Southwest Nights (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 1) by Kal Aaron (large ebook reader txt) 📕

held up a dark-gloved hand. “Tell me, Tricia. Have you ever heard of a regalia not returning to the Vault after the Sorcerer died? Sure, delays happen, but fifteen years? That’d be unprecedented.”

Tricia stood with a concerned look. “I think you already know the answer to that. I don’t think it matters. We could go all the way to Last Remnant right now, and you could scour that entire island. Even if you found his regalia, I don’t think you’d believe he was dead. And we’re Illuminated. Our lives are steeped in ancient sorcery. Rare things happen all the time. You sharing your mother’s essence is an example of that.” She walked over and embraced Lyssa. “I don’t mind hope. It’s a beautiful thing, but I don’t want hope to become an obsession that destroys you.”

Lyssa pulled away and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I didn’t become a Torch to find him. Not completely, anyway.”

Tricia gave her a dubious look. “Really?”

“I would have become one even if he had not disappeared,” Lyssa continued. “I think that was inevitable since I came from a family filled with them.”

“Maybe.” Tricia patted Lyssa on the shoulder. “It’s okay to start living for yourself. Promise me you’ll at least try.”

“Hey.” Lyssa forced a smile. “New city, new opportunities, right? I am living for myself.”

“I hope so.” Tricia headed back to the table. “Please go get Fred and bring him back before the soup gets cold. I don’t want to lose him to his silly cars again.”

“I will.” Lyssa walked out of the dining room.

Tricia was right. That was what any logical person would say. For all Lyssa knew, her brother’s regalia had returned to the Vault of Dreams, and no one had bothered to tell her. Like most non-politically-minded Illuminated, she didn’t go out of her way to make a trip to their hidden island in the Indian Ocean. She hadn’t been to Last Remnant in ten years. A smart Sorceress stayed the hell away from the Tribunal and their machinations, and it wasn’t like they let people come and go on a whim anyway.

The problem was she couldn’t let her brother Chris go so easily. Tricia could be right. Lyssa’s current obsession with trying to link him to the smuggling case supported her foster mother’s theory. Lyssa had no reason to believe he was involved, but she desperately wanted him to be.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She might be there because of the anniversary, but she wouldn’t miss the opportunity to relax with her foster family. With her officially being on the job, she might not have another chance to relax for weeks.

Her second phone buzzed with a message, and she made a face. That phone ringing meant one thing: the call was from Reed. Working with informants didn’t always mean liking them. She checked the message.

I should have something for you by tomorrow night.

Lyssa’s brows went up. The universe was pushing her along quicker than she had anticipated. This called for a resupply trip to Las Vegas before she headed anywhere else. It’d be easy enough to handle the next morning with a detour on the way home.

There would be no difficult emotional webs to navigate in Las Vegas. There would be nothing to worry about on a simple supply run.

Lyssa headed back to Tricia. “How about I stay for the night? The job looks like it won’t be happening until tomorrow evening at the earliest.”

Chapter Fourteen

Lyssa found a good spot in a parking garage that put her close enough to walk to her destination, but not so close she couldn’t throw off a potential tail before arrival. She doubted anyone had managed to follow her from her foster parents’ house given her layered spells, but now that she’d left the Bennetts’ home, classic Corti paranoia had returned.

After parking her bike, Lyssa went down the stairs of the garage and emerged on the street. A huge casino stood on one side of her, the signs beckoning visitors inside.

Shortly after M-Day, Las Vegas casinos started making big offers to Sorcerers. They wanted true supernatural entertainment to offer to their guests. Lyssa knew at least one Sorcerer who performed in Vegas but still maintained his secret identity. No one had taken any offers publicly, and she wasn’t interested in changing careers, whatever temporary ideas came to mind about An Evening with the Night Goddess.

Across the street, a dull-looking storage facility formed an amusing dichotomy with the casino. The contrast between the prosaic and the glamorous was the case for much of the street, including its shipping offices and other such businesses. Even a glittering heart of tourist consumerism like Las Vegas needed the mundane to survive.

She continued along the street. When she turned the corner, a busty female mime in a flesh-colored leotard and a bowler hat surprised her. The mime engaged in some hurried climbing of invisible stairs with only a curious old man in an I LOVE VEGAS t-shirt watching her.

The higher-level weirdness was concentrated farther east on Fremont Street near the canopied pedestrian mall, but that didn’t stop colorful characters like the climbing mime from leaking into the surrounding area. Lyssa wasn’t surprised to see a performer so early in the day. Showing up any later would have almost necessitated sorcery to carve through the thicket of entertainers filling the streets.

The last time she’d visited the area at night, she’d had to fend off leather-clad dominatrices with whips and two different guys in bear suits offering to twerk for money. The presence of a mild violin or a singing busker seemed strange in comparison, but even Vegas couldn’t be freaky twenty-four/seven.

No twerking bears ambushed Lyssa this time. She managed to make it down a side street before crossing the road. The freak concentration dropped to near zero, and after a couple of minutes, she closed in on a bronze anvil sign hanging on a building standing next to a bar. Elaborately twined black