Rising on quaking knees, Red gagged. Then she screamed. She wasn’t the only one.
“Someone get the license plate! He just fucking killed that guy!” The yells erupted from the bus stop. Another winched their phone up. “I got a picture of it!”
“Dad, come on!” Gloria yelled from the driver’s seat, covering her face.
Frank aimed the dripping tire iron at Red like a promise. He jumped into the back of the jeep. It spun out, storming through a stop light.
Shaking, Red stumbled out of the rosemary to the bus stop. She barely heard the people fluttering around her. Water was pushed into her hands. Someone asked her name. She could barely breathe from the hovering, but she couldn’t move.
She had been right about so many of the details. From Finch’s betrayal to Diego’s key, she had even guessed that Frank’s good luck charm might be how he could move undetected by the academy’s locator spells. Kristoff had solved the mystery of their client. Then Gloria had let slip in the jeep that they might have another ally that kept them safe behind wards. It would have been enough, with Diego’s testimony, to give the Gendarme everything they needed to get the wolves. She just hadn’t accounted for one thing.
Hannah wasn’t the bounty that they were after. Red was. That blew a hole in all her theories. Now, she had new urgent questions and had lost the only witness. Bile rose in her grief-tightened throat as she thought of Diego.
The flash of police car lights woke her from her stupor. Cops roamed in packs as much as wolves did. Five cars and the CSI came moments after the first had pulled up. Ex-military by the looks of his regulation crew cut, the lead detective barked orders to the assembled beat cops and crime scene techs. He loped to the bus stop bench.
Sore neck creaking, Red stared up at him with bleary eyes. “I should probably start with the fact that I am living at the Circe Casino. You’ll want to warn one of the guys in bowler hats about this.”
The detective audibly gulped and whispered into his handheld radio. “This is a code Circe.” That was the last he said until he dropped her off at the front of the casino.
Red was fine with the silence. She went over the clues, feeling like that she had put together a jigsaw puzzle wrong. The pieces had fit but it looked nothing like the box.
Ian Keli’i met her with a nod to the detective who paled and drove off as soon as Red was free of the car.
“They killed Diego!” Red hissed, whipping past him into the casino.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Ian Keli’I murmured. Taking her arm, he directed her into a coat room off the front lobby. Instead of coats, the grand banyan swept into view. “It’s going to be difficult, but I need to ask you some questions.”
Spinning in the shade of the tree to face him, Red clenched her fists. “We don’t have time. The Lopes captured Diego to get his key, and they had inside help.”
Emerging from a nearby archway, Perenelle strode up to Ian. “I heard there was a disturbance.” Her concerned eyes flicked to Red. “Now, I know there was one.”
“We can’t get distracted!” She wavered on her feet. “They weren’t after Hannah, they were after me this whole time.”
Ian steadied her shoulders. “Tell me about it while we get you to the doctor.”
“The doctor was working with them!” Red said, glancing between the two alchemists. “Finch, the one I saw yesterday. Madam Flamel, you saw him. He blew some powder in my face and I woke up in the back of a jeep with Diego.”
“Let’s make haste.” Perenelle stepped to a portal arch, tapping sigils on the side. The energy turned from green to purple.
With Ian trailing, Red rushed in after her. They spilled out into the fragrant apothecary. “I don’t know what else the doctor is doing for them, but they are shielded in their den. It’s why we haven’t been able to scry their location.”
Perenelle raced through the apothecary and into the waiting room of the medical office. “Where is Doctor Finch?”
“He just left. Went to his car.” The clerk stuttered, staring at the Immortal Alchemist and the Gendarme.
“Show us.” Ian hurried the clerk along as they ran through the swinging doors to the exam rooms and out a back door to the parking lot.
The clerk pointed to a sign above an empty spot labeled Reserved for Doctor. “I don’t know where he went.”
On a far curb, a crashed blandly gray sedan laid half on a tree. Red sprinted over to it, feeling Ian and Perenelle behind her. Her eyes were too busy taking in the scene to worry about them. The car engine was still on, humming as if confused while the tree strained to stay upright under its weight. A bullet hole marred the back window, the cracks a spiderweb ready to fall at the slightest touch. It had been fired at a distance. Finch had almost gotten away. Or the shooter had just given him a head start.
Red already had a sickening vision of what she would find. She had seen a crime photo of Joseph Proctor. It was the same MO. She sprinted around to the driver’s side.
Blood splattered the jagged edges of the broken windshield. A landscape painting lay in the back seat. The man in the bloody white coat lay back in the driver’s seat, a bullet hole in his neck.
Red opened the door, holding her breath as she leaned over the corpse to shift the car into park and kill the engine. Then she stepped back and gritted her teeth to fight her urge to be sick. “I found the doctor.”
Chapter Sixteen
Red drew away from the driver’s side as a dozen black golf carts zoomed to surround the crashed sedan. She dully watched Ian puffing from running as he directed his deputies in bowler hats and trench coats. The alchemist version of crime scene technicians roped off the scene with a braided chain of vines. A bleary mystical barrier rose, obscuring the parking lot.
Ian caught her stare. “Now no one can see us investigate this thing.”
Perenelle stalked up to them. Her fists were clenched, a dark anger in her eyes. It was only metaphor until her irises shifted completely black. She yanked open the back door. Bending over, she liberated the painting. She walked back to Red through the busy Gendarme to study it.
“Is this the time to appreciate art?” Red asked, hovering over her shoulder.
“I believe your soulmancer is waving at me.” Purple eyes turned to normal, Perenelle turned the painting toward Red.
Everything seemed still in the serene hilly landscape dotted with green trees around a winding creek. Thick brush strokes shifted on the horizon. A painted Basil in his chartreuse suit waved his arms. The picture moved like an impressionist was animating it in real time.
“Basil, how do you get into these messes?” Red asked as she leaned over to peer closer.
Basil stomped over the rolling pastoral painted hill, shaded in quick strokes. His tiny middle finger flipped up.
“I’ll accept that.” Red straightened. “How do we get him out of there?”
“This was confiscated after the late doctor released the last occupant yesterday. He should have notes.” Nose wrinkling, Perenelle shook her head. “Let’s hope we can decipher them swiftly. The landscape seems to have a stream and some orchards, so he should have food and water.”
“We shouldn’t test his foraging skills.”
Ian came up to Perenelle, hat in hand. His face always had a slight mad cast to it with his twice-broken nose, but restrained fury made him look like a boxer at a grudge match. “Madam, we’ll have the scene cleared up, but we need to get this evidence to a lab quickly. It’s protocol to get the First Alchemist’s written permission to use a portal disc.”
“Because of the rarity, yes. Sensible protocol. Tell him I forced you to disobey,” Perenelle said with a conspirator’s cool.
Nodding, a grimly satisfied smile flickering on face, Ian pulled out a metallic disc engraved with tiny spirals of arcane symbols. He crouched to toss it under the bed of the car.
“Do as I do, Red,” Perenelle leaned against the metal, arm wrapped over the hood.
Red mimicked her pose, barely processing the
strange string of syllables that the immortal uttered. The car disappeared in a blaze of light to reappear in the storage room where she had first arrived at the school.
Two white-robed mages pushed a stretcher toward the car.
Red looked from their efforts to stare at a shelf of magical curios without seeing the objects. Doctor Finch’s body was gone, but Red couldn’t forget it. The academy wasn’t the sanctuary she thought it was. The wolves had found a way to break in. They had killed Diego who had welcomed her into the casino and found a place for her and her friends. She wiped her cheek, accidentally smearing blood from a cut on her face. She didn’t know how she was going to tell Basil. But no matter how clumsily she said it, it was going to be better than him overhearing it as he hung over a mantel.
Addressing the painting, Red’s voice quavered. “Basil, I have something terrible to tell you.”
Tiny painted Basil sat down, cross-legged on the grass.
Red took the painting, staring down at it as Perenelle rested a light hand on her arm. She confessed the grim end of the Circe Casino’s most spell binding singer.
Head slumping, Basil covered his face. The poetic brush strokes shifted as his shoulders shook.
Red teared up at his distress. The soulmancer had only just proved himself and reconnected with his old friend. Frank Lopes had smashed every hope for their reunion. Her lips trembled before she stiffed them. “Perenelle, the wolves are after me. I’m not Hannah. I don’t need to wait on the sidelines, doing my homework in the library. I’m better out there. Ask the Synod to put me in this.”
“I have already recommended it. Now, I will order them too.”
“The Lopes have tricks, but no one has been able to make a hex stick on them. No one’s seen them. That takes a major player to cover up a pack. They have an ally in the city.”
“Somehow, I doubt this ally cares as much about your downfall as ours.” Perenelle narrowed her eyes.
“It’s ranking season all around,” Red said. Las Vegas, with its endless supply of tourist gold, was a sweet prize for any faction. The alchemists had tossed their weight around long enough to make enemies. It wasn’t the first time that she had been caught up in supernatural politics. “Let’s make a deal. Full transparency from our end, even if you tell us squat. The Gendarme goes after who’s hiding the wolves, and I lure them out of town.”
“I’ll order it done.” Perenelle took a small vial out of her sleeve and swapped it for the painting. “Drink that to fortify yourself.”
Adrenaline receding from overstrung synapses, Red already saw spots in her vision. She couldn’t argue. Now when she said she felt like she was hit by a car, she’d know what she was talking about. She tipped the potion down the hatch. It tasted how moth balls smelled. Warmth spread through her body. The throbbing in her aching body eased to a dull pang. It didn’t solve the drain on her magic, but it was a start.
Perenelle shooed her off. “I will take care of our dear soulmancer. Once you have decided your course, find me in my quarters.”
After leaving, Red walked under the ethereal banyan and through Pyramid Hall, ignoring the stares at her bloody face. She found her phone, still charging in the dorm where she’d left it this morning, then texted Vic to assemble the avengers. Then she showered off the rosemary-scented fear sweat.
Tears swirled down the drain. Memories of Diego’s grisly death stabbed her. She pulled herself together by the time she was thoroughly prune-y. She avoided her reflected gaze in the mirror, bandaging the reopened werewolf claw scratches robotically. Grief solidified into a numb determination. Dressing for comfort in thick leggings and an emerald green hoodie, she grabbed her journal and belted on her small hunter’s kit. Red was done hiding.
She found the crew in a secluded corner booth of the Nostradamus Lounge. Ezra hovered nearby, keeping other patrons away from the table. Eyes red, Vic sipped a beer, glowering at Trudy who ignored him. Hannah poked her straw at her pink Shirley Temple, eyes darting between the two Bards glaring at each other over her head.
Red was surprised to see Lucas, and not because sunset was two hours away. The casino might have been a cave with its lack of natural light. It was just early for a vampire who liked to sleep in. The sight of him dialed down her anxiety. She might not know where she stood with him, but she knew he had her back.
Leaning against the booth, Lucas spotted her first, gaze sweeping over her with concern. “Kitten, look at you.”
“I’m fine. Not like Diego.” Red frowned, she had gotten off the easiest today. “Basil isn’t doing great, even if it looks like he’s in a Bob Ross painting.”
Ezra pulled out a chair for her. “You should sit. Do you need something?”
Red tried to smile at him, but the heaviness of the day made it impossible. Shaking her head, she launched into a jumbled retelling of Diego’s death.
Vic cursed (“I’ll fucking take their pelts for this! Finish what my Dad started.”) while Hannah cried. Trudy asked the sporadic question (“Can the soulmancer communicate from the painting?”). Lucas stayed weirdly quiet, leather-clad arms wrapped around himself as he glowered.
Red finally accepted water from Ezra after she sketched out the mystery of the doctor’s death and the painting that trapped Basil.
“Why you?” Lucas asked, finally breaking his silence. “I thought they were after the kid.”
Hannah nodded vigorously, “I got attacked by a raksha in Wichita and a troll in Taos. What was that then?”
“There was a bounty on you. It was set up by Sancha Constanza and probably expired at her death. Besides the Lopeses, you haven’t had another assassin come for you,” Red explained.
“But why attack me at the truck stop…” Hannah slapped her forehead. “The red wig. We’re the same height and it’s the only way between LA and Vegas. They picked the wrong witch.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that a merc was sent in blind with just a rough description. It’s not like I put selfies on the internet. They must have looked up who they actually attacked later. Maybe demanded clarification from their client.”
“Then in the nightclub, that skank werewolf couldn’t look at us because of the protection spell.”
“We just thought she was talking to you.” Red finished the line of thought.
“Okay, well, who wants to off you now?” Vic tossed his hands up, slumping back in his chair. “I thought we killed all your enemies before we left LA?”
“Didn’t get a chance to ask Frank who his client was between nearly dying and running away.” Red sighed. “I’ve taken out enough bad guys by now. Maybe someone’s cousin is getting revenge. I don’t know.”
Half rising, Vic glared at Trudy. ”I told you we couldn’t wait for the wolves to figure out how to blow our house down. That was before Lopes ganked my friend.”
Cheek turning as if slapped, Trudy swallowed and looked away. “You’re right. It’s time for action.”
“Those bastards killed my dad,” Hannah snarled, slapping the table. “We need to go after them.”
“We’re taking the kid?” Lucas jerked his thumb to Hannah.
“I’m not a kid. I’m eighteen,” Hannah huffed.
“I’m over a hundred,” Lucas snarked, leaning against the booth.
“Hey, you’re both too old for this,” Red said. “We need—"
Hannah yelled over her. “I’m sick of being a good girl, hiding in the tower!”
Breezing by in his work apron, Ezra whistled for attention. He gave a calm suggestion for Hannah as he passed. “You want to be seen as an adult here.”
Twisting in her chair, Red smiled her thanks to the bartender, then turned back to her motley crew. “They’re shielded. We can’t find them unless they leave their den.”
“They can’t possibly stay here after pissing off the alchemists this much.” Hannah waved her hand dismissing the idea. “Vic killed the beta, right? Paul Lopes.”
“It’s not about the money now,” Vic comm
ented grimly. “Its personal.”
“He still wants that bounty,” Red said, eyes closing instinctively as she remembered Frank swinging the tire iron down on Diego. She hadn’t shut her eyes then, and she couldn’t unsee it now. It hadn’t been a crime of passion. There was a brutal efficiency. Just like when Frank had ripped the money from her wallet and tossed it over his shoulder.
“Come back to LA. Let the alchemists zap them,” Lucas said, tone low and urgent.
“The wolves will just follow me there. And you know what happens if I break the Black Veil in a vampire town.” Red couldn’t believe she had to remind him, of all people, about the judgement from the Blood Alliance’s tribunal. “I just got out of Cora Moon’s debt.”
“Shifters are impervious to a lot of spells, but there’s more than one way to kill a wolf. The alchemists would take them out if they could.” Vic squinted over his beer glass.
“They might have wards on the move too. The chatty female wolf mentioned Frank had a good luck charm that he got off an old wolfmage he killed.” Red couldn’t remember the name off the top of her head, but she had written it down.
Hannah groaned and tilted her head back. “So, they’re protected from spells.”
“Daddy dearest cut her off, but I could have sworn Gloria was about to mention who has been sheltering them.” Red cursed. “She almost said it, but I started revving up my magic. He sensed it.”
“The Synod can make the local alpha give up anyone working with them,” Trudy said. “The pack may resent the alchemists, but the Lopes are breaking the Dark Veil. That endangers them most of all.”
“Frank doesn’t care about the code of secrecy. He proved that,” Red said. “We need to get them away from a city full of innocent bystanders. Finally choose our battlefield.”
A little too excited, Hannah suggested, “I can be a decoy. They went after me once.”
“Absolutely not,” Trudy scolded.
Vic wagged his finger. “There’s an idea here. Someone needs to wear the wig and I’m not sure how I’ll look as a redhead.”
“Hannah is not to be involved. I can take her place in a fight.” Trudy’s chin jutted out at a determined angle at Hannah’s breathless disagreement.
Witch On The Run: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 4) Page 24