Witch Gone Viral

by Sami Valentine

  Coaxing her wild magic out, like a spinner taming unruly wool, she spun another thread. She visualized silver needles knitting the gold threads of energy into a chainmail curtain around Lucas and Delilah. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her heart leapt. She was finally getting it!

  The door slammed open.

  Red jerked her head up, pulse spiking. The connection on the spell unraveled.

  Fangs out, two hissing vampires in plaid shoved through the threshold, elbowing each other in their haste to get inside. Skeletal-cheeked, they looked like brothers who needed rehab. The older one called out. “I get first nibble.”

  Spell forgotten, Red jumped up and pulled the snubbed nosed revolver from her hunter’s kit.

  Kristoff’s green-haired minion jumped on the nibbler’s back and dragged him from the storage room, leaving his brother behind.

  Red fired.

  When the wooden bullet pierced his heart, the second vampire collapsed into reddish bones.

  She didn’t have a beat to take a breath before a female in a pink romper skittered on the ceiling through the open door. Arms prickling, Red pulled the trigger. Her ears rang from the gun blast.

  The wallcrawler fell, a bullet in her head, body twitching.

  Red fired a heart shot into the prone vampire. Three bullets left. Eardrums throbbing, she dashed to the threshold for cover and peeked her head out. Growls and grunts echoed off the concrete. Vampires battled in the parking spaces, supernatural speed on display. More flooded into the garage. Legs trembling, Red stopped counting the intruders after a dozen. The attack on Moon Enterprises must have been a diversion to split the team. This was the real target for the Dague.

  The Club Vltava crew fought in a semi-circle around the storage room, guarding the way to the captives. The green-haired minion tussled with a soccer-mom-looking vampire who spun and kicked her in the jaw.

  Pint sized and throwing elbows, Nedda ran circles around a hulk of a dead man in ripped jeans. Leaping, she staked him in the back.

  Donal swung a broadsword, decapitating a cursing vampire before spinning and stabbing the blade into another’s gut.

  Reinforcements streamed out of the elevator, but the four newcomers hit a wall of a dozen vampires between them and the six defenders.

  Eyes amber and fangs drawn, Kristoff appeared at her door. “I’m taking you to the club.”

  “They need you here.” Red shook her head. Fear pushed her breath out in shortened puffs.

  Nedda shot Red an annoyed glance even as she drew back to give the two of them cover. She drop-kicked a lanky vampire in the face. Petite hands shooting up, she grabbed his cheeks and twisted his head 180 degrees.

  “Just get me to the door.” Mouth dry and veins pounding with adrenalin, Red darted out of the storage room to Kristoff’s side. She ran a step behind him along the parking garage wall through the line of attackers.

  A female Dague supporter in a tracksuit broke past Nedda, pushing the smaller vampire into the arms of a craggy-faced Mickey Rourke-lookalike. The minion jumped for Kristoff. Her legs turned hazy, white sneakers dissolving into a mist. A shadow warrior.

  Spinning on her heel, a chill rattled in Red’s lungs. The Dague had sent both a wallcrawler and a vampiress with the dark gift to turn into shadows. Once fully shifted, she could reappear on Kristoff’s back, put hands on his head, and twist. Red raised her gun to fire. Hitting the female vampire in mid-air, she stopped the metamorphosis into a dark fog. The gun blast exploded in her eardrums.

  Bleeding from the kidney, the female minion dropped to her knees.

  Kristoff spun around, grabbing the injured minion by the hair, and ripped her heart out. Gore ran up to his rolled sleeves. He kicked the swiftly decaying corpse away.

  Running ahead with buzzing ears, Red knew she only had two more bullets left. They’d sent their most gifted to claim the original four souled vampires. This wasn’t a fight she could compete in, but she could still finish the spell. She reached the foot of the staircase leading into the club.

  A vampire rushed her in a dark blur.

  Kristoff tackled him.

  Red dodged their rolling feet to run up the steps. Breath catching, she jabbed the pin into the keypad on the secured door. She slipped inside, slamming the door on a flailing arm. Her stomach dropped. She pulled a vial of holy water from her kit and splashed it on the clawing hand.

  Hissing, the vampire pulled back.

  Shutting the door, Red pressed against it, panting as she dropped the empty vial. She didn’t want to lure any vampires upstairs to Vic even if she could do the spell from that far away. The spell needed to be done before the Dague revealed any other shadow warriors. She ran away from the fighting, down the hall, and turned toward a door marked ‘Gallery’ on the first floor. She slipped inside.

  Red rushed past photography on the white gallery walls. She could protect Lucas’s soul, but she needed someplace where nothing was trying to kill her. She reconnected with the protection circles. The energy jumped to her will, but she couldn’t cast spells while running. She tried to remember where Kristoff’s darkroom was.

  The vampire hit her like a wrecking ball in a Yankees cap. He slammed into her back, knocking her to the ground.

  Hip banging hard on the wood floor, Red tried to twist and shoot.

  He swatted the gun from her hand, then lunged, canines extending to fangs. Gasping, the vampire’s eyes bulged. He fell to the side. A pencil jutted from his back. Dissolving to dust, he left only the baseball cap behind.

  Closing her eyes to the grit, Red sat up. She brushed herself off as she stood. Blinking away dead vampire ashes, she squinted at her rescuer. Her jaw dropped. “Basil!”

  “It’s one scrape after another with you.” World weary in a colorless, stretched out sweat suit, Basil pulled her into a hug. Chains clanked around his ankles. Dark circles under his eyes, he hobbled and coughed. “I can’t say better for myself. You can tell by the outfit that I’m in dire straits. I was supposed to rip the soul from Lucas, but I ran off when my guards were attacked by Kristoff’s minions.”

  Tears in her eyes, Red held him up, feeling his ribs through his sweatshirt. “Damn it, Basil. You were supposed to be on a beach.” She stepped away to pick up her gun, putting the safety on before holstering it in her hunter kit. Only one bullet left. She pulled out the stake on her belt loop.

  “I was. They found me at this most delightful resort in Bali.” Basil sighed. “It was the accent. I just couldn’t give it up.”

  Taking his arm, Red nudged him away from the pile of vampire dust. “First let’s hide, then you can tell me all about Bali.”

  “Don’t go that way. They have an RV parked out back for your prisoners.” Basil pointed to a wide set of double doors at the end of the gallery.

  “I’ll text the others once we’re safe.” Red led him, creeping past the detached walls of the gallery, looking around each one for lurking vampires.

  He shuffled in his chains beside her. “I haven’t seen the sun in days, maybe weeks now. They’ve kept me locked with a mad scientist, strapped me to a cursed machine, and dressed me in Walmart sweatpants. It’s been horrid.”

  “What does the machine do?” Stomach hardening, Red guided Basil past a photo of Eartha Kitt and other muses of halcyon days. She locked eyes with the sepia portrait of Juniper before quickening her feet. She was beginning to understand the hard experience in the portrait’s eyes.

  “They call it the Genesis Machine because it takes them back to who they were in the beginning.” A vein bulged from his forehead as his face tightened. Eyes haunted, he furrowed his brow. “It amplifies my power and turns it into a signal. They just need one soulmancer, and they can rip the souls from any souled vampire in a five-hundred-mile radius. Maybe more. The prototype is almost ready, Red.”

  A phantom hand seemed to squeeze her lungs, making it hard to breathe. “That’s impossible.”

  “I’ve seen it. Hell, I saw the blueprints for the next genera
tion device. It sucks the energy from a mage and runs on it like a battery. Witch, wizard, empath, soulmancer, anything with magic.” Basil took her by the shoulders. His voice grew raw and fervent. “This will undo everything that Father Matthew did. No souled vampire will be safe. Not from the Genesis Machine.” His eyes widened as his head snapped up. “Red!”

  Red jerked to the side. Pain exploded as a baseball ball pounded into her left upper arm. She dropped to her knees. Twisting, she dodged the next swing and unholstered her revolver. There was a new vampire coming up to bat. “Run, Basil!”

  Basil turned and bunny hopped in his chains.

  Her attacker, decked out in a mesh top and metallic booty shorts, flashed fang at her. She tossed the bat to hit Basil in the back, sending the man falling head over feet.

  Balanced on one knee, Red fired her last bullet.

  It wasn’t a kill shot. Hitting the shoulder, the blast shot out in an arc of dark blood. The vampire clutched the wound before spinning on her heel to kick Red in the face.

  Agony racing across her jaw, Red fell onto her back. She rolled over to see the metallic booty shorts racing away with Basil. She jumped to her feet, but the vampire was gone through the swinging wide back doors of the gallery. Throat tight, heart dropping, Red didn’t think. She ran after them to an empty small cargo bay open to an alley. Jumping down from the loading dock, Red called out. “Basil!”

  An RV sputtering dark smoke, windows spray painted black, sped past the open cargo bay. Honks and tire screeches bounced off the alley walls as it disappeared.

  Red had lost Basil. She was afraid she had lost even more tonight.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  January 27th, Evening, Club Vltava, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, California

  Elbow on the bar of Club Vltava, Red hunched on a stool. She had to get a breather from the VIP room where the bigwigs were debriefing on the clusterfuck that was their night. The low buzz of excited and panicked chatter filled the dance floor instead of music. Minions gave her a wide berth as they tended to their wounds and slurped up blood bags. That was okay with her.

  An empty glass sat in front of her with a residue of pinot noir and Dr. Kristoff’s Super-Secret Vampire Elixir lingering on the rim. She didn’t have any bruises left from the fight, but she still felt it. It wasn’t even 8 p.m., but she was ready to throw in the towel.

  The Dague were not just ahead of schedule with the Genesis Machine, they were planning the next gen device. No more stealing souls one by one. Soulmancy had entered the modern age of mass production. Basil had gotten to her, and she had let him slip through her fingers. That vampire in the booty shorts had come out of nowhere. Red wasn’t the only one caught off guard tonight.

  The home team had been distracted with a feint attack on Moon Enterprises while the bulk of their raiders laid siege to the Club Vltava building, sneaking Basil inside through the gallery to steal Quinn’s soul. It wasn’t the last plot twist to the night. The Dague somehow had a key to the cells. Once they broke through Kristoff’s line of minions, they nabbed Selene, Quinn, and Sal, then fled. Kristoff and Nedda had turned them back from taking Lucas and Delilah, but that only kept the defeat from being totally crushing.

  Sighing, Red pushed the glass away, knowing her pity party had come to an end. The night was young, and their enemy had already gotten first blood. She walked toward the VIP room where Kristoff waited, ear cocked to listen, by the cracked open double doors.

  The green-haired minion stood by the dangling velvet rope. Rips marred her Club Vltava uniform of black slacks and matching collared shirt. She held out a blood bag to Kristoff.

  Leaning on the wall, Kristoff waved it away. “That’s the last bag, and you need it more. Go rest until the next order.” He had changed his bloody white-collared shirt for a crimson long sleeve V-neck. Noticing Red’s approach, he turned to her as his minion slunk away. He opened his mouth to speak, stilling as Delilah’s threats exploded through the ajar doors.

  “Let me rip through every burrow until I find my husband! They took my family, Cora! Wake up Father Matthew already, and get his ass resouling them.”

  Red winced at the anguish in the other woman’s tone.

  Nedda’s permanently youthful pitch flattened to an aged growl. “The Prince isn’t waiting to get Alzbeta back, and neither am I. We’re bringing in our squad, permission or not, and coordinating this alone if we have to.”

  On a video call, Cora’s voice was quieter through the speakers, but there was no love and light in the tone. “Don’t play hardball with me, director, not after dropping the ball tonight. How in the hell did they get a key to your cages?”

  “That is not—" Nedda sputtered.

  Delilah jabbed a finger at Nedda. “Listen to me, bitch. If you had anything to do with Quinn being taken…”

  “You’ll what?”

  “Still yelling, I see.” Red gestured toward the voices, peeping inside. The two vampiresses glared at each other, hands on their hips. The white chamber looked sterile without strobe lights. Shadows huddled in the empty DJ booth and alcove seating. A table covered with folios, flat screen monitors, and laptops dominated the dance floor.

  “You haven’t missed much.” Sighing sharply, Kristoff shrugged. His wry glance toward the door only partially covered his frustration. He put a hand on her arm. His gaze softened. “You could still take Vic and go.”

  “They already got what they wanted here.” Red swallowed. She also figured the building was still being watched. Taking Vic out of Club Vltava, even with a small guard, would make them an easy target out on the streets. The Dague had taken so much, but they were still gunning for more.

  “Kristoff, get that tight ass in here!” Delilah called from the room.

  Biting her lip, Red shook her head as she opened the door for Kristoff. Her therapist would have diagnosed this as inappropriate humor caused by near death trauma but Red couldn’t resist intoning seriously, “After you, Mr. Tight Ass.”

  Kristoff shrugged modestly even as smirk bloomed on his face. He walked to the center of the room where Nedda and Delilah loomed over a table, video conferencing with Cora.

  “Kristoff, you better have answers for me,” Cora warned from the large computer monitor. Dressed in mourning black, she squeezed a stress ball. The stuffing popped through her fingers.

  “No one will be pleased with them,” Kristoff began. “Least of all me.”

  Delilah and Nedda’s urgent questions blurred together as Cora called out for order.

  Red slowed her roll into the room, not ready to get in the middle of an argument between three alpha females. Cora’s eyes were already bugging out. Kristoff could handle this one. That was the benefit to being the token human, you could lie low in meetings.

  Lucas stood by the wall, leather-clad arms folded over his chest, unfocused gaze nearly hidden by black hair flopping into his eyes. He looked so lost when he turned to Red.

  Red’s heart went out to him. He’d had half his family taken tonight. Who knew what the Dague had done to them already?

  Striding toward her, he took her hand. “Let’s get some air, love.”

  Nodding, she let him guide her to out of the VIP room. She squeezed his hand as they walked through the minions in the club and up the staircase to the rooftop lounge.

  Lucas let go of her hand as they stepped out into the chilly air.

  Red felt suddenly so small on the empty rooftop, surrounded by a giant metropolis. Low tables and cushioned circular couches skirted the bare dance floor. The stop and go traffic of Sunset Strip bustled below the five-story building. Lit up billboards and spotlights from nearby clubs reflected on the smog above. They were so few, and they had so many to protect.

  She shivered, wishing she had good news. Vic had sent her an email about the missing souled vampires before he arrived, but his hunter contact in burrower territory still hadn’t touched base about a map of the tunnel systems. Red tried to share the most hopeful nugget that she had.r />
  “Cora says the antidote for Father Matthew is almost ready.”

  “Day late and a dollar short,” Lucas muttered as he peered over the darkened bar counter. He picked up a bottle and gave it a sniff before taking a swig.

  Red took his hand and drew him toward a white couch. “I can find a way to protect your soul. I know all the mayhem interrupted the ritual, but I can do it.”

  Lucas flopped down and rubbed his face. “You can do damn near anything, I reckon. I’d bet more than a few quids on it, but we’re running out of time, love. Cora ate crow. Higbee should have been here with Blood Alliance troops, not twisting Nedda’s arm to keep the DVA in the dark. We have the fucking sword of Damocles over our heads while politics rolls on.”

  “It’s a real shitstorm.” Red turned to Lucas, curling her legs on the cushion. “That doesn’t mean we won’t get your family back. You saw Delilah. She’s angry enough to take on an entire burrow of vampires.”

  “I know Quinn and Selene will survive. That’s not why I’m afraid.” He glanced away, shadows falling on his face.

  “You can tell me.” Red nudged her shoulder against his. “I told you I was prepared for the bad with the good.”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be strong enough to do the right thing.” His voice came out choked, and he couldn’t look at her.

  Red almost asked him if this was about Selene, but she didn’t want him clamming up. Had he finally come to terms with the fact that he couldn’t always save his sire? Instead she asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve never been strong enough when it comes to the women I love.” Lucas looked down, putting his hands in his pockets. His voice pitched lower. “I was my father’s only heir. My life had been planned out, from my occupation to my fiancée. He was a burly trader, I was… a disappointment until the day he died. He knew I was soft.”