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

does. This might just be their way of feeling out the cartels about competing in the drug trade.”

“Nah. There’s no point in them trying to make their own drugs with all the cuts they get along the way from everybody else. Most people are thinking they’re talking about guns, but a couple of weeks ago, a rumor about them surfaced among us people who like to live on the edge of the law. Something very, very interesting.”

Lyssa narrowed her eyes, her heart rate kicking up. “And what did this rumor say?”

“There was some fool who got in an accident in New Mexico. The Five Stars were supposed to be involved. Nobody knows what they were hauling, but when the cops showed up, they found an empty overturned truck. It was cold in the back, nothing left but some melting ice.” Reed shrugged. “You can look that part up. It was on the news.”

“So, they had a refrigerated trailer.” Lyssa’s shoulders slumped. She had thought he had something. “Who cares? They could have taken up smuggling stolen high-end beef for all we know.”

“Nah, that’s the thing.” Reed’s tone bordered on smug. “Ain’t no cold machines in the trailer. The news said that too, but no one put two and two together, at least not that they’re saying publicly. You had to have your ear to the ground to get it.” He lowered his voice and whispered conspiratorially for effect, “And that’s where I heard real interesting stuff.”

Lyssa hissed. “Get to it, then.”

“There’s an underworld doc near where the accident happened who said a guy got dropped off at his place, all but frozen solid like a freaking human popsicle.”

“Okay,” Lyssa replied. “I’ll give you that. It’s different.”

“The doc couldn’t do much for him, so the guys who brought him took him and said they’d take care of the rest. I don’t know about you, but if I found a popsicle man and a mysterious half-frozen truck with no refrigeration gear, I’m thinking abracadabra. That’s what’s going on.”

“Interesting.” Lyssa nodded slowly. “Okay. You might be onto something.”

“It gets better. Because I happened to have heard something the other day you’ll like. You might think I’m a lying piece of crap, but you pay me well, and you’ve done me enough solids in the past that I owe you.”

“Then spill.”

“The Lone Five Stars got themselves a base in Midland.” Reed sounded impressed with himself. “It’s their big hub. All the important product goes through there before it heads out farther west.”

“Do you have the address?” Lyssa asked gruffly. “I can’t kick in every door in Midland, and I don’t want them smelling me coming and scurrying away.”

“Uh…” Reed swallowed audibly over the line. “Yeah, actually, I do, but…”

“Don’t ask for more money. I’m not in the mood. You’re already going to get a big bonus as it is.”

“That ain’t what I’m saying, Hecate. What are you planning to do? Just walk in there and say, ‘Any of you bitches smuggling magic artifacts?’” Reed laughed. “You’re scary, but even you can be killed.”

“You worry about you. I’ll worry about me.”

“You pay the best of anyone I sell to, and I know you ain’t gonna help anyone trafficking girls or crap.” Reed snickered. “Just trying to make sure a good employer doesn’t bite it.”

Lyssa scoffed. “I wonder about that, but for now, all I need to know is where they are.”

“Your funeral,” Reed replied. “If they have enough abracadabra stuff to sell to other people, there ain’t no way they ain’t keeping some around for them. And if they’re connected to Alvarez having fancy stuff, that means they’re gonna know you might come sniffing around. They’re gonna be ready for you in a way he wasn’t. It’s not like you need to be a guy in the know to hear on the news about how you went and beat all those guys down.”

Lyssa let out a slow-building chuckle that turned into a mocking laugh. “I’m Hecate the Night Goddess, a Torch of the Illuminated Society. I am the darkness that comes for evil men. I am a Torch that will burn the impure from the world. I’m not afraid of some Shadows with shards.”

“Okay. You do you.”

She grimaced. The speech had sounded a lot better in her head.

“Give me the address, and you don’t have to see or hear from me for a while,” Lyssa rumbled.

“But I love your money,” Reed replied. “But sure, I’ve got that address for you. Take care. I’ll be watching the news and checking the obituaries.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Damn it.” Lyssa eyed the empty pint she’d pulled out of her freezer. “Why did I put this back if it was empty? My vice is ice cream, not booze. Why can’t I remember?”

“You said yesterday it would serve as a reminder to go buy more ice cream,” Jofi said. “That was right after you said you needed a long shower. You looked exhausted.”

“That’s the problem with using healing herbs,” Lyssa complained. “It always leaves me tired when it’s heavy healing. Another problem is this rip-off empty pint.” She tossed it in the trash. “I need to learn how to make ice cream out of darkness sorcery.”

“I think your endeavor is unlikely to succeed.”

“Quiet. You can’t even taste.”

All sorts of things made sense in the middle of the night when a woman was so sleepy she might as well have been drunk. She could have used another of Tricia’s herbs to wake up, but wasting one when she planned to go to sleep soon anyway was pointless.

“I did need a long shower, which was why I took one when I got up.” Lyssa rubbed her arms. “Every time I deal with someone like Reed, I feel like I need to shower. He might not be hurting innocent people directly, but he’s a parasite sucking the blood of society. What I need for my job as a Torch and what I’d prefer to do are two separate things.”

“You could always take care of him,