Witch On The Run: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 4)

by Sami Valentine

  Perenelle strolled toward Red, smelling like cocoa butter and mystical herbs. Her black chest tattoos shined in the light. She gestured to the seats, dark sleeves draping like a bat wing under her arm. “I don’t see Diego, but I am sure he will be pleased when he sees the crowd.”

  “It looks like everyone is here.” Red rubbed her forehead, partially shielding her eyes, trying not to focus on the faces.

  The lights went down.

  “What is the non-mage luck incantation for the theater?” Eyebrows bouncing up, Perenelle put her finger to her lips. “Break a leg!”

  Red felt queasy, watching the Immortal Alchemist find her seat and Basil readying himself at the podium. Maybe she could break her leg, like, literally and not figuratively. That would get her out of this, right?

  “Alchemy is a science. Soulmancy is an art.” Basil began his lecture in hushed tones. A projection glimmered in the air of alchemical symbols. They circled behind him. “And what is the medium?”

  Stars appeared around Basil as the symbols faded into constellations. Gravitas stuck to him as tight as his teal tunic. “Aristotle called it quintessence and proposed it as an element connecting us to the stars. Witches call it spirit. I didn’t know what I wielded when my powers first awoke in me. In many ways, I still don’t.” He paused. “I know it’s grandeur, I know it’s mystery, and today, I want to share it with you.”

  Red held her breath with the rest of the crowd. A figure in a gold suit and pompadour bobbing through the stands drew her eye. It wasn’t a random Elvis spotting—it was Diego Blanco slinking to an aisle chair. She glanced over at Basil.

  Gaze locked on Diego, Basil breathed out a long breath. Sweat beaded on his brow. “Forgive my reliance on metaphor, but I can only explain the unexplained with what I know. I can tune into a soul like someone can tune into a radio station. The closer to humanoid that a being is, the more I can read from the soul. Yes, the soul, and not the mind. Your mind is filled with the debris of today like what you want for dinner and the Honda that cut you off in traffic. Your soul is imprinted with what matters. Common thought holds that the soul is immutable and you are just born with this quintessence fully formed.”

  He held his hand out to Red. “Behold a human soul.”

  Red walked on the stage, mentally pep talking herself up like she was going to wrestle a troll naked. The spotlights beamed down on her. Forcing herself to face the crowd, she shot a twitchy smile to Basil.

  He patted her shoulder, revealing a slight tremble to his hand. Walking away to the edge of the stage, he began again. “Flavored with magic. It’s that sizzle to the steak. You all buzz with that little extra tang of the supernatural. Not only that, but you have dimension. The world has made an imprint on the blank slate you were born with.”

  Basil held his hand up. The image behind him changed to show a lavender halo around his body. “You can see it here. This is my aura—blown up and enlarged. Radiating off the invisible soul, the aura reveals the road damage. You can see the nicks and cuts on the edges. I’ve seen some things and it shows. This is Red’s.”

  A green aura pulsed with veins of gold and purple surrounded Red. She glanced around it, wondering how he had convinced a magical AV tech to help him. Originally, Basil had a slideshow.

  “Notice the smooth patches on the profile. The potential is there but the experience isn’t. What is that?” He waited to let the suspense build. “She has memory loss. Too many hits to the head as a hunter, I guess.”

  Red tossed him a side-eye, happy when Basil discretely waved her away. She walked down the stage steps with his voice echoing behind her.

  “What does this mean for alchemy? What does this mean for soulmancy? I reject the common thought that our souls are fixed. I propose that the soul is something we co-create—base metal to gold. You could call it transmutation.”

  At the magical word, the alchemists leaned forward in their chairs as one.

  Basil grinned, chest heaving as he paused for dramatic effect. “Now, that I have your attention, I’ll introduce myself.” He took a deep breath and revealed his deepest truth without twinge of fear. “I am Basil Bansko, and I am a soulmancer.”

  Red smiled at him and pumped her fist, fighting the urge to clap. She made her way to a lean against the wall as all the seats had been taken. She looked out into the audience and saw Trudy taking notes. Red ignored her to focus on Basil and found herself getting lost in his show. He eased into a groove, sharing facts in that easy, fun, utterly Basil style. The lecture ended to applause.

  Diego was the first to stand. Grinning, the Synod member trotted from his seat to Basil at the back of the stage. He shook the soulmancer’s hand and asked him to take audience questions. The question and answer portion stretched long after the talk had ended. Basil sat on the stage and breezily worked the crowd as if he had been giving interviews about being a soulmancer all his life.

  Red felt her energy waning. Reminding herself she had only promised Basil fifteen minutes, she headed out of the auditorium. She slipped through an archway that almost always took her to the Circe hotel lobby. Circulated recycled air wasn’t going to cut it. She needed the fresh stuff. The archway pranked her, and she stepped outside the Nostradamus Lounge into a cloud of secondhand cancer from a wandering cigar smoker. She flapped it away, annoyed.

  Ezra spotted her and waved as he walked up. “Hey, Red, thanks for the heads-up about Vic. I saw him before Hannah found me and spilled the story. He looked gnarly.”

  Red shrugged, her nervous edge softening around the kindly bartender. Whatever was going on with his mom, Ezra had always been good to them. He had certainly come through last night. “His snark is worse than his bite.”

  “Still, I’m sensitive.” Ezra smiled, shrugging. “You look better than yesterday, but still a little piqued. Can I get you some coffee? My shift isn’t for a bit, and I need the java.”

  “Coffee and food sounds like a good idea.” Red followed him to the donut shop by the poker tables. She munched on her bear claw silently as her stomach finally decided to be hungry. Zoning out on a dealer tossing out cards on a poker table beyond the brass rail of the tiny dining area, she thought aloud. “I wonder if I’m good at that.”

  “Poker? You don’t know or you haven’t tried?” Ezra grinned, brow puckering in amused intrigue as he dunked a donut in his coffee.

  “I haven’t tried. Sometimes I am weirdly good at things with the first go. I have a story about that with Spanish.” Red pulled herself away from card shark fantasies to study Ezra. It wasn’t just an elephant in the room, it was the elephant on her chest. “Did your mom really get Vic fired?”

  Ezra finished his chew, staring into the distance. “She’s a Hero even after years as a Bard. When I was a kid, I wanted her to wear a cape. You get older and realize how complicated your parents are. I could get into it, but the short answer is: I don’t think so. She has bigger things to worry about. They seemed chill to me all last week, but she wasn’t happy when they first met. Not after Hannah got gaga for the hunter’s life. It’s hard enough to keep a teenager penned up then add the romance of fighting monsters with a cute dude.”

  Red made a face. “Don’t tell me she has a crush on him.”

  Ezra shrugged. “Vic is her every other word, but what do I know? I do know how much protecting Hannah means to my mom. She’s all about duty. And that girl is her top priority.”

  “Because she lost her last Hero?”

  “Know about that?” Ezra bowed his head, his neck tense as he swallowed. His words came out slowly. “I’m her son, but those champions were her kids too. The kids that never disappointed her by smoking pot and not being able to levitate the family dog. If you think she’s demanding now, imagine it cranked up. Trudy worked them hard because she cared. Field tests, pop quizzes, textbooks thicker than your bicep—she threw everything at them so they could live long enough to survive their destinies like her. Losing Melissa…”

  “It was hard, I bet
.”

  “Understatement to the extreme. Maybe she had just been in the life too long. It broke something in her. That’s the only reason she’d retire. I’m sure of it.” He propped his chin on his knuckles. “Not that she talks about this stuff.”

  “I’m sorry.” Red had ripped her mind open searching for her mother’s face, but it was hard to imagine the next moment after that first hug. Would she be like Hannah, serene in her mother’s love, or left with something more complicated like Ezra? “I’m guessing she didn’t consult you.”

  “I hadn’t talked to her in years before she retired. I grew up around hunters, but it wasn’t the life for me. I’m sensitive, like I said.” Ezra grinned, self-deprecation dripping on his last sentence. “I don’t know what it’s like for you, but I know what it’s like to want to know your mom and have her in your life.”

  “You guys seem tight enough now. You’re all together here.” She assessed the casino and could imagine that, after a bit, it could feel like a home.

  “I don’t live with my mother in the teacher housing. I have an apartment near the art school, I’ll have you know.” Ezra chuckled. “But yeah, it started with some phone calls and then it was like… It was different. So much better. It’s like I know her now. When she found Hannah, I told her exactly where to come. We’re getting along finally, or maybe she needs a babysitter for Hannah.”

  “You’re doing a good job. She seems to listen to you.”

  “That’s flattery and you know it. She’s a teenager, and they obey no god or man.”

  Red laughed, then stiffened as she looked over her shoulder. Intuition jabbed her, but there was only the usual parade of revelry between the gaming aisles.

  “Still, I’m glad to have another babysitter to help. Even if you did take peyote on the job.” Ezra sipped his coffee to cover an amused snort.

  Laughing again, Red wagged her finger. “That wasn’t listed as an active ingredient. Besides I’ve only had like one or two flashbacks since.”

  Lucas stalked into the donut shop area from the poker tables. Tousled black hair gleamed like a raven’s wing in the flashy casino lights. A dark leather trench coat draped to his knees. It hung open to reveal the fitted navy turtleneck underneath.

  All coherent thought faded at his approach. She remembered that taut torso against her and her fingers in his wild locks. It felt like a lifetime ago, as if it belonged to Juniper St. James in the murky past. It had only been weeks ago. If it were up to her at the time, they could have continued as they were. He was the one who had made the call. Angry? Attracted? She didn’t know. Her split brain was only certain about feeling pity over his loss of Quinn. Mostly she was simply confused to see him in Las Vegas.

  Ezra looked up, expression growing cool on his watchful face. His gaze zeroed in on the vampire’s unbreathing chest. “Can I help you, stranger?”

  Lucas’s stormy gray eyes flicked to Ezra. His nostrils flared to take in the scent before snorting lightly in dismissal. He snapped his head to her. “’We need to talk.”

  Ezra met the challenge on Lucas’s face quite calmly for a guy who claimed to be too sensitive to be a hunter. “Red, do you know this vamp, or should I call security?”

  “I know him.” Embarrassment heated the back of her neck. She smiled to reassure Ezra, pushing back her chair to leave. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  Red retreated toward the bustle of the casino floor with the souled vampire, trying to get lost in the anonymous faces illuminated by screens promising algorithmic luck.

  Lucas walked with his hands in his pockets beside her. Something felt heavier about his aura. He had always had that tinge of melancholy shared by all souled vampires, but it had been infused with an impulsive passion. He snarked, fought, and lived with his whole heart even when it nearly killed him. Brooding contemplation hung over him now as if his grandsire had bequeathed it along with the private investigation agency.

  “You drove to Vegas. Must be important.” Red prompted gently, fidgeting hands clasped behind her back so they couldn’t betray her nerves. She tried not to think about how he hadn’t texted her. Not to say that he was coming or anything. She hadn’t heard from him since she left Los Angeles. Was this some grand romantic gesture like meeting a girl at an airport? Her heart rose at the thought.

  “Selene told me about a vision.”

  “Oh.” Feeling stupid, Red pressed her lips together. The last weeks had revealed new depths of disappointment for her. Why would this be any different? The seer wasn’t just beautiful, she was Lucas’s sire. Selene had lost her soul. Briefly. But it had been long enough to drive him AWOL. He’d tried to track down her down, going MIA for most of the fight against Hilde and the Dague. Red didn’t know why she bothered to get her hopes up.

  He ruffled his hair. “You’re in danger. Something about werewolves or ghouls. It was murky but she was freaked. Kept saying it was seen through the eyes of another. Whatever that means.”

  “She might be late on that. Frank Lopes’s gang already attacked us. And they were gunning for my new roommate.”

  Lucas stopped. “I thought this was a vacation.”

  “I was accepted to the academy.” Red shrugged away the premature defensive rising of her hackles. She hadn’t exactly given two weeks’ notice to Quinn Investigations, but how could she? He hadn’t been communicating with her.

  “Warn a bloke that you’re putting down stakes.”

  “You didn’t reply to my last two texts or the call when I tried to reach out to see how you were. I was worried, but you have a lot going on. I got the unspoken message, so I didn’t push it.” She matched his stiff pose. “I didn’t enroll as an alchemist. I’m like an exchange student, I guess, for a bit. Not permanently.”

  Deceptively casual, Lucas scratched his temple, darting eyes avoiding her. “You’re rushing into this magic stuff quickly.”

  Chewing the side of her cheek until she trusted herself to speak, Red made herself reply coolly. “The Immortal Alchemist opened up her library to me. It was sudden, but I had to take the opportunity.”

  “I don’t blame you for taking the job from Cora Moon and making a holiday of it. Last month was shit. Maybe you’re getting the jollies you missed losing the Brotherhood, but don’t sink into the group think.” He shook his head, hand jammed in his pocket while the other gestured widely to the casino dazzle.

  “Is that what you think of me?” Red crossed her arms. She wasn’t joining the academy to join something. She didn’t need a club sticker. If that’s all she wanted, she would have remained one of Cora’s pet humans. “I’m making up for lost time. This is in me, whether I accept it or not, and life will be easier once I do. You didn’t see half the times I got my ass kicked fighting the Dague. I’m just lucky that Kristoff was there to—" Red stopped herself.

  That name wasn’t one they brought up. The relationship between Lucas and his progeny was as complicated as only two vampires who had loved and lost the same woman could be. In a past life as Juniper St. James, she had been Lucas’s courtesan, but Kristoff had loved her terribly. Red’s resistance hadn’t stopped a pale echo of that cycle from continuing in her current life. Only a threat against millions of Californians got them to work together last time.

  The mood grew even more awkward.

  His stormy gaze pulled her in. Somehow, she felt like a soulmancer, reading the uncertainty and loss in aura. Red stumbled over her words, leaning closer to him. “Lucas, I don’t want to fight, I’m—"

  Vic ambled from behind a clump of slot machines. “Finally, I found you! Diego is missing.” He nodded to Lucas, gesturing them off the gaming floor toward a quiet corner between a gift shop and the Nostradamus Lounge. “They think he’s holed up in a lab, working on his ranking, but I’m not sure.”

  Red straightened, mind yanked from her drama with Lucas. “How long has he been missing?”

  “Since he left post-lecture drinks with Basil.” Vic slapped his fist in his palm. “What if it was Tr
udy? Maybe he was rude to her too.”

  “Give it at least another hour before we accuse her of murder,” Red suggested dryly. “He probably has better things to do than hear people fawn over Basil in a bar.”

  “Yeah, put her out of your mind, mate. It’s not worth it.” Lucas punched his upper arm lightly. “She’s been on your ass since you met.”

  “So, you can catch up with Vic?” Red narrowed her eyes. The implications sank in like burning acid. She pivoted to Vic. “Why weren’t you surprised to see him?”

  The two shared twin shifty expressions.

  “I wanted to tell you when he showed up a few nights ago…” Vic spoke slowly but swiftly throwing Lucas under the bus.

  Her fingers dug into her hip. She tried to do the funny calming breaths that her therapist recommended complete with imagining a happy place. It didn’t calm the angry pulse in her ears. “You’ve been what, sulking and guarding me all week?”

  “More guarding than sulking.” Lucas defended himself, shrugging.

  Red snorted. “What made you talk to me tonight?”

  Lucas looked down, his eyes darting toward the Nostradamus Lounge as Ezra entered it. “I don’t know. I didn’t plan on it. You know me, I don’t always think.”

  Red shook her head, following his line of sight. Grand gesture from Lucas? More like grand jealousy. “It wasn’t a coffee date with Ezra by the way.”

  “That’s not it.” Lucas cajoled. “It’s not because of the boy.”

  “What?” Realization bloomed in Vic’s eyes. He visibly rolled the idea around his head and shrugged. “Ezra. Oh. Hmmm. I’m neutral on it.”

  Red glared at him.

  Vic lifted his hands and backed away. “Soooo, this is getting personal. Gonna mosey away now.”