Southwest Days (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 2) by Kal Aaron (ebook reader for manga .txt) 📗

“That’s fine.” Lyssa smiled. “You’ve already helped plenty this time. Talk to you later.”

“Talk to you soon,” Damien said. “And be careful, or as careful as you can be walking into a mine filled with deadly sorcery-created monsters.”

“I will.” Lyssa snickered. “Bye.”

She ended the call and stepped away from her window. Nailing the rogue was important, but the scale of the mess was far greater than any of them had anticipated at the start of the contract. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being targeted, but that didn’t matter. The monsters needed to die. It was that simple.

“I’ll get you,” she whispered. “Sooner or later, I’ll get you.”

Lyssa was about to go to bed when the compact on her nightstand vibrated. She picked it up. “Let’s see what you’ve got for me, Samuel.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

The morning of October 28th, Lyssa expected to be in the mine with Aisha or whoever else Samuel could scrounge up. They would exterminate everything with more than two legs that dared to cross their path. Everyone could go home happy except the rogue.

Instead of doing that bloody but satisfying work, she was zooming along the highway at 400 miles per hour on her way to the tiny town of Destiny, Utah, which lay near Salt Lake City. Samuel’s message had given her directions, an address, and an arrival time, but no other information other than she should not come as Hecate to the address. There had been one disturbing final line.

Lyssa had been all but silent on the way to the town. She didn’t bother to speak until she dropped to a normal speed. She ended her Dark Mantle and reverted her regalia to her normal appearance. Samuel wouldn’t idly tell her to conceal her Torch persona.

“He rarely makes me come to him,” she said. “That’s got to mean something. And what the hell was with that last line?”

“‘Read it when the time comes,’” Jofi quoted.

Lyssa rolled her eyes. “I remember what it said, but I’m trying to figure out what it’s supposed to mean. The problem with Sorcerer fossils is they think being inscrutable makes them seem wiser. All it does is make them more annoying. It’s not the Middle Ages anymore.”

“I’m sure it’ll become clear,” Jofi replied. “Unless you think this is a trap. Is that why you brought as many magazines as you did for your last trip into the mine?”

“Never hurts to be too careful.” Lyssa let out a dark chuckle. “Though I don’t think anyone’s trying to seriously kill me through Samuel. When the Society comes for me, I suspect it’ll involve an Eclipse waiting for me in my house. They’re jerks like that, but if I have to die anywhere, I guess my house isn’t such a bad place. Beats dying in a mine and getting eaten by a giant snake-roach.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer not to die at all?” Jofi asked.

“Everyone dies, even Sorceresses,” Lyssa replied. “All these thousands of years, and no one’s ever figured out how to avoid that. I don’t think I’m going to be the one who manages it.”

She slipped off the highway onto an exit. It didn’t take long to reach the location. Destiny was more a suggestion of a town than an actual town. It had a smattering of familiar fast-food places on the central strip, mixed with tiny shops selling tourist-bait knickknacks.

Lyssa slowed, entered a parking lot, and stared in disbelief. She’d driven all the way from Scottsdale to a closed barbershop.

She parked her bike in front of the barbershop and frowned at the heaviness in her chest from nearby sorcery. This place was more than it appeared. Samuel’s message didn’t seem to have been written in distress, so something else was going on.

“I hope you secretly enjoy messing with me, Samuel.”

After hopping off her bike, Lyssa strode up to the window, the sorcery sensation only growing stronger. She looked through the glass. There was nobody inside the shop. Dusty plastic covered the chair. Cobwebs lurked in the corners and in back of the chairs. It looked like no one had been in the building in months, if not years.

Something in the back of her mind told her she wanted to leave. It was hard to not turn around and hop on her bike.

Lyssa took a deep breath and concentrated on the shop. She’d already turned back to her bike. Shaking her head, she moved toward the front door.

“If this involves Lee again, I’ll scream.”

Lyssa tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. She knocked and waited for someone to arrive, but no one came. The insistent growing push in her mind told her to leave as if the whole trip was a waste of time. Her annoyance built.

She blinked a couple of times and rubbed her temples. Knowing she was being manipulated wasn’t enough to stop the attack. That made it more frustrating.

Samuel was messing with her. That explained it. He was wasting her time when something serious was going on.

“This better not have been to teach me a lesson,” Lyssa said. “Why does that man always have to be so cryptic? Okay, so, there’s sorcery going on, and I think…do I want to leave?”

She stomped toward her bike before she knew what she was doing, her desire to enter the building slipping away and feeling like a waste of time. She hopped on the seat and stopped, staring at one of her mirrors.

It reflected half the window. Lemurian script ran down the glass in her mirror but not on the window. The Sorcerer script focused her mind.

“Read it when the time comes,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Cute.” She squinted to make out the reversed Lemurian writing. “Welcome to the Traveling Club.” She grinned. The desire to leave had gone away. “Oh. Oh!”

“The Traveling Club?” Jofi asked.

“Has it been that long since I last talked to someone about it?” Lyssa asked. “Pre-Jofi, huh?”

“Our relationship remains young in many ways.”

“The Traveling Club is an exclusive hangout for