Southwest Days (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 2), Kal Aaron [book recommendations based on other books .txt] 📗

accordingly. In such cases, she needed to be a powerful symbol of what could happen when an Illuminated was sent after someone who threatened order and peace.

Other times, she was a woman who deserved a Mike Rowe voiceover about how dirty but necessary her job was. Glamor wasn’t required for respect or contract completion. Killing monsters rarely ended with their hunters remaining spotless.

Given the way both men kept wrinkling their noses, she smelled as bad to them as she did to herself. And she was at a decent distance.

At least they were polite enough not to point it out. Another two points for her new favorite deputies.

Adams looked sheepish and holstered his pistol. “Sorry about getting spun up.” He gestured at her. “I thought something was coming out of your chest. Too many movies, but you know, these days, it’s hard to say what’s crazy and what’s not with you all out there. Five years ago, if somebody had mentioned a monster in the mine, we would have thought they were on drugs. Now we have written procedures on how to handle those kinds of incidents.”

Lyssa frowned. M-Day marked when Sorcerers went public, but that didn’t mean it was the first time sorcery had been used against the Shadows. How many incidents like this one had been covered up in the past? Innocent people had died because of rogues, and their relatives might never know.

Adams let out a nervous chuckle. “So, is that it? The monsters? We ready to pop some champagne on a safe county?”

“Oh? This?” Lyssa glanced at the dead monster. “I’m calling them snake-roaches. It’s one of the monsters, the smallest type. I didn’t spot anything smaller in there other than some bugs, and those were the all-natural kind that couldn’t take a kid’s shoe.”

Adams grimaced. “That’s the smallest? You mean there were bigger monsters?”

Lyssa nodded. “There was an entire hive of these things, including a queen laying eggs. I don’t know if she hatched all the rest or they were set up with her, but she was making more. It was only a matter of time before that entire place filled up, and they might have been able to dig toward a town.”

Adams paled. “A queen? Like a giant monster queen?”

Ortiz shuddered. He stared at the dead monster with his face taut and made the sign of the cross.

“Yeah. Exactly that.” Lyssa gave a quick nod. “In this case, we’re talking an actual giant monster queen and a lot of medium-sized snake-roaches. They weren’t that little, but they were tiny compared to the queen, and they died a lot easier when I shot them. She took some major effort.”

“And to be totally and completely clear on this, you killed them all?” Adams asked, sounding confused. “Or are there more down there?”

“I wasn’t about to put them on a TV commercial playing a sad Sarah McLachlan song and asking for people to adopt them.” Lyssa shook the body.

Adams waved his hands in front of his face. “I wasn’t saying it’s a bad thing you wiped them out. It just sounds dangerous. It’s not like there’s a pile of eggs still waiting to hatch and I’m going to wake up tomorrow with my dog missing, is there? That’s what I’m getting at.”

“I blew all the eggs up,” Lyssa replied. “Except for the ones I shot. Your dog’s going to be okay. Give him some extra kibble tonight in my honor.”

“You fought and killed a giant monster queen!” Adams shook his head. “If I hadn’t already gotten your autograph, I’d ask for it. That’s crazy. This is the most exciting thing to happen around here in a while.”

“She was annoying. I had to burn a hole through her body to take her down, but don’t worry. I made sure she was dead, and I checked around the mine to make sure no others were hiding. I can’t say where they came from, but the ones in there are finished.”

“Man, I always figured you Torches were just, like, souped-up assassins. I never thought about you fighting a bunch of weird-ass critters.” Adams made a face. “No offense, but I’m glad you were down there fighting the giant monster and not me.” He motioned toward the corpse. “That thing is bad enough. I’m going to have to watch a funny movie tonight before I go to bed to get it out of my head.”

“No offense taken.” Lyssa shrugged. “That’s what Torches are for. We’re somewhere between cops, mercenaries, and exterminators for the Society. It’s been a while since I did a monster hunt, but it’s not like it’s my first. I’m like you, though.”

“You are?” Adams asked.

“Yeah, I prefer the two-legged kind of problem. It’s more straightforward because you can generally find out something about their motivations. These guys weren’t exactly up to chatting.”

“Did you find the other victim?” Ortiz asked, sounding hopeful. “It wasn’t that long. If it’s too hard to carry him out, we could go in there with you. Since the monsters are dead and all.”

Adams shot him a panicked look and swallowed. “Maybe we should talk to the sheriff first. He said we’re not to go in there without his orders.”

“You don’t need to because I didn’t find him,” Lyssa said. “I did find a trail of blood. I’m not sure if the little ones eat people, but the queen could easily gobble down a person. I looked around the whole place, too. There’s no way he survived, and there was nothing in there to reason with but mindless monsters.” She flicked the driver’s license to the ground. “This is all that’s left of him, and it was near the queen. I think it’s a pretty safe assumption he’s dead.”

“Damn.” Ortiz sighed. “The department’s been dragging its feet on the official report because the sheriff didn’t want to officially record a monster killing. No choice now.”

“Understandable,” Lyssa said. “But the thing is, we know now this wasn’t a covered-up murder or some rabid coyote or crazy snake.