War Witch Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  War Witch

  Layla Nash

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Connect with Layla

  Also by Layla Nash

  Copyright © 2017 by Layla Nash

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Satyr Media

  Chapter 1

  The buses never ran close enough to where I wanted to go. The rain held off as the bus lurched to a halt, still a mile from where my best friend's birthday party had no doubt kicked into high gear. The bus driver grumbled as he descended to check the engine, and I checked the window for any precipitation. Saints blast it.

  The three of us on the bus grudgingly departed after the driver indicated we were better off walking. "Some of you," he added with a sneer as he looked at the two shifters, "more so than others."

  He looked to me for solidarity, but instead of participating in his hostility, I ducked my head and started walking as fast as I could toward the safety of the bar and Moriah's friendship.

  I didn't know either of the shifters on the bus, and it wasn't my job to convince the human driver that his bigotry against Others was wrong. Perhaps he'd fought in the war against us, and no doubt lost friends and family, probably been injured or at least displaced. Besides, if a human caught me in public without a ring that identified me as a witch, he could report me. That guy sure as hell would. I'd end up arrested and fined, maybe jailed since it wasn't my first offense.

  Or maybe the bus driver belonged to one of the humans-first, humans-only militias that hunted nonaligned Others. I wouldn't have to worry about jail, but being strung up and murdered as a testament to how deeply the humans could hate.

  I hustled to get past the half dozen blocks outside the Slough where the streetlights never worked properly and the sidewalks cracked and crumbled underfoot. The humans blamed the magic in the witches' memorial for all the disrepair, but in reality it was just a shitty neighborhood. No one cared enough to renovate. Some of the buildings still showed signs of the war, unrepaired after five years. The two shifters from the bus headed in different directions, so almost immediately I was alone except for the stars.

  A muffled yelp broke the quiet and the reek of burned magic drifted from a nearby alley. It was far enough out of my way I could keep walking if I wanted, though, and almost no one would blame me for ignoring trouble that had nothing to do with me. A flash of light, tinged blue, and muttered spells convinced me to turn my back, consigning the perpetrators and victims alike to their fates, until the magic intensified. Magic coalesced and darkened, and coated the back of my throat with old memories. Hints of blood and sulfur and demons ran through the magic like snarled threads.

  The choking sobs, pleas for mercy, stuck my feet to the broken pavement.

  I focused on the mouth of the alley where the magic pulsed. Walking away from two shifters and a bigot was excusable, particularly since the shifters could handle themselves, but no witch walked away from dark magic. Even a retired war witch. Especially a retired war witch.

  I edged closer, searching for traps, although the intensifying magic urged me to move imprudently. A smart witch would have called the police or the Alliance and let them deal with it—and for a second, again, I considered it. It wasn't my job anymore. None of it was.

  But the conscience I inherited from my parents, along with their magic, kept me walking into the alley until it was too late. The dark witches didn't turn from their work as I approached, and I gathered up some of the cleanest magic they manipulated. The stickiness of corrupted power made my toes curl, but I had no desire to introduce my own magic into the mix. Leaving my magical fingerprints all over the alley would only cause more trouble.

  Two witches stood over a writhing victim on a makeshift altar made of knotty lumber balanced on crumbling cinderblocks. There should have been three. Dark witches always worked in threes. I glanced over my shoulder, wary of the errant one sneaking up on me in the dark alley. I rubbed my nose as the sulfurous smoke curling around my ankles billowed up, and I gagged on the stench of rotting garbage and old blood. One of the dark witches muttered in bastardized Latin as she gestured with her right hand, a book held open before her, while the other positioned a gleaming knife over the human woman tied to the boards.

  Blood pooled on the ground and the altar, collected in a small chalice. It stained the hands of both witches. Their magic twisted and combined, descende
d to the demons and oozed back up, warped and forever changed. The breeze of its return stirred the smoke, and I sneezed.

  Both witches turned to stare. The short one looked on the verge of saying, "Saints bless."

  I rubbed my nose again as I studied the altar. "You shouldn't be doing this."

  The one holding the book recovered her composure first, but the charming smile never reached her eyes. "She hired us for healing and then refused to pay. This is the price, just a little bit for us. Evens things out."

  The victim flailed against the restraints, eyes bulging as she screamed around a gag and tried to get my attention. If the witches used anything but demon magic, I might have believed the story—health insurance didn't cover magical fixes, and most humans couldn't afford the Alliance's exorbitant prices for legitimate healers. The truly desperate went in search of downmarket sawbones for procedures on the cheap, sometimes literally in back alleys. Often the price of the healing was not money but energy or memories—only gray magic and a fuzzy line, blurred by desperation on one end and greed on the other. Blood, bone, and hair crossed the line into dark magic, any way you cut it. Though the woman's blood on the table could have been explained by a clumsy surgery prior to actual healing, collecting her blood in a chalice hinted at much darker intentions.

  The scent of blood and angry magic resurrected flashes of the war and started sweat trickling down my back, even in the cold night air. The smell of spent ammunition competed with their dark magic, and the low rumble and ear-piercing shriek of artillery echoed in the past, but still too real as my heart began to pound.

  I tried to steady my breathing despite a rat-a-tat-tat refrain of machine guns in my head, and glanced back toward the street to make sure a third witch didn't approach. The short one, standing over the girl, also smiled, eyes too wide and unblinking. A hint of red flashed near her irises. "She tried to back out of the deal. We're not here for charity, so we... convinced her. You understand."

  My fingers twitched with the urge to hex them, if only for doing sloppy magic in a back alley where anyone walking by could have caught them. The militants adored discovering that kind of mess; it was a propaganda goldmine. I didn't know either of the witches from the war, and they both looked old enough to have fought—which meant one of two things: they were cowards who hid, or dark witches who protected themselves and then stole magic from the dying.

  "You should let the girl go," I said. It was a warning, though they did not seem inclined—or intelligent enough—to hear it.

  "Sure," the one with the knife said, resting the point against the smooth skin of the young woman's abdomen. "Right after we—”

  "Now," I said, enough oomph in my voice that their magic wobbled, and the one with the book snapped it shut.

  Her eyes narrowed as she made a fist, her sapphire ring winking as magic flared. "Mind your business or we'll strap you down next. Little witch like you would give us enough power to last a couple weeks."

  "Brave girl," I murmured, heartbeat steadying as my magic rose unbidden. It quieted the memories, stilled the shakes. Old habits died hard, and a threat like that brought the Morrigan to the surface. I'd die fighting or take my own life before I'd let a dark witch touch me again. My magic curled around in a protective embrace, but I used only their contaminated power to create a rift behind them, hiding the effort in their magical firestorm. I didn't even have to move my hands. "I'll give you one chance to—”

  "Go plant some herbs," she spat, waving to dismiss me with a sending spell.

  The one at the table laughed and drove the knife into the human's stomach, blood swelling up in a surge over pink, pulsing flesh. I ignored the woman's terror, the leeching paralysis of flashbacks that reached through even the indifference of magic to echo people I loved screaming and begging when I was too far away to help. Instead, I reversed the sending spell, aimed it back, and gave the tall one a nudge with her own magic.

  The cool disdain of my power was a gift from the saints, shielding me from the past and the regrets that would no doubt haunt me in the morning. The witch mocked me with "Is that all you—” and stepped back to regain her balance. Her ankle hit the rift I'd opened, though, and her eyes widened. Her arms windmilled, the book falling to the ground with a thud, and she tumbled backward into darkness. She disappeared without a sound into what I knew from personal experience was a particularly cold hell.

  The one at the table squared off as her colleague's disappearance unbalanced the spell they'd built. A skilled or powerful witch could have recovered from the disruption of the magic, but this one was neither—and had already succumbed to demon madness, by the red circles around her irises.

  It didn't take much to shove her after the first witch, knife still clutched in her fist. I closed the rift behind them without bothering to look into it, and dusted my hands together to get rid of the last of their ugly magic. Technically I hadn't killed them. Technically the demons would.

  It still left the human woman, gray-faced and losing blood, tied to the altar. I kicked through the salt circle that contained the rest of the dark spell, and waited until the bound magic dissipated to approach her. The septic reek of punctured bowel made me gag, and I struggled to hide my reaction from the girl's wide-eyed terror. My scarf, balled up and pressed against the wound, did little to slow the bleeding. Not for the first time, I wished I was half as good a healer as Rosa. I considered calling her, even glancing at my watch, but it was too early for her coven meeting to have ended. We met earlier in the night, at the memorial, but the coven was likely still busy chanting and arguing. It wasn't worth the risk of interrupting—with the kind of magic their coven threw around, distracting Rosa could destroy the whole neighborhood, if not half the city.

  I pulled the gag away and the young woman, barely more than a teenager, sobbed for breath. "Help me."

  "I'm trying to," I said. I'd already helped more than any sane witch would, but I tried to find sympathy through the lingering numbness of magic. "I'm calling the police. They can help you."

  "My parents are going to kill me." A whispered confession, though the blood bubbling at the corner of her mouth hinted that something else might kill her first.

  I kept pressure on the wound even as the dark alley fuzzed out, replaced by a battlefield in rural Kansas, and I fought to stay grounded in reality. The war ended years ago. It was the Truce. She was an innocent stranger; she wasn't one of my witches. She wasn't my friend. It wasn't Gina's blood on my hands.

  Bile rose in my throat as I struggled with the double reality, the retreating magic taking whatever poise I might have patched together. Breathing through my nose helped but not enough as her heels scraped the splintered wood. Lightning flashed in the distance, or maybe just in my memory.

  The expensive cell phone I dug out of her pocket made me shake my head; a rich girl like her could no doubt have afforded real magic, in a real hospital, without resorting to downmarket healing. Stupid of her to have tried saving a few dollars by going with the lowest bidder. I punched the number for paranormal emergencies, knowing she was too contaminated with dark magic to ride in a human ambulance. They'd refuse to take her and the delay meant death. My lips pursed as I studied her unfocused eyes, as I leaned and felt the whisper of breath against my cheek. There was no telling what they'd done to her before I intervened.

  "Saints preserve you from your own stupidity," I said.

  Rich or poor, everyone looked the same as they died: scared. Alone.

  A disinterested voice said over the phone, "Bureau of External Affairs. Is the nature of your emergency magical or involving a non-human?"

  I used a touch of magic to disguise my voice, making it gruff like a stock Russian movie villain. "Couple of witches experimented on a human. They're gone but the kid needs help."

  "State your name and the location of the incident."

  "Ivan Darkwing," I said, glancing over my shoulder to search for that third witch as something scuffled the pavement. Nothing but shad
ows and a flickering streetlight in the distance, but it got my heart beating faster.

  Ivan had been one of the more notorious witches during the war, claiming his family descended from firebirds and passed down ancient secrets from Zoroaster Himself. Ivan's infamy got him to the top of the humans' high-value target list, and the Chechen died dramatically in battle, in a blaze of magic and glory. Eight years later, he still hadn't risen. So those of us who remembered raised him from the ashes whenever we needed anonymity. I still hoped he would show up someday.

  I cleared my throat, talking over the operator's disdainful snort. "The girl is in an alley off Cypress, three blocks south of Merrick. Magic and blood everywhere."

  "Sending paramedics and a containment crew," the operator said, and the non-regional accent broke to reveal an exasperated New Yorker as she added, "You stay put, Darkwing. Provide a statement to officers when they arrive."

  I hung up and wiped the phone off before returning it to the girl's pocket. Unlikely. I secured the scarf to her stomach with one of the straps binding her arms, and wiped my hands off on her shirt as best I could after drawing a protective rune on her forehead. As a nonaligned witch, if I were found at that scene, they'd arrest and convict me regardless of the evidence. A smart witch would have kept walking, but even a stupid witch wouldn't stick around for the cops.

  Leaving her unconscious on the altar seemed unnecessarily callous, though. No one should die alone, and if the sirens that rose in the distance were blocks away, she might not live to see help arrive.

  I rubbed my hands together and braced for the comforting aloofness of strong magic, orders of magnitude more powerful and numbing than the stuff I'd stolen from the dark witches. Using more than the barest thread toed the edge of a dangerous precipice where more was always better. I'd been down that road before and barely survived. So I took a trickle rather than the beckoning sea and artlessly shoved it at her wound, hoping to stitch together enough of the damage so she survived for the paramedics. Sometimes all you needed was intent and enough juice to carry you through—spells and hexes were only window dressing.

  Her eyes popped open and I jumped back. Her mouth flopped open like a stranded fish, gasping and choking. "Who are you?"