Southwest Nights (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 1), Kal Aaron [best books for 20 year olds txt] 📗

wouldn’t take long without a spell. With luck, she wouldn’t need to kill anyone.

Chapter Two

Lyssa pulled up to an army of police surrounding a sprawling two-story house with a huge lawn. Trimmed palm trees surrounded the house. They also ran beside a pool she could see even from the front.

The whole place screamed “expensive.” Maybe the old woman’s doctor lived there, or the man who’d created Dance Master DJ Supermix.

“We’re moving on up in the world, Jofi.” Lyssa grinned. “Every time we do a job lately, it feels like it’s at a more expensive place than the last.”

“Is it better to battle enemies at more expensive places?”

“Beats the dives and gangland scum we mainly fought in San Diego, though people get angrier when you break things at expensive places.”

Cops looked Lyssa’s way as she pulled off to the side. No one made any attempt to stop her as she slowed her bike and wove between their cars. She pitied the poor men having to sit there under the cloudless sky, with the relentless Arizona sun punishing them for their forefathers’ sin of being arrogant enough to build a city in the middle of the desert. Her regalia protected her from the worst of it, but the cops were all sitting out there sweating from both the stress and the heat.

Lyssa sought a particular target. She spotted a handsome, clean-cut, dark-skinned man in a dark suit standing to the side behind some police vans, Agent Damien Riley of the government’s Extraordinary Affairs Agency.

The revelation of sorcery to the public at large had accomplished its least impressive and most easily predicted feat: increasing the size of the government bureaucracy. The American government had had no problem accepting the supernatural. It was just another thing for them to regulate. The poor IRS was still grappling with how to tax certain aspects of sorcery, but the EAA agents manned the frontlines, advising and monitoring the contracted Sorcerers and Sorceresses of the Illuminated Society.

A police lieutenant stood next to Damien, barking orders into a walkie-talkie. He shot an annoyed glance Lyssa’s way.

Damien waved her down as she approached. “You took your sweet time getting here, Hecate.”

“Too many red lights,” she joked. “And frightened old ladies.”

“Do you stop at red lights?” Damien asked.

“Sometimes. It’s not like I can lie and say it was the other Hecate on her shadow bike.”

Lieutenant Lopez’s scowl deepened. Lyssa resisted a constipation joke.

Damien knew her identity, but the treaties that kept the Illuminated Society under control in most countries also ensured the right to privacy to any Sorcerer or Sorceress who didn’t want their identity publicly revealed.

Though, when she thought about it, leaked identities weren’t much of a problem, even in other countries where she might expect it. She had to give the Society’s Elders credit for that. They must have held more leverage than she realized.

“Shouldn’t we get to the task at hand?” Jofi asked.

“Sure,” she whispered. She nodded toward the house. “What’s the situation?”

Damien put his fist to his mouth and coughed. “I think Lieutenant Lopez should handle that. I’m just here to oversee.”

“To make sure I don’t accidentally summon a demon and release him on a golf course?” Lyssa snickered darkly. “You don’t want to see a bunch of golfers running faster than Olympic sprinters?”

Damien frowned at her and folded his arms. She couldn’t help it if the EAA didn’t have much to do other than clean up after the Illuminated. He needed to get over it.

Lieutenant Lopez turned her way, wrinkling his nose like he smelled something awful. “I don’t want you here, Sorceress.” His jaw tightened as he took in her appearance. “Let’s make that clear upfront.”

“And let me make it clear I don’t care much,” Lyssa replied. “I was ordered to come here by my Elder. That means someone contacted the Society and begged them to send a Torch.” She hopped off her bike. “A contract is active, and I’m required to execute it to the best of my ability.” She gestured grandly with both arms. “So I’m here. Trust me, I’d rather be at home.”

Lopez grunted as he looked her up and down. “You’ve got stuff around you. What the hell is that?”

“Shadows and darkness.”

The cop grimaced. “Shadows and darkness?”

“We’re straying from why I’m here. I assume it’s not to scare some partying teens straight. That might be fun, though.”

Lopez muttered something under his breath before clearing his throat and speaking louder. “The mayor’s riding the department’s ass about this. That’s why you’re here, but I don’t want you to think we’re too comfortable with your kind. Remember that when you’re in there doing your hocus pocus.”

“My hocus pocus involves a lot of beatings and shootings, Lieutenant. I just do it better than you can.” Lyssa shook her head. “I’m glad I didn’t waste energy hurrying over here at top speed if you’re going to take this long to explain things. I can go back home, and you can send it by carrier pigeon. I’ll write back a letter with my response and transport it via dogsled.”

She didn’t have time for this. Damien needed to do his job and expedite things.

“You think you’re all that, don’t you, Hecate?” Lopez asked, sneering.

“I think I’m a Torch of the Illuminated Society,” Lyssa replied. “I think I’m Hecate the Night Goddess, controller of darkness sorcery. And I think you should stop wasting my damned time.”

Lopez’s nostrils flared. He glanced at Damien, who shrugged. Nearby cops watched with rapt attention, their attention turned away from the house. It wasn’t every day a skeletal masked Sorceress with dual holsters got in the face of a police lieutenant.

“Okay.” Lopez rubbed the side of his nose. “We’ve got Jorge Alvarez and a lot of his main boys in that house. We weren’t expecting him in town, but we got a tip he slunk back in. He’s got massive balls to come back here.”

“Why weren’t you expecting him?” Lyssa asked.

“Because he pushed too far a couple of days ago.” Lopez inclined