Witch in Time: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 6) Read online

  Witch in Time

  Book Six of the Red Witch Chronicles

  Sami Valentine

  By Sami Valentine

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

  The Red Witch Chronicles Chronological Reading Order

  Down & Out Witch (Prequel)

  A Witch Called Red (Book 1)

  Oracle in the City (Newsletter exclusive epilogue short story)

  Long Witch Night (Book 2)

  Witch Gone Viral (Book 3)

  Witch on the Run (Book 4)

  Small Town Witch (Book 5)

  Witch in Time (Book 6)

  And more to come!

  Have you read Oracle in the City yet?

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

  Find the novelette epilogue to A Witch Called Red, 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/. Go there to sign up!

  Dedicated to my brother, who thought up the title and demanded that I put a reference to Peter Falk as Columbo in this book.

  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.

  Published by Pocketmaus Publishing

  © 2021 Sami Valentine

  Samivalentine.com

  Prologue

  Six Months Earlier

  December 30, 2019, 7 p.m., Culver City, Los Angeles, California

  “What is a manananggal?” Vic Constantine asked Red from his wheelchair.

  They waited by the pickup counter at the New Delhi Kitchen. A dinner rush was in full swing at the bustling Indian restaurant. Normies talked about holiday family dramas and New Year’s resolutions, drowning out the hunters’ paranormal chatter.

  She furrowed her brow, trying to place the strange name. Once she’d asked him to sponsor her in the hunter’s challenge to join the Brotherhood, he had taken it as an invitation to toss pop quizzes at random. Usually, she had an answer, but the delicious curry smells distracted her. “No clue.”

  “Bloodsucker from the Philippines. Splits in half. Gotta use garlic and salt on it. Extinct in this dimension.”

  “Extinct? Then why le—” Red started to say. “This dimension?”

  “Science hasn’t caught up to supernatural theory and lore when it comes to multiverses, vortexes, time wobbles, and other dimensions. It’s a big scary world out there,” he said dryly, checking his Batman watch. “I’m hoping my samosas are still in this one.”

  “Will that be on the test?” Red frowned. The written portion of the hunter’s challenge was supposed to be intense, but that was next-level weird. She had read about those myths but figured most were just that—myths. “Now I’m looking forward to the practical more.”

  “That should be a cakewalk after my tutelage.” Pausing as if for applause, Vic gestured to himself from the green trucker hat on his shoulder-length black mullet to his AC/DC shirt and denim-covered legs in his wheelchair. He quirked a sardonic eyebrow at her lack of response. “It’d be even easier if you played around with your magic more.”

  Red bit her cheek to restrain a sigh. Magic only got her in trouble lately.

  It had been five days since she was sent a summons for a Blood Alliance tribunal in late January. A tango with a dark witch had left her on the wrong side of a Dark Veil breech. Then add all the fallout at Halloween from Red being a dead ringer for a black magic courtesan from the Victorian era…It made her think about the woman she wanted to be.

  Her past was as unknown as ever, but her future was still her own, and she’d do it her way.

  “I’ll pass the challenge as a hunter, not a witch. I’m better at that anyway.”

  Vic shot her a look that spoke volumes about how much shit he thought she was full of right then. A waitress with a steaming tray of tikka masala stole his attention until he returned to nagging. “This isn’t because of Lucas?”

  She blinked at him, more confused about this question than the one about the extinct demon. The meaning sank in. She rolled her eyes.

  Lucas was her souled vampiric coworker and off-the-clock snuggle bunny. After the craziness on the solstice, he’d left for a desert motorcycle trip without much explanation beyond needing to clear his head. Sure, he wasn’t excited about witchcraft—his last relationship with a witch had ended with her death—so it made sense. It hadn’t affected Red’s decision, even if he’d been hot and cold lately.

  “No,” she insisted. “I’m a little insulted you’d think that.”

  “Well, what is it? You were gung-ho about it before.” Vic pitched his voice higher in an impression of her. “My mom might have been a great witch. I need to impress her when we finally meet.”

  “One, I don’t sound like that, and two, I just saw a different side to the craft. It’s not something to play with,” Red said. She sprang forward to grab their now-ready order from the pickup counter, grateful for the distraction.

  They left the warm New Delhi Kitchen for the chilly sidewalk. It was the day before New Year’s Eve, and winter had finally come to Los Angeles. The stunned TV meteorologist hadn’t seemed to believe the forecast when he said they might have rain. Red wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Angelenos couldn’t drive in a drizzle.

  After walking to the back of the strip mall, they entered a hallway containing a profitable massage therapist and the less profitable Quinn Investigations. The agency door was open and ready for walk-in clients.

  Quinn Byrnes worked at the front desk by the wide windows to the parking lot. He used a single finger on each hand to henpeck type on his keyboard, computer glasses drooping down his nose. The glow of the screen highlighted his blond hair and pale features seething over the screen. He pushed the device away with a groan and pulled off his glasses, fangs peeking from his lips. Typically emotive as a rock, technology could rile him up more than demons.

  “What did I say about computer stuff?” Vic asked, rolling past the couch and table for clients to go to Quinn.

  “Wait for you.” The vampire rubbed his brown eyes, broad shoulders hunched. He had lived over three hundred years but maintained that this era was the most confusing.

  Red would sympathize more, but she was too hungry. She sat down on the couch, away from the others, to dig into her food.

  Despite what she’d said to Vic, she had been practicing with simple exercises to float feathers. She’d raised one a few inches yesterday, then didn’t wake until noon today. It was a good thing she worked nights. That was part of why she couldn’t trust her magic: it was unreliable. When practicing, she ended up churning through her energy and unbalancing herself, then pigging out on brownies, ending up with little to show for it.

  “And what are we trying to do?” Vic asked Quinn like a teacher addressing a kindergartener.

  “Connect a video conference with Cora. She has a job for us,” Quinn grumbled. “This box is telling me that I don’t have a web camera. I do.”

  Vic patted his shoulder, consoling him. “I know you do, big guy. Move on over.” He started clicking the touchpad and typing quickly.

  Red grabbed her foil-wrapped chicken kebab and munched behind the guys as they fussed over the laptop.

  The video conference app opened, and Cor
a Moon, Supreme Master Vampire of Los Angeles, appeared on the screen. She patted her lush black afro absently and scrolled through a cell phone. The logo for Moon Enterprises, the public face of her operations, was printed on her tie-dyed top.

  Quinn’s heavy brow puckered, and he frowned at Vic. “How did you—? I did that same exact thing.”

  “Oh, you’re here,” Cora said, putting down her phone. Her cheerful tone grew forced. “You’re all here.”

  Red waved her kebab in a sheepish hello as Vic saluted the Supreme.

  Most master vampires made her want to run, but Cora Moon had a soul and the philanthropic background to match. Still, after the trouble with their last big case with the ghostly warlock, Red probably wasn’t her favorite human right now.

  Thank goodness she was next to Vic.

  “So, Cora,” he asked. “You do hot yoga. I always wondered, can only hot people go?”

  “Every body is beautiful,” the Supreme declared lightly before her tone flattened. “Quinn, I have other business, so I’ll make it quick. I need you to check out a warehouse by the San Bernardino Airport. I’ve already emailed the address. You’ll get a bonus on top of your usual retainer if this can be done tonight. I hope you still have those cop uniforms I lent you.”

  “Fresh from the dry cleaner,” Quinn said. “What am I looking for?”

  “Michel de Grammont had the warehouse under surveillance before he died, and I want to know why.” Cora’s lip curled. “I’m still discovering the finer details of his betrayal.”

  Red took a bite of chicken to avoid adding that they were still stamping out the last of his followers. The former public relations czar of the Supreme’s empire, he’d had tentacles that spread over Los Angeles County and probably further.

  Cora continued, “The owners are listed as the Bethesda Group, while the cargo seems to come from two overseas firms: Haelyonim LLC and Uriel & Sons Corp. Paper companies and subsidiaries. My researchers haven’t found the source.”

  Vic commented, “Unless that building is owned by a company in Maryland, those are pretty biblical names.”

  Red raised her eyebrow, not understanding the references. They were roommates, but when he popped into church on Sundays, she slept in.

  “Bethesda is where Jesus healed a guy. It was like the first pool party. Total rager,” Vic explained with a shrug. “Uriel is an angel’s name.”

  Cora wryly commented, “Somehow I don’t think we’re dealing with angels. Take pictures of the inside and send them back. The drive should take longer than the recon.”

  “It will be done,” Quinn said.

  Cora pressed her hands together. “Namaste.”

  Red waited until the video chat ended to say, “Sounds pretty simple.”

  “Too simple,” Vic said. “Why isn’t she having one of her minions do it?”

  Quinn opened his email inbox, tapping on the latest message, then wrote the warehouse address down on a notepad along with some shorthand notes. An analog man through and through. “Cora Moon trusts the universe. She doesn’t trust her people.”

  Red started re-wrapping her kebab. “I guess dinner is over.”

  “Finish your food,” Quinn said. “We’ll need to wait thirty minutes, or it’ll take an hour longer to get there.”

  Vic wheeled himself over to the table with his takeout. “Good old LA traffic; it’s as predictable as the sunny weather.”

  ---

  Dark storm clouds rolled in from the Pacific as the Millennium Falcon took an off-ramp near the San Bernardino Airport to check out the warehouse. Red figured the weatherman felt validated now, but she wouldn’t believe it until she felt a drop. It had rained more in Arizona.

  Quinn drove the black van into a dark warehouse district. His vampiric gaze picked up the block numbers and building details better than she did. Nighttime in Los Angeles was diffused by the city lights reflecting on the smog, leaving an orange haze over the valley. The cast-off light helped Red’s poor human vision.

  She rode in the front dressed in an LAPD uniform that matched Quinn’s.

  In the back, Vic perched in his wheelchair, his glowing screen illuminating the interior. He was doing a hacker thing that she didn’t quite understand despite his metaphors about digging a tunnel. The warehouse was one of those unmanned smart buildings that might as well have been controlled by an app. He was picking up where Cora’s people had left off to ensure that the door would be unlocked and the security alarms were off on arrival.

  Quinn parked on the curb across the street. Two white boys in sagging pants and hoodies happily vandalized the small parking lot. The punks tossed rocks at a small awning light, breaking it, with hoots and fist bumps. Darkness descended on them. They bolted when they noticed Red putting on a cop hat in the van.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Vic chanted as he typed and clicked on his laptop’s touchpad. “Oh, never mind, I’m brilliant. I just suppressed the alert to the security company.”

  Red trusted his skills even if he’d never finished the computer science program at UCLA, but she still waited for police sirens or guards.

  No one stirred in the beige building. The wide windows on the second floor stayed unlit, as did the opaque glass front door. They had been promised the place was empty.

  Her passenger side was closer to the building, but with a broken light, she could only make out that it was slick and modern. It was a fresh construction compared to the other dingy warehouses covered with graffiti. The email from Cora had said it was registered as a mixed-use building of offices and storage, but only cargo had been unloaded in it so far.

  Red hoped the intel was right and they wouldn’t wander across a person working late.

  Quinn craned over the wooden hunter’s kit between the front seats to point at the second level. “Did you see that in the window? I think I saw a flashlight.”

  Red hadn’t, but she scanned the area. She sensed strong paranormal energies due to her mage blood. If there was something interesting in there, she’d have noticed before they parked. “Did one of those kids get in?”

  The Pacific winds picked up, breaking against the stout warehouses, blowing litter around. Nothing else moved on the block. It was nearly nine at night on the day before New Year’s Eve. The industrial area might as well be a ghost town. Hopefully, it wasn’t ghosts. She had seen enough of those lately.

  A nearby trash bin toppled over, releasing a funky smell that somehow penetrated the closed van.

  “What is that foulness?” Red plugged her nose. “Rotting eggs? Maybe some cat food?”

  Quinn’s mouth twisted. “I don’t th—”

  “The front is unlocked…” Vic drew out the syllables as he tapped dramatically on his keyboard. “Now!”

  The double glass doors automatically separated.

  “Vic, you’re a gentleman and scholar,” Red said as she reached for the door handle. Intuition, deep in her gut, told her to freeze.

  A security alarm wailed from the Bethesda Group building, echoing off the others, breaking the quiet.

  Heart leaping in her chest from shock, she glared at him.

  “That wasn’t me, I swear!”

  Quinn shushed them, gaze locked on the front entrance.

  A cop bolted out of the building, taking a right and running around the back, darkness hiding their face.

  Quinn texted on his phone, annoyance breaking through his usual stoic expression. “Cora said no cops.”

  “Probably sent another team to check on us,” Vic guessed.

  Red kept her eyes on the property as the wind howled and the men debated. Sudden rain pelted the van like a meteorologist’s revenge. The ambient lights of the City of Angels darkened in the downpour.

  She muttered, “We’ve got two now.”

  A taller cop, different from the one before, appeared from a small alley on the left exterior side. He stared at the building, face hidden, walking slowly and without a care for the storm.

  Then the original
officer reemerged from the right side, hat brim low against the rain. Probably female but maybe a small man, the cop was in the same state of confusion, trotting to their partner with glances up at the second floor.

  There was something familiar about them even without seeing their faces.

  Red knew cops on Cora’s take like Joe Chang and Aisha Callaway. She’d certainly been at enough crime scenes in LA to start recognizing the ones with the bad luck to be assigned to the spooky cases. Where did she know these specific cops from?

  The smaller officer darted to the small awning over the front entrance for shelter. She slipped on the slick step, stumbling against the other cop’s broad shoulder. He helped her up. The two looked at each other and at the van, faces in rainy shadows, then darted forward through the small parking lot.

  “They’re coming over,” Red warned the guys, opening the passenger door without glancing at it. Bracing herself, she hoped Quinn would do the talking. At least the rain had stopped.

  The officers were gone when she looked back.

  “Holy shit, where did they go?” Red stuck her head out of the van.

  The block was empty. There wasn’t a stray cat or another parked car in sight. Even the rain had stopped. The building was still closed and silent. Had the cops ducked into an alley or another warehouse?

  She asked, “You saw that, right?”

  Quinn nodded. “I looked away when Cora texted back, but I saw them running here.”

  Vic complained from his wheelchair, “I can’t see shit back here.”

  “You’re the techie,” Red said, smoothing over his resentment. It wasn’t at her but for his condition. “We need the important computer stuff. Do you have access to their security cameras?”

  “Weirdly enough, that’s the only thing off-line.” Vic frowned, suspicion igniting in his gaze. “I’m not sure if they have any.”

  “That’s lucky,” Red said. It wasn’t exactly reassuring that the building’s owners didn’t want its inventory on camera. “Did Cora send cops, then?”