Long Witch Night: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 2) Read online

  Long Witch Night

  Book Two of the Red Witch Chronicles

  Sami Valentine

  Long Witch Night is the second book of The Red Witch Chronicles, an urban fantasy series containing magic, paranormal adventure, and vampire mayhem along with swearing, violence, and adult situations.

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  Before you read Long Witch Night, get the book 1 epilogue!

  Red is searching for a clue to her origins. Two pixies of unusual size stand in her way. Oh, and she has to cop to being amnesia girl to Lucas.

  Find the novelette epilogue, other exclusive reads, updates on my new books, and the skinny on the latest hot Urban Fantasy/Paranormal titles by subscribing to my newsletter at SamiValentine.com/mailinglist/ .

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  Reading Order:

  Down & Out Witch (Prequel Novella)

  Terror in Tahoe (Newsletter exclusive prequel short story)

  A Witch Called Red – Book 1

  Oracle in the City (Newsletter exclusive short story)

  Long Witch Night – Book 2

  Trespassers - Short Story (included in this edition)

  Witch Gone Viral – Book 3

  Witch on the Run – Book 4

  Small Town Witch – Book 5

  The Hired Witch – Book 6 (Coming Summer 2021)

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  Dedicated to the Few, the Proud, the Pidgeon Shifters.

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  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  1

  December 15th, 5:35PM, the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California

  Sunset shone over the Hollywood Hills into the bay windows. It cast a golden hue on the white piano and vintage couch in a cozy living room that would make an Instagram influencer sigh. Latin chanting broke the illusion.

  “Hoc non est tibi. Suus tempus abire tibi est. Relinquam in pace. Reliqua.”

  Red recited the exorcism at a specter who had overstayed their welcome. Just another day for a hunter’s intern in the Brotherhood of Bards and Heroes. The furious pinks of the sundown reflected on a bowl of holy water and a blessed silver cross on the coffee table. She held the battered leather journal higher to block the reflected light. It was easier to ignore than the celebrity looking over her shoulder.

  Vic Constantine whizzed past behind her in his wheelchair, holding a bundle of sage in one hand and a stick of Palo Santo in the other. The Korean hunter didn’t look like your standard New Ager. Watchful brown eyes narrowed as he glanced around the white living room. His shaggy black mullet slicked back, he wore his fancy outfit— a blazer over his Led Zeppelin T-shirt. Usually, the hunter wore denim on denim and called it a day. He’d been hunting for over a decade but never done a job for a movie star either.

  With the eight-year gap in her memories, Red was clueless about recent popular culture. It was her worst category at pub trivia. Yet even as Amnesia Girl, she had heard about Nevaeh Morgan. It was hard to escape the blond starlet’s face smiling from magazine covers in truck stops and convenience stores. Red would rather focus on the dark, shadowy spirit in the corner. She was used to ghosts. Famous people, not so much.

  “Did y’all feel it get colder in here? Or is it just me?” Nevaeh rubbed her neck, pushing her blond hair off her shoulder. She shifted in her designer dress.

  Her husband, introduced as Steve but known to the world as DJ Shake, put an arm around her. Visible goosebumps rose on his dark skin below his rolled-up beige cashmere sleeves. His brown eyes widened. “It’s not just you, baby.”

  “We aren’t alone.” Red concentrated on the figure in the corner. With her nearsighted third eye, she couldn’t see more than that it was tall. Trauma spiked from it.

  She might have been a witch, but she’d picked up only a few magic skills on the streets. Others might have been able to clearly see the spirit’s form and other traces of paranormal activity in the room because of proper training. She saw elusive smudges in the air of varying colors, unless something wanted her to see more.

  Obviously, this ghost was shy.

  According to their celebrity clients, it hadn’t been last night. DJ Shake told them with a repressed quaver how the specter’s silhouette ran screaming into their bedroom. The ghost had been bold enough to show sound and fury then.

  Vic joined Red in the chant, reciting the words from memory.

  “Hey, I thought I said that if it was going to get freaky, they couldn’t go all Old Priest and Young Priest in here?” DJ Shake tried to keep his voice gruff as befitting a rising West Coast rapper. The cover-up was more obvious than the temperature drop. It wasn’t little blond Nevaeh who dialed up some ghost busters. He had been the one to call Quinn Investigations. “They need to take the Amityville Horror outside.”

  “They can’t, handsome. It’s a ghost, not a mouse.” Nevaeh’s Southern accent grew stronger from fear. “They’re trying to send him into the light.”

  Attention flickering, Red slowed her chant.

  “Don’t stop.” Vic warned before he turned to the clients. “Hey, this is a standard cleansing. We need to focus.”

  The shadowy ghost in the corner began to take human shape, chains on his wrists appeared first. Long loops of spectral metal drooped to the floor. A middle-aged black man in white Antebellum clothes, rough and poorly made, stepped forward. Deathly weariness cut deep wrinkles into the man’s forehead above darting eyes.

  “Vic, are you seeing this too?” She asked over her shoulder.

  Nevaeh screamed.

  “Everyone is seeing it.” Vic, shoulders squared and jaw clenched, set the extinguished Palo Santo stick on the coffee table. He rolled forward in his electric wheelchair.

  Red gave him the journal. There was a reason she was still an intern. She took too long for simple cleansings. He had way more experience. “Let’s get some true faith up in here then.”

  Even as the air grew colder than Los Angeles had any right to be, the situation didn’t feel dangerous. She could tell after a year of monster hunting that the spirit was one of those poor souls trapped between this world and the next. He had appeared when the couple bought an antique candlestick set salvaged from an abandoned Tennessee farmhouse.

  “Is he—” DJ Shake stumbled over his words. “He’s a slave.”

  The chained man opened his mouth to speak, jowls trembling. His squinted gaze traveled over them to land first on Nevaeh and then on DJ Shake. He shook bound hands, yelling harder. His words might have boomed in the spirit plane, but they weren’t even a whisper for the living.

  Vic chanted; his eyes focused on the ghost. Sweat beaded on his brow. He repeated the Latin banishment.

  Red leaned down to hover over the wheelchair. This was taking too long. He usually could bless confused spirits into the beyond with the best of them. She whispered so the clients couldn’t hear. “He’s getting stronger.”

  “I see that!” Vic snapped and chanted louder.

  The spirit glided toward DJ Shake, chains scraping against the wood floors. The glow emanating from his face highlighted the whites of his rolling eyes. He tried to raise his hands, but even in death the shackles stopped him.

  “What are you trying to tell me, brother?” DJ Shake stretched his arms out between them and the spirit. “Stop!”

  Vic only lowered his voice.

  Red looked over his shoulder at the book and started to chant the cleansing spell under her breath along with him. A spirit manifested to this degree could become unpredictab
le. They could either have a touching scene connecting two men across centuries or have a poltergeist trying to choke them.

  The ghost rumbled a trembling echo as if dragged out of the beyond with all his might, yet his voice skipped like an old CD. The last words came out in a boom. “You…suffer…SELF…FREE!”

  “Yes, brother. We’re all free. Lincoln did it.” DJ Shake rested his hand on the spirit’s shoulder, making contact, as if it were flesh and bone instead of spectral matter.

  Nevaeh called out from behind her husband. “You can be, too. Go into the light, friend!”

  With an unearthly clatter, the chains fell off the spirit’s wrists, disappearing as they hit the ground. The long-dead slave looked down at his freed wrists. He stuck out his hand to DJ Shake.

  “You’re free, brother. Free!” The rapper pulled the ghost into a hug.

  Red spoke the last line of the cleansing along with Vic. Releasing a deep breath, she wiped sweat off her brow. She lowered her sage, tension fading from her shoulders, smiling at the Haunted Hallmark moment.

  A golden glow brighter than the sunset radiated in the living room before dissipating in a flash. DJ Shake blinked down at his empty arms. He sniffed, biting at his lip.

  “Oh Steve, you did it! You put that poor soul to rest!” Nevaeh wrapped around her husband’s waist, nuzzling his shoulder.

  Vic frowned, sitting on the edge of his wheelchair seat. They had heard that kind of talk before a private client decided to run out on a bill. This was why they preferred bounties from the Brotherhood. The Bards always paid up.

  Smiling, Red whispered into Vic’s ear. “Don’t worry, they paid in advance.”

  “Then let’s get this over with before they start taking post-exorcism selfies.” Vic sank back in his wheelchair. He went to speak to the couple to give them the sage and post-haunting directions.

  Red was happy to be the intern when it came to clients, even if it meant lugging the supplies. She gathered up the cross and put the journal in her leather hunter’s kit. A lingering presence of mystical energy remained, but she wasn’t worried. Vic did the exorcism, after all.

  Usually ghosts didn’t leave a stain, but she could imagine a tormented slave had more than its fair share of unfinished business. Paranormal activity could leave a residue in general. It was a lot of money and effort for an antique candlestick set. The brass candelabra adorned a bookshelf. Cute, but she wouldn’t brave a ghost for it. Hopefully, the famous couple had learned their lesson: buy new.

  Haunted furniture aside, she liked how cozy the room looked. The gold records and framed posters of Nevaeh’s movies popped in the otherwise light decor. It made her want to do something more with their place, even if the views were of the parking lot. Red had been slowly adding personal touches to the landlord-furnished apartment that she shared with Vic, but two months in, there were still stock photographs in the hanging picture frames. After so long on the road, she had the urge to nest.

  Something fluttered in the corner of her vision from the open archway to a dining room.

  The dark mass that made up the head did not have eyes, yet it watched the young couple hugging in the center of the room. It felt different from the other spirit. Only curiosity stemmed from it.

  Then the faceless shadow turned.

  Red felt the unseen probing stare like demanding fingers.

  It recognized her.

  2

  December 15th, 5:35PM, the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California

  Red stared into the void. The void smiled back.

  It didn’t have a face, but it had a presence. Indistinct shades of churning shadows hovered shapeless yet sentient between the living and the dining rooms. It stared at her like it knew her.

  She stepped back, the creepy realization drying her mouth.

  Smoke curls split the air between herself and the void.

  Vic wheeled ahead of Nevaeh Morgan and DJ Shake, burning sage held high, instructing them on perimeter cleanses. The two celebrities walked past the archway with the lit herb bundles.

  The void disappeared.

  Red cocked her head, eyes darting. She squinted, trying to see auras to detect if it remained, but it only made her regular sight blurry. Paranoia chilled her hands. She knew it was her imagination. Weak shades were repelled by smudging. She hurried anyway, packing up the other hunter’s kit and getting out of the house.

  The last hint of sun disappeared over the Pacific. City lights reflected on the dark smoggy sky. Not a single heavenly constellation could be seen above the bungalow as she walked away from the two stars far closer to earth. She pulled out the keys to the Millennium Falcon, the black van that used to be their home before they’d put down stakes in Los Angeles.

  Grinning, Red hopped into the driver’s seat and waited for Vic to get onto the wheelchair lift. She tapped on the steering wheel along with Tom Petty’s “Runnin' Down a Dream” playing on the classic rock station. The night was still early, and they had finished the only case on their docket. She had a couple of ideas on how to spend the rest of the night after she ditched her mentor.

  “What’s that smirk about?” Vic asked, suspicion slowing his words, strapping his chair into place in the back. “We’re going to have to fill out paperwork.”

  She flattened her smile, ducking her head, putting the van into reverse. “Oh, just happy. Helped a spirit find peace. Met some of those beautiful people everyone keeps talking about.”

  “Sure…” He snorted, watching her face through the rearview mirror. “Has nothing to do with a certain vampire who probably just woke up and is heading into the office.”

  Red turned onto a small road toward Mulholland Drive. She was grateful that the twilight hid her twitching grin at the mention of Lucas Crawford. Notorious souled vampire to some, potential boyfriend material to her. She had written in her hunter’s journal that his punk leather coat hid a poet’s heart. That was an entry that she hadn’t shown Vic. She tried to steer the conversation to less embarrassing waters and brought up their boss. “Quinn needs to learn to charge rich people more.”

  “Good save.” Vic cackled. “But you’re right, Q needs to learn that a sliding scale can go up too. Don’t get me started, but since you mentioned him...” His opinions about how Quinn Investigations ran continued as they drove south through the Hollywood Hills. He might have started out as an intern there himself, but after running his own crews, she knew being an employee rankled him sometimes.

  Red didn’t mind his venting. She let the road wash over her, marinating in that calm contentment after a job where no one got hurt, and they got their money upfront. It wasn’t often enough.

  Glittering beside the dark ocean, Los Angeles sprawled in the valley below. Tiny headlights of distant cars, clogging the highways and streets, traced out the arteries of the city. Traffic would be a bitch, but she still smiled. She had a home down there. Finally.

  The Millennium Falcon trekked down from the hills to a quiet Culver City street. Their creature-of-the-night boss served hot coffee and cold justice for the supernatural-stressed Angeleno in a dingy office strip. Sandwiched between an Indian restaurant and a massage therapist, it didn’t look like much from the outside. More like a place where you could get a payday cash advance.

  Red parked in a lot tucked behind the low building. Her smile wilted as she listened to Vic unstrap his wheelchair in the back. The Millennium Falcon used to be filled with bean bags, blankets, and wooden bullets. There were still wooden bullets, but the rest had been put away to make room.

  Seeing him in his chair made her wish she could slam a gardening hoe into Michel de Grammont’s head again. The rogue master vampire might have gone to his final death, but she’d give a good chunk of her newfound inheritance to do him in again.

  Vic had warned her when she joined him—life could change in a blink of an eye as a hunter.

  Stepping out of the van, she waited until the wheelchair was off the lift to click the van remote. A familiar
motorcycle shined nearby, tempting her eyes away. She bit her lip to hide her smile.

  He whizzed ahead through the automatic door and opened the small office in the shared hall. “Q?” He called out before using his nickname for Lucas. “Greg? We forgot to get you an autograph.”

  Red checked out her reflection in a glass doorway and wiped off a bit of smudged mascara under her green eyes before letting her red hair down from its ponytail holder. She wished she had something nicer on instead of her usual hunting outfit of black tank top and jeans. Sensible, yes. Glamorous, no.

  Despite her new mysterious trust fund handled by Smith and Reaper—the creepiest bank in LA, she still hadn’t gone on a clothes shopping spree. she rolled her eyes at herself. What was she doing? Lucas had seen her covered in blood—the opposite of glamour. He knew what she looked like. She trotted into Quinn Investigations after Vic.

  The long desk in front of the wide windows had a typical pile of invoices and envelopes on it. Rolling cabinets and a couch lined the walls. Everything was in place but the vampires bickering with each other.

  Lucas usually slept in, but Quinn kept human hours. Red still hadn’t figured out if he did that to maintain a semblance of human business hours or it was the crippling guilt from centuries as the patriarch of a family of soulless vampires that even demons feared. A little from column A, column B, she supposed. There was a reason why the original soul-cursing spell had been invented for them. Lucas might have dressed like a punk with a mouth like one, but he felt the weight of two decades slaughtering the innocent even after living more than a lifetime with a soul. She couldn’t imagine the guilt Quinn carried from centuries of unrestrained bloodlust.

  “Lucas?” She stiffened when no one came out of the door to the private office leading to the basement apartment. “They could hear you, right? Do you think Lucas is still sleeping?”