Witch Gone Viral

by Sami Valentine

  “I don’t need your good cop mind games.”

  “You’re right. I’m supposed to sweet talk you. That’s the routine.” Red tried to keep her face calm even as her brain whirled, trying to figure out how to stop Sal from getting himself killed before they could re-soul him. “Fits. I’m the only cop that wants you alive.”

  “I’ve been grilled by better.” Souled Sal rolled his eyes.

  Nedda stepped forward from the shadows of room. “Let me beat him more.”

  Kristoff held her back with a single hand on her shoulder.

  Sal lifted his eyebrows up at the DVA director.

  “Look at you, Sal. Cool as the other side of the pillow.” Red gestured to his bruises. She wasn’t surprised. Vampires respected strength. Masters collected minions through force of presence. Sal might not have had a gang, but he had never been a minion. Sal was a hunter. Torture hadn’t cracked him before.

  “I look like shit. You look impeccable. Glowing.” Sal studied her, looking at her hand clinically, before he raised an eyebrow. He might have manned the grill at his bar, but that was part of his savvy to stay under the radar as a blue-collar immortal. He never missed a beat. “I thought I staked you. Did I accidentally give your bitch ass acupuncture?”

  “I’ve learned new tricks, Sal.” Red leaned forward. She wasn’t letting him grab the interrogation. Clever Sal had let Nedda work him over and then left her the frustrated one. She could see how. Red pulled out an argument that she knew Nedda hadn’t. Vampires were arrogant. They didn’t think much of hunters. She might not have considered how much risk the Dague had put Sal in. They’d sent him, hyper like a kid after a time out, to the Pump House. Red continued, “Did you? Because I still don’t know what the hell you thought was going to happen after you stepped into that hunter bar.”

  “You’re not going to start with how Cora’s going to rip my guts out?”

  “You’ve been tortured enough already.” Red gestured to his face. “I don’t like seeing my friend knocked around like this Sal.”

  “Friends, are we?” Sal snorted.

  “You saved my life. Let me do the same.” Red didn’t cajole him or lie to him. She knew he would look through it. He had said once that she was astute about supernatural interspecies relationships. She laid out the facts that any political creature could appreciate. “You’re not scared of Cora. Cool. You should think about how you can cash in.”

  “What?”

  “You’re footloose and soul free. If you return to OKC, a hunter will take you out to honor your memory. You need new friends, a new lair, the works. Cora can get you that.”

  “She’ll kill me.”

  Shrugging, Red pursed her lips. “We both know she needs you alive. More than I can say about your friends. The Dague sent you in to get your ass handed to you.”

  “I would have ripped through those jokers. Let the world know that the real Sal was back.”

  Red laughed. It wasn’t funny. It was delusional. Sal had been sipping on animal blood for decades. The first hit of human must have gone to his head. “Is that what they told you? Redeem yourself with the monster crowd? There were nearly twenty hunters in that bar. Did the Dague tell you that?”

  “There weren’t supposed to be that many.” Sal wet his lips. “Said the hunters had left town.”

  “The place has been flooded with hunters since the Blood Summit ended. The Dague would have known, and they sent you in with a phone. You could have livestreamed your own death. It would have been a win-win either way for them.”

  Sal glowered at the floor.

  Red shook her head to hide the twitch of victory on her lips. He was smart enough to see the truth. “The Dague sent you to your final death. Cora wants you alive and will reward you. Which do you prefer?”

  “I’m not getting that soul back in me.”

  “If you don’t want a soul, Cora’s not going to force it back into you. She is all about consent culture. Make a deal, she’ll keep it.”

  Leaning forward as much as his bonds allowed, Sal stuck his neck out and pursed his lips to suck at the orange crazy straw spiraling up from the glass of blood on the tv tray. His eyes closed as he slurped. He nodded, his jaded expression easing as his dark bruises began to heal. “Fine. I’ll play ball.”

  She smiled. “How many are in the burrows?”

  “Forty-ish in the one by Slab City. Don’t know about the others. I was kept with the other captives in a holding cell until they unsouled me.” Sal shrugged. “Wasn’t exactly given the dandy dime tour. They kept us blindfolded when they moved us to different burrows.”

  “When you were in the cells, did you meet anyone named Lola Bozeman or George Patil or Evelyn Weiss?” Red narrowed her eyes, fingers steepled on her lap.

  “I nearly escaped with Lola before they took her soul. They caught us, then dragged us to their soulmancer in the lab.” Forehead furrowing, Sal puffed up his lip. “George worked there with the dominatrix, I think. He still had a soul, last I heard.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Kristoff. It was another point for her theory was that the Dague had captured Evelyn Weiss to conduct experiments on blending technology with soul magic. They had killed her, but how far had she gotten in her research? “Which burrow has the lab?”

  “It always smelled like dead fish. Had to be close to that dead lake,” Sal said slowly, eyes squinted and distant as he remembered. “I saw desert willows near an old stock pen outside when my blindfold slipped. Other than that, it looked like desert.”

  “What are they working on?” Red asked.

  “How would I know?”

  “You were in there lab.” Red crossed her arms.

  “Getting my soul cut out.” Sal glared at her. “I saw some skinny white guy chained to weird electronics and magical knickknacks before they dragged me out and fed me a tweaker. I wasn’t one of the Operation Paper Clip captives, working on their version of the A Bomb. I was sent to another burrow. They only let me out when I agreed to attacking the Pump House.”

  “But you’re smart. You kept your ears open.”

  “I always do, but being chained to a wall makes it hard to eavesdrop. Fuckers have a never-ending supply of meth, so they’re sped up and paranoid on guard duty. They didn’t trust any of us new people anyway. I didn’t get their plans.” Sal shook his head. “I know they want a soulmancer. One that doesn’t die so easy. The rumor is they are getting Father Matthew tomorrow. I don’t know the details. It could have been junky talk. I just heard some burrowers talking before they realized I was listening. Bird, I think. The guy never shuts up.”

  Red looked at Kristoff who had already pulled out his phone to update Cora. She licked her lips. Father Matthew was the most powerful soulmancer in modern history. Most soulmancers were lucky to reunite a single vampire with their souls. Matt had cursed four in one go. “Bird was at a vamp club tonight. Who was he supposed to meet? Sancha?”

  “Sancha? I don’t know about that. Last I knew, she was in the OKC. Never saw her in the Burrows or heard her name. Didn’t even know she was in town.”

  “Are you covering for your supreme?” Nedda burst out from her perch in the corner with Kristoff.

  Startled, nearly having forgotten about her audience, Red tossed a side-eye at the short DVA director.

  “Fuck no. I hated that self-serving princess. If I could throw her to the wolves, I would. Hell, if you want her taken down and will reward me for it, I’ll sing your song.”

  “Did you see any of the leadership?” Asking firmly, Red tugged back control of the interrogation. “Who’s running the show in the burrows?”

  “It’s certainly not the burrowers. The tunnels are falling apart. They never had enough bleeders to go around. Hygiene was an issue.” Head tilted at an unimpressed angle, Sal described his captivity with all the energy of an online hotel review.

  Red nodded. The information gelled with what she’d observed. The Dague were cunning but not organized. They had lost
vital assets by letting their dominatrix scientist go off to feed in Slab City and positioning their soulmancer too close to Selene after ripping out her soul. “Who is living down there then?”

  “I saw desert tweakers, captives, and minions who ran from LA. They got some old hands keeping them together, but it’s not like I saw the president of the mole people.” Sal shrugged under his bonds. “Bird mentioned ‘the plan’ a lot. Said they just had to follow Michel’s old plan. One-eyed bastard left some true believers behind.”

  “And the plan is?” Nedda called out from behind Red.

  Face stiffening, Red tried not to react to the backseat driving of her interrogation.

  Sounding amused, Kristoff hushed his friend.

  “Shit. I don’t know.” Sal glared at Nedda before refocusing on Red. “Not everyone was on drugs down there. They had the smarts to keep their super-secret plan away from prisoners. Especially the ones that used to hunt them.”

  Red switched gears. “Who was Bird meeting at the Fine Line tonight?”

  “I don’t know his schedule, but I know why he came to LA. Soul House had gone wrong. They lost that mad seer. She was supposed to be bait.”

  Breath catching, Red leaned forward in her chair, elbows on her knees. “For Lucas?”

  “They want the Black Libertine—Bloody Quinn Byrnes himself.”

  Fingers covering her grimace, Red thought she was going to be sick.

  Quinn Byrnes of the modern day was a quiet defender of the innocent who never failed to change the printer toner and make the first pot of coffee in the office. The Black Libertine was what he had been known as when he had cut a bloody swath through the centuries before his soul.

  Nedda appeared at Red’s side, her hands on her hips. Her face might have been frozen at nineteen, but her shrewdness had been honed over a century. The air of authority loomed over her small frame. “Sal, I take back what I said about using your rib cage as a shoe rack. Now, Red, scurry on home. I think Sal and I are ready to chat nicely now.”

  Heart pounding in her chest, Red leaned back in her chair before standing. Her legs felt like jelly. She had read about the shenanigans of the Bloody Byrneses in their heyday. Delilah had called them a whirlwind. That storm couldn’t be unleashed on Los Angeles. Quinn and Selene had been the most sadistic and inventive of the four. If they were reunited without souls… She shuddered.

  Kristoff followed her into the hallway. He closed the door. His blue eyes were wide as he promised, “I would protect you if they freed him.”

  “If they unsouled Quinn, I’m taking you up on that trip to Portland.” Red shivered. She couldn’t text this news. “Someone needs to warn him. Let me.”

  Practicing what she would say, Red took the stairs instead of the elevator to the top floor of the building where Club Vltava made its home. The other levels were occupied with galleries and other businesses affiliated with the Novak brothers. At this time in the morning, it felt eerily quiet like a forest before an earthquake. Her gut told her to run. Instead, Red pushed open an employees-only door to enter the nightclub’s dance floor. Last call came and went hours ago. Only half the lights were on.

  The two immortals rested in an expansive wall alcove lined with white cushions. Quinn stroked Delilah’s blond curls as she leaned her head on his lap. His chocolate colored eyes warmed as he smiled. It wasn’t one of his tiny lip twitches that passed for emoting. The grin stretched crossed his face. “You don’t need to leave before dawn again.”

  Her blue eyes twinkled as she stared up at Quinn. “After over 200 years, you’d think I’d be sick of looking into this face.”

  Heart rending as she looked at the couple, Red coughed to get their attention.

  Delilah looked over, expression growing salty as she sucked in her cheeks. She grumbled, “Someone better have been murdered.”

  “This might be worse. Sal broke.” Rubbing her arm awkwardly, Red gave them the Cliff Notes of her interrogation with Sal. “The Dague are looking for a new soulmancer so they can recruit the Black Libertine.”

  Delilah gaped at Red, sitting upright, then looked to Quinn. She took his hand, fingers entwining. Scrutinizing his face, she brushed over his tense, heavy brow. “I’ll kill them all before that happens, my love.”

  Pale even for a vampire, Quinn stared haunted into the distance. The warmth died on his face, leaving only a hollow dread. “I can’t become that monster again.”

  “Go.” Delilah hissed at Red. Her fangs flashed over her red lip. “You’ve said what you have to say.”

  Swallowing back the words she had for Quinn, Red nodded and walked across the wide dance floor. The sounds of whispered panic and consoling followed her. Her boss had been a rock since she had arrived in Los Angeles. Until she was faced with losing it, she never realized how much she had leaned on Quinn’s presence. She wiped away a tear. How could she tell Vic?

  She strode past the bar to a private hallway entrance. Red still felt turned around in the building, but she knew Kristoff’s office was close by with her clothes inside. She couldn’t save the world before dawn, but she could get out of this borrowed corset. Red moved with purpose before an open door made her pause.

  Chained to a wall in her little black dress, Selene watched Red pass by with a smirk.

  Walking quicker, Red finally hit a wall of fatigue. Not even the nagging loop of self-analyzing had perked up at the sight of Selene. The night had taken enough from her. She knew that she could rejoin the interrogation, but her head swam. Nedda could get the rest out of Sal.

  She ducked into Kristoff’s office to find her tank top folded on a couch. Closing the door, she ran on autopilot as she changed into the shirt. The sight of the overstuffed leather couch called to her. She laid down on the couch, kicking off her shoes, and sighed as her muscles sank into the cushions. Red told herself that she was just going to close her eyes for a moment as she curled up on the couch.

  It wasn’t the cold in the drafty brick room that made her shiver in her long dress. It wasn’t the pain in her hip. It was the unseen girlish giggle in her ear.

  “We’ve missed our dear kitten so much! This is how it was mean to be. You’ll see that one day.”

  Smoldering like poured metal gold, a snake eating its tail glimmered in the gloom. Rabbits raced around her bare feet.

  A leather tome drifted open, pages turned by invisible hands, to an etching of a girl staring into a mirror. The pen moved across the sheet guided by her own fingers to begin a signature: Em…

  The dream disintegrated like burning paper. Her eyes fluttered open. Red shivered before rolling over and closing her eyes.

  When she opened them again, she was curled up under a blanket, knees to her chest. A soft pillow cradled her head. The scent of steaming hot coffee tickled her nose. She yawned, covering her mouth, nuzzling into the pillow. Making sleepy sounds, she wondered why the TV was off. Red opened her eyes and rolled over. Foggy, she furrowed her brow, puzzled to not see Vic. Belatedly, she remembered whose couch she crashed on.

  Kristoff sat at his desk. Jacket slung over his chair and sleeves rolled up, he typed inhumanly fast on his laptop. Square black glasses perched on his handsome face. The protective smoky lens reflected the dimmed screen. Artificial light could be hell on supernatural eyes.

  She smiled at the idea of the uber cool vampire checking emails using nerd glasses.

  “Are you going to stay up for real this time?” He turned in his chair to smile at her. The computer glasses framed his concentrating blue eyes. They looked like a disguise. Superman turning into Clark Kent.

  Rubbing her face, Red sat up, still in her black tank top and jeans, blinking one eye and then the other at him. Still trying to decide if this was a dream. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “It’s nearly sunset. I woke up before you.” Kristoff closed his laptop. “You grumbled at me a bit ago before eating like a spring bear and going to brush your teeth. Then you promised me you were only going to close your eyes fo
r a bit. The snoring proved that to be a lie.”

  “Sounds like me.” Chuckling, Red crossed her legs under the blanket and reached for the coffee. “Am I the last to wake up?”

  “You missed a scene when our guests were moved into secure cells. Quinn joined them. He doesn’t want to risk being caught by the Dague.” Kristoff shrugged, but the tension hovered close to the surface. Red might have read about Quinn’s past sins, but Kristoff had lived them. “The Dague posted Patrice’s assassination.”

  Red put up a hand and lifted the coffee mug. “Let me at least take a sip first.” She sipped the magical liquid that made her feel like a person in the morning, trying to savor the exquisite roast. The habitual resentment at being awake subsided as the caffeine fueled her. As she inhaled the steam, sleep finally let go of her. “Okay, now you can hit me with it.”

  “Nothing is on fire yet, so at ease, hunter. Prince Marek has some fighters that he is sending down, but they won’t arrive until long after midnight. The current plan is to extract Alzbeta, then spray the burrows silver until it looks like a disco ball.” Kristoff stood and relocated to the end of the couch. “You have no orders.” He pointed to a bag by the door. “You do have a change of clothes.”

  “Thanks.” She looked down into her mug, thumb playing on the rim. Yesterday’s never-ending night rose up in her head like a highlight reel.

  “What’s that frown?” His head tilted as he studied her, an arm resting on the back of the couch.

  That was a question with a lot of answers. But there was one worry that he was suited to address. “I asked Lucas why he was jeopardizing the case for Selene, and he said it was because she was in his blood. What does that even mean? Did she mesmerize him?”

  “You want to know if she’s making him act like an idiot?” He adjusted his jaw as he thought. He said the words slowly, as if straining for objectivity. “Mesmerizing only works on humans. Your sire can’t magically force you to do anything. Even if it feels like it sometimes.”