made more enemies in my time than I can keep track of. All of us have."

  "Fucking vampires and their secrets.” Red punched the silver bar between them. Jumping up and shaking her now aching hand, she paced the length of the cell. “Vic could be dying or may have died, for all I know, and I’ll be next. You brought us into this shitstorm. How many people have died because of this centuries-old blowback? Do you know how much Vic idolizes you? He thinks you’re his Batman! You nearly got your Robin killed. They think he’s paralyzed. Even if he lives, he can’t walk, can’t hunt, can’t provide for himself. You did this to the chump that thought of you as his hero.” Red rubbed her eyes, feeling the mascara burn. “And I’m the bigger chump, because I could’ve gotten us out of here when I smelled bullshit. Which I did from the beginning!”

  Quinn watched her without a word.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to say something?”

  “You’re right.”

  Red’s shoulders slumped. She wanted indignance, a refusal, something. Not this stoic acceptance of his failure. “So, this is it then?”

  “No. He won’t kill any of us until he gets what he really wants.”

  Red rolled her wrist, gesturing him to continued. “And that is?”

  “Lucas.”

  “What? Why him? Wasn’t he was drunk during that bloodline war?”

  “Because Lucas was the one who didn’t just help capture Penelope. He drank her blood.”

  “Huh? Vampires don’t eat vampires. They’re amber-eyed people eaters. That’s an—”

  “It’s an abomination. But the Alaric Order celebrated abomination. Unholy communion most profane.” Quinn stared straight ahead. “Lucas didn’t speak of it to me. Didn’t tell anyone, but I found out from Justine when she had a vision. Penelope was his initiation. Maybe if she had just been staked, Michel might have mourned and moved on, but that wasn’t what happened. Alaric gave her blood to Lucas as a reward for sacking
the city.”

  Red slumped back down on the bench. “Then I guess that’s why I haven’t heard from him. He’s probably already gotten Lucas and is waiting to spring his final revenge.”

  “Lucas is slippery. He was always a survivor. He is still out there. Michel won’t stop until he has settled all the old scores.”

  “Then we’re even more fucked than I thought.” Red put her head in her hands. “The funny thing is, between me and Vic, I’m an optimist. But it's hard to see the sunny side of things when you’re in a cage. I should’ve told Vic that we should go.”

  “I was the one who ask you two to come.”